#anyway i turned the automatic dust removal setting off and it works fine now

[bonyfish]

I went on a night walk with my beau this past week and finally decided to break out the roll of Ilford Delta 3200 I'd been saving! Here's various parts of the IU Bloomington campus after a rainy day.

Delta 3200 is the fastest photographic film currently being manufactured; though its rated speed is technically only 1000 (still quite fast!), it is designed to be push-processed. According to the Ilford data sheet, it can be pushed as high as 25000 ISO, which is just bonkers to me. My Pentax's light meter only goes up to 3200!

What all this means is that this film can produce viable images with very little light when compared to most other photographic films available today.

Anyway I was very impressed with this film and I hope to shoot more of it and truly test its limits!

Camera: Pentax K1000 Film: Ilford Delta 3200 Professional Developer: Flic Film Black/White & Green

[snktoughts]

As The Sun Sets, Its Light Shines

(Erehisu pairing. Takes place in the middle of ch 106. Also on AO3.)

It had been a year since he had kept the secret, one which had tormented him day and night, and had slowly eaten away his smile.

But now that the secret was out, this was the first time Eren was back at this place. At the orphanage. The place where she spent most of her time even now.

Seven Years.

“Oy, Sasha! Don’t sleep on the straw bag!”

“Mmmh shadap… what’cha gonna do about it anyway?”

“Why, you…”

Eren ignored the commotion made by Connie and Sasha behind him and kept cleaning the stable. He had more than gotten used to excessive cleaning chores under Captain Levi’s command. Enough to give him occasional nightmares when he was younger. Now, the sixteen year old welcomed the strain of the menial labors, drowning his ever noisy mind with the creaks of the shovel as it hit the ground. Rinse and repeat.

He only stopped when a hand grabbed his wrist, and he met the caring, but stern look of Mikasa.

“Eren. You’re still tired from yesterday’s mission. Don’t overwork yourself.”

Eren frowned slightly, but did not voice his protest out loud when she removed the shovel from his grasp. He barely did anything yesterday. On a better day, he would complain about her incessant mothering. Mikasa doting on him was a constant in his life since the day they met, seven years ago.

They were just normal kids at that time. Or were they really? What made one special was being born in this world. Perhaps, on the day of his tria, a year ago, a good point was brought about nine year old kids being capable to kill grownups being ‘worrisome' or ‘abnormal’, even if that was self-defense, and he never regretted his act.

He had been called ‘monster’ back then. A fitting title. Although as they all found out, this word was not only concerning him.

In truth, they had been wrong all along, had they not? About everything this world was. The monsters… the titans were not the enemy.

Instead, humanity was…

“We came to tell you we’re leaving for the camp again today.”

It was Armin who had said that, standing beside Mikasa. Armin could still smile, albeit less than before everything happened. The shorter teen was still carrying in his pocket that seashell he collected from their first time reaching the ocean. Eren knew.

Seven years for Eren. Twelve years for him.

“The prisoners of war again?” Eren ventured, brushing his long meshes away from his sweaty front, his eyes going from one of his friends to the other.

It was Armin who nodded, then glanced aside.

“Yes. I think… we’re getting a lot of progress with them. Even though you can’t come, we’ll keep you informed as always.”

Eren nodded, although he did not particularly care for the Marleyans imprisoned on his home soil, if he was honest with himself. His status meant he had more restrictions on who he could come in contact with, for obvious strategic reasons, and he had accepted that. And he was closely guarded. This was why Captain Levi's Squad members were always coming with him in his private outings.

Eren was fine with that. Armin, Mikasa, and everyone else, they were his friends. His war comrades. But he had no interest in befriending anyone from across the enemy line.

He had seen enough of what the Marley Empire was like already. Every night, there was always a chance that he would dream up another memories of them mistreating the Eldians… the true name of his people. He had seen through the eyes of both previous victims and perpetrators of war atrocities, had felt them live through him.

The Marleyans were humans. Horribly humans. Just as the Eldians would be, were they to be viewed as humans by the other races, instead of ‘the monsters who turns into titans’. Eren did not even blame the Marleyans and other countries for fearing Eldians. The people of the walls reacted the very same way to Eren the moment everyone found out he was a titan, after all.

Eren understood. Not like the world was wrong to be afraid.

“Eren?”

Eren blinked out of his train of thoughts and nodded.

“Right, well, see you later, then.”

Mikasa and Armin exchanged a look, then Armin bit his lips.

“Umm… by the way, about Zeke’s proposal… at that time, you-”

There was a heavy crash behind them, and they all turned to see Connie stuffing a struggling Sasha under a bag of hay. One stray arm hit Connie’s nose as the brown-haired girl screamed, and Connie bit back a curse, clutching his injured face.

“Ow! Quit it!”

“Hey, you two! You’re here to help, not fool around!”

It was Jean who had spoken, the taller teen had entered the barn carrying two buckets.

Following close behind him was Historia.

Eren saw the queen of the walls herself step into the barn, her golden blond hair down into a ponytail, a change from the last time he saw her, during the military council. She always kept them into a bun when in official duty. Eren did not know why his mind focused on that detail this time around.

Historia let the basket she was carrying down, and put her hands on her hips, glaring down at the mess of limbs that was currently Connie and Sasha.

“If you want to play games, there’s a group of kids outside who would be happy to join you! Don’t slack off on your duty!”

Sasha moaned and pulled herself up.

“S'not even our duty at all! We just take on extra work ‘cuze of him.”

“Oi, Sasha, stop complaining!” Connie reprimanded before standing up and dusting himself.

“What? I’m right!”

“Umm, well, I guess we should go, then,” Armin finally said, the light in his eyes dimming slightly. “Let’s talk later?”

Eren nodded, and watched Armin and Mikasa walk pass the commotion and out of the barn. Just before leaving, Mikasa gave him one last look. It would seem neutral to most observers, but Eren knew her enough to acknowledge the soft worries in her eyes.

In truth, he was used to that look from her. More than enough, in his opinion.

His eyes fell back onto Historia once Mikasa was out of view, and this time, Historia looked back at him. For one awkward moment, Eren wondered if he should look away, but he did not. He only realized the barn had fallen silent when Jean sighed and took both Connie and Sasha by the arms.

“Alright, let’s find a better thing to do for you two, then.”

He sounded annoyed, typical for Jean. All the more at Eren. During their military trainee years, the two had fought a lot. What was an ideology competition had mellowed down to lips service at this point, however. Eren was not even sure he remembered what had made them clash so much. Likely, they had both matured out of the dumb ignorant brats they once were.

Like all the survivors of the 104th, there was respect now. Respect and a certain fondness. Jean did not even look back toward Eren and Historia as he left with Connie and Sasha, and yet, Eren had a feeling the taller teen had been signaling him something.

When his eyes met Historia’s again, Eren completely forgot about Jean, and his mind came back to what had happened a few days prior.

Right. Zeke’s plan had been presented to the Military council by Yelena’s writing. Yelena, the leader of the ‘Anti-Marleyan Voluntaries’, non-Marleyan people who had been conscripted by the Marleyan Empire and dominated. People whom Eren’s half-brother, Zeke, had been uniting to come help the Eldians in Paradis Island. Supposedly.

Zeke… he was a whole other issue for Eren, one he had mulled over for a good year already. It had been hard to reconcile the memories Eren inherited from his father of a frightened five year old, with the man who wore his father’s face and had killed so many of his people with his Beast Titan power. The one who turned Connie's village into titans.

An Eldian from Marley, like Eren’s father was, growing up into the military, probably thanks to their father’s wish to use his kid to accomplish his goal of restoring the Eldia power and freeing their people.

And in a sense, Grisha Yeager sacrificed Eren for a higher goal as well. Eren knew. He had received more love and care than Zeke had, yet, Grisha’s choice gave him the same fate.

He was not really over how messed up everything he had learned about his family was, but he could usually distract himself with other topics, like…

“So…”

… Like this one.

After one word, Historia clammed up, her gaze falling on the side. Equally hesitant, Eren let his attention wander on the fallen hay bags as he scratched his head.

Damn… they usually had easier talks than this.

But today…

Historia released a breath, and walked up to a wall close to Eren. Almost automatically, Eren did the same, and they stayed side by side, staring ahead, the silence only broken by the children’s laughter from outside.

To Eren, there was something comforting with these moments. Even at this time, he felt the tenseness of his body leaving.

“… How long have you kept it to yourself?” Historia finally asked softly.

Eren did not look at her.

“Since the day we brought my father’s journals in front of the Military council. I figured it out then.”

“… All this time, huh?” He heard shuffling, but he did not look. “I see. That must have been hard for you.”

Eren made a short noise. He wanted to downplay it, but he had too much respect for her to lie. The secret was out anyway.

“I gambled that another solution would come,” he said, frowning at the opposite barn wall, “there had to be. Zeke’s plan proves that. With Zeke as a royal blood titan, there is no need for anyone else.”

Historia’s answer was a small ‘hmm’ noise. He finally risked a glance at her, and saw her thoughtful, almost haunted look. It made his stomach churn. He never liked seeing her like that. It reminded him too much of their darkest hours.

She looked through one of the empty horse stalls.

“I made my choice a year ago, after all.” Her voice was soft, and her arms crossed. “That I would play my part as the dutiful Queen within the walls. In spite of the circumstances, like you, I accepted my role, and I am ready to fulfill it to the end.”

His jaw shut with tension. The unease in his stomach increased at her words. He flexed his fingers a few times.

“Your role is to be a figurehead. You don’t have to use titan powers at all. The Founding Titan’s power would be restricted if you ate it anyway.”

“… But we’ve both been prepared for this eventuality, haven’t we?” She replied, her fingers gripping her forearms. “Back when we did not know how the oath restricting the Founding’s power worked, we both gave it thoughts, as an eventuality for humanity’s sake.”

“You rejected it back then,” he reminded her, his voice rising up slightly. “You rejected your father’s will and saved me instead. You proclaimed yourself as enemy of humanity.”

Something prompted him to shut his mouth fast after that. He was unsure what exactly. A sort of grating malaise. For some reasons, Armin’s face came to his mind.

Before he could analyze why, Historia answered.

“Yeah. I did, didn’t I? And I don’t regret it.”

There was a fondness in her voice, something which made a calming sensation swell in his chest, and a smile birth on his lips, if only slightly.

“Well… I don’t regret hiding what I knew either.”

“… I see.”

He thought she would say more, but she did not. When he looked at her, he saw the soft smile stretching her lips, and the rosy tint her cheeks had taken under the falling sun coming from the open door. Eren closed his eyes and breathed in the sensation of peace that had filled the air. Something vaguely reminiscent of the home he lost so long ago.

“Eren?”

He opened his eyes and looked at her direction. This time, she was facing away, and all he could see of her face through her hair was part of her cheek.

“Thank you, for looking out for me. I wish I could repay the favor in turn.”

He kept his eyes on her for a moment, then looked up at the window again.

For some reasons, it was Kruger and his father he thought of, then, of their memories, dreams, drives.

No holders were perfect humans. None Eren had come to know of he would say were great people. In this cruel world, Perhaps true goodness could not exist.

And yet, there was a drive to each of them that was their own. Something they cared for above the idealized notion of the ‘greater good’ his younger self would say he was fighting for.

Something fundamentally selfish. Something fundamentally dependent upon their individual will.

Something that made them ‘enemies of mankind’ of their own.

“I chose to do this because I wanted to,” he finally answered back, “there is nothing to repay me for.” He looked back at her. “Can I have an independent selfish request of my own, though?”

She looks back at him, her blue eyes filled with curiosity. He represses a dark thought by swallowing before speaking again.

Seven years.

“Live a long life on your own term.”

Her eyes widened and he caught a few of her passing expressions as she went through them. Surprised, flustered, annoyed.

...Sadness. Pity, perhaps?

Or something else. He was not sure what her face was conveying then, but her gaze was plunged into his, and he did not want to look away.

Then, she finally answered.

“If I have the opportunity. If there is a way, I’ll do it. On my own term.”

If there was a way. Right then, Eren knew of one. Right then, there was Zeke.

The military government may not trust Zeke or Yelena, for good reasons in Eren’s opinion. If Eren was thinking of humanity’s survival, he would agree that Historia was the safest choice to gain the power to shake the Earth. The safest choice for those within the walls, the one that would be the most likely to side with their survival.

But Eren did not think of humanity then. Eren thought of that girl who proclaimed her hatred of humans, and declared she was an enemy of humanity. Just so that a pathetic person like he used to feel, could live on, and stop wishing he had never been born on this Earth. For the sake of one person alone, she would turn against everyone else.

And then, as they stared at each others, and as he took all the details of her face, Eren knew who and what he would side for above anything else in this existence. As long as he had left to live.

[slipstreamborne]

Clearer with Distance (2014 fic)

rating: G summary:  Donatello is almost eight before they finally find a pair of glasses with his correct prescription.  Before that, the severely farsighted turtle just has to make do.  His brothers do what they can to help out, even if it means reading all his boring stereo instructions to him for the millionth time. notes: 2k fluffy turtle tot fic with just a touch of angst. read at ao3:  https://archiveofourown.org/works/15006035

The box is slick underneath Donnie’s fingers, glossy cardboard unwarped by water, the corners crisp and unworn.  New, or at least freshly thrown out, which for a mutated turtle scavenging the sewers of New York is basically the same thing.

His chest swells with excitement, expert fingers feeling at the seams until he finds the  opening flap.  The box is bulky but light—a promising combination—and rattles faintly when shaken.  Definitely some twist ties loose in there.  He gropes greedily inside, worming his skinny arm in between the broken pieces of protective Styrofoam until his fist closes on his prize: a thin paper booklet with staples along the binding.

“Oh no,” groans Mikey, somewhere off to his left.  “He found another one.”

“Not it,” says Raph automatically; a mistake, because he’s close enough that Donnie can pinpoint him by sound even if he has trouble picking his blurred form out from the rest of the garbage heap. 

“Raph!”  He thrusts the little pamphlet towards what he guesses is his brother’s nose.  “What’s this say?”

Shadows of hands shove him back, not hard enough to knock him over, though.  “I dunno, genius.  It’s dark.”

“Not that dark.”  A greasy yellow glow fills the far end of the tunnel, casting crisp shadows against the brick.  The light’s softer here, the edges of things increasingly smeared the closer he gets to them, but it’s bright enough that Donnie barely has to use his flashlight.  It’s easier for him to spot the gleam of a potentially interesting object than sort through every washed up boot and rusted can by hand.  Safer, too, as the still-thumping cut bisecting his left palm can attest.  At least it’s finally crusted over and stopped oozing.  “C’mon, read it for me.”

“I ain’t gonna!”

“Read it read it read it read it—”

“Hush.” 

Dad doesn’t shout.  Dad hardly ever has to shout, and never twice.  Not so close to topside, anyway.  Donnie’s mouth clamps shut obediently.

“This is not the place.  Raphael will read to you when we get home, Donatello.”

Raph whines (“Daaaad, I read the last one!”), but his father holds firm, setting him back to the day’s scavenging with a single clipped command.  Reassured that he’s not the one to have been assigned to the task, the soft, mostly-blue shape of Leo finally pops into view, a smear of white slashing crookedly across where his mouth should be.

“Over here,” he says, taking Donnie by the hand (something Donnie hates, but on unfamiliar territory has no grounds to object to).  “Found a bunch of onions.  Help me  pick out the rotten ones.”

*

Everybody has their place within the family.  If you  need somebody to boost you into a high pipe or check in the shadows for monsters (Raph says that the towering white figures from his dreams with needles for fingers aren’t real, but Donnie’s not so sure), you get Dad.  If you need somebody to tell you all the rules for Yu-Gi-Oh or tattle on you when you wander too far into the dark, you get Leo.  Mikey’s great at farting at the dinner table and whining until you feel sorry for him when he loses a game that he made up the rules to, while it’s Raph’s job to not share when you want a turn at shooting baskets and snuggle up tight against you under the blankets when winter blows ice cold through the Lair.

Donnie’s got strong, nimble fingers and can recite long passages of Harry Potter from memory, even does a pretty good job of mimicking the voices that Dad uses, but when Leo finds a coverless copy of The Order of the Phoenix—their one missing title in the series—nobody asks him take over when Dad gets too tired to do another chapter.

It’s not that Donatello doesn’t know how to read.  Dad taught him his alphabet same as his brothers, one warm hand at his elbow as he guided Donnie’s finger through the thick, ever-gathering dust of the fan room floor, tracing out the shape of each letter over and over until Donnie had every stroke memorized. 

If he writes large enough, going back over each word twice with the long side of their few precious pieces of grubby sidewalk chalk until the pastel lines stand out bold against the dark concrete floors, Donnie can make out whole words.  Kanji is harder, crucial, tiny strokes lost amidst the overall shape of the character, but Dad has a long scroll of poetry in oversized calligraphy hanging above his sleeping mat that Donnie has had memorized since he was three:

A lovely thing to see: through the paper window's hole, the Galaxy.

For reasons he can’t yet explain, he has no trouble at all reading the oversized text of the bulletin boards he occasionally glimpses through narrow storm drains, hungry eyes devouring every line of copy even if he lacks the context needed to appreciate the appeal of things like “semi-annual sales” and “now in theaters”. 

He has never seen a star, much less a galaxy, but after some careful questioning, he doesn’t think Leo or Raph or Mikey have seen one, either. 

The bigger something is, the further it is away, the easier it is for Donnie to understand. 

The problem is that the things that interest him, that confound him and make him burn for more, are close and very, very small. 

He gets so frustrated.  So angry.  It’s there, it’s right there, but he can’t—

“Please.”  He shoves the stack of books into his brother’s hands.  “Please please pleeeeease...!”

“Fine,” Leo sighs, even though they both know that technically, it’s Raph’s turn again.  “Fine.”

There’s an old beanbag chair that Dad sewed up that’s almost big enough for two.  Leo tucks his feet under him primly while Donnie wedges himself firmly against his side, long legs braced against a crack in the concrete to keep them from toppling over. 

“I’m not reading you Advanced Wiring again, I know you’ve got that one memorized.”  He tosses the battered book to the side with a thump.  “So which’ll it be?  Heating and Plumbing or Decks, Porches, and Patios?”

“Decks.”  The meager collection of Time Life Home Repair and Improvement books is one of his most prized possessions.  Heating and Plumbing is his second favorite, but Leo’s terrible at describing all of the diagrams.  “The part about load-bearing footings.” 

The book smells comfortingly of mildew when Leo cracks it open.  He’s smaller than Donnie by almost half a foot, his head wobbling precariously on a neck barely bigger than Raph’s wrist, but he has a nice voice, smooth and even with an extra puff of breath behind the t sounds that Donnie finds himself echoing for hours afterwards. 

“Where do you want me to start?  Concrete forms or how to determine the frost line?”

“Doesn’t matter.”  He hasn’t told Leo that he’s actually memorized that one, too.  All of them, to be honest.  It’s just that sometimes he needs something, anything, to help his brain go quiet.  “Frost lines.”

Leo flips to the appropriate page, squirms until his shell is nestled more comfortably in the folds of the beanbag, and starts to read.  Donnie digs his sharp chin into the hollow of his brother’s shoulder, closes his eyes, and listens.

*

Mikey is the best at it, despite being the least interested in schoolwork of any of them.  Maybe it’s because of his blasé acceptance of his own academic shortcomings.  Where Leo huffs and repeats things over and over, trying to get it perfect, and Raph storms off with a growl at the first barrier he can’t punch his way through, Mikey plunges right along unrattled no how many bumps he hits, accepting any corrections to his pronunciation with a casual shrug. 

Even when the manual turns out to be written in French. 

“En-lev-ez le...’  The heck is this word, bro?  One of the letters is wearing a hat. ‘Buh... Booty-er?’”

“Spell it if you can’t sound it out.”

“B-O-I with a pointed hat-T-I-E-R.”

Donnie frowns, fingers retracing his steps across the condensation pump, trying to figure out which piece is most likely supposed to come off next.  “I think that’s the cover for the fan.”  He gives the fan enclosure an experimental pull, then a twist, then a harder, more determined pull, but it doesn’t budge.  He runs his fingers around its rim, looking for the telltale round bump of a screwheads, but finds nothing.   “Uh, is there a tab I’m supposed to press to make it pop off or...?”

“Maybe?”  A rustle of paper as Mikey folds the directions back to look at the diagram.  “Are you sure these are the right instructions for this pump?  It doesn’t quite look like the drawing.  That fan cover piece is a completely different shape.”

Donnie’s stomach does an anxious somersault.  And he’d been so excited to find something thrown away in its original box.  “I mean, a pump’s a pump, right?  How different can they be?”

Half an hour later, Donnie’s managed to remove the fan cover, but not without a sickening crack of plastic and a muffled swear from his brother that tells him he broke something.  Hopefully it wasn’t anything crucial.  He’ll have to run some tests after he’s finished cleaning it and putting it back together, but since the pump wasn’t working in the first place it will be hard to— 

The main hatch creeks open, then closed again.  “Tadaima!” call two voices.  Leo’s voice cracks on the last syllable, and Dad sounds tired, but pleased.

“Okaeri!” Donnie and Mikey call together, Raph chiming in faintly from the other side of the Lair.  Donnie sniffs the air.  Beneath the gust of sewer smell is the unmistakable odor of wet fur and back alley dumpster he’s come to associate with food. 

He puts down the tools to help Dad and Leo bring in the last of the groceries—bags and bags of iceberg lettuce with browned outer leaves (his mouth waters, knowing the cool, wet crunch awaiting inside), and a box of short pull tab cans that could be either tuna or cat food.  Mikey makes a pleased little chirrup as he passes him the cans, which means it’s probably the latter.  Fancy Feast is his favorite.    

The chore is quickly finished with five sets of hands.  Leo keeps bumping into him, thin limbs still quivering with the excitement of getting to go topside.  Donnie tucks his own arms close and starts edging out of the kitchen and back towards his corner of dissembled stereos, suddenly not a excited about the prospect of lettuce heart supper.  He’s never been above ground.  It’s too dangerous with his limited eyesight. 

“Ah, Donatello.  A moment more, my son.  I have a gift for you.”

A large, grey-brown shape crouches before him and presses a closed cardboard box into his hands.  Too large for a clock radio, too small to be a VHS player, but mostly empty either way. 

“You got Donnie an iron?!” asks Mikey incredulously, crowding close on his left. 

Raph huffs dismissively, but presses in close to his right.  “It’s just the box, dummy.” 

“Go on,” Leo says, fidgeting anxiously from one foot to another.  He’s too close for Donnie to make out his expression, but his tone suggests that there’s a surprise that he’s in on, or maybe some sort of joke.  “Open it.”

Something heavier than an owner’s manual is rattling around inside. Batteries, maybe, or an overlooked set of cables.  Dad couldn’t have been lucky enough to find him a discarded remote.

His family looms over him expectantly as he opens the box and reaches inside.  The shape of the object is bizarre:  two thick, curved circles, each attached to a long, hinged piece of plastic.

Glasses.  His heart sinks.  He’s lost track of how many pairs he’s tried, over the years.  His thumbs swipe idly across the lenses, noting with dull surprise how thick they are, the pronounced outward curve at their center. 

“Try ‘em on!” Leo grabs at his wrists, pushing the glasses up towards his face.  “Try ‘em, try ‘em!”

There’s a break in the bridge of the nose, he realizes as he unfolds them.  Somebody’s tried to fix them with tape but not done a very good job of it.  The glasses bend alarmingly as he slips them over his beak, one lens slipping down his cheek as he struggles to hold the other in place.  He looks up. 

The world looks very, very strange.  On his left, Mikey’s familiar smudged shadows.  On his right, a stranger in a red bandana peers at him through narrowed eyes, each pale green scale of his face glimmering  faintly gold under the bare kitchen light bulb.  In front of him, two more strangers, one skinny and green, fading back and forth into Leo's blurred shape as he bounces excitedly, the other tall and dark and covered in a thousand, million lines, each strand of drying fur casting its own shadow, blue robe speckled with tiny white and yellow stars, the pointed, black-eyed face haloed in a bristle of long, white whiskers.   

He gapes, speechless.

For the first time in his life, Donatello sees his father smile.

[deviantconnorarmy]

Details: Chapter 1--Family

AN:  I’ve been itching to write some DBH fanfic for days now and I finally got an Idea I felt was worth putting out into the world (That was more than ‘I wanna write about Connor or Markus’) So here you go!!!  (Just tell me if you want tagged!)

Characters: Cecilia Manfred, Markus, Carl Manfred, Leo Manfred

Pairing: Connor x OC

Warnings:  Language.  Oh, and no Connor yet--that should be a warning, too, haha.

Word Count: 3349

Masterlist    Next Chapter --->

Classical music played softly throughout the first floor of the lavishly decorated house, one of its occupants asleep upstairs while the other was at worked cooking a breakfast for two in the kitchen.  She didn’t hear the music, though, because she’d chosen to listen to her own, headphones on and playing songs from roughly two decades ago while she cooked.

Cecilia didn’t have to cook--Markus was her father’s caretaker, but she wanted to help, and this way she could get breakfast ready while Markus went to pick up an order for Carl.  It was more efficient this way.

Once the eggs and bacon were finished, she dished them out onto two separate plates--the over easy eggs with the crisp bacon went on her father’s plate, covered to keep it hot until Markus returned, while Cecilia put the over hard eggs and still chewy bacon on her plate, waiting for the coffee to finish.  She was turning to pour the morning necessity in her father’s fancy silver tumbler and almost collided with a familiar figure in the process.  He was the one who prevented the crash, effortlessly reaching out and stopping her from running into him before coffee could end up everywhere.

Cecilia squeaked, turning off her music and removing her headphones so she could hear.  “Markus!  Don’t scare me like that!”

“I’m sorry, Ceci--I was about to try and get your attention,” Markus apologized, letting his hands drop away from her arms to take the tumbler out of her hands and set it safely on the counter.  “I wanted to tell you I’m back before I wake your father up.”

“All right, well, now I know.  I’ll go get all this set up while you go get him,” she said, gesturing towards the partially prepared breakfast tray.

“You don’t have to do that, I’ve got it,” Markus started to protest, but Cecilia waved him off.

“No, no, I’m capable of taking this to the table, you don't have to do everything by yourself, Markus.  Go wake up Dad, I’ve got this covered.”

Markus gave her a small half-smile, like he’d expected her to tell him no but had asked anyway, turning to head back into the hall.  “All right, we’ll be down in a moment.”

The automatic door slid shut behind Markus, and Cecilia finished getting her father’s breakfast put onto the silver tray, taking it out to the dining room before returning to fetch her own food.  She could hear movement upstairs, and then voices coming closer as she brought her food into the dining room and sat across from where her father usually sat.  Her heels clacked against the floor, apparently announcing her presence since she distinctly heard her name spoken as Markus and her father approached the dining room.

She’d only been sitting down a few moments when her Markus reappeared pushing her father’s wheelchair into the room, the old man’s face being graced with a rare smile as his gaze settled on her.

“Cecilia--what a lovely surprise,” Carl said warmly.

“Hi, Dad,” she returned with a smile of her own.  “I thought I’d stop by this morning before heading to work, see you, help out a little.”

“And get a free meal, too, apparently,” Carl said pointedly as Markus wheeled him into view of the table.  Cecilia chuckled.

“That’s just an added bonus.  If I don’t eat here, I’m going to miss breakfast altogether.”

“Maybe you should get up a little earlier.”

“Says the man who gets up at ten in the morning.”

“I’m old enough to stay in bed as long as I please,” Carl stated, pausing to thank Markus for serving his food.  “You on the other hand, have a job to attend to.”

“I also have flexible hours.  It pays being an independent journalist.  I could have worked out of my apartment if I really wanted to.”

“You’re office at the Stratford Tower is a lot better than your apartment.”

Cecilia waved her fork at her father.  “And I’m going to stop you right there, Dad, cause I already told you, it’s what I can afford, and I’m not taking your money to upgrade to a house or something that I can’t afford yet.  I am a self-sustaining child, thank you.”

Carl chuckled softly under his breath, looking up at Markus, who was standing at ease next to him with hands clasped in front of him.  “Why don’t you find something to do while we finish our breakfast, Markus?”

“Okay, Carl,” Markus said pleasantly, disappearing behind Cecilia as he wandered deeper into the living room.

Piano or chess, Cecilia mouthed to her father, a silent bet.  Carl smirked.

Piano, he returned, and Cecilia cursed.  That was going to be her guess.  So much for that--she’d just keep her money.

Her father chuckled softly, and a few moments later they heard the music start to play through the room.  It wasn’t a regurgitated, to the letter classical piece--not that there was anything wrong with that, Markus played the piano magnificently and it was always a joy to listen to.  This time it was something...intimate.  That was the only word that Cecilia could find to describe it.  Something with deep emotion that was pulling her in.  As soon as she was finished she stood as quietly as possible, coming around the table to retrieve her father so they could both go over and listen to Markus play.

Carl stopped somewhere near the piano bench while Cecilia leaned on the grand piano, watching Markus’ fingers glide across the piano keys and simply...listening.

When the music finally came to its last note, Markus looked up at them, Cecilia recognizing a contemplative look on her father’s face.

“Something has changed in the way you play,” Carl noted.  “Sometimes I think you have more humanity than most humans.”

Cecilia’s eyebrows rose, a slight bob of her head showing her agreement.  Desensitization was real, and it was rampant in humanity from what she could see.

“One day I won’t be here to take care of you anymore.  You’ll have to protect yourself, and make your choices...decide who you are, and wanna become.  This world doesn’t like those who are different, Markus.  Don’t let anyone tell you who you should be.”

Cecilia stared down at the glossy surface of the piano.  She wanted to pipe up and say she would take care of Markus, but the truth was, she didn’t need an android.  If he came to live with her, he wouldn’t have anything to do, really.  She did most of her stuff herself, there wasn’t anyone that needed almost constant watching in her household because it was just fully functionate her.

But she also knew her father was getting older, and wouldn’t be around much longer.  And Markus...well, she didn’t exactly want to see him reset and shipped off somewhere strange, or worse decommissioned and thrown away. When it came to that...if she was being honest with herself, she’d probably end up taking in Markus anyway.  They’d figure something out.

After a few moments of the reflective silence the three of them had fallen into after her father’s words, Carl spoke up again.

“Let’s go to the studio.”

Markus rose from his seat at the piano, moving to steer Carl’s wheelchair while Cecilia walked ahead of them into the studio.  As she entered, all of the lights came on and the curtains drew back, revealing the gorgeous view of the gardens that her father’s art studio had.

She loved it out here, for the view if nothing else.

“Let’s see where we left off--remove the sheet!”  Carl commanded, falling into painter’s mode as Markus did as he was asked and revealed the giant, very blue painting her father was currently working on.  As Carl got to work continuing his project, Markus started to clean up the studio, Cecilia trying to make a move to help him.  She was quickly intercepted.

“No, you’ve got your work clothes on, I’ll clean up in here,” Markus told her patiently.

He had a point.  She didn’t want to accidentally get paint on her work clothes, she needed to look nice, being in media and everything.  So she relented in this instance, stepping back to watch her father put the finishing touches on his painting, then wandering over to his spot on the wall filled with sketches from when he was young and a few amateur drawings from his children.

Cecilia had not inherited her father’s painting skills--her talents lay in other areas.

Markus came to stand by her when he was done cleaning the studio, and she turned to give him a small smile that he returned.  it was then that she finally noticed the tear in his clothes, and a smudge of dirt and dust here and there that indicated he’d been on the ground.

“What happened there?” she asked with a frown, gently touching the rip in his clothes.

“Oh, there were protesters in the street.  It’s nothing, I’m fine,” Markus assured her, turning to head back towards Carl, though the move was partially to get her hand off of the affronted material.  Cecilia’s frown deepened.

“Assholes,” she muttered, reaching over to dust off the smudges.  She couldn’t do anything about the tear.  “Sometimes I really hate people,” she finished with the shake of her head.  Carl was coming back down from his painting by that point, so their conversation ended there.

“So...what’s the verdict?” Carl asked, not looking away from the now completed painting.

Cecilia tilted her head to the side.  “It looks pretty cool, Dad--and no, that’s not a joke about all the blue,” she told him, leaning down to give her father a kiss on the cheek while he rolled his eyes.

Markus was looking at the painting much closer, a thoughtful look on his face, LED blinking yellow to show just how much he was thinking about it.

“Yes, there is something about it...something I can’t...quite define...I guess I like it,” Markus finished with a slight smile.  Carl sighed.

“The truth is, I have got nothing left to say anymore.  Each day that goes by brings me closer to the end.  I’m just an old man clinging to his brushes...”

Cecilia felt a pang go through her at her father’s morbid words, and she placed a hand on his shoulder, fighting the urge to give it a squeeze.

“Carl...” Markus said softly, shifting uncomfortably.  Carl turned his chair to face Markus.

“But enough about me--let’s see if you have any talent!”  Markus stared at Carl, looking a little surprised.  “Give it a try!  Try painting something.”

“Paint, but what would I--painting what?”

“Anything you want!  Give it a try,” Carl encouraged.  The smile that lit up Markus’ face made him look like a kid at Christmas, and Cecilia had to hold back a small giggle, though she let her grin show as Carl handed Markus his palette.  Markus took up position in front of the easel in the corner, casting his gaze around the room for a moment.  His gaze flickered momentarily over Cecilia, among other things, before he turned his attention to the canvas propped up on the easel and started to paint.

Cecilia had to bite on the inside of her cheek to try and hide her initial disappointment as the movements he was making instantly reminded her of an old-fashioned printer.  She’d been hoping for...well, she didn’t know.  What did she expect, he was an android.

Sometimes she forgot that.  It seemed her father did, too.

When Markus finally stepped back it was to reveal an unnervingly accurate painting of Cecilia.  She stepped forward, very conscious of the fact that, as the subject, her opinion was going to have a lot of weight.  She studied the replica of herself on the canvas, accurate to every slight crease in her red blouse and black pencil skirt, the reddish chestnut of her hair, currently pulled up in a bun, was almost captured by the paints--though hers was a color that was probably impossible to replicate with paint, Markus came very close.  Or maybe he was spot on and her human eyes just didn’t know it.  But he’d even managed to get the small mole along her cheekbone, close to her temple, and she was pretty sure she was seeing a reflection of Markus in her hazel blue green eyes.

“That’s extremely lifelike,” Cecilia commented, the surprise starting to wear off as she reminded herself he was an android.

Carl didn’t hold back in expressing disappointment, wheeling forward with a heavy sigh.  “That is a perfect copy...of reality.  But painting is not about replicating the world, it’s about interpreting it, improving on it, showing something you see,” Carl corrected him.  Markus hesitated, looking at Cecilia’s father with doubt in his eyes.

“Carl I don’t...think I can do that, it’s not in my program...I..”

“Go on, go, try, grab that canvas,” Carl interrupted, gesturing Markus towards a fresh canvas.  Cecilia stepped out of the way, curiosity on her face.  She was wondering if Markus was about to get the same painting lesson her father had once tried to give her when she was younger.  Markus gazed at Carl for a moment before doing what he’d asked, standing now uncertainly in front of the blank canvas now that he’d found out his first attempt had not been right.

Carl sighed.  “Do something for me, close your eyes.  Close your eyes.  Trust me,” Carl stressed when Markus still hesitated.  Markus stood facing the canvas, slowly closing his eyes as Cecilia’s father had asked.  “Try to imagine something that doesn’t exist, something you’ve never seen.  Now concentrate...on how it makes you feel.  And let your hand drift across the canvas.”

Markus stood very still for a few moments, and Cecilia had a sneaking suspicion that his LED was going wild out of their line of sight.  For a few agonizing moments all he did was stand there, but Cecilia knew that was all part of the process.  Then, finally, the hand holding the brush rose to the canvas, and Markus began to paint.  This time, even his strokes were different, wide and short, dotting and sweeping, swirling, actually painting in the movements of a human artist instead of that of a printer.  Just like when she’d watched him play, Cecilia was spellbound, fascinated by the transformation happening in front of her, the creativity and emotion that seemed to now be leaking out of the being that 95 percent of the population would say was just a hunk of metal or plastic.

Markus...was different.  An exception to the rule.  Or at least the first sign that such assumptions were wrong.

When Markus finally stepped back, Cecilia couldn’t stop staring.  She could see a bit of her father’s style in the painting, but overall, it was entirely Markus, completely original.  And it was impactful.  An all black background with two pairs of cupped hands in the center, both exactly the same, except one pair was glowing blue, the other red.  It wasn’t that far of a leap to realize the blue hands were belonging to an android with blue blood, the red hands to a human with red blood.

Exactly the same except for the blood.  Understanding, reaching out, equality.  Something in Cecilia’s heart ached, and she thought she felt a burn in her eyes as her gaze shifted from the painting to Markus and back.

“Oh my God...” Carl breathed.

They didn’t get the chance to ask Markus what he’d been thinking about as he drew this, what he intended it to mean and if their impressions were right, no one got to say anything beyond her father’s breath of surprise.  A fourth person had entered the room.

“Hey, dad.”

And instantly, all eyes were on Cecilia’s older half-brother.

“Leo...I didn’t hear you come in,” Carl said in surprise.  Cecilia’s expression puckered as if she’d tasted something sour, out of sight behind her father.  Markus’ posture was cautious, his movements slow and careful.  Cecilia didn’t have to study her half-brother long to see the obvious signs of...well, either a withdraw or he was high, though considering Leo was here at the house it was probably the former.

She wasn’t on good terms with her half-brother, and for good reason.

“Ah, I was in the neighborhood...I though I’d stop by,” Leo said, fidgeting a little excessively.  “It’s been a while, right?”

“You all right?” Carl asked.  Markus was very carefully putting down the palette he’d been holding, like he was readying himself for a confrontation.  Cecilia was, too.  “You don’t look so good.”

“Oh, yeah, yeah, I’m fine,” Leo said dismissively.  “Hey listen, uh...I need some cash, Dad.”

And there it is.

“Again?  What happened to the money I just gave you?” Carl asked.  He was officially showing close to the same level of wariness Markus and Cecilia weren’t bothering to hide.

“Uh...well, it jus-it just goes, you know?”

Carl gave a humorless laugh.  “Yeah...yeah, you’re on it again, aren’t you?”

“No...no, no, I swear, it’s not that.”

“Ah, don’t lie to me, Leo--”

“What difference does it make?  I just need some cash, that’s all!” Leo shouted, finally snapping.  A heavy silence fell over the room.

“I’m sorry.  The answer’s no,” Carl answered firmly.

“What?  Why?”

“You know why!”

Leo’s gaze flickered towards Markus.  “Yeah...yeah, I think I do no why.”

Oh, hell no.

“You’d rather take care of your plastic toy here than your own son, eh?” Leo taunted, gaze now riveted on Markus.  Cecilia let go of the back of her father’s chair, slowly walking towards Leo as Leo stalked closer to a still Markus.

“Tell me, dad, what’s it got that I don’t?  It’s smarter?  More obedient?  Not like me, right?” he spat, venom in his words.  Markus stood calmly, LED blue, but judgement in his eyes.  “Buy you know what?  This thing is not your son.  It’s just a fucking machine!” Leo shouted, shoving Markus back.

“Leo, that’s enough!”

“Hey, back off, now!”

Carl and Cecilia both yelled at the same time, though Cecilia got between Leo and Markus, shoving Leo back from Markus.  She was on heels, and she was no athlete, but she was still going to put herself between Leo and Markus if Leo was going to get violent.

“Enough,” Carl repeated with finality, fixing Leo with a stern gaze.  Leo scowled, gaze flickering to the painting Markus had just finished.

“You don’t care about anything except yourself and your goddamn paintings.”

Actually, that one was Markus...quite the compliment, though, under any other circumstances, mistaking Markus’ painting for Dad’s.

“You’ve never loved anyone.  You never loved me, Dad.  You never loved me.”

On that harsh note, Leo finally left.  Markus, Carl, and Cecilia were quiet for a moment before they finally moved, Carl bending over in his chair with a sigh and Markus looking on worriedly.  Cecilia bent down in front of her father, a hand on his shoulder.

“Are you all right, Dad?” she asked in concern.

“I’m fine,” he said heavily, shaking his head.  “You should get going--you’ll be late for work.”

Cecilia wanted to argue on principle, but he was right--she had work she needed to get done, especially since she planned on attending the cocktail party later with her father.  She was going to write a short little piece on the party to balance out some of her more serious topics on her news website and radio show.

Cecilia gently squeezed his shoulder.  “All right...I’ll see you later, Dad.  I love you.”

Carl gave her a tight smile--he was well aware she was putting emphasis on that last part because of Leo’s outburst, but she didn’t care--he needed to hear it right now.

Before she left, she paused next to Markus, giving his shoulder a squeeze as well, and flashing him a small smile.  Then she left, her thoughts buzzing with Markus’ painting and Leo’s intrusion.

Next Chapter --->

[swan-archive]

@klaproos replied to your post:

But can't he take on some other, weirder tastes than fresh meat, like non-magic obligate carnivores do? One of my parents' cats is always trying to drink our coffee. Anyway, as a canine, surely he's prone to wanting to chew on things he won't necessarily benefit from eating.

chewing, you say? interesting thought, let’s follow that one for a second...

--

“They say the first month is the worst for, for, ah, bitten—well, at least, that is what I have always heard. More of an adjustment. Hurts more. It will be easier if you have something to chew, to take your mind off things. I can see if we’ve any soup bones?”

“I’m not going to—Christ, Laf—to chew on a fucking bone—”

“Are you sure? I think you would find it helps. Unless you’d rather, I suppose you have your boots...”

“Laf. Please. Just. Shut up.”

Lafayette pulls a reproachful little pout and settles back on John’s cot. Alex does another circuit of the room. Another. Another. Hitches up his sleeve and scratches automatically at the bite mark on his arm, the dark fur itching as it grows in all around. Measures out his steps so that he never comes within arm’s reach of the door. Safer that way.

“You are going to wear through the floorboards, pacing like that,” Lafayette observes. Alex ignores him. “I tell you, Ham, you need something to do with yourself if you’re not going to sleep—”

“So get me some of the General’s correspondence, there must be some, no way did we break even on it without me here to help, and let me work—”

“Something relaxing, Ham, you know that is not what I meant.”

“I don’t need to rest,” Alex growls. “You said do something so I’m trying to do something. Besides,” he adds, “it’s not as if I could rest, is it, not with—all this.” He gestures angrily at his own head, at his ears starting to come to points at the tips.

Lafayette makes a sympathetic noise. He’s trying to sit quietly, but Alex can hear (and Laf must know he can hear) every breath, every scritch of fabric on fabric when he moves, the rustle when he removes his hair from its queue and pushes his fingers through the curls. And even if he couldn’t hear, he can still smell—Laf’s smell of clean fur under Cyprus powder and fine French cologne, smell of John’s hair and John’s sweat musky on the sheets, tallow and smoke from the candle, whiff of mildew from inside the walls, road-dust on his own discarded coat and boots. It’s too much, a constant assault that makes his head spin. Enough to drive a man—

Alex presses his hands over his face to hold in his own whimper. Worries at his features for the millionth time this hour. No changes, or at least nothing he can detect, just the same dull ache in his joints, the crawling itch over every inch of his skin, every so often a jolt of pain shooting down to the small of his back, where he’ll sprout his—Jesus Christ—his tail, there, he said it, in a week or so. Same slight wrongness in length of nose and jaw where they’ve begun the process of stretching out into a pointed muzzle, same scruffiness creeping up over his cheeks. Same eyes, he supposes, wolf-gold, although he only has conjecture to back that up—he hasn’t been able to bring himself to look in a mirror yet.

“How long am I meant to stay shut in here?” Alex demands, after a few more lengths of the room.

“You must know that I don’t know that. But it is just a formality, just a precaution, you didn’t hurt anyone on your way back to camp, after all. They can’t keep you in here more than a night, not when they realize you are safe to be around...” Lafayette trails off, conscious of the mistake he’s made, but Alex has already pounced on it.

“Oh, so you’re saying that if I’m a good boy, they’ll let me get back to my fucking work?” says Alex, sarcastic enough to choke. “How generous. And I suppose if I’m not, I’ll just have to hope they remember to let the dog out for a piss once in a while, won’t I?”

“They wouldn’t—the General wouldn’t let—”

“Oh, no, you’re right, my mistake. No point in keeping a mad dog around the house.” He laughs mirthlessly. “Tell me, do you think the General would be kind enough to get a firing squad together for me, if it came to that? Probably not, not for a bastard orphan mongrel dog. Waste of powder.”

“That’s not funny,” says Lafayette. There are genuine tears in his eyes. “Not at all. Don’t joke about—you are not going to go out of your head, and the General is not going to have you killed.”

Alex scoffs—at Lafayette’s histrionics? At the idea that the General would get sentimental over a rabid wolf? At the concept of there being any kind of certainty that he won’t lose his mind?—and turns away. Scratches again at the itch roiling under the bite mark.

He’d seen a wolf hanged, once, when he was a boy. The creature went moon-mad on the short crossing between islands, just a few days before his ship had made port. By the time they’d gotten him to the scaffold, the madness had ebbed, and Alex can remember thinking how very ordinary, how very scared the so-called monster had looked. A golden-eyed man trembling with a noose around his neck. Nothing more.

What did he do, Maman, said Alex. Always harder to use that animal neuter pronoun when faced with the reality of something almost human.

He's dangerous, said Rachel, squeezing Alex’s hand very tightly. He hurt someone. Killed someone.

Why’d he— Alex had begun, but then they’d drawn the hood over the wolf’s head, and after that point it hadn’t much mattered why he did anything, anymore.

Alex wonders if that wolf had felt it creeping up on him. Had felt, perhaps, an anxiety that wouldn’t abate, a dreadful, oppressive awareness of four walls closing in on him, of nowhere to go nowhere to run. A hunger building in the pit of his stomach. The sick disorientation of a body shifting around him, the ache and the queasiness and the itch of it, he would like to leap from his own skin, he would like to break himself down to blood and bone and guts just to escape the constant thrumming tension of being caught between, would tear apart the world if it meant he could have some quiet—

“Ham—Alexander—stop that, stop it!” Lafayette springs up from the cot and grabs Alex by the shoulder, tight enough to bruise, and Alex startles and growls around the thing he’s got between his teeth, bites down, tastes blood, feels a bright lance of pain.

His arm. 

He’s been chewing on his own arm, just where the British wolf’s (the other wolf’s) teeth had broken skin. He spits it out, stares in horror at the bite mark he’s left, at the healing older wound. Two sets of teethmarks there. Not so very different from each other at all.

Lafayette is bigger than Alex, and stronger too, although Alex has thrashing desperation on his side, and when Alex tries to bolt for the door Lafayette manages to catch him by the back of the shirt, spins him around and slams him back against the wall and pins him there.

“No, no, let me go, let go of me, let me, please, please, I can’t stay here another minute please I have to get out I have to get out,” Alex howls, loud enough that they must be able to hear him all through the house. What does he care, though, let him wake the other aides, the General, the entire army if he has to, just so long as he can run. Just so long as he doesn’t have to stay trapped in here with his body and his panic.

“I know, petit, I know,” says Lafayette, quiet, soothing through the strain of holding Alex down. His long-lashed eyes are narrowed, almost closed, and he leans forward as if he means to kiss Alex. Noses at Alex’s cheek. “You are safe. Nothing to fear, here. We are two and two makes a pack and together we are safe, safe, safe...” His voice has taken on the singsong quality of a nursery rhyme, and he nuzzles Alex’s cheek again. Licks it, and half of Alex’s brain recoils in disgust, and the other half drags a whine out of him, makes him put his own tongue out.

It soothes. Oh, God, it soothes, and Alex doesn’t want it, hates that he’s subject to this now, hates the pathetic little firework of joy that goes off in his head at that word, “pack.” But it’s working, God damn it, lowered eyes and touch of muzzle on muzzle and familiar smell. The tension dribbles away, little by little. He lets his head fall forward onto Lafayette’s shoulder, and moans, relieved, despairing.

“You will not run, if I let you go?” Lafayette says against Alex’s hair. Alex twitches an ear and shakes his head, and Laf backs off of him, eases him down to the floor when his legs sag. He’s exhausted, suddenly, the burning drive that had carried him up out of the river and back down the road to camp collapsing out of him. With the last of his energy he curls up around himself like a beaten dog, throws his arms over his head. Sharp nails catch on his scalp. Claws, Hamilton, he thinks, just call them what they are. They’re claws and you’re an animal.

“Alex.” Laf’s voice very soft. “I will go and see if there are any letters that need to be answered still. If there are, I will bring them back here for you. Promise me you will wait.” He shakes Alex a little by the shoulder, and Alex lets out an awful throat-tearing sob. Not a human sound. “Promise me, Alex.”

“I’ll. I’ll wait.”

“Good. I’ll be back soon.” Lafayette stands and walks out of the room, closing the door behind him. Doesn’t lock it from the outside, can’t, this isn’t a prison, but at least he could barricade it, set a guard with a silver bullet in his service pistol to watch it. Doesn’t do either of those things, Alex hears him go straight off down the hall, down the stairs. Stupid trusting dog. Alex licks miserably at his arm for a moment. Stops himself. Listens to the quiet racket of the house. Stops himself again, when he catches himself trying to pick out the sound of John’s breathing through the walls.

It’ll be easier, he tells himself, when he has his papers and his work again. As long as he can write, he can make himself useful.

An animal, perhaps, but a thinking animal, still.

[reapers-carino]

I like this thing you have going on where the Junkers' s/o is a Junker mechanic. I'd like to just see a little domestic thing or something of the s/o fixing up Junkrat's limbs for him, kind of like Winry and Ed from Fullmetal Alchemist. Arguing about being reckless is optional. XP

You ran to the door at the sound of the security pad’s notification that someone was outside. Giddy energy began to pour out of you as the door slid open, Mako dunking into the doorway first.

“Welcome back”, you exclaimed with a grin, taking one of the duffle bags from his hands. It wasn’t necessary, but you liked to feel helpful and Mako had given up convincing you otherwise. He always gave you the lightest bag anyway. “Heist went well, yeah?”

He grunted affirmatively moving further into the rented house, placing the bag on the table. Turning on your heel, you moved towards Mako and turned your face up for a kiss. He obliged before pulling back with a smirk and sidestepping quickly.

Junkrat had been hiding behind the taller man, trying to sneak into the house without you noticing. Obviously he forgot to acknowledge there were only three of you that lived here. Your eyes went round as you saw the demolitionist, your mouth opening and closing as you tried to find the words. Jamison slowly straightened up, laughing nervously as he held up prosthetic hand in his left hand and waved it at you.

“How Jamie? HOW?!”

“Well y’see”, Junkrat started, scratching his head with his right arm in thought. “I mighta accidentally been a biiit too close to the charges when I detonated ‘em. But on the other hand, tha rest of me is fine!”

Concern flashed on your face before you groaned at the pun, pointing at the table.

“Table now mister”, you ordered, before looking at Mako with a sweet look. “Mako honey, can you get my repair kit?”

“Yes darl”, Junkrat sighed, sounding like a scolded child as he dragged his feet walking to the table.

Mako was chuckling softly, his shoulders shaking with quiet snorts as he nodded and moved to grab your larger kit. Your smaller tool kit was fine for making the cosmetic repairs or fixing the occasional short circuit but this was a bit more damage than normal. Honestly, blowing off just his hand shouldn’t have been possible, but Jamison did have an affinity for doing crazy, impossible things. You pulled your chair around to the right side of Junkrat, an astonished whine leaving your mouth as you inspected the damage.

His hand was held on with a ball and socket joint giving the limb 360° movement. You likened it to a ball-jointed doll the first time you had seen it, something the man didn’t appreciate until you showed him just how similar they were. The were a series of tiny electronic tattoos along the incision line of his stump that connected directly to his nerves. His silicon sleeve had diode conductors at the end that when attached to the prosthetic, allowing for his brain to control the limb however he liked. There were a series of conductive wires that ran through the arm that all narrowed down to five that ran through each of his fingers and allowed for individual articulated movements. It also allowed for touch to be felt ‘naturally’ throughout the prosthetic.

What her inventive skinny Junker had done was somehow ripped the ball that held his hand on from the socket, severing the wires and leaving the limb sparking. Thank god for an automatic shut off system, or he would be feeling all the pain of having his hand ripped off all over again. Honestly speaking you were surprised he hadn’t blown himself up; the sparking wires combined with the belt and vest of explosives usually spelling disaster. Thankfully it seemed Roadhog had disarmed him and you could work in peace.

“Jamie you are really something else”, you complimented, holding your hand out to take his prosthetic. He handed it to you with a sheepish grin, scratching his cheek gently. “You are unreal, sweetie. I need you to stop being cocky out there though, you got it?”

“Alright”, he conceded with a lopsided grin, extending his arm to you as you worked on removing the sparking arm. “It was bloody incredible though, you shoulda seen it!”

“He looked like a chook”, Mako answered, setting your largest toolbox onto the table. “Charcoal and fire smoked. Clucked like one too.”

“Oi”, Jamison yelled, glaring at Mako and shaking his left fist at him. “I’ll dust ya, ya wanka!”

“Like to see you try”, Mako retorted with a smirk, setting down at the table and handing you off the tools you asked for.

You didn’t try and mediate, laughing as the two Junkers went back and forth, opening the hand and repairing the wiring as you listened. Jamison ended up getting up several times, kissing your forehead, doting you in affections and showering. He sat with you as you finished up, wiping your brow as you closed the panel you had opened up in the palm to work through.

“Alright luv”, you hummed happily, holding his arm in your hand and offering to help him put it back on.

“Ohhh fits just like a glove”, he exclaimed as he tested it out again, wiggling his newly attached hand and rolling his wrist carefully. You watched him closely, grinning happily as he threw his arms around you. “Thank ya Gadge, you’re the best!”

You wrapped your arms around his body, nuzzling close before looking up at him with a threatening grin.

“Break it again”, you started in a singsong voice, watching the dismay that crept onto Jamison features. “And I will hack it so you have to cheer for the All Blacks the next time the play the Wallabies, kay?”

“Anything but that”, Jamison gasped, looking scandalized before glaring at the guffawing Mako. “I will never root with that bloody traitor!”

“Then be good.” “Yes luv…”

[abutterflyobsession]

Doctor Who AU: Part 17

prelude/one/two/three/four/five/six/seven/eight/nine/ten/eleven/twelve/thirteen/fourteen/fifteen/sixteen/ao3

“Stop this now, Roland!”

“Darlin', you've got the button. The program is set to run all by its lonesome and the only way to shut it off is that little button in your hand. I'm completely locked out. Couldn't do a thing even if I tried. This is entirely your call.”

Roland flourished his hand and gave a little bow to the Doctor.

He straightened up, looking slightly puzzled.

“Buttercup, not that my plans didn't anticipate you finding me but . . . how did you get here?”

“She was covered in dust from the wall she atomized,” Dawn appeared in Bog's line of sight, her glasses in place and hands in her pockets, “Turns out that your handy little nanotech interior automatically tries to find its way home and reassemble itself. An advanced trail of bread crumbs leading us back to you. Also, you still have your shields down from when I deactivated them last time.”

“Oh,” Roland looked disappointed, “I was expecting a little more effort on my sweetheart's part. It's not much of a rivalry if her little sister elbows in.”

“Don't mind me,” Dawn shrugged her shoulders, “I'm just the designated damsel in distress. In your head, anyway.”

“This is an eight-wheeler worth of third wheels,” Roland sighed.

“How are you doing, Boggy?” Dawn held his chin and tipped up his head so she could shine a small light in his eyes, “Responses are still good. You look all dried out, though. Drink plenty of water and, uh, hang in there.”

Bog was just grateful it wasn't a plant pun.

He wasn’t grateful for much else. He was on the edge of panicking because none of what was going on made any sense, he was in a great deal of pain, and he was being used to somehow take over the world. Or was it destroy the world? Roland had been a little vague about the specifics.

Bog was trying his best not to panic because if he did he was sure someone would point out the text on his shirt read ‘Don’t Panic’, and he wasn’t sure if he could take that.

Roland coughed politely to regain their attention and once all eyes were on him he smiled and continued his performance, “Now, now, enough of this lallygagging. You're on a deadline, remember?”

With a wave of his hands the walls shimmered, the blank white stretches giving way to a view of the park that the Doctor's TARDIS had been parked in earlier. The crumbled section of wall where the Doctor had been imprisoned flickered and buzzed, an disordered patch in the otherwise flawless projection of the outdoors.

Roland paused and shook his head regretfully at the crumbled wall before continuing.

“Lovely, wholesome little park,” he gestured to a small grouping of trees, “a space conveniently free of pavement and buildings. Nothing but a nice smooth piece of grass and trees and a sweet little pond for the ducks.”

Roland swung around to face his audience and flashed the smile of a man in an informical about to tell you that if you call now you would receive double the product and a free set of measuring spoons.

“All in all, the ideal place to start growing a plant army in the middle of a city!”

Right on cue a sprouting plant pushed its way through the grass, it's massive size scaring off a dog that had been inspecting the shifting ground. More sprouts followed, the people walking through the park startled but laughing, coming up closer to see if the plants were real, snapping pictures with their phones.

“Humans,” the Doctor muttered, dragging a hand down her face, “I hope the increased traffic on their twitter feed is worth possible death.”

“Don't be so hard on them,” Dawn said, looking up from her inspection of the cables trailing on the floor, “they don't—are they putting their baby right next to it to take pictures?”

The Doctor nodded dully.

“How have they survived as a species?” Dawn groaned.

“A mystery,” Roland said.

“Don't agree with me,” Dawn ordered, “It makes me want to shower.”

“As fun as this all is,” Roland said, his back to the rapidly growing plants, “you've go a schedule to keep to. About five minutes and we'll have a nice amount of wooden soldiers to march off into the streets, armed with an array of natural toxins and pointy sticks for general stabbing. Of course, they could always be stopped with large amounts of weedkiller, or setting everything on fire, but that would cause just as much damage as letting them rampage. Really, the only option is--”

Roland was abruptly cut off as he dropped to the floor in an undignified heap.

There was a small round patch stuck on the back of his neck and Sunny was standing over him looking apprehensive.

“I didn't kill him, did I?”

The Doctor rushed over, turned Roland face up and felt for a pulse in his neck.

“He's fine. How long have you been here? What did you--?”

“I've been here the whole time,” Sunny said in the resigned way of someone who was used to being constantly overlooked, “I found a box when Dawn sent me looking for stuff to track Roland. Some sort of knockout things. I read the label and was going to ask, but I never got a chance and then when he wouldn't shut up I kind of thought we'd all be happier if he took a nap.”

The Doctor examined the box, nodded, pulled out a second patch and stuck it in the middle of Roland's forehead, “Good. Dawn, you may keep Sunny.”

“Gee, thanks,” Sunny and Dawn said in disgusted unison.

“You're welcome, now find me something to tie him up with.”

“There are zip ties in my jacket pocket,” Bog tilted his head to where his leather jacket had been dropped to the floor after Roland removed it so he could take blood samples from Bog's arm.

“Why do you carry around zip ties?” the Doctor asked, pulling the items in question out of the jacket pocket.

“I work at a bar. Sometimes you need to make sure people stay put until the cops come and pick up their unruly carcasses.”

The Doctor fastened Roland's wrists together and then his ankles. Finished, she picked up the leather jacket again and played thoughtfully with the metal spikes on the shoulders.

“Are you going to unplug me now?” Bog prompted, watching the plants in the park unfurling leaves as they reached a height of roughly six feet, “Because I would really like to get down from here. Like, now.”

“It's not so simple as unplugging you,” Dawn held up one of the cables, “These are organic and integrated into your system and connecting you to the computer, which has become, well, basically a vital organ.”

“How vital?”

“Unplugging you would be like ripping out your heart.”

“And how are you going to fix it?”

“Well,” Dawn said slowly, tilting her head back and pointing her eyes away from Bog.

“We don't have a clue,” the Doctor said with characteristic bluntness.

“Okay . . . why are you wearing my jacket?”

Bog asked more to avoid thinking about the image of having his heart ripped out rather than any real interest.

“Because I'm nostalgic for when I wore a leather jacket. But mine never had spikes. Never thought of spikes. Why didn't I think of spikes? They send a very clear message of 'hands off unless you want multiple puncture wounds.”

“You used to wear a leather jacket?” Dawn asked, interested.

“I went through a phase. Or two. Now,” the Doctor clapped her hands together, “let's take a look at the computer.”

The Doctor pointed her sonic at the console and the walls flickered, the park being replaced with blocks of computer code. There were numbers, but also symbols like the ones Bog had seen the Doctor scribbling on a chalkboard. They were all round and intricate, like the inner workings of a watch.

“Marsh man, I need your help,”

“Sure, lemme just unhook myself.”

“Sarcasm is not helpful. Roland has rigged this up to follow his program, but you're still admin, your still the rightful owner and operator of this necklace. I'm going to take you back into the database while Dawn stays out here and works on disconnecting you.”

“But--!” Dawn looked up sharply from her study of the computer code, an objection on her lips.

“Just do it!' the Doctor snapped.

Dawn bowed her head and resumed her work.

“What, you mean go into that forest in my head again?” Bog asked, “Can't you at least get me down from this wall first?”

“Oh, yes,” the Doctor waved a hand and the wall shifted enough for Bog to slip free and collapse into a sitting position on the floor. The Doctor tossed him another bottle of water before he could ask for it, “I managed to hack the psychic interface, so the place is at our disposal.”

Trying and failing to unscrew the cap of the bottle, Bog couldn't help but look at his hands. They were twisted and root-like, knotting up at the joints, and covered with small twigs of new growth. The bottle still capped, Bog stared at his hands and asked, “How am I supposed to play the guitar like this?”

The words came out softer and sadder than he had intended them to.

The Doctor's small hands took his, the water bottle falling into his lap.

Light brown eyes were looking at him with an unshakable steadiness that spoke of large, immovable things, like ancient cliffs and burning stars, “This can be fixed.”

“It shouldn't have happened in the first place!” Bog jerked his hands free, “I would never have even been involved if you just left me alone! Your crazy ex thinks that I'm some sort of rival for your heart and I don't even like you!”

“Roland what now?” Dawn's head popped back up.

“According to Lord Hair Gel your sister and I are destined in the stars, or a fixed point in time, or whatever. I think his hair bleach has eaten away his brain. But that's what he thinks and that's why he did this . . . all this . . .”

Dawn's eyebrows had shot up into her hairline, “Is this true?”

“No!” the Doctor snapped, “of course not!”

“Look me in the eye, sister mine, and say that again.”

“Why should I have to? It's ridiculous.”

“You know something!”

“Stop.”

“Tell me! It might be important!”

“It isn't!”

The Doctor stood up, pulling off the jacket and throwing it over Bog's head before she stomped off to the other side of the room and pretended to be looking at the computer code.

Sunny walked over to Bog and picked up the bottle of water, twisting the cap off and handing the bottle back, “Dude, I have no idea what's going on.”

“I'm a plant now,” Bog replied, taking a drink.

“No, actually, picked up that much.”

“How bad do I look?”

“Uh . . .”

“If you say I need to moisturize then I will strangle you with these cables.”

“Mmm,” Sunny bit his lips and attempted to look innocent, “Well, the—the pieces of skin are kind of . . . messed up.”

Bog looked down at the dried out scraps of skin clinging to the dark shape of his arms. He could still see bits of the tattoo patterns visible. He rubbed at his arms to discard the useless skin, but quickly stopped, unnerved by the alien texture of his arms.

Like she had read his mind, the Doctor spoke up, “I recognized your tattoos as a corrupted Cheem crest. I assume the patterns had been passed down in your family.”

“Yeah. There's some old manuscripts. Illuminated. I used them as a basis for my sleeves.”

“Then you'll have the references to recreate them.”

“So you will be able to put me right?”

“We need to get started now. Get into the program and put you back in control. Ready?”

“No.”

“Excellent. We'll begin. Dawn, try to unplug Bog and keep the plant soldiers from doing anything too terrible. And try not to get distracted by kissing and things.”

“Have a nice date,” Dawn replied haughtily.

The Doctor's small, dark eyebrows drew down low over her eyes in an impressive glare that would have made most squirm when targeted by it. Dawn merely rolled her eyes and asked Sunny to help her pry off the top of the console.

The Doctor couched down in front of Bog again, reaching out to put her fingertips against his temples.

“Hah,” Bog said, “Can't believe a girl is actually going to touch this face.”

“Look, if you want me to comment on faces you've got another thing coming. For one thing, we've established I'm terrible at faces. For another, I've seen a lot weirder faces than a Cheem's. My judgment is skewed. Which, I suppose, is why I think your face is fairly inoffensive.”

“I'm flattered.”

“At least you've still got your cheekbones and blue eyes. Stupid blue eyes. Now,” the Doctor pinched his cheeks despite their rough texture, “think of the forest and don't let your thoughts wander.”

[simonhawketts]

The Voigtlander Bessamatic belongs to that family of 35mm SLR cameras which have a leaf shutter fitted between the lens and the mirror rather than a focal plane shutter fitted between the mirror and the film. This puts it in the same class as the Topcon Unirex, Kodak Retina Reflex and Kowa SE to name just three I’ve reviewed on this blog.

Voigtlander Bessamatic Images

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Top view

Film advance and film type reminder

Film speed, light meter and filter compensation

Frame counter

Color-Skopar X Lens

Side view

Side view showing flash sync port

Front of camera with lens removed

Rear door latch

Voigtlander Bessamatic 35mm SLR : Shutter fired

Voigtlander Bessamatic 35mm SLR : Shutter cocked

Bottom of camera

Voigtlander Bessamatic 35mm SLR : Shutter speed, aperture, focus and depth of field

Voigtlander Bessamatic 35mm SLR : Front view

My Bessamatic Camera

I picked up this camera along with a Topcon RE Auto in an eBay sale.

To be honest, I don’t think the seller knew exactly what he was selling because a working example of the Bessamatic would normally sell for more than that price by itself. Another clue was that he described it as a Yoighander camera.

Anyway, it seemed too good a deal to miss, so I purchased it in a ‘Buy in now��� sale for £25 including postage.

Once I’d paid for the Bessamatic I found it took a very long time for the camera to arrive with me. So long in fact, that I messaged the seller to see if he had dispatched it and even though he assured me he had, I noticed when it eventually arrived that the actual postage date on the parcel was a couple of days after my message to him. I consoled myself with the knowledge that when he eventually posted it it cost him nearly £17 to send it to me first class rather than the £5 I paid for postage.

Other than waiting a long time for it the camera which arrived seems to be in very good condition. All the shutter speeds seem about right and although the aperture blades were a bit reluctant to open and close when I first received it, after a few hours use they settled down and seem fine now.

Voigtlander Bessamatic Description

As I described earlier the Bessamatic is a camera with the shutter mounted between the lens and the mirror which makes it a rather complex beast to engineer. If you think about the shutter layout in an SLR it’s obvious that when the photographer wants to compose the image the shutter needs to be open, but the film has to be protected from the light entering the lens.

So the set of actions which have to happen in this style SLR design are:

As the film is advanced the shutter is opened

at the same time the aperture in the lens is fully opened

also a plate is raised or lowered across the film to stop the light entering

the mirror is dropped down to deflect the image into the eyepiece.

Once the image is composed and focused, as the shutter release is pressed the camera then has to

close the shutter

lower or raise the plate across the film

raise the mirror out of the light path

stop the aperture down to the correct setting for the exposure the photographer has selected

open and close the shutter for the correct amount of time

You can see why this style camera is more complex than the normal focal plane shutter arrangement!

Camera Details.

The most noticeable thing I found when I first picked the camera up and tried the shutter a few times was the feel and sound of quality engineering. This camera sounds wonderful when the shutter is cocked and fired – just like precision engineering should sound.

It is quite a bulky, heavy camera however. Quite a lot heavier to carry around than a contemporary camera of more traditional design.

Loading with film

The Bessamatic is loaded with a standard 35mm film cartridge which is fitted into the film chamber and threaded across in front of the exposure frame and onto the take up reel which the film advance lever turns. All that is pretty standard stuff, but the slightly out of the ordinary setting is the frame counter.

On more modern film cameras the frame counter would automatically reset to 0 when the back of the camera was opened. On the Voigtlander Bessamatic it needs to be manually set the the correct setting using a thumb wheel built into the frame advance pillar. To make this work there is a small lever on the top of the camera next to the shutter release which is set to the ‘R’ position (this lever is also used to rewind the film), and then the thumb wheel turned until the frame advance is set to the same as the number of exposures of the film being loaded.

Once the frame counter is set, the film loaded and the back closed, each throw of the film advance decrements the frame counter by one frame.

Exposure

The camera is equipped with a through-the-lens exposure meter which is pretty easy to use and oddly for a vintage camera still seems to be working accurately in my example.

Film speed, light meter and filter compensation

To set the exposure the film speed must have first been set using the small lever on the exposure setting dial.

With the film rewind lever pulled up, the small lever is pulled to the outside of the dial and then the whole inner section of the dial can be moved to align the correct film speed with the little red marker on the side of the dial. Both DIN and ASA settings are shown to do this.

With the film speed set and the photographer ready to take a picture the exposure is set like this:

First the shutter speed is selected by turning the black shutter adjustment fins on the back of the lens mount. It may be that the light meter dial also needs to be moved to select the required shutter speed if the camera is at one extreme of the light meter range.

Once the shutter speed is set the photographer looks through the viewfinder and composes the image. If the film hasn’t been advanced the viewfinder will be black so at this is the time to wind the film on if that’s the case.

Once the film is advanced there is a needle and a line and circle visible in the viewfinder and the light meter dial is turned until the two align. Once aligned the camera is set for the correct exposure and the picture can be taken. Alternatively, at this point the photographer can adjust the combination of shutter speed and aperture to get different artistic effects like blurring the background or freezing action just by readjusting the black shutter speed fins. As long as the camera doesn’t meet the end of the exposure range the correct exposure will remain set.

Voigtlander Bessamatic 35mm SLR : Shutter speed, aperture, focus and depth of field

An interesting part of the exposure system is the depth of field indicator on the lens which automatically moves to show the distance range which will be in focus at the selected lens aperture.

This is shown on the picture to the right. This is very useful if the photographer wants to pre-set the focus so they can rapidly take pictures.

Another really useful aspect of the exposure system on the Bessamatic is the filter compensation.

On the picture of the light meter dial above there are some numbers written by the side of the dial. These are compensation factors for filters and are used to make sure the exposure is still correct after a filter has been fitted to the camera.

These days not many people use filters when taking pictures because any affects are easy to apply digitally after the picture has been taken, but when this camera was a popular, current model filters were used for many pictures, especially in black & white photography. For example, a red filter would be used to enhance clouds in a black & white picture.

The only problem with adding filters is that they block some of the light so the exposure set on the camera needed to be altered to compensate. On the Bessamatic the exposure could be set and then when the filter was added the compensation factor (which was printed on the rim of the filter) could be dialled in using the numbers on the light meter dial to get the correct compensation.

Lens and focusing

The lens fitted to the Bessamatic is a Voigtlander Color-Skopar X 50mm f/2.8 unit with a bayonet mount. The lens mount is actually the same basic design as used on the Retina Reflex, although there are slight mechanical differences which stop the lenses being interchangeable. It is apparently possible to modify either lens type to fit the other camera if desired however.

The focusing operation is made easier by a split lever focusing aid in the middle of the viewfinder. In my particular camera the viewfinder has quite a few black dust spots and would be better with a good clean, but I’m a bit wary of taking the top off considering how complex the camera is.

Voigtlander Bessamatic Specification

Voigtlander Bessamatic 35mm SLR camera

Leaf shutter offering 1sec to 1/500sec shutter speeds

Automatic depth of field indicator

Split level focusing assistance

Integrated, coupled light meter

TTL exposure setting

ASA 12 to 3200 film speed range

Filter exposure compensation

Film type indicator

Table top stand and tripod bush

Bayonet lens mount

Automatic frame counter

Flash sync socket for X or M flash

Self Timer

Voigtlander Color-Skopar 50mm f/2.8 lens

Lens Ser No:4909589

Body Ser No: 28251

Manual available on-line here

Voigtlander Bessamatic SLR camera The Voigtlander Bessamatic belongs to that family of 35mm SLR cameras which have a leaf shutter fitted between the lens and the mirror rather than a focal plane shutter fitted between the mirror and the film.

[thegeneralsnotebook]

Nov 28 Spoiler Design Roundup

Cheering Section

Novelty: As I’m kind of getting tired of saying by now, the card gets the automatic +1 for having the Harmony tag (maybe we can just assume that going forward?) While pushing aggro and Competitive isn’t necessarily something new for Blue, this is one of the few cards that I can think of which specifically pushes the colour to go wide. Which is not something it’s done a whole lot of in the past.

Impact: Competitive 5 is I think the number where this card switches from middling to quite good. So Impact is a question of how many Blue decks from the days of yore could consistently have three pegasi out. Scootaloo clearly would qualify, Bluna perhaps less so. So there certainly could have been some adopters out there.

Flavour: The flavour on this card is pretty nicely established, especially while pegasi are known for having individualist streaks, they’re also fairly team-oriented most of the team. Why wouldn’t they work together to elevate the stars among themselves?

Accident at the Pear Farm

Novelty: As I’ve made this series, I’ve occasionally wondered if Novelty and Flavour are somewhat opposing ideas. For example, sometimes I’ve awarded Novelty for cards that took a colour away from doing things it’s done before, and sometimes I’ve awarded Flavour for cards that let a colour keep doing things that it’s always done. This card is a good example of why I think the system still works. It does a decidedly less-Orange thing (Troublemaker +Power) in a very Orange way (banishing stuff from discard). Which is great.

Impact: Funnily enough, as I mentioned in my Field Report video when I talked about this card, the real allure of it is that it’s sitting in that brilliant 2+2:5 spot where aggro will like it a lot. Even if the text is irrelevant, I can’t give it less for Impact since aggressive decks want Problems like this so bad.

Flavour: This card is strange, since I’d say that if the design idea of the card had anything to do with Dragons, I’d give it a 5. Troublemakers helping Troublemakers: that’s exactly the Dragon synergy. But there’s no connection to pears whatsoever.

Garble, Let’s Race

Novelty: It was pointed out to me after I lost my marbles over this card that giants in Orange aren’t exactly anything new, and Garble himself might not even be breaking new ground in terms of power. Competitive 4 is still the highest value on any individual Friend though, and this is the first Friend that’s been able to do that for Troublemakers (as opposed to directly giving them power like Purple has done before).

Impact: One the Impact front, the first thing that I said for Novelty comes back for this one. Rescue Party actually is probably the better Friend if you want a real aggro powerhouse at this cost, and Garble alone isn’t enough to bring the Troublemaker deck to life.

Flavour: I positively love this card’s flavour, though. I mentioned this in my reaction video, but Garble as a character really has this big individualist streak and is the kind of guy who really could strike out on his own. Despite being a total jerk, this dragon is ambitious, competent, and oh-so-willing to believe that he’s the best thing there ever was. In short, he’s not a ready-made support character, but if all you’re looking to do is start a ruckus, he’ll be plenty of help.

Somnambula, Pillar of Hope

Novelty: In general, for what it’s worth, I’ve found all of the Pillars so far to be quite well-designed. Somnambula may be re-purposing text from good old Balloonoculars, but that text needed to be better represented anyway, and she does something very special with it. The draw trigger is entirely novel, though (again, somewhat similar to what Balloonoculars did, but much more general).

Impact: I’ve plenty of talk already about fun things that can be done with this card, and many of them rely only on original Core cards in order to do it. Without question, this card could have been implemented into a variety of Pink strategies before FF, and I think most of them would have been eager to have her. Granted the answer to her is the same as the old meta’s answer to everything else (Belly Flops, pumpkins, etc. etc.), but it would still be a different place.

Flavour: I really like this card’s flavour. If you wanted to talk about Hope embodied in a card, then look no further. Given a little bit of knowledge, you get to make a judgement call, and hope that you’re right. Hope tempered with the wisdom to direct it properly is a potent weapon. Plus (and I’ll get to this for the other pillars), I really appreciate the chosen art. A hero of action should to the extent possible be depicted in action.

Star Swirl the Bearded, Pillar of Sorcery

Novelty: Star Swirl is functioning here essentially an embodiment of Super Purple. I do believe that “Super Meticulous” is the correct shorthand for his first ability, and it takes the concept to its logical extreme. In addition, even though he’s borrowing Premier Twilight’s text for his second part, that text is entirely new to Core, so it’s not even really that old.

Impact: Unfortunately for Star Swirl, big expensive Friends really need to do something right away to be able to enjoy much relevance. Compare Redeem Starlight, whose ability was positively monstrous if you could get it off several times. Somnambula’s great because she does something right away, and Flash is similar. Star Swirl pretty much needs to see the start of a turn to get his value out.

Flavour: This one borrows from the Novelty blurb quite a bit. Star Swirl is Purple refined and sharpened to a point. The fact that he takes an original Purple ability (Premier Twilight’s) and adds on an evolution of a thing that Purple only later became known for is only icing on the cake. If Premier Twilight was the Faithful Student, then this is what she would have looked like if she’d been able to get her Ph. D.

Flash Magnus, Pillar of Bravery

Novelty: I really do feel sorry for both Flash and Lightning Dust (whose Novelty rating I will be decreasing as a result of seeing this card). It’s such a shame that those two cards simply had to be so similar to each other in the end. Flash gets the better end of the stick for adding a little onto that formula, but at least in this category I can’t help but feel disappointed.

Impact: In this category, though, I’ve got nothing but praise. Even if my initial reaction may have been somewhat over-the-top (Flash doesn’t necessarily go in everything) I still think most Blue decks would eagerly make a place for him. And he would be a potent tool for them. When you can’t zip Thunderlane around and confront everything, then you may as well use this guy as a cudgel on your opponent’s turn.

Flavour: My only complaint on the flavour on this card brings up the little footnote I wrote for Somnambula above. Sure, Flash is a finely handsome stallion, but with the amount of action this guy’s gotten up to, I would have expected there would be some art to show him in the thick of it. A shot of him just standing there doesn’t quite have the same impact. Besides that, though, the design works just fine.

Princess Cadance, Family Matters

Novelty: Cadance actually hits this one out of the park, doing some pretty crazy things on a Friend. The cost-reduction thing is close to Secret but it’s done in a much more extreme way. The Event tax is close to a Mimics (if you name Events with your Mimics about ⅔’s of the time, then in the long run it’s exactly the same thing). And the card draw is absolute insanity.

Impact: Unlike the other big, slow giant tri-colour cards, Cadance gets some love in this category even if she’s a super magnet for removal. Namely, she is still guaranteed value, except for the corner case where she’s removed by some effect that doesn’t require the opponent to play a card. Other than that, you’re going to get at least some value from her, which is enough to make her viable in more than just the reanimation playstyle.

Flavour: Okay, just like I did for Tri-Twi here: 1) While this cost reduction thing is clearly the Blue effect, it reminds me more of Pink because of Secret, and Gilda, and similar things. So I’m not feeling this one. 2) Taxes are for the rich and famous (because in Equestria the tax code makes sense). So White! 3) Pink has returned to its roots, and will draw you all the cards. Sorry, did you only some of the cards? I’m afraid you’re getting all of the cards.

Detention!

Novelty: As a slower unconditional Napcakes, this card reminds me a lot of some of the Events we had back in The Crystal Games. I don’t remember the exact names, but I’m sure there was something at least similar to this. It’s getting it’s mandatory +1 for the Harmony, but that’s it.

Impact: As I said in my reaction video, I think this card is kind of on the fringe even in the world where Unicorn decks exist. If it’s trying to make its own way, it’s not going to find one.

Flavour: Now, the Flavour here is pretty good, though. Top-decking is the most serious removal that Purple can offer, and setting it in the academic context is nice. Plus it’s important to point out that the Unicorn Harmony is done right. Having an abundance of Unicorns isn’t going to make your spells more powerful, but it might make them easier to do.

Smolder, Culture Shock

Novelty: Naturally, I can’t give Smolder much of a drop for Novelty. That text certainly looks nothing like anything that I’ve ever seen before. It’s clever, but it’s still decidedly Orange. It’s nice.

Impact: Smolder gets a helping hand in this category because Orange is really crying out for a reasonable Mane right now. Yes, Muffin Mare exists, but she has a pretty dedicated niche. With AJ gone, Orange desperately needs a good general purpose Mane. And even though Smolder has the obvious Dragon synergy, she’s perfectly fine in other Orange decks that do faceoffs from time to time.

Flavour: Like with Gallus, let me try to interpret this text into something that can be well-understood. Again, we’re in a tough spot (the faceoff). Smolder is going to take the opponent head on (exhausting herself) in the hope of interfering with them (forced discard) enough to give one of her allies (other card) an opening to strike (+Power). Now that is very Dragon-like (it’s bascially what the tribe is about), but it sounds like a super stretch to throw that on Smolder as a character. I’m not convinced.

Yona, Student of Friendship

Novelty: I was getting ready to bust Yona all of the way down to 1 just like I did with Sandbar before. While it’s true that no card that no card has had her specific text before, there have been many variations on the theme. However, I did notice one key thing that I felt merited something: the fact that her effect isn’t local, whereas all of the Friend-based “Turn a Troublemaker down” effects are. That actually counts for something, since it helps her out with the Trixie TM.

Impact: That said, we’re still going to be moving along here. Yellow has plenty of Troublemaker hate already, and won’t blink an eye getting more.

Flavour: Interfering with Troublemakers has in the past been interpreted as impressive power (including in one of my favourite Flavour cards, Princess Celestia, Bane of Evil). However, sometimes it’s also been mere trickery or unexpected good fortune. I find it hard to really fault Yona in any way on this, so she can have a middling score, since she’s okay in Yellow.

Stop Fighting!

Novelty: This is another card that I really like, in this case mainly because of the novel thing that it’s doing with its tribe. When the tribe thing was first starting out, we saw the way that Unicorns and Pegasi and Dragons etc. were looking, and everyone said “Well gee, there aren’t really enough griffons to pull a deck like that together; let’s hope we see a lot more griffons.” But this card is saying that the griffon tribe isn’t going to work like that. There probably isn’t going to be a griffon deck; there may instead be a griffon package that augments other things. And it’s cool to see some tribes that aren’t implemented as full “Your whole deck must be Unicorns” things.

Impact: Somewhat paradoxically given the above, I still think that we’re a little short on griffons at the moment for this card to have a real spot in the world. It’s not terrible as a pure 1 AT frighten, though, so at least I have to give it that.

Flavour: Griffons can be loud and intimidating, and I really love again how the tribe’s synergy is portrayed in the design of cards like this. Griffons generally aren’t team players, so you’re not going to see effects like Unicorn Trixie or Dragon Charcoal. Instead, you’re going to see effects that make each griffon individually better. Top notch, though why this has to be in the discard pile first is a tougher lift for me.

Queen Chrysalis, Evil Twin

Novelty: In effect, what Chrysalis is really implementing is a stronger version of the already-done stealing mechanic. Since this card effectively steals a Friend, but no recourse exists to get the Friend back. If that was the only thing special about the card, it wouldn’t score that highly. But implementing it on a 5-cost, 0-Power Friend that ushers in a whole slew of rules on what “copying a Friend” actually means. Sign me up for that.

Impact: Unfortunately in terms of game impact, we really can reduce Chryssy down to just a stronger stealing effect. Since stealing was already generally considered too expensive at 4, I wouldn’t say that making it 5 and getting the extra surety is going to help all that much. Though she can be cheated out, which is something at least.

Flavour: Let us all take a moment to collectively chuckle at this beautiful flavour text. And if you hear any hissing, watch carefully the one who hisses, for that one may be the traitor in disguise. In all seriousness, though, this card perfectly encapsulates the changeling ideal of aggressively replacing someone else. It’s something Chrysalis honestly ought to do more of on the show; it’s kind of what she’s good at.

Ocellus, Knowledge is Power

Novelty: Well, clearly there isn’t much to say on this. This Mane is totally new; we’ve never seen anything even remotely like this before. And it’s clever, and it’s cool. Ocellus has already inspired lots of new thinking about how to play decks with her (including from yours truly). That’s precisely what novel cards are supposed to do.

Impact: Similar to Smolder, Ocellus gets some of her Impact score purely from the fact that White was in need of a better general-purpose Mane than it currently had. Which isn’t to imply that this one is necessarily “general-purpose”. She definitely does require some thought and work to use properly, but not as much as Octavia. And she’s clearly powerful, though not quite in a way that I’d immediately say she’s going to rock the meta.

Flavour: Okay, I may as well keep this process going. So Ocellus is naturally a timid individual; she needs some support (the efficient Friend) to properly shine. With AT somewhat associated with knowledge via Purple, the Immediate ability is the implementation of the whole Knowledge is Power thing: with applied thought, Ocellus can be a proper force. However, she has to take a hit because she doesn’t belong in White. I fully understand why this Mane had to be White (the changeling colours are Yellow and White) but that doesn’t make it a Flavour win.

Maulwurf, Extra Large

Novelty: It’s true that the text on this card has an identifiable source, coming straight from good old Jet Set & Upper Crust, albeit with a slight variation both in Power and in text. Bringing that effect to Core is desirable enough (especially since it was actually a valuable thing in Harmony once or twice), even if it’s basically the same card.

Impact: While clearly a farming counter, Maulwurf on its own does nothing against a farming deck. Indeed, old JSUC required an Alicorn Amulet to really come into its own, and this card will likely fill the same role in any deck that wants it. Farming is around though, so in that sense it stands a fighting chance.

Flavour: Trying to figure out what exactly the point value of a Troublemaker translates to in terms of flavour was an interesting exercise for me. In the end, I think it comes down to the degree of cunning on the part of the character. Minions and wild beasts don’t get the points, it’s the leaders and the planners that get that benefit. And thus this works, in addition to the moderate values on the rest of the card with the game text filling in for its resistant biology.

Untested Magic Fireworks

Novelty: This card really comes out of leftfield and leaves only an impact crater when it leaves, doesn’t it? On the one hand, this is a classic Johnny card and something that the game needs more of. On the other, it instantly calls to mind Chaos Capital of the World, though clearly with some major differences that probably make it much more applicable to the weird interactions that it’s going to cause people to dream up.

Impact: I have no idea whatsoever what the Impact of this card should be. Again, its presence has already incited fevered theorizing, and a couple of combos that sound like they might be edging closer to the main stage. But it definitely feels like more of a joke to me.

Flavour: At this stage, I feel like the card should just turn things up to eleven and replace the Problems each time while it’s at it, so the whole board is just getting nuked. Either way, though, it’s still pretty awesome. This is a meteor coming out of nowhere and doing some damage. To everyone. Outstanding.

Sorry Stamp

Novelty: Mechanically, this card is actually pretty interesting. It stands in a similar spot to Pharynx, where it’s quite bad when used on its own, but rapidly gets quite respectable when used in the proper deck. In the way that I see Earth Ponies playing, this card is very much just going to be dismiss two things, and that’s new too. It will be interesting to see how the costs play out.

Impact: This is one of the cards where I feel like Impact, as I have been judging it, feels wrong. Like sure, this card gets a low Impact score because it’s not going to start an Earth Pony deck all on its own, so clearly in SB nobody would use it. (Especially since there was no shortage of removal in those days already). But that’s really not the point of the card. But again, that’s why we don’t average or combine the ratings when we do overall. The card is novel, and cards shouldn’t have to always be all three.

Flavour: Like a fair number of these Harmony cards, the problem is with the scaling. We have more Earth Ponies so it’s easier to stamp more stuff? Hardly.

These things somehow always turn out being incredibly gigantic pieces of work. That I didn’t quite expect when I started out. But I guess it’s almost done, right? Just have that review stream to look forward too...