#anyways this guy dies in the middle of a war. hes shot dead for protecting an innocent child

[medicalunprofessional]

quick oc doodle i havent drawn this guy in SOOO LONG

[invisibleanonymousmonsters]

Could you please write Jason and Y/N (Father of Mine Universe) with prompts 48, 31, and maybe 30? could go either way.

Even if you choose not to write this, thanks for creating Father of Mine, it's one of my favorite fics!

Father of Mine

48. Using your body to shield them from attack.

31. Hurriedly checking for their pulse.

30. Performing CPR when they stop breathing.

Jason and Y/N were walking along the water after getting dinner.

Most of the harbors in Gotham were run by one crime lord or another. Which meant that there were very few areas on the water for civilians to enjoy – or feel safe. 

But Jason knew of a strip that was under the radar.

There were a few other couples with the same idea. And random groups of kids and teenagers hanging out and messing around.

Jason was relaxed.

That was his first mistake.

Jason had immediately clocked a random middle-aged man who was covered in sweat and was visibly trembling.

Being far too familiar with the sight, Jason assumed the guy was another unfortunate addict. 

But then he noticed the man was carrying a backpack.

Jason had all of 5 seconds to realize what was about to happen.

He shielded Y/N with his body while screaming as loud as he could, “Get down!”

Jason knew he couldn’t save everyone, and Y/N would always be his number one priority.

The next second, the bomb exploded.

The impact knocked Jason unconscious.

For how long, he had no idea.

He was disoriented from the explosion, his ears ringing from tinnitus and his vision struggling to focus from the vertigo. Yet, somehow he could still hear the beating of his heart in his eardrums. 

People were screaming in pain around him and others were crying as they looked down at their loved ones. Half the harbor was on fire from the explosion. Cement and debris was everywhere. Jason’s hair was grey from it.

He blinked and then panicked.

“Y/N!” Jason screamed when he realized she wasn’t anywhere near him.

He jumped to his feet and whipped around in every direction looking for her.

“Y/N!” He screamed even louder, his throat burning from the effort.

Then he realized when the explosion when off they had been standing next to the railing that blocked off the water. The railing that had now been blasted away and into the harbor.

Jason sprinted to the edge and looked down at the black water below.

Without hesitation, he dove into the depths.

It was almost impossible to see anything.

But just seconds later, he found Y/N unconscious and completely submerged.

Jason had never swam faster in his life.

But when they breached, Y/N didn’t gasp for air.

She was completely unconscious.

Jason’s eyes darted around, trying to find their escape.

By some miracle, there was a rusty ladder that led back up to the pier from the water.

Jason put Y/N’s body over his shoulder as he climbed the ladder, silently praying that the metal didn’t break under their combined weight.

When they reached the top, he gently laid her down and his fingers shot to the pulse point at her neck.

Nothing.

“No, no, no,” Jason mumbled. “Y/N. Come on, baby. You’re not doing this to me.”

He found his Red Hood comm in the pocket of his jacket, and put it to his hear.

“Contact Bruce,” he commanded the AI as he started performing CPR on Y/N.

“What is it?” Bruce answered with slight panic. 

Jason had never called him like this before. And therefore Bruce knew immediately something terrible happened.

“Get the fucking jet here right now,” Jason growled.

“What’s happened?” Bruce asked, but it was obvious he was moving around already to leave.

“There was an explosion. She doesn’t have a pulse and she’s not breathing,” it was all Jason was capable of giving him. “Just get the fucking jet here now!”

He didn’t have time to explain more and hung up. And he didn’t have to say Y/N’s name for Bruce know who he was talking about. There was only one woman in Jason’s life that would have him sounding so panicked and desperate.

Jason continued his CPR, fully focused now that he knew Bruce was on the way.

Still nothing.

He did another round of compressions.

Jason’s eyes started watery as his mind began to believe that Y/N wasn’t going to make it.

He wouldn’t survive.

Y/N had changed his life. She made him better, made him good, made him want to worker harder – do literally anything to become the man she deserved and to continue to be deserving of her love.

“Please,” Jason whimpered. “Please don’t leave me.”

But then Y/N’s eyes shot open and she immediately turned over and started coughing up water.

“Holy fuck,” Jason gasped in relief at the sight.

Y/N continued coughing until her throat was scratched and dry.

Jason rubbed her back, trying to comfort her without preventing her body from getting all the water out of her lungs.

After she finished, she was shaking from being freezing cold and from the shock.

Despite him also being wet, Jason put his coat over her shoulders.

“Don’t ever fucking do that to me again,” Jason begged Y/N as he pulled her into his arms. 

He kissed the crown of her head and hoped his body heat would be enough to warm her up.

“What happened?” Her voice had never been raspier and it was now quivering.

“A bomb went off. I thought I shielded you from it, but the impact must’ve thrown you into the harbor.”

“I’m OK,” she tried to tell him. But her shaking voice was unconvincing. 

Jason wasn’t letting go of her anytime soon.

It was only 5 minutes later that the batplane touched down on what remained of the pier.

Jason looked up to see Dick, Tim, and Damian jump out and immediately start helping the injured.

But Bruce, dressed in his Batman uniform, was walking straight to Jason and Y/N.

“She needs to go to a hospital,” Jason called out when Bruce was a few yards away. “Her heart stopped beating and her lungs took in too much water.”

Jason knew Bruce wouldn’t argue with taking Y/N there immediately.

Bruce was clearly relieved at seeing his daughter alive and conscious. But that didn’t mean she was in the clear. Nearly drowning still had its risks. If her heart stopped beating, she was in danger of brain damage or pneumonia.

“I’ll take her. You help the others,” Bruce ordered as he stepped forward to take Y/N from Jason’s arms.

“Like fucking hell I am,” Jason growled as he stood up with Y/N in his arms.

Bruce was about to fight him on it, but then he met Y/N’s eyes. Her skin was pale and almost had a blue tint to it. She looked so small and vulnerable in Jason’s arms. Not like the strong and grown woman that had first strutted into Wayne Manor.

“I’m not leaving her,” Jason added for good measure.

Bruce finally sighed and nodded. “Take the jet. You know where to go. I’ll meet you there.”

Before Jason could carry her away, Y/N whispered, “What about the others?” 

Her eyes tried to look around her boyfriend’s broad shoulders to see the other victims.

“B is going to help them,” Jason gently told her. He even angled his body to block her line of sight. She didn’t need to see any of it. 

“We already have ambulance and firemen on the way,” Bruce added, hoping it would convince her further not to worry herself. 

There was nothing she could do for them anyway. 

Then Bruce locked eyes with Jason. “Go. Get out of here. Take care of her.”

“Always,” Jason muttered quickly before hurrying Y/N to the jet.

————————

Y/N woke up to two low voices clearly having a serious discussion, but trying to keep their voices down.

When she opened her eyes, Y/N realized she was in a hospital room. But it wasn’t just any room. It seemed like a five-star hotel with how fancy it was. It didn’t have that sterile smell or those harsh fluorescent lights that caused headaches.

“It was a turf war,” Bruce told Jason quietly. “Carmine has jurisdiction over the harbor the two of you were at tonight. But Farrelli wanted it for himself. He forced his latest victim to bring the bomb.”

Jason crossed his arms. “So, the guy was dead either way, Farrelli just thought he’d put him to some use before he murdered him.”

Bruce nodded. “And kill five more people with him.”

“Five people died?” Y/N burst out without realizing it.

Both men’s heads whipped in her direction.

“You’re awake,” Jason sighed and immediately rushed to her side.

“What hospital am I at?” She mumbled, looking around again.

“Gotham General,” he told her as he sat on the edge of the bed to face her.

Jason gently grabbed her hand and kissed the back of it. But he had no intention of letting it go, keeping a tight hold and rubbing his thumb back and forth across her skin.

Bruce was slower to join them as he walked with his hands in his pant pockets.

“This isn’t Gotham General,” she commented with a suspicious gaze. 

Jason scoffed and rolled his eyes. “Yeah. Well, as soon as Bruce arrived, they realized that you’re Gotham royalty by blood, and brought you to a special suite.”

Then Y/N’s eyes slowly moved to her father. “Five people died from the explosion?”

She needed to know. But she also knew that both men would try to protect her from possible survivor’s guilt.

So Bruce just nodded.

“How are you feeling?” Jason asked, trying to distract her by changing the subject.

“Tired. And my throat is sore,” she admitted with a light shrug.

Then she looked up at Jason and really took him in.

There were dark shadows under his eyes – the eyes that were still a bit bloodshot. 

Had he been crying? She hadn’t registered that. 

His hair was a mess, probably from drying haphazardly after jumping into the water to save her.

“Are you OK?” She asked.

It would be right on brand for Jason to risk his life saving her, but ignore any and all injures that he’d received from the same life-threatening travesty.

“I’m fine. Always am,” Jason reassured her too quickly.

Bruce chimed in,“We were all just worried about you, Y/N.”

Both men knew her next question was going to be about the well-being of Damian, Dick, and Tim.

“Can we go home?” She asked softly.

Y/N had always hated hospitals. And once her mother got cancer, Y/N absolutely despised them. Now all she had attached to them was bad memories that constantly threatened to trigger her. 

“They just need to get a scan back, make sure everything’s good,” Jason tried to comfort her. “Once that’s good, I’ll take you home.”

He knew her distaste for hospitals and was prepared for her to want to escape at the earliest opportunity.

“Scan?” Y/N questioned.

“You didn’t have a pulse,” Bruce explained. “You have a concussion. We need to make sure there was no brain damage or any lasting side effects.”

“Right,” she mumbled, trying not to sound worried.

“You’re gonna be fine,” Jason reassured her as he cupped her cheek.

“Perhaps you should stay at the manor for a few days,” Bruce offered. “You can relax and not be bothered.”

“She can not be bothered in our apartment,” Jason interrupted, giving him side eye.

“Jason…” Y/N warned gently.

She knew the signs of Jason getting worked up. The fire in his eyes was always something Y/N could read – more than anyone else.

Bruce wasn’t offended by Jason’s little snipe. He was used to his temper. But his gaze did turn rather serious. 

“Could I talk to you outside for a moment?”

Jason was about to refuse, not wanting to leave Y/N’s side. But he knew that would just most likely lead to an argument. And Y/N didn’t need to hear or see that. She was already exhausted and recovering. The last thing she needed was to witness was her father and boyfriend going at it – especially over her.

So Jason just nodded and stormed out of the room.

The quicker they got this over with, the better.

As soon as the door closed, Jason was sizing Bruce up.

“What exactly is your next move?” Bruce questioned.

“I’m going after Farrelli,” Jason rumbled, as if it was obvious.

No one put Y/N in danger and got away with it. Jason had already come up with a plan on how to seek his revenge. 

It was going to be gruesome and dirty, but nothing less than what the bastards deserved.

Bruce clearly had expected this answer. “So do you plan on doing that while you take care of Y/N?” And he tilted his head as he challenged Jason.

“Are you really trying to stop me?”

Bruce took a step forward. “No, Jason. I’m trying to protect you from yourself. You get blinded by vengeance. And I let you get away with it. But now your actions don’t just effect you…they effect her, too.”

Jason blinked.

“Y/N needs you right now. Even though she will act like she doesn’t.” Bruce inhaled. “If you’re going to put revenge over her wellbeing, she should stay at the manor.”

This was a somewhat of a warning – an opportunity for Jason to do the right thing before he could make his mistake.

Jason’s head hung low now. “I can’t let him get away with it. She almost died, Bruce.”

“And he won’t. But we’ll take care of it,” Bruce promised.

Jason thought it about a moment, before he finally nodded slowly. “I think the manor would be good. But I won’t leave her.”

“I never said you had to,” Bruce corrected.

Jason nodded again and made his way to the door of Y/N’s room again.

“Jason?” Bruce called.

He turned around with an eyebrow quirked.

“Thank you for saving her life.”

Jason tried not to roll his eyes, but took a few steps back to Bruce. 

“You have your opinions about me and her, I’m sure. But I want to make this is clear: I’m always going to protect her. Always. What happened tonight is never going to happen again. I’d die protecting her.”

Jason didn’t wait for Bruce’s response before turning back around. 

But just as he opened Y/N’s door her heard, “I know, Jason. I’ve always known.”

—————

Jason was able to convince Y/N to stay at the manor.

And she surprisingly agreed – as long as he came with her.

Alfred spoiled her rotten with all of her favorite meals. He was constantly bring her tea or coffee. 

Damian ordered all of his pets to keep her company and cuddle with her. To the point where Jason was annoyed because there was literally no space for him.

Tim downloaded a hundred movies for her to watch. 

Dick sent flowers and chocolates. 

Even Clark stopped by when he heard what happened. 

Unbeknownst to Y/N, all the boys and Bruce were working on taking down Farrelli. 

If Jason was the man from just a few years ago, Farrelli’s corpse would already be rotting somewhere in Gotham. But he had changed. Now they had to do things the right way.

Jason stuck to Y/N’s side like glue. He hovered, watched her like a hawk, wouldn’t let her do anything on her own.

After of a few days of this, Y/N finally had enough.

“You gonna talk to me anytime soon?” She asked him in bed on their third night.

Jason broke their eye contact.

“Jason. Please?” She whispered.

Silence filled the room.

“I can’t do it.”

Her brow furrowed. “Can’t do what?”

For a split moment, she thought he was about to try and break up with her. 

“I can’t watch you get hurt again. I just…I can’t.”

She cupped his cheeks. “But I’m right here. And I’m fine, Jason.”

“When I…” He hesitated. “When I died. I knew it was coming. I saw the bomb counting down and I knew there was no escape. I accepted my fate. I knew I was going to die. And I was scared.” 

Jason shook his head and took in a deep breath, “But Y/N…that was nothing compared to what I felt when I was convinced I’d lost you. I’m never been so fucking terrified in my life.”

Y/N smothered him with her embrace. “I’m so sorry for scaring you. But I’m OK. Please just focus on that. Please.”

“I can’t lose you, Y/N.” Jason whispered into her hair. “This place was hell before I met you. And I have no fuckin’ interest in fighting it without you.”

Y/N wished she could promise Jason that she would never leave him. But she was the child of a mother who passed far too soon. She knew life and death could be so cruel, ripping the loved ones away with or without warning.

No, she didn’t die this time. But who was to say something like this wouldn’t happen again? And maybe next time, she wouldn’t be so lucky. They lived in Gotham after all.

“Fate may have other ideas…But I never plan on leaving your side, Jason. I love you too much to do anything else.”

Jason actually laughed. “I can fight fate.”

He’d done it once before.

----------------

I have a few more of these prompts for bonus material. But let me know what you think 🤗

[anniebrainrots]

Family

In which you reflect upon yours and Technoblade’s shared past. 

=============

warnings: mentions of violence (nothing too graphic), slight gore, angst, SBI family dynamic, no y/n 

wc: 3.2k 

notes: i’m sorry if there are any grammatical errors, i really tried my best :,) 

===========

You can’t remember a time when you and Technoblade actually fought. You had always been attached at the hip, you had watched him grow up from a young boy full of ambition and fire to an accomplished man with strong ideals and a fierce personality. That’s one of the things that you had prided yourself in, well, that and your impeccable ability to calm the pink-haired piglin. 

You remember the first time the voices had appeared; he had come to you after he had gone hunting with Phil for the first time. He had mentioned his first kill, how it had awoken something in him, how it almost felt like he had been running on autopilot when he shot the arrow. You hadn’t known how to talk to him through his episodes then, though with years you had learned what to say to not set him off. 

The first time he had killed a man hadn’t been that long after his first hunt. A bandit had come to your small camp in the forest in the middle of the night. You couldn’t have been older than twelve at the time, Techno being thirteen. You had been held at knifepoint, held in front of Phil and Wilbur while the hybrid had gone out to get more firewood when your campfire dwindled. You remember seeing horror cross the two faces in front of you before the grip on your neck had loosened and a man had dropped right to the floor. You had tried your best to erase traces of that night from your memory, but the thin scar on your neck always made a point to remind you of it. 

He had changed since then, an insatiable thirst for bloodlust had festered deep within him, unable to be satisfied. He hadn’t been too good at controlling the voices at that time, and the first time he had lost control in your presence he couldn’t bear to look at you for a week out of shame. It had taken the help of Phil, Wilbur, and even Tommy to talk him out of separating himself from you. After that, your bond with him had only grown stronger. When you had left the family to pursue your own adventure with Techno, you had learned how to talk to him, to ease the voices that always screamed at him. 

The second time he had lost control around you it hadn’t been directed at you. The both of you had entered a tournament for money, and the result had been devastating for you. Techno had gotten his long hair cut short while your wings had ended up getting chopped off. It had been a foul play, ambushed from the back while you had fought another in front of you. Techno had seen nothing but red, finishing off both people before consoling you the best he could. You had mourned the loss of your flight and your precious wings for weeks, not eating and barely alive, according to Techno. He had half the mind to send you back to Phil, doubting his abilities to protect you but you had insisted to stay with him, that you would simply be too ashamed to look your father in the eyes and tell him why your wings had no longer been on your back. 

Years later, even though you still held the loss of your wings close to your heart, you had learned to move on with the help of your companion, finding solace in causing chaos and taking down unjust governments. Naturally, when Wilbur and Tommy had called upon you both to help them with their revolution against a tyrant who had taken charge of their old country, you had been more than happy to come. 

The first few weeks had been spent catching up with your brothers, and you had exchanges of your adventures and their experiences running their country. You couldn’t help but notice darkness festering deep within Wilbur’s eyes, and one night he broke, asking Tommy if they had been the bad guys all along. You couldn’t bring yourself to tell them you had followed them that night, eavesdropping on their conversation. You had confided in Technoblade, the piglin merely dismissing your concerns for your brother as he urged you to start preparing for the war. You had tried to ignore it, the way Wilbur’s tongue dripped with acid every time he had spoken of L’manburg, the way Tommy had flinched when Wilbur would walk into the same room, the way Wilbur constantly disappeared in the dead of the night when he had thought no one was watching. But you had been, you had always been watching him. 

The day he hid behind Dream, the man that had nearly killed Tommy twice in their war against the Dream SMP, you had nearly taken it upon yourself to incapacitate Wilbur. Technoblade, as war-hungry as he always had been, paid no attention to this, which had angered you greatly. Once you had learned of Wilbur’s planting of hundreds of TNT underneath L’manburg, you had tried to talk him out of it. 

“L’manburg is a fallen nation, birdie. It’s done nothing but cause pain for everyone, so why does it have to exist? You wouldn’t understand, you weren’t there when we built it, so stay out of our fucking business or leave.” The nickname that Wilbur had given you in your youth sounded like nothing but pure venom and ice, and his words had stung you far more than anything else. 

That night, you had approached Technoblade; you couldn’t help but notice how you had been falling apart due to how busy he had become with his preparations.  It had been obvious to you how stressed he was, spacing out more frequently while you had conversed. When you brought up your concern over Wilbur’s plans, he lashed out. 

“God, you’re so annoyin’, always havin’ concern over what Wilbur wants to do or not. The man ran the country way before we even got here so why do you care so much?” 

“I’m worried because everyone’s life is on the line here, Techno. You’re telling me you’d let your brothers fight in a war that will end up in explosions? What about Tommy, you’re gonna let him go through with this? Why can’t you see that Wilbur’s gone crazy, and he needs to be stopped?” 

“I can’t let you do that. No matter what you want, I promised to help Wilbur and if you don’t agree with his ideals, then just leave. We don’t want you here.” For the second time that night alone, you had been told to leave by some of the most important people in your lives. You choked back the rising sob in your throat, letting your sadness dissipate and anger take over. You had marched right out of his base, not a single call of your name from the man you had just spoken with, and you had concluded that that would be the last time you would talk to him. 

You had gone deep into the forest into your small cottage, taking all of your valuables and putting them in your ender chest, stuffing food and all of your weapons into your bags where they had fit. You had taken a few pieces of TNT, no one needed the rest of these items anyways. You had been deep enough in the forest that the explosion would not be heard from anywhere near PogTopia, so you had quickly ignited the TNT and watched as your house exploded onto tiny remnants. A small crater had been left in its place, small enough to pass off as a creeper explosion in the night. 

Your second stop had been to Tommy’s quarters, where you had found him sitting by his bed. 

He had looked up at you in slight confusion, noting your packed bags and outdoor attire. He had wondered if you were going to go scouting in L’manburg and almost wanted to ask if he could come, but you had cut him off before he could. 

You handed him a sword, the first one you had ever made with your own hands when you were barely his age. 

“What’s this for? And why are you dressed like that?” 

You gave him a watery smile, “this sword helped me survive all this time, so I hope it serves you well in the war. And I can’t fight alongside you anymore, Tommy. Technoblade and Wilbur had made that very clear tonight.” 

“What? Wilbur? I’ll go speak to him right now if he’s makin’ you leave. You can’t leave, you just can’t!” Tommy stood to his full height, arms wrapping themselves around your smaller form. You patted his back, offering words of comfort. 

That night, you had left with a heavy heart, and despite your rather unpleasant last experiences with Will and Techno, you couldn’t help but to think of them fondly from time to time. 

That led to where you are now, in the Tundra, in a humble cottage in the middle of a clearing. There’s a village nearby, with wonderful farmers offering you discounted golden carrots for all the help you provided for them in the past 6 months. 

You never did find out the outcome of that war, and something tells you that it didn’t end in celebrations. You traveled far enough that even news from L’manburg would be unlikely to reach all the way here. Still, though, you can’t help but wonder where Technoblade is, if he’s been taking care of himself, if he’s even still alive. You snort at that, of course he’s still alive; Technoblade never dies. 

One day, you wake up with a slightly more cheery attitude than most other mornings. You prance around your house, humming songs to yourself while you clean and cook. It’s quiet, like it always is, and sometimes you find yourself wishing you’re back to the old days, when everything was loud, chaotic, and bloody. The silence, however, is a luxury you never knew you needed. 

Your black cape and golden crown (one that Techno gave you in order to match with him), hangs in your closet, unused. 

You make sure to polish the crown once a week, it being a gift from a man you harbored feelings for since your youth, you couldn’t bear to leave it to collect dust. You sigh wistfully, placing the newly polished crown on your head while looking at your reflection in the mirror. 

You can’t help but notice the way your features have softened, given your lifestyle with Techno over the years, you were almost never given a break from all of the bloodshed. Your eyes are brighter, and your face gleamed with a newfound glow, one that had always been stained by dirt and grime from the battlefield. You note faint scars running down your arms, a brief moment of insecurity passing through you as you remember the perfectly clean complexion the village women had. 

You’re cut off by your thoughts by a rapid and harsh knock on your front door, and you rush to take off the crown and place it back in your closet and head back downstairs. It’s odd, almost no one visits the Tundra, so the very idea that someone is knocking on your door is already incredibly bizarre. You figure it’s probably a wandering trader, a very impatient one sounding from the hurried knocks. 

You open the door roughly and step back slightly in shock. Phil stares back at you with equal emotion in his eyes, he obviously wasn’t expecting you to answer the door. Your gaze shifts to the man by his shoulders, hanging limply with his head down. 

“Help,” is all Phil’s able to say before you quickly wrap your arms around Techno’s midsection and lead him to lay down on your couch. Blood pools around his waist staining your cushions, but you can’t even acknowledge that. He’s passed out and pale, so you make quick work to tend to his injuries, finding him improperly wrapped in loose bandages. 

After cleaning his injuries, the worst of which being a stab wound on his midsection and a large gash on the arm, you wrap him with bandages and give him healing potions to speed up the recovery. With the help of your adopted father, you move Techno to your bed, closing the door before joining Phil on the floor near the fireplace. 

Phil watches you sit down next to him, eyeing your bloody hands before blinking away to stare at the flickering flame. He also notices your wings, or lack thereof, but chooses to stay silent. 

“What happened? Why is Techno like that?” 

He’s silent for a moment before answering, “after the big battle, they reclaimed L’manburg but reinstituted Tubbo as the new president. Techno didn’t like that, so he fought back. It was him against everyone else. After that he fled to escape but someone was able to shoot him down with an arrow and stab him. I knocked the guy out and tried to fix Techno, but I couldn’t do that with everyone chasing us down. So, I took him on a boat and ended up here. Gave him enough healing potions to not die, but I barely had enough. Thank god we found you.” 

You go quiet at that, a question annoying you at the back of your mind. 

“Did he do it?” From your tone, the man realizes you’re referring to Wilbur, and his heart clenches at the fresh memory. 

“He did. I barely got there in time, mate. I tried to talk him out of it but…” he trails off, shoving his face into his hands to hide his tears, “I killed him.” 

Your shoulders slump in sympathy, about to comfort him, “Phil, it’s not your faul—” 

“No. I literally killed him. When he pressed the button, he gave me his sword and…” this time he lets out a weak laugh, “did I do the right thing, birdie? Was I right to kill my own son?” 

You can’t wrap your head around that. “Wilbur’s dead?” 

Phil cries quietly to himself, nodding his head to affirm your thoughts, making you let out a small ‘oh’. 

You’re at a loss for words. Sure, Wilbur had been nothing but toxic to you the last time you had seen him, but that didn’t overshadow the years of love and affection he had given you in your childhood. Deep down, you knew the Wilbur you had seen last had been nothing but the shell of the person that gave you piggy back rides when you were learning to fly so you can experience being off your feet, of the person that bandaged your knee when you had tripped and had been too scared to tell Phil you had gotten hurt, of the person that sang you songs on his guitar whenever you felt restless at night because he knew they helped you sleep. Wilbur is—was—your brother. 

“He went crazy, Phil. Too clouded by his emotions to think straight. He endangered the lives of everyone around him. He wasn’t Wilbur anymore at that time, Phil. He was just a man that had lost everything, too scared to rebuild from scratch that he just destroyed his work so no one else could have it. It was like watching a child who lost their favorite toy. Jesus, Phil, if you’d seen him then…” You watch the crackling fire, words caught in your throat, unable to finish the sentence, silence lying heavily in the air. “He needed to be stopped.” 

The man you saw as your father goes quiet, and from the corner of your eyes you see just how this man aged. Despite being immortal, Phil always had what you called ‘sleepy eyes’ referring to the way he seems to constantly have bags underneath his eyes that made him look sleep deprived despite being well-rested; a trait that Wilbur inherited, and Techno had purely because of his lack of a proper sleep schedule. Tommy used to tease them about it, despite having developed it slightly after his staying up with you, Wilbur, and Techno in the dead of the night to sneak out when Philza was asleep. 

“Guess we’re both flightless now, huh?” You ask after a moment, studying his burned feathers that would surely never heal properly enough for him to take flight. He let out a humorless chuckle, dull eyes closing for a moment. 

“I tried to shield him from the explosion but it resulted in quite some irreversible damage.” He stretches his wings out, barely even a quarter of its original length, black feathers singed and unrecognizable. He gives you a glance from the side, “you never told me about yours.” 

You hum, and your back burns with phantom pain. “I lost them in an arena. A couple years after we left, Techno and I participated in this free-for-all arena and some guy ambushed me from behind and cut them off.” Your left hand grips your sleeve, images of red and withering feathers flashing before your eyes. You feel a gentle hand on your back, and all of it stops. 

You and Phil sit together in well-appreciated silence, basking in each other’s presence after so many years of no contact. A shuffle from the other room catches your attention, you turn and see Techno stepping out of the room, one hand supporting himself on the wall and the other wrapped around his midsection, tight against his fresh wound. You and him make eye contact for a split second before you turn away and he redirects his gaze to Phil. 

From the corner of your eyes you see them staring at each other, having what seems to be a silent conversation before the older man sighs and gets up. He pats you on the head once and gives Techno a nod before stepping outside. Uh oh. You know what’s coming next and you don’t know if you’re ready for it. You say nothing when you hear approaching footsteps from behind you, staring at the dwindling flame in the fireplace. You say nothing when he sits behind you on the couch, unable to sit on the floor because of his injuries. You say nothing when you turn around from your sitting position on the floor to look up at him. 

Despite only being apart for 6 months, Techno sure looks older. Maybe it had been the effects of war, but both you and him have gone through countless battles before and you had never seen his face like this. Grim, serious, unapproachable. Something in his eyes flicker when he stares at you; pity, remorse. 

“I’m sorry.” Techno says after a moment, looking guilty as his facade slowly breaks. 

You don’t know what to say. The Blood God, infamous for his unyielding wrath and immeasurable power, for his countless victories in war, for his presence made to induce fear upon people, bowing his head to you in remorse. Was this the same Blood God that you hear countless stories of? No, this is Techno. Your best friend, your partner in crime, your person. 

“I know.” 

[overclocksaa]

the aftermath of secret invasion will, like, forever make me borrow steve rogers’ disappointed eyebrows, because it’s like this:

be mad at tony.  hate him for civil war.  he fucked up, in a big way.  genuinely, i feel like it was from a place where he overreaches out of a need to protect, but he still fucked up, but also.  he’s not the only one that fucked up, steve did some shitty things, too; it got so bad because they made that shit personal between the two of them, and that’s just a fact.  but steve tends to get a pass for it because, you know, he’s steve and he died.  still doesn’t absolve him of his own bad judgment calls, but tony was right in that people do put steve on a pedestal and refuse to understand he’s not perfect.  tony does, too, but he also calls steve out on his shit as needed, it’s why they work when it’s not big ideological things, because i think steve buys his own bullshit from time to time.

(sorry, steve, but i’m right.)

(steve rogers can be more than just a little bit stubborn and a real asshole, is what i’m saying.)

(of course this isn’t getting into like...the conspiracy theory of it all, either.)

(warzone literally did nothing to not-confirm that conspiracy theory.)

but like...the idea that tony can be blamed for the invasion of the skrulls, when he’d been as suckered as everyone else is like...the marvel universe:  what are y’all, fucking twelve?  is this middle school playground bullying?  you can’t blame him for not being able to literally predict the future and foresee literally every circumstance, no matter how he wants to believe he can.  correlation does not always equal causation, and you can’t blame him for everything because you’re mad at him for one thing.  in which i am looking specifically and completely at steve rogers, america’s top cop, here, because a steve not holding a grudge probably wouldn’t have left tony hanging like that with regard to his suits and his tower.  like sure, they were quote unquote confiscated by the government or whatever but you get the impression from tony himself that steve could have given him something back whenever (i think what bothers me most about that in particular is that while tony is absolutely not helpless without a suit there are still some very powerful people that would like to see him very dead and he’s out here counting how many suits steve has seen fit to give him back - all older models, one of which he was almost beaten to death in the desert in - sidebar, tony’s welcome home big guy to the busted model 1 makes me sad - that he’s gonna have to strip and break down for parts is just...if you wanted to see him squished like a bug, steve, don’t be a coward and do it yourself i guess, but that’s how you get a civil warrior and no one wants a civil warrior).

(sidebar sidebar, i really still need to get the civil warrior funko.)

anyway, the point of this is that you can’t predict shapeshifting aliens intent on destroying you and tony was a scapegoat for the whole thing since the entire friggin country somehow concluded because norman osborn shot the skrull queen that somehow makes all the shit he did as green goblin better, and the whole thing was just a mess and i’m forever disappointed in steve and usually am any time he wears that damn uniform as a whole, thanks for coming.

[wanderingsoul6261]

Ghost Behind the Face-Part 2

Pairing: Russell Adler x Bell!Reader

warnings:none

decription: Russell Adler and Bell talk for the first in years.

Bell had situated herself back in her designated area back at a newly relocated safe house for the team. The team that she was now tasked with to help stop and take down Stitch. But her area consisted of a small space blocked off by the rest of the main building with sheets and large peices of cloth, as the building only happened to be a small warehouse that was being sold for a small profit. It held a cot, in which she had bought several pillows and blankets to make it a lot less uncomfortable. Beside it was a small side table. And by side table, it was really only a bunch of 2 x 4s that were found in the previously empty warehouse. On it she had set her pistol, a book she had only just begun to read a few weeks ago, a journal and pencil that she also doubled as a sketchbook, and a pair of reading glasses. She had her gear sitting close by to the cot, in case it was needed in a situation that needed her to move fast and quick, and a suitcase with some of her clothes sat underneath her cot. In addition to all of that, she had a few candles and a box of matches she used on nights where she couldn't sleep. Bell had always preferred candle light over the light that was emitted from light bulbs. It helped provide her with a calming sense. But alas, it was the middle of the day, and therefore the lights in the warehouse were plentiful and without a doubt, turned on. But instead of joining the others in a discussion about what had happened recently, she hid away in her small corner. Bell was reminiscing, remembers the days back when it was her,Adler, Park, Mason, Lazar, Sims and Woods. She had yet to get in contact with the others, minus Lazar, as he didn't survive one mission that the team had gone on. Her thoughts were disrupted when the sheets blocking her off from the rest of the building were gently opened, revealing the man that she knew she would have to explain everything to soon. Bell kept her gaze on him, her face expressionless as she tried to formulate words in her head, as she tried to prepare herself for a conversation that she wasn't expecting to have so soon. She had almost wished he had forgotten, but she knew that wasn't going to happen. It was Adler we were talking about. "You can come in. You know that right?" She asked,further tightening her arms around her legs as her thighs rested against her stomach and her chest, propping her chin upon her knees. "I wasn't sure of you wanted to talk to me right now." He said in reply, his gruff voice filling her ears as he walked over to her cot. He sat at the end of the cot, catching her by surprise when he faced his back towards her. What was his reasoning? Did he not want to look at her right now? Was it guilt? Nervousness? Had he felt like he failed his job in killing her and now refused to look at her because it was a reminder? His voice didn't betray any emotion as her eyes laid themselves upon his back, which had tensed up. "A fishing charter ship found me." Adler lifted his head slightly from the bowed position he had it in, turning it slightly to the left. It was his way of telling her he was listening. "I was halfway dead. Which is reasonable once you factor in the cold waters and the fact that I had a gun shot wound to my stomach." Bell thought that he had winced, but it was so subtle that she assumed she was seeing things. "But you know what." She waited for him to say something. To turn to her and ask of what she was going to say. But when she received no answer, she continued talking. "I was okay with that." Adler picked up his head so that it sat a little straighter and twisted his upper body so that he could look at her. "What?" "I had helped you and the team save the world. I helped prevent a third world War from happening. If I was to go out that way knowing that I had done a good deed with my new life, to know that even with a little chance that I could have possibly been known as a hero...I was okay with it." Adler had moved so that he could sit closer to her, his eyebrows furrowed as he stared at the woman before him in confusion. "You wanted to die?" "No." She said. Bell lifted her head from her knees and crossed her legs, picking at her fingernails. "But like I said. If I had a chance in which you guys told the world that I died as a hero while stopping those nukes, the thought alone was enough to satisfy me. It was enough for me to believe it." "Even if it was a lie?" He asked. Bell nodded in return. "Even if it was a lie." The two stared at each other in silence as they tried to read one another. Bell thought that he wanted her to continue her story. But he seemed to have peiced it together without confirmation from her. It was only logical that once the fishing charter found her, they had a helicopter come and get her to take her to the closest hospital where the CIA would have later found out she survive. From there she would have been placed under a sort of temporary witness protection while they healed, in which once that happened, she was taken back under their command and sent back to the field. "I didn't want to." It was now Bell's turn to look at him in confusion. "Shoot you I mean. But I knew that the moment we found you on that tarmac and plans were made to brain wash you in attempt to get answers and intel on Perseus, that tying off loose ends after the mission was what needed to be done." "I understand." Adler shook his head as he continued to look at her. "Why? Why are you so understanding? Why won't you hold a grudge against me?"he asked. "It was your job. Its what happens in our jobs. If it wasn't me, it was someone else. We gain intel from the enemy, and to prevent any leaks in the system, we tie off loose ends." Bell shrugged. "Its not hard to understand." "The real question is, did you want to do it?" She asked him. Adler looked over at her. "At first, I was fine with it. I knew what I had to do. But I never expected myself to get attached to you." "Attached how?" Adler let out a small chuckled as he shook his head slightly. "Even after all these years you are still oblivious." His chuckle quieted down as he looked at the floor, before turning his head to look back at her. "Im glad you're still alive. I regretted everything, just so you know. But anyways." Adler stood up, Bell tilting her head to watch him. He looked down her in response. It was like he was contemplating something. His hands twitched slightly, as if he wanted to touch her, to hold her, to tell her everything that he wanted to tell her. But instead, he had given her a small smile, that almost appeared to look sorrowful as much as it was regretful. He had opened his mouth to say something, and she froze, expecting the words 'Bell, we have a job to do' to come out of his mouth. But then he closed it again, and let out a sigh. "Its been a long week. Get some rest. God knows you deserved it." And with that he turned to leave, once again leaving Bell in silence as he disappeared from her sight, his foot steps disappearing as he went off to do god knows what. Bell swallowed thickly as she stared at the spot he had once sat, remembering the concern and confusion in his face as she spoke of what happened and how she felt. And now she wondered what was gonna happen next.

[duhragonball]

Battle Tendency Liveblog JJBA Ch.48-52

This is the “Joseph vs. Straizo” arc, so I’ll just lead off with one of my favorite moments from the entire JoJo franchise, when Joseph furiously declares war on Straizo with tears in his eyes.   In the anime, voice actor Tomokazu Sugita delivered this with such intensity that it actually overshadowed the machine gun.

None of the dubs or translations can do it justice, including this panel from the JoJo’s Colored Adventure scanlation project.   This is a faithful translation of Joseph’s line, as far as I can tell, except they always leave off the last part: “宣戦布告だぜ!!”  In romanji, that’s: “Sensen fukokuda ze!!”    And it means  “This is war!!”  

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Last time, we saw the Joestars treating their new friend Smokey Brown, to dinner at a fancy Italian restaurant.   Some mafia jerk caused trouble, Joseph whooped his ass, and then a second mafia guy apologized and shared a rumor he recently heard: Robert Speedwagon was found dead in a Mexican riverbed, apparently killed by a Tibetan monk.  

From there, we see that Joseph immediately realizes that this must have been Straizo, and Erina suspects that it must have something to do with the Stone Masks and the battle with Dio fifty years ago.   Smokey warns Joseph to consider the source, but Joseph is pretty sure it’s credible information, since mafia guys are all about money.   I’m not sure what that has to do with whether he’s telling the truth, though.   Either way, Joseph slugs the guy for just blurting out such terrible news in front of Granny Erina.  

Now, at this point, Joseph and Erina are making all these Phantom Blood references, and Smokey has no idea what they’re talking about.   And I think seeing this panel helped me understand Smokey’s role as a viewpoint character.  When the Part began, it seemed like Smokey was sort of the narrator for the thing, which works because he’s a good viewpoint character, and he seemed to be settling in as a sidekick like Speedwagon and Poco in Part 1.   But shortly after this he just vanishes from Battle Tendency altogether, and then he shows up at the end like it’s no big deal.   I never quite understood that, and I think this is the sort of thing that fuels the “Araki forgot” memes, but it actually makes a lot of sense.  

See, Smokey’s primary function is to be the viewpoint character, specifically for the readers who missed out on Phantom Blood.    BT is a direct continuation of the previous part, in a way that none of the other JoJo parts are.   Most of the main BT cast was deeply affected by what happened in Part 1.   A few of them lived through it, and the ones that didn’t have personal connections to it.    So they constantly talk about Stone Masks and Dio without really stopping to explain any of it.   Well, if you don’t know what they’re talking about, you can take heart in the fact that Smokey doesn’t know either.   So as long as he can keep up with the story, so can the uninitiated readers.  For now, all that matters is that he’s impressed by the Joestars’ great kindness, and he’s intrigued and disturbed by these hints of a tragic past in their family.  

And eventually, Smokey learns just what happened to the Joestar Family, or at least everything that the reader needs to know to follow Part 2.   But that doesn’t happen until near the end, which is why he shows up to hear the secrets revealed.   But for most of the story, he steps aside, because that’s mostly about Joseph dealing with events in the here and now, so Joseph can act as his own viewpoint character.  

But is Speedwagon truly dead?   The story flashes back to the previous night, after Straizo killed his own disciples and clobbered Speedwagon.   They’re in this temple where Speedwagon discovered more Stone Masks, like the one Dio used, but Speedwagon also discovered an immortal man petrified in a stone column.    Straizo was enlisted to destroy this “Pillar Man” with his Hamon power, but instead he wants to use one of the Stone Masks to turn himself into a vampire.  

Before he does this, he reads Speedy’s translations of the writing on the walls of the temple.    The ancient Aztec cultists who built it said that the Pillar Man was immortal and had many powers, but he was vulnerable to the sun, just like the vampires from Part 1.   But the writings warn that the Pillar Man created the Stone Masks because of this weakness, and one day, “when he befriends the sun, the world will be his.”  That doesn’t seem to follow, since the only thing the Stone Masks seem to be able to do is make new vampires, who are just as vulnerable to sunlight as the Pillar Man.   

Anyway, Straizo doesn’t seem to care.   He just doesn’t want to die of old age, and he’s become disillusioned with the Hamon power he has, so he’s turning heel and going full goth on us.   To avoid Dio’s mistakes, he plans to eliminate any witnesses, including Joseph and Erina.  Then he’ll go into hiding and figure out a long term plan, with the rest of the world unaware of his existence. 

You know, now that I write that out, I’m amazed by how similar that plan is to what Dio ends up doing in Part 3.   In Part 1, he set about turning a whole town into zombies, and planning to unleash them on the world without any real agenda.    But in Part 3 he eventually holed up in a swank mansion in Cairo and took great pains to stay hidden while he acquired more power.   Parts 5 and 8 carry that same idea even further, with villains who go to great lengths to cover up their very existence.   

At any rate, we only see Speedwagon pass out in this scene, so it’s unclear whether he actually dies or not.   Really, using Speedwagon in this way is a pretty smart play.   He’s an old man, and he was never going to survive another 50-year time-skip into the next part, so it’s safe to assume that Part 2 is his swan song.   But how will he die, and when?   It could be at the very start, or maybe somewhere in the middle.  

Anyway, Straizo just walks up to a cafe in New York to confront Joseph, and Joseph whips out a machine gun and shoots his ass.   This whole time, Straizo had assumed that the untrained grandson of Jonathan Joestar would be easy pickings, but Joseph’s a lot more skilled with Hamon than he expected, and he’s tricky too. 

As Joseph fires on Straizo, he recalls how worried Erina was about all this.   The story kind of glosses over it, but Joseph seems to have worked out Straizo’s entire plan.   I guess that’s not much of a stretch.   He and Speedwagon were together with a temple full of Stone Masks, and then Straizo turned on Speedwagon.    Why else would he do that, unless he used the Stone Mask to turn into a vampire like Dio did?   And once you arrive at that conclusion, it isn’t hard to figure out what Straizo’s next move would be.    And that’s how Joseph was so prepared for this.    After the shooting stops, Smokey freaks out about Joseph murdering a dude, but Joseph was expecting a vampire the whole time. 

I also like Joseph’s line in the flashback.   Erina isn’t worried for herself, but for Joseph, because it looks like he’s being pulled into this same tragic fate as the rest of the family.   But Joseph resolves to face this head on.    “If this is my fate, then I accept it.”  Pretty sure Will Zeppeli said the same thing when he discovered that he would die saving Jonathan.  

There’s similar “call-to-adventure” moments in the other parts.   Jonathan has his when he accepts Zeppeli’s offer to train him to battle Dio again.  Jotaro has his when he defeats and saves Kakyoin, then learns what’ll happen to his mother if he doesn’t go.   Josuke has his when Angelo shows up and he has to avenge his grandfather.   Giorno kind of always had a hankering to take on Passione, but I think things got serious once he had a choice between killing or sparing Bruno.  There could be no turning back from that point.  For Jolyne, it was the moment she had a clear path to escape the prison but decided to go back in because that was where her enemy was.    For Johnny, it was that one battle where he chose to crawl towards the danger to save Gyro instead of withdrawing to safety.   For Gappy... I’d have to study that a bit.   

But for Joseph Joestar, it’s this moment.  Erina never sent Joseph to learn the Ripple from the Hamon monastary, and she seems to have taken great pains to keep him out of trouble, but now trouble has come to them, and Joseph isn’t about to back down.   

So yeah, bullets don’t actually kill vampires, but Joseph was hoping to destroy his head with some of those shots, or at least slow Straizo down long enough to finish him off.   Instead Straizo reveals that he has the power to shoot high pressure fluid from his eyes, the same move Dio used to kill Jonathan at the end of Part 1.   He calls this “Space Ripper Stingy Eyes” which is either stupid or brilliant depending on your mood, I guess.   He used it to protect his head from the machine gun fire, and then he uses it again to shoot Joseph... except he hits Joseph’s reflection in a nearby mirror, and I guess he didn’t notice the real thing standing behind him.

What makes this fight so awesome is that these two are determined to kill each other, and they each have extremely simple moves to defeat one another, but they have all these tricks and schemes to protect themselves.   Joseph manages to hit Straizo with Hamon, but it does nothing... because Straizo was a Hamon master before turning into a vampire.   He can’t use the Ripple without destroying himself now, but he still knows how to defend against it.   For instance, he’s got this scarf woven from dead bugs, because it conducts Hamon energy far more effectively than his own body.    So it just absorbs Joseph’s attacks and disperses the energy harmlessly away.   

Does it really have to be made of dead bugs?   I feel like Tonpetti just told him that as a prank.   “No, really (snort!) the only thing that works is dead bugs.  (tee-hee!)   It smells awful but you have to wear it (ha!).”

But Joseph has his own tricks, like... putting a dozen grenades on his opponent’s back when he isn’t looking!  Seriously, there was zero opportunity for him to do this.    One moment he steps over Straizo’s body to see if he’s still alive, and the next moment he supposedly planted all these things on his scarf.   I get that he could pull a string connected to the pin without being noticed, but that’s the only part that makes sense about this.   It’s still awesome, though.   If Jonathan had access to explosives, Part 1 would have been a lot shorter.  

I really think this was the battle that set the tone for Stand Battles in later Parts.   Araki loves these off-panel tricks in combat, and they’re a lot easier to explain when all of your characters have magic super powers.   If Joseph had Hermit Purple in this fight, there’d be no problem at all.   He could just use Hermit Purple to snake through the ventilation shafts and hook up all the grenades.   In fact, it’s tempting to suggest that Joseph was unconsciously using Hermit Purple throughout Part 2, but I don’t want to get into that right now.

Anyway, explosions don’t stop vampires any more than machine gun fire.   Straizo’s body is in pieces, but the pieces just slither back together and regenerate.   Wait, wouldn’t his head have been vaporized in that blast?   Also, Straizo spends the rest of this battle in the nude, so we know that stupid scarf is out of the equation.   Why didn’t Joseph just go back in the cafe and finish Straizo off while he was still in pieces?

Again, it’s easy to say “lol Araki forgot”, but I think it’s a lot more sensible to suggest that Joseph forgot.   As clever as he is, he went in with the Ripple, a machine gun, and a dozen grenades, and Straizo had an answer to all three.   He doesn’t want to press the attack because he’s out of tricks.   All he’s got left is another Hamon attack, which means Straizo will see it coming.   Or he’s still worried about the scarf, and hasn’t realized that it’s gone now.    In any event, he’s running away, creating some distance before Straizo can make his next move.

Also, there’s a lot of bystanders gathering around, so it makes sense to take the fight elsewhere.   Some guy named “Bruty” tries to stop Joseph to impress his girlfriend, but that backfires spectacularly.  Was Bruty in the anime?  I feel like he wasn’t, but I don’t want to check. 

The one I do remember is this girl photographer.   Spider-Man hadn’t been invented yet, so in those days photographers just sort of wandered around with their camera, waiting for Spidey to debut.   This exploding vampire diner is the best she could do in 1938.  

I just really like this lady.   There’s a spark in her eye and I just assumed she would end up being Joseph’s love interest by the end of the story.    Well, we’ll get to that.  

Instead, she’s a hostage.  Joseph and Smokey run to the Brooklyn Bridge?   I guess?   It’s a bridge, I’m sure of that much.   Anyway, Straizo catches this lady and takes her with him to intercept them.   He threatens to kill her unless Joseph faces him again.   But Straizo offers to spare Joseph and never trouble him again if Joseph runs away.   This is because Straizo figures that if Joseph chickens out now, then he’ll never be a threat to Straizo in the future, no matter how powerful his Hamon abilities become. 

Joseph tries to call his bluff, but then Straizo rips out one of the girl’s teeth to prove he means business, and Joseph gets furious all over again.  I don’t think he was ever planning to abandon this fight, but he was probably hoping to get Straizo to give up his hostage at least.   Now he’s just pissed, and Straizo is impressed.  Joseph tries to act cool, but he just can’t hide his passionate feelings.    This is in stark contrast to Jotaro, who wagered his own soul in a poker game and bluffed his way to victory. 

So Straizo tries again with the Space Ripper Stingy Eyes, but this time Joseph blocks it with two shot glasses charged with Hamon power, and then he lands the decisive blow.   But before Straizo dies, Joseph demands to know why Straizo dumped Speedwagon and the others in the river.   Not only does Joseph want to give him a proper burial, but he doesn’t understand why Straizo would have dumped them in the river, since that was how Joseph knew to expect him.  

Wait, I thought Straizo wanted Joseph to know he was coming.   Oh well.

Anyway, Straizo explains that he had to do it, because the Pillar Man was absorbing the blood from his victims.   Straizo was worried that the Pillar Man might awaken, so he put them in the river instead to be safe.    Nevertheless, he suspects that the Pillar Man will reawaken eventually anyway, and Straizo now realizes that it will be Joseph’s destiny to face him some day.    Then Straizo just uses the Ripple one last time, and self-destructs. 

It always seemed strange to me that Straizo saw the danger of the Pillar Man and just left things the way they were.   Maybe he planned to deal with him later, or maybe he just didn’t know or care about it until Joseph defeated him, and he felt a moral obligation to warn someone. 

I guess he could have destroyed the Pillar Man like Speedwagon wanted him to do in the first place, but it seems like Straizo didn’t realize that blood would wake him up until after he was already a vampire, and unable to use the Ripple.  For that matter, it remains to be seen if Hamon will work on Pillar Men.   

Anyway, what else is going on?   Oh, yeah, Europe is getting closer and closer to World War II.   The official start of the war is usually considered to be September 1, 1939, but Italy invaded Ethiopia in 1935, and Japan invaded China in 1937, and Germany annexed Austria and conquered Czechoslovakia in 1938, the year Battle Tendency is set.  So we’re in this weird time period where there’s Nazis in the story, and the British-American protagonist doesn’t care for them, but isn’t trying to kill them on sight.   I’ll be coming back to this topic later on. 

I think the main reason for including Nazi Germany in this story was to draw parallels between their goals and those of the fictional villains.    The Nazis believed themselves to be the “Master Race”, the most “evolved” people, and this made them worthy to rule the world.   Araki notes that they turned to all sorts of sci-fi/occult/fantasy stuff in their war.   Similarly, you have villains like Dio and Straizo turning to mysterious Stone Masks for spooky powers, and then you have the Pillar Man himself, who apparently sought the means to “befriend the sun” and rule over the world.    So the Nazis fit into this theme of trying to claim some sort of supremacy over other beings.  

But what’s their role in this story?   Well, the Germans have an “information base” in Mexico, run by a guy named Stroheim.   He makes pretty ladies shave him with a straight razor, and if he gets a nick he makes them lick the blood off, and then he threatens to cut off their tongues.   Also, he trained his dog to not eat treats until given permission. He’s a sick fuck, is my point. 

Wait, no, my point was that his staff discovered the bodies that Straizo dumped in the river, including Speedwagon, who’s still alive, somehow.      I guess Straizo was going to finish him off but he got in a hurry when he saw the Pillar Man absorbing the blood from the others.  Not sure how Speedwagon survived that ordeal, but Stroheim’s men have been taking care of him this whole time, and he was unconscious until recently, so it might have been touch-and-go for a while. 

            Back in New York, Joseph doesn’t know what this is all about, but he decides to go to Mexico himself to get to the bottom of it...

[silver-embersss]

Broken Horns and Broken Hearts Chapter 9

Chapters: 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / 9 / 10

“Tommy!”

“The fuck you want?!”

The drowsy teen rubbed his eyes as someone dragged him out of his rickety bed, into the ravine proper. He wasn’t wearing pyjamas, since he ran away with only the clothes on his back and an inventory full of junk, so he just slept in the same muddy clothes.

“Tommy, we have to prepare!”

“Prepare for wha- Oh. The festival. It’s like, the middle of the night though!”

Wilbur grinned at him, but the manic smile died when he didn’t smile back.

“Will-”

The Ex-President grabbed his shoulders in an iron grip.

“What, is the famous TommyInnit not gonna fight on our side tomorrow?”

He tried to pull away, but Wilbur didn’t let go.

“No, I know what it is.

“You’re scared.”

Tommy shook his head.

“No, Will-”

“TommyInnit you’re scared! I can see it in your eyes, hear it in your voice- you’re terrified! And you’re terrified of people seeing through you, to the coward you are!”

“Wilbur come on, I thought we talked about this-”

His voice trembled, and he let out a shaky breath.

Wilbur leaned down so that his face was level with Tommy’s, and the teen had to stare right into his maniacal expression.

“Why not be the bad guys Tommy? Let’s blow this shit to smithereens!”

“Wilbur, this isn’t the way-”

He’d tried, over and over again, to dissuade his brother, pull him back from the cliff from which he was poised to jump. It never worked.

The arsonist just turned away from him with a wild laugh.

“Coward.”

Techno just watched, pretending he couldn’t see the tears that ran down his little brother’s face as he prepared for war.

---------------------

[TW FOR BLOOD+GORE]

When he came back to himself, Tubbo couldn’t help but scream.

What have I done?!

Blood dripped down the handle of his axe, and he dropped it with a small cry. Fundy knelt in front of him, a large gash across his chest spraying blood. The fox looked up at him, terrified, breath hitching and half of his face bruising rapidly.

“F-Fundy, Oh god-”

His friend’s expression warred between fear and hatred as Tubbo stumbled back. Caught between trying to help Fundy or run away, the teen took another step back, slamming into someone behind him.

“Tubbo, what- Fundy!”

Niki pushed past him to tend to the shapeshifter. She stared fearfully at him, eyes darting between the blood on his hands and his horns, glinting in the moonlight. Tubbo tried to plead with them both.

God, what happened?!

“Niki, please-”

“You- I don’t- Tubbo, how could you?!”

Niki’s eyes filled with tears as she put herself protectively between him and Fundy.

Tubbo just stared, his own eyes stinging.

“I- I’m s-sorry…”

He whispered, throat hoarse.

What’s happening to me?!

With no options left, Tubbo turned and sprinted away, bloodstained shirt flapping behind him and tears whipped away by the wind.

-------------

Tubbo crashed through the undergrowth as he ran, tree trunks whizzing past him, dark shadows that loomed above his head like disapproving gods. Often, he stumbled, grazing his palms on the coarse dirt, but still the teen threw himself forward, sobs tearing themselves from his throat. The bloodied bandages he’d wrapped around the base of his horns were coming loose, and the end of one briefly touched his face before he brushed it away.

A bramble ripped through his thin dress shirt, scoring a gash across his arm. Another caught on one of his horns, leaving a thin scratch along the dark surface. The teen pushed through the thorns, not noticing the prickly vine curled around his ankle until it yanked him backward. Pain shot up his leg, and Tubbo faceplanted into the dewy grass with a raw sob. He curled up where he lay, ignoring the throbbing of his newly-sprained ankle, tears pooling on the earth beneath him.

“Schlatt?!”

Tubbo flinched at the sound of his best friend’s voice. He shifted, covering his face with his hands, but froze when he heard the sound of steel on leather.

“Don’t fuckin’ move! What the fuck are you doing here?!”

The teen bit his lip hard, knowing what was about to happen and beginning to tremble. Tommy was going to kill him, thinking he was Schlatt, and even after he saw his face he’d know he deserved it… What happened next was unexpected, though.

“Y-You’re hurt…?” His voice was strangely soft.

Tommy’s sword stayed leveled at his head, but the teen took a step closer, brow furrowing.

“Wait…”

Tubbo stopped breathing for a second.

So did Tommy.

“You’re not Schlatt!”

Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck- Every nerve in Tubbo’s body told him to run, cry, punch Tommy in the face and pretend this had never happened-

Too late.

Plus, he was tired of hiding.

He raised his tear-stained face from the ground, and sat up.

“T-Tommy…”

“TUBBO!”

To his surprise, instead of running him through like a kebab, Tommy dropped his sword and seized Tubbo in a tight hug, grinning like crazy. Then Tubbo saw the inevitable falling of that joyous smile as his friend remembered why he’d thought it was Schlatt in the first place. He began to explain, but Tommy cut him off.

“Tommy, I-”

“-We gotta get you inside, Big T! It’s fuckin’ freezing out here!”

The teen picked up his sword and sliced through the brambles wound around his ankle, before hoisting Tubbo’s uninjured arm around his shoulders to take the weight off of the sprain. It only took a minute to get to the small hillside where the entrance was concealed, but now they faced the challenge of getting Tubbo down the narrow, winding stairs to the ravine. Luckily, Techno was on guard, and he didn’t ask questions, just unceremoniously slinging the teen over his shoulder and carrying him down in silence.

Tommy whispered something to the piglin before grabbing bandages and binding Tubbo’s ankle, neither of them speaking the whole time. He almost died from the tension, but finally it was done, and Tommy flopped down on the stone floor next to his friend.

“So…”

He said eventually.

“What’s with the fuckin’ Schlatt cosplay then?”

Tubbo couldn’t help himself.

He burst out laughing, and after a moment Tommy joined him.

“Schlatt… c-cosplay?!”

He giggled, and Tommy elbowed him hard.

“Sh-Shut... up!”

Suddenly, they both sobered, meeting each other’s eyes. Tubbo was the first to look away.

“You don’t have to-”

Tommy started to reassure him, but Tubbo cut him off with a gesture. He looked down at his hands in his lap, fiddling with the torn fabric of his shirt.

“I… Schlatt, he…

“Schlatt’s my dad. He’s- I have his horns.”

A minute passed in silence, before Tommy enfolded his friend in a side hug. The teen froze in surprise.

“But… don’t you hate me?”

“What- What are you on about? Why would I hate you?”

“You don’t think I’m on his side?”

“Are you?”

Tommy smirked.

“No! I mean…”

He bit his lip, avoiding eye contact.

“I don’t know.”

He whispered.

His friend cocked his head to the side, confused.

“What is that supposed to mean?”

Tubbo didn’t answer for a moment, trying to think of what to say. In the end, he just blurted it out without thinking.

“I- I keep being horrible to people and I don’t remember it and I feel like I’m copying Schlatt and I imprisoned Niki and I hurt Fundy, I- I- I stabbed him, and there was so much blood but I don’t even remember how I got there but he- he could b-be d-dead and and I- I-”

His words broke down into sobs and tears burst forth anew. Tommy didn’t let go of him, just stared up at the high ceiling of the ravine. Eventually, he spoke.

“I mean, he was a bit of an arsehole anyway. I could say I’m upset, but that would be lying.”

Shocked for the second time at Tommy’s reaction, Tubbo just stared open-mouthed at his friend.

“You-”

“Tubso, you really think I’m gonna stop being friends with you just because you fuckin’ stabbed someone?”

“Uh, yes?”

“Then you’re a fuckin’ dumbass, clearly.”

“hEy-”

Tommy burst out laughing at the voice crack, and said cackling was contagious. Once again, they both dissolved into hysteria, the laughter echoing off of the stone walls.

“D’you wanna stay here tonight?” Tommy asked, with a chuckle that turned into jaw-cracking yawn.

“Wilbur said we were supposed to be preparing for tomorrow - well, later today, technically - but I could kill for some shut-eye.”

The teen leant back against a double chest, and Tubbo copied him.

“Well, I’m not exactly sure I could go back anyway… Niki-”

“Hey, it’s cool! So, Techno made some stew the other day and I don’t know about you but I am starving, wanna see if there’s some left?”

Without waiting for an answer, Tommy hooked Tubbo’s arm around his shoulders again, hoisting him up. Tubbo took a moment to consider, then frowned. He actually couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen food other than the cookies he sometimes brought to Schlatt with his coffee.

It turned out that there was stew left, and after heating it up by a precarious system of balancing bowls over a campfire and gobbling it down in three seconds flat as teenagers are wont to do, the two dragged blankets and pillows out to the main area. It was warmer there due to the fires, and there was more space than Tommy’s alcove - enough room for them to spread out, anyway. Tubbo was the king of taking up more space that should be physically possible for someone of his size, whereas Tommy tended to almost shrink in his sleep, so most of the time it worked out.

Tubbo was about to doze off when he remembered about Tommy’s frequent nightmares. Ever since Eret’s betrayal he’d wake up drenched in sweat, having re-lived the moment in his sleep, needing to make sure that neither of them were dead. He shivered at the thought of Tommy down in this dark ravine all alone, with both of his brothers off somewhere else. For all the teen’s bluster, Tubbo knew he feared being alone more than anything, and it worried him - but he seemed fine, right?

Right.

[reginaofdoctorwho]

weird shit that would probably have something to do with me in a horror movie

no one wanted this but i’m bored and found a bottle so you’re all getting it. yes these are all true. check the tags, if u think i’ve missed something please let me know!

there was a murder (technically, i don’t really count it as a murder) next door when i was four years old on christmas morning

the weird antique glass bottle i found half-buried in the woods in the woods yesterday with living bugs in it that made no attempt to leave it once i uncovered it

there is a local cult in the next town over. this is not the same as the local cult that was in the other town over where my mom grew up

random completed animal skeletons in the woods behind our house, i’m talking prey and predator, both laid out like in a goddamn scientific diagram. for a while there’d be ones in the middle of our yard, always the same type of animal, always just the bones and nothing else, laid out like it was posed. this has been happening for over half a decade and we have no fucking clue how, why, or who is doing it

the screaming from the woods that i’m going to assume is a fox

my sister almost dated a murderer. his niece or something is in my class

there is a house that is now part of a “local ghost tour” that belonged to my great+ grand parents during the civil war where my great+ aunt died allegedly murdered by her husband who is actually blood related to me. family history says she died of childbirth, which given that it was the 1800s... probably is true

there was an actual murderer in our family a few generations back but he married in and killed his wife and her sister. they didn’t find out about it until they read his journals after he died where it apparently told everything he did and they decided. “well, that wouldn’t look good for the family, and they’re already dead anyway” and just kept it hidden??

the fact we have my great great grandmother’s dress from probably 1890s or 1900s. even more so the fact that i fit in it. if this was fantasy horror (vampires, some immortal thing or ghost) i’d be fucking dead or cursed

fairly certain i was possessed by the ghost of a puritan as a kid

my family seems to have a curse with babies and nurses? my great uncle died when he was born because long story short, hospitals were the new hot thing, he was perfectly healthy, then a nurse dropped him and he died instantly. my sister died when she was a toddler and the hospital actively tried to delete her hospital records to cover it up and ended up getting fined by the state for it. the nurses responsible were not arrested or punished in any way.

my family all has fucked up connective tissue, in my brother it was bad enough he had to get a steel bar in his chest so it wouldn’t cave in.

the many times i have almost drowned, sometimes due to intentional actions by humans (my dad, it was my dad)

this in addition to the other fucked up shit he did before the divorce when he still lived here, including but not limited to: killing my mom’s favorite pet goat, hanging its skull in a tree, and leaving the body in the woods. not letting his kids learn how to cook. anytime someone asked him to cook he’d put as much pepper/hot sauce in as he could (even for like, scrambled eggs) and give it to the youngest person, usually a toddler. this was me at times. taking his kids out to the woods and threatening murder. taking his kids out to the woods and threatening burning. purposely locked the basement from the inside so we couldn’t get the gaping hole in the stairs leading to one of three kids rooms fixed. tearing up pictures of the kids whenever my mom did something he didn’t like. i had more here but i tried to cut it down a litttle

people have threatened to murder me before. one time a girl didn’t threaten, and actually acted like she was starting to like me, but her cousin read her diary or something and found out she was planning to commit a lot of murder, and told her parents and she got sent to a psychiatric ward for a couple weeks

my mom lived down the street from a family that got axe-murdered by one of their two sons when she was a kid. the murderer did get out on an insanity plea and is still in the area. also their neighbor’s mom “lost her mind” (how the story was told) when she had to protect their kids while her husband went over to try to protect the non murderer son when he got home from school and ran over screaming about his brother trying to kill him and had killed their parents

also she knew a girl who almost got kidnapped by this really fucked up traveling serial killer that has his own wikipedia page that is,,, lengthy. the girl had [alleged] mafia ties, and the guy ended up dying shot by police despite them being told to bring him in, which sounds kinda suspicious

long story short i’d probably be the sequel where one comes back

apparently i go to the “bad” school, which i found out in a coffee shop when i overheard two girls talking about how one’s dad went there and how horrible and dangerous it is

school fights are weird. either they don’t happen or they come freakishly close to murder. people slam heads into lockers, stomp on bones, drag people by hair along the ground. one time in my brother’s class a 4′9″ girl sent a 6′2″ football player to the hospital. there was video of a fight a couple years ago that’s still around. it was brutal, but also one of the girls fighting was taking one for the team in it and got the other kicked out

we don’t have a ceiling in all of the third floor, and the cafeteria has 2. this is not relevant in any way, but it’s important to me that you know this

also the guys kept ripping the heating vents/radiators/whatever off the walls in their bathrooms and got almost all the bathrooms locked. including the girls’ ones.

also everyone kept punching holes in the walls so on some of them it’s just,,, metal sheeting down the whole hallway

there are so many fucking shootings in the next town over. literally five years ago it was this nice place where kids would go on history tours, i did when my sister worked for that group. now there is pretty much one business that has not been held up at gunpoint, and if u look up to the serial killer bullet point, it is for v similar ties. it’s a pizza place and if u ever stop by u gotta try it

women in my family have weirdly good intuition but every couple generations we get doubtful. my great grandma didn’t want a hospital birth but decided “hey it’s the hot new thing for a reason”, my mom switched churches based on nothing but intuition and it turned out someone was a pedophile there (found out years later), i instantly could tell my friend’s boyfriend was a pos and wasn’t surprised later when he told her he’d murder and dismember me in front of her, and upon meeting him told him he was a fucking coward and couldn’t do it. he broke up with her a month later.

i was really good friends for a while with two guys that burned a building down. yes they were arrested. i was friends before and after the fire. they’re pretty nice, but this girl they used to date (at different times, they were brothers, yes it was fucking weird and uncomfortable for everyone involved except her but that’s it’s own thing) said some fucked up shit and it was the closest i ever got to starting a fight. anyway i’m still friends with both on facebook. one of them shares a lot of king of the hill memes

speaking of that fight, i 100% would’ve tried to kill her in that moment. u know that john mulaney quote like “i didn’t understand how a person could want to kill another person. then i got cheated on, and i was like ‘oh, okay.’”? that was me, but replace “cheated on” with she told me it was good my five year old sister was dead because she was a waste, and told me she hoped i’d die of covid”. it was mainly the sister thing. i couldn’t move because if i did i’d start a fight with the [way] above mentioned shit.

my family has a literal feud with a local farming family. i mean, we keep farm animals (sheep, goats, chickens), these people have that, pigs, and crops too. the feud was because their great uncle (or great grand uncle, i’m a little fuzzy on the details) published an autobiography (despite not being anyone famous/important) and in it talked about when he was friends with my grandfather and how creepy my great grandfather was (this was the one with the dead firstborn son) because he kept newspaper clippings of the Lindbergh baby’s kidnapping and murder pinned to a board on the wall of his office/basement. also because he was a child of german immigrants who wanted to fight against nazis in WW2 (how suspicious [sarcasm]). members of their family are in my grade. they charged my sister for almost half an extra pound of goods, too, which just revitalized it.

i live by corn fields. i am surrounded by cornfields. (joke one)

i was friends for a while with this girl whose baby teeth,,, didn’t really fall out completely? she was 17 the last time i saw her in person, she’s probably 19 now and judging by her facebook pictures they’re still Like That. she had a very symmetrical mouth/teeth, which made it weirder. just to clarify, she had some of her baby teeth pushed forward and up, so they kind pointed out a little? and all her adult teeth. she was literally so pretty.

a teacher who is v sexual with his female students came into my english class (he is a science teacher) to demand why i wasn’t signed up for his class. we then both became increasingly passive aggressive and he told the whole class where i live with specific directions and landmarks. the guy sitting next to me had to try to tone things down despite being obviously confused as to why it was even happening (me too buddy). he lives down the road from my sister. when my niece had her birthday party at our house i was outside setting things up and he slowed his car down and honked at me. fuckin creep

[a-student-out-of-time]

Twisted Sister Arc Review Part 1

Hi guys I’m the Anon who does the reviews around here…guess you could call me the Review Anon? Wonder what the lore behind me would be…anyway that doesn’t matter! Point is, I have an Arc to review and Jesus is this a big one. So big that A) I’m doing submissions (with permission from the Mod of course) and B) I’m splitting the review into 3 parts. Heavy Arcs are Heavy and a LOT of stuff happens here so let’s get right into it!

So, the parts of the Twisted Sister Arc are first the Massacre, second is the Mindwipe and third is the Prison Break. Last one doesn’t start with M but I’m not doing rhyming here, but that’s enough time wasting let’s get right into it~

Massacre

Easily the darkest part of the Arc but given the Arc is basically Kanade being a Slasher Killer here, what do you expect? While Danganronpa is a franchise about murder, and we had serial killers in it both canon and fanon the nature of the Killing Game means that a full-blooded mass killing akin to many slasher films hasn’t really occurred in the franchise before. This makes Kanade’s bloody rampage here even more disturbing, as while we have had mass killings before, see Mukuro’s rampage through Giboua Middle School in Killer Killer, those are established as backstory drops for the characters, we never actually see one being carried out in action. And going back to that massacre, Mukuro only did it because Junko thought her sister’s killer intent might have slipped and it’s to prove to her she is still a killer, but here Kanade is killing for cold blooded revenge. And she doesn’t just kill a bunch of randoms as she brutally murders Iroha, Peko, Akane, Nekomaru, Sonia and Kokoro very brutally and very effectively. I knew something was up given that the entire school went into lockdown and all the fighters from Class 77-B were geared to fight Kanade to the death, and Kanade is such a pansy of a fighter that Sonia beat the living shit out of here, and Syo was taken down by the QC, and we all know how terrifying Syo is. But once the bodies started to drop, I knew that the first time that Hajime would reset on purpose was coming up and there were so many questions. Who set Kanade up for this? Someone had to be helping her…. but who and why? Juu could have let her out but he couldn’t have supplied Kanade with her tools and intel (more on that later) so it has to be someone else.

Within the darkness of this timeline there is of course your heroes. There are those like Peko who got a lucky shot on Kanade which set a chain line of events leading to Kanade’s death, Mikako who made Kanade’s injuries worse and Kokoro who stabbed Kanade in the eye. But those small victories led to total loses as even if Peko didn’t die, she would be crippled for life and moreover she failed to protect her classmates from Kanade’s wrath, and Mikako lost her mother, just as she started to finally connect with her. You may have noticed that I haven’t mentioned two names yet, and that’s because they deserve their own paragraphs, I am of course referring to Nikei and Hibiki.

I’m gonna start with the next person who attacks Kanade and that is of course our Journalist boy here. To say this day has been terrible to him would be a massive understatement as one minute he is suffering an energy crash from downing one too many Red Bulls and having lewd thoughts, to running faster than if he happened to be in Mexico (Seriously, if you happen to be a journalist just don’t go to Mexico) to Hope’s Peak and thanks to Ankle Effects, arriving alongside Hajime to a bloodbath. There’s his constant refusal to accept that Iroha is killed, even though we as the audience knew that given Iroha tried to stop Kanade as soon as she arrived at Hope’s Peak and that Kanade was seen by Sonia and co chopping up security guards, the likelihood of her survival was next to none. This carries on from the conversation Nikei had with Yoruko in the previous Arc where he still believes he is dangerous and that he doesn’t see the other Voids as friends or equals, but rather he took the role as leader because he wanted to have power for once in his life, something he alluded to in the Void Theatre during Chapter 5. However, his reaction to Iroha’s unknown safety, and eventually the truth that Kanade really did butcher the poor painter, proves otherwise. While Nikei’s relationship with his fellow Voids canonically won’t get revealed until LINIQ decides to get around to doing the Onmake mode, in which one of the stories in that is going to be about Void pre Mikado- with someone, most likely Nikei, being the POV character, here the fact his first thoughts upon finding out his ‘little sister’ is dead is to disregard the no-killing rule and just beat Kanade to death, proves that he does care about his fellow Voids, but is in several layers of denial. Out of all the Voids, Nikei is easily the most guarded and paranoid of the lot, and while the others have loosened up around Hajime and co, Nikei still has a lot of inner demons he has to deal with before he could truly open up to the rest of the QC. And Kanade chopping his right hand off, doesn’t help matters though I do give Nikei credit that unlike in the OG timeline, where upon his right hand been blown up by his exploding gun, he just broke down crying, here, he tries to carry on the fight regardless, or he would have had the other person I need to talk about didn’t show up. This is pretty important to establish that while most of the Voids now are pretty far removed from their canon selves and are unlikely to regress back in that, Nikei is still closely tied with his bastard canon self and more work needs to be done for him to detach from that.

But moving on from someone who needs to get some work done, let’s move onto someone who has seen the natural conclusion of their character development, Hibiki! Ever since Hajime and Chiaki rescued Hibiki from her twisted sister (*rim shot*) back in July, she has been making a ton of progress, firstly coming to terms with what Kanade did and her true nature, developing friendly healthy relationships with Class 77-B, the QC and of course a romantic relationship with Hajime. It seemed kind of cliché for Hibiki to fall for Hajime but then again a) Danganronpa can be cliché at times and B) As a Danganronpa Protagonist Hajime cannot turn off his swag. Then there is her officially joining the QC, learning how to fight and being a complete and utter badarse and a caring lover when needed as she confronted Hajime back when he died the second time. We all knew it was only a matter of time when Hibiki had to confront her sister and when Kanade broke into the school, we saw fully, how much Hibiki has grown in the past 3 months. The old Hibiki would have curled up in a corner terrified, crying and probably going into the Puppet State. Here though, Hibiki’s FIRST THOUGHTS upon finding out that Kanade is more dangerous now is to done some armour and get some weapons, and face her sister head on with no hesitation. All without going into the Puppet State at least once, which probably means that its more or less gone now. Kanade tried to talk her sister out of fighting her, but Hikibi isn’t buying Kanade’s insurance anymore and a fight breaks out. If this ever gets animated or becomes a visual novel, I would love to see the Hibiki vs Kanade fight animated as its brilliant, its epic and it’s just so satisfying to see Kanade getting the living snot beaten out of her. You could argue that Nikei’s mauling of Kanade was like that but there, Nikei was more or less in grief due to Iroha’s death and the whole thing was as painful to watch as the final fight in Captain America: Civil War, not saying what because spoilers ahoy. Here though is a glorious battle, as Hibiki gets to deliver justice onto her demonic sister and it is SO SO satisfying, given that a reset happens shortly afterwards.

And sadly, with that, we come to easily the weakest part of not only this part of the arc, but the arc overall, Yasuke’s multiverse theory. It could be written better, and even the Mod agrees that the way it was presented shouldn’t have been the way it worse, that having Umeko throw some ideas at Hajime and him coming to the conclusion that they might have been living in a multiverse be better narrative then Yasuke be like ‘Oh hey I am suddenly an expert on Time Travel now’. It would make Hajime breaking his no kill rule that much more impactful as he doesn’t have the excuses of not only Nikei’s who was currently going through a mental breakdown, and in the current plot where Yasuke more or less planted the seed of doubt in Hajime’s mind. Yasuke still has a role to play in this arc but during the Massacre timeline, I feel like he could have been removed entirely from the plot and not only would it have made no difference, but then most readers wouldn’t be complaining about it as much as Yasuke being a general A-hole wouldn’t tick them off. I’m not saying ‘THIS IS AS BAD AS ONCOMING STORM’ as that Arc was just a giant clusterfuck of a mess, and aside from this one part, the arc is very strong overall, but I will give criticism when due. I’m not mentioning my thoughts on Yasuke as a whole here because he’s more relevant in other parts of the Arc. However, Hajime killing Kanade and himself at the same time is brilliant and seeing Kanade begging for her life as Hajime throws her out of the window is so satisfying given not only all the crap she has been dealing up until that point, but also because in SDAR2, she was 100% fulfilled with the events at that point and given it was HIBIKI who was begging for her life then, let’s just say karma is a bigger bitch then Kanade is.

And that concludes the Massacre part of the Arc as Hajime kills himself and Kanade at the same time and he goes back to just before Nikei started to have indecent thoughts. No time to look at the 3rd page of the national newspapers’ boy, we got a serial killer to stop! And with that I’m stopping here as the Massacre part is finished. But this review is far from over, this is just here because otherwise my, the Mod’s and everyone else’s brains won’t be able to process all of this. Stay tuned for part 2 when we cover Kanade’s capture, a scrum debate among the QC and a bold move by the Mod which I do wish will come up more! Until then, Adios! - Review Anon

//Part 1 of 3

//Finally get to submit these

[nightmare-chaser]

Living In Interesting Times

Could everything stop happening for a few minutes? 

There are riots on the street. They are in the right but they are being attacked and murdered, because in the power’s eyes there are no right riots. The police, those we are told swore to protect us from criminals, have in fact sworn no such thing. They wield power as a weapon against those minorities they cannot stand. They dress in disguises and start violence so they have a reason to attack the peaceful.

I saw a post where a black woman said she no longer allows people to say “They did that because you’re black,” and instead corrects them to “They did that because they’re bigots.” Before I had seen that post, it had not occurred to me the difference in wording, it had not occurred to me how the blame was shifted on the daily. There is something unflinching about the response, and while I am not being attacked, I flinch still. How had I not heard?

We have a facist in the white house, except the facist is too sensitive and thinks “facist” is a strong word. He tells us anti-fascist sentiments are treason, are terrorist ideas, as he puts families in cages and calls them illegal. The cages are filled with disinfectant, flooding the air and causing burns on the people, and somehow the people will not condemn it as gas chambers, because those should have died with Hitler. Those should have died with Hitler, not been dragged into the modern era out of spite for a condemnation of the poor conditions of the victims.

We have only a few months to get the fascist out of office, or else he stays for another four years. The fascist’s name is Donald Trump, and the idea that he would ever be president was so laughable that the simpsons made a gag over how terrible he would be. When he won the presidency, his campaign staff treated it like a funeral, for he did not want the job. Why did we give the job to a fascist who did not want it? We need him out. If we do not get him out, if we must live with him killing us for another four years, then we will have to live with him appointing two more justices to the supreme court, and he will continue to kill us for many, many more.

There is a country that is about to be extinct. It’s name is Yemen and I cannot point it out on a map. My geography, my history classes have failed me. It’s been in a civil war for six years and I did not hear a peep about it. I could not tell you it’s culture or it’s people or it’s language or it’s art, and it’s dying. It’s healthcare collapsed under the strain of the pandemic and the people are starving to death. An entire country is about to die, but I cannot even watch in horror because the news is silent on it.

Can we stop living in interesting times? I heard the Greeks used to wish interesting times on another as a curse, and I understand why. I live in helpless fear as things happen miles from me that I cannot effect. I live in fear as the things nearest to me are ruled by a powerful few. I do not know what tomorrow will bring, but it nearly certainly promises to be worse.

I am white. I am middle-classed. I do not fear for food or money, not right now. I am privileged and I am growing more aware of it by the day, and by the day I grow more ashamed of it. I did not make this system, but I profit from it with my mere existence and I do not know how to change it.

There was a black man shot dead by police in Atlanta, even though he was cooperative and polite. I do not know his name, and that is my own failing and a failing of the system. There was a black nurse shot dead in her own home by police, and her boyfriend is being charged for it. Her name is Breonna Taylor, but I do not know his name. There was a man named George whose last name I cannot spell whose neck was kneeled on by police until he suffocated. There are enough names of murdered black people to fill the back of a shirt in a dense paragraph of words, but I do not know them, and I do not know whether that is my personal failing or another of the system I find myself entangled in.

I learned in sociology class that society is more than the sum of it’s parts. I learned that even though we are all gears in society, society is also it’s own separate living organism. I did not understand it then, not fully. I understand it now, as I watch movements be born and gather members and fight to kill the rotten parts, as I watch things stay nearly the same anyway. Society has become a dragon to be defeated, but our knight is sickly or missing. The teeth are batons, it breathes tear gas, and it roars lies and “fake news” as it eats us alive.

There is a pandemic occurring, but the restrictions on movement and gatherings are being lifted. I wear a face mask to work to protect the customers from myself, hyperaware of how the customers do not care to protect me and will not cover their faces. Recovering from COVID-19 can leave you with conditions that you did not have before, ravaging your lungs and body until they never work quite right again. My grandmother texts me to complain that we should open faster and I’m struggling to explain to her why we cannot. The morgues in New York needed refrigerated trucks to hold the corpses in, and now we’re opening for the second wave. We did not flatten the curve, not enough. We are not prepared to open, but the facist leading us says we are and lies to our faces. 

The fascist ordered teargas and swat teams used to remove peaceful protestors from in front of a church so he could have a photograph without them ruining it. He promised us a racist and xenophobic wall built on our border, and instead built it around the white house to protect himself. He removed the qualified specialists from their positions and replaced them with bigots, then worked to make listening to specialists a political opinion instead of common sense. 

I am queer. There has been talk of how to remove gay marriage. It died quickly, at least I hope that’s what the silence means, but it existed. Poland is close to electing a leader who will outlaw queer ideaology in public places, as though love is an ideaology and not intrinsic to our being.

Is there any way we can skip this part? I’m tired and I’m scared. I’m ready for it to be tomorrow. The police defunded and public services grown, the pandemic gone and us healed, systematic racism dismantled and fascism erased. I wish I could wake up tomorrow and we’d’ve fixed everything.

That’s too simplistic. The riots have to happen. The protests, the petitions, the struggle. The deaths, the outrage, the fear. We must live through all of this if we wish to see that tomorrow, or else tomorrow is just another day to die in silence.

I am scared, though, and I am tired.

I am not doing anything. I do not know what to do. I do not know where the protests are, or when they are organized, and I do not know how to safely find out. I have no emergency contact I trust enough to tell if I go to a protest, and I am too scared to go without. I do not know how to protest, how to safely engage.

I am in college and I cannot imagine my future. I am told repeatedly that I need to decide, that every day gone is a day wasted. I am told repeatedly that I need to act, to take life by the horns and make something of myself. I am given resources to do so, but how can I? The world is going up in flames and I’m expected to choose a major and a career.

Society does not care for me. I am one more gear in it’s machine. I am one for snack for the dragon to eat. My mother tried to get me to ask for a raise at my job and did not understand that corporations do not value employees. I work minimum wage and I am disposable to the higher ups. The virus gave us extra business and I broke down crying from the stress twice. My coworkers have also cried and it is not a surprise. The corporations use us as gears and use us until we break, then they replace us with a newer model. Unions are still the bad guy in all the gossip. Our nation has a history of union busting that I am forcibly reminded of often.

The world is ending, somehow, someway. I cannot tell if what is dying is a free world, or a cage. I cannot tell if tomorrow will come with the dawn of a new golden age, or if we will all be silenced and in chains. We are living through history, and the generations after us are watching us now, and I do not know what they see. The victor will always write themself as the hero, and I don’t know what hero that distant future sees.

I saw a post by a school counselor. She said the teenagers are depressed. She said young people used to dream big, dream of being astronauts or movie stars or changing the world in a significant way. She said the teenagers of today are hesitant to say they might own a house. They are afraid to set even the lowest bar.

I should be doing more. The world is falling down around our ears, but I do nothing. The people scream in defiance and I whisper. I am afraid and I am helpless. I used to dream of being famous, when I was small. Today, I am scared of the future, and I feel small.

I spread the awareness posts to my few followers. I sign the petitions. I give donations, fives and tens to the various organizations. I play on the internet and try to forget the world outside of my room, just for a bit. The days fall through my hands like water, unused and wasted. It feels like dying.

I survive. I click another link. I watch a world die.

[kya-chan14]

Garrus x Reader Pt. 1

 Note: In this story you are Fem!shepard’s little sister. In the first ME I imagine Shepard being around her early thirties, so i put the reader in her early twenties - so you’re fairly new in the alliance. Plus, your have like a goth/emo look. Idk what’s it called. (You watch NCIS? You know Abby? The forensics scientist. Yeah, you’re like her and Mordin combined. I wanted to make it fun.) 

  Summary:  Unlike your sister, you prefer to stay out of the line of fire. You were training to be an engineer/scientist. You know, calibrating heavy weaponry or repairing vehicles, stuff like that. But when your sister requests to have you on the Normandy with her when she goes to fight Saren, your in for the roller coaster of your life. 

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

   Both of your parents were in the alliance military. You and your sister’s childhood was spent on ships and stations as they transferred from posting to posting, never staying in the same location for more than a few years. Following in your parents’ footsteps, your sister enlisted at the age of eighteen. Ten years later, now your able to enlist as well. You wanted to be in a totally different department though. You wanted to be a scientist and engineer. 

   Your sister proved herself at Akuze, showing that she is a sole survivor. Jane Shepard, the best hope humanity has for finding their place in the council. You’re proud of her, you’re happy to say, ‘That’s my big sis!’ All the stories she has to share and her captain is amazing. Part of you wishes you could go with her on all of these adventures, but on the other hand you’re not a soldier. You’re just someone you studies forensics and mechanics.

     You don’t plan on staying in the shadows for long though. One day you’re going to prove to your sister that you are just as great in the lab as she is on the battlefield. You do have a goal to accomplish after all, to cure the genophage. You’ve wanted to ever since you learned about the history of the Krogan. 

     Anyways, right now you’re still in alliance training back on Earth. The last time you heard from Jane, she said she was on a shake down run on a prototype war ship on her way to Eden Prime. She didn’t tell you anything else, she couldn’t. On a need-to-know basis. And I didn’t need to know. This happened about two days ago. Now you didn’t even know if she was alive.

    While you were finishing your report on a deceased rabbit, which died from a new species of a poisonous snake, one of your team mates sent you a message on your omni-tool and requested you to meet in the mess hall.

        “Shepard, this is Wilson. We’re all in the mess listening to the news, there’s something that I believe you’d be interested in. Put down the scalpel for once and come see this.” 

   You were hesitant about leaving your work, but you left the lab and headed for the mess regardless. 

  When you arrived you found that a crowd was already there. You made your way through and found Wilson. 

        “I’m here, now what is it you wanted me to hear?”

   He then walked away and helped Adams turned on the radio. When it comes on, you couldn’t believe what you were hearing.

       “In the light of the recent attack on Eden Prime, many colonial investors are pulling there support for future projects. Proponents of expanded human colonization insist that Eden Prime was a isolated case. Nevertheless, colonist enrollment has dropped sharply. Many colonial proposals are on hold until backers have some reassurance that human colonies will be adequately protected.”

     You turned to Wilson confused. 

     “What hit them?” 

      “Geth. Word is that there was an army of the swarming Eden Prime.” 

      “Bullcrap. The Geth haven’t left the veil in about 200 years.” 

      “You’re not the only one to say that, but it’s true.” Wilson set a hand on your shoulder. “I know your sister was there when the attack hit and I already talked to the Instructor. A ship is waiting at the docks to take you to the Citadel.” 

     You looked at him dumbfounded. So many questions going through your head, but right now you didn’t care. You were just thankful to have such a good friend. 

      “Thank you Wilson. You’re a damn good friend.” After you said your piece, you were gone. You had to see Jane. Make sure she was alive. 

--- 

After the long flight you had finally arrived at the Citadel.You raced for C-sec knowing that they should hold some record for your sisters whereabouts. You did your best to not bump into anyone on your way there. 

     Once you’ve finally made it, you raced in and asked the first officer you saw. A human. 

       “Excuse me sir, I’m looking for my sister! She’s known as Commander Shepa-” 

        “I’m going to stop you right there girl.” 

      The officer held up his hand in a moment of silence. He looked annoyed. 

    “Number one, you don’t just run in here like a maniac. Two, there’s no need to yell. And three, you expect me to believe you are related to Commander Shepard?” 

     “Why not?” 

     “Look at you!” 

   He gestured to your being as a whole. 

    “You look as far from a military family than a whale compared to a fish.” 

    “So just because I dress differently, you’re not going to help me?” 

    “Get out of her kid.” 

   You shake your head in annoyance and walk away. If someone was going to judge your relations through your attire, than you were going to have a harder time finding information than originally planned. 

   You started thinking of all the ways you could find her. Hell, you even thought of going to the shadow broker just to find out if Jane was alive or not. You didn’t know what else to do. You were scared, you weren’t sure if you wanted to know what happened to her. But you had to find her regardless. 

   You started wonder the back alleys for anything or anyone to help you get in touch with your sister. Instead you came across a group of people who you got a bad vibe from. A quarian standing in the middle of it all, you had a feeling she was in trouble. 

   “Where’s the shadow broker? Where’s Fist?” She seemed suspicious, looks like she got the same vibes. 

   “They’ll be here. Where’s the evidence?” A turian ran his hand on her sensually. The quarian pushed it away. 

   “No way. The deal’s off.” 

   She started walking away until the turian pulled out a gun and aimed it right for her. On instinct you pulled out your own firearm and shot the turian. The Quarian whipped around in surprise to hear a gunshot. Then it turned into an all out fire fight. The quarian on one end, and you at the other. 

  You were only trained with a pistol, so you couldn’t do much damage. On the other hand, the quarian had a damn shotgun! In the end, together you neutralized the threat. She approached you in a calm manner. 

    “Thank you for your help. If you hadn’t shown up, I’d be dead. But, how do you know they were the bad guys?” 

   “ At the mention of evidence and a deal, that was proof enough they weren’t C-sec. And it’s not cool to shoot someone in the back.”  

  “Well thanks. Not many people would stick up for a quarian, let alone save their life.” 

   “Meh. Let those people burn in hell. They’re assholes.” 

   She laughed at the remark.

   “What is your name?” 

    “(Y/N) Shepard. I’m a trainee of the alliance.” 

   “A soldier?” 

   “No no, just an engineer and Forensics scientist. Nothing to flashy.” 

   “Ah.”

   “She’s a lot more than what she let’s on.” 

  A new voice has joined the conversation. One you recognized well. 

   You turned around to find your sister accompanied by a krogan and a turian. 

   “Jane!” 

  You didn’t care how childish it looked to charged at her with your biggest hug. 

   “I was so scared! I thought...... I actually thought you were..” 

   “Hey, calm down. I’m alright.” 

  She gave a hug in return. You stayed there while she started talking to the quarian. 

   “You must be the quarian, Fist was after.” 

   “That’s right. He set me up! I knew I couldn’t trust him.” 

   “Were you hurt?”

   “I know how to look out for myself. Not that I don’t appreciate the help. Who are you?” 

   “I’m Commander Shepard of the Alliance Navy. I’m looking for evidence to prove Saren’s a traitor.” 

   “Then I have a chance to repay (Y/N) for saving my life. But not here. We need to go somewhere safe.” 

   “We could take her to the human embassy. Your ambassador will want to see this anyway.” 

  That was a different voice, a deep one, belonged to a man. Right now though, you didn’t care. You were too busy crying silently into your sister’s chest. She even picked you up and started walking. Man do you have an awesome sister. 

------ 

   “You’re not making my life easy, Shepard. Firefights in the wards? An all-out assault on Chora’s Den? Do you know how many- Who’s this? A quarian? A little girl? What are you up to Shepard?” 

  THIS, is the human ambassador? What an impression he puts off. You already hated him. 

    “This quarian and ‘little girl’ can help us bring down Saren. I would’ve told you that if you hadn’t jumped down my throat.”

  You smirked when Jane put out that last comment. You were happy to have a sister that didn’t take shit from anyone. But, what was that part about taking down Saren. Who even was Saren!?

   “I apologize, Commander. This whole thing with Saren has me a bit on edge.” 

  Bullshit. 

  “Maybe we should start at the beginning, Miss...?” 

  “My name is Tali. Tali’ Zorah nar Rayya.” 

  “We don’t see many quarians here. Why did you leave the flotilla?” 

  “I was on my pilgrimage. My rite of passage to adulthood.” 

  Jane jumped in. 

  “Tell us what you found.” 

  Tali nodded. 

   “During my travels I began hearing reports of geth. Since they drove my people into exile the geth never ventured beyond the veil. I was curious. I tracked a patrol of geth to an uncharted world. I waited for one to become seperated from it’s unit. Then I disabled and removed it’s memory core.” 

   “I thought the geth fried their memory cores when they died. Some kind of defense mechanism.” 

   You didn’t know this one, but his presence alone told you he was to be respected. Though he didn’t seem like the others who always demanded it. Maybe it was Captain Anderson? Jane told you a little about him in her messages. 

   This time, You butted into the conversation.

  “Is that true. How did you get anything?” As a fellow engineer, you were curious how she managed something like that. 

  “My people created the geth, if your quick, careful, and lucky small caches of data can sometimes be saved. Most of the core was wiped clean, but I salvaged something from it’s audio banks.”  

   Tali then went onto her omi-tool and started playing us something. It was a man’s voice. Deep but hollow. 

  “Eden Prime was a major victory. The beacon has brought us one step closer to finding the conduit” 

  “That’s Saren’s voice! This proves he was involved in the attack.”  Anderson exclaims. The way he reacted to that recording though, kinda made you think there was more to this than just a normal geth attack. You knew people were throwing a fit because it was a human colony but, humans have killed humans for years. What’s so different about a turian doing the work instead?

  “He said Eden Prime has brought him one step closer to finding the conduit. Any idea on what that means?” Jane seemed to be more into this than you were. Then again, you had no idea what was going on. You only came here to make sure she was alive, not to join some man hunt. 

  “The conduit must have something to do with the beacon. Maybe it’s some kind of Prothean technology. Like a weapon.” Anderson and Jane were thinking of all sorts of possibilities of what could happen.

  “Wait, there’s more. Saren wasn’t working alone.” 

  Tali wasn’t done with her presentation yet and played the recording again.

    “Eden Prime was a major victory. The Beacon has brought us one step closer to finding the conduit” 

    “And one step closer to the return of the reapers.” 

    That was a woman’s voice, it was deep, sinister almost. But somehow wise.

    “I don’t recognize that other voice, the one talking about reapers.” 

 The ambassador stated as if he was trying to end it there. Though, Jane was pondering over the name. 

   “I feel like I’ve heard that name before.” 

 Tali saw the confusion in everyone and shared what she knew about the reapers. 

  “According to the memory core, reapers were a advanced machine race that existed 50,000 years ago. The rapers hunted to protheans to total extinction and than they vanished! At least, that’s what the geth believe.” 

  “Sounds a little far fetched.” 

    What a shocker, a politician shoving away a possible threat just because it’s ‘far fetched’. 

  “The vision on Eden Prime, I understand it now.” 

  You looked at your sister like she was crazy. 

  “Vision?” 

  “I saw the protheans being wiped out by the reapers.” 

  “The geth revere the reapers as gods, the pinnacle of non organic life. And they believe Saren knows how to bring the reapers back.”  Tali explained. 

  “The council is just going to love this.” The ambassador grumbled at this so called fairy tale. 

   Jane seemed to truly be expecting the reapers, so you believed what she said before about her vision. You would stand by her in any situation if you could. She’s always been there for you, it was time to repay her. 

  “This is a lot to handle. They might just ignore everything we tell them.” 

  “No matter what they think of the rest of this, those audio files proves Saren’s a traitor.” Anderson sounded excited over the whole idea of bringing this Saren down. 

  “The captain’s right. We need to present this to the council right away.” 

 “What about the Quarian?” The krogan that was following Jane finally speaks! 

   “Umm, her name is Tali.” You said politely but quietly. 

    “Thank you, (Y/N).” She slightly bowed her head at you in appreciation, then faced your sister. “You saw me in the alley way commander, you know what I can do. Let me come with you.” 

   You could tell that Tali was hoping to tag along instead of being stuck somewhere she isn’t treated with respect. You didn’t blame her, you would do anything just to get away from such a life. 

   “I thought you were on your pilgrimage?” 

   “The pilgrimage proves we are willing to give up ourselves for the greater good. What does it say about me if I turn my back on something like this. Saren is a danger to the entire galaxy. My pilgrimage can wait.” 

   “In that case, I’ll take all the help I can get.” 

  “Thanks. You won’t regret this.” 

  “What do you plan on doing with the girl commander? She seems confused over everything we have talked about.” After the ambassador’s question, everyone’s eyes were now on you. You shifted uncomfortably. 

  “This girl, is my little sister. She’s ten years younger than me.” Jane set a hand on your shoulder while she faced the captain and the ambassador. 

 “You’re right, she has no idea what’s going on. Knowing her, she more than likely only came here to see if I was alright after hearing about the attack on Eden Prime.” She then looked at her smugly. “Am I right?” 

    You just glared at her. “Fine next time I won’t care if you’re dead or alive.” 

 “Well then it’s probably best she stays out of it. Meet us at the Presidium commander. I’ll give you time to send your sister on the first flight home.”

 The ambassador didn’t like the idea of some child joining a fight. Even if she was a Shepard.

  He left the room and Anderson left behind him. It was then just you, your sister, and her new friends. You spoke up first.

   “You’re not really going to send me home are you?”

  “Depends. There’ll probably be danger on every corner here, (Y/N).”

 You looked at her with a smile. “I eat danger for breakfast.”

 “Well then. Are you hungry?”

 “Starving.”

[hellyeahomeland]

“Threnody(s)”: an HYH recap

First things first: a threnody is “a wailing ode, song, hymn, or poem of mourning composed or performed as a memorial to a dead person.” If it clicked far too late for you that the parentheses and ‘s’ meant that more than one person would die this week... welcome to the club.

This soul crusher of an episode opens with Haqqani reading the Quran in his cell. A few guards arrive to get him and he walks, peacefully, slowly, while the other prisoners bang their cups against their cells (a real thing that happens on death row in American prisons). He’s handcuffed to a post in an open-air courtyard as he stares down a lineup of soldiers with rifles, all aiming at him.

Cut to Hayes, Linus, and Hugh Dancy John Zabel in the Oval Office. They have the video that Jalal Haqqani shot of Max last episode. This is now a hostage situation and… look how these dots connect. If G’ulom executes Haqqani, Jalal will execute Max. Hayes pleads with G’ulom to halt the execution, at least until they can retrieve Max. G’ulom agrees, but only for 24 hours.

Saul calls Carrie on the sat phone and she asks for an update. When is special ops coming? He still doesn’t know, but hey! At least now people other than Carrie seem to sort of care about whether Max lives or dies. She says the situation there is “quiet but fucked,” which is a perfect descriptor of most Homeland scenes.

Saul steps into a meeting with the White House to discuss Max’s exfiltration. It’s tough, because there’s no cover and the house they’ve got Max in is completely exposed. Also it’s in Pakistan so that adds another layer of complication. Hayes wants to know the odds. Resident Scott Ryan delivers the not so great, not so bad news: 50/50.

Hayes has a freakout because even when they went to kill bin Laden it was like 80%. But 50%? It doesn’t help that John Zabel is the figurative devil on his shoulder, making arguments like:

We don’t negotiate with terrorists. (Heh? It’s not a negotiation.)

I don’t even know who Max is. (You literally just got here. SIT DOWN, JOHN.)

“The US government can’t be expected to come to the rescue of every adventurer who gets himself in trouble overseas.” (Fuck you, dude.)

If the rescue fails, it’ll sink your presidency. (Your wife Carrie Mathison is gonna come after your ass.)

Elsewhere in the West Wing, Linus is snooping in John’s office and finds a printout of a speech he’s been working on for Hayes, the gist of which is: “Peace in the Middle East? I don’t know her.”

If you’re wondering whether John Zabel was successful in convincing Hayes to leave Max to die, in the very next scene Haqqani is dragged back into the courtyard. Saul is there. Once again they line up, but this time they go through with it. The bullets hit him and he doubles over. Saul watches in horror. Then, miraculously, he inhales sharply, very much not dead. He pulls himself up and stands again. G’ulom orders them to reload as prisoner’s chants of Haqqani’s name reach them. They fire again, and he falls to his knees. The job is done.

Back at the compound, there’s movement. Yevgeny brings Carrie a news report: an image of Haqqani, chest filled with bullets, slumped over. Carrie knows what this means, and then she spots the Taliban soldiers escorting Max out of the house, seemingly to take him to another location. She calls for the crew to get their stuff, they need to follow them and can’t lose track. Then, through the scope of the binoculars, she spots Jalal Haqqani shoot Max in the chest from close range. One two three.

Carrie races down the hillside as the Taliban soldiers all flee in their trucks. She gets to Max, lying on his side, blood in the dirt. She checks his pulse, but the worst has happened—again. She breaks down in sobs as she clutches his body.

In Washington, Linus is furious with John Zabel—who might just be as evil as his beard is tragique. Linus is in disbelief about this “speech” Zabel has written. A speech where he calls for security along the entire Afghan-Pakistani border that will be guarded entirely by the Pakistani military—the military of a country Zabel refers to as “failed and duplicitous.” It’s basically Homeland’s version of Tr*mp saying Mexico will pay for the wall after he called Mexicans criminals and rapists. 

ANYWAY. Zabel spits back that he can’t be as dumb as Linus, who got two presidents killed. And, I mean I did make this point last week, but that doesn’t make Zabel any less evil.

Meanwhile, Saul is overseeing the preparation of Haqqani’s body. Carrie calls him. She’s still sitting next to Max’s body, her face is stained with tears. 

Carrie: Max is dead. Fuck you. Saul: What? Carrie: He’s dead. Fuck you. By the way, thanks for the special ops team. They were really handy. Saul: POTUS wouldn’t move. Carrie: You wouldn’t make him move. You did nothing. You brought him here and it was your responsibility to protect him. That was your fucking job! Not mine. But I still tried, and he’s still dead. Did I say fuck you yet? Because fuck you. And fuck special ops too! Saul: I deserved that. But also, Carrie, you can’t keep running around with Yevgeny in the Pakistani countryside. Even though it brings great joy to Sara.  Carrie: Fuck you, dude. At least Yevgeny gave a shit. Saul: You still have to come in. Carrie: Come and get Max. I’ll still be here. Fuck you, goodbye.

The Taliban are holding a town meeting. Haqqani’s lieutenant says they need to keep on the same path that Haqqani set out for them: peace. He knows that none of them were responsible for the helicopters crashing, so peace really is still possible. Just then, Haqqani and the Taliban Teenagers roll up. That’s right, it’s time for a little power battle. Jalal tells them all that his father is a hero. He wouldn’t die even after they shot him. He says we have to honor him: not by respecting the choice he made for peace, but by emulating him back when he was busting into embassies and murdering people. And also: it was I, Jalal Haqqani, who fired the RPG that brought down the presidents’ helicopters! And we will do the same for any other infidels who stand in our way!

After the meeting, the lieutenant comes over to Jalal and asks for some one-on-one time. He knows that Jalal didn’t shoot down the helicopters and Jalal gaslights him a bit. He also knows that Haqqani didn’t choose Jalal to be his successor, and Jalal gaslights him a little bit more. Jalal offers him some money or poppy fields if he’ll buzz off, but all he wants is peace, his country back. Jalal says they’ll get their country back, but not through peace.

In the Oval Office, Hayes is sitting with the Two Stooges, who both want him to say something wildly different in his address to the nation. Hayes just says, “figure it out,” which is kind of hilarious and that’s when Zabel springs into action. He calls up some woman named Claudette and asks for any dirt she has on this situation. Which now means he’s cosmically linked with Carrie because she was trying to do the same thing last season.

They’ve moved Max’s body inside the house, but Carrie is still sitting there next to him. They’ve removed the bright orange jumpsuit and he’s lying on a small rug, barefoot. Yevgeny wants to know what their next move is. Carrie says she’ll just hang out until special ops comes, then she’ll go back to Kabul with Max. She understands if Yevgeny wants to leave now, before special ops comes, but like the good boyfriend he is, he sits down next to her and asks who this Max guy was anyway.

Carrie’s surprised. She told him everything about her life (!!) but not this? Nope. She goes on: Max was… always there for her. She’s known him forever, and wherever she went, he’d dutifully follow, always by her side. And the reason she never mentioned him is clear now, too. She took him for granted and took advantage of him. And now he’s dead. What a horrifying replay of events. “I’m so sorry, Max,” she sobs. She kneels down next to his body, her hands on his chest, and repeats it, over and over: “I’m so sorry.” Yevgeny comes over to comfort her and she clings to him amid more heaving sobs.

The next day, Hayes has decided on his speech, which—surprise!—is the “cowardly” Linus version, where he just says “let’s do peace.” John Zabel is highly displeased but luckily Claudette has arrived just in time with that dirt he requested. It’s not dirt, but just intel: one of the soldiers at the secret Taliban power struggle meeting last night was actually recording the whole thing. So now they have Jalal on video saying he killed the presidents. Who cares if he’s actually telling the truth!

He races to Hayes to tell him what’s happened and in what language. Hayes is like “fuck, I need a moment,” and that’s when Zabel swoops in with his first draft racist speech and is like, “here ya go!” I’m sorry to say, but this actually seems realistic.

Saul arrives to the base where the special ops team is preparing to retrieve Max (and Carrie). They’re all huddled around a laptop screen opened to Hayes’ speech, which goes something like this:

We got the wrong Haqqani! Oops! Anyway, who’s ready for more war?

The reactions are “Can you believe this shit?” and “Oh, Christ,” which are both extremely relatable!

Linus is once again furious with Zabel.

Linus: What the actual fuck! Zabel: You weren’t here. Actually where were you? Aren’t you the Chief of Staff? Linus: You fucking idiot, we’re on a collision course with a nuclear power. Zabel: Don’t be such a drama queen. Pakistan will back down. Linus: No they won’t, dipshit. Also good job on making Jalal Haqqani a folk hero. He was a nobody 90 seconds ago. You’re pushing us into ANOTHER war that we can’t win. Zabel: See, that’s your problem, bro. You don’t think America can win any war. Anyway, I’m outie. Linus: We’re so fucked.

Saul and the special ops team fly over Carrie and Yevgeny’s location. Carrie tells Yevgeny that she can’t stay out here with him forever, and he’s like, “hmm, are you sure *wink*?” She thanks him and he takes position by his truck with his crew. This is the Carrie/Yevgeny equivalent of dropping someone off at home and waiting until you watch them walk through their front door before leaving.

Saul and the team touch down and retrieve Max’s body. Saul fills Carrie in on the pile of shit that’s happened in the last 48 hours. He hopes she has something to make it less shitty. She reveals she has a lead on the black box but doesn’t elaborate. Saul doesn’t ask any follow-up questions but says they’ll find it together, like old times. She agrees, but asks for no more bullshit about her loyalty, or Mike, or the FBI. She did what she had to do. He promises he’s on her side, but she doesn’t totally believe him.

They’re about to board the helicopter when one of the special ops team members requests to search Carrie. “What?” Carrie says, before realizing she’s surrounded by a special ops team carrying automatic weapons. Saul looks around in disbelief too. Carrie spots plastic cuffs, and it all feels suddenly like a trap. It escalates quickly from there:

Carrie pulls out her gun, quickly backing away, in Yevgeny’s direction. 

Saul tries his best to calm everyone down.

Yevgeny fires his gun to distract them.

Saul pleads with Carrie to come back, it’s all a misunderstanding.

“What, so we can work together?” she spits.

“Yes, I need you.”

“In fucking handcuffs!”

He says he didn’t know. She calls him a liar and runs back toward Yevgeny. Saul, rightfully livid, heads to the helicopter and asks whose genius idea this all was.

Yevgeny, ever the gentleman, opens the car door for Carrie. She turns back and glares at Saul, the perceived betrayal still a stinging wound (on top of everything else), before they drive off. The helicopter lifts off and Saul watches from above as Carrie and Yevgeny speed away. He has a look on his face not too unlike when he left Carrie in Moscow last season (and, come to think of it, this involves a lot of the same people). In the car, Carrie reveals to Yevgeny that she’s also been looking for the flight recorder and that she knows where it is.

Seriously though, something has palpably broken just now, possibly the last shred of trust left between Carrie and Saul. Carrie has been conditioned all season to distrust those who call themselves her friends. Now she’s actually lost her last remaining friend (in the world), bringing a devastating new literal meaning to the phrase “nothing left to lose.” That Carrie could so quickly get to a spot where her handgun is out and she’s ten seconds from Yevgeny’s car says a lot about the distrust and fear just simmering below the surface. That she didn’t hesitate to suspect Saul was in on it reveals just how broken and filled with resentment their relationship now is. And that Saul actually was on her side makes the end result that much more tragic.

[brehacrgana]

just watched TROS and i have NO WORDS... (except i also have many). what was that

at about half of the movie one guy stood up, put on his jacket and left...I don’t think he was wrong

spoilers below (the bad and the good - however little that might be). please come to talk if you’ve seen the movie

first of all...WHAT THE FUCK. what the fuck...i sat through the movie and i had to laugh at times because whatever was happening was so absurd shit i couldn’t even imagine. at other times i just sat with my mouth open and could not believe they really went there...it was that bad. how in the world is this the end of star wars

the way the movie started... in the title sequence...”THE DEAD SPEAK” lol. palpantine’s return or whatever shit announced immediatly (which i didn’t expect would happen); then the first scene of kylo ren in slo-mo killing some random people (literally who was that) in some woods and then finding palpantine’s cave or something where palps told him “hurr hurr i created snoke...i was every voice in your head...kill the girl” - sir how are you even alive. i literally don’t remember if this was explained in the movie and i don’t think so

rey - jesus christ. girl. i don’t know what they did to her character. but anyway. in the beginning of the movie leia did some jedi training with rey and i loved that...especially when rey adressed leia with “master”! but in the start of that scene rey was flying in the air while doing some meditation and that was absurd imo / i laughed lol. then kylo ren showed up because of that force bond shit and rey messed up her training which sucked

nice scene: finn and poe returning from some mission and meeting/reuniting with rey on the rebellion’s home base - rey and poe bickered a bit, rey and finn hugged...i liked that

rey finn and poe and chewie went to a desert planet where some party was going on. nice scene: rey talked to an alien being there and it was a cute, nice interaction that would have been heartwarming

lando shows up, points them to some cave, where a big snake or something was which had an injury lol...rey gave it some life power through the force  and healed it. LOL: foreshadowing...

kylo ren and the knights of ren (lol who are they even) show up on that planet. while the others try to make a ship ready to leave, rey (why...) goes and stands in the middle of the desert waiting for kyle ron to show up or whatever. he does of course and races at her with his ship, she does that jump from the trailer and cuts his ship in half. it crashes and explodes. no, kylo somehow doesn’t die from that. meanwhile poe and finn told chewie to get rey bc they have to leave (knights of ren approaching), but while rey is busy doing whatever the fuck that was, chewie gets captured by some stormtroopers and is led on their transport ship. it takes off. finn screams to rey “they have chewie” and rey uses the force to try and drag that ship back to the ground...kylo emerges and also uses the force on that ship, and they have a force battle until rey does palpantine style force lightning on that ship. it completely explodes. everyone thinks chewie is dead. i was really horrified, not gonna lie, like rey...

but lol. SOMEHOW chewie was on another transport ship (lol???? where was that) and is alive after all. they go to rescue him. while they fly to the stardestroyer where chewie is being kept prisoner, rey says that “yada yada people say they know me but nobody does” to finn and it is awful... arrived on the star destroyer, finn and poe want to free chewie, while rey fucks off to do her own thing and go to kylo’s quarters. force bond kylo appears, they fight blabla, he tells her...

“oh you wanted to take my hand, i kNoW YoU you’re a palpatine, he was your grandfather” ................................................ i read the spoilers so i knew this was gonna come, but seriously???? what a crack fucking theory. REY PALPANTINE!  I QUIT!!!

flashback to rey’s parents who look like nice people who tried to protect her by leaving her on jakku. palps killed them after they didn’t tell him where rey was

meanwhile finn poe and chewie are captured, stormtrooppers are going to execute them. then hux steps in hilariously, kills the stormtroopers, and is like “i’m the spy for the rebellion.” i laughed

who is zorii...or whatever her name was.

the trio gang goes to that planet where the remains of the death star are...they meet a group of horse riders, one of them jannah. i loved her! i really did. she was one of the bright spots for me in that shitshow. her and finn talk, she also used to be a stormtrooper and has the same story as finn

also Finn was shown very clearly to be force sensitive! loved that

rey does another solo trip and goes to the remains of the death star...where she meets dark!rey which was hilarious and absurd. they fight and at one point dark!rey hissed and bared her teeth at rey - i actually scream laughed

well then kylo ron came to that planet, the water fight scene happened, and actually rey fucking killed him!!! he died! cut to leia. she says “ben” and then somehow just actually dies too. seriously. just like that. FROM WHAT???

anyway rey feels that leia has died and lol idk she’s like oh know and resurrects kylo with the force. yeah. lol. she’s then like “yeah i did want to take your hand...ben’s hand” and cries and leaves

really...who is ben. why do you care. what

on the rebellion base people are gathered around leia’s dead body and i don’t remember her name, but lupita nyongos character say “farewell, dear princess” and that almost made me cry

back to kylo. he’s looking at the ocean in contemplation. suddenly a voice behind him says “hey, kid”. he turns around and it’s han fucking solo. LOL

they basically play out the same scene as in tfa just before kylo killed han except this time he doesn’t. han says kylo ron died and kylo yeets his lightsaber into the water.

ok, another hilarious absurd scene: rey goes to luke’s exile planet and sets kylo’s ship (which she took to fly there) on fire. she’s throwing the lightsaber in the flames but oh! a hand yeets out of the flames! it’s force ghost luke who caught the saber and is like oh you should be more careful with a jedi’s weapon.

luke then shows her LEIA’S LIGHTSABER and there’s a flashback scene of LEIA AND LUKE DOING JEDI TRAINING !!!! a good part of the movie

rey takes both lightsabers and flies to palpantine’s planet. she meets him in his cave. palps does he’s usual unimaginable power shit...”i want you to kill me...then my soul will go over to you and all the siths that have ever been will live in you”. whatever

“ben” also shows up of course, he kills the kights of ren with the lightsaber that was magically teleported to him by rey i guess

rey and “ben” face palps together. he is like oh your bond is so strong, let me take all your energy...very reminiscent of dementor’s in harry potter movies sucking out their souls lol. they drop to the ground, unconscious. palps lifts “ben” up and yeets him into a big abyss.

there was a nice scene in between of poe grieving for leia and saying he doesn’t know what to do/how they can make it, but then lando shows up and they talk about how lando and the old trio back in the day didn’t know how to make it either, but they still tried etc. and made it

ok another nice scene: while palps is doing super force lightning to destroy the rebel fleet or whatever, rey is on the ground gatherig strength and she hears the voices of old jedi masters...obi wan! anakin i’m pretty sure also!

then there’s a nice shot of her standing up and facing the emperor with lightsaber in hand.

she kills him, but dies doing it.

but wait lol...”ben” somehow crawls back out of that abyss to cry over her dead body. he also revives her with force power. they look at each other sappily and kiss.......no words. they fucking really went there

actually when that happened the people in the cinema made a lot of sounds, some said ew lmao others just laughed

then “ben” dies for good lol. people scream laughed

in the end there was a nice rebellion victory celebration scene, i always like scenes like that

rey goes to tattoine and buries the lightsabers of luke and leia who show up via force ghost. somehow rey then has a yellow lightsaber in her hand. some old woman comes along and asks who are you? rey says...i’m rey.....skywalker and then watches the sunset. the end.

in spoilers i read it was said that rey says she feels incomplete without kylo and goes to live on tattoine alone for the rest of her life. maybe i blacked out and didn’t get that, but i did not see it. it did not happen, right?

when the movie ended some people in the cinema actually started clapping.

lol. i don’t know what that was...yeah it had some good moments, but it really was the worts star wars movie of all times for me. it was wild and absurd and stupid as fuck and i am so, so disappointed. TFA i loved, there was so much potential there...but then tlj happened and somehow tros eneded up even worse than that. i don’t know what the worst part for me was, rey palpantine, leia’s death in that manner, reylo... it was a mess. it actually makes me really sad. bye felicia

[thisisatestsff-blog]

Newsletter #99 September — November, 2012

RECENTLY RECEIVED AND FORTHCOMING SCIENCE FICTION

Already Received

Doctor Who Magazine #447

 (The Doctor must face every Dalek ever; Steven Moffat interview; more) $8.99

Doctor Who Magazine #448

 (William Russell on being Doctor Who's first action hero; interview with Neil Gaiman; more) $8.99

Doctor Who Magazine #449

 (First look at the 2013 series; casting director Andy Pryor talks about his work; more) $8.99

Fantasy & Science Fiction July / August 2012

 (New fiction, reviews, more) $7.50

Locus #617 June 2012

 (Interviews with William F. Nolan and Genevieve Valentine; Nebula Awards; forthcoming books; industry news, reviews, more) $6.95

Locus #618 July 2012

(Young adult fiction special issue; interviews with Holly Black, Tamora Pierce, and Rae Carson; Locus Awards; Ray Bradbury tributes; industry news, reviews, more) $6.95

Locus #619 August 2012

 (Interviews with Jack Vance and Ann and Jeff VanderMeer; award news; industry news, reviews, more) $6.95

Abraham, Daniel

Shadow and Betrayal: A Shadow in Summer / A Betrayal in Winter

 (Long Price #1 / #2: Omnibus reprint; 2 fantasy novels) $17.99

Adams, John J. (ed)

Other Worlds Than These

 (PBO; Anthology; reprints 31 stories of parallel worlds) $16.99

Asaro, Catherine

Aurora in Four Voices

(Collection; 2 novellas and 3 short stories (1 original to this volume), all sf, plus an essay on how she uses math to craft her alien worlds) $30.00

Baker, L-J

Promises, Promises

(After making a series of improbable predictions about Princess Beryl's future, Sandy, a mediocre witch, is commanded to make them all come true within a year - or face the executioner. Luckily, her dyke friends are willing and able to join her on her quest) $15.00

Bedford, K.A.

Paradox Resolution

(Spider Webb #2: PBO; Spider Webb fixes time machines for a living, and hates it. The time machine biz has changed. But one machine - an illegal, radically overclocked hotrod built by Spider's boss - has been stolen, and Spider is the only one who might be able to find it) $14.95

Beukes, Lauren

Zoo City

(Clarke Award winner. Zinzi has a Sloth on her back, a dirty online 419 scam habit - and a talent for finding lost things. But when her latest client turns up dead and the cops confiscate her last paycheck, she's forced to take her least favorite kind of job: missing persons) $15.00

Bradbury, Ray

Fahrenheit 451

(Reissue; Guy Montag is a fireman, his job to burn that most illegal of commodities, the printed book, along with the houses in which they are hidden. He never questions this destruction, until he meets a young neighbor who introduces him to a past where people didn't live in fear, and to a present where one sees the world through the ideas in books instead of the mindless chatter of television. When she suddenly disappears, Montag starts hiding books in his home; when this is discovered, he must run for his life) $11.99

Broderick, Damien

Science Fiction: The 101 Best Novels 1985-2010

(PBO; Nonfiction; discusses each novel and its author(s) in the context of popular literature, as well as providing a plot synopsis and mini review) $14.99

Carey, Mike/Gross, Peter

On to Genesis

(Unwritten #5: PBO; Full color graphic novel. Not for kids. Reprints issues 25-30 of the comic. Tom Taylor's just a daring heist away from the journals that will reveal the truth: was he born of flesh and blood, or written into existence by sheer storytelling magic?) $14.99

Carroll, Jonathan

The Woman Who Married a Cloud

 (Collection; 37 fantasy stories, some original to this volume) $45.00

Chen, Haiyan/Li, Fang (ed)  

Eight Dragons on the Roof and Other Tales

 (Kids; Anthology; 34traditional dragon stories from China) $12.95

Conley, Darby

Survival of the Filthiest

 (Get Fuzzy: PBO; Black & white daily strips, color Sunday strips) $12.99

Cox, Greg

The Dark Knight Rises

 (PBO; Novelization of the film) $7.99

Cronin, Justin

The Passage

(Passage #1: A security breach at a secret facility unleashes the monstrous product of a military experiment. As civilization breaks down to predators and prey, FBI agent Brad Wolgast flees with 6-year-old Amy, a refugee from the project, whose odyssey will lead her towards the time and place where she must finish what should never have begun) $7.99

Dick, Philip K.

Now Wait for Last Year

(Reissue; Earth is trapped in the crossfire of an unwinnable war between two alien civilizations. Its leader is perpetually on the verge of death. And a new drug that haphazardly sends its users traveling through time has just entered circulation. Caught up in all of it, Dr. Eric Sweetscent has questions. Is Earth on the right side of the war? Is he supposed to heal Earth's leader or keep him sick? And can he change the harrowing future that the drug has shown him?) $13.95

Dick, Philip K.

The Simulacra

(Reissue; On a ravaged Earth, fate and circumstances bring together a disparate group, including a fascist with dreams of a coup, a composer who plays his instrument with his mind, a First Lady who calls all the shots, and the world's last practicing therapist. And they all must contend with an underclass that is beginning to ask a few too many questions, aided by a man called Loony Luke and his very persuasive pet alien) $13.95

Dick, Philip K.

Ubik

(Reissue; Glen Runciter and his teams of anti-psychics protect corporate clients who want privacy and security from psychic spies. When he and his top team are ambushed by a rival, he is gravely injured and placed in a dreamlike state of suspended animation. Soon, the surviving members of the team begin experiencing strange phenomena, such as Runciter's face appearing on coins and the world seeming to move backward in time. As consumables deteriorate and technology gets ever more primitive, the group needs to find out what is causing the shifts, and what a mysterious product called Ubik has to do with it all) $13.95

Duncan, Dave

Wildcatter

(PBO; An independent starship heads to Cacafuego, intent on beating the larger corporations to the exoplanet's resources. Will a yellow warning flag planted in orbit stop them? Or, if their prospectors venture to the surface anyway, will they survive?) $9.95

Egan, Greg

The Clockwork Rocket

(Orthogonal #1: Threatened by strange meteors, a planet sends a spaceship crew on a journey to discover the science their planet urgently needs and bring it back in time to avert disaster. The trip will last many generations for those on board, but will return after just a few planetary years) $14.99

Fies, Brian

Whatever Happened to the World of Tomorrow?

(Full color graphic novel. Depicts an optimistic and ambitious era fueled by industry, engines, electricity, rockets, middle-class popular culture, and the atom bomb, from the 1939 World's Fair to the last Apollo space mission in 1975) $14.95

Gaiman/Bealer et al (ed)  

Neil Gaiman and Philosophy

 (PBO; Nonfiction; essays on Gaiman's writing) $19.95

Grant, Maxwell

Prince of Evil / Messenger of Death / Room 1313

 (Shadow #60: Pulp reprints) $14.95

Grant, Maxwell

The Triple Trail / Murder Genius

 (Shadow #61: Pulp reprints) $14.95

Grant, Maxwell

Cyro / The Man Who Died Twice

 (Shadow #62: Pulp reprints) $14.95

Grant, Maxwell

The Devil's Paymaster / The Wasp Returns

 (Shadow #63: Pulp reprints) $14.95

Hand, Elizabeth

Glimmering

(PBO; Revised from the 1997 edition. Jack struggles to keep his life afloat and his loved ones safe while battling AIDS. A former lover gifts him with a mysterious elixir rumored to cure AIDS. But soon, the side effects become apparent, and Jack gets mixed up with a bizarre entourage of rock stars, Japanese scientists, corporate executives, AIDS victims, and religious terrorists, all competing to control mankind's fate in the 21st century) $14.95

Hearn, Lafcadio

Kwaidan: Weird Tales from Japan

(Reissue; Collection; 29 traditional tales of ghosts and monsters, collected and translated by Hearn during his 14-year stay in Japan) $15.95

Hodgson, William Hope

Horrors from Haunted Seas

 (Collection; 17 stories of nautical mystery and horror, originally published between 1905 and 1923) $16.95

Holt, Tom

The Better Mousetrap

(Insurance is indeed the force that binds the universe together. Frank Carpenter, one of the foremost magical practitioners of our age, felt himself irresistibly drawn to it - until he met Jane, with her annoying habit of falling out of trees and getting killed. Repeatedly. Soon they find themselves face to face with the greatest enigma of our times: When is a door not a door?) $15.95

Hopkinson, Nalo

Report from Planet Midnight

(PBO; Collection; transcript of a speech tackling sexism and racism in publishing, plus 2 short stories, an interview, and a bibliography) $12.00

Kane/O'Regan (ed)

The Mammoth Book of Body Horror

 (Anthology; reprints 25 stories) $13.95

King, Stephen

11/22/63

(On November 22, 1963, three shots rang out in Dallas, President Kennedy died, and the world changed. What if you could change it back? Al reveals that the storeroom of his diner is a portal to 1958, and enlists his friend Jack on a mission to try to prevent the Kennedy assassination) $19.99

Koch, G.J. (Gini)

Alexander Outland: Space Pirate

(PBO; Alexander and his crew - which includes an engineer of dubious sanity, a deposed planetary governor, and an annoyingly unflappable sexbot - get in trouble with the military, the Mob, mad bombers, and would-be conquerors) $14.99

Lundoff, Catherine

Silver Moon

(Becca Thornton, middle-aged and recently out of the closet, discovers that menopause has turned her into a werewolf. And a number of other women in Wolf's Point have had the same experience. As the newest member of the pack, Becca figures her nights will be spent protecting the town and running through the woods howling at the moon. But there are werewolf hunters in town, and they've got Becca in their sights) $15.00

Maas, Sarah J.

Throne of Glass

(YA; Celaena the assassin must defeat 23 other criminals in a competition at the castle in order to be released from prison. But something evil dwells in the castle. When her competitors start dying, her fight for freedom becomes a fight for survival) $17.99

Mandelo, Brit (ed)

Beyond Binary: Genderqueer and Sexually Fluid Speculative Fiction

 (Anthology; reprints 17 stories that question the ways in which gender and sexuality have been rigidly defined) $20.00

Marmell, Ari

The Abomination Vault

(Darksiders: PBO; Based on the videogame. Ages before the events of Darksiders and Darksiders II, Death and War are tasked with stopping a group of renegades intent on locating the Abomination Vault) $15.00

Martin, George R.R. et al

A Feast of Ice and Fire: The Official Companion Cookbook

(Song of Ice and Fire: Nonfiction; the authors of a popular food blog based on Martin's epic fantasy provide over 100 recipes, plus a guide to dining and entertaining in Seven Kingdoms style) $35.00

Matthews, Hugh

Song of the Serpent

 (Pathfinder Tales: PBO; Novel based on the game) $9.99

McMann, Lisa

The Unwanteds

(Kids; In a society that purges 13-year-olds who are creative, identical twins Aaron and Alex are separated, one to attend University while the other, supposedly Eliminated, finds himself in a wondrous place where youths hone their creativity and learn magic) $6.99

Merciel, Liane

Nightglass

 (Pathfinder Tales: PBO; Novel based on the game) $9.99

Moorcock, Michael et al

Elric: The Balance Lost Volume 2

 (PBO; Full color graphic novel; reprints issues 5-8 of the comic book) $14.99

Payton, T. Aaron

The Constantine Affliction

(London, 1864: A malady that kills some and transforms others into the opposite sex has spread upheaval throughout society. When Pimm, an investigator, and Skye, a journalist, stumble onto a plot that links a criminal overlord with the Queen's new consort, they find the forces of both high and low society arrayed against them) $26.99

Pinkwater, Daniel

Irving and Muktuk: Two Bad Bears

(Bad Bears #1: Kids; Full color picture book; Officer Bunny is the law in Yellowtooth. But can he protect the town's Blueberry Muffin Festival from muffin-loving polar bears Irving and Muktuk?) $6.99

Pinkwater, Daniel

Bad Bears in the Big City

(Bad Bears #2: Kids; Full color picture book; Irving and Muktuk have a new home at the lovely Bayonne, NJ, zoo. But with a muffin factory right next door, can mischief be far behind?) $6.95

Pratt, Tim

City of the Fallen Sky

 (Pathfinder Tales: PBO; Novel based on the game) $9.99

Quinn, Seabury

The Devil's Bride

(Jules de Grandin: Reissue; French occult detective Jules de Grandin tackles a case involving black magic, murder and mutilation, rape and torture, and genocidal race war. Plus bonus story 'House of Golden Masks', pitting de Grandin against white slavers) $14.95

Rankin, Robert

The Mechanical Messiah and Other Marvels of the Modern Age

(1897: The British Empire encompasses Mars, and an uneasy peace exists between the peoples of Venus, Jupiter, and Earth. In Whitechapel, a monster is once more committing hideous acts of murder, and it may take nothing less than the Mechanical Messiah Himself to save London, the Empire, and all of the solar system from impending apocalypse) $14.95

Riordan, Rick

The Lost Hero

(Heroes of Olympus #1: Kids; Percy and his friends have rebuilt their beloved Camp Half-Blood, where a new group of demigods must prepare for a chilling prophecy of their own. But to survive the quest they've inherited, they'll need some help) $9.99

Roberts, Adam

By Light Alone

(In a world where people have been genetically engineered so that they can photosynthesize sunlight with their hair, the poor grow their hair, while the rich affect baldness and flaunt their wealth by eating. The young daughter of an affluent family is kidnapped, but the ransom demands are refused. A year later a young woman arrives at the family home claiming to be their daughter. She has changed so much, she has lived on light, can anyone be sure that she has come home?) $14.95

Robeson, Kenneth

Murder on Wheels / The Three Gold Crowns / Death to the Avenger

 (Avenger #7: Pulp reprints) $14.95

Robeson, Kenneth

The Pirate's Ghost / The Green Eagle (Bama cover)

 (Doc Savage #50: Pulp reprints) $14.95

Robeson, Kenneth

The Derrick Devil / The Spotted Men

 (Doc Savage #58: Pulp reprints) $14.95

Robeson, Kenneth

Pirate Isle / The Speaking Stone

 (Doc Savage #59: Pulp reprints) $14.95

Robeson, Kenneth

He Could Stop the World / The Laugh of Death

 (Doc Savage #60: Pulp reprints) $14.95

Salvatore, R.A.

Charon's Claw

(Forgotten Realms: Neverwinter #3: Drizzt draws his sword once more to aid his friends, assisting the elf Dahlia as she enacts revenge, and helping an old foe break the bonds that have held him hostage for over a century $27.95

Scott, M/Barnett, L

Point of Hopes

(Astreiant #1: Reissue; In the great city of Astreaint, magic is real, stars guide lives, and Nicolas Rathe and his colleagues are attempting to establish a police force. Rathe and Eslingen work together to halt an astrological and alchemical conspiracy against the queen, and rescue scores of kidnapped children) $18.00

Scott, Melissa

Point of Knives

(Astreiant #1.5: Novella. Rathe and Eslingen work together to solve the murders of father-and-son pirates. When pirate treasure proves a threat to the throne, they must make uncomfortable choices) $13.00

Shepard, Lucius

The Dragon Griaule

 (Collection; 6 tales, 1 original to this volume) $45.00

Smith, Jeff

The Drift

(RASL #1: PBO; Black & white graphic novel. Not for kids. A dimension-jumping art thief races through space and time searching for his next big score - and trying to escape his past) $13.00

Smith, Jeff

The Fire of St. George

(RASL #2: PBO; Black & white graphic novel. Not for kids. A dimension-jumping art thief races through space and time searching for his next big score - and trying to escape his past) $15.00

Smith, Jeff

Romance at the Speed of Light

(RASL #3: PBO; Black & white graphic novel. Not for kids. A dimension-jumping art thief races through space and time searching for his next big score - and trying to escape his past) $15.00

Stauber, Katy

Spin the Sky

(PBO; After years away at war, Cesar Vaquero returns to Ithaca, an orbital colony that boasts the only cattle in space, to find his wife and son don't recognize him. Penelope swore off men after her husband disappeared, and has been busy running the ranch, raising her son, and fending off suitors. But something about the war-weary man stirs forgotten feelings in her, even as sabotage, rustlers, and a space stampede threaten to tear Ithaca apart) $14.99

Swift, E.J.

Osiris

(Osiris Project #1: Osiris has been cut off from the land since the Great Storm 50 years ago. Adelaide is a jaded socialite. Vikram is a third-generation refugee, who sees his people dying of cold and starvation. As a brutal winter brings the city closer to riot and revolution, these two will try to bridge the gap dividing the city) $26.99

Szathmari, Sandor

Voyage to Kazohinia

(A dystopian classic in Hungary, available in the U.S. for the first time. A shipwrecked surgeon finds himself among the Hins, who live a technologically advanced existence without emotions, desires, arts, money or politics. Unhappy amid the bleak perfection, he asks to be admitted to the closed settlement of the Behins, beings with souls and atavistic human traits) $16.95

Tan, Charles (ed)

Lauriat: A Filipino-Chinese Speculative Fiction Anthology

 (14 original stories) $18.00

Tobin, Paul (ed)

White Cloud Worlds

 (Full color art book showcasing the work of 27 established and emerging sf and fantasy artists from Aotearoa New Zealand) $29.99

Walton, Evangeline

The Mabinogion Tetralogy: Prince of Annwn / The Children of Llyr / The Song of Rhiannon / The Island of the Mighty (alternate title: The Virgin and the Swine)

 (Omnibus reprint; 4 classic fantasies based on Welsh mythology) $24.95

Watson/Whates (ed)

The Mammoth Book of SF Wars

 (Anthology; 24 stories (3 original to this volume) of war in the future) $13.95

Whitehead, Colson

Zone One

(After a pandemic devastates the planet, a team of civilian volunteers is tasked with clearing out feral zombies from lower Manhattan. Mark is occupied with the mundane mission of zombie mop-up, the rigors of Post-Apocalyptic Stress Disorder, and the impossible tasks of coming to terms with a fallen world. Then things start to go wrong) $15.00

Williams, Mazarkis

The Emperor's Knife

(Tower & Knife #1: When the Cerani Empire is devastated by a strange plague, long-planned conspiracies boil over into violence, and an invincible evil intelligence known as the Pattern Master appears from the deep desert. Only three people stand in his way: a lost prince, a world-weary assassin, and a young girl from the steppes who saw a path in a pattern once, among the waving grasses - a path that just might save them all) $14.99

Williams, Tad

A Stark and Wormy Knight

 (Collection; 11 stories, novellas, and scripts) $40.00

Wilson, N.D.

The Dragon's Tooth

(Ashtown Burials #1: Kids; Cyrus and Antigone Smith join an ancient order of explorers who search for lost cities and powerful artifacts, and act as jallers to unkillable criminals who have terrorized the world for millennia) $7.99

Wingrove, David

Son of Heaven

(Chung Kuo Prequel #1: Dorset, 2085: Chinese airships are in the skies, and Jake finds himself forcibly incorporated into a global city of some 34 billion souls, where a resurgent China is seeking to abolish the past and bring about world peace through rigidly enforced order. But a civil war looms, and Jake will find himself at the heart of the struggle) $12.95

Wrede, Patricia C.

Shadow Magic

(Lyra #1: Reissue; Her kingdom's ancient enemies have kidnapped 20-year-old Princess Alethia, carrying her off through the forest. These are magic woods, home to fabled creatures whose existence she has always doubted. To find her way home, Alethia will have to learn to trust the old tales, which hold the only hope of saving her kingdom; Signed copies) $14.99

Wrede, Patricia C.

Daughter of Witches

(Lyra #2: Reissue; After her parents were executed for practicing magic, Ranira became indentured servant to a brutal innkeeper. While attempting to protect her from her master's cruelty, three guests reveal magical powers. Now she must unleash her own magical powers to save her new friends from certain death; Signed copies) $14.99

Wrede, Patricia C.

The Harp of Imach Thyssel

(Lyra #3: Reissue; Emereck, a minstrel, and Flindaran, a nobleman masquerading as a tramp, have found an abandoned castle, and in it, one of Lyra's most sought-after treasures. Emereck must learn to harness its strength to create and destroy, with the fate of the kingdom hanging in the balance; Signed copies) $22.99

Wrede, Patricia C.

Caught in Crystal

(Lyra #4: Reissue; When a sorceress asks for a room at Kayl's country inn, Kayl is sure the woman has come to take her back to the life she renounced. To save her family and her world, Kayl will have to unlock a side of herself she buried long ago; Signed copies) $24.99

Wrede, Patricia C.

The Raven Ring

(Lyra #5: Reissue; Learning that her mother has died far from home, of wounds sustained in an attack, Eleret sets out to reclaim her mother's belongings - especially a ring etched with a raven. She doesn't know what's special about the ring, but someone was willing to kill for it. To make it home in one piece, she will have to unlock the mysteries of the ring; Signed copies) $23.99

Zeltserman, Dave

Monster: A Novel of Frankenstein

(19th-century Germany: When his beloved is murdered, a young man is accused of the crime. Broken on the wheel and left for dead, he awakens on a lab table, transformed into an abomination. He finds his tormentor, Victor Frankenstein, in league with the Marquis de Sade, creating something much more sinister) $23.95

Expected Early September

Aguirre, Ann

Endgame

(Sirantha Jax #6: PBO; The planet La'heng is occupied by foreign conquerors, but Jax means to liberate it as part of a grass-roots resistance movement) $7.99

Aiken, G.A.

How to Drive a Dragon Crazy

(Dragon Kin #6: PBO; Izzy is trying to fulfill a ridiculous quest for a pushy god; sexy dragon warlord Eibhear the Blue is determined to come along to protect her) $7.99

Allston, Aaron

Conviction

(Star Wars: Fate of the Jedi #7: Abeloth is on the run, but has not given up its plans to destroy the galaxy, even as the Jedi and the Sith abandon all pretense of cooperation and make plans to rout each other) $7.99

Almasi, G.T.

Blades of Winter

(Shadowstorm #1: Rather than risk another war, the four superpowers - the U.S., the Soviet Union, Greater Germany, and the Nationalist Republic of China - have poured their resources into creating superspies known as Levels. Alix is one of the best U.S. Levels. But when a decision explodes - literally - in her face, she uncovers a conspiracy that could upset the balance of power) $9.99

Anderson, K/Peart N

Clockwork Angels

(Companion novel to the newest Rush album; a young man travels across a steampunk world of lost cities, pirates, anarchists, carnivals, and a Watchmaker who imposes precision on daily life) $24.95

Anderson, Kevin J.

Death Warmed Over

(Dan Shamble #1: PBO; A resurrected mummy is suing the museum that put him on display. Two witches, victims of a curse gone wrong, are seeking restitution from a publisher for not using 'spell check' on magical tomes. It's all in a day's work for zombie P.I. Dan Chambeaux. And he's got to figure out a very personal question: Who killed him?) $15.00

Anthony, Piers

Well-Tempered Clavicle

(Xanth #35: Picka Bones and his sister Joy'nt are off in search of adventure with three creatures newly arrived from Mundania - and not the sort of creatures you might expect!) $7.99

Archer, Alex

The Matador Crown

(Rogue Angel #38: PBO; Invited to the Museum of Cadiz to assess some coins, Annja soon finds herself embroiled in a murder investigation that leads her to an illegal - and deadly - collection of Visigoth votive crowns) $6.99

Axler, James

Crimson Waters

(Deathlands #106: PBO; Stranded in a gutted redoubt in the West Indies, Ryan and his friends must escape before they are wiped out by pirates) $6.99

Baggott, Julianna

Pure

(Pressia barely remembers the Detonations, when the world turned to ash, dust, and damaged bodies. Having reached the age when everyone is required to turn themselves over to the militia - to be trained as a soldier, or used as a live target - she is on the run. Those who escaped the apocalypse unmarked are inside the Dome. Partridge - whose father is an important man in the Dome, and whose mother never made it inside their shelter - feels isolated. When he learns that his mother might still be alive, he risks his life to leave the Dome to find her. And when Pressia meets Partridge, their worlds shatter all over again) $9.99

Ballantine, Philippa

Wrayth

(Book of the Order #3: PBO; Sorcha is still unable to move or speak; even her partner Merrick cannot reach her through their shared bond. But when Sorcha is abducted by men seeking her lover Raed, only Merrick can find and rescue her) $7.99

Base, Graeme

Little Elephants

( Kids; Full color picture book; a boy living on a farm in Texas gets a big surprise when he discovers tiny flying elephants under his bed) $16.95

Battersby, Lee

The Corpse-Rat King

(Battlefield looter Marius is mistaken for a dead monarch by one of the dead soldiers, and transported to the Kingdom of the Dead. The dead need a King to remind God where they are. To recover his life, Marius must return to the surface and find them a King. Which he fully intends to do - just as soon as he stops running) $7.99

Bell, Alex

Lex Trent versus the Gods

(Lex Trent #1: Lex Trent's world is inhabited by magicians, crones, and a menagerie of gods and goddesses. And while Lex is seemingly dedicated to his legal studies, he leads a double life as a notorious cat burglar who has been evading capture for years. But Lex's luck is about to run out, because the Goddess of Fortune has selected him to be her player in the highly dangerous Games) $11.95

Beyer, Kristen

The Eternal Tide

(Star Trek Voyager: PBO; The fleet continues its exploration of the Delta Quadrant, investigating the current status of sectors formerly controlled by the Borg) $7.99

Blaylock, James P.

Zeuglodon

(Pursued by kidnappers, three junior members of the Guild of St. George must descend into the depths of the hollow earth to return the Sleeper to his ancestral home. But awakening him might mean the end of the dream, the closing of the passage, and three intrepid explorers marooned in a savage land) $35.00

Bond, Gwenda

Blackwood

(YA; 114 modern-day people have disappeared from Roanoke Island. Miranda, from the island's most infamous family, and Phillips, who hears the voices of the dead, must dodge everyone from federal agents to long-dead alchemists as they work to uncover the secrets of the new Lost Colony) $9.99

Bornikova, Phillipa

This Case Is Gonna Kill Me

(Linnet comes from an affluent human family. When she begins her career at a vampire law firm, she discovers that, in a workplace where some humans will eventually achieve immense power and centuries of extra lifespan, office politics can be vicious beyond belief) $14.99

Brockmann, Suzanne

Born to Darkness

(Determined to end the scourge of a designer drug that can make anyone a superpowered Greater-Than, but exacts a lethal toll, operative Michelle Mackenzie is knocked for a loop when she meets the new test subject: former Navy SEAL Shane Laughlin, her latest one-night stand) $7.99

Brook, Meljean

Riveted

(Iron Seas #3: PBO; Five years ago, Annika unwitting endangered the secret of her Iceclandic community. Now she serves on an airship - and her home is again threatened when David comes aboard, looking to expose her secrets. Disaster leaves them stranded on a glacier, pursued by a madman - with heat rising between them) $16.00

Buehlman, Christopher

Those Across the River

(When Frank Nichols returns to his Georgia hometown to write a history of his family's plantation, he soon learns there is a presence there that demands sacrifice - and has been waiting for Frank's homecoming) $15.00

Buettner, Robert

Undercurrents

(Orphan's Legacy #2: Sent to bring down the local politicos of a politically quarantined giant habitat, Lt. Jazen Parker finds himself inclined to abandon the place to its ways - until he uncovers a plot to throw a 500-hundred-planet alliance into anarchy) $7.99

Carroll, Lee

Black Swan Rising

(Garet James #1: New York City shopkeeper John Dee offers jeweler Garet James a generous sum of money to open a vintage silver box. The symbol of the swan on the box matches a ring Garet's mother gave her, and when she opens the box, otherworldly things start happening) $7.99

Carson, Rae

The Girl of Fire and Thorns

(Elisa #1: YA; Andre Norton Award finalist. Once a century, one person is chosen for greatness. Elisa is the chosen one. She could be everything to those who need her most - if the prophecy is fulfilled, if she finds the power deep within herself, if she doesn't die young. Most of the chosen do) $9.99

Cassidy, Dakota

Accidentally Dead

(Accidentally Paranormal #2: After a patient bites her, dental assistant Nina Blackman ends up with a set of fangs, a taste for blood - and an irresistible attraction to the patient) $7.99

Charlton, Blake

Spellbound

(Nicodemus #2: The demon behind his curse has hatched a plot to force Nicodemus to change language and ultimately use it to destroy all human life. Nico faces challenges from all sides as he struggles to thwart the demon's plan) $7.99

Christopher, Adam

Seven Wonders

(PBO; Tony lives in a city under siege by hooded supervillain The Cowl. When Tony develops superpowers and acts to take down The Cowl, he finds that the local superheroes aren't as grateful as he thought they'd be) $12.99

Ciruelo

The Book of the Dragon

 (Reissue; Full color. Reveals the secrets of the dragons, illuminating a culture filled with poetry, magic, and art) $17.95

Cook, Glen

A Path to Coldness of Heart

(Dread Empire #8: King Bragi Ragnorson is the captive of Lord Shih-kaa and the Empress Mist at the heart of the Dread Empire. Bragi's queen and what remains of his army seek to find and free their king, hampered by the loss or desertion of their best warriors. Dane, Duke of Greyfells, seeks to seize the rule of Kavelin. And in the ancient castle Fangdred, the sorcerer Varthlokkur waits, using his arts to spy on the world at large, and observing the puppet strings that control kings and empires alike) $15.99

Correia, Larry

Legion

(Monster Hunter #4: When hunters from around the world gather in Las Vegas for a conference, a creature left over from a WWII weapons experiment wakes up and goes on a rampage across the desert. A wager between rival companies turns into a race to see who can bag the creature first. But there's more to this case than meets the eye: the crew from MHI will have to stop an ancient god from turning Sin City into hell on earth; Signed copies; signing at Uncle Hugo’s Tuesday, September 18, 5-6 pm) $25.00

Crane, Carolyn

Head Rush

(Justine Jones #3: As Midcity cowers under martial law, sleepwalking cannibals, and a mysterious rash of paranormal copycat violence, Justine's search for answers leads her into the most dangerous mind game yet) $16.00

Curran, Kim

Shift

(YA; 16-year-old Scott learns he's a Shifter, with the power to undo any decision he's ever made. Pretty cool, until his world starts to unravel around him, and he realizes that using his power has terrible consequences) $9.99

Daniells, Rowena Cory

Sanctuary

(Outcast #3: With winter storms brewing and raiders drawn by rumors of wealth, tension grows on the overcrowded ships of the mystics. And although Imoshen sent the Sagora Scholars a request for sanctuary, they haven't replied) $8.99

De Grave, Kathleen

The Hour of Lead

(Kansas, 2039: An earthquake that has slowed down time forces two people to confront their pasts in order to repair their broken lives in the present) $14.95

Dick, Philip K.

Upon the Dull Earth

 (Collected Stories #3: Collection; 23 stories and novellas written in 1953 and 1954, plus extensive story notes) $40.00

Dick, Philip K.

Solar Lottery (alternate title: World of Chance)

(Reissue; In 2203 anyone can become the ruler of the solar system - it all comes down to the random turns of a giant wheel. But when a new Quizmaster takes over, the old one still keeps some rights, namely the right to hire assassins to attempt to kill the new leader. After the most recent change in leadership, employees of the former ruler scurry to find an assassin who can get past telepathic guards. But when one employee switches sides, troubling facts about the lottery system come to light, and it just might not be possible for anyone to win) $13.95

Dick, Philip K.

We Can Build You

(Reissue; When Louis Rosen's electronic organ company builds a pitch-perfect robotic replica of Abraham Lincoln, they are pulled into the orbit of a shady businessman, who is looking to use Lincoln for his own profit. Meanwhile, Rosen seeks Lincoln's advice as he woos a woman incapable of understanding human emotions - someone who may be even more robotic than Lincoln's replica) $13.95

Dick, Philip K.

The World Jones Made

(Reissue; Floyd Jones has always been able to see exactly one year into his future, a gift and curse that began one year before he was born. As a fortune-teller at a post-apocalyptic carnival, Jones is a powerful force, and may just be able to force society away from its paralyzing Relativism - if he can avoid the radioactively unstable government hitman on his tail) $13.95

Doctorow, C/Stross, C

The Rapture of the Nerds

(At the dusk of the 21st century, Earth has a population of roughly a billion hominids happily living in a preserve at the bottom of a gravity well. Those who weren't happy have emigrated to the densethinker clades that fog the inner solar system. The metaconsciousness of the solar system occasionally spams Earth's networks with plans for cataclysmically disruptive technologies. A sane species would ignore these get-evolved-quick schemes, but there's always someone who will bite. So there's Tech Jury Service: random humans charged with assessing dozens of new inventions and ruling on whether to let them loose. Young Huw, a technophobic, misanthropic Welshman, has been selected for the latest jury) $24.99

Doctorow, Cory

For the Win

(YA; In electronic sweatshops, countless 'gold farmers', trapped by abusive contracts and physical threats, harvest virtual treasure for their employers to sell to First World gamers willing to spend real money to skip straight to higher-level gameplay. A mysterious woman called Big Sister Nor will use her experience, knowledge of history, and connections to real-world organizers to build group of young people into a movement that can challenge the status quo) $10.99

Douglas, Ian

Bloodstar

(Star Corpsman #1: PBO; Navy Corpsman Elliot Carlyle and Bravo Company's Black Wizards are en route to the colony planet of Bloodworld, where the alien Qesh have made violent first contact) $7.99

Egan, Greg

The Eternal Flame

(Orthogonal #2: When a fuel shortage threatens the generation ship's voyage, Tamara the astronomer sees a risky solution in a meteor whose trajectory will bring it within range. Meanwhile, Carlo the biologist searches for a better way to control the ship's population explosion) $26.99

Elliott, Kate

Cold Fire

(Spiritwalker #2: Cat and Bee are caught in an intricate web of subterfuge and politics. Everyone seems to want something from them: the warlord who wants to conquer Europa, the Cold Mages who stand against him, and the dangerous Master of the Wild Hunt) $7.99

Flanagan, John

The Outcasts

(Brotherband #1: Kids; Skandians are known for their size and strength. Not Hal, Stig, and their friends. But that doesn't mean they don't have skills, or courage. And they'll need both to do battle at sea against the Wolves and the Sharks in the ultimate race) $8.99

Flavin, Teresa

The Blackhope Enigma

(Kids; Blackhope Tower is shrouded in intrigue, centering on a labyrinth and painting in the Mariner's Chamber. When 14-year-old Sunni visits the tower and sees her stepbrother Dean disappear, seemingly into the painting itself, she sets out to find him) $6.99

Flint, Eric (ed)

Ring of Fire III

 (Ring of Fire: Anthology; 20 original alternate history tales set in the world of  

1632

, by Flint, Lackey, and more) $7.99

Friedman, C.S.

Legacy of Kings

(Magister #3: With the Magisters hunting her for killing one of their own, Kamala's only hope of survival lies in the northern Protectorates. There spells are warped by a curse, originally intended to protect the lands of men from the souleaters. But the curse appears to be weakening - and the threat of the souleaters is once more falling across the land) $7.99

Froud, Brian & Wendy

Trolls

 (Art book; new and classic work by the Frouds, revealing the world of trolls) $35.00

Gaider, David

The Stolen Throne

 (Dragon Age: Prequel to video game  

Dragon Age: Origins

) $7.99

Gear, W.M. & Kathleen

The Broken Land

(First North Americans #19: Dangerous sorcerer Atotarho has set in motion a cataclysmic battle that threatens to destroy the Iroquoian world. To stop him, Jigonsaseh, Hiyawento, and Sky Messenger must find a way to unite five warring nations) $7.99

Gibson, William

Distrust That Particular Flavor

 (Collection; 25 essays and articles on technology, popular culture, writing, and more) $16.00

Gilman, Laura Anne

The Shattered Vine

(Vineart War #3: As conditions worsen throughout the Lands, Jerzy returns to the Berengia to delve into the magic that has been growing within him, knowing that his god-forbidden knowledge may be the only thing that can save the Lands Vin) $9.99

Golden, Christie

Jaina Proudmoore: Tides of War

(World of Warcraft: When a beloved peacekeeper is pressed to the limit by an inconceivable horror, will it change her forever? Break her? Or redefine her role on Azeroth?) $26.00

Goonan, Kathleen Ann

In War Times

(1941: After his brother is killed at Pearl Harbor, Sam promises that he will do anything he can to stop the war, and is selected to study code breaking, electronics, and physics. He is seduced by a mysterious female physicist, and given the plans for a device that will end the war, perhaps even end the human predilection for war. But the device does something less, and more, than that) $15.99

Gorey, Edward

A Halloween Treat

(In a previously unpublished vignette, kids and cats go trick-or-treating, gathering loot that might be tricks - or their very own monsters. Plus a collection of ghastly ghost illustrations) $13.00

Green, Simon R.

Ghost of a Dream

(Ghost Finders #3: PBO; Renovations at the long-abandoned Haybarn Theater have been thrown off schedule by some peculiar incidents. The team figures investigating a haunted theater will be a walk in the park - until they encounter the Phantom of the Haybarn, an ancient evil with the ability to alter reality) $7.99

Greenwood, Ed

Elminster Enraged

(Forgotten Realms: Sage of Shadowdale #2: Inhabiting the body of a fallen dark elf, Elminster begins to rally Cormyr's Wizards of War. Manshoon has plans as well: to conquer Cormyr and be the new Emperor, and hunt down the Sage's clones) $25.95

Grimes, Linda

In a Fix

(Ciel Halligan #1: Aura adaptor Ciel Halligan takes on her clients' appearances and slips into their lives to handle situations they don't want to deal with themselves. Her current job, snagging a marriage proposal for her client during an island vacation, is pretty enjoyable - until her resort bungalow is blown up and her client's date is snatched by modern-day Vikings) $14.99

Grinti, Mike & Rachel

Claws

(Kids; Emma's family lives in a trailer park that's home to down-and-out harpies, hags, trolls - and Jack, a one-eyed, smooth-talking cat. He becomes Emma's friend, and she discovers that she, too, has cat magic - claws. She's going to need them to rescue her sister from the powerful faeries who stole her) $16.99

Harris/Kelner (ed)

An Apple for the Creature

 (Anthology; urban fantasy stories of unnatural education, including a new Sookie Stackhouse story) $26.95

Hartley, A.J.

Darwen Arkwright and the Peregrine Pact

(Kids; When he's forced to move from his tiny English town to Atlanta, Georgia, Darwen knows things will be different - but he wasn't expecting to discover that the old mirror in his new closet leads to another world - or that there are creatures there who are after something that only human children possess) $8.99

Hatke, Ben

Legends of Zita the Spacegirl

(Zita #2: PBO; Kids; Full color graphic novel; Zita is determined to make it home to Earth, but her robot doppelganger is wreaking havoc, and Zita is being blamed) $12.99

Herbert, James

The Secret of Crickley Hall

(Would you live in a place where ghostly things keep happening? Where hushed whimpering is heard? Where the presence of evil is all around you? The Caleighs did, but they had their reasons. They should have known better) $9.99

Hinks, Darius

Orion: The Vaults of Winter

(Warhammer: The forest-king Orion awakens from his winter slumber to discover he has been cursed. As the corruption spreads to the woodland realm around him, he must rely upon his loyal subjects to help him unmask a traitor) $11.99

Holkins, J/Krahulik, M

Magical Kids in Danger

(Penny Arcade #8: Full color. Collects the 2007 strips of the popular webcomic starring geeky heroes Gabe and Tycho, plus creator commentary) $14.99

Hughes, Alex

Clean

(Mindspace #1: PBO; Adam used to work for the Telepath's Guild. Now he works for the cops. His ability to get inside the twisted minds of suspects makes him their best interrogator. A serial killer is stalking the city, and Adam needs to solve the case, because he's just had a vision of the future - and he's the next to die) $7.99

Hunter, Erin

The Empty City

(Survivors #1: Kids; The humans are gone, and a new animal is ready to rule the world. Which animals are brave enough to take control when disaster strikes? And what enemies will stand in their way?) $16.99

Jacka, Benedict

Taken

(Alex Verus #3: PBO; Mage apprentices have been vanishing without a trace, and someone on the Council might be involved. Alex has no evidence, no witnesses, and no suspects, but he sees that he doesn't know the half of it - and that he could be the next to disappear) $7.99

Johnson-Shelton, Nils

The Invisible Tower

(Otherworld Chronicles #1: Kids; A mysterious message appears in Artie Kingfisher's favorite video game, leading him to a game store where a centuries-old wizard named Merlin holds the key to his destiny) $6.99

Johnson, Mat

Pym

 (A failed academic acquires an old slave narrative manuscript confirming that Edgar Allan Poe's  

The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym

 is a true story. He sets out for Antarctica to discover the land of black people that Poe describes, but instead he and his fellow adventurers are enslaved by the white ice creatures from the novel. Now this black crew must try to escape slavery all over again) $15.00

Kadrey, Richard

Devil Said Bang

(Sandman Slim #4: While ruling the denizens of darkness does have perks, James Stark isn't exactly thrilled with the course of his career. He has to hold off a host of killers while working on his escape plan. Meanwhile, a serial killer ghost is running wild in LA, and Slim's angelic alter ego is hiding in the lost days of time with a cabal who can rewrite reality) $24.99

Kibuishi, Kazu

Prince of the Elves

(Amulet #5: Kids; Full color graphic novel. The Elf King has forged new amulets which will allow him to invade Cielis and destroy it; Emily and her friends make desperate preparations to defend Cielis) $12.99

Kittredge, Caitlin

Soul Trade

(Black London #5: PBO; Crow-mage Jack Winter and former detective Pete Caldecott face formidable new enemies as they continue their quest to save Black London from destruction) $7.99

Kostic, Conor

Edda

(Epic #3: YA; In the virtual world of Edda, Scanthax the ruler decides he wants to invade another virtual world. This move embroils the universes of Edda, Saga, and Epic in all-out war - with three teenagers determined to try to restore peace) $9.99

Krentz/Castle, Jayne

The Lost Night

(PBO; Psychic Rachel Bonner has found peace and quiet on Rainshadow Island - until Harry Sebastian arrives to investigate strange events in the Preserve. She can sense the heart of darkness within him - and the stirrings of desire within her) $7.99

Lackey, M/Edghill, R

A Host of Furious Fancies: Beyond World's End / Spirits White as Lightning

 (Bedlam's Bard #3 / #4: Omnibus reprint; 2 fantasy novels) $13.00

LaValle, Victor

The Devil in Silver

(On his first night in New Hyde Hospital's psych ward, Pepper is visited by a terrifying creature who nearly kills him before being hustled away by the hospital staff. It's no delusion; Pepper rallies three other inmates in a plot to fight back) $27.00

Laws, Robin D.

Blood of the City

 (Pathfinder Tales: PBO; Novel based on the game) $9.99

Lee, Sharon/Miller, Steve

Dragon Ship

 (Liaden: Theo Waitley #4: Theo has a trade route to run for Clan Korval while she convinces the ghost ship  

Bechimo

 - and herself - that she wants to commit herself to being the human side of their immensely powerful symbiosis. While her former lover battles a nano-virus that's eating him alive, Theo faces the unexpected challenge of rescuing hundreds of stranded pilots and crewmen from an explosive situation in near orbit around a suddenly hostile planet; Signed copies) $23.00

Lore, Pittacus

The Rise of Nine

(Lorien Legacies #3: YA; The stakes are higher than ever as John, Number Six, and Number Seven desperately try to find the rest of the Lorien Nine before it's too late) $17.99

Maltin, Leonard

Leonard Maltin's 2013 Movie Guide

(PBO; Revised and updated guide with thousands of capsule movie reviews, DVD and video listings, mail-order and online resources for buying and renting DVDs and videos, and more) $9.99

Mandanna, Sangu

The Lost Girl

(YA; Eva was cloned to replace Amarra if she ever died. So when Amarra dies in a car crash, Eva moves to India to replace her. But does she want to live out her years as a copy? Or risk everything to be Eva?) $17.99

Marr, Melissa

Carnival of Souls

(YA; Aya and Kaleb both face bleak futures, unless they can win a competition hosted by the Carnival of Souls, fighting to the death to join the ruling elite) $17.99

Martin/Lowder, J (ed)

Beyond the Wall: Exploring George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire

 (Essays by authors and critics looking at Martin's epic fantasy) $14.95

McDonald, Ian

Be My Enemy

(Everness #2: YA; Everett has escaped with the Infundibulum from the clutches of Charlotte Villiers and the Order, but his father is missing, banished to one of the billions of parallel universes. Everett and the airship crew have taken a Heisenberg Jump to a random parallel plane, where Everett is making plans to rescue his family. But Charlotte Villiers is one step ahead of him) $16.95

McGuire, Seanan

Ashes of Honor

(October Daye #6: PBO; While searching for a powerful changeling with the potential to destroy all of Faerie, Tobey is drawn into a web of kidnappings, political intrigue, and attempted assassinations) $7.99

McKinney, Joe

Mutated

(PBO; Fleeing the cities and their flesh-eating zombies, Bob Richardson and his crew find sanctuary at an abandoned farm. But their stronghold may not be enough - the undead are banding together and working as a group) $7.99

McMahon, Gary

Beyond Here Lies Nothing

(Concrete Grove #3: Ben arrives in Concrete Grove to research a infamous paranormal incident from the early 1970s; when strange things begin happening, it's up to him to put the ghosts to rest) $8.99

O'Brien, Caragh M.

Prized

(Birthmarked #2: YA; 16-year-old midwife Gaia flees the Enclave with her baby sister, only to be captured by the people of Sylum, where women rule the men, and a kiss is a crime) $9.99

Oliver, Lauren

Liesl & Po

(Kids; Locked in the attic by her cruel stepmother, Liesl is surprised one evening when a ghost named Po appears. That same evening, an alchemist's apprentice named Will makes an innocent mistake that has tremendous consequences for Liesl and Po, and draws the three of them together on an extraordinary journey) $6.99

Packard, Edward

Through the Black Hole

(U-Ventures: Kids; You're in command of the most advanced spaceship in the galaxy on the wildest mission in history. Choose your own fate as you try to make it through a black hole) $5.99

Palma, Felix J.

The Map of the Sky

(H.G. Wells #2: Socialite Emma Harlow agrees to marry millionaire Montgomery Gilmore, but only if he accepts her challenge to reproduce the invasion featured in Wells'  

War of the Worlds

. Interconnected plots tell a tale of time travel and mystery, with appearances by a young Edgar Allan Poe as well as Captain Shackleton and Charles Winslow) $26.00

Passarella, John

Rite of Passage

(Supernatural: A series of accidents and strange occurrences in a New Jersey town attracts the attention of the Winchester brothers) $7.99

Paterson, K & J

The Flint Heart

(Kids; Freely abridged from Eden Phillpotts' 1910 fantasy. A Stone Age man demands a talisman to harden his heart, allowing him to take control of his tribe. The tribe's magic man creates the Flint Heart, but the cruelty of it destroys the tribe. Thousands of years later, the talisman reemerges. Can Charles and his sister Unity find a way to rescue humans, fairies, and animals alike from its dark influence?) $9.99

Paver, Michelle

Gods and Warriors

(Kids; Warriors have kidnapped his sister and tried to kill him; a stranger has given him a bronze dagger. Now young Hylas is on the run, trying to discover why he's being hunted, and to find his sister before the warriors find him) $16.99

Petrucha, Stefan

Dead Mann Running

(Hessius Mann #2: PBO; The living dead PI is drawn into a killer case when a severed arm leaves a mysterious briefcase at his office) $7.99

Phillips, Holly

At the Edge of Waking

 (Collection of short fantasy fiction) $15.95

Priest, Christopher

The Islanders

(The Dream Archipelago is a vast network of islands whose very locations seem to twist and shift. Some islands have been sculpted into musical instruments, some are home to lethal creatures, some are playgrounds for the rich. And a war being fought by two distant continents is playing out across the archipelago's waters) $14.95

Reay, Joanne

Romeo Spikes

(Homicide detective Alexis Bianco teams up with the mysterious Lola, who is more weapon than woman, to pursue the Tormenta, demonic predators who convince humans to kill themselves in order to siphon off their victims' unspent lifespans) $25.00

Redwine, C.J.

Defiance

(YA; While other girls train to be ladies, Rachel trains to survive in the wilderness and wield a sword. When her father fails to return from a courier mission, her father's apprentice Logan is assigned to protect her. Together they will escape the tyrant's city to hunt for Rachel's father) $17.99

Reus, Katie

Primal Possession

(Moon Shifter #2: PBO; When a hate group targets humans known to sympathize with paranormal beings, December McIntyre turns to lupine shifter Liam Armstrong for help) $7.99

Rosca, Madeleine

The Clockwork Sky Volume 1

(Graphic novel. 1895: In the London slums, young Sally Peppers and automaton police boy Sky uncover a dark secret that could overturn all of London) $10.99

Scarrow, Alex

Day of the Predator

(TimeRiders #2: YA; When Maddy mistakenly opens a time window, Liam is marooned 65 million years in the past. He must make contact with Maddy and Sal before he's hunted down by dinosaurs - or alters history) $9.99

Sedia, Ekaterina (ed)

Circus: Fantasy Under the Big Top

 (PBO; Anthology; stories of circuses traditional, bizarre, and futuristic) $15.95

Shatner, William

Shatner Rules

(A collection of guidelines and fun facts, illustrated with stories from Bill's life and career, showing how to become Shatneresque) $15.00

Silverberg, Robert (ed)

Tales from Super-Science Fiction

 (Anthology; reprints 14 stories from the 1950s magazine) $32.00

Singh, Nalini

Archangel's Storm

(Guild Hunter #5: PBO; Angelic spymaster Jason and Princess Mahiya are drawn to each other as they work together to solve the murder of Neha's consort) $7.99

Slonczewski, Joan

The Highest Frontier

(On an Earth altered by global warming, with an invasive alien species threatening the surviving ecosystems, Jennifer Ramos Kennedy, daughter of a rich and influential family, is headed for the college of the future, in orbit) $7.99

Smith, Cordwainer

When the People Fell

 (Collection of Instrumentality stories and miscellaneous short stories, providing a sweeping saga of the centuries to come) $7.99

Smith, Sherwood

Blood Spirits

(Kim Murray #2: With the man she loves set to marry a look-alike princess, Kim returns to California to heal her broken heart. But family politics send her to London, where she winds up in a duel with a Dobrenican nobleman, and learns that her great sacrifice, leaving Alex, was a disaster. She returns to Dobrenica, where she finds ghosts, magic, and murder awaiting her) $7.99

Stein, Jeanne C.

Haunted

(Anna Strong #8: PBO; Vampire and bounty hunter Anna Strong and her friend Culebra end up in Mexico, dealing with cartel infighting, a few old vendettas, and missing girls) $7.99

Stirling, S.M.

The Tears of the Sun

(Change #8: Rudi McKenzie - now Artos, the High King of Montival - must stand against the forces of the Church Universal and Triumphant, knowing he may lose his life in the final battle) $9.99

Stirling, S.M.

Lord of Mountains

(Change #9: To end the war, Artos must journey to the Lake at the Heart of the Mountains and take part in a coronation that will unite the realms into a single kingdom, granting him an army large enough to defeat his enemies once and for all) $27.95

Strahan, Jonathan (ed)

Under My Hat: Tales from the Cauldron

 (YA; Anthology; original stories celebrating the witch) $16.99

Swallow, James

Fear to Tread

(Warhammer 40,000: Horus Heresy #21: Horus sends the Blood Angels to the Signus system, where an army of Khornate daemons waits for them. The Warmaster's plan is to use the flaw in the Blood Angels' gene-seed to turn them to the worship of the Blood God) $9.99

Thomas, Shelley Moore

The Seven Tales of Trinket

(Kids; Guided by a tattered map, accompanied by Thomas the Pig Boy, and inspired by her heritage, 11-year-old Trinket searches for the stories she needs to become a bard like her father, who disappeared years ago) $16.99

Thorpe, Gav

Path of the Outcast

(Warhammer 40,000: Eldar #3: While Aradryan lives as a Ranger, Alaitoc is attacked by the Sons of Orar Space Marines, and must do what he can to help save the craftworld) $8.99

Tinker, Major (ed)

The Steampunk Gazette

(From the founder of the Victorian Steampunk Society, a lavishly illustrated history of steampunk, from its 1980s origins to today. Sections on fashion, gadgets, home decor, art, literature, media, and social events) $24.99

Trent, Tiffany

The Unnaturalists

(YA; When his Tinker family is captured to be refinery slaves, Syrus Reed finds that his fate may be bound up with that of Vespa Nyx - and with the Unnatural creatures she catalogues in her father's New London museum) $16.99

Varley, John

Slow Apocalypse

(Screenwriter Dave Marshall thought the scenario sounded implausible when he heard it from a government consultant on his last film: a scientist releases a virus that feeds on petroleum into an Iraqi oil field, but it spreads to infect the entire international fuel supply. Now it's become a terrifying reality) $25.95

Weber, David

A Beautiful Friendship

(Stephanie Harrington #1: YA; On the pioneer planet Sphinx, young Stephanie Harrington discovers an intelligent alien species, treecats, and forms the first telepathic bond with one. But a lot of powerful people are determined to make sure that Sphinx remains entirely in human hands - even if it means the extermination of another thinking species) $9.99

Wendig, Chuck

Mockingbird

(Miriam #2: PBO; Miriam is trying to live a normal life, keeping her ability - to see when and how someone is going to die - in check. Which feels like keeping a tornado trapped in a tiny bottle. And then comes one really bad day) $7.99

Williams, Tad

The Dirty Streets of Heaven

(Bobby Dollar #1: Bobby is a rough-and-tumble angel who's always done his part in the long cold war between Heaven and Hell. But now he's stepped into the middle of something that's got both sides nervous - an unprecedented number of missing souls) $25.95

Wooding, Chris

Havoc

(Malice #2: Kids; Having escaped from Malice, Seth isn't sure if he should try to destroy the evil comic book from his own world, or go back for an artifact that might help. Meanwhile, Kady is still trapped in Malice, trying to find a rebel group of kids who want to fight cruel overlord Tall Jake) $9.99

Zeltserman, Dave

A Killer's Essence

(When a serial killer terrorizes New York City, jaded detective Stan Green finds just a single witness, a neurologically disabled recluse who sees through the souls of others as demonic hallucinations) $15.00

Expected Mid-September

Andrews, Scott K.

School's Out Forever

(Afterblight Chronicles: 15-year-old Lee and his boarding school's Matron must try to protect their charges from cannibalistic gangs, religious fanatics, a bullying prefect, and the surviving might of the U.S. Army) $12.99

Bachmann, Stefan

The Peculiar

(Kids; Bartholomew is a changeling, child of a faery father and a human mother, who lives in the faery slums of Bath. When he witnesses the kidnapping of another changeling, he finds himself at the center of a web of intrigue) $16.99

Balaban, Bob

The Creature from the Seventh Grade: Boy or Beast

(Kids; Charlie has suddenly morphed into a giant mutant sea creature. Now his best friends are treating him like a science project, the cool kids are recruiting him for their clique, and, for some reason, his parents are acting like everything is perfectly normal) $15.99

Barnhill, Kelly

The Mostly True Story of Jack

(Kids; When Jack is sent to Hazelwood, Iowa, to live with his crazy aunt and uncle, he expects a summer of boredom. But the people of Hazelwood have been waiting for him for a long time. He makes friends. The town bully beats him up. And the richest man in town begins to plot Jack's imminent demise. It's up to Jack to figure out why - but to do that, he'll have to believe that magic is real, and has something to do with him) $6.99

Bray, Libba

The Diviners

(YA; 1920s: Evie is shipped off to NYC to live with her Uncle Will, curator of the Museum of American Folklore, Superstition and the Occult. They find themselves in the thick of an investigation of occult-based murders. And Evie has a secret - a mysterious power that could help catch the killer, if he doesn't catch her first) $19.99

Brower, S/Heller, S

Breathless Homicidal Slime Mutants: The Art of the Paperback

 (Reissue; A celebration of the art and design of the mass-market paperback, from the late 19th century to today) $7.98

Burroughs/Maxwell

Jane: The Woman Who Loved Tarzan

 (PBO; Authorized by the Burroughs estate. The Tarzan story told from Jane's viewpoint; $25.99 hc also available) $14.99

Carlson, Amanda

Full Blooded

(Jessica McClain #1: PBO; Jessica has become a werewolf. It wasn't supposed to happen: female werewolves don't exist. When a killer comes looking for her, her Pack finds themselves caught in the middle of a war. It's up to Jessica to find out why everyone wants her dead) $12.99

Chabon, Michael

Telegraph Avenue

(2004: Archy and Nat rule a kingdom of used vinyl located in the borderlands of Berkeley and Oakland. Their wives, Gwen and Aviva, are two semi-legendary midwives who have welcomed more than a thousand newly minted citizens into the community. When a former NFL quarterback announces plans to build his latest megastore on a nearby stretch of Telegraph Avenue, Nat and Archy fear it means certain doom for their vulnerable little enterprise. Meanwhile, Aviva and Gwen also find themselves caught up in a battle for their professional existence; Signed copies expected) $27.99

Cornwall, Emma

Incarnation

 (In a steampunk London, Lucy Weston confronts Bram Stoker to find out why he lied about her in his novel  

Dracula

. Then, with Stoker's reluctant help, she sets out to track down the fiend who turned her into a vampire) $15.00

Davis, Jim

Garfield Gets in a Pickle

 (Garfield #54: PBO; Full color comic strips) $14.00

Durst, Sarah Beth

Vessel

(YA; Liyana has trained her entire life to be the vessel of a goddess, but the goddess never comes. Abandoned by her tribe, Liyana expects to die in the desert, until a boy arrives. Korbyn is a trickster god inside his vessel, who tells Liyana that five other gods are missing. They set off in search of the other vessels, for the tribes cannot survive without the magic of their gods. The closer she grows to Korbyn, the less Liyana wants to disappear to make way for her goddess. But she must die for her tribe to live, unless a trickster god can help her to trick fate - or a human girl can muster some magic of her own) $16.99

Edward, John

Fallen Masters

 (A final confrontation between good and evil unfolds on both the Earthly plane and the Other Side) $25.99

Erikson, Steven

The Forge of Darkness

(Malazan: Kharkarnas #1: In Kurald Galain, the commoners want Vatha Urusander, their great hero, to take Mother Dark's hand in marriage, but her consort Lord Draconus is opposed. As the impending clash disrupts the realm of Darkness, an ancient power emerges from the long dead seas. Caught in the middle of it all are the First Sons of Darkness, Anomander, Andarist, and Silchas Ruin) $27.99

Griffin, Kate

Stray Souls

(Sharon Li has just discovered she's a shaman, and not a moment too soon. London's soul has gone missing. To solve the mystery and rescue the dying city, she'll need help from the support group she's just set up for people with magical issues) $14.99

Johnson, Kij

At the Mouth of the River of Bees

 (Collection; 16 works of sf and fantasy from an award-winning author; Signed copies expected) $16.00

Jones, Stephen (ed)

A Book of Horrors

 (Anthology; original stories of horror and dark fantasy from top writers) $15.99

Jordan, Hillary

When She Woke

(In the not too distant future, the line between church and state has been eradicated, and convicted felons are no longer imprisoned but chromed - their skin color genetically altered to match the class of their crimes - and then released back into the population to survive as best they can. Hannah is a Red; her crime is abortion) $14.95

Kenyon, S/Love, D

The Curse

(Belador #3: PBO; When Svart Trolls invade Atlanta, Evalle tries to stop the bloody troll-led gang wars; she unwittingly exposes a secret that endangers all she holds dear and complicates her tumultuous love life with Storm) $7.99

King, A.S.

Everybody Sees the Ants

(YA; Andre Norton Award finalist. Lucky has a secret that helps him wade through his dysfunctional life. In his dreams, he escapes to the war-torn jungles of Laos, where he can be a hero. It's dangerous and wild - a place where his life just might be worth living. But how long can Lucky hide in his dreams before reality forces its way in?) $9.99

Knaak, Richard A.

Shade

(Legends of the Dragonrealm: Shade the spellcaster struggles to find an end to the curse he brought upon himself millennia ago) $16.00

Kristoff, Jay

Stormdancer

(Lotus War #1: After disaster befalls her mission to capture a griffin for the Shogun, Yukiko finds herself stranded in the wilderness with a crippled griffin. They will face intrigue, betrayal, and murder as they try to save their homeland) $24.99

Le Guin, Ursula K.

Finding My Elegy

 (Collection of some of her best early poetry plus a group of poems written over the last four years) $22.00

Leslie, Mark (ed)

Tesseracts 16: Parnassus Unbound

 (Anthology; short works of speculative fiction about art, music, literature, and culture) $15.95

Marillier, Juliet

Shadowfell

(YA; Possessing a powerful ability to communicate with the fairy-like Good Folk, 16-year-old Neryn sets out for Shadowfell, a home and training ground for a rebel group determined to overthrow the evil King Keldec) $16.99

McElligott/Tuxbury

Benjamin Franklinstein Meets the Fright Brothers

(Victor Godwin #2: Kids; When giant bat planes and mysterious attacks bring mayhem to Philadelphia, Victor knows only the Wright Brothers could pilot such creations - but the red-eyed brothers don't seem quite like themselves. Can Victor and his friends stop them from taking over the city?) $7.99

McOmber, Adam

The White Forest

(Jane has a gift that allows her to see the souls of manmade objects. When her friend Nathan becomes interested in a cult - led by a mystic who encourages his followers to explore dream manipulation - and then disappears, the famed Inspector Vidocq arrives in London to untangle events. But when a sinister truth emerges, Jane realizes she must use her talent to find Nathan before it's too late) $25.00

Shirley, John

Retribution

 (Resident Evil: PBO; Novelization of the film) $7.99

Starmer, Aaron

The Only Ones

(Kids; Martin arrives at the village of Xibalba. Like the other children who've journeyed there, he faces an awful truth. When families and friends all disappeared one afternoon, he and these other children were forgotten. Inspired by the prophesies of a mysterious boy who talks to animals, Martin believes he can reunite them with their loved ones - but believing and knowing are two different things) $7.99

Tanner, Lian

City of Lies

(Keepers #2: Kids; When his sister is stolen, Toadspit and his friend Goldie follow the child-stealers to a neighboring city. Along the way, Toadspit is captured. When Goldie discovers some secrets that the child-stealers will kill to protect, she'll need all her skills as a thief and a liar to survive and save her friends) $6.99

Tolkien, J.R.R.

The Art of

The Hobbit

 (The author's complete artwork for the book) $40.00

Weber, David

Midst Toil and Tribulation

(Safehold #6: A vicar of the Church of God Awaiting has engineered a rebellion against the Lord Protector of Siddermark, bringing civil war to the nation at harvest time) $27.99

Weeks, Brent

The Blinding Knife

(Lightbringer #2: Gavin had thought he had five years left, now he has less than one. Magic is running wild and threatens to destroy the Satrapies. The old gods are being reborn, and their army of color wights is unstoppable. The only salvation may be the brother whose freedom and life Gavin stole) $25.99

Ziegler, Rob

Seed

(After economic, political, and environmental collapse, the US is now controlled by Satori, a corporation that is also a living, intelligent city. Satori bioengineers the climate-resistant seed that feeds the nation, as well as the post-human genetic Designers, Advocates, and Laborers. When a Designer goes rogue, the government hopes to regain power by using her to break Satori's stranglehold on seed production) $15.99

Expected Early October

Anderson, Kevin J.

The Martian War

(PBO; What if the Martian invasion was not entirely the product of H.G.'s imagination? What if he witnessed something that spurred him to write  

The War of the Worlds

 as a warning?) $12.95

Anderson, Taylor

Firestorm

(Destroyermen #6: Even as the Allies and the Empire of New Britain Isles stand united against the Grik and the Japanese, the Holy Dominion - a warped, power-hungry mix of human cultures - threatens destruction with a devastating weapon neither Allies nor Empire can withstand) $7.99

Archer, Jill

Dark Light of Day

(Noon Onyx #1: PBO; Noon is capable of wielding the destructive power of demons. But because she's human, the demons consider her an abomination- and a threat to their rule over Earth) $7.99

Bein, Steve

Daughter of the Sword

(Fated Blades #1: Tokyo cop Mariko Oshiro investigates the attempted theft of an old samurai sword, forged by a swordsmith whose blades may have magical qualities. She is only the latest in a long line of warriors to confront this power, and it threatens to turn against her even as she learns to wield the sword) $16.00

Benford, Gregory et al

The Wonderful Future That Never Was

 (Between 1903 and 1969,  

Popular Mechanics

 magazine included hundreds of predictions about the future. This book recaps some of those ideas, illustrated with the original futurist art. Benford supplies modern perspective on why some of the predictions were made. Full color throughout) $17.95

Briggs, Patricia

Cry Wolf Vol. 1

 (Alpha & Omega GN #1: Full color graphic novel; adaptation of the novel) $24.95

Brown, Eric

Helix Wars

(For 200 years, peace has reigned on the Helix. But when shuttle pilot Jeff Ellis crash-lands on Phandra, he interrupts an invasion by the neighboring Sporelli - who scheme to exterminate Ellis before he can return to New Earth and inform the peacekeepers) $8.99

Buehlman, Christopher

Between Two Fires

(1348: After an orphan tells him that the Black Plague is only part of a greater cataclysm, Thomas, a disgraced knight, finds himself in a macabre battleground of angels and demons, sinners and saints, in a struggle for nothing less than the soul of man) $25.95

Burroughs/Griffin

Tarzan Centennial

 (Lavishly illustrated official history of the Tarzan phenomenon) $39.95

Caine, Rachel

Black Dawn

(Morganville Vampires #12: YA; Unless Claire and her friends figure out how to cure Amelie - who has been infected by the master draug's bite - and defeat the draug, Morganville will become little more than a ghost town) $9.99

Campbell, Jack

Tarnished Knight

(Lost Stars #1: Betrayed by the brutal Syndicate government, Artur Drakon and Gwen Iceni launch a battle for control of the Midway star system) $26.95

Carey, Jacqueline

Dark Currents

(Agent of Hel #1: Fathered by an incubus, Daisy lives in a Midwestern resort town that is home to eccentric locals, wealthy summer residents, assorted paranormals, and eldritch folk presided over by reclusive Norse goddess Hel. When a boy drowns and signs point to eldritch involvement, Daisy investigates with the help of a sexy werewolf cop) $26.95

Chan, Kylie

Earth to Hell

(Journey to Wudang #1: On Earth, Simon Wong, the Demon King's son, is no longer around to trouble Emma and Simone, but his associates have taken over Simon's underworld activities. The otherworldly stones are being targeted and are in danger of being completely destroyed. It seems that the Demon King is the only one Emma can turn to for help) $7.99

Chance, Karen

Fury's Kiss

(Midnight's Daughter #3: PBO; Dory and Louis-Cesare will have to face off with zombie vampires, fallen angels, and a mad scientist to get to the bottom of a deadly smuggling ring) $7.99

Clarke, Cassandra Rose

The Assassin's Curse

(YA; When Ananna runs away from her arranged marriage, her cutthroat parents hire Naji the assassin to murder her. When she inadvertently saves his life, she activates his curse: whenever her life is in danger, he must protect her. This development pleases neither of them - but to lift the curse, they will have to complete three impossible tasks) $9.99

Cobley, Michael

Seeds of Earth

(Humanity's Fire #1: The planet Darien hosts a thriving human settlement. But hidden on Darien's forest moon are secrets that go back to an apocalyptic battle between ancient races. Darien is about to become the focus of an intergalactic power struggle, and the true stakes are beyond human comprehension) $7.99

Connolly, Tina

Ironskin

(Jane, who wears an iron mask to contain the fey curse that scars her cheek, answers a carefully worded ad for a governess, certain that the child is fey-cursed, and that she can help. She finds herself fascinated by the girl's artist father: a parade of ugly women enter his studio, and come out as beautiful as the fey) $24.99

Crossan, Sarah

Breathe

 (YA; In a world where air is restricted, three teens find out exactly what they're willing to do for the freedom to breathe) $17.99

Cummings, Sean

Poltergeeks

(YA; To save her witch mother's life, 15-year-old Julie and her uber-geek friend Marcus must find out who is responsible for increasing levels of poltergeist activity all over their town) $9.99

Doctorow, Cory

Pirate Cinema

(YA; In dystopian near-future Britain, artists and activists are trying to fight a new bill that will criminalize harmless internet creativity, making felons of millions of British citizens. Parliament is in thrall to a few wealthy media conglomerates, but the powers-that-be haven't reckoned on the power of a gripping movie to change people's minds) $19.99

Drake, D/Lambshead, J

Into the Hinterlands

(Sent to clear the power-hungry Terrans from a star sector where they're encroaching, greenhorn commander Allen Allenson must also overcome the machinations of the alien Riders) $7.99

Drake, David

Night & Demons

 (PBO; Collection of horrific, weird, and fantastic tales) $13.00

Dunn, Christian (ed)

Shadows of Treachery

 (Warhammer 40,000: Horus Heresy #22: PBO; Anthology) $8.99

Dunn, Christian (ed)

Treacheries of the Space Marines

 (Warhammer 40,000: PBO; Anthology) $8.99

Emson, Thomas

Skarlet

(Vampire Trinity #1: When a new drug starts turning users into vampires, Iraqi War veteran Jake Lawton finds himself doing battle with immortals and their human cohorts. And beneath the London streets lurks a bigger evil, waiting to be resurrected to reign over a city of human slaves) $14.99

Evans, Chris

Ashes of a Black Frost

(Iron Elves #3: As the human-dominated Calahrian Empire struggles to maintain its hold on power in the face of armed rebellion, the Iron Elves' perilous quest to defeat the power-hungry elf witch, the Shadow Monarch, takes on greater urgency) $9.99

Evenson, B.K.

Catalyst

 (Dead Space: Novel based on the video game) $14.99

Feehan, Christine

Dark Predator

(Carpathian #19: When he leaves his life as master executioner behind, Zacarias wonders who he really is. The answer awaits him back home in Peru, where he will face old enemies and a bloody family legacy - and find his lifemate) $7.99

Fforde, Jasper

The Last Dragonslayer

(YA; 15-year-old Jennifer runs Kazam, an employment agency for magicians, but it's hard to stay in business when magic is drying up. Now visions are predicting the death of the world's last dragon at the hands of an unnamed Dragonslayer. If the visions are true, everything will change for Jennifer and Kazam - because something known as Big Magic is coming) $16.99

Fforde, Jasper

The Woman Who Died a Lot

(Thursday Next #7: After an assassination attempt, Thursday returns to Swindon to recuperate. But there are problems at home: Friday's career struggles in the Chronoguard; Tuesday's trouble perfecting the Anti-Smote shield in time to prevent an angry Deity from wiping Swindon off the face of the earth; and the issue of Thursday's third child Jenny, who exists only as a confusing and disturbing memory. With Goliath attempting to replace Thursday with synthetic Thursdays, and a call from Bookworld to hunt down Pagerunners who have jumped into the Realworld, Thursday's convalescence is going to be anything but restful) $26.95

Fisher, Catherine

Darkwater

(YA; Desperate to regain the power and wealth her family had lost, Sarah made a bargain with Azrael, Lord of Darkwater Hall, who gave her 100 years and the means to her objective - in exchange for her soul. A century later, will she be able to stop young Tom from making the same ruinous bargain?) $16.99

Flint, Eric

1635: Papal Stakes

(Ring of Fire: Trapped in a mire of papal assassins, power politics, murder, and mayhem, Pope Urban VII and uptimers Frank Stone and Ambassador Sharon Nichols and their downtimer spouses need help fast. Special rescue crews converge on Rome, and an uptime airplane is on its way to spirit the Pope to safety. When everything goes wrong, it's once again up to the rough and ready Grantville natives to set things right) $25.00

Gear, W.M. & Kathleen

A Searing Wind

(Contact: The Battle for America #3: After learning of de Soto's plans to target the Chicaza, Black Shell is determined to set the perfect trap to preserve his people's pride, traditions, and winter stockpiles of food and supplies) $9.99

Giallongo, Zack

Broxo

(Kids; Full color graphic novel. Can Broxo - the only survivor of a barbarian tribe - and Princess Zora defeat the man-eating walking dead that drag themselves out of a fetid lake?) $16.99

Gibson, William

Zero History

(Campbell Memorial Award finalist. A Department of Defense contract for combat wear turns out to be the gateway drug for arms dealers so shadowy that even global marketing magnate Hubertus Bigend, whose subtlety and power in the private sector would be hard to overstate, finds himself outmaneuvered and adrift in a seriously dangerous world) $9.99

Gilman, Charles

Professor Gargoyle

(Lovecraft Middle School #1: Kids; At his brand new, high-tech school, 11-year old Robert finds some anomalies: rats in the lockers; a student gone missing; a library corridor full of worm-eaten antique books; and a science professor who seems to be undergoing a strange transformation) $13.99

Gladstone, Max

Three Parts Dead

(A god has died, and it's up to Tara, a first-year associate at a necromantic firm, to bring Him back to life before His city falls apart) $24.99

Gropp, Richard E.

Bad Glass

(PBO; The military moves in to quash rumors of unexplained phenomena in Spokane and figure out what's going on. But after weeks of news leaking out of the quarantine, it becomes clear they have no idea. A young photographer sneaks into the city, hoping to make a name for himself documenting the unimaginable - if he doesn't go insane first) $15.00

Hamilton, Kiki

The Faerie Ring

(YA; 1871: Pickpocket Tiki steals a ring that could lead to all-out war. For the ring belongs to Queen Victoria, and binds the rulers of England and Faerie to peace. A group of faerie rebels hopes to break the treaty with dark magic - and Tiki's blood) $9.99

Harris, Charlaine

The Sookie Stackhouse Companion

(Southern Vampire: Agatha Award finalist. Tour Bon Temps, Louisiana, prowl around the werewolf and werepanther communities, visit Tara's dress shop, and belly up to the bar at Merlotte's in this guide to Sookie's family, friends, enemies, lovers, and adventures. Includes an original Sookie novella, recipes, and more) $18.00

Harrison, Kim

A Perfect Blood

(Rachel Morgan #10: Ritually murdered corpses are appearing across Cincinnati, terrifying amalgams of human and other. Pulled in by the FIB to help investigate, Rachel Morgan soon realizes that someone is determined to make demons. But it can't be done without Rachel's blood) $7.99

Hayes, Erica

Revelation

(Seven Signs #1: PBO; Dr. Morgan Sterling doesn't believe in angels, but Luniel is one of the fallen, bound to fight evil to earn redemption. Together they must stop a zombie plague ravaging Manhattan's slums) $7.99

Heinlein, Robert A.

Starman Jones

 (Reissue; Classic sf novel) $7.99

Hendee, Barb

Ghosts of Memories

(Vampire Memories #5: PBO; Not all vampires want to live by the Four Laws. Now Eleisha must confront the deadliest predator she has ever faced, or lose everything she has fought to protect) $7.99

Hidalgo, Pablo

Star Wars: The Essential Reader's Companion

(Looks at all published Star Wars fiction, providing a synopsis of each story, behind the scenes facts and anecdotes, and a chronological listing of titles placing each in context. Illustrated with over a hundred full-color paintings) $28.00

Holm, Chris F.

The Wrong Goodbye

(Collector #2: PBO; Because of his efforts to avert the Apocalypse, Sam has been given a second chance, provided he can stick to the straight and narrow. Which is all well and good, until the soul he's sent to collect goes missing) $7.99

Hunter, Faith

Death's Rival

(Jane Yellowrock #5: PBO; To uncover the identity of the vamp who is trying to steal Leo's territory, Jane will have to venture into the underbelly of New Orleans vamp society) $7.99

Jerome, Celia

Sand Witches in the Hamptons

(Willow Tate #5: PBO; As if Willow didn't have enough problems coping with Otherworld visitors, now she has a stalker, her doom-seer father has a secret, and Paumanok Harbor has Otherworld sand stealers) $7.99

Jones, Darynda

Death and the Girl Next Door

(PBO; YA; Why is Cameron, her high school's designated loner, standing outside Lorelei's house every night? What does tough, sexy newcomer Jared know about her parents, who disappeared years ago? And what will any of them do when Death comes knocking for real?) $9.99

Jones, Diana Wynne

Reflections

 (Collection of essays, speeches, and biographical pieces written and/or chosen by Jones) $24.99

Jones, Stephen (ed)

The Mammoth Book of Zombie Apocalypse! Fight Back

(Mosaic novel; interconnected eyewitness narratives - text messages, emails, blog entries, letters, diaries, and transcripts - telling of the fight against the New Zombie Order) $13.95

Joyce, William

The Sandman: The Story of Sanderson Mansnoozie

(Guardians of Childhood #2: Kids; Full color picture book. When the moon is less than full, who will keep the children safe at night? The Man in the Moon thinks sleepy sweet-dreamer Sandy is the perfect choice to help thwart Pitch, the Nightmare King) $17.99

Joyce, William

Toothiana: Queen of the Tooth Fairy Armies

(Guardians of Childhood Novel #3: Kids; Toothiana can spin herself into a multitude of selves, depending on nightly teeth-placed-under-pillows rates. And she is tiny, but very fierce - the villainous Pitch has no idea what he's up against) $14.99

Karpyshyn, Drew

Revan

 (Star Wars: Old Republic #3: Novel based on the online game) $7.99

Kessler, Liz

Emily Windsnap Boxed Set: The Tail of Emily Windsnap / Emily Windsnap and the Monster from the Deep / Emily Windsnap and the Castle in the Mist / Emily Windsnap and the Siren's Secret

 (Reissue; Kids; Four fantasy novels; the adventures of a teenage girl with a human mother and a merman father) $23.96

Ketter, Greg (ed)

Shelf Life: Fantastic Stories Celebrating Bookstores

 (Anthology; 16 sf, fantasy, and horror stories, each with a bookstore at its core) $15.95

Kiesbye, Stefan

Your House Is on Fire, Your Children All Gone

(Four young friends come of age in Hemmersmoor, a place shrouded with fear - and talk of revenants. Their innocent games soon bring them face-to-face with the village's darkest secrets) $15.00

L'Engle, Madeleine

A Wrinkle in Time graphic novel

 (Kids; Adaptation of the classic sf novel) $19.99

Lackey, Mercedes

Changes

(Valdemar: Collegium #3: Magpie pursues his quest for his parent's identity, while being trained as an undercover agent for Valdemar. Bardic Trainee Lena has to face her uncaring father, a famous Bard. And Healing Trainee Bear struggles with his parents, who are pressuring him to quit the Collegium because he lacks the magical Healing Gift) $7.99

Lackey, Mercedes

Redoubt

(Valdemar: Collegium #4: A mysterious new enemy has taken an interest in Herald trainee spy Mags, but why? The answers can only be found in the most unexpected corners of Mags' past. Assuming he can stay alive long enough to find them) $25.95

Lamberson, Gregory

Tortured Spirits

(Jake Helman #4: PBO; Jake's ongoing quest to save his best friend Edgar Hopkins takes him to New Orleans, Miami, and the jungles of Pavot Island, where undead slaves harvest narcotics for a ferocious dictator) $14.95

Launet, Francois

Unspeakable Vault (of Doom)

 (Collection of webcomics providing a humorous look at the Cthulhu mythos through the daily lives of the Great Old Ones) $19.95

Lazellari, Edward

Awakenings

(Cal MacDonnell and Seth Raincrest have nothing in common - except they both suffer from retrograde amnesia. It's as if they just appeared out of thin air thirteen years ago. Now their forgotten past has caught up with them) $7.99

Lin, Grace

Starry River of the Sky

(Kids; Rendi has run away from home and is now working at the inn in the remote Village of Clear Sky. The moon is missing there, but only Rendi seems to notice. He also notices the village's peculiar inhabitants and their problems. A mysterious lady arrives at the Inn with the gift of storytelling, and slowly transforms the villagers and Rendi himself. As the days pass, Rendi begins to realize that perhaps it is his own story that holds the answers to all his questions) $17.99

Lovecraft/Lockwood

The Lovecraft Anthology Volume 2

 (Full color graphic novel; adaptations of Lovecraft stories) $19.95

Lovegrove, James

Red Eye

(Redlaw #2: PBO; In the U.S. to investigate a series of vicious attacks on vampire immigrants, Redlaw uncovers a conspiracy that could give journalist Tina Checkley the career break she's been looking for. It could also spell death for Redlaw) $8.99

Ma, Roger

The Vampire Combat Manual

 (PBO; A humorous guide to fighting the bloodthirsty undead) $15.00

MacAlister/Harper/Sims

The Undead in My Bed

 (PBO; Anthology; 3 vampire romance novellas) $7.99

Maguire, Gregory

Out of Oz

(Wicked Years #4: The Emerald City plans to invade Munchkinland, Glinda is under house arrest, the Cowardly Lion is on the run from the law, and look who's knocking at the door: Dorothy. Amid the chaos, Elphaba's granddaughter Rain comes of age, and will now take up her broom in an Oz racked by war) $15.99

Mallory, H.P.

Something Witchy This Way Comes

(Jolie Wilkins #5: PBO; Jolie must protect her Underworld realm from the Lurkers, half-humans bent on conquering the undead. At least she has her boyfriend, warlock Rand Balfour, by her side. But why can't she forget dangerously alluring vampire Sinjin Sinclair?) $7.99

Mallory, Michael

The Science Fiction Universe and Beyond: Syfy Channel Book of Sci-Fi

 (A look at sf in films and television, from the Saturday matinee serials to modern times) $40.00

Mariconda, Barbara

The Voyage of Lucy P. Simmons

(Kids; An enchanted flute that warns of danger, a mist that unlocks a drawer of family secrets, a bookcase that expands to conceal her: since her parents drowned at sea, magic has been helping Lucy keep her house out of the hands of her greedy uncle) $16.99

Massey, Brandon (ed)

Voices from the Other Side

 (Anthology; 20 horror and suspense stories by African-American writers) $6.99

McCormack, Una

Brinksmanship

(Star Trek: Typhon Pact: PBO; The independent Venette Convention becomes the flashpoint for a tense military standoff between the United Federation of Planets and the Typhon Pact) $7.99

McDevitt, Jack

Firebird

(Alex Benedict #6: Nebula Award finalist. Decades ago, renowned physicist Chris Robin, known for his theories about alternate universes, vanished. Alex and Chase discover that Robin had several interstellar yachts flown far outside the planetary system, where they too vanished. Now they're planning to follow Robin's trail into the unknown) $7.99

McGhoul/Kilbane

The Brain Eater's Bible

 (A field manual and manifesto for the reanimated dead) $16.99

McIntosh, Will

Hitchers

(PBO; Contrary his grandfather's dying wish, Finn has resurrected the old man's newspaper comic, and it's more popular than ever. Then Finn realizes he has a hitcher within his skin: his grandfather, who isn't happy about the changes Finn has made) $14.99

McKillip, Patricia A.

Wonders of the Invisible World

 (PBO; Collection of short fantasy fiction) $14.95

Meloy, Colin

Wildwood

(Wildwood Chronicles #1: Kids; After her brother is abducted, Prue and her friend Curtis head into the Impassable Wilderness to find him. There they find warring creatures, peaceable mystics, and powerful figures with dark intentions, and their rescue mission turns into a struggle for the freedom of Wildwood) $8.99

Meloy, Colin

Under Wildwood

(Wildwood Chronicles #2: Kids; A growing threat draws Prue back into Wildwood, where she and Curtis face their greatest challenge yet. To save themselves and the lives of their friends, and bring unity to a divided country, they must go under Wildwood) $17.99

Meluch, R.M.

The Ninth Circle

(USS Merrimack #5: On the distant world of Zoe, an expedition finds DNA-based life - and alien invaders. And it seems that the Ninth Circle and the Palatine Empire have also found Zoe. Glenn Hamilton calls on the  

USS Merrimack

 for help) $7.99

Modesitt Jr., L.E.

Scholar

(Imager #4: Begins a new story arc set hundreds of years earlier. Quaeryt is a scholar, concealing the fact that he's an imager. To escape the intrigues of the capital city, he convinces his ruler to send him on a reconnaissance mission. On the journey, he must face pirates, storms, poisonings, and attempted murder, as well as discovering that he is not quite who he thought he was) $7.99

Morgan, Richard K.

The Cold Commands

(Land Fit for Heroes #2: Aging warrior Ringil Eskiath is growing more comfortable with his return to the hero's life. But the stakes against him are being raised - a major threat is gathering on the horizon, one that Ringil cannot defeat by himself) $16.00

Mosley, Walter

Merge / Disciple

(Crosstown to Oblivion #2: Two novellas: a lottery winner notices something in his apartment that seems ordinary but reveals itself to be from a very different world; a data entry clerk realizes he has become a pawn in a battle that threatens the prime life force on Earth) $24.99

Niven, L/Barnes, S

The Moon Maze Game

(Dream Park #4: 2085: The first lunar live-action role-playing game turns ugly when a dozen gamers are kidnapped. But the gamers are brilliant, unpredictable, resourceful, and addicted to problem-solving - they're going to play this new scenario to win) $7.99

Oliver, Lauren

The Spindlers

(Kids; One morning, 12-year-old Liza realizes that spindlers have stolen her younger brother's soul. Armed with little more than her wits, and with a huge talking rat for a guide, she sets out to rescue him) $16.99

Pivarcsi, Istvan

Just a Bite

(Nonfiction; a Transylvanian historian peels away the effects of pop culture to set the record straight about the history and evolution of vampire folklore) $16.95

Pratchett, T/Cabell, C

Terry Pratchett: The Spirit of Fantasy

(A detailed biography of the beloved writer, including his battle with Alzheimers, over forty years of irreverent artistic achievements, and a note about cats) $14.95

Pratchett, Terry

Dodger

(YA; In an alternate London ruled by a young queen Victoria, Dodger is an enterprising lad, smart and lucky. Everyone likes him, which is good, because his life is about to get seriously complicated. When he sees a girl leap from a carriage in an attempt to escape her captors, will he stand by and let her be caught again? Of course not. He's not about to let anything happen to the unknown girl - not even if her fate affects some of the most powerful people in England)

[elizabethrobertajones]

13x22 watching notes

I already miss Bobo

(sometimes I can still hear his voice)

It's 7:15 and I have yoga in a bit and the sun is shining directly on my screen where my cheap ass curtains don't meet but I am gonna start watching because what is flow and continuity in tone to these writers anyways. This is a "may as well rip the plaster off" sort of start.

Regular readers of my notes will know exactly how thrilled I was to have BL handling the big character driven everyone in the same room clusterfuck this episode promises to be and lil update: since then the promos have reassured me that nope they don't have tone or nuance and we're in for some quality characterisation.

This is a damage control set of notes, I assume.

-

Blah blah plot recap. They cut the conversation from 13x20 to just Sam n Dean talking about going into the apocalypse world, then "we'll die together" which I can't work out in this context (I'm hoping against hope the recap isn't dictated by BL and TJW is cobbling it together) is irony that Sam then went and died, alone, or a yet-to-come omen of the end of the season. At least BL are handing us over to Dabb for the end of season nonsense so I have to rely on him having a wacky emu war of 1932 hits the present day through Shenanigans sort of season 14 premise to build up and fling at us to make us forget all this.

-

I love Sam's "we're gonna drain you" speech layered over everyone dramatically walking into apocalypse world.

-

Christ for half a sec I thought they were gonna recap Gabriel in Cas's crotch

-

Did Lucifer only start calling Rowena "Red" when he was Vince or is that something I missed from season 11? Because hearing boring ass Lucifer say it just makes me miss when he was Vince.

-

this is such a full recap of 13x21 I'm basically just writing fresh episode notes for it

-

I don't think I saw anyone talk about how cool it was when Dean shot a vampire and exploded its head off. Like, understandably Sam was dead and it was a high-pressure situation but

-

ALSO Cas says "he's gone" and he sure as hell didn't mean "I can't find him" he meant "Sam's dead" but that euphemism landed Cas so much fandom flak for not looking for Sam I am starting to feel like he should have just said "I saw eight vampires chowing down on every part of him they could reach" and traded Dean's feelings for clarity.

...

I love that Cas has evolved as a character to the point he uses a gentle euphemism to spare Dean's feelings because there was once a harsher version of Cas that would have said that.

-

Are they going to recap the whole Lucifer conversation

-

I mean it means we can't judge Sam at all for what he did

-

HUGS

-

Mary's like holy shit he's really here, all shaky hands and scared to touch him. Good. She was criticised so much from the promo for not caring, I'm gonna gif that in extreme slow mo close up if I get even one (1) pissy anon about her

-

Dean hangs back, knowing that Sam walking in with Lucifer can NOT be good news, and asking "what happened" is basically already knowing what happened

Oh good we already have "I didn't watch the last episode despite the 40 minute recap" syndrome.

Just quickly to get us up to that point - Lucifer is playing all benevolent when Sam says "he brought me back" with the due horror of the situation. Cas, with Jack at his side, also glaring father-like-son, says "that's not what you do" in defiance of what Lucifer has done - good to call him out for his personality traits not matching his actions, e.g. there's always a catch and we know it, but to Jack if there is to be conflict, is in the face of Lucifer's actions and we're manufacturing that TFW judge Lucifer harsher than he deserves. Even when we know Lucifer said that he'd take Jack by force and Sam is pretty much protecting Jack to take this bargain.

Anyway. Cas asks "how did you get in here" perhaps in the assumption a: they're in a walled compound rather than open woodland with perimeter guards and b: that Gabriel didn't melt all the warding last episode meaning it's not even open woodland with perimeter guards and anti-angel warding, it's just a big ass open space that they strolled into. The implication in Cas's words is that it should have been much harder for Lucifer to show up, that this place is better defended, to the point of bafflement about that. It's a smaller thing, but it's irksome because I know BL don't read the other episodes because they've literally said it in interviews, which makes stray details stand out like a sore thumb, especially when characters sound stupider than they should - rephrasing this "why are you here" or "what's going on" would be a neutral way of asking without mis-characterising the situation or having it come across just... slightly odd. Just seems to be an implication that Lucifer didn't just stroll between the trees and through an open gate as his arrival and more specifically, that there were wards or barriers that could have done anything to stop him, and Cas is talking like it's inconcievable he got past them all - what all? :P

-

Lucifer says "VIP pass - I'm with the band!" which is extra hilarious that I was missing Vincifer a minute ago, because it's downgraded him from that rock god status he wanted, and now he's acting like the whiny groupie and Sam is the rockstar, TFW and family the band, and Lucifer is desperate to get in with them. Of course the Vincifer arc revealed that Lucifer never was a rock god, a year before he fails at actually being God for the exact same personality flaws, but at this point the acknowledgement is pretty much just for kicks and giggles because seeing him mocked amuses me. Seeing him have to admit there's a higher order he wants in with and TFW etc are more important than him and this is like, backhanded grovelling... yeah.

-

As soon as Lucifer redirects his attention to Jack, Dean comes storming in. Of course Sam is excluding himself from this conversation in raw shame and I can't even look at his face because it is the Worst(TM) but now we have Cas, Dean and Uncle Gabe defending Jack (BL politely not writing any Gabriel dialogue yet and every minute they don't is a minute I don't have a migraine so thanks guys, appreciate it.) and Dean sounds extremely protectively fatherly and Cas is also then weighing in with parental authority... Yeah, last episode Rowena said all 3 of them were Jack's fathers and it's a different dynamic from Claire but I like seeing Cas and Dean as a parent team and I won't apologise for that :P

But, again, Jack is only 7-8 months old with a still tuning moral compass, a teenager disposition, and Cas and Dean are making parental decrees about who he can talk to, and catching him in the middle of a fight over the right to have access to him without asking his opinion. It could possibly be more frustration over that than genuine desire to meet Lucifer that upsets Jack.

Because he's still like *SCOWL* at Lucifer, still being framed with Cas. Cas says he's "kelly kline's son" and I love that Cas continually reminds Lucifer that Jack had a mother too, and that for all her terrible writing in season 12 at the very least we established "human" and "generically nice and loving towards her baby" as traits to call on :P I like that Cas is determined to emphasise where Jack gets his personality from, and that Cas doesn't define Jack by his powers. But that is ignoring that Jack HAS powers and that does factor into his life in a... rather major way... especially as the way he's been flung around so far he's had so little time to develop a personality outside of having powers, except for Sam encouraging him to watch movies and TV to foster a shared taste before Dean could think to twist Jack to his cruel purpose and have another vote on movie night in his favour, so now it's Sam n Jack vs Dean n Cas and -

Anyway. I'm procrastinating.

Lucifer emphasising that he has powers, even if he gets carried away describing how ruthlessly he uses them, is a way of connecting with Jack that no one else dared, when in 13x06 all of TFW are just like, shit, when I had magic powers I unleashed Lucifer/went on a megalomaniac God rampage/hooked up with Crowley, and immediately all get too ashamed of themselves to sit Jack down and have The Talk so he freaked out and left and tl;dr that's how we're here.

Just, like, shit, show him all 3 Spiderman films where Uncle Ben tells Peter "with great power comes great responsibility", and you're set, guys. Sheesh.

-

"No. Kill him."

*Gabriel side-eye reaction shot with no dialogue but a fascinated amusehorror about what's going on*

I'm starting to get the feeling BL just plain forgot Gabriel was in this episode, but the rest of the peeps involved were like, uh, he's in this episode because where else would he be, so Speight just came to set like he was supposed to, and hung out in all the scenes as appropriate.

I will now watch and interpret this episode based on that fact.

-

Sorry, Jack's going through a lot of conflict because Dean just point blank ordered him to melt his biological father on the spot, and I'm bitching about how someone forgot to add any pointers for Gabriel's existence into the script, not even in a character stan way, just in a sheer disbelief way, because of my horror of this being an episode with double digit named important characters in it and all in one location and being handled by the writers who can't even deal with Sam and Dean having distinct personalities in a scene with 3 characters half the time.

-

Okay, Gabriel ad libbed a "Dean" in there. I'm assuming after like 3 minutes of contact he's quite chuffed to have a nephew and knows Dean can be too harsh so he was being protective.

-

But yeah, of course it was Dean getting too angry about Lucifer (rightfully too angry, but still, emotionally mis-handling it) and making Jack disappear that sets this off, because Lucifer can just be a hub of chaos based on his reputation and act chill in the knowledge it will infuriate everyone around him into acting irrationally. Dean's been especially anxious and angry this recent year - and is building up to something awful perhaps if he is possessed by the end of the season - so it makes sense with his history of acting irrationally and being harsh on Jack from the start of the season that at the end he causes this.

Look, I'm complimenting character choices as much as being baffled by them, but what is clear is I need to be this in depth to have a chance in hell of grappling this episode >.>

-

Long shot where everyone just stands there in mute horror and Cas is the only one who looks around like he might see Jack hiding in a tree.

Remember back in 9x11 where I was like... did they just confirm he can see through walls... and literally no one ever replied to me about this hypothesis because it was too batshit? Well I am gonna have to assume that Cas looking around like that would only make sense if he can X-ray vision Jack hiding nearby >.>

-

Dean's like "He does that when he's scared. Way to go, dad!" despite the fact he was the one responsible for scaring Jack - I mean, Jack is probably FREAKED OUT about Lucifer showing up in general, but Dean's reaction is upsetting as well, especially when he's already emotionally in a bad place and now Dean is asking too much of him.

This episode is where all the stuff about fatherhood lands, and Jack is playing Dean and possibly Sam, while Sam, Dean, Cas and Lucifer are probably all playing shades of John Winchester.

It's a shame Lucifer changed his clothes because the Nick vessel was wearing up to a point always the same clothes that John had been wearing last time we saw JDM on screen, and that was a subtextual "brrr" about Lucifer in season 5 - that he was mirroring John in some ways.

We got enough parents here that they could literally all play, like, a seven deadly sin or something of John's.

Dean, of course, playing explosive anger. Sam seeming at the moment to play the part that shut down in horror and wasn't there for his boys and made all the bad choices for good reasons that exposed them to the bad stuff. Lucifer playing the abusive side that manipulates, uses as bait, and was in general dangerous - the John that Dean thinks of in 5x16 when not saying what he did when Sam ran away. Cas is playing the side that truly loved his boys, but saw their mother in them and there has been plenty of analysis of how this messed up the dynamic in any way from John withdrawing from Dean for reminding him too much to the parentification thing.

-

Gabriel is like, I'm not meant to be in this episode, so I'll just... go look for Jack... to explain why I was not in the following conversation.......

-

Lucifer drops the parent thing as soon as Jack is gone and switches to saying they "need" him to use against Michael, while bragging he "beat" him (good to know his ego and lying remains intact - the same boasting that got him in trouble with Heaven when he said he could make new angels and give them their wings back).

Cas immediately does the most #married thing I've ever seen him do to Dean - the "we're on a hike together and I want the trail mix in your bag honey so i'm just gonna open it up and get it out while we stand here" thing.

But with handcuffs.

Look, Dean n Cas are special and perfect in a way no one else can get on their level and sometimes it's because this is their dynamic.

-

Anyway Cas is being a BAMF to Lucifer and that is a good and important part of his characterisation this season.

Not Taking Shit!Castiel

or

as I call him

Party!Cas

-

I can literally see a manifestation of Jared that has left his body in distress, wrapped around Sam in a hug, as he's forced to casually ask Lucifer a question on screen that he didn't ask at any point on their hike down here but now the scene is about everyone else who was standing around watching (except Gabriel, who was never in this scene) so Sam gets to butt in with a question that literally anyone else would have been better suited to ask for both character and mechanical reasons.

-

Oh that "31 hours" thing was a total lie because of course Lucifer did no such thing. He knows the rift will probably close in either 24 from when it was opened or 24 from when he was punted through it, but that telling them a number that seems to add up that it's from then but plus an extra dose of grace, means they will let it close and they'll all be stuck here, and that's a tomorrow!Lucifer problem and in the mean time he can utterly fuck them over by thinking that they have a comfortable window to operate in. The countdown is meaningless, however. It all depends on if Rowena can strengthen and stabilise the portal on her end, and nothing else.

-

I love how the contracts are set up in such a way we got all the main stars, "And" Misha, and then we get all the guest stars, "And" Felicia Day. Also this episode is an over-stuffed mess.

-

RO RO

I didn't think she'd be in this episode, but we see her hard at work with... bagpipe music playing in her head/the Bunker's sound system? *shrugs, moves on* - anyway, either dramatic irony or Buckleming literally are working on the 31 hours thing depending on how much they read about other episodes. I hope dramatic irony. This is a dialogue-less insert so it's very possible TJW stuck it in to help.

-

"Are you good?" "I'm alive, yeah."

guys, you fuckers know "alive" ain't the same as "good" but in this case Sam's consequences for being alive are the chaos playing out with Lucifer and Jack so that's like... whatever, we can deal with it, so yeah he IS good, and no he doesn't have anything to apologise for, and in a way this is all fairly straightforward so yay!

Now hug

Oh shit, that never normally works

HUGS

\o/

-

"What are we gonna do about Lucifer?" "I'll handle it. I will, Dean. Let me handle it."

THE POWER OF HUGS. YOU RIDE THAT DOPAMINE RELEASE, YOU BRAVE BEAUTIFUL MOOSE

-

I feel like I spoke this episode into being by complaining "not enough hugs" as my tagline for last episode.

-

Anyway Sam is doing WELL because sure he is a guilt ridden bloodstained mess but he has inner strength and outer beauty so he can do this.

-

And Dean says "okay"

Which holy hell is a character growth of utter, sincere trust in Sam. Not that he wouldn't trust him because, you know, in some ways every moment of character growth is "we already covered this in the opening scene of 5x22 where we sat on the car and had a huge BM" because Kripke spitefully wrapped up the entire story pretty much to piss off every future showrunner when it came to deciding how to write Sam and Dean going forwards. But in the sense that Dean is trusting Sam not to turn this into a ridiculous tragedy again, perhaps. Since that BM was about Dean allowing Sam to die for the cause - as I've been following with Gabriel, I think there's a probable theme of learning to LIVE for the cause now, through a character whose main trait is to die to solve the cause and then run away and not deal with consequences, over and over. And Sam would embody it well to confront Lucifer with a desire to live and not to self-sacrifice, but to fix this so that their family can go home and have a belated pizza birthday party for Sam. FOR SAM.

You aspire to that pizza party, you magnificent moose. Get selfish. YOU DESERVE PIZZA. YOU'RE ALL INVITED

(Except Gabriel)

-

Nougat!

"Hi Jack, I'm your mom!" At the end of the season we're getting back to all the stuff that has been shoved down since the start. Jack has accumulated more parental figures than he knows what to do with and now he has to sort out how he feels about them, and how much each influences him.

Cas, his father who was supposed to be his guiding figure, the person he was searching for from the moment he stumbled naked and Bambi-like into our world (oh shit he's Bambi, shit. Stay away from Bobby!!) insists that he is most like Kelly, who only Cas can vouch for as a fellow person with a, like, personality, because hell knows if we or any of the other characters spent any time with her :P Cas is supposedly Jack's trustworthy rock, and his insistence that Jack is most influenced by Kelly rings true to the sympathetic audience who sees Jack as a nougat-centred boy. Named by his mother, of course.

"No one would blame you if one day you went looking for your dad" have they been holding this back since 13x23? I feel like this was all recorded then and they set up Jack's arc based around it. Because now he is flashing back to memories of Lucifer bound circa 12x13 or 12x15 when he was calling out to Jack in the womb (while dressed in those John Winchester duds). And in 13x09 they used this in a recap before the episode, and I was like this ain't the last we heard of it, and sure enough all the pressures that have been on Jack since before he was born are finally being addressed one way or another. Having held back the lines from Kelly - his Cas-approved moral beacon - telling him that there's nothing wrong with at least looking for your bio father no matter how much of a prick he may turn out to be - means that this is a pressure that's been on him since 13x03 and despite the fears in 13x09 that he was looking for Lucifer with this in the recap to remind us that Lucifer had been exerting his will on Jack since the womb... Now that Lucifer has found Jack, it's KELLY telling him that it's okay to at least be curious about him in a way that presumably resonates a lot with adopted kids who may have always known they had a terrible bio father but still felt curious/that pressure internally or externally to investigate their roots if only to find out who they themselves are...

I feel like this is an all the cards on the table moment, in any case - something Dabb set up about Jack which has been the secret behind the season, something only Jack knew up to this point, even from us the viewer, and we have been the most active participants in the story this season.

"Jack, don't let anyone tell you who you're supposed to be. You are who you choose to be."

Kelly has all the best words.

But yeah, this may not work well in the context that Lucifer has come seemingly in peace, Sam is hanging his head in shame, knowing the terms of Lucifer's non-violence are that Sam doesn't reveal that Lucifer was gonna storm in and steal Jack, and only making it easy for Lucifer to have access maintains his peace - that same peace in turn which sows the conflict simply by Lucifer existing there.

It plays into Lucifer's game that everyone who he has abused and or killed is there acting with justified rage at his presence, and telling Jack how to react to it based on their past experience. But Nougat is 7 months old and can not make these calls. Which means Kelly's words are now ones of conflict instead of the comfort that he's been choosing to be good and heroic like the real and fictional characters he wished to emulate.

-

Now we move on to Sam, the first living voice of comfort. "Maybe I'm not worth all this." "Your mom thought you were," Sam says, using her as a bridge from the parental authority (and he's also the one who brought her words to Jack). "So did Cas, so do I." It's building these steps of people Jack knows love him, the moral authorities he looks to, to Sam next. Sam's death worked so well last episode not just because of what it did to Dean, or even how the Lucifer thing was so wonderfully tuned both in Sam's personal arc to be in that room with him and the vampires, but also that Sam is the most hurt by and connected to Lucifer but he's the one walking him into the camp. But also that Sam was the one who reached out to Jack first of the living parents he encountered in life, and therefore caring for Sam and being upset by his death was such a horrible thing for Jack to experience, where we see his anger with Dean, Cas and Gabriel for not bringing Sam to him alive.

We get the montage where Jack's powers were in their early stage, harming people at random, and Sam empathised because of all he'd been through with his own powers. A connection that was so hugely imporant to both of them, that Sam could even start to guide Jack through who he was and how he was related to his powers, and feeling that he didn't belong.

Now we get Jack's mess up where they rushed in to Michael's place, and Kevin self-destructed everyone but him and Mary, and his connection to her - the grandmother sacred object to save and protect because she is Loved and Good and this is how all the men he knows relate to her. (I have talked about how Jack's represented accidentally ingrained toxic masculinity before >.>)

-

And the scene changes at this point, leaving us with Jack's reflection on not just his powers, but his own personality, and who he is supposed to be, whether it's his choice, his genetics, or just who he is in some intangible cursed way where he hurts people and all around him his choices lead to pain. And how much could Sam's guidance and trust help when even up to last week he was still getting people killed... Bleh.

-

Since it keeps on working... Someone hug that nougat child by the end of this ep?

-

Promo scene, now with context!

"Hey momma," Lucifer says, also defining Mary only by her relationship to her sons, and his own creepy interest in her.

She punches him because she is more than just momma

Cas continues to be a BAMF Party!Cas in the background but very in the background, hauling Lucifer away with a sharp word.

-

(Incidentally that means everyone from the opening was in this scene, except Gabriel, who they forgot to write into this episode.)

-

So this is post-shower Sam, and I'm gonna assume that he's either dressed in Bobby's clothes or dressed alike to Bobby, and either way it continues the Lazarus Rising parallels to Lucifer's creepy resurrection of Sam after he was dragged away underground after being torn apart in front of his brother - when Dean got back he wore Bobby's clothes for the first part of the episode. Finding Sam new clothes from AU!Bobby's wardrobe both puts him into this military camo jacket which almost certainly has some symbolic relevance at some point but at the very least is important for now that Sam's resolved to deal with Lucifer, and also just has the connection to Bobby.

-

Anyway now Mary has to break the news that she's planning to stay, after spending months defending and fighting for these people and very much getting embedded in the fight.

Dean looks on blankly, Sam shifts like he's realised what she's going to say as soon as she says "about that..."

-

And now we have that "need" thing again. Lucifer just said these people needed him to fight. Mary now says they need her too, for the same reason. One of them is probably a LIL MORE SINCERE than the other.

but Dean turns that into "we need you, mom. *WE* do." because she's the thing he needed the most, and this entire process is playing out now about how that even affects them.

And that "we" is sincere because the thing is, Dean might have learned a few times over that is sucks not to have Mary but as horrible as it is, he CAN cope without her but still hasn't been given a chance to fully actualise that in a healthy environment where Mary is not wildly endangered and dangled out of his reach for true character development (in much the same way his shit with Cas has been hovering on the edge since, like, season 8), but Sam - Sam needs her. Every time they lost a chance to find her, he slumped into utter despair. He only kept going as long as he did at the start of the season on the belief she could be retrieved and was alive, and his depression has been a strongly flagged thing since the midseason where he struggled with it bad enough he was having depression sleeps in 13x11, and 13x14 showed how bad it was, and his despair and desperation have been oozing off him.

Dean knows how much they need to bring Mary and Jack back, for SAM.

(Which is why I think there's something horribly disingenous about thinking Mary can just be written off to stay in the AU... Which is fine if you don't like Mary and don't think to look at it through the POV of how her being alive-ness has been wrecking Sam for TWO SEASONS now and taking her away again to teach Dean a lesson he's been through three times already (one of them being the entire run of the show 1-11) about how to lose his mother, just hurts Sam an incredible amount. He deserves that fucking pizza party, and he wants his mother to be more than a mirage that an alarm clock can shatter. And sure the story may not grant this wish instantly, but it's dreadful to want her gone for good because that will harm Sam on a MOLECULAR LEVEL to have an alive and well Mary teased in front of him but never to have her. We need to hold on to her returning in some solid way so that she can throw him a damn birthday party)

-

Ew, Lucifer calls Cas "old sport" fuck off with that, Gatsby.

"I am not your sport" he may misinterpret the reference (come the fuck on, Metatron must have read that book) but he does it in a way that at least gets in a sharp statement of party!Cas's new line of taking no shit.

But before he can decree for certain that he will not let Lucifer near Jack, refusing to accept Sam's deal without even really knowing that this WAS the deal, Jack shows up because he's at the very least taking some agency in all this.

And at this point, my nervous eyeballing of the clock suggests it is time I go to yoga. D:

-

I hope Gabriel shows up at some point again. The fact that he was gone looking for Jack but Jack has now been "found" by turning up voluntarily means that Gabriel vanished completely pointlessly unless they were just moving him out of the way because he's not in this episode :P

-

"Speak of the not-Devil" - in 13x09 they played on this with a "speak of the devil" preceding Jack's entrance. As usual, Buckleming taking a clever line someone else used, and turning it around in a way that's just a bit too silly and contrived >.>

-

"Son." "it's Jack."

Good. Please keep Lucifer at that arms' length. Regret will only come if you let him in >.>

-

"It's not a good idea to talk to him." "i'm not going to talk, I'm going to listen"

Sweetie, that's even worse. I know you're curious but oh boy Lucifer is evil, unredeemable and a master manipulator. I know what Jack means - he's not opening a dialogue, he just wants to hear what Lucifer would say to him, and not talking indicates hearing him out without weighing his words with any critical weight, but on the other hand, it can come across that he's going to sit and let Lucifer fill his head with whatever, without arguing or reasoning what he says, and it depends on how much you think Jack can resist being taken in by it

And in this scenario Lucifer's smugness and everyone else's horror of the situation already has a strong weight. We can HOPE that Jack prevails but I'm nervous that Lucifer might exert some magical influence over him as much as I feel like a season worth of Jack nearly is enough to make me feel like we are supposed to trust his instinct to be good, unaltered. If there is to be tension about it, that has to be affected.

-

Oh dear, now Dean's ranting to Mary about what he and Sam have been through, saying "we" about every statement, including "we've been possessed" but isn't it true that almost nothing has ever possessed Dean except a few small MotW moments of control? We statements possibly creating a dramatic irony gap to fill with Dean being possessed, if he is.

He says they never walk away ever, even when they should have, which is acknowledging at least that there were times when with hindsight they should have left each other well enough alone. Thing is he's talking about how he and Sam clung to each other when it was just them, but for Mary it's not about walking away from family here, it's about walking away from this war where people are being killed and she has been helping them to save people and to fight back against the angels. To her, leaving now just because there's a door back to her old universe - which she has felt adrift in ever since she was resurrected - is walking away. And this is a cause she can believe in far more than the bad cause she got in with the BMoL. There's a very very clear right and wrong here.

Dean is trying to argue that this isn't a fight that they can win, that Apocalypse World is doomed, and they're just going to have to leave it to its fate.

-

Sam is inclined to listen to Mary more often anyways, went with her on the BMoL thing, and this time reads it as her making up her mind, rather than her being right - he is telling Dean the argument is not worth it, rather than immediately that he understands where Mary is coming from. More than he has seen how Mary feels. I hope he says they should stay and help.

"Mom doesn't to leave these people."

...

"So let's take them with us."

-

I mean. I guess it works???

You just going to empty all the survivors of this war into another universe???

This feels... unsustainable.

-

Oh okay he wants to get them out the way long enough to work out how to fight Michael, then to come back and fight the fight. More like, the portal is the time pressure here, and on the other side of it is safety and resources and time to think.

Except for everyone who they can't take with them in the first place.

This episode is titled "Exodus" so I mean it COULD end up being about this exact thing, or that's referring to some other thing and this is just a concept they're floating but not what ends up happening. If they set off with the entire camp, they're going to be very vulnerable.

-

Anyway seems Mary likes the plan?

And she looks proud of Sam so that's something.

-

Dean says they've got 9 busting out. Uh, were they planning on taking AU Charlie and Bobby back with them? I am genuinely confused because the core team is 6, and they should PROBABLY not litter the AU and take Lucifer back with them so 7... Maybe Ketch if they take back everyone from their world who shouldn't be there? But who is 9??

-

Mary says 25 people which is not like... a whole army at least. I'm legit confused about the numbers, especially as it seems like more than 25 people at the camp, never mind that Mary was talking in 13x20 about how many people they had to look after now. I don't know, maybe it's just how many extras they could convince to come/plausibly film. But it's weird to me that this whole thing is... well, a thing.

-

Okay so Jack is all resolutely glaring at Lucifer, and Cas is allowed to hang out and stand there watching, so I guess this is ... something at least between them.

-

Mrghhh I hate Buckleming dialogue so much especially when Lucifer is saying it. Starting with "I don't know what to say" is admitting writing weakness, that they didn't have a hook or enough sense of the characters for them to come up with any declaration or question or comment that would have been more meaningful. Even just a sense of drama to have Lucifer introduce himself and Jack to immediately ask his first question.

"Why does everyone hate you?"

Because you SUCK

Also: apparently no one wants to tell Jack in graphic detail all the pain and suffering that Lucifer has inflicted to them personally >.>

And then, Lucifer said, yeah we've been waiting for this moment all season in a way, but not only is his blathering on but then when asked a hard question, it turns into an excuse to make him say "fake news" and sure the comparing him to Trump thing is funny a few times (I mean he was literally possessing a president when Jack was conceived) but it's taking tension out of this moment entirely. This should be for Jack, and he doesn't deserve this awful writing where nothing Lucifer says matters, because he's just rambling on in generalities and answers which sound like all the moaning he's ever moaned about.

Like, yeah, sorry kiddo, your bio dad is a whining whiner who has had the same line about how misunderstood he is as long as we've known him, which he usually says when standing on a literal pile of corpses he made while complaining no one gets him and everyone typecasts him as evil.

But yeah, Jack's question is just met with rubbish being spewed, instead of Lucifer even trying to explain the misunderstandings he's had personally with TFW

-

He's just talking about how humans suck and are easily led into temptation instead of focussing on why he feels the need to do that.

-

Oh him talking about Kelly to Jack is absolutely revolting. I'm confiscating the nougat child and BL can have him back when they earn him.

Thank goodness Cas is here to scowl at Lucifer for us.

"That's a vast over-simplification" thanks buddy.

But yeah he's right, the point is that Lucifer is talking in ways where he can rabbit on about ethics and shit without falling into real human pain. He doesn't talk about how his betrayed Kelly's trust, tried to kill her, or sent a minion to harass her while calling her the container. He talks about how awesome it was to kiss her. (And not even getting into him cheerfully talking about losing his virginity to Kelly like it was some sweet first love thing rather than rape by deception and some new gross evil he had discovered was a horrible thing to do to people.)

-

Also, fuck Buckleming for pretending they can stump Cas with "I was locked up for eternity so how did I do all this evil?" we literally have seen how. It's called the plot of the fucking show.

It's ethics as angels would learn it 101.

WE FUCKING MET GADREEL A FEW YEARS AGO, MAYBE ASK HIM

-

Cain who?

-

AZAZEL? You fuckers killed the last YED like 4 weeks ago

-

Fuck you entirely

-

That is in ratio of intelligence and easy answer on hand to presented moment, the biggest stupidity drop they've ever made. And that's saying something.

-

Somewhere Edlund is clutching his head and he doesn't know why but he doesn't feel so good.

-

ABBADON?

-

So, there's this place called "hell"...

-

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmrgghghhghghgfghfgghfhaskjfhaskjghfsjlasdjaghfs paskfh;asdgkflsdjg sgkjhlfk gha

-

Well, the zen from yoga lasted all of like 4 minutes of episode

-

Anyway now we have to deal with Lucifer's hurr blurr about waaah God locked me up because I stood up for myself and told the truth, which, again. One note character. He met Chuck and didn't even change. Rowena got more character development out of meeting Chuck than Lucifer did. Heck, I think even Cas got a little personal satisfaction just from ignoring him and finding a clearer sense that his path doesn't lie with God's validation.

And then he starts talking about how garbage humans are and we get Cas's reaction because Cas loves humanity, and Lucifer is like "he loved humans so much he couldn't see their flaws" and Cas is like excuse you I tell Dean to get his muddy boots off the chairs in the Bunker like six times a day but I still fucking married him."

-

But telling Jack how humans suck is not, like, the best path, because Jack has spent a lot of time bonding with humans.

-

"I had my reasons, I just want the opportunity to get better" dude, you are so the abusive fuckwad of a drunk father who comes stumbling in late to the kid's life, promising to do better while in no way capable of it because mean and selfish person...

-

Jack's micro nod to wanting to do better shows that despite every indication that this was one of the worst written conversations ever, Lucifer has somehow manipulated him with this nugget that Jack feels like he wants to be a good person and Lucifer's promise he wants to be a better person is affecting him, and A: Alex is a great actor to try and sell this and B: honestly Jack falling for that garbage rant is like... the second biggest stupidity drop ever >.>

-

Cas is like, fuck this entire concept you fucking fuckers, I'm out of here to go sit with Gabriel wherever he is. We're gonna... go skip rocks.

-

Nope, Cas went for emotional back up, seeing that Jack was starting to be suckered in by this and decided he needed Sam, Dean and Mary to come Winchester some sense into Jack

-

Uncle Gabriel is having a great side adventure

He is probably doing the equivalent of End!Cas in this camp.

-

Ew they're sitting together, just chilling ew ew ew ew ew

Lucifer going on about how Jack's grandfather is literally God, trying to stir a little egomania in Jack.

Remember in 13x07 when he was so excited to know if Jack killed anyone? If he had a killer instinct?

-

Yay Dean comes to shout at Jack and Lucifer, I have never been happier to tick the Everyone Is Irrationally Angry BL Bingo Square.

-

"Dean, he's in chains." "His mouth isn't."

That's the good side of Buckleming banter. Have we swapped writers?

-

"I need to know about my powers. My family." "Jack, we are your family."

Oh no, Cas is starting to sound a bit desperate. Pleading with Jack to remember he's their family. I don't wike it *hands Cas a blanket*

-

Sam showing up like, "You have no idea who Lucifer really is"

Like, I know it's horrible but could you go into graphic detail right about now?

Or... is he still bound by the promise to let Lucifer see Jack?

-

"Jack..." "Dean! He's my father!"

Aaaaack, so there's the slip from 13x01 where we thought he meant Lucifer but it was actually Cas, and 13x09 where he disowns Lucifer casually and talks about how they're his real family instead...

Oh ew I paused the screen on Lucifer looking all smug, hang on

Anyway, yeah. This is the first time Jack has proclaimed that, and I think this is revealing the greatest miscommunication this season - something we picked out a while back, in the first few episodes, about how everyone was so unwilling to tell Jack just how horrible Lucifer even was. I mean. I don't think he even knows for sure that he's the reason why Cas was dead? And does he know how Sam was destroyed by having powers BECAUSE he was raised to be Lucifer's vessel? And - even basic info like this, if not the murder and torture in his wake...

Without telling Jack the harsh truth, he's vulnerable to falling prey to Lucifer's manipulations, because for him, new to the world, it's just not a given that Lucifer is evil. Even "speak of the devil" is ironic, because they DON'T speak about him, and so that phrase is meaningless to Jack because it doesn't describe anything about evilness.

And I think this goes back in a way to the theme of confronting trauma, that TFW just do not talk about what has hurt them, aren't open when they ARE hurting, at least until it's too late, and so the damage that Lucifer has done to them, even when he can taunt he's in a room full of all his favourites to kill and torture, when he's killed Rowena twice, tried to kill Gabriel and Dean, and caused the worst suffering to Sam, they just aren't a Lucifer damage support group >.> And all season they never told Jack a full story about who they were, what they've done, and what has happened to them along the way...

-

Anyway I guess Edoras is moving to Helm's Deep now?

-

Ew Jack and Lucifer are walking together

I can't even see Cas in shot so I'm gonna assume he's bringing up the rear with Uncle Gabriel

-

I mean

I hope someone friggin told Gabriel they were leaving. He's gonna pop back to camp in half an hour like, so I looked everywhere and I could not find - waaait a minute. Where is everyone? Are we playing hide and seek? Sexy hide and seek? .... Nope, I've just been forgotten.

I'm not in this episode, am I?

-

Anyway Dean sends Sam back to lurk on the Jack and Lucifer conversation

Which leaves Mary and Dean free to chat!

Dean is like, I am listening but I am also sulking. About everything. Mary starts explaining that Nougat is getting hardened by war, having been fighting and losing people. Turning into one of them, a scarred, miserable Winchester.

I love that Mary is defending Jack, that she has spent so much time with him - more than anyone else - that she is the sympathetic character towards Jack. He's not an object to obtain to her, he's very much a kid who has landed in it and is doing his best.

And, of course, a surrogate for the sons she never got to know growing up, when they were being fucked up in the exact same way Jack is currently being fucked up, which means, hopefully, she will learn to relate to them better through seeing what Jack goes through??

And cut to Jack telling Sam that he was telling his father that together they can take down Michael. Which... Isn't super reassuring tbh, if you flip it to season 5 where Lucifer getting a surefire powerful boost like a Nougat to help him take out Michael would have been dooooooom and that is why they sent Jesse on a surfing holiday in Australia.

-

This also means Sam has to walk alongside Lucifer and Jack all chill and like... we're on a walk together

-

Ooops and Sam is like, but that's not the plan, and Jack is like, hi, while you were gone I fixated on killing my AU!Uncle Mikey.

-

Again, Mary reasons that Jack's interest in Lucifer is not unexpected, based on curiosity, and Dean complains about the threat that Lucifer corrupts him. Mary sounds both confident in Jack not being evil that it seems a little laughable to her, and also that Jack will soon see Lucifer's true nature.

And honestly, this is the longest Lucifer has held it together possibly EVER without doing something petty. Maybe just because with the handcuffs on he can't get irritated and melt people who are annoying him. I'm not sure how much restraint he has left not to say something wildly wrong. Like a homophobic relative at a family dinner with all your nice gay family, and you know Some Shit will leave their mouth sooner or later, even though they're playing it nice and got a pride pin before they knocked on the door.

-

Mary is proud of her big gay family

-

sorry that metaphor wandered off

-

not sorry.

-

Hi Cas, love it when you *gestures him walking innocuously around a corner*

"Hey, did you find him?"

"No, Gabriel isn't in this episode for some reason. I think BL have a restraining order?"

-

LOL here he is! RUN LIL GUY RUN!

"ANGELS!"

-

Aw no, the handcuffs. They were Dean n Cas's personal ones.

-

blah blah joke about impotence, Lucifer got to melt some things so he might be able to stay chill for a while longer having scratched the itch to murder...

-

I just took a lil break to complain to Mittens about the geography, she assured me Singer Salvage Yard isn't in South Dakota in the AU, and I'm just like... debating whether I think this is better or worse. it's a headache, for sure

-

Hi AU!Bobby! They immediately discuss how Bobby decided not to put his salvage yard in Sioux Falls because the weather sucks, and I am sitting here wondering if TJW looked at the script and was like... there's no Gabriel... they WALKED from Ohio to Bobby's on the way to Kentucky... I -

-

Why do they always give me their scripts to un-fuck?

-

AU Bobby makes me miss Bobby while simultaneously filling the void not having Bobby puts in me and I feel weird

He's telling them their idea sucks in colourful language and it's like oh I am home, but at the same time... it's not in Sioux Falls

-

Dean automatically protective of Charlie when Ketch is around and again, the weirdest feeling that Ketch killed Charlie hits me, but he still didn't and it's still just because BL like him so much they've made him their new toy.

-

Bleh more Jack and Lucifer

He's now explaining the archangels to Jack. Mansplaining, in fact, since Jack already knows.

it seems this was just a way to say they were both tortured by Michael in order to bond some more

Lucifer forces Jack to do a high five and Jack is baffled

-

"That's your Uncle Gabe" *points at him throwing rocks at a car* Jesus christ he's literally... off throwing rocks... I was kidding when I said he was off doing it earlier... I was kidding... holy shit they literally forgot to write Gabriel into this episode.... in the script it was "then there's your uncle gabe" without pointing, just, in the abstract, like, yeah, he exists, and Jack is like yeah I sort of noticed him existing. And then they both pause. Funny, that. Gabriel existing. Anyway - and they move on?

-

Woah, no, they're actually going to talk to him.

Hey, Gabriel, did you know you're in this episode?

His expression says, wow, no I did not. But now I hear them coming over, I need to Deal With This Shit

-

Lucifer describes him as "class clown" which is automatically reducing him back down to the Trickster, and of course he's said tricks are for kids and is trying to be all mature and the new version of Gabriel.

-

I hope new and improved Uncle Gabriel tells Jack what's what, even if it's just with eyebrows and pointed looks

-

"And you're an ass clown"

That works.

-

Oh ew, Lucifer immediately pulls Gabriel's torture on him as a hey how are you lol that was funny when you were tortured and metaphorically raped for 7 years huh?

Jack, again, seems to lack the context of what happened to Gabriel, the state they found him in, all the stuff we've seen on screen, so the dramatic irony of what we know vs what Jack knows...

Also how does Lucifer even know?

-

Oh whatever.

-

Gabriel has no time for this, and turns to walk off, like, fine, I didn't even want to be in your stupid episode anyway. Lucifer follows, Jack walking along beside him, eyebrows furrowed.

-

Gabriel has a headache at Lucifer rambling on (and they've literally just forgotten about Raphael. Wonderful.) Anyway, super relatable.

Here he goes. "You think Dad was a bad guy and you were a victim?" Well Scout will be happy, Gabriel standing up for the ole God n Gabe relationship. I mean, much as it sucks, Gabriel still has a connection with Chuck that no one else does, just in personality.

"That was just your excuse." "For what?" "For it all, Lucifer! For it all!"

Thank fucking God for Gabriel. He wasn't even meant to be here so he's like the one person who can call Lucifer out, from outside the narrative, fed up of this whole stupid charade.

Gabriel is not a Buckleming character, he's here because he deigned to be, and he will leave on his terms too.

-

(I've legit been having issues that I keep thinking Speight-directed episodes are Gabriel episodes, and at this point he's such a meta character to me I literally think he's transcended the story)

-

Nice of him to walk off screen with both middle fingers raised.

-

Oh my GOD how stupid was that trap that Charlie just fell for?

My unspoken comment from earlier that the dumbest drop in intelligence Buckleming ever inflicted on a character was Charlie's death feels like I should have said it, because making her fall for that dumbass trap was just... wow.

-

Wow.

-

Blah blah manufactued drama, Ketch has stubble now, apparently a conscience about not letting Charlie get killed because Dean was once attached to his world's version of her

-

Goddd I am with Andy the sceptic about their fairytale world where everything is pretty. They don't want to abandon the fight, and like, there's a sizeable chance Dean and Sam just wanna shove Mary through a portal with them and call it a day.

Why are we getting this when we could be getting Sam and Dean learning from Mary how they need to fight for this cause against Michael? Whyyyyyyy. This whole plan is so stupid.

I mean, it wouldn't be wholly stupid for Sam to pop back through the rift, grab all the weapons he's promising, and come back to arm them, in their world, on their turf, somewhere defensible from angels.

Like, even the odds a bit so they can finish this fight so they can take Mary and Jack home and stop stressing about this

-

Now Sam's making his Inspiring Speech of the season, about how even if they aren't people from the AU and were never born there, all these masses of people fighting back are still like them and represent what they do. Like, how all the random hikers you might meet know vampire lore these days. Everyone's a hunter in these times.

-

Andy narrows his eyes

-

cut to: Ketch being tortured and using American monopoly references to fuck with the angels.

he is presumably secretly American, because there's no way he'd casually think of American locations on the board unless he coincidentally grew up with an American monopoly board for some reason

-

While complaining about this Mittens reminded me that Metatron made a reference to always winning by building hotels on the expensive square and that gives us an indirect connection between the two of them for some reason.

-

Ooooooooh the exterior reveals they're being tortured in the creepy Gas n Sip.

Well. I wonder who is about to show up

-

Twitchy!Castiel

-

Who inexplicably looks 10 years younger than our Cas.

Dean really did a fucking number on him.

-

Anyways of course Castiel is the expert... He's terrifying when he gets going, and this one hasn't been Dean'd.

-

Our Cas seems to be doing some scary manhandling on this guy

-

And some really scary looming

-

Uhoh

-

And that was with one lil look from Dean, like, go on, babe, read his mind and do what you do

-

No, apparently he wasn't even reading the guy's mind, he was just hurting him

-

Lucifer's whining, in the least breaking news to ever break.

Gabriel's like, Dean told us to stay behind, because I'm not in this episode, so I have to babysit your dumb ass before you say anything else stupid to my nephew.

-

"Do you see any version of this where he sticks by you?"

I mean that's probably what's stressing Lucifer out, knowing he has nothing to offer as a father. Gabriel is kind of enjoying it. And sitting watching Lucifer from a distance, where he can mock him. Again, he seems weirdly out of the story, the one person who isn't affected by all the bullshit and somehow has this glossy shine on him, un-Buckleming'd even as the empire crumbles around him.

It's like... he doesn't feel a part of all this because he's seeing clearly and calling out Lucifer in real time instead of standing dumbly while Lucifer poses questions to prove he's good that only a 7 month old babyman would fall for.

-

"He's a kid.  He likes shiny objects and magic tricks."

:')

"But he's not like you. You can see it in his eyes." YUPPERS. He has Cas's eyes.

his father's eyes

-

(Thinking of which, I had to go back because my video went a bit wonky... am I right in thinking AU!Castiel has a bad eye? That's not meta interesting at aaall)

-

Gabriel mentions his mother's bloodline, the Winchesters' influence... is Cas included in that?

-

"He'll see who - what - you are."

"I've changed."

"Dude. It's me. I've known you since the stars were made. You can't change. You're incapable of empathy, love. You live to be worshipped! Or feared! Or both!"

And now Gabriel is calling out that Lucifer says that God made up all the lies about him, which has been his fallback for literally ever about how woe is me misunderstood God was so meeeean

It's like Gabriel and Lucifer were having that argument back in 5x19 and then Lucifer killed Gabriel and then 7 years passed and now they're alone together again and they just pick up where they left off.

Gabriel praising how humans are innocent and beautiful has weird overtones of how protective Dean was of the Scooby Gang and I think that is adorable.

-

Gabriel is officially tearing Lucifer a new one after dropping by to be in the episode and I am gonna stan this fucker forever.

-

LOL he made Lucifer cry

-

God, I mean I am never ever going to feel sympathetic to Lucifer, but if Gabriel helps him like, sacrifice himself for Jack later at some point, I'm cool with that.

-

AAAH AU CASTIEL IS THE WORST. I HATE IT. MISHA, NO

-

Nice coat though.

In a horrifying way.

They did, however, find a coat that actually makes Misha's shoulders look huge in a sexy way

-

you can hear the Cas voice in there, but it's so messed up.

-

This guy is BFFs with Bartholomew I bet.

-

okay I'm rewinding and actually trying to pay attention to wtf he's saying.

-

It's so messed up that he's in a Gas n Sip. It's like showing how broken his soul is. And the fact his soul is a Gas n Sip absolutely murders me

-

Also AU Castiel doesn't have a soul, probably, unlike our Cas

-

He's mirroring Dick Frigging Roman while eyeing up Charlie and telling her there aren't many like her.

-

Castiel mirroring Dick in a Gas n Sip is how to cram in the most awfulness you possibly could to show a ruined version of Cas.

-

He's parting his hair on the other side.

-

It seems Castiel pretty much has destroyed himself by psychically harming humans.

Can we rewind so our Cas stops torturing that other guy so that he doesn't remotely turn into this guy?

-

OH NO, I was gonna ask where Jack was back in the previous scene but it seems he's flapped off to deal with this before I could ask him where he was.

Now he's gonna meet Worst!Castiel

-

Meanwhile: stabby stabby, the rest of the Winchesters are here. Never mind, Cas got the intel from that other guy. Jack isn't going rogue :P

-

I hope party!Cas doesn't meet worst!Castiel

-

Party!Cas is beating up Worst!Castiel

-

"More than one of us. Fascinating." "I've gotten used to it."

Party!Cas is basically just a bundle of one-liners in a trenchcoat.

-

LOL Dean freeing Ketch but will we ever be free of Dean x Ketch nonsense?

-

Sam randomly hugs AU Charlie because he hasn't got over the guilt of getting our Charlie killed, and can't separate the two on instint of seeing her face again and this is awful.

When I said more hugs I meant more NICE hugs

"Sorry"

She punches him in a hey it's cool we all freak out sometimes

-

Oh jesus christ after the saving hanging Ketch by getting all up in his space, now I turn out to have had the screen paused on Ketch and Dean getting all cosy and looking at each other in alarming proximity

"oooh... hello. You saving me? It's about bloody time."

Dean looks furious

good.

-

"You aligned yourself to humans?" "I *vastly* prefer them to angels"

Love you too, babe

"Don't think you are better than me. We are the same." "Yes. We are." *STAB*

Bye bye worst!Castiel

Man, I never thought I'd be glad to see Cas die, but that was satisfying watching Cas kill this awful version of him who had been utterly destroyed by being an angel while affirming to himself that humans are the best. And being an angel sucks and is destructive to his very sense of self.

I like that a lot.

-

Long live Party!Cas

-

And we begin and end the season with a dead Cas

-

I mean we're not quite at the end but we're close enough that this counts as bookending symmetry.

-

"For whatever reason, I have a good feeling about you two"

it seems a little worrying that apparently the entire lot unanimously voted to go to the pretty AU. I think they're making a joke that Bobby feels some sort of cosmic fatherly vibe towards them but in truth Bobby complained they were idjits with terrible plans quite often, as he did earlier... I'm not sure it's going to be good that everyone Exoduses with them and I feel like them celebrating a win with 10 minutes to go before whatever leads into the finale is a terrible thing. All in all we've got a last 10 minutes of a Buckleming episode vibe going on and I do not like it.

-

Okay Lucifer helping Dean revive the bus is the weirdest cooperation I've ever seen on this show.

-

Making Lucifer drive so they can keep an eye on him is the worst idea ever and I don't care what Dean justifies it with, Gabriel came rushing in from left field to say hey hey hey this is a dumbass idea and Dean's like shut up you're not in this episode but Gabriel is the one voice of reason here because he's the guy who's not in the episode so can see it for what it is.

Dean's supposed to always want to drive.

-

Where is Nougat going?

Why are you even upset?

-

Oh, he's realised they're all fleeing to plan to kill Michael later and even though this plan was all worked out a while back he is reacting now - is it just that they didn't include him in the planning and he buckleminged between the cracks of an episode ABOUT HIM and only found out now...

He's like but I wanna kill Michael NOW

Okay, no, he's got a cool heroic mindset

but you know what, after hanging with Lucifer, there is something about how they've put Jack in a position where he is driven to Kill Michael just like Lucifer was originally driven to Kill Michael. Of course everything around them and the utter horror of worst!Cas proves that killing Michael is necessary for this world to even have a sliver of a chance of survival, but at the same time, Jack is now irrationally stuck on a mission purpose identical to the one that once powered Lucifer to start the entire apocalypse. And having Jack mirroring that need, to the point of irrationally leaving the party bus when the plan IS to regroup, arm up and return to kill Michael, shows that he has -

At least this one brewed up fast, because the longer you leave the apocalypse to stew, the more complicated it is to start a fight with Michael??

-

Sam goes after Jack because he cares and then Lucifer saunters over because he wants to latch onto Jack, and once again we get Jack caught between two parent figures - in his flashes of choosing who he wants to be after thinking about Kelly's message he had flashes of both Lucifer and Sam - not Cas and Dean.

Look

I'm just sayin' as a random aside

which I should not be saying but I mean I hope I earned some sam!girl cred earlier so let me ruin this

because they're framing it as Lucifer vs Sam

it sets aside Cas n Dean

and they're like

A different set of parents on like, a different level. If Jack has 4 dads, Cas and Dean are one pair and Sam and Lucifer are the other... Thematically... but like... also Cas and Dean are weirdly in a different sort of world when it comes to relating to Jack apparently.

-

Sam is all concern about Jack, Lucifer tries to talk Jack out of it with seeming concern which is really just about how he isn't very good at fighting Michael. Lol.

-

UUUGHHHH Sam having to hear Jack say "my father makes a valid point" and then Lucifer claps Jack on the shoulder and walks off with him in front of Sam and it feels like Lucifer somehow retroactively has kicked off this whole nonsense JUST to spite Sam.

-

Oh my GOD Dean isn't even ON the party Bus with Lucifer what the heck who PLANNED this plan

-

I like Gabriel just chilling with like, an RPG launcher or something.

nice callback to last episode re: lol penis

-

Also Jack is sitting with Uncle Gabriel in the jeep! Good! I hope he is saying lots of good sensible Nice Uncle Who Gives You Candy things to Jack, and then makes a coin appear out of his ear.

-

Portal's closing

Run run run

-

Amazingly, Lucifer's maths about the portal were not wrong?

I mean... do we just assume that that was a lucky guess?

-

Rowena has been reading the entire time, and I can tell why we haven't seen her since the start of the episode but it's still a total waste of her.

Maybe Gabriel was slipping off and hooking up with her whenever he wasn't in the episode.

-

You know I am not 100% Rowena was in this episode either. I do appreciate her and Ketch making eye contact like, oh, you.

-

With 6 minutes to go you know some serious shit is about to go down

-

JACK IS BACK

-

Lol Sam is like no you stay here, Lucifer. Fuck you being in the same universe as Jack for any length of time.

-

Okay we got a Mary and an AU Bobby here, good, good. And a Charlie! Wonderful!

The last 6 minutes of the episode might be all like, 30 people coming through the rift one by one to dramatic music.

If the Winchesters don't make it back then there's going to be one hell of a kegger thrown here by all the gnarly post-apocalypse peeps suddenly filling the Bunker unsupervised.

-

CAS!

-

He does not count as a responsible adult. Party!Cas is in the Bunker, currently unsupervised, with Rowena.

That is going to be a fucking wild kegger.

-

Oh good they sped up the dramatic entering the portal bit when it was randos we've never met who are now all filling the Bunker

-

Guys, you do realise if you leave BOTH archangels on the other side of the rift... you don't have any grace on YOUR side of the rift?

-

I mean

that... did occur to you?

-

Oh great the angels just crashed down on top of them and of all the people on screen, we get a close up of Andy the doubter dead. Nice going, BL

-

Michael! Badass wings in the dust!

-

Oh that's why Asmodeus did the ridiculous grace hurling. They wanted Lucifer to do it to Michael.

-

Now Michael is doing it to Lucifer

Just... like... kill him for us... put us out of our misery...

-

Gabriel, no, don't do this... D: If I have to watch you die again I'm suing.

-

Like, worst time to suddenly show up in the episode.

-

Dude you can not die,  you have to come back and run Heaven and bang Rowena on the weekends.

-

Sam and Dean are like... just not running away.

-

I'm suing.

-

Gabriel better be behind Michael and stab him now

-

I mean I'm just assuming he's standing behind a tree like, wow, it's amazing how often people fall for that

-

"How did you think this was gonna end?"

I love you Sammy

You get the no.1 dad mug

-

Oh good, Michael is alone with a weakened miserable Lucifer. Can you just stomp him out of rage now?

-

Cut to: Bunker kegger.

I immediately spot Cas and Dean standing together not in the main party, with AU Charlie. AU Bobby and Mary together, Rowena sitting down needing a rest, and Sam wearing just a t-shirt and chilling with her. Ketch and the girl from the vampire mine sitting either side of the stairs, probably both like ???? about events, from completely opposite directions.

-

AU Charlie and Ketch are weirdly friends. I am so conflicted.

-

FINALLY FOUND JACK

he doesn't look very happy. He's a corner child. Sitting in the corner. With a beer he is like 20 and a bit years too young to drink.

-

Anyway guess Samwitch is still on the cards even if we can be really miserable about Gabwena or whatever you call it ending too soon.

-

Cas and Dean are talking about I guess a toast to Gabriel, presumably prompted by Cas being really sad about Gabriel, probably because now there's no one to teach him magic tricks to amuse Jack.

-

Cas really isn't much fun at parties, now I think about it

I'm not backing down from my stance. He just needs to get BETTER at parties.

-

"Been here 5 minutes and he's taken over the joint"

I've wanted to see Bobby in the Bunker a million years and while I am miserable it's not the real thing, it does still feel at least kinda right.

*sighs forever*

-

What is Jack going to do

-

Why are people toasting Sam and Dean but not Cas

-

Cas isn't toasting them either, he's standing there with his hands in his pockets like yeah I always knew these two idiots were the best, thanks for catching up.

-

Jack continues staring into the void

Cas continues standing there

-

Awww no why did you give us a closeup of Gabriel lying there? Also his eyes were wide open. What does that mean? I mean is it because no one's bothered to close them, or is it a symbolic thing?

anyway Michael you are not stabbing Lucifer fast enough. Don't bargain with him. He just wants to go be a pest in the main world.

-

What the hell was that last look about? UGH. Do not want.

-

tl;dr Gabriel is probably fine. He sneaked through the portal when no one was looking and flapped off. 

Rowena will probably get a series of bizarre sexy presents delivered to whatever hotel room she's in

Cas needs to work at parties

Jack is contemplating what the hell fathers' day even is.

[almaasi]

reaction post typed while watching SPN 13x22 “Exodus”

“WATCH THIS SHOW” they said. “IT’LL BE FUN” they said. cue me being very stressed out for two hours straight

02:38pm

am i looking forward to this, with absolute confidence that nothing terrible and unfortunate will happen because it’s the deadly duo writing this and it’s near the end of the season and last episode was the whiplashiest of whiplashes? NOPE

am i gonna watch it anyway? .......yeah

hopes: nobody we care about dies

-

02:43

I DID NOT WANT THIS RECAP

SAMMY DID NOT DESERVE THAT

but also i still haven’t seen a captioned giftset of the moment cas said to dean “dean, he’s gone, we can’t save him”

‘cause wow as far as destiel moments go, that’s a heck of a lot of trust for dean, and a heck of a lot of concern and care on cas’ part

-

02:46

lucifer: your name is jack

jack: and yours is lucifer

i don’t even know why i laughed but i did??? i don’t think that was meant to be funny

-

02:48

lucifer: don’t you think that’s his choice?

cas: no

the abusive dad vs protective family saga continues

-

also i just realised for MONTHS/years? i’ve been using the 24-hour clock on my laptop and didn’t even notice how much i didn’t like it until just now, and i just changed it, and AAH THIS IS BETTER IT SAYS 02:49 INSTEAD OF 14:49 AND I DON’T ACCIDENTALLY TYPE 4:49 WHEN WRITING THESE POSTS

-

actually in terms of abusive parents vs protective families (expanding on what i said last week), i kinda feel like right now the writers are kinda toning down how bad it can be. lucifer’s so chill about this, kinda, and i’ve known families whose estranged parent is almost a perfect match for lucifer’s behaviour here:

they’ll offer the kid an incredible gift without telling the other parent(s), something the kid can’t refuse because of how badly they want/need it, and the parents can’t refuse without being the bad guy(s), and the whole family then becomes eternally indebted to the abusive parent and is obliged to give them money/time/rights with their child, with the threat of violence, property destroyed, access to said property removed, or instigated legal proceedings if they refuse.

plus the kid is often too young or innocent to understand, they just see an extra parent who gives them nice things, and for a kid from a broken home with not enough to go around, they don’t see the downside, and they maybe never see the threat their parents are under. or they’re physically or mentally abused by their parent(s), but think it’s okay because the parent(s) “apologises” or bribes them with nice things. or if the protective parent(s) try and keep them away from the abusive parent, the kid sees themselves as being deprived of that parent’s love

long story short, people can be shitty, and lucifer probably has the potential to be much worse than just standing around and having a casual discussion

i feel like the extended winchester family verbally defending jack is not gonna be enough, and lucifer’s gonna wanna take back sam, and destroy more while he’s at it

like an “if i can’t have it, nobody can have it” sort of thing

-

03:03

eyyy felicia day is in the credits

-

03:04

hug!!!!!!!!!!!

nawww the lil tiny nuzzle dean does with his chin before pulling away

-

03:07

YEAH MARY YOU PUNCH THE DEVIL IN THE FACE

!!!

AGAIN!!!

cas kinda looked like he was expecting that

-

03:09

i was busy admiring how mary’s hair was perfectly curly 

and then by the next shot it was all limp and sad

if the weather was humid i guess it melted the curl between takes

-

but also MARY WHAT THE HELL

YOU DON’T WANNA ABANDON ALL THE PEOPLE IN THE AU

BUT WHAT ABOUT YOUR SMOL NEEDY HERO CHILDREN

??????

i mean i get it bUT ALSO NO I DON’T

-

also my face is >:| because they cut to cas and lucifer in the middle of mary and dean having a super important conversation

usually it’s not jarring but THAT WAS JARRING

eehh the deadly duo trademark is all over this

-

03:15

sam: mom doesn’t wanna leave these people.

sam: ...

sam: so let’s take ‘em with us

YEAH NOW THAT’S A PLAN

MUCH BETTER

take charlie and bobby too okay please

..........aw man now i said that, i get the terrible feeling that one or both of them is gonna go out in a blaze of glory instead, or stay on the sinking ship for no good reason other than because the writers don’t know what else to do with them

edit: i mean there’s still next episode.... (best case, they all survive and get storylines next season)

-

03:20

see all the stuff lucifer is telling jack is true, and it does remove the blame from the CONCEPT of lucifer

but the personality is lucifer is BAD AND ABUSIVE

like you don’t have to commit horrible crimes to be a bad person to be around

he corrupts the will of others, he tortures them emotionally, he manipulates them

none of those things are first-degree murder, or the great oppression of the entire human race, but they are Bad Things For A Father To Be

-

03:23

lucifer: i have done bad things, but i just want the opportunity to get better. doesn’t everybody? don’t you?

i actually feel sick ‘cause this is sooooooo very very dangerous

cas was right, talking to lucifer is bad

yeah, he says all the right things. anyone could give him the benefit of the doubt, and perhaps say sure, lucifer’s changed ‘cause he has a kid now, but he PROVED in bringing sam back to life that he hasn’t changed

and not just because of the “i’mma bring jack a gift he can’t refuse thing”, but the “i’mma kill sam again if he doesn’t agree to this” thing

lucifer is a manipulative, blackmailing, flaming trash baby and jack needs better. lucifer might treat jack himself with genuine love, but he’ll destroy everyone and everything around him in doing so

-

03:28

also? i relate so hard to the fact dean, sam, and cas all see and know the real lucifer, and lucifer’s putting on a show for jack

i think the people i’ve personally felt the least safe around in the past, especially growing up, are the people who are perfectly sweet when you’re in company and then become bullies as soon as the adults/parents/protectors are out of earshot

and there’s no way to prove to your protectors that you’re being hurt because all they see is “a nice person” or “ohh they’re such a sweetie”

i mean it’s the other way around for team free will and jack, where tfw see the real thing and jack sees the perfect angel but yeah

-

03:42

ketch: take the b&o railroad......straight to hell

good line tbh

-

03:43

angel to ketch: i’ve sent for an expert in these matters

probably gonna be other ketch

-

03:44

WHOA DARK CAS

WAY BETTER

he has a twitchy hamster face

where does misha get these ideas

i kinda wanna draw whiskers on dark!cas ???

-

03:46

THE FACT DEAN CAN GIVE CAS INSTRUCTIONS JUST BY FLUTTERING HIS EYELASHES

and the way he moves his eyes is so soft and gentle and subtle too

it makes my heart feel a thing tbh

even though cas is torturing someone

ugh nonverbal communication is so sexy

-

03:52

DARK CAS IS GERMAN ?????

and there’s........something misha-like in his smile?? that’s weird

-

03:54

I AM INTENSELY UNCOMFORTABLE

his two different eyes are cool though

maybe it’s just a trick of the light, or a very subtle contact lens

-

03:55

fuck yeah that coat

but why is he german, other than clearly being a nazi-inspired character

-

is it just me or is this legitimately the scariest of all misha’s characters

i want to run away and hide

-

actually i kinda wanna cry

-

03:59

that’s better

GOOD CAS, PLZ DESTROY NAZI CAS

-

04:02

ketch: “well helloo~”

ketch: “are you... actually saving me? about bloody time”

gayyyyyyyy

biiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii

also maybe definitely a destiel parallel from that time cas beat dean up to stop him saying yes to micheal

-

04:05

um?????

that smile when real!cas dragged the blade down dark!cas throat ?????

-

04:08

jack’s like LET ME DO THE THING EVERYONE’S BEEN TRYING TO DO FOR MONTHS/YEARS

IN ONE HOUR

-

04:11

fuck yeah mary

lookin all swish at the back of the war bus

-

04:12

????????????????????

??????????????????????????????????

hOW DID THEY GET THE BUS THROUGH THE TUNNEL THAT HAD THE VAMPIRES IN

DID THEY TAKE THE MOUNTAIN ROUTE THAT WOULD’VE TAKEN SEVERAL DAYS???

WHAT???????????????????

-

04:16

MY HEART IS POUNDING

C’MON EVERYONE YOU CAN DO IT!!!!

-

04:17

mary, bobby, ketch, charlie, jack are safe!!!! SAVE EVERYONE!!! QUICK QUICK

NOBODY LEFT BEHIND PLEASE

except lucifer maybe

except that would probably be bad in the long run

-

CAS IS SAFE

YAH C;MON!!!!!!!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH I’M SO STRESSED RN

fuckin feel like i’m trying to pull ducklings one by one through a fence before a dog gets them FUCK

/sobs to self

-

04:19

I;M GONBA HEVA FUCKING HEART ATACK FUHF

-

04:20

WHY IS IT ALWAYS THE BLACK GUY

DO THESE WRITERS LIKE.. HAVE A FETISH FOR DEAD BLACK PEOPLE

WHAT THE FUCK IS THEIR PROBLEM

AND THE CAMERA ALWAYS LINGERS MORE WHEN IT’S THESE WRITERS I’M PRETTY SURE??? someone do a test, go find all the dead black people and check which writers/editors/directors leave the camera lingering for longest

istg these writers do it more often and for longer

-

04:24

aw MAAAAN :C

dean’s “gaBE nO” though. :c :c :c

-

04:26

everyone except gabe :c :c :c

(and no lucifer...........like i said, great now, baaaaaad in the long run)

-

04:29

nobody mentions cas but he’s still there, looking all pretty and being a good, wholesome bean

-

04:30

:C

-

04:30

SEE? BAD

VERY BAD

-

04:33pm

it ends

ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh man that was 

........a lot

overall a good ‘un but STILL VERY STRESSFUL

i need a nice calming shower after that, i smell like !!!!!anxiety!!!!

9/10, loses a point JUST BECAUSE OF HOW STRESSFUL IT WAS TO WATCH. THIS WAS NOT FUN AT ALL

BUT STILL GOOD??

I DUNNO MAN I JUST WANT A SHOW WITH THESE EXACT CHARACTERS JUST HANGING AROUND AND BEING NICE TO EACH OTHER AND FALLING IN LOVE AND HEALING EACH OTHER EMOTIONALLY AND PHYSICALLY AND BAKING CAKES AND RAISING CHILDREN

to be fair though, my endless almost-what-i-wanted-but-not-quite dissatisfaction with this show keeps driving me to write 81+ fanfics where nice things happen 

so

win-win????

but this show would still be better with dean/cas cuddles let’s be real