#anyways. I still think the allie part is funny sue me

[her-canine-teeth]

back to you by flower face (reupload)

[mk-wizard]

Big Hero 6 The Series: It could have been better

Hello, friends. Today, I will be analyzing a TV series based on a movie that I fell in love with for its colourful themes, deep plot, compelling characters, great CGI and memorable messages. Before I get into it, I want to take a moment to say that I have quit doing videos. They are too big of a pain in the petunia to make and I write better than I speak, so I will stick to writing essays, reviews and more. Anyway, onto the analysis.

All I can say about Big Hero 6 the series is that it had a great concept, it presented some great ideas and tried hard to be a cartoon of the times, but it could have and should have been a lot better. The show’s downfall all centers around trying too hard to be kid friendly which makes the shame sting all the more because Big Hero 6 was already kid friendly even with its dark themes, sharp edges and intelligent writing. If anything, even the brightest kid friendly cartoons (Steven Universe, She-Ra, etc.) had those things and actually benefitted from them. By needlessly trying too hard, character development got scrapped, the edges were all smoothed out, storytelling was subpar, the humour was too silly and the executive meddling in the end produced a dismal final season. However, I don’t want this analysis to be one lengthy negative rant about how awful the series was because in its defense, awful is an unfair word. It did have potential and ideas which are worth carrying over to a reboot that I hope will be done someday in the future. Also, we should root for a reboot because Big Hero 6 would not be the first story that needs it before striking gold. Just look at how many times Spider-Man was rebooted in film before MCU found the version that worked. Anyway, I will list all the things in Big Hero 6 that could have been better in my opinion;

1- Go easy on the laughs and be more generous with the action. - I love adding comedy to my own writing because I think a good sense of humour makes everything better, but Big Hero 6 is not a stand up comedy routine. It is a superhero story where we expect action, suspense and life or death situations that are to be taken seriously first. The comedy should be for relief and with the right timing. Also, the chibi cutscenes and having characters act like fools aren’t funny. Ren and Stimpy are the exception not the standard and their way of making you laugh doesn’t fit an action series. In a show as big as Big Hero 6, real life physics and danger matters.

2- Make the villains menacing and gritty. - I admit that after having a movie villain like Yokai who was the stuff of nightmares, it is going to be a challenging act to follow, but it was obvious that the writers were trying especially with some villains who could have easily gone into some dark relatable territory. For example, Mr. Sparkles (the gentleman in the photo above) embodies social media and Internet personalities. Right off the bat, you have a long list of things which embody the dark side of that like scams, fraud, using social media to dox or harass, driving people to suicide, online predators, the Internet personalities being very depressed people in real life, and much more horrifying things. When you stop and look at it, Mr. Sparkles even looks like the Joker which hints how dark and scary he could have been if the stops were removed. The same goes for enemies like Hardlight who embodies online gaming, Liv with cloning, Obake an amoral and insane scientist, and Trina and Noodle Burger Boy (more on him later) being evil robots. Globby especially should have been painted and written in much darker colours rather being played off for laughs because he has many parallels with Clay Face. The only two villains who I can say were supposed to be campy, charming and comical were Baron Von Steamer and Supersonic Sue because they were a satire of the Adam West style villains.

The rest of them needed to be dark and threatening including Mr. Sparkles. In fact, I would love a rebooted version of Mr. Sparkles who gives me the heebie-jeebies. Going back to Noodle Burger Boy, I must confess that I was actually excited when I heard that he was going to be the main villain of the final season because I thought he was going to fulfill his master’s final wish and as a reminder, Noodle Burger Boy was based on a super robot for military purposes.

It would have been fantastic if Noodle Burger Boy was upgraded into a full military war machine with a new threatening look. For that, I think all of the villains deserve to be rebooted and have their full potential unlocked for better or for worse.

3- A show about geniuses merits genius level art quality. - I am usually forgiving towards art styles, but in the case of Big Hero 6, the oversimplified style with minimal details and lack of textures did not suit the show. The characters blend in with the background which makes them look flat and the special effects were extremely dulled down. I also know for a fact that Disney can do a lot better than this because I saw how superbly Tangled the Series was drawn.

You can see and almost feel the difference in quality, the number of layers and level of detail between the two styles. I think there was no excuse Big Hero 6 was not done in the same style and at the same level if not better as Tangled.

3- Don’t dumb down or flanderize amazing characters. - I absolutely detest it when characters are flanderized because it makes them one dimensional and grating. For example, Go Go is tough as nails and extremely calm, but she is not cold or hesitant towards helping her friends. She doesn’t require very special episodes for us to know that. If anything, the movie version of Go Go reminded me a lot of Garnet in how she deconstructed the broody character. She isn’t cold or emotionless. Just calm and mature. Another good example was how Honey Lemon was rewritten to be overly positive to the point of toxicity, naïve and oblivious with a juvenile obsession with stickers. Then you have poor Fred who was rewritten to be an incompetent fool. The spark that makes Big Hero 6 shine is that they are a team of geniuses meaning they are all intelligent. Even Fred is genius in his own way just not a scientific one. He has a vivid imagination, he is resourceful and can get himself out of tight spots. Please, don’t turn characters into dummies especially if their intelligence is a part of them. It doesn’t make them better or funnier. It ruins them.

4- Tadashi needs closure and honour. - I am all for Hiro making peace with the loss of his brother, but Tadashi is to the Big Hero 6 team what Uncle Ben was to Spider-Man. His loss was the catalyst if not the reason. He should never be forgotten. Moreover, there was never any true closure to him especially with the possibility that he may still be alive up in the air. After all, like Callaghan, his body was never found and it turned out that Callaghan was still alive.

With that said, who is to say that Tadashi was not secretly still alive and just hiding or being hidden? This is something that Disney really needed to clear up if not for the fans, then at least as a service to such an important character. Never just forget about them.

5- The format can only be episodic with a deep plots, continuity and character development. - Random episodes with a mere monster of the day is an outdated format which doesn’t fit Big Hero 6′s modern and bright setting. In seasons 1 and 2, when the episodes were plot heavy with character development, the series shined brightest. It also helped move the story along, but with the final season, plot was removed, closure was abandoned or poorly written if any was given, and characters were disallowed from growing. A good example at how plot and character development could have made this series and its characters better was the relationship between Hiro and Megan. Would it have truly survived or would they have broken up?

Would Richardson Mole have eventually lost interest in his obsession with besting and bullying Fred or would his obsession consume him compelling him to become a super villain? I do see quite a few similarities between Mole and Reverse Flash.

Then you have Karmi who is in my opinion, the biggest wild card of the bunch. She was intentionally introduced as an arrogant, prickly and unlikable yet complex character who rivaled Hiro bitterly.

Yet had a huge crush on his alter ego and as time went on, started to grow up and even form a friendship with Hiro. What would have happened further down the road with her? Would she have become a super hero herself? Or maybe even another love interest for Hiro kind of like how Black Cat is for Spider-Man?

Is Obake really gone?

What does the future hold Diana (Liv’s clone), Liv herself or the Sycorax the genetics company?

Is Alistair Krei going to become an ally to Big Hero 6 or an antagonist? There is also the issue at how little we know about the other Big Hero 6 characters other than Fred, Hiro and Baymax. What are Honey Lemon, Wasabi and Go Go’s backstories? These questions matter and while not every mystery can be solved, leaving none of them solved is lazy writing.

6- Executives, kindly stay out of the writing and any other part of the creative process. - I’m sorry, execs, but there is no nice way to say it. History itself proves that every time executives got involved in the creative process of any media, it got worse not better. Leave the writing to the creative team and the execs should only handle the legal stuff. Please. We understand that TV is a business, but writing itself is not. It is an art which you just don’t have a talent for. Let the creative people do their thing with the freedom necessary and you do your thing, deal? Deal.

7- Focus on Hiro and Baymax. - The are the main characters so keep them at the heart of the series no matter what happens around them. That is all I can say.

And that sums up all the things that could have made Big Hero 6 the series better, but this is all just my opinion. What is yours?

PS: I am well aware that the Big Hero 6 series is being retconned because a new series called Baymax is in the works as well as the long awaited sequel to the first movie. I am looking forward to both with an open mind. PPS: I also am aware that some people liked this show the way it was including the art style and I am cool with that. An analysis for art that includes cartoons is never right or wrong. It is solely based on opinion. I may have thought this series could have been better, but there are people who make arguments that it could have been worse.

[thatasianstereotype]

Fuck. I’m Gay.

I’ve been reading a lot of ml salt fics lately (mainly @unmaskedagain which is a literal goldmine of saltiness). And getting into the Damienette ship. Marinette really does deserves better (Fuck Canon) but so does Adrien. He is not a “sidekick”. Chat Noir and Ladybug are partners = equals. So I decided why not write a fic where Adrien gets his own happy ending in the form of a grumpy assassin-turned-vigilante that loves animals more than people. 

Somewhat of a crack writing where creative liberties were definitely taken. 

.

.

.

Lila Rossi is a bitch and everyone knew it. Well, by everyone, Adrien means himself, his good-amazing-make-pastries-for-him friend Marinette, his maybe-not-really-sure friend Chloe and his-not-that-close-really-classmate Nathaniel. 

Yeah. It was a small number. 

But Lila is still a bitch. 

Anyway, Lila’s lies and manipulations have disturbed the status quo and not in a good way. She ended up making the majority of the class fawn over her like she was a perfect goddess and not a pompous-temperamental-hormonal teenager. Teenagers were prone to be gullible; he can understand his classmates being inclined to believe her. But this was utterly ridiculous (man, Chloe is rubbing off on him). No. You know what’s even more ridiculous? Ms. Bustier letting Lila get away with it. She doesn’t even stop the class mistreating Marinette who claimed she was a bully just because of you know who - Fucking Lila Rossi. The audacity of that bitch and her bitchy followers, am I right? 

Growing up he watched the tv shows and the animes. High schools always had their drama but he thought that was to get some plot going on. He didn’t think it was an actual thing that happens in real life. But he was proven wrong. Françoise Dupont High School had their drama and it was way worse than what he watched on screen. 

The worst part was that he couldn’t get away from Lila. Or he’ll be pulled from school (Fuck you Dad). He had to sit next to that bitch and listen to her drone on and on about things they both knew she didn’t do, about things she promised to do for her ever gullible followers friends. And couldn’t say anything against it if he wanted to stay in school. But even his discreet questioning didn’t do that much. It got some of the class to think something’s possibly fishy with her stories but not enough to think Lila was evil. So he just gave up. Because what was even the point? 

He was distancing himself from Alya and Nino. He couldn’t really be friends with people who thought Lila held the sun and moon. They didn’t hang out as much as they used to and he made excuses when they did invite him to stuff. Lately, he was making outrageous excuses - like he had to take his cat to the vet even though he didn’t have a cat - to see if they caught on. They didn’t. It was fun but he didn’t know whether to feel happy or sad about that. But feeling sad-depressed-pain over it was a bitch so he decided to take his victories as they come. 

Chloe had left the school earlier on. Her mom wanted to spend one-on-one time with her daughter (Yeah, Audrey is better at being a mother here). She was completely out of this drama mess. And Nathaniel kept his head down to not paint a target on himself. 

His only consolation and ally in this whole mess was Marinette. His darling angel. His sunshine incarnate. His own goddess (not like that bitch Lila let’s get one thing straight). 

When he was feeling overwhelmed (which was a lot), he spent it at her house. They spent it discussing fashion, trash talking Liar-la and the sheep class, playing video games, and making/eating the best baked goods in all of Paris. If he wasn’t at his photo shoots or at school, he was at her house. And with how often they spent time with each other, it wasn’t long before they accidentally revealed their alter egos to each other. 

(The class’ Everyday Ladybug was actually Ladybug. How amazing is that! Isn’t Marinette the absolute coolest?!) 

Since they outed themselves to each other, they had to give up their miraculous. And new heroes had to be chosen. As the guardian, Marinette decided to give the Ladybug miraculous to herself and the Cat one to Adrien. And make them the superheros of Paris. 

(Just when he thought that Marinette couldn’t get any cooler) 

They both collectively decided that being friends were for the best and put away their obsession crush over the other far far away. Now they were best friends-almost siblings. Oh who was he kidding? He was an honorary Dupain-Cheng. Marinette and her parents said so. And who was he to deny the goddess? 

All was well. 

Until he met this gorgeous boy with raven black hair and piercing green eyes that made him question everything in life. 

Like fuck. His life wasn’t hard enough already? 

.

It was a slow patrol. Just stopped a few petty crimes. No akuma tonight. He wasn’t really expecting much to happen.

Mari said patrolling regularly gives citizens a sense of security and it helps if one of them were on scene if an akuma does appear. 

He didn’t mind. He loved running on the rooftops and feeling the wind in his face. After some time, he stopped and stood on top of one of the tallest buildings. Just soaking the view. The peace and serenity of it all. Seeing the glowing lights of his beloved city. Seeing the Eiffel Tower standing tall and proud. 

(Forget school. Forget Liar-la and her hoard of bitches) 

This was his city. This was why he fights Hawk Moth with Ladybug. They had something precious to protect. 

He was done patrolling the regular routes and all his schoolwork was already finished. He could go to sleep but he didn’t feel that tired. And he really didn’t want to go back home. Mari shared her theory on his dad being Hawk Moth. She had really good reasons and a plethora of proof. If they could switch miraculous, why couldn’t he and Mayura - most likely Nathalie? Which would explain how Gabriel got akumatized.

After all her support with dealing with Lila, he was way more inclined to believe her even without the evidence. But those things just made him more wary of his dad. And he wasn’t too stoked on spending more time than what he can get away with with the guy. Because his dad being Hawk Moth explains why he wants Lila (his strongest supporter - Chameleon and Oni-chan, anyone?) close and makes Adrien play nice with her. And anyone who enables Lila’s bitchiness is on his enemy list. 

Anyway, he was out here to enjoy the good mood not think about evil bitches and evil dads. So he sat himself down and enjoyed the sights. It was more calming than you would think. 

He heard cars blaring and even a dog barking. The slight breeze felt nice. The moon was pretty bright tonight. The stars too. There was a lone couple walking through the park. There was also another teen in black running on rooftops a few buildings away. 

Wait. 

What? 

He blinked and looked again. Huh, there was another teen in black running on rooftops. And it was not a hallucination. 

What the actual fuck?

He was instantly on his feet, baton already in hand as he raced across the roof to reach said stranger. 

“Hey!” 

But because he was the lucky owner of the unlucky miraculous, the moment he said that, the guy was about to jump off a building to presumably roll onto the next one like Chat was watching him do beforehand. But his call made him lose focus and Chat watched horrified as the guy slipped and started falling into the alley. 

Oh fuck! Mari was going to fucking kill this dumbass kitty!

He hoped to everything that Mari thinks is holy that he makes it in time. Extending his baton, he used it as a huge Pogo stick to basically catapult himself towards the stranger and wrapped his arms around him as he braced himself for the full weight of hitting the gravel at this height and speed. But he wasn’t that that concerned. His suit protected him from the majority of the injuries that would’ve occurred if he wasn’t wearing it. It hurt but it isn’t as bad as it could’ve been. Remember earlier? He takes his victories as they come. 

This was not the smartest of ideas, he’ll admit. Mari had the brains to be honest. But it wasn’t bad if he say so. And he does say so. 

He rolled over and immediately looked over the stranger that was remarkably unharmed in this whole mess. 

And oh.

Oh.

The stranger was taller than he was with a lithe and lean frame. He had raven black hair that complimented his tanned skin and gorgeous green eyes that pierced through him, making his heart do funny things. 

He was not expecting him to look as hot as he did. He wore a simply black t-shirt and jeans but he looked like a fucking Adonis, what the fuck.  Even the moon shone down on him, highlighting his handsome features even more.  

He shook himself of those thoughts and focused on what was more important. “I’m so sorry. Are you alright?” 

He was rudely pushed away, but he didn’t take offense. He did cause the guy to fall after all. 

“Do not touch me.” (What kind of accent is that?) “I’m fine. You are truly a moronic imbecile of the highest accord to yell like that. And what are you even supposed to be? Some kind of knock-off Catwoman?” 

At that, Chat looked at Hot-And-Sexy weird. “Are you new here? I’m the superhero Chat Noir. I protect Paris with Ladybug.”

“You’re joking.”

“I know I come off as the goofy hero because I make purr-fect puns all the time but I’m not joking about this.” 

He took out his phone to show the foreign (since he’s obviously not a Parisian) stranger the akuma attacks and Ladybug and Chat Noir being a dynamic duo, saving Paris and beating Hawk Moth. Ok, he showed the stranger a lot of stuff. Sue him. He gets to brag about his Princess. And himself too.

“I never heard about this before.” Hot-And-Sexy (he has got to come up with a better name) said afterward. “3 years this has been going on? Why didn’t you ask for help from the Justice League or other superheros?” 

Chat shrugged. “We tried. But they said we’re obviously pulling a prank and making this all up. So we stopped asking for help.”

For some reason this made Hot-And-Sexy angry. “They ignored your plea for help and left you to fight for yourselves?”

“Pretty much, yea.” 

“You and Ladybug are children.” 

“Excuse me? Are you doubting our ability to protect our city?" He was not apologetic at the sharp edge his voice took. Forget looking hot. How dare he? The audacity really. 

Hot-And-Sexy shook his head. “I’m not. I know some child superheroes who are adequate at their jobs and a few who are remarkable like Robin in Gotham. But the majority of them had adult mentors to guide them. From what you’ve shown me, you and Ladybug had no one. You were left alone to fend for yourself with essentially no help.” 

He never thought of it that way. But hearing it like that made him think: Fuck Adults Who Chose Children to Fight Their War For Them and Fuck Hawk Moth For Putting Them In This Position In The First Place. 

You know what. Just to clear all his bases - Fuck Everyone But The Dupain-Chengs. 

Chat couldn’t help but shrug, not quite knowing what to say to that. “Life is a bitch, I’ve come to find out. But enough of that. Why were you running on rooftops anyway?”

“It calms me down.”

Relatable. 

“Is...Is your tail moving?” 

“Huh?” He looked behind him to see his tail was indeed moving lazily. “Yeah. I’m called Chat Noir for a reason.”

“May I touch them?” Chat was used to people (usually kids) pulling on his tail to see if it was real (It was). And it really hurts because they usually rough. Not that he blames them. Kids don’t know any better. Still, he usually says no when people ask. 

But Hot-And-Sexy had such a sincere expression that he said yes. To his surprise and delight, Hot-And-Sexy was extremely gentle (Can this guy be anymore perfect?) and it felt nice to be petted like that. Curse his touch-starvation (again Fuck you Dad).

Hot-And-Sexy was apparently fascinated by his ears and tail. 

“Are you a meta?” He noticed how Hot-And-Sexy’s voice turned softer and fonder (or was he imagining that?).

“Nah. I’m fully human. I just got powers to transform into this.” He looked down at his phone seeing that the time was nearing 2 am.

“Have you suffered any injuries from your stupid stunt?” 

“Hmm?” Chat looked back at him before gesturing to his body. “Don’t worry. I may not look like it but I can take it.”

He can practically feel Hot-And-Sexy rolling his eyes. “What an utter dolt.” 

But there wasn’t any heat behind it so he didn’t take it to heart. 

“Thanks, babe.” 

“That was an insult.”

“And I’m taking it like a compliment.”

Chat stood up and stretched his limbs. Hot-And-Sexy doing the same but dusting off his clothes instead.

“So, uh, need any help getting home?”

“I am perfectly capable of finding my own way, thanks.” 

“Ok. Have a nice night.” He was about to leave when he was caught off guard by Hot-And-Sexy staring at him for a good few seconds, making his limbs freeze in place at the heavy attention.

Before he said. “You should try contacting the Batfamily in Gotham about Hawk Moth. They’re used to dealing with weird things. I’m sure they won’t turn you or Ladybug away.” 

Chat was a bit distracted by how intensely those green eyes focused on him, making his heart beat faster and his cheeks turn a vibrant red. 

He was so screwed. 

He used his baton to shoot himself up so he can run on rooftops, hurrying to the Dupain-Cheng bakery. 

.

“Mari! I think I’m gay!”

“It’s 2 in the morning, Chaton. Go to sleep and we’ll talk about it in the morning.” 

.

After a good night’s rest (and thank everything that was right in the world that today was a weekend), Adrien told Mari all about Hot-And-Sexy. And yes, he did call the stranger that out loud. His everything-that-actually-matters sister simply took it in stride after giggling a bit. They spent the majority of the day discussing emotions and everything that came with that bundle. 

Before he finally came to a conclusion. 

He is definitely gay (He liked girls but not like like them). And most definitely had a crush on Hot-And-Sexy with the pretty green eyes. 

Good news: He is no longer having a sexuality crisis. 

Bad news: He is going through an emotional crisis. 

Like dealing with these feelings that is making his stomach flip flop over and over again? The only one he ever had to deal with was the one he had on Ladybug and that (he talked with Mari about it months before. She was amazing with these emotional matters) was more of a hero-worship crush than anything really romantic. 

And his crush on Hot-And-Sexy was so much more. 

.

So it’s been about 2 weeks since he encountered Hot-And-Sexy. And he still haven’t figured out what else to call him. But the nickname was growing on him. 

(He also told Mari about asking the Batfam for help but she was a bit apprehensive after the disastrous attempts of convincing the Justice League. He shrugged, trusting her opinion and left it at that) 

Anyway, Lila was being her usual bitchy self. Father was being non-existent like always. Mari was his only source of sanity at school. And Hawk Moth was being a bitch. 

Because of course, the day before they have a huge test, he decides to akumatize someone (in this case, a businessman who was really unhappy with getting fired) and cut in on study time. And this akuma took a while to defeat. Guess he drew a lot of strength from his burning hatred of the failings of the corporate world. 

And just yesterday, a teenager who was upset at being grounded got akumatized and terrorized the city for 3 hours before Ladybug could purify her. It did however confirmed her fears. Hawk Moth was getting stronger. It took longer to defeat his monsters. They needed to find him and ended this fast. 

Adrien landed on Mari’s balcony and slipped in her room, crashing on her big comfy bed, de-transforming on the spot. Plagg sleepily floating and laying next to him on the pillow. He was so tired. And photo shoots and school drama were not helping things.

.

For the record, he was not at all expecting to see Hot-And-Sexy in a bookstore of all places. 

He was so engrossed in looking through the latest Boku no Hero Academia manga (can’t wait until Season 5 comes out) that when someone touched his shoulder, he was not proud to admit he squeaked a bit.

He turned around and his eyes widened his surprise. 

“Hot-And-Sexy!” 

It was indeed the Adonis Adrien had a huge crush on. Today he was wearing a white t-shirt paired with a blue denim jacket and black ripped jeans. Wow. He really can make anything look hot.

No. Bad Adrien. Don’t let him know you actually have a crush on him.

And oh fuck. Hot-And-Sexy was staring at the blonde and Adrien tried not to let himself get flustered. He has a very intense stare. For all he knew, Hot-And-Sexy stares at everyone like that.

Calm the fuck down, heart. You too brain.

He raised a handsome eyebrow in amusement. “Excuse me?”

Adrien felt himself burn with embarrassment, his face turning bright scarlet. No wonder he was fit for the unlucky miraculous or was this just a side-effect? Note to self, ask Mari about this later. 

“I’m so sorry. I didn’t get your name last time. And I just started calling you that in my head. Cause you’re really hot and you have pretty eyes.”

Fuck mouth! Why won’t you stop talking! Please for the love of everything that makes Mari a BAMF stop. Stop digging further into the hole of embarrassment! Abort mission! Abort!

“When did we meet?”

At that, he blink a few times. Oh fuck. He was not Superhero Chat Noir. He was Civilian Adrien Agreste. Mari was definitely murdering his dumbass tonight. Lightning please strike him down right now. Where was an unlucky lightning strike when you need it?

After a few seconds of his horrified silence, Hot-And-Sexy chuckled (he had such a nice laugh). “You are extremely lucky I already figured out your alter ego beforehand, Chaton.”

Before Adrien could even unwrap that statement, he held out a hand and had a dangerously sexy smirk on his face. “My name is Damian Wayne. Would you care to get a cup of coffee with me?”

And Adrien nodded his head, not trusting himself to speak. He can deal with the superhero thing later when he can think straight (hah!) and is not distracted by Damian’s beautiful smile and alluring green eyes and perfect everything.

.

Guess what?

Ya Boi got game.

(At least, he likes to think he does)

After a successful coffee date (was it a date? Please let it be a date), they exchanged numbers (cue internal squealing) and met up a few times afterward to hang out.

Apparently, Dami was here on business to deal with something for Wayne Enterprises.

“Aren’t you 17?”

“Father believes in preparing us when we’re young.”

Dami was amazingly sweet. Arrogant and pretentious with a stick up his ass but sweet. He treats stray animals with such reverence that Adrien’s heart melt every time he sees it.

It was an added bonus when Damian scorned Lila with cruel words and disgusted looks when she tried to cut in Adrien and Dami’s date(?)/meetup(?)/spending-time-together event.

She cried and whined afterwards and Adrien has to endure his father’s lecture. But it was totally worth it.

Oh yeah. Mari was not pleased that he accidentally outed himself to a civilian. But nothing that a couple of sad kitty eyes can’t fix.

“You are so lucky you’re cute, kitty-cat.” Mari grumbled but she was smiling. “I just need to have a good talk with him on the importance of secrecy.”

.

That day Damian Wayne learned to fear a certain Marinette Dupain-Cheng.

.

It was 2 weeks later when Adrien woke up to a package next to his futon in Mari’s room. When he opened it, he saw the Butterfly and Peacock miraculous inside.

There was a card beneath it. And in beautiful cursive script read: 

I dearly hope you enjoy my courting gift, mon amour. Allow me the honor to formally ask you out on a date. I look forward to hearing favorably from you soon.

- Damian Wayne

He couldn’t believe it.

“Mari! Damian likes me back!”

“Chaton, I swear. It is 2 in the morning.”

Next

[square-blunt]

The hardest part of this is leaving you

Hey so i don't know if y'all remember this fic bc i sure do and i wanted to magnify one part of that which was Scott's bit. It's flower husbands angst. And it emotionally scared me to write this. also yea that's a my chem lyric as the title once a killjoy always a killjoy sue me.

TW- MCD (major character death), sacrifice, Gore, (blood/bleeding out), Angst, 3rd life mentioned. WC: 1288 words Ao3: p a i n

The first rule of battle, at least as Jimmy was taught, was to never be caught off guard. But he thinks he can get away with it just this once. Cradling Joel's heavy head in one hand, holding tight into Lizzie's cold arm with his other, he grieves. His grief overrides his guard. He's even got the cod head off. He can't get more vulnerable than this. He's alone, without allies. Katherine was nowhere to be seen, Gem was on the other side, Scott- Scott was Scott. He wasn't on Jimmy's side, he was against Sausage.

That was different.

Jimmy couldn't trust Scott as an ally, only as an enemy to his enemy.

He couldn't put trust in him.

Everyone he put trust in is dead.

He doesn't even trust himself.

He's surrounded, body and soul, by people who could easily kill him. Those who wouldn't-

The whistle of an arrow cuts his mind's voice in two.

Jimmy turns away from the noise, looking down at Joel's face.

He smiles.

The arrow finds its target with that familiar, sickening crunch.

He knows the piercing sting of an arrow, enchanted, imbued, or not.

He knows the pain that accompanies the sound.

Why, then, did Jimmy not feel it?

He looks up, eyes catching on the arrow before the face of his savior. The arrow is lodged in the side of their neck, in the break of their armour. The white and gold collar peeking up is already stained with red, turning the fabric into a bright crimson.

There's the sound of a sword thumping against dirt and rock. Of armour clinking against itself. The Codfather is hyper aware of the wind, how it sounds, the smell it carries. The smell of blood. Jimmy stands up, much too quickly, his vision blurring, but he races forward anyways to catch the man that saved his life.

In his arms, he holds Scott.

Scott's breathing is rapid and irregular, Jimmy desperately looks on himself and on Scott for any potions that might help, but he freezes when he feels Jimmy's hand cover his own.

"Sc- Scott?" Jimmy whispers. There's no need, there's no one around them- alive to hear it, at least.

"D- don't-'' Scott murmurs out, taking in a deep breath that makes his face contort with pain.

"What- Scott- Why? You took that arrow for me- why?" Jimmy asks.

"You really don't remember then-" Scott says, voice fizzling out onto coughing. Jimmy shifts to help him become more comfortable. If Scott had nothing to help, or didn't want to be helped, then Jimmy wouldn't take anything away from him.

"Remember- I don't really- I thought you hated me-" Jimmy can't remember anything from before… this, waking up in the jungle, sore from sitting on the cobble throne, alone. Once he got set up, he felt a strong pull to Joel, who turned out to be one of his closest allies, but to Scott as well, but when Scott never showed that they were close friends, Jimmy just… let it go. Until now at least. Scott, hand shaking, reaches up to cup Jimmy's face. Jimmy helps him, pressing his face into Scott's palm- cold. His hand is so cold.

"You were my voice. It's funny, I- I got shot in the neck- you got shot in the head. I was your mind," Jimmy laughs lightly, sounds like him alright, "and you were my voice." Scott sounds so quiet, and far away, like it's taking any strength he has left to tell him this.

"I- wh- whatever happened, Scott, I'm so sorry I let you down now. You deserved so much better than what I could've given you and I'm so sorry- please- let me- there has to-" Jimmy says, gripping Scott's hand tighter. Jimmy doesn't remember what Scott's talking about, but he remembers feeling something. Almost as if this was a repeat of Scott's memories, but the roles being reversed. Jimmy wonders if he died in Scott's arms. That's what he asks. Scott can't help but smile.

"No, I couldn't get to you in time. But you looked so beautiful that day, and even still when I went back for you." Scott runs a weak thumb across Jimmy's cheek, bringing his attention to tears that had formed. "Don't cry, morning glory, I couldn't bear to see you die again."

"Again- Scott- I-" Jimmy parrots, before Scott cuts him off, Jimmy immediately lets him speak.

"You have nothing to be sorry-" Scott coughs again, blood staining his lips, Jimmy's eyes stinging. "-about. I thought if I avoided you, you'd be safe, but- I can't live without you, Jimmy. You still mean everything to me, hyacinth, and I- ugh-" Scott stops and huffs, Jimmy can tell he's still him. Under the shaky breaths, and the red, white and gold- he can see that it's still the snarky, sarcastic Scott he'd spent another life with. "It's cold. I don't remember it being this cold-" Jimmy immediately curls around Scott, trying to warm him up- keep his blood going, good god, trying to keep his blood going.

"Why did you do this? Why?" Jimmy whispers hoarsely.

"Because I loved you. I still do, Jimmy, My rose, I still- do…" 'Scott murmurs, voice fading out- no, no- Jimmy just- Scott's just told him this and he knows Scott is telling the truth- he knows- he also thinks some part of him… still-

"You loved me?" Jimmy says, kissing the inside of Scott's palm, a part of him still loves Scott, too.

"Jimmy? Jimmy, are you there? Are you- I- I can't-" Scott says, voice fragile, panicking.

"Scott, Scott, I'm here, Scott- Scott- I'm here, Scott please-" Jimmy says, cupping Scott's face with one hand, and holding Scott's to his with his other hand. He can feel his pulse under his fingertips, its beating, but getting weaker, he can't- Jimmy can't lose him- not after he just got him back- he can see flashes, flower forests, cows, starlit skies- nights awake, much longer than they should be, talking, and laughing. He can see a ring in his hands, Scott's surprised, but overjoyed face- and he remembers the way he felt when Scott said yes. He feels the warm ghost of a hand on his shoulder. He can't- Jimmy just got him back- "Scott- please? I remember now- I do- Scott, poppy, please- I- I remember- no- no, no, no- Scott don't- don't you dare- don't you dare- Scott please-" Jimmy can't feel Scott's pulse anymore. He lets Scott's hand slide from his to cradle both sides of Scott's face. He wipes the blood away from around the side of his mouth. Tears stinging his eyes again, his chest and throat growing tight- why, why did Scott do that? "You- why- why, why, why, why, why? Scott," Jimmy chokes back a sob, and lets his head hang, "I was supposed to be the one to die for you, not the other way around- why, stupid, beautiful, selfless, why? Daffodil, sunflower, starshine, why- I just got you back- please- it's it's not- i- it's not fair-" he sobs again, ugly and brutal, nothing like Scott, nothing like Scott, "I just- how- why are you being ripped away from me again- you- i- we- we could've left, we could've- you and me- we could've left and made something because we were alive again- I don't- I can't- Scott- I'm so sorry-" his body shakes, he can't take it- knowing their past together, and now have to face his future without him- it was-

Maybe he wouldn't have to live without him much longer.

There's a sword tip pointed at the back of his head.

And just inside his vision-

Gem.

[yesthefandomfreakblr]

G U Y S ~m~ f e e l i n g s

big long post WOOOOOOOOOOOO

so uhh i did a lot of daydreaming today during school as one does when they don't care and are running on -12 hours of sleep and one cup of chocolate milk in lucky charms. I did a lot of thining about this whole 'Ripred pretends to be a service animal AU I came up with andddd ngl i'm liking this a lot.

- Cormaci and Ripred are dedicated pen-pals via Gregor and Ripred confides that he's always wanted to see the museums in New York. they talk about how fun it would be and Cormaci rather enjoys hearing from the snarky, witty, and kind of sweet stranger.

-One day gregor hands him Cormaci's note and Ripred sends gregor with his reply after their echolocation lesson. "Dearly detestable, (a customary greeting for the two) I have a large service animal vest and shades if you want to use them. meet me at midnight and we'll make a plan. XOXO- Cormaci"

-Ripred is over the frikken moon you have no idea. they make a plan, he tries on the vest, they meet in the morning to go to the museum.... And Ripred can't. It's just too bright and too loud and too many people so close to him. everyone stares and many try to pet him. Ripred knows he can't attack people or talk, so he just pulls Cormaci back to central park and has a full blown panic attack five blocks before they make it. they make it to an alleyway and he just shakes and gasps for air. sensory overlaods, especially when you've never had one, are no frikken joke.

-He just sulks back in the quiet, normal smelling, tourist free underland that doesn't burn his eyes. a few days go by and Cormaci proposes a picnic in central park. way less crowded, and with his vest people are warned not to pet him anyway. Ripred gives it another go.

-it doesn't suck. it actually goes very very well. he has the time of his life seeing the ducks and the horse carriages and sunbathing. they do this three times a week and gradually he goes to stores with her and they run small errands. after about two months She can take him anywhere and he won't get overwhelmed. of course, Cormaci hardly takes him into places or restaurants because he's not a real service animal. while waiting to cross the street, Gregor warns him to watch his tail. "what you think I'm just gonna fling it out and hit someone??" he flings his tail out for emphasis and hits someone. -rager speed activate- he catches them and apologises profusely. the 5 foot 2 ich overlander cracks up and compliments him on his reflexes. She hangs out with them the rest of the day and pays for their ice cream. He actually gets her number and they part ways. I mean she's weirdly chill but some people are. at least she didn't sue or panic.

-he uses the library computers to watch training videos and look up the criteria for service animals. He, Cormaci, And gregor's family all help expose him to all of the scenarios and help get him ready. He spends a lot of time with Lizzie. with her smelling salts, puzzles, and emergency phone in his pockets, Lizzie goes places with just him. they go to the museums and nerd out together.

They meet with the registration managers, and after the worst day of Ripred's life, (vet checks and behavioral/training testing. letting people grab, pinch, pull, poke, and prod him places he'd rather them not.) He get's officially registered as Lizzie's service animal.

-Ripred is ecstatic to roam the overland as he pleases and be able to help Lizzie. but he soon realizes she's not the only one who needs his help. Ripred builds a trustworthy council for the gnawers with two head leaders to rule in his stead. and helps Luxa build a better council so that she can visit a few days a week. this takes like a month.

Gregor's dad needs to go back to work, but is still very weak. Ripred, the two days a week he lectures, goes with him and carries his papers, medicine, and anything else on his vest and lets Mr. Campbelle lean on him during lectures. it's very interesting to him and excruciating not to chime in. So during breaks they geek out on theories about anything. Ripred helps him overcome his PTSD from his time in the rat lands. Texting his new distant friend Ripred finds out that Ally, the girl he one-hit K.O'd, has horses and actually does equine therapy. she helps Gregor's family for free. Ripred gets kicked by a horse.

Gregor needs help catching up with school, so he does that when they get home. and after the war of time, Gregor just needs him a lot. Ripred spends two or three nights a week with the boy, and they go on a lot of walks. They either walk for hours in silence or Gregor just breaks and gushes like a waterfall. He doesn't want to trouble anyone with everything on his mind but Ripred is safe. he understands. Gregor talks to him and Ripred listens. occasionally offering bits of valuable advice.

three days a week he goes to school with Lizzie, and finds that her teacher is very good at chess. they get along just fine and he talks to her and even helps with her lesson plans, given this is her first year. at first she tries to call Lizzie's emergency contact. but it's him. He lounges around and is the gordon Ramsey of education. He coaches Lizzie through panic attacks and she is never once bullied when he's around. she learns things from him and makes a couple more friends on the chess team. He'll sweep the floor with any one of them. He mostly reads during class but occasionally, during tests, (when Lizzie is most comfortable,) he'll react to the high stress of another student and put his head in their lap. (test anxiety is something else) and because they're elementary school kids, they make a cult for the rat. they call him Mr. Rat and leave offerings like shiny trinkets or snacks. he privately tutors the class for an hour after school because of this (they can leave if they want but he's smart and funny) and they all learn morse code/ ace their tests. going with Lizzie to P.E is his favorite. everyone else hates it. they fear him. He's no longer allowed to play dodgeball.

Grace is home but can barely walk. on good days her lungs will suddenly give out and it's extremely dangerous. with no one else able to run errands, and desperate to get out of the apartment, she begrudgingly and sorrowfully asks for his assistance. she wishes she could cut ties with the underland for good, but her family desperately needs him. the 'service animal' thing was just so he could go to the museum, but now he's a part of their lives. She leans on him in the grocery store and he sniffs out the best products as well as pushes the cart. if she goes down he has her inhaler and knows what to do. and aside from that, he makes great company. he's funny and smart. and she can tell him things she can't tell her family. about her chronic anxiety, her nightmares, her depression, her constant fear for her children and fear they don't love her anymore for trying to protect them and fear she didn't do enough and fear it will all happen again but this time someone won't come back... He understands what it's like to lose everyone. He understands not telling people things. He lets her talk. and only offers what she needs.

He still hangs out with Cormaci and they go on little trips together, but He's very busy taking care of his family. He never anticipated it to go this far or be this much work, sleeping in the underland once or twice a week, eating most meals there. But Ripred had decided to help Lizzie, a little girl that was very much like his own deceased pup. and in that, got closer and closer to Gregor, who was like a son to him long before he knew of Cormaci. In caring for and, in a way, adopting these pups, he'd adopted their parents and become a cornerstone in their daily life.

about Ripred and Ally, yeah they still hang out as often as possible she lives a couple hours out in florida but stays at her friends a couple days a week in NYC. it's kind of strange to him, but he finds it helpful that she would do anything for him. he can call her anytime for anything and she'll drive out or stay up late and talk, or uber eats him a snack. he ends up telling her absolutely everything. she's a good listener. her horse hates him. she gives Gregor free riding lessons and makes the BEST ribs.she's cool about the underland thing and just lets him talk. which he's not used to. within a few months, she knows more about him than Lizzie or Luxa. she sees him ugly and sees him nice and doesn't hate him for either. yeah she has a big crazy personality but if he accepts her, she'll return the favor tenfold. it takes a while but he gets used to having someone love him like a dog. she's kind of a dog. She knows what he's done, good and bad. and she's cool with it. but if he ever ever lies to her. she will never trust him again. he knows she's not lying.

Ripred supervises Gregor and Luxa's first date getting pizza and starbucks and going to a movie. He nips at someone's ankles for attempting to interfere.

Lizzie's panic attacks become more rare. to the point she doesn't need Ripred at school. Gregor's father no longer needs to lean on him, and can carry his own things. Grace returns to work and only needs her inhaler maybe once a week. Gregor is healing to the point he doesn't sneak out of his room and curl up with Ripred at night.

But none of them, not even Grace, want hm to leave. He experiences all of the Holidays with them during their first year together and he loves them all. food. Luxa joins to along with Cormaci of course. on Halloween he and Lizzie go as little red riding hood and the big bad wolf. gregor and luxa dress as bats. Gregor all black and Luxa a stunning gold. Ripred fights airport security. he tells his overlander friend, Ally, all about it. she thinks he's a bad-A.

As he is needed less and less Ripred goes back to the underland and helps Keep the peace. he was doing ok sending messages from the overland, but his presence is certainly needed more than twice a week. especially Luxa. she needs time alone to speak with a father figure, especially with Vikus's health fading. He helps relieve the pressure and helps her relax. She becomes like a daughter to him, Aurora as well. RIpred comes at a moments notice if any human male shows interest in his baby girl. He even brings Ally down and she honestly would kill to ride a bat. she gets to ride a bat. with everyone constantly dumping their problems on him and them having so many, Ally becomes vital to his mental health. to just have someone to relax with, to talk to to get Denny's at 2:00 AM with.

the years are long and full of hardships, love, and light. Gregor's family becomes more financially sound, they can comfortably afford to feed Ripred now, and go on annual trips. Luxa and Howard go to Hawaii. Vikus passes away two years after the COC, and Gregor's grandmother shortly after. Gregor's family decides to stay in new york. Ripred, Luxa, and Howard go to Virginia for a month with gregor's family in the summer and have the time of their lives. He brings Ally everywhere he can she makes him food, they joke together, sometimes stay at each others places, have a pick up lines war, and she's actually a valuable ally in meetings for writing things down and even contributing. they know everything about eachother. He often thinks to himself that she's every bit as sassy and kind as his mate, and if she were a gnawer, he wouldn't hesitate. but she's human.

and after four more years, at the age of nineteen, Gregor and Luxa are married. though they are no longer bonds, (the council decided you can only have one bond as not to split loyalties) Ripred walks Luxa down the aisle and takes his place beside gregor. where Ares would have stood. Gregor's mother is proud to call Luxa her daughter. Ally brings Luxa a pet cat, as is viking tradition for newlyweds to have one in their home. Ally's weird. but they like her.

Gregor's family half lives down there now and the gnawers and human tensions are almost nonexistent after so many years.

Ripred is godfather to all eight of Gregor and Luxa's children. and though he's starting to ache in the leg he broke in COC, his age starting to climb, it's not too much for him to play with his godpups or wrestle with Gregor. he'd be like mid 50's as human. (another reason he could never be with Ally, She's 25.) He attends Lizzie's wedding in the underland to hazard when she turns twenty. after all that time, he's nearly thirty, and plays a little less rough. he has another decade or two in him and is happy to live it. life has been hell to him... but now he's found heaven. he keeps his tears to himself watching his massive family, not of blood, but of choice, grow in a place that is not torn by war. a place where the walls are made of stone and a place where the sun shines. He doesn't mind people touching or hugging him anymore and you see his real smile a lot more often. but he's still too mean to die. snarky and sassy as ever. but a lot happier. in a bittersweet kind of way. he will never forget his wife or his pups, but he knows she'd be happy for him. and it doesn't hurt to think of them.

He may have been the registered service animal, but they were all helping him right back.

[dillydedalus]

april reading

oh yeah this is a thing. anyway in april i read about uhhh.... first contact (twice), murderers on skis & victorian church politics

the yield, tara june winch a novel about indigenous australian identity and history (now and throughout the 20th century) in three narrative strands. imo the narrative strand that consists of a grandfather writing a dictionary of his language (wiradjuri) in order to prove a claim to some land is by far the strongest, but overall i liked this quite a lot. 3/5

land of big numbers, te-ping chen a solid short story collection focused on modern china and young(ish) chinese people, both in china and the diaspora. i particularly liked the stories that had some slighty surreal or speculative elements, such as one about fruit that strongly evoke emotions when eaten and a group of people stuck in a train station for months as the train is delayed, which imo use their speculative aspects in effective (if not super subtle) ways to talk about society. 3/5

the pear field, nana ekvtimishvili (tr. from georgian by elizabeth heighway) international booker prize longlist! a short, fairly depressing read about a 18-year-old girl at a post-soviet school for developmentally disabled childred (but also orphans, abandoned children & other random kids) who is trying to get a younger boy adopted by an american couple. there seem to be a lot of novels set at post-soviet orphanages etc & imo this is a well-executed example of the microgenre, with the pear field full of pears that are never picked bc they don’t taste right as a strong central image. 3/5

the warden, anthony trollope (chronicles of barsetshire #1) ah yes, a 6-part victorian series about church politics in an english town, exactly the kind of thing i’m interested in. not sure why i committed to at least the first two entries of the series but here we are. despite this lack of interest (and disagreement with most of the politics on display here) i found this quite charming; trollope has a gift for an amusing turn of phrase & making fun of his characters in benevolent ways. 3/5

the lesson, cadwell turnbull first contact scifi novel set on the virgin islands, where an alien ship arrives one day. the aliens seem benevolent & share helpful technology, but also react with extreme violence to any aggression. they claim to be on earth to study.... something, but it’s never entirely clear what. the book makes some interesting choices (like immediately skipping over the actual first contact to a few years in the future, when the aliens are already established on the islands) but i thought much of it was kinda disjointed and confusing. 2/5

the heart is a lonely hunter, carson mccullers look, i get it, it’s all about the isolation & alienation (& dare i say loneliness) of 4 miserable characters projecting their issues on the central character singer, who is kind and patient and also deaf and mute, thus making him the perfect receptacle for their issues without really having to connect with him as a person and how that isolation hinders them socially, artistically, emotionally, politically, but like... i didn’t really like it. i didn’t hate it but i just felt very meh about it all. 2.5/5

acht tage im mai: die letzte woche des dritten reiches, volker ulrich fascinating history book about the last week(ish) of the third reich, starting with the day of hitler’s suicide and ending with the total surrender (but with plenty of flashbacks and forwards), and looking at military&political leadership (german and allied) as well as prisoners of war, forced laborers, concentration camp prisoners, and everyone else. very interesting look at what kästner described as the “gap between the not-anymore and the not-yet.” 3.5/5

firekeeper’s daughter, angeline boulley) i’ve been mostly off the YA train for the last few years, but this was a really good example of contemporary YA with a focus on ~social issues. ANYWAY. this is YA crime novel about daunis, a mixed-race unenrolled ojibwe girl close to finishing high school who is struggling with family problems, university plans, and feeling caught between her white and her native familiy when her best friend is shot in front of her and she decides to become a CI for an fbi investigation into meth production in the community. i really appreciated how hard this went both with the broader social issues (racism, addiction) and daunis’ personal struggles. there are a few bits that felt a bit didactic & on the nose (and the romance... oh well), but overall the themes of community, family, and the value of living indigenous culture are really well done & i teared up several times. 4/5

the magic toyshop, angela carter i love carter’s short stories but struggle with (while still liking) her novels so far. this one, a tale of melanie, suddenly orphaned after trying on her mother’s wedding dress in the garden, coming of age and awakening to womanhood or whatever. carter’s really into that. it’s well-written, sensual as carter always is, and the family melanie and her siblings are sent to, her tyrannical puppet-maker uncle, his mute wife and the wife’s two brothers, both fascinating and offputting (& dirty) make for an interesting cast of characters, but overall i just wish i was reading the bloody chamber again. 3/5

barchester towers, anthony trollope (chronicles of barsetshire #2) (audio) lol tbh i still don’t know why i am committing to this series about, again, church politics in 19th century rural england, but it’s just so chill & warm & funny (we love gently or not so gently - but always politely - mocking our characters) that i’m enjoying it as a nice little trip where people do some #crazyschemes to gain church positions or fight over whether there should be songs in church or whatever it is people in the 19th century fought about. it’s very relaxing. there also is a lot of love quadrangleyness going on and that’s also fun. trollope has weird ideas about women but like whatever, i for one wish mrs proudie much joy of her position as defacto bishop of barchester, she really girlbossed her way to the top. 3.5/5

semiosis, sue burke (semiosis #1) i love spinning the wheel on the “first contact with X weird alien species” & i guess this time we landed on plants! plant intelligence is interesting and the idea of plant warfare is really cool. i do like the structure, with different generations of human settlers on the planet pax providing a long-term view but this allows the author to skip over a lot of the development of the relationship between the settlers and the plant and locating the plot elsewhere, which i think is ultimately a mistake. i might continue w/ the series tho, depending on library availability. 2.5/5

one by one, ruth ware a bunch of start-up people go on a corporate retreat to a ski chalet in the alps, avalanche warning goes up, one of them disappears, presumably on a black piste, the rest get snowed in & completely cut off when the avalanche hits and then they get picked off *title drop* (altho really not that many of them). nice fluff when i had a miserable cold (not covid) but fails when it tries to go for deeper themes... like an attempt to address classism and entitlement sure... was made. also like what kind of luxury skiing chalet does not have emergency communication devices in case internet/phone lines are down...  i’d have sued just for that. 2/5

fake accounts, lauren oyler the microgenre of ‘alienated intellectual(ish) probably anglophone person has some sort of crisis, goes to berlin about it’ is my ultimate literary weakness - i almost never really like them, they mostly irritate me & yet i can never resist their siren call. this one is p strong on the irritation, altho at least the narrator does not ascribe much meaning to her decision to go to berlin after she a) discovers her boyf is an online conspiracy theorist (probably not sincerely) and b) gets a call that said boyf has died, it’s really just something to do to avoid doing anything else. but other than that it’s so BerlinExpat by the numbers, like she lives in kreuzkölln! put her somewhere else at least! there is one scene that elevates the BerlinExpat-ness of it all (narrator asks expatfriend for advice on visa applications, expatfriend assures her that it’s really easy for americans to get visa, adds “especially now” while literally, as the narrator remarks, gesturing at the falafel she’s eating) other than that, the novel is.... fine. it’s smart, but not really as smart as it thinks it is, which is a problem bc it thinks it’s just sooo incisive. whatever. 2/5

the tenant of wildfell hall, anne bronte this is reductive but: jane eyre: i could fix him // wuthering heights: i could make him worse // wildfell hall: lmao i’m gonna leave his ass anyway i enjoyed the part that is actually narrated by the titular tenant of wildfell hall, helen (which thankfully, i think, is most of it) because the perspective of a woman who runs away from her abusive alcoholic of a husband is genuinely interesting and engaging, while gilbert, the frame story narrator who falls in love with helen, is.... the worst. i mean he’s not the worst bc the abusive husband arthur is there and hard to beat in terms of worseness, but he’s pretty fucking bad. imagine if helen had found out that gilbert attacked her secret brother over a misunderstanding, severely injured him & LEFT HIM TO DIE & then (when dude survived & the misunderstanding got cleared up) apologised like well i guess i didn’t treat you quite right! she’d have to run away from her second husband as well! poor girl. 3/5

[in-my-head-i-do-everything-right]

Prompt: Basically the entirety of “I wanna be yours” by Arctic Monkeys but more specifically “secrets I have held in my heart, are harder to hide than I thought, maybe I just wanna be yours

secrets I have held in my heart, are harder to hide than I thought. maybe I just wanna be yours

In October, while she’s still riding the high of absolutely demolishing Greg Dewey in mock trial, she finds out that the hot guy who’s always standing outside the library after her 3 PM post mock trial coffee break was the one who said that shitty thing about her sister two years ago while walking out of a debate competition—a competition Allie is ninety percent sure he won, by the way. And sure, he looks hot as fuck leaning against that exposed brick in his Tom Ford coat. Which, arguably is his right. To look hot. But, still.

He said the shitty thing about her sister. Allie’s still a little pissed about that. Which is her right.

“You’re Harry Bingham, right?” she asks, just to make sure. God, his name is so… Waspy. Pure Wasp. Bingham. She’s bets his family came over on the Mayflower. She bets they’re proud of that.

He smirks down at her. Smirks. He literally smirks. “Who’s asking?”

She can’t get over the smirk. Like, is it hot? Yes. Is she incredibly annoyed at him already? Big yes. “Who do you think is asking?”

“Well,” he says, adjusting his coat. It’s a really nice navy. Allie’s honestly a big fan of the coat. “If you’re asking…”

“It’s a yes or no question,” she snaps, her arms flailing a little, her coffee sloshing around in her cup. She paid five dollars for it from the student run coffee shop and she doubts it was at all worth it. But she made a promise, okay? A promise to her sister that she’d support small businesses. Which has pretty much only meant stopping with the daily Starbucks, but Cassandra doesn’t need to know that.

“Yeah, I’m Harry Bingham. Why?” How was that smooth? No, Allie would seriously like to know. How did he make that sound smooth? How is that possible?

“Did you do debate in high school?”

His brow scrunches. His head tilts. He still looks hot. “Why—”

“Another yes or no question.”

“Yeah,” he says slowly, carefully, like he’s trying to figure out where this conversation is going in real time, “I did debate in high school.”

She smiles. It’s not a proper smile, more of a half-smile. A smug smile? Doesn’t matter. “Great. Do you remember Cassandra Pressman?”

Harry’s face lights up briefly, probably with recognition. “Yeah, I remember Cassandra. She’s hard to forget. Very… intense.”

“Well,” Allie says, stretching out the word. God, she hates men. “I’m her sister, and from what I can remember, you said some pretty shitty stuff about her, and were, just in general, a complete and total asshole.”

“Excuse—”

“A misogynistic asshole, actually. And you know what, this coffee is shit anyway so—” In one fluid movement, an honestly graceful movement, a movement that Allie is—no matter how disappointed she knows her parents will be in her—proud of, she dumps her shitty five dollar coffee all over the front of his Tom Ford coat.

He lets out this pained sounding gasp that half resembles a mess of curses, and she walks away victorious and mostly guilt free.

Two hours later, he follows her on Instagram. She does not follow him back (even though she thinks about it because… hot dude), and that feels really good too.

-

With a start like that, they shouldn’t make it anywhere. Still…

In November, she runs into him in line at the student run coffee shop. Which just furthers the point that she needs to stop going there.

“Allie Pressman,” he says, and if he wasn’t so hot, so might be a little creeped out. But, also, she does know his name. So maybe they’re even?

“Hi,” she says, semi-awkwardly. About as awkward as can be expected when you run into the guy you dumped a whole coffee on. Also, turns out setting was not what was making him so attractive. No surprises there, but still something to take note of.

“Thought you said the coffee here was shitty.”

She purses her lips. “Well, I have Pfeiffer this semester, so while the coffee here is,” she lowers her voice just a little. God, she loves being dramatic, “incredibly shitty, I definitely need the caffeine.”

“Oh,” he visibly winces, “sorry about Pfeiffer’s class.” And, then, just before they reach the front of the line, “Let me buy you a coffee? To make up for the fact that you will be getting very little sleep this semester?”

She tilts her head to the side. Who the fuck is this boy, and how much is he willing to spend on coffee? “Shouldn’t I be the one buying you coffee. Because… well, you know.”

It’s a half-grin half-smirk this time. And it is, arguably, much more disarming. “My friends and I have taken to calling it The Incident,” he supplies, and oh he’s funny too. Fuck.

“Sorry about that, by the way.” She is not, in fact, at all sorry about The Incident. However, Hot Guy (he does have a name, and she does know said name, but… well) is about to buy her a coffee, and judging by the Rolex on his wrist, price does not matter.

He shrugs. “I had it coming. And I’m sorry about the shit I said about Cassandra.” Allie’s mouth doesn’t necessarily fall open, but it almost falls open, and that counts for something. White boy admits he made a mistake. This is first page news. “I was stupid and upset and probably a little high. And I’m sorry.”

“I’m not the one you should be apologizing to.”

He levels her this easy grin. This content grin. This… I am one step ahead of you grin. “I messaged your sister on Facebook a very lengthy and somewhat heartfelt apology a year ago.”

They are officially at the front of the line. Allie does not care. “Cassandra hasn’t checked her Facebook since 2018.”

“That sounds like a her problem.”

Allie ignores that. “Hi,” she says to the cashier. “I’ll have a large caramel macchiato with two shots of espresso please.”

Harry looks equal parts disgusted and appreciative. And a little bit concerned. Which is valid. “Small black coffee for me.”

“And can I also get one of those brownies, and two of those turkey shaped sugar cookies,” she turns to him. Spending someone else’s money on food is fun. “Don’t they just look so cute?”

“Yeah,” he says, sounding amused and looking way too endeared. “They look very cute. You plan on sharing with me?”

She should not be playing along with this. “Maybe.”

He follows her outside, catching the door and holding it open for her. It’s raining, which sorta sucks, but she has no plans on actually sitting down with this boy. That feels like a step too far.

Only, then—“My place is just around the corner,” he says, so fucking casually. And, God, how is she supposed to respond to that? “I’ll trade you one of those cookies for my notes from Pfeiffer’s course.”

Her heart is about to beat out of her chest. This is not good. “You paid for the cookies.”

“I know.”

Fuck.

“Okay, let’s go to your place.”

-

They have sex five times over the course of a week before her conscious tells her to stop. Then, she tries avoiding him for the rest of November but gives up two days after Thanksgiving. Because she’s not immune to anybody who calls to offere her left over pumpkin pie, okay. Fucking sue her.

“I shouldn’t be here,” she says right off the bat, and he lets out this laugh that involves him throwing his head back. And that shouldn’t be as hot as it is, and she should not be feeling this warm inside because it is literally snowing right now.

“Where should you be, Pressman?”

“Studying for my polisci midterm.”

He continues looking at her way too fondly. Her cheeks flush a pale pink. She blames the change in temperature. “You have Craven?”

“Yeah.”

He does this little waving motion that is much hotter than it should be. One day she will find a thing he looks unattractive doing. Today is not the day. “Don’t even worry about it. Easiest test I ever took.”

“I should still probably be studying for it.”

He shakes his head, and that makes her laugh even though she very much does not want to. “You seem pretty smart. Don’t worry about it.”

That was… comforting.

“You know, I kinda like what we have going,” he says, and nope her heart should not be beating anywhere near as hard as it is. Is she having a heart attack? Oh, God, is she about to die? Is she about to die in Harry Bingham’s apartment? Cassandra is going to be so disappointed.

“And what exactly is this that we have going?” she manages to get out. Yeah, Allie can practically taste Cassandra’s disappointment.

“Eating baked goods and having sex. Obviously.”

She chokes on her bite of pumpkin pie.

“So if you wanna get dinner sometime…” he continues, as though she is not choking right in front of him.

She manages to dislodge the piece of pumpkin pie in her throat. If that shit wasn’t so fucking delicious, she would be swearing it off right now. “Would you be paying?”

He looks surprised. That counts as a victory. “Yes?”

“Then no, I’m good.”

“Why?” he asks, just a little too quickly, and, yeah, his composure is entirely gone, and they are once more on an equal playing field. Arguably, she might have the upper hand right now. Which is nice.

“Because that sounds a lot like a date, and I do not want to date you.”

To his credit, he only looks sort of hurt. She takes another bite of that pumpkin pie. Who cares if it might kill her. “Why not?”

“Because you’re my sister’s high school debate rival, and that just feels a little too it’s a small world for me.”

“That’s a shitty excuse.”

“But it’s a valid one, isn’t it?”

“No, not really.” Well. At least he’s being honest.

“Look, Harry.” First name and everything. This is called progress. “You’re nice and all—really great baked goods—but Cassandra would give me that disappointed face if it ever came out that I’m… associated with you. And, honestly, I can’t handle that right now. Mentally—nope. Not happening.” She sounds flustered. She feels flustered.

“Okay?” She is taking that answer as a win.

“Great!” Too bright. “Hopefully we can stay friends? Or at least the type of acquaintances who buy the other fun shaped sugar cookies and give them the notes to classes so they have a chance to not fail.”

He stares at her, a bit like he doesn’t think she’s real, like he’s marveling at everything that she is. That or she has pumpkin pie crumbs all over her face. And, then: “Actually,” he starts, and oh God, this is not going to go her way is it?

“What?” she says very slowly.

“You know what?”

“What?” She repeats.This is already getting annoying.

“You know what’s hot?”

“What?” (But with additional fear this time.)

“Secret relationships.”

Oh. Oh Fuck.

She doesn’t have an argument for that.

-

Honestly, that’s probably the moment that it all starts.

send me song lyrics and a pairing and i’ll write you a drabble

[firebirdscratches]

im a (cisgender) teenage boy. I'm fat and a girl at school told me i need a bra and sing-songed "tits and lipstick, tits and lipstick, you're gonna be all tits and lipstick!"

Hey! I am so sorry that happened to you. Bullying fucking sucks. And it’s a double whammy, because she’s body shaming you, but also being queer/transphobic as fuck. Even if it’s directed at a cis person, that’s still gross of her.  I used to do musical theatre with a friend in school - we were both heavy, and he got made fun of really badly for it. The same kind of thing. Anyway, now he’s happily married to the man of his dreams, making bank working for the Disney company, and he’s a successful published author.  High school isn’t forever. You’ve got so many great things coming your way. Your pain is absolutely valid, and I wish I could wave a wand and make it go away. But know, way down deep in your bones, that this is 100% a problem with her, and not a problem with you. You are great exactly the way you are. Your body is great exactly the way it is. And you have so many good days ahead of you.  Strategies for if she does it again? Turn it around on her. Try some of these, maybe:  “Yeah, I’m fat. But at least I’m not a bullying asshole.” “So? How is that your problem? Worry about your own body, Tiffany.”  “Huh. You seem really preoccupied with my gender, Sue Ellen. I wonder why you’re so obsessed with me?” “That was really transphobic and fatphobic, Jennifer. Comments like that are really shallow and spiteful.”  “Well Brittney, I guess you better lend me your bra then, but fair warning, I probably look better in it.”  Also? If you haven’t already, Sniiiiiiiiitch on that bitch. Go to guidance and be like “Hey, this is happening." Start getting a record of her behavior so you can establish a pattern. Stay calm, but go ahead and get her in trouble.  If confrontation doesn’t work for you, then there’s no shame in just avoiding her, or making sure you have your friends around you when you’re likely to run into her.  Also? If none of that works for you - Buddha tells us to greet our enemies with gratitude because they are the only ones who can teach us patience. It’s really hard to do this in the moment, but it’s a lot easier to do afterwards... Think about the things she said to you. Maybe write them down in a journal. Now think about how they make you feel. Go ahead and feel your feelings. What do you observe? Do you feel them in your chest? In your stomach? In your face? Does your breathing change? Temperature? When I used to get bullied, I felt a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. My face would get very hot, and my ears would feel like they had cotton in them. Is it similar for you? What do you feel, physically and emotionally? Once you’ve observed what you’re feeling dispassionately, like a scientist, take a full, deep, belly breath, and release it slowly. You may want to journal about your findings.  Now remind yourself that you are choosing kindness and patience. That doesn’t mean what she said is okay. That doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt you, or that she has a license to behave like that whenever she wants. You don’t have to feel very compassionate towards her. That’s why we’re going to practice. Start with curiosity - curiosity about your feelings, and curiosity about her and her motivations. “Hmm. Those words hurt my feelings. I’m feeling hurt right now. Why do those words hurt me? Am I afraid they may be true? Are they actually true? Hmm. No. I know that bodies come in all sizes. Would I say those things to someone else? Of course not. I wonder why she chose to say hurtful words that aren’t true? Why is she invested in hurting me? What kind of person enjoys hurting other people? Does she understand kindness? She must have a hard time relating to other people. If she thinks it’s okay to treat people like this, someone probably treated her just as badly at some point. Maybe she thinks she’s being funny, and doesn’t realize that she’s being hurtful. Maybe she can’t tell the difference. Is she afraid that she is fat? Why does she think fat is something bad? Who told her that?”  Again, this is by no means excusing her behavior - or dictating your response. You don’t have to “forgive” her, or just accept this kind of treatment - it’s not about being a doormat. It’s about observing your thoughts and feelings with curiosity and compassion, and observing her actions with curiosity and compassion. If you practice regularly, it may take the sting out of it the next time she makes bad choices. And remember - they are HER bad choices, NOT a reflection of your inherent worth, which is absolute and non-negotiable.  I hope any part of this was helpful. Feel free to take whatever works for you and discard the rest. You have an ally here. Stay strong! Ask for help. And remember: you and your body are perfect, just as you are, right now. 

[andrewmoocow]

Steven Universe: The Fantastic Mutants Chapter 2: Right into the Danger Room (originally posted on April 17, 2020)

AN: Kept you waiting, huh? After originally deleting the Fantastic Four from the climax of last chapter due to not giving them any dialogue, this is where I now shall introduce the First Family to the story. Well then, let's finally hop to it!

--

"Here we are Steven, the X-Men's personal training room." Pearl announced as the group exited the elevator, went through the hallways, and stepped into the famous Danger Room of the X-Men. Aside from the small control room above it housing X-Men ally Moira MacTaggert & Gold Team member Doug Ramsey aka Cypher, the area was a large white room decorated with turrets, holograms, and various other traps designed to test whoever trains in there. "So, the legendary Steven Universe in the flesh." Reed Richards announced his presence by appearing behind Steven with Susan Storm, Johnny Storm and Ben Grimm behind him. "Wait, the Fantastic Four are here too?!" Steven exclaimed. "That's right little guy. The professor and Stretch here actually wanted to test you." the Thing stated patting a big orange hand on the stretchable scientist's shoulder. "We've already heard about how you helped those Chitauri and Thanos." "Charles is already sort of familiar with you Gems thanks to your mother." Sue added with a wink. "Which version of my mom are you talking about, Rose or Pink Diamond?" Steven asked, casually bringing up his mother's true identity to the four, which incited an awkward silence. "Okay then." Johnny muttered nervously. "Why don't we just get to fighting already to get our minds off that junk?" he asked. "Very glad you asked Johnny." Reed answered just as sheepish while gazing down at the Danger Room. "Eight Crystal Gems against twenty-four mutants, Johnny and Ben. Sounds like pretty bad odds for you." "We'll find a way around that." Garnet declared as she pounded her fists together. "Now then, shall we begin?" "Gladly." Wolverine smirked and he popped out his claws and the two teams of both eight & twenty-six were lowered down into the training room. Charles, Reed and Susan remained in the control room to monitor the Gems' abilities from afar. "Let the testing begin." Xavier declared. "Heads up X-Men!" Cyclops exclaimed firing his eye beams at Garnet, who swiftly blocked them with a cross of her arms. "Joke's on you, my future vision saw that coming." the fusion smirked before she went in for the kill, punching the mutant in the face. "So what can you do little one?" Colossus asked while towering over both Peridot and Lapis. "That depends. How heavy are you with that form?" Peridot replied with a grin as she lifted the metal man into the air with her ferrokinesis. "My word, I am floating!" Piotr cried in astonishment. "C'mon Lapis!" Peridot muttered to the water Gem. "Go and make him wet! He should rust, right?" "Oh uh, I don't think I can do that right now." Lapis said nervously before slowly shuffling away, inciting curiosity from the green Gem. "That's a little odd." Peridot observed while lowering Colossus to the ground. "Yes, you say she has water powers yet has not used them at all." Piotr added. "And by the way, I do not rust." Meanwhile, Pearl and Connie were clashing their blades with Wolverine and Laura's claws. "Likin' the new sword Connie." Logan complimented. "But what the hell happened to the old one?" "Oh, funny story actually." Connie stated while parrying Laura's foot claws. "Ruby and Sapphire had this wedding that we put together after we all learned Rose Quartz was Pink Diamond in disguise only for it to be crashed by the Diamonds and Blue Diamond broke the first one. Then we went to Homeworld where Bismuth eventually came to help us with a new one she made for me." "That's certainly a lot to take in." X-23 remarked while flipping backwards to avoid Connie's attacks before she locked the claws in her hands with Pearl's spear. "Yes, everything after that did take some getting used to." the white Gem stated. "Between repairing the beach house, making a place for all the Gems we uncorrupted to live in and still sort of recovering from becoming extensions of White Diamond, it's a lot to take in."

-- "At home base is our golden boy Sammy "The Cannonball" Guthrie, as he gets ready for perhaps the biggest hit of the season!" Cannonball narrated to himself like a sports commentator while aiming himself at Bismuth, who was duking it out with both Ben and Johnny. "To say he's been preparing for this moment the entire year wouldn't be saying much, but by God he plans on making this the hit that'll change the way everyone sees his team for centuries to come!" "Hey Cannie, quit stalling!" Magma jeered as she made small talk with Nephrite. "Not even his fans will break his concentration!" Sam continued and then, he began to ignite his feet. "HERE COMES THE PITCH!" he yelled, blazing towards the blacksmith, the Torch and the Thing with rapid speed & a big grin on his face and then, knocked them all down like bowling pins. "AND THE CROWD GOES WILD!" "Sam you nino." Amara tutted to herself. "Is your relationship normally like this?" Nephrite asked the lava mutant. "Yeah, he's kinda like an annoying little brother to me." Magma replied. "So anyway, what can you do?" "Oh, you mean you want to see my weapon?" the former Centipeetle mother inquired. "Well, here g-" Before she could demonstrate, Cannonball was sent flying into a wall by a single punch from Garnet, right next to the two. "I'M OKAY!" he exclaimed. "NAILED IT!" Far from the others, Steven was backed into a corner by Blink and Warpath. "Gotta say kid, you're not too shabby." Clarice Ferguson nodded while flinging her crystal javelins at Steven's shield. "You still got a little to learn, but that's what the professor is for." "Oh yeah? Well try this!" Steven exclaimed, now turning his shield into a bubble to roll around in and raced off, knocking down Clarice and James along the way. "There is so much about Gems that we must learn." Warpath muttered. "Don't you agree Clarice?" "Hey Connie, over here!" Steven called out to his human friend. "Let's show everyone something really cool!" he offered. "Oh, you mean-" Connie began when Logan cut her off. "I'm sorry, what?" Wolverine asked as the girl raced to the bubble and high-fived each other, glowing brightly inside the sphere before it dispersed, and out of it came Stevonnie. "TA-DA!" "What the hell just happened?!" Cypher exclaimed in wonder. "Anyone else seeing this?" Moira asked the others, who were already monitoring the current events. "It seems they have merged into a singular being!" Reed analyzed through video footage of the fusion before speaking into an intercom. "Excuse me new fighter. Can you please tell everyone in the room who you are?" "We already know Richards." Garnet stated. "Meet Stevonnie, a fusion of well, Steven and Connie." she introduced the kids' fusion before they cut her off. "Let me take over Garnet." Stevonnie suggested. "In case you couldn't tell, a fusion combines multiple aspects of its fusees, like appearances for example." they explained. "And abilities too. Like so." To demonstrate, they summoned Steven's shield following by swinging Connie's sword about. "So in short, you're basically two cute kids standin' on top of each other to form a non-binary lookin' person?" the Thing remarked. "Whatta strange development!" "Fusion? Interesting." Lapis muttered to herself with her back turned to Peridot. "Uh, why would you say that Lapis? You know you've had bad experiences with fusion!" the green Gem asked. "Do you mind little one?! I'm trying to think!" the taller Gem shouted harshly, giving Peridot a fright. "Something just isn't right! Who are you?!" "We shall focus on your friend later child." Colossus stated as he picked Peridot up and walked away with her, leaving Lapis alone. "I assume you are very close?" he asked. "Indeed we are." Peridot remarked. "We've had our conflicts in the past, but overall we're very good friends or maybe something more. But still, she never called me little one before and hasn't acted like that since we were first getting to know each other." "You are correct. Something must be wrong." Piotr agreed. "I suggest we keep our heads down and see what happens." -- As for Stevonnie, they had just finished going a few rounds with both Cyclops and Jean before finding themselves getting tired out. "Okay, let's take five for a bit. I'm beat." they announced, officially splitting back into Steven and Connie. "You two work very well together." Scott remarked as he helped the kids up. "Are there any more fusions we should know about?" "Well, there's Ruby and Sapphire for example." Wolverine stated, cuing Garnet to split up into the married Gems. Ruby's headband was now a shiny orange color, she now wore brown pants and the top part of her torso was the same color. Sapphire's dress was currently covered by a light blue vest with navy lining underneath a white top with much pointier sleeves than before. "AAAWWW! Aren't you two just the cutest?!" Cannonball squealed at the sight of the two. "You're right, these funky little lesbians are just so small!" Kitty exclaimed. "Oh you're too kind." Sapphire giggled and blushed. "Anything else we should show you?" "Yeah, you got any more fusions?" Laura asked. Without any hesitation, Ruby, Sapphire & Steven merged into a new fusion that looked like a giant sun wearing sunglasses. "Sunstone is in the house baby!" Sunstone proudly announced, following up by offering everyone a high five. "How has everyone been doing lately?!" "T-this can't be real, can it?" Cyclops gasped at the friendly fusion. "Don't be so alarmed buddy." Sunstone exclaimed. "It's always nice to meet new people. But if those new people do anything to make you uncomfortable, that's NO GOOD!" "Why are you talking to the wall?" Beast asked Sunstone after they had given an important life lesson to seemingly nothing in particular. "No matter. Could you perhaps show us your abilities?" "With pleasure sir." Sunstone accepted the offer and made a pair of suction cups appear, using them to climb up the wall. "And another thing, don't forget to respect your elders!" they added. "Oh god, this new one is just like Wade." Wolverine face-palmed. "Who's Wade?" Bismuth asked, to which she was met with a terse "You don't wanna know bub!" -- Meanwhile in the mansion above, classes had finally got out and the students of the X-Men were ready to call it a day. "How come none of us have ever heard of these Gem creatures before?" Hisako Ichiki asked her friends. "Which one do you think is your favorite? I think mine's the big one with the rainbow hair." Megan Gwynn also inquired. "I find the little green one very funny." Sooraya Qadir answered. "And so cute to-" Suddenly, a loud knock came from a nearby closet. "Anyone else hear that?" Dust exclaimed. The knocking sounded again. "It's coming from over there!" The three mutant girls proceeded to investigate, opening the closet to find a blue-skinned woman tied up and gagged. "Is that one of them?" Armor shouted as she freed the girl from her restraints, and she only had one question. "Where's Peridot?" "Are you talking about the tiny one Sooraya said was her favorite?" Pixie wondered. "Last I checked, she went with our teachers to the Danger Room." Faster than the three mutants could see, Lapis zoomed off to the training room. "Please tell Peridot I find her hilarious!" Dust called after the water Gem, but her words barely reached her. -- "Okay, I do believe we've seen enough!" Xavier called to Sunstone from the viewing box. "Don't want anyone to get crushed if you fall!" "You got any pyrotechnic abilities Sunstone?!" Johnny exclaimed. "If you do, then I think we might have a little competition!" Sunstone was quick to correct the Human Torch however. "I do believe I haven't tried that out yet." they remarked, then they made the suction cups disappear from their hands and landed on the floor with extreme bravado. "Thank you, thank you very much!" "Ugh, showboat. You kinda remind me of another fireman." the Lapis Lazuli that Peridot believed might not be the one she remembers snarked. "Am I the only one who's noticing how different Lapis is?!" Peridot exclaimed. "I haven't seen you act like this since we first moved in together! What gives?" "I'm just not impressed, that's all." Lapis growled. "Something tells me we got a spy around here." Mr. Fantastic announced as he, Susan, Xavier, Moira and Doug entered the Danger Room. "Tell me Ms. Lazuli, what can you tell us about the disappearance of the ocean a while back?" "Oh well, they just vanished. That's all." Lapis answered while fidgeting with her hands. "I know a liar when I see one!" Ben growled. "And by my great aunt Petunia, you definitely look like a liar!" "That's because she is!" another Lapis exclaimed racing into the Danger Room and scowling at her double. "So, what thinks you can snatch me out of that elevator and take my place?!" she argued. "Who are you talking about? I am the real deal!" the other Lapis stated flamboyantly. "Loyal member of the Crystal Gems and this little Peridot's dearly beloved!" "Oh yeah, well which one of you likes this?" Steven declared before he began making fart noises with his mouth, causing the first Lapis to laugh and the second to smack her face in embarrassment. "What an absolute child." she groaned. "AHA!" Peridot cried. "Now we know who the real one is!" "I AM!" the pair of Lapises exclaimed in unison. "Oh please Mystique, you can use your powers better than this." Xavier tutted disdainfully. "It's almost like you're passing yourself off as incompetent to annoy us." "Of course it had to be you to expose me." the second Lapis growled as she began to change form. Unlike Gem shapeshifting, she didn't glow as her eyes turned an empty yellow, her hair was dyed red, scales appeared on her face & arms and Lapis's clothing was replaced with a white leotard that came with matching boots, gloves and a shawl kept together with a skull. She was no longer Lapis Lazuli, but instead her true identity as the shapeshifter Mystique. "Frankly, we knew this part of our plan wouldn't end well." "We?" Steven asked, but the X-Men knew exactly who she was talking about. "The Brotherhood!" Iceman shouted when the alarms sounded. "Oh hey, speak of the devil." he muttered bemusedly. "No offense Kurt." "No time to talk, we must go now!" Nightcrawler commanded while Mystique made a break for it. "You are exactly right Wagner." Scott declared. "X-Men, let's move out!" -- Where the proud front doors to Xavier's school once stood, now there was only a hole created by a massive man dressed in red, most notably a large helmet covering his entire head. "Okay ya walkin' talkin' rock candy, where are you?!" Cain Marko, better known as the Juggernaut, roared. "It's a good thing Mystique planted that hearing bug on herself just in case." his amphibious partner Toad added. "I just can't wait to see those pebbles for real!" "Hello boys." Mystique greeted her fellow mutants as she stepped out of the shadows. "I suppose you may have already gotten the news." she said. "Well I got worse news: they're after me." And Raven was right. The Crystal Gems came charging after the mutant and took up arms against the two new mutants. "And you two are?" Garnet asked. "Pardon me for being so rude." Juggernaut stated. "You can call me the Juggernaut, bitch!" he roared. "And we're all from the Brotherhood of Mutants, here for that brat with the shield!" "Let me guess, is this about my mom?" Steven asked, exasperated how most of his enemies come after him because of Rose Quartz. "No, we don't care about her! The master only wants you!" Mortimer hissed. "Now just come quietly and none of your rainbow friends will get hurt." "No dice Kermit!" Amethyst shouted. "Steven, keep yourself away from these guys and get everyone to safety! The OG-3 got this handled!" she ordered the boy. "Right!" Steven accepted. "X-Men, I need you to help me find the students!" As Steven led the mutants and the Fantastic Four away; Garnet, Amethyst & Pearl charged at Juggernaut, Toad & Mystique with weapons ready. "Do you wish to know the qualities of the mighty toad?!" Mortimer bragged as his long tongue tangled with Amethyst's whip. "Wait wait, I think I got this!" Amethyst exclaimed. "This can happen to them." Suddenly, Amethyst tossed Toynbee around by her whip, still tangled with his tongue, and smashed him into the ground multiple times. "Okay!" Mortimer declared, getting more desperate with each pound. "I surrender! Same thing that happens to everyone else! Make it stop! I'm gonna be sick!" "What business do you have coming here following us and replacing Lapis?" Pearl asked as her spear clashed against Mystique's knife. "We are simply in league with someone who wants that child's gemstone." Mystique replied. "He desires it for experimental purposes." "If you think you can take Steven from us, then you got another thing coming!" Pearl howled protectively. -- "Okay, that should be all the students." Cyclops announced while doing a headcount of the school's student body. "I swear, we should really increase defenses at some point and maybe build a stronger building." "But I on the other hand believe the school being damaged builds character." Colossus responded. "So what can we do now guys?" Steven asked his fellow mutants. "I mean, is there any way we can just reason with these villains and make them leave the place?" "Don't you go thinking some cutie pie words will just make us surrender pink brat!" a new mutant declared emerging from the dust & rubble. He looked very similar to Wolverine, but looked more feral with blank white eyes, crazy blonde hair and a red & brown costume. Beside him was a pale Japanese woman dressed in tight black leather that had an Oriental style to it. Also like Logan, they both had metal claws emerging from their hands. "Creed. Oyama." Logan snarled at Sabretooth and Lady Deathstrike. "Looks like we almost got the whole Brotherhood here." Emma Frost implied. And just as she said so, a morbidly obese man in a blue singlet came rolling in using his fat body. "HOWDY TRAITOR!" the Blob shrieked. "And lookie here, we got us a good one!" "Why don't you just hand over the boy and no one will have to get hurt?" a pyrokinetic mutant offered while standing alongside another member of the Brotherhood in steel blue armor who was causing the school to slowly fall apart. "Naw just kidding to be honest, someone is probably gonna get hurt no matter which side they're on!" "Don't get too cocky John." the Brotherhood's earth-moving tactician Avalanche coldly reminded Pyro. "Now where could Tom be?" "Right here gang! And guess who I found?" the plant controlling Black Tom Cassidy announced while having assisted Juggernaut, Toad & Mystique in detaining Garnet, Amethyst & Pearl with his vines. "Seriously, who are you crazy people?!" Lapis exclaimed in fright at just how one man was able to defeat three powerful Gems. "They're the Brotherhood of Mutants, a group of extremists dedicated to more violent ways of mutant peace." Jubilee exposited. "And by the way, what do you want now?!" "They want Steven! I don't know why exactly, but they're working for someone who wants him for science junk!" Amethyst cried out. "That's not untrue runt." the Brotherhood's leader Magneto concurred while descending from the sky in a sphere of purple energy. "I do apologize for making this much of a scene but I implore you all, give us the child and you'll go free." "You shall do no such thing Erik." Xavier boldly rebuked the master of magnetism. "Just who are you in alliance with?" "Well, it should be someone quite familiar to some other guests of yours." Magneto answered while looking at Reed and company, who knew exactly who he was talking about. "Doom." Richards muttered in shock. -- As the invasion of the mansion went on, a man dressed in green robes and silver armor watched everything play out through a holographic screen in his castle in the nation of Latveria. Its literally iron-fisted ruler Victor von Doom slouched in his throne as he watched the Brotherhood of Mutants contend with the Crystal Gems and their new allies before he got up and walked towards the screen. With a devilish grin that couldn't be seen through his emotionless mask, he traced a circle around Steven and let out a menacing laugh. "Soon child, your gemstone shall belong to Doom." -- At long last, chapter two is done! Yeah, tons of things got in the way of its creation like my bad habit of unintentional procrastinating along with a certain virus that's been ruining everyone's fun lately. But on the bright side, I've been able to get this out long after the grand conclusion of Steven Universe Future, so I'd have a lot to work with for future stories. But for now, stay safe out there in these trying times and stay tuned.

[hyper-archives]

Mary Sue Rant/Ramble

(I’d like to say this is a cohesive essay but I was really just writing whatever came to mind)

I’ve seen a lot of people lately talking about how they don’t like the term Mary Sue and won’t use it, and hate how its thrown around, and personally, I’m very happy about it. At the same time though, I still use the term, just not in the way you might think. Allow me to explain.

Say there’s a kid or teen who wants to have some fun, or wants to feel important and validated and simply hang out with their favorite characters, and they make this self insert or OC who’s just absolutely overpowered and/or flawless. They don’t know much about writing and character dynamics. They’re simply using fiction as a means to escape, cope, and to figure out who they are, what they like, and how they’d respond in certain situations. Labeling their character as a Mary Sue/Gary Stu can be damaging to them, especially if they're doing this as a coping mechanism.

For example, when I was a teenager, I had this self-insert for Transformers Animated. She was, like another character in the show, part human part Cybertronian, and, like that character, she had superpowers. In reality, the chances of that characters biological makeup and particular situation happening again was a million to one, but thankfully, I never got attacked for it, because the community seemed to have been on the same page as I was. And you know what? I had fun. I bonded with other fans. I used the “techno-organic” concept as a means to escape, vent my frustrations, and imagine what I’d do as a hero. I’ve since tweaked that self insert to be more believable in the canon, but I’m also not ashamed of her history as a techno-organic.

While I made the defense for a child or teenager’s self inserts and OC’s, the same can be said for adults who are simply trying to escape and have fun. Some of us, we make fan characters, we make OC’s, we role play, but all we want to do is escape for a bit. I’m not asking you to make all of my fan characters canon, just let me be. That's all I want.

Now that I’m older, I’ve caught myself doing the very same thing I did when I was younger in the form of a “Spidersona”. But again, a lot of other people are doing the same thing, and’ were all having fun, and ‘were NOT HURTING ANYBODY. I’m using this as a coping mechanism and so are many other people who are just trying to get through the day. What someone called a Mary Sue(why? I don’t know. Why are they doing this?) might be someone’s way of liking themself. The thing is you don't know, so don’t attack

Funny, I actually put this self insert through one of those antiquated “Mary Sue tests”, and boy, did she stride into Mary Sue territory. After all, she’s an alternate version of a canon character, but somehow still me, has an army of spiders, a visually appealing costume, and has, gasp, a tragic backstory!

That also leads me to another point that a lot of people back then were hyper-critical of ANY interesting, edgy traits that defined a character. Their version of an ideal character must be pretty boring. Funny, cause I also remember people ESPECIALLY attacking any OC’s that were shipped with a canon character? Could it really have been just overprotective ness and/or jealousy? Anyway, Mary Sue tests should be rendered obsolete because not only do certain traits like rainbow hair and angel wings NOT MATTER AT ALL to how a story is written, but sometimes, said traits actually really work in canon! An alternate version of a canon character really works for a movie like Into the Spider-verse, and, last I checked, angel wings and rainbow hair works really well for My Little Pony.

By now you’re probably wondering why I’m contradicting the point of that opening statement so much and wondering when I actually would refer to a character as a Mary Sue. Even if it is only in certain circumstances and certain times(where I want to say a quick term instead of “badly written character”), is for canon characters.

What I commonly call out as badly written canon characters are written by educated, experienced, sometimes even older people, who are making something official, and getting paid for it.

Still there are certain circumstances, as I’ve mentioned, where I won’t condemn characters to this type of label. Sometimes it will be just an actor/actress who portrayed the character poorly. Sometimes the whole plot of the characters movie was changed halfway through production and they only had so much more time to develop them. It can even be that a character didn't have time to properly develop before a show got canceled, which was the case for that Transformers Animated character I referred to. Those circumstances I consider unfortunate. They make me sad at the lost potential, but not angry at the entire staff behind something for letting this happen.

I don’t even mind when professionals make self inserts. I don’t watch the Star Wars movies but it seems that Luke Skywalker is a good example of a character who isn’t too overpowered but is still tragic and complex. It is only when, a character is thoughtfully planned, by an experienced professional, since day one, to be a character who exceeds inhumanly in everything they do, gains favor from every single one of their allies, constantly stealing the attention in every scene they’re in. Nowadays I only occasionally call characters like those Mary Sues or Gary Stus when I’m trying to quickly express my opinion of a character being a sorry excuse for a story element.

Even so, when I do find a character like that, I’m NOT condoning an excuse to attack anyone who likes that character. I am confused, and, admittedly, slightly bothered, but hey, the character is making them happy, and as long as they’re not influenced to believe the world will revolve around them, who am I to attack them for liking something? That would be mean.

I’d also like to offer a more updated “test” to figure out whether a character is a well written one or not, for those who are interested, a question I heard somewhere: Does your character react to the canon world, or does the canon world react to your character? Which is...really all that test needed to ask instead of this toilet-paper-roll-long Salem witch hunt.

In conclusion, stop asking yourself if people will attack you for your character being too flashy, edgy, tragic, or attractive, and instead ask why some people feel like they have to attack you for having fun when they don’t even have to take part in it. Consensual constructive criticism is one thing but don’t feel like you have to get verbally assaulted for everything you post.

[manifestoonmoralmanlove]

Blameless? Shameless? More like Shiftless: Wrap-up

I grumbled and fumbled through the first book in the series Soulless or Brainless. I fumed and gloomed through the second book Changeless or Gormless.

Now we’re onto the last book of the (initial) trilogy Blameless or...how I originally wanted to riff it...

But, I do not have riffs for you for this book.  Why?  I thought this series would end because I would run out of energy for it.  That’s not what happened...the true reason, is that this book is BY FAR the best out of the three, and that because of that most of my riffs aren’t very funny.  Despite that, I would not classify this book as GOOD by my standards. I think it’s barely mediocre and fixed a lot of problems the other books had.  So I feel as if I have to concede a bit here.

Instead of riffs, you’ll be getting a summary and my review so I feel as if I can tie this off with a nice little bow.

Summary:

Obvious spoilers ahead.

The world is steampunk supernatural Victorian England.  Vampires and Werewolves are real things, and there are also soulless.  Soulless are another set of supernaturals that can negate the powers of vampires and werewolves with touch.  Alexia is a soulless, and is married to an important werewolf Maccon.  Alexia becomes pregnant by Maccon, however werewolves are not supposed to be able to have children.  So Maccon is convinced she cheated and abandons her.

Alexia goes back to live with her family.  She discovers her one vampire friend has split town without warning, and that every other vampire is out to kill her for this pregnancy.  However she wants to prove that the child is Maccon, so she decides to go to Italy with her friends.  Italy is a country that’s run by religious zealots out to murder every single supernatural person and DESPITE THE OBVIOUS benefits a soulless could provide that organization they treat soulless people shitty too.  However, they suspect that with all the research they’ve done, they will have some information which can prove Alexia right. So Alexia travels to Italy with her dead dad’s stoic bodyguard Floote, and with a woman who has a crush on her named LeFoux.

Meanwhile her husband Maccon is being shitfaced and angsting a bunch about this.  His 2nd in command Lyall is taking care of all his duties.  Eventually Maccon sobers up and publishes a public apology for Alexia and claims that the baby is in fact his.  Also on this end it is discovered that Alexia’s vampire friend Akeldama had his boyfriend kidnapped.  So Maccon and Lyall manage to rescue the boyfriend, murdering the head vampire and being forced to change the boyfriend into a werewolf to save his life.

On the trip to Italy they battle a bunch of vampires and meet some allies.  When they get to Italy they’re captured by the religious Zealots known as the Templars.  When the Templars find out she’s with child they lock her in the dungeon.  However with the help of her friends and Maccon they rescue her.  Maccon and Alexia make up and happy end.

My review:

The story in itself…is simply not good.  I could list you plot holes by the dozen by neither of us has the patience for that I’m sure.  I think the sticking point for me is that their whole mission feels pretty pointless. They go through all this hassle getting to Italy (which honestly seemed like a super bad idea) while also being attacked by vampires the entire time and for what?  To find out that yes she could get pregnant from a werewolf?

….Don’t we already know that since she’s uhh pregnant from a werewolf?

The lore of this book is super bad.  All the major plot points hinge on nobody understanding anything about a rare but super fascinating and important race of people.  It feels as if the author doesn’t really care about her own lore, and makes everybody in her fictional world the same. Also it’s kinda hard for me to believe, that even if female soulless are super rare that literally in this world’s whole history a female soulless has become pregnant by a supernatural person twice.  TWICE! IN IT’S ENTIRE HISTORY! SEEMS LEGIT!

But there is a reason this is the best out of the three I swear!

I think the story starts off really strong with believable and easy-to-understand exposition that draws you in.  I legit read the first chapter of this book and was like, “WHAT THE FUCK, WE’RE A GOOD SERIES NOW!?!??!”

I think a large part of what makes it better for me is that they finally treat this series like an action/adventure.  There are lot of vampire battles, fighting weird technology, and dramatic escapes using wild steampunk vehicles.  We also have Maccon fighting werewolves and vampires, and dramatically saving a person from a glass bubble from the bottom of a river.

The steampunk technology used here is just straight up really lame and forced but I think that’s easily forgiven in a silly action adventure novel.

I think the POINT of books of this nature. Is the fun action!  We also pace this all together well.  We have suspense, breaks from the action, and it’s not all the same pow pow fight scene by a long shot.  I will say there isn’t a lot of suspense that she won’t be able to make it out alive. Nobody dies or even sustains any kind of serious injury.  The protagonists seem to fight as if they’re invincible, but oddly enough LeFoux spends a lot of the later scenes almost instantly getting knocked unconscious. Which I suppose is fine to up the ante of the tension but she’s the only one who gets that treatment and she gets it a lot…which is kind weird.  

Speaking of LeFoux, I was really bummed about her and Alexia’s relationship in this book.  One of the few enjoyable things about the last book was the lesbian flirting and the unresolved sexual tension between LeFoux and Alexia.  Sure Alexia didn’t know lesbians were a THING but it was quite clear that Alexia was attracted to LeFoux.  In this book LeFoux continues to flirt with Alexia but Alexia treats it like a droll annoyance.  Quite frankly it doesn’t make any sense if you’ve read the last book.  Alexia is at her lowest point in her relationship to her shitty husband, there is mutual attraction, LeFoux treats her nicely and is very willing, they’re off on an exciting and at points romantic tour of France, Alexia is on the cusp of a huge life change without her family or her husband’s support, and LeFoux is raising a child too.  I get that Maccon/Alexia has got to be OTP and that you don’t want her to look like she would actually cheat since, cause she’s gotta be morally better than the negative reputation she’s getting in the press. Yet at no point is a relationship with LeFoux treated as even a temptation for her. There isn’t even like a sub plot where Alexia worries about hurting LeFoux’s feelings or clearly explains that they can’t be together.  LeFoux has no reaction when Alexia reconciles with her husband.  It’s not treated as fucking anything more than comedic swatting down of lesbian advances.  So honestly? That kinda made me angry.  Now Alexia did sexually assault LeFoux last book and totally doesn’t deserve her but to treat her now as they wacky queer who hits on your Mary-Sue so you remember your Mary-Sue is hot is utterly aggravating. 

The story still has the major problem of being such a no bummers train that she won’t dare give LeFoux and Alexia a messy relationship.  It could have been so much more compelling ugh!  A part of me wonders if the author originally intended for the two to get together this novel since there was all that previous build up and the set up here makes it ideal.  Yet an editor said BIG NO to it, because apparently a hero cheating in a book is considered one of the most toxic of novel poisons.  OH WELL!

But a female/female relationship that is way better in this book?  That would be the friendship between Ivy and Alexia.   In the last book, Ivy was the stupid comic relief with romantic troubles.  Alexia spent the last book just being a condescending asshole to her.  Ivy never treated Alexia’s bullshit romantic troubles with anything other than support and respect but did not get the same in return.  They did not seem like friends.  Ivy was there to make Alexia look better and for a cheap laugh at Ivy’s expense even though she does nothing wrong. That was garbage.  In this book however Ivy trusts Alexia that she didn’t cheat, gives her all her love and support, gives her tea for her trip, and competently runs LeFoux’s hat shop while they’re both away.  In exchange Alexia appreciates what Ivy is doing and treats her like a smart person capable of doing difficult tasks.

I said it before and I’ll say it again.  Ivy is MVP of this series and you CAN’T CHANGE MY MIND!

But while we’re talking about relationships the crux of this series is Alexia and Maccon. I wonder if this is my favorite book of the series because they barely interact in person. The one time at the end where they reconcile was unbearable. Basically the just barely escape the dungeon and the entire crew is standing just outside it.  Alexia goes on a tirade about how much she hates Maccon but she’s very obviously pretending to be mad at him, and it’s the most pathetic scene in the series.  It was rushed and painfully awkward.  We just immediately forget about any possible danger and the other people there so Alexia can pointlessly pout while we all pretend its agency. (It’s not.) We also than very quickly transition them to a RANDOM barn so they can have sex, which is fade to black anyway.

I can’t help but view their reconciliation as a desperate woman who’s been through a lot, wants so badly for things to be less chaotic and familiar again that she capitulates to a shit boy garbage man.  She has many, many, many reasons to be properly mad at him. She is shunned by her family, loses her job, becomes a social outcast who can’t walk down the street without being harassed, and is the target of open and constant vampire hostility.  But he publishes a public apology and now they’re even.  The public apology is talked about as ~humiliating~ but he loses nothing for it. The series tries to sell us that they’re equals in this relationship cause they sass each other.  They are not equals in this relationship.  The series never seems to acknowledge that Alexia does like 90% of the work and gets way more shit than Maccon could ever dream of. Not that the series has to have a political message, it just seems so doped up by our shit heterosexual culture that it has no self-awareness.  I dislike Alexia for being a bad person, but Maccon is a worse person who doesn’t do anything good and lives a charmed life while his wife suffers quicker and more severely.  And what do we get out of it?  Dialog that can be boiled down to…

“Let’s have sex”

“No you’re a gross terrible very bad man!”

“Oh okay, I’ll go over here to contribute nothing and whine a lot.”

“I MEAN MAYBE IT WON’T BE SO BAD TO HAVE SEX WITH YOU???????????”

“…Is that a yes?”

“YOU VERY BAD MAN WHO IS GROSS AND TERRIBLE! I WILL NEVER HAVE SEX WITH YOU.............................................................

.............................................................….unless?”

I hate it very much.

So let’s talk other characters:

Floote is boring and pointless.

Tunstell shows up briefly to be comedic relief and really bad comedic relief at that.  He shows up in LeFoux’s lab and opens with him being very afraid of her wacky technology but then immediately starts sticking his fingers in dangerous stuff. Way to contradict your character in under a paragraph.

The way Channing was established last book, while making him look like a shitbird, gave him personality. In this book he’s there as a protective prop to make Maccon look marginally better. None of his personality comes out at all, and despite the last book showing him as a romantic rival there is 0 of that in this book.  I don’t think he has more than 3 lines of dialog.

LeFoux’s one friend was also pointless and personality-less to the point I can’t even be bother to look up his name.  He existed so they could dramatically borrow his flying contraption.

The villains of this series are two-fold:

We have the Templars who are religious zealots who want to kill all supernaturals and are disgusted by Alexia’s kind despite how useful she could be.  They were not good villains because they are utterly pathetic. They let Alexia and her friends have the run of the place.  While they can go outside the compound, once captured, they’re followed to make sure they return.  However, the author did not do an adequate job making that atmosphere…even stressful. The pack of them should be frightened by this.  They should be treading on eggshells because one wrong move and it’s an inquisition for them!  …No they zip around enjoying pesto and don’t seem to have a care in the world.

Even when the fight is brought to them?  They spend their whole lives training to kill supernaturals but when they get a chance to do so to protect Alexia they’re not very good at it.  3 podunk humans managed to evade capture by the entire vampire community as they trotted through Europe but zealots trained from birth to stake vampires fall left and right when they’re attacked by them?

OH YEAH, REALLY FEELING LIKE THEY’RE A LEGIT THREAT! THANKS FOR THAT!

Oh but don’t worry we have another villain to help balance things out!

We have Langs-Dorf or whatever the fuck his name is.  He is a heartless dude who researches soulless.  He basically wants to use her for experiments so he later teams up with the Templars and spills the beans that’s she’s preggorz.  

He, like the Templars, are flaccid shit tier babies.  He’s the archetypal sniveling scientist, who can’t even outwit them.  He honestly doesn’t even really get much screen-time. I am not exaggerating when I say they dedicate more time to describing what his irritating dog gets up to than what he does.  They did that for comedic purposes, sure okay whatever.  But it’s not funny and the ankle attacking just highlights how harmless he is as well.

So Alexia’s pregnancy?  

I mean, they do try to give her a character arc on how she feels about carrying a child.  It starts with her calling it an inconvenience and just assuming she’ll miscarry eventually.  Yet later is like, “Well I guess it’s okay if it lives.”  I’m glad they tried but they didn’t do a good job. Little time is dedicated to her personal feelings on the matter and her steps in pregnancy acceptance feel disjointed. It felt very much like,

Chapter 1:

This sucks.

Chapter 10:

Well I’m not morning sick today.

Chatper 20: I guess it’s okay.

I get we can’t talk about her wanting an abortion cause EVERYTHING IS GOOD TIMES but this no-bummers train cruising straight into never-frown-town we’re on here really stamps down her ability to have a MEANINGFUL arc not just on her role of her impending motherhood but like recognizing it’s going to be whole different human being.  ISN’T HER PREGNANCY SUPPOSED TO BE THE CORNERSTONE OF THIS WHOLE BOOK?!  Like at least 50 shades had Ana recognize her pregnancy as ANOTHER POTENTIAL PERSON and that she wanted to protect it even after her shitty husband lost his mind over it.

But I mean…for Alexia it’s at least in character cause she doesn’t give a shit about anything besides herself.  Alexia has not won me over as a relatable protagonist I want to root for.  She’s self-obsessed, and dumb.  Yet the whole world clamors about how great she is. She never has consequences tied to her negative choices or personality traits. She never gets in trouble for going into dangerous situations without planning.  Nor does she get in trouble for her lack of empathy, or belligerence. What she does get in trouble for is being born a soulless woman.  It feeds her smug martyr complex and overall is pretty fucking annoying.

TL;DR

Plot and characters? Bad

But this time the story has action, suspense, good pacing, and Ivy never did anything wrong. Good!

[lunarssong]

quick little summary/title: this started out as a rant but if you scroll down to the large bold, there’s a metaphor that should hopefully help explain why terfs are so god damn awful and dangerous

me? sending an ask off-anon to a terf because im both pissed and a fucking dumbass? its more likely than youd think

in fact! im not even gonna censor the word terf! if i dont feel like dealing with their bullshit replies and rbs then i literally just fucking wont!! yeah they might send in death threats but guess the fuck what?? im leaving my anon on fuckers, because honestly that shits gonna be funny to me! and if they try to doxx me (very unlikely, but i am trans and its not riskier to mention that because its already obvious, and ive never directly made a post about terfs before, so i really dont know whats gonna happen) or something then like! im a minor! we can sue those shitheads and hopefully bring more media awareness to how god damn shitty terfs are! literally dont even start, lmao.

have the damn ask because i wanna elaborate on it

“hi there! i wish you’d delete your tumblr, because you are dangerous. you are a violent misogynist, and make me ashamed to be a feminist.

you’re gonna attack me because i’m off anon, but you’d probably call me a coward if i was on it, lmao.

anyway! stop disguising your misogyny and transphobia with shitty ass ‘feminism’. i was raised by a feminist with a feminist mom who literally can’t believe y’all exist because your ideas are SO far from actual feminism.

just say you hate trans people and go.”

tbh? its so fucking wild to me how they literally spit out misogyny, transphobia, and lesbophobia but then get all pissy when someone calls them out on it,, but then have the nerve to accuse that person of being misogynistic and lesbophobic? like,, honey. honey, what? the fuck? how much of a dumbass are you?

because like. im a pretty big dumbass! like ive walked into a mirror before because i thought it was a door! im a dumbass!

but even i know that trans women literally cannot discriminate against cis women by saying that theyre (plural, but trans women can 100% use they and thats totally valid) women! because guess the FUCK what?? theyre fucking women! if yall shitheads (terfs) wanna call that misogyny then yall cant call yourselves women either!

if yall assholes wanna call a specific group of lesbians/wlw pointing out, “hey! we experience discrimination because of an entirely irrelevant physical feature we all happen to share that has literally no actual affect on whether or not we are women/wlw” lesbophobia or speaking over minorities then wow.

wow.

wow, are yall gonna be shocked when (if) you realize what the hell yall doing that qualifies as.

oppressors literally depicting and/or committing fucking hate crimes, sometimes even as serious as murder, rape, etc. (this is referring to terfs, i should never have to point that out) is NOT comparable to an oppressed as hell minority saying that people who literally want them dead should not be in safe spaces intended for people of a community they both happen to belong to.

to put this into perspective for yall out there literally worse than garbage (terfs)! imagine this scenario.

youre in a community of women. trans women may or may not be a part of this particular community, shut the fuck up, thats irrelevant. a group of straight women pop up, and start saying that being wlw is misogynistic and harmful to women. this is bullshit. you know that immediately. why wouldn’t it be? you explain to them the obvious reasons why it is not. they ignore you.

they begin to spew utter bullshit, claiming things like “women should never marry other women. you’re ignoring the fact that a man’s place is as a woman’s wife, and basically trying to be men, which is like admitting that men are superior.” or, “as straight women, you flaunting your homosexuality,” the woman gestures to a lesbian couple who aren’t even holding hands and haven’t been touching the whole time theyve been there. one has a small rainbow heart sticker on her purse. “makes me feel threatened in my femininity. (insert plural of 4 letter slur against lesbians that i dont feel comfortable typing a single letter of) arent really women, their existence is heterophobia and misogyny. they shouldn’t be allowed in female-only spaces because they normalize masculinity.”

over time, this group of straight women grows. they call themselves feminists, claim theyre fighting for the rights of all women! unless those women happen to love other women and dont perfectly fit their (cisnormative too but terfs are awful so they like that) heteronormative idea of a woman. they protest at the very idea of saying “significant others”, “partners”, or even “wives and/or husbands” because it doesnt fit their idea of being a woman. because they think having a wife and loving women is only for men.

eventually, they start getting braver and braver. they start going to feminist rallies, and if they spot gay women, or even women they think look gay, theyll get up in their faces, threaten them, call them slurs. theyll try to record them, try to get them fired from their jobs or outed to unsupportive families. or even just expose them to the potential of assault in their day-to-day life. because theyre gay. and that doesnt affect the straight women at all, but they hate diversity and are homophobes. so they need an excuse.

sometimes theyll get their other gay-exclusive feminist friends to record them committing violent acts against wlw feminists, just to take stills from those videos out of context when the gay women defend themselves, and then go crying to the media, twisting the roles of victim and aggressor to paint a violent picture of wlw. they say that feminist rallies should be an event only for real women or allies to their cause—meaning, to them, no wlw, and certainly no mlm. they probably even try to turn all homophobia towards gay men into a sexism issue (they are sometimes tied, but not mostly). but they lose their shit when anyone tries to tell them to get out of these safe spaces for women, because by attacking wlw for literally nothing beyond existing, they are ruining the safe part.

people start to become ashamed to call themselves feminists, and are often lumped in with these homophobes. even if they themselves are gay. straight feminists who love, support, and fight for wlw begin to feel guilty for being straight. new labels for feminist ideology begin popping up, the gay-exclusive feminists strike them down and turn them into jokes.

their end goal is to reverse victories like gay marriage, remove gay representation both in the media and in history books (sometimes even arguing that famous wlw were ‘just close friends’ with their wives or girlfriends), and to send wlw right back to hiding and marrying men for fear of their lives.

all in the name of thinly veiled homophobia feminism!

but wait, you cry, that sounds nothing like feminism! it actually sounds like misogyny and homophobia!

exactly!

think about who yall are the real-life equivalent of in that scenario.

need a hint because youre so brainwashed? try changing ‘gay/wlw’ to ‘trans’, ‘straight’ to ‘cis’, and ‘gay-exclusive’ to ‘terf’.

i doubt any of them will actually read through this, let alone realize their flawed perspective due to it, but hey. maybe ill sway some people who’re on the fence about how horrible terfs are.

[redxstydia]

No You Said Everything Perfectly

This is my first ML fic guys! Please leave constructive crisicism!

Read it on AO3: http://archiveofourown.org/works/13188822

Marinette was stressed like any other teenager, but she believed that she was a little more stressed than the average kid. She knew doubling as a superhero would be stressful but she would never have thought that it would cause her this much trouble. Now she is almost failing her physics class and is almost positive that if she misses first period 5 more times this semester she is going to lose credit. Yeah, and other teenagers are stressed.

Today was a tough day for the girl. A late night Akuma kept her up to where she didn’t get to bed until 3 AM.  This means she only got about 4 and half hours of sleep that night. She woke up considerably late, she didn’t eat breakfast, her hair wasn’t done, and she is pretty sure that the pants she is wearing aren’t clean. Sue her, she’s doing her best.

She trudges into the door right before the tardy bell rings. She walks in and sees a slumped Adrien lying against the desk, but doesn’t pay much attention. Marinette walks to her seat beside Alya and wraps herself into a similar position as Adrien. When she is softly snoring during the lesson, Alya doesn’t move to wake her but takes notes for her.

In between classes Alya really is concerned about her best friend’s health.

“Mari, are you doing okay?” Alya started in a worried tone, “you look a little off today.”

Marinette looked at herself in her locker mirror and winced.

“Don’t worry Alya, I just didn’t understand the physics, and I was up late last night trying to figure it out.” She said coming up with the excuse that wasn’t technically a lie.

“Don’t work yourself too hard, okay?” Alya said.

Marinette shook her head towards her best friend.

“Did you hear about the attack last night? It was like at 2:30 in the morning. Can you believe it?” Alya started talking about the next subject rather quickly.

Marinette slammed her locker, but not without muttering a sarcastic, “No I can’t believe it at all.”

The rest of the classes before lunch ran by pretty smoothly considering the rocky start to it all, but when things just start to look up, it always had to turn to shit.

“Ugh. I still can believe my daddy let imbeciles like you got to the same school I do. Just look at you.” The only person at the school that would say shit like this is definitely Chloe and as soon as Marinette turned the corner, her suspicions were confirmed.

“Chloe can you just leave people alone for one day and not cause an attack?” Marinette was too fed up and exhausted to sugar coat it any.

“Excuse me, but I don’t know who you think you are talking to looking like that.” Chloe sneered.

“I’m sorry I had one bad day,” Marinette replied back in a mocking tone.

“One? Let me just let you in on one thing. You always look like trash. You are never going to get Adrien to like you especially treating his best friend the way that you do. I hope you know that your little crush is hopeless.” Chloe spat out with a certain triumphant look in her eyes.

“Is-is it true that you have a crush on me?” Marinette’s eyes suddenly became filled with tears. This was the icing on the cake of the shitty day.

She turned on her heel and ran out the school as fast as she could. She found the closest ally and opened up her purse and Tiki flew out quickly.

“Oh my gosh Mari are you okay?” the kwami instantly was cupping her chosen’s face to give her some sort of affection.

“I will be, but can I just transform and let off some steam, please?” Marinette’s tear stained cheeks are what made Tiki’s heartbreak.

“Just say the words”

In a flash of pink light, Ladybug was zipping through the streets of Paris with nothing but her yo-yo at her side.

The first thing that went through Adrien’s mind when he saw Marinette runoff was, shit.

The last thing that he wanted to happen to the sweetest girl he knew was for her to get akumitized. He turned to Chloe and was about to say something when he just sighed and shook his head. She would never listen anyway.

He ran out the doors to try and find where she is but he saw no sign of her. He instantly began to panic. He darted to the closest area he could find to call on his transformation. After he was Chat, he could easily look over the roads and streets for any signs of his beloved friend. He didn’t see any.

He ran to the balcony of her room and it was empty, no sign of her. He ran around screaming her name until he bumped into Ladybug.

“Oh thank goodness you are here; you can help me find someone.” Chat started off before he got a good look at her red eyes and tear-stained face.

“Woah. What’s wrong, Bug?” He said with a comforting hand on her shoulder.

“Nothing,” she said quickly brushing the tears from her eyes, “Who are you trying to find, Kitty?”

He was really torn. There was his lady right here obviously upset, but there was his civilian friend that went AWOL. He doesn’t know what to do.

“Okay I know you are upset right now, but I really need to find my friend Marinette she got really upset at school and I’m scared she is going to get akumatized or something. I really want to comfort you right now, but I’m really scared for this civilian’s safety.” He said finally making up his mind.

“How much do you care about this girl kitty?” She said softly.

“A lot, this may be a little too much information, but she was one of my first friends at this new school I started to go to. At first, I swear she hated me, but recently I found out that there was another reason to her being a little standoffish towards me, I really wish she would’ve told me sooner,” he said looking back on the first time he met this wonderful girl.

He heard Ladybug gasp softly at this.

“Why do you wish she would’ve told you sooner?” she said her voice cracking a bit.

“Although my heart belongs to you my lady, I think that if she would’ve shown me her wit, courage, and strong will sooner I would be head over heels for her.” He said sincerely.

That’s when he was tackled in a hug by Ladybug with tears streaming off of her checks.

“Did I just say something wrong?” he said looking down at the tearful girl in his arm.

“No, you said everything so beautifully and perfect, Adrien.” She said looking up at him with nothing but love in her eyes.

Everything at that moment pieced together perfectly.

At that point, his eyes became as wide as saucers.

“Marinette?” he exclaimed softly pulling her into a hug and burying his face into her neck.

He could feel her nod and his smile expanded.

“Let’s go to my house so we can talk this out over some hot chocolate.” Ladybug said looping her hands around Chat’s neck.

He took no time in tightening his grip on his lady’s waist and vaulting them onto her balcony. They both landed and got into her room and detransfromed.

He looked at her with the biggest grin on his face and picked her up and spun her around.

“It’s really you.” He said with his forehead lightly rested on hers.

“It’s really me.” She countered back with the most adorable grin Adrien has ever seen.

That’s when he swooped down and captured his lips with hers into a tender kiss.

When they both opened their eyes looking at each other with insane amounts of love, Adrien popped the question:

“Is this the part where I ask you to be my girlfriend?”

“If this is you asking, then I’m definitely saying yes,” Marinette said tiptoeing to sneak another kiss on his lips.

It was quite funny when the next they walked into school hand in hand. They heard Chloe screeching from a good mile away. It got worse when he grabbed Marinette by the waist, cupped her cheek and planted one right on her mouth. Let’s just say if there was a question on if someone can get akumartized twice, there isn’t one anymore.

[voyagerafod]

Star Trek Voyager: A Fire of Devotion: Part 2 of 4: Louder Than Bells: Chapter Ten

Chapter Ten

    Lieutenant junior grade Harry Kim had been put in charge of the night shift on Voyager before, but he always took a certain amount of joy in getting to sit in the captain’s chair. The joy couldn’t entirely overpower the boredom though, which began to set in at hour four of the eight-hour rotation.

He found himself glancing repeatedly over at Samantha Wildman at the main science station, at Kashimuro Nozawa standing where he usually did at ops, at Sue Brooks sitting in Tom’s chair at navigation, and at Lydia Anderson at tactical.     “We should start a barbershop quintet,” he muttered.     “What was that, Lieutenant?” Brooks said.     “Oh, sorry, just thinking out loud. Anything interesting up ahead?”     “Permission to speak frankly sir?”     “Of course,” Harry said, wondering where this was going.     “Not a gods damned thing for light years near as I can tell.”     Harry sighed.     “Great. Well, great in the sense that nothing is going to kill us anyway.”     “Bored?” Samantha said.     “Like you wouldn’t believe,” Harry replied, standing up to stretch. “So, how has everyone’s day be-     “Sir,” Nozawa said, “something just popped up on long range sensors. It appears to be a ship, dead in space, no emissions. That’s why we didn’t pick it up sooner.”     Harry smiled. Finally, something to do.

“Interesting,” he said. “Brooks, drop us out of warp, but keep us at a safe distance from the object in case this turns out to be a trap. Put the ship on the viewscreen, full magnification.”     Harry gasped at what he saw.     “That kinda looks like a Starfleet vessel,” Samantha said.

“Yeah, but like an older one,” Harry said, stepping closer to the viewscreen, standing right next to Brooks’ seat. “If I remember Starfleet History 101, that design was abandoned back when the Enterprise didn’t have a letter in its registration.”     “If this is a long-lost vessel from the early days of Starfleet, that’s a huge find,” Brooks said. “Should I call the captain?”     “Definitely,” Harry said.

-o-

    The senior staff including the Doctor all filed out of the turbolifts, Seven of Nine following behind them. As each took their station, their fill-ins got up, but did not leave. They wanted to see this through, and Samantha couldn’t blame them. She nodded at Seven as she walked past giving her a quick smile before going to stand at the console behind the Captain and Commander Chakotay as they took their seats.

    “So, fill me in Harry, what did we find?”

    “I checked the records Captain,” Harry said, smiling. “and I had Nozawa run his scans twice to be sure. It’s definitely the NX-01.”     Janeway, Chakotay, and Paris all looked at Harry dumbstruck.     “For real?” Tom said.     “What’s the NX-01?” B’Elanna Torres said as she sat down at the auxiliary engineering console.

    “It’s a legend,” Chakotay said. “The first human-built ship that could hit warp 5. Even the Vulcans didn’t have that back then.”     “I’d read about how it went missing on its first mission. Never imagined it would be found in the Delta Quadrant of all places,” Tom said. “Any idea how it got here?”

    “I’m sure it’ll be fun to find out,” Janeway said, grinning. “Harry, pull up everything from the memory banks about the NX-01.”     “Already done captain,” Harry said.     “Excellent. Send that data to the briefing room and-”     A proximity alert alarm went off, cutting off Janeway’s order.     Now what? Samantha thought, turning back to her own console, and tilting her head at the readout.     “Captain,” she said, “I’m picking up chronotons. I think-”     Suddenly another ship filled the viewscreen, much larger than Voyager, blocking their view of the NX-01. Its hull design was Starfleet-esque but didn’t match any hull configuration she knew of.     “Captain, the other ship is hailing us,” Sam heard Harry say.     “On screen,” Janeway said.     The face on the screen was human. He wore a uniform style that Sam didn’t recognize but the insignia he wore, while wildly different from the one the Voyager crew had on their comm badges, had the familiar Starfleet delta that all ships had ever since the era of Jim Kirk.     “Captain. Looks like we meet again.”     “Braxton,” Janeway said. “Looks like you’ve moved up in the world of the 29th century.”     “You’re looking at the Federation time-ship Relativity, captain,” Braxton said. “And she’s actually been my ship all along, she was just undergoing refits the day I first met you.”

    “Which for us was actually the third time we met you. Time travel’s kinda funny that way,” Janeway said. “I don’t suppose you’ve come to tell us that Voyager is responsible for another temporal disaster of some kind.”     Braxton frowned. “Okay, you really are going to have to explain that one to me, Captain. But later. May I come aboard?”

“I’d like to know what this is about first, Captain,” Captain Janeway said, “with all due respect.”     “Fair enough. I would like to enlist your crew in helping mine solve once and for all the mystery of what really happened to the NX-01.”

-o-

    “Since some of you are unfamiliar with the NX-01 and its impact on Starfleet history and the Federation,” Captain Braxton said to the senior staff, minus the Doctor but plus Seven of Nine, as they sat around the table in the briefing room. “Let me give you a quick refresher.”     Seven took out her PADD, taking careful notes so she could fill in Sam on what she missed by not being in the briefing.     “Tom said it was the first ship to ever break Warp 5,” B’Elanna said. “If I learned about it in the academy before I dropped out I don’t remember that.”     “Well, the first ship built by any of the founding races of the Federation anyway,” Braxton said. “At the time even the Vulcans thought achieving that speed was too dangerous to attempt.”     “The 22nd century was not one of the more auspicious periods of our history,” Tuvok said. “many in the High Command were driven to paranoia and arguably even xenophobia as a side-effect of our long-running conflicts with the Andorians prior to first contact with humanity.”

    “That is more relevant to this than you realize, Mister Tuvok,” Braxton said.     “How so?” Janeway asked.     “The captain of the NX-01 was one Jonathan Archer,” Braxton said. “He, using his late father’s work on the warp five project, personally oversaw the ship’s construction and hand picked most of its senior staff. The problem though, simply put, was that he was bigoted towards Vulcans.”     “I don’t recall reading about that in history class,” Janeway said.     “I do,” Chakotay said. “apparently he believed that the Vulcans were holding humanity back by cautioning against the warp five experiments, and accused them of sabotaging his father’s work. The first working prototype wasn’t completed until after his father’s death.”     “Paranoid and racist,” B’Elanna said. “No wonder I’ve never heard of a Jonathan Archer High School.”     “Unfortunately there is a degree of truth to it,” Tuvok said. “Though only a small one. According to my own father who was teaching at the Vulcan Science Academy at the time, the Vulcan high Command did have access to some research that, if shared with our at the time new allies, the Humans, would likely have accelerated the creation of a working warp five engine by months if not years.”     “Possible,” Braxton said, “but not a certainty. What is certain is that while the drive itself was a success, the NX-01 ultimately was not. Three weeks into its mission, the NX-01 was lost in a nebula. A small amount of debris was found, but barely enough to account for one of the ship’s shuttlepods, let alone the ship itself.”     “Why was the NX-01 in the nebula? Was it a scientific mission?” Seven asked.

“No, actually,” Braxton said, “it was a first contact situation. The Borothans. A number of their ships were making a pilgrimage to a nebula their people considered holy in the time before they became a Federation member race. They invited the NX-01 and her crew along, so they went. Borothan sensor logs from the time show a small explosion beneath the NX-01 but not from it, at least from what we can tell, the footage is from very outdated sensor technology, plus degraded over time due to poor data storage. This was all pre-Memory Alpha, obviously.”

Braxton touched a button on the wall console and the sensor log began playing. It was distorted, but not so much so that Seven and the rest of the crew couldn’t make out what was going on. The NX-01, a flash of light that looked like an explosion, and the ship vanishing.”     “I don’t see any debris field at all,” Tom said.     “It was found by the Borothans,” Braxton said, “what little there was anyway, and turned over to Starfleet. They were very cooperative. Starfleet officials at the time believed that they feared they might be blamed for the NX-01’s disappearance. Obviously investigators didn’t want to rule that out right away, but it quickly became clear that they had nothing to do with it.”     “Okay,” Janeway said. “Some of this stuff we knew, some of it we didn’t, but that doesn’t explain why you want us to help. Couldn’t you simply go back in time and find out for yourself?”     “That’s the thing Captain, we already tried.” Braxton said. “The Relativity has cloaking technology, and before you ask, no I won’t say why we’re allowed to have those in my time, but when we went back, we followed the NX-01 to that nebula, and then watched it leave and continue on its mission.”     The senior staff all looked at each other, confusion showing on their face.     “How is that possible?” Chakotay said.     “And if the timeline was changed, why do we still remember the NX-01 has having gone missing?” Tom said. “I mean, it’s out there right now, on the other side of your ship,” he added, pointing at Braxton.

    “A common misconception about time travel that plagued humanity from when the concept was first theorized, up through to even the 25th century is that changes in the timeline would be felt immediately.” Braxton chuckled slightly. “Hell, you people probably still think a small paradox can destroy the whole universe.”     “Let’s not get into the minutiae of how time travel works,” Janeway said. “What I want to know is why enlist us to help?”     “The Relativity is a one-of-a-kind ship Captain Janeway, even in my time. The situation at that point in the 22nd century is already a mess, and us crossing our own timeline would be bad. Not a universe ender, like I said those don’t actually exist, but it could make things even worse.”     “Wait, what do you mean worse?” B’Elanna said.     Braxton sighed. “Here comes the part you aren’t going to like,” he said. “If it’s any consolation, I don’t like it either. But basically, the reason your history books and mine still show the NX-01 as being destroyed, at least for now, is because it needed to be. If we can’t find out what caused its disappearance over two-hundred years ago from where we are now, the Federation as we know it will either be radically different, or not exist at all. My people are still trying to figure that last part out based on the data.”     “I don’t like it,” Janeway said. “Because if you are saying what I think you are, you’re suggesting that whoever it is from my crew you want to enlist, they’ll be the ones who destroy the NX-01.”

    “The ship, yes.” Braxton said. “For the crew, if my people’s calculations work out they can be brought to the 29th century. We’ve done it before.

    “Still, that does mean their families back home will believe them dead. I don’t need to tell any of you here how difficult that will be for them.”

    “I’m sorry,” Chakotay said, “but this is all a hell of a lot to take in, and frankly you’re asking us to take it on faith when we don’t really know you.”     “Perhaps,” Tuvok said, “if you could explain why it is so necessary for the NX-01 to be lost, we would be more cooperative, Captain.”

    “Exactly,” Janeway said.

    “The short version?” Braxton said “If Captain Jonathan Archer returns home after a successful exploration mission in the NX-01, he’ll be more popular on Earth than ever. Consequently, his anti-Vulcan biases will start to seep into the public consciousness. Not in any obvious ways of course, but they’ll be there. The irrational distrust of the Vulcans will mean that when the time comes to start drafting the articles of the Federation, the Vulcans will either not be invited altogether, or will have their contributions to the charter undermined. The articles will be written by a more paranoid Humanity, and also more militaristic Andorians.”     “This is the short version?” Seven heard Tom whisper. B’Elanna nudged him to stay quiet.

    “There are many things that make the Federation great,” Braxton continued. “But the key component, the lync pin that holds it all together is the friendship between the Humans and the Vulcans. That’s where it all truly started, everything grew from that. If Archer becomes an icon, his paranoia about the Vulcans keeping humanity from reaching its full potential would spread enough to undermine that, and eventually, generations down the line destroy it completely.”     “Okay,” Harry Kim said, “this is going to sound brutal but I’m also bringing this up for the sake of discussion; why not just make Archer disappear? I don’t mean kill him, but just disappear him for awhile until the Federation has been founded. Why make the families of however many people were on that ship-”

    “Eighty-three,” Braxton said.     “Why make the families of eighty-three people suffer through the pain of never knowing what happened to their loved ones?” Harry continued.

    “Technically only eighty-one. Or eighty, depending,” Captain Braxton said.     “What are you talking about Braxton?” Janeway said, sounding increasingly frustrated.

    “I intend to send two or three Voyager crewmembers to the 22nd Century to board the NX-01,” Braxton said. “as replacements for three of the original crew members who will suddenly find themselves with other obligations they can’t back out of.”     “Why us?” Tom Paris said.     “Because history in the original timeline, the one where the NX-01 disappeared, the lost Federation starship Voyager found its remains in the Delta Quadrant, before continuing on its journey home.”

    “Wait, you’re saying we make it?” Harry said, trying and failing to suppress a smile. “I’m surprised you’re telling us this.”     “Your logs certainly do, but for obvious reasons I can’t say whether anyone or anything else did.” Braxton turned to the wall console again and pulled up three personnel profiles. Based on the uniform designs Seven deduced that there were NX-01 crew members, and the uniforms were standard issue for Starfleet in that era.

    “My people have determined that these three individuals not being on the NX-01 on its first and last mission will have negligible impact on the history of the Federation in either direction; positive or negative,” Braxton said.     “Hang on,” Janeway said. “you’re getting ahead of yourself here. We haven’t agreed to actually help you with this. You are giving us a lot of information real fast, and I don’t like it. Have you ever heard of the Gish Gallop?”     “Can’t say I have Captain,” Braxton said. “It must be a phrase that didn’t survive into my time.”     “It relates to an even older Earth saying,” Janeway said, now standing with her arms crossed. “If you can’t dazzle them with details, baffle them with bullshit.”     “Crudely put,” Tuvok said, “but the Captain is correct. You do seem to operating under the presumption that we will accept what you are telling us at face value.”     “Let’s not forget that the first time Braxton met us he tried to blow us up,” B’Elanna said, looking at the Captain as she said it.     “What?” Braxton said, sounding shocked.     “It was an alternate timeline thing, Captain,” Chakotay said. “It’s a bit complicated but the version of you who brought us back to the Delta Quadrant from 1990s Earth was different from the rather disturbed and violent version of you who caused us to end up there in the first place.”     “You’ll have to fill me in on the details of that,” Braxton said.     “Short version?” Janeway said. “When I break a time loop it stays broken.”     “Impressive,” Braxton said. “Well, in that instance I can see why you might have concerns about my presence here and what I am asking of you.”

    Captain Braxton did the best he could to explain the details that Captain Janeway had inartfully asked for, but some of the terminology he used to describe his ship’s technology went even over Seven’s head, and she knew more about temporal mechanics than anyone on the ship. She could tell that Janeway and B’Elanna were trying to keep up, and that whatever Tuvok was thinking he wasn’t letting show, but Chakotay and Harry just kept looking at each other as if each were silently asking the other if they understood what Braxton was saying.

    “Okay, Braxton,” Janeway said. “Wait outside, let me talk it over with my crew. I’ll let you know what we decide.”     “Very well then,” Braxton said, stepping out of the briefing room.

-o-

    Nearly a half hour after discussing the matter, the senior staff filed out of the briefing room back on to the Bridge, where Braxton was waiting.     Captain Janeway nodded at Braxton, who smiled.     “Thank you, Captain,” he said.     I’d better not regret this, Janeway thought.     “I took a look at the NX-01 crew members you selected to have my people replace for your mission. Commander Chakotay can compile a list of ideal candidates.”     “Knowledge of 22nd century history would be best if possible,” Braxton said. “Part of why we’re recruiting you is that era is closer to you than it is to us which decreases the possibility of error. And before you ask, we did consider approaching people from that time, as well as the 23rd century. I can show you the results of our study if you like, but simply put 24th century Starfleet officers are the best choice based on mission requirements.”     “I will want to see that,” Janeway said.     “It occurs to me, Captain,” Braxton said, “that Commander Chakotay himself would be a suitable substitute for Lieutenant Malcolm Reed. He was NX-01’s tactical officer in the main timeline, and Chakotay did teach tactics at Starfleet Academy before leaving for the Maquis.”

Janeway turned to face her first officer. Her look conveyed the question without saying it aloud. Chakotay nodded.     “Alright then,” Janeway said. “That just leaves communications officer Hoshi Sato and science officer Richard Mulder.”     “I would only need one more person, Captain,” Braxton said. “I’m sure two of your crew would be enough, we only had three names as those were the ones deemed safest to replace.”     “Just how are you going to replace them, if you don’t mind my asking?” Chakotay said, a question Janeway was thinking herself.

“It will depend on the person,” Braxton said. “A non-lethal contagion requiring a few days quarantine is always an option, though my people are capable of finding less drastic measures. Sato will be the easiest to remove from the equation, as her records show her to be a hypochondriac. To be honest, one wonders what Archer had to do to convince her to leave Earth at all.”     “Captain,” Seven of Nine said. “Since the universal translator was in its infancy at that point is history, my cortical implant could be modified to work as one and allow me to pose in the role of a communications specialist.”     “I imagine your Borg implants would raise a few red flags, Seven,” Harry Kim said.

“We can hide those,” Braxton said. “we can cover up the Commander’s face tattoo as, well, since Starfleet was far more strict regarding body modifications in that era.”

“Okay, that’s two down,” Janeway said. “We only need one more.”     “That leaves the science officer,” Braxton said. “As Voyager is a science vessel I suppose that means nearly anyone on board would be a good fit for that role.”

“According to the file we have on Lieutenant Mulder,” Janeway said. “his field of expertise was xenobiology, one of the few humans in that field at the time. He even interned for a year at a Denobulan run endangered animal reserve.”     “Samantha Wildman’s field-” Seven of Nine said, but was cut off.     “No,” Samantha said, looking panicked. “No no no. I am not a spy, I have no training in undercover work. Forget it.”

“No one’s making you, Sam,” Janeway said. “But Seven is right, that is your field. You’d be a better choice than someone who isn’t and would have to fake it.”

“Not to mention that your relationship with Ensign Seven of Nine would add credibility to the cover,” Braxton said. “The less an agent has to lie about, the easier the facade is to maintain. If you and your wife-”     “Fiancee,” Sam corrected.     Braxton took out what looked like a PADD, presumably its 29th century equivalent, and ran his finger along the screen.     “Oh, right,” he said. “that hasn’t happened yet. My apologies.”

“Not necessary,” Seven of Nine said.     “Anyway,” Braxton continued. “whoever we have fill in for the science officer doesn’t need to be well versed in xenobiology. The goal isn’t to take on the officer’s identity, just to be positioned as the ideal alternative to them in order for Archer to have to take them on as his second choice. Same goes for Reed and Sato. You aren’t posing as them, you’re posing as officers with similar qualifications.”     “In that case,” Janeway said, “perhaps someone with a degree in astrophysics would be a good fit. Tom?”     Tom Paris didn't respond right away, seeming to ponder the question.     “Makes sense,” he said. “Plus I’m a history buff, so my knowledge of the era would prove helpful to the team as well.”     “Actually,” Chakotay said. “I think maybe Ensign Wildman should join the mission.”     “What? Why?” Samantha said.     “Seven of Nine’s Borg mannerism and speech patterns would likely draw suspicion onto us,” Chakotay said. “At the very least people will notice. Humans tend not to talk like that most of the time outside of certain contexts.”     “This is relevant because?” Janeway said, wondering where Chakotay was going with this.     “I’m sure we’ve all noticed that Seven tends to behave more, to put it bluntly, human, when she’s around Sam,” Chakotay said.     “Are you suggesting I be removed from the mission if Samantha doesn’t agree to join?” Seven of Nine asked. If any other crewmember were asking that question Janeway would believe they were offended, but Seven was likely only seeking clarification.     “No,” Chakotay said. “Merely making a suggestion that could improve the mission’s chances of success.”     “Fine, I’ll go,” Samantha said. Everyone on the bridge turned to look at her. “Why is everyone so shocked?”     “You just seemed pretty adamant before, Sam,” Harry said.

“Yeah, well, after this year I don’t want to take any chances. I’ve almost lost Annie twice already, I don’t think I could live with myself if something bad happened to her two hundred years in the past if I had a chance to prevent it.”     “I assure you, Ensign Wildman,” Braxton said, “we’ll have a temporal transporter lock on them at all times.”     “Temporal transporter?” Janeway said. “Just how does that work?”     “I can explain in detail later. The only downside to the device is that it’s relatively new to my ship. So far we have been unable to transport more than one person at a time. The team definitely will need to know that going in.”     “You should’ve told us sooner, frankly,” Janeway said. “In fact, I get the feeling there are a lot of things you aren’t telling us yet.”     “This is true, Captain Janeway,” Braxton said. “but as long as the mission goes even half as well as planned, none of it will be necessary for you to know. Telling you now would just put undue pressure on you and your crew.”     “I think that’s my call to make, not yours,” Janeway said. “You said yourself, the space-time continuum isn’t anywhere near as fragile as people in my time think it is, if I remember correctly.”     “True,” Braxton said.

“So,” Janeway continued, arms crossed and stepping forward so she was face to face with Braxton, “you are going to come back into the briefing room, with myself and the three volunteers for the mission, and you are going to lay out everything. This is non-negotiable.”

-o-

Week One…

    Samantha leaned back and sighed contentedly. She was back on Earth. Earth in the 22nd century, and she was here on an undercover mission, something that she never would have believed was possible, but it was Earth nonetheless. She looked over at Seven, her Borg implants now invisible thanks to the work of Braxton’s crew, and wondered for a moment if Seven had dozed off. The soothing sound of ocean waves had nearly lulled her to that point several times.     “Doctor Wildman?” a voice she recognized from archive files that had been played for her and the rest of the undercover team a few days prior said.     Here goes nothing, she thought, nervous she would somehow accidentally blow her and Seven’s cover.     “Yes?” she said, pretending not to recognize Captain Jonathan Archer.     “Jon Archer, Starfleet,” he said, extending his hand.     “Archer? As in, Warp Five engine Archer?” Sam said, feigning excitement. “A pleasure to meet you, Captain.” She reached over and nudged Seven.     “Annika, you awake sweetie?”     “Hmm? Oh, sorry, did I- Captain Archer?” Seven said. “What brings you to Ibiza?”     “Sorry to interrupt your honeymoon, Ensign Hansen,” Archer said, smiling. Samantha had to admit the man had a certain charm to him. Had she not known deep down that this man had a deep-seated paranoia against the Vulcans, she might find herself falling into the trap of liking him. “I’m actually here to recruit you. Both of you actually.”     “Oh?” Sam said.     “I need a new science officer and communications specialist for the NX-01. We’re due to launch at the end of the week, and sadly I’ve had several officers have to bow out. I got lucky that two of the names near the top of both lists happened to be in the same place.”     Archer was referring to Sam and Seven’s cover identities, modeled very closely on their real ones, even keeping their names, or birth names in Seven of Nine’s case.     “I’m flattered,” Samantha said, remembering the script that Tom Paris had prepared for her for this moment. Don’t say yes right away, he’d said. Make Archer work for it. “But Annie and I just got here. We haven’t even been married a full twenty-four hours yet.”     “I understand,” Archer said. “and if I had more time I wouldn’t even be here. But Starfleet Command is really pushing for a launch this Saturday.”     “To coincide with Zefram Cochrane’s birthday, I heard about that,” Seven said. “I think we should take him up on the offer honey. I mean, a honeymoon in Spain is wonderful and I love you for suggesting it, but a honeymoon in space? How can we pass that up?” Seven put on an excited smile.

    Damn you’re good, Sam thought. She nearly believed that Seven was as excited as she had been told to look.     “Good sell, Seven,” Tom’s voice came through on the implants in their ears.     Archer smiled. “Not many people can say they spent their honeymoon in space.”     Sam sighed. “Captain, I appreciate the offer really, but there’s one slight problem. I’m not Starfleet.”     “I can grant you a field commission,” Archer said. “It’s nothing new, my first choice for communications officer, no offense Ensign, wasn’t Starfleet either. She’s a teacher in fact.”     Sam looked at Seven, who was putting on a masterful “oh please oh please oh please face” that Naomi had taught her. Samantha felt a twinge of guilt at having to leave Naomi behind, and it broke her heart that she wouldn’t be seeing her daughter for almost a month, but Braxton had sworn to her that in her downtime on the NX-01 he could arrange for a private communication with her from time to time and that there was no way the NX-01 relatively primitive communications technology could intercept.     “May I ask why me?” Sam said.     “Because you are one of the handful of Human scientists to have ever studied plant and animal life on other worlds,” Archer said. “Now you may be thinking why not an astrophysicist, or some other branch of science, but you don’t need to worry about that, you’ll have a decent team working under you. If something’s outside your field of expertise, you can just tell me who to bring with me on an away mission. Your profile said you showed some leadership skills.”     “Well,” Sam said, putting on a smile that she hoped looked both genuine and humble, “I’ve had to take charge of a situation from time to time.”     “And you did a great job,” Seven said, gently rubbing Sam’s shoulders. “Imagine what this could do for your career when we get back. Serving on the first Warp Five ship will look great on the resume.”     “Alright, I’m convinced,” Sam said.     “Great,” Archer said. “See you in San Francisco on Saturday, 0630 hours. That’s a few days off so enjoy your honeymoon ‘til then.”     As soon as Archer was out of earshot Sam let out a sigh of relief.     “Seems to me like he bought it,” she said.     “Agreed,” Seven of Nine said. “Has Commander Chakotay already been enlisted by Captain Archer as well?”

    “He has,” Braxton’s voice said in both women’s ears. “Yesterday. He’ll only be a Lieutenant on the NX-01 when you meet him, so be careful about that. His cover story is that he was on the command track until he took a long sabbatical when his father passed away. Like I said, basing your covers partially in truth makes them easier to maintain.

    “As for now, do what the Captain said. You’ve got a few days, might as well enjoy them. If Ensign Paris or anyone from my crew has anything they think they’ll need to pass on to you we will. I’ll mute the communicators so you two can be alone.”     “Thank you, sir,” Sam said. “but first, Tom?”     “Yeah, Sam?”     “Tell Naomi I said good night.”     “I will.”

-o-

    Seven of Nine and Samantha Wildman got to go to the beaches of Spain, Chakotay thought as he went over the defensive systems of the NX-01 while it sat in spacedock, while I have to run calibrations of phasers so old they didn’t even call them phasers yet.

    The task, though not exciting, was at least a challenge, so he wasn’t bored. The only hard part for him was making sure that his calibrations were not too good for the time period. Chakotay knew full well he could improve the accuracy and decrease the power consumption of these ‘phased cannons’ exponentially, even using the period technology at his disposal, but he had to settle for a mere 5% improvement.     “How’re those calibrations coming along, Lieutenant?” the voice of the NX-01’s chief engineer said. Commander Charles Tucker, whom Captain Archer had referred to as Trip when he’d introduced the two, climbed up the ladder from where the antimatter missiles were stored. Chakotay wondered why he’d been down there, and made a note to check later.     “Done,” Chakotay said. “Just triple checking them. One can never be too careful when it comes to weapons as powerful as these. It’d look bad on my performance review if the captain asks me to disable an alien ship and we end up blowing it to pieces instead.”     “You expect we’ll see combat out there?” Tucker said. “According to the Vulcans it’s mostly friendlies in the direction we’re headed, and those that aren’t aren’t much of a threat.”     “Is that the Vulcans praising us,” Chakotay said, “or insulting them?”     “Could be both,” Tucker said with a shrug. “Don’t let it get around Lieutenant, but while I find the Vulcans can be pretty smug sometimes, I don’t think they’re all that bad. Not that I’d ever say that to the Captain mind you. And neither should you.”     “My lips are sealed, sir,” Chakotay said.     Tucker shook his head. “I doubt I’ll ever get over someone older than me calling me sir, Mister Chakotay. I understand why though. Were you and your Dad close?”     “Be as honest as you can,” Braxton’s voice said into Chakotay’s implant, but Chakotay already knew that.     “Sadly no,” he said. “That’s part of why I took it so hard when he passed. He never approved of me joining Starfleet. He wanted me to stay in South America with our tribe. By the time I even knew he was ill, it was too late to try and mend fences.” Tucker sighed and put a hand on Chakotay’s shoulder.     “Well, hopefully he’s proud of you now, from wherever he is,” he said. Chakotay nodded.     “Maybe,” Chakotay said.

-o-

    “Wow,” Samantha Wildman said as they approached the NX-01 in a shuttlepod that Captain Archer piloted himself, with Samantha, now wearing the same period appropriate style of uniform that Seven was wearing, but with a different color trim to denote her rank and department. It was amusing that even though hers was only a field commission, she now technically outranked Seven of Nine as far as their cover went.     “I hope you don’t intend to abuse your rank, Lieutenant,” Archer had said while the three had still been standing by the landing pad on Earth. She and Seven had shared a look. Archer simply shook his head and laughed. “Forget I said anything,” he’d added.     It looks so different, Sam thought. It’s amazing how much of a difference working lights can make. She looked back at Seven, who was making a show of reading the report Archer had given her on the NX-01’s translation system, the very crude precursor to the universal translator that Sam had to admit she had taken for granted over the years. The fact was Seven, due to her Borg implants, still retained the knowledge of the languages of every species the Borg had assimilated while she was a drone. Whether or not she could speak them was another matter; Seven had insisted that she could, but not as easily as she could recall other details, in addition to details such as context, dialect, and accents.

    “Fun read, babe?” Sam said.     “Interesting,” Seven said. “I look forward to seeing this system in action.”     “The woman who was my first choice for communications officer,” Archer said, “Hoshi Sato, actually helped develop it. Shame she can’t join us, but she was always a bit on the paranoid side, and when she got food poisoning of all things the week before launch, she took it as a bad omen and bailed on me. Her loss though. Once we’ve gone past what even the Vulcan’s consider known space there are going to be a lot of new languages I just know she would’ve loved to learn about.”     Sam could still hear the inflection that Archer put on the word ‘Vulcans.’ It was subtle; so subtle that she wouldn’t have picked up on it had Seven not pointed it out to her first. She smiled, pretending she didn’t hear it.     “So, why is it still called the NX-01?” she said, asking a question that she’d actually wanted to ask in her pre-mission briefing but had failed to ask due to nerves. “Seems to me a starship should have a proper name instead of just a designation.”     “Starfleet Command couldn’t agree on one,” Archer said. “Too many Admirals wanting to get credit for being the one who named her. So they decided that if our first mission succeeds, since I helped build her, I’ll get to pick the name.”

“What are you going to call it?” Seven said.     “I’ve got it narrowed down. Remember the old space shuttles? Early spacecraft, the United States used them to send astronauts into orbit for scientific missions. I think I’ll name her after one of those. Columbia, Endeavour, Enterprise, one of those.”     Sam smiled and nodded, though it was hard for her not to associate the name Robert April with the title of ‘first Starfleet Captain of a U.S.S. Enterprise.’ I wonder what the NX-01 would’ve been named if it had made it back, she thought.     “Archer to NX-01, request permission to dock,” Archer said after pushing a button on the console in front of him.     “NX-01 flight control to Shuttlepod One, you are clear to approach,” an unknown voice replied. “Hold position while we extend the grappler.”

-o-

    Seven of Nine had made sure her ocular implant was modified to search for explosives without having to carry any extra equipment on her. This proved to be a nearly mission compromising mistake as she, Sam, and Archer made their way to sickbay from the shuttle bay. The path took them past the area of the ship where the antimatter missiles, crude precursors to the far more precise photon torpedoes, were stored, and the blinding flash all that relatively poorly shielded explosive material made as she came around a hall made her flinch. Luckily, Archer was not looking right at her when it happened, and Seven was able to regain her composure quickly.

    Captain Archer stopped a young woman who was going the opposite direction down the corridor.     “Ensign Cutler, would you go ahead and take our two new crewmen to see Doctor Phlox?”     “Of course, sir,” Cutler said. “You must be our new science and communications officers,” she added extended a hand to both Seven and Samantha.     “Samantha Wildman,” Sam said. “And my wife Annika Hansen.”     “Welcome aboard, both of you. Have you been assigned crew quarters yet?” Cutler said.     “Dammit, I knew I forgot to do something,” Archer said. He gave Seven and Sam an apologetic smile. “I’ll take care of that myself, Cutler, since it was my faux-pas. Just have them get their check-ups, and then we can be on our way.”     “Yes, sir. This way ladies,” Cutler said. Seven allowed Sam to get a few steps ahead of her so Seven could try to surreptitiously scan the parts of the ship they were going through, looking for any sign of some kind of bomb that could be to blame for the NX-01’s loss in the original timeline.     “Okay,” Braxton’s voice said into Seven’s earpiece. “Based on our data on Phlox, he’s very unconventional as doctors go. heavy into non-traditional medicine, but as far we know nothing he has is going to harm you. It will be disgusting however, so don’t feel you have to hide your revulsion. He’s probably used to it at this point.”

    Seven, Sam, and Cutler arrived at sickbay just in time to see Commander Chakotay leaving.     “Ah, Mister Chakotay,” Cutler said. “Samantha, Annika, this is Chakotay. Our new tactical officer.”     “A pleasure to meet you,” Samantha said.     “Likewise,” Seven added. Chakotay smiled and nodded.     “Welcome aboard the NX-01 ladies. Ready to make some history?” he said.     “Oh absolutely,” Samantha said, enthusiastically shaking Chakotay’s hand as though they’d never met before.

    “Good. Don’t worry too much about the Doc, he promises he’ll only use his leeches if there’s an emergency,” Chakotay said, before saluting and heading down another corridor.     I hope he’s joking, Seven thought.     “I really hope he was joking,” Tom Paris’ voice said in her ear.

    “Doctor, two new guinea pigs for you,” Cutler said in a jovial tone.     “Ah, good, always nice to meet new potential victims.” Seven was still behind Sam. She moved to Sam’s side to see a Denobulan, Species 7611, with the largest smile she had ever seen on any sentient being capable of smiling.

    “I was unaware that Starfleet allowed non-humans to serve on their ships,” Sam said.     “Normally they don’t,” Doctor Phlox said. “But Captain Archer happens to be a friend of mine, so he requested me. It doubtless helps that I have more experience treating injured and sick non-humans than any human doctor does currently, though I’ve no doubt that will change soon. Your species is made up of remarkably quick learners.”     “Careful,” Cutler said, still smiling. “this one’s a charmer.”

    Seven got the impression that something was going on between these two, but decided that was none of her concern.

    “I just need to run a routine physical,” Phlox said, “so go ahead and take a seat on one of the beds, one each please.”     It was only then that Seven noticed the animals. Cages, tanks, all sorts of enclosures holding varying types of mammals, fish, insects, and other creatures she did not recognize.     “Is this,” Seven said, also finally noticing the smell, “sanitary?” Sam nudged Seven gently as she often did when she felt that Seven needed to briefly cease talking.

    Phlox, however did not seem offended in the slightest.     “Don’t worry,” he said. “they’ve all been through necessary decontamination procedures. I use some of them for research, all very humane. Some have properties in them that can be used as medical treatments. And, a few of them are simply pets.”

    “I love animals too,” Samantha said.     “I’ve heard,” Phlox said. “I imagine we will much to talk about over the coming weeks. Now, while normally I love small talk, I do have to get this last round of physicals done in the next hour so Starfleet will allow us to launch on time, so I will get to work on the check-ups for yourself and your lovely wife.”

-o-

Week Two…

    Chakotay stared at the ceiling in his quarters, having doubts about the mission. The NX-01 was seven days out of spacedock, and the only exciting thing that had happened was first contact with the Xyrillians. It was a big deal for the people of this time of course, but for him, he’d had a Xyrillian bunkmate during his first starship posting, and another Xyrillian had briefly flown with him in the Maquis before going to another colony in the DMZ to help there.

    He also had found nothing that pointed towards what could possibly have caused the accident or sabotage or whatever that had led to this ship ending up being found by his people over two-hundred years later.

    But worst of all was his budding friendship with Trip, the chief engineer. Braxton had warned him, as well as Seven of Nine and Samantha Wildman, about getting attached to anyone on this ship, but with a mission that was going to last almost a month, that was just unrealistic. Samantha and Seven themselves seemed to regularly spend their lunches in the mess hall dining with Ensign Cutler, as well as Travis Mayweather, the NX-01’s helmsman.

    Since he was alone, he decided to go ahead and talk to his controllers aboard the Relativity directly.     “Are you sure there’s nothing we can do for them?” Chakotay said.     “History records them as being lost,” Braxton insisted, as he did every time Chakotay broached the subject. “And they don’t just suddenly turn up in the 24th century either. I’m not going to rule out finding a home for them in the 29th, but that wholly depends on what the cause of the disaster is. I’m sorry Commander, but those are the cold hard facts.”     Chakotay sighed. This was the third time he’d had this conversation, and it was to Captain Braxton’s credit that he didn’t get annoyed at the repetition he supposed. Everyone on this ship apart from himself, Seven, and Sam were going to die in about a week, and there was nothing he could do about that. He would perform his duties, but there was no rule that said he had to like them.

-o-

    Seven of Nine closed her eyes and smiled as Samantha rubbed her shoulders.     “This mission cannot end soon enough,” Sam whispered. Seven agreed. While both Captain Braxton and Tom Paris had sworn that they didn’t leave the sub-dermal communicators on non-stop, the couple could not bring themselves to be intimate while they were still in the 22nd century. Only the fact that they had gone more than a week without sex before helped them any, but on Voyager it was different; there was a child in the equation, in addition to Seven’s budding friendships with several members of the crew.

    Aboard the NX-01, it was just simply frustrating.

    “I am starting to regret volunteering,” Seven said. “At this point, with no sign of any equipment failures or sabotage to explain the disappearance of the NX-01, it looks increasingly likely that we’re in a time loop.”     “And that we have to be the ones to make it go missing,” Sam said. “I am not looking forward to that, at all.”

    “Nor am I,” Seven said.

    The sound of the door chime interrupted the somber conversation.     “Enter,” Sam said, looking at the chronometer and wondering who it might be at his hour.

    Doctor Phlox entered, smiling, his hands behind his back.     “Lieutenant Wildman, can I speak with you privately?” he said.     Sam looked at Seven. Seven subtly shrugged.     “I suppose that’s alright,” Sam said. “where-”     “Sickbay, if you please,” Phlox said. For some reason, he seemed to be making an effort not to make eye contact with her, keeping his focus on Sam.     Is he on to us? Seven thought, searching her memories for anything she might’ve done to accidentally reveal any of her cybernetic implants. Or just me?     “Yeah, sure,” Sam said. She touched the back of Seven’s neck. “See you at movie night?”     “Yes,” Seven said, smiling. “Tucker says we’ll be watching a film called Forbidden Planet. The title intrigues me.”

    “It’s a good film,” Phlox said. “The gender politics are incredibly backwards, but I understand that was sadly normal for humans at the time it was made. I saw it during my time on Earth, before I met Captain Archer.”     “Sounds interesting. I’ll meet you there. Love you,” Sam said.     “Love you too,” Seven said.

-o-

    “So, what did you want to talk about?” Sam asked Phlox.     “How long have you known your wife, Lieutenant?” Phlox said.     “Two years,” Sam said. She was rounding up considerably, but it was a mostly accurate statement.     “Remember a few days ago when one of my pet bats accidentally scratched her?” Phlox said.     “Yes,” Sam said, glowering. “I also remember reading you the riot act over letting a freaking bat fly around sickbay.”     “I was examining her, the bat I mean, after the incident, and I found something in your spouse’s blood that concerns me,” Phlox said.     Uh oh, Sam thought.     “Uh oh,” Tom Paris said in Sam’s earpiece.

    “Several years ago,” Phlox said, “when I first came to Earth, I was brought in to consult on something that had been found in the northern polar region of the planet. Along with some debris from a ship that had presumably crashed there years before, we found the frozen bodies of several humanoid, cybernetic beings.”     “Interesting,” Sam said, afraid she knew where this was going but not wanting to give away anything. “But what does that have to do with my wife?”

    “When I examined the bodies, I found inert nanotechnology inside them,” Phlox said. “I was sworn to silence by Starfleet Command about it, I’m risking my good standing with Earth as well as my position on this ship by talking to you about this. I’ve never even told Captain Archer. But I may be forced to, because I found that same nanotech in the blood on my bat’s claws.”     Sam shook her head and laughed, hoping the laugh came across as genuine.     “Are you trying to tell me that Annika is secretly a cyborg?” she said. “That’s ludicrous. If that’s so, why didn’t you find any during your exams when we first came aboard?”

    “She may have been able to hide it,” Phlox said. “The nanotech I found in her bloodstream was inert.”     “Also,” Samantha said, stepping closer to Phlox in what she hoped was an intimidating gesture, “if you actually think she’s a cyborg infiltrator of some kind, why would you tell me this? For all you know I could be one too.”     “I considered that,” Phlox said. “That’s why I palmed one of the utensils you used at dinner in the mess hall the other night.”

    “That’s kinda creepy,” Tom’s voice said. Sam had to bite her lip to keep from verbally agreeing.     “I scanned that and found no sign of nanotechnology,” Phlox said. “That’s why I believe I can trust you. I think-”     “I think you should just drop this, Doctor,” Sam said forcefully.     “I don’t,” a voice behind Sam said. She turned around to see Captain Archer standing there, with two armed officers standing behind them. One of them was Chakotay, who did not look happy to be there. She couldn’t blame him for not wanting to compromise the mission, but for Sam this was a bridge too far.     “So you lied about not having told the Captain yet,” Sam said to Phlox. “You just wanted to keep me out of my quarters.”     “I’m sorry, Samantha,” Phlox said.     “Shove it,” Sam said. She was tempted to just ask Braxton for an extraction, but the problem of the temporal transporter only being able to take one person at a time had not yet been solved.     “Doctor, escort the Lieutenant to the brig,” Archer said. “We’ll be bringing Ensign Hansen with us to join her shortly, and we can begin the interrogation.”     “Shit, shit, shit,” Tom muttered. “Captain Braxton?! We’ve got a problem!”     Sam nearly flinched when Tom yelled, apparently not realizing how loud he was being so close to the communicator. She tried to think of something, anything she could say that would stop this. Maybe if she were an experienced spy like Tuvok, a tactician like Chakotay, or as analytical as Seven of Nine she would’ve, but instead she just sighed.     “Fine,” she said with anger in her voice. Although she directed the anger in Archer’s direction, it wasn’t him she was actually mad at, but he didn’t need to know that. She was mad at Phlox for the invasion of privacy with the utensils, mad at Braxton for dragging Voyager into this mess, and mad at herself for going along.     “Okay, don’t panic Sam,” Tom said. “I let Seven know what’s going on.”     As soon as Tom finished his sentence, the door to their quarters opened, and Seven stepped out, wearing her uniform in casual mode, as she always did on movie night. Seven sold a look of confusion that Sam would’ve thought was real had she not known better.     “Sam, honey, what’s going on?”     “Mister Chakotay, Mister Nava, take them to the brig,” Archer said. “The Doctor and I will join you shortly.”     “It’s okay baby,” Sam said. “It’s all a misunderstanding I’m sure. We’ll get it cleared up.” She turned and glowered at Phlox. “And believe me, heads will roll over this.”

-o-

    Chakotay had to fight the urge to just bust Sam and Seven out of their cells in the brig himself and try to get them all off this ship. As Braxton had pointed out to him, there weren’t really any options. The NX-01’s own transporters weren’t as reliable as Voyager’s, and even if they were there was nowhere nearby they could beam to. The shuttlepods had no FTL drive and no shields; stealing one of them would only get them killed. That left the temporal transporter, which could only take one person at a time and had a recharge cycle of ten seconds, during which the increasingly paranoid Archer could do something rash to whoever wasn’t lucky enough to be extracted first.

    “Jon thinks maybe the Vulcans have something to do with this,” Trip said to Chakotay while the latter was doing yet another inspection of the warp drive for any signs of tampering under Archer’s orders.     “He hasn’t said anything to me about it,” Chakotay said, “but I can believe that. That he would think that I mean. Didn’t Doctor Phlox say that the nanotech he found was centuries ahead of anything the Vulcans have?”

“He did, and I looked at those samples myself. No way is that Vulcan tech,” Trip said. “I just wish Jon would listen to reason, but this whole thing with Annika Hansen has him really on edge. He’s still waiting on orders from Starfleet Command on how to handle the interrogation.”     “That’s the thing about paranoia,” Chakotay said. “It’s impervious to logic.” Chakotay turned off his scanner. “Third check confirms, no signs of any explosives, no nanotech, not even a tracking device. If I wasn’t afraid he’d toss me in the brig too…” Chakotay let the thought hang. He looked at Trip, who just sadly nodded. Archer’s own best friend was starting to turn on him.

I wonder if we even need to let the NX-01 be destroyed or go missing, Chakotay thought. At this point even Archer’s own best friend has trouble with him. Not exactly the charismatic icon that Braxton was worried would spread anti-Vulcan bias.

“Archer to engineering,” Archer’s voice said over the loudspeakers.     “Yes, Captain?” Trip said.     “Mister Tucker, we’re returning to Earth,” Archer said. “Starfleet Command wants to handle our prisoners there. They’ll be calling in experts on interrogation, which we lack. Can the warp 5 engine handle a prolonged trip? I’d like us to get back there faster than we got out here.”

“I wouldn’t want to push it Captain,” Trip said. “But since we stopped a few places along the way, all we have to do is not stop there again on the way back and we can easily make the trip in only ten days at Warp 4.”     “I want us back there in one week,” Archer said. This was not a request.     “Okay. I think we can keep up a speed of Warp 5 non-stop for about,” Trip took out a device similar to the PADDs that people in Chakotay’s time used and began making calculations. “About sixteen hours. Drop to warp 4 after that, we can be home in, let’s see here, seven and a half days. That’s the best I can give you without risking tearing the ship apart.”     “Twelve hours is better than three days,” Archer said. “I’ll take it. Prepare the engine, we’re leaving now.”

    So much for getting to see first contact with the Borothans, Chakotay thought.

    “Commander,” Braxton’s voice said into Chakotay's earpiece. “We’ve got a plan, but first you need to get Mister Tucker somewhere where we can beam him to the Relativity with nobody seeing. Contact us immediately once you succeed, and further instructions will follow.”

-o-

    Seven of Nine looked up at the ceiling of her cell, lying on the very uncomfortable bed. She had to admit she had a certain respect for the design of the NX-01’s cells. Similar to the ones on modern Starfleet ships, but using a transparent aluminum wall with small holes cut in to allow air and sound to travel in and out. Most importantly for the safety of the crew, while inconvenient for her at the moment, was that a wall doesn’t simply shut off if there were to be a power outage.

    She could see Sam, sitting against the wall and being visibly depressed in the cell across from hers. She wanted to comfort her, but Archer kept guards in the brig with them 24/7, and they were under orders to not allow the prisoners to speak to each other. Only the occasional presence of Tom Paris, Captain Braxton, and even occasionally Naomi on their ear-pieces, patched in a shared frequency so they both could hear at the same time, kept them from feeling isolated.

    The crews of both the Relativity and the Voyager were working on a way to safely extract them, but Seven could tell from how they’d spoken in the almost twenty-four hours since Archer had put her and Sam in here that both Braxton and Janeway were nearing the point of just scrapping the mission, using the temporal transporter, and hoping for the best.

    I should never have agreed to this mission, Seven thought. All of this is my fault. Had I not volunteered my Borg nanoprobes wouldn’t have ended up on the claws of that stupid pet of that questionable doctor and the whole operation wouldn’t be compromised. Worst of all, the woman I love is sitting in a damn jail cell, not allowed to talk to anyone. She must be so scared, and I can’t even tell her I’m sorry.

    “Hey, Chakotay,” she heard the current guard, Ensign Nava, say.     “Hey, Jerry,” Chakotay said. “I’m here to relieve you.”

    “Aren’t you a little early? Your shift isn’t for another half-hour.”     “I know, but I woke up early and couldn’t get back to sleep. Have the prisoners said anything?“     “No sir,” Nava said. “Permission to speak frankly?”

“Go ahead,” Chakotay said.     “I know the nanotech thing is suspicious and all, but this all seems a little extreme. If we absolutely had to cut them off from the rest of the ship, shouldn’t confinement to quarters have been enough? And if both of them are spies or whatever then doesn’t keeping from talking to each other accomplish nothing? They’ve had weeks if not longer to get their stories straight.”     Seven got up and went to the transparent barrier. She could see Chakotay and Nava speaking to each other, though Nava’s back was to her. Chakotay made a show of looking around to make sure no one else was around.     “I happen to agree, Ensign, but these are the Captain's orders. We’re heading back to Earth, we can file a protest with Starfleet Command once we get there.”     “Understood. Enjoy your shift, sir,” Nava said, saluting as he handed his phase pistol and a datapad to Chakotay. Once Nava was out of sight, Chakotay manipulated some controls on a nearby console, and the barriers to both occupied cells slid open.     “Chakotay to Tucker,” Chakotay said into a handheld communicator, “we are a go.”     “Got it,” the chief engineer’s voice replied. “I’m on the way to the shuttlepod bay right now. Make sure internal security goes down before I get there so Jon doesn’t know I went willingly.”     “You say that like this is the first time I’ve had to stage a kidnapping, Trip,” Chakotay said with a wry grin.     “Commander,” Seven said. “What the hell is going on?”     “You took the words right out of my mouth, hon,” Sam said.

“I can explain,” Chakotay said. “Wait, never mind, not enough time, I’ll summarize. You two were able to take advantage of a power failure that caused the doors to open, kidnap Chief Engineer Tucker, and steal a shuttlepod.”     “What power failure?” Seven said.     “The one that’s going to happen in a few minutes because I sabotaged the engines,” Chakotay said. “Now get going, Trip will meet you at the shuttlepod bay.”     “Then what?” Sam said. “The shuttlepods don’t have FTL.”     “It’s taken care of, now start moving.”     “C’mon, Annie,” Sam said, taking Seven’s hand and moving towards the door.     “What about you, Commander?”     “I’ll get arrested and thrown in one of those cells over there, but don't worry, that’s part of the plan.”     Almost as soon as Chakotay finished that sentence, the ship shuddered as it suddenly dropped out of warp. The lights blinked out, quickly replaced by the familiar glow of emergency lighting.     “Go, go, go!” Chakotay yelled at them. The two women bolted for the door and made their way as quickly as possible towards the shuttlepod bay, coming across a pair of unconscious crewmen along the way, and resisting the urge to help. When they arrived at the bay, the door to Shuttlepod One was already open, Commander Tucker leaning out and motioning for them to follow him in.     “C’mon, hurry. I stunned those crewmen over a minute ago, it’ll wear off any second.”     “Commander,” Sam said, “Why are you helping us?”     “I’ll tell you the whole story if my own best friend doesn't blow us all to hell first,” Trip said, taking the controls as the door to shuttlepod sealed, and the shuttle bay door beneath it opened. “And also assuming that the trick Captain Braxton and Ensign Paris came up with works.”     “How do you-” Sam started to say, but the shuttlepod shuddered as the magnetic clamps released, and the artificial gravity of the ship allowed it to drop through the open bay door, at which point Trip fired up the engines and began flying straight ahead at full speed.     “Voyager to away team, stand by,” Captain Janeway’s voice said over both Seven and Samantha’s ear pieces. “and don’t panic,” she added.     “Commander Tucker, do you-”     “I heard,” Trip said. “They gave me one of those subdermal communicators too. Trust me, I’m not doing this lightly. Jonathan Archer is still my best friend. I wouldn’t betray him over just a hunch.”     Seven understood. Commander Tucker had been brought to the Relativity by way of the temporal transporter. How much detail he was given she didn’t know, at least not yet, but whatever Braxton and Janeway had divulged to him was enough to make him do something that Seven herself would’ve considered impossible; openly defying Captain Archer.     Well, not openly, Seven thought, correcting herself. As far as Archer is concerned we kidnapped Mister Tucker when we took the shuttlepod. Assuming the plan worked, Archer probably thinks we-

“NX-01 to Shuttlepod One, power down or you will be fired upon,” Archer’s voice said over the comm. It was a much more reserved tone than Seven would’ve suspected. “Annika, Samantha, whoever you work for, I’m not going to let you get away with taking my friend, my chief engineer, to them. I want him back alive, but if losing him is what it takes to make it clear to your superiors that Earth is more than capable of doing what it takes to defend itself you-”     “Annie, look!” Sam yelled, pointing out the front viewport.     A spatial distortion, exactly like the one that preceded the arrival of the Relativity in the Delta Quadrant in Voyager’s path, appeared, and a ship came out. It wasn’t the Relativity though, and at first glance it didn’t seem to be Voyager either, but Seven’s ocular implants told her what NX-01’s crude sensors wouldn’t.     “Son of a bitch” Sam said, “they made Voyager look like a Kazon ship!” Seven smiled. Even without technology to aid her, Samantha had quickly pieced together what little information she’d been given by Chakotay and Trip. Seven reached out to take Sam’s hand, but the tingle of a transport beam locking on to her kept her from completing the motion.

-o-

    Captain Janeway stood next to Ensign Todd Mulcahey as he manipulated the transporter controls. Soon, Seven of Nine, Samantha Wildman, and the NX-01’s chief engineer Charles Tucker all stood on the transporter pad. The two former quickly embraced each other, while the latter looked around with a sense of wonder.     “Good work, Todd,” Janeway said.     “Thanks, Captain,” Mulcahey said.

“Welcome aboard the Federation starship Voyager, Mister Tucker,” Janeway said.     “Please, call me Trip,” Tucker said. “I’m glad I could help you get two of your people back.”     “Okay, Trip,” Janeway said smiling. She turned to Seven and Sam. “You two alright?”     “We’re good Captain,” Sam said. “Not being allowed to talk to each other was rough, but we weren’t mistreated otherwise.”     “Jon Archer’s a lot of things,” Tucker said, sounding slightly sad. “but even he wouldn’t stoop to torture. I just hope your First Officer is doing alright, we easily could’ve fit him in the shuttlepod.”     “I know,” Janeway said. “But you were there when we came up with the plan. If Chakotay can get through to him, we can send you home, the Relativity can go back to the 29th century, and me and my people can get back to our journey.”     “What exactly is this plan I keep hearing about?” Seven said. “Now that we are back on Voyager I assume there is time for an update.”     “How about you guys go talk to your daughter first,” Tucker said. Seven and Sam looked at him in surprise.     “How did you-” Sam said.     “Time travel,” Tucker said. “I was on the Relativity for a few days, but only a few minutes passed on the NX-01. I learned a lot in that time.”     “Don’t dwell on the logistics of that too much, Sam,” Janeway said. “It’ll give you a whopper of a headache.”     “Temporal mechanics usually do, ma’am,” Sam said.     “Naomi’s in the mess hall with Neelix. Go see her, then report to the briefing room in two hours. Mister Tuck- Trip, would you like a tour?”     “I’d love to. Can we start with engineering?”     “Of course,” Janeway said. “I’ll take you personally.”

“Thanks, Cap,” Tucker said. “Can’t wait to see what an engine capable of pushing Warp 9.975 looks like. It must be massive.”

“Depends on how you define massive, but I think you’ll be impressed,” Janeway said as she and Commander Tucker exited the transporter room together.     “You know,” Tucker said, “I can’t put my finger on why I feel this way but somehow your ship just seems, what’s the word I’m looking for here? Warmer. Yeah, it seems warmer than the Relativity somehow. Not temperature wise, I mean, I don’t know. This is gonna drive me nuts.”

Janeway shrugged.     “Well I can’t help you there,” she said. “I’m too biased. This isn’t just my first command, it’s also been my only home for almost five years.”

“Good point,” Tucker said.

-o-

Chakotay knew for the most part what he was getting into by allowing himself to be caught after helping Seven of Nine and Samantha Wildman escape. Had he known however that in addition to being put in one of the cells in the NX-01’s brig he’d also be strapped to a chair while Doctor Phlox injected him with a crude truth serum derived from the excretions of some of his lab animals, he might have suggested some alterations to the plan.     “You know what’s ironic about this?” Chakotay said to Phlox and Archer as they stood over him, and his vision started to blur as the serum kicked in. “I wasn’t going to lie anyway. My mission’s already been compromised.”     “I don’t think that counts as irony, Mister Chakotay,” Phlox said.     “If that is your real name of course,” Archer said.     Chakotay did not want to laugh, but thanks to the drug he couldn’t stop it.     “‘If that’s your real name,’ ha. You sound like a bad guy from a bad holonovel,” Chakotay said. Archer’s facial expressions showed that he was getting angrier. Chakotay thought for a moment that Archer might punch him, but Phlox gently placed a hand on Archer’s shoulder, at which point the latter stepped back slightly.     “Okay, the truth then,” Archer said. “Are you working for the Vulcans?”     “No,” Chakotay said.     Archer looked at Phlox. Phlox nodded and ran a medical scanner over him.     “The serum is working, he’s telling the truth Captain.”     “Well, Phlox, I owe you an apology on that one. You were right about the nanotech being beyond what the Vulcans have now.”     “You were being cautious Captain,” Phlox said. “With the safety of the ship at stake, I took no offense.”     “Speaking of the safety of my ship,” Archer said, “what was your mission Mister Chakotay?”

“To find out what caused the disappearance of the NX-01,” Chakotay said, feeling a little sleepy now. “One of Starfleet earliest unsolved mysteries. We never knew if was sabotage, an accident, a spatial anomaly…”     “Hold it right there,” Archer said, leaning in so close that Chakotay could smell his aftershave, which wasn’t very strong, so he was very close indeed. “What happens to my ship?”     “I told you, we don’t know,” Chakotay said, the serum keeping him from hiding his frustration. “That’s why Sam, Seven, and I were here.”     “Who’s Seven?” Phlox said.     “Seven of Nine,” Chakotay said, “A former Borg drone we rescued almost two years ago. She only went by Annika Hansen on this mission, though she lets her fiancee call her that too.”     “Hmm,” Phlox said. “Interesting. Using an engaged couple to pose as a married couple. Makes a certain amount of sense. And I assume that the Borg is the name of the race those humanoid creatures we found near the North Pole belong to?”     “Yes,” Chakotay said, unable to stop himself from telling Archer and Phlox literally everything he knew about the Borg, right down to how many ships were lost at Wolf 359. Archer and Phlox looked increasingly horrified.     “So what were they doing on Earth a hundred years ago?” Phlox asked.     “No idea,” Chakotay said. “maybe it was a crashed scout ship that the collective never came to retrieve. It’s not unheard of.”     Phlox checked his scanner again. “The serum is still working, Jonathan. He’s still telling the truth.”

“I see,” Archer said. “That doesn’t explain though why your shipmates kidnapped my chief engineer.”     Don’t tell him, Chakotay thought, fighting with his own mind and mouth. Don’t tell him don’t tell don’t tell him don’t-     “Trip helped us, we faked the kidnapping so you wouldn’t try to blow up the shuttlepod before Voyager could beam them off.”

Dammit, Chakotay thought.     Archer looked stunned, and Chakotay couldn’t blame him in the slightest. Archer looked at Phlox who sadly nodded.     “What did you to him? Bribe him? Threaten his family? Brainwashing? What?!”     “We showed him what would happen if the timeline changed too much,” Chakotay said, now having trouble keeping his eyes open. “In theory, we could save the NX-01 and Starfleet and the Federation wouldn’t be any worse off for it, time is not as fragile as people think it is.”     “The Federation?” Phlox said, but Chakotay kept going.     “If Jonathan Archer returns to Earth as a successful leader of a successful mission, his popularity will allow his anti-Vulcan bias to spread and become mainstream.”     Archer grabbed Chakotay by the collar of his uniform.     “So the Vulcans are involved, just not this century’s Vulcans!”     “They didn’t sabotage your father’s work, you racist idiot,” Chakotay said, the racist idiot part he added freely without any prompting from the truth serum, all respect he might have had for Archer at one point now completely evaporated. “The bond between Humanity and the Vulcans is the core of the Federation as I know it. Yeah, we make mistakes, even in the 24th century. I even left it for a time because of one of them, but I came back partly because for all its faults I still believe in its core values, even if it doesn’t always measure up to them. If you are allowed to return to Earth as a hero, we’ll lose that. Best case scenario, we still survive the coming Romulan War, but weaker and more afraid. Worst case, we all die without the Vulcans there to aid us.”     “Shut up,” Archer said.     “I was supposed to convince you that the NX-01 needed to return to its original course,” Chakotay continued, “for the sake of history, which was mostly true so I wouldn’t really have needed to lie at all. Exaggerate maybe, but that’s about it. Then when we got to the nebula, if need be, we’d make the ship disappear ourselves, and Captain Braxton would find a home for you and your people in the 29th century, and history would go on as normal. But thanks to one stupid bat, you’re heading back to Earth more paranoid than ever.”

“Shut the hell up,” Archer said through clenched teeth.     Chakotay laughed.     “I suppose it all works out in the end though, doesn’t it? After all, this ship hasn’t finished its original mission, you’re returning to Earth early, and with two of your prisoners having escaped. Command will be forgiving, they’ll know as well as you do that you couldn’t have seen Trip helping us coming. But public opinion on the other hand-”     Archer punched Chakotay so hard that the chair he was strapped to fell over. Chakotay felt his head impact against the deck, and his vision became more blurry than it had already been.     “You’ve recorded everything?” Archer said.     “Yes sir,” Phlox said.     Sir, Chakotay thought. Not Jon, or Captain. I wonder if that means something.

“We’ll bring him, and everything we have to Starfleet command,” Archer said. “The data from the truth serum, Annika Hansen slash Seven of Nine’s blood, the sensor logs from that ship that I guess was Voyager, all of it. I am concerned only about the present. If we and the Vulcans are all besties in the future, fine, but as long as I’m alive, I will not treat them like anything other than the smug bastards who held us back. If they’d helped us, my Dad would’ve lived to see a working Warp 5 engine.”     “What if Starfleet decides that ensuring we do become allied with the Vulcans, and forming this Federation that Mister Chakotay was talking about, is the correct course of action?”     “They won’t,” Archer said. “Humans don’t like being told what to do.”     “Few sentient races do,” Chakotay heard Phlox say before unconsciousness overtook him, “Whatever Starfleet Command decides, you have my support Captain.”

-o-

    “Not good,” Tom said as Chakotay’s vital signs dipped. He was still alive, at least according to the monitor on the bridge of the Relativity he sat in front of.     “”In more ways than one,” Captain Braxton said. “The whole plan was for Chakotay to do a hard sell to convince Archer to let go of or at least ease up on his hatred towards the Vulcans.”     “I remember, I helped come up with it,” Tom said.

    “The temporal transporter has been fully recharged for hours. I think we should just get him out of there and come up with another plan,” Braxton said.     “Well, maybe not,” Tom said. “I mean, yes, get Chakotay the hell out of there, but I think he might be right. Archer coming back early, with multiple prisoner escapes and a wild story about people from the future, he’ll be dismissed as a raving lunatic.”     “If it were just him maybe,” Braxton said. “But Archer’s crew will back him up, as will their samples of Seven of Nine’s nanoprobes, and the recording of Commander Chakotay’s interrogation, and the sensor logs of the holo-disguised Voyager.”     Tom had to admit the captain was right, and this whole mission had gone completely sideways in spite of all the advanced technology and combined experience on undercover operations and time travel that the two Starfleet crews brought to the table.     “Unless,” Braxton said, interrupting Tom’s internal lamentations. “Unless we do something drastic. Wait here, Ensign Paris, I need to consult with my team. Braxton to all senior staff, report to the briefing room.”     “Uh, sure, okay. I’ll just sit here. Doing nothing,” Tom said. He soon found himself alone on the bridge of the Relativity. After a few moments of uncomfortable silence, he began quietly singing to himself.

    “I've seen all good people turn their heads each day, so satisfied I'm on my way…”

-o-

    Seven of Nine sat next to Commander Tucker in the briefing room, Samantha having chosen to sit out the remainder of this operation to spend time with Naomi on the holodeck. If the Captain was bothered by this blatant disregard of her order, she gave no sign of it.     “I’ll make this brief,” Janeway said. “This mission is completely FUBAR.”     “FUBAR?” Seven said. “I am unfamiliar with that term.”     “I’ll explain later,” Harry Kim said.     Janeway filled Seven, Harry, Tucker, Tuvok, and the Doctor in on what had happened to Chakotay, and how the original plan to talk Jonathan Archer out of his anti-Vulcan biases had been compromised.     “Do we know the nature of the serum used on the Commander?” the Doctor asked, sounding worried.     “Unknown,” Janeway said, “apart from dizziness and a slowing of the heartbeat. We know he’s alive but unconscious as of our last update.”     “I can’t believe that Jon would do this,” Tucker said. “I’ve known him for years, this just doesn’t seem like him. I mean, he had his issues with the Vulcans, but I honestly thought he had that under control.”     “I can’t believe a doctor would go along with this,” the Doctor said. “This Phlox seems to have very loose interpretations of the Hippocratic Oath.”     “According to Ensign Paris,” Janeway continued, “Braxton’s holed up with his senior staff over on the Relativity to come up with another plan. Until then, there’s not much we can do except come up with some ideas of our own in case Braxton’s people fail. Again.”     Seven wondered if there were anything she could’ve done differently while she was undercover on the NX-01 that could’ve avoided this situation.

    “Seven?” Janeway said. “Any thoughts?”     “Regrettably none, Captain,” Seven had to admit. “Captain Archer seemed like a reasonable, rational individual for the most part. The only point of concern Samantha and I had is the same one that Captain Braxton had; his belief about the Vulcans undermining his late father’s work.”     “I always hoped he’d get over that,” Tucker said. “Have we considered just using Braxton’s temporal transporter to bring Archer forward? Hell, maybe that should’ve been done sooner.”     “I am inclined to agree with Mister Tucker,” Tuvok said, speaking up for the first time since the meeting started. “However, that is only with the benefit of hindsight. Temporal mechanics is outside my field my expertise, so I deferred to Captain Braxton’s experience in the field.”

    “I think our biggest mistake was letting Braxton run the operation when it was my people involved,” Janeway said. Seven felt inclined to agree, though chose not to say so out loud. “I should-”     “Bridge to Captain Janeway,” the voice of Sue Brooks said over the com. “The Relativity just opened another temporal rift, but they aren’t going through it. Sensors are detecting another ship though. It looks like the NX-01. Er, another NX-01 I mean.”

    “What the hell is Braxton doing?” Janeway said, echoing similar thoughts in Seven’s head.

-o-

Week Three...

    “Mayweather, report!” Captain Archer yelled.     “Another anomaly sir,” Travis Mayweather said from his navigation console. “Like the one that alien ship that grabbed Commander Tucker and the escaped prisoners came thorugh, but right in front of us. I couldn’t turn in time, inertia is taking us right through it.”     Except it wasn’t an alien ship, Archer thought. It was one of Starfleet’s, just from the future with a holographic camouflage. Am I really that much of a monster in history's eyes?

    “Red alert. Prepare to be boarded,” Archer said, taking his captain’s chair. “Arm phase cannons and antimatter missiles. I’d rather pick a fight I can’t win than let some arrogant pricks from the 29th century tell humanity in the here and now what we’re supposed to do. The future isn’t written for us, isn’t that right. Mister Mayweather?”     Travis didn’t answer right away, and that concerned Archer a good deal. He was about to repeat the question when the helmsman tentatively answered.     “I don’t really believe in destiny. sir. We make our own fate.”

    “Mister Nava, as soon as we exit this portal, open fire on the nearest vessel,” Archer said.     “Sir?” Nava, sitting at the console that Chakotay had sat at for the past two weeks.     “Did I stutter, Ensign?”     “No, no sir,” Nava said, sounding very nervous.     “Don’t worry, Ensign,” Archer said. “they won’t try to destroy us, they’ll want their man back.”     “I’m not sure we could stop them from taking him sir,” Nava said. “If you’ll forgive me for being so blunt.”     “Apology accepted Mister Nava,” Archer said. “Just do your job.”

-o-

    When Captain Janeway entered the bridge, Tom Paris was there, looking confused.     “Tom?” Janeway said.     “Captain, Braxton just had me beamed over here a few seconds ago,” Tom said. “I have no idea what they’re doing.”     “I do,” Janeway said. “They’re bringing the NX-01 here. Take your post.”     “Yes ma’am,” Tom said, sitting down as soon as Ensign Brooks vacated the navigator’s chair.     “Captain,” Trip said, “let me try talking to him. He’s still my friend, maybe he’ll listen before doing something rash.”     “Actually,” Janeway said, “I’m a little more worried about Braxton doing something rash at this point.”

    “The NX-01’s weapons are powered up,” Harry said.     “They have locked onto us, Captain,” Tuvok said.     “Shields up,” Janeway said. “Even outdated weapons can penetrate an unprotected hull.” She turned from looking at Tuvok to look back at the screen, and watched as the NX-01 unleashed its first volley, which impacted harmlessly against Voyager’s shields. “Hail them,” she said.

    “Channel open,” Harry said.     “Captain Archer, this is Captain Kathryn Janeway of the starship Voyager. Please-     “Spare me, Captain,” Archer’s voice responded.     “Can we get a visual?” Janeway said to Harry.     “Let me save you the trouble, Captain,” Archer said. Soon the image of the bridge of the NX-01 filled Voyager’s viewscreen, Archer at dead center, seated in the captain's chair. “I demand that your ship, or the other ship, whichever one it was that brought us here return us to our time immediately.”

    “That would be the other ship,” Janeway said. “The one you aren’t firing at. Cease fire, and I’ll arrange a meeting with Captain Braxton. This nonsense has gone on long enough and we need to settle this. We have something in common Captain; a desire to read a certain 29th Century Starfleet officer the riot act.”     “Read him the riot act?” Archer said with an angry short laugh. “You still use that phrase in your century?”     “Just power down your weapons,” Janeway said. “Braxton and I will meet you on your ship. We’ll exchange ourselves for my first officer.”     “Chakotay?” Archer said. “Fair enough I suppose. Mister Nava, cease fire, and have Mister Chakotay brought to the bridge. I will meet with you and Captain Braxton here in twenty minutes.”     “I’ll come too, Captain,” Tucker said. “Maybe I can hel-”     “Don’t bother, Commander Tucker,” Archer said, “you’ve made your choice. Enjoy your new friends on Voyager.”     “Jon, I can-”     The viewscreen went back to the view of the NX-01, already having ceased firing its weapons.     “He cut us off,” Harry said.     “I can see that,” Janeway said. “Open a channel to Braxton. He’ll be joining me if I have to drag him over there by his ears.”     Janeway glanced over at Commander Tucker, who looked utterly defeated.     “I’m sure he’ll forgive you in time,” Janeway said. Tucker sighed.

    “I hope so. I’d hate to think that helping you cost me my best friend,” he said.     “Stay here for now, Trip,” Janeway said, walking over to put a hand on Tucker’s shoulder. “I’ll do my best to get you back to your ship.”

-o-     “Just what in every known sentient race’s version of Hell were you thinking Braxton?” Janeway yelled as soon as she was standing on the transporter pad on the Relativity.     “Removing Jonathan Archer from the equation and ensuring the existence of Starfleet,” Braxton said, looking defiant. “The plan, before Archer decided to shoot first and ask questions later, which I swear was not something we expected even with his increased paranoia, was to bring him here long enough to exchange Mister Tucker for Mister Chakotay, then bring the NX-01’s crew to the 29th century and leave the ship itself here.”     “It was a stupid plan, Braxton,” Janeway said. “Quite possibly one of the most idiotic blunders I have ever seen in my life. And I’m equally stupid for having gone along with you in the first place, for letting you drag me and my crew into your mission. Just how far have Starfleet’s standards fallen in the five hundred years from my time that someone like you gets made Captain of the most advanced ship in the fleet?”     “What gives you the right to insult me on my-”     “Get your ass on that transporter pad now, Braxton,” Janeway said. “We are going over to the NX-01, we are going to have a civil chat with Captain Archer, and we are going to clean up your goddamn mess!”     Janeway knew that Braxton had the upper hand here; his ship, and technology far in advance of her own, but she hoped that with enough righteous fury thrown in his direction, he would buckle and go along with her instead of trying to take control of the situation again, in which case he would almost certainly make things worse.

    “Very well then, Captain. Chief?” Braxton said to the Cardassian standing at the transporter room main console. “Beam us directly the NX-01’s bridge, as per Captain Archer’s request.”     “Yes sir,” the transporter chief said.  

-o-

    Chakotay rubbed at his temples, glad that his hands were free to do so. He was on the bridge of the NX-01 again, but this time as a prisoner, with Ensign Nava having a phase pistol set on stun pointed at him.

    The familiar sound of a transporter beam got him to focus his still somewhat blurry vision, a leftover side effect of Phlox’s truth serum, and soon a very angry looking Captain Janeway, and a somewhat embarrassed looking Captain Braxton were standing in front of the NX-01 viewscreen.     Nava, Archer, and Mayweather all turned to point their phase pistols at the two other Captains.     “Stay right there,” Archer said. “Mister Nava, check them for weapons.”     “We came unarmed,” Janeway said, her hands already up. “We just want to talk Captain Archer. Starfleet Captains to Starfleet Captain.”     “I don’t recognize the authority of future Starfleet officers,” Archer said. “Far as I’m concerned, neither of you exist yet. The only reasons I’m not throwing you two in the brig right now are one, I’m sure your people could easily just snatch you without any resistance, and two, because I’m a man of my word. Have Voyager beam Mister Chakotay back, and we can start talking, though I make no promises that I will go along quietly with anything you propose.”

    “Captain, I-” Chakotay started to say, but Janeway cut him off with a look.     “Janeway to Voyager, lock on to Commander Chakotay and beam him directly to sickbay.”     “Aye, Captain,” Chakotay heard Harry Kim’s voice say, and before he could protest, he felt the tingling sensation that came with a transporter beam in progress.     I hope you can get him to calm down, Chakotay thought, as his component atoms were broken down for transport. This mission has been a real cluster-

-o-

Once Chakotay was gone, Archer nodded at his people to put their phase pistols away, while he did the same. He sat back down in the captain’s chair and crossed his legs.     “So,” he said. “Talk.”     “Since you already know the reason my people were on your ship in the first place,” Janeway said, “I’ll skip to the chase. Captain Braxton’s plan is to take you and your crew into the 29th century in order to preserve the current timeline. What I hope to accomplish, on the other hand, is to assuage your concerns about the Vulcans so you and your people can go home, and history can carry on as normal, only with you and the crew of the NX-01 getting to take part in it.”

“I don’t like either of those, Captain Janeway,” Archer said. “Though I must admit, you must be quite persuasive to keep Braxton from just taking control of the operation, given his ship is clearly superior to yours and ours put together. I doubt we could stop him if we tried.”

“I,” Braxton said, pausing, and sighing before starting over. “I concede that I handled this operation badly. I chose the Voyager crew because of past experiences with them, rather than finding experts on 22nd century history from my own time. Time travel has been done by humanity since the mid 23rd century, and that’s just the incidents we know of, but it’s only been within my lifetime we began to understand it. I accept responsibility for my failures, clearly my crew and I still have a great deal to learn.”     “That was very big of you, Braxton,” Janeway said, though Archer wondered if he heard a hint of sarcasm in her reply.     “I have listened to your proposals, or at least the summaries thereof,” Archer said. “And I reject both of them. I demand me and my people, sans Commander Tucker who would only face dishonorable discharge and possibly jail time if he came back with us, be allowed to return to our time. We also humbly request any and all information you have about this race called the Borg, and any data you have on any technologies the Vulcans have at this time that they aren’t sharing with us.”

“You can’t be serious,” Braxton said. “That kind of information in your hands, I don’t even want to think about the chaos that could wreak on the history of the Alpha Quadrant!”     “For once I’m inclined to agree with Braxton here,” Janeway said. “The Vulcans are our longest lasting allies. Your judgment is clouded by-”     “I know they didn’t sabotage my father’s work,” Archer said, standing up. He stepped forward so quickly that Braxton flinched, and Janeway visibly struggled not to. “I drugged your XO, remember? But it doesn’t matter, they still could’ve helped us. They have always been reluctant to share with us what we need in order to thrive out here.”     “The Vulcans were not at their best in your time Archer,” Janeway said. “My tactical officer, Tuvok, is Vulcan. He’s also my oldest friend. It’s not easy for him to admit his people’s shortcomings. They are the mirror of us in that regard, sometimes we humans fall into the trap of exaggerating our own mistakes of the past. We almost paint ourselves as monsters, as if that somehow makes how far we’ve come as a species more impressive than it already is.”

“What are you talking about?” Archer said, unsure whether or not Janeway was trying to pull a fast one on him.

“My point,” Janeway said, now stepping forward so that she was practically nose to nose with Archer, “is that at this time, in their history, the Vulcans had been in a prolonged conflict with a race called the Andorians. They don’t want to admit it, but the constant back and forth between cold and hot wars have left them as paranoid as you are. They’re slow to trust us. And yet, even with that paranoia, they still saw enough potential in us to invite us to the galactic table. Think about that for a second before you condemn them. As for the Andorians, before you ask, humanity goes a long way towards settling that conflict, and they end up being one of the other four founding races of the Federation, along with us, the Vulcans, and the Tellarites who you also haven’t met yet.”     Archer did not want to admit it, but he believed Janeway. That should’ve made him feel better, deep down he knew that. Instead though it made him angrier, so angry that he took a step back away from Captain Janeway in order to avoid screaming at her.     “They could’ve just told us this,” he said. “They could’ve just explained why they had legitimate concerns about sharing their knowledge.”     “Yes,” Janeway said. “Remember Tuvok, the officer and friend I told you about? He’s the one who explained that to me. The Vulcans of my time know they could’ve handled things better. But they also know, and so do I, that letting such past mistakes rule your thinking, especially when you have more than made up for those errors with great deeds that have benefitted billions, is illogical.”     “Illogical,” Archer said with a laugh. “That’s their word.”     “Right, like no human ever used that word back before we even knew there were other races in the galaxy,” he heard Braxton mutter.     “Braxton?” Janeway said. “You’re not helping.”     “If you two are finished bickering,” Archer said, louder than he’d meant to, “can we get back to the matter of my demands?”

    Janeway sighed.     “As much as I hate to admit it, Captain Archer,” she said, suddenly avoiding eye contact, “Braxton is right about one thing. Your anti-Vulcan biases are a threat to our way of life. Even if we send you back as per your request, we’d be obligated to do something to undermine your standing with the public back on Earth. Assuming that my First Officer is wrong and that’s not already happening.”

    “Maybe,” Archer said, after taking a deep breath to try and calm himself. “Maybe not. We do still have Chakotay’s recorded confession, and the medical data on the truth serum. We also still have some of Annika Hansen slash Seven of Nine’s inert Borg nanoprobes. Starfleet Command will believe me about the spying being done on us by our own people from the future, and they will work to ensure that we don’t-”     “This is pointless,” Braxton said, slapping the insignia on the chest of his uniform. “Braxton to Relativity, start beaming-”     Archer pulled out his phase pistol and fired so fast that for a split second he was afraid that he had put it on the kill setting. Janeway looked shocked, but made no move to contact her own ship, at least none that he could see. Archer saw that Mayweather and Nava looked equally shocked, the former even looking downright terrified of his own commanding officer     “Captain,” she said.     “Shut up!” Archer said.     “Relativity to Braxton,” a voice said, coming from Braxton’s chest. “Captain, are you there? What happened?”     “Archer to engineering,” Archer said. This had all gone too far. There was no going home, but he refused to be dropped into the 29th century like some kind of homeless refugee. “Initiate self-destruct process. Authorization Archer Gamma Zeta Six.”

    There was a brief silence, then the assistant chief engineer, his voice cracking, said “Aye sir. Time?”     “As soon as it’s ready to blow, do it,” Archer said. “We can’t give those other ships out there time to grab us.”     “Aye, sir.”     “Captain, you can’t do this,” Mayweather said. “This is insane.”     “I’ve made my decision, Ensign,” Archer said. “I will not let this ship be taken by-” Archer suddenly felt an unfamiliar tingling sensation on his skin, his voice suddenly locked in place, his rage going, his body enveloped in light and suddenly-

-o-

    “All NX-01 personnel, as well as the Captain and Braxton, are in Cargo Bay 1,” Harry Kim said.     “Good job Harry,” Chakotay said, sitting in the captain's chair on Voyager's bridge, still in his 22nd century era uniform. “Tuvok, can we disable the NX-01’s self-destruct from here?”     “Negative,” Tuvok said. “attempt to take control of their systems from here have failed. Their systems are simply too primitive to be compatible with-”     A flash on the viewscreen cut the tactical officer off. The brightness of the explosion that tore the NX-01 apart was filtered out by the viewscreen. Chakotay watched sadly as the debris that flew outward impacted harmlessly on the Relativity’s shields, or pierced the already broken hull of the other NX-01, the one that Voyager had come across less than a month prior.     “Janeway to security, I need a team in the cargo bay to subdue Captain Archer,” Janeway’s voice said over the com. In the background Chakotay could hear Archer’s voice, ranting, screaming, threatening everyone around him.     “On my way, Captain,” Tuvok said.

    “I’ll come with,” Trip said. “I might still be able to get through to him.”     “Go,” Chakotay said. “And good luck Trip,”     “Thanks, Commander,” Trip said, following Tuvok into the turbolift.

-o-

    Janeway put herself between Archer and Braxton’s still unconscious body. As the rest of the NX-01 crew, looking confused at their surroundings and many huddling closer together than they already were, stood back, Archer’s ranting began again. His crew simply watched in silence as he became increasingly incomprehensible, each new theory about why this was happening to him more ludicrous than the one before it, and he seemed to have a new one every thirty seconds. Phlox had tried to calm him down once, and had a phase pistol pointed in his face for the trouble.

    The cargo bay doors opened, and Tuvok, Commander Tucker, and a small security detail walked in, their own weapons drawn.     “Captain Archer,” Tuvok said, calmly but forcefully. “Please put down your weapon.”     “This is set to kill,” Archer said, now pointing it at Janeway. “Send me and my crew back to our time, or I will-”     Tuvok was faster. He fired his phaser, and Archer fell backwards, dropping his phase pistol. Many of the NX-01 crew members jumped back in shock, but Phlox and a young woman ran to Archer’s side.     Trip Tucker shook his head, and looked sadder than Janeway had seen him yet, more so than on the bridge not more than an hour ago.     “Mister Tucker?” she said, walking over to him. “Are you alright?”     “How would you feel if you just saw your best friend and commanding officer threaten an unarmed fellow officer while screaming at the top of his lungs?” he said.     Janeway had no response to that.     “Captain,” Tuvok said. “Doctor Phlox and Ensign Cutler from the NX-01 insist on escorting Captain Archer to sickbay, and are being quite hostile over the matter. Shall I have them escorted to the brig?”     “No,” Janeway said. “Go with them personally, and once Archer is awake put him in the brig. Trip, stay here with your people. Try to keep them calm.”     “I’ll do my best, Cap,” Tucker said.     “Do that,” Janeway said. She tapped her comm badge. “Bridge, contact the Relativity. Tell them Braxton is alive but injured. Let them beam him directly to their sickbay.”     “Understood,” Chakotay’s voice replied, not pressing the matter any further.     Janeway left the cargo bay alongside Tuvok, who then followed Phlox and Cutler as they carried Captain Archer down the corridor. Once they were out of site, Janeway leaned against the bulkhead, and groaned.     “I am so sick of all this time travel shit,” she muttered to herself. “If I never see another time machine in my life it’ll be too soon.”

-o-

    The Doctor did the best he could not to throw snide remarks in the direction of Doctor Phlox, especially since the later of the two Doctors was clearly upset, not just over seeing his Captain get shot but also over the deaths of all his animals aboard the NX-01.     “Captain Archer will be fine,” he said to the Denobulan doctor and his human friend as they stood by Archer’s bio-bed. “I will have to ask you to step aside now though. Mister Tuvok will be putting him in the brig.”

    “Is that absolutely necessary?” Phlox said.     “Phlox, he threatened their captain,” the human, Cutler, said, putting a hand gently on Phlox’s shoulder. The friendly gesture did little to calm the other doctor down.     “Doctor Phlox,” the Doctor said, “surely you’ve noticed that your commander was growing increasingly unstable in recent days. You had an obligation to the safety of your shipmates that should supercede your loyalty to your friend.”     “What would you know about loyalty?” Phlox said. “You’re a hologram. A highly sophisticated one I admit, to be able to administer such a complex sickbay by yourself, but still.”

    The Doctor rolled his eyes.     “I can’t be appreciated for my talents in any century can I?” he said.

    “Okay that is enough,” Cutler said. “How exactly is more bickering supposed to fix anything? It’s been people shouting or condescending at each other left and right that got us all in this mess in the first place.”

    The Doctor was ready to reply, but he saw the sickbay door open. Captain Janeway walked in, Tuvok only a step behind her

    “What got us in this mess,” she said, “is old fashioned human arrogance. It makes me sad to see we still can fall victim to it even five hundred years from my lifetime. Doctor, is Captain Archer well enough to transfer to the brig?”     “He is, Captain,” the Doctor said, ignoring Phlox’s angry glare.

    “I suppose you’ll want the rest of us in the brig too,” Phlox said.     “Don’t tempt me,” Janeway said. “Especially not after what you did to my first officer. But no, the rest of the NX-01 crew is free to move about, though they won’t be allowed any access to ship’s systems. That includes you, though Commander Chakotay has a lot of friends here who aren’t quite as forgiving as I am.”     Phlox’s face went expressionless.     “I will take that under advisement,” Phlox said.

    “Good,” Janeway said. The Doctor went over to Archer, and using a hypospray woke him up. He had restraints in place just in case, but the Captain turned prisoner only let out a resigned sigh, after which Tuvok and the Captain escorted Archer out, Phlox following a respectful distance behind.     The Doctor was rather surprised that Cutler had remained behind.     “Doctor,” she said, “if you don’t mind my asking, why is this ship’s chief medical officer a hologram?”     The Doctor smiled.     “I’d be more than happy to share my story with you Miss Cutler. It’s nice to see that there were some reasonable people on board the NX-01.”     “Be fair, Doctor,” Cutler said. “It’s not that we’re unreasonable. Captain Archer's, well, issues with the Vulcans aside. But we have experienced some rather unreasonable things lately.”     “That is a fair point,” the Doctor admitted. He opened his mouth to start telling Cutler about how he’d first been activated aboard Voyager, but then a thought occurred to him, though he imagined he would have to argue with Braxton over it. “Tell me, Miss Cutler, do you perchance have any training as a nurse?”

-o-

    Captain Janeway stepped out of the turbolift onto the bridge, feeling somewhat less tense and angry over the whole situation. She looked over at Chakotay, who still had not yet changed out of the period appropriate uniform he’d been wearing when he was rescued.     “Captain,” he said. “Any more problems with Archer?”

    “Tuvok has him in the brig,” Janeway said. “Trip is in the cargo bay with the rest of the NX-01 crew. Any word from the Relativity?”

    “Not yet,” Chakotay said.     “Hail them,” Janeway said.

    “Aye Captain,” Harry Kim said. The viewscreen changed from a view of the debris field of the former NX-01, with only part of the Relativity visible on the right-hand side, to that of the Relativity’s bridge, and her first officer, Lieutenant Juel Ducane, sitting in the Captain’s chair.     “Captain Janeway,” he said, “good to hear from you. I take it you have the situation well in hand?”     “As well as can be expected,” Janeway said. “Has Captain Braxton not yet recovered?”     “He has actually,” Ducane said. “Captain Archer’s weapon was only set on stun. However, Braxton has decided to recuse himself from the remainder of the mission. He left me explicit orders to follow your lead.”     “Good,” Janeway said. “If he kept trying to fix things the way he has been we’d end up with humanity being a slave race to the Gorn or something.”

    “I think it’s safe to say we can’t really return any of the NX-01 crew to the 22nd century without causing any serious problems,” Janeway said.     “Maybe not, Captain,” Ducane said. “The version of the NX-01 you found earlier this month is still there, and it appears all its escape pods are relatively intact all things considered.”     “I think I see where you’re going with this,” Janeway said, “but if we return the escape pods to the area and time we brought them from will there be any ships nearby that can rescue them?”     “According to our records there should be at least two human-run freighters and one Vulcan long range exploration vessel that could reach them before their emergency supplies ran out,” Ducane said. “We would simply need to convince the NX-01 crew not to tell Starfleet command about what really happened. Also, I think we’d need to bring Captain Archer, and probably Doctor Phlox as well, with us to the 29th century in order to reduce the risk of timeline contamination.” Ducane suddenly looked down and rubbed the back of his neck nervously. “Or rather, worse contamination than we’ve already caused.”

    Janeway did still feel resentment over the pain caused to her crew as a result of this whole operation, but none of that was on Ducane. All her ire was saved for Captains Archer and Braxton.     “Agreed,” she said. “I’ll consult with Commander Tucker, and we’ll talk to the NX-01 crew. Have your people begin fixing up the escape pods.”     “Right away Captain,” Ducane said. The communication ended, and the viewscreen returned to its original view, after which Harry Kim said something very similar to what Janeway was thinking at that exact moment.     “Why couldn’t he have been in charge of this mission instead of Braxton?”

-o-

    Naomi Wildman had heard her mother say that she was too good at sneaking around the ship, and that she didn’t want her to do it anymore. She felt guilty about doing it now, but she wanted to talk to the Starfleet captain from the past. She wanted to know why; why he hated Vulcans so much, why he put her mom in jail, why he blew up his own ship, all things that Naomi just could not wrap her mind around.

    She managed to get to the brig, but Lydia Anderson, who was on guard duty for this shift, stopped her from going up to the force field around Archer’s cell.     “You’re not supposed to be down here, Miss Wildman,” Anderson said. “Does your mom know where you are?”     “She’s asleep,” Naomi lied, her mother actually being in the lab on the same deck as sickbay. “I just wanted to ask Captain Archer some questions.”     “Let her stay,” Jonathan Archer said, lying back on the bed of his cell, looking up at the ceiling. “It’s not like I can do anything to her behind a force field, and with an armed guard standing by. Oh, and also she’s a friggin’ child. Has anything I’ve done suggested I would ever hurt a kid?”     “You blew up your own ship,” Anderson said, “just ‘cause it flew through a temporal rift. That to me does not suggest a stable personality, sir.”     “I like how you managed to make ‘sir’ rhyme with ‘jackass’ there,” Archer said. “Well done.”     “Naomi, come on,” Anderson said. “Don’t make me call your mom.”     “Ask your question kid,” Archer said.

    “Did you really blow up your own ship?” Naomi said.

    “Yep,” Archer said.     “Why?”     Archer sat up and looked sad.     “I don’t know,” he said. “I know why I think I did it, but maybe that’s not really why I did it. Know what I mean?”     “No,” Naomi said. She looked up at Anderson. “I’m gonna go now,” she said to the security officer.     “Good idea,” Anderson said.     “Naomi?” Archer said as Naomi started walking towards the exit. “For what it’s worth, I didn’t arrest your Mom and her girlfriend to be mean. From where I was sitting it looked like they were spying on my people, and a good Captain protects their crew.”

    “I know,” Naomi said. “Captain Janeway says that too. I don’t think she’d blow up Voyager just because she was mad though. She hates time travel too, but we’re still here.”     Archer nodded, and went back to lying down. Naomi shook her head and left, feeling sorry for the Starfleet captain from the past. She hoped he would get better.

-o-

Seven of Nine wondered what had happened to Archer during his time in the brig that made him so passive as he stood on the transporter pad next to a pair of security officers from the Relativity, as well as Doctor Phlox. She also wondered why she had decided to be there along with Captain Janeway, Commander Chakotay, and Commander Tuvok.

The rest of the NX-01 crew had decided to go along with the escape pod plan, and had promised not to reveal anything about the future to the Starfleet of the time, though some had required some coaxing as well as the aid of memory erasing drugs. Archer and Phlox however, were both deemed too dangerous to be allowed to return. They would not face any jail time once they got to the 29th century, but they would not be allowed to serve in Starfleet. According to Lieutenant Ducane, there were training programs and support groups for “temporally displaced persons” that the two could join and hopefully lead fulfilling lives.     “For what it’s worth, Captain,” Janeway said, “I’m sorry that it came down to this.”     “Tell me, Captain,” Archer said, “in the original timeline, the one where my ship was destroyed and ended up out here in the Delta Quadrant, did you or Braxton ever find out what really happened to us that day?”     Janeway sighed and shook her head.     “That sadly remains an unanswered question,” she said. “Braxton’s looking to take an early retirement I hear, so that’s going to be on Ducane to figure out I suppose. I imagine he’ll have better luck. He had a good role model in the sense of learning how not to handle a time travel operation.”     Archer laughed at that, the first time that Seven had seen him show any signs of joy since before he’d had her and Sam arrested. Seven moved behind the transporter room console which was unmanned due to a shift change. Had she not come along with the Captain and Chakotay one of them would likely be operating it instead since whoever was supposed to take over next wasn’t there yet.

“Well,” Archer said. “Let’s get this over with.”     “Agreed,” Phlox said. “Once this is over I hope to never see another time travel device for as long as I live. And that is a long time as you may well know.”     Seven looked at Janeway, who nodded. Seven began manipulating the transporter controls, and soon they were gone. The Relativity had already sent the rest of the NX-01 crew back to the 22nd century, along with most of the debris from the destroyed ship. Trip had gone with them, as had Ensign Cutler, though rumor had it both had toyed with the idea of staying on Voyager.     “Well,” Chakotay said, “glad that’s finally over. Do you think we’ll ever see or hear from the Relativity again?”     “Ducane wouldn’t make any promises,” Janeway said. “but he did say it’s doubtful it’ll happen as long as it’s his ship. I hope he’s right.”     “As do I,” Seven said.     “So, Seven,” Janeway said, as the three of them left the transporter room. “what did you think of Earth?”     “It’s my understanding the parts of it I actually saw have changed very little in the two hundred years since I was there,” Seven said. “Perhaps one day, Samantha and Naomi and I can see for ourselves. I am more disappointed I didn’t get to see too many other worlds while I was there. I would’ve liked more opportunities to compare and contrast data from that with Federation historical archives, possibly correct any inaccuracies.”

Janeway chuckled.     “You know Seven,” Chakotay said, “I never had you pegged for a history buff.”     “I am hoping to ascertain how an era of humanity that produced some of its most respected individuals could also produce someone as troubled as Jonathan Archer,” Seven said. “Or for that matter how someone so troubled would be given the chance to captain what was at the time the Human race’s most advanced starship.”

    “Nepotism maybe?” Chakotay said. “The ship’s core feature was its engine, which was based largely on his father’s work.”

    “Possible,” Seven said. “though I doubt that would be the sole reason.”

    “The only person who really knows the answer to that is Archer,” Janeway said. “And he was never going to tell us. He probably can’t even admit it to himself, let alone others. I wouldn’t put any of that on the 22nd century though. For all our gains as a species, humanity still has its metaphorical warts. Even in our time. Still, I do hope that Jonathan Archer is the last Starfleet captain I ever meet who has lost his way.”

    “I’ll drink to that,” Chakotay said.