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kbstories · 5 years ago

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Contingent

con·tin·gent (adj.) Dependent on; conditional.

There's only one thing Trafalgar Law is truly afraid of.

(Or: Bepo will be damned if he loses Law just when he got him back.)

Tags: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Sickfic, Nakamaship, Amber Lead Syndrome, Medical Inaccuracies, Childhood Trauma, Law whumps well and I have no excuse

Set between Zou and Wano. Read Chapter 2 here.

***

To say the Polar Tang is a tight fit is an accurate, if unfortunate, assessment.

Years ago, the shipwright they commissioned to make their submarine-turned-ship a reality had cautioned them about the limited capacity. Back in the North Blue, the logistics of cramming more than two dozen people into close quarters with high-pressure machinery seemed a far-away problem at best.

That was long before Jean Bart entered the picture, patient as their helmsman had been to accommodate the narrow spaces of his new home. The nightshift Uni and Clione had pulled to present him with a set of his very own Heart Pirates-branded overalls the next day probably had something to do with it, too.

And maybe it’s because they haven’t had guests in a while (or at least, none that were conscious enough to count), or that Law’s paranoia has rubbed off on Bepo more than he likes to admit… When their mismatched group of allies take the first step on deck, Bepo is watching them like a hawk.

The fact of the matter is: Bepo loves the Tang. They all do. She’s the one that carried them from the North’s frigid waters all the way into the New World. She’s the best. All they – pirates and samurai alike – give her are curious glances, though, neither overly positive nor notably negative as they follow Trafalgar Law into the bowels of his submarine.

Well, with exception of that Strawhat cyborg, Franky. The moment they’re inside he’s gone, fawning over metal walls and neatly-welded seams like they’re the delicate linework of an artist; all Ikkaku can do to prevent any damage to her baby is to run after him. Her harsh reminders to be careful grow fainter and fainter as the rest moves on.

Ikkaku was against this whole alliance thing and yet, Bepo assumes it’s only a matter of time until their chief engineer is charmed, too. It’s one of those inevitable things that tend to happen around the Strawhats.

In any case, Law doesn’t seem bothered and so Bepo isn’t, either. It’s not like the captain lets them dwell on it for long, anyways – he shuffles their guests into the galley like a goose herds its chicks and gives Penguin a handful of minutes to organize some snacks for everyone before the crew is called to the control room. In one big gulp, Bepo swallows the rest of his sandwich and off he goes.

He gets there just as Law emerges from the captain’s cabin in a fresh change of clothes and still-moist hair. “Ready?”, Law asks him, looking worn out still but sounding excited by his own standards, and Bepo nods with a fanged grin.

“Ready, Captain.”

The tanks are flooded and the engine purrs below their feet. From there, the Heart Pirates flit in and out and around Trafalgar Law like blood cells under a microscope and Bepo?

Bepo stands by Law’s side, one eye on the Log Pose and the other on the currents, and feels his pulse even out. There’s nothing like home.

The Tang quiets to a comforting hum once the course is set and optimal velocity is achieved, a background noise as familiar to Bepo as the cadence of Law’s voice. The residual heat from the engine room is making everyone but Bepo sweat in their suits, and he’d feel smug about it if his paws and nose weren’t wet with perspiration too–

It’s then that he remembers their allies, more specifically the only people without proper gear to be in a submerged submarine, and Bepo curses his own neglect under his breath for all of a second. By that point Bart is already letting go of the helm to pat Bepo's head, an automatic gesture of comfort.

“I told them to wait”, he says and shrugs a bit sheepishly because, as it turns out, the Strawhats actually listened. Bepo finds them lounging around one of the tables, just where they left them; the three from Wano Country are huddled in the corner a bit further away, heads stuck together to catch up. The Strawhats are in the middle of a round of some card game, it seems, even if their expressions are serious enough to make Bepo wonder if there’s more to it. He hovers in their periphery, hesitant to interrupt.

Suddenly, Nico Robin looks up and smiles. Usopp groans, throwing his hand away.

“I give up! You’re impossible, Robin. Impossible.”

“Bear”, Zoro greets him, gaze sliding lazily from his cards to Bepo. “You any good at Continental?”

“Uh”, Bepo replies intelligently. Conti-what? A glimpse at the cards Robin plays doesn’t reveal any epiphanies to him, either. “Sorry. I don’t know what that is.”

“It’s a card game from the East Blue”, Robin explains while she holds out a patient hand for Zoro’s cards as well. It’s one summoned by her powers, not that Zoro seems to mind as he rolls his eye and relinquishes the (presumably bad) hand he had. “Nami is a real devil at it.”

Usopp leans far back in his chair. “Playing this without her to knock out Robin early on is hopeless”, he adds with a dramatic sigh.

Bepo’s ears twitch in interest. Nami, their navigator? “Ah. Perhaps you can show me–” The sentence crashes into the realization that he's letting himself be distracted, again. “Later! Show me later. You guys need suits, and a tour around the– Wait, where’s Franky?”

Robin chuckles rather fondly. “Don’t mind him”, she tells Bepo, “Franky is easily excitable by the prospect of a new ship to tinker with”, and before Bepo can feel put out by her just deciding that, she glances over Bepo’s shoulder. A pause, pensive.

“I can reel him in, though. Your ship, your rules, Mr. Traffy.”

A huff confirms Law’s presence behind him a moment before he puts a hand on Bepo’s elbow, undemanding. Out of habit, Bepo nudges their shoulders together to acknowledge his captain properly and Law’s fingers tighten, once.

“Better get it out of Franky's system now, I suppose. We’re still close enough to the surface that an explosion or two won’t kill us all.”

Law’s voice is utterly deadpan and it’s most certainly a joke – Robin is snickering good-naturedly, too – but Bepo still gives his captain a look. These are the Strawhats they’re talking about.

Law just shakes his head, a movement so subtle it might as well not exist at all. Bepo lets out a breath. No sudden deaths by drowning today, how nice.

“As Bepo said: You need suits and a tour. Wano people, you too. Zoro, you need a guide.”

“Oi.”

“Hey, why the suits?”

That last one comes from Usopp, and Bepo opens his mouth to offer a perfectly rational answer–

“So the Tang doesn’t boil you alive”, Law says and gives them a sweet smile. It drops off his lips immediately. “Any other questions? I’ll send Uni over for your measurements. He’s the guy with the bandana. Shachi will show you around. Bepo, a word?”

Bepo nods along and… Huh?

As first mate, tour duty should fall onto him – after all, it’s a good way for him to gauge who exactly they invited into their home – but something in Law’s tone makes Bepo’s instincts perk up and pay attention and oh, Law hasn’t let go of his elbow yet.

Bepo doesn’t have time to ask his captain what’s wrong before blue engulfs them both and the world shifts around them.

Shambles is a mixture of falling and being held; for Bepo, the unique feeling of Law’s powers is a long-kept comfort, simultaneously a vanguard and the last line of defense in every battle they have fought together.

When it fades, Bepo finds himself in the captain’s cabin – the sight of floor-to-ceiling bookshelves lining the walls is a familiar one, the whirlwind of documents all across the desk not so much – and there’s no time to ponder on that before Law holds his hands inches from Bepo’s nose and tells him to look.

“Wha–?”

“Just– Humor me. What do you see?”

Bepo snaps his jaws shut because Law is serious, the air of snarky rudeness gone without a trace, and Bepo looks and sees... Well, nothing. There’s tan skin and fingernails kept obsessively neat; there are the precise lines of the tattoos that have been there for years.

Law’s hands are trembling.

“I don’t see anything, Captain”, Bepo says honestly. Gently, too, because anything that involves Law insisting like that is wrapped in caution tape and staked with warning signs, do not enter, all the way up to the ocean’s surface.

Law curses, then, shaking out his arms in an effort to stop the tremors and it’s wrong, for a surgeon’s hands to be that unsteady. He starts tugging at his clothes and Bepo watches, concern swelling bigger and bigger in his chest – Law’s hat falls to the ground unnoticed when he pulls his shirt over his head in one rough motion.

“Look”, he repeats, golden eyes gone cold and hard. His chest heaves with how heavy he’s panting, muscles taught under the strain; Law’s arm is the only thing left covered, bandaged all the way to his shoulder.

“Anything?”

Bepo does, expression carefully blank as he forces himself to look past the ink and all the things that make Law Law and directly at what’s hidden in plain sight: faded by time, he spots the outline of pale-white scars that have always been there, pre-dating even the fateful day they met.

Then, Bepo shakes his head. “Nothing. There’s nothing, Captain. It’s the same as always.”

“Honest?”

It’s a rushed breath, barely a question at all. It takes Bepo back a decade, the raw fear in it unchanged and belonging to a boy just scratching manhood, struggling to trust the one friend he has in the world. “Honest”, Bepo promises like he always has, and for all of his twenty-two years the ache in his heart feels ancient.

“Talk to me, Law. Please. You’re scaring me.”

Finally, Law inhales sharply and nods, fingers dragging through his hair the way he does after a close call, another life barely saved.

“Something’s not right. I didn’t notice with everything else going on but I’m tired and everything hurts? It’s like I’m about to pass out, fucking… faint like I used Room too much and things get fuzzy around the edges but I haven’t. All I’ve been doing is sleep and eat, I don’t– It makes no sense. And it’s not going away, Bepo.”

Bepo wants to hug him, the need to hold him close and tell him to breathe writhing inside him like a separate being. Law isn’t done yet and somehow it’s even worse to witness him trying to wrest himself into a semblance of control, to drag himself away from all-too-familiar devastation.

“Fatigue. That’s how it starts”, Law tells him, like he’s talking about a patient wholly unrelated to himself. He holds up his hand and counts down with his fingers, one at a time, utterly methodical. “Then pain in the limbs, difficulties concentrating for longer periods of time, discoloration of the skin and hair, high fever and–”

There are no more fingers left, all of them tucked against Law’s palm and exposing all five letters.

“–ultimately: death.”

Bepo can’t take it anymore. “Captain–”, he starts and again he’s interrupted.

“I must’ve missed something.”

Something flashes in Law’s eyes, something unstable and mad-looking and this is bad, Bepo thinks numbly. Very, very bad.

“I thought I cured it but I was a kid, Bepo. Nobody knows the long-term effects of surviving Amber Lead Syndrome, nobody lived long enough to tell. Just because there're no new spots doesn’t mean it’s gone. And what if there’s deposits on a molecular level? I couldn’t cut cells back then without Kikoku but I can now–”

“Law, stop! Shut up!”

Bepo hasn't shouted at Law and truly meant it in a long, long time. Law’s eyes go wide and the frantic rambling stops, and Bepo is done hesitating: He reaches through that gap and touches Law’s forehead, heat searing into the sensitive skin of his paw pads immediately. Shit.

“You’re burning up”, Bepo tells him and shakes his head, barrels through the acute panic in Law’s gaze before it can take proper hold. “Stop, okay? Listen to me.” His paws drop to Law’s shoulders, firm, careful where his fingers touch gauze. “Remember our promise on Swallow? You were delirious with pain and bleeding all over the place and you told me–”

Law whispers, “Promise to stop me”, almost as pale as he was when he said it the first time.

“Exactly. I promised to never let you operate without a clear head ever again ‘cause you’re only human, Captain, and you make mistakes like this. So this is me, stopping you. You’re unwell and you’re scared and you’re not gonna cut into your own cells looking for Amber Lead like this. Okay?”

“Okay”, Law says, the low rasp of his voice growing more solid, close to trusting. Bepo lets himself feel the rapid beat of his own heart for a moment and that, too, is calmer now if only marginally so.

“Okay. So: You’re tired, your body aches, you can’t focus. You have a fever and there’s like, a thousand reasons why that could be aside from– That. And there’s no new spots. What else causes those symptoms? Walk me through it.”

“The flu? Other viruses. Anemia. Iron deficiency in general. Uh–”

A few seconds pass where Law just thinks, brow furrowed and shining with sweat, and Bepo reaches blindly for the hoodie he knows he will find crumpled on Law’s desk chair. “Put this on”, he mutters and presses it against Law’s naked chest. Law does, even lets Bepo help when his injured arm catches on fabric and a pained hiss escapes his lips.

Then the scars are covered again, out of Bepo’s and – more importantly – Law’s sight for the most part. Law stops shivering as much and it's not much but it's still good, still progress. Bepo steers Law to the bed and makes him sit down; arms crossed on the back of the chair, Bepo sits directly across from him. Eyes soft, he nudges Law’s boot with his own.

“Captain. What else?”

“Bacterial infections, severe ones. Miningitis? Hmm... Lymphoma. Technically, most types of canc–”

“Whoa, that’s– Let’s stop there. See? Plenty of options. All of them suck, especially that… that last one.” Bepo pauses, can’t help but to ask: “It’s not that, right? You don’t have cancer.”

Law’s expression softens, the overall misery pushed aside for a moment as his lips twitch tiredly and he shakes his head. “No cancer.”

Bepo nods in relief, and his mind is already three steps ahead because they need a plan and Law is not the only Heart Pirate that has a knack for those. “What’s the prescription against fever? Painkillers and…?”

“Antipyretics.”

There’s not much finesse to Bepo searching the cabinet where Law keeps his private stash of medicine. The weight of Law’s eyes on him registers yet his captain says nothing, wordlessly watching Bepo as he reads labels and tries to place everything back where he finds it until– There!

“Got it. Take… uh, how many?”

“Two. And one from the red box. That one, yeah.”

Bepo gives him the pills and waits with crossed arms until Law obediently swallows all of them at once, wincing at– Wait. Water.

Scrambling to the adjacent bathroom, Bepo fills a glass and refills it right after his captain finishes the first, placing it on his nightstand. “My apologies.”

“It’s fine. You’re fussing.”

“You bet I am”, Bepo huffs, uncaring how petulant it makes him sound. “And I’m not done. Now, rest – and I mean rest, Captain, as in not moving from that bed or so help me – and I’ll get Shachi and Penguin to keep you company. You’ll be fine in no time.”

Pointedly, Law folds the covers over his legs, a wordless there, I’m in bed. “Happy?”

“Yes.”

“And you?”

Blinking, Bepo tilts his head at Law. Law just raises an eyebrow and waits, looking vaguely worried and–

Bepo reminds himself that for all he’s a genius his captain is also an idiot.

“You just came back and you’re sick, what do you think I’m gonna do? Figure this out, of course! There’s no way I’m letting you anywhere near one of the Emperors like this, much less freaking Kaido. Also”, he takes a long breath, “I’m taking Kikoku with me and there’s nothing you can do–”

“Fine.”

“–to stop me! …Wait, seriously?”

“Yeah, take it. You’re worried enough as is.” Law shrugs a little, like it’s no big deal he’s allowing Bepo to handle the sword he keeps close even in his sleep. “It’s cursed, though. Be careful.”

Bepo swallows, a little nervous despite himself. “I know. I will. And… we’ll get through this, okay? Just stay put. Don’t do anything stupid.”

Law leans back against the headrest and sighs, “Can't. The meds’ll knock me out in a few.” And perhaps he doesn’t look particularly happy about any of it but he still took the pills Bepo handed him, still decided in that moment to trust Bepo to come up with a solution while he’s down and out.

Determination sets into a tight-lipped smile on Bepo’s face. Law’s trust is all Bepo has ever needed, be it to wrestle ocean currents into submission or to help his best friend find the freedom he’s looking for, one cut string at a time.

“I'll tell 'em to hurry, then. Leave the rest to me, Captain.”

>>Chapter 2.

#one piece #fanfiction #trafalgar law #bepo #one piece fanfiction #i'm still emotional about the heart pirates hey how are you #this fic is also on AO3!#my stuff

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snowydragon10 · 1 year ago

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Also. I am a very silly goose not even mentioning my own version...

I default to the communicators being specially coded Compasses that display the chat like a small hologram screen. Small and compact, easily able to be put into a pocket for quick access and doesn't take up an inventory space.

Sometimes I read fics where certain people like Doc and Iskall- occasionally Etho- use their cybernetics to access the chat. For these guys I imagine that they see the chat through their cyborg eye like VR but no one else sees it.

Speaking of people having privacy, private one on one chats for me go either one of two ways. One, it's just a different message log, like how you text different people on your phone and stuff, pretty basic. The second option is like the first but with an added level of security code so that only the people involved in said private chat can see said chat, even if someone is reading over their shoulder or borrows another person's communicator.

So a thought hit me last night and I'm now wondering...

Whenever us fans create something that involves a person using a communicator in Minecraft (fanfics, fan arts, edits, etc, etc) what does said communicator look like?

How does it display messages? Is it wearable or portable? Do certain characters have a certain/different way to communicate with everyone else? What is your default design whenever you think about it and does it change depending on things like different groups of people or AU's?

I am, very very curious!!

#traffic life smp #newlife smp #hermitcraft #empires smp #qsmpblr #what other Minecraft communities are there???

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youngdreamer3214 · 5 years ago

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Mornings Like these

Disclaimer- I don't own anything.

This a sequel to 'Jealousy, Vodka, Flirting' and ‘Sweet Sorrow’ but can stand on it's own.

No flames please. Please read and review.

First part of this mini- series- Sweet Sorrows, Second part- Jealousy, Vodka, Flirting

Warning- Loads and loads of fluff

Speedy was awake early, and his face had a serene and goofy smile. The reason for his happiness was laying next to him, he looked over and saw her sleeping on his arm and cuddled up to his side.

She looked so beautiful, her long, silky purple hair tied up in a French braid, but one of her shorter locks had slipped out and was caressing her face.

They both had been dating for almost a year now, and he couldn't be happier. It seemed that her calm and collected nature tamed his wild and hyper one. And his playful personality drew her out of her shell.

Their teammates were happy for them and they supported the couple fully. But he had gotten some threats from Cyborg and some graphic details on how he would end his existence if he did hurt his 'little sister'. He would never admit this but his threats were a little scary. Not that he would hurt her, he would rather get hurt than hurt her.

Right now Cyborg was visiting his lady love, Bumblebee in steel city which gave him the opportunity to visit his lady love, Raven.

Right then Raven stirred a little on his arm and snuggled closer to him pulling the archer out of his thoughts and his attention towards her. He shifted a little, trying to make her more comfortable. But she just hugged him closer and mumbled "Stupid Archer".

He smiled and said in a whisper to himself "Even in her sleep she calls me names...is she dreaming about me?"

He leaned over and put her hair behind her ear, caressing her cheek slightly. He strained his neck and leaned down to kiss her cheek.

She shivered, goose bumps arising on her skin and she nuzzled into his neck.

He grinned deviously at her response to his touch and thought "Ooh...I like that." And put his other hand on her waist, enclosing her in his embrace.

He started peppering kisses along her neck and to each kiss she nuzzled deeper into him until their was absolutely no space between them except for their night attire.

After a while she stirred and turned away from him, her back was facing him. He smiled and scooted closer to her, putting his arms around her stomach, pulling her close to him again.

He pulled her hair away from her neck and kissed her pulse, then he moved to her face and kissed her cheek a few times, her temple and her ear. His one hand was around her stomach while the other was holding him up.

He kissed her pulse line, moving to her ear. He started nibbling on her ear a little and then started planting butterfly kisses on her neck. It seemed to tickle her because she started laughing a little and stirred.

She woke up laughing and he could have sworn that his heart rate doubled, he loved hearing her angelic laughter and the fact that he made her laugh made him grin wider.

He continued placing kisses on her neck and she turned to face, she lightly opened her eyes and he was lost in the beauty of her amethyst gaze. He kissed her nose and said "Morning, beautiful."

She smiled at him, feeling the love radiating off him and looked into his mesmerizing eyes and said "Morning handsome...this was one hell of a wake up."

He chuckled and said in his best British accent "Only the best for you, my dear."

She chuckled at him and rolled onto her back, she leaned up on her elbows and started getting up slowly and lazily.

He looked at her trying to get up, but he had other plans for her and tackled her on the bed again. She giggled and exclaimed "Let me go Roy. We should get up."

He nuzzled her neck and lightly kissed her neck again and said "Not yet, babe...I saw you 41 days ago and it has been too long without you."

"we talked almost everyday and had video chats." She reminded him.

He whined "But it's not the same as having you in person because I cannot do this." And he kissed her sensitive below her ear, she shivered but smiled at him. "Nor can I snuggle with you and I was deprived of seeing you as the first thing when I woke up." She could feel the sincerity in his words and smiled widely at that, she tangled her fingers in his hair and said "I know and I missed all these things too."

He pulled his face away from her neck and looked at and said "I missed you...I need some alone time with my love."

She smiled at him and kissed his lips lovingly and after they pulled away she looked at him and stroked his red locks and said "I missed you too, Roy." He smiled at her again and started placing kissed all over her face, she could feel his smile while he kissed her.

She turned so that now she was on top of him and kissed his cheeks, his eyes and she brushed her nose against his lovingly and then leaned down to kiss his lips. He was smiling the whole time.

She pulled away and getting up again when he grabbed her arms and yanked her so that she fell on his chest and before she could do anything, he enclosed her in a powerful and loving embrace. To which she chuckled but responded with equal fervor.

When they parted she looked into his eyes and said brought her hand to cheek, he leaned into her touch and she said "I love you."

He never got tired of hearing those words from her, he held her hand and kissed her palm and said "I love you too."

#speedyrae #speedy #raven #teen titans

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science-lings · 6 years ago

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Pilotwives babysitting peter for the Drabble request :)

Okay, this may not be exactly what you wanted but It’s a plot point in this AU that I wanted to write pretty badly. FYI this is a biodad AU and Peter is a kid. A smaller kid than he usually is.

Peter knew that something had gone wrong. He could feel it in his bones and the way that Aunt Pepper paled when she listened to a voice on the other end of the phone. He could tell that she tried to hide it but he just knew. She calmly uttered instructions to the person on the other end and she looked like she was about to cry. She looked at him for a moment before hanging up the phone and giving him a half-hearted smile.

“Hey, Petey? How do you feel about visiting your Aunt Carol and Aunt Maria? I have to go take care of some things at work and it might take a while.”

“What’s wrong?” Peter immediately asked. He knew that something was up but he didn’t know how worried he should be so he ended up being extra worried just in case it was something really bad. He wasn’t disappointed.

“Your dad ran into some problems in Afganistan, You know he was there for the weapons demonstration, right?” She said carefully as if she had to think about every word that she said to him. Peter only nodded in response. He had a feeling that the problems his dad ran into were not something like a leopard in the distance or a car breaking down.

“Wasn’t Uncle Rhodey with him?”

“Yeah… Yeah, he was…” Peter didn’t get much information beyond that.

They just waited for his aunts to arrive in their strange little aircraft. It had always amazed him every time he saw it but for some reason, it wasn’t very interesting this time. He had taken a long time to pack, he didn’t know how long he’d be gone. Aunt Pepper helped him of course but he could practically feel her anxiety and it just made him more nervous.

It took a few hours for Aunt Carol and Maria to get there as they lived pretty far away, but that whole time, Aunt Pepper didn’t tell him anything else. He didn’t even know how bad it was and he had a little voice in his head that kept telling him that his dad was dead just like his mom. Although he was half a world away, Peter felt kind of guilty for whatever went wrong even though it was completely illogical. Feelings weren’t exactly known to have much logic.

When his aunts got there, they seemed to already know what was going on and their smiles didn’t seem as genuine. They were a little better at acting than Aunt Pepper was though.

Peter waved goodbye to Aunt Pepper and Aunt Maria helped him into the plane while Aunt Carol took care of his little star wars themed duffle bag. Peter was so nervous that he immediately stuck to the seat when he tried to buckle himself in. He had to do a breathing exercise to calm himself down enough to unstick himself.

“Mutant powers again Hon?” Maria asked.

“Yeah, it gets worse when I’m anxious… I’m like a magnet.” Peter sighed.

“I know… Carol does the same thing, she once got really into a movie and now our couch has a permanent a burn in the shape of your aunt’s butt.”

“What movie was it?” Peter smiled a little at the image.

“It was the Lion King.”

“It was not the Lion King!” Carol yelled as she came back into the cockpit.

“I’m pretty sure that it was…”

“It’s okay Aunt Carol, I cried when Darth Vader cut of Lukes' hand.” Peter attempted to reassure her. “He just looked so sad…”

“Oh do not get her started on Star Wars.” Maria smiled coyly.

“I’ll spare you guys for now. But we will have a marathon while you’re over.” Carol promised.

“Good God…” Maria groaned as Peter smiled a little wider, He was released when he was relaxed enough to not stick to the chair. It was much more comfortable now.

The ride was long but it wasn’t boring. Aunt Carol was happy to talk to him about Star Wars and space while Maria primarily piloted the aircraft. They talked about their daughter Monica who was in college getting her degree and about movies that they all had seen. They let Peter ramble on about some science things that he had recently learned. They always were pretty surprised by how smart he was even though he was only eight years old.

When they got to Louisiana, Goose was waiting for them. Peter was very happy to see the time and space traveling cat. Every once in a while she would visit him and his dad in Malibu but she liked Carol and Maria more. Peter brightened when he left the aircraft and gently patted Goose’ head when she came right up to him. Goose had always liked him, he had always been gentle with her and she had judged him as worthy. She followed them into the house and Peter carried his bag into the main room.

“Can someone tell me what happened? Aunt Pepper didn’t tell me anything…” Peter slumped on the couch next to the person-sized smolder mark and Goose hopped on his lap. Carol and Maria shared a look like they were arguing non-verbally. Carol seemed to have lost as she sighed and sat by him.

“Tony was on his way back from the weapons demo and his car got shot at. Uncle Rhodes said that last he saw, Tony was still alive but we think that some terrorist organization got to him first. You know your dad though… He’ll think his way out…” Carol said with so much surety that Peter didn’t think that she was lying.

Carols phone rang and she picked it up in hopes that it was news on her friend. It was technically news as she picked up the TV remote as fast as lightning and turned on the TV to a news channel. They were covering what had happened to Tony.

“Peter... “

“I’m not leaving,” Peter demanded. He probably should’ve as the news network showed a grainy video with a disheveled Tony in the middle. He had bandages on his chest and looked like he had been through hell. All around him were masked men with guns, they were yelling in a language Peter couldn’t even identify.

His blood went cold and even Aunt Carol with her automatic heater body couldn’t thaw the ice in his soul. Peter had only been so afraid when he had almost been kidnapped and Happy had left for a moment to go get a funnel cake from a vendor. Sure it still would’ve been scary with Happy there to help but it was so much worse when he was so vulnerable. That was even before his mutations became active. Before he was able to break the guy's ribs with a single blow.

Seeing his dad injured and in so much danger felt like that. It felt suffocating. Someone who had sung him to sleep until he was embarrassed about that, the man that told him bedtime stories about superheroes and listened to him even if he was acting stupid. His dad was up there on the TV surrounded by enemies and covered in blood.

It was a long three months. But it was easier once he accepted it. Every day, they would call Rhodey to check in and his aunts did everything they could to take his mind off of it. Peter taught Carol how to play Pokemon on his DS and she helped him learn how to control his powers. To be able to stick and unstick at will and how to control his strength.

During the day, Peter almost forgot that there was anything wrong. His dad could just be on a prolonged business trip and was too tired to call every night… He was just spending the summer with his fun gay aunts… nothing was wrong. But it all went away during the night. Almost every night, aside from movie nights when he fell asleep on one of his aunts' laps, he had nightmares and woke up sticking to the ceiling and with hot salty tears streaming down his cheeks.

He always tried to be quiet so that he wouldn’t wake his aunts up but it wasn’t very long before they noticed. Peter had woken up stuck to the corner of the ceiling and he curled up into a ball. He tried to muffle the sobs that wracked through his body but he wasn't quiet enough and Aunt Maria woke up which led to Aunt Carol waking up. He automatically apologized for waking them up but neither of them were having any of it. They talked him off of the wall which wasn’t easy as it was mostly his powers going haywire and eventually got him back to sleep after Carol decided to show off her singing.

It was three whole months of this. Peter was thankful that it was with his aunts instead of Obadiah or someone that he didn’t know as well. One day, Carol got a call. For once, it was good news. Great news. She smiled and looked at Peter. They were just finishing up breakfast.

“It’s Rhodey. He says that they found him. They found Tony. There was a big explosion and he broke himself out.” She grinned. “The plane is planning on going to a hospital in New York.”

“Why does he need to go to the hospital?” Peter stopped eating his pancake.

“Rhodes said that there was… something in his chest… I don’t know but they’re on their way back. We should meet him halfway.” Peter rushed to pack up and that’s just what they did.

He was so excited. He couldn’t wait to see his dad again, he was fidgeting in his seat. It felt like forever even though it was only an hour to get there on their alien enhanced spaceship. They landed minutes before Tony’s plane landed and Peter ran to stand and wait by Aunt Pepper. Peter was so excited that he could barely speak, he was practically vibrating.

Tony’s plane landed and he walked out before Rhodey. His arm was in a sling and he looked pretty rough but when he looked out and spotted Peter, he smiled. Peter didn’t wait for Tony to walk down all of the stairs to exit he just ran and launched himself tearfully at his dad. Tony barely managed not to fall over and kept supporting his kid with his good arm.

“I really missed you,” Peter muttered.

“I missed you too bud.” Tony smiled. Peter felt the warm but hard implant on his father's chest and could barely see the light blue glow being covered up by layers of clothing.

“Are you like a cyborg now?” Peter asked in a serious tone and Tony laughed. It kind of hurt but he didn’t care.

“I mean if you want to think of it that way… Like a scary terminator cyborg or a cool Luke Skywalker metal hand cyborg?”

“You’re a cool cyborg.”

“You’re darn right I am.

#irondad #pilotwives #captain marvel spoilers kinda #my writing #tony stark #peter parker #kid peter parker #spider son #fic rec #mcu #carol danvers #maria rambeau #they're lesbains harold #Anonymous

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spidermilkshake · 3 years ago

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Android Story--Working Title (Dragonball fanfic) Chapter 8

I'm going to put these here as well! Been writing this one for a while and have a decent chunk of it, feel like spreading and sharing it to The Masses. XD It's a Working title--haven't settled on one yet. I may end up changing the title to something final later rather than this placeholder.

Content warnings for this chapter: None, very tame!

Word Count: ~3200 words

Age 767, June 3rd, part I

Since he had expressed his gratitude already, when the sun peeked up in the thick, crimson sky 17 barely lingered in the area long enough to overhear the fat ronin’s chainsaw-motor snores. He jumped high and once well overhead continued on in fast, fluid flight. His eyes were hooked ahead, navigating himself west and a few points north as the proverbial crow did. He nudged aside only to avoid flocks of seabirds, brownish-green goose-like birds, and the like.

Delays could come later. He had a lead!

--------

The hurricane had unleashed its fury on the subtropics before losing much of its energy and limping south to the more temperate isles. Its howling winds—all through the dark hours—were now just a memory, but signs of its passage were everywhere.

18 had been roused early by the sudden peace draping over the island, having slept like a log through the worst of the storm. She surveyed the screen door’s makeshift barrier to protect the glass from any flying debris; Krillin had the day before wedged that final piece of plyboard into the top half of the doorframe. She glanced about, half-dozing; the main room of Kame House was still plunged in deep shadows owed to the closed shutters, boarded shut on the exterior. Though 18 found no difficulty in navigating the dim spaces, she knew her hosts would.

The other two had yet to stir, but once she sat upright and rubbed the sleepiness from her eyes, she noticed the Turtle perking his scaly, leathery head upright from his usual haunt beneath the table. She blinked; the ancient reptile hadn’t struck her as ever being very fearful of the androids, which only improved since her coming here in the aftermath. She supposed, being a literal sea turtle, he had no incentive to not simply take beings like her in stride. Especially since this Turtle had long been surrounded by people and phenomena much more bizarre.

“Oh, hey…” she acknowledged the dark beads of his eyes on her, and tilted her head, “…Is it over?”

“Think so,” the Turtle sounded somewhat relieved. She could not help but note the reptile had hunkered under the furniture for the entire duration. His flippers were pulled tightly against the borders of his shell.

“Good,” 18 slid the thin blanket from her legs and stood with a single motion, achieving a ninja-like silence. Running a few fingers through her bangs to straighten them a touch, she padded over to the still-blocked door, hesitating as she examined this obstacle.

“Say,” she muttered, giving the screen door’s metal outer portions an experimental press with a few fingers. “Would Krillin mind if I got this out of the way?”

“Oh, not at all,” the Turtle craned his neck out, poking up above the table’s level, “That needs to happen anyways!”

“Good. Cuz it’s happening,” 18 probed the door again, focusing on the faint squeak of frame straining against the board. There was only so much force she could use here—too much and she’d bend the aluminum in two, shatter glass. By sound and pressure, she was sure she could tone it down just enough.

Palms down on each side of the metal, 18’s shoulder only appeared to twitch and the frame juttered hard against the outer sides of the board. It scraped for a fraction of a moment before popping free in an arc, sailing clear of the porch and landing with a dry splat, flat on the sand. The screen door swung out, unharmed but shaking slightly.

The young cyborg cracked a proud smirk, her eyes glittering with the gold-red light of sunrise spilling over. She surveyed the results of tossing seas and rolling gales—spars of driftwood beached amidst the grass, seaweed thrown up in snaking clumps on the sand with a handful of dazed crabs clinging amongst it, several green coconuts which may have once belonged to the palms of the island (or may not). With the very tip of one boot, she nudged gently at something bright and glossy half-buried in the wave-washed beach, crouching close in interest as it started to lift free. She wiped sand away, picked it up between a finger and thumb, and sucked in a soft breath in awe of its full, revealed appearance.

---------

When Krillin came to, it was the gloomy darkness he expected, the shutters to the one window his narrow little upstairs room had shut and barred with a thick 2x4. He rolled right off the side of the futon with a grumble, faceplanted onto the wood floor. Time to rise up, and scrape up energy for the extra tasks. The boards now were completely unnecessary. All keeping the shutters shut accomplished was banishing the balmy island breezes, and all that would do was trap the stale, hot, sweat-laden air.

The bald monk finished pulling on a t-shirt as he struggled down the staircase, blinking in a flurry as light greeted him at the bottom. Wait, light? He peeked down and found himself able to tell his randomly-chosen shirt was the dark red one with the funky gold logo. Leaning around the corner into the main room, he was greeted by the yellow squares of morning light streaming in from the already unblocked windows. His glance then found the front door, also unblocked. Through the window he could spot the big sheet of plyboard, lying defeated.

“18?” He called out. The downstairs was empty, and it was his best guess of who had gone forward with the storm cleanup. “Roshi?” He made his second guess, tone less sure. He slid on the sandals before making his way onto the porch. His eyes skated all over the foaming surf, reflecting the colors of the sky’s tableau as a wavering, blurred replica, finding no one out front either.

“Good morning.”

Krillin jumped, squeaking out a “whoa”—he’d missed the presence of Turtle. The ancient reptile sat in the first block of sunlight that struck the porch, eyes crinkled and chipper.

“Hey, Turtle,” he couldn’t help but hear the bafflement still fluttering in his voice, “You sound pretty happy, considering the storm…”

“It is a good day, now!” Turtle smiled. It seemed as good an explanation as any. But Krillin’s questions were far from done:

“Is 18 around here?”

“Yes—up here!” Turtle had no need to answer; the mellow, girlish voice had chirped from high over the monk’s head, and he craned his neck up only to meet the underside of the porch’s roof. As he stumbled into the open, he thought he caught the sound of a stifled giggle.

“Oh, there you are,” Krillin found the sound infectious enough he was primed for a smile even before noting her perch; a goofy grin resulted as he saw her—at the very peak of the roof, her legs crossed in a casual manner while they hooked around one side of the weather vane. One hand was propping her up, the other was against one knee, turning something in her grasp over and over. “Did you… unbar all the windows?”

She pointed out, using the tiny object she held, the stack of wooden planks leaning on the house’s nearest corner, right next to a less tidy pile of nails. “Yeah. It was getting stuffy in there.” She quickly threw in— “I didn’t break anything.”

“Th-thanks,” Krillin’s grin morphed into a subtler, friendly smile, choosing to ignore the last addition and the self-conscious worries it hinted at. “That really simplifies things.”

“There’s more?” 18 leaned down in curiosity, two fingers flipping the thing back and forth. Krillin shrugged, eye drawn towards it, and the glint of sun it fired off every so often.

“Well, really just patching things up, in case stuff bashed up on the house. But I don’t really see much damage,” he paused, waiting for the young android to unwind herself from the rooftop’s features and come back to Earth with a light hop. “We got kinda lucky.

“Though… the big island definitely will have something messed up,” he realized, tone drying and posture slumping a degree—in anticipatory weariness. 18 cocked an eyebrow, the pleasant but neutral expression evolving by a few notches on the scale of shown joy into a tiny smirk.

“I could help. If you want.”

“Oh good,” Krillin perked up high again. “Geez, with you helpin’, this’ll get done in no time. Might end up with the whole afternoon free.” The android stepped up closer, one hand behind her back and the other rolling the small item between her fingers—head turned aside as if captivated by it, but the bald monk detecting the real reason: A faint pinkness creeping onto her cheeks.

“What’s that?” He decided to deflect his own attention too. She held the thing higher, right in his eye level, and shifted two fingers down so that her small find was visible.

“I dunno. It’s pretty, though.” Her eyes swept up, taking him aback with the terrific blueness of them. He sensed they were brimming with questions, “Do you know what it is?”

When Krillin held out his hand, 18 dropped it lightly in the middle of his palm, stunning him with its sudden weight and warmth. Hard and mostly a lustrous white, one side was deeply iridescent with magenta and indigo streaks flickering along its curve. Flipped over, its convex top was deeply-ridged, sprinkled with soft-edged rose-pink chevron markings.

“Some kind of scallop shell!” He knew that much, and beamed as he passed it back into her slender grip. “It’s a nice one, too. Those don’t wash up here that often.”

“Cool…” 18 flipped the scallop around a few more times, watching the little man fidget briefly before beginning to trot over to the door again. Cute—in a hilarious way—how he squashed down those inevitable feelings and somehow remained civil and silly around her. She was more than happy to follow him inside, tucking the scallop shell carefully into a pocket.

---------

He had almost ignored the lake. Almost, in his feverish drive to find the exact middle point of this sprawling tail of the supercontinent. But, as he glanced down to reestablish a bearing over the land, he was struck by the great size of it. The android came to a skidding halt in mid-air; the inertia not completely played out by the time 17 noted that not only was this lake vast and deep as bluish midnight, but it was inhabited.

What he hovered thousands of feet over could be described as a “palace”, mostly by extravagant placement instead of excessive size. Stone platforms had been built at even lengths out in the shallower rim of the body of water—five in total, linked by bridges to each other and to a rounded capsule-house entry on the lakeshore. The center was clearly the home portion. Three-storied with a peaked flourish on its rounded blue roof, the grassy space surrounding it was balanced on each corner by a lush willow. The artificial islands on either side were similarly balanced. Each had a small pyramid built upon it, ringed in carved pillars. Immediately behind the central platform was the rounded fighting arena that confirmed for 17 that this was indeed the place he was looking for. He only offered a cursory glance over the fifth and final structure, large yet almost totally lacking windows, before beginning his descent.

He stopped himself short of landing right away in the middle of the bridge leading into the center of the complex, cutting around and making a more cautious touchdown to one side of the entry building, atop a lone whitish-hued boulder. A brash introduction, based on what he knew, had zero sense in it—though every fiber of his being hummed with a fiery impatience now that success was waving so tantalizing and near. Besides, the “fortuneteller” as she was called was very likely not hostile. This would not require intimidation, but an open mind, tact, and “people skills”.

17 swallowed hard; he was not so sure about the state of his “people skills”.

Issuing from the doorway he noticed a stream of figures, loitering, yammering, waiting for something. He focused on a few at a time (since they did seem to cluster in their own groups) and found no pattern at all: Some where large, some small, the majority were human though here and there he picked out dogmen, tigermen, and one broad, husky being with a reptilian snout and a pair of membranous wings folded over his back. At least a dozen; with a twinge of frustration, he finally put it together that this small crowd were forming a queue. Stepping down from the rock, he blew a huff through his nostrils and moved to join the line at the very, very back.

Almost the moment his shoes scuffed to a stop on the gravel a few feet behind an olive-skinned stranger, all heads turned towards the door into the complex, an expectant hush falling over them. 17 stretched up, trying to sneak a glimpse over the heads of creatures much wider and taller than himself.

“Uranai Baba is there,” he picked up a puffy, white dogman mutter to his companion, a woman with extensive scars over her arms, “See? She’s floating!”

“But she’s so old and tiny,” she scoffed.

“Watch your mouth—she’s lookin’ this way,” the dogman said, stiffening up with hackles raised.

17 had scarcely considered taking a short hop into the air so he could see beyond the wall of people when a sensation like a peal of thunder washed over the entire congregation—a wave of the loudest silence itself, which resulted in an immediate hush over all. In the void of crowd noise, a crackling, severe voice called out with a booming clarity:

“To the side, all of you! I will speak to only one today!”

In any other scenario, 17 would have expected such a statement to result in a riotous outburst; here, in front of the Fortuneteller, there was still a quiet, not even a single disappointed murmur breaking it. And, as if timed to answer the question held tight behind everyone’s lips, the voice returned:

“Where is the artificial human? The android? I know he is here. Who among you is he?”

17 was stock-still in stunned silence at the back, even as elements near the front began stepping to one side or other as a force bade them stand aside. Half of the crowd had parted in a creeping wave when a dull voice—belonging to an oddly flat-headed, burly man with a hook for a hand—ventured a hesitant: “Er… does she mean me?”

“No, I do not,” the voice rasped. Finally, the young android came back to himself. However she had known of his presence already, she was asking specifically for him. Hell, it bode well she was so instantly aware of his arrival—so with a smirk itching to creep over his face, he went to deliver. As he cut forward in the line, the cyborg pushed the fluffy dogman and several other even more huge men aside with his shoulder, shocking them for a moment that such an average-looking teenager was shifting them, even as they tried to dig in with resistance.

“There you are…” The crackling voice wore relief in pitches like a rusty see-saw; 17 appraised its owner as he shoved free and took a few paces forward.

The woman was, in fact, old, and in fact, tiny. But these attributes alone were not what transfixed the android. To say she was floating, as the bystander had, was both true and somewhat inaccurate—the black robe covering nearly all of her form was tucked over her bundled knees where she sat perched in total comfort on a perfect orb of iridescent glass. This orb was very nearly the size of her—wizened like a deep brown date, a sweep of pale and faintly reddish-violet hued hair that showed no signs of age whatsoever. The terrific strangeness of her looks was completed with the sharp, claw-like hands, and the hard, dark eyes peering up just as sharply from under heavy brows—twisted into a cunning furrow despite being hairless with time. 17 resisted an urge to step back; it was astounding how he could be so intimidated by someone so venerable, and he could believe this Baba could see all sorts of strange truths, much less where 16 had ended up.

“Hmm… yes, you are the android indeed. Not that you much look the part, eh?” the Fortuneteller’s many folds and creases on her chin and cheeks warped into a wide smile—almost to a devious extent.

“Uh…” 17 was not sure if he should feel flattered, or somewhat insulted.

“Now, now—no need for long introductions,” Baba raised one hand, crooking two talon-like nails for him to follow her. “You have one burning question, yes, but it will take time and effort to get to everything.”

The orb she flew upon pivoted, and emitted a faint hum as she hovered back towards her palace’s borders. Stiff with all the strange eyes on him, he kept up at a walking pace; he kept his stare trained on the back of the old woman’s head.

As the entrance to the complex’s doors closed behind him—theatrically, by themselves with a slam—he realized he had not been breathing and sucked in a sharp inhale. The young cyborg scanned the room and took note of the ring of chairs all around, like a waiting room. He paused a half-second but picked up again as he watched the old woman and her translucent, round steed carry on towards the center building at the same steady pace.

“… So, I was told I would have to beat some people in a fight for this?” 17 ventured, low and curious, after catching up. He winced and hoped he hadn’t sounded too eager; it was, after all, what he did best.

“Oh goodness no—” Baba’s sudden squawk made his shoulders bunch up as his whole body twitched in reflex. She swiftly transitioned to a witchy cackle, “Ho no, I am quite certain there’d be no point in testing you in that way. Besides, do you have any idea how ridiculous the medical bills can get for supernatural creatures? Not to mention they’d be quite done with me if I let you loose on ‘em…”

Something about the laughter-laced rant made him richly aware of his ego; with a nervous swallow he stood a bit higher but tamped the feeling down. More important was his next question:

“This is free, then?” He stopped beside her in front of the far more intricate doors of the main palace, waiting on their slow outward swing. His head tilted deeply to one side, “Why?”

“For a good enough reason I can be charitable,” she said, gesturing inwards. “Now, to business. Loosen up, young one! Mark my words, I have answers for you. Some today, perhaps many later down the road—any divination will take time and I would prefer you settled, mentally. Do you like cookies?”

His confusion only grew in depth and plurality, though he was dead certain that he liked cookies.

“Sure.”

#Dragonball #Dragonball Z #android focused #Android 16 #Android 17 #Android 18 #Krillin #Fortuneteller Baba #fan fiction #chapter 8 #DBZ #DBS

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imashayne · 7 years ago

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Rain

So here is a thing I wrote for a trade @cyborg-chismosa I had so much fun with it! though it is difference than what I usually write (being as everything else I’ve written for this fandom is Klance.... should expannd my horizons more often XD)

A soft pattering sound stirred the princess from her slumber. There was nothing more than this gentle, almost imperceptible noise. Nothing to be alarmed about and yet the woman shot up in bed, body already on high alert as her mind scrambled to catch up. Her arm had instantly shot out to rouse Lance. Only he wasn’t next to her.

Blurrily she blinked the lingering drowsiness away. Jewel bright double hued eyes scanning the room in the small flat. Instead of gentle pink light filtering through the curtains as she was used too when first waking the colors were muted. It must have been early perhaps. She found neither her lover nor, at first, the source of this strange faint drumming. She held her breath, releasing it as Platt sent her a calming aura. The four space mice had scrambled up onto the windowsill and were gesturing towards the glass.

Allura focused on the gray ambience outside. Discovering that nothing spectacular nor telling was there until, with a start, she finally understood that there was indeed something lightly tapping against the glass.

She’d not relaxed much since waking. Wondering what it was that had even done so, and now her very blood seemed to be made of electricity. Ignoring how her legs shook slightly and a slick stickiness wetted her inner thighs (both simply after effects of the previous night with Lance) Allura vaulted out of the bed and over to the window. She halted in her motion as she spotted the blurry silhouette of her lover. And it took her a tick longer to realize that the visage of the man was indistinct because the pane was wet. Bewildered Allura placed the tips of her fingers cautiously against the glass, as if whatever this strange phenomenon was could seep through the barrier and harm her… but Lance seemed to be perfectly fine. The woman let out a slow breath she hadn’t been aware of holding, pressing her forehead against the cool surface, lids dropping partially closed as she trained her tired gaze upon her beloved.

When the war had finally ended not long ago and the paladin’s returned safely to their home, the Princess had found that she could not part from them. Well… from one in particular.

Her love for Lance had been a startling and unexpected bloom. Allura would not trade anything in the universe for this.

However it had taken some adjusting for her. Life on Earth was so vastly different than anything she’d known thus far. It had also taken them both some time to grow used to living outside of the war. Nightmares still plagued them both, in sleeping and waking.

Allura’s time on Earth had been short, and there was still so much that she did not know of. Like this…. Whatever sort of weather this was.

It didn’t seem as if Lance would be heading back inside anytime soon. The Altean stood, stretching out her sore muscles as she headed out of the room. Back arching, jaw cracking, drawing her hands up towards the ceiling.

A sweet earthy aroma breezed over her bare skin as the door was opened, sending goose-bumps racing across her. She inhaled deeply holding out her hands to feel the warm water rush against the calloused palms. It was so good and despite her nakedness she stepped further out of the house and beneath the torrent. Immersing herself in whatever this was. Supple sand gave beneath her toes. Almost instantaneously soaking her heavy curls in cascades, rivulets running down her, following the sensual line of her body, down between her breasts, glistening from her lustrous mocha skin.

Which is exactly how she found her beloved Lance. From the inside she’d not been able to tell that he was just as unclothed as her. She wasn’t sure for how long the man had been standing out like this… hell she couldn’t even tell what time it was with the behemoth gray clouds heavy in the air, obscuring the sun. But he looked completely drenched through and through. His face was tilted heavenward, short cropped hair plastered to his forehead, olive skin glistening in the low light.

“Lance?” She called out over the low steady hum of the storm. She saw his shoulders tense for just a tick before he dropped his gaze and those deep royal blue eyes landed on her. The shiver that rolled down through her had nothing to do with the cool temperature. Confident strides carried her the rest of the way to him, and before she could get a single question from her lips his own smooth hands, somehow so silken with similar years of training and hardships, rose to cup against her cheeks. Gently the pads of his thumbs ran along her markings, something he often did. Canting her head back. The kiss that followed was slow, his lips melting against hers. And as he slipped his tongue between her lips she could taste a sweetness upon him. A rumbling moan was pulled from the man as Allura pushed up hungrily, her fingers dancing up and over Lance’s shoulders to grip tightly just as his own digits pressed back through her waving locks.

Altean’s did not need quite as much air as humans did, and so it was always Lance who pulled away first reluctantly, gasping for the breath he’d happily allow Allura to steal away from him anytime.

“What is this?” She murmured, bringing her hands up to catch the falling water again.

Lance chuckled, eyes widening for a moment before he lifted the princess and spun her.

“It’s rain.”

#Voltron #voltron legendary defender #Lance #Allura #allurance #after the war

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phantom-le6 · 4 years ago

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Episode Reviews - Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 2 (4 of 5)

Carrying on with my episode reviews for Star Trek: The Next Generation, we now come to the penultimate group of episodes for the show’s second season…

Episode 15: Pen Pals

Plot (as adapted from Wikipedia):

As the Enterprise surveys an area of unexplored planets with unusually short life spans due to severe geological changes, Acting Ensign Wesley Crusher is put in charge of a survey team in order to further his studies toward becoming a Starfleet officer. Wesley selects a team of highly competent science officers; however, as they are much older than he is, he worries that his authority will be challenged. One team member, Davies, rebuffs Wesley's request to run a time-consuming scan, causing Wesley to doubt himself.

Meanwhile, Lt. Commander Data receives a primitive radio signal from a young girl on one of the planets. Data makes contact with the girl, named Sarjenka, and continues to converse regularly with her over the course of several weeks, keeping the details of his identity secret as Sarjenka's culture is unaware of life existing outside their planet. When Sarjenka reports that earthquakes are occurring with increasing frequency, Data realizes her planet is beginning to break down, and reports to Captain Picard in the hope that the Enterprise can find a way to reverse the process. Picard sympathizes with Data's case, but sternly orders him to cease communication with Sarjenka to avoid any further violations of the Prime Directive.

Wesley seeks Commander Riker for advice on handling his team. Riker stresses that Starfleet training is about both responsibility and authority, and commends Wesley for his record of responsibility, but urges him to exercise authority with the science team. Wesley returns to the team and requests in a more authoritative manner that Davies perform the planetary scan, and Davies complies without argument.

The senior staff debate whether to aid Sarjenka or not; Picard and Worf stand firm on principle, Dr Pulaski and Geordi against the idea of letting the child and her people die, and Troi and Riker take opposing views on the idea that the planetary destruction may be part of a cosmic plan; Riker thinks that plan is something they shouldn’t interfere with, while Troi suggests their interference could be part of that plan. When Picard orders Data to terminate the radio link, Data activates it and everyone hears Sarjenka pleading for help. Feeling that this is now a direct call for assistance, Picard orders the Enterprise to Sarjenka's planet.

The scans prove to be key to understanding the planet's geological instability, and Wesley's team proposes a method to correct it. Due to a breakdown of communications on the planet, Picard allows Data to beam down to take the girl to safety; running out of time, he takes her back to the Enterprise instead, much to Picard's dismay. The crew is able to safely restore the planet's geological system, and Picard orders Chief Medical Officer Dr Pulaski to sedate Sarjenka and erase her memories of Data and the Enterprise. Data returns the sleeping girl to her home, now safe, leaving her with a "singing stone" that Dr Pulaski had given her while in Sickbay.

Review:

This episode is the first in the Next Generation series to really debate the Prime Directive, and it’s no wonder there are many episodes where Starfleet officers decide on moral and ethical grounds to ignore it. The moment Picard brings up the question ‘do we get involved in a war’, everyone’s moral certitude seems to dissipate, but then he brings up the question ‘do we get involved if a corrupt government is slaying innocent people’. That’s basically asking if a Starfleet ship came across a planet where a like-for-like analogue of the Nazi holocaust was occurring, would it be right for the crew of that ship to interfere. The answer, of course, is hell bloody yes; they go down there and phaser the hell out of whatever goose-stepping alien bigots are pulling that kind of prejudiced, barbaric bullshit.

This, ultimately, is why the Prime Directive seems to get a seemingly uneven application in many Trek episodes; because while there are many situations where interference in other cultures is wrong, that’s not always going to be the case. To my mind, the divide comes in where the motivation to get involved is strictly of a humanitarian nature. The basic point of the Prime Directive seems to be to try and prevent the kind of damage done to indigenous cultures that is caused by outside interference. In other words, the Federation doesn’t want to do to any alien culture what Europeans did to the Americas, Africa and some parts of Asia in our real-life history. This is fine, but saying you don’t help any pre-warp civilisation on any grounds just to avoid that is wrong; you just forbid those specific forms of interference that cause harm and allow the ones that don’t.

It’s also good to have Data be the one who sparks the debate, because his android nature allows him to act with a very child-like innocence that facilitates the situation that arises. Anyone else on the crew would never answer Sarjenka’s transmission; only Data could make that error and land the Enterprise and its crew in such a moral dilemma. It’s also a little reminiscent of how autistic people like myself can get into bad/awkward situations because we don’t fully understand the unwritten rules of a situation until it’s too late.

The B-plot surrounding Wesley’s first taste of command is also not bad; not great, but not bad, and it ends up nicely dove-tailing with the A-plot. It’s concerning that the director of the episode apparently wanted more A-plot to see if Data’s relationship with Sarjenka would progress to Data becoming a threat to others due to his machine nature. Clearly, the idiot doesn’t understand what Data is a character and person first and foremost, not a machine to be pushed off the proverbial deep-end for drama’s sake. You want that, go direct a Terminator film. In Trek, you do character and morality work primarily, and this episode is a good mix of both. It’s not great, but it’s fine as it is. I give the episode 8 out of 10.

Episode 16: Q Who

Plot (as adapted from Wikipedia):

On his way back to his quarters, Captain Picard steps off a turbolift and, instead of finding himself in a corridor onboard the Enterprise, ends up on board a shuttlecraft with Q at the controls. Picard demands to be returned to the Enterprise; Q calls him "an impossibly stubborn human" and refuses to take him back until he agrees to at least hear Q's requests. Q then transports them to Ten Forward, where Guinan, who recognizes Q, warns Picard not to trust him. Q reveals that he wants to join the crew to assist them as they push further into unexplored regions of the galaxy, asserting they are not ready for the threats they will encounter. Picard chooses to make their own way into the unknown, and rejects Q's offer. Irritated by Picard's arrogance, Q instantaneously sends the Enterprise thousands of light years across the galaxy, then disappears. Lt. Commander Data reports that the nearest starbase is over two years away at maximum warp. A fearful Guinan warns Picard to set course for home immediately, but Picard is curious to explore.

The crew discover a nearby planet that shows signs of a previous civilization but has been stripped of all industrial and mechanical elements, similar to destruction found several months ago to Federation outposts bordering the Romulan Neutral Zone. Moments later, they detect and are then met by a large, cube-shaped vessel which does not answer their hails. Guinan warns Picard that the ship belongs to the Borg, a powerful, cyborg-like race that nearly wiped out her people, scattering the survivors across the galaxy, and again urges Picard to leave immediately or face certain destruction. Though Picard orders the Enterprise's shields raised, a single, speechless Borg transports into Engineering and begins to probe the Enterprise's computer systems. Lt. Worf initially attempts to incapacitate the intruder with his phaser set on stun, which has no effect. Worf is forced to use the kill setting in order to neutralize the Borg. Immediately afterwards, a second Borg appears and continues probing the computer, now proving to be completely immune to phaser fire. Completing its mission, it strips several components from the dead Borg, then transports itself and the dead Borg away. The Borg ship contacts the Enterprise and demands their surrender. The Borg then immobilizes the Enterprise with a tractor beam, disables the shields, and uses a cutting beam to slice into the saucer section to remove a cross-section of the ship, killing eighteen people.

Picard orders return fire, and the Enterprise apparently disables the Borg ship. Against Guinan's advice, Commander Riker takes an away team to the immense Borg cube where they find mostly dormant Borg drones and a Borg nursery. Data discovers that the Borg ship is regenerating and repairing the damage made by the Enterprise. The away team is beamed directly to the bridge, and Picard orders that they depart at maximum warp. The Borg ship suddenly reactivates and begins pursuit, gaining on the Enterprise. Q appears on the bridge and warns Picard that the Borg will never stop chasing them, and cannot be defeated. Picard attempts to fight back against the Borg to no avail, and finally admits he needs Q's help. Q obliges, safely returning the Enterprise to its last position in Federation space. Picard, though thankful for Q's lesson, blames Q for the deaths of his crew. Q disappears, but not before reminding them again of their ill-preparedness. Guinan warns Picard that now that the Borg are aware of the Federation's presence, they will be coming. Picard reflects that perhaps Q did the right thing for the wrong reasons by bringing forward their encounter with the Borg, as it has informed the Federation what lies ahead of them as they continue to explore.

Review:

At last, Q returns to plague Picard’s crew again, only this time it’s a totally different situation, because this time, for the first time in at least TNG if not all Trek up to that point, the lead characters don’t really manage to come out with a win of their own. Not only does Q throw them up against TNG-original villains the Borg for the first time, but for once the opposition isn’t sized up and worked out within the first segment or two of the show. This time, Q is proven right about Picard and company being caught unprepared, and only through Picard humbling himself by asking Q’s help does the Enterprise get saved. However, this time there are loses, which makes it one of the first TNG shows to really try and show the idea of lasting consequences.

For me, this is where Trek starts to get good because it shows the human-led Federation starship crews of Trek are not invincible. They are still fallible and can fail, which is important to keep the franchise going over the long term. As I’ve noted in previous reviews, Roddenberry at times seems to have been almost too optimistic about how far humanity might advance in the world of Trek, so anything that brings his utopian vision of the future a bit closer to reality, anything that provides an appropriate counter-weight of realism, I am all for. For me, this episode gets 9 out of 10.

Episode 17: Samaritan Snare

Plot (as adapted from Wikipedia):

Captain Picard refuses to have a medical operation on his artificial heart on board the Enterprise by Dr Pulaski as he is concerned about his image with the crew. He instead heads to a nearby Starbase for the operation, travelling by shuttlecraft. Acting Ensign Wesley Crusher accompanies him, as he is due to undergo his Starfleet Academy entrance exams. Though initially rebuffing Wesley's attempts to make conversation, Picard eventually softens, and talks of his past, including why he has an artificial heart and needs it replacing.

Meanwhile, the Enterprise encounters the Mondor, a Pakled ship. The aliens request help to fix their vessel. Based on the Pakleds' rudimentary communication skills and apparent lack of understanding of the basic operations of their ship, Commander Riker judges them to be inept and harmless, and agrees to send Chief Engineer La Forge to assist them. After boarding the Pakled ship, La Forge repairs the navigational system, when main power fails. On the Enterprise, Counsellor Troi, an empath, warns Riker that La Forge is in danger, but Riker dismisses her concerns. Upon finally completing the repairs, La Forge prepares to leave, but a Pakled incapacitates him with his own phaser, and raises the ship's shields. Lt. Commander Data determines that the Pakleds have acquired advanced technology from other races, and the ship's malfunctions were a ruse. Riker demands they return La Forge, but the Pakleds refuse, and stun him again with his phaser. Riker and Lt. Worf develop a ruse of their own, which they communicate to La Forge in code.

At the Starbase, complications arise during Picard's transplant, and the doctors realize that unless they can locate an expert with the necessary expertise, he will die. As Riker sets up the ruse, Worf receives a message from the Starbase that Picard is close to death. The Pakleds seek to attack the Enterprise, but La Forge convinces the Pakleds to delay firing until a specific range. In response, the Enterprise generates a spectacular but harmless pyrotechnic display, and La Forge simultaneously disables their weapon systems. The Pakleds, convinced they have been defeated, back down and allow La Forge's return and the Enterprise races to the Starbase. Picard is dismayed upon waking up to find that Pulaski has completed his procedure. While Pulaski assures him that she will keep his secret, he returns to the Enterprise's bridge to applause, which he quickly silences.

Review:

As cool as it is to find out Picard used to be a more action-oriented officer in his youth, and paid for it by having to have an artificial heart implanted, the fact is this is some very bad Trek, especially coming on the heels of the previous episode. Picard’s medical procedure goes wrong for no reason, the concerns of Worf and Troi about the Pakleds, who were a truly abysmal guest-race, weren’t given anything like the credence they should have been, and from start to finish it is just highly forgettable filler. 3 out of 10, next episode please.

Episode 18: Up The Long Ladder

Plot (as adapted from Wikipedia):

The Enterprise receives an automated distress call from satellites orbiting a human colony on the planet Bringloid V, which is in danger from solar flares from its star. The colony turns out to have been founded by the crew of the SS Mariposa, a freighter launched from Earth several hundred years earlier. As the Enterprise approaches the planet, Worf appears to faint on the bridge and is transported to sick bay. When he regains consciousness, he is embarrassed to learn he is suffering a Klingon equivalent of measles. Dr Pulaski agrees to protect his privacy. In gratitude, Worf later approaches her to offer a Klingon tea ceremony. He warns that the tea is deadly to humans and explains it is just a gesture which would be important in his culture. Pulaski suggests he is a romantic, and takes an antidote to allow herself to drink the tea with him safely.

The "Bringloidi" colony (after brionglóidí, the Irish word for "dreams"), now led by an Irishman named Danilo O'Dell and his hot-tempered daughter Brenna, are followers of an early 22nd century philosopher who advocated returning to a pre-industrial agrarian lifestyle, and when taken aboard the Enterprise, must quickly adapt to the 24th century technology (this is fostered in part by Riker giving Brenna a tour of the ship, ending by washing her feet and implications of more). When the transfer of the colonists is complete, O'Dell informs Picard of another colony, also planted by the Mariposa. The Enterprise proceeds to the second colony, which has named itself "Mariposa" after their ship, half a light year away. The colony's Prime Minister, Walter Granger, is happy to see the Enterprise and welcomes them to visit, so Commander Riker beams down with Lieutenant Worf and Chief Medical Officer Doctor Pulaski.

The Mariposa colony is strikingly different from the Bringloidi colony, as the Mariposa colonists have kept their advanced technology, and appear refined and cultured in contrast to the Bringloidi's relatively primitive existence. Pulaski quickly ascertains, however, that all of the inhabitants are clones. Granger reveals that their ship crashed while landing, and only five survivors were left to start the colony. As this was insufficient to establish a stable gene pool, and the survivors were all scientists, they turned exclusively to cloning instead, and consequently no longer have any desire for biological reproduction. For almost three centuries, every Mariposan has been a clone derived from one of the five original colonists, and now the colony is in danger of dying out because of replicative fading; each subsequent generation introduces additional minor flaws in the genetic code, which within only a few more generations will make further clones nonviable.

The Mariposans ask the Enterprise crew for samples of their DNA to create new clones. Riker refuses, as he values his uniqueness, and Picard advises the Mariposans that the rest of the crew is likely to feel the same, so the Mariposans decide to kidnap Riker and Pulaski to steal their DNA instead. Upon discovering this, the away team beams directly to the colony's cloning labs, where they are repulsed to find copies of themselves being grown, which Riker destroys. Granger is furious, and appeals to Picard, but Pulaski argues that a new batch of clones will only delay the inevitable. Instead, she advises that they consider partnering with the Bringloidi to create a viable gene pool. Initially, each colony's leader treats the other society with disdain, but they eventually agree to merge their colonies and disparate cultures.

Review:

This episode is a lot of concepts that are good put into a badly executed mess. Apparently, the writer of the original draft of the episode was trying to make a comment on the value of immigrants in a positive way, but as a result of re-writes and budget restrictions, the Bringloidi colonists become a very bad stereotype of Irish people as a whole, and I’m amazed Colm Meaney who played Chief O’Brien on the show actually let himself appear in an episode like this. The episode also drew flak from pro-life advocates because of the scene where Riker destroyed the clones being made without his and Polaski’s consent, as well as lines from Riker about having the right to control his own body.

To me, however, that part of the episode isn’t really about advocating abortion. To me, this is actually a metaphor about rape culture; the way in which Riker and Polaski have their DNA taken from them is violent and aggressive, as rape is. As with rape, the act creates new but fundamentally unwanted life, and as the unwitting progenitors of that news life, Riker and Polaski assert their right to decide if that life should come to term or not. The only thing I’m really annoyed about here is the lack of apparent penalisation against the Mariposians for their actions. Then again, given their somewhat bigoted distaste for the Bringloidi, maybe having to combine the two cultures to save the day is a kind of punishment.

Bottom line, you have to kind of tune out the anti-Irish racism of the episode to hone in what little is good about the episode, namely a good but weak anti-rape, pro-choice plot that also warns against the pitfalls of cloning, and a very short sub-plot around Worf and Polaski where both characters come across quite well. On balance, I give this episode 4 out of 10.

Episode 19: Manhunt

Plot (as adapted from Wikipedia):

The Enterprise is ordered to escort two Antedean ambassadors to an important conference on the planet Pacifica. The Antedeans are transported aboard in a self-induced catatonic state, to reduce the stress they experience from space travel, along with a plentiful food supply for when they awaken in accordance with their custom.

En route, the Enterprise is ordered to rendezvous with a shuttlecraft carrying the Betazoid ambassador Lwaxana Troi, mother of ship's counsellor Deanna Troi, and her mute manservant Mr. Homn. Due to his previous experience with her, Captain Picard does not entirely welcome Lwaxana's presence, as she tends to be overbearing and lack tact, but Starfleet's instructions are that she be afforded full diplomatic courtesy. Lwaxana invites Picard to dinner, and he is surprised to find that rather than the formal diplomatic function for the entire senior staff that he expected, it is a romantic setting for just the two of them. Picard evades her advances, inviting android Lt Commander Data to join them and manipulating him into taking over the conversation with long-winded anecdotes.

Troi explains that her mother has entered "The Phase", a stage in the life of a Betazoid woman when her sex drive drastically increases, and that she is searching for a new husband (having been long-since widowed). Moreover, her telepathy is clouded as a side effect, causing her to misread Picard's thoughts as indicating sexual desire for her. Picard retreats to the Holodeck to hide from her, leaving Commander Riker in charge. Frustrated by Picard's absence, Lwaxana targets Riker instead, and makes a surprise announcement to the bridge crew that they will be married.

The Antedeans have meanwhile revived, and Riker goes to the holodeck to notify Picard. Lwaxana follows, and having determined that Riker is not interested either, switches her attention to a character from Picard's Dixon Hill simulation, who returns her affections. Picard somewhat reluctantly informs her that her new husband-to-be is merely a holographic projection.

When the ship arrives at the conference and collected ambassadors prepare to beam down to the planet, Lwaxana offhandedly informs the crew that the Antedeans are actually assassins. Though they deny this, scans show they are carrying explosives, just as Lwaxana indicated, and they are taken into custody. She remarks that while she did not find a new husband, at least she saved the conference, and as she is beaming away, playfully chastises Picard for having "such naughty thoughts" about her, much to his dismay.

Review:

This episode is another poor one, and all because they brought back the boss’ wife. Yep, the actress playing Lwaxana Troi, Majel Barrett, was married to Gene Roddenberry in real life, and according to Memory Alpha’s notes, accommodating her more into the script meant the original plan to do a more noir-oriented story with Picard on the holodeck as Dixon Hill got relegated to a relatively minor part of the episode. To my mind, this is why they should have picked someone else to play Deanna Troi’s mother; not only would almost any other actress have been far, far less annoying, but that annoyance would not then take up an undue share of the episode because of the inherent nepotism in her being hired.

This again just shows why Roddenberry leaving Trek helped it to improve; just imagine how good an episode this could have been if it hadn’t gone through numerous revisions just to placate his wife. To my mind, if you’re going to make any kind of entertainment that’s good, you check your family connections at the door and do what is best for that entertainment, and anyone who can’t do that doesn’t belong in show business. This episode is testament to that simple and unequivocal reality. I give it only 2 out of 10.

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metawitches · 4 years ago

Text

In episode 6 of season 7, Agents of SHIELD continues to celebrate July 4, 1976 in the Lighthouse. Coulson and May are interrogated by Rick Stoner while the Chronicoms quietly steal the faces and personalities of SHIELD agents. Mack and Elena break his parents out of the cell Hydra and the Chronicoms have locked them in. Deke discovers that Nana Jemma has become a cyborg. Enoch helps Nana Jemma with her malfunctioning cybernetic implant, Diana, which helps her stop thinking about her missing husband, Bobo Fitz.

I need one of those implants. This is a fun season, but I miss Fitz. What if they can’t get back to him at the end of this adventure? Will he be lost in time and space FOREVER? Isn’t the real world bad enough without making us worry that FitzSimmons won’t find their way back together??? #BringFitzHome

Recap

We begin inside the synapses that make up the strands Sibyl manipulates between her hands when she acts as an oracle, which is just super cool. She speaks of the patterns followed by all of life, from oceans to leaves, then asks Luke if he can sense the living energy of the new world he now stands on.

I admire her optimism that’s he’s more than a soulless machine.

He’s soulless, but has the overdramatic streak typical of Chronicoms. He tells her all he feels is the death of their hopes and dreams because she failed them miserably with her bad predictions and now she’s allowed SHIELD to bring down Project Insight.

Truly, there is nothing better than a poetic but restrained soulless monster. Luke is beginning to come into his own. The Chronicoms have developed into a delightful race of Data-Spock style extremely understated over emoters, lost children forever searching the universe for the place where they truly belong. I still think the war would end immediately if each Chronicom were assigned a human best friend.

Luke is sad about Freddy’s death, too, which is sweet. Sibyl is patient with him, trying to reassure him that she sees 10 steps ahead, plus all that other stuff from Freddy’s villain monologue last episode. Luke has read the Predictor pamphlet and thinks he knows the truth.

Sibyl helps him see more clearly, reminding him that Daisy and Sousa have been captured by Nathaniel Malick, Shield was forced to reveal their location and Mack will come to the Lighthouse to retrieve his parents.

The Shield team is under pressure and separated. They will make fatal mistakes soon.Sibyl instructs Luke to begin the next phase of their plan. They must continue to adapt.

He leaves his virtual reality session with her. We see him remove his hands from 2 ports in the Chronicom time ship, then activate the wake cycle for several hunters. There are dozens of Chronicoms in storage in this room of the ship.

In the Lighthouse Command Center, Stoner’s agents discover that Insight is down. Stoner orders them to find the ship that took it out. May and Coulson are brought to him as prisoners. Coulson tries again to convince Stoner that alien robots are responsible for Insight, so it needed to be stopped.

Stoner still can’t see himself as the villain in a space age Bond conspiracy. He blames Chastity for the loss of the steak he’s using to stop the swelling in the eye she punched in episode 5.

May is forced to admit that Chastity McBride isn’t her real name, which is just a sad, sad time for all of us.

I wanted Patrick Warburton to say her full alias, with relish, everytime he spoke to her, all episode. Or all season. May could reveal her true name at the end of the episode (or season), when she tells him her rank.

Then my fan fiction begins and it’s a private session, so none of you are invited. Sorry.

In the meantime, we discover the Chronicoms gave SHIELD some futuristic space tracking tech which allows them to track the Zephyr now that it’s revealed its location once. SHIELD’s goose is cooked! So far, no one has made a move against them, even though they haven’t recloaked because the quinjet was docking, but it’s only a matter of time.

Jemma orders Enoch, who’s in the pilot’s seat, to recloak, then turns to Deke and Elena. She’s surprised they didn’t bring Malick back with them. Elena tries to cover for Deke, but he admits straight out that he shot Malick dead. Mack is on his way to rescue his parents and not okay with the idea of murder. He won’t even pause for a quick debriefing of the mission, which is part of his role as director.

Elena would have brought nuance to the story, had she told it to Mack.

He decides that there’s no possibility of extenuating circumstances and grounds Deke in the Zephyr. Mack ignores the fact that Deke knows the Lighthouse best, which makes him a good choice for this mission. In Mack’s mind, Freddy had 2 sons who just lost their father, thanks to Deke’s impulsiveness. He’s worried the Chronicoms may become impulsive with his parents, too.

Mack is also probably flashing back to everything he never liked about Fitz’s moral judgements. Fitz always threw tough moral decisions into stark relief for Mack and highlighted the complexities, which Mack wanted to ignore in favor of harsh black and white lines. Fitz would come down on the side of the greater good for a very inclusive all, no matter the personal cost to a few individuals, while Mack would come down on the side of humans and the least violence toward them first, no matter the outside cost.

With Jemma being the one exception. Fitz would let the world end rather than let her be hurt.

Deke is a pragmatist who chooses the method that will work best in a particular situation, but his talents are in analysis and adaptation, so his mind is open and scanning for the best solution among the available options. Like his grandparents, he’s not judgemental about who he saves or cares about. He judges “people” as individuals.

Now Mack is going into a base filled with SHIELD agents and Chronicoms who will both see him as the enemy and who he might not be able to tell apart. Mack is fine with killing robots and non humans (according to his own fluctuating definition of who is human and who isn’t), but doesn’t like to kill humans ever and hates collateral damage.

This mission is a nightmare for him, one which he’s taking out on Deke.

Elena brings up that the Chronicoms are using Mack’s parents as bait to lure him to the Lighthouse. She’s not going to let him go in alone.

Before he leaves, Mack asks about Daisy and Sousa, but Jemma hasn’t heard from them. He tells her to scan for them and for the enemy ship. He wants to bring the pain to the Chronicoms for once.

On the way to the Lighthouse, Mack worries about the rescue op and recounts memories of spending the Bicentennial with his family as a kid. He didn’t think this is how he’d introduce Elena to his parents. She says that she’ll make a heroic first impression with them. But she also says that the Chronicoms are purposely messing with his head and he needs to stop letting them.

Back in the Lighthouse, a Chronicom with a sense of humor has initiated the lockdown protocol. The Rick Stoner projection is giving safety tips all over the facility. The real life Stoner is annoyed by himself, but the Chronicoms have seized control of several systems so the projection can’t be turned off.

This is a nod back to our first encounters in the Lighthouse, when Enoch and Noah had been using it as their home base and storage facility. Though SHIELD built the Lighthouse, the Chronicoms have always known more about it than anyone, other than maybe Robin and Deke.

I’d love a visit from teenage Robin before the end of the series. She could be their oracular secret weapon.

The weapons systems have also been hijacked, while the radar has picked up the Zephyr. Coulson tells Stoner it’s the Chronicoms, but Stoner is NOT IN THE MOOD FOR SASS from prisoners ON AMERICA’S BIRTHDAY. He forbids weapons fire, but they do anyway. The Zephyr is hit.

Daisy, who was hit by an icer fired by Nathaniel Malick in episode 5, is just now waking up. She and Sousa are drugged, shackled and on the floor in a barn. When she discovers she can’t quake, thanks to the drug in her system, she calls Nathaniel Malick’s Little Psycho. He walks in at just that moment.

He reintroduces himself and makes it clear that he’s only tangentially Hydra. Nathaniel doesn’t care about the crime syndicate or squid worship sides of the evil organization. We saw this the first time through the timeline in S3, when Gideon offed his brother by rigging the Heads of Hydra pebble system that determined who was sent to Maveth to be sacrificed to Hive.

This time around, Freddy kept Nathaniel alive long enough for him to discover an interest in the inhumans’ superpowers. He wants to transfer Daisy’s powers to himself. Which actually makes Nathaniel’s first fate a good fit, too, when you think about it. As part of Hive, he also became an inhuman, in a sense.

When Sousa speaks up, Nathaniel tells him that he’s the most well-preserved 60-something Nathaniel has ever seen. He assumes Sousa is also an inhuman, since he appears to be aging so slowly, and says it won’t go well for Daniel if he doesn’t have super powers.

Nathaniel explains to them that he’s not holding them for a ransom. He plans to experiment on them, with Daniel Whitehall’s help. He loves Daisy’s whole vibe and nothing she or Daniel say threatens him. He’d love to see a demonstration of her powers, but the drugs are still in her system. He orders his goons to take her to his lab.

Stoner takes Coulson and May to an interrogation room, where their handcuffs are locked to a table. Stoner pretends to listen to Coulson when he describes the face-stealing Chronicoms for the 3rd time, but when May joins the discussion, he makes it clear he still isn’t taking them seriously.

He does say “Chastity McBride” again, though.

A junior agent brings Stoner a message. She walks over behind Coulson and May, giving a threatening speech, then tells Stoner he’s needed in the basement. She puts her hand on May’s shoulder. Stoner tells them that Malick is dead, then leaves with the junior agent.

Once he’s gone, May tells Coulson that the junior agent was emotionally dead. She was a Chronicom.

Jemma, Deke and Enoch put out the fire on the Zephyr, but then Enoch notices that the exterior cables which control the time shielding and allow the ship to jump through time safely have been damaged. If the ship jumps through time without the shielding, parts of the ship will be left behind and crushed. Since they could jump at any time, they need to fix it immediately.

Except Jemma stumbles when it comes to giving exact instructions for how to fix the shielding. She sends Deke off to look at the power regulator, while she and Enoch look at the control panel. But she can’t remember what to do once they’ve opened the panel. Enoch tells her it’ll be okay, but he needs to help her now.

Mack and Elena cut a hole in the cell wall to get to his parents. He rushes over and hugs his surprised mom, Lilla, who of course doesn’t recognize him. Elena tries to cover for him, saying he’s just happy that Lilla and his dad, John, are safe now. They introduce themselves, then get moving. Mack’s parents don’t understand why they were chosen as hostages and he doesn’t want to influence the future by telling them. He tells them to take cover if fighting breaks out.

The junior agent tells Stoner that his help is needed on a problem with the mainframe in the basement. As they walk to the elevator, he remarks on how annoying it is that his face is still playing on a loop. She tells him they’ll remove his face in a minute.

Coulson argues that the junior agent, Agent King, can’t be a Chronicom because they saw her display personality. They realize that he can show personality and the Chronicoms are mimicking him. They figured out that they can copy what he does, except he’s not stealing something from a living person.

He goes on to tell May that he doesn’t appreciate her lack of attitude. He would normally turn to her after dying and coming back, but she won’t give him anything, not even her thoughts.

May: “You want to know what I think? You never die. You always come back. You know how many times I’ve mourned you? I’m not doing it again. And I’m certainly not doing it for a decoy with a simulated personality!”

Coulson: “Thank you! There she is. Don’t look now, but your emotions are coming back. Unless you just picked that up from watching me… They’re mimicking me. Adapting.”

May: “Are we done sharing now?”

Coulson breaks free from his shackles with ease, then breaks May’s. He was only staying locked up to be polite.

His says that Luke told him the Chronicoms had ways of adapting. He guesses that they’ve developed a method of stealing memories and personalities, then uploading them into Chronicom bodies, allowing them to infiltrate and take over in much the same way Hydra did.

May realizes Stoner must be next. Downstairs, he’s taken into the room where the Chronicoms keep their face and personality copy machines. They’re making copies as fast as they can.

Mack and Elena lead his parents through the corridors to the quinjet. His dad gets tense and snaps at Mack. Mack has a hard time holding his own temper in check. Mack’s mom explains that they’re worried about what will happen to their sons if they don’t make it home. That brings Mack’s focus back.

They need to get through a heavy, motorized blast door to get to the quinjet, so Mack has his dad, who’s also a mechanic, help him figure out how to get it open without the passcode. They share a family saying, “If you can’t fix one thing, you fix another.”

Stoner is in the personality copier when May and Coulson come to the rescue. One of the Chronicoms gives an order to “Bring another Hunter up for the next conversion.” May and Coulson bring him a fight instead. When they get Stoner out of the machine, he says he now believes them about the alien robots.

They explain the face and personality stealing process to Stoner. He figures out that the faceless bodies on the floor are dead friends and colleagues and that he needs to get the rest of his people out of the Lighthouse.

Coulson tells May to rendezvous with Mack and Elena. He’s going to figure out where the Chronicoms are bringing the Hunters up from. He discovers a hatch in the floor with a ladder inside.

Sousa watches Nathaniel’s experiments through a hole in the wall. When Daisy’s brought back to the barn, Nathaniel says he took as much blood and spinal fluid as Daisy could handle without dying, plus a couple of glands. He’s going to synthesize it all and inject it into himself. If this doesn’t work, he’ll “switch from needles to knives.”

Daisy tries to tell Sousa that the same thing has happened before, with her mother, Jiaying, but he doesn’t understand. He pulls her head onto his lap and tells her the story of his war injury to keep her awake.

He was hit in the fog and knocked out. When he came to, he was alone and his leg was a pulpy mess. Then Mike Stephens, a guy he didn’t like, showed up. Mike stayed with him and kept talking. He carried Sousa back from the front line. As the Germans advanced, Mike kept telling Sousa they were going home. Eventually, Sousa was in a stretcher and Mike wasn’t, implying Mike died to save him.

So Sousa is going to keep Daisy alive as a way of repaying Mike Stephens. He tells her insistently that they’re going home. She struggles to open her hand and show him that she palmed a sharp metal shard. He admires her fighting spirit.

Jiaying is, or was, basically immortal. Daisy is hard to kill, largely because she refuses to give up. But also now she has gravitron in her.

Deke finds Enoch working on Jemma’s head. The scan that he’s using shows something implanted into her spine and brain. Deke thinks quick and uses defibrillator paddles to shock Enoch into unconsciousness. Then he uses smelling salts to wake Jemma up.

She’s not okay with what he did to Enoch.

Coulson climbs down the ladder and into the ship full of hibernating Chronicoms. He sticks his hands into Sibyl’s ports and asks if he’s come at a bad time.

It’s never a good time to stick your hands into a woman’s ports uninvited.

Mack and John have to force the door open anyway. John’s arm gets cut while they’re pushing. Mack leaves them to keep working while he fights some Chronicoms.

Coulson chats with Sibyl, who’s surprisingly open. She says she sees no reason not to answer the questions he’s asking. She tells him that his body is in their time ship, which appears underground. That’s why SHIELD hasn’t been able to find it.

His mind is in her virtual space. She says they call her the predictor, but she simply reads the time streams. Coulson asks if she sees the future.

Sibyl: “I see the past. As written by a single future. A tree grown, but also the many trees it could have grown to be.”

They have the usual semantic discussion about whether Coulson is actually a Chronicom or not. How do the Chronicoms define themselves? What is the essential part? Sibyl refers to herself as having a digital mind. Is that what makes her a Chronicom?

We were told in the beginning of the season that Coulson is an LMD enhanced with Chronicom technology. Was that description meant to make Mack (and us) okay with this new version of Coulson, even though it’s a robot? Even though the LMDs were murderous, too?

Jemma rushes to fix the ship while she and Deke argue about whether or not he was justified in saving her from what looked like a creepy robot attack. Jemma tries to get away with saying IT’S FINE AND DEKE OVERREACTED TO THAT THING IN HER BRAIN, which by the way looked like it had a couple of tiny tentacles. But Deke is from the future and even then an implant like that wasn’t okay, especially when it’s being “adjusted” by a robot who’s switched sides multiple times, if we’re being honest. Deke doesn’t buy her excuses and insists on real answers.

It’s about time.

She finally tells him, “He was fixing my memory so we can fix the ship.”

That definitely explains everything.

Deke realizes that she just said she doesn’t know how to fix the time machine that she’s currently working on.

I’ve been wondering when someone would remember that Fitz is the engineer, not her. Though I’m sure she’s picked up a fair amount of engineering, the same way she picked up several alien languages in S6, it doesn’t change the fact that engineering is Fitz’s gift and they kept their science disciplines separate for a reason. He’s the one who invented the time machine in S5. I doubt that changed in this timeline.

Jemma: “You cannot imagine how impossible it was to track the Chronicoms through time. But Fitz and I found a place where all their moves could be observed. And to guide us, Fitz stayed there. He is completely exposed and they will kill him if they find him, so no one can know his location.”

But Jemma knows, so she designed a biological implant to suppress her memories, named Diana. They’re inseparable. But the implant is malfunctioning and she’s forgetting and remembering the wrong things, so Enoch was helping her with it.

Nathaniel’s goons come into the barn and uncuff Sousa’s ankles. Sousa attacks, using the metal shard as a weapon. He knocks the guard out, then unlocks his own and Daisy’s cuffs. She’s still unconscious, so he picks her up to carry her out. As they’re leaving, Nathaniel enters the room. He has Daisy’s powers and is causing an earthquake, but his bones are also fracturing. The barn collapses on top of Nathaniel as they run out.

Sibyl tells Coulson where Daisy is. She says Nathaniel’s chances of successfully stealing her powers are 22%. Daisy has an 86% chance of survival. She says they’re using Mack’s parents to get to Mack and they want Earth to ensure the survival of “my species.”

She tells him that Chronicoms are more valuable than humans because they live so much longer. Human lives are fleeting and they make stupid decisions because of it. Within a stable environment, Chronicoms can live forever. If necessary, they’ll wait the humans out.

Coulson tells Sibyl she’s wrong about 3 things. The first two are the human capacity for sacrifice and tenacity. The third is him. Dying is his superpower.

He pulls his hands out of the ports, then sends a brief goodbye to May. He blows up the time ship with bag of explosives that was originally meant to flood the Lighthouse, blowing up himself along with it.

Mack has been fighting Chronicoms all this time. The explosion lifts the lockdown, so the door to the quinjet opens. Luke is about to shoot Mack when May and Stoner show up and shoot Luke instead. Stoner walks them all to their ride.

He and May say goodbye. He offers to buy her a drink, now that he’s pretty sure she doesn’t work at the Lighthouse and isn’t under his direct command. She tells him she’s Level 7, which means she’s his superior officer, and gives him orders to clean up and cover up the operation.

Once everyone is in the quinjet, May tells the others that Coulson is gone, but he’ll come back, just like always.

Once Enoch has been revived, he finishes his work on Jemma. While he helps her, Deke give him a Jemma-approved apology.

Deke: “Enoch, I’m sorry about before. I didn’t realize that things were so dire… And you are a valued member of our family.”

Enoch: “That is the greatest compliment one could be paid. Apology accepted.”

When Enoch is done, Jemma’s memories and forgetfulness are back in place. She asks Deke to keep her secret.

Mack brings his father to the quinjet cockpit to tell him about the tech, while Elena and Lilla bond in the back. John touches May’s shoulder to thank her for her part in saving him and his wife.

Oops, rookie Chronicom mistake. May felt no emotion, so she sets the quinjet to circle and tells Mack to check the cut on John’s arm. At first, he refuses to show them.

When he does, it proves he’s a robot. Mack fights John while May fights Lilla. Fake John says that they killed Mack’s parents a while ago. Eventually, Mack has to kill both of his “parents” and push them out of the back of the quinjet. He has to listen to his mother beg him as he pushes her to her “death”.

Geez, this show loves to torture him. That was horrible. I was already still haunted by Hope disappearing in the Framework.

Not gonna lie, I’m still tempted to lobby for them to print out some of those Framework residents. They could be LMDs, like Coulson. Hope could get a new, slightly bigger, LMD body on her birthday every year.

My kid is a cyborg who gets a new insulin pump every few years. It’s not too many steps removed.

Sousa and Daisy make it back to the Zephyr. Jemma puts Daisy in the healing chamber. Sousa stays on the ship.

They jump without incident.

Mack gets on a motorcycle and takes off.

In the tag, Mack is sitting in a field of flowers a little ways from the Zephyr, facing away from the ship. Deke walks toward him to check on him. Jemma frantically calls Deke back to the ship- they’re about to jump. Mack doesn’t respond when Deke yells to him.

The Zephyr leaves without them.

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Commentary

In hindsight, blowing up the ship that had the Chronicoms’ time drive in it might not have been the best idea, since the Zephyr is tied to it. Who knows what this will do to their jump cycles?

OMG, I thought Henry Simmons (Mack) was about 35 and way too young to remember the Bicentennial. He’s 50 years old! Good on him. This cast never ages.

Rick Stoner really, really deserved to be rescued from the 70s and brought onto the modern SHIELD team. I will believe this until my dying day. He has essential qualities as an agent that would have saved the world many times faster than it will ever be saved without him, like having the foresight to build the Lighthouse and having a voice that makes every order sound crucial. The future Kree wouldn’t stand a chance against his manly tones when they tried to get all sinister.

Since human Coulson is gone, I’m going to assume that eventually May will find a way to get back to Stoner and live out her life with him, using the alias Chastity McBride. No matter how the series ends, this will come true in some happy timeline, somewhere. Time God Fitz will make it so.

Human Coulson will spend eternity in heaven with his violinist. Cellist?

LMD Coulson should get Sibyl to change sides to be with him, because she definitely has a thing for him. She has Luke ask him if he likes her-likes her and wants to be her boyfriend in, like, every time period.

This episode, she let him get to second base with her and her blew up her ship, so it might get ugly between them for a couple of episodes. I know true love when I see it though and it would be a shame to let this relationship die.

Timestreams and Predictions and Fitz and Mack

Sibyl: “I see the past. As written by a single future. A tree grown, but also the many trees it could have grown to be.”

There is a reason we were shown these two speeches one after the other.

This sounds to me like Fitz could be in the place Sibyl uses to read a single mind. Like maybe it was a honeypot trap and FitzSimmons fell into it. Why else would there be a place where Fitz can magically see everything the Chronicoms do, if it’s not also the place that the Chronicoms use for their predictions?

I just hope Fitz isn’t a disembodied brain now.

I think Deke is right to be suspicious of Jemma’s implant. I can’t guess which side Enoch is on, since he switched a few times in S6, but I wonder if Fitz is dead or trapped or a hostage and she won’t let herself remember it. Sibyl could be using the exceptionally detailed scan of Fitz’s brain that was taken when they scanned him and Jenna in S6. Or they could have scanned him a second time after the season ended.

Enoch did show up out of the blue at the end of S6 with a risky proposal for Fitz and Jemma. That could mean he’s really working for the other side. It wouldn’t make much sense, but maybe this is the only way the Chronicoms win without heavy casualties.

Nathaniel made that speech to Daniel and Daisy, telling them that they weren’t technically hostages, because he didn’t want to exchange them for anything. Could that be Fitz’s situation- he’s not a hostage because they have no intention of ever letting him go?

Coulson made a lot of mistakes when he interrogated Sibyl. He finished her sentences for her, rather than letting her talk. He made too many assumptions. It was really her interrogating him. LMD Coulson has the original’s memories, but not the instincts the man gained from experience. This Coulson still has to accrue his own experiences.

But anyway, I noticed that Sibyl told Coulson that she wants Mack. I wonder if that’s the truth.

The simplest answer to what she meant is that they were hoping that Mack’s Chronicom parents could turn him into a Chronicom. Since he’s the director of SHIELD, the rest of SHIELD would fall soon after. They could have turned May and Elena when they turned Mack.

But it seems like Enoch would be trying to lure them all into personality copiers if it’s all they wanted.

Mack is the team member who’s held onto his humanity the hardest and is often the moral compass of the group. But he’s not always honest and he’s been a traitor, though the show would often like us to forget that.

Then again, they specifically included Robert Gonzales’ name on the Project Insight list last week. Gonzales was the man Mack and Bobbi followed when SHIELD split into 2 warring factions (besides Hydra) in season 2. Gonzales knew that Fury had chosen Coulson as his successor and disagreed with the choice because he felt it was wrong for SHIELD to be led by a man with alien DNA. (After being resurrected using the TAHITI protocol, Coulson had Kree DNA in his system, just like the inhumans.)

For a long time, Coulson didn’t even know the 2nd SHIELD faction existed. Mack and Bobbi joined Coulson’s SHIELD as spies. It took Mack a long time to trust anyone who had anything to do with either alien DNA or robots.

It could be the Chronicoms want to continue to exploit that old weakness of Mack’s. It could also be that they know about the death of his daughter, Hope, and the way it affected him both in reality and in the Framework. They might want to use it to push him past the breaking point.

If the Chronicoms have access to Fitz’s mind and the different potentials for it, they could see the way the other Fitz cracked under too much pressure, after too much dehumanization. Might they be trying to push Mack into that same type of breakdown? Making him murder his mother the way that they did felt like turning him into everything he hates, while also twisting his mind, since his fake mother was also a robot. It seemed like it was meant to start confusing him about who was real and who was fake.

Each episode this season has been patterned after a particular movie genre. Since Mack is the movie buff on the team and is the director of SHIELD, I’ve wondered if it’s a way to say that we’re seeing the show through his eyes.

But now I wonder if the Chronicoms also know that he’s a movie lover and are specifically playing to film tropes. Maybe they want him to feel the gangster films turning into 50s B movies, which become slightly more suspenseful 70s Bond and political thriller films. As Deke pointed out, horror movie tropes are sneaking in, such as the spoofed line from Terminator 2 and the body snatching.

But there’s another aspect to what we’ve seen all season. If the Chronicoms are watching the team through Fitz’s eyes and using what they see to devise a strategy to take the team down, it could be that Fitz is purposely directing what they see in order to mislead them.

Movie themes play to Mack’s strengths because they follow tropes and scenarios he’s worked with before. They have clear good guys and bad guys. By literally dressing the Chronicoms up as stock characters from the entertainment of the team’s past, they’ve been cut down to size and made a manageable enemy with clear goals and motives.

I don’t think we’ve been given all of the information yet, so we can’t fully understand what’s happening. But it feels like the Chronicom’s strategy is aimed at bringing down Mack, with a side of hoping to turn Coulson, one of the most loyal people around.

The Chronicoms may be using a divide and conquer strategy based on the way the team fell apart at the end of S5. It was Mack who stepped in as Director when Coulson’s health failed and SHIELD was a shambles. The Chronicoms must figure they can divide and conquer the team for good this time.

But this isn’t the same team. Coulson is a younger, more optimistic LMD. Fitz isn’t there to butt heads with Mack. Mack and Elena are on the same page. May and Daisy aren’t desperate to save Coulson. Or maybe that was why Sibyl set him up for the suicide mission in the time ship.

But it won’t work this time. May doesn’t have the same feelings toward the LMD that she had toward the man and and Daisy is distracted by Sousa.

Most importantly, Deke has stepped up as a member of the team. They may not fully accept him, but he’s chosen them. He’s lived through much worse than any of this and he’s not going back. He believes in the power of positive thinking and is loyal to a fault. He’s filling in some of the gaps in the team dynamic left by OG Coulson and Fitz, including quietly watching out for everyone’s safety and mental health.

As a character, he frequently suffers from the Cassandra Complex issue of seeing the problem before anyone else will believe it exists, but he doesn’t let it stop him. Geniuses are used to being ahead of their time.

Images courtesy of ABC.

#AgentsofSHIELD S7Ep6: Adapt or Die Recap-Stoner questions Coulson & May while Chronicoms snatch bodies in the basement. Mack & Elena break his parents out of the Lighthouse. Deke finds that Nana Jemma has a suspicious brain implant. In episode 6 of season 7, Agents of SHIELD continues to celebrate July 4, 1976 in the Lighthouse.

#Adapt or Die #Agents of SHIELD #clark gregg #Elizabeth Henstridge #Henry Simmons #marvel cinematic universe #Marvel Comics #metacrone #ming-na wen #Natalia Cordova-Buckley #science fiction #Time Travel

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trainedhard · 5 years ago

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@inanthesis || SURPRISE STARTER

The morning had started out so normal. Why did it have to turn so ... sour?

Saitama had been chilling, channel surfing and munching here and there off some hero chips he bought. No, he didn’t buy them just so he could see if they had a trading card of him, like Genos had suggested. He’s not stupid; that’s willful thinking, and nobody would ever want to make a trading card of him. Actually, he didn’t even realize they had trading cards in these snacks -- he just saw them for cheap and wanted to eat ‘em. Maybe of Genos, though, because ... he was on the packaging! But Genos had insisted on buying out the whole factory, and Saitama had to rush to assure him that wasn’t the issue.

“You’re so ... how do I put it? ... Slow on the subtleties? Or naïve ... ” Saitama muttered, mostly to himself. He was struggling to open his bag of chips, Genos was leaning over his shoulder ready to offer help. He was, after all, being RIDICULOUSLY gentle with it -- because if he opened it too fast, they really would explode everywhere. But in the blink of an eye, something happened -- the bag popped open, the chips exploded everywhere he could have sworn that he’d hit something, but he wasn’t sure what. It hadn’t registered that he’d just knocked the fuck out of Genos, but that’s also because he ( shockingly ) didn’t hear a sickening crack of any kind. All he heard was a thump!

It took him a second to realize that was actually Genos, and when he did, he whipped his head to the side. “Genos? Hey, Genos, are you okay?” He’d asked -- he’s .. not sure why he’d just fall over to his side with that really blank stare unless something malfunctioned. He wasn’t responding, though, so he reached over to shake the cyborg. “Genos? ... Oi, Gen--oh, you’re up. Are you okay?”

... To make a long story short? No. Genos was not okay.

From what Saitama could gather, he’d acdidentally given Genos a concussion. Genos doesn’t remember them or their relationship, he doesn’t remember ANYTHNG about himself, and that just makes the bald hero feel so shitty. If he hated his super strength before, he DEFINITELY hated it now -- but he’s gonna try to remain calm and help Genos as much as he can. In fact, maybe he’ll try to make it up to -- Oh. Oh what the fuck? When did Genos take off?! “Eehh?” He blinks. Once, twice, three times, then looks around the room restlessly. He’d simply been too spaced out to realize Genos just left through the balcony, and he saw a glimpse of him falling off the building below and making a run for it.

Thus began a wild goose chase that lasted just about all day! Saitama was tired, but that’s because of all the shit Genos kept doing to try to avoid being caught by Saitama. This Genos was flighty but standoffish, a total asshole but scared of so much, it was ... so conflicting and confusing it was throwing Saitama for a loop. Just how badly did he HURT Genos? Oh, god, he ... he needs to get Genos to Kuseno ASAP. Finally, around seven hours of wild running and chasing later ... Saitama has enough. He grits his teeth in frustration, then throws himself over top of the cyborg and with a swift chop to the back of his head, he knocks him into a crater. It’s not enough to further harm him; just immobilize him for a second, til he can reach the ground. Once he lands, he puts on his serious face -- but that’s broken back into total exasperation within a minute or so because here Genos is, struggling to get up and try to wander off away again. ( Jesus Christ, he’s too stubborn!! ) “Oi, oi! You can’t just go wandering off like that!!” He cries out, gripping Genos by the arm.

“Don’t scare me like that again, and stop running from me. Let’s just go home.” He starts to tug Genos along, whether he’s willing to move or not. And largely, it looks like he’s NOT willing to co-operate ... oh well. He’s dealt with a stubborn cyborg before, he can deal with a stubborn cyborg again. He’s just gonna start carrying Genos, even if that’s not what the blonde wants -- simply because he’s had enough of trailing him around everywhere. Actually, now it looks like Genos is trying to give him the cold shoulder! .. Ouch. That kinda hurts. With a sigh, he looks down to the cyborg in his arms ( whom he is carrying like he weighs less than a feather ) and he adds another comment.

“I promise we’ll figure this out, but you’re not gonna find your answers here.”

#heeheohehehe....#let's rewrite that amnesia ideaaaaa #but let's pick up where they left off #also are they boyfriends by this point or not? :thonk:#⌠s; no one gets through to me the way that you do (inanthesis / genos)⌡

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spaceorphan18 · 7 years ago

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Chris’s Tour - Naperville, IL 7-18-17

(Otherwise known as my birthday present :))

I see @wowbright - is posting her photos today (yay)! I didn’t have photos, sorry guys. But hopefully I’ll have a decent account.

So @multsicorn came to visit me for a few days, which was absolutely delightful. We had a nice drive to Chicago listening to Glee music, because of course. (We also had a splendid chat on the way home). We met up with the lovely @notthatbea (at a Barnes and Noble where my old store manager works now apparently - small world). And delivered in a lovely box was one of @snarkyhag‘s many gifts - a bingo card for the tour. It’s funny - except for a few spaces - there were all pretty much filled during the event.

So - we went out to this lunch where we had bison burgers and they gave us these pickled cucumbers -- they were too vinegar-y to be cucumbers but not pickled enough to be pickles. It was interesting. And then we went to an icecream place that sold raw cookie dough and it was amazing. Afterwards we met up with @leydhawk and @wowbright, who are both amazing and kind, and we had a nice chat while we stood in line for two hours.

The event - Chris came out, all relaxed and happy (and looking good - he looks better every year I see him - and Snarky untucked I mean c’mon). His opening speech was a little more scripted than it was the previous year (or practiced as I’m sure he says the same lines at ever event) but he was still funny and charming, and of course it’s all new to the majority of the audience. He then read a part of his book - and was more animated, getting into the voices more, than when he read last year. He was have a great time acting out all the parts of his story.

Oh also! He takes a selfie as he always did. But first, he took a photo of the crowd. He held his camera up - and bam - Notthatbea and I are probably, like, upfront and close in that photo. Cause we were sitting four rows back, but he held it up a little (so not to get the first row in the shot) and we’re pretty sure our faces are front and center. Also - in Alla’s shot of the crowd, you can totally make out the five of us who were there!

I believe the trivia stuff was next. The one thing about this that I remember is that there’s a portion where the kids could try to stump Chris. There was one little boy who pointed out a continuity error (The Pied Piper is named one thing in book 2 (?) and something else in book 6 - and the kid asked why that was.) Chris just stood there hilariously dumbfounded and speechless (in a good way), and claimed that he needed to reread his books more. It was a fun little moment. Also - as notthatbea reported - during this section we learned that the original title for book 6 was Happily Forever After.

The costume contest was next. A sweet girl in a Cinderella costume won. There was also an amazing Cyborg Queen costume (that came in second imo) and Morina - who’s horns kept falling off (poor girl - she had a great costume though. Chris, as usual, delighted at everyone, as I’m sure this is one of his favorite portions. We had two rows of kids go up there - and most of them were really awesome costumes.

Now - okay - there was one really awkward moment, though, during this. The people from the news site that shall not be named were there and in the front row (I know it was them because they took video over everything, claimed it was their own stuff, and posted it on their site - even though Chris’s people explicitly told us not to take video). Two of the posse got up for the costume contest. One of them was wearing a ‘likes boys’ tshirt, and was obviously supposed to be Kurt. The other one was dressed as kind of a hipster - I have no idea what they were going for - I don’t think it was anyone in TLoS. Anyway - omg - second hand embarrassment. Chris - amazing that he is - ignored them completely. (This is also why he pretty much ignored the entire front row the entire night despite them throwing comments out to him throughout the night.) I don’t know what they were trying to do pulling that - but c’mon. But what can I expect from people deliberately ignoring his wishes.

Anyway -- then we got the Q and A session, which was much, much longer than last year - it was nearly twenty minutes long. And, cause my memory is perfect, here’s what came up:

A girl asked that if he wasn’t doing a movie, would he consider doing a musical. He deadpanned a no, but then said it would have been a possibility. He also mentioned that he was ‘in talks about something but then they stopped talking’. I don’t know if this was TLoS related or not though.

He was asked if he would appear in the movies (like Stan Lee!) and he said maybe as a troll or something, but he doesn’t want to play a major role.

Someone asked how many publisher rejections he got for Wishing Spell. (And his face was like, dayum, okay...) But he mentioned that being on TV helped with that, so he got zero. But he did have to convince the publisher that he could write.

His movie is going to be live action with real people (though he joked that ‘real people’ is a matter of opinion as well)

The acting v writing question again - and he said his standard I love them both answer, though he did remark that people keep wanting him to choose one but he really can’t.

A 12yo girl asked what his favorite Glee performance was. This time he answered Lucky Star cause he got to fly around. Also - he and June Squibb are still besties. :)

A unique question - someone asked if he knew anything about the TLoS characters that weren’t in the book. It stumped him for a little bit, then said he had ideas for a prequel series, so he didn’t want to give much away. But apparently there was a lot of drama with the fairy council. Also - Mother Goose’s magic is not what it seems - and he hopes he lives long enough to eventually tell that story, lol.

Someone asked about casting - and Chris said they haven’t found anyone yet - but then he goes on to say that it’s strange when his job is looking at pictures of 10yos all day. (Out of context, the way he said it sounded really creepy, and made me laugh)

A little 9yo asked what inspired him to start writing TLoS - and mostly the standard answer about his mom reading fairy tales to him, and her getting fed up with all the questions so she told him to write them himself - but he directed the answer right to her, and spoke in a way relating to her, so it was sweet.

A girl asked about when he wrote while on Glee - and he gave his usual story about being on tour and writing a page and then running up to sing - though he made the story a little longer this time, and mentioned DSB, I Wanna Hold Your Hand, and then Single Ladies. (Usually he just mentions Single Ladies). (as an aside - he mentions that everyone else was just kind of going out and doing things as he stayed in and wrote - so huh)

Will there be multiple movies - he hopes so, but they’re going to focus on one at a time. He joked with the little girl asking, though, that it was her responsibility now to make sure the first movie does well so she needs to go out and spread the word - and if it fails, totally her fault, lol

Which book was his favorite to write - Stranger Than Fanfiction has been his absolute favorite (this surprised me), but then book 5 was his favorite in TLoS series because he got to use his own original stories he made up as a kid. The next question was kind of a follow up - where he was asked, which of those was his favorite. And he can’t really choose (3 way tie between the three he made up as a kid). Galaxy Queen is the one he created recently for book 5, but the rest were stories he made up when he was a kid.

How’d he get the names Alex and Conner - same kind of answer as usual, Alex was originally Amy after a cousin, but then there was a new cousin named Alex. Conner was from a character he played in community theater.

Will he write more books like Starbordia? - Maybe? It’s a possible spin off idea. (Side note - he didn’t sound that interested in the idea though)

Favorite books growing up - Harry Potter, of course, but Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan - and he mentions Eva Ibbotson, who I’m not familiar with - but who is a British author who writes a lot of young, young children books (I’d say stuff for 6-9yos)

Conner and Alex are both him, and the arguments they have are like arguments he has in his head.

Someone asked him to sing - of course he said no, and that if he did it for one, he’d have to do it for all of them, and that’s just too much pressure. Then, the front row yelled that he had a voice like an angel - to which he replied that his dog and cat don’t feel the same way cause they run out of the room when he starts singing. He did say, to the original person asking, and the audience in general, that he was happy that people enjoyed his voice.

Alright - so then this delightful 13yo girl, who was a bit Red-like, came up and basically pitched herself as an actress who’d be happy to be in his movie. It was hilarious. He asked if she’d be happy being a tree - and she said yes, and that her people will contact him. Her question, though, was about how Glee impacted his writing. And he joked that Glee made him so famous, that he couldn’t leave his house, so he had nothing better to do than write. But more so, he talked about how acting helped him hear the voices of his characters better. But also that writing helped with acting, so you can create backstory for your characters.

What is he most excited to do, regarding the movies? He’s super excited about walking out on sets and seeing these places he only imagined become real.

What songs does he listen to while writing? Film scores!! Including Danny Elfman and, my personal favorite which I totally listen to all the time to write, y’all know this, Hans Zimmer.

So yeah - that’s the Q and A. He was very sweet and engaged during the entire thing, which was awesome to see.

He wrapped up by doing another reading, this time from the Mother Goose diaries. The thing that stuck out to me about this was that he was reading an entry about Amelia Earheart - where she said she faked her own death and went away to an island because fame got too much for her, and she wanted to live peacefully away from everything for the rest of her days. (hmm - Chris....)

So that’s the event! It’s always a delight to see him - and I know he loves these events more than the signings - he’s just so thrilled to be there, and there’s a ton of excitement over the film.

After that, we all headed back home. Was a great time, and a great birthday. :)

#chris colfer #do I have a tag for the signings? I'll have to check that out

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