#fuck you it was mistake to let you vote with 16 years

[sebfreak]

everything that happens in a bad way for the next 5 years will be nazis fault.

nazis are the fault. nazis are the reason the earth is gonna get destroyed. nazis should build their own home on mars. nazis don´t do anything right.

[ferocioustrout]

Deimos lore 17?:

I NEED TO BE THE ONLY HUMAN BEING IN THIS FANDOM TO MAKE A ISLAND OF THE SLAUGHTER AU WITH THE 2023 CAST

Motives:

Surely most of them will be more gruesome than the original IOTS

And because surely they all will find a way to mafaking kill chase and ripper (I mean, in MY slaughter au Chase will also mafaking die but NOT RIPPER)

So yeah, um

Vote Deimos Breakfrost para presidente do Brasil 2023 aí o voto ô 8008135

Also... Here's the start of the IOTS fan fic that I am doing

chapter 1: Deadmans Party

???: "Hey, did you know that there's a new Reality show that will premiere?"

?!?: "Really? What's the name of the reality show??"

???: "well... Ah... Total Drama Island. As I can remember, It's been like... 15 or 16 year's since there's no new season."

?!?: "For real, For real??"

???: "yeaaaah."

???: "And there's like, 14 places available, just 2 places are unavailable and their owners are... Uh, Julia and Caleb."

?!?: "Julia? Aren't she that one 'vegan, love n' peace' girl from Instagram?"

???: "uh huh"

?!?: "pfff, i NEED to see that girl from closer. Ain't no way that she acts in the same way that she acts in Instagram in real life. Okay that's it, I'll be on Total Drama Island, do you promise to be in there to?"

???: "yeah, man. I promise."

?!?: "GOOD. see you in summer"

That was the WORSE mistake of my life, worse than meeting THAT FUCKED UP GIRL.

...

What happened in the Summer 2023?

- Something Horrible, it was pratically from a slasher horror film, or worse.

But I should explain what happened, right? So I'll explain.

WHAT HAPPENED IN THE ISLAND OF THE 'SLAUGHTER'

"Island of the Slaughter accident"

-It really supposed to be a Great the Day, it was the Premiere of The Total Drama Island, after 15-16 years. Everyone that should be in the show was there;

Caleb, Axel, Nichelle, Lauren, Damien, MK, Wayne, Raj, Ripper, Zee, Chase, Emma, me (Millie), Bowie and Priya.

And the challenge, well, my team won. But after the challenge I noticed that Caleb was... Unquiet?

Chase: "So, Ripper Right?"

Ripper: "Yeah, what do you want, Mr Beast Wannabe"

Chase: "Ah, Nothing, It's nothing. I just wanted to know if you wanted to chat a little bit about the things that happened today... Specially when your sh-"

Ripper: "Ah Shut up! Is not my fault that I am... Uh, that I am-

Chase: "thick?"

Ripper: "WHAT?!"

Chase: "Pff, calm down man! It's just a joke i am just saying that cuz... Is that Caleb?"

Ripper: "AH DON'T YOU EVEN DARE TO CHANGE THE SUBJE... Why does he look... 'scared'?"

Chase: "actually, Millie said that he was like that during the entire challenge so--- I'll just talk with him"

Ripper: "What?! He's from the other team! You can't just talk with him becau-"

Chase: "ENOUGH, RIPPER. Yo, Caleb! What's wrong man? Why are you like that?"

Caleb: "huh? What do you and 'Ripped Pants' Want from me?"

Ripper: "HEY! WHO DO YOU THINK I A-"

Chase: "calm down. We're just asking a question, what's wrong with tha-"

Caleb: "I'VE HAD A PREMONITION"

...

Ripper: "A... Premonition?"

Chase: "that's... Uh. W-what was you premonition...?"

Caleb: "as far I can remember, IT WILL HAPPEN SOMETHING HORRIBLE Tonight, something horrible like someone disappearing"

Ripper: "uh... Just that? I trough it would be worse"

Caleb: "what's wrong? You don't think that a teenager like you, me and you friend disappearing in a reality show is horrible?"

Ripper: "No, I-"

Caleb: "WHAT TYPE OF PERSON YOU ARE?!"

Ripper: "I DIDN'T MEAN LIKE THAT YOU FUCKER, WHY DON'T YOU LET ME EXPLAI-"

Chase: "okay that's ENOUGH" *grabs Ripper by the arm*

Ripper: "Huh?!"

Chase: "okay it was just that, really. Sorry about the way that My LITTLE BUDDY here acted Infront of you, that's it. Bye Caleb!"

Caleb: "huh... Goodbye then, SEE YOU TWO TONIGHT"

Ripper: "urg..."

Chase: "why did you acted like that?"

Ripper: "I panicked for one second because of the 'premonition' of Caleb, and because that Asshole didn't waited to me explain why was I... You get it right? Huh?"

*Chase holds Ripper's Hand*

Chase: "ah... Don't worry Buddy, it happens sometimes. But what do you think it will Happens tonight?"

Ripper: "ah... AH, ME? well I think it will happen a...

Millie: *writing* "so that's how Ripper acts when he's 'panicking'? Interesting, I guess. But what about the 'premonition'...? I hope Nothing bad happens..."

...

"I've had a Premonition?" Ah, such a 'intelectual' sentence to come from a guy like Caleb. HE DOESN'T KNOW WHAT WILL HIT HIM

-and after the "premonition" thingy, I just waited till Night. During the entire day I honestly did nothing THAT interesting, I just chated a little with Ripper and then I started Walking around with Priya... Ah Priya... But let me get back to the incident subject.

Night finally came, and that was the worst night that someone could ever see.

Zee: *sip*

Axel: "Ripper was right, where the heck does you take this sodas from?"

Zee: "urg... I don't know... *Sip* also, aren't the elimination cerimony happening right now...?"

Axel: "of course, you idiot"

Zee: "haha... That's coo-

Ripper: "HEY, FUCKS!"

Axel: "Ah Damn, here he comes"

Ripper: "Chris said that they can't do the 'loser' cerimony without Caleb, he's missing and is somewhere"

Zee: "But where?"

Ripper: "That's the question, we don't know where the fuck he is... Was because of that premonition shit that he said? Or is he just playing around?"

Axel: "did you at least searched in the frogs of death cabin?"

Ripper: "WHAH? HELL NO! I will not get into the the other teams cabin! And because Bowie said that he will get into ther-

I still didn't ended the first chapter aha-

(spoiler: Ripper and Axel obviously won't die)

wait wait this goes hard actually….

[thatkindofwoman]

I made mistakes recently. Many in fact. It doesn't diminish me. I won't let it. I refuse.

I went looking for answers to questions I never voiced. I found hurt that only lived in my memories. I remember vaguely reading and clinging to the idea that that every 7/10/14 years all our skin cells have shed. Started fresh, become new.

It means that one day my skin will have new memories of the words 'I love you' whispered against it. Unfortunately, my bones demand a seat at the table, a voice in the vote. They always have. Growing fast and long. They hold memories from growth to death. As quickly as 8 and 9 years old. I remember coaches, teachers, authority figures commenting on my height and composure. Old soul. Trauma response. If only I could give space for more of an explanation. Not this time, not this space.

I remember at 16 I wanted to be tall, and strong. Those both synonymous because I thought my father strong because he was tall. One time, I was 20, my sister voiced her disgust that I was dating tall brunette men. Which my father was. Which I wanted to be. I wanted to be tall and strong. I wanted to demand a room. I wanted the world to take notice before I had to open my mouth and demand it.

So I dated men who were tall and strong who demanded the room. Through their wit, or looks. Through their ability to make anyone laugh. Self deprecating. Loved, cherished, respected by others, not just my mind in my 20a. Tall but not so brunette also. The pride one had in me, that I've never found again. I cling to those memories, sorry I couldn't reciprocate.

I've never really belonged to another person. Not the way that feels right deep in those demanding bones. I can't fake it for more that a few liquored hours. I say that with no pride, no grit, no give. It's the truth I live with. Some fuel to feed the feelings I manufactured. I felt the spark only because I told myself it was there, not because it was.

I remember leaning into feelings with pure goodness when fueled. Taken advantaged of. I became a beacon for what other people needed from me, not what we could give each other.

I build my own spine out of bamboo every moment, and the moments in between, I forget left uncared for, bamboo splits and cracks, no longer solid and strong one cut and pounded into the ground to stabilize. Dry rot begins.

I don't need someone else to build me a backbone. Never had, never will. I just need a gentle nudge when I get caught staring too long at the coming storm. Thinking about the preparation rather than the ride.

The fucking ride. I remember the first time I let my horse have his head as I galloped along along the ridge of my parent's property, only slightly replicated on the dirt bike as I shifted gears up and pulled back with my wrist on the same path. I don't need a partner. But I want one.

Not for a child, nor a breadwinner. Not for marriage. Not for our friends nor family. I want a partner for me and them. Selfish, perhaps, or maybe because survival, and betterment, at its fullest is shared when you can meet the eyes of someone, or someones who understand the sentiment with few words, and all the feelings.

Fuck if I don't remind myself that time is that one cunt I cant ever seem to grasp nor understand.

[why-this-kolaveri-machi]

just because you’re afraid it doesn’t mean you’re broken.

Titans 3.05

once more into the cold dark void of the internet with my stream-of-consciousness take on a superhero tv show...

spoilers ahead.

1. i cannot believe that among the first things i get to hear in this episode with my own two ears is the line 'eluded our overdudes'. why must you give me such pain along with so much joy, show?

1.5. scarecrow stringing jason along on this path to red-hood-dom is not something i would’ve ever expected, but does kind of make sense. 

1.55. i don’t know all the details of the original resurrection arc in the comics but i like that jason, weirdly, has a greater role to play in his own demise and rebirth? i think it makes it easier to draw a line between his past trauma, the demonstrably shitty and terrifying responsibility of being robin, the ways bruce and the titans wronged him, his responses to that, the reasons he turns to scarecrow, and his final evolution to red hood. it makes for a smoother character arc rather than a one that was interrupted for two decades before somebody went oh hey let’s resurrect that kid that the audience once voted to kill and make him an anti-hero!

1.75. what’s crane giving him? anti fear toxin? anyway, crane is a fucking creep and i’m not sure i want to see a whole lot of him on my screen.

2. oh, um, heads up: there’s a long sequence of unsteady cam + flickering lights right after the title card upto the 3:16 mark. it’s a bit headache-inducing so if you want to skip, you can go ahead and do that. 

2.45. that’s... weird... why would he dream about... donna...

ok, who am i kidding. i’m going to jump right into my theory about Why Titans Makes Sense Actually because the show itself is apparently not interested in explaining itself:

a) it makes no sense for jason to be conjuring up donna--who famously did not care much for him!--in his dreams. (he wasn’t even there when she died.) or for her to be telling him don’t go or there’s still time.

b) this leads me to think that that’s actually donna, in some sort of limbo between life and death, the kind of place where jericho used to be

c) rachel has demonstrated that she has the power to link the minds of the titans across great distances--she called jason and hank/dawn for help in 2.01, she linked up everybody later in the season, projected dick’s hallucination of his father into their brains without even realising she was doing it, and in the finale, she managed to get dick into conner’s brain. she’s in themyscira now. is this how she gets donna back to life? but reaching out to her in that non-space between life and death?

d) the next obvious question is: why isn’t donna appearing in the dreams of the other titans? she probably is, but they have better reason to be dreaming about her since they were actually close to her, unlike jason.

e) but why would she warn jason in particular? does she foresee jason entering the afterlife--however briefly? does she have an idea of what jason plans to do and what he will become?

f) anyway, more trippy mindscapes and weird psychic powers, yay!

2.5. my heart clenched when bruce comforted jason post-nightmare: clearly i’ve been reading way too much batfam fic. this is a side of bruce we haven’t really been told to expect by all the characters on the show calling him a ‘psychopath’ (*cough*unreliablenarrators*cough*) and him getting jason to speak to a professional speaks volumes about the kind of self-reflection he’s done post dick’s departure, and maybe some of the regrets he has with regards to how he dealt with dick’s traumas.

i mean, just look at him when jason dismisses his concerns! BRUCE IS TRYING JASON

anyway, i have a whole lot more i want to say about this, but i’ll save it for later. 

also: LESLIE THOMPKINS!!!!

3. i really like molly--and i love that she’s a friend from before jason got taken in by bruce, the implication that they meet up regularly and that she’s a grounding influence on him (tho clearly not grounding enough to not go along with his dumbass idea about confronting a child trafficker alone). 

3.5. aw, jason. robin was his armour against everything in the world that would throw him down and chew him to bits, but san francisco proved that even robin wasn’t enough to protect him. it’s really interesting how ‘disillusionment with the idea of robin’ is so integral to the traumas of both dick and jason but in such different ways. 

4. LESLIE!!!!!!! i even forgive her office being so goddamn blue because leslie! 

4.5. it makes so much sense for titans!verse leslie to be a therapist, because this show is so inward looking anyway, and therapist sessions are a useful tool to showcase this character work in a story. besides, at least in fanfic, leslie often seems to double up as a counsellor anyway. 

4.6. oh man. i’m not terribly convinced by walters’ red hood (tho i think that may be the point--argh. i’ll come back to this thought later. have to stop getting distracted!) but he plays the asshole kid that’s trying not to let any real emotion seep through really well.

“you’d like me to punch you, wouldn’t you”

5. not sure what to think of batman’s little trophy case other than the show winking unsubtly at us and going look look - catwoman! the riddler! two face! you excited yet?! it’s like the scene from the end of amazing spiderman 2 when they were trying to drum up excitement for a sinister six spinoff by having harry osborne walk by a bunch of display cases with stuff from iconic villains in them.

... but then again, bruce does like to display a lot of shit in his batcave, including his dead robin’s bloodstained costume, so.

5.5. bruce is so soft with jason it’s killing me. beyond just trying to learn from his mistakes with dick, it speaks to his own genuine desire to balance his dedication to gotham with doing the best by his sons, although he’s often not successful with that. 

i love that titans is really playing the long game with bruce wayne, with each season and character-perspective sliding in fresh pieces of a bigger puzzle. titans’ bruce has always been a phantom of other peoples’ making, but now we’re getting the idea that he’s a whole lot more complicated than other people make it seem.

5.75. it really recontextualises some of his actions from previous seasons: the fact that he locked dick out of his security systems in 1.06 is likely his way of respecting dick’s independence and his desire not to be associated with batman/gotham anymore. jason knowing about bruce’s tracker while dick doesn’t is probably bruce trying to be more honest and upfront with his charges. bruce sending jason packing off to sanfran to spend time with the titans is probably not him passing on a big responsibility to dick (as i first uncharitably thought) but him trying to get jason out of the toxic influence of gotham for a while and a sign of his trust in dick as a leader and a mentor,

5.8. i mean, bruce is a prick, but he’s also human.

6. i think leslie is doing some good work with jason here, though she may have overstepped the line with her line about robin as a construct being projected by a man with BPD. her speculations about bruce’s diagnosis have no place in her session with jason, and if bruce confides in her, an egregious violation of patient-therapist confidentiality. 

(about the diagnosis itself... i don’t know. i can’t really confirm or refute this without a whole lot more information, and i’m not sure if the writer of this episode means BPD in the same way an actual professional might.)

6.5. i think a huge thing that gets missed out in a lot of recent comics as well as movies/shows is that bruce didn’t create the robin persona out of whole cloth. dick did. he’s the starting point of that legacy and to call it entirely bruce’s creation is blatant erasure of that. in fact, i’m surprised that dick doesn’t feature more in the conversations they’re having about the pressures of being robin. after all, the guy had been robin--bruce’s partner--for such a long time before jason. 

6.8. (and here’s the primal part of me that resonates the deepest with dick grayson--the Eldest Daughter part--that’s sort of resentful: that jason gets the therapy and softness and the learning from mistakes when it took years and years for bruce to reach out in any meaningful way to dick.)

7. oooh that was a great scene!

it’s fun to do these stream-of-consciousness live reactions, because the moment you step down from your soapbox, the episode goes right into tackling what you were just complaining about. bruce means well, he’s learning, but he goes about exactly the wrong way to help jason: taking away robin now can’t be read by jason as anything but a devastating judgment call from bruce. and iain glen really sells the moment that bruce realises this--too late--and his helplessness in trying to get jason to see that it isn’t jason’s fault that he’s trying to do this. he loves jason enough that jason is enough. 

7.5. aaaah so jason brings up the elephant in the room at last. dick got everything makes sense from his perspective, where getting to put on a costume and fight crime means approval, means being something stronger and better than you are. dick got to be robin, then nightwing, and a leader of a whole team of other costume-clad heroes. 

8. ... how did jason just walk into arkham????? this is ridiculous.

8.3. i mean, clearly jason’s not thinking straight, but betraying batman like this puts his possibilities of being robin again even further away. 

8.5. watching that chemistry experiment montage was strangely funny. this guy is looking for an antidote to fear? well, constantly mixing up and inhaling gases concocted by a mad-scientist supervillain is something only the very fearless--reckless to the point of foolishness!--would do. what’s to say crane’s not given you a formula for a drug that will keep you tethered to his every will and whim? hmmmm?

8.7. so he sought out the joker to... test the formula??? 

9. wow the “loud and clear... boss” hits different after a whole episode of them referring to each other as father and son.

9.3. waitwaitwait HOLD UP. wait a DANG MINUTE. you’re telling me that scarecrow had enough resources that he could not only have folks on the outside steal jason away and dunk him in a lazarus pit (i TOLD you that this show would bring up and dismiss ra’s al ghul in a ten second aside! I TOLD YOU) but also have his own little chemistry lab in the basement, AND have enough resources for jason to build his red hood persona???????? all of this in barely twenty four hours?

well there goes my ‘jason orchestrated his death’ theory. it was nice while it lasted. *cups hands to the sky* fly away, my baby.

9.6. a part of me is gleeful at the rushed nature of such an iconic transformation though, especially when compared to all the character work that went before it. we’re so used to getting the opposite that it’s fucking delightful to have a show that’s more interested in exploring its characters’ minds rather than battle scenes or recreating transformations from the comics. that’s taken such bold and exciting steps to fully convey all the nuances of its most recognisable character, bruce wayne, from casting an older actor to play him to unflinchingly showing just how damaging the vigilante lifestyle has been to him and the people he loves. BRILLIANT

*sporfle*

10. again, heads up: a whole lot of flashing lights between 40:28 and 42:00. 

10.3. i guess it’s the super-compressed timeline that’s really throwing me off. where did he have the time to get/develop the mind control thing from? or is it something that he got from the cabal of villains that he intimidated at the beginning of 3.02? very messy.

10.5. i love molly, i hope she shows up again this season.

11. aaaand that’s it! that was a solid episode as flashback episodes go, but now i can’t wait to return to the present.

[imagine-a-f1girl]

Race recap! Sakhir gp

It’s a long one, I had a lot of feelings during this race 

This circuit seemed to be cursed, but okay first two out.

Also this was exactly what Seb talked about last week, going for the gap that isn’t there

I’m going to repeat one last time and that I’ll shut up about it, but that calm reaction from Max towards Charles. I’m still so surprised, he looked pissed but he stayed calm. Growth

The whole race I got confused about how quickly we went through the laps, but hey me being confused is nothing new.

Lap 16; I had the very optimistic podium of Russell, Ricciardo, Kvyat in my mind (like that would ever happen)

4,5 sec pit for Seb…at least his expectations for Aston Martin next year won’t be that high..

Lap 35; The Gap George creates get bigger and bigger, he is really driving a solid race

Jack casually mentioned that we will testdrive in Barcalona and not in Bahrein, because all the team voted again Bahrein so thank god for that

Lap 50; 8 sec gap from bottas to Russell, that’s massive

Olav about Russells chances in lap 52; if you keep driving it can happen, if everything keeps working it can happen, if everyone goes marching you have a parade…. Olav are you okay?

An 8 second pit for Vettel! Are you freaking kidding me?!

Small mistake from Russell it can happen no harm done, but that wheelgun was seriously messed up for Bottas…

What a freaking mess at Mercedes, not something we are used to (Netflix curse..) Not the last words have been said about that.

The biggest grin from Othmar and okay we can all agree Checo deserves another podium

Nice outside overtake, nice work George!

Another fine overtake on Stroll.

The patience of George is remarkable, just waiting the right moment for overtaking Ocon. He shows of his racing skills but doesn’t take unnecessary risks.

Look how excited the Williams crew was for him after he did the overtakes, adorable!

Sainz complaining about Bottas, a Mclaren complaining about a Merc, that’s something new

Good clean overtake from Sainz, very nice.

Fuck, fuck, fuck, no fucking way… everything that could happen happened.

Checo had an amazing drive, might have been some luck with the Mercs, but it a well deserved podium and hopefully the teams realize what they are letting go!

Very nice to have Lance and Esteban on a podium, very first podium of Estabans career

Speaking of careers, I know they said they won’t use this race as a knockout, but driving that kind of race and losing (yes I consider this a loss from Valtteri, even though the results don’t say so) from a teammate that has been in the car for a couple days, doesn’t actually fit in said car and wear shoes that are to small… How are they going to defend keeping Valtteri when the only reason they had to keep him that George wasn’t ready?

I actually cried when Checo got up on the podium and I actually cried when they played George his boardradio...

[snowdice]

Finding the Time to Study Fic 2 [Day 39]

Here is my starting post for today’s study break stories session. See this post for more details and feel free to send me asks to keep me going! It’s been a lot of fun so far! I will reblog this post with the story as I write them today. I’ll be constantly looking for ideas of times and places for Janus to have missions, so feel free to send in any you can think of at any point!

If you are a new follower or just don’t want all of these posts clogging your dash, please feel free to block the tag “study break stories” as all posts and voting about it will go there. You can still see the finished product of the story even if you are blocking that tag as I will not tag the edited chapters with “study break stories” but with the tag “folds in paper.” See edited chapters below. None edited chapters are under the cut.

My Masterpost Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11 Part 12 Part 13 Part 14 Part 15

I also have a playlist on youtube (because Spotify didn’t have one of the songs I wanted). It’s short, and not really for serious listening, but I had fun with it.

Alright. Time to get a bit of studying done.

Arc II What We Do to Each Other

Chapter 16:

As it would turn out, Janus and Virgil did not get in trouble for hooking up the old phone to Virgil’s integrator, mostly because it wasn’t really a mistake on their part. The phone cleared all virus checks that the tech people both from the university and the TPI ran on it. The phone should have been clean and should not have caused an issue.

In fact, they were still trying to pin down the code on the general university server. They could tell that something was mucking about on the system but what or how was a mystery. This also meant that there was no telling what information had been compromised and considering how many things Silver Mountain had its hands in, that was… a bit worrying.

 Another worrying thing was there was suddenly more activity of late at the TPI. There were more time distortions popping up every day. Usually they would be few and far in between. There had been 3 total recorded the year before, but over 12 in the last week. Some of them were fake like the one Janus had investigated, but some of them were real. It painted a distressing picture and also was a drain on their resources. Khalid was actually looking to advertise positions to hire new recruits which was something she rarely did as she liked to keep appointments to the TPI in house.

 They’d even loosed the number of field agents needed for each mission and Janus and Remus had been splitting up just to get everything done. Today, he and Remus had thankfully only two missions scheduled for the day.

“Are we going together or separate today?” Janus asked Remus.

“Think they’ll burn me at the stake for being a witch if I go alone to either of them?” Remus asked.

“I don’t know. Probably. I think we’re getting a bit late into the 1700s for that in Cuba, but I have no idea about Mesopotamia.”

“Let’s just go together. I did not like almost drowning yesterday because I was the only stranger in town when the weather was going wonky.”

“Surely it isn’t because you opened your mouth. Ever.” Janus said dryly.

“How was I supposed to know he was the local clergyman’s son?”

 Janus rolled his eyes. “On second thought,” he said, pushing a button on his desk to choose Cuba as he next mission, and standing up. “I don’t want you coming with me.” Yet, he did not protest when Remus also signed up for the Cuba mission and he waited for him by the office door before going to talk to Rhi.

Rhi was a bit frazzled when which meant quite a bit as she was usually incredibly put together. Remus didn’t even seem inclined to tease her today.

“Okay,” she said once they’d closed the door behind them. She flipped through some documents on her desk. “Picani and Clockson. Camaguey Cuba 1755. Do you know Cuba?”

 “Uh,” Janus said. “Yeah?”

“Like you’re reading the things, right? I don’t have to babysit you, right? You got it? The Seven Year War was happening, but it won’t affect you much as it hasn’t really hit Cuba. It’s the middle of the Camaguey Carnival. Everyone will be everywhere and there will be chaos so as long as you don’t really fuck up you should be fine. Um…apparent races.” She looked up at them and studied them each for a moment as thought looking at them for the first time despite having known them for years. “It’ll work. Go to costuming.”

“Shouldn’t we…” Janus said, “sign things?”

 “…Yep,” she said, fiddling with her desktop and then sending documents over to their side to sign.

Janus and Remus both did before sending them back.

“Great. Good.” She stood and grabbed some things from behind her. “You can go.” She sat back down as they took their things and Janus noticed a message pop up on her desk. She looked up at Remus looking exhausted. “What?” she asked.

“Just open it,” Remus said.

Rhi tapped it and a photo opened.

“I got her a new mouse toy!” Remus said happily as Rhi looked at the picture of Diesel Fuel attacking a cloth mouse.

“That is… appreciated Agent Clockson,” Rhi said. “Now get out.”

 They did, leaving to get their costumes on and checked. Costuming was just as busy and frazzled as Rhi had been and they actually had to wait for decon because there’d been a mix up with the agents leaving before them. They landed in Cuba without issue. Janus could already hear the festival in full swing outside the small building they’d were in. Remy was standing there with a very not time appropriate mug of coffee.

“Sue me,” Remy said when Janus raised an eyebrow at it. “Please just… get in and out without causing trouble. Seriously. I don’t want to have to deal with that on top of everything else.”

 “We’ll do our best,” Janus assured.

Remy pulled his sunglasses down to look at him. He looked exhausted. “God please do more than your best.”

Janus nodded tightly. “We’ll be in and out,” he said, already glancing at his timepiece. It had been disguised as a golden bracelet which made it a bit harder to actually use, but wrist watches wouldn’t be invented for more than a century, so they’d have to make do. “The time distortion, if that’s what it is, should be in the middle of town. Let’s go.”

He and Remus exited the building onto the packed city street.

 Janus was immediately bombarded with all types of sights, sounds, and smells. There were many colorful articles of clothing and costumes as people went every which way along the street talking to other members of their community, playing instruments, and dancing. There was the sound of people speaking Spanish, still mostly almost pure Castilian Spanish with perhaps a bit of influence from Taino as the Haitian revolution had yet to push the Creole language over to Cuba. People must have been hard at work cooking different dishes for the carnival as many different spices wafted through the air. It was sticky hot considering it was the middle of June in the tropics and Janus was immediately sweating despite the temperature appropriate clothing he’d been outfitted with.

 He glanced around their immediate area, just scoping out the crowds. His eyes were immediately drawn to one person near them.

“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me,” he said out loud when he saw Pat. Remus looked in the direction Janus was.

Even if Janus didn’t recognize him the moment he laid eyes on him, he probably still would have ended up staring as he was the only person in the area who clearly did not know how to do the dance he was attempting.

Remus snorted and Janus shook his head in secondhand embarrassment. “Well, would you look whose boyfriend’s here,” he said to Janus. Make that firsthand embarrassment. “Has anyone told him the Mambo wasn’t invented until the 1900s and also that’s not how you do it?”

 Chapter 17

Pat stopped dancing the moment he saw Janus approaching him, but he still bobbed cheerfully ( and unrhythmically) to the music. “Hi Janus,” he said pleasantly.

“You just have to rub it in, huh?”

There was a flash of confusion across his face, but then he smiled. “Well, I know where in our relationship you are. How was France?”

“You’re a bastard.”

“You stole the phone,” he laughed.

“You stole the bomb,” Janus countered, “and you wanted me to steal the phone. You booby trapped it.”

“No,” Pat correct, putting a finger up. “We have security on my phone because in high school I once forgot it in the school locker room and long story short, the three of us ended up in a lake. So, then Lo made sure I always had some sort of tracker on it. When I started time traveling, he updated it and when I met you we updated it again in case there was ever an opportunity like that. Lo calls it using our weaknesses to our advantage.”

 “He’s a bastard too,” Janus growled.

Pat just laughed.

“Is someone talking about me?” Remus asked, stepping over to them. Janus rolled his eyes.

“Oh,” Pat said, blinking at Janus’s partner for a moment. “Remus.” He hesitated slightly. “How are you doing?”

“Me?” Remus asked. “Uh, I’m doing good. A little stressed out with work, but fine.”

“Good,” Pat said with just a little too much heartfulness to it.

“What?” Janus asked, eyes narrowed at Pat. “What is that?”

“What is what?” Pat asked. He met Janus’s eyes briefly and it made panic surge up Janus’s spine because the look Pat was sending him wasn’t one that said he was playing dumb. It was a warning.

 Oh, Janus did not like this. That look told Janus Pat had some foreknowledge that he absolutely could not tell Janus about without messing up the timeline spectacularly. This was why this mess the two of them were mixed up in was so bad, but it seemed Janus did not have much of a choice when it came to Pat.

Despite how bad of an idea he knew it was, he still wanted to push, because whatever Pat was hiding could be very, very bad and it had to do with Remus. There were so many reasons Pat could be acting like that around Remus, but the worst ones were definitely the ones on his mind. Death, injury, illness. They were all possible especially in their line of work and especially with how time was being screwed with right now. And Pat knew. He knew exactly what the answer was, and oh did Janus want to push.

Experience knowing what worse things could come out of having foreknowledge made Janus bite his tongue.

 “So, what are you two doing here,” Pat asked, and Janus unhappily let him change the subject.

“Oh, like you don’t know,” Janus replied.

“I don’t know,” Pat said innocently.

“There’s another time distortion,” Janus said, “and while you didn’t know what it was the last time I saw you, I’m pretty sure you do now.”

“Oh, I didn’t know there was a time distortion here. I can help you if you like,” he offered sweetly.

“Oh, yeah, sure. Then why are you here?”

“I wanted to see if I could find the Flying Dutchman,” Pat told him.

“And so you went to Camaguey?”

“Uh huh.”

“One of the farthest places from the ocean in Cuba?”

 “Is it?”

“I don’t trust you.”

Pat just shrugged. “Well, if you don’t want my help finding the time distortion, I’ll just be on my way then.”

“Wait,” he said when Pat went to turn away. Pat paused. Janus turned to Remus. “Remus, do you think he’s bullshitting me so I let him wander off and do whatever the hell he’s doing, or do you think he’s bullshitting me into letting him come with us.”

“Hmm,” Remus said, looking Pat up and down. Janus could immediately tell he wasn’t going to get any helpful answer. “Well, if we’re going with the how much do I get to see his, admittedly very sexy, ass criteria.” Janus pinched the bridge of his nose. “Letting him leave now means instant gratification and a nice full image when he turns away. However, letting him go with us means many more opportunities to get a glimpse, but they’d probably just be glimpses. So, yeah that’s a tough call.”

“You didn’t even bother to give me an actual hidden suggestion with that bullshit,” Janus groaned. He glanced at Pat only to see him hiding his very red face in his hands. Janus blinked. “Oh,” he said. “You got him, Remus.” Janus was surprised. He’d expected a bit more tenacity for someone with Pat’s personality. Of course, Janus was used to Remus, so that perhaps had some effect. Pat made a muffled distressed sound behind his hands and Janus raised an eyebrow. “You really got him.”

Pat flapped one hand around while still using the other to completely hide his face. “It’s just. His face. Saying that. Is weird.”

 Janus could not say that he didn’t feel a slight spark of joy at seeing Pat flustered. After all, Pat’s weapon of choice had often been flirting with Janus in the past. However, he still smacked Remus on the shoulder when it looked like he was about to continue with something likely far more inappropriate. “We are here for a reason,” he reminded. He turned to consider Pat and squinted at him. “You’re coming with us, I’ve decided. I don’t want to let you out of my sights. Don’t,” he said empathically turning to Remus as the man opened his mouth once more.

 Pat had mostly recovered, though his cheeks were just a bit pink still. “Yeah,” he said. “I’ll go with you. Where do we start?”

Janus glanced at his timepiece. “It’s not showing up on our trackers yet.”

“It messed with your tracker last time,” Pat pointed out.

“I know,” Janus said. “Which means it could be another fake one or whatever is causing it hasn’t started yet. If things start going wrong, but it still doesn’t show on our radar, it’s almost certainly a fake one, but some of the fake ones haven’t blocked our technology.”

“Here, I can check,” Pat said.

“Please don’t pull out an iPhone,” Janus begged.

 Pat stuck out his tongue at him, and then smiled. He reached for the bracelet on his wrist and twisted it back and forth a few times before pressing his palms together. He glanced around them quickly to make sure no one around them was watching and then peeled apart his palms like he was miming reading a book.

“What the fuck is that, and how do I get one?” Remus asked immediately. It was innocuous, whatever it was. If someone from this time caught a glimpse of the display, they’d likely assume it was a trick of the light, but staring right at it, Janus could tell it was a map of the surrounding areas with a softly glowing blue light marking their current location. Janus could see no screen or origin of a hologram. It looked like the image was drawn onto the man’s palms, but as he watched, the image shifted to zoom out.

 “There doesn’t seem to be anything major yet,” Pat said wiggling his fingers a bit. The display changed slightly to some sort of colorful overlay Janus did not understand. Pat hummed. “Did you two come from that building recently?” he asked nodding at it.

“Yes,” Janus replied. “How do you know?”

“There’s sometimes a slight temperature change when people time travel,” Pat explained. “I can read it on here.” He tilted his head. “There also seems to be a big enough temperature change in a church a few blocks away that could indicate time travel. Want to check it out?”

“We might as well,” Janus agreed.

“And if it’s nothing, we can get drunk on the communion wine!”

“He’s going to get immediately struck by lightning,” Janus said.

 Chapter 18

“If we see anyone,” Janus said as they entered the church. “You keep your mouth shut. Do you understand me? Remus, do you understand me?”

Remus immediately turned to Pat. “You know, I didn’t grow up Catholic,” he said to Pat who looked at him in confusion. “So the first time I ever entered a Catholic church, you can’t blame me for being a little confused about the whole cabinet thing with a wall between them. After all, everyone was singing about glory to god and what not. So I…”

Janus slapped him. “This is why you were almost burned at the stake yesterday.”

 “Excuse you,” Remus said, putting his hand over his heart. “I was almost drowned.”

“You were almost drowned?” Pat asked, his voice seeming legitimately distressed.

Remus shrugged a smile on his face that caused a Pavlovian migraine to start up behind Janus’s eyes. “It’s one of the hazards of the jobs, and really it would have all been worth it if I’d actually gotten to drown in that man’s…”

“We’re in a church!” Janus cut him off switching from Spanish to Swahili in the hopes that no random passersby would be able to understand him in this time and place. “Don’t talk about lewd sex things. Don’t talk about sex at all. It’s a Catholic church!”

 Remus continued to speak in Spanish with no regard for anything. “But not talking about lewd sex things takes away 3/4ths of my personality,” he pouted.

“More like 9/10th,” Janus grumbled, “and the other 1/10th is just normal stupid.”

“Hey, you shouldn’t be mean,” Pat scolded, in fucking English for some reason, “but Remus, honey, you probably shouldn’t be saying things like that right now.”

“No, no, he has a point,” Remus said switching to English.

“He’s my partner, I have the right to call him stupid,” Janus insisted.

“And I love you too!” Remus said in Greek because he was really, truly, stupid.

 Pat looked between the two, but then seemed to accept it, dropping the concerned expression for a slightly amused one. “If you say so.”

“Can I… help you?” A voice asked. All three of them whipped around to see a young boy looking at them and seeming very confused. Which was fair considering that to his ears, they’d just been speaking nonsense.

“We’re here to pray!” Remus claimed, then he turned to wink at Pat and said under his breath in Swahili, “to that ass.” Pat went immediately bright red again, which was doubtlessly Remus’s aim. Janus subtlety stepped on his foot while smiling at the boy.

 “Oh,” the boy said. “Okay.” Thankfully, he didn’t seem interested in questioning the random strangers in front of him further. “I’m going to go back to the celebration now.”

Janus smiled at him. “Have fun,” he said. He waited for the boy to leave through the front door before slapping Remus on the back of the head.

“Ow!” he whined sounding far too pained for how hard Janus had actually hit him.

Janus rolled his eyes. “Let’s just start investigating,” he said.

“Sure, sure, you never let me have any fun,” Remus said, pulling up his wrist and spinning the golden bracelets on his arm. “Hmm…” he said.

 “What?” asked Pat.

“Either I put on the wrong jewelry this morning… or my timepiece isn’t working.”

“Well, then I’m guessing we’re in the right place,” Janus said. He turned to Pat. “Your stuff still working?”

Pat brought up whatever device was on his hands. “Yeah,” he said, “and it looks like something is just starting.” Just as he said it, there was a violent crash of thunder.

“Well,” Janus said. “We should probably find the source and soon. Which way?”

Pat glanced around himself and then motioned with his wrist. Suddenly there was a 3D display of the church in front of them.

 Janus could see immediately where the problem had to originate. There was a swirling mass of some sort of energy centered at the top of the bell tower of the church. As he watched, he saw the picture of the church glitch out a bit. He had a bad feeling about that.

“Is there something wrong with your display?” he asked, or more hoped.

Pat shook his head slowly. “I don’t think so…” The room seemed to shift suddenly underneath their feet. It felt a bit like time travel, but also wrong. The picture on the display flickered harder, part of the building fracturing and dissolving before appearing back in place. The room settled after a moment, but Janus’s stomach did not.

 “Whatever is going on,” Janus said, “We need to stop it right now.”

Pat nodded. “The quickest way up would be that way,” Pat said pointing. The display closed as he did.

“Then, let’s go,” Janus said.

The world was eerily calm as they all started off in the direction Pat had pointed out. In fact, it was almost too quiet.

“Where’s the nearest window?” Janus asked when they came out on the second floor.

Pat glanced at his hand. “There should be a couple a few feet that way.” Janus nodded and left them standing there. When he glanced out of the first window he came to, it appeared to be night. Yet, when he walked to the next window, he saw daylight.

26606

“Time is fracturing,” Janus informed them. “We need to be careful.” This time distortion was much more intense than any of the other ones the agency had been tracking down over the last few months. It had also come on much faster. Usually there was some time between when the time distortion began and it started having extreme effects on the environment. He was suddenly very glad that he and Remus had not split up today. He was even glad for Pat’s company, no matter how aggravating he may be sometimes. Not to mention, he was glad for the man’s technology that seemed to circumvent whatever was blocking Janus and Remus’s timepieces.

He backed away from the windows and returned to the others.

“Whatever you do,” Janus said. “Don’t let anyone be in a room alone.”

“I know what time fractures are this time,” Pat promised.

“It was as much for the idiot as it was for you,” Janus said.

“You accidently bring a bubonic plague infested rat to 900BC one time and you never live it down.”

“I’d say I should put a leash on you, but you’d twist it into something disgusting.”

“Probably,” Remus agreed.

“Where next?” Janus asked, ignoring him.

“That way,” Pat said.

They walked together to the door he’d indicated. “Please don’t be bullshit,” Janus prayed. He opened the door and immediately got bowled over by a stream of salt water.

 Chapter 19

Janus landed flat on his back, a wave of water splashing over him and then quickly retreating, but still leaving him absolutely drenched. He sighed, looking at the ceiling. “Don’t,” he warned, “say a word.”

Of course, he was with the two most impossible people in all of space and time, so neither of them headed him.

“I thought you said we were far from the ocean, Jan,” Pat said.

“Yeah, Janny,” Remus immediately jumped on board because he was an asshole. “I thought we were far from the ocean!”

“Maybe I’ll achieve my goal of finding the Flying Dutchman after all!”

 “Ooo ghost pirates! I’ve never gotten to fight ghost pirates before. Any good with a sword Patty?”

“My friend has a sword and he let me use it before… but all I did was cut a hole in our couch, and then Lo was mad at us.”

“I mean… just pretend the pirates are a couch and we’ll be good!”

Janus slowly sat up. There was still water on the floor and every so often a wave would crash into the room as though the door frame signaled the edge of a beach. Pat reached down to offer him a hand up and Janus slapped it away.

 “Rude!” Pat claimed, but his eyes were alight with mischief.

Janus shoved himself to his feet on his own power.

“You deserve it,” he hissed. “For all of this!” he waved his arms around.

“Water you talking about. I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“You are on thin ice.”

He looked down at his feet with a contemplative expression. “Looks like water to me.”

“Arg!” Janus spat, throwing up his arms.

“I don’t sea why you’re screaming, Janus.”

“Yeah,” Remus contributed. “You seem overally emotional to me.”

“Yes, yes,” Pat replied. “Very em-ocean-al.”

“One may even say he’s pretty salty.”

“I know where you live, Remus,” Janus reminded.

 “Alright, alright Remus, reel it in,” Pat said.

Remus opened his mouth to respond, but Janus cut him off. “Why don’t the two of you dedicate all of that brain power to figuring out how to cross the literal ocean in the next room,” Janus suggested hotly.

And it was a literal ocean. If one ignored where they were and the fact that there was a staircase climbing out of said ocean about 80 or so meters away. There was sand being washed up across the door frame and a seagull flying in the distance. At least it looked like a nice day in the room with the way the sun was glinting off the water. At least it wasn’t storming there. Yet.

Janus’s head throbbed with the thought of what had to be happening with the time distortion to plop a piece of the ocean into one single room in a church. Usually they’d be calling the TPI for backup or at least for information, but that was a loss. Even if they tried to get out of range of whatever was disrupting their timepieces, time was so unstable, they’d very possibly get dumped somewhere dangerous. It was better to just get to the time distortion as quickly as possible and stop it.

 “Hmm,” Remus said. “I wonder how deep it is. Do you think there are man eating sharks in the water? Or giant jelly fish? Remember that one time I got stung by a jelly fish and almost died?”

“Yes,” Janus said, lips pursed, “and it was entirely your fault.”

“I just looked so squishy!” he declared, “I didn’t know it was a murder blob.”

“I think I have a boat,” Pat said.

They both turned to him. “What?” Janus asked. He was looking at his hands and just hummed in response to Janus’s question. The next thing he knew, Pat made some motion with his hand and a yellow raft started to autofill from his palm. “...Why?” Janus asked.

“I… recently started carrying a wilderness survival pack in my time device.”

 “I’m not going to question it. It’s better than swimming.” By the time the raft was completely deployed, they’d all been shoved into the walls by it.

“Huh, on second thought. I probably should have put the raft in the room before blowing it up.”

“You think?” asked Janus.

Pat glared at him over it. “I never really thought about how to open it in a narrow second floor corridor.”

“Just try to shove it through the door without popping it.”

“Why are you looking at me?!” asked Remus.

They managed to somehow squeeze the raft through the door into the other room after a few minutes.

 Pat squinted at the tottering raft he was holding to the door frame. “After you,” he offered.

Janus glared at him.

“You’re already soaked!” Pat defended himself.

Janus sighed and very carefully climbed into the raft. It tottered dangerously, but he didn’t immediately fall out, so that was a plus. The other two of them slowly also climbed onto the raft with him. They then sat in it for a few seconds. “Is there an oar?” Janus asked.

“Oh right!” Pat did something else with the device in his hands and an oar slowly unfolded from his hand.

“Seriously, I want one of those,” Remus said.

 “Let’s just get out of here,” Janus said, snatching the oar. The staircase luckily wasn’t too far away. They probably could have swam it if necessary, but the raft gave them some modicum of protection. Everything seemed to be going in their favor, which of course meant everything was about to go incredibly wrong.

They were about halfway across the water when the entire world around them rumbled.

“…I hope that was a giant jellyfish,” Remus said.

It was unfortunately not a jellyfish or any sea creature at all. The world around them fractured, the ocean seeming to split right down the middle so the water right of the staircase was 6 feet higher than on the left. The sky flashed red and yellow before the water split completely like Moses splitting the Red Sea.

 There was a millisecond as the split widened until it was only a few feet from them, to decide whether when they landed they wanted to be on the side with the water or on the side without it. On one hand, going towards the side without water could mean they fell to their deaths or the water crashed back down on top of them when it settled. On the other hand, if the fissure was closing or shifting to a new area, it was very possible that they’d end up trapped in the middle off the ocean with no connection to the church.

 Well, the best chance to actually get to where they were going was probably the side without water. It seemed everyone had the same idea at once because as he grabbed for both of them, they both grabbed for him and they all went tumbling off the raft into what could have very well been a bottomless pit.

Janus learned after a couple of seconds of free fall, that it was definitely not a bottomless pit. He landed hard, flat on his back and saw stars. The next moment something landed on top of him, squeezing all of the air out of his lungs.

 Something else fell half on top of his legs.

“Ow,” Pat said from near his ear.

“Yeah, well you’re the one on the top,” Janus groaned though his teeth.

“Wow, I never took you for a bottom, Janus,” Remus said from near his feet. Janus kicked up his legs into whatever part of him was on top of Janus and he gave an “oof.”

Pat snorted a bit and Janus glared at his… shoulder? He shifted around a bit so he was less thrown across Janus and more just on top of him. Janus blinked. There was a wooden ceiling above them, so that was a good sign, though there was also a giant dark hole of nothingness directly above them which was not as good.

 Janus moved slightly. He could tell he was going to be bruised later, but he didn’t seem seriously injured. “We should,” he started, but was interrupted as the hole above them pulsated and dumped a bunch of sea water.

Pat shrieked as they were all drenched with the chilly water. Luckily, they seemed to be on higher ground because, while water kept pouring out of the hole, it drained away just as quickly instead of drowning them.

Water still hitting his back relentlessly, Pat peeled his head up to look Janus in the eyes. A giggle bubbled out of his mouth.

“It isn’t funny,” Janus informed him. Pat just giggled more, leaning his head against Janus’s chest and cackling.

 Janus just rolled his eyes. “Yes, yes, this is an entirely appropriate reaction. Thank you for your contribution to our very important mission.”

Pat seemed incapable of stopping laughing completely, but he did calm himself enough to peel himself off Janus’s chest and lean forward so their noses almost touched. “It’s hilarious and you know it,” he claimed.

“In what way is this ‘hilarious’?”

“In many waves,” was the joy filled answer.

“You’re horrible.”

Pat hummed. He hadn’t moved to get off of him even though they really should be moving in case something worse than water came through the hole in the ceiling. He hadn’t even moved his face away.

“No, no, you two just tell me when you’re done being gay for each other,” Remus interrupted. Janus was surprised to see he’d stood up at some point and was now hovering over them.

 Janus flipped him off even while Pat laughed once again. Pat finally drew away and rolled off of him so Janus could sit up. Pretty much everything hurt when Janus moved, but he was able to stand up, so he was probably fine enough. “So,” he said looking around. “Where are we now?”

 Chapter 20

Janus looked around himself while Pat booted up his map to try to figure out where they were. They were in a small room that may actually be considered a large landing as there were staircases on either side of it. The water that was still coming out of the ceiling was running down the staircase that led down from the room.

 Something was stopping the water, creating a pool on the steps that was already about to overflow into the room. With the speed the water was flowing, they should have enough time before the room completely filled up with water and drowned them.

Janus wondered if they were in the church or not. It was not out of the question and there was church like décor around them, but who knew? He could feel a strange vibration in the ground and the one window in the room shone with green light.

“Hmm,” said Pat. “That looks not good.” He’d projected his map so they could all see everything.

 The map itself was moving. Rooms were phasing in and out of focus and fracturing down the middle. One room was even spinning lazily around in circles. Janus could see the room they were in. It was connected to the bigger blob of rooms, and there was a black line connecting it to another room from the top which was obviously the hole spewing water at them.

“Well, at least the time distortion is still coming from the bell tower,” Remus said. Janus shot him an unamused glance. Said bell tower was currently upside down and shuddering as well as divided from any other room by at least two inches of empty space.

28842

“How are we supposed to get there?” asked Pat.

“We don’t,” Janus said. “It’s literally impossible.”

“There has to be some way,” Pat argued with a frown.

“If we try to use time travel, we’ll definitely get shredded by the warping time and space around it and walking there isn’t an option. There aren’t even any entrances!”

“Well, there were at one point.”

“Yeah, before,” he gestured wildly to the ceiling that was still pouring water into the room.

“So?” Pat asked.

“’So’?! What do you mean ‘so’?!”  

Pat shrugged. “When one door closes, cut another one.”

Janus froze and looked at him for a long moment. “Where the hell did you hear that?”

Patton raised an eyebrow. “You.”

“I don’t think like that anymore.”

“Well then I guess we’ll die,” Pat said lightly. “Of course, that’ll make an even worse time loop considering I’ve met older versions of you.”

“Fuck,” Janus spat. “Fuck. Fine. Give me a minute to think. Not that I even know if we have a minute because,” he gestured once again to the room.

 “Okay,” Janus said. “The room with the source of the time distortion is separated from us by a swirling pool of dark nothingness and there is no way to get to it. But, the only way we’re going to stop the distortion from ripping apart time and killing us as well as probably a bunch of other people is to get to it. That is an impossible situation. There is no solution. That door is closed to us. What other ways are there to look at it?” He looked at the visual representation of the rooms. One of them suddenly went spinning out and his eyes tracked it. We need to be in the same place as the source,” Janus said. “That is fact, but we don’t have to get to it.”

“Um, what do you mean?” Remus asked. Pat shushed him.

 “If you want thing A and thing B to be in the same place, there’s more than one way to do it. If you can’t move thing A to thing B, you might be able to move thing B to thing A. Pat, you have a working time device. We can’t travel with it because that would kill us, but if we can make it do a stutter warp, it could draw the time distortion to it.”

“You…” Remus said. “Want to create another time distortion in hopes that the original time distortion will be pulled into this room?”

“Yes.”

“Well, sounds good to me!” Remus said.

 He maybe had expected Pat to argue, but he didn’t. Instead, he moved his hand to his wrist. There had been nothing there before, but when he touched down on his wrist with two fingers, there was suddenly a metal bound around it that Janus immediately recognized from the times he’d seen Pat’s timepiece before. How was it made invisible? He shook the thought off as Pat offered it up wordlessly. Janus took it and Pat leaned over his shoulder to look.

Despite the fact that the device looked nothing like his own, the interface was surprisingly convenient. “I assume you have safety setting to prevent a stutter warp,” Janus said. “How do I turn those off?”

 Patton pointed at a gear icon on the screen. “You put it under your normal settings?” he asked.

“I have to put in my password or use my fingerprint!” Pat defended.

“It doesn’t matter right now.” He navigated through the settings. He was interested to see that there were many different saved default security settings, but he didn’t get much of a chance to read what all they did. He just turned them all off.” It popped up with a message to put in the password and Pat pressed his fingertip to it. Another message popped up warning them that turning off these settings could cause damage to the machinery, the person using it, and time itself. Janus pushed “okay.” A message popped up that asked “Continue” and Janus pressed “yes.” One last message popped up that said “Security functions disabled.” Janus pressed “okay.”

 “Anything else I’d need to disable?”

“Nope,” Pat confirmed.

He navigated back to the main screen and then bought up the manual travel input screen. Yet another message warning him not to do this flashed and Janus once again ignored it. He copied the space time coordinates that the device said they were currently at and put it in the ‘travel to’ location. “Well,” he said. “Here it goes. Let it be known that if I die, it’s my own fault for allowing Remus into a church.”

“Really?” Remus said. “That’s what you’re choosing to be your last words?”

Janus just raised an eyebrow.

“Love you too Janus.”

Janus nodded and hovered his finger over the travel button. He quickly mashed his finger to the button 22 times.”

 The device warmed in his hand enough that he almost dropped it. Time literally froze for a few breaths as whatever Deity that may or may not exist processed their stupidity.

Janus was not a scientist or technician, but he had a good idea of how badly they were fucking up right now. The timepiece was attempting to travel over and over again to the exact same place and time. This basically punched a small hole through time, that if left unfixed would grow and disrupt space time all around them. As it was, their current position, all gathered around it and staring at it while one of them had it literally in their hand, was perilous.

 There was a rumble under their feet and the world tilted on it’s axis. The all went tumbling down in a pile of limbs to new floor of the room which had once been a wall.

Of course, this change of gravity caused the water that had been building up in the staircase to dump on top of them.

Janus would have cursed, but he was too busy being under the water. He maneuvered himself away from the other two flailing bodies and managed to shove his feet against the wall turned floor. His head popped above the water in time to see the ceiling, or well, it would be the opposite wall, rip in two and the other walls/floor/ceiling start to fold in.

 “Give me a boost!” Pat called over the noise of water rushing and walls crunching.

“Give you a boost where?” Janus asked.

“Up!” Janus wasn’t sure if ‘up’ really existed right now, but he still nodded. The water was a few inches over his head, so he held his breath and interlaced his hands so Pat could put his foot in it. He was shoved down into the water, but it gave Pat enough leverage to shoot up out of the water. When Janus resurfaced, he saw that the man had grabbed ahold of the crumbling wall and was pulling himself up into what for all appearances seemed to be absolutely nothing.

 It took a moment, but then Janus blinked, and he was suddenly in a new room entirely or perhaps it was the same room. He honestly didn’t know at this point. Remus was next to him. He couldn’t recall if he’d been there before the shift or not, but they were both treading water. Pat crashed into the water next to them. Janus’s wrist buzzed as his timepiece came back online. “Got it!” Pat declared when he resurfaced, holding a device up. It looked almost the same as the device they’d found in France, but this one was definitely different if it was able to cause that much chaos that quickly.

 Janus looked around and pointed at what appeared to be a set of stairs. The three of them swam over and pulled themselves out of the water.

“Where are we?” Pat asked.

“Looks like a basement,” Remus replied. “A flooded basement.”

Janus pulled up his timepiece and pushed some buttons to stabilize Pat’s timepiece. It slowly stopped vibrating and cooled. “Here,” he said, handing it over to him. “I suggest you put the safeties back on now.”

Pat nodded and took it.

“We’re still in Cuba,” Remus informed them, looking at his own timepiece. “Same church too, but in the basement and… two and a half centuries later.”

“Remy is going to be pissed,” Janus said.

Remus shrugged. “He’s always pissed… at least at me.”

“Well,” said Pat, slipping his timepiece back onto his wrist. “Thanks for being willing to pool our resources.”

Janus rolled his eyes. “Stop.”

“Ah, mi sirenito-”

“I hate you.”

“-never.” He disappeared with a pop which was when Janus realized, he’d never handed over device that had caused the first time distortion.

“…You bastard!” he yelled at thin air as though the man could hear him.

“Well,” said Remus, “that mission went swimmingly.” Janus reached over and shoved him back into the water.

 Chapter 21

“We should probably get out of here,” Janus said, very much not helping Remus out of the water. Remus pulled himself back up onto the staircase and shook like a dog. Janus crinkled his nose as water droplets hit him. They didn’t smell salty anymore, he noted. In fact, there was a broken pipe spewing out water on the other side of the room.

Janus and Remus cautiously snuck out of the church, not wanting to be seen and blamed for the flooded basement. They came out on a city street that was much different than the one they’d entered from.

 They walked down the street a bit, Janus’s eyes scanning the buildings. His eyes caught on a sign and he tugged Remus towards it.

They entered the small paladare and the person delivering food to one of the tables blinked at them both. Right. They were in clothing from the 1700s and were soaking wet. He met eyes with the woman, challenging her to say something. She did not.

They found a seat at one of the tables.

“Ah…” the worker said, approaching them. “English?”

“Ron,” Janus said, “por favor.”

Remus turned and started ordering the both of them food in Spanish. Janus didn’t pay attention to what he did.

 After his second shot of rum, Janus sighed and brought up his timepiece to ping the TPI. The reaction was almost instantaneous from their perspective. Remy all but kicked down the restaurant’s door and walked over to them. “How the fuck?”

“Ah, Remy,” Janus said calmly. “Have a seat. We’re waiting on our food.”

He did, but probably only because people were looking at them. “What are you doing here?”

“It’s been a long day,” Janus answered, “and I’m hungry.”

“Yeah, it certainly looks like you’re interested in the food,” Remy said, eyeing the empty shot glasses.

“Let’s just say, I’m glad Cuba started letting paladares legally serve liquor a few years ago.”

 It’s clear that Remy wanted to ask them what had happened, but he also was cautious enough not to make a scene here and Janus wasn’t planning on getting up until he’d at least gotten his food. “Why are you soaked, by the way?”

“Turns out the ocean isn’t as far away as we thought,” Janus said.

“Also, a church basement is flooded,” Remus said.

“Fantastic,” Remy replied.

They sat there mostly in tense silence until their food came, and then Remus and Janus ate. Remy slapped down some pesos once they were done and then proceeded to all but physically drag them out of the restaurant.

 They were led to an alley way and then through an old almost hidden door. Remy immediately rounded on them. “What the hell happened?” Remy asked.

“The time distortion caused level 5 time fractures in its vicinity, we almost drowned three times, and the worst person in the universe fucked me over again.”

“To be fair,” Remus said. “He did save our lives before that.”

“I saved our lives first,” Janus said. “I don’t have to be fair.”

“Oh, yeah, Mr. Curl Up In A Ball And Perish. I’m sure we would have been fine without him.”

“Anyway,” Janus said to Remy. “If you want your lump of flesh, I suggest you take it now, because Khalid is going to murder me, and then fire me, and then rehire me so she can put me on desk duty and make me do paperwork until the end of time.”

[route22ny]

*Gaslighting, if you don’t know the word, is defined as manipulation into doubting your own sanity; as in, Carl made Mary think she was crazy, even though she clearly caught him cheating. He gaslit her.

Pretty soon, as the country begins to figure out how we “open back up” and move forward, very powerful forces will try to convince us all to get back to normal. (That never happened. What are you talking about?) Billions of dollars will be spent on advertising, messaging, and television and media content to make you feel comfortable again. It will come in the traditional forms — a billboard here, a hundred commercials there — and in new-media forms: a 2020–2021 generation of memes to remind you that what you want again is normalcy. In truth, you want the feeling of normalcy, and we all want it. We want desperately to feel good again, to get back to the routines of life, to not lie in bed at night wondering how we’re going to afford our rent and bills, to not wake to an endless scroll of human tragedy on our phones, to have a cup of perfectly brewed coffee, and simply leave the house for work. The need for comfort will be real, and it will be strong. And every brand in America will come to your rescue, dear consumer, to help take away that darkness and get life back to the way it was before the crisis. I urge you to be well aware of what is coming.

For the last hundred years, the multibillion-dollar advertising business has operated based on this cardinal principle: Find the consumer’s problem and fix it with your product. When the problem is practical and tactical, the solution is “as seen on TV” and available at Home Depot. Command strips will save me from having to repaint. So will Mr. Clean’s Magic Eraser. Elfa shelving will get rid of the mess in my closet. The Ring doorbell will let me see who’s on the porch if I can’t take my eyes off Netflix. But when the problem is emotional, the fix becomes a new staple in your life, and you become a lifelong loyalist. Coca-Cola makes you: happy. A Mercedes makes you: successful. Taking your kids to Disneyland makes you: proud. Smart marketers know how to highlight what brands can do for you to make your life easier. But brilliant marketers know how to rewire your heart. And, make no mistake, the heart is what has been most traumatized this last month. We are, as a society, now vulnerable in a whole new way.

What the trauma has shown us, though, cannot be unseen. A carless Los Angeles has clear blue skies as pollution has simply stopped. In a quiet New York, you can hear the birds chirp in the middle of Madison Avenue. Coyotes have been spotted on the Golden Gate Bridge. These are the postcard images of what the world might be like if we could find a way to have a less deadly daily effect on the planet. What’s not fit for a postcard are the other scenes we have witnessed: a health care system that cannot provide basic protective equipment for its frontline; small businesses — and very large ones — that do not have enough cash to pay their rent or workers, sending over 16 million people to seek unemployment benefits; a government that has so severely damaged the credibility of our media that 300 million people don’t know who to listen to for basic facts that can save their lives.

The cat is out of the bag. We, as a nation, have deeply disturbing problems. You’re right. That’s not news. They are problems we ignore every day, not because we’re terrible people or because we don’t care about fixing them, but because we don’t have time. Sorry, we have other shit to do. The plain truth is that no matter our ethnicity, religion, gender, political party (the list goes on), nor even our socioeconomic status, as Americans we share this: We are busy. We’re out and about hustling to make our own lives work. We have goals to meet and meetings to attend and mortgages to pay — all while the phone is ringing and the laptop is pinging. And when we get home, Crate and Barrel and Louis Vuitton and Andy Cohen make us feel just good enough to get up the next day and do it all over again. It is very easy to close your eyes to a problem when you barely have enough time to close them to sleep. The greatest misconception among us, which causes deep and painful social and political tension every day in this country, is that we somehow don’t care about each other. White people don’t care about the problems of black America. Men don’t care about women’s rights. Cops don’t care about the communities they serve. Humans don’t care about the environment. These couldn’t be further from the truth. We do care. We just don’t have the time to do anything about it. Maybe that’s just me. But maybe it’s you, too.

Well, the treadmill you’ve been on for decades just stopped. Bam! And that feeling you have right now is the same as if you’d been thrown off your Peloton bike and onto the ground: What in the holy fuck just happened? I hope you might consider this: What happened is inexplicably incredible. It’s the greatest gift ever unwrapped. Not the deaths, not the virus, but The Great Pause. It is, in a word, profound. Please don’t recoil from the bright light beaming through the window. I know it hurts your eyes. It hurts mine, too. But the curtain is wide open. What the crisis has given us is a once-in-a-lifetime chance to see ourselves and our country in the plainest of views. At no other time, ever in our lives, have we gotten the opportunity to see what would happen if the world simply stopped. Here it is. We’re in it. Stores are closed. Restaurants are empty. Streets and six-lane highways are barren. Even the planet itself is rattling less (true story). And because it is rarer than rare, it has brought to light all of the beautiful and painful truths of how we live. And that feels weird. Really weird. Because it has… never… happened… before. If we want to create a better country and a better world for our kids, and if we want to make sure we are even sustainable as a nation and as a democracy, we have to pay attention to how we feel right now. I cannot speak for you, but I imagine you feel like I do: devastated, depressed, and heartbroken.

And what a perfect time for Best Buy and J. Crew and Gwyneth Paltrow to help me feel normal again. If I could just have the new iPhone in my hand, if I could rest my feet on a pillow of new Nikes, if I could drink a venti blonde vanilla latte with two pumps of syrup, then this very dark feeling would go away. You think I’m kidding, that I’m being cute, that I’m denying the very obvious benefits of having a roaring economy. You’re right. Our way of life is not ruinous. The economy is not, at its core, evil. Brands and their products create millions of jobs. Like people — and most anything in life — there are brands that are responsible and ethical, and there are others that are not. They are all part of a system that keeps us living long and strong. We have lifted more humans out of poverty through the power of economics than any other civilization in history. Yes, without a doubt, Americanism is a force for good. It is not some villainous plot to wreak havoc and destroy the planet and all our souls along with it. I get it, and I agree. But its flaws have been laid bare for all to see. It doesn’t work for everyone. It’s responsible for great destruction. It is so unevenly distributed in its benefit that three men own more wealth than 150 million people. Its intentions have been perverted and the protection it offers has disappeared. In fact, it’s been brought to its knees by one pangolin.

And so the onslaught is coming. Get ready, my friends. What is about to be unleashed on American society will be the greatest campaign ever created to get you to feel normal again. It will come from brands, it will come from government, it will even come from each other, and it will come from the left and from the right. We will do anything, spend anything, believe anything, just so we can take away how horribly uncomfortable all of this feels. And on top of that, just to turn the screw that much more, will be the one effort that’s even greater: the all-out blitz to make you believe you never saw what you saw. The air wasn’t really cleaner; those images were fake. The hospitals weren’t really a war zone; those stories were hyperbole. The numbers were not that high; the press is lying. You didn’t see people in masks standing in the rain risking their lives to vote. Not in America. You didn’t see the leader of the free world push an unproven miracle drug like a late-night infomercial salesman. That was a crisis update. You didn’t see homeless people dead on the street. You didn’t see inequality. You didn’t see indifference. You didn’t see utter failure of leadership and systems.

But you did. You are not crazy, my friends. And so we are about to be gaslit in a truly unprecedented way. It starts with a check for $1,200 (Don’t say I never gave you anything) and then it will be so big that it will be bigly. And it will be a one-two punch from both big business and the big White House — inextricably intertwined now more than ever and being led by, as our luck would have it, a Marketer in Chief. Business and government are about to band together to knock us unconscious again. It will be funded like no other operation in our lifetimes. It will be fast. It will be furious. And it will be overwhelming. The Great American Return to Normal is coming.

From one citizen to another, I beg of you: Take a deep breath, ignore the deafening noise, and think deeply about what you want to put back into your life. This is our chance to define a new version of normal, a rare and truly sacred (yes, sacred) opportunity to get rid of the bullshit and to only bring back what works for us, what makes our lives richer, what makes our kids happier, what makes us truly proud. We get to Marie Kondo the shit out of it all. We care deeply about one another. That is clear. That can be seen in every supportive Facebook post, in every meal dropped off for a neighbor, in every Zoom birthday party. We are a good people. And as a good people, we want to define — on our own terms — what this country looks like in five, 10, 50 years. This is our chance to do that, the biggest one we have ever gotten. And the best one we’ll ever get.

We can do that on a personal scale in our homes, in how we choose to spend our family time on nights and weekends, what we watch, what we listen to, what we eat, and what we choose to spend our dollars on and where. We can do it locally in our communities, in what organizations we support, what truths we tell, and what events we attend. And we can do it nationally in our government, in which leaders we vote in and to whom we give power. If we want cleaner air, we can make it happen. If we want to protect our doctors and nurses from the next virus — and protect all Americans — we can make it happen. If we want our neighbors and friends to earn a dignified income, we can make that happen. If we want millions of kids to be able to eat if suddenly their school is closed, we can make that happen. And, yes, if we just want to live a simpler life, we can make that happen, too. But only if we resist the massive gaslighting that is about to come. It’s on its way. Look out.

https://forge.medium.com/prepare-for-the-ultimate-gaslighting-6a8ce3f0a0e0

[tenaflyviper]

Can I talk about how hypocritical the hatedom for VivziePop/Hazbin Hotel really is for a moment?

This is a site where people often stress that teenagers are not fully mentally mature, and therefore cannot be held accountable for their actions (mostly true, though y'all damn well better vote this year if you're 18!!). Many of these same people are also the ones making serious accusations against VivziePop for things she drew at age 16. So, which is it? Do we allow teens the ability to mature and become better people, or are they forever the mistakes they've made while unable to fully grasp the consequences?

People here talk about representation and supporting LGBT and PoC creators, but disregard that Viv is bisexual and Salvadoran (sometimes even deliberately erasing her identity) and they call one of the show's characters a Latina stereotype when the character was created to be Salvadoran representation, and is based strongly on the creator. So, which is it? Are you gonna let PoC represent themselves how they choose, or deem them "racist" and speak over the top of them because your white guilt infantilizes them?

Some of the accusations against VivziePop really expose the latent racism of the accusers, such as the idea that another character is a Jewish stereotype because "she has a hook nose, and is shown holding money" (for the record, she's a flapper getting paid to sing, and her nose is extremely tiny).

There's so much more, but I'm genuinely too tired to think of it.

This whole thing is just a disgusting display of bitterness from people whose legitimate concern for bettering the world is mostly performative for notes on social media. Unfortunately, hating things together online is not a substitute for social interaction/making real friends, nor is it a substitute for being interesting and having a personality. Trying to ruin others' careers is likewise a shit choice of time use, when they could be putting in the actual hard work needed to become a content creator themselves.

And lemme tell ya--they sure as fuck will never succeed with their own projects if they don't grow out of that entitled attitude.

[bobbystompy]

91 Quotes I Enjoyed From 2020

Below are my favorite quotes from 2020. Though most occurred throughout the year, some took place before but were encountered during.

1) “You don’t have to be new to make new.” - Rick Rubin

2) “He put the beat on and go to sleep then wake up with a verse.” - The Lox

3) “Every opinion is bad.” - Blink-155

4)

(via Twitter)

5) “At the start of every disaster movie, there’s a scientist being ignored.”

6) “Be brave enough to suck at something new.”

7) “Comedy is the only job you can have where you can use everything you know” - Robin Williams via Dave Chappelle

8) “What’s the worst swear word where you live?” - Josiah Hughes

9) “Cookies are a really great way to get everybody to like you for a short period of time” - YSAC

10) “The worst dancer at a wedding is the one who’s not dancing.” - John Mulaney

11) “I never saw the end of the tunnel. I only saw myself running out of one." - Kobe Bryant

12) "A good movie begins as you're walking out of the theater" - Ethan Hawke

13) “When I was young and starting in cinema, there was a saying that I carved deep into my heart which is, 'The most personal is the most creative.’ That quote was from our great Martin Scorsese.” - Bong Joon-ho

14) “Run to the rescue with love, and peace will follow” - River Phoenix via Joaquin Phoenix

15) “Thank you -- I will drink until next morning.” - Bong Joon-ho

16) “Men will bury their emotions for decades and then take it all out on children tubing while they drive the boat.” - @krauter_

17) “They help you with the dumb face stuff, but they don’t tell you how to fix it” - Adam (Nate’s friend), on having older sisters

18) “We all had our connections, but it’s not the details themselves that matter, it’s the feeling behind them. There are a million coming-of-age tales. Lady Bird’s secret sauce is how deeply its creator gave a shit. The older I get, the less I care about anything but the sense of a filmmaker’s personal connection to the material. It doesn’t matter what it’s about, what genre it is, or whether it’s genre at all. I only really care that it feels like something the filmmaker had to tell me, and that it was that filmmaker in particular who had to tell it. It has to answer the ‘why are you telling me this’ question, and not just why are you telling me, but why are you telling me.

Lady Bird is a movie that feels like only Greta Gerwig could’ve made. And it’s only because it’s so specific to her that it can be so meaningful to so many people.” - Vince Mancini

19) "I have cast some lonely votes, fought some lonely fights, mounted some lonely campaigns. But I do not feel lonely now.” - Bernie Sanders

20) “Ever hear a Beatles song you haven’t heard before?”

21) “Drinking is an emotional thing. It joggles you out of the standardism of everyday life, out of everything being the same. It yanks you out of your body and your mind and throws you against the wall. I have the feeling that drinking is a form of suicide where you're allowed to return to life and begin all over the next day. It's like killing yourself, and then you're reborn. I guess I've lived about ten or fifteen thousand lives now.” - Charles Bukowski

22) “You shouldn’t have to hear a band to know if they’re good or not” - Josiah Hughes

23) “I was raised by OGs.  Some of you were raised by IG.  I understand.” - Ice-T

* * *

[Here is where I note the line of demarcation that was the COVID-19 pandemic hitting the US, pushed forward by Tom Hanks’ announcement, the NBA and NCAA shutting down, and, then, the nation itself.]

* * *

24) “There are decades where nothing happens, and there are weeks where decades happen.” - Vladimir Lenin

25) "Taken together, this is a massive failure in leadership that stems from a massive defect in character. Trump is such a habitual liar that he is incapable of being honest, even when being honest would serve his interests. He is so impulsive, shortsighted, and undisciplined that he is unable to plan or even think beyond the moment. He is such a divisive and polarizing figure that he long ago lost the ability to unite the nation under any circumstances and for any cause. And he is so narcissistic and unreflective that he is completely incapable of learning from his mistakes. The president’s disordered personality makes him as ill-equipped to deal with a crisis as any president has ever been. With few exceptions, what Trump has said is not just useless; it is downright injurious." - Peter Wehner

26) "Epidemics have a way of revealing underlying truths about the societies they impact." - Anne Applebaum

27) “A funny thing about quarantining is hearing your partner in full work mode for the first time. Like, I’m married to a ‘let’s circle back’ guy — who knew?” - Laura Norkin

28) 

(Jojo Rabbit)

29) “The world ends when you're dead. Until then, you got more punishment in store. - Deadwood: The Movie

30) “All bleeding stops eventually.” - Deadwood: The Movie

31) “Our Father, which art in heaven… / Let him fucking stay there” - Deadwood: The Movie

32) “It’s like a power outage, but we still have power” - Ryen Russillo, on the pandemic

33) “Whenever Sox baseball returns, it’ll be weird to not have Farmer on the call any more. The relationship between a fan and longtime announcer is always built in the little moments. One afternoon, he’s the soundtrack as you clean the garage. On another night, he’s your bookmark for the game as you stand in line for churros or walk down the ramps at Sox Park to try for better seats in the 100 level. A voice like Farmer’s becomes so familiar that you only really notice when it’s no longer there.” - Kevin Kaduk, on the passing of Ed Farmer

34) 

(via Twitter)

35) “In my songs, I try to look through someone else’s eyes, and I want to give the audience a feeling more than a message” - John Prine

36) “Observe everything. Admire nothing.” - Generation Kill

37) “Trump, by that definition, has always been a wartime president -- always willing to sacrifice people he doesn’t know to things he only sort of cares about” - David Roth

38) "Whenever they speak Michael Jordan, they should speak Scottie Pippen." - Michael Jordan

39) "Fiction is a bridge to the truth that journalism can't reach." - Hunter S. Thompson

40) “Airlines sending me “we’re in this together” emails. When my suitcase was 52 pounds I was on my own.” - Mike Dentale

41) “Sometimes you can be the worst source of your own story” - Ryen Russillo

42) “Family is not necessarily blood, but instead who you would bleed for.”

43)

(via Twitter)

44) "This is the deal that Jordan made, knowingly or unknowingly — that he would trade everything he had for everything he wanted. And then, when he won all those things, he found that he had nothing but that.” - David Roth

45) “I’m brand loyal, but the brand doesn’t matter” - Caitie Miller, on why she doesn’t like generic peanut butter

46) “NOBODY shitposts Gene Hackman!!” - Mark Dehlinger

47) “When a man concludes that any stick is good enough to beat his foe with—that is when he picks up a boomerang.” - G.K. Chesterton

48) “You can be appalled forever, but shocked only once.” - Jeff Weiss, on early Eminem

49) “Whether I’m pessimistic or optimistic, the fight’s the same” - David Simon

50) “Freedom can never be completely won, but it can be lost.” - Bernard Simon

51) “Racism in America is like dust in the air. It seems invisible — even if you’re choking on it — until you let the sun in. Then you see it’s everywhere. As long as we keep shining that light, we have a chance of cleaning it wherever it lands.” -Kareem Abdul Jabbar

52) “In a racist society, it is not enough to be non-racist -- we must be anti-racist.” - Angela Davis

53) “Start as close to the end as possible” - Kurt Vonnegut, on creative writing

54) “You can’t stay woke all the time — that’s insomnia.” - Dr. Cornel West

55) “No, I get it. I’ve dated a lot of Geminis.”

56) “The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun.” - John Krakauer, Into The Wild (via Tyler Keller)

57) "I couldn't show them my For You because it's pretty much just lesbian stuff and depression memes" - Maggie Loesch, on showing TikTok to her coworkers

58) "It's 1 a.m. in Slovakia and I've already had one bottle of wine and I don't know how long this press conference will go, so good luck to me." - Marian Hossa, following his NHL Hall of Fame announcement

59) “All I want in life is to go on an Anguilla group trip” - Mandy Gilkes

60) “You miss old friends when you don’t see them, but you miss them more when you do.” - Chuck Klosterman

61) “The only way to appreciate the present is to pretend it’s already the past.” - Chuck Klosterman

62) Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth, oh, never mind You will not understand the power and beauty of your youth Until they've faded, but trust me, in 20 years, you'll look back At photos of yourself and recall in a way you can't grasp now How much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked

(”Everybody's Free [To Wear Sunscreen]”)

Second time that essay’s been quoted on this list.

64) "I mean, it's just human nature to suck up to the people above you, crap on those beneath you, and undercut your equals” - Brian, Family Guy

65) “You never quit a job. You quit a manager.” - Brian Bedford

66) “All the pictures in my house are of people I’m not friends with” - Tracy Cunningham

67) “In order to leave something behind, you have to leave.” - Dr. Herman, Grey’s Anatomy

68) 

(via Twitter)

69) “You can obsess about death if you don’t have to obsess about dying.” - Brendan Kelly via “White Noise”

70) “If it’s right to do, it’s wrong to wait.” - Andy, doorman 

71)

72) “When I'm sometimes asked when will there be enough [women on the Supreme Court] and I say, 'When there are nine,' people are shocked. But there'd been nine men, and nobody's ever raised a question about that.” - Ruth Bader Ginsburg

73) "America is mostly people who’ve never left their state saying we have the best country in the world." - Billy Wayne Davis

74) “A writer is someone who knows at least 80% of their writing sucks.” - Gabe Hudson

75) 

(via Twitter)

76) “You’re dead twice” - Brendan Kelly

77) “Perfect is the enemy of good” - Voltaire (via Zach Lowe)

78) “I don’t want to be a savior, I want to be a mirror.” - Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

79) “I get bad Twitter FOMO but not real life FOMO. That just goes to show I need to get off the Internet.” - Josh Thomas

80) “Is there anything you love in life that you engage with seriously that you don't also engage with humor?" - Sam Sutherland, on his relationship with Blink-182

81) “My favorite genre of music is my friends' bands" - Josiah Hughes

82) “Let’s fall in love like both our parents aren’t divorced.”

83) “Seabiscuit may be the only earthling that was on both sides of the stamp.” - Brendan Kelly

84) “There’s no shame in coming in second, except in, like, wars.” - Family Guy

85) “I feel like I experience writer’s block 100% of the time, and when I do write, I have impostor syndrome.” - Phoebe Bridgers

86) “We teach based on what we most need to learn.” - psychologist on Grey’s Anatomy

87) “Having too many choices is the leading cause of stress” - Grey’s Anatomy

88) “I think we've all gravely underestimated the extent to which this year has changed all of us, permanently” - Kelli Maria Korducki

89) 

(via Twitter)

90) “I wonder if people understand why they don’t have polio” - Sandra E. Garcia

91) “Ending songs is terrible, so let’s keep singing” - Dave Hernandez

[kny111]

Prepare for the Ultimate Gaslighting*

by Julio Vincent Gambuto

*Gaslighting, if you don’t know the word, is defined as manipulation into doubting your own sanity; as in, Carl made Mary think she was crazy, even though she clearly caught him cheating. He gaslit her.

Pretty soon, as the country begins to figure out how we “open back up” and move forward, very powerful forces will try to convince us all to get back to normal. (That never happened. What are you talking about?) Billions of dollars will be spent on advertising, messaging, and television and media content to make you feel comfortable again. It will come in the traditional forms — a billboard here, a hundred commercials there — and in new-media forms: a 2020–2021 generation of memes to remind you that what you want again is normalcy. In truth, you want the feeling of normalcy, and we all want it. We want desperately to feel good again, to get back to the routines of life, to not lie in bed at night wondering how we’re going to afford our rent and bills, to not wake to an endless scroll of human tragedy on our phones, to have a cup of perfectly brewed coffee and simply leave the house for work. The need for comfort will be real, and it will be strong. And every brand in America will come to your rescue, dear consumer, to help take away that darkness and get life back to the way it was before the crisis. I urge you to be well aware of what is coming.

For the last hundred years, the multibillion-dollar advertising business has operated based on this cardinal principle: Find the consumer’s problem and fix it with your product. When the problem is practical and tactical, the solution is “as seen on TV” and available at Home Depot. Command strips will save me from having to repaint. So will Mr. Clean’s Magic Eraser. Elfa shelving will get rid of the mess in my closet. The Ring doorbell will let me see who’s on the porch if I can’t take my eyes off Netflix. But when the problem is emotional, the fix becomes a new staple in your life, and you become a lifelong loyalist. Coca-Cola makes you: happy. A Mercedes makes you: successful. Taking your family on a Royal Caribbean cruise makes you: special. Smart marketers know how to highlight what brands can do for you to make your life easier. But brilliant marketers know how to rewire your heart. And, make no mistake, the heart is what has been most traumatized this last month. We are, as a society, now vulnerable in a whole new way.

What the trauma has shown us, though, cannot be unseen. A carless Los Angeles has clear blue skies as pollution has simply stopped. In a quiet New York, you can hear the birds chirp in the middle of Madison Avenue. Coyotes have been spotted on the Golden Gate Bridge. These are the postcard images of what the world might be like if we could find a way to have a less deadly daily effect on the planet. What’s not fit for a postcard are the other scenes we have witnessed: a health care system that cannot provide basic protective equipment for its frontline; small businesses — and very large ones — that do not have enough cash to pay their rent or workers, sending over 16 million people to seek unemployment benefits; a government that has so severely damaged the credibility of our media that 300 million people don’t know who to listen to for basic facts that can save their lives.

The cat is out of the bag. We, as a nation, have deeply disturbing problems. You’re right. That’s not news. They are problems we ignore every day, not because we’re terrible people or because we don’t care about fixing them, but because we don’t have time. Sorry, we have other shit to do. The plain truth is that no matter our ethnicity, religion, gender, political party (the list goes on), nor even our socioeconomic status, as Americans we share this: We are busy. We’re out and about hustling to make our own lives work. We have goals to meet and meetings to attend and mortgages to pay — all while the phone is ringing and the laptop is pinging. And when we get home, Crate and Barrel and Louis Vuitton and Andy Cohen make us feel just good enough to get up the next day and do it all over again. It is very easy to close your eyes to a problem when you barely have enough time to close them to sleep. The greatest misconception among us, which causes deep and painful social and political tension every day in this country, is that we somehow don’t care about each other. White people don’t care about the problems of black America. Men don’t care about women’s rights. Cops don’t care about the communities they serve. Humans don’t care about the environment. These couldn’t be further from the truth. We do care. We just don’t have the time to do anything about it. Maybe that’s just me. But maybe it’s you, too.

Well, the treadmill you’ve been on for decades just stopped. Bam! And that feeling you have right now is the same as if you’d been thrown off your Peloton bike and onto the ground: What in the holy fuck just happened? I hope you might consider this: What happened is inexplicably incredible. It’s the greatest gift ever unwrapped. Not the deaths, not the virus, but The Great Pause. It is, in a word, profound. Please don’t recoil from the bright light beaming through the window. I know it hurts your eyes. It hurts mine, too. But the curtain is wide open. What the crisis has given us is a once-in-a-lifetime chance to see ourselves and our country in the plainest of views. At no other time, ever in our lives, have we gotten the opportunity to see what would happen if the world simply stopped. Here it is. We’re in it. Stores are closed. Restaurants are empty. Streets and six-lane highways are barren. Even the planet itself is rattling less (true story). And because it is rarer than rare, it has brought to light all of the beautiful and painful truths of how we live. And that feels weird. Really weird. Because it has… never… happened… before. If we want to create a better country and a better world for our kids, and if we want to make sure we are even sustainable as a nation and as a democracy, we have to pay attention to how we feel right now. I cannot speak for you, but I imagine you feel like I do: devastated, depressed, and heartbroken.

And what a perfect time for Best Buy and H&M and Wal-Mart to help me feel normal again. If I could just have the new iPhone in my hand, if I could rest my feet on a pillow of new Nikes, if I could drink a venti blonde vanilla latte or sip a Diet Coke, then this very dark feeling would go away. You think I’m kidding, that I’m being cute, that I’m denying the very obvious benefits of having a roaring economy. You’re right. Our way of life is not without purpose. The economy is not, at its core, evil. Brands and their products create millions of jobs. Like people — and most anything in life — there are brands that are responsible and ethical, and there are others that are not. They are all part of a system that keeps us living long and strong. We have lifted more humans out of poverty through the power of economics than any other civilization in history. Yes, without a doubt, Americanism is a force for good. It is not some villainous plot to wreak havoc and destroy the planet and all our souls along with it. I get it, and I agree. But its flaws have been laid bare for all to see. It doesn’t work for everyone. It’s responsible for great destruction. It is so unevenly distributed in its benefit that three men own more wealth than 150 million people. Its intentions have been perverted, and the protection it offers has disappeared. In fact, it’s been brought to its knees by one pangolin. We have got to do better and find a way to a responsible free market.

Until then, get ready, my friends. What is about to be unleashed on American society will be the greatest campaign ever created to get you to feel normal again. It will come from brands, it will come from government, it will even come from each other, and it will come from the left and from the right. We will do anything, spend anything, believe anything, just so we can take away how horribly uncomfortable all of this feels. And on top of that, just to turn the screw that much more, will be the one effort that’s even greater: the all-out blitz to make you believe you never saw what you saw. The air wasn’t really cleaner; those images were fake. The hospitals weren’t really a war zone; those stories were hyperbole. The numbers were not that high; the press is lying. You didn’t see people in masks standing in the rain risking their lives to vote. Not in America. You didn’t see the leader of the free world push an unproven miracle drug like a late-night infomercial salesman. That was a crisis update. You didn’t see homeless people dead on the street. You didn’t see inequality. You didn’t see indifference. You didn’t see utter failure of leadership and systems.

But you did. You are not crazy, my friends. And so we are about to be gaslit in a truly unprecedented way. It starts with a check for $1,200 (Don’t say I never gave you anything) and then it will be so big that it will be bigly. And it will be a one-two punch from both big business and the big White House — inextricably intertwined now more than ever and being led by, as our luck would have it, a Marketer in Chief. Business and government are about to band together to knock us unconscious again. It will be funded like no other operation in our lifetimes. It will be fast. It will be furious. And it will be overwhelming. The Great American Return to Normal is coming. _________________________________________________________ Continue To Full Piece At Medium

[ruddcatha]

Guardian Chapter 16

Its time for Inuyasha and Toga to talk.

Thank you again to @heavenin–hell for your inspiration, I hope this story does your work justice.

posted on Ao3: Here / FFN: Here

Guardian has been Nominated for the Feudal Connection  2020 3rd Quarterly Inuyasha Fandom Awards!  Voting is now open and  runs through August 12, 2020, click here to vote for your favorite stories and artwork.

Nominated for: Best AU/AR

Golden eyes watched as Kagome stood beside a lake, her hair streaming behind her in the wind.  She reached behind her to grab it before tying it in a loose knot.  She tilted her head back, allowing the breeze to dance across her skin.  A bead of sweat dripped down her neck on a slow path to meet the strap of her red bikini top.

His eyes were glued to that drop.  Inuyasha knew he should walk away and give her privacy, but Kagome had said she wanted to go for a swim, and he would be damned if he was going to leave her without anyone to protect her.  He had followed her to the lake, intent on staying nearby and not interrupt her or let her know he was nearby.

And then she had removed her t-shirt to reveal the bikini top.  And he could not turn away.  He silently offered thanks to the Kami for modern clothing, women were no longer hidden behind five layers of cloth.  But the sight of Kagome in a red bikini top and short jean shorts was the most tantalizing vision he had seen. 

A soft whine escaped his lips, kami she was the most gorgeous thing he had ever seen. 

A slight smile crossed her lips. “I know you are there Inuyasha.”  Kagome lowered her head and turned back to look at him.

“I had hoped you would follow me.”

Inuyasha was suddenly standing in front of her, their chests nearly touching as he stared down at the goddess before him with heated eyes.  Kagome reached out and ran her hand up his chest to toy with the collar of his shirt. 

“Kagome” Inuyasha growled as his eyes closed at her touch.  He wanted nothing more than to feel her pressed against him, he knew their bodies would fit together perfectly, but he didn’t want to scare her.  His eyes flew open as Kagome placed her hand on the back of his neck, playing with the tie containing his hair.  Kagome bit her bottom lip as she looked up at him, and his control snapped.

His arm snaked around Kagome’s waist, pulling her tight against him as his head descended, capturing her lips in a searing kiss.  His tongue teased the lip she had just bitten, asking her for entry, which she willingly gave.  A rumble of pleasure reverberated through his chest as he brought his other hand to her hair, gently cradling the back of her head as he angled her to take the kiss deeper.  He could feel the yokai inside him surge forward to join him.

He pulled away slightly to take a much-needed breath, his eyes taking in the flush of Kagome’s cheeks, the slight swelling of her mouth. He lowered his hand from her hair, wrapping it around her waist and picking her up so her face was level with his.  Kagome instinctively wrapped her legs around his waist for leverage, causing them both to groan.  Her scent surrounded him with the movement, vanilla and rose now mixed with ginger, the combination was addicting.  With a soft whimper Kagome pulled his head forward to fuse their lips together again as she softly ran her tongue across his fangs.  The sharp tip of a fang nicked her tongue, .  At the taste of her sweet blood, Inuyasha lost control of his yokai. 

In a flash of movement, he had Kagome gently pressed against a tree, and Inuyasha shifted his arms to run his claws carefully up and down her sides.  His right hand played with the bottom of her top, his knuckles teasing the swelling flesh it contained.  Kagome gasped at the sensation and Inuyasha smiled against her lips as he took the kiss even deeper. He could feel her heartbeat fluttering against his chest, the sound calling to him on a primal, instinctual level. 

Tearing free of her lips, Inuyasha kissed the spot below her left ear, her neck fully revealed to him with her hair tied back.  At her soft gasp he lightly licked the spot before moving his attention to her ear, pausing to nibble it gently, his ears focused on every sound Kagome was making.  He knew then he could get addicted to those sounds, those little whimpers.

Inuyasha kissed and licked his way down her neck, drawn to the spot where her neck and shoulder met.  Her pulse was strongest at that point, and his entire focus was drawn to the sound, the pulse purring his name.  He drew his fangs over the spot and felt Kagome tense in his arms, her ginger scent growing more intense as she arched back, giving him even greater access to her neck.  He felt his fangs lengthen even further as he moved in closer, desperate to bite her, to sink his fangs into that pulse, to feel her blood rush through his mouth and join with his.  With a growl, he settled his jaw over her pulse, Kagome moving beneath him, pulling him closer.  He closed his eyes, and with a guttural sound started to bite down.

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

Inuyasha jerked awake, covered in sweat.  He was fully aroused, his body anxious for relief that he knew only would be provided by Kagome.  With a groan, he rose from the bed and made his way quickly to the bathroom and the cold shower.

He was getting awfully familiar with them.  For the past few weeks, his dreams seemed to focus on Kagome, different settings, different scenarios, but many ended the same way. 

His fangs pressed against her neck.  Some of the more intense dreams, like the one that night, he could feel himself pressed between her legs, harder than he had ever been in his life. In his 100 years (he did not count the 500 that he had been sealed) he had never had that happen with any other woman.  Back in their village, women had tried, but none had caught his eye or captured his attention as completely as Kagome had without even trying.

He turned the cold water on full blast before removing his sweatpants and boxers.  It had surprised him how quickly he had adapted to modern clothing, but the boxers provided much more… freedom… than he was used to.  At times though, like that moment, the freedom was both a blessing and a curse, he did not feel constricted, but the tent in his pants was more obvious for it.  He was considering switching back, it was becoming increasingly difficult to be near Kagome without her effect on him being obvious to everyone around them.  Each time he kissed her it became harder and harder to control himself.

He didn’t know what the fuck was wrong with him, or why he couldn’t stop obsessing over her.  Because that’s exactly what it felt like, an obsession.  Everything about her drew him, her scent, her voice, her kindness, her stubbornness, her determination.  She had been knocked down in training and got back up, learning from each experience.  He watched the tears flow down her cheeks in frustration as she sparred with Sango, but she kept trying.

How could he not be drawn to her?

But fuck if it wasn’t getting in the way.  He was hyper aware of where she was, what she was doing, and had to hold himself back every time he saw her take a blow in training from jumping in to protect her. 

It had been getting worse.  After the incident at the Ookami compound it was like his instincts had gone into overdrive, the need to protect her, to take care of her, had overridden almost everything else.

After dressing, Inuyasha stalked to the kitchen, grabbing a bowl and poured the Ce-real that Miroku had provided for them into it, adding milk as he had been shown.  He could barely focus on eating, his thoughts torn and tormenting him.  He felt his yoki flare, between the dreams and that damn scent that haunted Kagome, his yokai had been flaring more and more.  He needed to figure out what was happening.

“Inuyasha.” The deep voice of his father pulled him out of his thoughts.  When Inuyasha looked up, Toga took in the dark circles and haunted expression on his son’s face.  He had a feeling he knew what that meant, no matter what, he needed to have a discussion with Inuyasha.  He sighed; this would not be a happy conversation.

“Come see me when you are finished.”  Toga walked out of the kitchen and moved towards the outdoor garden of the facility.  Inuyasha devoured the rest of his food, the slightly sweet taste turning his stomach, but it had been simpler than cooking a meal in his state of mind.  He left the bowl in the sink and turned to follow his father.

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

Toga stood in the living room, staring at a bookshelf, a thoughtful expression on his face.

“What’s up old man?” Inuyasha growled, leaning against the doorjamb.

“You’ve been distracted in practice lately.  You were trained to be better than that.”  Toga turned and looked at his son.  “I want to know why.”

“Keh.”

“Don’t ‘keh’ me pup.  We can’t afford to have you distracted or have you make any mistakes that could hurt someone.”

Inuyasha’s cheeks flushed pink at the admonition.  He knew his father was right, but he really did not want to have this talk with his dad of all people.

“You’re right.  I have been distracted and I don’t know what to do about it.”

“What is distracting you?”

Inuyasha’s eyes closed. “Kagome.” He whispered.

To his surprise Toga chuckled.  “I had a feeling that was what was happening.”

Inuyasha cracked open an eye to see his father walking towards the couch.  His ears twitched as he caught the soft sound of flesh tapping the fabric and opened his eyes fully to see his father motioning for Inuyasha to join him on the couch.

“I did not think we would need to have this conversation quite this soon…” Toga sighed.

“What conversation Dad?” Inuyasha asked, sitting beside his father with a puzzled look on his face.

“Demon birds and the bees.”

Inuyasha choked, backing away unconsciously.  “Keh, you have got to be kidding me.  I do not have time for this shi…”

Toga’s hand snaked out and grabbed Inuyasha’s wrist before pulling him back to the couch.  “You are making time.  It’s important.”

Toga leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees, clasping his hands between his legs.  “Let me guess, you feel drawn to protect her, her safety and wellbeing consumes your every thought?” 

Inuyasha froze, causing Toga to let out a small chuckle.

“That’s what I thought.  Have the dreams started yet?”  Toga looked out of the corner of his eyes and saw his son’s face turn bright red. “I will take that as a yes.  Do you want to tell me about them?”

“Fuck No.” Inuyasha turned away from his father, there were some things you just didn’t share.

His father grabbed his ear and tugged it, forcing Inuyasha to look at him. 

“Pup, don’t pull that shit with me.” 

Crap, it was THAT look…

“Keh…” Inuyasha didn’t want to tell his father about THAT part of the dreams but maybe… “I feel like the yokai part of me sees her as prey, I’m hunting her, stalking her. I am drawn to bite her, to feel her blood in my mouth, to the point I can almost taste it. It’s like the yokai part of me wants to kill her and it… it’s tearing me apart.”

“I’ve noticed the changes to your yokai, that’s what I wanted to talk to Jinenji about on Sunday.  They have learned a lot more about hanyou while we were sealed.”

Inuyasha turned to look at his father, his curiosity peaked.

“You are both yokai and human, we already know that you have a human night, but you also have a strong yokai side too, you are after all my son.”  Toga’s chest puffed with pride, earning a scoffing “Keh” from Inuyasha.

“You have all the same instincts as a full yokai, but your human part doesn’t know how to process the information--how to understand scents, how to harness your energy.  I have been lax in your education, and I apologize for that.”

“What are you talking about?  Everything I know I learned from you, you taught me to be strong, to fight, to protect…”

“But I never talked about finding your mate.”  Toga’s head fell forward.  “I never prepared you to meet the woman who was born for you as you were born for her. And that is where I failed you, and that failure is impacting you now.”

“Wha…”

“It hurt too much to discuss it.  First while your mother was alive, and when she died it felt like a part of me died as well, and I did not want to think about it.  But it seems you need to know.”

Toga stood, moving slightly away from Inuyasha.

“Inu Yokai are particular about their partners, as you have seen.  There are two ways generally an Inu will have relations with another, either the need for an heir or when they find their mate.  This is how I was able to have both you and Sesshomaru.  Sesshomaru’s mother was a political arrangement, a worthy mother was chosen among the Inu’s to produce an heir with me.  Your mother was my mate.”

“What is the difference?” Inuyasha questioned, watching his father intently.

“That’s easy.  I love your mother.  Even to this day I love her.”

“And she was human and passed away.”

“It’s true, humans have a limited lifespan.”

“THEN HOW CAN WE LOVE THEM?” Inuyasha cried out.  Toga spun at the sound of his son’s voice, the tears in Inuyasha’s eyes making him pause.  “She’s all I think about, I just want to protect her, spend every day with her, grow old with her, but, how can I?  She will die before I will.”  Inuyasha’s voice broke as he spoke, and Toga realized in that moment just how deeply his son cared for Kagome.

“Because we can share our lifespan with a mate, even if they are human.”

Inuyasha looked at his father, hope desperately trying to find a place in his expression.

“In your dreams, have you ever been drawn to a certain spot on Kagome… and please if it cannot be seen with clothing on do not tell me… where you feel a pulse.  It calls to you, becomes the focus of your attention, and you feel drawn to bite in that spot.”

Mutely Inuyasha nodded, staring at Toga.

“She has a choice.  If you share the same feelings and she agrees that bite is the start of binding your lives together.  If you share your blood with her through the bite, your souls will be bound together, joining you going forward.  Your lifespans will match, but if one of you passes, the other will soon follow.”

“But you said mother was your mate?  Why did she die?”

Toga’s face fell as tears formed in his eye.

“She refused the bond.”

“Why?” Inuyasha was shocked, his mother had adored Toga.

“Inuyasha…Immortality is a lot to ask of a human.” Toga ran his hand through his hair.  “We are used to seeing friends grow old and die while we stay the same.  They are not.  Your mother… as much as she loved me, she was afraid of that.”

Toga tilted his head back, watching the sky. “We never told you this, but you had an aunt, your mother’s twin sister, Izana.  Izana died when they were both young.  They had been each other’s best friend, their other half, and suddenly that bond was gone, extinguished when her sister drowned.  Izayoi told me it felt as if part of her soul had died that day, the pain of the loss was so consuming she almost did not survive it.” 

Inuyasha saw a tear escape his father’s eye, tracking down his cheek. 

“Izayoi was afraid of that feeling, of watching others she cared for die time and time again, afraid that every death would eat away at her soul until she was nothing more than a hollow shell.  She loved me deeply but could not let go of that fear.”

“The same thing could happen with Kagome though; she could choose to say no.”

“Inuyasha” Toga said softly “Never be afraid to love and love deeply.  I have seen how she looks at you, and she has much more strength than your mother ever did.  Kagome has known loss but does not fear it. “

“How does this help me now? How does this stop me from focusing just on her during training?  How does this stop my Yokai from emerging when I think she is in danger?”

Inuyasha looked up at his father.  “How do I make sure I do not put others in danger because I cannot get control of myself?”

Toga turned to face his son; the trails of his tears still present on his face.

“You need to talk to her.  As a Hanyou you are unique, you love as a human and a yokai.  There is no question that the yokai part of you loves her, you would not have those dreams if you did not.  The human part of you loves her too, otherwise you would not fear losing her as much.”

Toga smiled sadly. “Even if you have her only for a moment, it will be the brightest moment of your life.  Do not waste it with fears.  You never know when that moment will be taken from you. I’ll never regret being with your mother, even if it wasn’t for enough time.”

Inuyasha rose to stand in front of Toga and clasped his hand on his father’s shoulder.

“Thank you.” He said solemnly.

Toga’s smile grew as he grabbed Inuyasha’s arm and pulled him close, wrapping his arms around his son.

“Just make sure I get some grandchildren to play with and we will call it square.”

Inuyasha choked before growling with mock outrage and annoyance as he pulled away from Toga.  He refused to admit that some his tamer dreams had involved black and silver haired children playing in a yard.

“Keh.” Toga chuckled at the flush on his son’s cheeks.  

“Talk to her Inuyasha.  It may seem fast, but that’s how it was for your mother and I; it only took one look and I knew.” 

Inuyasha nodded before walking back to his room and collapsed on his bed, one arm thrown over his eyes.  His thoughts were spinning, the information from his father had quite frankly stunned him.  The thought of being with Kagome for the remainder of his life… that sounded like paradise to him.  But it sparked a new fear, his father was right, near-immortality is a lot to ask of a human.  If Kagome said no, would it break him?  If he had to watch her die without ever asking, without ever giving her the choice… that would destroy him. So he knew he had to ask.

It would be the new moon tonight.   It was the perfect time to talk to her.

@willowandfog​  @smmahamazing @clearwillow  @sticky-llama-perfection @alannada @shinidamachu @cstormsinukagblog@superpixie42 @nartista @neutronstarchild​ @i-dream-of-soup​ @hnnwnchstr  @fawn-eyed-girl​ @ all-my-cuffs-have-buttons @liz8080​ @pivora96

[inkribbon796]

Egotober Day 11: Who is the Strongest in the Land?

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31

Prompt: Strong

Summary: There’s a bit of a debate in the Coalition. Who is the strongest? Silver’s superpower? Bob’s shields. Or Robbie’s magically infused muscles?

A/N: So, guess who saw the new Sanders Asides and already wants to make content? Me! Unfortunately for the plot I will have to wait until I can include the new pairing in so heads up on that.

Warnings: none

For years there had been a question between the heroes.

Who was the strongest hero? Unlike with Jackie’s speed, Roman’s imagination-based powers, or the fact that Logan was unbeatable in trivia pursuit games; the “strong” category had no clear first place winner.

If you asked anyone in the city there was only one name they gave: Silver. Mostly because he was able to lift cars and similarly heavy objects throw them an eyebrow-raising distance away.

Ask certain heroes like Joan and Logan or even King who were a bit more literal about the powers around them, and they gave a different answer: Bob.

Logan’s reasoning was simple: the veteran hero had impenetrable barriers. Blunt force objects, explosives, magical attacks, Dark’s aura, even Silver using his strength to rocket him across the fight like a huge pinball wasn’t enough to even crack the barrier. The only thing stopping the barrier was Bob’s stamina in maintaining said barrier.

Of course Marvin was one of the only people with a third opinion: Robbie. Before his zombification, for lack of a better term, Robbie had never really had a superpower. He had only some good sense — something interestingly hard to come by in the group — and he was a touch hardier than the average teenager. But after Marvin had been using more and more spells to reverse the after effects of his slight decomposition, the result was Herculean strength and more human mannerisms.

Today one debate turned into another and once again Bob and Mark were going to settle the age old debate, and before anyone knew it most of the heroes were standing in the garage and Logan was helping to rig several sensors to take measurements of how hard Silver was punching and how hard Bob or his barriers were getting hit.

Henrik was of course naturally fretting around Robbie, fully objecting to Marvin using the young man to settle the debate.

“Nein! You vill do no such zing!” Henrik argued.

“Relax,” Iplier tapped him with the back of his hand, “J.J you’d tell us if anything happened right?”

J.J nodded and signed a quick “yes” but was conspicuously not making his way to the betting pool to place a bet of his own. It kept Iplier from making his own since neither the time traveler nor the seer were making bets, they were sitting on either side of him, watching.

“Do you guys know who to bet on?” Dr. Iplier asked them.

“Of course the Host knows who will win,” the seer grinned between his narrations.

J.J gave a sign that the Host did his best to translate, “No bet on first attempt,” J.J warned him.

“I’ll ask you next time then,” Iplier joked, smiling. “We’ll make bank on it.”

Then the Host pulled a jar out that had two five dollar bills in it, a tapped note in Iplier’s handwriting read on the front: “TIE”. Each of the notes had a rolled up piece of paper that had the name of the person who had placed the bet and how much they placed. There was a huge grin on his face, “The Host suggests Iplier go and place his bet on the table.”

J.J shrugged and slipped a five into Iplier’s hand, his name tag wrapped around it. Thankfully the bulk of the group was too busy arguing to notice what was obviously the Host’s bet going up. But Virgil who was close by saw that Iplier was trying to sneak the jar up. Iplier then snuck back and Virgil carefully slipped his bet from Bob’s jar, which he had only chosen because Logan had placed a bet there, to the Tie jar. Then he went back to sitting a safe distance away. “A safe distance” that would eventually turn into sitting next to Iplier.

“Fuck ‘em up Robbie!” Ethan cheered from where he was standing.

Robbie gave a huge, warm smile.

“Aren’t you supposed to be on my team?” Mark chuckled, giving his former apprentice a fake-offended gasp.

Ethan just laughed, his contagious giggling undercutting any actual vitriol that could have been in the words, “No, hahahah! Fuck you.”

Bob laughed, “Ooooh! He got you good!”

Mark rolled his eyes and lightly pushed him, “Come on, let’s go.”

Roman cleared his throat, he was in a huge puffy tutu that was white and red with glitter dusting it. He was in a tight red and white leotard with golden accents to it that were reminiscent of his usual outfit, along with a pair of white footed pants. “Well let’s begin, my bet won’t win itself.”

“Your wager was placed by bribery with cookies, compounding your already unsound logic,” Logan reminded him.

“Oh hush, nerdy Wolverine,” Roman ordered, and held an arm up. “Okay, Round 1: Silver Shepherd v. Gatling, to the victor go . . . the victory.”

“Smooth, Princey,” Virgil snickered.

Roman stuck out his tongue at Virgil and the anxious Side just snickered and rolled his eyes. “Well we have other rounds.”

The creative Side cleared his throat before announcing, “Ready. Set. Go!”

Roman brought his hand down as he said that last word. Mark shot off at full speed, too fast for most of the heroes to follow with their own eyes.

Bob brought up a barrier in time and the air around the other heroes popped most of their ears. Virgil whimpered in pain a bit and scooted over to get closer to Iplier.

Silver repeatedly flew around to get spread. The barriers never broke and Silver kept up the onslaught for another couple minutes before the wear and strain started to show on Bob’s face.

Usually in an actual fight the other heroes would have picked up the slack so Bob could hunker into his barriers and get a breather to grab his second wind. But this wasn’t a normal fight, it was a duel and the fight started to wear down on him.

The instant Silver saw it, he started taunting his friend. “What’s the matter, getting tired there?”

“How about you shut up, asshole!” Bob shouted and as Silver was racing forward again, he extended out the barrier and Silver wasn’t as braced as he should have been and slammed into it face-first, breaking his nose.

The barrier extended out, taxing more of Bob’s strength than he expected. The shield flickered and Silver noticed it immediately and struck, slamming into the barrier again and Bob’s concentration slipped, the barrier flickered again just long enough for Silver to speed through and knock Bob to the ground, pinning him in place.

Mark had a huge, smug smile on his face, “Hah! I win.”

Bob groaned, “Fuck!”

“Inconclusive,” Logan huffed. “The barriers were never broken.”

“But he was defeated all the same,” Host announced. “The Host doubts that Silver’s current opponent could get back on his feet to fight Silver so soon.”

“You didn’t even make a bet,” Mark shouted at him, catching his breath a little.

But at the Host’s huge smile, Silver looked back at Jackie who was now by the table, “Hey, what was his bet, cause that smile says he made one.”

“I dunno,” Jackie shrugged, “I stepped away to grab a coffee.”

“The Host was secretive about his bet because only five people would have voted against him,” the Host said.

“Of course we wouldn’t have,” Ethan agreed loudly. “You know what’s gonna happen.”

“But where would the Host get his entertainment from?” The Host smiled, trying to sound hurt but it didn’t work at all.

“You asshole,” Bob smiled. “Kay, Silv, you win.”

“Hey! That’s my job!” Roman reminded indignantly.

“Wooooo! Yeah, I’m the best, fucking suck it!” Mark shouted at Bob, talking right over Roman which made the Side even angrier, floating off the ground for a bit.

Bob shoved him a bit, sending him farther than if Mark had been standing like a normal person. “Ugh, you are the worst sometimes.”

Then Bob stepped aside and Robbie came to stand opposite Silver. And here was where Mark made his first mistake. He looked at Robbie, at the former apprentice he had helped train, and tried to figure out how to beat Robbie without hurting him.

Roman announced how, and Silver moved first. He flew towards Robbie but instead of knocking him over, the young man grabbed him by the arm and used Silver’s momentum to toss him to the side and make him slammed into the wall behind the zombie.

Henrik and Marvin dove out of the way, and Mark stared at Robbie with surprise.

“Yeah, get ‘im,” Marvin cheered after a moment’s shock.

“Alright, fine then,” Mark huffed out, deciding that he could afford to be a little rougher with him. Much to Henrik’s mounting horror, Mark began to try with more effort to pin Robbie down, but Mark’s earlier round with Bob and the fact that he’d been wasting time going easy on him for the first half of the fight.

So when Mark came flying towards him, trying to get around the back to pin Robbie down but the ensuing struggle looked more like a wrestling match and ended with Robbie kinda hugging Mark’s arms to his side and the superhero just floating in the air looking like a piece of board.

“Heya,” Bob smiled at Mark, “having fun there, buddy?”

“Shut up,” Silver tried to wiggle free but Robbie just hugged him harder, a smile on his face.

After about a solid minute, he let out a frustrated growl and just floated there in an angry huff. “How? Marvin what have you done to this guy?”

“That sounds like he gave up,” Marvin grinned, looking at Logan who looked thoroughly upset and put out. “Victory right?”

“No!” Silver called, struggling a bit more. “I’m not giving up.”

Then he admitted, “Yeah . . . fine.”

“Robbie win?” Robbie smiled at Marvin.

“Sure did kid,” Marvin cheered.

“Yay!” Robbie let go of Mark and he just floated there for a bit, pouting a little.

He did float out of range so Bob, hopped up on an energy drink and getting a little bit of a rest, could take his place. He smiled as he put out a little bit of a barrier. Bob was bracing for a hard hit like he usually was with Silver but when Roman called “Go” and Robbie slammed his shoulder against the barrier, Bob barely felt it.

Bob was used to faster heroes, and having a tanky type of fighting style, by necessity with his powers, he was unused to defending against that.

But Robbie wasn’t a fast fighter, strong? Absolutely. However he wasn’t even half as fast as Mark and Bob just rested his elbow against the barrier and leaned against it. It had been a hot minute since he’d fought someone he had enough time to rest with.

Mark and Wade were the first ones to realize what was going on.

“Well shit,” Wade said. “He’s not getting through that.”

“He could!” Marvin promised defiantly.

Wade gave Marvin a look, “You know he’s not.”

“Come on, he hits hard enough to do more than that,” Mark defended, if only to salvage his own wounded pride.

“Oh yeah, I feel something,” Bob agreed. “It’s just not fast enough.”

“He was going faster against Silver,” Marvin cut in. “I call a do over.”

“No! No! If I got tired after Gatling,” Mark called out, “that counts.”

“But that means it’s a tie,” Bob spoke up. “We can’t have a tie.”

“But oh yes, the heroes can,” the Host smiled.

“Yah weren’t e’en bettin’!” Marvin shouted at them.

“But yet the Host always wins,” the Host smiled, J.J smiled as well.

“So do we win?” Virgil asked hesitantly.

“Hey,” Logan turned to Virgil, “you placed a bet at the same time has me for Bob.”

“I changed it,” Virgil whispered, already pulling his hoodie up a bit higher.

“You changed your vote because you were aware of a more likely outcome,” Logan realized. “I applaud your insight.”

Virgil smiled a bit and the winnings were distributed amongst the four winners, J.J leaving this timeline as it was. Logan, Bob, Marvin, and Mark continued to debate between each other who would have won in an “actual fight” after the Host used his voice to bring in a bunch of donuts to distract the heroes from the fact that he had basically got away with the bulk of the winnings . . . again.

[tslasvegas]

Episode 9: “Dear Diary, it’s me, Jaiden” - Jaiden

I feel like I've had a breakthrough. I just survived my first merge vote of the game and I wasn't even having a meltdown. That's already miles and miles ahead of my last Tumblr Survivor season where I made the merge. Although I don't think my position in this game is locked yet, I feel pretty good about where I stand. I hope that the Touchy Subjects answers reveal my hopes that I'm not a threat to anybody and that people don't believe the common idea is that I'm shitty or too perfect or something. If that makes any sense. Basically I just want to know that I'm doing okay here so far. I feel good about my chances at that but we need some work to be done before I can say that for certain. I hate seeing Andrew leave because like I said he's someone that I wanted to work with, but I have to believe what people said about him being an over-player, a mess, etc. and just stick to my guns that I made the right call here. I kind of wanted to see if Joey would play his legacy for Ben but I'm glad I held back on that because I hope the legacy will come back in the future to save me. I don't have a lot of confidence when it comes to the literal minefield of idols and nullifiers out there. As long as I continue convincing people I'm on their side, or that I'm not the enemy at least, those things won't get used on me. Right now that we're on the jury, I NEED to focus on my jury management first and foremost. I am super okay with playing my strategic and social game the way I've been doing it thus far (obv learning from past mistakes.....) but the killer to my game 99% of the time I've made it deep in these things is how I get that jury to feel about me. Protect myself in game, but also set up a jury of folks who feel like they can trust me and only me. And.. hopefully some day I'll blindside Joey and he'll give me his legacy advantage.

...five seconds later

Tbh I hope that Jake reads this after the season and realizes that I never once at this point in the merge find him annoying. Somehow in his own mind he thinks hes like, the worst person ever and I'm trying to tell him he's not, he's great, we have a lot of work ahead of, etc and he's not buying it at all. Idk if this is him trying to emotionally manipulate me or not, but.. like.. thats my gameplan tf! 

So Steph, Pat and Jeff were left out of the vote. But Jaiden said it was supposed to be unanimous. That means that Keegan, Liv and Joey purposely left them out. I don't understand why they would intentionally make enemies. Better for us I suppose. We just got to keep our ragtag group of 6 together: me, John, Jake, Kailyn, Jaiden and Ben.

So the merge vote was quite interesting. With this being a 13 person merge, I tend to believe it is best to play a tad conservatively early on. This made it to where I figure the OG Palazzo would get a good 1-2 rounds of things their way before Keegan, Jake, and I mounted our little rebellion. As it turns out, I woke up to Jake and Keegan wanting me on call because Andrew was being as messy as he was on our swap tribe. Jake said that Andrew confirmed the OG Palazzo chat, something Keegan and I had already did, and that Keegan threw Jake's name out in said chat and Andrew shot it down. In reality, Andrew is actually the person that threw Jake out. He threw Jake's name out first on our swap tribe and he threw it out first here. I am really unsure what game Andrew really wanted to play beyond making sure he had options outside of the OG Palazzo. So from this point, we went around and got a feel for who we could pull. Joey had already expressed to Keegan that he felt nervous about there being a massive numerical OG Palazzo majority. The game is better for all of us if it is a bad more fluid. We ended up kicking Andrew to the curb in a 9-4 vote with Steph, Jeff, Pat, and Andrew voting in the minority. We talked in the OG Palazzo chat and those left out seemed to understand once we explained some of Andrew's missteps in PM's. This is good because I want some form of OG Palazzo to be there if it becomes something that I need down the line. At this current moment, I have heard no one bring up the super idol that is in Keegan and I's possession so I can only assume that we got lucky and no one actually checked the vault after we grabbed it. This could be due to lack of chips at the time or people just forgetting to. So for now, I shall assume everyone thinks that the super idol is vibing on the idol board, which is very good for me. Typically with a super idol, it would be super easy for you to get voted out the round after saving yourself with it. That is why I would like for it to get as deep into this game as possible. At the end of the day, the best part about having it is knowing its whereabouts and not having someone else possess it. So after TC, Jake, Keegan, and I hopped on call to celebrate. Jake revealed that Joey offered a 4 to him and Jake said I am good and should be included. This is how many current alliances are looking: - F2: Keegan and I - Three of Us: Keegan, Jake, and I - Meninism: Keegan, Jake, Joey, Jaiden, and I - OG Palazzo: Keegan, Joey, Jeff, Pat, Steph, and I This makes it so that the only people I do not have some sort of alliance with are Ben, Kailyn, John, and Xavier. I like these people but that is kind of how the game is shaking out currently. Ideally, I want Ben out next as it would allow my 3 to fade into the background and let what should be a consensus boot happen. After TC, multiple people expressed that Ben hadn't been very social. Now the current challenge is Touchy Subjects and I hope I do not get too many positive ones just because they could result in me being targeted. I think I am in a good spot to where I am doing well socially and having one on one's with everyone in some capacity, but I am hoping I am not perceived as any sort of power player at the moment. That fucked me in Trinity: Deception Island and I would not like for that to fuck me over here. I do think I have the connections to make it through for a little while. I see a path to the end but as I get closer I will have to evaluate whether or not that is a winning path to the end. Below is a short synopsis of my one on ones with people: - Steph: like nothing because I have found her super dry premerge - Jaiden: we have been talking about reading and writing and books and it is a good time - Jeff: he is a king and we have been talking about theatre and work and past games and shit - Jake: not as much one on one stuff due to our calls with Keegan - Keegan: not a lot but I have been updating him prior to updating the 3 chat - Kailyn: college and majors and such - Xavier: not a whole lot but he seems really sweet and messaged me "i am glad we voted together :)" after TC and I found that super wholesome - Ben: he has not responded in a bit but he wanted to strategize for the idol hunt with me - Joey: a decent bit of memes back and forth - Pat: lots of small talk but we have had some good convos and he seems to understand the Andrew move - John: we talked a bit about Atomic Nova Scotia Overall, I think I am doing well but not overtly so. This is ideal when we are still at Final 12 I think.

I think Palazzo will vote out Stephanie :) They hate women

Wow. I'm writing this after immunity results. I'm kind of just gonna word vomit. I checked off individual immunity from my checklist. And it's this challenge. The one that eliminated me in 26. The one that crushed 16 year old Jake's self confidence, and made him never want to play again. I got Hero, want to win, funniest, and stop talking which is kind of my favorite. I never ever thought I'd come back after 73 seasons, win THIS challenge, and in an individual setting. I changed history a little bit. And now I'm in the final 11. Ben is the easy vote this round, personally I'd love to see Stephanie go so that I can have Xavier to myself. But I can't push too hard. I controlled last vote, let someone else have a turn in the sun. I get to chill for once.

Now that’s character development!

Move now or lay low?

Final 12 feels pretty good, but final 11 will be so much better. If I make it through this vote, this will be the longest I’ve made it in a merge! And I’ll tie my placement with India :) Obviously I am still focused on my goal of making it thru til single digits, but I’m celebrating the small victories now so I don’t focus too hard on strategy that doesn’t need to take place this early. I feel like everyone is going to be looking at Ben as the dude they need to get rid of, so I won’t be surprised if he ends up going home. I don’t think that is the absolute worst thing for my game right now, but I’d prefer Stephanie or Xavier going before Ben at least for right now. I suppose I don’t have a huge voice on the subject but my pitch to keep Ben tomorrow is that it keeps Kailyn away from trying to work with Stephanie and Xavier who, frankly, need to be part of the next couple boots if we’re thinking big picture.. I don’t know if Joey will listen to me. Another option is maybe see if we can swing votes to Pat. Would anybody be upset to see Pat go home? Who knows. But basically my relationships are so little with Pat, Kailyn, Stephanie, and Xavier and idk what to do about them right now. I really just don’t wanna see those four link up and go super far because that would be kinda boring and really devastating LOL Another big win for me today was that I got put into the Meninist alliance with Jake, Joey, Livingston, and Keegan. While I’m not particularly fond of Livingston yet, we’ll see if he grows on me :) if not he can say adios. Since Joey is looking REALLY dangerous I’m gonna try to distance myself from him more and more right now. I don’t want people to think I’m drinking his kool aid bc I’m not, but I don’t want him to think I’ve turned on him bc I definitely want him to still give me that legacy advantage.. This morning I was thinking about how I can really give myself a better trajectory to the end and I’m a little bit confused still on what my winning conditions are for this game. What moves can I start making today that will set me up for six tribals down the line when surely the game is getting messy as fuck and I need protection from all sides? Maybe discrediting people like Xavier, Stephanie, Kailyn, Pat, and even Livingston aren’t the best things for me to do right now. I want to keep people who are in my corner safe such as Jeff, Keegan, Jake, and hopefully Joey but we’re almost to the halfway point of the game and it’s not going to be easy to keep everybody including myself safe. It’s no longer a question of whether I’ll win this or not. It’s a question of how I win. The merge is what counts I think.. everything before that was just the foundation for success. My foundation is cracked and not the best but I’m picking up the pace, I think. Whatever. If I have to use my social connections to Joey or John or whoever, I’m going to manipulate them to what benefits me. I don’t wanna go down that path of being messy but some day soon these ppl are gonna realize they should’ve never trusted me to begin with... because I’m coming for them.

Me almost forgetting confessionals were a thing. Ben is really popping off here today because he knows he's the boot. And now he has created a "straights alliance". This... is such a weird day. I wanna just go back to bed and not deal with all of this because it's weird.

6 years ago I wanted to pull of a move like this. I can get Ben to explode in main chat and with everyone. Pick fights, freak out, tank people’s games, just be a monster. And without anyone knowing, I’ll give him my safety without power. Idols will be flushed, mass panic, and I have immunity so I’m just chilling. We’re about to gamble baby.

Dear Diary, it’s me, Jaiden. Ben went off the deep end today and proved that he was a wasted spot on this season to begin with. This tribe is only big enough for one messy bitch, and not only that but I'm one big fat messy bitch, so sorry Ben but your time has come. 

I always get a bad feeling before tribal. I just hope Ben goes, and it’s easy and smooth and there’s no issues. 

I thought Kailyn was horny texting me, turns out she's just high........ Kailyn, 5:15 PM so is the vote tonight ben ?? i’m kind of [redacted] rn don’t know what’s going on 😳 Jaiden, 5:15 PM yeah :/ i feel bad bc ive grown to like ben but no one is offering any sort of alternative omg whats redacted Kailyn, 5:16 PM 😳😳😳 legally, it’s a joke 💖 Jaiden, 5:16 PM IM??? Kailyn, 5:16 PM JSDJKSKA Jaiden, 5:16 PM WHAT do u mean uimm i cant find the up emoji but like UP u know?? Kailyn, 5:16 PM SJHDJDKSLA yes 💖 Jaiden, 5:17 PM omg queeeeeeeen i love that for u JOKINGLY of course hehe Kailyn, 5:17 PM for the laugh 💖💖💖💖💖 thank u Jaiden, 5:17 PM god we stan r u gonna be at tribal?? Kailyn, 5:18 PM if i remember yes ofc 😇 me trying to do my french hw rn: 🧍‍♀️🧍🧍‍♂️ Jaiden, 5:19 PM HAHA good...i wanna see u pop awf hopefully HJAHHAHA i love the emojis Jaiden, Kailyn, 5:19 PM NSHDJSJAJ ofc 💖 Jaiden, 5:19 PM god im truely living my best life thru u rn tell me something french Kailyn, 5:22 PM je can’t remember a word of français rn bc i’m so h word 💖🙏🥵 Jaiden, 5:22 PM *HAPPY!!* Kailyn, 5:27 PM so true 😇 Jaiden, 5:27 PM wait i hope we mean the same h word im starting to think its not the one im thinking of....... Kailyn, 5:28 PM DJDJDJKSAKALKAK uhhh not me accidentally calling Xavier 😭😭😭😭 Jaiden, 5:29 PM DID HE ANSWER Kailyn, 5:30 PM YEAHHHSJDJSKLALA Jaiden, 5:31 PM WHAT HAPPENED IM FUIOHWODIH thats so fucking funy Kailyn, 5:31 PM NDDHJDKSS I SAW MY FACE POP UP ON THE SCREEN AND I WAS LIKE FUCK Jaiden, 5:31 PM H9uhiudheiuhfH Kailyn, 5:31 PM AND HE WAS LIKE. DID U CALL Jaiden, 5:31 PM VIDEO CALL????????????? Kailyn, 5:31 PM AND I WAS LIKE UHHH Jaiden, 5:31 PM IM DYING Kailyn, 5:32 PM AND HUNG UP Jaiden, 5:32 PM KAILYN Kailyn, 5:32 PM NSHDHDKSLSLA Jaiden, 5:32 PM IM LAUGHING SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO FUCKIGNM HARD Kailyn, 5:32 PM ate some Good chocolate on this night 😤👼 Jaiden, 5:33 PM oh my GOD you're talking about the H i DIDNT THINK U WERE TAKING ABT Kailyn, 5:33 PM JDDHJDKSKALAP WHAT DID U THINK Jaiden, 5:33 PM maybe calling xavier wasnt on accident i THOUGHT you were talking about being high but UGHFWO)DJH CHOCOLATE IS AN APHRODISIAC Kailyn, 5:34 PM YEAH I AM WTF Jaiden, 5:34 PM WHAT] Kailyn, 5:34 PM DJJDDJKSLSPAPS NOOOOOO Jaiden, 5:34 PM I TOHUGHT Kailyn, 5:34 PM SHJDJDKDOEOEOWOWA Jaiden, 5:34 PM OMFG Kailyn, 5:34 PM BCUCNCNDODNDIEOEKOEW Jaiden, 5:34 PM WHEN U SAID CALLED XAVIER AND THE CHOCOLATE Kailyn, 5:34 PM WHAT THE FUCKODKSKSKS NOOOOOOO Jaiden, 5:34 PM I WAS LIKE WHAT THE FUCK IS HAPPENING Kailyn, 5:34 PM DBHDJSKAKAKS BYE NOOOOOO DJDHDJSKALLAA Jaiden, 5:34 PM IM DETLTING MY FUCKING ACCOUNT IM DLEETING MY FUCKING ACCOT Kailyn, 5:34 PM HSHDHDKSKALA

[snkpolls]

SnK Chapter 117 Poll Results

The chapter poll closed with 1325  responses. Thank you to everyone who participated!

RATE THE CHAPTER 1,235 responses

Isayama continues to please. In fact, “Judgment” is the highest rated chapter this year with 62.3% selecting the highest possible rating. In recent month, only chapter 112 scored higher.

Honestly, just incredible

Excellent Chapter although it did favor the action over plot continuation. I really just want information rather than awesome action. I'll just have to do my waiting but the action is very enjoyable.

Finally a great action chapter which does a good job showcasing Erens new abilities.

Fuck yeah, Shiganshina3.0 with an entirely new field of play. Excited to see how the new teams play out.

It was nice to have another action-heavy chapter after being without one for so long. The only downside is they feel way too short.

god I love this manga so damn much

Seeing Marley invade Paradis with those planes is absolutely chilling. It's a whole new era for the Walldians

We're in the Endgame now

GIVE ME NEXT CHAPTER

WHICH OF THE FOLLOWING WAS YOUR FAVORITE MOMENT? 1,292 responses

With 30% of the vote, the moment when Eren reacts to Reiner’s attempt to eat him takes the top place for favorite moment. Following up with half as many votes is Zeke’s arrival as he displays his big brother complex. In third came Eren’s defensive use of the Warhammer Titan’s power.

The most memorable moment was definitely Eren's scream of sheer determination and will to live as he was ripping Reiner's jaw apart, in a complete rejection of the self-loathing and fatalistic mindset his old nemesis was seemingly trying to push onto him.

It was nice to see eren harnessing his titan abilities and proving that he is a strong character

Eren ripping half of Reiner’s face off was neat

Reiner vs Eren was very repetitive and shonen typical and just there to show how 'badass' Eren had become. Besides, the Marleyans are getting too much screentime at this point. The only cool thing was Zeke's entrance.

I loved the fight and zeke's onii-chan part uwu

I thought it was neat that it was confirmed that the Shifters' Titans have brains that control the Titan, rather than the Shifter controlling it themselves. I still want to know more about the Titan Chemistry Research Department, and all of the in-universe info about how Shifters interface with their Titans.

Onii-chan saves the day.

When Pieck took Gabi in her mouth? 👌👏 And that cannon?? 😍😍😍😍 And when she finished putting on the cannon and stood up in all her majesty I just straight up died. I also loved seeing Eren use the War Hammer to make back spikes, that was so neat.

WHO WAS THIS CHAPTER’S MVP? 1,288 responses

With lots of characters joining the fight this chapter, who was the MVP? The overwhelming majority at 62% think Eren fighting off three titans on his own earned him the title.  Pieck was also a popular choice, at 16%.  Magath rounded out the top three at 8.9%

EREN MVP WON ALONE AGAINST 3 TITANS

Magath is a great leader. We need to see more of him.

I was so happy to see Zeke! And that phrase, ahh!

Hugs for Reiner. Poor guy can never win a fight :( And love Pieck for being the MVP, as usual!

porco did nothing wrong shout out to my boy porco

Eren is collecting Titans like they're limited edition Pokemon cards

It's time to stop confusing Gabi with Eren. Gabi proved to be actually smart.

Magath is the MVP of this chapter and anyone who says otherwise is delusional.

My wife Pieck was very cute and smug.

Zeke's arrival was so sick. Oni-chan

Not gonna lie this chapter was fire af. Kinda surprised about Magath being a legend, but it may have been a mistake for him to not kill Eren.

Zeke showing up at the end was hype.

PIECK AND PORKY ARE THE BEST.

the mvp award should go to the jeagerists for getting themselves killed in the stupidest way ever

WHICH JAIL CELL EXPRESSION WAS THE CUTEST? 1,290 responses

Our quick glance at the 104th was enough to know they are alive and well for now. We wanted a fun way to ask about their stunned expressions at the noises they assumed to be the rumbling. Mikasa’s was declared cutest with 27.4%, Armin was second with 23.1%, and 16.9% didn’t want to play along.

"Which jail cell expression was the cutest?"What?

GET MY FUCKIN SONS ARMIN AND MIKASA OUT OF THE FREAKING JAIL THAT SHIT JAEGERISTS PUT THEM.

I hope Onyankopon will rescue everyone in jail.

Just get Falco and the prisoners out of there, they'll get titanized/crushed

WHICH EREN VS. REINER FIGHT HAS BEEN YOUR FAVORITE SO FAR? 1,288 responses

Reiner and Eren’s practice fight in training has served useful, as they’ve fought as titans no less than four times now.  36.9% selected the fight from last chapter as their favorite bout, with 26.9% choosing their first rumble.  23.4% loved the recently animated Shiganshina fight the most, and only 12.8% chose the brief Marley exchange of blows.

Anime-onlies and manga readers collectively screaming about Eren vs Reiner in Shiganshina... You've got to wonder if this was planned somehow.

Eren vs. Reiner identical non-productive fights are getting boring.

I Want More Eren Vs Other Shifters

Reiner VS. Eren 4.0 is now a thing ladies and gents. But we now have a new fighter which is big bro Jaeger.

Eren vs. Reiner in a fearsome battle in the middle of Shinganshina that culminates in Reiner seemingly gaining the upper hand before his head is blown off by an outside force. Am I talking about the most recent manga chapter, or the most recent anime episode? You decide ;)

It's about time Eren's and Reiner's fight ends. Give us a conclusion, Isayama

HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT REINER ORCHESTRATING ANOTHER ATTACK ON SHIGANSHINA? 1,288 responses

Although about 50% of respondents thought it was at least somewhat understandable that Reiner brought the fight to Shiganshina again, a good chunk of votes trended toward pretty neutral or unsure about whether Reiner is a hypocrite or not.

He sincerely believes Eren is miserable BECAUSE he's projecting his own emotions onto Eren but also needs to consume the Founder as Magath mentioned

He wants to do something right because the only thing hes good at is getting his ass whooped.

Honestly, all I can say about Reiner is that his isna big hypocrite.

Reiner should win a battle in his life, please Isayama.

He's definitely projecting, but lowkey if he eats Eren he finally gets to die, because they'll give the Founder to another Warrior.

People should really stop assuming that just because Reiner & Co. are deserving  of sympathy, they are right. Downtrodden as they are, if they win they'll still destroy Paradis without a second thought, and all the blatherings about stopping the 100 years cycle of violence, are just that, and justifications after the fact.

I thoguht Reiner would kick Eren's ass but whatever

Reiner should really give up fighting Eren... he always loses. Unless he likes getting his arse kicked, I don’t know why everyone just lets them fight over and over again.

REINER DON'T GO DOWN THE PATH OF ZEKE PLEASE

WHY DO YOU THINK EREN CHOSE TO FIGHT, RATHER THAN LISTEN TO YELENA AND GET AWAY? 1,285 responses

Yelena wanted Eren to run, Eren wanted to fight.  But why?  38.4% think he’s trying to protect those in the building, 25.8% think he believes running to be pointless, and 16.8% thought he just wanted to fight his best sparring partner, Reiner, once again.

"Until my enemies are destroyed," remember?

All of the above

He doesn't care what she thinks. Eren will do what Eren wants

He feels confident enough in his ability to shut that shit down by himself. He's also visibly pissed at Reiner for messing up with his plans by pushing for this surprise attack and wants to end him personally.

He's fought him three times already, might as well just fight him a fourth time.

I think it's both that it's pointless to run and he wants to protect those in the building. For the former, he knows Marley will just keep on persisting and will do everything they can to find him, so escaping is pointless. As for the latter, he cares about his close friends that are still inside and thus doesn't want them to get hurt, so for their safety, he wants to be the one to take on Marley by himself.

If you don't fight, you don't win.

I think this chapter proved that Yelena wasn't the one who "manipulated" Eren like some people claimed first, because he refused her order and choose to fight instead of "run away" or "trusting her plan".

HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT GABI REVEALING THE ROYAL ZEKERET™ TO MAGATH? 1,289 responses

The Marleyan forces have finally zeroed in on what the true Zekerets are, all thanks to Gabi.  52.2% of readers forgot that Gabi was aware of the royal blood situation, and 22% didn’t expect it to come together this way but liked how it ended up.

Forgot she heard it, if this is what all her buildup has been leading too... 🤢

Honestly thought Pieck figured it out in chapter 116 with her line of questioning so I assumed they already knew or at least had their own doubts about the use of the FT Power but this makes sense as well.

I'd forgotten about it. But I think this confirm the fact she was here during EMA conversation will also be important

I kinda expected her to do so, but still I am glad she did it !!!

She has now served her role as a plot device. Please go permanently off-screen now.

Miscalculation brought back

MAGATH SAYS HE WANTS TO END THE HUNDRED YEARS OF RESENTMENT. WHAT DO YOU THINK HIS INTENTION IS? 1,277 responses

General Magath is the leader of the enemy forces, but seems to have good intentions in mind.  What’s his true goal?  The large majority of respondents, at 45.6% think he wants to wipe out the Eldians on Paradis.  21.7% think he wants to liberate Eldians, and trailing that at 20.4% is the idea that all he wants is the Founding Titan.

Chances are he's wants to wipe them out, he seems to care about the ones under his command, but he seems loyal to Marley first.

He just wants to end the war, he is a good man

Can't know for sure. He is sympathetic to his comrades but Marley has always pushed for more power so that may continue their imperialistic goals. I highly doubt Magath will make a complete 180 and will begin giving countries their own autonomy. Most likely, he will use the FT to further this effort in accumulating resources. No one should wield the power of FT. Too strong!

He wants to liberate Eldians AND annihilate Paradis

He probably wants to change Marley's policies and stop with the imperialism + Eldians-as-weapons, but he also seems willing to use Paradis as a scapegoat so far so I'm rooting against him.

He wants to protect Marley and introduce reforms. It’s noble in theory but I’m wondering if he was manipulated by Willy as per of a larger plan. He’s inspired by the Helos legend but he knows that it’s a lie. He has sympathy for Eldians in his own country but whether he wants to save all Eldians remains to be seen.

I think he wants to destroy the Eldians on Paradis but he also wants to persuade the higher ups in Marley to treat the Eldians more humanely

No clue. He doesn't seem like a genocidal maniac, but I don't think he'll allow Paradis to get off that easily.

Is it too optimistic to hope that he wants to change Marley's ways and to bring peace?

Why is "wiping out all Eldians" an option when he said he wanted to bring marleyans to the wars instead of the Eldians? I'm not completely sure about his intentions with Paradis but it's clear he cares for Eldians and he's ready to do anything to save Eldians and his own country.

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF PIECK’S NEW WEAPON? 1,279 responses

The Cart titan has been said to be versatile, and we’ve seen many upgrades and attachments, with this chapter being the biggest of them all.  Most of respondents, at 53.6% thought it was super awesome.

...How did they put it on so quickly?

Further cemented the Cart's place in my heart as best titan

I worry about Pieck. She is intelligent, fast and dangerous with her new weapon. That why Zeke may try to eliminate her fast.

I'm not into guns or gunfights so I don't really care.

Bitches love cannons

It’s a very powerful weapon but it requires time to reload. That a considerable weakness.

It's beautiful

so creepy i had a nightmare about it

PEW!

BIG DICK ENERGY

REINER DOESN’T HAVE FACIAL HAIR IN TITAN FORM. YOUR OPINION? 1,291 responses

Isayama pls!! It’s impossible to know why Reiner’s beard keeps disappearing. It could be a quirk of his titan biology or perhaps the Golden Week crunch meant cutting a few corners. Either way, only 8.7% where glad about the omission.

reiner's facial hair come back pls

WHO BEST REPRESENTS HELOS, “THE HERO WHO WILL SAVE THE WORLD”? 1,282 responses

Helos was a hollow statue, but will there be a hero for the current generation?  32.2% don’t believe so, but 35.5% think Eren will fulfill that role in the story.  12.3% think Reiner will become that hero to the world, and 10.8% feel it’s Magath.

Armin, mark my words

It's between Magath and Reiner. Magath because it has been nailed on him since he was mentioned, and Reiner because he's a half-Marleyan who wants to put an end to Eren's genocidal ways

Erwin/Levi...doesn't matter they're dead/dying, at this point I feel like they were the only ones capable to save the world. I'd say the 104th too but then, look where they are too.....

Heck, going by what's happening I have a sneaky feeling it's gonna be Falco.

Most likely Armin. Him being a "hero saving humanity" was foreshadowed already in RTS

I think resemblance between Helos and Levi isn't incidental.

Helos was proven to be fake, seems they indicate there will be no real hero

Honestly? Fuck it. Nicolo. I'm all-in on this.

Jean the Stallion

I don't know who, but not one of those three that's for sure... Historia? Where are you, our queen?

My Boi Reiner is super awesome here! He shows signs of becoming the new Helos!

Helos was a fake. There was no true Helos. It was just a story, so saying another Helos will save them makes no sense as Helos was just a facade in the first place.

EREN’S EXPRESSION AS REINER ATTEMPTED TO EAT HIM WAS INTENSE, BUT IT ISN’T THE FIRST TIME WE’VE SEEN THIS. WHICH PANEL DO YOU THINK BEST CAPTURES EREN'S TENACITY? 1,286 responses

Based on the overall results, it appears that Eren’s expressions seem to get more and more intense as the series unfolds. Over half of the fandom feels that his most recent expression of resolve has been the one that best captures his tenacity. At a distant second, his expression as he transformed in the basement at the festival takes second place.

EREN IS A GOD

God, I want to punch Eren in his shitty smug face so hard.

Eren's defiant glare cleansed my skin, reaped my crops and impregnated me with 13 babies!

Finally we see Eren having a different expression, showing more of a human side we have been missing lately

I’m gay for eren

God, I'm just dying to see Eren's endgame.

Love Eren! He's awesome! The best hands down! And I can't wait to get inside his head! I know it'll make me love him more! Lol

IS EREN’S EXPRESSION AS REINER TRIES TO “PUT HIM TO SLEEP” TO END HIS SUFFERING EVIDENCE THAT EREN OPPOSES ZEKE’S EUTHANASIA PLAN? 1,282 responses

Almost 40% of respondents believe that Isayama’s placement of these panels was a deliberate way for him to clue us in on Eren’s opposition to Zeke’s plan. 27% don’t want to trust the panel placement just yet and feel it could very well be misleading. 21% feel that he’s simply showing his determination to see the plan through at all costs.

I'm not sure but it was really freaking cool

Eren's determination to fight, win and live!

He is mad because he is fighting to save his friends and future generations. So yes.

didnt notice this before, but yes this is a good theory

I don't even know how these two thing could be related lmao. He just wants to finish the fight so he can proceed with his plan. He can't do that by being eaten by the enemy

Eren didn't hear Reiner's words, so we can't say

Zeke's euthanasia plan requires Eren regardless of the ideals behind it.

I think whatever Eren's plan is, he is determined to do whatever it takes to not die before accomplishing it

It's pretty obvious he wants to unleash the Rumbling on the world. Idk why this is even a question.

I don't think it has anything to do with eren's thoughts on zeke's plan and more to do with his anger at reiner and marley

I feel like people may be looking too deep into this somehow

I actually didn't think of that! Now that you mention it, it's possible.

It's pretty obvious without this that Eren completely opposes Zeke's euthanasia. What I think is more interesting to think about is Reiner's previous question about what Eren "gets" from living any longer: what exactly pushes him to go to such lengths for whatever goal he has now? His country? His friends? His freedom? His family? All of those?

WHAT IS REINER'S MAIN REASON FOR WANTING TO EAT EREN? 1,285 responses

Eren isn’t the only one who’s attempted to eat more shifters, and this time he’s on the receiving end. Did Reiner purely want to eat Eren for tactical purposes, or does he truly want to save Eren from the curse of a cruel life? Most readers at about 60% think Reiner’s just projecting his own thoughts and worldview onto Eren.

All the options above I think. Reiner thinks he knows Eren, but he clearly forgot one important thing: Eren is stubborn and once he's in his rage mode, he will never back down!

Both C and D.  He truly thinks Eren is in misery, BECAUSE he's projecting. Can't have one without the other.

Eating Eren is just a part of Marley's plan but I think it's the revenge that motivates him.

He has nothing left except his role as a warrior fighting for Marley. And he is determined to fulfill this role to the very end

I think he may be projecting his own misery into Eren but he doesn’t realize he’s doing it so he automatically assumes that Eren is in misery. Or it could be that he believes all shifters are going through the same thing he is and are suffering

He just wants to have his job done: eat Eren, become a hero and die.

WHAT WILL EREN GET "FROM LIVING ANY LONGER"? 1,282 responses

When Reiner attempted to end Eren’s life, Eren fought back against the idea his life holds nothing but pain.  What is the light at the end of the tunnel for him?  37.6% believe he’ll end up saving his people on Paradis, and 23.7% expanding that to saving the world.  17.9% think Reiner is right and he’ll only find more pain, and only 8.8% think Eren will go on to destroy the world.

Become Lelouch

Bring his 4D chess plan that somehow liberates the Eldians in a way that's different from what Zeke, the Yaegerists, the other Paradis military members and Magath are planning.

destroying the world to free Eldia from the oppression and probably to build a "future" for Historia and the child, which means to be the only ruling race

He'll save at least his friends, and hopefully help to save the world. by destroying its current foundation, and that includes the Eldians of Paradis

Eren just wants to catch 'em all... JK. He'll put an end to the curse of Ymir - Eldians will no longer be able to turn into titans.

He will destroy the world, cause this is probably his thinking of freedom for the eldians on paradis, but it will give more sacrifices and victims and more pain for others, like Connie who actually suffers, cause Sasha dies, because of Eren's selfishness.

A beautiful wife and their newborn baby

Eren wants to save the Eldians in Marley and Paradis

He will save his friends and future generations of Eldians. Eren doesn't care about himself, he cares about others.

Weird combination of protecting Paradis, those he holds dear and being willing to destroy the world for it.

I really hope world peace and a life in harmony without the titan curse although I'm scared it won't have a happy ending.

F R E E D O M

WHAT EMOTION DO YOU THINK BEST DESCRIBES EREN’S EXPRESSION WHEN ZEKE APPEARS? 1,285 responses

Onii-chan is here, but how does Eren feel about that?  So many interpretations from the same panel!  The most popular answer at 36.3% was astonishment, followed closely by worry, and then relief.

He actually called himself onii-chan

Realization that everyone who drank the wine is screwed

A complex mix of all the above

Surprised, I think he didn't expect Zeke to be there cause of Levi

He somehow feel relieved because he was lacking stamina, but at the same time I think he worries of lives of his friends and people who will end up as titans, if Zeke screams.

Mixed feelings. Relieved that he is saved, but sad because he's ultimately going to betray such a great onii-chan

i kept staring at this panel bc it's been so long since we've seen such a vivid expression on eren's face; it's kind of hopeful too?

This chapter really illustrated how well Isayama can draw facial expressions to convey the characters thoughts

God Eren you're so sexy when your facial expressions are ambiguous

ZEKE'S APPEARANCE IS A SIGN TO EREN THAT LEVI MAY HAVE BEEN DEFEATED. DO YOU THINK EREN CARES? 1,286 responses

Eren and Zeke planned to meet up here, but that would have to mean Zeke escaping Levi, likely in a brutal way.  Now that that’s happened, does Eren have regrets?  55.8% feel he cares about Levi to some degree, 27.1% feel that Eren cares about his mentor a lot, and only 14.2% don’t think Eren cares about the manlet one bit.

He cares, but it was a calculated risk like all the others he's been taking lately. I think he's still shocked that Zeke made it there though.

From where I stand on Eren’s decisions, I think he cares. But I feel like since we don’t know what his plan is yet, we can’t really fully answer this

Hard to tell, since he’s been treating his friends like shit, why would he care more about his mentor?

He knew what could happen to Levi and his men during Zeke's escape but he still agreed on a meeting time and place with his bro, not to mention the Jeagerists openly called him their "biggest threat" and were ready to finish him off. So Eren's definitely accepted the possibility of Levi becoming a casualty.

I don’t think Eren really cares about Levi, I think he’s worried about Zeke turning the Shiganshina people into Titans.

I think he still cares but tries to numb it all down and not care anymore. so he might be fooling himself, deluding himself...I think he did the same with his friends. Thinking that there's a higher goal and that it's all worth shedding your friends aside for it - I think he might be trying to convince himself of that.

In this situation there is no time for him to care about Levi.

ZEKE IS NOW CLOSE ENOUGH TO TITANIZE THOSE INFECTED BY THE WINE. DO YOU THINK HE'LL DO IT? 1,285 responses

It was nice knowing you, Pixis. Now that Zeke has joined the battle within the walls of Shiganshina, it’s not looking good for anyone with a red or black cloth tied around their arm. More than 80% of respondents believe that those who drank the Zekejuice will soon be turned into titans, while only 19% choose to remain hopeful about their fates.

I would say Zeke titanizing everyone who drank the wine is inevitable, but the fact that Falco ingested the wine keeps being brought up. Zeke isn't aware. I feel like he has to know about Falco's state before any decisions are made. Whether that helps or not, we'll find out. After all, Zeke was shown to be close to Colt, who's Falco's big bro. Big brother feelings resonate with Zeke. It's a 50/50 chance imo.

Yeah, with Zeke joining the fray and all those soldiers that ingested his spinal fluid locked up, I expect Zeke will scream and turn Falco + all, if not most, of the spinal fluid-infected Paradis soldiers into Pure Titans next chapter. From there, Zeke will give Eren the Pure Titans needed to attack Marley's forces in Shingashina right now.

IS THIS THE FINAL BATTLE? 1,282 responses

Now that the fight has started, how many think it’s the last brawl?  About ⅔ at 66.2% think the story will continue, whereas ⅓ at 33.8% think the story will end when this battle does.

Honestly this better not be the final battle. Marley vs Paradis is too black and white, I need a large commentary on the human condition

This really does feel like the final multi-titan battle. It might not technically be the final fight, but this feels like the RtS of the post-Marley arc. It's the climactic battle we've been building towards

People can say whatever they want, but everything indicates to me that Eren will become the last antagonist for the final war against the whole world.

This specific fight may not be the final battle but I have a feeling there are more to follow right here. Poetic really, that the series began in Shiganshina and will end there.

WHAT WOULD YOU MOST LIKE TO SEE NEXT CHAPTER? 1,289 responses

117’s come and gone, on to 118!  The most popular answer, at about 30% want to see this fight continue more than anything else.  23.3% would like an update about Levi and Hange, 16.2% want the 104th in action, and 11.7% are at the altar of Annie.

please god either of the blonde best girls would be nice.

Armin and Annie joining the battle

I want to see what happened with Hange and Levi and also information on Historia. I also kind of hope to see Eren double cross Zeke.

Eren's plan, Levi, Armin being the genius he is , Annie, Mikasa fighting

Erwin. There is nothing I want more and idc how unreachable my dream is.

Continuation of the battle, and maybe Armin using his titan power to jail protect everyone in the jail cell. If Eren could partially titanise to protect himself, Armin and Mikasa from canon ball fire back in the first arc, Armin could do the same!

Bertolt. More Bertolt.

Some scene where Eren or someone reflects on all those lost, because honestly, it's my only chance of seeing Mina in the main story one more time.

I'd love to see all of them (except Floch), but in the context of what's going on right now, I think it'd be cool to see Annie join the fight just because it's been so long she's been in that crystal, and with practically every Titan in Shingashina right now (not to mention the recent Annie teasing), she's the only one absent from the fight, and I want to see her participate. I also expect to see Zeke using his scream next chapter, because it just feels like the perfect opportunity for us readers to see the Founding Titan in action again.

Floch, 104th, Annie, Yelena, Zeke, Eren, (no levi dont care about him)

I want Mikasa to shine, and I want to see Historia again

WHERE IS MY FUCKING EREN FLASHBACK YAMS, I NEED THE SAUCE PLD

I'm sick of Eren and I don't care what happens to him.  I want to know what happened to Levi.

All of the above, but fuck floch

I'm expecting Zeke will scream next chapter, and Falco will be the among the ones that will turn into a Pure Titan

Is it too much to ask for all of it?

Onyankopon FREE MY SONS AND DAUGHTER. FREE ARMIN AT LEAST.

AT THIS POINT, AROUND WHICH CHAPTER DO YOU EXPECT THE MANGA WILL CONCLUDE?

ADDITIONAL THOUGHTS ON THE CHAPTER?

Overall..pretty amazing chapter...just want to know the aftermath of zeke's arrival at this point.

Zeke is best boi and I needed that onii-chan panel in my life. My depression is cured.

Greatest Titan Battle yet!!! And Eren is easily the best character in Attack on Titan and one of the best manga protagonists ever!!!

Zeke loves eren and I think its so sweet, eren be gentle with him!

I want to see reiner getting his "revenge" over bertholdt's death , since we know that bertholdt was an important person in reiners life

FLOCH! Where is my lover? I don't have the power. On my side forever. Oooh Missing my Floch Lover!

It been a while since Isayama didn't shine with his drawing specially. The facial expressions and symbolism between some panels are so powerfull meaning and puts us in struggle to decoding it for a bit. One of the most deepest one (for me) was yelena saying "you're different from others Eren, you're special".

I do not foresee a great future for Eren as facial surgeon.

Marley and the warriors is so hypocritical. Porco's line really go to me because they attacked Paradis multiple times first. Hope  eren beats their ass.

This chapter was okay but I’m getting bored of Eren vs Reiner. Also, I would really like to see the 104th out of that damn cell and I would also like to never have to lay my eyes in Zeke or Floch ever again.

Intense and amazing in many ways, Marley FTW

Pieke and Gabi made me feel for them more than I expected.

In need of an update on Historia. Looking forward how Zeke and Eren fight together. Will they actually kill the warriors? Will those who are in the cell break free and come to stop the battle or join in? Did the Yeagerists manage to get their hands on Levi and Hanji??

THE GATE GUARDS DID NOTHING WRONG I WILL NEVER STOP FIGHTING - I WILL SCREAM THIS FROM THE HEAVENS. JUSTICE FOR THE GATE GUARDS

Isayama has gotten very good at action scenes hot damn

I guess Reiner was right with saying that Eren is the most unreliable person who's entrusted with the coordinates and the power of the founding titan, because it could be possible that Eren will use this power for the bad.

I think 104th will escape and Chad style Dab on Marley and pop their airships to end up losing Connie and then get 99999x Thunderspears to create their own rumbling because Eren didn't have the coordinate after all.

Now we need Wack a Mole Eren

I was really hoping porco would eject out of the jaw titan when he was skewered, and retransform only to get nearly killed by Eren either impaling him or using him as a meatshield against Magath.

Where's mah boi Levi and Hanji at?

we were blessed with so much eren this chapter and i’d like to thank not only god but also jesus

Pieck has the biggest dick in the city. Take that Eren's WHT spears.

I really like how the Attack Titan screams so loudly it causes Gabi and Colt to resort to shutting their ears. Pretty sick xD

I sad-cringed at the "oni-chan" comment so much man. Poor Zeke

I think it was a well written battle in the sense that there was still a good amount of tension because Eren wasn't just effortlessly slaughtering the warriors. Instead he defiantly held his ground while outnumbered, outgunned and surrounded which imo showcases his strengths - tenacity and willpower - best of all.

I want all 9 titans to come together in an epic all-out brawl! Please make it happen Isayama!

If Pieck and Zeke don't engage in an Artillery duel next chapter, I'll be sorely disappointed.

This is just the begining of beautiful friendship - 104th and Marleyans. You shall see the truth soon ;)

When I finished the chapter I started crying because of what Reiner said while he was trying to eat Eren. In my opinion, Reiner has been such an accurate depiction of suicidal ideation that it's scary. It's just really painful to see, but I'm glad it's done so well and I really commemorate Isayama for treating it respectfully. I suppose I hope Reiner gets to see the kids again before he dies. At least... give him one last smile before he has to say goodbye.

I am most looking forward to see if Mikasa joins the fight or not, we still don't know what she thinks about Eren now!! And I want to know what Armin figured out, and I really want to know where the FUCK Historia is, and I really really want to know what happened to Levi and Hange. In that order.

Very good and well rounded, comedic moments were funny and not forced, Fights looked great as expected. Unique twist seeing new anti titan weaponry but enjoyable to see it being used.

This chapter really illustrated how well Isayama can draw facial expressions to convey the characters thoughts

It was an artistically beautiful chapter, as has been the norm recently, and I am so excited to see more.

It's so cathartic to see Eren finally let loose again

Magnificent, but seriously when is Annie coming back

WHERE DO YOU PRIMARILY DISCUSS THE SERIES? 1,236 responses

This chart changes ever so slightly from month-to-month.  While Tumblr is up a few percentage points, Reddit continues to bring nearly half of all respondents. Thank you again to everyone who participated, regardless of what platform you are on!

[wakasagayhime]

very long, very personal post

tldr, im still not drawing but here’s a detailed account of everything that’s happened in case anyone is confused or misinformed

alright. let me start out by saying i’m not going back to art just yet. it still hurts to do anything art related and i’m still trying to find a way to heal from all of this. i need some kind of professional help first, and i don’t know how long it’ll take afterwards for me to begin feeling like myself again. i don’t even know if i’ll be able to get any kind of professional help at the moment; my university’s counseling center told me, in short, that i’m so mentally ill that their services would not be enough for me and i’d have to look elsewhere (which is reasonable, tbh, they’re almost always completely booked so it’s difficult to actually even talk to someone there in the first place, i only got to talk to them to begin with because i nearly killed myself one night after having the most intense panic attack of my life where i felt like i was actually in the process of dying) and as if that weren’t enough, if you follow me on twitter you’d know that my mom finally left my stepdad, but this means that we no longer really have a home to call our own and are now living with some of my mom’s friends. on the bright side, miso is a lot freer and gets to explore the house as he pleases, but on the downside money is tight and my mom is trying her best to find a place to live while working two jobs and trying to help pay for my tuition. long story short, i want some kind of professional help badly, but all the bullshit that’s been happening in my life makes that difficult. 

anyway, i understand that i’ve worried a lot of people through all of this, and i’m sorry. i truly, genuinely am sorry for everything that’s been going on. i blame a lot of it on myself not being strong enough. if i were stronger, i wouldn’t care about some stupid internet trolls, or some random grown man in florida stalking all my social media. if i were stronger, i could take my life back. i wouldn’t feel the need to constantly contemplate suicide, or to torture my own body by starving because of my physical form feeling like the only thing i have left to be in control of. if i had only been stronger, like my old stupidly foolish overconfident 16 year old self who got into fucking STEVEN UNIVERSE DISCOURSE of all things, maybe i wouldn’t care. even when it first happened to me, after the initial shock and hiatus, i was pretty much back to normal almost instantly.  but this kind of trauma is sneaky and will gradually eat away at you more and more while you pretend to be ok, and then eventually you reach a breaking point and it’s taken over your life. that’s why i’m still obsessing over that day two years later. that’s why i can’t be left alone on december 13th this year, or else i know for a fact i will harm myself in some way. (don’t worry about that though, burger is going to hang out with me that day and i’ll be fine.) still, even though i keep telling myself my past self was stronger, i do know that she really wasn’t. she was still struggling with depression, anxiety, and self harm issues. maybe it just manifested differently for a while. maybe she felt unstoppable at some point in time because she finally found a girlfriend and got a cat. i got into so many fights that weren’t worth my time or energy at all, and part of me wishes i could be that confident again, but i also know that was my downfall to begin with.

i have followers who haven’t been around for longer than a year or maybe less than two, so i might as well give everyone a true, thorough rundown of what happened leading up to that day, the day of, and after. 

i’m sure a lot of you who are worried about me at the moment have seen the recent callout for colboh and his involvement in what happened. i’ll be honest--i don’t know the full extent of his involvement, and i want to believe his foolishness ends at not leaving artists who have blocked him alone and uploading their shit to booru sites when they explicitly state not to. so let’s just start there. i honestly don’t remember if it was before or after i first blocked him, but he uploaded one of my NSFW drawings to danbooru when i first shared my NSFW blog. (PROTIP: if you’re a minor, don’t share your NSFW art with anyone. don’t care if you’re 17, i was about to turn 17 myself. it will bite you in the ass. as such, some of this is my fault.) i quickly contacted danbooru asking them to delete it, and they did--but that artwork subsequently ended up on gelbooru as well, and i was unsuccessful in my efforts to remove my art from there.  

fast forward to december 13th, 2016. it was a normal morning. i was getting ready for school, but also being dumb and lazing around in bed browsing tumblr. i saw a post from a blog that shares Funny 4chan Screencaps. my art was in it. the art was of a very muscular yuugi, a drawing i was proud of, especially in how much gay energy i thought it radiated--but this drawing was being used in one of those typical “here’s a touhou, i wanna fuck her! am i right guys? let’s talk about how badly we want to fuck her” threads. seeing my art used for this was appalling. my first mistake was reblogging the post and saying how it was wrong, and how my art shouldn’t ever be used for such a purpose. my second mistake was making a text post AND tweets expressing my disgust at the situation, thinking no one who frequented /jp/ would ever see, sure that it would be a big waste of their time to concern themselves with some random dumb “”sjw”” artist. i also probably shouldn’t have specifically called them “gross neckbeards,” in doing so i absolutely struck a nerve with basement dwellers everywhere. i got to school and during my second period class, suddenly felt a strange urge to look at /jp/. why i did that, i still don’t really know. maybe i was expecting hate. maybe i was trying to see if they used my art for something gross again. i don’t know. either way, that moment changed everything forever. i saw the screencap of my tweets posted for everyone in their  circlejerk to see. even worse--i looked in the thread, and someone had also posted the NSFW art colboh had uploaded to danbooru, mocking it and calling me a hypocrite for drawing two girls having sex while also saying i don’t like my art being used for those kinds of threads. this is what truly ignited the amount of hate i saw directed towards me in the threads. i got called a bitch, a drama whore, got told to kill myself, and in one reply etched into my mind forever, someone said something along the lines of “we should all call her local gang and have them rape her, she just needs a good dicking.” there were multiple threads, too; i don’t know how many, but there was another one about me after the first one was deleted, in which someone edited a typical fat balding NTR hentai doujin style man into art i made of kagerou nosebleeding at wakasagihime. more disparaging comments were made. in both threads, people expressed their hatred and dislike of my art, some calling it garbage, some just saying it’s “bad,” etc. some people said the threads were unnecessary and rude, but they were a kind few in a cesspool of violence.

i don’t know who started these threads. i can’t assume anything about anyone, but whoever did this was definitely looking through all my social media out of bitterness and hatred, or perhaps even following me on both my tumblr and twitter considering the timing of the threads immediately after i complained. it eats at me that i most likely will never know who did this to me. i’ll never know who hated me so much that they decided to completely destroy my self esteem. if whoever it is who did all of this is reading this and feels any ounce of remorse, i’m begging them to reveal themselves and why they did it, but i know the chances of that happening are incredibly slim. someone, i can’t remember who, maybe it was queenly, told me they hope someday i reach a point where i don’t have to worry about that because i won’t care in general, but i still don’t know if i’ll ever reach a point where i stop caring about all of this.

like i mentioned earlier, after this all first happened, i was destroyed. the next day, my school’s GSA happened to have a vote for whose art would be on the club t-shirts, mine or someone else’s. mine lost. i broke down completely--anywhere i went, i wasn’t good enough, not for anyone. for days, there was a constant feeling of horror and fear  in my chest, something i’ve only ever felt so intensely when one of these threads resurfaces or i suddenly relive my trauma due to other things triggering me. i took a hiatus that lasted a few weeks, i believe i came back sometime before the new year. i thought i was ok, and i pretended like i could go back to being myself. but as time went on, and i continued living with the weight of that day on my back, i became weaker and weaker. i stopped drawing as frequently as i used to. my final year of high school started and i ended up falling into such a deep depression that i constantly skipped school and eventually attempted suicide in november 2017.  the suicide note i wrote cites that day as being one of the main things leading me to my decision, telling whoever did this to me that i hoped in my passing they’d have to live knowing what they did to me. my attempt only failed because i swore to take every pill left in the bottle and there were only four pills. had it been full, i’m not really sure what would have happened. i was sent to a mental institute afterwards for a week. being there was the absolute definition of hell. i was alone. i cried myself to sleep every night. they claimed to be a place where people were improved and got help, but i did not get any help at all. they basically imprisoned me for trying to kill myself. when i got out, i was only glad to be alive because i just wanted to be able to talk to my friends, my family, and my girlfriend again. it still shocks me that i was able to graduate from high school considering how much school i skipped before and after my suicide attempt.

sometime before that school year ended, i became extremely upset one afternoon and decided to run away from home. i had what happened to me and what was said about me that day running through my head. i tweeted that i hoped maybe in running away i’d end up being raped like they wanted, like how i deserved. someone who i considered a friend replied to this with, “fuck you.” after all of this was taken care of and i was safe at home, i responded that i was sorry, that i wasn’t thinking right when i made the tweet. she responded that i was, and blocked me. i tried to explain that i said what i did because of the threads about me on /jp/ and the one response threatening rape, but this was disregarded and, seemingly, ignored. a few days later, the former friend in question started sending me anon hate on tumblr, asking me why i want attention so badly, accusing me of making light of actual rape victims by saying such a thing. i explained myself, but to no avail. i blocked her on tumblr, and left it at that. but then, at the end of the school year, when i was proud of myself for finally getting through high school without killing myself or failing or anything, i stumbled upon the second thread. the date the thread was created lined up exactly with the time between me running away from home and me receiving anon hate. she can try to act like she didn’t make the thread all she wants, but i’m not an idiot. the replies were also eerily similar--people in the replies remembered me, a year and a half after the original thread. some replies mentioned me having attempted suicide months before. some mentioned my NSFW art again. i had a massive breakdown and nearly drowned myself in the pond down the road. it was a wet, rainy night, and i sat on a bench by the pond sobbing loudly, trying to find some way to want to keep living. but i couldn’t. i might have gone through with it if it hadn’t been for burger coming and talking to me and giving me a ride home.

entering college, i thought things would be easier. in a way, they are. i have more freedom with classes. this semester, i attended almost all of my classes, almost every day, just with the exception of me being sick some days and me accidentally oversleeping once, and then one day when i just didn’t feel like it. but things continued to get worse for me--i developed an eating disorder for many reasons, one being the time i spent a year prior depressed caused me to gain a significant amount of weight, and the other being i had sworn off self harm in the form of cutting. i found that i was able to get the same gratification from starving myself. at one point, it turned into a game of sorts, where i tried to see how long i could go without eating anything. my record was a little over 72 hours. being constantly hungry or in pain this way felt like something i deserved in a way, but also something to distract me from the pain of realizing i was losing my love for art. i was in denial about it for months. i tried to keep drawing, but everything i drew upset me, saddened me, and even angered me. i looked at anything i made and only felt disgust. it was the one thing i used to love doing more than anything, and now i only felt shame. 

in november, i acknowledged this and decided to quit for good. recently, i discovered colboh had uploaded more of my NSFW art to gelbooru, even though i specifically stated on my blog to never upload my NSFW art to image sharing sites, specifically right after he uploaded my art the first time. by the time i found this, i had already sworn off art for good, but looking at the comments on my art on gelbooru (and rule 34--i guess they’re connected upload-wise like danbooru?) filled me with so much sadness and shame, not because they criticized my art, but because they said horrible things about my depiction of kagerou. for those who don’t know, i headcanon kagerou as a trans woman, and one thing i do not regret about my time as an artist is how that depiction has helped numerous trans women feel good about themselves and their bodies. seeing so many disgusting comments deliberately misgendering her and making other transphobic remarks hurt me on a completely new level. my trans friends have been such a source of strength for me through all of this and seeing that made me feel disgusted, especially with myself. i felt like i had failed them. i had made so many trans women happy, only to see a man i blocked two years ago had uploaded my art to porn sites, tagging it with dehumanizing words like “f*ta” that i specifically tell people never to refer to my art with, displaying that art for the exact same crowds of people that ruined everything december 13th 2016 to continue to pick apart. one comment even told me to kill myself, effectively bringing back every memory of that day. 

speaking of that, another thing i want to touch on now that i’m up to speed with the details of everything that’s happened related to the original threads two years ago, is kagerou. i’m positive you all know that i really love kagerou imaizumi, and that she’s my favorite touhou character. it’s embarrassing to say, but she’s brought me so much comfort through all of this. sometimes if i’m sad, i’ll imagine her giving me a big hug, or i’ll look at cute pictures i have saved of her, or something along those lines. it’s pretty cringy for a fictional character to make me happy, i know, but i’ve grown so attached to her and she really means a lot to me. and another thing that made me want to swear off art is because she’s loved by so many others that i don’t think my depictions of her do her any good. i’m constantly compared to other artists, and it’s never good. even in the threads, i’m told i should be more like those other artists and these things wouldn’t happen to me. i am not allowed to love kagerou imaizumi. i draw her as a hairy trans lesbian, and that disgusts people. hell, the fact that i draw lesbians in general disgusts people, which sure fucking sucks because i constantly hate myself for not being attracted to men and being able to draw happy lesbians made me feel better about myself. but i’ve ruined kagerou for so many people, especially with my stupid kagewaka bullshit. maybe that’s why those artists unfollowed me. maybe it’s a combination of that and my constant breakdowns becoming far too annoying. i think all the popular artists who used to like me and then unfollowed/softblocked me are really glad to see that i’ve given up. and that’s something else that saddens me too--even as an artist, in my own community of touhou artists, i often feel like i’m lesser, and that i don’t belong. maybe it’s because i’m so foolishly outspoken about my opinions that they dislike me. maybe it’s because i’m a woman, and a lesbian at that. i don’t really know why they hate me so much. i wish i could belong somewhere.

and i think that’s what it all boils down to in the end. i’ve lost all sense of belonging. when i was 14 and people started noticing my art for the first time, i finally felt like i had something. like i belonged somewhere. after being bullied through middle school and having to deal with abusive friends and an abusive dad, it meant the world to me that i finally had something. but it didn’t last long at all. it all came crashing down, not just because of others, but because of me. i was the one who was cocky, getting into fights that weren’t worth it. i was the one who provoked people and made them hate me. i was the one who complained about /jp/ posting my art in their threads. i know people want to believe that i’m a saint, but i’m not. i have myself to blame too. i at least want everyone to understand this, above all else. there was so much i could have done differently to prevent this all from happening, but i didn’t. i was stupid and naive. i was a massive fucking idiot, and now look where i am. i lost everything. i thought i had friends, i lost them. i thought i loved art, i lost that. i thought other really talented nice people liked me, i even lost that. all i have now is an empty shell of my former self. i don’t know what to do with it. i don’t know how i’m going to rebuild myself. it’s so painful to have to keep living like this. i don’t know if there’s any fixing me at this point. i’ve lost so much, i feel permanently broken.

but despite all of that, despite everything i’ve been through, i still receive so much love and support from my followers and friends and it means so much to me. it means the world to me and has kept me going through all of this. knowing that people care about me and want to see me get better and improve makes me want to try to fix myself even if i am broken beyond repair. i just want to thank you all for being that source of strength for me. these past few years have been so hard for me and time and time again i still get love and encouragement from so many people. from the bottom of my heart, thank you. there is nothing more precious to me than those moments when i feel like i do truly belong, when i feel loved, when i feel like i’m not alone after all. for those moments, i’ll keep trying. even if these threads keep continuing and breaking me further, i’ll keep trying. even if every last artist in this fandom comes to hate me and my shitty art, i’ll keep trying. it’s still painful to draw right now and i have a long way to go before i can share art with anyone again, but for you all, i’m going to keep trying my best. at the end of the day, i know everyone’s encouragement and love is worth far more than hate threads urging me to kill myself. 

i’m sorry how long and personal and unnecessary this is, but i felt like i had to set things straight. if you read all of this, i applaud you. if you just kinda skimmed through to read the last paragraph, i also appreciate it. again, thank you. 

[snowdice]

Finding the Time to Study Fic 2 [Day 42]

Here is my starting post for today’s study break stories session. See this post for more details and feel free to send me asks to keep me going! It’s been a lot of fun so far! I will reblog this post with the story as I write them today. I’ll be constantly looking for ideas of times and places for Janus to have missions, so feel free to send in any you can think of at any point!

If you are a new follower or just don’t want all of these posts clogging your dash, please feel free to block the tag “study break stories” as all posts and voting about it will go there. You can still see the finished product of the story even if you are blocking that tag as I will not tag the edited chapters with “study break stories” but with the tag “folds in paper.” See edited chapters below. None edited chapters are under the cut.

My Masterpost Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11 Part 12 Part 13 Part 14 Part 15

I also have a playlist on youtube (because Spotify didn’t have one of the songs I wanted). It’s short, and not really for serious listening, but I had fun with it.

Gotta finish my first draft of my research paper today, so let’s go!

Arc II What We Do to Each Other

Chapter 16:

As it would turn out, Janus and Virgil did not get in trouble for hooking up the old phone to Virgil’s integrator, mostly because it wasn’t really a mistake on their part. The phone cleared all virus checks that the tech people both from the university and the TPI ran on it. The phone should have been clean and should not have caused an issue.

In fact, they were still trying to pin down the code on the general university server. They could tell that something was mucking about on the system but what or how was a mystery. This also meant that there was no telling what information had been compromised and considering how many things Silver Mountain had its hands in, that was… a bit worrying.

 Another worrying thing was there was suddenly more activity of late at the TPI. There were more time distortions popping up every day. Usually they would be few and far in between. There had been 3 total recorded the year before, but over 12 in the last week. Some of them were fake like the one Janus had investigated, but some of them were real. It painted a distressing picture and also was a drain on their resources. Khalid was actually looking to advertise positions to hire new recruits which was something she rarely did as she liked to keep appointments to the TPI in house.

 They’d even loosed the number of field agents needed for each mission and Janus and Remus had been splitting up just to get everything done. Today, he and Remus had thankfully only two missions scheduled for the day.

“Are we going together or separate today?” Janus asked Remus.

“Think they’ll burn me at the stake for being a witch if I go alone to either of them?” Remus asked.

“I don’t know. Probably. I think we’re getting a bit late into the 1700s for that in Cuba, but I have no idea about Mesopotamia.”

“Let’s just go together. I did not like almost drowning yesterday because I was the only stranger in town when the weather was going wonky.”

“Surely it isn’t because you opened your mouth. Ever.” Janus said dryly.

“How was I supposed to know he was the local clergyman’s son?”

 Janus rolled his eyes. “On second thought,” he said, pushing a button on his desk to choose Cuba as he next mission, and standing up. “I don’t want you coming with me.” Yet, he did not protest when Remus also signed up for the Cuba mission and he waited for him by the office door before going to talk to Rhi.

Rhi was a bit frazzled when which meant quite a bit as she was usually incredibly put together. Remus didn’t even seem inclined to tease her today.

“Okay,” she said once they’d closed the door behind them. She flipped through some documents on her desk. “Picani and Clockson. Camaguey Cuba 1755. Do you know Cuba?”

 “Uh,” Janus said. “Yeah?”

“Like you’re reading the things, right? I don’t have to babysit you, right? You got it? The Seven Year War was happening, but it won’t affect you much as it hasn’t really hit Cuba. It’s the middle of the Camaguey Carnival. Everyone will be everywhere and there will be chaos so as long as you don’t really fuck up you should be fine. Um…apparent races.” She looked up at them and studied them each for a moment as thought looking at them for the first time despite having known them for years. “It’ll work. Go to costuming.”

“Shouldn’t we…” Janus said, “sign things?”

 “…Yep,” she said, fiddling with her desktop and then sending documents over to their side to sign.

Janus and Remus both did before sending them back.

“Great. Good.” She stood and grabbed some things from behind her. “You can go.” She sat back down as they took their things and Janus noticed a message pop up on her desk. She looked up at Remus looking exhausted. “What?” she asked.

“Just open it,” Remus said.

Rhi tapped it and a photo opened.

“I got her a new mouse toy!” Remus said happily as Rhi looked at the picture of Diesel Fuel attacking a cloth mouse.

“That is… appreciated Agent Clockson,” Rhi said. “Now get out.”

 They did, leaving to get their costumes on and checked. Costuming was just as busy and frazzled as Rhi had been and they actually had to wait for decon because there’d been a mix up with the agents leaving before them. They landed in Cuba without issue. Janus could already hear the festival in full swing outside the small building they’d were in. Remy was standing there with a very not time appropriate mug of coffee.

“Sue me,” Remy said when Janus raised an eyebrow at it. “Please just… get in and out without causing trouble. Seriously. I don’t want to have to deal with that on top of everything else.”

 “We’ll do our best,” Janus assured.

Remy pulled his sunglasses down to look at him. He looked exhausted. “God please do more than your best.”

Janus nodded tightly. “We’ll be in and out,” he said, already glancing at his timepiece. It had been disguised as a golden bracelet which made it a bit harder to actually use, but wrist watches wouldn’t be invented for more than a century, so they’d have to make do. “The time distortion, if that’s what it is, should be in the middle of town. Let’s go.”

He and Remus exited the building onto the packed city street.

 Janus was immediately bombarded with all types of sights, sounds, and smells. There were many colorful articles of clothing and costumes as people went every which way along the street talking to other members of their community, playing instruments, and dancing. There was the sound of people speaking Spanish, still mostly almost pure Castilian Spanish with perhaps a bit of influence from Taino as the Haitian revolution had yet to push the Creole language over to Cuba. People must have been hard at work cooking different dishes for the carnival as many different spices wafted through the air. It was sticky hot considering it was the middle of June in the tropics and Janus was immediately sweating despite the temperature appropriate clothing he’d been outfitted with.

 He glanced around their immediate area, just scoping out the crowds. His eyes were immediately drawn to one person near them.

“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me,” he said out loud when he saw Pat. Remus looked in the direction Janus was.

Even if Janus didn’t recognize him the moment he laid eyes on him, he probably still would have ended up staring as he was the only person in the area who clearly did not know how to do the dance he was attempting.

Remus snorted and Janus shook his head in secondhand embarrassment. “Well, would you look whose boyfriend’s here,” he said to Janus. Make that firsthand embarrassment. “Has anyone told him the Mambo wasn’t invented until the 1900s and also that’s not how you do it?”

 Chapter 17

Pat stopped dancing the moment he saw Janus approaching him, but he still bobbed cheerfully ( and unrhythmically) to the music. “Hi Janus,” he said pleasantly.

“You just have to rub it in, huh?”

There was a flash of confusion across his face, but then he smiled. “Well, I know where in our relationship you are. How was France?”

“You’re a bastard.”

“You stole the phone,” he laughed.

“You stole the bomb,” Janus countered, “and you wanted me to steal the phone. You booby trapped it.”

“No,” Pat correct, putting a finger up. “We have security on my phone because in high school I once forgot it in the school locker room and long story short, the three of us ended up in a lake. So, then Lo made sure I always had some sort of tracker on it. When I started time traveling, he updated it and when I met you we updated it again in case there was ever an opportunity like that. Lo calls it using our weaknesses to our advantage.”

 “He’s a bastard too,” Janus growled.

Pat just laughed.

“Is someone talking about me?” Remus asked, stepping over to them. Janus rolled his eyes.

“Oh,” Pat said, blinking at Janus’s partner for a moment. “Remus.” He hesitated slightly. “How are you doing?”

“Me?” Remus asked. “Uh, I’m doing good. A little stressed out with work, but fine.”

“Good,” Pat said with just a little too much heartfulness to it.

“What?” Janus asked, eyes narrowed at Pat. “What is that?”

“What is what?” Pat asked. He met Janus’s eyes briefly and it made panic surge up Janus’s spine because the look Pat was sending him wasn’t one that said he was playing dumb. It was a warning.

 Oh, Janus did not like this. That look told Janus Pat had some foreknowledge that he absolutely could not tell Janus about without messing up the timeline spectacularly. This was why this mess the two of them were mixed up in was so bad, but it seemed Janus did not have much of a choice when it came to Pat.

Despite how bad of an idea he knew it was, he still wanted to push, because whatever Pat was hiding could be very, very bad and it had to do with Remus. There were so many reasons Pat could be acting like that around Remus, but the worst ones were definitely the ones on his mind. Death, injury, illness. They were all possible especially in their line of work and especially with how time was being screwed with right now. And Pat knew. He knew exactly what the answer was, and oh did Janus want to push.

Experience knowing what worse things could come out of having foreknowledge made Janus bite his tongue.

 “So, what are you two doing here,” Pat asked, and Janus unhappily let him change the subject.

“Oh, like you don’t know,” Janus replied.

“I don’t know,” Pat said innocently.

“There’s another time distortion,” Janus said, “and while you didn’t know what it was the last time I saw you, I’m pretty sure you do now.”

“Oh, I didn’t know there was a time distortion here. I can help you if you like,” he offered sweetly.

“Oh, yeah, sure. Then why are you here?”

“I wanted to see if I could find the Flying Dutchman,” Pat told him.

“And so you went to Camaguey?”

“Uh huh.”

“One of the farthest places from the ocean in Cuba?”

 “Is it?”

“I don’t trust you.”

Pat just shrugged. “Well, if you don’t want my help finding the time distortion, I’ll just be on my way then.”

“Wait,” he said when Pat went to turn away. Pat paused. Janus turned to Remus. “Remus, do you think he’s bullshitting me so I let him wander off and do whatever the hell he’s doing, or do you think he’s bullshitting me into letting him come with us.”

“Hmm,” Remus said, looking Pat up and down. Janus could immediately tell he wasn’t going to get any helpful answer. “Well, if we’re going with the how much do I get to see his, admittedly very sexy, ass criteria.” Janus pinched the bridge of his nose. “Letting him leave now means instant gratification and a nice full image when he turns away. However, letting him go with us means many more opportunities to get a glimpse, but they’d probably just be glimpses. So, yeah that’s a tough call.”

“You didn’t even bother to give me an actual hidden suggestion with that bullshit,” Janus groaned. He glanced at Pat only to see him hiding his very red face in his hands. Janus blinked. “Oh,” he said. “You got him, Remus.” Janus was surprised. He’d expected a bit more tenacity for someone with Pat’s personality. Of course, Janus was used to Remus, so that perhaps had some effect. Pat made a muffled distressed sound behind his hands and Janus raised an eyebrow. “You really got him.”

Pat flapped one hand around while still using the other to completely hide his face. “It’s just. His face. Saying that. Is weird.”

 Janus could not say that he didn’t feel a slight spark of joy at seeing Pat flustered. After all, Pat’s weapon of choice had often been flirting with Janus in the past. However, he still smacked Remus on the shoulder when it looked like he was about to continue with something likely far more inappropriate. “We are here for a reason,” he reminded. He turned to consider Pat and squinted at him. “You’re coming with us, I’ve decided. I don’t want to let you out of my sights. Don’t,” he said empathically turning to Remus as the man opened his mouth once more.

 Pat had mostly recovered, though his cheeks were just a bit pink still. “Yeah,” he said. “I’ll go with you. Where do we start?”

Janus glanced at his timepiece. “It’s not showing up on our trackers yet.”

“It messed with your tracker last time,” Pat pointed out.

“I know,” Janus said. “Which means it could be another fake one or whatever is causing it hasn’t started yet. If things start going wrong, but it still doesn’t show on our radar, it’s almost certainly a fake one, but some of the fake ones haven’t blocked our technology.”

“Here, I can check,” Pat said.

“Please don’t pull out an iPhone,” Janus begged.

 Pat stuck out his tongue at him, and then smiled. He reached for the bracelet on his wrist and twisted it back and forth a few times before pressing his palms together. He glanced around them quickly to make sure no one around them was watching and then peeled apart his palms like he was miming reading a book.

“What the fuck is that, and how do I get one?” Remus asked immediately. It was innocuous, whatever it was. If someone from this time caught a glimpse of the display, they’d likely assume it was a trick of the light, but staring right at it, Janus could tell it was a map of the surrounding areas with a softly glowing blue light marking their current location. Janus could see no screen or origin of a hologram. It looked like the image was drawn onto the man’s palms, but as he watched, the image shifted to zoom out.

 “There doesn’t seem to be anything major yet,” Pat said wiggling his fingers a bit. The display changed slightly to some sort of colorful overlay Janus did not understand. Pat hummed. “Did you two come from that building recently?” he asked nodding at it.

“Yes,” Janus replied. “How do you know?”

“There’s sometimes a slight temperature change when people time travel,” Pat explained. “I can read it on here.” He tilted his head. “There also seems to be a big enough temperature change in a church a few blocks away that could indicate time travel. Want to check it out?”

“We might as well,” Janus agreed.

“And if it’s nothing, we can get drunk on the communion wine!”

“He’s going to get immediately struck by lightning,” Janus said.

 Chapter 18

“If we see anyone,” Janus said as they entered the church. “You keep your mouth shut. Do you understand me? Remus, do you understand me?”

Remus immediately turned to Pat. “You know, I didn’t grow up Catholic,” he said to Pat who looked at him in confusion. “So the first time I ever entered a Catholic church, you can’t blame me for being a little confused about the whole cabinet thing with a wall between them. After all, everyone was singing about glory to god and what not. So I…”

Janus slapped him. “This is why you were almost burned at the stake yesterday.”

 “Excuse you,” Remus said, putting his hand over his heart. “I was almost drowned.”

“You were almost drowned?” Pat asked, his voice seeming legitimately distressed.

Remus shrugged a smile on his face that caused a Pavlovian migraine to start up behind Janus’s eyes. “It’s one of the hazards of the jobs, and really it would have all been worth it if I’d actually gotten to drown in that man’s…”

“We’re in a church!” Janus cut him off switching from Spanish to Swahili in the hopes that no random passersby would be able to understand him in this time and place. “Don’t talk about lewd sex things. Don’t talk about sex at all. It’s a Catholic church!”

 Remus continued to speak in Spanish with no regard for anything. “But not talking about lewd sex things takes away 3/4ths of my personality,” he pouted.

“More like 9/10th,” Janus grumbled, “and the other 1/10th is just normal stupid.”

“Hey, you shouldn’t be mean,” Pat scolded, in fucking English for some reason, “but Remus, honey, you probably shouldn’t be saying things like that right now.”

“No, no, he has a point,” Remus said switching to English.

“He’s my partner, I have the right to call him stupid,” Janus insisted.

“And I love you too!” Remus said in Greek because he was really, truly, stupid.

 Pat looked between the two, but then seemed to accept it, dropping the concerned expression for a slightly amused one. “If you say so.”

“Can I… help you?” A voice asked. All three of them whipped around to see a young boy looking at them and seeming very confused. Which was fair considering that to his ears, they’d just been speaking nonsense.

“We’re here to pray!” Remus claimed, then he turned to wink at Pat and said under his breath in Swahili, “to that ass.” Pat went immediately bright red again, which was doubtlessly Remus’s aim. Janus subtlety stepped on his foot while smiling at the boy.

 “Oh,” the boy said. “Okay.” Thankfully, he didn’t seem interested in questioning the random strangers in front of him further. “I’m going to go back to the celebration now.”

Janus smiled at him. “Have fun,” he said. He waited for the boy to leave through the front door before slapping Remus on the back of the head.

“Ow!” he whined sounding far too pained for how hard Janus had actually hit him.

Janus rolled his eyes. “Let’s just start investigating,” he said.

“Sure, sure, you never let me have any fun,” Remus said, pulling up his wrist and spinning the golden bracelets on his arm. “Hmm…” he said.

 “What?” asked Pat.

“Either I put on the wrong jewelry this morning… or my timepiece isn’t working.”

“Well, then I’m guessing we’re in the right place,” Janus said. He turned to Pat. “Your stuff still working?”

Pat brought up whatever device was on his hands. “Yeah,” he said, “and it looks like something is just starting.” Just as he said it, there was a violent crash of thunder.

“Well,” Janus said. “We should probably find the source and soon. Which way?”

Pat glanced around himself and then motioned with his wrist. Suddenly there was a 3D display of the church in front of them.

 Janus could see immediately where the problem had to originate. There was a swirling mass of some sort of energy centered at the top of the bell tower of the church. As he watched, he saw the picture of the church glitch out a bit. He had a bad feeling about that.

“Is there something wrong with your display?” he asked, or more hoped.

Pat shook his head slowly. “I don’t think so…” The room seemed to shift suddenly underneath their feet. It felt a bit like time travel, but also wrong. The picture on the display flickered harder, part of the building fracturing and dissolving before appearing back in place. The room settled after a moment, but Janus’s stomach did not.

 “Whatever is going on,” Janus said, “We need to stop it right now.”

Pat nodded. “The quickest way up would be that way,” Pat said pointing. The display closed as he did.

“Then, let’s go,” Janus said.

The world was eerily calm as they all started off in the direction Pat had pointed out. In fact, it was almost too quiet.

“Where’s the nearest window?” Janus asked when they came out on the second floor.

Pat glanced at his hand. “There should be a couple a few feet that way.” Janus nodded and left them standing there. When he glanced out of the first window he came to, it appeared to be night. Yet, when he walked to the next window, he saw daylight.

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“Time is fracturing,” Janus informed them. “We need to be careful.” This time distortion was much more intense than any of the other ones the agency had been tracking down over the last few months. It had also come on much faster. Usually there was some time between when the time distortion began and it started having extreme effects on the environment. He was suddenly very glad that he and Remus had not split up today. He was even glad for Pat’s company, no matter how aggravating he may be sometimes. Not to mention, he was glad for the man’s technology that seemed to circumvent whatever was blocking Janus and Remus’s timepieces.

He backed away from the windows and returned to the others.

“Whatever you do,” Janus said. “Don’t let anyone be in a room alone.”

“I know what time fractures are this time,” Pat promised.

“It was as much for the idiot as it was for you,” Janus said.

“You accidently bring a bubonic plague infested rat to 900BC one time and you never live it down.”

“I’d say I should put a leash on you, but you’d twist it into something disgusting.”

“Probably,” Remus agreed.

“Where next?” Janus asked, ignoring him.

“That way,” Pat said.

They walked together to the door he’d indicated. “Please don’t be bullshit,” Janus prayed. He opened the door and immediately got bowled over by a stream of salt water.

 Chapter 19

Janus landed flat on his back, a wave of water splashing over him and then quickly retreating, but still leaving him absolutely drenched. He sighed, looking at the ceiling. “Don’t,” he warned, “say a word.”

Of course, he was with the two most impossible people in all of space and time, so neither of them headed him.

“I thought you said we were far from the ocean, Jan,” Pat said.

“Yeah, Janny,” Remus immediately jumped on board because he was an asshole. “I thought we were far from the ocean!”

“Maybe I’ll achieve my goal of finding the Flying Dutchman after all!”

 “Ooo ghost pirates! I’ve never gotten to fight ghost pirates before. Any good with a sword Patty?”

“My friend has a sword and he let me use it before… but all I did was cut a hole in our couch, and then Lo was mad at us.”

“I mean… just pretend the pirates are a couch and we’ll be good!”

Janus slowly sat up. There was still water on the floor and every so often a wave would crash into the room as though the door frame signaled the edge of a beach. Pat reached down to offer him a hand up and Janus slapped it away.

 “Rude!” Pat claimed, but his eyes were alight with mischief.

Janus shoved himself to his feet on his own power.

“You deserve it,” he hissed. “For all of this!” he waved his arms around.

“Water you talking about. I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“You are on thin ice.”

He looked down at his feet with a contemplative expression. “Looks like water to me.”

“Arg!” Janus spat, throwing up his arms.

“I don’t sea why you’re screaming, Janus.”

“Yeah,” Remus contributed. “You seem overally emotional to me.”

“Yes, yes,” Pat replied. “Very em-ocean-al.”

“One may even say he’s pretty salty.”

“I know where you live, Remus,” Janus reminded.

 “Alright, alright Remus, reel it in,” Pat said.

Remus opened his mouth to respond, but Janus cut him off. “Why don’t the two of you dedicate all of that brain power to figuring out how to cross the literal ocean in the next room,” Janus suggested hotly.

And it was a literal ocean. If one ignored where they were and the fact that there was a staircase climbing out of said ocean about 80 or so meters away. There was sand being washed up across the door frame and a seagull flying in the distance. At least it looked like a nice day in the room with the way the sun was glinting off the water. At least it wasn’t storming there. Yet.

Janus’s head throbbed with the thought of what had to be happening with the time distortion to plop a piece of the ocean into one single room in a church. Usually they’d be calling the TPI for backup or at least for information, but that was a loss. Even if they tried to get out of range of whatever was disrupting their timepieces, time was so unstable, they’d very possibly get dumped somewhere dangerous. It was better to just get to the time distortion as quickly as possible and stop it.

 “Hmm,” Remus said. “I wonder how deep it is. Do you think there are man eating sharks in the water? Or giant jelly fish? Remember that one time I got stung by a jelly fish and almost died?”

“Yes,” Janus said, lips pursed, “and it was entirely your fault.”

“I just looked so squishy!” he declared, “I didn’t know it was a murder blob.”

“I think I have a boat,” Pat said.

They both turned to him. “What?” Janus asked. He was looking at his hands and just hummed in response to Janus’s question. The next thing he knew, Pat made some motion with his hand and a yellow raft started to autofill from his palm. “...Why?” Janus asked.

“I… recently started carrying a wilderness survival pack in my time device.”

 “I’m not going to question it. It’s better than swimming.” By the time the raft was completely deployed, they’d all been shoved into the walls by it.

“Huh, on second thought. I probably should have put the raft in the room before blowing it up.”

“You think?” asked Janus.

Pat glared at him over it. “I never really thought about how to open it in a narrow second floor corridor.”

“Just try to shove it through the door without popping it.”

“Why are you looking at me?!” asked Remus.

They managed to somehow squeeze the raft through the door into the other room after a few minutes.

 Pat squinted at the tottering raft he was holding to the door frame. “After you,” he offered.

Janus glared at him.

“You’re already soaked!” Pat defended himself.

Janus sighed and very carefully climbed into the raft. It tottered dangerously, but he didn’t immediately fall out, so that was a plus. The other two of them slowly also climbed onto the raft with him. They then sat in it for a few seconds. “Is there an oar?” Janus asked.

“Oh right!” Pat did something else with the device in his hands and an oar slowly unfolded from his hand.

“Seriously, I want one of those,” Remus said.

 “Let’s just get out of here,” Janus said, snatching the oar. The staircase luckily wasn’t too far away. They probably could have swam it if necessary, but the raft gave them some modicum of protection. Everything seemed to be going in their favor, which of course meant everything was about to go incredibly wrong.

They were about halfway across the water when the entire world around them rumbled.

“…I hope that was a giant jellyfish,” Remus said.

It was unfortunately not a jellyfish or any sea creature at all. The world around them fractured, the ocean seeming to split right down the middle so the water right of the staircase was 6 feet higher than on the left. The sky flashed red and yellow before the water split completely like Moses splitting the Red Sea.

 There was a millisecond as the split widened until it was only a few feet from them, to decide whether when they landed they wanted to be on the side with the water or on the side without it. On one hand, going towards the side without water could mean they fell to their deaths or the water crashed back down on top of them when it settled. On the other hand, if the fissure was closing or shifting to a new area, it was very possible that they’d end up trapped in the middle off the ocean with no connection to the church.

 Well, the best chance to actually get to where they were going was probably the side without water. It seemed everyone had the same idea at once because as he grabbed for both of them, they both grabbed for him and they all went tumbling off the raft into what could have very well been a bottomless pit.

Janus learned after a couple of seconds of free fall, that it was definitely not a bottomless pit. He landed hard, flat on his back and saw stars. The next moment something landed on top of him, squeezing all of the air out of his lungs.

 Something else fell half on top of his legs.

“Ow,” Pat said from near his ear.

“Yeah, well you’re the one on the top,” Janus groaned though his teeth.

“Wow, I never took you for a bottom, Janus,” Remus said from near his feet. Janus kicked up his legs into whatever part of him was on top of Janus and he gave an “oof.”

Pat snorted a bit and Janus glared at his… shoulder? He shifted around a bit so he was less thrown across Janus and more just on top of him. Janus blinked. There was a wooden ceiling above them, so that was a good sign, though there was also a giant dark hole of nothingness directly above them which was not as good.

 Janus moved slightly. He could tell he was going to be bruised later, but he didn’t seem seriously injured. “We should,” he started, but was interrupted as the hole above them pulsated and dumped a bunch of sea water.

Pat shrieked as they were all drenched with the chilly water. Luckily, they seemed to be on higher ground because, while water kept pouring out of the hole, it drained away just as quickly instead of drowning them.

Water still hitting his back relentlessly, Pat peeled his head up to look Janus in the eyes. A giggle bubbled out of his mouth.

“It isn’t funny,” Janus informed him. Pat just giggled more, leaning his head against Janus’s chest and cackling.

 Janus just rolled his eyes. “Yes, yes, this is an entirely appropriate reaction. Thank you for your contribution to our very important mission.”

Pat seemed incapable of stopping laughing completely, but he did calm himself enough to peel himself off Janus’s chest and lean forward so their noses almost touched. “It’s hilarious and you know it,” he claimed.

“In what way is this ‘hilarious’?”

“In many waves,” was the joy filled answer.

“You’re horrible.”

Pat hummed. He hadn’t moved to get off of him even though they really should be moving in case something worse than water came through the hole in the ceiling. He hadn’t even moved his face away.

“No, no, you two just tell me when you’re done being gay for each other,” Remus interrupted. Janus was surprised to see he’d stood up at some point and was now hovering over them.

 Janus flipped him off even while Pat laughed once again. Pat finally drew away and rolled off of him so Janus could sit up. Pretty much everything hurt when Janus moved, but he was able to stand up, so he was probably fine enough. “So,” he said looking around. “Where are we now?”

 Chapter 20

Janus looked around himself while Pat booted up his map to try to figure out where they were. They were in a small room that may actually be considered a large landing as there were staircases on either side of it. The water that was still coming out of the ceiling was running down the staircase that led down from the room.

 Something was stopping the water, creating a pool on the steps that was already about to overflow into the room. With the speed the water was flowing, they should have enough time before the room completely filled up with water and drowned them.

Janus wondered if they were in the church or not. It was not out of the question and there was church like décor around them, but who knew? He could feel a strange vibration in the ground and the one window in the room shone with green light.

“Hmm,” said Pat. “That looks not good.” He’d projected his map so they could all see everything.

 The map itself was moving. Rooms were phasing in and out of focus and fracturing down the middle. One room was even spinning lazily around in circles. Janus could see the room they were in. It was connected to the bigger blob of rooms, and there was a black line connecting it to another room from the top which was obviously the hole spewing water at them.

“Well, at least the time distortion is still coming from the bell tower,” Remus said. Janus shot him an unamused glance. Said bell tower was currently upside down and shuddering as well as divided from any other room by at least two inches of empty space.

28842

“How are we supposed to get there?” asked Pat.

“We don’t,” Janus said. “It’s literally impossible.”

“There has to be some way,” Pat argued with a frown.

“If we try to use time travel, we’ll definitely get shredded by the warping time and space around it and walking there isn’t an option. There aren’t even any entrances!”

“Well, there were at one point.”

“Yeah, before,” he gestured wildly to the ceiling that was still pouring water into the room.

“So?” Pat asked.

“’So’?! What do you mean ‘so’?!”  

Pat shrugged. “When one door closes, cut another one.”

Janus froze and looked at him for a long moment. “Where the hell did you hear that?”

Patton raised an eyebrow. “You.”

“I don’t think like that anymore.”

“Well then I guess we’ll die,” Pat said lightly. “Of course, that’ll make an even worse time loop considering I’ve met older versions of you.”

“Fuck,” Janus spat. “Fuck. Fine. Give me a minute to think. Not that I even know if we have a minute because,” he gestured once again to the room.

 “Okay,” Janus said. “The room with the source of the time distortion is separated from us by a swirling pool of dark nothingness and there is no way to get to it. But, the only way we’re going to stop the distortion from ripping apart time and killing us as well as probably a bunch of other people is to get to it. That is an impossible situation. There is no solution. That door is closed to us. What other ways are there to look at it?” He looked at the visual representation of the rooms. One of them suddenly went spinning out and his eyes tracked it. We need to be in the same place as the source,” Janus said. “That is fact, but we don’t have to get to it.”

“Um, what do you mean?” Remus asked. Pat shushed him.

 “If you want thing A and thing B to be in the same place, there’s more than one way to do it. If you can’t move thing A to thing B, you might be able to move thing B to thing A. Pat, you have a working time device. We can’t travel with it because that would kill us, but if we can make it do a stutter warp, it could draw the time distortion to it.”

“You…” Remus said. “Want to create another time distortion in hopes that the original time distortion will be pulled into this room?”

“Yes.”

“Well, sounds good to me!” Remus said.

 He maybe had expected Pat to argue, but he didn’t. Instead, he moved his hand to his wrist. There had been nothing there before, but when he touched down on his wrist with two fingers, there was suddenly a metal bound around it that Janus immediately recognized from the times he’d seen Pat’s timepiece before. How was it made invisible? He shook the thought off as Pat offered it up wordlessly. Janus took it and Pat leaned over his shoulder to look.

Despite the fact that the device looked nothing like his own, the interface was surprisingly convenient. “I assume you have safety setting to prevent a stutter warp,” Janus said. “How do I turn those off?”

 Patton pointed at a gear icon on the screen. “You put it under your normal settings?” he asked.

“I have to put in my password or use my fingerprint!” Pat defended.

“It doesn’t matter right now.” He navigated through the settings. He was interested to see that there were many different saved default security settings, but he didn’t get much of a chance to read what all they did. He just turned them all off.” It popped up with a message to put in the password and Pat pressed his fingertip to it. Another message popped up warning them that turning off these settings could cause damage to the machinery, the person using it, and time itself. Janus pushed “okay.” A message popped up that asked “Continue” and Janus pressed “yes.” One last message popped up that said “Security functions disabled.” Janus pressed “okay.”

 “Anything else I’d need to disable?”

“Nope,” Pat confirmed.

He navigated back to the main screen and then bought up the manual travel input screen. Yet another message warning him not to do this flashed and Janus once again ignored it. He copied the space time coordinates that the device said they were currently at and put it in the ‘travel to’ location. “Well,” he said. “Here it goes. Let it be known that if I die, it’s my own fault for allowing Remus into a church.”

“Really?” Remus said. “That’s what you’re choosing to be your last words?”

Janus just raised an eyebrow.

“Love you too Janus.”

Janus nodded and hovered his finger over the travel button. He quickly mashed his finger to the button 22 times.”

 The device warmed in his hand enough that he almost dropped it. Time literally froze for a few breaths as whatever Deity that may or may not exist processed their stupidity.

Janus was not a scientist or technician, but he had a good idea of how badly they were fucking up right now. The timepiece was attempting to travel over and over again to the exact same place and time. This basically punched a small hole through time, that if left unfixed would grow and disrupt space time all around them. As it was, their current position, all gathered around it and staring at it while one of them had it literally in their hand, was perilous.

 There was a rumble under their feet and the world tilted on it’s axis. The all went tumbling down in a pile of limbs to new floor of the room which had once been a wall.

Of course, this change of gravity caused the water that had been building up in the staircase to dump on top of them.

Janus would have cursed, but he was too busy being under the water. He maneuvered himself away from the other two flailing bodies and managed to shove his feet against the wall turned floor. His head popped above the water in time to see the ceiling, or well, it would be the opposite wall, rip in two and the other walls/floor/ceiling start to fold in.

 “Give me a boost!” Pat called over the noise of water rushing and walls crunching.

“Give you a boost where?” Janus asked.

“Up!” Janus wasn’t sure if ‘up’ really existed right now, but he still nodded. The water was a few inches over his head, so he held his breath and interlaced his hands so Pat could put his foot in it. He was shoved down into the water, but it gave Pat enough leverage to shoot up out of the water. When Janus resurfaced, he saw that the man had grabbed ahold of the crumbling wall and was pulling himself up into what for all appearances seemed to be absolutely nothing.

 It took a moment, but then Janus blinked, and he was suddenly in a new room entirely or perhaps it was the same room. He honestly didn’t know at this point. Remus was next to him. He couldn’t recall if he’d been there before the shift or not, but they were both treading water. Pat crashed into the water next to them. Janus’s wrist buzzed as his timepiece came back online. “Got it!” Pat declared when he resurfaced, holding a device up. It looked almost the same as the device they’d found in France, but this one was definitely different if it was able to cause that much chaos that quickly.

 Janus looked around and pointed at what appeared to be a set of stairs. The three of them swam over and pulled themselves out of the water.

“Where are we?” Pat asked.

“Looks like a basement,” Remus replied. “A flooded basement.”

Janus pulled up his timepiece and pushed some buttons to stabilize Pat’s timepiece. It slowly stopped vibrating and cooled. “Here,” he said, handing it over to him. “I suggest you put the safeties back on now.”

Pat nodded and took it.

“We’re still in Cuba,” Remus informed them, looking at his own timepiece. “Same church too, but in the basement and… two and a half centuries later.”

“Remy is going to be pissed,” Janus said.

Remus shrugged. “He’s always pissed… at least at me.”

“Well,” said Pat, slipping his timepiece back onto his wrist. “Thanks for being willing to pool our resources.”

Janus rolled his eyes. “Stop.”

“Ah, mi sirenito-”

“I hate you.”

“-never.” He disappeared with a pop which was when Janus realized, he’d never handed over device that had caused the first time distortion.

“…You bastard!” he yelled at thin air as though the man could hear him.

“Well,” said Remus, “that mission went swimmingly.” Janus reached over and shoved him back into the water.

 Chapter 21

“We should probably get out of here,” Janus said, very much not helping Remus out of the water. Remus pulled himself back up onto the staircase and shook like a dog. Janus crinkled his nose as water droplets hit him. They didn’t smell salty anymore, he noted. In fact, there was a broken pipe spewing out water on the other side of the room.

Janus and Remus cautiously snuck out of the church, not wanting to be seen and blamed for the flooded basement. They came out on a city street that was much different than the one they’d entered from.

 They walked down the street a bit, Janus’s eyes scanning the buildings. His eyes caught on a sign and he tugged Remus towards it.

They entered the small paladare and the person delivering food to one of the tables blinked at them both. Right. They were in clothing from the 1700s and were soaking wet. He met eyes with the woman, challenging her to say something. She did not.

They found a seat at one of the tables.

“Ah…” the worker said, approaching them. “English?”

“Ron,” Janus said, “por favor.”

Remus turned and started ordering the both of them food in Spanish. Janus didn’t pay attention to what he did.

 After his second shot of rum, Janus sighed and brought up his timepiece to ping the TPI. The reaction was almost instantaneous from their perspective. Remy all but kicked down the restaurant’s door and walked over to them. “How the fuck?”

“Ah, Remy,” Janus said calmly. “Have a seat. We’re waiting on our food.”

He did, but probably only because people were looking at them. “What are you doing here?”

“It’s been a long day,” Janus answered, “and I’m hungry.”

“Yeah, it certainly looks like you’re interested in the food,” Remy said, eyeing the empty shot glasses.

“Let’s just say, I’m glad Cuba started letting paladares legally serve liquor a few years ago.”

 It’s clear that Remy wanted to ask them what had happened, but he also was cautious enough not to make a scene here and Janus wasn’t planning on getting up until he’d at least gotten his food. “Why are you soaked, by the way?”

“Turns out the ocean isn’t as far away as we thought,” Janus said.

“Also, a church basement is flooded,” Remus said.

“Fantastic,” Remy replied.

They sat there mostly in tense silence until their food came, and then Remus and Janus ate. Remy slapped down some pesos once they were done and then proceeded to all but physically drag them out of the restaurant.

 They were led to an alley way and then through an old almost hidden door. Remy immediately rounded on them. “What the hell happened?” Remy asked.

“The time distortion caused level 5 time fractures in its vicinity, we almost drowned three times, and the worst person in the universe fucked me over again.”

“To be fair,” Remus said. “He did save our lives before that.”

“I saved our lives first,” Janus said. “I don’t have to be fair.”

“Oh, yeah, Mr. Curl Up In A Ball And Perish. I’m sure we would have been fine without him.”

“Anyway,” Janus said to Remy. “If you want your lump of flesh, I suggest you take it now, because Khalid is going to murder me, and then fire me, and then rehire me so she can put me on desk duty and make me do paperwork until the end of time.”

 “What did you do?” Remy asked.

Janus grimaced. “Made a time distortion.”

“You were the one who made the time distortion?” Remy asked.

“Not exactly,” Janus answered.

“He made the second time distortion,” Remus said. “It was actually pretty cool.”

“It was not cool,” Janus snapped. “It was irresponsible and dangerous. I shouldn’t have done it.”

“We would have died,” Remus said.

“And we could have done worse than dying if it had gone poorly,” Janus argued. “I just…” he tugged on his hair a bit, and Remus gave him an alarmed look. “I’m going to go talk to Khalid,” he said. He didn’t give Remus any time to speak, but just waved his hand to travel back to the TPI.

 Remus followed him instantly, of course, but Janus proceeded to ignore him until they were out of decontamination. Janus walked himself straight to Khalid’s office.

He knocked on her door and she called for him to come in. He did and sat heavily in the chair in front of her. She frowned at him. “You really should go to Cultural Outreach first.”

“Just fire me,” he said.

“What?” she asked.

“I just shouldn’t work here anymore,” he said. “At least not as a field agent. Really any type of agent.”

She paused and reached to her desk to pull up some file on the screen there. “I’ll fill out the incident report myself instead of Dr. Eran then,” she said. “Tell me exactly what happened.”

 Janus explained everything that happened, and Khalid diligently wrote it down. It was far outside her job description, but she didn’t explain or really react to anything he said more than nodding to say she’d gotten it recorded.

When he was finished, she saved the file and leaned back.

“Well,” Khalid said, folding her hands in front of her and scrutinizing him. “Honestly, this isn’t anywhere near a fireable offence.”

“But I…”

“You went against policy certainly, but policy sometimes has to be broken in disaster scenarios. You know that.”

“It was stupid,” he bit out, feeling sick to his stomach.

“Is it if it worked?” she asked.

Janus didn’t answer.

 “The major reason I originally assigned you to be a field agent is because you’ve always been good at thinking your way out of difficult situations even when they go against the rules we set. You have good instincts that I trust, but you haven’t seemed to trust them lately,” she said.

“You shouldn’t trust them,” Janus said darkly.

Janus felt his throat tighten as she considered him for a long moment. “This isn’t the first time you’ve asked me to fire you,” she said. “You wouldn’t tell me why then, and I respected it at the time, but…” she paused. “You’ve changed, Janus.”

 “Well then I’m not any good to you.”

“I’d beg to differ,” she replied, “but fine.”

Janus was actually surprised by that. He looked up at her. He somehow thought he’d feel better when this happened, but he didn’t in that moment. He just felt ill.

“I’m not firing you,” she continued, meeting his eyes, “but if you don’t want to be a regular field agent, fine. I have a particular mission in mind for you.”

“What?” he asked.

“This ‘Pat’ thing is getting ridiculous,” she said. “I don’t have enough resources to focus on it right now considering how much is going on, however, but I trust you and you’re already involved. So, I’m going to reassign you. No more missions. No more dealing with in department duties. You find him and his source of time travel. That’s your job. Whatever you think you need to do that job is fine. Request whatever trips or resources you need. Bring on Remus when you need or even Fred and Lena.”

“You’re…” he said. “Giving me more freedom and resources?”

“Like I said, Janus. I trust you. The one time I didn’t, after all, Pat ran off with a timebomb, so I learned my lesson.” She smiled briefly and stuck out her hand. “Deal?”

Janus sighed and once again resigned himself to staying at the TPI. “Fine,” he said. “Deal.”

 Chapter 22

Janus sighed. This was stupid. What was he even doing? He glared at the large hologram that took up a good portion of his office now. During the day, he usually shrunk it so he could only see part of the diagram he had up, but right now the office was abandoned other than him, so it took up and entire two walls. He rubbed his forehead. Why had 2pm Janus thought putting a bunch of words on this hologram was a good idea? Even the pictures were starting to look like they were vibrating. He drew a red line between “Nick Jonas” and “iPhone,” and he honestly wasn’t even sure why at this point.

His board didn’t even make sense. Why did he think this would be a help? He swiped a picture of the first device he’d found that had made the time distortions off to the side with his own (bad) artistic rendition of the one Pat had stolen. There wasn’t a pattern with Pat’s behavior that he could see other than, perhaps, a liking for early 21st century pop culture.

Frustrated, he turned away from the board. He needed a walk, he decided. He stepped out of his office into the TPI hallway and chose a direction at random. There were still some people in the building as even this late at night, someone had to be on call, but for the most part, the building was abandoned.

 He wasn’t paying attention to where he was going, and even if he had been, he likely wouldn’t have realized where he was because he’d never been to the AMO offices since he’d gotten his house, and they’d moved since then.

He paused in front of it the doors, eyes touching on the lit-up names on the door’s screen. He focused on his own last name until it stopped looking like letters at all.

“Did you need something?” a familiar voice asked.

Janus jumped and whipped around. “You… it’s late, what are you doing here?” he asked Emile.

“There are at least two AMO workers at the office at all times. Today is my night,” he explained.

 “I… see.”

Emile tilted his head. “Did you need anything?”

“No,” Janus said, perhaps a bit too fast. He bit his lip. “I was just going for a walk. I didn’t mean to come here.”

Emile folded his hands in front of him and rocked onto his heels. “I heard that you almost died,” he said.

“Yeah,” Janus said. “I fucked up.”

Emile arched an eyebrow. “And is that why you got a promotion?” he asked in that mild tone of his that informed Janus that his brother was wholly convince he was an idiot. Janus looked away and Emile sighed.

 “Well then,” Emile said, walking past him to the door. Despite himself and the fact that it was his fault, Janus felt hurt at how short Emile was letting the conversation be. Then he felt disgusted with himself that he even dared to feel that way.

Yet, Emile paused at the door. “If you ever decide you want that help, I offered, you know where my office is now.”

He wouldn’t, Janus thought, but he didn’t say anything. He just let Emile push open the door to the AMO and disappear inside.

Why was he even here right now? Janus wondered to himself. It was the middle of the night and he didn’t remember the last time he’d slept. He didn’t remember the last time he’d been home.

 Yet the house by the lake wasn’t home, was it? Going there to the nothing that pervaded the place made his throat tighten. He’d had different homes in his life. The small childhood home, the claustrophobic apartment he’d had in his college days, the first home the AMO had assigned him which he’d shared with his brother, but none of these were available to him anymore. He brought up his timepiece. There were only three pre-programed space-time coordinates in his device. The first would only take him back to his office with the frustrating board that wasn’t giving him any answers and the third took him to the lake house he couldn’t bear to see empty right now.

 That left him with only one option. He selected the second saved coordinates and stepped forward into Remus’s house. He landed in total darkness, which was expected considering it was around 3 in the morning and Remus lived about 3 decades before electricity was invented. Janus stumbled forward in the dark, his eyes very much not adjusted, until his shins hit the couch. He carefully turned and sat before blowing out a breath.

“Mew?” came from the corner, and Janus titled his head to see eyes shining in the dark.

“Hello,” Janus said. “Sorry to wake you.”

Diesel Fuel make a little burrhr sound and padded over to him.