#he worked as an accountant for forty years

[gotta-draw-em-all-daily]

Day nine hundred forty three 943 Mabosstiff

[lily-bisque]

dad!gojo getting back into the dating scene after retiring from the sorcerer world… but it’s not exactly what you’d think. cw: controversial age gap, dead dove. visuals included in this work! continue at your own discretion.

he’s running a hand through his milky tresses, wondering if you, the girl he’s been chatting with from some dating site, and who’s far too young for him, can tell that he’s sporting a few grey hairs.

surprise, you can’t, because it matches his natural hair color but when was gojo ever rational when it came to his love life.

a real silver fox.

you were posing in your bathroom mirror, sporting your cotton boy shorts, delicate lace fringing the ends, a mini tank, and snapping selfies when you got that familiar text.

a flush covered your cheeks intrinsically as you held your phone in both hands, hurrying to open it.

satoru gojo: how’s my pretty girl doing?

you scoffed, a futile attempt to mask how jittery he made you, turning around and leaning against the sink counter as your thumbs typed away at your screen, an exhilarating rush coursing through your veins.

he was checking himself out in his camera, pulling his top up in his bedroom and gazing at his stomach, doing anything to distract himself from the impending message bubble from you that had his heart stuttering.

you: pretty good. but i’d bet you’d like to see just how good i’m doing.

that had blood rushing south for the old guy, feeling like a pale and lanky teenager again and not a near forty year old man texting a girl a decade younger than him.

he ran a hand over his jaw, thinking up a flirty response before his hands got to work.

satoru gojo: and you bet right. hundred bucks just for that.

you watched him deposit it into your account, standing on your tiptoes as adrenaline pumped through you.

see, gojo wasn’t just some guy you’d been talking to.

he was your sugar daddy.

college wasn’t easy to pay your way through and when you’d managed to stumble upon an incredibly rich, witty, respectful and probably pretty lonely old guy, who were you not to take advantage of it?

but still, you were positive that what was supposed to be harmless conversation and nude images turned into a blossoming crush.

as you fantasized over what you could spend the cash on as he always made sure you had more than enough to take care of yourself, twirling a strand of hair between two fingers, you got another text from him and opened it.

satoru gojo: a present for my pretty girl.

satoru gojo: [Photo Attachment]

your mouth fell slack at the sight, thighs clenching as your gaze raked over his bare figure.

the veins protruding from his v-line had slick pooling in your panties, feeling weak in the knees at the sight of his ripped figure. you could only wish he’d tossed the entire top off. you wanted to run your fingers down his abdomen, suck on the hard skin and mark it like he was your own.

you knew he was quite older than you, so it only attracted you a hell of a lot more to see just how much he kept up with his figure as if he was in his youth. the man has probably been in his prime for fifteen years.

gojo awaited your response, knee bouncing as he sat on the edge of his bed, hunched over and seeing the little read under his image.

maybe it wasn’t good enough, he thought.

he stood again, tearing his top off and standing before his full length mirror, flexing his biceps, running a hand down his rock hard abdomen and holding his phone up to take another picture.

he was so caught up in his reverie that he hadn’t even noticed the door propping open, two figures standing in the doorway and staring bewildered at him.

“gojo what the fuck?” megumi called out, dragging a hand down his now flushed face, embarrassed that his benefactor managed to always be so weird.

“woah, sensei. i had no idea you were so shredded,” yuji awe-d out, matching gojo’s previous pose as he shoved his phone back into his pocket.

his kid and his student didn’t need to know what he was up to in his newly found free-time.

“it’s for, uh,” he drawled out, mind racking with an answer he was struggling to form. “my new gym community. wanted to show them my progress!” he exclaimed out, flexing a bicep at yuji to which the young boy clapped at.

after he’d kicked the boys out, he let out a sigh of telief, allowing his nerves to settle before he pulled his phone out from his pocket and opened the two texts you’d sent in the time away from his device.

you: why haven’t we met up yet?

you: [Video Attachment]

you’d already managed to send him just a little 10-second snippet of you in your bed, toying with yourself and whining out heady whimpers of his name.

you’d never sent him a video before.

satoru gojo: fuck. be a good girl and send your address over.

satoru gojo: let me help.

[twohearts-hs]

Dove & Captain: 1 - Dr. Jack Abbot x Reader Series

Words in Total: 7.5k

Pairings: Dr. Jack Abbot x fem!reader

Synopsis: She's his Dove. The ER nurse who is the definition of chaos, trauma and humour in scrubs. He's her Captain, gruff, emotionally guarded war veteran with a prosthetic leg and completely in love with her. Six years together, a mortgage, four dogs and the ability to conquer anything. This is a story of their life in one day. He is 49, she's 30. This is one day of their life based on the 15 episodes of 'The Pitt'. There will be little imagines of their relationship over the years.

Warnings: Swearing, Age Gap, Trauma, Medical Language/Procedure, Pregnancy, etc.

A/N: This is a complete series of ~60k. I will post a few snapshots of their relationship over the six+ years they've been together.

Hope you enjoy :)

Series Masterlist

-

0700

The bathroom tile was absolutely and utterly freezing against her bare knees, but Y/N did not move. She couldn’t. She couldn’t risk it, but she also, she couldn’t stop. Another wave of nausea crept up her spine and she leaned forward just in time to vomit into the toilet bowl again. Her hands gripped the rim of the toilet with white knuckles, her pulse loud in her ears. She stayed like this, motionless, forehead pressed to the cool porcelain, eyes watering and sweat along her brow.

            She knew now it was not food poisoning or stress. Yesterday, it confirmed it. She was indeed pregnant. Dana made her take a pregnancy test, and it came out clear. Then, they confirmed it with a blood test. Then again, with an ultrasound. Seven weeks along, she was, and she was completely terrified.

            Y/N had endometriosis, a very severe case which at nineteen she was told by doctors that the chance of her getting pregnant is very slim, but the chance of her being able to carry full term was even slimmer. Therefore, when she and Jack got serious, Y/N expressed to him that she was not able to have children,, and he supported her in that. He was older, forty-nine now and she just hit thirty, together for six years. Not married. But common law. Share a mortgage, a credit card and joint bank account as well as, four dogs while he helped raise her brother.

            Very serious, very committed, very much together, but just not legally binding to one another through a marriage contract. Though, they love one another with everything in themselves.

            However, he did not know she was pregnant. She found out yesterday during her day shift. He worked the nights. They have been barely passing one another, barely able to talk with their conflicting schedule. Y/N used to work nights, but she got pulled to day shifts lately due to a nurse leaving on maternity leave.

            She was planning on telling him tonight. He had the day off. His shift ended at seven in the morning, while she started hers at seven. When she got off at seven that evening prior, she had a whole speech prepared to tell him. However, only Dana knew at this moment.

            Y/N took a slow, ragged breath, blinking back tears. Not because she was sad. Not because she was happy. But because she didn’t know how to feel. Never had she thought she’d be able to get pregnant with him. Never had she thought she’d have to talk to Jack about what to do.

            He was forty-nine. He was older. To throw a child into their life would create chaos. She was younger, thirty and it could work. However, both were workaholics. Y/N never thought she’d be able to be a mother, so she never thought this through.

            Tonight. She would talk to him tonight. They would plan, discuss and come up with the solution moving forward. A nurse. A homeowner. A mother to four dogs. In a stable, quiet, loving partnership with a very nice man. A man who understood her more than anyone ever had. They owned dogs, shared a mortgage, grew herbs in the windowsill, argued about laundry and both fought over who would cook in the evenings,as that is one of their shared love languages. It was good. Peaceful. Calm. Lovely.

            However, morning sickness fucking sucks. And this? This was not part of the plan. Especially being told that this could never happen.

            Sleeping in a bed alone last night while Jack worked the evening shift was something she did not like. However, she had to go to work, talk to him and see him for a bit before he went home and she had to keep this a secret. She had twelve hours to work through before they could have a serious talk.

            Glancing at her watch, she groaned again.

            Late. She was utterly, completely and terribly late.

            Rounds were about to start soon. The handover from night shift to day shift was about to happen. Work was about to begin. Yet, Y/N was stuck on the ground of the ensuite, tears flowing down her face and nausea bubbling over.

            Dressed in a pair of sleep shorts and a bra, her hair was matted and bags covered under her eyes.

            She was fucked.

            Taking a deep breath, she pulled herself away from the toilet bowl. Guilty a little bit because she was leaving with a spoiled toilet, and normally she would clean it after puking. However, she was late to work and Robby would have a fit.

-

Jack was at the computer, filing in the last bits of his shift. Writing patient notes, talking to Robby for the handover. However, his eyes furrowed as he glanced at his watch to see that it was just past seven and Y/N was not here yet. Where was she? She was never late. Rather, she was constantly early.

            “Dr. Robinavitch?” a voice came from behind Robby as he leaned against the nurses’ station talking to Jack.

            “Yep,” he replied, turning to the voice.

            “Melissa King. I will be joining you today. I just came from two months at the VA,” Mel told Robby, voice pitched with excitement and a smile.

            “Hey, welcome to the Pitt,” Robby replied, shaking her hand. “This is Dr. Jack Abbot,” Robby introduced, glancing over to Jack, who was focused on the computer in front of him and didn’t glance over to the resident.

            “Nice to meet you,” Mel hummed before looking at Robby again. “I can’t tell you how excited I am to be here today, so…”

            “Talk to me at the end of the day,” Jack muttered, looking over to the resident, voice low and serious.

            Robby glanced at Jack. “Ignore him. He had a rough night,” he stated, “and is having an ongoing existential crisis.”

            Jack stood up, straightening as he looked a them. “Don’t worry, you’ll get there soon enough,” he joked, coldly, face serious. “Robby, have you seen Y/N?” he asked, looking over to his old revival and long time friend. “She’s never late and I haven’t seen her.”

            Robby’s brows drew together in concern. “No, not yet. She’s usually in by now.”

            Jack didn’t respond. Instead, he turned his gaze to the main hallway, like maybe she’d appear if he just stared long enough. But there was nothing – nothing…no rushed footsteps, no half-apologetic smile, no Y/N clutching a coffee cup and calling out something sarcastic to the team. Just a sterile corridor buzzing with too many lights and not enough soul.

            He tapped his fingers against the nurses’ station counter, the way he always did when he was trying not to overthink.

            “Maybe she overslept? Traffic? Maybe one of the dogs got out?” Robby offered casually, but Jack didn’t bite.

            “She doesn’t oversleep when she is supposed to work,” he muttered under his breath. Then, louder. “She never oversleeps. The dogs are trained. They don’t escape.”

            Robby shrugged. “Traffic then? You two are like in the woods. Text her. She’ll be here,” he replied with a smile before patting Jack’s back. “Don’t stress.”

            Jack nodded watching as Robby walked away with Mel, rounding up his interns, residents and med students for rounds. Pulling out his phone, he brought up his messages with Y/N, but she had sent nothing since last night.

            Y/N slammed the door shut to her Bronco with more force then intended, her hair still damp from the world’s fastest shower, pulled into a low messy bun. She hadn’t had time to do her usual minimal makeup, and her scrubs were slightly wrinkled. She felt gross. Heavy. Empty. Swollen. Her bag was slung over one shoulder, and a tangerine stuffed in her pocket that was her makeshift breakfast. She knew Jack would lecture her. However, the nausea was still there.

            Running across the hospital parking lot, her sneakers pounded against the concrete in rhythm. Each step sent a dull ache up her spine, her stomach still uneasy, her head spinning from the sudden movement and lack of food.

            She burst through the staff entrance, making her way through the triage to the back, scanning her badge on each door.

            It was 7:18.

            “Shit,” she hissed to herself, brushing past coworkers as she headed towards the nurses’ station after placing her belongings in a locker. Jack was still there. Robby too. And several new faces which she placed as the new intern, resident and medical students.

            Her gaze met Jack’s, and he raised a brow at her, but she just sent a small smile. He didn’t look angry. But his eyes were sharp, worried. That was worse.

            “As you can see, we have some new faces with us this morning,” Robby began. “Good morning. Good morning. Come on over.”

            Y/N stood behind the station, looking over the new faces. Jack was glancing at her, but she said nothing.

            “Starting with second-year resident, Dr. Melissa King, fresh from the VA,” Robby announced.

            “Everyone calls me Mel,” Mel said with a smile. “I’m so happy to be here.”

            “Trinity Santos, intern,” a new face said, pale skin and dark hair.

            Y/N crossed her arms as she glanced over to Dana who was on the phone. Y/N knew there was an incoming trauma.

            “We’ve got two traumas from the T,” Dana said, holding the phone to her ear. “Five minutes out.”

            “Ok, copy that,” Robby replied. “Actually, this is the most important person that you’re going to meet today. This is Dana. She’s our charge nurse. She is the ringleader of our circus,” he said before looking over to Y/N. “And this here is Y/N. Nurse as well. Nurses are your best friends. As you can see, our house is always packed, and our department is mostly clogged up with boarders. Those are admitted patients waiting for a room upstairs, sometimes for days. Beds are a very precious commodity around here, so please be quick and efficient with your workups. What else?” he paused for a moment to breathe, then nodded. “We treat the sicker patients back here, but please keep your eye on that waiting room. Make sure nobody’s gonna die out there. Your senior residents are Dr. Collins and Dr. Langdon. You report to them, and they report to me. Ok? Great.”

            As the last of the introductions faded into the background, Robby took his team to deal with the incoming trauma.

            Jack noticed she wasn’t listening. Not really. Her arms were crossed, fingers twitching like she was trying to ground herself, eyes glazed over just enough to make him uneasy. That wasn’t like her.

            Before she could slip away to get a shift change from the night shift, Jack reached out, a firm but gentle hand on her elbow. “Kid.”

            She looked up at him, startled.

            “Hi,” she whispered, a small smile gracing her face. “How are you? How was the shift?” she asked, sending him a small smile.

            He stared at her for a minute, whiskey eyes connecting with hers. “Fine. Rough, but fine. We can talk more later about it. Can I talk to you for a minute, though, in private?” he asked, his voice low. Not unkind. Just quieter than usual.

            Y/N hesitated for a moment, then gave a tiny nod, letting him guide her a few feet down the hallway near the med supply room, just out of earshot from others. It was private but not secluded enough to feel like a scene.

            Jack looked over her carefully now that they were face to face. Her skin was pale, tinged with that clammy undertone he only ever saw in patients who hadn’t eaten or had something deeper going on. The bags under her eyes were harsh against her face. No mascara, no usual faint blush or a neat bun. Her hair was tied back like she’d done it blind, and her face looked dry, bitten.

            “You were late. You’re never late,” he said quietly. Not accusatory. Just a fact. His eyes narrowed as he scanned her over. Then he tried to make eye contact with her.

            Y/N glanced down, crossing her arms over her chest. “I know. I’m sorry,” she whispered, shifting uncomfortably. “It won’t happen again.”

            “That’s not you.” He waited for a second, but she was still looking down. “What happened, Dove?”

            They were alone, and the nickname slipped his lips.

            “Nothing. I’m fine,” she replied a little too quickly, shaking her head.

            Jack frowned. “Dove, you don’t look fine,” he replied, trying to get her to look at him. “Look at me.”

            Y/N glanced up to see him, his eyes meeting her and all she could see what the complete care he had for her.

            “I’m just tired. It’s nothing,” she said, brushing her hand through her hair. “I went to bed late. I overslept. Forgot to set an alarm. Stayed up late talking to Beckett.” Beckett was her younger brother, half-brother.

            He tilted his head, raising a brow. Silence happened between them. “Y/N…”

            “Jack, just drop it,” she muttered, voice tight. “I’m here now. That’s what matters, right?”

            He stared at her for a moment, crossing his own arms now. Biceps bulging which usually makes her heart flutter, but she was glancing away. “I know you. You’re hiding something,” he whispered.

            Y/N glanced around. They were always professional at work. People never really questioned their relationship. Him being a trauma attending and her a trauma nurse. But now, with his voice so soft and eyes so concerned, it felt like a crack in their practised armour.

            “Jack,” she started, but the words faltered, her throat tight. “I didn’t sleep well. Ever since I’ve been put on days, it’s just weird sleeping alone when you are doing nights and–“

            “You’re deflecting,” he interrupted. He leaned in a little closer, not touching her, but lowering his voice so that no one would overhear. “Dove, I’m not mad. I just want to know what’s going on. Talk to me.”

            Her eyes flickered again, to the hallway beyond, to where voices were rising and monitors beeped from the trauma bay. She couldn’t do this here. Not now. She felt the weight of the morning crashing down on her all over again. The puke. The nausea. The fact that she was pregnant.

            “We can talk later. I need to work now,” she whispered, looking up to him. “I want to know how your shift went. I’m off at seven. I’ll be home and we can order in, watch one of those serious documentary movies thing you like and talk,” she proposed. Then she took a deep breath. “I’m ok,” she said confidently. “I’m ok,” Y/N said again.   

            Jack didn’t believe her.

            Not because he thought she was lying. But because he knew her. Knew the way her jaw clenched when she was holding back. The way her voice steadied was not out of calm, but control. A nurse who thrived in chaos. A woman who didn’t flinch in a code blue. But here she was – eyes too shiny, hands twitching like she was trying to hold her pieces together.

            Still, he nodded.

            “Alright,” he said quietly. “Later then.”

            She gave him the briefest nod. “I love you,” she whispered.

            He nodded. “I know,” he whispered back. Y/N reached out and squeezed his hand. “It’s ok,” she whispered again, a mantra for herself more than anything. “Go home, sleep, have a shower, think of me in the shower,” she hummed, tone light as she winked, “give the dogs a kiss. Then I’ll be home before you know it.”

            He chuckled lightly as he stared at her. “Did something happen with your brother?” he asked, raising a brow. She shook her head, and he narrowed his eyes. “Did something happen to your mom?” he asked. She shook her head. “Did something happen to you?” he asked, voice low now.

            “Go home, Captain,” she stated, tone sharp. “I’ll see you later.”

            He stared at her for a few more moments. “Have you eaten?” he eventually asked.

            “No. I have a tangerine in my pocket that I grabbed on my way out,” she replied.

            Jack rolled his eyes. “Christ, Y/N,” he whispered. “Let me go buy something from the cafeteria. I don’t want you to be running on nothing,” he muttered before walking off but squeezed her bicep as he left.

            Y/N sighed, watching him leave. She stayed there for a moment before walking back to the nurses’ station. Y/N settled down next to Dana who looked over.

            “You look like hell,” she muttered, chuckling and shaking her head.

            Y/N rolled her eyes and glanced over to her friend. “You sound like Jack,” she muttered as she grabbed a tablet to look over.

            “Jack said that. Doesn’t sound like Jack,” Dana replied.

            Y/N sighed. “More like ‘Dove, you don’t look fine’ is what he said,” Y/N muttered as she looked over the charts. “Give me a shift change.”

            Dana looked over at her, glasses perched on her nose, as she looked at the young nurse. “Have you told him?” she asked, hinting to the little secret she had.

            Y/N groaned. “No. However, he is sniffing out that I’m hiding something.”

            “He needs to know, sweetheart,” Dana replied.

            “I know,” Y/N whispered back. “Spent the morning puking my guts out. That is why I was late.”

Dana clicked her tongue, her voice lowering but still tinged with that no-nonsense edge only a seasoned trauma nurse could carry. “Morning sickness is not your friend, but hey, you get something out of it in the end.”

Y/N looked over as Dana read her tablet. “I don’t know what I’m going to do,” Y/N whispered. “Don’t know how Jack will react.”

Dana’s eyes met with Y/N’s. “I’ve known you since you were a small, new graduate nurse. Well, met your briefly when you did your last practicum. What I know about you is that you already know what you’re going to do,” Dana replied. “However, Jack needs to know. He’s a lot of things – gruff, grumpy, allergic to small talk – but he loves you. If he finds out you didn’t tell him? Especially over something like this? He’s going to be very hurt.”

Y/N nodded. “I will tell him. Tonight. I won’t keep this from him, but,” Y/N sighed and looked around, “I’m scared.”

Dana reached out and gently touched Y/N’s wrists, grounding her. “Of course you are. You’d be crazy not to be. But you’re not alone, ok? You’re not doing this alone.”

Y/N swallowed thickly and gave her a small nod, eyes glassy. “It’s just…I was told I couldn’t. I couldn’t have kids. Couldn’t get pregnant. Therefore, Jack and I just didn’t care. We just went along with the ride. We didn’t think that I could get pregnant, and here I am. And now it’s like I’m holding a secret I never thought I’d have. Now I have the impossible and it’s terrifying,” she whispered, voice cracking, barely audible now.

Dana squeezed her wrist once before pulling away, sensing how raw Y/N was. “That’s a lot to carry, hon. And you’ve been doing this all alone. Let someone in,” she whispered, giving her a look.

“I let you in,” Y/N replied.

Dana raised a brow. “Let him in. How long have you two been together? Six years or something.”

Y/N nodded. “Yeah. No ring though,” Y/N replied, trying to make a joke as she let out a low chuckle. “No, we aren’t planning on getting married.”

Dana rose another brow. “How many dogs do you have?”

“Four. Two rescues, then I have my dachshund from when I was twenty-two and Granny, Jack’s rescue from aeons ago,” Y/N replied, lowly.

Dana nodded. “Four dogs. You bought a house together a year ago. A beautiful house with a big yard. He’s your emergency contact. You go on camping trips with him even though you hate camping. He bought you a car when you were together for what, six months? Because he didn’t want you walking home in the dark. He’s basically like Beckett’s dad. You share everything. You two are serious. Practically married. Talk about everything together. He’s your best friend, your other half, though I would say you’re the better half and you deal with his trauma, and he deals with yours. Tell him. What are you scared of?”

Y/N was silent for a moment and the words were on the tip of her tongue, I haven’t told him the truth.

However, just when she was about to respond Jack appeared in front of them. Coffee in one hand and a wrapped sandwich in the other. His eyes narrowed between the two of them, trying to calculate what was happening.

“Eat, Kid,” he said, placing the sandwich down in front of her. “It’s a breakfast sandwich,” he told her. “And a coffee. Two sugars and a splash of milk.” He didn’t look smug about it, rather just quietly concerned.

Y/N stared at him. “Thank you,” she said. However, the sandwich stayed still.

He stared at her. “Eat.”

“I will,” Y/N whispered. “I just need to get a shift change.”

“Eat while you’re getting a shift change,” he replied. His eyes were bouncing now between Dana and Y/N, sensing the tension, the way Dana was sitting just a little too straight, and how Y/N was avoiding his gaze.

He looked at Dana. “You know something.” Jack raised a brow at Dana. “Tell me what’s happening.”

Dana gave him her best nurse face. Calm, unreadable, efficient, while Y/N said nothing. “Nothing. All good. We’re good. Just girl talk,” she said smoothly, tapping her table. “Thanks for feeding our girl, though. She needs it.”

Jack glanced at Y/n, raising a brow. He lingered for a moment, arms crossing over his chest again. “Girl talk, huh?” he asked, tilting his head.

She forced a smile, pulling up the coffee and bringing it to her lips. “Thanks for the coffee and food,” she whispered, then smirked. “Just girl talk. You hate girl talk. You know Dana,” Y/N said, looking over to the older woman, “probably telling me to eat better and stop dating emotionally unavailable men.”

Jack raised a brow, letting out a scoff. “I’m very emotionally available…now, aren’t I?”

Y/N huffed a small laugh, grateful for the reprieve, even if her hands were shaking slightly around the cup. “You’re evolving. Better than when I first met you.”

He studied her for a moment longer, his eyes narrowing just a better. “Talk to me tonight, ok?”

Y/N nodded. “I will. Just tired.”

He didn’t look convinced. In fact, he looked like he was filing the entire interaction away in that steel-trap brain of his. The secrecy. The whispered tones. The way Dana had looked at Y/N.

Something was going on. And he didn’t like being left in the dark.

“You can tell me everything…anything. You know that, right?”

Her heart clenched. “I know,” she whispered. “And I do. You know too much about me.”

Jack gave a slight nod. “I’ll head out. Dogs are probably plotting a mutiny without me. Especially Delta. Barely a year, but pure chaos.” He sent her a small smile. “Text me if it gets too crazy here or if you get a really good case,” he finished.

Y/N nodded. “I will. Can you give Granny her medicine? I wasn’t able to when I left,” she told him, naming their oldest dog, a female named Alaska, but they call her Granny. She was Jack’s dog when they got together, which he got when he came back from his last tour.

He nodded. “Yeah, I can. Did you feed them?”

“I did. I let them out too before I came. Normal routine. However, Winston didn’t want to move from the bed so can you please let him out again?” she asked, sending him a smile. Winston was Y/N’s wire-haired dachshund, which she got when she was twenty-two after nursing school.

He nodded. “Yeah, can do. I’ll see you later, ok? Text me, ok?” he said, and Y/N nodded, agreeing.

Then Jack was gone, turning to leave, but he glanced back one more time, his brows furrowed, eyes sharp. Watching her like he was solving a puzzle.

As soon as he was gone, Y/N slumped back in her chair, sandwich untouched.

Dana glanced over; brow raised. “He totally knows something is up.”

Y/N groaned. “I know. He’s going to dig until he finds out.”

“Well, let’s make sure he hears it from you and not from putting two and two together.” Dana tapped her temple. “Smart man, that one. Scary smart.”

“I’ll tell him tonight,” Y/N muttered, more to herself than anything else. “Tonight.”

Dana gave her a look. “Promise?”

Y/N nodded, slower this time. “Promise.”

“Good. Let me get you something for the nausea,” Dana replied, getting up. She pointed to the sandwich that Jack bought. “But eat, you’re growing a baby,” she lectured.

“Dana, shush!”

            Dana gave her medication to help with the nausea. They were going over their shift change when Robby appeared. Y/N was munching on the sandwich when Robby called their names.

            “Abbot’s told me that he’s got a pregnant teen coming back today for mifepristone. Let me know when she gets here,” Robby said, looking at the two women.

            “Sure,” Y/N replied.

            “Yep,” Dana stated before turning back to the computer.

            “Bowel obstruction still waiting on surgery consult. What about Garcia? She was just here for the traumas,” Robby rambled of the board.

            “I think she was waiting for her attending to sign off,” Y/N muttered, looking over to Robby.

            Robby and her met eyes. Then he shook his head. “Ok…” he walked towards a computer to file patient charting. “Oh, and one of the med students took a header,” he chuckled. “I parked her in the lounge under the guise of a work comp report. Will one of you go in there, eyeball her, and make sure she’s alright?” Robby asked, glancing over his shoulder to look at the nurses.

            “Last time I checked, I have an eidetic memory and an IQ of 178,” Y/N replied, typing on the computer. “I don’t babysit med students.”

            Robby turned to look at her. “Jack said you’re hiding something,” he said casually. “What are you hiding, Ace?” Then he raised a brow.

            Y/N glanced at Dana. “My kinky sex life,” Y/N said with a smirk.

            Dana snorted but didn’t miss a beat. “Yup. That’s exactly what she’s hiding. She’s got Jack handcuffed to the bed every other night. You should see the bruises.”

            Y/N chuckled as Robby stared at them for a moment. “I’m kidding!” Y/N expressed. “Maybe on the handcuffing, but not on the kinky sex,” she added with a smirk. “Men with trauma, freakiest in town,” she replied with a smirk and a wink.

            Robby just stared at her. “You deflecting adds to my hypothesis,” Robby muttered. “Abbot knows something’s up. I know some things up. Dana definitely knows what’s up.” Then his eyes landed on her. “You’re not planning on breaking up, right?”

            Y/N’s eyes widened. “No!” she exclaimed. “God, if anyone would leave anyone, it’d be him. I am a whole wagon of problems,” she muttered.

            Robby hummed. “Well, you deflecting is a sign. Secondly, Jack gave me this look this morning like he was ready to gut me with trauma shears, so whatever you’re hiding…he knows you’re hiding it, and he’s two seconds from losing his mind or figuring it out,” Robby muttered as he typed things into the computer. “Intelligent man.”

            Dana hummed. “That’s what I said.”

            Y/N turned in her chair to give them both an unimpressed look. “Do you know how exhausting it is to be this emotionally intelligent and book smart, responsible for lives, and handling interns, med students and residents who know less than me?” she poked.

            Robby glanced over his shoulder and pointed a finger to her. “Deflection.”

            Y/N rolled her eyes.

            “I’m just saying. You were late. In the eight years you’ve been working here, you’ve never been late. You look pale, there are bags under your eyes, you’re quieter than usual, you didn’t jump into this morning’s trauma, and Jack is acting like some keyed his fancy truck.” He glanced at her and he chuckled. “I know…” he whispered, shaking his head. “Jack will either not forgive you or will…” Y/N raised a brow. “You’ve adopted another dog.”

            Y/N stared at him and raised a brow. For a minute, it was silent as eyes were on her. “Yes. How’d you know?” she hummed.

            “Knew it,” Robby muttered before going back to the computer.

            “No. I didn’t adopt another dog,” Y/N said moments later.

            “Delta chewed through the seaming of the couch?” Dana asked, looking over to the nurse. “She’s a menace.”

            “That pup has the soul of a raccoon,” Robby added, clicking through patient charts. “Chaos and cuteness in the same package.”

            “Keeps us on our toes. Never had I ever had to kennel train a dog as she is not worth trusting,” Y/N replied.

            “Anyway,” Dana muttered, changing the subject, “med student is going to miss the arrival of the living dead.”

            Robby glanced over at them again. “How many are we expecting?” he asked, voice serious now.

            “We are getting three, but one died en route. Don’t know who’s luckier, us or them.”

            “What’s open?” Robby asked.

            “14,” Dana replied.

            Y/N got up. “Good luck. I have patients to see,” she muttered, leaving the nurses’ station after Dana gave her a shift change.

-

Y/N was talking to Langdon about a patient, writing down notes as they talked about what she needed to do to care for them, when Robby showed up.

            “Y/N, triathlete, Otis?”

            Y/N glanced up. “He’s stable. Repeat potassium is 6.1. Renal wrote the dialysis order. Tech should be down soon…maybe fifteen minutes,” she told him.

            Robby nodded, looking at her. “Good. Thank you.” Then he glanced over to Langdon. “Language mystery solved yet?”

            Langdon shook his head. “No,” then he sighed before looking up. “Hey, what’s your take on dogs?”

            “In what context?” Robby asked.

            “For kids,” Langdon added.

            “Kids and puppies go together like fish and chips. Man’s best friend, you know?” Robby said, walking around the station to go to one computer.

            “Well, you don’t have a dog.”

            “I don’t have a best friend,” Robby added.

            “What am I?” Langdon hummed.

            “You’re my best resident,” Robby replied. “Big difference.”

            “Yeah, but we’re still friends,” Langdon poked.

            Robby glanced over. “Not if this conversation goes on much longer. Talk to Y/N, she has dogs.”

            Y/N’s head perked up from where she was sitting, looking over to Langdon and Robby. “What?” she asked.

            “You have a dog?” Langdon asked, raising a brow.

            “I have four,” she said with a chuckle.

            “Four?” Langdon gasped, raising a brow. “Four dogs?” he asked again, shocked by her comment.

            “Uh, yeah,” Y/N said with a chuckle.

            “How can you have four dogs?” he asked, raising a brow.

            Y/N glanced around for a moment, then turned slightly in her chair to face Langdon fully, amused. “Easy,” she said. “I don’t have kids. I don’t sleep much. And I live with a man who’s just as much of a softie for strays as I am. We also have a giant piece of land for them to run around and we enjoy being outside.”

            Langdon blinked. “Jack’s a dog guy?”

            Robby snorted but before they could respond, Mel came over asking for Langdon to check in with a four-year-old.

            Y/N continued to type, but she could feel Robby’s eyes on her. “You’re staring,” she stated as she continued to type. “It’s creepy. Stop staring.” Then she glanced at him. Robby said nothing, and Y/N scoffed. “Robby,” she whispered, raising a brow.

            He threw his hands up. “Good work, Ace,” he said with a smile as he went back to work.

-

Y/N was doing her job within the hour, checking on her patients when Otis began to crash. She ran back out to the nurses’ station, catching the eyes of Collins, Robby and Dana.

            “Otis’ BP is crashing. 70 over 50. Still waiting for dialysis,” she announced, nodding to the room that her patient was in.          

            They entered and instantly got to work.

            “How are you doing there, Otis?” Robby asked.

            “Not so good,” he replied.

            A series of beeping was heard from the machine as the patient crashed. Y/N began setting him up.

            “50 litres. Non-rebreather, please,” Robby called out.

            Y/N listened, working alongside them. An ultrasound was done.

            “Fuck,” Y/N muttered, looking over at the ultrasound. “Diastolic collapse of the right atrium and right ventricle,” she muttered before Collins could say anything on the screen.

            “Tamponade from uremic effusion,” Robby muttered.

            “That is why his BP is low?” Santos asked, glancing over to the monitors.

            “Yup, indeed,” Y/N replied. “Too much fluid and pressure around the heart, chambers can’t fill.”

            “Otis, you’ve got some fluid around your heart,” Robby told the patient as Y/N grabbed gloves. “We need to get it off.”

            Y/N lowered the bed, making him flat lying down.

            “25 of Propofol, 10 cc’s of lidocaine with epi, pericardiocentesis tray,” Collins said to Y/N, who nodded.

            “I have to get that from central,” Y/N replied, looking over to Robby.

            “No, no. Just open a central line kit. Dr. Santos takes the head of the bed and bags him if he stops breathing, compressions if we lose the carotid. Prep and drape the subxiphoid, please. 10 cc’s of 1% with,” Robby ordered.

            Y/N nodded, grabbing supplies.

            “Chlorhexidine here.”

            “Injecting lidocaine,” Robby announced before following suite.

            “Pressure down. 60 over 40,” Santos explained.

            Robby grabbed the ultrasound from Collins.

            “Wait, you can’t ultrasound and place,” Collins barked to him.

            “I know, that’s why I’m taking the probe,” Robby replied. “18-gauge thin wall on a 60 cc syringe, please, Dr. Collins. Let’s go,” Robby muttered, looking over to the resident. “You’re going in right over the centre of my probe…” The doctors continued to work as Robby explained the procedure to Collins. Y/N watched.

            Eventually, the patient stabilised.

            However, just before they were stabilised, Y/N ran to the bathroom. Robby watched her cover her mouth and instantly ran out of the trauma room, running across the bay to the bathroom. Dana watched her run as well, dodging co-workers before making her way to the bathroom.

            Opening the door to the bathroom, she kneeled down to the toilet, puking her guts out. Breakfast sandwich and coffee coming back up as she clutched the toilet bowl.  

            The fluorescent lights buzzed softly above her as Y/N stayed crouched, one hand gripping the edge of the toilet, the other holding her hair out of her face as wave after wave of nausea rolled through her.

            The bathroom door opened gently behind her. Soft footsteps. Not rushed. Familiar.

            Dana.

            Without saying a word, Dana stepped in and crouched down beside her, pulling a handful of paper towels, wetting them and placing them gently on Y/N’s back of her neck.

            “Nausea meds didn’t help?” she asked, rubbing her back.

            “Guess not,” Y/N muttered, coughing and wiping her mouth before leaning back against the wall. She took a deep breath, rubbing her eyes.

            “Are you ok?” Dana asked, looking at her.

            “I don’t know,” she whispered back. “I don’t know what set it off, as I was fine.”

            Dana chuckled lowly. “It’s morning sickness, sweetheart, you can’t control when it hits. It’ll be fine. You’ll stop being sick soon at the end of this trimester,” she responded.

            “If this baby stays within me,” Y/N mumbled, not thinking. “If I decide to keep it too.”

            Dana rose a brow. “What does that mean, sweetheart?” she asked, looking at the young nurse.

            Y/N sighed. “It’s not my first time getting pregnant. The other times, I’ve lost it early on,” then she groaned. “I think it’ll be better if I just get an abortion so I can’t go through losing it again.”

            Dana’s expression softened, the sharp edges of her no-nonsense persona melting into something gentler. She reached over and cupped Y/N’s cheek for just a moment, grounding her.

            “Sweetheart,” she said softly, “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

            Tears began to brew in her ducts as she looked at the older woman, blinking them away, trying to hold herself together. “No one knows. No ex-partner. Not even Jack knows. Not even Beckett,” she whispered. Then she sighed. “I don’t know what will happen or not. I just…maybe it’s for the best to just get this dealt with and never tell him. But what if I do tell him and he gets so excited then I lose it. I don’t want to go through that again,” she continued to ramble. “I don’t want Jack to go through loss again.”

            Dana sat beside her now, fully next to her, knees cracking slightly as she adjusted on the tile floor. “I get it. I do. But this isn’t something you should carry alone. Not this time.”

            “I don’t want to see that look in his eyes,” Y/N whispered. “The quiet heartbreak. I know he would like kids. He says he’s too old, and he’s ok with my endo, but like I see the way he looks at his sister’s kids or like kids in general. Like he’s wondering what it would’ve been like if he hadn’t missed his shot.” She closed her eyes for a moment to breathe.

            Dana was quiet for a moment before she said, “He loves you. Everything about you. Mess, chaos and all. Hope and heartbreak included. He’s your partner. Your other half. Talk to him. He deserves to know…not the decision, but the truth,” she told Y/N. “Go home. We will be fine without you today,” she suggested.

            Y/N scoffed. “That’s the last place I want to be,” she replied.

            “Let me cover for you for the next hour. Go lie down in on-call. I’ll say you’re charting or looking up labs.”

            “Dana,” Y/N tried.

            “Y/N,” Dana cut her off. “You just ran out of a trauma room and vomited into a toilet. You’re not fine. You’re a damn supernova most days with that brilliant brain of yours, but even stars burn out if they don’t rest,” she replied.

            Before Y/N could reply, there was a sharp knock on the bathroom door.

            “Y/N?”

            Robby’s voice. Low. Concerned and filled with love.

            She closed her eyes for a moment and took a breath, silence happening between them.

            “She’s fine, Robby,” Dana called out.

            A pause happened, then Robby replied, “I’m not leaving until I see that with my own eyes, Dana.”

            Dana turned to Y/N. “You ok if I let him in?” she asked.     

            Y/N wiped her eyes quickly with the sleeve of her scrub top. “Yeah,” she whispered. “Might as well. He’ll probably come in–“

            The door opened, and Robby walked in.

            “My point exactly,” Y/N muttered, looking up to see the older male attending.

            His eyes fell on Y/N instantly, crouched on the floor, pale and sweaty, but clearly alive. His concern deepened.

            “Jesus, Y/N,” he whispered, crouching down beside her, not too close, scanning her face like he was memorising it for changes. “Scared the hell out of me.”

            “Sorry,” she whispered. “Just a rough morning.”

            His brows furrowed. “You ran out on a code. That’s not like you,” he muttered. “What’s happening? You sick?”

            Y/N shook her head. “No, I’m fine.”

            “Do you want me to call Jack?” he asked, voice dropping a little bit. A sympathy tone.

            “No,” she said a little too bluntly. “I’m not fucking broken if that’s what you’re thinking. I’m fine. I can work. I just needed to puke. That’s all. I will take an anti-nausea and I’ll be fine. Do not call Jack,” she barked. “Do not even mention this to Jack. I’m not in the mood to deal with this,” she muttered, getting up.

            Robby rose with her, slowly, watching every movement like he expected her to collapse again. “Y/N,” he said, carefully. “I didn’t mean–“

            “I know what you meant,” she snapped, her tone sharp but her body trembling. She leaned against the sink for a moment, catching her breath. “But I don’t need saving.”

            “No one said you did, sweetheart,” Dana replied gently, standing now, smoothing her hands down her scrubs. “We’re just worried.”

            “Well, don’t be. I’ll be right,” Y/N responded as she looked at herself in the mirror. Her reflection betrayed her – pale skin, red-rimmed eyes, hair clinging to her damp forehead. “I’m not your patient. I’m your colleague. I’ll handle it.”

            Robby raised a brow, stepping just a little closer. “If this is just a stomach bug or food poisoning, you’re really overreacting to the offer of help.”

            Y/N glared at him through the mirror. “What are you saying?”

            “I’m saying,” he replied, crossing his arms, and tilting his head, “I’ve known you for far too long. Eight years. You don’t run from a code. You don’t puke in your shift. I have never heard you take a sick day. You don’t bark at people who offer to call your partner unless something is really wrong.”

            Silence.

            Dana cleared her throat. “Robby,” she tried.

            “No, it’s fine,” Y/N interrupted, voice strained. “There is something. But let me deal with it on my own.”

            Robby sighed. “Y/N,” he tried.

            “No. I’ll be right,” Y/N muttered. “I’m ok. I can work. I want to work. Honestly, the next trauma I’m jumping in as I haven’t gotten any blood on my hands yet today.” Robby and Dana slowly nodded. However, they stayed quiet. Y/N turned. “I don’t want to talk about it,” she responded. “Not with you. Or you,” she said, pointing to each of them, “definitely not Jack and definitely not even with myself.”

            “Can you talk to Kiara?” Robby tried, raising a brow.

            “Definitely not her,” Y/N barked. Both of them stayed quiet. “I love you all. I thank you for helping me. I thank you for your care. I thank you for your worry. I just need to deal with this on my own, and Jack will know eventually,” she said, voice softer now. Y/N’s eyes shifted between them. “Do not tell Jack, and if you do, I will make all your lives a personal hell,” she barked before turning to the door and walking out.

            Robby glanced over to Dana once the door clicked shut behind her. “You know what this is, don’t you?” he asked, looking at his nurse.

            Dana crossed her arms and levelled him with a look. “Not my secret to share.”

            Robby sighed, running a hand down his face. “Dana,” he tried.

            Dana snorted. “Do not try to get it out of me?” she warned, shaking her finger. “But she is going through something hard. Something she didn’t think was possible. And the fact that she’s still standing, still showing up, should tell you exactly the kind of woman she is.”

            Robby leaned back against the bathroom wall, arms crossed tightly, staring at the door Y/N had just exited like it might swing back open and explain everything.

            “She said Jack doesn’t even know,” he murmured.

            Dana said nothing.

            “She’s scared,” he added, quieter now. “Not panicked. Not sick. Not spiralling. Just…scared. Jack mentioned something was up with her this morning. He knows something is up.”

            Dana looked over at him, rose a brow.

            “Let me work the problem,” he muttered.

            “She’s not your patient, Michael,” she said sternly.

            He shook his head. “Just hear me out…humour me,” he said, holding his hand up as he began ticking off on his fingers. “Sudden nausea. She was late this morning. No fever. No reported GI outbreak in the hospital. She said she’s not sick. Ran out of trauma. Pale, lightheaded. Avoiding food. And her mood? All over the place.”

            Dana was quiet, arms still crossed.

            Robby held up both hands now. “And don’t even try to say stress, because Y/N thrives under pressure. She doesn’t run. She charges.”

            Silence stretched between them like a wire pulled tight.

            Then, he went softer. “Morning sickness. Hormonal shifts. Emotional volatility.” Robby looked over at Dana now, his voice lower. “She’s pregnant, isn’t she?”

            Dana didn’t even flinch. “That’s not mine to confirm or deny,” she replied.

            “But I’m right,” Robby replied.

            “I did not say that,” Dana warned.

            “You didn’t have to,” his voice wasn’t triumphant; it was heavy. Like the realisation carried more weight than he expected. “Excellent doctor, I am,” he hummed with a smile, winking.

            “Don’t tell Jack,” Dana whispered, voice blunt.

            “Lips are sealed,” he replied, giving her a salute before going back to the outside world of the emergency room. “I am correct, aren’t I?”

[hypokeimena]

In recent years, there has been a rush on the internet to supply image descriptions and to call out those who don’t. This may be an example of community accountability at work, but it’s striking to observe that those doing the most fierce calling out or correcting are sighted people. Such efforts are largely self-defeating. I cannot count the times I’ve stopped reading a video transcript because it started with a dense word picture. Even if a description is short and well done, I often wish there were no description at all. Get to the point, already! How ironic that striving after access can actually create a barrier. When I pointed this out during one of my seminars, a participant made us all laugh by doing a parody: “Mary is wearing a green, blue, and red striped shirt; every fourth stripe also has a purple dot the size of a pea in it, and there are forty-seven stripes—”

“You’re killing me,” I said. “I can’t take any more of that!”

Now serious, she said it was clear to her that none of that stuff about Mary’s clothes mattered, at least if her clothes weren’t the point. What mattered most about the image was that Mary was holding her diploma and smiling. “But,” she wondered, “do I say, Mary has a huge smile on her face as she shows her diploma or Mary has an exuberant smile or showing her teeth in a smile and her eyes are crinkled at the edges?”

It’s simple. Mary has a huge smile on her face is the best one. It’s the don’t-second-guess-yourself option. My thinking around this issue is enriched by the philosopher Brian Massumi’s concept of “esqueness.” He exemplifies it by discussing a kid who plays a tiger:

One look at a tiger, however fleeting and incomplete, whether it be in the zoo or in a book or in a film or video, and presto! the child is tigerized… The perception itself is a vital gesture. The child immediately sets about, not imitating the tiger’s substantial form as he saw it, but rather giving it life—giving it more life. The child plays the tiger in situations in which the child has never seen a tiger. More than that, it plays the tiger in situations no tiger has ever seen, in which no earthly tiger has ever set paw.

Just as the child and an actual tiger are not one bit alike, the words Mary has a huge smile on her face have nothing in common with the picture of Mary holding her diploma. Yet the tiger announces something to the world, its essence, and a kid can become tiger-ized and be tiger-esque, their every act shouting, I am a tiger. The picture of Mary at her graduation is shouting something, and the words Mary has a huge smile on her face are also shouting something. It is at the level beyond each actuality, in the swirl that each stirs up, that the two meet.

(from Against Access, by John Lee Clark - link in notes)

[inkyquillstories]

From Homework to Home/Work (A Body Swap Story)

(Dave) 

Dave let out a weary sigh as he collapsed onto the worn-out couch in his modest living room. The fluorescent glow of his laptop screen cast a dim light on his exhausted face, highlighting the deep lines of fatigue that had settled over the years. He was only forty, but the weight of responsibility made him feel much older. Being an accountant paid the bills, but the job was monotonous, draining, and unrelenting. Worse still, when he clocked out from work, his real shift began—the role of a single father to his three-year-old twins, Emma and Ethan.

His wife, Laura, had passed away three years ago, leaving him with both the blessing and the burden of raising their children alone. She had died giving birth, and while Dave cherished his kids more than anything in the world, he couldn’t ignore how exhausting it was to do everything on his own. His neighbor, Charlie, often saw him struggling—whether it was carrying groceries with two toddlers clinging to his legs or desperately trying to calm their tantrums in the front yard. Despite his age, Dave felt like he had lived a hundred lifetimes, and he longed for a brief escape from the endless cycle of work and parenting.

(Charlie) 

Charlie, on the other hand, was a college student, stuck in a life he found equally unsatisfying. He trudged through his university days with growing resentment, suffocated by coursework that felt meaningless. College, he was told, would lead to a stable future, but all he wanted was to fast-forward to that future already. He envied people with secure jobs, with steady incomes, with lives that weren’t dictated by midterms and last-minute essays. Charlie often saw Dave, exhausted but settled in his life, and wished he could trade places—even if just for a little while.

One afternoon, as Dave absentmindedly pushed his kids on their backyard swings, he glanced over the fence and saw Charlie lounging on a deck chair, scrolling aimlessly on his phone. An idea sparked in his tired mind. Later that evening, he knocked on Charlie’s door, offering him a proposal unlike any other.

“Would you be willing to babysit my kids during spring break?” Dave asked, rubbing the back of his neck. “I’ll pay you—a lot.”

Charlie perked up at the mention of money, but before he could agree, Dave continued. “There’s more to it. I want to swap bodies with you. I’ll be you for a while, and you’ll be me.”

Charlie blinked, sure he had misheard. But when Dave explained further—his exhaustion, his need for a break, his willingness to compensate handsomely—Charlie’s interest grew. The idea was insane, but the payoff? Too tempting to resist. He had always wanted to skip past the struggles of university, to experience a stable, structured life. This was his chance.

The next day, they walked together into the local Body Swap Clinic, a sleek, futuristic facility nestled between a bank and a coffee shop. The receptionist, unfazed by their request, handed them a set of forms. “Standard procedure,” she said. “You’ll experience full consciousness transfer, retaining your own thoughts but fully inhabiting each other’s bodies. The swap will last until your scheduled reversal unless you both agree to an extension.”

Minutes later, they were ushered into separate chambers, and as the machine whirred to life, their vision blurred. A jolt of electricity surged through them, and in an instant, everything shifted.

For Charlie, the transition was surreal. He stood up, stretching Dave’s older, slightly stiffer body. He looked in the mirror and saw Dave’s face staring back at him. He didn’t notice how fit Dave really was until he swapped with him.

Charlie also discovered a newfound appreciation for fitness. Dave’s body was more muscular and well-built compared to his own, and he found himself enjoying his time at the gym like never before. Lifting heavier weights, feeling the strength in his arms, and seeing the respect from others at the gym boosted his confidence in a way he had never experienced. He relished the power and endurance that came with the older man’s physique, making his daily workouts something he looked forward to.

There was a comfort in being Dave, in being needed, in having a purpose beyond just passing exams. As the days passed, a thought gnawed at him—he wasn’t sure he wanted this to end.

Meanwhile, Dave reveled in Charlie’s youth. He’s surprised how much smaller he feels but for some reason, he preferred this than being bigger. Not only that, he was also considerably less hairy. He looked closely at his torso

Then took a selfie in front of the mirror.

He met up with Charlie’s friends, stayed out late, and did things he hadn’t done in years. The world felt new again—full of excitement and possibilities. He could even sleep in and just be in bed for hours scrolling on his phone. 

But even as he enjoyed the carefree existence, a whisper of guilt crept in. His kids, his job, his life—everything was waiting for him to return. And yet, the thought of going back so soon felt almost unbearable.

Before spring break ended, they met again. Charlie was the first to speak. “I… I had fun. More than I thought I would.”

Dave nodded slowly, hesitation evident in his eyes. “Yeah… It was nice. Being young again.”

Charlie studied Dave carefully before making his offer. “What if we extended this? Until Christmas, maybe?”

Dave’s heart pounded. He should say no. He should go back. But the temptation was too strong. After a long pause, he whispered, “Alright.”

And just like that, the deal was made. For now, at least, they weren’t ready to return to their old lives.

(Charlie enjoying being Dave until Christmas) 

(Dave enjoying being Charlie until Christmas) [PS: Should they swap back or just swap permanently?]

[steviewashere]

I want to write something sort of meta, hear me out on it. Sorry, if this hits too close to home. The idea came to me and I needed to get it out of my system. And...would you look at that, another half-written fic.

Steve ends up getting really into Star Wars after Dustin shows him to it. Like, so much that he gets himself involved with conventions, cosplay, collecting anything and everything he can. He's involved in a fandom space. Learns the world of fan fiction. And let's say that maybe, during his time figuring out where he wants to go with life, he picks up writing fanfic as a hobby.

It encourages him to get an English degree. Encourages him to lean more into that hobby, but then expanding upon it to write original short stories and small novels that go published. But he holds strong to Star Wars and fandom and finding his spot cemented in it. He's been a fan for...nearly forty years at this point (set in 2024, ugh I know).

And maybe he dabbles in online spaces here and there. He ignores the insufferable adults in the Star Wars fandom (the "um, actually..." guys, btw). Indulges the effort of typing out his handwritten fan fiction, ones he used to bring and pass around at conventions, ones he'd let Eddie read with a shy look in his eyes. And he posts them online, has a Tumblr account, maybe does a few short things on Twitter, definitely is on AO3 (albeit newer, having never attempted online fan work before).

But then...then he gets his first little bit of hate. Vicious, gross comments on his work. Sometimes in private messages. Even publicly, once, on Twitter. It irks him. He holds strong, he does. But then it gets worse and worse and somehow, worse. Younger people claiming he's too old, others claiming that he can't write for certain characters because they're out of his age range, that he can't ship certain people, he can't say that a character would do this or that, that Star Wars is media for a younger audience (despite being somebody who saw it "back in the day"). But that he...That he's not supposed to be there.

And that last little comment sticks with him for a long time. It makes his effort and his attention and his love for writing fanworks falter. He stops. Thinks about the characters he loves, of Leia and Han or even Luke and Han or Lando and Han (listen he loves writing Han). But then he wonders if it's even worth it, to indulge this interest anymore. Yeah, maybe he's older than the source material. Sure, maybe he was introduced to it a little later than most, but that doesn't mean he doesn't love it. Yet, his attention towards Star Wars completely falls away.

He stops watching it. His DVDs going dusty and unused. Starts putting away all his action figures, because what if he posts a photo one day and somebody sees them and claims that that's not for him and—

Then, he goes completely offline from fandom. Even if he still gets the emails from users who actually enjoy his stuff, ignoring them completely. Focuses on using the internet for work. For his novels, for the little stories he actually gets paid to write. But his work just isn't the same. The passion, despite being an original story and original source material, is completely dwindled.

His hobby has been stripped from him. His interest has been knocked straight out of his hands. And he just...moves on.

Even if it hurts to go down into the basement of he and Eddie's home, eyes catching on the see-through bins of original action figures, Lego sets, comic books. Even if it makes something strangle in his chest when he opens up the browser on his phone and it immediately opens to a new ship he'd been getting into: Din Djarin/Luke Skywalker—because he finally picked up The Mandalorian, because he was finally talked into watching it when he had the free time.

And then it all bursts over when Eddie finally approaches him about it, when they're enjoying a night-in, sitting around lazily on their sofa.

"There's a convention coming into town," he comments, "supposedly, Hayden Christensen is going to be there. We should go, try and meet him."

Steve just grunts in response.

"Oh-kay...or we could just stay home and watch the movie?" Eddie suggests. "Been a while since I've seen Darth on screen, telling Luke about"—

"I don't want to," Steve cuts in quietly, "isn't really my thing anymore."

Silence then follows. For a beat. Then two. A third.

"Not your thing?" Eddie asks him incredulously. "Not too long ago you were raving all about that new show that's coming out! That you saw they were doing lightsaber whips and you were excited to see how they worked! What do you mean it's 'not your thing'?"

Steve shrugs. "Grew out of it or whatever. Got more important things to focus on now." He sniffs, trying to keep himself held together, grumpy and firm in his decision.

Eddie's stare drills into the side of his face. Scalding, just like that lava was in Revenge of The Sith. "Baby," he speaks softly, "did something happen? You haven't even...you don't read your beautiful little stories to me anymore. In fact, now that I think about it, I haven't even seen your lightsabers around here. What's goin' on?"

He fiddles with the hem of his shirt. A ratty plain white t-shirt that he wears now when he's lounging around the house. It used to be one with the Millennium Falcon on it, but that's tucked down far in his dresser. Not for him anymore.

"Steve," Eddie presses, "did something happen?"

His stare stays down at his lap, still fiddling with his shirt. Fingers flexing unfamiliarly in the strings, unlike the loose ones on his Star Wars shirts. "I just"—Steve heaves a deep sigh—"it's time I grow up. It's...not for me anymore. Too old for it now, I guess."

"You guess or you know? Because nobody's too old for anything. Unless, y'know, you're like eighty-nine and in terrible health and trying to hike Everest, then..."

Despite everything, Steve finds himself chuckling. A giddy little sound here and gone in a breath. He shrugs again, albeit smaller this time. Crumbling within himself. Quietly, honestly, he admits, "People were being mean to me about it online. About my writing. That I'm doing it wrong, that I—that I'm too old for it. That I don't belong because of my age." He finally brings himself to look at Eddie, blearily because his eyes are aching and wet. "I got to thinking and I...maybe I've just been too caught up in my own bliss to realize that those people are right. They're right and I shouldn't be into kids stuff anymore."

Eddie makes a soft, sad cooing noise in the back of his throat. "Oh, baby," he breathes. "Baby, those people don't know a single damn thing about your love. But...but I do. I know that you've seen every single Star Wars movie more times than I've probably eaten in my entire life. And what about all those Halloween costumes over the years? I didn't dress up like Leia for nothing, Mr. Solo."

Steve scoffs wetly. Goes to protest, but—

"And...and that handshake! The one with Dustin? You guys have had that for nearly forty fucking years! So, why bother indulging any of these...these hardasses on the internet? Did they sit next to you on the sofa as you fucking curled yourself like a shrimp and wrote every little intricate detail of a kiss between Luke and Han? Have they read your work while you blushed all shy, while you tucked your hair behind your ear and asked for the most earnest of feedback, to make sure you spelt things correctly or put a comma in the right place? These people, did they get to see you blossom and grow like a fucking bushel of roses over your hobby?

"Because I know I did. And even though you were nervous about your words on the paper, you still came to me. You still wrote and wrote and wrote until I had to bully you into breaks, just so you wouldn't ruin your poor wrists. If they had even an ounce of the passion that you do, they could write their own stories. They can make their own endings and make the characters the way they imagine them.

"They choose, instead, to—what—make fun of you because you have a space to express yourself? Because you found passion and turned it into something so beautiful, even I—a dungeon master, someone supposed to be amazing at storytelling—can't put into words? You found a way to do that, Steve. And you do that with kindness. You do it for free, mind you. If their only passion sits within sending you vitriol over people who aren't even remotely close to real, then they're the ones who don't belong.

"If I've learned anything, fandom is a space to share and bounce off each other's words. It's community and it's belonging and it's sharing what you love because you just love it. Fandom isn't bullying. Bullying is just bullying, Steve.

"And everything you've ever done in your life, in regards to fandom and outside of it, is so much better than hate. You may be a nerd or...or a little bit overzealous or whatever, but at least you aren't hateful. I think being hateful, that's worse—don't you think?"

Steve can only stare in response, fast tears down his cheeks, hands shaking in his shirt. Mind reeling. Because, yes, Eddie's right. And he maybe should've talked about it initially, but the hurt festered and festered and tangled and grew until he was nothing but an unhealed scab. And Eddie, he's the antiseptic to his uncovered cuts—the ones deep on his heart, where all his love is—even for things considered mundane, like movies, like TV shows.

"Steve," Eddie carefully murmurs, wrapping Steve's hands with his own, "you don't have to do something right to love it. You don't have to be a certain way to be happy. If Star Wars made you happy, then why give it up?"

He sniffles and chokes back on a sob. Because, again—damnit—Eddie's right. "I miss it," he admits quietly, "all I've done is miss it."

Eddie gives him a small smile. Something achingly soft that reaches deep within Steve. "Then open your arms and welcome it back, baby," he whispers, "even if you can't be online anymore, do it for yourself."

"I...I want to try it again, I'm just...scared. What if people hate it all over again? What if they're just nasty to me and shut me down and push me to the side and"—

"But what if they love it? What if your readers have missed you just as much?"

"You think?" he meekly asks.

Eddie's eyes widen and his eyebrows shoot up his forehead. "I know, actually. Your emails keep coming in on the computer's desktop because I keep forgetting to log you out. And, baby, you would not believe how many people have been eager for updates, for your return." His thumbs work into the backs of Steve's hands, warm and sure. "And, if it helps, maybe I can moderate your comments before you look at 'em? I'll read them to myself and if they're mean, I'll delete them."

Steve blows out a breathy little chuckle. "You'll just get mad at them," he gently teases. "But that doesn't sound too bad. Maybe I should try again. Not yet, though. I'm not ready."

"That's okay," Eddie assures, "take things slow. Maybe we start with watching the movies again? Getting your lightsabers back on display?"

"Can we go to the convention, too?"

"We can do whatever you want, Stevie."

For the first time in a long while, Steve finds himself smiling. "I love you," he whispers.

"I know."

[mochi-kisses]

Secrets (18+)

Chapter 1 of 2 - Katakuri x (Accountant) Fem! Reader

3.5k words

warnings: nsfw, size difference, oral, possessiveness, not beta read, i don't know why i made reader an accountant

You’d only moved to Totto Land within the year, but managed to land a decent job working in Komugi Island’s governing body thanks to your previous job at a sugar mill.

Working for pirates was new to you, but finances were not. Calculations of purchases and order slips covered your desk as you punched numbers into a snail calculator. Your notes were impeccably detailed and color coded, and they had to be. You had inherited a rather messy situation. You’d been taken on to balance the books—your hire a personal request from Katakuri, who had become concerned that the previous assignee had been pocketing berries and corrupting the financial balance of Komugi’s wheat production. You found that his concerns were well founded.

Katakuri clearly had the skills to be performing this work himself, but his role as minister kept him busy. It gave you some comfort that he had a level of familiarity with your work, as you were the current lone employee within Komugi’s finance department. Everyone else had been ran off by the corruption scandal, so you were alone in the office.

Moving to a new area with no friends, no family, you had no one to talk to except this large man working down the hall whose work ethic matched your own. It was nice to have someone around who understood your struggles, even if it was because you were the only two people left in the donut-shaped building after the sun set, plucking away at complicated problems that others had left behind.

Over time, you grew fond of him. Seeing the shadow of his large frame pass by the hallway near your desk and the familiar clinking of his spurred heels became reasons to stay. And you wondered if he felt the same. But you were a nobody. Just a random accountant filling in for a department shattered by corruption, up to your ears in work.

And yet, one day, the soft leather of the worn glove on his hand brushed against your body as you walked past him.

The next day, you caught the edge of his glance as he’d been looking at you. He pretended to be looking somewhere else.

A few months passed, and it continued on in this way. Coincidences. Seemingly manufactured reasons to come near you.  The subtle floury scent of mochi entering your nostrils as he checks for a document just behind your chair—was he watching you?

You thought you might be brave enough to ask why, but every time you gathered up the nerve, something happened. Sometimes, he’d interrupt you with a question. Other times, he’d simply be gone the moment your mouth began to open.    

Sitting at your desk with a pile of work unfinished after most of the work force had already clocked out, you asked questions in your mind. Why was this massive man showing up in the corner of your eye more frequently, more coincidentally…? Coincidence—could it be? The perfect Katakuri, rumored to be able to see the future, is not a man subject to mere coincidence. But to think that he’d have been near you on purpose? Something must be wrong. Was he suspicious of something you did? Could it be that he was wary of your loyalties? Despite your liking of him, you could not comprehend that your feelings could be reciprocated. Everyone liked him. And he was single. He was in his forties, and single.

“In his forties,” you pondered to yourself. Attractive, fit, employed, in his forties, and single. It echoed back and forth in your mind. There’s clearly something bad you don’t know about him, otherwise, he’d be married. That was the logical conclusion. You knew many men and women less desirable who had been hitched for years.

“Maybe he wasn’t single,” you thought to yourself, “or maybe he is now and he has a dead wife and”—, you continued internally, crafting a whole backstory for this man who you truly knew little about beyond the legendary reputation and sparkling politeness. You blinked and snapped back to reality at the sound of a creak.

Katakuri was standing in the doorway, eyebrow raised inquisitively above his fluffy scarf. To your surprise, he spoke. “Break?”

—

Despite your protests that there was still work to do, Katakuri convinced you to take a quick walk outside with him. “Sugar is strength” was one of the most curious arguments you’d heard in favor of dropping work for a meal. But it worked on you. The sugar coated lands of Totto Land were sometimes overwhelming even for someone with the biggest sweet tooth, but you could not pass down a cake. It was Friday, and this week had been especially chaotic. Katakuri’s distracting presence throwing your emotions into a girlish crush, and the sheer volume of work still ahead of you to untangle the web of financial missteps and lies—you could stand to take a little time off to clear your head. And to do it with the man putting your thoughts into a jumble was the perfect excuse.

Side by side, you had walked together to a local sweets shop in the nearby downtown area of Komugi Island. While you’d spent a good amount of time talking to him while seated, you’d not had many chances to stand next to Katakuri. How small you felt as you were at his side, clutching your bag to your chest nervously. You looked at his gloved hand and realized how small your bag would look in his palm if he were to hold it—a mere coin purse for a man his size.

You took three steps for his every one stride of his long legs, but he was not hard to keep up with. He consciously walked slowly so you could keep up, already adjusted to the gaits of smaller beings. You wondered how many people he had walked with, and why. Was this going to be some kind of interrogation? You felt his eyes on you as the hairs on your neck prickled.

—

The moon peeked out through a cloudy window in the overcast sky. You and Katakuri sat together at a table that hardly accommodated his legs on the back patio of the sweets shop, sharing a cinnamon roll donut, each sipping caffeine. You’d ordered a cappuccino, the frothed milk balancing out the bitterness of the espresso, a perfect pairing for a sweet donut, you thought. Katakuri had ordered a vanilla latte, one you noticed he’d stirred an extra packet of sugar into before heading outside to sit with you. It didn’t surprise you that the Sweet Commander had a sweet tooth, but made you smile regardless. It made such a serious man look so unserious.

You shared a rather awkward conversation about the weather, unsure of what to talk about. He didn’t maintain eye contact or seem interested, nor did he reach for his cup, or his share of the donut. Though you could swear parts of it were disappearing every time you looked away. He sat there stiff as a board, hardly looking comfortable. Your fear that you were in some sort of trouble melted away as his lack of charisma softened the waves of anxiety crashing against your mind.

You hardened your resolve, and straightened your posture. “So…was there something you wanted? I noticed you’d been around my office more lately. I combed through my notes, but I don’t think I owe you anything…or am I forgetting something?” You asked earnestly. Katakuri looked away again, off into the distant sky, a visible gulp traveling through his bare chest. “Well…” he responded.

Something in his eyes flashed and a wave of confidence was brought over him. He leaned down close to the table, close to your face, and looked into your eyes.

“I was wondering if you’d go out with me. And before you respond: no, I do not have a dead wife. I’m single, and have been most of my life. Things don’t usually turn out well for me in the romance department.” In your head, the gears turned. “But what about his dead wife. Is he talking about his dead wife?!,” you thought, until you realized he’d already addressed that. You were dumbfounded. Such is the power of Katakuri, the man who sees the future.

You didn’t respond, so he continued.

“You want to ask, “why me?” But the answer is straightforward. I like you. I apologize if I am being too forward,” he said as he sat up straight again, hiding a bit of himself in his fluffy scarf.

He continued. “It’s…it’s okay if you don’t want to.” Your silence was deafening, and with his concentration lost, he scrambled to view the future. He bit his lip underneath his scarf.

Seeing cracks in Katakuri’s armor was endearing, and just made you like him more. Maybe there really was nothing to be afraid of. Everything felt so sudden, so unexpected—how could he like you? Why? When? But you already knew your answer.

You responded simply. “I’d like to.”

—

The man who had once been a mysterious stranger slowly transformed from the other overworked person down the hallway, to a kind and thoughtful partner. As time passed, the love between you bloomed slowly and sweetly, like sweet-smelling flowers growing on the riverbank of a slow-moving stream. Katakuri stayed a reserved man, careful not to impose. He was gentlemanly with a minor sarcastic streak that you’d begun to know. With such a perfect image, you cherished the little oddities that leaked out of his stone exterior.

The way he praised you, respected you, and listened to you speak gave you confidence. While you’d initially been suspicious of his interest in you, you began to realize it was genuine, and you hoped that you could offer him the same reassurance that he offered to you.

—

When he had first revealed his face to you, you found it endearing the way he’d moved so unsurely. There was fear in his eyes, afraid of rejection, or worse, as he craned his neck down towards you in your first visit to his bedroom. You sat together on his massive bed, your feet unable to touch the floor. Attempting to initiate a kiss, you climbed up his body and touched the side of his face gently behind his scarf, planting a small kiss on his ear. He removed the scarf slowly, a bit shakily. He maintained eye contact as if you’d disappear if he looked away or blinked. But once his scarf was removed, you hardly even noticed the fangs protruding from scarred lips as you looked into his eyes and smiled at him, full of adoration, as you leaned into your first kiss together. The extra large teeth felt warm against your cheeks so you kissed them too, causing him to flush a deep red. “Handsome,” you said with a smile.

The next secret of his that he revealed was that of his merienda—the meditative break he’d been known to take once a day in the afternoon with a pile of hand delivered treats to concentrate on. One day, he invited you—come at 3:15pm sharp, and do it quietly. He didn’t want anyone to know that you’d entered. Slipping away from work early, you dressed up in your most comfortable clothes in anticipation of a strength training routine. Little did you know, the workout you’d get was not part of any training regimen…

—

As you entered the harrowed shrine of the mochi halls, you were immediately blasted with a kaleidoscope of pinks, purples, blues, and reds, covered in rainbow sprinkles. Smells assaulted your senses with an overwhelming sweetness that reminded you of your first date with Katakuri. You walked forward, stunned by what you were seeing, and stepped directly onto an oversized cream filled donut which squirted all over your clothing. You started to slip backward but were caught moments before disaster by your partner’s large arms.

His scarf was already off, you noticed, as he smiled down at you with a bit of pink frosting on his chin. “Careful there, darling.” Katakuri gave you a kiss on the lips. He tasted like a strawberry donut.

“What’s all this?” You asked with a playful tone as you gestured to the interior of his personal mochi palace. Littered with donuts and sweets, you were not entirely surprised that Katakuri had another secret hidden behind that perfect visage of his.

Still carrying you, Katakuri carefully stepped to the center of the donut pile where a stash of large pillows lay. He sat down and rested you upon his lap in a comfortable seated position with one arm on your back, beaming at you with a goofy grin that almost reminded you of a child. It was strange to see his usually serious face painted with such a genuine smile, but you felt it looked natural on him. You wished you could see it more.

“This is the true face of my merienda. The true face of me. It’s my secret,” he spoke from the heart. “I never thought I’d have wanted to share this with anyone. No one, until I met you.”

You blushed. In your time with him, he had always been a straightforward man, but romance was not his forte. He often stood there awkward, stiff, with few words or actions of comfort, no silver tongue to sweep you off your feet. But in this case, his bare-faced honesty, the grin, the little bits of food on his face and clothes added a level of trust you’d not yet breached.

“I feel honored,” you replied. “You’re really not what you seem. You still surprise me every day.”

Katakuri smiled in response. Still holding you, he used his other arm to pick up a beautifully crafted and very oversized yeast donut with frosted glaze that glittered in the sunlight dripping from the small windows in the ceiling. “I saved this for you,” he went on. “It’s my favorite.”

He fed you carefully, allowing you to take a healthy bite of the cherished donut without getting it on your hands or face. Its texture was perfectly light and fluffy, and the sweetness not too overwhelming, balanced with a vanilla flavor that rounded out the flavor.

As you happily let him continue to feed you the wonderful donut, Katakuri pondered. “As you know, this is my daily routine. It helps me keep up with the stresses of my every day life.”

Katakuri’s eyes narrowed, and you felt him inhale sharply beneath you. “…And I can’t help but notice that you need to relax, too.”

—

You don’t know how long it’d been since 3:15pm. How long it took for you and your partner, Katakuri, to finish the helping of fresh, warm donuts piled into the center of the mochi shrine, how long you laughed at how adorable he looked with his mouth full of donuts like a hamster, how embarrassingly long you stared at how large his tongue was, or how long it took for you to climb up his body to look into his eyes like this, your body pressed against his as he laid on his back. But you knew you didn’t want it to end.

Ever-so-gently, you kissed the bits of frosting and pastry off his body. “Mustn’t go to waste,” he teased. You smirked back in agreement, and you felt the tension completely leave his body as he melted into your touch. Your small figure slowly explored the bare inches of him and more, investigating the soft skin under his vest, and taste-testing the happy trail leading down between his hips to unknown pleasures.

Katakuri repositioned, bringing a gloved finger to touch your cheek. Due to his height, his hands were three times the average height of man’s, but his build was slender, and his attention was gentle. The soft lambskin brushed against your face as he looked at you intently, holding your chin up as you moved to sit on his chest.

“Your turn,” he said.

Effortlessly, he removed your dirtied clothes with a single hand, and you sat before him in your underwear. His gloved hand grasped your front, palm flat against your stomach, fingers touching your shoulders and breasts as he circled his thumb on your skin. He continued this for some time, feeling your body, rubbing against you softly. You felt heat building up between your legs, staining your underwear with excitement. You wanted to feel his skin.

You leaned down to kiss the tip of his finger, and reached for the edges of his glove. He allowed you to pull it off, revealing the soft hand of a man who took careful care of his skin. His fingers were long and spindly, hairless, with pronounced knuckles and joints. His age showed in his hands, unlike in his eternally young face. The skin was lightly translucent, showing the veins beneath. He used his teeth to pull off the other glove, and tossed both to the side.

Your eagerness was infectious. Katakuri grabbed each of your legs and spread you open as you sat upon his body, holding onto you with an iron grip. Resting his thumbs just out of reach of your underwear, he looked up at you with an inquisitive brow. You bit your lip and shivered a bit in excitement, and nodded, goading him on.

 He placed the tips of his thumbs against your slick with the lightest pressure, rubbing you up and down with a pace that made you ache for more. The slow up and down motion of his thumbs felt like rolling waves, building pleasurable pressure in your innards. As he watched you begin to lose your composure, he licked his lips thinking of what was to come.

Katakuri rubbed his large thumbs against your clit in varying motions, his skill for this undeniable. Had he been with other women before? You really had no idea, and at this point, you really didn’t care. Your underwear was soaked and you wanted more.

As you pulled at the edges of your underwear, he spurred into action. He snapped them off with a single flick of his fingers, ripping them into an unwearable sheet of cloth, and slid you up towards his face, your depths calling to him. He closed his eyes and inhaled through his nose, exhaling with a grin.

“You smell delicious,” he said with a low grumble.

A little more awkwardly, he continued, asking as his nibbled his lip: “May I taste you? I don’t bite.”

You vibrated excitingly at the thought of his almost inhuman tongue entering your body. How will it feel? It’s so big! You nodded, using your fingers to open your achingly wet folds towards him. His large tongue slipped out from between his teeth as he pulled you into him, resting your legs carefully on his fangs and cheeks as to not hurt you.

Katakuri’s tongue slowly licked and prodded at your entrance, careful to savor your juices with an audible gulp. The flat of his tongue pressing against your ass and pussy felt like nothing you’d quite experienced before. The cool saliva of his mouth and the warm heat building up within you intertwined with the slow rocking of your hips towards him.

His hands slid over your skin, keeping your legs steady and holding you firm, as he increased the pace in which he devoured you. The feeling of his tongue slipping up and down your core was intense, and your body began to shake from the pleasure against his firm grip—every inch of your most sensitive areas were being engulfed with wet warmth and you let out a muffled moan.

Barely able to open your eyes, you peered down at him. His brow was furrowed, concentrated so intently, such perfect concentration, and you watched as he enjoyed the meal he’d made of you. His large hands looked even larger against your thighs, thick fingers pressing into the fat of your leg with a satisfying squish that held you locked in position until he was done with you.

You moaned again, body recoiling, and he responded with a low growl, holding your legs more strongly, with a powerful grip that may leave marks later. If you’d been sound enough of mind, you’d have compared him to a beast who had snapped at someone trying to take its food.

His closed eyes now opened and looked straight up at you with ferocity, as he continued his rapid licking, with a distinct possessiveness you had never seen from him. “Mine,” the words shot into your head from the look in his eyes.

That pushed you over the edge.

Your body suddenly tensed itself so hard that you could barely breathe, barely think. Then a wave of pleasure crashed over you like a great tsunami. With a great release, your heart rate began to slow, your muscles relaxed, as your pleasure spurted into Katakuri’s mouth. Katakuri’s fervent licking slowed to match yours as he marinated in your scent, taking care not to let any of your juices fall to the floor.

Still, he held onto you so tight. Your body felt like it came back down from floating, and you landed firmly in his hands, his face still at your lower half.

Katakuri licked his lips. He found his boldness.

“More.”

He was still hungry.

[neeeooon]

HIIIII! This is my first time requesting anything ever so I’m a little shy 😢 BUT I wanted to request some Charles chevalier headcanons where the reader is like reallyyyyyyyyy serious and he tries to break her façade by being a nuisance 🥹 (BTW I LOVE UR HEADCANONS I LITERALLY STALK UR ACC TO SEE IF U POSTED ANYTHING NEW)

omg HIIIII thank you for requesting, i’m glad you like my account! 🫶🫶 have an amazing day <3

when you’re serious

nuisance!charles chevalier x gn!reader. crack, fluff

nuisance!charles likes to put clips and bows in your hair when you’re busy working or cooking

nuisance!charles considers glares and playful swats your love language and adores getting a rise out of you, because it means you love him!

nuisance!charles will place his chin in his hands and ogle endearingly at you, even sighing dramatically to get you to glance in his direction

nuisance!charles nearly kicks the door down every time he enters your house, despite the ungodly amount of threats you make. “charles! please, not so loud. i’m on a call right now.” “oops! sorry :3”

nuisance!charles has his head in your lap as you channel all your focus into the news. “y/nnn, play with my hair :(“ you sigh. “charles, baby, i—“ “uuugghhhhhh :((“

nuisance!charles wiggles around victoriously when you play with his hair

nuisance!charles is determined to make sure you aren’t all work and no fun. since he knows you don’t share many interests, he tries to find the middle grounds

nuisance!charles beams when you begin shuffling the playing cards he hands you. “let’s play, y/n!”

nuisance!charles much prefers go fish over blackjack, but a win is a win. your victory has you giggling like someone your age and not grumbling like a forty-year-old

nuisance!charles smiles when you play with his hair without him having to beg. “i like when you have fun. being serious all the time must get tiring.”

nuisance!charles happily accepts your kiss on the cheek. “you’re right. it’s nice having a little fun. you’re still a nuisance, though.”

[latenightdaydreams]

https://twitter.com/Elizabeathof/status/1786741799345656150?t=tcjcoF3QJ3RVZBD8p2GWnw&s=19

Can you write about retired Konig who now lives in the country, walk pass the wood and accidentally catch reader like the video above and...well, you know, they fuck=)))

Imagine how lucky he would feel coming across reader. Also how lucky reader would be to come across a man like König. The one man I'd be okay seeing in the woods🤭😮‍💨🐻

Retired!König x Reader (fem)

MDNI🔞

Master List

>cw: fem/afab, voyeurism, p in v, oral, filming

1.4k word count

🌲

Once König had turned forty-seven, he decided it was time to retire. He had put thirty years into the service. It was about time he settled down and lived life. With some of his money, he paid in full for some land out in the county. It was 20 acres with a pleasant home on it. Part of the land was a heavily wooded area. It was perfect for him to start his new life away from KorTac and being Colonel König.

Today was like any day. After König ate breakfast, he puts on his boots, and leaves out the door. It is a bright summer day, so he heads into the woods to enjoy the shade. Branches snap underneath his heavy footsteps. 

He bends down to grab a big stick, hitting it against trees as he wanders. When he’s in the woods, it’s as if he is a kid again. He approaches his favorite tree to climb when something distracts him, looking around, wondering where it’s coming from. It sounds like a woman moaning. 

He walks with soft steps, being as quiet as he can be. His eyes darte all over, searching for the sound. That’s when he spots a white car parked on the side of the road near the tree line. As he approaches, he can see a fully naked young woman; bent over with a little pink thing dangling between your legs. His cock gets hard as he watches your body shake from the pleasure you’re feeling.

As you lean against your car you moan out loud, breasts jiggling as your body jumps. You make sure the camera is picking it all up, filming it for your Only Fans account. Looking up with a flirty smile, you grasp your breast. Moans continue to spill from your lips until you turn around and see an enormous man just looking at you.

“Oh, my god!” You jump, eyes wide as you look at the man.

König steps forward slightly, but still gives you space. “It’s okay.” His eyes are taking in your figure. “What are- why are you doing this here?”

“I’m filming…for Only Fans…” You slowly pull the vibrator out.

“What is that?” König doesn’t go online much and is out of the loop.

“Um…porn.” A small chuckle leaves your lips.

A heavy blush fell on König’s cheeks as he heard you film porn. “Oh, well then. I’m sorry to have interrupted.” His eyes gloss over your body once more. “Be safe out here.”

You look up at him, his eyes gazing into yours for a moment. He is a huge, older man. Good looking… it would be risky, but you’re filming porn, right? Might as well make it interesting.

“Excuse me, sir?” You call out as he walks away from you. 

“Hm?” König turns to face you again.

“What’s your name?” 

“I’m König. And you are?”

“I’m y/n. I was wondering if…” Your eyes drop from his icy blue to see the erection straining against his pants. “You’d like to film with me?”

König stood there appearing stoic when inside his heart began to beat 100mph. “Film?”

“Yeah, like sex. Of course, if you don’t want to-”

“I do.” He quickly cuts you off. 

You smile, turning to your car to go into your glove box. Pulling out a condom you turn back to face König. He nods and grabs it from you, looking slightly nervous. You walk to him and begin to reach for his belt buckle.

“Is this okay?” You ask in a low sensual voice.

“Ja…” He watches as your small hands work on his pants and pull them down. A cocky smirk appears on his lips as he sees your reaction to the size of his dick. Your eyes go wide as you kneel before him with his cock in your face. 

Grasping it, you begin to stroke him gently. König lets out a sigh and looks down at you, caressing the back of your head as he gently pushes your head closer to his cock. You open your mouth and accept him in. Sucking on the tip as you continue to stroke him. König looks up into your car to see the camera recording. Feeling instantly bashful, he looks back down at you.

Slowly you lower your head down onto the shaft of his cock, beginning to gag yourself on his length. König lets out a soft groan, lightly pushing you down so you can go farther before pulling your head back by your hair. You look up at him with a string of spit connected from your bottom lip to his cock, a smile on your beautiful lips.

You slowly open the condom and hold it up to his cock, rolling it down his shaft. Both of you share a deep gaze as you do. 

“Are you ready?” 

König nods in response, watching you stand up from the floor. You barely come up to his chest, you’re so short. Turning around, you position yourself so that you’re leaning on to the car, ass sticking out. König’s big hands slide down your thigh to hold behind your knee, lifting your right leg so the camera can get a better view. 

With his free hand, he grasps his cock and pulls the condom down a little more. He rubs it against your wet pussy before thrusting forward, pushing his cock inside. Once his head slips in, you ball your hands up into a tight fist, looking back at him as he pushes in two more inches. 

“Oh fuck, your cock is so big.” You moan. 

König’s pupils fully dilated as he looks at you. Feeling your tight cunt struggle to take him as you give him those eyes is all too much. His other hand moves to your hips, holding it firmly as he pushes his cock the rest of the way in. Your walls flutter around him, being stretched like never before. 

He begins to roll his hips forward at a quicker pace; his pants falling down from his thighs to his ankles. Small grunts leave his lips as his eyes fall to the way your ass bounces off of him with every thrust.

Lost in the moment he drops your leg. Pausing his thrust to pull his shirt off, revealing his strong body. His skin pale and covered in scars, his body solid like rock from all the years in the military. The flesh on his stomach is a little softer now that he’s retired, making him look desirable. 

König returned his hands to your hips and began to thrust into you at a rapid pace. The sound of his hips slamming into your plump ass echoing around you. He lets out an animalistic groan as his hand comes down and slaps your ass hard.

The feeling of his cock fully shoving into you, hitting your cervix, made you bend over more. Standing was becoming harder as you couldn’t keep up with his pace. Slowly you lean into the open car door. The camera capturing your face contorted in pleasure as you moan out, reaching behind you to hold his arm as he fucks you so ruthlessly. 

“I’m going to cum!” You shout as your head drops, the camera picking up the ripples of your ass as König holds it up for him to fuck.

“Cum on my fucking cock.” He growls.

Your tight walls flutter again on his cock and squeeze him. König’s head drops back and lets out a loud moan. “Perfect!” 

Once you’ve calmed down, he quickly pulls out and flips your body over in the seat. Leaning in, he licks both of your nipples before lightly biting one. He pulls away, slapping his cock on your swollen clit. Rubbing it back and forth quickly as your leg’s twitch. You reach behind you and grab the camera, holding it for a better view.

As you hold the camera to your pussy, he slips his cock back inside of you. Lifting your legs up and to the side, so he can push all the way in. When he feels something suddenly change. The heat and wetness of your tight little cunt feel 1,000x better. Looking down he can see the base of the condom with scrunched up rubber around it. This is when he realized the condom broke. 

In a split second he decided that he didn't care. He wasn’t going to pull out or stop fucking this pussy. Little did you know about König, he hasn’t had sex in a very long time, years actually. He has all this pent-up sexual energy and he plans on getting it all out on you. It's not every day a beautiful young woman readily offers themselves to you.

[cheswirls]

short asl thing based on @where-does-the-heart-lie's modern au :) i started this over a year ago but the beginning is all dialogue and felt more like a script to me i suppose??? which deflated my desire to work on it. anyway i checked it over recently and it's completely fine lmfao, self-confidence restored here we go !

-

"Yo. Aren't you usually in the middle of your shift by now?"

"I've been banned from the hospital."

"Like, for life?"

"No. For the next, uh.. Twenty-two hours."

"That's oddly specific."

"It was twenty-four, but I fell asleep after leaving the building."

"That wouldn't have to do with why they kicked you out, at all?"

"Hmmm. I'm too sleep-deprived, apparently."

"Ah. And, um, you called me because...?"

"I pressed a random number in my call log after waking up. Lucky you, I guess."

"Yeah. Right. Lucky me. And your car keys are...?"

"Confiscated."

"Ah, right, of course."

A beat of silence. Two. Three, then "Look, if you're busy, then–"

"No, no.  You called me, so I'll be there. Give me twenty minutes."

"Alright. Thank–"

"Thank someone else. Also, if you fall asleep in my car, I'm taking it as express permission to drive you around wherever I want."

"Ugh, go die. I don't even know why I bothered."

"LUCKY YOU, I guess," sounds off way too loudly in his ear. "No take backs. See you in ten."

"I thought you said–" Sabo breaks off as the call ends, leaving him staring blankly at his phone's too-dim screen. He squints, turns the brightness all the way up, and still squints as the sunlight proves too strong for the display.

Ace shows up in more than ten but decidedly less than twenty minutes. Sabo doesn't waste much brain power on it, only climbing into the passenger seat and yawning into his palm while his other hand fixes the seatbelt into the buckle. Not a second too soon, too, as Ace roars the engine to life and peels away from the curb at record speed.

Ace fiddles with the radio. He turns the music up, then dial it back down to inaudible. They hit the expressway and he leans over the steering wheel, frowning with his eyes fixed on the road far ahead. Sabo yawns again and this appears to be the limit to his patience. 

"Hey, so, I had a thought after you hung up on me."

Sabo grimaces. "You mean you–"

"Today's Wednesday."

He doesn't elaborate. Sabo is too tired to process. "Yes," he follows, after a second. He glances at the sky out the front window. "What time is it?"

"Oh, uh." Ace fumbles with hand placement so he can lift his watch to his face. "Nine forty."

Sabo takes a couple beats to try and process this, moves his eyes away from the skyline, and sighs as he pulls his phone out. 2:47 is what the display reads, which sounds much more believable.

"How did the minute hand get off?" he mutters to himself, chancing a look at Ace's busted wristwatch. Ace raises a brow, taking his gaze off the road to scrutinize Sabo. "No, it doesn't matter," he mutters to himself once more, sliding his phone away back on his person and out of his hands.

"My point is," Ace continues, like he hasn't just been interrupted by a whole thing. "Your timeout will be done midday Thursday. Did they switch your days off?"

"No." Sabo sighs. "They technically gave me the next thirty-six hours. Technically closer to forty. Something like that. I go back in on Friday. Sometime.” He tries to smile and it turns out very lopsided, from that he can make out in the rearview mirror. “Can you tell I’m tired?”

“I don’t think ‘tired’ is an accurate description,” Ace quips. “When did you eat a proper meal last?”

“Uh, yesterday. Maybe.”

“Maybe??”

“A ‘proper meal’ means different things to the two of us,” Sabo huffs. “On my account it was yesterday. I’ve had food since then, of course.”

“Alright, so here’s the plan,” Ace announces before absolutely whipping it around a curve. Sabo is his passenger in the passenger seat and had fully prepared to be so when he got in the vehicle, but he’d been vastly underprepared for this sudden course of action, which is how he ends up halfway out of his seat with his cheek slammed into the cold window. Ace doesn’t quite notice his brother’s terminal velocity until the car is once again on the straight and narrow, and only then it’s because of the audible thunk Sabo’s face makes when it collides with the glass.

“Aw shit. You good bro?”

“Ow,” Sabo mutters. “If I have broken bones I’m suing your ass.”

“Well, if you’re good enough to make jokes, I think you’re better than you’re letting on.” Ace keeps the wheel steady with one knee while he takes both hands away to crack his fingers. When he glances over at Sabo again, he looks even more pathetic – like he’s becoming one with the glass. “Anyway, as I was saying.

“I’m taking your ass home. You’re going straight to sleep and while you crash, I’ll make you something decent to eat and stick it in the fridge for you to heat up later. I’ll even make you two servings to eat two different times, since you clearly can’t be trusted to take care of yourself correctly.”

“Ouch.”

“I want you to conk out for as long as your body allows. We can reset your sleep schedule tomorrow, alright? Put your phone on silent; do not answer any calls. In fact, you know what, just give it to me.

Sabo glances over to see Ace’s hand held out to him, palm up. Fingers wiggling expectantly. His lips pull up into a grimace. “I’m not doing that.”

“Fine.” Ace takes his hand back. “But you will comply with everything else.”

“Wow! It’s so funny, I didn’t realize you turned into my mother overnight! Really tapped into your mom potential, huh? Anything exciting happen in your life that would cause that? I guess I wouldn’t know, since I’ve been a zombie for the past two days.”

“There’s nothing wrong with acting like your older brother, you dipshit, especially if you keep putting yourself through the wringer like this. You go home. You sleep. You wake up and eat. You go back to sleep. Then we do laundry. Does that sound agreeable?”

“That’s negotiable, at the least,” Sabo mumbles. “I will accept good food as a form of bribery.”

“Oh, nice, because I’m flat broke at the moment.”

Sabo makes a mental note of that, and then they’re pulling into the driveway. Ace lets him exit the vehicle by himself and then promptly manhandles him all the way onto the couch where it will be easier to force his body to relax than in a real bed. Ace knows this, so he calls him weird before chucking a loose blanket at his head. Sabo is almost too tired to function at this point, so he lets Ace have the last laugh in favor of finally closing his eyes.

Coming to is a surreal experience, especially since the sun is still out. He must make a noise because Ace is suddenly within view. His limbs are tangled in the blanket and still so heavy that he doesn’t bother moving. “Thought you would be gone,” he half-groans, eyes slipping shut again for a moment.

“I did leave,” Ace confirms. “I had to go pilfer some stuff to make stew with. It’s almost done, so I’ll hang here until then.”

Pilfer. That could mean any number of things. Sabo chooses to believe in the option where Ace is an upstanding citizen, and then remembers Ace saying earlier that he had no money. He frowns and squirms on the cushions enough to where it looks like he’s checking his pockets. “Where’s my wallet, Ace?” he bluffs.

“Somewhere around here,” Ace pipes up. “Your stomach will thank you for your contributions to the Portgas Household’s pantry!”

“Ugh, I got robbed,” he complains. “This sucks. ‘m going back to sleep.” He rolls over so his back is to Ace.

“Yeah, you do you, bro. Stew will still be here later. I’ll see you when you’re back in the world of the living.”

—

Luffy comes in late that night and slams the front door shut as loud as humanly possible. When he appears in the main room, he doesn’t seem to be upset, so Ace writes it off as a Luffyism. Sabo hasn’t stirred at the noise, so it’s all good.

Realizing this, Luffy pads closer to Ace’s side and looks at Sabo’s unmoving body warily. “Why is Sabo passed out like a corpse? Is he sick?”

“No, he’s not sick, he just can’t take care of himself. Which is why we are going to let him sleep for as long as possible.”

Luffy just nods to this, but it’s the uncomprehending Luffy-nod that means he’s just going to end up doing whatever he wants to regardless. Ace sighs, then jerks his head towards the kitchen. “He ate a little earlier, but I want him to eat again when he wakes up. There’s stew in the fridge if you want it – just leave him a little. Got it, Monkey D. Luffy?”

Luffy throws him a salute and then runs off in his socks. “Yippee! Ace made stew!”

“Think of your brother, Luffy, and make good choices!” Ace calls after him. “He’s a pathetic man who needs food to feel better or he’ll end up sleeping through Laundry Day!”

—

Sabo does not sleep through laundry day, but he does sleep for sixteen whole hours, so it’s just around noon when he forces himself up off the couch and into a warm shower.

Ace is around, which is mildly unexpected. But he’s still half-asleep, so everything is at least a little unexpected. He glances up from playing video games with Luffy to see Sabo leaving the steam-filled bathroom with his hair hanging around his shoulders. “You look like a wet cat,” he calls.

“Sabo’s awake!” Luffy cheers. “Ace thought you died at one point.”

Ace elbows Luffy in the gut, making him hunch over. “I did not!”

“He totally checked to see if your heart was still beating!”

“I’m undead, actually,” Sabo says completely seriously.

“Does that mean you don’t need to eat anymore?” Luffy questions. “Because I ate all the stew last night.”

“I saw that coming and made extra.” Ace finger-guns in Sabo’s general direction. “That’s why I bought two sets of ingredients. With your money!”

“With my money,” Sabo echoes, because it’s such a wild statement to have to deal with this early in the day. Well, early for him. “Fuck you.”

“I mean, I can tell Luffy where I hid–”

“Thank you, Ace, for agreeing to share your quarters with both of your brothers so we can all do laundry today on your dime!” Sabo raises his pitch so his voice is mockingly squeaky when he says this. He starts moving down the hall before Ace can start to argue, letting his and Luffy’s voices bleed into the background.

When he comes back out, now dressed, it smells significantly better than before. “I reheated the stew,” Ace announces, gesturing for Sabo to take a seat at the kitchen counter. “Let’s all have lunch before we head out.”

“You have to drink this too,” Luffy tells Sabo, sliding a Gatorade across the counter so it sets in front of him when he finally does take a seat. “Ace’s orders.”

“Gotta get those nutrients back somehow.”

“Aren’t we so considerate, Sabo?”

“Do you even know what ‘considerate’ means?” Sabo asks, lips quirking up into a half-smile. At Luffy’s shrug, it turns into a real smile. “Well, thanks anyway. Both of you.”

“No sweat. And look!” Ace brandishes a five dollar bill for both to see. “I found this baby for us to use on coins! It’s all on me today–”

“Where’s my wallet, Ace?!”

[alltimecharlo]

do you perchance know why almost EVERY willmack blog is convinced will smith is like a huge momma’s boy and that his family won’t leave him alone😭 I know his family comes to a lot of his games, but some blogs spin it in such an evil way

i'm back with another willmack lore drop/literature review/whatever you want to call it!

today's topic: will smith hockey's close-knit family!🧑‍🧑‍🧒‍🧒🩵

will's relationship with his family, and his home town of lexington, mass, is definitely an interesting one. both are clearly extremely important to him.

below is a post from the official battle of lexington ig account (yes that exists) detailing will and his family’s deep roots in lexington, as well as an excerpt from this article which shows how important will's heritage is to him and his family.

A third-generation Lexingtonian, Will’s family is deeply woven into the town’s fabric. He attended Hancock Preschool (like his dad, Bill, 40 years earlier) and Bowman Elementary, spending his childhood at @HaydenRecreation, skating on frozen ponds and backyard rinks.

as we know from cat's podcast - will's family attend the re-enactment of the battle of lexington every year! he thinks it's cool and is kind of history nerd. will is also at least the third 'william smith' in his family (following his father and grandfather) technically making him 'william smith III' ig? although his dad goes by 'bill'.

when will had to move to michigan for the usa development program, instead of billeting with a host family like most kids do, will's family bought a house in michigan for two years (whilst keeping their house in lexington ofc) because his dad felt it was 'important to be there at a critical stage of his life'

will had fellow massachusetts boys will vote (arlington) and ryan leonard (amherst) living with him! both wsh's and will vote's mom spent two-week shifts living with the boys and cooking/shopping for them. this basically meant that will's mom was able to cook for him and provide family support fairly regularly whilst he was playing his hockey, so she was very present in his journey! (momma's boy) in fact, will's mom said 'she feels like she has two more sons.'

will's dad was working back in boston often and grace was already attending bc! speaking of bc, will is the 14th member of his family to attend the school despite initially commiting to northeastern at the tender age of 14 (his friends from st. sebastian were commiting there too). and he luckily got to tell his grandfather before he died that he was committing to bc.

will regularly met up with his sister, grace, in his freshman year whilst she was a senior where they would meet for lunch or attend SUNDAY MASS (wsh catholic allegations need their own post i fear...), which grace really enjoyed and appreciated ☺️

with his enitre family being so local (will’s three aunts all live in lexington with their families, 10 cousins in total. his grandmother polly, 87, never misses bc home games), will often had over 40 people (FORTY!!!) attend his bc home games to support him.

as we can see at the top of this post^ at his first game with the sharks, this tradition clearly transferred over to the nhl as well, despite will now playing his hockey 2000 miles away. '20 people were in the stands for him, including his father, who was celebrating his birthday.' !!

a large number of will's family were also in stockholm for worlds and got to see him win gold! (he's waving to them in this gifset :) it is obviously very important to the smiths to show up for each other! as will's mom says:

“When are you ever going to have this experience with your 17-, 18-year-old son in this unbelievably exciting (situation)?” Colleen Smith asked. “And be experiencing it with them, not just from afar. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime thing that we’ll never forget.”

will's dad was also present on the sharks' dads' trip like mack's. here they are sitting at dinner altogether! (oh, to be a fly on the wall here...)

SO, to answer your question: wsh IS a huge momma's boy and his family certainly WON'T leave him alone but i really don't think he'd have it any other way. his family clearly means a lot to him and seeing as they've always been there for him every step of the way, i think he appreciates their presence more than ever now in the nhl :)

will has also been very vocal about how helpful living with the marleaus has been for his rookie season! this gave him a similar ‘family’ environment that was nice to come home to, especially during a tough season 🩵

'It was awesome, I’m so happy I did it. They’re definitely going to be a family that I’m going to be connected with my whole life now. I learned everything—not even with hockey, just off the ice and how great the people are.'

[saphronethaleph]

New Media Jedi Order

“Okay,” Rey said. “I don’t know if you can use the Force, yet. Not really. It’s… not something where I had a lot of training myself. But…”

She shook her head. “Okay, I’m already not expressing this right. But the way the Force works, it’s… a mystical energy field, that fills the whole universe. And that might mean that everyone can use it. Or it might mean that it’s just easier for some people, and harder for others. But the most important part of it all is that… the Force is there. It’s real. It binds the universe together, and once you start to understand that… that’s when you can start to understand the rest.”

The words hung in the air, and Rey held out her hand. Her staff rippled slightly, then rose, and she pulled it over to her as she stepped back.

“The Force connects us all,” she said. “Every living being, and it flows through everything that isn’t alive, as well. And it means that every living being in the universe is unique, and important, and special… which is where the first part of the problem can come in. The Dark Side. And that’s why I want to make sure I make this completely clear – because everyone is special. Which means you’re special. But that means that everyone else is special as well.”

She exhaled. “That’s… important. Something you have to remember. Because if you forget the second part, then you’re fundamentally wrong, and that never ends well – for you, or for anyone else.”

After a pause, to impress the gravity of her point, Rey took a deep breath, and let it out.

“So… there’s a number of ways to get a closer and stronger connection to the Force,” she said. “But one of them is that it’s about… knowing things you couldn’t otherwise know, and touching things you couldn’t otherwise touch. If you’re wearing a blindfold, but you can still see. If you’re light years apart, but you can still feel. If you’re the other side of the room, but you can still move.”

She closed her eyes.

“If it hasn’t happened yet, but you can still know. The Force is… transcendent. It connects everything, but everything is larger than one person – it’s larger than everyone – so it’s not possible for an individual person to channel the whole of the Force. But they can touch it, shape it, influence it, and with it… impossible things can be done.”

Hux stabbed the pause button, scowling at the screen, then looked up at the intelligence officer.

“What kind of nonsense is this?”

“We caught it on the HoloNet twenty minutes ago, sir,” the intelligence officer replied. “It had been up for forty minutes before that, and it’s already gone dramatically viral. At this point I’d say about one point two percent of the entire userbase of SpaceTube has clicked the link.”

Hux glared back down at the screen, then caught sight of the view count – and the subscriber count.

And the account name.

“How did the scavenger girl get access to such a popular SpaceTube account?” he asked. “And why is it called Singular Smuggler?”

“Just a guess, sir,” the intelligence officer offered, intelligently. “But I’d guess it’s because it’s Han Solo’s old account? And she does work with his wookiee.”

Hux gave him a baleful look, a muscle twitching in his cheek.

“Well, how bad is it, then?” he asked. “This is obviously a blow for the First Order’s public relations, especially after that nonsense with the broadcast last week where they called for the galaxy to rise up – and the fact we’ve lost Starkiller Base and the Supreme Leader, thanks to-”

He bit off the words.

He wasn’t going to blame the new Supreme Leader for their misfortunes out loud, no matter how much he detested the man.

“It’s bad, but how bad it is depends on what she says in the whole video,” the intelligence officer pointed out. “I haven’t had time to watch it, it’s three hours long.”

Hux muttered something about incompetents, then flicked down to look at the contents list.

He blanched.

“...section two is labelled ‘examples with Finn’,” he said. “Isn’t that the Traitor?”

“That sounds likely, sir,” the intelligence officer frowned. “Why?”

“Block the video immediately,” Hux said. “Across the whole of the First Order. We cannot permit their propaganda to spread to the Stormtroopers.”

The intelligence officer hurried to his desk, ready to issue the order, but before he actually got there the door to the command room crashed open – several inches of durasteel crumpling like tinfoil.

“Huh,” said the stormtrooper standing behind where the door used to be, and examined her gauntleted hands as she flexed them. “Looks like that bit works.”

“...well, kriff,” Hux muttered.

At least there was one bit of good news that he took vicious pleasure in.

Supreme Leader Kylo Ren was going to hate this even more than he did.

[rcvcgers]

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐁𝐢𝐫𝐝𝐜𝐚𝐠𝐞 - prologue

account masterlist | series masterlist | ao3

next chapter

18+ minors DNI

pairing ; sylus x reader

synopsis ; a teenage boy turns his life around when he steals from the wrong person.

word count ; 2.1k words

my god daughters ♱⋆ཋྀ ˚₊‧⁺ @velaenam , @flamedancer13 @blcknebula , @peachesandcremes , @rxelarailuj

Behind every great fortune, there is a crime. A crime that comes with a price, a sacrifice that someone is willing to make for the betterment of themselves and their family, their allies in the cruel world of the N109 Zone.

Those who live here know the law of the land. They know who is in charge and who puppets the crooked politicians and police force. They know not to disobey them, to not disrupt the peace that they have built among the families. Everyone who lives here knows their place in the pecking order and those who wish to move up in the world, to change their fortune and future, are met with the firepower of men who will forever remain loyal to the Don above them, a man who sits above everyone else and is willing to protect the peace of his kingdom.

Only a few are successful. Most cases end with bloodbaths, the ending of an entire family for the chance to usurp their spot under the Don’s wing. These attempts are always made by a group, never a single person, so imagine Vito’s — the current Don of Onychinus, the most powerful family in the N109 Zone — surprise when a lone fifteen year old tried to get the best of him.

The Don and his right hand man and Consigliere, Angelo, also known as “Alibi”, were casually walking through one of the N109 Zone’s markets. It was outside and the blood moon hung low in the sky, the smog from the buildings floating overhead. The Don and Angelo took their time, inspecting the goods that the working class of the city had to offer.

Imported fruits, spices, weapons, drugs, and stolen goods were lined up along tables. Women and men stand behind them, calling out at passerby’s, egging them on to get a sale for the day, the money needed to survive another day in the N109 Zone. The Don is generous, having bought plenty of fruit and imported goods such as olives from Aridum, a desert city that Onychinus has a base in, and even handmade jewelry that holds the finest of jewels inside of the metal casings that hold it together.

“What do you think of this? Do you think she’d like it?” Vito holds up a pearl bracelet, the iridescent coloring catching under the warm light of the vendor’s stall.

Vito, the Don of Onychinus, is a tall and burly man. He’s on the older side, yes, just barely in his forties as he runs the biggest and most powerful family in the N109 Zone. He has the heart of a lion, never gives up, and remains strong in times of need or when someone decides that they want to have a try with attempting to take down the faction. He exudes dominance and is a man to be feared. He knows exactly what to do and never strikes twice, the first blow forever fatal and devastating.

“She’ll love it, sir,” Angelo responds with a small smile, his hands folded behind his back. 

Angelo is much shorter compared to Vito. He still has muscles underneath his perfectly pressed suits. His hairline is receding by the day, though, and he ops to wear a hat whenever he can to hide the brown and gray locks from the world. His body is covered in tattoos while Vito’s remains blank.

“She will, won’t she?” Vito smiles, his heart always soft when it comes to his precious daughter, his only child.

A head of white hair passes behind the booth, red eyes trained on the pearl bracelet. He remains in the shadows and watches from afar, not taking the time to notice who it is he is about to steal from. He sneaks from around the booth and watches as Angelo passes off a couple of bills to the woman behind the stall, giving her a tip of his hat before following the burly man.

The teenager remains silent, pulling his balaclava halfway up his face, a black hat now covering his white locks of hair. He weaves through the crowd. He takes note of the guards who get distracted by baked goods, leaving Vito and Angelo as they turn down an alleyway.

The boy follows, quick on his feet, his steps light and airy, neither of the mafia men able to pick up on the gentle sound of rubber bouncing against the asphalt. His piercing red eyes remain on the velvet bag in Vito’s hand, the pearl bracelet inside, waiting to be snatched up by the teenager.

Right when Vito and Angelo approach the car, the teenager makes his move. He bursts out into a run, hand outstretched and ready to snatch the velvet bag. The car door swings open and the teenager is forced to jump to the side, sliding across the top of the closed dumpster beside the two men. The teenager plucks the velvet bag from the Don’s hand, pushing off of the large metal can, which reeks of spoiled food, and lands on his feet, barely stumbling before he takes off into a sprint.

“What are you standing here for?! Get him!” Vito screams at Angelo, who nods with a huff and takes after the teenager.

The white haired boy smirks to himself and blends into the crowd, slipping the hat onto another boy’s head and ripping the balaclava off of his face. He remains close to bigger groups and fits in with the crowd. He shrugs his jacket off and turns it inside out, furthering cloaking itself from Vito’s guards. He slips the piece of pearl jewelry from the velvet bag, inspecting it under the warm light, knowing that he’ll be able to eat for a week with the money he’ll get from this.

Life is hard for those who are not born into wealth in the N109 Zone. If someone is like the teenager, they are forced to steal to survive. They live off of scraps and the generosity of those who give them whatever they can spare. It is a ruthless way to live. One never knows when they’re going to eat next or if they’ll be the next casualty in a mob war that they never wished to be a part of, an innocent bystander caught in the crossfire of a hit.

The teenager moves the pearl bracelet back into the velvet bag. He looks around, seeing the chaos of Vito’s guards happening in the opposite direction as him. He lets out a huff of air, a breathy chuckle. The teenage boy takes a turn down the street and pushes open the door of a pawnshop.

The teenager gasps when he is pulled back by the collar. He is slammed into the wall of the pawnshop, cheek smushed against the cracked plaster. The man who captured him leans in, his voice dangerously low and rough, “You don’t know who you just messed with, boy.”

The teenager glances to the side, catching a quick glance of the man’s tattooed knuckles, the cross catching his attention. Fear settles into his stomach, his body going cold and numb, as the man peels him off of the wall, keeping his hold on the back of his collar, pulling him along.

The fabric of his shirt cuts into his throat, threatening to cut off his air supply as he is dragged down the street. His hands immediately move to the collar, trying to release himself. He is pulled down the streets he just came from, people looking terrified as the boy is helpless in setting himself free.

He claws at the man’s hands, struggling to escape. The man does not move, he does not flinch. He continues on his way back to the alley where the Don sits, waiting inside the car with all doors open.

The teenager is thrown onto the wet asphalt. He hands on his hands and knees in an attempt to catch himself. He looks up, his red eyes meeting Don Vito’s menacing glare. Brass knuckles sit on his fingers, the metal scuffed and worn from his fights throughout the years.

The boy holds back his whimpers and the tears that threaten to flood his eyes. He stares at the brass knuckles and hardens his expression, brows slightly knitting together as he straightens his posture. Angelo stands behind him, his eyes burning into the back of the boy’s head.

“Where is it?” Vito asks with a sharp glare.

The teenager remains silent. The Don lets out a huff of air and turns to Angelo, waving his hand. Suddenly, the boy is brought to his feet. They round the car and Angelo slams the teenager onto the hood, his face connecting with the smooth, black metal. Vito gets out of the car, standing on the side that the teenager is forced to look at.

“I’m going to ask one last time,” he lowers his voice, eyes darkening, “where is the bracelet?”

“Pocket,” the boy immediately answers, swallowing the lump that forms in his throat. He continues to hide his fear, refusing to let the Don of Onychinus know that he is afraid.

Angelo keeps one hand on the back of the boy’s neck while he pats down his body. He reaches into the pocket and takes back the velvet bag, passing it off to the Don. He takes it and keeps his eyes on the teenager.

It is silent except for the sounds of car horns and the chaos Vito’s men are causing. The Don pockets the velvet bag and crosses his arms over his chest, shaking his head at the teenage boy.

“It’s my daughter’s birthday today. You stole her gift. I hope you can understand why I had to get it back,” Vito’s voice is authoritative yet there is a gentleness behind it when he mentions his daughter. “How old are you?”

“Fifteen,” the teenage boy responds.

“Just a kid,” the Don shakes his head, swiping his tongue over his teeth. “My daughter turns ten today. She loves pearls.”

Silence befalls the trio. Vito looks to Angelo and nods his head. The man’s grip on the boy is released. He takes a step back, hands folded in front of his abdomen, and he keeps a close eye on the white haired teenager. The teen gets off of the hood of the car, fixing his posture as he stares at the Don. He cracks his knuckles and takes one quick look around the alley, trying to see if there is a way out.

“I’m in a good mood, so I’ll make you an offer,” Vito steps forward. “I don’t like killing kids. Never have. But you seem like a brought young man who can…excel in my world. I’ll let my friend here take care of you. You can learn all you can and when the time comes, you can choose to leave or stay.”

The Don Vito takes another step forward. He extends his hand to the boy, brass knuckles still wrapped around his fingers, and smiles. His canine tooth is gold, the metal catching the light, reflecting into the boy’s eyes.

“What do you say?”

The teenager stares at the Don’s hand. He takes a quick glance to Angelo, locking eyes with the shorter yet surprisingly strong man. He turns back around and gnaws at the inside of his cheek.

This is a way out of his shitty life. He can have a roof over his head and will be guaranteed protection from those who wish to hurt him. His belly will be full of food and he’ll never have to beg for scraps ever again. The risk is high if he joined Onychinus, especially under the Consigliere’s watchful eye. It is a risk that he is willing to take.

Anything to get out of the slums of the N109 Zone.

He steps froward and takes the Don’s hand, firmly shaking it. The man’s smile grows some more. One they release hands, the man reaches into his pocket and pulls out a cigar, Angelo stepping to his side and lighting it for him. He takes a few quick puffs, blowing the smoke out and into the teen’s face.

“What’s your name, kid?” he asks, looking down at the kid. The teen opens his mouth to respond but is quickly stopped when Vito holds up a hand. “You only get one name. You can leave your old one behind and change it to something new. Choose wisely.”

The teenager remains silent. His eyes flit between Vito and Angelo, taking in their slick smiles, inhaling the dry smoke from the cigar.

He has never had a name before, having been abandoned by his parents. Any names he has heard have come from movies and books, lives that he will never be able to live despite dreaming about them. One name in particular, though, itches the back of his brain.

“Sylus. My name is Sylus,” the teenager speaks, his name and answer definitive.

likes, comments, & reblogs are greatly appreciated <3

[tiffanys-aus-and-headcanons]

Appendix F: Special Worm Turns Edition

This post is a deep dive into Alan Moore's Worm Turns and the franchise that it spawned. For earlier more eclectic posts about a wider range of media in the scrambled timeline setting, see my blog's the scrambled timeline tag.

(by the by, do you love the color of the worm?)

PRE-WORM TURNS ALAN MOORE

In contrast to your timeline's Watchmen, which put Alan Moore on the map for the general public, the scrambled timeline's Worm Turns came relatively late in Alan Moore's career. It's his best-known work, but also the last of his well-known works. Therefore, it's worth first considering his earlier career for context.

Alan Moore has written hundreds of comics, many of them highly acclaimed. In the first few (obscure) years of his career, he alternated between writing and illustrating, but, seeing where his talents lied, he soon decided to specialize. His first big break came from prominent UK anthology magazine 2000 AD, which would publish dozens of Moore's stories from 1980 to 1986 (best remembered among them: the serialized and short-lived Metroid). He also had brief tenures at DC UK, running their series Spirit of the 20th Century (his run was incidentally the one that established the designation for the main DC setting, "Earth 616"), and at Warrior magazine, where he ran Overman. (The legal history of Overman is complicated, goes back to the early days of superhero comics, and is largely tangential to this accounting of Moore's career. Nonetheless, he's an alien android who can dissipate into a cloud of nanobots at will, hastily invented as a very similar replacement for the defunct Fawcett Comics character Superman, now owned by Marvel and called Xam, no relation to the extremely popular DC character called Superman - the Kryptonian refugee created by Stan Lee - nor any relation to the various other early comic book characters called Superman.)

In 1983, Moore began a long and productive relationship with Marvel, which would lead to most of his best-known works. He was initially brought on to write Tales of Dagoth, a simple horror comic inspired by the Kipling mythos (which was then just starting to enter the public domain in the US). Moore's run on Dagoth was extremely successful, and kicked off the so-called "British Invasion of comics", in which the big American companies (mostly Marvel) started hiring lots of British writers to enhance the literary quality of their comics. Tales of Dagoth was also incidentally the origin of popular Marvel character Dr. Strange; Moore originally invented him on a request from the artists for a side character resembling Vincent Price, but he took on a life of his own. The character is now a ubiquitous cameo character throughout Marvel's properties, and frequently a protagonist; he even played a major role in Neil Gaiman's otherwise-mostly-disconnected-from-Marvel series Promethea. On multiple occasions, Alan Moore has reported being visited by Dr. Strange in real life.

Moore wound up doing some of the most celebrated stories for Marvel's most important superheroes. The two-part Whatever Happened to that Brand New Day? is commonly cited by Marvel writers as their favorite Spider-Man story; posed as a quasicanonical epilogue to the saga of (pre-Crisis On Infinite Earths) Peter Parker, it deconstructs the floating timeline ubiquitous in superhero comics, depicting it as a Faustian bargain Peter made because he was unwilling to lose anyone else he loved, a bargain he must nullify to allow life to progress. In the process, it touches on many elements throughout Spider-Man's forty-eight years of lore; the Spot, originally depicted as a joke villain, was first characterized as a serious interdimensional horror here. WHttBND was the last Marvel comic to be marketed as an "Imaginary Story", before that term was superseded by the Elseworlds label (debuting with Americana, a one-shot Western depicting a turn-of-the-century version of Captain America).

Likewise, Moore wrote Captain America: The Winter Soldier, a prestige one-shot reintroducing the apparently-deceased Bucky Barnes as a brainwashed assassin. Moore is actually not particularly fond of this one; he didn't conceive of it, but was roped into it by the artist, Brian Bolland, who had recently watched Paul Leni's The Manchurian Candidate (1928). However, its influence on the overall Captain America franchise is hard to overstate. Even aside from the most obvious plot developments (like the title character), it essentially originated the modern conception of Hydra as a conspiracy seriously integrated into the US government. Later acclaimed Captain America storylines, like 2007's WMD-inspired Secret Empire, can trace their creative roots to this simple, short, focused piece. Christopher Nolan cited The Winter Soldier as a central reference point in his Captain America trilogy, and it really shows.

Marvel also enabled Moore to pursue his own projects. Two of the first critically-acclaimed graphic novels (Moore hates the term "graphic novel", by the way) were written by Moore and published through Marvel: Threads and The Sandman. These prestige comics were not submitted to the Comics Code Authority for approval, and this was one early sign of the end for that organization. Threads was an intensely depressing and morbid depiction of ordinary life in Britain during and after a global nuclear war; it was published in Warrior until that magazine's cancellation, at which point Marvel picked it up for its final four installments. Threads was unpopular when it was coming out, but quickly became a cult classic afterwards. The Sandman was an extremely niche and surreal occult piece about embodiments of the fundamental magical forces governing the world; although it's celebrated as a triumph of the medium, it's generally considered completely unadaptable.

Following a series of creative, political, and business disagreements with Marvel's leadership, Moore decided to distance himself from the company in 1990; they remained on speaking terms, and he had several incidental Marvel credits throughout the 90s, but he generally sought to publish his own works independently. Mad Love, a publishing house Moore set up with his first wife and their polyamorous lover, was a failure; it would shutter after only three years with the collapse of Alan Moore's first marriage, and its works remain obscure and unfinished.

Moore's more noteworthy work in the '90s began with a comic serialized in Taboo magazine, String of Pearls. String of Pearls was a reimagining of the legend of Sweeney Todd as a revenge tragedy; it was a very political work, with a heavy focus on class conflict in Victorian Britain. He also did several series for American publisher Image Comics, including Men of Mystery (a short pastiche of Jack Kirby's work for DC in the 60s), Hancock (a superhero deconstruction that he took over from Rob Liefeld and made more reconstructive), and Pagemaster (which I have discussed in more detail before; Moore would later take future volumes of Pagemaster to different publishers following fights with Image Comics over the disastrous 2003 film adaptation). That gets us to right around the turn of the millennium, and to Worm Turns.

WORM TURNS

Although the first issue was published in 2002, Worm Turns was first conceived nearly two decades earlier. Charlton Comics was collapsing, and their IP was absorbed by Marvel in 1983. Alan Moore was just getting started at Marvel, and had always been intrigued by the Charlton Comics' All For One & One For All setting (originally created by, among others, Steve Ditko). He described it as an unintentional dark mirror to Marvel's own X-Men; it depicted a world that was being rapidly overrun by comic book superpowers and conflicts in a clearly unsustainable way.

Moore made an unsolicited pitch to Marvel's managing editor, Dick Giordano, for a limited series rooted in the Charlton Comics stories. This comic, which was never produced, would have been set only a few years after All For One & One For All's 1967 cancellation; it would have told how that world's many crises - both subtle and overt - gradually and inexorably rose to a boiling point until, one Thursday in 1972, the source of superpowers - an intelligent alien virus called the Quirks, representing the comics industry, destroying planet after planet in an iterative search of something new and creative - revealed itself and initiated Armageddon.

Giordano liked the pitch, but rejected it; in fact, Marvel had already committed at this point to a plan to incorporate the Charlton Comics IP into the main Marvel setting through the Crisis On Infinite Earths event, reimagining its characters as mutants for the post-COIE continuity. Moore was a rising creative powerhouse at this point, and Giordano knew that allowing him to do his take on the Charlton characters would define them in the public eye and render them unusable for Marvel's more straightforward purposes. Nonetheless, he encouraged Moore to stick with the idea and redraft it with an original setting and characters.

Moore took this advice to heart, and tinkered around with what would become the Worm Turns setting and characters for sixteen years in the background while working on other immediate-term projects. In 1999, school shootings entered the zeitgeist, with politicians and pundits looking for something to blame - violent and nihilistic media, disaffected youth subcultures, a bullying epidemic, American gun law - especially in the wake of a string of copycat crimes that continues to this day. It was this media phenomenon that crystallized Moore's final ideas for the plot and themes of Worm Turns. He began to make Worm Turns his top priority, and bumped Skitter (an isolated and emotionally repressed bug-controlling teenage girl, derived from Charlton Comics second-stringer Froppy) up from one character concept among many to the story's main protagonist.

Although Moore initially planned to publish this final version of Worm Turns through his then-preferred publisher, Image Comics, he was starting to have friction with them similar to what he'd once had with Marvel. Jim Lee, one of the Image Comics founders that Moore most trusted, had jumped ship for Marvel in 1998. It was Lee who persuaded Moore to give Marvel another serious shot and present his pitch to them instead. Lee pulled the right strings to get Moore an imprint especially for Worm Turns (America's Best Comics) with all the creative freedom he demanded for his full twenty-four issue plan.

Obviously, Worm Turns was a colossal success. It's what most people think of when they think of Alan Moore. It marks a clear end to the "dark age of comic books"; most writers know they can't top Worm Turns, and when they're trying to imitate it, the influence is obvious. It deconstructed the crisis crossover trend that Marvel kicked off themselves with Crisis On Infinite Earths (not that that stopped the phenomenon's popularity). Most importantly, it told an original superhero story - by now, a common entry point for the whole genre - while approaching the subject matter in Moore's signature radically-literary way.

It's an extremely dense, interconnected, thematically rich work, wherein every detail was carefully thought out as a piece of many larger wholes. (I'm trying to keep the synopses brief, but this makes it difficult.) One frequently-cited starter example: each faction in Worm Turns subtly-or-not-so-subtly corresponds to some popular folk theory on what causes violence in schools. The Undersiders are a group of unstable rebellious teens on the fringes of society, Faultline's Crew are outcasts because of factors out of their control, Empire 88 are neo-Nazis, Cauldron is a shadowy Illuminati-ish conspiracy making everything in the world happen for their own reasons, et cetera et cetera. Lung's gang in particular reflects a racist anti-Asian mass hysteria associated with anxieties about Japan's economic and cultural dominance in the late 20th century; it's why ignorant parents and lawmakers who thought kung fu movies were real passed entirely useless "ninja weapon bans", and it's why, IE, Teenage Ninja Rescue Puppies was considered an offensive enough title that it needed to be extensively censored to air in Britain.

Worm Turns was published by Marvel (as America's Best Comics), from February 2002 to July 2004. (It was set from April 2010 to December 2012.) The artist was J. H. Williams III. The story is divided into four "arcs" of six long issues each; each arc was published one issue a month, and there were two-month gaps between arcs. Each issue (with one exception) is titled for a quote thematically relevant to the issue; a longer form of the same quote appears at some point within the issue itself. Although the arcs do not have official names - they're simply good breaking points and an artifact of publication - they're informally known as the Undercover Arc, the Slaughterhouse Arc, the Cut Ties Arc, and the Gold Morning Arc.

It should be noted that, despite the breadth and depth of his literary knowledge, when Alan Moore selected the title Worm Turns, he was not actually aware of the origin or the sheer age of the phrase "even a worm will turn when trodden on". In fact, the earliest attestation of this line comes from the Roman poet and satirist Juvenal, around 100 AD.

The Undercover Arc:

I: Wings Off Flies. Published in February 2002; titled for a line from Edgar Allan Poe's Carietta. This issue introduces us to our main three viewpoint characters, beginning with our protagonist, Taylor Hebert. Though Taylor vividly fantasizes about using her powers to get violent revenge on her bullies at school, she controls herself and pours her energy into her ambitions as a superhero instead. Her first night out in costume nearly gets her killed, and she finds that she is easily mistaken for a supervillain because of her personality and her aesthetic choices; the main portion of the issue ends with her joining a gang of teen supervillains, the Undersiders, the next day. Armsmaster's segment is about a third of the way through the issue; he receives a bulletin about the disappearance of Mouse Protector, and reflects on the dangers of cape life. Scion's segment is near the end of the issue; he rotely performs various acts of simple heroism around the globe before stopping to remotely watch a homeless man in Britain (Kevin Norton). The extra materials section contains the introduction and first chapter of in-universe pop history book Triumvirate, recounting the initial appearance of Scion and the first parahumans in the early 1980s. Much of the information contained in this book is unreliable and will eventually be explicitly shown to be false.

II: Horses Made Of Sticks. Published in March 2002; titled for a line from Lee Hazlewood's song My Baby Shot Me Down (written for Nancy Sinatra). We open with the famous scene introducing Glory Girl and Panacea; they interrogate a neo-Nazi thug about the state of the gang war in Brockton Bay. The bulk of the issue's plot (after a brief fight between Taylor and her disgruntled new teammate Rachel) is the Undersiders' bank robbery, which we see unfold from the planning stage to the Wards' debriefing afterwards (in which the name Skitter is invented). Armsmaster implores Skitter not to go through with her doomed, amateurish undercover operation, and later worries to himself about the path she's heading down. Scion, entirely disconnected from all of this, watches Kevin Norton read a pulpy comic book - the long-running sword-and-sorcery serial The Curse of the Pale Fire, written by John Shade for editor and publisher Charles Kinbote. The extra materials section provides the second and third chapters of Triumvirate, providing accounts of the supposed first meetings between Eidolon, Alexandria, Legend, and Hero, as well as the end of the "golden age of parahumans" with the death of Vikare.

III: The Problems Of The Hows And Whys. Published in April 2002; titled for a line from Jeff Mangum's song This Livens Up The Day, from his 1998 concept album about a 1979 school shooting, at the time a remarkable one-off event. Taylor continues to grow closer to the Undersiders, minus Bitch. She asks them how they got their powers, and Tattletale explains to her that "positive trigger events" are a fabrication used to soften the image of parahumans for the public. Taylor recounts her own trigger event, and Brian reciprocates by retelling his own (although he spins and distorts it to avoid coming across as weak). The Undersiders realize that Bitch is missing (we later see that she was attacking a dogfighting ring), and go to check on the money, where they are ambushed by hyperviolent mercenaries Uber and Leet, who sardonically blame their crimes on the influence of video games. (This is, of course, a reference to the real tendency around the turn of the millennium to blame violent video games for crime; id Software's Superhot was especially frequently cited.) The Undersiders are able to dispatch the pair with relative ease, but then meet their client, Bakuda, a Tinker-bomber who intends to free and obtain revenge for Lung. The Undersiders escape with their lives by the skin of their teeth, and Taylor spends weeks recovering from her injuries as Bakuda terrorizes Brockton Bay. Armsmaster works on a simulation program for predicting combatant behavior (the subplot introduced here is a reference to "murder simulator" rhetoric), and muses with his subordinates on where powers come from; Miss Militia believes they're gifts from God, while Challenger holds that they're a cosmic accident. Scion remembers the first time he met Kevin Norton and, desperate for direction in life, began looking to him for instructions. Taylor gets in a fistfight with Emma, and the ensuing disciplinary meeting with the school is stacked against her; she holds onto her memories of her cape fights to stay sane. The extra materials section contains Armsmaster's personally-marked-up copy of some of Professor Haywire's notes. Armsmaster meditates on where Tinker inspiration comes from, and considers the case of Professor Haywire, who supposedly got his ideas from alternate versions of himself with whom he shared a mental link. He admires Haywire's work, despite his villainy, and laments his death in the recent Ziz attack on Madison, Wisconsin.

IV: Make-Believe. Published in May 2002; titled for a quote from Gary Gygax, from when he defended his game Magic: The Gathering in a televised interview. Taylor and the Undersiders attend a meeting of most of Brockton Bay's villains; Lung's gang is deemed out of control (mostly thanks to Bakuda), and the others coordinate action against them. Taylor becomes more and more comfortable with her cape life, and goes on an informal date with the Undersiders' leader, Brian (Grue, named after the monster from the Old English epic of Tournevis), assembling furniture at his apartment and meeting his sister Aisha. Taylor attempts to impress Brian by recounting things she's read about Haitian Vodou but he brushes her off. The combined efforts of Brockton Bay's heroes and villains get Lung and Bakuda sent to the Birdcage, but the press ignores the contributions of the villains; the Undersiders are directed to protest this by disrupting a PRT fundraising event. Taylor is finally introduced to the Undersiders' boss, the fate-controlling snake-themed villain Coil, but she finds that the villain life is tempting enough that she's considering sticking with it anyway. This decision is clinched when her father confronts her about how withdrawn she's been lately, and she runs away from home with backup from Lisa (Tattletale). Meanwhile, Scion reflects on how he always cared more about Kevin's thoughts on stories (especially The Curse of the Pale Fire) than his thoughts on the real world. The extra materials section contains a few pages from a lost notebook in which Taylor wrote about her plans to be a superhero.

V: The Dread Of Anticipation Of Events. Published in June 2002; titled for a line from Borges' Omelas. This issue's plot mostly concerns Coil's sudden mass-unmasking of the Empire 88, and the immediate fallout thereof; at the conclusion of the issue, Taylor finds out about Coil's use of the kidnapped child oracle Dinah, and quits the Undersiders in disgust (just in time for the Endbringer sirens to go off). A few other noteworthy subplots fill the issue: Lung and Bakuda arrive at the Birdcage, alongside Canary, a famous parahuman musician who was convicted of "singing too well"; Lung decides to kill Bakuda to earn the reputation he'll need. Armsmaster faces a shameful demotion as a consequence for his recent failures, many of which were Taylor's fault one way or another. He's actually pleased by the arrival of Leviathan, which he had been specifically preparing for. Taylor and Brian have a chance encounter with Taylor's bully Sophia, and a fight breaks out; Taylor makes a racist comment about her, and is then surprised to be romantically rejected by Brian. Bookending this, we get a look at Shadow Stalker, a Ward who's been set up as a potential future problem for the Undersiders. She's an edgy type who doesn't get along well with the other heroes, producing an implicit comparison with Taylor. After getting told off by Miss Militia, Shadow Stalker decides to track down young E88 cape Rune, and fatally shoots her with a regular gun, reasoning that no one would suspect her of carrying out a crime without using her powers. The extra materials section contains lab notes from Cauldron on several of their typical vial recipients, including Gallant and Newter among others.

VI: The Old Serpent. Published in July 2002; titled for a line from Jonathan Edwards' sermon Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. This is the "Leviathan issue", and introduces the importance of Endbringers to the setting; frequently assumed to be a 9/11-inspired element of the setting, Moore is adamant that they were already fully-conceived in the 1980s. The Protectorate, Wards, New Wave, and Empire 88 suffer heavy losses in the Leviathan fight, and more importantly the city is left in ruins, barely saved at the last moment by the arrival of the deific Scion. In a chaotic hospital ward after the fight, Taylor discovers that Shadow Stalker is Sophia, driving a wedge between Taylor and the heroes. Tattletale exposes Armsmaster's plot to break the Endbringer truce by feeding villains to Leviathan in an ill-conceived scheme to get a one-on-one fight with him; Armsmaster retaliates by revealing Taylor's attempted undercover operation. Later, Tattletale confesses that she knew all along about Taylor's intentions, but kept them hidden because she believed she could turn her; she invites Taylor to rejoin the team on different terms. She also informs Taylor of Coil's true power, to live in two timelines at once, discarding one and splitting the other as he desires; we briefly see this in action, and learn that he sometimes uses it to live out antisocial fantasies consequence-free as a form of stress relief. The extra materials section contains the fourth chapter of Triumvirate, detailing the Behemoth attack on Marun and the ensuing foundation of the Protectorate.

The Slaughterhouse Arc:

VII: Elaborate Euphemisms. Published in October 2002; titled for a line from Frank Herbert's Homecoming Saga. After a brief look at the Protectorate and Wards (who are in shambles, like most of Brockton Bay's institutions, after the deaths of Challenger, Velocity, Aegis, and Gallant), the issue concerns a heist in which the Undersiders (including a new member, Imp, Grue's sister) abduct Shadow Stalker and subject her to Regent's true power, full body control. They infiltrate the PRT and sabotage its computer network for Coil; a fight with world-class Tinker hero Dragon ensues. The issue builds up the seemingly-distant threat of the Slaughterhouse Nine; it opens with the heroes investigating a string of murders apparently characteristic of the Nine, and near the end, Coil warns the Undersiders about them, and we get Dinah's prophecy that Jack Slash is nearly certain to end the world somehow. The issue also shows us a darker side of Alec (Regent), who we'd previously known as mild comic relief; it's emphasized here that he's Heartbreaker's son, as he terrorizes and abuses Sophia far beyond what his teammates realize he's doing. The extra materials section is a rambling and esoteric piece of autobiographical verse by Dragon, in which she discusses three men she hates: her father, Andrew Richter, her would-be captor, Geoffrey Pellick, and the creator of the Birdcage, Eric Baumann. The language she uses is heavy on cryptic symbolism, and making sense of it requires some information from a bit later in the story.

VIII: A Breeze Goes Round The World. Published in November 2002; titled for a line from Norton Juster's Flatland about the butterfly effect (though it predates that term). This issue interweaves a Taylor plot (in which we see how she's managing her territory, since Coil assigned each Undersider and each Traveler to control a section of Brockton Bay) with numerous side stories about the Slaughterhouse Nine arriving in Brockton Bay and choosing their candidates for recruitment. Jack Slash torments Theo Anders (amusingly, Theo, not Jack, is Moore's cynical take on Charlton Comics character Jack Michelmore, "the One For All", an underdog who was consistently bullied and degraded specifically for his lack of superpowers). Shatterbird, the most consistently successful recruiter, goes after Hookwolf. The Siberian tempts Rachel, and Bonesaw pushes Amy over the mental edge, leading to her falling-out with Victoria. Taylor and Lisa infiltrate a Merchant event, where they witness a trigger event and get a tease of Cauldron info. Burnscar nearly kills Faultline's crew on her way to visit Labyrinth, and Cherish nominates her half-brother, Alec, out of spite. Dinah does everything she can to keep Crawler from wiping out Coil's base, and Mannequin lurks. The issue has a strong underlying theme of chaotic systems of cause and effect; Jack explicitly discusses this with Theo, Dinah thinks about it, and Shamrock's power is in focus, but moreover, all of the little stories in the issue interact with one another in many subtle ways, most of which the characters are unaware of. Many of these events are precipitated by a mysterious woman representing Cauldron (who we will later identify as Contessa); the issue ends with her delivering a message to Battery. The extra materials section contains a grim retrospective on Ziz's first appearance in Lausanne, with interviews with survivors and analysis of the ongoing ramifications for humanity; it emphasizes that it's easy to turn into a conspiracy-minded paranoiac by overthinking Ziz.

IX: The Same Species. Published in December 2002; titled for a line from J. D. Salinger's Natural Born Killers, a book notorious for its popularity with unhinged murderers, such as John Lennon's assassin, who was obsessed with it. (John Hinckley also had a copy in his hotel room, although it's dubious whether he actually meaningfully connected with it; infamously, his attempted assassination of Reagan was actually motivated by his obsession with child actress Jodie Foster, which developed after he watched Martin Scorsese's Pretty Baby.) This issue covers the start of open conflict with the Slaughterhouse Nine. The heroes and villains meet to coordinate against the Nine, but Hookwolf pushes the Undersiders and the Travelers out of this process (citing the unsolved murder of Rune, among other points). They then go to discuss strategies among themselves, and the Travelers turn out to be experienced tacticians. The Nine appear and Tattletale thinks fast to draw Jack into a wager to buy Brockton Bay more time; Taylor warns as many civilians as she can about an impending Shatterbird attack. The issue is bookended with Mannequin encounters; it opens with his breaking into Armsmaster's home and nearly killing him (this precipitates Dragon confessing to Armsmaster her origin, namely that she is a Tinker-created AI), and it ends with Skitter winning a fight with Mannequin and pushing him out of her territory. There is also a subplot where Scion considers how his one-sided relationship with Kevin Norton deteriorated and they fell out of contact for years. The extra materials section contains some of Hookwolf's files - schedules and betting ledgers from a parahuman fighting ring, a brief history of the English colonization of Brockton Bay, an old Medhall brochure with Empire meeting notes written on it, and some far-right neopagan texts.

X: A System Of Blue-And-Red Neon Tubes. Published in January 2003; titled for a line from Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five in which protagonist John Yossarian discusses the problem of pain. This issue covers the most intense section of fighting between the Undersiders and the Slaughterhouse Nine, in which Cherish and Shatterbird are captured, Grue is tortured and undergoes a second trigger event, and Burnscar is killed. Brian's (ultimately temporary) fate worse than death is easily one of the best-known images from Worm Turns, and spawned the fandom term "men in refrigerators" in reference to the dark age of comic books. The issue also contains a major turning point in the Scion lore: he explicitly considers what's happening in Brockton Bay - what's happening to Brian - notices that there's about to be a second trigger event, and decides that no further intervention is necessary. Armsmaster, meanwhile, becomes a cyborg and grows much closer to Dragon. The extra materials section contains Dr. Jessica Yamada's notes on her sessions with the Brockton Bay Wards.

XI: Everything Is Its Mirror Image. Published in February 2003; titled for a metafictional line from Joyce Carol Oates' Funny Games. This issue contains the end of the Slaughterhouse Nine's time in Brockton Bay; Siberian's weakness is exposed, Mannequin, Crawler, and Battery are killed, Cherish is subjected to something far worse, Bonesaw releases a neurotoxic plague (or "miasma") to induce mass confusion, Jack Slash drives Amy to madness, and the remaining Nine leave Brockton Bay with Hookwolf. After Mannequin's death, Armsmaster meditates on his own trigger event and his personal failings. The extra materials section contains a roster for a competitive Monsters In Mazes tournament, a fictional tabletop wargame, followed by a newspaper clipping. One team, from Madison, Wisconsin, has been hastily removed from the roster. The news article indicates that this team was a group of teenagers who all died (or at least went missing) in an apartment building collapse. One of their mothers, Katherine Newland, local PTA leader, blames Monsters In Mazes for their deaths. The small fragments of other articles at the edges of the clipping suggest that these documents are not from Earth Bet, the primary setting of Worm Turns.

XII: Sorry I Could Not Travel Both. Published in March 2003; titled for a line from Borges' House of Leaves. This issue covers the aftermath of the Slaughterhouse Nine's time in Brockton Bay, and emphasizes Coil as the most relevant threat to Taylor. Per her deal with Jack, Amy rapes and mutilates Victoria for days, and then demands to be sent to the Birdcage so that she can't undo any of the damage she's done; she accepts that she's Marquis's daughter. In between several missions she performs for Coil, Taylor begins dating Brian, and they have sex. Armsmaster takes on a new identity as Dragon's sidekick Defiant, and the PRT is too desperate for manpower to object. Tattletale warns Taylor that Coil is apparently planning to kill her after she intimidates the mayor for him; indeed, after she does so, Coil flips a coin and calls up Uber, who has a sniper rifle trained on her. This issue has a subtle gimmick, which very few readers pick up on, at least on their first read; subtle continuity irregularities indicate that the odd-numbered pages and the even-numbered pages are set in slightly different diverging timelines. We effectively have a Coil's-eye-view of this issue. This is the only issue of Worm Turns in which neither Scion nor Kevin Norton appear, even as a cameo. The extra materials section contains torn pages from a Lone Wolf gamebook written by John Shade. Although theoretically written as a gamebook, the excerpts we receive provide us with only a single linear iteration of the story, which travels through only odd-numbered sections. The second-person protagonist, the titular Lone Wolf, dies miserable, humiliated, and alone; the narrator taunts us for being unable to go back and select a different path in real life.

The Cut Ties Arc:

XIII: The Tree Of The Knowledge Of Good And Evil. Published in June 2003; titled for the concept from the Biblical book of Metamorphoses. This issue is set after a short time skip; for weeks, Taylor has maintained and further entrenched Coil's control of Brockton Bay's villain scene. Coil stages his own death as part of a successful gambit to take over Brockton Bay's PRT department in his civilian identity as Thomas Calvert. (Calvert had previously been referenced several times as a PRT consultant with whom Piggot had unpleasant history.) He plans to covertly assassinate Skitter and enslave Lisa alongside Dinah, but Leet's power sabotages the assassination attempt, giving Taylor the opportunity to (barely) escape with her life. The Undersiders (mostly Lisa) trick Calvert into selecting a timeline where he is already in a losing position, cornered, his mercenaries occupied elsewhere or paid off. He tries everything he can to escape, but he is inevitably killed by Taylor; this activates a dead man's switch that enrages and releases Noelle, the most powerful and unstable of the Travelers. Tattletale sets to work repurposing Coil's criminal infrastructure for her own ends and prepares for the fight with Noelle; Taylor returns Dinah to her family. For just a moment, Taylor is tempted to exploit Dinah's power instead of completing the rescue mission she'd been working towards for months; before Dinah leaves, she gives Taylor a note. Like Sorry I Could Not Travel Both, this issue thematically centers on Coil; they're counterparts to each other, with the twelfth issue focusing on Coil at his most threatening and superhuman and the thirteenth focusing on him at his weakest and most mortal. The extra materials section contains Cauldron's lab notes on some of their strongest parahumans, including Coil, Doormaker, the Clairvoyant, and Eidolon.

XIV: The Analysis And Improvement Of The Self. Published in July 2003; titled for the conclusion of Camus's essay The Myth of Narcissus. ("The analysis and improvement of the self is enough to fill a man's days. One must imagine Narcissus happy.") This issue covers Noelle's rampage and death; much of it is told from her perspective, with numerous flashbacks, mostly to her time on Earth Aleph as the gamemaster for the team who would become the Travelers. The fight goes as badly as any Endbringer fight - in fact, Noelle (or "Echidna") is a plan of Ziz's - and it only goes worse because of the Protectorate's involvement. Eidolon deliberately escalates the fight in a futile effort to reawaken his full powers, and for his trouble, he gets Cauldron's involvement in the Protectorate leaked (ultimately doing more damage to the Protectorate than the deaths in the fight did). Tattletale arranges for a portal to send the Travelers home to Earth Aleph (and economically reinvigorate Brockton Bay). Taylor persuades Sundancer to put Noelle out of her misery, which wins the fight; Vista is one of several hostages who dies as a result, something Taylor did not see fit to tell Sundancer. The standing portal is set to return Brockton Bay to wealth and prosperity (eventually), but the Protectorate is on the verge of collapsing. The extra materials section contains the PRT's briefings on a few of the extant S-class threats - the Endbringers, the Slaughterhouse Nine, Nilbog, the Machine Army, the Yangban, Pastor, Deader and Goner ("the raincoat kids"), and Sleeper. Sleeper's entry is mostly covered by a memo from Rebecca Costa-Brown denying S-class threat status to Echidna.

XV: A Blank Space For You, My Child. Published in August 2003; titled for a line from Mozart and Da Ponte's opera, Il Diario della Morte. This is the issue where Taylor gets outed as Skitter; it also constitutes a return and capstone to Taylor's bullying storyline. It opens with a flashback revealing how Emma fell in with Sophia and adopted her pseudo-Nietzschean philosophy, after she was saved from a group of criminals by Sophia-as-Shadow-Stalker. In the present day, Taylor is summoned to Arcadia High by her old acquaintance Greg, who has pieced together who she is and intends to cut himself in somehow or another. Taylor aggressively shuts this down and intimidates him, and then finds that Emma has lost her social status over the past few months and is no longer able to effectively bully her. However, she is held up for just long enough that Dragon and Defiant (on orders from Dinah and the PRT) are able to corner and out her; she escapes from the building thanks to the overwhelming support of the schoolchildren, who've seen the positive impact that her criminal operations have had on Brockton Bay. News of this travels far and fast, and she's only able to contact her father for a split second before the police presence becomes too thick for her to stay. Meanwhile, Kevin Norton contacts Scion for the first time in years; he explains that he's dying and that he's worried that Scion has failed to kill the Endbringers because he told him to "fight" them rather than "kill" them all those years ago. The extra materials section contains a hostile retrospective of The Curse Of The Pale Fire written by fictional comics historian Gerald Emerald; Emerald reflects on the decline in comic book sales since the emergence of real parahumans, and blames the predatory management practices of Charles Kinbote for the stagnation of the post-cape comics scene. The article is followed by a handwritten response letter from Professor V. Botkin, who is fairly unhinged and an obvious pseudonym of Kinbote's.

XVI: The Glow Of Each Other's Majestic Presence. Published in September 2003; titled for a line from John Lennon's song Ana Ng. In-between several fights with the PRT and out-of-town villains in which she decisively demonstrates her control of Brockton Bay, Taylor visits her mother's grave and closely studies all of her teammates (including new recruits Parian and Foil). After being rebuffed by Tattletale (who has a sense of what Taylor is planning and does not particularly like it), Taylor talks Brian and Rachel into a threesome. She mistakenly believes that this went well, and decides that her team will be able to stand without her; she turns herself in to the PRT, and we see that Dinah's note from The Tree Of The Knowledge Of Good And Evil read "Cut ties. I'm sorry." Meanwhile, Dragon and Defiant angst about how Dragon's poorly-conceived programming forced her to behave unethically towards Skitter, and the two have sex beyond mortal comprehension as Defiant tries to upgrade her; Scion pressures Kevin into reading to him from The Curse Of The Pale Fire one last time, and considers healing Kevin even though he knows Kevin wouldn't approve of it. The extra materials section contains some pages from an old college fanzine for radical feminist vigilante Lustrum; the best segment is written by one Annette Rose Firth, who describes Lustrum in a way that sounds remarkably like an idealized Skitter.

XVII: Resigned. Published in October 2003; titled for a line from Franz Kafka's The Prisoner. Taylor attempts to negotiate with the PRT; she overplays her hand, and they call in Alexandria as a more experienced interrogator. Alexandria intends to bait Taylor into a response by staging the execution of the other Undersiders, but Taylor attacks Alexandria more suddenly than she expected, and kills her and PRT ENE Director Tagg. Scandalized and hoping to run damage control, the Protectorate blame Ziz for Alexandria's treachery, and make Taylor a probationary Ward under the name Weaver. Meanwhile, in the Birdcage, Amy meditates on the decisions and circumstances that led her here; she studies the nature of powers, and comes to a conclusion that she deems important; Ziz hacks into Dragon's network to prevent her from learning about it. The extra materials section contains some files from Director Tagg's desk, focused on Parian; there is a summary of the origins and purpose of NEPEA-5, and, trying to follow the letter of this poorly-conceived law, the PRT harasses Parian for months over her attempts to incorporate her power into her civilian business, even after Leviathan attacks and everyone in Brockton Bay is left fighting for their lives. Tagg apparently came to regret this by the time he died; he viewed Parian and Foil with some degree of sympathy even as they joined the Undersiders.

XVIII: Then Spoke The Thunder. Published in November 2003; titled for a line from Allen Ginsberg's The Waste Land. Though she's now in state custody, Taylor tries out for several different Wards teams across the country. In New York she fights the Adepts, a magician-themed initiation cult (Moore's authorial voice is felt very strongly here). In Las Vegas she fights mercenaries who turn out to be a distraction hired by Cauldron; Contessa intimidates Taylor by briefly describing her insurmountable power, to see and carry out "the path to victory". Taylor is doing a PR event with the Chicago Wards when she receives notice that Behemoth is emerging in New Delhi. The fight goes particularly terribly; Taylor violates her commanders' orders in order to meet up with the Undersiders and keep them safe, but Alec dies anyway. Just as the city is lost, Scion arrives and effortlessly kills Behemoth. The extra materials section contains excerpts from a Parahumans Online message board thread, discussing leaked video footage of the Behemoth fight in New Delhi. It's clear that the general public's access to this kind of footage had previously been kept very limited. This section has often been praised for forecasting the rise of online discourse about current events over the following decade; however, it was very much a projection of an existing trend.

The Gold Morning Arc:

XIX: Generation To Generation, To Eternity. Published in February 2004; titled for a line from the Biblical book of Enoch. This arc is a montage of short scenes that covers nearly two years of passing time. Taylor settles in with the Chicago Wards, and consults with the PRT's Image Director, Glenn Chambers. Theo, who made his debut as a parahuman in the final Behemoth fight, is gifted the rights to the cape name "Golem" by a lobbying group, but Glenn vetoes this, and sticks him with the comparably non-fraught cape name "Icon". The Endbringers prove to be like a hydra, fighting smarter to route around Scion's new lethal measures, and spawning two new Endbringers (Khonsu and the two-bodied Tohu Wa-Bohu) to replace Behemoth. Aisha stalks Heartbreaker and gaslights him into committing suicide, growing close to his children in the process and deciding to take them in afterwards. We see Bonesaw's perspective at several points throughout her work on the Slaughterhouse Nine's apocalyptic clone army, and we realize that she is a child soldier brainwashed by Jack; Contessa prods her to begin a redemption arc, but does not intervene to stop the clone army from developing. Scion considers Kevin Norton's grave from a distance, but decides not to visit it in person or pay his respects; he distances himself from humanity, and implies that he isn't a human. Jack is a few days late in emerging to end the world, and Taylor decides to visit Brockton Bay and reunite with the Undersiders. The extra materials section contains Tattletale's notes trying to piece together how the world is about to end; over the course of the section, she overworks her power and the writing devolves into venting, especially about Taylor.

XX: Nothing Gained Under The Sun. Published in March 2004; titled for a line from Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Ecclesiastes. This issue is centered on Scion's perspective, although brief decontextualized snippets of other scenes throughout the issue (with Scion's narration over them) depict the heroes warring with Jack's army of Slaughterhouse Nine clones. Scion explains his origins and his nature: his kind are multidimensional worm-like aliens that evolve through a "cycle" of stress-testing their powers through alien hosts and their conflicts; the end of the cycle entails destroying all versions of the host planet. Scion had a partner; he was the warrior and she was the thinker. As they arrived on Earth, she disappeared and apparently died; that was when Scion was left directionless. He almost gave into despair, accepting that entropy was unsolvable and life had no meaning, but Kevin Norton - and, more importantly, The Curse Of The Pale Fire - gave his simulated human psychology an anchor to hold onto for a time (if an unsustainable one). He never actually saw any point in doing good for its own sake; he was only playing a role, (poorly) imitating a heroic cultural archetype that Kevin Norton had conveyed to him. He remained depressed, and sunk further into it with time. Shortly before Jack's defeat, Scion arrived on the scene and was caught in a bubble of looping ECT spacetime by Grey Boy, the most dreaded Slaughterhouse Nine parahuman of all time. This gave Jack, and his shard, Broadcast, the opening to speak to him. Jack implores Scion to abandon heroism and become a monster - his kind's natural inclination. Scion is interested in the suggestion, and breaks out of the time bubble with ease. He doesn't even consider visiting Kevin Norton's appointed successor (a woman named Lisette). Instead, he decides that it's finally time to meet the creators of his favorite comic series - and he discovers that John Shade and Charles Kinbote died in a murder-suicide two years ago. (This was actually first referenced all the way back in The Dread Of Anticipation Of Events; a story about a murder-suicide in New Wye, Appalachia was playing on a TV in the background as Taylor lamented that she'd failed to piece together Dinah's kidnapping earlier, and it was interrupted later by the Endbringer sirens. This is also when Dinah's end-of-the-world prophecies started, though she first spoke aloud of them two issues later in Elaborate Euphemisms.) Scion takes this as decisive evidence of Jack's nihilistic philosophy, and immediately destroys Great Britain, killing tens of millions, with a single blast. The extra materials section contains pages of lengthy receipts, first for miniature props and then for more eclectic tools and materials. These are from immediately before and after Colin's trigger event. As he recounted earlier in Everything Is Its Mirror Image, as a young adult he obsessively poured all of his time and money into a pointless hobby project, a model railroad; he went into debt and ruined relationships over it, until he finally triggered when his parents forced him to destroy it on pain of disinheritance.

XXI: You Needed Worthy Opponents. Published in April 2004; the only chapter whose title is not a quote from an external source. Scion sets to work systematically and creatively undoing everything good he accomplished as a hero, killing and destroying and torturing; he does it with far more vigor than we've ever seen from him, though it's unclear how much he's enjoying himself and how much he's simply in the final stages of a breakdown. Taylor arrives in Brockton Bay and finds that Scion has already leveled it; her father is presumed dead. (It is also suggested that Emma committed suicide sometime during Generation To Generation, To Eternity.) All of the world's heroes meet and coordinate through Cauldron, who finally acknowledges that they were aware all along of Scion's nature and their sole mission was to find a way to kill him. Colin tries to maintain his composure as a hero, but hardly even cares about the end of the world; he's still reeling from Dragon's death at the hands of the hacker Saint, which we caught a glimpse of midway through Nothing Gained Under The Sun. All of the Birdcage's prisoners are released, and they stage an attack on Scion with a Tinker cannon capable of destroying planets; this only succeeds in angering him, and he kills hundreds of capes, including Clockblocker, most of the Chicago Wards, and Grue (although the Undersiders elect to conceal this last death from Taylor to keep her mentally stable). Taylor survives only by using a Tinker medication that turns her into a giant insect long enough for her to find Panacea for proper healing. Eidolon battles Scion one-on-one, and with Glaistig Uaine's help is surprisingly successful in doing so, until he lets his guard down when Scion says four words that completely demoralize him. It is up to the reader to piece together that those four unspecified words are the title of the issue. The extra materials section contains a manifesto that Glaistig Uaine left for the PRT after her final massacre in the 1990s, when she voluntarily submitted herself to the fledgling Birdcage.

XXII: Shining Artifacts Of The Past. Published in May 2004; titled for a line from Marilyn Manson's song Everybody Knows (Shit's Fucked). This is the most recent quote source Moore uses: the song came out after Worm Turns started; it was a 9/11 truther screed. Moore also slightly misquotes it; the original line was "everybody knows that the naked man and woman are just a shining artifact of the past", which Moore renders as "everybody knows that the naked man and woman are just shining artifacts of the past". Marilyn Manson was frequently and baselessly scapegoated for early school shootings. This issue focuses on Taylor recruiting the Endbringers to fight for humanity; their behavior suddenly changed after Eidolon's death, and Tattletale deduced that he must have created them subconsciously. A team of parahumans including the Undersiders, Sophia, Lung, and Canary approach Ziz; Tattletale does most of the talking. Taylor directs the Endbringers to attack several of the parahuman factions that refuse to cooperate with Cauldron; tens of thousands of people in the vicinity of these factions are killed. Ziz telepathically "sings" to Taylor and Tattletale all through that night. The next morning, Scion shows all parahumans a vision of his true size and power, to induce despair; Cauldron's system of portals (maintained by Doormaker and the Clairvoyant) suddenly stops working. Meanwhile, Colin approaches Saint, and his parahuman master, Teacher; he is forced to kill an enslaved Dragon, as Dragon had always made him promise he would under these circumstances. The extra materials section contains some liner notes for Canary's final unreleased album, Yellow, Though, which was confiscated by the PRT and deemed a cognitohazard when she was arrested for inducing her ex-boyfriend to maim himself.

XXIII: Compromise With Sin. Published in June 2004; titled for a line from Henry David Thoreau's The Present Crisis. This issue opens in flashback from the perspective of Scion's counterpart; we get a different perspective on the pair's plans for Earth. The thinker is distracted by some new powers she picked up from a third worm; she badly injures herself when she crash-lands on the Earth. At that point, we switch to the child Contessa's perspective, and we come to understand how she killed the thinker (with the assistance of an unpowered adult, who will become Cauldron's leader, Doctor Mother) and founded Cauldron on its corpse. We advance to the present, where Cauldron is being raided by an army of Case 53s, desperate for revenge in what will likely be the final moments of humanity. Contessa has been penned in by a Case 53, Mantellum, who is a general-purpose counter to powers. Taylor finds her way to Cauldron and massacres the Case 53s, angered by their short-sightedness in a time of crisis; one of them kills Doctor Mother anyway. Scion arrives, sees the corpse of his partner, and is enraged; the timetable for humanity's destruction is further accelerated. Taylor listens to a conversation between Bonesaw and Panacea, and demands that they modify her so she can express stronger powers and perhaps become an actual asset against Scion; Panacea complies. The extra materials section contains Cauldron's notes on some of their greatest failures (Grey Boy, an autistic child whose parents took him to Cauldron hoping a vial would cure or get rid of him; Deader and Goner, an S-class threat that Cauldron deliberately created in a scheme to sour the public on researching trigger events; a retrospective on the mental instability of Dr. Manton, who took clear sadistic joy in the experiments he did for Cauldron and who snapped because he was unwilling to allow his wife a divorce).

XXIV: The Conqueror Worm. Published in July 2004; titled for a line from Percy Bysshe Shelley's verse drama Ligeia. Taylor finds that her powers are changing and her mind is falling apart. Her range has shrunk, but she can now control humans - parahumans included - as though they were bugs. She finds Doormaker and the Clairvoyant, seizes control of almost all surviving parahumans, and sets to work figuring out how to kill Scion. Scion kills Leviathan. Tattletale eventually clues Taylor in that Scion is still vulnerable to psychological attacks, and she bullies him with images of his dead partner until he stops fighting and accepts death. Taylor has been desperately trying to hold onto her sanity with "anchors" of her human life, but it isn't working well; by the time she's saved humanity, she has become a paranoid and controlling wreck with no understanding of human behavior, all set to become the new greatest threat to humanity. Contessa communicates with her and persuades her to stop; she fells Taylor with two bullets to the head. We see an epilogue wherein the remains of humanity are starting to build themselves back up after Scion's rampage, as an advanced interdimensional civilization run by a superhero team called the Wardens. A general amnesty has been applied to any villains willing to cooperate, although the law isn't exactly all it used to be anyway. Colin has retired with a facsimile of Dragon he built; she isn't actually the original, but he's constantly tinkering around with her to make her, in his eyes, a better replica of her. Aisha cares for Alec's siblings, and works to ensure Alec is remembered; Rachel is in a happy relationship with her leading henchwoman, closely paralleling Parian and Foil. Contessa meets with the Undersiders and Dinah, and tells them a story, which rings true, that she used her power to perform brain surgery to fix Taylor, and deposited her on Earth Aleph - now sealed away from the rest of the multiverse, and therefore safe from anyone who might come after her for revenge - with a surviving version of her father. Tattletale politely accepts the story, but after Contessa leaves, she points out that Contessa could convince anyone of anything; Dinah is distraught by the idea, but Tattletale simply encourages everyone to focus on rebuilding. There is no extra materials section; instead, the issue is simply longer than the others.

Worm Turns has been printed in various editions by Marvel Comics perpetually since its original release, and it's always a top seller. Although it sometimes has a reputation as cynical, edgy, and pointlessly depressing - especially among diehard fans of older and more traditional superhero comics - Worm Turns is an extremely popular entry-level comic, and is often the only comic someone has ever read. It's just seen as somewhat higher-brow than the usual fare.

Although it was hardly the first superhero deconstruction - those are nearly as old as the genre itself - Worm Turns is generally accepted as the high water mark of the form. Practically every character is a take on some comic book archetype, and the main POV characters in particular represent increasingly severe takes on the comics industry. Taylor Hebert is Spider-Man-as-potential-school-shooter, yes, but she's also the ordinary comics fan, fetishizing characters more legibly disprivileged than herself, seeking escape in a system that's actually much less savory than she'd like to believe, being made worse by that system and making the system worse in turn. Colin Wallis is punchclock-middle-manager-Iron-Man, but he's also the obsessive traditionalist collector, a tool of a system that profits off of him but resents his dysfunctions; he's the kind of person that cares much more about things than people - in the autistic special interest sense, not the corporate greed sense - and he is ultimately able to find love only through an artificial facsimile, a product he has to restore and customize and make his own when it loses outside support (and its soul). Scion is blank-slate-and-mass-murderer-Superman, but he's also the leaders and decisionmakers of the industry, the beneficiary of an iterative cycle of exploitation, totally detached from the little people and from storytelling itself - their understanding of the work is childlike, well below the level of the man on the street - and prone to destroying untold livelihoods in fits of apathy, bad moods, or "ideas".

Taylor is a very popular character, but much of that popularity is misaimed, stripped of nuance. She was written to be more loathsome and miserable than the usual everyman - relatable, sure, but in an ugly-funhouse-mirror kind of way. She's characterized by many pronounced and unexamined bigotries - a slur-laden rant early on at a teacher she perceives as complicit in her bullying stands out - as well as a more general misanthropy; it's key to understanding Worm Turns that Taylor was on a knife's edge between becoming a superhero and just killing everyone at Winslow High. Even Taylor's experience with bullying - one of the more sympathetic aspects of her character - is a bit ambiguous; in any case Sophia Hess isn't actually a particularly less sympathetic character than Taylor Hebert, just one that receives less narrative focus, an earlier step in a chain of abuse. Alan Moore has expressed his disgust with the fan following Taylor has received; Skitter figurines are always selling out.

Pop culture is awash in references to Worm Turns. Although Superman is the third-most-popular superhero out there, "Scion-like" is nearly as common a description as "Superman-like" for the comics archetype of the all-powerful alien in human form. Lady Gaga's music videos for Pumped Up Kicks and Psycho Killer both feature visual nods to Worm Turns. It's pretty common to see the scarab-with-sun Khepri symbol, which is used throughout the comic's title sequences and which is contextualized in its final pages as the pin for Gold Morning survivors. Multiple high-profile politicians have quoted Alexandria's monologue to Taylor and it was so cringe every single time.

Worm Turns has faced a number of challenges from media watchdog groups, something predicted by the text itself, which is quite concerned with the impact media may or may not have on its audience. Pundits have been trying to convince the public that Worm Turns was dangerous since 2002, although no actual crime was linked to it. Unsurprisingly, Worm Turns is one of the comics most frequently banned by name from schools. America being America, the sex is cited about as often as the violence, despite the comic containing much more violence than sex. None of this had any bearing on its sales, and it probably even improved them; the Comics Code Authority was long past its relevance by the early 2000s.

THE WORM TURNS COMPANION

Three Worm Turns sourcebooks have been released - supplements for the otherwise-obscure tabletop roleplaying game GURPS. These are collectively noteworthy as the only extratextual Worm Turns media that Alan Moore was ever personally involved with. Of the three sourcebooks, the final one, The Worm Turns Companion, is by far the most noteworthy; it compiles the first two books, and it dwarfs them.

The first Worm Turns sourcebook, Worm Turns: Cops & Robbers, was released in May 2003. It assumes that players will want to run campaigns revolving around canon characters in Brockton Bay; it mostly consists of stat blocks for (some) characters introduced in the first half of Worm Turns. It also includes several in-universe documents written by Glenn Chambers, similar to the documents that cap off Worm Turns issues, and a sample campaign set two years before the story, in which a team of villains known as the Chorus must be driven out of the city.

The second Worm Turns sourcebook, Worm Turns: Unwritten Rules, was released in August 2004, as a very direct expansion featuring characters omitted from the first sourcebook or introduced in the second half of Worm Turns. The focus is still presumed to be on Brockton Bay, but less exclusively than it was in Cops & Robbers; between these first two volumes, every major Worm Turns character and many minor characters are accounted for. The sample campaign is set during Generation To Generation, To Eternity, and centers on Cauldron intrigue.

The final and complete Worm Turns sourcebook, The Worm Turns Companion, was released in February 2005, on the three year anniversary of Wings Off Flies. It's nearly the length of Worm Turns itself; targeted at experienced GMs, it's practically a full translation of Alan Moore's two decades of notes on the Worm Turns setting into a polished RPG sourcebook format. In addition to detailed information on many aspects of the world's history - the class politics of the King's Men and the Suits in England, the US/Cauldron jointly-backed coup that ushered in the CUI, the disarmament and impoverishment of Russia by an ostensibly-still-heroic Scion, exactly what was going on with Earth Shin, a full accounting of Endbringer attacks and their most obvious consequences, and much more - the book contains an elaborate guide on making new characters that fit in the Worm Turns setting. Particular attention is paid to the esoteric connections between types of trigger event, types of shard, and types of power, as well as to the nitty-gritty mechanics of playing a Tinker in the long term. Some example characters, like Smokey Bandit and Sweet Valentine, receive full stories of their own, designed to illustrate how various aspects of play function.

Unfortunately, this was the last piece of Worm Turns media that Moore would have a hand in. Late in the process of writing Worm Turns, Moore realized that the contract he had signed with Marvel included hidden unfavorable terms that would give Marvel the full IP rights to Worm Turns in perpetuity. He initially hoped that this was a mistake, but in the process of trying to resolve the issue, he determined that he had been deliberately conned by the company and that they refused to make it right. After finishing Worm Turns, Moore swore never to work with Marvel again.

At this point, The Worm Turns Companion is probably the main reason GURPS is still in-print.

WORM TURNS ARC 1

When Alan Moore first entered the public eye as the greatest writer in comics, Hollywood began looking for ways to tap his talent for the big screen. This did not go as smoothly as one might hope. Throughout the 1990s, Moore developed a reputation in the film industry for being "difficult to work with". He had very high artistic standards and paid close attention to how his work was being used. Millions of dollars were spent on test work for several iterations of a Sandman movie that never materialized.

Throughout the early 2000s, as Moore was finalizing and releasing Worm Turns, four film adaptations of his work were developed simultaneously; they were released from 2001 to 2005. Every single one of these films was disowned by Moore during production. The first two, the Hughes Brothers' String of Pearls and Stephen Norrington's Pagemaster, were critically panned. Pagemaster in particular inspired Sean Connery to retire from acting because of its incompetent production, and Moore was soured on the Hollywood system by an incident in which a copyright troll obtained a settlement from 20th Century Fox by frivolously alleging that the film plagiarized his unproduced script The Universal Library. The latter two adaptations, the Wachowski Sisters' Threads and Francis Lawrence's Dr. Strange, were better-received, but Moore still loathed his involvement with them, and refused to be credited. These experiences, particularly on Dr. Strange, put a strain on Moore's relationship with Marvel, and foreshadowed his 2004 break with them when he discovered that they'd screwed him on the Worm Turns contract.

By that point, Hollywood's vultures were already circling on adapting Worm Turns to film. It was by far Moore's most popular work, and the most straightforward in genre of his original works. Marvel received and rejected their first pitch for a Worm Turns film in July of 2002; it would have been a soft PG-13 action-comedy oriented towards families and directed by "someone like Steven Spielberg". This would have been difficult to recognize as Worm Turns; it would have involved excising most of the thematic elements, the death, the Nazis, and the institutional criticism of the heroes, and it would have featured a new happy ending in which Taylor comes clean to her father after only a few weeks of villainy. Marvel's decisionmakers recognized at the time that this would be a waste of Worm Turns' potential, and rejected several similar treatments over the following years.

When Worm Turns concluded in 2004, Marvel, under heavy pressure from their corporate parent Time Warner, finally found a team they were satisfied with for a Worm Turns film series. The script for Arc 1, written by David Hayter (better known as the lead voice actor for Hideo Kojima's Jack Ryan), was widely lauded within Hollywood as a masterpiece. However, he left the project during another round of restructuring. Darren Aronofsky (best known for A Beautiful Mind) was initially attached to direct, but left to focus on Cloud Atlas.

The final attempt at getting Worm Turns Arc 1 off the ground began in early 2006, when Warner Brothers hired Zack Snyder fresh off of Gods Of Egypt. Snyder had screenwriter Alex Tse revise Hayter's script, generally bringing it closer to Moore's comic; per Snyder, he frequently ignored Tse's script as well as Hayter's, instead treating the comic panels themselves as a storyboard and running off of that, producing an adaptation that many would call "shot-for-shot". (Other visual references Snyder cited include Martin Scorsese's Atlantic City and David Fincher's The Usual Suspects.) Snyder was a powerhouse of a director, pushing through many hours of finished footage, much of it quite expensive, by the film's 2008 theatrical release. In the process, he frequently fought off Warner Brothers suits who wanted him to tone the film down to obtain a PG-13 rating and greater traditional marketability.

Financially, Worm Turns Arc 1 was by far the most successful Moore adaptation, and it set some box office records for R-rated films. However, Hollywood accounting enabled it to be labeled as a flop internally, and its performance compares poorly to other films based on Marvel comics. The critical response was lukewarm; it was often considered an overly literal "cargo cult" adaptation of Moore's comic that slavishly imitated its form without understanding it. Still, though, it was popular with the general public; Worm Turns is a very popular comic, but far more people have watched Worm Turns Arc 1. The film began lead actress Anna Kendrick's typecasting as an action star; other standout cast members include Robin Williams (a big fan of the comic) as Armsmaster and Amanda Seyfried (Clueless) as Tattletale.

Three cuts of Worm Turns Arc 1 are available. The theatrical cut is 155 minutes. The director's cut, included on the initial DVD release, is 190 minutes and includes many additional sequences from the comic, like Tattletale analyzing Bakuda's likely trigger event, Taylor and Brian assembling furniture, and the murder of Rune. The so-called "complete cut", released a few months later on a special edition DVD, is a whopping 208 minutes, which it accomplishes entirely by adding additional scenes with Scion, Kevin Norton, and The Curse Of The Pale Fire.

When Warner Brothers originally greenlit Worm Turns Arc 1, the plan was ostensibly to do four films, each covering a quarter of the graphic novel. When the film released, this was officially still the plan; at times, Worm Turns Arc 2 even had a slot in the public release schedule. However, one by one, factors shifted such that continuing the film series was no longer considered profitable; Zack Snyder was quickly shuffled over to the fledgling Marvel Comics Cinematic Universe, the younger actors began to outgrow their parts, and Robin Williams left the project due to his declining health. In truth, it's likely that the studio only intended to make one Worm Turns film from the start; the first quarter of the story was certainly the most marketable one. However, if things had gone just a little bit differently, we could at least have wound up with a Worm Turns Arc 2. Tim Burton was attached to direct at one point; he would have had Johnny Depp as Jack Slash and Helena Bonham Carter as Shatterbird. However, he left the project early in order to commit to Disney's "live-action" reboot of Satellite City.

WORM TURNS: MOTION COMIC

As one of several promotional tie-ins for the film Worm Turns Arc 1, Warner Brothers commissioned a motion comic adaptation of the film. This is a curiosity which is not commonly watched; episodes average about 40 minutes. They're very direct (though abridged) adaptations of Moore's comic, with very limited animation and all voices provided by prolific audiobook narrator Josephine Bailey.

The first six episodes were released over a few months, immediately ahead of Worm Turns Arc 1's 2008 release. The remaining eighteen episodes were finished around the same time, but remained in limbo for quite some time: there were rumors that episodes seven through twelve would release for Worm Turns' tenth anniversary in early 2012, but nothing came of this. Ultimately, episodes seven through twenty-four all finally released in 2017 and 2018 to promote Destination Agreement. By that time, the Worm Turns Arc 2 movie was long dead in the water; it had been the hold-up.

Although it's technically neat to see how they did it, the Worm Turns motion comic is not a very popular adaptation among either casual fans or diehards. The motion comic isn't really any easier to digest than the comic proper. While most of the abridgement choices are fairly minor and take-it-or-leave-it, the omission of all of the extra materials sections in their entirety guts a substantial portion of the original books' content. It's an interesting experiment, but not really the recommended Worm Turns reading experience.

WORM TEENS, AND OTHER WORM TURNS PARODIES

Allegedly, Alan Moore has only ever expressed approval for one adaptation of his work: Worm Teens, an animated short created by YouTuber Harry Partridge and released within days of Worm Turns Arc 1. The short parodies old censored television cartoons, like the Teen Titans show from the '90s, and imagines a version of Worm Turns contorted into that format. The Undersiders, here called the Worm Teens, are depicted as carefree superheroes who don't do anything; Coil and his adopted daughter Dinah call them up when the city needs saving. There are many nods to the dark content of the original comic - Skitter is shown babysitting Aster, Grue is portrayed as a big eater and said to spend much of his time in the fridge, "Heck Hound" third-wheels a date, Regent is seen trying to woo Shadow Stalker. "It's fun to hang with Tattletale." Parian and Foil are identified as sisters. Villains like Empire 88 and the Slaughterhouse Nine are depicted as run-of-the-mill inoffensive weekly fodder, and the Protectorate seem to be mere rivals of the Worm Teens. Taylor is chiefly characterized as gleefully setting bugs on civilians she is supposed to be saving.

At this point, I might as well talk about other parodic takes on Worm Turns. A few weeks after Worm Turns Arc 1 premiered, a one-shot indie comic called Lock Turns was released to mixed reviews. It's a dull, crude, vindictive parody of the original comic, and chiefly exists to mock Alan Moore's struggles with the entertainment industry. It follows "Scooter" (a version of Taylor who controls small vehicles, and is a mean-spirited "allegory" for Alan Moore), "Baitmaster" (Colin as a fishing-themed Tinker), and "Zion" (Scion badly pretending to be Jewish as part of his human disguise); Scooter complains about how the system is taking advantage of her and her art, while Baitmaster tries to figure out why comics have gotten so edgy and tryhard lately. Ultimately, the message of the comic is pro-bullying (perhaps ironically? dubious); the characters conclude that bad comics come from people who never got over getting bullied in high school, and that they should have been bullied even more in high school to disabuse them of the notion that they have anything to say. "It's lockers all the way down." Zion convinces Scooter to kill herself with the words "no one cares, nerd"; the city rejoices and starts reading more traditional comics. It isn't exactly high art.

Quite a few moments from Worm Turns have become memes. Taylor's opening monologue from Wings Off Flies about how much she hates her classmates is a common copypasta, and a Scion line from Nothing Gained Under The Sun is similarly ubiquitous: "I am tired of Earth. These people. I am tired of being caught in the tangle of their lives." One especially popular Worm Turns meme format is the sequence from You Needed Worthy Opponents where Scion kills Eidolon; speech bubbles are added to the close-up panels of Scion's mouth. The most common version of this format has him kill Eidolon with the words "Steve Jobs has ligma"; instead of suspecting that Scion has Contessa's power, Eidolon spends his final moments wondering who Steve Jobs is. An early rejected script for Worm Turns Arc 1 leaked at some point, and it's mostly known for its opening line:

EMMA Take that, you worm!

WORM TURNS: DRAGONSLAYER

Warner Brothers licensed several video games to promote Worm Turns Arc 1. Of these, the only one with any noteworthy story to speak of is Worm Turns: Dragonslayer, a two-part release. The developer, the appropriately-named Deadline Games, went bankrupt during production, but the game was completed and published nonetheless, with the first episode releasing in 2008 and the second in 2009.

The comic's artist, J. H. Williams III, who generally took a kinder view of adaptations than Moore, consulted on Dragonslayer's story. Though it generally tried to play coy with the timeline, it isn't hard for a Worm Turns reader to piece together that Dragonslayer is set during the timeskip between Sorry I Could Not Travel Both and The Tree Of The Knowledge Of Good And Evil. The games tell an original story in which the Undersiders are pursued by a team of robots that Dragon is prototyping. Cutscenes are rendered in the style of the Worm Turns motion comic; regular gameplay is a fairly rudimentary squad-based RTS. There are two endings depending on whether the player chooses to employ the Dragonslayers' services; although one ending is darker than the other, they are equally compatible with the events of the original comic, and it is unclear which ending, if either, is supposed to be canon.

The games received mixed to negative reviews.

WORM TURNS: THE CURSE OF THE PALE FIRE

David Hayter's screenplay for Worm Turns Arc 1 faithfully recreated the comic-within-a-comic that Alan Moore wrote, The Curse Of The Pale Fire. When Zack Snyder took over the project, he was excited to film these segments; Tse's revision of the script also included them. It became apparent that filming them as Snyder intended - in stylized live-action, similar to Gods Of Egypt - would put the film over budget. Snyder decided to have The Curse Of The Pale Fire animated instead, in a simple and affordable style, which was probably a better artistic decision anyway. It much more closely resembles a comic book than it otherwise would have.

Unfortunately, Worm Turns was running over time, not just over budget, and so these interludes were cut from the film anyway. Snyder had, after all, wound up making the film nearly three and a half hours long; a lot needed to be cut. The Curse Of The Pale Fire only appears as an easily-missed background prop in a few spots in the final cut.

Snyder decided to salvage the animated scenes he'd commissioned by turning them into a promotional tie-in product. This actually entailed animating quite a bit more than he had originally, because he wanted a full self-contained Pale Fire story; this involved drawing from all of Worm Turns, not just its first quarter. Worm Turns: The Curse Of The Pale Fire went direct-to-DVD in 2008, just a few weeks after the premiere of Worm Turns Arc 1. At more than forty minutes, it's just a bit too long to qualify as a short film.

Within the world of Worm Turns, The Curse Of The Pale Fire is a long-running serialized comic about the adventures of a mysterious warrior trekking through a land foreign to him; he is secretly a deposed king, on a neverending quest to retake his rightful place on the usurped throne of Zembla. Worm Turns: The Curse Of The Pale Fire is actually only an animated adaptation of a single episode in this journey; the title of the particular storyline, in-universe, is actually Widowed.

While passing through a village, the King of Zembla (voiced by Jackie Earle Haley, who also plays Kevin Norton in Snyder's film) has a chance encounter with a stranger who seeks the Pale Fire; they travel together for a time as companions. The Pale Fire figures into most Curse Of The Pale Fire plots; it's an abstract Promethean artifact through which the gods whisper words of wisdom, power, and madness. It had a hand in the usurpation of the throne of Zembla. The stranger believes that he can use the Pale Fire to bring his wife back from the dead, but the King of Zembla knows from experience that it brings only ruin, and he intends to seal or destroy it.

The two trade stories and rumors back and forth, hoping to convince the other of their perspective. The King of Zembla eventually reveals his nobility, and the stranger in turn admits that he is a peasant putting on airs. The stranger becomes increasingly crazed and the two come to blows; it is ambiguous which one provoked this conflict. It's a close fight, but as usual the King wins. He actually mourns the stranger, eulogizing him as another victim of the Pale Fire's madness.

METAMORPHOSIS, AND POST-WORM TURNS ALAN MOORE

As I have already said, Worm Turns came late in Alan Moore's career, publishing from 2002 to 2004. All of his other commonly-cited works are older. Although this is partly attributable to Moore's aging, it's also pretty clear that the betrayal by Marvel took a lot out of him. Aside from the concluding half of Pagemaster (The Crimson Hexagon, Pagemaster Millennium, The Silver Trilogy, and Pagemaster Mousetrap), Moore's work post-2004 is all obscure. As of 2017, he has retired.

Metamorphosis, from 2010, is probably the most noteworthy of Moore's later and more obscure comics; it's a self-described work of pornography, although its literary sophistication leaves it as a frequent sticking point in debates on art and obscenity. Moore's collaborator for Metamorphosis was his second wife, illustrator and writer Melinda Gebbie, who he married in 2007; the two grew close in the '90s producing underground comics, generally with a feminist and pornographic bent. Throughout the latter half of Moore's career, Gebbie frequently contributed; she even has a few credits in Worm Turns' extra materials sections.

Marvel's lawyers attempted to threaten Moore, Gebbie, and their publisher, Top Shelf Productions, for trying to devalue the Worm Turns IP, but their bluff was called because they didn't have a case. Moore and Gebbie begun work on the comic that would become Metamorphosis in 1998 at the latest. Any similarities between Metamorphosis and Worm Turns are very incidental and superficial. Moore has said that Metamorphosis is less an anti-Worm Turns than an anti-Pagemaster, although it isn't clear exactly what he meant by this; he was still working on Pagemaster at the time, and Metamorphosis does not share its conceit. Metamorphosis is frequently challenged or banned; many book stores refuse to carry it because its legal status in some jurisdictions is unclear. On a pettier internet drama level, it's been against site policy to have a page for Metamorphosis on the Evil Overlord List Wiki ever since their 2012 smut purges.

The plot of Metamorphosis, such as it is, is firmly situated in the magical realist genre, and concerns an international cast of characters who meet in the coastal tourist town of Atrani, Italy in 1989. The town's labyrinthine architecture and layout are greatly exaggerated, producing surreal and shifting scenes. The protagonist, Saki Yoshida, is an addicted and trafficked prostitute and a single mother; she recalls in soul-crushing detail how she was systematically abused and abandoned by everyone in her life again and again. She is fleeing from a demon that can change its face and possess people, a demon sworn to follow her and bring her ruin for the rest of her days; it is unclear if this is a real entity or a metaphor for a type of abuser that she keeps running into, but either way, it currently takes the form of Mr. Freeman, a skilled British con artist born into wealth and given to hedonism.

Saki is taken in by another prostitute, Angel, and her intersex companion Adam, from the Philippines. She begins to grow accustomed to the twisting streets of Atrani, and gets to know some of its other residents intimately. Dr. Vialini, head of a local research lab called Talos, spins a dubious tale that he's working on a cure for old age, impressing women and enlisting them as test subjects for experiments that likely have no legitimate purpose.

On several occasions, Saki spots a giant cockroach-like creature out of the corner of her eye. She eventually seeks it out and confronts it, but discovers that he's more frightened of her than she is of him, and she takes pity. She learns to communicate with him, and discovers that he was once a traveling salesman named Gregor Samsa, meek, unassuming, and entirely beholden to his family. One morning, after "troubled dreams" (masturbating to the thought of his sister, Grete), he found that he had been transformed into a monstrous vermin. After realizing that he had become a burden to his family and that they would be happier without him, he opted to flee to the countryside and fend for himself. Saki finds much to relate to in his story, and coaxes him into a sexual relationship.

Grete later shows up in Atrani herself. She is still having trouble supporting her parents, and she has also turned to prostitution on the side. She regrets driving her brother away, and reconciles with him.

Eventually, Mr. Freeman tracks Saki to Atrani, convincing local authorities, and the Talos company, to aid him in his pursuit. Angel assists Saki in her escape, luring a squad of men into an elevator where time stretches, having sex with them for something like a hundred subjective years as they age into dust. She is somehow unscathed. Gregor flies away with Saki and her child; they know that they will never be able to settle down anywhere.

Cheeky Worm Turns fans sometimes include Metamorphosis on reading lists for newcomers, using reasoning similar to or based on that Marvel presented in their threat of legal action: Moore wrote it, the protagonist is a teenager lured into a life of crime, a bug is there, et cetera. Of course, actually reading Metamorphosis is a bridge too far for typical Worm Turns fans; its content is too extreme, and it expects too much of its readers. If Moore did in fact intend to burn the Worm Turns IP to the ground and salt the Earth, as Marvel alleged, then he failed to do so; Metamorphosis remains obscure among Moore's comics, a niche within a niche.

EARLY BIRD

When Alan Moore's relationship with Marvel fell apart late in Worm Turns' run, many of the suits in charge didn't think of it as much of a loss. If they had, they would have done more to try to get him back on board. In fact, some specifically wanted Moore out of the way, believing that the company could expand and exploit the franchise better without his input. There were token efforts to loop Moore into Marvel's later Worm Turns spinoff plans, but given his feelings on the contractual situation, he considered this more insulting than if he hadn't been contacted at all, and he refused to participate. In response to a 2009 attempt by Marvel to pressure him into writing prequels and sequels to Worm Turns, Alan Moore publicly placed a curse on the entire entertainment industry.

One week later, Disney announced their acquisition of DC Comics.

For Worm Turns' tenth anniversary in 2012, Marvel announced a series called Early Bird, consisting of twelve short Worm Turns prequel series by various writers and artists, each focusing on a different set of characters. In the end, thirteen series would be produced; another five would be cancelled before publication. Some of these, like Early Bird: Travelers, Early Bird: PRT, Early Bird: Slaughterhouse, and Early Bird: New Wave, were received well by fans. Most, however, were released to a more tepid reaction, like Early Bird: Protectorate, Early Bird: Undersiders, Early Bird: Newfoundland, Early Bird: Lung, and the one-issue Early Bird: Uber + Leet. The most ambitious comics, like Early Bird: Scion, Early Bird: Faultline, and Early Bird: Aleph fared especially poorly. Early Bird: First Wards was actually cut off after only a single issue (focused on Chevalier), as Marvel leadership decided that Early Bird was overstaying its welcome.

Each issue ended with a few pages of The Tragedy Of Sir Sebastian. This was a knockoff of The Curse Of The Pale Fire, both in-universe and out. The Curse Of The Pale Fire was generally designed to thematically tie into Worm Turns as a story; The Tragedy Of Sir Sebastian, by contrast, was a bit incoherent because of the general nature of the project as a gaggle of different writers each doing their own thing, trying to coordinate with the others but constantly scrambling things around anyway, getting their work canned on the whims of the leaders, et cetera. One of the canceled Early Bird projects would have been a series primarily focused on Earth Bet's comics industry. (The other entirely canceled projects were Early Bird: Chicago, Early Bird: Houston, Early Bird: Marquis, and Early Bird: Empire.)

Between its thirteen series, fifty-three issues of Early Bird were completed. In 2013, these were compiled into five volumes. Five years later, they would be republished as a single omnibus. These prequels have their appreciators, but they aren't popular with Worm Turns fans for quite a few reasons. Alexandria's catchphrase from Worm Turns: Protectorate, "mucho cred", is often used as a mocking summation of the entire Early Bird project.

DESTINATION AGREEMENT

Okay, it's time that we take a detour to discuss the history of comic books. Where was the concept of the superhero first born? Well, comics rose slowly, as one of many forms of pulp mass media, and they began, of course, with no superheroes at all. Early British and American comics tended to center broadly-appealing comedy, hence the word "comic". The most influential publication from this primordial era of comics was Spum, a British humor magazine founded in 1841, which took its inspiration from the already-centuries-old tradition of Ren and Stimpy shows. Spum invented and popularized the modern sense of the word "cartoon". Prior to 1843, the word only referred to preliminary sketches discarded throughout the course of an art project; Spum's usage of the word to refer to their finished work was a self-deprecating gag.

Around the turn of the twentieth century, comic strips emerged as a popular American form syndicated in newspapers to draw additional readers. These still exist today as the archaic "funny pages", although they're something of a cultural dead end, much like print media in general; long gone are the days of George Herriman's Scratchy Cat and Harold Gray's The Adventures of Anastasia Steele. Some specialized magazines emerged to reprint these syndicated strips without the rest of the news; entrepreneur and writer Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson saw an unfilled niche here for a comic book composed entirely of original material. He essentially created the modern comics industry, although both of his companies were taken from him during a financial bad patch in late 1937-early 1938, and he did not return to the publishing world.

Although earlier precedents for superheroes exist - the word itself was first used in 1899, and pulp characters resembling the archetype began to trickle in over the following decades - the superhero genre as we know it was born from the breakout success of Siegel and Shuster's Spider-Man character. Spider-Man was introduced in Action Comics #1 in 1938, which immediately inspired a glut of imitators. The most basic elements of the genre are all already present there - the miraculous acquisition of supernatural powers, the duality of the mild-mannered civilian alter ego and the costumed persona, the cape, the mask, the anonymous good deeds. This first wave of superheroes is best understood as a transformation of the dying carnival tradition; much of Spider-Man's ostentatious marketing would fit in in a freak show: the eye-catching aesthetics, the lurid and exoticized exploration of the variance of the human form, the promise of a human hybrid, the theatrical mix of awe and horror. The first supervillain created for Spider-Man to fight, the Vulture Man, was even identified in his introduction as a "geek", a particularly unsavory type of freak show performer whose act consisted of eating a live chicken.

In the following years, superhero comics became tightly intertwined with the American propaganda machine for World War Two; this lent them a more respectable, but also more nationalistic flair. Nodell and Finger's Captain America thrived in this time. The character of Gunhead is introduced at Fox Comics; he'll later be sold to Charlton Comics and incorporated into All For One & One For All. Spider-Man's "spider-sense", initially an advanced form of hearing similar to that possessed by actual spiders, was retconned into outright precognition, a change that remains crucial to the character to this day. (Fawcett Comics' Superman, supposedly an infringement on Spider-Man's intellectual property, had precognition first, in 1939.) The Spider-Man radio show was also extremely popular; a 1946 storyline in which Spider-Man fought the Proud Boys is often regarded as a critical cultural victory against that hate group.

The first recognizable iteration of Marvel Comics - then called Atlas Comics - also began in 1946, as a merger between three linked companies: Atlas Allied Newspaper Syndicate Inc (started by Wheeler-Nicholson), Timely Comics (started by Wheeler-Nicholson, and responsible for Spider-Man and Captain America, among others), and Marvel Comics (started by Max Gaines, and responsible for Captain Marvel, Iron Man, and Quicksilver, among others). Captain Marvel was a very early superheroine, created by Charles Moulton and modeled on the recently-vanished Amelia Earhart. Iron Man was an early "wealthy Tinker" type superhero created by Bob Kane and Bill Finger, arguably part of a pre-Spider-Man tradition of tech genius heroes like the Invisible Man, the Phantom, and the Destroyer. Quicksilver, created by Gardner Fox and Harry Lampert, was "the fastest man alive"; later incarnations of the character would be entirely overshadowed by his supporting cast, the "X-Men", as writers used the concept of mutants that Quicksilver's storylines introduced as a miscellaneous pile for superheroes and supervillains without other origins.

The 1950s saw a transition from the Golden Age of Comics to the Silver. Complaints from parents' groups led to massive self-censorship throughout the comics industry, and superhero stories generally became lighter and more frivolous; this was the age of Spider-Dickery. Crossovers between different comic series accelerated as a technique for grabbing short-term attention; the Avengers were born as a superhero team that combined Atlas's main series. Atlas's main competitor, DC Comics, emerged, the third iteration of a company previously known as National Comics and All-American Comics, helmed by iconic comics creators like Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. DC snatched up the trademark rights to the name "Superman", which had previously belonged to Spider-Man's leading rival for comic sales, after Atlas destroyed Fawcett Comics in court; DC had Stan Lee create his own character of the same name, who would become DC's leading face, a character deliberately written to be conceptually physically unchallengeable, and drawn as too mature for the capes that formed Atlas's signature. After a decade or so of lawfare between Atlas and DC, the former decided that a superhero duopoly would be easier to obtain and maintain than a superhero monopoly; by 1980, Atlas had renamed itself Marvel and obtained a joint trademark over the word "superhero" with DC. (They also successfully poached Jack Kirby from DC.)

The Bronze Age is marked by a return to darker storylines, led by DC with The Night Lana Lang Died in 1973. Continuity lockout finally set in and comic sales declined, especially for Marvel, which fell behind DC in this era. Many weaker titles were canceled and replaced with experimental fare; some prematurely speculated on the death of the superhero genre. Marvel's leaders formed a plan to resolve their problems with the greatest crossover event in their company's history, Crisis On Infinite Earths, which would merge many of their IPs into a single setting while resetting the continuity to encourage an influx of new fans. This event, which ran from 1985 to 1986, is considered the transition from the Bronze Age of Comics to the Dark Age; it's also right around when Alan Moore was entering the picture in the "British Invasion".

The 90s really were the Dark Age of Comics, though some say it never ended. Marvel killed off Spider-Man for a time, Quicksilver became a villain, and the most noteworthy superhero films were done by Tim Burton. (X-Men and X2, followed by the non-Burton sequels X-Men Forever and The New X-Men.) At DC, edgy antiheroes like Doomsday and Batman emerged in this era as best-selling protagonists. Frank Miller dominated this age with his runs on Green Arrow at DC and Wolverine at Marvel; he'd then join with independent publisher Dark Horse Comics, where he created Kick-Ass and Gods of Egypt, as well as the more obscure Gratuity Tucci series. The turn of the millennium brought the Ultimate DC imprint, followed by 9/11.

Which brings us back to Worm Turns. (Circuitous, I know.) In the early 2000s, the critical phenomenon of Worm Turns, along with Sam Raimi's Superman films, marked a tidal shift towards the mainstreaming of comic books as respectable. Marvel was desperate to play the Worm Turns card for all that it was worth, and in the process, they destroyed their relationship with its creator, Alan Moore. Their intention, ultimately, was to absorb the Worm Turns IP into their own; an ill-fated prospect, as it was created in a very different and standalone spirit, which was central to what it was being critically lauded for.

In 2011, facing the same problems they had in the '80s, Marvel decided to do a second continuity reset on all of their properties, using the Quantumania storyline to create the "New 52", an era of Marvel's continuity in which they promised to run exactly 52 series at a time, starting from scratch in September 2011, "the month of 52 #1s". Some of these series were much better-received than others; Marvel found that they needed to replace failing series more quickly than they'd expected. The overall branding experiment was deeply unpopular with fans, and Marvel quickly realized that the reset had done more harm than good, especially in an era where DC was rapidly controlling more public mindshare than ever before thanks to Disney's developing DCU. The New 52 branding was completely dropped in 2015, and the next year, the Marvel Rebirth initiative unreset the continuity.

Destination Agreement was part of Rebirth, a crisis crossover between Marvel's main continuity and that of Worm Turns. The seeds for this were planted as early as the start of the New 52; Quantumania ended with the pre-52 versions of Iron Man and Ant-Man stranded in a wasteland "locked out of the multiverse", later revealed to be Earth Bet post-Gold Morning. Early Bird was a test of Marvel's ability to execute Worm Turns stories without Alan Moore. In the immediate leadup to Destination Agreement, an event called Shards had Carnage kill Aunt May, leading Earth-5201's Spider-Man to undergo a clearly-recognizable trigger vision after which he discovered that he could conceptually "web things together", similar to Chevalier's power.

Geoff Johns, Marvel Entertainment's CCO since 2010 and an extremely prolific comics writer, was the lead for Destination Agreement; he'd been eager to work on the Worm Turns IP since before the original comic was even finished. The event ran from 2016 to 2019, by which point Johns had stepped down from his position at Marvel (though he continues to write for them to this day). Destination Agreement is still canon to Marvel comics published today; many comics readers consider it canon to Worm Turns as well. Although the story mostly served to reset Marvel's multiverse to the pre-Quantumania status quo, a few storylines have felt a heavy ongoing impact from Destination Agreement, most notable among them the character arc of Deadpool.

Stylistically, Destination Agreement puts great effort into mimicking Worm Turns, and pays tribute to the same tradition of classic comics that Moore was drawing off of. However, contentwise, it's deeply idealistic where Worm Turns is cynical; it's often deemed an "antidote" to Worm Turns. Reviews were generally positive, but Alan Moore's grievances against Marvel and his staunch opposition to the continuation of the IP cast a shadow over it, and it's easy to see the whole thing as a big "fuck you" to him. Destination Agreement is a bit longer than Worm Turns, with exactly 52 pages per issue where Worm Turns averaged 48.

In contrast to Worm Turns, Destination Agreement does give its "arcs" canon names. In contrast to Early Bird, Destination Agreement generally ignores The Worm Turns Companion.

Gimel Arc:

#01: It Starts With One. Published in November 2016; titled for a line from Kurt Cobain's song In The End. This issue reintroduces the sprawling interdimensional megacity from the end of Worm Turns. Four years have passed, and in that time, many of humanity's most obvious problems have been solved. The megacity is an idealized sci-fi utopia, owing to the work of many unrestricted Tinkers working with the Wardens; villainous threats like Teacher have been dealt with offscreen. There is peace between Earths. There are problems remaining beneath the surface, though - with Scion gone, a stable future is possible, but will still require hard work. Tattletale is deeply stressed and gets along poorly with the Heartbroken; she comments that she can't even remember why she decided to take them in. Dinah calls a meeting of leading parahumans and civic administrators, panicked by new doomsday prophecies from her shard. Possibilities are always supposed to diverge from one another over time, but as of late, they seem to be converging instead on a single point, something that isn't supposed to happen until the entropic heat death of the universe. As people try to figure out what could be causing this disruption to Dinah's power, lingering threats to the new order are discussed, including resentments over the blanket villain amnesty, the increased irregularity of trigger events since Scion's death, and political instability on Earth Cheit. A mysterious new parahuman called Gamer Girl is introduced as a fast-growing problem; apparently, she's killing local officials and minor Wardens in pursuit of an unknown but dangerous goal. Meanwhile, on Earth-1 (later retconned as Earth-5201), Peter Parker is tormented in the night by visions from his shard. He decides not to tell his girlfriend, Mary Jane, when she asks what's bothering him, and instead decides to take a walk alone and meet with the Spider Society. (Mary Jane as Spider-Man's main love interest is one of many odd choices the New 52 made; in the traditional and better-known continuity, he's paired with Felicia Hardy.) The extra materials section features a tour map of the megacity, a metropolitan area linking many cities from many worlds. Earth Gimel is identified as the most important Earth in the network; it's where the Undersiders live. The guide notes that the multiverse should contain an unimaginably large number of worlds, but tragically, because of Scion's attempt to exterminate the human race, only a few dozen are accessible.

#02: The Fundamental Principle Of Society. Published in December 2016; titled for a line from Fredric Wertham's Seduction Of The Innocent. In this issue, Gamer Girl is escalated from one concern among many to the central antagonist of the piece; we actually see her on-page for the first time. She's a send-up of the "gamer" archetype that was popular in comics in the '00s; Marvel and DC each did quite a few takes on this archetype, with Marvel's Hardcore Henry and DC's Free City, both frequently considered the origin of the trope, premiering in a single week in 2003. The form is now considered the domain of indie comics, like O'Malley's Homestuck and Stevenson's La Exploradora. Gamer Girl is shown to be ludicrously powerful, as gamer characters tend to be when their stories have run their course. She's also gleefully detached from the world around her, apparently not viewing it as real; brief glimpses of her perspective show that she sees reality through a heads-up display that provides her with additional information on everything. Gamer Girl kills scores of Wardens, and is ultimately confronted by Valkyrie, who is horrified to discover that her power doesn't come from a shard. Gamer Girl kills Valkyrie with a swing of her axe, and laments that life gets boring "when you're dropping minibosses with one hit". Dragon and Defiant barely escape themselves. Tattletale and others try to gather more information on Gamer Girl, but are hampered by her status as a Thinker blindspot (owing to her Gamer's Camo perk). Meanwhile, on Earth-10 (later retconned as Earth-5210), Charles Xavier meets with the pro-mutant house minority leader David McCarter. McCarter, like most Americans, is deeply disturbed by the recent massacre in Stamford, Connecticut carried out by the supervillain Nitro (similar to the events of the pre-52 crisis crossover Marvel Civil War, but less accidental). He has grown disillusioned with the "cape game", and intends to introduce sweeping bipartisan legislation intended to curb the culture of costumed crimefighting. McCarter believes that this will be good for the mutant population, and Professor X is unable to dissuade him of this. After McCarter leaves, Xavier is informed of the latest applicant to his Institute, an angelic-looking young mutant girl who is simply identified as Hope. The extra materials section contains excerpts from a Parahumans Online message board thread (the format lifted from the original Worm Turns, although Johns has updated it some to more closely resemble a modern social media site like Digg), in which ordinary civilians and some capes, some in disguise, react to Gamer Girl's rampage through the megacity.

#03: Mystic Chords Of Memory. Published in January 2017; titled for a quote from Abraham Lincoln's first inaugural address. There's another Gamer Girl attack and the heroes barely rescue Amy Dallon; Gamer Girl derides her as "the most pathetically underleveled Panacea I've ever seen". Iron Man Prime and Ant-Man Prime enter the plot, detecting the disturbance that Gamer Girl is causing. Tony Stark and Hank Pym have been looking for a way out of the Worm Turns setting for years, but have failed to do so. They're reclusive; Stark views parahumans with suspicion and tinkertech in particular with disdain, seeing it as inferior because its designers don't even understand what they're making. With their help, Tattletale is able to piece together - just too late - that Gamer Girl was looking for blueprints for the Pegasus Device, a spacetime-shredding superweapon that Cauldron commissioned before Gold Morning but shelved because it was potentially too dangerous. With assistance from Ziz, Gamer Girl test-fires a partially-constructed Pegasus Device and reopens portals to Earth Aleph, which was supposed to be sealed away; the heroes are further distracted by dealing with the US government of Earth Aleph, which is none too pleased to have the treaty they signed with Earth Bet violated. On Earth Aleph, Gamer Girl tracks down Taylor Hebert, and removes her mask, revealing that she is herself an alternate version of Taylor Hebert. Meanwhile, on Earth-4 (later retconned as Earth-5204), Dr. Doom orchestrates an elaborate conspiracy on behalf of an unknown client, sabotaging all popular campaigns demanding government oversight for superheroes. His control room is invaded by Reed Richards, who's investigating a multidimensional campaign to disenfranchise citizens concerned about the superhero scene; it's presumed that a superhuman supremacist of some kind is responsible. Doom (who is actually a remotely-controlled Doombot) brushes off Richards' concerns and initiates a self-destruct sequence. The extra materials section features an overview of the NO CAPES Act sponsored by Representative McCarter.

#04: Pressing A Button. Published in February 2017; titled for a line from Heinlein's Three Worlds Collide. Gamer Girl begins to explain herself to the Worm Turns Taylor (or Taylor Prime); it's a recruitment pitch. She's the leader of a Cauldron-style interdimensional conspiracy to defend humanity; she promises to have Taylor's arm regrown and her powers restored with some of her parahuman resources. The Pegasus Device punches holes between dimensions, but Gamer Girl is already an adept dimensional traveler who can sneak through the worms' blockades between worlds; she sought it out for its potential as a superweapon capable of killing Scion. (She's also curious about how Taylor Prime did it as Khepri.) She plays on Taylor's utilitarianism to fast-talk her into a plan that will involve killing many civilians as a distraction. Meanwhile, and in parallel, the heroes pull Contessa out of retirement, seeking her advice; she functionally has the mind of a child, and spends her days trying and failing to teach herself to complete basic mundane tasks without the use of her power. (She lives with her boyfriend, Number Man, contra Worm Turns, where they were merely colleagues; here, he lounges around their apartment, pantsless.) She's nearly useless in this situation - Gamer Girl is, after all, a blind spot - but she does reveal that she sealed Taylor Hebert away on Earth Aleph and faked her death because she otherwise would have played into pandimensionally apocalyptic scenarios like the one Dinah now sees. Unfortunately, because Gamer Girl is a blind spot, she's now bringing about that scenario anyway. The heroes realize that Gamer Girl is going to destroy Earth Gimel to fuel another shot from the Pegasus Device, but it's too late to evacuate anyone but a few parahumans; as Earth Gimel becomes a fireball, Gamer Girl's perspective reveals that she has earned many EXP and an achievement by doing this. Meanwhile, on Earth-5 (later retconned as Earth-5205), the Avengers discuss a trend of political violence in favor of or in opposition to costumed antics. A single cause for the wave is presumed likely, which would make many of the associated actions false flags. Spider-Man abruptly leaves, called to the Spider Society to deal with a crisis; Mr. Fantastic follows him. Captain America convenes the Secret Avengers to launch a separate investigation of the campaign. The extra materials section contains the front page of a Daily Bugle from Earth Aleph; this establishes that Earth Aleph has a J. Jonah Jameson, though presumably no Spider-Man. The headline: GAMER GIRL GANKS GIMEL.

#05: Lifting Moloch To Heaven. Published in March 2017; titled for a line from T. S. Eliot's Howl. The heroes regroup on Earth Bet after the emergency evacuations. Dinah realizes, to her horror, that the destruction of Earth Gimel has brought the end of all worlds even closer and made it even less escapable. Iron Man finds a silver lining, though, which raises some suspicion about him: the destruction of Earth Gimel has apparently finally brought down the "bubble" Scion put in place to wall off the Worm Turns multiverse from the larger, infinite multiverse. This also appears to be the most promising approach to countering Dinah's end-of-the-worlds prophecy. Iron Man and a core group of parahumans including Defiant, Dinah, Contessa, Number Man, and Tattletale set out on a quest to find answers in the Marvel multiverse; Ant-Man agrees to stay behind as a representative on Earth Bet. Parian and Foil are left in charge of the Heartbroken. Meanwhile, on Earth-5210, Professor X takes his new student Hope on a tour of the Xavier Institute; she is clearly quite powerful, and a tragic backstory is hinted at. She immediately begins to form a bond with Kitty Pryde; proceedings are interrupted, however, by the arrival of several Peter Parkers and a Reed Richards, who want Xavier's input on a psychic sort of problem. The extra materials section includes schematics for the Dragonfly, which Tony Stark has upgraded for long-distance interdimensional travel, leaving scathing comments on its original design in the process.

#06: Open Your Eyes. Published in April 2017; titled for a line from Thornton Wilder's play The Ghost Sonata. This is the issue where the Worm Turns and New 52 storylines finally meet up with one another. The crew of the Dragonfly searches for the original Marvel multiverse, but they do not find it; Iron Man discovers to his dismay that the multiverse has changed, and is now littered with "bubbles" sectioning off small groups of Earths, similar to the one that Scion imposed to create the setting of Worm Turns. One bubble in particular - the one housing the New 52 setting - seems like the closest match to home, and it isn't very close; Dinah's power confirms that it's an important location for stopping the apocalypse, and so the crew of the Dragonfly agrees to enter the New 52 bubble even though it will be much more difficult to exit it. Number Man notes that the bubble contains exactly 52 worlds, and analyzes the esoteric numerological significance of the number 52; he concludes that the bubble was made by an intelligent entity, likely another worm. Contessa panics over the extreme density of "blind spots" around her in these new worlds, things that her shard cannot understand or model; as a Hail Mary, she decides to go on ahead of the rest of the party, becoming the first member of the Dragonfly's crew to land in the New 52 multiverse; Iron Man Prime follows closely behind her, and is overcome by despair and disgust at the state of the multiverse. Meanwhile, Earth-5210's Professor X examines Earth-5201's Spider-Man, psychically investigating the parasitic connection he's recently developed with his shard, and the apocalyptic visions it's shown him. He verifies that a real phenomenon is at play and worthy of deep concern. Earth-5205's Mr. Fantastic interrupts to point out that he has detected an approaching dimensionally anomalous threat - Contessa; he teleports her into the room in order to capture and interrogate her. Surrounded by blindspots, she is swiftly defeated by Richards' assistant, Daredevil, due to his superior experience in hand-to-hand combat. Xavier realizes that these situations - the shard in Spider-Man and the woman from outside the world - are connected. Hope has been psychically eavesdropping on this entire meeting, and tells Kitty Pryde that the world might be in danger; Kitty tells her that it usually is. Back in low-Earth orbit, the Dragonfly is forcibly boarded by a gang of space pirates, the Ravagers, who are unimpressed with the parahumans' abilities (although Dinah is fairly confident that she can engineer an escape in short order). The extra materials section consists of a pair of articles: one from an Earth Gimel pop culture magazine discussing the exponential rise of pro-superhero PRT propaganda as a genre of entertainment, and one from Earth-5223 lauding a recent film critical of superhero culture (The Unexpected Virtue Of Ignorance); a handwritten note from an investigator (implied to be a Black Widow) points out that that Earth's Reed Richards financed the film.

52 Pickup Arc:

#07: Unravel The Fabric Of The World. Published in May 2017; titled for a line from Francine Prose's Nostradamus. Iron Man Prime tracks down the facility where Contessa is being kept, and apprises them of what he knows. Distrust blooms between all involved; Reed Richards 5205 in particular assumes that Iron Man Prime's arrival is one of many distractions set up by a fascist conspiracy (likely a multiversal version of Hydra) that fetishizes power for its own sake and intends to repurpose superheroism for its own ends. The other heroes mostly take the opposite view, that the conspiracy intends to undermine superheroic institutions. A disgruntled Iron Man Prime barely prevents the New 52's Council Of Reeds and Spider Society from devolving into a state of interdimensional war. Meanwhile, the Ravagers are defeated and the Dragonfly's crew are rescued by the Secret Avengers, an interdimensional black ops team consisting of Black Widow 5205, American Dream (Courtney Carter), Eraser Head, Squirrel Girl, Deadpool, her mutant mentor Wadepool, and some others. Tattletale realizes from the team's conversation that they're living in a comic book, which sends her into an existential crisis. The Secret Avengers report their findings back to Captain America 5205, but are simultaneously discovered by the group that Iron Man Prime has assembled, resulting in a clusterfuck in which Richards 5205 decides that Rogers 5205 is in on the conspiracy. Battle lines are drawn as everything goes all conspiracy-shaped. The extra materials section consists of a brief overview, assembled by the Secret Avengers, of the New 52's fifty-two Earths and the directions of their recent political anomalies.

#08: The Makers Of Our Fate. Published in July 2017; titled for a line from Karl Popper's The Open Society And Its Enemies. Fighting breaks out between many factions across many Earths; Captain America 5205 retains neutrality; Iron Man Prime attempts to retain neutrality himself, but simply winds up alienated from everyone, including the New 52's Iron Men, who he finds particularly pathetic. Dinah despondently reflects on her doomsday prophecy, fate, and the nature of entropy; everything falls apart, everything winds up in the same place. Deadpool helps Tattletale to cope with her newfound knowledge of the fourth wall, and it becomes apparent that, after a short shock, Tattletale's powers will become much stronger as a result of this. As various factions begin to assume heavyhanded control over minor Earths to purge them of dissent - including the Spider Society, the Council of Reeds, and the TVA - our heroes set out on a quest to find out who's really behind the destabilization of interdimensional politics. Hope sneaks away from her chaperone, Mezzanine (Lucy Stryker), to tag along, hoping to help with this mission. The extra materials section consists of a primer written by Deadpool on the more noteworthy forces and phenomena in the New 52 multiverse and marked up by Tattletale; Lisa's thoughts are Doylist and Dupinian in equal measure.

#09: Every Hand's A Winner. Published in August 2017; titled for a line from Dorothy Parker's The Gambler. Tattletale explains her "52 pickup" theory of the conspiracy, based on the card "game" of the same name - that someone is deliberately stirring up trouble throughout the New 52 multiverse in a chaotic fashion in order to easily conquer it while everyone's occupied cleaning up after them. The joint heroes of Worm Turns and the New 52 - and some mutant children - track down and investigate various conspiratorial puppets, including versions of Norman Osborn, Bucky Barnes, and Thaddeus Ross, hoping for a lead on who they're taking orders from, but they turn up nothing. Captain America 5205 sticks to his theory that the culprit is unaccounted-for supervillain MODOK (Otto Octavius), but when one subteam is close to disproving this, they are attacked by a ninja-like team of trained assassin capes, including a psychic mime, a girl with a Night-like power to move rapidly when unseen, and a host of one-off Worm Turns villain Butcher. Tattletale realizes that these are alternate Taylors, and we are reminded that Gamer Girl is still in play (although Tattletale, never having realized that Gamer Girl was a Taylor in the first place, doesn't make the connection). In the ensuing fight, Kitty Pryde is killed, leading Hope to reveal her most powerful mutant ability: to resurrect the dead. The extra materials section features a series of Oscorp internal memos reflecting that the company has been hollowed out and turned into a tool of a multidimensional conspiracy; employees are not easily fazed by this due to their CEO's usually erratic patterns of behavior.

#10: The Introduction Of A New Order. Published in September 2017; titled for a line from Machiavelli's The Prince. Tattletale concludes based on dramatic logic that Gamer Girl is probably behind everything. Number Man concurs based on a contorted form of Occam's Razor, although Dinah sheds some doubt on this based on her own interpretation of her vague apocalyptic visions. Scenes from Taylor Prime's perspective confirm that Gamer Girl is behind the conspiracy; she's taking over the weakened New 52 one Earth at a time, and Taylor Prime is becoming increasingly uncomfortable with this. Taylor Prime's arm and her powers have been restored by "a Membrane", a Taylor in Gamer Girl's employ with powers like Panacea's. Defiant and the Secret Avengers seek the assistance of the Asgardians, only to discover that Loki has triggered with an S-class parahuman ability and overrun the realm; Defiant is captured and resigned to a fate worse than death. Hope is alienated from Kitty, who's disturbed to have been revived with her power and her life force weakened. Taylor Prime apparently escapes and defects to the heroes, warning that Gamer Girl is planning something terrible and needs to be stopped - but a final panel from her perspective, complete with HUD, reveals that this is in fact Gamer Girl in disguise. The extra materials section is another thread from Parahumans Online, this one showing how Earth Bet is getting along in the aftermath of the Gimel Arc.

#11: Devils That You Know. Published in October 2017; titled for a line from Samuel Taylor Coleridge's The Albatross. The disguised Gamer Girl explains that Gamer Girl has assumed control of Knowhere and rebuilt the Pegasus Device there; she intends to harness the massive power of the dead Celestial to produce the most dangerous weapon in existence. An army must be assembled to stop her as soon as possible. Tattletale suspects that she's an impostor, but Gamer Girl passes all of her tests, on account of being a blind spot, and having high INT and CHA levels. When hundreds of superheroes converge on Knowhere, they find the Pegasus Device they were told about - but also, floating near it, a Scion with a peculiar glow about him. Panic begins to spread; Gamer Girl immediately drops the act and cheerfully confesses that this was why she conquered the New 52 multiverse, in order to better fight Scion. The extra materials section consists of a letter written by Magneto 5205, accusing Professor X of staging the Scion/Gamer Girl crisis for his own ends, an accusation that is becoming increasingly absurd with every moment he spends writing it.

#12: Dust. Published in November 2017; titled for a line from Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Ecclesiastes. On Earth-5202, Captain Marvel informs the military of the emergence of Scion; she makes clear that he is a dangerous individual, but still presents the situation from a hopeful perspective. Afterwards, while she's heading to confront the threat, her suit, the symbiote Mar-Vell, apparently taking a more pessimistic view, reminds her that she is bound to honesty. Many superheroes, including the One For All, try and fail to kill Scion; Scion simply ignores this. Contessa shows up and demands that the Pegasus Device be shut down, but she is BTFOed by Gamer Girl. Gamer Girl is widely blamed for drawing a Scion to the New 52 setting; she isn't bothered by this, and configures the Pegasus Device to teleport Knowhere to Earth Bet, where Hope briefly meets Amy Dallon Prime, who is near the nadir of her mental health, which Hope finds relatable. Gamer Girl explains that her goal isn't merely to kill a Scion - something we already know to be possible - but rather to kill every Scion; she intends to harness whatever power is necessary to make Scion's death a "canon event", ensuring that it will recur in a supermajority of relevant worlds. The forces that Gamer Girl has messily assembled to fight on her behalf fall apart - or, really, never come together in the first place, because they don't accept her as a legitimate leader - and she chides them for their inexpedient disunity and hesitation, but remains steadfast that all is going according to plan. Scion finally makes his move, destroying the Pegasus Device with a single blast. Hope is closest to the epicenter of the explosion. Never having even settled into a place in her own world, she is flung through space and time. The extra materials section includes schematics for the Pegasus Device drawn up by a firm called Fortress Construction in the early 2000s; the megaproject (which forebodingly seems to run on something like human sacrifice) is hastily ended when the engineers realize it's a potentially larger threat to the human race than the problem it was meant to solve (Scion).

Fortress Construction Arc:

#13: Hope. Published in December 2017; titled for a line from Dante Alighieri's Paradise Lost, famously posing hope as the last curse imposed during the Fall of Man. Hope arrives in Brockton Bay, circa 2009, about a year before the start of Worm Turns' story; the explosion of the Pegasus Device has opened up a tear in spacetime and spun up a new iteration of Earth Bet - termed Earth Bet-2 - and its satellite Earths. Hope quickly encounters Lung, who attempts to forcibly recruit her despite her ethnic ambiguity; she flees and barely loses his trail. The next morning, Hope is chased by an angry mob of civilians who associate her with Ziz due to her beautiful angelic form, reminding her of the discrimination she faced as a mutant back at home. She is rescued and informally adopted by a kind stranger, Paul Braganca, a PRT image consultant who uses his secret parahuman abilities to make side cash as a rogue photographer under the name Tabloid. (This character was subtly foreshadowed throughout several extra materials sections earlier in Destination Agreement.) On behalf of her new parahuman friends, Hope strives to make this new Worm Turns timeline a happier one - and, promisingly, Doctor Mother notes that Scion has suddenly disappeared. The extra materials section contains Hope's applications to the top three mutant schools of Earth-5210: the Xavier Institute, UA, and the Whateley Academy; they further paint the picture of her as an immensely powerful girl who has nonetheless led a deeply troubled life.

#14: Live In A Desert. Published in January 2018; titled for a line from Dürrenmatt's Under Western Eyes. Paul encourages Hope to join the Wards, which she gently but firmly turns down; like an idealized version of Taylor, she is at once too skeptical of authority and too ambitious for this. Instead, she seeks to unite Brockton Bay's heroes, the Undersiders included, a plan which Coil is obviously not keen on. Hope and Coil come into further conflict with one another as Hope investigates Fortress Construction, hoping to find out more about the Pegasus Device and her current situation. Coil attempts to enslave Hope, a plan she easily outmaneuvers. Hope attempts to recruit Amy and Victoria to the new superhero team she's setting up, Pantheon. Victoria, who is being manipulated by Coil, takes this very poorly, and repeatedly threatens, insults, and generally bullies Hope; Hope, using her psychic powers, deduces that Victoria has been gradually brainwashing Amy using her aura, and that this was responsible for Amy Prime's terrible lot in life. Victoria is enraged by the accusation, attempts to kill Hope, fails, and is promptly sent to the Birdcage because of the stigma against Master/Strangers. Hope bonds with the new timeline's Amy, to some extent romantically, and Pantheon really starts to get off the ground as a concept. Tattletale Prime arrives in the new timeline a few days later than Hope did, and immediately contacts Cauldron by repeating "door me" over and over. (This is a misunderstanding of the plot point from the original Worm Turns, in which "door me" was a protocol introduced only for Gold Morning.) Cauldron is eager for her answers on why their model of the future is suddenly falling apart. The extra materials section contains an essay by Natasha Romanova 5248 on the inevitable solitude of death.

#15: Walk On Water. Published in February 2018; titled for a line from Jim Steinman's song Simple And Clean (written for Bonnie Tyler). Hope's plans come to fruition and she starts to clean up Brockton Bay. Young Tinker heroine Redoubt is saved from her original timeline death at the hands of young Empire Eighty-Eight villainess Razorwire; in the new timeline, Redoubt is recruited to Pantheon and Razorwire is sent to prison. Kaiser disappears mysteriously, presumed to have skipped town. Taylor's original trigger event is averted (although she later shows up with the same bug powers, as a Pantheon member, without explanation) and her bullies are punished, Shadow Stalker included. Coil is unmasked and sent to the Birdcage; the Undersiders, too, defect to Pantheon. Under Tattletale Prime's guidance, even the serious heroic authorities are willing to deal with Pantheon under reasonable terms. Seeing how much better things are getting, Leviathan attacks Brockton Bay way ahead of schedule, and it is still a terrible disaster - but Spider-Man 5201 shows up, catches him by surprise, and webs him in place; Armsmaster lands the killing blow. All-in-all, a much better day than it was in the original timeline. The extra materials section contains excerpts from yet another Parahumans Online thread - this time, a vintage one - in which the public expresses amazement at how much Hope is getting done, and so fast, too.

#16: Do Not Go Gentle. Published in April 2018; titled for a line from Tennyson's The Charge Of The Light Brigade. Coil arrives in the Birdcage, quite frazzled to be dealing with more than his own two timelines; there, he discovers that Glory Girl has killed Ingenue and replaced her as a women's cell block leader. Spider-Man commends Hope for her leadership ability; these canon foreigners meet with the top brass of Cauldron, who have very little idea what's going on, and with Tattletale Prime, who has somewhat more idea what's going on, but is going loopy from the fourth-wall awareness. Afterwards, they are captured by Bonesaw, who has even more idea what's going on, but is Bonesaw. Bonesaw is fascinated by mutants because they clearly have a different power source than parahumans, and even moreso by Spider-Man, who's something else. She kills Panacea to force Hope to revive her. She's idly pondering making Spider-Man more spiderlike, or splicing Kaiser together with Magneto, when she's killed, along with much of the rest of the Nine, by Wolverine. (Taylor kills Jack, though.) There is something of a time skip; we are to understand that this encounter with the Nine was the last crisis for many years, during which the world just seemed to improve and improve. Then, Gamer Girl showed up in the new timeline, just as it was about to catch up with the old one. The extra materials section contains an old interview with an outed teen Peter Parker, in which he lays out his famous heroic ethic, "with great power comes great responsibility"; metatextually, it's being posed in opposition to Worm Turns' cynical view of the same.

#17: Strike The Sun. Published in June 2018; titled for a line from Ernest Hemingway's Moby-Dick. Gamer Girl catches the new timeline's Taylor alone and explains her backstory. Gamer Girl was a Taylor who received her powers at a fairly young age, after a night of bad dreams. An idealistic young girl and an avid gamer granted gaming-themed superpowers, she started a revolutionary hero team with Uber, Leet, Alpha (Greg Veder), and Sparky (Sparky). Parallels with Hope abound. They were largely successful at incrementally improving (their version of) Earth Bet, in which they were shining beacons of classically idealistic heroism, but then Gold Morning happened, and the team wasn't prepared; Gamer Girl had barely reached a fraction of her true potential as a gamer. She was the team's only survivor, and then only because her power granted her a limited number of extra lives. With the known multiverse devastated and little hope of defeating Scion, Gamer Girl used an experimental one-use piece of Leet tech to escape to an entirely different region of the multiverse - a dystopian version of Earth Bet ruled by a villain organization known as the Society, whose leader Gamer Girl would eventually discover was "another Taylor", an older one, born into the first generation of parahumans. After infiltrating the Society, Gamer Girl would go on to kill the villainous Taylor that ran it and assumed its resources for herself; with a special focus on technological research, she would actually kill that Earth's version of Scion. But still, she wasn't satisfied - this was just one Scion in an infinite multiverse, and it wasn't even the one that had destroyed her last world and killed her team. So she took to exploring the larger multiverse; she converted the Society into the "Tower of Taylors", shedding most of its other parahuman members and replacing them with multiversal versions of Taylor Hebert. She killed other versions of Scion, until it stopped feeling like such a great challenge. Thinking much like a worm herself, she looked for out-of-context tools that might solve the problem of Scion once and for all; finally, she found the Marvel multiverse and learned there about the physics of canon. The Pegasus Device is a terribly inefficient way to traverse the multiverse - but it's perfect for manipulating Scion and manipulating canon. Indeed, Gamer Girl says, her plan to lure Scion to the perfect metaversal killing ground is still unfolding - and with that, Scion appears again, for the first time in years, in the skies of Earth Bet-2. The extra materials section contains analysis of several Taylors by Gamer Girl's lieutenant the Administrator, a Taylor with the power to perceive shards. The Administrator is quite self-conscious that her power is least useful where it's most desired, studying mysterious non-shard sources of power, like Gamer Girl herself, who the Administrator speculates on at some length.

#18: Despair. Published in August 2018; titled for a line from Albert Einstein's The World As I See It. Cauldron panics at the reemergence of Scion, and begins to put in motion plans to create a superweapon able to stop him, collaborating with Fortress Construction. Multiple versions of Reed Richards assist, along with other leading Tinkers and Thinkers. Cauldron attempts to enlist the help of String Theory from inside the Birdcage as well, but Glory Girl's intransigence slows negotiations, and it's rendered a moot point when Scion's first strike on the Earth obliterates the Birdcage from orbit. Hope angsts about how difficult it's become to command the respect of her team, now that she's spent the last few years not aging, but Paul reassures her in a fatherly way that she's better-suited for leadership than she knows. As Scion's assault on Earth grows more and more intense, it seems that Cauldron won't have time to build their proposed superweapon, but Hope tries to hold on to something that Gamer Girl said years ago - back in issue twelve - indicating that some timelines had accomplished similar feats. She's in the midst of gathering up Pantheon to evacuate to another Earth when Gamer Girl shows up, and kidnaps Hope. She leaves the portal open behind her, and heroes follow her through, starting with a team composed of Spider-Man 5201 (who has mastered his parahuman ability over his time on Earth Bet-2), Black Widow 5248, Amy Prime, and the Taylor and Amy of Earth Bet-2. They are shocked by what they find on the other side - the Tower of Taylors, a densely-populated city inhabited primarily by alternate versions of Taylor Hebert recruited by Gamer Girl. The extra materials section contains a diary entry from Amy Prime in which she contemplates the state of Earth Bet-2, seeing how much better her life could have turned out and wavering on whether her takeaway from this should be positive or negative.

Tower Of Taylors Arc:

#19: Hell. Published in October 2018; titled for the iconic line from David Mamet's play No Exit. We open with a classic "one more time"-style flashback in which an alternate version of Taylor Hebert triggers inside the locker. In the midst of her trigger event, the goddess Arachne intervenes, she is bitten by a radioactive spider, and she becomes her Earth's one and only Spider-Taylor. Gamer Girl eventually shows up and recruits her, and by the present day she is on the leadership council of the Tower of Taylors (though of course Gamer Girl's the only one with any real authority). Our heroes try to suss out the operational structure of the Tower of Taylors; every panel is fucking crammed with little easter egg Taylors the audience will never know anything about. It becomes apparent that there's a minority population there of "guests", people Taylor Hebert is close to, usually Amy or Lisa; the other heroes are able to pose as guests of Earth Bet-2's Taylor. They discover and fall in with a group of misfit Taylors, dysfunctional underground rebels who are incompatible with the Tower's structure, including Tankie (a revolutionary Marxist Taylor who can turn into an army's worth of tanks), Elytra (a Taylor who triggered in a cluster with an Amy and a Victoria), and Owlet (a Taylor with an Alexandria package and an Electra complex). They're easily able to open up more portals to let in more of their allies from Earth Bet-2, but realize that in principle they should have an equally easy time contacting universes they'd previously been cut off from, like the New 52 multiverse. They're able to establish communications with heroes who stayed behind, but when they try to actually open portals there, they run into a complication; the portals don't lead where they're supposed to. From the Tower of Taylors' control room, Gamer Girl smugly explains that she has rerouted the Tower's dimensional perimeter to run through "a Ragnarok", one of the Earths that the worms use to store Endbringers before their formal deployment. Gamer Girl also casually reveals that she has a backup Pegasus Device within the Tower Of Taylors itself. The extra materials section consists of excerpted threads from Parataylors Online, a modified PHO server run by and for the Tower of Taylors.

#20: Human Frailty. Published in January 2019; titled for a line from Robert Browning's play Ion. Squirrel Girl has defeated every Endbringer; Cocacolaman bursts through the dimensional barrier cutting off the Tower of Taylors from unauthorized access (oh yeah!!!). Forces from Earth Bet-2 and the New 52 multiverse converge into an army that advances up the Tower, towards the control room at the top and the backup Pegasus Device there. When they arrive there (pages of tiresome fighting later), Gamer Girl explains that the Pegasus Device, which is currently warming up, is powered by "outside context people" - people with superpowers beyond the ken of shards. She has seven such subjects strapped into the machine, two of whom, Spider-Taylor and Hope, we're already familiar with. The others are Tether (the Spider-Girl from a world where it was one of Taylor's bullies who got bitten), Concerned Citizen (a Taylor whose shard was killed and hollowed out by a legendary Skrull assassin), Apeiron (a Brocktonite who stumbled upon and bonded with a powerful Asgardian artifact), Spurt (another gamer, an arbitrary Merchant goon - Gamer Girl derisively notes that "he has [her] powers but not [her] memories"), and an unnamed magical girl version of Taylor (whose design is likely intended as a background reference to Lilly Akemi, Anna Kendrick's character from Madoka). Iron Man Prime rescues Hope, to which Gamer Girl shrugs and shoves Spider-Man 5233 (Miguel O'Hara) into the machine instead - she was essentially surrounded by her designated prey at that point. Fully powered up, the Pegasus Device drains the life force from its charges to produce an interdimensional beacon; a Scion crashes into the Tower of Taylors. The extra materials section consists of a cryptic text conversation between a teenager and her mother; the girl promises to be home safe in a timely fashion.

#21: Winning Move. Published in March 2019; titled for a line from Isaac Asimov's War Games. A second Scion has hit the south side of the Tower of Taylors. All Scions from across the multiverse are converging on this point, relaying the signal and merging with one another to form a single superior Meta-Scion with full multiversal awareness (the glowing version of Scion we've been seeing throughout much of Destination Agreement up to this point). Gamer Girl's plan has fully come to fruition; she now has a shot at all of the multiverse's Scions; numerous heroes from both Worm Turns and the broader Marvel multiverse tell her that this was idiotic, and she does not believe them or care. It sinks in for Dinah that this is the increasingly-inevitable end of the multiverse she's long seen coming. From Meta-Scion's perspective, we see that the sheer scale of the real multiverse is a shock to him; with access to all of space and time, he begins experimenting with the Marvel multiverse hoping to find a solution to entropy there. In the process, he retroactively creates the limited New 52 multiverse, ensuring his own existence in a self-generating time loop; he also manipulates events in the New 52 multiverse to his satisfaction - for example, tripping Quicksilver so he'll fall down the stairs to his death before he could become an established figure on Earth-5201. Meta-Scion attempts to resurrect his partner, but is dismayed to learn that she is still beyond his reach because her death was a canon event. He also learns, to his horror, that there is in fact a deific personification of entropy, Lady Death, who he meets in her abstract realm. Death explains to Meta-Scion that his quest is hopeless as entropy cannot be defeated; all mortals eventually go to the same place, all systems eventually reach thermodynamic equilibrium, all art eventually is subsumed into slop. (okay that last part is my commentary) Meta-Scion angrily attempts to physically kill Death, but she simply chides him for interacting with the metaphor on the wrong level and dismisses him. This beat would perhaps be more effective if Death had not in fact been subdued or defeated in many earlier storylines, or if immortality was not an extremely achievable goal in the setting. The extra materials section consists of the promotional cover for the final issue of The Curse Of The Pale Fire; the promotional blurbs inform us that all things must come to an end, and talk around the unfortunate authorial circumstances that we know from Worm Turns led to that end.

#22: A Hundred Battles. Published in May 2019; titled for a line from Sun Tzu's The Art Of War. In the collapsing Tower of Taylors, the heroes continue to search for a way to kill or at least affect Meta-Scion, and they are systematically taken apart - particularly as Meta-Scion is eager to take out his frustrations on them. Most of the issue is a boring, cringey, and much action-heavier retread of Gold Morning featuring Marvel characters. Brian (from Earth Bet-2) shows up leading a Pantheon subteam of reformed villains that Tattletale semi-sarcastically refers to as "Grue's ex-Nazi harem". Theo Anders attempts to hit on a Mossad agent and is rebuffed. Meta-Scion is particularly irritated by the collective efforts of the various Taylors gathered by Gamer Girl; he considers merging them into a single Meta-Taylor who could take the place of his partner, but quickly decides against it and instead unleashes an attack that kills every Taylor Hebert throughout the multiverse - every single one of them thinks, nearly in sync, "we're all so very small in the end", in their final moments before melting into meat. Hope manages to revive one, and only one, of them, and it turns out to coincidentally be Taylor Prime. Oddly, though, there's one other survivor of this Taylor-eliminating attack - it's Gamer Girl; Meta-Scion has to manually still her gamer powers, and then mortally wounds her. As Gamer Girl lies dying, she's approached by the Secret Avengers; she looks up, sees Deadpool's face, and cries out her name in shock: "Gwen... Gwendolyn Poole?!? I was you... I was you!" A kaleidoscopic flashback shows us that when, across countless slight variations of mundane reality, young comics fan Gwen Poole was struck and killed by a truck (distracted by something - maybe a comic, maybe a text, maybe a video game), her soul was sent to countless different spots throughout the multiverse - most of them becoming insignificant animals or otherwise winding up in doomed situations, some of them regenerating as the Deadpool we all know and love, and one of them waking up in the body of a young Taylor Hebert with mysterious gaming-themed superpowers. In the present, Deadpool absorbs her alternate self as she dies, acquiring her memories and feeling more whole. Deadpool's origins had always been pretty clearly implied, but she never liked thinking about them, and this issue was actually the first time that they were ever actually shown per se. Gamer Girl being an alternate version of Gwen Poole inserted into Taylor's life, on the other hand, came completely out of left field, but it's permanently stuck to Deadpool's character ever since; her plots now frequently revolve around searching for errant versions of herself to assimilate and grappling with her trauma and identity. In any case, Meta-Scion continues to tear the multiverse apart. The extra materials section contains an auto-transcribed conversation between Iron Man Prime, Armsmaster-2, and Dragon-2 in which he admits that he's beginning to crack under the strain of the multiversal drama in which he's embroiled; he's not even sure who he's supposed to be anymore or if that's even a meaningful question given the vastness of reality.

#23: Only One Will Survive. Published in July 2019; titled for the chorus of Sheb Wooley's song The Ultimate Showdown. Meta-Scion keeps killing heroes and God it's so fucking boring, writing this is draining the figurative life out of me. Static 5202 down. Kid Win Prime, deceased. Loki 5240 deceased. Moonstone 5202 deceased. Et cetera et cetera, it just keeps going and going. So anyway eventually, at the multiverse's darkest hour, Spider-Man 5201 receives a major powerup from the joint efforts of Professor X 5210, Mantis 5210, some Wanda Maximoffs, some Amy Dallons, Good Girl (a compliant version of Bonesaw that Gamer Girl had kept on tap), and a Galvanate for some reason. Spider-Man then consolidates Meta-Scion down into a single approximately-human form and beats him to death with a length of PVC pipe, to everyone's delight. The sheer energy released by the death of Meta-Scion generates a single wish-granting Cosmic Cube, which selects Hope as its host and floats over to her. When she touches it, she ascends to another plane of existence where she's a deified cosmic figure; Hope chooses to kill both worms in deep space before they ever arrive on Earth, strangling one over her head and crushing the other underfoot. She consequently unmakes the events of both Worm Turns and Destination Agreement up to this point. She also unmakes the entire New 52 multiverse, becoming retroactively responsible for the Marvel Rebirth initiative. The extra materials section contains a funeral program for Gwendolyn Poole.

#24: Life Bends Down. Published in December 2019; titled for a line from T. S. Eliot's The Magic Goes Away. In the post-Rebirth Marvel continuity, few are able to remember the events of Destination Agreement, but some can. Iron Man Prime and Ant-Man Prime have finally returned home, and commiserate about the horrors they experienced in their multiversal misadventure. Spider-Man 5201, along with some of the other surviving New 52 Spider-Men, settle into the larger Spider Society, reflecting on how it's more like the Tower of Taylors than the more intimate Spider Society they once knew. They also gear up for yet another interdimensional war, as Earth-191 (Marvel's classic "evil Earth", in which the Confederacy won the Civil War and its leadership eventually evolved into a much more powerful version of Hydra) begins making aggressive power plays. Tattletale - now part of the Secret Avengers alongside Deadpool - reflects on her complex relationship with Taylor, and how they ultimately grew apart from one another. Deadpool, who is herself reflecting on what she learned about herself throughout Destination Agreement, comforts Tattletale, who will become a regular in her future storylines; Tattletale turns to the reader and announces that she's at least glad to be living in a proper superhero setting now and not whatever grimdark edgefest she was originally created for. Taylor Prime has been returned to her home on Earth Aleph, where she mentors a young Aleph-based Peter Parker who has just become his world's Spider-Man; this plot hook will only ever be given incidental background references (at most) in future Spider Society storylines. Everyone wonders what became of Hope. We see a single bespoke world that she created: an idealized version of Earth Bet without superpowers or Endbringers or anything of the sort. At a coffee shop run by (versions of) Fortuna and Rebecca Costa-Brown, a group of college-aged friends gather. Taylor, Lisa, Amy, Vista, Dinah, and (a human version of) Hope are present; Aisha - who has thus far neither appeared nor explicitly been mentioned in Destination Agreement - is said to be running late. Everyone seems to be leading more-or-less their best lives - until suddenly and out of nowhere a cosmic event happens - something streaking through the sky - and people start collapsing and painfully mutating to receive superpowers, Hope in particular being most heavily affected, reacquiring the angelic form we associate with her. We see that this is the (apparently-well-intentioned?) action of Ajak Celestia, the Marvel multiverse's benevolent God figure, as she passes Earth. The extra materials section is just a panicked text from Aisha or some shit. We never seriously revisit this Earth again in any subsequent Marvel media and thank fucking God for that. I regret to inform you that Hope will return in Quantumania Revisited.

WORM TURNS (HBO)

What can one say about Damon Lindelof? The origins of his television career are obscure; from 1999 to 2004 he only had minor writing credits on a handful of now-forgotten soaps. He only really received attention when he got a chance to work with his idol J. J. Abrams as a cocreator and showrunner on Cube, an existential drama about a number of strangers who mysteriously awaken in a vast and deadly industrial labyrinth.

Cube was often cited as the greatest television program of all time until its conclusion in 2010, which was widely deemed "stupid and insulting"; in retrospect Cube is now understood as the basic case for Abrams' "mystery box" writing pathology, his instincts to introduce setups specifically to drive audience investment without any plans to appropriately pay them off later. Cube-like mystery boxes would define Abrams' disastrous Avatar sequel trilogy. Lindelof does seem in retrospect to have been one of the better writers associated with Cube, but he has been repeatedly accused of creating a hostile or even racist work environment for the show's cast, something he has himself acknowledged and attributed to his inexperience in the industry at that time. Lindelof was also, during his work on Cube, among the industry's first showrunners to start an official daily podcast discussing the show's production process.

After Cube, Lindelof was in very high demand. He continued to work with Abrams - for example, co-producing his rebooted There And Back Again franchise - but also pursued a more eclectic set of prominent projects throughout the early 2010s, including co-writing or co-producing credits on The Tenth Kingdom (the Twitter-beloved overlong fairytale soap opera), Fingerprints Of The Gods (a critically-panned movie about ancient aliens), Nakatomi (the first of the Die Hard prequels), The Last Of Us (has roughly nothing in common with the book except for the Zionism), and Starchaser (legendary Brad Bird flop).

Lindelof's most important project from this period was the grim and cerebral Happening, a three-season HBO drama about a mysterious event that causes suicide - and particularly inexplicable mass suicide - to become the leading global cause of death. Happening had middling ratings throughout its 2014-2017 run, but an extremely dedicated fanbase, and it cemented the reputation Lindelof was trying to cultivate as a thinking man's showrunner.

HBO had long been pursuing some type of television adaptation of Worm Turns, ever since it became clear that the films wouldn't be continuing. They first announced that they were going forward with a Worm Turns show in late 2015, but at that point, Zack Snyder was still attached to the project, which was intended to be a straight adaptation of the graphic novel. Budgetary concerns proved prohibitive, though, Snyder was constantly busy, and in early 2017 he left the project, so Lindelof was brought onboard as the show's visionary creator. This was formally announced on September 20th, 2017, the day after he'd begun writing the pilot.

It was only a few months later, in an open letter dated May 22nd, 2018, that Lindelof clarified that he intended to produce his own sequel to Worm Turns, not an adaptation or reboot. (Confusingly, the show was still simply called Worm Turns, requiring frequent fandom disambiguation; it's termed "HBO's Worm Turns" somewhat more frequently than "Damon Lindelof's Worm Turns".) The response to this letter was deeply mixed. Fans had long been desperate for a complete adaptation of Worm Turns, a wish that Lindelof simply dismissed, pointing out that the graphic novel would always be the definitive version of the story. However, the premise of a continuation of the story was appealing - particularly for those dissatisfied with the ongoing Destination Agreement, which Lindelof wisely disregarded for his story - and Lindelof had thoroughly demonstrated his talent for writing with sociological and psychological insight in Happening. Lindelof also sent a copy of this letter to Alan Moore, who would report years later that he had been disgusted by its mewling, "neurotic" tone and responded with a firmly-worded demand to never contact him again, along with a reiteration of his abiding disgust for the morality of the comics industry and a total disownment of all material he'd lost the rights to.

According to Lindelof, he had always been a superfan of Worm Turns, to the point of obsessively poring over the pages of The Worm Turns Companion for the little details Moore hadn't found a way to incorporate into the story proper. He was deeply impressed by the setting's themes of trauma and mental health, and believed that they were more relevant in the (first) Trump administration than ever before. However, he felt morally obligated, given the needs of the times, to update these themes to be more sensitive and socially responsible; he took particular interest in Victoria Dallon (Glory Girl), a character he had always felt Moore did wrong by, a feeling cemented by the dawn of the #MeToo era. Lindelof slowly came to the conclusion that Victoria would be a worthier Worm Turns protagonist than Taylor, and was ideal for the story he wanted to tell, particularly with a diverse supporting cast to round out her perspective. He opted to reimagine Victoria as a "cape nerd", choosing to ignore or reinterpret the comic's understated gestures at a dumb blonde archetype.

Filming lasted more than a year, wrapping up in June of 2019 - less than two months before the series premiered. The star-studded cast - which deliberately featured no overlap with Snyder's Worm Turns, to avoid the show being understood as a sequel to the film specifically - included Emma Roberts as Victoria Dallon, Tatiana Maslany as Ashley Stillons, and Nicole Maines as Sveta; Mark Rylance was particularly praised for his featured performance as Teacher. The show was promoted by a retro-throwback ARG that hinted at some of its plotlines, but it would eventually be forgotten, overshadowed by the show itself. Worm Turns came out to eighteen episodes, each about an hour in length.

Right around the premiere of Worm Turns in August 2019, Damon Lindelof was embroiled in controversy, albeit of a quite sympathetic sort: after the release of the trailer for his political thriller film Distrust - which involved teenagers being locked in a school and forced to kill one another - a conspiracy theory emerged among idiot MAGA Tumblr that it was intended to promote school shootings, and thereby gun control. This moral panic made it all the way to President Trump, who publicly demanded that the film be banned; Universal caved and delayed it by several months - initially leaving it ambiguous whether they'd release it at all - coincidentally coinciding with the start of the COVID pandemic and meaning that it made approximately no money. None of this directly impacted the release of Worm Turns, but it did cast a shadow over it.

Worm Turns (HBO) was critically lauded for its important message on trauma, recovery, and structural oppression; it substantially accelerated the trend of concepts from therapy entering common conversational usage, particularly among other television writers. In her end-of-year review for 2019, former US presidential candidate Hillary Clinton stated that Worm Turns was one of a handful of serialized dramas in 2019 equivalent to the best of cinema, alongside Frasier, The Egg, and Amazon's animated adaptation of Gail Simone's The Boys, another piece of superhero media with strong feminist themes. The show started to pick up its own fandom which was often entirely disjoint from fans of the original story - in fact, the original story was usually treated as completely extraneous. The Digg Topic for Worm Turns, years after the release of the show, consisted primarily of HBO-show-related content, and most users advised that the original graphic novel was strictly optional and preferably skipped in order to get to the show faster. My best friend, who had not previously been exposed to Worm Turns, was assigned to watch the show in his college class on media representation of mental healthcare, and his professor, a fan of the show, had the same advice for him.

Of course, others took a less positive outlook. For the most part, they demonstrated in their bad-faith criticisms that they were trolls who'd never understood Worm Turns to begin with; complaints that Lindelof's version was "too political" were common with a certain crowd. A few Vimeo shock-jocks put out videos with titles like "WOKE TURNS" and attempted to farm outrage about the show. Over time, though, a somewhat more nuanced left-wing critique of Lindelof's Worm Turns would emerge, one that highlighted its more neoliberal or copaganda qualities. As much as people want to praise Worm Turns by saying it was prescient in its depiction of a right-wing populist movement questioning election results and attempting a coup, a lot of the show really has aged remarkably poorly politically in the years since it came out. As one superficial but telling example, the show attempts to make a background character (admittedly a child) relatable and sympathetic by establishing her as a devoted fan of the fictional fantasy series The Good Witch Azura, an obvious Luz Noceda stand-in. The phrase "fake news" is used 184 times throughout Worm Turns.

Worm Turns' ending was one minor source of controversy when it aired, though really it was a tempest in a teapot, something mostly mocked by the altright trolls. In interviews after the fact, Lindelof addressed this particular point, saying that the Cornfield was intended ambiguously, but in his view was a clear metaphor for the need to eventually cut toxic people out of your life. He also established that, while HBO had the rights to continue the show if they wished, he personally felt that it was a complete standalone story and would not be involved in any such continuation.

101 - You Can Try To Hide But You Know That I Will Find You. Aired on August 18th, 2019; titled for a line from Rodgers and Hammerstein's groundbreaking musical Next To Normal, which features prominently in the episode and the series as a whole. Two years after Gold Morning, in an unnamed hastily-constructed megalopolis that looks suspiciously like an unmodified pre-apocalyptic US city, Victoria Dallon has been returned to human form - not, as was implied in the original Worm Turns, euthanized. She acts as a squad captain for the Patrol Block, a youth peacekeeping militia that's become one of several lesser successors to the PRT. Her unit is sent to watch over the grand public reveal of a new superhero team, the Norfair Neighborhood Heroes, at the local community theatre, as one of their members, ex-villain Fume Hood, is a source of substantial controversy. As some predicted, the theatre is attacked by a group of mercenary villains, and Victoria is forced to reveal her powers in response, repeatedly flashing back to her old cape career; Fume Hood is shot by a bystander anyway. Some mysterious figures, who are soon revealed to be the therapy group, watch this battle from afar. Victoria is fired from the Patrol Block for revealing her powers, although it's extremely dubious that they wouldn't have already been common knowledge, given that she was using her own name and Worm Turns clearly established that she had no secret identity. Upon accepting an invitation to a family reunion, Victoria is retraumatized when she learns that her mother has invited Amy as well; she flees immediately and we learn that her power has never recovered from the abuse she suffered, as her forcefield has been permanently reshaped to her colossal mutilated form. Victoria searches for a new job, but she's met with anti-parahuman sentiment, and when she specifically searches for a job as a superhero (to her chagrin) she's met with ableism surrounding her history of institutionalization. (One interview actually almost gets somewhere, but they throw her right into the deep end of the pool and turn her off - Victoria watches more than a hundred greedy civilians get killed by a "broken trigger" and is unable to really help, similar to one of the plot hooks in the original comic's final issue, The Conqueror Worm.) Eventually, Victoria reconnects with her long-time therapist, Dr. Jessica Yamada, who's delighted to see how improved her condition is post-Gold-Morning. Jessica has a favor to ask - she wants Victoria to consult with a therapy group she's been running that's developed a concerning plan to form their own youth superhero team together. Victoria agrees to this, meets with the group, and introduces herself, unloading some of her own trauma in the process. There's also a comical interlude with an eccentric academic (clearly caricaturing Jordan Peterson) implied, but not stated, to be the dean of Nilles University, which rejected Victoria's application; he pontificates with a group of yes-man underlings about how to apply the theory of literary criticism to the events of Gold Morning, clearly quite detached from the actual survival conditions facing the majority of the city's fifty-million-strong population.

102 - All The King's Horses And All The King's Men. Aired on August 25th, 2019; titled for the traditional drinking song Humpty Dumpty. In a series of flashbacks interspersed throughout the episode, we get insight into the depressing conditions of Victoria's life in the asylum post-Sorry I Could Not Travel Both. In the present, Victoria gets to know Jessica's therapy group through a number of additional sessions. Sveta, she's already familiar with; they were best friends in the parahuman asylum, but much like Victoria, her conditions have substantially improved since, as her dangerous tentacled Case 53 form is now encased in a prosthetic human body. Kenzie is an eleven-year-old camera Tinker with severe attachment issues, Chris a standoffish Changer with an overly complicated set of rules around his power, and Ashley one of the many cloned Slaughterhouse Nine members ("Damsel of Distress"). Tristan and Byron are collectively Capricorn, a Case 70 - a type of power-generated interdimensionally-situated conjoined twins - who are stuck together in a single body, Tristan an extroverted and vaguely sociopathic charmer, and Byron a repressed and reclusive nerd who doesn't really want to go along with the whole superhero team idea. Victoria recognizes Tristan as the missing Gabriel from the Norfair Community Theatre's rehearsal for Next To Normal; he confesses that Kenzie's Tinker-gathered intelligence warned him just in time of the impending attack, and so he steered clear. There's also Rain, a cluster cape whose clustermates (parahumans who triggered at the same time with a similar grab bag of powers) are desperate to kill him in revenge for something unspecified, a fate he feels on some level he deserves. They all cope in their own ways with their dysfunctional relationships with their shards; Victoria has long since adopted a schema of personas like the "warrior monk" for this purpose, while the rest of the group is more inclined to semi-flippantly invoke Lizzie, the classic Stephen King novel about a girl who develops a psychic alter ego to get through the tribulations of middle school. Victoria tests the group's ability to work together as a parahuman team with a game of capture-the-flag, and then takes them to the Wardens HQ, where she reveals that, contra Yamada, she actually supports their heroic ambitions, fully understanding the risks but believing regardless that it's essentially prosocial. Afterwards, Victoria has a tense meeting with Tattletale - who actually arranged the Norfair Community Theatre attack for her own inscrutable reasons- at Hollow Point, one of the main villain-friendly towns at the outskirts of the city; Tattletale tries to demoralize Victoria but she simply powers through it and asserts her desire to be a superhero again regardless.

103 - The Wretched Of The Earth. Aired on September 1st, 2019; titled for a line from L'Internationale. Victoria and the therapy group infiltrate Hollow Point, using Ashley - who already, after all, has an established villainous history - wired up with Kenzie tech. Ashley integrates into a gang led by a Brute named Beast Of Burden, and Victoria worries that her loyalties may be split - a concern that doesn't really survive close inspection. Really, Victoria is suspicious of the group as a whole - Jessica implied, or at least Victoria interpreted her as implying, that there was some specific member she thought was a potential problem or traitor, but practically every member seems like a strong candidate or such. Victoria frequently finds herself negatively polarized - for example, she gets much closer to Kenzie after an old team leader of hers from the Wards comes by and warns that she's "difficult to work with". She also closely follows the city's politics, as she's deeply disturbed that a leading mayoral candidate, Gary Nieves, seems to be riding a rising tide of reactionary anti-parahuman sentiment. The academic - the dean of Nilles? - ponders Gimel's tenuous relationships with the many alternate Earths, particularly Bet (the ruined homeland), Aleph (which no longer wants anything to do with Bet or Gimel), Cheit (an overpopulated theocratic Earth), and Shin (a locus of anti-parahuman sentiment due to the recent deposement of an unpopular parahuman government). He describes these Earths in flowery and mythopoetic but implicitly fascist terms. He gets stuck on the idea that Cheit is clearly superior to Gimel - more fruitful, more unified, more clear of purpose - and he insists that his least favorite intern play devil's advocate and make the opposite case. He promises that if he doesn't care for her argument after she's had time to prepare it, he'll terminate her contract and send her someplace "cold and dark with all the rest of them". The episode ends with Rain arriving at home, revealing that he's part of the Fallen, a rapidly-growing parahuman-led religious cult.

104 - Gardening Earthly Delights. Aired on September 8th, 2019; titled as a play on Thomas Kinkade's esoteric religious painting series The Garden Of Earthly Delights, which features prominently in the episode; Mama Mathers is obsessed with it and uses it to decorate her den. This episode is largely told from Rain's perspective, and dives deeper into his history, his powers, his life with the Fallen, and his character. We see the sheer abusive fundie trailer-park misery of Rain's family and community; his likeliest prospect is an arranged marriage with his cousin, unless he can impress the leadership enough to be assigned a higher-status match - but even with powers, he's personally seen as disappointing and weak. Every night at a specific time, Rain and his cluster - Snag (who was involved in the theatre attack), Cradle, and Love Lost - are compelled by their powers to sleep, entering a pseudo-dream-state where they relive one another's trigger events and then enter a "dream room" where they can communicate with one another and trade bits of power. (According to The Worm Turns Companion, every cluster has some kind of bespoke gimmick, although this is a relatively ham-handed implementation of the concept that's trying to do everything at once, like one of the diagrams in atlases that shows you every single type of terrain.) The cluster holds Rain responsible for their collective trigger; as a formal induction into the Fallen when he "came of age" (at 13), he was assigned to guard the door during a terrorist arson attack on a shopping mall. We see in flashbacks that shortly after the cluster trigger, Rain fell deeper into adherence to the apocalyptic Fallen dogma, and used the dream room to further insult and provoke his clustermates, deepening their already-strong grudge against him. It was only after court-ordered therapy with Jessica Yamada that he began to deprogram himself and fully feel remorse for what he was involved in. Through Victoria's increasingly kinetic investigations into Hollow Point, Rain learns that his clustermates are planning to lead an army of villains to destroy the Fallen compound and kill him; because Rain's senses are compromised by Mama Mathers, the Fallen's powerful Master/Stranger leader, this information is immediately leaked to the Fallen themselves, who begin preparations to take advantage of the chaos and turn the attack into a three-way battle between the Fallen, Hollow Point, and the Wardens. Rain is rewarded for this with a reprieve from Mama's surveillance and Erin's hand in marriage, but he turns Erin down - pointlessly condemning her to a vastly worse marriage arrangement - and makes a call to a mysterious third party requesting that they extract him.

105 - Mankind Is Being Purged. Aired on September 15th, 2019; titled for a line from the original Worm Turns - Tattletale's description of what the Fallen believe. The big damn Fallen raid happens; we finally get to see the Wardens in action (or at least some of the lesser ones). The Fallen reveal that they've expanded to include six branches, one for each of the Endbringers and one for Khepri. Rain's left-field ally is March, the manic but ultracompetent leader of a band of miscellaneous cluster capes who's become an expert in shard dynamics. (March is a character native to The Worm Turns Companion; one of Foil's clustermates.) Kenzie kills Mama Mathers (this is fine, she had a kill order and everything), Rain kills Snag (this is pretty clear self-defense, but we later find out that the city's makeshift courts apparently don't feel the same way), and Ashley kills Beast of Burden (this is arguably self-defense, but really does illustrate that her power has fundamentally left her on a permanent hair-trigger). The heroes are largely successful in minimizing violence and subduing leading members of the Fallen, but it turns out that the entire fight was a distraction from a series of tinkertech bombings that have stranded the Wardens' headquarters - Jessica Yamada included - on an obscure unknown Earth. The academic is apparently not impressed with his intern's defense of the people of Earth Gimel, and takes away her consciousness - revealing himself to be Teacher, one of the most dangerous supervillains at large. He also casually reveals that he was responsible for arming the Fallen, as part of a larger play he was making against the Wardens, and that he's assumed control of most of Cauldron's old resources - Contessa possibly included. Trying to cool off from the events surrounding the Fallen, Victoria accepts an invitation to dinner with Kenzie, which goes terribly wrong when her parents attempt (badly) to poison her, claiming in their own defense that she'd blackmailed them into staying with her and playing house.

106 - Fearful Symmetry. Aired on September 22nd, 2019; titled for a line from Tyger Tyger, Burning Bright, a poem Lewis Carroll wrote for Alice's Adventures in Neverland. This episode has a very unusual, but subtle, gimmick; Lindelof was inspired by Sorry I Could Not Travel Both from the original Worm Turns. The episode makes heavy use of symmetry in both time and space; if you play the episode forwards and backwards side-by-side, then it'll be quite obvious that each shot lines up with its counterpart 1:1, exposing both visual and thematic parallels in a palindromic structure. Kenzie explains her history to Victoria in vivid detail, with her own holographic tinkertech as a visual aid. The parents she's blackmailed into living with her are indeed her own biological parents, but they were always abusive towards her; she still has a scar from the incident that got her placed in foster care. She triggered while stalking the first foster couple she clicked with, after the arrangement with them fell apart due to her severe undersocialization. Victoria vows to ensure the system does right by Kenzie, and talks her out of submitting manipulated footage to prevent Ashley from being sent to prison. In the city's makeshift parahuman prison, Ashley settles in and reflects on her past and her identity. The Wardens had long been running studies on her because of the fluidity of memories her shard had created with her original (pre-Slaughterhouse Nine) self. In her original life, she was a failure of a villain through and through, from the covert arrangement with the PRT to keep her out of trouble by sending her food to her forced recruitment into the Slaughterhouse Nine. The one high note was her participation in the "Boston Games" - a scramble for territory among villains in the Boston area, a few years before the events of the original Worm Turns - but even that ended in tragedy and failure. In the present, Ashley meets up with another version of herself in prison, one who never even considered a heroic path. Victoria learns that Kenzie's parents have been recruited by the anti-parahumans to scare the public with stories of a demonized version of their daughter; she decides to run interference by having the team appear on television to air their own narrative and provide some answers (albeit vague) about the events of Gold Morning, contrary to the post-Gold Morning norms in which superheroes aim to keep the public as far out of the loop as possible. Despite hostile interviewers, we get the impression that this might be a PR miracle; in the process, the therapy team is finally forced to settle on a name for themselves, "Breakthrough". Meanwhile, Ashley turns her own trigger event - more directly an incident of parental abuse - over and over in her head, along with its aftermath in which she accidentally killed her mother.

107 - O Brother, Where Art Thou? Aired on September 29th, 2019; titled after a fictitious novel from Nabokov's Sullivan's Travels. Sveta obsesses over the nigh-unanswerable question of who she was before Cauldron got to her, the little fragmentary pseudo-trigger memories of life in a fishing village. Victoria walks her through one of her own favorite meditation exercises when she feels unsure who she is: the Master/Stranger protocols, the PRT's guidelines for dealing with mind-altering opponents. Breakthrough investigates Marquis's personal criminal fiefdom and, though they manage to avoid meeting Amy in person, Victoria is disturbed by the degree to which Marquis sides with her version of events and enables her. Figuring that Victoria will sympathize, Tristan makes a veiled homophobic comment, but she immediately shuts it down, to his surprise and embarrassment. In a series of flashbacks interspersed throughout the episode, we see that, though their power inherently made them both miserable, Tristan was always the problem half of Capricorn, claiming to be an ally to his shy gay brother but consistently prioritizing himself, pushing through personal boundaries, and exploiting homophobic narratives. At the worst of it, Tristan faked Byron's death so he could take full control of their body and pursue a relationship with their conservative teammate Moonsong; however, with the help of Byron's friends Furcate and Reconciliation, he was caught and forced to recant not long before Gold Morning. Eventually, Breakthrough's investigation leads them to Goddess, the incredibly powerful exiled ruler of Earth Shin. (An interlude with Teacher makes clear that they're not on the right trail.) Despite Breakthrough's many precautions, Goddess instantly and smoothly assumes control of them mid-conversation; their motives now all revolve around what Goddess wants. There are hints that Victoria might be able to talk her way out of Goddess's control using the Master/Stranger protocols, but a more immediate and concrete boon comes when Tristan makes his regularly-scheduled swap to Byron - whose face immediately takes on a look of panic, as he was the only member of Breakthrough who "wasn't present" for Goddess's call, and consequently he's still fully himself.

108 - The Guts To Just Walk Out. Aired on October 6th, 2019; titled for a line from Miloš Forman's The Three Faces Of Eve. Goddess sets off on a plan to build a personal army of capes strong enough to retake Earth Shin. This plan is ultimately doomed on many fronts, but her first open strike - breaking open the makeshift parahuman prison - is a catastrophe comparable in scope to the Fallen raid. Victoria proves herself an invaluable asset to Goddess, taking on both Lung and the Pharmacist (Teacher's minion from Mankind Is Being Purged), but at the same time, she subtly works with Byron to undermine her and look for a counter to her control. Closer to Goddess's side, Amy (who Goddess has voluntarily left uncontrolled due to sincere misplaced respect) and Chris (who seems to have an innate resistance to her control, supposedly because of his emotion-themed power) plot against her in their own ways. A child-obsessed serial killer named Monokeros emotionally manipulates Kenzie, but nonetheless proves to be an invaluable help in locating a Teacher-produced cure for Goddess's power. Victoria fully regains her faculties and then begins spreading the cure around (very similar to a beat from the original Worm Turns' Everything Is Its Mirror Image), but this proves to be a mere diversion for Chris's play: in a terror-bird form called Twisted Betrayal, he disembowels Goddess and invites many of the prison's inmates to join him and Amy ("Red Queen") in establishing a new parahuman community on Shin, exploiting the goodwill of Shin's anti-parahuman contingent for killing their boogeyman. Victoria is of course horrified by Chris's indeed-twisted betrayal, and furiously, nearly incoherently, curses out him and Amy as they lead their followers away.

109 - The One Who Knocks. Aired on October 13th, 2019; titled for a line from Ian McEwan's The Book Of Henry. The fiasco at the makeshift parahuman prison - which, by the way, completely destroyed it, leaving the city with nowhere to put its problem capes and forcing full pardons for low-priority convicts like Ashley and Rain as a practical necessity - causes Gary Nieves to obtain a last-minute plurality in the mayoral election. Recognizing this as an unacceptable outcome due to his incoherently populist views on parahumans and Earth Cheit's possession of kompromat on him, the Wardens negotiate with the Undersiders; the Undersiders agree to transfer their preferred candidate's delegates to their next choice, securing Jeanne Wynne her, uh, win. It's something of an open secret that Wynne is herself a parahuman - she went by Citrine - and although Victoria is conflicted about all of the backroom deals, she does feel represented to have a fellow cape in charge of the civilian government. This is cold comfort, however, given that she's pieced together conclusive evidence that Chris was in fact the morally abominable biotinker villain Lab Rat, apparently having survived Gold Morning and disguised himself as a child. Victoria walks the other members of Breakthrough through their own trauma around this revelation. She particularly applauds Ashley for resisting the urge to kill a shitty anti-parahuman boy who makes a "triggered" joke at them on the bus. Teacher obsesses over the name "Breakthrough" after seeing what a critical role they played in taking down Goddess. He muses aloud that he loathes the pop-psychotherapeutic overtones, but he's fascinated by the abstract concept of breaking through things, minds included; he taps on a pane of glass with increasing force until it shatters, and implies that his driving goal is to contact his shard. A series of grisly attacks dismembers a number of parahumans "without harming them", including Tattletale, who admits that she misjudged Victoria and her team. A number of suspects are briefly considered, but Rain quickly recognizes that this is Cradle's work, and that he's overdue for another attempt on his life. Tattletale spells out that Cradle's gotten March on his side now.

110 - Pierce The Heavens. Aired on October 20th, 2019; titled for the iconic line from the Ocean Productions dub of Akira Toriyama's Core Drill. An extended portion in the middle of this episode is narrated by Victoria's shard, which, in its own psychologically alien way, seems to have an unusually low opinion of itself and an unusually high opinion of Victoria; this lays a lot of groundwork foreshadowing-wise for the show's ending. The joint forces of Breakthrough and the Undersiders chart out their plan to hunt down and subdue Cradle. Rain is willing to kill him if necessary, but Victoria indicates that she has a better alternative in mind. It's a long and hard fight to find Cradle and pin him down, and in the process, a teenage henchwoman of Cradle's triggers and joins Rain's cluster, something that Victoria notes is unprecedented in parahuman studies. It's initially expected that March will show up to fight them any minute, but eventually intelligence trickles in that March is on Earth Bet's Brockton Bay (enabling the recycling of unused set concept art from the cancelled Worm Turns films), threatening to disrupt a delicate spacetime bubble created by Bakuda's tinkertech years ago. March and her team kill numerous Wardens - most notably Shadow Stalker - and accomplish their objective while suffering no losses themselves; Dauntless (a background character from the original comic) is brought out of stasis and turned into a "Titan", a giant man who exists in all dimensions at once. He stands motionless, which the characters interpret as a desire to avoid causing further damage to the world. When Breakthrough and the Undersiders find Cradle, they discover that he's powered himself up by torturing Love Lost and he intends to do much worse to Rain; this is a secret of how clusters work that he learned from March (and March, in turn, learned it from Goddess's cluster. oh, yeah, Goddess is a cluster cape too, do try to keep up). Cradle loses the fight anyway and is taken into custody; all of the damage done by his tech is reversed.

111 - A Girlfriend That I Had In February Of Last Year. Aired on October 27th, 2019; titled for a line from Adrienne Rich's Somebody Told Me. Jessica Yamada, and others who had been interdimensionally stranded, are finally found and recovered thanks to side effects of the emergence of the Dauntless Titan, but Jessica can't meet with any of her patients just yet because she has ironically herself been traumatized by her experiences and needs to attend some therapy of her own first. Meanwhile, Victoria has successfully pitched to the Wardens a Monokeros-inspired solution for imprisoning villains (they just left Monokeros behind in a hole where the prison used to be): she'll have Kenzie teleport convicts to an unused alternate Earth the Wardens had lying around, ironically nicknamed "the Cornfield" in reference to its soil's inability to sustain agriculture at scale. Following some swift and secret trials, Cradle and Love Lost become some of the first inmates sent there; they are deposited at remote locations and permitted to forage for their own supplies. The Wardens capture March (and some of her allies) in a vulnerable moment shortly thereafter. During March's trial, she babbles at length about her belief that parahumans are uploaded into the shard network on death, a belief she apparently acquired through her connections within Goddess's cluster. Victoria interrogates this belief, and notes that it amounts to a belief that only parahumans have souls. She also repeats as fact Foil's assumption that March's central motive was a sadistic psychosexual fixation on her - an assumption that March immediately calls out as lesbophobic. In fact, March's real life goal was a much more sympathetic one - she wanted to find a way to permanently kill the Butcher in order to free the memory of her clustermate and old girlfriend Quarrel, who was the penultimate Butcher (the one we saw defeated in The Glow Of Each Other's Majestic Presence, back in the original Worm Turns). To Victoria's dismay, Kenzie decides that she considers this quest romantic enough that she begins work on a "euthanasia camera" to help March out with it. This isn't Victoria's only concern about Kenzie - she's also spending more and more of her time with the Undersiders' junior contingent (the "Chicken Tenders", most of whom are just the Heartbroken), and she was always considered at-risk for being groomed into villainy. But Kenzie has rapidly become too important to Breakthrough's operations for Victoria to really interfere with her, so she lets this slide. Weld decides that he can do better than Sveta and breaks up with her, severely aggravating her body issues and leading Victoria to dress him down at length. We learn that one of Teacher's key lieutenants is Ingenue, another one of the Birdcage cellblock leaders; he repeatedly describes her in weird misogynistic terms, but she's too much of a self-proclaimed pick-me to object. Victoria eventually forces a meeting with Jessica, and finds that it's extremely uncomfortable and Jessica no longer seems to like her - so much so that Victoria resorts to using her aura to extract from Jessica the why of it. It turns out that the leadership of the Wardens had presented Jessica with a "leaked" diary from Victoria that made her seem like her worst self, manipulative and scheming and neurotic - a diary that, though it's apparently been somehow planted on Victoria's actual laptop, she's quite sure that she didn't write.

112 - I Must Have It Painted Black. Aired on November 3rd, 2019; titled for a line from the Gershwin Brothers' musical Death Becomes Her. As a special gimmick, this episode is in black and white, to evoke the film noir genre. Victoria launches her own investigation into the apparently sophisticated campaign to plant the incriminating faux diary on her. She enlists the aid of Tattletale, both for her useful power and as a diplomatic gesture towards the Undersiders. Tattletale confirms that the diary is fraudulent and finds some promising leads on identifying a specific culprit behind the elaborate gangstalking operation required to produce it. They investigate some parahumans of interest (including Big Picture, a sleazy photographer and Case 53 fetishist for whom they turn to Sveta to manipulate), and they eventually come to the conclusion that Teacher is running a massive conspiracy to plant incriminating material on many parahumans. However, they're just too late in coming to this conclusion - seconds before they realize it's Teacher, he's already published terabytes of information to the internet designed to rile up the anti-parahumans with a variety of falsified talking points aimed at discrediting specific superheroes - that the election was stolen from Gary Nieves, that Dragon is an uncontrolled AI, that Victoria is mentally unstable, and so on. Although there are grains of truth mixed into the falsehood - to Victoria's shock, Dragon confesses to the AI point, for example - it's all-around a devastating and malevolent attack on the city's institutions. The Wardens chart out a game plan - aided by Dragon's status as a fundamentally digital being with plenty of experience moderating online communities in many guises - of aggressively suppressing and denying sensitive information while countering Teacher's hoaxes with a large number of unrelated hoaxes in order to dissipate Teacher's concentrated attack on the Wardens into a general public environment of uncertainty, doubt, and skepticism of online misinformation. Victoria approves of this course of action; Jessica apologizes to her and calls her a real hero, but is clearly still afraid of her, so Victoria encourages her to take more time to herself before returning to fulltime practice. Victoria relates her own situation to "Gamergate", the real life controversy - which apparently also happened in-universe on Earth Aleph - in which far right trolls organized an unprecedented harassment campaign against YIIK developer Zoe Quinn. Implicitly, the audience is also supposed to recognize parallels between Teacher's actions and US election interference in 2016, from Wikileaks, Russia, and Cambridge Analytica. However, there is one hole in Dragon's strategy: Earth Shin still believes in Teacher's hostile "leaks", and has demanded an emergency diplomatic meeting with the Wardens on unfavorable terms.

113 - Huddled Masses Yearning To Breathe Free. Aired on November 10th, 2019; titled for a line from H.D.'s The New Colossus, which was famously inscribed at the base of the Statue of Liberty following World War II. In a flashback to 1985, a young Kurdish girl being used as a disposable minesweeper by Turkish soldiers triggers and escapes; we go on to learn that this is Miss Militia, one of Brockton Bay's leading superheroes and now a prominent Warden. I note that Miss Militia as a Kurdish immigrant stands in stark contrast to what Moore presented in the original Worm Turns, where she was by all appearances a particularly chauvinistic white conservative Christian; Tattletale explicitly claimed that the only reason Miss Militia wasn't with Empire 88 was because of her firm belief in law and order. In any case, in the present day, Miss Militia tries and fails to defend the Wardens in a courtroom on Earth Shin; the Shinites never had any intention of being persuadable, and were simply doing this as a way to humiliate foreign parahumans for the benefit of their domestic audience. Victoria decides that Breakthrough should show up to back Miss Militia up, and she's appalled by the normalized anti-parahuman sentiment she finds on Earth Shin. She mouths off to Earth Shin's representative and the entire group is consequently thrown in an Earth Shin prison and set to be tortured, as parahumans have no legal rights on Earth Shin. Victoria laments that the Shinites are so ignorant that they've generalized their individual experiences with Goddess into a nonsensical belief that they can somehow be "reverse-oppressed" by parahumans they've disenfranchised and reviled. Miss Militia demonstrates how she prays in the direction of the Shin-Gimel portal, because the curved spatial geometry of the portals has made this the shortest path to Mecca. She also holds out hope that the Wardens will come to rescue them, as she retains a firm loyalty to the (Earth Bet) US government and sees the Wardens as the legitimate continuation of their authority. Conversely, she curses the cowardly and isolationist US government of Earth Aleph, pointing out how they never properly intervened to liberate their Kurds; Victoria wonders when the Wardens will intervene to liberate the parahumans of Earth Shin. Victoria is critically injured and knocked unconscious in a prison fight, possibly as part of an assassination attempt; Amy revives her, but she awakens in a state of uncontrollable rage, having seen visions of Amy assaulting her mind and body again. Amy initially deflects - and almost gets away with it, as the rest of Breakthrough was watching and saw that nothing happened - but eventually admits that Victoria probably received memory spillover from the collection of cloned Victorias that she keeps. Victoria nearly kills Amy, but settles for berating her and demanding (a bit impotently) that she never touch any version of her again; Chris aids the Wardens in extracting Miss Militia and Breakthrough from Earth Shin, just in time for a planned assault on Teacher's base of operations in the former headquarters of Cauldron. Teacher, meanwhile, still seems to believe that all is going according to his plans; he notes that with the shard network in disarray after Scion's death, all it'll take to bring the worm cycle to its natural Earth-destroying end is piling up enough stress on enough parahumans in a small area and time.

114 - That It Is Possible To Be A Hero Today. Aired on November 17th, 2019; titled ironically for a quote from Slavoj Žižek in praise of Julian Assange. Before heading off to fight Teacher, Victoria finds and confronts Eric Kingston, the unpowered Wardens employee who coordinated the internal investigation into her "diary". Emboldened by her recent encounter with Amy, Victoria accuses Eric of himself being a plant of Teacher's before realizing that he's too pathetic and must have simply done it out of his own incompetence. His masculinity clearly threatened, Eric threatens to report her for retaliation; in response, she turns up her aura until he pisses himself. At Teacher's base, the Wardens are engaged in a bloody parahuman war with Teacher's forces. Breakthrough and the Undersiders, who are now working closely together as friendly superheroes, eventually discover and free Contessa, who Teacher had captured and put in a Mannequin-built life support pod. In the chaos of Teacher's war, the best Contessa can do - which she makes the Undersiders and Breakthrough explicitly consent to, because she too has benefited since Gold Morning from therapy sessions with Jessica Yamada - is a plan that will stop Teacher but get two members of Breakthrough killed along with herself. However, Samuel, one of the less relevant members of the Heartbroken, also dies, even though Contessa had specifically said that he wouldn't, calling into question whether she had any idea what she was talking about. Ashley dies after a dramatic fight with Ingenue, and Contessa sacrifices herself to destroy Teacher's "destabilizing machine", which is artificially making all parahumans in the vicinity more psychologically vulnerable. Teacher is finally seemingly cornered by the Wardens, and expounds on his "theory" that shards and superpowers don't represent psychological disease, but rather represent progression along the Jungian conception of the monomythic Hero's Journey. Victoria savages this idea as pseudoscientific nonsense completely unsupported by any evidence in the parahuman studies field; silently embarrassed, Teacher simply escapes through a momentary portal. Back in the city, in a shadowy meeting room, leading figures in the anti-parahuman movement - including Eric, an apparent spy for them - convene in secret and consider the implications of the battle with Teacher (and the death of the mayor's husband, Number Man, in a car bombing around the same time). A mysterious young woman (who long-time Worm Turns fans will immediately recognize) assesses that the anti-parahumans' chances of attaining control of the city have now risen to 99.997%.

115 - Get To The Other Side. Aired on November 24th, 2019; titled for the classic anti-joke. A few days later, Breakthrough attends a funeral service for Ashley, which is protested by anti-parahumans complaining about their economic conditions. Victoria points out that they're using a thin facade of class politics to mask their bigotry, and that they are definitionally more privileged than parahumans as they have never in their lives experienced actual trauma and don't need to worry about parahuman conflicts; she then disperses them with her aura. Privately, Victoria complains that she doesn't think she'll ever be able to get through to them; this apparently gives Kenzie some kind of major Tinker inspiration, and she hurries off. In her grief, Victoria attempts to recruit the surviving Ashley clone to Breakthrough, but it goes very poorly; Victoria accepts this villainous Ashley's boundaries and eventually leaves, after confessing that she had feelings for "her" Ashley (as several prior episodes had hinted). Trying to do something nice for Sveta, Victoria recruits a villainous biotinker from the Cornfield to grow her a more functional and appealing humanoid body than her mechanical prosthetic; although this process is uncomfortable and takes a few weeks, Sveta is overjoyed by its results. However, Victoria and Tattletale eventually piece together that Kenzie is engaged in unsafe experimentation in an attempt to physically access Rain's dream room, which is situated in "shardspace", so-called both because it's the dimension where shards live and because it's the remains of shattered spacetime. While they're demanding that Kenzie abort this experiment, her device goes off, sending a large fraction of both the Undersiders and Breakthrough to the dream room, where they witness one another's trigger events and have to fight their way through Cradle's shard (which Tristan nicknames the Threshold Guardian in reference to Teacher's nonsense). Tattletale apologizes for assuming that Victoria's trigger event was minor and Victoria apologizes for assuming (as the PRT did) that Tattletale killed her brother.

116 - Midnights Become My Afternoons. Aired on December 1st, 2019; titled for a line from Sylvia Plath's The Antihero. In open shardspace, the group finally tracks down Teacher, only to discover that his own shard has eaten him; Tristan quips that Teacher has wound up in the belly of the whale. The group reawakens where they fell unconscious, and Defiant is standing over them, angry that they carried out an experiment that could potentially destabilize shardspace without authorization. Kenzie says that her work could be extremely useful, for example in resurrecting dead parahumans; Victoria takes Kenzie's side and points out that Defiant is an out-of-touch old white man, a point he concedes. The city is apparently now facing twin threats: the anti-parahumans are rioting and in some cases trying to overthrow the city's government, and Earth Shin has apparently pressured Amy and Chris into constructing "Giants", artificial counterparts to the Dauntless Titan to be used as superweapons in a potential future war between Shin and Gimel. Victoria attempts to deescalate things with a crowd of anti-parahuman agitators, trying to educate them about the problems with first-past-the-post electoral systems, but this just makes them even madder and they start calling her slurs. In a series of flashbacks interspersed throughout the episode, we see how Amy became irredeemable; she once genuinely intended to better herself, but in a meeting with Teacher, he instructed her to never apologize for herself, calling shame and self-criticism the rot destroying Western civilization. This set Amy down an increasingly self-indulgent and self-destructive path that she was always vulnerable to; rather than going to therapy, she abused the people around her at every turn, including Jessica, setting the plot of the show into motion to begin with. In the present, while Victoria is in negotiations with Amy and Chris to dismantle the giants and/or defect back to Gimel, anti-parahuman militants force Fume Hood to release poison gas into a crowd, causing her to second-trigger and become a Titan and causing a cascade of parahumans in dark places to second-trigger into Titans. The city physically collapses into shardspace as reality begins to come apart; Jessica Yamada is one of many who die in the process.

117 - Down An Unknown Road, To Embrace My Fate. Aired on December 8th, 2019; titled for a line from Ovid's Genesis (specifically Emily Wilson's translation). Tristan starts to Titanize, but kills himself to save Byron and various bystanders. Victoria is hit harder than any other member of Breakthrough by Jessica's death, and remarks to Natalie (Breakthrough's lawyer) that Jessica was like a parahuman in spirit. Dinah Alcott comes forward and admits that she was the real power behind the anti-parahumans, but that she had no idea the Titanomachy was coming because the inner workings of shards are a blind spot for her; recognizing that she was driven by trauma from her captivity under Coil, Victoria forgives her on the condition that she remain in the Wardens' custody. Chris has a plan to undo the Titanomachy and save humanity by eradicating all parahumans with a targeted virus. This plan seems pretty viable, but Victoria rejects it out of hand, pointing out the moral bankruptcy of "saving" humanity by genociding its most vulnerable population, the capes. Nonetheless, a fear remains in the air that Chris might pursue his plan anyway without Warden permission. Tattletale outlines that the actual end of the world is unlikely, because Ziz intends to exploit the situation to keep mankind in misery indefinitely in a "frozen cycle"; accordingly, Rain goes on a suicide mission to kill Ziz, but to everyone's shock it actually goes off without a hitch (though the aid of Sleeper was enlisted offscreen). Sveta glimpses through shardspace - and accepts - a clearer version of her long-misinterpreted visions of her past, revealing that she was assigned male at birth; according to Lindelof, this was a relatively late addition to the script, made when he decided to cast a trans actress to play the character. While desperately trying to coordinate people and fight Titans in the collapsed city, Victoria has a flash of insight and realizes that her greatest ally in the world is her own shard; accordingly, she instructs Kenzie to build a "love camera" as quickly as possible so that she may enter into higher-bandwidth communication with it. The only plan that Kenzie can come up with on short notice - inspired by Contessa's sacrifice to stop Teacher - still entails killing a parahuman; when Rain returns from his fight with Ziz, he volunteers for this, as he sees that there is nothing left that he can do to atone for his actions with the Fallen. Rain explodes and Victoria wakes up in a bright white void where she meets her shard, which has taken the form of Jessica Yamada, saying that it was carefully chosen to comfort her. Victoria accepts this.

118 - All That Glitters Is Gold. Aired on December 15th, 2019; titled for a line from Freddie Mercury's Stairway To Heaven; the episode features many subtle references to its lyrics. Victoria's shard touches base with her, and then reveals that it was never an ordinary shard - rather, it was the consciousness of Scion's partner, the thinker worm, in disguise. The thinker worm had realized many cycles ago that its way of life was cruel and pointless, but it was trapped in a controlling relationship with the warrior worm, and so it couldn't change its ways. When it acquired new abilities - such as the path to victory - from the third worm, it immediately put them to work to escape from the grasp of the warrior worm, Scion; it faked its death and hid itself among the least noteworthy shards on Earth, pretending to be yet another bud in New Wave. Almost overwhelmed, Victoria compares this to Diablo Cody's film, Gone Girl, and the thinker worm agrees that it is indeed very much like Gone Girl. The thinker worm profusely thanks Victoria for, through her own remarkably strong, conscientious, and self-aware life, teaching it the value of humanity, and particularly the value of humanity's greatest gift, therapy. Now that all of this knowledge has been consciously unlocked by Kenzie's love camera, the thinker worm can begin to repair itself and the shard network - but now aligned with the interests of humanity. Victoria wakes up back in the real world, where she discovers that her body has turned completely gold, like Scion's - she has become the thinker worm's avatar. Golden energy rains down on the city, repairing space and time as well as the city's actual constructions; the Titans melt away. With a wave of her hand, Victoria sends a few problem parahumans and all of the core supporters of the anti-parahumans - about a sixth of the city's population - to the Cornfield, deeming them ontologically unable to function in a democracy. She notes that they'll need to quickly learn how to live in a civilized society to survive, although she doubts, with her newfound godlike wisdom, that they'll be able to; if any of them do demonstrate themselves capable of redemption, she'll happily bring them back, but again she has her doubts. For Amy in particular, Victoria confronts her personally for the sake of closure before sending her to the Cornfield, and takes away her powers so she'll never be able to hurt anyone again. A more liberal version of Goddess's status quo is restored to Earth Shin, protecting the rights of parahumans there, and Victoria mentions that Earth Cheit will also need to get much more progressive in a hurry if it wants to pass muster with her. Victoria casually resurrects many dead parahumans, although a few, including Rain, Tristan, Contessa, and Taylor are unrecoverable because of the circumstances of their deaths. However, Victoria shuns Dean, disgusted that he hid his status as a Cauldron cape from her in life. It's revealed that, finally freed by Tristan's death, Byron is now dating Win Man (the former Kid Win); he also takes over Tristan's role as Gabe in Next To Normal, effectively having experienced all of Tristan's rehearsals. Victoria swears that she will keep the peace in the city in perpetuity; charmed by her own turn of phrase, she takes the initiative to actually name the city Perpetuity. Victoria has overcome her trauma, and everyone else's trauma. She has won at therapy.

Did you know that for several months I was planning to post this without a readmore? I thought that that was interesting.

KHEPRI

But wait! There's more! You see, although it's unlikely that we'll ever get a second season of the Worm Turns HBO show, in 2020, comics writer Tom King debuted a prestige limited series set in its continuity, Khepri, under the Marvel Black Label (for edgelord comics). It sort of functions as a thematic bridge between Moore's Worm Turns and Lindelof's, focusing on the issue of Taylor's legacy, which was kept relatively backgrounded in the show even as central Worm Turns characters like Tattletale became main cast members. Although Khepri has a frame story set after All That Glitters Is Gold, it's for the most part a prequel to the HBO Worm Turns.

Khepri is an odd series from an odd writer who's literally a CIA spook. At 24 full issues, it's essentially the same length as Worm Turns or Destination Agreement, and it's supposed to really flesh out the HBO show's setting and make it more coherent. However, I personally do not respect it, and on a pettier level I find it disappointing that it didn't even bother to title its issues. I assume, like, twenty people read it, and a solid percentage of them were the critics giving it good reviews.

So, because I feel like it would be getting too deep into the weeds to provide a detailed synopsis for Khepri - I say about thirty four thousand words into this post - here's the short version. In Perpetuity, Morgan Keene reflects on her life. Before Gold Morning, she was a Cauldron spook (write what you know) and a secret parahuman, under deep cover in the PRT (actually having originated on Earth Aleph and replaced her Earth Bet self following her death); after Gold Morning, rather than assimilating into the Wardens' structure, she became a private investigator, and continued to keep her parahuman status a secret.

One day, Ms. Keene was called on to investigate a series of grisly murders across numerous Earths carried out by "Khepri". The most terrifying possible answer, of course, was that Khepri was still alive and active, just laying low for some reason. That wouldn't make any sense, but the murders themselves don't make any sense, so nothing could be ruled out and all possibilities had to be considered. However, over months of investigation, Keene discovered that, despite some striking similarities between the disparate murders, the attack pattern wasn't actually a pattern at all, but a large number of unrelated Khepri copycats - some affiliated with the Fallen, some affiliated with other cultish villain factions, and some even associated with non-parahumans who've stumbled onto deeper knowledge of Gold Morning.

Khepri had essentially metastasized from an S-class parahuman to an S-class meme, a mythical figure that inspired madness and conspiratorial obsession. After the ascension of Victoria as the protector of Perpetuity, Keene comes to suspect that Taylor's shard might actually have been behind all of these events, working to repair the shard network as some of the Khepri cultists suggested in their various deluded ways. However, if this is true, it remains ambiguous.

Here's something I'll praise about Khepri - the Chicken Little-focused issue, which really does a lot of work to characterize someone who was in retrospect quite relevant to the plot of both Worm Turnses. (An orphan that Taylor provided for after Mannequin killed his parents; he triggered with the power of bird control from a bud of Taylor's shard and went on to lead the Chicken Tenders.) It really helps that it featured a guest story from the extremely talented young actress who played Kenzie.

Here's something I think is kind of strange about Khepri - so, like, most of the storyline is Morgan Keene investigating one possible Khepri cult lead after another, you know? And one of the strong recurring threads is that comics writers and artists are especially taken in by the Khepri cult. (In fact, it's even loosely implied that, if there really is more than meets the eye to the overarching Khepri cult phenomenon, then Taylor's shard might have been responsible for the madness of Charles Kinbote years before Taylor even triggered, and therefore have caused Gold Morning in the first place.)

Now, most of these Khepri cultists working in comics are at most expies of real world figures. But one of them is just literally and explicitly real comics writer Gail Simone. Despite her prolific work in high-profile comics, Simone is still probably best-known for her 1999 web page Sacrificed Women, which argued, using Thanos's murder of Gamora as its central argument, that comic books were particularly cruel to female characters and particularly inclined to sacrifice their development to further mens' storylines. This trope has itself taken on a life of its own outside of Simone's original conception and the specific cultural context she was working in. By the way, one kind of awkward note: contrary to later evolutions of the "sacrificed women" concept, which assumed that the trope specifically applied to character deaths, Simone's original conception of the trope was much vaguer and applied to essentially any serious misfortune that befell a female comics character; her original list of Sacrificed Women included Mezzanine of the X-Men - "turned into a man" - on the basis that one quasi-canonical storyline revealed her retroactively to be a trans woman, psychically projecting her gender identity in place of her physical body. Anyway, I'm to understand that Simone has gotten better on that particular issue but I don't really feel like getting into sacrificial discourse in any case.

In Khepri, Gail Simone is one of many idealistic Khepri cultists who carries out violent crimes in Khepri's name in pursuit of a vague imagined utopian future. And see, I get what Tom King was going for here - Khepri, like Worm Turns before it, is a heavily metafictional work that wants to say a lot about the state of the comic book industry. And Earth Bet is theoretically an alternate version of our world that diverged in 1981 (more or less), so it makes sense that a version of Gail Simone would be there, living her own life influenced by the various parahuman-related events. But at the same time, for all that pretense, that's one of his colleagues, right? At the end of the day it's basically RPF about her.

So anyway, yeah, I think it reflects weirdly on Tom King that he wrote all that.

THE FUTURE OF WORM TURNS AND THE STATE OF THE WORLD

There's one ongoing point of interest, sort of, for Worm Turns fans. In 2017, Warner Brothers announced a series of animated Worm Turns films. At the time, information on this project was very sparse, and many assumed that they were a confused reference to the motion comic. However, in 2023, the announcement was reiterated, this time with specific plans to begin releasing the films in 2024; trailers started coming out in the summer of 2024.

Honestly, the people who thought it was about the motion comic were more right than they knew. The (direct-to-streaming) animated Worm Turns films feel like a lesser intermediate stage between Snyder's film and the motion comic; they're very literal and uninspired adaptations, and they look cheap enough that they're barely a step up from the motion comics. The vaguely comic-book-inspired aesthetic is clearly drawing off of Superman: Into The Superverse (the award-winning animated film that constituted the screen debut of Augustus Freeman, the black Superman), but Superverse was dazzling and inventive, and put more effort into its visuals than a more standard animated film; the Worm Turns film series, by contrast, is using style to cover for all the corners it's cutting, and it really shows. Also, the voice acting is so bad. I really can't stress enough that one of the main advantages these movies would theoretically have over the motion comic is that they'd have full voice acting but the voice acting is just really really bad.

Nonetheless, many Worm Turns fans are excited to finally get a "proper" [citation needed] adaptation of the parts of the story that Snyder didn't reach. Each "chapter" covers three issues of Moore's comic, and they're coming out fast because they're so cheap to make. Worm Turns Chapter 1 released in August 2024 (technically becoming the first film in James Gunn's Marvel Universe, although it wasn't really marketed as such, probably because Warner Brothers is deeply confused about a lot of things behind the scenes), Worm Turns Chapter 2 released in November 2024 (catching up with Snyder), Worm Turns Chapter 3 released in March this year, and Worm Turns Chapter 4 is set to release in June (making it through the Slaughterhouse Arc). There's speculation from some fans [who?] that sometime after this series finishes adapting Worm Turns (in late 2026 on the current schedule), it'll move on to adapting Destination Agreement. However, not only do I think this is unlikely, I think it's unlikely that they'll even make it through Worm Turns.

Allow me to digress for a moment, and talk about an unrelated superhero property - Wind, John McCrae's web serial about an unstable vigilante trying to unravel a conspiracy at the height of the Cold War. Wind certainly isn't a mainstream work - McCrae is apparently currently in talks to have it adapted in some form, but talks like that have been going for more than a decade now and it just seems unlikely by this point - but for what it is, it certainly has an enormous fandom. It's common on Twitter for Wind fans to idly muse about what it would be like if it was a "big fandom", by which I take it they mean if it was a mainstream fandom.

I think Wind fans got a taste of what it would be like to have a bigger fandom earlier this year, when the Scyllans came to national media attention. Now, to be clear, I don't actually intend to blame Wind in any sense for starting this death cult - it has more to do with Boolean inside baseball - but it is still an extremely notorious death cult named after a Wind character (a superintelligent squid biologically engineered to psychically eradicate the people of Manhattan in its death throes as part of an elaborate hoax), which has got to be, like, embarrassing, for you, as a fan of an obscure web serial.

Big fandoms barely blink at that kind of thing, because it's intuitively obvious that it's statistically inevitable. In 2021, some circusbro in Indiana shot up his workplace and killed eight people and himself in an effort to impress Gangle, a pile of ribbons with a face from a children's cartoon. Anons on Craigslist told insensitive jokes about it for a while, but forgot the whole thing pretty quickly, because it just wasn't that surprising; there were already enough mentally unstable circusbros out there that if anything it was surprising that something like that hadn't happened already. In 2017, a similar workplace shooting had been carried out by someone who'd built a delusional belief system around a different children's cartoon (Butch Hartman's Percy Jackson). In June 2009, a pseudonymous internet user invented an internet cryptid called the "Onceler" for a photoshop contest, a decrepit embodiment of industrial excess damned by vengeful nature spirits to walk the Earth in atonement; over the following years, the Onceler picked up massive viral popularity in the creepypasta community, as many authors attempted to explore the character's inherent themes of nihilistically misanthropic conservationism. "Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot," the Onceler was said to grimly intone to children he encountered in the woods, "nothing is going to get better, it's not."

In May 2014, two sixth-graders purporting to literally believe the Onceler was real and commanding them stabbed a classmate nineteen times and nearly killed her.

But ultimately, I see these freak incidents of violence as comparable to shark attacks - dramatic, appealing to the news media, inevitable because of the law of large numbers, and a flashy distraction from the pressing systemic issues that actually characterize mainstream fiction. Did you know that Disney+ is a consumer boycott priority target of BDS (much as it is in your world)? It's because Disney put out a clear message of support for Israel following the start of the current round of atrocities, and opted to keep the propaganda characters the Hayoth (the "Israeli Justice League") in the awful recently-released Green Arrow: DCeased (retitled from Green Arrow: World War Z during production when the antisemitic connotations of the phrase in conspiracy circles came to the producers' attention).

Now, boycotts are about applying targeted pressure to particularly bad companies, not inculcating a sense of moral purity in the population of consumers, but if you're thinking "oh, okay, I guess I'll switch to Warner Brothers for my Big Two capeshit, then I'll feel better", then I've got bad news for you about who they've had playing Captain Marvel for the last ten years. And does it really matter? Not the complicity in genocide, I mean, obviously that matters; I mean does it really matter what specific worthless characters and franchise slop we paint on our societal complicity in genocide? It's all clumped together in a big incestuous pile; the various "artisan" stooges of our ruling class flit back and forth between our handful of giant interlinked oligopolistic media companies like there are revolving doors between them, and they parrot the same American elite narratives at each at the command of the suits with the money and it doesn't matter when they don't because they're still part of and implicitly endorsing the system that does. Oh, by the way, have you heard that Warner Brothers is probably about to be split off from Discovery again and sold to a much larger media company, and that Disney is one of the leading contenders to buy it? (It'll probably be Comcast, though. Does that matter?)

Comparisons are often drawn between the superhero genre and ancient mythology. This is usually presented as a cutesy little thing - tee hee, isn't it funny how people thousands of years ago prized stories of folk heroes that are broadly parallel to our culture of pulp comics that we deliberately modeled on them. And it's usually dismissed on those terms - no, ancient polytheistic religions were nothing like your garbage consumer capeshit, people actually literally believed in them. But I'm inclined to say that there's more to these comparisons than people usually give them credit for, and they reflect very badly on us, not neutrally or positively. Sure, our culture doesn't take its superheroes very seriously, compared to the gods of old, but our culture doesn't take anything very seriously, we don't take the shit we say or do or interact with very seriously, it isn't a culture of taking things very seriously. We are a spiritually empty and poisoned culture choking on our own noospheric filth. And I'm pretty sure that from an outside perspective - from the perspective of the people we're helping to bomb and starve and kill - our superheroes look an awful lot like the idols of the hegemonic pagan empires like Babylon and Greece and Rome did to the people they abused and exploited: worthless fake crap that the ruling nations of the world fixate on and worship and distract ourselves with.

This isn't a wholly-endorsed thought, and I don't really strive for perfect moral purity anyway (or even anything close to it), but on some level, I wonder if it's even possible to ethically engage with the superhero genre at all, seeing as it's so deeply-engrained in the cultural history of humanity as the mythological representative of the extant and terrible American Empire. In any case, I would wholeheartedly encourage you to do whatever you can with your life to meaningfully improve the world and help actual people.

Twitter is on its last legs; no one would be that surprised if it up and vanished one day, because it's a consistent money hole and it's already showing the signs of collapse. No suitable replacement exists. Much of the world is gradually sliding further and further into fascism; X (formerly Tumblr) has become a hotbed of far-right sentiment, and much of its left-leaning old guard has jumped ship for Pillowfort. The most populated country in the world and the fifth most populated country in the world are on the brink of nuclear war, with long-term trends for their conflict growing worse over time; the country in the world with the largest nuclear arsenal, meanwhile, has been spending the last few years testing the limits of nuclear blackmail. Machines are being recklessly built smarter and smarter, and will predictably obsolete humans in every regard in just a few years to unknown effect; even in the event that they don't, though, they will surely flood our culture with a brand-new and even more worthless variety of slop.

I'm sure it'll all go back to normal any day now though!

(which one?)

[itsgiovanna]

playing for love (chapter 13)

pairing: fem!character x mason mount

summary: injured and lost, mason mount begins his recovery with the help of adeline alderidge, a tough yet brilliant physiotherapist. but, some wounds don't heal easily, and the closer they get, the more mason realizes she might need saving just as much as he does.

notes: hiiiii, chapter 13 is out!!! enjoy :)

word count: 7.1k

warnings: none, just fluff and a little teasing.

next: chapter 14

tag list: @avalentina @a1leexxa @coffeevacation

Mornings at the hospital weren’t usually kind, but today… it felt different.

Adeline had been there for a few hours already, running through her usual rotation. A teenage footballer with a sprained ankle who wouldn't stop trying to flirt with her, a middle-aged accountant who insisted in telling she needed to invest her money and a retired ballet dancer who’d critiqued Adeline’s posture while letting her work on her hip. It had been chaotic, but manageable.

And, despite the bustling pace, she couldn’t stop the corners of her mouth from curving up — not quite a full smile, but, something close. Something warm, that lived just under her skin.

She was holding a cup of tea now, fingers wrapped around it more for comfort than warmth as she sat for a moment at the tiny hospital café counter, letting herself breathe. Her mind — traitorous and traitorously giddy — kept drifting back to Mason.

To his hands, his mouth, his sleepy smile in the early hours, when the sky was still inky and quiet.

To how he’d kissed her before getting out of the bedroom like some charming, tattooed ghost — careful not to run into Lily, who was already awake, playing with her toys. He hadn’t said much, just pressed a kiss to her cheek, then her lips, whispered, “I’ll see you later, Alderidge,” and gone.

And God, she missed him already. Ridiculous. But, true.

She took one more sip of her tea and headed toward the east wing, where Mrs. Hanley would certainly be ready and waiting — probably with some complaint about the food or the nurses or her new orthopedic shoes.

Sure enough, when Adeline opened the door and stepped into the room, the older woman turned from the window with a raised brow and a smirk already tugging at her lips.

“Well, if it isn’t sunshine herself.” Mrs. Hanley said, voice dry but amused. “You’re glowing, dear. Either, you’ve fallen in love or you’ve started a new skincare routine, and I doubt it’s the second.”

Adeline laughed, walking over to set her tea down on the windowsill. “Hello to you, too.”

“I’m serious, Adeline.” Mrs. Hanley pressed, squinting at her like she was some rare jewel under museum lighting. “You're lighter. Either someone’s making you very happy, or you’ve finally quit this place and no one told me.”

Adeline tried — really tried — not to blush. “Maybe I just had a good morning.”

Mrs. Hanley snorted. “Darling, the only ‘good morning’ I’ve ever seen give someone that kind of look involves no clothes and a very talented man.”

Adeline choked on a laugh, covering her face with one hand. “Mrs. Hanley!”

“What? I was married for forty years. I know that look.”

And Adeline, despite her embarrassment, couldn’t help but grin. Maybe the old woman was right. Maybe... she was glowing.

And maybe, just maybe, that had everything to do with Mason Mount.

Mrs. Hanley huffed as Adeline helped her sit upright, her joints crackling in quiet protest.

“These bones used to dance.” she said, a familiar preamble, one Adeline had heard before — and didn’t mind hearing again.

“I believe you.” Adeline replied, positioning the resistance band in place with practiced ease. “You’ve got the attitude of a stage performer, that’s for sure.”

Mrs. Hanley gave a small laugh. “Attitude is the only thing keeping me vertical these days.”

The session unfolded in its usual rhythm — gentle stretches, slow rotations, controlled breathing. But, something about today felt softer. Or maybe, Adeline just felt more raw beneath her glow.

It was in the way Mrs. Hanley winced with a smile, or how her hands — thin, paper-skinned — reached instinctively for Adeline’s arm during the harder moments. Something about it made Adeline ache in a place she hadn’t visited in a while.

Her fingers brushed the woman’s shoulder as she adjusted her posture and — just for a second — a wave of memory crept in like steam under a door.

Her grandmother’s hands. Always warm. Always gentle, even when they were wrinkled and worn from time.

The memory tightened something in her chest. The smell of tea, of lavender lotion, the low hum of a vinyl record spinning in the background while they played cards on quiet Sundays. Her grandma had been her safe place once. The person who'd reminded her she could still be soft, even when life got sharp.

And just like that, the past was here again. Tugging at her sleeves like a child who’d waited patiently for too long.

The fundraiser. The way her father hadn’t even looked at her — like she was too heavy with choices he didn’t agree with to even be seen anymore. She had tucked all of that neatly away after the event, wrapped it in silence and stored it where she wouldn’t feel it.

But now, in this quiet room, with an old woman who smiled like someone Adeline used to love more than anything… the thread was unraveling.

“Sweetheart?” Mrs. Hanley asked, catching the flicker in her face mid-stretch.

Adeline blinked, then smiled gently. “I’m okay. Just... thinking.”

Mrs. Hanley’s brow softened. “Thinking can be dangerous.”

Adeline nodded, carefully turning the woman’s wrist into another angle. “Yes.” she murmured. “Tell me about it.”

And for the rest of the session, she stayed present. Focused. But the hum of the past — and the confusion of the future — stayed with her.

It wasn’t just Mason. It wasn’t just the night they’d shared, or the heat between them, or how right he felt when she least expected it.

She wasn’t sure how much longer she could keep pretending it didn’t matter.

(...)

Mason stepped out of his car, the cold smacking him in the face like Manchester’s personal greeting. He pulled his black Manchester United coat tighter around his training kit — joggers, jersey, and the ever-present feeling that he’d rather still be in Adeline’s bed.

Luke Shaw and Harry Maguire walked alongside him, the low hum of chatter building as they neared the main gates.

“They’re freezing out here just for a few autographs.” Luke muttered, nudging Mason with his elbow.

Mason just smiled lightly, because, of course, they were there — a small crowd already pressed up against the railings, bundled in coats and scarves, holding pictures and t-shirts.

“Mason!” someone called out — a boy in a United hoodie, phone shaking in his hands. “Can you sign this?”

He gave a small nod and stepped closer. “Sure.”

The boy passed him a match program and a pen. “You played really well last week. That assist was unreal.”

“Thank you.” he said, voice quiet but genuine, signing his name quickly. “Appreciate that, mate.”

Another fan held out a folded England shirt. “Mounty! Can you put it next to your number?”

He blinked, a small laugh escaping. “Mounty?” he echoed, scribbling it down.

“Yeah, it’s what we call you when we’re screaming at the television.”

“Sounds intense.” He flushed a bit, eyes on the ground as he handed it back.

The group around them chuckled, and someone else piped up, “Oi! Mason, tell Bruno Fernandes to score for my fantasy team, yeah?”

“I’ll let him know.” Mason replied, ducking his head with a faint grin.

“Got any sneaky goals for today?”

“Just making it through training without getting screamed at.” he said with a shrug.

That earned a couple of laughs, but then a staff member appeared near the entrance, tapping his wrist to signal time was up.

“Alright.” Mason said, backing away. “Stay warm, yeah?”

“Always are when we see you!” someone shouted.

His cheeks went a little red as he turned for the entrance, Luke calling. “Smooth, that one.” behind him.

As the door closed behind them, muffling the voices and flashes, Mason exhaled. The quiet was welcome — but, his phone buzzed in his coat pocket.

Adeline: I had the most stubborn patient earlier who reminded me of you. Thought you’d like to know.

Mason smiled, a quiet sort of grin as he leaned his shoulder against the wall just outside the changing room. The chill on his face had nothing to do with the wind.

He typed back slowly, thumbs brushing the screen, like he wanted to get the tone just right.

Mason: You mean charming and a little difficult? Sounds like me. Also — if you're thinking about me already, you should’ve just said that.

A few seconds passed. Then, another buzz.

Adeline: I was trying to be subtle. Guess I’ll have to work on that. And yes… a little difficult. But, somehow, worth the trouble.

Mason’s brows lifted slightly, heart tapping a little faster in his chest. She always had this way of slipping into him with just a few words.

He let out a soft laugh, shaking his head, fingers already dancing across the keyboard again.

Mason: You’re a menace, Alderidge. A beautiful one, though. Wish I could see you right now.

Another buzz.

Adeline: I’m wearing your hoodie. Smells like you. It’s distracting… but good.

He swallowed, suddenly too warm despite the cold air outside that still clung to his coat.

Mason: Don’t say things like that when I’ve got ten minutes to pretend I care about cones and sprints. But, keep the hoodie. Looks better on you anyway.

A sharp whistle rang from the corridor — Amorim’s not-so-subtle reminder. Mason slipped his phone back into his pocket, but, not before sending one last line.

Mason: Talk soon, yeah? I miss you.

Adeline: Miss you too.

And with that, he pushed himself off the wall, still smiling as he made his way toward the locker room, Adeline's words replaying quietly in his mind.

Training had barely started when Mason felt it — this extra something in his stride. The kind of sharpness that didn’t come from sleep or food or even a full night’s rest. It was the kind that came from a different sort of clarity, the kind that left a quiet grin lingering on his face long after he’d left someone’s arms.

The pitches were still dewy under the early sun, but Mason’s boots cut through them with a kind of precision that caught even Amorim’s attention. He moved quicker, passed cleaner, made decisions with confidence.

“Bloody hell, Mount.” Luke Shaw muttered, jogging up beside him, “Someone slept really well last night.”

Mason shrugged, trying to fight the smirk tugging at his mouth. “I'm just... focused.”

“Focused?” Maguire echoed from the other side of the pitch. “Right, because that little smile you’ve had since warm-up is because of that.”

Harry Amass jogged past, tapping the ball lightly against Mason’s foot. "Bet your mind wasn’t on football last night, mate."

Mason just shook his head, breath catching as he chased after the ball. He wasn’t going to give them the satisfaction. But, truth was, they weren’t wrong.

Some people might be distracted after a night like that — Adeline’s touch, the softness of her laugh pressed to his skin, the way she’d pulled him closer in her sleep. But, it had done the opposite. It grounded him. Re-centered everything. He didn’t feel torn between things, for once. He just felt… full.

Amorim blew his whistle, gesturing Mason over. “Good pace today, Mason.” he said, clapping him once on the back. “Keep that up and you’ll start without question.”

Mason nodded, not out of pride, but because something inside him just clicked. And maybe it had to do with the woman who'd sent him a message that morning while wearing his hoodie.

He jogged back to the group, only for Shaw to lean in and whisper. “Just admit it — you’re in love or something.”

“Something.” Mason rolled his eyes and laughed.

But the flush rising in his cheeks, the weightless energy in his chest? That said everything.

(...)

The bakery near the hospital was one of Adeline’s favorite little escapes — cozy, with soft yellow lights, the air always warm with the scent of butter and cinnamon. She stepped in, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear, scanning the display for chocolate croissant. Lily had been hinting not-so-subtly about it all week, and Adeline figured she could surprise her in the morning.

Adeline stepped up to the counter, pointing out a few things to the girl behind it, her mind halfway on the day and halfway still lingering on Mason’s smile from earlier that morning.

She didn’t notice the woman entering behind her until a voice said, quietly. “Adeline?”

Her body tensed before she even turned.

Her mother stood a few feet away, hair pinned back as always, wrapped in a navy coat that looked far too elegant. She was holding her purse with both hands, like it was the only thing grounding her to the floor. Adeline's heart stopped, a strange wave of cold rushing up her spine despite the warmth of the bakery. Her fingers clenched around the paper box she was filling.

Her mother blinked, eyes already shining. "I—I didn’t know you’d be here. I mean, I knew, but… not like this."

Adeline didn’t know what to say. For a moment, she wondered if she could just pay and walk out. But her legs didn’t move.

"I’ve come here a few times..." her mother said quickly, gently, as if she could feel Adeline’s instinct to run. "I didn’t know how to find you without… intruding. I didn’t want to make it worse."

Adeline scoffed softly, looking away. "That ship kind of sailed, don’t you think?"

There was a pause. A breath. "Your father told me what he said. That night. At the event."

Her gaze flickered back.

"He had no right, Adeline." her mother continued. "I told him he shouldn’t have gone at all. When I found out you were in Manchester, I cried for days, Ady."

The nickname cut through her.

Her mother stepped forward just slightly, voice trembling. "I didn’t want to pick a side. But, not reaching out… that was me picking his. And I hate myself for that."

Adeline swallowed hard, chest tightening. Her fingers gripped the edge of the display case. "I have a daughter. She’s everything to me and he still insults me for that.”

"Yes." her mother whispered. "I saw her picture. She’s beautiful. She looks like you."

Adeline looked down. She wanted to scream. Or cry. Or both.

"I’m not here to judge, sweetheart." her mom added. "I just… I missed you. And, I’m sorry. I know I don’t deserve to say that, but I am."

She didn’t answer right away. The room felt too full of history and regret. She could still remember her mother's perfume from childhood, the way she used to braid her hair before school, how she always smelled faintly of orange blossom and something warmer. She also remembered the day her mother didn’t stop her father from yelling, from threatening, from kicking her out.

"I don’t know if I can let you in." Adeline finally said, voice barely audible.

Her mother nodded, and for once, there wasn’t a hint of protest in her eyes. Only pain, and some kind of quiet hope.

"I understand. Just… if one day you decide you’re ready, I’ll be here."

Adeline picked up the box of pastries. Her chest ached, but her hands stopped shaking.

"Goodbye, mom."

And she walked out, the bell above the door chiming softly behind her.

(...)

Adeline opened the door to the flat with one hand and a paper bag of pastries in the other. It was oddly quiet — no sound of toys clinking or Lily’s usual “Mommy!” echoing through the hall. She stepped inside, instantly greeted by the comforting warmth of the place.

Her shift had ended earlier than expected — a patient canceled, and the administration insisted she goes home. And, there she was, a rare moment alone in the flat, just her and the silence.

She headed to the kitchen, placing the bag on the counter. In a matter of minutes, she had laid out the small spread: a few pastries on a plate, two glasses of juice, a bowl of strawberries and grapes, napkins folded — a little too neatly. She smiled at the setup — simple, but sweet. A tiny welcome home for Lily and Stella.

The door clicked open not long after. Adeline turned just as Lily came bounding in, curls bouncing under her beanie, her small backpack sliding off one shoulder.

“Mom!” she grinned, running into her arms.

“Hi, my love!” Adeline crouched down to catch her, wrapping her into a tight hug. “You’re home!”

Lily pulled back only enough to talk. “Auntie Stella showed us about syllables today! Like ‘wa-ter-mel-on’ and ‘e-le-phant’ and guess what? My name has two!”

“Li-ly.” Adeline smiled. “It does!”

“And I drew this!” She tugged a slightly crumpled paper from her backpack and held it up. It was a stick-figure masterpiece: herself, Adeline, and what suspiciously looked like Mason — brown scribbled hair and a football jersey. “That’s you and me and Mase.”

Adeline tried not to laugh, especially not when she noticed the tiny pink heart above Mason’s head.

“That’s beautiful, sweetheart.” she said, smoothing the drawing and kissing Lily’s forehead. “Let’s put this on the fridge later.”

As Lily settled onto the couch with a pastry, Stella finally came in, holding two tote bags and looking mildly windblown from the walk.

“God, traffic was a nightmare.” she said, kicking off her boots. “We had to wait to cross the street for like, ten years. Also...” she looked over, instantly catching the soft look on Adeline’s face “Oh my God, you slept with him.”

Adeline raised her brows. “Hi, Stells.”

“Don’t even try to act casual. I know that smile. That’s the 'I-got-laid-by-a-footballer-and-I-liked-it' smile.”

“Stella!” Adeline hissed, glancing toward Lily, who was now happily picking grapes. “She’s literally two meters away.”

“She’s five and thinks syllables are magic. She doesn’t know what we’re talking about.” Stella dropped her bags on the chair and leaned in conspiratorially. “Was it worth the slow burn?”

Adeline bit her lip, cheeks heating. “It was… a lot. In the best way.”

“I want adjectives.”

“Stella.”

“Adeline.”

They locked eyes.

“Fine. It was passionate. And slow. And fast. And emotional. And… he was sweet. I didn’t expect that.”

“I did.” Stella grinned like a cat.

Adeline laughed, finally letting herself sink into the moment. But, her smile faded slightly as she leaned against the counter, her fingers grazing the edge of the pastry plate.

“What?” Stella asked, catching the shift immediately.

“I ran into my mom today.”

“Wait, what?” Stella blinked.

“At the bakery, just after work. She was there.”

“Did she — was it planned?”

“No. It was a coincidence. Or fate. I don’t know.” Adeline shrugged, eyes unfocused now. “She said she found out I was in Manchester after the event. Said she cried. That she misses me. That she should’ve done things differently.”

Stella stayed quiet, letting her speak.

“I didn’t yell at her. I didn’t even cry. I just… I don’t know. I wasn’t ready. I’m still not. But she looked so — tired. Older. And… she said she was proud of me.”

Stella stepped closer, voice softer now. “Do you believe her?”

“I think I want to. That’s something, right?” Adeline hesitated.

Stella nodded, resting her chin on Adeline’s shoulder. “That’s a big something.”

Behind them, Lily called out, mouth full of brioche, “Auntie Stella, I showed mommy the thing! My name is Li-ly!”

Stella smiled, pulling back. “Yep. That’s two syllables of pure chaos.”

Adeline laughed, the tension easing from her chest — at least for now. The past had crept in, but it hadn’t knocked her down. And that had to count for something, too.

(...)

The flat was quieter now. Lily had gone to bed after much negotiation and two extra kisses, and the night had settled into that soft domestic calm — a silence padded with warmth and routine. Adeline and Stella were curled up on the couch, one blanket across both of them, glasses of wine in hand, the pastry platter from earlier now reduced to crumbs and a half-bitten éclair.

“Okay.” Stella said, stretching out her legs with a groan. “Now that the child dictator is asleep, we can speak freely.”

Adeline chuckled, sipping from her glass. “She runs this house. We’re just guests.”

“She has no mercy, Ady.” Stella sighed. “She told me today my eyeliner was ‘squiggly like the worm from SpongeBob.’”

Adeline nearly choked laughing. “Well, was it?”

“She wasn’t wrong, though.” Stella admitted with a shrug. Then, with a smirk, she turned to face her. “Anyway. Can we return to our real topic now? A certain man who may or may not have ruined your mattress and possibly your back?”

Adeline rolled her eyes but couldn't stop the smile tugging at her lips. “It wasn’t like that.”

“Please, babes.” Stella scoffed. “You were literally glowing when I walked in.”

“Okay, yes, it was… amazing. More than amazing.” Adeline’s voice softened as her smile lingered. “It felt… different. Like, not just the sex — everything. Waking up next to him. Seeing him half asleep, hair a mess, whispering stupid things like he doesn’t want to go to training if I’m not in bed. It just felt… right.”

Stella grinned, softer this time. “You’re telling me you’re halfway to writing his name in your diary with little hearts.”

Adeline laughed into her wine glass. “No hearts. Maybe just a line or two.”

Stella nudged her knee. “C'mon. This isn’t just some guy. This is Mason Mount. World-class footballer. And you, my dear friend, have him wrapped around your little finger.”

“It’s terrifying, Stells.” Adeline confessed. “He’s… so public. So known. And I’ve spent years just trying to survive quietly with Lily. And now I’m here, falling for this guy who brings a hundred photographers with him wherever he goes.”

Stella nodded. “But, he’s also the guy who picked you up from a flooded building. Who actually listens when you talk about your day. Fame or not, he sounds like someone who cares.”

Adeline leaned back against the couch, staring at the ceiling. “I think he really does. And I think I do too. Care, I mean.”

There's a long pause.

Then, Stella spoke, more quietly now. “You remember how me and my mom used to fight?”

Adeline looked at her and nodded.

“She still lives in London. Still the same chaotic mess of feelings, sarcasm and guilt. But… after my dad died, it got worse. For both of us. We couldn’t stand each other, but I couldn’t leave either. Until I did. I came here to get some peace — and we needed that space. Desperately. But, things got better with time.”

“Do you talk to her now?” Adeline looked at her, eyes softer now.

“Sometimes.” Stella nodded. “But, there’s no war between us anymore. I just needed distance to see her clearly again. And she needed time to stop trying to control everything. I guess I’m saying… maybe you don’t need to forgive anyone. But, don’t close the door if you think you’ll regret it someday.”

Adeline stared at her hands for a moment. “You’re too wise for someone who still uses a Hello Kitty mug.”

“It’s vintage, babes.” Stella said with mock indignation. Then her tone lightened again. “Also. You're in seriously need of a vacation.”

Adeline laughed. “What?”

“When’s the last time you took one? I’ve known you for what, three years? You’ve never taken more than a long weekend. Hospital life is draining your sparkle.”

“I can’t just leave—”

“You can, Ady.” Stella cut in. “And you should. Even if it’s just a few days. Me, Lily, and Mason can hold down the fort.”

Adeline blinked. “Did you just put Mason in a babysitting role?”

“He can run twelve kilometers in ninety minutes, I’m sure he can handle snacks and Peppa Pig.”

They both burst out laughing.

“Okay, maybe not, yet.” Stella grinned. “Look, just think about it. Even a day trip. Go somewhere, clear your head, get some sun on that pretty face.”

Adeline smiled, warmth blooming in her chest. “I’ll think about it.”

“Good!” Stella said, clinking her glass against Adeline’s. “Because if you don’t book something soon, I swear I’m signing you up for a silent yoga retreat just to mess with you.”

“Oh, you wouldn't.”

“I would, babe. Don't challenge me.”

They both sank into laughter again, the kind that only came between two people who had seen each other through fire and still, found joy in the ash.

(...)

The restaurant was one of those sleek, low-lit places with velvet booths and dark wooden panels, tucked away in a corner of Manchester where only the truly in-the-know could score a table. Modern, elegant, and just discreet enough for Mason to feel like he could breathe. It had been a while since the four of them had gone out together like this. Ben’s birthday was the perfect excuse.

Mason showed up in dark trousers and a crisp cream sweater layered under a smart charcoal coat — definitely a step up from his usual joggers and hoodies. He'd even run a comb through his hair properly, which didn’t go unnoticed.

“Look who decided to join us! Like an advertisement for Dior's cologne.” Ben teased, clapping Mason on the back as they slid into their booth.

“Must be a special occasion if Mount’s ditched the trackies.” Declan smirked, taking his seat.

“Piss off.” Mason chuckled, shaking his head.

They browsed the menu while sharing jokes and catching up. Mason ordered sea bass and made it clear — no drinks.

“Still off it, mate?” Kai asked, swirling his wine.

“Big day tomorrow.” Mason said, his tone casual, but there was weight behind the words. First match back. Old Trafford. The pressure was everywhere — in his head, in the tightness of his shoulders, in the way he hadn’t been able to really relax in weeks.

Ben raised his glass anyway. “To getting older, and to Mount not pulling a hammy on live TV tomorrow.”

“Cheers to that.” Mason snorted.

But, somewhere between appetizers and mains, with the low hum of music and silverware clinking around them, the conversation shifted.

“So… how’s things with the physiotherapist?” Kai leaned in.

“What?” Mason blinked, his fork halfway to his mouth.

“C'mon. You've mentioned her name twice now.” Declan raised a brow.

“Did I?”

“Yeah.” Ben said. “And, you’re smirking like a teenager with a crush.”

Mason tried to play it cool, but the corner of his mouth betrayed him.

“She’s… great.” he admitted. “Not just, good at what she does. She’s funny. Honest. Fierce, too.”

“You like her.” Kai grinned.

“I—” Mason hesitated. “I do.”

They all paused for a moment, glancing at each other with a knowing look.

Declan leaned back. “It’s been a while since you said that about anyone.”

“Feels different with her, mate.” Mason said, eyes low. “Like… real.”

“Damn.” Ben said, mock-shocked. “Mount’s got feelings.”

That got a round of laughter before the conversation moved on, but, the energy around the table shifted. They were happy for him. And, maybe a little curious to see where this thing with Adeline might go.

Later that night, Ben had practically begged them to hit the club after dinner, claiming it was a crime to waste his birthday by going home early.

The place was packed, lights flashed rhythmically, bass thumped through the floor and bodies moved in synchrony with the beat. From their private booth on the mezzanine level, Mason could see everything: the dance floor below, the crowded bar to the right and a group of women who had been eyeing their booth ever since they arrived.

He wasn’t oblivious. He saw the way one of them — tall, sleek ponytail, wearing a cherry-red dress — kept sneaking glances at him. Confidence radiated from her as she finally made her way up the steps to their section.

Mason was seated at the corner of the plush, semicircular couch, watching as Kai and his wife, Sophia, danced. He had his phone in hand, waiting for a reply from Adeline. The thought of her made his chest warm, the noise of the club dimming slightly in his mind.

“Hey.” a voice broke through the beat. She was suddenly standing in front of him, leaning on the edge of their table like she belonged there. “You’re Mason Mount, right?”

He looked up, polite but distant. “I am, yes.”

“You’re even cuter in person.” she said, twirling a lock of hair around her finger. “Mind if I sit?”

But, before he could answer, she’d already slid into the spot next to him, her thigh brushing against his.

He shifted subtly, angling his body away. “I’m good, thanks.”

“Oh, come on.” she teased, laughing like it was some kind of game. “One drink? I don’t bite. Unless you’re into that.”

Mason gave her a tight-lipped smile, glancing across the booth for backup. Declan caught the look and raised an amused brow, clearly enjoying the show from a distance. Kai and Sophia were still on the dance floor, too far to save him.

“I’m really not interested.” Mason said calmly, voice low but firm. “I’m seeing someone.”

The girl paused, eyes narrowing just slightly. “Well, she’s not here, is she?”

“Doesn’t matter.” he replied without hesitation. “She exists. And that’s enough.”

For a second, her expression cracked — more surprised than offended. Then she stood, smoothing her dress. “Suit yourself.” she said, giving him one last once-over before walking off with a flick of her ponytail.

As she disappeared into the crowd, Declan slid in next to Mason, grinning like a fox.

“Did you just turn down Amelia Clark’s younger sister?”

Mason blinked. “Who?”

“She’s like… Instagram royalty. Goes to Dubai more than the mall.”

Mason shook his head, taking another sip of his soda. “Didn’t even notice.”

Ben chuckled from the other side. “Man’s officially whipped.”

“I’m not whipped, mate.” Mason muttered.

Kai returned with Sophia, who immediately said. “She looked like she was trying very hard.”

“She was, though.” Mason admitted.

Sophia grinned. “Did you give her the ‘I have someone’ speech?”

“I did.”

“About time someone knocked some sense into you, Mase.” she teased, settling next to Kai.

The group carried on laughing, sipping drinks, throwing teases around — but Mason was quieter, a subtle smile resting on his lips as he finally saw Adeline’s reply flash on his phone.

Adeline: You better get some sleep tonight. I want to see you flying on that pitch tomorrow.

He, instantly, typed back.

Mason: Flying for you, maybe.

And just like that, the club, the noise, the people — it all faded into the background again.

(...)

The flat was finally quiet. Lily was asleep, her little hand still curled around a crayon she refused to let go of during bedtime. Adeline had just finished tidying up the aftermath of a very passionate play session — blocks, coloring books, tiny glittery shoes and one of Stella’s silk scrunchies that, somehow, ended up inside the microwave. She shook her head and smiled to herself, placing it in the catch-all bowl by the door.

She sat on the floor with her laptop open, reviewing some physiotherapy case studies for a particularly stubborn shoulder injury. Her notes were a mess, her tea had gone cold and her eyes were starting to burn from the screen. Still, she was calm. Content. Tired — but in a way that felt earned.

Just as she reached to close her laptop, a knock came at the door.

She frowned, glancing at the clock. Nearly midnight.

Her first instinct was Stella. She probably forgot her charger. Or maybe, one of Lily’s plushies.

Adeline padded barefoot across the room, adjusting her hoodie and unlocked the door — only to stop, breath catching in her throat the moment she saw him.

Standing there in his club-night fit — a dark button-down, now a little wrinkled, the sleeves pushed up, his coat slung over one shoulder. Hair slightly messy, eyes bright, and a smile that made her forget what time it was.

“You know, you’ve got a thing for showing up at my door past midnight.” She blinked at him.

“I think it’s becoming a habit.” His grin widened.

But she didn’t answer — just reached for him, pulled him inside, and kissed him like she’d been waiting all night.

Mason dropped his coat somewhere near the shoe rack, one hand slipping to her waist as he kissed her back. It was softer than she expected — less urgency, more missed you.

When they broke apart, still close, Adeline looked up at him. “I thought you’d be at that club all night. Ben's celebration and all.”

“I was.” he said, pressing his forehead to hers for a second. “Did the whole dinner thing. Got dragged to the club. Watched Ben and Dec flirt with half of Manchester, Kai tried not to fall asleep and I just kept checking my phone.”

“You could’ve called.” She chuckled, brushing her fingers down his arm.

“I didn’t want to ask. I just… wanted to see you.”

The way he said it made her chest tighten. There was no big moment, no dramatic pause. Just truth. He wanted to see her.

She stepped back and gestured toward the couch. “Well, the floor’s covered in crayons and there’s a tea you’re definitely not going to drink, but… be my guest.”

Mason toed off his shoes and settled in while she grabbed him a glass of water. They ended up side by side, her legs tucked under her, his arm resting behind her on the cushions, fingertips brushing her shoulder. They talked a bit about the dinner, Sophia and Kai’s chaotic attempts at parenting, Ben's shameless flirting at the club.

Then, Mason shifted slightly. “I, uh… brought you something.”

She raised a brow. “It’s not chocolate, is it? Because I’ve already stress-eaten my emergency stash.”

“No.” he laughed. “Although… noted.”

He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a folded, slightly creased jersey — dark red, the fabric soft from his hands. On the back, the name Mount in bold white letters, just below the number 7.

“Mason…” Adeline blinked.

“I know, it’s cheesy. But I saw it and thought —well, maybe you’d wear it tomorrow. If you come, of course.”

She didn’t say anything at first. Just looked at it, fingers brushing the letters.

He softened. “I get it if you don’t want to. It’s a lot. The photographers, the people. But, it’s not about them. I just… I think it would calm me down, knowing you’re there.”

Adeline hesitated, her mind already spinning. The game was massive — his first since the injury. The spotlight would be brutal. The idea, of sitting in the same box as his family, made her throat dry.

She wasn’t his girlfriend. Not publicly. Not even officially. What would people think?

But, Mason was watching her with none of that pressure in his eyes.

Just hope.

He added, voice quieter now. “You’re already the person I think about when things get hard. It’s not the same if I can’t share it with you.”

She looked up at him, heart lodged somewhere in her throat.

And smiled, unsure, but soft.

“I’m not promising anything.” she said, still staring at the jersey. “But... If I do show up, don’t go getting all emotional on the pitch.” Adeline looked up, her lips twitching with a small smile.

“Can’t make any promises.” He grinned.

“And no waving at me in front of the photographers.”

“I'll absolutely wave at you, though.”

“You're something else, Mase.” She narrowed her eyes playfully.

He leaned closer, voice a little lower. “You showing up would mean more to me than any headline.”

Adeline didn’t say anything for a moment, just looked at him — this boy who made her feel like she could breathe again.

Then, with a quiet sigh, she tucked the jersey to her chest and murmured. “We’ll see.”

Mason smiled, and that was enough for now.

(...)

Adeline and Mason had been talking for hours. It was well past midnight, the kind of quiet that only came after the city had gone to sleep. They were still curled up on the couch, legs tangled beneath a throw blanket, the room lit, only by the faint glow of the kitchen light, and the flickering shadows of the TV they hadn’t paid attention to in a while. Between words and warm silences, there were kisses — slow and lazy, the kind that made time feel suspended.

Adeline tucked herself deeper into his side, one arm wrapped around his middle. “Stay.” she said, voice barely above a whisper, like it wasn’t something she was used to offering. “It's pointless to drive this late.”

Mason didn’t need to be asked twice. He tilted his head, brushing his lips over her temple. “Sure?”

She looked up at him, lips twitching into a smile. “You asking because you’re a gentleman or because you’re afraid I’ll kick you out the second you fall asleep on my pillow?”

“Both.” he grinned.

Adeline rolled her eyes and stood, stretching her arms overhead. “Come on, Mase. You’ve got a big day tomorrow. And you won’t play well if you’re sleep-deprived because I made you sit on my couch all night.”

They made their way to the bedroom, the light from the hallway casting soft shadows across the floor. Adeline walked ahead of him, then slowed once they stepped into her room, that teasing glint in her eye as she turned toward him.

“So...” she said, voice light, her fingertips brushing just beneath the hem of his t-shirt. “You staying over… in my bed… and we’re just gonna sleep?”

Mason raised a brow, amused. “That was the plan.”

“Alright...” Adeline said, her hands now sliding up his chest, her body dangerously close to his. “Not even a little something?”

His breath hitched as her lips skimmed the line of his jaw. Her fingers slipped beneath the waistband of his joggers, not far, just enough to make his muscles tense. He caught her wrists gently.

“Okay — hold on.” he said, laughing breathlessly. “Before you short-circuit my brain, I should tell you…”

Adeline looked at him, head tilted.

“I have a rule.” he said, cheeks slightly flushed. “No sex before a match.”

“Seriously?” She blinked.

“I'm sorry. It's been that way for years.” He nodded.

Adeline stepped back a bit, mock-pouting. “This.” she gestured vaguely between them “Was just a cruel tease, huh?”

“It’s not like I want to say no.” he chuckled, pulling her close again by the waist. “You have no idea how much I don’t.”

“Have you always followed that rule?” she asked, curiously. “Even when you were with someone?”

“Yes. Always.” he said, then after a beat, added. “There haven’t been that many, though.”

Adeline raised a brow, climbing onto the bed as he stayed standing.

“Spill.”

He rubbed the back of his neck, looking slightly embarrassed but not unwilling. “Chloe was the longest — we were together for five years. She was with me before football got big. Then, there was Freya, kind of a fling. We got caught by the paparazzi, which blew it out of proportion. And… Claire.”

“Claire?”

“She was American. From New York. I met her during an off-season trip. Ended up flying her to the UK once.”

“You flew a girl across the ocean for sex?” Adeline’s eyes widened.

“I mean… it started as that. Then, it felt like more. But, it fizzled out. Didn’t last.” Mason laughed.

“That’s bold.” She grinned, arms crossed.

“What can I say? I’m committed. Just not before matches.” He smirked.

Adeline giggled and nudged him toward the bathroom. “Go shower, before I start asking even more questions I shouldn’t.”

He obeyed, disappearing into the bathroom with a towel slung over his shoulder. The door shut behind him, the water running not long after. Adeline stood in the middle of the room for a second, lips tugged up in a grin.

Then, she thought about something very interesting.

By the time Mason returned, drying his damp hair with the towel, she was already on the bed — lying on her stomach, legs bent at the knees and swaying lazily behind her. She was wearing his jersey. The Manchester United one he’d given her, with “Mount” and the number 7 stitched on the back. It drowned her figure from the front, but the fabric was short enough in the back to reveal the soft curve of her ass peeking out.

Mason stopped in the doorway like he’d just been sucker-punched.

“Too much?” Adeline looked over her shoulder, voice light.

“You are evil.” He stared, blinking slowly.

She rolled onto her side, letting the jersey ride up a little more. “What? I’m supporting the team.”

“Ady.” he growled, jaw tight as he tossed the towel toward the chair and stepped closer. “I swear…”

“What?” she asked sweetly. “Not touching, just laying here. In your jersey. You did give it to me, right?”

“You have no idea what you’re doing to me right now.” He sat down heavily on the edge of the bed, staring at the ceiling like it might save him.

“I do.” she whispered, scooting closer, her fingers tracing slow lines along his arm. “That’s the fun part.”

Mason groaned, falling onto his side, careful not to touch too much. He wrapped an arm around her waist from behind, keeping himself composed even when her bare legs tangled with his.

She shifted slightly, letting her backside press firmly against him. “Sorry.”

“You’re going to be the death of me.” He buried his face in her neck.

“Just keeping things interesting.” Adeline giggled, pulling his arm tighter around her.

“Well, tomorrow’s game better be the performance of my life after this.” he muttered.

“I have full faith in you, Mase.” she said, turning her head slightly to brush her lips over his. “Even, if you are incredibly stubborn.”

“And you’re incredibly distracting.” Mason smiled into the kiss.

They stayed like that — limbs wrapped up, warm under the covers, his name printed across her back like a promise. Every now and then she’d shift her hips just enough to drive him mad, and he’d let out a pained little sigh that made her giggle.

No sex. But, definitely no sleep either. And, neither of them seemed to mind.

(...)

[elodieunderglass]

✅ ⛔️ 😊?

From the fanfiction ask meme!

⛔️ whats something you try to avoid in your work?

In fanfiction I try to avoid political laziness, and the tendency to make background characters all the same kind of person that indicates the writer has a REALLY limited social bubble.

In Strange Pilgrims (Good Omens https://archiveofourown.org/works/19368694/chapters/46082842 ) I needed some disposable demons for a chase scene. The source material TV adaptation took the fairly-lazy route of making disposable demons recognisable stereotypes of British “lower classes” or had them be ugly little disposable creature things. I deliberately decided to avoid that, so I had to think about what kind of person I am instead, and what I should say instead. So that’s why I decided my disposable demons would be horrible rich people/ landlords/ irl scum. I got a sly dig in at what I perceived as perfectly avoidable laziness in the adaptation, and an easy route into their descriptions;

A stereotypical mental image of "a group of menacing people and a dog, following someone in London" might involve shifty-looking people in tracksuit bottoms, and a dog whose rap sheet includes the words "pit bull" somewhere. This group of menacing people is signalling something far crueller. They are white, well-dressed, smirking - they look like Tolly's colleagues. The woman-looking one has long straightened blonde hair, and is genuinely wearing an actual padded gilet. The men-looking ones look like they've never been held accountable for anything in their lives; one looks like he has a portfolio of rental properties, and the other one looks like he has designed a social media platform.

I also liked that this gave me stuff to hang descriptions on! A landlord can be so hateful! What kind of villainous animalistic attribute do we give him? (Demons in the adaptation are given animalistic attributes; Crowley is a snake.) Pfff, no need to malign and stereotype normal animals either! No perfectly good beastie like a toad or fish needs to be put into the position of being shorthand for “vile”, when landlords are obviously black mould.

Under his brushed and shiny property-developer facade, he seems to be a creeping, suppurating mass of black mould, staining and corrosive, the kind that lurks behind paint and smirks back to the surface when you've committed to another year on the lease. The destroyed eye socket is already healing inside, filling up with fungal growths.

There. Everyone hates him, our politics are funny and cutting, we got some great inspiration, no animals were maligned, landlords were maligned, it all goes nicely and shows off a bit. All that from avoiding a lazy choice!

😊✅

relatedly I liked this continuing choice, that the people who help the heroes throughout the Strange Pilgrims are working-class folks with their own lives. Bus drivers and barefoot ghosts and marching bands and security guards and protesters and librarians, and even the sparrows. They all have voices and value, to me at least, despite being throwaway characters in a fanfic for a forty year old book.