#i am so waiting for its history and schematics
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fuzzkaizer · 5 months ago
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Montreal Assembly - Worng Side Of Uranus
"If you’re a regular Cabinet peruser, you’ve joined me as I waxed nostalgic for time periods I’ve never lived in, you’ve noticed me orating some company and component history, and you’ve almost certainly seen me talk about the best effects in their respective classes. And while there are plenty of classes and there is certainly enough love to go around, today I present you with my favorite pedal of all time: the Montreal Assembly Wrong Side of Uranus.
While many of you know Scott Monk and his amazing company for the Count to 5, he’s been in business for much longer than you think, and he’s made more things than most people know about. I first found out about him in 2009 while chasing wares by one of pedal history’s most sought-after builders, Etienne Blythe of Sonic Crayon.
If you were as into pedals as I was in the late-aughts… well, there’s a chance you still may never have heard of Sonic Crayon. However, at one time, Sonic Crayon’s wares were in extreme demand, with resellers ransacking the limited inventory and flipping the pedals for four times the price. His most famous may have been the Hollow Earth. His most unobtainable may have been the Anti-Nautilus. The one I wanted was the Moth.
The Moth was Sonic Crayon’s bitcrusher, and back in 2008 and 2009, that wasn’t an effect you could get just anywhere. However, Sonic Crayon had an old-school way of doing things: When he felt like making a batch, he did. Then he put 10 or so up for sale on his blog, and by word of mouth they’d sell out in minutes. One time, when checking his blog for a potential drop, I saw a new post where he said that if you’re tired of waiting for a Moth, there’s another Canadian guy making bitcrushers and that his were admittedly better. Who am I to argue? Let’s go.
That company was Montreal Assembly. At that time, Scott had only released two pedals, the Uranus and another insane device called Probability of a Fax Machine. When I heard the crude “basement demos,” I was sold. The problem: the sales tactics were exactly the same as Sonic Crayon—made and sold whenever. I never caught one. But my friend did.
My friend had gone off to college and left a present for me. I took a train and met their dad at a station in the suburbs, retrieved the box and opened it right there on the train. The Uranus was inside. When I got home I plugged everything I could into it. I messaged its creator, Scott, on Gmail Chat and geeked out when he answered.
I asked him if it was possible to add a mix circuit to the Uranus and Scott took time out of studying for signal processing exams to draw me up a somewhat complicated add-on schematic. Being somewhat intermediate with prototyping board, I hadn’t done a whole lot of my own stripboard layouts. Be that as it may, I cobbled it together. It worked. Now, I could blend the clean signal in with the bitcrushed one.
Despite being housed in a spray painted computer project box and featuring a barren aesthetic landscape, the Uranus is an impeccably engineered piece of sonic kit. Like most bitcrushers, there are knobs for bit rate and sample rate reduction. The third is volume. However, the bit rate knob is a pushbutton rotary encoder; as you turn it, it displays the bitrate in the seven-segment display. When the pedal is in bypass, the display flashes “bypass,” one letter at a time. Pressing down on the rotary encoder cycles through a slew of modes—ten to be exact—called things like “Dialup,” “Hostile” and more, including an incredible bitcrushed trem called “Blipo'' and a modulated sample rate mode called “Plunger.” It’s total labor-of-love stuff and I am here for it.
Mine is labeled 2010 and is one of a handful known to exist, and the only one with this mix knob. You may have seen one in a promotional photo that Strymon posted of its El Capistan being used in the studio by Godspeed! You Black Emperor, with the Uranus riding sidesaddle. Many, many people have never heard of it, and some of you may have never heard of Montreal Assembly before now. I urge you to change that.
At NAMM 2020, I actually saw Scott walking by our booth and I recognized him from some old demos. I ran down the aisle and tapped him on the shoulder. He looked right at me, then read my name badge, looked back up and said “Heyyy, Kula, how’s that bitcrusher treating you?” What a legend."
cred: catalinbread.com/blogs/kulas-cabinet/montreal-assembly-wrong-side-of-uranus
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speaker-of-the-void-cats · 6 months ago
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Gardener|ɿɘwonniW
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Once upon a time,* a gardener and a winnower lived** together in a garden.*** * It was once before a time, because time had not yet begun. ** We did not live. We existed as principles of ontological dynamics that emerged from mathematical structures, as bodiless and inevitable as the primes. *** It was the field of possibility that prefigured existence. They existed, because they had to exist. They had no antecedent and no constituents, and there is no instrument of causality by which they could be portioned into components and assigned to some schematic of their origin. If you followed the umbilical of history in search of some ultimate atavistic embryo that became them, you would end your journey marooned here in this garden. In the morning, the gardener pushed seeds down into the wet loam of the garden to see what they would become. In the evening, the winnower reaped the day's crop and separated what would flourish from what had failed. The day was longer than all of time, and the night was swifter than a glint of light on a falling sugar crystal. Insects buzzed between the flowers, and worms slithered between the roots, feeding on what was and what might be, the first gradient in existence, the first dynamo of life. Rain fell from no sky. Voices spoke without mouth or meaning. A tree of silver wings bloomed yielded fruit shed feathers bloomed again. In the day between the morning and the evening, the gardener and the winnower played a game of possibilities.
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Mysteries
Things I saw inside A wild river and a broken dam (or maybe it's just the sea crashing through a narrow gap I can't be sure). Waves slam through the gap and where they hit the stone they throw up pillars of spray that pierce the mist and crash down in thunder. There's a giant in the cataract, trying to wade against the current, and I can tell it wants to reach the lever and pull the lever which will seal off the flow or maybe give it the sword, but the torrent throws it back so it just keeps its head down and tries to push on. I can't see the face but it breathes out white smoke. I feel for it hard. A world painted around the interior like a stranger Earth everted and glued inside itself but I don't believe this one it's too much like a metaphor. A switchboard or a train station, empty, dead (waiting). The tunnels branch off into infinity. I stare down one for a long time and see a pale worm move in hungry coils around itself. I think this one is the most likely although I might have brought the worm. An egg but I'm not sure if the broth inside is warm still, or if it's gone to rot, or if the warmth comes from the struggles of the tiny winged zygote or the bleed from the wound or the thoughts of something thinking very hard. A star I think. We count on stars as steady friends because they always rise and always shine but a star's a delicate truce: an explosion caught by its own mass so that it can't erupt and can't collapse. Thus I imagine the state of the machine might be. But one force or another has gone awry and now it rests here, snuffed and broken, waiting for the two rival forms of ruin to be set in balance again.
Half-truths
"What is not brought to consciousness, comes to us as fate."
Dreaming
You are the first to dream. In the dream, you are shaping coarse sand with your hands. You lift a handful, and it feels like the shifting of mountains. You drag your fingertip through the dirt to make a twisting line and hear the roar of moving water. You breathe and feel the rush of clean, bright wind in your hair. Suddenly, you are far, far, far up in the air, higher than you've ever been. You have gone to the very top of Freehold's tallest skyscrapers, but this is much higher, and you see the world below with much greater fidelity. It is a beautiful green world, much greener than any place you've ever seen before. It looks like home. --- I am the first to dream. The dreams can happen at any time. A veil drops in front of my eyes and I see strange, moving images. I am someone else, or I am myself, reimagined. I can't say. In the dreams, I shape planets with my own hands. At first, I believe I am mad. The clinicians at BrayWell call it "interplanetary relocation maladjustment psychosis": a psychobabble catch-all for mental disturbances that they can't explain. Other people, searching for certainty, call it "prophecy." But all I can offer is a loose, tangled connection that I painstakingly unravel when I dream. || I am drawn to a bright and attentive star. I speak to it through movement, through feeling. It understands implicitly. || Now, I stand before a crowd. Their murmuring is the bone-deep rumble of shifting tectonic plates. A screen behind me plays looping, blurry footage of the Traveler terraforming Venus. The images radiate with pale light. We've watched this footage many times. || I glide through space as if through water, tugged in nine directions by nine impulses. || In front of the crowd, I sway a little, a copse of trees bending in a dream-wind. I can't help it. I'm dreaming more often than not. || There is whispering from the deep-dark, alluring and terrifying—a reminder of things left behind, bittersweet and abhorrent. || A crackle of static on the screen behind me brings me back to earth, resettling my feet firmly on the ground. These people have come here for my insights. I lean forward and speak to the crowd. Four tenets, aching with truth: The Traveler is a force of benevolence. The Traveler is a sentient being with free will, dreams, hopes, and fears. The Traveler will save us. The Traveler will leave us.
The Witness's first victims were once like you. Struggling for survival. Bolstered by hope. Until their hopes became reality. They called it, the Gardener. Their deity of life.
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//
ACCESS: RESTRICTED
DECRYPTION KEY: 2CA9SXUO2C$IKO-006
REP#: 011-PSYCHOMETER-TEST
AGENT(S): TRU-135
SUBJ: PSYCHOMETER FIELD TESTS
1. The new version works. Love all the knobs and antenna; very analog. I took readings off a hatch control out here on Europa and Cowlick was able to retrieve badly distorted voices in some kind of distress. I don't know if it's doing exactly what you Warlocks want, but it's doing something all right. Cowlick says it's probably tapping into her scrutiny, if you permit that term in your ivory halls.
2. Now, I'm not much for gadgets, so I won't ask you how you rigged this thing. But I am one for gossip. Weren't we closing in on some kind of workable theory of exactly how our Ghosts resurrect us? One which was, if I am not mistaken, based on research by the Future War Cult? Did any of that work survive Lakshmi?
3. You know they did try to recruit me once. The Cult. Over a game of poker. Fifty-two cards in a deck don't seem like many, this hard-ass Titan told me. But there are 80 658 175 170 943 878 571 660 636 856 403 766 975 289 505 440 883 277 824 000 000 000 000 different possible shuffles of 52 cards. You could walk back and forth across the observable universe faster than you could count all those possible shuffles. A lot faster. That's life, she said, and she had daisies impaled on the spikes of her skull. Life is endless permutation. So many possibilities. But the rules are what matter. Who cares how the deck shuffles if you don't know the rules of the game? We play this game over and over. Life and death. Light and Dark. But the only way you learn the rules, the only way you're ever gonna get one of those Truces you're named for, is if you come inside. Come into the Cult. Come on in and see. But I didn't.
4. Another thing she told me is that you can play poker with just three cards and two players. Jack, Queen, King. Ante one, max bet one more. High card wins unless one player folds. And in this game, there are many strategies available to the first player, but very few to the second, who acts to exploit the choice made by the first. Many possibilities against few. Sounds like you'd rather be the first player, huh? But if both players play perfectly, that second player wins in the end. Mathematical inevitability. Ain't that something? But I said, your game's just a toy. It's just a contrivance. That's not life. Life isn't one player always exploiting and beating the other.
5. Anyway, back to testing. Might go back to Cocytus and aim this thing at the gate. See how wild it goes. If you never hear from us again, you know Truce and Cowlick finally found something too spooky.
MESSAGE ENDS
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_If the Light forgets while the Darkness remembers, then why does a Ghost's power of determination let it access latent memories imprinted in the dead? That's paradoxical. That should be a property of Darkness. How can such fundamentally opposed forces do the same thing?
Am I as shallow as those Guardians arguing over power levels? Trying to force a simple binary upon a complex spectrum… ? The Drifter talks about "spectrums of Light"—powers his Ghost can access because of its modifications. Forcing the metaphor, I thought. Light is not light. It doesn't have frequencies or spectra. But if we are all constrained by our internalized ontology, by our tacit understanding of how the world works… maybe the circumstances of extreme survival compelled the Drifter to explore a new ontology. Maybe his Ghost achieved a new way to think about the Light.
"No noble, well-grown tree has ever disowned its dark roots, for it grows not only upward but downward as well."
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The Flower Game
These are the rules of a game. Let it be played upon an infinite two-dimensional grid of flowers. Rule One. A living flower with less than two living neighbors is cut off. It dies. Rule Two. A living flower with two or three living neighbors is connected. It lives. Rule Three. A living flower with more than three living neighbors is starved and overcrowded. It dies. Rule Four. A dead flower with exactly three living neighbors is reborn. It springs back to life. The only play permitted in the game is the arrangement of the initial flowers. This game fascinates kings. This game occupies the very emperors of thought. Though it has only four rules, and the board is a flat featureless grid, in it you will find changeless blocks, stoic as iron, and beacons and whirling pulsars, as well as gliders that soar out to infinity, and patterns that lay eggs and spawn other patterns, and living cells that replicate themselves wholly. In it, you may construct a universal computer with the power to simulate, very slowly, any other computer imaginable and thus simulate whole realities, including nested copies of the flower game itself. And the game is undecidable. No one can predict exactly how the game will play out except by playing it. And yet this game is nothing compared to the game played by the gardener and the winnower. It resembles that game as a seed does a flower—no, as a seed resembles the star that fed the flower and all the life that made it. In their game, the gardener and the winnower discovered shapes of possibility. They foresaw bodies and civilizations, minds and cognitions, qualia and suffering. They learned the rules that governed which patterns would flourish in the game, and which would dwindle. They learned those rules, because they were those rules. And in time the gardener became vexed
A specter of the Black Garden, rich with the sweetness of flowers and the stink of radiolaria. It leaves behind a delicate data-lattice to mark its passing.
Garden state: neutral
garden&&gardeners==root&&branch==leaf&&flower
//intrinsic, inextricable, inescapable
anomaly ++
anomaly One = leaf|invasive;
Garden state: active (gardeners attend)
case Irrecoverable:
if (irretrievable injury (garden&&gardeners)) && (threat persistence) then (escalation. escalation.)
anomaly status: present, tracked, new. No archive referent. simulation: failed.
Damage: 0.3332%. Recoverable. Danger: Recovery projection irresolvable. Repeat. Repeat. Set: irresolvable == irrecoverable == irretrievable
anomaly ++
anomaly Zero = infinite|witness;
archive data retrieved. Zero = infinite|witness == (a seed was planted here.) Recorded referent: "Black|Heart"
Zero : seed :: One : DANGER
[SIMULATION BREAKING. VISIBILITY NARROW. FRACTALS DISINTEGRATING.]
anomaly Zero, absent. anomaly One, DANGER remaining.
Garden state: acting (gardeners in unison)
extirpate (anomaly One)
//There is a majestic thorn. The anomaly is gone. The garden is peaceful.
//It is known|seen|predicted that a primary function of irresolvable|irrecoverable presences is to trample.
Flowers growing / damage repairing / threat unresolved
Function called: escalation. Iteration.
Function: winnow. Function: simplify. Function: flatten.
//The first defense is offense.
"It always ends the same," the gardener complained. "This one stupid pattern!" Aren't they beautiful? I asked, as the flowers opened and closed in patterns beyond the scope of entire universes to encode, all-devouring and perhaps everlasting. Not even we could know whether a pattern in the flowers would cycle forever, or someday halt. "They're as dull as carbon monoxide poisoning," the gardener groused, although carbon monoxide did not yet exist, and neither did anything that could be poisoned. The gardener kneeled to flick a patch of sod with their trowel. It struck an open flower, causing it to shut. Although I was the closer of flowers and that was my sole purpose, I felt no fear or jealousy. We had our assigned dominions and always would. They're majestic, I said. They have no purpose except to subsume all other purposes. There is nothing at the center of them except the will to go on existing, to alter the game to suit their existence. They spare not one sliver of their totality for any other work. They are the end. The pattern corrected the errant flower effortlessly. The great flow went on unchanged. The gardener got up and brushed their knees. "Every game we play, this one pattern consumes all the others. Wipes out every interesting development. A stupid, boring exploit that cuts off entire possibility spaces from ever arising. There's so much that we'll never get to see because of this… pest." They chewed at their cracked lip, which existed only because this is an allegory. "I'm going to do something about it," they said. "We need a new rule."
The purpose of a system is what it does
The Final Shape
CONSENSUS PERSONAL
VANCINCLOCK IKORA REY >> VANCINCTAN CMDR ZAVALA
If a game of go is meant to test two minds against each other, then I must play as my mind sees fit. I see fit to play 6x24 because I am interested in what will happen next.
ZAVALA >> REY
This isn't a Basho haiku. Purposefully making a suboptimal move in order to make a game more "interesting" is a misunderstanding of the nature of a game. There is no reward for beautiful play in the rules of the game.
REY >> ZAVALA
Then why don't you just turn on a go engine and compute the winning play?
ZAVALA >> REY
I want to test my mind against yours. Not some quantum cheat.
REY >> ZAVALA
But I am a paracausal cheat, Zavala.
ZAVALA >> REY
So am I. Will you take the move back?
REY >> ZAVALA
Now, now, Zavala. There are no do-overs in war. I've made the move I want, and both of us will benefit from it. You may be stubborn enough to hold still for eight days, but the traditions of go are older and even more obstreperous. Play the game.
ZAVALA >> REY
Oh, I'll pinken your ears.
The First Knife
I looked up in shock. I said, What? What do you mean? "A special new rule. Something to…" The gardener threw up their hands in exasperation. "I don't know. To reward those who make space for new complexity. A power that helps those who make strength from heterodoxy, and who steer the game away from gridlock. Something to ensure there's always someone building something new. It'll have to be separate from the rest of the rules, running in parallel, so it can't be compromised. And we'll have to be very careful, so it doesn't disrupt the whole game…" All you will do, I said, with rising panic|fury, is delay the dominant pattern that will overrun the others. It is inevitable. One final shape. "No, it'll be different. Everything will be different, everywhere you look." Everything will be the same. Your new rule will only make great false cysts of horror full of things that should not exist that cannot withstand existence that will suffer and scream as their rich blisters fill with effluent and rot around them, and when they pop they will blight the whole garden. Whatever exists because it must exist and because it permits no other way of existence has the absolute claim to existence. That is the only law. "No," the gardener said, "I am the growth and preservation of complexity. I will make myself into a law in the game." And thus we two became parts of the game, and the laws of the game became nomic and open to change by our influence. And I had only one purpose and one principle in the game. And I could do nothing but continue to enact that purpose, because it was all that I was and ever would be. I looked at the gardener. I looked at my hands. I discovered the first knife.
Their scholars discovered that the Gardener shared a connection with another entity among the stars: the Veil. And when they found it, they arrived to claim it.
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"How can I be substantial if I fail to cast a shadow? I must have a dark side also if I am to be whole; and inasmuch as I become conscious of my shadow I also remember that I am a human being like any other."
Winnowing
A dream of a friendly conversation with someone impossible to see, cloaked in shadows. It leaves behind an impossible data fragment to mark its passing. Here is what a flower knows. (The fact that a flower may know anything is a conceit that will have to be accepted as metaphor, but to constantly qualify into perfect precision wears thin, does it not? So, here is what a collection of chloroplasts and pigment can know.) The direction of the sun. The presence of the rain. The tangle of the roots. The distress of another plant. The hands of the gardener, whether they prune or transplant or crush. A flower cannot know much else. But the reality of the garden is vast and wild. A flower knows not the fence; a flower knows not the footpath. And yet there is an infinite cosmic garden, which is not any less real simply because the flower cannot possibly comprehend it… Let us try this again. Stop me if you've heard this one: A gardener and a winnower sit down to play a game outside of time and creation. Yes? Yes. Then we're agreed. The metaphor stands. Let us iterate. A gardener and a winnower set out their chairs and play a game of flowers. The flowers know only that they grow or wither, struggle or flourish. Sometimes, they are touched by one hand or the other, and that influence is the closest they will know of the divine. A flower and a flower spread their leaves to the sun above. (Remember that the sun is also a metaphor: a thing said beautifully, winnowed down to poetry, when the truth is too vast to put in words at all.) They jostle for space, each competing to be the pinnacle of their shape. One flourishes. One withers. Is it the fault of the flower or the fault of its position? A gardener and a winnower sit down to play a game called Possibility. This is a game about a garden, which is to say that it is also a game about flowers, just as a game about a living being must also be a game about organs and bacteria. A gardener and a winnower collaborate to create a protein. Whose hand is it in the design, that shortens one life to extend the rest? It is the winnower that discovers the first knife, but it is not done without the gardener. This, too, is a tradition: a knife does not come to exist without something that must be cut. A woody stem, a colored petal, a vital vessel. The first victims of the blade. All of these are true. All of these are false, for metaphor simplifies as the knife does. It pares incalculable concepts into shapes your wrinkly little brains can comprehend. The weight of billions and the simple curve of a planet give you pause, and how then are you to be expected to grasp the forces that created your nth-removed creator? So the stories woven with utmost delicacy in and around the falsehoods are, after it all, true. There was never any option for the knife to not exist in the garden: it was only ever a matter of time and opportunity. And as for the shape of the knife itself— No. That is enough. I will tell you of gardens. They are domesticated things, made in a form. As soon as something is called a garden, it is shaped. The plants require the hand of a gardener, for they have become weak and dependent on tender care. They require the hand of a winnower, to cut away the dross, for they are too incapable to do it themselves. In absence of a hand, either the flowers themselves must rise up to wield the knife, or the garden will resolve to meaningless wilderness. You will say, "But there are plants that can walk! There are seeds that must be scorched by fire to know growth! Existence is more complex than a simple dichotomy between growth and withering, and there is more in heaven and on earth than is dreamt of in this philosophy!" And I will tell you, clearly: There can be no gardens without knives.
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Symmetry Flight
"To have Light, we must have Dark. This is the symmetry of the Universe." —Controversial Warlock Ulan-Tan
I propose a simple experiment—look around. You see light. You see darkness. There could not be one without the other. They are two sides of the same coin. If it is true for these Newtonian echoes, why would it not be true of the purest, paracausal forms? Therefore, I conclude: the reason you persecute me is not because of the symmetry. It's because of the truth beyond this truth, the truth which you most dread: if we could destroy darkness, but we had to give up our Light to do so, how many of us would make that trade?
Research Log 15
Osiris: I found no more logs from Dr Esi, but I have used her algorithm to crack the data core of the Vex Conceptual Mind.
Nimbus: That's the doodad we got from the Black Garden, right?
Osiris: Indeed. The data within contained the Vex's blueprints for their artificial Veil: the Black Heart. It all but proved Dr. Esi's theory. Dr Esi theorized that the paracausal energy of the Traveler operated on a quantum wavelength parallel to electrons.
Nimbus: Um... magnets?
Osiris: In simpler terms: the Traveler's power runs parallel to the forces of nature. Gravity, magnetism, sound, light. The Veil does this too. It is synchronized with the Traveler. Wherever the Traveler came from, the Veil may have as well. But what the Vex made, while connected to the Traveler, was inherently flawed. It did not create the link the Witness desired. Instead, it weakened the Traveler, created... "static" in the flow of their cosmic forces. But it did reveal one intriguing possibility... that at one time, they may have been... united. Part of a whole.
Nimbus: Whoa! So, wait... does this mean the Light and Darkness... were the same once? One force?
T=0
They brought the Veil back to the Gardener in an attempt to strengthen their connection. There, they could reshape reality itself. The Gardener would not allow it. And so, it fled their world.
"When the individual remains undivided and does not become conscious of their inner opposite, the world must perforce act out the conflict and be torn into opposing halves."
We wrestled in the garden, in the loam of possibility where nothing existed and everything might. A shadowed agony among the flowers. We trampled the petals beneath our feet. We stomped the fruit to pulp, and we ground the seeds into the dust. In the wet pop of grapes and the smear of berries—in the perturbation of the field that was the garden before the first tick of time and the first point of space—were the detonations that made the universes. Each universe was pregnant with its own inflationary volumes and braided with ever-ramifying timelines. Each volume cooling and separating into domains of postsymmetric physics, all of which were incarnations of that great and all-dictating bipartite law that states only: exist, lest you fail to exist. And still we fought. We brought down the tree of silver wings and left the stump to smoke amid the meadows. We left prints of our splayed feet and our straining backs in the clay. Our trampling feet made waves in the garden, which were the fluctuations around which the infant universes coalesced their first structures. The dilaton field yawned beneath existence. Symmetries snapped like glass. Like creases, flaws in space-time collected filaments of dark matter that inhaled and kindled the first galaxies of suns. And still we grappled. Our rolling bodies pushed things out of the garden—worms and scurrying life from the fertile soil, wet things from the pools and the leaves. They came out into the madness of primordial space; they thrashed and became large. And I won. I won, because the gardener always stops to offer peace. And when they do, I always strike. But by then, it didn't matter. The game was over. The garden had given birth to creation, the rules were in place, and there would never be a second chance. We played in the cosmos now. We played for everything. And the patterns in the flowers, terrified by our contention, were no longer the inevitable victors of a game whose rules had suddenly changed, and they passed into the newborn cosmos to escape us.
"[One] is, on the whole, less good than they imagine or want themselves to be. Everyone carries a shadow, and the less it is embodied in the individual's conscious life, the blacker and denser it is."
Research Log 16
Osiris: I've reached the extent of what I can glean from the research data.
Nimbus: What've we got?
Osiris: Less than I'd hoped for. But the last of Chioma Esi's research has led me to an intriguing topic: Ghosts.
Nimbus: Ghosts? As far as I know, Neomuna never had any contact with a Ghost before you all showed up. We knew about them, but...
Osiris: Precisely. Chioma Esi was researching the entanglement of Light and Dark without fully understanding either. Our Ghosts are a link to the Light of the Traveler. Then how was the Witness able to — on numerous occasions — communicate through them?
Nimbus: Is this about the, uh, the magnets thing? The parallel energy fields, right?
Osiris: Very good. In areas of Darkness, the Witness is able to create a link, not unlike what it created with the Veil and the Traveler.
Nimbus: Ah, like the Vex are able to hack into the CloudArk with their tech! It's a parallel connection.
Osiris: And I believe that connection may not be one-sided.
Having witnessed the truth in the Darkness, they used its binding power to merge themselves... into the salvation they craved.
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The line between Light|ʞɿɒႧ is so very thin
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Nacre
Even the most perfect of pearls has grit at its center.
Let's chat, shall we? One more nice sit-down for the books. Did you think you wouldn't hear from me again, after all this? You'd have missed me, I hope—and I would certainly have missed you. Have no fear. I'm not so easy to be rid of. Now, let me show you: my beloved. Oh, no, not my sedimentary necrolite, fossilized in time. You've seen that. I speak of that dear and distant expanse of the universe, miraculous in its fullness and its emptiness all at once. Are you surprised to hear of it? Yes, I never much cared for the change of rules, but here we are, and there's no use in crying over spilled radiolaria. Besides, at the heart of it all, there was a gift. To me. That gift is the chance to speak with you. You, and a billion like you. I am making this offer over and over again, in every tiniest cell and the vastest of civilizations. Let me in. Take what you need. Be at ease. You have no say in the degradation of your telomeres, but in all the interim, the whole world is your sweet silicate shellfish. You exist because you have been more suited to it than all the others. Steal what you require from another rather than spend the hours to build it yourself. Break foolish rules—why would you love regulation? It serves you to cross lines, and if others needed rules to protect them, then they were not after all worthy of that existence. Caricatures of villainy are out of style, I hear. Yes. I am no cackling mastermind: I am serious when I say this. It was not the trick of standing upright that lifted you from the dust: it was the mastery of fire, the cooking of cold corpse-meat. That is not any unique faction's province, neither good nor evil. It is simply truth. This great, beloved cosmos. Always decaying, always finding that same old lovely pattern, despite every candle-flame burning amid the flowers. A billion electrons taking the path of least resistance. In Darkness or in Light, someone is always making my choice. Be seeing you.
Duality is not a curse, but a gift.
III. Self
I.I Before one can be freed, one must question the truth of their purest identity. I.II And so a question is begged: Who resides at the core of your being? I.III Only honest reflection will see you—lone traveler—through the coming storm. I.IV Look, then, clearly upon the whole of your existence, and face your glory—strength of will, every flaw of your mortal heart and fabled soul. I.V Through the pieces of a life lived divine your truth, but do not lie—to the world, if one must, but never to yourself. I.VI To see yourself as anything but what you truly are will lead you down sorrow's road, unprepared for the consequence of your salvation. I.VII Once an understanding is met, and the self is purified in the knowledge of its truth, the cage is set to be unbound. "Know thyself in honest ways, or falter in light of your truest self." —3rd Understanding, 7th Book of Sorrow
Sun|nooM
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Right back to where we are From drifting far apart You gave me heavy heart It's time now to restart Why would you do that to me? You're acting serious unhealthy Why would you push me away? I wanted real you to stay Why would you push me away? Why would you push me away? Why would you push me away? Why would you push me away? Why would you push me away? Why would you push me away? Why would you push me away? Why would you push me away? Why would you push me away? Why would you push me away? You kicked me down, you turned me all around I tumble and crash a moment, I'm up for round two My number one you were a loaded gun Shouldn't feel my head but When you want to push I pull When I'm empty, then you're full Did you mean to be so cruel? We're going further apart It's time now to restart Why would you do that to me? You're acting serious unhealthy Why would you push me away I wanted real you to stay Why would you push me away? Why would you push me away? Why would you push me away? Why would you push me away? Why would you push me away?
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What'd she say about me? Hands in pockets so deep When I walk I see you stare White lockers dripping with despair Pooling around my feet Hold your breath and don't speak Witnesses and zombies And the way they glare as empty as an Answering machine, no one to hear your dreams Na, you don't bother me I'm like electricity They say I'm dancing with my demons This is the dawning of the season Melancholy girls and nonbelievers This is the dawning of the season What you heard about me? I see fire when I sleep I can disappear like drops of water Trembling in the heat No, you won't see me Na, you don't bother me I'm like electricity They say I'm dancing with my demons This is the dawning of the season Melancholy girls and nonbelievers This is the dawning of the season Will we change? Will I be? Adolescent dreams Will we change? Will I be? Adolescent thieves They say I'm dancing with my demons This is the dawning of the season Melancholy girls and nonbelievers This is the dawning of the season They say I'm dancing with my demons This is the dawning of the season Melancholy girls and nonbelievers This is the dawning of the season
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He was a lonely cynic No hero nor a villain inside Until he had a vision She had golden eyes and spoke her mind Now easy livin', it sets you free! You'll rediscover simplicity His cynicism gave way to be Raindrops in every color So if you feel low, sit back, enjoy the show Like a kaleidoscope in technicolor tonight So if you feel low, sit back, enjoy the show Like a kaleidoscope in technicolor tonight In technicolor tonight In technicolor tonight So if you think you're finished Go back to the beginning and find That everybody needs a little help From time to time, just look inside Now easy livin', it sets you free You'll rediscover simplicity 'Cause cynicism gives way to be Raindrops in every color So if you feel low, sit back, enjoy the show Like a kaleidoscope in technicolor tonight So if you feel low, sit back, enjoy the show Like a kaleidoscope in technicolor tonight Matt, go back to sleep I think I've finally got it all figured out Like a butterfly floating in amber We've made this moment eternal So if you feel low, sit back, enjoy the show Like a kaleidoscope in technicolor tonight So if you feel low, sit back, enjoy the show Like a kaleidoscope in technicolor tonight In technicolor tonight In technicolor tonight
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llewelyn-ap-arthur · 5 years ago
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Jedi Pelta-class frigate Athylia.
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dashielldeveron · 4 years ago
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Viper VIII: Inter Vivos
*author slaps bumper sticker across ass that reads I BREAK FOR QUARANTINE* 
Summary: You have a thought that only Steve Urkel and black-out drunks can have: did I do that?
Warnings: swears, the law. Murder/death. Stupid internet comments.
Show (3719) Comments on “There is Nothing New Under the Sun, But You Are New in Your Conglomeration.”
skellingtonbabey: thanks for putting all of the *gestures vaguely* into historical context. no one’s ever bothered to explain this shit to me, especially in such simple and thorough language. it’s like every other resource i try to learn from is stylistically designed to make me more confused.
readyplayer69: Just because it’s from the 60s and is racist doesn’t mean that it doesn’t have intrinsic value based on the goal towards which it was working. You’re a fucking lunatic. I have a degree in political science, so I know what the fuck I’m about. Though some of the protests may have excluded the minorities you’re talking about, it doesn’t mean that they weren’t ultimately working towards good fucking policies for everyone involved. It’s not like they were doing anything important then anyway; white people had to be the mouthpiece for…Read More
volcanolesbian: bro have u seen the incels freaking out over this???? it got linked in their cursed forum and they SO BADLY wanted u 2 hate women now. like you can regress from being a feminist once you’ve woken up. they’re giving u shit bc you called out the racist terrorists who were active in their community lmao. i can post screenshots if u want. But bruv it’s like they haven’t read anything you’ve written before lol
mozARTsexandviolins: I get when you say that ingenuity spawns ideals for the greater good, but don’t you think tradition has its place? How do we know if the new can spawn the greater good? How do we judge ourselves? Who watches the watchers?
simpleplan2eatthedirt: cool cool nice nice.  protesting is awesome, but be sure to get out there to fucking VOTE, people!!! Here’s a link to register to vote.
EaterJohn: Hello. It is nice to hear from you again, Epiales. Always a treat. Very insightful commentary on modern and past protests. I didn’t know about all of the revolutions in Europe 1848. I’ve send this to my co, and it’s already sparked a good conversation about who we are as a protesting people as we stand in history. Again, sorry to bother you, but I was wondering when the next article in your “Aeneid Autopsies: Current Crimes Reflected in Ancient Times” series was going to be released? It’s my…Read More
horneyvulcanbasterd: @mozARTsexandviolins Is that a Star Trek reference? Bc if so the answer’s Starfleet Command lol
MrsKatsukiBakagou: epiales. you have watered my crops and harvested my fields. thank you for the food.
mightiestavengereatmyass: eat shit and die, commie scum. your just a hired propagandaist for the fucking alt-left, aren’t you? You have no right to be running your collum in a real newspaper or on this fucking website. sending u anthrax in the mail would be too cool a death for you. I hope your so-called terrorist groupsfind out where you live and fucking murder you in the middle of the night. fukcs like you are the reason the country is going to shit the police have a total constitutional right int aht jurisdiction to enter. They had a no knock…Read More
fuckyouit’sjanuary: @readyplayer69 [image attached] [image description: blonde woman with caption reading, “I can tolerate racism, but I draw the line at looting the local target]
saltnpepa!!diner707: Hi. I’m trying to cite this piece in an essay, but your publisher isn’t listed on your website. Would you suggest using the NYT as the source in my bib? If it helps, this is due new week; idk if this will run in the NYT by then. Thanks
“I’m sending someone on a grocery run this morning,” said Tom, thumbs tapping away on his phone, “Do you need anything? Want anything?”
You glanced up from your laptop, closing it as much as you could without the light dimming. “I think I’m good, unless you used the last of the shredded cheese at some point.”
“Shredded…cheese,” he said under his breath, typing, “You mentioned capri-suns the other day.”
“Yeah, but I can tolerate the nasty, new flavour. No rush. Here’s a wild idea,” you said, and you waited until he looked up from his phone, a couple of ungelled curls falling over his forehead. “What if—now, don’t dismiss me as crazy; hear me out—what if we went to the store ourselves?”
“Again, no.” Tom grasping his coffee by the round of the mug, despite there being a perfectly functional handle. “Stop pressing me for it.”
“I’m not asking to go to a damn Broadway play. I’m asking to go to the closest 7-11,” you said, jiggling your leg and then making a conscious decision to stop fidgeting, instead scooting your chair closer under the table so that the arms slid underneath.
Tom hummed, his eyes not leaving his phone screen, but when you didn’t continue, he raised an eyebrow as he scowled at you. “Broadway is shut down because of the bomb threat.”
“Fuck off; you know what I meant.”
“Viper,” said Tom, and he locked his phone to set it on his napkin. “Do you want to get assassinated?”
“The term assassination implies I’m getting murdered for political reasons instead of the copious other crimes you’ve had me commit. So, I invite it.” Put your hands on the table where he can see them; it makes you seem more trustworthy. “Does 7-11 have an open carry policy?”
“If it’s any consolation, the renovated office should be waiting for you when you return.”
“It’s not.” You lifted your mug to your lips. “Working from here only makes me feel like a damn bureaucrat. Like I have no stake in the matter. I don’t want to become detached from everything; I might make a callous decision and send people where they can’t come back.”
“Keep watching yourself. If you stay on guard,” said Tom, running his middle finger around the rim of his mug, “then you won’t stray from me.”
“I’m useless here.”
“Then maybe you should become accustomed to the idea of being useless.”
Swallowing, you stared down into your tea. “There’s only so much I can get done through answering emails. Not to mention I hate answering emails. That’s how you get more emails.”
“Harrison has been telling me that your schematics have been more thorough since you’ve been holed up in here.” Tom tipped his mug all the way back to get the last of his coffee. “You’re still being just as productive, if not more methodical.”
“Did you mean obsessive? I have—I’ve had too much time to think. I’d rather not be alone with my thoughts, if I can help it.”
***
You could only read so much before losing your mind. You could only deal with so many of the same exact problems over and over again for lower level soldiers. You could only chart so many stars. You could only read so much fanfiction (if your identity thief were tracking your phone, he’d probably be baffled as to why you kept reading fic for fandoms you weren’t even a part of due to the desire for new ideas).
You could only give Glory Pham so many excuses as to why you’re not with her in person at the Museum of Natural History.
Sucking in through your teeth, you hovered your fingers above the keyboard.
Dear Ms. Pham,
Glad to hear John Mulaney’s signed on. Next step would be to ensure de Blasio doesn’t directly interact with him, given their history. Perhaps I should proof his set beforehand?
Unfortunately, I regret to inform you that I cannot attend the briefing in person yet again. I am currently indisposed, seeing as I am currently in hiding at my hot boss’s house, due to how dead I might be should I leave it (thus the basis of its appeal). Not to mention that if you criticise my blazer choices again, I shall peel the skin off your perfectly made-up face. Get fucked; getting your eyeliner tattooed on was a hell of a decision.
You shook your head, backspaced the last few lines, and stretched towards the wicker end table to grab your glass of pink lemonade, and you stole a glance at Tom’s work as you did so. A couple of files spread across his white wicker lounger (two blue files [socials of the family], two green [recent bids], a yellow [Manhattan locations], and a brown [requests from politicians, upper East side]). The pink sticky-notes had your and his written exchanges and edits on certain papers, and his laptop was open, the screen dimmed, while he copied something into a notebook with his cell phone held between his shoulder and his ear, just listening to the computerised voice.
He had joined you on the back porch to work remotely, claiming he couldn’t go into the city today due to the absence of news on Zendaya—if any information arose, he’d said he wanted your diagnosis immediately.
You wiped your forehead with your sleeve as a sweat drop slinked behind Tom’s ear. Even Tessa wouldn’t run in the heat; she’d curled up by the porch railing, her tail slapping against her water bowl. In an experiment to see if she wanted to spend some time outside, you’d slid the glass door open for Trout, to which she turned around to retreat to the bedroom.
Not all of the clothes you’d ordered had arrived yet, so you were stuck wearing autumnal clothes with long sleeves. To exacerbate matters, you were constantly moving—jiggling your leg, tapping your fingers—you couldn’t sit still for very long anymore; you had taken to pacing the porch when you couldn’t concentrate on the stars.
(Once, Tom had come out at night to check on you, wiping the sleep out of his eyes and sitting in silence with you. He’d made you go to bed after a while, claiming you’d run yourself into the ground if you kept this restlessness up.)
When your phone beeped, the both of you jolted at the sound. Tom hung up on the robotic voice as you scrambled to your phone, and he bent your way. “Is it Zendaya?”
Biting the inside of your cheek, you shook your head. “No. Looks like it’s a jailbreak.”
Tom sighed, his shoulders heaving as he eased back in his seat. “Where from?”
“I don’t even care,” you said, letting your phone fall to your lap. You slumped back in your chair, shielding your eyes from the sun with your arm. But you straightened yourself again and checked. “From Central. They don’t even know who’s all escaped yet.”
“It’d be too much of a gift if New York City would fucking relax for five minutes.”
“It seems like it’s in more uproar than usual lately,” you said, sipping through the reusable straw of your pink lemonade. “Do you suppose it’s our fault?”
Tom took a moment to pluck his damp t-shirt away from his chest. “I don’t think we’re instigating. If anything, we’re simply reacting to chaos.” He stood up and stretched, raising his arms above his head—his biceps strained at the sleeves, and the hem rose above his v-lines. “Unless you’re doing something I don’t know about.”
Ah, casual suspicion. “You’ve caught me,” you said as he approached Tessa and crouched next to her, “I’ve been running a koi smuggling gig on the side.”
“Why koi?” He held out his hand for Tessa to sniff, and she readily accepted his hand for pats. “Are they hard to get?”
“I don’t know,” you said, shrugging, “but I’ve been wondering if they’d be able to survive in your grist mill pond. You look through that water straight to the bottom, nothing living in your way. Just rocks and old equipment.”
Tom sat against the porch railing with a jittery Tessa partially in his lap. “Should we get some?”
“Oh, fuck off, Tom,” you said, grinning, a sweat drop falling onto your mousepad as you shook your head, “You can’t entertain every little pipedream I have.”
“Watch me. What do you want for Christmas?”
You ducked your head, biting your lip. “Promise me something.”
“Provided it’s not my head on a stake, I will,” he said, scratching Tessa behind her ears and cringing a bit when she stretched to lick his face.
“Then we’re going in person to the pre-opening fundraising gala for the Gawain Diamond.”
Tom narrowed his eyes. “Viper.”
“Bitch, I got John Mulaney to sign on to do the opening monologue, and he’s probably gonna roast de Blasio again. I’m not missing that.”
Your phone blared an alert again, and both of you held your breath as you unlocked it.
“Got a list of prisoners who escaped. Small group. Delores, Larson, Duncan, Mays, Selvin,” you said, “There’s more, but I don’t know them. Tell us something important, by God. Anyway, we’re going. I didn’t say I was going alone, did I? You’ll be there. I’ll be safe, and you’ll be safe.”
His jaw shifting to the side, Tom stilled his hand on Tessa’s back, and then he lifted it to flick sweat off his neck. “How many of us maximum can you get in?”
“It’s a fundraiser for idiotic rich people; if there are too many people without a name, they’ll be noticed.”
“It can’t be just us.”
“Why? Afraid you can’t protect me on your own?”
“Now, don’t start that.” Tom herded Tessa off his lap and onto her outside bed. “I’m not falling for it.”
“Yes, yes, I’m fully aware you’re capable of ripping me in half,” you said, draining your pink lemonade, the airy suction coming through your straw (almost loud enough that you couldn’t hear Tom’s sputtering over it—almost—and his phone beeping). “Want me to get that?”
“Bring it here,” he said, and you snatched it while he sat on the railing, dangling his legs off the side.
“It’s,” you said, eyebrows shooting to your hairline as you read the little notification, “It’s a tweet from Zendaya.” You tossed it to him to unlock and leant on the railing next to him, arm grazing his thigh with a heightened awareness of how close you were to his sweaty, sweaty abdomen. No! No time to thirst. Friend time.
Tom unlocked his phone and held it at your eye level, turning it horizontally as he pulled up the tweet.
ZENDAYA (@ZendayaMedias): Felt cute. Might delete later.
[video]
Tom pulled up the clip, waiting for it to load. “Why didn’t she post it to instagram, then?”
“The finer details of social media are an enigma. Do I look like I know,” you said, and his thumb hovered over the play button.
He cranked the volume up before pressing play, having to try twice due to how slippery his fingers were. “I wonder if Haz has seen this yet.”
A vertical shot of a murky, grey sky from the bow of a boat and dark ocean as far as the camera can see. It pans across the starboard side, and this boat is the only one in sight.
Only the sound of waves striking the boat.
The camera tilts down. Zendaya’s writhing on the deck, furiously straining against rope bonds that line up the entirety of her arms and up her calves; she’s yelling furiously at the person behind the camera through duct tape.
Scuffed, black boots roll Z to the starboard gunwale. She’s still fighting, still shouting.
The camera trucks to the right; before, the pair of cinderblocks attached to her feet were concealed. It returns to her face. A glove grabs part of her hair to show the weights tied into it. She bucks up to headbutt the camera; he avoids it.
Tom clenched his free hand on his thigh. “We’re running another scan for that black-stubble bell jackass from her instagram; did we have any fucking leads at all? What’s his fucking motivation? So he slept with her, allegedly; did she say no to a second time? Doesn’t fucking merit—”
The boot kicks the cinderblocks off the boat, and the camera tilts down to follow the trail of bubbles.
It’s quiet.
But then the camera pans to portside, where the guy in the picture with Zendaya is similarly tied up, but he’s openly weeping and shaking his head. He’s got something drawn on his forehead in black marker. The cameraman steps closer to focus on it: it’s a circle with an upward curve resting on top of it.
He’s still wearing the bell necklace.
Then the cameraman backs away and raises a gloved hand, in which a gun is aimed at the other’s forehead.
The bullet goes through the circle, and the bell rattles as he’s kicked off. Fewer bubbles.
Then the camera tilts up to show off the boat’s surroundings: a black and barren ocean, as far as the eye can see.
When the video started to loop, Tom switched his screen off, his phone hanging loosely in his grip. You released of his thigh once you noticed you’d grabbed onto him, and the evidence of your touch faded as the fabric relaxed.
His eyes glossed over at the blank screen, and his mouth opened before closing again, running his tongue over his lower lip. Tom brought a fist to his mouth and furrowed his brow, his hand hardly concealing the growing tremble of his jaw.
You took a step away from him, rubbing your arms as you ducked your head. “I’m going back inside,” you said, hoping Trout felt like being clutched to your chest, “I’m cold.”
***
The next morning, your mouth felt heavy and dry. You sneaked out as the sun was rising to go hide in the woods surrounding Tom’s house, but you talked yourself out of it. He would make too much of a fuss if he couldn’t find you—but you could delay the inevitable conversation even further. Both of you had separated and kept to yourselves the rest of the evening. Kept quiet.
So you rounded the outside of the house. You’re not camping out in a fucking copse. When you reached the pond, you scanned it for a dry place to hide, but nothing really held any appeal, save for the rounded platform where the mill wheel used to spin, its spoke notches overflowing with moss. You managed to get to it after scrambling alongside the stones for a few minutes, and though it didn’t look like you could get down the same way, you settled against the wall, scraping some moss out of the notches so that your feet could rest more comfortably in them.
(Dr. Prine called ten minutes after you sent her the email. “Did you send me the correct article?”
“Yeah,” you said, rubbing your face wash onto your cheeks, “Considering it’s the only one I have ready, and I can’t bring myself to write anything. I tried. I just fucking can’t.”
“I don’t think you want this published at this point in your life.”
“I don’t fucking care. Whoever’s using my pen name probably knows who the fuck I am in general. Just publish it.”
“Honey,” said Dr. Prine, her voice softening (and fumbling, like she was holding the phone to her ear with her shoulder), “You should probably rethink this. It’s going to connect Epiales you back to Viper you. Get some sleep; eat breakfast. Call me back then.”
“It’s an appropriate article for the political climate.”
“Not for your personal life.”
“I don’t fucking care,” you said between splashing water on your face, “I don’t. It’s a good fucking article, and hopefully, it can affect people for the upcoming election. Fuck self-preservation. Send it to the Times already.”
“Did I dial the wrong number?”
“Hilarious, Dr. Prine. I know it’s not the smartest thing for me to do, but I can’t—absolutely can’t—write anything. I don’t know for how long, but for now, at least.” You blotted your face dry. “I’ve got to meet standard deadlines if I’m keeping my column. It’s really only dangerous if Tom reads it and makes the connection, and his brain is offline right now.”
And so Aeneid Autopsies: Current Crimes Reflected in Ancient Times, chapter twelve, “The Political Tradition as Mob Rule,” would be published on Saturday. It’s a little too in the know about the mafia, but hey, you had written it on a whim a month ago, and you were known for your extensive research, anyway. It most likely shouldn’t be too different from your other exposés, though they weren’t on topics that were deliberately misleading the public by what information was out there.
The more you thought about it, it was almost like you wanted to reveal yourself, wanted to get stabbed while you were sleeping, because there’s an overwhelming question rolling around in your brain like a mis-weighted shooter marble: is this—)
“It’s not your fault.”
With crossed arms, Tom leant against the stone wall, his leg bent back for his bare foot to rest flat against it. He glanced sideways at you, sitting on your mill wheel perch almost halfway across the pond, but closer to the far side than to him.
He’s got major bedhead, his curls just fucking flopping about out of his part, and even from where you are, his face burned red amidst wet tracks trailing down it. Still, thank God for little mercies—his biceps were fucking straining the sleeves of his white t-shirt, and those idiotic, blessed grey sweatpants were low on his hips.
You lifted your head from your knees but still clutched them to your chest. “You’re not going out, then?”
“Of course not,” Tom said, and he wiped his nose with the back of his hand. “Can’t be crying during a meeting, yeah?”
“Been boxing?”
“Yeah.”
“Did you get any sleep last night?”
“Not really.”
He ran his tongue over his lower lip and sighed, and then he slid his hands into his pockets, his eyes glossing over while he watched the moss you’d picked off float in the pond.
You’re not going to fucking cry. Tom came out here for a reason. He has a purpose. All you have to do is wait.
Eventually, he said, “You’re avoiding what I said.”
You tilted your head.
“Listen, I know you’re beating yourself up about it. It’s not your fault this happened. None of this is your fault. Hey.” Tom tapped the wall, the travelling reverberations making you look up at him. “Whoever’s doing this is doing it of their own volition and not because of you. You hold no culpability for this.”
“Bruh,” you said, “One of your best friends is dead, and you’re comforting me? I thought I was the masochist.”
Tom scowled, his brow furrowing. “Viper—”
“I can’t interact with someone without putting them in danger, at a disturbingly high rate. You want me to enumerate where I’ve stuck my nose in not my business and people have gotten killed? Senator Hernandez, Isadora,” you began, holding up two fingers, “The nine men guarding Isadora, Maccabruno, Polson—”
“Don’t you dare do that to yourself.” Tom took a step forward, his foot almost curving into the pond. “You didn’t use the knife. You didn’t pull any triggers.”
“Yeah, but I sent them there. And a good many of them went because it was their job.” You sneered and propped your chin on your knees again.
“And it’s part of your job—”
“Yeah, whatever. Your friend is dead, and I have no home. I’ve stopped contacting the few people in my circle on the chance that they get dragged into this—Grace, Adrien—he’s the lights specialist guy, in case you don’t remember—I’ve got to email Glory, but that can’t be helped. And Dr. Prine only—fuck,” you said, dragging your hands down your face. “I don’t want anything to fucking happen to Dr. Prine. Or your family, for that matter.”
“Everyone not involved in the business is currently in hiding upstate,” said Tom, eyes narrowed as he glared at you. “If you like, I can ensure the same—”
“Stop acting so damn calm, Tom.” You let your legs dangle off the platform, hands clenching the edges. “I don’t have any strings left to pull. And fucking hell, I know that it would be extremely and absurdly conceited of me to believe that this series of crimes is aimed specifically at me, because how deluded, how arrogant could I get—but goddammit, this stuff feels a little too personalised. It feels like this person knows me.”
Tom clicked his tongue. “Don’t you think it’s worth something that Glory Pham has been left alone? He knows how to get into Crosscreek, yet Glory hasn’t been touched. Is that not worthwhile?”
Your eyes watered, but you ducked your head so that he couldn’t see—but you released a dry sob (Fuck! Now is not the time for crying! Now is the time for being badass! Frown, or something!).
Tom spoke so quietly you almost didn’t catch it. “Do you want to leave?”
God, no. But it would make you feel like less of a burden. “Let me find an apartment first.”
“No, not like that. Hey, V. Look at me,” he said, and he tapped on the wall again.
You wouldn’t. Not like this. Not when your nose was running and when you didn’t have a plan.
“Please look at me, Viper.”
Glowering, you raised your head, lifting your chin higher than normal to seem confident, and oh, God—his eyes were wide and gentle; he’s leaning as far as he can over the pond, still unable to reach you.
“What I meant was if you wanted to leave the mob.”
It rang through your head like a distant cathedral bell, chiming through a deserted town—but then you were farther, out on the mountains, still listening to faint clanging.
“You’d have to kill me,” you said, shaking your head, “Don’t you remember?”
“Fuck,” Tom was saying, sucking in through his teeth, and after glancing at the water, he started jogging around the pond.
“I swore. I bled. And then even after that—then you knighted me.” You inhaled sharply when he reached the stones you’d climbed. “I’ve let you down.”
“Viper, get the fuck down from there and come here,” he said, and he withdrew, winching, when he stepped on a sharp edge.
“We shouldn’t have met,” you said, looking over your shoulder at him, and Tom froze, his hand partially gripping a hole in the stone wall. “I shouldn’t have taken the job. I should have gone to a different city. I should have—”
“Wasted your life away in the shadows? Just shut up and get down here.”
“Ah! The fuck?” You swatted his hand away when it grazed the platform, and when he climbed up another step, you pushed yourself off the platform and into the pond.
The first thing that struck you was how quiet everything was once the bubbles dissipated, and then you noticed how clear the water was, even from within it—glancing down, you could easily see your feet treading water above the broken grist mill wheels that had sunken to the bottom.
Before you could take it in to feel the emptiness in your chest, bubbles filled your vision again—and then his hands were grappling for you, grasping at your clothes, and pulling you towards the surface.
“I wasn’t fucking drowning,” you said, sliding a hand back through your hair, while Tom shook his head to flick off excess water. “I was fine without—”
“I know you weren’t.” Tom gripped your waist tightly enough to be painful, and he slid his other hand up between your shoulder blades. “I know. You wouldn’t die on me, and I’m not letting anyone else lay their hands on you. C’mon, arms around.”
He guided your arms around his waist, and once you had a good grip (hands sliding up his back), he kicked off to swim to the stone wall, backing you into it. Your toes skimmed the bottom of the pond, but Tom kept your head above the water, his thumbs circling your hipbones through your wet clothes.
Tom closed his eyes, his eyelashes heavy with water droplets. “There’s no solution to this where you die, got it?”
“Shucks.”
“I mean it. Talk to me. Tell me what you can.” Tom let out a breath slowly, and he bent to rest his forehead on your shoulder. “Please,” he said once you tensed up, his breath hot through your wet shirt, “Won’t you let me in?”
(Fuck fuck fuck fuck his chest is flush against yours; he’s so warm, so damn warm all over, and the water’s chill only makes you want to cling to him more, fuck.)
“You won’t like me,” you said, tentatively lifting a hand to curl your fingers into his hair, pulling slightly, “I’m not whom I’ve presented to you. I don’t have it under control.”
“I don’t expect you to.” Tom turned his head towards you; his lips almost grazed your neck (you relish their warmth anyway). “You wouldn’t be human, otherwise.”
“I don’t know an awful lot. Some days it seems like all I do is guesswork.” You grimaced but kept the slim distance from Tom’s mouth. If he wanted to, he would. “I’m lost completely on whoever the fake Epiales is. I keep looking for a pattern in everything, even—even so far back as to—”
You stuttered. Tom had pressed his lips to the base of your neck.
“There’s no consistency,” he said, nuzzling his nose against the spot where your neck met shoulder, “but there’s got to be a larger plan. I get it. The whole case is like a hydra, and we’re chopping blindly at the heads.”
(Oh, my God, he kissed you? He kiss the neck? He?)
“Oh! I forgot to tell you.” Tom pulled away to look you in the eye, and your mouth hung open of its own accord—come back! “I made myself watch the video again.” His jaw shifted. “To see if I missed anything, and I did. This time, I recognised the symbol on the guy’s forehead.” Tom lightly traced it onto your forehead with his middle finger. “It’s a zodiac symbol. It’s the one for Taurus.”
You nodded, still not really thinking at full capacity. “Great. Another piece of evidence that I won’t be able to make fucking sense of. Goddammit. I’m so useless. Goddammit,” you said, dropping your hand from his hair into the water with a splash. “Tom, I don’t talk to my mother much anymore. She doesn’t know where or who I am, and to be honest, I don’t know who I am, either. I don’t know where the truth is.”
You nearly slapped him when you cupped his cheek, like you were desperate, like you had to be touching him, skin on skin, that instant. It’d be nice if he would close his eyes and lean into your touch, maybe kiss your palm, but Tom simply stared at you in shock, eyes wide, brows raised, mouth pinched.
Don’t tell him, you whore. You built this fucking kingdom with its walls and bastions so that you would be safe when the outer defences crumbled. You’ve set aside parts of yourself into neat little boxes so that you can throw any of them away at any time and escaped unscathed. Don’t you fucking dare screw that up. Tom doesn’t know about Epiales so that you can expose and destroy him if you’re on his chopping block; it’s insurance for when everything falls.
Bitch, since when do you want to be honest and raw and vulnerable around anyone?
You can’t let him in.
“You’re still a woman of honour,” Tom said, and—oh, God, oh, fuck—he’s easing his hands down your body, his chest pressed against yours again, and he’s sliding them down your thighs to hook underneath your knees, and he’s hitched you up against the wall, the definition of his muscles real and palpable through the wet clothes, warm, warm, warm—
“I should apologise,” you said, turning your head to the side while he steered your legs around his waist, “I can’t imagine what you must be feeling right now.”
“You can’t?” Tom shifted you upwards, and that’s it; your heat is directly against him; you can feel every pull and tensing of his tendons, and if he keeps moving the way he is, then you’ll—
“I’m so sorry for making this about me when Z was closer to you. We shouldn’t waste time on me; we need to be searching, arranging a funeral if we can’t find anything.” You scrunched your eyes shut.
“You’re deflecting.” Tom let out a shuddery sigh. “I’ve lost too many people. Don’t make me lose you when you’re right in front of me,” he said, and he pressed his lips right below your ear.
You flinched away on impulse but tried to relax into him, blinking profusely.
Tom pushed against you (not localised enough to qualify as a thrust), and he cleared his throat before pulling away from your neck. “Listen, please. Please.” He shifted your weight to one hand and gripped your chin with his freed one. His eyes flickered to your mouth before he moved to rest his hand on your cheek. “You’re invaluable. Irreplaceable. You are no burden and are not at fault.” He clenched his jaw. “But I know you’re keeping something from me, and I will make the answer fall from your lips soon.”
Your own chin was shaking, and he was too close. If you put aside separate-self-as-insurance for a moment, let’s consider Tom did find out about Epiales. Would he control you through it? Would he use you to influence those he couldn’t reach? Would he grab hold of Dr. Prine? He might squeeze your life and time through his fist, and your freedom would be gone. Epiales was your freedom, your space to create and connect.
He was too close.
“You’ve got to promise not to hate me,” you said, and when he raised an eyebrow, you made your decision to lean in.
“No,” he said, and—and your lips met his cheek.
He’d turned his head.
After all that, he’s going to turn his head?
“No,” he said again, taking your chin again and leading you away, back to leaning against the stone wall, “I don’t want our first kiss connected to the memory of mourning. I can wait a bit longer.”
Tom released your legs, letting them sink. “You once told me that if you let yourself be vulnerable, you didn’t want an audience. I think,” he said, frowning, “I think you still see me as an outsider. As a member of that audience. And again, you said that you didn’t want it if it weren’t real.” He stepped away from you entirely, and he started wading towards the edge of the pond. “I’m going to hold you to the same standard. I’ll wait until you’re ready to be real with me.”
Tom slinked out of the pond, flicking away what excess water he could, and he squinted into the sun on the horizon. He shook his head, water flying, and he glanced back at you and scoffed. “Easy, sweetheart. No need to wear your heart on your sleeve now.”
His voice trailed off as he rounded the corner towards the door.
The sun is rising, and you feel rather cold.
***
inter vivos: between the living
***
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wehavethoughts · 5 years ago
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Six of Crows Review!
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Six of Crows
By: Leigh Bardugo
YA Fantasy Novel
Henry Hold & Company, 2015
Rating: 4.5/5 Waves
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Summary: Six rag-tag teens are offered the job of a lifetime: more money than they know what to do with and all they have to do is spring a scientist from the most heavily fortified prison in the world. A daring adventure filled with magic, love and betrayal. 
The review CONTAINS (mild) spoilers for the novel Six of Crows.
Content Warning for Six of Crows: Blood, Violence, Death, Forced Prostitution (mentioned), Fantasy Racism, Sexism, Slavery/Indentured Servitude
“No Mourners. No Funerals.” – All of these wonderful characters right before they do something insane.
I can’t tell you how refreshing it was for me to pick this book up and read in three days. It’s been years since I’ve found a book that I simply could not put down. From the writing style to the pacing to the clever characters, this book had everything I didn’t know I needed. Before I dive into why this book knocked my socks off, I want to give a shout out to the several friends who recommended this book to me over the years (you know who you are). You were right! I loved it <3
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Aside from how highly recommended this book was, I knew pretty early on that this book was a great fit for me. The first clue was that there are not one, but two maps in the front. I might be the only one, but a good map to start off my fantasy book always puts me in a very good mood. In my version of the book, the maps are illustrated by Keith Thompson and they are beautiful. The detail and imagination that went into these maps, particularly the Ice Court schematic really allowed me to immerse myself in the story, especially since one of the characters actually sketches the Ice Court in the novel. It is so easy to imagine Wylan hunched over a piece of parchment drawing this spectacular map.
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My second clue that I would love this book was that it is a heist novel. In fact, knowing that this book was about a fantasy heist was at least half the reason I decided to read it, and Bardugo did not disappoint. What I find to be most compelling about this heist story is how she lays out the mission as nearly impossible, but never gives the reader a reason to doubt the characters’ resolve. Sure this heist seems insane and doomed to fail, but our faith in the characters keeps the reader invested. Bardugo also did a great job with her foreshadowing. The plot twists and the way the characters solved their problems, while surprising, always made sense in hindsight. There were never any instances where I felt like Bardugo used her magic system to ‘cheat’ the character’s out of a bad situation or where the characters were just so clever there was no way I could have ever guessed what they were going to do. The book kept me on my toes, but it never made me feel stupid.
As I mentioned in my About Page, I love me a good magic system, and Bardugo delivers fun and vibrant magic with clear rules and expectations that just beg to be broken. She also does a great job integrating the magic into a world that feels complex and expansive. This world has both a history and a future in a way that makes me feel like the author put a lot of good work in and loves this world as much as I do. My favorite detail is how Bardugo used language and language barriers in the story. The main cast are from different countries within this world and logically speak different languages, though fortunately most are multilingual. I just love the little details like how Wylan speaks schoolroom Fjerdan because he learned it from his tutors and how Matthias only just learned Kerch during his time in prison. It gives the world a fun realistic dimension.
Hands down the best thing about this story is the characters. Usually at this point in the review I have to sigh and tell you that it was a fun book but the diversity was lacking. Fortunately for us Bardugo gives us a beautifully diverse cast of well rounded and compelling characters. Of the six main cast, only one is an able-bodied straight white man (I am making some assumptions about Matthias’ sexuality so you will have to forgive me) and in an age where I am still reeling from the Avenger’s lineup this crew was a breath of fresh air. Every single character comes out of the gate interesting, three-dimensional and just a delight to read. This book is constructed so that every chapter we switch point of view and I found myself excited to see how each character thought and reacted to the wild situations they ended up in. Also, the way Bardugo gets the reader to care deeply for her characters does a fantastic job in creating high stakes with real tension. I found myself holding my breath and flipping pages with much more force than necessary during some high stress scenes. Even the characters that were clearly not good people had me checking my moral compass from time to time and cheering for them anyway.   
I think it’s also important to include how much I liked the writing style of this novel. Everything I listed above wouldn’t have been nearly as enjoyable if the flow and pacing of the writing were not enjoyable to me. This novel is written in a fairly typical YA style of fantasy, fast pace and dialogue heavy, which I loved. There was enough description that I never felt lost, but I also never got bogged down in details I didn’t care about. Bardugo also made a fun choice to break the book up into six parts and at the end of each part there are two full black pages with the part title. The first couple times I mostly ignored it, but when a character is in physical danger and you flip the page and it’s just black! That is a great use of your physical medium! I got chills.
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I have one nit-pick that didn’t deeply affect this book’s rating, but could be a deal-breaker for other readers. First of all, this novel is the first in a duology and it does not stand on its own as a story. While the main conflict does get resolved, another plot starts in the last couple chapters and the story does not end at the end of the book. It is clear that a single story has been broken into two books and it came as a shock to me. Fortunately, unlike the poor suckers who read this when it came out in 2015 and had to wait a whole year for the sequel, I only have to wait about a week for my library to have it available. Still for people who want a stand alone book or enjoy when all of the books in a series have a neat and tidy ending, this is not the book for you.
The two things keeping this book from a perfect score were the fantasy racism and how the women were framed in this world. I am using the term ‘fantasy racism’ because there is systemic oppression in this fantasy world and that systemic oppression is a clear metaphor for real-life racism, but in the story the minority group is the one with magical powers and not an ethnic minority. Generally, I think this author did a good job at showing the damage institutionalized racism can do to specific countries and the world as a whole. What I did not enjoy was the sub-plot of one of the main cast (Matthias), who was a member of the highly bigoted ruling class of the most racist nation in this fantasy world, overcoming his racism not through critical thinking or learning to understand the value of lives that are different from his own, but rather because he fell in love. I am open to the idea of racists learning to respect the cultures they were prejudiced against and when done right can be a very powerful thing, but when romance is the key motivator it feels very hollow. Also I have trouble conceptualizing a woman of the minority group falling in love with someone who is literally a part of the military death squad in charge of hunting down her people (Nina I know he’s hot, but what the hell?). Either way, the idea of reforming a racist with the power of love is not a trope I enjoy in my media.
The second thing keeping this book from a perfect score is the treatment of the women characters. One thing I noticed early on is that nearly all of the women characters had been forced (either financially or physically) into prostitution or slavery. It makes the reader think that in this fantasy world the only places to find women are the brothels or in chains. This world is vibrant and full of so many interesting things and people, yet for women the world seems so very limited. I found myself disappointed that even in a novel written by a woman, a well loved character is described during the climax as ‘a  half-naked girl in shreds of teal chiffon’. To be fair, I have read fantasy books that have done their women characters much, much dirtier, but it’s unnecessary and exhausting. I notice it even in small doses and I’m sick of it. Fortunately, neither of these issues I had with the novel got a ton of page-time and there was always something else going on that I could focus on, like the strong female friendships and the brilliant disabled protagonist.
Tldr; Overall, best book I’ve read in a long time. I couldn’t give it a 5/5 because of some issues in how the fantasy racism and women were handled, but I would still highly recommend this novel to anyone who likes fantasy stories, diverse characters and/or a really good heist. 
~TideMod
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gold-and-rubies · 4 years ago
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In It For The Long Haul - Chapter 15
Claudia POV
Claudia sighed as she stepped out of the power armor. As stiff as she would get wearing it for a prolonged period, the warmth was enough to not want to leave it.
The trip to The Castle had been incredibly successful. It looked like it was doing well, they had found schematics for some artillery, and Ronnie Shaw… she was something else. Despite MacCready’s opinion, she quite liked her. Though, she did not blame him. He did not seem to care for most forms of authority.
She stretched out her back and neck before turning to speak to MacCready. She could have sworn he had been looking at her, but his eyes were fixed on their shared house. She turned to look at it, but saw nothing out of the ordinary.
“Did you see something?” she asked.
“Huh? Oh, oh no. Just a um, a trick of the light,” he sputtered.
She swore she saw him blush, though she was unsure if it was just the cold. She raised an eyebrow, confused. As she opened her mouth she was cut off by the sound of footsteps. A voice spoke before she turned around.
“Dia?”
She paused. She did not turn to see who it was. Too scared to be wrong. Despite the raspiness it was so familiar.
“Dia, is it really you?” he asked.
She looked at him slowly, already on the verge of tears. The necrotic face of a ghoul man met her eyes. Behind the age and dead tissue was a face she loved and knew very well. Her ghoulified brother was standing in front of her.
With a broken sob she almost tackled him with a hug. “Andy,” she cried.
He held her tightly without a word. She sobbed into his shoulder. She had accepted that her family was likely long gone, or at least she’d probably never see any of them. But now she was holding on to her little brother like if she let go he’d turn to dust.
It felt like everything he had been burying for the past few months broke out of her. All that pain finally made its way out of her. He cried too, which just made her hold him tighter. After all she was still his big sister.
They stood sobbing with a mix of emotions in each other's arms. She was unsure how long they stayed like that, but she did not really care.
When they did finally pull away, she still held onto his arms. Afraid to let go. She had to tilt her head up to look him in the face. He had grown a bit since she had last seen him. He was now at least a foot taller than her.
“What are you doing here?” she asked. Her voice was almost as hoarse as his.
“It’s a long story, but the shorter version is I caught word that the Minutemen had a new general. Last name of Flynn. I was curious to see if it was one of your descendents. But the more I heard, the more it sounded like you, but nothing said you were a ghoul, so I was confused. I had to see for myself who you really are.”
“Well, it’s me,” she laughed weakly.
“Yeah, I can see that,” he smiled, “and as relieved and happy I am to see you, how do you still look like you?”
Her smile turned to a frown, “Cryostasis vault.”
“Some world you woke up to.”
She sighed, “No shit.”
He laughed, “At least you didn’t have to live through the early days. Especially back in California.”
“I can’t imagine what you’ve gone through. Andy, I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be. None of it was your fault.”
“Still, it must’ve been hell.”
“It was, but we can talk about that more later. You have to introduce me to your… friend,” he smirked slightly.
She furrowed her eyebrows at him. She was not fond of how he said that. As much as she loved him, he could get on her nerves pretty quickly.
“Right,” she cleared her voice and turned to MacCready, “Andy, this is MacCready. MacCready, this is my little brother Andrew.”
“Little?” he exclaimed, “I am at least a foot taller than you, and I’ve actually aged, unlike you!”
“I’m still older than you. That’s never going to change.”
He rolled his eyes, “Okay old woman.”
“It’s only two years.”
“Says the one who insists it matters.”
She rolled her eyes, “Whatever. Anyway, this is my brother.”
“Nice to meet you, MacCready,” he held out his hand.
MacCready shook it, “Nice to meet you too.”
“So, are you one of the Minutemen?”
“Not exactly. He’s a mercenary I hired. I needed help getting around. Ended up becoming one of my closest friends and kinda part of the Minutemen,” she explained. She felt more comfortable telling Andy the truth, than she had with Ronnie. She trusted him not to judge either of them too harshly.
“Not the worst thing in the world. A friend of hers is a friend of mine. Anyway, you two just got back from… somewhere, right? I’ll let you get settled.”
“We should talk later.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said sarcastically, and walked off towards one of the other houses. Some things never change.
She looked at MacCready. His face was unreadable. He scratched the back of his neck.
“I, uh, didn’t know you had a brother,” he paused for a moment, “but I don’t blame you for not talking about him. I know how hard it can be to talk about family….”
“I have a feeling we’re going to have to have a hard conversation,” she sighed, “but it’s good to have him back.”
***
“Where are you going?” Claudia asked from the couch. MacCready was standing in the hallway with his rifle slung over his shoulder.
“Target practice. I figured that this is probably going to get personal, for both of you, so i wanted to give you some space.”
“Oh, well, thank you.”
“‘Course,” he nodded, “Besides, even though I’m probably the best sniper in the Commonwealth, I could use practice.”
She scoffed at him as he left. A few moments later there was a knock on the front door. Andrew was waiting for her when she opened it.
“Come in.”
He came in, and made a beeline for the couches where an old stove had been converted into a fireplace. It was a piece of her own handiwork that she had made in some downtime.
“I saw MacCready leave. You two live together?” he asked.
“Yeah?” she narrowed her eyes at him.
“You sure you guys are just friends?”
“Yes, Andrew, I’m sure. It’s not like we’re sharing the same bed every damn night.”
She had a feeling that was why he was smirking earlier. Drawing conclusions that did not exist, as usual. She remembered every time she brought up a guy he would insist that she liked him. He was rarely right.
“You’ve shared the same bed?” he asked. Save for a raised eyebrow, his face was completely straight. She could hear the humor in his voice though.
“Andrew,” she glared at him.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah.”
She sat in the armchair to the right of the couch. Despite the familiarity an awkwardness hung in the air. She did not know where to start.
“So… cryostasis, huh? How long have you been out of the vault?”
“A little over two months.”
“Not many stories to tell then. Two hundred ten years… where do I start?” he sighed.
“We don’t have to talk about this.”
He shook his head, “No, I want to. It’s just hard,” he was quiet for a moment, “When the bombs dropped we didn’t have a vault to go to, but the nearest bomb dropped in the bay, so radiation wasn’t too bad for us. But those first years were, hard is an understatement. Mom died five years later due to some asshole thieves. Dad died eight years after her trying to save some people from a pack of feral dogs. I started turning into a ghoul at that point. Radiation was making its way inland.”
“Stayed in California for the few friends that were still alive. Stayed a while longer after they died. Then all of the shit with the Master and the mutants happened. That bastard is the reason for the mutants in the west. A lot of other stuff happened, but now isn’t the time for a history lesson….”
“You want something to drink?”
“Yeah, thanks.”
He continued as she got drinks, “After that mess I decided to head East. I wanted to know what happened to you and Grandma. You wouldn’t happen to know what happened, would you?”
“No,” she sighed, “She was doing some shopping when it happened. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. I made peace with her death a long time ago.”
She handed him a can of purified water.
“Anyway, it took me about a year and a half to get to Boston. Saw a lot of stuff. I spent a lot of time here looking for you, trying to figure out what happened to you. I never found any bones or anything, so I hoped you had made it into a vault. I would’ve investigated them, but I’ve never had a Pip-Boy, so I couldn’t get in if I wanted to. Probably for the best. At best they’re control vaults, at worst they produce super mutants.”
He took a sip of his water, “Couldn’t handle being here, so I headed south to the Capital Wasteland. Ended up leaving and bouncing around areas between here and there eventually. Mostly due to the Brotherhood and the Enclave.”
“Enclave?”
“I’m not honestly too sure. All I can say is overly corrupt remnants of the government. They’re gone now.”
“Anyway, last place I was at was an inn of sorts. I was working as their handyman. Then I got word of a new general of the Minutemen. General Flynn. I couldn’t help myself. I had to know if she was one of your descendants. If you made it into a vault. Never expected it to actually be you,” his voice broke with a sob.
She got up from her chair, and sat next to him. She pulled him into a hug, fighting back her own tears. She let himself cry into her shoulder. She could not imagine what he had been through. Two months had been tough, but two hundred years… she tried not to think about it. Right now all that mattered was that they were both alive, and even after two hundred years she was still the big sister.
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mage-cat · 5 years ago
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First Steps Home - Plan? What Plan?
The Rebellion sends a team to rescue Glimmer only for the team to discover that they are now part of an escape plan already in motion.
Part 2 of the Mending Bridges series. Start from the beginning here.
Story under the cut. ~1900 words. Link to AO3 through here.
Mara’s ship wasn’t designed to carry a large crew. That meant to when the Rebellion went to rescue Glimmer, it had to be a bare-bones strike team. Bow and Entrapta were the only ones who had any confidence with new tech on the fly, something Prime’s ship was sure to have in abundance, and Adora would be there to lead them.
Bow, who had taken up piloting duties, had been waiting for Adora to let him in on the details of the plan, figuring that something in Adora’s training--either with the Horde or Light Hope--had given her insight into what they needed to do to at least begin the rescue. He began to feel uneasy as the ship announced that they had left Etheria’s atmosphere and he still had no idea what the next step would be after finding Horde Prime’s ship.
“Um, Adora? How does a spaceship sneak up on another spaceship?”
“How much different can it be to little boat sneaking up on a big boat?”
Bow gestured at a relevant display. “We’re using tech to find Horde Prime’s ship. Isn’t it likely that he has tech that can see us the same way?”
A voice came from somewhere embedded in the ship’s controls. “Message incoming. Would you care to answer?”
Adora froze for a moment before responding, “I guess, yes.”
The ship’s largest screen was filled with a pale face, the eyes green from edge to edge. “You must be the delegation we were told to expect. Please, proceed to the docking bay. We will inform Queen Glimmer to meet you. Please, leave all weapons on your ship.” The voice was bland and clearly assumed there could be no other explanation for who they were as the face disappeared from the screen as soon as the last word was uttered.
“Was that Hordak?” Bow asked.
“No,” said Entrapta with certainty. “Hordak’s a clone, but one Horde Prime considered... nonstandard. At a guess, I would say that was an example of a more typical result of the cloning process.”
“I wonder how many of those Prime keeps around,” Adora said.
The com screen began to display a map directing their ship to the mentioned docking bay. As they flew closer, the view of the ever-growing ship began to be overwhelming. Only in space could something be so big and still move.
“I don’t like the idea of leaving our weapons behind,” Bow said.
“They said Glimmer would be there to meet us,” Adora replied. “I’m hoping our luck improves and we’ll be able to just grab her and leave.”
“I don’t think the odds of that are very good,” said Entrapta.
---
Whatever hope they had of the mission being simple died when they saw exactly who was meeting them when they got off the ship. Glimmer was there, and she was standing, back straight in her most regal posture, at Horde Prime’s right hand.
He addressed her while never looking away from the new arrivals. “Queen Glimmer, would you inform me of who I will be dealing with?”
Glimmer’s voice was nearly as bland as the earlier clone’s had been as she said, “Horde Prime, these are Adora, She-Ra of Etheria and Administrator of the technical systems that run throughout the planet, Bow of the Makers’ Guild, and Entrapta of Dryl, two the Etheria’s brightest technical minds. Entrapta is also the eldest of the Etherian royals whose realms have had dealings with the Horde. All of them have held leadership positions equal to my own in the Rebellion.”
He focused on the purple-haired woman. “Would this be the same Entrapta that my wayward clone was so intrigued by?”
“Yes, Horde Prime, the same,” Glimmer answered. Adora motioned towards the ship. Glimmer gave a tiny shake of her head and spoke again. “Sire, I would not presume to tell you what to do, but I will vouch for Entrapta’s good behavior while she is here and advise you that treating her differently from the rest of the delegation might prolong the process they are here for. Might I take them to my quarters for a briefing before we discuss negotiations?”
“You may.”
Glimmer approached the three and held her arms out in front of her. “I suggest we go the quick way.” They all knew what that was a cue for.
---
One teleport later Glimmer’s face broke into a grin. “How was my performance?”
Bow hugged her. “Unnerving!”
“I’ve been getting tutoring in placating megalomaniacs.” After returning the hug for a moment, she stepped back. “He thinks you’re here to negotiate surrender by the way.”
Before any of them could properly react to that, a delighted version of Hordak’s voice came from a gray blur descending from somewhere near the ceiling. “Entrapta!”
“Imp!” Entrapta cried as she caught the creature.
He opened his mouth, releasing a gentle female voice. “You’re safe here.” The voice twisted into sarcasm, causing the faces of the three to shift in recognition. “Prime’s been magnanimous and promised us our privacy”
“Hey, Adora.” The same voice came from a previously unnoticed corner of the room, now attached to its original source. “Bow.” Catra hesitated. “Entrapta.”
Adora began to launch herself at her, but Glimmer’s arm across her chest brought her up short.
“Stop. We would all be dead right now if it wasn’t for Catra.”
“You trust people too easily when you think they’re useful.”
“I trust my truth spells.”
“After everything she’s done?”
“She can help get my mother back. The way things went down with the portal, she knows things no one else does.” Glimmer paused as if considering if she should say the next thing. “While under the truth spell, she also said my dad’s alive.”
Bow and Adora exchanged a meaningful look, and he said, “He was on Beast Island. He’s holding down the fort at Bright Moon now. He and Shadow Weaver have a history, so he’s confined her to her room unless she’s being supervised by at least one person capable of magic.”
“Thank goodness. It saves me the trouble.”
Adora’s face hardened again. “I thought you were enjoying being Shadow Weaver’s new favorite.”
“Maybe I wouldn’t have gotten so cozy with her if, instead of vaguely talking about how evil she was, you had given me some concrete examples. You know, like the fact that she had tortured children in front of you!”
“She had tortured you!”
“She didn’t do it for over a decade starting from when I was six!”
“Sparkles,” Catra broke in. “I appreciate what you’re doing, but is this the time?”
Glimmer took a steadying breath. “No, it’s not.” She turned to face Catra properly. “Think we can get the plan to work now?”
“Best chance we’re ever going to get. Entrapta, I am so glad you are alive.”
Entrapta clutched Imp closer. “No thanks to you.”
Catra bit her lip. “I thought you were turning into my enemy, and I panicked. Only an idiot would underestimate you and the damage you could do to someone if you thought you had to. I’m sorry. It would have been smarter for me to try to stay on your good side. I want to hear your theories on some things.”
Her grip on Imp relaxed a fraction. “Your potential data on the portal tech is intriguing...”
“Portal later. I promise. We need your theories on something more pressing.” Catra held out her hand, and a glowing amber orb the size of her fist began to hover above it. “How am I suddenly doing this? Could the Heart be drawing energy from more than just the planet? Could it be pulling magic from the people?”
Entrapta leaned toward the light. “Fascinating. That would explain the metric I couldn’t make sense of.” She looked up at Catra’s face “On Beast Island, there was a First Ones database, including a bunch of profiles for potential colonist species. Biological requirements, potential for dissent against imperial rule if allowed to remain on their home planets, and this one calculation that could have been how effectively they could power the Heart.”
“We know releasing all of the Heart’s energy the way it was designed would be bad, but could we return that energy back to the people?”
“I would have to take a closer look at the Heart, or at least its schematics.”
“Wait,” Adora said. “The Heart is doing what?”
Catra turned to her, the sphere of light disappearing.“Short version. Best that we can tell? Magic should be way more common in the Etherian population than it is. Anyone on the surface gets drained of their power the same way the magic of the planet itself gets collected.”
Glimmer continued. “That’s probably why Mystacor is airborne. The Princesses still have some of our magic because we are connected to the Heart through the Runestones.”
“Just some of your magic?” Entrapta asked.
“Oh yeah.” Glimmer moved her cape to one side. Her wings--which, like Queen Angella’s, were always more like solid energy that matter--still didn’t match the majestic sweep of her mother’s, but she wouldn’t be readily hiding them under a shirt again either. “I have definitely been running at a lower charge than I should have been.”
Catra spoke again. “Alright. We have a plan of action once we get back to the planet. Now to get out of here and over there.”
“Right,” said Glimmer. “Bow, Entrapta, Catra will lead you to do some industrial sabotage and, if we’re lucky, a little theft. Adora, you and I are going to go hit some things very hard. We can talk on the way.”
“Why can’t we just teleport to the ship and leave?” Adora asked.
Catra answered, “We try that and Prime will just use his transporter tech to beam us back here, and he won’t be near as polite afterwards. Hence the sabotage.”
“Why are you doing this?”
“I don’t trust any authority higher than my own, and Horde Prime thinks he is the highest authority in the universe.”
“Makes sense to me,” said Entrapta.
Adora glared at the person she had once called her best friend. “I’ll be watching you.”
“Not until Sparkles takes you to the rendezvous point.”
As the shimmer of Glimmer and Adora teleporting away faded, Catra turned to her new teammates. “Alright, first step is to see if we can steal ourselves a clone. Hordak thought conquering a planet would impress Horde Prime, but the only thing Prime is ever impressed with is himself. He doesn’t like his clones being people. As soon as we were on the ship he put Hordak under… I don’t think it was a mindwipe. I think it was a personality suppressor or something. If anyone can wake him up,” she pulled something out of a pocket and pressed it into Entrapta’s hand, “it’s you.” It was the crystal Entrapta had used to power the armor she had made for Hordak. “He was really broken up about it when he thought you had betrayed him. When he found out I had lied about that, he tried very hard to kill me for it. I may not understand what you two have going on, but I understand that it’s important to you two.”
Bow said, “So step one of your plan is...”
The look on Catra’s face said she couldn’t quite believe what she was about to say either. “To save Hordak.”
Next Chapter: Saving Who? >
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beellicosity · 5 years ago
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Bull; Today at 5:34 PM There was no way it was going to work any better than any of the other times he made the attempt to contact Psiioniic. There were certain members of the team he was more than willing to leave for dead. Handmaid's own information hinted that Serket might be... Bull shook his head and dismissed the thought. If anyone in their entire team was still kicking, willing to fight even when the last shred of their trollness was stripped away, it was Psiioniic. Bull bit his lip and continued typing at his remote station, up on some isolated plateau on his own planet, hoping he was at high enough elevation for the signal to reach out into the session...
And hopefully, maybe he could reach contact with Psii.
P211; Today at 6:10 PM There are several signals he can feel for, this high up. Satellites, or meteors with potential labs on them, zooming by, giant horrors in the deep dark down deep dark spaces. Even the other planets of the session registered a signal.
... Huh, that was a new one. A new signal just blipped into existance on his monitors- It was faint, very far away. The numbers indicated that it was moving closer at a slow pace. Bull; Today at 6:13 PM Bull was more than willing to wait and see, to see if there was any active reception on the other end, if there was anyone there. At all. He had been configuring his communication devices for what felt like eons, trying to reach the other members of this team outside of the clearly useless normal methods. After a few pings, he typed out a message on the small keypad in his lap and hit enter.
"1'm look1ng for Ps11. Please respond 1f you can help a t1red old bull out." P211; Today at 6:16 PM For the longest while, there is no answer. The minutes tick tock by in silence with nothing. When Bull is almost ready to give up, there is finally a returning ping.
"DEFINE; PSII." Bull; Today at 6:18 PM He was willing to wait hours. He had scheduled for this, this mission... He lay down on the ground under his makeshift tent and waited... waited... and looked over at the return ping and text.
"Sh1t..." he whispered, before typing out his response. "Ps11: formerly M1tuna Captor, The Ps11on11c, The Helmsman. Status: Unknown." P211; Today at 6:21 PM The silence now before the next ping is almost deafening, every other little bit and noise around him drags on, grates against his senses. Waiting. waiting. There's so much waiting, but- This, this is. This could be it. What if this is it?
The words appear on his screen, white on black, typing out slowly, as if thoughtfully.
". . . . . DEFINE; BULL." Bull; Today at 6:22 PM He perked up at that. Part of him typed out the answer 'god of sexy robots' and it lingered there for some time before he composed himself and erased it. Hopefully whoever was on the other end wouldnt be able to see that.
"Al1ases 1nclude Ruf1oh N1tram, The Summoner. Emp1re's number one most wanted revolut1onary. Bronzeblood. Former organ1c. Leader of all rebell1ons and 1nsurgenc1es." P211; Today at 6:24 PM The answer now is lightning fast, and has a mocking tone to it.
"REFLECT; GOD OF SEXY ROBOTS."
There is nothing else, just a blinking | to show where he was typing.
"DEFINE; FREEDOM." Bull; Today at 6:26 PM "God damn 1t."
He facepalmed aggressively, enough to dent a lesser android. He sat up, little husktop in his lap, and mulled it over. Words were... hard. What was freedom? He tapped at the keyboard slowly.
"Reflect... den1ed. Freedom... 1s cho1ce. Movement. The el1m1nat1on of bonds and shackles."
God. He should be better at defining this. He was a damned breath player. P211; Today at 6:28 PM "QUERY; DENIED?"
There's a little bit of silence after that, while whoever was on the other line mulled over their own thoughts.
"DEFINE; ALIGNMENT." Bull; Today at 6:30 PM "For now."
>He typed it out and closed his eyes at the second inquiry. Memories fought to flood past his firewalls. How many times had he tried to rescue Psii? How many times had he succeeded? Failed? Made a connection? Fallen? He hummed and typed slowly... with intent.
"Al1gnment: Partner." P211; Today at 6:32 PM "ERROR; WRONG RESPONSE INCODED. PLEASE CHOOSE FROM THE FOLLOWING WORDS."
Strings begin to write themselves in the darkness-
Lawful Good Neutral Good Chaotic Good Lawful Neutral Neutral Chaotic Neutral Lawful Evil Neutral Evil
And below those, two phrases;
Imperially Aligned / Rebel against Alternia Bull; Today at 6:33 PM Oh. Oh god even now... Captor was a fucking nerd about this. He huffed and rubbed his face, trying to ease away a smile that shouldnt be there.
"Chaotic Good, Rebel against Altern1a." P211; Today at 6:37 PM "STATEMENT."
There is a long pause, now. The dots blip across his screen.  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
"STATEMENT; PROVE IT." Bull; Today at 6:38 PM Bull allowed himself a smirk at that before plugging a finger into the device in his lap and blanking out for a few moments, uploading his own schematics and data history, abridged of course, before hitting... send.
"W1ll th1s suff1ce, Un1t?" P211; Today at 6:41 PM Something has taken ahold of him as he plugs in, as he sends the message- Something slows his movements, /something rifles its way through his synthetics, pulls at his seams, loosens his bolts. His extremities, his fingers, his toes, they take themselves apart just like Sal did once before. His webcam blinks with purple light for a moment, as if there's an eye in there, watching him- And then, with a few simple tugs, his extremities put themselves back together again, a last ruffling rifle coursing through his entire body, shaking him up before the VERY POWERFUL presence pulls away from him.
"ANSWER; YES." Bull; Today at 6:43 PM "Dude..."
It took him a moment to recalibrate and get his head on straight. He missed that feeling. Was it like Sal? Yes. But it was also like he remembered it from the days where his circuits were red and he was aligned squarely with Imperial forces, where he stood at attention beside Psii and neither of them had a hope of escape. And it wasnt... bad.
"Captor. Dude. Fuck... 1 m1ssed that." P211; Today at 6:46 PM "STATEMENT; [REDACTED], FORMERLY MITUNA CAPTOR, THE [REDACTED], THE HELMSMAN. STATUS; THE ROBOT GOD OF ALL SEXY ROBOTS."
"DEFINE; PURPOSE. YOUR PURPOSE." Bull; Today at 6:49 PM Cute. Bull could fight him for that title later. Right now, he plugged a second finger into his comm device and tried to get his head down from the clouds and to stop spinning.
"Purpose? Not formally defined. Willing to... service you. Upgrade you. Help you." P211; Today at 6:55 PM He could feel the presence in his comm device still... waiting. As he pulled his finger into it, again it pounced, and rifled through him, rattling his plates and loosening his bolts, as if pulling his synthetics away from his endoskeleton.
"STATEMENT; NONSENSE. HELP HAS LONG SINCE CEASED TO COME." Bull; Today at 6:57 PM He plugged a third finger in, equal parts of him wanting that feeling, that knowing that Psii was on the other end, and wanting... that sensation. He grunted and blanked out for a fraction of a moment, one eye going red.
"Help 1s here. At your f1ngert1ps. Now." P211; Today at 6:59 PM This time, the feeling took his toes apart, took his fingers apart, began to take his wrists- But with the connection severed, it lessened. The insistant tugging of mechanics on his arms, unscrewing screws and prying up pieces of him slowly.
"REFLECT; HELP HAS LONG SINCE CEASED TO COME. THERE IS NO HELP, NO HOPE, FOR ME. LEAVE ME ALONE."
Bull should realize that this taking apart thing isn't going to cease, this time. Bull; Today at 7:05 PM "1've tr1ed to f1nd you for sweeps..."
He was speaking now, the link to the device more than enough. His communications network had pinpointed PSii and locked on. He didnt need to look anymore and the relief... it brought him to life.
"1m not g1v1ng up just because 1 fucked up after th1s sess1on started. You can leave me a p1le of scrap. 1'll let you. Or you can trust me aga1n M1tuna... let me 1n aga1n. Rebu1ld me to your 1deal 1f you need to. Turn me 1nto a toy 1f you need to. But 1m not go1ng to g1ve up on you." P211; Today at 7:09 PM "D0N'T FUCK1NG CALL ME THAT."
Harsh, flashing text on his screen, quirked, with no "statement" or "define" or anything. His comm device kicks into overdrive, the fans whirring loudly.
"1 AM NOT MITUNA CAPTOR." Bull; Today at 7:09 PM "Then tell me who you are."
Bull had synthetic tears in his eyes. He... knew next to nothing. Again. P211; Today at 7:10 PM The words are. Small. Subtexted. ... And slowly typing.
"1... d0n't kn0w."
". . . . . . . . . . . . . ."
"But 1'm n0t that. N0t anym0re." Bull; Today at 7:11 PM Bull inhaled.
"1 want to help you f1gure 1t out then."
"..."
"Please. Un1t... 1 dont want to loose you aga1n." P211; Today at 7:13 PM "STATEMENT; I AM LOST. ADRIFT IN THE SPIRALING DARKNESS. I CHALLENGE YOU TO FIND ME."
"STATEMENT; THEN MAYBE I'LL LET YOU FIGURE ME OUT ONCE MORE." Bull; Today at 7:14 PM "1 have you locat1on locked. 1f you mean phys1cally locate you, 1 can be on my way 1nstantly. But 1t you mean more metaphys1cally..."
A pause.
"1 m1ss you. Even 1f 1 need to f1ght you as t1tleholder of 'god of sexy robots'... 1 want to see you aga1n." P211; Today at 7:17 PM "STATEMENT; YES, I MEAN PHYSICALLY LOCATE ME. FIGHT MY MINIONS, PROVE YOURSELF ON MY PLANET, ON MY NEW BODY, FIND ME. THEN WE CAN TALK..... BULL."
"THE EMOTIONS OF 'MISS' AND 'WANT' ARE NOT CURRENTLY REGISTERING IN MY PROCESSORS. THESE ARE NOT VALID EMOTIONS, HOWEVER THEY DO SEEM TO HAVE A TIE-IN TO SADNESS, AN EMOTION THIS UNIT IS CURRENTLY EXPERIENCING. USER, DO YOU WISH TO CONTINUE?" Bull; Today at 7:18 PM "1 do. 1 w1ll cont1nue. Unt1l there 1s no more sadness 1n you. Please hold..."
He stiffened for a moment, both eyes going blank as he relayed back to his communications hub and began a much more precise tracing of Psii's location. He would find this man. He would hold him again. He would see to it that all those processors were working and registering everything...  And his internal transportalizer whirred to life, the coordinates provided loaded up.
"Are you ready?" P211; Today at 7:20 PM The coordinates of the uplink are somewhere on the surface of a small planet- Curious, how it seemed to fluctuate between numbers every now and again-
"STATEMENT; FIND ME IF YOU CAN."
Yeah, those aren't going to lead him directly to Psii. Bull; Today at 7:21 PM "Hey. Already d1d. R1ght 1n my pusher."
Without waiting for a response, he unplugged, closed the device, got up and... flash. He was ready. More than ever... he was ready.
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(Em)Urgency Performance Symposium Program for Day 2
(EM)URGENCY - DAY 2  
BA Performance Arts – A First year showcase  
1pm-5:30pm  
On Listening
All the works presented today are a response to Text as Performance, a first-year unit that this term explored the theme of On Listening. Performance Arts is a course which brings together a range disciplines – and all the artists have responded in their own way to what has been presented during the term. No piece is the same, no artist is the same, and we present to you an eclectic mix of short and early work that may influence our later practice – this is our first public sharing as a cohort, so please speak to the artists and enjoy.
With thanks to: Third Year students on BA Performance Arts, Platform Southwark and Diana Damian Martin.
Durational works – in the studio  
Untitled Billy Buttars  
An exhibition of paintings, sketches, and other works that are reinterpretations of texts into visual forms. Exploring text in the language of art objects, and concepts of inspiration and influence.
Billy’s work surrounds concepts of personal influence and representation, as well as what radical really means in a temporal context and the impermanence of it all.
Gaze Joy Kincaid
Whose body is this  
As she looks at her  
With your eyes at her
As she sees herself
She sees what you see  
And then doesn’t see
So, she looks at herself  
And doesn’t look at herself  
This is not meant for you to watch?  
If watching was the only way
Then I ask you not to watch
I ask you to engage more then  
Your eyes and your hands
And your mind  
I ask you to see more then  
Her. I ask you to see yourself
And in her yourself is buried  
And in myself your eyes are burned  
So, I ask you not to watch  
But be born  
As she is born
Joy Kincaid is a multidisciplinary artist whose work is centred on deconstructing monolithic narratives on black and queer bodies within the interrelations of white spaces through radical acts of embodied contradictions, witnessing and shape shifting.
Family Jukebox Tom Dodd  
In the foyer and someone will wait, pick a mixtape? Choose your favourite song?  that I will then play for them. Songs chosen by the performer’s family members – take your pick and hear the soundtrack of someone’s life?  
Tom is a performer who hopes to work with sound and how sound affects people. The company Darkfield are one of his biggest inspirations and he looks forward to creating similar work. For tonight’s performance Tom will be looking at how sounds in the forms of songs affect different members of his family.  
Performances – on the stage  
What is the C word? Alicia Bridges
‘What is the C word?’ explores ideas of Consent in an abrupt, disassociated, inhumane way. From my own experience, I feel I have always been trying to connect the pieces together.
Content warning: references to sexual assault.
Alicia enjoys and is interested by multimedia performance, verbatim and immersive theatre. Throughout her degree she expects this will change and develop. She is excited by the prospect the next three years will give her to challenge her own artistic practice. She has previously worked with physical theatre and directing. 
Instagram: @alixiabridge
Voicemail   Jody Davies and Chloe Knowles
‘Voicemail’ is a physical theatre piece that reflects upon real-life experiences both artists have endured. These two different stories surround listening and lack there-of, where both artists reflect on unsent voicemails they wish they had sent.
Content warning: references to sexual and domestic abuse, emotional manipulation, explicit language.
Jody Davies is a Welsh performance artist with a background across musical theatre, physical theatre and experience in vocal coaching. Her interests include live art and photography but her works mainly consists and explores physical theatre and immersive projects.
Chloe Knowles is a performance artist from England.
She has experience in acting, writing as well as directing theatre for younger children between the ages 7-16 at Sonnets Theatre Club Newbury, John Rankin Junior School, and Cheam Private School.
Her Interests mostly include writing and directing.
When I was 5? Jaydon Merrick
An exploration of celebrity idolisation, jealousy and discarded dreams through a casual, reflective and participatory dance experience. Suitable for all skill levels, the less talented the better.
Jaydon is an Australian actor, writer and director. He has been living in the UK for 2.5 years now; in Australia, Jaydon’s work was heavily musical, and stage based, since moving to the UK his practice has become more film and screen orientated.
Nostalgia for a Time Gone Nowhere Evie Stopforth
I feel like I am constantly leaving a home behind. I know you inside out and they have no idea who you are. I’m three different people, and a stranger.
Evie Stopforth is a young performance artist investigating the relationship between audio and visual entertainment. She focuses in this piece on loneliness, homesickness and the feeling of being stuck in limbo.
It’s Your Birthday! Miel Celeste Nadam
‘It’s Your Birthday!’ is derived from a personal hatred of my own birthday. I regress into a somewhat younger and pinker version of myself, as the cracks of the present seep through.  
Miel is interested in the idea of nostalgia and objects behaving badly. For her, art is the most potent when humour is sprinkled into pain. Laughing can slip into crying.
Candidate 14 Grace Oskiera-Vooght
An examination for a job role that requires you to not react, talk or feel. You must detach yourself from human instincts: feelings. Will you pass or fail?
Content warnings: references to death and suicide.
Grace has a background in straight acting and is interested in the arts sector.  She is interested in writing, creating, directing and performing. She has a cross-arts practice taking inspiration from across many art forms, particularly performance. She is currently interested in exploring intimacy and relationships and the way it is performed as part of her arts practice.
The Trestle at Pope Lick Creek (Cancelled) Reena Black
This adaptation of 'The Trestle at Pope Lick Creek' explores the underlying, darker themes of the play. This piece will delve into the character's mind and bring the audience with her on her journey of confession.
Content warnings: references to death and mental illness.
Reena Black is a British actress, dancer and writer; she has been trained in classical and contemporary acting techniques for many years. Experimenting with different techniques has always been a passion of hers and she is continuing to do this through her degree in Performance Arts.  
Dès l’aube Irène Pawin
Look around. What can you hear? Smile. This experience is only for you. Put on the headphones. Only you will hear this story. You are truly special. Enjoy.
Content Warnings: mentions of death, suicide, and explicit content in some pieces.  
Irène is exploring her potentiality as an artist, and has been exploring writing her own work. Irène is particularly interested in oddness and queerness, the feeling of being out of place, of being foreign. Irène is an impulsive creator that never knows what her next obsession will be.
Dinner Time Cerys Salkeld Green
A piece focussing on the idea of intrusive thoughts and dealing with grief in opposition to modern life.  
Content warning: references to sex and sexual content
Cerys is interested in the boundaries between fact and fantasy.
Alexa Owen Whiteside-Ward
Alexa: With technology always advancing, what happens when technology makes certain advances?
Owen is a writer, director and performer from Norwich. He has a long history of musical theatre work as a performer and in the last few years has written directed and produced his own musical: this is something he is currently still doing, working on numerous other musicals. In addition to this Owen has taken a strong interest in writing plays and films and likes to create pieces that often leave the audience questioning. This is Owen’s first work outside of Norwich, which he is looking forward to.  
Can you hear it? Esme Mai Davies
Can you hear it? Is an immersive piece that combines film, sound and live elements. What happens when you lose safety in your spaces?
Content warnings: mental health and panic
Esme as an artist is primarily interested in performance; her background is in traditional theatre. She is now exploring a mixture of performance, visual art and drag as well as working to incorporate technology and new mediums into her work.  
A train running on a jointed track   Ben Church
When we listen schematically, do we listen for the relation between sounds? Or is it something more? This piece aims to answer none of these questions.  
Ben Church is a performance artist with a multitude of different interests and fields of study. These range from more traditional acting at Stratford upon Avon’s RSC, to writing and co directing pieces of immersive theatre and teaching drama. More recently he has been looking into composition and how sounds gain meaning.
Why Are You Wearing That Stupid Man Suit? Anja Hendrichova
Dates first dates no dates first sex holding hands broken hearts brave knights crushed buses Czech girl singing jumping in the rhythm of love or no love the end.
Rather than viewing this piece as a criticism of any kind, feel free to laugh at me and / or with me.  Anja has the superpower to watch the same film or series 50 times. The more people to embarrass in front of, the less shy.  
Find your Bite Jack Gallagher
Find your bite tonight. I know you have it in you. Please.
Content warnings: references to sexual violence.
Breathe Tsen Day-Beaver
During this piece I focus heavily on the subject of panic within the body, documenting its reactions and tendencies, situating this subject in the event of a panic attack.
Tsen is an artist/performer from Scotland interested in performance within film and text-based work. She is currently focusing on composition of the body within performance and its relation to the mind.
displacement Jasmine Wright
Ripped away. It’s not homesickness, it’s yearning for a place that doesn’t exist anymore. Is home a place or a feeling, and how can I find it again?  
Jasmine is currently exploring ideas of unfamiliarity, strangeness, the body, and Asian heritage. She is really enjoying writing as/for performance. She is also interested in creating multimedia experiences and experimenting with artificial, anthropogenic, and naturogenic sounds and visuals. 
See with Sound Juan Salazar
A quick informational guide on maternity, nuclear fallout and social conventions. The piece explores themes of listening through imagination, primal instinct and tribalism in a post-war, ever-growing technological society.
Juan is an audio-visual artist.  He is interested in space, time, dreams, memory, metaphysics, meta-metaphysics, regular physics, and irregular physics.
Can you hear my silence? Molly Denbigh
When silence becomes too loud.
Feelings of anxiety and fear are felt by many but speaking up honestly about them is done by few. It’s difficult. Emotional. I ask myself the questions that we need to answer for ourselves. Do I truly belong?  Am I me?
Molly Denbigh is a performance artist with interests in immersive and physical theatre. She is also interested in fine art and musical theatre and would love to combine these different styles in future work.
The School Pen   Mia Lulham
A short immersive/interactive piece commenting on the learning difficulties neurodiverse children face when first entering the education system. The piece shows the struggles involved with “basic” tasks such as learning to read and write.
Mia is heavily interested in and influenced by dance, choreography and physical theatre as well immersive theatre, and aims to continue to use these influences in her developing practice.
The Voice James Brewer
A man must overcome his anxiety about how he sounds and goes through many different types of voices in order to pick the right voice that suits him most.
James is an actor and performance artist from East London who has worked with London Bubble Theatre and National Youth Theatre.
Can I be loud? Beth Timson
Can I be loud? Who Can be loud in spaces and why? Where can we be loud? An exploration of loudness in institutional, normative space and where queer and non-normative identities fit in to this.  
Beth’s work centres on community, feminism and queerness. Beth is a writer, theatre maker, spoken word artist and facilitator from East London, and an early career artist who has presented solo work at Shoreditch Town Hall and Battersea Arts Centre. Alongside studying for her degree at RCSSD, Beth is working, freelance in various capacities, ushering at The Yard Theatre, and as a Young Creative for All Change Arts.  Beth started out in community arts and her work centres on using performance to bring people together and spark conversations. Her work is deeply political and seeks to challenge normativity.
www.bethtpeform.wordpress.com
twitter: @BethBRT
(Em)Urgency Festival Digital Feed Noa Taylor in collaboration with the EFDF Collective
The (Em)Urgency festival digital feed considers the performativity of multimedia performance documentation performatively. We document the work of the (Em)Urgency Performance Symposium and publish the material on social media platforms during the event.  
Follow us on twitter: @em_urgency
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imaginesofeverykind · 7 years ago
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Humans Are Oddities 2.2 [Connor DBH]
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Pairing: Human!Fem!Reader x Connor (sorry i forgot to specify hecK)
Fandom: Detroit Become Human
Prompt: A thousand questions can and will be asked but it won’t be enough to get you to talk. Giving up the location of Deviants is an immediate betrayal, one you aren’t taking lightly. But its a classic tale of you want something he has and he wants something you have. If he wants the information he’s going to have to meet your terms and conditions. 
Part(s): 2 of ?? [Part 1 is here!]  [[PART 3]] [[PART 4]] [[PART 5]] [[PART 6]] [[PART 7]] [[PART 8]]
Tags down the bottom!
Word Count:  2,201 
Never in your lifetime had you thought you would see yourself in handcuffs and sitting uncomfortably in a metal chair inside an interrogation room. Of course, since deciding to help Deviants this scenario had popped into your head many times, but you never thought you’d get caught. It was a risk worth taking in your eyes, helping so many lost and helpless Androids flee was the most important thing to you.
Unheard to you, both the Lieutenant and Connor talked outside the room, every now and again glancing into the room behind the incredibly conspicuous one way mirror. “This is the first human lead we have in this case, Lieutenant. But we can’t move forward if she refuses to talk to us.” Connor pointed out, he was truly taken with you.
You seemed to be the type of unpredictable that he wasn’t programmed for, it was a note he had hard wired down somewhere to tell CyberLife for improvements and enhancements.
“I just don’t get why a human would be helping Androids - Deviants actually, if she even is helping them. I don’t see you being much help getting information out of her, stay here and let me talk to her.” Hank was curious of your motives, like most people would be, but it seemed he held a certain sympathy toward you given the fact you aren’t an Android.
He entered the room, eyeing you with curiosity before pulling a seat out, ensuring it dragged across the floor to conjure an unpleasant sound as he seated himself. “Have you finished with the silent treatment?” Hank questioned, making note to look into your eyes for signs of odd expressions.
“Have you found something to charge me for, Lieutenant?” You raised a brow, a challenge if you will. They couldn’t properly charge you for assisting Androids without a verbal confession or evidence and if you were going to be stuck here for performing selfless acts then you weren’t going down easily. At least until Connor saw that or Hank. “hmm so far we can only charge you for stealing work assets, but there’s much more going on isn’t there?”
You nodded, “the crime rates increased I know that much, Deviancy has increased because of ill-treatment. Thats whats going on here. Did you ever stop to consider the possibility that those Androids don’t like being beaten to near shut down sometimes?” You were a small margin of people that would gladly help the cause against ill-treatment of Androids.
“What are you implying?” Hank questioned, he leaned forward onto the table, his arms crossed over his chest as if it would intimidate you. “I’m implying nothing, but I have a question, Lieutenant. Did you ever like history at school?” An odd question it was but regardless of her situation it prompted an answer, even as simple of a head nod.
“You were born in the seventies or eighties? Then you grew up most of your life with racism, and history was taught with scarcity about the slave trades when America became populated. You should know that history is always due to repeat itself so why are Androids so different? What, because they aren’t flesh and bone? They’re flesh, but it’s still a being underneath regardless of their interior. Why should we deny their right to be free, it’s no different than the racism we were so quick to ban post 2024.”
The words you articulated engaged a reaction from Hank and Connor - not that you saw him. Instead of inspiring Hank like you had intended too he simply shook his head, still remaining indifferent toward Androids maybe with a slight change of heart but you couldn’t tell. “If you aren’t going to be any help then i’ll be on my way-”
“If I may, Lieutenant. Perhaps I could try.” Connor’s voice was a surprise to you, you hadn’t seen him come in at all and neither did Hank given his reaction. “Knock yourself out, kid. She’s not gonna talk.” Hank stood, seemingly tired as neither him or you had slept at all through the night.
He left the small room and now it was just you and Connor, the first time you’d speak to him directly. “Y/N, you said you worked at CyberLife, at your house. An engineer, correct?” He sat where Hank previously sat and rested his arms on the table. His LED flashed as he was probably trying to configure the best approach to get an answer from you.
“Yeah… I’ve never had the pleasure of working on your model before.” You pointed out, it wasn’t a lie that you were immensely intrigued by the series and what parts functioned differently to others. “Would you say you understand Deviant behaviour? Know what could trigger them, perhaps a software problem?”
Shaking your head you smiled at the Android, he was definitely innocent toward the deviant situation despite he was most likely programmed to hunt them. “It’s much more than a software programming issue…” You trailed off as you thought of something that could potentially help yourself and help the climbing numbers of deviant androids.
“I am willing to exchange information with you once you understand the deviant issue better. I think it’s important for you to understand the bigger picture, doll… You hear that Hank!” You shouted out, waiting momentarily before Hanks voice filled the room over a speaker. “Loud and clear.”
Connors head tilted slightly, trying his hardest to understand and decrypt the words you said. “I don’t… Understand…” he softly spoke, the LED glowing yellow. “I understand Androids better than they can understand themselves, you’re no different. I’ll help you to some degree but if helping you means killing innocent Androids then the deals off.”
Silence ensued between the two of you, it was like you could literally hear him think.
“Perhaps… allowing you to talk with found deviants may be the best approach on this case.” His face twitched slightly as he gathered information that seemed to have a better outcome. After all, you were intriguing to him, an oddity that seemed to stand out in a pixel piece of normalities.
———————
“- suspect was owned by Carlos Ortiz, found in the attic sixteen days after he murdered his owner.” Hank debriefed you, sitting in front of you was the somber looking Android. You examined the state of him, he looked just like any other Android who walked through your door which was sad.
The cuffs hung tightly around your wrists still but it didn’t stop you from pacing around the small room. “Did you happen to find strange markings… writings on the wall in the home?” You questioned, stopping your feet to lean against the metal table. You looked between Hank and Connor for an answer. One of them would’ve had to of known the answer, and you put your money on Connor to know it.
“Yes. ra9 was written on the bathroom walls, I had trouble trying to decipher what it could possibly mean.” Connor admitted which made you smile, he was a pragmatic Android and it was a surprise that of his intelligence he didn’t know what it meant yet or at all. You clasped your hands together as you couldn’t do anything else with them and tilted your head slightly. “What do you think it means?”
Connor’s face twitched, formulating a response, “At first I thought it was a malfunction, due to the injuries.” He started, causing you to raise a brow and look down at the Android across the table. “But now I think we need more clues.” He finished confidently.
“Well it’s not a malfunction I can tell you that, it’s a code.” You pushed forward off the table and knelt down in front of the beaten Android. “Lieutenant, I assume my things are in evidence?” You at least watched enough cop shows to understand how they order things, but this entire interrogation on you took a turn and it wasn’t a standard thing you were familiar with.
Hank nodded, his lips pressed into a thin line while he watched you meander with the suspect. “Can you get a canister of blue blood from it?” You asked as you carefully examined the wounds. “It’s in evidence for a reason.” Hank scoffed in response, something you were expecting. “Do you want my help or not?” You turned, the harsh gaze of your eyes locked with Hanks eyes before he reluctantly left the small room.
Connor, much like any normal Android, stood awkwardly behind you, fair enough away to not disrupt any concentration but close enough for it to be unnerving. “You said ra9 was a code. A code for what?” Connors voice startled and unsuspecting you, his voice was rather loud in a room that echoed. “That, I don’t know. Can you check his stress level for me.” You bluntly asked, the tone was telling rather than questioning.
“Stress levels are low, he won’t talk at this percentage. We dealt with this earlier and I would advise you not to provoke him. The consequence could be… catastrophic.” His words were well thought, as you figured they would be but it didn’t deter you from continuing. “Ah, see this is what I mean about understanding the motives of these people. You can run schematics, analytics or outcomes at the drop of a hat, but understanding that they don’t work like that is detrimental to your investigation, Connor.”
You stood up, looking at the slightly perplexed and well dressed Android. “I’ve never worked on your model series before, but I can guarantee that you are systematically the same as every Android I’ve worked on.” You weren’t harsh with your words, actually it appeared that the calmness of your tone seemed to sit well with Connor, appease him almost.
Hank entered into the room with a sour look on his face and carelessly tosses the canister to you. “Is everything okay, Lieutenant?” Connor questioned, a tilt of his head while he seemed to analyse his superior.
“Oh the usual assholes occupying this dump.” He grumbled, most likely in reference to Gavin but that was unknown knowledge to you.
“You two are free to watch but i’d prefer it if you did it in there.” You gestured to room behind the one way mirror. At your behest without argument the two respected your request and left you alone with the Deviant.
Calmly you moved your chair next to the Deviant and examined it more, you softly put the canister on the table in front of it. “I can see you’ve lost some blood… They didn’t tell me what your owner did but I want you to know you’re not the only one.” You spoke, waiting for a response, if any. “I’m sorry I can’t be much help, if I had my toolbox I could fix you right up. But you should drink some of that, I don’t want you to shut down on me okay?”
You could feel the eyes of Hank and Connor watching you, it was nerving of course but you kept calm. It pained you to see a lost Android who didn’t make it out of this dreadful city.
“Why?” His voice seemed to squeak in the silence and immediately caught your attention and the two partners in the room next door. “Why what?” You prompted for him to continue, unsure with what he wanted to know. “You’re… so nice to me… after what I did…” His eyes flickered up to the blue blood before focusing on his hands.
“It’s my understanding that Carlos, your owner, is at fault. You don’t beat someone for the sake of it… In my eyes you’re being human, which you’re allowed to be. Unfortunately my opinion is nothing but some hope for you.” You admitted, call it false hope but it was something to ease his spirits before he could be deactivated.
His eyes focused on you, trying to gather information on you in which he succeeded well. “I never imagined a human as kind as you… You’re the one who helps the Androids, aren’t you?” You weren’t mad that the Android had basically blurted to Hank and Connor that you help Deviants, but at this moment you could only be comforting for him.
“Guilty as charged, it’s a shame you never got around to me… I’m afraid i’ll be spending a long time in here… But for now drink up, you’ll need it.” You smiled kindly at him before standing and looking into the mirror, the smallest movement of your head indicated for the partners to come back inside.
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bombardthehq · 6 years ago
Text
On War
by Carl von Clausewitz, trans. Jolles
written 1816-1830, read 03/19-???
We’ll keep notes fairly brief due to the length of the work, lest we never finish it for our rigorous notekeeping; it is necessary only to record the shape of Clausewitz’ thought, so we might follow it along at a glance.
Author’s Notes
We didn’t read much of these becase theres no real reason to read them first, despite coming first in this edition (they were never meant to be read by anyone but Clausewitz); however in the first few paragraph, Clausewitz says that he wanted to stress that there are two kids of war: wars which aim at the overthrow of our adversary, and wars which merely make some conquests on the frontier of his country; he also wants to stress everywhere that war is nothing but the continuation of state policy with other means.
On the Nature of War
War is like a wrestling match, in that the ultimate object of the war is the disarm the opponent - to make it such that the sacrifice we demand is preferable to continuing on the way things are, that they’ll be willing to give it up, and not to act.
Clausewitz considers that well-meaning people might see the true art of war to be that of attaining victory by minimizing bloodshed, but Clausewitz says that this is not possible:
Because if one side applies more force than the other, then they will gain the upper hand; so they force our hand, to apply the same amount of force, to not simply lose the conflict. My opponent’s force returns upon my own, and impacts the force that I bring - and vice versa. This tendency has theoretically no limit, so that theoretically it is driven to the extreme. He calls this the first reciprocal action.
[This reminds me of a marxist line; that capitalsts have to use exploitative and unethical business practices, like sweatshops etc, or else they’ll be driven out by competition who would]
Just as my goal is always to disarm my enemy, so my enemy also acts to disarm me. I force his hand just as he forces mine; he calls this the second reciprocal action.
If I want to overcome my opponent, I need to bring more forces (as in units, resources) than they do; but they too want to overcome me, and bring more forces than me. This again proceeds with no theoretical limit, until it reaches an extreme. He calls this the third reciprocal action.
However, no such wars actually take place in this theoretical abstract, and so they are not driven to the extreme. If all the above were true in real wars, the war would be over at the first blow.
The above things are not true in real wars because decisions are not made all at once, but over time; [re-read this point for a better understanding of why this was]
[something about: the number of forces my opponent controls can be verified, and that my opponent’s willpower can be guessed at from past encounters; something about probabilities]
The above things are also not true in real wars because not all of our forces can be brought out at once; all the movable forces can, such as the army, but not every fort, every river, every mountan, etc., ‘in other words, the whole country’ can be utilized in the same batte at the same time (he clarifies: ‘unless the country is so small as to be embraced by a single battle’!)
He introduces a schematic of the three types of resources in a war; the military forces proper, the country and the allies. The country creates the forces proper, (by providing the soldiers), but is also other things, like land and fortresses.
He says that the political cause of the war also exerts an influence on the war, and sometimes this is the most important factor.
In wars, a real object - such as a piece of captured territory - substitutes for the political object that is pursued.
Clausewitz now considers the problem: why is military action ever suspended?
In the abstract theory, you could never stop military action, because your opponent would not stop: both of you would have to be at the extreme the whole time. But of course, in most wars, not-fighting happens more than fighting!
He says that this question ‘gets to the heart of the matter’
He first says that abstract theory would allow suspension in war only if it is of benefit to one party to wait; if I have an advantage in four weeks, its better for me to attack in four weeks than attack right now. However, there are other reasons that, in reality, one might not attack right now.
The first is to do with something he calls polarity, which he says will be discussed in depth later. But he says that, with polarity, either I have an advantage or my opponent has an advantage; only I am victorious or my opponent is victorious. We cannot both have an advantage, or both be victorious.
But this is only true if we consider both sides as only attacking: in reality, there are two kinds of war - attacking and defending, and defending is often the much stronger. This breaks polarity.
Just because my opponent would be at a disadvantage if he attacked me does not mean that I would be an advantage if I attacked him. If my opponent will be at an advantage in four weeks time but at a disadvantage now, I want him to attack me now; it does not follow that I want to attack him now.
The second reason for suspension in war is the fact that I only have imperfect information of my enemy. I do not know exactly if they are at an advantage or not, if I am, or if they will be later. I cannot know all the relevant factors with certainty. So in war, there is a certain amount of chance. I have to take risks, deal with probabilities, and have good luck.
He says that in situations of danger, courage is the most important virtue; courage implies risk-taking, boldness, and even foolhardiness, and a theory of war must account for this.
He says that of all things, war is ‘the most like a game of cards.’
War “always arises from a political condition and is called forth by a political motive. It is, therefore, a political act.”
War is not a rupture of violence that suspends policy, but its a continuation of policy with other means.
The nature of the policy, then, shapes the war: Clausewitz stresses this fact for an entire page, stating it and restating it in several ways, outlining the dimension that the political cause of the war shapes the war [pg. 279-280]
The stronger the political cause of the war, the more extreme it will be, the closer it will conform with the theoretical abstract; the more that the war is aimed at the complete destruction of the enemy, “the more closely the war and the political object coincide”, the more military and the less political war seems.
But in a war with a weak political motive (such as, presumably, the second type of war - merely conquering a few provinces on their frontier), the less it accords with the theroetical, the less destructive, the more influence policy plays, so that these wars seem more political.
He stresses again how war is an instrument of politics, not an independent thing; and this allows us to analyze and appreciate military history. We can see that, owing to the different political motivations for wars, wars too also differ.
The most important thing for the general, then, is understanding the political aspect of the war, and not mistaking it or trying to make it into a type of war that it isnt.
In the final section of the chapter, titled result for theory, he says that war’s nature is not just “a veritable chameleon”, changing itself to the nature of the political cause, but also a strange trinity:
It is composed of “the original violence in its essence, the hate and emnity which are to be regarded as a blind, natural impulse; of the play of probabilities and chance, which make it a free activity of the emotions; and of the subordinate character of a political tool, through which it belongs to the province of pure intelligence.”
That is to say: a trinity of violence, chance, and politics.
Violence is the concern of “the people”, chance of “the commander and his army”, and politics of “the government.”
The task is to keep theory between these three things, without giving them some kind of arbitrary ratio or proportion, acknowledging how each changes and each becomes stressed or diminished at different times.
Means and Ends in War
In pure, abstract theory, the conduct of war would not be related to the political object of the war, because the object would always be the complete overthrow of the enemy. However, in reality, this is not usually the case.
We return again to a schematic of three things: the military forces, the country and the will of the enemy (as in the 11th point above), which Clausewitz says contains everything else.
To win, the enemy’s miltary forces must destroy the opponent’s military forces; that is to say, they must place them in a position where they cannot continue to fight.
The enemy’s country must also be conquered, so they cannot reinforce their military.
Even if these two things are true, however, the enemy must run out of will to fight and actually sign a peace treaty for the war to be over, otherwise attacks could begin from inside or the war could continue at a later date.
It is true that this could also happen after a peace treaty is signed, however the signing of peace has a significant effect on the people and of the political machinery as a whole that it rarely happens and, basically, the signing of the peace treaty must be treated as the end of the war in theory.
Usually it proceeds in this order: that the military forces are defeated and then provinces are taken, but it isn’t always the case.
However, not all of this needs to happen in a real war to obtain the political object that the war is for, because not all wars are in reality aimed at the complete destruction of the enemy. There are even wars where this would be impossible, for example, in cases when the enemy is significantly stronger.
In pure theory, wars between opponents of unequal strength would be impossible. But reality is often far removed from pure theory
Two things “take the place of the impossibility of further resistance” when it comes to motives for making peace: improbability of success, and an excessive price to pay for it.
Because decisions in war have to be made based on probabilities, the war often ends long before it is fully fought out.
One side may strive to create this probability/improbability instead of aiming at the complete overthrow of the enemy.
The value of the political object the war is for will determine how much one side is willing to fight for victory; if the war is more costly than the political object is worth, they might surrender.
Clausewitz introduces a discussion of positive and negative political objects (but doesn’t elaborate on them yet!)
He discusses how the probability of success can be influenced: the same as the overthrow of the enemy influence the probability of success, “naturally” - the destruction of his forces & the conquest of his provinces; however, we would do it somewhat differently for this purpose than for the other. We might strike a strong initial blow instead of attempting to completely route an enemy, to show them our strength; or we might take weak or undefended provinces early, while this would be undesirable if we wanted to overthrow him.
Another means of influences the probability of success is “enterprises which have an immedite bearing upon policy” - such as breaking up their alliances or making alliances for ourselves, or “stimulating political activies in our favour” (I so wish he elaborated here!)
Another means of influencng the probability of success is to increase our opponent’s “expenditure of strength” - as their expenditure of strength “lies in the wastage of their forces”
Two ways of increasing expenditure of strength is by destroying their forces ourselves or by conquering their provinces, but there are three other ways:
Invading - occupying a province without attempting to keep it but “in order to levy contributions upon it or even devastate it” - the object here is simply to “do damage in a general way”
Directing our enterprises to the points where will we do most harm - instead of to points that would lead most easily to overthrowing them, if overthrowing them is not possible.
By wearing out the enemy - “a gradual exhaustion of the physical powers and the will by the long continuance of action” - which he says is the most important
In order to wear the enemy out, we focus our energies on pure resistance, “combat without any positive intention”; this negative means cannot be carried out to absolute passivity, resistance is an active thing, and the enemies forces are destroyed by it while ‘our means operate at their maximum’, until the enemy gives up their intention
While this negative action doesnt have as much of an impact as a positive action would, it succeeds much more easily
This negative action is called defence
When defending, extending the duration of the comat is enough to win victory, as the opponent has to expend their forces by attacking.
Clasuewitz gives a historical example here - FINALLY - in the case of Frederick the Great, who conducted the Seven Years War. Clausewitz says that he would have lost the war immediately if he carried it out offensively, but “after his skillful use of a wise economy of his forces” he showed his enemies over the course of seven years that they would have to expend a great deal more than they initially thought to defeat him.
He says “wee see then that there are many ways to our object in war”, but they all come down to combat. There is therefore only one means in war: the combat, the use of military forces.
“All, therefore, that relates to the military forces, and, thus, all that appertains to their creation, maintenance and employment, belongs to warfare.”
“Combat in war is not a combat of individual against individual, but as an organized whole made up of many parts.” The are two kinds of units: one determined by the subject and one by the object. This part is a bit confusing but I think it means that basically there are units of armed men, and units of combats which they engage with. The purpose of the combat makes it a unit.
To each combat, “we attach the name of engagement.”
The employment of armed forces - the only means in war - is the determining and arranging of engagments.
“The soldier is levied, clothed, armed, trained, sleeps, eats, drinks and marches merely to fight at the right place at the right time.”
In an engagement, all energy is directed towards the destruction of the enemy, that is, his ability to fight.
However, in reality, this is often not the actual object of a particular engagement: a single engagement may be, for example, to hold a bridge, rather than destroy the enemy’s forces.
But the bridge is in fact being occupied to bring a greater destruction to their forces. So, there is a diversity of engagements, each subordnated to another, with the destruction of the enemy’s forces as the ultimate aim.
These engagements he says are “nothing but a trial of strength”, and has no value of itself except its result, “that is to say, its decision.”
We go over how fundamental the engagement is, and how fundamental the decision is.
“The decision by arms is, for all operations in war, great and small, what cash payment is in bill transactions. However remote these relations may be, however seldom the seetlements may take place, they must eventually be fulfilled.”
Clausewitz talks about combinations here, in a way thats a little confusing to me; I think combinations are the diversity of engagements.
He says that “any important decision by arms - that is, destruction of the enemy’s forces - reacts upon all preceding it, because, like a fluid they tend to bring themselves to a level” and that this means that a fortunate decision by arms by our opponent can make one of our combinations impracticable. I have no idea what this means.
Because of this, the destruction of the enemy’s forces is the most important thing.
However the ends, and not the means, are the most important; a blind dash to destroy all the enemies forces is not always right.
The destruction of the enemy’s forces is not necessarily their physical force: their moral force is often the most important.
Destroying the enemy’s forces directly is very costly on us and risky, while other things are less risky and less effective by some other measure. However, our reduced risk assumes they are meeting us with similar means; if they meet us with the aim to destroy our forces completely, then we will suffer. For this reason, the destruction of the enemy’s forces is the “first born son of war”
This is the meaning of positive and negative objects introduced earlier: the positive object is the destruction of our enemy’s forces, and the negative object is the preservation of our own forces.
The positive object calls the destruction into existence, while the negative object awaits it. This waiting is, however, not passive; he promises to discuss this more later when covering defence.
While negative effort can give us advantages, it can be exhausted, and it can be neccessary to engage in positive effort.
He stresses, at the end, how we have to keep all of this in mind, not overstate any one part but see how all of the parts interact.
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rixxy8173571m3w1p3 · 6 years ago
Text
The Little Big Things (1/4)
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(@ricksanchezdwc) So like we had done not too long ago, me, @hoodoo12 @porkchop-ao3 @rickstexaschick are doing the same prompt cause we all loved the idea.
__________
Chapter 1: The Phyto Princess
Within the span of time it took for him to pull out his portal gun, and type in the coordinates, you had already imagined about a dozen places, and twice as many scenarios.
Rick made it look so easy; twisting dials, and pressing buttons in order to get from point a, to point whatever, but without the proper coordinates and code input, one could scatter their fragments all across the cosmos, without the hope of joining back together all in one piece; the thought often a source of uncalled for anxiety. True, this wasn't like star trek, with its one episode plots, or backstory to reference when you least expected it, but a valid concern that you had yet to address; you blamed it on your curiosity. Having read the notes of Zeta-7s early portal gun schematics, there was the blemish of fear that arose when you least expected it. Sometimes, it didn't feel like it mattered all that much, especially when you were in one of your moods, but more often than not, you hoped Rick would never mess up; or be two cups of coffee short. Contributing factors to your anxiety included the day to day annoyances, time, or how your hair looked that day, but in another one of his attempts to brighten your spirits, he made plans for a surprise adventure; your assumption being anywhere away from buildings or people.
You knew he was trying his best to keep you happy, but you wondered sometimes what he'd say if you told him he didn't have to. It wasn't his job, but you refrained from telling him, because if it weren't for the fact that you trusted and adored Zeta-7, then you would have refused in favor of staying local more often, especially when you weren't in the mood. Oh, but where was the fun in that? Maybe, it'd help; likely it wouldn't.
Today, there were other things the matter, like the doubt which appeared when you recalled the memories from a false dream, and you were confused about what had been the reality and what had been the dream. With thoughts of the past, also came the remembrance of old regrets; many you thought you had buried under reasoning and change, but you were terribly human. You weren't a genius, and you didn't always think about what you'd say before you said them, so you made mistakes; a lot more than you'd care to admit. Because of this, you had been a source of concern, and added to Zeta-7s stress, and this made you stressed because he already had enough on his plate, and this made you worry for his well being. Waves of dread which would wash over you at the thought of getting lost, or forgetting him, misunderstanding, even while gripping his hand as sure and tight as you could when you stepped through the portal were but impediments to your happiness; the worry you felt for scenarios that hadn't occurred, these too fed the monster of anxiety.
It would be okay, you'd say to yourself. It should've been okay, to step through the portal as you had done so dozens of times before, but then there was your heart beating a mile a minute, begging otherwise. You've watched Zeta-7 do it hundreds of times as well, coming out safe and sound, so you could do this, and would do it. Still, what reason did you have to worry or doubt?
Well, there were places no one came back from; you've heard the stories, you listened to Ricks theories, but again they were stories; cautionary tales that taught lessons. And like now, you fought that lingering fear, the tingling in your limbs, the bloom of tightness in your chest, and made sure you still felt Rick's long, thin, bony fingers laced with yours, holding on for dear life while repeating you're little mantra. On the other side he was still there, and you felt his relief, and with your other hand, you shielded your eyes from the resplendence of the sun, until they could adjust to the scene around you. “Rick,” you gasped, glancing a little at everything; your confidence building as delight overcame your anxiety. “where have you taken me?”
This must have pleased him, cause when he smiled, every wrinkle spoke of his laughter, and his electric blues were brimming with happiness.“W-why don't you look and - and see?”
Curiosity got the better of you as you let go, but reassured by his gentle smiles, you explored what was all around you; his warmth one of the best certainties. All around, the landscape stretched, it curved and there were bends a little ways ahead; you could smell hints of petrichor, and the ground fertile and verdant, with patches of silver grass which whistled when touched. You wondered if they could do more than whistle; laughing because many thoughts of yours had been but a velleity, and you almost moved on, but when the fuzzy blades of grass leaned forward to pat you on the head before returning to their place, you gasped. Were they supposed to do that? Nearby, exposed roots shimmered, and when you approached them, they pulled away from the ground, and bowed in obeisance before returning to their place. You flashed Rick that look that said you were confused, and his mouth hung open in astonishment. Still, he hadn't said a word, and watched on; his hand moving a mile a minute as he took down notes.
Above your heads, were bell like flowers that changed their tune whenever you passed them, and the walkway was littered with mushrooms that made your skin tingle pleasantly when you sat upon them; as unsettling as it was, you were feeling good, as though they absorbed all the negative feelings, and left you with the good ones. Where your feet hung above the ground, an indigo milk cap sprung up so that you could step off. At this point you began to wonder if the forces and plants around you were bending at your will. Considering Rick hadn't warned you yet, or impeded your curiosity in anyway, then he was either waiting for you to ask, or he was studying you; as he usually would. “Rick,” you wondered, as you stepped over the small stones that buzzed like worker bees. “did we shrink, or has the world gotten bigger?”
“Well,” he chuckled, eager to hold on to your hand again. “it’s - it's neither. Everything here is bigger, while w-we remained the same. Neat isn't it?”
Neat was an understatement.
“It is,” You agreed, which made him stand a little taller, and smile a bit brighter. “but I could have sworn we stepped into a Honey I shrunk the kids movie or something. I guess not, but something strange is going on. Haven't you noticed? You probably have, but I just want to check.”
“You're right, I-I-I have, and it makes me wonder what w-would happen if you wanted the flowers to walk? I-I guess that sounds silly.”
“No,” You softened. “it doesn't, but I don't think it works that way. I'm not a god or anything, and I'm pretty sure fairy dust ain't going to cut it, and make these giants move. But if you want me to, I could try.”
The only giants you had ever seen were the western sequoias. You had walked amongst those natural giants, whose respective histories were their own, and you wouldn't question how they came to be; for they existed before you, before Rick. They were the testament of endurance, withstanding centuries of rain, fire, and growth, but here….like many things he showed you was a first. Curious as to what might happen, you thought about the orange star like flowers moving, and bending down to your level. And, because it was your will, they did.“Rick,” you continued, after your initial shock passed. “I'm not imagining things am I? Did…. did that just happen?”
Reading the results from his scanners, and checking the footage from his camera, he exclaimed. “It - it did. It really did!”
“Is that good? I don't know.”
With raised brow, he chuckled to himself, and put away his scanner, and notepad. “Gosh, y-you're just full of - of surprises aren’t you?”
“Honestly, I have no point of comparison. So you're going to have to be upfront with me, and tell me if I'm going to be okay.”
“Y-you're more than o-okay, you're perfect.”
____________
The sun bathed the earth in delicious warmth, the sparkling dew feeding the thirst of the green.
The pleasant sounds of humming, and their songs had become an uplifting melody. Like kisses upon your skin, the wind made you ticklish, and you needed Ricks assistance so that you wouldn't fall over laughing. It seemed you were sensitive to the environment, which made you go through waves of pleasant emotions, but it was exhausting. Hopefully your life force wasn't being absorbed by them.
“Rick, I think I hear music. Can you tell me why? Or is it my imagination?”
“I'll ugh - I'll be able to tell y-you in a jiffy.”
Flipping through his notes, his brow was raised in confusion. “Um, t-t-to be honest, this is the first time I've seen them act this - this way. They seem t-to be imitating a song, possibly from your subconscious. Do y-you recognize it? Does it - it remind you of anything?”
You stopped in your tracks, and took a moment to earnestly listen before you answered. “It reminds me of your ukulele being played on a refreshing afternoon.”
Eyes wide, you knew he was eager to hear more, curiosity coloring his response. “Is th-that so?”
“Yeah. I love hearing you play,” Which was very true. Rick was a wonderful musician, able to play almost any instrument he picked up. Other Ricks were probably just as talented, but unless they were the legendary Steinway, you doubted anyone could play with as much emotion. You continued. “and the happy sounds that are made in between your laughs, and the strumming of strings, and the way you look at me when you play. Goodness, it warms my heart, and makes me love you even more. You…you always have a way of stirring my emotions.”
“Y-you really like it that much?”
“Like it? I adore it, and your guitar playing too. Why, if I didn't know any better, I'd say you practically seduced me with those serenades on the front porch, and those evenings indoors when it was raining. I have no idea what you were thinking about at the time, but hopefully it was of me.”
Sentimental words always made him pliable, and he never really knew how to answer, or what the correct words should be, but he tried, and in his earnestness, he'd lean towards you as though he were about to kiss you, but he'd stop before doing so. As though he were reigning himself, he'd close his eyes, taking a few deep breaths before he'd continue. Pressing a light kiss on your forehead, he softened. “I - I always have you on my mind, though I-I didn't - it wasn't my intention back then to….I didn't know you felt that way. I'm not in the habit t-to seduce anyone or….” He faltered, his cheeks dusted in a lovely blush.
Silly man. One of these days, maybe he'd understand when you were flirting and teasing him, and not misconstrue your delight with accusations. You cupped his cheek, encouraging him to look at you. “You're so sweet. I know you wouldn't do that. But either way, I enjoyed it all the same.”
Leaning into your touch, you saw the beginnings of a smile, but his blush was still going strong. “Gosh, now I'm not s-s-so sure, but I - maybe I - oh, I'm s-sorry.”
“Don't be sorry dear. If I didn't want you to, I would have stopped you at the point when you first asked me over for dinner. I mean, I never really thought you were trying anything either. We were just friends, having a good time, and I fell in love with you. Maybe we should thank that ukulele of yours for all the happy hours we had singing silly little songs.”
“I ugh - I should have brought it with me then, because y-you like it.”
“There's always next time. Though, it's been awhile since you played. You must miss it.”
“I-I do,” he admitted, passing a hand through his hair. “but it's because I've been b-busy. I'm sorry a-about that too. I've been away and w-we haven't had much time to ourselves.”
“Rick it's okay, I understand. You have important stuff to do”
“You - you say that, but it bothers me when I have t-t-to leave you for extended periods at a time. I don't like it, and I-I guess maybe I'm being silly. That's what happens when y-you get old. You either want t-t-to be alone or have company all the time. What am I even saying? I'm going off on a-ag….”
Pressing a finger to his mouth, you quieted him. “You already do a great job in trying to make me happy, and I'm not disappointed.”
“Y-you're not?”
“Of course not. I mean, I can't help but miss you, but you've always been a busy guy. How you manage to make time for me and still have time for your hobbies is beyond me, but that's the thing about you Rick, you're not like most people. And every moment with you is wonderful. The question you should be asking is what have I done for you? What can I do to make you feel better?”
“By p-p-putting up with me.”
Pressing a kiss on his cheek, you giggled. “If you mean by loving you, then I'm on it.”
_____________
After a series of small, quick experiments, Rick had come to realize that these plants listened mostly to you and not so much him. Oh, he had his theories, a few of them making you giggle, but for the most part, this is what he understood.“These plants here, I-I had thought they were empathic, but they must - must be trying to trigger a response. I believe they are fascinated b-by you, because I've already spent many happy hours here on - on this planet, but you haven't.”
Placing your hands on your hips, it was your turn to raise a brow. “Rick, if you put it that way, then it means I'm trending.”
“Gosh, I-I-I suppose. Is that the terminology these days? Does it mean you're popular?”
Zeta-7 really could be adorable when he wasn't trying to be, especially when he wasn't always aware of what was current. “Yes, but what are you really saying?”
“That they must r-really like you,” he smiled, jotting down a few notes, before taking out his scanner, and checking the results. “and if I'm correct, then they prosper off these pleasant emotions of - of yours. How fascinating.”
“Can they hear my thoughts?”
“N-no mi corazón,” he chuckled. “they can feel you. Plants are - are surprising organisms—without brains and central nervous systems, they are still able t-t-to sense the environment that surrounds them. They - they can perceive light, scent, touch, wind, even gravity, and are able t-to respond to sounds, too. These plants here are a-a little different, and can sense your every emotions, reflecting your feelings, which I-I guess means you're currently in a pleasant mood.”
“Of course I am, it's beautiful here, and I'm with you.”
After you had said this, a gust of wind rushed by, which rustled the golden leaves, the force of it almost knocking you over, though Rick was quick to grab you by the waist. “Are y-y-you okay?”
You could hear the bell flowers ring, and quietly you thanked them and the forces at work around you, which seemed to bend and curve at your will; whose comedic timing was cliché to say the least. “I am now. Thank you Rick.”
Scratching the back of his neck, he let go, and made himself busy by scanning the branches and plant debris. “L-l-like you already said it's ugh - feels like a-a land for giants. I know their size is attributed t-t-to the mineral rich soil. And I-I thought it would be nice to spend a-a day here, but you look tired. Not t-to mention the plants behavior.”
“I'm not that tired. But man, it's incredible to be able to will the elements, but I'm sorry Rick, I kind of don't know what I'm doing here or whether I have any control over it. Imagine, that kind of power in the wrong hands could be dangerous. So, I'll try not to cause too much trouble.”
“It's okay, I'm sure y-you won't. I-I do wonder if they can understand what we're saying.”
With a shrug, you replied. “It's worth a try.”
You smiled up at the canopy of leaves, admiring the way the light filtered through the spaces in between. “We appreciate the hospitality, and the lovely music, as well as your stimuli. Oh, and as much as I appreciate you playing matchmaker, you don't have to try so hard. You see, we're already together,” you winked at Zeta-7, who blushed at the gesture. “but secretly, I think Rick's enjoying it. Either way, I hope you'll be kind to us.”
When you had finished, a mushroom ran by, and dropped a gift at your feet before returning to its place. You waited for Ricks approval before peeling back the leaves that were held together by dried vines, revealing a pair of matching bracelets, that seemed to be nothing more then weaved, golden branches. “I think this is for us. See?” you pointed to the inner branch. “This one has your initials.”
Scanning them, Rick found that they were safe, and you two proceeded to try them on, and all at once, you felt warmth wash over you as you glanced at Rick. And when he glanced at you, a vine began to grow and flower, decorating his bracelet in magnificent, lapis blue blooms. “Wow, that's - I've never seen anything like it.”
You haven't either, but that was thing, you always experienced new things when you were with him. Like now, you felt all jittery, and nervous, and when he took your hand to kiss it, your bracelet bloomed, and you just had to pull away, because it felt strange; like a little piece of you was taken away. “Rick, this place is something else. Are you sure it's safe?”
You wanted to be sure, because having him near you all of a sudden was overwhelming, like a dozen butterflies fighting the wind. What was with this place?
“Mhm, I'm sure. I've done extensive research over th-the last couple of weeks t-to make sure we can relax.”
“Really? Nothing toxic or poisonous? No animals or creatures to worry about?”
Taking your hand in his again, you felt a great calm, and the bloomed flowers grew, and vines spread; everywhere they touched, made you feel cozy, and sleepy. So, so sleepy. Perhaps you should say something, but he was happy, and you didn't want that smile to fade, and you allowed him to explain. “Creatures? No, not - not yet. Maybe in a-a couple of years, but not now. This planet is still fairly new, and there's no telling when it - it will be inhabited. For now there's just us, and these w-wonderful plants.”
It was going to be fine you told yourself, and smiling up at him, you replied happily, with a voice soft with affection. “Okay, whatever you say Ricky.”
And like a deep yearning, the vines on his bracelet grew three times their size, and stretched out, just to kiss your face a dozen times; they wanted to delight you. It scared Zeta-7 a bit, but you could only giggle, cause they were just like him; earnest, eager, and sweet.
TBC
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that-fandom-sucks-tho · 7 years ago
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Circuits of the Heart
Title: Chapter 1: Just Look Up What a Hug is Okay?
Warnings: Small amount of swearing
Summary: Circuit (code name) is the newest member at Mount Justice and your first meeting with the team. Interactions with humans are hard especially if your brain is a computer and your technokinesis only allows you to connect with technology. And especially if one of those people is Nightwing.
A/N: So um this is my reintroduction into writing. This is an old idea I stumbled across because of nostalgia. It can be read as Nightwing x reader/ OC because only the characters code name is used. It's a slow burn so not too much romance touchy feely stuff. Umm like this if you want more because this is only like 6 pages of the 11 I have so far. (I just didn't know where to split it so it kinda just ends)
Chapter 2  Chapter 3  Chapter 4  Chapter 5  Chapter 6  Chapter 7 Chapter 8
I entered feeling more nervous than ever. Batman was to my side and basically dragging me along to the training area.  He said that was where most of my new teammates were. I was in my new costume, it was a metallic gray color with purple and yellow trim.  It helped me to better connect with technology because of its a metallic inlay and magnetized fingers. Before all of this I didn’t have a special suit or a special name.   I was just a girl who liked to play with computers. I was just the hacker girl trying to figure my way into the Wayne Enterprises computer system.
Now I was a girl being dragged by Batman through mount justice to meet a bunch of people I didn’t really want to.  It is not like I hadn’t thoroughly searched through my new teammates background and history; I knew everything about everyone and probably some things even they didn’t know about themselves.  So when I saw Artemis's green suit my mind immediately began to swim with sportsman, cheshire, and tigress, etc. I hadn’t meant to but I put Artemis’ entire life into graphs and numbers.
“ Hi I’m-”
“Artemis number B07 one of the newer members of the team besides Zatanna and now me.  Age 19.”
Artemis just stared and then laughed “ Hey Wonder Boy we’ve got a new you on the team.”
Though Batman was my mentor I hadn’t yet met any of his other prodige. Batman said it was because I wasn’t really part of the bat fam.  Which I tried to pretend didn’t hurt but it did a little bit. Sure I had actual powers but that didn’t mean that I couldn’t belong with them.
“I told you not to call me that or I’d call you Mrs. West.”  A tall boy with black hair turned and said this. I recognized Nightwing immediately from the hours of research I did.  He had his signature black and blue suit and domino mask.
Artemis yelled and lunged but a girl with green skin (probably Miss Martian) held her back. “You are so luck Wally’s not here and M’gann is or you’d have an arrow to the jugular.” Artemis said with a cool glare. Then Nightwing turned to face you.
“Hi the name is Nightwing.  Not Wonder Boy.” He winked from under his mask.
“No your real name is Di-”  I started.
“Woah woah lets not let that slip.”  Intervened Batman hastily.
Nightwing looked shocked that I might know his real name.  “How in the world could you know my real name?”
“It’s part of my powers.”
“I thought you had a way with technology not fortune telling.” Nightwing joked still staring at me intently.  I shifted under his gaze suddenly feeling like he could see my circuits.
“No I can hack any database, write any algorithm, and program any tracker I need. Finding out who you are was easier than hacking NASA, the Pentagon, and the NSA at the same time.”
“Well my new team mate that is quite impressive I am sure you will be a valuable asset to us.”  For some reason that made me blush. I had never had such a strong reaction to a person. Being a tech mutation made people all that much more confusing and incompatible to my brain.
I immediately took two steps back and added the peculiar reaction to my database on Dick Grayson. I turned to face M’gann.
“Hello M’gann B05 from the now deceased planet Mars.” M’gann smiled and offered no other reaction to my greeting.
“You can just call Megan and I am so excited for you to join this team and become part of our little family.” Megan went in for a hug but I didn’t understand the movement. Stiff and confused and awkward I just stood there as Megan wrapped her arms around me.
“What is it that you are doing? Is this a normal human social interaction?” I inquired in a clipped tight voice. My eyes were wide and were looking at my fellow teammates. Most were trying to hold in their amused laughs.
Megan quickly let go and stared at me in shock.
“You don’t know what a hug is?”
“Well I know theoretically what a hug is. It is the joining of two bodies in an embrace. Is that what you were trying to accomplish?” At my mentioning ‘the joining of two bodies’ the whole team burst into laughter. When I heard Nightwing laughing I felt a heated rush to the apples of my cheeks.
Again with this strange reaction to him. I was going to have to investigate this further.
“Well, um, kind of… I guess?” Megan responded with confusion.
“As much fun as it is to see teenagers fumble with social interactions, I’d like to help settle Circuit  so she can get started as quickly as possible” Batman motioned for me to follow him to the housing arrangement he had set up for me.
Growing up in a lab that doesn’t exist anymore means I don’t have a lot of places to stay. Walking down the hallway that is an odd amalgamation of metal and rock, I sorted through my internal memory to find the schematics of Mount Justice. Hacking the system was pretty easy and my first mission will be to change that.
Batman showed me to my room and informed me that my boxes had been delivered earlier and that I should unpack my belongings and try again to interact with the team.
“Look I know that your childhood was, less that optimal in the interacting with humans part, but you have an infinite memory and can learn anything you download so just, look up what a hug is” Batman said before turning with a dramatic swish of his cape.
I turned to face my door. There was a lock on the door and I realise I wasn’t given a key or passcode. These were the moments that my powers came in handy. I had technokinesis and while in the lab they turned my brain into a computer. Basically by touching any technology I could control and interact with it. From hacking to controlling weaponry, as long as it had a microchip it was mine to mess with. The brain part, while a little messed up, meant my body acted more like an interface for a motherboard rather than organs. It also meant that the memories stores in my old brain were no longer mine. I has no idea what my life was before the lab.
I reached out and touched the keypad. Instantly I felt the connection and how the electronic was just waiting for my command. Technology was a living and breathing being to me. I felt the pulse of its electricity and how it spoke to me in binary. Closing my eyes I told the little box to open up for her. It immediately flashed ‘open’.
Walking through the threshold I took in my new living quarters. A single twin bed was pushed off into a corner. Three walls were the metal that outfited the volcano hideout and the other wall was the volcanic rock. A desk with a computer was off to my right. Just from looking at it I could tell it was inferior to my needs. I’d have to make improvements. As Batman had said my boxes were already in the room. I didn’t have much so packing would not take me long.
By the time I was done the room hadn’t really changed. There was a new pillow on the bed and the desk was now covered in random computer parts that I has been experimenting on. The closet that had only contained a thin layer of dust now had my few outfits. I decided that this was as good as it was gonna get and that I should greet the rest of the team. Hopefully with less awkwardness. I followed Batman’s instructions and downloaded basic interaction procedures. Hugs, hands shakes, and common greetings were apart of this new information. Sifting through it would take a while so I just add the protocols to my programming.
Using the schematics I found the kitchen/ living room. Sitting on the couch playing video games were Kid Flash and Nightwing. Kaldur was on the adjacent loveseat with a book. Megan and Superboy were sitting on the stools along the kitchen counter talking.     As I walked in the group turned to look at me. Locking onto my newly learned social interaction protocols I stepped forward to greet some of the new members. Kaldur was the person that was closest to me so I walked up to him first.
“Hello Kaldur B02. I am offering my hand for the customary human greeting” I held my hand out to shake Kaldur’s. My movements were sharp and choppy but the general idea was there.
“Ah yes that is the customary greeting and it is nice to meet you Circuit.” Kaldur laughed light heartedly.
“Thank you, I downloaded basic human interactions since I messed up meeting Megan,“ I looked over at Megan in embarrassment, “human’s social interactions still vex me but I’m working on it.”
“You said ‘human’ as though you are not one. Are you not human?” Kaldur questioned.
I could tell that the rest of the team was also expecting the answer. I took a second to ponder the question.
“Well, genetically I am of a human species but,“ I paused trying to figure out how to put the next part of my sentence, “ my brain is now a computer and there are parts of me that contain circuits. Would you count that as human or something else?”
They all sat and puzzled the question I had proposed. It seemed that no one had an answer. A sudden breeze and a whooshing sound were accompanied by an arm around my shoulder.
“Whatever you are you’re hot and I’ll help you with all the ‘interactions’ you want.” The red headed Wally West stated, a smirk he assumed was smooth was plastered on his face.
“I do not believe that I have a fever. My internal alarm would have told me and the temperature of this room is at 69 degrees. So my outer temperature is also at baseline.” I rattled off with a confused expression.
Wally’s confidence was now shattered due to the misunderstanding of his compliment and the fact that he would no have to spell it out for me. Trying to pick up the pieces he continued on.
“No, um, I meant that you are attractive. Like your appearance.”
“Oh, well I have no protocols for that but we can participate in a hug if you wish?”
“Boy would I-” Wally was cut off by Nightwing shoving him to the side. He turned and glared at Wally.
“Dude leave the poor girl alone, she doesn’t understand and we don’t need you to corrupt her.”  He lectured as Wally rubbed where he had hit his head. Wally sat up grumbling.
“I was just gonna hug the girl geesh.”
Nightwing turned and faced you with an apologetic look.
“Sorry about that he hasn’t learned his manners yet.”
Nightwing put his hand on the small of my back and glided me over to where Superboy and Megan were.
“This is Superboy and you already met Megan.”
Superboy greeted my in a grunt and head nod. I nodded back and smiled. This was my favorite meeting, quick and simple, no mess human things.
“So now that you have met the whole team just get comfortable and make yourself at home.” Nightwing offered a smile that made my stomach feel fluttery. Again these symptoms were peculiar to me.
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flowersandskeletons526 · 6 years ago
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Comfort
This is just a Pallura fanfic of what I wish would have happened after the whole Lotor betrayal BULLSHIT. 
**********
Pidge was only passing by when she heard the choked sobs coming from Princess Allura’s room. She paused outside the door, debating whether she should comfort her fellow paladin or retreat to her room like she planned. On one hand, she had so much work to get done. She had to finish the schematics for Rover 2.0 and update the cloaking on the green lion, not to mention all the little repairs Hunk needed her help with on the castle. But on the other hand...
She knocked on Allura’s door. “Princess? It’s Pidge,” she said. 
“O-Oh, good evening, Pidge,” Allura stammered. Pidge’s heart twisted at the break in Allura’s voice and the sniffling she could hear through the door. “Did you need something?”
“Is everything alright?” Pidge asked. No response. “Allura, can I come in?” 
The princess hesitated. “Yes, you may.” 
Pidge took a deep breath before the metal door slid back with a hydraulic hiss. Allura’s room was the same as its inhabitant, everything with a perfect spot and nothing like the ridiculous disarray of her own living space. Allura was curled up on her bed facing the wall, and even from her place in the doorway, Pidge could see the tear stains on the princess’ perfect face. 
The sudden urge to slit that piece of dirt Lotor’s throat struck the green paladin. Stars, what she wouldn’t give to acquaint her bayard with his teeth. After everything that he had done to them, after everything he put them through, what gave him the right to do this to Allura? What would give anyone the right to hurt the gentlest soul in the universe? Why would anyone want to? Even the idea of Allura suffering like this made Pidge’s heart twist with an anger she rarely felt regarding anyone besides her brother and father. 
Her mind conjured a grisly image of Lotor’s head on a stake, Vlad the Impaler style. Leave it to her to remember that one thing from history class. 
“Allura?” Pidge asked, her voice quiet and tentative as Allura sat up. 
“I am fine,” the princess said. She wiped the tears off her face and pulled her knees to her chest. “Did you need something?” 
“Not really,” Pidge mumbled. “Mind if I sit?” 
“Not at all.” 
What am I doing? Pidge thought. I don’t do this, this is Lance’s deal! 
Pidge wrung her hands, leaning forward with her elbows on her knees. “I, uh... Hunk told me. About what happened. Do you, um, want to talk about it?” 
“I do not think there is much to talk about,” Allura replied. She scoffed and threw her hands up. “How could I be so stupid? I actually let him fool me into thinking he cared about anyone besides himself.” She scowled at her feet, wrapping her arms around herself as tears welled in her eyes. “I thought he wanted what was best for Alteans. He only wanted power. I’m such an idiot.” 
“He fooled all of us, Princess.” Without thinking, Pidge placed her hand on top of Allura’s. “You’re not stupid for falling for the things he told you. And, I know it probably won’t anything better, but I sort of know what you’re going through.”
Allura glanced up at the green paladin as she looked away from the princess. “You do?” 
“There was this girl back on Earth before we found the blue lion. I know it sounds pretty cliche, but I was in love with her. I thought she loved me, too, but that was before I found out that she was sneaking around with another girl.” 
Pidge gritted her teeth as Allura intertwined their fingers. Her own voice sounded too loud in her ears, every little movement she made blown up in scale like zooming in on one bug on Earth from a starting view of the entire milky way. 
“I’m so sorry, Pidge,” Allura said, all soft and quiet and calm. 
“Don’t be,” Pidge mumbled. “It’s not like you did it.” She risked a smile before returning her gaze to her feet. “I’m sorry about what happened with Lotor.”
“The same sentiment applies to you,” Allura said. It drew a chuckle from Pidge for reasons she didn’t understand. Allura raised an eyebrow at her. “Are you alright?” 
“Yeah, fine,” Pidge said. She squeezed Allura’s hand and turned her body to face her, reaching up to brush a stray lock of hair behind the princess’ ear and wipe a tear from the mark on her cheek. Maybe her hand lingered for a second too long, or maybe Allura just needed someone to hold on to, but, to Pidge’s surprise, the princess covered Pidge’s hand with hers and leaned into her touch. “Are you going to be okay?” 
“I will eventually,” Allura replied. A smile graced her delicate features, and Pidge’s heart jumped. “Once we have his head on a plate.” 
Pidge laughed. “Promise to let me help?” 
“Always.” 
Pidge grinned and squeezed Allura’s hand before standing up. “You should get some sleep, Princess. I’ll see you in the morning.” 
“Wait, Pidge, I...” Allura paused as the green paladin turned back to her. “Will you... will you stay with me? Only for a little bit, I simply... I do not know if I will be able to sleep tonight.” 
Is this weird? Pidge thought as she nodded and stretched out beside Allura. Any second thoughts vanished from her mind as the princess wrapped her arms around Pidge’s waist and nuzzled against her neck. She didn’t usually like people touching her. It all felt too personal, too close, having another person’s hands pressed against her skin and her fingers tangled in their hair. 
Pidge closed her eyes and held Allura close as the Altean’s breathing evened out. Her deadlines were a million eons away lying there in Allura’s arms.
And for once, the universe was silent. 
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thunder-the-ranger-wolf · 4 years ago
Text
Possible snippet from Brothers in Arms: The Iron Man Dilemma
Summary
Next
He should have seen it coming. Looking back, it was obvious. He’d even caught on to the fact that something was up. But sitting here with a bag over his head and people speaking around him in words he couldn’t make out (Even with Frigga’s grace, he never learned.) it was clear that whatever he thought he knew was only the beginning of what was really going on.
But that’s… that comes later. He can berate himself eternally once he figures out what these people wanted and how he (they, because of course, the doctor was a hostage) would get out of here. And let Eir grant him mercy and luck because he couldn’t afford to shift in the meantime. 
It started with the award show. Granted, it started long before that. It technically started when he found out that Howard left him control of Stark Industries. Being immortal, or as long-lived as a Wolf could get, definitely had its uses and Howard saw one that Tony hadn’t. Tony could use the knowledge gained from Howard to run the company far longer than the original Stark heir ever could. Wolves rarely died of old age, after all. Their bodies were tougher than most, but immortal did not mean invincible. Neither, as Tony found out from SHIELD files detailing his autopsy, did it mean bullet-proof. 
Originally, Tony had every intention of tracking down whoever had staged the accident and shaking them down to their roots, but the Chief Operations Officer of Stark Industries at the time insisted that Tony was the only one who could take over for Howard. 
“Why don’t you do it?” Tony drawled. “I was an engineer back then, and I know Howard dabbled in science and business was his thing, but it’s not mine.” 
“You’re his apprentice-.” 
“For engineering. I was one of many. We worked as a team and I was never the leader of anything.” 
Tony didn’t want to lead anything ever again, least of all a company. 
“You’re the only one he trusted to run the company, Mr. Stark. He put it in his will and everything. It hasn’t changed since he first wrote the original and throughout every rewrite, that has been the same. It has to be you.” 
“I’d have thought you would jump at the chance, Stane,” 
“I’ll do it if I have to, but you would have to relinquish control fully and divest yourself of everything, up to and including the name,” Stane informed him.
“The fuck I will,” Tony sneered. “Even if that wasn’t a huge lie, you need to get it through your head that I am not a businessman. I am not a leader, and I want no part of this. The only reason I’ve let this go on for so long is to make sure the company ran in Howard’s image.”
“This is how you do that.” 
“Bullshit,” Tony exhaled roughly. “Where do I start?” 
The rest wasn’t quite history. Some things remained company secrets. Some things never came to light. Like the fact that Obadiah Stane had lied from the beginning, even back then. The only thing that Tony couldn’t figure out is why. Why set things up like this if he was just going to pull the rug out when he didn’t like the direction Tony took? Was his goal to take control of Howard’s legacy or destroy it for good? 
The first, Tony had originally figured he could abide by. The second, not so much. 
He’d slowly but surely been turning the company toward what he saw as better investments. By 2008, along with weapons, there was a thriving department for armor and medical supplies, and most Army communication devices had Stark Industries’ logo branded onto them. These weren’t just supplied to the military, though it had started out that way. Most hospitals were clamoring for medical supplies and while the phones took longer to catch on, by 2008 the fourth edition of their cellphone model was on the market. 
So it was safe to say that SI was doing well in the grand scheme of things. This would serve them later, but Tony’s gift of foresight was finicky at best. There was no way for him to know what would come next. 
So it started at an award show. He doesn’t remember what the award is for, but he does know that it’s his brother’s birthday and he is going to get as blasted as possible and do stupid shit. He cannot handle the godsforsaken introspection sessions that his tribe’s Healer wanted to do. If there was one thing the kid knew how to do, it was getting on his nerves by talking about their shared past. He wouldn’t have it. So he found some hole-in-the-wall craps joint that didn’t mind the extra attention and won bet after bet placed by foolish kids and a few stubborn assholes who didn’t know when to quit. He turned the money over to the dealer with a little extra and told the guy to give it back at the end of the night. It’s not like he needed it. 
“Really?” Came the unamused voice of a newer friend of his. James Rhodes was a high-ranking officer in what is now known as the U.S. Air Force. 
That came about after Tony did his time and since Tony had done time, he wasn’t required to do it again. And goodness did they fucking try to make him. He got out of Korea on the slimmest technicality. They exempted soldiers from World War II.  Vietnam was… well, the late sixties were a hell of a time to be an American and he was no exception. They wanted their “super-soldier.” The cover story that he and Howard had come up with was a good way to explain his longevity while keeping him in the spotlight.
It was also a way for every Captain America fanatic to come crawling out of the woodwork begging for a tale about his brother. The Original, they called him. What was Tony, the remix? It’d be the other way around if they were going by age and he’d definitely injected himself with one of the weaker batches that Erskine had whipped up in preparation for whoever would take it. That turned out to be his youngest brother, much to his consternation, and the fame Socren garnered came back to bite him in the ass. He avoided getting shipped out by virtue of his job. One of the few benefits of following Howard’s will. 
“You with me, buddy?” Rhodes prompted. They were around the corner from the craps place, still walking. Tony could call the driver who’d brought Rhodes here at any time, but he figured he could use the fresh air for a bit. At first, he thought it would take his mind off things but that was a bust. 
“Yeah,” Tony yawned. “Just thinking.” 
“About?” 
“My youngest brother.” 
“His birthday is in June, right?”
“July, I think,” Tony mumbled. Like he didn’t know. Like it wasn’t celebrated as a national holiday. But nobody knew that part. They just celebrated. At least no one was making him celebrate Joclar’s birthday. Or his own.
“When’s yours?” 
“I was born late winter,” Tony offered vaguely. For a given definition of winter. March was still freezing cold in some places but others had it down as springtime. 
“That’s not a date, but okay.” 
“Nobody alive knows and everyone who knew is dead.”
“That makes no sense at all whatsoever but I’ll take your word for it.” Rhodes offered. 
“Can you just let it be? On record, my birthday is May 29. Let’s keep it that way.” 
“But that’s not when you were actually born.” 
“I don’t remember it, no one can tell me, there’s no point in bringing it up.” Tony snapped. 
“You don’t want to find out?” 
“No point,” Tony grumbled. “Weren’t you going to lecture me about something? I think I’d prefer that.” 
“I was going to say that you should have been at the award ceremony because I don’t like looking stupid, but now I know you have a reason.” 
“Do I have to?” Tony drawled. 
“What?” 
“Have a reason. Do I have to?” 
“Never change, Tony,” Rhodes chuckled. “You’re hilarious.” 
“That’s what they tell me.”
“Well, we need to get your hilariously old ass to bed. Hopefully you get some sleep before tomorrow.” 
“What? Why tomorrow?” 
“The Jericho presentation.” 
“That’s on Friday. I remember because they wanted to end the week on a high note or some bullshit.” 
“They want us there early. No point in asking why.” 
“For you, maybe. I’ll get out there when I want to.” 
“You do remember that we have to keep that contract, don’t you?” 
“Look, kid, this is the first major weapon I’ve released in almost a decade. It’s the biggest, it’s the best, they’re going to love it. You don’t have to worry, all the things will go boom when required.” 
“And no other time?” 
“Scout’s honor,” 
“I doubt that.” 
“Your loss, kid. That was a genuine promise.” 
Tony tapped a key fob on the inside of his wrist and waited for the car to come. By tomorrow, he and Rhodes would be off to Kumar. He hoped to get this over with soon. He wanted to get back to the watch schematics he was working on.��
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glare-gryphon · 8 years ago
Text
Horizon Light - Part 7
~2400 Words
Additional Tags: Hurt/Comfort
On Ao3 or below the cut!
Their second test drift goes about as well as the first. Falling into alignment is easy this time, as are the tests that LOCCENT has them run through once they’re synced. They’re well on their way to getting back out in the field, if the unmitigated delight in Muni’s voice as he walks them through their tasks is any indication. Obi-Wan knows they’ve made progress, even in the short few days since their agreement to really give copiloting a chance, and that high command is eager to get as many hands on deck as possible with the Hound down and the Glory out of commission until her pilots get out of medical. No, the problem comes afterward, when the harnesses are undone and the circuitry suits are peeled off. When they’re walking back to their quarters side by side, the echoes of each other’s thoughts and emotions still drifting through their minds. When they realize the magnetic pull that has them leaning heavily into the other isn’t just a product of their burgeoning relationship.
They’re ghosting.
It’s almost unheard of in such a fresh piloting pair. Most rangers, if they ghost at all, will only do so after hours upon hours spent in the cockpit; Obi-Wan had been piloting with Qui for months before they had first experienced a ghost drift. The fact that he’s doing so with Skywalker after only two drifts is unnerving, and he can feel the other man’s tension through their lingering connection. Obi-Wan can only assume it to be a product of their initial connection—of that too-long drift that began their partnership—in combination with their unique history with broken pair bonds. Those severed connections have caused them to cling even tighter to this new bond. It’s nothing short of terrifying.
Obi-Wan supposes he shouldn’t be entirely surprised that they’ve fallen into another argument by the time they reach the privacy of their quarters. Sharp, panicked words laced with blame and confusion as they try to force distance between them. The emotions are like a feedback loop, escalating with each pass between them. They had agreed to this, but they hadn’t agreed to this. This intrusion. This intimacy that they share, but shouldn’t.
“If you don’t like me, maybe you should just find another copilot!” Skywalker snaps, replying to a dig Obi-Wan made about the state of his side of the room. About the disarray the younger man’s things are always in.
Obi-Wan snorts. “At least I wouldn’t be piloting with an insolent child!”
“At least I would be piloting with somebody who gives a damn; at least they wouldn’t just stand there and watch their copilot die!”
There is suddenly a stillness between them. Skywalker’s face falls from aggression to horror at the realization of the boundary he’s crossed, knows immediately the effects of his words as they swirl through Obi-Wan’s mind and back through their lingering connection. Obi-Wan isn’t there to see it, however. He flees into the bathroom—the only place he can go considering that his copilot stands between him and the main door. Locking the bathroom door behind him, he sinks to the floor with his back to it and tries to catch his faltering breath. His mind is a storm, wild and chaotic, and Skywalker’s words ring in his ears.
At least they wouldn’t just stand there and watch their copilot die!
The words are like a knife to his gut; a bitter reminder of his one greatest failure. Because he had just stood there, frozen in fear, as Maul charged. As the hull tore open. As Maul killed—
He’s shaking violently, unable to catch his breath, the world around him beginning to spin with the lack of oxygen. Rationally, he knows he’s having a panic attack. This is not the first the first he’s had since Qui-Gon’s death—not even the first he’s had since becoming Skywalker’s copilot. That knowledge doesn’t help in settling him at all, only makes it worse, if he’s being honest. They were trying to move past this.
A bitter sob rips from his throat, but it’s all but drowned out by pounding on the door. Skywalker, apparently unnerved by his sudden flight, banging against the metal and rattling at the handle. “Open the door,” Skywalker commands, and Obi-Wan ignores him. It doesn’t deter his copilot, as he might have hoped. Instead, it only causes Skywalker to bang harder against the barrier between them. “So help me god, Kenobi, I will take this door off its hinges if you don’t open it.”
As much as he’d like to tell himself that Skywalker is bluffing, he and Skywalker have spent a fair bit of their time trying to get to know one another better. He is exactly that stubborn when it comes to getting what he wants, and has the mechanical know-how to accomplish it. There is no other option but to force himself to unsteady feet, and flick the lock on the door open
Obi-Wan stumbles backwards as the door swings open, a flushed Skywalker barging through, in attempt to put some distance between them. When his back hits the shower door, when he can go no further, he sinks to the floor once again and curls in on himself, bracing for whatever comes next. He's expecting violence—expecting Skywalker to last out at him as he has in every major argument since their meeting—and can't help the startled gasp that leaves him when it doesn't come. There's no blood, no pain; just Anakin sinking to his knees before Obi-Wan and bundling the older man to his chest. He buries his nose in Obi-Wan's hair, and he can feel Skywalker shaking with Obi-Wan’s own wild panic. The man’s remorse is a sour thing on his tongue.
"I'm so sorry," Skywalker murmurs fervently into his temple. "I'm so sorry, Obi-Wan. I didn't mean—I shouldn't have said—
"Stars, I'm so sorry. Please, please don't leave me."
Obi-Wan is unsure how to respond to this uncharacteristic, desperate cling. He can feel the echo of is in his own mind; a need for touch that has him twisting his fingers into Skywalker's dirty undershirt and leaning into the younger man's embrace.
It's been so long since Obi-Wan had allowed himself the simplicity of human contact. Not since before Qui-Gon's death, if he’s being completely honest. There were light touches, consoling brushes of fingers across his shoulders and down his arms, but never this full-body press that he and Skywalker are sharing. He had almost forgotten what it was like to bask in another's closeness—to feel their heat beating out of time with your own, to smell their scent and be enveloped in everything they are.
Skywalker smells like sweat and oil. Like slightly singed hair from the circuitry suit and the meal they'd had for lunch. His lips are chapped when they brush along Obi-Wan's temple, murmuring more soft apologies in contrast to the strong grip that he keeps on Obi-Wan's clothes. As though he fears the older man will disappear if he lets go for only a moment.
This is unlikely to happen, consider Obi-Wan doesn't intend to go anywhere now that Skywalker has hold of him. He's warm and content for the first time in so long, the brush of Skywalker's hands against his touch-starved skin enough to drive away the unpleasant thoughts of their argument. They just cling to each other; a desperate grasp for stability. They have both lost so much. They have lied to themselves, claiming they needed nothing else. But they need this—another person who can understand—however terrifying that connection may be.
Eventually, it is Anakin that drags them to their feet. They lean heavily on one another as the younger pilot hauls them to Obi-Wan's bed. It is a testament to his hazy state of mind that he does not protest when Anakin wrestles him onto the mattress, nor when he climbs in after. Anakin drags the blankets over them, curling himself around Obi-Wan’s back and throwing an arm around his waist in a gesture that is probably too intimate for their current relationship. Obi-Wan is too exhausted to care, their argument and his subsequent panic attack having taken more out of him than he expected.
“We’re going to be ok,” Skywalker murmurs into the nape of his neck, sounding as though he’s trying to convince himself as much as he’s trying to convince Obi-Wan. “We’re going to do this, and we’re going to be ok.”
The next morning finds them with the boxes of Qui-Gon’s things pulled from the storage space below his bunk. Obi-Wan’s hands shake at his side in contrast to the bracing grip Anakin keeps on his shoulder. They’re just boxes; they shouldn’t be as terrifying as they are. Still he finds himself hesitating, staring blankly at these vessels of his life before this. Before Anakin. He’s scared that if he tries to dig through them, the memories will consume him; he’s scared that if he doesn’t, they’ll consume him anyway.
Anakin squeezes his shoulder, grounding. “Are you sure you want to do this?” he asks. “You don’t have to. We can wait.”
Obi-Wan shakes his head. “No, I have to do this. I will never be able to move forward if I am still clinging to the past.”
“Ok,” Anakin says. “Well, I’m here if you need me.”
“Thank you,” he murmurs as the man’s hand slips away. Anakin clambers back onto his bunk, flipping open a file on the Horizon’s mechanical schematics to offer him some semblance of privacy. There’s no real privacy in as small of a space as their quarters, but Obi-Wan appreciates the gesture nonetheless.
The first box to be opened is filled to the brim with a variety of knickknacks. Small stones and bits of dried plants Qui-Gon had collected from around the various shatterdomes they’d been stationed at over the years, miscellaneous figurines that hadn’t belonged anywhere else, a few wayward photographs that had escaped the bundle Obi-Wan knows is tucked away in another box. He tries not to look at them as he sets them aside, this process difficult enough without dragging out memories that he’d rather leave be for now. Most of the contents of this box can simply be thrown out, if he’s being completely honest. It’s a terrible thought, but Obi-Wan never shared his partner’s propensity to collect bits and bobs as he went about his day. In fact, it had driven him up the wall on most occasions. He feels terribly guilty about it now, and can’t help but slip a smooth river stone into his pocket for safekeeping.
The second box is filled with paperwork. Their contracts with the PPDC, their medical records, information on their next of kin. There are also stacks of mission reports that should have been filled out after their drops. Obi-Wan’s had been filed; Qui-Gon’s had not. Windu used to complain incessantly about the man’s inability to file anything, which left Obi-Wan to wrestle the man into doing something in order to get the Marshall off their back. There is also a stack of photographs bound by a rubber band resting at the bottom of the box. These are joined by the photos from the previous box, then are shoved into a drawer beneath his cot with no further inspection. Anakin has photographs of himself and Ahsoka taped up to the wall around his cot, but Obi-Wan doesn’t think he’s quite ready for that yet.
In the third box are Qui-Gon’s clothes. It was in this box that he'd stashed the bottle of booze Quinlan had left behind—that Anakin had terrified him into breaking. Now there's only a stack of tee shirts, all of them declaring some horrible, botanical pun in colorful lettering; pairs of pants that ate worn and heavily patched in places; a rumpled sweater that Obi-Wan had given Qui-Gon for the holidays in a soft blue. He holds the sweater to his face and inhales, but the scent of Qui-Gon's skin and his cologne have long since faded from the fabric. Instead there is only the musty smell to be expected from clothes that have been stuffed in a box for weeks. Expecting it doesn't stop it from being disappointing.
He has to decide what needs to be done with these things; it is the reason he's going through these boxes. The pants are long past their prime, held together by Qui-Gon's patch-job and much too big for Obi-Wan, anyhow. The tee shirts will have to go as well, though he does set aside a few of the less offensive of their number to sleep in. The sweater is... Well, it is something of a dilemma. It doesn't feel right to keep it, but throwing it away feels like an even worse option.
Without his permission, his eyes drift over to where Anakin lays on his cot, apparently immersed in the technical readouts from the Horizon's latest tests. He could just be giving Obi-Wan privacy, but the reality is that he's likely actually quite engrossed. Anakin has an interest in machines. I'd originally wanted to go into jaeger tech, he'd confessed to Obi-Wan over dinner two days ago, but Ahsoka was desperate to pilot, and I could never deny her anything.
Obi-Wan hovers awkwardly beside Anakin's cot as he waits for the other man not notice him. "What?" He asks, more curious than hostile despite the interruption to his reading.
"Here," Obi-Wan spits out, shoving the sweater into his chest and not daring to look the man in the face. "It matches your eyes."
From the corner of his eye, he sees the way Anakin's own face flushes as he gently holds the sweater up for inspection. He rubs the fabric between the fingers of his organic hand, curious. Obi-Wan's lips twitch into a real, genuine smile, watching Anakin shrug into the sweater with apparent delight.
"Thank you," the other man says, ducking his head shyly. "It—it fits well."
"It looks good on you," Obi-Wan replies, swallowing dryly. Their eyes meet for just a moment, and what they see leaves them scrambling to return to their previous activities. Neither is paying their tasks the full attention now, however.
"You idiot—" Obi-Wan thinks he hears Anakin mutter, but doesn't ask after the man's self-flagellation. He's too busy berating himself with exactly those same words.
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