#i can draw dumb little comics like nobodies business

[toasty-owl-arts]

this fic is making me go bonkers off the wall (affectionate)

fic is Getaway Car by @ranger-kellyn go read it right now because i cannot be the only person being given brainrot over this fic it makes me experience emotions

[antigonick]

Pauline, I was wondering if you knew when to grow up. I don't or atleast I don't know where and how to draw the line, to shut off the silly mode on command and not take four days to shift into a more responsible one. I never seem to feel like a grown up while talking to my professors, it /always/ feels like I'm back in grade three and brought my toys to the last day of school and am hoping the teacher doesn't mind it. How do you stop feeling that way and instead act like an adult person?

I’m not sure what to say. I think there are distinctions to be made. First, the idea that you go from child to grown-up like you would take a step on a staircase is fallacious. Of course society has to give people rights and duties and independence at some point, but it’s a status, not a state.

Secondly, pretty much every “adult” I know (me included) still wonder at the fact that “being an adult” really is just being a kid, though with a fuckload of invoices to pay. Okay, maybe a little more experience in the things we do often, and hopefully a little more patience and benevolence towards others, but that’s about it. And not letting go of that is a good thing in my book. Keeps you grounded. Keeps you happy. Keeps you sincere. Keeps you creative and silly and wonder-ready.

Not long ago, my brother and I chatted about the gap between our perception of “adults” and “old people” (so, like, 20-somethings) when we were 10 and our perception of ourselves (and our “adults”) now. It’s such a strange distorted thing. The older I get, the more I buy “silly” gifts to my parents for Christmas, comics and animal onesies and glittered cake tins rather than serious cravates and fancy scarves—and they get stupid excited too. You should see them (and us) during card games: if we’re not still mentally in 3rd grade, I don’t know who is. I mean, these are dumb examples and reductive, I know, but what I want to show is: there’s no gap. People who pride themselves on having squashed their inner kid to hell are either lying to you because it’s none of your business, or very very dull.

And chatting with someone who is your superior (status-wise, or age-wise, or knowledge-wise) will always have you feeling like a kid talking to an adult. It’s the optical illusion of distance, of non-intimacy, of hierarchy.

So. Silliness is good. It doesn’t stop with age. And it’s not the same as “childishness”, which for me has more to do with being petty and close-minded. Now, in your message, you seem to equate silliness with immaturity, and I don’t think it is. Knowing when to be serious has nothing to do with age, or silliness, or what have you—children know when to be serious too. You just need to pay attention to social cues. If you’re in class, if you’re with someone you don’t know, or with whom you have a professional relationship, someone who could judge you or hurt you if you’re acting too casual, in any environment that demands restraint, well... either you abide to that, or you don’t. But obviously there are consequences to that decision. You can’t control what other people will think of you—you can just do some damage control by keeping a leash on your behaviour. And it’s not about growing up, it’s about basic discipline. I can’t give you a “when” or a “how”: the very fact that you’re asking means you know “when” and “how” you should have acted differently, and potentially that your faux-pas have come back to bite you in the ass before. It’s okay: nobody cares. Most likely, your self-consciousness si blowing the sense of your own ridicule out of proportions and people have already forgotten about how you acted, or better yet, found it charming. But if you regret it, and you feel bad about it, then there’s nothing more to do than learn your lesson and not do the same mistake again.

[mst3kproject]

Exo-Man

Failed series pilots were very much part of MST3K’s stock in trade.  We’ve sat through San Francisco International, Stranded in Space, Code Name: Diamond Head and I’m sure there were others.  I generally recall all of those movies being kind of dull and lacking in personality, and I can’t imagine this 70’s superhero mess being much better.  I don’t think anybody in Exo-Man was ever on MST3K but Jose Ferrer (the first Latino actor to win an academy award, for 1950’s Cyrano de Bergerac) was once in a movie called Zoltan, Hound of Dracula, which I am deeply remiss in not having seen yet.  You may also recognize Harry Morgan, who was Colonel Potter on M*A*S*H.

Dr. Nick Conrad is a wacky physics professor of the type nobody has ever encountered in real life.  He’s somehow both smart enough to invent anti-gravity and memory plastic, and stupid enough to chase after a fleeing would-be bank robber.  The latter stunt, set to wakka-chicka Mitchell music, makes Nick the target of a mafia assassin, who kills his lab assistant and leaves Nick himself paralyzed from the waist down.  He wallows in self-pity for a while, but then rediscovers his passion for invention and builds himself a suit of armor that will allow him to walk again… and to take on the mob single-handedly.

I don’t know why they called the movie Exo-Man.  That name is never used in the dialogue.  I guess the more accurate Fiberglass Avenger just wouldn’t have sounded as cool.

The first thing you’re likely to notice from the plot summary is that Nick’s story starts off as Dr. Strange and then takes a hard left into Iron Man.  I’m pretty sure the latter at least was an intentional ripoff, with bits of the first thrown in, knowingly or not, to distance Exo-Man from Marvel’s lawyers. What’s funny is that posterity has actually made it a hat trick: the movie opens with a weirdly homoerotic jogging scene, so now he gets to be Captain America, too!

Exo-Man is a really stupid, often boring, and consistently ugly movie.  The actors are mediocre, the music bland, the effects terrible, and stuff is made to look ‘high tech’ by sticking lots of blinky lights on it.  Way too much time passes before we get to the action and when we do, we find a deep pit of disappointment.  Yet at the same time… I kind of enjoyed it.

A major part of why has got to be the incredibly dopey super-suit the main character wears, which looks less like ‘Iron Man’ and more like ‘Fiberglass Commando Cody’.  It moves really slowly and I doubt the guy in the costume can see very much.  Nick controls the bottom half of it using switches on one sleeve, which appear to have simple functions like ‘sit’, ‘walk’, and ‘jump’ (there is, of course, no ‘run,’ because nothing happens fast in this movie). He puts the thing on by lying down in what looks like a tanning bed (or maybe one of those contraptions from Avatar).  My personal favourite is the warning light labeled malfuntion.

All this is in a movie that sometimes manages to be surprisingly subtle.  We are introduced to Nick while jogging, we watch him play tennis with his girlfriend, and see him maintain this exercise regime even while he’s supposed to be under police protection.  These shots are in brilliant sunshine, and the camerawork is as active as the subjects. Post-injury, Nick never outwardly complains about his inability to participate in sports, but we now see him sitting in his wheelchair in dark surroundings, with the camera held perfectly still.  We feel that he has lost something he loved dearly, and we never need to be told it outright.

We are also introduced to Nick as somebody who is devored to furthering minorities.  His two lab assistants are an east Asian student and a Jewish one (the latter identified as such by a surname, rather than appearance), and the reason he was at the bank was to help a Latino student get a loan.  Again, the script trusts the audience to get this without having to draw attention to it through dialogue.  These minority characters are, of course, still just accessories to Nick’s story. The Jewish guy in particular is there to be fridged – its his death that leads to Nick flaunting his police protection and getting hurt.  But the effort was made to say that minority rights are important to Nick, without hitting us over the head with it.

Theme-wise, Exo-Man is about a man coming to terms with a disability.  I should preface this by saying that I am not disabled, so my perspective is necessarily biased.  If anything I say below is offensive, that is out of ignorance, and please let me know so that I may edit or delete the review and do better next time.  I was actually pretty impressed by how the script and director handled the life-changing nature of Nick’s injury… mostly.  I’ll start with the bad stuff.

The attack on Nick comes with a heaping helping of victim blaming.  As an important witness in the bank robbery, he was offered police protection.  The assassin tries to get around this by putting a bomb in his car, but one of the lab assistants borrows the car for a late-night pizza run, and gets killed in Nick’s stead.  This leads Nick to deliberately place himself in a vulnerable position, hoping to draw the killer out for capture and punishment.  In the hospital with a broken back, Nick blames the police for failing to protect him, but I’m pretty sure the movie wants us to think that this is really Nick’s own fault.  Like the tragic accident victims in Days of our Years, he has nobody to blame for his own misery, or that of his loved ones, except himself.

After that, however, the movie’s treatment of Nick’s disability improves quickly.  His girlfriend Emily leaves him, but that’s not because he’s in a wheelchair, it’s because he’s too busy wallowing in self-pity to even let her into his apartment. Later when he apologizes to her, she takes him back and they resume their happy relationship, and the fact that they can’t play tennis together anymore is not an issue.  She does not treat him as something to be pitied, she speaks to him on his eye level, and they avoid that weird trope of having the abled partner sit in the wheelchair-user’s lap.  Emily loves who Nick is, not what he can do.  His colleagues and students, likewise, treat him with respect and help him with his chair, and never make the latter feel like a burden.

By the end of the film Nick has come to terms with his disability.  The suit he’s built is not a cure for his condition: in fact the first time he wears it out, it breaks down and he needs help getting back to his high-tech armored van.  It’s a tool he has built for a purpose, and he doesn’t feel the need to wear it in non-superhero situations.  Based on what we see, he could have built a legs-only version to wear under his trousers and let him go jogging and play tennis again, but that is no longer who Nick is.  And when and whether to wear the suit is always Nick’s own choice, not something imposed on him from the outside.

Of course, it would also be really helpful in later maintaining Exo-Man’s secret identity, and I suspect the writers were thinking of that a lot more than they were of things like parents forcing questionable ‘cures’ on disabled children.  The secret identity probably would have been a big deal if the pilot had sold, but in this stand-alone story, I thought the suit worked well as a metaphor about a disabled man at peace with himself.

Exo-Man also takes a quick little peek at the morality of vigilante justice, although this comes in pretty late and clearly isn’t something they wanted to get into in any detail.  The first person Nick confronts in the suit is the assassin who actually beat him up. He says he didn’t go into this encounter with any real plan… perhaps he just wanted to scare the guy.  What ultimately happens is that the assassin climbs a drainpipe to get away from the terrifying robot man, the pipe comes off the wall, and the man falls to his death.  Nick feels this is his fault, and so the next time he takes the suit out he does so with a particular goal in mind: he wants to capture the mob boss and provide evidence of his wrongdoing to the police, not to kill anyone.

The mob boss’ name, by the way, is Kermit Haas, which is probably the least intimidating name a movie has ever given to its big bad.

Would that work?  Is evidence a guy in a robot suit left in your dumpster for you admissible in court?  Isn’t where stuff was found kind of important?  I honestly have no idea and I’m not sure how to go about finding out.  People might wonder why I want to know and I don’t think saying it’s for my blog would allay their suspicions.

At the end of Exo-Man, I was more entertained than not, but mostly on the level of laughing at the dumb-looking suit and appreciating the fine art of ripping off comic book characters.  If that’s your kind of thing then this movie ought to put the fun in malfuntion for you. If that’s not your thing, well… this is an MST3K blog.  What are you doing here?

[misakiusui07]

Astro As Members In A Group Project

MJ:

The one who never does any work

Just there for comic relief

Was once asked to cut pictures....kept on complaining

"Oh God there are too many I can't cut so much!!" "You just cut four" "WELL HOW MUCH DID YOU CUT MINHYUK?!?!" "Twelve!" a/n: I forgot the spelling of twelve and I had to look it up. Dumb me

Gets glue everywhere

Had a piece of paper with glue on it on his hand and when he turned around to ask Jinjin for more glue, smudged the glue on Sanha's hair a/n: getting glue on your hair sucks trust me

That just ended in Sanha running around the house with the glue to pour it on MJ's head

And that just resulted in more chaos

Literally Astro has forbidden him to do anything

But still does and makes everything messier

But has the cutest laugh and Astro cannot do anything but let him have his way

"Do you think I can melt all crayons in the microwave and then mix it and freeze it to make it a huge ball of multicolored crayon?" "MJ hyung no!"

Jinjin:

Astro would've stabbed each other with colour pencils if it weren't for him

The pacifier of the group

Everyone knows they wouldn't have been able to finish the project if it weren't for this little mouse

But that doesn't stop them from teasing him

"How's my drawing?" "Ugly"

When there's something kept on the top shelf : "Do you need help reaching that?" even though they can clearly see he reaches that

SLOOOOOWWWWWWW

Astro is always scolding him for it

"Hyung cut the pictures faster!" "I'M TRYING"

Cleans all the mess created by MJ and Sanha with Eunwoo after the work is over

Makes sure there's always snacks and drinks around so that nobody has to fight on who's gonna bring them

Silently listens to all of them complain

Concentrates the most deeply and is always satisfied with their work

"It's the time we spent together doing this that is more important than the project" "Try saying that to the teacher"

Eunwoo:

The info counter

Has a 20 page summary of their project topic

Makes such detailed plans that he himself cannot understand what he's doing

"Wait if you glue only the edges of a picture it looks better when you stick it" "NOBODY CARES EUNWOO"

Calculates and measures everything

Is the strategist of the group but he gets so engrossed in trying to decode what he had planned that he ends up doing nothing

"Hmmm.....now what am I supposed to do after I sharpen the colour pencils?" "IDK colour?"

When he does get to work though.... It's spectacular just like him

His drawing are the cutest. Absolutely adorable

And he knows it

Very very proud of his drawings

"You know MJ hyung you can actually make a giant crayon ball by melting and freezing" "DON'T ENCOURAGE HIM!!"

Moonbin:

Just wanted to work peacefully but with Sanha and MJ fooling around, he just can't focus

Picks up both MJ and Sanha, each on one shoulder and puts them in their right places as if that's enough to stop them but anyways

Eats. A lot.

Like, doesn't stop

Jinjin has to bring 4 packets of everything extra cause you don't know how much this guy can eat

Tries to talk with his mouth full with everybody stopping him

Ended up wrestling with Rocky for the last piece of chocolate

Very very frustrated while drawing

"WHY CAN'T I DRAW THIS UGHH"

Constantly worries about Roa

"Did she eat? Did she get enough food? Would she be fine?" "For heavens sake Binnie she's with your mother, she'll be fine!"

Dances while drawing

Ends up messing it up

And that gives us one pouty Binnie

"Canf I haf some movf??" "No more snacks for you Bin!"

Rocky:

Quiet rock minding his own business

Seriously just stays in one corner and does his work

Is actually the one who did all the work

Doesn't usually meddle with the chaos in the house

That is......until MJ dropped the entire container of water and paint on the drawing he took fifteen minutes to make

"WHAT THE HELL MJ HYUNG WHY CAN'T YOU SEE WHERE YOU'RE GOING I DON'T WANT TO DRAW THAT AGAIN"

Everyone falls silent when rocky gets pissed. They know hell's broken loose when minhyuk starts scolding

But considering Astro this doesn't last much longer

MJ and Sanha go back to their glue fight and Rocky goes back to drawing that poor picture again

Also stuffs his face

But is usually too engrossed in the task to remember eating

Didn't even realize it when Sanha stole his favorite chocolate bar out of his pocket

Also dances while drawing but still manages to make the drawing fabulous

Perfectionist extreme

"I think I should draw the eyebrows again they look asymmetrical...." "Minhyuk they're literally perfect"

Sanha:

Do I even have to say anything?

You already know this baby enough

Everything was going well for this young lad

But then he slightly cut his finger

And then the screaming started

Astro forbade him from doing anything after that

"But I want to contribute!" "Your contribution is moral support"

Sulky at first but then he realized that he could irritate his hyungs as much as he wanted

Thus, food got stolen, scissors went missing, and pretty much everyone got glue on their shoulders and hair

Then Astro realized that he should be given some work

And now, Sanha arranges the pictures and writing materials

Even though Eunwoo has to recheck everything again he does a pretty good job

"I think I should become a professional stuff-arranger!!" "IDK if that profession exists but good luck"

Uwu this was fun! Please give me more ideas I rarely get that light bulb

[thede-vil]

✏️ candice & hans

They meet when they’re pre-teens. Their families all ran in the same social circles, and their parents were friends who shmoozed at the country club together. Candice and Hans were always shoo’d off to go entertain themselves, and their initial friendship was born out of necessity rather than an actual desire to be friends. Candice gets bored easily, especially at those kinds of places, and she needed someone to keep her company and while she thought Hans was the most boring person she’d ever met he was the only person available. Plus he was a softie back then so it was easy to push him around. 

Thinks his various random skills like playing the oboe are weird as HELL, and kind of dorky. But if she ever needs an oboe player for some reason she’ll keep in mind that he used to be a try hard loser. 

Felt really really bad when his mom died. She and Hans hadn’t necessarily been all that close up until that point, but was at least aware that he really got along with his mom. She had her butler send flowers to his house, which is more effort than she gave for literally anything else. 

Hans showed up at Gaston’s tavern one day and Candice was honestly a little surprised. But it made sense why he’d want to drown his sorrows in alcohol, his mom did die and he was stuck with his fifty asshole brothers. She was pleasantly surprised that Hans seemed more angry than anything, and was grateful that she and Gaston didn’t really have to try to be supportive friends who offered sympathy solely because....how does one even do that yanno? She won’t ever tell Hans this but she’s proud of him for finally realizing that bending over backwards to please other people is stupid and a waste of time. He was always way too smart to be the weak people pleasing type, she’s always felt it was a shame he was so nice before. 

Doesn’t know where he’s gonna’ find a princess to marry/dupe into stealing their kingdom??? But she sure does support him like nobody else’s business. She doesn’t think there’s such thing as too much ambition and is kind of glad someone else has plans of world domination -- even if her world domination centers more around business than politics. 

Candice is hyper aware that Hans has only really been in her life for the past few years but he’s honestly one of her best friends and they blend so well together she can’t believe they hadn’t been best friends for longer. Not to be sentimental but she thinks he’s a phenomenal fit for her and Gaston’s little narcissist club. Her only regret is that he wasn’t a dickhead sooner because she knows they could have had some fun messing with people in high school and college. 

Hans gets a lot of random 2 AM calls when the insomnia is kicking her ass. She just needs someone to talk to her about something, anything, since she can’t sleep. It’s nice that he’s almost always there when she needs him to be. 

During a really bad episode she spent three grand on pottery equipment at like three in the morning. She can’t ever explain those impulse purchases to him, but he did have to listen to her go on about how she has so much energy and creativity and she’s a fucking goddess on these days man. She can do anything. She’ll conquer it all, nothing can stop her.  She makes him promise to teach her how to make bowls or whatever the fuck it is he does. When all the stuff got delivered next day she was still feeling strangely high on life and ready to go. They made one flower pot together and she kept at it for maybe two more days. She later asked Hans if he wanted all her pottery crap because she suddenly had no interest in it anymore. 

Draws a lot of pictures of him. Clearly she’s an artist, she works in fashion, so drawing is a skill of hers that many people know about. What people don’t know is she’s got a closet full of sketch pads filled to the brim with all sorts of doodles and drawings, some are pretty grotesque and border on horror comic strip images. But others are full fledged portraits of her friends or places and things she finds particularly beautiful. She draws Hans a lot because she thinks he’s beautiful, and he’s egotistical enough to not be bothered by it. 

One Christmas she paints him a huge portrait of him and gets it framed so he can have a dramatic ass portrait hanging in his home like the king he is. 

Takes him shopping with her often because sometimes she wants the company, but it’s also nice to have more friends who are as well dressed as she is. 

There are only two people on this planet she is extremely comfortable with; Gaston is obviously the first one and Hans is the second. Has no problem with walking around him either completely nude or in her under wear, often sits on his lap and he’s one of the only people allowed to touch her ever. Don’t ask her when he got to be so special and privileged but he is. 

Took Hans and Gaston to fashion week with her and they had all ball. She’s always wanted to go, for obvious reasons, but Corona had that stupid no outsiders rule so she couldn’t ever come back if she left. But the first year that ban was lifted and she got invited, she wasted no time in booking them flights. It was very special to her that she got to share a business and a personal first with her two favorite people. 

Always one of the first to hear about good news, and it’s not in a gloating way as it is with a lot of people, it’s a genuine kind of excited “i wanna share this moment with you” way. 

He’s often her plus one to events because there aren’t many other people she likes spending her time with. Plus they photograph very well together.

She’ll get him to flip out on someone one of these days. She knows she’s got it in him, and she’s just patiently waiting to push the right buttons at the right time. 

Thinks Hans Isles is a dumb name and when they get platonically married for wealth sharing purposes she’s not taking his name. Hyper aware that they’re probably both not seriously going to marry each other in the future, because maybe Hans will fall in love and be happy or whatever. But she often jokes that their back up ‘you can be my trophy husband if nation ruling doesn’t work’ plan is going to come with a stipulation that she is not under any circumstances taking his name. 

[kittieswritingspot]

The Long Road

SEASON 1 EPISODE 4: VATOS

A/N: for those of you who are new - thank you for reading and welcome to kittieswritingspot!  This is the second chapter of The Long Road, a Walking Dead fanfic based off the script with the addition of an OC of mine.  Some plot lines will be different to incorporate her, some lines will get mixed up (just fyi), some original scenes will be included to make up for unaccounted time.   Chapters are long but I appreciate your time!  I hope y’all enjoy!

Warnings: again this is SUPER LONG; swearing; blood, gore, the usual zombie apocalypse stuff; also, grammatical and spelling errors (I’m counting it! It bothers me and might bother some of y’all)

Pairing: Daryl Dixon x OC (eventually…like a long ways down the road. Get it? Lol I entertain myself)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This can’t be happening. What the fuck is going on right now? He can’t be dead, what the fuck was he thinking?  Oh, of course, nothing.  He probably thought we left him for dead, I always knew he was like a goddamn animal…

Thoughts raced through Selene’s mind as she stared down at the severed hand on the rooftop.  She couldn’t seem to look away it all seemed too surreal.  If it wouldn’t have been so comical she would’ve pinched herself to make sure this wasn’t some terrible dream.  Sniffles from Daryl brought her back to the moment.  She couldn’t imagine what he was going through.  She was just about to turn to comfort him when he swung his crossbow up with a growl and aimed it at Glenn’s head.

Rick’s response was immediate.  Barely a second passed before his Python was drawn and pointed at Daryl’s head.  Glenn had immediately stilled, sweat dripped down his face and a slight whimper escaped his lips.  Selene was unsure of what to do.  All she could do was watch with her mouth agape, praying to whoever or whatever was listening that the situation did not get out of hand.

“I won’t hesitate,” Rick said softly, his voice and hand steady.  “I don’t care if every walker in the city hears it.”  Daryl hesitated for a second before nodding slightly and lowering his crossbow, giving Glenn a slightly apologetic look.  Glenn let out a shaky breath and nodded to Daryl.  

“You got a rag or somethin’?” Daryl asked Glenn quietly.  Glenn reached into his pocket and pulled out a blue rag. Daryl took it and opened it up on the rooftop.  “I guess the saw blade was too dull for the handcuffs,” he said, picking up Merle’s decaying hand and folding it up in the rag.  “Ain’t that a bitch.”

Standing up, he gestured to Glenn to turn around.  Glenn did with a look of disgust when he realized what Daryl was about to do.  Opening up the pack, Daryl put the hand on top of whatever else was in there before turning around to pick up his crossbow and survey the area.

“He must have used a tourniquet,” Daryl said, taking notice of the blood that had fallen.  “Maybe his belt,” he continued, starting to follow the blood trail.  “Be much more blood if he didn’t.”  The group followed him as he followed the trail of blood to another set of stairs.  Glenn followed last after gathering up Dale’s tools that had been left behind with Merle. Selene let Rick follow Daryl, wanting to check up on her friend.

“Hey,” she said softly, grasping Glenn’s hand softly, “you okay?”

“Yeah,” Glen nodded, a small laugh escaping.  “I thought I was dead for a second there.”

“He wouldn’t have done it,” Selene replied.  “He was just acting out.  Besides, Rick wouldn’t have let him.”

“Why do you do that?”  Glenn questioned her.  His eyes searched her face; trying to see behind the wall she always had up.  “Why do you always back him up?”  His accusatory tone made her take a small step back.  Releasing his hand, she turned away from him, the wind blowing her hair in her face. She could hear Daryl calling for Merle in the stairway below.

“We should catch up,” she muttered, starting forward toward the door.

“Just tell me why Selene,” Glenn insisted, grabbing her hand, pulling her around to face him again.

“He saved my life Glenn,” she said with tears in her eyes.  “He didn’t have to, but him and his dumbass brother both went out of their way to save my life.  I owe them everything.”  She pulled her hand out of his and wiped the tears away before they could fall.  “I’m sorry,” she whispered, once again turning away from him, “he didn’t mean it, I know he didn’t.”  She walked away from him without waiting for a response, hurrying through the door to follow Rick and Daryl.  

“I know,” Glenn said to himself, sighing before following her through the door and down the stairs.

Selene caught up to Rick and Daryl in a kitchen where they were examining a lit stove and what looked like an old fashioned iron with burnt bits stuck to it.  Next to that was a bloodied belt.

“What’s that burned stuff?”  She asked, taking a step closer to examine it thoroughly.

“Skin,” Rick said, causing her to take a step back and retch a little.  “He cauterized the stump.”

“Told you he was tough,” Daryl spoke up, his eyes scanning the room, resting briefly on Selene as she dry heaved in the corner.  “Nobody can kill Merle but Merle.”  He moved on when he saw Glenn catch up and rub Selene’s back, helping her fight the revulsion.

“Don’t take that on faith,” Rick replied, also looking around.  “He’s lost a lot of blood.”

“Yeah?” Daryl scoffed, reloading his crossbow with a loud click.  He walked around again and stopped at a smashed window he had missed earlier.  “Didn’t stop him from busting out of this death trap.”

“He left the building?” Glenn asked, looking up from Selene as she gave him a thumbs up.  “Why the hell would he do that?”  The group gathered around the window to contemplate the possibilities.

“Why wouldn’t he?” Daryl retorted.  “He’s out there alone as far as he knows, doing what he’s got to do. Surviving.”

“You call that surviving?” Glenn asked incredulously.  “Just wandering out in the streets, maybe passing out?  What are his odds out there?”  He gestured to the broken window.

“No worse than being handcuffed and left to rot by you sorry pricks,” Daryl sneered at him.  “You couldn’t kill him.  Ain’t so worried about some dumb dead bastard.”

“What about a thousand dumb dead bastards?” Rick snapped back, stepping close to Daryl.  “Different story?”

“Why you don’t take a tally?” Daryl spat back.  “Do what you want.  I’m gonna go get him.”  Selene rolled her eyes and leaned against the wall, waiting for the posturing to end. At the same time, Rick blocked Daryl’s path.

“Daryl,” Rick said, “wait.”

“Get your hands off me!” Daryl shouted.  “You can’t stop me.”

“I don’t blame you,” Rick reasoned, still blocking the way.  “He’s family, I get that.  I went through hell to find mine.  I know exactly how you feel.  He can’t get far with that injury.  We could help you check a few blocks around but only if we keep a level head.”

Daryl glanced at Selene briefly, watching her nod along with Rick’s words. “I could do that,” he said calmly.

“Only if we get those guns first Rick,” Selene interjected.  “I ain’t walking through those hordes with just my pistol and bow.”  Rick and Daryl both looked back at her before exchanging a glance.  They nodded, knowing that the smarter move was to look for the guns for added protection before facing the walker infested streets below.  

“Alright,” Rick started.  “So how to we go about getting those guns?”  He looked over at Glenn who was already deep in thought.

“Here, I have an idea,” Glenn said with a nod.  “Give me a sec’.”  He moved off into an office-like space to plan.  Rick followed him with Selene just behind him.  Daryl grabbed her arm, pulling her back, and waited until Rick disappeared through the entryway.

“You alright?”  He asked Selene, pulling her around to look at her face.  

“I’m okay,” she nodded, pushing her hair out of her face.  He studied her for a second, taking in her pasty appearance and the quiver in her lip.  

“Okay,” he mumbled before pushing past her to follow the others into the room. If she didn’t want to tell him, that was her business.  And besides, she did seem fine.  When he entered the room, he saw a crude map Glenn had drawn on the floor, with small office supplied standing in as landmarks.

“I can go get the guns on my own,” he was saying, starting to point out his plan to Rick.  

“You’re not doing this alone,” Selene said sternly, standing next to Daryl who was leaning backwards against a desk.  Placing her bow on the desk, she crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes at Glenn.

“Even I think that’s a bad idea, and I don’t even like you much,” Daryl offered.

“It’s a good idea okay,” Glenn sighed, “if you just hear me out.  If we go out there in a group, we’re slow, drawing attention.  If I’m alone, I can move fast.”  He started pointing out the different markers on the map as he explained.  “Look.  That’s the tank, five blocks from where we are now.  That’s the bag of guns.”  He pointed to an empty corridor on the map.  “Here’s the alley I dragged you into when we first met,” he said to Rick. “That’s where Daryl and I will go.”

“Why me?” Daryl asked.

“Your crossbow is quieter than his gun,” Glenn explained.  “Selene can cover Rick with her bow.  While Daryl waits here in the alley, I run up the street, grab the bag.”

“You got us elsewhere?” Rick questioned, wanting to get all the details down.

“You two will be in this alley here,” Glenn answered, pointing to another offshoot from the main road.

“Two blocks away?” Rick asked, exchanging a confused look with Selene. “Why?”

“I may not be able to come back the same way,” Glenn said matter of factly. “Walkers might cut me off. If that happens, I won’t go back to Daryl.  I’ll go forward instead, all the way around to that alley where you guys are. Whichever direction I go, I got you in both places to cover me.  Afterwards, we’ll all meet back here.”  The other three looked at each other and nodded, somewhat surprised at the depth behind the plan.

“Hey, kid, what’d you do before all this?” Daryl asked him.

“Delivered pizzas,” Glenn replied before stopping to think about the question. “Why?”  

Selene snorted with laughter while Daryl and Rick exchanged amused looks before nodding to each other.  She laughed again when Glenn looked at her questioningly.  

“Don’t worry about it,” she giggled, picking up her bow off the desk. Glenn’s brow was still furrowed with confusion when they started to make their way out of the building via the fire escape.  Rick went down first, followed by Glenn, then Daryl, and finally Selene.  When they all reached the street the pairs split up, taking off in opposite directions to their respective locations.  Briefly before leaving, Daryl had placed a hand on Selene’s shoulder and nodded to her, turning away quickly and charging down the alleyway.

“So what’s with the two of you?” Rick asked her quietly when they reached their alleyway.

“What d’ya mean?” she responded, confused as to what he was talking about. The only thing running through her mind was to keep an eye out and her ears open for walkers.  

“You and Daryl,” Rick pushed, also standing ready to fight, his gun in his hand.

“What? Nothing,” she replied in an annoyed whisper.  His question surprised her when she finally understood what he was talking about.  

“Well it’s just that sometimes you two seem pretty close,” he continued, his eyes scanning the road.

“Rick,” she said between gritted teeth, “is this really the time?  There’s nothing.  He, his brother, and I were on the road together before we met up with the rest of the camp, you just grow close with that sort of thing.  We’re like brothers…except that I’m a girl so I’m probably more like a sister.”  She shook her head at the ridiculousness of the situation.  “Do you seriously want to have a conversation like this at a time like this?”

“Well I just thought we’d pass the time,” he said with a huff of laughter. “Didn’t mean to get you all riled up.”

“I am not,” Selene shot back, her voice rising.  “I swear to God, if Merle doesn’t kick your ass when we find him, I just might.”

“I know,” Rick snorted, “the way you took down Shane, I wouldn’t be surprised if you were able to take me down as well.”  Selene smirked at that and was about to reply when they heard an unfamiliar voice yelling from the direction of the alley Daryl and Glenn were in. Exchanging a terrified glance, they took off towards the alley, afraid of what they would find.  More yells erupted as they raced down the alley, Daryl’s and Glenn’s voices added to cacophony of sound.  

When Selene and Rick reached the end of the alley, they saw Daryl against a chain-link gate that was blocking the end of the alley, keeping a group of walkers out.  The bag of guns, along with a sheriff’s hat on the ground next to him, a Mexican kid they didn’t recognize and no Glenn.  Daryl was shouting after a car that was speeding down the road and out of sight.

Selene stopped just short of the kid, aiming an arrow at his head.  “What the fuck is going on?” she growled at him. Rick had run on past the kid, towards Daryl, stopping Daryl from turning around and running after the kid, probably to beat him up.

“Woah, woah, woah,” Rick said loudly, trying to get his voice over Daryl’s. “Stop it!”

“I’m gonna kick your nuts up in your throat!” Daryl threatened the boy. The boy turned as if to run, only to remember that Selene was still standing their, bow raised and ready to fire.

“Get out of my way,” the kid said, trying to side step Selene.

“Chill out,” she replied, following his every move.

“They took Glenn,” Daryl yelled from the end of the alley.  Rick was still trying to hold him back.  “That little bastard and his little bastard homie friends.  I’m gonna stomp your ass!”  Daryl made a motion as if to kick the kid and Rick took that opportunity to push Daryl back, forcing him to stop his tirade to regain his balance.

“Come on guys!” Selene called, her arm was tiring from holding her bow at the ready for so long.  “We’re cut off, we gotta go!”  Rick turned to her and nodded up the alley.

“Get back to the room.  Go.”

Selene nodded and put down her bow, grabbing the kid’s arm before he could run off and leading him to the fire escape ladder.  She pushed him up first and followed him, checking to make sure that Rick and Daryl were following.  They were a few yards behind her, Daryl had his crossbow slung across his back and Rick was hauling the heavy bag of guns up the ladder, his Sheriff’s hat on top of his head.

When they reached the room Selene drew her gun on the kid and motioned for him to sit in one of the chairs.  She stood there watching him until Daryl and Rick made it through the window.  Putting their weapons down, Rick took over questioning the kid.  

“Those men you were with,” he started, leaning in close to kid’s face, “we need to know where they went.”  Selene imagined this is what it looked like when Rick was interrogating people for his job.

“I ain’t telling you nothing,” the kid spit at him, looking defiantly into Rick’s eyes.  Selene wasn’t fooled though, she had had a younger brother, and she knew when kids were covering up fear with bravado.  

“What the hell happened down there?” she questioned Daryl, pulling her gaze away from the interrogation happening in front of her.  

“I told you!” Daryl exploded; all his pacing back and forth was doing nothing to calm him down.  “This little turd and his douchebag friends came out of nowhere and jumped me.”

“You’re the one who jumped me, puto,” the kid fired back, “screaming about trying to find his brother like it’s my damn fault.”  

“They took Glenn,” Daryl said to Rick, “could have taken Merle too.”

“Merle?” the kid asked with a laugh.  “What kind of hick name is that?  I wouldn’t name my dog Merle.”

Selene couldn’t help herself when she snorted with laughter.  Daryl ignored her as he went to kick the kid in the face, only to be stopped by Rick pushing him back.

“Dammit Daryl, back off,” Rick huffed, holding him back with his arm outstretched.  Daryl glared at Rick for a second before an idea came to him.  Crossing to where Glenn had stashed his bag, he rummaged through it until he brought out the folded up rag.  Glancing at Selene, he unwrapped Merle’s hand.  

“Want to see what happened to the last guy that pissed me off?” Daryl threatened as he threw the hand into the kid’s lap.  It took a moment for the kid to realize what he was looking at but when he did, he freaked out and fell out of the chair in an attempt to get away.  

“Start with the feet this time,” Daryl taunted, pulling on the front of the kid’s wife beater while the kid whimpered in fear.  Both Rick and Selene pulled Daryl off the kid.  She held him back while Rick turned his attention back to the kid.  

“The men you were with took our friend,” he said calmly.  “All we want to do is talk to them, see if we can work something out.”

The kid nodded meekly, still staring at the hand that had landed on the floor.  “They’re at a building a few blocks from here,” he said shakily, “I can take you there.”

“Okay,” Rick nodded, “let’s go.”  Selene had started to remove her pack from her shoulders when a hand stopped her movement.

“I think you should stay here,” Daryl’s gruff voice said behind her.  “We dunno what we’re getting into.”

“You’re kidding me,” she scoffed, turning to look at him.  “You had no problem with me coming along on this run to begin with.  Why’s this any different?”

Daryl just stood there a moment, staring at her, chewing on his lip.  Rick had the kid by the arm, already halfway out the room when he turned to look at the pair, a look of urgency on his face. Flicking her eyes to him, Selene nodded knowing that time was short.  Whatever complex Dixon was having right now, she brushed it aside; Glenn needed to be saved.

“We don’t have time for this Daryl,” she snapped, jerking him out of his thoughts.  “We need to save Glenn.”  She readjusted her quiver and reached around him for her bow, feeling his gaze bore into her.

“Fine,” he said with a sneer.  “You do what you want.  See if I care.”

She snorted at his remark.  It wasn’t the first time she heard a sentiment similar to that from him.  The first time it happened, she had taken it seriously and started packing up to leave.  The more she thought about it though, the angrier she got and by the time she was packed up to leave, she swung a fist at him instead, effectively putting an end to his sourness at her.  It would pass, it always did.  Besides, Glenn was her friend and she wasn’t about to leave him to a bunch of assholes.

She brushed passed him to follow Rick out the door, discussing the strategy they would use when they reached the hideout of the kid’s buddies.  Daryl caught up with them when they reached the street; by then Rick and Selene already had a plan in place.  Judging by the kid’s reaction to certain guesses they were making, they figured out that the hideout was pretty well fortified and that there were a lot more of his friends than they had originally thought.

“So Daryl and I’ll take the kid up to the door,” Rick was saying when Daryl caught up.  “You’ll keep an lookout from a vantage point and cover us.”

“Sounds good,” Selene replied, “I won’t let you down.”

Daryl brushed against her arm as he walked past her to catch up with Rick, pushing the kid along the road.  It wasn’t long until they reached a cluster of buildings.  One in particular stood out, a strong door completing the look of the fortress-like appearance.  Rick briefly pointed out a smaller building with a direct line of sight to the clearing in front of the door.  Selene nodded stiffly, feeling her heart pounding in her chest.  She reached into the bag and found a rifle, running her hands over it; she familiarized herself with it while Rick readied himself with a shotgun.  She could feel agitation rolling off of Daryl who stood next to her, leaning against a crumbling brick wall.  He was chewing on his lip while keeping an eye on the kid, who was sitting on the grass at Daryl’s feet.  

“You sure you’re up for this?” Rick asked her, noticing her nervousness.

“Yeah,” she replied, exhaling a breath she didn’t realize she was holding.

“You know how to use that?” Rick continued.  Selene shot him a look before realizing he didn’t mean it in an insulting way.

“Yeah,” she said, “used to go hunting with my dad.  It’s just been awhile, is all.”  Rick nodded to her, placing a reassuring hand on her shoulder before sending her off.  Sparing a look at Daryl, she grabbed the duffel bag and walked away towards the building Rick had indicated earlier.  She could hear the other three talking, something about the leader of the kid’s group.  Picking up the pace, she jogged to the entrance of the building, hoping to get in position before they made their move.  The duffel bag slowed her down as she raced up the stairs.  By the time she reached the roof, she was huffing and a pain was stuck in her side.  Guess I gotta start working out more, she thought to herself with a grim smile.  Placing the duffel bag on the rooftop, she found her vantage point and got in position.  The rifle rested heavily in her hands as she peered through the scope.  

Rick and Daryl had the kid in front of them, and the doors to the fortress were slowly opening.  Taking a deep breath to steady herself Selene watched the events unfold in front of her, wishing she could be down there with them.  She knew that Rick was right, however, Daryl was the more logical choice to have down there and they did need someone to cover them.  It didn’t mean she had to like it though.  Shaking her head to clear her thoughts, she went back to the task at hand.  They were talking with a rather skinny Mexican guy.  She couldn’t hear what was said but it didn’t look like they were making a lot of progress.  

Suddenly, two other guys came out of the door, one holding a rag to his ass, limping a little.  He was gesturing towards Daryl with his gun, accusing him of something.  Selene tensed, her finger edging closer to the trigger until it looked like the leader was telling his man to calm down.  She took a deep breath to calm her nerves. More talking…more gesturing.  What’s taking so long?  She was getting impatient.  At one point, Rick tilted his head in her direction, the leader following his gaze, spotting her and smirking.

“Come on, asshole,” she muttered, adjusting her grip on the rifle.  “Just make the fucking trade.”

She saw the leader call out and two men appeared at the edge of the roof of the fortress above her, a bound and gagged Glenn between them.  Terror pasted itself to his features; his breathing was erratic and he was visibly shaking at his predicament.  Fuck, Selene thought, her heart racing at the sight.  Tearing her eyes away from Glenn, she forced herself to focus on the situation on the ground.  A few more words were exchanged before the groups backed away from each other, the kid still in their custody, Glenn still in the hands of the gang.  Growling in frustration, she stood up and headed back down to the ground to meet up with Rick and Daryl.

------

“We need to regroup,” Rick said tersely, leading them out of the immediate area.  

“What the fuck is going on?” Selene asked as Daryl stomped off to a nearby building.  

“We were given an ultimatum,” Rick replied, pushing the kid along and following Daryl.  “We give them the kid and the guns or we go out shooting.”  Once they got inside Rick pushed the kid down onto the floor and told him to stay there.  He then opened the duffel bag and started to divide up the guns.  Selene was still trying to process what Rick had told her, only looking up when a conversation started.

“Them guns are worth more than gold,” Daryl spoke up, pacing slightly back and forth in front of the desk Rick was working on. “Gold won’t protect your family or put food on the table.  You’re gonna give that up for that kid?”

“You’re kidding me right?” Selene snapped at him, stopping him in his tracks.  “This is Glenn we’re talking about.  The only question is whether or not we can make sure that Vato keeps his word.”

“You calling G a liar?” the kid accused from the floor.

“Are you a part of this?” Daryl yelled at him, slapping his head.  “You want to hold on to your teeth?”

“Do you think he’ll keep his word?” Selene pushed Rick.

“No,” Daryl interrupted, “the question is what are you willing to bet on it?  Could be more than them guns.  Could be your life.  Glenn worth that to you?”

“What life I have I owe to him,” Rick said, stopping Selene before she could launch back at Daryl.  “I was nobody to Glenn, just some idiot stuck in a tank.  He could have walked away, but he didn’t. Neither will I.”

“So you’re gonna hand the guns over?” Daryl asked incredulously.

“I didn’t say that,” Rick replied with a shake of his head.  “There’s nothing keeping you two here.  You should get out, head back to camp.”

“And tell your family what?” Selene asked heavily, her head in her hands.  She peeked up from between her fingers at Rick, waiting for some sort of decision to be made.  She already knew that she was going to do whatever she could to help get Glenn back; she just hoped she wouldn’t have to do it alone.  After looking at her, Rick turned his gaze back to Daryl.  There was a moment’s hesitation, where Daryl mulled over the situation in his head, before he finally nodded, reaching forward to grab a shotgun offered by Rick.  Selene also reached over and plucked a shotgun off the table, checking to see that it was loaded and familiarizing herself with the weight.  

“Come on,” the kid whined, “this is nuts.  Just do like G says.”  He started to rise up from the floor as if to confront the three of them but was stopped when Daryl motioned for him to sit back down. Realizing that there was nothing he could do to change their mind, the kid sat there quietly, hoping that it wouldn’t go south.

“Come on, let’s go,” Rick said when they were thoroughly armed.  To prevent the kid from messing with negotiations, his hands were tied behind his back and a thick rag was tied around his mouth, courtesy of Daryl.  It hardly seemed necessary to Selene; she thought it was pretty obvious what they intended to do.  Slinging the duffel bag across this back, Rick led the way back to the fortress, his gun pushing the kid forward every step of the way.  

As they approached the fortress, the doors opened and they stepped over the threshold.  Selene could feel her heart beating rapidly in her chest and her hands starting to sweat. Hearing her shaky breath, Daryl glanced over at her and gave her a reassuring nod.  Just wanting it to be over, she gave a slight nod back, not really looking at him as she took in the sight before her.  There were at least two dozen Vatos surrounding them, each of them armed.  The leader, Guillermo, stepped out from the group to address them.

“I see my guns but they’re not all in the bag,” he said to Rick, gesturing to the guns they held.

“That’s because they’re not yours,” Rick replied, tilting his head slightly. “I thought I mentioned that.”

Christ, Selene thought, shaking her head internally, is this really the time to be a smart ass Rick?

“Let’s just shoot these fools right now, ese, all right?” the same wounded man from earlier shouted.  “Unload on their asses, ese.”  He was directly in front of her, waving his outstretched gun at them.  Selene could feel her skin prickling at the thought of the danger they were in.  Surrounded, in a fortress, with two dozen guns pointed at them, if not more.  They would be lucky to get out of this alive. Her heart hammered in her chest and it took everything in her to take slow, measured breaths and exude the same calm she felt from both Rick and Daryl.

Ignoring his henchman, Guillermo continued to speak to Rick, “I don’t think you fully appreciate the gravity of the situation.”

“No, I’m pretty clear,” Rick retorted.  After a moment’s hesitation, Rick lowered his shotgun to cut the kid free. Without looking back, the kid disappeared into the gang.  Quickly putting his knife away, Rick once again raised his gun.  “You have your man; I want mine.”

A visibly agitated Guillermo pushed back, “I’m gonna chop up your boy. I’m gonna feed him to my dogs. They’re the evilest, nastiest man-eating bitches you ever saw.  I picked them up from Satan at a yard sale.  I told you how it has to be, are you woefully deaf?”  He was moving constantly, stepping from foot to foot as he attempted to intimidate Rick.  

At the mention of Glenn, Selene gasped softly, just loud enough for Daryl to hear.  He took a quick glance at her and saw her pale, her stance faltered and her gun dropped ever so slightly.  He immediately stepped next to her, under the guise of getting a better angle to cover Rick. The movement caused her to look up at him and when she did, he quickly shook his head.  He needed her head in the game, they all did, or they wouldn’t stand a chance.  She gave a small nod of understanding and took a deep breath, forcing herself to get back into the situation at hand.

“No,” Rick was saying, “my hearing’s fine.  You said come locked and loaded.”  Daryl and Selene took that as a cue and immediately cocked their shotguns, taking aim at the closest of the Vatos.  “Okay then, we’re here.”  The Vatos reacted instantly, moving the circle closer and aiming their weapons as well. The tension in the air was thick, each side waiting for the other to make the wrong move.  Selene’s finger moved to hover over the trigger, all thought of Glenn momentarily gone from her mind.  The only thing that mattered in this moment was how to get out of this alive, and if she were to be honest, she didn’t think they had a chance in hell.  

Suddenly, a feeble voice called from behind the wall of Vatos, “Felipe! Felipe!”  It sounded like an old woman.

“Abuela,” the injured Vato in front of Selene said when the old woman appeared next to him, “go back with the others…now.”

Others?  Selene tilted her head, trying to assess the situation.  Chancing a glance at Rick, she saw confusion spread across his face.

“Get that old lady out of the line of fire!” Daryl yelled, gun still raised and ready to shoot.

“Abuela, listen to your mijo, okay?” Guillermo said to her, annoyance crossing his face.  “This is not the place for you right now.”

Not listening to anyone, the old lady tugged on Felipe’s sleeve, forcing him to look at her, “Mr. Gilbert is having trouble breathing.  He needs his asthma stuff.  Carlitos didn’t find it.  He needs his medicine.”

What the fuck is going on right now? Selene thought to herself.  Like Rick, she was slowly lowering her gun. Sure, it could be some kind of elaborate ruse, but would these guys really be so cold hearted as to use an old lady to lure them into lowering their guns?

“Felipe, go take care of it, okay?  And take your grandmother with you.”  Guillermo was visibly annoyed now.  This didn’t seem like it was part of any plan.  Felipe turned to his grandmother to speak to her.

“Abuela!  Ven conmigo por favor.”

Completely ignoring Felipe, the old lady turned to look at Rick, Daryl, and Selene, her eyes widening as if she was only noticing them now.  “Who are those people?” she asked Felipe

Shaking his head, and trying to lead her away, Felipe said more urgently, “por favor, ven conmigo.”

“Don’t you take him,” she suddenly spoke up, walking towards Rick while gesturing to Felipe, a stern look on her face.

Taking an uncertain glance around, Rick questioned her, “ma’am?”

“Felipe’s a good boy,” the old lady said, “he has his trouble but he pulls himself together.  We need him here.”  Rick sighed, looking as if he were trying to figure out how to deal with the situation. With Rick letting down his guard, Selene brought her gun back up again, training it on Guillermo, who was looking very tense at the exchange.

“Ma’am,” he said, lowering his gun, “I’m not here to arrest your grandson.”

“Then what do you want him for?”

“He’s…” Rick struggled to figure out what to say, “he’s helping us find a missing person.  Fella named Glenn.”

“The Asian boy?” she questioned, understanding finding a way to her features. “He’s with Mr. Gilbert. Come.”  She walked closer to Rick to take his hand, which he obliged.  “Come, I’ll show you.”  Rick followed the old woman as she led him away, paying no mind to the air of hostility lingering.  Looking over at Daryl, Selene slowly lowered the gun, unsure of what to do.

“Let ‘em pass,” Guillermo said to the gang with an exasperated sigh. Things were obviously not going as he planned.  Daryl gestured for Selene to follow Rick first, allowing him to take up the rear.

Leaving the fortified area, they walked through a garden and up some stairs into another building.  Looking back at Daryl, they exchanged a confused look, still on edge, unsure if they were walking into a trap.  He still had his hands tight on the shotgun, his brow furrowed with concern. Following his lead, she kept alert to any movements around her, until they started passing room after room of elderly patients and attendees caring for them.  The more rooms they passed, the more it confused her.  What were the Vatos doing in a place like this?

There was a slight pause in the procession when Rick stopped to get a better look into one of the rooms they were passing.  Felipe walked past him to urge his grandmother onward, asking her to take him to whoever this Mr. Gilbert was.  They’re protecting these people?  Selene asked herself as realization dawned on her. Relief suddenly flooded through her, they had almost made a huge mistake.

Walking into a larger, auditorium-like room, they heard Felipe helping an elderly man who was wheezing.  They gathered around, almost missing Glenn who was standing there, watching the scene take place, not bound or gagged, a look of concern on his face. When Selene saw him, she breathed a sigh of relief and was surprised to feel all her muscles relax; she had no idea that she had been that tense for so long.

“What the hell is this?” Rick asked him in a hushed voice, confusion at the entire situation winning out.

“An asthma attack,” Glenn responded, eyes still on the old man. “Couldn’t get his breath all of a sudden.”

Annoyed at his nonchalance of the situation, Selene accusingly said, “we thought you were being eaten by dogs!”  Glenn looked around behind him, causing the Daryl, Rick, and Selene to follow his gaze.  There in a pink dog bed were three Chihuahuas.  Selene couldn’t do anything but shake her head at the ridiculousness, turning to walk away.  She wanted nothing more than to go up to Guillermo to beat the shit out of him for creating this conflict but decided against it.  Better to not make matters worse, especially not in front of the elderly people.  She paced back and forth, waiting for the next cue from Rick.  Daryl watched her out of the corner of his eye, also floored by the outcome of the day’s events.

Turning to Guillermo, Rick motioned a room adjacent to the hall, “could I have a word with you?”  Guillermo nodded and walked into the room, Rick right behind him and Daryl, Glenn, and Selene following closely.  Guillermo and Rick walked into the small room, with the other three hovering just inside the doorway to listen.  “You’re the dumbest son of a bitch I ever met,” Rick continued his hushed tirade once Guillermo leaned against a table to look at him.  “We walked in there ready to kill every last one of you.”

“Still might,” Selene muttered under her breath, still annoyed at the situation.  Daryl scoffed lightly and nudged her arm before turning his attention back to the conversation.

“Well I’m glad it didn’t go down that way,” Guillermo replied, a small smile on his face.

“If it had, that blood would be on my hands,” Rick said forcefully, trying to get his point across.

“Mine too,” Guillermo said with a sigh.  “We’d have fought back.  Wouldn’t be the first time we’ve had to.  Protect the food, the medicine.  What’s left of it.  These people, the old ones; the staff took off, just left ‘em here to die.  Me and Felipe are the only ones who stayed.”

“What are you,” Rick questioned, “doctors?”

Guillermo shook his head, looking at the ground before taking a breath and looking back up at Rick, “Felipe’s a nurse, a special care provider.  Me, I’m the custodian.”  

“What about the rest of your crew?” Rick asked.

“The Vatos trickle in to check on their parents, their grandparents,” Guillermo explained.  “They see how things are and most decide to stay.  It’s a good thing too.  We need the muscle.  The people we’ve encountered since things fell apart, the worst kind…plunderers, the kind that take by force.”

“That’s not who we are,” Rick pressed, gesturing to his small crew.

“How was I to know?” Guillermo ask, glancing at the three of them in the doorway.  “My people got attacked and you show up with Miguel hostage…appearances.”

“Guess the world changed,” Glenn said, shaking his head.

“No,” Guillermo looked at him, before addressing the room.  “It’s the same as it ever was.  The weak get taken.  So we do what we can here.  The Vatos work on those cars, talk about getting the old people out of the city. But most can’t even get to the bathroom by themselves, still, it keeps the crew busy, and that’s worth something. So we barred all the windows, welded all the doors shut except for one entrance.  The Vatos, they go out, scavenge what they can to keep us going. We watch the perimeter night and day and we wait.  The people here, they all look to me now.  I don’t even know why.”

“Because they can,” Rick said, a look of understanding on his face.  Selene understood where he was coming from; the way Guillermo held himself when he was in front of the Vatos was different than his demeanor in the small room.  He exuded confidence out there.  

Fake it til you make it, I guess, Selene thought to herself.  Rick’s movement caught her attention.  He was taking the duffle bag off his back and offering some of the guns and ammo in it to Guillermo, who took them with a grateful smile.  Daryl scoffed next to her and stalked out of the room.  She followed him, not wanting him to make a scene while they were still at the nursing home.

“Daryl,” she started, reaching out to grab his shoulder.  

“What?” he spat, turning to face her briefly.  She merely sighed and removed her hand; there was nothing she could say right now to calm him down.  Seeing she didn’t have anything to say, he spun around and continued walking back the way they had come in, muttering something under his breath. She followed him at a distance, allowing Glenn and Rick to catch up to them, which they did when she was just leaving the first building they were in.  

Beaming at Glenn, she threw an arm around his shoulders and stole his hat for a few minutes, happy to have her friend back.  They walked in silence back to the building they had left their gear in, becoming more cautious the further into the city they went.  Daryl was there waiting for them, his agitation mostly gone. He looked apologetically at Selene when she entered to gather her things but she ignored him, tired from the long and stressful day, wanting nothing more than to get back to camp and fall asleep.

“Ready to go?” Rick asked when everything had been packed up and slung over their shoulders.  They nodded in agreement and headed back out to the road, this time allowing their cautiousness to ease up the further they got from the center of the city.  Glenn chuckling to himself caught Selene’s attention as they walked back to the truck.  

“What?” she asked, looking at him as she walked.  He shook his head at first before gesturing to Rick who was walking on the other side of Glenn.

“Admit it,” he chuckled when Rick looked at him, “you only came back to Atlanta for the hat.”  Selene giggled, ignoring the huff of annoyance that came from her left.

Rick smiled, “don’t tell anybody.”

“You’ve given away half our guns and ammo,” Daryl finally spoke up in an annoyed voice, causing Selene to glare at him for ruining the fun.

“Not nearly half,” Rick replied in a weary tone.  

“For what?” Daryl continued, undeterred.  “Bunch of old farts who are gonna die off momentarily anyhow? Seriously, how long you think they got?”

“How long do any of us?” Selene retorted, staring at Daryl.  It took a moment for the two of them to realize that Rick and Glenn had stopped in their tracks.  

“Oh my God,” Glenn breathed.  Turning to look, Selene realized that they were where the truck was supposed to be only it wasn’t there.

“Where the hell’s our truck?” Daryl asked no one in particular.

“We left it right there,” Glenn said, desperation creeping into his voice.

“Who would take it?” Selene asked, looking around at Rick while trying to figure out who else could possibly be out here.

“Merle,” Rick growled, realization spreading across his features.

“He’s gonna be taking some vengeance back to camp,” Daryl said quietly, worry evident in his tone as he looked at the group.  Selene and Glenn exchanged terrified glances at the thought. Even injured, Selene knew that Merle was still capable of heavy damage to the unprepared people of the camp.

“Come on,” Rick urged them, shifting the duffle bag into a more comfortable position across his back.  “We got a long way to go and we gotta hurry.”  Following his lead, they took off at a brisk pace, back down the road toward camp.

“What d’you think he’ll do?” Glenn asked Selene, knowing she knew the Dixon brothers best.  

“Hopefully nothing too bad,” she replied, the brisk pace set by Rick making it hard for her to keep up and talk at the same time.  “If anything, he’ll go after the people who were on the run first…Andrea, Morales, definitely T-Dog.  With luck, he’ll give up after that and move on, maybe wait for Daryl to get back.”

Daryl stiffened slightly at the thought – his brother hanging around, terrorizing the women and kids just to wait for him to get back.  Breaking out into a slight jog, he caught up to Rick and led the group, urging them on to move even faster.  Selene fell behind, unable to keep up with the long legs of her companions.  Glenn noticed first, as he was the one walking beside her.  He turned to tell Rick and Daryl to wait but she motioned for her to keep going.

“Don’t worry,” she called, “I’ll keep up.”  Glenn hesitated for a second before nodding at her, knowing the camp needed them to go back.  Moving on, he was surprised when Daryl suddenly walked past him in the opposite direction towards Selene.  Confused, Selene stood from her bent position.  “What are you doing?” she asked Daryl as he approached her.  He didn’t reply, just grabbed her backpack strap and pulled, yanking it off her in one quick motion that left her spinning.  

“I told ya to stop bringing this thing,” he grumbled, putting the pack on his back and adjusting the straps.  

“The one day I don’t bring it is the one day someone will get hurt,” she bit back, embarrassed by her need for help.  His expression softened slightly when he noticed her embarrassment; the tightness in his lips eased a little, if only for a second, and his brow became less furrowed.  

“Come on,” he urged her, starting to walk away to catch back up with Rick, “we gotta go.”  He walked off before she had a chance to respond, taking her first aid pack with him.

“Okay,” she said to herself, taking a deep breath.  “You can do this.”  Bouncing a couple times, she broke into a jog to catch up with the group, having only her bow and quiver to carry making it easier to keep up.  Rick smiled when he saw her running with the group.

“If we keep up this pace, we’ll probably make it back by nightfall,” he announced, taking the lead once again.

I hope we’re not too late, Selene thought as they jogged out of the city together.

------

Night had fallen by the time the group started to get near the camp.  They had continued their steady jog, for the last couple of miles, the sun going down pushing them past the exhaustion and the pain.  The only time they stopped was when Rick insisted they each have a gun, just in case.  Already having a handgun on her, Selene opted to grab some extra ammo, not wanting to carry the extra weight.  The others had shotguns in hand.  Selene had no idea how the others were keeping up the pace, especially Rick. Since Daryl had taken her pack she was able to keep up with the group but it was still a struggle, the only thing pushing her forward was the idea of Merle terrorizing the camp.  She couldn’t imagine running with a duffle bag filled with guns and ammo slung across her back.  

Looking around, Selene started to recognize her surroundings, and she quickened her pace, eager to get back to camp.  There were no sounds that she could hear, and that was either a very good or a very bad sign; she was impatient to find out which it was.  The feeling of relief was short lived, however, when screaming erupted up ahead and the sound of gunshots could be heard. The group paused for a second, a shiver running up Selene’s spine.  They looked to each other, not knowing what they were hoping for more, that it was Merle running amok back at camp or that it was walkers.  Either of those options was deadly.  When the shots didn’t cease, they ran full tilt up the last hill, coming upon a terrifying scene.

The camp was in utter chaos; walkers had invaded camp and were ripping people apart.  Looking around in horror, Selene saw Amy covered in blood on the ground near the RV, Andrea hovering over her, screaming into the night.  The sounds of the kids screaming for their parents tore through her, causing her to gasp for air as her vision blurred.  Her little brother’s strangled screams as the walker tore into his neck rang out loudest of all.  The sound of a gunshot next to her violently snapped her out of her waking nightmare.  Daryl was standing next to her, firing into the crowd of walkers, yelling something she couldn’t quite make out.

Turning to her, he took precious seconds to shake her shoulder hard, almost making her fall to the ground.  “Selene!” he yelled, his face just inches from hers.  “We gotta go!  Come on!”

Blinking furiously she forced herself to come back to the present, the sound of her brother’s cries fading, replaced instead by the shouts of the others in the camp.  Nodding quickly to Daryl, she pulled out her gun and followed him into the chaos, ignoring the panicked shouts of others in the camp, determination making her hand steady when she pulled the trigger.  She covered Daryl as they made their way through the camp, taking down walker after walker.  

When she heard the scream of one of the children, she broke away, sprinting further into the horde.  She immediately regretted that decision.  Unable to locate the child, she found herself surrounded on all sides, right in the middle of the worst of the mob.  Firing repeatedly, her heart hammered wildly and she fought like mad to keep calm.  Just as her clip was emptied, a walker slammed into her from her left, knocking her to the ground.  She screamed upon seeing the face of the undead above her, its jaws snapping just inches from her face as she fought to keep it at bay.  Using her left arm to keep it from biting her, she reached frantically for her knife with her right hand.  

This isn’t how this ends! She thought to wildly, her fear growing swiftly into anger.  Gotta get this fucking thing off me. I am not fucking going out like this!  With a primal growl, she gave one final push, lifting the walker off of her torso enough to reach down and grab her knife, unsheathing it and plunging it into the walker’s skull.  It immediately stilled and was suddenly dead weight on top of her.  She tried in vain to push it off but the exhaustion from the day’s events was taking over, causing her vision to blur and start to fade.

The fighting had ceased and she could hear Rick calling for Carl and Lori, terrified that they had been bit.  She heard Daryl calling her name, realizing that she hadn’t said anything to him when she made the snap decision to go off on her own.  She tried to call back but it was everything she could do to keep from passing out, the weight of the walker making it increasingly harder to breathe.  On the edge of unconsciousness, she tentatively reached out her hand, hoping someone would notice her pinned under the body.  Thankfully, someone did.

“She’s over here,” she heard a voice call out above her.  The walker was pulled off her and she took in a deep breath, coughing slightly with the effort.  “Selene!  Selene! Hey, you with me?  You okay?” she recognized Glenn’s voice as he gently pulled her up into a sitting position, taking in her bloodstained clothes and trying to discern if she was bit or not.  

“I’m fine,” she wheezed out, still trying to keep from passing out. The darkness was passing but her head was still swimming.  “I’m fine,” she repeated, waving Glenn away as she stood.  He was about to respond when Daryl ran up to them, yanking her up and around to face him.

“You bit?” he asked frantically, holding her at arm’s length while he looked over her bloody clothes.  She shook her head.

“No,” she grumbled, hating the fuss.  “It’s just walker blood, one knocked me over…it’s fine.”  Daryl scoffed, letting her go with a slight shove.

“I can’t believe ya did that,” he suddenly scolded, his voice raised. “What were you thinking?  You should have said something when you took off! How stupid are you?!”  His raised voice carrying into the night, causing those nearby to look over; Glenn fidgeted nearby, uncertain of what to do with himself.

“I heard a kid screaming, alright?” she yelled back, anger giving her the energy to fight back.  “I didn’t have time to say anything!  And last I checked, I’m a grown ass woman, I don’t need to tell you every time I decide to go and do something!”  He glowered at her, his chest puffed out as he breathed heavily.  She returned his glare, feeling everyone else turn away, going back to their grieving.  She took a deep, steadying breath.  “Look I’m sorry alright,” she said as calmly as she could, “but this isn’t the time or place.”  She gestured to the carnage around her.  He looked around and saw people grieving all over the campsite; so many people died. Glaring back at her, he let out a sharp exhale before turning away and stomping off.  

“You okay?” Glenn asked timidly.

“Yeah,” she replied softly, “as okay as I can be I guess.”  They looked over the campsite, bodies littering the ground.  Andrea was crying loudly over Amy, the others slowly gathering at a distance to mourn as well.  Selene hadn’t known her all that well but she liked Amy.  Amy was sweet and meant well, and definitely deserved a lot better than she got.  Her heart also went out to Andrea.  It wasn’t so long ago she was in that same position with her little brother. Shaking her head, she pushed away the thought, now was not the time.  There was work to be done.

~~~~~~~~~~~

I hope y’all enjoyed it!  As always, feedback is welcome and thanks for taking the time to read!

~~~~~~~~~~~

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[studentsofshield]

A Hypothetical Mapping of Marv Wolfman’s Teen Titans Run Into Omnibuses

I tried to figure out what would be decent cutoff points for New Teen Titans omnibuses based on the size of the three new editions released/solicited. This also doubles as an abridged chronicle of the run.

New Teen Titans Omnibus Vol 1 - already released DC Comics Presents 26, New Teen Titans Vol 1 1-20, Tales of the New Teen Titans 1-4 The big kickoff to one of the best superhero runs of all time. All Marv Wolfman and George Perez. Introduction of Cyborg, Starfire, Raven, Deathstroke, and more.

New Teen Titans Omnibus Vol 2 - coming in February New Teen Titans Vol 1 21-40, Tales of the Teen Titans 41, Annual 1-2, Batman and the Outsiders 5 The main developments here are Brother Blood and Starfire's Tamaran connections. Terra and the Vigilante get introduced.

New Teen Titans Omnibus Vol 3 - coming in July Tales of the Teen Titans 42-58, New Teen Titans Vol 2 1-9 The Judas Contract, shit goes to 11 for the Teen Titans, Terra, Deathstroke. Dick Grayson becomes Nightwing. Jericho is introduced as a new core member. The series gets so popular that it gets the Baxter treatment. Which means getting printed on nicer paper with less ads. Which came with a renumbering I guess. The opening of that volume seems to resolve Raven's plotline (which was also the genesis for the team in the first place). The Titans defeat her father and she disappears.

George Perez also ends his continuous run as penciler for the series with Vol 2 #5. Most of the major plots up to this point are resolved. These are the only solicited volumes right now. So this is actually a good jumping off point.

So what might come next?

New Teen Titans Omnibus Vol 4 New Teen Titans Vol 2 10-25, Annual 1-2, Teen Titans Spotlight 1-6, Omega Men 34-35 Classic DC artist Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez follows up Perez for a short stint. Kole is introduced. But then quickly killed alongside Aquagirl and Dove in the Crisis on Infinite Earths. Which will impact some Titans history for a while. Starfire is forced into a political wedding, which pushes away Dick. Roy Harper discovers he has a daughter with the villain Cheshire. Among all this chaos, Donna Troy tries to assemble mismatched pieces like Jason Todd to lead the Titans.

New Teen Titans Omnibus Vol 5 New Teen Titans Vol 2 26-49, Annual 3-4, Infinity Inc 45 Eduardo Barreto is now the consistent artist on the book. The team finds Raven again and defeats Brother Blood again. They encounter the Wildebeest Society, which will factor heavily into the book as time goes on. An annoying kid named Danny Chase joins the team. They help out Dial H for Hero and Red Star.

Besides those JLGL issues and a few major plot points for characters, this chunk is a valley rather than a peak, but it’s not really bad. Wolfman has claimed in interviews that he was suffering from writer’s block for a few years. So there are some repetitive plots.

New Teen Titans Omnibus Vol 6 New Titans 50-69, Annual 5-6, Batman 440-441, Secret Origins Annual 3 Eduardo Barreto is gone. But who better to replace him than the return of George Perez? The side effects of the Crisis are really starting to be felt across the DCU. First on the docket is to fix Donna Troy's continuity for the second time in the Who is Wonder Girl story. She becomes Troia. The next issue addresses some Titans West stuff. Then the Secret Origins Annual recaps and fixes the entire Titans continuity post-Crisis. Perez drops off from drawing the book and then from co-plotting. He's still writing Wonder Woman and gearing up for the War of the Gods crossover, so maybe he was too busy. Bat fans should recognize those issues as half of A Lonely Place of Dying, which handed the Robin mantle to Tim Drake.

Again, another stopping point. Perez is now 100% done with the Titans besides drawing the cover for the final issue of the series. The stability of the book is about to be all over the place too.

New Teen Titans Omnibus Vol 7 New Titans 70-92, Annual 8, Team Titans 1-3, Deathstroke 14-16 Two huge controversial storylines here. Tom Grummett (Superboy, Robin) is now the artist, with a more cartoony but also 90s style. The original Titans Hunt featured the Wildbeest Society hunting the Titans. Spoilers for a 30 year old story, but Jericho is revealed to be leading them. His father (Deathstroke for the clueless) kills him and helps the Titans in the finale. Some D-listers like Red Star, Pantha, Phantasm, and Baby Wildebeest join the team. Raven and Cyborg are constantly changing. Titans Tower is destroyed. Then right after that insanity, a team of weird Titans from a future timeline appear. One of them seems to be the long dead Terra. They want to kill Donna Troy because allegedly her baby is basically the Anti-Christ. Turns out that's not true and these alternate future peeps just stick around for a while.

Depending on who you ask, Titans Hunt and Total Chaos are 90s trash or an exciting uptick in the history of the Titans with a blockbuster story and lots of status quo changes. However, past this point the book officially devolves into standard 1990s fare and loses a ton of focus. 

New Teen Titans Omnibus Vol 8 New Titans 93-114, Annual 9-10, Sell-Out Special, Showcase 94 11 The book is kind of shit now, but not absolute shit for some of this. A major editor left and Wolfman is running out of ideas. Roy Harper comes back and becomes Arsenal. Nightwing and Starfire get engaged, only for their wedding to be absolutely ruined by Raven. Tom Grummett leaves and is replaced by a very 90s nobody. Everyone you care about leaves the team at the end of this.

New Teen Titans Omnibus Vol 9 New Titans 0, 115-130, Annual 11, Deathstroke 48-49, Green Lantern Vol 3 65, Darkstars 32, 34, Damage 16 And we reach the end of the journey with the final volume. With a broken team and Zero Hour allowing for soft reboots, Arsenal assembles a new one. Featuring characters you like such as Donna Troy, Kyle Rayner, Impulse, Damage, and Terra (the fake one). Or at least you liked them if you were still reading comics in 1995 for some reason. That shitty 90s artist is even gone and replaced by someone tolerable. But it's totally lost the flavor that made the book so genius 10-15 years before. Fans were completely burned out from the direction and the industry at large, so the book was canceled.

My divisions are based mostly on natural cutoff points and also shooting for similar sized volumes. The three existing volumes all sit around that 24-27 issue mark.

So depending on what kind of Titans fan one is, the options would be 1-3, 1-6, 1-7, 1-8, or 1-9. It seems like each omnibus is about 3 trades, with some wiggle room.

Addendums:

Teen Titans Spotlight is a 21 issue spinoff series created so that Titans related characters could have solo stories that wouldn't work in the context of a team book. Wolfman only wrote 1-6, an arc about Starfire dealing with South African apartheid and a Jericho arc. No other issues are really integral to the main plots. So these are the only ones that make sense in these collections, if at all.

Other semi-significant Spotlight stories though: -7-8 - Hawk in the period after his brother's death but before Dawn Granger pops up -9 - Changeling (Beast Boy) doing some more reconnecting with his Doom Patrol past -10 - Aqualad, technically does continue from a main series plot, but who cares -13 - JMS' first comics work on a Cyborg vs Two-Face story -15 - picks up on some Tamaranian plots, but effectively a minor epilogue to the 80s Omega Men series -21 - a Silver Age throwback issue from Mark Evanier and Dan Spiegle 

Team Titans is the book starring the alternate future characters that no one cares about besides Terra. First three issues are part of Total Chaos. The damn book somehow lasted 24 issues though. Wolfman was involved in the writing of the first half. There is really no reason to include those other 9 issues. And the series is totally pointless and bad.

New Titans ends in 1996. Also when Wolfman's other ongoing Titans work ends. That being Deathstroke Vol 1, which lasted 60 issues. Giving the Terminator his own book was majorly inspired by the success Marvel was having with the Punisher. The first 34 issues are all drawn by the same artist, Steve Erwin. Past issue 40, Slade is framed for murder and all kinds of DCU characters try and take him down. His daughter Rose is introduced here.

Just like the main Titans book, sales were lagging hard near the end. So they did some stupid thing where Slade literally walked out of an explosion a changed man. He was de-aged, had amnesia, a dumb new color scheme, and a new artist. It was stupid and didn't help sales.

DC has been reprinting this Deathstroke series alongside New Teen Titans. They're up to four volumes, getting to #25. The early half of this run is actually good and a decent companion piece to Titans. And obviously people are digging Rebirth Deathstroke now. Wolfman did a major plot with Batman before Christopher Priest. Avoid all N52 Deathstroke junk.

Marv Wolfman's Titans run is just over 15 years. A couple years short of Claremont's legendary X-Men run. Though Claremont also wrote and maneuvered around a wider line of closely related spinoffs. Claremont also maintained a higher average. Those first five years of NTT with Perez can rival the heights of Claremont though. Maybe blasphemous, but I find Perez more interesting than Byrne. Then there are occasional highs for another seven years or so.

For comparison, Claremont's complete original X-Men run sits at a similar 10 oversized hardcover volumes or so. Though they're a little larger on average. 1. UXM Vol 1 2. Vol 2 3. Vol 3 4. Eventual Vol 4 5. Mutant Massacre/uncollected gap 6. Fall of the Mutants 7. Inferno Prologue 8. Inferno 9. Claremont and Lee Vol 1 10. X-Tinction Agenda/Claremont and Lee Vol 2

[milothebastardman]

If it's not too much bother could you do radmond confession? I wonder who would've been the first to come to terms with their feelings and confess

Here ya go Nonny! Hope you enjoy

They’d been tiptoeing around the issue for weeks, neither of them able to muster up the courage to admit what they felt for the other. For starters, Rad was the worst when it came to dealing with emotions that were considered to be unmasculine by society. Sure, he could read all the articles on why crying was healthy and why it wasn’t a weak thing to do, but it would take more than a handful of articles urging him to open up before he could actually do so.

Then there was Raymond, sweet, egotistical, “Nobody could ever meet my impossibly high standards” Raymond. For the record, Rad met every single one of his standards. And that was scary. Incredibly scary. Part of the reason it was scary was that he had no clue as to what Rad’s standards were, so what if he didn’t even come close to meeting them? What if Rad only liked aliens of his own kind? Or what if he wasn’t interested in a mechanic being as himself? Welcome to Existential Crisis 101, folks, with Instructor Raymond.

So, it goes unsaid that the two were painfully awkward when it came to even considering the possibility of confessing to the other. So the silent dance around the subject continued, fights between the two always involving an easily detectable tension that Enid recognized from her Angst Daily magazines. KO, as innocent and oblivious as he could be, was even able to sense that there was something off with the two. So it should be of little surprise that he was the one to try and help them fix whatever was wrong with their relationship, or in this case, the lack thereof of a relationship…

“Do you have a crush on Raymond?”, KO asked, forgoing any pretense of subtlety in a move that normally would leave the turquoise alien full of pride. Since the probing question was directed towards him, though, the pride was quickly drowned out by embarrassment and panic. The soda can he’d been drinking from was quickly crushed as he tensed, the cheap metal giving way and spewing artificial colors and flavorings onto his work uniform. In between trying desperately to clean up before it dried (he’d learned the hard way that you couldn’t remove intergalactic soda stains from clothes), he stammered out a response that was telling enough for the tiny hero.

“You DO have a crush on him!”, KO exclaimed, bouncing up and down excitedly as his best friend managed to choke on air. Rad coughed harshly for a moment, turning purple in the face as he struggled to breathe. KO was actually going to be his cause of death, he thought, then shook his head. No, having a stupid as heck crush on a dumb, evil robot was going to be his cause of death, he mentally amended. “Oh man, I can’t believe it! Well, actually I can, you’re good at all kinds of stuff but you aren’t very good at being subtle.”, KO continued, giving his alien pal a giant, 1,000-watt smile.

“… Please don’t tell Enid.”, Rad whispered, daring to glance over at the inattentive cashier. She had her nose buried in another one of those weird comics of hers, the kind you had to read all backward like, right to left instead of left to right. She didn’t even look up from her comic, she just snorted loudly.

“Rad, everyone and their mom knows about your giant, dorky crush on Raymond.”, she commented, causing the poor stocker’s heart to beat in a way that he was sure couldn’t be healthy.

“Yeah! My mommy thinks it’s like one of her old romance novels!”, KO added cheerfully, getting a little laugh from Enid.

“See Rad? Literally, everyone and their mom knows! Except for Raymond, obviously. He’s just as clueless to your feelings as you are to his.”, she finished, turning her attention away from Rad’s love life and back to the love life of the charismatic lead in her graphic novel. The alien let out a sound that was somewhere between a hysterical laugh and a sob, the idea that everyone knew about his stupid affection for a stupid robot beside the stupid robot in question proving to be a little too much for his brain. KO poked him hesitantly, unsure as to why Rad had suddenly decided to let his head bang against a shelf rather roughly.

Mr. Gar shook his head, grumbling to himself about his best stocker getting a concussion on the job just because he couldn’t buck up the courage to confess. Fully unaware of how hypocritical he was being, he retreated to his office so he could mentally rehearse ice breakers in case he ran into Carol anytime soon.

Meanwhile, things at the large factory across the road weren’t faring much better…

KO had recruited Darrell to assist in his mission of getting his favorite alien and his favorite sports loving robot together, something that everyone needed to happen already. Shannon was so close to retiring her own auditory sensors just so she wouldn’t have to process the constant stream of sincere compliments followed by half-hearted insults geared towards her least favorite Bodega Baby. Lord Boxman, evil as he could be, was still very invested in the lives his robotic children led, and simply wanted the baby of the family to be happy. Darrell was more than happy to assist his hero buddy, especially since it meant he got to play matchmaker for once.

So here he was, standing outside of Raymond’s room patiently, waiting on his youngest sibling to open up the door.

“Raymond! C'mon, I know you’re in there! Just let me in!”, he called, leaning against the metal sliding door lightly. He could hear the tell-tale signs of mechanical life, the rustling of silk sheets (honestly what else would do for the Prince of Panache?) and metallic clank of his feet on the plush carpet. The door finally slid open, a rather weary looking Raymond appearing in the doorway.

“If you ever dare to reference that blasted children’s movie again, I will personally destroy every copy of it that currently exists, and set fire to any factory that hopes to produce any more copies.”, he threatened flatly, giving his older brother a tired glare. Darrell pretended his favorite movie wasn’t just insulted and stuck a grin on his face.

“You really need to let it go.”, he commented, ignoring Raymond’s little indignant screech. He pulled the mopey robot from his room, a surprising strength to his grip as he forced the younger robot to start walking down the hall with him. “Seriously dude, you need to relax just a little bit, and handle your thing with Rad.”, he added, now dragging his frozen brother along.

“I have no idea what you could possibly be referring to.”, Raymond eventually replied with, attempting to school his face into a calm, cool mask of indifference. However, the internal panicking managed to seep into his metal features, ultimately betraying his facade. “Oh god it’s really bad Darrell!”, he cried, throwing an arm across his face dramatically. “He’s just this stupid alien with a stupid crop top and power point high heeled boots and good GOD where did he get the NERVE to pull off pink pants, black heeled boots, and a blue crop top?!?”, he ranted, huffing loudly when Darrell began laughing.

“Jeez, you really do have it bad!”, he wheezed out, patting his baby brother’s shoulder spike affectionately. The two were in in the living room now, where the majority of the robot family had gathered. Shannon was wearing quite the snazzy business outfit (Lord Boxman had secretly had a field day making his daughter such a professional, evil outfit), and was stood next to some sort of projector.

“Ugh, it’s about time you brought the Drama King here. I’ve been waiting for way too long just to give this dumb presentation.”, she griped, adjusting her skirt before she started up the projector. After a couple moments, a power point presentation titled “How to Ask an Alien on a Date” displayed on a nearby wall. Raymond let out a loud groan when he read the title slide, his face flushing as Shannon started going through the slides, using a new laser pointer feature Lord Boxman had installed on her pointer finger to draw attention to key points.

Needless to say, Raymond felt every bit as embarrassed as Rad did. While they weren’t aware of it, they were connected by the crippling waves of anxiety and mounting panic as the day wore on. Now that they knew that everyone else knew, they felt prompted to act. The big issue still remained, though: How would the other react to a sudden confession of pesky feelings? It was Rad who picked up his cell phone first, hesitating and wasting nearly an hour over what to do before he finally gave Raymond a call. As his luck would have it, of course, it went straight to voicemail. He left a quick message telling the robot to meet him in the park at 5 p.m. sharp and hung up immediately afterward.

He actually got to the park about an hour early and decided to shut his phone off, just so he wouldn’t spend the next hour or so checking it frantically to see if he’d gotten even a message back. Five eventually rolled around, and Rad was well into chewing off the nails on his left hand before he saw Raymond casually stroll into the entrance. He jumped off his branch excitedly, forcing himself to try and play it cool in an attempt to not seem too eager. Didn’t want to come off as desperate as he felt, am I right?

“Alright, so what is ever so important that you just had to drag me away from my work to this park?”, Raymond drawled, smirking as his confidence kicked into maximum overdrive.

“Oh shut it, bolts for brains. It is something very important, I’ll have you know.”, Rad retorted, leaning against his tree nonchalantly. He examined the nails on his right hand, managing to look fairly disinterested despite the inner turmoil that his brain was in. “I think we should go do something, together, like together-together.”, he suggested, glancing up after a few moments of silence to see how Raymond was reacting. His face was blank, revealing absolutely no emotion, and that was only slightly terrifying to the teen.

“… Are you asking me out..?”, Raymond replied with, his voice shaking only a little bit. His circuits felt like they were going to explode, and he could hear the sound of his cooling fans turning on as he began over heating. Rad nodded, swallowing roughly before he took a deep breath.

“Yeah, I guess… Well, I know I am. So like… Maybe we could catch a movie this weekend?”, he elaborated, every nerve in his body ablaze as hormones surged through his blood. He got an armful of excited robot in response, a choked squeak passing his lips as he was pulled into a near violent hug.

“I would absolutely adore that, darling!”, Raymond sang, pulling away from the hug with a starry look in his eyes. Rad let out a nervous giggle in response, feeling the stress and worry melt away. “I’ll pick you up around six on Saturday, alright? I’ll leave the movie choice to you, frankly, I could care less what we see.”, he continued, seemingly unaware of the tension that dissipated. No, he was too busy planning the first of what he hoped would be several stellar dates! Truth be told, Rad was too busy trying not to faint now that he realized he actually had a date with his crush. He was going to need all the advice Enid could give! Maybe her comics could help him…

[eurello]

Media Diet, Week of April 19th

I am forever working on improving the quality of the deluge of culture I am taking in at all times. Lately, I’ve been especially rigorous about this, as I keep realizing exactly how much valuable time I am wasting slurping up really dumb stuff. In an attempt at accountability (and to make myself ashamed to spend too much time on anything purely dumb), I am going to try logging and posting about the culture I consume. I will analyze what attracts me to the trashier things, and attempt to train myself, little by little, day by day, into better habits.  

Sunday, April 19th:

As I was getting ready and making breakfast, I listened to podcasts as usual — the end of Oh No, Ross & Carrie, and the beginning of Baby Geniuses. I enjoy both of these podcasts a lot, and I think they are good things to listen to, although this particular episode of ONRC went on for too long. I have gone through phases of listening to a lot of political podcasts, but I have recently admitted to myself that I’m not that interested in politics, and that is perfectly fine. I think it’s important for a citizen to remain up to date and aware of what is going on, but I have this sort of weird feeling that smart people are obsessed with politics? And I don’t know why I feel that way. There’s nothing especially noble or intelligent about political governance; quite the opposite most of the time. Politicians are often venal, and even if when they aren’t, the more time you spend paying attention to the largely broken processes they attempt to navigate and massage every day, the worse it probably is for your own sense of hope, and certainly for your own creativity. So I’ve let myself off the hook on this one, and now I mostly listen to humor podcasts and weird fictional things.

As I drank my breakfast (smoothie/coffee) and procrastinated at doing something more worthwhile, I spent probably two hours on Twitter, Instagram, and various websites. This is becoming a big problem for me. On Twitter, I follow mostly comedy writers, liberals, feminists, black Twitter, and weird Twitter (and intersections of all of the above), and some local political organizations. I tweeted a lot this morning, as well. On Instagram, I follow a lot of the same people I do on Twitter, plus a TON of visual artists. I am not a visual artist, but because Instagram is a visual medium, it’s nice to follow artists, and I sometimes find it inspiring — if not to create art myself, at least maybe to make my house look nicer (although I never do). I also follow some old school fashion and lifestyle bloggers who I’ve been following for like ten years, and although I do not find that kind of blogging interesting at all anymore, I am interested in these particular people, and invested in their lives at this point. I also embarrassingly have been paying a good bit of attention lately to a certain terrible influencer, who I won’t name because I don’t want to draw the wrong kind of attention here, but you probably know who she is. She is entirely boring, but people are interested in her for a variety of reasons, and they all have complicated explanations for why. I think it’s that she’s sort of the purest example of the sort of woman (blond, thin, pretty, performatively aspirational yet empty enough to be completely non-threatening to anyone) that middle-class Americans have always been culturally encouraged to admire and, if they are women, to emulate, and yet, it’s so apparent that there is no there there. I imagine most people who follow her are thinking, “I can’t believe I thought I needed to be this in high school!” For me personally, there’s something else to it, and after thinking about it so that I could write it down here, I think it is that I spend a lot of time mildly regretting that I had not been more intentional about pursuing my creative dreams in my 20s (I was sort of dabbling in comedy and performance and writing; I had some talent but little intelligence), but at the same time, when I look back over my work and writings from that time, I am horrified by how stupid I was without realizing it (and not just stupid for my age, because I was surrounded by far more intelligent and creative people who have gone on to do amazing things, and there are many preternaturally wise and hilarious babies who are creating right now). Had I had a bigger platform at the time, I fear I would have looked a lot like a less successful this girl. So, it’s a sort of cautionary tale that really just serves to make me feel better about having avoided exposure I’d now regret (albeit through laziness rather than foresight). And also, being able to realize this now is a reminder that I am at least smarter now than I used to be, so I have been growing in some way, even if it feels like I’ve just been atrophying intellectually and creatively ever since I got a real job. I think now that I’ve written this down, I’m ready to let go of paying attention to her. Also, though, I just feel bad for her, and I want to see what happens to her and if she ends up ok or not. Which possibly sounds nobler than it is — am I really just rubbernecking at an accident? I don’t think I wish her harm. Anyway, in non-shame scrolling, two of my favorite comics on Twitter and Instagram right now are Eva Victor and Alyssa Lamparis. They are both brilliantly hilarious.

The first few chapters of “Joshua”, while working on one of my blog posts about the Old Testament.

A chapter of The High Growth Handbook, for work, which I’m finding more interesting than most business books.

Moral Clarity by Susan Neiman, which I’m not really enjoying. This isn’t necessarily why I’m not enjoying it, but I gave some thought while reading this about why I find the left’s current backlash against “identity politics” to be disingenuous. I mean, other than the fact that it is only white people (and mostly white men) who argue that identity politics are a pointless distraction from real social change. And it’s that nobody — no matter how naive — thinks that we are going to transform all human systems overnight. Abrupt revolutions rarely happen in established societies, and even when they do, they never stick; no matter how you come about it, lasting social change always takes forever. So, eschewing identity politics as a mere distraction implies that those who unfairly have less power and influence under the current system should just be content with their marginalization until we have a new system altogether. And that those who are over-represented in the current system shouldn’t be criticized or made to lose anything in the interests of equity and social justice until we have a new system altogether. That this is the same old self-serving bullshit from a different direction seems so obvious to me, I don’t understand why so many smart people are buying into it. There is no getting around our historical legacy of racial oppression! There’s just no scenario in which white people are not going to have to deal with that first, before we can successfully build systems that are more just and more fair! You have to address both things at the same time, and no, just focusing on economic class is not going to cut it — especially not when so many people pretend that they don’t understand that poverty results from lack of access and limited options, and has little to do with whether you have much money at any given time (in reality, they understand this very well). And I can’t take any leader seriously (no matter how far left) who does not get that, and/or who won’t force their followers to acknowledge it.  

“Where outrage itself is exhausted, even despair is impossible. The resulting inertia is not the result of an ideology, postmodern or otherwise. But anyone who wants to oppose it must oppose an ideology that makes inertia the most rational response.”

Finished Baby Geniuses and started listening to Get Rich Nick as I prepared for my run, and as I showered after my run. Nick V is a good pal of mine from Chicago — we came up through iO at the same time and were on a Harold team together for like a year. He’s hilarious and I enjoy his podcast, but I suspect I partly find it so funny because it’s just very…Nick.

I listen to the same Spotify playlist on every run. I made it for running and it’s all exactly what you’d expect someone like me would listen to while running.

I watched an episode of season 2 of “Big Little Lies” while I ate dinner. I thought the first season (while it had its faults) was perfectly cast and pretty impressively honest in how it dealt with domestic violence and rape. I wasn’t interested enough to seek out season 2, but I recently noticed HBO is streaming some shows for free right now on Amazon Prime (which I have finally, finally canceled because #morals but still have through August), so I started watching it, and I still love the cast. I will watch Laura Dern in absolutely anything, and it’s really fun to watch Reese Witherspoon play what I imagine is basically herself.

Listened to more Get Rich Nick while I cleaned up the kitchen and got ready for bed.

Finished the night off with The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty — she’s one of my faves and I’ve read two of these four collections multiple times, but right now am on The Wide Net which is new to me. Read the titular “The Wide Net” and really enjoyed it and then “A Still Moment,” which was boring but made me want to get my computer out and google Audubon. Then fell asleep reading this weird old novel I’m slowly working through called The Man Who Loved Children.

“‘She’s a lot smarter than her cousins in Beulah,’ said Virgil. ‘And especially Edna Earle, that never did get to be what you’d call a heavy thinker. Edna Earle could sit and ponder all day on how the little tail of the ‘C’ got through the ‘L’ in a Coca-Cola sign.’”

Monday, April 20th:

Instagram on the toilet, Get Rich Nick while I performed my ablutions and made coffee, and Instagram stories and Feedly for a bit while I drank it. I spend less time on this today, the awareness of accountability is already working! About Instagram stories — I usually ignore them altogether but every so often I go through phases of watching them. I find them mostly very boring, but because I mostly follow creatives on Instagram, there’s something inspiring about starting my day by watching a bunch of creative people all around the world making things. At least starting a day off this way (which today fortunately is); starting a work day this way makes me feel an intense despair. I also follow a few farmers, and it’s fun to see their daily lives. And also just a bunch of people who live in gorgeous places around the world. And ok, yeah, a couple of hate follows, which for me are people who I just find so unbelievably grating and irritating in every way that I can’t stop watching them — I just can’t believe they exist and yet aren’t entirely consumed with self-loathing. And I think for me it’s like, I find them so utterly obnoxious in every way, but they still all have lots of people in their lives who truly love them, and that’s affirming to me personally, because I often feel like I couldn’t ask anyone to tolerate me for very long unless/until I’ve attained perfection in every sphere, so it’s a nice reminder to me that that’s not really how people operate. In Feedly, I follow 3 Quarks Daily and The Morning News, some political digests, a number of old school bloggers I’ve been following forever (mostly funny ones), a handful of newsletters (mostly by people who used to be bloggers), and some sustainability bloggers to guilt me into making better choices. I probably spend about 90 minutes on all of this? Which is too much time!

More “Joshua.”

I poke around online and find and follow a handful more artists from around the world on Instagram and/or Twitter. These aren’t really very interesting ones, and so I’ll probably unfollow them soon, but they’re a bunch of diverse young people, and lately I feel out of touch with what young people are doing. One funny thing about young people is they have so much energy and so many interests, so all of them are doing like ten really shitty things — they’re making crappy art, they’re writing nonsense, they’re performing dopey shows, AND they’re in a shitty band. And then they get older and they realize that it takes an incredible amount of time and effort and research and angst to do even one thing semi-well, and at that point, they either disappear or focus. Anyway, I mostly stick to Twitter for these — I only follow artists on Instagram whose work I find genuinely appealing; Twitter is more for people I’m interested in hearing more about how they perceive the world, but am not necessarily interested in what they’re making. Also, for Twitter, I use TweetDeck and make lists, so it’s a lot easier to follow and unfollow groups of people than it is on Instagram. Like I’ll make a list of “possibly interesting” and watch it for awhile, and then I might move two people on it to a more permanent list and then just delete the whole list.

Listen to The Read while I make a smoothie.

Two short stories from an old issue of Salt Hill, both terrible.

A chapter of High Growth Handbook, and two of Moral Clarity.

Listened to The Read and Scam Goddess while gearing up for run, walking back from run showering, cooking dinner, and cleaning up the kitchen. Usual playlist on run.

Spent some lost time on Twitter and Instagram while crouching on the floor and shivering in my sweaty running clothes, and then again after dinner while sitting on the couch. I’m starting to realize that I look at social media when what my brain really wants to be doing is just….sitting and staring and not taking in anything.

Three Welty stories, “Asphodel” (enjoyable), “The Winds” (in which Welty is starting to find the voice she will master in The Golden Apples), and “The Purple Hat” (eh). Interrupted, I am embarrassed to admit, by looking at Twitter and my email and also reading some articles about Welty.

The Man Who Loved Children

Tuesday, April 21st:

There are two things I want to stop doing, and I did both today. First, after my alarm went off, I spent 90 minutes hitting the snooze button and also pursuing Twitter and Instagram in bed. My entire goal is to reserve as much time for myself in the evenings as possible, for doing what I want to be doing. And I waste a lot of that limited time in procrastinating what I don’t want to be doing. And this is the first place it happens — lounging in bed staring at my phone instead of getting up and going to work.

Finished Scam Goddess and started The High Low while I got ready, made coffee and my smoothie.

After work, I did the second thing I want to stop doing — I spent 90 minutes sitting on the couch looking at Twitter, Instagram, Reddit, and rubbernecking at a long train wreck thread on NextDoor (people are wilding out at this point), procrastinating getting my running kit on and going out for my exercise. All together, this is THREE HOURS of wasted time that could go toward my evenings, where I get to do the stuff I want to do! I’m robbing myself of this valuable time.

I walked for most of my run because I was sore from some exercises I did, and I finished The High Low. When I got home, I listened to Office Ladies, which is not a very good podcast, but it’s just mindlessly comforting to listen to and I like thinking about The Office, which is mindlessly comforting to watch, as I took a shower, made dinner, and cleaned up the kitchen.

The Man Who Loved Children

Wednesday, April 22nd:

Well, I still hit the snooze for an hour but I DIDN’T browse Twitter before I got out of bed. Listened to Lady to Lady while I got ready and made a smoothie and coffee.

Couple of breaks during my workday, during which times I looked at Twitter, Reddit, and Instagram.

I worked later than usual and it was rainy out, so I didn’t go out for exercise, but I still spent TWO HOURS on the couch mindlessly scrolling (Twitter, Instagram, NextDoor train wreck). So, all told, I still wasted three hours on garbage today.

Listened to Lady to Lady and Your Favorite Band Sucks while I made dinner, ate it, cleaned up after it, and got ready for bed. Your Favorite Band Sucks takes down a lot of bands I genuinely like, and I truly do enjoy hearing people rip apart things that I enjoy for some reason (cultural masochism). This episode, though, is on Billy Joel, which I feel is low-hanging fruit, although it reminds me of when this guy I had a massive crush on in high school got super into Billy Joel (I know) and so I spent a few months listening to him and trying to convince myself I also thought he was brilliant. Listening to this podcast makes me realize how much time I spent trying to convince myself that I liked bands that guys I had a thing for worshipped. I don’t really listen to music very much (note absence of it from this entire week) since podcasts became a thing -- I just always vastly prefer narrative if I have a choice. Either music is too distracting from the thing I’m trying to do, or I have enough bandwidth to listen to a podcast while I’m doing the thing, which I prefer. There’s just very rarely any place in my day where music makes sense. You will never find me getting stoned or drunk and just sitting and listening to music -- I can’t fathom how people do that. Whenever I’ve tried it, I’ve just gotten so angry that I took away the mental capacity to read and am wasting all that excellent reading time just sitting there. I guess I don’t really like turning my brain off. Some people spend all their time trying to turn their brain off, but that actually causes stress in my case; fun for me is more taking a ton of adderall to really get it jumping. I don’t mean to imply by that that I’m smart or I use my brain for anything worthwhile, I really, really don’t. I just like the feeling of being alert and I like thinking my dumb thoughts and following along with narratives of whatever kind. 

The Man Who Loved Children

Thursday, April 23rd:

Success! I hit snooze for 20 minutes only and then I got to work!

Listened to a new podcast by a comic I like while I got ready, and I won’t say which one, because it wasn’t very good, and I don’t want to slam the first episode (I’m sure it will get better).

Very brief Instagram/Twitter/Feedly breaks a couple times throughout the day.

Success again! After work, I only looked at Twitter for 20 minutes before heading out for my run. Usual playlist on run. On my walk back, I recorded an Instagram story.

Listened to old episodes of Sawbones and By the Book (both of which I’m trying to decide if I like or not) and You’re Wrong About while getting ready for run, showering, cooking dinner, cleaning up the kitchen, getting ready for bed. This episode of You’re Wrong About was about Marie Antoinette and was really fun, although I have a hard time with this podcast, because the voice of the woman who hosts it kind of traumatizes me. I do not like criticizing women’s voices and she can’t help her voice or how it affects me, but she has this sort of sarcastic, flat, patronizing tone that makes her sound like a cool girl of the intellectual cast of cool girls who thinks you are the stupidest little try-hard femme ever to be brought before her, and it gives me some unpleasant flashbacks to certain incidents in college. But I like the podcast overall (and her probably!) and so I just try to get over it.

Read “Livvie” by Eudora Welty, and then finished The Man Who Loved Children.

Friday, April 24th:

Hit snooze for a full hour, but then got up. Listened to another first episode of a new podcast by another comic I like that also was not very good while I got ready, etc. and also a bit later in the car as I made a grocery store run.

Couple very short Twitter/Feedly breaks throughout the day.

Usual music playlist on run. I’ve got a podcast playlist of weird fictional stuff that I’m mostly listening to old episodes of from the beginning and many are new to me and I’m trying to decide if I liked them. Today, during the usual periods of podcast listening, I went through episodes of Welcome to Night Vale and The Lost Cat Podcast, both of which I am enjoying, although I have trouble paying attention to Welcome to Night Vale and always realize after I finish an episode that I didn’t really hear any of it.  

Watched 1.25 episodes of Big Little Lies while I ate takeout and spotted my friend Mike playing the marriage counselor in one of them! Having a background in performance makes for very weird TV and movie experiences now, because I’ll pretty often see someone I know well in something. Often, it’s a really happy surprise like this one, but sometimes it’s a really unpleasant one, like when you’re sitting around with your family and you see a guy who dumped you pretty brutally playing the dopey, amiable dad in a commercial and get plunged into despair and self-hatred in the midst of a bunch of oblivious people in your aunt’s living room and start to feel like you are living in a surreal world no one else is actually a part of and also like your personality is fragmenting in what is possibly a psychotic way.  

Started The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane. I’m really happy to be done with The Man Who Loved Children and on to a new book, and this one looks to be an easy, possibly dumb page-turner, which is well-timed.

Saturday, April 25th:

Snoozed for 40 minutes. Listened to Tanis while coffee etc. Bit of Instagram and Feedly.

While I cleaned the house and deep cleaned my office, I listened to The Bright Sessions, Within the Wires, The Box Podcast, Tracks, and Rabbits.

While I got ready for run, walked back from run, made dinner, cleaned up kitchen, put the laundry away, and got ready for bed, listened to Father Dagon, The Amelia Project, Glasgow Ghost Stories, Middle: Below, The Last Movie, The Van, Video Palace, Blackwood, Dreamboy, Caledonian Gothic, and The London Necropolis Railway. I went through a ton of podcasts today (but also these fiction ones are quite short).

Started to read “At the Landing” by Welty, but I fell asleep super early. I usually save fiction for a couple hours in bed before I go to sleep, because fiction is my favorite thing in the world, but I am so tired by the time I lie down that I often can’t really enjoy it, and fight to stay awake while I try to read and then just fall asleep. So I might need to rethink this timing.

Overall, I think this has been a successful first week of doing this! On Saturday, I had a day off, and I spent basically zero time procrastinating with garbage media! I can really see how my consumption of dumb stuff went down through the week.

[berserksweg]

A recorded message from author Kentaro Miura to fans of Berserk

(Google)Translated from an unofficial transcription/translation 

Hello. I would like to thank all of you, old fans and new, for supporting me all of these years. It really means a lot to me and my team to know people still like this series even after all these years. And so, with a heavy heart I have to say I am quitting Berserk. Yes, this may seem sudden and poorly timed, but I do have my reasons.

For one, I have been drawing messed up sh*t for over half my life and that stuff starts to get to you. Like at first it was fun, seeing the horrible dark side of humanity, but after a while it just became tiring. I had nightmares about things I had created and no amount of comic relief would help. I added comic relief character after comic relief character and nothing helped.

From the very beginning there was Puck, who was a funny, but insightful elf who brought a little levity. He was to make sure things didn’t get too dark, but after the Lost Children chapter and it’s literal piles of dead children I decided there needed to be more, so I added Isidro. With Isidro and Puck I thought for sure the nightmares would stop, but they kept coming, so I reduced Puck to purely Chestnut Puck and added a little cute witch. That was all to balance out the trolls who were horrible. How did I even come up with that? Why did I even come up with that? After the trolls I added Magnifico, the pirates, Isma, Sonia, Mule, Azan, and others to help remedy this problem. Heck, all of Elfhelm doesn’t have one piece of nightmare fuel, just loli witches and fairies, and I still was having issues!

Anyways, so then after the Empire of the Millennium Falcon Arc with the Kushans and Reborn Femto I decided to have Guts and his group stay on the boat. I know I took a long time on that, and I’m sorry, but honestly I was hoping people would lose interest. Yes, the story was nowhere near over and the group were almost to Elfhelm, the place where Casca could possibly be healed, but I was running out of ideas. Now, we are actually in the dream world and Farnese and Schierke are trying to piece Casca back together, and I know it seems like a bad place to stop, but I just have to.

The fact is my health isn’t what it use to be and I’m getting old. Also the 2016 anime gave me cancer. Literal eye cancer. I’m going blind and that’s part of the reason why the art style changed, that’s why I’m taking so many hiatuses. It’s also why I will never finish Berserk. I love this series, but I just don’t have the passion or the ability to keep it going. But I will tell you how far I planned the ending.

First off, Casca does come back, just not in the way you thought. See Farnese does a soul transfer, like Donovan did to Guts except less prostitution (Kudos to fans who figured that out, most of the Donovan theories that I’ve seen are true; he was a much deeper character than he seemed), and becomes Casca, so now Farnese and Casca share Casca’s body and Farnese is a potato brain. Guts doesn’t notice right away, but Serpico does and he is super mad at Farnese. Farnese goes insane from Casca’s memories and Casca wants to jump off another cliff while Farnese want stuff to burn. Farnese soul transfers back into her body (this time with prostitution) because Casca won’t let her burn stuff. She masters the fire wheel spell and burns Elfhelm to the ground. Everyone is mad at her, but she realizes she wants to become a great witch and uses earth magic to fix everything. Everyone is happy again and Casca decides to come back finally. Casca does jump off a cliff, and dies instantly.

Infact, everyone gets a power up, even Roderick. Isma gets more mermaid magic, Isidro gets a second 4000 degree knife, Serpico gets parachute pants, Farnese has more magic training and inner peace, Roderick get a fairy boat (a kind gesture, but it only fits like one person), Puck gets a better bag to sleep in, and Guts gets the only woman he’s ever loved back and then immediately loses her forever. Everything seems too good to be true.

And it is.

It turns out the Elf King was evil the entire time and was luring them into a false sense of security. Why? I don’t know, but you people seem to like betrayal. All of the magic creatures attack and all of Griffith’s demons attack Elfhelm. The group escapes only to take the boat ride all the way back. This boat part is a little shorter than the last one, I planned on it only taking like 7 or 8 years instead of 10 like the last one. After being attacked by a different crew of funny pirates, and some Vikings as well, they land in Roderick’s kingdom of Ith, only to find out he too was evil the entire time and just wanted Farnese to be his rich witch wife. Farnese doesn’t care now that she’s found inner peace, but Serpico does and he accidently reveals that they are half siblings.

Nobody is really shocked. So Isma kills Roderick mostly on accident and it turns out Ith is also infected with horrible demons, so the group runs away until they meet up with Rickert, Erica, and the Kushan assassins. Rickert has become a super skilled Inventor and has built a medieval mech suit run off of magic and the will to live. It also has a giant sword. Erica has become a skilled assassin. The mech suit forms up like Power Rangers, each of the limbs representing a different element (Farnese-earth, Serpico-wind, Isma-water, and Isidro-fire) with Schierke forming the head. Guts has the Berserker armor and no reason to live beyond revenge. As terrible as the anime was, it’s more Shounen themes gave me the idea to use Mechs. I know it seems like it clashes with the dark fantasy theme of Berserk, but just think about it.

They launch an attack on Falconia and are captured immediately, but this was all a plan and they escape. They form into Voltron- I mean the mech that is totally unique in design and attack again. All of the demons attack causing havoc in the streets and lot of death and rape happen. The force breaks through to Griffith and there is a lot of ‘GRIFFFITHSU!!!!’ Griffith still has Guts outclassed by a lot so Guts becomes overcome by his beast of darkness and calls Puck ‘bug.’

Everything stops. You guys thought the Behelit was for Casca? Guts? Farnese? No. It was for Puck from the very start. Yes Puck. He’s the true villain of Berserk. You thought it was Griffith? The God Hand? The Idea of Evil? No. It was Puck.

Puck uses the Behelit  to summon the God Hand and Sacrifices Guts’ bag to gain more power. Puck then kills Casca and Rickert before being killed by Corkus.That’s right, Corkus comes back from the dead and kills Puck and then Griffith, before finally killing Guts. Just as Puck was the main villain, Corkus was the main hero not Guts.

So Yeah, that’s that’s the ending. I took a lot of inspiration from online forums after the boat burnt me out of all of my ideas. It may seem a little dark, and I know I said I didn’t think I could write a sad ending, but this really isn’t a sad ending. It actually shows how even the worse people can be redeemed and even the most innocent can fall. Actually no, it doesn’t. I know people will always point out my deep symbolism and philosophy in Berserk, honestly I didn’t write it with that intention. Most of the time it was an accident, or people reading too much into it. The whole dream speech? That was just to show how full of himself Griffith was and Guts took it too seriously like everyone else. The dream thing came to me when I was watching Disney’s Cinderella and thought, ‘dreams seem to be really popular I should include that to Berserk.’

Is that what you guys wanted? Some ridiculous, over the top, sad ending? From what I’ve heard, some fans are unhappy with how happy everything was going, but doesn’t it feel better to know this horrifying story has a horrifying ending? Doesn’t it fit all of the ‘themes’ and ‘parallels’ to that thing that happened once but has been redone five different times (*cough* Eclipse *cough*) where everyone died. Also what point is there to give a character development when you are going to kill them off for shock value anyways.That’s what I figured, just give the fans what they seem to want, a dumb edgy ending to bookend an immature and edgy beginning.

I’ve also been very busy with IdolM@aster. It is a very fun game, and a new anime recently came out for it so I’ve been watching that. It’s one of the few things that makes me want to keep drawing and creating things, so I’ve been taking inspiration from it. Some of you have noticed the lean towards more cute character design and style in the most recent chapters and that is me trying to capture Idolm@ster’s unique and eye catching visuals. It’s still not right and that frustration is another reason for my quitting Berserk. It simply is not my vision anymore (since I’m still going blind) and I’m going to try and write stories for them in the future. The dark themes are nice, but I needed more cute girls.

This is why I added characters like Sonia and Isma, and brought the Princess back. It is also why I made Griffith look even more like a girl. I guess even Guts started to look more feminine, which actually wasn’t intentional, but more of a happy accident.

I haven’t given up writing Manga for good though. I have a few ideas of writing a shoujo/slice of life/comedy/harem/sports manga, but I need to perfect my style and heal my eye cancer first. I really hope my fans forgive me and are willing to support me in my new passion: writing about cute underage girls being okay at something.

So that’s it. That’s the end.

Where’s my paycheck, I just bullsh*ted an ending for you. Why are you shushing me? What? We’re still recording? Why-

[shewhowantsmouseears]

Love Like Lava, 12

Notes: As always, big thanks to my editors Drucilla and BlueShifted! They take time from their already busy schedules to edit my silly hobby, so thank them. THANK THEM. GIVE THEM ALL YOUR THANKS.

Behold, Gyro! Growing up, I was surprised to learn that he existed in the comics before the Ducktales toon. But in either one he's the same lovable genius, and I hope you'll like him here too.

Not much else to say here, just more building blocks to the plot, with a few DUN DUN DUUUUUNs.

Summary: An unusual inventor comes to Goofy's village, needing help only he can provide. Meanwhile, the Beagles unknowingly work alongside the god of war to cause further chaos.

Gyro De Gearloose's arrival into Goofy's village was actually two days later than promised. It made Goofy's worry and anxiety worse, and when he tried to chisel in order to distract himself, Minnie's peach somehow turned into a bunch of bananas. But when Gyro finally arrived, not only did Goofy know about it instantly, so did everyone else in the village.

The noise from Gyro's cart was coming from the tallest hill, and as he got closer and closer to the normally sleepy town, he made more and more noise. It wasn't the creaky wheels that did it, nor the hooves of the brighthly colored horse, nor Gyro's pleased humming. All the clanking and crashing was coming from the cart itself, which was stocked and stacked with bizarre machinery and gadgetry. Gears, tools, pipes, books, vials of foul smelling liquid, it all clattered together like the world's worst symphony. Gyro smiled at those he passed, offering a friendly wave before looking back at the letter that lay on his lap. His cousin had given exact, detailed directions to Goofy's home, but it never hurt to reread things in duplicate, triplicate, and so on.

Goofy and Agalma came outside to see what the fuss was all about, and Goofy's stomach twisted as he guessed that this odd visitor was for him. He hated to disappoint such a cheerful young man, but there was no way Goofy could compete in a chariot race, much less win one. There were days he tripped over his own sandals! As he lamented his woes, Agalma began to jump up and down and wave her arms so she could grab Gyro's attention. “Hellooo!” she shouted at the top of her lungs. “Hellooo, over here!” It was a miracle she could be heard over all of Gyro's junk, but the horse and rider headed in her direction.

“Whoa, Little Helper!” Gyro commanded as he gently pulled the reins, urging his horse to come to a stop. “Very good! Your descent came in much quicker this time, you've knocked a whole 1.3 seconds off your usual record.” The horse snorted in pride, and after Gyro stroked its yellow mane, he hopped off his seat, rolling up the letter in his hands. “I hope I'm not wrong, but I take it you are Pygmalion?”

Goofy nodded once before he extended a hand. “You can just call me Goofy, most folks do.”

“Well then, Goofy, you can call me Gyro, because that is my name!” Gyro was about as tall as Goofy, perhaps an inch or two shorter, which was hard to tell since he had a short crop of fuzzy orange hair sticking straight up. He was thin as a stick, with small glasses sitting atop his beak that seemed to slide down with every other word he spoke. His sleek robes were perhaps once magenta, but were now bleached so much they looked bright pink, his sleeves rolled up to his shoulders but slipping back down as he shook Goofy's hand. “I can't tell you how much I appreciate your help with the race! I know together, we can take first prize!”

At that, Goofy began to pull his hand away, rubbing the back of his neck uncomfortably. “Uh, yeah. About that...Gee, I ain't sure how to put this-”

“Goofy doesn't think he can do it,” Agalma finished, and when Goofy turned to her, she shrugged. “What? You said you weren't sure how to put it.”

“Really?” Gyro asked, cupping his beak. “My cousin kept going on and on about how you were up and raring to go...but then, he does tend to exaggerate.” He didn't sound offended or even disappointed – merely curious. “Have you ever been in a chariot race before?”

“No, sir. Ain't even seen one before.”

“Me neither,” said Agalma as she headed for the cart, wanting to find out what he'd brought and why.

“So it's first time jitters!” Gyro slammed a fist onto his palm, as if the matter wasn't that big at all. “That's perfectly reasonable! Everyone's nervous when they're trying something the first time. I've got just the thing for it! You see, I prepared for such circumstances, and many more. Never go anywhere unprepared, I always say.” His horse brayed, as if to say Gyro had never said any such thing. Gyro ignored the criticism and climbed onto his cart, beginning to push and dig through his pile. “Now then, where did I put it?”

“What is all this?”Agalma asked, picking up a large wheel from the cart – it was wooden on the outside, and metal inside.

“My experiments!” Gyro answered proudly, chucking a few screws over his shoulder. “I'm an inventor, as was my father, as was his father, as was his mother, all's equal in the inventing game...my whole family has been creating things to better humanity! And I bet my descendants a hundred years from now will be doing the same thing, with people lining up to try their inventions! But while thinking up ways to help people is free, actually doing that costs money, which is why I need your help to win the – A-ha! Found it!” Gyro yanked up what appeared to be a massive pair of glasses wrapped in paper and wiring. “I call it Sees All, Feels All! When you put these on, all your worries will melt away!”

As fascinating and confusing as this all was, Goofy still felt they skipped over something major. “Uh, Mister Gyro?”

“Just Gyro, please!” He rolled the paper back and slid off the cart, giving it a quick look over to make sure it was ready.

“Well, uh, Gyro, I do thank ya kindly for all this here effort, but I don't think I'm the kind of guy who can win races! I'm real clumsy, I ain't got a muscle to my name, and I'm not that bright. Just because I punched a guy in the nose don't make me a better fella than anyone else.” His eyes landed on Agalma, thinking that Millicent would somewhat agree, kindly ask Gyro to leave, and assure Goofy that he wouldn't have go through any trouble.

“Yes it does,” Agalma said, again shattering Goofy's conceptions and memories. She was moving the wheel around in her hand, imagining what it would look like if it was attached to anything. “Nobody else punched Bouncer before. No one even tried to stop them.”

“See, now that is what I call conviction!” Gyro laughed. “Listen, maybe you won't race after all, but you've got to at least give it a try! And speaking of tries, you can help me see if my Sees All, Feels All works!”

“You mean you ain't ever-” 'used it?', Goofy was going to ask, but Gyro had slammed the glasses onto his head and flipped a switch. The paper all around the glasses began to move rapidly, picking up speed with every second.

“What does it do?” Agalma asked.

“An excellent question...” Gyro paused. “Are you the young lady that my cousin says Goofy puts his hands all over?”

“Not anymore,” she replied. “I'm Agalma.”

“All right, Agalma! It was still an excellent question! You see, the paper here is lined with drawings and pictures meant to relax the mind, like a setting sun and a babbling brook! And I've found a way to make those images move by drawing them over and over, with small differences each time, creating an illusion when you move the paper! It's as if you actually see the sun setting before your very eyes.”

Agalma glanced at Goofy, then back to the inventor. “Is it supposed to make you nauseous?”

Gyro blinked rapidly. “What? Of course not.”

“Then I don't think it's working like you wanted it to.” Agalma pointed at Goofy, who was dizzily bent over, hands on his belly, moaning quietly. “Maybe you accidentally made a Sees All In Your Stomach.”

“Oh!” Gyro quickly snatched the device off of Goofy's head, wincing as he looked at Goofy's swimming eyes. “I'm terribly sorry! I guess that one's a bust...but at least you're not worried anymore, right? Hard to be worried when you're ill.” He tried to crack a smile, but all Goofy could get out was a gurgled “Ugh.”

Agalma tossed the wheel back on the heap and took Goofy by the elbow. “Why don't you go lay down a while?” Goofy nodded numbly, following her back into the house, but Gyro, after throwing his device back into the wagon, decided to join them.

“I truly am sorry, I – My goodness!” Gyro interrupted himself as he saw the multitude of near perfect statues. He took off his spectacles, rubbed them, put them back on, and they were still amazing. “I've never seen anything like these! This is absolutely marvelous!”

“You've been getting a lot of people complimenting them lately,” Agalma pointed out to Goofy, continuing to lead him to the bedroom. Goofy avoided eye contact.

“I can see why! The details, the expressions – what on earth do you need me for?” Gyro asked as he stepped into the bedroom, scratching his head. “You could make a fortune with any of them! I'm even tempted to take one or two myself, might spruce up the old home, and I'd pay you whatever you asked.”

Once Goofy laid down on his pitiful excuse for a bed, he finally began to talk, one arm over his eyes. “Aw, nobody wants somethin' made by a clumsy, dumb fella like me. Once folks forget all about me clobberin' Bouncer, it'll all go back to normal.”

Gyro frowned, crossing his arms. “And...people calling you clumsy and dumb is normal? No, forget I asked such a thing. Goofy, are you dumb?”

Goofy lifted his arm, wondering if Gyro had heard him at all. “I just said, everyone calls me-”

“I didn't ask if everyone called you dumb. I asked if you were dumb. There's a world of difference.”

The sculptor didn't answer, trying to see if this was a trick question. Agalma stood in the middle of the room – the same place where she was as a statue – and raised a hand. “Being dumb means you don't know anything, right?”

“That is what most people assume the definition is, but it is in fact an oxymoron!”

Goofy narrowed his eyes. “How's me bein' a moron different from me bein' dumb?”

“No, no, Goofy, oxymoron! It's not an insult.” He cleared his throat, as if he was a professor dictating to a class. “An oxymoron is a rhetorical device that uses an ostensible self-contradiction to illustrate a rhetorical point or to reveal a paradox.” Blank looks from both canines. “Er...let me put it this way. A civil war is hardly ever civil! Acting natural means you're not natural! And a person who doesn't know anything doesn't exist.”

Agalma took this into consideration, shifting from one foot to the other. “But I'm constantly learning things that everyone else already knows. Doesn't that make me dumb?”

“Not at all!” Gyro declared, pointing a finger up. “We all learn things from someone else, and everyone learns at their own rate. But even babies know things – they know to trust their mothers, what tastes good and what doesn't, and how to tell people they're in distress...by crying! So being called dumb is a ridiculous insult, for there is not a single, solitary person or creature on this planet that knows nothing! You, Goofy, know many things, don't you?”

Goofy stared up at the ceiling, having never thought of it that way before. “Gee...I guess I do. I know how to count, and how to eat, and how to make statues...”

“And I bet there's a dozen other things you know, you just don't know it!” Gyro paused, realizing that also sounded like an oxymoron. “The point is, you shouldn't sell yourself so short. You're a great man, and if the people of this village can't see that, then it's high time you found people who can.”

Goofy slowly managed to sit up, hands on his lap, looking straight at Gyro. “You've just met me, and you already think I'm great?”

“I'm rarely wrong!” After the dogs gave him an indignant look, he speedily corrected himself. “About people. Let's give each other a chance, Goofy! I'm going to stay with my cousin, and come over every day to help you practice for the race! I much prefer making chariots over riding them. I'm going to invent the best chariot the world's ever seen!”

“Going to?” Agalma asked, an eyebrow raised. “You mean you haven't made it already? Even though you came here to get a racer?”

Gyro's confidence wilted like a dying flower in the intense sun. “Not...exactly...Ah. Well. I'm having a bit of a mental roadblock. Nothing I come up with is good enough, I can't even get past the blue print stage!”

“Have you tried red print?” Agalma asked.

Gyro went on. “It's like my creative well has dried up, and that's part of the reason why I'm here.” He sighed sadly, rubbing his arms. “I was hoping that by coming here and working with you, I could get those mental juices flowing again. Nothing else has worked – you're my last hope, Goofy. If I can't think of a new invention, it's the end for me! How can I call myself an inventor if I'm not helping those around me? It makes me wish there was...some kind of inventing god I could pray to!”

Goofy inhaled and exhaled deeply as he listened to Gyro's lamenting. As much as he wanted to tell the bird “no” and move on with his life, the good heart in him couldn't ignore Gyro's pleas. He still didn't believe his efforts would amount to anything – but he couldn't kick Gyro out and tell him to hit the road. “I ain't makin' no promises,” he said after lifting his head. “But... if'fn you really wanna give this a try, then I'll do whatever I can to help you out.”

“Perfect!” Gyro seized Goofy's hand and began shaking it vigorously all over again, which didn't exactly help with Goofy's stomach. “You won't be disappointed, friend!”

Goofy would have genuinely asked if Gyro really meant they were friends – except now he was so sick that he flopped back on his back, nearly passed out.

Before seeing himself out, Gyro pondered out loud, “Maybe I should make an anti-nausea device?”

“Please don't,” said Agalma.

~*~

Goofy wasn't the only one feeling sick that day. Ma Beagle and her sons had once lived in a large farmhouse after bullying and threatening the original owners, but since Goofy's act of defiance, they got soundly booted out. They made do by staying in Aphrodite's temple, but they knew they couldn't stay there forever. Ma didn't believe in the power of the gods, but even the most cynical part of her heart got the creeps by staying in such a sacred place. It was making her sick, along with everything else that had happened recently.

“Look at us,” she huffed, gesturing to the wide space around them. “Look at what we've become!” Burger was looking at the altar with burnt offerings, highly tempted to lick the ashes. Bouncer was in the middle of a nap but was woken up by the sound of his mother ranting. “We used to own this town! People would run at the mere sight of our shadows! And now we can't even get a bunch of old farm hands to cower! It's all because of that big goof!”

Bouncer rubbed his bandaged nose, which still hurt like the dickens. “I would've ducked if I knew it was coming.”

Ma began to pace, hands clutched together behind her back, her brows furrowed. “What if this spreads out to all of Greece? No Beagle will ever be able to steal again! What are we going to do?”

Burger rubbed some ashes between his fingers and gave them a whiff. “Get jobs, work hard, and becoming honest, functioning members of society?”

“This is no time for jokes!” Ma snapped, before resuming her frantic walk. “We need to find a way to demean what Goofy did to us. We need to get revenge! And once the town sees that their big hero isn't so big, they'll bend over backwards to make sure they never offend us again. But it's going to take more than a punch to the nose.”

Bouncer yawned, still a little drowsy from his nap. “Uh...ain't he some kinda sculptor, Ma? Maybe we can break all of his statues. I really like breaking things!”

“Yeah, why don't we do that?” Burger chimed in, after discovering that ash tastes horrible no matter what it used to be. “We can do it when he's off in that chariot race, so by the time he comes back, we'll be done and-”

“Chariot race?” Ma interrupted, stopping where she was and glancing behind her to watch her grown-up children. “What's this about a race?”

Bouncer scratched his head as he tried to remember the details. “Well, uh, word is, he and this big bird guy are gunna enter a big fancy race in the next town over...Think it's named Ippos?”

“Ippos?!” Ma exclaimed, running over to Bouncer and grabbing him by the tunic, shaking him over and over. “Are you sure it's Ippos? Boys, we've hit the motherload!”

“Aw, Ma, don't say that about yourself, you're not that big!” Bouncer replied.

After smacking her elder son on the head, Ma let him go. Burger just blinked slowly, confused. “Gee, Ma, what's the big deal? It's just some race in some town.”

“That's where you're wrong, Burger!” Ma proudly put her hands on her hips. “It's the race in the town! Ippos is famous for horse races, and the winner rakes in more money than you'll ever see in a lifetime! Every business there exists for the chariot races! And we've got a cousin there, Bombshell Beagle! He's the filthiest, dirtiest, most low-brow cheater that ever crawled the earth!” She sniffed, wiping away a single tear. “The pride and joy of the family.”

“What's that got to do with us, Ma?” Bouncer asked, readying himself in case he was due for another smack.

“If Goofy's entering that race, then so will we!” Ma clapped her hands together, rubbing them greedily. “We won't just make him lose...we'll make him a laughingstock! With my brains, Bombshell's cheats, Bouncer's brawn, and Burger's...” She needed a minute. “...Ability to be a meat shield-”

“Always glad to help, Ma!”

“-We'll not only grab first place, but we'll make Goofy wish he'd never been born! I want you boys to pack your things and head straight to Ippos.”

“We don't have a pack,” Bouncer said, getting to his feet. “Or things.”

“What about you, Ma?” Burger asked, already growing nervous about this plan. “Ain't you comin' with us?”

“In due time boys.” Ma approached them both and patted them both on the head, though Bouncer had to stoop over to make this possible. “I need to stay here for a while and keep an eye on the goof! Cheating isn't all about breaking their wheels or poisoning their horses. It's also about brains! Seems like when I gave birth to you, I kept yours.” She tapped a finger on her head, and the boys weren't insulted since they didn't understand it was an insult. “I'm going to psych Goofy out! Play some head games! Get him so rattled up that he'll have nightmares about this race! And maybe give that pretty girlfriend of his some trouble too...” Her face soured and she pulled away as she remembered what Bouncer had told her. “She might be the real cause of all this.”

“How you figure, Ma?” Burger asked, his stomach beginning to growl.

“Think about it, boys! Before she came along, that dog mouthed off to us, but he couldn't do any real damage.” Ma cracked her knuckles, recalling the day Goofy had struggled to stop their thievery in this very same temple, but had only succeeded in tripping all over himself. “Then she comes out of nowhere, and suddenly he's got the courage to sock you in the nose! If I can get rid of her somehow, it'll make Goofy a pathetic weakling again! You just leave her to me.” She didn't have an exact plan yet, but it wouldn't take long. Coming up with nefarious schemes was one of her favorite pastimes. All she needed was a spark of inspiration.

“I sure hope this works out like you say it will,” Bouncer said, starting to head for the exit with his little brother in tow. “At this rate, we'd be better off as slaves.”

“Think they serve horse meat in Ippos?” Burger questioned as he trailed along.

Ma froze in her tracks, and then ran after her children, grabbing them by the arms and spinning them around. “Don't take another step! What did you just say?”

“...Think they serve horse meat in Ippos?”

“Not that, you moron, the other thing!”

“...We'd be better off as slaves?”

“Yes!” There came the spark, and Ma's grin looked like the glistening fangs of a snake ready to strike its next victim. “That's it! It's perfect! It's brilliant!”

Bouncer paled, and he clasped his hands together to beg. “Aw, Ma, please don't sell us as slaves! We'll do better this time!”

Burger gave it some thought. “Slaves are supposed to be fed regularly, right?”

Ma grabbed them both by the ears and knocked their heads together, the sounds of their skulls bonking sounding much like two hollow coconuts colliding. “The girl, you fools! It's about the girl! I'm going to make her into a slave! That will bite Goofy's pride something fierce, and that woman will never dare to stand up to anyone again, much less us!”

Slavery wasn't found everywhere in Greece, and the more reputable lands banned it altogether. But there were still plenty of places that enforced it, and of course there were several Beagles who were more than happy to take part in such a despicable trade. Because of this, Ma knew a thing or two about how slavery worked, including a few tricks in order make the system work for you. Slavery wasn't used in this sleepy town, but it wasn't illegal there, nor was it so in Ippos. It still came with its own set of rules and regulations, and Ma knew just how to bend them to her will. It wouldn't be easy, and it could take some time, but for the desired results it would be worth the wait.

“Oh, I can just see it now,” Ma cackled, fire and brimstone burning in her eyes. “That woman crying and begging as she's taken away and branded, and the goof can't do anything but watch! It'll eat him up forever! Or even better, he'll just stop eating, and die off!”

As Ma cackled with horrific glee, Bouncer and Burger exchanged a silent, worried look. Being bad was a hereditary trait at this point, but Ma's ecstatic joy at dooming a young woman to slavery and wishing death upon a clumsy bystander was starting to cross a line that made them as nauseous as Goofy currently was. They wouldn't dare tell her how much she was scaring them, or defy her in any way. Ultimately it was no skin off their nose, but they'd be looking forward to when it was all over. If Ma was this upset over one man giving them trouble, what would happen to the entire village if she desired vengeance? Had she always been this blood-thirsty and only just now showing it?

The real answer was a mix of yes and no. While Ma didn't believe in the gods, the gods believed in her. Specifically, Pete believed that any mortal was capable of destruction and suffering, and in his unending quest to make a war, he'd left Mount Olympus yet again in order to push people over the edge. All it took was simple poke to the back to the head to ignite their anger, and the Beagles were often the easiest sources to create a ruckus. In his boredom, he was poking anyone in sight, trying to create something, anything, to make his life more entertaining. Igniting Ma's rage was merely him passing by. He'd barely been listening to anything that had been said.

Pete had gotten the gist of what happened with Aphrodite, and it confused him to no end. He still would have been angry if she'd chosen any of the other gods that lived on Mount Olympus, but at least he would have understood it. But marrying Hephaestus? A reject god? Where was the logic in that? His wars were dying off, and the woman that was perfect for him had turned out to be imperfect. Had the entire world gone topsy-turvy? He was a god, his life was supposed to go exactly the way he wanted. If it didn't, that made him no better than a mortal – which to him meant being no better than cattle.

The only sensible conclusion he'd been able to reach was that because Minnie was the goddess of love, she loved everyone, which included scrawny ugly losers that lived on the mortal plane with the rest of the trash. She must have chosen him because if she'd chosen anyone on the Mountain, there'd be even more fighting over than usual. That had to be the reason, nothing else made sense. It didn't mean he had to like it. It also didn't mean he'd completely given up on her either.

All Pete had to do was prove his superiority to her, above all other gods. She hadn't yet officially married Hephaestus, so there was time to fix things. But as it stood now, he had no accomplishments to his name, nothing that made him stand out. He was – dare say it – ordinary! Common! Just like everyone else! What a horrible thing to be, when you knew you were better than everyone else. He needed to find some way to impress her, some way to include her, something that would prove he deserved to have her. But Pete wasn't creative, and he knew nothing about women, save for how well they could fight.

He stopped for a moment when he realized he was by Goofy's house. He still remembered the vow he made, mostly to himself, that the future chariot race would be full of blood and broken bones. But he also knew that all races ended eventually, and so his entertainment wouldn't last long. Pete scowled at the house and at those who lived in it – and he also remembered that extremely strange girl with no memories to grasp. He'd easily forgotten about her until just then. She was a mystery, and mysteries were difficult to solve when you typically solved everything with violence.

Pete rubbed his stubbly chin. Maybe if he solved the question of the mystery mortal, Minnie might come to respect him, love him, and marry him, all in one fell swoop. Oh, but that'd mean he'd have to think, and work, and ugh, all that effort! He'd have to clear his schedule of sitting on his big butt and watching the world in hopes of finding a war. She'd better appreciate the sacrifice!

He didn't know where to start, but maybe he could get some help from the other gods – no, correction, he would make them help. Who was going to stop him? Zeus? That was a laugh! No, soon Pete and Minnie would be the real power couple of Mount Olympus.

Pete began to plot, as Ma began to plot, and Gyro began to plot in that small town, and elsewhere Minnie was plotting and Mickey was plotting, and no doubt across the world many people were coming up with many ideas. As usual, no one had any idea of any potential danger at their door.