#i have a lot of articulate thoughts about Leon but i feel

[skippygiraffee]

Part of having Leon on my brain is I'll think of the Pokemon Evolutions episode with him in it and just

That battle with Eternatus crumbled him huh? It really. It really just. Destroyed a person who thought he could never be defeated. Scarred him mentally (likely physically, which is what I have chosen to believe), and left him with the crumbling empire Rose built, all for it to be ripped from his palms the next time he battles. That's so

That's something to me

[rc-imagines]

heyooo! do you think you could write more Luis stuff? just simple headcanons about what it’s been like living with him in a simple domestic lifestyle. i’m sorry if that’s too boring. you can add whatever you want to it!😭

Luis needs more content tbh. He deserves it so much!  🥺 But I hope you like these! I have obviously thought about them and him a lot lately-

Requests are open!

Luis is very much a guy who craves and desires a simple life. Maybe a small house somewhere in the middle of the country, big enough for you, him, a dog or two and maybe a kid or two.

He prides himself on being a good partner! Truly believes in the "everything is 50/50" mindset, so you'll often hear him doing housework on some of his days off

He LOVES to cook with you. He is an excellent cook in my opinion, so he'd often guide you (hands on your hands, which really didn't help a whole lot, he just likes to be near your and touch you)

He also came to like the simple things like grocery shopping (He is the type to organize the list by aisle to make to easier)

Also loves to read with you! Fully believe one room in your guys' home would be like a mini library, with a little nook by the window that you two often snuggle up in with a blanket.

He also really loves watching tv with you, specifically movies. He'll watch regular shows but often finds himself enjoying longer form media more (Gives him another excuse to cuddle up with you and do nothing)

Also like to imagine that he started a small garden in the backyard, so you two would take care of it together most days.

If you had a dog, you best believe Luis is the best dog dad- Spoils the dog fr

Nobody can fight me on this, but Luis would love to lay his head in your lap while you two watched tv, and you'd play with him hair and it would lull him to sleep

Luis is also a great host when he invites his friend over (You best believe Leon and Ashley are regulars-)

He doesn't say it often because articulating his thoughts and feelings can sometimes be hard for him, but he wouldn't trade the life he has with you for anything in the word.

[bropunzeling]

1, 7, 23, 34, or 40 for the writing asks?

i'm gonna do 23 and 34 because those ~speak to me~

23 Dialogue or description? Why is the other one so hard?

oh gosh, both of these are hard in different ways! i think on the one hand, coming up with dialogue that (a) sounds believable while (b) doing what you need for the story is really really tricky, and i'm never quite sure i'm nailing it. that said, i think for fic you can have a bit of grace and leeway in letting your characters sound a bit smarter or more verbose than they do in real life, because fiction isn't real life, and writing compelling stories sometimes requires more than "get pucks to the net" iykwim.

on the other hand, i've really wanted to up my game on description of setting and place specifically, and my GOD i can feel the effort in doing it. i've always felt really really comfortable in writing physicality and bodies (because it's a fascination/constant object of thought of mine!), but trying to get better and setting/place/atmosphere has been sooooo hard. especially in trying to write a fic set in a place that i know really really well, so trying to figure out what aspects i need to like, actively articulate and not assume my audience already knows -- and also that my pov character would notice and think about, that aren't just self-evident to being in that location -- has been so tricky! i'm thinking a lot about it and idk if i'm succeeding as much as i wish i were, but nevertheless we strive.

34 do you write to improve? or is that not a concern for you?

yes and no! on the one hand, writing is a hobby and an outlet for me, and one of the things i'm trying to remember is a hobby can be something that i just do without a whole lot of stuff wrapped up in it. on the other hand, i'm a perfectionist nerd who likes to do things well, and when i hit those valleys where i become aware of the ways that i'm not as strong craft-wise as i want to be, i notice it!

it's funny because right now i picked my main wip in part for the normal reasons (scenes/concepts that are etched in my skull) but also in part because it's a type of story i haven't really done yet. i haven't done a slow burn ever; i especially haven't done a slow burn where i can't use sex scenes as a jumpstart to intimacy for matthew & leon; i haven't written a deliberate canon divergent au (soulbonds was canon when i started it!); and again i haven't written a fic where i'm so focused on place and setting. it's been hard! i'm really aware of the ways that i hope i can be better and the areas where i'm falling short of where i want to be! i am writing some lil pwps in between just so i have something easy and gratifying to help keep my motivation going! but my hope is that the end product is cool. yk, assuming i finish it. hopefully!

[hopetorun]

7, 10, 15, 18 please!

7. answered

10. Has a piece of writing ever “haunted” you? Has your own writing haunted you? What does that mean to you?

a lot of writing sticks with me tbh! obviously i have now forgotten all of it due to being asked* but a few things that tend to leave me thinking about something constantly for days: a wrenching bittersweet ending where the protagonist is stuck with only imperfect choices, a scene where it’s so so clear what the non-pov character is going through and the pov character is totally missing it, really good metaphors especially ones involving bodies, great closing lines.

i consider something to be haunting me when i can’t get it out of my head! but i don’t really feel that way about my own stories because that’s so different. i cannot articulate it but it is.

*see previous response to this meme with a note about how i should be better at keeping track of snippets that stick with me

15. Do you write in the margins of your books? Dog-ear your pages? Read in the bath? Why or why not? Do you judge people who do these things? Can we still be friends?

i wish i was a person who wrote in the margins but i very much am not, mostly because i get too distracted reading to take notes. i do sometimes scribble stuff in my notes app for book club books so i don’t forget my thoughts but not always. i don’t dog ear pages but i do read in the bath and i also read while eating and stain my books with food. i therefore cannot judge people who deface books in other ways, and would not want to. books are meant to be read and loved and used. my cheeto-fingerprinted copy of little women and my baby blanket that i slept with until it was literally just scraps of thread and the handmade quilt my uncle had on his bed until he died that was worn to bits are the same, actually. we are meant to use these things and love them and that’s its own way of treasuring a thing. if any one person wants to treasure their books by keeping them pristine that’s fine but i treasure mine by loving them to pieces and having to buy a whole new copy to love to pieces again. and covering them in cheese dust fingerprints

18. Choose a passage from your writing. Tell me about the backstory of this moment. How you came up with it, how it changed from start to end. Spicy addition: Questioner provides the passage.

from home by now:

It works for Matthew, and it’s the most comfortable he’s felt around Draisaitl in literally years. Maybe since they collapsed from the shower onto a hotel bed in Edmonton during the playoff bubble, wrung out and relaxed and extremely pleased with themselves.

“I thought that was going to be hot when you suggested but I didn’t realize how hot it would be,” Matthew said in that hotel room. Leon dropped a hand heavily on his ass, patting him twice and then letting it rest there.

“We’re going to be out soon,” he said. Matthew couldn’t argue with him; the Oilers had been thoroughly outclassed in their first three games, and he didn’t think they were going to pull off a reverse sweep. “We can maybe win one but I doubt more than that will happen.”

Matthew nodded. “Sorry,” he said.

“You’re not,” Leon said, but he laughed roughly.

“Not very.” Matthew shrugged. “I’ll miss this.” He regretted saying it as soon as the words left his mouth, but Leon seemed unfazed. If anything, he smiled faintly.

“Won’t miss having to sneak around whenever I want to do anything but watch TV in my room.”

There wasn’t a good answer to that; Matthew was willing to put up with it for hockey, but Leon was about to be on a plane back home. He shrugged, and a silence fell around them that felt heavy. Leon’s hand was still resting on his ass.

They were in Leon’s hotel. Matthew needed to leave soon, if he was going to be able to sneak back in and get enough sleep. It felt like breaking the moment would break something important.

Matthew did it anyway. He rolled himself out of the bed, patted Leon on the shoulder a couple of times and grabbed a towel from the bathroom to throw at him.

“I’ll see you around, yeah?” he said before he opened the door. Leon grunted, and the noise was almost like one he made on the ice sometimes. Made it easier for Matthew to slip him back into the Draisaitl box, smirking at him from across the ice, looking terrible in orange.

In the present, he’s still Draisaitl, but somehow more comfortable than a few weeks ago. His shoulders are relaxed, which is probably the alcohol, and he’s not walking like he wants to leave Matthew in the dust.

Matthew didn’t think—well, he isn’t sure what he thought, anymore. He thought Draisaitl hated him, and then he thought Draisaitl liked him, and then everything got muddled for a while, with the playoffs and then Matthew’s concussion making everything worse and hazier. At the end of it he thought Draisaitl hated him, but differently than the first time. It felt like—like something changed. Like there was a different thread underlying the way that Draisaitl shoved him and whispered insults and generally refused to look at Matthew at all off the ice after everything that happened.

Above them, the moon is still high in the sky. It’s almost full, a sliver missing off the perfect circle.

“Full moon soon,” Matthew says, because he doesn’t like the silence.

thank you for your submission and for not making me pick 😂😂 excited to get to talk a bit about the sex scene flashbacks, some of the first bits of this story i wrote! i had all these scraps of them tucked at the bottom of my google doc waiting for the right place to fit into the story. early on in the writing process i did a bunch of sketching out timelines of the bubble playoffs and how many days they were both in edmonton and how many times i realistically thought they might have hooked up. it was not many at all, btw. but i stuck to it.

the line about the concussion was a fairly late add, because my trusty alpha and beta readers did tell me i needed to seed it better. it still has that like, oh you weren’t here all along feeling to me! even though i know that’s not how it works for readers.

i didn’t look up whether there’ll be a full moon around the right time in the summer of 2026 for this scene. which is weird for me because i normally look that kind of thing up (huge shoutout to my best friend time and date dot com) but i wanted the moon to be almost full so it is. why do i always look this kind of thing up? well i like to be accurate or at least plausible in descriptions of weather and seasonal changes and when it’s dark outside but also i once read a book where the sun came up before 7 am in scotland in late december and i shrieked aloud.

[hyperfixationtimego]

Alright we’re trying this angst thing again

Diamond Brothers Angst because I said so

Both Daiya and Mondo have huge self esteem issues bc of the crash

Both think stuff along the lines of what the fuck I could have prevented that

Neither Daiya nor Mondo can sleep very well because when they hear vehicles driving past and the occasional screeching tires they’re back at the scene of the accident

They hear a semi truck rumbling past? Suddenly neither of the brothers remember how to move or breathe properly

They both survived the crash but they were both injured severely bc fuck dude that was a truck that hit them

The Crazy Diamonds witnessed the whole thing and they were Worried™️

And we all know how the Owadas hate being vulnerable

Neither of the brothers could actively ride their motorcycles for a long time after the crash because they couldn’t handle it emotionally

They played off their mental recovery time as time in the hospital

Daiya made Mondo promise not to get back on his motorcycle, much less the road, until he was 100% sure that he was prepared to handle it because what if there’s another freak accident that neither of them have control over

Mondo made Daiya promise the exact same thing because He Cares™️

Mondo has reoccurring nightmares about the crash and often sees Daiya dead in those nightmares

The gang shows up in the nightmares too and they’ve all been hit and it’s all Mondo’s fault and he couldn’t be a good leader because he wasn’t strong enough and why couldn’t he just be more like his brother god fucking dammit

Sometimes he sees Taka or Chihiro in place of Daiya and the Diamonds and that Absolutely Terrifies Him™️

Daiya has reoccurring thoughts about hijacking a truck to hit the driver who hurt him and his little brother

He wants them to feel all the same pain and more that they put the Diamond Brothers through

Daiya has breakdowns over this because even if he is a gang leader, he would not go that far

cue the Am I A Bad Person Complex™️

Mondo does not let himself stim

He doesn’t think it’s manly and it definitely doesn’t fit the Tough Guy™️ act

This leads to worsened focus and next thing you know he and Daiya are having a yelling match at home because if Mondo’s grades drop any lower he’ll be expelled soon and Daiya just wants the best for his brother but nothing works out the way it was planned

One time Mondo received a popsicle stick and paper heart from Taka

He was extremely happy

When he got back to his dorm he was that happy that he was shaking and then oh shit

Mondo broke it

He snapped the popsicle sticks in half

the note that Taka wrote,, it got ripped in the process

Mondo full on sobbed over this for an hour at the least

Like

Actual

Real

Tears

He broke something that Taka— not just his bf, but his best friend— had worked so hard on to make just for him and he fucking broke it like a shit for brains idiot

Mondo is terrified of hurting his friends

Because what if he forgets to take his adhd meds one day and his emotional dysregulation is all fucked up and he has an outburst again and actually hurts his friends

Or what if he takes 2+ doses by accident and focuses too hard and is left staring at one (1) spot and everyone hates him and what if they think he’s a creep

Mondo hates going out of his dorm at night because what if someone else is out and they have a flashlight and now they’re pointing it at him and it’s bright and those are headlights and that’s

that’s his brother

on the ground

not moving

Mondo will start shaking and he’ll break down hyperventilating or freeze on the spot

Either way, he hates being vulnerable

Whaddaya think? :D was that enough angst?

also can you tell that i kin Daiya on the dl bc i too got hit by a moving vehicle to save my young mer sibling from being hit /lh but also srs lmfo

HEY TINK??? HEY TINK????????

GodDAMN make me cry over this shit oKAY-

also sorry this took ✨forever✨ I had to gather my Thoughts™️ and my brain did not want to work today 😌

also before we get into my things, tw for trauma (obviously), unhealthy coping mechanisms, underage smoking/drug relapse/smoking as a crutch, and suicidal ideation (passive, but still there)

First of all, y e a h oh my god?? There is literally so much internalized guilt for both of them,,,,,like they rlly do have episodes sometimes where they just. Play over the events of what lead up to the crash in their heads and fixate on what they could have done differently,,,,,even though in the moment they both did their best? Like “well, I shouldn’t have taken us down this street” or “if I had acted quicker, maybe it wouldn’t have happened” and.....yeah those thoughts really fuck with them, y’know?

and 100% that unexpected/overwhelming vehicle noises and/or presences are nearly debilitating. Honestly, I imagine that Mondo can’t go hang out with Leon and Taka or whoever else if said people are hanging out in Kaz’s workshop. Owada’s only ever been in there once and immediately had to leave when he heard Kazuichi starting an engine he was working on. Not to mention being surrounded by a shit ton of vehicles, even if they were idle, had kept him on-edge the entire thirty seconds he was able to handle it.

They both deal with a lot of phantom pain, as well. Like something triggers them and suddenly, even if they’re able to remain in the moment and keep conscious of their surroundings, they somehow feel every ache, every twinge of pain, every breaking bone, or bruised patch of skin that they felt on that day. It’s a lot more prominent in Daiya than it is with Mondo, but they do both experience it!

And neither one lets the other know when they’re feeling like shit or having an episode because 😌 Daiya. wants to be strong. for his little brother. and Mondo. sees his brother basically functioning like a typical person. and figures that there’s something wrong with him. because he can’t get over what happened.

Takemichi is absolute shit with Emotions and being vulnerable or getting people to open up to him, but he’s like..........internally these bitches are Not Okay what the fuck am I supposed to do about it???? So he kind of...tries to hint to both of them that he’s worried? Without making it obvious or embarrassing them, but he’s like.......fuck these assholes.......making me be the one to make them realize they need help goddamnit........

And michi exhibiting a change in behavior is pretty 👀 because. it’s michi I mean he’s not just gonna change the way he talks in front of u for nothing, u know? So both Daiya and Mondo are actually able to pick up on it, although their reactions differ pretty greatly.

Like Daiya’s first thought is “wow, he’s worried, that’s really sweet of him. Better convince him everything’s okay.”

Meanwhile Mondo’s is “wow, he’s worried. my stupid emotional turmoil is that obvious. he must think I’m some sorta fuckin idiot for not being able to get over it. or selfish. or both. yeah, probably both.”

Also I think Daiya’s pretty perceptive in general? Like he can Tell™️ that something’s going on with his brother, but........yeah emotional conversations....vulnerability......that’s rlly neither of their strong suits. + he also figures that if it were something mondo were really really really having trouble with, he would come talk to him!

And so Daiya has absolutely no concept of just how Not Good his brother is doing right now hbbvvvv

So he settles for being like “I’m just gonna stay strong and act like the memories and intrusive thoughts aren’t affecting me in any way because I want to be a good role model” (which. is not healthy obv)

oh g o d the nightmares

they are so horrible and vivid and concentrated at times that Mondo simply.....refuses to sleep. He’s exhausted, both mentally and physically, and yet he can’t bring himself to close his eyes because he knows what he’ll see if he does.

And of course it affects him to the point that his friends start to become worried. Like Taka notices a stark increase in tardiness or general absences, and, after an initial assumption that it was simply Mondo choosing not to care about his academics again, realized that there was probably a lot more going on than he realized. He really, really wanted to bring it up and let his boyfriend know that he’ll always be there for him no matter what, but he couldn’t quite figure out how to articulate it properly. The farthest he gets is with the question, “is everything okay?”

And as much as Mondo wants to respond to him by saying that no, in fact, everything is not okay, everything sucks and everything hurts and he’s tired and he hates himself and sometimes he wishes that the crash had killed him, but that’s selfish so he should shut up- he just.....can’t bring himself to open himself up like that. Yes, he and Ishi are dating, so logically he should be able to tell him all this, but.....it’s so much. It’s too much. Too much to think, too much to feel, let alone try to explain. So he shuts himself up with a quick, curt, “Yeah.”

And....Taka knows he’s lying. He’s not sure how he knows, but he does. And it hurts to see someone he loves so much in such a state of anguish, and basically be unable to do anything about it because....how is he supposed to respond? What is he supposed to say? Navigating everyday interaction is difficult enough without having to improv something that could affect his partner’s mental health indefinitely. So....he does his best. Which isn’t enough, really, but it’s something.

“You can tell me anything.”

Mondo wants to believe him.

—

Another side of that same coin is Mondo skipping class a lot more than is typical for him. It’s almost always with Leon, but he’s also begun slipping away on his own, occasionally, as well, now.

And....y’know, at first, Leon thought it was super rad that Owada and he were skipping more! Like it used to be that Kuwata would offer for them to miss the next class, and Mondo’s usual answer would be ‘not today,’ and then Leon would keep bugging him about it until Mondo either gave in or told him to fuck off.

But....there’s just something about how it went from Leon being constantly shut down, to being told yes around the first few times the idea was brought up, to how, suddenly, Kuwata wasn’t even the one asking, anymore. It’s....depressing? Uncomfortable?

There’s also the fact that hanging out while they’re cutting just....isn’t as fun as it used to be? Leon’ll crack jokes or come up with stupid dares, and Mondo’s responses will be noncommittal at best. And Leon’s had enough experience with sleep deprivation to know it in his friends when he sees it.

He’s never been put in this situation before - usually it’s kuwata having some sort of stupid episode and usually it’s owada who’ll tell him to chill the fuck out and think rationally about things, but....Mondo acts a lot different when he’s upset than Leon does. He smokes more. Cuts himself off from everyone. Doesn’t engage with anything.

It’s different with people like Toko, or Makoto, or Kaz, because Leon knows what they need. He knows whether or not they need vulnerability, or a physical presence, or tough love, or tactile grounding, or a willing ear or shoulder to cry on, but with Mondo......he just isn’t sure.

So Leon doesn’t comment.

——-

Chihiro’s probably the one to get him to open up about it ngl.

ANYWAY-

y e a h Daiya intrusive thoughts?????? fuck yeah???? absolutely??????

god yeah I rlly feel him on that ngl hbhdbdbdbbb

and MONDO DARLING 🥺

god okay it SUCKS because????? he doesn’t judge his friends for stimming????? Like he sees his friends fidgeting or repeating phrases or rocking back and forth and he’s like???? Hell yeah you go u funky kid ilysm

But when it comes to himself????? he’s like if I do anything aside from stay perfectly still, I’m weird and bad and a failure so I simply Will Not

he’s wrong but it doesn’t change the fact that he feels that way ❤️

hhhvhvvdd I’m also a slut for daiya doing his best as a makeshift parental figure,,,,,,,like fuck dude okay,,,,,,as an older sibling who also loves and cares about their younger sibs but often finds emotionally connecting with them to be difficult,,,,,,,,,mood??? And having all of that amplified by rlly being his younger bro's only support in his home life,,,,,,,like ok mr. owada go off

he feels a lot of pressure to get it right and make sure that Mondo's doing okay, so the grades really worry him. but, of course, grades are a touchy subject with mondo regardless, so as u said it devolves into arguments and yelling and a lot of defensiveness!!

and god okay,,,,,,,the heart rlly got me,,,,,,,like that hurt. it rlly hurt man okay damn

honestly??? I think that might be the thing that gets him to break. like that might be his final straw.

because when they meet up again, Ishi asks him about it and whether or not he liked it. And Mondo just.

fucking.

breaks.

down.

He’s shaking and he’s crying and there’s snot running down his nose and this is so ugly and so not manly but he can’t stop. he can’t stop. Because there is this sweet, gentle, kind, sweet, beautiful, darling, sweet man before him who did something so nice for him, something he didn’t deserve, and he destroyed it.

Like he destroys everything.

And so when Taka panics and asks him what’s wrong (yes Ishi gets worried that he did something bad and yes ishi also gets worried that his boyfriend didn’t like the present because hdbdvdvd kin 💛) owada just. spills everything. and he doesn’t even begin with the gift??? he starts with apologies upon apologies, many of them incoherent, and many of them with Mondo not even certain what he’s apologizing for, just that he knows he needs to

and ofc Taka is like o-o because wow ok

but after his initial shock, and after Mondo has thoroughly cried himself out and explained everything he could stand to explain at that point in time, Taka just......holds him. And strokes his face, brushing away the tears that have not yet dried, simply offering his body as a weight, as something for Mondo to ground himself with. And it works.

And Taka insists that Mondo has nothing to apologize for, only that he wishes Mondo would have told him what was going on sooner. Because he wants to help. And hearing that just gets Owada’s waterworks going all over again, but he’s still got Ishi there with him. He hasn’t scared him off.

And it’s more than enough.

—

and UGH yeah????? yes absolutely absolutely okay okay so,,,,,,,,mondo comorbid adhd/depression/anxiety

like sir 🤝

got me fucked up smh

honestly he’s probably not diagnosed with the depression or anxiety, either, until something like the incident with ishi prompts him to realize oh wow I’m not okay actually

so yes he 100% does???

he constantly has all of these what if situations swirling around in his brain about what might happen if he fucks up, or does something that he doesn’t qualify as fucking up in the moment, but leads to something awful or painful or harmful for someone else, and he’s just??????? g o d

[re-diesirae]

13. Chris

Irritation was beyond what Chris was currently feeling. He and the Alpha team had been preparing to leave for Leon's location point when the second wave of B.O.W.s attacked the city. The emergency call required their immediate response, and the Alpha team's departure was pushed back, much to Chris dismay. His sister was somewhere in the middle of nowhere at the other side of the planet, most likely in great danger, and the damn mutants were preventing him from going to her rescue.

The second wave of attacks was on a bigger scale than the first one, but with the civilians evacuated, B.S.A.A had received permission to use any force necessary to stop the attackers. The city got engulfed in a sea of fire and destruction that brought him a bunch of bad memories, and what he hated the most was that his little sister would return to find her home destroyed.

"Fuck those terrorists," Barry's annoyed growl sounded somewhere close to his side. They had barricaded themselves in a building as they shot a horde of j'avo that had decided to open fire on them, "Can't I just throw them a grenade and end with their pathetic zombie asses?"

"More like mutant, insect asses, Barry," Jill corrected him.

"Who cares? It is all the same to me..."

"What's our status?" Chris groaned as he replaced the cartridge of his machine gun.

"Surrounded. These bastards won't give us a break," Jill replied.

"Have they ever done such a thing?" Barry spitted in annoyance.

"Get down...I'm using one of these."

Following a previous suggestion from Barry, Chris pulled off one of the grenade's security locks and threw it against the j'avos. The thing exploded, sending the foes flying in pieces.

"Well, that surely worked," Jill approved.

"Yeah, why didn't we do that from the beginning?" Barry growled.

Chris was about to articulate a response to that when the sizzling of his radio interrupted him in mid-sentence.

"HQ to Redfield, do you copy?"

"Redfield here."

"Redfield, a large scale B.O.W has been spotted north from your position. We sent the Betta team to size it, but we lost contact with them 10 minutes ago. We need you and Alpha Team to check on the situation."

"Understood. We will take a look. Redfield out."

Chris pushed his radio back into his utility belt and turned to the rest of the team. Barry looked at him and shook his head grumpily.

"So we get to do babysitting, huh?" Barry sighed, "Soldiers these days are useless."

"You sound like a cranky old man, Barry..." Jill teased.

"I'm stating a fact. I don't remember our men being such a joke when we started at this..."

"Not everyone can be like you or Chris, Barry."

"I should suggest some new training plans when this shit is over..."

" I am sure there are a lot of things we can do when this shit is over. For now, let's deal with this crap first. I still got to get Claire back."

"Relax, big brother. Claire is a tough cookie who knows how to take care of herself. The girl has survived three zombie apocalypses" Barry chuckled, "She might even be tougher than you despite being a girl."

"Hey, don't underestimate a woman," Jill smirked, faking an offended glare.

"Of course, I do not. Don't forget that I live surrounded by four. I am always on the losing side..."

Jill laughed, imagining how life in the Burton house probably was.

"Either way, Barry is right, Claire won't die so easily, she's a Redfield, and Redfields are hard to kill."

"And don't forget Kennedy is with her," Jill added.

"Yeah, I bet Kennedy will take care of her," Barry nodded, "So let's focus on cleaning up the city, shall we?"

"Huh," Jill snorted, "When Claire comes back and finds this mess, she won't be too happy with you, Chris."

Chris snorted. He could picture Claire's pissed look as she complained about him rushing to rescue her and leaving her beloved city at the mercy of a B.O.W. attack. Jill was right, Claire would be angry at him, and he knew better than to provoke his little sister's fury.

"Well then, let's clean up this city. If there is anything I fear in this world, that is Claire when she's angry."

He wasn't lying, and he found it amusing. He could face a war, survive a zombie apocalypse, fight horrifying mutants, and yet, Chris couldn't stand his sister's glare, tears, or anything she did to persuade him. Barry had always laughed, saying that he had a sister complex, but more than a sister complex, it was a soft spot for her. She was his baby-sister no matter how old she grew, and she had certain privileges that no one else in the world would ever get from him.

"Heh, I wonder how scary can the little Redfield be if she can make the almighty Chris Redfield scared., Barry laughed, "Is she that scary? I've never seen her mad."

"That's because she's the sort of woman who wouldn't get mad unless you did something truly despicable," Chris commented.

"Ow...and what exactly did you do to anger her?" Jill asked curiously.

"I am her brother. I am an exception. She always gets mad at me at the minimal thing," he said as he shot a couple of mutated j'avos that had been chasing them.

"So, you get the privilege to feel her anger for small things," Barry asked, shooting another group of infected, "I don't envy you at all, pal, and wait till you get married. Your wife will team up with Claire and make you miserable. I know what I tell you. When my girls team up against me, it is worse than fighting off zombies."

Chris wondered about that. He couldn't imagine how bad that would be, and he heard Jill amused laugh.

"This might be the first time I'll see Chris scared at all."

The two soldiers broke into a fit of laughter, and Chris rolled his eyes.

"You two….stop it already." Chris growled grumpily, "Focus on the mission!"

"Well, excuse me for trying to lighten the mood," Barry said with a chuckle," "I think this is the place," Jill said, checking her intel.

Chris looked around. The place was deadly quiet, and there were no signs of the soldiers or zombies. He signaled Jill and Barry to be alert, and both of them nodded as they took a position with their weapons ready. Chris walked into the place, looking around with his gun raised. So far, there were no signs of the B.O.W., but he noticed something lying a couple of feet from him.

"Redfield here. I've found the members of Team Betta. The situation is bad. I'll look for survivors."

"Understood, be careful, team Alpha."

Chris walked cautiously around the bodies, feeling disgusted. It looked like a slaughterhouse; something had torn the soldiers into pieces, and their body parts laid scattered all over the place. It was a massacre and a horrendous one. Chris was sad to say it, but he doubted that there were any survivors from Team Betta.

"Chris, watch out!" Jill's voice shouted out of sudden.

Chris turned around in time to dodge a reddish blur that jumped over him. The man rolled over his side and got back up with his gun raised. He shot the B.O.W. that had just attacked him, and he could hear Barry and Jill shooting, too.

"Watch out! I think this thing might be the one who slaughtered the whole Betta team."

The creature roared and vanished into the surrounding darkness.

"What the fuck is that thing?" Barry growled.

"I have no idea," Chris said, reloading his gun, "but I don't think it is good news. Alpha Team to HQ, do you copy?"

"This is HQ. We hear you, Alpha Team."

"We have a situation," Chris said, aiming his gun. He could hear something moving around them, but he could not see it. "Unknown B.O.W. Most-likely, the one responsible for Betta Team's slaughter. Requesting back-up."

"Copied. Hang on in there, Alpha team."

There was a screech, and the red blur jumped out of the shadows, trying to tackle them. The trio rolled over and evaded it.

"What the fuck?" Barry said, shooting.

Chris had no idea what it was, either. The creature in front of them was something they had never encountered before. It looked like a giant meaty caterpillar with four long paws that ended in curling tentacles. There was a long slash on its face, filled by long yellowish fangs. The drool was dripping disgustingly from it. The three of them were shooting endless at it as the thing jumped from a wall to the other, roaring.

The trio rolled over the ground dodging the whipping tentacles. The creature, despite lacking eyes, was easily tracking their movements. Chris had showered the meaty body with a wave of bullets, but the thing didn't seem to be affected. The creature roared once more, showing the second row of yellow fangs and a bifid black tongue.

"What an ugly face. Makes me wanna punch it."

"You are welcome to blow it up, Barry," Jill said.

"Heh..thought you'd never say it."

Barry pulled out one of his grenades and threw it into the B.O.W. The first grenade barely missed the creature, but the explosion effect managed to hurt it and throw it on the ground. Taking advantage of its vulnerable position, Barry threw a second grenade directly at it as Jill and Chris kept shooting at it. The explosion raised an intense flame, and when the fumes had dissipated, the monster laid dead and half scorched.

"Well, there you have it. Nothing can do against a well-aimed grenade... "

"What the hell is this thing?" Jill said with a disgusted look.

"Guess it is Neo-Umbrella's new toy, " Chris said, kicking the corpse to take a look. "Team Alpha here. We took down the B.O.W that attacked Betta Team. It's been taken care of, but we found no survivors."

"Those are unfortunate news. Understood, team Alpha. Return to HQ, let clean-up to the back-up team. You've received new additional orders."

"What new orders, sir? If I may ask..." Jill said, looking at Chris with a frown.

"We've received intel from a member from the F.O.S, concerning the location of agent Kennedy. The place might be testing grounds for developing B.O.W.s"

"Just great, another Santa's factory of B.O.W." Barry mumbled bitterly. Chris knew the man was still bothered by what had happened to his daughter two years ago. Heck, he was mad, too. They had taken Claire once, and they had taken her again and right under his nose. Those fucking bastards would have to pay.

"You've been ordered to rescue and investigate the place. An aircraft is waiting for you at the power building. You are to depart asap."

"Understood. We are on our way."

Chris looked at his companions. His face twisted in an angry look. Those damned terrorists would pay if they touched a single hair of his sister, and he wasn't kidding.

"Leon...Claire. We are coming for you."

NOTE: if you guys want to come and chat about the fic, or just about CLEON in general. Feel free to drop by the discord and say hi! JOIN SERVER

[nincompoopydoo]

Coming Home

Pairing: Sam Wilson x reader

Words: 1409

Summary: Sam’s coming home. 

A/N: very emotional, may be cheesy but I’m kinda into it. Leon Bridges is a legend and the song, Coming Home, gives Sam Wilson vibes to me. Stay safe my lovelies. Enj. THIS IS PART TWO OF TROUBLE MAN!!!

Warning: Crying, kind of dramatic

Inspire by: Coming Home - Leon Bridges

Previous Chapter: Trouble Man

Masterlist

“-I’ll call you when I get there....See you tomorrow......I love you.” you hear a beep over the line, an unwavering smile upon your face. Incredibly elated by the fact you were able to hear your mother’s voice again, after five long years. You instantly promised you were returning home, first thing tomorrow morning.

A trash back in a hand, you quickly locked your phone with the other, shoving it into your back pocket. Your mind shifts to an image of a grinning Sam Wilson, warm and lovely brown eyes gazing wistfully at you during that one night the two of you shared with beers and pizza. Your heart skips a beat at the thought of him returning, clearly knowing the Avengers had done it. Steve promised you and you knew he was a man of his words.

You shut the front door, practically skipping towards the trash can as you naturally began singing under your breath. Lifting the lid, the strong smell of last night’s taco bell whiffs through the air around you but you have Trouble Man ringing inside your head as you happily discard the trash bag. 

“I come up hard baby, but now I'm cool. I didn't make it-”

“So, you can sing.”

You were startled by the sound of his familiar voice, coming to a halt. A part of you wants to believe it’s all in your head, just like the many times before this. But then it clicked in your head, you would never let yourself believe you could actually sing. Snapping your head around, you were met with the sight of Sam Wilson, in all his glory. He stands by the sidewalk, five feet from where you stood, grinning widely as he takes you in. Your eyes widened, and your heart leapt into your dry throat as you stared at the sight of the man you longed to see, to hold, for all those years. 

“Sam?” you managed a breathless whisper as he began to near you. Your mind was reeling, heartbeat becoming increasingly rapid. A spark of yearning ignites inside of you and you find yourself sprinting across the pavement straight for him. His chest rumbles with laughter as you practically throw yourself against him, arms instantly finding its way around his torso. The sound of his pounding heart beneath your ear was assurance that he was really alive. 

This man was merely your neighbour, hardly a good friend or perhaps a lover yet you’ve craved for his touch, to see his smile for so long until now. As far as you were concerned, he was dead for five years.

But now Sam is here, cradling your head gently as he holds onto you like his life depended. Like both of your lives depended on this embrace on this quiet night. Caressing you, soothing you with whispered utterances. “Sam...you’re here.” the last word broke on a soft cry as a sob unintentionally slipped past your lips. Tears began streaming down your cheeks, unable to verbalize the overwhelming emotions coursing through. 

“It’s gonna be okay,” he assured, breath brushing against your neck. 

You felt you at least needed to justify your sudden burst of strong emotions, trying to explain to him but failing to do so as strangled sobs continue to take over you. Yet, Sam is a compassionate and sensitive man; he never wants you to apologize for merely feeling. You were human after all. All he knows is that he’s been gone for five years, and it may seem like a short period of time but a lot can happen in five years.

This was no exception for you.

Yet your rational side manages to take over, it forbids you from seeking comfort in Sam’s embrace as you begin pulling away, wiping your tears away. “I’m sorry, I, uh, for being so dramatic.” you let out a dry chuckle, glassy eyes meeting his concerned ones. You were his neighbour after all, perhaps even a friend —nothing more.

But you watch the man shake his head in distraught, shushing you softly whilst pulling you into his arms once more. Gentle circles were caressed around the small of your back as he began cradling your head, burrowing deeper into his embrace. You decided to just savour the strength of his arms around you instead of underestimating your relationship with Sam Wilson. Clearly, neither of you want to release the other. 

“You know,” Sam started, chuckling under his breath. “Before I, you know, blew away,” he waved his hand in the air in an almost swatting motion as if it was helping him articulate the right words. “...I thought of you. Your face, your smile, your Shania Twain t-shirt-” a pause, you chuckle lightly, recalling that one late night of spaghetti disaster. “And we haven’t even begun—” he cuts himself off abruptly as the sound of a stifled sob slipped through his lips. The sound was heartbreaking, enough to send your head reeling; lifting your head, turning to look over at him, tears in his eyes. It was painful to see a man that once wore a constant smile, now gazing sorrowful eyes. 

Reaching up, you cupped his cheeks with your hands, wiping away a tear with a pad of your thumb. Sam lets out a strangled laugh. “I’m sorry, it’s been a long couple of days,” he murmurs, turning his hand in as he clasped your hand. He tilts his head in, taking comfort from the gentle warmth of your touch. You hummed in response, “You, saving the world and all,” He shoots you a look, tears forgotten as you watched a sly grin appear. 

“So, I’m guessing Steve gave you the record.”

“Yeah, thanks for making me cry in front of Captain America.”

“My pleasure.”

Still charming, as always.

You beamed up at him sweetly and his breath hitches at the mere sight of your smile. You never failed to make him feel this way ever since you first moved in next door. The two of you are so caught up in each other’s gaze that something travels between you both in this intimate moment; you watch Sam’s eyes lower to your lips for a split second as your pulse begins to race. You wouldn't doubt the unspoken connection you have with Sam Wilson but the thought of him wanting to actually kiss you never once crossed your mind. Sam starts leaning in — instinctively; he wonders if he should ask... but this feels right, and you’re doing the same, eyes fluttering close with a small smile playing upon your lips.

Something thumps from behind Sam, and the two of you jump, his eyes flickering between you and the source of the noise with an almost irritated look. The moment was gone just as quickly as it came. 

The sight of none other than Steve Rogers, looking like a deer caught in the headlights, made you sigh as he rightfully earned a hard glare from the two of you. You hesitantly pulled away from Sam’s arms, yet he kept his hand grasped onto yours. “You stalking me now, Cap?”

Steve grins sheepishly, instantly flashing an apologetic look. “Sorry, I was trying to be quiet, but...I tripped.”

“I thought you were supposed to be a super soldier, Steve.” Sam glances at you as you responded- his mind whirs the possibility of what was just about to happen a mere second ago. He was going to kiss you, yet Steve Goddamn Rogers had to ruin the entire moment. 

He was going to pay for this.

Sam just hoped he wasn’t there to see him cry.

Steve shrugs coyly, shoving his hands in the pockets of his jacket. The air was tense now, he can feel it and Steve feels horrible for unintentionally interrupting such an awaited moment. But, you merely smiled at him whilst squeezing Sam’s hand. “Why don’t you boys come in, and I’ll fix you two up with a cup of tea, okay?”

The two Avengers shared a look for a moment before Sam spoke up with an endearing smile upon his lips. “Sure, why not.”

And with that the three of you are scurrying over to your doorstep, dragging Sam behind you as Steve laughed at the sight of his two best friends. You glanced admiringly at the man with the charming smile as he gazes down at you wistfully. Maybe, five years was worth the wait.  

[mnemosys]

15 questions

Named after someone? Leon S. Kennedy, just not as handsome.

Last time you cried? I don’t remember.

Do you have any kids? Ew. Besides my characters, nope.

Do you use sarcasm a lot? Sarcastic people would never admit to using sarcasm.

What’s the first thing you notice about people? Their speech and writing patterns, verbal ticks, stuff like that. If I don’t like the way someone articulates their words, the sound of their voice, the way they type, I usually don’t associate myself with the person, because I get easily sensory overloaded. Annoying aspects stick out like a sore thumb.

Eye color? Blue.

Scary movie or happy ending? I love horror movies, but I also love happy endings. I don’t like endings that leave a bitter taste in my mouth or those that make me feel empty by the credits (same goes for games lol as much as I like BB lore, that game makes me feel like crap when it comes full circle). There are plenty of horror movies that end on insightful and hopeful notes, even comedic ones - I will always go for that, because my life is a shitshow as it is, it doesn’t need more depressive tones to sprinkle on top. E.g. of horror movies w/ chef’s kisses endings are The Cornetto Trilogy, Ready or Not and Tucker and Dale vs Evil (obviously a lot more, but these are some of my favorites).

Any special talent? I am pretty average at everything. I’m good at making crepes, though.

What country were you born in? Romania.

What are your hobbies? Playing games (mostly mobile, PC gives me migraines), writing (RP, because it’s interactive and it’s dangerous to leave me alone with my own thoughts), watching YouTube, watching movies & generally interested in filmography, reading manga and short stories, drawing sometimes, hanging out with my girlfriend doing all of the above (and cooking together), listening to music & making character playlists/aesthetics, working out.

Do you have any pets? I’ve got a slinky cat and a loafy dog. I used to have a hammy too, but he passed away.

What sports do you play/have played? Just whatever PE I did in school. Basketball mostly. I play badminton sometimes. Also did a bit of swimming, but I’m too anxious to swim in deep waters, so I’ll pass on that. I also like cycling, but my town doesn’t have dedicated bike lanes and I’d rather not get acquainted with truck-kun any time soon.

How tall are you? ~168cm

Favorite subject in school? Lol none I fucking hated school, good riddance. Recess was pretty cool. I would’ve liked to do more English literature, but college was a goddamn joke too.

Dream job? I’m lucky to get any by this point.

TAGGED BY: @derjaegermond​ [thank you]

TAGGING: @timelostcarrion​

[reversemoon255]

So Gundam Build Divers Re:Rise has been going on for a month now, and I’ve been quite enjoying it, and I’ve got to do a Fifth Review for this month, so I thought I’d talk a bit about the Gundam Build series. I feel like I’ve always been more into the Build stuff than a lot of other fans I’ve talked to, which I attribute to me being more into the technological aspects of the meta-series as a whole. So, as Gunpla’s kinda my thing, I thought we’d talk about Gunpla. I’ve been interested in doing some Top 10 stuff, and thought it might be fun to go over some of my favorites from the series. I won’t be including Re:Rise since it’s not complete, but I will be looking at all the custom Gunpla from GBF, GBFT, GBD, and their associated manga and choosing the ten that fit my fancy:

Number 10: GF13-17NJ/B Gundam Shining Break

This is probably lower on this list because I haven’t been able to find Gundam Build Divers Break, but I still love the idea behind this unit. I went over it when I reviewed the kit, but the reason the Builder chose the Shining Gundam as a base was because of its wide range of articulation as a martial arts inspired Gundam, but then removed all the things that let it do martial arts techniques and slapped a big ol’ gun and shield on it and gave it an MA conversion. He basically turned it into the WIng Gundam.

And I think that’s really cool. Taking a unit that you like for one reason and completely changing its fighting style and gimmicks to better match that of a unit you mesh with from a control perspective. I feel like most people would just take a unit that was their favorite or already had a fighting style they liked and would just choose that as a starting point, so it’s cool to not see a unit give into that compromise.

Number 9: NYA+MBKF-P02 Nyaia Astray

The Nyaia Gundam is probably the first MS in the GBF canon that we see get a total overhaul, transforming a Gundam with a quadrupedal MA mode into a cuddly cat. And like the Bearguy III, it spawned several copycats that all have cutesy MA transformation... It’s just none of them got actual kits.

Of that particular cast of characters, the Nyaia Astray is my favorite. The successor to the Nyaia and Nyaia Leone, the Nyaia Astray is one of the few cute MA to not have an MA Mode to start with, similar to our previous entry. It’s just another cool bit of inspiration, giving a unit an alternate mode when it originally didn’t have one, and also building outside the preconceived notion of sticking with in-universe canons.

Number 8: 最強機動 Gundam Tryon 3

I love Super Robots. I have not been shy about telling people that. And here we have a Gunpla inspired by Super Robots. Enough said.

Number 7: GN-1001N Seravee Gundam Scheherazade

Y’know, I just now noticed that it’s call sign is 1001N, as in 1001 Nights. Clever.

The Scheherazade is an excellent example of adding an original gimmick to a Gunpla. Its Booster is capable of transforming into a weapons pack similar to the original Seravee’s typical loadout, but also has a secondary mode built for close combat. Plus it can itself be used as a weapon. That’s four different ways a single Booster can be used, leaving the base unit free to worry about its own articulation, weapons, and performance without having to integrate any abnormal parts that might get in the way.

Number 6: RMS-117G11 Galbaldy Rebake

While it was mostly an excuse to slip some Iron-Blooded Orphans in due to licensing issues with other TV stations (the same reason 00 didn’t appear in GBF until the second season), the Galbaldy Rebake is still an excellent Gunpla. While it doesn’t do anything particularly interesting like the last few entries on this list, it still packs an amazing amount of imagination. It takes the Galbaldy, a Universal Century unit, and changes its style into that of a Calamity War unit, giving it equipment to match. The idea in and of itself is amazing, it’s one of only a few units to it, and it arguably does it the best.

Number 5: XXXG-01S2龍虎狼 Gundam Jiyan Altron

The Jiyan Altron combines several aspects we’ve seen in previous entries on this list. It takes an After Colony timeline unit, not to mention one built for midrange combat, and changes it into a close combat unit with aesthetic and combat elements taken from Gundam Fighters. It utilizes its existing parts in interesting ways, has unique new ones, and even incorporates unseen ones like the golden Hyper Mode.

Also gets a lot of credit for going with the series Altron rather than the EW version. Though, now that I think about it, most of the units based on Gundam Wing seem to utilize the show versions, which is odd considering how popular the Endless Waltz versions appear to be. I wonder if there’s a reason for that?

Number 4: MBF-PNN Gundam Astray No-Name

I’m honestly surprised that the No-Name ended up so high on this list. I know I like the Astray, but not that much. I think that’s just a testament to how interesting the design is. Despite being from GBD, the Astray No-Name feels like the ultimate culmination of the philosophies of GBF and GBFT. As the unit was more and more damaged through actual battle, the Builder continually built upon and reinforced it until it became what it is now. It’s construction out of necessity, rather than how Gunpla are typically built in GBN where it’s based on pilot experience and data. It’s cool that there was at least one Gunpla in the series that hearkened back to it.

Number 3: PEN-01M Momokapool

Gunpla is Freedom! The fact that this is even higher on the list than the No-Name is even more surprising. But the Momokapool is just, like, one of the most unique units in the series, partly because it’s built weaker than its base unit. What really sold me on this was the instruction manual of all things. It gives so much extra detail about the construction of this unit that you miss during its debut episode (though it is a decent episode). Momoka even wanted to remove the finger guns, but only kept them because Koichi was helping her build it and insisted she have some kind of weapon. The Petitkapool is also another great example of an original gimmick, though in this case even though it takes up a lot of space it’s still seamlessly integrated into the design.

I also like the name. It’s Momoka’s Kapool so it’s the Momokapool. Cute.

Number 2: SD-237 Winning Gundam

You may have noticed that most of the units on this list are from GBD. As the series’ have progressed the designers on the series have gotten better and more imaginative, so it’s not surprising that the newer units would incorporate more of the technical stuff I like in comparison to older units that were mostly recolors with new heads.

However, the Winning Gundam, despite its age even within its own season (eventually being replaced by the Star Winning Gundam), stands out as one of the most imaginative units the series has ever produced. Most SD Gundams are themed, normally around Romance of the Three Kingdoms due to most SD Gundam shows being based on it, but the Winning follows the typical schemes of most MS. Not only that, but it has a Booster Mode, it’s head can separate from that to form a smaller Booster, and it has multiple weapons and parts that can combine together for different situations.

But the best thing it does? It’s able to integrate with Real Type MS. The first to do so. It even inspired an entire, though to my knowledge brief, line of SD Gundams capable of doing the same. It’s thinking outside the box at its finest.

Number 1: XXXG-01Wf Wing Gundam Fenice

And the only Gunpla from GBF ends up being number 1 on the list, but not for the same reasons as everything else. It has a few new gimmicks, but nothing amazing. It has a few additional weapons, but nothing as intense as other MS in the series. It has some unique design elements, but doesn’t utilize any spectacular ideas in its build. And it’s green.

But what it does do is tell a story. Like the No-Name, it’s been bashed and beaten through years of Gunpla Battles, and has been repaired and upgraded each time. Unlike the No-Name, however, you can actually tell by looking at it, with its asymmetrical design, broken head components, and heterochromia.

And its upgrades are great, too. It has a personal vehicle that utilizes some of the missing components from the Wing Gundam base, the Meteor Hopper. When it’s eventually destroyed in its battle against the Qubeley Papillon, its successor, the Gundam Fenice Rinascita, takes many cues from this unit while reincorporating the MA Mode from the Wing Gundam and has new combinable weaponry likely inspired by the Wing Gundam Zero. And on top of that, its final incarnation, the Gundam Fenice Liberta, removes the previous MA Flight Mode in favor of a ground-based one reminiscent of the Meteor Hopper the first Fenice utilized.

All in all, the Fenice may not be as bold and flashy as some of the other Gunpla it fought or those from future series, but it makes up for it with sheer charm and design quality.

And that’s my favorite Gunpla to have come out of the Build Series. I’m pretty sure most people won’t agree with a lot of my choices, but I know what I like. I’m not trying to be objective; I’m just running on gut feelings here. And to bring things back around to Re:Rise, I’m excited to see what new Gunpla we’ll be getting in the future, and am happy with the ones we’ve gotten so far. And I’ll talk more about that tomorrow...

[shadowphoenixrider]

Continuation to this, as my mind chewed it over a couple of days ago.

Katla stared glumly into the steaming waters of Circhester’s hot springs. It had been a week since her argument with Kabu in Hammerlocke, and it was still weighing on her mind and heart.

She’d managed to push thoughts of the gym leader aside during her training for Gordie’s challenge, but Kabu always returned to her mind in the quiet moments, like now. She’d not left his company pleasantly - she’d not even said goodbye, with how bitter and angry she’d been at his words and assumptions.

The bitterness had boiled down into guilt as she’d considered his words, playing them over and over in her mind. Kabu had only been trying to help, trying not to let her potential slip through her fingers. That he admired and regarded her enough to tell her that was...a lot, honestly. Yet she’d pushed him away, and with little option for recourse. She wanted to apologise to him, but she wasn’t even sure he’d want to see her again - that, she had no other way to contact him. The thought that he might not even watch her upcoming match due to this hurt enough to prick tears in her eyes.

In truth, it was more than just that.

She was so absorbed in her internal dialogue that she didn’t notice the figure that came to stand beside her. It was only when they spoke did she snap back to reality:

“Katla?”

The trainer blinked widely, turning quickly to see Kabu, bundled up in a large black bench coat, with a strange segmented scarf wrapped tightly around his neck. Whilst his expression was a careful neutral, his silver eyes were not - they were anxious, strangely fragile, like glass.

“K...Kabu?” Katla croaked out, her voice thick from lack of use.

“I apologise for disturbing you.” Kabu spoke softly, yet quickly. “I’m aware you probably don’t wish to see me again, but please, at least do me one favour.”

He handed her an envelope, her name written in his scrawly handwriting. “Read this letter.” He paused for a moment, and forced a sad smile across his lips. “Best of luck for your upcoming Challenge, Katla.”

With that, he began to walk away. Katla opened her mouth to call for him to wait, but his name got caught in her throat, and she could only watch him melt into a crowd of people.

She glanced down at the envelope in her hands, turning it over in her hands before she decided there were better places to read it.

---

Sequestered in her much warmer hotel room, Katla broke the weak glue seal and pulled out the letter. It was neatly folded, and though Kabu’s handwriting reminded her of a doctor’s, it was much more legible. And pristine, without a crossing-out to be seen - she wondered how many drafts preceded this one.

Katla,

I do not know if you will read this letter after our disagreement in Hammerlocke, but I write in the hope you will.

I’m sorry for insinuating that the reason why you’d not attained Championship status in the other Leagues was because you were deliberately holding yourself back. It was incredibly thoughtless of me, especially since you had confessed that you had given up your title due to the stresses it had imposed upon you. I have never known these stresses, and though I can extrapolate from the duties Leon undertakes, I can never truly know. Thus to assume I know what you felt is at best foolish, and at worst, offensive. I ask for your forgiveness.

I do not know the challenges of other regional Leagues - any knowledge I had of Hoenn’s League is woefully out of date now - and thus to assume that you lost to them because you sabotaged your own match is not only an an insult to you, but an insult to your opponents too. I ask forgiveness for this transgression too.

Yet my views on your potential are unchanged. I truly believe you could defeat Leon. I am certain that you will make it to the Finals. I can see the spark in your eyes, the fire that burns when you’re in the midst of a battle. I was honoured to experience it first-hand. Your love for your Pokemon binds you together and makes you strong.

Katla, it is difficult for me to articulate my feelings regarding you, but I feel I must try. I was curious about you from the very moment you appeared on the roster. All the gym leaders were - it is rare indeed that Leon endorses anyone, especially two challengers at once. My curiosity deepened over the course of your Gym Challenge, and deepened into admiration after our own battle. Whilst I am thankful that they are all recorded for posterity, I will not forget the experience for a long, long time.

I have found myself caring for you. I want only for you to succeed, and for you to get up from the falls you will no doubt experience. I said my foolish words not out of a place of unkindness. That does not excuse their pain and hurtfulness, but I want to assure you that my deeper feelings are unchanged.

No matter what you may think of me now, and how justified you will be for thinking it, I will continue to support you. It will hurt to know that I have caused this rift between us through my own fault, but that is my burden to bear. I only hope it has not burdened you as well.

I wish you all the best in your future endeavours, and I look forward to seeing your future gym matches. I will leave my number at the bottom of this letter in case you need to contact me for any reason. No matter what has happened between us, I will help you in any way I can.

Kind regards,

Kabu

Katla read his letter several times, making sure she didn’t miss a single word. The guilt curled tighter around her heart - he’d made a good point with his hypothesis. She’d been ruminating on it for a while and wondering whether it was true. She’d only been eleven when the mantle of Champion had fallen heavy on her shoulders, and Katla couldn’t completely dismiss that the bad experience still cast a long shadow. But she was twenty six now; older, and hopefully wiser. Wasn’t it worth trying again? She cast her mind back to the Elite 4 challenges she’d failed at - she’d bailed out straight afterwards, and she wondered if she would have dug her heels in and kept going, if not afraid of the thought of actually succeeding.

Yet Kabu was apologising, thinking it was him who had caused the hurt, when it was her, lashing out in pain and guilt and shame as he exposed the festering wound to daylight. Just as effortlessly as he had done in the Wild Area, asking her when she was going to tell Hop her secret. And she’d prickled much the same way, only this time she’d driven off one of the kindest men she knew. And it hurt more seeing that he still cared for her, still wished the best for her, was still going to watch her matches and put himself at the end of the line in case she needed anything.

A part of her wished he’d just slammed the door in her face - that would have been kinder than this.

Tears burned at her eyes, but she held back her sob. She wanted to find Kabu and make it right, somehow. The numerals stood out starkly on the paper, an imposing invitation that Katla felt too nervous to use. In honesty, she felt so emotionally tied up, she had no idea what to do.

At that moment, her phone buzzed, and she took a look. It was Hop, asking how she was doing, as he was having to get used to the snowy conditions his Pokemon now found themselves in.

Katla: I've been better. Hey Hop, I dunno if this is the right time, but do you have time to talk?

It only took a couple of seconds passed after her message before a video call request came through. Hop's cheeks were reddened against the cold, his bright gold eyes full of concern.

“Katla, mate. What’s up?” He said, brows furrowing when he got sight of her.

Katla sighed, pulling a smile and not hiding the tears blurring her vision.

“A couple of things. You know me and Kabu had a fight in Hammerlocke, yeah?”

“What’s happened?” Hop asked, an edge to his voice that she’d never heard before.

“Nothing, nothing bad. He gave me a letter, a-and I just wondered if I could talk things through with you.”

“Nah, I’m gonna do better than that.” Hop shook his head. “What room are you staying in, 448? I’ll be right there, don’t go anywhere.”

She could barely take in a breath to protest before the call ended, and she sighed. Not what I had in mind, but I’ll take it.

It wasn’t long before he knocked on the door, and would have bounded in if he wasn’t holding two cups with steaming hot liquid.

“I got you a pick-me-up.” Hop grinned. “You might not be freezing, but I think you’d appreciate a cuppa.”

“Shit Hop, you didn’t need to.” Katla took the proffered cup carefully, cradling its heat in her hands. “How much do I owe you for this?”

“You owe me an explanation of what the hell’s going on with you, mate.” Hop replied, taking a chair and sitting on it backwards next to her. “Where’s that letter Kabu gave you?”

Katla took a deep breath, her heart beginning to pound. Here we go.

“It’s here, but I need to give you context for it to all make sense,” she began. “That means I’ve got to tell you some things...some things I probably should have told you earlier.”

And so Katla spilled the beans, revealing her past experiences as a Pokemon trainer, as well as the fact she’d become Hoenn’s Champion for a brief period of time, stepping down when the stress became too much for her. She elaborated on the argument she’d had with Kabu, the whats and whys and how they’d parted company unhappily.

She paused, letting Hop take this all in, and waited nervously for his response, trying to resist the urge to fiddle with the cup of boiling liquid in her hands.

“That...That makes so much more sense now.” Hop said, leaning back. “Why Lee endorsed you, why I just can’t seem to beat you. Why you always get so mad when I say I’m gonna be the next Champion.” He frowned. “Hey, wait a minute. I’ve never seen it mentioned anywhere that you were Hoenn’s Champion.”

“It’s not something I like to advertise.” Katla explained. “Also news of my ‘ascension’ was kinda pushed aside by the legendary Pokemon shit that was going on at the same time. Kyogre awakening and attempting to flood the entire world was a much bigger deal than an eleven year old becoming Champion. Even if I was involved in that too.”

“I dunno, it seems a pretty big deal to me.” He trained his eyes on her. “So you don’t tell anyone about it?”

“No-one. Put it this way, Hop; you and Kabu are the only people outside my family in Galar that know I was once Champion, and I wanna keep it that way.“

“Were you...ever gonna tell me?”

Katla cringed, hanging her head.

“If I could have helped it? No.” She admitted. “You’re a good kid, Hop. I didn’t want to crush your spirit - you want your rival to be on the same level, not to learn that they were a Champion once.” She sighed. “I was going to tell you after you came back that battle you had with Bede in the Wild Area...” She didn’t need to look at the younger trainer to know he was shifting uncomfortably. “But you looked and acted so broken I...I couldn’t.” She shook her head, and a snarl curled her lips. “I could have ripped that sucker a new one, treating you like that. He got his comeuppance in the end, but still...”

Katla risked a glance at Hop, and saw he was still looking at her, his face earnest and listening intently.

“I’m sorry for not telling you sooner, Hop. I’m sorry to have led you on. If you wanna stop being my friend and just walk out of here, then that’s perfectly fine. I wouldn’t blame you in the slightest.”

Hop folded his arms over the back of the chair, resting his chin on them.

“Whilst it’d been nice to know my rival was a Champ in another region, I don’t blame you for keeping it secret. The media would never leave you alone if they found out. Speaking of which,” he stuck out a hand, dropping it on Katla’s shoulder. “I’m not leaving you, mate. You asked me here for help, and I’m not gonna leave until I’ve helped you.”

Katla managed a smile, even as her heart swelled and eyes burned.

“Shit. Thanks, Hop. You’re a good friend, more than I deserve.”

“Aw, don’t say that.” He playfully punched her arm. “We’re buddies. That’s all that matters. Now, gimme that letter.”

He all but snatched it off her, yet he took his time reading it, brows furrowed in concentration.

“Kabu uses a lot of big words, doesn’t he?” Hop commented. “Bet he’s good at essays.”

Katla arched her eyebrow at him, but said nothing, giving the younger trainer time to formulate his opinion.

”Wow...” Hop finally said. “He’s got it bad for you, hasn’t he?”

The older trainer felt her face begin to burn up.

“You...you think so?”

Hop gave her a look that was halfway between disbelieving and annoyed.

“Seriously? You read this and didn’t pick up on the fact he might be into you?”

“Well, I can tell he cares about me, that’s clear enough!” Katla retorted. “But more than that?” She glanced away. “I...I didn’t think it’d be a thing. I mean, he’s a Gym leader, I’m just a Challenger. Not to mention he’s like...fifty odd.”

“Sure.” Hop nodded. “But you like him back, don’t you? I mean, you’ve been crushing on him since we saw him in in Galar Mine Two.”

“I do.” Katla stared pensively at her drink. “He looks so cold and closed off, but he’s not. He’s warm and gentle and kind, and...I feel awful that I hurt him with our fight. And he’s blaming himself for everything, when he’s got nothing to be sorry for!”

Hop glanced back to the letter and then back at her.

“Wait. When you say he’s got nothing to be sorry for, does that mean...” He spoke slowly. “Does that mean you were throwing those matches...?”

“No!” Katla snapped, then cringed, shaking her head. “No, I...I don’t know. Maybe. I didn’t deliberately sabotage myself, but never tried again after I lost; I just walked away and never came back. Maybe I was shying away from it. I dunno.” She sighed. “I can’t be certain I was at my peak in those fights, or that I was doing my all to win, if I’m honest. So, yeah, it was possible the thought of becoming Champion again was scaring me off. Kabu’s been the first person to really challenge me on it, and as you can tell,” she gestured to the letter, “I took it badly. It looks like he’s backpedalling, when he might actually be right about it.”

“Then I think you should tell him that.” Hop said. Katla’s heart forgot its next beat.

“W...What?”

“You should tell Kabu that he doesn’t need to apologise.” Hop said, as if it was the easiest thing in the world. “He sent you this letter as a way to smooth things over with you, right? Well, now you gotta smooth things over with him. And the only way to do that is to talk to him. It shouldn’t be too hard - you got his number!” He thrust the letter at her. “Text him or give him a call, and talk it out. You’ll both feel so much better afterwards.” He smiled brightly at her. “Then you can stop worrying about Kabu, and go back to focusing on beating Gordie!”

She couldn’t help but chuckle.

“You make it sound so simple when you put it that way, Hop.”

“It looks simple to me!” He replied, before he leaned over, resting a hand on her shoulder. “Kat, listen. From what I know about you, and what I’ve seen in that letter, I think you’ll be fine. I think you both feel the same towards each other, actually. If you go talk to him, I bet my badges only good things’ll come from it.”

“Bet your badges, eh?” Katla arched an eyebrow. “Those are some confident words, there.”

“‘Cos I am.” Hop grinned toothily. “Honestly, mate, you’ll be fine. You’ll feel tons better talking it through with him anyway.”

He pulled away, and his face then became serious.

“Kat...you’re gonna give your all in the Semifinals, right?” He asked. “It won’t be right if you’re not at your best. If I win, I want it to be because I was better, not ‘cos you don’t want to face Lee just in case you win.”

“Yes.” Katla made sure he could see the sincerity in her blue eyes. “I’m going to give you the match you deserve, Hop. I’ve never held back in any of my matches against you, and I won’t start to. I promise.”

“Good.” He nodded, looking content.

“You are assuming that I’ll actually get to the Semifinals, though. There’s three Gym Leaders to get through before then, and any of them could halt me in my tracks.” She pointed out.

“That’s what you said about Kabu, and look what happened there.” Hop grinned. “Speaking of which, you should clear the air with him before you go face Gordie, or you’re gonna be too distracted to beat him. And I don’t want my rival falling too far behind!”

“Oh come off it!” She swatted at him. “I’ll...I’ll think about it. About texting him, I mean. I just...”

“Hey,” Hop leaned over again, putting an arm around her this time. “He wouldn’t have given you his number if he didn’t want you to use it. Just...be you. You’ll be fine.”

“I guess.” Katla smiled. “Thanks, Hop. I really mean it - you’ve been...more than I deserve, honestly.”

“Aw come on, we’re friends!” He grinned, a slight blush on his cheeks. “It’s what friends do. I know you’d do the same for me. Right?”

“Yeah, of course.” She nodded. “But I might beat up the person who upset you too.”

Hop barked out a laugh.

“What, really?”

“I’m serious! The only thing that saved Bede from an ass-whooping was witnesses.” Katla grinned. “Still might punch him in the face when I see him again.”

Hop chuckled bashfully, his blush slightly brighter.

“Hehe, thanks Kat.”

“You’re welcome, Hop. Least I can do.”

---

Katla: Hey Kabu, it’s Katla. Do you have some time to talk?

Kabu: Yes. I have as much time as you need.

Katla: I was thinking maybe we could meet up to talk, if you’re still in Circhester?

Kabu: I am. There is cafe on the east side of the city, towards Route Nine, that is known for being discreet. We will be able to meet there in privacy.

Katla: That sounds perfect. What time? I have nothing going on so any time today is good for me.

Kabu: Fortunately I have that luxury too. If I send you the location, we could meet in a couple of minutes. Is this okay?

Katla: Yeah, that’s fine, thanks.

[anon--h]

So I beat pokemon Shield a few days ago, allowed it to sink in, gather my thoughts about it, etc. I decided to run a nuzlocke, as blind as I could still do, and decided *not* to dynamax, because it turned the first gym into an absolute joke.  But, I am getting ahead of myself.

First things first, I had more fun with the game than I expected myself to have. Even after 8 generations, Pokémon is still Pokémon, and Pokémon is still fun. I barely registered the fact that they cut over halve of the pokedex, because they are distributed pretty good throughout the game. Imagine my shock when they even cut generation 1 pokemon? So at least they Thanos Snapped relatively fairly. That was a big concern for me, so I’m glad that didn’t hurt as much.

The towns and enviroments are bright and colorful, the creatures themselves look good on a homeconsole and I liked how they turned the gym challenges into massive sporting events, including collectible cards. That’s fantastic. The gymleaders all have interesting designs and fun personalities, and I was so happy to finally have a jerk for a rival again. I really enjoyed Bede’s little character arc. Not dynamaxing my pokemon led to some tense moments during gym battles, as they were the main source for fatalities during my nuzlocking and I lost my Rillaboom to chairman Rose, which was the closest thing I had to a personal stake in the plot.

There is a lot of things holding the game back for me however.... So much so that I don’t believe I’ll feel the need to replay it. Possibly ever. This puts Swsh in a unique category with Sun/Moon. So maybe I really have gotten too old for Pokemon. I don’t believe much in ratings, but for me it still falls on the positive end of the spectrum.... but only barely.

When trying to articulate my feelings on it to a friend, I compared it to the old pants of videogames. Comfortable and warm, something to wear during a lazy sunday at home, but not something I could in any form defend as a good pair of pants. Certainly not something I’d wear to a job interview.

And now a stream of consciousness about Sword and Shields shortcomings.

The lack of voice acting is nothing short of hilarious in cutscenes. I would have forgiven sparse voice acting, but there’s nothing. Pierce’s supposed singing, Rose introducing us to the World of Pokemon are all awkward as fuck.

We are still cool with using pokemon cries from the gameboy days? Really? 

A lot of sound design has been taken from the earliest generations and it feels like it’s taking the piss.

Why isn’t there a GTS? It was the best way to fill out the Pokedex, people asking for lvl 1 Reshirams not withstanding.

The towns look really nice, but there is nothing to do in them. This is especially true for Ballonlea, the town for the fairy gym. You pop in, fight the gym, and you pop out. I dont even think you fight a rival in there.

The wild area and max-raid battles will probably be ghost towns when gen 9 and 10 roll around, making the biggest feature very temporary.

Speaking of the Wild Area, it’s very small all things considered.... I was waiting to unlock a new Wild Area late or post game, but no, what you see is pretty much what you get. 

The pop-in in the wild area is hilariously bad. Never imagined a Snorlax could sneak up on me, but I guess pokemon SwSh proved me wrong.

The NPC trainers during Max Raid Battles should never participate in a 5 star raid ever. 

“These routes are really short”, I thought after route 3. “I hope they get a little more challenging later on”.

They don’t.

Gym Challenges with Dynamax? Lame, easy, laughable. 

Gym challenges without Dynamax? Sexy, thrilling, cool.

Anyone who didn’t use stealth rock against Leon probably doesn’t understand the mechanics of stealth rock.

Holy shit, I forgot team Yell actually existed! What was their purpose other than that of a temporary roadblock to make sure you would go the right way? I like their concept of being a cross between football hooligans and waifu-enthusiasts, but they never do anything with it.

Swordbert and Shielduard are better antagonists in the post game, and they barely do anything....... And yes, those are their names.

Hop is not as grating as Hau, but he’s up there..... I never liked overly friendly rivals, but at least he gets some mostly off-screen development.

Speaking of off-screen...... That’s where most of the plot is. There’s a giant pokemon wreaking havoc? No worries, we took care of it off-screen. Explosions near one of the biggest cities? You just worry about your gym challenge buckeroo, let the adults handle this.

Speaking of plot, what the fuck was Chairman Rose doing? I was having a good time, planning to stealth rock the champ, when he suddenly highjacks the airwaves to announce himself the surprise villain.

Like everyone had been saying since the games were announced.....

What was his plan? Something about energy and the future and wishing stars??? What?! 

Okay so..... Because he expects an energy shortage somewhere in the next 1000 years, he collected wishing stars and fed them to Eternatus because...... he could generate energy forever using them? Is that it? Am I even close?

Team Magma at least was clear on their motivation: fish bad, land good.

[arecomicsevengood]

BARGAIN BIN COMICS 1

Bought a bunch of comics from bargain bins relatively recently. Many of them are not very good, and I basically knew that going in. I want to write about them so the purchase feels less self-indulgent, but I also don’t want to work very hard on articulating my reactions or having a point.

Some of these comics cost $1, (or from a bin where 15 comics cost ten bucks, so let’s say 75 cents), some cost a quarter, some cost a dime. There is no shame in having a comic you made end up in a bargain bin. Everything in our culture is devalued, anything that exists eventually becomes garbage.

Anyway: Deathblow 1, with art by Jim Lee, and a Cybernary backup story with art by Nick Manabat. I missed the Image Comics explosion as a kid, which was happening right as I was getting into comics. It all seemed like it was for older kids than me. My brother loved Todd McFarlane and Spawn but he is nine years older than me, I was getting into Mark Bagley’s Spider-Man and Mike Parobeck’s Batman Adventures. I checked this out now though. Anyway, I know everyone says that the deal with early Image is there’s no story, it’s all pin-ups, but it’s insane how true this is. The Cybernary stuff is basically non-narrative, just total nonsense. I get how the art is cool though. There’s a plot summary in the Deathblow comic that does not describe the contents of the comic at all.

Savage Dragon 1. I have bought random issues of Savage Dragon from dollar bins before. Erik Larsen also, if I remember correctly, uploaded like five of his favorite issues to Myspace back in the day. One or two of those ruled. These aren’t total “no plot” comics, because there’s always just a basic level of sequential art happening, even if it’s just like… Following a main character until he meets some new characters, they fight a little bit, then become friends. There’s a level of purity I appreciate. Also, while everyone always describes the Image stuff as being like total teenage-boy id comics I feel like they don’t make male adolescents like this anymore. Or maybe the issue is I live in a city so the only teens I see are hip teens with cool parents. These children interact with their parents with a sort of freedom of boundaries I tend to interpret as “on the spectrum.” I’m going to digress in these write-ups and say some stuff that’s maybe offensive. One thing I didn’t do in the comic book store was hold up a Gerard Jones Green Lantern to the owner and say “Hey did you hear about how they’re not releasing this stuff digitally because the guy who wrote them is a pedophile?” but now that I’m home and online I’m going wild.

MCMLXXVI. or whatever it’s called. Written by Joe Casey, art by Ian MacEwan. This comic has, as a supporting character, a DJ who narrates the action and plays songs. A similar thing happens in an Alan Grant/Norm Breyfogle Detective Comics arc, but while that comic ends with the DJ doing cocaine and then getting in a car crash at the end of the three issues, this DJ dates the main character and gets killed by the villains in the second issue of three. It’s kind of a riff on The Warriors, but with a lady cab driver as the hero, and underground demon hell monsters provide her backstory. The covers, where MacEwan colors his own art, look better than the interiors. Kind of feel like there is too much story but not enough characterization or something, like the story’s incredibly simple but also needlessly cluttered.

Tom Strong 6 by Alan Moore and Chris Sprouse. I stopped buying Tom Strong with issue 5 but have since read it all in a former roommate’s trade paperbacks. Reading a random issue for cheap years after the fact is kind of the ideal experience though, it really is like a long-running TV drama you catch on basic cable. Chris Sprouse’s art is really exemplary of a type of style I associate with DC Comics from when I was growing up, maybe from the ubiquity of the ads for Legionnaires. It’s clean and bright. I guess the common perception of DC now is different from this, and is closer to what people think of when they think of as “nineties comics.” But Chris Sprouse, Stuart Immonen, Kevin Maguire, Cliff Chiang, Graham Nolan, all do this thing I think of that I find attractive and appealing.

Mother Panic, three issues drawn by John Paul Leon. I love John Paul Leon, his stuff’s not far off from what I’m talking about either, but damn these comics sucked! I paid ten cents apiece for them and they are so narratively thin that it really brings home that part of what makes this stuff work is it’s illustration-y quality that then feels super-unsatisfying when the story being illustrated just is garbage. It’s not like Cybernary or something where the visuals present such a strong aesthetic no narrative can contain it. It’s so dull that it’s less like pin-ups and more just like model sheets of character design for an animated series or something.

Batman: Gothan By Gaslight, with art by Mike Mignola and P. Craig Russell. I think this wasn’t technically in a bargain bin, but was a back issue marked down to a dollar because a store was going out of business. Anyway I hadn’t read it before. Good art, thin story but this was the first Elseworlds book and so was maybe more conceptually ambitious at the time than it reads after all the other Elseworlds stuff omnipresent when I was growing up reading DC comics. They had a year where every annual was an Elseworlds. Apparently in the animated movie to make the story more of a thing the twist is that James Gordon is Jack The Ripper, which seems like it defeats the whole point of having a Batman vs. Jack the Ripper comic. I guess the comic even predates From Hell. I really gotta award this comic a lot of extra points for feeling unable to judge it based on things that came after it.

Miracleman reprints of the Alan Moore stuff. I don’t like this comic at all. I basically knew that from reading scans fifteen years ago, but those weird Marvel reprints with the recoloring and including the original Mick Anglo strips were ten cents and I thought I might as well give it another look and yeah I don’t care for it. Mostly put off by the grim tone, but there’s also just a ton of other things that just make it a difficult read for me. Just putting that on the record.

Going to do more of these after I’ve read more of what I’ve bought.

[patiencecarter-blog1]

Writing Effective Poetry

Verse Defined:

Verse, which can be misleadingly basic in sound and differ long from a couple of words to a full-sized book, requires unquestionably all the more getting, inventiveness, and strategy to compose than exposition. In structure, its line endings, leaving from traditional design, don't have to stretch out to the correct edge. Portrayed by the three mainstays of feeling, picture, and music, it can, however does not really need to, join similar sounding word usage, analogy, comparison, redundancy, cadence, meter, and rhyme. Most importantly, structure, rather than substance, separates the class from all others. While composition is perused, paced, and translated by methods for accentuation and sentence structure, verse accomplishes a lot of interpretive incentive through them.

"Lyrics are not just things that we read, yet in addition things that we see," composed John Strachan and Richard Terry in their book, "Verse: An Introduction" (New York University Press, 2000, p. 24). We know initially whether a lyric is written in a standard or sporadic structure, regardless of whether its Ines are long or short, whether the refrain is ceaseless or stanzaic... Many (writers) have designed works that explicitly intend to attract the peruser's thoughtfulness regarding their visuality."

They proceed by expressing that verse is "language set in lines which show a quantifiable sound-design clear in changing degrees of consistency," (in the same place, p. 11.)

While verse isn't really simple to characterize, a few authors have caught its quintessence. "Verse is the school I went to figure out how to compose writing," composed Grace Paley for instance. "Everybody begins as a writer," resounded William Stafford. "The genuine inquiry is for what reason do the vast majority stop?" "The artist can't neglect to demonstrate to us, for he demonstrates in a split second, that we have never figured out how to contact, smell, taste, hear, and see," brought up John Ciardi. "It is the matter of the craftsman to make the ordinary great," philosophized Leon Garfield. What's more, "most importantly, we request that the artist show us a method for seeing, in case one spend a lifetime on this planet without seeing how green light erupts as the setting sun moves under, or the gauzy spread of the Milky Way on a star-stacked summer night," composed Diane Ackerman.

The requirement for any creation exudes from the author's internal center and requires a changing length of development before it is prepared to flourish on paper. He at that point waters it with words, enabling it to grow and develop to development before the peruser is prepared to cull its blossoms and make the most of its organic product in what is absolutely a cross-fertilization process.

"My first idea about workmanship, as a tyke, was that the craftsman carries something into the world that didn't exist previously, and that he does it without obliterating whatever else," John Updike once shared. "That still appears to me its focal enchantment, its center of bliss."

At the point when an essayist turns out to be so submerged in inclination, regularly the main way he can remove himself from it is to catch it on paper in verse structure, empowering him to move it to the peruser all the while. Albeit, as other artistic expressions, its worth must be controlled by its elucidation, and its impression left on, the peruser, the reason, at last, is the spirit to-soul move from originator, or essayist, to beneficiary, or peruser.

"In great verse, we get a solid feeling of the artist's self, however as opposed to being a standard or unconstrained (one), it is generally an improved self, a depersonalized (one)," composed David Kirby "Recorded as a hard copy Poetry: Where Poems Come from and How to Write them" (The Writer, Inc., 1988, pp. 10-11.) "Most extraordinary craftsmanship is an improved rendition of what as of now exists, starting with the essayist's own character."

Appeared differently in relation to exposition, verse not just relates stories and offers emotions, it embraces sound and shape, and can envelop structures that fluctuate between free-stanza and the poem.

"Verse isn't the things stated, yet a method for saying it," A. E. Housman once expressed.

"... Verse is a specific utilization of language, unique in relation to composition," as per Mary Elizabeth in "Effortless Poetry" (Barron's Educational Series, Inc., 2001, p. 3). "(It) can catch and pass on things that composition can't, and verse works through feelings, not simply through musings."

Verse Structure:

While composition is molded by expressions, sentences, passages, segments, and pages, with proper language and accentuation, verse can accept a few structures, contingent on the author's expectation, and these can expand the work's impact, reason, and sound.

Its design offers its visual picture and association as far as character style and size on a given page. At times expecting pictogram structure, it shows up with an unmistakable shape, for example, an hourglass, a precious stone, or a tail.

Its lines are the fundamental structure squares.

"Lines can be either long or short," as indicated by Elizabeth (on the same page, p. 177). "The decision of line length opens up certain conceivable outcomes and breaking points others. Short lines are increasingly helpful for communicating terse perceptions and loan themselves to sentence sections and curved articulation. Long queues can deal with mind boggling stories, philosophical talks, and compound-complex sentences."

An "end-halted line" shows that the expression or sentence closes at or before the correct edge has been come to, while "enjambment" implies that it folds over and proceeds on the following line.

Lines are assembled into stanzas, which give extra, sub-divisional representation and are isolated by blank area or skipped lines themselves. They for the most part share a similar line length, rhyme plan, and beautiful meter.

Stanzaic Forms:

Stanza length fluctuates as indicated by the quantity of lines. A couplet, for instance, is a couple of connected lines, otherwise called "refrains," which more often than not end in rhyme. Correspondingly, a tercet, which can likewise be considered a "triplet," comprises of three progressive, rhyme-based lines, and its four-line partner is the quatrain. Five-, six-, seven-, and eight-line stanzas are separately assigned "quintrain," "sextet," "septet," and "octet."

Compositional Aspects:

In spite of the fact that verse can fuse some abstract procedures that can be viewed as composition conventional, it additionally offers numerous exceptional to it.

Word request, most importantly, can be anything other than customary. Situating certain ones toward the start or the finish of a line, for instance, might be intentionally done to feature them and encourage the work's meter and rhyme.

Like the bits of verse jigsaw confounds, words themselves must fit into little scholarly spaces, convey their most extreme weight, and be collected such that will upgrade importance, sight, sound, and sense.

Rhyme, the close event of two words that contain a redundancy of the last vowel sound and have a similar last consonant, might be most connected with the verse sort and absolutely encourage stream and beat, however it is in no way, shape or form a compulsory compositional component and does not really need to have a similar spelling to accomplish. The words "bow" and "trough," for example, contrast in spelling, yet in any case rhyme. Abuse of this system can wind up constrained, fake, and stilted.

While exposition utilizes a similar vocabulary, phrases, sentences, expressions, and even metaphorical language, it keeps away from rhyme, since it very well may occupy, going astray peruser consideration from significance to sound. It tends to be similarly hostile to innovative in the event that it requires a bizarre word request in verse to achieve.

On the positive side, notwithstanding, it can set up a sound example that can nearly achieve music-going with levels and can be exceptionally engaging the ear. It similarly encourages the comprehension of youngsters' verse, as in "Raise and Jill went the slope."

Different advantages incorporate the hierarchical rule of the stanza, since its design relies on its rhyme plans. It gives the desire or expectation of a sound's redundancy, and sharpens the writer's ability to pass on importance, keep up designing, and distinguish the required words to keep up the rhyme.

Rhymes can happen toward the start (introductory rhyme), the center (average rhyme), or (end rhyme) of sentences.

On account of four-line stanzas, they can happen in "aabb" or "abab" designs that is, the words either copy the sound of that in the past or rotating line.

Normality of audio effect, another standard distinction among verse and composition, is designated "musicality." except for nothing refrain, most graceful structures highlight predictable designing.

"... Meter, (another class explicit component), is a particular type of mood, and may best be characterized as the quantifiable sound example apparent, in fluctuating degrees of normality, in a line of verse," as indicated by Strachan and Terry (operation. cit., p. 75).

"As indicated by your perspective, meter, (the fundamental example of worries in a given line), is either a welcome basic control or a lumbering straight coat," they proceed (in the same place, p. 111). It was for the last reason that free-stanza expanded in prevalence.

Verse shares a few abstract methods with standard composition, the first is tangible symbolism. In the event that regularly starts with a work's sight and sound, and afterward travels through the other three faculties of taste, contact, and smell to build its passionate engraving, as the artist moves his experience to the peruser.

"All experience wakes up," as indicated by Strachan and Terry (in the same place, p. 138). "We may later apply our brains and hearts to it, yet it enters our awareness through the faculties. Subtleties that intrigue to at least one (of them) are called tactile subtleties. Broadened portrayal of a scene with regard for tactile detail is symbolism."

Another composition verse shared component is imagery. By causing one figure, picture, or idea to speak to another, the artist can bring out various relationship in the peruser's psyche. A shading, for instance, can speak to a few feelings, while a cross can symbolize religion.

Analogy, one more gadget, contrasts one thing and another, yet isn't truly taken, as I

[shadowsong26fic]

AU Outlines: Other Fandoms Edition

So I know that probably like zero of my followers on this blog even go here but I was watching Person of Interest lately, and I’ve also been reading occasional Supernatural spoilers, because I used to be in that fandom and I occasionally get curious. Especially this most recent season. Naturally, this woke up some old characters/situations/etc. that I used to work with, which I’ve been occasionally toying with in the back of my head when I’m bored and/or procrastinating other projects.

I’ve been going back and forth on how I feel about the one plotline that interests me this season (and by back and forth I mean I was really excited when I first read that a particular character was back; engaged by the summaries/etc. I read from his first couple episodes, the third one intrigued me until I read more detailed spoilers and then I started to side-eye it a little bit...)

And then I read up on last week’s episode. And nope, all my excitement is gone, replaced by Pissed for reasons I’m not sure I can actually articulate. (Though I kind of attempted to in the tags here on my personal blog.)

...honestly, I probably should’ve known better; making this kind of storyline really pay off/work would require a lot of attention given to a tertiary character, and given SPN’s track record with the internal worlds and motivations of characters who are not the Big Three, and the fact that they’ve been ignoring a lot of their established angel/vessel lore, the way Claire’s backstory more or less got completely forgotten...I should not have gotten my hopes up. Sigh.

ANYWAY this is now officially Spite Fic(tm). Here, have an outline of a Supernatural/Person of Interest crossover.

Starring Nick.

...uh, before I actually start, I should probably get some background out of the way.

For those of you who are unfamiliar, Person of Interest is a TV show that ran for five seasons, 2011 - 2016. Without c/ping the opening narration, the basic premise of the show is that, in the wake of 9/11, genius software engineer Harold Finch built a surveillance and analysis program, in an effort to prevent similar future tragedies. Out of fear that his creation would be abused, he designed the Machine as a closed system--basically, all that’s provided is an ID number (usually an SSN, at least for US citizens; but Our Heroes get a green card number in one episode, and a student ID number in another), and the person that number indicates is key to unravelling whatever is going down. The Machine was initially designed to predict mass casualty events/terrorism and provide the (relevant) number to the designated government operatives, at which point human intelligence takes over. However, the Machine also identifies things like…gang warfare/one-on-one premeditated murder (irrelevant numbers). That’s where Our Heroes come in.

The first half of the series is basically a procedural with a twist—each episode, the main characters get an irrelevant number (or more; the record was I believe 38 in one episode). They don’t always know how that person is involved, whether they’re the victim or the killer/perpetrator. In a few memorable cases, the number was arguably both.

Then, in the second half, a rival AI (Samaritan) is brought online, and the series becomes somewhat darker in tone and shifts into a cyberpunk apocalypse story. With a few regular irrelevant numbers thrown in on occasion as well, for good measure. For the purposes of this outline, we don’t care so much about POI B, for reasons I will explain, but it bears mentioning. Especially since Greer is still hanging around and trying to bring Samaritan or something similar online.

Right. On to some memorable/notable/important characters.

Our Heroes are Finch, who, as I said, designed and built the Machine. For various reasons, he’s living off the grid (he’s a very private person). Using a backdoor built into the Machine, as of when the series starts, he receives the irrelevant numbers. But he lacks the skills/ability to intervene directly, so he recruits John Reese.

Reese, then, is Finch’s partner/employee/they are totally married; a former CIA assassin who is now presumed dead, he does most of the hands-on work with the numbers and becomes known as the Man in the Suit who is basically Batman.

Carter! Carter is freaking amazeballs; she is p. much the moral/ethical center of the show, one of their two cop friends who was actually trying to track them/Reese down and arrest him for the vigilante BS for the first half-season or so but then they became friends.

Fusco is their other cop friend; former dirty cop/member of an ring, initially recruited by Reese to work undercover in HR (as said ring is called), basically runs on a combination of Dogged Loyalty (the reason he joined HR in the first place, transfers that loyalty to Team Machine, gets his moral compass recalibrated, and becomes one of the most loveable dudes on the show) and Snark (featuring such delightful quotes as “What was I supposed to say? Sorry, boss, Agent King is really a superpowered nutball. Just ask my buddy, the urban legend.” Also at least once a season, he makes a comment to the effect of “just when I thought you guys couldn’t get any weirder…”).

(Also, he is, as my roommate puts it, Shaped Like A Dad.)

Shaw joins the team in Season 3; textbook (and canonical!) bisexual compact Persian sociopath (note: she has some sort of Axis II personality disorder that is occasionally called sociopathy in-universe, but that doesn’t quite fit); there’s…there’s really not much else one can say without just like summarizing everything she does or quoting ad nauseum.

Root! Root is introduced as a major antagonist; hacker/programmer on Finch’s level who works as a contract killer, her initial goal is to locate and free the Machine, which ends up recruiting her early in Season 3 and becoming…you know that particular kind of reformed villain that becomes the weird family member because yes they’re still kind of awful and murdery, and they did a great deal of damage to you and yours, but you’ve now been through Some Stuff together, and besides, they’re your awful and murdery, you know? So not exactly a redemption arc, but they’re one of the Heroes now and just kind of stick with it. Like Barbossa, in POTC. Or Vegeta. My roommate (referenced above) calls this the Weird Uncle trope. And she fits this trope really well and I love it. Also, she and Shaw are canonically girlfriends as of...s4 or s5, depending on how you look at things.

(Also, not necessarily relevant for this outline, but on the subject of Weird Uncles, one cannot talk about POI without mentioning Elias; our friendly neighborhood Mafia don. No, really.)

And Bear! Cannot forget Bear. Bear is Finch and Reese’s dog, acquired at the beginning of S2 and the most amazing. He also has a twitter! In Dutch!

On to some antagonists, Greer is not our friend. He works for/created a company called Decima Technologies; his goal is to bring an unrestricted AI online and let it run the world for complicated reasons relating to some of his experiences during the Cold War working for MI6. Also he has a very punchable face.

And then there’s Control, who runs the Relevant numbers program for the government. She is an awful, awful human being (fully aware of it, too; she has a great speech in the third season finale about how she’s a Necessary Evil and why) and I love her so much.

Okay, that’s the basics for the POI side of things. I can go on a lot longer if y’all want more details (I didn’t even cover my girl Zoe or Leon or…), but that should be enough foundation for the outline to make sense?

For the SPN side of things--I’m not going to summarize the canon background, due to it being the larger/primary-ish fandom. But in terms of the relevant AU stuff, I’m going more or less with the backstory I established for Nick for The Promises of Angels and Cartography!verse.

Basically, he was a high school history teacher; his wife and son were murdered by a serial killer known as the Chesapeake Ripper

(There might well have been/probably was some demonic involvement, though not in the same way as I think S14 canon established; basically either because a “talent scout” demon like that one s7 episode was already involved or because the Ripper was operating independently and a demon got involved later, he was pointed towards this particular woman and baby who fit his victim pool. Either way, Nick was targeted because he was the right bloodline and accessible, because vessel lines are a thing even if the show has forgotten that.)

(Also, Lucifer later took Nick to kill the Ripper. Signing bonus. So to speak.)

After Detroit, Nick gets picked up by Meg, who holds on to him for a while for a variety of reasons (information that might be buried in his memories from the year he spent possessed; the chance that he might be a new key to the Cage…) until the Leviathan turn up, at which point she no longer has the resources to keep him. She cuts him loose at that point, rather than killing him (mostly because she thinks Lucifer left him alive For A Reason and until she knows what that is, she can’t kill him).

So, at this point, in Promises or Cartography, Nick just sort of wanders around for a while until he runs into Claire or Jody, respectively.

For the purposes of this AU, he ends up drifting to New York instead.

And, with all that background out of the way, NOW we can get to the actual fun stuff.

…no, wait, I lied. One more note: as with p. much all my SPN projects, I am following Logical Time rather than Show Time. Which is to say, when calculating dates/figuring out where the timelines intersect/etc., I’m including the two skipped years (between S5/S6 and between S7/S8).

(That being said, I reserve the right to stop caring about the timeline later and just mashing things together as I think it would be entertaining.)

ANYWAY.

We open in the first half of POI S3, somewhere between “Mors Praematura” and “Endgame” (i.e., Root is in the library, but Carter hasn’t initiated her takedown of HR yet). If my math is right, this puts us either in S7 or during the second gap year for SPN.

It starts as most of these adventures do; Team Machine gets a new number.

“This one may be a bit of a project, I’m afraid,” Finch says. “Nick Cross has been missing for several years. He hasn’t been seen since May of 2009, and there’s been no electronic activity on his identity in that time, either.”

Of course, when they dig into his background, his wife and son getting murdered comes up.

“Any chance he killed them?” Reese asks.

“No, he was cleared at the time. They were victims of a serial killer, and Mr. Cross had solid alibis for three of the five incidents, including the one involving his wife and son.”

(Shaw, at that point, theorizes that Nick’s number came up because he somehow tracked the Chesapeake Ripper down and is planning to kill him. And, if that’s the case, doesn’t really see the point in stopping him.)

(“Start with finding him, Ms. Shaw,” Finch says. “We still don’t know if that is, in fact, what’s going on.”)

(Finch also doesn’t approve on principle, of course, but that is not an argument he wants to have with Shaw on this particular morning.)

(Plus, the Ripper seems to have stopped operating at around the same time Mr. Cross disappeared...so there’s a chance that Shaw’s theory is accurate, just out of date.)

In any case, they reason that the Machine wouldn’t have handed them his number if he weren’t alive and in range; Reese and Shaw ask Carter and Fusco to see what they can pull up, and start doing their own legwork.

Carter ends up being the first to find a lead—while on her regular patrol with Laskey, she spots a guy who matches the description, albeit with a few extra scars, and is acting a little off. Like he thinks he’s being followed/watched.

Reese goes to check it out, and this is where things get, uh, Weird.

See, here’s the thing. I love John Reese, and he is a man of Many Skills.

But, uh.

Being approachable and reassuring is Not Among Them.

Like. Don’t get me wrong. When he’s in Bodyguard Mode, it is exactly the right level of Intimidating. He just…has trouble turning it off.

Look, the dude is a semi-retired CIA spysassin and it oozes out of every pore unless he works really hard to tone it down.

(And sometimes even then.)

And since this is just, like, preliminary surveillance to see if this guy Carter spotted really is their number, and he’s not planning to make contact yet, he’s not really focusing on toning it down.

So, when Nick spots him, guess what this looks like to him.

Yep, he thinks Reese is an angel.

He runs.

Reese: “....yeah, pretty sure that’s our number. And he just made me.”

(If Carter didn’t already, Reese probably also mentions that the five-year-old DMV photo they’re working from is out of date; Nick is pretty badly scarred, they look kind of like radiation burns.)

Of course, it was hard enough to find Nick in the first place, so Reese doesn’t want to lose him again. So, made or not, he continues following. Hoping to get to a position where he can make contact and figure out what’s going on. Or just keep tabs on him until Shaw can catch up and take over.

(Not his favorite approach, but he screwed up somewhere and that’s what he’s stuck with now.)

Nick knows the angel is still on him--and this is new and terrifying; he’s had demons after him a few times since Meg ditched him, but this is the first time an angel’s found him and, frankly, angels are worse than demons in his mind.

(Also he’s supposed to be warded how did the angel even find him--)

(Yeah, Nick has gotten a couple tattoos in his post-Meg life--he’s warded, the same sigils that are etched into Sam and Dean’s ribs; he also has a standard anti-demon-possession tattoo.)

In any case, he has a knife up his sleeve, he just needs to get somewhere more or less out of sight, just for a minute, maybe not even, and then he can throw up a banishing sigil. He just needs that minute.

Reese spots Nick duck out of sight into an alley and heads that way, picking up his pace. There’s a chance he’ll lose the number in there, depending on how many exits there are--

Nick casts his sigil and then books it, not wanting to stick around and see if it worked.

Reese gets there just a hair too late.

“I lost him,” he admits, then catches sight of the bloody drawing on the wall. “...but I think I might have an idea what our number’s running from. And why he disappeared for so long.”

“Yeah?” Shaw asks.

“Looks like he might’ve joined a cult."

“....really,” she said. “Huh.”

“He drew some sort of occult symbol on the wall. Looks like blood.”

“...okay, so he joined a cult.”

“It makes a certain amount of sense,” Finch says. “He went through a horrible tragedy. He could have been vulnerable, especially if he sought but failed to find any comfort in traditional religion.”

Reese takes a picture, and sends it to Finch. “Think you can figure out what this is?”

“Well, it’s hardly my area of expertise,” he says, “but I’ll see what I can do.”

“We’ll work on picking up his trail again,” Shaw says, appearing beside Reese in the alley, as she does sometimes. “Maybe stop by and pick up Bear to help.”

...and now skimming over the next few hours...

Finch spends some time in one of the few corners of the internet he’s not super familiar with, and does identify the symbol eventually.

“It’s for protection or warding. Specifically against angels.”

At which point Shaw busts up laughing at the idea of anyone thinking Reese is an angel.

But that does support the idea that he’s running from whatever cult he got mixed up in.

ANYWAY moving on.

Reese and Shaw eventually catch up with Nick again.

Unfortunately, so have the people who are after him.

(And by people, I mean demons. Two of them.)

(Who recognized Nick, obviously, and had the same ideas as Meg, with regard to his potential Uses.)

(Only they’d rather off him so no one gets to unlock whatever secrets he might be holding.)

Shaw goes up--she’s the better sniper, after all--and Reese makes his way into the alley where Nick is cornered

Firing, naturally, at their kneecaps.

Except.....

Nothing...nothing happens...?

(Well, except now the demon is pissed and gunning for Reese instead.)

(Nick is very relieved to see that this guy is not, in fact, an angel. Angels don’t normally use guns.)

(Of course, now he’s just confused, wtf is going on.)

“What the...” Reese says.

“Maybe you missed,” Shaw smirks, from her perch.

“I didn’t miss.”

“Sure,” she says, aiming at the demon chasing him, getting a solid hit in the shoulder.

Which....also does nothing.

“...well, that was weird.”

She fires again, this time a killshot--yeah, yeah, there are Rules, but under the circumstances...

Meanwhile, Demon #2 has gotten ahold of Nick. Who has frozen a little bit.

(He tends to do this, when stressed/triggered--internalize things, and just go blank. He was more or less catatonic when Meg found him, started gradually coming out of it; when Sam got his soul back that sort of accelerated the process and by now he’s mostly functional, but there are Moments...)

Shaw keeps firing at Demon #1. It’s not killing it, but it’s keeping it pinned down so hopefully Reese can reach and extract their number.

“Finch, we’ve got a Situation here.”

“Yes, I can see that.”

(Finch has hacked into some nearby security cameras.)

“You have any idea what the hell is going on?”

“I’m afraid not, Ms. Shaw,” he says. “It’s only the two of them, I think--no one else is coming though the police will probably be responding to the shots soon--”

“Yeah, Finch, I know. Reese?”

Nick is up against the wall and Reese bodily hauls the demon off of him to engage in a fistfight.

(Did not expect a skinny kid like the demon’s host to pack this much of a punch, he’ll have some fun bruises tomorrow...)

Which snaps Nick out of it.

Demons. These are demons. Only demons. I know how demons work. I can--

He rattles off an exorcism, as fast as he can.

The demons scream and smoke out, leaving their two dead hosts behind--Host #1 may have been dead already, or Shaw may have killed them; Host #2 was already gone.

“Finch?” Shaw says. “Finch, are you getting this?”

“I’m--yes, I see it,” he says.

Reese is about to add something, but the Nick passes out--Demon #2 managed to score a solid hit before Reese got there--and he moves to catch him.

“Damn it--he’s bleeding, pretty bad.”

“Get him to the safehouse,” Finch says. “I’ll meet you there, and we’ll...we’ll figure all this out.”

“Library’s closer,” Shaw points out. “And you said no one else was around.”

Finch hesitates for a moment--more concerned about Root than about their base being compromised, at the moment--then nods. “Fine. Bring him here. I’ll clear off a space for you to patch him up.”

“Copy that,” Shaw says. “Reese, stay with him, I’m gonna get us a car.”

...okay, I’ll admit, the rest of this first New York adventure isn’t super well planned out in my brain. So, skimming through it pretty quick...

They bring Nick back to the library. Shaw patches him up, while Finch goes over the footage he found, trying to figure out what the hell just happened.

Nick eventually wakes up. There’s a Talk.

“They were demons,” Nick explains. “They, uh. They can’t be killed, not with guns. There’s a couple specially-designed weapons, I think. And angel blades. Holy water will burn them, and you can use salt to keep them out. Best thing to do is probably trap them and exorcise them.”

Basically, Team Machine gets The Talk about monsters and so on Existing.

He admits to having been possessed for a year when they ask him why demons are chasing him, though he’s a little vague on further details. He does mention Meg, too, that she held on to him after he was dispossessed.

He asks how they found him--he’d thought his warding was messed up, especially when he thought Reese was an angel.

They give their characteristic vague answer, then ask, “If you’re...warded, how is it they found you in the first place?”

He figures, at this point, that his warding is fine--it doesn’t hide him from demons, necessarily, but even if it did, warding doesn’t stop the bad guys from spotting him by chance. Which is, incidentally, exactly what happened.

Nick also, of course, gets in the usual number questions; “who are you” “why are you helping me” etc., with the added weight of his possession and the fact that they took on literal demons to try and save his life.

Also, somewhere in this mess, Nick wanders off into the part of the library where Root is being held. Possibly while the rest of Team Machine is getting what they’ll need to deal with whatever Climactic Fight will end the episode/section.

(Nick was a high school history teacher, and this is a really awesome library, of course he’s going to go exploring if he’s left alone.)

(Bear is there to keep an eye on him/keep him from leaving.)

(Bear also gets many scritches and pets, as he deserves.)

Anyway, Root and Nick have a conversation; whether she and the Machine are already doing their Morse Code thing or something else is going on...or...something...anyway, Nick gets read in on the Machine’s existence.

(His reaction is more or less “...that does not even make the top ten most unbelievable/dangerous things I know exist, so...all right then.”)

Finch gets back to find them talking about history or something. Bear is next to Nick, who is a lot calmer/more willing to work with them than he was before. Root is just inside the cage wall, idly scritching Bear’s ears as they talk.

(This is actually Important.)

Anyway, eventually there is the requisite climactic fight. Possibly angels are involved--I know Shaw gets her hands on an angel blade at some point...

Point is, things get resolved, more or less. Nick ends up leaving New York.

BUT! Because Root had a Moment with him back there, and Finch saw it, he’s willing to unleash her a little earlier when the shit hits the fan a few episodes later.

In short, thanks to Root kind of sort of Bonding with one of their weirder/more fragile numbers, Team Machine is much better positioned to deal with Endgame nonsense, which means, first, that Carter gets to live (though Reese might still get hella shot, depending on how exactly Root changes what happens with Simmons; but he won’t go on his Roaring Rampage of Revenge); what follows is then that Team Machine is all working on the same page when Claypool’s number comes up aaaaaaand we avert Samaritan. Yay!

(Carter does still deduce the Machine’s existence, of course, gets upgraded to the yellow box and everything. And, remembering the late-S1 drama, strongly advocates for Fusco getting read in, too.)

(She gets her way on that, too. Eventually. Probably before too much longer, even.)

Also, Control does reveal herself, but doesn’t manage to capture Root just yet.

(Which also means Root doesn’t get her implant, at least for a while.)

But apart from that, we can leave this group to their own devices for a while, and get back to following Nick, who is now past his Origin Story, so to speak...

Hokay. So. After Nick leaves New York, he just starts sort of drifting again, and then a few days later, he gets a phone call.

Which he actually answers; in all honestly very few people would reach out to him this way, and he’s pretty sure none of the things that terrify him are on that list.

“Can. You. Hear. Me?”

Nick stares at the phone for a long moment. The Machine repeats herself.

“…no.” He hangs up.

(Look, he knows damn well what that phone call was; Root told him enough when the two of them talked in the library. And he is not interested in letting another near-omnipotent entity screw with his head. Once was enough. He learned his lesson.)

The Machine backs off, deciding to try a less-invasive way of trying to get in touch with/recruit him.

Why is she doing this? Well.

The Machine’s mandate/objective is to protect humanity. When Nick came up on her radar as an irrelevant number she could offer her assets, she noticed some…let’s call them anomalies. In archival data about him, about the two people talking about murdering him…lots of things didn’t add up. Which is why he got pushed to the top of the list, so to speak.

(I mean, assuming she does put a certain level of thought/deliberation into which numbers she sends her assets? If two come up at once that are unrelated, does she need to decide, or do they get both? This isn’t 100% clear in the show, I don’t think; pretty sure all the multi-number episodes do end up being related, even if they don’t appear that way at first, apart from, like, backlogs from when the Machine has to go dark temporarily for whatever reason…anyway, if that is the case, she picked Nick because there was a lot of Weird Shit going on around him and she needed her human assets to sort through it, because she simply didn’t have the tools or parameters necessary to work it out for herself.)

So, Nick’s number comes up, and even more strange things keep happening. The Machine evaluates, and comes to the conclusion that there’s an entire class of threats to humanity that she hasn’t been monitoring correctly. The fact of the matter is, she was programmed with certain blind spots, because Finch had certain blind spots.

But the Machine is now in a position to correct that. She’s aware of the flaw in her system and, thanks to the changes she’s been making since Stanton’s virus and the other S2 arc plot stuff allowed her to start altering her code in a way she couldn’t before…

She can make up for it by adding yet another set of numbers/another protocol. Relevant numbers to the government as always, irrelevant numbers (within their reach, at least) to Finch and his team, “necessary” numbers (i.e., protecting the Machine herself/keeping tabs on other, potentially hostile, ASIs) to Root, and now…we’ll call them “hidden” numbers.

Of course, the next problem is, while there’s a lot of data available about monsters, angels, demons, etc., it’s very hard to sort through what is useful data and what is, frankly, BS. And, unfortunately, she lacks the parameters to do it herself.

Ergo, she needs a human asset to help her figure it out. Teach her/help her define this new dataset.

(And also to intervene when necessary, but that can come later. She’s got a bit of a learning curve ahead of her first, and she knows it.)

But, of course, she doesn’t want to retask any of her current assets—both because they have enough to deal with and because, again, learning curve. Better for at least one entity involved to know what they’re doing, right?

And so, she decides to recruit Nick. Nick, who has already been her window into this hidden world. Nick, who needs her as much as she needs him.

(Kind of like Root, except absolutely unlike Root. Like in that they were both drowning when she approached them, and needed her to give them a framework to cling to, to drag themselves back to the surface; unlike in that Nick is drowning in a very different ocean than Root was.)

Anyway. Eventually, she does manage to talk to him, and explain what she wants.

And he’s still not...100% sure how he feels about working with her, but...well, data entry, right? He can do that. Maybe.

“I don’t know how much help I’ll be,” he admits. “Just because I was possessed for a year doesn’t mean I know everything.”

“It’s still a place to start,” she replies. “Eventually, I’ll figure out the patterns and be able to extrapolate.”

“...okay, then.”

(As it turns out, he knows a lot more than he thinks he does, which is utterly terrifying; he has a lot of subconscious/residual information buried in his mind.)

Of course, eventually, just data entry isn’t enough.

The Machine doesn’t have all the answers/all the patterns down, but she has enough that she’s starting to identify threats/numbers she can assign out.

But Nick...well, Nick is fragile. Mentally, of course, but physically as well--burned inside and out, metaphorically and literally, by a long, incompatible possession.

At the moment, though, he’s the only asset she has in this area. Recruiting others, from among the insular, paranoid hunter community...is going to be difficult.

She spots something she thinks he can handle, especially if she grants him God Mode access and keeps him there.

He stares down at the text message she sent him.

“...I can’t do this,” he says. “I can’t...”

“Can we please try?” she says. “I’ll help you.”

“...I...”

“It’s a demon, I think.”

He thinks about it for a minute. He can handle demons, he thinks. He has before, after all. He understands demons. And...

(he thinks about the feeling of evil still living under his skin; he thinks of blood on his hands and in his heart; about all the nightmares and half-memories; about how he feels too small for his own body, how his thoughts echo inside his head...)

(he wants to do better. he wants to be better. maybe helping...people like him, people who have gone through what he went through...maybe that’s a start. to make up for what he did.)

“...is the host still alive? When I...if I manage to get there and exorcise them...are they still alive?”

“I can’t tell,” she admits. “I’m sorry.”

“I’ll...try,” he says. “I’ll try.”

It ends up, fortunately, being a win for all of them--the demon is thrown enough by seeing Lucifer’s former vessel that Nick has a chance to act; the host is in fact still alive.

Nick spends hours after the exorcism, just...sitting with him, talking. Helping him cope/process things.

“...we should do that again sometime,” he finally tells the Machine, after he goes back to wherever he’s sleeping these days.

So, he starts kind of sort of hunting after that, with the help of an ASI.

Every time he directly engages something, he’s in God Mode. He has to be, because of the aforementioned damage; he wouldn’t survive on his own.

(Probably, at some point, he and the Machine put together something like the Tenebamus Infinitum forum in The Promises of Angels; online support group/community for possession survivors.)

(Sam may or may not find his way there...)

At first, they mostly focus on demons/possession cases. Sometimes ghosts. But they slowly start to branch out into other areas.

They deal with some miscellaneous monsters, faeries, maybe a vampire...good times.

Pretty much the only ones they avoid are angels and pagan gods, because Nick cannot deal.

(Angels for uh obvious reasons; pagan gods because he remembers like two things from his possession with any clarity, and one of them is Muncie, Indiana/Gabriel’s death.)

(The Machine occasionally considers trying to get him into a hospital for a while, the way Root was--she thinks it would help him--but he’s...managing for the moment, so it’s not as necessary, and she does still need him actively working....plus, he’s terrified of being sedated so...this gets put on indefinite hold.)

During this period, though, they do acquire two more Friends.

First--and I’m not 100% sure how they meet; possibly similar to how Nick and Jody meet in Cartography!verse, i.e., a grief support group of some kind.

Anyway, first he meets a young woman, a psychiatrist. Who is familiar, if peripherally, with angel and demon type stuff.

(Other monsters are gonna be a little New to her.)

Her name is Ashley Finnerman.

(Yes, as in Donnie.)

(He was her cousin.)

(After what happened to him, she started trying to figure it out, and eventually did.)

(...honestly, the forum may be her idea. She definitely joins it, not as a fellow survivor, but as a crisis counselor/trained professional who will believe them.)

(Ashley is pretty big on community building in general; yes, she’s a therapist and that’s a start, but she’s only one person. In her ideal world, they’d be able to draw in other professionals--psychiatric because this is an underserved population that desperately needs those resources; medical (as in physical medical/other MDs); legal...anyway, she’s not 100% sure how to go about doing that, but helping out on with Tenebamus is a step in the right direction, in her opinion.)

Ashley is eventually read in on the Machine as well. She has more or less an actual Life outside of it all, so she isn’t as immersed as Nick is, but she’s still definitely part of his team.

And second...somehow, they acquire Adam.

How? ...again, not 100% sure, but probably one of two ways--

One, something similar to Promises, where Nick gets too close to the Cage mouth for some reason and is offered a Bribe. He takes the bribe, with exactly zero intention of following through on his end of the bargain, so to speak.

Two, some kind of straight-up Fairy Tale Bullshit. S6 establishes that faeries can reach the Cage; Nick somewhat accidentally does a favor for a powerful faerie through his work with the Machine, and to repay the debt, the faerie (or possibly a High Up Faerie who has taken ownership of the debt because he helped someone in their court/their child/something or other) restores his Counterpart to him? IDK, something like that.

...I think I like this option. He accidentally does a favor for, IDK, Mab. And she, not wanting to be in his debt, heads down to the Cage.

This works because, a) Mab is probably one of the few entities that can go toe-to-toe with an Archangel like this; and b) Michael is actually on board with springing Adam.

(Not necessarily because he gives a shit about Adam, but he does give a shit about Justice, and keeping Adam down here, especially with Sam gone, is not Justice.)

Naturally, she doesn’t tell Nick ahead of time--he did the favor without consulting her, she shall repay him in kind. Faeries and Obligations, man.

Anyway, Adam joins them, and then Nick doesn’t have to be quite as hands-on because Adam is perfectly capable.

(Adam also, at some point, makes a comment about the three of them having ‘nearly a complete set.’)

(I have no idea how/if they’ll ever be able to find someone to fit in for Gabriel, but three out of four!)

(Nick finds this oddly hilarious, for reasons he can’t quite articulate.)

So, that is what Nick is doing while Team Machine is foiling Vigilance and Greer and Decima and dealing with their Hard Sci Fi end of things.

Let’s bring these two worlds crashing back together, shall we?

(Well, I say crashing together...this probably isn’t the first time Nick has run into the others since that first adventure.)

(If nothing else, he’s stayed in touch, off and on, with Root.)

(And I’m pretty sure the others have met Adam.)

(Maybe that was where Shaw got her angel blade...)

So, timeline for this. Uh...probably at least a year after Nick’s first encounter with Team Machine. For the SPN side of things...ehhhhh I’ll handwave/stop caring and say this is sometime in the latter half of S8. Between the first two Trials. Let’s go with that.

Nick and co are back in New York, probably dealing with something on their end of things. A ghost or something.

And then they get sucked into some Team Machine nonsense.

Control still wants the Machine--or a suitable Plan B--back under her complete, well, control.

Decima is going after some other potential ASI.

(Root is back in town to deal with them.)

Vigilance is involved too, because why not.

(Greer can’t initiate his endgame there just yet, after all, so they’re probably still operating.)

Nick, Adam, and Ashley are pitching in, because they’re here and the Machine needs all the help she can get on this one. Because Reasons.

Meg gets involved--this goes AU in that she escaped Crowley somehow. And one of the first things she does is try to check on her various assets, so she’s trying to track Nick and figure out what the hell is going on with him.

Crowley, of course, is chasing her, trying to get her back.

And, to round it all off, Sam and Dean are chasing him.

(As they approach, Sam starts noticing a weird buzzing feeling in the back of his head. Like circulation returning, or something like that. He decides not to mention it--thinks it might be a new Trials symptom, and he’s already hiding those from Dean, what’s one more secret? Besides, they need to know what Crowley finds so interesting about this place...that’s way more important, right?)

So, all these disparate parties converge on wherever the potential ASI is being held/built.

Root and Nick, of course, are both in God Mode.

(...incidentally, Nick is...nnnnnnnnnot super comfortable with calling it that? He and Adam and Ashley mostly just call it access or full-access.)

(Nick has the same tingling feeling in the back of his head, but he can’t do anything about it right now. He just focuses on the task at hand, and getting himself and his friends through this alive.)

The Machine tips Nick off to the fact that there are demons sniffing around--a couple of Crowley’s minions. Which, of course, Nick and his team can handle, but there’s several of them around and we reeeeally don’t want Crowley getting access to an ASI.

(Especially not S8!Crowley.)

So, Nick, Adam, and Ashley head off to put up wards and shoo off any demons they can, leaving the others to deal with the Decima nonsense/destroy the drives or whatever.

There’s a lot of ground to cover, so they split up.

Eventually, Nick gets pinned down by Decima mooks, trapped in a corner of the facility where he’s trying to finish getting the wards up.

“What...what do I do now?” he asks the Machine.

She runs her simulations, and it doesn’t look good.

And here is where it’s different from, say, “If-Then-Else.” Slash another way Root and Nick are very different people/assets.

Whereas Root is perfectly okay with obeying orders from her God without question, Nick needs to be told his options and make the choice himself.

At some point, he describes Access as oddly comforting. It’s almost as overwhelming, almost as much of a surrender, as consenting to possession is.

But there’s one critical difference.

He doesn’t have to listen to her.

He can say no.

He can hang up.

I mean, it’s generally speaking a bad idea to do that, but the option is still available.

So, his head doesn’t feel as empty with her in it, but a lot of it is still on his terms.

That being said, when there’s no time, or it’s a very immediate “there’s someone behind you” type of God Mode moment, of course, that’s less of an issue.

But something like this, where there’s a fork in the road?

If there’s time, she’ll lay out two or three of the least bad options and let him decide.

“If you go out the door and turn left, you will run into Control. She will figure out you’re tied to me, and she will take you prisoner. She will almost certainly torture you, to get you to give me up. Adam and Ashley will meet up with my other assets, and they will rescue you, but the chances of their success are very slim. There is a five percent chance, at best, that you will survive. It varies, depending on how quickly the others can mobilize.”

“Okay,” he says, and swallows. “And...and Adam and Ashley, will they...?”

“They have better than even odds of surviving.”

“Okay,” he says again. “What else?”

“Turn right,” she says. “You’ll run into the demon who held you captive.”

“Meg?”

“Yes.”

That’s not so bad, he thinks. Meg didn’t torture him too much, and she wanted him kept alive.

“Control will capture Root instead,” she continues. “Sameen and the others will attempt to rescue her. Adam and Ashley will pursue you.”

Control capturing Root, on the other hand, seems like a very bad thing. Still...

“Adam and Ashley?”

“About the same,” she says. “But there is another concern.”

“Okay.”

“If Meg takes you, there’s a chance she’ll find me. And if she does, it’s extremely likely that someone less friendly will, as well. There is also an approximately 17% chance that you’ll wind up in Crowley’s hands instead of Meg’s. And his chances of finding me are a lot stronger.”

Yeah, no. That cannot happen.

“Are there any other options?” he asks.

She pauses for a split second. “Turn right,” she says. “Then at the first hallway, turn left instead of going straight. I’ll have to leave you then--there are several Decima soldiers, but if you manage to get past them on your own, you’ll find Sam and Dean Winchester.”

It hits him like a punch to the gut.

“Your chances of reaching them without my help are better than your chances of surviving Control,” the Machine continues, “but not by much. If you can get there, though, they most likely won’t harm you.”

Unless I’m in full-access mode, Nick thinks, and shivers a little.

“And I can say with approximately 97% certainty that, when Adam and Ashley find you, they won’t harm them, either. I cannot say the same for the demons or Control.”

“They won’t hurt us physically,” Nick finally manages to say. “But I can’t...I-I-I don’t know how I’ll...I can’t shut down, not in here. A-and I don’t know how Sam will react to seeing me, I’ll probably seriously fuck with his head a-and I can’t...I can’t...”

(there’s this running refrain in his head, that Sam Winchester is perfect, and that Nick is the reason that everything goes wrong.)

(the Machine regrets even more not getting Nick more help.)

He takes a shaky breath. “Plus, I don’t know if Adam’s ready for that yet,” he says. “He hasn’t...uh, he hasn’t said anything about wanting to track them down.”

“That’s true.”

He’s quiet for another minute.

“Nick?”

“...I’ll take my chances with Control,” he says.

“I understand,” she says. “Thank you. And I’m sorry.”

(It’s not what she would have advised him to do, necessarily--she would have advised him to try for Sam and Dean; it balances protecting her with protecting the majority of her assets.)

“Directions?” he says.

“Open the door and turn left.”

She guides him down the hallway, advises him where to dodge, where to strike. He picks up a gun at one point--

(he’s hesitant, and she reminds him “you’re in Control’s world now, you have to play by her rules.”)

He gets to the inevitable trap, where ISA corners him and Control is there.

She recognizes, pretty quickly, that he’s in God Mode.

“...now just who the hell are you?”

On the other side of the facility, Ashley’s phone rings.

“Can. You. Hear. Me?”

The Machine also advises Root that Nick has been captured.

She and Finch have finished neutralizing the potential ASI drives; Reese and Shaw are with them; Carter and Fusco are currently working on securing their exit route, after driving off a handful of Vigilance mooks.

“We need to move,” Root says. “Control has Nick. Adam and Ashley will meet us.”

Reese nods once. “Lionel, Joss, get ready. We’re headed your way.”

“Copy that,” Carter says. “Fusco--”

“On it.”

Meg has realized that Crowley is here, so she’s now in the process of finding her own exit. He’s in pursuit.

Sam and Dean got all turned around and manage to get to just the right hallway at just the right time to see Adam and Ashley piling onto an elevator.

“...Dean,” Sam says. “Dean, tell me you’re seeing what I’m seeing.”

(he doesn’t press his hand. he hasn’t hallucinated in almost two years, he doesn’t need to--)

“Adam?” Dean calls.

Adam half turns to them, hesitates for half a second, then follows Ashley into the elevator and the door slides shut.

...and I’ll admit I don’t have a whole lot planned out beyond that. Also this is getting, like, super long. So, quick wrapup, so to speak.

So, Team Machine, plus Adam and Ashley go to rescue Nick.

Sam and Dean track them down.

Adam goes to talk to them, try and get them to back off.

“I have to go rescue my friend,” he says. “But once I’m done with that, we can talk. I promise. We’ll set up a meeting and I’ll tell you...as much as I remember, I guess. But right now, I have to go rescue my friend. Kind of on a clock here.”

“We’ll help,” Sam offers.

“This isn’t really your kind of thing,” Adam says. “This isn’t monsters, this is the ISA.”

“The what now?” Dean asks.

“Like the CIA, but on steroids.”

“...how the hell did you get involved in CIA bullshit?” Dean asks.

“It’s kind of a long story,” Adam says. “Which I will tell you, once my friend is safe. So can you please just...let me do this first?”

“How did...” Sam asks. “How did you get out?”

“Also a long story,” Adam says. “But I’m the only one who came out, I swear. And...” He hesitates. “They...mostly left me alone, after you were gone. If you were worried about that.”

(Sam hadn’t been, mostly because he had been Very Firmly Not Thinking About Adam for a while now, but he’s relieved to hear it.)

Reese steps out. Possibly holding his grenade launcher. “Come on, Adam, we gotta go.”

“Coming,” Adam says, then turns back to Sam and Dean. “I will call you as soon as we’re clear. I promise. Don’t follow us, okay?”

Without waiting for an answer, he follows Reese and they go to rescue Nick.

(Obviously, S&D don’t listen and do, in fact, follow Adam, but I’m not 100% sure where that would go.)

(Other than they do, in fact, manage to extract Nick alive, but it’s a near thing.)

(The fun thing here is, Control actually can’t break Nick. Well, she can’t get him to tell her anything about the Machine, anyway.)

(Yes, everyone has their breaking point so far as pain/torture goes, and Nick is no exception.)

(But he will physically break--i.e., die--before he mentally breaks.)

(And while psychological torture would be a lot more effective, she doesn’t know what buttons to push.)

(When she runs his prints/whatever, she gets the name Jacob White, which is an identity that Finch put together for him, for when he needed to interact with the real world. Since his own identity is...complicated.)

(Yes, that is a reference.)

(I couldn’t resist.)

(Also, the Machine, through Root, gets to deliver her verbal bitchslap to Control at last.)

Uh....yeah. That’s all the actual Plot I have at this point. But some other notes!

My girl Zoe is totally in the know. She may or may not have encountered Bela at some point, or found out some other way, but she does know.

(She never told Harold and John because--well, honestly, why would she? Her stock in trade is secrets, after all. And it never came up, and she wasn’t involved with Nick’s first adventure.)

Elias will turn up at some point. And basically become something like John Marcone, if any of y’all are familiar with the Dresden Files.

Bear’s Plot Armor may be some kind of magic, and I would not be surprised if he could take on a Hellhound and win.

Carter and Jody. Just...just Carter and Jody, man.

Like I said, Shaw gets her hands on an angel blade at some point. She and Dean probably bond. I feel like they would bond.

Also, I think Dean gets put into God Mode at some point. Possibly as his first real introduction to the Machine.

Like...IDK, he and Sam are with Nick for some reason, Nick, as implied above, cannot go into God Mode in front of the two of them, and honestly Sam going into God Mode in front of him would also be pretty devastating, so...Dean’s phone gets to ring!

“Can. You. Hear. Me?”

“...the fuck?”

“Can. You. Hear. Me?”

“Yes, I can--what the fuck is--”

“Two. O’clock.”

::turns and OHSHIT just in time::

IDK the idea just entertains me.

...yep, I think that’s it.

If you’re still here, thank you for putting up with my nonsense/checking this out.

Tune in next time, for an actual serious AU outline of some kind.

(....who am I kidding, these things are never serious XD)

[independentartistbuzz]

INDIE 5-0: 5 QUESTIONS WITH MUNK DUANE

Boston based Recording Artist, Producer and Film Composer Munk Duane has a style deeply rooted in late 60s and early 70s Soul and Pop, with unapologetic nods to legends such as Curtis Mayfield, Marvin Gaye, Prince and Stevie Wonder, crafting a sonic atmosphere that is traditional in inception and modern in execution. Channeling spirits of the past and filtering them through a 21st century aesthetic, Munk manifests an evolution by daring to experiment in hybrids. 

We got together with him to ask some questions and talk about his most recent release Sweet Tooth.

1.) You are an extremely versatile, charismatic and unique artist, with your sound rooted in the early 60s/ 70s Soul and Pop. How long did it take you to hone in on your style and sound, and what advice do you have for other artists who are trying to figure it out?

Why thank you! I've been a fan of Motown since I was a kid, especially around the era of Marvin Gaye's album " What's Going On" and "Talking Book" through the "Songs In the Key Of Life" period of Stevie Wonder. This is when these artists stepped into a more musically ambitious and socially aware light. Prince was my number one influence from the time I was a teen. The final piece of the "Soul puzzle" that defined me though was a chance meeting with Jame Brown. When I was about 16, I was walking out of a music conference in New York with my Father. A limo was just pulling up. A man and his entourage emerged and he made a beeline for me. I was holding a notebook that I used for the conference and I'm sure he thought I was coming toward him for an autograph. The man gingerly steps up to me, grabs the notebook out of my hand with a huge, warm Cheshire Cat smile on his face, and says something to me I can't quite make out. I looked down and saw that he had written what he had just said. "God loves you. James Brown". I was completely naive as to who he was at this point, still being young and inexperienced. After he walked away, I looked at my Dad, speechless and puzzled. He gave me the old Italian Father "slap upside the back of my head" and said "you have no idea what just happened, do you? That was The Godfather of Soul, James Brown". After this encounter, I dove headlong into his discography, learned that he was one of the main influences of MY main influence, and completely fell in love with Soul, R&B and Funk. As far as advice to anyone trying to figure out what their sonic identity is, I would simply ask "What is the music that made you want to make music?". After my third album, I became super busy writing on spec for television. I was good at fast, high-quality, turn-arounds and capturing the vibe of established artists that these productions didn't have the budget for, without sounding like a knock-off. In TV, you generally have to respond to these creative briefs from Music Supervisors and Publishers in less than 24 hours, so developing a methodology to crank out content super fast is critical for any reasonable success in spec licensing placements. After several years, I wanted to get back to focusing on my next release as an artist but when I sat down to write, I was horrified to find that my mind was completely blank. Without a creative brief and the parameters of "who I needed to sound like" and the ungodly deadlines, I discovered that I had forgotten who "I" was as an artist. After several false starts that included a complete album that I shelved upon completion because it was miles from who I actually am, I stopped writing altogether and just took some time to try and remember why I got into this in the first place. Marvin Gaye's "Inner City Blues" lead me back to my musical genesis. The emersion of Alt R&B, born of Neo-Soul and artists like Anderson .Paak, Childish Gambino and Leon Bridges were sign posts telling me that the music closest to my heart never went away and continues to evolve. Just be who you are with no apologies or trend-chasing. 2.) Your single, "Dangerous" was inspired by your battle with COVID-19 in March. Tell us more about the virus, and how you were able to overcome it and still release music.

COVID kicked my ass. I contracted it in the early wave when the medical community still did not know what they were dealing with. I saw two doctors via telemedicine, and one in person, who ALL told me I didn't have it, so of course I didn't quarantine from my family and transmitted it to my wife and kids. It wasn't until antibody tests became available months later that I had a positive confirmation. It took me 6 weeks to shake the worst of the symptoms from radical temperature shifts, extreme fatigue, uncontrollable coughing to the point where I couldn't speak without a fit, loss of smell and taste and finally labored breathing like an elephant was sitting on my chest. I was still compromised for a few weeks after the worst of the symptoms had subsided (I still ran out of breath quickly and my limbs were like jelly). Probably 8-10 weeks in total. I was completely untreated, and was left with whatever my body's natural ability to fight it was. Thank goodness we're a little smarter about it now but it's still scary as hell. The ONLY good thing as a result was getting to be at home in my studio for so much time, due to the cancellation of gigs. Losing the income was painful but having an extended period to write and record whatever I wanted to was a gift. As I started to feel well enough, I began to write my thoughts in lyric form about the false narratives we were being fed at the time. As I was the sickest I'd ever been in my life, our President was telling anyone who would listen that COVID was a hoax. "Dangerous" began to write itself. In the span of a few weeks I had it completed and wanted to release it while the message was still timely. 3.) Your newest release "Sweet Tooth" is such a smooth track, tell us about the writing/ recording process.

Thank you. This was around the time that the remaster of Prince's "Sign O The Times" was about to drop, along with 63 unreleased songs from his vault. That album is an inspirational mile marker for me and I simply wanted to write an homage to my hero. It was not my intention to copy him as much as capture the way he could make you feel and reinterpret that feeling through the filter of my own capabilities and taste. I set out to let an infectious, clean and quirky groove drive the shape of the song. More often than not, I write "backwards" compared to the school of traditional songwriting. Instead of starting with chords, lyrics and melody, I sometimes start with groove, bass and vibe. If that excites me enough to flesh it out into a song, the piece will survive. It's not a hard and fast rule as much as a bi-product of beginning my musical experience as a bass player. I need to feel it in my bones first. The rhythm has to make me want to tell a story. It comes from a primal place. On "Sweet Tooth" the rhythm led me to the synth layers and sound design which took me further down the road to that odd, falsetto chorus hook with the violin pluck in the stops. I was just allowing my eccentricity full reign. That verse melody and those harmonies fell directly in line afterward. From a Production standpoint, I was channeling a bit of Danger Mouse into FINNEAS to explore how much articulation and sonic separation I could create in the sound palette for this one. 4.) You've had some tracks that are centered around some heavier topics, but with this latest record, you took more of a fun and flirty turn, tell us about the inspiration behind it.

The last thing I want to be is a "one trick pony". The human condition is a spectrum of feelings and experiences. I could change the vibe of each song sonically but if I stayed in the same lyrical wheelhouse all the time, it would have the opposite of the intended effect. Yeah, I could be in my "Shame Against The Machine" mode very easily, but I'm super self-aware of becoming preachy, predictable and one dimensional. All work and no play makes Munk a dull boy. 5.) Your music has had some incredible placements, like The 70th Annual Tony Awards, NCIS, Hawaii Five- O, and so much more. What is on the "Munk Duane - 5 Year Goals" List?

As much work that is behind me, I'm convinced my best work is still ahead. I'm taking in so much of the exponential advancements in music technology and it's blowing my creative mind wide open with possibilities. It's like going from a box of 4 Crayolas to a box of 120. I feel like infinite opportunities lie ahead if I'm bold enough, and there aren't enough hours in the day to explore them all, and this is coming from a guy who stays up until 3 or 4am creating until he slumps over the console. Given all of that, I want to continue to diversify. I've had the honor this past year to contribute music to groundbreaking technology by Bose for a new earbud designed to help those with sleep disorders. This required a lot of research, exercising both my Right and Left brain. I want more of that, for sure. I'll be working on more Film Scoring projects. Getting a taste of my first Hollywood Red Carpet experience as a Composer was pretty intoxicating and yeah, if I'm being honest, I want more of that too. Occasional celebration and acknowledgement of accomplishments is something I need to work on more. I'm really bad at it and hard on myself. I'm enamoured with the return of the Title Sequence as a work of art unto itself. Work done by studios like Perception (The Black Panther, Thor: Ragnorok) and Prologue (Star Trek: Discovery, American Horror Story) inspire me as much as any recording artist does. I'm exploring ways to crack my way into that world as a Composer. Producing other artists is also in the plan, as is a full length album for myself in 2021. I'm focused on continuing to will my way into the general awareness of the music and film industries, new fans and anyone that will honor me with a listen. 

Listen to Sweet Tooth: https://open.spotify.com/track/4Q7KYh1gaKRoHolohoJQhF?si=OjGIsu2YSEOQk4byVwCYxg

Connect with Munk Duane via:

https://www.munkduane.com/

https://www.instagram.com/munkduane

https://www.youtube.com/munkduane

https://www.facebook.com/munkduane

[sinrau]

Clint Lorance had been in charge of his platoon for only three days when he ordered his men to kill three Afghans stopped on a dirt road.

A second-degree murder conviction and pardon followed.

Today, Lorance is hailed as a hero by President Trump.

His troops have suffered a very different fate.

Depression

Fatal car crash

Shooting death

Cancer

Hospitalizations

Drug abuse

PTSD

Arrests

Alcoholism

Suicide

‘The Cursed Platoon’

By Greg Jaffe

James O. Twist poses with local children during his deployment in Afghanistan in 2012. (Courtesy of the Twist family)

They thought of the calls and texts from him that they didn’t answer because they were too busy with their own lives — and Twist, who had a caring wife, a good job and a nice house — seemed like he was doing far better than most. They didn’t know that behind closed doors he was at times verbally abusive, ashamed of his inner torment and, like so many of them, unable to articulate his pain.By November 2019, Twist, a man the soldiers of 1st Platoon loved, was gone and Lorance was free from prison and headed for New York City, a new life and a star turn on Fox News.This story is based on a transcript of Lorance’s 2013 court-martial at Fort Bragg, N.C., and on-the-record interviews with 15 members of 1st Platoon, as well as family members of the soldiers, including Twist’s father and wife. The soldiers also shared texts and emails they exchanged over the past several years. Twist’s family provided his journal entries from his time in the Army. Lorance declined to be interviewed.In New York, Sean Hannity, Lorance’s biggest champion and the man most responsible for persuading Trump to pardon him, asked Lorance about the shooting and soldiers under his command.Lorance had traded in his Army uniform for a blazer and red tie. He leaned in to the microphone. “I don’t know any of these guys. None of them know me,” Lorance said of his former troops. “To be honest with you, I can’t even remember most of their names.”

The soldiers of 1st Platoon tell their story

An ‘entire month of despair’

Soldiers from the 1st Platoon fire a mortar during a firefight with Taliban in April 2012 in Kandahar province, southern Afghanistan. (Baz Ratner/Reuters)

The 1st Platoon soldiers came to the Army and the war from all over the country: Maryland, California, Pennsylvania, Oregon, Indiana and Texas to name just a few. They joined for all the usual reasons: “To keep my parents off my a–,” said one soldier.

“I just needed a change,” said another.

A few had tried college but quit because they were bored or failing their classes. “I didn’t know how to handle it,” Gray said of college. “I was really immature.”

Others joined right out of high school propelled by romantic notions, inherited from veteran fathers, grandfathers and great-grandfathers, of service and duty. Twist’s father served in Vietnam as a clerk in an air-conditioned office before coming back to Michigan and opening a garage. In his spare time Twist Sr. was a military history buff, a passion that rubbed off on his son, who visited World War II battle sites in Europe with his dad. Twist was just 16 when he started badgering his parents to sign his enlistment papers and barely 18 when he left for basic training. His mother had died of cancer only a few months earlier.

“I got pictures of him the day we dropped him off, and he didn’t even wave goodbye,” his father recalled. “He was in pig heaven.”

Members of the 1st Platoon James O. Twist, Reyler Leon, Joe Morrissey, Andy Lehrer, Mike McGuinness, Dallas Haggard (kneeling) and Brandon Krebs pose with a flag in Afghanistan in 2012. (Courtesy of the Twist family)

Several of the 1st Platoon soldiers enlisted in search of a steady paycheck and the promise of health insurance and a middle-class life. “I needed to get out of northeast Ohio,” McGuinness said. “There wasn’t anything there.”

In 1999, he was set to pay his first union dues and go to work alongside his steelworker grandfather when the plant closed. So he became a paratrooper instead, eventually deploying three times to Afghanistan.

McGuinness didn’t look much like a paratrooper with his thick, squat body. But he liked being a soldier, jumping out of planes, firing weapons and drinking with his Army buddies. After a while the war didn’t make much sense, but he took pride in knowing that his soldiers trusted him and that he was good at his job.

Nine months before 1st Platoon landed in rural southern Afghanistan, a team of Navy SEALs killed Osama bin Laden.

Jarred Ruhl, Dallas Haggard and Mike McGuinness in Afghanistan in June 2012. (Courtesy of the Carson family)

Samuel Walley, the badly wounded soldier Twist pulled from the blast crater, wondered if they might be spared combat. “Wasn’t that the goal to kill bin Laden?” he recalled thinking. “Isn’t that checkmate?”

Around the same time, Twist was trying to make sense of what was to come. “I feel like the Army was a good decision, but also in my mind is a lot of dark thoughts,” he wrote in a spiral notebook. “I could die. I could come back with PTSD. I could be massively injured.”

“Maybe,” he hoped, “it will start winding down soon.”

But the decade-long war continued, driven by new, largely unattainable goals. When McGuinness saw where the platoon was headed — just 15 or so miles from the spot in southern Afghanistan where he had spent his second tour — he warned the new soldiers they were going to be “fighting against dudes who just really f—ing hate you.”

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They were told by commanders they were waging a counterinsurgency war in which their top priority was winning the support of the people and protecting them from the Taliban. But no one seemed entirely sure how to accomplish that goal. They helped build a school that never opened because of a lack of teachers and willing students. They met with village elders who insisted they knew nothing about the Taliban’s operations or plans.

An Afghan girl watches as soldiers from the 1st Platoon walk by during a mission in April 2012, in the Zhary district of Kandahar province, southern Afghanistan. (Baz Ratner/Reuters)

In May 2012, they moved to a new compound near Payenzai, a remote Afghan village west of Kandahar, which consisted of little more than mud-walled houses, hardscrabble farmers and the Taliban.

So began what Twist described, in a blog post written years later, as an “entire month of despair.”

Four soldiers were severely wounded in quick succession. On June 6, Walley lost his leg and arm to a Taliban bomb. Eight days later, yet another enemy mine wounded Mark Kerner and 1st Lt. Dominic Latino, the platoon leader. Then, on June 23, a sniper’s bullet tore through Matthew Hanes’s neck, leaving him paralyzed.

The platoon was briefly sent back to a larger base a few miles away to shower, meet with mental-health counselors and pick up their new platoon leader. Lorance had served a tour as an enlisted prison guard in Iraq before attending college and becoming an infantry officer. He had spent the first five months of his Afghanistan tour as a staff officer on a fortified base.

This was his first time in combat.

1st Lt. Clint Lorance during training at Fort Bragg before the deployment to Afghanistan in 2012. (Photo by Alan Gladney)

“We’re not going to lose any more men to injuries in this platoon,” he told then-Sgt. 1st Class Keith Ayres, his platoon sergeant, shortly after taking over on June 29, according to Ayres’s testimony.

His strategy, he said, was a “shock and awe” campaign designed to cow the enemy and intimidate villagers into coughing up valuable intelligence. When an Afghan farmer and his young son approached the outpost’s front gate and asked permission to move a section of razor wire a few feet so that the farmer could get into his field, Lorance threatened to have Twist and the other soldiers on guard duty kill him and his boy.

“He pointed at the child . . . at the little, tiny kid,” Twist testified. He estimated the child was 3 or 4 years old.

On Lorance’s second day, he ordered two of his sharpshooters to fire within 10 to 12 inches of unarmed villagers. His goal was to make the Afghans wonder why the Americans were shooting at them and motivate them to attend a village meeting that Lorance had scheduled for later in the week, his soldiers testified.

His real motive, though, seems to have been cruelty. “It’s funny watching those f—ers dance,” Lorance said, according to the testimony of one of his soldiers. Lorance didn’t pull the trigger. Instead, he stood by his men in the guard towers, picked the targets and issued orders. His troops finally balked when he told them to shoot near children. They refused again a few hours later when he ordered them to file a false report saying that they had taken fire from the village.

“If I don’t have the support of my NCOs then I’ll f—ing do it myself,” Lorance exclaimed, according to testimony, referring to noncommissioned officers.

Sgt. 1st Class Keith Ayres looks over maps with other soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division in April 2012, before a joint mission with the Afghan army in Kandahar province. (Baz Ratner/Reuters)

On the day of the killings for which he would be convicted, Lorance posted a sign in the platoon headquarters stating that no motorcycles would be permitted in his unit’s sector. The platoon’s soldiers were falsely told before the day’s patrol that motorcycles should be considered “hostile and engaged on sight.” Several soldiers testified that Lorance told them that senior U.S. officials had ordered the change. At least two sergeants recalled the guidance had come from the Afghans and did not apply to U.S. forces. Due to the conflicting testimony, the jury of Army officers acquitted Lorance of changing the rules of engagement. Still, Lorance’s actions left soldiers confused on the critical, life-or-death question of when they were authorized to open fire.

The mission that day was a foot patrol into a nearby village to meet the elders.

Less than 30 minutes after they rolled out of the gate, three men on a motorcycle approached a cluster of Afghan National Army troops at the front of their formation. Lorance and his troops were standing about 150 to 200 yards away in an orchard, tucked behind a series of five-foot-high mud walls on which the Afghans grew grapes.

At the trial, Lorance’s soldiers recalled how he had ordered them to fire.

“Why aren’t you shooting?” he demanded.

A U.S. soldier fired and missed. The motorcycle carrying the three men, none of whom appeared to be armed, came to a stop. Upon hearing the shots, McGuinness began running toward Lorance, who was closer to the front of the U.S. patrol, to see why they were shooting.

The puzzled Afghans were now standing next to the stopped motorcycle, “trying to figure out what had happened,” according to one soldier’s testimony. Gray, who was watching from a nearby armored vehicle, recognized the eldest of the three men as someone the Americans regularly met with in the village. He recalled the Afghans waving at them.

Todd Fitzgerald testifies during Clint Lorance’s 2013 court-martial at Fort Bragg, N.C.

“Smoke ’em,” Lorance ordered over the radio.

At first Gray and the other soldiers in the armored vehicle weren’t sure whom Lorance wanted them to shoot. “There was a back and forth with the three of us in the vehicle,” Gray recalled in an interview.

Then Pvt. David Shilo, who was in the turret of the armored vehicle just inches from Gray, fired, striking one of the men, who fell into a drainage ditch. Because the platoon had been told that morning that motorcycles weren’t allowed in their sector, Shilo testified that he thought he was acting on a lawful order. Shilo declined to be interviewed.

The two surviving Afghan men bent to retrieve their dead colleague when Shilo cleared his weapon and shot again, killing a second Afghan. The third man ran away. Two U.S. soldiers testified that it was possible that an Afghan soldier also fired.

A few minutes later, a boy approached the dead men and the motorcycle, which was standing on the side of the road with its kickstand still down. Lorance ordered Shilo to fire a third time and disable the bike. This time he refused.

“I wasn’t going to shoot a 12-year-old boy,” Shilo testified.

David Shilo testifies during Clint Lorance’s 2013 trial at Fort Bragg, N.C.

Relatives of the dead were now on the scene screaming and crying. Lorance’s immediate superior officer, Capt. Patrick Swanson, who was two miles away and couldn’t see what was happening, ordered him over the radio to search the bodies.

Lorance was convicted of lying to Swanson, telling him that villagers had carried off the corpses before his men could examine them. In fact, Lorance’s troops searched the bodies of the dead Afghans and found ID cards, scissors, some pens and three cucumbers, but no weapons, according to testimony.

The troops continued their patrol into the village while McGuinness and a small team of soldiers provided cover from a nearby roof. About 30 minutes after the first shooting, McGuinness spotted two Afghan men talking on radios.

“We have to do something to the Americans,” one of the men was saying, according to U.S. intercepts. McGuinness and his troops received permission from the company headquarters to fire and killed the two men. The platoon cut short the patrol and returned to the base.

At the outpost the soldiers were shaken. “This doesn’t feel right,” Gray said.

“It’s not f—ing right at all,” McGuinness replied.

Lucas Gray, Joe Fjeldheim and Mike McGuinness in Afghanistan 2012. (Courtesy of the Carson family)

A few minutes later Lorance burst into the platoon’s headquarters ebullient. “That was f—ing awesome,” he exclaimed, according to court testimony.

“Ayres looked sick,” one of the platoon’s soldiers testified. McGuinness was furious.

The lieutenant tried to reassure his sergeants. “I know how to report it up [so] nobody gets in trouble,” he said, according to testimony.

Lorance’s soldiers turned him in that evening, and at the July 2013 trial, 14 of his men testified under oath against him. Four of those soldiers received immunity in exchange for their testimony. Lorance did not appear on the stand, and not one of his former 1st Platoon soldiers spoke in his defense. The trial lasted three days. It took the jury of Army officers three hours to find him guilty of second-degree murder, making false statements and ordering his men to fire at Afghan civilians. The jury handed down a 20-year sentence.

In response to a Lorance clemency request, an Army general reviewed the conviction and reduced the sentence by one year.

‘Why do you care so much?’

Dave Zettel reveals a tattoo of a lighter to represent the 82nd deployment outside his home in Blythewood, S.C. (Bonnie Jo Mount/The Washington Post)

The war crimes and their aftermath followed Lorance’s soldiers home to Fort Bragg and, in some cases, into their nightmares. On many nights Gray woke up to the image of a group of Afghan soldiers surrounding his cot and emptying their rifles into his sleeping body in retaliation for the murders.

“I dreamed it,” he said, “because I thought that’s what would happen.”

Dave Zettel wasn’t on the patrol when the killings were committed but was in the guard tower when Lorance ordered him and another soldier to fire harassing shots into the neighboring village. On his first full day back in the States, Zettel went out to a dinner with a large group from the platoon and their families.

By the end of the night, the soldiers, rattled from the tour, the stress of Lorance’s upcoming trial and the return home, were intoxicated and emotionally falling apart. Zettel held it together until he was alone in a taxi with his wife and brother. In the quiet of the cab, he felt a crushing guilt that he had made it home unscathed.

“I just lost my s—. I felt like a failure,” he said. “I felt abandoned and so f—ing angry.”

In Afghanistan, Army investigators, who were primarily pursuing Lorance, threatened Zettel with aggravated assault charges for the shootings in the tower. And they showed McGuinness a charge sheet accusing him of murder for killing the Afghans who were talking on the radios about targeting Americans.

The threats of prosecution hung over them for months. Eventually, the Army concluded that McGuinness’s actions were justified. Prosecutors never pursued charges against Zettel.

Instead the Army issued administrative letters of reprimand to Zettel and Matthew Rush, the soldier who fired the rounds at the civilians from the tower. Zettel had watched from the tower but did not shoot.

The 1st Platoon leadership team in Afghanistan in May 2012. From left: Dan Williams, Mike McGuinness, Chris Murray (sitting), Keith Ayres, Dominic Latino and Jace Myers (sitting, right). (Courtesy of the Carson family)

Ayres and McGuinness — the senior sergeants in the platoon — received disciplinary letters, which can hinder or delay promotions, for their failure to turn Lorance in sooner or stop the killings on the third day.

McGuinness legally changed his surname, which had been Herrmann, in an effort to shed the stigma of the crimes. “I wanted to get away from the entire situation and I thought I’ll change units and no one will know,” he said. But, because of the investigation and trial, McGuinness’s orders to report to an airborne unit in Italy were canceled. “I ended up staying. People didn’t forget,” he said. “It was awful.”

Shilo, who fired the fatal shots at the men on the motorcycle, was granted immunity and left the Army not long after the trial.

Lucas Gray and James O. Twist in Afghanistan in 2012. (Courtesy of the Twist family)

Even those who weren’t punished or even on the patrol that day felt tainted. To some of their fellow troops they were the “murder platoon,” a bunch of out-of-control soldiers who had wantonly killed Afghans. To others they were turncoats who had flipped on their commander. Gray was waiting for a parachute jump at Fort Bragg when he overheard a lieutenant colonel deride the platoon as nothing but a bunch of “traitors and cowards.” Gray was just a low-ranking specialist, so he kept his mouth shut.

The unit had seen some of the heaviest fighting of the long Afghanistan war, but received no awards for valor. There was no recognition for Twist, who had pulled Walley from a blast crater and applied a tourniquet to the remains of his arm and leg. No one acknowledged Joe Fjeldheim, the platoon medic, who had cut a hole in Hanes’s neck and inserted a breathing tube after a sniper’s bullet left him paralyzed and choking for air.

“Not a single write up. The only thing we received were Purple Hearts for the guys that got messed up,” Zettel said. “We were treated like we had an infectious disease. The Lorance issue evaporated any support from the Army when we got back, and it was absolutely crushing to those who needed help.”

“I think when you see stuff like that sometimes it just flips a switch in some people and you’re just not the same. … I almost drank myself to death for two years,” said Lucas Gray at home in Pulaski, Va. (Bonnie Jo Mount/The Washington Post)

A group from the unit gathered regularly at Zettel’s apartment off post to drink. Some Saturdays Fjeldheim would show up at 9:30 a.m. with booze and a plan to stay numb through the weekend. When the troops were too hung over to make it to mandatory morning formation and training, he would administer intravenous drips in the barracks.

“I was working at Macy’s, and I’d dread coming home because someone was doing something stupid or crying in the bathroom,” said Zettel’s wife, Kim. Often, it fell to her to offer a bit of empathy.

The soldiers blamed the killings when they were passed over for promotions or stripped of rank for drinking too much or missing formations. In early 2014, Gray was hospitalized for alcohol withdrawal and put on suicide watch. He had been drinking a half-gallon of whiskey each night to fall asleep. “It was my off switch,” he said. A few days into his hospital stay, when he was still dosed up on Valium, an officer visited him.

“Why are you like this?” the officer pressed. “They are just dead Afghans. Why do you care so much?”

The question infuriated Gray. Before the war crimes, he had believed he was helping Afghans and defending his country. “It’s like you’re this hardcore Christian and some entity drops from the ceiling and says it’s a sham,” he said. “That’s how it was for me. I thought of the Army as this altruistic thing. I thought it was perfect and honorable. It pains me to tell you how stupid and naive I was. The Lorance stuff just broke my faith. . . . And once you lose your values and your faith, the Army is just another job you hate.”

‘You need to stop running your mouth’

Mike McGuinness at home in Raeford, N.C. McGuinness legally changed his surname, which had been Herrmann, in an effort to shed the stigma of the crimes. (Bonnie Jo Mount/The Washington Post)

McGuinness tried to intervene on behalf of his soldiers. He talked to Gray’s new commanders, who McGuinness said wanted to run him out of the Army for being drunk.

“Did you ask him why he’s drinking too much?” McGuinness pressed them.

Zettel asked McGuinness to meet with his new platoon sergeant when the Army, without explanation, blocked him from attending Ranger School.

McGuinness also spoke up for Jarred Ruhl, who had been one of his best soldiers in combat. Ruhl came home from Afghanistan with orders for Hawaii and a promotion to sergeant. But he soon began skipping morning formation, was demoted twice to private first class and forced from the Army.

“I just don’t know how to deal with everything that happened,” Ruhl told him. He had been standing next to Lorance when the lieutenant gave the orders to kill the Afghan men.

Jarred Ruhl holds an M203 grenade launcher mounted on his rifle as Dallas Haggard works the M240B machine gun while on duty in Afghanistan in June 2012. (Courtesy of the Carson family)

McGuinness, who said he felt like a failure for not stopping the killings or shielding his men from the fallout, was also self-destructing. “I was mouthy and insubordinate,” he said. He felt distant from his two young children and said he was drunk “six days a week.”

When conservatives rushed to turn Lorance into a hero, McGuinness felt as though the last shreds of his integrity were under assault. Former Lt. Col. Allen West, who had been relieved of command in 2003 for staging a mock execution of an Iraqi prisoner and was later elected to Congress in the tea party wave, blasted Lorance’s conviction in a Washington Times op-ed as a product of the Army’s “appalling” rules of engagement.

The rules were drafted by generals who worried that high civilian casualty rates were driving Afghans to support the Taliban. But West insisted that the rules put U.S. troops at undue risk and reflected President Barack Obama’s “outrageous contempt for the military.” West didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Fox News’s Sean Hannity took up Lorance’s case, calling the conviction a “national disgrace.”

In 2014, McGuinness was out drinking with an Army friend, and when the friend went home, stayed at the bar until he had downed enough booze to “sedate a rhino.” A military police officer found him later that night, sitting in his truck on All American Parkway, the main drag through Fort Bragg, with a gun in his mouth.

A nurse in the psychiatric ward at Womack Army Medical Center asked him if he really wanted help. “If you tell me that to get better, I’ve got to eat a 100-pound bag of gummy bears, then I’m going to eat 100 pounds of gummy bears,” he recalled telling her. “I just can’t do this s— any more.”

It was the end of a 16-year Army career.

Matthew Hanes during his deployment in Afghanistan in May 2012. (Photo by Dave Zettel)

Soon the platoon began to suffer losses at home. First Kerner, who was wounded in a bomb blast with the unit’s first platoon leader, died in March 2015 of cancer at age 23. Doctors discovered the malignancy when they were treating his combat wounds. Five months later Hanes, who was paralyzed by the bullet he took to his neck, died of a blood clot at age 24.

“Saying I love you doesn’t even scratch the surface of how much you truly mean to me,” he wrote in a note to the platoon three months before he fell into a coma. His closest friends from the unit — Zettel, Dallas Haggard and Fjeldheim, the medic who saved his life — were at his bedside in York, Pa., during his final unconscious hours.

At the funeral there was heavy drinking, just like at Bragg, but now that many in the platoon were out of the Army and no longer had to worry about drug tests, there was also cocaine to numb the pain.

Wives traded tips about how to persuade their husbands to go to therapy and talked about hiding their guns when they grew too depressed.

Ruhl complained to McGuinness that life at home felt empty. “Are you in therapy?” asked McGuinness, who was seeing a therapist and getting ready to start college at age 33.

“I don’t know if I can do it,” Ruhl said.

“It doesn’t f—ing matter what you think you can do,” he pressed. “It can’t make things worse.”

Dallas Haggard and Jarred Ruhl while on a long patrol in Afghanistan in June 2012. (Courtesy of the Carson family)

A few months later Zettel, who had finished college and was commissioned as an officer, stopped in to see Ruhl at his home in Fort Wayne, Ind. Zettel was on his way to a leadership course for new Army officers in Missouri.

Ruhl’s stepbrother told him that Ruhl had pulled a gun on a woman in a traffic dispute just days earlier. “Take his gun,” Zettel advised Ruhl’s stepbrother. “Take it apart and hide the pieces so that he can’t get it.” It was impossible, the stepbrother said. Ruhl took his gun everywhere.

Ruhl confided to Zettel that there were days when he couldn’t stop thinking about killing himself.

“How are we going to fix this?” asked Zettel, who helped Ruhl sign up for counseling at a VA hospital.

Before he could start, Ruhl pulled his gun on an acquaintance at a party. His stepbrother tried to wrestle it away and the firearm discharged, severing Ruhl’s femoral artery. He died before paramedics arrived.

“We kind of got betrayed,” said Dave Zettel outside his home in Blythewood, S.C. “We were pegged as if we were like a rogue unit. Which we clearly weren’t. It was kind of disheartening.” (Bonnie Jo Mount/The Washington Post)

Zettel came back for the funeral, then returned to Missouri to finish his five-month leadership course. Four years had passed since the war crimes, but the murders and their aftermath still seemed inescapable. A captain teaching Zettel’s class on rules of engagement used Lorance as a case study, telling the new officers that Lorance had been trying to impose discipline on a platoon that had lost control after one of its soldiers was shot in the neck. The captain was referring to Hanes, who had given Zettel his first salute when he was commissioned as an officer.

Lorance’s soldiers, the captain continued, had violated the rules of engagement and now Lorance, who hadn’t fired a shot, was serving a 19-year prison sentence.

Zettel blew up. “I was there and you need to stop running your mouth,” he recalled shouting at the instructor.

The instructor suggested they step out of the classroom. Zettel grew angrier.

“If I ever see Lorance on the street,” he said. “I am going to rip his f—ing throat out.”

‘Y’all are being led the wrong way’

Sean Hannity of Fox News arrives in National Harbor, Md., on March 4, 2016. (Carolyn Kaster/AP)

Six days after Trump was inaugurated as president, Hannity asked him in a White House interview about pardoning Lorance. “He got 30 years,” Hannity said incorrectly. “He was doing his job, protecting his team in Afghanistan.”

“We’re looking at a few of them,” said Trump of the case.

In the months after his conviction, Lorance had begun to receive support from United American Patriots ( UAP ), a nonprofit group that represents soldiers accused of war crimes. UAP helped Lorance find new lawyers who claimed in an appeals court filing that they had uncovered evidence showing that the younger victim was “biometrically linked” to a roadside bomb blast that occurred before his death. The sole survivor, the lawyers said, took part in attacks on U.S. forces after the Americans tried to kill him.

“The Afghan men were not civilian casualties . . . but were actually combatant bombmakers who intended to harm or kill American soldiers,” the lawyers wrote in their appeal.

In 2017, a military appeals court dismissed the biometric data as irrelevant because Lorance had “no indications that the victims posed any threat at the time of the shootings.” The judges found that the surviving victim’s decision to join the Taliban after the platoon tried to kill him probably would have helped prosecutors by demonstrating “the direct impact on U.S. forces when the local population believe they are being indiscriminately killed.”

But the biometric evidence and support from UAP helped Lorance’s mother and his legal team get on Trump’s favorite television shows — “Fox & Friends” and “Hannity” — where they offered a new account of the killings that differed dramatically from the sworn testimony. In their telling, the motorcycle wasn’t stopped on the side of the road with its kickstand down, as testimony and photos from the trial demonstrated, but was speeding toward Lorance and his men when he ordered them to fire.

“He’s got to make a split-second decision in a war zone,” Hannity said on his television show. “How did it get to the point where he got prosecuted for this?”

“I feel if he had not made that call,” Lorance’s mother replied, “my son today would be called a hero, killed in action.”

Hannity turned to Lorance’s lawyer, John Maher. “Was there anybody in the platoon that was with Clint that said that was the wrong decision?” he asked.

“That I don’t rightly know,” replied Maher, who had reviewed the platoon’s testimony.

“Then who made the determination that this was the wrong thing to do?” Hannity pressed.

“The chain of command,” Maher said.

“People that weren’t there,” Hannity concluded. Hannity and a Fox News spokeswoman did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

In a recent interview, Maher said his response to Hannity’s question had been “potentially inartful.” Lorance was in prison because the 1st Platoon soldiers turned him in and testified against him.

But Maher maintained that Lorance had made a split-second decision to protect his men from an enemy ambush. Some of the 1st Platoon soldiers said that the Afghan men had been standing on the side of the road for as long as two minutes before the U.S. gun truck opened fire on Lorance’s orders. Others, including Lorance, estimated they had been stopped for only a few seconds.

“That’s probably an eternity sitting here in the safety of this environment,” Maher said. “But I assure you that it’s not like that under volatile, uncertain, unforgiving conditions where life and death are right around the corner and a tardy decision results in death or dismemberment.”

The Afghan men were about 150 to 200 yards from the U.S. position when they were killed. To reach Lorance and his troops, they would have had to scale multiple shoulder-high mud walls.

Aaron Deamron, right, and Zach Thomas run for cover as they are fired upon by Taliban fighters during a mission in Zhary district of Kandahar province, southern Afghanistan in April 2012. Thomas would receive a concussion in the incident. (Baz Ratner/Reuters)

Zach Thomas, who had been standing just yards from Lorance when he gave the order to fire, was driving to community college in 2017 when he heard Hannity talking about the Lorance case on the radio.

“My blood just started boiling,” he recalled.

Thomas had spent his last day in the Army testifying against his former platoon leader. He was just 18 when he left for Afghanistan, and like many in the unit, his return home had been difficult. He drank to blunt his PTSD and depression. Two of his sergeants were so worried about him that they let him move out of the barracks and spend his last two months living at their house. His plan after the Army was to forget about Afghanistan and start a new life in his hometown of Crosby, Tex.

Zach Thomas and Jake Jensen before their deployment at Fort Bragg. (Courtesy of Zach Thomas)

Thomas pulled over on the side of the road and looked up the number for Hannity’s radio show in New York City on his cellphone.

“I’m a big fan, but y’all are being led the wrong way,” he told a producer for the show. “This isn’t some innocent guy.” The producer asked him if he knew about the biometric data Lorance’s lawyers had uncovered.

“I don’t know about any of that information, but I was there and these people were not enemy combatants,” he said. He could tell he wasn’t convincing the producer so he gave her McGuinness’s cellphone number and urged her to call him. She talked with McGuinness as well but never invited him on the show.

A handful of other soldiers from the platoon did their best to counter Lorance’s story. Todd Fitzgerald, who was also standing near Lorance when he ordered the killings, took to Reddit to defend the unit. He and several other soldiers spoke to the New York Times for a story that detailed the inaccuracies in Lorance’s defense. Fitzgerald, McGuinness and Gray were interviewed for a documentary about the case, “Leavenworth,” that aired on the Starz Network.

In April 2018, the platoon suffered its fourth death since returning home when Nick Carson, 26, crashed his car late at night.

Carson had been with McGuinness in Afghanistan on the day of the killings, and like his squad leader had been threatened with war crimes charges.

“I don’t know what’s fixing to happen, but our platoon leader is making us all out to be murderers,” he told his parents in a 2012 phone call from Afghanistan. “Just know, I am not a murderer.”

Nick Carson eats a meal during his deployment in Afghanistan in May 2012. (Photo by Dave Zettel)

Carson’s mother and stepfather were at Fort Bragg a few months later when he returned from the war. “He got off that big plane, hugged us and cried and then he said, ‘I love y’all but I need to be by myself. I just need to go,’ ” recalled his stepfather.

Carson stayed in the Army after the combat tour, but he struggled with PTSD, depression and anger. He and Ruhl had been best friends and were supposed to go to Hawaii together when they returned from Afghanistan. After Ruhl’s death, Carson tried to explain on the platoon’s private Facebook page why he was skipping his friend’s funeral. “It’s not that I can’t physically be there,” he wrote. “I won’t let my last memory of Jarred be at his funeral. I am sorry for that. Most of you know how close Jarred and I were, so this has been extremely difficult to accept.”

On the night of the car accident that killed him, Carson had been drinking and wasn’t wearing a seat belt. His parents said he may have fallen asleep while driving. The platoon blamed the war crimes and the deployment.

In Afghanistan, the platoon had dubbed themselves the “Honey Badgers” after the fearless carnivore.

Back home, they began to refer to themselves as “the cursed platoon.”

‘Who is it this time?’

A loaded pistol on a side table in the home of Lucas Gray in Pulaski, Va. (Bonnie Jo Mount/The Washington Post)

On October 23rd at 2:44 a.m., Twist’s wife, Emalyn, messaged Sgt. 1st Class Joe Morrissey, who had been Twist’s team leader with the platoon in Afghanistan.

“James committed suicide tonight,” she wrote from the hospital where the doctors were preparing to harvest his organs. “Could you let his other Army friends know. . . . This is a fucking living nightmare.” It was the platoon’s fifth death since returning home four years earlier.

Morrissey woke to the message at Fort Bragg and began sobbing. His soon-to-be ex-wife knew immediately that another member of the platoon was gone. His first call was to McGuinness, who was returning home from a late-night shift as a bouncer at a Fayetteville bar. The two immediately began calling the rest of the platoon, which was scattered across the country.

The deaths had imbued them with a grim fatalism. “Who is it this time?” a few answered when they saw the 5 a.m. calls from Morrissey’s phone.

“It’s James,” Morrissey said again and again.

At Fort Jackson, Zettel was administering a predawn fitness test to recruits when he got the call. He punched a fence and rushed back to his office so the new soldiers wouldn’t see him fall apart. Alone at his desk, Zettel thought about the steady stream of calls and texts Twist had sent him over the past five years, and he wondered if the messages were an indirect way of asking for help.

McGuinness caught Gray as he headed off to his job at a weapons arsenal in southwest Virginia. His wallpaper on his work computer was a photo of Twist and him in Afghanistan, their rifles slung across their chests. “Back when we were cool,” Twist had written when he texted it to Gray.

The hardest call was to Walley, the soldier Twist had dragged from the blast crater. “What’s wrong?” his fiancee asked him when he got the call. “It’s Twist,” Walley told her. She tried to hug him, but he pushed her away. “I need to take this in alone,” he said.

Samuel Walley with his fiancee Hannah Smallwood in their garage in Buford, Ga. Walley lost his right leg and part of his left arm in Afghanistan. (Bonnie Jo Mount/The Washington Post)

At the funeral, Walley spoke first for the platoon, rocking back and forth on his prosthetic leg. Walley was wounded a month before the murders, but they had affected him too. At times, he felt abandoned by those who had tried to distance themselves from the unit, the murders and the war. “I have to wake up every single day and look in the mirror. Every single day I am hopping in a wheelchair,” he often thought. “I don’t get to forget.”

In January 2016, he was drunk and despondent in his apartment outside Atlanta and accidentally fired his pistol through the ceiling and into the apartment above him. After the shooting, Walley cut back on his drinking and returned to college. He was just one semester from graduating.

He stared out at the packed and silent church.

“Twist would probably give me a little bit of crap right now for having not wrote a speech,” he began. “But I figured I’d just tell a story. It’s a little bit of a harsh story, but I think it needs to be told.”

Members of the 1st Platoon at James O. Twist’s funeral in Grand Rapids, Mich., in November 2019. From left: Joe Fjeldheim, Jake Jensen, John Twist, Zach Thomas, Dan Williams (holding left side of flag), Alan Gladney (wearing glasses), Lucas Gray (partially visible), Reyler Leon, Samuel Walley, and slightly behind him is Dave Zettel, Brandon Krebs, and Mike McGuinness (in sunglasses), Brandon Kargol, Joe Morrissey, Dom Latino, Dallas Haggard, Brett Frace and Zach Nelson at the far right. (Courtesy of the Twist family)

Walley had spent dozens of hours reconstructing every second of the day he was injured. Eight years after the blast, he and his fellow soldiers would still argue over the smallest details: What kind of bomb had caused his wounds? Was it a pressure plate or remote-detonated? What exactly did Morrissey say as he and Carson lifted Walley into the helicopter? For Walley, the details were sacred. Remembering brought him comfort.

He took a breath and described the explosion and its aftermath. “My right leg was about 20 feet away. It was completely removed. My left leg, the tibia ripped through the [skin]; my foot was facing toward my butt,” he said. His right arm was mangled.

“Twist ended up coming through this cloudy haze,” Walley continued. “He was the most selfless man that I ever knew on this planet. He did not care if he died. He did not care if his limbs were to get ripped off. He didn’t care. He just cared that his guys were okay.”

A few minutes in a combat zone can define a life for good or for ill. “I believe that 10 minutes defined Twist,” Walley said.

Morrissey spoke next of Twist’s successes as a soldier, state trooper and father. “Those of us who knew Twist were extremely proud,” he said. “Unfortunately . . . underneath it all, the demons are still there, still tearing away at us day in and day out.”

‘The men and women in the mud and dirt’

President Trump welcomes Army 1st Lt. Clint Lorance and Army Maj. Mathew Golsteyn, left, at the Republican Party of Florida’s Statesman Dinner in December 2019, in Aventura, Fla. Both soldiers were granted full pardons by Trump. (Joyce N. Boghosian/The White House)

The 1st Platoon soldiers were still filtering home from Twist’s funeral when Pete Hegseth, a “Fox & Friends” co-anchor who had advocated on Lorance’s behalf, tweeted that Lorance’s pardon was “imminent.”

The actual release came two weeks later on Nov. 15.

“It’s done. It’s a political move,” one of the 1st Platoon soldiers wrote on the group’s private Facebook page. “Time to move on.”

Ayres, who had skipped all five of the platoon’s funerals, agreed. “Not worth any of our time,” he wrote. “What matters is that everyone that matters knows he is a piece of s—. Let’s move on and enjoy life.”

For McGuinness it wasn’t an option. He couldn’t bear the thought that Lorance was being hailed as a hero by Trump and others, while soldiers like Twist were being forgotten. “I’ve buried people that struggled with what happened, and whether through their own hands or their actions, they’re gone,” he said. “I’m not going to sit quietly while he gets paraded around and they’re not recognized.”

He texted with Gray, who wasn’t on Facebook.

Lucas Gray

Fuck it all. The one reprieve we had is gone.

Mike McGuinness

I feel so shitty right now.

Lucas Gray

I’m going to drink until I can sleep.

Mike McGuinness

I might do the same.

Others in the platoon argued on social media with pro-Trump friends, who insisted Lorance was innocent. “You realize I was f—ing THERE, right?” one soldier wrote to a fellow veteran. “Like you realize I was one of the godd— WITNESSES who testified, right?!”

Later that evening, Twist’s father, John, called McGuinness, hoping to talk about his son and the pardon. McGuinness shared his memories of Twist, who came to the platoon when he was just 19. “We put so much work into him,” McGuinness said. He talked about Twist’s quirks — his irritating tendency to correct McGuinness when he got a minor fact wrong about a weapons system.

Twist’s father asked whether the murders and the trial might have contributed to his son’s torment. Twist wasn’t on patrol the day of the killings, but McGuinness believed that what had happened with Lorance had wounded him too. “Twist had a big heart. He was like Gray. He wanted to do good,” McGuinness said. “When Lorance took that away, he took a little part of Jimmy, too.”

“You don’t go into the military thinking you are going to be part of a war crimes case,” said Mike McGuinness at his home in Raeford, N.C. (Bonnie Jo Mount/The Washington Post)

“This is absolutely amazing,” Lorance said as his car, escorted by the county constable, rolled to a stop in the high school parking lot.

“It’s a hometown hero’s welcome,” said his cousin from the back seat.

Lorance climbed atop a flatbed trailer. Someone from the crowd gave him an American flag. The vice commander of the local VFW handed him a microphone.

“God Bless Texas!” Lorance yelled. “God Bless America!”

At his side was the head of UAP, the group that had worked to free him. Lorance’s case and the publicity generated helped the group boost annual donations by about 150 percent, from $1.8 million in 2015 to more than $4.5 million in 2018.

Lorance, who was wearing his crisp, blue Army uniform — his pants tucked into his boots, paratrooper style — knew exactly what his backers wanted to hear. “We finally have a president who understands that when we send our troops to fight impossible wars, we must stand behind them,” he told the crowd.

“Amen!” cried a voice from the high school parking lot.

“Amen is right!” Lorance answered.

Former 1st Lt. Clint Lorance addresses a crowd as he returns home to Merit, Tex., on Nov. 16, 2019, after he was pardoned by President Trump. (Courtesy of Farmersville Fire Department)

For those in the parking lot that night, Lorance’s freedom was proof that Trump would stand up for them and their town, population 215, at a moment when large swaths of the country seemed to hold them and their way of life in contempt. “You know how many people just want to see that someone cares,” said Tiffany West, 37, who was standing feet from the stage.

Lorance thanked his family and the lawmakers who pressed for his release. He talked about Trump and Vice President Pence, who had called him at the penitentiary to tell him that they were setting him free. “We had a nine-minute conversation,” Lorance said. “Yeah, I was timing it. . . . They took time out of their busy day to ask me what I was going to do with the rest of my life.”

He blasted the craven “deep state” military officers he blamed for his conviction. “That’s not really the military. That’s the politicians who run the thing,” he said. “The men and women in the mud and dirt. That’s the real U.S. military.”

He was still talking nearly an hour later when the television news crews from Dallas, about 60 miles away, began packing up their equipment.

“I’m sorry,” he apologized. “I know it’s cold.”

“Go ahead!” a voice shouted.

“You’re home!” added another.

Soon the crowd began drifting away for the night, past Merit’s post office, its volunteer fire department, its recently shuttered convenience store, and the decaying wood clapboard building that once held its cotton gin. Lorance handed the microphone back to the local VFW’s vice commander, a Gulf War veteran who had organized the gathering and would now get the final word.

“There’s going to be people out there that are going to try to use this against Trump,” he warned. “Well, we’re going to throw it right back in their faces!”

Lorance visits the set of “Fox & Friends” in New York on Nov. 18, 2019, after receiving a presidential pardon. (Mark Lennihan/AP)

The next morning Lorance boarded a plane for New York City, where he appeared on “Fox & Friends” and Hannity’s radio show. In December, he joined Trump onstage at a GOP fundraiser.

In interviews after his release, Lorance insisted that the soldiers who testified against him were pressured by the Army or had turned on him because he was an exacting commander and they lacked discipline. “When I walked into the guard tower and the soldiers didn’t have their helmet or body armor on, I told them to put it on,” he told Blue Magazine, which advocates on behalf of police officers. “And they didn’t like that, they didn’t like taking orders like that, but I was brought in there to enforce the standard.”

‘There’s almost always more to every story than we know’

John Twist created a wall in his living room memorializing James and other family members who served in the military at his home in Grand Rapids, Mich. The flag was signed by members of James’s platoon after his funeral. (Bonnie Jo Mount/The Washington Post)

In Grand Rapids, Twist’s father spent much of the winter trying to unravel the mystery of his son’s death. His dining room table was covered with foot-high piles of papers from James’s life.

There were old report cards, passports and programs from high school wrestling matches. A second pile from the Army included a spiral notebook that his son had used as a diary when he was going through basic training. A third pile contained a printout of the essay — “The Invisible War Inside My Head” — that his son wrote the day before he died.

In it, Twist wrote briefly about the killings that had “rocked and split up” his platoon. The longest section of the essay recounted the day Walley lost his arm and leg. “I found Sam in a small crater,” he wrote. “He was missing his right foot and all the muscle and skin around his right tibia/fibula.” That image, he said, played again and again in his head when he returned from the war.

“I really don’t understand what PTSD is,” his father said. “You can read about it, but I don’t get it. So far the only thing I can get is that it’s like having . . . poor Sam Walley getting blown up” playing in your head over and over. “And how do you get rid of that?”

James O. Twist with his son Ben, celebrating his first birthday in August 2019. (Courtesy of the Twist family)

Twist’s wife, Emalyn, 27, also had been thinking about the meaning of her husband’s life and sudden, violent death. In early March she was sitting alone in the parking lot of a nearby Target. Her three children — ages 1, 3 and 5 — were with a friend. She balanced a Starbucks coffee in one hand and hit record on her cellphone camera.

“It has been kind of a bad week, filled with a lot of ‘it shouldn’t have to be that way’ kind of moments,” she said. Earlier that morning, she had turned over their house keys to the new owners. Her 5-year-old son spotted the family’s moving trucks in the driveway and panicked, yelling for her to “stop them.”

Twist’s children remembered their father as a dad who liked to wrestle and sing them to sleep. Emalyn couldn’t forget her husband’s insecurity, bouts of self-loathing and verbal abuse. On the night her husband took his life he was upset with her for going to see a therapist and terrified that she was going to divorce him. In a blog post, Emalyn described him slamming his head into the kitchen counter until blood was running down his face. Then he stormed to their bedroom and shot himself.

Emalyn pressed a pair of leggings to her husband’s head in a futile attempt to stop the bleeding. With her other hand, she dialed 911. As she listened for the sound of approaching sirens, she stifled the urge to vomit and prayed that their children would not wake.

Emalyn Twist writes about her experience following Twist’s death in Emalyn’s Blog: Words of a Young Widow. (Bonnie Jo Mount/The Washington Post)

“I couldn’t stand to live in that house or sleep in that bedroom when I had seen so much in there, and that just makes me mad, because I loved that house and I loved that neighborhood,” she said to her cellphone camera. “And I shouldn’t have had to leave. I shouldn’t have had to pull my kids out of their little social circle and all those people who loved them. It shouldn’t have to be that way.”

For years she had helped her husband hide his pain from family, friends and even his fellow soldiers. Now she was determined to be honest. “I just don’t have to keep up this facade of the grieving widow all the time, even though that’s also what I am,” she said. “There’s almost always more to every story than we know. It’s important to pay attention to that.”

She stopped recording, turned on the ignition and picked up with her day.

‘I love you’

Dave Zettel at home with his wife, Kim, in Blythewood, S.C. The couple are expecting their first child. (Bonnie Jo Mount/The Washington Post)

In April with the country locked down by the coronavirus, McGuinness arranged for a dozen of the guys from the platoon to get together on a video call for beers. He and Walley were finishing up their last few college courses before they graduated. A couple of the soldiers and wives were expecting their first children. Two were in the early days of divorces.

An hour into the call almost everyone was drunk or stoned — except for the pregnant wives. One soldier kept streaming as he sat on the toilet. When he was done everyone screamed at him to wash his hands. Another soldier vomited and curled up on the floor.

“This is better than getting together at funerals,” McGuinness said cheerily.

The troops talked about their plans for the future. Morrissey was just back from another tour in Afghanistan, where he mostly sat on base while the Afghans fought each other. “There’s no war left there anymore,” he said.

“What are you going to do when you retire?” McGuinness asked him.

“Let me finish, before you laugh,” Morrissey replied. “I’m going to go to school to be a barber and open one of those high end barber shops where you can get a drink, a real gentleman’s haircut and shave with a straight razor.”

Walley tried to talk, but everyone was talking over him. “No one listens to me,” he joked. “Everyone just stares at the guy with two limbs.” He and his fiancee were planning their wedding for the spring of 2021. They had already reserved a “mansion where we can fit the whole platoon,” he said.

“Just tell me the day and I’ll be there,” McGuinness promised.

Zettel and his wife were expecting their first child on Aug. 10. He was planning on leaving the Army for good in October. “It’s not going to join the Army,” Zettel said of his unborn child. “I’m going to burn everything so it doesn’t even know I was in the f—ing Army.”

The soldiers talked about the guys they had lost to suicide and self-destructive behavior. And they spoke briefly about Lorance, who has a memoir titled “Stolen Valor” that is going to be published by Hachette Book Group in the fall, when Lorance has said he is planning to start law school. A blurb for the book, posted by the publisher, calls Lorance “a scapegoat for a corrupt military” and asserts that “his unit turned on him because of his homosexuality.” Lorance’s lawyer said there was no evidence that homophobia played a role in conviction.

“We looked,” Maher said, “and we came up with nothing.”

In interviews, troops said that in Afghanistan they didn’t know Lorance was gay and wouldn’t have cared.

“We took s— from so many people for so long,” McGuinness said. “I’m not letting that happen anymore. I’m going to fight back.”

The soldiers shared tips about how to find a good therapist and promised to look out for one another so that there would be no more funerals.

“You guys mean everything to me,” McGuinness said. “We have to do this more often. We have to look after each other. If you guys are hurting, hit me up. We can do this instead of just letting things fester.”

He rose from his desk chair — a little wobbly from all the beer. It was 2:30 a.m., and they had been talking for more than four hours. “I love you a–holes,” he said, and signed off the call.

An American flag decorates a roof along a country road in North Carolina. (Bonnie Jo Mount/The Washington Post)

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Under the current administration, the Office of the Pardon Attorney has become a bureaucratic way station, data and interviews show.