#i think i might have her move off her ranch now bc ... she has no animals and she def feels like she has less time for her horse pipi

[simelune]

josie went to henford-on-bagley again to get some new plants before the fall crisp breeze starts setting in.

[msp9]

THIS IS MY LIKES AND DISLIKES OF CHAOS THEORY ⚠️Spoilers below cut⚠️

When i first finished this season, I too like some people, was skeptical about it. I get why some people say its bad, I just thought it was very different from cc. At points the characters didin't feel like themsleves, the way some of them were written and the designs gave me a real hard time to get used to them. Also i felt as if it was just too much to process at times so i rewatched it and my final answer is that its a good show the pacing is incredeble, the plot, the suspence and character development. i just had a hard time getting used to everything new? Ig. I'm still doubting whether its a 10 but sure thing is that it was a very good first season its a easy 9/10. So here are the thinks i liked abt it:

-THE WAY THEY POTRAYED EVERYONES TRAUMA/STRUGGLES , Sammy having anxiety, Yaz overcoming her ptsd, and KENJI. MY BOY. That must have been the best breakdown i've seen in animated series. Whoever wrote that scene. Wow. It was the best thing in the whole show honestly. His vision gtting blurry, having truble breathing. The panick. Wow. I CANNOT SAY THIS LOUD ENOUGH.

-Ben and Sammy duo? Hello? Im srry to say but you might just be better than Yaz and Ben duo. Idk i really loved them.

- "Benjamin."

- Showing Yaz is doing better. Despite her ongoing struggles, she has clearly grown and matured the last 6 years, and the way she calmed Sammy in the sinking van? Ig all those therapy sessions and college paid off. That scene is a clear illustration of the progress she has made. I mean sammy did say "i can tell shes still struggling" but there wasnt really a clear scene of her getting stuck in place as she used to. So my guess is that it was just Sammys anxiety and the fact that they didint talk much. Bc then Sammy was surprised how she kept herselve together. So yeah

-YASAMMY. NOTHING MORE TO ADD.

-UM SAMMYS CHARACTER?? HELLO? GLOW UP, CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT, i loved her sm. She moved up to my top 3.

And her anxiety? It was so well shown too

-the fight between Sammy and Yaz felt so natural and not at all forced. They both had valid points and in the end they did understand each other and were on the same page.

-Ben being Ben in almost every episode

- Yasmina's "boo."

-Brooklynns design?? Majestic to say the least.

- ingore what i said ealrier abt the acting out of character. They do remind themsleves they just grew

Well, all except Ben...

-Kenjis new voice actor, he did a real good job, as much as it doesn't sound like him, he really captured some emotional scenes very well.

- The robot lady. THEY REALLY SAID TAKE A WOMAN AND MAKE HER CREEPY ASF. I was genunanly creeped out. And the detail that at the ranch if u listen closesly u can hear the whistle. Hell nah that was scary.

-Benrius Ben and Darius friendship, okay actually u can't tell me u didint feel it too, the tention between ben and Darius cmon we all know what u are Ben stop making up girlfriends in Europe

-Brooklynn turning bad, or from what we are told worked for bad people ig. Personally as much as it shocked me, im sure theres a good reason as to why and i cant wait to hear more abt in season 2.

-I can now undertand what everyone meant in reviews saying "its more mature" not only in the more death and dinos but it woyud be kind of confusing for a younger audience to undertsand some stuff in this show.

-I really liked Daniels kon death, maybe it wasn't necesarry but im all in for that dark death scene.

-Lastly the comment Sammy makes when Ben asks how bumpy got pregnant, and the yazs smirk. Gurl i was suprised they added that but i loved it

Now, the things that i didint like and why:

- First of all, Darius being in love with brooklynn. I mean i get it but i also dont get it. In my opinion, there shouldn't have been a different reason as to why Darius was the most effected by her death. They were close and she died. Its okay to be really effected by someones death and not bc u liked them, and i also do believe that the reason for him not showing up the night she "died" should have been smth more serious. Then again i get it bc now he felt a lot more guilt bc it was for a not so important reason he didint show up and thats why he didint tell anyone. Well axtually it isnt that bad, but i just felt it was forced for the plot. This again could be bc i started to like kenlynn and now they turned the tables completly but sure.

-Brooklynns voice actor. I just couldn't connect her to brooklynn? She sounded a lot different, not a major bad thing it was just hard to get used to.

-Ben having a gf, or supposedly having one, u telling me this man has a gf:

I thought it funny but yk that man is a homosexual

- and lastly, Brooklynn being alive. This might sound bad but it made sense for her to die. And i was kinda lamed out that she wasnt dead. (Pls ironically enough, just weeks ago i begged for her to be alive.) But like the way everyone suffered bc of her death, going throught the 5 stages of grief, and the way the show was played. It just would have been better if she died, all those flashbacks, the emotional moments, i mean its not gonna be the same when i rewatch it bc i know shes alive. Anyways enough abt this.

Actually i have nothing more to add to my "bad stuff" list but i might come up with smth later. Bc i will be rewatchibg it obviously. Ig lastly i just wanted more episodes how dare they cutting the season of right there.

[hadtochangemyurlquick]

have you ever creating scenes/plot lines that are based off your own experiences ? or is it all from your ~imagination~ [sorry if this sounds dumb i’m not a writer of any kind]

watch your tone anon, i’m not okay with self-deprecation only self-irony.

and yes! of course! a common form of writing is to put pieces of yourself into your characters. When I write Shelby i use the optimistic, repressed side of myself. When I write Toni i often use the side of myself that was neglected by my parents and forced to grow up a little faster. when i write physical and emotional abuse i use those experiences, along with depression, struggle with regular eating, anxiety, adhd, you know, all that good stuff. stuff i’m pretty much healed from and able to look at now with perspective. ive never written abuse exactly like what i underwent, however. mostly bc i’ve never read it. which of course i know means someone has to write it, bc definitely i’m not the only one who needs to read it but like, i can’t write it rn. maybe later.

i reference shows and books and plays in my writing all the time. if you ever see the number 319 in any of my writing it’s a reference to Clarke Griffin’s prisoner number in the 100. and there are a lot of random things like that sprinkled throughout all of my writing. i’ve been thinking about doing a director’s commentary on some of my fics with all the references lol.

the apply butter au is based off the apple butter my family makes, the texas son au (which y’all have yet to read) is just me blatantly projecting my gender issues on shelby. but i mean at least i realize i’m doing it? i once wrote 80 pages of a 100 au where clarke time travels back to season 2 from season 5 and lexa heals clarke’s ptsd in a sexy lesbian way and i didn’t realize i was depressed until like page 74...

recently i’ve noticed all of my stories surround the relationship between two sisters, usually an older sister and younger sister, told from the perspective of the older sister, and usually with the older sister pulling away and the younger sister struggling to come to terms with that, both with valid reasons for their distress. i’m probably on great terms with my older sisters tho i don’t think i really have to worry about that lol

i also usually start my stories with something i wanna argue too.

my apple butter au is a treatise about how your dream job ain’t shit if you aren’t with the people you love. in a sequel i will never write toni gives up her job as a pt and moves back to minnesota so she can be with martha and shelby goes with her. 

this little one shot i never put on a03 is about how i view love, that it’s a choice and it’s not necessarily one that needs to make any sense. that you can just decide to love someone bc you love them.

the ranch au has a message which is slowly being revealed but i don’t wanna say it bc one: it would spoil plot points and two: it might lose readers bc it Is a hot take that i don’t think many people here have even heard articulated much less would begin to agree with until they hear articulated (but i think they will understand once they hear articulated so I’m hopeful, i think y’all will like it)

(i promise it’s not smthn like “racism is good actually” or “hitler went about it all wrong but if you think about it he actually made some good points” or “men suck and gretchen is right :( also terfism=altruism”, at the end of the day the story is all just an excuse to write lesbian cowboys, like it’s not That much deeper)

and i mean also when i write about grief and mourning it’s from personal experience, the feelings behind it at least.

there is a multi chap, it should just be 5 chapters that’s coming out in a few months once i finish it, that’s entirely personal experience. goodfoe goes home for the holidays is the basic plot and it’ll be cute. i might post it around thanksgiving. depends on how the ranch au is doing

[consumedkings-archive]

ancient names, pt. viii

A John Seed/Original Female Character Fanfic

Ancient Names, pt viii: the space between us

Masterlink Post

Word Count: ~6.9k (????)

Rating: M for now, rating will change in later chapters as things develop.

Warnings: Language, some “light” religious blasphemy (it’s Far Cry 5). Strong canon deviance from here on out. Some more PTSD symptoms/descriptions, though mild.

Notes: This chapter is like, nearly 2k longer than most others and folks, we got it all: identity crisis, PTSD symptoms, the irritability of being surrounded by Seed brothers, the irritability of perhaps not having eaten or had any real water for like two days, Jacob being a shithead, the "sees love interest in x state of undress" trope, YOU NAME IT. When does the fun stop?? We'll never know. tl;dr Elliot pops off like 6 times and honestly, who’s surprised anymore.

I hope you guys enjoy, it feels a bit like this chapter got away from me and not a lot of exciting stuff happens but it did feel important to have this lull of a chapter between all the action and drama. Thank you, as always, to my angel @starcrier the best proof-reader a girl could ask for an also a remarkably thoughtful and sweet friend who for some reasons decides to bless me with her presence to this day.

Thank you so much to everyone who comments, reads, reblogs, likes--all of it is always cherished by me, and it really does inspire me to keep going. <3

tagging my lover my life my shawty my wife @empirics bc she still wanna go here even when i babble at her nonstop

John had hoped that Elliot would go to sleep, but he knew the chances of that happening were slim to none and he wasn’t surprised when, out of what he could only assume was pure spite and anger, she stayed awake the entire drive to the compound. She stayed awake through John recounting what they had experienced of the cult already, what they knew about Faith; Elliot stayed oddly silent, in the way that swelled with the knowledge that she probably knew more than what she was letting on, but John didn’t push.

Jacob stuck to the side roads, the back roads, keeping them as far from the most populated areas as possible: and John could see that it drove Elliot batty, knowing they could just stop at Fall’s End. The radio’s gospel songs echoed eerily in the cab of the truck. After about five minutes of it playing—and, coincidentally, about two minutes after Elliot had smoked down the entirety of her first cigarette—she blurted out, “Can you turn that shit off?”

“Why?” Jacob asked evenly, and John passed a hand over his face tiredly as he heard Elliot take in a huge breath, as though she needed to make sure she properly had enough oxygen to spit her venom out.

As John began tiredly, “Deputy, mind yourself and close your mouth,” Elliot bulldozed him to say, “Because I’ve got a head wound that seems to get exacerbated by idiotic cultists,” their voices once again overlapping until their words strangled each other, Elliot glaring at John. He really wished she would stop looking so betrayed when he took the side of one of his brothers; it wasn’t as though she and him had ever really felt like a team , anyway.

Except for the ranch, dispatching of those Swedes in tandem. And except for when they’d been driving, and Elliot had actually looked happy for a second, even with their hands cuffed together. And except for—

Knock that shit off, John thought to himself, just in time for Joseph to say, “It seems as though your time together has made an improvement on your temperament, Deputy Honeysett.”

“What gave you that impression?” Elliot prompted, despite John’s not-so-subtle pleading look.

“Well,” Joseph continued, “we always do try to have faith , you know, especially in our brother. But considering the animalistic state you were delivered to him in, I would have expected much more poor behavior out of you.” A gentle smile tugged at his lips, an expression John could see reflected in the rearview mirror. “I like to see the impact he’s had on you.”

John couldn’t quite sort out how he felt about his brother’s words. He wanted to be proud; he wanted to think, yes, see? I’ve tamed her, the hellcat, look at her keeping her hands to herself. He wanted to, but there was a complicated feeling wound up in it, because he saw the way Joseph’s words struck Elliot, the way they collapsed the iron-clad battlements of her expression, the way they folded her up and crushed them in his proverbial fist. It was exactly what Joseph did; disarmed, unwound, pulled each tangling thread until they were so knotted all you could do was cut it out.

So yes, John felt an immediate burst of pride in his chest at Joseph’s words, and that pride was almost instantly wiped away at the look on Elliot’s face. It was as though she couldn’t stand the idea that he had made an impression on her, in any way. Disgust, he thought, fending off the insult of her abhorrence of his influence, hatred. She has always been spiteful and venomous, underneath it all.

“Just wait until you outgrow your usefulness, Seed,” Elliot managed out, her voice crackling with something violent. “You’re the only one I want to see dead before I hand you over to the government.”

Joseph rolled his window down. “I see that your manners still need some polishing, though.”

Elliot looked at John. Her gaze was hard, but he returned it nonetheless, expectantly. She asked, “Proud of yourself, are you?”

“Elliot,” John began, moderating his voice so that he didn’t sound as pleased as he felt (and of course he didn’t know why he was doing that; there was no reason he should work so hard to preserve Elliot’s feelings, and yet… ) so that she wouldn’t be right about him, “it doesn’t…”

“Shut up,” the blonde snapped. Her voice rattled, with anger and with the sick inside of her. She pressed herself back into the corner of the bench seat in the back; she looked like she wanted to melt into the truck’s frame. “I’m fucking tired of your voice.”

“Watch your mouth,” Jacob said from the front seat.

“You shouldn’t be smoking,” John interjected tartly, feeling himself scramble for something—anything—that felt like normal between them again; the normal that had happened with being forced into each other’s company. “Not until you get better. You still sound sick.”

“ You got those cigarettes for me,” Elliot quipped, vitriolic, “and what the fuck isn’t clear about shut up?” 

As soon as the words left her mouth Jacob pushed on the brakes, hard, the movement slamming the back of her head against the window in the back of the truck. The blonde let out a volley of swears, her hand flying to the back of her head instantly.

Jacob said, his voice prickling with hostility, “I told you to watch your mouth.”

“Jacob—” John began, having braced himself against the driver’s seat, but he could already feel Elliot seething. 

“You fuckhead ,” Elliot bit out, spiteful as ever, her fingers coming away sticky and crimson. “You absolute piece of—”

“Jacob,” Joseph murmured, “let’s not waste time on the road.”

“Elliot, stop squirming,” John insisted, his voice more urgent now. “You’re going to get blood everywhere.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, is it inconvenient for you that your brother reopened my fucking head wound ?”

“That isn’t what I meant,” John growled. “Stop squirming.”

His voice came out more authoritative than he had intended, wound up-tight and hard by the antagonizing nature of Elliot and Jacob’s exchange. The blonde’s jaw clenched, but she stilled; his hands went to her face, tilting her head so that he could take a look at the wound. Reopened, yes, but only just.

“Don’t move,” John said firmly. He could feel Joseph’s eyes on him, and he thought he knew what he was thinking—that once again, he had reaffirmed Joseph’s words, that he had made some kind of an impression on her, that had he told Elliot two days ago to stand still so he could look at a wound that she probably would have sunk her teeth into his arm like a wild animal.

“Didn’t grab any bandages when we were at the ranch, huh?” John asked, trying at something closer to civil.

“I wasn’t thinking particularly beyond bare necessities,” Elliot replied dryly, her voice muffled by her chin tucked against her chest. John made a noise of agreement—he hadn’t thought to grab any, either, having anticipated they’d get the fuck out and be at the compound by now—and sighed a little.

“Well, let’s rip your shirt.”

“Why aren’t we ripping your shirt?” Elliot prompted, and John blinked at her incredulously.

“Do you have any idea how much this shirt costs?”

“Oh, you pretentious little manchild —”

“Fine!”

John didn’t rip his shirt. Instead, he peeled the shirt off, shrugging out of it and folding it to press the gathering of fabric to the wound. Elliot straightened back up into a sitting position, reaching up; her fingers fluttered over John’s, almost shyly, replacing the pressure of his hand with her own so that he could pull away and let her hold it herself.

“You should have just ripped it,” Elliot said, her eyes flickering over him before she caught herself and looked away. Were John not convinced she was running a fever, he might have thought he saw her blushing. All the same, he felt the corners of his mouth tick in something close to a smile.

“It’s easier to scrub blood out than it is to stitch it back together.”

“That’s our John,” Joseph acquiesced from the front sagely. “Ever-giving.” He paused, tilting his head to peer at Elliot and John in the back, “All we ask for is a little civility, deputy. After all, it is our sister that’s been kidnapped.”

Elliot replied, “You seem very concerned about that.” And then, “By the way, they have Joey too, which wouldn’t have happened if you didn’t pass her off to this idiot,” and she jerked her thumb at John.

“If they wanted to kill Faith, they would have already,” Jacob replied, hitting the bridge to the island and flipping the cruise control on as he blithely ignored her comment about Hudson. “Since she was alive when the two of you saw her. Isn’t that right?”

Elliot muttered something of an agreement, as though Jacob were not saying the things she had already said, as though she so desperately did not want to agree with him about something that she would rather choke on her own words than say it out loud.

“We have some search parties sent out,” Jacob continued, his steely gaze sweeping across the road as he flicked the turn signal on—certainly, pure habit at this point. “To pin them down. Once we have them located, we can work on getting Faith back and wiping them out.”

The blonde beside him was quiet, now. As Jacob pulled the truck into the compound—which looked nothing short of a ghost town, now—John glanced over at her again, nursing the wound with his shirt. She looked only tired, as though she’d spent all of her energy in just this car ride alone.

Jacob put the truck into park and turned it off; as they filed out of the car, John swept his gaze over the compound; everything seemed peaceful, as if nothing were happening, a low breeze drifting over the houses and church while the early afternoon sun drenched it in a harsh, unforgiving light. Though it was quiet, the stillness of the compound unsettled him, and the knowledge that many of their followers had been tucked away in the bunkers for safekeeping made his skin crawl.

“John.” Joseph’s voice shook him out of his thoughts. “Why don’t you take our dear deputy to one of the guesthouses to get settled in? There’s no reason why she can’t rest while we’re getting the radios set up to contact her...” His voice trailed off as he seemed to search for a word, and then eventually mustered up, “Friends.

“I’m not your dear anything,” Elliot said slamming the truck door behind her. Joseph’s lips quirked in a small, muted smile, his eyes beneath the yellow lenses of his glasses nearly unreadable.

“Not yet,” Joseph relented.

John's hand reached Elliot’s shoulder. “Come on,” he said, shaking the way Joseph’s pinning gaze unsettled him, just a little, like there was nothing that was happening that his brother wasn’t cataloging for later.

“Don’t touch me,” she muttered, shrugging his hand off of her but following him nonetheless. John could hear his brothers exchanging words in low voices on their way into the church, and that little sting in his chest lingered, more firmly: the idea that Joseph was pawning off responsibility to him to make him feel like he was doing something important remained.

Elliot pushed the door to a guest house open. “You really just took your whole shirt off instead of ripping a little piece, huh?” she said. It might have been her attempt at casual conversation, but John couldn’t say for sure. It was always so hard to tell what was going to trip that hairpin trigger into enemy territory again.

“It’s Versace, Elliot.”

“Oh, boo .” She pulled it away from her head. “I think you just wanted a reason to be shirtless in front of me.”

John blinked. He didn’t know what to say to that, the most friendly, nearly flirty thing Elliot Honeysett had said to him in many years—which was saying a lot, considering the last time they had spoken in a friendly manner, she’d hardly said more than a stammer of a sentence to him before Joey Hudson swept her away.

“Wouldn’t you like that?” he managed out after a moment, taking the shirt back from her as he got his mental footing back. “I saw you looking. No need to be shy about it, though—we’ve already established you find me handsome.”

Elliot scoffed, but he saw her face flood with red just before she turned away, pacing to the bathroom at the back of the house. “Found, once, years ago,” she said over her shoulder. “Don’t let it inflate your ego, Seed.”

He called after her, “Too late,” and she slammed the bathroom door; the very definitive sound of the shower running echoed in the empty house, and John exhaled a small breath in relief.

As he inspected the bloodstain that had gathered on the front of the shirt, he felt a pleasant little thrill in his chest; a stain was a small price to pay for having made Elliot squirm her way out of that conversation, he supposed, and he remembered the way Joseph had said, I like to see the impact he’s had on you. 

Not so wild now, John thought, are you, hellcat?  

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

The benefits of a hot shower were never to be underestimated.

Though Elliot had gone into her shower feeling bedraggled, worn down, furious, and more than unseated—both by Joseph’s assertion that there was a yet to be had with the friendliness of their relations, but also by John’s casual confidence in her attraction to him.

She wasn’t attracted to him. John had held her under like he was going to drown her, really drown her. He’d wanted to tattoo wrath right on her chest.  

Elliot’s fingers fluttered over the spot where John’s had dragged, just a day or so ago now, as he said, I think it’ll fit nicely right here, don’t you think? Maybe just over her heart. The same place dream-John had touched, the same place her skin had been burning when flower-eyed John, spilling petals from his mouth, had gripped her face in his hands.

They were getting mixed up in her head now, all of these Johns: the John she had spooned for warmth with in the forest, the John that hadn’t complained when she anchored her fingers into his arm for steadiness, the John that held each side of her face while her body and mind split, somewhere in the middle, bringing her back down before she slipped away permanently; they all wove and intermingled themselves with the others that she knew, the Johns that kidnapped her friends or kidnapped her or held her under or leered at her in a bar when she was young.

It was almost— almost —romantic, the kind of ferocious dichotomy she would have read in a book somewhere, sometime, in a place where she still had the leisure to do something like that: read a book, take a nap, browse television channels. 

Almost, but not quite, because there was and could never be something romantic about John Seed.

Elliot startled out of her thoughts when someone knocked on the bathroom door, the sound echoing in the small bathroom much louder than she thought the knocks would have actually been.

“You’re not climbing through the window right now, are you?” John’s voice came through the door. Elliot quickly wiped the amusement she felt creeping into her face and ducked her head under the water, the heat of it stinging her wound in a sort of catharsis.

“If I was,” Elliot called back, “what would you do?”

“Very funny, Elliot.” And then: “I’d probably kick this door down.”

“How very caveman.”

“Well, you know—desperate times. Plus, I hear women like that kind of thing.”

She rubbed her face with both hands to stop the smile tugging at her mouth. She had to keep focused: she had to remember the way John had practically glowed, radioactive with pride at Joseph’s praise that he’d made an impact on her, that he was changing her. For the better, they thought. For them. Elliot had hardly seen John around his brothers, but the short amount of time that she had (and wasn’t drugged out of her mind) it had become very clear to her that the relationship between them wasn’t as easy to swallow as she would have thought.

But it was easy, when she was given the luxury of a hot shower that molded all of her muscles into relaxation, to feel like they were on a team. It was easy—especially when John had handled her so carefully, like his hands hadn’t inflicted pain on numerous other people, like he hadn’t carved sin after sin into flesh as a macabre brand. Easy, Elliot thought, willing herself to turn off the hot water, because she couldn’t stay in a shower forever. Easy to forget. I can’t forget what’s happened.

“Any chance you’ve got some jeans out there?” Elliot said, stepping out of the shower and finding a clean (clean?) towel hanging; she didn’t have much time to be picky, so she wrapped it around herself and squeezed some of the water out of her hair. Outside, she could hear John stomping around, fumbling through things, and once she’d gotten mostly dried off she opened the door.

“Oh,” John said, like he hadn’t been expecting her, standing just a foot away from the door and holding a collection of clothes in his arms. Jeans, it looked like, and a few shirts. His own shirt was back on, the dark bloodstain turning the navy blue nearly black on the front.

“Oh?” Elliot prompted. She held her hand out for the clothes while the other kept the towel in place.

“It’s just that you look...” He paused, and then handed her the clothes, regarding her almost warily. “You look—”

And he stopped again, and Elliot thought, well go on, spit it out, then, her eyebrows arching upward expectantly.

“Nice,” he said after a moment. As though catching himself, he amended, “Normal, I mean.”

Elliot’s expression deadpanned. “I am normal, John. You’re the one that’s part of a cult, remember?”

He squinted his eyes at her. The spell was broken; the clock had struck midnight; he was no longer enchanted with her, numerous days of grime scrubbed off of her body.

Rather than argue the logistics of his family’s venture being a cult or not, John said, “Change quick, it shouldn’t take long for them to get the radio ready.”

“Yes, boss,” Elliot replied demurely, mimicking the words he’d used when she’d told him to shut up and be a good blanket. John’s eyes flashed to her face and then away, but she didn’t spend too long trying to parse out what his expression was; she closed the door and busied herself with shimmying into the clothes, leftovers from Eden’s Gate members, it seemed. Relatively clean, too, considering she usually saw peggies in various states of disarray and neglect.

After she’d pulled the rest of her clothes on, the white shirt—clearly meant for a man—nearly swallowing her up, she kicked the old, dirty clothes out of the way and opened the door.

“Would you have really kicked the door down if I was climbing through the window?” Elliot asked, scrunching her hair. The back of her head throbbed, but in a pleasant way; the wound had been thoroughly rinsed, and though it still ached from Jacob’s foot slamming the brakes, she didn’t think it was concussive. Yet.

John leaned against the door, regarded her with a dry expression. “Why?” he asked. She opened the door from the “guest house”—it was really more a bunkhouse than anything—and shrugged.

“I hear women like that kind of thing.”

A swift, easy breeze drifted through the doorway as Elliot stepped outside, taking one moment—just one moment—to close her eyes, and breathe, and think, I’m so close, Joey, to rescuing you. I’m so close, I swear I’m on my way to you. Please, just hold out for a little longer.

“—than woman.” John’s voice rattled around in her head, and she opened her eyes looking at him over her shoulder.

“What was that?” she asked.

He sidled up behind her, his hands in his pockets, and bent just a little at the waist so he could say into her ear, “I said, it’s a good thing you’re more devil than woman,” and against the wishes of her mind, the skin of her neck prickled with goosebumps.

She scrunched her shoulder up to her ear to fend him off. “That’s right, John,” she replied evenly, “I am a devil, and don’t you forget it.”

Elliot saw movement out of the corner of her eye, her body stiffening a little before she turned her gaze and saw that it was Joseph, standing at the steps of the church.

“Children,” he called, his voice welling with some kind of emotion that Elliot couldn’t quite pin down—perhaps amusement, or something else. “Are you done? The radio is ready for you, deputy.”

“Born done with this one,” Elliot replied, feeling the small smile that had been fighting its way onto her face slip from her features. There was just something about Joseph that put her on edge; every second she spent in her presence reminded her of the way he’d looked at her, that night in the church, when he’d said, God will not let you take me.

Like she was the only person in the room. Like she was the only person that had mattered.

Elliot liked to think that she was not the kind of person that would be so easily won over by a cult—but she also knew that they looked for people like her, people with a history of trauma, people who had fewer parents than a child ought to have, people whose one functioning parent was only barely functioning and only crested the standard when they had a few drinks in them. She was exactly the kind of person that Joseph nurtured, cradled, forgave, and she thought that for a second in that church, that night, she had thought about how nice it would be to feel that. Once.

But she had a family, and people who cared about her and relied on her and would miss her. Like Joey.

With long strides, she crossed the small courtyard to the church and stopped in front of Joseph, waiting for him to move aside so that she could go in.

“Feeling better?” Joseph asked her mildly, and when he didn’t move aside she shouldered past him. “You look like one of us.”

“Peachy,” Elliot replied flatly; she purposefully ignored his last words, rinsing them away by focusing on the task at hand. The inside of the church was dim, with only the Eden’s Gate window at the back. Her stomach dropped unpleasantly; a surge of panic washed through her, and she was suddenly reminded of the feeling of Eden’s Gate members shoving past her, watching her through fringes of dark, dirty hair, and Joseph, hands outstretched, waiting.

And John, prowling in the background, ever a predator waiting for his prey.

Joseph brushed past her, walking down between the rows of seating to where Jacob had set up a table, the radio crackling as he adjusted some settings on it. Elliot pushed her way down as well, hating that her steps faltered, that Jacob’s piercing eyes caught every step that didn’t quite hit the way that she wanted it to. Behind her, she heard the easy, confident cadence of John’s steps, the door to the outside shutting.

For the first time since getting in the truck, Elliot felt like she was in the belly of the beast. If only, a voice inside of her said, if only you had known this then, instead of now.

“Well,” Jacob said, “are you going to call them or not?”

She snatched the radio out of his outstretched hand, her heart hammering in her chest. So close; she was so close. If she wanted to, she could tell Jerome and the others where she was, flush the Seeds out well and good once and for all.

But she couldn’t, because she still needed them. At least, she needed one of them, to get Joey back.

Elliot adjusted the settings on the radio to the proper channels, swallowing thickly, and hit the button on the side. Joseph lingered under the window, a few feet away, his back to her; behind her, she heard John’s steps pacing closer to her.

The radio clicked, static buzzing patiently on the end. Her mouth felt dry. “Jerome?” she asked, tentatively into the static. “Jerome, do you—read? It’s me.” And then, quickly and feeling like an idiot, “Elliot, I mean. It’s me, Elliot.”

Silence stretched on the other side for just a moment. Then, the static crackled, and a familiar voice broke over the radio, “Elliot? It’s so good to hear your voice again. Thank God, we were—” Jerome’s voice broke up a little, and then picked up, “—about you. Where are you? Did you get away from John?”

Relief immediately flooded her system, the sensation almost painful; her heart thudded painfully against her chest, and she gripped the table with her free hand to keep herself steady.

“I—” Elliot paused. Her gaze flickered to John, who now lingered to the right of her; Jacob loomed to the left, and Joseph, ever the pinnacle, ever the point of the pyramid, just in front of her. The closest to heaven.

John’s gaze weighed down on her, pinning her, so that instinctively she wanted to squirm right out of it.

“—I’m okay, don't worry about me," she said after a moment. "I'm on my way to get Joey. Jerome, I need you to listen to me."

“Tell me where you are,” Jerome insisted, his voice crackling through the radio with urgency. “We’ll help you get Hudson back. It’s been quiet, here.”

John rolled his eyes, barely veiling his contempt. Elliot shot him a look and cleared her throat, trying to ignore the way that the pastor’s words clutched and pulled at her heart. Jerome’s voice was like a balm to her nerves; she realized, quite suddenly, how much she actually missed being around people who weren’t the Seeds, or members of Eden’s Gate—someone who actually cared about her.

“Please listen to me,” she tried again. “There’s someone else here. A different group, a new—cult. They’re here and I think they’re going to wipe everyone out. I don’t have a lot of time to explain, but you need to take everyone out of Fall’s End and get them out of here, okay? Everyone, and just evacuate as fast as you can.”

“What? Elliot, what are you talking about? ” Jerome’s voice faltered for a moment, and then he said, “Please don’t try and Atlas this thing, deputy.”

Elliot pressed her hand to her forehead. When she lifted her head, Jacob’s eyes were fixed on her, and he said, “Two minutes, deputy.”

Of course, she thought, both exhausted and infuriated. This fucking Darwinian psycho wouldn’t want to give them a fighting chance.  "There wasn't a fucking time limit on this radio call before."

"You're calling the people that want us dead," Jacob deadpanned. "One minute."

Elliot wanted to say that not even a full minute had passed, but she knew better. She bit down on her cheek until she tasted cooper, trying to refocus her attention.

“There’s no time, Jerome,” she insisted, talking faster now as the proverbial clock ticked down. “Take everyone from Fall’s End and leave, okay? I’m getting Joey and we’ll meet up with you a town over, or further way—just don’t stop driving. I can’t explain anymore. I have to go. Jerome?”

There was no answer on the other end for a minute; she could picture Jerome and Mary May arguing back and forth about what they needed to do for this, for her, and her heart ached a little in her chest. Finally, his voice crackled through: “I hear you, but Elliot—let one of us come and help. We’ll get you and Joey out of here.”

“Give Mary May a hug for me, okay? And get Dutch, and everyone, and get the fuck out of here.”

“Elliot.” Jerome’s voice had changed. Her hand had gone to turn the radio off, but it stilled. “Tell me you’re alright and mean it.”

It wasn’t his Resistance Business voice, anymore, and nor was it his pastor voice. It was his dad voice, firm and unrelenting, but not unkind. It welled with gentle affection.

Elliot felt her vision wobble a little. It was embarrassing, that Jerome could disarm her this far away, without seeing her or knowing what the last two days had been. She swallowed thickly and ducked her head against her chest a little when her breath shuddered in her chest.

“We’re worried about you, kid. All of us.”

“Deputy,” Jacob said, impatient, and Jerome continued, “You can tell me if it’s not okay.”

“I’m alright,” she managed out into the radio, willing the tears back away, back from where they had come from. “I’m alright, Jerome, I promise. Please get everyone out of here.”

She put the radio back down on the table and switched it off; she exhaled sharply, once, through her nose. Her chest felt tight, and her body ached, every muscle and tendon and joint in her body feeling deeply bruised. She thought, for one awful, terrible moment, that she might actually start crying right here in front of all of the men she least wanted to do that in front of.

“I guess we’ll see if they make it out,” Jacob said, his voice painstakingly casual and clipped all at once. Elliot felt something hot and sticky flare in her chest, like all of the oxygen had been sucked right out of the air around her. "And if they don't, well—probably means they weren't ever meant to."

She didn’t want to think about the Resistance not making it out; she didn’t want to think about the slow, oozing creep of the cult sidling up on them, of Ase’s fingers on their faces, lovingly planting their gutted corpses with fresh, vibrant blooms.

“Shut the fuck up,” she managed out, her voice wobbling. Jacob’s mouth curved at the corner into something like a wicked smile; he might have been infuriated by her petulance, she thought, if her voice wasn’t thick and wet with unshed tears. She straightened up, digging her nails into her palms, thinking, I could kill him right now, wrap my hands right around that big neanderthal neck and strangle the life right out of him.

But she couldn’t, even if at that moment she really wanted to, because talking to Jerome for even that short time had reminded her about what it felt like to have people around her that cared about her; it had reminded her about being around people that she trusted, that trusted her, that shared the same beliefs. That wanted to take care of her.

She had almost forgotten that, being handcuffed to John Seed for almost two days straight.

“We’ll pray for their safe departure, of course,” Joseph said. His words echoed, tinny and hollow, in her head. She blinked furiously. Elliot was only vaguely aware of John pacing back across the room and saying something to her, but she couldn’t hear what it was; not really.

I am so tired, she thought, over the sound of John talking to her. I am so tired, and I want to go home.

“When will your peggies be back?” she asked, interrupting the sound of Jacob and John blustering back and forth. Joseph paused, and then cocked his head at Jacob expectantly. She waited for one more beat and then said, louder and with more fervent impatience, “I said, when will your little cockroaches be back from finding Joey and Faith?”

Jacob replied, bitingly, “Within the next few hours. They’re going to pin down a location and get back to us.”

“Great.” Elliot turned on her heel, marching herself down the same hallway that just a little over a week ago, she had been walking down with Burke and Whitehorse. “Fuck off until then, you piece of shit.”

It felt like her lungs might burst, or her heart might beat right out of her chest, before she made it out of the stifling darkness of the church. She pushed the door open and hurried outside to take a lungful of fresh air, air unpopulated and unshared with Seed boys.

I’m just one girl. The thought was a desperate one, one that turned over and over again in her mind. That these things were just happening to her, that she had no agency in her life, that it might always be like this. Forever. I’m just one girl.

Elliot walked to the bunkhouse, pushing each step into the dirt in the hopes of feeling more grounded, each breath of air slowly bringing her back to the earth. When she made it inside, she closed the door quickly behind her and paced, rubbing her face. The bunkhouse no longer felt surprisingly clean. It only served as a reminder of where she was, where she wasn’t, where she might never go again.

She pushed her hands against her face until spiderwebs crawled behind her eyelids. They blistered, red fractals of light swimming in her non-vision. She was only a girl, and she was alone—no family and no friends nearby to help, and that was supposed to be good; if Jerome listened to her, they'd be out of Hope County within a few hours.

There was no more room for error. Fall's End evacuating meant there was no rescue party coming, in spite of her words. It meant that she was really only going to get one shot at getting in and getting out, for good. Get Joey, get Boomer, get out. Period.

The door clicked open. Footsteps echoed against the hollow wooden flooring. It was John; she could tell by the way he walked. “Elliot.”

It wasn’t a question; it was a statement, not a how are you, but something else, something that Elliot didn’t know what he meant and or what he was saying or what he thought to gain from it. Did he ever do anything that didn't have any personal gain for him?

“John,” Elliot said, her hands pressed into her face, “can you just leave? I am so tired of hearing your voice.”

“Elliot,” John said again, “take a breath.”

“I am breathing, you fuckhead,” she snapped viciously, turning to face him—John, in his stupid fucking designer shirt, his head cocked to the side as he watched her, the venom in her voice landing but not hitting the way it should have. “Do you have any idea what it’s like to be alone? Really, truly alone? Like, for fucking good, unless by some godforsaken miracle your insane brothers don’t kill me as soon as I’ve served the purpose of fetching Faith back.”

“I do," John replied angrily, "and they don’t want to—”

“Oh fuck off, John.” She raked her fingers through her hair. There was a nasty, wicked monster, crawling up from through her, fingers sliding between the slats of her ribs to get a good grip. “You should see yourself whenever Joseph says anything. You practically fall over to kiss the ground he fucking walks on, and for what? For him to give you a little pat on the head? You’d do absolutely anything he asked you to. You’re fucking pathetic.”

That hit the way she wanted to. She saw the hurt slide across John’s face, and then the anger, a power-point presentation on How To Make One Man Hate You. 

“You have a lot of nerve, deputy,” John bit out (and she didn’t miss the way he no longer was using her name, like he wanted to distance himself from her), “to talk to me like that, given that you would probably be lying dead in a field with flowers coming out of your eyes without me. Not to mention that you need us to get your little friend Hudson back—”

“It’s your fucking fault!”

She felt the rasp in her throat, the claws of sickness shredding her delicate insides as her voice flexed painfully in volume. John was staring at her, and she thought, I have to stop yelling, I have to stop, this is just what they want, for me to lose control, but she couldn’t, the words welling up inside of her, wrecked and vicious, and she felt like all of the blood had fled from her hands and feet; she was ice, now, frigid and unyielding.

John’s mouth twisted, like he was shaping the words he wanted to say before he said them. He started, less heated this time, “Elliot—”

“It’s your fault,” she interrupted, clenching her fists at her sides until her hands itched and burned with the intense need for circulation. “It’s your fault—I should—I should be leaving with Fall’s End and leaving this absolute fucking nightmare behind, or—or maybe that shouldn’t be happening at all because this is my fucking home and you and your stupid family took that from me, and I fucking hate you, John Seed, John Duncan, whatever the fuck your name is, whoever the fuck you are, I don’t care and I hate you!”

He stepped forward, his hands lifted, like he was going to touch her; perhaps rest his hands on her shoulders, take her face the way he’d grown so accustomed to doing when her breathing shallowed and her eyes unfocused. But she pushed his arms out of her immediate vision, and while infuriatingly he didn’t get out of her space she still bit out, crushing the words on their way past her teeth, “Don’t fucking touch me, John,” and his hands dropped back to his sides. 

She tried to ignore the strange, fleeting disappointment: as though she had been anticipating his grounding touch, as though she had wanted it, her body betraying her words and her head.

No more, she thought through the haze in her mind, no more of that.

He shifted on his feet. “You’re tired,” he said after a moment, which sounded not like the thing that he wanted to say but instead the thing that he decided was safe. “You should rest. The search parties will be back soon, and you’ll need to be at full capacity.”

Elliot stared at the bloodstain on his shirt. It felt like all of her insides had been scooped out, emptying her; her stomach twisted, both with anxiety and hunger.

“Yeah,” she replied numbly. “Alright, John.”

He turned on his heel, walking through the door to the bunkhouse and letting it swing shut behind him. The room felt colder without another human body in there; emptier, lonelier. Elliot sat herself down on the wooden floor and pushed her face into her knees.

This wasn’t supposed to be me. Her ears rang, her heart thudding painfully in her chest, a black stone falling over and over until her ribs bruised and cracked. This wasn’t supposed to be my life.

She closed her eyes tight, arms looped around her knees, pressed against the wall of the bunkhouse, and willed herself to sleep.

[badbookreviewclub]

Empress Theresa, Chapters 21-28. IT’S FINALLY OVER.

Disclaimer: If you haven’t read the previous review, you can find it here (chapters 11-20). This will contain spoilers. 

Well, the ending is finally here and holy fuck this book went off the rails. I only have one reaction to the ending of it and that’s just what the fuck. Just… What The Fuck Norman whatever the fuck you were on when you wrote the end of this book must have been some powerful shit because holy fuck. Let’s just get started and maybe you’ll see what I mean. These chapters are also completely nonsensical in how they’re put together and just so much information is shoved into them that it can get confusing. I’ll do my best to keep it clear. Chapter 21 The boat that was driven into the Exxon Maria was deemed as a terrorist attack because “the world know that this had been a terrorist bombing” (pg 321). They know this because a bunch of explosives had been smuggled onto the boat beforehand by Middle Eastern terrorists (because Norman is convinced there are no other kind of terrorists) and they drove it straight into the Exxon Maria to try and get back at Theresa for her oil mining operation. So how does Theresa retaliate? She drops the price of oil down to ten dollars a barrel. Thinking that OPEC (which I guess Norman still thinks is a terrorist organization. It’s not) is going to retaliate, Theresa has her parents moved to a safe place (West Point), and tells Prime Minister Scherzer that they have to evacuate the Israeli people now. He tells her that it will take 36 hours to start the evacuation. To remind Saudi Arabia of their deal (because there was a deal apparently in Theresa’s mind, even though there was absolutely no deals made, just an offer put on the table) Theresa raises a mountain in the middle of the Saudi Arabian desert. 

When the Israeli people start to cross evacuate via the landbridge to Crete because as it turns out, no, the island isn’t ready yet, Theresa parts the fucking sea to make giant water walls that terrorists and missiles can’t get through. Moses parting the Red Sea moment, anyone? Because of this, Prime Minister Scherzer calls Theresa the ‘Right Hand of God’. Theresa also decides that it’s time for her to head home, so the Ambassador of the United States to England asks if she would ride home on the Ronald Reagan (the same ship that led took her to the plane she was supposed to be blown up on) to give the ship her honor back. Theresa disagrees, but Steve says that Theresa should play (American) football with the navy of the Ronald Reagan against the Army (I think Norman means foot soldiers specifically). Theresa does agree eventually. 

Someone attempts to do the same drop that Theresa did when she was almost blown up and of course, rather than dissuading them, Theresa gives him tips on how he might survive. Unsurprisingly, he fucking dies. All Theresa does is say “oh whoopsy-doopsy, he fell into still water, not wavy water like I did. Must be why. Sorry that you’re dead bro. Nobody should do that again.” Chapter 22 

Theresa heads back to the United States, but in the process, HAL puts everyone in the plane into a deep sleep, including the piolets and every electronic. Somehow though, the Autopilot still works, so that’s lucky for Theresa I guess. Bitch learns how to fly a plane in under four hours. She lands it after causing millions of dollars worth of damages to the windows of buildings after flying just a little too low to them and as such that causes a lot of injuries, but she doesn’t get in trouble for that because she’s just too sweet and innocent for that. 

Chapter 23 

Am I moving really fast through this? I feel like I am. Though I will say, it’s definitely because I want to be done with this book as fast as I possibly can it’s so fucking dumb. I hate this book so much. I have never met a book that has baffled me as much as this one but absolutely fueled my anger to no end. Anyways… Theresa arrives at West Point (where her parents are) and going to the ranch house that was built specifically for her and her family. The football game takes place, and surprisingly, Theresa and the Navy lose to the Army. 48-36. I don’t know American football very well, despite living in the United States, so if anyone could tell me how good this is I would really appreciate it. 

We learn that her island is producing 3 million barrels of oil a day and by the next year is predicted to be producing 15 million barrels a day, so Theresa is rich as fuck and is going to have a monopoly on oil (what a wonderful capitalist she is). Because all the oil tycoons are worried she’s going to monopolize (she is) and then raise the price drastically, they put her into a two-year deal (bc that’s long enough) saying that the price can’t go above ten dollars a barrel. Theresa agrees without hesitation. 

It’s suggested to Theresa that she should monopolize the manufacturing industry as well, but she turns that down because it could “start a global trade war” (pg 370). 

Theresa, while being a jerk and ignoring everybody when she goes out into public because how could she possibly be expected to meet or even wave or smile at people, finally gives in and talks to 10 North Korean men (via a translator) who have brought her a PBS Documentary to show her the conditions of North Korea. Theresa watches it and is so moved that she comes down and tells the men that she’ll save their families. So essentially, this one PBS Documentary has convinced Theresa to declare war on North Korea’s government. 

Because the North Korean’s wouldn’t listen to her because she holds no power, Theresa joins the army (not really because she never ever ever ever sees combat, but she gets the titles that come with it). 

Chapter 25

Theresa gets her uniform. She specifically requests to have the male uniform because the female one doesn’t look powerful enough. She also gets men’s shoes instead of women’s shoes because the women’s would look stupid with the men’s uniform, I guess. Theresa also insists on wearing her hair down because nobody is going to say jack shit to her about it. Because Theresa got the uniform we learn that Steve has a uniform kink. “Steve thought I looked awful cute in my little uniform.  “‘Hon, you never looked better. It turns me on’” (pg 389). 

Now Norman, I thought this book didn’t have sexual content? Yet here we are, learning about Steve’s fetishes. I’m not going to fetish shame anyone, and more power to you Steve for being open with your sexuality, though I just wanted to point out that Norman specifically said this wouldn’t happen (just like the swearing). 

Anyways, Theresa goes to a meeting at the White House where she immediately becomes a five-star general, the first person after Omar Bradley died. Now I may be wrong, but Omar Bradley was a World War II veteran (a senior officer) and was Chairman of the Joint Cheifs of Staff and oversaw policymaking during the Korean War. The only thing Theresa has (realistically) done up until this point is kill off most of the population, if not all of the population. 

Theresa came up with the idea earlier on that the only way to liberate North Korea is to destroy their weaponry in a certain mile radius and then take over as their dictator for the time being until things could get set up. In a really complicated matter, Theresa sets up a plan wherein ten-miles around Pyongyang, the capital of North Korea, all weapons, planes, bombs, missiles, and helicopters will be destroyed. She works with the South Korean government in order to achieve this with HAL and so they can invade safely. 

But, duN DUN DUN! because all the weapons are destroyed, the government orders unarmed citizens and soldiers and other personnel to attack as soon as they see Theresa and the army. Because there’s 5 million of them, the South Korean army knows that they’ll be easily overwhelmed. Theresa’s solution? Take a Japanese island and move it a bit closer to North and South Korea, and then break North and South Korea away from China and move it closer to the Japanese Island. This way the Japanese Island can build a bridge over and then teach North Korea about a new government. And it fucking works. 

They invade Pyongyang after doing this and the South Korean army basically liters the city with pictures of Theresa’s face and a promise that she’s going to save and liberate them all. They drop all these pictures and promises with an airplane to hopefully quell the people’s worries. There’s a big crowd of North Koreans who are basically lining a gigantic boulevard and the South Korean’s are surrounding the tanks and Theresa, prepared to shoot anyone who gets rowdy or gets too close. Theresa tells them their leaders have left them on a complete fucking bluff, and the South Korean general who has been working with her confirms that they fled to China. Theresa is so relieved by this she almost starts crying, and then the North Korean’s start cheering and wailing and are basically so so so so so happy that Theresa is their new leader. 

And Theresa’s big speech as the new leader? She reads the first couple of paragraphs from the Declaration of Independence. And it’s a smash hit and her greatest success ever. She gives it to a translator so that the North Korean people can understand and just… “Nobody could translate such elegant language on the fly and maintain its beauty. I anticipated that. I’d given the translator the English text the day before and she worked all night at it. When I finished speaking she read what I’d said in Korean with all the emotions and nuances only a Korea could express. My speech or rather the translator’s rendition of it was a spectacular success. The crowd cheered their hearts out. Witnesses said President Stinson cried when I gave the speech. This event, broadcast to the whole world, was called by greatest achievement” (pg 418). And yes, I meant to write ‘a Korea’. That’s how it’s written in the fucking book. But the Declaration of Independence wasn’t written by Theresa and yet somehow it’s ‘her’ speech. And it’s a smashing success because fuck you. Chapter 26

Theresa sets up the South Korean government in North Korea because she can’t be fucked to actually lead it, but comes back when she needs to. In this chapter, Theresa gets really into biology and teaching HAL about biology. She also gets really into archaeology and discovers a bunch of really old Jewish scrolls but nobody can have them. They can look but only she can have them. She also finds Joan of the Arc’s remains because why the fuck not. 

Theresa also makes a mountain in the middle of Lake Michigan without consequence. This is all so they can have the Winter Olympics because I guess Mountain = Snow despite the fact that it’s summer the entire year.

Oh yeah, and Theresa recognizes that she could have thousands of lives with teaching HAL biology and learning how to do surgeries that could save lives that couldn’t otherwise be done. But she decides this is a terrible idea because she’ll end up in court if something goes wrong. 

“‘I can immobilize them like this [basically just holding their body together in a temporarily immortalized, unaging, undying stated] while the surgeon operates and saves thousands of lives.’ (Theresa) “‘And get yourself thousands of lawsuits when things go wrong. Hell the families will hope something goes wrong so they can go after your money’ (Steve) “‘You’re right. I’d spend the rest of my life in courtrooms. It’s a shame. Greed keeps me from saving lives’”  (pg 423).

The only greed keeping you from saving lives is your own. How fucking selfish of you to believe that people want their loved ones to die just so they can get some money. There are horrible people out there in the world like that, there’s no denying it, but the majority of people aren’t. You recognize you could save lives, but you chose not to because you don’t want to go to court if something goes wrong. You’re a fucking villain, Theresa. 

Because of this, I really don’t feel bad when Theresa gets hit by a car, breaks her back, and loses the ability to walk. Getting hit by the car was apparently a terrorist attack that was carefully planned because they wanted to hit Theresa. Because everything just has to be a fucking terrorist attack. But this is why Norman had Theresa suddenly pick up an interest in biology that was never ever even hinted at before. It’s so Theresa can start working on a plan to fix her back so she can walk again. And so she can figure out a way to be immortal. You’re supposed to feel bad for Theresa, but I honestly don’t.

Chapter 27 

More HAL’s show up because when Theresa was about to be blown up and she jumped from the plane, HAL divided itself into 420 other HAL’s. Now all these HAL’s are merging with people. Because Theresa doesn’t want to not be special anymore, she puts the entire world into a deep sleep under the pretense that all of these people could be another Adolf Hitler and she needs to take care of it and stop that before it happens. You know, so the logical explanation, because she can’t just put on HAL into a deep sleep, is to put the entire world into a deep sleep regardless of the consequences. Doesn’t matter if you’re in the middle of surgery or you’re in the ICU. It doesn’t matter if you’re about to die or something is happening. We’re just going to put everyone into a deep sleep because Theresa can’t be fucked to figure out a solution right now.

Chapter 28

600 years have passed and everyone starts to wake up. Everyone thinks Theresa is dead but she shows up with Steve and 420 (nice) children. All these children are geniuses and specialize in something and have the equivalent of like 10 college degrees. So in the past 600 years (where nobody aged, not even Theresa and Steve) the world has advanced massively because of the children and Steve and Theresa. 

Theresa also kept the children as 10-year-olds rather than letting them age. “I’d kept them in a pre-puberty state so they wouldn’t fool around with each other” (pg 464). It’s not like they’re siblings and look like mini replicas of you and your husband. It’s not like you should discourage incest among them because incest isn’t a good thing and can mess with someone’s psyche because it’s damaging a familial relationship by intertwining it with a sexual relationship. Not at all.

But these children, as it would turn out, don’t have a HAL. Theresa and Steve just had like 420 (nice) children I guess. No, Theresa just absorbed all of the other HAL’s and will absorb any other HAL that shows up on earth. And that’s the end of the fucking book. This shit show of a book is finally over. I hated it so much and I’m glad to finally be done with it. 

-8/10 stars. Get fucked Norman Boutin. Your book is stupid as shit and I hate it. 

[abiik]

@vhsgf replied to your post “this song made me realize i've never written about jason missing zoe”

heather this might be too forward and angsty of me to say (pls lmk if is) but now i am curious about zoe reacting to jason's death and then mirroring w jason coming back from the dead and then finding out his best friend is dead. like it sounds so PAINFUL but like. also i wanna know about it. heather what have you done i-

i had to put my hair up for this. im literally so emotional about this rn,,,like when am i not but STILL OKAY IT MAKES ME VERY [SCREECHES] (also a read more because this is fucking long im so sorry)

okay let’s start with zoe because jason’s death is a traumatic thing for her on like multiple points all relating back to when she was like elementary school aged (im pretty sure i have it where she’s like 8 ish when this happens). before jason and before going into the whole vigilante business – no matter what version of zoe you prefer – she loses her two younger brothers in a joker related accident. he kills them. and zoe… zoe is so,,, well she’s angry. because no one does anything. no one. not that fabled batman, not the police, not the fucking government – NOBODY. and she’s just supposed to keep living her life like everything is fucking fine because oh that’s just the way gotham is. and like why the fuck would she just keep living her life when her barely out of toddler aged little brothers are now dead?? why wouldn’t she want to do something about that?? why the fuck should she just let it roll off her back like no biggie?? (of course, this is a catalyst for her mother’s downward spiral and eventual disappearance, and then keme’s).

then of course, there’s zoe’s powers. at that age she didn’t really understand the extent of them, what she could do with them and all that, but as they develop and her own awareness of them develop, she is faced by like intense guilt and remorse. if only she’d been able to do something. if only she’d been there. if only she could’ve stopped the joker. if only, if only, if only. and like, realistically, there wasn’t much she could do. it wasn’t like she knew fully how strong she was; she’d barely gotten flying down at that point, but then she’s growing up and she realizes she never really had a limit. and she kind of has this complex, i’ve said it before but she really does try to bear the weight of the world on her shoulders, so everything that has happened to her up until this point after the twins die, it’s partly her fault; if only she could have been better, she could have saved them, she could have her mom, she could have keme – she could have her family back.

then, of course, there is in all of this her intense hatred of the joker. and by correlation to the whole fucking issue, gotham city and batman. (ive said that they kind of grow to like each other more, but when z and jay become friends and through their teen years until his death, it’s kind of like whenever youre gay and your bff is gay and you both kind of hate the other’s really fucked up parent who’s okay sometimes but isn’t all the time and you would totally like throw down with them if only there weren’t like,,,repercussions)

anyway, so when jason dies, it’s a big fucking deal. like he’d already been acting weird, bruce was worried about him, z was worried about him, and then he dies okay. and zoe… bruce doesn’t tell zoe right away. he doesn’t tell her and when zoe does find out, she. is. pissed. all of the shit with her baby brothers comes back. she wasn’t there. she wasn’t able to save him – because she sure as hell KNOWS that she could have at this point. and now he’s GONE. AND THIS ENTIRE TIME, SHE HAD NO FUCKING CLUE BECAUSE BRUCE DIDN’T TELL HER!!! she couldn’t even go to his funeral!!! and then, AND THEN, on fucking top of that – it was the joker who killed him. so jason’s death was like a fucking quadruple blow to her.

after finding out the details, zoe goes binary for the first time. and it’s… well it’s scary. it takes a whole lot of coaxing from old teammates and being physically restrained by diana (who lowkey is kinda like why?? are?? we?? stopping?? her?? from?? killing?? the?? joker??) and clark and donna, and they can’t even really knock her out because when she’s binary, there’s only really waiting out the duration of the high until she passes tf out from using too much energy. which she DOES and then after a good long talk with gran-gran, zoe’s going on a much needed retreat with diana to themyscira.

during that time, zoe’s super depressed. like reasonably, so. she’s so exhausted and she’s still angry but she’s also just like,,, so tired. she lost her best friend dude. like she loves jason so much, she loves him so much, and then he was just gone. poof! and at least, at least with atsa and ahiga, she got to like, be there for their send off. jason ends up being another hole in her life, like her dad and her mom and keme. he’s added to this list of people who all were just…g o n e. she didn’t get to mourn them. like obviously, she can, but every time she thinks about jason, she begins to spiral. (this is kind of when she starts drinking,,,, human alcohol can’t really touch her but she does therapeutically – which is!! not good!!) she also begins to distance herself – from jason’s titans (connor holds on with an iron grip and eddie still checks up on her, but rose was just as distraught and kyle is still kind of numb), from the original titans, from bruce and alfred, from diana, even from gran-gran and uncle bell. she fills the void with work as well as the alcohol that doesn’t really do anything to her except make her mouth taste gross and weird and she hates it but it’s become a habit. if she isn’t out doing some reckless thing while saving the world, then she’s at a bar or just sitting by the ocean.

she has bad dreams too, like horrible dreams. and like,,, they’re not necessarily horrific or anything,, she usually dreams about good times, memories with jason or with atsa and ahiga, sometimes some weird mixture of all three of them hanging out together and it’s the worst fucking thing because she wakes up and she wishes she was there too, that she could stay with them, because she misses them so much. she just wants her family back, she wants the family she had before jason and dick and alfred and the titans, but she also wants them too – she wants all of it.

and then it all comes to head with her dad’s sudden involvement with earth and shit. zoe sacrifices herself not only because she carries the fucking world on her shoulders and has a stupid martyr complex, but also because she thinks she’d be okay dying like this. she doesn’t. die that is. she doesn’t die but she also doesn’t come back.

jason’s revival story arc thing is all a bit murky for me bc I kind of like mix the whole waking up and clawing himself from his grave and also the under the red hood storyline (and like correct me if there is a version like that bc like,,, idk I can’t remember). anyway, so jason comes back, and like it’s kind of messy bc of timeline shit but he doesn’t really come back, come back, until z’s gone. like gone gone. like they held a funeral and everything for her. jason didn’t get to go and THAT is SHIT. like yeah, he wasn’t fucking alive, nobody fucking knows he’s alive anyway, but it still hurts.

and like,,, you know what else kind of hurts, is like he kind of thought that after he came back, if no one was on his side – if for some reason literally everyone was against him – he’d still have zoe. that’s the worst fucking part. he hears about what happened. he hears that she literally went ballistic. and like,, jason KNOWS that zoe would have his side, that zoe would be there for him, that even if she might not have agreed with some of the things he’s done, that she’d be right by his side, showing she cares. because like. like I know bruce is kind of stunted with emotional expression, but it’s really hard to feel like you’re appreciated when someone else’s love language is so fucking hard to translate, when you need constant validation, to be told you matter to be shown you matter to them and they can’t accommodate even a little bit, because of their pride or because they have to deem that you deserve it all of a sudden. and like I love bruce, but they way he treats his kids is shit. so yeah. jason feels hella alone when he comes back and his best friend, his rock, his ride or die (literally wfkejvnk) is fucking gone.

jason definitely has nightmares too. he doesn’t know how zoe died, like really know – no one does, because there hadn’t been a body. and jason’s mind can be a pretty dark place already, add on top of that the nightmares about his best friend dying the same way he did, or being like dick, who actually witnessed the explosion that ‘killed’ zoe. he can’t even fathom what zoe went through with his death, but eventually, as jason kind of comes back into the batfam and shit, he also kind of gets to be with the last of zoe’s family. gran-gran and uncle bell are much warmer than bruce wayne and that too big mansion and that cold fucking cave. jason goes to the ranch a lot, or finds himself at uncle bell’s antique shop whenever he needs a breather, to just be alone with something that close to zoe.

they literally both go through that period where they’re extremely reckless with mourning and regrets and fuck i never got to say this and fuck what could I have done differently, what could I have changed if I’d been there? but where jason is able to recover more effectively, zoe doesn’t do so well in space.

really, that song had triggered thoughts about jason going through her things, the things she left in his bedroom – that bruce refused to touch or move or anything – and just thinking back on their life together. it was definitely shorter than they expected and when jason thinks about it, it’s a whole bunch of salty anger and throat swelling sadness that has him kind of crippled. because like,,, he also knows how the twins died, he knows how it happened, not only did he have the firsthand accounts from those most effected, but also like, he read the reports. he KNOWS, and he feels kind of guilty, just a little bit, that what he did put her through a similar version to losing her baby brothers.

NREJKVNERLFEWLFJNEKR FUCK OKAY I THINK I NEED TO STOP LIKE THIS IS OBVIOUSLY JUST A BIG DUMB BUT BFJKERNFKJEN F   U   C   K  OKAY

[alandofhoneyedfruits]

Reap What You Sow [2/?] Master Attendant & Unknown

[trcv]

oKAY SO just thought i’d post a lil about travis my problematic child so you guys know what’s up and stuff like that yo

history:

travis ryan alexsander gaskarth was born on april 1 in 1992 in seattle and thinks his birthday is appropriate bc his life is a joke

he couldn’t bare to stay in the same area or state so he moved up to california and this is where his life is now yay

also he hates how he has two middle names like why did his parents have to be so extra?? idk

he’s an aries as you can see

his dad was into all the drug dealing and was in a gang and stuff so that’s cool ig

his mom was sooo against it tho but like they hooked up ayyy and the condom broke oooops so out popped travis

a legal battle went on between them since day one

his mom ended up winning bc his dad came to court high one day whoops

travis never really got the chance to know his father as his mother was quick to move away from where he was born off to texas

yesss you heard me right he was a lil cowboy

jk tho he did learn how to ride horses and lowkey loves them always and he also has a bit of an accent??

but he had a tough time in life bc his mom was always working so!!! no bonding time for him!!!

he hated seeing her always exhausted so he took on a job doing lil ranch stuff at a lil ranch when he was like ten and would go after school and work for a measly amount and would always give the money to his mom despite her pleading him not to

when travis was fifteen he started getting involved with drugs like his father and would deal them to the kids in school, making lowkey bank. he told his mom he had gotten a job doing something else tho bc he knew she’d disapprove of what he’s doing. he never kept a cent of what he made

they began doing better and stuff, his mom had found a lil boyfriend; everything was adorable for a couple years.

travis was nineteen, nearing twenty, when his mom contracted breast cancer. he dropped out of culinary school to be with her

she eventually quit her job, so travis took up any and all odd lil jobs he could find, working his tail off always. he was still into the drug business at this time, which is how he made enough money to keep the house they lived in. his mother never told him, but travis had an idea that she knew what was going on

the boyfriend left after three years, saying the stress was too hard on him. travis followed this guy home, left drugs in his car, and watched him get arrested a couple days later. he’s a petty bitch

his mom eventually died march fifteenth, when travis was almost twenty-five.

about him:

like i said he’s petty af

also he doesn’t like people he’s a total introvert, an infj if you will

what is his problem??? idk a lot of things

he suffers from depression but will never admit it ever and takes morphine to battle it so

he’s not doin so hot

but he sells drugs so if you want some hit him up he’s gotchu

if he likes you he might stop you if you take too many drugs at once or if you’re buying enough to ruin your life. if he doesn’t like you then he’ll literally encourage death o k

he likes to cook tho and makes a sick weed brownies!!! and other stuff like he learned from his mom how to cook and kinda loves it??? it’s one of his fave things to do and would’ve become a chef if he stayed in culinary school

has he killed a man?? maybe. he’ll definitely ruin some lives tho

he has a mastiff mix he named rosco and he cuddles w him at night or when he feels sad

he doesn’t show Emotions like??? who is she

likes to have the Sex but doesn’t go looking for it often like he’s picked up a prostitute once or twice but eh. he prefers when people make the first move on him bc it’s easier

just have patience ok

[michelemoore]

CAN WE GRIN AND BEAR IT?

 Takhuk, October 17, 2017

Michele Moore Veldhoen

Have you ever seen a pile of bear poop so big it made you think of a super-sized Dairy Queen ice cream  that some unlucky person dropped on the sidewalk?  You know how soft ice cream splats when it falls onto hard ground. You can still see the shape of the original creation but the first part that hit the cement splatters. Well, in recent weeks, while walking through my favourite woods in Calgary, I weaved around such piles, deposited, as it turned out, by a hungry grizzly. This bear had been gorging on a crop of chokecherries so abundant the branches of some of the bushes lay on the ground. The bear had found its’ nirvana but didn’t get to finish its’ feast before wildlife officials closed the woods and set a couple of traps. I understand this was necessary, but I wish they’d let it finish up the chokecherries first, as now, much of the crop will go to waste because there are more berries than all the local coyotes and birds can consume and no person, including me, seems willing to eat them. A few years back I may have picked them and made jam, but nowadays I’m trying to cut back on sugar, and chokecherries need a mighty big dose of sugar to make an edible jam. Mother Nature made saskatoons for people, and chokecherries for bears and other wildlife.

This isn’t the first time a grizzly has wandered out of K-Country and onto the prairies. At one time, the prairies were their habitat, after all.

Like so many Canadians, I’m fascinated by bears. For most of my life, I’ve lived in or near bear country. When I was a kid living in BC’s southern interior, I discovered in the forest a wild blackberry patch and visited it regularly, alone, because I didn’t want to share. However, the local black bears also adored blackberries, but they were more generous. A few times, when I arrived at the patch, I spotted one taking off into the trees. Looking back, I wonder how many bears sat it out in the bushes waiting for me to finish my feast so they could resume theirs. Wild animals seem much better at sharing than people, sometimes.

Black bears were so plentiful around that little town that they were actually tourist attractions for visiting relatives. Unfortunately, the local dump was a prime destination for their evening meal, so, when my Vancouver relatives came to visit, right around dusk my dad would pile the four adults and all seven kids in my uncle’s hearse length station wagon and drive to the dump so my city cousins and their parents could gape at the bears. I remember feeling a distinct sense of sympathy for those bears. Although I couldn’t have articulated what I felt, I know now it was embarrassment.  Not only were they eating garbage, they were also the subjects of insensitive gawking at a time when they were indulging in undignified scrounging, the kind of scrounging which should only be done in private.

All summer, I wandered the forests around my lake town, and sighted bears quite often. Once, I found myself on the opposite side of a creek from a mother and her two cubs. She stood up, sent a silent signal to her little ones which obediently scrambled up a tree behind her while she continued to stand and stare at me from across the creek. She didn’t blow, or slap at any bushes, or make any sort of move, but I knew it was me that had to back up. That was the first time I felt any real fear in the presence of a bear.

The next time I felt fear in the presence of a bear was in the very northern reaches of BC. This time, it was a lone grizzly. I had never seen one before and could not say truthfully how big it was but at that moment, just a few months into living in the north, that bear looked bigger than the first ursus to roam earth.

I saw the grizzly while walking up a dirt road in the forest with my cousin on a very very cold dark night. Winter snows had not yet begun, but we were close to it. In the north, darkness is so black that, if not for the bright moon that night we might have walked right into that bear. Luckily, the reflection of the moonlight on the grizzly’s silver hump shone like a beacon ahead. The bear had its’ nose to the ground as it rambled  across the road. I was the first to see it and instinctually put my hand on my cousin’s arm and pointed. My cousin had a pair of eyes so big with whites so bright that, when she saw the grizzly those eyes popped and looked to me like little flashlights pointed straight at the bear, which was now past the half way point on the road and, seemingly, oblivious to our presence.

In the trees off to the right of the road was an abandoned cabin to which we bolted. Inside the rickety   porch we stood and shivered and whispered and asked ourselves when and if we should continue on to my cousin’s house which was a few minutes’ walk beyond the point on the road where we had seen the bear. We asked ourselves, ‘what if it’s still nearby when we go back out?’ ‘What if it can smell us?’ I remember feeling afraid, and I remember my cousin’s utter terror. She had lived in an apartment complex in Vancouver her entire life, where wildlife encounters meant squishing giant slugs and chasing seagulls.

Like most people who see grizzlies, we made it out of that situation alive, and I never saw another bear throughout my 18 months living in the north.  

Despite these and many other sightings and encounters with bears, I have never been threatened or injured.

As we all know, grizzlies and black bears are everywhere here in Alberta too. I’ve seen them many times over the years hiking in K-Country and our national parks, and no doubt many of you have as well. They are marvelous creatures to observe, kingpins in our spectacular eco-system. And fundamentally, despite the rare attack, none of which I mean to trivialize, they are not interested in people. In Alberta, they live primarily on berries, roots, grasses and other plants, insects and rodents,  the bodies of other animals that died over winter. Until the late 1800’s when ranching took over the landscape, the Alberta plains were natural grizzly habitat.

As the bear population continues to recover from our past practice of extermination, we’ll see more grizzlies out on the plains.  They will wander the river coulees too, eating chokecherries and other berries. They’ll also help control the gopher, deer and elk population, protein they enjoy with their fruits and vegetables. Not a complete Canada Food Guide diet, but pretty close.

Residents of places like Canmore and Banff don’t leave out bird feeders and dirty barbecues in summer, and follow very careful guidelines for garbage management. I wonder when the City of Calgary or Towns like Okotoks and High River will implement  bear proof garbage bins.

As grizzlies reclaim their place on the prairies, will those of us living here be proactive, or reactive?