#if i disappear know that i was killed by a freelance doctor with a pretty stick

[theavaricesystem]

You know what, y'all are getting this essay now.

Metroid Fusion is a game about being transgender and being haunted by the idea of who you could have been/who you were, and Metroid Dread is about abusive and neglectful family and being prosecuted for factors outside of one's control.

This will have spoilers for Metroid Fusion and Metroid Dread.

In the intro to Fusion, Samus Aran is working with a part of the galactic government, as a sort of freelancer. While on a mission, she is attacked by an amorphous alien lifeform which suddenly disappears after invading her suit. Later, while in transit, she suddenly loses motor functions and crashes her ship into an asteroid.

The lifeform, known as an X, had fused to her body, slowly killing her and destroying her from within. It was so deeply connected to her at that point that the doctors and scientists trying to save Samus were at a loss. They had removed parts of her suit hoping to quarantine the X and reverse the process, but it was deep in her central nervous system at this point.

As Samus' narration puts it:

By taking a sample of Metroid DNA and splicing it with Samus', her body was able to adapt and absorb the X. This was only possible because the X are describes as being of "nearly pure energy", and Metroid being creatures that absorb energy, are one of their only predators.

Now, what does that have to do with an allegory for being trans? Well.

Being Part Metroid is not a reversible process. And it's not without its problems. Metroids are naturally vulnerable to cold, and while Samus used to be able to handle at least close to arctic temperatures without her Varia Suit, she is now barely able to even handle research facilities in said areas. On top of that, her suit is now more deeply connected to her than it ever has been before. It saved her, kept her alive while the X tried to ravage her body, but now it is an inescapable part of her.

But, she had been given the ability to consume X parasites. Her body was now, in part, Metroid in nature. She had won against the X that sought to kill her.

This is the image that really cements it in my brain. Samus has become a different person. She was reborn as a hybrid of Human, Chozo, and Metroid. Samus, for her part, accepts this pretty quickly, even reflecting that her life up to this point was leading up to this. The Metroid DNA that saved her came from the infant Metroid that saved her way back in Super Metroid, after all.

(I could go into how the change has caused her suit to become softer, and slightly weaker, and how much of the outer plating of her suit has been lost, and how that plays into the theme of transition, but that feels a bit more tenuous of a connection.)

Now, let's move to the antagonist of Fusion.

Samus' old suit, the parts removed by the scientists to get to her, was quarantined on a space station. However, the X inside began to replicate Samus herself, until they had become a copy of her at the peak of her power, but devoid of any humanity. A killing machine.

This is referred to as SA-X.

(that reveal scene gave me nightmares as a kid)

Throughout Fusion, you're attempting to basically get Samus back to the level of power that she had, in order to contend with and defeat the SA-X. A lot of other things happen in this game, including the personhood of Adam(who needs his own essay tbh). But, the crux of the conflict is between the SA-X, who is imitating a previous version of Samus, and Samus herself, who is desperately trying to become the person she once was, again.

The final boss of Fusion is a Metroid, not any X imitation. Despite the conflict between them, the SA-X attempts to fight this Metroid, it's natural predator, but fails. With the SA-X's death, Samus reclaims some of power that she lost, by consuming what was left of it. But, she doesn't just become the person that she was. She is permanently changed, permanently A Metroid by any standards. There is no going back.

She has taken the remnants of who she was, accepted them, and become something new, something greater.

Then, we come to Metroid Dread. In it, Samus is tasked with figuring out if the reports of X existing on a planet. A series of robots were sent to take samples and figure out if this information was true, the Extraplanetary Multiform Mobile Identifier, or E.M.M.I. units. Of course, all of them disappeared shortly after reaching the planet, and couldn't be reached. So, they sent Samus, whose unique biology made her the only living thing in the galaxy capable of surviving an attack from the X.

Samus is, in this game, the last Metroid in existence.

In the end, it is revealed that the EMMI units were taken over and controlled by a Chozo called Raven Beak. This Chozo was one of the several who gave their DNA to Samus, and he calls her Daughter throughout the ending sequence of the game.

Raven Beak's goal is to take the Metroid DNA from Samus to create a new form of bioweapon using it. Which is, for those familiar to the series, the same thing that the government has done, like, three times. Hell, it happens in Fusion, too. (The Metroids in that portion aren't even hostile to Samus, as they recognize her as one of their own.) Raven Beak was also the cause of a major schism within the Chozo, between those who wanted to exist in harmony with the universe, and those who saw it as theirs by right of their power.

Despite calling her "daughter", Raven Beak sees Samus as a tool. A source of power that he has every right to harvest. He manipulates her and pushes her to near-death to bring out her Metroid instincts, which are to Consume and Kill. He helps her become stronger, but only to make her a more complete Metroid. In his mind, her destiny is to pave the path for his dominion and control over the galaxy.

Despite never being there for her, Raven expects Samus to give her life so that he can become all-powerful. He calls it "her destiny". The process that saved her from the X in Fusion ultimately endangered her, and it is only through accepting her nature as a Metroid that she is able to survive and triumph.

Because she was a Metroid, a change that she did not choose to make but that was needed for her to survive, she became a target for Raven Beak. She was hunted by the EMMIs for her DNA, and became a monster to survive.

(it did give us the Coolest suit Samus has ever had, but still. Traumatizing for her)

In the end, Samus is of course not sacrificed upon the altar of Raven Beak's power. She escapes, and narrowly so, thanks to another Chozo who had been taken over by the X but retained his lucidity, named Quiet Robe. By willingly giving himself to Samus, she is able to regain a more normal form, but it is clear that the events of Dread have changed Samus irrevocably.

If you're still reading, I'd like to thank you for sticking with this rambling mess. And for coming to my ted talk. Lol.

[katie-the-bug]

I keep reading these books and I keep hating them. But here I am anyway.

I'm at roughly the midpoint of the Left Behind series, having finished Assassins and The Indwelling. While the writing is a little better and there's definitely more stuff happening, that doesn't mean the books themselves are any more enjoyable. Talking about them here is fun though, so, without further ado, Assassins.

The Cast:

The Tribulation Force: Rayford Steele, freelance pilot who wants to kill the Antichrist; Buck Williams, cyberjournalist and action hero; Chloe Williams, Rayford's daughter, Buck's wife, Kenny's mother; Kenny Williams, infant; Tsion Ben-Judah, internet evangelist; Floyd Charles, doctor; Leah Rose, nurse; Mac McCullum, Antichrist's pilot, secret Christian; Abdullah Smith, Mac's copilot, also a secret Christian; David Hassid, IT guy and double agent.

The Global Community: Nicolae Carpathia, Potentate of the GC and Antichrist; Leon Fortunato, Satan's little helper; Peter Mathews, dissident Pope of Enigma Babylon One World Faith.

Others: Hattie Durham, Nicolae's murderously bitter ex; Chaim Rosenzweig, Israeli scientist and friend of Buck and Tsion; Albie, Rayford's black market contact; the two witnesses, resurrected saints yelling at the world.

The blurb advertises that a member of the Tribulation Force will die. It does not advertise that it will be an important member dying a plot-relevant death.

In the first few pages we get something new - a viewpoint character that isn't Rayford or Buck. The authors couldn't justify having them in Antichrist HQ anymore, and TV broadcasts can only exposit so much, so I guess their hand was forced.

The group's second pastor Tsion is explicitly described as having been "provided to replace Bruce." This is a bit of a trend - they'll lose a character, only to get a substitute with the same skills. Pastor Bruce dies, Pastor Tsion shows up. Pilot Ken dies, pilot T shows up. This is the first time the authors have admitted it, though.

In Chapter 3, Dr. Charles starts dying of a poison he contracted from Hattie while she was giving birth...more than ten months ago. I gotta wonder if they promised to kill off a character before writing the book and decided the best thing to do was to have a character whose usefulness ran out die a pointless and plot-irrelevant death.

Dr. Charles isn't even cold on the operating table before he's replaced with nurse Leah Rose.

David dismisses the idea of faking the Mark of the Beast, whose implementation will cost him his job and his ability to trade. No reason is given why they shouldn't try such a basic espionage tactic, and I can only assume the characters like being helpless.

In Chapter 5, Hattie disappears, presumably heading to New Babylon to try and kill Nicolae, whose attempt to poison her months ago led to the death of her unborn child. I'm rooting for her.

All the character have to say about Hattie is that she's "ditzy" and "not smart enough" to pull off the scheme they think she's trying. The actual events of the story don't back up Hattie's supposed lack of intelligence, but she's a woman who refuses to convert to True Christianity, so in the authors' minds I suppose that makes her the stupidest person imaginable.

Abdullah, a former Muslim, describes his wife's conversion to Christianity as her "taking up a religion from some mysterious, faraway country." I'm no religious expert but I'm pretty sure Muslims do not view Christianity as an exotic foreign religion. I will say that the reverse sounds much more plausible.

In Chapter 8, two hundred million demonic horsemen descend on the world, visible only to True Christians, intangible yet spitting actual fire and smoke. This peculiar existence is a result of Tsion - and by extension the authors - not knowing whether the description of said horsemen in Revelation was supposed to be a metaphor. Fair compromise - it's a pretty safe assumption to make that a demonic cavalry running around killing a third of the human population represents a demonic cavalry running around killing a third of the human population.

The two witnesses describe the impending death of billions as "yet another attempt to reach you by a loving God who has run out of patience." No wonder it's a global holiday when these two die.

Tsion parrots the notion that "Babylon is where idolatry originated." This is a bit of pseudohistory perpetuated by Christians who believe that everyone worshiped their God until roughly 2000 BC, when the Babylonian civilization decided to make their own religion with blackjack and hookers.

Tsion also complains that "idol and demon worship, sorcery, and illicit sex" are "applauded in the new tolerant society." Just in case you forgot these books were written by boomers.

In a private conversation with Leon, Nicolae expresses his intention to personally kill the two witnesses, and I gotta say, no nonfictional politician would ever get their hands dirty personally solving a problem like the one the two witnesses represent. He has my vote.

Leon straight-up tells Nicolae that he loves him, and I have a new ship.

David overhears Nicolae in his office praying directly to Lucifer. I don't really know what to make of this, other than that it makes no sense for Nicolae to be confused later in the story when he keeps making Antichrist prophecies come true.

In Chapter 14, Chaim argues that God could get people's attention without killing them, and that the cruelty of the judgements he's experiencing don't gel with the idea of a loving God. The other characters have never managed to rebut this argument, probably because Chaim is right.

Hattie is missing in a suspiciously staged-looking plane crash, and the characters have decided that she's been captured or killed by the GC. The plot is moving forward on these assumptions, because God forbid we think for a second that Hattie might be doing something cool.

It's confirmed that she's been captured, but Rayford, who's trying to find her, is never informed, leading him to give his real name and mission to a GC man who he thinks is a mercenary pilot he's never met. Nothing about this is intelligent, but the authors will never call Rayford stupid - only Hattie gets to be stupid.

In Chapters 17 and 18, Rayford flies to the Middle East with a couple of believers (who happen to be fellow pilots) so he can buy a gun from Albie. He leaves them in a cafe to test out said gun, and when they get back, his new friends have been shot dead for reasons that are never explained. I've concluded that once a character is introduced, they can never leave the story in peace - they have to die to build atmosphere, no matter how contrived the circumstances.

Tsion advises against believers taking the Mark of the Beast, because the Mark of the Beast is "irrevocable" and damns you forever. Yet the Seal of God that true believers have is also "irrevocable" and guarantees you go to Heaven. What happens if a sealed believer takes the Mark of the Beast? Does it not affect them? Do they lose their salvation? Does Limbo pop into existence just for them?

A group of dancers preparing for Nicolae's "Global Gala" finish a "lascivious routine" about which we unfortunately get no details, and Mac decries the "individual freedom" that permits such a thing. Remember, kids, when a Christian fundamentalist says they believe in "freedom" they mean "my freedom to oppress people."

In Chapter 20 Mac decides that, if Nicolae doesn't die soon, he'll crash his plane with him in it. I say, even if Nicolae does die and come back to life, why not give it a shot anyway? Your prophecies only say he'll come back from his first death - if you manage to kill him again, he might stay dead.

At the appointed time in Chapter 22, the two witnesses lose all their supernatural power and subsequently die of high-velocity lead poisoning courtesy of Nicolae. Yay!

They come back three days later. Damn.

Nicolae gives another speech. Rayford brings his gun, Mac and Abdullah are both carrying theirs, three of Nicolae's sub-potentates are disloyal, and despite everything, the characters keep seeing Hattie around. I think they should all go for Nicolae at once. That would be really funny.

Rayford's gun goes off by accident and Nicolae goes down. A distraught Leon immediately takes Nicolae in his arms and begs him not to die, to no avail. My ship is chugging along merrily.

That's all for this one. I'll be back with The Indwelling shortly.

[spilledmilkfkdies]

While I lay here in my little bed, feeling a fever starting to kick me in the neck, I just had a thought! A potentially feverish thought I won't remember when I wake up, but aren't those fun?

So I was thinking about the Black Circle (the object) and its use. Ogron says all the wizards' power is stored in there or something, which should be taken with a grain of salt, but I believe that it's true to some extent. The four of them are all connected to it, it wouldn't be that weird if in a way they share the strength and energy of it between them. In the usual scenario it's completely balanced, they know each other long enough to match their magic uses accordingly, it's all good-

So why would they start weakening?

Ignoring the whole 'believing in fairies' thing because shut up. I think that they probably severely underestimated the situation, like expecting it to go far more easily than it did. Imagine going from being undefeated and clearly overpowering your enemy to a sudden "Did we just lose?" I don't care how long you have been doing something or how much you've seen, if you are even the slightest bit cocky your brain will have to deal with it quickly so it can function and move on. And if there's one thing the Wizards of the Black Circle are it's cocky, don't lie to me smh

What followed was the White Circle popping back up, y'know, the object that could undo everything the wizards had been working for presumably most of their lives. And do you know what that could lead to? A fair bit of stress. Which, in turn, could cause?

Power imbalance.

If we go by a book (that I still haven't found, someone please help me, where is it I know it's real), Duman was stressing, pushing himself in order to proof his worth, this making him use his magic more excessively while they really should've all been focusing on reserving their strength

Something like this! So while the other wizards were straight up weakening, Duman was out here claiming and exposing himself to far more energy than he usually does, effectively causing the Circle's downfall.

In short, everything is actually Duman's fault but also why was nobody watching him smh what happened there

[stay--satan]

Because he Jason Todd-it everything (PART II)- JASON TODD X READER

Check out the first part: I could say that I’m sorry but I can’t even remember how it happened -  PART I

You all asked for the second part HERE WE GO

"So how are we doing today?" "Do you have to make that question every single time?" "It's my job, Jason" He groans God he hated that woman with every single streinght "Yeah, fine." "So, what changed?"

What did changed? Where does he even start?

17 months ago he was over the moon living the life his parents dreamed that he had. Nice house, saving the world and coming home to his girlfriend was certain the best part of the day. But he had to Jason-It everything. Now he's sharing a dumb small apartment with his freelancer work friend, Roy, the entire freelance thing wasn't working as good as before (he's broke) and yes... No girlfriend. Because he Jason Todd-it everything.

The only reason he had been going to the therapist was because one of his clients owed him and he changed for a few sessions. Dr May is cool, but she could really stumb on his feet sometimes, always pressuring him.

"Are you still thinking about her?" she question for the thousand time "I told you..." "Yeah, sometimes you do think about her. But I want know why" "Why? I'm here for six months and you still wanna know why?" She removes her glasses cleaning in her blouse and stare at him "You are. You're still here after six months and you still didn't do anything to change that" "What do you expect me to do? Just knock on her door and tell 'Hi, I miss you'?" she glares again. Ugh "It won't work" "Why not?" "Because... I'm too late for that" he leans back on the couch exhausted "It's been almost two years. What am I supposed to do?" "What didn't you called earlier?" "Well" he wasn't gonna mention the whole thing where he drank his ass off after he left her and broke his entire house "She's not like that" And also because he was too pussy to do anything about.

He actually thought about after he sober up, but what was he thinking? That you would work things out? Pff, yeah "Jason... As your therapist and not the woman you saved from a abusive husband.." she takes her glasses off again to look at him "I must say you're not the same person you used to be. And after everything, I think you do deserve this. I mean, you don't even know how she felt"

It's true. He didn't even dared to look any of her social media after she deleted his photos. Every single crime on her area he would just sent anyone on earth to do the job for him and he completely changed his routine so he could not bump you anywhere."Just take a look at your routine. You're coming here right on schedule, you're sobber for almost this long and you're doing a pretty good job out there. Even if the world doesn't think that" "Good job doesn't pay the bills, Susan" he had to mock her first. He gently opens a cornered smile  rubbing his hands letting himself for the first time think about it.

Running to his bike, Jason shot a couple of times before hearing the police siren behind him. Sure he could stay but the problem was he was with a freaking bullet on his torso. Driving as fast he could back to the city, he contact Alfred but weirdly no one responds, he tries to Dick but he's not even in town, Alfred returns his call saying that he was also out of town dueing "Batman's Business" but he could send Tim in an hour. An hour driving he could be passed out on the floor.

Jason stops lifting his shirt, alright it doesn't look that bad. Taking off his gloves he removes the bullet himself so it would not go worse. He may or may not had screamed in pain but he'll never tell. It was still bleeding a lot and his house was at least 20 minutes away. He could try drive until he fall off the bike until someone call the hospital, but it's still looked like a bad idea.

Looking to the street sign his heart beats more faster now. How did he ended up there? After all those years? His vision is getting a little blurry and he is sure that the last thing that quiet neighborhood needed was some dirty vigilant bleeding on their clean sidewalk. Swalling the 1% of pride, he walks till the nice gray house at the end of the street. Sure she had moved from where they lived and now she had the money to buy a house this big she always dreamed of. He jumps of the fence, falling on the grass almost laying there forever, but he knew that would be more weird. So he just climbs to the window next to him.

"Why are you bleeding out on my floor?" The little lamp at the door goes on as the short haired girl step into the room in a hurry "It's just a scratch" he moves his hands like this wasn't a big deal "It really looks like a bullet hole" "For your information I already took the bullet out" "Jason are you insane?" She cross her arms pissed His smirk fades away finally getting into the serious matter "I'm sorry" "You came to die in my room and you're sorry?" "No" he coughs but still let out a chuckle "I hurt you in a way that I couldn't come back the next day apologizing." She stares at him and her tone now is more low and serious "I'm gonna get the first aid kit" "Please, Y/N..." she turns back to him. Now on her guest bedroom, sitting on her floor with the man she swore to never cry again "I-I'm really disturbed. I am, and I accepted that. Everything falled apart without you and I don't mean the material things but "You don't have the right to show up here after 2 years, Jason" "I know." he started to sound more careful before she kicked him out "I know. But I had to. I couldn't show up before being sure that I was ready to do this." Y/N is mute with her left arm holding her right elbow still not being able to look in his eyes "I spent the last 6 months in therapy." that news got her in surprise and he notices "I-I tried to make her write you a letter or something that could say how much I changed but appereantly I need your authorization for that" he chuckles again under his breath "But trust me... I did changed okay? Because I don't wanna Jason Todd-it like I did with us" "Jason Todd-it?" "Yeah, the act of being an asshole when things are pretty fine" "It fits"

She gives him a cornered smile now and go get the first aid before he pass out. Before Jason have a chance to look around the almost empty room, Y/N comes back and sit crossing her legs near him preparing everything. He lifts his shirt so she could take a look

"Surprisly it doesn't look that bad" she says examinating the wound "Yeah, Doctor Susan said it was one of the perks of not drink. The wounds heal better and don't bleed as much as they used to" Again, she is caught in surprise "Yo-You stopped?" "Yea-OUTCH" he groans when the burning alchool meet with his skin "Yeah, about a year ago"

The next moments are completely silent as she focus on his bruise and he closes his eyes trying not to focus in the pain.

"You actually got good at this" "Well, I don't do much of practice anymore but..." they smile to each other Jason smile is the first to fade away "I love you, Y/N" Now it's her turn "I know I don't have any right to be here, but I really do. You know that and I think you do too" "What makes you think that?" "You could easily cut the conversation and kick my ass out of here but you're still here..." he grins again 'Idiot' she thinks. Only him would be covered in blood and still grin like that to her "Jason It's not like..." "We can start over, okay? Slow again, then I could take you to Susan and she would explain to you..." "Jason" "... She has this idea that I lived in a bubble trouble and everything good that would come in my direction... "Jason" "... everything that comes in my direction I associate with a bad thing. But I'm better now and I'm willing to try harder for you"

She had stopped to call his name and he finish his sentence out of breath pulling his heart out like this. But before he could continue with the speech he had trained the entire week, his eyes met with something sparkly. There's no trail of emotion in Jason's face and Y/N had that face That pity I'm Sorry face

"He's a doctor, that's why I got better in the nurse skills" she gives a empathic smiles and honestly it kills him Like he hadn't a bullet in his torso a few moments ago, Jason stands up quickly grabbing his helmet again "You're not seriously angry because I didn't wait for you for two years, right?" "No" He grunts taking steps back "We can talk about this!" "He probably will wake soon and will get worried. Watcha gonna say 'oh my ex red hood boyfriend was bleeding on our carpet?'" "He's in duty tonight" He let's a sarcastly laugh come out "Of course he is" "Jason!"

"Y/N!" He repeats her alarming tone

They both stare close at each other in silence. Both holding back the tears but none dared to talk about it He knows that she's happy. That she's better. It wasn't like he was gonna pretend that he didn't stalk her until a few months ago.

He had seen the guy once or twice, he let himself thought that maybe it was a quick thing or whatever, but that stupid ring was screaming and laughing at his face. Screaming of how much she loved another girl and he loved her. About how he came home everyday and could see her face. Of how many surprises she had prepare for him like she did the last time they met and he fucked up. Of how much they talked about her ex cheating girlfriend and the doctor would hold her tight saying that this will never happen to him. Or worse, she didn't talk about Jason at all. Like he wasn't even a memory.

"I'm really glad that you are getting help" Y/N says after a minute of silence of their gaze "Yeah, me too." he turns back about to leave from the window

"Jason?" she says again now in more softly and lower holding him lightly by his arm "You should've come sooner" He glares at her back before disappearing "Yeah, the story of my life."

[janiedean]

prompt: throbb - theon is some kind of eldritch horror kraken being, robb's scared only in the beginning :P

…. k guys, if anyone’s read johannes cabal you know what I’m au-ing here. if you haven’t, HAVE FUN WITH NECROMANCER ROBB SUMMONING THEON FOR REASONS. (warnings: past familiar tragedy and a mentioned attempted suicide)

Thing is: Robb has technically no idea of what he’s summoning here.

Or who. Semantics. But beggars can’t be choosers and he’s really at the end of his rope, and he’s not going to rest until bloody fucking Walder Frey gets his due for what he did to his family, so whatever comes out of the circle he hopes will work as a trap, well, he’s going to have to work with it.

Necromancy, he was told, isn’t something you learn in six months.

But he really can’t wait longer than that. And it’s not even that he wants to bring them back to life – he could not and he’s not sure they’d even want it – but he just wants Frey to fucking pay.

So he stands in front of the circle and waits.

–

He doesn’t have to wait very long, because a moment after he finishes reciting his incantation – shit, he hopes the accents were right – a black-gold smoke starts rising from inside the circle. Slow at first, then faster, then faster, then Robb hears some noise and he doesn’t even know how to describe it but he’s not sure he likes it, and then the smoke disappears, and –

“Well, it’s been a long fucking time,” says the… demon? Devil? Robb has no clue. Shit, it’s – he’s got tentacles all over, and it’s tall, and Robb can only see the black, thick appendages that glow slightly golden if the firelight hits them the right way, and it sounded like a he, actually, but what the fuck does he know, but what he knows it’s that the demon is huge and it’s a good thing Robb drew a damned large circle or it’d have spread out now –

“Oh, there you are,” the thing says, and suddenly the tentacles in the front shrink slightly and –

All right.

Now Robb is sort of face to face with a human-looking chest and a human-looking face, and it’s definitely a he, with dark hair and golden eyes and long dark hair, and in another life he’d have thought him very attractive, not counting the part where he’s basically floating on a small sea of tentacles.

He swallows.

“Here I am,” he agrees, looking up at the demon, or creature, or whatever. He was specifically looking for a demon. He supposes he got one.

“I can see that you were nice enough to bring me to the surface,” the demon goes on. “Which was lovely of you, honest. I mean, Hell is what it is, after a few centuries it gets boring.”

“Boring?”

The demon shrugs. It’s such a human gesture, Robb can’t even believe his damned eyes. “Getting in is all paperwork these days, it takes people years to. And I’m like, as you can see, a demon, but I don’t exactly work for the direction. I’m more of a freelancer, really, which is inconvenient when no one’s looking for you. Actually, how did you even summon me?”

“Uh, with a spell?” Robb asks, because how would he otherwise?

“Yeah, well, I got that far, but given that my name is quite complicated to pronounce, no one ever spells it right. Never mind that my bloody uncle is the one who gets all the spotlight and he is the one in necromancy books, not me.”

“Er,” Robb says, “honestly, I just – wasn’t looking for a demon specifically. I was looking for one who’d help me out for my specific reasons. I didn’t make any names.”

“Oh,” the demon replies, and now he sounds delighted, what the hell, “does that mean the system picked me specifically for you? Now, look at that. I imagine we could have this conversation outside –”

“Have you taken me for an idiot? I’m not breaking it until I’m sure of what’ll happen after I do it.”

“Smart boy,” the demon agrees. “Actually, how old are you even? Sixteen?”

Robb groans. “Seventeen, but that’s not the bloody point.”

“Practicing necromancy at seventeen? My, my, how the world has fallen. Well then, smartass, how would you need my services? And who are you, for that matter?”

Right. Right.

Robb needs to remember that he has the upper hand, at least until that circle isn’t broken.

“My name is Robb Stark. And I need your help getting revenge.”

“Oh, revenges. I like revenges. That’s totally my field. Do go ahead.”

“I – well, I had a family. Until a year ago. Me, my parents, my two sisters, my two brothers, and – Jon’s technically my cousin, but he’s always been with us so he’s like a brother to me. Never mind. We –”

“Let me guess. House in the countryside, maybe the parents owned some land, they employed some people to look after it, maybe you even had a few maids, and everything was all right until it wasn’t?”

“How –”

“Smartass, I’ve been doing this job for centuries. You aren’t the first. But do go ahead.”

“Well, our neighbors. Uh, they’re – a large family. The Freys. They desperately wanted to buy out the property – actually, they had bought off all of the others around the area. I think they want to sell to some company that’d open a large factory there, but my father wouldn’t budge – I mean, it’s been the family house for centuries. He didn’t want to move or to let it go. So – Frey invited him for a dinner where they’d discuss things. Actually, he invited the entire family bar Jon. Because he wasn’t, well, one of them, technically.”

“And not you?”

“I was at a boarding school then.” Robb sighs. “They came back home. And they all died during the following week. I know he did it – either poisoned the food or something – but he bought out the police chief of our town and they closed the case as a tragic accident. I was devastated, and the only relative alive was my mom’s sister, and –”

“Don’t tell me, she sold, didn’t she?”

“Yes,” Robb admits. “We had to move in with her, of course. To London. But – she never – it’s obvious that she didn’t want Jon there. She didn’t want me either, but she couldn’t say it outright. And – she treated him so horribly that he just –” He breathes in, tries to not let his voice break as he says it. “One day I came back to our room, there was a letter on his bed. It was apologizing to me. And then I heard a scream from outside. He – he jumped out of the window not long before and someone just found him.”

“So, he’s dead?” The demon asks, sounding slightly more serious than he had before.

“No,” Robb sighs. “He survived, but he hasn’t really woken up since. I mean, you can get him to eat and drink and so on, but he doesn’t really answer you and he’s never conscious. The doctors said that he might or might not. It was six months ago. I – I told my aunt that if she just would give me an allowance of the money I was technically owed I’d rent a room and bring him with and be out of her life. She accepted. So – I’ve spent the last six months making sure he doesn’t die, doing accounting for the drugstore below my apartment, and when I’m not doing that –”

“You’re studying necromancy? Well, well, that’s admirable. Guess you’re a bright smartass. If you want someone to bring your brother back, though, I’m afraid you’ve got the wrong man. I mean, I can’t do that shit. You know you’ve gotta ask the other side for that, don’t you?”

“Fuck the other side,” Robb says. “Don’t you think I didn’t pray until my fingers hurt and until I had no voice anymore before trying out necromancy? I found out that at least your lot answers, when you call them.”

“Fair is fair, we do.”

“And I know you can’t – bring people back. I saw that some people in my, uh, current line of work, have tried to do it and succeeded up to a point. If he doesn’t wake up himself, I will find a way to. That’s not why I’m talking to you. I’m talking to you because when summoning – whatever was going to come out of that circle, I asked for someone who’d help me get revenge, who’d have no quibbles helping me but who also wouldn’t have necessarily sought to hurt innocents that might get involved without being guilty and who was smart and cunning and not necessarily out for blood. And I got you. What I want is help in taking Frey down and giving my aunt a taste of what she gave me.”

“Aren’t you a little spitfire,” the demon says. “But that’s quite all right, I do enjoy people with a personality. Well, seems like the system likes me, or maybe I’m one of the few down there who’s not a complete arse, because that’s what you were looking for, but never mind that. I haven’t been out in years and I could use some exercise. Your human world is so interesting. Wait, how many people do you need revenge against? Three? Like, Frey, your aunt, her husband, I suppose?”

Robb laughs. “I wish. If it was only three, I’d have killed that bastard myself. Frey has a ridiculous amount of kids, he’s so old he had time to wed some ten times. And I know for sure that a good part of them must have helped him out. Has to be at least twenty of them who were in on it.”

The demon claps his damned hands. “Oh, you mean I get to lay to waste that many? That’s lovely. All men, hm?”

“Could be, but who knows. Some daughters might have helped.”

“So I’d get some decent feeding from both. Well, Robb, seems to me like you’re offering me a pretty sweet deal. I’m very much inclined to accept.” Some of those tentacles tend to reach out towards him, but then suddenly draw back. “So why am I still trapped here?”

Robb breathes in. Good. Good. “Demons are bound by their word, aren’t they?”

“Sure they are.”

“All right. I want your word you won’t ever hurt me, Jon or anyone related to us that is not – well, my aunt.”

“Fair’s fair,” the demon agrees. “Fine. Robb Stark, you’ve got my word. That said, why would I even want to eat you when you’re that interesting? I mean, not everyone is that laid-back when they see my true form.”

Robb shrugs. “It’s tentacles. It’s kind of daunting, but – they’re somewhat beautiful, when you look at them in the right light. And by the way, what’s your name?”

“Right, how rude of me,” the demon says, and then –

Then Robb realizes why he wouldn’t get summoned, since it’s long and mostly consonants and he doesn’t even know how to begin pronouncing it.

The demon must have read that on his face.

“But you can call me Theon, for short.”

“Oh, good. Well then. All right,” Robb says, and then moves forward his foot, stepping on the white chalk he had drawn in his flat’s basement, and breaks it.

Suddenly, he feels one of those tentacles touch his cheek, and for a moment he expects it to be slimy, but –

It’s not. It’s warm, and solid, and heavy, but definitely not slimy. It’s like an arm, if arms didn’t have bones and wrapped around your waist, too.

“But look at that,” Theon says. “You’re actually liking it?”

“I don’t know about it,” Robb says slowly, “but it’s better than anyone would expect just looking at it.” He raises a hand and touches the tentacle wrapped around his waist. It feels warmer.

“Hm,” Theon goes on, “you’re definitely something.”

“By the way, what did you mean with, uh, eat both?”

Theon sends him a smirk that kind of makes Robb’s knees go weak, and then the tentacles quickly leave Robb’s waist and face, and suddenly Theon’s form is shrinking down and down until the mass has reformed into a lovely, long pair of legs clad in black. Like this, Theon’s barely taller than he is, and when he blinks and opens his eyes again, they aren’t golden anymore – they’re the same dark brown as his hair.

“See,” Theon says, “all demons feed on something. Most of us feed on souls. But I enjoy obtaining mine by, you know, seducing people.”

“Are you – are you a succubus?”

“Might be,” Theon smirks, “but it’s not as if I have to eat everyone I bed. Regardless, I enjoy both sides of the pond, so to speak, so if your Frey man has a nice pick of equally horrid sons or daughters, I shall enjoy tasting their souls very much. The worse off they are, the tastier, honestly.”

“Well, good to know this is a mutually beneficial arrangement,” Robb says, smiling ever so slightly, even if there’s nothing to smile about in this mess.

Theon smiles back.

“Oh, it is. And by the way, that thing you made me swear? Entirely unnecessary. You’re too nice to even be a good meal for me.”

“Too nice? I just summoned you to kill at least twenty people.”

“For entirely selfless reasons,” Theon snorts. “Don’t you worry. When it comes to entirely selfless people, they’re usually a better lay than a nice, succulent dinner. So, shall we plan?”

Oh.

Oh.

If that’s how it is, Robb thinks, he – he really might be on board.

However the system works, Robb decides, it really must have matched them well.

End.

[thefaeriereview]

Tour: Tropical Doubts

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TROPICAL DOUBTS David Myles Robinson Legal Thriller When Honolulu’s flamboyant and quirky attorney, Pancho McMartin, agrees to step out of his normal role as a criminal defense lawyer, he thinks it will be a challenging but welcome change from his daily dose of criminal clients. His old friend and father-figure, Manny Delacruz, has beseeched Pancho to handle a medical malpractice claim against the physicians who botched what should have been a routine surgery, but which resulted in Manny’s beloved wife being in a permanent vegetative state. The case looks good, the damages enormous, but when Manny is arrested for the murder of one of the doctors, Pancho finds himself back in his old role. If Manny is convicted, it means he won’t be able to be at his wife’s bedside to hold her hand, caress her face, and read his poems to her. He will have lost his reason to live. The pressure on Pancho is enormous. While he and his team try to make sense out of one of the most sinister and complicated murder schemes he’s ever seen, the medical malpractice case chugs forward, in jeopardy of being worthless should Manny be convicted.

5 out of 5 fairies

Tropical Doubts is intriguing from the start. I've loved legal mystery/dramas since I first watched Perry Mason as a kid. I kind of got a Hawaiian-Perry Mason vibe from this book at the start, and I loved it. The characters feel like real people and the plot has just enough twists to keep you guessing while still being  believable A great read for anyone who loves legal thrillers or shows like Perry Mason.

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Amazon → https://amzn.to/2WJQSnx

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  Other Books by David Myles Robinson:

CHAPTER 1  P ancho McMartin watched as his client, newly convicted of murder, was escorted to the side door of the courtroom by two men in brown jumpsuits with “Sheriff” stenciled across the back. The client, a large Samoan in his early twenties, had a shaved head. Except for his face, every square inch of visible flesh was tattooed. With shackles on his wrists and ankles, he shuffled to the door and then stopped and glanced over his shoulder at Pancho. He’d sat through the trial with a look of absolute disdain, even menace, and now Pancho almost laughed out loud at the expression on the man’s face—fear. Pancho gave him a small nod, which he hoped would convey some sense of encouragement. Not that there was much to encourage. The Samoan would spend the rest of his life in prison unless Pancho could win an appeal of little or no merit.  His client disappeared through the door, and Pancho was alone in the courtroom. He shivered as the room, now empty, returned to its usual freezing temperature. He leaned his elbows on the counsel table and put his head in his hands. This was his third trial loss in a row, the second this year—a record for him. Pancho knew his client was guilty and hadn’t wanted to take the case. But the client’s family in Samoa and Oceanside, California, had collected the $250,000 fee Pancho charged for a murder case. Even then he might have turned the case down, but Pancho’s private investigator and best friend, Drew Tulafono, had asked him to take it on. “The guy’s family in Oceanside goes to church with my mother,” Drew had said. “And they’re using all their powers of persuasion to get her to get me to get you to take the case.” “Don’t they know he’s guilty as hell?” Pancho asked. Drew nodded. “Pretty much, although they’re hoping he’ll get off with self-defense. But the main thing here is that Samoan families, mine included, are tight-knit and supportive of each other. If someone’s in trouble, the family’s sacred duty is to come to their aid in whatever way possible.”  So Pancho had taken the client on and had presented a decent case for self-defense. In the end, however, Pancho figured the jury just couldn’t get past the way his client looked, which was like a gangbanger who would just as soon kill you as step out of your way. Pancho sighed heavily and ran his hand through his long brown hair. Three in a row. He wondered if he was losing his touch. He felt tired and depressed. It had been a bad six months. Just before he’d taken on this loser of a case, his longtime girlfriend, Paula Mizono, a financial adviser, had tearfully told him she was accepting a position in Hong Kong. She loved him, she said, but she was in the prime of her work life and this opportunity, at triple her current salary, was too hard to pass up. “Besides,” she said, almost as an afterthought, “even though I knew what I was getting into when we hooked up, the fact of the matter is we hardly see each other. I’m off to work at three in the morning because of the time change to New York, and I’m ready to hit the sack by the time you get home.” Pancho had lost his first wife to the long hours of his law practice and had vowed not to lose Paula. It was her job that caused the split, he told himself. But the pain of the loss and the loneliness of his empty bed hurt just the same. The door to the judge’s chambers opened and Lew, the bailiff, poked his head into the courtroom. “You all pau in here, Mr. McMartin? I need to lock up.” Pancho nodded and stood. “Yes, Lew, I’m done. Put a fork in me.” “For what it’s worth,” Lew said, walking into the courtroom and pulling his keys out of his pocket, “I thought you did a great job on a dead loser of a case.” Pancho gave a wan smile. “Thanks.” He loosened his tie, picked up his briefcase, and walked out of courtroom into the real world.

David Myles Robinson was a trial attorney in Honolulu, HI for 38 years before retiring to the mountains of New Mexico, where he lives with his wife, a former Honolulu trial judge. In the days of yore, before becoming a lawyer, he was a freelance journalist and a staff reporter for a minority newspaper in Pasadena, CA. He is an award-winning author of six novels, three of which are Pancho McMartin legal thrillers set in Honolulu. Having traveled to all seven continents, he has also published a travel memoir entitled CONGA LINE ON THE AMAZON, which includes two Solas Traveler’s Tales award winners. He says he includes his middle name, Myles, in his authorial appellation because there are far too many other David Robinson’s running around.

WEBSITE & SOCIAL LINKS:

Website: davidmylesrobinson.com Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/DNRobinsonWrite Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DavidMylesRobinson/

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[renaroo]

The Search (9/16)

Disclaimer: Red vs Blue and related characters are the property of Rooster Teeth. Warnings: Language, Canon-typical violence, Psychological manipulation and trauma Rating: T Synopsis: [Canon Divergence - Alternate S15] The Reds and Blues saved Chorus, but it has been a year and they are still missing. A motley crew has been gathered with the common goal of finding the war heroes, though the road is more troubled than anyone seems to realize.

A/N: Well, while I’ve fallen more than a little behind when it comes to keeping up with the current season of RvB I’m pretty happy with continuing this story, especially since we’ve only got seven chapters left after this!! (oh my gosh, right?) It’s been a blast writing these characters all together and I hope you all enjoy it as well!

Special thanks to @theshadowlord, @analiarvb, @cobaltqueen, @secretlystephaniebrown, and Yin for the comments and feedback!

The Common Goal

Things were getting so redundant that Kaikaina could have just about screamed. Washington was arguing with FILSS, Carolina was arguing with Andrews, Junior was honking his little head off to the point that Kai wasn’t even sure who he was honking toward. It was the suckiest turn a road trip had ever taken in her life and she kind of was beginning to hate everyone.

Which was why Dex had always told her, growing up, that they didn’t travel when taking vacations. Because they’d end up hating each other on the way there.

“Fuck, I never thought Dexter would be right about anything in my life,” Kai groaned, throwing her arms in the air and rolling her eyes. “But here we are, six abortions later and fucking hating everybody on a tiny ship.”

“Grif, we don’t have time for whatever you’re complaining about!” Wash yelled over his shoulder almost reflexively.

“Fuck you! What’re you? The monologue police now?” Kai cried out in return. “I mean, fuck you, dude. I thought we had a whole moment or something back there on the prison planet! Where the fuck’s that, Wash? Or are you one of those Johns who only like a girl when she’s crying?”

Washington turned and stared at her. “We’re trying to save the Reds and Blues, do you have something productive to suggest?”

“Yeah, take it out of your ass already, jesus fuck,” Kai replied.

Before Washington replied, Carolina held up a hand as if to silence Kaikaina immediately. “We don’t have the time, Li’l Grif!”

“Dude, fuck all of you,” Kai snapped, finally getting out of her seat and marching past the arguing group. “And I’m not just saying that because yesterday I would have fucked you all. I mean like, I would absolutely push you off the fucking ship without helmets on right now.”

The reporter immediately stiffened. “Private Grif — Kaikaina — I’m not sure what’s the proper address for you… We need you flying the ship!”

Kai let out a long groan and looked up to the ceiling where the speakers for the cockpit were secreted away. “Sheila?”

“I am the Freelancer—“

“Yeah-yeah-yeah I don’t give a fuck!” Kai screeched in return. “Autopilot for now and tell me when these assholes figure out what direction we’re going in so that I can come and fly them without wanting to smash in any of their heads!”

“Understood, Private Kaikaina Grif,” the ship returned in a content tone.

“Fucking. Hell,” Kai snapped before going through the cockpit doors and heading toward the tight ship’s bunking area.

She had never needed stress relief like she did right then at that moment, and there were about five ways off the top of her head that she could think of relieving some of that pressure. And since being as pissed at Wash and Carolina as she was at the moment took threesome off the table, she was just going to go straight toward dildo.

Looking around the room, Kai was attempting to remember which mattress had been the last one she masturbated on when she realized that her running internal monologue wasn’t the only voice that she was hearing.

Rather, in low tones across the room, Doctor Grey was muttering.

Kai glanced over to that side of the room and noticed a bright light illuminating from something in Doctor Grey’s lap and was also making sound. Immediately Kai began to get defensive and absolutely shocked that someone else was using her glow in the dark electric vibrator without at least asking permission when she finally caught onto what Grey’s actual words were.

“I’m afraid that the only window I can give you is twenty-four hours, Doctor,” the device said in a voice that was even less familiar to Kaikaina than the reporter’s.

“I was only going to ask you for twelve, Vanessa,” Grey replied. “Chorus will need an immediate defense to these charges, and… Our people have suffered too much and come much too far to withstand further slander on this level. We’ll do what we can but…”

“You’re right,” the device said with a long sigh. “It’s just… I know your assessment of the situation must be right, but that only makes what we have to do that much harder. They saved us. All of us. I don’t want to repay that with a stab in the back.”

“Our decisions are sometimes made for us, President Kimball. You’ll have to come to accept that in your position now as much as you had while you were a general,” Grey replied almost coldly. “We move forward for Chorus.”

“For Chorus,” Kimball replied before the device turned off and the glow disappeared.

Doctor Grey sighed and closed her device, continuing to sit on the bunk in the corner with some kind of defeat visible in the way she held her shoulders.

A few solid seconds passed by as Kai just stood in the door of the bunk room with her eyebrow raised and hand on her hips. But when that was obviously not enough to catch attention, she shrugged and cried out “What the actual ever fucking hell?”

Surprised, Grey turned and looked at Kaikaina almost stunned. “Private Grif, I hadn’t… How long were you—“

“You’re about to get all back stabbing on us? What the fuck?” Kai demanded.

“I am not backstabbing you,” Grey said calmly, methodically getting to her feet and holding up her hands as if to calm Kai down.

“The hell you’re not! I just heard someone on your little computer say stab in the back and you’re fucking talking about us!” Kai glared at Grey. “Also all that shit like For Chorus? Are you… are you infiltrating us for some kind of Glee Club Cult? Because I swore off anymore cults after the last one wanted everyone to eat this bitch’s placenta. Like no fuck you if I’m not eating my own why the fuck would I eat yours?”

Doctor Grey stared at her in shock. “Wait, what?”

“You heard me!” Kai snapped. “You’re going to kill us for some kind of cult!”

“I am not in a cult!” Doctor Grey squeaked out so high pitched that Kai actually reached up and held her ears.

“Okay, ow,” Kai hissed in pain.

“I am not in a cult,” Grey repeated, lower. “Chorus is my planet, the one your brother and the other Reds and Blues saved. I was speaking to our planet’s president and briefing her on what’s going on so far. And about how the UNSC is framing this situation against us and them.”

Kai squinted at Grey. “You mean how my brother and friends said some bullshit no one on this ship believes?” she asked.

Grey hesitated, which Kai had absolutely no patience for.

“Oh my fucking god it is because of that! Don’t blame my bro and everyone for that bullshit! We don’t know what’s going on with them, so don’t be a fucking stupid bitch about it—“ Kaikaina went off scathingly.

“I don’t appreciate being called that,” Grey said quite temperamentally.

“Fucking tough,” Kai snapped, turning to leave the bunks. “It’s probably the nicest thing that’ll be said to you after I tell Officer Washington and Carolina what you’re doing!”

She was already one step out the door when Grey called out for her.

“Kaikaina! No, please… wait,” she said desperately, crossing the bunk room quickly to grab onto Kai’s shoulders.

Immediately, Kai spun around on her heels and slapped off Grey’s hands. “Don’t go in for the stab! Ugh! I fucking hate backstabbers! You always go for the back when people aren’t looking!”

“I’m not going to backstab you, metaphorically or else,” Grey assured her.

“Oh, going for the ol’ front stabby work, fine with me,” Kai snapped before pulling off her gauntlets to unleash her manicured nails. “You better watch it, Doc! I went to public school for fourteen whole years!”

“No stabbing at all! Just… I have a question for you, and I need it to be answered,” Grey said seriously. “Why are we here, Kaikaina?”

Kai got into brawling stance, bouncing on the balls of her feet. “Now you’re trying to confuse me with metaphorical puzzles. Well fuck you, I’m a Marxist!”

“No, I don’t mean metaphorically, I mean why are we here on this mission?” Grey asked desperately.

Letting up some, Kai squinted suspiciously at the doctor. “To save my brother and friends. Duh.”

“No, Private Grif, that is why you’re here,” Grey answered somberly. “Tucker Junior is here because he is looking for his father and will hopefully be able to continue preventing further war between our races. Agent Carolina is here because she, as former leader, feels responsibility for her troops, and especially for the Epsilon AI. Agent Washington is probably most like you, here for all the Reds and Blues, but his primary motives will always rest with his own team — the Blues over the Reds. And Miss Andrews… well, she’s here for the truth, she says, but I believe she’s here for a story.”

“Right,” Kai replied, more than a little confused by the rhetoric. “We’re all here for the same thing.”

“No, we’re all here for different things that lead to the same goals,” Grey emphasized. “Kaikaina, your brother and friends… they’re also my friends, and I owe them not only for my life countless times over, but for the entire existence of my planet. Of my people.” She took a breath and folded her hands together. “And I have done terrible things for my people before. I don’t regret doing them. I just did them. Because they were things which needed to be done. And I will continue to do anything in the name of my people first before anyone else.” She finally met Kai’s eyes. “I want to save my friends. But I will save my planet at all costs.”

Taking a step back away from Grey, Kai couldn’t hide her disgust. “Including turning on my brother?”

“Just like deep down you know it’s true that you’d give up all the rest just to save your brother,” Grey assured her.

At first, Kaikaina opened her mouth to fight back, but there were no words to express how she felt. Or, at least, the words that were there did not entirely dispute Doctor Grey. She audibly snapped her mouth shut and just glared at the doctor instead.

“It’s fucking shitty,” Kai spat out.

“I agree,” Grey replied.

“And we’re not really a great team if we’re all thinking the same things but don’t agree who we want to save the most,” Kai continued.

“That… remains to be seen,” Grey assured her before stepping forward. “If you must tell Carolina and Washington, I can’t stop you. And I won’t apologize to them just like I’m not apologizing to you. But if there’s a chance — any chance at all — that we can all get everything we want, then having me with you in the upcoming battles and aftermath is going to be very useful. And the best way we can work together, is if none of us are fighting.”

Lowering her guard entirely Kai exhaled deeply. “You’re a sneaky bitch, y’know that?”

“Still don’t like that phrase,” Grey replied with a forced smile.

“Fine, but I’m not giving up suck my clit as a one-liner,” Kai warned her.

“I would never dream of taking it from you,” Grey assured her.

For as long as Junior had grown up around human languages, for as much as he understood when humans spoke, for the life of him he could not understand a single reason everything was so difficult between his father’s friends at the moment, leaving him to sit in his seat and watch the conversation bounce back and forth between everyone like an extremely long volley.

“Are you trying to tell me that you can’t narrow down UNSC outposts more than twenty locations?” Carolina demanded from Andrews. “I could google a list of UNSC outposts and get that as a lead. Other than telling our story how exactly are you helping us out?”

“You need to calm down and listen to what I’m saying, Agent Carolina,” Andrews said, hands up defensively. “We’ve been nothing but honest with each other thus far and there’s no reason to think that I’m going to undo the civility and respect we’ve maintained.”

“My patience wears thin even for my friends, Miss Andrews, and my trust of this situation has been cut nearly in half after realizing that your next big story is probably going to be on how you escaped the monsters of Project Freelancer!” Carolina shouted.

“That is not my next story, I report the truth, and until right this minute I have not seen anything monstrous from the two of you,” Andrews fought back viciously.

“Okay, I think that’s enough,” Washington said, literally getting between the two women.

“Bow chicka honk honk,” Junior hummed to himself boredly, knowing full well that no one else would hear or understand the context.

“Carolina, narrowing down to twenty outposts in the entire UNSC galactic territory is a big deal,” Wash reminded her steadily. “And we can have FILSS develop a route so that we can hit all of them as quickly as possible.”

“It would be my pleasure!” the ship-lady said, causing Junior to look up to the speakers. It didn’t matter how many times the ship talked to them, it still caught the young hybrid off guard.

“And, Miss Andrews, there’s no disregarding the fact that your career is based almost purely off brokering information as needed,” Wash continued, looking toward the reporter. “I can respect that. But I can also distrust it since we have no idea what information you’ve not given us that could seem like nothing to you at the moment but can be instrumental to finally finding and saving our friends from whatever is happening now.”

“I’m not trying to treat your concerns as invalid,” Andrews assured them both. “Believe me, I understand that… missteps in ethics by my profession have made a terse relationship between ourselves and the military just by default. But at the moment, neither of you are military. You’re wanted fugitives who need their names cleared as much as they need their friends helped. Hopefully fulfilling one will help you fulfill the other. Otherwise… this will get increasingly difficult for all of us.”

“In what way?” Carolina demanded.

“In that two wanted Freelancers, a Chorusian doctor, and a missing alien messiah hitting the specific UNSC bases that have been upgraded from FPCON Normal to FPCON Delta in just the last week without any known terroristic or military action in their area is not the easiest cover to keep under,” Andrews explained steadily.

“Then give us something to narrow it down with,” Wash begged.

“Like what exactly, Agent Washington?” Andrews demanded.

Wash sighed, running a hand through his hair and looking stressed beyond his years. “I… I don’t know. But there must be something which can be plugged into FILSS—“

“Bow chicka honk honk,” Junior yawned.

“—that can help her statistically better our chances,” Wash concluded before rounding on Junior. Judging by his expression, he had forgotten the young alien had even been in the cockpit with them. “What have I told you about doing that, Junior? You’re too young to even know what it means!”

In response, Junior stuck his tongue out and clicked his lower mandibles together for added effect.

“Then tell me something about Hargrove, something that only your experience with him and the UNSC Subcommittee would reveal,” Andrews answered sternly.

“I can’t believe you’re actually playing into the whole quid pro quo assholery,” Carolina snapped, arms crossed.

“Don’t take it personally,” Wash assured Andrews, turning from Junior again. “Carolina getting snappish and angry with someone without throwing them through a wall is usually a sign of affection.”

“Who’s side are you on?” Carolina demanded.

“The side of getting our friends back,” Wash reminded her firmly.

“This isn’t quid pro quo, per se,” Andrews assured them. “What this is, is those statistical variables you’re looking for, Agent Washington. The more we can get an idea of what exactly it is that Hargrove wants besides covering his own ass here, the more we can figure out which of these UNSC bases are likely to feed into his interests.” She glanced around the room. “The more likely it is that he and your friends would be there. He wants something more than he’s telling. But we need inside his head to know more.”

“Fine, we can do that,” Washington said quickly before looking toward Carolina. “What do we know about Hargrove’s motivations?”

Carolina folded her arms and stared at the floor for a moment before glancing back up to Wash. “He was interested in artifacts. In alien artifacts — that was why he was on Chorus, and that’s how he had Felix and Locus paid. Not to mention how all the weapons for the pirates were a combination technology that he was selling on the black market.”

“Would he be so bold faced as to use UNSC assets for his personal wealth on their own bases?” Wash asked critically.

“Why else would he give up so much of his corporate freedom in order to get a position within the government to begin with?” Carolina demanded. “My… The Director once said that the only inhibition to progress worse than government oversight was corporate oversight. Which is why he worked through the UNSC to begin with.”

“Oh, well then, if the Director’s words are what we’re going by now,” Wash muttered angrily.

“No, it makes perfect sense,” Andrews spoke up, walking toward the map FILSS provided on one of the cockpit’s scenes. She looked toward the markers. “If we could just narrow this down to alien artifact sights that would be available to Hargrove through UNSC bases… It could—“

Before Andrews could even finish, the twenty green pens highlighted on the galactic map flashed, half of them switching from blue to red, then the map enhanced so that only the remaining blues were left.

“Thank you, FILSS,” Carolina said, stepping up to the map. “This is a start.”

“We could begin by going to Orion-113, it’s the closest site, and the smallest so easiest to comb,” Washington offered.

Recognizing the name, Junior let out a long sputtering sigh and clicked his mandibles together. in a chatter. Been there, done that.

To the youth’s surprise, though, that seemed to catch his companions’ attention, having them turn to look his way — or at least, Carolina and Washington did. Andrews joined them belatedly.

“What do you mean? You’ve been to Orion-113?” Wash asked.

Junior nodded.

“That’s right,” Carolina said, snapping her fingers. “Tucker and Junior served in the Peace Corps after the war ended, right?”

“Specifically, they were working with Sangheilli representatives at various artifact and religious locations, overseeing peaceful division of assets,” Washington agreed.

“Blargh” Junior reminded them.

Wash stared at Junior. “What do you mean, turning them on? Your dad was turning them on?”

“Bow chicka honk honk—“

“Wash, it’s just like what Tucker did on Chorus,” Carolina reminded him. “Hargrove could be using his control over the Reds and Blues to switch on alien weapons just like Tucker did before.”

“Which would mean going to sites where Tucker and Junior hadn’t already done that,” Wash marveled. “Junior! Come up here — of these bases, tell us which ones you remember going to! It’ll narrow things down for us even more and mean we can find your father faster!”

Amazed, Junior got to his feet. I can help? he called out through honks.

“You can,” Washington assured him.

Junior’s chest filled with pride and hope like he hadn’t felt since the start of their long search.

The reporter looked around the room a few times and then put away her notepad. “You realize that I am fluent in Sangheilli in order to help my field reporting and nothing that comes out of the child’s mouth is Sangheilli, right? I have no idea how any of you know what he’s saying.”

“It’s one of life’s great mysteries,” Wash hummed with satisfaction on his face like Junior had never seen. “Now come on, Junior, let’s find your dad.”

“Blargh!” Junior shouted excitedly.

[redpandamix]

Endings

Love Story: My Girl - Endings

Warning: Spoilers! If you want to discover the game’s endings on your own, then do not view this page.

Ultimate Weapon

Stamina > 900

Strength > 900

Charm > 900

Moral > 900

Intelligence > 900

Mana > 900

Temperament > 900

Self-esteem > 900

Mayan Princess

Sebastian: Master! There are a lot of people from the palace...they are all outside.

Gawain: It’s a pleasure to meet you. My name is Gawain.

Gawain: I love Emma...I came here to ask for your blessing to marry her.

Emma: Gawain? It’s you!

Gawain: I love you, please marry me? I will spend the rest of my life making you happy!

Emma: Yes...

“She looked so pretty in her wedding dress. She became the prettiest princess in the world! Now the handsome prince and the beautiful princess are finally together. They live happily ever after.”

Intelligence > 800

Temperament > 700

Self-esteem > 450

Rebellious < 20

Charm > 700

Moral > 700

Care > 450

Popularity > 500

Gawain Love > 4

The Prime Minister

“She won the election thanks to her outstanding talents. Now she is the world’s youngest female prime minister. All the people love her, and I am very proud of her accomplishments.”

Intelligence > 800

Temperament > 700

Self-esteem > 500

Charm > 600

Moral > 500

Popularity > 480

Enchanted Friends

The Archmage

“With her outstanding magical talents, the King’s men selected her to be Archmage in the kingdom. I was never too keen on all the magic stuff. But I have to say it is just as strong as any weapon. Especially when you combine the two. As the kingdom’s Archmage, I hope she can protect the nation…”

Stamina > 300

Moral > 700

Mana > 500

Popularity > 500

Intelligence > 620

Temperament > 500

Self-esteem > 500

Foster Love

Intelligence > 400

Temperament > 400

Emotion > 900

Rebellious > 20

Charm > 500

Moral < 300

Care < 500

On the Road

The General

“Thanks to her great grades she got into military school. After graduation, she was sent to the frontline. I was scared to death, but luckily, with her help, we won every way! She and her RH28 fighter plane became a legend in the military. The King praised her himself. She went on to become the youngest general.”

Stamina > 600

Strength > 700

Moral > 450

Rebellious < 50

Intelligence > 500

Mana > 400

Self-esteem > 400

Popularity > 500

Vampire Queen

The Bishop

“She wants to become a messenger for God. She took the position of bishop. Even the King respects her. She wants to bring more and more people into the church. May God bless her, Amen…”

Intelligence > 480

Temperament > 600

Self-esteem > 400

Popularity > 400

Mana > 400

Moral > 450

Rebellious < 20

Church Volunteer times > 20

Glamour Sisters

Sebastian: Young Master, your friend is here to see you.

Emma: Opera, come on in, it’s cold outside.

Opera: It’s okay. Emma, can you come out and walk with me?

Emma: Oh, okay, wait a second, I’ll be right back.

Opera: Emma... I...

Emma: Okay, you know that you can tell me anything, right?

Opera: Um... (took a deep breath)

Opera: Emma, I declined the prince’s proposal...

Emma: Why? Isn’t that your biggest dream?

Opera: Because...I want to be with someone else...

Emma: ...But...But...

Emma: What does your family think about that?

Opera: I don’t care.

Opera: I just want to be with the person I like.

Opera: I want to do regular couple stuff with that person...

Opera: Have some tea or go shopping together...

Emma: But what if...The person likes someone else?

Opera: ...I don’t care, as long as she is happy, I am happy.

Emma: ...

Emma: Silly girl...

“Emma and Opera seem to be joined by the hip. Everyone thinks they are weird, but it’s fine with me. As long as she is happy, I don’t care who she is with.”

Intelligence > 500

Self-esteem > 450

Temperament > 600

Popularity > 500

Opera love > 4

Wife of a General

Intelligence > 400

Charm > 500

Moral > 400

Strength > 300

Temperament > 500

Care > 400

The Senator

“My daughter got a position as a civil servant. She is such a hard worker! She went on to serve and become the youngest senator ever to serve. She gave great advice to the kingdom. I am so proud of her,”

Intelligence > 700

Moral > 400

Rebellious < 150

Charm > 350

Self-esteem > 400

Popularity > 380

Wolf Queen

Strength > 420

Stamina > 600

Intelligence > 300

Mana > 350

Temperament > 500

Charm > 500

Self-esteem > 200

Joey love > 4

Great Gambler

“She doesn’t come home and always stays out at night. Sometimes when she does come, she stinks of cigarettes and booze. I complained to her...so she stopped coming home. She sends me money from time to time. I heard she became the best gambler in the kingdom, I am so worried...”

Intelligence > 400

Moral < 100

Rebellious > 260

Emotion < 100

Charm > 360

Casino Dealer times > 12

Mrs Sebastian

Celebrity

“My daughter has always been praised by other people for her beauty. One day when she was walking on the street and a talent scout stopped her. She became a singer and released an album. Now she has transitioned into acting… A lot of fans chase her down and ask her for autographs. I am so happy for her.”

Stamina > 350

Mana > 300

Temperament > 300

Charm > 600

Self-esteem > 200

Popularity > 600

The Judge

“She got into law school. After graduation, she found a job at the courthouse. Now, she is the youngest judge in the kingdom. I am so proud of her. It makes so happy to see her in that gown.”

Intelligence > 600

Moral > 500

Rebellious < 50

Self-esteem > 500

Lawyer

“She has been doing really well. She graduated from law school and became a lawyer. She just opened up her own law firm. On top of that, she met a man. He is a judge. They are about to get married. I am so happy for her.”

Intelligence > 550

Moral > 400

Rebellious < 50

Self-esteem > 400

Combat Companion

Mathilde: Emma, I have decided to join the Special Forces! I will leave tomorrow.

Emma: So soon?

Mathilde: Yeah? Do you not want me to go?

Emma: Wars can be so cruel and dangerous... Are you sure you want to go so soon?

Mathilde: As a soldier, that’s what I have to deal with.

Emma: No! I don’t want you to deal with that all by yourself!

Mathilde: Eh?

Emma: Let me cover you!

Mathilde: ... Okay, let’s go together!

Emma: Yes!

Mathilde: I am not afraid of anything when you are by my side.

Emma: Me neither!

“She joined the Special Forces with Mathilde. They have accomplished a lot of missions together. As her step-father, I often worry for her. I still think this is not a girl’s job, but after seeing them so happy doing what they loves ... Maybe this I their destiny!”

Strength > 600

Charm > 400

Self-esteem > 400

Popularity > 300

Mathilde love > 4

The Assassin

“She disappeared out of nowhere one day. I didn’t hear from her since then… A couple of years later, I got a letter from her.

Pops: Please forgive me for leaving without saying goodbye. Thank you for taking care of me. I felt that I had lost all feelings for other as a human. The only thing in my heart is how to kill. I like watching headshots from far away… I am a professional assassin. If you have money, I can kill anyone for you… Including my employer…because my only boss is Death. For a gold coin, I killed my employer and all of his family. But…I let their 10 year-old daughter live. She reminds me of us… I hope you are well, please forget about me…”

Strength > 700

Stamina > 300

Rebellious > 100

Charm > 400

Emotion < 50

Doctor

Intelligence > 500

Moral > 350

Care > 300

Emotion > 100

Self-esteem > 200

Popularity > 300

Nurse times > 20

Civil Servant

Intelligence > 300

Moral > 300

Self-esteem > 180

Care > 200

Dancer

“My daughter became a dancer. All of her instructors approve of her skills. She became one of the most famous dancers kingdom. I have attended all of her shows. I love to watch her doing what she loves.”

Charm > 500

Popularity > 300

Temperament > 500

Dance Lesson times > 30

Musician

“With her amazing talent, she got her success in music. Everyone likes her songs. All of her albums went platinum. If you like her music, remember to support her by buying her albums. Downloading is illegal.”

Intelligence > 300

Charm > 500

Temperament > 500

Popularity > 300

Music Lesson times > 30

Painter

Emma: I want to be a painter!

Foster: What? They don’t make a lot of money…

Emma: So what? For art, I will starve!

“With her outstanding talent, she became a great painter. To my surprise, this job does make money. Her art exhibits are all over the world. As her step-father, I do feel proud, but she is too invested in her art. She stays home all day… I just hope she meets a guy someday.”

Intelligence > 300

Temperament > 500

Popularity > 300

Art Lesson times > 30

Nun

“As I was praying, I heard God talking to me: Emma, you are a nun. Spread my message to the rest of the world.”

“She moved into the church and became a nun. Seeing her happily teaching and playing with the orphans makes me happy. I respect her choice. I hope God will bless her and let her be happy.”

Intelligence > 200

Temperament > 200

Moral > 300

Self-esteem > 300

Rebellious < 20

Church Volunteer times > 12

Commando

“It was beyond my wildest dream. I can’t believe she enrolled into the military behind my back! She said she wanted to be like me. As her step-father, of course, I am worried for her safety. But I know she is more than capable. I am proud of her.”

Stamina > 350

Strength > 400

Self-esteem > 100

The Witch

“Everyone keeps on saying that she is weird. She can see things others can’t. Her seemingly weird predictions have proven to be right. Now she is at a level where no one can reach. She moved into the Enchanted Alley to become a witch. I am just happy to see she is doing what she loves.”

Intelligence > 300

Mana > 400

Maid Café Owner

“Today is the grand reopening for my daughter’s Maid Café. She bought it from the old owner. All of the regulars came to congratulate her. Even the royals came to try her food. As I see her dreams come true, I can’t help but be happy.”

Charm > 400

Care > 100

Help at Maid Café times > 12

Stripper

Happily Married

“She majored in finance to become an accountant. After graduation she got a job and a stable salary. She met someone on a blind date. That guy is a programmer. Even though he is kind of a geek, he is really nice to my girl. Now they are happily married. They want to have two kids. I am so excited to be a grandfather, haha!”

Charm > 200

Care > 400

Rebellious < 50

Vampire

Freelancer

“Where did I go wrong? She doesn’t want to study, she doesn’t want to work. She only works once in a while as a freelancer. But she doesn’t mind… As her step-father, I can’t help but worry for her future…”

Stamina > 700

Mana > 500

Temperament > 550

Care > 300

Rebellious > 400

Bravery

Princess Consort

Married to a Businessman

Teacher

Nurse

Awakening Angel

Stamina > 700

Temperament > 550

Mana > 500

Care > 300

Rebellious > 400

Conqueror

Intelligence > 500

Self-esteem > 300

Care > 500

Moral > 400

Emotion > 100

Nurse times > 40

Desperado

Stamina > 500

Intelligence > 500

Strength > 500

Mana> 500

Rebellious > 500

Emotion < 50

Nurse times > 60

The Puppet of Wars

Stamina > 999

Strength > 999

Charm > 999

Care > 999

Temperament > 999

Rebellious > 999

Moral > 999

Intelligence > 999

Self-esteem > 999

Mana > 999

Popularity > 999

Emotion > 999

Hidden Fate

Stamina > 100

Charm > 100

Care > 100

Special Ending

Congratulation on finishing this game with the hidden ending! Thank you for your support. Even though it’s only a game, it is our greatest pleasure that it

Try not to spend too much time on games! Take some time to spend with your family and friends. Don’t hold your phone too close and protect your eyes. Okay, the game is over, go to bed!

[sirithromen]

Alternate Approach to the basic premise of Season 15 of rvb

There is a fair bit of personal favorite stuff in here. You are very likely and perfectly welcome to disagree. I just think this might have been a smoother piece given all the excellent analysis I’ve seen from multiple authors. This is just my opinion after some thought about what could have been involved and the kinds of things I like to see in stories.

Main: While on the moon, every so often either Wash or Carolina will make a discreet run to Chorus to pick up the next round of food and get looked over by Doctor Gray (their implants are old, after all, and AI based brain damage doesn’t magically disappear). When on these runs the Freelancer in question is to check in after a certain amount of time has passed. If they can’t for some reason they are to get back to the team within three hours using a code that explains the delay (anything from ‘traffic, sorry’ to ‘need help, hurry’). When it’s Wash’s turn, he fails both check-ins. The team calls Doctor Gray, only to find out that she got a message saying shenanigans have delayed him and he couldn’t make it ‘til later in the week. They head out to find him, Blues determined not to lose another leader, Reds because Blue shenanigans are always interesting and often informative (no clear opinion here on whether Grif should still stay behind. He had good reason to do so canonically, but I don’t know if the different start would change that). They can still pick up the reporters on their way, and this may be when (and how) they find out about the fake Reds and Blues. Tucker rides herd on the team while Carolina orbits between her people and the next new lead (in Chorus trilogy Tucker was basically heir apparent/apprentice/right hand, so in Wash’s absence he gets Wash’s job, while Carolina does well as a scout who isn’t tied to a group’s pace while still being able to fall back on group support when things get dicey). As such, he’s in charge of corralling the Blues and Reds, while she’s the one to discover the Murder Fridge. Between the fact that she’s been learning how to live at peace (rather than as a powerful extension of the UNSC or Freelancer) and her worry for her teammate, when she sees him she moves immediately to help, and the area of effect freezes her.

Divergence: In this, Temple’s abilities and motives would be...a little different. He isn’t focused on a grudge against any particular Freelancer so much as against the Project itself and the UNSC that sold him and his people to them. He has cycled back round to the point where he believes the best way to spite the Project is to destroy the people they were made fodder for, the ‘valuable ones’ who were worth something to the Director if only because they were the ones that qualified for AI use. He has no real knowledge of Alpha Team except that many of them were able to kill each other before he could find them. There is evidence (though I’d have to look it up) that for a soldier to lose a brother in arms is as devastating to the human mind as losing a spouse of several years. The UNSC, when it conceivably needed every bit of help it could find, chose to sell his people to Project Freelancer as canon fodder for a bunch of experimental assets with no guarantee (or even necessarily high probability) of success. He saw his friends die for someone else’s mindgames, someone else’s farce, and became determined to destroy the people he sees as responsible. The thing is: the Reds and Blues are not exempt from his disdain. They adopted Freelancers, after all. They were friends with the AI, and founded by Florida himself. Because they chose to acknowledge that the Freelancers were just as badly treated (albeit in very different ways) as the Sim Troopers, and show mercy, even compassion to them, he doesn’t really separate them from Freelancers proper in his own mind. He is careful not to raise the groups’ suspicions since he understands he can’t take them all, or all at once, but he holds the Freelancers accountable for the Director’s and Counselor’s decisions (since they were the ones on the ground, the ones he saw) and doesn’t choose to distinguish the Reds and Blues from the Freelancers. Primarily: He has a valid issue with the UNSC (they sold. their people. into slavery. During a war of attrition where every life counts. Both in Halo base canon and in rvb. I’d hope a lot of us have valid issues with the UNSC). He just handles it wrong (which actually...kinda parallels how season 6 Wash handled things, only he went for the AI/records instead of the humans).

(This also means that if you do have Reds and Blues joining him, it’s not that they’re idiots or traitors. They’re just exhausted and want some real justice for a change.)

Main again: He’s laid several false trails of which the Blues and Reds are only the latest (where he couldn’t find analogues he found someone able to play the part), and there is the implication that he’s been doing this for long before the protagonists became aware of it (the same way it’s implied for Hargrove with Chorus, or the Director with...everything really). He proves generally able to play them off of each other (working at the cracks that no one was mending in war that only showed now they were at peace), and is a competent, serious threat.

Still, his biggest mistake comes from underestimating those he’s against. I’ve always been fond of the headcanon (not sure how popular it is) that Grif is canny, sly, and very aware, even if he usually can’t be bothered by what he notices. But (at least early on) he was also very careful with family. And this guy may have been able to cause trouble for strangers without it affecting him greatly, but now he’s targeting Grif’s (found) family. That is not acceptable. He is motivated, and he undermines Temple pretty effectively. Tucker’s main obstacles in this would be trying to handle the whole group at once when they saw him as a rookie and can’t always remember that he’s earned his leadership, even when  he doesn’t really want it. Caboose would be a little more angry, and a little more focused. This guy isn’t offering a chance to reconnect with First Church, he’s taken away Third Church (the first one who was openly friends right back with him). I don’t have enough of a handle on the others to be sure of what (if any) differences would result for them, but the premise is the same: The Reds and Blues are much farther and better than Temple (if that’s even his real name) assumed, and their loyalty, determination, and luck win out. They defeat him, save their Freelancers, and prevent him from starting a new Insurrection fiasco via terrorism. Wash does still have to get medevacced because he spent significantly longer (like days longer) than Carolina in armor lock (and she’s mostly scraping by on short bursts and leaning on the walls in between). They fix things as much as they can, acknowledge where they can’t, and try to establish a balance between being crazy/danger magnets and having a real life. Ideally, this puts them in roughly the same place (story-wise) as at the end of season 15 canonically, but in a way that may be a bit smoother or more sensible.

[viralhottopics]

34 Poets Of Color Summarize 2017 In Verse

If 2017 was a poem, what would you call it?

This was the question Tabia Yapp the founder ofBEOTIS, a boutique agency that represents leading writers, speakers and multidisciplinary artists of color posed to a group of contemporary poets she admired.

The open-ended question provided respondents with ample space to play. Some poets answered the prompt in two words, while others filled up pages, all while attempting to describe a time categorized by so much fear, anger, hope, action and love.

Were only two months into 2017. At times, it feels like the year has already stretched beyond its 12-month boundaries. Yet at the same time, 2017 still doesnt feel quite real. Just as Black History Month comes to a close, the following poets are helping us make sense of this uncertain moment in history,using language as a guide.

Behold, 34 poets of color summarize 2017 in verse*:

1.Alok Vaid-Menon

Alok Vaid-Menon is a nonbinary artist with a lot of feelings.

2.Camonghne Felix

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Camonghne Felix, M.A., is a poet, political strategist, media junkie and cultural worker. She received an M.A. in arts politics from NYU, an MFA from Bard College, and has received fellowships from Cave Canem, Callaloo and Poets House. The 2012 Pushcart Prize nominee is the author of the chapbook Yolk, and was recently listed by Black Youth Project as a Black Girl From the Future You Should Know.

3.Yosimar Reyes

Yosimar Reyes is an undocumented American poet and activist, who was born in Guerrero, Mexico, and raised in East San Jose, California.

4. Ada Limn

Ada Limn is the author of four books of poetry including Bright Dead Things which was nominated for the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Kingsley Tufts Poetry award, and named one of the top 10 books of the year by The New York Times.

5.Hieu Minh Nguyen

Hieu Minh Nguyen is the son of immigrants. He is the author of two collections of poetry, This Way to the Sugar (Write Bloody Publishing, 2014) and Not Here (Coffee House Press, forthcoming in 2018).

6. Fatimah Asghar

Fatimah Asghar is a Kundiman Fellow and a member of the Dark Noise Collective. She is the author of the chapbook AFTER (YesYes books, 2015) and the co-creator and writer of the highly anticipated web series Brown Girls.

7. Clint Smith

Clint Smith is the author of Counting Descent (2016) and a doctoral candidate at Harvard University who has received fellowships from Cave Canem, the Callaloo Creative Writing Workshop, and the National Science Foundation. A 2014 National Poetry Slam champion, his writing has been published in The New Yorker, The American Poetry Review, The Guardian, Boston Review, Harvard Educational Review and elsewhere.

8.Danez Smith

Danez Smith is the author of Dont Call Us Dead (Graywolf Press, 2017) and the award winning [insert] boy (YesYes Books, 2014). Danez is a 2017 NEA Fellow and member of the Dark Noise Collective.

9.Eboni Hogan

Eboni Hogan is a Brooklyn-based poet, playwright, actress and curriculum writer who has performed in over 65 U.S. cities, as well as internationally in Ghana, Germany and Austria. She is the 2012 Women of the World Poetry Slam Champion and habitually bougie.

10.Paul Tran

Paul Tran placed Top 10 at the National Poetry Slam and Individual World Poetry Slam in 2015. They live in Brooklyn, where they serve as Poetry Editor at The Offing and Poet In Residence at Urban Word NYC.

11.Oompa

Oompa is a hood, black, queer slam poet, rapper and Beyonc aficionado from Boston seeking to make space where the world says there is none for her. She just released her debut album November 3rd in 2016 after making final stage with House Slam at the National Poetry Slam in Decatur, Georgia.

12.Joshua Aiken

Joshua Aiken won the 2016 Martin Starkie Prize for his poem Disappearing Act(s) while studying at the University of Oxford on a Rhodes Scholarship, and is an alumni of Washington University in St. Louis where he was a proud member of WU-SLam, a spoken word poetry community.

13.Janani Balasubramanian

Janani Balasubramanian is a writer of speculative fiction whose art and editorial work has been featured in The New Yorker, Guernica, Creative Time Reports, The New Inquiry and more. Theyve presented work at 160-plus stages across North America and Europe, including the Public Theater, MOMA and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Janani is currently working on Sleeper a dystopian trilogy about sleep, dreams and physics.

14. Hanif Willis-Abdurraqib

Hanif Willis-Abdurraqib is a poet, writer and cultural critic from Columbus, Ohio. He is a columnist at MTV News and a Callaloo Creative Writing Fellow. His first collection of poems, The Crown Aint Worth Much, was released by Button Poetry in 2016.

15.Safia Elhillo

Safia Elhillo is a Sudanese-American writer and educator living in Washington, DC. Her debut collection of poetry, The January Children, is available from University of Nebraska Press.

16.Denice Frohman

Denice Frohman is an award-winning poet, writer, performer and educator. She is a 2014 CantoMundo Fellow, 2013 Women of the World Poetry Slam Champion, 2013 Hispanic Choice Award winner, and performed at The White House in 2016.

17. Eve L. Ewing

Eve L. Ewing is a sociologist of race and urban education at the University of Chicago School of Social Service Administration, a poet and an essayist. Her debut colleciton of poems, Electric Arches, is forthcoming September 2017 via Haymarket Books.

18.Elizabeth Acevedo

Elizabeth Acevedo is a National Poetry Slam Champion with two collections of poetry, and The Poet X (HarperCollins, 2018) is her debut novel.

19.Jacqui Germain

Jacqui Germain is a poet and freelance writer based in St. Louis, with poems published in Muzzle Magazine and The Offing, and essays published in The New Inquiry and The Establishment. Shes the author of the chapbook, When the Ghosts Come Ashore, published through Button Poetry/Exploding Pinecone Press, and is still trying to figure out her own public and private resistance.

20.Jayson P. Smith

Jayson P. Smith is a Brooklyn-based writer, curator, performance artist and current Emerge-Surface-Be Fellow with The Poetry Project.

21.Ocean Vuong

Ocean Vuong is the author of Night Sky with Exit Wounds, a New York Times 2016 Top 10 Critics Pick and winner of the 2016 Whiting Award.

22.Nate Marshall

Nate Marshall is from the South Side of Chicago. He is the author of Wild Hundreds and an editor of The BreakBeat Poets: New American Poetry in the Age of Hip-Hop.

23.Cameron Awkward-Rich

Cameron Awkward-Rich is the author of Sympathetic Little Monster (Ricochet Editions, 2016) and the chapbook Transit (Button Poetry, 2015). A Cave Canem fellow and poetry editor for Muzzle Magazine, his poems have appeared/are forthcoming in Narrative, The Baffler, Indiana Review and elsewhere

24. Ariana Brown

Ariana Brown is an Afromexicana poet from San Antonio, Texas, with a B.A. in African diaspora studies and Mexican-American studies. She is the recipient of an Academy of American Poets Prize, a 2014 national collegiate poetry slam champion, and is currently working on her first manuscript.

25. Kwame Dawes

Kwame Dawes is the author of City of Bones: A Testament (TriQuarterly, 2017).Dawes notes that his title is for an era that spans 20082020.

26.Nabila Lovelace

Nabila Lovelace is a first-generation Queens native; her people hail from Trinidad and Nigeria. Sons of Achilles, her debut book of poems, is forthcoming from YesYes Books.

27.Aja Monet

The revolution will be livestreamed on facebook and instagrammed by your favorite thot, triggered on twitter, so uber cool not to uber, the only bloodshed will be freebleeding or my pussy is borderless, you mean to tell me they dont have starbucks on this march? i wish a mothafucka would, dear 1968, you aint aged one bit, nothin new under the sun, the more things change the more they stay the same, this revolving door, my president is a puppet, white house of horrors, when the pedophile priests bless america, or the crooked babalao, voodoo these divided states, birth of no nation, if you know whats good for you, kill capitalism, get free or die tryin, rosie the riveter ushers in new law and order, black magic will not be photoshopped, liberate these psychic streets.

Aja Monet is a Caribbean-American blues poet.

28.Porsha Olayiwola

: porsha o is joy in dystopia : ready to die, again : how to out breathe the ghost inhaling all around you : watch me dance on the grave of everything that tried to kill me : why is the blood so shiny so pretty splattered : the black dyke avoids being devoured, again : how attendance at therapy appointments and guided meditations heal humans : how i got whole : we do not run, here : here, i am the riot : watch me burn this place to ash

Porsha Olayiwola is the 2014 Individual World Poetry Slam Champion, the 2015 National Poetry Slam Champion, and the co-founder of House Slam. She identifies as a black, lesbian poet, a hip-hop feminist, an educator and a organizer.

29. Patricia Smith

Beowulf Sheehan

You, so blatantly golden, the helm of every keening ship, so our plummet and our mirrors, so the steel-eye and bellow, you, ass perpetually clenched, sinking in your suit jacket, so our blunder and kismet, the tips of your dwarfish fingers bled raw with currency, you, relentlessly training your teeth, spit-glued crown defying every wind, you are the back-bended sniffler lost in the shadowed end of the school yard, you, legless savior, nailed to the same cross you carry.

Patricia Smith is a poet, teacher, performance artist and author. Smith is a professor at the College of Staten Island and in the Sierra Nevada College MFA program, recipient of Guggenheim and NEA fellowships, a National Book Award finalist and the author of eight critically acknowledged volumes of poetry, including her most recent, Incendiary Art.

30.Julian Randall

By this I mean less sexually (though if thats your thing by all means get down with yourself) than there is nothing better suited to me to talk about survival than the idea of Morning. Ive thought nearly every day of this new year about a casually brilliant quote from Natalie Diaz What happens after the unimaginable? The morning after, and the one after that. 2016 was almost across the board a year in which we faced so many events that we could only describe as being the unimaginable; I cite that every single time somebody mentions Prince dying I feel it all over again as if for the first time because my brain starkly refuses to hold onto the fact that hes gone.

And yet, in the face of so many apocalypses (here I mean the tertiary definition of apocalypse, brought to my attention by the genius Junot Diaz, meaning revelation because I will not give this year or any other the dignity of being my presumed end) we are still here. Wounded, but here. Oppressed, but here. Grieving, but here. Fighting, and aint one of the criteria for fighting to be here, present, alive? And how truly awe worthy, fight worthy is that? Alive, after all this time. Thats as constant as dawn, whether the clouds ensnare the senses or not somewhere behind all that, the sun, daybreak. That to me is the Morning After it becomes morning in America.

As unimaginable tragedy and hurt settles into reality that we (here I am speaking specifically to marginalized folks, especially my own communities as a Queer Black & Afro-Dominican person) are in so many ways also the unimaginable. How many generations of survival and endurance and an irreducible desire to live have brought us this far? Does that not make us something unimaginable? Does that not give us the power to bring a morning too?

Julian Randall is a living queer black poet from Chicago pursuing his MFA at Ole Miss. He can be followed on Instagram and Twitter @JulianthePoet.

31. Aziza Barnes

retitiling 2017 A logic: cop is to take & pig is a cop & Jimmy is a Johnson & Johnson is a dick & Dick is a Richard & Chip is a Frank & Frank is honest & Also a suggestion & Dick is a suggestion & Short for a fuller name & Coarse is a word for hair & Hair is dead & growing & Dead is brown often on plants & Green is money unless its young & Guap is bread is cheese is where we put pesticides & A pest is a hairy pussy & pussy Is a pet or a chore or a slave & A slave is brown so is dead so is hair so is also growing & Dick or Short for the fuller name is a weapon or An honest suggestion or Something to cop or Something to pig & pig is often an element of a verb to pig often it is a direction out which is to eat a lot of unnecessarily & a jimmy is also a way to loosen what been locked also a verb to jimmy which is also something to cop but short for the name theft which is to eat too much & coarse Is the opposite of fine which is Handsome & Too thin for light & Unable to braid & also just Okay & okay is how Andrew Jackson signed his checks which is also how Richard Blaine signed his checks in Casablanca OKAY which is a movie about a Dick that Jimmyd a fine slave or a Richard that Johnsond a nation for some young or a man that stole a woman for $10,000 francs & called it a name that didnt relate or a shared name with a commander to genocide of Native Americans & of which I am one & if OKAY wasnt OKAYD there would be more of me & dick had a black piano player Or dick had a suggestion for a dead music which is Latin song & Rome is where Latin was & the aqueduct Was a system of moving dirt from water from the people or a system of a pest to eat versus a pest to drown which is what happened to many coarse bodies or women bodies or slave bodies in certain lakes in the Americas where Richard Blane is from & saved by throwing a fine green on a plane for his coarse green love or his hair grown dead or his OKAY gone OKAY or his unable to braid suggestion of a cop which is also a pig which can be a pet if it behaves well.

Aziza Barnes is blk and alive. Winner of the 2015 Pamet River Prize, Azizas first full length collection i be but i aint is from YesYes Books 2016. They are a Cave Canem Fellow, co-founder of The Conversation Literary Festival and co-host of the podcast The Poetry Gods.

32.Dominique Christina

The year is no poem. It wont be called anything With light inside it. It snatches milk from The mouths of infants A lion devouring shrines and sunlight.

2017 is a weapon.

A low groan in the dark, A woman in the basement With a wire hangar and a baby No bigger than a mustard seed That she will meet as an ooze in her palms 2017 is the lynch mob discography: Girl bodies Gay bodies Trans bodies Black bodies Poor bodies Nobodies All strung up like Mardi Gras beads on Main Street The stench doesnt stop the parade

Thats America.

2017 is a funeral procession. A lunatics marching orders Conversion therapy Celebrity Apprentice on A terrible loop,

2017 is no poem.

Its the bastard child of Interred bones in the Tallahatchie River A severed spine in Baltimore A boys brain on the street in Ferguson The last breath of a man in New York Traffic stops that crescendoed to murder 2017 is a dustbin Stacked with protest signs and court orders The lickety split shudder Of a nation that ran into its ghosts And only the women were Acquainted with being haunted. Empty cupboard soliloquy queens Snatching their children From public schools and Handing them switchblades

Mommy is sorry.

This is what the teacher wont show you.

Take it.

These bastards need mortality.

2017 is the state house glittered now in menstrual blood.

Girl children baying at the dawn limp moon Oak trees decorated with brassieres Nazis with their teeth knocked out A linguistic resistance With no room for words like alt right When white supremacy is story enough.

2017 is no poem.

Its a pipeline trying To breech an ocean, A woman in a wheelchair At a protest rally, A tear gas canister on the steps of the Capitol.

2017 didnt bring my God with it.

Just hexes and hurricane winds A democracy doomed by The wrong weather wreckage of Rich men and their crucifixion fetish We gon all carry a cross You better believe it Let whatever happens be biblical then. Let the locusts come if they must.

America is a murdered woman Ghosting the world With her cracked levees, Her burned out mosque, Her shot up church, Her impossible promise Her unmarked graves, And I am dumb with calling her name. Despite the yelps of history, My wobbly faith splits heaven wide open Reimagines God as mammy, Starch white apron and a shotgun, Babies suckling at her unremarkable breasts Pushing scripture out from the rubble Saying the battle is finally over and me, War-walloped and heaving, Rummaging through debris looking for Something that glitters…

Oh America, (If that is your real name) Take these bones and perform One last miracle Take these hands and give me Back my mouth Take this mouth and give me back my feet Take these feet and give me back my courage Dazzle this uncaptured girl that I might Live long enough to tell my grandchildren About the year I stopped beseeching God and In the trench grew my own temple. God of the in-between, God of the firing pin, God of the slaughtered lamb, God of a risen god, Unspell me, here.

I am singing you the hymn of my skirt. I am burning yellow dahlias on my One good altar not splintered by shrapnel Or singed with smoke… If there is any prayer left In this world let it be What is left of our hearts, Our coliseum hearts, And the stupid hope that Regulates the metronome Of our blood machinery. The orchestral thrumming, The insistent rumble, Of our broken, impossible hearts, The only evidence Ie ever had That mountains can be moved.

Dominique Christina is a mother, published author, licensed educator, two-time Women of the World Slam Champion, social agitator, intersectional feminist and cultural Jedi. She is sought after to teach and perform at colleges and universities nationally and internationally every year.

33.Jason Reynolds

IF 2017 WERE A POEM

id call it a flaming bag of shit left at the front door at the side door at the back door your door a gathering double-dutch bucking at flames the orange of them plucking at our faces like immature older brothers jarring us from sleep barring us from passage crackling like broken voice smelling of familiar kindling to some to me at my door cotton rope paper add flint for spark shoot shit no water no water this time this time id call it this time us all here like every time this prank the prank of all stupid white boy pranks gets pulled figuring between filthying our feet up or kicking our feet up and letting the whole damn house burn down id call it this time deciding to sacrifice name brands some chapped overworked epidermis and an epidemic of supple unbothered soles eager to know stomp for once id call it this time were prepared to explain the haunting fecal scent to the houseguests wed promised to host over water id call it they are coming from far they will need a place to stay

Jason Reynolds is The New York Times bestselling author of several novels for young people, including Ghostand All-American Boys, which he co-authored with Brendan Kiely. His new novel in verse, Long Way Down, hits stores this fall.

34.Mahogany L. Browne

1.

When they turn bodegas into boutique grocery stores

When they bounce cops up the block

Like this hipster protection program wont turn back

Lefrak into Harlem turn back Harlem into Chirac

turn back BedStuy into Brownsville turn Brownsville back

Into the Bronx back into Gaza back…

You will taste this strange and bitter American history

Where the Mom and Pop work more hours than the Governor

Where the pesticides overflow our sewer systems

Float our food deserts into neighborhoods

One way in

One way out

Tell me this gentrification be for my own good

Tell me this housing project keep us warfare ready

Tell me Biggie died for our sins

& Ill show you a Brooklyn stoop with a babies name etched in chalk

A hashtag ghost gone already

A price tag on his sisters face

Shes been missing since Sunday

Where choppa lights paint concrete a trail of breadcrumbs

A haunting finding its way back to our homes

1.

The Electoral College is

a lullaby designed to put us

back to sleep.

1.

The ocean is weeping a righteous rage, she got questions for the living:

& what about the sweetheart who would grow to love Tamir Rice? Mike Brown? Korryn Gaines? Akia Gurley?

What about they mamas singing their name before each breakfast?

Or the church praying for their redemption bibles raised in the air?

What about their (almost) children? How about they Daddys smile?

What about they name make them so easy to turn to ash?

How we ghosting black boys for the toys we gift them?

1.

On a Monday

A white body told my black body

It aint earned no apology for the bloodshed

For the nights when my skin grow so cold

I know I must be inches from death

For each death hand delivered to me,

this: silence this: certain dismissal this: post racial reality show this: confederate hug

& dont it bloom like a mushroom sky?

What about the blues? Why it cry like hail? Why it hell like America so so long

1.

Yo: America

Whatchu know about noose ready

Whatchu know about chalk lines & double barrels

Whatchu know about a murder weapon

Or a loose cigarette

Or a baby sleeping on a couch

Whatchu you know about the flag

The confederate fathers

The truck that followed me down a lonely road in Georgia

The names that I rolled off my tongue in prayer?

Saint Sojourner

Saint Harriet

Saint Rekia

Saint Sandra

Bring me home

Or leave me steady

Gun aimed and cocked ready

Con artists turned 45th resident of the White House

While the 44th President is lifted off the grounds

by his shadow & his Black wife

She sideeye all day

She cheekbone slay

While the media aim and shot at presidential legacy

Until weed smoke & a concert make us remember BLK people aint never been human here

Aint we beautiful, those that survived the purging

Those that spill, body splay beautiful from a hateful song

This swing sweet sweet low spiritual aint neva been inclusive

Whatch know about larynx & baton

How you sing him crow in the key of Emmett Till

What fever fuss you awake?

Who else got copd anxiety?

Call it what it is: Post traumatic slave syndrome

Call it land tax until homeless

Call it abortion turned sterilization

Aint no lie like the one against our stillborn children

Aint no lie like the many that shaped our babies into mute cattle

Prison industrial complex reverberates in the tune of elementary

4th graders are the easiest targets

1.

A Math Problem:

If 1 woman, got a 7 Mac 11

& 2 heaters for the beemer

How many Congress seats will NRA lose?

How many votes will it take for a sexual predator

to lift the White House off her feet?

1.

I am practicing this aim

This tongue a shoestring strafe

My tongue say:

Melt the wires of Guantanamo

Yasin Bey coming home aint what we thought it would be

Aint no solace in Mecca

Even Spike Lee left Brooklyn

Here, a slumlord will leave my front steps

Full of rat piss &AirBnB my neighbors apartment

for half my take home pay

Unhinge the city of Rikers

Bring back the reapers

Give them the loot & the stoop

Yea, they good at killin but so was Jefferson.

I mean Washington. I mean CIA. I mean Cointelpro.

I mean they mimic your Grace. I mean its a 2017, America.

A new new year &your face lift be botched.

Mahogany L. Browne is author of Redbone (nominated for NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Works) and co-editor of forthcoming anthology The Break Beat Poets: Black Girl Magic. She is an internationally touring poet and Artistic Director of Urban Word NYC, Program Director of BLM@Pratt, Poetry Program Director at the Nuyorican Poets Caf.

*All biographies were provided by Tabia Yapp and the participating poets.

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