#its my second this year and is unsurprisingly full of complications

[st7arlight]

what i've been up to lately

[yourknifemyside]

"You're not the same anymore Don't wanna play that game anymore You'd make a better window than a door"

#4. The New Abnormal, by The Strokes (2020) 🔁

After how complicated and conflicted my thoughts on Comedown Machine were, I feel like I can breathe a giant sigh of relief that this is going to be a much less difficult review. The New Abnormal is equal parts an evolution and a return to form for The Strokes after a seven year gap from their prior album. It's just a good album, I'll tell you that up front. Until now, I've always tended to pass it over when thinking about the band. It was always a record I'd think was good, but would exit my mind faster than it'd arrived once it was over. I never knew if that was just me not giving it the proper attention it deserved (I often put it on while doing other things,) or if it really just wasn't particularly memorable. The main goal of this revisit for me was to give it my full attention, so that's what I did!

Unsurprisingly, but thankfully all the same, The New Abnormal has course-corrected the baffling production choices made back on Comedown Machine. I think there's still elements of that album lingering in some of these compositions and arrangements, but pretty much only the positive elements. The open, airy soundscapes of their earlier days has returned and been refined—cleaned up, but not without the grit and edges that helped to give The Strokes such a lively sound. There's a larger use of synths and drum machines than their previous efforts, but they're treated as an added flavor more than a distraction or diversion from the core sound.

The New Abnormal features The Strokes at their most mellow and melancholy—there's no shortage of bright, summery bangers of course, but a welcome, healthy dose of introspective and contemplative songs really help to uniquely color The New Abnormal as something truly "new" for the band. This is a more weathered and mature group of musicians than the brash, attitude-fueled kids that burst on the scene two decades earlier, and I like that this growth is reflected tonally, both lyrically and sonically. All the while, the blissfully catchy melodies that keep me coming back to The Strokes remain on full display. This is honestly The Strokes at their catchiest in what must've felt like forever. The main melodies in The Adults Are Talking and Ode To The Mets, and the choruses to Brooklyn Bridge To Chorus and At The Door, might be some of the best the band have ever put out. There's just a lot of life and energy to these songs, something that was sorely missed on their previous record. Even their slower song have an undeniable drive to them—At The Door is truly impressive in how engaging it is for its entire five minute length, without any percussion to propel the song forward. That's owed to the strength of a great vocal performance and melody from Julian Casablancas, who, in a stark contrast from Comedown Machine, really feels like he gives a shit on this one. Lyrically and vocally, I feel the passion towards crafting something meaningful and personal on this record, and I appreciate that most of all.

As much as I do like this album, I still find a couple things that give me pause. It's my typical complaint of "some of these songs are a little too repetitive," and, "some of these songs are a little too long," both of which compound in the Eternal Summer that slices the tracklist in half. Pretty much every song on this album runs a minute or two longer than you'd typically expect of The Strokes, but Eternal Summer puts them all to shame, coming in at a staggering six minutes and fifteen seconds. "Eternal" indeed; whereas most of the rest of these songs make pretty good use of their extended runtime, this one puts a lot of emphasis on its repetition, and goes on for a long time. This also harbinges the heaviest use of falsetto on the album, something I really did not like on Comedown Machine. I have to say, it really doesn't bother me quite as much at any point on The New Abnormal as it did back then—he sounds a lot better in that range this time around, and implements it more tastefully across this record—but there's still a bit too much of it on this song for my taste. It ends up being a bit of a skid mark on an otherwise pristinely flowing tracklist, which is a damn shame. Bad Decisions also isn't really my favorite, combining repetition with very familiar-sounding parts. They kinda just mashed the instrumental of I'll Melt With You with the vocal melody of Dancing With Myself and called it a day. It's a little bit too goofy for me, but I can jive with its energy during a full album listen, I'd just never put it on separately. But those two songs back-to-back, as well as having a lot of great tunes, but nothing that really blows me away, are the only things keeping The New Abnormal from being truly excellent.

I really like this album, and I can see it continuing to grow on me with time as I revisit it more often (this will probably be in rotation for me this spring/summer!) I'm excited to see if my feelings on it blossom further in the warmer weather, or if it once again leaves my mind the moment I publish this review. Only time will tell, I suppose!

7 / 10 Favorite tracks: Not The Same Anymore, The Adults Are Talking, Brooklyn Bridge To Chorus Least favorite: Eternal Summer

Listened on Jan 12th, 2025

[yurisorcerer]

This is an interesting one.

I watched the first two episodes of this with friends because I heard from some other folks that it was amusing. I'm not sure I'd agree with that assessment necessarily, but it's definitely at least decent. The first episode is extremely dry and expository, though, so if someone got a bad first impression of it I wouldn't be that surprised.

So what is this? Well, something with the very broad structure of a fairytale, basically. The crown prince Oscar needs an heir but has had his, ahem, manhood cursed by a witch. He sets out to find, and conquers, a mystical tower, petitioning the witch of *that* tower, Tinasha of the Azure Moon, to free him of his curse. When she can't, he tries to convince her to become his wife instead, since the curse won't affect her. (It's complicated.) When she refuses, he instead asks her to live in the capitol for a year, which she agrees to. Implicitly, this is also to give Oscar time to woo her over.

Fundamentally all of this is basically fine, but it's a little dry. That said, as someone with very strong opinions as to how such characters should be written, Tinasha works a lot more than she doesn't. She's powerful, mercurial, a little silly, and full of secrets. Still, her ultimate purpose in this story is to eventually marry Oscar, a fact that the show, in its first two episodes, circles around but (perhaps unsurprisingly given how we're not very far in), doesn't directly address. Tinasha says herself that witches are objects of fear, but the narrative doesn't fear her, so it's hard for us to do so either, and the fact that she occasionally is played as nothing more than a staid tsundere is pretty dull. So it's a mixed bag on that front.

On the other hand, Unnamed Memory is hardly the anime actually responsible for reducing the sorceress to a gag character, and Tinasha is still given more depth here than many are, and when she's on she's *on*, a particular scene in the second episode where she takes out a cadre of evil wizards and a giant wolf imprisoned in a chunk of ice all on her own.

Basically, the impression I'm getting here is of a story carried by one of its characters having a lot more appeal and charisma than the rest. Oscar is broadly Fine as a protagonist but he's hardly worth talking about compared to Tinasha, and I'll acknowledge my own biases there, but I really just can't imagine this show working with a less interesting female lead....and it's entirely possible they'll fumble that aspect anyway. So I'm not sure if I'm going to stick with this or not. If I am, it will mostly be for Tinasha.

Also, it's worth addressing the visuals since this is a series by the infamous jankmeisters Studio ENGI. All told it actually looks pretty much fine, at least not any worse than any of its narou-kei anime contemporaries, and there are actually a few scenes where the animation pops in a nice way, so that's cool. God knows if that'll continue being true, though.

[cristalconnors]

TOP 20 SONGS OF 2020

20. “BELOW THE CLAVICLE”- EARTHEATER

“The meaning hasn’t come up yet. It’s still under the surface below the clavicle.”

It isn’t just Alexandra Drewchin’s ear splitting soprano when she hits that impossibly high B, practically shrieking out the “cle” syllable of clavicle, though that’s undoubtedly when I first knew that Eartheater’s avant folk was for me- it’s also the cinematic, lush strings, both bowed and plucked (is that acoustic guitar or harp? I genuinely can’t tell), deepening and complicating the sonic texture of Drewchin’s study of parsing through emotions you aren’t ready to make sense of yet. 

19. “PUSSY TALK”- CITY GIRLS, FT. DOJA CAT

“This pussy so ghetto, this pussy speak ebonics”

“WAP”’s funnier, classless Irish twin, though it’s important to note “Pussy Talk” came first. Yung Miami and JT enlist Doja Cat to expound on everything their pussies deserve and will absolutely settle for nothing less than. And why should they when they’re spitting out verses this inspiredly hilarious with such confidence and flow? 

18. “LICK IN HEAVEN”- JESSY LANZA

“Once I’m spinning, I can’t stop spinning...”

Jessy Lanza is talking about losing your cool, letting your emotions get the best of you and lashing out instead of letting cooler heads prevail, but when that earworm of a chorus hits- “once I’m spinning, I can’t stop spinning” - I can’t stop spinning. I’m that woman on the single art, a wine mom lost in the delirium of the dance floor and in Lanza’s hypnotic, fragmented rhythms.  

17. “GASLIGHTER”- THE CHICKS

“Boy, you know exactly what you did on my boat!”

“Gaslighter” finds Natalie Ames and her Chicks at their most simultaneously ruthless and ebullient, ripping Ames’s ex-husband Adrian Pasdar a new asshole and ratcheting up the righteous anger of “Goodbye Earl” tenfold, channeling it into a glorious wall of sound in what might be their most rousing, emotionally resonant chorus in their storied career. 

16. “HANNAH SUN”- LOMELDA

“Hannah do no harm...”

While “Hannah Sun” begins as an exquisitely observed rumination on grappling with long-distance, pining for someone who’s a continent away, it gradually becomes clear that Hannah Read blames herself for putting the distance between her and the subject of her longing, and that the distance isn’t strictly literal. Skittering synths (or is that distorted flute?) complicate and enrich the texture of the song, allowing it to build organically and stunningly towards a heartbreaking plea to herself- “Hannah, do no harm.”

15. “FIRE”- WAXAHATCHEE

“And when I turn back around will you drain me back out? Will you let me believe that I broke through?”

When I’d drive back and forth between Dallas and Austin over and over again when I was in college, I’d often get off I-35 past Waco and take the back roads through towns I’d never heard of, the sun setting spectacularly behind the titular hills of Hill Country that were beginning to roll out in earnest. I think about that a lot when listening to “Fire,” a song dripping in rural Americana that was, unsurprisingly, inspired by a road trip. We’ve probably all been Katie Crutchfield as she crossed the bridge into West Memphis- alone in the car, awed by the simple beauty of the American countryside, making speeches to ourselves about our past mistakes and figuring out a way forward. 

14. “3AM”- HAIM

“On the screen and in my jeans, just make me feel good.”

On an album full of genre departures and decidedly darker themes than we’ve typically heard from Haim in their near decade of syncopated bubblegum pop rock, “3AM” stands out not only as their most effective stab at pastiche, slipping into the trappings of contemporary R&B with shocking ease and gusto, but also as their most unabashedly fun track in their entire oeuvre. “I think you can hear the amount of joy and laughs we had making this song” Alana Haim tells Apple Music, and you absolutely can.

13. “QADIR”- NICK HAKIM

“We’re sinking down a hole without thinking about our loved ones who might be shrinking...”

I often wonder if I’m putting enough effort into maintaining my relationships with friends I don’t see regularly, who live several time zones away, living their own lives while I live mine. When the thought of sustaining simple correspondence becomes overwhelming, it’s easy for months to go by before you realize you haven’t spoken to one of your closest friends. “QADIR” plays less like a eulogy for a friend gone too soon (though of course it is that) than a plea to the listener to put in the work. It’s worth it. You never know when it’ll be too late.

12. “LEVITATING”- DUA LIPA

“Glitter in the sky, glitter in our eyes shining just the way we are.”

Just a few bars of that delightfully bouncy, extra-terrestrial beat is enough to launch me into space. It’s so refreshing to hear a song that remembers that pop is supposed to be joyful and is best when it’s a bit silly. When discussing this track with Apple Music, Dua Lipa cites Austin Powers as inspiration, elaborating that “if I do a video for this, Mike Meyers has to be in it.” Can’t you just see them together, performing a farcical pas de deux of seduction like the spiritual successor to “Beautiful Stranger?”

11. “RIQUIQUI”- ARCA

“Love in the face of fear! Fear in the face of God!”

Arca’s made a career of harnessing chaos and somehow making sense of it. On an album that finds her embracing more traditional, accessible song structures, “Riquiqui” is a reminder that even when working within an AB structure, she’s still breaking rules left and right and having a blast doing it. She’s also never sounded so ferociously empowered in either her femininity or in her Venezuelan identity, rattling off local colloquialisms with affection and verve without a second thought as to who’s going to understand it. 

10. “FANTASY”- AGAINST ALL LOGIC

“I think about you all the time...”

Or, the musical embodiment of this gif:

When Nicolas Jaar’s tormented synths and crunching beats give way to Beyoncé’s unmistakable alto, it is indeed quite the shock. But should it be? Even if 2017-2019 finds him ditching the dancefloor in favor of more severe, unforgiving soundscapes, his already varied career has shown us nothing’s off limits to him. So why not reinvent Beyoncé’s iconic “Baby Boy” into an industrial, vaguely sinister certified bop that arguably surpasses the original?

9. “PEOPLE, I’VE BEEN SAD”- CHRISTINE AND THE QUEENS

“If you disappear, then I’m disappearing, too.”

“People, I’ve been sad” plays out with the vulnerability and intimacy of a tumblr text post you put out in the middle of the night, only to hastily delete later when it gets no notes. It forgoes flowery language in favor of just getting to the point. “I’ve been sad.” Héloïse Adelaïde Letissier blows up this deceptively simple sentiment with richly layered textures and a big screen gloss not to offer any remedies but instead to offer solidarity. We’re all in this hell together.

8. “DESCRIBE”- PERFUME GENIUS

“Can you just find him for me?”

Mike Hadreas has never sounded so hopeless. Utilizing harsh, rattling guitar that would make Kevin Shields swoon, he conveys the experience of being so estranged from happiness and joy that you need to rely on others to describe the sensation to you. But how, when exploring darker textures than he ever has before, does he make despondency sound so divine? 

7. “4 AMERICAN DOLLARS”- U.S. GIRLS

“No matter how much you get to have, you will still die and that’s the only thing.”

Meg Remy picks up where she left off on “4 American Dollars,” reviving the subversive pastiche she mastered on In a Poem Unlimited, this time harnessing the power of funk to dismantle the fallacies we’re taught about the virtues of capitalism. Heavy stuff, but Remy makes it less didactic than joyous, ensuring the listener will be singing “I don’t believe in pennies and nickels and dimes and dollars and pesos and pounds and rupees and yen and rubles” until they start to wonder if maybe they shouldn’t, either. 

6. “STUPID LOVE”- LADY GAGA

“I freak out, I freak out, I freak out, I freak out!”

Due to a healthy spirit of contrarianism mixed with a touch of internalized homophobia and genuine bafflement at her universal appeal and praise, I was a proud Lady Gaga hater for as long as she’d been a cultural entity. I just didn’t get her at all and loved that about myself. Annoying, I know. 2020 was the year I was finally ready to let that all go. Just before the world fell apart in March, I was out at Flaming Saddles (RIP) with friends the night this song came out and by the sixteenth time it played, I understood why it was inducing such hysteria. This was a cultural shift. After a frustrating near-decade of Gaga subverting expectations so thoroughly that she was actively working against her strengths and sabotaging her cultural ubiquity in the process, coupled with the most frightening era of political upheaval in our lifetimes, she was finally ready to save us and be Lady Gaga again. Booming synth, drag sensibilities, absurd thematic conceits- all was right in the world. For the first time in a long time, people had something to be hopeful about, and as I danced that night, I felt that hope, too. 

5. “SHELLFISH MADEMOISELLE”- RÓISÍN MURPHY

“How dare you sentence me to a lifetime without dancing?”

As soon as that bass starts (the funkiest bassline in the history of music?) it’s like Róisín Murphy’s snake charming oboe, coaxing even the most stalwart curmudgeon onto the dancefloor and keeping them there, dancing frantically and involuntarily like the citizens of Strasbourg in 1518, trying their best to keep up with Murphy who isn’t even breaking a sweat, commanding the masses with a sultry remove, beckoning you closer, pulling you inexorably deeper into the mass of gyrating bodies and whispering in your ear “come and have a dance with yer mum.”

4. “PARTY 4 U”- CHARLI XCX

“I only threw this party for you...”

As PC Music / Bubblegum Bass / whatever you want to call it enters its second decade, Charli XCX proves not only that there’s still new textures to explore within it, but also that no one can exploit its artifice to get down to emotional truths like she can. How can she make something this slick sound so vulnerable? “I only threw this party for you” she croons over and over again over glorious syncopated synths that build exquisitely, reaching their climax only to immediately fall away, until it’s just her and her trusty autotune, pleading with the subject of the song to just come to the damn party. But they won’t, of course. They never do, do they?

3. “WAP”- CARDI B, FT. MEGAN THEE STALLION

“I want you to touch that lil’ dangly thing that swing in the back of my throat!”

Sometimes you just immediately know you’re living through a significant cultural moment. No, not COVID. I’m talking about the experience of hearing Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion’s instant classic “WAP” for the first time, a titanic meeting of the minds that finds both of them at the apex of their cultural influence and at their most undeniable. Can the argument be made that these two aren’t the two best rappers in the game right now? How could you hear this inspiredly filthy sex positive juggernaut, where Cardi and Megan are trading the sickest verses of their careers, and not think these two deserve the world? 

2. “KEROSENE!”- YVES TUMOR

“I can be your baby in real life, sugar. I can live in your dreams.”

If the 2010′s were all about the pop-ification of all music, trading in live instrumentation in favor of polished synths, 2020 forcefully announced the return of the electric guitar when Yves Tumor and Diana Gordon’s back and forth lustfully submissive declarations of desire suddenly gave way to that nasty guitar rip lifted from Uriah Heep’s “Weep in Silence” to announce yet another cultural shift in a year chock full of them- rock and roll was, indeed, here to stay. 

1. “I WANT YOU TO LOVE ME”- FIONA APPLE

“I move with the trees in the breeze, I know that time is elastic.”

We live and we learn. Years spent soul searching and on self-discovery shape us into better, smarter people, progressively knowing and understanding ourselves and the world around us more and more clearly, but Fiona Apple knows that none of that can quell the ferocious desire to be loved by someone. By anyone. By you, whoever that is. We can know that time is elastic and that when we’re gone all our particles will disband and disperse and then we’ll be back in the pulse, and we can know that none of this stuff actually matters, but still- we want, we want, we want. 

[keeponshouting]

After Infection

This is a rewrite and hopefully eventual completion of a massive multiverse mash-up of my OCs with a couple belonging to @whenromancesmoked and a few others from back in the day. I have absolutely no idea if anyone else is going to be interested in reading this (ok, I know a few people who will probably read it) but psh. I’m having fun and want to share.

Note: This is also a George Romero tribute of sorts. Like I started it for giggles because my PB for one of the characters was in the Dawn of the Dead remake and it just snowballed, which I guess means I should throw a WARNING: ZOMBIES sign up here or something. Anyway!

After Infection: Dawn of the Dead

It had seemed like a good idea at the time – or, well, more accurately, it had seemed like the right thing to do. There was a request from fellow hunters in a small town a few hours’ drive south and things had been quiet lately back home so Nate had figured that they could spare the time and energy. Besides, Dennis had been going pretty stir crazy for a while. Even if it was a hunt, it would be a good excuse to get out on the road for a while, a sort of vacation.

It had not turned out even remotely like a vacation.

They had been a little too late to the original party but apparently just in time for things to get much, much worse. Nate had brought a variety of tools just in case but he had primarily been prepared for an infestation of what locals called “hell rats,” a creature that was pretty common in the south and usually pretty easy to handle if you found their nests quickly enough. Sure they were venomous but as long as you were careful… He had not been expecting an infestation of zombies.

“The lot looks pretty clear right now.” Dennis is hunched over at the door, using the peephole to take a quick survey of the goings on outside their hotel room while Nate brews a second pot of coffee to get him through whatever the morning brings. After all, as long as decent coffee is available, he might as well take advantage of it. Lord knows he might have to go without for a while and God help his poor boyfriend’s patience if that happens.

When Dennis stands up straight again, his head is just about even with the top of the doorframe and he yawns as he leans back against the door, arms crossed over his chest. “So, come up with any plans yet or are we still waiting for the caffeine to kick in?”

Nate snorts into his cup and foregoes actually taking a drink for the moment in order to respond. “You ask that like I have any idea what sort of plan to use here. I’ve met exactly zero hunters who’ve actually had to handle zombies in the past decade at least. I honestly don’t think they’ve ever been a problem this far north before.”

“Well, there sure are a lot around here for something that’s never been a problem.”

“Some forms of infection can spread at an exponential rate in populated areas.” He drains a good half of the coffee in hand. “Our best bet is probably just to find out if there are any other non-infected people anywhere around here.”

Dennis flops across the bed, face down, with a muffled grunt.

Nate just silently continues drinking as the percolator finally finishes beside him and he very seriously considers making a third pot, just in case.

---

Zombies – shambling, groaning, flesh-eating, nearly Hollywood perfect zombies. For fuck’s sake. This should have been such an easy fucking job and now there are zombies.

Viktor strings together another line of curses, voice little more than a low growl, as he chambers another cartridge. Beside him, a terrified little girl whimpers. He simply scowls, sets Glock number one aside, lights a cigarette, and pulls out number two. “Zatraceně zasraný vědci.” Leaning over toward the window, he catches sight of a proper target and empties the last bullet into the back of its skull. What a fucking cliché.

This was supposed to be simple. They had agreed on that fact the moment that the specifications of the job had crossed the table. It should have been routine, easy money. Three towns, three targets, each plan the same; get rid of the scientist, call their employer, and let the clean-up crew come in and deal with the rest. The first two hits had gone off without a hitch. So, of course, it just figures that last one would have to be so much more complicated than it should have been.

“I—I—I w-want m-m-my d-da—daddy.”

Viktor’s jaw clenches as he exhales – slow and even, two thin streams of smoke – as he reloads the gun in hand and wills himself to remain calm. His patience is wearing thin at this point, though. He had not planned for going into this as usual and coming out as a babysitter. The target’s five-year-old daughter was not supposed to be in the house at the time of the hit. She only stayed with him on the weekends. What an absolutely brilliant turn of events that this was apparently the first Monday that she had ever spent with her father.

Dropping his half-smoked cigarette on the floor, he shoves himself up to his feet. He had lost contact with Miguel some time earlier, likely as a result of the scientist’s neighbor backing into an electric pole at full speed after one of the zombies had rushed her car. The impact had cut power to the entire neighborhood and he can only assume that it must be the cause of the interference. With long-range communication down, that leaves only one alternative: he needs to get within the functional range of their radios. Unfortunately, the hit had been planned for the late evening and he had only been able to make it as far as a vacant apartment building a couple blocks away before night had started to set. From here, short-wave does him about as much good as a water pistol.

“Come on.” Viktor has already reached the door and taken quick stock of the corridor beyond by the time he bothers to look back. Unsurprisingly, his unwanted charge remains unmoved, still curled up as small as she can possibly make herself, which is pretty damned small.

“A-are you g-g-gonna take me b-back to da-daddy?”

God give him strength but that stuttering is getting real old real quick. “Ne.” He swings the door open as quietly as possible and waits for a moment, listening for any movement outside, before carefully stepping out and making his way to the stairwell. With the knowledge that their escape route is currently free of hostiles, he takes a deep, centering breath and heads back to where he began.

“Look, holčička.” He crouches down in front of the child and tries to sound as reasonable as possible. Given his current level of frustration, he thinks that he is doing a fairly decent job. Miguel, however, would likely disagree. “Either you just come with me and go wherever I go, quietly and without complaint, or I leave you here. Your choice.” Yeah, Miguel would definitely disagree.

From the way that the little girl’s eyes go so much wider than he would have ever imagined possible, he feels safe in assuming that she disagrees as well and, five minutes later, they are creeping down an alleyway with more stealth than Viktor ever would have expected of a kindergartener.

---

What was taking so long?

That is the question that had led Alex out of the band’s bus and that was the question that he now wants to keep from crossing anyone else’s minds. This is all way too fucked up, like the should not be real kind of fucked up. None of this should be happening.

On the ground, backed up against the flat tire of the car that their driver had originally gone to help, Alex kicks hard into the jaw of what may have once been a perfectly lovely young woman and sends her sprawling backward where she lands on top of the monster still gnawing on the corpse of a man who should have still been living and breathing and driving their goddamn bus. Alex’s hand gropes around behind him for anything even remotely useful as a weapon and lands on the tire-iron just in time to smash it into the face of the dead woman once more lunging in his direction. Another strike as she tries to get up and he cringes and almost loses his lunch at the feeling of her skull cracking open and her brain splattering across the pavement. Hell, he really might have lost it if not for the howl coming at him far too fast. This time, he opts not to look as the hears the wet crunch and just leaps to his feet and starts running back toward relative safety.

“Alex?”

Oh fuck. “Stay on the bus, Val!”

“Don’t you fucking tell me what to do, Niccols! What the fuck is going—”

Alex fails to hear the rest as he spins around to slam the tire-iron as hard as he can into something else behind him. This time it gets yanked right out of his hand as the body drops and he scrambles back onto the bus, practically picking up a protesting Val in order to get her out of the way of the door that he immediately slams closed. He lets her go as he collapses into the driver’s seat, wide-eyed and hands shaking, and it takes him a moment to register the sound of his dog whimpering by his knee, let alone that of his own name. When the world comes back into focus, though, Val is staring at him in horror. It takes him another moment to realize why.

“Alex? What the fuck happened?” Whether she sounds more panicked or angry, Alex is far too dazed to tell. Her hands reach for his face, his shoulders, moving down to check every inch. “Are you okay?”

Taking a deep breath, he raises a hand to wipe at his face. No. No he is not okay. “Yeah. I’m fine.”

Val does not look like she believes him at all. “Is that—Fuck. That—That’s blood! Why the fuck are you covered in blood?”

Breathe, Alex. Always a good plan to breathe. “Shh. Don’t…” Never mind. Telling her to keep it quiet is pointless. Everybody else will have heard it already.

He shoves himself back to his feet, legs weak and wobbly, and stumbles as he makes his way through the curtain that separates the cabin from the rest of the bus. It is instantly evident that the rest of the band did, in fact, hear all of that. All three of them are already staring at him before he even properly steps into view. He is pretty sure that Sasha is the one choke out an “on shit” and it is definitely Macy whose response comes out as barely a squeak.

“Blood?” On his feet now, Macy rushes in to cling to Alex’s shirt, bodily fluids not withstanding. “None of it’s yours, right? You’re not hurt? You’re okay?”

Again, Alex reminds himself to breathe, turning just enough so that he can see where Val still stands in the doorway, Parker lying on the floor a foot or so behind her, his ears back and expression scared. For her part, Val is gripping the doorway so tightly that Alex can only assume that she is trying very hard not move and crowd him any further.

“None of it’s mine.” He looks at the faces around him, all of them staring, all confused and various degrees of frightened. It brings everything right back into focus. “We need to—” It takes a deep breath in and a slow breath out to get his thoughts back in line. “Everybody grab a bag, pack food, necessities, just—just whatever.” Stepping a little closer to Val, just near enough to pull one of her hands down from the wall and give it a quick squeeze. “We gotta get outta here.”

---

Nate leans out of the passenger side window just far enough to level his sights on one of the creatures that already looks less human and fires. One shot, between the eyes, and it hits the ground and disappears beneath the feet of its companions. He hears a quiet gagging sound come from the driver’s seat and finds himself feeling a bit queasy in turn. They are both going to need to make some real changes to their perspective re: what constitutes a monster and they need to make those changes really quickly because as of right now, it is going to be really difficult to get out of this mess without completely rewiring their conscience.

“Um, Nate?”

With barely a glance spared toward Dennis, Nate focuses himself on reloading. “Yeah?”

“How many, uh—how many of them are back there?”

The question gives him pause but Nate squints to get a count anyway. “About a dozen in view. Why?”

“Because we need to, uh—we have to stop for a minute.”

Nate drops back into his seat so quickly that he nearly smacks his head off the door. “We what?”

Not even bothering to look at him, Dennis simply peels one shaking hand off of the steering wheel to point at something ahead. “We have to stop.”

Nate has to squint but he starts moving the moment that he sees exactly what Dennis is looking at. “I’ve got the door.”

It was rather obvious even from a single glance at a decent distance that the man up ahead, standing stock still in his torn slacks and a blood, rolled shirt-sleeves, was staring straight past the car speeding toward him and cursing the sight of the ever-growing number of zombies trailing behind. Dennis hits the gas and is slamming the breaks in what feels like no time.

Nate shoves the back door open and feels like there is really no room for argument when he shouts to the man to get in but he has been wrong before and apparently he is right now. Instead of heading straight for them, the guy curses in a language that they are now close enough for Nate to tell is definitely not English and turns away.

“Hey!” Dennis spins in his seat to look behind them, which Nate is sure that he immediately regrets. “What the hell? What’s he doing?”

“I don’t know. He’s just—” And that is when the stranger pulls his gun, takes out three approaching zombies in relatively rapid succession, and finally turns to sprint back toward the car. “—getting a little girl.”

The child is practically flung into the back seat and their new passenger wastes no time slamming the door behind himself and snapping, “Go. Now.”

Dennis really does not need to be told and floors it the second he knows the door is closed.

“Take a left onto Carver,” the man continues, his tone speaking volumes regarding how unwilling he would be to hear any question or protest. “Follow signs for the mall plaza.” He leans out the window to pick off a few more of the monsters before Nate’s slightly incredulous look catches his attention and his scowl is honestly pretty terrifying. “You’ll be out of gas before the edge of town so, under the assumption that you wish to live—”

Nate’s eyes narrow in suspicion but Dennis has absolutely no qualms against following the orders of anyone with a plan right now and practically takes the aforementioned turn on two wheels when he nearly misses it.

---

“Are you sure you can hotwire this piece of shit?”

“It’s not a piece of shit, it’s a fucking classic.”

Val rolls her eyes at that as she continues trying to calm the utterly panicked Macy currently clinging to her so tightly that he might as well just climb into her goddamn skin. “Fine. Can you really hotwire this ‘fucking classic’?”

Two seconds later, the engine revs up as Alex sits back in the driver’s seat with a trin and a waggle of his stupid eyebrows. Sasha squeals in relief and flings her arms around him from her place in the back seat, as he laughs. “My mechanical genius is wasted on this red wire green wire bullshit.”

He pops the trunk just as something begins to stir inside of the nearby diner and Val shoves Sasha aside to squeeze Macy in so that she can help Nico load their bags at record speed. By the time she flings herself into the front passenger seat, there are already zombies starting to stumble out of the woodwork. Fuck seatbelts. “Gun it!”

Alex hits the gas and they peel out of the parking lot just as the diner’s doors give way.

He had tried to explain what had happened while they packed. It had felt impossible for Val to actually wrap her mind around it at first but once she had seen the mess outside? She had practically dragged Alex and Macy off in search of the nearest source of potential transportation. They needed to find something quickly and it needed to be something fast and she needed to not think about how painfully familiar the blood and gore looked, though she had only ever seen anything like it in her nightmares. When Alex had needed to stop and vomit into the nearest garbage can, she had a feeling that she understood why and a little pocket of rage flared to life in her chest – not because he had to stop but because he never should have been the one to wind up with someone else’s blood on his hands.

“Where are we going?” Macy is the one to finally ask, almost inaudible from where he has curled up against Sasha now, and Val catches his eye in the rearview mirror before she looks toward Alex.

Alex, however, is entirely too focused on driving to really think but so much and instead catches her eye before clearing his throat. “Nick?”

In the back, Nico turns away from the horrors outside of his window. “What?”

“How do you defend yourself against a zombie invasion?”

“Wha—Zombies aren’t exactly my specialty here.”

“No,” Alex agrees, “but zombies are supposed to be a helluva lot dumber than, say, Reavers, right? You know Reavers.”

“So?”

“So how would you defend yourself against an invasion of retarded Reavers?”

The drummer just stares at him for a moment with an expression that plainly says that he may consider that to be the dumbest question that he has ever heard. Eventually, thought, there is an answer. “I’d find the most well-stocked, easily-fortifiable location I could think of and hope I could wait out the attack or find some other way to get through them.”

There is silence in the car and then Alex shrugs. “All right. So, where’s the most well-stocked and easily-fortifiable location we can think of?

Five minutes later, they find themselves screeching into the parking lot of the local mall. The location almost seems somehow normal, given the situation at hand. In fact, were it not for the shrieking horde behind them or the knowledge that Alex is currently doing seventy into a public lot, it might almost feel a little reminiscent of home. Val almost finds it funny, really. What’s funnier to her than coming to a mall for safety, however, is the fact that they were obviously not the only ones with that idea, as they are definitely not the only ones pulling into the place with a bunch of undead goons straggling along behind them.

---

“Miguel.”

There is a burst of static in his ear as Viktor leans out to empty his 22 into the crowd of creatures still chasing behind the car that had picked him up on the highway. Once within range, he takes out a couple of the ones latching on to the other car that had pulled in to the lot at about the same time, too. When his magazine clicks empty, he makes a snap decision to save his 20 for later and drops back into the seat to reload. The driver glances at him in the rearview, looking a little bit frightened, while the original passenger only eyes him for a moment before leaning out of the other side with a freshly loaded shotgun. His fellow gunner might not be terribly trusting but at least Viktor can respect that. Besides, who needs trust? The guy’s a fairly good shot.

“Zatratím tě, Miguel!” The little girl still curled up beside him whimpers. He can hear it over the gunfire, the static, all of the goddamned zombies. It is grating on his very last nerve. “Odpovídáš mě!”

He could hope for no better response than to lean back out just in time to watch as a line of four hostiles drops one by one.

“En ingles, ’mano.” Another line of undead hit the ground as the line sputters out then clears up again, leaving room for easily the most welcome voice he has ever known. “Now where the Hell have you been?”

Viktor nearly laughs. “We can trade stories later, miláčku. Right now, I need cover fire while I try to get these people into the posraný mall.”

“Going shopping?”

“Sklapni. We try the mall or they come to your shop.”

“How many?”

Viktor glances toward the other vehicle still circling around the parking lot with them. “Eight plus me.”

“Well, if they dropped you—”

“Miguel.”

“Sí, sí, the mall sounds like a plan. There’s a garage off to your right. No good angle for me to shoot the lock off but I can keep the number of uglies down while you get in.”

“Děkuji.”

“That means thank you, sí?”

Viktor rolls his eyes. “Sí.”

The line bursts back into static with a laugh.

---

As it turns out, the garage door does not, in fact, require a shot to the lock. It rolls up just enough for the two cars to through before Dennis’s little hatchback even hits the ramp. On the other side, a young woman motions for them to hurry while two men in security uniforms stand to either side of the entrance to help keep the monsters at bay, though it appears that this Miguel guy really only needs the most basic of assistance. His precision is honestly kind of terrifying and Dennis is just as glad not to see any more examples of it as he swerves off to one side so that the other car has room. Nate and their scarier passenger are both out before he even has the damned thing in park, seeing to it that nothing gets in the way of girl at the door to slam the thing shut.

“We saw you on the security cameras,” of the security guards explains as he climbs up to try and jam the gears.

The other car’s driver takes a moment to collect himself, then grabs a wrench and makes his way over to the ladder. “Here. Let me have a look at that.”

“Figured we couldn’t just leave you out there.” The guard climbs down to let the driver up. “Then Shannon said she thought you were headed this way.”

“Thanks.” Dennis finally climbs out only to stretch over the top of his car.

The woman now known as Shannon simply smiles. “No problem. Mercy for your fellow man or something like that.” She laughs and shrugs, looking slightly flustered, though that is probably to be expected, all things considered. “Anyway, come on. Let’s get you all inside. We’ve got food, clothes, relatively comfortable furniture… We’ll get you poor things all cleaned up and sorted out in no time.”

There is a general rumble of agreement as the little group follows her to the door that leads into the connected store, allowing themselves to be ushered toward where another girl is waiting somewhat impatiently. That is, they all follow along aside from one man, anyway, who simply mutters something into his headset before switching it off and making his way back over to the hatchback. Shannon looks back, confused, as does Nate, though he looks more suspicious about it.

Dennis just sighs. “The little girl.” Then he ducks through the doorway and drags Nate away after the rest.

---

“Come on, holčička.” Viktor crouches down beside the open car door with a sigh as the child remains curled up in the center of the back seat. Children. How did anyone actually deal with children, let alone have them by choice?

The little girl simply whimpers and mumbles, “There are monsters out there.”

Well, at least the stuttering has stopped and he supposes he can concede that she has a fair point. “The monsters are outside, not with us.”

Before he can receive a response or think of anything more convincing to say, there is someone else coming up behind him, bending down to look the child in the eye with a painfully sympathetic and all too sugarcoated smile. He might be able to handle the sight of it at any other time but right now, with everything that he has just been through and the way that she has the gall to place one of her hands on his shoulder as if—God, he would really like to wipe that smile off of her face.

“Hi, there,” she says, voice floating in a way that speaks plainly of a familiarity with appeasing people under the age of seven. “I’m Shannon. What’s your name?”

Caught slightly off-guard, the child squeaks. “Um. I—I’m—” The little girl shoots a quick glance toward Viktor then, almost as if asking permission to speak with this new stranger before she finally answers. “I’m Amanda.”

Shannon’s smile becomes even brighter, even sweeter, if that is even possible, and Viktor has to dig his nails into his palms to keep himself from taking out her kneecaps when she leans even further over him, hand squeezing his shoulder. “Amanda? Well, that’s a pretty name! Are you hungry, Amanda?”

The little girl nods.

“Well, we’ve got all sorts of food inside. We’ve got toys, too, and games and books and all sorts of neat stuff.”

“And—and no monsters?”

Shannon laughs. “And no monsters.”

Still curled up in the seat, Amanda chews worriedly at her lip for a moment longer, eyes flashing back and forth between the two adults still there in the door. Shannon keeps smiling, encouraging. Viktor just stays crouched there with a clenched jaw and a headache starting to build behind his eyes. When the girl finally moves, though, it does not go entirely as expected. Rather than reaching for Shannon’s offered hand, she instead launches herself forward to wrap her little arms tight around Viktor’s neck and duck her head in under his chin, completely unaware of the rather undignified look of surprise that he is entirely unable to keep off of his face. Unhelpfully, all Shannon does in response is giggle.

[the-fanciful-fangirl]

No One

So I started a new series on AO3 called Different Paths, a place to house the (mostly Luke and Vader) Star Wars AU’s that are always spinning around in my head. 

Below is the first one-shot titled, No One, an AU of Bespin because why not? 

“The Force is with you, young Skywalker.  But you are not a Jedi yet.”

Luke couldn’t decide if Darth Vader is trying to taunt or scare him, perhaps both. 

He supposed that he should expect nothing less from the man who had murdered his father and tortured his friends. Regardless, Luke decided that either way, he and Vader would cross blades that day, whether he was ready or not. He pushed thoughts of Yoda and Ben’s warnings from his mind and ascended the stairs, coming to stand right before Vader. But the Dark Lord made no move to light his saber, so Luke lit his, brandishing it as carefully as he could. His muscle memory moved him into a familiar training stance and for a second he hoped that his work on Dagobah would be enough. 

Vader lit his own blade and slowly lowered it to cross Luke’s. 

It was Luke who struck first, arching the saber up and down towards Vader’s immovable death mask. Unsurprisingly, Vader countered, brushing off Luke’s attack with ease. Unwilling to give up, Luke went at Vader again, with the same overhead strike, but this time the Dark Lord pressed back, sending Luke down to the floor. The young Jedi trainee rose immediately, falling back into his stance. 

Luke was already feeling fatigued. Sweat started to form on his face and while he certainly hadn’t extended much energy yet, neither, did it seem, had Vader. Still, Luke told himself that he wasn’t fighting this battle for himself and he pressed forward. Vader actually shrunk back from the advance and allowed Luke to make the first move yet again. They clashed sabers, over and over again. Luke tried several angles of attack but nothing he did even came close to touching Vader. 

In fact, Luke soon found himself pushed back to the top of the stairs, tired but still full of fire. His mind drifted briefly to thoughts of his father, and not for the first time, Luke wondered if his father would have been proud of him. 

“You have learned much, young one.” Vader's voice almost sounded… complementary but Luke knew he was only imagining that. 

“You’ll find I’m full of surprises.” Luke quipped back, determined not to let his father’s murderer get the upper hand. He thrust his lightsaber forward, aiming for the blinking control panel on Vader’s chest. The Dark Lord was quicker however. With a quick flick of his wrist, Luke’s lightsaber was sent out of his hand. Luke found himself practically kneeling at Vader’s feet, staring up at the crimson blade hovering in the air between them. 

But Vader made no move to strike. Instead, he deactivated his lightsaber altogether. Luke quickly looked around for his saber but before he could even find it in the red-tinted darkness, it came shooting up and into Vader’s hand. He turned it over in his hands, like he was examining it. Luke felt a hot fire rise up within him but before he could yell at Vader for daring to touch his father’s lightsaber, the Dark Lord spoke. 

“On Cymoon, you said that I killed your father.” Vader said plainly. Luke blinked up at the Dark Lord, unsure of this sudden turn of events. Vader spoke again.

“I suppose, Obi-Wan told you that.” Vader said, almost… sadly. Luke wondered briefly if he had taken one to many hits to the head in recent years.

“He did.” Luke said finally. “He said you betrayed him and murdered him.” The ire in Luke’s voice was sharp but Vader didn’t seem fazed. What was the anger of one pseudo-Jedi youngling against a Sith Lord’s? 

“Obi-Wan did always have a complicated relationship with the truth, especially when it suited his needs.” Vader commented, continuing to turn the saber over in his hands. 

Despite the sudden lack of hostility, Luke felt like he couldn’t move, couldn’t get away, no matter how much he may have wanted to run. His heart started beating hard in his chest but he remained crouched right before Vader. 

“Complicated how?” Luke asked after a long silence. He didn’t really want to have a conversation with Vader about his slain mentor but the silence was starting to make the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. 

“How did Obi-Wan get your father’s lightsaber?” Vader asked at last. Luke blinked in confusion for a moment.

“What?”

“If I supposedly killed your father, how did Obi-Wan get his lightsaber?” Vader said. The tension in Luke continued to rise. 

“I don’t know.” Luke said plainly. He felt like the galaxy was spinning off its axis. This was not how he’d anticipated this duel going. 

“Presumably, if I had killed your father, he would have had his lightsaber with him at the time. Perhaps we would have dueled to the death. If that was the case, how then did Kenobi acquire this lightsaber in order to give it to you?” Vader gestured with the unlit blade as he spoke. Luke remained in his place on the floor, unable to move.

“Or did Kenobi leave out those details as well? He seems to have given you very little details on how your father died. Curious, since he intended to use you as a weapon to take out your father’s supposed murderer.” 

Luke’s eyes were wide and his mind spun. Ben had… The young rebel tried desperately to remember all that his mentor had told him about his father but the details were scant and Luke suddenly felt like Ben Kenobi had been a stranger to him. 

“So you didn’t kill my father?” Luke said after several silent minutes. 

“No, young one, I did not.” Vader said in his deep baritone. 

“Who did?” Luke asked. He felt the Force shift sharply. 

“No one killed your father, Luke.” The Force swelled up now and Luke felt faint as Vader took a step forward.

“I am your father.”  

Luke fell back, just barely catching himself from falling down the stairs. Vader came no further as he felt his son’s mind spin. 

“That’s impossible.” Luke said at last, his breathing shaky. He turned his head to look his F- Vader in the eyes. From his place on the floor, Luke suddenly felt very small. 

“It would not have suited Kenobi’s ends to tell you the truth.” Another moment of silence.

“But Anakin Skywalker was my father.” The boy whimpered, he was getting emotional now. Vader knelt down slowly so that he was no longer towering over Luke like a living gargoyle and placed his old lightsaber on the floor between them. 

“That name no longer has any meaning for me. But when I made this lightsaber, it was what I was called.” 

Luke seemed to think that over for a moment before looking up again.

“That’s why you’ve been chasing me… the bounty said alive only…” His words drifted off. “But on Cymoon, you almost killed me.” The statement might not have been a question but Vader answered it anyway.

“I did not know then. I believed you dead before you were even born.” Vader said with something close to reverence. Luke’s eyes scanned back and forth like his mind was puzzling pieces together but too many were missing. His shoulders sagged after a long moment and he pulled his knees up to his chest. The only person with all the pieces, was the same man who had been hunting him for three years… and also the man who he’d once dreamed would come back to take him to see the stars. Luke was suddenly very aware of how tired he was.

 “I don’t know what to do.” Luke admitted shakily. 

Vader stood smoothly and extended a gloved hand out to Luke.

“Come with me.” 

Luke looked at the hand and thought about all that those three words really meant. He reached up in spite of himself and took his father’s hand.

Thanks for reading! I’d love to know what you think. 

Link to it on AO3 here. 

[stories-by-mocho]

Nolan Rhinehart

Note: this is the backstory for my Star Wars RPG character, enjoy!

-

The room reeked of dust and antiseptics. Artificial green light bled through in-betweens of rusted blinds, illuminating the orderly chaos better than any actual lighting inside. Standing in the middle of it was a man called Nolan, his gloved hands encrusted in the very same shade of red that stained the filthy floor. A Twi’lek laid motionless on the improvised operating table, the organs in her abdomen exposed by an expertly cut incision. To the left of her torso was lilac coloured powder thoughtfully packaged in small bags, bathed in a surgical tray full of sanitising liquid.

He paused when he heard a rhythmic knock.

As the makeshift door screeched open Nolan gripped on his scalpel, fresh blood still trickling down the sharpened edges. He was prepared, always prepared, to kill. But he was spared from the task. Nolan relaxed at the sight of his superior, Lieutenant Villius, dressed fully in stormtrooper armour with his helmet rested between his arm and hip.

As he made his way in, the lieutenant was trying really hard to hide his repugnance when he caught a glimpse of a foreign object quite literally stuffed between the Twi’lek’s skin and stomach. He averted his gaze only to find crammed in the far end of the dimly lit room, a person-sized tub filled to the brim with bacta fluid. There was something submerged in it, clearly humanoid. The odour of exposed bacta fluid, which would be about ten times more intense than iodoform, finally made its way to Villius’ nose. He grimaced.

“Why are you giving me that look,” Nolan exclaimed. “This was your idea.”

“I forget it’s always worse in person,” Villius said hoarsely.

“Don’t be a baby,” Nolan jeered monotonously. “If you’re that squeamish you should’ve stayed in the bar.”

Villius just managed to stop himself from starting an argument, remembering why he had to barge into Nolan’s house of horrors in the first place. “How much longer do you need?”

“This one should recover by daybreak, so we’re good to leave in the morning.” Nolan casually folded his arms, not really caring much for his transparent scrub getting smothered with bloodied gloves. “Assuming no complication occurs. In my end or yours.”

“What does that mean?”

“I’m still not convinced this plan of yours will follow through, Alnor,” Nolan answered frankly.

“Well, it’s too late to turn back now.” Villius shrugged. “We’ll be fine. Trust me.”

Nolan flashed him a smile. “I’d rather not this time.”

Villius scoffed to shroud how hurt he was by Nolan’s painfully obvious tone of doubt. “Well. I’ll let him know we’re coming.”

He took out a palm-sized communication device as he turned on his heel and left. The false smile on his face soured into a scowl the further away he paced from that room. His heavy footsteps filled the hallway accompanied by grotesque noises of pleasure coming out of the rooms on his sides, shut behind welded scraps of metal so thin Villius could hear every whisper of filth. He hurried out to the bar to be greeted by the sickly aroma of counterfeit booze and used hallucinogens. Anything was better than bacta fluid at this point.

-

The tips of her fingers twitched as her mind spun awkwardly into consciousness. She raised her hand to touch her face, but whatever her palm felt was not her own skin. She knew her eyes were open but all she could see was blackness, except for a dot of green light, dancing miles away from her body. She reached for it, and with her overstretched arm she broke a thin membrane that separated her and the rest of the world. Suddenly, as her senses came back to her all at once, she felt very trapped.

The Twi’lek hoisted herself up with both her hands, splashing the surrounding area with bacta fluid. Panicked, she hastily studied the room, realising that she had no idea where she was. Her limbs were weak but she managed to tear off her breathing apparatus and climb out of the tub, almost slipping in the process. She swore that she had been wearing clothes the last time she recalled. But honestly, she couldn’t remember the last time she was conscious, nor did she know what had happened before she was knocked out. For now she just needed to get the hell out.

Her weak, slippery feet did their best to carry her body to wherever the exit may be. Panic, nausea, and fatigue set in her chest, and her breathing became rapid and heavy. She let out an involuntary whimper as she caught herself on the door handle before she fell on the rough, uneven ground. A small, hopeful smile formed on her lips. Ready to run away and leave this behind, she opened the door.

She gasped. What greeted her was the muzzle of a blaster pistol pointed directly between her eyes. The hallway was filled with noises of vulgarity, but Nolan’s utter silence encouraged the Twi’lek to stay quiet. He calmly, almost clinically, watched as his patient’s smile withered away into terror, droplets of tears seeping from her eyes. He flicked his pistol to the side, gesturing for her to go back in.

There were others like her. About eight other people of various races were loaded on the back of a large carrier, hands and feet bound with unexpectedly elaborate high-tech cuffs. She swallowed, gently fidgeting on the fabric of an orange jumpsuit her captive had told her to put on. Soon she realised everyone in the carrier was wearing what she recognised as Republic attire, for a reason she didn’t understand.

In front of her sat a sickly looking Human. His lips were dry and his eyes, weary, as if he had spent days without sleep. He was hugging his own stomach, shielding it from more harm that may or not be inflicted. Perhaps he had the same series of mysterious stitches on his abdomen as she did. But unlike him, she felt only slight discomfort, like something in her chest didn’t quite fit. She could do nothing else but watch him rock back and forth on his seat, muttering a quiet prayer to the stars, or the Force, or whatever cared enough to listen.

The carrier stopped. There was a clear absence of sound outside; wherever they were was void of any sort of activity. Death was the first and only thing that had come across the passengers’ minds as a stormtrooper entered, blaster pistol exhibited proudly on his utility belt.

“Good morning and congratulations,” Lieutenant Villius started, much too energetic for this time of day. “You’ve all been given an opportunity to repay your large sum of debt to Black Sun.”

His words broke the tension and hopelessness that had plagued the crowd. They muttered to themselves, questioning the authenticity of this man’s promise. But nevertheless a faint light of hope twinkled in everyone’s eyes.

“Now, we are on a tight schedule so I’ll make this quick,” Villius continued. “You are all affiliated to the Rebel Alliance. My associate and I found you setting up a base of operations. We decided to take you in for questioning. It is vital that you play this role until I say otherwise. Questions?”

Everyone looked at each other briefly before a Rodian, dressed similarly to the female Twi’lek, raised his bound hands meekly. “Where are you taking us?”

“Away from this garbage planet,” Villius answered vaguely. “Keep in mind that we will keep you alive until you’ve reached the destination, but other stormtroopers may try to kill you. And if you try anything brave or heroic, it will be the question of whose blaster would reach you first. When you stay in line you stay alive. Understood?”

The combination of delirium, bacta sickness, and this overly enthusiastic stormtrooper jabbering at light speed confused them even further than before. Not knowing how to react, they chose to stay silent.

As stressed as the prisoners were, none of them spent hours operating on nine subjects with a deadline. Nolan tapped his foot restlessly, and stopped when the repeated sound of his boot hitting the metal floor of the vehicle was starting to corrode whatever was left of his patience. After working a few years with Villius, he thought he would eventually get used to his giddiness in the morning.

“We don’t have long until they become septic,” Nolan explained. “Especially that Human. He’s looking worse than I anticipated.”

“It’ll be fine,” Villius reassured, turning the engine on. “We only need them alive until we get to a starship.”

“This is a really, really bad idea,” Nolan said.

“I’m sure you’ll feel better when you see how much we’re getting paid for this,” Villius beamed, his tone somewhat antagonistic. “Drink your tea and relax. It’s all me from this point forward.”

Unsurprisingly, thanks to Villius, they easily managed to move the captives into a ship that would fly them to a Star Destroyer. Of course every trooper he spoke to would trust him. He was quite literally everything his subordinates wanted for a commander; good humoured, understanding, personable, dedicated, patriotic, the list could go on. Despite him knowing that he really was nothing like the facade he constructed, the praises still fed into his ego. 

Villius was not ready to admit that he was scared of this plan falling apart; that Nolan’s reluctance to involve himself in this job was completely justified. He knew the riskiest part was about five minutes away, where neither he nor Nolan could lower their guard for even a second.

Security became much tighter with vital political prisoners on board, but it didn’t stop Nolan from examining the Human kidnapee. His face was much paler than before, his skin drenched in cold sweat. A double check of the other prisoners concluded that Humans were just not built for this specific kind of drug trafficking. He didn’t blame himself, as he was more used to the type of practice that involved harvesting organs rather than stuffing things in-between them.

As xenologically insightful as this experience was, Nolan would rather this Human live for however long as they stayed in the Destroyer. An unexplained death of a sick Rebel would not only panic the paranoid Imperial officers on board, it might also call for an autopsy, which to him would be the absolute worst thing that could spoil this stupid plan.

When the ship landed in the hangar, Villius found the second lieutenant anxiously waiting. Her eyes were focused on him alone, making him wonder if he had a misstep. The captain strutted towards him, greeting him with a look of distress and urgency.

“Lieutenant Corbell,” Villius addressed with a nervous smile.

“There is something I need to discuss with you,” Corbell said, almost cutting him off. “It’s very important.”

“I’m afraid I’ve got my hands full with Rebel affiliates. Whatever it is, I’m sure you can carry on without me,” Villius said purposely in a dismissive manner, hoping that she would be put off.

“Well, that can wait,” Corbell said, taking a glimpse at the line of captives guarded by the same number of troopers. “It’s not like they’re going anywhere.”

“But-”

And without another word, she marched off.

Villius quietly muttered several curses as he strode briskly through the progressively busier hallways, much too exasperated to acknowledge any greetings from his subordinates. With every step he counted how many seconds he could have used to load the prisoners to a starship, and more importantly, how increasingly peeved Nolan must have been from being left to fend for himself. Despite him not commenting on the unexpected change of plans, it really was not hard to tell how agitated he was back in the hangar, even with his helmet on.

The off-white hallway felt more claustrophobic than Nolan remembered. The air was heavy with tension. Everything seemed to fall silent the more they were further away from the busy hangar, tapping of boots and clicks of blaster rifles gently grazing on laminate filling the stillness. Nolan couldn’t help but to sheepishly take a glimpse of the Human behind him, and as if on cue, he began to wobble and brushed shoulders with the stormtrooper next to him.

“Hey!” the trooper yelled, breaking the silence. He jerked the captive against the wall, blaster rifle thrusted upon his chin. “What the hell do you think you’re doing, scum?”

“I wouldn’t do that,” Nolan warned with virtually nothing behind the threat. Under the stern pretence of his standard stormtrooper helmet, Nolan was the opposite of calm. There were so many unwanted things that could happen to this particular captive.

The trooper paused, looking right at him for a few seconds before backing off. The Human faltered to the floor, gasping and exhaling as he began collecting himself. 

Nolan’s initial surge of relief vanished at the sight of the trooper’s boot making violent contact on the prisoner’s chest. Nolan almost shouted, instinctively rushing towards him as he would to an injured soldier on the field.

The war room was grey and miserable, not unlike the rest of the spaces in the Destroyer. Soundproofing installed on the walls only spoke of how paranoid the officers were of information breach. As a result, it became quiet; uncomfortably so. Before Villius could start making conversation, Corbell rushed to the door she forgot to lock. The uncharacteristic lack of any positive emotion on her face was starting to raise concern.

“Okay, Corbell. Now that we’re safe from Rebel spies,” Villius mocked. “What’s going on?”

“Last night one of our scouts recovered this from the side of the road,” Corbell started, taking out a clear bag with what looked like a comm device, destroyed and put back together. Villius, getting less and less patient, watched how delicate and careful she handled the device when she took it out of its sleeve. “The reason why I’m bringing it to your attention, well…”

As she activated it, the vague irritation on Villius’ expression slowly faded. Dal Perhi, vigo of Black Sun, or at least a still image of him appeared in blue holographic light out of the device in the second lieutenant’s palm. Villius’ heart suddenly sank to his stomach, his mind running thousands of miles an hour. It was obviously a burner.

But it was his.

There were eight pairs of terror-stricken eyes glued at the sight of a man, blood oozing out of his nose, mouth opened as he struggled to inhale. The stormtroopers stood apathetically and lost interest immediately after Nolan reached him. As he knelt down to examine the injured man, the closest trooper noticed a growing stain of crimson pooling on the man’s chest. Nolan chose to say nothing, even going as far as acting like it was not abnormal.

“We need this one to survive,” Nolan said, half-lying. “Help me get him in his cell.”

“Should I call the medics for you?” a trooper volunteered.

“It’s fine,” Nolan said, attempting to help the Human stand up. “This shouldn’t be difficult.”

“I’ve called them in,” another trooper chimed kindly. “Don’t work too hard, doc. Remember, we’re all here to help you.”

There was nothing Nolan wanted more than to bite the heads off of these good-natured, thoughtful idiots. The patient was laid on an elevated bit of ground in his cell. Nolan wouldn’t call it a bed, it was made with the same material as the flooring. As he expected, the stitching on the man’s abdomen had unravelled. Easy fix. He would be done in ten minutes, if it weren’t for the unnecessary medics that barged in, instantly crowding the cell.

“I don’t need you here,” Nolan said bluntly. “I can handle this. His stitches just opened, is all.”

“Er, doctor Rhinehart,” the medic shyly called. “I know I’m not as qualified as you but… That man looks like he needs intensive care.”

And here, in the heat of the moment, Nolan realised he had forgotten about the bigger health issue this man had; sepsis.

Villius’ hand rested on the grip of his blaster pistol on his belt, staring attentive and cautiously at the second lieutenant. He could physically feel his facade slowly decaying, his false smile looking disjointed on the mistrustful veil over his expression. 

“You need to destroy that thing, Corbell,” Villius said, struggling to keep his voice down. “It’s too dangerous to keep.”

“I was thinking of sending it over to law enforcement.” Corbell was much too focused on the device to notice the irregularity in the lieutenant’s behaviour. “We may not be able to touch Dal Perhi, but what if this thing has intel on on-going Black Sun activities. If I can find a way to play back some of the calls…”

“No, wait,” Villius cut her off, aggressively grabbing onto her hand as she fiddled with the frail device.

“Hey!” Corbell exclaimed, Villius’ force hindering her from holding on to the device.

A small piece of it chipped away when it dropped the cold, hard floor. The hologram disappeared upon impact but immediately glitched back to view, and unlike previously, the image of the vigo was animated.

“I’ll think about it,” Dal Perhi said coldly, the sound of his voice crackling in static. “After I get my shipment.”

“You will,” a reassuring voice replied. Corbell furrowed her brows at how disturbingly familiar it was. “Give us a couple more days. I guarantee it’ll reach you.”

She turned towards the lieutenant, perplexed. She didn’t realise Villius had pointed his pistol right to her chin.

“You’re already a few days late, Villius,” the vigo continued.

His eyes shifted into a diabolical shade of green, completely distinguishable from the lieutenant she knew. But evidently she knew less about him than she thought. Villius noticed the slight glance Corbell took down towards her belt. Without hesitation, just as she pulled her pistol out, Villius pulled the trigger.

“Vigo. How many smugglers do you know who’s got my day job?”

She laid on the floor, motionless, dead. Villius vented his frustration out on the comm device, stomping it beyond recognition. This time he made sure every bit was disintegrated. He scoffed, mocking himself for not being able to come up with a way to get out of this situation clean. With specks of the second lieutenant’s blood on his white armour and helmet, he made his way through the hallway in search of his companion.

A stretcher passed by with a very sick looking, very familiar Human man dressed in Rebel trooper uniform. Trailing not far behind was exactly the person Villius needed to stop. He grabbed Nolan by the shoulders and pulled him around the corner.

“Alnor, I can explain. He got assaulted and his stitches opened, then--” Nolan began frantically.

“We need to leave,” Villius said gravely.

He paused for a second. “What?”

“Right now,” Villius resumed. “We need to be anywhere else but here.”

-

The Star Destroyer edged further as the starship flew away, and eventually, when the ship entered hyperspace, Nolan could no longer see it. He had to give credit to Villius for thinking of a fail safe, that was what the old ship was called. Fail-Safe. Nolan leaned his back to the co-pilot chair, for the first time in days savouring a moment of tranquility. There was an air of peace coming from Villius despite how frantic his movements were. They’ve escaped, and whatever consequences they were going to face, they would think about later.

“I told you so,” Nolan said quietly, sombrely.

“Yeah,” Villius replied.

[terramythos]

TerraMythos' 2020 Reading Challenge - Book 20 of 26

Title: Wolf by Wolf (Wolf by Wolf #1) (2015)

Author: Ryan Graudin

Genre/Tags: Alternate History, Historical Fiction, Dystopian, Science Fiction (...ish?), Young Adult, Third Person, Female Protagonist, Duology

Rating: 8/10

Date Began: 7/12/2020

Date Finished: 7/18/2020

In an alternate 1956, the Axis powers of the Third Reich and Imperial Japan won World War II. They host an annual motorcycle competition known as the Axis Tour, in which young people from both powers race across Europe and Asia. Yael, a death camp survivor with the ability to skinshift due to Nazi medical experiments, poses as Adele Wolfe, Germany’s only female competitor. Her goal? To win the race, get a private dance with Hitler, and assassinate him for the world to see.

But years of training and preparation are thrown off balance when Adele’s past relationships come back to haunt Yael in the form of her twin brother Felix Wolfe, and the presence of Luka Lowe, a fellow competitor and former victor, both of whom have complicated, unknown histories with Adele. Now Yael must keep up the charade while still assuring her victory in a difficult and deadly inter-continental race. 

Who are you? (On the inside?) 

The answer to this question was something Yael had to fight for. Her self-reflection was no reflection at all. It was a shattered mirror. Something she had to piece together, over and over again. Memory by memory. Loss by loss. Wolf by wolf. 

Minor spoilers under the cut. 

Wolf by Wolf was a surprise; I did not expect to like it nearly as much as I did. While it has a fascinating premise, it's certainly complicated enough to mess up. Alternate history, especially World War II, can be sketchy if not done well. Add in some science fiction elements, and I was skeptical. But while Wolf by Wolf isn't perfect, Graudin does pull it off rather well, and it was thoroughly enjoyable to read. She states in her author’s note that, with the troubling rise of alt-right movements in recent years, books that examine the true horrors and implications of Nazi ideology are important, and something like this could have very well been our world. I find myself agreeing, and I think she treats the subject with both the delicacy and brutal honesty it requires. 

The novel’s inherent suspense is excellent. Wolf by Wolf has all the appeal of a spy novel with an extra layer that comes with the skinshifting aspect. All of Yael's interactions with the other leads (Felix and Luka) mean they genuinely think she's Adele, and it's interesting to see how Yael struggles to play the part. There's a lot of tense moments where she says or does something that Adele wouldn't, and she has to use her wits to get through it. I like the "becoming the mask" trope and it's in play here as Yael finds herself becoming attached to the other characters. The inherently fantastical element of skinshifting does protect her, as almost no one would guess it's why Adele is acting odd, so the fact she's able to keep up the ruse despite everything does make sense. That being said, I would have loved to see someone, especially one of the two male leads, figure it out. I spent the novel wondering how a scene like that would play out, and was disappointed it doesn't happen. There are certainly multiple teasing fake-outs. Presumably this will be A Thing in the next book, but it's still something I wish had paid off here rather than consigning it to the sequel. Semi-related, I found the ending twist and callback pretty interesting, and it has some fascinating implications for said sequel. I guess we'll see what Graudin does with all this material. 

Probably the strongest aspect of the novel for me, personally, is how the book balances flashbacks. I think Graudin does a fantastic job (with some exceptions) doling out information, and gradually revealing Yael's backstory and pain points. Unsurprisingly, her past is heart-wrenching in a variety of ways. The part where her mother doesn't recognize her and the scene with Vlad and the numbers hit me especially hard. It's satisfying when the full implications of a symbol or line of dialogue aren't revealed until much later in the story. For example, the wolf tattoos are introduced early (literally the second chapter) but the emotional payoff is gradual, and I think that strengthens the impact. The pacing in general is really well done-- slow when it needs to be, and action-packed at other times. This is something I struggle with even in books I adore, so I’m really impressed with how this book handles it. 

YA gets a bad (often undeserved) rap, and I adore the genre when it's done right. Unfortunately many YA novels fall into trends and tropes that just get annoying after a while, so I find I have to be selective. For the most part Wolf by Wolf avoids these. Yael is a distinct, interesting character who avoids typical YA protagonist cliches. Her tragic past is all the more poignant for being something real people faced (albeit with creative liberties), and her struggles with identity are extra compelling. That being said, I didn't find the romantic subplot with Luka very interesting. I think there's supposed to be some narrative tension where he seems to be a bad guy but has Hidden Depths etc etc... but it was so painfully obvious that I guessed his entire arc based on the first scene. I think there's some potential considering the Yael/Adele dichotomy, but again, it doesn't really pay off in Wolf by Wolf, which is a disappointment. The few romance scenes just take away from the more interesting base story. From what I can tell we get more of Luka’s backstory and perspective in Blood for Blood, so... fingers crossed that I can appreciate him more in retrospect? In general I found Yael’s interactions with Felix more interesting and genuine.        

As for the writing itself, I'm torn. This novel makes heavy use of symbols, and consistently incorporates them into the prose. Usually, this is done to great effect, and there are plenty of excellent poetic and introspective passages. There's also stylistic elements such as heavy repetition and an occasionally-bolded INTERNAL MONOLOGUE. I also noted a lot of dramatic irony and narrative callbacks, which always hit with a punch. When these aspects are done well, it's great. But sometimes Graudin just doesn't seem to trust her readers. There are multiple incidents where the story REALLY wants you to know that X Symbol Means Y Thing and accomplishes this by... just telling you. There's also some clumsy expository dialogue that's jarring to read (very much "as you well know, this thing is true"). These may be in the minority, but are especially noticeable because the rest of the book is subtle about it. No idea why some parts are just like that, and this might be a nitpick, but it really bothers me. Young adults aren't stupid, and it's annoying when YA novels assume they need their hand held. As I said, it only happens a few times, and I am willing to look past it considering the other strengths of the novel.

Wolf by Wolf has its faults, but overall I had a great time reading it. The ending has some fascinating implications, so I'm interested to see what happens in Blood for Blood. From the brief preview at the end, it looks like we get more backstory for Luka and Felix, which I think might smooth over some of my criticisms depending on how it’s handled. I guess we'll see! 

[fierce-little-miana]

Meetings

Here is my first entry for the @saitofest​ 2020 following the prompt Fond Memories  |  The Best of the Best, beta-read by the lovely and frighteningly fast and efficient @fleeting-blossom-of-the-dawn​ (thank you so much). Thank you to @impracticaldemon​ for organizing and @queengurako​ for helping with the information.

This is a onceagainbutwithfeeling fic about Saito arrival at the Shinsengumi. Technically this is canon compliant and historically ‘informed’ (just like your favorite period dramas are). Enjoy!

(and if I made a mistake in the way people addressed each other just know that I am sorry, I did my best)

Edo was not as loud as Saito remembered it. The city was as heavy as the summer heat, but it was more bearable than it had been two years ago, like a wound which had closed. People’s accent wasn’t singing to his hear but it wasn’t accusing him either. He found himself capable of walking as he had done in Kyoto, one step after another toward a goal. Yet, he still caught himself stopping for a few seconds, looking for something familiar. Nothing came, even the cicadas chirping sounded foreign.

“And this our main courtyard,” Inoue said pointing to a square in front of them. “Kondo-san likes to organize contests here.”

Saito nodded to his guide who was smiling at him. The moment lasted a bit longer than it was comfortable and he saw the man’s muscles around his mouth twitch, the smile never disappearing. Had he expected another answer? Before Saito could even try adding something to show proper respect to Inoue the man declared with some affability.

“Well I guess you would rather want to meet everyone Saito-kun? Follow-me.”

This time the man turned away without waiting for an answer. Saito went after him in silence letting his eyes take the courtyard in a bit more. It was very neat. He had heard conflicting things about the Shieikan dojo, not all of them good, but everyone agreed on the fact that it brought together unusual men. He was glad discipline wasn’t disregarded nevertheless.

“You studied with Yoshida-san in Kyoto, right?”

Saito’s attention snapped back to Inoue. Tentatively he answered:

“Ha…”

“You didn’t want to continue there?”

He felt no ill intention behind the question, just honest curiosity.

“I was unable to attain the Menkyo Kaiden,” he answered while putting his right hand on the hilt of the sword he carried on the same side.

It was Inoue’s turn to answer with only a nod. He did so after a short instant of consideration. Then he kept leading him within the compound. Saito wondered what it must feel like, to welcome in one’s school someone who had failed somewhere else. Surely no-one wanted a student like that. Still as long as the man was ready to guide, he was willing to follow.  

Saito could now hear voices. Two more turns on the engawa and they arrived in front of a room whose shoji were wide open to try to create some sort of draught to fight the summer heat.

There was a dozen of men in the room, training with vigor. Two of them were directing the session.  The first instructor was the largest and the loudest of the two. He wore a green bandana and was correcting a group of three men at the same time. Saito was first taken aback by his conduct, but he quickly realized that the advice he was giving was clear and appropriate. The trainees looked attentive and eager to satisfy his demands. His stance was quite good too. If his apparent physical strength was matched by enough kenjutsu talent he could be a dangerous opponent.

But it was the second instructor that drew his attention. He didn’t look much older than Saito but clearly he was the one who most set the trainees on edge. He walked through the room, apparently relaxed, but his pass had something feline about it. Something that didn’t bode well for anyone crossing him. And indeed, when a trainee started to get distracted and sloppy the man would stop in front of him and fix him up until he was somehow capable of correcting his form. This was not an efficient teaching technique by any means, but Saito had to recognize that the instructor was razor sharp in noticing mistakes and lack of discipline. His green eyes seemed acute to his surroundings. Unsurprisingly they had fixed upon Saito when he appeared in full view of the room.

He wasn’t completely hostile but not far off and didn’t even bother to hide it. Still Saito did not budge. There was something about this man that gave him the urge to face him.

“Hey Gen-san, who is the visitor?” a red-haired man sitting at Saito and Inoue’s right asked.

“This is Saito-kun,” the man kindly answered. “He has expressed interest in our dojo.”

“Hajimemashite Saito-san. I am Harada Sanosuke and this is Todo Heisuke.” he said while pointing to his neighbor.

“Hajimemashite!” the latter exclaimed.

Saito slightly bowed to both of them while answering in the same manner. He felt a certain curiosity coming from both men but none as potent as the one of the green-eyed instructor.

“Sano-kun are Toshi or Isami around?” Inoue asked.

“No, they are out on business and Sannan-san is with them. Considering the hour I doubt they will be back before tomorrow, probably enjoying the pleasure of a night out.” Harada added with a grin.

Inoue sighed before turning toward Saito.

“I am sorry Saito-kun, I thought you could meet and discuss with them today. Would you mind coming back tomorrow?”

“I don’t mind Inoue-san,” Saito turned toward Harada and Todo. “It was nice meeting you two.”

“Same,” the red-haired warrior simply answered.

His guide started to walk back toward the entrance and Saito followed. As long as he was in view of the training room he could feel the green eyes of the instructor on him, unyielding.

*  *  *

“What was that about this afternoon?” Shinpachi asked while entering to join them for dinner.

This made Souji focus. Finally, a conversation that might be more interesting than Heisuke complaining about his seasoning. The Shieikan dojo did receive unannounced visitors from time to time but they were rarely coming with good intentions. Having an unknown left-handed warrior walking in the compound was probably bad news for Kondo. What was Gen thinking showing him around?

“No idea,” Sanosuke answered while moving to the right to leave some room for Shinpachi to seat. “I wanted to ask Gen-san but he apparently left to run some errands just after escorting our ‘guest’ out. He hasn’t come back, so I guess he joined Kondo-san and the others.”

“Come on! You talked to them, you know at least more than Souji and I do.”

Sanosuke’s eyes went to Souji who nodded his support to Shinpachi. The more they knew the better. If people thought they could just scout Kondo’s dojo before making trouble they were gravely mistaken. Sanosuke sighed:

“He wasn’t much of a talker, we introduced each other that’s all.”

“That’s an understatement,” Heisuke intervened. “The guy was gloomy!”

“You might want to take a page from his book. I doubt he was much older than you and yet he had so much more gravity,” Sanosuke added with a smile.

They were getting distracted. Who cared about the gravity of the man? It was just another way to add to his humorless demeanor. Souji couldn’t care less about that.

“And was our dark and not-so-tall stranger’s name?” he asked while putting his chopstick down.

“Saito.”

Souji snorted. So, mister mysterious was indeed surrounded by secrecy. Did he think anonymity would protect him from retribution? That was an issue though. It would be complicated getting info on him with just his name.

“That’s extremely convenient,” he finally commented.

“Is it?” Heisuke asked. “How many left-handed Saito could be running around Edo?”

“Are you serious? Do you realize how many people have this name? I know at least three left-handed Saito. One of them is working in tea shop. She is taller than you shrimp.”

Heisuke tried to send his elbow into Sanosuke’s side for that. The red-haired man only had to move a little to dodge it. They kept fighting even as Shinpachi said under his breath:

“That’s odd.”

Souji’s attention was entirely on him now. Shinpachi looked absorbed in his thoughts. While noisy the man had a head for politics that sometimes lead him into long and apparently captivating conversations with Kondo. Souji never took part in them but he stayed around. Currently Shinpachi had the same look on his face that when I was about to make some decisive point. Unfortunately for Souji he was staring to get pulled into Heisuke and Sanosuke’s oral jab.

“Keep talking Shinpachi-san.”

His three companions went silent. Their eyes were on him. They were uneasy. People, expect Kondo, sometimes looked at him like that. Sometimes he knew why sometimes he didn’t. His voice tone was probably off. In any case that served him well.

“It is nothing Souji, don’t worry.”

Ah, Shinpachi was already recovering from whatever he had felt. Usual. Souji had to act quickly because if Shinpachi decided to ignore him no matter what he would then do, even more deliberate things, it would just slip on the man. But before he could add anything it was Sanosuke who surprisingly came to his help:

“Just tell him. He has the look on his face that says that he won’t leave us alone until he knows whatever he thinks you are hiding. He is going to be an ass all evening.”

Well he didn’t exactly like the formulation, and he had to fight back the urge of retorting something - he didn’t know what but something - but it worked.

“It is just that it reminded me of something. One or two years ago two idiot kids ended up dueling each other. One of them was a Hatamoto’s son and the other one the son of a lowly samurai. Surprisingly it was the Hatamoto’s son who was killed. Long story short it was quite a scandal and the lowly samurai son was forced to flee Edo.”

“And?” Souji asked.

“I think the kid was left-handed.”

Souji found nothing to say to that, nor was Shinpachi ready to tell him more. Slowly the evening meal went back to its normal rhythm. While the chatter grew around him, Souji considered what he just learned. It didn’t mean that mystery man was the lowly samurai son of course. It was probably just a coincidence. And even if it wasn’t, having killed someone wouldn’t give his adversary an edge on him.

He forced his hands to open. At some point they had contracted on his hakama. No, whoever this man was, whatever he had done, it wouldn’t change a thing.

*  *  *

Saito came back. This time no-one was there to welcome him. He had hesitated at the gate. Wandering alone, and armed, in a dojo was a bad idea. Especially considering that he didn’t come to make enemies. Still he had been told to return today, so he entered.

He was able to come right to the middle of the Shieikan, where he had witnessed the training session the day before. Today the shoji were closed and it felt as if he had failed something. The cicadas were singing again making the day look like a distorted repeat of his first visit. He didn’t particularly like hot weather, but he usually endured it without a complaint. Right now, it was more suffocating than ever. He would have been lying if he said that at this moment he didn’t consider turning back, yet he called out:

“Pardon me, is anyone in?”

There was a movement on his right. The four men he had noticed in the training room yesterday were standing in the shadow of an engawa. The green eyes were once again fixed on him.

“Who is it?” the instructor asked looking like he had very much been waiting for him. “Did he come to challenge our school?”

Saito was expecting that. There was apparently no-one else around despite Inoue’s word. Probably they had made their decision before he came back and let their best students handle him. He saw no point in correcting their wrong assumption. The man was spoiling for a fight. The three others weren’t as antagonistic, but they didn’t look ready to stop their peer either. Well he was used to that. He could give the man what he was looking for.

Facing his silence, the green-eyed instructor joined him. His mouth was smiling but his eyes weren’t, and his informality had an edge to it.

“Follow-me.”

He went into the training room with him, the three other men following behind. Today the room was mainly closed which gave it a stifling atmosphere. His interlocutor gave him a bokken and they faced each other. The green-eyed man was still smiling when he started speaking again with faked candor in his voice:

“I still haven’t asked for your name yet, haven’t I? I guess I might as well ask while you can still talk.”

“Saito Hajime,” he simply answered unfazed by the bravado of his adversary.

“Saito-kun, ne? I am Okita Souji, nice to meet you.”

His surprise and his politeness were feigned but his confidence wasn’t. Saito assured his grip on the bokken.

“Shinpachi-san, could you act as our referee?” Okita suddenly asked to the other instructor.

“Sure,” he answered with a bit of hesitation.

The man took his place before turning toward Saito, much to his surprise:

“Hey, are going to be okay? Souji’s the star student of our dojo.”

“There is no need for concern,” Saito answered and he took his stand.

Okita’s smile grew wider and he joined Saito. There was a short moment in which their bokken touched and they were only facing each other. Both of them were intensely focused and Saito had no trouble believing what Shinpachi had said.

“Hajime!”

Saito kept his stance as it was but Okita changed his guard calmly, bringing his bokken behind him. Fine he would engage.

He went toward Okita at full speed aiming for his head. His adversary seemed surprised for a split-second but managed to dodge. Saito carried on with multiple thrusts, nearly landing a blow several times. Still he didn’t manage to actually make a hit. Okita finally warded his attack off and Saito was forced to draw back.

That was unexpected but not as much as the nearly immediate counterattack he barely managed to fend off. He was good. Very good. Saito hadn’t had an adversary like that in ages, forcing him on the defensive. He took a vicious blow on his left side, several inches under the heart. It should have taken his breath away, but he gritted his teeth and put all his weight in a counter blow that allowed him to regain some edge.

The referee had screamed something that Saito barely registered. He had to focus on his adversary, thankfully Okita seemed in the same mindset. They traded several other blows, perfectly countering each other none of them managing to gain the upper hand.

At some point they came to a halt, if one could call it that. Their bokken were pushing against each other and both of them were putting as much of their weight in their confrontation as they could without risking unbalance. Okita was panting as much as him but he still surprisingly managed to speak:

“You are stronger than I expected. No one’s been able to dodge my thrusts before.”

“You are the first person I fail to defeat in my first move.”

Okita smiled more earnestly this time, a bizarrely gratifying sight. Unfortunately for Saito his adversary was considerably taller than him and his superior size ultimately gave him the advantage in their current confrontation. He was once again thrown a few steps backward and they started giving and repelling blows. Someone else was screaming now. Saito didn’t recognize the voice and had no time to try to.

Suddenly Shinpachi and Todo were on Okita. Saito barely managed to take a step back in surprise before Harada caught his right arm. It took an enormous effort from Saito to break his fight like that, but he recognized an immediate request to stop when he saw one. He went still trying to find his breath back. In front of him Okita was struggling against the two men who had more or less physically restrained him. His eyes were still fixed on Saito.

Now that he was a bit more able to take his surroundings in Saito noticed that two men had arrived, one of them looking quite angered by what he saw but it was the other one who spoke:

“You were quite impressive!”

The compliment surprised him. He wasn’t used to this. He took two more breaths in before messily answering with a question:

“I fight using a left-handed stance, does that not bother you?”

His interlocutor seemed surprise, as if he hadn’t even noticed it. It was the other man, the one with the long black hair, who reacted. Somehow his comment seemed to have made him angrier but strangely not at Saito:

“Whether you use a right-handed stance or a left-handed stance, it doesn’t change the fact that you are strong.”

Saito was struck dumb. He had never expected that, maybe a grudging welcome, but certainly not at total acknowledgement. The men were talking in front of him. He had to focus to listen to them.

“He is the boy Gen-san told us about. I wanted to test him, but I think this won’t be necessary, don’t you think Toshi?”

“Indeed, I don’t think it will be necessary Kondo-san,” the man with the long hair answered with a smile on his face.

Kondo-san? So this man was the head of the Shieikan dojo. Saito knew he was supposed to bow to him but somehow he did not manage to. His attention was fixed on the man with the long ponytail.

“So, would you follow us uhm?” Kondo asked.

It took Saito a minute to realize that the man was talking to him. He was supposed to introduce himself. By the time he had actually intellectualized this Okita was answering for him:

“This is Saito Hajime-kun.”

“Would you follow us Hajime-kun? We have things to discuss.”

Kondo and the other man started to lead the way out of the training room. He wanted to follow. He wanted it so bad he might have never wanted something as badly in his entire life. But he couldn’t. Maybe if he started moving again all of this would disappear. He would again be the left-handed warrior no-one wanted to be associated with no matter what.

Someone gave him a friendly slap in the back. He was forced to take a step forward not to fall.

“Welcome Hajime-kun, I am looking forward to sparring with you again,” Okita said with a wicked grin while going after Kondo and the other man.

Everything was still here. The training room, his uneven breathing from the impromptu duel, Harada, Shinpachi and Todo next to him, Okita, Kondo and the black-haired man in front of him. The welcome was new. It was a good change.

[windandwater]

I have a note on my phone of various marauders headcanons, some of which made it into fic (angwrites on ao3, check me out, or don’t), some of which didn’t or haven’t yet.

but tumblr is made for shit like this so here they are. fair warning for some teenage boys using somewhat gross language towards the end of this.

james potter has a flat ass

unfortunately for his ego, james potter is also an ass man.

"butts butts butts butts" --james potter, probably

sirius acts like a wild child but has secretly been an old queen since the day he was born

"do you know long it takes to get glitter out of your ass, get that shit away from me”

(insert screeching after it gets in his hair here)

james is one of those people (men) who writes everything in all caps

peter's eyebrows always come off during games of exploding snap, even if he ducks, even if it's not his fault, even if he's not technically playing, even if he's across the castle when the cards explode. he's actually incredible at the game but no one will ever know because that's all anyone ever notices.

james's taste in women is "could beat me up". this does not stop at women he is attracted to. his female friends are no different. and he gets along very very well with lily’s friends.

james is a cheerful morning person, to the unmitigated disgust of all three of his friends, and later, his wife.

lily can keep a schedule but likes a bit of a lie-in sometimes. the rest of them would sleep until noon daily if allowed. james despairs of all of them. while whistling loudly as he burns breakfast.

james can actually cook quite well. he just forgets to turn the heat down sometimes (lily evans gave him a stern look and he got distracted, what did you expect) and makes a mess.

one of sirius’s rebellions is actually learning how to cook, to spite his parents. it takes him a few years and some guided grocery shopping, but he becomes really good after a while. everyone but remus is surprised.

remus is not surprised because he was the one who pointed out that sirius doing menial tasks would really piss off his mum. this didn’t get him to clean up his damn socks more often, but he can’t actually complain when the food’s this good.

what remus doesn’t know is that sirius sat down, did some complicated math, and realized that if he bought food, remus would feel bad for eating it, but if he made food, remus would feel bad for not eating it. 2 + 2 = the only option here is to become an amazing chef and keep his boyfriend from starving to death by sheer force of the meatballs he always craves at the full moon.

speaking of cravings, here are some food preferences:

remus can’t explain to you why he craves meatballs at the full moon. it should be a very rare steak, right? but no. meatballs. or goat curry. james knows to be on call in case it’s a curry month.

remus actually likes his food the spiciest out of the four of them, even though james grew up eating it. if the food isn’t making the other three tear up, it’s not hot enough for him.

lily is the same way.

mrs. potter adores them both

sirius, surprisingly, has the worst tolerance. even worse than peter. he won’t eat anything james makes.

sirius’s cooking also suffers a bit from the fact that he takes on the American belief that every vegetable is better when fried or covered in cheese.

unsurprisingly, peter is the one with the garbage taste buds. he’s been known to eat hot dogs dipped in melted chocolate and ice cream topped with hot sauce and mayonnaise. it’s a good thing gryffindor tower is a judgment-free zone after 1 am.

the first time Dumbledore had a spare second after finding out that the Marauders were Animaguses, he sprinted to the Infirmary to tell Madame Pomfrey (under pain of death to never tell anyone else) about the Animagus transformation and its apparent effects on lycanthropy. Remus's sudden dip in symptoms at age 15 was fucking up all her research and notes, and he knew this, and also that she'd want to know why. those notes have only recently been released to the public.

favorite bands:

lily: simon & garfunkel. also kind of a deadhead. no I’m not projecting.

sirius: led zeppelin, queen

remus: bob dylan (ugh, I know)

james: the bee gees. james is so into disco.

peter: claims to like whatever james likes at the moment. actually likes the beatles best.

gryffindor parties are fucking wild. this is known. passed out hungover gryffindors is not an unusual occurrence on any given Saturday or Monday morning. this is also known. if it is a school morning, the likelihood of them having something embarrassing written or drawn on their faces increases exponentially. here’s how it went when the following (immature, sexist, standard teenage fare) things were inscribed on the foreheads of the marauders:

james: someone was dumb enough to think that "james potter is a pussy" would embarrass him. it did not. he did alter it so that ”is a" read "eats”, then wore it proudly until it was forcibly removed.

sirius: whoever thought “sirius black sucks dick” would be funny and humiliating for him was in for a hell of a surprise about his lack of shame. he spent the day winking and blowing kisses at anyone who laughed at him. (somehow this only increased his reputation as a womanizer. he doesn’t get it either.)

peter: either of the above tactics would have worked quite well on him. unfortunately, the budding artist ran out of verbal creativity, and opted to simply draw a dick on his face. for some reason, peter had no problem with this. especially since he didn’t have class with professor mcgonagall that day.

remus: did not get drunk in the first place. did not stop the perpetrators from doing this to his friends. also did not warn them that it would go this way. this tells you everything you need to know about remus lupin.

[mysaldate]

headcanons on how the slayers would react to an impossible battle situation - facing an upper moon. they do have the option of running, but innocent lives might be at stake owo for isanami, sasuke, saizo, kakei-san, and rokuro

I was trying to look up about when did Muzan create the Demon Moons but the timeline is so messy and makes so little sense that the best guess is it being some 120 years before the main story or somewhere around that. Since Brave10 timeline comes way before this, I don’t think Demon Moons would be around at that time but it’s not unlikely that demons of similar power levels were around – they just didn’t give the warning with their eyes.

Also I will open each character up with some basic info on their general battle style since I haven’t mentioned it yet but it will affect their reactions.

I’m also writing this to calm down after my rant so sorry if some of them feel just a little out of place. I’ll be trying hard for that not to happen though.

Brave10 Demon Slayers facing a certain defeat headcanons

Isanami

She usually leaves the fighting to Saizo and makes sure the people are alright but at the off chance they got separated and she is forced to fight, she can be surprisingly capable. Her small build and amazing flexibility are her main advantages in a fight and she also has a surprising amount of stamina.

With that all being said, she is still quite weak so even a demon of slightly lower power levels than those of an Upper Moon is already a serious problem for her. However, if a demon that powerful was to show up, the gap between them would be enormous.

If there are no civilians at the scene, Isanami might use the sixth form to attempt to blind the demon and then escape using the fourth form. How successful she would be depends mostly on her surroundings. She’s quite capable of disappearing from sight in a forest and thanks to her being very light, she doesn’t make much noise either. In an open field however, she might not be that lucky.

If innocent lives are at stake, Isanami will go on defense, trying to protect them to the best of her ability. She might even offer to give up without a fight if the demon spares the people around (have I mentioned she’s quite possibly a marechi?). If the demon allows it, she will then write a letter to Saizo and Sasuke since she doesn’t want to leave them without a goodbye.

She still won’t let the demon eat her until she is absolutely certain all the people are safely gone. She may be naive when it comes to her fellow slayers but she knows well enough not to trust a demon just that easily.

Sasuke

Sasuke specializes in a stealthy battle style. He stays hidden as much as he can and deals surprising attacks that bring most enemies down before they even realize what hit them. He uses his connection with nature to read his enemies’ movements and figure out the best course of action.

As such, the demons he would have most trouble slaying would be either those staying in a house or mansion (like Kyogai) or demons capable of manipulating nature around them. The later especially could pose a serious threat to him as his most important source of information and cover would be completely cut off.

He generally tries to get fights as far away from civilians as possible so he doesn’t have to worry about protecting them while fighting so it’s more likely he would find himself in such a situation aside from people. Sasuke doesn’t have an ego that would prevent him from running from a fight he clearly has not chance of winning. Thanks to the footwork of his second form, he might manage to get far enough from the demon’s immediate reach to then make a run for it. He’s quite fast on his feet, even faster than most demons, so he has high chances of making it out alive.

However, if a fight was to break out around other people, things get a little more complicated. Sasuke would constantly have to switch between offensive and defensive style, trying to both protect the people with him and keep the demon at bay. He knows he can’t send the people ahead of him since the demon is so strong he couldn’t keep it away from them anyway so the best he can do is fight with all his might to protect everyone.

He will send one of his owls, or possibly the messanger crow, to bring help. He doesn’t really count on making it out alive but if someone can come and protect at least some of the people there, then that’s enough for him.

Saizo

Saizo tends to push his limits as far as they would go in every fight. Even when fighting weaker demons, he’s not exactly good at saving his energy. His fighting style is powerful but not efficient. He rushes to end every fight before the demon can properly warm up and before it can drag out for any longer than necessary.

He doesn’t do very well in long fights but he’s pretty durable so sheer raw strength won’t be enough to knock him down. It’s much more dangerous if the demon merely blocks all of the incoming attacks and tires him out first. While this was already pointed out to him, he doesn’t really know how to fix this little problem and still charges in head-on. The fact that he can’t use the full potential of Breath of Darkness also plays its role.

Like Sasuke, he much prefers to fight aside from any human community, though it’s more to fit his lone wolf aesthetics (shattered when Isanami insisted on joining him) and his general dislike of crowds. While he doesn’t mind to fall back for a while, he’s not used to leaving a fight unfinished so he might pretend to run, only to then turn around and try again, using the increasing speed of fifth form to at least deal as much damage as he can as well as block the enemy’s attacks.

While he would complain about having to protect someone, he’s not about to let women or children just die, especially since he’s a demon slayer. He struggles with defensive techniques though and his only real solution would be luring the demon’s attention away by relentlessly attacking. He would leave the people with Isanami and just hope she will leave with them and won’t come back to help him fight.

He has also thought of sending the crow to get help but in the end decided against it. The demon is already most likely going to kill him and help wouldn’t get to the soon enough anyway. If another single slayer was to face the same demon alone, it would be a pointless loss. Rather, he will have the crow record what went down and report everything properly so adequate actions can be taken.

Kakei

His style focuses mostly on the advantage he can gain by keeping his distance from the demon. Kakei doesn’t posses extraordinary speed or stamina but he’s extremely durable and quick to get back up after receiving a blow. Thanks to mastering the Breath of Fire as well, he can use combined techniques, either using Saya as a blade or taking up the sword of one of his fellow slayers – though he doesn’t do that often.

His weakness would most likely be close combat so if a demon is quick enough to avoid his shots or can block them effectively enough to get close, he might get into trouble. It’s also particularly dangerous if a demon can use long-distance attacks with a range superior to Kakei’s.

His fourth technique will get used a lot if the demon gets close and he’s alone. Saya is, unsurprisingly, great at breaking bones and can be used as an extremely violent stabbing weapon if used with enough strength. And Kakei certainly has this sort of strength. Even if he knows he has no chance of winning, there’s no way he’s just giving up. If he has to, he will take the demon to hell with him.

This goes all the more if there are innocent bystanders nearby. No way in hell will he allow anyone else to get hurt on his watch. He will take even close-range shots, no matter how much the recoil damage hurts him. And if worse comes to the absolute worst, his fifth form is on the list as well. He will blow the demon’s head to ribbons if it’s the last thing he can ever do.

Rather than sending his crow off to get back-up, he will order it to take the people to safety. With his bullets, he can prevent the demon from going after them and take it on by himself for long enough for them to escape. It still would bother him that he never got to make up for his failure as a father (in his eyes at least) and that he will die before ever doing that but he also understands that there are bigger things in life than himself. Protecting more innocent lives is one of them.

Rokuro

He is an incredibly balanced fighter. One of the few who can keep up incredibly well on both offense and defense, he’s also fast and agile. With his excellent eye-sight, he’s definitelly one of the strongest demon slayers of his generation. When on a mission with Yukimura, he also makes the best of his excelent insight into the enemy techniques and weaknesses. They make a great team but some would argue Rokuro is more efficient on his own when he can focus solely on fighting and less on protecting his master.

As such, there’s not really a particular set of abilities a demon would have to have in order to gain any advantage over him. That’s not to say he can’t be simply overpowered but unlike Kakei or Sasuke, this pillar has no clear weakness. Meeting a demon who can surpass him in one or more ways, of course, is entirely possible and if separated from Yukimura, it’s not improbable he might even make a mistake of judgment.

If he realizes he’d be overpowered on his own (and believe me, he would realize that before the fight even starts), he’d probably fall back, sending a message out and asking for further orders. He will try to collect information on the demon without being seen or felt – and he’s probably quite successful in that area as well. He’s deffinitelly not seeking a fight and if it seems neccessary, he will take the chance to flee.

Things take a turn if there’s a chance of the demon going after other people. If Rokuro is given enough time ahead before the demon can reach them, he is likely to find a safe hiding spot for them to stay at or to organise some sort of an escape. He’s likely to stay behind and distract the demon, even if just for a short while. But he also has no intention of dying there so he will just hold the demon off and then flee the scene as well.

If he’s not given any time, however, he will need to think on his feet. And his first priority, of course, is ensuring the people’s safety. He would most likely use his second additional form way more than he normally should, exhausting himself thoroughly but there’s no way he’d give anyone over. He might switch into other forms briefly to recover at least a bit of his stamina but he will most certainly remain on the defense. At this point, the crow is sent out. Not for back-up but to warn any lower-ranked slayers possibly in the area. Though don’t get it wrong, he’s not telling them to run, just to be careful. It’s in his best interest to have more hands to use to protect everyone and hold off the demon after all.

[thesinglesjukebox]

HAIM - NOW I'M IN IT

[7.54]

Hard times...

Ian Mathers: Sometimes adulthood feels like the process of realizing you've been "trying to find [your] way back for a minute" for years now. Part of that is that you can never get back (to fewer responsibilities, a younger body, a less complicated life) and part of that is that you don't need to because you've grown in ways you didn't expect or notice and part of that is just that feeling like you're in it is just the condition of being an adult (at least here and now). Of course, Danielle Haim has said the song is about depression. I'm not the only person I know for whom adulthood and depression seem inextricable. [8]

Wayne Weizhen Zhang: Like grey clouds drifting slowly overhead, depression can manifest itself gradually. You may not even notice it happening. That is, until it's too big to ignore: suddenly, there's an underlying sadness that keeps popping up, and you're too anxious to reach out to others, too unhappy to look in the mirror, too tired to leave your apartment. You're just in it. "Now I'm In It" perfectly captures the moment you realize this -- and while so many songs that discuss mental health can seem condescending or sloganeering, the introspection that Haim does here is genuinely powerful. This is art about depression without wallowing, set to an undulating guitar rift that recalls the strength of "Dancing on My Own." At face value, "Damn I'm in it/ And I've been tryna find my way back for a minute" sounds so simple as to be mundane, but to me, it feels like liberation that can only come from being honest with yourself. Every time I hear it, it feels like air in my lungs, sunshine on my skin. There's a moment during the music video (at 3:20) when, after making it through a shit day, Danielle Haim musters the energy to go out with her sisters. As they cross the street, drums beat triumphantly and a sample of what sounds like cheering plays -- and then, inexplicably, she breaks the fourth wall, shooting a glance directly into the camera, almost like she's looking directly at her depression and giving it the side eye. I have yet to give a 10 since starting to write for TSJ, but that moment alone merits my first one. [10]

Michael Hong: Perhaps the best shot of the music video is the one in which Danielle Haim goes through a car wash, but the most emblematic is likely the penultimate one, where she downs a shot, grimaces and takes one breath. The song is its "before image," a tightly wound version of Danielle Haim over a tense guitar that feels synthetic as it pulses across the track. As it progresses, Danielle loosens up and regains some of that confidence symbolic of Haim. The instrumental also gradually shifts, focusing more attention on other more organic elements. The piano line on the bridge allows her to take stock of her surroundings, backed in harmony by her sisters, but it's those drums on the last chorus that deliver the track's final moment of catharsis. Like depression, that guitar vamp remains, but Haim push it to the background, mostly stopping it from overpowering themselves. It's Danielle Haim, defiantly rejecting depression and taking back control for what feels like that penultimate shot -- the ability to finally breathe after a particularly difficult episode. [8]

Isabel Cole: If it hadn't been for Danielle Haim's Instagram post, I probably wouldn't have known to read this as a song about mental health. But once I saw that it made an immediate intuitive sense: the anxious thrumming that won't relent even as the melody opens up in the chorus, stumbling-fast lyrics sketching a harried picture of isolation, an atmosphere of panic and dread like pacing restlessly in a room you can't make yourself leave. The sigh of regret in the bridge, the dawning realization that you can no longer deny. I've spent a lot of hours looking for something I knew I wouldn't find in mirrors, too. Haim build a gorgeous encasement for the sentiment, lush and textured and perfect, actually, for listening to on repeat on a long walk taken trying to get a little further back to yourself; I particularly love the moment the second verse starts and everything deepens and opens at once. Would love this even if I weren't spiritually obligated to give at least a [7] to any song that closes by layering one of its parts over the other. [9]

Alfred Soto: Whenever they use a skittering rhythm track that forces them into breathlessness, I swoon, but then I liked but then Something to Tell You more than most. The ghost of "I Love You Always Forever" haunts -- will Haim's next album study their idea of '90s-ness? [7]

Will Adams: Haim, always ones to wear their references on their sleeves, take their soft-rock aesthetic to the extreme by synthesizing "I Want You" and "I Love You Always Forever." Those choices alone make "Now I'm In It" great, but Danielle using her signature patter to evoke racing thoughts is the cherry on top. The verse barges in by the second chorus, words tumbling over each other resulting in sensory overload. And then, finally, gloriously, the bridge arrives, when everything falls away and a moment of clarity is reached. The ensuing chorus is the same as it was, but now it feels assured, confident amidst the chaos. "Now I'm In It" is a song about going through it that goes through it. [8]

Tobi Tella: The frantic, almost falling-on-top-of-each-other speed of the lyrics is the real secret of the song -- it puts the listener on edge from minute one. I wish it built to more in certain ways, but I think the tension with such little release feels deliberate -- I feel like I'm still in it too. [7]

Kylo Nocom: Never trust a man who will gleefully scrutinize a Haim track's influences as a marker of unoriginality and yet ignore any accusation you throw at LCD Soundsystem. "Now I'm In It" bubbles, springs, and thrusts forward until the sisters reach a bridge that would make Vampire Weekend circa Modern Vampires proud. [8]

Oliver Maier: Rostam and Rechtshaid's production team-up unsurprisingly results in shades of the bleary, melancholic sound of Modern Vampires of the City, notably in the bluesy piano, ambient noise and thudding drums that filter in after the second chorus. That moment also happens to be the point at which Haim often run out of ideas (even in their best songs) and resort to padding out the remainder of the track with repetition upon repetition to the point of indulgence. Here they're more economical, more conscientious of the song's arc, and the final chorus feels earned rather than copy-pasted as a result. A shame that said chorus is not quite as catchy as they're capable of, though "I can hear it/But I can't feel it" is as succinct and lovely a lyric about depression as has ever been penned. [6]

Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: "Now I'm In It" turns the corner well-- that slowdown after the two-minute mark, when the piano and harmonies come in and the fervent pulse of the rhythm guitar stills a little, is genuine catharsis. But the rest, both before and after, feels nervy and formless. Danielle remains a great pop vocalist, but the words she sings are sketches and the beat below it sounds like something Katy Perry and Zedd would've thrown out earlier this year. [5]

Thomas Inskeep: The song throbs and thrums, yet the Haim sisters just sound bored, and I'm unmoved. Actually, worse than unmoved: I'm annoyed. [3]

William John: While the track motors along behind her, Danielle Haim here breathlessly corkscrews her way through the awful, disenfranchising inertia that most of us are prone to from time to time. When paired with preceding single "Summer Girl", "Now I'm In It" seems to indicate that a central theme of Haim's putative third album will be the power of the collective in providing a fulcrum for those experiencing trauma. Though the lyric sheet suggests the protagonist remains in the widening gyre, the music video powerfully reinforces the notion that help is always available, even when it seems like it isn't. And maybe the gyre remains, but maybe also, with others around to lend a hand, it might stop widening, or even get a bit narrower. Haim have always been about "the sisterhood," in the most literal sense, but the image of Este and Alana, scuttling down a street and carrying Danielle on a stretcher, nursing her through the rut, might be their paradigm illustration of that concept. [9]

Kayla Beardslee: In the past month or two, as I've built up enough reviews to start referencing my past scores as a consistent standard, I've latched onto two regrets over too-low scores. One of those regrets is "Summer Girl": I was initially impressed and gave it an 8, but as the song kept growing on me in the following weeks, I realized I loved it enough to be a 10. The brilliance of Danielle Haim's restrained vocals, the quiet intensity of the lyrics, the sax riff that carries it all along -- it was quickly becoming my favorite Haim track. Well, the good news is that I was wrong: "Summer Girl" is still an 8 or 9. This is a 10. "Now I'm In It" sounds, somehow, both clean and impossibly hazy. The production is mixed clearly, but allows each bouncing bass note and subtle sound effect to shine; in contrast, Danielle's voice, as impressively agile as ever, folds itself into reverb and whispered backing vocals. Even the fuzz of static in the background of the bridge feels like purposefully crafted chaos. The sisters have said that the song is about Danielle's struggle with depression, and the lyrics reinforce that idea of being stuck in a mental fog. Like the bridge of "Summer Girl," the heart of "In It" boils down to a specific moment: in this case, it's when Danielle sings, full of longing, "And the rain keeps coming down along the ceiling/And I can hear it/But I can't feel it." I love that line, not only because it's absent from the first chorus and comes as a total surprise in the second, but because of how well it works as a metaphor on two levels. Being numb to "the rain" can signify detachment from the outside world, but it can also mean refusing to acknowledge your own depression: this track is smart and detailed enough to express both. And yet the music itself is a rejection of the lethargy of depression. With layers of instrumentation being constantly added and dropped, each section of the song is unique, and all of it builds up to that forceful, cathartic final chorus. In a lesser song, this clear sense of musical growth working against the stagnant nature of the lyrics would feel contradictory, but here, it feels instead like an intentional message of hope. Things will change, even in the storm -- and, if "Now I'm In It" is any indication, Haim will only keep getting better. [10]

[Read and comment on The Singles Jukebox]

[goodnightkisseu]

Ha Sungwoon - Prepared

Requested By: @this-song-thats-only-for-you ( “ may I pretty pleaseu request something fluffy with ha sungwoon?? ” )

Genre: Fluff

Note: You had mentioned how Sungwoon was always prepared and I thought that this would be a cute and fluffy way to showcase that. I had fun writing this even if it was a bit of a challenge in certain ways XD I hope that you like it and that other readers like it as well. ^^

Please feel free to let me know what you think and enjoy~ 

[ Masterlist ] [ Upcoming Stories ]

- goodnightkisseu’s admin / ashley <3

In the grand scheme of how your mornings had been going for the last nine months, you’d rank this particular morning pretty high on your ‘best mornings’ list. You were up early, unsurprisingly, and found yourself sneaking out of bed, heading downstairs to make a nice breakfast for you and your husbands. You weren’t making anything complicated, something simple, but this was further than you had gotten most mornings. On other days you wouldn’t even be able to roll out of bed without making a straight line for the bathroom. This was good. It felt normal. Maybe you had somehow managed to kick morning sickness in the ass. You had a feeling this wasn’t true, but you took the fact that you woke up not feeling nauseous to be a blessing in disguise and a sign of a good day to come.

This pregnancy, in all honesty, had been a bit of a roller coaster. Though you were due to have your baby any day now, the entire course of your pregnancy was full of surprises and hitches that you knew were as challenging for you as they were for your partner upstairs. Initially it had been a bit of a surprise for you both, they baby coming only about a month after you had gotten married. When you had found out you were pregnant you were actually about afraid to tell Sungwoon. You weren’t sure how he would feel about it. There were a lot of things on his plate lately, from the new house that the two of you had bought to things that were also going on at work. If you were pregnant, your family would, for a short time, be down to a one income family, and with so many new unknowns, that was likely to cause some unneeded stress.

Yet, much to your surprise, Sungwoon took the news quite well. He was shocked, of course, but he had been an amazing support the entire time. He helped you through the process, from the planning of your finances for the next year or so, to simple things, like making sure the fridge was filled with the things you craved. Sungwoon was doing more than you could have ever imagined, and truth be told it only made you love him more. So, doing something simple like making him breakfast in return, even though you weren’t sure if you’d be able to eat it yourself, was worth it.

“Honey, are you down here?” Sungwoon called out in his scratchy voice, the sleep still evident in his words. He lazily made his way down the remainder of the stairs, poking his head into the kitchen to look for you. His eyes were barely open and his hair was still a mess, but as soon as he didn’t see you next to him, he knew that he had to come and find you. He was always used to waking up alone. Even when the two of you had lived together before marriage, he would often wake up on his own, hugging one of the pillows for comfort. You were more of a morning person than your counterpart would always beat him out of bed. Truth be told it was a win-win for him because it usually meant that he got breakfast in the morning and that he would be able to greet you with a slew of kisses just after waking up.

However, your pregnancy had changed a lot of that normalcy that he was used to. Your morning sickness made it particularly difficult on some days. It even got to the point where, sometimes, you’d get out of bed much later than he would. Yet on other days, you would jolt out of bed so quickly to run to the bathroom that it would unintentionally shock Sungwoon out of his own sleep.

Though he would often play it off with jokes, he really did worry about you a lot during the course of the pregnancy. Work was a particular issue that the two of you had to overcome. You eventually had to stop going to work, which left you at home and on your own a lot. It drove you a little nutty to be alone for that long without much to do, and Sungwoon knew that the long hours he had to work also made it difficult. Though you said it didn’t bother you at first, it was definitely a point of argument on some days when he was particularly tired of you were having a particularly difficult day. The two of you didn’t used to fight, but it happened sometimes, and he would immediately feel guilty afterwards. He’d give you your space, but he couldn’t help but feel like he was always the cause of an issue, whether he had control over it or not.

Still, even with these rough patches, along with a couple of others, he still tried to make it up in any way that he could. He would attend all of your doctor’s appointments, making sure that you knew that you were indeed not alone throughout this entire ordeal. He would go to all of the parent labor classes with you, which, lucky for him, were on weekends. He read a bunch of blogs and books on childbirth and care, and though he’d much rather be reading the latest celebrity gossip, he made sure to memorize as much as he could. Though he wasn’t always physically there for you, he wanted to show you that he could be a good parent, that you had someone to support you.

Though lately, he had another set of worries. You were starting to get comfortable with your pregnancy, things not being as bad as they were in the beginning, and this meant that you seemed to think that you could go back to your normal life. You had always been very independent, and that was something that he had loved about you when you started dating. Sungwoon knew that it frustrated you when you had lost that independence at the beginning of your pregnancy. Yet now he worried that you thought you were superwoman and could do everything. You’d wake up and make him breakfast like you used to. Do the laundry and the cleaning and all of this drove him nuts. He knew that you were getting bored at home, but so much physical activity didn’t seem good either. He didn’t want you to overexert yourself. Though you told him it was alright, he really would have liked it if you just took the time to relax.

So, when he woke up this morning and didn’t see you at his side, he knew that you had gotten up to make him breakfast. And so, within a split second, he was up, groggily getting out of bed to go and check on you, making sure that both you and his future baby were okay. Wiping the sleep from his eyes, he finally got a good look at your smiling face as you called him a ‘sleepyhead,’ and he couldn’t help but smile back. He had always thought you were gorgeous, but why did he feel like he had fallen even more in love with you now?

“I’m not a sleepyhead. I slept a regular amount. You’re just up early,” he retorted as he came over to you, just as you were plating the last of the food. Damn, it smelled good. He missed your cooking. The last time he made food… it did not end well. “How is my baby this morning?” he asked gently, pulling you into a back hug as he planted kisses all along your cheek, making you giggle.

“I’m actually feeling pretty good,” you said through your laughter as he placed another set of quick kisses all over your cheek. “My morning sickness wasn’t so bad today. I could get up and walk around without feeling nauseous. I almost feel like myself again,” you told him as he held you a little tighter around your waist.

“I’m glad,” he said with a smile before letting you go and moving around you, kneeling so that he was face to face with your baby bump. “And how is my son today, hm? Not giving your mom as much trouble today, I see,” he said gently.

You smiled softly as Sungwoon’s actions. It always made you feel a sense of warmth whenever he did this. There was just something really fatherly whenever he would come and talk to your child, and it honestly made you love him more. Your heart felt like it melted in all the right ways. “He let me wake up okay, but he’s also been kicking up a storm. I think he has your energy,” you teased, watching as your husband scrunched his nose at your words.

“It’ll be a good thing, dear. I promise,” he teased as he kissed your temple before turning to grab some plates, planning to set the table for the both of you.

But breakfast never happened.

Honestly, everything was a bit of a blur for Sungwoon from this point forward. He remembered you calling his name frantically and looking at him with wide eyes. He held the plates in his hand, but he instantly heard your cries that there was no time for food. Did he question you? He must have because after that you started to talk at an incredibly fast pace, the only words the male happened to catch were, ‘my water broke.’ Everything after this… he honestly couldn’t remember. Sungwoon told you to wait there, right? He wasn’t sure anymore, but he did know that his body seemed to move on its own as he bolted up the stairs, leaving you confused, before you decided to pursue him.

“Sungwoon, where are you going?! We need to get to the hospital!!” you yelled from the foot of the stairs, Sungwoon having long disappeared into your shared bedroom. Your baby was coming any minute now and he decided that this was the moment to go missing. You swore to the high heavens that if that husband of yours was thinking of getting ready to look presentable, you were going to kick his ass. This baby was going to be born in a hospital, not at the foot of your stairs, and you would drive yourself to the hospital to ensure that if you needed to. Your contractions were getting worse though, so you knew that you couldn’t do it. But ohhh were you considering it.

However, before you could actually leave without your supposed husband and ride – legit you thought he got lost up there – Sungwoon came rounding the corner of your upstairs hallway, still wearing the same t-shirt, though he was now in jeans and was carrying a massive bag. Took him long enough. “Sungwoon, what the hell is in that bag?” you inquired, having forgotten your earlier rage at him. You were now enthralled by that ridiculously sized bag and wondered what could possibly be inside. Where had he even been storing that thing? Like you should have noticed something like that while cleaning the house.

“What’s in the bag is not important. What is important is that we get you to the hospital. Come on, let’s go!” he urged, as if he wasn’t the reason the two of you hadn’t left yet. He led you over to the front door and held onto you while you slipped on your shoes before pulling on his own and ushering you out of the door, locking it securely behind the two of you. Sungwoon followed along and helped you into the car, making sure you were secure before throwing the bag into the backseat of the car and getting in himself. Pulling the keys from his pockets he started the car, and off the two of you went to the hospital…

========

Slowly, you opened your eyes, though you were quick to close them again when you realized how bright everything was. Hospital lighting was never great, but you almost felt like you were more sensitive to it now. Or maybe… it was because you felt so exhausted? You couldn’t tell. What you did know was that you couldn’t remember exactly what happened, only bits and pieces of it.

You remembered being in the car as Sungwoon sped to the hospital. The entire time you tried to keep your breathing under control, remembering and trying to put into practice everything you had learned in your classes. But the more you followed the instructions, the more it seemed to hit you that your child was going to be born soon. You had thought you were ready, but you now felt like you were freaking out a bit. Maybe you weren’t as ready as you thought… and in that moment you were glad that Sungwoon was there. Even if he was driving the entire time, he held onto your hand, guiding you through it all, trying to be the calm parent. As soon as you arrived at the hospital, you remembered being pushed in on a wheelchair before they took you to the labor wing, getting you checked in and taking you into a room. They got you all set up, the doctor checking on you as soon as she could.

And this was when things got blurry. You remember the pain getting worse. You remembered being put up in stirrups. You remembered the doctor telling you to push and you remember Sungwoon by your side as you squeezed the life out of his hand in pain. You remembered hearing your son cry and holding him momentarily before you passed out. Honestly you thought this whole process would have been a little clearer, but maybe the pain of it all just made it blurrier than you had expected.

“Is my baby awake?” you heard a gentle voice call from your side, and you slowly turned your head to see Sungwoon smiling at you from the chair next to your bed. He was curled up in a blanket, likely having slept while he waited for you to wake up. How long had you been out anyway? It must have been a while if he managed to take a nap. But that blanket… didn’t you guys have that blanket at home? How did it –

“How are you feeling? Are you alright?” Sungwoon asked as he came over to your side, gently stroking your forehead as you gave him a tired smile.

“I think I’m okay. Honestly I don’t remember too much. A lot of it is kind of a blur,” you admitted, earning a look from your husband.

“Oh so you don’t remember squeezing my hand so hard that I almost had to see a doctor,” he said, watching as your eyes widened. You remember holding his hand tightly because of the pain, but not to that level. “It’s okay, of course,” he reassured you, trying to ease your concern. “I just don’t know how much typing I’ll be doing.”

“I’m sorry, Sungwoon,” you apologized, but only earned a smile from your husband.

It really wasn’t that bad. Sungwoon just liked blowing things out of proportion sometimes. “It’s really okay. I’m just glad you’re awake and okay. Plus, I get to start my paternity leave now too, so it’s okay. My hand will have time to head while I help you around the house with our son.”

Your son. “Where’s –” you started, but before you could ask your question, one of the nurses that you remembered meeting earlier made her entrance with a baby, your baby, in her arms. You knew right away. Though your mind was still a bit cloudy, you knew that was your son. It was…it was a feeling you got.

“Ah, you’re awake! I’m glad! I just got little baby Sungmin all cleaned up and clothed. He’s been a good little boy, but I don’t think he likes being away from his mother very much. Would you like to hold him?” the nurse said with a motherly smile as she held your baby out to you. You slowly sat up and tentatively opened your arms, following the nurse’s instructions on how best to hold your child. And just as the nurse said, as soon as he was in your arms, he stopped crying.

Sungwoon watched as his son settled in your arms, and the way that the most motherly smile spread across your lips. He had always had strong feelings for you, but that smile… he felt something else for you in that moment. Was it pride? Was he proud that you were the woman that he married, that you were the mother of his child? Yeah, that was definitely it. He couldn’t see anyone else in this situation with him. No one but you could be this precious to him.

“Ah, he’s already such a momma’s boy, how am I supposed to be his favorite now?” Sungwoon teased, making you giggle.

The nurse then proceeded to get you settled in, showing you how to breast feed. She then told you that she would be back later to check in on the three of you. Once your son was done and settled again, you held him gently and close to your form as Sungwoon sat on the end of the bed, beaming at you. “What?” you asked through a gentle chuckle.

“Nothing, but motherhood looks good on you,” he said cheekily, making you roll your eyes at him. Yet, mid eye roll, your eyes caught sight of that familiar bag that your husband had lugged there. And that was when you remembered, you had no idea what was in there… and why he needed such a massive bag.

“Hey Sungwoon, what’s in that bag anyway?” you asked, a chuckle escaping his lips when he realized that you were still quite fixated on something so simple.

“Are you that curious?” he asked.

“Are you carrying a toaster in there?” you retorted, already teasing your husband of his previous antics. He had, on more than one occasion, packed a toaster with him, and there was no way you would stop teasing him about it. His friends wouldn’t either. That was something that would never die.

“I… am not going to deny that there might be a toaster,” he said, weaving around it with his words. But who was he kidding. There was totally a toaster in there. “But that’s not what’s important. What’s important is all of the things I have in this bag. I’ve been prepping for when we’d finally have to go to the hospital. I read that a lot of people do it when they know that they’re baby is about to arrive. It’s like an on the go bag type of thing.”

You smiled gently at his thoughtfulness. Sungwoon could be rather silly at times, and other times unbearable, but he was also very thoughtful, very prepared. The different sides of your husband were always so interesting. You never knew who you’d get.

“I brought a blanket for myself since I wanted to stay by your side, and a pillow so that my neck wouldn’t cramp up. I brought a bunch of chargers for all of our electronics. Some snacks for myself and maybe for you if you feel up to it. A change of clothes for you for when we leave…” he said, showing you everything in the bag, pulling out the items one by one. And in that moment you realized that this must have been where half of the stuff you thought you misplaced had gone. Sungwoon had packed them away over the last few weeks for you.

“Oh, and this, this is for our little Sungmin,” he said, a bright smile filling his face as he pulled out a cloud shaped toy. It was a soft plushie, a mix of light blues and whites with a small smiling face in the middle. It was absolutely perfect for a newborn.

“Sungwoon, it’s so cute,” you said with a giggle and that smile of his only grew.

“I thought it would be a good first toy for him. Something soft, but also that could remind him of his dad,” he said with a chuckle. “But, I’ll be here too to help you with him. I’m ready for it.”

You gave him a gentle smile as he leaned over for a kiss. It definitely wasn’t going to be easy, but you felt better that Sungwoon would be there to go through it with you. After all, if he were this prepared for the hospital, you knew that he was going to make an amazing father…

[calcidekudine]

out of my head of my heart of my mind

out of my head of my heart of my mind katsudeku. explicit. part one. also available on ao3. warnings: A/B/o dynamics

.

Katsuki's heat arrives as it always does, a slow and insidious burn. It begins low in his belly and creeps outwards, warring with the quick explosions he is used to, a fire he can control with a thought and a twitch of his hand. He has always hated his heat. He is disturbed by his helplessness, his intractable responses; it is why he has taken suppressants since the onset. The drugs made him sluggish for a few days, but sluggish was better than the uncontrollable alternative.

This time, however, when the base of his spine begins to itch, Katsuki does not take his suppressant. He stares at the pill pack—a ten day long ritual that he has taken every three months for the last seven years of his life—then gently sets it back in the medicine cabinet behind his mirror.

It is impulse, yes. But it is also a plan that he has let form in the back of his brain and, with this gesture, allows to finally take shape.

.

"I’m going into heat," Katsuki tells his agency supervisor, later that day between first and second shift. If his supervisor is surprised to hear such a thing, she does not show it. Instead, her face remains blank, and she asks,

"When?"

"In a few days," Katsuki informs. "A week at most."

His supervisor nods. "Do you need accommodations or services?"

"No." Katsuki does not elaborate. Giving his idea voice leaves a sour taste in his mouth. His instincts tell him that he isn't wrong—that nothing could possibly go wrong—yet the small possibility that he may fail stills his tongue.

"Thank you for informing us," his supervisor says. "Send me a text or an email when it comes, and we’ll have your shifts covered."

Katsuki nods once, rises from the comfortable chair, and leaves to begin his shift. There is nothing left to be said.

.

Patrol passes slowly. He wanders the streets with his hands on his hips and a scowl on his face, and stubbornly ignores the ever-present tingle at the base of his spine. He gets a few odd looks from passing alphas; they tilt their heads up and inhale deeply, their diaphragms pushing out with the effort. He makes eye-contact with each one that dares to smell him, flashing his best glare and smirking when they skitter.

It is no secret that Katsuki—that Ground Zero, one of the highest ranking heroes of his generation—is an omega. He knows some people are curious about his predilections, especially since his demeanor is not the purported ideal of omegas.

Katsuki doesn't care. He's never cared. His secondary gender and his ability to have children doesn't dictate how he behaves. The only person who gets to decide what Katsuki can and cannot do is Katsuki himself, and everyone else can hang.

.

Night falls. Katsuki stops at several food carts, buying skewers of charcoal-cooked meat. He is ravenous, chomping down twice as much as he normally would. He stops himself before he feels the bloat of fullness, having learned the hard way that being full on patrol is worse than being a little hungry.

As the moon rises in the sky, Katsuki wanders out of his assigned district and closer to the warehouses. His destination is a familiar, medium-sized office building. When he gets there, he launches himself into the air. Flying is as effortless to him now as breathing, and he lands gracefully, boots heavy on the rooftop. It is dusted with gravel, as many business buildings are, and the tiny pebbles grind together beneath the balls of his feet.

Crouched on the building edge, another hero stands. His costume—black with green accents—blends in with the darkening sky. A long white cape flutters from his broad shoulders. He hops down from his perch and chirps, "Kacchan."

"Deku."

"What are you doing here?" Izuku tilts his head. "I thought you had sector D-4 today?"

"I do," Katsuki responds with nonchalance.

"Bored already?"

Katsuki shrugs. Takes a step closer to Izuku. And another, and another, until Izuku’s nose twitches—

Until he inhales sharply—

Until his eyes widen—

Until he gasps, "Kacchan."

Katsuki tilts his head to the side, purposefully exposing the length of his neck. He used to think it was a submissive gesture. That it was weakness. He hated the thought of it. Baring himself to another person that way—it was unfathomable.

Now, when he does it, he realizes how wrong he was. It is not weakness he feels, but power. How easy it was to capture Izuku’s attention, to hold it.

"Are you...?" Izuku chokes.

"I didn’t take my pills," Katsuki announces as he steps boldly into Izuku's space. "It will be here soon."

Izuku’s uniform is stretched skintight over his throat and Katsuki watches the way his larynx contracts around a dry, strangled whimper. It thrills Katsuki to his core. People like to believe that alphas are the strong ones, but Katsuki—an omega—has reduced Izuku to incoherence in less than a minute with no more than a gesture and his scent.

"Kacchan," Izuku pleads. Each syllable scratches relief down Katsuki’s spine. "Are you asking me to..?"

Katsuki stands still. Waits. He can feel the strain of his silence as much as he can sense the tension in Izuku's body. He wants to laugh, victorious, triumphant. He refrains. Instead, he leans forward, curls a gloved hand around Izuku's thick side, and all but purrs,

"If you think you can."

Katsuki is off the roof before realization can dawn in Izuku’s muddled brain. It amuses him more than it should and, this time, when his laughter bubbles in his throat, he lets it escape.

.

On his second day of pre-heat, Katsuki spends most of his morning eating and readying his small apartment for the week to come. He cleans all his spare sheets, pushes all the furniture against the wall, and makes sure the few material items he has are tucked safely away. He goes to the store to buy packs of supplement bars and bottles of water. He even picks up a couple bags of Izuku's favorite snack, a sentimentality he tries not to think about as the cashier rings him up.

Thus prepared and with some time to kill before his shift, Katsuki picks up his phone and texts Kirishima. Though they work at different agencies, they've retained their friendship by meeting up at least once a week, going to cheap dive bars to drink excess amounts of alcohol and consume unhealthy amounts of fried food. Sometimes it's just the two of them. Sometimes it's with their coworkers or old classmates. Either way, Katsuki knows he won't be able to meet up with Kirishima later in the week because of his heat.

Briefly, Katsuki considers lying about why he can't make it. He isn't ashamed of his heat, but that doesn't mean he wants to talk about it. Still, he knows that Kirishima will eventually figure out the truth, and lying will only delay the inevitable.

"Such bullshit," Katsuki mutters as he jabs a message out.

BK  won't be able to go out this week  have my heat

Unsurprisingly, Kirishima texts back in less than a minute.

KE  ur going off suprressants???  IS EVERYTHIGN OKAY

BK  fucking calm down  i'm fine just didn't take them

KE  ok ok i just hear a lot of horror sotries  and its not like u to just not take them  WAIT did u meet someone????  UR SHARING UR HEAT WITH SOEMNEO ARENT U

BK  fuck, shut up, i'm not fucking some fcuking stranger  just deku

Katsuki's phone rings almost immediately and Katsuki contemplates not answering. He doesn't want to listen Kirishima yammer. But, as with the texts, he knows that it will be better to just get it over with.

"What?" Katsuki answers with a snarl.

"Midoriya?" Kirishima barks over the phone. Katsuki cannot see his best friend's face, but he can imagine it perfectly: eyebrows high, mouth slack, rapid blinking. "Really? And you want to just—just like that?"

"Whaddya mean, just like that?" Katsuki shoots back. "Isn't that how it fucking works?"

"I mean, not really," Kirishima blurts. "I mean—in a more traditional sense—in some circles—before people learned that it was, you know, wrong to force omegas that were heated into relationships that they didn't actually want—"

"I'm not fucking heated." Katsuki may be warm, yes, but even he knows his symptoms are a small portion of what awaits. His hormones aren't clouding his judgment and he won't pretend he's oblivious to why he wants to spend this heat with Izuku. In his softer moments—in those quiet spaces when Katsuki can be alone and honest—he thinks that he and Izuku have been building towards this since they were children. "I'm not fucking stupid."

"I know you're not. It's just—have you guys even gone a date? Hell, does he even know you like him like—you know, more than a friend?"

Katsuki smirks. "If he didn't, he's about to."

"This is a terrible idea," Kirishima mutters.

"So is your shitty haircut," Katsuki retorts, but there's no heat in the insult. He doesn't expect Kirishima to understand. There is so much history between him and Izuku, both good and bad, that it's difficult for other people to understand their dynamic.

"I know you won't, but you should still probably talk to him." Kirishima heaves a long-suffering sigh, the exhale distorted into mechanical pieces by the phone. "Who knows? Your relationship with Midoriya is complicated on the best of days. Maybe I'm just overthinking it."

"That'd be a fucking first."

And because Katsuki is an asshole with nothing left to say, he disconnects.

.

KE  YOU STILL NEED TO TALK TO MIDORIYA

BK  fuck off  (middle finger emoji)

.

Katsuki had his first heat midway through thirteen.

Like many first heats, it was short—barely scraping past two full days—but it felt so much longer. He remembers shaking through it, his muscles cramping as his body ached. Thirst and hunger were suspended as his dick stayed hard and slick leaked down his thighs. He jerked himself raw with one hand and stuffed his fingers inside himself with the other. He wriggled on his bed, rucking up the sweat-and-slick damp sheets, and whined. He cried and begged and felt incomplete.

When the worst of his heat passed, Katsuki ignored his still wobbly legs, got out of bed, and marched into the shower. He turned the water up as high as it would go and scrubbed the disturbing lack of control from his flesh. Then, once he pulled on a pair of fleece pajama bottoms and the softest shirt he owned, skin still hypersensitive, he stormed into the kitchen and demanded to be taken to the doctor.

Neither of Katsuki's parents protested. He was taken to the family doctor that afternoon, given a routine physical and asked several invasive questions, which Katsuki answered as a snap or a snarl. Eventually, the doctor gave him one of the stronger prescriptions. The suppressants didn't negate all the effects of heat; instead, they muffled them. Katsuki got hungry and hot for a few days, then incredibly horny for another, but it never compared to that first experience, where he laid on his mattress, writhing and gasping for an inexplicable more.

Because of this, Katsuki has never shared a heat. He's had sex, several times with several different partners, yet he never felt compelled to share such an intimacy with any of them.

Izuku is different. Izuku will take care of him. Izuku will take care of his heat, of his body, of his heart. Not just because Izuku is a good alpha and Katsuki is a needful omega, but because it's him.

And this—this is why Katsuki left his suppressants on the shelf.

He trusts Izuku.

.

Katsuki's shift is long and uneventful. He spends a majority of it stalking up and down his assigned sector, his dark scowl and clenched jaw guaranteeing a wide berth. His pre-heat has gone from ignorable to frustrating in less than a day, and still he knows that his symptoms are not the worst of it.

After his shift ends, Katsuki all but runs back to his agency. He bursts into the empty locker room; throws off his gloves, gauntlets, and mask; peels his skintight shirt off his torso; opens his locker and—

Sitting innocently atop his civilian clothing is an enormous, store-bought bento with a note taped to the thin plastic lid.

The bento isn't special. It contains a pile of plain white rice, several thick rolls of tamagoyaki, and a handful of tempura-fried jumbo shrimp. But there's a lot and Katsuki is starving. He scarfs it down, untasting, leaving the note unread until he has devoured all but a few stubborn grains of rice. He picks it off and unfolds it.

I can do it, it reads.

Though there is no signature, Katsuki knows who it's from. The scratchy handwriting is long-familiar and traces of musk linger on the paper. Katsuki brings it up to his nose and inhales deeply. His whole body throbs in anticipation.

Deku.

With a smirk, Katsuki refolds the slip of paper.

.

next >>

.

[redinkofshame]

Ink Blot, coming soon

Some of you know by now, of course, but I wanted to let my followers know that 

Red Ink is expecting a baby ink blot in March!

The pregnancy has really been affecting my ability to get any writing done, but Blot and I are doing just fine.

To celebrate I wanted to write a papae!Solas fic :D I also wanted to get it done like 3-4 months ago, but... Well anyway, this is one of the first scenes that came to my mind when I moved to Solavellan Hell, before I started devouring fic and lore. 

This is a post-Inquisition, pre-Trespasser fix-it fic! But, like, a sad fix-it fic, so I’m going to spoil it at the same time I give you the content warnings: Everyone will be okay, but if you’ve had/been close to someone who’s had a miscarriage or stillbirth, or any other child death really, this is likely not for you. But everyone will be okay.

I’ll also be posted it on AO3... When I think of a title. Edit: Here you go!

Okay, papae!Solas, under the cut!

Fen’Harel shone in resplendent armor atop a long forgotten battlement in Tevinter’s late afternoon sun. His feet were planted wide as he surveyed a small troop of infiltrators preparing for their mission on the ground below. Once comprised of hungry refugees, his forces were now fully equipped and approaching semblance of organization, however inexperienced. Then again, they were mortals all, and none held the lifespan to gain mastery in his eyes.

They would do for his purposes. They would have to.

They would leave in shifts with the sun, covertly entering Par Vollen in groups of two or three, depending on the task he’d assigned them. He, of course, would not be joining them—the Dread Wolf had more important matters to attend.

His first lieutenant, Arel, approached him—elven, feminine, and spirited enough to occasionally cause him grief, they were nonetheless devoted entirely to his cause.

“Report.”

“All operations are on schedule, My Lord. No complications are expected, though we are well prepared for many contingencies.”

He clasped his hands neatly behind him. “And the Inquisition?” he asked, face carefully neutral. Despite his best efforts to act detached, many of his agents had inevitably learned caution when broaching the subject of Inquisitor Keria Lavellan, or the Inquisition at large. Distasteful, that he had failed to conceal such complications from his own people; unavoidable, perhaps, that his enemies might learn of his weakness. He could hardly fault his spies—he had chosen them for their skills of observation, after all.

“No changes. Their forces will not be a problem, My Lord.”

“Do not lose caution. They’ve been known to change targets upon only her whim.”

“Yes…” they drawled, sounding confused. “But given the circumstances we can discount that factor. It is excellent timing indeed that we do this now. If I may say so, I believe with her passing we will have ample time to move forward on many fronts.”

His mind felt foggy in its attempt to understand them. Had he missed a written report? The passing of what?

“What do you mean? Speak plainly.”

They sighed. “It has been four days, and still no changes. She is surrounded by the finest healers they could send for, but I’ve never known a woman to survive after enduring this long.”

Solas’ eyebrows knit and he snapped his attention to his lieutenant. Keria was…Ill? Dying? That could not be.

Eyes cast to the parties below, Arel did not notice his reaction and continued. “With the Inquisition in mourning and without leadership they will be unlikely to take any new measures for some time. Our spies suggest that the advisors are already prepared for this eventuality, however, so we still need to act quickly. It is expected that they will announce Lady Pentaghast as the new Inquisitor, but of course delays will be expected as the sword changes hands.”

He felt disoriented, as if lost in a new section of the Fade that refused to listen to reason—nothing they were telling him made sense. Panic rose like a storm. “What do you mean? Why-why was I not told about this!” he demanded.

They raised an eyebrow as if he were an impetuous child—they were the only member of his army brave enough to do so. “We always knew this was a possibility, Lord Fen’Harel. Any woman, no matter how powerful, can fall victim to the birthing bed.”

The birthing… His eyes were wide and unseeing as his mind whirled. Keria could not die—It was not yet her time! She had a few years left to find happiness; how could something so mundane take a spirit such as hers? Why had he not been told, when had this…?

His hands clenched behind him as he forced himself to think. Time had never been his ally. It would have been forty weeks, more or less, if she was in labor now. Just over nine months, assuming she had not come early. He was still with the Inquisition at that time, three months before the final battle—

He was still with her at that time, he realized. Travelling, on their way to Crestwood…

Lost in a haze made equal parts of bliss and denial. She had imbibed of the Well, and though for now the truths it whispered in her ear would propose more questions than answers, he knew that with her focus it was only a matter of time until she mastered enough to understand.

He’d been furious with himself for allowing it to happen, and further disappointed in himself still that he in some small part felt relieved—he knew this meant it was time to tell her his own truth, their own truth. She needed to know, to harness her high-priced knowledge, and he could finally come clean as if himself submerged.

He’d come to his senses before his cleansing could come to pass, fortunately. He had broken off what never should have been.

He pictured six months ago, twenty-four weeks, holding the shattered remnant of his foci in his hands and the dread of knowing what sacrifices came next weighing like stone in his chest. He remembered leaving his heart behind, unable to even bid the bare-faced Dalish girl farewell before disappearing from her life.

Not a week later, one of his new recruits—still wearing an Inquisitor’s scouting uniform—was nervously reporting to him.

“You’re familiar with the, ah, rumors going on around Skyhold about the condition the Inquisitor is in?”

“I am well aware of the state of both the Inquisitor and the Inquisition when I left. Your job is to update me on any changes,” he’d snapped.

“Right, well… You know how she was pretty severely injured at the battle with Corypheus?”

“I was there,” he repeated, irate. He needed no reminder of watching her small body flying through the air like lightning and striking broken stones crossing over from the Fade. It had been only a few days, a blink of the eye, since he held his shattered orb in his hands and walked away from his heart.

“She-she is expected to make a full recovery. It seems that, miraculously, the baby survived the injuries.”

Any relief he’d felt was washed away as fury flooded him. While true that some of her inner circle affectionately referred to her as a ‘baby’ due to her intolerance of pain, this miscellaneous recruit had no right to the demeaning nickname. “Watch your tongue,” he warned, seething through bared teeth.

“Wh-what? I, um, yes, Fen’Harel. My Lord. Nothing else to report.”

After that he no longer took scout reports directly.

That couldn’t be it, surely. They would have mentioned it again. What else had he missed? Then he remembered four months ago when his newly appointed second in command had glossed over something he hadn’t quite caught.

He’d been examining a relic recovered by his agents, trying to determine if it still held value, held power. It would prove useful, could he get it working anew, but he did not think that would be the case. Arel found him and gave him what could be described as a report only if one was generous; it much more closely resembled idle gossip regarding the going-ons of his men. He should have balked at their informality, but the company was tolerable and it never hurt to know more about those who served him.

“Jonan’s wife is pregnant. Their first. He’s not asking for time away yet, but he seems rather anxious about it. We should avoid asking him to do anything overtly dangerous for the time being--no point in forcing him into refusing to follow orders. We’ll have to be careful not to appear to be giving him special treatment, of course, or else all kinds of pregnant wives or sick relatives will come out of the woodwork.

“Speaking of, the Inquisitor is starting to show, too, it seems. Winter comes early to Skyhold though, so only her inner circle will have noticed so far. Not that there aren’t rumors in Orlais, but there always have been. Unsurprisingly, she is not allowing it to slow her down. I imagine it will be easy to continue to hide until spring.” He hadn’t understood what they meant by ‘show’--making a show of force, or manipulating trade under the noses of the Orlesians perhaps? For all that she hated it, Keria had a keen mind for politics. He did not get the chance to ask before they continued, though. “Which reminds me, I left supply reports on your desk. Nothing interesting; the winters are mild this far north, and we are well stocked.

He remembered two months ago. He had just finished communing with a guiding spirit in the Fade when Arel found him.

He had been agitated, and in a hurry. What he’d learned from the spirit was concerning: there was an untrustworthy agent in his midst. They would need to be swiftly taken care of. Arel did not get in his way, but he recognized the way they bowed as he passed—a way reserved for when they had something of some urgency to tell him… Or something regarding Keria.

“Be quick.”

“Yes, Fen’Harel. The Lady Inquisitor has finally confirmed her condition publicly. Nothing else to report.”

“Condition?”

“Physical condition, my lord.”

“Fine, thank you,” he had said, brushing them off. He did not have the time to wonder over the significance of confirming something they already knew, however curious it was to announce publicly that the Anchor was growing. Keria did not often admit to weakness.

He thought back to four days ago.

He’d been in his war room, large detailed maps of different countries on intricate stone tables. Arel strolled from the map of Tevinter to that of Orlais and Ferelden, covered as it was with pieces indicating the Inquisition’s movements.

“The Inquisitor was investigating rumor of a lingering rift in the Arbor Wilds and came upon a ruin near that of Mythal’s temple and the former Well of Sorrows. Reports say it appears to be untouched, though of course centuries of neglect have not been kind. It appears to be a temple dedicated to Elgar’nan.”

They paused, then, looking at Solas pointedly. They were waiting for him to confirm that he’d been aware of the temple’s existence. In truth, he had not—it had not existed in his time. Long ago Mythal’s temple had been much larger, so it was likely she’d only discovered an annex that was dedicated to her husband. He wondered if Keria would find the annex dedicated to him.

He said nothing. Posturing was necessary—it would not inspire his ranks to see him guessing, to suspect that he only partially knew how to accomplish his goals. Better to seem as if he already had all the answers, and only shared them with his followers when the time came. As an added benefit, it also discouraged unwanted questions.

Faced with silence, Arel continued. “Any excavation has been suspended due to the Inquisitor going into labor, however. A presence will remain to protect the area, but she wants to be there when it is opened for the first time. I don’t know what she’s hoping to find, but if you have any reason to suspect we should investigate ourselves first, now would be the time to do so.”

He didn’t understand what new labor they spoke of, or why Keria would wish to oversee it herself—physical labor was never her forte and the Inquisition had many labor forces across Thedas bringing in various resources—but it mattered little. “No. There is nothing to be found in the Wilds.”

Atop his wall in Tevinter, Fen’Harel stared unseeing as the pieces slowly fell into place.

He strode away without a word, long legs quickly crossing over the stones beneath his feet to a nearby hall. A flick of his wrist and an eluvian hummed to life, scarcely in time for him to walk through it. Once he was through he closed the portal behind him. Out of view of his soldiers his pace quickened further. Sprinting now, panic chased him through the labyrinth and broken steps of shattered memories. He thought only of Keria, his heart, her pulse slowing as she lay in her deathbed due to a condition he had inflicted upon her.

It should not have been—his seed should not have been able to take root in her. He’d taken measures against it; as had she, as unreliable as mortal means were.

He nearly considered that the blame might belong to another and not him, then, but no—despite the relief the idea brought, it was only an attempt to assuage his guilt. It made no matter, in any case. This could not be allowed to happen.

He knew he had concealed men watching the eluvian that led to Skyhold, but he was beyond caring about being seen running to her. He was panting hard, unwilling to waste even the small amount of mana needed to keep his body comfortable; he did not know just what he was walking in to.

He jumped in the portal, landing in the small misused room off Skyhold’s gardens. He burst out the door, hardly noticing the startled guards standing to either side of it. They called out confused alarms but he did not slow, darting to the main hall.

Other guards, standing before the door that led to the Inquisitor’s suite, saw him coming. They heard the shouts, saw the expression he wore. They snapped to attention and one made as if to block the door, but the other grabbed their shoulder and muttered something. They each looked at a loss at what to do.

The Inquisitor had once given an open-ended order to allow her apostate consort into her bedchamber at any time, day or night; by the guards’ confusion, she had never officially rescinded the order, but they expected he was no longer welcome.

He did not care what they decided—he did not need their permission to pass.

With a gauntlet he harmlessly knocked aside a spear as it crossed over the door, not allowing it to slow this progress. Past the door he took the stairs two or three at a time and flung upon the door to her room—once his, once theirs—and made quick work of those stairs as well. He took in the somber environment as his head rose above the banister.

Despite the balcony doors open wide to the bitter mountain air the room was warm, humid, the air thick with the scent of sweat and blood. Keria laid abed, twisted in damp sheets, and it was small wonder why she suffered so; too petite by half even in her condition. Especially in her condition. Her storm-black hair, normally full of static and wind, clung damp to her forehead. It had grown longer since he’d last seen her.

Surrounding her were several women; midwives and healers. The room was too quiet for a birthing. There were neither screams nor soothing assurances, no instructions to push or breath measured breaths. Hardly a sound at all. There was only a dying legend, surrounded by those attempting to keep her alive for as long as possible. Across from him, sitting limply in a stiff chair was a weary Dorian.

Why would a necromancer…?

His heart seized as he remembered overhearing a report given to Leliana in the rookery from his position at his desk, soon after the incident in Crestwood and her replacing him with Dorian in her missions. She had fallen in battle without him there to shield her, and Dorian had to take hold of her very spirit and force it to return to her lifeless body.

And here he was, looking utterly spent, empty lyrium bottles crowding a small table beside him.

All this he took in within a single heartbeat before rushing to Keria’s side, paying no heed to Dorian climbing to his feet accusatorily, or to the boots stomping up the stairs behind him. He reached a hand to Keria’s abdomen, a quick seeping of magic allowing him to analyze her condition.

A confirmation of his fears. Drastic blood loss and muscles too weak to move, her body was giving up the fight. Her breast hardly rose or fell with her breath as she drifted in and out of the Fade.

“What are you doing to her?” demanded a Tevinter accent, but he scarcely heard it. Through the hand resting on his vhenan he sent a flood of healing magic, spreading through her exhausted muscles to revive them, washing into her marrow until fresh blood ran through her veins.

The Anchor flared green and she gasped as if she’d been drowning, electric eyes flying open in surprise.

And then she screamed in pain.

The midwives rushed forward, finding their voices as they propped up her legs and folding up the blanket once more.

“Can you push?”

“Is that the father?”

“She’s still losing blood.”

“He shouldn’t be in here.”

“Just one more big one, Lady Inquisitor, just one more push…”

“Are you going to kick him out?”

He turned his attention to dulling her pain, removing his gauntlets to take her unmarked hand. Dorian gripped his staff, but glanced uncertainly between him and Keria. That is, until the feet crested the stairs, steel clearing scabbards.

“Seize h—Solas?” The Lady Seeker’s voice was incredulous over the sound of screams.

For her he spared a glance over his shoulder, saw her men on alert and waiting dutifully for her command.

“He helped her, Cassandra,” Dorian explained helplessly.

“You did it!” joyfully cried the woman standing at the foot of Keria’s bed, turning the heads of Cassandra and both mages. “You’re done, you did it, Lady Inquisitor.”

He turned his attention to his heart, her hand still in his. Tears fell from her eyes like rain, her face twisted, and he knew it was not from the pain.

“Why are they quiet? Are they still? I failed, didn’t I?” she asked, choking on her sobs. “I’m sorry, I tried, I’m so sorry ma da’len, I…”

Aside from her plaintive apologies a hush fell over the room, a loss of words for her loss. And then, a new cry shattered it.

Solas’ attention snapped to the squirming bundle in the midwife’s hand, small and red and shrieking as a second pair of hands attempted to clean it with a rag. Joyfully, tears in her eyes, the woman said, “You see? You hear your son’s cries, Lady Inquisitor? You did it. You did wonderfully.”

The air left his chest.

Somehow…

Somehow in his rush to save Keria he had all but forgotten that children were often a consequence of labor.

He stared, unmoving, unbreathing, only his eyes following as the neonate was walked to Keria’s side and passed to her arms. She was laughing, she was crying, and she was holding…

“A son?” Solas whispered, unbelieving.  

“Yes…” slowly answered a healer, eyeing him hesitantly.

“He’s so beautiful,” Keria murmured.

“Is that the father?” whispered another healer again.

“Yes,” Keria answered this time, speaking clearly. “He is.”

“And he shouldn’t be in here,” Dorian said, irritated.

Solas supposed he had right to be.

“If he helped her…” Cassandra replied, uncertain.

“He’s staying,” Keria commanded, voice regal despite her rough throat. “If he wishes. He may come and go as he pleases.”

That stopped Cassandra and Dorian both, though they looked unconvinced. The healers continued their routine checks, and explained to her that the newborn was undersized, but healthy.

An unsure moment passed, mother gleefully quieting child, before she begged the nurses to take him back. “I’m sorry, I’m too tired, I’ll drop him. Take him. No, wait—his father. He should see his father.”

Cassandra made as if to move forward. “Inquisitor…”

“Just for a moment. I just need to shut my eyes.”

Her eyes were indeed blinking slow and sleepily as the nurses tried to take the infant, but she passed him to Solas instead. Not knowing what else to do, he took his son before she could drift off into a natural slumber. He was glad he’d divested of his gauntlets, afraid to hold the infant against the cold of his dragon bone armor or the hair of the pelt slung over his shoulder. Knees weak he sat for stability at an angle upon the bed in which his heart slept.

He could not take his eyes off the miracle before him; not when the healers filed out and the midwife warned that she’d be back soon to rouse Keria into feeding the baby, not when Cassandra relieved Dorian of his post and dismissed the soldiers, nor as she stood guard before the only exit and scowled at Solas with her hand on her hilt and a few inches of the silverite blade exposed.

Instead he saw only plush pink skin, small gripping fists, and impossibly small, delicately pointed ears.

He choked on a sob.

He thought of his transgressions, his role, his guilt. He thought of those he’d trapped when he spun the Veil, their spirits caught in a limbo that he’d planned to free when the veil was no more. He thought of the knowledge, the history, the connection with magic and spirits that was now lost on his people, never to be regained. He thought of the millennia of years the elves had spent enslaved despite his efforts to stop exactly that, and tried to imagine the pain each and every one of them had gone through.

His tears fell upon the small blanket swaddling his son. He noticed for the first time that it must have been embroidered by his mother’s hand. Cassandra released her grip upon her hilt and moved out to the balcony and watched the sun setting.

He wept for his people because, looking at his son, he knew he would no longer save them.

He alone could walk the din’anshiral. He alone could undo what he’d wrought and restore them to what they were meant to be. But he would not.

For this was not the first time he’d held his child.

He’d been a father before. He’d lived a long life, and had been graced with many loves and with several children. He’d loved each of his children with his whole heart, had been so proud of who they became… And he was, ultimately, responsible for each of their deaths.

Some had died in the war he’d started, his rebellion. Two slain fighting right beside him, others casualties of politics in effort to stay his hands. He rose the Veil in an effort to save them all, to protect the family that remained to him, to save his people from themselves…

He did not know how long it took him, trapped and wandering in the Fade, to learn of their fates. For countless years he hunted and traded secret memories, searching for answers. One by one, he learned of what happened to each of his beautiful children. There was not one demise met that could not be laid at his feet, either directly or as a consequence of the chaos he’d caused.

It was too late to save any of them, but it was not too late for this one small son that should not have been. He entertained only briefly the thought of waiting before giving up his journey; perhaps the boy was mortal, perhaps his mission could wait until after their lifetime. But no--there could be grandchildren, could be generations more. He could not treat his son’s life, Keria’s life, as if it were merely an inconvenient delay. He must commit to a single decision, and he knew in his heart he was more powerless now than the wriggling infant exhausted from the burden of being born.

And so he wept; for all these centuries his efforts and his name had been twisted into something vile, now he would become Betrayer in truth.

He felt a warm, weak grip on his wrist. “It’s okay. It’s okay, it’ll be okay.” Astonished, he turned and looked at Keria, her large eyes as wet as his own. That she could still treat him with kindness after he’d abandoned her… Would she still, once she knew the truth? Voice a hoarse whisper, she asked him, “Are you back?”

He shifted so that he could cover her hand with his without disturbing his son. “Yes. For good, this time.”

[theuniversitychallengereview]

UC 50.25 - Magdalene, Cam vs Birkbeck

It’s January again, and we’re settling in for a grim two plus months of a lockdown that should never have been necessary, and which is in the dark winter months rather than the warm(ish) summer months. But on the bright side we’ve reached the quarter finals of University Challenge, which is my favourite stage of the competition, and which Paxman loves to describe in ever-increasing hyperbole each year. 

The format is more complicated than a standard knockout, admittedly, but I’m looking forward to seeing which analogy he uses to describe its apparently absurd complexity - my money is on something to do with minotaurs and labyrinths (I don’t think he’s used that one before).

In honour of the lengths to which Paxo goes to convince us that to understand the quarter final format is to solve string theory (I’m really hoping he says something along these lines now, having written all this before the episode came out) I am going to try and explain the rules in the most needlessly convoluted manner possible (complete with a dodgy, difficult to follow diagram I just drew on Paint).

So, as you can clearly see from the below infographic, there are thirteen matches remaining in this years series of The Challenge. Ten of these are in the quarter final stage - demarcated by the big red box on the diagram. Now, usually when there are eight teams left in a knockout tournament there are four matches in the round - eight into two is four, and four teams progress while four go home. The end outcome here is the same, but the journey to reach said outcome is markedly different. 

There is a semi-well known knockout format called double-elimination (flowchart below), which is fairly similar to this in that it takes two defeats to get knockout out, but differs in that you don’t progress to a straight knockout semi-final stage (full disclosure I’m now slightly confusing myself, and for a moment thought that the UC format was exactly the same as double-elimination, but its not... I don’t think). 

The first part is the same - four matches are played and the winners and losers of these matches then face off in four more matches (winners vs winners and losers vs losers). The winners of the winners vs winners progress to the semi final stage (there are two such teams), and then the losers of the winners vs winners play the winners of the losers vs losers for the final two spots. It wasn’t that bad actually, I’ll try and level up the bamboozlement next time.

This means that we see four teams play twice at this stage and four play three times, which is what makes it so fun. you see the same people popping up again and again which makes it easier to identify with particular teams and players before the real business end of the tournament starts in the semis.

With that in mind tonight’s two teams are the winning sides from the previous two second round matches. Magdalene College, Cambridge came back from behind with a run of over a hundred points in a row to defeat Oxford rivals Corpus Christi in their second round match, while Birkbeck cruised to a 205-95 win over The Open University in theirs.

Both were entertaining matches, so hopefully this one continues in the same vein; here’s your first starter for ten.

Birkbeck captain Williams spent almost the entirety of their last match with a child-like grin on his face, and he starts this one off the same way as Clarke takes the opening question. Paxo teases her for taking so long to get Francis Bacon, as a medieval historian. Two bonuses give them twenty points, and Taylor continues his fine form to extend this with rats on the next starter.

Byrne gets Magdalene going with a tentative buzz on Bulgaria, and Paxman spends a while explaining why their correct answer on the first bonus is in fact correct. Byrne continues his alliterative buzzing streak with badger on the next starter and Mags snuck into the lead with two bonuses on Meryl Streep. 

The alliteration is broken by Aristotle, but Byrne completes his hat-trick with the first picture starter, on eponymous curves. Clarke then got Birkbeck out of their mini-rut with a fairly late buzz on what seemed like a fairly easy Shakespeare starter (not that I knew it), and a couple of bonuses tied the game at sixties.

A set of bonuses on RNA saw Lawson invent the phrase ‘small nucleotide operon’ for snoRNA. Perhaps unsurprisingly he was not right (it was ‘small nucleolar’), but a grinning Davies buzzed in with Elves on the next starter (even Paxo gave a wry smile too) to put Mags in control following a 65-0 streak.

Mutio recognises John Coltrane within about two seconds on the music starter, and a couple of bonuses cut the gap, but a neg from Williams next time around handed the initiative back to Cambridge. The Birkbeck skipper redeemed himself soon enough with Golden Apple, and the Londoners found themselves back in the running. Taylor, who is old enough to have been there, knows that Jimi Hendrix last performed in England at the Isle of WIght festival, and Birkbeck were level. What a comeback.

But we weren’t done yet, and Lawson took the second picture starter with gleeful relish to wrest back the lead. One more for Byrne and another for Lawson saw the lead boomerang back out to seventy points. Comeback neutralised. Surely this was it, and it was.

Final Score: Magdalene, Cam 240 - 140 Birkbeck

What a match that was, the highest scoring match of the series so far, and probably the closest one hundred point margin I’ve ever seen on the show. Magdalene found some serious form when it mattered at the end. 

They look seriously strong going into the first winners vs winners match against next weeks winners, and I’m certainly not going to rule Birkbeck out of the first losers vs losers match either. 

As always, thanks for reading, and I’ll be back next week for another quarter final match (game 2 on the above graphic)

If you’d be interested in even more University Challenge Reviews then you can click the link below to my Patreon where I’ve been doing retro reviews for the 2015/16 series, which is the one that inspired me to start this blog (assign praise or blame as you see fit). You can sign up for as little as £1/month and I’m so grateful for everyone who supports me over there, thanks :)

https://www.patreon.com/user?u=16447756&fan_landing=true