#killswitch chapter 2

[pro-logue-epi-logue]

It was such a predictable move even i rolled my eyes.

[slutouttanowhere]

Pairing: Randy Orton x Mavis Pete x LA Knight

a/n: I am coming to y’all in the midnight hour lol it’s literally 3am, and yet again I so desperately want to post more of this story. So, if y’all didn’t know Sheamus is 1. Going by his real name Stephen instead of his in ring name. 2. He has a fitness YouTube channel called Celtic Warrior Workouts, I highly recommend those even if you’re not a fitness person, it’s a pretty interesting yt channel ft wwe superstars. This part of the story was inspired by three episodes of Celtic Warrior Workouts one of which featured the Browling Brutes, an episode that ft Bayley, and an episode that ft Austin Theory. Um also, I guess I’ve created a Sheamus x Austin Theory feud???

⏮️ Chapter 1, Chapter 2

Chapter 3

It was an early Sunday morning. While this wasn't my designated gym day, I typically planned on Wednesday's; however, I made an exception. That being Stephen practically begged me to come film for his YouTube channel. I originally told him that we would be doing something simple like weight training, but unfortunately for him I got my days mixed up. When I walked into the gym, he’s already there with his camera crew, and when he looked up from his phone I was met with a warm reception. I dropped my gym bag, and leaped into Stephen’s large muscular arms. He squeezed me in a tight bear hug, it wasn’t so tight that it would hurt me, but enough to let me know he genuinely missed me. “Petey!” He shouted as he gently put me back on my feet, I let out a squeal at the mention of the nickname he adorned me with long ago. 

“Sorry I’m late, like, at the last minute I couldn’t find my gym shoes. Then I found them by the end of the bed, I guess you could say they…sneaked away.” I looked at Stephen expectantly, he rolled his eyes, but didn’t fight the smile that crept onto his lips. 

He playfully shoved me out the way, signaling to the camera guy, “Dork.” He quickly shot at me before pivoting towards the camera to do his intro. “Today we have a special guest, whom I've been trying to get to come aboard for a while. Well today we finally got her, and boy is she a bit bubbly today. Ladies and gentlemen, Thee Hot Girl Mavis Pete, aka Texas Pete, yes like the hot sauce, aka Money Makin Mavis.” He side stepped to make some room for me to slide into frame, wrapping an arm around my shoulder, and giving me another squeeze.

“Ayee wassup everybody, it’s your Hot Girl Coach here.” The grin on my lips stretched from ear to ear, bouncing on my toes, and blew a kiss to the camera. 

“Alright, alright, I see you’re ready to get going. But first, what’s the most embarrassing thing in your playlist?” He asked, it didn’t take long for me to think about it, I slapped my palm to my face. My cheeks warmed up, I pressed my lips together trying to contain my composure.

“Gosh, you’re really asking me that?” A chagrin expression etched across my face, I wrap my arms around my midsection hugging myself. 

“Aw c’mon you watch the channel, or well you better be watching the channel.” Stephen playfully bumped my shoulder. 

“Ugh, fine, I listen to you guys' theme songs. Right now Cody’s, Punk’s old Killswitch Engage one, and John Cena’s are in rotation, especially when I work out.” I shrugged my shoulders, suddenly feeling shy under the scrutiny of the camera lens. Working in front of a camera while out of character felt odd to say the least. Stephen didn't make a huge deal out of it, he looked down at me with a grin, but quickly moved on. 

He clapped his hands then pointed to me, I perked up like a puppy, the smile growing across my lips showing my teeth. “What are we calling this work out?” He asked, my eyebrows shot up in surprise, I didn’t know I got to name the workout. 

My brain scrambled for a clever answer, “Petey’s Poper?” I rushed out, which revived a deep chuckle from Stephen. He wrapped an arm around my shoulder, which turned into a playful headlock. To his demise he let loose on his grip which I pulled out of, and I turned it into an arm lock. 

“Oh shite! Why are you so strong? Jesus, let me go.” He cried out, not willing to give up yet, I tightened my hold. 

“Tap! Tap out Sheamo.” I laughed evilly, without hesitation he reached around, and tapped his shoulder desperately. When I was in my developmental days, sometimes Sheamus would come train with the guys, but I would weasel my way to the front, eager to train with the strongest talent. I’ve had his respect ever since then, and even in horseplay he doesn’t take me lightly. 

“Now that I’ve got my arm back, let’s go do a bit.” When he made his way over to the weights, I paused, looking at him sheepishly. When he realized I wasn’t talking, he looked up at me, upon seeing the expression on my face, he rolled his eyes. “What now?” His eye squinting, a knowing look in his eyes, and  a hint of a smirk on his lips. “I know when you’re up to bullshite Petey.” 

I took a half step back, he faked a punch at me, but I dodged away. “Listen, listen, listen. Don’t hate me but…today is Pilates day.” I whispered towards the end, his eyebrows shot up, and his head fell back dramatically, I turned to the camera, “Sheamus is known for being quite the primadonna guys.” I mumbled into the mic attached to my tank top, he shot me a glare, and I threw my hands up in defense. 

“Mavis, please tell me you’re joking?” He groaned, regret already morphing onto his face, and for a second I thought he was going to cry. I tried to hold in my laughter, I did feel bad, only a tiny bit. 

“Sheamus…you lift men, three times my size, and beat them on their chest, surely you can handle this. I believe in you fella!” I playfully chopped him across the chest, but he was not amused. I repeatedly chopped him, increasing my strength, still not hitting him nearly as hard as I could have. I knew he could take it, after the fifth one he finally caved. 

He chortled, “Fine, ugh, is that why you picked this gym?” He asked, watching me closely.

I bursted out a breath of laughter, “No! I genuinely thought today was my heavy day, you know I love you. I’d never put you through hell on purpose.” I said through giggles, he held the glass door open for me as we entered the opposite side of the gym with all the pilates machines.Which for  the most part was deserted with the exception of an employee changing the trash. 

“For the record, I’m complaining so much because I’ve seen Petey’s Pilaties workouts, and she tells me how much they hurt. Everyone has a different kind of muscular strength, and I highly doubt my body is ready for this at all.” Stephen explained, I rolled my lips inward, nodding my head in agreement, and placing a hand on his shoulder. I smiled up at him sweetly, from my peripheral I caught Austin Theory lingering, but I turned my back to him. He asked me out on a date two weeks ago. When I rejected him, that somehow made him more persistent, and for some reason delusional in believing he would wear me down enough to eventually say yes to him. 

“Any who, we’re gonna start with some stretches, and warm up, because god knows you’re gonna need it.” 

“Ha ha.” Stephen laughed humorlessly, and let me pull him by the arm over to an open area meant for yoga, and stretching. “So, we’re gonna do some toe touches, that’s gonna pull our hammies–

“Hamstrings.” He clarified for the viewers, a small smirk on his lips, then nodded to me, allowing me to continue.

“Mmhm, and then we’re gonna do some sumo squats, that’s gonna stretch the inner thighs, but the main goal is to loosen up your hips. Now me, I’ve been doing these for almost a year, so my body is used to getting that low. But please don’t hurt yourself babes, get as low as you can go comfortably. I don’t suggest forcing it.” As I explained, Stephen listened intently, and watched as I demonstrated each stretch for him. “I love how you’re always open to learning something new.” I laughed lightly, our friendship is so special to me, Stephen is one of my friends that just gets it.

“I love learning, in all of my 40 years–

“Damn you’re 40?” I didn’t mean to outburst, but I was truly baffled by this revelation. He took a pregnant pause, I think the realization just hit him too. 

“Yes…what are ya tryin tah say?” A grin growing on his lips, he watched me with a weary glance.

“Like where did the time go? I feel like it was just yesterday I was watching you for the first time, that means I’m getting older too.” I wanted to cry, I could feel myself getting choked up, and it didn’t help the way he peered at me. His discernment often filled in the blanks of what I wouldn't say out loud. Damn him being kind, and empathetic. 

“I’m okay, I’m okay. Whew, got a little heavy, but don’t think you’re getting out of this workout! Petey's Popper workout.” I clapped my hands together, and dropped into a squat popping my ass back. Anything to shake off those spiraling thoughts. 

“I hope twerking isn’t part of the warm up.” 

“Baby! You ain’t ready for that.” I said, whipping my coils, and winking into the camera. Stephen was rendered speechless, instead of trying to speak, he gave up completely, and just dropped into the sumo squats. I shrugged my shoulders, dropping down to join him, staring him right in his eyes, and just like that we both burst out into laughter. 

“Jesus, can you not stare into my soul?” Stephen stood from his squatting position, I mirrored his movements coming up the same time he did. 

“Sorry.” I giggled, then moved into the next stretch, and he tried his best to copy my form. 

“Weirdo.” He mumbled, shaking his head, but going back into his focused head space. We finished up the warm up then moved to the first round, five minutes in Stephen’s face is cherry red. Both our shirts were off, and a layer of sweat covered his face. Me being the only one conditioned Pilates, it would take a bit more work to get me to really sweat. It wasn’t until the last round that I actually started to feel my glutes, and thighs burn. 

“Agh, fuck that burns.” I cried out as my muscles finally came to a rest after I finished the set. Stephen a few seconds behind me looked more distraught than I did, he always gave it his best no matter how much it may have hurt. Even in the ring he doesn't give up easily, and that translates into his workout routines. 

“Jesus Christ, why does it hurt more after the fact?” We both crawled to the ground rolling onto our sides, we both took a moment to catch our breaths before either of us spoke again. 

“Alright last thing, what’s your favorite cheat meal?” 

“So I like to eat a lot, but I also like to stay in shape so I only eat one cheat meal a month. I throw all the calorie counting out the window, I’m consuming all the sugar I want, and I know we both have a really bad sweet tooth. So I’ll do chicken tenders, fries with chili cheese, and an Olliepop. Then I’ll have ice cream and a brownie, with caramel syrup. And sleep like a baby.” When it comes to eating, make no mistake about it, I can eat a man out of their house, and home.

 Stephen chuckled, deeply wrapping an arm around my shoulder. “Yea I know your love for chicken tenders, it’s like your comfort food.” Patting me on the head with his other hand, he closed out the video, and then cut the camera. 

“Shit I’m tired, and hungry, wanna go out to eat?” I offered as we were walking out of the Pilates room. Before he had a chance to answer, Austin butted into our conversation, and of course Grayson wasn’t too far behind him. 

“Of course baby girl, my treat. Anywhere you wanna go ya boy is paying.” A grin spread across his lips as he spoke ever so arrogantly. His eyes shamelessly getting an eyefull of my body, making sure to slow up at my exposed thighs. Stephen visibly grimaced at the two younger men, Austin in particular got under the Irish brutes skin effortlessly. I’ve heard about the countless altercations they’ve gotten into backstage, and on more than a few occasions Austin started the arguments. 

“What’s crazy is that you really are cute.” I shifted my weight from one hip to the other, I let Austin soak up my compliment, because it was true. I did find Austin physically attractive, and maybe I would let him hit one day if he could prove that he can keep a secret. Grayson slapped his bestie on the shoulder, already giddy, that tiny bit of attention enough to make them excited. 

“But you’re cuter when you’re not talking.” 

“I bet, but let’s be honest, you’re just more interested in tryna be someone’s sugar baby.” 

Stephen pushed past me getting up in Austin’s face, Grayson took a step forward ready to back his friend up if necessary. While Austin is in great shape, Stephen wasn’t just a hunk of muscle. He didn’t take disrespect, to women especially, lightly at all. “Better watch that smart arse mouth of yours.” He warned, I was taken aback by his domineering tone, his eyes darkened, and his hands balled into fist. I didn’t realize how serious the heat between the two was until now, and Austin wasn’t backing down, kudos to him though. 

“Man, you ain’t  nothing, but talk. I’m not even surprised you got in my business this time, I see the way you look at Mavis, just admit it bro. You want a piece just like everyone else.” Before Austin could take the next breath, Stephen snatched Austin up by his shirt in a tight grip. His breathing heavy, I coughed trying to catch my breath from choking on my spit. There is nothing that could have prepared me for this, but I tried to gather myself. 

Austin didn't seem phased, he was satisfied with his work, but he topped it off with a cheshire grin. Stephen’s words came out in a growl, “One of these days, you’re gonna cash a check you’re arse can’t cash.” Stephen had let him go, but not before he shoved him, Austin grinned, but was quick to shove him back. 

“Oh my god, okay, okay. Calm down, he’s not worth it, Sheamo.” I quickly stepped between them, pressing my hands to his chest, I could feel his heart beating wildly underneath my palms.

“See man, ya always take it too far, shame on you.” Grayson clicked his tongue, scolding their older peer. Austin chuckled deeply, I looked up to Stephen, he tore his gaze away from the two idiots to me. 

“You good?” 

“I’m fine.” He forced out, his lips pressed together, and his eyebrows drawn. He was not fine. I turned to Austin, and Grayson who had put some space between us. Smart move on their part, because I had no doubt Stephen would take on both of them in the mood he was in. 

“Can y’all just like, get fucking lost or something?” I turned to face them, I didn’t care to waste anymore energy on them, and I definitely didn’t want the situation to blow up anymore than it already was. I could already see Hunter’s facial expression in the back of my mind when he found out I was in the middle of yet another incident between superstars. Thankfully Austin was bored now, and decided to give up. He blew me a kiss as he walked away laughing like a badass toddler. 

“Hey man what the hell?” I slapped his shoulder, his eyebrows shot up, shocked that I  reprimanded him. 

“He’s a jerk Mavis, he’s always being a tool.” 

“Yes, and?” It was easy for me to dismiss idiots like Austin, guys are always trying to press me, it came with the gig. 

“And, he always talks about you like you’re just something to check off a box. Women aren’t objects, you know how I feel about that, I wasn’t just gonna stand by, and let him disrespect you.” Stephen was an Angel in my eyes, he could do no wrong, and if anything this just validated that even more. He spoke passionately, his hands on his hips, and his gaze held mine. 

“Stephen, you know I love you, but I can’t allow you to get into trouble for me. Then I’d have to deal with your wife scolding me, and sending me paragraphs because your grumpy ass got suspended.” We wandered over to a nearby bench, and sat facing each other. He looked down at his hands, squeezing them close, and opening them as if to release the built up tension in his body. 

“I can’t help it, ya know you’re like a sister to me, a little sister. ” He joked, glancing at me, a crack of a smile on his lips. 

“Jesus, do I even wanna know what you’d look like defending your actual siblings?” I laughed playfully punching him in the shoulder, he smiled sheepishly. His hand scratched the back of his head. 

He chortled, leaning in, “Actually, my record back home is pretty nasty.” He watched the expression on my face morph from confusion to a look of interest. Letting out a spout of boisterous laughter, his hand fell to his stomach, holding himself. 

“Say whattt?” I gasped, I’m not totally surprised, but he’s never told me this. I felt like I was just told the biggest secret, which is a rare moment. Stephen is the kind of guy you could be knowing for years and not find out he’s a serial killer til he’s standing over you with a knife. 

“Only Drew really knows the details of that night, but that doesn’t matter right now. Sorry if I gave ya a scare, but something has to be done about that guy..” Stephen’s previous upbeat demeanor tarnished. I’ve never known anyone to get underneath his skin the way Austin did. 

“Don’t worry about him, trust me, Theory is all talk.” I stop up from the bench, Stephen following my lead. The gym was just now starting to get busy as we were leaving, and I’m thankful that we’re done for the day. I don’t really like crowded gyms. 

“So, back to what I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted, wanna go get some food?” I offered, we took our time walking through the parking lot, my adrenaline from earlier finally coming down. My body felt the after effects of the workout, I felt heavy like I was carrying another person. 

“Yea, if you don’t mind Drew tagging along? We planned on hanging out today.” Stephen leaned against the inside of my open driver's side door after I hopped in. I threw my things into the passenger side, and started the car, pumping the AC. 

I’m not around Drew much, but since he’s a friend of Stephen’s, I automatically trusted him, “Of Course! I’m gonna head back to the hotel real quick to change, and then we can meet up.” 

“Where do ya wanna go?” He asked, and I wasn’t really sure, I just knew I was hungry. 

“Mmm, you guys can pick. I’m good with whatever right now.” I said abstinently, I was too hungry to make my choice right now, and I knew Stephen would pick a good spot. We said our last goodbyes, and then he let me be on my way. 

After I made it back to the hotel to shower, I changed out of my sweaty gym clothes, and into something more comfortable. I was standing at the elevator waiting, and when it finally opened Randy was on the inside with his head down. He seemed to have been deep in thought, “Look at what the 80s drug in.” I mumbled, his head shot up, when he recognized it was me, and not some asshole stranger his lips curled into a grin. 

“Ohh, someone’s in a zesty mood today, what’s wrong didn’t have your bottle before bed last night?” Randy rebuttal quicker than I expected, and I struggled to repress what I really wanted to say. 

“Know a thing or two about babies don’t you?.” I mumbled, he didn’t find that amusing at all, but willed himself to let out an airy chuckle. 

“Real mature, bringing up the baby mama scandal, you’d think coming from someone who has nothing but rumors surrounding her, she’d show a little empathy.” He spoke as a matter of factly, I pressed my lips together, and exited the elevator in silence. “Speaking of which, I was going to say sorry for the joke I made last night. That’s all it was, a joke, but I didn’t know how much of a sore topic it was for you.” I was walking towards the lobby when he grabbed me by my arm, then let his hand slide down my forearm, and squeezed my hand. I knew I was visibly upset, it was the way his eyes softened when he finally got a good look at me, and the way his demeanor changed. 

“I know.” I tried to speak but the emotions caught me once again like they did earlier. I swallowed it down, and attempted to get through it again, Randy didn’t interject. 

“I know what some of the guys say about me, and I know what they think. That I’m some busy body, that sleeps with all the guys, and if you’re nice enough to her she might keep ya around. The truth of the matter is…I’ve only ever slept with three of the guys on the roster out of all the ones that tried to get with me.” I took a pause to let my words sink in, he did somewhat look shocked by the revelation. I’m not sure what the hell people have been telling him, but I guarantee none of it is true. 

“I’m telling you this, not because I have to justify what I do with my body, but because the next time someone tries to drop some bullshit in your ears, you’ll know the truth. From the source.” Randy doesn’t really engage in gossip, because of that, most people just skip him all together when spreading the rumors around. Now that he’s directly associated with me, people are prone to skip their happy ass’ over to him and say anything to make me look bad. 

He nodded his head, his eyes swept the ground before they found their way back to me. “Shuan said the same thing, that I shouldn’t believe whatever lies people tell me, and that you have your head on your shoulders.” 

I couldn’t help the tiny smile that crept onto my lips. He's another one that doesn’t let people bad mouth me, even if it’s not in front of my face, Shaun was more of a low key guy. Which is one of the reasons we’re still cool, he knew how to keep his chill about us around others, and it was no huge secret that maybe we were something more than friends. If you paid close enough attention. “Mmm sounds like something he’d say.” I mumbled in a soft voice, expressions in Randy’s eyes were unreadable, so I didn’t dwell on it. My phone buzzed, I glanced at it quickly, it was Stephen letting me know that they chose Chipotle for lunch. 

“Off on an adventure again?” Randy drew my attention away from the phone, when I looked up he was wearing a playful smile on his lips. 

“Nothing too big, just grabbing some food with some besties.” I explained vaguely, I couldn't give Randy too much ammunition, that’s something I recently had to learn.

“Mmm, I see. When are you gonna let me break you in, training I mean.”

“That’s right…you are supposed to be my mentor aren’t you? I’m free till the next show this week. I have a hair appointment Thursday, so what about Wednesday?” I offered, I felt his finger twitch, and that’s when I realized he was still holding onto me. My heart pounded in my chest, I wasn’t sure if I should pull away, but by the time I had the thought of doing so, he had already let me go. 

“Hmm, let’s try Saturday, we’ll be back in Florida. That way we can just go at it in the PC, how’s that sound?” He asked, and I’m not sure what it was, but I suddenly got caught in a hypnotic gaze where I couldn’t look away from him. If he would have asked me to bark like a dog, I would have. 

I found the will to verbally respond, “Yea, yea sounds cool to me.” I agreed as briefly as possible, his eyes caught how my fingers fidgeted with the hem of my shit. I’d like to think I hide my twitchyness well, but under the gaze of such observant eyes, it didn’t go unnoticed. 

“Right then, I’ll let you go, I know you can’t stand in one place for too long.” He joked, his lips cracked into a half smile, and watched me as I awkwardly shuffled away from him. Amusement danced in his icy eyes. 

“Yup…see ya later.” I backed away, then turned on my heels heading in the direction of the hotel’s entrance. I let out a much needed breath as I finally got out into the fresh air. As soon as I got into the car I rolled the windows down, and pulled out of the parking lot.

[the-violet-galaxy]

What do you do when you have so many AU or fic ideas you want to explore but have no idea where to start, haha

I have TWO (2) swap AUs that are completely different from each other --

One swap AU called "Killswitch", where Sun and Moon's personalities and characters are roughly the same, but SUN was the one with the Killcode instead, aaand just playing around to see how the TSAMS story would have played out from there. Sun-type models and moon-type models switch roles (Eclipse manifested in Moon's head, Lunar and Solar are in entirely different places, characters like Bloodmoon, SolarFlare, and Jack-O-Moon have different names and slightly different personality traits due to swapping to the other celestial type, etc. and so on)

And a more traditional character swap AU, affectionately called "Ruinswap", where everyone's roles are shuffled; Ruin and Earth are closely connected and are one of the focuses

(Which is just funny because I couldn't decide on just one; why not both?)

I have more possible ideas for chapters for "If Ruin Was Never Caught"

Several ideas for "OCs" for variations of TSAMS characters that come from alternate dimensions; and for these I'm really excited but I REALLY have no idea where to start with them, haha

and other various oneshots

There's so much and it's hard to figure out where to begin!

[toyybox]

Spiderwebs Masterlist

All's fair in love and war.

Jackie Rockwell is immortal, and he discovers this in the worst way possible. When Heather Rodriguez tries to kill him and realizes that she cannot, she starts to get other ideas, and begins conducting illegal scientific studies on her newfound captive. Everything quickly gets out of hand, however, and her precious lab rat doesn’t give up so easily.

· • —– ٠ ✤ ٠ —– • ·

general content: lab whump, lady whumper, carewhumper, occasionally intimate whumper (mainly in the later chapters), immortal whumpee, captivity, Stockholm/Lima syndrome, disordered eating, violence/gore

· • —– ٠ ✤ ٠ —– •

PART I

1. Heartless 2. Firecracker 3. Dotted Line 4. Diplomacy 5. Tape I (Hassle) 6. Tape II (Ladybug) 7. Tape III (Hypochlorite) 8. Tape IV (Killswitch) 9. Tape V (Canary) 10. Privileged 11. Dollhouse 12. Clutter 13. Tape VI (Sugar-Coat) 14. Tape VII (Perception) 15. Tape VIII (Fever) 16. Tape IX (Senseless) 17. Conviction 18. Sickness 19. Tape X (Rorschach) 20. Catharsis 21. Snowfall 22. Vanity 23. Exit 24. Heather Performs A Lobotomy 25. Slaughterhouse 26. Attrition

PART II

27. Proof 28. Lovesick 29. Conscience 30. Preparation 31. Principle 32. Redmond 33. Cotton 34. Pendulum 35. Valentine 36. Crocodile 37. Volta 38. Occam's Razor 39. Home 40. Parasite 41. Magnum Opus

Updates every other Friday

· • —– ٠ ✤ ٠ —– •

AUs

Mer AU Teach You A Lesson Ch. 25 Alternate Ending

· • —– ٠ ✤ ٠ —– •

Art tag

Fan art tag ❤️❤️❤️

Asks tag 💗

Playlists

[away-ward]

Hey, i have been a prt of the devil's night fandom for years now but 1 thing I always wanted to say is that i feel really really bad for everyone who read NIGHTFALL in 2020 when ot was released.

Because they all waited for more than 6 months since killswitch was released, some of them desperately waited for 5 years since corrupt. Everytime PD released an excerpt from NIGHTFALL they all used to fawn over it. Most of them used to even count months,weeks and days for its arrival.

But since it arrived all of them said that it was shit, and they were heartbroken because PD said this book was of willemmy but there was no willemmy. Even when i read this book for the first time i kept on asking where are willemmy because everything thing was alex and aydin. They waited for willemmy but ended up paying and reading alexaydin no ine wants them. I don't know how many dont see it but PD wrote the entire and every present chapters for alexaydin and not for willemmy.

1. Who is aydin.

2. Why is he here.

3. Who is his artist

4. Why is alex here

5. Alex being jealous of emmy

6. Will looking after for alex and leaving em alone amonst rapist like taylor but sure he loves em right?

7. Alex got shot

And when it wasn't about alexaydin itvwas about rika and her goddamn wedding then all the plot shit.

I know PD HATES WILLEMMY everyone knows that also kaibanks but atleast kaibanks had moments when they were alone and spent time together but not WILLEMMY.

Never WILLEMMY. Most of people who read NIGHTFALL in 2020 said they survived it because it was that crap and it is true.

Nightfall was shitshow after shitshow.

Don't even get me started on that shit show of train and how pd ruined will's, kai's characters.

There is even a saying i don't know alot of you know that "Only thise who read the book (nightfall) right, knows how much of a nasty bitch was Alex.

And i agree she was way out if line and wrong and jealous.

If PD wanted to write Alexaydin so much write a novella for them, why ruin willemmy?? People waited YEARS for them and ended up reading about a different couple.

PD has a Facebook group for all this, i think we all know it by know, where they post all this. And people called them out on it.

Even in firenight willemmy had no time alone but guess who did everyone. Pd can say it they hate willemmy we already know that.

Once PD mentioned that Banks and Emory were their most favorite characters, i swear EVERYONE laughed EVERYONE 🤣. Yeah sure 2 characters that faced most hard life, and whise entire book was given to other irrelevant girl. Who is the most bland. And scream "i am not like other girls" energy.

Seriously alex palmer wakes up, lookes herself in the mirror and says " i am not like other girl's" almost 40 times a day.

I have way too many things to add mostly about alex and rika maybe damon too but this ask has already been too long. Maybe next time.

Heyy!

but 1 thing I always wanted to say is that i feel really really bad for everyone who read NIGHTFALL in 2020 when ot was released. Because they all waited for more than 6 months since killswitch was released, some of them desperately waited for 5 years since corrupt. Everytime PD released an excerpt from NIGHTFALL they all used to fawn over it. Most of them used to even count months,weeks and days for its arrival.

Aww, I remember when I used to do that. I used to create little count down trackers and timers, little banners and such. Cute.

And I’ve also been burned after having waited years for a release only to want to throw it out the window. But 6 months between books that size? Amazing, but somehow… I can’t help but think that a little bit more time would have been helpful.

Not just plot-wise either. I don’t know about you guys, but there are a few errors in my copy on NF that always trip me up.

They waited for willemmy but ended up paying and reading alexaydin no ine wants them. I don't know how many dont see it but PD wrote the entire and every present chapters for alexaydin and not for willemmy.

I’m not sure how that happened either. But it’s interesting that CR was originally a standalone, however that’s when we get the first inklings of AlexAydin and Willemmy. It’s possible that PD already had most of the story for AlexAydin mapped out in their head before even considering what the final part of Willemmy’s story was going to be, since they never intended to write it at the start. And then as the series progressed, the hype around Alex grew unexpectedly, so it became the story they wanted to tell and they ended up shoehorning it into Will’s story.

This is why Emory needed a strong attachment to the town and more of a presence in the other books. She didn’t need to be there physically, but we should have gotten more about her as the series progressed.

Most of people who read NIGHTFALL in 2020 said they survived it because it was that crap and it is true.

I kinda laughed. They need badges that read “I survived Nightfall 2020” so everyone knows the trauma they carry.

If PD wanted to write Alexaydin so much write a novella for them

A novella could have helped, but I don’t think it would have removed anything that happened in NF. The only thing it would have done would be alleviate some pressure to conclude their story along side concluding the series and Willemmy’s story, because alexaydin’s conclusion could have been left open ended and resolved in the novella.

At least, that’s how I see it. NF still would have had Aydin there to torment Will and Alex showing up half way through. So not much would have changed in the bulk of the story.

 Even in firenight willemmy had no time alone

Don’t even get me started on firenight. I have nothing (good) to say.

Yeah sure 2 characters that faced most hard life, and whise entire book was given to other irrelevant girl. Who is the most bland. And scream “I am not like other girls” energy.

Yeah, why would the average reader sympathize with the two girls who experienced trauma at the hands of a parental figure and lived around those who were considerably better off than them, verses the two beautiful blondes with wealth and privilege? That’s so weird….

I have way too many things to add mostly about alex and rika maybe damon too but this ask has already been too long. Maybe next time.

Alex, Rika, and Damon rants fill my inbox the most so you wouldn’t be out of place at all. Thanks for the message, and for filling me in on all the release drama.

Until next time,

-KO

[concerthopperblog]

Concert Hopper Chris' Favorite Metal Albums of 2020

With most of 2020 lost to fans of live music, we have had to make do with new album releases to get our fix. To that end, Concert Hopper's three resident metalheads (Editor in Chief Xerxes Tzolis, Album Review Editor Chris Griffy, and Metal Prophet Richard Davenport) have each compiled their list of favorite releases, which will be released over the next few days. The lists show just how diverse the “metal” umbrella is, with each bringing a different sub-genre preference to their list. Chris’ list leans heavily into his love of progressive, power, and symphonic metal.

Ad Infinitum- Chapter I- Monarchy When we released our mid-year list of favorites, this album was #5, the last on my list. 6 months later it has been the album I've found myself returning to more than any other. This is as strong a debut as I've seen in years, led by the pure power of vocalist Melissa Bonny, who can hit symphonic high notes as well as Simone Simons and growl like Angela Gossow. I hope the “Chapter 1” in the album's title means there is a Chapter 2 coming in 2021, because I need more of what Ad Infinitum is serving up.

Demons & Wizards- III It's been a decade since Demons & Wizards released game-changing power metal album Touched by the Crimson King. Since then, the band's two founders, Hansi Kursch and Jon Schaffer, have focused on their primary bands, Blind Guardian and Iced Earth, but never completely forgot about Demons & Wizards. Lucky us. While not the generational album Crimson King was, their new release III will tick every box their fans want. There is a brutality on III beyond either of their other albums, with Schaffer finally going full-force on the guitar and Kursch matching him with the vocal power that's made him one of the best in the business.

Nightwish- Human:II:Nature For their second studio album with vocalist Floor Jansen (the best female vocalist in metal today and arguably ever), Nightwish continues the themes explored on 2015's Endless Forms Most Beautiful. Band leader and primary songwriter Tuomas Halopainen's exploration of the balance (or more accurately imbalance) between nature and technology, best exemplified in “Noise”, which highlights how the fake reality of social media taints our reality.

Conception- State of Deception Damn, is it nice to hear Roy Khan back in the metal saddle. After leaving Kamelot in 2011, he retired from music until 2017 when he reformed his pre-Kamelot band Conception, which released their first full-length album State of Deception this year. Any worries that a half decade of retirement might have dulled Khan's soaring vocals is banished from the first note.

Archon Angel- Fallen 2020 must be the year of the return because, unless you have been lucky enough to get the “East” version of Trans-Siberian Orchestra in your city, former Savatage and CircleIICircle vocalist Zak Stevens has been missing from the music world. That changed in 2020 when he formed Archon Angel with Secret Sphere guitarist Aldo Lonobile. Unfortunately, they picked a bad time to form a new band, playing exactly one concert (on the 70,000 Tons of Metal cruise) before COVID-19 shut down touring. But if Fallen is any indication, when the concert world finally returns, Archon Angel is a band you should be willing to travel to see. Khemmis- Doomed Heavy Metal Colorado doom metal revivalists Khemmis are as fearless as a band gets, and that fearlessness is on display with their new EP Doomed Heavy Metal. A mix of covers and live cuts, Khemmis gives a Black Sabbath-esque makeover to a bluegrass standard (“A Conversation With Death”) and manages to make the usually bad idea of trying to cover metal god Ronnie James Dio work with a cover of “Rainbow in the Dark” that retains their style but shows a respect to the source material that was not present in the hipster “ironic” idiocy that was Killswitch Engage's “Holy Diver.”

Ensiferum- Thalassic One of the things I most love about folk metal is the ability to learn the lore and stories of other countries while I rock out to great music. Ensiferum brings me that ability on Thalassic with songs like “The Defence of the Sampo” while utilizing the addition of clean vocalist/keyboardist Pekka Montin to delve into a less silly than Alestorm but no less fun bit of pirate metal with songs like “Run From the Crushing Tide.” Even the goofiness of “Rum, Women, Victory” is mitigated by crushing riffs and thundering double bass drums.

Unleash the Archers- Abyss While they tend to be lumped into the “power metal” camp because of their lyrical content, at their heart Canada's Unleash the Archers are as pure an old school NWOBHM band in the vein of Judas Priest and Iron Maiden as has come along in decades. Driven by the insane vocal range of Brittany Slayes, Abyss continues the concept storyline begun on their last album Apex. It's a fun sci-fi/fantasy story for those who want to read up on it, but you can walk in with no knowledge of or interest in the story and just revel in the unabashed homage to true heavy metal that is Unleash the Archers.

Live Albums:

Dee Snider- For the Love of Metal Live If you only know Dee Snider from the cartoonish MTV video for Twisted Sister's “We're Not Gonna Take It”, you are missing out on one of the best kept secrets in metal. Twisted Sister (and all of Dee's subsequent bands and solo projects) approach thrash in their intensity. His influence can be seen on his 2018 release For the Love of Metal, which featured everyone from Jamey Jasta to Alissa White-Gluz. But Dee is best appreciated in a live environment, where his boundless energy is on full display. For the Love of Metal Live is taken from a Bloodstock performance and mixes new songs with Twisted Sister classics and even one song (“Ready to Fall”) from his tragically underrated post-Twisted Sister band with Savatage's Al Pitrelli, Widowmaker (the inclusion of which alone would make it my favorite live album of the year). Kamelot- I Am the Empire Live I mentioned earlier how nice it was to see Roy Khan back in the music world, but that doesn't mean his former band Kamelot is dead. Current vocalist Tommy Karevik has perfectly walked the “replacement vocalist” tightrope of respecting the original material while leaving his mark on the band's new albums. Proof is in the band's I Am the Empire Live, which may be the most perfectly produced live album I've ever heard. Every note is crystal clear and highlights not only the vocals of Karevik but also those of guests Charlotte Wessels (Delain), Alissa White-Gluz (Arch Enemy), Lauren Hart (Once Human), and frequent Kamelot collaborator Elize Ryd (Amaranthe). Right now, Kamelot is as consistently great as any band on the power metal scene and I Am the Empire Live shows why.

[diloph]

Pardon me, but it seemed from some of your posts on KOTM that you didn't like Mark Russell that much. I know he was a cliche everyman type, but what exactly made him any worse than others in these movies?

I apologise if this isn’t my most coherent answer. I’m a little bit stressed at the moment, trying to finish the next chapter of IIID and create relevant, if poorly assembled memes before the Invader Zim movie is released.

To be honest, some of it is a bit tongue-in cheek. Making fun of the most visible character in the film, considering that he hates Godzilla with a burning passion, is just a little bit of fun. It’s like how I refer to Rick Stanton with disdain sheerly because he’s somewhat based on Rick Sanchez, who I don’t dislike either.

The film isn’t about Mark: King of the Fathers anyway, so if I completely despised him, I could just zone out during his scenes, or skip them when the DVD comes out.

But… some of it wasn’t so jokey. He’s still an okayish protagonist, I’ve got nothing against the actor himself and his acting is fine. Still, Mark was loud, abrasive and hated Godzilla; you know, things that grate on my nerves when it comes to a 2+ hour Godzilla movie and that made the character… trying.

We’ve had them before, but Godzilla was generally more villainous and obviously, we feel sympathy and camaraderie with him as the title character and we are here to see him do cool things. Having a human protagonist who hates our cool monster protagonist makes sense in universe, but ultimately, it’s not what we’re here for. We can tune that out.

As for what makes me dislike Mark… for starters, he’s kind of a prick. I once saw somebody describe him as the type of guy who thinks that if he speaks loudly enough, shouts enough, he’ll get his way. I can’t say I blame them, in that first meeting with MONARCH, he’s downright hostile.

He’s also, for whatever reason, the guy that everybody turns to in the crisis. He might have a background in bioacoustics like his ex-wife and animal behaviour besides, but apparently nobody else at MONARCH is capable of doing things without the express instructions or approval of everyman Indiana Jones. Military procedures, common sense, the desperate plan to revive Godzilla; everybody seems to defer to him really quickly.

It took me out of the movie. I understand that he’s meant to be our relatable protagonist, but it’s a little bit jarring and it happens multiple times. Mark is either issuing instructions or is along where he shouldn’t be, given control of a situation where by all rights he shouldn’t have any other than spur of the moment hero stuff.

It’s like he believes that nobody has any common sense and frustratingly, a couple of times the narrative agrees with him or at least proves his actions right. For example, when Colonel Foster tries to brief MONARCH on the actions of Jonah and the terrorists, he shoots down her theory and proceeds to go on a rant as to why we should Destroy All Monsters.

He’s right, as Jonah wants to free King Ghidorah, but he has this frustrating “protagonist only” habit of noticing threads that other characters really should (nobody seems to notice that the Titans are attacking capital cities or at least very densely populated areas until he points it out), then speaks about it like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

Which when MONARCH is meant to be staffed with scientists of multiple disciplines veers back into the incredulous. I can suspend disbelief when it comes to giant monsters, I don’t excuse people not seeing what’s in front of them.

And as for the moments where he really shouldn’t be issuing instructions, take a look at when Rodan is freed by Emma Russell. Serizawa instantly defers to him (I think that Mark might have been his senior before he left MONARCH and BOY do I want to talk about that plan later on) to cook up a plan instead of… himself (Director of MONARCH, or at least I assume so) or again, Foster, who controls the planes and men he wants to send at the giant pterodactyl that just shrugged off a molten lava flow.

Given his characterisation as an angry, driven father who is desperately looking out for his family after being bereaved by monsters and is butting heads with the scientists at MONARCH, I think it was an attempt by Legendary to recreate Joe Brody. Bryan Cranston’s character in the previous film was killed off too early and was featured in a lot of the trailers, giving a wonderful performance. When he died to be replaced by his son, Ford, it caused a backlash as a result.

Mark being that angry, snarky character definitely shares some similarities. But while Joe was a crusader for the truth and more than a little bit obsessive, he was trying to pierce the veil as to why his wife died, without realising that it drove his son away from him. He was trying to reveal this great coverup to the world and spent the rest of his life doing so with such conviction that he appeared crazy.

Mark… doesn’t have this driving force. He lives in a post-San Francisco universe. Monsters Exist and everybody knows it.

Now, that’s not to say he doesn’t have reasons for acting as he did. He lost his son and has driven a wedge in between his family via his drinking problem (but let’s face it, compared to unleashing the Titans by starting off with Space Dragon Satan, he’s taken it comparatively well) but he acts as if he’s the only person who has ever lost something to Godzilla and the rest of the monsters.

Even when that happens to characters in the film, Mark still acts like that and it doesn’t make him look like the grim, determined hero, it just makes him look like an obnoxious dick. It isn’t his way of coping with the trauma of loss, he just… does it.

Part of me does get why he’s annoyed and angry with MONARCH’s attitude towards the Titans. He’s correct that they’ve been keeping secrets, dangerous ones at that, but equally the kaiju are living things. They’re dangerous and unpredictable, yes, but MONARCH have been taking precautions; killswitches are present in even the supposedly benevolent Titan’s chambers like Mothra and as far as they know, all of the Titans bar Godzilla are dormant and those that aren’t are kept in check by him. Had the Ghidorah Crisis never arose, we may never have seen any other Titans for the rest of human history.

But he treats everybody around him like an idiot with little to no prompting. Mark is brought on as a consultant and he then proceeds to dominate the scene, either through his decisions in universe or the part written for him out of it. He gets the last word, the last say on a plan or a witty remark or whatever.

And some of that costs lives. Actually, no, a LOT of it costs lives.

So, to start off, when the operation in Antarctica goes tits up, Mark grabs a handgun and goes into Outpost 32 by himself (though what he and the central nervous system of MONARCH were doing on the ground and not supervising from the Argo remains to be seen, but I digress). He stops Jonah and the terrorists on the walkway… screwing up Foster’s attempt to take down Jonah, forcing her to snipe his henchman in order to save Mark’s life.

This leads to King Ghidorah waking up. Not going to extend him a great deal of blame for this one, as with a sniper present, Emma or Madison would have been forced (or “forced” in the former’s case) to retrieve the detonator and the Six-Eyed, Six-Horned, Flying-Golden-People-Eater would have gotten loose regardless. Hell, I spotted clues that he was gearing up to wake up without Emma Russell’s help.

In a narrative sense, its his character that also sets up Vivienne Graham’s death. If he hadn’t been stuck in the tangle of wires and metal aboard the Osprey, she would never have needed to stay behind to help and subsequently got singled out by King Ghidorah.

I’d definitely agree that this is more of a personal thing on my part, as I’d wanted to see more of Vivienne’s character thanks to her actress’, Sally Hawkins’ work in The Shape Of Water and that in the previous film. But in a way, he is still sort of responsible for her being written out and replaced with the vastly less interesting replacement characters of Rick and Mor- erm, Sam.

That said, I know that Ghidorah is 100% to blame in universe. He killed her because he was a bastard and I wanted to him to be a bastard, so the monkey’s paw curled a finger there, so that’s egg on my face. It certainly did wonders for establishing him as a monstrous villain who we love to hate.

I’m not wholly unsympathetic to Mark. Like I said before, the pain of loss over the 2014 attacks hurt him badly and the film doesn’t shy away from this. Mark’s descent into alcoholism is noted by both himself and his family as a rough time for all involved, part of the reason he left MONARCH in the first place. Having his daughter and ex-wife seemingly kidnapped by dangerous ecoterrorists who plan to unleash giant monsters to mass-cull humanity also wears his patience thin, as you might expect it.

But he keeps this… horrible attitude throughout the movie. The world is literally going to shit, another monster is about to be unleashed and he asks if MONARCH have had enough common sense to evacuate the town of Isla Del Mara and if Rodan has had a cutesy name all picked out from mythology for him ahead of time.

Fuck me, if I was Serizawa, having just lost my protégé and quite a few well-meaning soldiers who were trying to rescue somebody who turned out to be a massive ecoterrorist nutjob, I would have floored him. There is a time and a place for snarky comments and it is not after at least twenty people you worked with are dead and BILLIONS MORE MAY FOLLOW.

But now, one of the points that really got me disliking Mark Russell follows here. The scenes that start at Isla Del Mara and the luring of Rodan to King Ghidorah, all the way up until the detonation of the Oxygen Destroyer.

Rodan emerges from the volcano and asides from spreading his wings and roaring, doesn’t do much. He spots the incoming Argo and its entourage and narrows his eyes. Uh oh! Surely, at this point, the dastardly destruction god would leap from his perch in an attempt to chase this challenger from his territory?

Um… no. No, actually, he stays put.

Now, I get that Rodan might not have stayed that way for very long. From the ensuing chase scene, I can gather that the Monsterverse’s version of Rodan is a bit of a dick, but he still didn’t start the fight.

Instead, what happens is that Serizawa asks Mark what they should do and Mark comes up with the plan to get Rodan to fight King Ghidorah in the hopes that one will kill the other and that would at least solve one of their problems.

Sound in theory, yes, but it is not sound in execution. At all.

So, that little town that Mark kicked up quite a fuss about? As you might have noticed, it’s lying between Rodan and the Argo and is part of the reason that the big ol’ bird should be lured away, to complete the evacuation.

Mark’s brilliant plan has the jets surrounding the Argo to blast Rodan and 180 the superplane in order to get him to chase… without factoring in THE TOWN BETWEEN THEM AT ALL.

I get King Ghidorah was closing in. I get that Rodan is a wild, unpredictable animal who could go off the chain at any moment. But there was absolutely no time to get the ARGO to move a little ways around the island before beginning the attack? At worst, Rodan would make a dive for them anyway, but that’s what the jets are sent in to distract him are for. To grab his attention and then lure him to the Argo, which would then take him to Tricephalopathic Terror Town anyway.

As a result, Rodan utterly OBLITERATES Isla Del Mara simply by passing over it and so many of the people they were trying to evacuate die a horribly pointless death. It never once passes his mind (or let’s not beat him down solely) or that of anybody aboard the Argo that a creature with wings that size that can fly would generate an unbelievable amount of force simply by flapping once to create lift? He’s also dripping lava, so even if the hurricane level winds that follow him weren’t an issue, having something with that amount of residual molten rock passing overhead doesn’t seem like a healthy thing to expose Isla Del Mara to.

Further dislike ensues when one of the miraculously surviving Ospreys issues a mayday during the Rodan/Ghidorah fight and the cargo doors are jammed. Mark the Hero leaps up with gritted teeth and desire to get things done, asking the way to the hangar. After all, he’s had miraculous problem solving abilities so far, why not?

“Which way to the hangar?” he asks.

Sam, a character who I’m even less fond of, stands up and offers to show him the way. Fairly brave, considering that the Argo is rattling like a leaf in a thunderstorm as two daikaiju battle nearby. I found the character annoying and sort of… pointless, but I admire that bit of bravery.

“Anybody else?” Mark asks, making a face.

Dude. The man just offered to help you and people need that help. Get off your high horse, swallow your pride and just go without comment. God knows how many people your stupid plan just got killed.

The two run to the hangar and a crewman explains the door is jammed. Mark decides to drop a hanging Osprey onto the doors to get them off… without suggesting it to the crewman. He just fucking goes for the buttons, expecting his usual “my plan will work” attitude to succeed.

At last, one of Mark’s harebrained schemes is met with reasonable resistance for the first time and the crewman attempts to wrestle him off, before Mark Is Proven Right Again. But even suggesting it, getting a refusal and then doing it is more heroic than just going for the damn buttons like a lunatic.

He would have looked damn stupid if the weight of the Osprey wasn’t enough to open the doors and it instead just blocked them. The falling aircraft also almost hits the airborne one with its civilian payload as it also wasn’t warned, so again, he took an unnecessary risk that came off lucky because he couldn’t find the time to say “I have an idea”.

To round out the trifecta of what makes me dislike Mark in these scenes is what happens when the rest of the scene plays out:

Gravity Beams spew from Ghidorah’s mouth and blast Rodan into the ocean, defeated. Not satisfied with just this victory, the Golden Demise locks his terrible gaze on the Argo and with a sickening, gleeful cackle, closes in on the plane and its freshly arrived civilians.

All are stunned into a horrified silence. Even Mark, who has been having Unreasonable Protagonist Luck up until this point, bricks it.

“Oh, God.” he pleads.

God answers and he erupts from the ocean.

With a deafening roar, the mighty form of Godzilla slams into King Ghidorah with the force of a collapsing mountain. His dynamic, mid-air leap is enough to drag the foul hydra into the depths of the ocean and Godzilla proceeds to hold him there.

Ghidorah attempts to resurface and fly away, or at least lash out at the Argo in spite, but there Godzilla is again, yanking the head back underwater, biting and rolling like some mountainous crocodile, pinning the alien dragon under his weight.

Unbeknownst to our hero (Godzilla, obviously), the military has deployed the terrible Oxygen Destroyer in an attempt to Destroy All Monsters, giving only a cursory warning to the Argo to get out of there and fast. Mark makes his way onto the bridge and is informed of the decision.

“But he… he just saved us!” says Mark.

No, wait, he didn’t say that. Hold on…

“They… they didn’t even let us get clear?” says Mark.

Uh, no, sorry, trying again.

“Well, it’s not the worst idea.” he says.

FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUCK. YOU.

I get that you’re mad with Godzilla. I get that as the title character with a long history, we root for the kaiju more than anybody else. I get that he took your son from you, but twice… TWICE NOW, he has saved you and the people around you with PERFECTLY TIMED ENTRANCES. Even if it was just a coincidence, I’d be at least slightly more forgiving of the lion that killed my brother by accident if it jumped in front of a tiger that was slaughtering people left and right before it leapt at me.

Twice.

There’s not even a hesitant “oh, but he did help us”. Not even a shocked disbelief that the military has a weapon that they think will kill not just one, but two (because I’m willing to bet he thought Rodan was dead) Titans, much less them firing it without warning right on top of their position. Just a “well, fuck ‘em” shrug.

Godzilla nearly dies, Ghidorah seizes control of the Titans and sets about starting the apocalypse. Finally, Serizawa says what I’ve been thinking for quite a while and says “Well, it looks like you got your wish, Mark.” with a mixture of anger, sadness and disgust.

I could go on; the Titans are rampaging and Mark goes to leave Castle Bravo to strike out on his own and rescue Madison, despite the fact that he knows that Emma will probably try to keep her safe in whatever secure hidey hole she and the Kaiju Cultists have holed up in. In the novel, he’s outright going to steal one (also his first instinct when confronted by an alpha wolf in the novel, is to blow it away with a sidearm, before realising that’s absolutely callous and horrible and tries submissive behaviour tactics instead. So hey, Movie Mark is a slightly better person than Book Mark).

Mark suggests the nuke plan and goes down with Serizawa, Chen and Rick Sanch- Stanton. Everything goes sideways and he doesn’t even fucking blink when Serizawa decides that somebody’s gotta do it manually.

Back aboard the Argo? How does he break the news to Sam, the only member of the MONARCH team that wasn’t there? Shoving Serizawa’s notebook into his chest, saying that they better not screw this up and not even fucking pausing to tell him what happened.

Mark’s self-centred attitude keeps coming back and it gets people killed. My second time viewing this film, during the two confrontation scenes with Godzilla, I wasn’t getting the “There is a massive threat in my territory!” vibe from the King of the Monsters, I was getting a “Who the hell is this asshole and why does he hate me so much?” feeling from Our Glorious Boy.

It’s a recurring theme too. Mark experiences loss, but he feels as if his loss is the only one that matters. Both he and Emma do this to Madison and it makes me mad that in trying to cope with their own loss, they shunned the one remaining child they had left. By the time they realise that, the world is literally about to end and they’re still bickering at one another.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m very vocally critical of Mark and Emma’s treatment of Madison. Both she and Mark decide to put their own ways of coping with their son’s death (constructing a device to allow for the orchestration of mass human death and convincing oneself that it’s the correct course of action/drinking booze) above Madison’s own well being.

When the chips are down, of course, they care for her and ultimately risk their lives to save her, but… congratulations for the bare minimum parenting, guys? Physically, they want her out of harm, but mentally she should either fall into line with Emma’s thinking or be there for Mark.

Godzilla and Mothra feel more like her bloody parents in this film (Godzilla saving her life when she was facing down the literal fucking devil and Mothra’s gentle interaction at the temple and reviving her from death when she appeared to have died in the novel) than the other Russells do. Both fill the archetypes of “Father” (tough, stern, but ultimately your protector) and “Mother” (gentle, nurturing and wonderful) better than the people do.

…yeah, alright, that one is a stretch, but I had that idea a while ago and I wanted to put it to paper.

In short, I’m mad at Sad Mad Dad because his character shoves the waaaaaaaay more interesting, compelling and sympathetic characters of Serizawa, Graham and his own daughter (and the actual goddamned non-monster hero of the movie), Madison out of the way of main character-ness, just so we can have somebody who is about as pleasant to interact with as a cactus.

King of the Monsters is a film that has a lot of sacrifice in it, good and bad. Emma wants to sacrifice most of humanity to save the planet. Serizawa sacrifices himself to save Godzilla and thus, the planet. Mothra sacrifices her own life to save Godzilla from King Ghidorah and so does Emma, to save her family and as redemption for her sins.

Even Madison was also ready to at least risk her own life to distract the Titans and King Ghidorah if it would even slightly disrupt his efforts to conquer the planet. She goes against terrorists, her own mother and a demonic, nigh-omnipotent being of malicious intent and faces him down with a defiant roar of her own when it looks like the end.

But Mark doesn’t sacrifice. He wants his daughter back, but he never takes a hit. Other people die for him, as a result of him and he doesn’t even recognise it. The world is at stake and he keeps his focus on his own desires, ignorant to the people around him because only his loss matters.

He might not be the genocidal monster in the film that Emma was, that Jonah and of course, Ghidorah certainly were. But he has a very narrow and dispassionate world-view and outside of certain cartoons with comedic circumstances, I don’t care much for that at all.

TL;DR: Madison should have been the central protagonist, because I like her more.

[kelvindoescomp-blog]

Malware Analysis Updates:

(Picture: the strange url is the killswitch!!!)

Finished reading chapter 4: A Crash Course in x86 assembly of Practical Malware Analysis. I’ve learned many opcodes and x86 instructions, such as Rep instructions-- used to manipulate data buffers. The ones include rep cmpsb which is used to compare the data in 2 buffers byte by byte. I’ve learned also more about the arithmetics and flags of the instructions and gained a better idea of a program’s stack execution structure, including the use of EIP, EBP, and ESP. I’ve also followed through the tutorial on reversing engineering wannaCry(link here: https://medium.com/@yogeshojha/reverse-engineering-wannacry-ransomware-using-ghidra-finding-the-killswitch-a212807e9354). I learned how to identify the windowMain function in the entry function, how to use the windowsApi to edit the function signature in Ghidra to aid understanding of the code, and how add custom data types not recognized by Ghidra by default. It is a fruitful night!

[cyrelia-j]

[Fic] Inside a Dream IV (Garak/Bashir)

Wanted to get a bit more dramatic with this but try and keep a bit of quicker pacing. Julian and Jack are such literature nerds.

Past Parts are Here:

Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3

Still AU but not really an AU set at the end of everything show/books. Angst, Drama, Romance, falling in love [again maybe] but lots of angst and bittersweetness to be had, 

After Sarina's death and Julian's coma, Julian dreams. With the aid of a device provided by the other augments, Garak is able to bring that world to life. And then Jack shows up in the flesh, wanting "his" Julian back. Garak is forced to confront the truths he didn't want to face and decide if he's going to fight for him.

Brief note on other pairings: You can read Kelim into this (especially from the first 2 chapters- no decisions made on whether that avenue will be pursued) ALSO, past Julian/Jack Pack (Jack, Lauren, Sarina, Patrick in some form or another but nothing explicit) in this chapter more explicit Julian/Jack but I would still hold it to be in the past and garahir is the end game.

If I could be with you tonight

I would sing you to sleep

Never let them take the light behind your eyes

The killswitch… Garak sits outside in the garden watching the night blooms of the evening primrose. The seeds were a gift from Julian years ago. Julian had said that he was aware of the potential problems in introducing foreign species to a new world, but he didn’t think that would be a problem. The flowers were strong. They grew through the cracks in the sidewalk of old Earth, along railways and in deserts were there was no water. They were perennial and bloomed anew year after year, hardy plants always returning with their fragrant night flowers. But they weren’t invasive, yielding to other species when in competition for resources, allowing others to grow instead, fading into the background. Garak thought in a way they were a lot like the man who’d gifted them to him.

They flourished here though, and he watched the pale orange catching the moonlight. Jack had told them about far more than just the killswitch, though that was the issue which lay at the heart of what needed to be resolved. Jack was also able to explain the strange dreamworld that Julian’s mind was trapped in. It was an old place on Earth which no longer existed after the Third World War. It was genetic memory, Jack had said, but not Julian’s. It was Jack’s and Garak wasn’t sure that he particularly cared to hear any more on the how and the why of that. It was quite clear from the way that Jack spoke to him, from the way he stomped up and down the room demanding that they hurry up and “fix” his Julian what they were and might possibly still be to each other. As far as Garak was concerned Jack should have been the one to retrieve him then.

Why should Garak be the one to spend two years staring into the ashen face of a corpse? Clearly Julian has no shortage of paramours spanning the Alpha Quadrant who could come for the body as it were. It gives Garak some flash of memory of a state funeral he had attended once for a prominent legate. After the family was called to send off the beloved old bastard no less than three separate groups stepped forward unbeknownst to the other. Not only had it been a fiasco which Garak admittedly relished, it was an awful stain on the reputation of the Records Bureau. Had Garak known that he would be the one called in to waste his valuable skills on scaring a bunch of bureaucrats he wouldn’t have been nearly as amused as he was.

You already know the reason that it had to be you, Elim, his mind traitorously supplies. From Jack’s account, the three of them had nearly died themselves. In Jack’s case, it was only the shock of pulling his own eye out that severed the break that was going on in his mind. He was sure that Jack had been telling the truth when he said somewhat evasively that it was only a similar shock to the others that pulled them through though he refused to elaborate. By their absence, Garak imagines the price to have likely been much higher. Still, that doesn’t mean that he has to like it. The process was already taking its toll on him prior to Jack’s arrival and the revelation that Garak’s place here is merely as some hired necromancer to revive a Guls damned corpse so a crazy augment gets his lover back…

Not for the first time this evening, Garak is seriously contemplating dumping the lot of them. He has responsibilities here. He should already be in bed for the meetings he knows he’ll have to deal with tomorrow. The Castellan of the Cardassian Union hardly has the ability to stay up all night for one comatose human… especially a human who made it quite clear that their lives were off in two parallel directions never to intersect in such a fashion. But then Garak keeps coming back to the whys of Jack giving him the device. Once he was well there was no reason Jack couldn’t have come for Julian then. No, Jack was quite emphatic that Garak was the one meant to revive him, but the more he spoke, the more obvious it was that one still grasped sanity by a precious thread. Still, by all accounts, between the three augments there’s no reason that they couldn’t work out the science themselves.

And that’s when Garak shuts his eyes and has a waking dream of Julian’s mouth nearly meeting his in that terribly human action before stopping, before those eyes had looked at him with that pitiful apology. Nothing makes sense. None of it and he was painfully honest with Parmak. He can’t do this anymore. Whatever stupid game this is, he can’t be a part of it. Garak frowns. As the wind blows the delicate primrose shakes with it. He isn’t yours, Elim. He never was. Whatever you dreamed between the two of you on the station however many decades ago it was now, that’s all that it was. You might as well chalk it up to the delusions of a mind at rest, of a lonely consciousness desperate for something to cling to in your solitude. These flowers are the only tangible blossoms to bloom from your foolish fantasies.

Garak reaches out to pluck one then pauses. He was going to place it beside Julian’s bedside but it’s a sentiment that he still finds beneath him. You’re pathetic, Elim. Courting the unconscious body of another’s lover, and in such an overwrought human way at that; you’ve grown too soft. He walks towards the back door then stop himself, sensing someone coming. It’s an irrational action, he tells himself. This is his house after all, and he’s hardly the ex spy skulking around a repurposed space station. Nonetheless, Garak slips back into the shadows behind the stone wall next to the house. Julian had said to him once that Garak was the only one truly capable of approaching him undetected. Garak thought little of such an observation at the time. He was trained to be silent, to leave no footprint. It wasn’t until the truth of Julian’s augmented status came to light that Garak realized just what an accomplishment it was at that.

It would seem that Jack cannot sense him either as he walks out looking down at something in the palm of his hand. Garak’s left eye catches a flash of silver as Jack walks to that wooden bench. He stops, listening likely even for a breath. But Garak leaves none in the night air loud with the sound of rushing wind and insects making their chirruping mating calls. He remains ensconced in the darkness though he doesn’t doubt that were Jack to know to search for him, that single augmented eye would still easily seek him out from the shadows. But Jack doesn’t know to look for him and Jack seems to be unusually occupied as he does something with the device that nearly causes Garak to give himself away when he starts in surprise.

It’s Julian standing there. Not the Julian from the dream world, lost and confused, but a Julian that appears more the old Starfleet officer that Garak once knew.

Julian has that same exasperated expression that he used to wear when Garak would say something especially outlandish. That’s not what catches Garak’s attention the most prominently, however. No, what stands out the most is the matter of Julian’s age. He appears much as he had when they parted ways on Deep Space Nine. Garak isn’t quite sure it is then what he’s actually witnessing. Some sort of toy? A recording? Fortunately for him, that little slip goes unnoticed because Jack’s attention is solely fixated on the figure in front of him like he’s looking at one of the electromagnet specters that humans call “ghosts”. He appears solid, however, much like the Julian from the mobile projections into the room. But if he’s a mobile projection then why doesn’t he appear as his actual age? Ah, vanity, doctor, do you still see yourself as that young man?..

“You can’t keep doing this to yourself, Jack,” Garak hears Julian say, bound in a fast embrace as that sentence is muffled into Jack’s shoulder. Garak watches the arms come up, come back, a few moments of breathing and he’s cursing himself for his inability to let things lie. Whatever this is, he doesn’t particularly want to witness it.

“I can and I will and that just goes to show you who the better augment is since you gave up, rolled over, played dead and I… I’m not gonna let you do that hm.”

“Jack-”

“The lizard, the lizard man, that’s the prince, right? Should’ve been a frog but you always liked to mix your myths so… So that’s the key, that’s what you want right? That’s the bait, that’s the little bell to bring the cat out from under the couch, isn’t it hm?” There’s a strange pause to that moment, as Jack once more returns to the matter of Garak’s alleged unique ability to pull Julian from whatever mental trauma he’s suffered.

“Please tell me that you didn’t leave Mrs. Norris by herself,” Julian says looking at him concerned, taking a step back. Jack huffs indignantly.

“Lauren has it. The hellbeast likes her better but you knew that when you got her. You knew she didn’t like me, knew she liked to scratch at my pants, disappeared to two eyes looking looking what if I…” Jack had taken a few steps moving in a circle like some strange old timepiece Julian had shown him a picture of once. He called it a cuckoo clock explaining that they were a popular conversation piece (curious term, Garak had always thought) and that the mechanisms would prompt the little figures on the hour to pop out of a little door and spin around with a chime or some other indicator sound. He never quite understood the visual until now that Jack walks almost manically like a little bit of that timepiece from an old wooden machine.

“That’s it! Should’ve thought of it earlier... The cat’s the key… no, the play’s the thing and you’re playing with me, Mercutio!”

“Jack,” Julian says softly, Jack stopping upright at the soft call of his name. Julian takes his hand, the intimate gesture rather turning Garak’s stomach. It has far more meaning to him when Julian’s thumbs circle around the maniacal augment’s hands. “I’m proud of you for coming here yourself. You know I miss you-”

“But you can’t you can’t, you can and you will and you’re mine and I…” Jack takes a deep breath, the soft tap of his vibrating foot to the stone. “I can’t do it without you. We can’t do it without you and you’ve rested long enough.”

“Jack…” forehead to forehead and the wind carries the sound well enough that Garak can close his eyes. “I can’t come back to you. I don’t… I don’t even know why I’m alive right now but if this is the price for the rest of you can live I… I don’t mind sleeping awhile.”

“I reached out to you, Alice. I told you to take my hand and not fall down the damn rabbit hole.”

“Ah, but here I am,” said with that touch of self-effacing Julian humor. “Sous une lumière blafarde… Court, danse et se tord sans raison La Vie…” Garak hears a laugh, not understanding those words. Jack does. Garak can hear it when he answers.

“You don’t belong in the darkness, Julian,” he says oddly steady.

“I’m where I belong, Jack.”

“Right,” a snort. “How doth the little crocodile improve his shining tail, and pour the waters of the Nile on every golden scale?”

“This isn’t about him,” Julian growls. “You know that. I told you that a long time ago when they joined the lot of us.”

“It’s always about him. Let us come to a common term, let us worship no one except our God.”

“You don’t need to blaspheme to make your point.”

“Aha! The translation is blasphemy! You said it, there, I said it was and you said it wasn’t and now you turn it on your head mmhmm devil’s advocate, Fie thou dishonest satan!”

Guls, how has Julian spent so many years with that? And Garak is sure it has to be at least that long. It was likely since the first time they met as much as Julian had gone on about how much the man exasperated him. But it wasn’t just Jack, Garak recalls, it was all of them. Section 31 had done some experimental procedure Jack had said which bound the five of them together as a failsafe. It’s how Julian has that genetic memory of Jack’s ancestors. It’s how they were able to attack all of them at once. It was a dead man’s switch as they said in human culture; an apt term that Garak has grown rather fond of. The main System is dead and they should be too but they escaped. Some perhaps more than others and Garak has heard plenty to decide that he’s done playing these games with the humans and he’s going to-

“I love you Jack,” said simply and Garak breathes in deeply thoroughly irritated at such garish human sentiment.

“You loved him first and you love him more and when he brings you back I’m going to kill him.”

“No you won’t, Jack.”

“You’re coming back with me, you’re coming back with me!” the stomp of a foot, some other scuffling noise. “I didn’t… I didn’t come here… all the way out here… I… you know that I wouldn’t… not alone… I wouldn’t come here alone and come back alone, from childhood’s hour I have not been as others were!”

“I know… I know, love but I… I’m tired Jack. I can’t do this anymore. I don’t have the strength for it and you and the others you don’t need me. You don’t… not like that I promise you. It’s the last of the connection still trying to force us all back together but I would never leave if I didn’t think you could handle it. Don’t you see? They’ve had us locked in that… that boxed Eden so long but I…”

“The cloud that took the form…”

“There’s no demon, Jack. I promise.”

“I wasn’t talking about me, hm... I was… I was… you say his name in your sleep and I used to think you were awake mocking me but not you, foolish virgin.”

“Jack…”

“And he is the demon bridegroom! So then let us hear the confession of an old friend in hell”

“You don’t need to keep on about him. You’re getting fixated again and you’re fixating on nonsense because he and I can never be together as I’ve told you more than once, Jack!” More stomping, more scuffling, and Garak looks to see Jack’s frantic agitated pacing before he comes to stop yelling into the sky like a man possessed. The entire conversation has deserted him and right now he doesn’t have any answers.

“Will no one rid me of this meddlesome lizard?!” Jack bellows. Julian walks up to him stopping, strangely seeming to shift to the older Julian, but not tired, not defeated, strong, standing tall.

“I won’t let you hurt him.”

“Are you going to come back from the land of the dead to stop me? Hm? Then stifle yourself!”

“Maybe I will,” Julian says with that quiet resolution that makes Garak smile in spite of himself.

“You come back and I kill him.”

“And if I don’t you kill him twice as hard,” Julian finishes with a soft laugh as if they’ve had this conversation more than once. Such morbid gallows humor, you’ve refined. I knew you had potential, my dear. “Get some sleep, Jack. Things will be better in the morning and you’ll know the right thing to do.” Ah, well that’s reassuring, Garak thinks as that seems to mean something to the two actors in the garden sharing more human nuzzling, grooming each other like two primates in the wild. Garak closes his eyes, still, silent, counting up the way he used to do in the closet when it was dark to steady himself and the walls started closing in. The darkness itself poses no threat but he’s also made use of that technique for entering that deep state where his presence blinks out.

He’s only dimly aware of the footsteps as Jack strides past murmuring softly “off with his head.” He’s only dimly aware of a lot of things really, the entire conversation neatly tilting everything upside down in his Julian world view. But first things first, he needs to get that mobile emitter away from Jack.

It’s time that Garak talks to the real Julian.

One day I'll lose this fight

As we fade in the dark

Just remember you will always burn as bright

-My Chemical Romance “The Light Inside your Eyes”

Note: Julian and Jack quote from Baudelaire “The End of the Day” from “Fleurs du Mal”, Lewis Carroll “The Crocodile”, Shakespeare “Twelfth Night”, Poe “Alone”, and Rimbaud “First Delirium” from “A Season in Hell”

(Part 5 is now HERE)

[thegeekerynj]

An Occasional Attempt to Read, Discuss and Review the Wonders of Comics By: John Rafferty, cranky old man, and Fan of All Things Comics

Short Takes

Short Reviews, when the Big Mouth doesn’t have much to say...

Giant Size X-Men#1 Nightcrawler Haunted Mansion Writer: Jonathan Hickman Pencils and Inks: Alan Davis

“Hey Douglas, ever watch a Horror movie, and right as the idiot is getting ready to do something stupid like a touch a weird alien wall - and the music gets all creepy and you’re yelling at the screen:

Don’t Touch It You Idiot Don’t Touch It!

And, of course, the idiot does.’

I saw Giant Size X-Men #1. I saw Jonathan Hickman. I saw Alan Davis. I heard the music get all loud and creepy.

I don’t know. I expected more than a mind illusion story, after Krakoa has been built up to be the All Knowing Super Intellect, but to be beat by a sleeping telepath? And one of Mastermind’s kids, to boot? Unless she’s levels better than her father, like Xavier stronger, I just don’t buy it.

Cypher and Warlock’s reveal was a nice touch. I have always liked this duo, and love watching the interactions, and looking for clues to the coming of Magus... The innocence of the Doug Ramsey and Warlock relationship is often worth the price of admission, here, it’s nice, but it just isn’t enough.

With artwork that is exceptionally clean and pretty action sequences both frenetic and exciting, Alan Davis continues to prove he is a truly exceptional talent. Of particular note, his portrayals of both Lockheed and Warlock, characters who’s look is unique enough too cause an artist not up to the task fits. He makes them his own, and rather than break the story, he makes it.

Ah, but there’s the problem. The story, this is a rarity. A real swing, and a miss by Jonathan Hickman. Considering the name of the book, I expected more, because there is a certain expectation that goes with the words Giant Size #1... maybe I’m just a jaded reader at this point, but more likely I have come to expect a whole lot more from the writer, who, for my money, phoned this one in.

Out of 5🌶 🌶 🌶

Hellions #1 Let There Be Snakes

Writer: Zeb Wells Artist: Stephen Segovia

‘These aren’t Predators. These are square pegs, straining heroically against round

holes.’

‘ That was a metaphor’ *#!? You!’

Manuel De La Rocha - Empath. John Greycrow - Scalphunter. Alex Summers - Havok.

Kyle Gibney - Wild Child. Peter - Orphan Maker and Nanny (sufficiently creepy).

A team of psychopaths, emotionally stunted and damaged mutants. Led by Mr. Sinister,

babysat by Psylocke.

So, we’ve finally gotten here. The Misfits of the Misfits of Science. The Mutants so off

the hook insane, so far out in left field, that it took one just as bent as the team to lead,

and another with a certain fundamental moral laxity to act as Judge, Jury and

Executioner, should a member of this team decide to go off the rails.

Zeb Wells gives us a great start point for this group, 2 - 4 page synopses of each

character, starting with Alex Summers. Each of the team members gets a specific

treatment, highlighting his specific skill, ability and disability, finally getting to Sinister,

how he finagles his little ‘wetworks’ squad, and Psylocke, and how she becomes the

’engaged killswitch’ for the Hellions.

Stephen Segovia’s layouts and finished art are wonderful. Fight scenes are explosive,

with just the right amounts of ‘blur’, as if to show how the eye could actually see things happening.

In some of the layouts with the ‘actors’, the action layouts seem almost fractured, much

like the characters...Active storytelling at it’s best, learned from masters...

TNK DNG TNK DNG TNK DNG

Until next time... I can hardly wait for this Lunatic Legion to kick into High Gear!

Outof5 🌶 🌶🌶🌶🌶.5

Justice League #44 - Cold War Chapter 1 - The Monster Within

Writer: Robert Venditti Artist: Xermanico

‘You seek to drag me to Hell, Monsters?

I’LL RACE YOU THERE!

Come get your quarry!’

A funny thing about Team Books.

For the most part, even though they’re TEAM stories, they usually focus on ONE player,

one’s actions are responsible for what is happening. this character is usually obvious

right from the outset, and the drivers become evident right after that.

It’s rare the story works the other way. There’s no real connection between the initial

attack and the Character interacting, as happens here Aquaman, in Antarctica, fighting

non-aquatic monsters, and calling for the JL’s help.

The monsters, Greek in nature, are all escaping from Tartarus, and now, with the

League, have shifted their attentions...

The story seems to be a lead-in, with the attack being a McGuffin, just the vehicle to

collect the players. Now, with everyone at hand, and some of the heroes eyes starting to

glow green, we get the distinct picture that everything isn’t as it seemed...

At which point, Jim Corrigan shows up.

It’s always a good point to leave the story, just as the Spectre makes an appearance...

Pretty art, Xermanico has a really steady feel to his artwork, with some pretty pencils,

and interesting layouts. The closing splash, with the Spectre overshadowing the

League, well it intimates a level of foreboding, as only a Spirit of Vengeance should.

Seeing him show up increased my interest in the next book greatly. Otherwise, I’m not

sure much would have dragged me back for the story.

Out of 5 🌶 🌶🌶🌶

[beelieveinfandom]

Haunted and Hunted Chapter Four

Chapters: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5               AO3 Link

AO3 is highly advised due to Tumblr having formatting issues.

“And you’re sure this won't kill me somehow?” Charlie asked.

  “Yes. Absolutely. If anything goes wrong we’ll stop at once, and even if we don’t, anything going unusually will activate this spell, instantly ending the ritual.” Renee was pointing at a ring of runes inside the arcane circle.

  The circle was, outside of the killswitch addition, a very simple one. A pentacle drawn in chalk on the hard cement floor with the five symbols of banishment at each of the star’s corners. It was the simplest reliable banishment spell possible, pretty much only able to work on consenting entities or those who lacked any sort of intent of their own.

  I worked pretty hard on that cancel button and I’m like, 80% sure it’ll be fine.

  You’re telling me this has a 20% chance of killing me‽

  I mean, maybe?

  I’m pretty much pulling numbers out of my ass here, to be quite honest.

  everything you say is so reassuring.

  Hey, I’m the one that advocated against this from the start.

  You wanted us to do nothing!

  I wanted us to wait for more data. My friend will get us the original summoning circle, and reverse engineering it will be way easier and safer than just guessing at what might work.

  But how long will that take? And how will your ‘friend’ even contact us, assuming they get the plans? We’re gonna be in the middle of the woods away from all electronics for a while.

  That’s hardly a concern. He’ll find a way; he’s quite crafty.

  Anyway.

  You’re the one at risk so it’s your decision. You don’t trust my friend? Fine. Try banishing me. Just know that there is danger involved.

  “Charlie?” Renee said, “are you ready for us to begin?”

  “Um,” Charlie said. “Sure. Let’s… Let’s get this over with.”

“Make sure to let us know if anything feels off.”

  “How am I supposed to know if something feels of if I don’t know what getting exorcised is suppose to feel like?”

  “Um…” Renee said, “we’ll go slowly. Try and imagine what a normal exorcism might feel like and let us know if this feels different.”

  “I’m having second thoughts. Actually, I think I’m probably on fifth or sixth thoughts by now.”

  “It’s okay to back out. We don’t have to do this.”

  “I’ll be the first to admit I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” Vin said. “On the other hand, how much worse can shit actually get?”

  “That’s actually a good point,” Charlie said. “I already could easily die via possession, or get captured by creepy scientists, or like, trip on a rock and die. Why not add ‘death from good intentions’ to the list? Yeah, let’s do this!”

  Charlie walked into the center of the circle and sat down. Renee started chanting a simple chant in modern English. Older dialects and languages tended to be more powerful, but they were easier to fuck up and there was little need for making the ritual as powerful as possible.

  “Um,” Charlie said after a minute, “is it supposed to hurt? Like a lot? Like my skin’s on fire?”

  Renee stopped chanting at once. “No, it’s not supposed to hurt at all! Are you okay?”

  “Define ‘okay’,” Charlie said. “If your definition includes ‘feels like I just got a really bad sunburn but it’s kinda fading’ then yeah, I’m okay. Or at least as okay as I was before, which was already pushing the definition of ‘okay’.”

  “I’m sorry. It would seem that they did tie your skin into the ritual they used.” Renee sighed. “I have no idea where to go from here.”

  “Well, maybe mysterious computer friend will come through,” Charlie said. “If not, well, guess I’ll die.”

  “Charlie.” Renee met Charlie’s gaze. “You’re not going to die. There are still other things we can try.”

  “Really?” Charlie broke away from Renee’s eye contact, shifting zir gaze to the floor. “Like what?”

  “Ah...” Renee’s face passed through several expressions before settling on ‘student woken up when called upon to demonstrate a problem for the class’. “Well, we still have time to think of things we can try.”

  “Or maybe the situation is just boned and there is nothing we can do,” Vin said. “Like I hate to be that guy but sometimes shit’s just irrevocably fucked.”

  “Vin!”

  “What? We were all thinkin’ it. Someone had to unpack that shit from the back of their mind and put it on the table to be beheld in all its awful smelly glory.” Vin shrugged. “I still got a bad feeling; I don’t think we’re going to find something that will work.”

  “You still have a bad feeling even after we stopped the ritual?” Renee asked. “Are you sure it’s about Charlie at all?”

  He shrugged. “What part of ‘I don’t know a thing, my guy’ do you have trouble understanding?”

  “That’s not good.” Renee slithered around the chalk circle on the ground. “Maybe we should start moving.”

  “Yeah,” Vin said. “Maybe.”

  Cleaning the circle off the rough cement floor was easy, which was good because they were in a hurry and it was generally considered rude to leave ritual materials strewn about someone else’s place.

  Getting their things together was also pretty quick as they hadn’t had any reason to unpack much the night before. It took only a few minutes to add the few items that Marcus had given them to their things.

  Their footsteps echoed faintly through the otherwise silent early morning hallways as they went back through the same path that Marcus had led them through the day before. Walking through the dim corridors they saw no sign of their host, but they figured that she wouldn’t mind them disappearing without saying goodbye.

  The crisp outdoor air chilled their lungs as they left the building. They headed East - Marcus had said that it was the shortest way out of the forest and Renee wanted to scout out the area outside. She wasn’t sure she wanted to leave the woods yet - they didn’t have anywhere to go and the woods were large and secluded enough to be a decent place to hide - but she at least wanted a solid idea of what was beyond.

  Cliffs rose to either side of them as they walked. It made Renee nervous, but suggesting alternate paths didn’t alleviate the dark feeling that hung over Vin like a bad toupée, and this path seemed to be the easiest way East. The relative flatness and rocky nature of the ground suggested that they were in a dried out riverbed, and none of them were going to complain about having slightly less underbrush to navigate through.

  Renee was being careful. Vin’s intuition was telling them something was wrong and she was not going to let whatever fate had in store catch them unawares. She was almost entirely focused on her farsight, trusting in her companions to keep an eye on the immediate surroundings.

  Her first thought had been that something was happening at the facility, but when she checked she found the place utterly immersed in chaos. People were rushing out of the place, alarm lights were flashing, a small fire (normal and red/orange in appearance for once) was raging in one of the computer rooms. It seemed unlikely that they were going to be able try anything. She supposed it could be an elaborate ruse but it seemed unlikely that they would actually set their building on fire just in case she happened to check on them.

  So whatever was going to happen was already in the works. And was quite possibly unavoidable, judging from Vin’s current state.

  She supposed it was possible that whatever was going to happen had nothing to do with the facility at all, and that they were about to die to a supervolcano explosion or a meteor strike or something. There wasn’t really anything that they would be able to do about a natural disaster, and it would explain why no suggestions altered Vin’s intuition.

  She decided to stop thinking about that. There was no point wasting her time worrying about things she couldn’t do anything about.

  It was possible the small fire at the facility could rage out of control and burn the whole forest down. It was kinda dry. How dry did it even need to be to burn green wood anyway? She really should have studied more wilderness survival. Now they were all going to burn to death and she wouldn’t even know how impressed to be that the fire managed to spread.

  She decided to Stop Thinking About That. She wasn’t wasting her time worrying about things she couldn’t do anything about.

  She managed to go about a minute before checking back on the fire at the facility. It seemed to be smaller than it had been when she first noticed it. There were sprinklers on. They were probably going to wreck all the computer hardware in that room.

  She took a few breaths and shifted her focus away from the facility. The fire wasn’t going be a problem. There was no point watching the facility anymore. Whatever threat menaced them now was already on its way.

  The other day the doctor - Dana, their name had been Dana - had been adamant on getting someone involved who was qualified to deal with Tyrone. That was probably what was happening. Not a massive fire, not a supervolcano, just someone who had some way of tracking them and good enough mobility that they couldn’t be evaded with good intuition alone. Someone who would have a computer on them and wouldn’t be fooled by simple illusions.

  Renee still had no idea how, exactly, she was supposed to deal with this, but combed through the woods with her farsight anyway, figuring that if she could at least see the threat she might be able to better assess the situation.

  The group continued in silence for a ways. No one really felt like talking.

  The silence that hung over them wasn’t a comfortable one. The sense of dread that weighed down Vin had spread to everyone, and they were all just waiting to hear the grenade’s pin drop.

  And drop it most certainly did.

  There was nothing unusual about the patch of thin forest they were traversing through until the trees wavered and disappeared, revealing a clearing with a single short person grinning ahead of them.

  The group stopped suddenly, with Renee putting herself in front of the other two.

  Looking around, she noticed people with guns pointed towards them on the cliffs to either side.

  “You didn’t think you were the only one that could make illusions, did you?” the person said. Their skin was dark and their white hair reached just past the small of their back. They were dressed very formally, in well-fitting clothing that was far too clean for someone trekking through the forest to be wearing.

  “Oh, you really shouldn’t look so shocked, dear.” Their voice was high pitched and sounded sort of like someone attempting to talk with a German accent after having one described secondhand to them, which happened to be exactly what a modern Australian accent sounded like.

  “You didn’t actually think that a few simple illusions and a bit of luck could keep you from me, did you? Now, that’s just darling? ” they said, clapping their hands together. “Anyways, let’s get on with things, shall we?”

  A magicore floated to their hands from behind them. It was a smooth orb, covered with yellow lines of light that danced around at the magi’s touch. The magi made a few sweeping gestures, strumming the magicore as their hands moved around it, and then flicked both their wrists, causing a bright yellow light to shoot away from them at Charlie.

  Charlie barely had time to register the light before it hit zir, lifting zir off the ground and illuminating zir body in a blinding flash. This only lasted a moment before ze fell out of the air and consciousness.

  Alcor managed to land in a manner that didn’t even vaguely resemble elegant, but at least didn’t hurt the body at all.

  “So you cannot be sedated, such a shame,” they said. “I take it that now I’m dealing you and not some little child?”

  “I’m amazed you still have the resources left to bother with us.”

  “Oh, they paid me in advance darling; I couldn’t care less about what happens to them.”

  “You might want to double check that that transfer actually went through.”

  “Who cares . What matters is that this is you! Oh, how exciting this all is. I’ve been waiting for years for this moment, you know. Admittedly, this is not quite how I saw this encounter going, but you can’t let a few details get you down, am I right?”

  Alcor stared at the magi.

  “Let’s do introductions, shall we? Not that you need any introductions, your reputation precedes you, but I’m afraid mine does not. At least, not in your current state. Normally I imagine you have no need for introductions at all. Must make social encounters very convenient. Anyway, I’m Magi Briana Hurtzog, she/her, at your service. Well, not at your service per say, but you know what I mean.”

  “Am I supposed to be pleased to meet you or something?” Alcor all but snarled. “Because I really cannot fully encapsulate how much that is not the case.”

  “How could you say such a thing? This scar goes deep into my heart.” She dramatically covered her heart with a hand. “Anyways you should come with me and we can go get you out of that ridiculous body.”

  “And then what?” Alcor crossed Charlie’s arms.

  “I’m not going to lie,” she said. “What happens next is not exactly in your favor. But it will be a great learning opportunity for everybody involved and I think we can all agree that that is what really matters.”

  “And what about the kids?” Alcor asked. “What happens to them?”

  “What? Them? I don’t care about them . They can go back to prancing through the woods or whatever it is that they were doing. I’m not their babysitter.” She waved her hand absently. “That said, if you don’t come along nicely, well, I don’t care about them. Or specifically what will happen to them. What all of these armed guards will do to them. I’m going to have them killed is what I’m saying here.”

  “No, I got that.”

  “Oh good. One can never be sure.”

  “I’m many things, but a moron isn’t one of them,” he said dryly.

  “Some people have trouble with the subtext, darling.” She spread her fingers wide. “There is no shame in that.”

  “Do you people have any tricks up your sleeve besides threatening children?”

  “Oh!” Her face lit up. “I could also threaten you directly if you’d prefer.”

  Briana’s hands spun around her magicore, tiny bolts of electricity reaching between it and her fingers.

  She snapped, pointing at Alcor.

  It was like being slammed into a wall. Pain - and not the interesting kind - blossomed through his very being. The world spun. He stumbled backwards, or maybe just thought he did because the body didn’t seem to actually change position.

  “Not very pleasant, I hope? Just a little something I’ve been working on in my spare time. That was roughly one percent of what it’s capable of. If my calculations are correct I imagine that at full power it would be capable of rendering you incapacitated for a number of hours.”

  “Why the hell didn’t you start with that?” he growled.

  “Language, darling. There are children about. As for your question, I was hoping we could keep this civil and not have to resort to threats of torture.”

  “So instead you open with threats of child murder.”

  “Exactly, darling. Now I think we’ve wasted enough time with all of this chitter chatter. Shall we be going, or are you going to make things unnecessarily difficult?”

 Renee looked around. She was not going to panic this time. There was a way out, she knew that. She just had to find it. She was smart. Clever. She could do this. Would do this.

  Breathe in

  1

  2

  3

  4

  Breathe out

  Alcor was still talking, having taken a few steps towards the magi. It was hard to say if he had a plan or was just testing the waters. She had to assume that he didn’t have a plan. Worst case scenario, there would be redundancy. Who was she kidding, worst case scenario they were all going to BE FINE. This was Fine. She just needed a plan.

  1

  2

  3

  4

  Breathe in

  She was fine.

  Vin was casually looking at the gunpeople periodically spaced around the cliff’s edge.

  1

  2

  3

  4

  Breathe out.

  Good. Now go talk to Vin.

  “How are you so calm about all this?” Renee whispered, more harshly than she intended. It wasn’t what she intended to say, but upon reflection she couldn’t figure out what she meant to say outside of ‘something else’.

  “What?” he replied. “It’s not like we were going to remain valuable assets forever. This was pretty inevitable.”

  “Not it isn’t! We’ve gotten so far. Their building is on fire, for Pete’s sake. We just need to find a way out, it’s going to be okay. We are going to be okay.”

Breathe.

“Hey Renee?” Vin said.

  “What?”

  “I just wanted to say, thanks for everything. These last few days,” he laughed, “okay, these last few days have been a fucking shitshow, but it’s a shitshow that I’m really glad I got the opportunity to experience. I never would have gotten out of there on my own. If it wasn’t for you...  I didn’t really have any memories from before, you know, so just having this time out here, having gotten to see and do all this shit before I die… It means a lot to me.”

  “Vin, stop talking like that, we’re going to be fine -”

  “This is fine,” he shrugged. “Well, it’s kinda bullshit that they are going to kill you too. I’m sorry I can’t help you there; someone as great as you really does deserve better.”

  “Vin please, no one is going to die. We just need a plan.”

  “Aren’t you supposed to be the realistic one? We’ve seen way too much. The only reason we aren’t dead yet is they want to make sure that Tyrone’s pacified first so he doesn’t get mad enough to explode Charlie and burninate everyone.”

  “But hey!” He beamed. “Look on the bright side. This is by far the coolest thing to ever happen to us, and I don’t know about you but I’ve been dying to participate in something this dramatic.”

  “How can you -” She shook her head. “No. We are going to get out of this alive. We just… can’t you feel anything about the future? There has to be something.”

  “Nah. I ain’t got shit right now.”

  “Please! You have to have something. Anything! It just... even some little random impulse.”

  “Hey, you know that I can’t control this shit.” He laughed completely mirthlessly. “And I really don’t think you want me to follow my impulses right now. Not really any need to rush it at this point, anyway.”

  “Vin come on, there’s something. There has to be something. What about what they were having you do back at the lab? You had some amount of control over that, didn’t you?”

  “Renee! I can’t just…”

  “You haven’t even tried! You’ve said yourself that you don’t know how this works, the extents of your capabilities!”

  “Fine.” He rolled his eyes and then closed them. “Look, I’m making my best constipated face while wishing really hard on -”

  His eyes went wide, pupils constricted to nothing.

  “Oh fuck.”

  The scar along his forehead shot open, his third eye dilated to blackness.

  Vin crumpled.

  Collapsed.

  Renee froze. Balled her hands, nails drawing blood. Reached out, grabbing, pulling him to her chest.

  “I’m so sorry. Fuck I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have pushed you. I shouldn’t have… I’m sorry. Please say something. Please be okay. You have to be okay.”

  She was shaking. Holding him. Tighter, probably, than was wise. Lower torso curling in on itself, pushing and flipping. Slamming against the ground. Her eyes raced around, looking for answers, a way out, something, anything . For.

  The gunpeople were alarmed by something, shuffling around, taking aim. Had she made too large of a scene? She wrapped herself around Vin as much as she could. She had a lot of body mass; she could probably take a shot or two, right?

  She again looked for any sort of out. For a sign. For a plan.

  She could… she could probably project pain with her illusions. Pain was a sensory thing.

  That would have to make aiming harder, right?

  The gunpeople weren’t aiming at her and Vin. They were focused farther away.

  At Charlie.

  No.

  At Tyrone.

  He was next to the magi.

  When did that happen?

  He didn’t seem to notice the guns. He didn’t seem to notice the danger he was in.

  That he was putting Charlie in.

  The magi was weaving her arm through the air, casting some spell.

  Tyrone was so close. He took the arm.

  The gun people were going to-

  Renee closed her eyes, keeping the location of the gunpeople in her mind.

  She thought about needles. Of scalpels. Of being huddled on a bed too small for her as something ripped through her brain, through her insides.

  Screams broke her concentration. The people with guns were screaming.

  She was doing that. Oh god that was her she -

  No.

  She was doing this. This was the plan now. They were screaming and she had to do this.

  The magi pulled her arm back.

  “Really?” she said. “I think I can manage to handle all the might and physical prowess of an overweight child, darling.”

  He was smiling. Baring teeth. Lips stretched farther than they should.

  He pushed his claws into her arm. Through the thick fingers and useless nails of the body that contained him. He pushed , sinking into her arm, sinking past her skin, past her flesh, past her bones, into Her.

  She realized what he was doing. All her cockiness evaporated in an instant, confidence replaced by desperate anger.

  She yanked her arm back, shouting with no words but purely emotion.

  Her skin, her flesh, her bones: they easily pulled out of the weak and bloody grip of the child.

  His claws were still gripping her Arm, though.

  And without her Arm, her skin, flesh, and bones fell limp at her shoulder.

  Alcor.

  Pulled.

  She was screaming. She was panic. She was terror. The emotions filled Alcor, rushing through him like fire. It had been far too long since he had done anything like this. It had been far too long since he let himself do anything fun .

  She was writhing in agony, her scream becoming the air he breathed. She genuinely seemed to think that somehow, with the right combination of movements and actions, she could possibly get out of this.

  Watching her final sliver of hope die was hilarious.

  Her soul was everything. Even the small amount he consumed through his grip was freedom from the tight compressed confinement that he hadn’t realized he’d been feeling. Energy rushed through him as a wave, giddy lightning that tingled and vibrated and pushed out all the stress and frustration and utter bullshit of the past. It was taking a beautiful, intricate mechanism and slamming it on the ground, watching it shatter into something new and even more beautiful. It was jumping on a table in a crowd and screaming . It was overturning a picnic table into a river. It was standing up and decking someone after years of silent discomfort. It was freedom, true freedom. It was the promise that this moment could be truly wonderful if you would just let it.

  Who cared what these stupid mortals had been trying to do? He was Alcor! He was the single strongest entity in the whole dimension! They only existed because he permitted it, because they were entertaining. Why should he give a fuck about what ridiculous things they did to each other? About what they did on their comically absurd destiny to ensure their own destruction. Why the fuck had he let any of their petty bullshit tie him down?

  He was laughing. He was hysterical. Why wouldn’t he be? What did he care if his body ran out of air? It wasn’t like he needed it.

WRONG.

  He stopped, smile fading from his face. The magi reduced to a twitching pile of limbs, her soul frozen in his firm grasp.

  Oh. that was right. He cared. Him with his stupid boring killjoy self.

  He was Alcor. He was the twin star, the brother, the gruncle, and he was strong enough to ignore the temptation of one measly soul.

  One really, really tasty soul. That was right there. Bright. Beautiful. Perfect in every way, really. Tingly and light and -

  There would be other souls. Better ones.

  But there was also this soul right here, and really the future wasn’t real anyway, so…

  That would hurt Charlie. The body was absolutely not going to survive having that much energy going through it.

  Ze was already dying, though. Would it really be worth it to waste such a wonderful opportunity if ze was just going to die anyway ? Really, who cared about this one person?

  Him. He cared. He absolutely cared. He pushed the soul away from his - from Charlie’s body, a tiny spark flickering from where he rejected the energy he already absorbed from it.

  He stared at the cyan flame.

  Well now.

  It wasn’t much of a consolation prize, but if it worked it would be absolutely hilarious.

  Charlie’s face resumed its unnatural grin.

  He pushed, ever so gently, on the soul. Its energy was already connected to him so it really should take no effort at all to…

  The soul exploded in brilliant fire, racing through the valley with the slightest command. Up the cliffs it raced, searing through the rocks, silicon rich sediments melting into hard and rough glass. It was at the top in an instant. At the gunpeople, who were for some reason a disorganized mess, in an instant. It burned -

  That would be crossing a line, wouldn’t it.

  It melted their guns. And burned their clothes off. People didn’t need clothes to survive. Or hair.

  The remaining energy of the soul roared around him like a maelstorm. It was screaming. The tiny bond that connected it to him was a dagger lancing through him - the real him - not the body he wore. It was wonderfully satisfying and delightfully real in a way most magic just wasn’t and -

  TYRONE!

  Alcor froze, confused, at the sound that echoed around his mind. Tyrone. That meant something to him, right? He looked away from the beautiful storm of fire that danced around him for a source of the interruption.

  There was a person close by. The cloud of fear around them was so thick it was almost impossible to see them through it.

  “That’s enough,” they (Renee Iris Etheridge, ~16.853 years old, dead in - ) said.

  This mortal was trying to tell him what to do.

  This mortal was trying to tell him what to do.

  Something was wrong. Obviously. He was going to have to teach her a lesson.

  No.

  Something else was wrong.

  He knew the exact time and place of Renee’s death.

  His omniscience was trickling in.

  His omniscience was trickling through.

  Charlie's dreamscape wasn’t strong enough anymore.

  He had forgotten about Charlie.

  A quick internal check revealed that Charlie was still around, but ze felt faint. Which was entirely his fault. He had forgotten about Charlie. He -

  “That’s enough, ” Renee said, surprisingly firmly for how much fear swirled around her. “They aren’t a threat anymore. You can let that go.”

  For a moment Alcor had no idea what she was talking about. Then he followed her gaze upward, at the soul that he had entrapped.

  He stared at the spinning vortex of soul above him. It was screaming just like Henry had screamed. He couldn’t - wouldn’t - do that. Even if the person did deserve it. Wasn’t going to make it beg for the mercy of centuries of digestion.

  He.

  He let go of the soul. Watched it practically explode in order to dissipate away. Felt its screams fade.

  He was going to fucking slaughter some cults when this was all over.

  He let Charlie’s body relax.

  Renee was curled up around Vin staring wide eyed at Alcor. She was trembling slightly, clutching Vin like a lifesaver.

  Vin didn’t look well.

  “What was that?” Renee asked, leaning away from Alcor, putting the bulk of herself between them. “I could feel that with senses I can’t even… What was that?”

  He paused. There was definitely a wrong answer here.

  “As you know, living organisms, especially those with higher levels of cognizance, produce significant amounts of magical energy from their emotions and intent. I just realized that this was an external source of power I could use without channeling it through Charlie’s body.”

  “Was that her soul ?” Renee pushed herself a titch farther away from the demon.

  “Yes.”

  “What’s going to happen to it now?”

  “It’s going to need a little time to regenerate the energy I burned,” Alcor said. “But it should reincarnate just like any other soul removed from its body.”

  “You’re not a ghost, are you,” she said quietly.

  “I never claimed to be one.”

  “What are you?

  He smiled. “I think that you are a very smart girl with a lot of evidence at her disposal and probably shouldn’t ask questions when you don’t want to know the answer.”

  She kept looking at him.

  “Now, do you have the first aid kit that Marcus gave us? I fucked up Charlie’s hand pretty bad back there.” Which was really putting it mildly. Charlie's right palm, where Alcor had pushed through, resembled a failed attempt to cook hamburger more than it did a hand. The skin was badly and unevenly torn, there was uneven charring all over, and it was so bloody that assessing the extent of the damage was impossible.

  “Right,” she said, uncurling to get access to her bag. “Right.”

  Renee shifted through the contents of her pack. She had thought that she had put things away neatly, but the inside was a mess.

  “Why are you helping us?” she asked, looking up.

  “Because I want to. Which is pretty much the reason I do anything, really.”

  She pulled the first aid pack out of the mess. “That is not... reassuring.”

  Alcor sat down and put the first aid kit in Charlie’s lap, picking though it. “It isn’t exactly new information. I’ve been pretty open about the fact that I could leave at any time so long as I didn’t mind killing Charlie.”

  “I know that, but I guess I hadn’t really internalized it.” She watched as Alcor cleaned the wound. “Despite what you said, it has felt like you were stuck in the same boat as the rest of us. But you’re only here as long as you want to be. I’ll admit, it makes me nervous. That you might stop wanting to help us. That you could just get tired of all this and leave, taking Charlie’s life with you.”

  “I’m not willing to kill Charlie. That isn’t likely to change.” He covered Charlie’s hand with a skin growth spray. “And I’m confident that the friend I contacted will be able to help. Not just with Charlie and my thing, but with getting all of us past this. I may not be stuck here, but I am still in the same boat as you - and we’re going to hit shore soon. Speaking of which -”

  Alcor walked over to Magi Briana’s body. Body being the key word - it was not a corpse. One might assume that a body, upon having its soul violently ripped out, might die. One would be wrong. A body doesn’t need a soul to survive. A body needs a soul to be a person. From the body formerly belonging to Magi Briana’s perspective, all that had happened over the past few minutes was that a child gripped its arm with all the strength that a child doesn’t have and it suddenly found itself in the market for a new a tenant. The biohazardous blood from Charlie’s wound was closer to being a threat to the body than anything Alcor had intentionally done.

  The body didn’t react to Alcor’s approach. Giving a shit about a literal demon coming towards you while looking like it wants something was the business of a person, which was no longer the body’s problem as of a minute ago.

  Alcor took the headset from the body. It, unsurprisingly, did not resist. It didn’t do anything. Soulless bodies were boring .

  “Are you seriously leaving Charlie’s hand like that?” Renee asked before Alcor could say anything into the microphone. “You can’t just spray skin growth formula on tissue that’s that badly damaged. You need to treat the injury first.”

  “Do you know how to treat something this bad?” Alcor asked.

  “When it’s this bad is when you seek medical attention.” She shook her head. “Actually, you should go to a doctor even if it’s a lot better than this. But I can at least make a dressing for it, make sure it stays moist. Let me see it.”

  She carefully set Vin down next to her.

  Alcor offered her the hand, which she took and started cleaning more thoroughly.

  “Hey kid,” Alcor said into the microphone.

  The headset was an old fashioned two way radio. It was specifically designed to only use one frequency. The computer on it was so simple that calling it a computer was like calling chihuahua an apex predator. From a logical standpoint, there should be no way it could be infected by a computer virus, as there was really nothing to infect. The Alcor Virus realized this, decided that he didn’t much care for that line of logic, and infected it anyway.

  “Hey Dad,” the virus said. “Guess who has no thumbs and fucked up?”

  “What happened?”

  “They figured out it was me almost as soon as I started doing anything,” the virus said. “Which isn’t surprising; I think they were expecting me. Anyway the long and short of it is they destroyed the servers that had the information you need before I could get it.”

  Alcor pinched the bridge of Charlie's nose with zir good hand. “I’m starting to think that they want me to kill them in the most gruesome way possible.”

  “It’s not entirely lost, though: I have located a backup. Unfortunately, my ability to access it depends on the cooperation of a human person. I think I should be able to make it work, though.”

  “We should plan for what happens if you can’t.”

  “For sure. What chance of success do you think you’d have of fixing this on your own?”

  “Fairly low.” Alcor sighed. “We’ve determined they’ve incorporated zir skin into the binding ritual but we don't know any details about what they did besides that. If we actually had the skin things might be easier, but we don’t.”

  “Why don’t you go get it?”

  Alcor raised Charlie’s eyebrows. “You’re suggesting we go back?”

  “Why not? Thanks to me and the literal fire the place is pretty well cleared out.”

  “Right. Renee mentioned that earlier. Why exactly was the place on fire?”

  “They started it,” the Alcor Virus said. “Some moron wanted to be very sure I couldn’t get at those files, I guess. And they weren’t very careful about the surroundings. It’s died down by now, but the combination of that and what I was doing mean that the place is pretty empty now.”

  “And you can make sure it stays that way?”

  “I pretty much tripped every alarm they had. And since they have no way of knowing if I just tripped an alarm or actually broke something, releasing dangerous quantities of ionizing radiation or carbon monoxide or one of the other half dozen things they were monitoring, it’s going to take more than a day or two for them to determine if it’s safe to actually enter the place. Assuming that they can even get there, which I plan on making hard for them. Did you know that it takes about forty miles for the single road leading to the facility to connect with anything?”

  Alcor smiled. “What are you planning on doing with it?”

  “I’m not sure yet. I was thinking of taking control of a forklift and stacking some cars on top of each other to make a pileup. There’s also a logging company nearby so it might be easier to just pile some trees on the road, but that’s less fun.”

  “Those both sound like they’d work just fine.”

  “There’s also a satellite launch happening two states over in a few hours. I’m pretty sure I could hijack the rocket and crash it into the street. They specifically design them to not turn around mid air and crash into the ground, so getting it to do that with any precision would be a challenge, but where’s the fun in life without a little challenge?”

  Alcor shook Charlie’s head slightly. “That sounds like it would likely generate more attention then we would want.”

  “You’re probably right - but consider - I would get to hack and crash a rocket for the greater good.”

  “Do whatever you think is best, and have your fun, just make sure it works. I don’t want another molasses incident here.”

  “In my defense,” the Alcor Virus said, “the molasses incident was hilarious.”

  “No one is questioning the hilarity of the incident,” Alcor clarified. “I’m just pointing out that it didn’t accomplish what we wanted in the slightest.”

  “Which did sort of make the whole thing even more funny.”

  “That may be true,” Alcor said with a smile. “But we really can’t afford that sort of mishap right now. Charlie’s life is very much on the line, and if people get through on that road, Vin and Renee are in danger as well.”

  “I suppose I could find a different reason to crash a rocket…”

  “Do you really need a reason?”

  “It’s more funny that way.”

  “Well let me know when you’ve blocked that road off, alright?” Alcor said. “I should bring Renee back into the loop.”

  “Will do,” the virus said. “It will probably be a little, there’s nothing very close that I can infect.”

  “I take it your friend didn’t get the ritual diagram,” Renee said, gently wrapping a bandage around Charlie’s hand.

  “No,” Alcor sighed. “They destroyed the digital data before he could. He’s located a backup but will need to get someone to cooperate with him in order to get it.”

  “And I’m sure he’s just great at getting people to cooperate with him.”

  “It really will depend on what sort of person has backup. If it’s the same person that decided that the correct solution for a data breach was to set a server on fire, he’s going to have to be careful. If it’s a more reasonable person… well, he has a lot he can offer a reasonable person.”

  “And in the meantime you’re suggesting we go back,” Renee stated.

  “We need Charlie’s skin,” Alcor said. “The facility is going to be a better place to do a ritual than anywhere else in this woods. There also might be physical documentation on the ritual they used that my friend couldn’t access. The place is empty right now, and my friend is going to block the road ensuring it stays that way, so it should be safe.”

  “I’m not going to say you’re wrong, but I don’t like it.” Renee hugged her arms tightly to her chest. “I never want to go back to that awful place.”

  “You don’t have to if you don’t want to,” Alcor pointed out. “I can probably manage on my own at this point.”

  “I don’t want to abandon Charlie,” Renee said resolutely. “And if there are people still there, you’ll need my illusions.”

  “I still have my fire.”

  “How much more fire can you produce without further aggravating Charlie's condition?” Renee asked. “Especially after that stunt you just pulled?”

  Alcor didn’t respond, thinking about how loose the bond between him and Charlie felt. Any fire at all was probably a bad idea.

  “If there is anyone left, you’ll need my illusions,” she said firmly.

  “I’m certainly not going to argue against help,” Alcor said. “I just don’t want you to feel pressured into doing something you don’t want to do.”

  She picked up Vin again. “My anxiety will eat me alive if I stay back while you two go ahead. I’ll feel better doing something, even if it’s largely unnecessary, than I will if I do nothing. Even if that means going back.”

  “Alright then,” Alcor said. “Let’s get on with it. We should see if there’s a way up the cliffs. They probably have some kind of vehicle that we could use, or at least tracks we could follow.”

  They walked along the cliff face, looking for a path.

  “In case I missed saying it before, thank you for earlier,” Alcor said.

  “For what?”

  “For stopping me.” Alcor paused before continuing. “If I had been left to my own devices… I’m not sure Charlie would have survived.”

  “It was nothing,” Renee said, avoiding Alcor’s gaze.

  “It was extraordinary. You were terrified, I was putting on what was likely the single greatest demonstration of destructive power you had ever seen, you had no idea how I would react, and you drew attention to yourself to call me out anyway.”

  “Someone had to do something, and I didn’t think the either the dead woman or the two unconscious people were like going to seize the initiative.”

  “Speaking of which, what happened to Vin anyway?”

  Renee’s gaze dropped. “He’ll be fine in an hour or two. He tried to find a way out and ended up looking too far forward. It’s my fault; I shouldn’t have pushed him after he said that he didn’t have any intuition on what to do next. I knew that this is what happens when he tries to control his abilities and I told him to do it anyway. I guess I thought that if the situation was dire enough adrenaline might get him through it? Or more likely I wasn’t thinking about what the consequences would be for him at all, only about what I wanted.”

  “What you wanted was for all of us to get out alive,” Alcor said gently. “You didn’t know I was capable of doing what I did. There was a chance that Vin could have been the straw to tip the scales in our favor, and you acted on that chance. If the only options you know about are to risk putting Vin through this or to die, risking this is the right choice.”

  “But was it really my choice to make?” Renee asked. “I’m not the one who got hurt.”

  “He was presumably also aware of what happens when he pushes himself and tried it anyway. He made just as much of a choice as you did.”

  “I don’t think he was actually trying to look into the future, though.” Renee was slithering slowly. “He was being really flippant about it, and he seemed genuinely surprised when his third eye opened.”

  “It is possible that he only did it because of you. That doesn’t mean you made a bad choice.”

  “He seemed so content,” Renee said. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen him so relaxed and peaceful as he was when he was sure that he was going to die.”

  “Renee,” Alcor said. “Vin’s severely depressed. His relationship with death is badly skewed.”

  “Is it really our place to say that it’s a bad end for him, though?” Renee said quietly. “It’s what he wants. It feel selfish to say that he has to live because I want him to.”

  Alcor took a deep breath before speaking. “Look, I know you feel like a shitty person who selfishly hurt her friend, but a) you’re not and b) even if you were that doesn’t mean that you’re wrong about everything. Yes, Vin wants to die. Vin also wants to be eating chocolate at all times. If you feel comfortable denying his desire to constantly consume confectionaries you should feel fine denying his desire to die. He’s sick, and unless things worked very differently at the facility than I’m assuming they did, he’s completely untreated and spent most of his life in a triggering situation. I’m not going to say that death is never a solution - there is a reason assisted suicide is a thing - but death is a very final solution. It’s what you do when nothing else works, when you’ve expended all your options, the pain is unbearable and can’t be stopped. It’s not what you do when you haven’t even tried a single method of treatment.”

  “But he’s not going to be able to get treated!” Renee cried. “We can’t even go to a farm in the middle of the night without disguising our faces; we’re not going to be able to walk into a psychiatrist’s office, assuming we could even find someone who does in-person visitations.”

  “Sure you will. Remember we aren’t alone anymore; I brought someone else into it. This could go very public if we want it to. Or we could shut it down quietly and blackmail them into leaving you alone. Either way, you’re not going to spend the rest of your life hiding in the woods. Unless you want to, of course, in which case I’m not going to stop you. Live the dream.”

  “You’re saying we can put this whole ordeal behind us, just like that?” Renee said.

  “You don’t sound especially excited about the prospect.”

  She shifted her grip on Vin. “On top of the fact that I don’t think I can say with any degree of sincerity that I believe you, it feels wrong. It’s too easy; there’s too many places for it to go astray.”

  “There are probably considerably fewer moving parts than you’re assuming.” He smiled. “I can pretty much guarantee that if we get through this alive I’ll be able to clean your records.”

  “At what cost?” Renee asked. “What organization would be pulling these strings and what guarantee do we have that they aren’t going to want to hold this favor over us?”

  Alcor laughed. “There isn’t a nefarious organization. There’s really just the two of us, and you’re already up to your ears in my crap already.”

  Renee cocked an eyebrow. “There’s just two of you and you’re confident that you can both make this go public and give us our lives back?”

  “Well,” Alcor said, “it’s mostly just him, if I’m being entirely honest. But he’s pulled much bigger stunts than this before.”

  Renee frowned. “Unless your friend is like the Alcor Virus or -”

  “Wow,” Alcor interrupted. “That was a really good guess.”

  “What?”

  Alcor was grinning widely. “I didn’t think you’d figure that out until you two were talking.”

  “What‽” Renee was looking around, as if she could find a more sensical universe hiding behind a tree.

  “But you got it nigh instantaneously.”

  She focused on him with a disbelieving stare. “Are you trying to tell me you are friends with the Alcor Virus?”

  “You were the one who suggested it in the first place.”

  “I was being facetious!” she cried. “Wait a minute, yesterday you said - did you program the Alcor Virus ???”

  Alcor just grinned.

  “Just to be clear,” she said, “we are referring to the program that took over the entire world's nuclear arsenal and threatened to use them if a series of increasingly asinine demands weren’t met?”

  “Yeah,” Alcor said dreamily. “That was a good time. We managed to get global nuclear disarmament in under a day.”

  “You’re telling me the goal of the Tretalelin Incident was disarmament?”

  Alcor waggled Charlie’s good hand. “About eighty percent of it was about disarmament, twenty percent was just about fucking with the global powers.”

  “Well, that worked out great in the long run.”

  “We had a good two centuries of zero active nuclear arsenals. I would say that’s pretty decent for a day’s work.”

  Renee shook her head. “So our lives are now in the metaphorical hands of one of the most infamously unpredictable and trollish entities ever. How far we’ve come.”

  “Oh he won’t do anything to seriously fuck with you if I ask him not to.”

  She glared. “Are you actually planning on asking him not to, though?”

  Alcor put up a finger. “That’s a very good question.”

  “That is not an answer.”

  Alcor put Charlie’s palms up. “Where’s the fun in life if you don’t have a surprise every once in awhile?”

  “I’m starting to get the feeling that we have very different ideas about what fun is.”

  “I bet Vin would agree with me,” Alcor said. “He has a sense of humor.”

  “Vin doesn’t take the future seriously because he doesn’t believe he’ll live to see it. Having him on your side here isn’t doing you any favors.”

  “You’re just jealous that it’s two to one.”

  She rolled her eyes. “I bet Charlie would be on my side.”

  “Well, that’s just because Charlie’s a square.”

  “I have no idea what that means.”

  “That’s because you’re also a square.” Alcor stopped and pointed at a bit of the cliff. “Oh, hey, this looks pretty trampled. Wanna try ascending here?”

  The trampled path was at a gentler incline than the cliff around it. It was still pretty steep, certainly steeper than Renee would like to scale while carrying Vin, but it looked manageable enough.

  Renee nodded.

  As they climbed Renee turned to Alcor. “I can’t think of anything that can rip out the soul of a living, non-consenting person.”

  “I normally wouldn’t be able to. But I’ve done practically nothing these past few days but gather my energy up. I could do a lot right now, or at least I could before I went and did the thing.”

  “Just how much energy are you absorbing?” Renee asked, looking at Alcor like he was some kind of large wild carnivore. “The amount of energy it would take to do that is absurd.”

  “Do you know how much energy it takes to burn through the dreamscape of something with the cognitive strength of a selkie? It’s not a small number.”

  “I suppose not.”

  “It’s actually sort of lucky that I ended up wrecking zir hand,” Alcor said. “It takes a lot more energy to achieve a physical effect than it does to do things in the mindscape. If I hadn’t had so much of the energy I was channeling through zir push through zir physical body...  Things could have been very bad.”

  “Well, that sure is something.”

  They picked their way up the cliff side.

  “So,” Renee said. “If I’m to believe the words of our former captors, you’ve killed enough to gain a reputation for it.”

  “I’m not sure why you would trust anything those people have said, but yes, I have,” Alcor said. “What about it?��

  “Do you,” she paused. “Do you feel guilty about that?”

  “Sometimes.”

  Alcor reached the cliff’s top and extended Charlie’s uninjured hand down to Renee.

  “Sometimes?” she said, taking it.

  “Sometimes,” he repeated, helping her up. “Sometimes I’m not really in a place where I can feel guilt. Sometimes I feel fully justified in my actions. Sometimes the weight of everything I’ve done is completely immobilizing.”

“Do you feel guilty about it currently?”

  “Some of it,” he said. “Most of it. Some of it feels pretty justified, though.”

  “Like the magi just now?”

  “Yes. That was definitely an unusual occurrence, but I’m not going to lose any metaphorical sleep over killing someone who was prepared to murder kids to use me as a science project,” Alcor said. “And although the circumstance surrounding the encounter was obviously unique, and the ending was rather extraordinary, there wasn’t anything too special about her, really.

  “The way my existence works…” Alcor continued. “I see the worst side of people. I see a lot of the worst side of people. And even though I also deal with perfectly decent people, when you constantly see the extent of what horrors people are capable of… It’s a fight to keep believing that people are worth grieving over. That I should feel guilty at all. And sometimes, it’s a losing battle. And sometimes, it’s too hard and I just isolate myself.”

  “So why do you care, then? Why bother fighting just so you can feel bad about what you’ve done?”

  “Because,” Alcor said slowly, “I like people. Admittedly, not always in a healthy way, or a way that’s good for the people involved, but I pretty much always like people. The world would be awfully boring without them. And I want to be liked back, to deserve to be liked.”

  “At least, sometimes you do?”

  “Yeah. Sometimes I really don’t care what anyone else thinks of me. But I kind of hate that part of me.” He laughed without any humor whatsoever. “Of course, I also hate that I hate that, hate that I feel the need to get validation from others, hate how weak and pathetic that is. And then I hate that I feel that way and... I’m a bit of a mess, honestly.”

  “Have you ever considered therapy?” Renee asked. “You sound like you could really use it.”

  “Hah! Yeah that would go great. ‘Yes, hello, you can call me Tyrone, I’m a hundred times your age, good with kids, and I’ve almost certainly killed more people than you’ve ever met’.” He sighed. “Actually I have tried therapy before. It didn’t go great. There’s too much that I just can’t tell someone I don’t know that well, and at the end of the day, therapy is about changing what you can and accepting what’s left and I can’t do that. I can’t change what I am. I want to - god do I want to - but it’s too much a part of me.  And I don’t want to accept it - I don’t want to be okay with doing terrible things because that’s when I do even worse things.”

  “Just how many people have you killed here?”

  “I haven’t exactly been running a tally. It’s not a small number though, I can tell you that much.” He paused. “Most of it was an accident though, for what little that’s worth.”

  “How do you accidentally kill more people than you can count? Are you secretly a politician or something?”

  “No, I didn’t poison a water supply or whatever. I was a dumb angry kid and I threw a hissy fit with more collateral damage than I realized was possible. I didn’t know my own strength at that point, and a whole lot of innocent people paid the price.”

  “That sounds terrible. I’m sorry,” she said, unsure how else to respond.

  “It was,” Alcor said, pointedly ignoring the part of him that found it hilarious.

  The silence that settled over the two was like an especially itchy blanket on a hot summer night.

  Renee focused on picking her way through the underbrush.  The path was well trampled, making it much easier to traverse than the path leading to the encounter had been. She kind of wished it was harder, that it would demand more of her attention. As it was, it left her with little to do mentally other than contemplate everything she just learned, and she wasn’t sure she was ready to do that just yet. She just wished she had some sort of distraction.

  As if on a cue, Alcor stopped in front of her.

  “Well, this isn’t what I had in mind, but it will probably do,” he said.

  Renee lifted herself up a little to see over Charlie’s frame. Ahead of them, scattered around the area’s sparse trees, was a pack of parked motorcycles. They looked relatively new, despite the layer of dirt that coated them. That was about all Renee could assess from them, as she knew about as much about motorcycles as she did how to feel about Tyrone, which was an almost impressive amount of ignorance to have about a relatively common object.

  Renee slithered about the area, getting a more solid idea about what was there. The motorcycles were the only things she could see that were left behind. There was nothing she could see that could practically transport something her size.

  “They really weren’t planning on taking Vin and me back, were they?” she asked.

  “Doesn’t look like it, no.”

  “He was right,” she said. “They were planning on killing us.”

  “Probably. I could have told you some very dangerous things by now.”

  Alcor walked up to one of the motorcycles. It was still on: apparently they didn’t expect the encounter to last very long. Which, Alcor supposed, wasn’t technically an inaccurate assumption.

  Experimentally, he got on one. It was a little large for Charlie’s body, but not unworkably so.

  "Think you can get on one of these?"

  "You want me to ride a motorcycle," Renee said. "What with my zero legs and four meters of torso."

  "I was more wondering if you would be physically capable of mounting one. I might be able to tow you," Alcor said. "I want to get back to the facility quickly; getting me out of Charlie as soon as possible is more important than ever."

  "Can you even tow a motorcycle with another motorcycle?"

  "I don't see why not," Alcor said.

  "You can, so long as you have a towline," the Alcor Virus said in Alcor’s ear. "There should be one in the repair kit in the storage area under the seat."

  Alcor shuffled through the storage area’s contents. It seemed to be mostly standardized stuff, but there was a small jar that contained a dead dragonfly and a centipede. The repair kit was easy to find; it was a neatly labeled box that took up a majority of the space.

  "Is this it?" Alcor asked, pulling a strap out of the kit.

  "You realize that you left the only camera for miles with the Magi, right? You could have just pulled out an irate alpaca and I wouldn't know so long as it was very quiet."

  "Right. It's a thick strap with a Y shaped fork at about one third of its length, around 5 meters long."

  "That's it. You're going to want to tie each end of the Y to your footpegs, and lead it around the handlebars and have Renee hold it with her left hand. She's going to be your breaks, which is fun because she’s only going to be able to use the handbrake."

  "I think I understand how this works." Alcor started to tie the towline to the footpegs."You willing to try getting on one?"

  "Sure. Why not. Have the naga ride a motorcycle," Renee said. "It’s hardly the most absurd thing to happen today."

  She slithered up to the nearest bike, pushed her upper torso over the seat, and wrapped her lower torso around it. Her torso drooped along the sides of the bike, with her weight resting on the fenders, pushing them close to the tires. Vin rested somewhat awkwardly between her and the handlebar. She had never been more grateful her friend was so small.

  “So how are we going to take this out of park without instantly tipping over?”

  “There are stabilizers for low speed maneuvering,” the Alcor Virus said. “I can easily activate them.”

  Alcor relayed the virus’ message as he hooked the strap around the front of the bike and looped it around the left handlebar a couple times.

  “The handle on the right is your brake,” Alcor said, handing her a helmet. “If we’re going faster than you would like, feel free to use it. You want to keep the towline taunt if possible.”

  “Shouldn’t there be two breaks?”

  “The other one’s a foot brake.” Alcor mounted his bike. “We’ll go slowly, though; I’m sure we’ll only need the one.”

  “This is absolutely going to end with us crashing into a tree, isn’t it?”

  “Eh, there’s like, ten bikes here.” Alcor put a helmet on Charlie’s head and prepared to go. “We’ll get it eventually.”

Happy TAUniversery everyone! 

The next (and final!) chapter only has ~3000 words written so far, and I’m thinking it’s going to be a longer chapter, so it’ll be awhile. Hopefully not too long though. 

Previous Chapter - Next Chapter

[ghostcultmagazine]

Jamey Jasta to Share Two New Solo Songs This Week

Jamey Jasta to Share Two New Solo Songs This Week

As we previously reported Jamey Jasta of Hatebreed is dropping his new Jasta solo album, Jasta: The Lost Chapters Volume 2 next month, He just announced he is dropping two songs this week, on November 6th,  ‘Strength To Draw The Line’ ft. Jesse Leach (Killswitch Engage) & ‘When The Contagion Is You’ ft. Matthew K. Heafy (Trivium). Details and the link to pre-save the tracks can be found below!

[creed-of-corruption]

Music meme thing

I got tagged by @frei-rancken to put my phone on shuffle and write the first 10 songs.

1. Avenged Sevenfold- Chapter Four

2. Daughtry- Waiting for Superman

3. Five Finger Death Punch- Coming Down

4. Killswitch Engage- The Arms of Sorrow

5. Sabaton- A Lifetime of War

6. Shinedown- Cut the Cord

7. Stone Sour- Bother

8. Shinedown- I’ll Follow You (bruh that’s like my FAVORITE song)

9. Dorothy- Whiskey Fever

10. Highly Suspect- My Name is Human

I tag @redpandafromhelmer, @sirderpington, @reallynerdyeverything

[radioactive-force]

Kolaborasi Jasta Dengan Matthew Heafy Pada Single ‘When The Contagion Is You’

Jamey Jasta, pionir dari band ternama Hatebreed ini kembali produktif dengan solo albumnya yang kini telah memperkenalkan “When The Contagion Is You” sebagai single barunya. Bagi para die hard Hatebreed pasti sudah mengenal sisi lain dari project solo dari Jasta sendiri, dimana Jasta bersama Hatebreed yang dikenal dengan gaharnya musikalitas Hardcore/Thrash Metal namun pada project solonya disini Jasta memperlugas karakter musiknya dengan distorsi yang cenderung mengarah lebih ke Heavy Metal.

When The Contagion Is You, single pemanasan menuju album terbarunya pula yang nanti akan rilis pada 13 Desember 2019. Dalam project solonya Jasta sendiri dikenal juga menggandeng beberapa rekan musisi hebat seperti Zakk Wylde (Black Label Society), Howard Jones (Light The Torce, ex-Killswitch Engage), Randy Blythe dan Mark Morton (Lamb of God), Mike Vallely (Black Flag), Tim Lambesis (As I Lay Dying). Pada single barunya Jasta kini berkolaborasi dengan sang frontman dari Trivium, Mattheuw Heafy.

Kemasan musik Heavy Metal semakin kental terasa ditambah karakteristik dari Matthew Heafy yang memperkuat single “When The Contagion Is You” yang sangat tepat dijadikan andalan untuk album Jasta “The Lost Chapters Volume 2″. Single berdurasi 4 menit 31 detik tersebut cukup membuat kalian menjadikan moodbooster ataupun playlist favorit terbaru.

Link video lirik “When The Contagion Is You” : https://youtu.be/je879EJe1ls

Ditulis oleh Fadly Zakaria.M

[toyybox]

if you had to choose a favorite scene from Spiderwebs that you wanted someone to draw, what would it be? :3

I love all my chapters equally :) But I do have a few favorites!!! I really like the vivisection scene from chapter 8 Killswitch. Another, less gory scene I love is from chapter 2 Firecracker, when Jackie is in the closet. Being tied up just suits him, I guess ❤️

[johnnyhorshack]

via Alternative Press