#so he seems pretty locked in to a perspective that would not have resonated with the movie

[sunlaire]

losing my mind over this random bishop talking about conclave and calling it anti-catholic propaganda and then the director coming back with what i think is, yeah, kind of the funniest response

like. to me the movie ultimately landed on a message of radical acceptance of other people. it said there are so many cruel and horrible things out in the world and within ourselves. but if we work together and have faith in the strength that others can give us, there can be real change. Things can be good. There are less differences that divide us as we may think. it isn't "Us versus Them" its just Us as human beings. To watch that and think "this is clearly anti-catholic propaganda". Is kind of funny.

[wordynerdygurl]

Skin Deep - Part 6

Author’s Note:  Honestly, this story is nearing it’s ending.  Hard to believe that a little idea I couldn’t shake has now grown into this mini-series!  For all my die-hard homies, waiting for the next installment, I hope this is worth your while!  If you’re new here, take a look around, see if you like anything and please, let the management know if you have any questions!! As always, writing like this requires the emotional support of people and pets.  My dogs, Murphy and Winston, get me through a lot of plot bunnies just by being stalwart companions.  My husband, graciously, lets me take these flights of fancy when I probably should be paying better attention to him and his day... and some of my besties here on Tumblr make it possible for me to do this for you guys.  @sammy-jo1977​ , my sister from another mister!  Couldn’t/ Wouldn’t do it without you! To all the folks who follow me... My Minxes!  Love you all!  Stay well, be kind, and remember that Love, really does conquer all!  If you want to be a Minx, send me a note, I’ll happily add you to my tag list! Lastly, be sure to like and share anything that you see on Tumblr that catches your eye.  Creative types, we need the constant validation, you see?  Without it, like an unwatered plant, we wither on the vine and perish!  Be kind to those who help you through the day and reblog! Skin Deep Part 5 - click here for the previous chapter! Pairing:  Loki x Reader, Steve, Valkyrie & Thor all make appearances Summary:  Continued from Part 5, You and Loki put your plan into action, returning to Farmhouse.  When you encounter Steve again, you learn there’s more than two sides to this story. Warnings:  Loki’s POV and perspective, including mentions of his time under Thanos.  I’m re-writing MCU history here, but some of the main beats are the same, so look out for SPOILERS for Dark World, Ragnarok, and a touch of Infinity War.  The SNAP never happened because, reasons.  

Empathy used to seem such a human emotion.  Loki had no time for that on Asgard, not when Odin denied anything as frivolous as feeling.  Hiding in plain sight was the means to survival and if that made the young prince sneaky and sly, so be it.  By placing those parts of himself under lock and key; the parts that hurt, the ones that ached, Loki found it was safer to disconnect from others than subject himself to their suffering too.

Operating under the influence of Thanos and his minions when he held the scepter, Loki had purposefully divorced connection of any kind from his mind.  It was dangerous.  Weak.  And moreover, it allowed Loki to do what Thanos commanded without really experiencing the horror, the havoc, of his actions for himself. 

  Who could hear the screams of women when the voice of Ebony Maw subliminally chanted all the ways that one could be dismembered at Thanos’ hands should Loki fail?  What man would shed a tear after the near constant beatings doled out by Black Order members, just for the fun of it?  How could someone care about a house, a car, a city, when they no longer cared about themself? Losing the Battle for New York had consequences far beyond the destruction of property.  With Thanos’ hold over him vanquished, the walls around his heart, constructed in youth, crashed and burned like the dream of ruling Earth.  Suddenly and completely out of reserves, Loki was powerless.  And he felt everything.  The fresh hurts caused by his manipulated ambitions in the hands of Thanos. The furious feelings of his brother, the inadequacies of his character, the feeble needs that drove his wild ambition washed over him unceasingly.  Anger.  Loss.  Lunacy.  Loki learned a hard truth in that moment.  He was a monster.  A freak.  A creature beyond hope and salvation; proving his adoptive father right and his own hopeful heart wrong.  Bitterness soured the fallen prince. Endless hours in isolation on Earth, which continued in his father's house, had Loki believing he had no chance of seeing the world outside again, and it hardened his heart further.  To feel was so painful, so raw, and so humane.  Why bother anyway?  All that emoting, those high spirits, all they really did was expose you to derision.  What was grief to a goblin?  What was horror to a monster?  What was love to a villain like him?  An evil, conspiring demi-god, with a mind bent toward domination.  A damaged, destroyed, deity alone and in pieces.  Who would ever give someone like Loki Odinson a chance?  Why should they?

Turning to his mother, Loki did everything but ask for forgiveness.  In long rambling talks, her projection to his jailed person, the pair talked around ideas of guilt and innocence, of fate and fortune, of destiny versus desire, yet Loki never heard the words he needed in order to truly find peace.   

If Frigga was aware of her son’s need for absolution, Loki would never know, as their last exchange was harsh and full of anger.  Another stroke of loss, crippling now, because there was nothing Loki could do to change any of it from inside his prison cell.  No illusion could conceal the painful ache that consumed him entirely. 

Those days were dark, even for a soul as dusky hued as his own, and Loki’s thoughts followed a similar path.  If there had been a way for him to shake off this immortal coil, free himself of the burden of living, Loki would have done so and been glad.  Death was welcome compared to all this longing and heartache. But life, even a nearly immortal one, was funny. 

When Thor provided a chance at redemption, Loki snatched at it, in his own detached way.  He played hero, rescuing Jane, aiding his brother.  And if he took a bit more in the form of deposing his arrogant, aging father, who would be surprised?  He was Loki, God of Mischief, after all. Ruling the Nine Realms without the oppressive oversight of his father allowed Loki to prove himself in ways he never imagined.  And Loki wasn’t just good at it.  He was great. Of course, it helped that no one knew he was Loki.  Living disguised as Odin was often unpleasant, frequently frustrating, but entirely necessary.  Being Loki was still too difficult and likely to bring unwanted attention in the form of The God of Thunder, a thing that no one truly wanted, Loki least of all. Return Thor did, along with an unknown sister and the end of Asgard.  When confronted with the insanity of Hela’s bloodlust, Loki’s only thought was of his kingdom, now without a ruler.  He had worked too hard, too long, to see the land he cared for in the hands of an enemy, even if she called herself sister.  Opening the Bi-Frost, panicked, his mind was solely on saving those he had recently held dominion over.  They were his people, after all.  But he never reached Asgard. Swallowing his fear, Loki focused all his energy on staying alive in a new and distracting environment, initially.  What Loki found on Sakaar wasn't a new home base under a flamboyant, ineffective leader that he could control, even if that was his first design.  On Sakaar Loki found his loyalty.  

The proud, deep resonance of being Asgardian, of being an Odinson, of being capable and cool under pressure.  Sure, he had to prove himself to Thor, Valkyrie, Banner and honestly, the rest of the kingdom, but actions speak louder than words.  And through his actions on Sakkar, and by extension rescuing the people of Asgard, Loki had shown everybody his true mettle. It was on the deck of a stolen ship headed for Midgard that  Loki had made a commitment of sorts.  One that was not to the people, so recently saved or for his found family.  This time, the promise Loki intended to keep was for himself.  Loki was going to change. The problem is, a task like that takes time.  Patience.  Motivation.  It was something that Loki had to work at and it was exhausting. They say that the best things come to those who wait.  Loki was learning to wait everyday.  Having earned a place at the side of his brother, he worked tirelessly to win over the heroes of his new home planet.  Was it easy?  Hardly, but Loki wasn’t willing to compromise.  Not anymore. A life like Hela’s was not in his runes.  Loki was simply going to be better.  Not perfect.  No one could be as good hearted as Captain America, nor could one be as tech savvy as Stark.  So Loki was planning on being the best Loki he could possibly be, and that’s how he found himself going to meetings at The Avengers Tower, a mostly welcome addition to the team. Meetings weren’t all that exciting and boredom was an awful temptation for a deity devoted to mayhem.  In fact, Loki spent more time doodling in his notebook than listening to whoever was droning on about whatever part of the world needed the attention of this motley crew.  That was, until Pepper Potts hired her new assistant.  That you were polite, pretty and pert wasn’t lost on the young god.  Sitting outside Mrs. Iron Man’s office, typing away with a phone tucked under your ear, moving faster than anyone he had ever seen was certainly impressive.  You were quick witted, clever and most of all, funny. Everyone else seemed to fall under your spell without much effort on your part, something that Loki found frustratingly fascinating.  Here he was, struggling to get people to say his name without having a traumatic flashback, while you simply smiled and smarted off prettily, and had everyone singing your praises.  But Norns, were you adorable. If he thought about it, and while off planet, Loki definitely had, he could remember the moment he realized that you were the woman he wanted.  You were busy, as always, fielding phone calls and flipping through screens yet every moment your flying fingers weren’t hovering over a keyboard or pushing down telephone buttons they curled around a heart shaped charm at your throat.  Clearly, it was a habit and one that you weren’t even aware of, still - it transfixed him all the same.  Watching you from his side eye, your voice never wavering, your tone always so pleasing, and your nimble digits returning again and again to the small sigil around your neck.  “Loki?” “Huh?”  Dumbfounded at your call, those deep sea eyes blinked wildly at the sound of his name on your lips. “Hi!  Yes, Pepper can see you now.  Go ahead, she’s ready!” He rose on stiff legs, adjusting his tie, about to lie to Tony Stark’s woman all for the chance to see you in passing.  Who had he become? It started out innocent like that, but soon, Loki was having to invent excuses for being in the office so frequently.  Missing files, random visits, even going so far as to buy Tony coffee just for the thrill of seeing you.  Something needed to change, and quickly, or Loki was going to blow. On another made up errand, hanging around the executive’s high rise office, Loki was doing a bad job of pretending not to see you.  His mind was on your pouty lips as you sipped lemonade through a straw and not on the stately woman seated behind the desk. 

“Loki, you’re a man of some… style.”  Pepper said it so casually that he almost didn’t hear, his head lost in thoughts that would shame any other person. “I like to think so.”

Shutting her folder with a snap, Pepper smiled, “And you’d love to help your old friend Pepper out, right?” That got his attention, and quickly.  Loki, shoving his hands in his pockets, turned to face Pepper with a widening grin, “I feel like I’m being baited.”

“Baited?  Never!  It’s just, you’re always here and I have a… project that needs the kind of help that you can provide.”  At those words you entered the office, ready for action with a notebook and pen, eager and excited. Suddenly, it was all clear to Loki, “Pepper, no.”  

The noose closed in on the handsome god as Pepper gathered paperwork without looking his way, “Come on, it’s the Stark Homecoming Gala and the two of you will do great!  I have faith in you both.  I can’t wait to see what you come up with!” “Really, Miss Potts, I simply can’t-” Stopping short, the strawberry blonde whipped around, almost nose to nose with Loki.  Shrewd and straightforward, Pepper interrupted, saying, “You’ve been dancing around my office for weeks now.  Clearly you like her and… against all the odds, she likes you too.  I’m doing you a favor and when someone does you a favor, you say “Thank You”.” “Thank you.” Nodding curtly, “You’re welcome.  Now, make yourselves comfortable, order some dinner, my treat.  And do whatever you need to make sure this is one great party!” That’s how Loki found himself sitting at a clear glass table over sweating bottles of iced tea as you discussed color themes and tablecloths.  You were shy, tucking a strand of hair behind your ear as you reviewed notes from previous gatherings both large and small.  His hands itched with wanting to do that job himself. “So, what do you think?”  It was the first time you had addressed him directly since coming through the door and for a moment Loki couldn’t answer.  You were too… not beautiful, that wasn’t the right word, although you were.  No, you were too open, too easy to read, and the earnestness you offered him was downright frightening. Sitting forward in the uncomfortable, yet fashionable, office furniture, Loki cleared his throat and again tugged his tie, “What I think is that you should let me take you dinner.” Dropping your eyes, your cheeks colored slightly as your fingers found that locket charm once more, “Loki, I… I don’t know-” Grabbing for your hand, suddenly afraid that you would take those shining eyes away, Loki lowered his voice and did something he never thought he would.  He begged.  “Please?  I find that you’re all I can think about.” It rushed out of him in a torrent, the way truth so often does, and he found himself unable to look you in the eye.  Loki was afraid to see rejection on your easy to read face, afraid that wanting you had cracked open the lock box holding his heart, afraid that you would see just how weak you made him.  Your fingers twined with his own as you replied, “You didn’t let me finish.  I don’t know what took you so long.” Sighing with relief, his face melting into a genuine smile, “Me either.” Over the next two months the pair of you worked tirelessly to plan and execute a perfect party.  You were inseparable during the day, heads buried together as you discussed linens and table settings, the quality of cocktail glasses, and debating over a band or a dj.  But at night, at night Loki talked about the things that haunted him in the dark.  And you loved him in spite of the awful things he had seen and done and said. Others took notice.  Loki was more lighthearted, more available.  He listened when people spoke and wasn’t constantly doodling during meetings.   Yes, Loki was learning how to love through your loving him.  If empathy had seemed too humane before, then sharing his life, his love with you, was the kind of immortality that earned someone a place in Valhalla.  It was the bravest thing Loki Odinson had ever done and he didn’t mind one bit.

The first time Loki tasted you was burned into his brain, as bright as a flash of lightning.  A firefly in a memory jar that he kept returning to, time and again.  Loki remembered what you were wearing.  He recalled exactly how the light shone in your eyes.  If he concentrated, he could tap out the rhythm of your racing pulse as he held you in his arms. It was the night of the gala.  Inviting everyone under the Stark Industries banner, up to and including the heroes tasked with saving the world, the event was a way to earn money for one of the many charities Tony supported.  The place was full of beautiful people wearing gorgeous clothes under perfect lights set to the hand crafted soundtrack you had created together.

But, Norns, he could still remember the way your eyes sparkled under the lowlights of that hall.  How your dress, simple but sophisticated, clung to the fullness of your bottom.  Low cut but somehow still modest, Loki couldn’t tear his gaze away from the promise of your curves, willing himself to find anything else as interesting as the idea of you.  

You were across the room hanging onto Tony’s every word, eyes bright and cheerfully glowing as you sipped champagne.  It made Loki want to do something grand, something suave, something that would demand your attention for his own.  Moving towards you, his tuxedo perfectly pressed and fitting better than it had any right to, Loki looked long and lean.  Each of his steps seemed to echo, even though the room was full of sound, and you turned your head as if you also heard.  Breaking away from the cluster of acolytes surrounding Iron Man, you bit into your lip as the crowd parted, moving closer together one step at a time.  It was one of the sexiest things Loki had ever witnessed. Lifting your glass in a toast, taking in the room of mingling millionaires, wealthy hangers on and Avengers, “Well, we did it!” “You did it, my dove, I just hung around and judged everyone.” “Oh stop.  I couldn’t have done it without you and you know it.”  Playfully you pushed against his shoulder and Loki took advantage, using your momentum to pull you to his side, your curvy figure flush against his own. Crooning into the shell of your ear, his lips brushing over that sensitive skin, “Somehow, love, I think you would have managed.”  Before you had time to think, Loki had melded his mouth with your own, stealing your breath along with your heart.  Loki’s feet moved in time with the music as he pulled into a dance, laughing in his arms, your cheeks hot and your head swimming. You laughing was, without question, Loki’s favorite sound.  Nothing in this world or any other came close to matching the joyful, childlike glee of that enchanting noise.  Loki memorized its melody, the rise and fall of your giggle.  He had craved it, being away for so long, and now he wanted… no, needed to hear it.  But you were the furthest thing from happy at the moment.   

"Darling, please.  We have to go."  Loki tapped his watch, shaking himself free from the memories of your previous life together and barely suppressing his irritation.

Tears filled your eyes as you whipped your arms around Thor’s mighty shoulders, his deep voice grumbly with emotion, "Take care of him, would you?  He's a jerk, but Loki is the only brother I have."

"Of course… always.  And Valkyrie, your highness, I can’t thank you enough for-"

"No need.  Loki, and by extension yourself, will always have a safe haven here in my palace."

Looking on, Loki and Thor embraced almost tenderly before crashing their heads together.  

"Stay safe, little brother."

"Be good, Thor."

Eyes on the sky, Val ignored the show of masculine emotion, chastising your plan, "You’re going to start a war, Loki."

Straight backed, Loki turned to the king, "Not on the grass of New Asgard.  I will take the fight to them, that is my vow to you."

As Loki offered his hand, Valkyrie shook it, with parting words, "Work on staying alive.  You have a tendency to worry your brother."

Solemnly nodding, "As the king commands.  Shall we?"  With that Loki laced his fingers with yours, leading you a few paces away from the people who loved him most, before summoning the magic that had you both transcending space and time.

This time when your feet touched down it was on the familiar turf of the orchard, surrounded by the scent of apple blossoms and the buzzing of happy bees.  Morning had broken and the world seemed full of promise, with the exception of that knot in your stomach.

"Are you ready?  Darling?"

"Oh… yes.  I mean, I still don't love this plan, but-"

"But it's going to work."  Only it was no longer the baritone voice of your long, lean Loki speaking.  In his place stood Nick Fury, leather duster and eye patch in place.

"If you say so!"  And you clutched your own throat as Natasha’s bored tones came out of your mouth.  The suit, skin tight but flexible, molded to your modified form.  All in all, you were comfortable, "The boots are a bit much."

"Ya think?  This jacket weighs a ton."  Pulling at his collar, "Why does he wear a turtleneck anyway?"

"Loki, this is so weird.  It feels so weird."

"Agreed, but then, why am I so turned on?"

Laughing, you shook your false red hair, hands resting on Natasha’s waist, "God, I've missed you."

"Same, dearest.  Now… let's get your necklace and some answers!"

---

 Convincing Bucky to head home had taken a lot of work, but sometime around 2 am Steve had finally seen his friend off.  The house was empty.  Steve felt the same way.

Turning the black velvet box in his pocket, fingers crushed against the fragile fabric, Steve struggled to feel anger.  When that didn't materialize he shot for sadness but even tears seemed beyond his ability.  

With a sigh, climbing the same stairs he had trudged up a hundred times before, Steve started going through the motions of bedtime.  Only tonight you weren’t there to tease him about the wildly inappropriate amount of toothpaste on his brush.  He didn’t have your light footsteps to follow to the bedside or your help with stacking all of your extra, yet entirely essential, pillows on the chair.

Someone must have changed the sheets, he thought.  There was no evidence of you and Loki’s adventurous afternoon anymore.  Steve made a mental note to thank Buck for that little piece of kindness in the morning.

Shucking his shirt, Steve sat on the mattress, a hand to his forehead.  He had lost.  Captain America had been bested.  Beaten.  And by Loki, no less.

Moonlight in silver slivers shone through the window panes, squares of light in the deep of night.  Steve was alone.  Utterly and totally alone.

And there was no one to blame but himself.

Sighing hard, Steve stood, pacing the floor to work off some of the unspendable anxiety he kept creating.  The room still had your energy, your vibe, as you liked to call it, and the feeling was a prickling itch Steve couldn’t quite satisfy.  Traces of you were everywhere and something about you leaving all of it, and him, behind was just too big to process. “Damn it.”  Even whispering sounded like thunder in the silence of your recently vacated room.  His hands, so big, so strong, smoothed along the fabric of your hanging clothes.  All that power had done nothing to help Steve get the thing he wanted. Sorting through the baubles and trinkets on your dresser, bottles of perfume he had purchased, necklaces and pins, each with a moment of memory it hurt him to recall.  Your watch ticked away the minutes as he stood, stoic and still, surrounded by the shadow of you.  In the orchard the birds were waking, their song filling the air, as morning broke in low golden rays.  Abandoning his plan for sleep, Steve watched as the light chased away the dark, casting rainbows on the floor.  The sun was reflecting off of your Grandmother’s necklace.  A pretty, ancient, carved cameo,  heart shaped locket.  He recalled his own mother owning one just like it, pictures of loved ones pressed inside, holding them as tight as history would allow. Fisting the filigree chain, winding it around his fingers as if it would somehow undo what he had done, Steve slipped it into his pocket before settling back onto the bed.  ----

At the back door to the home you so recently shared with Steve, Loki hung back, “I think this is where we split up.  You go find your treasure and me… I’m going to find some answers.” Nodding, Natasha’s signature red hair swinging, you squeezed the hand holding your own.  It no longer looked like Loki’s long fingered paw, but that was only a skin deep change.  You felt the undeniable essence of him in the press of his fingers against your own. “Be careful.” “That’s no fun, dove.” “Loki-”  You hated the way your voice broke as you said it, but there just seemed to be so much at stake and you had already lost him once. Sensing your unspoken concerns, Loki flashed you Nick Fury’s best smile, “I will.  I promise.”

“Ten minutes.” “Ten minutes.”  You watched the black coated back of your charmed paramour as he opened the shed door, hoping that he’d find something worth knowing in that place out of sight.  Inhaling deeply you twisted the doorknob as quietly as possible, letting yourself into what was once your kitchen, “What a mess.”  It was impossible not to notice the unwrapped leftovers and empty bottles littering the table.  An overturned trash barrel, crumpled beer cans littering the counter, things that Steve, your Steve, would never have tolerated.  All evidence that the grand evening he’d envisioned had been thwarted by Loki’s arrival and your collective escape.  

You started up the stairs, praising Natasha's footwear for its stealth, when you heard the toilet flush and the unmistakable shuffle of Steve’s feet on the carpet.  There was no place to hide on the wide stairwell.  It was time to see if Loki's plan was going to work.

Voice blurry, eyes rubbed red and raw, you couldn't deny that Steve looked like shit, “Bucky?  That you?  You back?”  Steve’s voice bounced around the brightening room as morning sunlight filtered through the soft sheers you had picked out for exactly this reason. Panicked, you backed into the railing with an over loud “Oof!” “Nat?  What are you doing here?  I thought you and Fury were headed to New Asgard?”  Suddenly wide awake and wondering, Steve rushed to your costumed side, eager for information. The man in front of you now bore little resemblance to the angry Avenger you had escaped from hours before.  This man had hair sticking up in odd angles from near constant finger raking.  This man had a hint of a stuffy nose and red rimmed eyes, all indicators that tears had been shed.  Now those blue eyes were scrutinizing you closely, full of concern.

“Uh… We... We got intel.  Yea, intelligence, that Loki was headed back this way.  Turned around… and uh, here we are.” One of those sandy blonde eyebrows lifted, “Natasha?”

Squaring your shoulders, channeling that cool confidence you’d see Black Widow display over and over, “Steve?”  Something about your tone of voice convinced him in a way your words couldn’t.  He visibly relaxed, those broad shoulders going slack as he asked, “Didn’t make it to Norway, then?"

Nodding a negative, you felt the unfamiliar brush of her red hair at your cheek and had to fight the urge to tuck it away, “No.  Loki’s using some sort of transporting power to move them around.  Fury suggested I keep an eye out here, in case they come back this way.” “She won’t be back, Nat.  There’s nothing for her here.”  To you, Steve sounded so sad, so removed, that you had to will yourself not to comfort the giant before you.  “That’s not true!”  It came out of you forcefully, thoughtlessly, and you saw the shock register on the Captain’s face. “That is, Fury and I… we… have reason to believe that she will come back.  They left with nothing, Steve.  She’ll need clothes… maybe some shoes… and-”  Swallowing hard, you didn’t want to give anything away, “-a necklace from her grandmother.” Steve, patting his pocket, felt the weighted chain and it’s heart shaped locket, “I don’t think-” Stepping up to his bulky form, suddenly aggressive, you started, “Never mind what you think, Captain.  We're here for a necklace...  the necklace.  Our intel suggests that your former flame might return for it and… And, I want it, with me, as a means to subdue her when she arrives." Sounding forceful and official was enough to back Steve down.  Just a touch deflated, you watched him shrug, “If that’s what you want, Nat, here-”  From his pants he pulled out the shining bauble, a trinket really, but full of sentiment and memory. Sitting in his palm, the tiny heart that held the picture of your grandmother and mother looked so small, almost unreal.  Reaching for it with wet eyes, you smiled at Steve as you lifted the charm and chain, “Thank you, Steve.  Thank you.” Nodding deeply, that golden head bobbing, “You’re welcome.”  The large grandfather clock could be heard ticking throughout the house.  The sun was gaining on the day and you, dressed as Natasha stood in silence in front of a somber Steve.  For another long beat nothing was said, then, as if sensing a shift in your conversation, Steve flashed your fake Natasha a weak smile, “I could use some breakfast.  How about you?”

“Um… sure.  Yea, ok.  Breakfast.” 

Steve started moving again, downstairs towards the cluttered kitchen when he paused, "So how did you get back so fast?  Cause that's like a 7 hour flight, even with you in the cockpit." “Steve…”  You could hear it, the whining almost pleading tone that signaled the end of Loki’s well planned charade.  That wasn’t enough to stop Steve.  He broke hard, one of those strong arms stopping you in your tracks before you could reach the lower level. “It’s clever, I have to give you guys that.  Almost perfect, really.” Panic rising, you doubled down on the ruse, struggling to keep your voice even, “I don’t know-”  Blocking you in, his body the perfect unmovable buffer, “Loki’s here too, isn’t he?” Pushing against “Steve, I… I don’t…” “Don’t lie.  You don’t have to…” “But… how-?” “You’re not mean enough to play Natasha, doll.  Not by a long shot.”

--- It was strange to be seated at the table and chairs that you and Steve had picked out together one sunny Saturday when you thought that your future was going to be Loki-less.  Your place, the one that you had imagined filling with children that had golden hair and bright blue eyes, felt like a set.  Something false and fake.  A facade, put together simply for show. Steve must have felt it too because his fingers drummed against the white washed table incessantly.  Clearly he had something on his mind.  “Steve-” “No.  No.  Please, let me just get this out, ok?” Raising an eyebrow, you waved at him to continue, nervous but interested in what the super soldier needed to explain. With a shaky inhale, running his constantly moving fingers through his golden locks, Steve caught your eye and didn’t waiver.  “When I saw you… No, that’s not right.  Let me start at the beginning. “When Loki left Earth, you… you were so sad.  It hurt me to see you so… deflated.” “Steve, I-” “You know it’s true.  When he returned to Asgard, something in you, it dimmed, and I just couldn’t allow that… Not when I felt the way I did about you. “I don’t think you realize just how incredible you are… how full of life!  And since I had already missed one chance to be with you, I knew I needed to prove that I could be the man you needed… If you forgot about Loki along the way, even better. “Only… you never did.  I waited years for you, ya know, doll?  Years.  And just when I thought there was no chance with you, Nat gave me a reason to hope. “She was your friend.  An ally.  Someone you could trust… someone I could trust.  I swear it started out that innocently, at least for me.  I just wanted to make you smile again.  But she had other plans.  Plans that came from higher up the ladder of SHIELD. “Fury, he wanted us to watch you… something about Loki being too powerful.  And-”, grabbing your hand tightly, Steve emphasized his point, “-I promise you that I had no idea about his success, or the messages he had sent to you through Nick.  Like you, I thought that Loki was gone.  Missing.  Never coming back.” “I… I believe you Steve.  I know that you didn’t do all this on your own… but what was Nick hoping you’d find out?  I knew less than nothing about what was going on!” “I think he was worried that Loki would get to you first.  That if… when Loki returned, you would be his first stop.  Then you would know about Loki’s success and, frankly, Fury’s failures.  You would also know… well, everything you know now.  That Fury had you tailed, lied to, and led on in an effort to stop Loki from out flanking him.” Frenzied and frantic, you felt anger boiling up inside of you, “But I thought Loki was gone forever.  There was no hope for him and I… and Natasha, she told me that he was dead.” “All a part of Fury’s plan to keep you neutralized and Loki away.  If Loki thought that you’d ignored his letters, that you no longer loved him, why would he come back here?  And, if that didn’t work… when Loki came back and you were with me, what else could keep him on Earth?”

Whispering with realization, “So, they used you too.” Steve sighed and buried his hands in the pockets of his sweatshirt, “Don’t feel bad for me.  I let them use my love for you, let them twist it up and shape it as they needed.  Honestly, I wish I could tell you that it was for you, but it wasn’t.  It was for me.  I wanted you, so, so badly.  I didn’t care what strings were attached.  And we built a life together, you and me.  I thought I could outrun the reality of the constant monitoring and daily reports.  Telling Natasha and Nick about every word and each email.  Don’t you see, I love you… and I wanted you, however I could get you.” Shaking your head, Natasha’s red wisps flying, “That’s not love, Steve.  I don’t know what that is… but love isn’t it.” “No?”  With a loud thunk, Steve slammed a small velvet box on the table between you. “Is… Is that what I think it is?”

“Last night.  It was going to happen last night.  Our friends here, under the lights and the stars, I was going to ask you to marry me.  I still would if-” Realization hit you like a ton of bricks, “If Loki hadn’t stepped back into our lives.” “-If Loki hadn’t stepped back into your life.” It made you both laugh in a sad way, how you finished the same thought, and for a fleeting second you could see why you had allowed Captain America to sweep you off your feet.  He was a lot of things to you now, but there was a time when he had been almost everything.  The evidence of that was in the small black square that said nothing but spoke volumes. “Steve, I don’t know if I would have said yes… even without Loki’s… arrival.  I think I have always known that you and I… we are very different people.” Sitting back in his chair, his gaze still locked on your own, “I just want you to know that I’m sorry.  I’m sorry about what I’ve done… what I’ve said… How, shit, how I’ve behaved.  I could say that it was my duty.  I could tell you it was out of love, but the plain truth is that I have always been jealous of what you and Loki share.” “You’ll find it Steve.  You really will.  There’s a person out there waiting for you.  And once you’ve found them, oh Steve, you’ll see that this… what we had, it’s a shadow.  An illusion.  Because love, real love, doesn’t come with caveats and catches.  It is an undeniable force which, in my case, even the boundaries of time and space can not deny.” Something like a sob burst out of Steve, and you were surprised to see tears in his eyes, “I was so wrong.  Could you ever forgive me?” “I want to, Steve.  I really do... “  What more could you say?  Patting his hand you started to rise, “I have to go now.  Loki and I need to keep moving and I don’t want to risk running into Nick and Natasha.  At least, not yet, anyway.” “Where are you planning to go?” “To the Avenger’s Tower.  I believe I know what Mr. Fury has been planning all along.”  Loki’s strong voice entered the conversation as smoothly as his arms wrapped possessively around your waist. Steve took in the protective stance of your returned lover with a raised eyebrow, and without further comment asked Loki, “Really?  And how are you going to breach the building?  They’ll be looking for you, even with disguises…  Fury is no fool.  Plus, there’s little chance that Tony hasn’t activated a million safety and security protocols by now.” Only interested in you, Loki refused to give Steve any of his attention, “Getting in can’t be that hard!  I’ll figure it out when I get there.  Ready pet?” With a gentle push under his broad hands your feet started to move towards the door.  Loki was eager to be off and away, especially after hearing so much of Roger’s confession.  Just knowing what Steve had done, manipulating you while also convinced of his love for you;  it was enough for Loki to commit murder.  He was having quite a difficult time not tearing the good Captain’s limbs off his body. Softening his tone, Steve practically pleaded, “Loki.  Wait.  I… I can help.” Turning his attention fully to your former flame, Loki purred venomously, “You can help?  I’d love to know what entails, Captain.” “I can get you into the place and take you exactly where you need to go.  Fury’s going to hate it, but I’m tired of taking orders that hurt the people that-”  His pause was as lingering as the look he gave you, “- That I love.”  Before Loki could offer a sincerely sassy reply you grabbed his sleeve, tugging, “Um… Excuse us a minute Steve.” Pulling him down the hall of a home that felt like a familiar faced stranger, you waited until you had a bit of distance from Steve before harshly whispering, “How long were you listening?”

Serving you that small, sexy smile, Loki grinned, “Long enough.  How did you know I was there?” “You are sneaky, but even you, God of Mischief, cast a shadow.” Swinging you close enough to catch your mouth with his own, Loki pressed a sweet kiss there before answering, “A mistake I will be careful not to make again!” “The tower, huh?  That’s where you want to go?”  Grabbing you at the swell of your hips, grinding his frame against your own, “Where I want to go, my darling, is to the nearest bed, preferably naked, with you and you alone.” Your hands traced over the lapels of his borrowed leather duster, pausing only to jerk him closer by the supple fabric, “Hmm… is that so?” “Oh yes…”  Loki’s buttery grumble filled your ear as his strong hands dug into the flesh of your bottom.  For a moment you thought he’d give in to temptation, his sweet lips teasingly close to your own upturned mouth, “But-” On your toes, leaning into Loki’s sturdy, leather draped frame, you paused, “Ugh.  But?” Moving you to a safer, less kissable, arms length away, Loki sighed with the same frustration you felt, “-But, where we need to go, as soon as possible, is the Tower.” Moaning grumpily, you stepped out of the arms you longed to linger in, “I was afraid you were going to say that.” “I know it’s less than… ideal, love, but I did find something useful before the good Captain unburdened his soul this morning.” “And that is?” “Fury’s plan.  At first I couldn’t figure out exactly what he was after.  What did Fury want?  How was I involved?” Loki was dragging this out, loving how it kept you hanging onto his every word, and you rolled your eyes, “Well?  What is it?  Weapons?  War?” “All of that, yes… and… yours truly.”  That triumphant smile that filled Loki’s whole face lit up his mischievous eyes.  Tilting your head, struggling to make sense of what Loki had just told you, “What do you mean, you.  Fury wanted you… to do what, exactly?’ “Loki was going to be the patsy.” You both turned toward the sound of Steve’s baritone at the door, suddenly remembering that the Good Captain was still there and that he was waiting to see what you were going to do next.  Leaning his 100 year old bones into the doorframe, Steve crossed his arms, “The fall guy.  An example of what happens if you cross SHIELD.” “I think, my dear Mr. Rogers, that you mean, I am to be used as an example of what happens if one crosses Nick Fury.”  Loki countered, slinging an arm over your shoulder protectively. The idea was frightening.  A man like Fury had too much power, too much at his disposal.  Just knowing the lengths he had gone to in order to keep you and Loki apart was scary enough.  Making enemies of your friends.  Threatening the people you loved.  Selling your affection to Steve in an effort to control Loki.

Now, the knowledge that all of it was done in an effort to ensure that Nick Fury was the toughest guy in the galaxy, it made your stomach clench.  “What do you mean, an example?” “Unless my intelligence is flawed, I believe that Fury was going to kill me.  Is that correct, Captain?” Steve felt the weight of two sets of eyes on him.  Yours, full of fearful love and blind hope that this was all just some misunderstanding.  Innocent and naive and as lovely as he could ever remember.  Loki’s were reflecting a deeper understanding.  The kind of knowledge that only time in the trenches teaches. There was no answer from Captain Rogers.  None was needed.  Honesty, final and resolute, was out in the open.  “Look.  I know I’m not the guy you want on your side.  I’ve… I haven’t been the man I needed to be.  Not for you-”  Steve locked his bright blues onto you, offering a small smile that spoke of sadness before facing Loki, “-Or you, Loki.  But if you let me help you now, I promise that I can get you into the tower and maybe, one day, you won’t think so little of me.” 

Around you the morning gained strength.  Somewhere nearby birds chirped wildly, blissfully unaware of the drama unfolding in the modest little farmhouse and its implications on intergalactic politics.  Without  moving a muscle, Loki plainly asked you, “Do you trust him, dearest?” Squaring your shoulders, you crossed your arms, staring down the man called Captain America.  Nodding decisively, “I do.  I don’t think he’d spill everything like that only to turn on us.  He’s not so bad Loki, really.” “We’ll see about that.  For now, we trust Steve.  Ok, what’s your plan, Rogers?” --- “Hey.  I… I have one other thing to show you.”  Steve was dressed for action in his branded tactical gear, looking every inch the super soldier that Dr. Erskine envisioned. “Steve, we have to get moving.  Loki’s eager and -” “Just open it, ok?”  The envelope was thick with folded paper, the flap tucked under and not sealed.  Clearly it had spent time in and out of pockets, the edges frayed and tattered.  In exasperated curiosity you gingerly pulled the sheets free.

Shaking, your hands trembled holding the once white documents as your voice thickened, “Is this… is this what I think it is?” Cocking his head playfully, that rueful smile pulling at his full mouth, Steve almost seemed cheerful as he teased, “It’s yours.  I think something about this place has always been yours and I want you to have it.” “But-” Folding your small hands in his mighty ones, Steve squeezed gently, “It was a wedding present, or it was supposed to be.” “But we’re not getting married.” “I know.  Still-” “I can’t, Steve.  It’s yours.  Your house, your farm, your dream.” Shaking his head, disagreeing, but feeling lighter than he had in decades, Steve insisted, “Too late, I’m afraid.  It’s done.  Actually, that version of the deed has been signed since our second week here.” As realization sunk in you appraised the man changing right before your eyes, astonished but exhilarated, “Where will you go?” “I dunno.  Think I might need to be alone for a bit.  Maybe see the world… but first-” “First, we have to stop Nick Fury.”

To Be Continued... My Minxes:   @scrumptious-finicky-illusion @iamverity​ @mizfit2​ @sammy-jo1977​ @wolfsmom1​ @jessiejunebug​ @iluvsumbucky​ @unadulteratedwizardlove​ @procrastinatinglikeabitch​ @shxdowofdarkness​ @nonsensicalobsessions​ @ahintofkiwistrawberry​ @alexakeyloveloki​ @rorybutnotgilmore​ @crystalizedcaramel​ @lokislittlecorner​ @capcapcapsicle @jamielea81​ @caffiend-queen​ @otakumultimuse-hiddlewhore​ @jenjen8675309​ @that-one-person​ @roguewraith​ @toomanystoriessolittletime​ @vodka-and-some-sass​ @just-random-obsessions​ @brokenthelovely​ @lots-of-loki​ @thefallenbibliophilequote​

[alsanderecho]

Tales of San Derecho: The New Press Secretary

The formation of a whole new state from the parts of two others should have been a surprise for the nation after a national election but it wasn't. Its new boundries encompassed part of southern California, as well as land in Arizona. There was very little fuss about its existence for the general public, as if it had always been there.

But there were those who did ask questions about how this new territory came to be. Some of them traveled to the newest state in the union, seeking the answer. These are their stories, along with those who found themselves now residing in the state of SAN DERECHO...

====================

"Shannon, something strange is going on."

The reporter looked with one raised eyebrow at Sheila Gerrolds, his editor. The both of them work at the Q-News, a website dedicated to reporting on national events and international happenings important to the LGBTQ community.

"Strange, how?"

"I mean, do you remember Joaquin Guerrero?"

Shannon had to think for a few moments before he remembered the outspoken gay Latino activist, which immediately struck him as being wrong somehow. Hadn't he done an interview with him during last fall's gubernatorial election in San Derecho?

"Y...Yeah. But not until you mentioned his name, Sheila. That's...weird."

"Exactly my point, Shannon. And he's not the only one..."

The editor rattled off about a dozen more names, and memories of these gay and lesbian activists flooded Shannon's memories. And again, he was at loss at how he could have forgotten them, considering some of them had been long-time friends/

"What's going on here? Where did they all go?"

"That's what I want to know. Over dozen of the most prominent LGTBQ activists go missing  on the West Coast over the last year and no one is raising a stink about it? There's a story here, an important one."

Shannon nodded in agreement, his mind already honing in on who might be responsible for these disappearances.

"And you think the new governor might be involved somehow."

"Precisely. You know what his platform was during the election, and now some of his biggest critics are missing? It just stinks to me."

"Right, I get it. Guess I'm going back undercover..."

Sheila nodded, aware that her best reporter had spent a good portion of the election last year infiltrating a certain candidate's campaign. Despite the success of getting on the inside, the whole thing hadn't turned up any actionable material.

"Yeah, but I want you to be careful. We don't know what is really going on here."

"I get it, but we've got to find out the truth. And maybe, we can bring this bastard down once and for all..."

====================

Getting an invite to the governor's mansion had been pretty easy, as Shannon's cover identity was intact and uncompromised. Still, he was being careful, as this whole thing was more than a bit like walking into a hungry lion's den carrying chunks of raw, bloody meat. If the governor or any of his people got even a hint of who he really was, it could go very bad for him very quickly.

Maybe that's why he waited in the car for so long before finally mustering his courage to approach the front door and ring the bell. The wait for an answer seemed to drag on forever until the door clicked open. Standing there was the governor's chief of staff, Jonathon Grey. Dressed in a dark grey suit, the man was the very image of the hyper-conservative types that the chief executive of the state San Derecho liked to surround himself with.

"Ah, Mr. Jones. So nice to see you again. It has been awhile, hasn't it?"

Shannon nodded affirmatively. He hadn't been this close to Grey since election night, and he was trying to ignore how attractive he found the man. It was a little bothersome because he reminded him of someone else...

"Yes, Mr. Grey. I needed sometime to figure out things after the election. But now, I think I know what I want."

"Excellent. The governor will see you in his study."

This surprised Shannon, who hadn't been aware that the governor even knew who 'Shane Jones' was. Every instinct the reporter had was screaming this was a set-up of some kind, but it was not something he could walk away from. Because despite the danger, it was an opportunity to get even deeper inside this crooked administration and find out what happened to his friends...

"Lead the way then."

====================

The study was a comfortable room with oak paneled walls and high shelves stocked with numerous leather bound books. In the fireplace, flames crackled and suffused the room with a flickering glow of yellow light. Shannon was ushered inside by Grey, who remained outside but closed the doors behind him. An almost faint click told the journalist that he had been locked in as well. He took a few cautious steps into this den of conservatism until a voice called out for him to "take a seat."

Said seat was in a thick leather chair with a high back and wings on either side of its occupants head. It was set in front of a dark oaken desk behind which sat the governor himself, his fingers steepled and a grin on his face. On his desk was a framed picture of him and his blonde wife. Shannon couldn't quite recall her name before his host spoke.

"Shane, welcome. So glad you've come for a visit. Can I offer you a drink?"

The gray-haired politician motioned to a small bar set into a wall behind him. Shannon shook his head to say no as the governor seemed amused at the response. The older man's expression then became serious.

"Now, can we dispense with this pretense, Shannon?

The millennial reporter was caught off guard by his real name being spoken aloud by the governor. He tugged nervously at the maroon sweater he wore, trying to laugh it off. But the man behind the desk wasn't having any of it.

"Please, don't insult my intelligence or that of my staff, Shannon. We've been aware of your true identity and the website that employs you for quite some time now."

"I..I..I don't know what you're talking about..."

"I said to NOT insult me, Shannon."

The gay journalist shuddered slightly, as the governor's voice resonated with a surprisingly arousing air of authority. He had to keep his head about himself.

"Alright, fine. I am who you think I am. Do you know why I'm here?"

"Of course. You're here to investigate what happened to my most outspoken critics in the LGBT community. I did wonder how long it would be before you or your editor would notice. Anyone really..."

Shannon said nothing, trying to remain focused on his surroundings. If this man was this free with his words, then this had to be a some sort of trap...

"Please, please. Do relax. I'm perfectly happy to tell you everything."

"Is this some sort of trick?"

"No, it's merely the truth, Shannon. Isn't that what you really want to hear? The truth?"

Shannon nodded, feeling a calm settled over himself. It was strange, but the words coming from the Governor's mouth seemed to be the source of this new tranquility. The smile of the older man's face confirmed it.

"So, shall we begin?"

====================

Shannon sat there, dazed. He wanted to get up, and flee this place but for some reason, he found himself just sitting there listening to the Governor talk.

"You see, I think there is someone inside you who wants to come out. A better you, a hetter you, Shannon. All you have to do is listen to my voice, and let it guide you to a new....perspective and understanding..."

The reporter nodded numbly in agreement.

"This modern world is losing touch with its past. Things were so much simpler before all of this social justice nonsense overtook everything. Black and white, right and wrong. Don't you think?"

Another nod, but it was accompanied by a rippling of Shannon's clothes. His sweater seemed to moving of its own accord, the material clinging closer to his body now. Sudden, it pulled itself so tight that it ripped apart at the shoulders, and revealed that underneath were the sleeves of a crisp white button-down dress shirt that hung a little loose on his arms.

"A simpler time....black and white...right and wrong...man and woman..."

The part of the sweater that remained was fluttering as most of it split into two thin straps that looped over his shoulders, reconnecting into a y-shape via a triangle of brown leather from which another strap clipped its to the back of his jeans. In the front, the new suspenders settled into place as brass snaps clamped down Around his neck, a heavily starched collar unfolded itself, sending a line of buttons down the front of the dress shirt. A rustle of fabric revealed that the last piece of his old sweater had curled itself under the collar and knotted itself into a long tie.

"Black...White...Right...Wrong...Man...Woman..."

The words battered into Shannon's head, as he tried to understand what was happening. He was afraid as he could something or someone stirring in the depths of his subconscious, drawn to the power of those words. If he'd only realized that his fear was only going to quicken the pace of his transformation...

====================

"You're not the first to hear my message, Shannon. Far from it. And you won't be the last, But I digress a little. I did say I'd tell you the truth, didn't I?"

Shannon couldn't respond, his body frozen as new changes begin to effect him, this time below his wait. The jeans he'd been wearing were shifting, denim softening into a light blend of cotton as blue was leeched away and replaced with a dark brown. Crisp creases snapped into place down the front of the developing trousers.

"You see, I didn't always have this...influence over people. I'm not sure where it came from really but it showed up when I was just starting my political career. I discovered that my words had an effect on people, especially those who disagreed with me. Not only did they come around my point of view, but some of them actually completely changed!"

A leather belt slid into the loops at Shannon's waist and tightened itself as as if locking him into his fate.

"Do you remember Lizzy Dion? Probably not, I suppose. She was my opponent for mayor during my first re-election campaign. A very outspoken advocate for gay rights, and a tough debater. That old bag really had me on the ropes during our first head-to-head if I'm being perfectly honest. Might've beaten me too, but oddly she disappeared before election day."

The governor chuckled a little, as if at some private joke before he stood up and came around the desk to seat on its corner. Shannon wanted to curse at him but...why? After he'd done a lot for this reporter, hadn't he? He didn't realize he was starting to grin.

"Of course, I'd soon meet my beloved Lisbeth and she became my first real supporter in my rise to the office I currently occupy. The perfect politician's wife really."

Shannon nodded in agreement. The governor's wife was a real smart cookie, and quite the looker too. He blinked, not sure why he found a woman to be attractive, let alone that woman. But his cock? It knew what it liked and that blonde matriarch really got its attention!

"Getting back on track, with my wife by my side, I ascended the ranks of the Republican party swiftly. I had a great staff as well, picked up all along the way. You'd be surprised how many times I got asked where I found so many loyal and dedicated people..."

The clothes which had been hanging a little loose on Shannon grew more fitted now, as his lanky frame began to fill in with muscle. It was still lean, but now held more strength than one might expect. His butt tightened up, as his old sexual practices were wiped away. He'd do a lot for a story but letting someone get past his backdoor? Never!

"Like me, boss?"

"Exactly, my boy. How are you feeling now?"

"I feet great, boss. But I'm still a little confused about why you're telling me all of this..."

The governor grinned at the still changing reporter, who was coming along nicely. The fading Shannon's feather and poofed hair was starting to slick itself back, darkening from brown to black in the process. His once smooth chin had squared itself out, and the first signs of his trademark five o'clock shadow were gracing with each passing moment.

"Just a little refresher, son. After all, you're working on my next address to the state, right?"

The reporter nodded enthusiastically. He'd been working on a real firecracker of a speech for the governor. His grin widened to reveal a set of white teeth that seemed to sparkly. A thump came the floor next to him, where his smart phone had been pushed out by his transforming pants. It had shifted and twisted, glass splintering into nothingness as it became a leather-covered notepad out of which stuck his favorite pen.

"Good, good. Now where was I again?"

"You were talking about your loyal staff, boss."

"Right. I don't know what I'd have done without you or Joaquin..."

Looking up from his notepad and the notes he'd been busily scribbling in it, Stanley Journo stared blankly at his employer and mentor as the strange name crossed his lips, A shrinking part of who he used to be seemed to be rallied by its mention.

"Who, boss?"

"Jonathan?"

"Oh...right."

And just like that, that last bit of Shannon faded away as he realized what had happened to Joaquin Guerrero. But the man sitting in the chair now didn't really care about that anymore, because he had more important stories to cover.

"That's should be enough for the speech, boss, I'll have it on your desk first thing in the morning."

"Great, Stanley. But I do have one more task for you tonight. In your capacity as my press secretary, I need you deliver a message for me..."

The governor pulled out a tape recorder and presented to the retro-styled journalist. The snarky grin was now permanently plastered on his ruggedly handsome face, as he tilted up the fedora resting on his head.

"Whatever ya' say, boss..."

====================

Sheila had not left the offices of the Q-News, her concern for her best reporter telling her that she needed to be here just in case. But she didn't even notice that she could no longer recall that reporter's name as she spoke to her girlfriend on the phone.

"Listen, Elle, baby. I'm gonna be home late tonight... It's a big story and I'm waiting for...

A knock on the door caused Sheila to jump out of her seat a little. As she finished up on the phone, the door swung open to let in a tallish lean man dressed in a dark grey vest and brown slacks. A cigarette hung from his lip while a old-fashioned press pass rested in the band of the fedora that rested atop his slicked back do.

"Heya, Chief. I got a scoop you just gotta hear to believe..."

*CLICK*

"You see, I think there is someone inside you who wants to come out. A better you, a hetter you, Sheila... All you have to do is listen to my voice, and let it guide you to a new....perspective."

[tarysande]

It’s the Dose that Makes the Poison: Lucifer Thoughts and Speculation

I’m going to throw the entirety of this under a cut because spoilers. I’ve been rearranging the pieces on the table and I have some meta and a plausible(?) theory about how things might shake out.

...this is almost four thousand words long, and frankly? I feel I’ve barely grazed the surface.

Also, I put it on AO3 for ease of reading and/or in case anyone wants to have, idk, threaded conversations ;D

Okay. Here are a bunch of the pieces. (Or the piece is here, as it were.)

First: The show has always been about redemption; the showrunners throw that word around all the time. Second: I don’t think we’re going to see an endgame or a narrative where God is evil. So, how to make the concept of literal Hell work, then? How to explain or justify the idea of a father who a) kicked his kid out of the house and sent him to Hell for-literal-ever and b) created children for specific “of God” purposes.

Hell

In 5x01, Lee says, “Whose Hell is this, anyway?” and ... I think that’s the crux of the matter. In S3, Lucifer realizes he gave himself the face of a monster because he felt monstrous. But the truth is, he didn’t just give himself the face.

He gave himself the place, too. 5x01 is littered with clues that indicate this. Lucifer says “you to your torture and me to mine.” Lee’s entire speech—the one that pushes all Lucifer’s buttons because of course Lucifer’s projecting all over Lee’s “worst memory”—might as well be Lucifer talking to himself (not unlike Uriel in Lucifer’s hell loop). You know, the part of Lucifer that’s starting to understand all the psychological stuff Linda’s been yammering on about.

Lucifer created Hell. To torture himself for what he believes he did. He created the mechanism that you can walk out any time you like—but no one ever does. None of the doors are locked, right? 

On some level, Lucifer, who is all about fairness and justice, looked at what he did and decided the Hell as we’ve seen it was the appropriate punishment. And with Lee, Lucifer almost figures out that the goal of “Hell” isn’t to eternally loop through guilt-fueled self-torture but to forgive yourself and apologize or make amends or not repeat the mistakes. Most of all, learn that nothing changes if you stay in the loop and the only way to break the loop is to take risk that you might fuck up and do something that you feel guilty for again. 

Names/Family

Something that’s always jumped out at me is that no matter how many millennia have passed, Lucifer—to whom nicknames and names are canonically really goddamned important—always refers to his family by their familial connection to him “brother, sister, Mum, Dad.” When he banished himself from Heaven—and I’m starting to think he did—he didn’t stop feeling like he was a part of his family. Even when he wanted to eat Amenadiel’s heart someday, he still called him “brother.” Even when Uriel was threatening Chloe (and Mum), he was still “brother.”

For that matter, isn’t it interesting that all Lucifer’s estranged siblings refer to him by the name he chose for himself—not the one he was given? Except, of course, when they want to hurt him. We’ve known since what, S1? That Lucifer cannot abide the name Samael. Even Uriel calls him Lucifer. Or Luci. Mum calls him Lucifer. Lucifer was given Poison of God and he chose Bringer of Light. And everyone who loved (and loves) him said, “All right. Lucifer it is.” And though Lucifer is originally a little eye-rolly with nicknames—Luce, Luci—it’s fond, not the “I’m going to rip out your spine and beat you to death with it” response Samael elicits. Essentially, Samael is Lucifer’s deadname. And people who use intentionally are dismissing and rejecting the identity Lucifer chose, which is vile.

When I was researching/writing Taking the Fall and I knew I wanted to talk about the name thing, I came across this quotation ascribed to Paracelsus, and it really resonated: “All things are poison, and nothing is without poison, the dosage alone makes it so a thing is not a poison.” The dosage, in fact, is the difference between whether something is a poison or a cure. And if that doesn’t align with the themes of the show, I don’t know what does. 

Lucifer has spent all this time thinking he is a poison; he has never imagined that he might be a cure. (To angels embracing their free will; to ending the sharp black and white segregation between Heaven and Hell; to darkness, to fear. Yet the more Lucifer learns and the healthier he gets, the more we see cures in what he does: i.e., Brody and also, you know, solving crimes.)

Michael, on the other hand, means “Who is like God?” It’s meant to be a rhetorical question, but in the universe of the show, I think Michael’s twisted version is that he used the question “Who is like God?” to plant the seed of Lucifer’s rebellion ... and is now answering the question “Who is like God?” with the reply, “I am."

Maze

But just in case we head too far down the Lucifer is Great line of thinking, we’ve got a big old example of how he’s still a poison, too.

Contrast this discussion of family with the lesson Lucifer still needs to learn about Maze—he’s managed to absorb that she’s not his servant anymore, but he’s still clinging to that soulless demon/just a demon dismissiveness. And despite self-worth coming from within, bitches, Maze still hasn’t truly absorbed that. She still looks outside for validation—and resents or backslides when she doesn’t get it. Especially from Lucifer. Because Lucifer was the first being to treat her like she mattered. She admires him. Looks up to him. Loves him. In many ways, Maze is the shadow of Chloe—drawn to Lucifer but never, from his perspective, his equal or his partner.

And he, for all the strides he’s made, still default to “demon” as derogatory and dismissive. Something she can’t transcend, even though all the evidence suggests the contrary. As long as Lucifer sees Maze as just a demon, she can’t truly escape from that identity. 

Why does Maze keep “betraying” Lucifer? It’s tempting to think it’s because she’s a demon. Because she doesn’t have “a soul.” But that’s not true. She can learn; she learns from “betraying” Chloe and doesn’t do it a second time. She learns from “betraying” Linda and Trixie. Even she and Amenadiel seem to have reached a real (and much more healthy) understanding of who they are to each other.

She keeps betraying Lucifer because he keeps deserving it.  

Servants 

The thing is, I think there’s something important in Lucifer’s “You’re not my servant anymore” to Maze. Because I think angels believe they are God’s servants. And I suspect the reason God’s been so AFK is because he really wanted them to ... break free of that. On their own. Without him telling them to—because if he told them, it wouldn’t be choice anymore. It wouldn’t be free will. It would be Following The Will of DadGod. 

Here’s another relevant Paracelsus quotation: “No one who can stand alone by himself should be the servant of another.” 

Angels self-actualize. They have powers. Sometimes those powers change (as with Amenadiel). I don’t think angels ever lacked free will. 

What is self-actualization but literal free will? You become what you believe you are; you do what you think you’re supposed to. You literally change based on your choices and feelings about those choices. Angels basically have human free will on a kind of EXTREME SCALE that they’ve remained mostly ignorant of throughout time. But how do you get your kids to figure something out without telling them how to figure it out when they’ve all got this WILL OF DAD complex? He gave them the tool of self-actualization. When they didn’t ... do that, he created humanity. He tinkered with the model. Took away the names and the powers that were such a stumbling block for his angels and such a shining example of how he failed them. If someone hangs on your every word, if you are not just their father but their master, how can they ever know love? Trust? How can they ever be free? Be themselves? I think God wanted his angel children to learn from his human children and was disappointed when they pretty much decided to just be remote and Angelically Superior All The Time, instead. Of course, that's mostly on him, too.

Except Lucifer. Because Lucifer’s curiosity (yes, from the beginning of time) kept bringing him so close to figuring things out. (Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven, amirite, Paradise Lost?) And as close as he was to figuring things out, Lucifer was still prideful and selfish and superior. The result was what happened with (and in) Hell. Things got twisted down there; he was in a God role over the demons and he was not hands-off. Cue endless loops of pain and torture and despair and self-recrimination and poison. Lilith may have started their pain, but Lucifer, however unintentionally or ignorantly, continued it. 

At least Lucifer could escape it sometimes. Those poor demons. Those poor abandoned children. They had two rocks.

Pretty sure there’s going to be an echo of Dad abandonment with his angel kids and Lilith of her demon kids, by the by. Because abandonment is a theme. And good intentions or not, well, you know what they say about the road to Hell.

Humanity The more Lucifer interacted with humanity, the more he learned from humanity. And, of course, the entire journey of the series has been about Lucifer learning, growing, adapting, changing because of this. And not in a Superior Angelic Way, but in a person-to-person real way. Not just with Chloe. With everyone.  But yeah, Chloe is the catalyst—precisely because (as Amenadiel says) she’s the only mortal who sees Lucifer for who he really is, without her reflected desires getting in the way. No one, no one else can truly reflect back to him his worthiness or lack thereof.

Does Chloe have a power? It’s not laser-beam hands. But I’ve always thought Chloe has the power of seeing things and, in seeing, encouraging others to see, too. And this is most obvious with Lucifer, whose power has never let him be seen. Because of his power, he can never know if the reactions of others are about him or about their own desires. 

What agony for someone whose chosen path is bringing light: to be forever hidden in the shadow of the light others see.

Until Chloe.

Michael tells Lucifer his greatest fear is that of being unworthy. We know Lucifer has always feared he’s not worthy of Chloe. But now that she’s told him, shown him, his worthiness? You’d better believe that he will never, ever abandon her—will never, ever let her suffer from her worst fear. Gosh, and by suddenly being invulnerable again, it’s almost like he’s assured that, isn’t it? “You make me vulnerable” was about his walls. “My invulnerability ensures I will never, ever abandon you,” is all about hers.

So, back to learning from humanity. We’ve seen Lucifer and Amenadiel do it. It’s been hinted that Azrael has done it, at least a little. Then we have Michael’s frustrated tale of how the other angel siblings are taking note of Lucifer’s actions—with the implication being that maybe they’re learning, too. Maybe they’re starting to understand that they can be more than they think they have been made to be. More than just a “Something” of God.

Control 

Meanwhile, of course, Michael’s concocted some kind of Make Heaven Great Again plot—ironically, it appears, by doing exactly what he accused Lucifer of doing: believing he can run things better than Dad. And, I suspect, by trying to set himself as Master and his siblings (and other assorted peons) as his servants. Only, he’s not doing it in Lucifer’s ultimately forthright (and even honest) way of “This sucks and I’m rebelling” but in a conniving, secretive, Machiavellian way that probably sounds a lot like “Dad says” or “Dad’s not here” or “Who is closer to God than I?” ...

Who is like God, indeed. He even throws down the word archangel when he speaks to Dan: an angel above even other angels. I’m 99% sure that word’s never been used before on the show. Because that’s what Michael desires. To be more. To be everything. To control.

He’s what Lucifer was as the Lord of Hell. He’s everything Lucifer has made such progress toward overcoming.

Incidentally, and also essay-worthy: This is why the progression of the scene where Lucifer and Chloe make love is so incredibly (heh) important: Lucifer of the perfect appearance, perfect pocket square, perfect car, perfectly clean apartment; Lucifer of control control control control ... surrenders. He offers. She accepts. And in these first moments—“Incredible,” he breathes before they’ve done anything more than kiss—she is above him, in control ... and nothing bad happens. Nothing hurts him even though she makes him hurt-able. She doesn’t take advantage of him. She loves him; she treasures him; she protects him. It’s beautiful. It’s everything he’s been so afraid he could never have.

And for the first time (very possibly) ever, he sees himself as worthy. He sees himself as belonging. He believes he is not alone; he is not lonely.

Power

Amenadiel “lost” his power to stop time when he decided he didn’t want to stand apart from humanity anymore. Essentially, just as he lost his wings when he was so horrified and disgusted by what he’d done (to Lucifer, with Malcolm, etc.) he caused himself to Fall. He regained his wings when he made it his purpose to bring Charlotte to Heaven. He stopped time again in S5 when the question of humanity—of his own child being human, and thus ‘not like him’ or ... not that ‘special’—reared its head. With the nuns, he reflects their love of God, right? And in part, that’s because he’s in this father (or Father) role now. 

Angel powers, like all power really, are double-edged. In the wrong hands or twisted the wrong way, a good power can bring about evil. Look at the almost throwaway line with Brody in 5x02: Lucifer’s “desire” power—so often spun as about sin or hedonism—brought Brody peace and forgiveness. That Lucifer doesn’t lie or take without giving in return indicates that, on some level, the level that values true justice—and even a bit of mercy—he was never able to use that power against others (the way we see Michael do with his); he didn’t want to use as he felt he’d been used; he also didn’t want to feel used by those whose desires he provided (this is why the parade of one-night stands and “it was just sex—great sex, but just sex” partners upset him so much back in S2). Favors—and even the give and take of sex—were a way to balance that scale. Again, this could be a whole essay all its own.

This makes me suspect that the dark side of Lucifer’s powers played some part in his Rebellion. That he abused desire the way we’ve seen Michael abuse fear. 

So, about that power of fear, then. I mean, it just sounds negative. How can FEAR be positive, right? But if Michael were using his powers to draw out fears so they’re named and dealt with (LIKE PEOPLE DO IN THERAPY???) instead of manipulated for personal gain—it could be a very healing power (LIKE THERAPY???).

Greatest Strength/Greatest Weakness

The absolute thematic and narrative brilliance of twin brothers having the powers of fear and desire whilst also being held back BY the “power” of their twin is so amazing it really needs its own essay. But I do want to mention this relative to the overall arc heading forward. Much of Lucifer’s work with Linda has been about addressing his fears; he’s made a ton of progress with this. As I mentioned earlier, with Linda’s guidance, Lucifer has been drawing out his fears in a safe(r) space and learning to deal with them and heal. And, in doing so, his own power of reflecting desire has increasingly been less and less about artisanal honey and car batteries and more about drawing out desires that help others heal, grow, become their best selves, release their inner demons.

Michael is (both literally and figuratively) twisted by his desires (to be powerful, to be stronger/better/more admired than his brother). I’ll bet some cold hard cash that if Lucifer’s the source of the original injury to his shoulder/wing, Michael has self-actualized into keeping that injury—perhaps even magnifying it—to a) manipulate others into feeling sorry for him, b) to remind everyone who looks at him how awful Lucifer is, and c) to trick people into believing he’s weaker than he is. 

At the end of the day, fear and desire are two of the strongest motivating forces in the world (universe); the show is showing us all the messy ways those forces come into play. And it’s also showing how connection and love and trust are the forces that both fight the worse facets of these powers and that let these forces be useful in helpful and ultimately healing ways.

Because THERAPY.

Home

So, we know we’re rolling toward what was meant to be a series finale; it’s time to start tying loose ends together, right? Again and again, the question of home comes up. Lucifer only ever refers to Los Angeles as his home. Maze, on the other hand, still defaults to Hell as home. 

Hell as we know it is over. But Hell as a place where Maze tries to impart the lessons she’s learned on Earth to her abandoned, twisted-by-hate-and-loneliness-and-Lilith siblings? Perhaps even with Eve “mother of all humanity” at her side to help clean up some of the mess Lilith made when she decided to abandon connection in favor of more selfish desire? I think that’s plausible, while also managing a significant nod at where Mazikeen ends up in the comics and a heavy dash of “the things we learn from therapy and/or being best friends with a therapist.” 

Now, I know the question of how things will end for Chloe and Lucifer is contentious in fandom. So, you know, grain of salt. I don’t think Lucifer’s home is Los Angeles; the Los Angeles in Hell wasn’t enough because it didn’t have her in it. In a literal embodiment of “Home is where the heart is,” Lucifer’s home is with Chloe. And since Chloe’s worst fear is abandonment, Lucifer will do what it takes to stay with her—because that’s what’s most important to him. The utterly unselfish choice. I think there’s some pretty reasonable foreshadowing (Lilith’s choice—if that choice was even real, of course—for example) that Lucifer may choose to renounce his immortality. Or to give it to someone else. Or that immortality won’t matter at all anymore. 

From his reactions in 5x07/08, we know that Lucifer’s identity and ideas of usefulness/self-worth/worthiness of love are still connected to his identity as an immortal with powers; I think, though, he’s beginning to piece together the complications therein, especially regarding questions of partnership and vulnerability and equality. 

Personally, Human!Lucifer has never been my preferred outcome, but I can see how it might work/might be what they’re heading for. Even if I’d still prefer the “you can use me as a bullet shield” partnership with supernatural elements—because those have always been at the heart of their partnership. The strengths of one make up for the weaknesses in the other (and vice versa).

Hell (Redux)

Finally, I’m still pretty sure we’re going to see a complete overhaul of the Heaven/Hell dichotomy. One with a lot less THIS IS THE WAY IT IS BECAUSE CONTROL and a lot more CHOICES MATTER (maybe Linda can have a turn as a salamander after all). And a major catalyst, of course, is Lucifer and his love for the chosen family on earth (and through them, a renewed love for the estranged family he’s never actually stopped loving; 5x01 basically makes canon that it's not that Lucifer hates his family—it's that he's terrified of disappointing them again, of causing problems again). 

So why does Hell have to change?

Because right now, every human he loves is sure they’re going to Hell. And after all the time and all these friendships, can you really see Lucifer being okay with that? Okay with Ella or Linda or Dan or Trixie tormenting themselves for all eternity? When he wasn’t even okay with Mr. Said Out Bitch doing so? When he gave this guy who he barely knows every opportunity to change his fate in ways he’s never done for any other tortured soul? Because they had a tenuous connection on earth?

Can you see him being okay with Chloe choosing Hell to be with him?

When it boils right down to it, Lucifer has learned to love others. And I think, especially given his revelations about self-loathing last season, that love isn’t going to let him be okay with or encourage the self-loathing in others. Love—selfless love, real love—is, in fact, the cure to the very concept of Hell. 

And it’s also the cure to the very concept of Heaven, too.

How could Heaven ever be perfect if the people you love aren’t in it?

It can’t. It might be more silver and have fewer demons, but I don’t think it’s any less an eternal torture. Eve basically tells us as much.

So, on that note, I’ll leave you with another fine quotation from Paracelsus:

“When a man undertakes to create something, he establishes a new heaven, as it were, and from it the work that he desires to create flows into him... For such is the immensity of man that he is greater than heaven and earth.”

And that, I think, is going to be the takeaway. We create what we are; we choose what we create. And in the act of that creation, we choose whether we are the poison or the remedy. And if we make mistakes, slip up, hurt people, hurt ourselves—it’s not a Hell-sentence. It’s the dose that makes the poison. We learn, we grow, we apologize, we strive to make things better, we love and love and love and love, and we never stop striving to be the cure.   

[musclesandhammering]

I realise that I’m speaking to a very small, hyper-specific group of mutuals here, but I can’t stop thinking about this.

Amara/Chuck Parallels with Loki/Thor

The dark, misunderstood sibling that’s always been cast as the villain by essentially everyone, when- despite their cold, ruthless exterior- all they ever really wanted to do was exist as an equal to the other, and as the conflict escalated, they ended up alone, afraid, suffering, and locked away, all while the golden child prospers. And then there’s the golden child- everyone’s favourite- who (outwardly) seems to be the most benevolent and righteous of the two, but internally has a massive sense of entitlement, moral superiority, and a major violent streak. The golden child still loves their dark sibling, but not enough to acknowledge how they were wronged or allow them a sense of equality at the risk of lessening the golden child’s own standing.

Here’s some great Amara quotes (surprisingly profound considering they came from S*pernatural) that resonate with Loki, just- so much.

1.) “That’s your story, not mine.

Most of these quotes work best if you look at them from the perspective Loki would’ve had in the first Avengers film. This one, however, can be applied to just about anytime in their thousand-year relationship. Thor, if asked, would most definitely describe life in Asgard as wonderful and his relationship with Loki as perfectly good. Although Loki himself could be a bit unusual and troublesome at times, Thor would say things were mostly peachy. Whereas, if you asked Loki, he would have a completely different opinion. He’s been ostracised and villainised and tormented and made to feel inferior pretty much his whole life, and his brother is a huge part of that. He’s constantly compared to Thor and found lacking, and the fact that- even when Loki finally snapped and went off the deep end- Thor still doesn’t seem to understand that… well that certainly just throws gasoline on Loki’s Anger Fire.

2.) “The real reason… why I couldn’t be allowed to exist? You couldn’t stand it. We were equals.”

This is mostly looking back on the earlier parts of Thor 1. Thor seemed to genuinely love Loki, but almost in a way someone would love an extension of themselves (a weapon or a car or a pet or something). He likes Loki’s company, but only if Loki goes along with what Thor wants to do. He wants Loki’s advice, but only when he asks for it. He values Loki’s magic, but only to the extent of its usefulness. He loves Loki, but he loves the way Loki assists and elevates him even more. Odin isn’t as obvious with it, but there are hints that he is more interested in how Loki can improve Thor than how Loki can improve himself. He was never going to make Loki king of Asgard, but he had every intention of Loki being there for Thor once he was crowned. The people of Asgard- at least the royal family- never cared to validate or support Loki’s individual identity (especially considering it deviated so far from the asgardian norm), because he wasn’t meant to be an individual. He was meant to be an extension of his brother. And, in the end, he violently refused to do that, and that’s part of the reason he was so strongly condemned for actions that Thor and Odin were guilty of themselves.

3.) “I’d die a million times and murder you a million more before going back there!”

I know this is super controversial, but I don’t think Loki was 100% mind controlled like Selvig and Barton. I also don’t think he was 100% a terrible evil villain who planned everything extensively and gladly did Thanos’s bidding. I think, during the movie, his mind was just all over the place (“a bag full of cats” indeed). At times, he probably just wanted it to be over so he could get away from Thanos and go home. At times, he probably felt good about being The Big Badass and have people be intimidated by him after so long being intimidated by others. At times, he’s probably genuinely appalled by all the carnage he’s causing. At times, with the sceptre fueling his rage, he was probably genuinely pissed at Thor and the rest of his family and wanted to cause trouble and make him suffer. I think, in part of his mind, he’s just so done with the position of inferiority he’s occupied his entire life that he’s almost willing to go back and be tortured by Thanos again, or go to prison, or suffer a humiliating defeat by The Avengers, or cause Thor all the pain in the world, as long as he doesn’t have to go back to living in Thor’s shadow.

4.) “Sorry? What’s sorry to me? I spent… years crammed into that cage, alone and afraid, wishing- begging- for death, because of you. And what was my crime, brother?”

This could be in reference to the years Loki spent in a metaphorical cage- the second prince, in Thor’s shadow, constantly trying to get Odin’s approval- or the literal cage he probably got thrown into at some point by Thanos and his minions. I like to think of it as Option B, just for the added whump. In Avengers, or TDW, or Ragnarok, Thor expressed at least a tiny bit of regret for how things went wrong between them- and despite the fact that he never actually said “I’m sorry”- I can see Loki encountering Thor’s attempts at reconnecting and feeling entirely empty about them. In his mind, Thor was the reason Odin neglected him, Thor was the reason his plans in Thor 1 failed, Thor was the reason he felt inferior in the first place. All he ever wanted was to be Thor’s equal, and striving for that led to his fall, which led to him being put through hell by Thanos and Co. And for what? Why was he forced fo compete with his brother for his parents’ love? Why was he made to feel lesser? Why was he even put on the throne in the first place? None of that was his fault. What was his crime, really, in the beginning? Being different? Not being Thor? I think it would take a lot more than a little regret on Thor’s part to fix all that.

5.) “Tell me. If you won’t change, why should I?”

This is my favourite one! Because it’s sooo accurate. Everyone- Thor in particular- is always trying to get Loki to be less deceptive, to stop betraying people all the time, to stop scheming and causing trouble, to stop going against his family and Asgard, but no one ever acknowledges that- even as far along as Ragnarok- Thor is just as entitled, arrogant and violent as he was at the beginning of the first movie. He literally tortures Loki with an obedience disk all while giving him a self-righteous speech filled with moral superiority and judgement. So, yeah. Again, from Loki’s perspective, if Thor has consistently clung to his immaturity and refused to grow into a better person, how the hell does he have any right to tell Loki to change and be better?

6.) “It didn’t have to be like this. I loved you, brother.”

Less infuriating and more heartbreaking than the others. When everything is said and done, Loki always loved Thor. Not just that, but his one true desire was to stand shoulder to shoulder with him and be comrades, equals, brothers… rather than a royal stepping stool. The tragic thing is that, while Loki has done a lot of wrong, if Thor had- at any point before Loki went crazy in Thor 1- genuinely acknowledged Loki’s pain and apologised to him, Loki 100% would’ve stood down. He would’ve been willing to works things out and do everything he could to repair their relationship- but because Thor never did that, because he treated Loki so terribly for so long, Loki ended up hitting his breaking point and becoming malevolent. He killed tons of people, caused all kinds of damage, and ripped the family even further apart. And it’s so sad because it’s obvious that Loki is just as miserable as everyone else, and this outcome was never what Loki wanted.

Anyway, I’m done meta-ing for now. I just find it fascinating how two of my favourite characters have such similar relationship with their brothers, and how things that Amara said could’ve very easily fit into Loki’s script. Which is, you know, heartbreaking. Cause pretty much all of Amara’s lines were heartbreaking. Sigh.

[tales-unique]

THIEF

Chapter 1

         DATE          NOV 14TH, 2042

         TIME          PM 05:17:08                          :09                          :10…

Deviancy had given Connor a new perspective on Detroit, one that he would forever be indebted to Markus for allowing him to achieve. As he entered the Detroit City Police Departments headquarters and ascended in the elevator to where the police offices were, now frequented by both human and android officers, he pondered various topics while deftly flicking his coin from one hand to the other.

To clarify, it had been four years since Markus had led his revolt in pursuit of freedom and equality for androids, both deviant and otherwise, and ultimately won the favour of those who had once been their oppressors. It had been an arduous journey, with many casualties, but ultimately their goal was achieved; androids were now a recognized people and were finally free. There was still much work to be done and in the years since those fated days, Markus had worked tirelessly to bridge a gap that many had deemed impossible to completely fill. So far it had all be favourable due to the determination of Markus to lead a peaceful revolution, one that had brought many humans around to their cause. Their plight had resonated with many who themselves had felt downtrodden and outcast, and Connor felt himself comparing it to other accounts in history where humans had turned on their own kind just as easily; it was in their nature to be this way, he would often remind himself, to keep any negativity in check. With a flick of his wrist, he captured the smooth metal coin in between his fingers, brow creasing briefly. A report had been filed; an altercation between two humans and an android with another human having been caught fleeing the scene. As the words flitted in his cybernetic brain he felt a small frown tug at his lips. Although there was much positive progress in the way of equal rights and liberties for androids there were still those who feared the changes, both human and androids alike. It was inevitable that there would still be clashes, as Markus himself had informed the people of Jericho, and soon the peoples of the world, but Connor felt somewhat calmer knowing that there was a conscious effort now to limit these instances. Especially as he was able to return to his previous occupation within the Detroit Police Force. Now a fully-fledged Detective, no longer attached to Cyberlife since its collapse, Connor now focused on being able to help Markus in the best way he knew how; by ensuring that androids contributed to society in a positive way. Pulling himself from his reverie as the metallic ding of the elevator doors opening sounded, Connor politely nodding his head to a pair of other detectives that entered the elevator as he left, his feet carrying him swiftly to the bright, open room where he worked. The layout and the design were still the same, with tables lined out neatly with each lieutenant’s name presented on a plaque, but now there was one more decorated desk— his own. “Good evening, Lieutenant,” Connor smiled as he strode to his desk, situated opposite the decorated, yet grizzled, detective and his partner of some time. “Hey Connor,” came a somewhat exasperated sigh, to which Connor’s brows furrowed once more, his head tilting a fraction as he assessed the situation. Hank looked tired, far more so than usual, and Connor noted with some shock that there were no traces of whiskey in the cooled coffee that sat forgotten in his mug. Ceasing his analysis Connor settled at the edge of Hank’s desk, glancing at a report the older man had been staring at for what he imagined to have been a while, judging by the way he seemed to have no focus on it whatsoever. “You look tired, is it a rough case?” Connor spoke out, inclining a hand to the report Hank possessed, expression becoming more perplexed when a gruff laugh was his response and a shake of the head. “No, no, actually, it’s pretty shit. Fowler thinks I ought to take it easy every once in a while, the bastard,” Hank almost snarled, soon tossing the report onto his desk without a care. He glanced up at Connor, who looked at it expectantly. Still something of a poodle, that boy was, and Hank almost missed the motion of his hand already waving to allow Connor a read. “Go for it,” he huffed, turning his eyes to his terminal, “just some burglary attempt, nothing major, he just wanted my input since the witness is— Hmph .” The way Hank abruptly ended his sentence didn’t go unnoticed by Connor as he took the report in hand to read what little had already been documented, eyes scanning over it wordlessly. He looked sour, like in those first meetings between them when all of this began, and it worried Connor. In truth, human emotion was still somewhat new for the android, though he was more at peace with it than some. Slipping from his perched position, Connor gave a small nod, setting the report back down. In seconds he had already gained the knowledge, the rest was a mere formality. “I believe the fact than an android is involved may be a reason why Captain Fowler assigned you the case,” he gave a small shrug, locking gazes with Hank. The older man only hummed in response, leaning back in his chair, giving the non-verbal hint for him to continue. “After all, we are still, technically, the best team for handling any deviant behaviour, isn’t that correct Lieutenant?” A small, chipper smile was given, and he could see Hank’s shoulder slack in acceptance. Connor could more often than not bring the old detective around to his way, in that same way a child always gets what they want in one capacity or another. With a grin Connor straightened his tie, falling into step with Hank as the two made their way to the interrogation rooms.

Connor had initially been indifferent to interrogating the woman that had been caught fleeing the scene. He concluded that she was a criminal, albeit not as dangerous as the android they were investigating who had been present, and thus deemed it another step towards completing the mission. He did find it interesting to note that it was statistically higher for men to be caught attempting burglary than women, but he still held the conviction that she was just a criminal. However it soon became clear to him as they continued that she was no ordinary burglar or indeed no ordinary woman. It had taken mere seconds, perhaps even less if that were possible, to hear her audible growl as her eyes narrowed on the mirror before her, one that she outed as being two-way and no doubt concealing the detectives within, an iciness to her tone that caused even him to stiffen. She spoke out harshly, daring them to come back and try to make her talk. It was this statement that caused Hank to groan as he stood at Connors side, hand dragging down his face; no doubt this was why he seemed so drained earlier— he’d already attempted to speak to her before. Before any other words were uttered Connor initiated a scan, one that turned his LED a consistent spinning circle of yellow. In truth he had been reluctant to remove it, becoming almost fond of the light at his temple, viewing it as part of his still-forming identity. Connor the android sent by Cyberlife still remained, he simply had evolved, but like other androids and even humans he wanted to still resemble some small part of the life that led him to this point. Instantly there came a mugshot photo of the suspect before him, her name suspended in neat lettering beneath it. VERONICA VORNE. The name intrigued him, mostly because of the alliteration of her name and its ease when being pronounced. He continued to sift through the walls of text, briefing himself on the basic demographics and the like that had been catalogued for her file before coming to her criminal history. Predominantly she was known for serial burglary, though one account of public assault coupled with resisting arrest had resulted in a two year sentence. Having ascertained such information he then moved on to the young woman herself. Shrouded in the typical dark attire of a thief she looked so stark against the white background, like a concise Rorschach inkblot. The clothes were thick, black sleeved shirt and denim jeans, designed to keep her well insulated and warm in the cold November weather, just as the solid boots on her feet did. As she lifted her wrists to flex them, testing the range of movement she had with the handcuffs, Connor noticed her fingerless gloves. He then moved to her leather coat, which was still zipped and dappled with wet patches from where snow had melted upon it. It seemed fitted to her shape, and Connor couldn’t help but wonder how she was able to evade capture long enough to have made it outside while wearing it. He noticed no hood nor cap on her person that would have obscured her face. It was then he recalled an officer with a black balaclava in hand, speckled with moisture in places, which was most likely hers. No doubt it was taken upon her arrest so they could identify her. It was in this moment that Connor took a moment to survey her face, taking in her features. Everything about her seemed to resemble the stark contrast between dark and light. Deep-coloured eyes, glowing a rich brown in the fluorescent of the lights were set against the bright whites of her eyes, though he detected the faintest of blood vessels there; from stress, he surmised. They were framed in long, delicate lashes that dared to flutter ever so lightly every time she heard movement behind the locked door. Then his gaze shifted to observe her skin, which was rosy to a degree, as he had seen from her mugshot photograph, yet the harsh light only exaggerated the pale undertones. Tilting his head minutely during the scan he noted the softness of the features themselves, their femininity, as his eyes looked over her dainty nose, to her lips. They were a dusty shade of pink, like the Spring Roses he sometimes saw in the park and would have looked warm and inviting had they not been pulled into a harsh frown. With a turn of her head towards the camera her hair gave a small flourish, having been released from the confines of her hood upon capture judging from the tousled look it held. Despite this frazzled appearance Connor noted its healthy condition and medium length, it falling in waves down her back. The colour of its strands resembled her eyes in its rich brunette colour and sported a gleam that eluded to her fondness for hair care. A well-kept thief, he noted to himself. With the rudimentary scan complete, the whole process taking less than a few seconds, Connor returned to reality, his gaze now looking to Hank once more, relaying the information he’d gathered as he so often did. “Veronica Vorne, born in downtown Detroit on—” “Relax, I know who she is,” Hank soon interrupted, watching with some amusement as Connor looked at him in confusion, his eyebrows soon raising upwards towards his hairline. “Not personally ,” Hank quickly added, “but our paths have crossed a few times, little shit.” The term was said with a fondness Hank didn’t show often, and even then it had only been picked up on because Connor was an android. Tilting his head, Connor silently willed Hank to continue, wishing to learn more, earning a deep sigh from the older officer and a roll of his eyes. “I’m not playing ball tonight Connor, so stop lookin’ at me like that! Just go, get in there, and let’s do our thing, Christ.” It was clear it grated on Hank’s nerves to be pulled into such a basic case, though Connor knew there may be more to it. He would pry into it at a later time, for now he tasked himself with following Hank’s lead, eyes falling upon the wayward thief once the door sealed behind him.

It was the sharp sound of the door opening that made Veronica’s eyes turn to them, eyeing them warily for a moment before widening in recognition; she'd almost expected it to be that asshole, Gavin, again. Hank’s name fell from her lips and Connor would have almost mistaken it for breathless if not for the fact she was not out of breath at all, at least according to his interface anyway. humans had such strange mannerisms, ones that were often contradictions to themselves. Connor took to standing back from the table, allowing Hank to sit opposite her, and for a moment all was silent. Both Hank and Veronica sat back in their respective seats, Hank with his arms crossed, studying the woman before him, and Veronica with an almost childish pout of her lips, eyes narrowed again as she attempted to formulate a way to be out of this predicament. Hank was the first to break their stalemate, shifting to lean forward with his arms resting on the table, gaze staring at her squarely. He read out her rights for a second time, to which she gave consent to waiver, and it was then that Connor learnt that she’d already violated the agreed terms of her bail once before. This, the android concluded, would result in jail time unless she cooperated with them on their investigation. Raising an eyebrow Hank regarded Veronica as her own brows knitted together for a moment, contemplating the situation; tell them what she knew and be a rat or continue her vow of silence and maintain a paper thin loyalty. The quote “no honour among thieves” suddenly came to Connors mind as he continued to stand with his arms folded across his chest. There was a soft sigh from the woman, tired and annoyed, as she looked away from them both. It was then that she finally opened her mouth to speak, and Connor felt himself perk up in anticipation of what she was going to say. “I don’t know anything about an android, or an android murdering anyone. I was just there to rob the place, alone .” To say that Hank was enraged by her statement was obvious from the way he slammed a hand down upon the metal table, causing the young woman to jump in her seat, eyes wide; startled. They bickered back and forth, starting with Hank’s low growl that she was spouting a load of bullshit and he was in no mood for it. Veronica, on the other hand, maintained her innocence in the matter vehemently, suddenly panicked. She claimed that she’d entered the premises alone with the sole intention of committing a robbery and had no knowledge that there’d been an android there at all nor that said android had been involved in a previous murder that they were currently investigating. However Connor could see from the subtle twitch of her eye that this was at the very least, a half-truth, to which he stepped forward and placed a strategic hand upon Hank’s shoulder, just at the moment he was about to lunge forward with another verbal attack. “Might I try, Lieutenant?” The request was simple enough, but Connor was unsure if Hank would allow him the chance to question Veronica, even though he was rather stressed by the whole situation. For a moment or two Hank regarded him, eyes narrowed suspiciously while he did so, before he gave a huff and a nod, vacating the seat. With a polite incline of his head Connor settled into it, briefly glancing to the door as Hank exited the room; perhaps it was better for all of them that he was given time to cool down. Throughout the whole thing Veronica had sat in relative silence, but as Connor turned his gaze to her, hands clasping together upon the table before him, he noticed how she looked almost distressed that Hank had left the room. With a calm smile upon his face Connor watched her closely, tilting his head slightly as he noticed how she seemed to retreat slightly within herself, her eyes becoming wide and almost fearful. Was she aware that he’d caught onto her bluff? Did she know she stood no real chance against him when it came to the interrogation? Connor was curious to discover the reasoning behind her fear but wanted first to calm her enough so that she would at least talk to him. “Hello, my name is Connor, and you are?” He started out modestly, casually, but it only served to cause her to stiffen in her seat. His smile faltered slightly into a small frown but he refused to give up. He would try a kinder approach before he would press her any further. Glancing to the mirror he sighed, looking back at her once more. “Lieutenant Anderson may seem coarse in his approach, but he means well,” Connor began, watching as Veronica shifted her gaze to the mirror briefly before locking her gaze to him again, following each movement he made. Taking this as a positive sign, Connor continued, even going so far as to lean in slightly, regarding her more. “He just wants to solve the homicide investigation and we think you may have crucial information—” “I don’t know anything!” The abruptness of her interruption caused Connor to pause, his LED flickering a circle of yellow before he straightened in his seat. He noted how Veronica then swallowed nervously, knowing that her outburst had convinced him of the opposite, that she did indeed know something about the case. Lowering her head down she forced her gaze downcast, settling to stare at her bound hands, form fidgeting slightly in her seat. Connor knew that he was close, something in itself that surprised him given how aggressive she’d been beforehand at times when Hank had been interrogating her. Clearly there was an emotional element that he had uncovered, or perhaps it was the fact that he was a complete stranger, and an android, that had shaken her resolve, and caused her to become flustered. Connor was undecided for the moment but felt the time right to begin to apply pressure to the situation. “You do realize that if you don’t help me you will go to prison,” he snapped suddenly, harsh and unforgiving, once again causing her to jump slightly in her seat. “Tell me, Veronica, do you want to go back to prison again?” His question was pointed and it caused her eyes to immediately fly up to meet his own, her hands splaying out on the table’s surface as she shook her head meekly. It was a slow process, but Connor soon began to pull threads of relevant information from her. It was interesting to find that she did indeed know nothing of the android that they were investigating, despite both having been reported to be in the same property, yet he did learn of another android, the one who she had been indirectly protecting all along. An older model, possibly an AF200 model judging from her limited description, discarded and left to shut down, that she had named Zen. Veronica had refused to let them go unnoticed, to be forgotten. She took the android to her home and, with what little she had, attempted to repair or rebuild what she could. Of course she wasn’t even remotely qualified for such a task, but attempt it she did and this led her to steal so that she could then purchase or trade for what she needed. Connor listened quietly, his LED consistently yellow, until her tone lowered and her voice faded into silence. Her eyes were downcast once more and held a forlorn sense to them that caused Connor to unclasp his hands, reaching one out to gentle cover her own. At the gesture Veronica lifted her gaze ever so slightly, acknowledging the contact. They were both silent for a moment before Connor spoke up, giving her hand a gentle squeeze. “I give you my word that Zen will not be hurt, but I need you to be honest with me. Do you know anything about the android? Anything at all?” He pressed further, and although she was uncomfortable she did give a small nod that was coupled with a sigh. “I know someone who might know about the android. He’s done a couple jobs with me in the past, runs with a small group in the area where the guy was killed,” she hummed lightly, and Connor could feel her fingers twitch slightly underneath his own, unaware she was tentatively brushing the inside of his palm as though to calm herself. Catching herself part way through Veronica sucked in a breath, pulling her hand free to the edge of the table, eyes pointedly looking to the side. “I’ll see what I can get out of him,” she added, briefly glancing to the two-way mirror with a glowering expression. “You hear that Hank?” Came her biting comment, voice raised, “I’m going to see what I can do to help your little case!” She huffed, dropping back against her seat, almost as though she’d deflated. It was amusing to Connor, who sat with grin upon his lips, which on increased when she turned her gaze to him and gave a small flicker of a smile. It seemed like she was fighting herself to do so however by the way she turned her head away and tried to pinch her lips together, eyes glittering despite only looking at the wall. With the interrogation over, Veronica was escorted by Hank to one of the holding cells until the information she had given them could be credited and what little information they had could be written up. It needed to be collated with the rest of the information from the couple whose home she had tried to rob. In truth, she was still in a lot of trouble considering she had violated the terms given to her at her last arrest, despite having given them a possible lead, but that wasn’t the main concern Connor had. Remaining a few steps behind as he followed the pair Connor silently contemplated what would happen to her once the investigation was over. Of course, his rationale told him that she would continue to be as she was and that he would most likely cross paths with her again following the next crime she committed, but he also found himself thinking beyond that narrow, professional viewpoint. He was concerned that there would be no saving grace for her next time, that she would be arrested and charged and ultimately end up in prison for more than her previous sentence. It was then he recalled the android, Zen, whom she had become fond of. Like a lonesome puppy, who would care for them while she was gone? Who would inform them of her absence? The questions, though trivial in comparison to his investigation, bothered him and it was noticed immediately by Hank, who had now turned back to the android after Veronica was settled into the holding cell. “You alright Connor?” The older detective asked, concern lacing his gruff voice, a hand coming to rest on his shoulder. When he was met with only a simple yes Hank’s eyes narrowed and he hummed his suspicions. Casting a gaze behind him he spotted Veronica watching them with interest, eyes bright and curious before she quickly looked away. With a small huff of a chuckle, he guided Connor away back to their desks, already surmising what the issue could be. He may have been old, but he wasn’t stupid. Pushing the android down into his seat Hank moved to his own, settling into it with a deep sigh. There had been the glimmer of hope that he would be able to leave work early for once, but that had been long extinguished. Flicking his tired eyes to Connor he found the poor android to still looking as perplexed as before. Leaning back in his chair he contemplated opening that can of worms and ultimately decided that he owed Connor that much at least, given all they’d been through. With as much of an expectant look as he could muster, Hank sat up straight, gaining Connors full attention at last. “Something on your mind, Connor?” He then asked, resting his arms on his desk, eyebrows raising when the android opened his mouth to speak, with some difficulty he noted. “I’m curious, Lieutenant,” he began, to which Hank hummed dryly, already having guessed as much already, “what will happen to Miss Vorne once her usefulness has run its course?” He asked almost innocently, somewhat shocking the older detective. When Hank didn’t reply Connor continued on, brows furrowed, hands gesturing along with his voice. “I only ask because it’s statistically proven that offenders will continue to offend unless prevented from doing so, and she’s already stated that she steals in order to help repair the android she saved, Zen I believe she called them—” “Focus, Connor,” Hank drawled, leaning his head against his hand. “Ah, yes. What I mean to say is that I believe we should, at least, try to help her in some way. Maybe we could utilize her as some kind of informant, perhaps? Her connections may prove useful in our investigations, especially if the lead she’s already provided us proves correct,” he concluded, pursing his lips as he studied Hank’s expression. Connor could feel a sense of unease cross over him and he also detected panic flare within him, which only intensified when Hank snorted sourly and shook his head. “Holy shit, you’re worried about her!” He exaggerated, eyes wide as he swivelled slightly in his chair to look at his terminal, incredulous. Releasing a deep breath Hank attempted to distract himself with his work before looking to Connor once more, who looked at him with a look of despair painted on his face, like a puppy lost off its leash. “Veronica’s fine , Connor,” Hank attempted to console him, “she’ll give us the lead like she promised and she’ll prance outta here like nothing happened and returned to that android of hers, okay? There, did that clear your conscience?” The sarcastic nature of Hanks comment didn’t go amiss and Connor gave a frown in response, LED oscillating between blue and yellow before finally settling back to its standard blue ring. “Actually, Lieutenant,” Connor began pointedly, mimicking his sarcasm, turning his gaze toward the corridor that housed the holding cells, “I don’t believe that it has.” He then turned his gaze back to Hank only to see that he now held his head in his hands and was groaning at the situation before him. He knew that he could stop it before it could properly start by demanding that Connor let it go, but he also knew that Connor wouldn’t be able to do just that so easily and would probably attempt to do something himself to help her. Thus he decided that the best action to take was to give in to Connor’s newfound humanity and let the little shit in on the fun. Pushing his chair away from his desk with his feet Hank stood up with a grunt, beckoning Connor to follow him with a flick of his hand. “Well, are ya coming or what?” He then called, smirking at the sound of the android scampering to follow him towards the holding cells.

Captain Fowler was, to say the least, not impressed by Hank’s insubordination. To have released Veronica without permission had annoyed him enough, but to then come into his office and request, dare he say demand, that she be given a probationary period to try as an informant for their case? Well, that was something else entirely. Ultimately, with a lot of convincing from both Hank and Connor, the Captain reluctantly agreed to allow Veronica to operate as an informant on the condition that she would report any and all findings she could to them in order to further their case and any other cases that she may find knowledge of. Any leads that produced breaks in the case would result in leniency to her prior charges, something that would no doubt tempt her into doing a good job. There had also been the warning that if she didn’t perform well there would be consequences, but Hank hadn’t the patience nor the care to properly listen, but Connor had. It hardened his resolve to ensure she did well, and remained safe, while she worked alongside them. Upon seeing Hank and Connor move to leave the Captain’s office Veronica stood straight, watching them expectantly as they descended the small set of stairs, hands in front of her as her fingers twisted around the balaclava that had been taken from her previously. “So, what’s happening? Am I free to go now?” She asked eagerly, bouncing slightly on her heels. She needed to hurry home to check on Zen, to make sure the android hadn’t gotten into mischief while she’d been gone. Her expression dropped slightly when Hank began to explain the conditions of her release but she ultimately came to accept them. Not that she had much choice. The notion of working with someone on the inside brought forth memories of infiltrating Jericho for Connor, and although it wasn’t all a positive memory a small smile come to his lips as he recalled the moment he finally came into his own and became deviant. It opened to him a whole new perspective on life, one that he was now determined to embrace wholeheartedly. Amidst his recollections he’d noticed that Veronica had fallen a couple of steps behind them upon leaving the police headquarters, the cool night breeze having ruffled her hair. He stopped to watch for a moment to watch as she brushed the waves back, bringing her hood up to trap them. When he finally caught her attention he felt his lips twitch upwards, motioning for her to continue at his side. When she accepted the offer by falling into step beside him Connor felt a similar feeling to the one he’d experienced back in the police headquarters; a slight nervousness blooming in the pit of his artificial stomach so to speak. Humans would often engage in small talk when walking with one another, or so he’d observed, and since Hank had decided to stop and do just that with another officer who was just returning, Veronica was left to his company, and his company alone, so he took the chance to engage her in conversation. Pausing on route to Hank’s car, Connor turned his head to Veronica, who looked at him curiously, stopping as he had. It was now that he could truly regard the difference in height between them. He was at a minimum a few inches taller than her, give or take an inch due to the thick heel on her boots, for he had calculated her at five feet and five inches when inside the station, again taking the heel size into consideration. He gave a small, polite cough, having realized that he had been staring, a small blue hue lightly dusting the tops of his cheeks. Wanting to distract from any uncomfortable instances, Connor felt it best to begin a conversation with her, noting as he did so the small tremble in her limbs. “It’s a rather cold night, are you alright?” Although her clothes were insulated, the lack of movement meant that the chill of the night air was able to affect her, and Connor wanted her to feel comfortable, especially with him. They were going to be partners, after all, and her well-being and morale was now something to consider. “Oh, no, I’m fine,” Veronica replied with a soft smile before her brows furrowed slightly, taking in his smart appearance. “Aren’t you cold?” The question caused his own eyebrows to raise upwards slightly and he opened his mouth to correct her, for androids couldn’t feel the cold as humans could, before deciding that he would take her concern as it was. Giving her a small smile in response he shook his head, smoothing his suit jacket down with his hands on impulse. “No, I’m not cold, but thank you for asking,” he then replied, eyes drawn to the way her breath created entrancing wisps of mist in the air before vanishing without a trace. There was still so much that enthralled him about humans, from their mannerisms to their very beings, which was to be expected from an android programmed to be as inquisitive and curious as he was. Silence then fell upon them for a moment before a cough drew their attention, Connor turning his head to see Hank stood, alone, with his arms crossed, watching him and Veronica with an inscrutable look upon his face. “Is something wrong, Lieutenant?” Connor questioned, though he couldn’t understand if anything would be wrong. He had just been idly chatting while Hank himself had done so. “Well I’d like to get home before I freeze my balls off , thank you,” came Hanks sharp quip in response with a roll of his eyes, though his gaze soon narrowed with a huff when Veronica snickered at the comment, shaking her head lightly. Connor watched the small exchange with some interest before he regarded Veronica again, once more looking at her with a curious, if somewhat concerned, expression. “How will you be getting home?” He questioned, his auditory systems noting the sound of Hank entering his car; the familiar creak of the car door and the slam of metal. “Might I suggest you share a ride with Lieutenant Anderson and myself?” It was a kind gesture and an appropriate one to make, judging from the way Veronica smiled warmly. Thus he couldn’t help how his brows knitted together in confused shock when she politely, and somewhat awkwardly, declined. Her reasoning was that she didn’t want to be any more of a bother than she already had been for the pair and that her home wasn't so far away that she couldn’t walk there. “Oh,” he replied after some thought, looking dejected amidst his confusion, “I see, but I’m afraid I must insist. A woman shouldn’t walk the streets alone, especially on a winter’s night.” His heart, though artificial, was in the right place, and he wasn’t going to allow Veronica to put herself in danger for the sake of a little burden. One that he calculated would only be around twelve or so minutes, if the snow held off at least. Connor wanted to remain respectful of her independence but the android was too chivalrous to be beaten, and after a small bout of back and forth banter Veronica finally gave in with a sigh, thanking him quietly as he motioned with his hand for her to make her way to the car. It was a relatively quiet drive, with only the melodies of the quiet jazz that Hank enjoyed filling the space of the car. An obvious difference from the Heavy Metal Connor was usually met with. The android rode shotgun with Hank at the wheel, while Veronica was settled in the back behind him. Stealing a glance at her through the rear view mirror Connor noticed how she had her head turned to look out the car window, a weary expression on her face, illuminated at regular intervals by the street lights. He studied her until they reached her address, or as near to as she felt comfortable with revealing, and then he watched as she shifted forward in her seat, eyes looking between them both. “Thanks for the ride, guys, I appreciate it,” she murmured, nodding her head in acknowledgement as Hank assured her it wasn’t too out of his way, her gaze then turning to Connor, who had turned in his seat to regard her. “Goodnight, Miss Vorne, and please refrain from getting into any more trouble tonight,” Connors' voice held a teasing edge, one that caused her to smirk lightly in response. “I make no promises,” Veronica countered with a small chuckle and with that she slipped out of the car. She gave a small wave as she then crossed the street, blending into the shadows as she walked the rest of the small distance to her home, leaving Connor to decipher his thoughts about her.

[falloutmelody]

Now Or Never- Platonic! Graham O’Brien x Reader

(GIF IS NOT MINE, FULL CREDIT TO THE PERSON WHO MADE IT!)

WARNINGS: Mild peril and threat?? Occasional reference to death and the reader being afraid they’re gonna die, but nothing serious. This is meant to be set early on in the fam’s adventures when they’re still bonding and aren’t super used to the danger, so I pictured it happening in-between Arachnids in the UK and The Tsuranga Conundrum, but there’s no specific spoilers or references, so don’t worry! Also, not gonna lie, this was very much inspired by Graham and Yaz’s conversation from The Timeless Children, because that scene resonated with me emotionally, but again, no spoilers for that!

REQUESTED BY: @anahiranz​ Thank you so much for requesting again! And thank you for requesting for Graham! He’s been my favourite of Thirteen’s companions since The Woman Who Fell To Earth aired (no shade meant to Ryan and Yaz, because I love them a lot, but I just feel a strong connection with Graham), so I absolutely loved writing this! Feel free to request again if you would like to, you always give me such great and fun prompts! Hope you enjoy this and that it brings your image to life!

WORD COUNT: 2515! Once again, we’ve got a long one on our hands! What can I say, I just get carried away?

Anyways, requests are still 100% open if you wanna request something! Especially if it’s for Doctor Who (although, casual reminder that I currently only write for Thirteen, Sacha’s Master, Graham, Ryan and Yaz atm!). Send all requests to my ask, which you can find here!

Also, for the people who followed me for MCU stuff, I got a request for another one-shot for Natasha that I’m hoping will be up sometime next week!

So, regarding codes, Y/N as always means your name, L/N is your surname and Y/J/H means your job here (e.g. librarian, shop worker, etc. Feel free to just shove in a random job there if you don’t have one or hate your actual job!) And again, this was written from a gender neutral perspective, so anyone is welcome to read it!

The sound of your shoes on the bare concrete floor let out infrequent thuds as you raced down the hall, forcing yourself to glance back for the first time since this chase had begun. Yes, there he was. The big angry blue alien man with the frighteningly large gun that really hadn’t taken too well to you and your fellow companions prying into his affairs and asking why he was here. Ducking your head to the side as his weapon shot out another amber blast that got dangerously close to you, you decided to force yourself to up your pace. Well, you tried to anyway. At this point, you were forcing yourself to go so quickly that you were pretty sure you were mere moments from vomiting. But you couldn’t stop. If you stopped, he would catch you. And you stopping would likely result in your fellow companions stopping to help you, and then you’d all be screwed.

And then you spotted it.

A few inches ahead of you, there was a small open doorway into a dark room. The metal framing of the doorway seemed eerily similar to ones that you’d encountered a few times whilst you, the Doctor and your fellow companions had been exploring this complex, looking for the source of the distress signal the TARDIS had received earlier that day. Those doors had seals, right? That had been what the Doctor had said, right? The blonde tended to speak at a mile a minute at times, so it was a little hard to keep up with her.

Deciding that your instinct was worth at least a shot, you proceeded to quickly skid into the darkened room, taking a moment to call out a simple ‘in here!’ to your fellow companions. Whether they would follow you, you had no idea. You didn’t waste time waiting to see, almost immediately turning your attention to the small metal keypad beside the door, using the brief light from the outside hallway to see what you were doing. Your hands were shaking, in a manner almost akin to being outside on a cold day, but you tried not to let that distract you. You were frightened, of course you were, but you didn’t want to let your fear result in the demise of your friends or yourself.

Taking the sound of thudding feet and panting that soon filled the room to mean that your fellow companions had made it inside, you forced your shaking hands to input random numbers. That worked in movies, right? Jamming in random number combinations seemed to somehow always result in the desired outcome for action heroes.

And in what you could only describe as a miracle, your scrambling paid off, as the metal door suddenly slammed shut, and gave a soft chime, informing you that it had been sealed. You were safe. For now.

A few seconds passed before a soft click sounded in the room, and the light above your head illuminated and filled the room with soft amber light. Stepping back from the keypad, the sound of your heartbeat thundering in your chest being the only thing that you could hear, you finally took a moment to scan your surroundings. And then you realised something that caused your body to tense in concern.

There was only one other person in the room with you. Graham, who seemed just as breathless and tired of running as you were.

Oh god. Oh god.

Had you lost Ryan and Yaz? You could have sworn they’d been there when you’d all started running. Had something happened? You’d only really met all these people a few days back, but the mere idea of that guy in the hallway catching up with your new friends caused your stomach to drop. As Graham met your terrified gaze, it seemed to only take him a few moments to catch onto what was happening and what was running through your mind as his own expression shifted to one of concern. However, before he got a chance to speak the inevitable question, a series of loud, violent thuds sounded at the metal door. The thought crossed your mind for a moment that maybe it could have been your missing friends, but surely, they’d be calling out to you if it was them? No, no, there was no doubt about it. The alien that had been chasing you was now outside the door.

A mumbled but frantic series of swear words escaped your lips at that realisation, as you tried to will yourself to move. Time was of the essence. That alien could burst through the sealed door at any minute.

But you couldn’t.

Your whole form was virtually paralyzed with fear, terrifying thoughts of what could have happened to your friends racing through your mind as you did the only thing you could do in that moment- let out ragged, shaking breaths and try to prevent yourself from just giving up and crying.

You weren’t entirely sure how long you just stood there. Perhaps it was minutes. Perhaps it was seconds. But, finally, you were snapped out of your thoughts by Graham’s voice. “The Doc’s gonna come back and find us, right?” He questioned, causing you to turn your attention in his direction. Weakly, you gave a small nod.

“I hope so,” you mumbled quietly. The eccentric blonde had gone her own way shortly after you’d all arrived here, claiming that it’d be easier to find the source of the distress call if you split up, so god knows where she was.

Apparently, time and space travel involved following the tropes of an episode of Scooby-Doo, but hey, you were new at this, so you hadn’t complained. Now you wish you had.

Realising that you needed to at least try and act, to at least buy some time for either the Doctor to come find you or for you and Graham to come up with a plan to save yourself, you forced your legs to move. In a somewhat uncertain manner, you made your way over towards the sole thing in this room, a small shelving unit with two metal boxes on it. Apparently, you’d somehow managed to end up in some form of storage cupboard.

An alien storage cupboard. Okay.

“What are you looking for?” Graham’s tired voice asked as you began to try and rummage through the box that was closest to the floor. Try being the operative word there, with how much your hands were shaking.

“Honestly, I don’t know,” you admitted, wishing that your words sounded way more confident than they did. “I just… I don’t know, there has to be something here right? Something that could help us get out or lock the door more or something?” However, your hands seemed to have other ideas, as you seemed unable to get a firm grasp on anything in the box. Not that you recognised anything in this one, so honestly, what was the point?

“Y/N?” Graham’s soft tone once again brought you out of your thoughts, although you didn’t stop nervously rummaging through the box. “Just… Just take a minute, alright? That door’s gotta be pretty tough, he’s not just gonna barge through!”

“But Ryan and Yaz are still out there! We have to at least try and do something, that’s what the Doctor would do. We can’t just sit-“ And with that, your voice finally broke, causing you to fall to silence. You tried to stay composed, to keep it together, causing you to soon duck your head down to give yourself a minute. However, the world clearly seemed against you today, as another, much louder thud sounded at the door, shortly followed by a creak that seemed to be indicating that the door was giving way. This caused a noise that you could only describe as a genuine squeak of fear to escape your lips as your eyes momentarily shut. This wasn’t happening. This couldn’t be happening.

“Y/N, Y/N, look at me,” Graham proceeded to quickly speak up once more. At least his tone indicated he was just as on edge as you. After taking a series of sharp inhales of breath, you slowly did as he asked, only realising as you looked at him that your vision was slightly blurred.

You felt as though you could be excused for tearing up at a moment like this. A few weeks ago, you’d been a simple Y/J/H in Sheffield, and now? Now you were in space, with a homicidal alien waiting outside to kill you and your new friend. How were you meant to react calmly to that? “Sorry,” you mumbled quietly, bringing your hands up to dry the water from the corner of your eyes. “Sorry, I… I just wanted to help.”

Graham gave a soft shake of his head, taking a quick moment to glance in the direction of the door as another loud thud echoed into the room, causing the shelving unit before you to physically shake. “Nah, don’t apologise. I get it. Never had this happen on the 3a bus on a Monday morning,” he responded in a light-hearted tone, his words causing a brief smile to momentarily pull at your lips. It was nice to just focus on something else besides your impending doom, even if it was only for a few seconds. “Yaz is a smart lass, I like to think she’s keeping Ryan safe. Just like you’re keeping me safe, huh?”

“Well, I’m trying. It’s easier said than done sometimes.” Graham softly chuckled at your response, lightly patting you on the shoulder as his gaze moved to look around the room. As his focus settled on something just behind the shelving unit, your expression scrunched up slightly in confusion, wondering what he’d spotted.

And then you spotted it.

There was a medium sized vent in the wall. That movie logic might just pay off once more.

Almost immediately, you and Graham got to work, pulling the shelving unit away from the wall. If you could somehow get through the vent, you could get away from here. Or at the very least, it could provide you a place to hide when the brute outside inevitably broke in.

Kneeling down to get a better look, you were surprised to realise that all you had to do was pull the vent cover off. The screws had already been pulled out. Had someone been here before you? The person who had sent out the distress call? Some poor person who had been here before this place had been abandoned? You weren’t quite sure, but you supposed the only way you would find out was by heading through. Wherever it led, it couldn’t be worse than here.

Discarding the metal cover to the ground, you brought your attention up to Graham. “You head through first, I wanna make sure you get out of here,” you quickly prompted him, soon moving out of the way so that the elder man could try and get inside the vent. He admittedly soon shot you a look of slight confusion, presumably being a little bit uncertain about the idea of just clambering through the vents to safety, but as another thud echoed into the room, he soon did as you prompted.

“You’d better follow me. Give me your word, Y/N,” Graham spoke as he tried to clamber inside as quickly as he could manage. You took a quick glance in the direction of the quickly caving in door, before looking back at him and nodding. Of course, you were going to follow. You just wanted to give him a few moments to make sure he was safely inside before following after him.

Graham seemed to accept this. “Right. God, my knees are gonna hate me for this,” the man remarked dryly, his voice slightly amplified by the metal vent. True to your word, you waited a few moments, before clambering inside, doing your best to replace the metal cover that you’d pulled off soon afterwards. Not that you reckoned it’d take the alien long to figure out where you’d gone. There were no other ways out of that room.

You crawled through the surprisingly spacious vents for only a few moments before you reached the end, ultimately ending up in what appeared to be an office room. Or at least you presumed that was what it used to be. The desks and chairs in this room were all upturned or broken. Graham helped you back onto your feet once you’d clambered out, with you both taking a quick moment to try and catch your breath.

“Guess now, the aim of the game is to try and find the others?” Graham asked, causing you to give a small nod. Hopefully, your friends had been just as lucky in getting away. As Graham went to lead the way out of the office, you proceeded to speak up once more.

“Graham?” Your words caused the man to turn back to face you, with you not wasting any time as you proceeded to lightly wrap your arms around him. “Thank you.”

You felt as though you didn’t need to elaborate any further on what you were thanking him for. Graham would understand. Yes, you knew that now probably wasn’t the right time for this, but you wanted to thank him for being there to reassure you when you needed it. Besides, after a near death experience, you felt as though you couldn’t really be judged for wanting a hug. You might not know this man super well yet, but he’d provided a source of comfort and reassurance for you several times over in the most dangerous of situations, something which you undeniably valued.

Hopefully, that friendship and the borderline surrogate parental role he’d started to provide in your life would only strengthen as you continued to travel together.

The former bus driver seemed a little bit taken aback at first by your sudden act of affection, having clearly not been expecting it, but after a few seconds, he returned the gesture, lightly holding onto you too. “No need to thank me, Y/N. Just trying to be helpful, you know?” Once again, a small smile formed on your expression at his words as you soon pulled away.

“Next time we stop off to get food, remind me that I owe you a cake or something,” you joked, before gesturing over to the door with a small head motion. “Now, you ready to run some more?” A soft somewhat tired exhale of breath escaped from Graham’s lips once more, with him clearly not being too thrilled at the idea of potentially having to run some more, before he gave a small nod.

“As ready as I’ll ever be.”

And with that, the two of you quickly made your way out of the room, having absolutely no idea where you were going.

But, after what had just happened and everything you’d been through on your travels with the Doctor, you liked to think that the team of Y/N L/N and Graham O’Brien could take on pretty much anything else this building might have in store.

AN: And I’m going to end it there! Thank you so much for reading! I hope you enjoyed! As mentioned above, my requests are still 100% open if you wanna send some stuff in! Hope you’re all having a good day, and I’ll see you all next time!

[angmarwitch]

The third installment to my Orm One-Shots Series. Also my post-Valentines gift to you all. 

Summary: 5+1 kisses with our beloved King Orm. 

Warnings: Angst, Fluff, Happy Ending

I.

You fidgeted, uncomfortable at being under the scrutiny of the King and Queen of Atlantis. You felt small inside the massive foreign court, your young mind filled with fear and apprehension but you tried to put on your bravest face. There is nothing to fear, your Father had said before he sent you here, you are their guest, they will never do anything to harm you. 

“Welcome to Atlantis, princess,” Queen Atlanna greeted, descending from her throne gracefully, her silver hair forming an elegant halo behind her head.

You stared at her unabashedly, fascinated by her effortless poise and beauty. She was a good Queen, kind, strong and sympathetic to her people. You know of her past, the tragic tale of her adventure in the surface, of the shame she has brought to the royal lineage of Atlantis. Yet, you found yourself nonchalant about the history of this Atlantean Queen. If anything, you just idolized her even more, admiring the courage she displayed when she spurned her husband but saddened that she may never see the other family she had in the surface. 

“I thank you, your majesty.” You bowed, remembering your courtesies.

While you arrived in Atlantis to be fostered, you also represent your kingdom and your sister, who was originally the one planned to be sent here, so needed to show that you were from a good upbringing given that you are of royal descent. You can’t disappoint your parents. 

“Now, your highness, let me introduce you to my son, Orm,” Smiling genially, the Queen ushered the preadolescent boy who had followed her down to meet you.

The Crowned Prince of Atlantis was a little male replica of his mother in appearance, silver hair and blue eyes, but he boasted the same air of confidence and austerity as his Father, who had frightened you a bit. So, this boy was to be your sister’s betrothed and your companion in the duration of your stay here. You were curious as to what kind of person he if he was more his Father or his Mother. 

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, your highness,” you chirped extending your hand to coax a handshake. You were taken aback when he choose to place a quick, courteous kiss on it instead. 

“The pleasure is all mine, my princess." 

  II.

You found him in one of the sunken ships that settled below the city. He sat by the corner, arms hugging his knees, his face hidden by his disheveled blonde locks. You drifted towards him in an instant, wrapping him in an embrace, his head settling on your chest. Your heart broke at the first sobs he made. You wished you could do something to stop the pain and anguish he felt but it was impossible. No child should have been put in the same position as he was. It was one thing to witness his Father and Mother fight every single day but to watch her sacrificed to the Trench was very traumatic and unthinkable that you found yourself loathing his Father even more. What sort of Father would do that? You wondered and thank the gods that King Nereus wasn’t as terrifying and cold as Orvax was.

You worried about his future, about the kind of life he’ll have without Atlanna by his side. His mother had been his shield and rock, his tether to kindness and compassion. With Orvax becoming his only parent, you feared the kind of man Orm will become. But no, you were still here and you won’t allow that. You will do everything in your power to prevent Orm from becoming a monster like his Father. 

"I’m here, Orm,” you cried, pressing kisses on his brow, “I’m here.”

  III. 

“What’s this?” You asked, eyeing the box suspiciously.

You had been busy packing your things when he arrived, preparing for your long journey back to Xebel after all the years you have spent here. Despite the excitement, you felt about going home, you sensed a deep sadness and longing forming deep in your heart. You were going to miss Orm, your best friend in the entire world. The weight of the realization that you are going to be parted with the person you have spent half your life with, hit you, square in the chest, when Orm arrived at your door, a box in hand matched with an indescribable expression written all over his face. In his blue eyes, however, were a plethora of emotions that mirrored the ones you felt inside. 

“Open it,” came his abrupt reply.

Hands shaking a little, you opened the parcel in a sluggish pace and your eyes widened in surprise as you saw what was inside. It was a necklace, a simple pearl necklace. One that you had seen adorned Queen Atlanna's neck so many times. The trinket had been her favorite piece amongst the vast collection of jewelry owned and passed down by generations of Atlantean royals. You stared at Orm in disbelief, clueless and shocked as to why he would present you such a priceless piece. 

 “It’s a gift, something you would remember me by,” he said answering your silent question.

You gasped, he can’t mean that, can he? This necklace was meant to be given to a woman he was supposed to be married. Your sister in this case. You can’t accept it, it’s too much. 

“Orm…I… I don’t think…,” you started, unable to find the right words to say. You don’t want to disappoint him by rejecting it, at the same time, you don’t seem to have the will to accept it either. You weren’t worthy. 

“It’s too much, I know,” he cut you off, as if sensing your hesitation, “but you are very precious to me and I want you to have it.” He continued, his orbs softening into that pretty shade of blue that you have always liked. 

You were important to him. 

You could have sworn that your heart burst with so much warmth and joy at his words. Unable to suppress your emotions and gratitude, you jumped into his arms and gave him a quick peck on the cheek, never noticing the deep blush that formed in his face nor the lop-sided grin that painted on his lips. 

 IV.

“Let me out of here!?!" you screamed, furiously pounding on the door inside the room both he and your Father confined you in. 

Ever since the messy altercation with his half-brother and Mera, Orm had locked you up in one of the guest chambers of the castle, imprisoned like those dirty criminals dwelling in the dungeons below. He even restricted your daily activities and limited your means of communication to the outside world. You know that he was aware that you weren’t a part of the conspiracy to put Arthur on the throne, you were just as clueless to Mera and Vulko’s plans as he and your Father were. There was truly no concrete motive to keep you here. 

Unless, he was keeping you as a hostage, leverage to force your Father to continue fighting with him now that his engagement to Mera was severed. 

You stopped. 

No.

You refused to jump into that conclusion, rejecting any notion that Orm would use you as a pawn to whatever grand scheme he was fabricating.

You were his confidant and friend.

He would never do that to you.

However, the dark, devious part of your mind tells you otherwise and warns you that this man was no longer the same person you have befriended all those years ago. This wasn’t your Orm, this was a stranger, a product of Orvax's machinations. You have grown apart since he was crowned King. He barely even looks at you now. 

You failed him. You weren’t able to sway him from following the path of his Father. You didn’t want to admit it but you were terrified of the person he has become now. 

Your knees gave out, enfeebled by this newfound knowledge. You would have collapsed further down had it not been for the strong arms that caught you out of nowhere. 

You observed your former friend through hazy eyes, tracing the shape of his face with your eyes, as he carried you across the room towards the bed. You can’t see his entire face from your perspective but there was a discernable tightness in his jaw, you desired nothing but to raise your hand and touch the outline of his face and remove all the tension set there. You don’t know why he was here. Was he already tired of hearing you scream? You wanted to ask. 

However, as exhausted as you were by all the efforts you have exerted in trying to break out from this prison, you simply leaned to his warmth, enjoying one of the remnants of the familiarity you once shared. You were already drained and stressed out to start an argument. All you needed was for him to reassure you that everything was otherwise, that there was a silver lining to his plans. Adjusting in his hold, you set your head near his chest, letting the calm beating of his heart lull you to sleep. Everything pales in comparison to the semblance of peace and comfort his present proximity gives you right now. You want to savor it, to bask in it. 

Succumbing to the bone-tiring exhaustion of your predicament and the melody of his heartbeat, your senses neglected to register the lingering kiss he left on your lips when he placed your unconscious form on the bed. 

  V.

The battle had been over by the time you have escaped your confinement. There was no need to ask who the victor was as Arthur’s name resonated throughout the city. Huge crowds, the same crowd that once cheered Orm, had gathered in the streets to celebrate their new King. 

Watching from one of the towers of the palace, you waited for the ships to arrive, your eyes scanning every person that disembarked to see any signs of Orm. The more and more they come without you catching the glint of his blonde hair caused your heart to shatter into tiny little pieces. Arthur would never do anything to harm his brother nor would he decide to kill him, right? You shook your head, you have no knowledge of what kind of person this new King was but he does not depict a picture of a kinslayer. Yes, he may have been a bit uncouth and ignorant of the royal ways but Arthur Curry doesn’t appear to be a cruel or unmerciful man.

A few more ships came but still no Orm, your hope diminishing little by little. The chanting below waned, the crowd now trying their best to enter the palace to get a better glimpse of their new King. The whole city rejoiced, yet you stood there, waiting for what feels like minutes or hours. Your lower lips trembled and your hands tightened on the railings of the balcony when the last ship came, the frontrunner of his fleet, Orm’s own battleship. The thunderous beating of your heart drowned out the noises below and your breathing grew heavier as each of the crew stepped out yet without Orm in sight. You were on the verge of giving up, already prepared to retire to the solitude of your room, defeated and heartbroken, when you finally saw him, restrained by two guards, his trained eyes on the ground as he was escorted to the castle. 

Without having second thoughts, you yelled out his name, all forms of decorum long forgotten, and jumped off of the balcony with a clear destination in mind. Orm. You stopped a few feet away from him, chest heaving from swimming with a lightninglike speed, fearing that they will take him apart from you without a giving you a chance for a proper goodbye. 

"Orm,” you murmured his name meekly, slowly drifting towards him, your body becoming heavier as you inched closer. The former King, stubborn as he was, refused to look at you, his face still focused downwards, you sensed the shame emanating from him. 

“Leave us,” he grunted gruffly to the two guards who hesitated, unsure whether or not to follow the order of their former king-turned-convict. You shot them with a pleading look. The two exchanged glances before reluctantly releasing him.

“You shouldn’t have seen me like this,” he muttered, head still cast downwards. 

“I don’t care,” you answered. Your hands quivered as you reached to grasp his face, compelling him to look at you. You choked back a sob as you saw the shadow of defeat and humiliation projected on red-rimmed eyes. There was naught left of the proud young King, the replica of Orvax, who ruled Atlantis for following his Father’s death. Instead, the man who stood before you was the same boy you have seen and comforted in the sunken ship below the city. 

This was your Orm. 

“I don’t care," you repeated again. He smiled forlornly. 

"Will you wait for me, then?” he asked, resting his forehead against yours. 

“Yes,” you nodded fervently, closing your eyes as the new tears began to fall. “Always." 

The kiss you shared was fuelled by all the emotions you have repressed in all those years you have spent with each other. It was short, sweet, heart-wrenching, but it was definitely not goodbye. 

It was the start of a new future.

A better one. 

 Bonus

He watched you as you sleep, silently observing the steady rise and fall of your chest. He had always thought that you were beautiful but he thinks that nothing can compare to the picture you painted now, dazzling in the afterglow of childbirth. He knows you will contradict him like you normally do when he compliments you, so he opts to keep the thought to himself. 

Two years had already gone since his fateful battle with Arthur, and Orm still can’t believe that he was here right now, experiencing pure happiness and enjoying the marital bliss without a throne and crown, a burden which belonged to his brother now. No matter what their past had been, Orm was thankful that his brother fought him, as if it weren’t for Arthur, Orm wouldn’t get the chance to savor this kind of life. He shuddered, imagining what his life would have been had Arthur failed to dethrone him. He would have destroyed everything in his grasp, submitted to a loveless marriage, and lost the person he cared the most about.

A soft whimper coming from the bundle in his arms caught his attention and Orm looked down to see his newborn son shifting, his blue eyes so alike his fluttering open and his mouth forming into a silent snarl, ready to release a piercing wail anytime. Not wanting to wake his tired wife, the former king hummed a familiar lullaby his Mother had sung to him when he was a child. This immediately quieted the distressed child. 

Smiling proudly and contentedly, he placed a gentle kiss on his sleeping son’s forehead, happy that he was finally home. 

[frisky-firestarter]

Feral

I’m not technically gonna count this as Wilsin week, seeing as it’s mostly from Willow’s perspective, but I wanted to put something else together this week! Still tagging @beating-my-hambat in case they want to see! There’s some mild dub-con themes that fade out into enthusiastic consent later on! Featuring monster!Wilson

Willow liked to pretend the monster that stalked her camp wasn’t there.

It was always there, following the disappearance of her...friend at his own campsite. She suspected it had something to do with him going missing, and every time those glowing white eyes peered out from the dark of night, all she could do was pray that it wouldn’t try venturing into the light of her campfire.

She was having to deal with headaches every other night with the frequency of its visits, but Willow promised herself, for Wilson’s sake, that she wouldn’t give into it or the aura of insanity that hung like a fog in camp.

How many times had she caught a glance! Those eyes were all Willow saw most of the time, but there was the rare time it got careless, and she could make out details...A sleek, dark as night body, rows of teeth like needles dripping with dark drool, and claws so sharp they could cut iron sheets like scissors and paper.

What it must’ve done to get rid of Wilson...it made her sick to think about it.

“It’s not here,” she muttered under her breath. A new moon, and it was always active on new moons. Total darkness, deep and inky and a drain on her mind. Even at the finest slivers, the moon always provided some kind of comfort. The lack of it just added another layer of isolation.

So her mind wasn’t doing so good that night. So she didn’t hear the eerie chime of an imaginary music box. So she was seeking an easy alternative to restoring some sanity. Hand sunk between her legs...and then she was plunged into darkness, the fire outside extinguished, and she screamed.

Willow scrambled out the tent, practically clawing it open to get to the firepit with tinder in her pockets and her lighter in her free hand. Light. She needed light. It was the only thing keeping her slowly fracturing mind together...She got the grass together and flicked on her lighter and got it burning—

Something snatched her by the wrist.

There was no time to add onto the flames. She could hear the lighter clank against the ground, and whatever had were forced her around...Those eyes. A cry caught in her throat. She was face-to-face with what took away the only person she had in her life and frozen while her brain helplessly screamed to kick and shout against it. Was this it? Would she see Wilson again.

It pulled her close, pressing her hand against its face. Its skin was almost velvety in texture, but the hot moisture of its breath offset any potential pleasantness. It slowly dawned on her that...that was the hand she’d been touching herself with moments ago. It occurred to her just as a cold, slick tongue slunk its way around her fingers.

“Ewww!” Willow finally regained some control, at least enough to wince and try to pull away, but its grip held steady. In the slight glow of her small fire’s embers, she realized it...had somewhat of a familiar figure. Not that she had time to think on it. The monster’s jaw hung wide open, taking deep breaths against her skin. She could feel the sharp points of those needle-teeth pressing dangerously where her wrist met her palm, and she stopped squirming so as not to accidentally shred the skin.

“You terrible thing, acting like I’m a mouse under your paw!” Her voice shook under the confident facade she always tried to maintain. She felt a set of pricks along her side, under her ribs and for a brief moment, she wonders if she’s somehow been impaled. No, no, it’s just grabbed her. Two extra arms had sprouted from its sides to hold her firm. “Come...come on! Get it over with already!”

Just be fast. Please.

Let her see him again soon and painlessly.

But suddenly she was on the ground, pressed into the wooden floor she had set into the camp. It was still breathing heavy, eyes locked into hers with a look she couldn’t quite discern. The creature pressed its pitch black face in her neck. Willow closed her eyes as though it would protect her from having her throat ripped out. “Get off, get of—mmf!” 

It had cupped her face with its upper set of hands and shoved its tongue in her mouth. For a moment, Willow considered biting down, but amid the sickly sweet taste of nightmare fuel, another uneasy feeling of familiarity complimented the palate. She didn’t realize she started to kiss him back until a hand shifted from her side to her thigh under her skirt, slowly sliding up until its thumb could rub over her folds.

Oh, that was something very sharp she didn’t want in a sensitive area. 

“Wait, wait!” Things started feeling hot, like moments before the fire went out and it arrived. It didn’t seem to object to her pulling away, but it whined. It was a pitiful, almost human sound that sounded awfully like someone she used to know, contrasting the trills and animal growling it otherwise chirped out. “What are you...Why are you—oh…” That felt good, two fingers sliding against her still-slicked slit. She wasn’t wearing any underwear before it arrived. Did this thing even have anything between its legs?

Did it need anything between its legs? Why was she worried about it?

Willow looked, and regretted it. There was a white, almost glowing gash in the valley of its own thighs that could easily be mistaken for some alien-looking wound, until it freed up with an almost nauseatingly wet sound, and oh, yup, there was something there now. It was pale and white, like its tongue, but stiff and girthy and ridged...and that was going to go inside her.

It killed Wilson.

Except...now she was beginning to doubt that.

“Oof! Hey, gentle!” Willow hissed out as it overturned her onto her belly. She wouldn’t admit how goddamned aroused it had driven her, but it’s not like her body was making it subtle. It hadn’t helped that she didn’t finish earlier.

“Gentle,” she repeated nervously. It wrapped one pair arms around her, pinning her arms to her side while the other propped them up from the floor. This was happening. Really happening. It shoved  itself inside without prompt and she yelped. “Give a girl a warning! That hurt,” Willow snapped. “I just...I just need to adjust, gimme a moment…”

A light rumble in its chest, a purr? It resonated through her body as it eased slowly back onside. Discomfort melted and Willow moaned. This was happening. This was happening. How long had it been since she had a good lay? At least, she hoped it would stay good…

Its member was slippery, and the texture was a lot softer than she had initially thought. It pulled out completely, then pushed back in, slow and easy and agonizing. It pumped her full and left her empty a few times over, until she felt like she might cry from the snail’s pace and her own frustration. It cooed, inhuman, until it’s jaw dropped and it clicked out, “Pretty Girl, pretty Willow,”

And that voice. Twisted and different, but also unbelievably unmistakable.

Not that she had much time to dwell on, with the abrupt sinking of its teeth into her shoulder. She could feel it lapping at the thin trickle of blood released, and the sound she made was absolutely delicious, between pain and intense pleasure. It was finally picking up its pace in her insides, totally latched to her. Willow couldn’t escape if she wanted to, and she really...really didn’t want to.

With one hand still supporting them, the other slid up her blouse to crawl against her belly. Not enough to pierce skin, but enough that it would leave a raised, welted trail in the morning. Embarrassing.

“Wilson!” She called. He was at the perfect angle to hit that spot that made her writhe in his grasp, but the tempo he maintained was getting erratic just as she was closing in on the peak. She couldn’t move well enough to meet him in the middle, so she couldn’t help him keep a satisfying rate, and she was stuck at the edge for a painful span of time. She wondered if she could overpower him, and ride him herself until they finished together...What a fantasy!

Just add fire.

“Al...most...Almost! Please, hurry…” Her voice had devolved into squeaks and cries and moans. Somebody had pulled a rope tight in her belly, and each pump of this monster’s member inside her frayed away at it a little more, culminating in that rope snapping, and Willow arching away from him with a shaky breath. In the middle of her spilling over, she could feel him coming inside. When he pulled out, she could feel him leaking out of her body.

When Willow finally came down, she pulled her skirt up a bit. Didn’t need a mystery monster stain mucking up her clothes.

“...Wilson?” It finally dawned on her the gravity of the circumstances, but she was so tired all of a sudden. “I...I have so many questions..”

He purred, loud and clear, picking her back up to take to her tent.

“No, don-don’t leave me! You...you understand me! We have to talk about this.” Her eyelids were heavy. “I thought you were dead, you can’t just go without explaining.” She quieted, couldn’t keep arguing…

Had to sleep.

Willow liked to pretend the monster that stalked her camp remembered who he used to be.

[justselfloathingthings-blog]

Bloom Into You Character Analysis- Touko Nanami.

Okay, Touko. This one should be a bit shorter than my previous one, but potentially messy since Touko and all her motivations can tend to blur together a bit. On the other hand I won’t be burdened with chronology which is nice. 

For anyone curious, I did one of these on Sayaka earier, if you haven’t read it and want to take a gander. Warning- it’s far longer. 

Pretty much a long combination of text and images to create my analysis, which is under the cut. 

So, let’s talk about Mio first. The fact that Touko deeply admired her sister can go without question, given literally everything she did after she died. But kind of want to back up a second and discuss this little bit from Episode 3, when Touko is explaining the nature of her facade to Yuu.

When we typically talk about people being “overshadowed”, the person doing the overshadowing is the actor and the person being overshadowed is the agentless actee. But it’s the inverse here, Mio probably didn’t particularly want her sister to basically measure her worth in comparison to her own, especially when none of it was truly deserved and she was just a teenage girl who wanted to be praised, but she let it happen because she was just a little kid, kids often really admired their older siblings when they were really young, right? 

But like literally everyone after her, she kind of didn’t get what the problem was. Let’s go back just a couple shots to how Touko thought of herself. 

Okay, so you’ve got a pretty average, shy girl who wasn’t the most popular. She’s 9, that’s hardly the end of the world. The problem is that this is in direct contrast with Mio, who is basically known as being awesome and great at everything. 

And while “testimony right after she died” isn’t exactly the most reliable of evidence, there’s reason to think that she was treated that way at home too.

Like, on some level, you’re going to begin to use your sister as a bit of a yardstick, and in Touko’s eyes she simply didn’t match up. And you can tell that this is something that genuinely plagues her, because she outright tells you (and Yuu).

You know, nothing. Average. Shy. Worthless. She needs to be somebody special, somebody that is her sister and Most Definitely Not Her. (We’ll get back to this later.) 

She doesn’t want to be herself, and she doesn’t really want to get close to people. There’s two people that you could argue that she strictly does. And that’s Sayaka and Yuu. Yuu I’ll get to in a moment, because why she does it with Sayaka is a lot more simple.

Sayaka, especially pre-Episode 8, is somebody that due to her own issues tends to kind of lock herself in an emotional holding action with Touko and never really look back. Which means that Touko can feel comfortable in feeling that Sayaka doesn’t know the “real her”, and is in essence in love with a fake dramatus personae rather than the person that Touko hates, her conceptualization of herself. Or at the very least doesn’t pressure Touko to be that true self. 

Of course Touko’s entire framework is kinda fucked, but we’ll get to that. Regardless, Sayaka is safe because she doesn’t challenge Touko’s boundaries or do anything that makes her feel uncomfortable; she lets Touko be who she is, and because that is an identity that Touko has decided is fake, that’s perfectly fine. 

It feels like there should be more groundwork I need to do, but this is all that comes to mind at the moment, so let’s jump in.

Now, honestly, it’s probably best to not do a whole chronology here, because I’ll mostly be hitting on things that I covered above. I want to mostly discuss exactly what motivations her relationship with Yuu, and then jump to the final act of the story, because that’s where Touko’s character arc really gets rolling. 

So, let’s talk about why Touko loves Yuu first. First I’m going to toss a line pretty innoucous in isolation at you, and then build on it. This is from Episode 7.

One thing Touko loves about Yuu is simply... how neutral she comes across. She’s somebody that Touko thinks is safe for a very different reason than Sayaka, whereas Sayaka has feelings but doesn’t cross pre-existent boundaries, Yuu simply can’t cross those pre-existent boundaries, because she doesn’t have any emotional connections to Touko and doesn’t care about her in any emotional sense. Like, let’s look at the moment which, judging by Touko’s wide-eyed reaction, might be the moment she started to really decide to connect with her and she specifically says that Yuu is “fine as she is”. 

Like, Touko immediately goes on to talk about feeling “forced to love someone” and if she’s talking from experience, logically the person she has to have in mind is herself, even if she deflects to talking about romance. Yuu is, in Touko’s eyes, a safe person to love because she won’t love or try to connect with the “real” Touko. She can’t; that’s an emotion that Yuu is, in her eyes, completely incapable of feeling, given how she can’t even seem to understand it as a concept. 

Like this is a constant refrain from her, that Yuu needs to “stay as she is” in Touko’s perception- indifferent, detached. Somebody who would never try to reach out, not because she’s scared, but because she simply has no interest to. 

Of course, why would I try to argue this from inference when she outright says it multiple times?

Touko is honestly pretty honest if you know what you’re looking for. 

It’s clear that she does love Yuu, but she feels that that love is dependent upon her indifference; that she loves Yuu strictly because she doesn’t care. That’s why you get this bit from Episode 6.

She thinks that she loves Yuu because of her apathy, and if she changed that, then there’d be nothing to love about her anymore, in Touko’s eyes. Of course Touko is terrible at this “people” thing, and at heart she herself basically knows this is nonsense. But it’s clearly Touko’s perspective, and one of the two main reasons that she feels like she can love Yuu. We’ll get to the other reason later. 

Okay, so let’s try and go over the entire climax of the narrative now. Honestly I want to try my best to skim over the inciting incident a bit; not because it isn’t important but because there’s still a lot to cover and I’ve already spent a lot of space. But there is something really important to note here: what Touko is told is something she already knows. She knows that Mio wasn’t the amazing wunderkind Touko is, and Touko kind of admits this herself through action and word. 

First there’s the fact that Touko went to such great lengths to hide all the records, the ones that Sayaka got to first and figured out that Mio wasn’t really as good as everyone said she was from. Now the logical inference is that she was hiding them from Yuu specifically, but that isn’t really what she says. The way she puts it, she kind of went to all these lengths to keep it a secret from everyone. 

Of course, from what we’ve seen in 6 and prior, that seems really odd. Why bother? What’s even the point? At most they’d see that her sister was there and died. Well, Touko is just as smart as Sayaka is in many ways, and if she could figure out what Mio was doing from the available documents, it’s logical to assume that Touko could too. But we don’t need to infer that, Touko basically tells us. 

I mean I’m relying on the subs being pretty precise here, but it fits well enough that I’ll roll with it. Like, I don’t think she meant to word it this way consciously, and she meant to say how it comes across when you watch Episode 6 for the first time, which is “I adopted the persona of my sister”. That’s what fits with everything else she says.

But I think at heart, Touko is saying exactly what she means. “I adopted the persona my sister adopted.” She knows that she isn’t really being Mio, but somebody completely different. But that’s something she refuses to admit to herself, because... well... then she kind of has to actually admit that she isn’t Mio at all, but somebody completely different. And that kinda terrifies her because then she’d have to admit that she’s actually kind of being herself and she hates herself too much to want to be that person. Like I think that really what hit wasn’t anything he said about Mio. It was what Mio’s classmate said about her.   

Because if she isn’t similar to Mio... she can’t be her. She has to be being herself, and she can’t be herself because then she’d be somebody that she hates. 

And so we get to the conflict essentially depicted in the play, but before that I want to touch on a line that is kind of interesting. It’s in the episode after Touko has the flashback nightmare regarding Mio’s death. Sayaka says

Now she talks about this being because she is constantly reliving Mio’s death, but this is still an interesting way to phrase that. But it’s the perfect way, because it’s completely correct. Touko isn’t dreaming of the past because she’s still living in that time, when she was a little girl who couldn’t do anything right and was boring and average and shy, She IS dreaming about herself, because she doesn’t see herself as the character on-screen, but the nine year old (est.) in the flashback who is horrible and pathetic and weak and bad. 

Which is a good way to segue into the play. 

So, like, the play kind of comes across as a depiction of what’s going on in the narrative, and it is, but solely from Touko’s point of view. You can see this both in the way that Koyomi is clearly framing the story around Touko, it’s the only person whose mentality she cares about while writing, and also in the way Touko immediately can tell the story is about her, and also is able to cast every single other character on the spot. Like, this is clearly something that deeply resonates from her perspective, and how finding a “new self” is how she can get her happy ending, distant from her current, horrible state of being.  

In fact, she seems rather desperate to refuse to accept that who she is now is actually “her”. Like, look at the lines that cause her to start to really gets into it in 12.

The whole reason for all of this, the whole reason she needs to change and adopt some fake persona, the whole reason she has a breakdown in the first place, is that she refuses to accept that she is who she is. If she is who she is, then she isn’t some pathetic shy, average girl. She’s exactly the kind of person Mio pretended to be, only better. And that would require her to not be, in her eyes, a terrible person. 

But the entire point of, arguably, the climax of the show, is Yuu thinking that that’s fine. We could look at her argument for changing the script, but I’m not sure we need to do that except for one portion at the end. Let’s look at what happened before that, in Yuu’s conversation with Touko. 

This is kind of an interesting reframing of what Touko was saying, but completely accurate. The issue is that Touko doesn’t want to “be” someone, she wants to “become” someone, and there’s a pretty important distinction there. If you “becoming” someone, then you don’t have to think of you as... yourself. She saw herself as not following in Mio’s footsteps but turning into Mio, and no longer being “her”. And now that that’s not feasible, she needs to quickly find somebody else to turn into, because she can’t escape that 9 year old mindset that her sister was super awesome and she was horrible because she isn’t as cool as her sister. 

She is, essentially, that nine year old that desperately convinced herself that she could stop being Touko Nanami, the girl who lacked any value, by pretending to be Mio. Of course, now that isn’t feasible, but because it would be hard to argue that the current self is of no worth, it’s one that needs to be abandoned and she needs to become someone else that she can convince isn’t herself. 

Of course, as Yuu kind of points out, there’s a bit of a core problem with that.

Now you can, of course, just take this literally to mean the period of time within the show itself. And that is completely accurate, but you should probably take it farther. Because this play is from Touko’s perspective, and the logical conclusion to take is that the “amnesiac” is Touko as she perceives herself, the 9 year old girl. I’d say this is emphasized when Yuu notes that the “audience” only knows the girl on stage, which slots in perfectly with Touko noting that almost absolutely nobody but her even remembers what she was like as a child. Audience should probably be broadly extended to be... well, pretty much everyone.

So let’s extend this too. If we accept Touko’s rationale for making a choice, then it’s her life before Mio died that matters, not absolutely anything that came after it. But that means that to her literally everything after Mio died is of no value to Touko, because Touko didn’t learn, grow, or change at all during it. It was all things that happened to someone else, not her. And honestly her experiences with everybody, including her parents and including all her classmates and teachers and including Sayaka and including Yuu, are, to her, completely worthless. And that isn’t something Yuu thinks is true, and isn’t something she would accept. 

And now we can wrap this up with some thoughts on Episode 13. We’re going to start pretty late, roughly through the episode, after the two get soaked. 

It’s worth noting that prior to accepting Yuu’s invitation, Touko was feeling incredibly directionless and seemed to have absolutely no idea of what she wanted to do after the stage show was over. But suddenly she has all sorts of future plans, and they all involve being able to spend more time with Yuu. 

And I think that’s in part because of the second reason she loves Yuu that I can finally hit on.

In part Yuu acts as an anchor for her. Yuu is somebody that she can grasp onto and feel is still “her”, that there is a “her” that exists beyond her memories, that there is some part of her that is truly real and everything isn’t some fabrication. It gives her a sense of stability and allows her to maintain some current sense of self, even as she simultaneously, in one of the most magnificent acts of cognitive dissonance, declares that that current sense of self is meaningless and fake. 

This portion where Yuu improvs the beginning of the play also seems rather important.

I don’t necessarily want to put too much thought into the meaning behind most of the roles and their assignments; it clearly means something to Touko, but it’s dilluted under the form of metaphor to begin with, the overall structure of the play doesn’t fit really well with them being entirely representative, and just in general it feels like a fruitless approach, and I’ll touch on that more. However, I think Yuu’s role is actually a bit of an exception.

Yuu’s role is unique in that she’s somebody that comes in from the outside of Touko’s life. Unlike her loved ones, Yuu knows nothing about Touko before the “amnesia” (or before Mio’s death). The thing is that, again extrapolating to the context of the play... that’s essentially everyone. Like, Touko said herself that nobody remembers what she was like before she died, which is where the parallelism exists on that front. 

The reason Yuu has few lines isn’t because Touko doesn’t care about the feelings of Yuu in specific, she makes it pretty clear that she doesn’t care about anyone’s. The reason Yuu has few lines is because Touko is trying to isolate the present and eventually cut it out of her life entirely, and instead focus on the New Person that she wants to be in the future. 

I don’t think that the increase in the amount of lines Yuu has is necessarily due it being Yuu, because the point isn’t that it’s Yuu. The point is that this is a new person that came into Touko’s life, and if the choice is going to be based upon her present self, upon the person that has grown and changed over the last ~10 years, then the important person isn’t the people who tell her what she “was” like or even “should” be like, but the person that knows her for who she is. 

Like, the direct examples are things that Yuu specifically knows about her- but it’s worth noting that the flower example at least is something Sayaka likely knows too. The point here isn’t that this is knowledge that Yuu uniquely has, but its knowledge that Yuu has because she, and they, know the Touko of now, and not the Touko that Touko feels like she must secretly, actually be. 

This isn’t something Touko really... wants to accept of course, which naturally is a bit dispiriting to Yuu. 

And then after saying that-

Yuu starts to walk away, and we get this.

It’s worth noting that Touko hates disappointing people, really. She does it (see her shutting Yuu down in Episode 6), but it’s because of strongly held beliefs she has, and she makes sure to explicitly frame it as something I’m sure she genuinely wants to do- hold the Stage Show in Mio’s memory. So when Yuu, of all people, is incredibly disappointed in her response, we get this shot, which is an analogue to one of Yuu’s internal monologues from episode 1. Let’s go over exactly what she said there again.

Like in some senses this imagery is related to her love life (especially in the context of what Akari and Koyomi are talking about), but at its core its an imagery of isolation brought about by self-loathing. Yuu is scared about what her friends would say if she talks about this because she hates herself as the “girl unable to love” (we’ll hit way more on that next time.) So there’s a division between them that she is unable to breach.

Touko’s case is a bit different. We have the same basic principle here- Touko hates herself and it causes a massive communication gap, but the dynamic here is a bit different. Akari and Koyomi are already actively away from her, going on about their own things while Yuu is isolated and alone. This isn’t something that Yuu really feels like she can do anything about, it is just the way things are.

Meanwhile, let’s look at how this works in Touko’s scene.

A couple important differences here. The first is that unlike Koyomi and Akari, Yuu doesn’t already occupy that far, distant away-spot. She’s approaching it. And instead of just sitting there and letting it happen, Touko is actively, literally, reaching out in a desperate hope to not let her get there because she needs Yuu, and in a way, she does need this present “self” that Yuu in pretty much every sense is continually linked to. 

Now let’s remember how the scenes in each bit are resolved.

I think there’s three points to make here-

1. Yuu is the one to snap herself out of the self-loathing here. Touko has no agency whatsoever- she’s not even in the scene.

2. The conclusion Yuu draws is fundamentally wrong; Touko doesn’t want to go out with anyone because she is “incapable of love” like Yuu thinks she is, but because of all the pathologies that have emerged from her own self-loathing, and not feeling like that there’s anyone “safe” to go out with, even if she isn’t entirely honestly about that. 

3. As implied by one, her snapping out of her little daze wasn’t prompted by any action by Touko, but a memory of her.

Let’s see how Touko’s scene ends.

So a few relative points

1. Unlike with Yuu’s scene, Yuu never reaches that isolated section that Akari and Koyomi occupied. She just... stops. 

2. Yuu, here, is directly the person that calms Nanami down- she’s an active presence in the scene and really drives it; Touko doesn’t have to rely on what she thinks Yuu is like in order to calm her down, it’s the way Yuu actually is. 

3. At heart Touko’s scene, though a visual parallel, is a bit different. She’s not worried about nobody being unable to understand her, she’s worried about nobody being able to connect with or understand her anymore, now that Yuu is clearly giving up on her and leaving her life. But Yuu cares about as Touko and as somebody that helped Yuu so much with her own problems and issues of self-loathing, Yuu is perfectly happy to give Touko time to get through her same.

So I guess a lot of the final scene I want to touch on when I get to my Yuu mega-essay, but there probably is something that should be worth noting in the last line.

Overall there was a potential referential point earlier on but I don’t think it’s clear enough to be exact. The thing I take away from this scene, though, is that their relationship at this point clearly does need to change, because both of them have changed, even if Touko especially didn’t want it to. And through the imagery you can tell that it’s late and the last stop; they functionally need to change, or they’re never going to get anywhere. 

Okay, whew, that was Touko. Yuu’s post is going to be one I’ve been wanting to write but is also going to be a monstrosity, so who knows when I’m going to get it done. Same bat time, same bat channel, I suppose. 

Cheers. 

[monkey-network]

redPill Your Mind [Part 1]

This is gonna be one of the drunken things I’ll ever write, but there needed to be balance so I hope you enjoy.

So, you know what I expected when I saw the title Change Your Mind? A sequel to Sorry to Bother You, in which Rebecca Sugar and Noelle Stevenson’s [self inserts] head to a Penthouse house party hosted by Buzzfeed type millennial hetero CEOs and they eventually have to slaughter their way out of there before they’re injected with a serum that turns people into jungle cat human hybrids......... instead we got a special that one could say had too many cooks in the kitchen, only for all to season the roast with the same salt, water, & pepper. But hey, whence you read all of this, know that it was all very entertaining to me. Okay, so...

We return to Rapunzel’s tower where Steven is still locked away in his sequin suit where Blue comes in and has an argument with him who is actually Pink and it’s all a dream that apparently took place in the past but the question here is when? Like it supposedly takes place before Pink got Earth but after she started acting like less of a brat? So it’s like... she was a pretty entitled brat at one point but here she’s restrained and regretful of herself here now. What?

I’m honestly at a lost at how I should feel about Pink Diamond cuz on the one hand she basically lied, used, and manipulated others into false realities and subconsciously relied on a 14 year old to be their guiding key to relieving the weight they had on themselves because she wasn’t mature enough to face this herself. On the other hand, she is seen as somebody that’s in a strict, estranged relationship with her parental figures and comes across as the one gets the rod and yet is pretty spoiled. On one hand, she sent Steven some positives vibes before her death, so that’s great. But on the other hand with this dream scene, we, or at least I, don’t really see her getting abused by the diamonds as much as having to be disciplined and told to for goofing around? Like Blue Diamond agreed to letting Pink keep the rainbow worms, Pink took advantage of that and did something unruly, and she’s put in time-out because of it. Like yeah, that tower is pretty depressing even if you can escape from it with your shapeshift and floaty powers, but it’s not like she’s in there because the others think she’s always a waste of space but because she acted headstrong and is sent there to have some time to reflect on her repercussions. Blue doesn’t figuratively looks down on Pink, think of her as any less in that scene in particular, she just appears disappointed that Pink isn’t acting like an expectedly responsible leader. Like yeah, Pink’s treated like a child but the show made me believe that she was only a child back then.

Not to mention, her “parents” are dictators, explicit dictators that are trying to maintain a galaxy wide empire full of destroyed planets and massive use of structural militarization. They have to chastise Pink for not living up to their expectations because their expectations amounts to being sith lords that seek to kill, look grandiose, and control at will. They weren’t trying to get Pink into an Ivy League and get a million dollar business afloat, they were trying to build her into the next conqueror and I’m at a lost as whether I’m supposed to empathize with that. The show made little effort in helping me think of her as anything more than a based ass bitch among a group of the same stitch that sorta kept the cycle of control going when she finally stepped up to be a leader and yet the show wants me to think that her intentions overall meant something sincere but fuck, man. Intentions work when the outcome is most probable and soluble on all accounts, it doesn’t help with three mentally stunted alien women that apparently haven’t integrated too well into society despite the fact that there are entire libraries to learn from and grasp the ups and downs that humanity have gone through since one of the purposes of staying on Earth is to protect the life on Earth as well as coexist with the inhabitants otherwise a World War 0 would’ve been imminent from the get go. Honestly, WW0 would’ve probably been cool too. I guess that’s why Russia is nonexistent cuz the fight between Russians and Gems would’ve been too epic to be detailed.

Also, we see the Diamonds do the truth bomb again and it’s like were they trying to kill or corrupt the gems cuz it seems that they weren’t aware of how their powers work and it’s like what the fuck. You just throw up your hand and expect the worst? They didn’t test this power far beforehand before decidedly saying “You know what? Let’s try these hand beams. I’m sure they’ll be super effective in wiping them out.” On top of that, the Diamonds didn’t bother to see what happened afterward? They just nuked the planet and left not caring if there were any survivors to squash out? Like yeah, if I set off a nuke then I’m certain many would die but if I wanted to make sure everyone dead, I’d cover my tracks and send some drones down to comb the area to make sure of no survivors and if the corrupted gem count were overwhelming then yeah I’d step in and take care of it again. Just saying, I would be a far more tactile villain but apparently there are no villains in this show so I guess not doing this is consistency? Wonderful.

We cut to the present where a Deja Blue, that isn’t ass tasting water, happens and Blue is like “Dang it, I try to be the better, more lenient dictator mom and you just soiling the good order and my patience. I’m putting my foot down this time.” And they mention dehydration and starvation but it’s like how would Blue know what those are? This small moment comes off as Blue being quite a brick wall but that’s the fact she doesn’t know what human customs are because.... she was never informed or obligated to care of such things. 

In any case, Steven tells Blue that this dynamic of theirs ain’t gucci, and Blue breaks down coming to terms with her estranged behavior with Pink. And I gotta look a little further into this. So the scene amounts to Blue realizing that Earth suited Pink or Steven better than the likes of Homeworld and yet it didn’t feel earned in the sense that Blue truly saw what Steven saw in Earth.  

Remember the episode When It Rains where Peridot felt more comfortable with Earth after experiencing raindrops for the first time? That could’ve been for the Diamonds, somewhat. Legs from Here to Homeworld rushed and brushed off what could’ve been a chance for Blue and Yellow to at least grasp the perspective Pink had all those years ago before they came to a full realization in this episode. They didn’t have to be as blown away as Peridot was, but they should’ve had some time before to somewhat get a sense of conflict in their own ideals and how Pink was probably in the right of her actions before falling in line to Steven’s gospel.

Like we can point the finger at Blue for being an emotionally controlling parent but like I said, she is a dictator, one whom, based on what we got, didn’t figuratively looked down on Pink as much as wanted better from her, and punished her accordingly when she went against the order that the Diamonds built for themselves. She was negligible to Pink’s real desires, but then again she had to run an empire and had to make sure Pink would follow suit so it’s like what Pink wanted was irrelevant to what was expected of her. The chamber’s a bit much, and I ain’t excusing it, but it’s like they could’ve done far worse to make Pink see things their way. And we never really see Blue enforce any control over Pink, be emotionally dysfunctional towards her, or diminish her sense of self as much as give her a stern talking about what she must uphold as a Diamond, what she born to be, as any sense to diverge from that should be absolved, while being consistent in her soft-spoken yet straightforward tone. I’ve seen a few say that she alludes to abusive parenting but the show never indicates that her disappointment and frustration enabled a subtly abusive side of her. Only one moment presents such a case where she uses her power blue balls on Steven and he takes this as a regular occurrence, but this only happens when Steven pushes her to do so out of frustration not long after trying to reason with him. For the sake of Pink Diamond, Blue really just agrees with Steven instead of understanding this for herself. Yeah, this is meant to feel like a one sided argument, but it didn’t feel like Steven had to think that much to get her on his side. While it makes sense that she would be the first who comes to terms with her past transgressions, those transgressions aren’t exhibited well to say that she was truly in the wrong for everything she did to Pink, based on what we’ve seen and heard of her. I ain’t trying to defend the Diamonds, but Blue’s revelation feels more by design of the plot and less out of earnest rationale that’s emotional resonating.

And trying to say the Crystal Gems are better parents than Blue and Yellow is a big ass understatement because their expectations weren’t as necessarily impactful as being a responsible ruler of a fucking galactic empire. Those are two different planes of settlement and standards, and Steven trying to say what is normal or not rings hallow when he didn’t make any case back on Earth for what is considerably normal there. Not to mention, Pink and Steven, despite how it may seem, are two different characters. The show tries to provide that Steven is his own person yet has to work out the complicated relationship of somebody he’s never seen and still knows minute about with her emotionally stunted parents, or his other family, by making believe that they’re almost one in the same based on pattern recognition? Say what? I mean we’ll get to this later... but let’s say Pink is quite the catalyst in this special and the uphill battle is only the slight incline from here.

So after Blue joins the party temporarily, she hides Steven and Connie in her boobs, they head to Pink’s quarters, the two eat, get clothed, and head out to get the gems back. And this is where I stop for now cuz I’m tired.

Continued in Part 2 (eventually...)

[6stronghands]

Goodreads interview with Seanan McGuire

Author Seanan McGuire is the busiest person you know, even if you don't know her yet. She's that busy. McGuire has 33 novel-length works currently listed on her bibliography page, and that's not counting her pseudonymous acquaintance, Mira Grant. Scroll down and you'll find short fiction, essays, comics, nonfiction, and poetry. The crazy part? She didn't turn to full-time writing until about three years ago. Along the way, McGuire has won several marquee book prizes, including Hugo and Nebula awards for speculative fiction. Her series of fantasy novellas Wayward Children was recently picked up by the TV network Syfy for development. McGuire's brain is clearly a restless explorer, and her ambitious new novel, Middlegame, maps out another enormous chunk of notional real estate. In the new book, a pair of separated twins named Roger and Dodger endeavor to solve a series of increasingly sinister mysteries. Why were they separated? Why are they being hunted? Why are they developing world-breaking powers? And perhaps most importantly—why did they get such ridiculous names? The brother-and-sister team find themselves squaring off against a cabal of eldritch predators who have cracked the ancient code of alchemy, the missing link between science and magic. Speaking from her home outside Seattle, McGuire talked with Goodreads contributor Glenn McDonald about the new book, the weird science of alchemy, and the curious case of the prescription typewriter… Your bibliography is really astonishing. Are you just writing all the time? Seanan McGuire: Well, I'm not writing at the moment because I'm talking to you. But yeah, I was writing right up to the point where my phone rang. That's pretty much my life, because I am a workaholic and I enjoy what I do. GR: When did you make the leap into full-time writing? SM: I made the transition around January 2016, I think. The best advice I ever received from anyone, about professional writing, was from Todd McCaffrey. He said: Don't quit your day job until you're reasonably sure you can pay your bills off of your royalties. My last job was for a nonprofit, and I was basically sick all the time because I was writing all these books and I was still working a full-time day job. My friends never saw me. Like, never. Then the ACA happened, the Affordable Care Act. I don't think people realize what a difference that made, for all of us that work in the creative fields, to be able to get affordable insurance. I kept my day job for a few years after I strictly had to, just because I was terrified of dying under a bridge. The attacks on the ACA that are happening now are terrifying. Genuinely terrifying. Especially if they take away the protection for preexisting conditions. GR: Were you into writing as a little kid? 

I was. I did not figure out that writing was an option until I was about three. I started reading before I was talking, really. Then I started getting migraines because I was trying to write, but I didn't have the physical coordination to actually write at the speed that I could think. So the doctor prescribed a typewriter. Really. My mom went to a yard sale and got me this gigantic thing. It weighed more than I did. I started writing stories. At the beginning, they were all very factual. I would write stories about going to look for my cat. A lot of my earliest work was what we would classify as fan fiction now. There were a lot of adventures with My Little Ponies. The thing about being a genius when you're a kid is that you grow out of it. I was perfectly average by the time I hit school. But there was that brief, frustrating time when I was so far ahead of where they wanted me to be that they just didn't know what to do with me. I would write until 3 a.m. on my typewriter, which sounded like gunfire. GR: There seems to be some of that experience in the new book, with the child prodigies Roger and Dodger. Their relationship is fascinating; it's a sibling thing but also this deeper connection that suggests they're resonating on the cosmic level. SM: I love that this is my best-reviewed book so far and it's about characters with intentionally terrible names. It's a delight to have people have to try to talk seriously about the relationship between Roger and Dodger. It's terrible, and it makes me so happy. Roger and Dodger really are soul mates because they are functionally the same person. They're one person split into two to embody the Ethos [the alchemy formulation sought after in the story]. I don't think that's a huge spoiler; that's basically the premise of the book. We know that, but they don't for a good part of the story. Locking down their relationship, a lot of that was looking at my own relationships with my siblings and the places where it's good or weird or awkward. GR: For readers who might not be familiar, what do we mean when we talk about alchemy? SM: Alchemy is sort of like magical chemistry. It's this idea that you can transform parts of the world into other parts of the world. You just have to figure out the right combination of elements. The classical example is lead into gold. But alchemists also believed that there were spirits and such that could be called upon to help with these processes. It has some of what we might call sorcerous ideas. They were trying to find the magical formulae for these things, like the panacea, which is the cure for everything. Or the alkahest, which is the universal destroyer, a fluid that could dissolve literally anything. Then there's the Philosopher's Stone, which was said to give eternal life. Harry Potter fans are probably familiar with alchemy, more than previous generations, because of the character Flamel, who was an actual and quite famous real-world alchemist. GR: Did you research the actual history of alchemy?

Yes, this was the first time I really jumped into it. I did a lot of research, and research makes me so happy. I hunted down every book I could find on alchemy; they're all downstairs in the library now. Alchemy was a real thing, even if it never worked, even if they never turned lead into gold with these processes. Really smart people spent a really long time trying hard to make these things happen. I wanted to make sure what I was trying to do would fit into at least one school of alchemical thought—and there were many, many schools of thought. Alchemy sounds a little ridiculous now, but there was a time when it was a commonly accepted belief. GR: In the book you have a great villainous force in the Alchemical Congress, who are modern practitioners of the ancient art. They reminded me of historical groups that purported to be keepers of secret knowledge, like the Masons. SM: Right, or like the Order of the Golden Dawn. I never found a specific historical analog to that in alchemy, but maybe that's because they never got it to work. My Alchemical Congress is a group of people who can actually say that alchemy works. They're able to do all kinds of ethically negotiable things. With that kind of power, you're absolutely going to have a group that locks it down so it stays in what these people consider the right hands. GR: The cover image of the book depicts a delightfully creepy magical item known as the Hand of Glory, which also has a historical basis. Do you recall when you first came across that? SM: I feel like I've always known. I don't remember where I first read about that. I studied folklore in college, and the Hand of Glory was very common in certain parts of Europe. It's amazing. Everyone was chopping hands off for a while there. GR: When did you actually start writing Middlegame? SM: Middlegame is kind of unique. I'd been thinking about it for ten years, but it took me a while to develop the technical skill to tell the story and have it make sense to people who don't live inside my head. My brother must have heard me explain this story 90 times before I even sat down to write it. At this point in my career, I have the enviable problem that, for the most part, I don't get to just sit down and decide that I'm going to write. Everything has been pre-sold. I'm working off contracts until 2023. So I know exactly what I'm going to be writing every day when I get out of bed. GR: Don't you ever just get burned out? SM: Well, I think I'm dealing with ten years of systemic burnout because I'm exhausted all the time. But if you mean: Do I ever get to the point that I can't write? Thankfully, no. I think everybody's wired differently that way. So much of my storage space is devoted to people who don't exist. There's a certain concern that if I leave them alone, those parts of my brain will go offline. GR: There are fictional lives at stake! SM: There are! You don't depend on me for your persistence of existence. If I forget about you, you'll still be fine. GR: Your series Wayward Children was just picked up for development with the Syfy channel. Is there anything you can disclose about that? SM: No, not really. For the most part, for myself and other creators, we can't disclose anything because they don't want to let us know what's happening. We have family members that are going to ask, and they don't want us to be the leaks and endanger the production, so we're frequently not told things. I've basically just sold them my canvas, because I'm a wee baby author from the perspective of Hollywood. I have no properties under my belt, I have no track record. There's not a lot of bargaining power on my side of the table. But I trust the people that are involved in this project. And even if I didn't, honestly, television changes everything. The worst show that absolutely butchers my concepts—which is not a thing I'm expecting with this team at all—but the worst show in the world is going to be seen by more people than have read the first book. So that bumps my book sales, almost guaranteed. That sounds very mercenary, I'm sure, but that's just the math of it. Jim Butcher, Charlaine Harris, even Neil Gaiman—they weren't household names until they got something on TV. My mother raised three daughters on welfare, and she lives with me. I'm basically her sole support. I worry fairly regularly about what would happen if I get hit by a bus and can't write anymore. But what happens with a successful TV show—or even a failed TV show—is that my mom lives off my royalties for the rest of her life. GR: This is a question we've been polling authors on: When you read for pleasure, do you read one book at a time or do you have several going at once? Some people say it's insane to read multiple books at the same time, but I usually have two or three going. SM: Well, I'm currently reading six. GR: Is there anything else you'd like to highlight or discuss about the new book? SM: Middlegame is currently a standalone, but there are two follow-ups I'd really like to write, so please buy Middlegame from your local bookstore so that my publisher will let me continue!

[nyxocity]

I want commentary on so much of your writing. Loved your response to the beautiful disaster scene. How did you choose the songs for that fic?

Thank you for asking. You’re always welcome to ask more! :D

This story was originally inspired by my playing a shit ton of the original Rock Band on XBox, just fyi. Music is a huge part of my life, and one of the joys of writing Beautiful Disaster was getting to use so many songs to fit the emotional moods. Sometimes I’d think about the scene and look through my music until I found something that resonated, and other times it smacked me in the face and was like, here, you’re using this. For example, I was listening to a 90′s alt station pretty heavily while writing this story, not for any particular reason other than that I was enjoying it, and after a while, as I was writing, the lyrics of certain songs began to sink in as perfect for certain scenes.

Okay so let’s talk about the songs individually:

Cold Contagious; Cold Contagious, lyrics as written and performed by BushI needed a song to set the stage/mood of the relationship between Justin and Jensen and this stood out to me as a good emotional opener. This one didn’t come to me automatically though and took a little time.

Don’t Believe You; The Ubiquitous Mr. Lovegrove, lyrics as written and performed by Dead Can DanceI’ve been a fan of this song since way back in my goth club days. I just love the lyrics, the middle eastern feel of the music. There’s a sense of a long relationship in this song, one that has come to a bitter place. Again, setting the mood for the Justin/Jensen relationship.God of Wine; God of Wine, lyrics as written and performed by Third Eye BlindThird Eye Blind’s debut album is one of my favorite albums of all time, and this song and Motorcycle Drive By are never far from my mind as two of the best, heartbreaking songs I’ve ever heard. I love the lyrics in this song so much: “Sometimes you let me inand I take it on the chin” and “Looking through, I see youSearching for somethingI could never give youAnd there’s someone whounderstands you more than I do”

This song is incredibly EPIC and the level of sadness in it is just… it makes me hurt every time. It’s about the tragic end of a relationship, and not for any other reason other than they’re not right for each other. He wants so badly to be “the one” for the person he’s singing about but he knows he isn’t.

Justin’s song - End, as written and performed by The CureI expand on how I feel about The Cure, and the album this particular song is from, below. This is the final song on the album and it’s just so full of self loathing and despair. “Please stop loving me, I am none of these things”, is Justin’s plea to Jensen. He feels a lot of guilt that Jensen loves him as much as he does, and he definitely doesn’t feel worthy of that love. 

Unpublished lyrics: Forever Earthbound, as written and performed by The RenaissanceThis song, I went looking for lyrics that would work for what Jensen was feeling in that moment. I don’t remember what parameters I used but it took some time. When I stumbled across these lyrics they just locked into place and fit.Vegas concert lyrics: Motorcycle Drive-by, as written and performed by Third Eye BlindAs I noted above, this song is never far from me. Heartbreakingly beautiful and just so full of raw emotion. So much of the music in this story is about the twisted, tangled up, fucked up thing between Justin  and Jensen, because Jensen is writing most of it.

80’s song Jensen passes out to: No One is to Blame, as written and performed by Howard JonesWhen I was writing this part, I was thinking of the movie Waitress, and this is the song that plays as the married main character and Nathan Fillion’s character begin to fall for each other, and that was when, FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER, the lyrics in the song clicked for me. I’d been listening to it since the 80′s and I never got that it was about the guilt and pain of falling in love with someone you couldn’t be with because they were with someone else. And it’s just SO beautiful once you understand it, lines like, “You can feel the punishment but you can’t commit the sin”. So the song was in my mind when I wrote this scene and I felt it fit so well, because that’s exactly what was happening to Jensen.

I’m the One - I’m the One as written and performed by the DescendantsThis was one of those instances where listening to the 90′s alt music stepped in and made the decision for me. I was listening to it and it just clicked in my head and I went that’s it, that’s the song where Jensen is making his frustration with his infatuation with Justin known. And the fact that it’s gender neutral with regard to the person the singer is singing about it just made it all the more perfect.Sick Cycle Carousel - Sick Cycle Carousel as written and performed by LifehouseMy love of Lifehouse is legendary (I may be listening to them right now in fact :D). They have such a way of bringing beauty and soulfulness to their music, in short, they make me FEEL everything they’re trying to convey. Every bit of confusion and sadness and beauty. Sick Cycle Carousel is about not being able to let go of this thing you know is terrible for you, and again, it’s indicative of the relationship between Justin and Jensen. There’s so much passion in it, and it stood out to me as something someone as passionate as Jensen would have written.

Song Jared and Jensen play together - In the Blood as written and performed by Better Than EzraSpeaking of passionate! THIS SONG. OH MAN. Again, it’s 90′s alt, and I hadn’t written it yet, but I was thinking about the scene where Jared and Jensen first perform together, and the lines, “It’s the way you move your hands” and “The passion that you play” hit me SO HARD. It was so perfect. I doubt the writer of the song was talking about someone who played guitar, but the entirety of the song was just completely Jared’s perspective on Jensen at that time. I even had Justin quote back the specific lines that caught my attention initially before I went and dug into the entirety of the lyrics and realized it fit perfectly.Jared’s Song - Lucky Man - Lucky Man as written and performed by The VerveAgain with the 90′s alt. This song was one that struck me as so lonely and sad. It’s basically to me about a guy who’s in love with someone else he knows will never love him back. He’s a lucky man because he feels that love, but it’s also a sad feeling because he’s in it alone. Jared wrote this song about Milo back in the day, and it sums up their relationship to a tee, and how Jared felt about it.From The Edge of the Deep Green Sea - From The Edge of the Deep Green Sea, as written and performed by The CureThe Cure is my favorite band (BTW I love your username for this reason–The Loudest Sound, right?), and oftentimes I have to stop myself from overusing their stuff in my stories. The album this song is from is called Wish, and Wish is one of those albums that coded itself into my DNA. It’s a heartbreaking album and I was going through one of the most heartbreaking times in my life, so even now, when I listen to it I have to be careful because of the emotion it invokes in me. This song in particular is so sad and fucked up that it nearly rips my heart out of my chest (particularly because I was going through something very similar at the time). It about being at the end of a relationship that hasn’t been good for you for a very long time but you just haven’t been able to let it go, and now you’re finally trying but it’s messy and complicated and so very very painful. It summarizes well to me, how Jensen felt at that time. 

When I Can - Mayonaise, as written and performed by the Smashing PumpkinsThis song has always had a special place in my heart since I very first heard it in the 90′s. To me it’s about letting go, finally, even when you don’t want to. Someday you’ll try to understand why this thing went wrong, and when you can, you will. But for now you’re kind of fucked up about it, and you reserve the right to be bitter until you can understand it better. Again, it seemed right for where Jensen was in the story.Spin - Spin, as written and performed by Lifehouse.The first HAPPY song in the entire goddamned story lol Again, my love for Lifehouse is huge, and I was listening to this song when it struck me as being perfect for the story with regard to how Jensen felt about Jared. Everything in Jensen’s life is kind of a mess, but he knows how he feels about Jared, Jared’s just this one true thing that makes sense, and Jensen wants to lock on and follow that, let it lead him into the sunlight as it were. What’s funny is that Jensen writes this very early on in the story, before he even consciously begins to realize his feelings for Jared.

So, the whole thing is sort of this give and take process. Some of it just happens intuitively, and some of it falls into place on its own, and sometimes I have to do a little work before it clicks, but it always does. I’ve always been happy with every song choice I’ve made in a fic, and especially this one.

[worldblog91]

Scp Containment Breach Ending

Scp Containment Breach Ending

Scp Containment Breach Ending Gate B

Scp Containment Breach Endings Wiki

SCP - Containment Breach is a free survival horror game based on the works of the SCP Foundation community. DOWNLOAD SCP - Containment Breach v1.3.11 (235 MB) MIRROR 1 (scpcbgame.com) MIRROR 2 (MEGA) Changelog.txt. Scp Containment Breach Free is safely and available to download for free from our website and easily install it in a few steps. Well, he did all the software work and I instinctively helped with testing, minor edits, and the dialogue for the puzzles. By free, the extreme version with a gtx sc is one of the searching shaders in the containment.

Never before has the popularity of a game has been driven so much by its community. Certainly nothing like SCP – Containment Breach, an indie open-source first person horror game inspired by the paranormal fictional deep web stories of the SCP Foundation.

SCP – Containment Breach is actually the perfect game for those who love fear in its purest of forms.

There are no complicated mechanics to learn, and no way to fight back the horrors that lurk inside the randomly generated facility you play inside. But if this isn’t enough to scare you to death, we’ve got something for you: a list of awesome mods that will make the experience even more terrifying.

You’ve been warned my friends.

15. Total Horror Breach

How do you make a horror game more horrific?

By horrifically changing its presentation!

The Total Horror Breach is a simple graphics and sound overhaul that makes Containment Breach even scarier. We get totally new character models and textures, and sound effects from the most popular horror games of 2012 and 2013. Spooky, I know.

The gameplay doesn’t change, but your nightmares surely will.

14. Realism Mod

I’m not sure I want a horror game to be realistic. I play and enjoy them exactly because they look nothing like the real world.

But if you’re not afraid of mixing fantasy and reality, you should definitely download the Realism Mod.

And yes, it’s exactly as it sounds: new character models for humans and other creatures, plus better sounds. Just avoid playing for too long at night: you risk ending up in a real SCP facility!

13. FOV Mod

If you’re playing Containment Breach on one of those modern 4K resolution monitors, the FOV mod will make the experience way more enjoyable.

This freebie adds the ability to change the game’s basic field of view value, so that you’ll be able to see more, or less, of the environment at any time during the game.

Make sure to not increase it too much if you’re playing on a small monitor, unless you somehow love experiencing motion sickness.

12. Five Nights at Freddy’s

Enough with those boring procedurally-generated rooms that all look the same.

Time to spend a night or two at Freddy’s!

This Five Nights at Freddy’s mod is pretty darn entertaining. It brings some new rooms and other visual elements inspired by the Five Nights at Freddy’s series.

The mod doesn’t include any major gameplay changes. But if you’re a fan of the series, you’ll recognize a few things right away.

11. Weeping Angel

Have you ever heard of the Weeping Angels? They’re mysterious. They’re dangerous.

And they’re roaming your facility!

The Weeping Angel mod replaces the SCP-173 character model with a Weeping Angel taken from the immensely popular British TV Show Doctor Who.

The angels, thankfully, don’t come with their unique powers. And you should be thankful they don’t: you wouldn’t have made it very far, trust me.

10. Disco Edition

I’m pretty sure you’re not supposed to be trapped inside a disco in SCP – Containment Breach… but hey, anything goes to spice up the game, doesn’t it?

This Disco Edition mod overhauls all of the game’s rooms, hallways, and some of the SCPs so that it feels like you’re in a disco, complete with flashing lights and appropriate sound effects that will bring forth an irresistible urge to dance.

Who would ever want to escape from this place?

9. Furry Breach

Fair warning: This mod is not to be taken seriously.

Furry Breach is a very humorous modification that introduces scribbles and all sorts of weird stuff in the game. I’m not really sure who was supposed to be mocked by all this… but I’m sure it’s great for a few laughs.

Some things are better left unsaid. So give this one a go and try it for yourself.

Scp Containment Breach Ending

8. WTF Messup Breach Remastered

Masters of Memes, the time for you to shine has finally come!

WTF Messup Breach Remastered will lock you inside a facility full of memes, corrosive rainbow enemies, and the sorts of stuff you can expect to see in the weirdest corner of the interwebz! Sorry, I suppose I already got contaminated here.

But if you’re looking for more fun and lighthearted gameplay, this is a mod worth trying.

7. More Rooms

In a procedurally generated game, having more elements to throw into the mix can only be a good thing. A very good thing.

More Rooms introduces a few new rooms to the game, including a new office hallway for the light containment zone, a new tunnel for the heavy containment zone, and so on.

This mod is worth installing if you’ve been playing the game for a long time, and have mastered all of its tricks. Time to get surprised once again!

6. 087-B Mod

SCP – Containment Breach can be a very scary experience. But man, you have seen nothing until you install the 087-B Mod.

This mod not only overhauls the facility’s appearance so that it looks much darker than usual, but it also brings a ton of subtle changes to the atmosphere. And even changes to gameplay mechanics.

It will almost feel like you are playing an official expansion. Specifically an expansion that wants you to wet your pants in fear!

5. Dark Confinement

Want to spice up the Containment Breach experience with a little bit more horror?

Stop wasting time and download the Dark Confinement mod. You’ll love it.

Like a couple of other mods in this list, the Dark Confinement mod aims to make the game scarier by introducing new textures, new looks for some of the SCPs, new voice clips, new sounds, a new intro sequence, and tons of new custom rooms for each containment zone.

For the best effect, try playing at night. See if you can make longer than an hour.

4. MLG Edition

The MLG Edition mod makes Containment Breach a much scarier experience, for sure. But not in the way you may expect.

But I don’t want to ruin the surprise for you, so I won’t tell you exactly what’s going on here… suspense is part of the fun.

All I can tell you is this: beware of the blue hedgehogs. And the smoking heads!

3. Half-Life: Resonance Cascade

Valve seems determined to not give us the third main entry in the Half-Life series we so desperately want, leaving us poor fans very little choice other than resorting to fan-made games and modifications.

The Half-Life: Resonance Cascade is a total overhaul that fans of the classic series will surely enjoy.

It tries to provide a look at the Black Mesa incident from a different perspective. The attention to detail in this mod is absolutely the highest caliber, so you’d better not skip on this one. Even if you’re not a die-hard Half-Life fan who prays daily for a new entry in the series, I’d say it’s still worth it.

If you’ve never played the Half-Life series then who knows, maybe this mod will turn you onto it.

2. Nine-Tailed Fox Mod

If you’re looking for a real gameplay overhaul, you should look no further than the Nine-Tailed Fox Mod.

This is among the best add-ons ever made for SCP – Containment Breach. Why so great?

Mostly thanks to the inclusion of a lot of new gameplay mechanics, including functional guns and a health bar. No more running away from these fearsome creatures: load your shotguns and show them who’s the real terror of the world.

1. Ultimate Edition

To properly mod SCP – Containment Breach, you can go at it in two different ways.

You either download all the mods in this list (and hope they’re compatible with one another) or you download the Ultimate Edition.

Ultimate Edition is a massive modding project that includes the most popular mods ever made for the game.

This means you get improved visuals, new content, new gameplay mechanics, and so on, all in a very tight package that’s just one click away.

Just make sure your PC is up for the task: in gaming, as in life, the weak get left behind.

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A summary of the Broadway hit.

When we first discovered a way to pull webpages from alternate timelines, this was not what we expected to find. Merry Christmas and happy New Year from the Department of Multiverse Analysis.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

This article is about the stage musical. For the book series, see Containment Breach. For the film series, see Containment Breach (film series). For other uses, see Containment Breach (disambiguation).

Containment Breach The Musical

Broadway Playbill cover

MusicSophia MacLeodLyricsCarlisle AtticusBookSal Linnen andRoger MackenzieBasis2007 novel by Kate McGearsProductions2009 Wyoming tryout2009 Broadway2011 US Tour2012 West End2014 UK Tour

Containment Breach The Musical is a musical with music by Sophia Macleod, lyrics by Carlisle Atticus, and book by Sal Linnen and Roger Mackenzie. It is based on the best-selling 2007 novel Containment Breach, the first book in the SCP Foundation series by author Kate McGears.

The musical debuted January 11, 2009, at the Oneiroi Theater in Wyoming and met with instant critical and commercial success. It premiered on Broadway at the Palace Theater on October 6, 2009.[1] The musical has since become a popular choice for productions by community theatres, school and university groups, summer camps and regional theatre companies.[2]

Synopsis

Act 1

A married couple are aroused from their sleep by the sound of a crying infant. The wife tells her husband that it's his turn to check on the baby. As the husband opens the door to their bedroom, he turns around and exclaims with alarm that they do not have a child. The husband is pulled through the doorway by an off-stage assailant. The terrified wife calls the police, and the call is intercepted by the Foundation Surveillance Network ('Something is [REDACTED]ing My Husband!').

Mobile Task Force Beta-12 arrives to find a globular red mass closing in on the wife. The team captures the creature in a metal crate, administers amnestics to the wife, and cleans up the husband's remains ('Just Another Tuesday'). They transport the creature to Site-19's North Containment Hall and lock it in a containment cell next to SCP-049 ('Secure, Contain, Protect'). Dr. Jack Bright and his assistants walk through the corridor to check that all SCPs are accounted for ('Roll Call').

Bright enters SCP-105's containment chamber and performs a routine test of her anomalous ability to see locations in photographs as they presently appear ('What a Wonderful World'). Afterward, she is told she may be granted certain privileges for her good behavior. SCP-105 requests various luxury items, including fresh flowers and a bible, but also asks that Dr. Bright call her by her real name, Iris. Bright approves all her requests except the final one, as calling her by her real name would be a breach of protocol ('List of Requests').

Burdened by his obligation to treat the innocent captives the same way he treats the monsters, Bright goes to the SCP-408 enclosure and confesses his guilty feelings to lepidopterist Dr. Zynnia Kondraki. Kondraki reassures Bright that he is doing the right thing, although her speech includes a number of subtle allusions to the clear romantic tension between them ('Bright's Lament').

Elsewhere in Site-19, the amorphous red blob (now designated SCP-844) reveals itself to have the voice and personality of a small, frightened child. SCP-049, contained in the neighboring cell, tries to explain SCP-844's situation in a sensitive and gentle way, but he is interrupted by Able (SCP-076), who provides a more frank and honest description of life in containment ('Where am I?'/'Being Anomalous Really Sucks, Okay?').

Loud sirens and bright flashing lights suddenly fill the hallway. The SCPs cheer, recognizing it as a Containment Breach alarm. They happily speculate who may have attained freedom, but are horrified when they find that it is SCP-106 ('Who's the Lucky Bastard?'/'Oh HELL No!'). SCP-106 silently performs a short dance number before leaving to wreak havoc in Site-19 ('Rage State Ragtime').

Meanwhile, Bright and Kondraki come close to sharing their first kiss while SCP-408 specimens create a romantic atmosphere around them ('Screw Professionalism'). Just as they are about to confess their feelings for one another, Site Director Yorick Cleffordson announces over Site-19's PA system that all personnel must assist in recontaining SCP-106 at any cost ('Put That Thing Back Where It Came From (Or So Help Me)'). Bright and Kondraki exchange awkward goodbyes and quickly run off to defend their Site.

Bright searches Site-19's East Storage Wing for anything that might be able to stop SCP-106, but all he finds are Safe-Class objects with bizarre-but-unhelpful abilities ('My Kingdom for a Euclid'). Finally, he grabs a handful of objects with unidentified anomalous properties and leaves, hoping for the best ('What the Hell, I'm Dead Either Way').

SCP-106 walks through Site-19's cafeteria, killing staff members right and left. Suddenly the cafeteria turns into an idyllic pastoral scene, causing SCP-106 to recoil in terror. It sends handfuls of black, highly acidic sludge into the air, causing SCP-408 specimens to scatter and fall (“[TANGO EXPUNGED]”). Just as SCP-106 spies Kondraki in the corner of the room, Bright bursts in with his arms full of undocumented SCP objects. He throws them one after another at SCP-106, but to no avail. SCP-106 slowly advances toward Bright until the two are face-to-face. SCP-106 reaches forward menacingly, but at the last moment, Bright puts a comb on SCP-106’s head, turning it into a beautiful young woman– much to its distress.

Site Director Yorickson enters the room with back-up security personnel, and SCP-106 is apprehended before it can remove the comb. Just as the trouble seems to be over, a support beam weakened by SCP-106’s sludge attacks begins to collapse. Bright sees the support about to fall on Kondraki and he pushes her out of the way, sacrificing himself in the process. He confesses his love to her with his dying breaths (“Screw Professionalism (Reprise)”). As his body goes limp, a red amulet falls out of his hand.

Act 2

Several days after the containment breach, a team of D-Class personnel is cleaning the damaged cafeteria. One of them finds the red amulet lying amongst some rubble and picks it up. His entire disposition immediately changes, and he runs out of the room in confusion. When captured and questioned, he claims to be Dr. Jack Bright. After he correctly answers questions only the real Bright would know, his interrogators are forced to believe him ('I'm a Doctor, Not a D-Class”).

Bright, in his new body, is designated as SCP-963 and placed in a holding cell until an available containment chamber can be found. Bright notes the irony of finding himself on the other side of the containment door (“Bright’s Lament (Reprise)'). He is surprised to find himself moved to an “overflow” chamber containing other humanoids. His cellmates, SCP-2800 and SCP-1846, attempt to raise his spirits (“It's Like a Really Long Vacation”).

Meanwhile, Kondraki, still believing Bright to be dead, has her butterflies create an illusion of him so she can say goodbye (“Damn Your Sexy Face”). Dr. Everett King enters the butterfly enclosure to retrieve some notes, and several butterflies escape as he comes in. Kondraki follows them to the cell where Bright is being held, and the two reunite (“I’m Confused, But Kiss Me”).

Elsewhere in Site-19, Able has been transferred to the cell next to Iris’. The two recount the romantic relationship they fostered as teammates in the Omega-7 Task Force as well the breakup that followed. Able begs her to see the warm, loving man behind the brutal killer (“I Would Probably Never Gut You”). However, Iris rejects the idea of ever getting back together.

Bright continues to live day-to-day life an SCP, growing increasingly dissatisfied with the way he is treated by his former co-workers. (“When You’re a Skip”). He gradually becomes sympathetic to the plight of his fellow humanoid SCPs. He only embraces the “good” SCPs at first, but he eventually warms up to the more dangerous ones as well (“We’re All Monsters, Really”).

During his weekly secret rendezvous with Kondraki, Bright tells of a massive breakout he is planning with his fellow SCPs. He instructs her to hide in a safe place so she will not be hurt during the escape, and promises to run away with her when he is free (“What Could Possibly Go Wrong?”). Kondraki agrees, but later confesses to her butterflies that she is morally conflicted (“I’m So Screwed, Guys”).

The following day, Bright springs his plan into action. With the help of various SCP allies, A massive containment breach is successfully instigated (“The Breakout Song”). Many personnel are killed in the ensuing breach, including Bright himself. However, he comes back once again when his amulet falls onto Dr. King’s recently-deceased body (“Why Do I Taste Apples?”). Bright personally releases Iris from her containment chamber, finally calling her by her proper name. Able pleads for Iris to open his containment door and release him, but she chooses not to (“It Wasn’t a Healthy Relationship At All, Really”).

Bright finds Kondraki, but she has had a change of heart and cannot bring herself to run away with him. She explains that she needs to keep her promise to the Foundation by staying behind to help recontain the SCPs that want to destroy humanity, but she still wants Bright to escape while he can (“Screw Professionalism (Reprise, Again)”). The two say a tearful goodbye and Bright departs while Kondraki stays behind to fight alongside her butterflies.

After the breach, Kondraki once again has her butterflies create an illusion of Bright with his original face. Her friend, Dr. Agatha Reach, enters the enclosure, grieving the death of Dr. King, and the two commiserate over their lost loves (“All My Boyfriends End Up Dead”). Suddenly, Bright enters the room, still in King’s body, and explains that no one knew King had died except the three of them, meaning he can essentially take over King's identity. Reach is initially disturbed, but decides she is happy her friends can be together, and says that King would have wanted things this way. Bright and Kondraki kiss, overjoyed at the second chance at living a normal life again together in Site-19 (“A Happy Ending, Sort Of”).

A group of shadowy figures monitor surveillance footage of the previous scene. As they discuss what to do, Able enters the room in a suit, revealing himself to be O5-1, head of the Overseer Council. He explains that the whole event was orchestrated by the Overseers, and that they have decided to allow Bright to live on as Dr. King. The Council meeting breaks for lunch and Able is left alone in the room. Iris suddenly enters, confused. Able explains it was all a test, and Iris tearfully runs to his arms. With the containment breach officially over, the rest of Site-19's personnel get back to work (“Secure, Contain, Protect (Reprise)”.

Scp Containment Breach Ending Gate B

Original Broadway Cast

Scp Containment Breach Endings Wiki

ActorRoleAndrew S. BearDr. Jack BrightDjango RicmannDr. Jack Bright, 2nd BodyMontala RothDr. Zynnia KondrakiChris DeMatisseDr. Everett KingKirby CavenderDr. Clefford YoricksonSilva DiezDr. Agatha ReachPeppa DenkarIrisTom StoneAbleHippolyta ArdsonSCP-106Cyril LockeSCP-844Troy DuChampSCP-049Chaz D. KevereauxSCP-2800Fritz Conwill E.SCP-1846Erica H. AnberoughMrs. HaloCane P. RavenMr. HaloVaughn PencerSCP-527

[dustedmagazine]

Listening Post: Michael Cosmic — Peace in the World / Phill Musra Group — Creator Spaces (Part Two)

Following up on the part of the conversation posted earlier today, the Dusted crew continues to discuss these newly reissued free jazz records from 1974 Boston.

Mason Jones: I'm pretty outside the jazz realm, though in my years playing avant-experimental music I've crossed paths with a lot of free players, particularly the early '90s Oakland scene (Splatter Trio, Gino Robair, Pluto, and the like). I've dipped into jazz quite often from time to time but for some reason little of modern jazz resonates strongly with me. The expanses of this release that do, surprisingly, are those that breathe more slowly. John Coltrane's not my thing, but like others I also hear echoes of Alice Coltrane in parts of "Peace in the World" for example. Even though it doesn't really sound much like her work, it somehow feels similar. I dig the splashing, crashing drum solo in "The Creator Spaces" and find Ertunç's playing pretty evocative throughout. My deficiency in appreciating reeds certainly impedes my judgment on a lot of this, though, so I'll have to let others get deeper into it all.

Jonathan Shaw: Michael, by "otherness" earlier, you mean a form of alienation beyond being black? Something more musically mediated?

Michael Rosenstein: Good point! By "otherness," I was referring to musical practice. While the traditions of free jazz (and by the mid-70s, the language had developed traditions) were referenced by many of the musicians in Boston, they brought an outsider sensibility to things. That is certainly not unique to Boston, but it was something that certainly struck me when I was first hearing musicians like Voigt, Harvey, Davidson, and Smart (to name a few).

Jonathan Shaw: So interesting to think of a music that wants to articulate some principle of "freedom" developing traditions. Tradition isn't intrinsically reactionary, but that's the way the term often gets used these days—I think especially of how the term resonates in the Traditional Workers' Party. Assholes. 

What's freedom's outside? Where can we hear it on these records? I don't know who coined the term "free jazz" and to what extent that usage of free speaks to other forms of Africanist and African American identity construction in 20th century culture; as I noted somewhere above, my sense of "free" in free jazz is liberatory, but in a nationalist sense, black as essentially other than white, and decidedly other than European. But that's not the only way to conceptualize things. Back in the 1920s, Alain Locke argued that black Americans were best positioned to fully embody the country's ethos of freedom and liberty, precisely because blacks understood the opposite of freedom and liberty like no one else. For some reason, I think Locke would be more attracted to Cosmic/Musra's music than he would to Archie Shepp c. 1970 or Braxton.

Derek Taylor: I’m not sure on the origin of the phrase “free jazz” earlier than Ornette’s composition/album of the same name, but that’s when it really started to gain traction as a descriptor. While the “free” is in there, so is “jazz” denoting a foundational framework around which the free elements center and revolve. The specifically Nationalist leanings came shortly after and were confounded in part by the prominent place of white players in the music: Charlie Haden w/ Ornette, Roswell Rudd w/ Archie Shepp, Alan Silva, etc. The free musical elements that Cosmic and Musra employ definitely sound on that axis to my ears while bringing in aspects in part apart from jazz tradition as well (the zurna, African/Latin percussion instruments, etc.)

Any musical idiom that has historical legs is naturally going to develop traditions. Even music as resolutely non-idiomatic as free improvisation has developed recognizable vocabularies over the years through the repeated use of extended techniques and other tools (a reason why Derek Bailey, despite his protestations against precedence and familiarity, is usually instantly recognizable). Tradition in the context of Cosmic/Musric seems like a way of preserving, celebrating older means of musical expression outside Western, or more ambiguously white, cultural standards. But I don't get the feeling that they're doing it from a position of any overt animosity or concerted resistance, but more from a place of naturalness and positivity. 

Mason Jones: When I hear "free jazz" or "free music" I also inevitably think of LAFMS, which was coming at "free music" from a very different angle than the jazz cats, though with a lot of sympathy both ways. They were looking to unmoor music from pretty much all frameworks, while I still think of free jazz as identifiably "jazz" — it's leaving behind the traditions but somehow still employing a lot of the same thinking. The Cosmic/Musra set is undeniably jazz even at its most outré, and to me feels only partially "free" in this context. I agree that it doesn't sound reactionary, so I might say that it's aimed towards freedom of expression rather than freedom *from* anything, if you know what I mean.

Jonathan Shaw: Probably also worth noting that a bunch of free players had good times in Europe—Cecil Taylor, Art Ensemble of Chicago, Don Cherry.

Bill Meyer: When musicians operate from a jazz foundation, and when they think what they are doing continues to relate non-antagonistically to jazz, you have free jazz. European free improvisation was started by people who loved jazz, but felt that they could not contribute in a culturally primary way. To be a Briton or European who loved jazz was to love something that came from somewhere else, but they wanted to take the example of serious aesthetic advancement that they saw in Ornette/Coltrane/etc to heart. Some of them (Paul Lytton, I believe, has talked a lot about this) very self consciously cut themselves off from playing music they really loved in order to grow. Others were aware of not being a part of it but continued to use it as a touchstone - Evan Parker for example. And Brotzmann sees himself as a jazz musician, I think, even though he's quite willing to step outside of jazz.

Cosmic/Musra, I think, come from a specifically African-American angle. Presumably they aspired to play jazz before they arrived at the music that they play on this set. The beyond-jazz aspects of their music relates to a divergent stream of jazz (Sun Ra, John and Alice Coltrane, Pharoah Sanders, the AACM) that was reflects ways of expressing and defining identity that were current in the African-Amerian community. As a whole, this music reflects an interest in Africa and non-European cultural, a disinclination to accept mainstream narratives and perspectives at face value, and a valuation of strongly felt/expressed spirituality that made a lot of room for the esoteric. 

Derek Taylor: There’s definitely a lot of anecdotal history in support of Jonathan’s point about Stateside versus European experiences for ex-pat free jazz players and jazz players in general. But it wasn’t all rosy for them either. Ayler (in)famously got booed and worse at stops on his first European tour and Coltrane/Dolphy were hit with critical devaluations even earlier for the avenues they opted to explore. That makes the brothers experiences intriguing by contrast. Yes, they came later after the groundwork had been established by forebearers, but they still experienced a pretty uniformly positive response to what they were doing, at least in Chicago and Boston, if not L.A.

Brötzmann’s relationship with and to jazz has been contentious throughout his career. I don’t think he has much use for the term as a descriptor for what he does and hasn’t for quite some time, although his own listening habits apparently tend toward the classicists (Sidney Bechet, Coleman Hawkins, etc. who were themselves somewhat ironically the revolutionaries in their day). Parker’s much more open about acknowledging and embracing his debts (to Coltrane especially).

I get the feeling that Cosmic/Musra’s core musical beliefs came out of the AACM. It’s where they ostensibly really learned to play their instruments. Musra tells the story of Roscoe Mitchell recruiting him, clarinet in hand, right of the beach. Earlier influences were in the African American church (both sang in the choir) and by proxy their father’s record collection/musical interests. So right off the bat neither was coming from any sort of traditional pedagogy, jazz or otherwise. They were steeped in the divergent stream Bill mentions almost from the start.

Jonathan Shaw: Thanks for the context, Derek. You mention the positive response the brothers' records got. Is that response recorded anywhere? Were any prominent jazz critics and/or thinkers writing about the brothers in the 1970s? It would be interesting to see how their contemporaries processed the sounds.

Bill Meyer: I think it's interesting to think about what we mean when we say tradition and what the brothers might have thought tradition meant. Free jazz in all its stripes was the New Thing, and the influences we've noted would have been, for the brothers, music from the last five or ten years. On the other hand we can think of a free jazz tradition because free jazz has been a label as long or longer than most of us have been alive.

Derek Taylor: Good questions, Jonathan & Bill. I was going off of Clifford Allen’s notes & other contextual information available over at his blog Ni Kantu. He’s talked/corresponded with Musra over the years and has gathered a lot of anecdotal context, although I get the impression that the positive response(s) as described was more at the audience/community level rather than a critical or establishment one. Lots of gigs, but pretty much under the radar of the conventional jazz/music press, although I could be mistaken.

The AACM was founded (at least formally) in May of 1965, which would mean that it was it was less than two years old when Mitchell ran into a teen-aged Musra on the beach. Hardly time enough to establish tradition in an orthodox sense. That in turn seems to imply that the traditions the brothers were interested in exploring were older, non-Western and not strictly observed, but rather interpretative jumping off points. It doesn’t sound like their formal instruction prior to AACM enrolment was very extensive at all. 

Michael Rosenstein: I wouldn't say that their records got particularly positive responses when they came out. They came out in such limited runs and distribution was so localized at the time. But they definitely played out a fair bit in Boston based on the documentation provided in Mark Harvey's book. There is a flyer that is reproduced from Spring 1974 that lists the following:

That's nine gigs within six weeks in clubs, churches, galleries, universities, radio, and a festival! And there are enough other flyers in the liner notes to the CD and Mark's book to show that this wasn't just a fluke. This provides some evidence as to how much they were integrated as musicians into the DIY jazz and arts communities in Boston at the time.

Derek Taylor: Nice! Appreciate the specifics from Harvey’s book, Michael. When you say responses, are you speaking to audiences or on the critical/journalistic end or both? The grass roots aspects to the brothers’ efforts are pretty pervasive from the nature of the gigs, to their chosen crew(s), to the DIY-nature of the recorded documents. A large slice of their overall charm from where I sit.

Jonathan Shaw: I'm also curious. I'm charmed (wrong word, but hope you all hear me) by the self-released aspect of the records. I come from punk musical and social backgrounds, so my touchstones are Dischord Records, scene reports in Maximum Rock n Roll, zine culture, etc. It's really cool to see the antecedents of those marginal modes of cultural production in Cosmic/Musra, Sun Ra, and so on. As with the free jazz, the punks were trying to find authentic community that could buttress their resistance to social convention in art and in life. I don't know how self-selected the choice to self-release was for Cosmic/Musra.

Michael Rosenstein: Ahhh. When I say that the records "didn't get positive responses," it was in the context of national/mainstream jazz journalism. I also checked the archives of the Boston Globe to see if there was any newspaper coverage but non popped up. But response seems to have been pretty solid within Boston based on the fact that they got radio play (on underground radio/college radio) and played around quite a bit. I agree about the DIY nature of the recorded documents, but I also hear that really extending into their overall musical sensibilities. Like Derek notes, you just need to look at the range of musicians they pulled in. 

Self-produced, self-released small labels were definitely relatively prevalent at that time for jazz musicians. I remember going to New Music Distribution Service in the early 80s in New York and there were shelves upon shelves upon shelves of records, a large chunk of which were self-produced. Nice to see that this stuff is continuing to be mined and released.

Jonathan Shaw: Not to continue to allege a comparison, but the proliferation of punk small labels in the 1980s (SST, Alternative Tentacles, R Radical, Dischord, etc) signaled a deliberate choice on the part of some bands to remain outside the music industry. Most of that came out of a left-ish, anticapitalist stance that was more or less coherent, depending on the band; some wanted to gain as much control over the production process as possible, for ideological as well as aesthetic reasons. The loving song to Malcolm X on Cosmic's record is potentially interesting in this regard: X stressed the necessity for black neighborhoods to assert greater control over their local economies, so that wealth could be generated within the community and stay within the community.

Derek Taylor: I think the comparison between valuation of DIY approaches in punk and jazz communities is spot-on. As Bill mentioned earlier there's a long history of jazz artists starting their own labels or having labels started by others to advance their work/interests. That tradition carries through to this day, but was just as prevalent contemporaneously with this set. Hat Hut was just getting off the ground in Switzerland in 1974 as a conduit for Joe McPhee's output, which had earlier been fostered by Craig Johnson's CJR imprint and Giacomo Pelliciotti's Black Saint/Soul Note ventures were launched in similar fashion to steward Billy Harper's efforts. All three were fiercely artist-focused and remained so even when outside pressures/enticements attempted to lure them in other directions. History is also littered with jazz artists who accepted major label overtures only to be dropped when the returns on investment didn't manifest (Sonny Simmons, David S. Ware, Henry Threadgill, Arthur Blythe, etc.). It's not entirely clear whether Musra & Cosmic ever shopped their work to outside concerns, but based the energy the put into their enterprises top to bottom I kind of doubt it.

Bill Meyer: Yeah, Max Roach, Charles Mingus, and Mingus's wife Celia started Debut back in the 50s. Sun Ra and Alton Abraham started Saturn around the same time. It was not new. At the time that Cosmic and Musra made these recordings, I can't imagine that they had a lot of other options. It was a rough time for jazz, commercially speaking. And one thing the punks and indie rockers figured out that I think the jazz indies of past decades never did was how to put together touring and distribution networks. 

Jonathan Shaw: 1974 was rough pretty much all around. I've been listening to the version of "Arabia" on the Phill Musra Group record this morning, which seems to me much tougher and dissonant than the longer take on Cosmic's. Even the cymbals on the shorter version have more attack to them. Alongside "Egypt," I can't help but think of the Yom Kippur War of the previous year, formation of OPEC, and the consequent gas shortages in the US. I wonder what it was like performing songs themed toward North African and Middle Eastern cultures at that time.

Bill Meyer: Recession, gas lines, Watergate... they were not salad days.

Michael Rosenstein: There are a bunch of labels started by jazz artists like the ones noted above along with Strata-East founded by Charles Tolliver and Stanley Cowell, and Cecil Taylor's short-lived Unit Core label. But, as Derek notes above, I would guess that Musra & Cosmic were driven more by just wanting to get their music out than by wanting to stay outside the music industry. There just weren't that many options around in the mid-70s for jazz musicians. If anything, I would put their efforts closer to the DIY cassette scene. From the liner notes, it looks like neither Cosmic Records or Intex Records (the two labels that put these out) pretty much existed only to release Musra & Cosmic's music and then disappeared.

Derek Taylor: Interesting question regarding the reception toward music referencing North African and Middle Eastern cultures in the mid-1970s. I doubt the audiences Cosmic & Musra were courting evinced any overt ire or issues, but you never know. A tangent and a much later case, but drummer Pete La Roca (in)famously attempted to bar the reissue of his 1965 Blue Note album Basra (a minor masterpiece, IMO) out of the purported opinion that the title was disrespectful to American troops that had died in Iraq. 

Jonathan Shaw: Interesting info, Derek. My grade-school memory of the 1970s suggests that anti-mid-eastern sentiments kicked up a lot after the Islamic Revolution in Iran. I don't know how extensive or intense anti-Arab feeling was in the 73-74 oil shock or to what extent Africanist/African-interested jazz music would have been on that radar of hate.

On a different theme: Michael noted earlier that "The Prayer," on the record of previously unreleased stuff, doesn't feature either of the brothers. From the album booklet, it looks like the only of player of note to the rest of the collection is John Jamyll Jones. The decision to include what seems a relatively tangential piece—especially one of such length—is strange to me (it's a lovely piece). How influential a player was Jones? How extensive might his influence have been on the brothers?

Michael Rosenstein: My guess is that the inclusion was to provide context of other music in a similar vein that was happening in Boston at the time.

Derek Taylor: Jones led the World Experience Orchestra, another Boston band of which the brothers were members and had strong strong ties to NYC. Now Again reissued two albums as a two-fer package prior to the set under discussion here. I was excited prior to hearing Jones, but came away underwhelmed. The music just doesn't hold together as well and the use of singers and less skilled participants is more pronounced. 

Jonathan Shaw: That's too bad. I'm listening to "The Prayer" again. Appropriate that it starts with a statement from Jones. I don't usually respond well to flutes, but the solo (notes credit the playing to Stan Strickland) really lights things up. I wonder how thematically significant the instrument's gentleness is, with respect to prayer. The strings also give the piece a sort of rapturous quality. There's some dissonance around the 17th minute, but it's not a dominant tone. Also, the audience's initially confused response to the coda is pretty great.

Michael Rosenstein: Back to the notion of comparing these releases to punk labels in the early 80s, I think a better comparison would be to the local rock bands in the late 70s who did small-run, self releases. There was a promo e-mail that got forwarded recently for a reissue of music by the Austin band Terminal Mind. From what I can tell from the info on the site this band wasn't known much outside of Austin at the time, put out a few EPs themselves that sold out quickly, and then recently got unearthed. Jenny can probably think of a bunch of other examples like this. I think it was just reasonably affordable to pull together a short-run EP/LP back then.

Derek Taylor: The Numero Group has kind of made that sort of thing their reissue forte over the years, first w/ a slew local/regional soul labels and later branching out to include rock, punk & other genres, even yacht rock. 

Jonathan Shaw: The tack Michael suggests is how a bunch of those early-1980s labels started. SST was originally a vehicle for Black Flag to put out singles in LA. Once they figured out that it was possible, they invited some friends along for the ride.

Mason Jones: Exactly — similar to Slash, Dischord, and so forth. Even Industrial Records and Mute, for that matter!

Ian Mathers: Speaking of getting in late and miss some fascinating conversation... I can give a complete novice’s perspective, at least. I was delayed partly by the problems of fitting in listens of this pretty sprawling set (or sets?), but I have been following the conversation with interest and learning a lot, and really enjoying those listens when I have been able to fit them in. I have virtually no jazz vocabulary to discuss these with; I grew up with Kind of Blue and A Love Supreme and loved the latter, and have been able to get into four Miles Davis albums so far (In a Silent Way, A Tribute to Jack Johnson, On the Corner and, uh, Dark Magus) and although I've listened here and there to plenty of things (including some free or at least freer jazz) and usually enjoyed it, for whatever reason jazz just doesn't tend to be something I put on unless I think about it. I feel like I should personally apologize to Derek here (who's writing about I've been reading and enjoying here for years!).

What this means is that while I recognize most of the names that have been mentioned in relationship to the music here, and even have enough context and/or fuzzy memories of having heard them before that the references have made contextual sense to me, when I'm walking around listening to "The Prayer" I'm mostly thinking that the part where the bass and violin are most prominent (my favourite part) makes me think of, say, Astral Weeks meets the Dirty Three. So I apologize for an fumbling and/or ignorant cross-genre comparisons I might make.

The most unexpected part of the experience for me so far is that I pretty much instantly liked the Michael Cosmic and World Experience Orchestra material, the Phill Musra Group tracks took a little longer and honestly still aren't my favourite (although I don't dislike them). I was struck by Jonathan's comment about the Musra "Arabia" being a little tougher and more dissonant, which I agree with, because both of those things would normally make it my preferred version, but in this case in addition to those qualities this shorter version just feels a little less... colorful? Listening now I'm wondering if this isn't partially the production or even room tone, but those four Michael Cosmic tracks, especially the longer first two, just feel so vibrant and communal and joyful, and the Phill Musra tracks just feel a little more... considered? formal (if that's not a totally ridiculous descriptor for any of this music)? restrained? And I think because "Arabia" is the only shared track between the two I feel the contrast a bit more there. That being said I do really like "The Creator Is So Far Out" in particular.

My favourite track here though, by far, and for some of the same reasons I know Derek wasn't necessarily a fan, is "Space on Space". I am a repetition guy and even though the actual music is vastly different some of my love for "Space on Space" comes from the same part of me that adores Oneida's "Sheets of Easter" or the loops at the end of Liars' "This Dust Makes That Mud" and Massive Attack's "Antistar" or the many 20+ minute tracks by Muslimgauze I've heard over the years. And here with "Space on Space" maybe it's the fact that there is that continuing element that allows me to more fully appreciate the parts of the band that are peeling off and doing their own thing while the looping musicians vamp in the background. It's probably the most viscerally thrilling free jazz track I've heard, although again my prior experience is minimal.

It's been a real education reading the liner notes and the discussion here about the context surrounding the brothers and their music, not least because some of that confirms the feeling I was getting from this music as soon as I played it the first time (I wanted to go in blind, just in case I wound up being overly suggestible). I definitely want to keep this stuff around, although in the future I honestly might split it into three, because the situations where I'd want to hear the Michael Cosmic material versus the more meditative Phill Musra Group versus the even more laid back World Experience Orchestra track here would probably be different.

[evenstevensranked]

#19: Season 3, Episode 15 - “The Big Splash”

Louis surprises everyone by joining the diving team, but then surprises no one by only doing cannonballs. This eventually leads to Louis reevaluating the future he envisions for himself. Should he remain a class clown forever? Or should he start taking life more seriously? Meanwhile, Ren’s on a mission to win “Best Smile” in the yearbook.

We start our episode with Tawny, Twitty and Tom (oh wow I just realized that all of Louis’ friends names start with the letter T lol) sitting in the stands at a school dive meet. Louis told them to go, yet he’s suspiciously nowhere to be found. Until a mysterious hooded guy walks out with LJH’s team, dramatically takes off the hood and… yeah. It’s Louis. Louis is apparently good at diving according to Twitty and Coach Tugnut (“Stevens, you don’t stink so bad!”) but he decides to squander his talent for laughs instead by doing cannonballs. It’s so cringy. Not only because doing cannonballs at a dive meet and soaking the entire audience & judges is beyond immature -- but, because his cannonballs are so fake lol. There’s the initial surface splash, and then an immediate second one that looks like a freaking nuclear bomb. Unless we’re all watching this from the perspective of Shallow Hal and Louis is actually 600 pounds, it makes no sense. I know it’s just for the lulz... but still. The gang gets a kick out of it.

We cut to the subplot where we see Ruby rushing around and tallying people’s votes for yearbook superlatives. Ren finds out that she’s a lock for “The Big Three” -- Most Likely to Succeed, Most Intelligent, and Best Personality. Is it just me, or is Best Personality a little debatable? (No offense, Ren.) Monique asks who’s in the lead for Best Smile and Ren gets salty when she finds out it’s some random chick Kelly Kerwin. Sooo, now Ren is determined to beat Kelly for Best Smile, as if she doesn’t currently hold the title for literally everything else. Seriously, girl. Let some other people get their time to shine. Dang. 

After school, Ren lets the cat out of the bag to Steve and Eileen about Louis joining the diving team. Steve is beyond excited and tells Louis he’ll try to make it to the next meet. Clearly, Louis does not want his family to attend and witness his latest goofball stunt. 

Next, we get a time-lapse of Ren being her own personal dentist in the bathroom before school because god forbid she doesn’t win Best Smile. It then cuts to Ren having a smile showdown at school with Kelly. This is the second time in the series where we get that annoying sepia, cowboy standoff thing. This cliché never works for me, ever. This goes on for 1 minute and 14 seconds which might seem like a short amount of time, but my god does this scene crawl by. Definitely the lowest point.

Steve decides to attend Louis’ next dive meet and brings his boss, Mr. Kupchack, along with him. Oh, boy. Tugnut compliments Kupchack’s fancy blazer and he responds “Thank you. It’s the finest Italian suede” and all Tugnut can say is “.........too bad.” HAHA. Of course, Louis gets up there and does another massive cannonball, completely soaking the audience... Including Mr. Kupchack and his fancy Italian blazer. Steve is livid and rightfully so. 

Louis’ guilt is starting to sink in... 

At home that night, Steve has a serious talk with Louis. He tells him that he was incredibly proud before the meet, (hence why he brought Kupchack along) only to be disappointed yet again. Louis tries to brush off his immature decisions by saying “I’m a kid. That’s what I do. I have fun.” But, Steve poses the question “It may be fun now… But where are you gonna be 10 years from now?” This really resonates with Louis. It cuts to a dramatic shot of him looking at a crap ton of “Class Clown” trophies later that night. Uh… When did Louis get all those trophies?! Where does he keep them? They don’t really let us see lol. It seems like they have their own private display room! Do schools even give out trophies for prestigious accomplishments such as “Seventh Grade Class Clown”? That’s the real question here. Anyway. This fades into a daydream Louis has of a 10 Year Lawrence Jr. High reunion.

As a kid, I always thought 10 years was too small of a time jump. Especially because Louis imagines Tom married with two kids and another on the way. But, 2017 marked the 10 year anniversary of my own middle school graduation. Now I'm 24 and a recent college graduate. Not to mention a lot of my friends are already getting married, having kids and starting their careers of course. So… Looking back at this as an adult, it's actually pretty accurate.

I love how since Twitty is a musician, they had to give him a ponytail down to his freaking butt.

I’d also like to point out that Tawny is a fashion designer, wearing rope lights as part of her outfit, and talks about spending time in Rome. Was Disney Channel under the assumption that clothes featuring rope lights are a high fashion ~Rome~ thing? Exhibit B:

Louis’ daydream is so depressing... but I absolutely love it. He basically imagines himself as a total screwup man-child. He can’t relate to his accomplished adult friends because he never grew out of being his middle school jokester self. It’s too real. You just cringe the entire time because everyone is trying to have a mature conversation and Louis is literally incapable of doing so. One by one, they all become annoyed by Louis’ antics and make up an excuse to leave. Twitty’s the only one left in the end and asks for Louis’ email to keep in touch. We reach the final straw when Louis says: “It’s kommanderpoopypants@laughsat.net..... With a K.” OHHHH GODDDDDD IT’S SO BAAAAADDDDD. I just wanna die of embarrassment. Twitty is fed up at this point too and peaces out. Louis snaps out of the daydream and whispers “No...” to himself -- clearly deciding against a future like that. 

The moment Twitty lost all hope. 

That whole sequence is definitely the standout moment of the episode for me. Not because of how funny it is (like you might imagine a standout Even Stevens moment to be), but because of how not funny it is. It’s something we’ve never really seen on the show before. I think taking a peek into Louis’ potential pathetic future was so great. It’s almost like they expanded on what they started in Uncle Chuck. This profound moment segues back into the pointless Best Smile drama. I think it’s kinda interesting how Louis’ plot is very existential here and Ren’s is very superficial. I wonder if that was intentional or not. 

Since Ren was so desperate to win and forced herself to smile non-stop, her facial muscles end up getting stuck in a rather disturbing grin lol oops. She’s scheduled to sing the school song at the dive meet in 5 minutes. This somehow leads to Ruby giving Ren a makeover to “distract from the mouth.” She also gives Ren the brilliant advice to cut through the steam room on her way to the pool. The end result is the long lost sister of Pennywise. Ren, The Singing Clown: 

Hiya, Georgie!! (No, but really. She looks terrifying.) 

Even though he wishes Louis would take it seriously, Steve still goes to the meet to show support. Kupchack also makes another appearance because his first-grader son (Played by Hayden Panettiere’s little brother) wants to see “The Cannonball Kid!”

Louis has built up a name for himself apparently. There’s a massive crowd there to see him! I would imagine these are the same kind of people who stand right next to the log flume ride at amusement parks just to get soaked while fully clothed for whatever unimaginable reason. 

You can see that Louis is under a lot of pressure to either give in to the weirdos in the crowd and give them the cannonball they want -- or to take the first step towards seriousness and do an actual dive. In the end, his decision to do a real dive is so admirable!!! I love it so much. But, naturally, when he emerges from the pool and declares “You know what? From this day forward... Let it be known: I am not a clown” we see that he’s standing there as naked as the day he was born. 

I was going to ask why Louis is the only team member who wears trunks instead of a speedo... but I guess this is the reason why, haha. He needed to wear something flimsy so it could fly right off of him later I guess? lol. I’d also like to point out Tawny’s freaking FACE: 

Um... okay, gurl. I always thought it was weird how she (along with, like.. 50 other people) saw her future boyfriend naked in public like that.

Anyway, Louis scurries off embarrassed and that’s it! The “final minute” bit is Ren coming home from school with a copy of the yearbook already??? She won The Big Three... and the last minute honor of “Best Class Clown.” It’s like Louis and Ren swapped stories in the end. THAT’S WHAT YOU GET, REN! That’s what you get!!! This is also the second time we see Ren wanting to achieve perfection in the yearbook and having it totally blow up in her face. 

I love this episode. It was actually the one I was most excited to rewatch while I was organizing my list. Since Louis is my favorite character, this one obviously gets a lot of “personal favorite” points for me. As I mentioned, it isn't even necessarily funny. As soon as Louis does his first cannonball, I get kinda depressed actually lol. The reason I'm ranking this one higher is because I just really love the plot-line and this more serious side of Louis which is seldom seen this prominently. In contrast to Uncle Chuck though, this episode spins the depressing factor into a positive and leaves you feeling optimistic about Louis’ future. You get the sense that he’s actually going to finally make an effort moving forward.

This episode would be even more effective if they actually aired it in production order!! “The Big Splash” is #320 in production. “Model Principal” is #319 — Ya know, the episode where Louis acts like an actual clown and singlehandedly turns the entire school into a circus??? Yeah. They decided to place that episode 3 episodes after this one. If “Model Principal” aired the episode before “The Big Splash” — LIKE IT WAS MEANT TO — it would’ve been so much better. We would’ve seen the height of Louis’ ridiculousness followed by the sobering episode where he decides to knock it off. The episodes leading up to “The Big Splash” in production order are all next-level zany Louis stuff. The few episodes that follow don’t include too much over the top stuff from him, so it would all make total sense. Instead, we get a really solid episode for Louis’ character development, later followed by a total regression of that development. Curse Disney’s f’d up schedule! WHYYYY?!?!?!

Thanks for reading!!

Oh, and HAPPY NEW YEAR! Hope you all had a nice holiday. I took a break for Christmas, so yeah. I was actually so mad that the Christmas/Hanukkah episode wasn’t next on the list. It would’ve been perfect timing to review it last week. Oh, well. That episode is really good and deserves even higher than #19 ;) 

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