#the strip mall of broken dreams

[delcat177]

You haven't seen cultural confusion until you've seen a Youtube channel that reads Reddit posts say "Sadly, he later unalived himself" in earnest respect and utter mind[frick]

I feel like someone is standing next to me talking about how I'm dead

[snekdood]

my culture is midwestern emo

[mostlysignssomeportents]

All the books I reviewed in 2024

I reviewed 26 books this year: 15 novels, 5 nonfiction books, and 6 graphic novels. Even though I feel perennially behind on my reading (and objectively, I do have 10 linear feet of "to be read" books on the shelf), I think this is a pretty good haul.

Books are pretty much the ideal gift, if you ask me. Of course, I'm biased as a former bookseller and library worker, and as an author (of course) – I had three more books come out in 2024 (see the end of this post for details).

I started a lot more than 26 books this year. Long ago, I figured life was too short for books I wasn't enjoying, and I'm pretty ruthless about putting books down partway through if I think they're not going to reward finishing them. I probably start 10 books for every one I finish. However, I do review more than 90% of the books I get through. It's rare for me to keep reading a book all the way to the end if I'm not enjoying it enough to unconditionally recommend it. I rarely review books I don't like – there's not really any point in cataloging the list of books I think you won't enjoy reading, and most books I don't like very much are broken in ways that are too banal to comment upon.

The list below is pretty great, but if you're looking for more, here's the haul from 2023:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/12/01/bookmaker/#2023-in-review

NOVELS

I. Cahokia Jazz by Francis Spufford

A fucking banger: it's a taut, unguessable whuddunit, painted in ultrablack noir, set in an alternate Jazz Age in a world where indigenous people never ceded most the west to the USA. It's got gorgeously described jazz music, a richly realized modern indigenous society, and a spectacular romance. It's amazing.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/12/04/cahokia/#the-sun-and-the-moon

II. After World by Debbie Urbanski

An unflinching and relentlessly bleak tale of humanity's mass extinction, shot through with pathos and veined with seams of tragic tenderness and care. Sen Anon – the story's semi-protagonist – is 18 years old when the world learns that every person alive has been sterilized and so the human race is living out its last years.

The news triggers a manic insistence that this is a good thing – long overdue, in fact – and the perfect opportunity to scan every person alive for eventual reincarnation as virtual humans in an Edenic cloud metaverse called Gaia. That way, people can continue to live their lives without the haunting knowledge that everything they do makes the planet worse for every other living thing, and each other. Here, finally, is the resolution to the paradox of humanity: our desire to do good, and our inevitable failure on that score.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/12/18/storyworker-ad39-393a-7fbc/#digital-human-archive-project

III. Jonathan Abernathy You Are Kind by Molly McGhee

A dreamlike tale of a public-private partnership that hires the terminally endebted to invade the dreams of white-collar professionals and harvest the anxieties that prevent them from being fully productive members of the American corporate workforce.

We meet Jonathan as he is applying for a job that he was recruited for in a dream. As instructed in his dream, he presents himself at a shabby strip-mall office where an acerbic functionary behind scratched plexiglass takes his application and informs him that he is up for a gig run jointly by the US State Department and a consortium of large corporate employers. If he is accepted, all of his student debt repayments will be paused and he will no longer face wage garnishment. What's more, he'll be doing the job in his sleep, which means he'll be able to get a day job and pull a double income – what's not to like?

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/08/capitalist-surrealism/#productivity-hacks

IV. The Book of Love by Kelly Link

If you've read Link's short stories (which honestly, you must read), you know her signature move: a bone-dry witty delivery, used to spin tales of deceptive whimsy and quirkiness, disarming you with daffiness while she sets the hook and yanks. That's the unmistakeable, inimitable texture of a Kelly Link story: deft literary brushstrokes, painting a picture so charming and silly that you don't even notice when she cuts you without mercy.

Turns out that she can quite handily do this for hundreds of pages, and the effect only gets better when it's given space to unfold.

It's a long and twisting mystery about friendship, love, queerness, rock-and-roll, stardom, parenthood, loyalty, lust and duty.

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/13/the-kissing-song/#wrack-and-roll

V. Lyorn by Steven Brust

The seventeenth book in Steven Brust's long-running Vlad Taltos series. For complicated reasons, Vlad has to hide out in a theater. Why a theater? They are shielded from sorcery, as proof against magical spying by rival theater companies, and Vlad is on the run from the Left Hand of the Jhereg – the crime syndicate's all-woman sorceress squad – and so he has to hide in the theater.

The theater is mounting a production of a famous play that's about another famous play. The first famous play (the one the play is about – try and follow along, would you?) is about a famous massacre that took place thousands of years before. The play was mounted as a means of drumming up support for the whistleblower who reported on the massacre and was invited to a short-term berth in the Emperor's death row as a consequence.

The plot is a fantastic, fast-handed caper story that has a million moving parts, a beautiful prestige, and a coup de grace that'll have you cheering and punching the air.

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/09/so-meta/#delightful-doggerel

VI. Till Human Voices Wake Us by Rebecca Roque

A teen murder mystery told in the most technorealist way. Cia's best friend Alice has been trying to find her missing boyfriend for months, and in her investigation, she's discovered their small town's dark secret – a string of disappearances, deaths and fires that are the hidden backdrop to the town's out-of-control addiction problem.

Alice has something to tell Cia, something about the fire that orphaned her and cost her one leg when she was only five years old, but Cia refuses to hear it. Instead, they have a blazing fight, and part ways. It's the last time Cia and Alice ever see each other: that night, Alice kills herself.

Or does she? Cia is convinced that Alice has been murdered, and that her murder is connected to the drug- and death-epidemic that's ravaging their town. As Cia and her friends seek to discover the town's secret – and the identity of Alice's killer – we're dragged into an intense, gripping murder mystery/conspiracy story that is full of surprises and reversals, each more fiendishly clever than the last.

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/16/dead-air/#technorealism

VII. The Steerswoman by Rosemary Kirstein

Randall "XKCD" Munroe pitched me on this over dinner: "All these different people kept recommending them to me, and they kept telling me that I would love them, but they wouldn't tell me what they were about because there's this huge riddle in them that's super fun to figure out for yourself. "The books were published in the eighties by Del Rey, and the cover of the first one had a huge spoiler on it. But the author got the rights back and she's self-published it."

How could I resist a pitch like that? So I ordered a copy. Holy moly is this a good novel! And yeah, there's a super interesting puzzle in it that I won't even hint at, except to say that even the book's genre is a riddle that you'll have enormous great fun solving.

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/04/the-wulf/#underground-fave

VIII. Moonbound by Robin Sloan

Moonbound's protagonist is a "chronicler," a symbiotic fungus engineered to nestle in a human's nervous system, where it serves as a kind of recording angel, storing up the memories, experiences and personalities of its host. When we meet the chronicler, it has just made a successful leap from its old host – a 10,000-years-dead warrior who had been preserved in an anaerobic crashpod ever since her ship was shot out of the sky – into the body of Ariel, a 12-year-old boy who had just invaded the long-lost tomb.

This is doing fiction in hard mode, and Sloan nails it. The unraveling strangeness of Ariel's world is counterpointed with the amazing tale of the world the chronicler hails from, even as the chonicler consults with the preserved personalities of the heroes and warriors it had previous resided in and recorded.

https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/11/penumbraverse/#middle-anth

IX. Fight Me by Austin Grossman

Aging ex-teen superheroes weigh the legacy of Generation X, in a work that enrobes its savage critique with sweet melancholia, all under a coating of delicious snark. The Newcomers – an amped-up ninja warrior, a supergenius whose future self keeps sending him encouragement and technical schematics backwards through time, and an exiled magical princess turned preppie supermodel – have spent more than a decade scattered to the winds. While some have fared better than others, none of them have lived up to their potential or realized the dreams that seemed so inevitable when they were world famous supers with an entourage of fellow powered teens who worshipped them as the planet's greatest heroes.

As they set out to solve the mystery of the wizard who gave the protagonist his powers, they are reunited and must take stock of who they are and how they got there (cue Talking Heads' "Once In a Lifetime").

The publisher's strapline for this book is "The Avengers Meets the Breakfast Club," which is clever, but extremely wrong. The real comp for this book isn't "The Breakfast Club," it's "The Big Chill."

https://pluralistic.net/2024/07/01/the-big-genx-chill/#im-super-thanks-for-asking

X. Glass Houses by Madeline Ashby

Kristen is the "Chief Emotional Manager" for Wuv, a hot startup that has defined the new field of "affective computing," which is when a computer tells you what everyone else around you is really feeling, based on the irrepressible tells emitted by their bodies, voices and gadgets.

Managing Sumter through Wuv's tumultuous launch is hard work for Kristen, but at last, it's paid off. The company has been acquired, making Kristen – and all her coworkers on the founding core team – into instant millionaires. They're flying to a lavish celebration in an autonomous plane that Sumter chartered when the action begins: the plane has a malfunction and crashes into a desert island, killing all but ten of the Wuvvies.

As the survivors explore the island, they discover only one sign of human habitation: a huge, brutalist, featureless black glass house, which initially rebuffs all their efforts to enter it. But once they gain entry, they discover that the house is even harder to leave.

https://pluralistic.net/2024/08/13/influencers/#affective-computing

XI. The Sapling Cage by Margaret Killjoy

A queer coming-of-age tale in the mode of epic fantasy. Lorel wants to be a witch, but that's the very last of the adventurous trades to be strictly gender-segregated. Boys and girls alike run away to be knights, brigands and sailors, but only girls can become a witch. Indeed, Lorel's best friend, Lane, is promised to the witches, having been born to a witch herself.

Lorel has signed up for witching just as the land is turning against witches, thanks to a political plot by a scheming duchess who has scapegoated the witches as part of a plan to annex all the surrounding duchies, re-establishing the long-disintegrated kingdom with herself on the throne. To make things worse (for the witches, if not the duchess), there's a plague of monsters on the land, and the forests are blighted with a magical curse that turns trees to unmelting ice. This all softens up the peasantfolk for anti-witch pogroms.

So Lorel has to learn witching, even as her coven is fighting both monsters and the duchess's knights and the vigilante yokels who've been stirred up with anti-witch xenophobia.

https://pluralistic.net/2024/09/24/daughters-of-the-empty-throne/#witchy

XII. Blackheart Man by Nalo Hopkinson

A story that will make you drunk on language, on worldbuilding, and on its roaring, relentless plot. The action is set on Chynchin, a fantastic Caribbean island (or maybe Caribbeanesque – it's never clear whether this is some magical, imaginary world, or some distant future of our own). Chynchin is a multiracial, creole land with a richly realized gift economy that Hopkinson deftly rounds out with a cuisine, languages, and familial arrangements.

Chynchin was founded through a slave rebellion, in which the press-ganged soldiers of the iron-fisted Ymisen empire were defeated by three witches who caused them to be engulfed in tar that they magicked into a liquid state just long enough to entomb them, then magicked back into solidity. For generations, the Ymisen have tolerated Chynchin's self-rule, but as the story opens, a Ymisen armada sails into Chynchin's port and a "trade envoy" announces that it's time for the Chynchin to "voluntarily" re-establish trade with the Ymisen.

The story that unfolds is a staple of sf and fantasy: the scrappy resistance mounted against the evil empire, and this familiar backdrop is a sturdy scaffold to support Hopkinson's dizzying, phantasmagoric tale of psychedelic magic, possessed children, military intrigue, musicianship and sexual entanglements.

https://pluralistic.net/2024/08/20/piche/#cynchin

XIII. Julia by Sandra Newman

Julia is the kind of fanfic that I love, in the tradition of both The Wind Done Gone and Rosencrantz and Gildenstern Are Dead, in which a follow-on author takes on the original author's throwaway world-building with deadly seriousness, elucidating the weird implications and buried subtexts of all the stuff and people moving around in the wings and background of the original.

For Newman, the starting point here is Julia, an enigmatic lover who comes to Winston with all kinds of rebellious secrets – tradecraft for planning and executing dirty little assignations and acquiring black market goods. Julia embodies a common contradiction in the depiction of young women (she is some twenty years younger than Winston): on the one hand, she is a "native" of the world, while Winston is a late arrival, carrying around all his "oldthink" baggage that leaves him perennially baffled, terrified and angry; on the other hand, she's a naive "girl," who "doesn't much care for reading," and lacks the intellectual curiosity that propels Winston through the text.

This contradiction is the cleavage line that Newman drives her chisel into, fracturing Orwell's world in useful, fascinating, engrossing ways. Through Julia's eyes, we experience Oceania as a paranoid autocracy, corrupt and twitchy. We witness the obvious corollary of a culture of denunciation and arrest: the ruling Party of such an institution must be riddled with internecine struggle and backstabbing, to the point of paralyzed dysfunction. The Orwellian trick of switching from being at war with Eastasia to Eurasia and back again is actually driven by real military setbacks – not just faked battles designed to stir up patriotic fervor. The Party doesn't merely claim to be under assault from internal and external enemies – it actually is.

https://pluralistic.net/2024/09/28/novel-writing-machines/#fanfic

XIV. The Wilding by Ian McDonald

McDonald's first horror novel, and it's fucking terrifying. It's set in a rural Irish peat bog that has been acquired by a conservation authority that is rewilding it after a century of industrial peat mining that stripped it back nearly to the bedrock. This rewilding process has been greatly accelerated by the covid lockdowns, which reduced the human footprint in the conservation area to nearly zero.

Lisa's last duty before she leaves the bog and goes home to Dublin is leading a school group on a wild campout in one of the bog's deep clearings. It's a routine assignment, and while it's not her favorite duty, it's also not a serious hardship.

But as the group hikes out to the campsite, one of her fellow guides is killed, without warning, by a mysterious beast that moves so quickly they can barely make out its monstrous form. Thus begins a tense, mysterious, spooky as hell story of survival in a haunted woods, written in the kind of poesy that has defined McDonald's career, and which – when deployed in service of terror – has the power to raise literal goosebumps.

https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/25/bogman/#erin-go-aaaaaaargh

XV. Polostan by Neal Stephenson

Not a spy novel, but a science fiction novel about spies in an historical setting. This isn't to say that Stephenson tramples on, or ignores spy tropes: this is absolutely a first-rate spy novel. Nor does Stephenson skimp on the lush, gorgeously realized and painstakingly researched detail you'd want from an historical novel.

Polostan raises the curtain on the story of Dawn Rae Bjornberg, AKA Aurora Maximovna Artemyeva, whose upbringing is split between the American West in the early 20th century and the Leningrad of revolutionary Russia (her parents are an American anarchist and a Ukrainian Communist who meet when her father travels to America as a Communist agitator). Aurora's parents' marriage does not survive their sojourn to the USSR, and eventually Aurora and her father end up back in the States, after her father is tasked with radicalizing the veterans of the Bonus Army that occupied DC, demanding the military benefits they'd been promised.

All of this culminates in her return sojourn to the Soviet Union, where she first falls under suspicion of being an American spy, and then her recruitment as a Soviet spy.

Also: she plays a lot of polo. Like, on a horse.

https://pluralistic.net/2024/11/04/bomb-light/#nukular

NONFICTION

I. A City on Mars by Kelly and Zach Weinersmith

Biologist Kelly Weinersmith and cartoonist Zach Weinersmith set out to investigate the governance challenges of the impending space settlements they were told were just over the horizon. Instead, they discovered that humans aren't going to be settling space for a very long time, and so they wrote a book about that instead.

The Weinersmiths make the (convincing) case that every aspect of space settlement is vastly beyond our current or reasonably foreseeable technical capability. What's more, every argument in favor of pursuing space settlement is errant nonsense. And finally: all the energy we are putting into space settlement actually holds back real space science, which offers numerous benefits to our species and planet (and is just darned cool).

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/09/astrobezzle/#send-robots-instead

II. Dark Wire by Joseph Cox

Cox spent years on the crimephone beat, tracking vendors who sold modded phones (first Blackberries, then Android phones) to criminal syndicates with the promise that they couldn't be wiretapped by law-enforcement.

He tells the story of the FBI's plan to build an incredibly secure, best-of-breed crimephone, one with every feature that a criminal would want to truly insulate themselves from law enforcement while still offering everything a criminal could need to plan and execute crimes.

This is really two incredible tales. The first is the story of the FBI and its partners as they scaled up Anom, their best-of-breed crimephone business. This is a (nearly) classic startup tale, full of all-nighters, heroic battles against the odds, and the terror and exhilaration of "hockey-stick" growth.

The other one is the crime startup, the one that the hapless criminal syndicates that sign up to distribute Anom devices find themselves in the middle of. They, too, are experiencing hockey-stick growth. They, too, have a fantastically lucrative tiger by the tail. And they, too, have a unique set of challenges that make this startup different from any other.

Cox has been on this story for a decade, and it shows. He has impeccable sourcing and encyclopedic access to the court records and other public details that allow him to reproduce many of the most dramatic scenes in the Anom caper verbatim.

https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/04/anom-nom-nom/#the-call-is-coming-from-inside-the-ndrangheta

III. The Hidden History of Walt Disney World by Foxx Nolte

No one writes about Disney theme parks like Foxx Nolte; no one rises above the trivia and goes beyond the mere sleuthing of historical facts, no one nails the essence of what makes these parks work – and fail.

The history of Walt Disney World is also a history of the American narrative from the 1960s to the turn of the millennium, especially once Epcot enters the picture and Disney sets out to market itself as a futuristic mirror to America and the world. There's a doomed plan to lead the nation in the provision of an airport for the largely hypothetical short runway aircraft that never materialized, the Disney company's love-hate affair with Florida's orange growers, and the geopolitics of installing a permanent World's Fair, just as World's Fairs were disappearing from the world stage.

In focusing on the conflicts between different corporate managers, outside suppliers, and the gloriously flamboyant weirdos of Florida, Nolte's history of Disney World transcends amusing anaecdotes and tittle-tattle – rather, it illustrates how the creative sparks thrown off by people smashing into each other sometimes created towering blazes of glory that burn to this day.

https://pluralistic.net/2024/07/15/disnefried/#dialectics

IV. Network Nation by Richard R John

An extremely important, brilliantly researched, deep history of America's love/hate affair with not just the telephone, but also the telegraph. It is unmistakably as history book, one that aims at a definitive takedown of various neat stories about the history of American telecommunications.

The monopolies that emerged in the telegraph and then the telephone weren't down to grand forces that made them inevitable, but rather, to the errors made by regulators and the successful gambits of the telecoms barons. At many junctures, things could have gone another way.

Most striking about this book were the parallels to contemporary fights over Big Tech trustbusting, in our new Gilded Age. Many of the apologies offered for Western Union or AT&T's monopoly could have been uttered by the Renfields who carry water for Facebook, Apple and Google. John's book is a powerful and engrossing reminder that variations on these fights have occurred in the not-so-distant past, and that there's much we can learn from them.

https://pluralistic.net/2024/07/18/the-bell-system/#were-the-phone-company-we-dont-have-to-care

V. A Natural History of Empty Lots by Christopher Brown

A frustratingly hard to summarize book, because it requires a lot of backstory and explanation, and one of the things that makes this book so! fucking! great! is how skillfully Brown weaves disparate elements – the unique house he built in Austin, the wildlife he encounters in the city's sacrifice zones, the politics that created them – into his telling.

This series of loosely connected essays that explains how everything fits together: colonial conquest, Brown's failed marriage, his experience as a lawyer learning property law, what he learned by mobilizing that learning to help his neighbors defend the pockets of wildness that refuse to budge.

It's filled with pastoral writing that summons Kim Stanley Robinson by way of Thoreau, and it sometimes frames its philosophical points the way a cyberpunk writer would.

The kind of book that challenges how you feel about the crossroads we're at, the place you live, and the place you want to be.

https://pluralistic.net/2024/09/17/cyberpunk-pastoralism/#time-to-mow-the-roof

GRAPHIC NOVELS

I. Death Strikes by David Maass and Patrick Lay

"The Emperor of Atlantis," is an opera written by two Nazi concentration camp inmates, the librettist Peter Kien and the composer Viktor Ullmann, while they were interned in Terezin, a show-camp in Czechoslovakia that housed numerous Jewish artists, who were encouraged to make and display their work as a sham to prove to the rest of the world that Nazi camps were humane places.

Death Strikes was adapted by my EFF colleague Dave Maass, an investigator and muckraker and brilliant writer, who teamed up with illustrator Patrick Lay and character designer Ezra Rose (who worked from Kien and Ullmann's original designs, which survived along with the score and libretto).

The Emperor's endless wars have already tried Death's patience. Death brings mercy, not vengeance, and the endless killing has dismayed him. The Emperor's co-option drives him past the brink, and Death declares a strike, breaking his sword and announcing that henceforth, no one will die.

Needless to say, this puts a crimp in the Emperor's all-out war plan. People get shot and stabbed and drowned and poisoned, but they don't die. They just hang around, embarrassingly alive (there's a great comic subplot of the inability of the Emperor's executioners to kill a captured assassin).

While this is clearly an adaptation, Kien and Ullmann's spirit of creativity, courage, and bittersweet creative ferment shines through. It's a beautiful book, snatched from death itself.

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/23/peter-kien-viktor-ullmann/#terez

II. My Favorite Things Is Monsters Book Two by Emil Ferris

The long, long delayed sequel to the tale of Karen Reyes, a 10 year old, monster-obsessed queer girl in 1968 Chicago who lives with her working-class single mother and her older brother, Deeze, in an apartment house full of mysterious, haunted adults. There's the landlord – a gangster and his girlfriend – the one-eyed ventriloquist, and the beautiful Holocaust survivor and her jazz-drummer husband.

Ferris's storytelling style is dazzling, and it's matched and exceeded by her illustration style, which is grounded in the classic horror comics of the 1950s and 1960s. Characters in Karen's life – including Karen herself – are sometimes depicted in the EC horror style, and that same sinister darkness crowds around the edges of her depictions of real-world Chicago.

Book Two picks up from Book One's cliffhanger and then rockets forward. Everything brilliant about One is even better in Two – the illustrations more lush, the fine art analysis more pointed and brilliant, the storytelling more assured and propulsive, the shocks and violence more outrageous, the characters more lovable, complex and grotesque.

Everything about Two is more. The background radiation of the Vietnam War in One takes center stage with Deeze's machinations to beat the draft, and Deeze and Karen being ensnared in the Chicago Police Riots of '68. The allegories, analysis and reproductions of classical art get more pointed, grotesque and lavish. Annika's Nazi concentration camp horrors are more explicit and more explicitly connected to Karen's life. The queerness of the story takes center stage, both through Karen's first love and the introduction of a queer nightclub. The characters are more vivid, as is the racial injustice and the corruption of the adult world.

https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/01/the-druid/#

III. So Long Sad Love by Mirion Malle

Cleo is a French comics creator who's moved to Montreal, in part to be with Charles, a Quebecois creator who helps her find a place in the city's tight-knit artistic scene. The relationship feels like a good one, with the normal ups and downs, but then Cleo travels to a festival, where she meets Farah, a vivacious and talented fellow artist. They're getting along great…until Farah discovers who Cleo's boyfriend is. Though Farah doesn't say anything, she is visibly flustered and makes her excuses before hurriedly departing.

This kicks off Cleo's hunt for the truth about her boyfriend, a hunt that is complicated by the fact that she's so far from home, that her friends are largely his friends, that he flies off the handle every time she raises the matter, and by her love for him.

Malle handles this all so deftly, showing how Cleo and her friends all play archetypal roles in the recurrent missing stair dynamic. It's a beautifully told story, full of charm and character, but it's also a kind of forensic re-enactment of a disaster, told from an intermediate distance that's close enough to the action that we can see the looming crisis, but also understand why the people in its midst are steering straight into it.

Packed with subtlety and depth, romance and heartbreak, subtext that carries through the dialog (in marvelous translation from the original French by Aleshia Jensen) and the body language in Malle's striking artwork.

https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/25/missing-step/#the-fog-of-love

IV. Bea Wolf by Zach Wienersmith and Boulet

A ferociously amazingly great illustrated kids' graphic novel adaptation of the Old English epic poem, which inspired Tolkien, who helped bring it to popularity after it had languished in obscurity for centuries.

Weinersmith and Boulet set themselves the task of bringing a Germanic heroic saga from more than a thousand years ago to modern children, while preserving the meter and the linguistic and literary tropes of the original. And they did it!

There are some changes, of course. Grendel – the boss monster that both Beowulf and Bea Wulf must defeat – is no longer obsessed with decapitating his foes and stealing their heads. In Bea Wulf, Grendel is a monstrously grown up and boring adult who watches cable news and flosses twice per day, and when he defeats the kids whose destruction he is bent upon, he does so by turning them into boring adults, too.

The utter brilliance of Bea Wulf is as much due to the things it preserves from the original epic as it is to the updates and changes. Weinersmith has kept the Old English tradition of alliteration, right from the earliest passages, with celebrations of heroes like "Tanya, treat-taker, terror of Halloween, her costume-cache vast, sieging kin and neighbor, draining full candy-bins, fearing not the fate of her teeth. Ten thousand treats she took. That was a fine Tuesday."

https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/24/awesome-alliteration/#hellion-hallelujah

V. Youth Group by Bowen McCurdy and Jordan Morris

A charming tale of 1990s ennui, cringe Sunday School – and demon hunting.

Kay is a bitter, cynical teenager who's doing her best to help her mother cope with an ugly divorce that has seen her dad check out on his former family. Mom is going back to church, and she talks Kay into coming along with her to attend the church youth group.

But this is no ordinary youth group. Kay's ultra-boring suburban hometown is actually infested with demons who routinely possess the townspeople, and that baseline of demonic activity has suddenly gone critical, with a new wave of possessions. Suddenly, the possessed are everywhere – even Kay's shitty dad ends up with a demon inside of him.

That's when Kay discovers that the youth group and its corny pastor are also demon hunters par excellence. Their rec-rooms sport secret cubbies filled with holy weapons, and the words of exorcism come as readily to them as any embarrassing rewritten devotional pop song. Kay's discovery of this secret world convinces her that the youth group isn't so bad after all, and soon she is initiated into its mysteries, including the existence of rival demon-hunting kids from the local synagogue, Catholic church, and Wiccan coven.

https://pluralistic.net/2024/07/16/satanic-panic/#the-dream-of-the-nineties

VI. Justice Warriors: Vote Harder by Matt Bors and Ben Clarkson

Vote Harder sees Bubble City facing its first election in living memory, as the mayor – who inherited his position from his "powerful, strapping Papa" – loses a confidence vote by the city's trustees. They're upset with his plan to bankrupt the city in order to buy a laser powerful enough to carve his likeness into the sun as a viral stunt for the launch of his comeback album. The trustees are in no way mollified by the fact that he expects to make a lot of money selling special branded sunglasses that allow Bubble City (and the mutant hordes of the Uninhabited Zone) to safely look into the sun and see what their tax dollars bought.

So it's time for an election, and the two candidates are going hard: there's the incumbent Mayor Prince; there's his half-sister and ex-girlfriend, Stufina Vipix XII, and there's a dark-horse candidate Flauf Tanko, a mutant-tank cyborg that went rogue after a militant Home Owners Association disabled it and its owners abandoned it. Flauf-Tanko is determined to give the masses of the Uninhabited Zone the representation they've been denied for so long, despite the structural impediments to this (UZers need to complete a questionnaire, sub-forms, have three forms of ID, and present a rental contract, drivers license, work permit and breeding license. They also need to get their paperwork signed in person at a VERI-VOTE location, then wait 14 days to get their voter IDs by mail. Also, districts of 2 million or more mutants are allocated the equivalent of only 250,000 votes, but only if 51% of eligible voters show up to the polls; otherwise, their votes are parceled out to other candidates per the terms of the Undervoting and Apathy Allotment Act).

What unfolds is a funny, bitter, superb piece of political satire that could not be better timed.

https://pluralistic.net/2024/09/11/uninhabited-zone/#eremption-season

As I mentioned in the introduction to this roundup, I had three books out in 2024; a new hardcover, and the paperback editions of two books that came out in hardcover last year. There's more on the horizon – a new hardcover novel (PICKS AND SHOVELS) in Feb 2025, along with the paperback of my novel THE BEZZLE (also Feb 2025). I just turned in the manuscript for my next nonfiction book, ENSHITTIFICATION, which will also be adapted as a graphic novel. I'll also be shortly announcing the publication details for a YA graphic novel, a new essay collection and short story collection.

If you enjoy my work – the newsletter, the talks, the reviews – the best way to support me is to buy my books. I write for grownups, teens, middle-schoolers and little kids, so there's something for everyone!

I. The Lost Cause A solarpunk novel of hope in the climate emergency. "The first great YIMBY novel" -Bill McKibben. "Completely delightful…Neither utopian nor dystopian…I loved it" -Rebecca Solnit. A national bestseller!

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865946/thelostcause/

II. The Internet Con: How to Seize the Means of Computation A detailed disassembly manual for people who want to dismantle Big Tech. "A passionate case for 'relief from manipulation, high-handed moderation, surveillance, price-gouging, disgusting or misleading algorithmic suggestions. -Akash Kapur, New Yorker. Another national bestseller!

https://www.versobooks.com/products/3035-the-internet-con

III. The Bezzle. A seething rebuke of the privatized prison system that delves deeply into the arcane and baroque financial chicanery involved in the 2008 financial crash. "Righteously satisfying…A fascinating tale of financial skullduggery, long cons, and the delivery of ice-cold revenge." –Booklist. A third national bestseller!

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865878/thebezzle/

[sentinelcole]

It is wild to me that we're only on episode 2 of NSBU. I feel like so much has happened and the cast is already fully chaotic which usually takes more time to do.

Also the character creation is so good. You've got six characters who, for one reason or another, either don't want things to change (Wendell, Liv, Usha, Paula), or are stuck in a rut (Dang and Russell). Then their alter egos are their form of violent wish fulfillment.

First you have Liv, top of her class and going to Stanford. But she feels like she has no control over her life and steals small things to reclaim some power. She becomes Kingskin, a mob boss who answers to no one and is the most physically powerful/unstoppable character in any room.

Then comes Wendell, a socially awkward kid who longs to connect with his family and BMX riding brothers. He fades into the background of his family. But then he becomes Vin Ethenol, a larger than life racer who is all about family.

Then you've got our darling Usha who feels the world has passed her by but she refuses to let go of what she had. She doesn't understand technology and does everything by hand. But then she becomes G13 who is a technological wunderkind. They aren't on the cutting edge of tech, they are the cutting edge. They work alone and don't need anyone or need others to see them. Unlike Usha who wishes her family would call her more.

Paula is a security guard for a dying strip mall who wants to be a rules enforcer but also a friend. She's desperately alone in her security shed and going through a painful divorce. So she tries to make a new family at work. And she becomes Jack Manhattan. He's not just a cop, he's THE cop. He plays by his own rules but always gets the job done. But even in her fantasy, she's alone and can't escape her divorce.

Russell and Dang are both stories of faded glory and broken dreams. Both are adrift in their lives and need direction. Dang feels ignored and disrespected constantly. Russell has a good job and is very skilled but struggles to make real connections. Then Dang becomes Greg Stock, international man of mystery. He can't commune with an alien but he has an organization that relies on him to get things done. And Russell becomes Jessica Drips, an agile and attractive cat burglar. They're cool and independent. They're all of the things Russell likes about themselves without any of the parts they don't (needing to make connections, being a nobody).

I can't stop thinking about all of it

[regexkind]

The beach was desolate and frigid. A little trickle of water sluggishly ran from the marshes down to sea. It should have made a burbling sound but the fog that had rolled in seemed to stifle every noise but the rhythmic lull of the surf. Even that was dead; normally the ocean is animated by wild consciousness, but today it came down on the beach like the stroke of a rower who has been in their canoe for days, exhausted beyond all endurance.

As I traced the trickle of water I came upon the tragic form of a heron, broken and bent at an unnatural angle. Its feathers were frayed and muddy, and its eyes had been taken by some scavenger. It was ruined and impossibly delicate.

A sensible part of me, the part that pays bills and heeds stopsigns, urged me not to interfere with this shattered being. It told me that I would catch some hitherto unknown avian plague. But my hands moved under their own power, and reached out to scoop up the lifeless bird.

I remember holding it as the tide came in, unable to move from my position, the water coming in over my shoes. This doesn't seem possible, because I also don't remember becoming cramped or my feet pruning up, both of which should have happened. Instead, as the water flowed over my toes and the arches of my feet, I became aware of a trickle of awareness flowing away from my crouching form, and into the body I wrapped to my chest.

What started as a dribble became an unstoppable torrent. I plunged into the depths of lagoons and felt frogs, still struggling, course down my gullet—I flapped laboriously across taciturn skies and felt rain lash my beak and eyes—I saw in a flash the secret cove I made my nest of salt grass in, where any rare human interloper who walked by would be unable to recognize it as a bird's home.

As the torrent became a stream and then dried up entirely, I came back into my body. I looked down at the heron, only to discover that it was sloughing apart in my arms like a sandcastle tumbling into the sea. What had been the beak, was now a flaking piece of plastic detritus. What were once the quills of feathers became rusting wire. I began to weep, hot tears spilling out and scalding my chill cheeks, and woke in my unheated house.

I tried to put the dream out of my mind, but all day I found myself crying on and off, unable to control myself. Over the next week, I continued to suddenly find myself riveted by memories I had only had in my life as a heron. I would see a power line and remember perching on it, watching flickers dart to and fro, or else eat a wonton in the strip mall and suddenly have to push away a powerful memory of a minnow sliding down into my stomach.

I had begun to convince myself that this was all just a particularly vivid and arresting dream. About a month afterwards, I was walking at the saltwater park in my neighborhood when I saw a black passageway, off the boardwalk and into the thickets and weeds. I found myself drawn magnetically inwards, and realized with an intense shock that this was the place of the heron's nest.

I have no idea what to do with this second life I seem to have lived. I don't think I should ignore it. I don't know if I can.

[lacking-artdration]

guilty, guilty.

(backgrounds directly referenced in page 3- panel 1, page 4- panel 1 from video game within the backrooms. Fantastic game and major inspiration for HTSSITGE, please PLAY!!!)

page 1

you know, i've been thinking... about this place. And, uhm, bear with me because I'm gonna get back to that point in a second, trust me. But I...I've also been thinking

about more than just now, I've been thinking about before and..

When I was at Colombiad for my degree in Architectural design, I had never felt better in my life, genuinely.

Ever since I was a kid, I'd always had this inate ability to see empty space in this world, and know PRECISELY what to put in it.

Empty Space, an empty canvas, ripe for filling with greatness. Going to a school where I could USE that ability was greater than any feeling in the world.

Getting a degree that would let me fill that space, to fill the empty space of the world with purpose, and greatness only present in my own mind and my inspirations.

So you can imagine my dismay when the only job I could land after I graduated was as a paint mixer. Home Depot, you know.

I worked at this big warehouse with an unending array of isles. Looked a bit like... this, Actually. It sucked, obviously, no friggin' artist wants to be stuck in a job where they can't do the...thing they just spent seven gosh darn years of their life working for.

I hated where I worked, this big, bloated warehouse that reeked of wood, sweat, and broken dreams. It was neatly stuck in a strip mall between a Walmart and a Michaels that looked almost identical to it. No room, no space for anything. Not for me, not for my mind.

page 2

That sounds self-centered, and maybe it is, but... THE POINT IS that whenever I was in that warehouse I was stuck with this... this muck that clung to my brain, that I could only clear once I clocked out. This lingering feeling of numbness that drove my fingers to the mixer, mindlessly recalling hexes on chips handed to me by people just trying to paint their garage, without a thought for the world around me.

That dunked my brain in an apathetic coating that drove me down and up each aisle thoughtlessly until the day was through.

And eventually, it started to follow me outside of work. It stuck to my brain and drowned me in despair. Every building became the same, towering block, taking up space.

Every alley and street was a aisle, trapping humankind. My own home was painted the same "Bright Banana Creme" color that I'd had mixed a million times for every other customer. Eventually I was so... numb to the feeling that it became normalcy.

page 3

This was life. A perfect, concrete, block. Designed for purely its fulfillment of purpose. Nothing more.

When I finally got that architectural job I'd spent years working for, I arrived at a firm full of men and women just like me. Sanded away into miserable, dead-eyed tinkerers who were so afraid of anything outside of what was the standard, that the front page of Architectural Digest was enough to have most of us clutching our pearls. Where empty space was, we put in office space. Mixed-use buildings. Warehouses. Hotels. "High-End" Apartment Complexes.

page 4

Box after box, line after line, purpose, practicality, standard. That was what mattered to us. That was what made the design.

page 5

So... I'm down here, and I've been thinking. I know this place, of course I do. I've seen it everywhere. But the difference is... nothing here is built with intention. There is

no purpose for this wall here. None that I can distinguish, anyway. It exists in the same way a tumor grows on some place on the body. It sprouts like a random weed floating along the wind. Yet... it strikes me with that same apathy that my old job, and that all of my work that followed it has. It's a reflection of the rot that I cast on my city

on my fellow man. What I filled their empty spaces with... and now I have to suffer...

[spookyspaghettisundae]

Yellowness

Reality was disintegrating. People scarcely noticed such an event whenever it had happened before. Even the people whose hearts had opened to secrets of the cosmos.

Like in this very moment, with all manner of people, sitting in their cars, trailing down THE HIGHWAY, oblivious to the invisible fire that was devouring their world. Driving to where they needed to be, or wanted to be, or even just driving aimlessly. People always needed to be somewhere, or elsewhere, or… anywhere, really.

And whenever you took that apart, word for word, concept by concept, the cracks always started to show. Some magi had said it before, and they would say it again: perception was shaped by belief, therefore the world as we perceived it was subject to change by changing our beliefs.

Underneath the cracking surface of one egg, another reality was already on the rise, emerging from its own nested depths. It had been gestating in the dark void where all memories met, melting into a primordial soup where all ambitions went to die. If the people traveling THE HIGHWAY were like the land’s blood cells, then the first extremities were already on the verge of withering and rotting away. Blackened, with potholes forming in the asphalt, and nothing to stop the spreading decay.

Deep down, deeper down, beneath the dust and shadow, ancient fossils slept. Turned to oil and tar and stone. Drawn from the earth, transmuted with blood and sweat and dollars into plastic and steel, and combusting into the suffocating smoke of industry and corruption. Whole worlds had risen and crumbled into sand, over and over again.

Some more obvious in their transfiguration than others. Sometimes, someone’s dream was dying, and with it a previous world. Sometimes, another someone’s dream took its place, and changed the way reality worked.

And whenever any world ended, another would rise from its ashes.

Whatever would happen if that cycle was broken somehow? The phoenix—rather than being shot dead, and eaten by the hungry hunter, and shat out to return to the eternal circle of life and death—what if something were to remove it from the cosmos entirely?

Most people in those cars, drifting up and down THE HIGHWAY, paid no mind to such esoteric thoughts. Most of them had never noticed previous realities dying and replacing each other. Events as invisible to them as the sky over their heads, and as unfathomable as the seas and the millennia of eras past.

They had other things to worry about.

Such as Special Agent of the FBI, Derek Wells. Sliding doors opened for him before he exited the clothing store at a strip mall.

He had exchanged his damaged suit for a pair of denims and a bright yellow T-shirt emblazoned with a cartoonishly smiling bright sun. His shoes lay discarded in a trash can nearby, previously swapped out with a pair of cheap white sneakers. His service pistol and its concealed holster stayed hidden, wrapped up inside the fabric of his bureau-issued jacket, squeezed underneath one arm.

He ran his hand through his short hair, figuring it needed a new trim soon. Considering the bureau’s dress code and how he was now violating it with his new outfit, the thought of quitting the job crossed his mind.

Then the thought of winding up in prison eclipsed it.

Derek Wells sighed deeply, as if he was jettisoning debris from the surface of his soul, from which another was emerging, unbeknownst to him.

Aria Chambers was leaning against the side of her limousine, chattering on a chunky mobile phone. Wells sighed again, somewhat disappointed over the bureau never having issued him one of those devices. The pocketful of change he always used for payphones hung heavy in his balled up jacket.

Barry, Aria’s bodyguard, stood watch near the limousine. Wearing his shades again and looming in the background, Wells figured they’d be fine.

According to Aria, she had some things to talk about with another one of the Witches of the West Coast. Part of Wells had been burning with curiosity to listen in on that conversation, but another part of him was fed up with all the talk of magick, and ghosts, and necromancers, and the occult.

Mostly, he wondered if time in prison would be the equivalent of vacation he was long overdue for. A time out he desperately needed.

The thought of his breakup with Aleena returned to haunt him—just as someone else exited the store behind him, and its doors slid open again, the soft R’n’B of Chasing Waterfalls by TLC traveled from the retailer’s radio speakers, reaching him outside. It pained him how he still liked the track, but the sound of it now cut deep, forever intertwined with a broken relationship.

He clicked his tongue. The damned song would stay on the air all year. He knew it before he knew it.

Took a walk. Away from the clothing store. Away from the music.

Straight to the fast food joint near the next corner. It afforded him enough distance from the music, though its beat and melody and dulcet vocals still lingered as ghostly echoes in his ears.

While he counted coins to gauge if he could afford a burger and milkshake, rather than making a call to the bureau, he paused.

A figure in the window of the electronics store stared back at him. The ghosts of TV screens behind the glass flickered.

Electricity. Crackled.

That figure was neither his own reflection nor a person behind the glass. That figure was a person from… elsewhere, entirely.

Reality was disintegrating, and Derek Wells just didn’t know it yet.

The figure was a man with messy blond hair, dressed in an old black leather jacket.

Jericho Kane.

The suspect Wells and Parker had pursued across America on a wild goose chase, only to find out he was the symptom of something bigger, and not the cause.

And here he was—or wasn’t? Jericho Kane, the shadow, or the ghost, or the echo—banged his fists against the glass from another side, shouting at the top of his lungs, making no sound whatsoever. Inaudibly pleading with Wells to help him. Almost entirely translucent. Barely visible.

The clinkety-clinking of coins hitting sidewalk tore Wells out of the sinuous vision. When he looked back up, the image of a desperate Jericho Kane had vanished. Like a hallucination that had given up on haunting him.

Wells tilted his head one way, then the other, almost hoping he’d catch another glimpse of the bizarre apparition. A few weeks prior, and he would have been questioning his sanity over such a sight, but he knew better now than to dismiss such phenomena as anything but a sign of the presence of something unnatural.

Picking up the fallen coins, Wells rubbernecked and swiveled, hoping to catch a glimpse of the ghost again. Or something else that stood out.

Aria was still on the phone. Waving the hip flask in her other hand excitedly, taking a swig, and responding into the mobile receiver. The traffic of the nearby HIGHWAY drowned out whatever words she exchanged.

Other passersby gave Wells funny looks. One of them oozed with pity, like he was looking at a crazy man.

Wells averted his gaze, shook his head, and did the next-best thing after looking for a way to find the ghost.

He entered the fast food joint.

Slowly, surely, reality was disintegrating. He just couldn’t see it. Nobody really could.

Standing in line to get that burger and shake, Wells shot a glance at his wristwatch.

3:33 PM.

He found it funny at the time though had no concept as to why.

Mostly, he thought one thing: Agent Parker was late. Too late.

Something was wrong. It couldn’t have been taking her this long to interrogate the imprisoned serial killer, Freddy Fletcher, at the Kentucky supermax.

He sighed every time he remembered his previous conversation with her.

How she had insisted on going alone, in case they were apprehended for having gone dark on the bureau—it only made sense if only one of them was caught in such a case.

How she had insisted on going alone, because Fletcher’s profile told her he would be more talkative that way—and dismissing him on the “good cop, bad cop” tactic ever worked out for the better.

How she had insisted on going alone, because their enemies were spying on them somehow, and splitting their attention would make it more difficult for that shadowy cabal to stall them, to stop them from reaching the dark heart of this invisible world.

Wells sighed because he knew, deep down, she was right.

Wells sighed yet again, because he had developed a deep sense of loyalty towards his new partner and colleague over such a short amount of time, and was now growing worried about her well-being.

Worried that something was wrong, and Parker was in trouble.

Even with reality disintegrating as it was, and a whole cast of realistic doubts gnawing away at the tenuous equilibrium within himself, one more person stood in line in front of him. Ordering a cheeseburger and fries. A small and greasy reality check, grounding him in the reality he thought he knew.

He shot another glance over his shoulder.

Aria was still on the phone.

Then, Wells froze. Paralyzed with shock.

A familiar face filled out the entirety of his perception. His beliefs flip-flopped in that very moment, as he had seen too many coincidences for them to remain in the realm of coincidence. And with that very realization, and reality disintegrating as it was, and his beliefs tearing apart at the seams, and altering his perception, he saw—

Director Anthony Collins.

His superior. His mentor at the bureau.

His friend of several years.

That had been Wells’ perception and beliefs for a good long time now.

Now, he perceived an enemy.

Anthony was one of their enemies.

Instinct—instinct told Wells that Anthony was the leak in the bureau. The one who had sold them out to the Way King’s cabal.

It was the only way Wells could explain why on Earth he would encounter Director Anthony Collins in the middle of nowhere, an entire US state away from the West Virginia office, rooting around inside the back of a strange black van with a wizard painting airbrushed onto its side.

Though Wells lacked the words to describe this tingling and weird sensation, he sensed the inherent synchronicity, drenching the fabric of reality in that very moment. A dizzying sense of vertigo overcame him as he stared at Anthony. Their confluence here, brought together at this innocuous strip mall, against all odds, and against all logic.

Anthony was the traitor.

The enemy.

“Uh, excuse me, can I get your order, sir?”

The clerk behind the counter had addressed Wells. Snapped him right back out of the vertigo.

He was already seeing red and all faces except for Anthony’s had blurred into soupy, indecipherable masks.

“I’m sorry. Get the next customer, please. I’ll come back later,” Wells pressed out before clenching his jaw.

Staring daggers at Anthony all the while.

“Uh, o-okay?”

Someone took his place in line while Wells marched straight out of the fast food joint, nearly shoving some stranger out of the way in his stride.

Across the parking lot he stormed, on a direct path towards his former mentor. Following a straight line to the gravity well. The magnet to his metal.

“Anthony!” Wells yelled. A furious yell, transporting pure and unfiltered wrath.

Anthony Collins jolted up into standing straight. He had the air of someone caught in the act. Wells didn’t know what exactly he had caught Anthony doing just now, but he knew he was right about his instinct.

This chance encounter felt wrong.

All wrong.

Wells kept pace, one angry step after the other taking him to Anthony fast. Fury rippled through his body. He shook and burned with indignant rage until his sneakers slapped the ground with increasing speed.

Anthony’s eyes widened with shock. Rooted where he stood, like a deer caught in the headlights.

The fury flowed. Adrenaline pumped. Wells burst out into jogging towards Anthony.

“Anthony!”

Anthony sprang into action. Slammed the van’s side door shut, then bolted to the driver’s seat. Didn’t even close the door as he fired up the motor, and the vehicle’s engine roared.

Stray coins jingled where they hit the parking lot’s asphalt—Wells gritted his teeth, oblivious to such paltry losses, and yet—

“Shit!”

Wells’ jogging transformed into running. He chased after the van. Sparks sprayed where the vehicle bounced over the nearest curb—Anthony taking a desperate shortcut past people stuck in traffic by the parking lot exit—the van scraped over concrete and fender metal screeched as it violently twisted.

Anthony gained more speed until he escaped with the van, long before Wells could catch up on foot.

Because the windows on the back of van had been tinted, Wells couldn’t spot anything. Through the red haze clouding his perception, he hadn’t even caught the license plate number.

“Shit!” he swore again.

He bottled up more profanities before they could cascade from his throat.

A car horn honked, and Wells waved the driver to go around him as he returned to the curb.

Aria and Barry were looking his way. Aria threw her hands up into a theatrical shrug—still holding the hip flask in one hand and the phone in the other—still so far out of earshot that they couldn’t communicate verbally. Confused over whatever had just played out on the strip mall’s parking lot—

Wells jogged over to them.

Shouted before he arrived.

“Get that car goin���! Quick! We can’t let him get away!”

Doors slammed and to Wells’ relief, both Aria and Barry reacted as quickly as he needed them to. He caught some wheezing breaths as he slumped into the seat in the back of the limo. The driver stepped on the gas, just like Aria told him to.

“Follow that van,” she instructed, between hasty sips from her flask.

She eyed Wells closely.

“Darlin’, who the hell are we chasing?”

Wells unraveled the balled-up jacket in his hands. Withdrew the empty pistol from the holster in its bowels. He checked it thoroughly, just short of taking it apart to clean it—a way he used to decompress and “meditate”, back in his days with the Rangers.

The weapon in his palm weighed as much as it should, its magazine filled with new bullets.

It centered him now.

“Okay, darlin’, you are really scaring me,” Aria said, taking another swig from her flask. “What in the hell is going on? Who is that? Talk to me, please, we’re, like, on the same side here. Right?”

Wells emitted a shuddering sigh, partially owed to catching his breath. Partially owed to exasperation.

He didn’t feel like explaining.

But she was right. They never had the luxury of picking their allies. He’d take whoever he got, and hope they had his back when it came down to serious business.

“That,” he breathed, “That was Director Anthony Collins of the FBI. Don’t ask me how I know, but I know—I know it’s him. Gotta be him. He’s the guy who ratted us out, at the bureau.”

Aria nodded.

He set his jaw and looked up. Aria and Barry both eyed him suspiciously—like friends would, these two strangers now strangely concerned with his well-being.

Wells spoke again, “How does your…”

He didn’t want to say it out loud.

He had grown to hate that word. Almost as much as he hated the memory of Aleena breaking up with him.

Aria cocked her head and asked, “How does what?”

“How does your magick work?” Wells finally asked Aria.

Barry averted his gaze, still uncomfortable himself over the subject. Probably because he had seen his former colleague, Mac, get possessed by a demon, then get his brains blown out by Aria because exorcisms apparently didn’t work quite as they did in movies.

“What? You want a crash course now?”

Wells shrugged. His grip around the pistol tightened to the point of his knuckles whitening.

The engine growled. Tires screeched. Her limo driver was doing his best.

Through tinted windows, Wells perceived the wizard van on the horizon. The two vehicles swerved and swooped, weaving through drifting traffic, all blood cells accelerating and evading and surviving, while adrenaline pumped through the body in sudden surges.

Several cars ahead of them on THE HIGHWAY.

Blood rushed in Wells’ ears. The gloomy sky outside continuously darkened.

Ever so slightly.

And reality? Well, reality was still disintegrating. The ghostly image of Jericho Kane once more banged his fists against a window between worlds, invisible to the people inside the limo. Helpless to communicate with them, unable to bridge the void, and incapable of reaching them in any way.

“Darlin’, I trust you’re as sharp as you look,” Aria said, “But there’s no way I can teach you how to—”

“I don’t want to learn how you do it,” Wells replied. “I’m just curious how it works. Like a crash course in astrophysics, or something. See, I know how this gun works. Combustion. Black powder. I know how to use it safely, and I know how to take a mean motherfucker down with it if I need to. So—how does your weapon work?”

Aria scoffed. Took another swig.

She raised the flask and clicked her long and perfectly-manicured black fingernails against its shiny silvery surface.

“Okay, Mister America. These,” she said, clicking the flask again, “are my potions.”

“It’s not just booze?”

“Oh, it’s booze alright. But booze is my potions, see? Booze is a lubricant which allows me to see the world differently than other people—hell, different even from how I see it when I’m sober, and believe you me, I try to keep that a distant memory.”

“You’re drunk all the time?”

She ignored the question. ”And when that changes—when I change—so does the world around me. I’ve hurled beer bottles with my mind, like some Jedi shit. You saw me drink that Gravedigger spirit asshole, well, because spirits and spirits are intrinsically connected when I’m transcendent like that, and it makes sense when I’m blasted. Shit, man, I’ve been in car crashes under the influence and climbed out of wrecks that would have killed an elephant—and I walked away without a scratch, like a newborn baby.”

Barry arched a brow, still trying to blend into their environment despite being the biggest person in the car.

Wells ran a hand through his hair.

This was helping. She was helping.

His blood still rushed. His body still burned. He still yearned to grab Anthony, and throttle him till all the answers came tumbling out of his rat mouth.

But Wells also knew he’d never get all the puzzle pieces from one single place.

And their chase was taking them in the direction of the Kentucky State Penitentiary.

To Parker.

He refrained from swearing and cracked a lopsided smile.

“Y’know, that’s the first thing I’ve heard about the occult that has made any lick o’ sense.”

Aria beamed. If she was toasted—and she likely was, given her drinking habits—then she was good at hiding it. Or so inured to the influence of it that it was her normal state of being.

He continued to grapple with her explanation, shaping it into something he could comprehend. “So you’re telling me… you get shitfaced, then the world bends to your drunk logic?”

She shrugged, still smiling. “Best I’ve ever heard it put into words.”

“Alcoholomancy? Alcoholemy?”

She laughed from the depth of her belly, snorting by the end. “Great names. I, well, I just call it witchcraft. But I’ll take those into consideration when I next engage in discourse with my coven.”

His grip around the pistol eased. Wells chewed on his lip and shot another glance to their target. The van couldn’t outrun the limo, nor could the limo catch up to the van.

The lamest chase he had ever been involved in.

“If they ever turn this into some fucked-up kind of movie, I want credit for that,” he mumbled.

Her slender hand rested on his forearm. Cold skin. Electric to the touch.

A soothing energy flowed from body to body. It caused his other hand to release all tension, unfurling from the fist he had formed in his lap, splaying his fingers before gripping the gun more lightly.

“She’ll be fine,” Aria said. “I feel it too. It’s all coming together now. We… we are all coming together now. All mysteries unravel when you pull on the right thread, and sometimes, the right thread just presents itself.”

She extended the hip flask for him to take.

And Wells took it. Stared at the sleek metal container, systematically shedding all inhibitions. He normally would have never had a drink on the job, but he no longer was on the job anymore, was he?

Thus, he took a long sip from the flask.

Its liquid burned in the back of his throat. Strong bourbon. Given how Aria dressed and behaved, he assumed it was expensive stuff. It didn’t matter to Wells in that moment, it only tasted like fire.

Fitting right in with his state of being.

Reality continued disintegrate all around them, unbeknownst to them.

“Do you feel it, too?” Aria asked.

“That we’re going to get answers soon?” Wells shot back.

“Something strange in the air, Agent Wells. Something…”

“Call me Derek,” he said. “And I feel it, yeah. ”

“Providence,” she added. “It tastes like providence.”

“Tastes like bourbon to me,” he replied, handing the flask back to her with another lopsided smile. “Thanks. And thanks for payrolling the ammo and clothing.”

She just nodded.

He couldn’t help it and tightened his grip around the pistol again. The lamest car chase was taking them off THE HIGHWAY, onto roads winding through a wooded area. The limo never really gained on the van. The van never outran the limo.

Anthony ran a red light, resulting in screeching tires at a lazy crossing, and more honking horns. Aria’s driver powered through, provoking more angry honks from other people in traffic.

“What are we doing when we catch up to him?” Aria asked. “I’d normally volunteer to be more proactive, but according to you, we’re dealing with the director of the Federal fuckin’ Bureau of Investigation, so I think I’m going to play my cards safe and follow your lead on this. I have only so many get-out-of-jail-free cards, Derek.”

His nostrils flared as he struggled to formulate a response.

He wasn’t sure himself what would happen next.

Blown away were all bureau protocol, all discipline from military days, and every iota of personal routine. He shook his head when he only came up with raw instinct, because raw instinct was gripping his stomach.

“We talk,” he finally reasoned out loud. “I will point this gun at Anthony, and we will talk until I’m satisfied with whatever he says.”

“That’s,” Aria whispered. “That’s not much of a plan. Listen, Derek. You tell me what to do, and we’ll do it, Barry and me both.”

Barry met her gaze and nodded slowly in recognition.

Wells rolled his jaw and figured her remaining bodyguard was worth every penny she paid him.

The things he must have seen.

After the final curve of the road ahead of them, the forest opened up, granting clear sight to long fields, leading up to the facility colloquially known as the Castle on the Cumberland.

The tall Gothic structure honored its name, looming over the nearby river like a foreboding fortress. The water tower jutting out from its rooftops lent it an almost alien appearance, like a UFO was about to land there any time now.

Aria’s attention became glued to the sky. Barry rubbernecked to follow her gaze.

Derek Wells squinted once it hit him.

Reality was disintegrating, and the sky was slowly transforming to match.

Clouds swirled with surreal shape and direction, forming a spiraling vortex in the sky. Like a misty black hole forming… right above the supermax prison.

All gloomy daylight gradually darkened, like a painter slathering on layers upon layers of black.

The horizon shifted in tone until a deep crimson saturated it, seeping upwards, like the earth itself bleeding, dripping upside-down into the heavens.

All distances melted—the fields to the tree lines grew as if they were driving away from them until a shadowy mist had swallowed them entirely.

The skies of different places clashed like different liquids admixing in a bartender’s glass.

Aria’s hand on Derek’s forearm centered him again. He stopped squeezing the grip of his pistol.

Reality was disintegrating.

Even the crimson died until a pitch-black darkness swallowed their environment. It swallowed the wizard-van and Anthony. It swallowed the prison, the river, and the woods, and the sky itself, until nothing but darkness remained.

The whole world outside the limo turned dark. And then even the dying light inside dimmed.

The driver slowed the car down.

“Stop,” Wells said. “Stop the car.”

Aria nodded.

The driver braked until the limo came to a gentle halt.

Wells got out.

The world had fallen as silent as it had turned entirely dark.

Unnatural in that silence.

He only heard his own breathing, a bit too shallow and fast for comfort, fueled by his heart, pounding with fear. He hardly saw his own white sneakers through the endless, let alone the sharp outlines of the vehicle he was standing beside.

Then the howling started.

Howling winds.

Those wind carried dust and desert heat, yet smelled like the final snow of a dying winter.

He’d remember thinking: It’s about time, because this is the end of May. What is summer waiting for?

Streetlights from another state flared up, one by one—a chain of light cast down a long, paved path; illuminating the lonesome road before them.

THE HIGHWAY.

Farther down the road, Anthony stood outside the wizard-van, gazing to the horizon ahead of them.

And farther yet down the road, Jericho Kane’s rusty Buick stood, and beside it, Agent Parker, and a man in a black duster.

“Anthony!” Wells yelled again.

Anthony Collins cocked his head back to stare at Wells, and the gun in his hand, and—

The distance melted.

Shortened.

Perception and belief both molted. Eggs bursting from eggs.

Reality disintegrated even faster than before.

The hundreds of yards between limo, van, and Buick had shrunken into dozens.

The man in the black duster raised a hand in greeting.

He smiled at Wells.

The small red-headed woman by his side—Parker—looked pale, disheveled, and distressed. She met Wells’ gaze and shook her head.

Barry and Aria emerged from the other side of the limo. The bodyguard was tense, every muscle in the beefcake’s body turned as taut as steel wire.

The man in black shouted down THE HIGHWAY to them, with the melody of song in his tone.

“Hello! You must be Agent Wells. I’m so happy to meet you. I think it’s high time we all met the Way King. Together!”

Aria muttered under her breath so only Barry and Wells could catch it.

“It’s him. I know that voice. The Oracle of New York.”

Parker shouted down the road.

“Put the gun away, Agent Wells. We’re about to learn the truth, and I would hate to see it bleeding out from gunshot wounds.”

Something about what she said matched poorly with how she said it. Parker crossed her arms, staring at the cracked road between them.

Distance melted yet again as reality continued to disintegrate. Warmth arrived on another gust of wind. Wells swallowed and tasted more desert sand.

His changes in perception lagged behind the sluggish adaptation of his beliefs.

When he next cast a glance around to take in the unreal surroundings, the sky solidified again. Distance shrank anew—transporting them farther down THE HIGHWAY even while they stood still.

Nobody looked as perturbed as Wells felt by this unnatural experience. The only thing he could read on Aria’s expression was one of distrust towards Michael. Fear, even.

Anthony appeared to be more nervous over the confrontation with Parker and Wells. Standing in between them, his gaze bounced back and forth, like someone observing a tennis match from the immediate sidelines.

Michael no longer needed to shout. The vehicles were all only one car’s length away from one another.

“Now, ladies and gentlemen. What say you we all take our trip down the yellow-lined Tarmac? It’ll only be a short way to the Way King now. He’ll be thrilled to meet you, I assure you.”

Awkwardly, everybody shuffled back into their respective vehicles.

Wells remained standing last, his burning ire locked onto Anthony Collins with a burning gaze. The FBI director broke eye contact, shrinking under the heat of that unbridled fury until he disappeared into the wizard-van.

Wells slammed the door shut behind himself.

It was high time to meet the man behind the curtain.

All darkness flaked away from the world, dissipating and scattering like dust in the wind.

The fiery sun shone yellow against the bright blue sky over desert.

The Way King’s ranch awaited.

[miaandgary]

The dream of the corner store on a strip mall. We walked towards it with the sun burning down on the pavement, hitting our eyes. The bell clinked as I walked in. I slowly wandered thru the aisles, looking for nothing and everything at once.

ŗ̸͇̪̗̹̲̟͌̇̐ḑ̶̪͈̬̇̌̓̿́̿̓͜i̵̱͐͋̔ǎ̴̢̛̼̞̯̮̫̾̊͊̏̾̓̊́ļ̴̼̞̤͚̫̀͒̑́͛̀́̈́͂̉c̸̘̋̋͗̏̍e̷̖̎̈́́̔̑̋̓͋͠ï̸̘̦͈̀̑͑̾̓̐̏̉ÿ̸͉͍̮̘̲͖̓̎͠͝ͅd̶̼̺̫̪͈̥̙̖̅̀̓͘̚ pointed to the back wall, where twirls of shimmering bright spirals hung from the ceiling. Party supplies littered the floor under my feet, all opened and crumpled. I turned the corner, and the lost things sat covered in dust, a stark comparison to the bright storefront.

My lucky charm lay on the floor, it's corners broken, the surface smeared. I carefully tiptoed through the contents of my missing childhood. A box full of yarn and soft fabrics sat on an unbroken store shelf to my right, and I plunged my hand into it. The pain was unimaginable, I felt nothing as I drew my hand from the box, mangled and dripping blood. Needles poked through my skin, scissors had snipped at my ligaments, pins had stuck in my palms. I turned my hand, holding it up to the dusty lights overhead. The orange glow flickered briefly through the storefronts window, and as single stray ray of light found my splintered, bleeding hand, colored pins and needles sparkled in the sunbeam.

The sun faded and I blinked, seeing its shadowy remnants behind my closed eyes. The image or my wounded hand was burned into my head. I walked onward, ignoring the shuffling footsteps behind me that lingered back. My memories lay fragmented, scattered bits of an old quilt, as shards of broken pottery begging not to be broken. I shed a tear for what I'd ruined.

The feet behind me crunched on the glass, and a steady wet drip... drip .. drip... was the loudest thing in the building.

Paper flowers brushed my cheek on a soft breeze, leaving the soft scent of lavender, brown eyes and mint. Their petals turned to ash once they touched my skin.

I walked to the front of the store, the shuffling shadows behind me grasped at the flowers.

There were more aisles, more dark and foul looking aisles. But all I wanted was to stop hearing the drip of.. ...... behind me. The front of the store glowed from the yellow overheads. Short little aisles sat there, cluttered in old vines, wicker homemade baskets, green, rusty trophies..

And that goddamned drip. It haunts me. It disgusts me. I hate it. I hate it so much. The first aisle was nearly empty, with only a small box on the bottom shelf, taped up and covered in dust.

I reached for the cardboard box, and wiped the dust off the top, squatting to pull it into my lap. It mewed.

And like that, I had something that needed me. Inside was the tiniest kitten blinking up at me, cooing and climbing onto my chest.

I let myself fall back, my head hitting the concrete floor with a dull thud. The kitten snuggled up to my face, and there we were.

But that didn't happen. I just laid on someone else's floor, my eyes dilated, my fingertips burned.

So here we are. Bleeding out in an abandoned corner store, inhibited only by ghosts. The drop ceiling tiles are rotting out, creating more dust. Kitty coos at me again, and I lazily rub his tiny chin. He curls up around my neck, purring and I cradle him the best that I can. Yellow overheads have the worst buzzing sound, but I couldn't hear it, or rather, the lights had gone out.

Its pleasant, how cool a concrete floor is on your back. How many secrets can fit in one head. Is it symptomatic of something worse, or is it just inherent badness? How many people I've loved, really loved. How many people think of me today?

It's a quiet space, the mind of someone dying. Quite peaceful, considering my blood is slowly trickling towards a floor drain. How easily we leave people. How easily we shut people out, forget they exist. Did I even love them in the first place? One mistake, one fight and I run, I kick and scream, and I curse them as I leave. I talk badly of them so I don't miss them. Try to ignore how badly I treated them.

Maybe I'm deserving of whatever fate i get.

[indefatigablepaths]

Lil Debbie Bitches Clinton Sparks Remix 1 hour loop

Ok. I'm doing this. While I get all nippy, and I speak. I bark I bite. I do all those things because I have to. These things happen. Oh, and now we wan'na talk.

Ok. I'm not done with this, but they did find - a little - more money. The money doesn't matter inside the system, ok.

This talk is all a scene, more money. Every building in the country, and every job - while you're inside. That runs on a percentage.

I think they call the money fraud official wise a COLA percentage. They just say 30 percent all more money ever given out is still mine forever.

The system literally just plays pretend and hands itself more money. Except it uses little people.

So the system has never had an inflation adjustment for citizens one time. In all of history.

Before my history I can't even find a document.

0 dollars

I am leaving the system because of complete corruption.

That means maybe like 9 million new homeless people by next month.

You can't even pretend to live on this much money without special training.

My favorite song from A Perfect Circle is Blue.

I don't dictate the rules of a dream. I just don't die. Despite your dreams.

I told you they had a ghost army on ghost ships.

Ya. I think you can buy your tax returns back, from online too. I've worked here my entire life.

Ya. I had to get so high to do this. I had to get fired from my job probably forever.

The guy with the hair. Why is she standing with Summer in that house.

No.

I had to take the maximum amount of adjustments to my bills, next month. Or I would have bailed early.

Every time I contact the new land lord I get the same story.

500 apartments in this city. You go next door.

The property line is supposed to matter.

Although I never knew how that feels in strip malls or parking lots, complex buildings. I used to think about it a lot. I'm also barred by Summer there anyways. I can't do that.

Do you really think you can't grow algae in some storage shed that doesn't even afford one power outlet?

No one believes you can get picked up for property lines in a cab.

I think you're really in the wrong business if you think you can argue about what I do with my keys.

Yeah I got so mad about this. I started thinking Id go all guerilla and flush it down porta toilets.

Do you really think a bottle across a city is gonna hit me for algae?

I haven't used a garbage truck for five months.

Ya. I can't even pay my rent. She is a bundle of nerves that swerve. I would crash my plane.

You know the projects stay broken forever. As far as I know. You can't fix the bathroom. You can't fix your room. That space is illegal property.

Ya he thinks that's funny. He's not living.

An hour with you is almost up and the police had to knock on my door.

See I'm not asking anyone. Wasn't that Metallica.

I ask no one. That's a joke.

You all go insane all the time. Days, weeks whatever. You keep telling me the internet is illegal.

I'm being told again this is the way things will be. I've snapped out of this every other time.

Getting caught up in a psycho imagination.

Though I do see the mind needs time to rearrange itself. Not sure where the mind thinks it believes itself.

If you don't go completely green the rats will eat your internet connection. Like it was food.

As far as I see this is an order. So feel free to tell me it's not. What. You said. I can't tell you it's not an order.

They keep sweeping these buildings. I'm still waiting to see if they sweep regular apartments.

If I don't let these "people" stay crazy and eat all our time. I can't find the documents they forget.

Judas is who the police think they are.

Whiz Khalifa was trying to make this clear that there's no circumstance where a land lord can enter my room.

I already met Mark Horvath from invisible people. They were so blind at the other property they are starting to think I was watching someone who thought they were you.

[peantis]

First nightmare!!: Maze Hotel

It started with me and a bunch of people going to go shoot a movie (this isn’t as important as you’d think). We’re at someone’s house and getting things set up, when I go outside and see this weird candy shop. Now, in dream, I know about this candy shop, but it’s open weird hours so I never go. OUT of dream, I know EXACTLY where this shop WOULD have been.

I start walking to the shop and see it’s open now. There’s no cars or anything outside this strip mall thing, but the inside is PACKED. It looks like a cross between a bar and a laser tag arena inside. I keep being stopped by this old man that comments on my sweatshirt, that has a band I’ve never heard of called “Dead Alive” (this IS important for the dream plot). The man throughout the dream brings over his friends multiple times to point out the sweatshirt and says something like “you see that? Her dad must’ve told her.”

I go around the candy shop, and there is a bar in one area that’s closed off. The owner, a tall pretty woman, has been chatting with me about nonsense. When I began to go check out and leave, I get accused of stealing. I have to wait in one spot for the owner to get back and decide if I stole or not. When she gets back, the candy store changes into just a bar, but still vaguely lazer tag themed (like black with neon lights). The entire time there is very loud EDM music blasting in my ear, to the point that dream me is covering my ears a bit.

She decides I wasn’t stealing and that I’m free to go. I take a wrong door and end up in this closed off area called the arcade. When I go inside, it’s just this mish mosh of unrecognizable dream crap, but with a TON of people inside. Since I couldn’t make anything out lemme just say that it gave me the most insane feeling of dread I’ve felt in a long time.

There’s a ton of doors in the place, so I try entering some. Each room has a different theme going on. Also, this entire time, I’m trying to text or call someone for help/get them over here, and my phone won’t cooperate. One room I enter has someone intent on breaking my bones, and I escape into another that says “happy experience”. Inside it is a giant American mall, during Christmas time. I could draw this mall out, it was so detailed. I walk further through the mall and look at all of the Christmas sales in the stores. The feeling of dread is still there.

I go through a dress shop, and a perky woman is there. She asks me when my “big day” is, then says “there’s no bigger day than today!” And just stands there smiling at me. Vague Christmas music is playing softly in the background. For some reason I put on a dress and continue this journey through the hell mall. I enter the equivalent of a JC Penney and inside is a TON of people, including the candy shop woman, standing there.

The candy shop woman is very very tall now, and she leans over me to make me back down into the floor. She says “have you no doubt?” And snaps one of my legs. I cry out in what felt like very real pain in the dream.

Everyone vanishes, and suddenly I’m outside, but on a rooftop. Surrounding me are bodies of the people I saw inside of the candy shop, all partly alive but mostly dead. I don’t recognize where we are anymore. The old man that kept talking about my sweatshirt smiles at me. Get it? They’re all Dead Alive.

He says that we will have peace now. The building is made of very large cobblestone and I try to scale down it. The bricks are crumbling in my hands and getting dirt in my eye so I can’t see, but I’m doing it. One of the bodies cries out in anguish when I pass her, begging me to go so they can “be at peace”.

Still with a broken leg, still in this formal dress on (now filthy) I reach the ground. I still have no idea where I am anymore. I see a war helicopter flying overhead (like one of those army green ones) and I wave them down. The helicopter is making its decent towards me when I wake up.

This dream was less than 2 hours of sleep.

[caroldantops]

the marble makes my cheeks look pink 

or, tell me you love me in private: chapter 1 

(next chapter)

ship: natasha romanoff x reader 

summary/request: a mysterious woman named natasha starts attending the church you volunteer at, but she seems much more interested in you than any gods (demon!nat au)

word count: 1.5k

warnings: references to christianity (smut in later chapters)

masterlist | ao3 link | demon!nat au playlist

Sweat trails down your forehead, a bead dripping into your eye before you can wipe yourself off. The southern humidity is already unbearable enough; but, with the church air conditioning out for what has to be the fifth time this month, you can practically feel yourself melting into the scuffed floors of the sanctuary.

As you pass out pamphlets that detail the upcoming picnic and honor the church members who have passed recently, you watch as practically every person who takes one starts fanning themselves. The flimsy paper offers little relief, but it’s better than nothing.

This is a routine you’ve become accustomed to, exchanging niceties with the people who have known you since you were toddling, but that you’ve never had a conversation past how you were enjoying your classes.

Honestly, you thought that you’d stop volunteering at the church your parents forced you to attend growing up once you started college, imagining moving on to fancy internships or spending summers backpacking through Europe so that you could post obnoxious photos about studying abroad on Instagram. But, sometimes dreams stay dreams for now.

It’s not all bad. You get plenty of good food from the sweet old ladies who won’t take “no thank you, I’m full” for an answer. Also, they send you little cash gifts for your birthday and other holidays or celebrations. So when the preacher (an old family friend) asked if you’d continue helping when you were home for the summer, you didn’t see any real reason to say no.

Plus, it’s only once a week. It gives you a chance to work part-time at the little ice-cream shop that sits in the strip mall across the street from the church during the week.

God, you’d give anything to be locked in the walk-in freezer right about now.

“Excuse me,” a voice pulls you from your thoughts.

“Oh, sorry,” you tear your eyes away from the stained glass window that you had zoned out on. Standing in front of you is a woman you’ve never seen before. She’s tall, definitely at least six feet, and with fiery red hair that matches the heat of the summer air surrounding you. Ironically enough, she doesn’t look like she’s broken a sweat at all. Which seems impossible given the leather jacket she’s sporting. “Did you want a pamphlet?”

“Yeah, that would be great,” she smiles, taking the one you hold out to her. She scans the two pages while she’s standing there, and you feel awkward in the silence.

“Are you new? I don’t think I’ve seen you here before. But I’ve also only been back from my last college semester for about a month, so maybe we just haven’t crossed paths yet.”

The woman studies you for a moment, obviously sizing you up. Whatever she’s considering must end in your favor because she holds her hand out for you to shake.

“Natasha. You can call me Nat. I’ve come here a couple of times, but not super consistently. If I find good company though, maybe I’ll consider converting.”

You introduce yourself as you shake her hand, oblivious to the subtle sarcasm in her tone.

“I’m probably not the best choice to convert you. I only stick around because the reception always has really good snacks.”

A bark of laughter erupts from Natasha’s chest, causing a few of the other members to send looks your way. You give them a sheepish look, but Natasha isn’t paying them any mind.

“That’s cute. Still, maybe I’ll see you around more later.” Natasha makes her way to the very back of the sanctuary, flops down dramatically, and props her combat boots up on the empty pew in front of her. She’s so far away from anyone else that nobody notices enough to scold her for it.

It’s been well over a decade since you’ve cared enough to pay attention to the sermon, but luckily today it’s kept short because everyone is practically filling up the room with a pool full of sweat.

You occasionally sneak a peek over your shoulder, glancing at Natasha. It’s hard to see since you’re rather close to the front, but you’re almost positive that she was staring at you. You whip your head back and try to ignore the fluttering in your chest at the thought of all of Natasha’s attention being on you. At least, by the time service finishes up, you look back again and she’s just straight up asleep in the pew.

You consider going to wake her up and tell her that there’s probably some donuts the two of you can steal, but ultimately you decide not to. There’s something...off about Natasha. Something about the way she just kept staring at you even after being caught, studying you like she was preparing to dissect you.

Unnerving. Intimidating. An unnamed emotion that causes you to feel even hotter than you were already.

This mix of energies has completely muddled up your senses, and you really can’t decide if this stranger is someone you should try to befriend or run like Hell from.

All of these thoughts are pushed from your mind for most of the week. You’re just happy to be able to work somewhere that has to stay cold. During your break, you sneak a little cup of your favorite ice cream for yourself and decide to go for a walk to stretch your legs a bit.

As you exit the shop, you see a motorcycle parked by the fence of the church. You’ve never even seen anyone ride a motorcycle through the tiny town, so it piques your curiosity. You take your ice cream, praying that it doesn’t melt, and wander over.

The church is locked today, so it must be someone visiting the small cemetery off in the side yard. You push the already ajar gate open all the way, surprised at the sight you’re greeted with. Even though her back is to you, the red hair is unmistakably Natasha’s.

“I don’t think that people usually appreciate you sitting on their graves, you know,” you point out. Natasha turns to you, but she looks completely unsurprised by your presence, almost like she knew you were coming.

“What if I knew them?” Natasha quips, spinning around in her perched position to face you, propping one knee up to rest her cheek on.

“Oh, well,” you fumble a bit. “In that case, I guess that would probably be okay.”

Natasha smirks at your squirming.

“I think I’ll be fine then.”

“Was it a family member?” You ask gently, even though Natasha seems completely nonchalant about the fact that she’s hanging out alone in a graveyard.

“No, not family. Don’t really know what you’d call us,” Natasha hums. “Certainly not friends. I only knew them right at the end of it all.”

“Oh.”

The silence in the air is thick, and you really have no idea how to continue from here. You cope by shoveling a couple of spoonfuls of ice cream into your mouth, and Natasha chuckles at you.

“You’re cute, you know that?”

“I...thank you,” you don’t even attempt to hide how flustered the compliment gets you.

“So, what’s your deal? You don’t seem super into the whole religion thing. Why hang around here?”

“I should ask you the same thing,” you raise your eyebrow at her.

“Ah, the angel has a bit of a bite after all,” Natasha grins. You ignore her teasing and just wait for her answer. “I have a...complicated relationship with religion. For a lot of reasons. I’ve always liked the architecture though. Stained glass? A true gift to humanity. It should be used everywhere.”

“Are you telling me that you’re coming to church just to admire the windows?” You laugh.

“Gotta have something to do on Sundays,” she shrugs. “You didn’t answer my question.”

“Similar answer to you, really,” you mumble through your last spoonful of ice cream. It’s mostly melted by now, so half of it ends up running down your chin. You curse to yourself for not grabbing a napkin.

“You’re spilling everywhere,” Natasha says. Before you can even react, Natasha grabs your chin. This is the most sexually charged moment that you’ve had in months, and it just had to be the weird hot chick who spends her afternoons in the cemetery. She pulls a handkerchief seemingly from thin air and wipes the ice cream from your face. Finally, she lets go of your face, but not before mumbling, “Messy little thing.”

As you try to start up your brain again with a coherent response, your phone starts buzzing in your back pocket.

“Ah, shit. My break is over, I have to go.”

“Shame, I was hoping I’d get to clean up more of your messes,” Natasha sighs dramatically. You just roll your eyes. “Will I see you Sunday?”

“I don’t know, will you?”

“I could give you an answer,” Natasha pretends to contemplate it. “Or I could leave you in suspense, angel. I think that sounds like much more fun.”

[yoobikook]

MUST READ BTS FANFICTION SERIES ON TUMBLR

Updates are regular, please see original post

CAROUSEL by @yoonia

Yoongi X Reader

Genre | Angst, Smut/Mature scenes, Arranged Marriage! AU, Heirs! AU, CEO!Yoongi, Suspense

Summary | He is the successor of his family’s business empire, and you are the female heir of yours. After the trouble his older brother had created in the past, he now must face certain requirements needed for the sake of the family’s future and to save his rights of inheritance, and you become his only way out. Everything might seem so simple, just the way they are supposed to. But everything isn’t always what it seems, is it

I WON'T STOP YOU by @imsarabum

Jungkook x Reader

Genre: Vampire!AU, Fantasy, Angst, Smut

Summary; You drive to your boss‘s house with the intention of returning his wallet he left at the office. You feel uneasy, seeing his manor for the first time - Jungkook also feels uneasy, but for reasons that you could never begin to imagine.

BAD FOR YOU by @yoonia

Jungkook x reader

Genre | Stripper!au, Stripper!Jungkook, Smut, Angst

Summary | His whole presence emits sin and danger, and you are not supposed to be attracted to him on the first glance.

STRIP by @yoonia

Jimin x reader (spin-off to Bad For You)

Genre | Stripper!au, Stripper!Jimin, Bartender!reader, Single parent!au, Smut, Angst, Mature theme

Summary | Everything you have done has always been about surviving life and raising your child on your own. Having someone else caring about you was the last thing you had expected. Especially when that someone is the same man you have watched performing every night on stage and secretly admired. But will he run the moment he finds out about your little secret waiting at home?

THE BIRD CAGE by @untaemedqueen

Jimin X Reader

Genre | Mafia AU, Blood, Guns, Knives, Smut, Smoking (Cigarettes), Excessive Cursing, Drinking, Character death

Summary | Due to debts, the OC falls into servitude and starts working as a maid at Jimin's mansion. Her actions and grace catch Jimin's eyes and he couldn't help but want more of her. The OC is basically a badass and works her way up into the mafia and proves herself worthy. Her interactions with the other members, her attempts to protect her loved ones and keeping the mafia together makes this story a wonderful ride! Also the wonderful display of Jimin's duality as a Mafia leader and a father is the cherry on top. The story is intense, thrilling , romantic and emotional . Highly recommended <3

ALSO READ THE SEQUEL TO TBC AND THE RELATED JUNGKOOK DRABBLE

BOYS LIKE HIM, GIRLS LIKE HER by @hayjeon

Jungkook X Reader

Genre | badboy!jk, jock!au, lots of fluff, slight smut, tiny bit angst

Summary | Bad boys are bad, they said. And they don’t deserve girls like you, they said. But all you wanted to do was give Jeon Jungkook a chance.

YOU SET MY HEART ON FIRE by @hayjeon

Namjoon X Reader

Genre | fireman!namjoon and paramedic!y/n au , drunken sex, oral, etc.

Summary | As a cardio surgeon forced to volunteer as a paramedic in the Seoul Fire Department during your probation, your one and only goal was to get to work, do your thing, and get the hell home and back to your original high-salary job. But when the Chief of the SFD is the incredibly attractive, tall, and persistent bachelor that you had the best one night stand with weeks ago, things kind of get heated.

RATTLED by @gukslut

Jungkook X Reader

Genre | Single dad AU, Angst, Healing, E2L, F2L, Smut

Summary | The story is about how Jungkook ends up with a baby due to his carelessness, his struggles for his daughter, his suffering and how the reader helps him in more than one way & how he falls for the reader. The best single dad au out there, seriously. This will get tears in your eyes .

DEEP SIX by @bratkook

Jungkook X Reader

Genre | smut, light angst, infidelity, dirty talk, unprotected sex (don’t do this), oral (f receiving), fingering, multiple orgasms, creampie, cum eating, pussy slapping, choking, spanking, and really sweet loving biker gang jungkook.

Summary | The two part series is about the reader who is the girlfriend of the leader of the rival biker group of deep six, who is fed up of her abusive relationship. Jungkook ,a member of deep six, and the reader fall for each other, and plan a revengeful escapade. Well written and I think the best biker au out there!

PALATE CLEANSER by @btsmakesmehappy

Taehyung X Reader

Genre | Agent!Taehyung x Baker!reader , Angst, Fluff, Smut, FWB, S2L

Summary | Taehyung needs something to take his mind off his broken heart. His best friend, Jimin, suggests that he should meet another woman and the first woman he met was you. Would you help him even though you have your own problem, that you hate men?

Part of The Company Series ,which is an amazing work altogether!

ANGEL IN THE DARKNESS by @icyhobi

Jungkook X Reader

Genre | Smut (M), angst, mafia!au, prostitution!au 

Summary | After a patient urgently pleads you to go and help a friend of his, you naively agree to it. Little did you know, that you would get more than what you agreed to, when he leads you to a brothel, to help a dangerous prostitute named Jeon Jungkook.

STRAWBERRY KISSES by @kimnjss

Jungkook X Reader (SM AU)

Genre | rapper!jeongguk x photographer!reader ; smut, fluff, the tiniest bit of angst

Summary | an online dating app pairs him with the perfect girl. the two quickly start falling for each other and when things are getting good, he finds out she’s his best friend’s little sister.

This one's my fav, but read any work by @kimnjss and you'll fall in love with her writing. All of them are so amazing 😍. I have probably read all of them,

BROWN EYED BABY by @jeonstudios

Jungkook X Reader (two shot)

Genre | single dad!jk x reader, exes to friends to lovers, smut, angst, fluff.

Summary | a lost child at the mall. eyes from a different time.

This will make you feel so warm.

KINDA HOT by @kimnjss

Taehyung X Reader [SM AU]

Genre | campus flirt!taehyung x sweet girl!reader ; best friends to lovers. college au. smut, fluff and the tiniest dash of angst.

Summary | you’ve always been cute, soft, tiny in taehyung’s eyes. but that’s changing one night when you’re accidentally sending him a naughty picture. forcing him to realize, maybe his best friend is kinda… hot?

I'm not sure if I can ever stop ranting about Kez's SMAUs but this one is out of this world...Tae and the reader figure out their feelings quite early, but the edging is 🥴...and I really like it when every member has a significant other, it just feels so warm...in short, please give this a shot!

MAFIA AU (COLLECTION) by @neonlights92

Individual member fanfics

Genre | Mafia AU, smut

Summary | This is the story of seven men. Seven dangerous men. These are the stories of how they fell in love.

The stories are so indulging and probably the best BTS Mafia Universe on Tumblr !

GREEDY by @xjoonchildx

Yoongi X Reader

Genre | Mafia AU, smut

Summary | being a loner has never bothered yoongi until now. until you.

This entire rapline trilogy is just...*chef's kiss*...but greedy is *double chef's kiss*😂.If you too love Mafia AUs like me, this one is a must read! My favourite part was the initial meetings of y/n and Yoongi and Yoongi's multiple fake identities. The story starts on such an interesting note that it's hard to stop reading 😉

TEASE by @adonis-koo

Jungkook X Reader

Genre | Strip club , gang involvement, angst, fluff, smut

Summary | You came in hopes of your best friend becoming a stripper- becoming one yourself was never a part of the plan

The story is so indulging. Tease jungkook will haunt your mind for days. The smut was also super hot!

INEVITABLE by @ahundredtimesover

Jungkook X Reader

Genre | exes au, parents au, baseball player!JK ; angst, fluff, smut

Summary | You convinced Jungkook to break up years ago so he could pursue his lifelong baseball dream. Now he’s back home, staring at you, and the little boy next to you who looks unmistakably like him.

ATHLETE DAD JK . yep thats the review . just go read it , the prettiest piece of writing on tumblr T-T

[ggukkieland]

📕CURRENT READS (2020 October)

🌹 Fics I’ve enjoyed reading this October, with some few unread ones (still have 4 to 5 days to finish!). Waah I have read a lot 😲 I can’t believe I’m almost complete with this list 🥳. Usually when I post and organize the list, half of it are still on #toread status. I thought of curating Halloween-themed fics 🎃 but I ended up reading any genre anyway😁.

Again, credit goes to these awesome writers! Sending them lots of love and virtual hugs 🥰🤗💜🥰🤗💜🥰🤗 .

✅ -  done reading   | S (smut) F (fluff) A (angst) 

🥕[Ongoing Series - to check weekly] 

Still reading the ongoing series from last month’s reading list, whenever there is an update 😊

I Feel You in my Heart by @purpletaecup - MYG |  exes au, second chances, some chapters have smau elements | A, S, F (really good story development 😭)

[7/?] nearly 2 months after their divorce, yoongi and y/n wade through the aftermath of the fallout by themselves. yoongi is moving on with someone else while y/n finds herself stuck in waves of anxiety and depression. soon enough, they are brought together again by an unfortunate accident

If it Harms None, Do What You Will by purpletaecup - JJK | smau, comedy, supernatural au, fantasy au, witch!reader, demon!jungkook | F, S  🎃

[6/?] it’s the beginning of October and green witch y/n has been preparing for all of the spooky activities she needs to do for all hallow’s eve. one of her older friends gives her a ritual candle for protection. a couple of drops of blood and a wonky magic circle later, there is a high level demon sitting on the floor of her living room.

We Live with a Ghost by @smaubts - JJK | smau, comedy, ghost au, roommates au | F  🎃

[6/13] when jungkook convinces his roommate, y/n, that their house is haunted by an evil ghost, they decide their best option is to contact with it and make it leave but end up summoning an actual ghost by accident.

Swan Black by CharWrites [AO3] - JJK | fantasy, supernatural, enemies to lovers, dark fantasy, apocalypse, Fae!Jungkook, Fae!Yoongi, Fae!Taehyung,  LOTR/Mortal Instruments/Labyrinth vibes | A, S (I love this! It’s like watching LOTR 😍)  🎃

[10/?] So's twin brother, Jimin, has been kissed by darkness: an evil that has spread across the land and has claimed many souls. They only have weeks until the darkness consumes him. Once consumed, he will be governed by the unsullied: a powerful race of Dark Fae that has overtaken the world.

So seeks out a rogue Fae Prince, Kook, who is her only hope, if she can survive his deadly charms and irresistible lure especially when he is much more interested in possessing her, mind body and soul.

Third Wheeling by @taetaewonderland - MYG |  strangers to lovers au, ceo!yoongi | A, F, S 🥰

[1/?] Min Yoongi is a strict man. Time is money to the CEO of Kisung Connected. He isn’t interested in conventional things or wastes of time. He’s an asshole. But, you didn’t realize until it was too late. Until you met him at the club and it changed your life forever.  

Bad Friends by @hollyxqx- MYG | friends to lovers, enemies to lovers, neighbor au, college au, fwb au | A, S, F (what a good angst 😥)

[1/3] hooking up with your childhood best friend was never your plan, but neither was falling in love with him either. he’s troubled but his heart is gold. when you move away for college, things start to take a turn.

House of Lilies by @suqakoo​ - JJK | mafia au, arranged marriage au | A, F, S

[3/?] Jeon Jungkook is the only heir to Dal Gurimja. He is the poster child for mafia bosses. He’s a feared hit-man among the underground world, and a successful CEO among the socialites of Seoul. Pair him with a castaway girl who’s been out of society for twelve years, and… what do you get?

Your Eyes Tell  by @njkbangtan - JJK | soulmate au, enemies to lovers au, roommates au, sugar baby (but not really), slow burn | A, F

[5/?] You live in a world where people see in black and white. The solution to finally see the colors? It’s simple. You need to meet your soulmate and look at him in the eyes, but what if the person bound to you is already contented with the monochromatic world? What if…Jeongguk, your soulmate, is already in love with someone else?  

I hate u, I love u by @bbangpanmen - JJK | fwb au, friends to lovers au, smau | A

[17/23] he uses you to forget her; you let him because you love him.

Puzzle by @kimvvantae - JJK | fwb au, friends to lovers au, college au | A, S, F (I’ve read this before, around 2018-19 and I thought it was discontinued. Glad there’s an update ^_^)

[7/?] the line between friendship and something more has never been crossed  - but that changes after a break up and a drunken night, when you not-so-accidentally cross this line to something much more. what happens when after this accident your non-matching puzzle pieces seem to match in a way you’ve never imagined?

The Lesson/Min Boy by @adventuresinwonderlust - MYG | bad boy!yoongi, dom-sub elements, enemies to lovers, brat!reader | S, A, F

[6/8] No summary provided but it’s the twisted story between bad boy Yoongi with angsty backstory and this brat/rich kid. I really liked how it was written though.  I made a mistake of reading part 4:  Two Months Too Long, which should’ve been the 6th story to read if you follow the author’s sequence. 

Popular-ish by @hansolmates - JJK | popular!jungkook, college au, fwb to lovers, shy!oc | F, S, A

[9/?] drabble series: you are way out of jungkook’s league. Or is it the other way around?

Date Me by @latetaektalk - JJK | enemies to lovers, fake dating au, rich kid au | A, F,

[prologue + 1/?] when obnoxiously rich and spoiled frat boy jeon jungkook comes up to you one day and asks you to fake date him for money, you definitely should have said no. because before you knew it, you were going on insta dates with him and having lunch with his equally obnoxiously rich and spoiled friends.

All Over You by @zibermuda - JJK | enemies to lovers, nerd!jk, fuckgirl!reader | S, F 

[2/?] you don’t usually go for the quiet, nerdy type, but Jungkook’s by far the best looking guy in your year. You just can’t help yourself. You have to have him. Small hiccup; he hates you

Effortlessly by @gyukult - JJK | friends to lovers, neighbors au, 

[8/?] “Reciprocate feelings?” Jungkook crosses his arms before he continues, “They should know that you’re the only girl in my life.“ Jungkook has been your best friend and neighbor since you could remember, but what you can’t recall is when your feelings began develop for him. 

HEI$T: A JJK Fic by lucidly [AO3] - JJK | heist au, action, bangtan are thieves, vigilante au | A, S

[3/?] Six years after being thrown into the world of forgery, espionage, and heists, Mona and her team face competition like never before: The Bulletproof Boy Scouts, a fabled Korean gang of thieves that everybody seems to know, but no one has seen. When she comes face to face with all 7 of them, Mona knows: they're real, and this job won't be like the others. For years she has followed the money, but could it be time that she follow her heart instead?

🥕[Completed AUs/Series-  to read]

✅  - done reading (also there seems to be a lot of JJK fics)

Creep @xjoonchildx - MYG | S, pwp, yandere ✅

Guilty @xjoonchildx - KNJ | A, S, mafia au, second part of Guarded AU (an awesome JHS series) 

Chapter One: How Odd  Chapter Two: Incheon Mall Tube Tops  Final Chapter: Is Something Burning?  Epilogue: Better Than Okay

Paddle with Me @yoongs-jeontae - JJK | A, S, enemies to lovers, camp counselor au, pwp   ✅

Hate Me @themfchase - JJK | S, collegel!au, enemies to lovers au, fuckboy!jk, pwp  ✅

Devil in a Blue Suit @yeojaa - JJK | F, S, idiots to lovers, established au, good boy!jungkook  

main story  ✅ + drabbles  ✅

Sweetest Crush @minjoonalist - JHS | F, S, brother’s best friend au 

Fake Love @aquaminwrites - JHS | F, S, A, fake dating au, enemies to lovers  ✅

Faded Love @jamaisjoons - PJM | A, S, marriage au, infidelity ✅

Brown-Eyed Baby @vinterjeon - JJK | A, S, F, exes to lovers, single dad!jk 

01 02  ✅

Why We Got Married @ktheist - KTH | F, S, arranged marriage au, slow burn ✅

Lonely Hearts Club @dovechim - JJK | S, F, enemies to lovers, wedding au  ✅

Come to Me @jeonsweetpea - JJK | S, A, F ,friends to lovers, college au  ✅

Satan on the Strip @noir0neko - JJK | S, A, demon!jungkook  ✅  🎃

No Face @seokoloqy - MYG | A, S, F, demon au, supernatural au  ✅  🎃

Take a Chance @crystaljins - JJK | A, Hanahaki au, co-workers, very angsty but Seokjin provides comic relief

01 02 03 04 05 06 07  ✅

The Lottery Offering @skswriting - JJK | A, F, S, werewolf au, sort-of arranged marriage au  ✅

A Beautiful Epiphany @onherwings - JJK | A, S, F, friends to lovers, unrequited love, artist!jungkook  ✅

Au Naturel (sequel) - drabble, established au  ✅

Broken Dreams @ddaenysus - JJK | A, soulmate au, unrequited  ✅

And Mended Hearts (sequel) - A, S, soulmate au, college au   ✅

Coin Toss @yoondoze - JJK | A, mafia au, detective au, exes au, plot twist 👀  ✅

I Knew It Was You @hoseokmylovesworld - JJK | S, F, werewolf au, college au  ✅ 🎃

Little Blue @pars-ley - JJK | F, S, friends to lovers, college au, with TW   ✅

Little Blue Pill @dreamescapeswriting  - JJK | S, pwp, friends to lovers ✅ 

Smitten @megahwn - JJK | F, S, arranged marriage au, strangers to lovers au   ✅

Hit Me with Your Best Shot @namfine - JJK | S, pwp, martial arts, friends to lovers  ✅

Slow and Steady @yoonia - JJK | S, A, artist!jungkook, infidelity, established au   ✅

Cockblocked @mercurygguk - JJK | A, S, F, friends to lovers, roommates au  ✅

 everything I ever wanted (drabble) - morning after  ✅

What are you Afraid Of? @cupofteaguk - JJK | F, avatar the last bender au 

Part 2 (prompt: if you keep looking at me like that we won’t make it to a bed) - avatar au, F, S

demon-etized @jungkxook - KNJ | S, youtube au, ghost hunter au  🎃

Spellbound @jeonseok - JJK |  F, slight S, demon au, crack, romcom  ✅ 🎃

Raising Demons (sequel) - fluffy, smut, established au, crack  ✅ 🎃

What’s in a Name? @minsimagines - JJK | A, F, demon au, soul selling scenario, romance  

01 02 03 ✅  🎃

The Big Yellow School Bus  [15k] fringesofsanity [AO3] - JJK | S, A, F, noona, fwb au  ✅

once bitten, twice shy [5.6k] obiwrites [AO3] - JJK | A, F, implied S, exes au, parents au   ✅

Lose Somebody [26k] @kooala - JJK | A, F, slight S, exes au, camping au  ✅

Oh What a World [100k] @taestybae - PJM | A, S, F, fake marriage au, fallen idol au (been wanting to read this since July (!), will finally get to reading this 🥰)

series masterlist [18 chapters + epilogue]

🥕[Drabbles]

okay I just realized they’re all JJK drabbles 😅

Incandesce @eunoiabliss - 544 words | JJK | fantasy au, fluff  ✅

Forgetful Confession  @suhdays - 991 words | JJK |  fluff, slight angst, college au, friends to ???  ✅

Club @taleasnewastime - 2k | JJK | fluff, bestfriends  ✅

JJK Reincarnation drabble @ktheist - 571 words | JJK | F, reincarnation (?) | love love this 🥰  ✅

Pup @whipped-for-kpop-fics​ - 1.5k | JJK | F, humour, werewolf au, established au | this is cute and funny 🤣  ✅

A Line Crossed @underthejoon - 723 words | JJK | A, bodyguard au ✅

Rousing Rendezvous @rookiegukie - 1.5k | JJK |  smut, frenemies with benefits, modern royalty au  ✅

[scuttling]

Signals

Fandom: Criminal Minds Pairing: Aaron Hotchner/Latina OFC Word Count: 2,063 Tags: 18+, NSFW, Overstimulation, Multiple orgasms, Oral sex, Vaginal fingering, Unprotected sex, Rough sex, Daddy kink, Dom/sub, Praise kink, Biting, Hickies, Choking, Sex toys, Subspace, Aftercare Summary: Buying a present for Aaron starts a new (very smutty) tradition. Note: This is a reformatted, previously published work. Link to A03 or read below! It all starts with a trip to the mall with Prentiss and Garcia.

Prentiss is looking for a new set of luggage, Garcia is looking for a few new dresses, and Sophie’s just along for the ride, but when she spots the tie, she immediately knows she wants to buy it for Aaron.

It’s a deep, dark navy blue, silk, with a paisley print—Armani, so something he would never buy for himself—and she just knows how good it would look on him with a black suit, crisp white shirt, silver watch. Her mouth practically waters, and Prentiss shoots her a knowing smile when she glances over her shoulder and sees her holding it.

“Present for your special someone?” she asks, and Sophie glances back, smiles softly.

“Yep. He’ll probably just tell me I shouldn’t have wasted the money on him, but I was really drawn to it. I’m gonna get it.”

When she gives it to him after dinner that night, his face is serious, his eyes almost amber colored in the yellow light of the kitchen, and he pulls her onto his lap, kisses her warm and deep. His hands slide up her body, holding her at the waist, and she sighs, lets herself be kissed and held up by his hands for so long that she’s foggy with pleasure when he pulls back.

“I take it you like the tie?” she murmurs, and he sets her carefully on her feet, pushes his dinner dishes aside, and lays her back on the table; it leaves her breathless, and she just looks up at him, panting, sitting up on her elbows, while he takes off her jeans and panties.

He pulls her close to the edge of the table, one of his feet on the ground and his other knee up on his chair, and he makes a fucking meal out of her, brings her off twice with his tongue; her second orgasm hits her so hard that her eyes water, and he makes sure she’s alright before pushing two fingers inside her and fucking her to a third, praising her for being sweet and thoughtful as he presses deep.

“I like the tie,” he says when she is throbbing around his fingers afterward, her face flushed and wet, and all she can do is babble in response; he kisses her cheeks softly, takes her in his arms, cuddles her close, and carries her to bed. The first time he wears it, she catches a glimpse of him putting it on in the mirror, and heat floods her body. She freezes where she stands, breathing hard, and he turns, curious; his eyes sweep over her, taking in the signs of her obvious arousal, and he looks down at the tie, back up at her face.

“Oh. You remember the night you gave me this, don’t you, sweet girl? You were so thoughtful, buying a present for your daddy,” he says, taking a step toward her. She swallows hard, licks her lips, and nods. “I rewarded your kindness the best way I know how.”

“Yes, daddy. You made me feel... very good.” She can almost feel his hands on her, his tongue, and she shivers.

“Yes, I did. It was my pleasure, and I’m happy to do it again tonight, if you like.”

“The same thing, or something different?” she asks softly, and he puts his hands on her hips, presses his lips to hers.

“Anything you like, baby. You can think about it, let me know later?” She looks up at his face, so soft and loving, knows instantly what she’d like—but she’ll let him wait it out for a little while. There’s no reason she should be the only one desperately day dreaming of tonight.

“Yeah, I’ll let you know,” she answers, breathless again, and he smooths one palm over her ass, squeezes softly, and lets her finish getting ready.

She contemplates putting on fresh panties again, but decides that there’s really no point.

“Does that feel good, baby? Is this what you wanted?” Aaron purrs in her ear as he fucks her from behind, her hands squeezing the couch cushion while he pounds into her pussy. She’s got a throw pillow under her hips to tilt them up for him, and he’s so deep, so delicious.

“Yes, oh, god, yes,” she pants, and she moves one hand to cover his where he’s supporting himself on the edge of the sofa. “You feel so good.” Her tits are smashed against the seat of the couch, her ass jiggling each time he slams against it, her clit rubbing roughly on the throw pillow, and it’s everything she imagined and more.

“Perfect, gorgeous girl. So good for me.” One of his hands moves to her hair, and he pulls it all to one side, over her shoulder, so he can see her face better, probably. “You love to be fucked hard by daddy. You love the feel of me against your ass.”

“Yes, I love it. I love you.” She spreads her legs a little, one of her feet pressing against the rug for leverage, and he gets rougher, thrusts quicker. She whines, drops her cheek to the cushion, and just lets herself be fucked, her body moving only because of his deep, relentless thrusts.

“I love you, Sophie. You’re so perfect, wanting me to use you like this. When you ask for my cock, it’s almost impossible to deny you—but you know that, honey, don’t you? You know all I want is to make your tight little pussy quiver around me.” She moans into the couch, nods weakly, and when he leans in again to bite her shoulder, she comes. “Yes, that’s it. We’re not done yet, though.”

“Aaron,” she whimpers, her clit sensitive, and he mouths at the bite, kisses her arm.

“You’re fine, baby. You’re okay.” The hand not covered by hers moves to her ass, and he squeezes as he pumps inside. “You’re okay. You can take me, can’t you, good girl?”

“Hmm, yes,” she mutters, and she’s overstimulated, but she wants to be good for him, doesn’t want him to stop.

She gets too tired to do anything with her hands, just brings them up to rest by her face, and he moves his to her hips, holds her tight, and hammers her soft, pliant body until he comes; she feels him fill her, feels some slide out when he withdraws, and she exhales deeply, spent.

“No, no,” he says when she sags against the couch. “I want one more orgasm from you, baby girl.” He lifts her hips, tucks the pillow more firmly beneath her pussy, and it’s wetter now, from both of their come. “Hump this for me, okay?”

She’s tired, and satisfied, fuzzy, but she works her hips as best as she can. Aaron’s broad palms come to rest on her ass, and he spreads her open a little, watches her grind against the pillow. It makes her cheeks heat, being inspected so closely by her daddy, and she comes, neck outstretched, moans weak and broken.

He kisses her lips, her shoulder, and rubs his hand soothingly up and down her back; they get cleaned up in the shower, and he feeds her a snack in the kitchen—cheese and pickles, her favorite. Then, he wraps her in a blanket and tucks her into the armchair while he strips the couch cushions of their covers, throws them in the washer; she watches him with a sleepy, happy smile. The tie becomes an unofficial signal: when Aaron wears it to work, Sophie knows she is going to be taken apart thoroughly when they get home, will end the night with her body aching and her brain empty, and Aaron knows she knows.

This time, he left home wearing a red tie, she’s absolutely certain of that, but when they gather for their morning meeting, he’s wearing the blue one; she literally stops mid-stride when she sees it, and Prentiss crashes right into her back, almost causing a domino effect in the doorway. “Are you okay?” she asks, clearly concerned, but Sophie just swallows hard and nods, takes her seat without a word. Aaron turns to hide a smirk, the evil, rotten, bastard.

The evening begins agonizingly slow, with Aaron stripping her of her shirt and pants, laying her back on the bed, panties pushed aside, and fingering her with only one finger for a good twenty minutes. He has her whimpering, shaking, because it feels so good but it’s not enough, and it’s only when he leans in to slide his tongue through the wetness pooling around his finger that she comes, squeezing her legs together; he forces them open with his free hand, making her mumble and shiver.

“Beautiful, sweetheart. You’re so gorgeous when you get like this: needy and desperate for daddy.” She wants to reply, can’t, just nods her head.

When she’s calmed down a little, he pulls her panties off, but her bra stays on. She doesn’t understand why, at first, until strong hands push up her thighs, and he inserts himself inside her, wraps his fingers around the fabric between the cups of her bra. It pulls down, exposing her chest, for the most part, and he uses that to hold her steady while he fucks her into oblivion.

Her tits bounce with each thrust, and her hands do absolutely nothing, because she’s forgotten how to use them; all she can do is whimper, murmur daddy, and clench around his dick, so that’s what she does.

“Oh, fuck, baby. Are you fuzzy already? Was one little finger enough to make you brainless?” She nods, pants, and he squeezes his eyes shut, something he does when he’s trying not to come. “You’re my perfect girl, Sophie. You’re the best girl. I love you so much.” She whines high in her chest, licks her bottom lip a couple of times, and he reaches his other hand up to wrap around her throat.

“Mmm, daddy,” she sighs, and when he spills inside her she hums, pleased, and manages to bring her hand up to hold his wrist at her throat. He keeps it there for a moment, then lets go, takes off her bra and comes up to kiss the angry, red marks it left behind.

He slips two fingers inside her, and she’s so messy, she can feel it, groans when the thrust of his hand makes her feel squishy inside. “It’s only me, baby, it’s daddy’s come. I’ll push it deeper inside and make you shiver for me, sweet girl.” His hand moves quickly, his mouth still gentle on her breasts, and when he carefully bites down on her nipple, she does climax, trembling and breathing hard until he guides his fingers out.

He holds her, soothes her, and when she’s able to speak, it’s a flood of words like thank you and love you and so good to me and wow. “You’ve worn that tie twice this week,” Spencer mentions to Aaron in the briefing room one day. He looks down, slides his hand over it, and glances back up at him.

“I like it. Sophie bought it for me,” he explains, and Spencer nods, smiles at her.

“It’s nice. Pretty color.”

“Thanks.” She flushes and looks back down at the interoffice memo they’re supposed to be reading; she still has hickies and bite marks on her ass and thighs from the last time he wore the tie, on Monday, and her mind has been racing, thinking of what kind of reward it will earn her today.

“So, so pretty, baby,” he coos as she gasps through her fourth orgasm of the night. There is a vibrator in her pussy, a smaller one in her ass, and she droops against him where he holds her up, his back against the headboard of their bed. “You sound so pretty when you come for me, my good girl.”

He makes love to her after that, pumping slowly, gently, into her worn out body, and she musters up enough energy to kiss him, sigh Aaron, and clutch at his hair until he comes.

She calls off sick the next day, literally too well-fucked to be of any use to her team. When Aaron gets home from work, all she’s wearing is the tie.

[sixbucks]

From Revitalize, or Die

I am not sure how I ended up in this place. What terrible decisions had I made to bring me to this Mecca of American decline? What karmic injustice had I exacted that was awful enough to land me here? No one, not even me, should have to suffer this runway of broken dreams.

Why? Why would anyone approve this? Why is this allowed? Who is in charge? Who saw the proposals and was like, “9 more miles of single story, concrete strip mall disposable crap? UM… YES, that is exactly what this community craves.”

Look, I’m a capitalist, I am all for people making a buck however they choose. As long as it doesn’t harm anyone, go ahead and get that money. The problem though, is a lack of restraint, a lack control on behalf of local officials. They forget they have a say in what happens in their town. They have forgotten they have a role to play in the shape of their community. Local officials have become so addicted to the economic development drug, that they think any score is still a score. Any hit still gives them that rush they seek.

Developers can build garbage if allowed. Entrepreneurs can open up all the Dollar Trees and dildo shops they want. I support all vices. That is not the issue, it’s the fact that no one is pushing back. Local commissions and elected officials are charged with improving their community and they are abdicating that responsibility.

Local officials have become job junkies. Investment addicts. They would steal two Dollar Generals right out of their mother’s purse if she turned her back for a minute. Nothing matters like getting another hit of employment. Any investment, no matter how detrimental, will still provide that sweet sweet satisfaction.

This economic development at-all-cost way of governing is wrecking our landscape and decimating the places our grandparents talked about. It is wreaking havoc on our towns and more so, on our own well-being. It is destroying the fabric of community that took so long to weave. It is making us all feel disposable. Like worthless consumers that don’t deserve anything nice in our lives. The landscape screams “you are worthless, now shut the fuck-up and buy another clever t-shirt to help ease the suffering of being stranded in this architectural abortion.”

In our decades-long economic development addiction, we lost sight of some things. Standards matter, aesthetics are important, our surroundings shapes how we feel, people deserve to feel proud, and dignity doesn’t come cheap. In allowing absolutely anything to get built, we have taken a sledge hammer to pride, dignity, and beauty. No longer is there any sense of value, but instead, a glorification of cheap.

Did you ever notice you find all the trashiest people in the trashiest places? Do trashy people gravitate towards trashy places? Of course. Probably a good reason not to allow those places to get built or maybe a decent argument for maintenance. But, something else happens, something we have to consider, something we need to pay a ton of attention to. Trashy places transform normal people, into trashy people. “We shape our buildings, thereafter they shape us” said Winston Churchill. In other words, spend your days surrounded by ugliness and you will eventually feel ugly. Welcome to the Dollar General affect.

Dollar General is not a sign of community decline, it is the cause of it. This is no different than Wal-Mart World and the paycheck palace. Listen, and this is a point you need to burn into your civic brain and hold onto for all your days, these businesses are not seeking out shitty places. They are not targeting impoverished communities. They will go anywhere. They are targeting your low standards. They are hoping you are an “any investment” addict, willing to let them in. You need a couple bucks? Just leave the door unlocked so the thief can slip-in during the night and give you a cut after he leaves the pawn shop.

We once prayed at the alter of quality living, but now we blindly worship our economic development gods and they require absolute devotion. They tell us, beauty is frivolous, standards are anti-business, concern for community is tantamount to socialism. They are relentless in their messaging and their reign will not stop until we all have our own private parking garage.

As an environment begins to consist of predominately cheap and meaningless business and buildings, the people in those environments will begin to feel cheap and meaningless. They will adapt. They have to adapt. Either adapt or leave, those are the only choices. One can’t spend all their days surrounded by crap, yet somehow feel dignified and proud. It doesn’t work like that. People don’t work like that.

You ever run into that weird thing were people talk shit on their hometown? Where locals ask, why would you move here? When community members try and tear one another down for trying to do something better. You know what that is? That is the painful struggle of locals trying to square their own self-image with the place they call home. No one wants to feel bad about themselves, yet your place is a reflection of you. Where you live suggests something about who you are. People that live in nice places don’t have to struggle with this internal conflict. Their self-image is bolstered by their surroundings. They can be proud of their address.

All those people that live in towns that have succumbed to investment addiction, they have to deal with the internal conflict of living in a place that they believe is beneath them. They are right. They want to feel proud, but their surroundings won’t let them. They want to feel good about themselves, but the appearance of their town gets in the way. People living in no-standards towns have to find a way to distance themselves from the place they call home. They can’t move, so they have to preserve their own self worth by disassociating themselves in other ways. “if I am aware my town is beneath me, then I also am aware I am better than this place.” It is a desire to not be associated with a place that brings you shame. A self preservation tactic to help justify your locale. It is a sad fucked up self-help dance people must perform to square their own worth in a place that provides none.

It’s not that people don’t want nice things, they do. They are desperate for nice things. Desperate for beauty, Desperate to feel proud of something. Longing to experience a sense of dignity. Every single person wants nice things, but their surroundings have repeatedly told them this, in the most clear way possible, over and over and over again, they don’t deserve it.

I am in a place that makes me feel like shit. I don’t want to feel like shit. I opt not to whenever possible. Nobody wants to feel like shit, yet local commissions keep approving projects that ensure everyone feels like shit. Maybe you don’t want me as a resident, that’s fine, I get it. Maybe you don’t want me as a visitor, sure, whatever, go off man. But your community wants SOME visitors and your community requires SOME residents. Your community should want visitors to enjoy themselves. Your city should want residents to be happy. Your municipality probably has a desire to make people feel an attachment to their town and possibly experience a swelling sense of pride for their place. As long as your officials, boards and commissions keep approving projects that continue to make their town worse, you can just put those dreams aside. Welcome to Shit town, we’re so glad you’re stuck here.

[anthrofreshtodeath]

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Inspiration struck last night 👀 - putting this here so you can let me know if it's worth continuing/if you would want to read more of it. Super AU!

Jane cut the engine of her Ford Ranger just outside the tiny strip mall off of Sixth Street. It had been a splurge just after she got brought on as the head baseball coach of Empire High School, a treat for herself for finally getting a big-person job and generating some regular income. Her mother had convinced her to do it, actually, because Jane had been on the fence for months, waffling so many times that Angela piled her in the family Buick and dropped her off at the dealership. Find your own way home, Angela had said, and it better be in that brand new truck.

Now, Jane was thankful for the push, because southern California summers in her old Civic with the busted A/C were no fucking joke. They were still no joke now, but at least she could blast cold air on her face when needed. Like now: even at six thirty in the morning, temperatures climbed above eighty in early August, and she settled into the discomfort of an already damp back. At least her front still looked fresh. She glanced in the rearview mirror one last time before she got out, taking off her adjustable black cap with her school’s insignia and smoothing the tied-back black hair on top of her head. Presentable and believable: a baseball coach with a ponytail and a Nike dri-fit short sleeve windbreaker over her t-shirt.

She hopped out, satisfied enough to not be looking like a hooligan, and when she planted her turf shoes, she could tell the asphalt was already on fire. The boys were gonna be whiny as hell this afternoon. That made her grin just a little bit. She ambled up to the donut shop-slash-panaderia on the corner, straightening her posture when the door jingled and signalled her entry.

The short, middle-aged woman with her graying hair in a bun and an apron around her waist brightened when Jane approached the counter. “Buenos días, Coach Rizzoli,” she greeted with a smile and voice so cheery, she’d obviously been up for hours already. Probably baking as Jane finished weight-lifting in her backyard before the sun came up.

Jane smiled softly in return. “Buenos días, señora Gutierrez,” Jane said, deferential even though at nearly 5’11”, she must have been almost a foot taller than Mrs. Gutierrez. “Como está?” Short Spanish phrases sounded pretty darn good in her mouth, she had to admit, for all the Sicilian she heard growing up, and for being a product of Santa Ana. Spanish was more common than English in a lot of her friends’ homes growing up, so she caught on quick. At least enough to carry on a polite conversation, if needed.

“Bien, gracias. Tengo sus conchas aquí,” Mrs. Gutierrez asked as disappeared behind the counter to find what she was looking for, Jane’s order, reappearing with six pink donut boxes.

Jane opened her nostrils wide to take in the smell of flour, sugar, and a hint of cinnamon for the white conchas, her favorite. It was enough to feed a small army, which felt just about right for the staff meeting she had been tasked with supplying breakfast for. The first of the new school year. “Qué bueno,” she replied, not sure if she was referring to Mrs. Gutierrez’s overall well-being or the pan in the boxes. She pulled out her cash to pay, slipping her wallet in her back pocket, and in the seconds that it took her to do that, a single, piping-hot styrofoam cup of coffee appeared on the counter in front of her.

“Y un cafecito come le gusta,” said Mrs. Gutierrez with a wink and a smile. Occasionally, she did this, and it was her way of taking care of Jane, one of their family’s best customers.

Jane had learned not to refuse it. She just blushed and bowed her head a little bit, her lips pursed in a bashful smile. “Muchisimas gracias,” she said, taking a sip. Mrs. Gutierrez always left the cinnamon stick in it and added minimal creamer, just how Jane liked. Jane held back a moan. She decided she’d partake of the rest in the car, and then pocketed her change.  She picked the boxes up by the string tied to them and huffed, ready to begin the day. “Y el Jonny?” she asked, and Mrs. Gutierrez nodded her head towards the back of the bakery.

Jane nodded and made her way toward the door so she could pop around. “Qué tenga un buen día, Coach,” Mrs. Gutierrez called after her.

“Igualmente!” Jane replied, already on her way. She deposited her haul on her front passenger seat, keeping her coffee in hand, and then walked over to the alley between the Gutierrez bakery and the block wall separating it from the Cardenas market just across the way. She put her hat back on, threading her ponytail through its opening, and adjusted her Oakley sunglasses as she stood by the dumpster that Jonathan Gutierrez currently filled with broken-down cardboard boxes.

He heard her shoes scuffling his way, so he turned. “Coach Rizzoli! It’s early as hell,” he said, “what’re you doing here?” He sweated through the ribbed tank on his torso and the black basketball shorts on his hips. Jane commiserated, having helped her dad out on many a plumbing job in the summer when she was in high school.

“Well, first day for teachers is today,” she said, sipping her drink. “And I had to get some of your mom’s pan for the meeting. They’d expect nothing less. I’m here lookin’ at you because she exhausted all my Spanish skills, and I needed to remind you that practice starts at one today.”

Jonny, as tall as her, lanky too, smirked. “I’m sure you could’ve found a way to say that to her,” he teased, knowing that she couldn’t have, not well.

“You’re a riot. One o’clock, and not a minute later, a’right? I will not hesitate to bench our centerfielder for opening day if he’s late,” she warned. Then she started to turn.

“That’s like seven months from now!” Jonny whined, setting his box cutter down and running a hand through his thick black hair. “I got work today! Last day before school starts next week!”

Jane rolled her eyes. “The perfect hair thing may work on the girls at school, kid, but it won’t work on me. Find a way to make it happen - if you get into Fullerton, it won’t be because I sent you, but because you did it on your own. Part of that means showing up to practice on time. Even in August.”

Jonny sighed. His mom would understand, but his wallet would be crying. “I’m tryna save up for a pickup like yours, though, Coach,” he tried, batting his eyes for extra sympathy.

Jane laughed, and then he did. “Listen. You show up for practice on time every day this year, and you and me’ll have a talk about replacing today’s wages for that new Ranger, a’right?”

“Ok,” Jonny said quietly. He knew that Jane knew they didn’t have much money. And he knew that she knew most everything about him - she meant what she said. She’d taken him under her wing when she’d noticed his boundless talent and his faltering attendance. When she found out it was to make enough money to keep him and his brother on the team, she’d covered the cost in full. That was two years ago, and now that Jonny was an incoming senior, they’d righted the ship together. There was only a little more to go until he applied to the school of his dreams, the one with the killer baseball program and just miles from home.

It didn’t hurt that Jane was the first woman to play ball there as a range-y second baseman, was eventually drafted from Fullerton. He wanted to follow in her footsteps as best he could. “Good. See you then, kid,” she said. He knew that she knew the best way for him to do that was to grind. To eat, sleep, drink, and shit baseball.

“Hey Coach!” He called after her as she made her way back into the alley.

She turned around. “What’s up?”

“I wanna focus on my forearms this year. Should I go the Altuve way?” he asked, smiling.

The Jose Altuve way: banging sledgehammers into tractor trailer tires. Jane guffawed. “I’m not saying do it, but I mean hey, guy’s 5’5” and hitting thirty dingers a year in The Show, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Jonny said. “I’ll take it under advisement. Thanks,” and with that, he waved Jane off. She spent the rest of the ride to school thinking about how to safely incorporate forearm work into the team’s regimen in a way that didn’t involve sledgehammers.

The bread had made her truck smell like heaven, and it was the perfect olfactory accompaniment through the working class neighborhoods of Coronita Heights - the part that she felt more comfortable in. She’d grown up down the 91 in Santa Ana, one of Orange County’s most vibrant cities, and her street looked a lot more like these than the ones that Empire High School sat on.

But Empire was one of the top 15 baseball programs in the state, and she had jumped at the opportunity to coach when she’d been approached about it. She packed the few boxes from her parents’ house, used the rest of her signing bonus to put a nice down payment on a house in Coronita Heights, and hadn’t looked back. It had been good for her - she kept in shape, used that teaching credential she’d worked on at Fullerton to teach PE, and led the Knights to a CIF championship in the five years she had been there. She hunted another.

Soon, the burger joints, smoke shops, and insurance spots gave way to expensive houses and palm trees, and she saw the massive campus come into view. She hopped out of the truck once she parked near the office toward the front, downing her coffee and tossing it in the trash. She tugged her belt, looped through her white baseball pants, making sure the fit was good, and then she took the breakfast out.

Another school year was about to begin, and she was determined to make it a victorious one.

___

Maura smoothed her dress in the full-length mirror of her bedroom for what must have been the hundredth time. It was tasteful: sleeveless, dark blue, with a thin black patent-leather belt around its waist. She paired it with black heels, and she looked good. She knew, intellectually, that she did, but this happened every time she started something new: the nerves kicked in and she doubted herself. She curled her impeccably styled hair behind her right ear out of habit, and then made her way downstairs for breakfast.

Her palatial home in Anaheim Hills sat overlooking the city below, still sleepy at six-thirty in the morning. She was anything but, having already completed her run and entire grooming routine. She perused the options within her double door refrigerator, still quite imposing even under the expansive wooden beams on the ceiling that ran from wall to wall. She thought about eggs, protein always a good start to the day, but then remembered the expected temperature and decided a cold breakfast of yogurt and berries would be best.

Again, it was too hot for warm coffee, but the massive cold brew dispenser she had readied just a few days prior called her name and she filled a tumbler with it and her favorite almond milk creamer. She’d have one cup with breakfast and a refill for the road, as she always did from May to October. She reveled in routine; it was what helped her not to shake as she brought a spoonful of honey, dairy, and strawberry up to her lips.

Today, despite her several years of doctoring, would be her first job with the living since residency. In fact, it would be her first non-clinical job, well, ever. Even when she had volunteered for research, it had been in pathology labs, or oncology centers, or Alzheimer’s wards. Now, she would head the pilot program for a pre-med track at Empire High School. Well, pre-pre-med, she corrected herself. The point of the program was to prepare students from non-private and non-charter school backgrounds for the rigor of medical school. And, as a graduate of the Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, as well as Boston Cambridge University for undergraduate work, Coronita Heights Unified thought her very qualified to head its inception.

Maura was humble, so she did not consider that they also factored in her copious research articles within the field of pathology, nor her several awards from the Medical Board of California. But they did, and so today she started her teaching/counseling position that included Advanced Placement Anatomy and Physiology, as well as Advanced Placement Biology and an elective of honors molecular pathology to boot. She had negotiated that last one to retain a taste of her passion outside of teaching.

Satisfied both with her breakfast and her mulling, Maura rose from her stool at the kitchen island, its white marble counter still gleaming from its recent clean this weekend, and made her way to the sink. She rinsed her bowl, placed it in the dishwasher on the top rack with the others, and then washed her hands for twenty seconds. Soap on, palm scrub, back-of-the-hand scrub, webspace scrub, for as long as it took to hum happy birthday to herself, twice.

She reveled in routine.

She unscrewed the lid of her tumbler and placed it under the dispenser in the refrigerator again, watching dark coffee wash over ice cubes with pleasure. The properties of matter, their predictability and regularity, calmed Maura. She could predict where each rivulet would go with accuracy, and then watch the change of color with no surprise when she poured in her creamer. She could control how light or dark it became, and thus control its flavor. She savored that one last ounce of control before she screwed her lid back on and walked over to where her purse and rolling cart awaited her at the front door.

She took one last look behind her, at the open concept living room so large it needed a sectional couch that no one used because people hardly ever dropped by, at the kitchen with state-of-the-art, industrial appliances that often cooked meals for one. It was her home, even if all of that were true, and the way that the southern California sun poured in through her floor-to-ceiling windows thrilled her. It thrilled her the way it had the first time she set foot in LA, for her first day of classes. She let that embolden her as she locked the door and stepped into her S-Class.

Navigation popped up as soon the engine roared to life, already pre-programmed with the route to Empire High School. She saw the calculation of a twenty minute drive, rearranged a few numbers in her head as she thought about the day of the week, the time of the morning, and the unpredictability of the 91, and decided twenty minutes was probably just about right. She’d given herself a cushion for twenty-five, and with a glance to the men’s style cartier on her wrist, she smiled and pulled out of the garage towards the main drag that would lead her to the freeway.

She jumped out of nerves and surprise when the system notified her of a call coming in. She smirked when she saw the caller ID: Dr. Nina Holiday, Hoag Hospital. Maura pressed the call accept button. “Need a consult already, Doctor?” she teased, her own voice always just a bit foreign in the morning after not having heard it for hours.

Doctor Holiday scoffed on the line. “You wish,” she replied, and then there were beats of silence. “I just wanted to call to wish you good luck on your first day. And to see if you’d reconsider.”

“If this is Hoag’s way of trying to lure me back, by making their premier neurologist do all the dirty work, I think I’m going to have to pass,” Maura said, and Nina laughed.

“No, this is just a friend saying you’re gonna be missed is all,” said Nina. “But I respect what you’re doing.”

“Thank you. I appreciate it,” Maura demured. “Pathology is in... very capable hands with Doctor Pike,” she said, and then immediately the two women guffawed.

“You couldn’t even get it out before you started laughing!” Nina asserted, “see? We’re up a creek with no paddle!”

“Whom the department decided to hire in my stead is not my business,” Maura replied professionally, “especially if they do not take my recommendations into account,” and then with more spice.

“You right, you right. And I know I said it before, but I respect you for this. I think my road to medicine might have been a lot easier if I had someone like you at my high school to guide me through,” Nina said seriously. “Just answer me something: you didn’t leave because of Ian, did you?”

Maura stiffened. She hadn’t wanted to think about that on her first day, but here Nina was, dredging it up. Maura wrung her hands on her steering wheel. “No. Not really,” she answered, and that was the truth. The timing of it all had just been awful.

“Ok. I just… with him being gone, I didn’t know if that would be better, or if you’d be haunted by ghosts, you know? If you stayed.”

“I think I needed a fresh start either way, Nina. I really do,” Maura said.

Nina took the hint that they were done talking about it. Her voice turned chipper again. “I’ve got a call at seven, so I have to go, but I’ll talk to you soon, ok? You can tell me all about your first week. Maybe over bottomless mimosas.”

Maura sighed with relief. She would need that. “Sounds great. Nina?”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks for calling. I’m… I’m going to miss you, too,” Maura confessed.

“Aw, Doctor Isles, don’t get all mushy on me,” gushed Nina. “Bye. I’ll talk to you later.”

“Bye,” Maura said after the line had gone dead.

Nina’s call had lasted most of the ride. Maura was grateful. Nina had been one of the few people to get to know her at Hoag. The hospital itself had a very competent staff. Excellent, really. And Maura was one of the best, so this led to a never-spoken, always-felt air of competition. It didn’t really lend itself to friendship. But Nina had consulted with Maura so often, that a comfortable working relationship eventually morphed into a casual friendship. That turned into drinks on the rare weeknights they had off and brunch on Sundays at some of the best spots in Orange County.

They promised to continue, and they would of course, but for the first time in their friendship, they didn’t work a floor away from each other, and Maura resolved that while she would do everything to keep it alive, she had to acknowledge the change. Fittingly, as soon as she did so, she drove into the staff parking lot at Empire High. Her new beginning.

Her welcome e-mail mentioned a staff meeting today, Friday, in the lecture hall at the front of the school, refreshments provided. So, she pulled next to the gunmetal gray Ford Ranger to her right, and gathered her things. Her cart could wait until they were dismissed to ready their classrooms, so she deposited her fob into her purse and sipped on her coffee for fortitude as she followed the sidewalk pathway past the front office to the lecture hall. She had mapped out the route when she had found out about the meeting, deciding that touring campus on her own before she began would reduce her anxieties, as well as the possibility of unknown factors. It was also why she had arrived right on time: early meant possible one-on-one conversations with strangers, and late meant all eyes on her as she hustled in.

She pushed her sunglasses to the top of her head when she reached the glass double doors of the hall, and breathed in one last time. It was a big, 360 degree breath: it engaged her pelvic floor and spread her ribs equally. It lowered her pulse and calmed her nerves, and then she was ready.

When she entered, she heard chatter. Lots of it. When she turned the corner and yanked open the wooden door of the room itself, she was shocked to see what looked like most of the staff already deep in conversation in their seats. Some stood, others stretched their legs over a couple of seats at once, some laughed and some nodded seriously. For a moment, Maura panicked, then checked her watch again. She felt her heartbeat fall a little bit when she looked up to the front and realized that no-one had started the meeting. In fact, there was a small line at the sign-in sheet, so she decided that rather than have a breakdown in the walkway, she should join the line.

She mustered as much courage as she could and stood behind the last woman, who smiled at her politely. Maura smiled back and thanked whatever powers that be that the woman didn’t try to engage. The line moved quickly, and staff members grabbed what looked like sweet bread just off to the side of the table as they signed in. She forewent the sugar and decided just to take the requisite printouts instead. By then, things started to feel a little more like a normal job orientation, so she turned on her heels to make her way back to the crowd.

The confident turn ended up being another mistake, however, because as she started to walk, she saw no openings. It was like the middle of a very bad dream, in which she needed so desperately to blend in, but all she could do was stand out. She felt eyes on her as she passed tables full of other adults, she heard conversations quiet and alter when she walked by.

However, just as she was about to give up and stand all the way in the back, someone called out. “Hey,” the voice was firm, raspy, and kind. She turned instantly and it kept talking. “You need a spot? I was savin’ this one for my brother, but, big shocker, he’s late.” Seated at a table in the middle of the hall with an all-white backpack on the empty chair next to her, two aluminum bat handles sticking out on either side of it, was… “Oh, and I’m Jane. Rizzoli. By the way.”

Jane Rizzoli. Maura thought the name fitting. Jane was so tall and so dark-featured and so handsome that she needed an Italian surname. And by god, she had one. One with a trilled-r and a plural i and everything: it was perfect for her in the way that all its sounds signified abundance. Maura’s mind rambled and she caught it; she wasn’t even sure how the phonotactic rules of Italian applied to Jane’s physicality, but they did, and Maura sat next to her without hesitation. She chanced one glance to the length of Jane’s torso as she curled to put her elbows on the table, and then she met Jane’s dark brown eyes.

It was then that she realized that Jane probably awaited some kind of response. “Maura Isles,” said Maura, holding her hand out. Jane shook it and Maura was not at all surprised by the firmness of the shake.

“Hey Maura. I’m uh, I’m the head baseball coach here. I also teach PE,” Jane explained. Then she looked down at herself, her uniform and the bats in the backpack now on the floor. “But you probably guessed that.”

Maura smirked, and laughed softly. “I don’t like to guess. It puts people in awkward positions. But I would say there’s lots of evidence to that fact, yes.”

Jane laughed openly and then took her hat off. “Well, I’m gonna go out on a limb and guess you’re the hotshot doctor that they hired for our new pre-med pipeline.”

Maura raised a perfectly-sculpted eyebrow. “And why would you assume that?”

“You talk like a doctor. And you dress better than everyone else in this room. Real doctor-y,” Jane wagged her own eyebrows up and down.

Maura watched Jane’s crooked grin, rapt. “One…” she began slowly, “doctor-y is not a word. Two, what if I were independently wealthy and taught, oh say, English?”

Jane shrugged. “Words are made up. And are you? Independently wealthy?”

Maura’s mouth twitched in humor. “Yes,” she answered. Jane threw her head back in defeat. “But, I am also the doctor piloting the pre-med program here.”

Just like that, the slender column of Jane’s neck brought her head forward again. “Thought so!” she said. Just as she did, The man who Maura knew from his photo online as the school principal walked in. People started to hush as he made his way to the front podium. Even she turned her attention, until there was the distinct warmth of whispering by her ear that dismantled all other thoughts. Jane was speaking. “Well, Dr. Isles,” she responded, “welcome to Empire High, then.”