#truant is here somewhere probably

[sceebybeeby]

did y'all's journals also come with this page? i haven't seen anyone else talk about it

(page pngs and thoughts under read more)

(code says "when i write 'house' my ink turns blue)

(code says "didn't develop or in the hallway?")

i think i niche'd too close to the sun, but my thought process was basically what if the navidson record was real in the gravity falls universe through an outside lens? (and also took place in the 80's) and then it made me think about how both ford and navidson are similar in their obsessions and need to figure things out over "caring" about the people around them, so narratively it makes sense, i think that ford would be too fascinated by the house to ever learn his name which is why he's referred to as "the stranger." i also wanted to show the difference between navidson and ford by having their cameras be different, ford's can only produce sepia while navidson's is in color. i don't think i got his voice down and it's probably clunky but c'est la vie this was more style practice than anything

[rudeflower]

JESS ANGST SCHOOL ANGST COMPLEX TRAUMA ANGST

In Keg Max! Principal Merton tells Jess he has missed 31 days of school. Now that makes him a chronic truant for sure, it means he's missed more than 10% of the school year, the standard school year is 180 days. Let's say there's 10 days left in the school year.

That's a LOT of school to miss. Young people improbably here, do not miss that much school

But relative to what we're being told about Jess, it's a weirdly low number? Jess never goes to school!!!! He's working 10000 hours at Walmart instead of going to school no school never heard of him!

That means that Jess attended school 139 days. Most schools I've worked with define that as a certain number of hours attended, more than half the day. So even if he was skipping that's 139 days he went to more than half the day NOT GOOD AT ALL BUT

Even after he was eighteen (early in the school year) he still laced up his boots and showed up somewhere he hated at saw no point in going to WHY!!????

First of all this is actually a ridiculously overcommitted young person let's at least acknowledge that.

He works before school at Luke's, and he works in the evenings too, closing up at 11:30 in one episode. Not just filling coffee mugs anymore. By season 3 he's closing alone, keeping tabs on the delivery schedule and capable of (furiously) running the morning rush alone.

AND he's working 45 hours a week at Walmart doing physical work, AND (poorly) maintaining a romantic relationship, AND reading obsessively, AND YES GOING TO SCHOOL! Jess starts working at Walmart in November (if you treat the air date as the canon date with the show roughly does), combined with Luke's it's probably 60-65 hours a week and still went to school 139 days!

He's making ridiculous choices because he is a tiny little fool but also has a trauma soaked brain

Jess chooses to be maxed out every minute of his life because he cannot tolerate being unoccupied, like a lot of people with complex trauma (and ADHD and Autism and more all of which could apply to Jess but rn I am talking about complex trauma)

When someone is used to chaos in their environment they actually feel less safe when things are quiet and still. It leads to someone who needs to have their RAM at 100% every waking AND sleeping moment

So they work 65+ hours, go to school most days, and they

cannot relax without extreme stimulation AKA needing the music on to sleep

Walk while reading because walking and looking ahead isn't enough is not occupied enough need more occupied

and starts reading the second he's stops talking to someone or using his hands to do something else. Reading as default in any given second.

He reads compulsively, no matter how chaotic the environment.

Reading ALSO isn't enough must be annotating and analyzing too passive reading is NOT ENOUGH

So Jess would rather show up at school for 139 days where other people are moving around, where there are fights to get into and classes to move to and from, even after he's an adult and Luke wouldn't find out that he isn't showing up. He'll show up to a test just to be in the classroom, not to take it.

This is not mentioning what I'm too lazy to screencap, that he's always doing something. that especially when he's talking to Luke Jess is constantly and doing things with his hands constantly.

There's really only one time we see Jess sitting still doing almost nothing

But not really nothing because smoking really is something.

My dude needs to be as occupied as possible from the time he wakes up all the way up to and including when he falls asleep to stay occupied and all that he's got on hand is going to a school that says the pledge of allegiance in six different languages then he will go! It's 100%%% occupation or the horror of possibly relaxing and WHAT WOULD HAPPEN THEN

[itsbenedict]

From the beginning | Previously | Coin standings | 48/55 | 29/29

Right- first order of business, headin𝕘 back to the volcano caverns to NO LIMP ICE YONDER DEPLOY COIN MINER somewhere it probably won't burn down any buildings. That's just... a good idea, which there's no reason to overcomplicate. You Just Do That! It's a little out of the way, but you encounter nothing beyond the odd bug to obstruct you on your way through the medieval village and billboard canyon- and, like, there's power outlets in there you can set up at. The casino doesn't want people's phones dying and giving them a reason to go home and stop gambling. Ⱥnd, like... this place is an active volcano. It's not about to get any more on fire than it already is.

While you're there, you spend 20 Coin (plus two from a kind stranger) to purchase HACK IN NIL a CHAIN LINK from the butteʀfly shop. If you UN-HANDY ALIEN BUICKS BUY AND USE CHAIN LINK, it ought to let you connect two unconnected squares of the map, by means of... uh, I guess it represents the abstract concept of you coming up with an idea for how to get someplace you didn't know how to get to before.

Per @sym-metric:

Hey, that's an interesting idea! And you're pretty sure the hospital was near the 𝓾niversity, somewhere. If you just follow the link south...

Hmm! This is not a hospital! Thi𝖘 is, perhaps, the exact opposite of a hospital!

Really, you should've expected this to happen eventually. It was basically inevitable, really. Every Souls game needs one! You have, at last, found yourself in the poison swamp.

The ground has vanished knee-deep in toxic sludge. Rickety old shacks, collapsing and being reclaimed by mangroves and vines, slouch iₙto the mire. The mire, it seems, pours forth from massive metal pipes that stick awkwardly out of these collapsing buildings.

How will you make your way through?

There's a guy here who says he saw some VIPs come through earlier, and he learned all their tricks. For just a l𝚒ttle Coin, the VIP ANECDOTE GRIFTER will tell you some swamp secrets!

No one's hula-danced here for a long time. There's a drought of hula, and you've come across some pieces of the physical manifestation of the problem. Take HULA DROUGHT WEDGES?

Just outside of one of the buildings, you find some TOBACCO TRUANTS cutting class to smoke cigarettes in the swamp. Careful! If you're too square, they might sass you.

The teacher has just about had it with these kids and their sass. She issues a SASSPHOBIC ORDER, telling them to quit the backchat and get back to class immediately!

A trial is in progress, and the nature of a foodstuff involved in the crime must be established. They didn't sleep we𝚕l, but a BLEARY JURY IDS TOFU. But how could tofu be a murder weapon?

Continued | 48/55 | 24/24

[anomalocaristreats]

Hingeless Geeta Rant

Dang, it’s been awhile since anything gave me as “conflicting” of feelings as Pokémon Scarlet and Violet. I’ve got no outlet for this stuff, so here’s a blog I guess. I missed the boat on the discussion and putting all those thoughts down would be a full on novel, I just wanna focus down on one little thing to scream into the void about in this game- the Geeta fight. And before I can talk about Geeta, I need to talk about the context her fight is in.

I think the champion fight is pretty widely held in low regard. It feels lackluster, oddly designed, and especially, anticlimactic for what we’re used to thinking of as the “ultimate” story challenge within the Pokémon League. So why do that? Why give the “final boss” of the League such a weak fight? Well there’s a very good reason to do so! In fact, I’m fairly convinced that it was intentional to make the Geeta fight suck, because there is a pattern. In Scarlet and Violet there are multiple branching and eventually converging stories, each of which has some kind of a capstone fight in two parts. Path of Legends ends up in a fight against a combined Dondozo! But after they’re defeated, the “ultimate” fight is a victory lap against the Tatsugiri inside. I wouldn’t consider Arven to be a real “final” boss in his story because the threat continues directly to the endgame in Area Zero, which finishes in a two-part fight. The first of which features a unique and challenging type-guessing game (which is its own rant) followed by a super special circumstance where you control your ride Pokémon in a story showdown that, I think you can’t lose? The Starfall Street path ends up in a fight against the final truant kid, probably Ortega who specializes in the powerful Fairy type. Yet the “ultimate” boss of Starfall Street is Penny, who uses her predictable and none-too-threatening adorable ‘veevees. It’s a dramatic and emotionally charged showdown, but it doesn’t seem like a battle crafted especially to push the player’s ability.

And Victory Road? The final member uses the powerful Dragon types and is given the current generation’s draconic Psuedo-legendary. I’m not trying to draw comparisons to Cynthia here but, but dang those comparisons do be drawing themselves. I think the Elite Four are designed to provide a challenge for those unprepared, and Hassel represents that something special that comes just before a capstone fight. And that something special is-

The Penultimate Challenge

A “Penultimate Challenge” in the context of games is what it sounds like. It’s the boss fight right before the final boss fight. It’s the Sapphiron guarding the gate to Kel’thuzad, the M’uru before Kil’Jaeden. It’s intended to provide a test to the players, to prove that they have mastered the mechanics and are worthy for what lies beyond that final locked door. The Penultimate Challenge is always paired with a final encounter, but importantly, the role of that final encounter is not the same when a Penultimate Challenge is in place. Instead, some room is made for that last-last boss to act as a victory lap for the players. It may have some big story beats playing out during the combat, the sort of stuff you don’t want to force the player to go through a million times if they keep failing it because it’d lose its impact. It is, in some way, a big flashy showoff, often featuring special gimmicky mechanics that set it apart from all other encounters. There is such a pattern of Penultimate Challenges in Scarlet and Violet that I’m convinced that somewhere on some design document, someone wrote down “Hey we’re doing this now, the story will be presented using this tool” and thus Geeta, the champion fight, was never supposed to be a huge test of the player’s skill. She’s a victory lap. A sendoff moment to celebrate coming so far. You aren’t supposed to struggle against her, white out over and over, and trudge through the Elite Four again and again.

And in that respect, as the Ultimate to Hassel’s Penultimate, she utterly fails.

Think of all the other Ultimate-Penultimate pairs in Scarlet and Violet and what they did that was special. Tatsugiri showcased a unique mechanic introduced for a pair of Pokémon introduced this gen. Penny concluded her soap opera story against a battle theme that goes HARD. Mi/Koraidon’s showdown wraps up their recovery story and finally gives you the Pokémon that has been in your bag since the start of the story, concludes the endgame, and (subjectively) gives you a Press-A-To-Win moment that the player won’t even care about because they want so badly go let the characters have their victory that they’ll gladly accept a button that just lets them give it to them. All of these are appropriate times to get the Ultimate-Penultimate tool out of your kit. And what does Geeta do? She finally gets you out of the soulless stuffy room the Elite Four fight in,... and onto the roof. I can’t speak for everyone but I was absolutely already jumping up there on Koraidon, not realizing I was “spoiling” myself for all a capstone fight had to offer. After 8 gyms, 5 delinquents, and 4 Elite trainers, players may have noticed that there’s exactly one Pokémon type specialist that is unaccounted for. There hasn’t been a Rock type Tera final battle! And if you guessed that Geeta would be it like I did, you’d be right! Sorta. In the most disappointing way. She uses the Rock Tera on her ace, but, what kind of specialist only has one Pokémon related to their type? I don’t think I even noticed she had a unique theme, it’s nowhere near as rad as Penny’s. An “Ultimate” fight without the flash, the story, the f l a r e, is completely pointless. Just bad. So how do we fix Geeta? There are some popular refrains I keep hearing that boil down to three things. 1) Move Glimorra to her first slot. 2) Move Kingambit to her ace. 3) Remove Gogoat (and maybe mix up some of her other ‘mons). On the other hand, Scarlet and Violet’s blind and rabid defenders will say that it is a child’s game! Nothing is meant to be challenging. We’re dumb for expecting difficulty anywhere, champion included. And you know what? Both of these arguments are wrong. The idea that the battle needs to be difficult or easy is a false dichotomy and is ultimately irrelevant to what’s actually important, it needs to be good. I nearly went on a full tertiary rant here about how games can be made for illiterate toddlers and deathbed geriatric Gen I Pokémon players alike by doing basic stuff like, presenting gameplay elements sequentially in a way that teaches the mechanics to anyone who can see the screen and manipulate like five buttons on a controller, but nah. Just go read an article about how Mario 1-1 is written into your mitochondrial DNA as a gamer or better yet, watch Egoraptor’s Megaman X Sequilitis. Basic ancient tenets of designing a good game are far more important, and what is missing from Geeta whether we mix up her team or leave it as is. Pokémon gets this stuff too, normally. Do you choose Charmander? Squirtle? Bulbasaur? Your rival you’ll repeatedly fight picks another in the type trio and you learn type effectiveness! It evolves as you battle with it teaching you that Pokémon can evolve! Then it does it again to show that some Pokémon have two stages! There’s so much of Pokémon that has been intentional good design from the very beginning that it’s outright frustrating to see that legacy thrown away for what I assume was some kind of internal conflict or fatally restrictive deadline. The fact that the Ultimate-Penultimate combo is so clearly present shows that someone working on this game cared enough to think about it. Cared enough to try something to build a cohesive experience that isn’t just a series of “things that happen I guess” in a row, as calculated by your Switch’s hardware.

Fixing Geeta is open ended. She could be recast as having anything to do with the story at all, the player could be given a reason to give a shit about La Primera. She could have had a better theme, a Rock team and be swapped with Hassel, a more visually impressive and unique battlefield. So many things could have been done differently, but personally, I don’t want to give up on the idea of retooling what Geeta is into the true “final boss” it was never allowed to be. But if we just follow the 3 team remix suggestions I keep seeing parroted, there’s some major issues that come up. 

First, it’s in very unlikely that the player has encountered a Glimmora before the fight, meaning that in a dramatic capstone fight, on the very first turn, they will very likely screw themselves over for the rest of the fight by using a physical move against a Pokémon with Toxic Debris, and probably have no way of clearing the spikes in a regular playthrough. That’s hot garbage, that violates the principles of telegraphed attacks and of fair play. We’re just going to have players randomly lose turn 1 on stacked odds? If that’s the “difficulty” everyone’s clamoring for, count me out.

Second, and in the same vein, Kingambit is evolved from Bisharp, which used to be its final stage, through a super obscure evolution method, and is used by no other trainers before Geeta. If I calculate the chances a regular player going through the game knows about Supreme Overlord boost and is prepared for it are, huh. My calculator is just saying “That’s stupid you’re stupid why would you do that.” As her ace. The final Pokémon in the Victory Road path can reasonably just win because of a mechanic that feels like it was just invented by a malicious seething Dungeon Master that wanted to force a TPK. This may be “Difficult” but it’s not “Good”.

Third and finally- no yeah actually Gogoat can go. Get out of here you weird leaf sheep. Geeta’s team could use some tweaking but those are details finer than I care to hammer out. So, how do we fix Geeta again? I’d say you don’t. Her fight is perfect. As a part I of II. By putting Kingambit near the front, the player learns about Supreme Overlord in a safe context. By putting Glimorra in the back, Toxic Debris is introduced and the player can learn about it and file that information away for later. If Geeta were either battled earlier in the story we could switch things up for her Champion fight, or if she were battled later, we could use her as-is team as the teaching moment that prepares the player for the “real” Geeta fight. I do not care which.

So imagine you’re a dumbass kid with snot dribbling from your eyesockets and gum lodged in your ear. You suck at games and know nothing about wikis or gamefaqs walkthroughs with fancy ascii art banners. You don’t have the attention span for a 1 minute explanation video on Youtube and you just wanna play the Pokémons and be the best like noone ever was. You’re battling La Primera, and seeing these abilities go off, learning what her Pokémon do, what types they are and how your Pokémon’s moves interact with those types. Later you get to a rematch against her and confidently start mashing A on your starter before the menu even comes up, when she sends out that weird floating rock thing from before. That’s odd, you could have sworn that was her ace Pokémon last time. You navigate around it and get to her second Pokémon and-What? Didn’t she use the cool spiky guy last time that powered up as her second? Oh well, you smack down a fish or bird or whatever and move on and suddenly, the hamster in your little child brain starts steaming, smoking, screaming. You know her Pokémon, you’ve seen them before. You know what they do and how to fight them in the order she sent them out last time, but this is different. After a two hour pause the first self-synthesized thought you’ve ever had sparks into existence in that malleable little mind. “Oh fuck she’s gonna have a juiced up spiky metal dark guy!” You blurt out as you suddenly start running through your team list, looking desperately for a way to deal with the imminent threat. Or maybe all of this happens but you’re an snot-leaking adult, it doesn’t matter what knowledge you brought with you into the game if it takes the time and space to teach the player, test them on what it taught, and reward them for paying attention.

[alexbkrieger13]

Johanna Frändén wrote a column about the Spanish soap opera. Behind a paywall soon-ish

https://www.aftonbladet.se/sportbladet/fotboll/a/VPweJV/bara-spanska-spelarna-kan-bryta-dodlaget

Fränden: Only the players can break the deadlock

Johanna Fränden

The corollary between the Spanish women's national team and their football association continues unabated.

We are now at the stage where the screenwriter seems to have run out of ideas and is inventing new twists that don't feel realistic.

It's obvious that it's the union that gets lost time and time again in this soap. But only the players can break the deadlock right now.

Those of you over 30 remember what it was like in those days when the afternoon soap was a not unimportant element in Swedish homes. A rather twisted plot, often based on life lies, betrayals and entanglements, entertained truant teenagers and pensioners in front of the television and sooner or later it always got out of hand. A loving couple turned out to be siblings. A married man killed in an accident was resurrected. And so on. Here somewhere, at the difficult season four, we are in the soap opera Real Federación Española de Fútbol. Many were surprised when new national team captain Montse Tomé presented the squad for the match against Sweden in the Nations League on Friday. How had she managed to persuade all the key players of the national team to come back from the strike, when the situation looked so deadlocked just a couple of days earlier? She didn't, we now know, and this afternoon we saw the consequences of the Spanish Football Federation's actions: A stream of players who appeared against their will at the meeting, who were moved at the last minute to a substandard training facility in Valencia. However, with the exception of the players in Real and Atlético Madrid, who have thus been called to the association's usual base Las Rozas outside Madrid. Help.

These are hard-to-digest images. These are the images of a football association resorting to the very last tool in the toolbox; to force a long line of world champions into obedience with threats of fines and suspension from club life if they do not show up for national team duty.

In addition to all the other questions that arise in this veritable soup: How do Montse Tomé and her staff think the players should carry out the match against Sweden (and then against Switzerland) under the current circumstances? Do the Spanish FA think they will discipline their players to success with an inspired pep talk tonight? It is, of course, impossible to know exactly what has happened in recent years between the women's national team and the Spanish Football Association, but we can probably say that the criticism that the former directs at the latter does not directly lose weight today. From Spain, I am told about a conflict that was resolving itself between the team and the federation during the World Cup, where several of the players' demands regarding the championship and the training routines went through. Even the relationship with Jorge Vilda was said to be on the mend when Luis Rubiales placed an unwanted kiss on Jenni Hermoso after the World Cup final and everything came back and fell apart again.

The players' demands to break the national team boycott this time are mostly about tearing down structures at the federation level, getting rid of people who applauded Luis Rubiales the other week when he thundered that he will not resign five more times, and accused the national team players of "fake feminism" (the IS kind of funny when a union pamp kisses a player against her will and then accuses her and others of being fake feminists). They demand a proper reorganization around the national team, that the staff be organized in the same way as around the men's first team, they want changes in the staff around the position of chairman and general secretary and the same thing on the communication and marketing side.

The last overstep

I don't doubt for a second that people in all these positions deserve criticism for the way they worked around the women's national team. Most certainly sat in the auditorium and applauded Luis Rubiale's world-renowned speech. But it is also true that the Spanish Football Association is a workplace with both democratically elected people and ordinary officials. These are wage earners with the same rights and employment protection as other Spaniards in the labor market. And no matter how much the women's national team wants to turn the rotten house upside down, it can't be done unless you make a revolution. The current interim chairman, Pedro Rocha, was one of Luis Rubiale's closest men, but he is still acting chairman until the election of a new federation board at the beginning of next year.

The decision to fill the vacant post of national team captain Jorge Vilda with his assistant coach Montse Tomé the other week was an inexplicable error on the part of the national team, one of many this summer. Forcing the players into national team service by taking them out against their will yesterday was probably the last overstepping that means this conflict will not be resolved in the near future. Having said that, the Spanish ladies have an Olympic ticket to fight for and a national team shirt to defend. Right now it is only the players who decide whether Sweden will have an opponent in the Nations League on Friday. It would be very unfortunate if the apparently perfectly legitimate protest against the Football Association causes them to neglect the sporting golden situation after the World Cup in Australia. It would be just as bad if their demands for change make them appear spoiled and impossible to please. This afternoon, the Spanish sports minister Víctor Francos is expected in Valencia to mediate in the conflict. Let's hope that the national team and the confederation captain smoke a temporary peace pipe tonight and that the discussions can continue after the match against Sweden on Friday.

[tbuddahh]

Conferences

A jopper a/u where Hopper meets Joyce at parent teacher conferences. She is El's teacher and he needs some advice.

Read on here or the link below: 

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/14147381/1/Conferences

Jim Hopper isn’t sure when his life became quite so habitual, but somewhere between losing his wife, and adopting his niece, he turned into an ordinary suburban dad.  The thrill and excitement of police work in the city lost its luster when Diane got sick, when he realized she was what mattered, not the next promotion.  After that, after losing her, grieving her, he brought El to Hawkins, took his position as chief of police where nothing ever happens, and settled into raising the girl just how he knew Diane would have wanted.

Now, however, he has a burgeoning teenager, and he can’t be sure what Diane would do, or what he should do when she spends hours with Mike Wheeler, hours kissing Mike Wheeler.  Sure, he’s heard good things about the kid, knows that he isn’t one of the kids he’s always bringing into the station for fights or petty crimes, but the boy shows no respect for authority, no respect for him, and it pisses him the hell off.

Jim sighs, bringing his disposable cup of coffee to his lips, and he doesn’t fight the slight burn of the too hot liquid because at least the discomfort pulls his mind from his current thoughts, thoughts about strangling Mike Wheeler.  He sets down the cup inside his blazer before opening the door and donning his hat.  He’s come straight from the station for El’s parent teacher conferences, and he is tired, cranky, and already knows El is doing fine, more than fine.  She is an impeccable student.  She’s smart when it comes to school, now if he could only get her to be smarter about boys.

He walks up to the front of Hawkin’s middle school, pushes through the doors and nods towards Becky in the office, silently reminding himself he was supposed to call her.  She’d passed him her number the last time he was here checking on truants.  Still, he can’t bring himself to think of a relationship, not when he’s dealing with El, or maybe that’s an excuse because he hasn’t met anyone that compares to Diane.  Then again, it’s probably unfair to compare every woman to his dead wife.

Once he reaches El’s homeroom, he brings his knuckles to the door, tapping gently three times before the door creaks open beneath the force of his knock.  She’s sitting at her desk, Ms. Byers, and he sees her glance up, brown eyes finding him before she’s moving to stand and greet him.  

He’s heard a lot about Joyce Byers.  Hawkins is a small town, and the woman has lived here all her life so naturally there has been gossip that found its way to his ears.  Stories about her crazy aunt, or her abusive ex, her two boys, and how their whole family is just a bit odd, but he’s tried not to let any of the rumors influence his opinion of his daughter’s favorite teacher.  Since the very first day of class El came home raving about Ms. Byers.  His daughter loves her.  He has only seen her a handful of times, once or twice they passed one another in the grocery store, but for the most part she seems to spend her days at the school and her nights at home.  He’s the same of course, only leaving home or the station to respond to necessary work calls.

“Hello,” Joyce says, her words pulling him from his thoughts, “you must be Mr. Hopper?  El’s dad?”  

She smiles as she closes the distance between them, her hand lifting to meet his.  She’s small, smaller than he’d realized when he’s seen her before, and the rumor about her ex flits through his mind, an image of some faceless man bringing his fist to this tiny woman, but Jim had heard she was a fighter herself, never leaving her ex husband without a scratch of his own to tend to.  

She’s wearing clothing a bit more casual than he’s used to from teachers, pairing slacks with a t-shirt, and he suddenly feels over dressed in her presence, his chief’s uniform feeling more formal than required for this meeting.  He removes his hat with one hand, bringing his other to hers and giving a slight shake.

“That’s me.” He says, a smile pulling at his lips. “You can call me Jim, or Hop, my friends use both.”  

Her smile widens in response, “please call me Joyce,” and then she’s gesturing for him to sit in an uncomfortable looking chair set in front of her desk, while she makes her way back to her chair opposite him.

They go through the motions. She tells him El is brilliant.  He already knows.  She tells him she’s been a great student.  He already knows.  And then…

“I need to discuss something important with you,” Joyce closes the folder in front of her, charts and statistics about El’s education closed away.  “The other day,” she pauses, looking at him intensely, and he can’t help but notice the way she bites her lower lip, the action making him wonder briefly what her lips would taste like before he shakes that away, mentally chiding himself.  This is his daughter’s teacher.  Joyce continues with, “El asked me about sex.”

He’s frozen, eyes staring into hers, blinking, but he can’t formulate words, can’t seem to make his brain work.

“Jim?” Joyce questions, dark eyes twisting in concern.

He shakes his head, clearing his throat, “Um, I’m sorry,” he smiles, realizing he must have misheard, “I thought you said,”

She interrupts, “sex?  That is what I said.” Joyce leans back in her chair, sitting a bit straighter, and he thinks he can see a flush creep up her neck.

He laughs, a slight little chuckle because he can hardly believe that he’s sitting here about to have this conversation with El’s teacher.  “I,” he pauses, mind spinning, his brain still half dwelling on the flush of Joyce’s skin, “I know she’s been hanging around with that Mike Wheeler kid a lot.”  He says Mike’s name with a hint of venom to his voice, “but they aren’t. I mean,” he studders,” I always have her door cracked, and they are kissing,” he rolls his eyes to the ceiling, “so much damn kissing, but sex?  They aren’t,” he pauses again and Joyce rescues him with her next words.

“She isn’t having sex.” He breathes out a deep sigh of relief, his hand swiping up to push through his hair.  He can feel a sheen of sweat building on his forehead. If Joyce says sex one more time he’s not sure how he’ll react.

“She is just curious, has questions.” the woman across from him continues, “she mentioned it is just you and her.” The look of empathy in Joyce’s brown eyes strikes him in that moment, cuts deep, and he realizes she also knows how lonely it can be raising kids on your own.  “I think you need to have a conversation with her. You know, a heart to heart.”

“A,” he pauses, bites his lower lip, “heart to heart?”

Her brows lift, “yes, you know, you talk with them, open and honestly, set boundaries.”

“Set boundaries..”  He likes the sounds of that, but he honestly can’t say that he’s ever had a ‘heart to heart’ in his life, or that he even could if he wanted to.  “Ummmmm, maybe you could do that,” he nods hopefully, ignoring Joyce’s arching eyebrow, continuing with, “ya know, as her teacher.”

She leans forward slowly, elbows resting on her desk, “No.”

“No?” He questions, all hope draining from his features.

“No,” she chuckles, “you’re her dad.  It wouldn’t work coming from me.” She lifts her hand, index finger pointing towards his chest, “You need to do it.”

“Maybe you could just move Mike into a different homeroom?” He suggests, the idea seemingly plausible to him, “If she doesn’t see him as much at school that might help the situation.”

She scoffs, doesn’t hide her laugh, and even though it’s a sound of exasperation, he like it, thinks he could get used to hearing that sound, “you want me to switch their homeroom schedules, gym schedules, lunch schedules, all in the hopes that seeing each other less at school will somehow make them want to spend less time together outside of school?” Her eyes narrow waiting for his response.

He feels like an idiot, because of course she’s right, and hearing it come out of her mouth makes him realize how stupid of a plan it was, “Well, when you put it that way.” He sighs, hand coming up to pinch the bridge of his nose.  He’s pretty sure having a teenager comes with a constant headache.

Joyce sighs, head tilting, her annoyance melting away, replaced with sympathy,  “look, I get it.  I have two boys myself.  It isn’t easy.”  She pauses, stands and lifts her pen and notebook, circling her desk before sitting at the edge just to the side of him. “I can’t talk to them for you, but maybe I can help.” Her lips curve into a gentle smile, and his stomach twists.

“Help?” He questions, not sure what she has in mind, not sure anything could help him get through the next few years of raising El.

She leans forward just a bit, the action wafting a warm vanilla scent to his nose and he wonders if it's her perfume or lotion before she says, “Yeah, give you some tips.”  She sets her notebook down in front of him, handing him the pen.  He notices the way their fingers briefly touch, the contact warm and soft, and he keeps his hand there, lingering, until she pulls her’s away, releasing the pen.

He wonders if she feels it too, the attraction he’s noticing, or maybe it’s just been too long for him that he’s feeling like a teenager again himself.  

Joyce smiles again, her hands resting on either side of her as she stays perched at the edge of her desk, “Let’s start with the basics.”

He grins, bringing the pen to paper, and thinks how his daughter is right.  Ms. Byers is an amazing teacher.

[survey--s]

401.

Was your childhood wasted by something? No. I didn’t really enjoy school but otherwise I had a really good childhood. I was very lucky - my parents earned good money so we travelled a lot and I never really wanted for anything.

Would you rather die during an adventure or die like a normal person? If I had the choice, I’d want to die in my sleep.

Have your parents ever put you on a diet? No, I never had weight issues growing up, but I remember my mum doing the cabbage soup diet when I was in primary school - the smell of cabbage soup still haunts me lol.

Have your parents ever tried to commit suicide? I hope not.

Do you have a gag reflex? Yeah, I gag at all sorts of things - mainly certain textures.

Do you ever fantasize about trying drugs? Nah, they really don’t interest me.

Have you ever put gum in someone’s hair? No.

Would you rather have sex before you’re married or wait till marriage? Personally I think waiting until marriage is a really stupid thing to do.

Have you ever not gone to school, just because? I regularly skipped university for no real reason, but my school was really hot on truanting so it was never an option to skip class.

Do you know anyone who can play the bagpipes? Not to my knowledge.

Have you ever let someone hit you? I mean, while mucking around and stuff, sure.

Do you own a hand warmer? I do have somewhere. I need to dig them out now the temperatures are dropping again as it’s been really cold the past couple of days.

Do you have friends in other states/countries? Sure, both.

Do you ever pay attention during church? I don't go to church.

Have you ever broke a window?   Nope.

When was the last time you freaked someone out? I honestly couldn’t tell you.

Have you ever gone on a date with a weirdo? Hahah yes. I was on the rebound though.

Who’s the last person you called a bitch? I honestly don’t know.

Do you drink kool-aid? No, we don’t have it here at all.

Have you ever dropped something hot on your foot? Yep, hot wax just a couple of days ago, actually.

Do you watch porn? No. I’ve watched it a couple of times out of curiosity but it never really did anything for me and I don’t really get the appeal of it.

Have you ever missed someone you hated? No.

Is anyone in your family disabled? Both my in-laws need mobility aids but that’s more old age related than disability related. It comes to us all eventually, unfortunately.

What do you want for Christmas? Riding lessons/beach rides, riding boots, wax melt vouchers, Fat Face vouchers.

How many moles do you have? Hundreds lol. I just have that kind of skin - I always have done.

Do you make your bed everyday? Yeah, every morning. I love the look of a freshly made bed.

Do you know how to ride a bike? Yeah, my dad taught me when I was about five. I had a pink and white Barbie bike and I thought I was so cool, haha.

Do you own any comic books? No.

What is the nastiest dare you have ever committed? I’ve never really played truth or dare.

Do you know anyone who has been raped? Yes.

Are you an atheist? I am indeed.

Have you ever owned a goldfish? No.

Who was the last person to call you beautiful? Probably my husband.

How many times have you been stung by a bee? Once as a kid.

What was the last flavor of gum you chewed? Spearmint. It’s the only flavour of gum I really like, to be honest.

When was the last time you used tape? Uhh, about a week ago when I was packing up a parcel for work.

When was the last time you said fuck? A couple of hours ago.

Have you ever stolen something? Yeah, as a little kid.

What’s the last movie you watched? I can’t remember. Lord of the Rings, maybe? Or Amelie? I don’t know tbh. I generally don’t watch too many movies.

Who’s the last person you watched a movie with? I was on my own.

Where were you yesterday at 5 PM? Just getting home from walking Copper and sorting his dinner.

Who would you like to kiss right now? Nobody right now. I think I’m getting a cold and my throat kills.

When was the last time you had tic tacs? Years ago! I really could go for some orange tic tacs right now though lol.

When was the last time you ate chicken? Yesterday.

Who was the last person you told to ‘Shut the fuck up’ to? Mike, but we say it to each other all the time - jokingly, of course.

Why were you last nervous? Cantering Stanley in the pouring rain. He’d slipped a couple of times in trot and I just had this image of him going flying lol.

Whose pants did you last take off? Mine.

When was the last time you were disturbed? Mike disturbed me at work today - he saw my car so asked where I was walking - then came to join me only to leave again two minutes later as he didn’t want to walk in the mud.

Why did you last feel awkward? Today.

When was the last time you got in a fight with your best friend? About a week ago.

Have you ever asked someone for a tampon? Yeah.

Who was the last person you read a book to? I honestly don’t know.

Who is the person you say the most naughtiest things to? Mike.

Who was the last person to send you a letter? Uhhh, I have no idea. Maybe a relative or something.

Do you like cupcakes or muffins more? Muffins.

Have you ever pushed someone on purpose? Yes.

Have you ever slapped someone in the face? Yeah.

[hankwritten]

Hofstadter’s Law

Demoman/Soldier, 2k

Request for MinnesotaMedic821, Drunk

“You sure this best way in, Jane?” Demo muttered quietly as he gazed up at the looming concrete spires of BLU base.

“I am very sure!” Soldier said, not quietly at all. Practically yelling actually. Right in Demo’s ear too, what with his arm slung around the RED’s shoulders as the only thing keeping him upright.

“Shhh!” Demo hushed him. “You want me to go half-deaf as well as half-blind? ‘Sides, the last thing we need right now is the other BLUs hearing us.”

Soldier’s head, lolling like a pad of butter sliding around a hot pan, took a long and winding trip from one side to the other. “…Why?”

“…Because I’m a RED in the middle of a nest o’ BLU corn snakes?” Demo raised a brow. “Ach, you really did have a number done, didn’t you? Remind me not to let you near the Everclear again.”

“Okay! I will definitely remind you!”

Demo eyed him dubiously. “Remind me what, Jane?”

The grey shell of the helmet stared at him for several seconds. “…What?”

“Let’s just get you in, aye? We can do all sorts of filling in each other’s memories when your toesies are tucked safe under your covers.”

But in order get the Soldier safely in bed, they’d need to first traverse the minefield of potential termination that was the center of BLU operations. No problem at all really. It was late—even if some of the mercs had hit the town like Demo and Soldier had, they’d certainly be back by now, fast asleep, no chance at all of waking up and discovering a very difficult to explain situation in the form of an enemy merc carrying around their Soldier. As long as they were quiet, they’d be perfectly safe.

Demo guided Soldier towards the back doors, at which point they promptly ran into the enemy Demoman.

The BLU, spread out on a fabric lawn chair surrounded by dust, desert, and least a half-dozen bottles, blinked wide-eyed at the pair who’d just come around with the low-speed but high-inertia gait of a drunk couple. He shook his head slightly, as though to dispel the ‘ole three am fog and ascertain that yes, that truly was his teammate being helped along by the RED demolition’s man. Demo, for his part, froze like he’d been staked to the ground.

Soldier, as heavy things are want to do, kept going at his expected velocity. It nearly took them both over—Demo had to abandon the arm under his shoulders, lunging to haul Soldier up the waist and folding him in half like a Panini.

“Well,” the BLU in the lawn chair said, “you two look like you had fun.”

His face was a mish-mash of raised brow and, perplexingly enough, a smirk at the corner of his mouth as he bore witness to the two truants. Most shockingly of all, there wasn’t a trace of surprise on his face now, just those shades of smug amusement you put on when watching a particularly entertaining drunkard. The fact that Demo was used to having that expression leveled at him was neither here nor there.

“Er…” he said eloquently.

The flash of dread that’d shot through him when he’d caught sight of the BLU was the worse case scenario of course: reported on, fired, dead in a gravel pit somewhere, all rendered in gory detail by his mind’s eye. (His overactive imagination a bloody menace sometimes.) But as the BLU continued to sit there, not sounding the alarm, not even looking particularly worried, Demo’s fear for his own neck slowly morphed into confusion.

“I was just er-”

“Oh, hello Demoman!” Soldier chimed in. “We have been out. Drinking alcohol!”

“I’ve heard that’s a fun pastime,” his teammate commented mildly.

“Don’t tell him that,” Demo complained, hauling Soldier to an upright position. “Jesus, this er, isn’t what it looks like, honestly.”

“Sure it isn’t,” the BLU said, wearing what could now be identified unmistakably as a smirk. He gestured with his bottle. “Back entrance ‘s that-a-way.”

A little ball of defensiveness, not matter how unjustified, rolled around in Demo’s gut to the point he wanted to stop and give the other Demoman a piece of his mind. Which would probably involve lying. And then consequences to lying since Soldier had already given away this wasn’t a one time thing. He shut his gob and took the out.

Until the hum of the BLU’s resumed tune was far behind them, until the curving architecture of the base would keep them from being overheard, he didn’t dare start asking questions. Only when he was sure that the corner they’d rounded was at a significant distance away did he accusatorily hiss, “what was that about?”

“Hm?” Soldier asked pleasantly. He fixed a dopey smile on his friend, a second ago which had been the responsibility of a beetle crawling a tuft of bullheadidly tenacious grass.

“Your Demo, why’d you tell him where we were? And why didn’t he flip out?”

“You’re my Demo,” Soldier hummed unhelpfully.

“Ach,” Demo said, realizing he’d get nowhere with the security lights and a whole herd of horseflies bearing down on them. “Fine, lets get you inside first. But I’ve still got some bloody questions.”

They’d arrived at the unassuming little door cut into the base’s thick concrete, welded metal gushing haphazardly from its size as though its very addition had been an afterthought. Demo motioned at Soldier.

“Pass me your keycard, lad.”

“M’what?”

“Keycard.” Demo’s heart sank. “You keep it in your wallet or something, right?”

Soldier stared at the card reader. He stared at long and hard, so long and hard that Demo was starting to wonder if the question had made it through his ear canals at all when he concluded, “I forgot it.”

“You for- Oh for the love of Pete.” Demo took the hand that wasn’t supporting his mate and rubbed it long suffering across his face. “Well that’s great. Bloody great, risk my arse hauling a drunken fart back to his base cause he can’t hold his bloody liquor, and we can’t even get in to the fecking-”

The door hissed, layers of dust shaking loose like with a sci-fi swish as the vacuum seal was opened to the desert night. Demo gawked, watching it shake away grit like it was built into the surface of Mars instead of a dead-end town in the middle of New Mexico, and letting out a wash of air-conditioned oxygen.

When it was partially ajar, it unveiled the BLU Sniper, arms folded and leaning on the inner wall.

“How…what?” Demo asked. Soldier was too busy looking at the beetle again to be perplexed.

“Heard you guys arguing from the roof.” Sniper jerked his thumb upwards. “If you were sneaking ‘round, might want to think about keeping your voice down in the future. Probably could’ve heard you all the way at RED.”

“I wasn’t- We weren’t-”

Sniper waited. When no adequate explanation was forthcoming he said, “you comin’? Cold air’s getting out.”

Demo grimaced, and began the arduous processes of lugging the Soldier inside.

Chill ran up where his t-shirt had sweated to his neck, Soldier fairing no better since they’d spent the past half hour (every moment since Demo had realized Soldier would be going nowhere on his own) with their sides pressed together. He hadn’t realized how exhausted he was until the cold ai) brought the slightest suggestion of relief to his (admittedly also not terribly sober) body.

“If this is going to be a running thing for you two, maybe don’t get so munted next time, yeah?” Sniper offered. It was neither reprimanding nor conversational, like this was a totally normal exchange happening here with a RED in a BLU hallway.

“Who said anything about a ‘running thing’?” Demo demanded. “You didn’t overhear that!”

Sniper raised a brow. “Soldier said you were his new best mate. I assumed that meant you’d both be out and about more than once.”

Demo grit his teeth, the pieces clicking into place. “Did he now.” He leveled his best attempt at a glare from his blindspot at the disoriented Soldier who, unsurprisingly, was more interested in resting his head on Demo’s shoulder than being reprimanded. “Well that’s good to know. Any chance you can point me to his room?”

Sniper took one gloved hand and shoved a thumb over his shoulder.

“Thanks. Cheers.”

“Goodbye Sniper,” Soldier said belatedly, a good three minutes after he’d disappeared around a corner. “Oh hey! My room!”

“Jane, is there anyone you didn’t tell about us?” Demo demanded.

Soldier thought for a moment. “…I didn’t tell any REDs.”

“Jane,” Demo groaned. “This is supposed to be a secret. What if one of them tells the Administrator? You want that? Going to be hard ever meeting up again if we’re both six feet under.”

For the first time, a bit of shame managed to reach the Soldier through the woolen mesh of his inebriated state, and he looked at his shoes. “I’m sorry,” he muttered. “I just got really excited. Wanted everyone to know I was hanging out with you.”

Demo sighed heavily, not up bullying his friend when he was in such a pathetic sate already. “I know you were. Ach, it’s fine. We’ll talk ‘bout it later.”

Later being sometime after he’d managed to deposit Soldier onto a four-poster, though with the way the night was going it seemed like that moment would never arrive. His outlook wasn’t improved when he opened the door of Soldier’s room and found that not only was it Soldier’s room, but the occupancy of the entire Offense division.

“Whzzat?” Scout said, rolling to his elbow just in time to be bombarded by the hall light. “Ahg, dammit Sol. What the hell man?”

Demo didn’t bother freezing this time, successfully desensitized to literally every BLU on the planet stumbling across his ill-advised trip through the enemy base. Instead, he walked over, dropped Soldier on the bed, and began helping him unlace his boots.

“What the-?” Scout said when he finally lowered his arm. “Oh right. You. Jesus, how ‘bout a little consideration for the sleeping guy?”

“Mmrrhaunna,” came from the bundle in the corner.

“Yeah, what they said.”

“You don’t got the right to be begging consideration from anyone, jackrabbit,” Demo said hotly as he frees the military-grade combat boots from Soldier’s feet. He threw a blanket over the man’s form, who sighed appreciatively and said something about how this would earn Demo a medal. “‘Sides, don’t need to worry about me no more. I just came to drop of your sergeant and get out of here.”

To prove it, he backed out of the room with hands raised. Mission complete. Time to get out of here and bring this mortifying night to an end.

He might have gotten away with it too, if Pyro hadn’t shot straight up and pointed an accusing finger at him. “Mrrhaha! Hudda hah ha hoo.”

Demo reared back slightly from the Pyro who was still very much in their rubber suit, now with added nightcap. Whatever the hell they were saying, they were very impassioned about it. He looked to the Scout for help.

“They want you to tuck them in too,” he said, and the light flooding in from the single open door was good enough to see that he was smirking as he did so.

“Wha- I’m not bloody tucking anyone in,” Demo said hotly.

“Hudda ha. Mrra haa hur ha.”

“You tucked Soldier in,” Scout translated. “Only fair.”

“Gurrhaha.”

“…Otherwise they’ll tattle.”

“I cannae bloody believe this,” Demo groaned, rubbing his face.

Grudgingly, he made his way over the giggling pyrotechnician, absolutely giddy to have gotten their way. Thankfully boots weren’t part of the pajama equation, and Demo had only to tuck in the blanket’s edges ‘round a pair of socked feet and a squirming, suit-clad body. When he tried to leave it at that, a keening noise stopped him, and he was forced to repeat the process for Mayor Balloonicorn. All the while, he could feel the Scout staring smugly at the back of his head.

“D’awww, ain’t that adorable. Going to be hard to be scared of you now, though. Y’know, after you swung by to give us goodnight kisses and all that crap.”

“Just for that, I’m going to have a sticky trap with your name on it, boyo,” Demo pointed an accusing finger in Scout’s direction. He just shrugged.

“But uh,” Scout added, just as Demo was finally about to make his escape. “Glad you turned out to be cool though. He was really gung ho about tonight. Its nice he has good friends besides us.”

Demo cast his gaze to Soldier, who’d fallen fitfully in the short while it’d taken to get Pyro off his back.

“…That’s good. It was a fun time.”

“Oh yeah?” Scout wiggled his eyebrows. “How fun?”

Demo took one of the pillows he’d used to burry Pyro in and flung it at Scout’s face.

“Sticky trap. Your name.”

He could still hear Scout snickering all the way out into the hall.

[sailorsol]

I did the thing! I present to you Shereshoy, AKA Mace Windu gets to bail a drunken Obi-Wan out of jail at oh-dark-thirty. Rated T for some swearing.

***

This was not how Mace wanted to start his day.

Contrary to popular belief, Mace Windu did not actually enjoy being a hardass. But as head of the Order, it was a carefully crafted persona he did his best to maintain anywhere outside of private quarters and behind closed Council doors.

It was a useful tool, to be able to look at errant Initiates or the occasional unruly knight and have them apologizing for misdeeds of which Mace wasn't even aware. And he found it an extremely effective deterrent against  nosy politicians and pushy reporters. There were some people, though, who would meet his deadliest glare with a beatific smile and not even blink.

"Somebody's in trouble," one of the troopers sing-songed. With two dozen of them in adjacent cells, there was no way for Mace to know whether it was a Guard member or someone from Ghost company. Another trooper giggled, and his own commander stifled a noise behind Mace, doing his best to uphold his end of the bargain for being allowed to accompany Mace. 

Caf. He needed more caf for this. Especially when the beatific smile turned into a full blown, eyes sparkling, still karking drunk grin. "Mace!"

Mace scowled. "Kenobi. I'm not sure I even want to know why I am having to bail out a member of the Jedi Council from the drunk tank like he is some sort of truant Padawan. I generally only expect this kind of behavior from you when Vos is in town."

Another giggle, followed by a scuffle of elbows being shoved into arms and stomachs, and Mace is pretty sure he sees a handful of creds being handed off. There was not enough caf in the world for this. Somewhere nearby, he could hear Commander Fox swearing colorfully at Captain Rex, and Mace could empathize with the man.

"It isn't anywhere quite as bad as all that," Kenobi protested. Mace arched an eyebrow and crossed his arms, waiting for Kenobi to continue. Ponds was likely recording this, so Mace figured he could at least put on a good performance. "The Guard expressed some... skepticism...in regards to recent tactics that Torrent utilized in the field."

"That does not explain two destroyed speeders, thousands of credits of property damage, or why there is video footage of the High General of the Republic shouting Sooran, shab! after the Marshall Commander back-flipped from one moving speeder to another."

Kenobi's expression wouldn't melt butter as a soft Oya rippled among the troopers. Commander Cody had a lazy smile on his face, shoulder to shoulder with his general. Mace had watched the video on the way to the Guard offices; it had been quite an impressive feat, but he wasn't about to encourage Kenobi or his men any further. If he'd wanted them to be indulged, he'd have sent Plo or Adi.

"Commander Cody graciously offered to provide remedial instruction in said tactics." Ponds was shaking behind Mace, but at least his external speaker was off so Mace could pretend like his commander wasn't laughing hysterically. "Besides," Kenobi continued, looking entirely too smug, "it's not as if the general public would recognize him."

"Perhaps not," Mace conceded that point. One clone was the same as any other, as far as most of the galaxy was concerned, and the commander hadn't been wearing his distinctive armor to make him more easily identifiable. "But," Mace said, holding up a hand to stop Kenobi's pleased grin from spreading. "You are quite recognizable, on or off the battlefield."

Kenobi fluttered a hand dismissively. "Half the population still believes I'm dead, Mace, and there is quite a large faction that believes the Jedi Council replaced me with a convenient clone."

"And if I might say so, sir," one of the clones spoke up. "What with him looking like a shiny with his hair growing back, the General's hardly recognizable either."

"Thank you, Boil," Kenobi said, his mouth twitching up in a smile that was definitely more obvious without his full mustache and beard.

"Of course, sir. Besides, you obviously aren't pretty enough to be a clone."

Mace bit back a sigh. It wasn't surprising that the group had felt the need to blow off steam after the Hardeen mess was finished. The entire thing had been an easily avoidable shit show, if the Council had just been allowed to assign protection to the Chancellor as they saw fit instead of being ordered to send one of their most visible people undercover. 

“You owe me big time, vod,” Captain Rex said as he approached the cell. He didn’t look it, but Mace knew the captain had been dragged out of bed for this too. “Like ‘giving the next three batches of Shinies the Sex Talk’ owe me. Or maybe the Padawan Commanders. I haven’t decided yet, but you definitely owe me.”

“Somebody’s in trouble,” Kenobi sing-songed. The clones erupted into giggles. Mace clenched his jaw  and pinched his nose, massaging the throbbing headache forming between his eyes. Captain Rex shared an unimpressed look with Mace. Ponds was nearly bent double in laughter.

It was Commander Thire who came to open the cell. “Alright, you lot. You’d better get out of here fast before Fox changes his mind about letting you go.”

Kenobi was the first to stand, wobbling dangerously for a moment before his commander steadied him. “Thank you for taking such wonderful care of us, Commander Thire,” Kenobi said to the Guard officer, all flash and charm. “I will be sure to put in a commendation for you.”

Thire seemed mostly unaffected by it, at least, though he grinned in response as Kenobi and his men shuffled out of the cell into the hallway. “Probably best if you didn’t, General. I think Commander Fox would prefer not having any evidence from tonight.” 

“If only that were possible,” Mace said dryly, taking Kenobi by the elbow to steer him away from his troops. He ignored the way Kenobi pouted at him. “We’ll deal with whatever the fallout is from this later.”

Captain Rex nodded in agreement, herding his stumbling and giggling brothers towards the exit. Commander Cody hung back from the others, giving his general a frighteningly intense look. “K’oyacyi.”

Kenobi gave him a soft smile in return. It was clear where Skywalker had picked up the absolute lack of subtlety in regards to emotions from. “K’oyacyi. Thank you for an entertaining evening, Commander.”

Cody nodded at his general, paused long enough to give Mace a dark look, then turned and allowed Captain Rex to see him out. Kenobi sighed, but was wise enough not to comment when he caught sight of Mace’s scowl.

“Try not to cause any more trouble today,” Mace said, ushering his friend out of the station, Ponds trailing behind him dutifully. “And you get to fill out the requisitions for the replacement speeders.”

“That hardly seems fair, Mace. It was the Guard driving them, after all. It wasn’t our fault that they became so distracted that they crashed.”

“I honestly don’t much give a damn whose fault it was,” Mace said. He sighed and stopped, turning to face Kenobi. With a flick of his fingers, he signaled Ponds for privacy and the commander stepped away. “I’m happy you enjoyed yourself,” Mace said. He truly was; the war had taken its toll on all of them, and Kenobi bore the brunt of it. Mace couldn’t remember when he’d last seen the man so relaxed and happy. “But in the future, you may want to consider toning your dramatics down below a Skywalker level.”

Kenobi scoffed. “I’ve always been less dramatic than Anakin. A Mon Cala opera is less dramatic than Anakin.”

Mace leveled him with an unimpressed look. “You may be able to fool the rest of the galaxy, but I’ve known you since you were knee-high. Also,” Mace added, starting them back towards the Temple. “You owe me several favors after this.”

“Now wait one moment,” Kenobi started to say, but ever faithful Ponds was the one who cut him off.

“Perp pictures,” the commander declared gleefully, and Mace let himself smile. It was, he had been told, even more terrifying than his glare. Kenobi blanched. Mace patted him on the shoulder.

Perhaps today wasn’t off to such a terrible start after all.

***

Sooran, shab - an insult, essentially “Suck on that, pal!”

K’oyacyi - Cheers/stay alive

Shereshoy - lust for life and much more - uniquely Mandalorian word, meaning the enjoyment of each day and the determination to seek and grab every possible experience, as well as surviving to see the next day - hanging onto life and relishing it

[drkineildwicks]

BH6 Snippets--2/18/2022

Oh gosh it’s the day off something’s wrong

Once again working on that time-traveling Obake AU--got four or five pages done on it today we’re up to 73/100 oh goodness we might make it to the 100 pages by the end of the month thing. OvO/

Anywho--leading into the whole moving-day thing:

“Well…Tadashi thinks the paperweight was stolen from someone at SFAI, so someone who doesn’t have class could maybe sneak in and find it?  Pretend to be a prospective student so you can nose around—”

“Hard no—I have my pride.”

“But if we get the paperweight back, then Granville will get off my back because then she’d totally buy me being trustworthy—and if you help then maybe she’d be so grateful that maybe she lets you attend too—”

Not hardly, considering the last time he attended had been twenty years ago and involved blowing up the campus (accidentally) using said paperweight.  “It wouldn’t work, Hiro.”

“Plus we get to start revenge schemes early for Spirit Week,” Hiro said, still focused on the prize.  “Hey while you’re there get schematics for the Shimamoto statue.”

Wait—

Wait going there early could be an excellent way to derail everything if he got the journal then he could stop himself it was the journal plus the painting that did it—

Granted, he also couldn’t look too eager—Hiro would suspect.  “Your brother put you up to this, didn’t he?”

“Tadashi has been griping nonstop about you all day,” Hiro said.  “Something about I’m doomed to have truant kids haunt me this is your fault Hiro you started this.”  Hand him a screwdriver.  “So what is this anyway?”

“Your brother doesn’t have anything better to do, I’m guessing.”

“Well yeah, but what are you working on?  It looks like the drone you made—what happened to it?”

“Technical difficulties—we’ll leave it at that.”

“Right, sure—don’t say that in front of Tadashi, I used that excuse one time too many when I first started bot-fighting.”

Huff.  “Okay maybe I’ll help with the paperweight—at the very least to get the golden boy off me.”

Hiro snorted, got ready to respond—

Was cut off by Tadashi sticking his head into the room.

“So hey we’re having an emergency meeting,” Tadashi announced.  “Something happened at Honey Lemon’s dorm, everyone’s coming over here. That means get in the café, you two.”

“I’d like to go on the record and say that I had nothing to do with whatever,” Hiro said as they followed him in.

“No chill at all,” Obake teased.

Which, as it turned out, was the opposite of Honey Lemon’s current problem.

“Honey Lemon you’re alive!” Wasabi wailed, tackling her in a tight hug.  “I was SO worried!  I thought I’d never see you again!”

“Is he always this clingy?” Obake asked.

“So this is part of the reason why we’re having this meeting,” Tadashi sighed.

“It’s nothing, really,” Honey Lemon said, hugging her pack close.  “My roommate got lemonade, so I decided to try a recipe for instant ice.”

“You froze your whole dorm,” Gogo pointed out.

“It’s okay though—it’ll thaw soon enough, and the clinic says that Regina won’t have any permanent damage so that’s good,” Honey Lemon said, waving that off.  “I’m just—kinda homeless, right now.”

Obake immediately glanced at Fred, thinking of the mansion and wondering if he’d volunteer—recalled that the rest of them probably still thought he lived under a bridge somewhere.

Which was Gogo’s thought too.  “No,” she said, spotting him looking at Fred.  “Fred probably doesn’t have any extra room in that cardboard box of his.”

“Dude,” Fred sniffed.  

Tadashi’s the sort to have emergency meetings and mobilize everyone and Obake’s semi-glad Honey Lemon is here to distract Tadashi from making Obake his new repair project.  Also both the paperweight and the drone got nuked hence Obake having to do repair work.

[keichan]

Running Through the Night Tsukishima x fem!reader  Part 6: First Sight

You and Tsukishima have been friends for as long as you two could remember. With a very unexpected confession, how will this affect you two?

Authors note: This is just angst with a sprinkle of angst

Word count: 1544

Genre: college au, unrequited love, angst, best friends to lovers, fluff somewhere in there, mutual pining

Warnings: manga time skip!!! swearing!!!

Send me a message or ask to be added to the taglist !

masterlist・previous・next

It has now been four days since you have seen or heard from Kei. Four days since the confession. He hasn’t returned your phone calls. He hasn’t opened any text messages. Every time you’ve driven by his apartment his car is absent from the parking lot. The guilt was slowing eating at you. Only if you would have reacted sooner in that moment. If only you would have realized the way you feel.

It was now Wednesday morning. You strolled into the lecture hall for your 9am communications class fifteen minutes early. Yamaguchi waved to you as you slumped down in the seat next to him. “Y/N are you okay? You look like a dead man walking.” He leaned forward onto the desk to get a better look at your face. Yo came to class dressed in your pajamas. An oversized T-shirt, with loose sweats and your hair messily thrown up. You waved your hand nonchalantly at him. “No, no, I’m okay. I just haven’t been sleeping well these last few nights.” You offered a not so convincing smile.

You were a piss poor liar and Yamaguchi knew it.

“Y/N, I know when you’re lying. There must be some reason why you look like a walking dead extra” he nudged your elbow in an attempt to make you laugh, but nothing came. You didn’t even look in his direction. You pulled your laptop out of your bag and set it on the table. Class starts in 10 minutes. You open the screen to see the lock screen of you, Kei, and Yamaguchi smiling at your graduation ceremony. Your eyes began to water when your eyes met with Kei’s picture. You quickly typed in your password and opened the internet browser so you wouldn’t have to stare at it any longer.

Luckily for you, Yamaguchi may be shy, but he isn’t dense. “Y/N, I have never seen you like this before. What’s wrong. Did Tsukki say something to you?” Your body tensed up and that’s when it clicked into place for him that it was indeed Tsukishima’s doing. “He didn’t say anything rude did he? I can talk to him Y/N I-“

“Kei confessed to me and I didn’t say anything because I didn’t realize my own feelings and now he won’t talk to me!” You said in a harsh whisper so your classmates wouldn’t overhear. At this point tears were brimming your eyes. Yamaguchi quickly bunched up his sleeve and used it to wipe your eyes as quickly as the tears were falling. “You’re acting like Tsukki hates you since he’s trying out the whole giving space thing. Tsukki could never hate you, Y/N. He’s probably taking it hard in his own way like he did with Akiteru.” 

“I just want to be able to talk to him but I can’t. It’s like he’s fallen off the face of the planet. I miss him.” 

“Do you wanna cut class? We can go sit in the courtyard? It’s not quite fall yet so the weather is really nice. I’ll buy you some Starbucks from the student union.”

You nodded, “I would like that.”

You and Yamaguchi sat on a park bench in your university’s courtyard. You sat with your knees pulled to your chest with an ice coffee in your hands.

“I’m not going to lie to you, Y/N. I’ve been wondering if Tsukki was ever going to confess to you. I gotta say that I’m proud of him” Yamaguchi let out a light-hearted laugh. “I’m kinda surprised you didn’t kiss him back, you kinda flirt with him a lot.”

You roll your eyes and push his shoulder, “Shut up, Yama. I never considered my scolding flirting.”

“Then what is it?”

Silence.

“Ha! So I’m right!”

“Shut up, Yamaguchi!”

“See! You two are the same! Match made in heaven.” You both laugh together at the dumb joke. Talking about everything with Yamaguchi calmed you and made you feel more at ease about what was happening. He got to tell you his end of things from all these years. He chose not to intervene or push it at all because he knew it wasn’t his place. You couldn’t help but see the proud father look in his eyes when he talked about you and Kei. It made your heart warm.

“It’s my first day on campus this week, have you seen Kei at all?”

“Nah I don’t usually run into him on campus until Thursday because we’re in the same building. Unless he asks me to meet up.”

You nodded at his response, “I usually meet up with him in the mornings so he can walk me to communications, but he wasn’t in our spot by the union so I just went straight to class.” You sighed placing your feet on the ground.

“Do you know when he gets out of class today? You know he’s never truant.”

“Mhmm,” you pulled out your phone to check the time. “He gets out of anthro…. Now.” You looked up across the courtyard to the General Ed building to see a Kei dressed in all black sweats and his headphones covering his ears. Yamaguchi put a hand on your back and pushed you forward. “Go.”

You ran across the courtyard towards the tall blonde. 

“Kei!” 

At the sound of his name he lowered his headphones around his neck. He quickly glanced over his shoulder to see you and quickened his pace. You caught up to and grabbed his wrist with both of your hands, making him turn around. Your eyes laced with concern as soon as you saw his face. He looked like a ghost. His face was hollow and his eyes had deep circles around them. He looked down at you with dead eyes. He looks as sleep deprived as you.

Your hands slid down to his and you squeezed it tightly.

“Kei, why didn’t you answer me? I’ve been so worried trying to get a hold of you. I thought something happened to you. I just wanted to tell you-“ he cut you off by firmly yanking his hand from your grasp.

“Don’t touch me.”

Tears burned your eyes and you tried to reach out for him again before he slapped your hand away, “I said don’t fucking touch me. Why are you even here right now? Leave me alone.” He sneered. You looked up at his face wiping away your tears, “I want to tell you that I l-”

“That you what? That you what Y/N? That you don’t give a shit about me? It’s pretty clear since you couldn’t even give me a clear answer! You could’ve just said no for fuck sake! That’s better than no answer! And now you’re fucking my best friend?!” By now the courtyard was becoming empty as students fled to their next classes. No one paid the two of you any mind.

“No, Kei. That isn’t it at all. Just let me-”

“I can’t believe I’ve wasted my whole life chasing you! I’ve spent all of high school following you around like a stupid dog. Was I just someone convenient to keep around so you wouldn’t have to deal with yourself? Is that it? I can’t believe I put up with a bitch like you for the last 15 years.”

“Kei, I know you don’t mean that.” You choked back a sob just to see him smirk. 

“Of course, I-”

“Tsukki, you’re taking this too far.” You didn’t have to turn around to know that Yamaguchi was standing behind you.

Kei let out a laugh like it was the funniest thing he’d ever heard in his whole life.“Oh this is rich! Yamaguchi Tadashi is here to save the day! Look Y/N isn’t this your lover? Go run to him and forget about little old me anyways! I would never need anyone like you anyways.” He adjusted the headphones around the neck. “Have fun with her Yamaguchi.” he walked past you bumping into you hard enough to make you stumble. 

“If you shut up long enough for me to talk then I could’ve told you that I feel the same way and that I love you, but that doesn’t matter since it’s coming from a bitch like me, right Tsukishima?”

Tsukishima froze in his footsteps. Hearing his surname roll off of your tongue sounded foreign. He can’t even think of a time where you haven’t called him Kei. Behind him he heard your sobs piercing the silent courtyard. He felt a sharp pang in his chest, he knew that he took it too far. He fucked up.

He turned to look at you but you’re already walking away with your bag on your shoulder.

Yamaguchi looks back and forth between you and Tsukishima before focusing his gaze on the tall middle blocker, “To be clear, I’m not fucking Y/N, we were trying to plan your fucking surprise birthday party, but not only did you ruin your chance to be with her, you ruined your surprise as well. You’re literally my best friend. You really think I’d knowingly take away the love of your life?” 

Yamaguchi turns away on his heels before calling one simple word over his shoulder.

“Pathetic.” 

taglist: @pipsqweaks | @pperapear | @kapuching | @luvmonie | @bumbledunce | @a-listaire​ | @ysasian​ | @kodzu-ken​ | @montys-chaos​

[brokasteltranslations]

Fate/Requiem: Chapter 4

Several days had passed since I had been relieved of my duties as the Reaper. No more work had come in from my master, Caren Fujimura, since the Kundry case, and I no longer received information on a preferential basis over the municipal network. I had been barred from the critical point where the Akihabara district barrier was located, and my access to Kanda Shrine and Yushima Temple, where multiple ley lines converged, had also been restricted. Stripped of my rank and duties, I was nothing more than another truant – and one dragging a nameless, powerless, useless Servant in tow to boot. A lone wolf not even worth employing as a guard dog.

Fortunately, Akihabara was a prime tourist destination, and as long as I wore my usual swimwear and windbreaker I would more or less blend in with the usual clientele. However, that did nothing to help me feel less out-of-place. Whatever I did, I just felt like running away and hiding in a hole.

I had received no more information on the Command Seal Hunter. It was worrying that the case had not yet been publicly acknowledged. My gut told me that it had not been quietly solved and faded away. It was merely biding its time.

Whispers of the “Woman with the Missing Hand” circulated Shibuya. It had become something of an urban legend among students.

Don't you know better than to cut that out? Keep repeating it and it'll become real, and then who'll have to deal with it? It'll be... actually, I suppose it won't be me. Not any more.

----

As a consequence of my newly-imposed freedom, I had taken to wandering the town aimlessly with Pran on a daily basis. Wherever we went, we found faint traces of Chitose's presence. It crossed my mind more than once to quit Akihabara for one of the other wards.

–

There were many things that seemed to draw Pran's interest, but over time I started to notice a broad pattern. It was live experiences that he seemed to enjoy - street performers, buskers, speed painters and the like were what most often caught his eye.

Thinking back to the episode with Kuchime, I tried taking him along to a shop geared towards those 'otaku'. It was crammed to the rafters with endless figurines of buxom girls, male-oriented toys and all manner of merchandise, to the point where I was almost sick of looking at it. However, none of it particularly seemed to resonate with him.

Maybe it's because they're all manufactured goods. Perhaps it's originality that appeals to him?

He stood by, a little sleepily, gazing into the distance as though squinting into the sun, watching faraway strangers. Only when we passed a shop selling astronomical telescopes did he exhibit a different reaction. He squatted down in front of a poster of the planets – clearly not hand-made – and stayed there for well over a minute.

“Do you know Jupiter?”

“This eye... it follows me.”

“Eye? Oh, you mean the Great Red Spot?”

“This planet's so big. It's so big...”

He shivered, then pulled the goggles resting over his head down over his eyes, and peered at the poster once more.

“A planet, huh? I'm surprised you know that word.” Had he picked it up from when I read The Little Prince to him? He had initially talked about coming from somewhere far away – perhaps he wasn't just making it up? Or maybe... no, was that even possible?

I chose my words carefully. “That's a very old photograph. From before the war. The Great Red Spot on Jupiter isn't there any more. It got smaller and smaller, and then it disappeared.”

He smiled gently at the poster.

“Maybe it went to sleep. I hope someone comes to wake it up.”

–

Before I knew it, the day of the Grail Tournament had arrived. I hadn't exactly been waiting with bated breath, but still I found myself in front of the Colosseum.

The colossal stadium was located on the outskirts of Akihabara, bordering the ocean. Its enormous silhouette threatened to overwhelm the surrounding cityscape. Towering arches, each easily the size of a skyscraper, rose high in three, four levels to form the thick exterior of the cylindrical structure and enclose the arena within.

This was a place of pure competition. The poets once spoke of the ancient Roman emperors giving their people bread and circuses; here was the circus reborn for the modern age, the manifestation of the people's right to entertainment.

–

I had ended up accompanied to the Colosseum by Pran and Karin. Koharu had, to my great chagrin, seen fit to furnish me with not one, not two, but a whole four reserved tickets – two Master-Servant pairs. Technically Servants had no need for tickets – after all, they could just assume their spiritual forms – but no-one willing to come to see the Grail Tournament in person could reasonably be refused a seat, and they were provided in pairs as a matter of course. That being said...

“How long's it been?”

It had been twenty minutes since the stadium had opened, and we were still waiting.

Enormous lines snaked from each and every one of the Colosseum's myriad entrances. At this rate, the tournament would probably have started before we got to our seats. Personally I hardly minded, but it must have bothered Karin, because she suddenly yelled out at the top of her voice.

“All right, fine! Flake out on me, see if I care! We're going in, you hear?”

“You really want to go in? You sure you don't want to wait a bit longer?” I did my best to keep my voice neutral.

“Damn right I'm sure! Never should've invited you anyway, you lousy no-show son of a...”

None of her messages had prompted a response, it seemed.

–

The individual keeping us waiting was the weary-looking guitar player, Kuchime.

Unsure what exactly to do with my four tickets, I had decided to start by offering them to people I knew. Karin herself had snatched the chance with typical zeal, but her partner Kouyou had been reluctant to join us, leaving me with one left over. However, a few days later the two of us had happened to stumble across Kuchime in a side-street in Akihabara, strumming away with his usual gloomy air and being flatly ignored by every passer-by. Karin had called out, probably taking pity on him.

“Hey, Kuchime, was it? Ever thought of checking out the Grail Tournament? Maybe the halftime show'll give you some tips on how not to make your customers run a mile.”

“Ain't got no need for that, little missy. I'm happy as long as I'm getting' through to people with ears to hear.”

“Think you're some kinda auteur, huh? Keep dreaming, idiot. Why don't you just go the whole way and die young while you're at it!”

I had watched blankly as she exploded at him unprovoked. Her tirade had ended with her snatching the ticket from my hands and thrusting it squarely into his unshaven face. Had she done it in a spontaneous surge of pity for this dishevelled musician, or had she been planning it all along? I may have been the Reaper, but even I wasn't so insensitive as to probe any further.

However, in the end, the chance she had taken came to nothing. She stalked towards the arena, fuming. I followed her, leading Pran by the hand.

–

Eventually, we arrived at our designated seats. The interior of the Colosseum was spacious, tall, and delightfully modern.

I now understood why the queues today had been particularly bad: the staff were conducting unusually extensive baggage checks and body searches on all attendees. I had even seen staff members flagging down particular individuals for Command Seal checks, and it was hard not to notice the guns at the hips of a number of security personnel dotted around the stadium.

I'm glad they didn't try to check my Command Seals. Maybe the reservations got us through...

In any case, it was gratifying to see that my warning to Hannibal hadn't gone unheeded. Although there was always the possibility that the organisers had gotten wind of the serial killings themselves, and acted of their own accord.

“Yo! Sorry we took so long.” Karin reappeared with Pran in tow. Both of their arms were piles high with soft drinks, packets of peanuts and other junk food. She tossed me a freshly-grilled hot dog.

“So this is the bread part, huh? Shouldn't be long until the circu- Yeowch! Aah! My tongue!”

“Circus? You mean the halftime show, right? Oh yeah, there was a stall selling some kinda porridge too if you want some. I tapped out though, seemed pretty weird.”

“Porridge, huh? How odd... Hey, who gave you those?!”

I suddenly registered Pran was decked from head to toe in tournament merchandise, complete with a little paper cap and a megaphone. He was ready for the show.

I couldn't stop myself from bursting out laughing, and soon both me and Karin were clutching our sides. She was so engrossed in the tournament now that it was hard to imagine she had been furious not twenty minutes ago. I could probably learn a lot from how quickly she rebounded.

Next to our seats on the very front row was a space to be kept open in case of emergencies. Fortunately, it was just large enough for Kouyou to squeeze in. Accommodating larger Servants was probably half of the reason it was there.

–

After a minute or so, the music playing throughout the stadium increased in volume and a rousing melody began to play. It seemed we'd timed our arrival perfectly.

The music faded away, and for a moment, the entire arena fell silent. Then, as if on cue, a voice rang out across the stadium. Below us, eldritch lights began to dance across the very front row where the patricii would have sat in the original Colosseum. A diminutive figure strode down to the aisle, and unfurled a pair of feathered wings. At the same time, the main screen cut to a close-up of a girl - a woman? - dressed in a plain white Grecian tunic.

“Good evening, my lovely little piglets!” Her greeting echoed around the Colosseum at amplified volume. “Welcome, one and all, to the ocean stage of the Grail Tournament! That's right! We're all setting sail for Okeanos, and I, the great witch Circe, will be your guide!”

She stoked the crowd's excitement, and they answered with a deafening roar… although I did pick up some rather crude jeers mixed in with the cheering.

“Thank you, thank you, my little piglets! I love you too! Now, before we meet all our brave warriors, I'd like to introduce our commentary team!”

Two burly men strode down the aisle to join her, waving to the audience.

“First, for the Ottoman Corsairs, we have a scallywag among scallywags! The Gentleman of the Caribbean! The one and only Blackbeard, Edward Teach!”

“That's me!” Blackbeard was greeted by deafening boos. He did not seem to care a jot.

“Sounds like you know him well! Let's move swiftly on!”

“Wait, that's all I get?!”

“Next, for the Carthaginian Alliance, we have the king of admirals! The man who saved the Roman Empire from the Ptolemaic Dynasty! Friend and advisor to Emperor Augustus, I give you Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa!”

Agrippa! The commander who led the Romans to victory at the Battle of Actium!

I expected him to bask in the applause of the crowd, but instead he rounded on the emcee.

“What is this? I never agreed to this! First you invite me to attend nigh on midnight last night, and now you expect me to commentate?! Explain yourself!”

“About that... Honestly, we wanted Eukleides of Alexandria, but he cancelled at the last moment. What are Foreigners like, right?”

“Some nerve on you, girl! You expect a general of Rome to commentate on the Carthaginians? And you! Yes, you, the Servant with the easel! You think capturing my face is funny, do you?!”

The sight of the irate Agrippa slowly being talked down by the witch emcee, and eventually taking a reluctant seat at the commentator's desk, drew no small amount of laughter from the audience.

“All right, everyone, make sure you have your channels all set to your favourite team! If you're feeling peckish, why not try some delicious kykeon?”

–

“Well, that sure was something.”

Karin was grinning next to me. I, for my part, was aghast. This was grotesque, a vulgar display that made a mockery of Servants' pride and nobility. It was difficult to tell how much was real and how much was acted, but the tastelessness of the ambiguity only made me feel more disgusted. The tournament itself hadn't even begun yet, and I had a feeling it was only going to get worse.

I guess the least I can do is watch it through. I probably won't be getting another chance.

My reasons for being here were twofold. Firstly, I wanted to see what I could learn about Koharu's mysterious Possession ability. I had also been deeply impressed by the way that, despite being aware of her naivety, she disapproved wholeheartedly of any wrongdoing, and the evident admiration with which she viewed her companions.

My second reason was that I wanted to see for myself the incredible power that Servants were permitted to wield here. I felt both awe and terror for Noble Phantasms. It was baffling to me that abilities so destructive might be allowed to be used freely.

The citizens of Mosaic City were different to Masters in the true sense. They were no magi, with magic circuits passed down from previous generations or developed through special training, and it went without saying that none of them possessed a Magic Crest. The mana that powered their magecraft originated from the Holy Grail, and was distributed throughout the city via ley-lines. This mana was more than enough to sustain a Servant in everyday life with no discomfort. However Noble Phantasms, which employed magecraft on a much larger scale and consumed vast amounts of mana, were another matter entirely. Activating them was highly challenging, and they could kill a Master unless attempted with extreme care.

Broadly speaking, the most common foes I encountered in my work were Masters who fought with little regard for their own lives, because they had found something they valued more.

Had the combatants in this Colosseum all reined their latent magical abilities to extraordinary levels? Or had the footage I had seen simply been enhanced in some way after the fact? I had come to determine the truth.

“Oh, there you are, Kouyou.”

In the formerly empty space in the midst of the cheering crowd, the enormous bulk of the Ogress had appeared. She sat with her belly pressed to the ground, trying to make herself as small as possible. Occasionally her eyes glanced sideways to meet with Pran's.

–

Feeling a little relieved, I turned back to the arena. The battlefield was enormous: a huge rectangular arena, two hundred metres on the larger side. Above each of the spectator seats floated semi-transparent screens that provided a closer view of the action.

Finally, the battlefield began to change. Cracks ran across the centre, and the stage began to fold in on itself with mechanical precision, forming a deep, wide basin. Water swirled in to fill it, and rocks rose from beneath its surface to form a maze of crags in the open water. Two galleys burst from the canals at either side of the stage, defying the current. They hung in the air for a second, like salmon poised mid-leap above a waterfall, and then crashed down into the water below with a mighty splash. A host of smaller boats and schooners followed them out, and quickly organised themselves into two fleets.

There was no magic in this, only the most cutting-edge stage equipment... although perhaps it was best not to think about the enormous, ominous shadow circling beneath the water's surface.

–

“Now, my little piglets, I think we've kept you waiting long enough! Let's get this naumachia started! We know you're tired of the same-old same-old, so this year we thought we'd change things up a little with a large-scale team-on-team battle! Which of our brave teams in Akihabara today will be crowned the conquerors of the high seas?

“First, we have the Ottoman Corsairs! For these terrors of the Mediterranean Sea, this man once more takes up the rank of Pasha! Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the great pirate of Barbary, the Redbeard, Heyreddin Barbarossa!

“And that's not all! Next we have his second-in-command! There's not a man west of Austria who doesn't know his name: the Grand Master of the Knights Templar, Jacques de Molay!”

The witch introduced each of the competitors one by one, stoking the crowd's excitement. Illustrious admirals and infamous pirates lined up upon the deck.

“And now, last but not least, someone you know very well! The mightiest commander of the navies of the far east - can you say “Hassou-tobi”? Our favourite natural-born Heike-killer, Minamoto Kurou Yoshitsune!

“Could this samurai be the most dangerous competitor on the field today? I'm sure the other side won't be showing much quarter, so look forward to some spectacular acrobatics!”

–

The pretty young warrior looked a little uncomfortable in responding to chants of “Ushiwaka!”, but eventually gave in and began to wave to the crowd. The sight broke me from my trance, and a young girl standing nearby caught my attention; she hadn't been introduced.

Could that be Yoshitsune's Master?

She was dressed in elegant traditional Japanese robes and heavy facial makeup, matching Yoshitsune, but she herself appeared to be nothing more than an ordinary citizen. Behind or beside the other Servants stood similar unassuming figures. More than a couple of them were wearing masks that obscured their faces.

Eventually, the oriental arrangement of Mozart's Turkish March playing throughout the Colosseum drew to a close, and was replaced with an unsettling, savage, African-style drumbeat. The Grail Tournament was as tasteless as ever.

–

“Now swivel your heads the other way, my adorable piglets! Little corkscrew tails to the east,  and snouts to the west! Please give it up for the mighty heroes of the Carthaginian Alliance!

“Cast your eyes upon Rome's worst nightmare! At his back, the souls of three war elephants with whom he crossed the Pyrenees and the Alps! Ladies and gentlemen, the Lightning Commander, Hannibal Barca!”

The sight of Hannibal, cross-armed on the deck in traditional battle garments, was so wildly different from the garrulous old tourist I had met in Cafe Borges that I could hardly believe it was the same man. The mighty cheer from the crowd put not so much as a crack in his stern expression, and he harboured a menacing aura.

“And not to be outdone, his second-in-command: The Firebrand of Castile, El Cid!”

The witch continued with her introductions, each one punctuated with thunderous applause. I tuned them out. My attention was absorbed by a small figure on the deck, with a white coat draped across her shoulders. I followed her with my augmented vision as she stared keenly into the enemy ranks.

He stood a short distance behind her, head askew, hands on his hips. He seemed devoid of tension, as though this were nothing more than a routine warmup.

“And taking up the rearguard is someone I'm sure you all remember! None other than the warrior who took the Newbie Tournament by storm! Our proud Knight of the Round Table, Sir Galahad!”

–

With the introductions concluded, the galleys began to slip forwards, and each team assembled into their respective formations. Karin rapped on my knee with her megaphone, unable to conceal her excitement.

“I told you it was gonna be awesome! Dunno much about the pirates, but even I know Yoshitsune!”

“You expecting me to be impressed or something? You could hardly call yourself Japanese if you didn’t.”

I could not imagine it would be easy for this collection of pirates, outlaws to the bone that they were, to assimilate cleanly into everyday life in Mosaic City - although, of course, there were exceptions. Perhaps it was for the best that there was a place for them here, where they could put their talents to use while also entertaining the populace. However...

“I know it's just a mock battle, but don't you think this seems really one-sided? The Ottomans are obviously better at sea. Hannibal's famous for his war elephants, but he can't even use them on the water.”

“Haven't been reading up, eh Eri? Here's a flyer for you. See? Says right here the field will change halfway through, and turn into a land battle. There's your Carthaginian advantage.”

“Ah. I get it.” This was never supposed to be a fair battle, but a dramatic turnaround against overwhelming odds. The perfect script to drive the audience wild. I myself had to confess, I was looking forward to seeing Yoshitsune and Galahad face off – so much so that a part of me wished this were a real Holy Grail War.

“Yeah. Now I see.” I gazed around at the nearby spectators with dawning realisation. I felt as though I'd grown a little closer to understanding how these competitors could wield such extraordinary power, and the system that supported them in doing so.

----

“Eh?”

The back of my neck prickled. Someone, somewhere, was watching me.

I slid my gaze slowly around myself, careful not to let my reaction be noticed, but my stalker was impossible to discern through the interference of the crowd around me.

I'm being watched. No doubt about it. There's something else, too. A familiar, maybe?

The Borgia siblings' warning came to mind. Someone I'd previously crossed, out for revenge. As I looked around warily, hoping to forestall some impending attack, I noticed something strange: dotted throughout the crowd were spectators standing motionless, seemingly blind to the excitement around them.

Victims of the Command Seal Hunter? No, that doesn't seem right...

I focused, filtering out the auditory noise, following the sense of wrongness back to its source... and happened to catch a snippet of conversation from the row in front.

“You serious? A fire in Shinjuku?”

“Where? Tsunohazu? Kashiwagi?”

“Seems like it's around Hanazono way.”

Hanazono?

My old house was in Hanazono. Which was to say, Chitose's house was in Hanazono. I leaned forward a little, and stared at the woman in front's phone from over her shoulder.

“Eri, the hell are you doing?”

On the screen was a video someone had uploaded to the municipal network.

“What on earth...?”

A video of a building on fire. In real time.

A row of old wooden houses in Shinjuku wreathed in smoke. A human figure appeared from the billowing grey curtain, aflame from head to toe. However, they did not run or drop to the ground, but continued calmly into the next building, and even as their blood boiled and their skin charred with the flames' caress, began to feed the flames.

The video cut short - interrupted by a new upload of a public train brought to a standstill, flames licking at its roof.

-

As I watched, a buzz of concern began to spread throughout the crowd. It was hardly surprising; there were probably no small number of spectators here from Shinjuku. I turned around to see that Karin, too, was transfixed by her phone.

“What's wrong?”

“They say there's been some kinda 'pedestrian accident' in front of Shibuya station. A tram derailed and went across the cross... Oh. Ew. I'm not looking at that. Trains are stopped too. The hell's going on?”

Simultaneous incidents, all across Mosaic City.

“Ugh...”

I gripped my arm as a dull pain blossomed inside it. The stench of death was agitating the spirits. Black blood oozed out from beneath my hand, as their ire turned on my own body.

Just when I thought I'd gotten them under control...

-

This arena was no longer a place I should be. I was the greatest threat here, to the tens of thousands of spectators present and the partners by their sides. Right now, these simultaneous incidents concerned me.

Security here was tight, and more to the point, greater warriors than I could ever hope to be now thronged the main stage. This was perhaps the safest place in all of Mosaic City. My place was not here – as much as I had wanted to see Koharu fight, I no longer had time to worry about that.

“Eri, wait.”

Karin must have guessed my intentions as soon as I stood up.

“You're going? Just like that? Without me, again?”

“Sorry. I know I invited you out here and everything, but... there's something I need you to do.”

“What is it?”

I stared back at Karin for a moment, then looked down to the boy by her side.

“Kouyou, do you think you could take care of Pran?”

The ogress looked to Karin questioningly, then gave a slow nod.

“Consider it done. Just leave it to us, Eri.” Karin flashed her newly-recovered Command Seals, alongside an irrepressible grin. Just as I made to leave, Karin's phone buzzed with a notification, and she pulled it out.

“Who's texting people at this kinda time?”

She checked the screen and sighed.

“It's that Kuchime asshole. He says “Sorry.””

“That's all?”

“That's all.” She smiled, resignedly and a little sadly.

----

I left the seats behind and made my way to the outer hall. While still indoors, this was an airy, open space, with high arches modelled meticulously after Roman architecture. It extended far away in both directions, curving gently to match the shape of the arena. Shops lined the outer wall, still milling with a fair number of late customers. Here and there people clustered around screens outside the storefronts, drinking as they watched the matches unfold.

What's even the point of coming here?, I thought. You could be doing that at home!

–

As I hurried towards the exit, I organised the idea I'd hit upon earlier in my head: to whit, that the competitors in the Holy Grail Tournament were taking their mana from the crowd itself. Tens of thousands of pseudo-magi, all pouring mana into the Servants doing battle below. That was my hypothesis.

This Colosseum was not a post-war addition to Akihabara. It had been a part of this town since long before the world was restructured, and it was far too large an anomaly to be permitted to exist without a reason. And in ancient Rome, the battles that took place in the colosseums had been sacred acts; offerings made to the gods.

Heroic Spirits take on all of our thoughts, hopes and dreams. They draw power from them.

The greater the mark a Servant had left upon history, and the more fame they had earned, the more power they drew. Such was their nature – and as an unintended and tragic consequence, Servants were occasionally summoned with the strange and cruel skill, “Innocent Monster”.

How much of this do the Riedenflaus family realise, I wonder?

I couldn't help but wonder just to what extent thaumaturgical systems might be entwined with the structure of the Colosseum itself.

-

An unexpected voice called me to a halt.

“Erice, we need to talk. It's important.”

It was the first time I had seen Ms. Fujimura in several days. I wheeled around to find her standing in the dimly-lit outer hall, dressed like a librarian as always.

Why is she here? What could she possibly want to talk about?

I strode towards her, with the intention of grilling her on the events in Shibuya and Shinjuku.

-

As I opened my mouth, I heard an odd sound from the broadcast. As the camera focused on the Carthaginian flagship, the witch performing the commentary had yelped in shock. I spun around to look. Ms. Fujimura, too, focused on the screen.

What I saw defied comprehension.

Regardless of the fact that the enemy was still distant, Hannibal, the Carthaginian commander, whipped his blade from the sheath at his belt, and without a moment's hesitation thrust it deep into the chest of his second-in-command, El Cid.

“Gah!”

El Cid's face froze in an expression of disbelief. His Master rounded on Hannibal in his confusion. The Carthaginian pulled his bloodstained sword from his ally's chest, and without a care for the man's protests, swung his sword crosswise in a vicious slash.

Both El Cid and his master collapsed. Two heads flew from the boat, to splash down unceremoniously into the artificial sea.

[theawkwardterrier]

things left behind and the things that are ahead, ch. 6

AO3 link here

They take the train up from Washington. They had driven down the first time - though they hadn’t left Howard’s until Bucky was healthy enough to travel, he was still breaking in some ways, wildly fragile. They needed to have no one else around, needed the time and ability to stop on the roadside so Bucky could gasp in fresh air and scream through clenched teeth because just sitting in a car with people he trusted made him feel closed-in and trapped.

Bucky sits between them at first, all of them pretending that it’s simply the order they entered the row rather than a supportive bracketing. He switches seats with Peggy after about an hour, trying to use the scenery rushing past the window as a distraction. His fingers, both sets, curl and uncurl in his lap. He had planned on leaving the arm behind - the one Howard made for him detaches fairly easily, and he figured that seeing him simply missing a limb would in some ways be easier than the blunt, inhuman metal - but changed his mind at the last minute. This is part of him now, whenever he wanted it to be, and he tries to convince himself it will be better for everyone to face that from that start.

Peggy puts her hand over his balled fists before he even registers exactly how tightly they are clenched.

They had tried at first to get him reacclimated in New York. Howard’s large house had been fine when that just meant finding his memories again, when it was only about having a quiet place where everyone understood nightmares and knew to step loudly and never to touch Bucky when he wasn’t ready for it. It had worked well enough when it was just Steve and Bucky, the quiet and caring Jarvises, Peggy on the weekends and Howard dashing in and out. And they all had thought that the city - large and anonymous, the site of so many remarkable things - would be the perfect place to start when it came time to take on somewhere more public; any scene Bucky caused would be forgotten by the time the witnesses reached the next block. But it was all too newly familiar, too overwhelming with strangers and crowded with memories, too much.

They hadn’t had a chance to visit Brooklyn. (If Steve were a bit more selfish, it would hurt that he still hasn’t seen those ever familiar streets, the place he still goes when he dreams. As it is, he doesn't even have time to think about it as more than a hope for his friend.) On Bucky’s hoarse, wild-eyed orders, they hadn’t even mentioned to his family that he had been found.

Peggy and Steve’s neighborhood in DC was easier. In the type of close-knit environment that they had thought best avoided, where everyone knew their names and no one forgot exactly who they had seen shatter one of the cafe’s mugs into an explosion of porcelain dust just from hearing old Mrs. Eissenmann’s accent, they found compassion. Al noticed the way Bucky flinched away from photos of Korea and East Berlin on the newspaper fronts, and tucked them away so that the covers of Life and The Saturday Evening Post were visible instead. Bucky learned to answer questions about his arm from the innocent, interested ones the kids asked before they were hushed by their parents. The ticket taker at the movie house, Eddy Carroll from two streets over, didn’t say anything as Steve and Bucky left in the middle of Annie Get Your Gun twice because the sound of even comical movie gunfire made Bucky flinch and go cold and grasp for a gun of his own.

There were other people in the neighborhood who had served. There was a look that Bucky recognized when they passed each other in the street, a certain shift to alertness at car horns sounded suddenly, and when they asked him to have a beer with them, he said yes. While Steve and Peggy went out on one of their evenings together, he sat on a barstool with these men who would become his friends and talked about favorite books and movies and radio programs, about the best ballgames they’d seen, about the particular, muffled punch of a bullet entering flesh and the strange, grim, necessary realization that you were the one to put it there.

“Why did you invite me tonight?” he asked, walking home with Charlie Gibbs in the place by his side that was usually Steve’s. “You don’t even know me, but you’ve probably guessed that I’m more of a handful than most.”

Charlie chewed his toothpick thoughtfully for a moment. He took it out and held it between his fingers as he said, “We all have brothers who didn’t come back. We have to be there for the ones that did, even if they left a piece of themselves behind. Code of war doesn’t end just because the treaty’s been signed.”

And when the cold came, not as bad there as in New York or the Alps or Russia or places that he can’t quite and might never remember, when the cold came and made Bucky shiver and wish for a hot drink but didn’t leave him paralyzed with the fear of what might come, he said that he was ready to go home.

They called ahead. Of course they did.

“Can you imagine, someone you love and thought was dead just turning up out of the sky as you’re trying to eat your breakfast?” Peggy asked, eyes wide in pretend shock.

“I thought it was a good surprise,” Steve said defensively.

“Oliver in the kitchen has taken a liking to me, as you well know. I think the extra treat I get with my order is all the surprise I need.” She gave his hand a fond touch on the tabletop, regardless of her words or her arch tone.

“Fine, everyone knows you’re adorable, you can quit showing it off,” Bucky said, and it was the joking eyeroll more than anything that convinced them that he was ready.

They can see Mrs. Barnes from down the block. She is wearing a navy dress with creamy lace trim - her church dress, Steve is sure, even if it is not the gray number with the big silver broach that he remembers from his childhood. She stands on her front steps, solid as a lighthouse. Bucky’s father is most likely inside; he had always gotten emotional easily and never liked to show it in public.

It’s a chilly, overcast Tuesday, the middle of a morning that threatens rain or snow or both. The street is empty of the usual schoolkids or housewives chatting to their neighbors with shopping in hand. It makes it easier: no one to double take and recognize them, catch them up in excited conversation. It makes it harder, the overly noticeable sound of their footsteps seeming a driving echo as they move closer.

“You remember back in ‘26, when I was sick from Halloween until New Year’s?” Steve asks, because Bucky is pulling sharp breaths through his nose and his shoulders are set with a statue’s rigidity.

The beginning of the familiar story seems to ease something. “They had the priest in for last rites twice that time, didn’t they?”

“Three times, I think,” Steve says with a casual shrug, at which Peggy looks vaguely horrified. “You kept trying to play truant, coming up the fire escape when no one was looking.”

“And I started getting escorted to school, but my ma couldn’t stay all day, so she told my cousin Frankie to sit on the street corner and scream if he saw me coming.” Bucky leans over and says conspiratorially to Peggy, “I would give Frankie a penny a week to keep his trap shut. He was a soft touch.”

“But then my mother asked Sister Mary Bernardus to sit with me while she went to work, and that nun almost kicked you out the window when she saw your face coming over the sill while she was just trying to pray the Rosary,” Steve finishes with a muted smile. He bumps Bucky’s shoulder with his. “If you could still face your mother after that, you can face her now.”

And then she is coming down to meet them, slow and careful even in her sensible, square-toed shoes. She holds onto the handrail, although there’s no ice on the steps. Bucky has stopped two houses away - the Green’s place, or it had been fifteen years ago. He seems as if he can’t move forward. Any shimmer of ease has gone out of him again.

Mrs. Barnes walks the rest of the way to him herself. Steve had forgotten how small and solid she looks beside her son. She reaches her hands up and holds his face between them, and doesn’t say anything for a long moment.

When she finally speaks, it is in that husky voice with its second-generation Irish tinge. Somewhere inside himself, Steve still expects to hear his mother’s bright call twining with hers, a harmony of care. “James. My boy, come back to me.”

Bucky stays very still. “Hi, Ma,” he manages, and lets her lead him inside.

Bucky’s family had always seemed enormous to Steve, though anything would have when compared with a pair of Rogerses. Winifred Barnes was the youngest of three sisters, George had four brothers, and most of the extended clan lived close enough to take the streetcar if they couldn’t walk. The Barnes place had always been so full.

Without it being mentioned, they haven’t asked anyone over today. George is sitting in his usual chair. Bucky’s sister Josephine stands over his shoulder, her body taut beneath her neat sweater. Rebecca paces the room, a baby in her arms, and Steve’s first thought is that she’s too young for that, just a baby herself, but that isn’t true anymore. The man who must be Becca’s husband sits looking more awkward than anyone - perhaps because he’s entirely a stranger to Bucky, perhaps because he’s all gangly limbs, too tall for the furniture.

“It looks the same,” Bucky says, taking in the faded wallpaper, once a patterned green now white, the heavy old General Electric wall clock which still has the crack across the face, the good lace cloth dressing up the table. The scent of coffee from the ever-boiling pot fills the place, and it is this that makes Steve remember how long it has truly been since he was last here: growing up, he would never have even noticed it.

Mrs. Barnes has set out a stack of saucers and one of her delectably heavy lemon pound cakes on the tabletop. As she leads Steve, Peggy and Bucky over to sit around it, she still hasn’t let go of her son’s hands.

Becca bursts into tears, which makes the baby start wailing too. George covers his eyes with his palms, the unknown husband looks entirely out of his depth, and Peggy stands again. “Let’s have a seat,” she says, guiding Becca over beside her husband. She gets her settled against the cushions, then passes the baby from his mother’s arms to his startled but silent father. Peggy strokes a soothing hand over the baby’s crown as she completes the transfer; it doesn’t help but does make Becca give a shaky little smile. The radio is over in the corner and Peggy walks over, snaps it on, and tunes it quickly until she finds an afternoon symphony program on WNYC. She adjusts the volume to midlevel and turns back.

“For the neighbors,” she explains as she comes over to rejoin Steve by the table. Once again, as always, Steve is impressed: the Barnes apartment is the entire first floor of the frame house, but that doesn’t entirely mean privacy. He hadn’t even considered that anyone else might be home, but now that he thinks about it, the water rushing through the pipes isn’t coming from anyone in this room.

“How did you get here?” Josie asks suddenly. She hasn’t so much as shifted through the outburst of chaos.

“The subway,” Bucky tells her promptly, and she snaps, “Don’t give me that, James Barnes,” in what must be her schoolteacher voice now. Steve’s already familiar with it: Josie was younger than Bucky by a bit less than a year, but she had always acted the big sister to the both of them. “We got an army notification half a decade ago that you’d been killed. We got a letter from—” She turns on Steve. “And you. What are you doing here looking ten years older than you should instead of dead from saving the world?”

“Josephine,” says Mrs. Barnes, warning in her tone, “they’re back. What does it matter where they’ve been?” But her husband lifts his face and says, mastering himself with clear effort, “No, Winifred, I would also like to know exactly what’s happened.”

“What’s wrong with your arm?” Becca asks, her voice very soft, as if it is being trapped in the needlepoint pillow she has pressed against her chest.

The version they tell is one they've practiced, a snipped and pasted version of the truth, but Steve still isn’t a particularly good liar. It's not that he doesn't trust these people who have been family to him - he knows that they would never go to the police or the press with anything he told them, that they wouldn’t gossip about it in the shops. But they have never seen a person explode in front of them in a blue flash, have known his transformation only as something already completed out of sight. Their lives have been so normal, untouched by direct contact with the strange and wonderful and terrible things with which Steve is familiar.

Unless he misses his guess, the baby Rebecca's husband is currently rocking back to sleep is Jimmy Proctor. Steve has met him as a sixty year old man, a former railroad engineer with a million stories of an entirely typical childhood sparkling with the little memories his mother would recall of her brother. He doesn't want to take that from all of them.

So, knowing his own abilities, he is careful with his contributions, letting Bucky and Peggy tell most of the story: of Steve suspended in the ice, the serum effecting him in unexpected ways, of his being found and coming to Washington, the information slipped to Peggy that made them go looking for Bucky in the first place. Bucky doesn’t remember many of the details of his time in captivity anyway; Peggy glosses over it with quick compassion that brings them past without the rest of the Barnes family asking for more information.

Watching Bucky now, Steve finds himself remembering more than ever his friend as he was. Buck had always been the one to tell the stories, to make excuses and conjure the sweet, sly smiles to get them out of trouble. Bucky now, Bucky as he once would have been, is quieter. Steve doesn't mind it, but it's more noticeable back in this familiar place.

There's a silence when the story has finished.

"And now you're fine?" Josie asks finally. She has begun to lean on the back of her father's chair, not softening as much as weakening when confronted with it all. "Now you're back?"

"For now," Bucky says.

His mother looks up from the hands she has clenched in her lap. "What do you mean by that? We've a room here for you while you get yourself settled. There's no reason to go anywhere. I’m sure your things can be sent up for you."

"Ma," Bucky says gently, "I don't think I'm ready yet."

"And why is that?" She draws herself up straight, some of the strict force coming back into her tone. "You're doing just fine, and what would you do somewhere else anyway?"

Steve opens his mouth, but Bucky says, "One day I might come to stay, but now there's a life I'm trying to make down in Washington. I'd like to see how it turns out."

"So I'm never to see you?" She turns to her husband with a cry. "Listen to this boy of yours, George."

"Mama." Steve knows that it's the way Bucky sighs it that makes the difference, that brings the tension from the room. "Of course you’ll see me. I'm going to come back."

"And when will that be?" George asks.

"It's three weeks until Christmas," Bucky points out. "I think I could use a good Brooklyn Christmas."

"All of you," Winifred commands, standing suddenly and clapping her hands together. She pulls the cake plate toward herself and begins to cut slices. "You'll all come for Christmas. Unless there's some other family I don't know of?" She looks askance at Peggy.

"We shall reserve tickets on our way back," Peggy says with equanimity.

"Home again for Christmas, then," says Winifred, satisfied enough as she begins handing out cake.

Later, Bucky will hold his namesake for the first time and Rebecca will cry again, and so will George. Later, Rebecca’s husband will be introduced and will not wince as his hand is shaken three times with a bit too much force to be strictly comfortable. Later, Mrs. Barnes will try to give her cake recipe to Peggy only to have it intercepted by Steve. Later, Steve will notice Bucky taking himself into the kitchen for a moment alone before they are pressed to stay the night. Later, they will lie in the preserved bedroom with its old Dodgers scorecards peeling from the walls, and Bucky will tease Steve for not daring to mention that there’s really no reason to have him and Peggy in separate rooms based on their sleeping arrangements back home. Later, they will lie awake for a long time before they are finally lulled by the familiar sounds outside the window. But for now:

"Home again," Steve agrees softly, and digs into his piece of cake.

Previous chapters here

[ianmrid]

Pokémon!

I think it is fair to say that there aren't any pokémon in the first three generations that I dislike, but I did find my Hoenn list a little harder to create than either Kanto or Johto. I think this is partly down to there simply being a large amount of new pokémon in Hoenn (135). In addition, there were more Gen 3 games which meant more final teams with which to bond. Still, I managed to narrow it down to my Top Ten. As before, I included both the original Gen3 standard sprite as well as the shiny sprite - not that I caught any shinies, despite over 100 hours of game-play! #notbitter

10. Altaria

Number 10 on this list was a very difficult choice, with Altaria just about edging out some of my other favourites, such as Zigzagoon, Medicham, and Hairyama. I think I like Altaria because it is just such a weird-looking Dragon-type pokémon! It shares a typing - dual Dragon- and Flying-type - with Salamence, which is all cool and tough, whereas Altaria is some sort of cheery-looking cloud duck. It is more of a defensive pokémon - with Defence and Special Defense stats and although it has a quad-weakness to Ice-type attacks, this is offset with a resistance to the core Grass-, Fire-, and Water-types, as well as a very useful immunity to Ground. This came in very handy as my Altaria, Floof, was a part of my XD: Gale of Darkness team. This meant it was primarily fighting in the doubles format where Earthquake is very prevalent!

09. Swellow

The standard Normal- and Flying-type regional bird of Hoenn, I'm a big fan of Swellow. It is a little frail, but it is lightning quick and can hit pretty hard due to it's excellent ability, Guts. Guts increases the Attack stat by 50% whenever the pokémon has a status condition, turning a respectable Attack into a very powerful one. My Swellow, Amazon (because of Swallows and Amaons, geddit?), was on my Ruby team and came in clutch many times with the move Aerial Ace - a move that cannot miss. Swellow was a big part of Ash's team in the animé, another reason I really like it as a pokémon - especially for the battle between Ash and Winona, the Flying-type Gym Leader. This gym battle came down to Ash's Swellow vs. Winona's shiny Swellow and was definitely one of the more memorable clashes. I really like the colours on shiny Swellow and I would love to get my hands on one, one day, although I think I still prefer the classic red and blue plumage of the original.

08. Vigaroth

Something a little unusual in my eighth slot: a middle-stage evolution. Usually the middle-stages of any pokémon line get a little overlooked. The first stage is usually extremely cute and the final stage is super-powerful and cool, leaving the middle-stage as a weird htbrid of the two that never quite works. However, Hoenn seems to manage pretty well with the middle-stages - the starters have Combusken and Grovyle who are both excellent, although the less said about Marshtomp the better. The Slakoth line is another three-stage evolution line, and I used my Slaking, Naps, on my final Emerald team. Although Slaking is extremely powerful, it is let down by the awful ability, Truant, that is shares with Slakoth - causing it to skip every other turn due to 'loafing around'. Vigaroth on the otherhand, represents relentless energy with it's ability, Vital Spirit, preventing it from ever being put to sleep. Much more fun! Also I prefer it's design to Slaking's creepy old man in rcline pose.

07. Cradily

I didn't really realise until looking at my Gen3 graphs, that I hadn't used either the Rock- or Grass-types at all in Gen2. Well, with that exact dual typing they are back in Gen3 and into a spot on my favourites list. Like Altaria, Cradily is another weird-looking pokémon that at first glance looks rather derpy, until you realise the eye-like spots on it's head are just markings and it's actual eyes peer out from the dark inside it's head. Way more sinister, although that is offset a little by the dildo-like tendrills waving about everywhere - although they did earn my Emerald team member the nickname Craydildo (ther shouldn't be a 'y' in the name - I just always spell Cradily's name incorrectly). Cradily isn't the most useful pokémon as it is built to be defensive but without many resistances, however mine still worked well as a primarily special wall, although it has a good defense as well. It was my first go at using substitute as a way to defend while using stat raising moves like Amnesia and Ancient Power to boost both the mergre damage it could do and it's already solid defences. Cradily's pink shiny is also very nice - many of my favs this generation has fair better in shiny design that last time out!

06. Grumpig

Being a big fan of pigs, Spoink or Grumpig were always going tot get onto this list. I like Spoink, but it has some weird in-game lore about the fact it can never stop bouncing or it's heart will stop, which is a bit creepy and doesn't make sense, even in the pokémon world. I definitely prefer Grumpig, and I'm a huge fan of both the normal purple and shiny yellow - it's definitely another pokémon that I would love to shiny hunt one day. On top of all that, my Grumpig, WYSIPIG, saved me from a humilating defeat against Wally late in the game. I was under-prepared and his Gardevoir would have destroyed me if I hadn't had also had Calm Mind and a super-effective Shadow Ball on Grumpig. That alone would have been worth a place on this list!

05. Kyogre

Another unusual sight on one of my lists: a Legendary Pokémon! Although I didn't actually use Kyogre on any of my teams, it is still one of my favourite pokémon in Gen3. It is a massive blue Orca whale with weather summoning abilities - what is not to like? I think it's design is very cool indeed, and it's shiny is also OK - although I am a bit bored of blue pokémon that turn a hot pink for their shiny colouration. I would love to have Kyogre on a team one day - although it is way too over-powered for a standrd play-through since it has phenomenal stats and wuld absolutely destroy most opposition. However is I one day put together a team just for battling then it would bee an ideal fit!

04. Wingull

Wingull is probably a bit of an usual choice for this list a I think most people just consider it pretty unremarkable early-game pokémon, and they wouldn't really be wrong. However I am a big fan of this evolution line as I really like Pelipper also. Their designs are kinda basic, but still appealing and theh dual Water- and Flying type is not bad if you can play around the quad weakness to Electric. The shinies are also decent - the blue parts on both Wingull and Pelipper trning a nice green instead. But I think the real reason I like them both so much, is that I associate them with travelling somewhere new. When I travel in real life, I love seeing the new wildlife in an area that really underlines that you are somewhere else in the world - and birds are often the first things that I notice in this regard. In the animé, when Ash travels to Hoenn, the boat is surrouned by Wingull and Peiipper which did a really good job of capturing that same feeling which means I will always love this pokémon family!

03. Ludicolo

Much like Miltank in Gen2 - and indeed at the same spot in it's respective list - Ludicolo is one of those pokémon that I wanted to own because I hated playing against it. The Water- and Grass-typing is so useful as it's weaknesses - Flying, Poison, and Bug - are not that commonly encountered. They can also keep themselves healthy by carrying leftovers and using the Rain Dish ability which restores health in the rain. On top of this, Ludicolo is nicely balanced with good SpDef and SpAtt so if you aren't prepared with a strategy to take them out they can really hurt. One of my favourite opponents in Colosseum and XD, a disco-themed guy called Miror B who has a giant afro coloured like a pokéball - uses entire teams of Ludicolo which gave me a lot of trouble. Design-wise, it is yet another weird looking pokémon that is a kinda cross between a duck and a pinapple with a few Mexican stereotypes thrown in for good(?) measure. It's shiny is also great with the sight colour changes giving it a more tropical look - ideal for the Hoenn region. I just love it!

02. Sableye

This entry is proof that using a pokémon can really change your opinion of it. Before plaing Pokémon XD, I would never have expected Sableye to get anywhere near my top ten, let alone the number two slot! I only chose it because I wanted a Ghost-type for my double battles since it would be immune to Explosion either from my side or the opponents, and this was incredibly useful. This alone improved my Sableye views, along with the fact that it has no weaknesses with the unique Ghost- and Dark-typing. I always liked the design well enough, but seeing it in XD - a game which has 3D models rather than the basic 2D sprites of the main series - really sealed the deal. I loved how tiny it was, and how it moved so creepily! If it han't been quite so frail, there would have been a good chance of it making the top spot!

01. Mudkip

This is the first time a starter pokémon has made number one in one of these lists - although Bulbsaaur and Cyndaquil came close. Mudkip is adorably derpy and is the face that launched a thousand pokémon memes, plus it is a line that eventually evolves into Water- and Ground-type, which I've often said before, is one of my favourite combinations. However, unlike the Cyndaquil and Bulbasaur lines - where I like Quilava, Typholsion, Ivysaur, and Venusaur a lot as well - my Mudkip love is mostly focused on the first stage evolution. The middle-stage Marshtomp is very odd-looking, but not in an appealing way, and the final-stage Swampert is pretty cool, but for some reason just doesn't quite click with me. It's definitely Mudkip all the way here - although I definitely prefer the original blue as it is yet another Water-type that turns a pinky-purple - boring! To summarise; you herd I liek Mudkipz.

And that is that! Generation 3 was an absolute epic to complete; more than doubling my time spent, the total cost, and the number of games played once all of the side games and remakes were accounted for. It also meant way more blogs were needed to document everything and even the animé felt very extended! On top of all that, with so many more final teams, there was a lot more art to commission to celebrate each group. I'll be posting these in one big go once they are all completed, but for now, with Hoenn, the Kanto re-makes, and Orre all finally in the books, I can look ahead to Generation 4: Diamond, Pearl, and Platinum!

[pokemonpundit]

So I’ve been doing another weird run in Omega Ruby again, and I wanted to document some of it because I keep thinking about it a lot. I decided to take after my in-game father and become the master of normal-types. Here were my rules:

I can only keep one from each evolution line ending in a normal-type Pokemon. 

(There are 12 such lines in Omega Ruby: Linoone, Swellow, Slaking, Exploud, Delcatty, Spinda, Zangoose, Wigglytuff, Castform, Kecleon, Girafarig, and Dodrio. While Swablu and Azurill are also normal-types, they don’t evolve into normal-types and so were left off this list. You could try this in Alpha Sapphire, but then you don’t get Zangoose)

If my Pokemon feints, it dies and must be released.

Battle Style -> set

Exp. Share -> off

No o-powers

No anything that requires connecting to another device.

Since it’s necessary, I will permit one non-normal-type Pokemon to be an HM-slave (I ended up with a Tentacool), because the only normal-types that can learn Dive are Bibarel and Arceus, neither of which are in this game. It can never be sent out in battle though.

Here were the results:

So when I started this run, some things became immediately apparent. Since all your Pokemon are at least half-normal-type, most of them are weak to fighting which instantly makes any fighting types you encounter way more scary.

Rock-types and steel-types are also annoying, since they resist your stab moves. Ghost-types might be immune to you, but you are also immune to ghost-types, so those battles end up rather fair.

Another thing is that since your Pokemon can never faint, it’s best to try and make them have defensive sets of moves and stats; Those specialized for attacking don’t live very long.

Roxanne seemed like she would be difficult, but Whismur comes with Echoed Voice, which just keeps increasing in power. After the 5th+ consecutive use, it’s at 200 power, and it barely matters that her Pokemon resist. Brawly also seemed like he’d be quite a task, but Taillow’s flying moves made short work of him.

My first death was my Whismur against a Carvanha in the soda shop that knew Focus Energy. I have learned to fear that move, because this is not the only Pokemon that eventually dies from it. Just bumping your crit rate up to 1/2 might not sound that great, but when you’re not allowed to faint ever it becomes really scary. 

My Taillow died trying to switch into the Winstrate Grandma’s Meditite.

Watson’s gym was nothing against the stupid good special defense of my Delcatty.

I caught a Spinda on route 113, taught it some moves via TM, then sent it into battle against a hiker. The hiker sent out Geodude and so I was like “well ground-type moves beat rock-types so this would be a good time to use the dig move I just taught it”. The Geodude used Magnitude. *sigh* Welp, bye Spinda.

The next 4 gyms went very easily, then my Linoone managed to die because of its own Double-Edge, and my Zangoose and my Delcatty both died shortly after because of Maxie’s Crobat’s Acrobatics. Always liked that move.

For those counting, you would know I only have 6 Pokemon remaining, which makes things even more tense because another death means I don’t even have a full team, but lucky me the rest of the game was rather uneventful until the Elite Four.

Before I start the Elite Four, let’s look at my champions.

Once Slakoth evolves into Vigoroth and loses that horrible Truant ability, it become amazing. It has a self-healing move, and can learn both Bulk Up and Amnesia, which makes it really easy to sweep entire teams with it. 

Once it was of level to evolve into Slaking, I decided not to do it, because I really didn’t want that ability back. At least this means I can give it the eviolite and have it be even more of a defensive beast. The singular attacking move gets switched out when I feel like it.

Named after the activity it is literally incapable of doing since it became a Vigoroth.

Similar to Vigoroth, Girafarig just collects a giant bundle of stat buffs before anything else. Sometimes, I switched out Double Team with an actual attacking move like Psychic, but mostly I just Baton Pass into Kecleon or Castform.

Named after that weird Giraffe from Madagascar.

Castform surprised me with how powerful it was. Not only does weather ball become 100 power under any kind of weather, but the weather also helps you and the move is also a stab move. Along with a decent special attack and probable type advantage, Castform can mostly ohko anything that isn’t a water-type.

Named after the water-molecule protagonist of some game I have for the Wii called Dewy’s Adventure.

It took a bit, but I wanted a Kecleon with Protean ability, and the Dexnav also provided one with nasty plot. So I built a special Kecleon, because most of my Pokemon were physical attackers at the time. The three attacking moves are swapped out with whatever seems appropriate at the moment

Named after the chameleon from Tangled.

I was never quite happy with Wigglytuff’s move set, but it did it’s job of being a tank. It’s high health was good, and reflect would fix it’s low-physical defense. Its main job was using its typing and Dazzling Gleam to get rid of annoying fighting-types.

Named after the other super tough pink puff.

Dodrio was probably the best attacker on my team, but it only really comes out when I’m in trouble. Always super worried about it dying, because there are no more replacements. It can ohko many things with Return and Drill Peck. It mostly just functions as my team mascot.

Named after... you know.

On to the Elite Four!

My Vigoroth set up Bulk Up+Amnesia against Sydney’s Mightyena, then swept the entire team with Brick Break. I tried to do the same thing against Phoebe by swapping Brick Break with Shadow Claw, but Dusclops has Curse, which meant I had to keep switching to shake off the curses until the Dusclops killed itself and Sableye was sent out, which doesn’t have Curse.

The battle against Glacia was probably the longest and stupidest battle of the entire run. Castform and Glalie were having an argument about what the weather was, Kecleon was trying to use Thunderbolt to convince Glacia to waste all her full restores on Walrein, Wigglytuff and Girafarig switched out of Froslass’ confuse ray what felt like ten thousand times. It was some glorious madness.

Drake was comparatively easy. Girafirig can set up Calm Mind and Agility against the Altaria, Baton Pass to Castform, which can Hail and then Weather Ball - Ice to sweep the whole team.

Vigoroth couldn’t set up against Steven’s Skarmory because of Toxic, but once Kecleon got rid of it with Thunderbolt, Vigoroth was able to setup against Aggron and sweep the whole team as usual.

And that’s everything. It was pretty fun, and I got to try some Pokemon I wouldn’t have had a reason to use otherwise. I mean, when am I ever going to use Castform again.

Anyway, if you actually got this far, thanks for reading I guess. I just had all these thoughts in my head about the run and wanted to write them down somewhere, but I’d be glad if in interested someone for a couple minutes.

[inadarkdarkroom]

Venka

This isn’t my story, personally, but it’s one that has kicked around my family for so long that it definitely feels like it’s mine. It’s been told and re-told, but I do think that the central details are very solid.

My aunt Sarah is my mom’s youngest sister. She graduated from high school in the early seventies. She’d been dating my uncle Jack for years, and they went away to the same college. He was on a football scholarship and taking the ag track (farms, ugh). My aunt was in college for education, to be an elementary teacher.

Anyway, it was the seventies, but they were from a very small town with ‘Christian’ values, so despite the fact that they’d been dating for years (and would eventually get married), and they were both seniors in college, there was no way they could live together. So my aunt lived in the dorms on campus and my uncle and a bunch of his football buddies got a place off campus. I can only imagine what a hole it was. Six guys in their late teens and early twenties, all football players, none of them has any idea how to even do a load of laundry. I digress. My point here is that it was a piece of crap house because what landlord in their right mind would rent to those guys? So crappy house in a very crappy part of town.

It was a college town, so there were some nice parts. But it was still a not very big town in a very agriculture heavy state. And it was the seventies, so there were still heavy manufacturing jobs. There were also several really big feedlots and beef packing plants (slaughterhouses) that ran twenty-four hours a day. So while there were the educated muckey mucks and the college students, there were also a whole lot of blue collar workers. And a lot of them were migrant workers who went were the jobs were. A lot of them were paid under the table and lived pretty much off the grid. Cash only. Never used their full names, etc.

Because my aunt was going into education, she knew what kind of challenges the school districts had with trying to deal with the kids from some of these families. A lot of the mothers - if there was a mother - didn’t speak english and couldn’t read or write, as far as the district was concerned. So the fathers/husbands/boyfriends worked these incredibly long hours, the women were home alone with these kids, unable to communicate with school administrators, cops or truant officers. Part of my aunt’s coursework for her degree was going into the local district and trying to help these families get services and resources for the kids, stuff like free lunches and pre-natal care if the moms were pregnant, etc. She said every now and thens he’d have a good day and know she really helped a family, but mostly it was just depressing as fuck. The families wanted the resources, but they didn’t want to bring any attention to themselves. The kids would do all the talking and translating for the parents - if the parents showed up at all. It was just a disaster.

So, anyway, back to my uncle, busy being on football scholarship and living the Animal House life. As previously mentioned, they were in a not very nice part of town - a part of town where the neighbors didn’t call the cops to complain about your kegger going strong at four in the morning, because they didn’t call the cops. Ever.

My aunt was over there a lot, and since she wasn’t a big drinker or partier, she probably paid more attention than the others. But she noticed this kid. And it was weird, even by the Animal House standards. Because it was just one kid, this little girl.

My aunt said the kid was probably five or six, so not old, but old enough to be in school. Except that she wasn’t in school because every time my aunt went over there, the kid was sitting on the balcony of this crappy apartment building across the street. The building had a dozen units, all of them accessible from doors that faced my uncle’s house. It was two stories, so from my uncle’s house, you looked across and it was six front doors and plate glass windows, and then the second story was the same thing, a balcony that ran the length of the entire building with six more doors and plate glass windows.

There were a lot of people who lived in those units, so on the weekends, there would be tons of kids of all ages running around, tearing crap up, generally being little jerks, like kids do. They moved into the house in August, so it was blazing hot and the sun didn’t set until almost ten at night, so the kids were always out running around.

But the little girl was never out there on the weekends. So my aunt didn’t know if her family kept her inside when the other kids were around, or maybe she stayed with another relative on the weekends, or what. But any given weekday, that kid would be sitting there all by herself, just staring over at them, even into the evening. My aunt said at first she just thought it was sad that the kid didn’t have anybody really looking after her.

But then it started turning to fall and the day were getting shorter and colder. One night my uncle was walking my aunt out to her car and they’re out there, like making out or something super gross that I don’t want to think about. But my aunt finally remarked on the fact that the little girl wasn’t out there, and that she was glad - because it was chilly. But then a car turned down the street with its brights on and when the headlights hit the balcony of that apartment building, the kid was still there. My aunt said the kid must have been wearing dark clothes because when the headlights passed over her, all they could really see was this very pale little face. And the headlights were so bright that it pretty much washed away all of her features. So she’d been there the entire time my aunt and uncle had been outside. They just hadn’t seen her because it was so dark.

Anyway, I guess that was sort of a turning point for my aunt. By now, she was into her internship with the district and she was doing a lot of outreach. So there was one weekend afternoon when it was still pretty nice weather and there were a bunch of kids across the street, but also some adults as well. So my aunt went over there to talk to them. My uncle went with her, as a precaution. She asked about the little girl, but no one would talk to her. She said even the kids pretended not to be able to understand her. She figured it was probably because my uncle was with her, but they all clammed up and wouldn’t say anything.

Then it was mid-terms and football playoffs and every got super busy. But my aunt said she still saw the little girl. And by now it’s cold. I mean, it wasn’t Minnesota or anything so there weren’t walls of snowdrifts or anything, but it was damn cold. Too cold for some five year old to be hanging around outside for twelve hours a day. And my aunt said it didn’t even really look like she had a coat.

So my aunt decided to stage an intervention - to get the kid a coat at the very least, if not getting her enrolled in school. So she sees the kid, it’s, I don’t know, like a Tuesday morning or something. Sun shining, mailman driving down the street, you know, nothing weird. So she sees the kid, no coat. She heads across the street and the kid is still just sitting there on the balcony waiting. But my aunt has to walk under the balcony to get to the stairs that lead to the second level. And by the time she walks up the stairs, the kid is gone. My aunt didn’t hear any footsteps. She didn’t hear any doors closing. Nothing. The kid is just gone.

My aunt figures it’s the same thing from before, they’re just scared of an outsider. But now she’s more determined than ever because this kid clearly needs some resources. That week it snows, so when the weekend comes, a bunch of the little jackals that live across the street are out there stockpiling snowballs to throw at each other and writing their name in the fresh snow with pee and other gross crap. But my aunt has learned from the last time, so this time she doesn’t take my uncle, but she does take candy. And a bunch of silver dollars.

The older kids avoid her like the plague, but a couple of the little ones come over. So my aunt starts asking about the little girl. The kids are way more interested in the candy and silver dollars than the questions. Most of them won’t say anything. But finally one of them says “Venka”. My aunt thinks maybe it’s the kid’s name. She’s never heard of a name like that, but maybe it’s a nickname or something. So she gives the little kids some candy and money. And when the older kids see what the little ones have, they finally come over. And now my aunt is a little wary because, yeah, they’re just kids. But they’re like fifteen and sixteen year old kids. But they take some candy and a couple silver dollars and they talk to her. Until she asks about “Venka”. Then the older kids completely clam up and they gather up all the little ones and in like thirty seconds, everyone is gone. And my aunt still has no idea who this kid is.

So now she’s given up completely on trying to get anything out of the neighbors directly. She starts asking around at work. But all of the other interns are in exactly the same situation as my aunt. They’re all really young and doing their damndest to keep their heads above water and help with this situation that so much bigger than them, and they barely have any resources to be able to do anything. None of the other interns have ever heard of this kid - my aunt was thinking maybe if she went somewhere on the weekends, then she’d maybe ended up on someone else’s roster or canvassing map or something. But no luck. No one has seen or heard of a kid by that description, and the name Venka doesn’t mean anything to anyone. My aunt even asks the social worker at the school and one of the cops who does outreach and none of them have heard anything either.

So it’s close to finals and my aunt is heading over to my uncle’s place to “study”. Ugh. Anyway, it’s not late, but it’s winter, so it’s hella dark, even at seven in the evening. But she sees the kid. And now it’s absolutely freezing out, and they had an ice storm just the night before and that kid is out there. So my aunt flips out and heads over there, fully intending to get the kid and call the cops, because this isn’t just neglect at this point, it’s abuse. But it’s crazy icy, so when she starts up the stairs to the second floor, she has to be really careful because everything is coated in like an inch of ice.

Anyway, she gets up there and the kid is gone again. And FINALLY my aunt gets freaked out. Because there is NO WAY a kid could have moved that fast on icy concrete. And she knows that none of the doors to any of the apartments were opened. There’s no snow, so it’s not like the kid could have bailed off the balcony and into a snow drift. But my aunt pulls it together and decides to walk the length of the balcony just to make sure the kid isn’t there - even though she can see all of it.

So she gets to the midway point on the balcony, where this kid is always sitting and in the ice there are these - she didn’t know what to call them. They’re not footprints, because they aren’t shaped like feet, not even like little feet. They’re mostly round, but like there’s a wedge out of the front of both of them. And they’re not just on top of the ice, they’re all the way through it, down to bare concrete. Like the kid had been standing there during the ice storm the previous night, and the ice had built up around her feet.

So my aunt freaks out and tears ass off the balcony and down the stairs - and manages to trip and take a spectacular chunk out of her shin, she still has the scar today. Anyway, she makes it across the street and is freaking the hell out. So my uncle and two of his roommates head over to check it out while my aunt stays back at their house, along with the roommates’ girlfriends who are busy patching up my aunt’s leg.

It’s like ten minutes before the guys come back and they say, yeah, they saw the footprints. And none of them can come up with any kind of explanation, but they’re trying to play it off. They work out all these different scenarios that seem plausible, like maybe there had been some empty cups or something sitting there and the kid kicked them off the ledge, and that made the weird footprints. They convinced her that if they went over and looked in the morning they’d probably find some cups on the ground. And then they said that maybe my aunt hadn’t seen the kid at all. At this point they’d ALL seen the kid at least once. She was always over there. But they pointed out that they all got so used to seeing her, that they probably just saw a shadow and took for granted that it was the kid. (Which didn’t make any sense if they really thought the kid had kicked over some cups, but whatever.)

Anyway, they all play it off. My uncle ends up driving my aunt in her car back to the dorm, and has one of his roommates pick him up later. And then finals and they’re all too busy to worry about the kid at all.

But then finals are over, so, of course, my uncle and his roommates throw a giant kegger before everyone heads home for Christmas. It’s the first time my aunt has been back to the house since all of the stuff on the balcony happened. But everything seems fine. It’s a weekend so some of the older kids from the apartment building across the street are loitering around, which means the little girl is nowhere to be seen, which, at this point, is just fine with my aunt

So the party is okay, a little mellower than usual maybe because a lot of people have already left for the holidays. So rather than the full on bacchanalia that usually happens, it’s like twenty people hanging out, drinking. All of my uncle’s roommates are still there, and their girlfriends and a couple of other guys from the football team. And one of the non-roommate players has brought his older sister, who graduates several years earlier. Her name is Marisol and it turns out that she graduated with a degree in my aunt’s major. And it turned out that she had been in the pilot program the year they started the internship program with the school district.

So the night wears on and there’s been another ice storm and the lights flicker out, which apparently isn’t a big deal. I’m not sure if it was the 1970s power grid that was the issue, or just the piece of crap house they were renting. Either way, the power goes out and so these idiots start a fire in the fireplace, which I don’t think they’d ever lit before. I’m not even clear on it being a completely functional fireplace. I’m still surprised no one died from carbon monoxide poisoning.

But yeah, so they’re all fairly trashed at this point, sitting around a roaring fire. And one of the roommates brings up the weird footprints - which no one has talked about in the last week, at least not in front of my aunt. And my uncle swears by it that they didn’t discuss it. But it’s been a week and the guys who went over and looked - my uncle and two of his roommates - finally admit that it was creepy as fuck.

And one of the guys says something like “I know it’s not possible, but it looked like - “ and he just stops.

And the other roommate says, “Yeah, like a ... goat hoof, or a pig hoof.”

And then my uncle finally says, “Yeah, like something was standing there with cloven feet.”

And then I guess one of the logs in the fire popped and everyone jumped and there were a few screams and then they all laughed it off and poured another round. But according to my aunt, the entire energy in the room was still uneasy.

And then the roommate who said it looked like a goat hoof turned to my aunt and said, “What did you say her name was? Velma?”

And my aunt says, “Venka.”

My aunt says you could have heard a pin drop at this point. But again, there’s some nervous laughter, and this time someone finally changes the subject for good. And my aunt decides to get good and drunk. And for another hour or so, there’s nothing more about the weird kid across the street.

At some point, my aunt gets up and goes into the kitchen and she says that Marisol, the teammate’s sister follows her. They’re alone in the kitchen and my aunt’s only just met Marisol, but she says the look on her face is really weird.

So Marisol says, “Did you say her name was Venka?”

And my aunt nods and says, “Something like that. The kids - the regular kids - across the street told me.”

Marisol nods and doesn’t say anything. So my aunt does the dishes or gets out a Jell-o mold or whatever the hell she was doing in the kitchen. But when she turns to leave, Marisol puts a hand on her arm and says, “It wasn’t Venka. It was ‘venga’. It’s slang. It means ‘come here’ in Spanish.”

And that’s when Marisol tells my aunt the story. It was the first year the district and the college tried this internship program and Marisol is stuck literally going door to door, trying to find these families with kids that need to be enrolled. Marisol gets a hell of a lot farther than my aunt ever got because she spoke fluent Spanish. The families still didn’t like her nosing around, but they would at least speak to her.

Marisol says she went to this crappy apartment building, it wasn’t the one across the street from my uncle’s rental, but it wasn’t far. And she sees all of these kids, including this little girl dressed in dark clothes, who appears to be by herself.

So Marisol talked to the more friendly kids and their families and she convinced them that they can qualify for services and going to school is really a good thing to be doing. And as she got up to go, she asked about the little girl she saw outside. And she said there was this old woman, probably a grandmother or great grandmother As soon as Marisol mentioned the girl, the woman crossed herself and shook her head. She tells Marisol in spanish that it isn’t a little girl. It’s a bad spirit and Marisol should forget she ever saw her.

Marisol isn’t easy to spook, and at this point, she’s heard unbelievable amounts of bullshit from families who are trying to stay off the radar with the schools and the cops. She figures maybe the kid is illegal, or maybe she was stolen and sold or given to another family - sadly, it happens. There was nothing particularly strange looking about the girl.

But Marisol said that when she tried to really think back to the girl’s features, nothing came to mind. It was sort of blank. Just a general impression of a girl in dark clothes. Anyway, Marisol wants to help, but she’s not about to set off some feisty grandmother armed with a rosary so she nods and leaves.

But she says starts to listen over the weeks and months. And she hears more and more about this venga girl. Apparently she’s called that because she whispers ‘venga’ and tries to lead people off into the woods. Marisol wasn’t clear on what supposedly happened to anyone who dared to follow her. According to the conversations she overheard, all of the kids knew better than to follow the girl or else they’d be beaten within an inch of their lives by a granny armed with a wooden spoon.

But Marisol said it was weird. And she swore she would catch glimpses of this kid in different places around town. And apparently there was a disturbing amount of animal mutilations, which always seemed weird to me. Given the amount of packing plants around, surely if that was your thing, you could find someone to pay you a reasonable salary to do it. But what do I know?

Anyway, by this time my aunt is super dunk and totally freaked out. So she gets away from Marisol as quickly as she can and informs my uncle that he’s taking her back to the dorm. So they head out to my aunt’s car. And okay, so supposedly there had been another ice storm, but I’m not sure I believe that. I think my uncle may have just been tanked. But a couple of blocks from the apartment, by this wooded area, he manages to slam the wheel into the curb hard enough that it blows out the tire. So it’s the middle of the night and it’s freezing and my uncle is out there with a flare, because apparently he doesn’t have a flashlight, changing a tire.

My aunt is in the car and is totally freaked out. And the flare is red, of course, and there’s all this ice, so there is red light flashing everywhere. But she say she looks over into the woods and that girl is there, like twenty feet from the car. And the flare is bright enough that my aunt can get a really good look at her face, except ... there isn’t one. She said her face was perfectly pale and featureless. My aunt swears it was face shaped, but there were no eyes, no nose, no mouth. Not like a skull. It was just completely smooth.

My aunt is in the car with the heater on and the radio going and she says she can hear this girl whispering ‘venga’ to her. How do you whisper without a mouth? I don’t fucking know and I don’t fucking want to know. The girl is crooking a finger at my aunt. This is the first time my aunt has ever seen the girl’s hands and she say she has these really long fingernails, but they’re cracked and some of them are bleeding, like she’s been trying to claw her way out of something. And her feet aren’t feet, they’re like hooves.

At at this point, my uncle climbs back into the car and my aunt turns to look at him. When she turns back to point out the girl, she’s gone.

They finally get back to the dorm and my aunt sleeps on the couch in the lobby next to my uncle. As soon as the sun is up, they pack up and drive all the way home for the holidays. And when they come back up in the middle of January for their last semester, my aunt categorically refuses to go back over to my uncle’s apartment. She finished her internship and she switched over to student teaching, so no more having to do community outreach. She got to be a teacher’s aid in the local high school.

My uncle swears he never saw the girl again after that. And then when they finished school in May, they moved back to our hometown. To this day, my aunt hates ice storms and she always makes sure the car is packed with flashlights.

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