#would really bring down a lot of the barriers that are short circuiting things up in my brain

[monster-noises]

I have spoken before on my trouble trying to do the thing where i Show Up to things and... Actually successfully follow through on the next step of Making Connections and a big biiig part of that that i'm going to vomit onto my blog about today is that I just

Mmmm

I simply have No Thoughts and that makes having conversations very! Very hard!

Now this isn't a~silly quirky~ like "No Thoughts Head Empty uwu" thing

What I'm struggling with when i'm trying to talk to people, usually strangers or people I've just met but this can and does stretch to people i've known for y e a r s too,

is that they will say something; express an opinion, tell me about something, give story about their life, you know, the things you have conversations about and in response my brain just Goes Silent.

and it's not that I'm not listening, I'm actually really good at the Listening part of having a conversation, but if the person I'm trying to talk to does not go off on some long diatribe or ask me a very specific question to formulate a response around...

it's radio static! it's a soft and thoughtless buzz maybe sometimes permeated by a vague feeling associated with what they were saying that, really, forms no basis for a response beyond basic platitudes.

I'd Love to say that like "Well actually I Do have thoughts but I'm so anxious about embarrassing myself I just can't voice them" but I dunno! because if it's that I probably wouldn't be writing this post because That's something I can Work On. I know what to do with something like That. This isn't!!!! That Though!! Experiencing this in real time in a conversation doesn't Feel like my other experiences with anxiety and nervousness, where I feel like physically held back or barricade from participating in the way I Want to. The thoughts would be there I just wouldn't be able to Voice them.

But there Are No Thoughts. It's a cold and silent wind blowing over a dark and dusty barren field, it's white noise static on a screen occasionally permeated with enough of an emotional reaction and recognition that I have to do Something to generate.. generic platitudes that don't really go anywhere.. (Though sometimes, Sometimes, like 10-20 minutes later, when I'm on my own again and Ruminating on fumbling Yet Another attempt to Participate and reach out, I'll be able to think of good engaging and charismatic responses I Could have used. Perhaps suggesting this Is a very extreme form of this anxiety where the nerves are screaming So loud it drowns out all else, which would explain why I can kinda get over this when having text conversations it just takes me about Ten Million Years to formulate a response.) And that's like... what the hell do I Do... about that. ? All the solutions I can come up with involve... having had thoughts. Which doesn't really help because again, it's not having thoughts but struggling to translate or release them, there is nothing there to release. Just silence, just static, vacant gaping hole where my brain should be.

I had a good chance to maybe form some connections with local comics artists via a zine fest today at the library but I was in and out in like ten minutes maybe less because I 1) only had like 20 bucks and that wasn't enough and I have Other Issues dealing with standing at someones table and then not buying anything, it makes me Feel Bad. and 2) Just could not hold a conversation to save my life! There were at least a few people there that I did stop buy a little bit I would have loved to have longer talks with and we'd probably hit it off but my brain blanked out and I nodded politely as they told me what was on there table, sweated a little bit in silence, bought something quickly and then ran away!! like!

Fuck man! I know I'm more of a person than that inside! but it sometimes it really doesn't feel like it! sometimes it really feels like I'm an animated husk with ideas above his station just kinda wandering around and sometimes stumbling into things sideways enough people think I'm a complete person! With this zine fest at least I know it's a local thing so I can try a different strategy of just Being There Physically often enough that people start to recognize me even if I don't say much which will ease the tension I guess?? Still strangers but not Complete strangers you know? For anything else though Idk what I'm going to do...

[syubub]

BTS S/O WEARING THEIR CLOTHES

This is a cute as fuck idea!!

*Disclaimer: this is not to be taken as fact and is only my interpretation of the cards. Entertainment only people*

💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜

Seokjin

Death and 2 of swords rev.

The first thing I thought of was Jinnie closing his eyes and walking away

He'd be shy af and he'd have a hard time keeping his blush down

This man would literally die a little inside

His brain would legit short circuit and he'd probably be a stuttering mess tbh

Its not that he doesn't like his s.o wearing his clothes, its that he likes it... a lot...

I do also see the act of sharing clothes to be a kinda step forward in the relationship though?

Like, this is a moment of change within a relationship for him where he's like, "I'd share everything with this person" and thats a big sign of commitment

He might have a little identity crisis but its all good though

It would be a slow progression too. I pulled chariot rev.

I feel like he also could be the, "I don't control the weather" type when it comes to sharing coats but he is a gentleman so he'd probably give his s.o his jacket if it was actually necessary

He would definitely tease them the whole time though

"I gave you my jacket that one time" "dude, that was over 6 months ago"

Overall, as things are with Jin, it holds more meaning to him than it seems and he'd play shit off with humor

Yoongi

3 of wands, judgment and high priestess

First off, domestic af

It almost seems like seeing his s.o in his clothes makes them seem more tangible and real?

This boy has a whole new wave of love and affection for his s.o when they wear his clothes

He's reminded of how greatful he is to have someone beside him

He'd also lowkey dip off to write some bomb ass lyrics because his s.o in HIS clothes? Damn. That's some muse shit.

He'd also probably start buying clothes with his s.o in mind like, "okay, I know they're gonna steal them anyway so I should probably make sure that the quality is nice"

Idk why but this is a whole ass spiritual experience for him

It's also give and take? So I pulled the lovers as a clarity card and idk but it gives me the vibe that him and his s.o share clothes equally? Things like house clothes and comfort clothes? Like if he's in a shitty mood then he finds his s.o's hoodie to wear?

Its just another level of intimacy to him that he finds comfort in

He just loves his s.o and doing mundane stupid shit like sharing Walmart sweatpants is something that he holds in high regard?

This is so soft?

(Also this was important but I bet he's a fan of matching house slippers? ((Probably matching underwear too?? I was told to make a note of it. TMI)))

Hoseok

I got the emperor, 7 of wands and 6 of pentacles

Daddy

What? Sorry.

Hobi legit feels powerful af seeing his s.o in his clothes

Definitely sneaks some little looks

Idk why but hobi definitely has that sexual tension energy here?

All I'm gonna say is that he probably has some dirty thoughts

He also loves it

The emperor card is intresting too because it makes him feel strong and nice and needed

Bold as fuck tbh

HOBI KEEP IT PG 13 PLS

Theres really not much more to say other that hobi is one thirsty motherfucker

He specifically has a thing for his s.o wearing his shirts

Namjoon

7 of pentacles rev, 3 of wands rev, 6 of cups rev.

Joonie...

Nothing sexual at all firstly

Second, he's ready to throw everything away and just spend the whole day cuddling his s.o

It almost makes him kinda sad? Not in a bad way but I think it sends him into a think spiral

It also seems like he sees it as such a comfy thing and its times like this that he sees his s.o a little clearer?

He thinks about how he and his s.o fit together and whether or not he's done enough to deserve his s.o

Besides the spiral, he likes it a lot.

Its something cozy and lovely and wouldn't mind (so long as it doesn't happen all of the time)

Probably makes him want to cuddle his s.o even more than usual

Jimin

The sun, two of cups, the chariot

CUTE

Chim would definitely LOVE IT

It's bonding, it's cute, its love

Jimin loves to give gifts and is the MOST selfless person on the fucking planet and would definitely give the shirt off his back for his s.o

He might even push for it too?

Never in a way to make his s.o uncomfy but kinda like, "why don't you wear my hoodie?"

Definitely a boost in his confidence towards the relationship.

He definitely thinks that his s.o is extra stunning in his clothes for sure

Also would kinda wanna show it off that his s.o was wearing his clothes

I think in aweird way to him its a way of "claiming" his s.o

Again, not in a gross, overly possessive way but in a, "I have the best person in the universe wearing MY clothes because they love me" kinda way

Its that constant reaffirming action that he loves

Cute

Taehyung

Death rev, hanged man, 10 of pentacles and 8 of cups

Not the most fond tbh

He'll let it slide sometimes but it just seems like he isn't much into it?

For some reason it might just bring up not welcomed feelings

I'm really not sure

It could be an issue with boundaries perhaps or something of the sort but hes not really intrested.

He might give his s.o an old pair of sweatpants or a well loved hoodie or stuff like that but not really active sharing if that makes sense

It might also be that he buys so many things for his s.o and to have his s.o "steal" his stuff kinda feels like a slap in the face?

Might make him feel like his s.o thinks he isn't doing enough

This could all be potentially cleared up with thorough communication though so if they can get through that barrier then I think he'd be a little more open to it

(His s.o wearing his clothes after doing....the dirty deed.... is 100% okay though ((stop making me make this dirty)))

Jungkook

Queen of cups, the moon, 10 of swords

Lol the first thing that came to me was that he washes his clothes everything his s.o wears them

He definitely has a thing about it

Its not bad though but its something he really has to get used to?

Bby is sensitive and if his s.o wears any kind of smells he's extra picky

Its intresting bc I think inviting an s.o into his life means that he has to change a lot of things in his life to accommodate and he's... working on it.

Also he might faint if he sees his s.o in one of his t-shirts.

Thats a bit dramatic don't you think?

At first with the 10 of swords I was like, "wow he must be really put out by this" and then my guide showed me something like this

So it was a very dramatic koo not a sad koo.

He'd also feel more protective over his s.o and just really in his feels?

It never gets old for him to see his s.o in his clothes

(Theres also part of me that thinks that he would be 100% down to swap styles/wardrobes for a day)

[mrsdr-ethan-ramsey]

Glasses (Ethan Ramsey x f!MC)

I didn’t know what to call this, so what the hell here’s some fluffy smut named after Ethan Ramsey’s glasses 😂What was supposed to be angst or fluff has turned into SUPER fluffy sex. I hope y’all enjoy! This is for the anons who really wanted some more smut! This is only my second try at smut, so I hope it’s alright.

Tag list (If I forgot someone or you want to be added/removed just message me!): @the-soot-sprite @ethandaddyramsey @silverlitskies @trappedinfandoms @samihatuli @sherlockedmcu @marywitchjane @awalker965 @openheart12 @flyawayboo @hatescapsicum @edith-eggs1 @princess-geek @akacalliope @my-heart-beats-for-ya @hipstercoffeeshop @miyakokurono @riverrune @chasingrobbie @sekizincimektup @canthandlechoices @thatysn @virtualrain202 @myusualnerdyself @verachoices @lilyvalentine @infinitiestones​ @junehiratas​ @desmaranji @noboundariesplease​

Pairing: Ethan Ramsey x (f!MC)

Summary: Ethan leaves his glasses at the hospital, so Parker volunteers to bring them to him, and well one thing leads to another...

Warnings: Swear words, super fluffy sex 18+ please folks

Word Count: ~3200 (I think this is my longest fic??)

Parker let out a deep sigh as she looked at the clock. Finally. Her shift was over and she was ready to get out of the hospital. She checked that everything was in order before she went to change out of her scrubs. She slid on her jeans and plain grey shirt before she emerged from the room only to run into Danny trying to enter it.

“Oh, Parker! Perfect. Have you seen Dr. Ramsey?” he asked.

“Last I saw him he was in his office.”

Danny held up his right hand, a pair of glasses clasped in it. “He left these at the nurses’ station. We were swamped, still are, but I figured we should try to get these to him before he leaves.”

“I can do it,” she offered. “We’re working on a big case so I’m sure he’ll need them.”

“You’re a lifesaver!” Danny cheered before handing her the glasses and rushing back to the desk. 

Parker eyed the glasses as she made her way to the elevators. While Ethan didn’t need the glasses to walk around or drive, they were necessary for doing any research. When you spend as much time as he does looking at small texts, reading glasses must be a necessity, Parker thought on the ride up. When she reached his floor, Parker started towards the office but her heart fell as she saw his empty desk through the glass. It was only 7, so it was a hit or miss if he’d be around. 

Parker looked down at the frames in her hand, chewing on her lip. She could either just set them on his desk and let him tear apart his apartment looking for them, or she could deliver them to his house. Well...she already knew where he lived and he would probably appreciate them, she thought to herself. She didn’t need much more convincing before she was back on the elevator and walking to the subway station. Instead of hopping on her normal train to take her inland towards her apartment building, Parker got on the train toward the bay. It wasn’t a long ride from Edenbrook to the stop she needed and then only a 10 minute walk to Ethan’s apartment. When she reached his building, she found his apartment number and buzzed it.

“Yes?” Ethan’s voice crackled through the box, sounding a bit confused.

“Ethan, it’s Parker. You left your glasses at the hospital...and well, I um, I brought them for you?” Oh boy. It sounded stupid coming out of her mouth now. She thought she’d be a hero to him. That he be frazzled looking for them. Her stomach knotted as she doubted her choice to come here. 

When the door buzzed open, the knot in her stomach only tightened. Not because she was worried about her decision to come here, but because the last time she had been at Ethan’s apartment he had been hungover in bed and she had willingly climbed on top of him. Her face flushed as she rode the elevator to his floor, remembering the night before that. The way his fingers teased her pussy as they looked out the window...the delicious scratch of his scruff on her thighs as his tongue worshiped her. Fuck. 

She jumped at the ding of the elevator reaching its destination, the doors sliding open. On shaky legs, Parker went up to the familiar door and knocked. Breathe Parker, you cannot look like just imagined him between your legs again, she scolded in her head. Through the door, she could hear Jenner barking wildly. A muffled voice called for Jenner to come before Parker heard the sound of a door closing. When the front door swung open, Ethan’s commanding figure was standing in the frame...a pair of glasses on his face.

“But...what?” Parker stammered, as she held the frames in her hand up.

His lips pulled into a smirk. Those same lips kissed you until your head spinned, Parker thought to herself. It felt like her brain was short circuiting. Maybe it was because it had been months since she had been with him and touching herself just didn’t feel the same as being with Ethan. Masturbating suddenly wasn’t as satisfying as it once had been. She had a taste of Ethan and now she craved him; always.

“I have two, just in case I leave one here or the hospital,” Ethan explained.

“I guess...I’ll just head out then?” Parker offered him the second pair of glasses, feeling a little stupid for going there for nothing.

Ethan reached for the glasses, their fingers brushing as he took them. He swallowed, his Adam's apple bobbing. At the simple feeling of her skin against his, tingles came over him. Maybe it was the couple of drinks he had had, but he knew better. That’s why before he could think over the implication, he said, “Would you like a drink?”

Parker looked up at him wide eyed. She was shocked for a second, before she nodded her head. Ethan moved out of the way, letting the young woman back into his personal space. As he shut the door and locked it out of habit he knew this night wasn’t going to end well for him. Just seeing her back in his apartment did things to him. 

Ethan cleared his throat, moving towards the kitchen. “Scotch fine?” 

“Yes.”

Ethan got to work pouring a couple fingers for each of them, setting the glasses on the kitchen counter. Out of the corner of his eye he watched Parker move toward the windows. She had been fascinated by his view of the bay since the first time she had been visited. Ethan came up behind her, handing her a glass filled with amber liquid. As Parker took it with a small ‘thanks’, the two next to each other and watched the light slowly start to fade outside.

“Absolutely gorgeous…” Parker whispered against her glass, taking in the view once again.

Ethan looked down at her. “Yes...gorgeous.”

This made Parker look up at him with a smile, “Have I mentioned you’ve got the best view?”

“Only several times,” Ethan chuckled.

“When you grow up landlocked, something about the ocean is...enchanting. It’s big, untamed...nothing like the lakes I would go to.” She paused, eyes focused on the water. “I want a view like this someday. A house with a view of the ocean.”

His eyes couldn’t leave her, taking in every inch of her face. Her blonde hair was tangled from work, her brownish green eyes were glowing though. Her cheeks were tinged pink, from what he didn’t know. She looked at the view with more passion than he ever had. A part of him wished she would look at him with such unbridled passion. She had at one point, until he pushed her away. It was his own fault. 

“You’ll get it someday.”

Parker turned to him. “You think?”

“I promise.”

Their eyes were locked on each other. There was a lot behind that last sentence. Was Ethan promising to get her a house on the ocean? Did that mean he wanted to be with her? Would they be together? Parker’s mind was running wild, going crazy as suddenly all the futures she had imagined with him moved a little bit closer to her. Not a lot, but it was closer to being in her grasp. 

“Ethan…I-”

“I know.” 

The energy between them crackled as they fought to keep their distance. Both of them wanted to throw their glasses to the floor and let the shards surround them like a barrier against the outside world. They would finally touch each other how they have wanted to. Lips against each other in a frenzy. Hips moving to find some sort of friction. Hands reaching to touch every inch of each other. The desire Parker felt in these images was easily portrayed across her face.

“Fuck it,” Ethan growled, unable to resist the need glowling behind Parker’s eyes. 

She gasped as Ethan slammed his glass onto a side table. He closed the space between them, easily lifting her body up. She instinctively wrapped her legs around him, their lower halves pressed against each other. Parker whimpered at the sensation of his hardening cock pressed against her soft sex. Her arms wrapped around Ethan’s neck, trying to keep the tumbler in her hand from falling as Ethan backed her up against the window. 

His lips hovered over hers, brushing lightly as he spoke lowly, “Say you want this. That you’re craving me as much as I am you.”

Parker nodded desperately, trying to string a sentence together in her head.

“Say it Parker.”

“I want you Ethan, so fucking bad,” she cried out, aching for him to move against her, kiss her, touch her, anything to ebb the burning desire she felt pounding in her heart and between her legs.

At this, Ethan finally pressed their lips together with a groan. Sparks, fireworks, butterflies...you name it Parker felt it. It was like a wave crashing over her, knocking the breath out of her body as she moved her lips against his. It was clumsy at first, both of them desperate to feel as much as they could in case the other person were to pull away and try to stop what was about to happen. When neither of them did, they fell back into the practiced movement of their lips against each other. 

Parker broke first, her breath coming out in short pants as she whimpered, “Ethan, please.” 

“Tell me what you want Parker,” Ethan whispered against her lips before they strayed to place kisses across her jaw.

She wasn’t sure what she was begging for. His lips to fall back on hers? To press his hips closer to hers? To take her like he had done before? To tell her he wanted more than sex with her? All of them at once? 

“You, I want you.” 

Ethan’s lips trailed to her ear, nipping at the lobe before they trailed behind it. Sucking lightly, Parker gasped loudly. Forgetting about the glass in her hand, she dropped it with a sharp cry of “Shit!” as her fingers tangled in his hair. The glass landed, shattering behind them and scattering across the hardwood floor.

“Oh God, Ethan I’m so sorry,” Parker gushed, but he never stopped his assault against her neck. His lips kept pace, kissing the soft skin.

Ethan’s deep voice vibrated against her throat, “Forget the glass Parker. Jenner’s in the other bedroom.”

“O-Okay,” she whispered shakily.

He pulled away, his dark eyes filled with lust locked on her before he eyed the mess around them. “I’ll clean it up later. I need you now.”

Parker nodded eagerly, pushing her carelessness to the back of her mind. Carefully avoiding the glass on the ground, Ethan moved their bodies away from the window and towards his bedroom. All the while Parker covered Ethan’s face in kisses, her lips being deliciously scratched by his new, longer beard. With his hands securely on Parker’s ass, Ethan used his foot to push open the slightly closed door to the room. He groaned softly at the affection Parker was showering over his face. He loved how soft she was with him...the way her kisses felt like a whisper against his skin, her nails dragging over his scalp. He thought when they finally caved into their feelings it would be rough and wild, but this was something more. 

“Parker…” Ethan’s voice was soft in the dark, as if he needed to make sure she was still the person he was holding.

“I’m here…I see you Ethan.”

Parker pulled back to look in his eyes as her hands moved to frame his gorgeous face. The only light came from the street as Ethan stood tall over his bed, the woman he undeniably cared deeply for in his arms. He was delirious with happiness at this moment.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” He asked before he crossed the line.

“With you? Always.”

Once the words left her lips, Ethan pressed a hard kiss against her. It took everything in him to pull away from those soft lips covered in watermelon chapstick. Even when he pulled away he could taste it on his own lips. Without warning, he gently tossed the young woman on his bed, standing above her.

Parker giggled as she bounced on the bed, her hair falling haphazardly around her. Ethan looked down at her with such adoration, it took everything in her not to shout the three words that have been bouncing around her head. Slowly, we need to take this slowly, she told herself. 

“Perfection,” Ethan mumbled to himself as he pulled his shirt over his head and tossed it onto the floor. 

Parker couldn't stop the flush on her cheeks from his words and watching the strip show going on before her. Her eyes hungrily followed his fingers as they popped the button on his jeans before dragging them down his long legs. All that was left now were his boxer-briefs that clung to the now prominent bulge.

“I think you’re a little overdressed,” Ethan said as he crawled on top of her. Speechless, Parker just nodded in agreement. 

Ethan’s larger hands went to her waist, gently lifting the thin grey material higher up. Parker lifted her arms over her head, allowing Ethan to rid her of the shirt. He tossed it onto the floor next to his own as he kept his eyes on her breasts as they rose and fell gently with each breath. Without a single word, Ethan kissed each swell before trailing his hands around to the clasp in the back. With a single movement, the fabric went limp over her chest and he rid her of it. Ethan’s lips found her right nipple, his tongue expertly teased the stiffening bud in his mouth before he went to the left. Parker arched against him in pleasure, her jean clad groin grinding against him as if she was begging him to rid her of the barrier. Finally, his lips kissed down her body until they met the band of her jeans.

“Ohhh, Ethan,” Parker moaned quietly as he deftly undid the button on her jeans, slowly dragging them down her legs. His lips kissed along her left leg, creating a fog in her brain. Once Ethan had rid Parker of her jeans, he kissed his way back up her right leg.

A gasp escaped between Parker’s lips as Ethan placed a firm kiss between her legs over her panties. The beard that was once scratching her face as she kissed him now brushed the inside of her thighs. The feeling drove her absolutely wild that she barely registered his finger running up her soft thigh before finding the top of her underwear and pulling them off her. Parker’s hands found his hair as she pulled him up to her face, wanting nothing more than to kiss him into oblivion. 

“Parker--” 

She captured his lips in a kiss, putting all of her feelings into it. All of her passion, all of her happiness, all of her. Parker’s hands exploring the body that she had been craving since the last time she touched it. Her small hands dragged over his chest, skimmed over his back, before they found his underwear and dragged them down. 

Both finally completely naked, Parker practically glowed beneath him. Any words that Ethan could think to say were caught in his throat. Instead, Ethan planted his right hand and forearm firmly near Parker’s head as his left hand dragged down her body until he finally reached the spot where she needed him the most.

“Oh God, Ethan,” Parker cried out as one of Ethan’s strong fingers slid between her soaked core. 

“So wet for me,” Ethan hummed as he teased her entrance with his middle finger, before he sunk one finger, then two into her. His fingers pumped slowly a few times before he pulled out and dragged them up to her clit, spreading her moisture. 

As he brushed it, Parker let out a small whine. Ethan’s eyes couldn’t stray from her face as her eyes closed in pleasure with every movement of his hand between her legs. Feeling her legs spasm around him, Ethan picked up the pace of his fingers on the sensitive bud, trying to bring her as near to the edge as he could. 

“E-Ethan, I’m so close,” Parker cried, her hands clinging to the back of Ethan’s neck. He gave a final rub before his hand pulled away, causing a noise of pleasure and pain to leave Parker’s lips. 

As she peaked her eyes open, Parker was going to ask him why he stopped before she watched in awe as he lifted his fingers to his mouth. He wrapped his mouth around his digits, humming at the taste of her on his tongue.

“I need you now Ethan.”

“Are you still on your birth control?” Ethan asked before he did anything else.

“Yes.”

Placing a gentle kiss against her lips, Ethan positioned himself over her and finally filled her. Parker gasped, finally feeling filled after months of nothing. Their pace started slow, as they reveled in the feeling of being this close again. 

“Ethan--fuck, I need more,” Parker panted below him, her face flushed a shade of red.

At her frantic words, Ethan’s hips moved faster. His thrusts going impossibly deeper, eliciting a whine from the woman underneath him. He loved the sounds she made for him, the tiny gasps and expletives leaving her lush lips. Her sweet pussy clenched around his cock, making Ethan move faster chasing the high he needed to achieve that he could only reach with her. He needed Parker. 

“So tight for me sweetheart. You feel absolutely amazing,” he whispered against her cheek, his lips ghosting across her skin.

“Yes, yes, oh God,” Parker cried with each drive of Ethan’s cock into her.

Needing to tip herself over the edge, Parker’s left hand left Ethan’s back and moved where they were connected. Her fingers quickly found her clint and rubbed herself with Ethan’s motions. 

“S-So close,” Parker whimpered as she felt the familiar tightness build up, right on the verge of finally finding release.

Ethan’s lips moved to her ear, breathing gruffly against it, “I’ve got you Parker. Come for me.”

The combination of Ethan’s cock, her frenzied movements against her clit, and his words finally caused Parker to reach euphoria. She came with a loud cry, her pussy clenching around Ethan as he quickly followed behind her. Swear words tumbled from his mouth as he rode out their highs. Completely spent, Ethan collapsed beside her; their sweaty bodies lying next to each other as they stared up at the ceiling.

“That was…” Parker breathed out.

“Yeah.”

Parker paused, afraid to ask her next question. “Do I have to leave?”

Ethan finally looked over at her. She looked afraid of the answer, but she had to know. Instead of answering her, he pulled her body on top of his. His strong arms wrapped around her as he held her close. Instinctively, Parker pressed her face into his chest breathing in the smell of soap and sweat. 

Placing a gentle kiss against her forehead, Ethan whispered against her hairline, “No, you don’t have to leave.”

[not-from-the-absence-of-violence]

And tell me if somehow some of it remained.

Thank you so much to @drowninginstarlights for editing!! <3 and to spoilers for ep 91 of skyjacks!

When you drop a stone into water the water ripples out from it, and the ripples are new and different and yet in so many ways the same.

or small moments where deep down Margaret and Travis knew they had found eachother again.

Travis knew it from the moment he’d seen her. There was no mistaking his Margaret. She seemed almost untouched by time, the same hazel brown eyes, the same curly brown hair, his Margaret dressed in white and green and gray.

For a moment, he called to her as if no time had passed. She looked at him with the same curious glance he had known so well. He felt a pang in his chest as she asked him who he was, and he shook the past off. It’s just fate playing cruel tricks on him.

Besides. It’d been almost two centuries, it’s possible his brain was simply projecting what he remembered of her onto the first person he saw that vaguely reminded him of her. That hurt, of course. He remembered a time when he believed that he could’ve recognized his wife blind or bound, by her smile or her voice.

But it certainly wasn’t a coincidence. He wasn't sure what luminary was behind this new twist, but at least it’s original. It doesn’t matter she has the same mole on her cheek, the same spring in her step, the same laugh.

Travis has become really good at not seeing what’s right in front of him.

-

Margaret doesn’t register that something is different for a while. Travis is an intriguing man, certainly brought to her for a reason. He’s special and broken and she’ss curious and a black lily.

It’s not, in fact, until they are sitting together, weaving a spell, and she asks for his name. There are plenty of people in the world who do not go by their names, and certainly it isn't odd for a man like Travis Matagot to have a pseudonym. She knows he’s lying before the fragile spell breaks, but doesn’t strike her too badly, she’s good at her job.

There’s a moment then she thinks: William. Right before he says it out loud.

The spell strengthens and she feels odd in her chest. Like a tight, old knot that she hadn't been paying attention to suddenly unravels.

Magic is weird sometimes, she thinks, dismissing it. In a way, she’s right.

-

Margaret’s childhood has always been spotty. As long as she can remember, it’d felt like hazy static. There are flashes of something, a river bank, a forest, the familiar laugh of Rusalka. There’s no pain tied to it, though, and she’d learnt to accept that sometimes things surrounding luminaries were incomprehensible.

Of course, even if she wasn’t sure exactly what role Rusalka or the River played in her life, but it remained one of the few things she was sure of, and so she would be known in the town she found herself to be a young woman

“Ah, the river's daughter,” they’d tell her, with a slight wary apprehension.

“My name is Margaret,” she would say pleasantly, never knowing who gave her that name but knowing with bone deep certainty it was hers. She always managed to endear herself to most people she met.

She traveled quickly to Aurum, looking for work and purpose. She was, even then, already quite adept with magic and charm, aside from being deeply attuned to other people's emotions. When she learned of the teachings of black lilies, not only a job, but a belief and a way of life, she was immediately sold. It quickly became her life's work and passion. She believed that everyone deserved care, to heal. Her training went well, those years she spent more time becoming aware of her own emotions.

That’s when she realised the grief that she carried, like a gaping hole in her chest. It had always been there, but she was learning that everyone carried around pain that felt like an open wound. It was frustrating, this grief that felt more like longing, no reason for it, just… there. After so long, it had become almost comforting, like a gentle tether, even if she didn’t know to what.

She asked the luminaries for guidance one day, if they could clue her in on the reason for her longing. Three cards she pulled from the deck: The Changeling, The River, The Union.

It felt like an odd combination to understand her grief. The Union and The River could speak of a barrier to a connection of some kind? The Changeling perhaps signifying desire, an impulse?

She was not aware, then, how the cards mocked her in the simplicity of the answer. There was no way for young Margaret to see what was right before her.

So she learned to live with a cobbled together knot of feelings in her chest. She didn’t repress it, she accepted it as a fact of living. It was simply like a melody she had always known.

-

When they kiss again for the first time something in their souls sings, and Travis knows. The kiss is light, warm, it manages to be just on the good side of desperate. It should hurt, but instead it just feels like coming back to a warm home after spending a day in the bitter rain. It can never be quite what it was once, when they were young and believed they were unstoppable, but Travis still looks at her and for a second he manages to forget where they are, when they are.

The pieces don't quite fall together, not yet, but somewhere in the man that has become Travis Matagot, William sings as they are together once more.

-

Margaret has kissed many people before. She’s even kissed people she harboured a great deal of affection towards, and every kiss is different— they always are. There’s a familiarity in this kiss, it's easy, it's well worn. It’s new all over again in its own way. Travis is the kind of man to worm himself into your heart despite yourself and despite himself.

She doesn’t register the unraveling of thread in her chest, she exhales and it goes away and it's all just as natural as breathing.

-

The days in Nordia go by quickly, and with the looming threat of the Mariner and the swiftness with which the ritual needs to be performed there’s no time to examine their own feelings towards each other.

But there are glimpses. There are always glimpses.

There’s the moment when Travis says “Her name was Margaret.” She can’t quite get over the way he says her name.

There’s the moment when Travis hears her laugh and knows that it’s still the most beautiful sound he’s ever heard.

There’s a moment when they cross a river and Margaret who has never been afraid of water, never water but always, always drowning, feels a quiet and deep fear. There’s Travis' hand in hers and his determined promise: “I won’t let go of your hand.” She trusts him, wholly and completely. There’s a moment where he trusts her, which lets her cast her spell and protect them from the water. This time, this time they cross.

-

It’s on the Uhuru that the moments become more frequent. By then, Travis has become an expert at keeping the two Margarets separate from each other in his mind. One still hurts to think about and the other is right in front of him, he takes what he can get. When you drop a stone into water the water ripples out from it, and the ripples are new and different and yet in so many ways the same.

They sit on the floor together. It’s night and most people are asleep, but Travis’ sleeping schedule has never been what you’d call normal, and being human at night has shattered the last of the routine altogether. It’s a quiet night, Margaret stays up with him for no real reason. They’re both pleasantly tipsy.

He’s tired, in the nice, well worn way that follows a good day, and he’s smiling openly in a way that’s so rare for him. They’re talking about something that will be inconsequential in the morning, and what matters is that there is a strand of hair loose from Travis’ ponytail.

Almost absentmindedly, she reaches to tuck it behind his ear, and when he realises what she’s doing, he giggles. She almost can’t believe it, Travis Matagot giggling. She holds her hand to his cheek and presses a kiss right beneath his eye.

He smiles at her. “What was that for?”

She’s not sure herself, so she just sighs. “For being cute sometimes.”

His offended look doesn’t quite achieve what he’s hoping because of the creeping blush on his neck.

-

Sometimes there are parties on the Uhuru. They’re corsairs on their way to collect a lot of money, but it’s a long journey and they’ve got to do something. The crew get antsy otherwise. So parties it is.

This time Travis is moping on the side. Gable has given up on convincing him to join and has opted instead to spin around with Jonnit in their arms. Sometimes Travis just gets in the mood to be contrary and there is no fighting him on it.

Or well, that’s what everyone else thinks, but Margaret is stubborn and not above using unorthodox methods for Travis to have a good time.

“Come on, Travis,” she says taking his hand.

“I don’t want to,” he says, pouting.

She knows he’s lying, being frustrating on purpose. She fights the eyeroll and smirks instead. She brings his hand to her mouth and kisses his knuckles softly.

“I know you’re just being difficult,” she says softly, enjoying seeing his brain short circuiting for a moment. The way he looks at her, just a little wide eyed. She presses a kiss on his palm before gently tugging him. “Are you going to stop being such a killjoy, dear?”

Travis can only think how he was never able to say no to that look of hers. He stands up reluctantly and makes a big show of sighing and whining about it.

They fall into a dance that feels familiar, but they still have to learn the steps all over again. They twirl around, holding each other's hands, and tripping over each other's feet. He smiles despite himself.

“Wow,” Jonnit comments, as the party progresses, “You made Travis change his mind, Margaret, I don’t know if you’re aware how hard that is.”

She sees Travis turn bright red. He tries to pull her away, dance somewhere away from his friends, but she’s stronger than he is.

“Oh, I am aware,” she says.

“How did you do that?” says Gable, sounding genuinely impressed.

“Who’s to say?” Travis says, just a little too quickly.

-

After the fire, after Dref, they’re all sitting in Dref’s office together. It’s night and Jonnit is practically asleep in Gable’s lap, as they sit in quiet contemplation.

Travis is lounging on a chair, legs propped up on the armrest and he’s picking at the skin around his nails. Margaret is drumming her fingers on the desk, vaguely unnerved by Travis pulling at his skin so vigorously.

“Could you stop doing that, Travis?” she says, not unkindly.

“Hmm?” he says, not stopping.

“You could get a small infection, you know,” she tries.

He rolls his eyes. “You always say that to me, Margaret, and as always, it won't matter in a few hours.”

She knows her pet peeve is slightly illogical, and she knows how the argument will go, has always gone. He’ll be difficult, she won’t quite be able to explain why it bothers her.

“I haven’t ever heard her say that that to you,” Gable remarks distractedly.

She sighs. “I just don’t like to see you hurt yourself,” she says. It's a quiet confession, as she’s aware that he isn’t really hurting at all, it's just a silly little thing that makes her uneasy.

He stares at her for a little too long, and he doesn’t sigh or roll his eyes. And this time the outcome changes. This time, he grabs his deck of cards and starts shuffling them instead.

They don’t say anything, but they lock eyes, and there is a small moment of acknowledgement between them.

They’ve changed, mostly for the better.

-

He transforms with such ease these days, bearing the pain so much better than he used to.

He wouldn’t let anyone see him, before, and certainly not his Margaret. There’s nothing worse than the grief of standing helpless to prevent the pain of someone you love, and he wouldn’t let inflict that on her. She always convinced him to let her hold him afterwards, though, as he sat again in a body that didn’t quite feel his.

Now the night comes and it never even creeps into his mind to ask her to leave.

“Does it still hurt?” she asks.

He rolls his brand new shoulders, the bones cracking a little.

“Well it's not what I would call fun, but.” he says, then shrugs.

She lays a hand on his shoulder, a not quite sad smile on her face.

“Well, at least it’s better now.”

A lot is better now, he thinks.

-

“Stop moving so much,” Margaret says, with a smile in her voice.

Travis sighs. He enjoys the bright colour and tiny detailing she’s applying on his nails but he’s also allergic to sitting still.

“I always do it much faster,” he complains.

“Well, you do have to do it every day, I suppose.”

“That’s exactly why letting you draw black lilies in them was a mistake,” he says “They’ll be gone by the morning!”

She doesn’t look up from her precise handiwork. “Even if they aren’t permanent doesn’t mean they don’t have value now, love.”

That phrase sinks into Travis’ mind, as he stares at Margaret slightly bent over, tongue sticking out, agonizing over a black lily motif on his nails.

He’s fallen in love with her again. Somehow the thought doesn’t make him flinch.

-

There isn’t a single, thundering moment where Travis starts thinking of Margaret as a constant. It had been a creeping thing, so slow Travis hadn’t even realized.

The closest there had been was an unassuming conversation.

It’s a warm day and Margaret has long since given up reading the book in her hands. Travis is coiled around her neck in snake form, distracting her.

“Do we have any plans, after N’goni, I mean?” she says.

“Well it’s not my ship, now is it, Margaret,” Travis says.

“Well pardon me for imagining there might be places you still want to visit,” she says, grinning up at his face on her shoulder.

“I did promise Jonnit, I would go to Akaron with him. So we’ll go there, I suppose,” he says, eventually.

“Never heard of that one before.”

“It’s his hometown.”

“Aw, Matagot,” she says teasingly, “That is almost uncharacteristically sweet of you.”

Snakes can’t blush, but Travis coils around her tighter and hides his gaze in her hair. “I thought I was going to be mortal soon, okay?” he mumbles into her hair.

She runs her hands down the scales closer to her. “Well I am sure we will have a lovely time there,” she says, smiling. “I’m glad my work can be done everywhere.”

A comfortable silence washes over them, eventually Margaret goes back to reading, and Travis basks in her warmth and comfort.

If there have been another person in the room, they might have called the two of them out on the amount of times they’d used the word “we��. But it's just the two of them, not quite realising the thing they have been quietly rebuilding together. Not quite realising it finally feels like they can breathe again.

-

Margaret can’t quite remember it, but she knows, she knows on their wedding day they had made a promise.

Margaret hadn’t been aware she was dead, only aware she was still fighting a river, a different river and she was fighting it in soul if not in body. The current was unbelievably strong, but she wasn’t going to be pulled down and away by the Mariner, of all things. She’d fought with tooth and claw, holding onto her promise to William like a liveline, a tether. Anchoring her to her life and feeling. She wasn’t ready to go, and she was ready to move heavens or raise hell for it.

Sometimes if you fight long enough, strong enough, determined enough, even a puny little mortal caught between life and death on a technicality could catch the gaze of lumin’s eye.

“Do you wish to see him again, is that it? Trying to move us with a tale of spurned love?”

She’s not sure who’s asking.

She isn’t quite sure about anything anymore.

She is losing herself, but if she knows something it’s that she will get out and that she’s Margaret and she’s in love.

“You misunderstand,” she manages to choke out, “He’s the one keeping me here, helping me fight, he’s my rope upon which I will climb out of here.”

He never truly let go of her hand.

Something, someone, many things laugh.

Time has no meaning in the river, and yet it still manages to feel like an eternity before she pulls herself out of the river at the edge of a forest.

-

It's always in the quiet moments of solitary contemplation that you’re able to confront things.

Margaret stares out of the window in her room of the Goose. She doesn't break down crying, but she lets the cold shock wash over her like waves. Her William had been out there all this time, and all this time he hadn't let her go.

He didn’t have to hold on so tight anymore. She was here now, with the tight thread of a promise still between them. He would find her, when he was ready, when he could.

She was going to take some time off, to think. For years now, she’d been secure in her life, but this is different. New and old. Complicated and yet simple. It would certainly be a fun set of threads to unravel, if they were not her own.

She smiles down at the letter anyway. She trusts Travis, she trusts herself, and she knows that there’s no force on Speir that could come between them.

-

Travis finally lets himself know what’s been there in back of his mind for a long time. He’s been so very good at not looking at it.

Alone in his bunk, he raises his fingers to his mouth where she had kissed him, and with trembling fingers he brushes his lips. His long lost lover. He tugs lose the hair ribbon she’d given to him and stares at it.

A million emotions he's never had the words for flood him. He's relieved! He's happy she's out there, that she knows that he'll come look for her when he’s able to. He's afraid of losing her again, he's terrified he’s already lost her. There’s a century of grief he hasn't quite yet processed, he's worried about the fact that this might all be a trick, but also, he’s in love, ecstatic thundering love in his chest. It almost erases all other thoughts from his brain.

Tonight, they each look up at the same sky. There are so many worn promises strung between them and now, this brand new one joins their ranks, fragile and full of hope for the future.

He looks out onto the chaos of the starry night outside, tears full of so many things falling from his eyes. Finally, he exhales.

He isn't drowning anymore, and either is she.

[justjstuff]

safe from the rain

Answering a prompt for little_bean over on AO3

Summary: Just like that, she had crawled her way inside his hollowed heart and made a home for herself there.

Pairing: Hatake Kakashi/Haruno Sakura 

Rating: T

Warnings: N/A

Kakashi panted as he leaped from one tree branch to the next. 

The rain fell heavily around him, the thick foliage of the tree tops were barely of any help in protecting them from the storm. His ninken ran silently around him with Sakura to his left.

He motioned for his pack to stop. Because, really, Sakura had become part of his pack about a year ago when they started taking more and more missions with each other. He could pick up her scent from afar, even though a lot of it permeated everywhere he went. It was all over his apartment and he could swear he could smell her on himself most days.

His vision was impaired by the storm but the small whimpering form that rested between his chest and breastplate made him push through it all.

They had been assigned yet another assassination mission. ANBU, unranked, this time in the border between the Land of Fire and Rain.

Sakura and him made a good team. Truly, their success rates were off charts and they barely had any complications during these types of missions. About three days ago, he managed to catch the scent of their prey and summoned his ninken to help them track the man.

He could smell a storm coming and knew he would need their help to fight against time.

And now there they were, in the middle of said storm, trying to find the secret ANBU outpost he just knew was nearby with the small form of Pakkun shaking in his arms.

They had managed to find the guy easily enough but he hit the first partner he ever had with a nasty jutsu that sent the tiny dog bursting through a tree. If Kakashi killed the guy with a particularly brutal chidori to the chest, no one could blame him.

“Kakashi!” Sakura called to his left and he turned towards her. She was pointing towards a small cottage, hidden between a copse of trees.

He moved to follow her as she entered the abandoned little house, his dogs piling inside the place.

It wasn’t fancy by any means, just a lumpy looking bed in the corner, a kitchen without a fridge and a small chest. They would have had a lot more comfort in the ANBU outpost, maybe they could even have been lucky enough that someone would’ve been making hot stew and they could have a change of clothes. 

But nothing mattered because they couldn’t keep going through the storm and Pakkun needed medical attention immediately.

“Put him on the bed,” Sakura said, already reaching for her medical pouch. “The rest of you try to find something to start a fire.”

Kakashi moved before she was even finished speaking. Despite his experience in the field being higher than hers, Sakura had saved his sorry ass enough times that he learned to listen to her commands. They switched positions of leader flawlessly throughout their missions and that worked just fine with him.

He put Pakkun on the bed, careful not to jostle his tiny form.

“Hey, stay awake, buddy,” Kakashi said.

Sakura pushed him gently away and indicated with her chin towards where the ninken were rummaging around the kitchen. He got the hint.

Kakashi went to help his pack and quieted Bisuke when the young dog barked excitedly at finding a stack of firewood stashed inside the rustic oven. Bingo. It only took a quick katon for the wood to begin to burn steadily.

The dogs whimpered and cried quietly as they shook the water off themselves. They had to be as worried as he was about their leader. With an anxious look towards the bed, Kakashi moved around the cabin, trying to make himself useful.

He found that the chest held a big blanket and a change of clothes for the man who probably used the place as a hunting cabin. Dark green sweatpants and a sweater.

“T-There you go,” Sakura said. “You j-just rest tonight, Pakkun.”

Kakashi went to them without even remembering telling his body to do so. Pakkun had bandages wrapped around his pudgy little belly but seemed fine otherwise. Kakashi went to pet him but found his hand suddenly pierced by several tiny teeth.

He grunted. What the fuck.

“Sakura-chan is shaking from the cold, you fool!” His own dog, his loyal partner chastised him. “Get her warm!”

Kakashi stared at him in disbelief. The nerve of him. He narrowed his eyes at him and crossed his arms. 

Okay, he maybe should have seen this coming. Sakura and the pack had gotten pretty close to each other. It all started with a mission that had gone terribly wrong because she hadn’t been coordinated enough with the dogs. The next week, they sort of started a tradition to train with the pack whenever they were both in the village and the bond between them grew exponentially. Sometimes the dogs even chose to cuddle up to her first!

Sakura giggled and he cut his narrowed gaze towards her before quickly averting it to the floor.

She was taking off her clothes.

For a second, his whole body seemed to short-circuit. It wasn’t like he’d never seen her naked before, their missions together were plenty and they had seen each other in various states of undress. It was just the physical act of her sliding out of the tight ANBU uniform was so sensual in its simplicity. 

Kakashi cleared his throat.

“You better get out of those clothes too.” Sakura’s voice reached him even as he continued to glare at the floor. “It’s way too cold to be wet.”

Kakashi coughed. Well, that double entendre just wasn’t fair.

Over the last year they had gotten so much closer that nowadays Kakashi was fucking confused on where they stood.

Sakura was the first person he went to after a mission, the one who stayed with him in his dark apartment when he was having one of his bad days. After the war, she’d been the only one to fully understand all that he’d been through and the one person he could open up to.

She was his best friend, to put it simply. 

Only it wasn’t simple at all because once she had laid on his back as he did pushups, the boys bickering in the background. He had taught her how to tree walk and dried her tears when her first love had left the village. He had watched her grow into a beautiful, independent woman and he didn’t know why he didn’t feel guiltier for wanting her so badly.

Some of the pack rushed past him to join Pakkun on the bed and he shook himself out of his reveries. With a tired sigh he took off his outer layers. It was only years of carefully honed reflexes that kept him from getting hit on the face by the sweatpants Sakura threw at him.

“Thanks,” he said dryly and turned to look at her.

She was wearing only the dark green sweater and nothing else. Kakashi chanced a quick glance around the cabin and saw her clothes sprawled on the floor in front of the oven. Including her underwear.

Dear Gods, he wondered, why do you hate me so.

Sakura turned towards the bed and ordered all the dogs to the floor and Kakashi used this opportunity to turn around and discard his clothes next to hers. He put on the pants noticing that they were tighter than what he normally wore but ultimately glad that they wouldn’t have to be naked. He didn’t think he could handle that.

At the last minute, he decided to keep his undershirt on.

Sakura had already seen him without his mask but that didn’t mean that he took it off every time they were alone. He also thought it would be a good idea to keep that extra barrier tonight. He had no doubts that they would be sharing the bed tonight to conserve body heat. 

Kakashi fought a resigned sigh.

“If you think you’re keeping that shirt on, Hatake,” Sakura said, “better think again.”

Kakashi turned towards her, eyes narrowed. She stood with a familiar stubborn set to her chin, hands on her hips and wet hair clinging to her neck. He couldn’t refuse her.

He took off his last piece of wet clothing and let it fall to the floor. The charming blush on her cheeks didn’t bring him any joy because he was sure his were as red and she could actually see it now.

They settled on the bed with Pakkun on the outer edge, Kakashi to the cold cabin wall and Sakura safely sandwiched between them. The blanket was heavy and wrapped them in their combined heat and it was enough to send a shudder of pleasure down his spine.

He wasn’t particularly happy, though.

He wasn’t satisfied because Sakura had her back towards him, her arm wrapped securely around Pakkun’s tiny form and not a single inch of her touching him. 

Kakashi frowned in the semi-darkness and listened to the crackling fire. Sakura whispered goodnight and he only grunted in return. 

A few minutes passed before she sighed and he felt the mattress shift before her cold feet met his. It was a strangely intimate feeling, having her little feet pressed against his skin. The casual way she did it was enough that the next breath he took shuddered out of his chest.

It seemed like Sakura had been waiting for some sign from him because in the next second, her whole body was pressed against his. Once again all coherent thoughts left his head that night and the only thing that he could think was a very shocked, very confused, Fuck.

Sakura scooted further into him and his hand closed around her tiny waist before her hips could meet his. 

“Sakura,” he grunted in warning, not really sure what he was warning her of, not even sure what was happening at all. In all of their flirty banters, they had never crossed this line and he wasn’t sure she even understood what it would mean for them. He certainly didn’t.

Sakura turned in his arms and maybe the fact that his hand didn’t move away from her said something. Her nose bumped against his neck and she slid one leg up until his knee was between hers. 

Neither of them spoke for a few beats. The air around them seemed charged with something. It was electric in its intensity but at the same time so natural and real it took his breath away. His hand brought her closer to him without his consent.

It was like she had been waiting for that tiny bit of approval from him because suddenly she was surging forward, her lips meeting his chastely but demandingly. She knew what she wanted, it seemed, and was willing to take it.

Kakashi shuddered into the kiss. 

His whole body seemed to melt into hers, nothing else mattered but her. Her scent on his nose, her warmth against him, her lips beneath his. She was intoxicating.

Sakura leaned her forehead against his, breaking the kiss with a soft sigh. Her warm hand brushed against his lips before settling on the nape of his neck, her fingers threading through the hair there.

“Don’t overthink this,” she whispered and he felt her words on his lips. “For now, just… please.”

He couldn’t deny her. Truth was, he didn’t want to ever let her go. 

So Kakashi closed the distance between them, this time capturing her lips in a kiss that held more depth to it. He bit her lower lip and inhaled her gasp as his hand slid beneath her sweater without his consent, going up and pressing her further against him.

Kakashi kissed her deeply but gently, like this was his first kiss. 

He sucked on her tongue and swallowed her moans and all he could think was why the fuck did they not do this before. It felt like every inch of her was made for him and he knew her taste would never leave his mouth. Just like that, it felt like she had crawled her way inside his hollowed heart and made a home for herself there.

“Sakura-chan,” Pakkun whimpered pitifully. “I’m cold…”

Kakashi and Sakura broke apart and the girl gave a little breathless laugh. 

In their immersion on each other, they had taken the blanket away from the pug. 

Sakura looked at him shyly, a look that completely contrasted to her personality, and Kakashi couldn’t fight a grin from stretching his lips. She huffed another happy laugh before pressing her own smile to his and turning around. 

Kakashi couldn’t find it in himself to be angry at Pakkun for the interruption when she brought his hand to rest between her breasts. He fell asleep that night with the snores of his pack echoing around them, her heartbeat on his hand and his nose buried on her neck. 

He wouldn’t overthink this, he decided, not even when they went back to the village. Nothing that felt so good could possibly be wrong and he just wished he could fall asleep like this for the rest of his life.

[mewtwowarrior]

I did a total rewrite of the second part of Ark’s backstory. The skeleton’s the same, but I did major alterations to one part and altered other bits. I definitely like it better than my first run of it, but it still needs some work.

-

First drafts: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

Second drafts: Part 1 | Part 2 version 1 | Part 2 version 2 (you are here)

Final draft: Combined Parts

-

Tron and Beck kept getting ambushed by Ark. Again and again, she'd show up with a group of Sentries, instigate a fight, and then flee.

They catalogued everything about every instance, especially the location, and a pattern began to emerge.

She was slowly leading them somewhere. But, at this point in time, it was hard to tell exactly where. There were many buildings in that direction, and quite a few of them were under the Occupation's control.

If they could figure out where quickly enough, they could spring the trap before the Occupation could set it.

Most of the time, she attacked them when they were together, but she wasn't afraid to fight just one of them.

So, Beck and Tron made a plan to split up and track Ark. Since she knew Tron and seemed focused on him, he'd fight her, while Beck would follow her when she fled.

It took a few tries to get it right. Several times, she attacked before they split up and ended up targeting Beck a few times.

But, soon, everything lined up in their favor. When she was focused on Tron, Beck was able to stay back and keep eyes on her.

He kept a safe distance from Ark, making sure that she didn't know she was being watched. After they traveled several blocks, finally, she entered a large building.

Memorizing everything he thought was useful, he met back up with Tron to give him the information.

Thanks to being a System Monitor and his close association with Flynn, Tron had access to schematics of all the buildings in the city. The Occupation would've modified the building to their needs, but they had enough to work with.

Based off the blueprints and their experience with the Occupation, there were a couple places that they were likely to be holding Ark.

One of the sides of the building had a loading area, so, when Occupation members were busy unloading a truck, Beck and Tron slipped right past them.

They silently headed up the stairs, the first two floors they tried didn't look like holding areas, but the third was lined with cells.

The floor was dark, and only one cell had an active barrier and an occupant. As they crept closer, it was clear that Ark was in the cell. She was standing there with the blank expression on her face that she always had.

It didn't take long for them to deactivate the barrier and set her free. Tron darted in and quickly stunned her with a low-power pulse, just enough to knock her out for a short while.

Tron scooped up Ark in his arms and followed behind Beck as they left faster than they came.

Things continue going smoothly until they reach the loading area and are greeted by a group of Sentries.

With Tron's hands full, all the fighting came down to Beck, while Tron dodged discs left and right.

They weren't trying to win, just make a path to freedom. As soon as there was an opportunity, they ran for it, though Beck still had to knock down a few opponents.

Paige arrived on the scene just in time to see the two Renegades escape with a captive Occupation member.

Tron and Beck had set up a temporary base in the city, so they secured Ark and hid there while the Occupation searched the city for them.

Once they rested up from their frantic flight, they started investigating Ark's disc. Ark herself had woken up and was just staring blankly off into space.

The Occupation code seemed to be overlaid over her original code, though there were a few older memories that were mixed in.

A quick check of the memories revealed her repeated torture at the hands of the Occupation. There was nothing else before or after that of Ark's memories, the torture suddenly stopped, there was a gap of time, and then her memories of being with the Occupation began.

Since Ark had seemed to respond to Tron's voice before, they tried it again. Tron stood in view of her and said her name.

Like before, her eyes widened and she gasped softly, before returning back to her empty gaze.

Beck had been monitoring her disc, when she recognized Tron, a memory had briefly bubbled to the surface and he had managed to activate it.

It was a short memory, and the timestamp indicated that it was from some time before the Occupation took over.

There was no context to it, it just consisted of Ark standing there in her System Monitor armor, while Tron praised her for doing a good job.

Beck looked to Tron, "Looks like she really thought a lot of you."

Tron nodded quietly, and with a heavy sigh, he went back to looking at Ark's disc, "There has to be something else we can use to bring her back."

Beck thought this over, "I'm just a mechanic, but, my wrench works with a lot of things, lemme try it."

He took the disc from Tron and attached his wrench to it. More information popped up and he started scouring the data.

The Occupation code was straightforward, except for one section, where it seemed to go around and bypass something. The more he looked into it, it was clear that something was wrong, but since he wasn't a medic, he had no idea what it meant.

"Hey, look at this. Something's off here, but I don't know what."

Tron gave it a look, "I'm not sure, either. We need a medic to figure it out."

Beck sighed, "I only know one medic, and I don't think she's too interested in helping us."

With nothing more they could do right now, they both took a much-needed rest.

As time rolled on, they both investigated Ark's disc, but came to no new conclusions. Time passing also lessened the search against them, so much so, that they decided to take turns going out into the city. Maybe a change of pace would help, and maybe they could find a medic willing to assist the Renegades.

Their brief jaunts into the city were unmemorable for the most part, right up until Paige found Beck.

He had continued to wear the Renegade armor and helmet, in the hopes that someone sympathetic and loyal to the cause would offer their help, but, this time, he got slammed to the ground instead.

"Where is she?!" Paige yelled, "What did you do with her?!"

Beck saw the opportunity this presented, and the many problems that came with it, and took a leap of faith.

"She's safe, but she needs help."

Paige hissed, "She needs help because you kidnapped her."

Beck shook his head, "It's more than that. There's something wrong with her disc."

Paige growled, "She could get the proper care with the Occupation, not with a couple of vigilantes."

Beck sighed, "Look, I'll make you a deal."

Paige interrupted, "I don't make deals with kidnappers."

"Just hear me out. If you can fix her, you can take her back to the Occupation, no trouble. I just ask that you watch her memories and make sure that you think that going back to the Occupation is the right thing for her."

This gives Paige pause and she considers it. If this offer was valid, the Renegade would take her straight to his hideout, then she'd have the location of both Renegades and the kidnapped Occupation member. There was a chance that this was a trap, but, she knew that she could take both Renegades, or at least hold them off long enough while she called for backup.

There was no way she could lose. "Fine. Take me to her. The sooner we get this done, the sooner she'll be back where she belongs."

Paige let Beck up and he lead the way, "Do you even know who she is?"

"I can't possibly know every member of the Occupation."

Beck looked back to her, "She was locked up in a cell. Did you ever think that maybe they didn't want you to know who she was?"

Paige didn't like this, but found a plausible reason, "If something's wrong with her, maybe she was quarantined."

Beck turned his gaze ahead, "Maybe. You'll be able to figure it out once you look at her disc."

He took her around a long path, trying to obscure the location as best he could. It might be a temporary lair, but he didn't want to just hand the Occupation an invitation.

As they entered, Beck warned Tron by saying loudly, "I brought a guest."

Paige eyed the sparse room, "Nice place you got here."

Beck just shrugged, "Hey, you work with what you've got."

Paige went over to Ark and started examining her. Once she's done, she looks to Beck, "Nothing seems wrong with her physically, except for some scar remnants and the fact that she never reacted to me looking her over, did you sedate her?"

Beck shook his head, "No. All of that is the Occupation's doing."

Paige snorted, "We'll see about that."

She carefully undocked Ark's disc and started looking at the files, "Her code's a mess."

Beck gestured to Ark, "The Occupation again."

Paige rolled her eyes and got back to work. Clearly the Renegade was going to be no help to her.

She got down to the code bypass and frowned as she saw what it was going around, "Her energy processor is completely burned out, only a large amount of electricity could do that. She was unconscious when you took her, how much did you shock her with?"

Beck shook his head, "Not that much. We didn't want to hurt her, so we used the minimum amount."

Paige gestured angrily at him, "Then why is her processor destroyed?"

Beck gestured right back, "You'll find that answer in her memories. The older ones before the gap." He paused, then added, "You're not going to like it, though."

Paige snorted, "We'll see about that."

She confidently went to the indicated memories, sure that she'd see some sort of injustice acted upon this program by the Renegade.

Instead, she watched in absolute horror as a red-circuited Occupation program brutally tortured the program again and again.

She's about to accuse the Renegade of rewriting the memories, but she keeps looking, there's far too many matching memories for it to be a rewrite. Something on this scale would be far too dangerous for the program involved.

Paige wavered, her faith shaken. But, she quickly came back to her senses. She had a patient to take care of.

She went back to the damaged portion of the disc and went to work. She's not seen this kind of damage often and she wasn't prepared for it, so it's slow going.

After quite a while, she finally gets the energy processor fixed, but she's not done yet. Digging through the files, she sees that the Occupation code is locked into default.

Paige does some experimenting, and after seeing the old memory featuring Tron, she uses it to make a backdoor. Combining the bypass with the remnants of older code from the memory, she's able to reconnect the original code. Once it's in place, she locks the original code to default and seals away the Occupation code.

With this done, the mess of code cleans up, confirming that the Occupation was behind all of this.

She double-checks her work, and once she's confident that everything's correct, she hands the disc to Beck.

"This should fix her. I have to go."

Paige quietly leaves back out into the city, and Tron enters the room.

"I don't think she liked what she saw."

Beck nodded, "I think maybe her faith in the Occupation was finally shaken. I hope so, anyway."

"We can only hope."

Beck then put Ark's disc back on her dock and they waited while all the changes loaded and took place.

Tron stood in front of Ark, so that he'd be the first person she saw after coming back.

The process takes a while, but, finally, Ark's face warms up from the cold look they had been accustomed to seeing and she blinks while looking around.

Finally, she realizes that Tron's there and she gasps, "Tron! You were right, it was a trap, I'm sorry I didn't listen to you."

Before he can reply, more memories hit, "Wait...they...they rectified me. How did you fix me?"

Tron gave a small smile, "With the help of a friend." He gestured Beck over, "This is Beck, and he knew someone that was able to help you."

Ark smiled and nodded to Beck, "Thanks and thanks to your friend for saving me."

Beck gave her a grin, "You're welcome. And, welcome back to the Resistance."

Tron walked over and freed her from her restraints. Ark stretched out the stiffness, then gave Back a grin of her own, "It's good to be back."

[heyktula]

Fic Breakdown for Closer, Chapter One (aka, the DVD Extras)

So, chapter one of Closer, the first installment in Somewhere in Canada (the Terror kink AU)... went up today! And let me tell you what, I am hype because this is my very first longfic in the Terror fandom, and it's centered around a subject very near and dear to my heart—BDSM. It's a love letter to power exchange, the sheer joy of kink, conventions, and sex education.

Like other fic breakdowns I've done, this'll be in three parts—technical notes (like POV and stylistic choices), story notes (like characterization and kink info), and then, instead of the editing section I usually include, I'm going to talk about specific lines at the end.

I blame Edward for the line notes, tbh. I love him, but he's a himbo, and many things went unobserved in the course of this story.

(Okay, fine, it's not entirely his fault. Some of it is that he's just so steeped in kink that he doesn't think twice about a bunch of the stuff going on.)

Technical Considerations

Inspiration: So this fic is a love letter to kink, and kink education, and conventions, which in my experience can be life-changing opportunities to meet people with similar interests, and also to be able to do some exploration of your own and figure out what makes you tick. I'm pretty sure there's an AU version of me that makes their living off kink education and the convention circuit, but (un)fortunately, in this particular universe, I am a fic writer (and, occasionally, a paid one as well).

Closer is also a love letter to rough physical play. I remember sitting in my very first workshop on the topic, and just being wide-eyed that a) this is a thing, b) it looks fun. (It is, actually, fun.) There's a ton of reasons I love it—and hopefully, after Closer concludes, you'll be able to see some of the reasons why—but I also love that physical play doesn't have any financial barriers to entry. (The irony of Edward "rich boy" Little being heavily into it has not escaped me.)

Timeline:  Hilariously, I actually started this verse for a Fitzier fic—it takes place six months from Closer, at the winter version of the conference—but while I was working my way through the Fitzier setup, I was like 'fuck it, I should write a quick one-off joplittle to establish the verse', and lo and behold, my "quick one-off" turned out to be sixty k, and it runs parallel to a Tozer/Irving that I  have yet to write, but which is visible in Closer if you squint. So, uh, oops.

So this story fits into a very specific space in the timeline—that is, it's prior to Fitzjames and Crozier having met, but it's after the (second) Cracroft/Crozier breakup. (If you were wondering if that's why Francis isn't running his own damn booth, yes, that's why. He's very likely depression drinking in London at this very moment.)

Setting: I wanted to stay true to the spirit of the whole, you know, boatload of white men going to Canada and being confused, but I wanted them to go for better reasons. It's so rare that we get shows set in Canada, you know? And I feel very passionately about our winters here, in that I complain about them while they're happening, but I do also kind of enjoy the challenge, in a really fucked-up sort of a way. So I set the fic in Canada too, and then, because I was explicitly setting it here, I also got to lean into a bunch of Canadian stereotypes (like Goodsir living his best life in plaid and denim and the inevitable Tim Horton's jokes) and I actually had a lot of fun doing it, so I guess that was something I learned about myself.

Story Considerations:

Primary Kinks: So most people involved in BDSM have a "thing"—you know, the thing that they care about more than they care about any other things. And one of the most fun things for me about creating an AU like this is going through the characters and figuring out what everybody's niche is. Like, it makes sense to me that Hickey would be that edgeplay asshole that's in the kink scene specifically so he can fuck with people. Tozer having a military fetish (and also being a bit of a kink snob) totally fits with his whole "now what the bloody hell do people think that means?" speech.

If you've ever been to a fetish convention, you've seen guys like Blanky, who have been in the scene forever, and made their name handcrafting BDSM gear. They're easy to talk to, and will totally tell you about that time they ran an entire scene using only items found in their kitchen. You've seen women like Sophia Cracroft, who have a cluster of people surrounding her at all times, and who is never short of someone who will bring her tea if it looks like she's thirsty. And you've also seen guys like Ross, who are reasonably famous in their areas of expertise—the kind of guy that you see across the hall, and you're like "shit, is that James Clark Ross?" (And it is! Holy shit!)

Canadian Kink: So! I live in the prairies, and it's as conservative as hell out here. That means there's some specifics to kink culture that I'm not sure translate to other parts of Canada—and they definitely don't translate back to England. For example, every public event I've ever been to (by which I mean every event that wasn't being held in someone's house) has mandated that penetration cannot occur during the event. No toys in orifices, no bits in other bits, no mucous membranes touching, no oral, no fingering, no handjobs, no intercourse, all that kind of stuff. I'm not convinced that you couldn't have sex in a dungeon in, say, Vancouver, or Toronto, or any of the other bigger centers—but that hasn't been my experience in the prairies, and I kept those restrictions for plot purposes in Closer. (Sorry, Jopson. I promise I still love you.)

Canadian weapons laws being what they are also means that some of the gear that's totally okay in other places (like butterfly knives) is totally illegal in Canada (sorry, Tozer. No apologies for you, Hickey.). The sap gloves that Edward is mourning are, unfortunately, one of the items that get lost in the shuffle. Sap gloves are pretty neat—they're leather gloves which are weighted with lead on the knuckles/backs of the hands. They make your punches harder, but they also protect your hands—and, for somebody like Edward, who does a lot of punching when he plays, that protection is definitely beneficial. Plus, they're a bit of a signalling thing—having a set of sap gloves hanging off your belt makes it very clear what kind of things you're into, and I think Edward is a bit bereft not having that this weekend, because he's not used to having to make those introductions cold.

Edgeplay: There's sort of a, er. Spectrum of what is and isn't considered to be "acceptable" kink, even within the kink community. Some kinds of kink are seen as more publicly acceptable, and some kinds are relegated back to the fringes and the dark corners. In the context of Closer, that means Tozer, Hickey, and Little are our resident edgeplayers. This isn't a judgement on the type of play they do (well, it is a judgement on Hickey, but we don't have time to go into *gestures* all that), but it is a statement about the way that type of play is perceived. Sophia Cracroft can, with very little finessing, put photographs of her in rope suspension onto her various social media accounts, and as long as she's clothed, it's perfectly acceptable content to just have out there, and people are going to call it artistic and Instagram-worthy. Tozer, on the other hand, ain't getting any recordings of interrogation scenes he's run posted anywhere except to Pornhub.  (The less we say about Hickey's knife-play, the better.)

Similarly, because the rough physical play that Edward does looks fairly intense from the outside (and is pretty intense from the inside), he gets to live in the not-that-publicly-acceptable area of kink. The area of kink where they usually put the crash mats at the far end of the dungeon, because that way, if you don't want to watch two people whaling on each other with their fists, you don't need to see it. This "stigma" is important in Edward's conception of himself, because on one hand, we see in his conversation with Goodsir that Edward absolutely knows his shit and, hero-worship of Crozier aside, has the knowledge base to be a fantastic educator in his own right—but we also see the subtle kinkshaming coming from both Hickey and Tozer about where Edward's place is in all this. That is to say—Edward's place is with them, in the dark shadowy spots, and not in the "socially acceptable" circles that Crozier's circle of people (Jopson included) are perceived to be running in. (There's a sense, coming from Tozer, that there's no point in Edward pursuing getting onto the org committee for the conference itself, because they won't want someone like Edward there—but, again, that's some pretty insidious kinkshaming coming from Tozer, and we could all just let that go and be better for it. Goodsir clearly doesn't feel like Edward's presence would be a detriment.)

So, yeah. I'll excuse Tozer's kinkshaming bullshit temporarily, as he needs to sort himself out. I don't think he's trying to drag Edward down so much as he just thinks Edward's being a bit delusional, and wants to save him the disappointment when Jopson invariably rejects him for being way too kinky and intense. (If Edward is moping around all weekend, he'll be in the hotel room, and how's Tozer supposed to get his dick sucked by random hookups then? "Yeah, come on back to mine, don't mind my roommate, he's a moody bastard and won't participate even if we ask." Not winning any prizes there, lads.)

I won't excuse Hickey's kinkshaming; he's definitely trying to make Edward feel like shit on purpose. I could speculate as to the reasons, but they're probably gross. (I mean, I know the reasons. Hickey's gonna Hickey.)

(There's a whole entire essay I could write about incorrect assumptions that literally everyone is making about the type of play Thomas Jopson must be into, based on his nice hair and nice eyes and nice smile, but I'll just let Jopson handle those corrections on his own, as he's very capable of doing so.)

Concerning the Chapter Title: If you were gonna take a risk, Neddo, the social was the time to do it—and you done fucked that up, sweetheart.

Tomorrow is another day. Give it another shot then, yeah?

Line Notes:

Edward looks across the hall again, cringes. “No, fuck, that’s—no, I think that’s Sophia Cracroft, Sol, I’m not—Christ. Sophia Cracroft, Jesus.”

I will never not find this introduction to Edward Little fucking hilarious, because he comes off as so competent from Jopson's POV when he's arguing with Hickey in the parking lot, and yet the moment we see Edward in his own POV, he's just a mess. I love him very much, but he's a mess. This was one of the deciding factors in the dual POV as well—I knew going in that the brunt of the story was going to be from Edward's POV, but weaving in those occasional Jopson bits lets us see how Edward looks from the other side.

(Also, Tozer three hundred percent knows exactly who Sophia Cracroft is, because he demonstrates that, like, two sentences later, meaning that he’s literally just winding Edward up here, and it goes right over Edward’s head. God.)

It’s the older guy across the hall that’s laughing his ass off, but the cutie is standing right next to him, looking down at his phone, his ears charmingly pink. 

As a reminder, Edward is wearing a white tank, and just stretched his arms out behind his back. The nipple piercings are very obvious, Jopson was three hundred percent staring, and Blanky definitely caught him and is laughing his ass off about it.

“…I know what this is about,” Tozer says, tying an orange bandana around his left bicep.

The orange bandana is a hanky code thing—which, yes, it's dated, and it's not really in use anymore, but Tozer seems like the kind of guy that would tattoo his kinks on his forehead just so everybody could see them if they would all fit. Failing to find any way to gracefully do that, we instead have the orange hanky ("anything goes") on the left arm ("top").

(Older guy, thankfully, is wearing a ring on the fourth finger of his left hand. Cutie isn’t. So there’s no obvious problems there.)

Jopson not wearing a ring indicates literally nothing about whether or not he's available, but I guess whatever makes Edward feel better about himself is fine. He's right with his assumption about Jopson, in this case, but it's literally nothing more than a wild guess, and the mental hoops he's jumping through only exist to make him feel better about himself.

(Esther usually attends these events with Blanky—but somebody needed to hold down the fort in London this time, and so she's in London at present. It's for the best, she can check on Francis every so often.)

[Hickey] sticks his hand in the pocket of his latex cargo shorts...

I won't take criticism on this fashion statement, constructive or otherwise.



So, that's it for this week! Chapter two, Aware, goes up next Friday! See you then! And if you have questions or anything in the meantime, you can always drop me an ask on tumblr or Curious Cat!

[raendown]

Pairing: MadaraTobirama Word count: 3739 Chapter: 19/? Summary: Not all wars are fought on the battlefield. Some are fought at the conference table, with whispers in the shadows, or even in the bedroom.

In a world where the Senju and Uchiha traditional lands were too far apart to have ever made them enemies, Butsuma and Tajima are the ones who come together and sign a treaty of peace. Madara isn’t happy to have his life signed away for him in a political marriage to strengthen the bond between their clans. He is even less happy to have Tobirama make assumptions of him from their very first night together. What follows from there is a journey of healing, of learning, and finding the places to belong in the places least expected.

Follow the link or read it under the cut!

KO-FI and commission info in the header!

Chapter 19

He tried to stay at home and wait patiently for Tobirama to come back, he really did. After his time away the man deserved a chance to reunite with his precious ones in private. Unfortunately the encounter with his father had left Madara antsy and his stomach felt tight from the need to share this with his husband. Not saying anything felt like keeping secrets and even though he had no intentions of actually keeping this to himself, obviously planned to bring it up as soon as Tobirama returned, that apparently wasn’t enough for the heavy lead ball that had replaced his heart.

Less than an hour and several anxious circuits around their living room later and he was out the door again with a scowl on his face that sent many people scrambling to get out of his way. Even as he wound through the streets of the Uchiha compound Madara told himself he was being stupid but he couldn’t seem to convince himself to turn around.

Not many people gave him a second look once he made his way in to the Senju compound. Several more people sent him respectful nods than he used to get here and despite being distracted with the heavy issue on his mind he still found a moment to swell with pride. It was nice to see more and more people in the village acknowledging him with respect the way his own clan did.

Tobirama’s chakra wasn’t hard to find and it was no surprise that he would visit Touka first. Actions speak louder than words but words had their own power and Madara had noticed that his husband brought up Touka in casual conversation much more often than he did Hashirama. Clearly he was closer to his cousin than his brother. The idea was a little hard for someone like Madara to wrap his head around who had no idea which of the fatherless brats in the Uchiha clans were his cousins but had almost made an art form out of the protective older sibling routine. It wasn’t for him to judge though.

So focused on his mission was he that Madara very nearly waltzed straight in to the home without even bothering to knock, stopping himself at the last second and freezing in place. Though he was more than certain if it came down to it he could defeat Touka in battle he wasn’t really up for volunteering to fight her on her own turf. He had seen her on the sparring fields enough times to know how much damage she could do to him on the way down and that wasn’t something he wanted to deal with just then. Very carefully he took a step back and knocked on the door, forcing himself to wait politely until the barrier opened to reveal Tobirama with his brows drawn inward.

“I felt you approaching but I assumed you wished to see Hashirama. Is something wrong?”

“Ah…a little…” Madara cleared his throat when he saw Touka appear at the end of the hallway. “Since I know you’ll share whatever I say with her perhaps I might come in and you can both hear what happened at the same time.”

“Yeah whatever, let him in.” Her voice was deep and rich, apparently, when she wasn’t snapping out commands to the rest of the security teams.

The two of them had worked together quite a bit since Madara was assigned head of security but despite the obvious connection between them they’d never made any attempts to discuss personal matters, keeping their conversations entirely professional and always making sure there was a witness in the room with them whenever possible. It was no secret that Touka had very little warm feelings for him.

His first glimpse of the home’s interior was an odd sort of surprise. In a weird way he had expected the upstairs to resemble the laboratory downstairs, cold and minimal, but instead he found a warm cozy little nest with tasteful decorations and artwork on the wall that immediately prompted a mental note to ask for the artist’s name later. Touka gave him a long, slow look before waving him towards a single armchair but Tobirama pulled him down on to the couch with a roll of his eyes and made a point of sitting close enough for their clothing to brush together.

“So, tell me.” Touka lifted the tea she must have been enjoying before he arrived. “What was so important that you needed to come interrupt our private conversation?”

“It’s about Tajima.” All traces of ire slipped away from her face instantly, replaced with a blank slate. From the many meetings they had attended together he recognized the look of a soldier awaiting details and withholding judgment.

“Go on.”

“He got to Izuna before I did this morning and he did not take the news of my brother’s injury very well. Long story short he’s going to be kicking up some sort of fuss but I don’t know when and I don’t know what. What I can tell you is that he’s a dramatic bitch with an unfortunate amount of brains.” Madara pinched his lips together with a sigh. “Actually that could describe a lot of Uchiha.”

Beside him Tobirama’s hand had disappeared inside the clothing Madara had been so proud to see him wearing earlier and came back out holding a small notebook. “I believe we’re going to need that longer story.”

Telling them what happened didn’t take much time. Answering all the questions both of them fired at him one after the other took several times longer than that. He found himself a little surprised that most of Touka’s questions focused on Tajima’s tone or how he held himself when he said what he did but when he asked later she told him it was because she already knew Tobirama would be asking the other important questions. Questions like thought patterns, how he had reacted to similar things in the past, what Madara thought his father meant by specific turns of phrase.

And most importantly: what he thought they should do about it.

Unfortunately that was one question he wasn’t at all sure how to answer. How to react all depended on what Tajima decided to do in the face of what he saw as a betrayal. It also depended on how much support Tajima could count on from the people of Konoha or the high council members. Sadly, he also had trouble predicting which side of the fence Izuna would come down on. If it came to the option of splitting the Uchiha off from the venture they had been a part of setting in motion Madara honestly couldn’t say what his brother would do. The man hadn’t exactly integrated with any grace.

“So this is basically a wait and see situation?” Touka summed up after the questions had been flying for a while. Madara grunted.

“Just don’t hold your breath. He can be patient when he needs to.”

“We’ll be ready whenever he decides to move,” Tobirama said, placing one of his hands over Madara's and squeezing reassuringly. He wasn’t about to mention it in front of other company but Madara actually found it more reassuring that his husband chose to leave their hands linked together. It seemed oddly intimate from what he had seen of Senju practices but then he supposed that Tobirama considered Touka’s presence still private enough for such displays.

He himself wasn’t all that comfortable with Touka in particular but he had been raised in a clan that saw nothing wrong with publicly expressing themselves so he saw no reason to encourage Tobirama to remove his grip. The firm grip was steadying and it felt nice to have that small weight on the back of his own hand, a small connection to another human being. It was also just distracting enough that he almost missed the dismissive tone in Touka’s voice when she spoke again, a rookie mistake from such a well-trained shinobi as himself.

“Much as I’m sure we both appreciate you bringing this up as soon as possible, I believe I’d like to go back to speaking with my cousin now. He was mine a long time before he was yours.” She lifted one eyebrow in a challenge that he was already puffing up in response to when Tobirama snorted.

“You’ve gone longer without seeing me in the past,” he pointed out, “and you know very well I was leaving soon anyway to go speak with Hashirama about the situation surrounding the Daimyo.”

“Shouldn’t you report that to your father first?” Madara asked. Surprisingly, his husband only shrugged in a careless manner.

“I sent a mission report to him this morning before you woke up, he’s aware of what happened. Anija will have ten times the number of questions to ask. Better to get him out of the way first.” The wrinkled in Tobirama’s nose said he was not looking forward to fielding all those questions.

And what sort of husband would Madara be if he allowed to man to face such horrors alone? “You wouldn’t mind if I came with you to Hashirama's?”

“You didn’t get your fill of his company while I was gone?”

“Well…” Madara cleared his throat and looked away.

Sensing weakness, Touka zeroed in on him like a shark and threw him under the bridge without mercy. “How could he enjoy anyone’s company when he spent most of that time moping at home?”

Flushing in a way that made it very obvious he had something to hide, Madara cleared his throat and hurried to suggest they get a move on over to Hashirama's house. He was very careful not to study the expression on Tobirama’s face while they all stood up. Things had been moving in to uncharted waters between them lately and even he wasn’t sure how he would have liked Tobirama to react to the fact that Madara had missed him while he was away.

The journey over to Hashirama's was short, just a quick jaunt across the backyard, but the man’s expression was priceless to see them all trooping in together. It occurred to Madara that probably some of them were meant to be at work this morning but he could not have cared less. Surely the village could survive some of them being late every so often and if Hashirama was already late to work then he could stand to be a little later in favor of hearing some important news.

News that Madara was not supposed to be sharing with anyone. He should probably warn them all to keep their mouths shut.

Surprisingly, Hashirama listened to the story with a lot more calm than any of them expected. Sometimes Madara forgot that underneath the smiling carefree personality he preferred to show his friends was the serious heart of the warrior who had been dubbed the God of Shinobi even at such a young age. His reaction to the potential threat of Tajima starting a civil war in the small haven of peaceful living they had only created a few months before was to sit back with a serious face so rarely seen off of the battlefield and hum in thought.

“I will not let him hurt anyone.” The finality of his voice left no room for doubt. If Hashirama said he would not allow it then it would not happen.

“He’s already tried direct confrontation with your father,” Madara pointed out. “I’m not so sure that he’ll try to outright hurt anyone. He’s intelligent when he wants to be and his frontal assault has already failed; it’s more likely he’ll try for something sneakier.”

“Like what, though?” Tobirama asked.

Madara shifted in his seat so that his thigh pressed against his husband’s under the table. “I can’t say. Knowing him it will be quiet, underhanded, and it will be something meant to make him look good while making Butsuma look bad.”

He could see Touka eyeing him again but ignored her. If she didn’t find his answers pleasing enough she was welcome to go ask Tajima for herself.

“You’re the head of security,” Tobirama pointed out, the change in topic sudden enough that it nearly gave him whiplash. He turned to look at his husband with a frown, trying to piece together what he might be getting at, but eventually had to give in and ask.

“I am. And?”

“Do you have any teams with enough skill to look in to him without being noticed? How closely does your father follow the schedules you post? If you added a few extra patrols here and there, especially around the tower or, say, along whatever paths he typically travels during the day, would he even notice?” Leaning forward, Tobirama rapped his fingers along the table’s surface. “I’m just wondering if we could maybe catch wind of whatever he’s planning before he sets it in motion. Or with at least enough time to move in counter.”

“That’s a good idea, actually. Patrol schedules were one of my duties back in the old compound as well so I don’t think he’s ever bothered to do more than glance over the ones I hand in to him now – if that. He trusts that I know what I’m doing. If I add an extra team or two a few days a week he won’t notice.”

Touka sat forward as well. “I could follow him.”

“No.” Madara shook his head. “That part I don’t agree with. I trust your skills but all it takes is one slip up or a bit of extra vigilance on his part and I will not be part of losing someone so important to my husband.” Because when it came to threats against himself Madara had no doubt his father would act with deadly force and explain away his actions when the dust had settled. Against others he would have no mercy.

“Yeah. I’m sure you’re real worried about my safety.” Still, Touka was looking at him a little differently even as she spoke and Tobirama was openly staring, speechless.

Hashirama felt no need to hide the tears in his eyes as he reached across the table with both hands. “Oh Madara, you’re such a good friend and a good man! I knew the two of you would be so great for each other if you just gave it a little time! Come here, come let me hug you!”

“No, get off!” Madara scraped his chair backwards along the kitchen tile to escape.

“Oh come on, just one hug!” Hashirama pouted and reached farther. “I bet you let Tobi hug you!”

“That doesn’t mean I want you to get your paws all over me! Where is your wife? Tell her to come control her man-child!”

He should have known that inevitably the veneer would drop back in to place and the silly Hashirama they all saw day to day would show himself again. It was like the man was allergic to being serious unless absolutely necessary. Reluctantly sacrificing the warm feeling of having his thigh pressed up against Tobirama’s without the other pulling away, Madara stood from his chair to take himself out of Hashirama's reach and crossed his arms with a stern expression. He was not moved when his friend pouted in return.

“I guess there’s really nothing more to say on the situation?” Touka said after clearing her throat.

“Oh there’s always much to say,” Tobirama corrected her. “Unfortunately it seems as though most of it would be speculation from here on out. From this point all we can do is keep ourselves sharp and remember not to react too strongly if and when something does happen.”

“Exactly. That’s what he wants.” Even admitting it made Madara want to shake his head for his father’s dramatics.

“Right.” Touka slid down in her chair and tapped one jagged fingernail against her chin. “What he wants is a big reaction in his favor. He wants everyone irrational because high emotions would make them easier to manipulate in to seeing things the way he wants us to.”

Madara pinched the bridge of his nose. He really hated the sneaky part of being a shinobi. It would be so much better if all disagreements could be settled by tossing each other around a training field for a while and shouting aimlessly. Short, to the point, and since he was stronger than most that meant he would win most fights. A perfect world, really.

His vision of a perfect world may have had some slight dictator undertones but he’d never claimed he himself was anything close to perfect.

“We’re done here, I guess. I’ll get out of the way of your little family reunion and…I don’t know. Do some paperwork I guess. Are any of us supposed to be working right now? It feels weird that we all have the day off.” Madara looked around the room to avoid meeting anyone’s eyes.

“A gift from my father,” Hashirama said. “When a returning shinobi had been injured as our brothers were he’s learned that it’s better to give their families the day off rather than risk their distraction at work. Distraction leads to mistakes. And he says it builds loyalty from the families to be seen as caring.” He twisted his mouth to one side, clearly agreeing with the result but taking no pleasure from the reasons behind them. Butsuma was a clever man too it seemed.

That solved one of the many mysteries chasing themselves around his head, at least. Madara nodded to himself. “Alright. Well. Then back home for me I suppose. Have fun with...whatever assholery you Senju get up to when you’re all together.”

“I believe you will find”-Tobirama delicately extricated himself from his chair and brushed imaginary dust from his front-“that I represent an entirely different clan now. If home is your destination I should like to go home as well. Hashirama, Touka, I’ll see you both tomorrow I expect.” With a serene expression he turned and headed for the front door, turning his back to Hashirama for the first time since entering the home.

As he obviously intended, the effect was immediate. The moment Hashirama caught sight of the uchiwa fan between his brother’s shoulder blades there were fat tears dripping down his cheeks so fast Madara wondered if he really could cry at will. Only the idiot’s tear-blurred vision stopped him from catching up as Madara bolted out of the room and hurried after his husband, pulling Tobirama along to hustle them both out of the house without an ounce of regret for leaving Touka to deal with that mess on her own. Hashirama was her relative after all. She must be better equipped than him to handle such situations.

Once they were outside he felt a little bit less worried by the possibility of unwanted hugs from an overgrown tree. There was only one tree around Konoha allowed to get their arms around him and that man was walking at his side with his jaw clenched tight and his eyes off in the opposite direction as he tried not to laugh out loud.

“I’m not afraid of him,” Madara insisted unsure why he felt the need to point it out.

“No, perish the thought.”

“It’s just not his business to touch me or anything.”

“Understandable.”

Madara scowled. “You’re making fun of me.”

“Yes, I am.” The tips of his ears were turning red with suppressed laughter.

“Aren’t you supposed to take my side?”

“On the contrary; having equal connection to you both, I believe I’m supposed to be the neutral party in any disputes.” It would be a lot easier to believe he meant it if he weren’t so determinedly avoiding looking over at Madara. Smarmy bastard. It was a distractingly adorable look on him.

Not really sure how to refute that, Madara chose to pout ostentatiously and turn his attention to the folks around them. A rush of pride he was unprepared for hit him with all the force of a punch in the gut when he noticed several people reacting to the blatant declaration stitched across the back of Tobirama’s clothing. With every head that he saw turning from the corner of his eye he had the strangest urge to shove his face in to theirs and shout because yes of course Tobirama belonged to the Uchiha clan. Of course he should have no shame in that. And of course he should feel comfortable walking about in public with the uchiwa riding proudly on his clothing as was right and proper.

“Should I be worried about whatever is happening in your mind right now?” Tobirama asked, breaking in to his thoughts. “You have a very worrisome smile on your face.”

“I’m fine! Nothing is – what? No. I’m good.”

“That was an extraordinarily convincing act, please hold for my applause.”

Madara tried to give his husband a flat look but it had less effect when Tobirama was already giving him one in return. So instead he huffed and tossed his head. With as much hair as he was blessed with he’d always found that to be an effective move.

“Your student missed you,” was the first thing he could think of to change the subject.

Immediately he could tell he had Tobirama’s full attention. Madara preened and without needing any further prompting he launched in to a slightly exaggerated retelling of how Kagami had shown up looking for his sensei and ended up staying for dinner. With how close the two of them had grown in such a short amount of time it would not surprise him for word of Tobirama’s return to spread far enough for little ears to hear and come greet them on their way home.

Keeping his movements as subtle as possible, he angled his own path just a little to bring himself gradually closer to the man at his side as they walked and talked about the precious people in both of their lives. Madara sort of wished he could go back in time a handful of months and tell himself that all the negative feelings he had wallowed in since the signing of the treaty were simply a waste of time. In the end it seemed like maybe married life wasn’t so bad – as long as it was Tobirama by his side.

[imagine-loki]

Giftless

TITLE: Giftless CHAPTER NO./ONE SHOT: 46/50

AUTHOR: nekoamamori ORIGINAL IMAGINE: 

Imagine that you are Stark’s niece and you secretly share a strong relationship with Loki since he entered the crew. One day you get hurt so bad during a mission that you are about to die.  Loki knows a spell that will save you and share his immortality with you but you and he will be linked forever sharing thoughts, pain, emotions…

RATING: T NOTES/WARNINGS:  Also on AO3 click here

Fury told you to keep out for Balder before you went back on patrol. If he’d been spotted once, he would be out causing more trouble. He had already tried to take over the world once.  No one knew what he was up to, but everyone was on edge from seeing him again. Especially when The Harlequin and some of the other big super villains were acting up as well.

Nothing happened that night, or for many to come. You spent a lot of long nights at the end of summer catching bad guys, but saw no sign of Balder.

“When does your summer vacation end?” Loki asked you one evening while you were patrolling the streets in the warehouse district.

“September 1st,” you replied. It was going to suck balancing being a superhero and going to high school.  Especially with how many AP classes you were taking. Fury had already been working to get you permission to leave class for emergency healings. You had the feeling that wasn’t going over well.

“That is not very far away,” he commented.  He sounded sad that he’d be losing having you almost all day every day. 

“I know, and I’m not sure the school will let you be my guard this year,” you reminded him sadly.  You’d enjoyed having him as a guard. “They’re bound to know I’m a super now and can protect myself…” that was going to make a lonely year if they didn’t allow you to have your Loki. You hadn’t realized how lonely your life had been until Loki had come into it.  On top of that, by turning the idiot jock into a vegetable and your new distrust for all of your classmates, you were bound to be a social pariah, despite being Tony Stark’s niece and famous.

That night’s patrol was quiet, but you still had to finish your circuit before you could go back to the tower for movies and ice cream. You were halfway wishing for a healing call so you could leave the area early. It was that boring and slow.  On top of that, you hated patrolling the warehouse district. It was creepy. You shouldn’t be concerned about things that seemed creepy with how much power you had, but at the end of the day, you were still just a teenage girl. You wouldn’t actually hope for a healing call, since that would mean one of your friends was hurt badly enough that you needed to be called in, but still…

You really hated being both bored and creeped out.

About halfway down a block, you and Loki both stopped short, seeing the two clowns at the end of the street. You slipped into the shadows quickly and smoothly to watch them. It only took you a moment to realize that they hadn’t see you.  They were obviously on some kind of mission heading somewhere important.

So you and Loki both had the same terrible idea at the same moment. /We should follow them/ you both thought to the other at the same time. With a silent grin, you both moved at the same time to follow the clowns, hoping they would lead you back to their hideout. You cast illusions around yourselves, making you nearly invisible. 

You followed them through the streets of the warehouse district and into one of the abandoned warehouses. It seemed like just a normal abandoned warehouse, but they went straight to the back of it and you followed them down a flight of stairs, hoping you were getting close to their hideout so you could call it in.

You ended in a huge open room at the bottom of the stairs. You took a few steps in when the lights burst on, blinding you. You heard a crackle of electricity from your pocket and a whoosh and thunk next to you. You looked over to see what it was.  Not much could make such a whoosh-thunk noise. 

It was Loki. 

Loki.

Loki had been the recipient of that whoosh-thunk sound.

He had a spear piercing all the way through his chest. “No!” you screamed as he collapsed. With a practiced flick of your hands you threw up a barrier of flames around you, shielding you from further attacks. “Hold on, Loki,” you begged as you reached for your phone only to find it dead. 

Not dead from lack of batteries, not dead from no service, but dead like someone had fried the poor thing. You couldn’t call for help, couldn’t call for backup. You were cut off. 

You grabbed Loki’s arm and tried to teleport the pair of you out of there, but your power just fizzled away. Teleporting wasn’t happening.  You were trapped in this room.  There was no choice. “I’m sorry, love,” you told him and ripped the spear roughly from his chest and had to listen to his howl of pain. You didn’t have time to be gentle. You couldn’t save him if you had to be gentle.  

You held your glowing hands to the wound, healing him in the middle of danger, because you would both die if you didn’t take the time and power to heal him. You just hoped that you could get him up and battle ready fast. This was as big of a healing as the one you had done on Tony.  It was nearly an identical wound. You would be tapped and next to useless when it was done. It was in that moment, in the moment when you realized that the wound was identical, that you knew for certain that this was a trap. 

You couldn’t focus on that. You had to save Loki. It was your only chance to get out of this alive. So you threw your magic into healing him, hoping you would get out of this hell.  If he didn’t make it now, neither of you would.

You heard the clowns standing around your shields of flames, but they didn’t try to breach them. It was the only good part of this so far. You were safe behind the fire.

Loki was healing, though slowly. It took so much longer than you would have liked, but you got the wound healed. Loki opened his eyes while you fought to hold onto consciousness, usefulness, and magic. You couldn’t succumb yet, no matter how much power you had just dumped into Loki.  There was still a battle to face.

Loki managed to haul you to your feet as your fire shield failed. You saw him reach out a hand, trying to summon a shield of his own, but he was so newly healed that he couldn’t manage it. You tried to summon the power back, but couldn’t, not in time. You had put too much into the healing. 

You grabbed for your daggers as hands grabbed you, yanking you from Loki’s side. You shrieked and again tried to reach for your daggers, for your fire, telekinesis, anything, but this was a well-planned trap. They had planned to make you weak and helpless when they got to their plan. You struggled against the hands who held you, but it was no use. Some kind of thick material was forced over your hands, keeping you from moving them. If you couldn’t use your hands, you couldn’t use your powers. They cuffed your hands together in front of you. 

It was then that they started attacking you, kicking and punching and laughing the entire time. You fought off their attacks as best you could, but you were a bleeding bruised mess in moments. It was so hard to fight when your brain was foggy, your magic drained, your powers inaccessible, your hands bound.

A figure materialized in front of you as the clowns stepped away. “Enough, now,” the voice said kindly in a familiar accent. you looked up at the figure through hazy eyes. It was Balder, Loki’s brother, who looked nearly identical to Thor, but much harsher, more stern and battle worn. You reached up automatically, trapped in battle haze, trying to defend yourself. He grabbed your shackled wrists. “I said that’s enough now.” He wrapped his arms around you in an embrace that might have been comforting in other circumstances. You screamed and thrashed against him, fighting with your every last ounce of strength, until you sagged helpless in his embrace. He shoved a strip of cloth in your mouth, effectively gagging you. “There we go, easy now, you have been hurt enough for one day,” he told you gently. You knew you had only been hurt because of him. His kind words and tone didn’t fool you. “Shh, you’ve done enough. You have fought bravely, but there is no shame in living to fight another day. You are on our side now after all, my dear.” He swept you up into his strong arms and settled you gently on a sturdy, straight backed chair. He had the clowns wrap chains around you holding you  there securely, while promising it was just so you wouldn’t inadvertently hurt yourself. You just panted, exhausted, sagged against your bonds, trying to force your brain to come up with some sort of plan to get us out of this.

Balder moved to the middle of the room then, turning to Loki. “Very well done, Brother, though it took you long enough. I knew you would complete your assignment and bring her to our side. The strongest super in the city,” he purred the words and glanced at you.  You couldn’t see Loki’s face from where you were bound. He was standing, though surrounded by clowns with weapons pointed at him, just in case he decided to do something stupid, or express a change of heart.  “It was very clever indeed for you to tell me how her powers work and exactly how much healing she would have to do to incapacitate her. Very well done indeed, Brother,” Balder’s tone was jovial, congratulating.

It couldn’t be true. It just couldn’t.

Loki couldn’t be Balder’s spy.

[timeagainreviews]

Spyfall aka Ryan and Yaz get into VOR

As our first sample of series twelve, "Spyfall," offers up a lot to talk about. Through a series of misdirects and intrigue leading to a big reveal, it certainly fits the spy genre. However, I should preface this by saying I've never seen a single James Bond film. Don't expect me to get minor references because I won't have caught them. What I do know is Doctor Who, and by golly does it feel good to be writing about new Doctor Who.

Earlier today I accidentally read the synopsis to tonight's episode. I say accidentally because I have purposely been avoiding plot synopses. I was a bit annoyed as it ruins the entire opening sequence of spies getting kidnapped by aliens. I was left with zero levels of intrigue or mystery during the opener as I knew exactly what was happening. However, as I said, this is an episode of misdirection. For better or worse, the kidnapping of spies turns out virtually inconsequential by the end.

I was a little disappointed when I discovered the companions were only visiting their loved ones, jobs, and other doctors because of a pit stop. One of the things I liked about Moffat's era was that the Doctor came and went. Steven Moffat called these "Big Finish gaps," where writers could squeeze in new companions and adventures. They do use this time to give some glimpses into Ryan, Yaz, and Graham's personal lives. Yaz is about to get fired, Ryan's friends miss him, and Graham is 'travelling.' Meanwhile, the Doctor goes in for her MOT. The visual of the Doctor sorting out the TARDIS on a hydraulic lift is a cute sight gag that reminded me a bit of Matt Smith's tinkering under his TARDIS console. However, it always confuses me when they break the barrier of the chameleon circuit a little bit. Like the fact that the TARDIS would need to be painted, or have its lightbulb changed is a bit perplexing.

Our friends find themselves rounded up by a couple of spies in a dark government vehicle. However their captivity is drawn short as the dashboard vaporises the driver leaving the crew helpless as the car reverses down the motorway by some invisible hand. The Doctor manages to gain control of the vehicle just on the brink of disaster. It seems that Chibnall's newfound love for speeding car chases on New Years day has now been established. It was frankly, rather thrilling.

Over the car's satnav, a man by the named of "C," invites them to MI-6 to ask the Doctor for help. Enter national treasure Stephen Fry. I feel like Juno Dawson should have gotten a cheque from this episode as the whole mistaking Graham for the Doctor because the Doctor has always been a man was the entire premise to her book "The Good Doctor." If you're looking for a fun Doctor Who read, it's a cracker! Also, yay for trans artists!

As soon as we meet C, there he goes... lasered. There is sadly very little of his character, so when he dies, it's not so much the character's death that's shocking, it's the fact that they wasted Stephen Fry that is shocking, which seems cheap. I'm really hoping that they bring him back somehow in part two, because if not, I am a disappoint.

Mr C, as I'm calling him due to the various Twin Peaks themes throughout this episode, shows the Doctor to a woman being kept as a patient. It's one of the spies from the opening sequence, only her DNA has been rewritten, and Mr C wants to know why. After enlisting the help of the Doctor we're treated to a bit of spy paraphernalia for Graham and Ryan to go nuts over. Every spy that had gone missing was investigating a man named Daniel Barton, who runs a search engine called VOR.

Okay, so I will give Chris Chibnall credit that he's trying to be more hip, but this is just an unfortunate name. How are we supposed to believe the people making Doctor Who are hip to their audience if they've never heard of vore before? It's like they don't even look at Tumblr. Which would mean I'm not actually speaking to Chris Chibnall directly. Which also means that bridge troll lied to me. Seriously though, is there not one dakimakura cuddling, partial fursuit-wearing, giantess worshipping weirdo working on Doctor Who? Not that there's anything wrong with weirdos, I am one of those. For myself and other weirdos, every time they said something like "VOR has infiltrated every corner of the internet," it was so much unintended laughter. I honestly had a hard time following the plot in places because I was laughing so much.

After Mr C is assassinated, the walls of his office turn into bad guys looking like chameleons or Voord in scramble suits. I couldn't help but wonder if VOR wasn't actually a nod to the Voord being the baddies. They very well still could be, but that's a bit of a stretch. Would be an awesome way to reinvent them though. The Doctor and Fam find refuge in the TARDIS where the Doctor decides to split the team-up. Yaz and Ryan will pose as journalists and Graham and the Doctor are going to see her WhatsApp buddy. Much to everyone's surprise, one of the chameleon creatures begins working its way through the TARDIS door, causing the Doctor to dematerialise ahead of schedule.

The Doctor's WhatsApp buddy is left a mystery. Initially he sends her a picture of a fish which I thought was going to be a one-off Chibnall joke about how the Doctor is friends with a fish, or perhaps that they were currently underwater. But the image is actually a coded file that leads the Doctor to this mysterious person's location, which is Australia, and definitely not underwater. I was expecting all of this mystique to lead to some big reveal, but instead, we get some guy named O. As in "Oh, it's nobody special." I saw that black hair behind and I was hopeful that it was Captain Jack. If Chibnall purposely built this up to be disappointing all so he could land the big reveal later, then my hat is off to him.

The problem is, up until that reveal, O is boring as wallpaper. In discussing the episode with my friend, I had mentioned that it was like the Asgard scenes in "Thor: Ragnarok," in that they're the worst scenes in the movie, and every time we're there, we'd rather be somewhere more interesting, like with Yaz and Ryan in San Fransisco. Oh hey, there they are now! After finding their way into Barton's office, Yaz plays a reporter and Ryan acts as her photographer. All the while they're scanning his DNA to discover if he's an alien threat or not. The interview acts more as a means to dispense exposition. I get that she's not a real journalist, but if you're talking to Bill Gates you're not going to ask him to describe his company like he's some scrappy tech start-up. Just as the interview starts to get spicy with Yaz calling attention to social media being safe havens for hate speech, the interview gets cut short. As an apology, Barton invites them to his birthday party the next day, because that's a thing people do. How very convenient.

Even more convenient is that nobody was there to escort Ryan and Yaz out of the building. My wife used to work for a tech company in the states where I visited her for lunch a couple of times. The amount of security I had to go through just to have a bit of pizza with the missus makes VOR seem tame. Heh. The duo sneaks into Barton's office where they have a conversation that proves once and for all that Chibnall is very hip with the kids when Yaz informs Ryan that her sister wants his phone number. What's she gonna do, call him from her rotary phone from the old folks home? Seriously girl, slide into them DMs, look up his damn Insta or Snapchat. At least the Doctor uses WhatsApp.

Lots of tropes follow. They need to copy information from Barton's computer. Barton returns to his office. Ryan and Yaz have to hide. Barton even does the whole "I know you're there," but he's actually speaking to someone else trope. The “someone else,” are the wall chameleon Voord dudes who seem to be covered in bright light. He seems to control them or answer to them on some level. After Barton and the two chameleon bois leave, Yaz goes back to the computer to get more information but is stopped by a third chameleon dude. He zaps her into oblivion and Ryan runs away only to find the building lighting up with chameleon bois in the windows like Cybermen waking from a tomb. Actually I'm not discounting that they could be Cybermen.

Meanwhile, in Australia, the Doctor and Graham have possibly brought chameleon bois with them like interdimensional bed bugs. O's small cabin is under attack until some crafty use of force fields on O's behalf manages to trap one of these baddies glowing as bright as floodlights. The Doctor questions the trapped creature who informs her that it and the rest of its kind plan to take over the universe. Finally, some high stakes in Chris Chibnall's Doctor Who!

During all of this, Yaz finds herself alone in an unfamiliar place that looks like a neural network of sorts. Impulses of energy spark around her feet and up long tendrils reaching up into darkness. A lot of this reminded me of Twin Peaks: The Return. From the desert outside O's home, to the creatures travelling through electricity, to a hero appearing suddenly in a glass box that also houses a monster. It would not surprise me if many of the production crew at Doctor Who weren't also giant fans of Twin Peaks because its hoof prints are everywhere. I'll forgive them then for not knowing what vore was.

As I said, a hero appears in the box. Just as the Doctor is talking to the creature in the box, Yaz is overtaken by the electrical pulses and is transported to Australia, switching places with the creature in the box. During a bit of downtime, Yaz sulks a bit from thinking she was dead. Graham and O discuss the Doctor long enough for Graham to discover she wasn't lying about being a man before. As a trans person, I've seen that face Graham made and it's pretty accurate. Props to Bradley Walsh for capturing trans panic with such realism! According to the DNA scan, they discover Barton is only 93% human, which sounds an awful lot like the woman in a coma at MI-6. They also discover a strange code imbedded in VOR’s system. Strangely it makes a map of the earth, but not just one map, several maps of the same earth. I’m thinking it probably has to do with different points in time. After rounding everyone up, including O, the Doctor forms a plan to infiltrate Barton's party and confront him.

Perhaps at this point, the biggest shock about Barton's party is how much of it actually plays out. So many things have happened up to this point that I figured the episode would be ending soon. The Doctor and her fam show up in full tuxes. Even O has spiffed up. We get to watch Graham and Ryan bond a bit over gambling and the Doctor attempts to play poker, but just ends up playing snap instead. However, her actual plan is pretty weak. She literally walks up to Barton and confronts him. That's the whole of her plan. Step one: Get lucky enough to be invited to Barton's birthday party. Step two: Confront Barton directly. Step three: No, that was it.

Barton, of course, flees giving us a chance for yet another car chase. This time there are motorcycles and guns! Though the guns are a bit rubbish as they can't hit anything but bulletproof motorcycle headlamps. This sounds nitpicky, which it is. I was having a lot of fun at this point in the episode. Lenny Henry was clearly having fun as Daniel Barton, firing wildly at our heroes from a speeding car. The chase leads us all the way to the airport where our heroes pile into the back of Barton's getaway plane.

What happens next is basically all over the internet at this point. People are going crazy for the return of the Master. It would appear that our gentle natured O is actually Missy regenerated into a new body. Sacha Dhawan plays the role with great relish, and none too soon! I was beginning to feel bored to tears by O. It was also by this point that I had a bit of a revelation, as up until O started to show an attraction toward Yaz, I was pinging the dude as a friend of Dorothy. And speaking of Dorothy, how about that flying house out the window reference with the Master's TARDIS?

A lot of this episode hit a lot of Third Doctor notes for me. The glowing villains were like something from "Ambassadors of Death." And how gnarly was the return of tissue compression as a means of killing? Looking at mini-agent O in that matchbox is as ghoulish as it was when Delgado was the Master. Another great thing is that the Master is once again being used to pave the way for future Doctors. As we got Missy, we ended up with a female Doctor. And as we now have a person of colour playing the Master, perhaps then we will get a person of colour playing the Fourteenth Doctor.

This is not to say that I was 100% onboard with this new Master. While I do think Dhawan seems to do well with his five minutes of screen time as the Master, I'm feeling a bit of big reveal fatigue from literally every Master since Yana. It's the same creeping realisation as it slowly dons on the Doctor that the person standing in front of them is indeed the Master. We're supposed to swoon with excitement while the Doctor and Master stand there eye-fucking each other. Hell, they even did it with Capaldi and baby Davros. I'm putting a moratorium on the big Master reveal. You don't get to keep doing the same story and expect a pat on the head. The next Master needs to regenerate in front of the Doctor or something because this is getting old.

The real excitement from the scene comes from the potential of yet another actor in the shoes of our favourite psychopath. I'll always be open to seeing what a new person can bring to the role. And my what an exit he has! After revealing his true nature to the Doctor, our new Master leaves our heroes with a bomb on board the plane. His parting words of "Everything you think you know is a lie," sounds a lot like retconning to me. My guess is that it has to do with Chibnall's "timeless child," storyline. It's pure conjecture on my part, but there's a slim chance it's going to point toward the Doctor being some sort of orphan the Time Lords found. There are echoes of Andrew Cartmel's "The Other," storyline. The reason I think this is that such a storyline would inject mystery back into the Doctor's character. Adding a little more of the "Who?" to Doctor Who.

Things at this point are happening in rapid succession. I don't quite know what happened to Barton other than he turned into a cockpit bomb. Perhaps that was the other 7% of his DNA. His mother's father's father was a bomb from a long line of bombs. The truth is probably closer to the 7% being part chameleon boi. If you’ll remember, the DNA scan only said 93% human, and never said what the remainder was. This could be because the species is unknown, or it could also be because, like with the sonic screwdriver, it was unscannable. Before the Doctor can come up with a brilliant escape, she suddenly finds herself in the same strange dimension where Yaz had found herself. As that all too familiar stab indicating the end of the episode swells, I was left relieved I would only have to wait until Sunday to see the conclusion to Spyfall.

How exciting is it to be excited for Doctor Who again? As much as I loved parts of series eleven, I went into each episode with a slight pang of dread that I wouldn't enjoy myself. In fact, when I saw the words "Part I," and "by Chris Chibnall," at the beginning, I started to dread the outcome. A lot of my trepidation is still a remnant from Moffat's lesser qualities. I'm tired in a lot of ways, of big reveals and cryptic soundbites that oftentimes lead to disappointment. I even got some of the things I’ve been wanting to see. I got to see Jodie be tough with Barton. They stopped using those god awful ugly closeup shots. And we got to see some variation in the Doctor’s costume. On top of all of that, I admired the fact that the Doctor wasn’t able to sonic screwdriver away her problems. (Though I would say psychic paper would have been a more believable way into the party). While I don't feel we're out of the woods just yet, the promise inherent in this most recent episode has me feeling optimistic. I had a lot of fun.

[jessgartner]

2021 Life Olympics

I was serious about finding joy in 2021. I left the Christmas "joy" decorations up for the whole year so that I would be literally surrounded by JOY JOY JOY at home all year round. Christmas doesn't have a monopoly on joy, after all. We need joy for all seasons.

Here we go. Year o' joy:

Work - Gold

In many ways, this was my best year of work. Allovue brought on a new roster of dream school districts to work with in Cincinnati, Cleveland, Boston, LA, and even my dear Baltimore on our new allocation tool. There was so much to celebrate all year. Our team also welcomed six new bundles of joy this year which made for a lot cute baby content in the #family channel and Zoom. Want to make meetings more joyful? Add a gurgling baby or two or six.

I returned to traveling for the wonderful world of education conferences this year. The joyyyyy I felt on my first airplane ride in 15 months! I did pick-up the COVID variant du jour at one of those conferences, but getting back to in-person events with our partners and friends felt like restoring a huge missing part of my work. Remote options are great and necessary but, for me, there is no substitute for presenting to a live audience, having a lively roundtable discussion, and breaking bread with people in good ole' real life.

Running a company in the second year of a pandemic? Still stressful! Which brings me to...

Health - Bronze

It was a pretty rough year health-wise-- physically and mentally.

I started the year struggling to figure out the right cocktail of ADHD medicine-- a process that left me listless and depressed. It was a long, dark winter. I mentally army-crawled my way to the right doctor and medicine and when I finally got it right-- that was joy.

I got COVID in July and, while my symptoms were roughly equivalent to a bad flu and considered 'mild' by coronavirus standards, it still really knocked me down. The bigger problem, though, was that I had a lot of trouble getting back up. I don't know if it was lingering fatigue from the virus or burnout from two years of navigating a company through an evolving crisis (both?!) but I felt down for the count. My energy levels were so low that I could barely function and my brain felt like it was short-circuiting just trying to string together basic sentences. After a few weeks of feeling like this, I decided that I needed a real, hard break. I took off to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico for a 2-week yoga retreat and brought myself back to life. I spent two whole weeks doing nothing but yoga, reading, journaling, hiking, and eating delicious plant-based meals. I started to feel like a human again after the first week but it took me the full two weeks to feel like me again.

My exercise stats this year came in at about 85% of 2020 levels-- this is decent considering I lost almost 2 months of regular workouts due to COVID/fatigue. I recommitted to my yoga practice after the retreat and found a wonderful new yoga home at Baltimore Yoga Union-- which I learned about from one of my yoga instructors in Mexico because the universe works in weird and wonderful ways.

Home - Silver

I can hardly divorce this year in all things Home from the ongoing fiasco with my back alley flooding. I spent a truly obnoxious amount of time this year clearing the storm drain behind my house to prevent flooding and calling/emailing/tweeting at various City Council members and City agencies and neighborhood groups trying to get a longterm, permanent solution to this issue. As an interim solution, I had a wall/flood barrier installed around my basement door to try to mitigate flooding into my house.

I'm giving this a Silver because my persistence is starting to pay off. As of this writing, the City's Emergency Services department is reviewing a contract for a study of the block's storm-drain system which is allegedly accompanied with funding for a potential solution. Fingers crossed for a real solution by this time next year.

Horizons - Silver

All things considered, I could probably give this category Gold this year; I'm downgrading it to Silver because I feel like I really phoned this one in this year. I hit my modest reading goal of 30 books. I traveled as much as I could (Portland and Willamette Valley with Ali, Asheville and Breckenridge with Rob, Puerto Vallarta for yoga). I tried skiing for the first time since I was 3-years-old. I went on a yoga retreat. Aside from skiing, I don't really feel like I pushed myself to explore many new horizons as much this year. I was exhausted for so much of this year and my energy for trying and seeing and learning new things was at an all time low. More on that later.

Relationships - Gold

The relationships in my life were a real bright spot this year and the source of so much of my joy. My relationship with my former student and mentee offered such deep gratitude and joy this year. I got to spend time with my Mom, brother, and sister-in-law in Colorado. I was able to spend Father's Day weekend with my Dad. I ate a lot of delicious food and drank a lot of good wine with my aunt. I caught up with Ali for an awesome PNW trip. I reunited with my team for an incredible company retreat in Estes Park. I got to see my extended family for the holidays. I enjoyed many wonderful dinners and nights of deep discussion with the various loves of my life-- all of us navigating the respecting challenges of building companies, parenting, love and marriage, and all that other lovely messy human stuff.

And of course, I got to spend the better part of the year falling in love and being loved. I don't take a minute of it for granted.

I started this year with one Mary Oliver poem, so I'll end it with another one:

If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be. We are not wise, and not very often kind. And much can never be redeemed. Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this is its way of fighting back, that sometimes something happens better than all the riches or power in the world. It could be anything, but very likely you notice it in the instant when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the case. Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb.

2022

And as for 2022-- what's the word? I had a hard time coming up with my theme word this year; I just felt somewhat uninspired. Usually, it springs forth from the recesses of my brain-- sometimes as early as September-- and I just know. This year took some noodling along with some help from Rob.

A few things loosely informed my word for 2022:

I recently opened a cabinet that contains games, coloring books, and other various tools of leisure-- I all but had to clear the cobwebs to find what I was looking for.

Crystal said to me, "When I first met you, you did plays and took pictures and made art. I hope you get to do those things again someday." Leave it to a best friend to drop a piercing insight on you that will resonate for weeks.

I haven't touched my camera in years, lazily defaulting to the iPhone for all my picture-taking needs, and I miss it.

I read Four Thousand Weeks, which has prompted me to reflect on my perceptions of time

::Gestures to the state of the world::

It occurs to me that I have a very broken relationship with the whole concept of leisure. I have been working a lot (probably too much) and when I'm not working, I'm often preoccupied with thinking about work or feeling guilty for not working. I don't mind working a lot because I genuinely love my work and find a tremendous sense of purpose in what I do-- but I could stand to have a few fewer hours of my life revolve around it. My routine stress-level is not great.

I've always been an anxious achiever-type, but I haven't always had such a fraught relationship with fun. I used to make things all the time-- paintings, needlepoint, cross-stitch, scrapbooks, stationary, crochet, various craft projects. I sang and danced (poorly, but I tried) and played piano (also poorly) and did improv and read aloud plays with friends; we wrote new harmonies to songs and silly scripts and sat around making up dream cast lists for our favorite musicals for no reason at all. I took so many pictures and spent hours editing my favorites, and then, in college, even more hours processing in the darkroom. I played softball and soccer; sang in choirs and practiced mock trials. I had so many extracurricular activities I don't know how I ever made time for the curricular ones.

My extracurriculars have diminished considerably. I still do a singing lesson twice a month; I read and bike and do yoga-- but most of those have some kind of productivity goal attached to them. Singing is really the only thing I still do just for fun. My extracurriculars now are various boards and workgroups and committees that are really just work in disguise.

Being an adult can't all be fun and games-- but surely some of it can be? I'm going to try to rid myself of the belief that everything I do needs to be productive. I want to have enough energy for things other than work. I want to make and build and create-- I want to play.

2022: Let's play.

[giliidctrawangan]

padi idc gili islands

Any individual who has been to a Trawangan Dive test night will be comfortable with James, our quizmaster and one of the lead PADI Instructors at our jump resort on Gili Trawangan.

His story from office employment to jump god is a well-known story to a considerable lot of us in the plunge business. At a certain point, we as a whole chose to bid farewell to the standard nine-to-five so as to go out on a limb an into the universe of jumping. What's more, much the same as all of us, James has no expectation of regularly returning…

What was your past activity?

Subsequent to contemplating bookkeeping at school in Essex, I began my first occupation with a development organization in East London. I was 18 years of age at the time, padi idc gili islands  and I remained there for a long time. It was horrendous, extremely dreadful.

The day by day drive was generally spent sitting in somebody's armpit tuning in to some nitwit visiting trash on his versatile. The late night's voyage home was definitely on open vehicle, attempting to abstain from getting anybody's attention on the off chance that they had a blade and a demeanor.

To be completely forthright, I abhorred England. It was cool, exhausting and it rained constantly. On the off chance that my family didn't live there, I could cheerfully never step foot in the nation until kingdom come.

Not your most joyful minute at that point! So what did you do?

I set aside some dosh and booked myself on a multi month trip around Africa. It was an overland trek in a transport with a lot of others who were frustrated with this present reality. It was my first excursion outside of Europe so it was huge eye opener. We began in Cape Town and I figured out how to jump there. Be that as it may, blimey, it was cold. The water was 13 degrees – we needed to wear a 7mm semi-dry and I was all the while freezing! Notwithstanding this, it was an astonishing encounter and I kept on plunging all through excursion.

Lake Malawi was my first tester of making a plunge new water. Bunches of various fish and furthermore unique arranging was required in light of the fact that it was likewise height jumping. In Zanzibar I had my first make a plunge warm water and I couldn't accept the change it makes. I saw heaps of stuff – turtles and bunches of various reef fish. In the middle of, the excursion incorporated various safaris, wilderness boating, trekking to see gorillas, and so on. It was fabulous. What's more, for a half year, I lived in a tent and figured out how to make a fire, how to cook for the gathering and connected with my internal mountain man!

Did you head back home toward the finish of the outing?

In no way, shape or form! At the point when the excursion finished I traveled to Bangkok, Thailand and observed New Years Eve at a full moon party Koh Pha Ngan. Mental. Following a month or so of celebrating in Thailand, I advanced toward Borneo where I volunteered at an untamed life focus called Matang Wildlife Center. This included assisting with the orangutans, building walled in areas and heaps of trekking into the mosquito-invaded wilderness.

From that point onward, I cleared a path round the South-East Asia explorer circuit including Laos, Cambodia, Philippines and Singapore. I jumped at whatever point I found the opportunity. Specifically, Sipadan knocked my socks off. There was such a great amount of continuing during each plunge that I didn't have the foggiest idea where to look.

And afterward, did you head home?

Nah! I applied for a working occasion visa and made a beeline for Australia. I'd for a long while been itching to encounter life down under. As opposed to making a straight shot to Sydney like every other person, I went to Melbourne. I was concerned that Sydney would simply be London-on-Sea.

Furthermore, without precedent for what appeared ages, I found myself a legitimate line of work as a bookkeeper once more. It was the simplest method to gain some not too bad cash. After all the voyaging I had done, it was decent to appreciate a portion of the solaces of the created world once more. I had a decent gathering of mates that appreciated a beverage or two, so consistently was spent down the bar. What's more, at the end of the week, I would attempt to escape. On one event, I made a beeline for Cairns for a plunge stumble on the Great Barrier Reef, which was cool, yet not so much what I anticipated.

Did you proceed with your PADI instruction there?

As a matter of fact, it was en route home that I visited in Malaysia and did my next course in the Perhentians islands. I had arranged two weeks of chilling on sun-doused, palm tree lined sea shore before making a beeline for the UK. Be that as it may, I was exhausted following two or three days so I pursued my PADI Rescue Diver course with Emergency First Response. It was a fun course with heaps of individuals claiming to pass out submerged or suffocating superficially. I needed to tow a chunky person for what appeared miles. It was great exercise.

Is it safe to say that you were eager to be returning home after so long away?

You would think so. Be that as it may, actually no, not so much. Obviously it was decent to see loved ones. Be that as it may, the primary explanation I returned was on the grounds that I had come up short on cash, not on the grounds that I needed to come back to office life.

In any case, I got a bookkeeping work once more. I figured the time had come to grow up and prevent fleeing from duties.

Following three months in the activity, I understood I would not really like to grow up so I set aside up some more cash to go voyaging again and afterward quit my place of employment! Once more!

How could you get some answers concerning Trawangan Dive?

I did a Google look for 'making a plunge Indonesia' and the Gili islands sprung up. I messaged different diverse plunge focuses and the answer from the supervisor at the time, Amy, was the fastest and the most entertaining. That is all it took! I booked my flight the following day and a month or so later I landed on the island.

What's your opinion of the Gili islands?

At the point when I showed up, I was truly satisfied with my decision. It has the best parity of public activity and jumping of any island I've been to previously. Here and there you land in a plunging goal and keeping in mind that they are picture great, there's literally nothing to do at night.

In the event that you would prefer not to plunge the Gili islands (which would be damn disgrace) you could in any case do heaps of things – kayaking, sunbathing, swimming, horse riding, trek up a spring of gushing lava in close by Lombok, and so on. A few young ladies even sunbathe topless so it gives the folks a pleasant distraction between plunges!

How was your PADI Divemaster Course?

I really adored each snapshot of it. I had Philip as my guide and it placed me in an advantageous position for the remainder of my plunging profession. I helped on loads of various courses from – Discover Scuba Diving, Open Water Diver, Advanced Open Water Diver and Rescue Diver courses. Each Divemaster's most loved is the help on a Rescue Course – blacking out, shouting, vomiting, dying, freezing! Such a significant number of chances to channel my inward busybody!

I've seen you in a reasonable hardly any ensembles since you showed up…

I do cherish an outfit party! I've been dressed as Tarzan, a school young lady, a go-go artist, the Hoff, and a lot more other than. What's more, who can overlook the high school freak ninja turtles? That was for my snorkel test toward the finish of my Divemaster course – another psychological night I can scarcely recall!

How did the discover PADI IDC?

The two weeks passed by so rapidly in light of the fact that we were so occupied. I was under the impression we would be secured in the study hall constantly, however there were such a significant number of workshops, we never appeared to be out of the water.

I think I astonished many (counting myself) with my insight improvement introductions. My Essex highlight is a steady wellspring of delight for the individuals I work with, yet in the study hall introductions, clearly I changed my articulation and turned into an amiable Englishman talking the Queen's English. It's never happened again since!

What's more, shouldn't something be said about the PADI Instructor Examination?

For my PADI IE, we went to Bali. The conditions were entirely different to those around the Gili islands. We had 5 meter perceivability and seething ebb and flow that made the vast water introductions kinda testing. In contrast with different gatherings there, we appeared to be greatly improved arranged and this appeared in the last stamps – I went without a hitch!

Thus you started your new life as a PADI Instructor…

At the point when I returned I assisted doing some jumping and afterward they offered me a situation as a perpetual plunge teacher at the plunge resort. Monetarily things are a lot simpler at this point. I can bring home the bacon without plunging into investment funds. Actually, I'm in any event, figuring out how to spare a piece too. I love educating and the assortment it brings. One day I'll be directing a Discover Scuba Diving session and the following day I'll be showing Deep Specialty or Enriched Air.

[inhumansforever]

Ms. Marvel 19 Review

spoilers spoilers spoilers spoilers spoilers spoilers spoilers spoilers spoilers

It’s the beginning of a brand new storyline in the pages of Ms. Marvel as illustrator, Marco Falla, joins G. Willow Wilson and Ian Herring for the start of an arc interestingly entitled ‘mecca.’  Full recap and review following the jump.

The tale begins with Kamala and her family preparing for their annual celebration of the first day of Eid Al-Adha.  Herein it’s shown that Aamir’s new bride, Tyesha is pregnant, meaning Kamala is to be an auntie in the not too distant future.  How exciting!  

Yet the merriment is cut short when they return home to see their street partially cordoned off by barriers and signs reading ‘bring back the real Jersey City.’  It’s not clear what exactly is going on, but it certainly looks like trouble… it would seem that a tide of divisiveness has swept over the city.  

The Khan family try not to let it all spoil their good time and continue on with their celebration.  Eid Al-Adha is the Festival of the Sacrifice and is a major holiday celebrated by Muslims all over the world.  The family prepare a huge feast for friends and family.  Kamala enjoys herself but cannot help but dwell on those disturbing signs and what exactly is going on with Jersey City.  Wanting to investigate the matter further, Kamala excuses herself saying she wants to take a walk after having eaten so much.  Her step-brother, Gabe, opts to go with her. While on their walk, Kamala and Gabe are approached by two suspicious looking customers in matching uniforms who introduce themselves as agents of the ‘Keepers of Integration Normalization and Defense’ agency or KIND for short.  These KIND agents are patrolling the neighborhood to enforce behavioral norms.  

The whole idea of it strikes Kamala as absurd and unconstitutional.  She states that Mayor Marchesi would never sanction such a thing.  The KIND agents inform her that Machesi has been unseated as mayor, fired by the city council in a closed session and replaced by Chuck Worthy.  

Worthy is a Hydra agent and former underling of Dr. Faustus who had run for Mayor several issues back.  The KIND agents refute this idea that mayor Worthy is associated with Hydra, stating that the whole notion is merely a smear campaign orchestrated by his political enemies.  

These agents add that they had been called to the neighborhood by citizens who had reported undocumented super-powered beings.  It all cuts Kamala like a knife.  The idea that her own neighbors would turn on her in this fashion is just crushing.  

Kamala has seen this particular brand of authoritarianism before and feels confident she knows exactly who is behind it all.  She barges off intent on meeting the threat head on.  

Having donned her Ms. Marvel outfit, Kamala arrives at the old detention facility that had once been run by the Carol Cadets back during the second superhero civil war.  Here she encounters ‘Basic’ Becky St. Jude.   Becky (who is now going by the name ‘Lockdown’) explains that she is no longer an outlaw, now she is the law.  

She works for Mayor Worthy and has every legal right to enforce her authoritarian ways.  Indeed the tables have turned and now it is Ms. Marvel who is the one operating outside the law.  Lockdown has her minion, a villain named ‘Discord,’ attack Kamala.  

This Discord appears to have some sort of electrical offensive powers, firing blast of energy at Ms. Marvel.  Kamala has been practicing her defensive dodges, utilizing her stretching powers to shift away from an attack in an efficient fashion.  At first she is quite excited that her practice has paid off and she is able to evade Discord’s attack with relative ease.   

Yet Discord seems familiar with the particular limits of Ms. Marvel’s abilities; he changes up tactics and ensnares her with rings of electrical energy.   Such high voltage burst of energy is something Ms. Marvel is vulnerable to; and Discord is able to defeat her.

It seems as though the mysterious Discord fellow is someone Kamala has encountered before.  Trapped in those energy rings, she asks him who he is.  He replies that perhaps he’ll answer the question but first he has a question of his own… and asks about the time in which Ms. Marvel fought against Chuck Worthy’s downtown development plan.  Discord asks Kamala what she saw when she first arrived on the scene?  It takes her a minute, but then it dawns on her that despite the clearly evil intensions of Worthy’s plan, there were indeed quite a few people there supporting him.  At the time, she just shrugged them off as easily manipulated stooges, but now she’s forced to realize that they were real people, people with real feelings and real concerns.  

Worthy was offering totalitarianism in exchange to keeping them safe.  Ms. Marvel fight against it because, to her, such a bargain is evil and unAmerican.  Yet it nerve quite dawned on her that there were a lot of people who felt the opposite, who very much wanted what Worthy was offering… and she disregarded them merely because she believed she was right, that she knew better.   And then Discord knocks her out.  

Meanwhile, Gabe rushes back home and alerts the others that there are these creepy KIND agents out there enforcing social norms and rounding up super powered beings.  Zoe has been the Khan’s guest for the Eid Al-Adha festivities.  She interrupts Gabe, expressing a fearful dismay that government agents are out there rounding up illegal immigrants!   Embarrassed by her outburst, Zoe explains that she was actually born in France and has never actually gone about naturalizing her citizenship.  

Aamir brushes off Gabe’s concern.  The family are all law abiding citizens and should have nothing to fear.  Mrs. Khan asks Aamir to bring the leftovers of their feast to a family down the street.  He complies, but on his way there is accounted by the KIND agents.  These agents identify Aamir as being an undocumented super-powered being.  Amir laughs it off.  He had only possessed powers for a short while, the results of an accident that have long since worn off.  The agents are unmoved by his explanation and haul him off to be processed, detained and who knows what else.  And it is with this harrowing turn of events that the issue ends with he promise of continuation in the next installment.  

Anyone expecting a lighter toned story-arc following the rather heavy DocX saga is sure to be surprised.  Wilson’s scripts just do not shy away from the important topics of the day, and ‘Mecca’ may very well be Ms. Marvel’s most pressing and germane tale to date.  

The gag where Zoe assumes the KIND agents are out rounding up undocumented immigrants made for funny bit, but also acted to underscore the metaphorical valance of the issue.  ‘Super powered beings’ in the issue is rather clearly just a stand-in for immigrants, specifically immigrants who are Muslim.  

The trump Administration’s so-called ‘travel ban’ has just recently been once more struck down by the ninth circuit court of appeals.  It’s now being fast-tracked to the Supreme Court.  This travel band is very much a poorly veiled Muslim ban and is as unconstitutional as it gets; yet there is still a chance that the Supreme Court will uphold presidential authority over immigration and allow the ban to go into effect.  A daunting, horrifying prospect. The constitutionality and amorality of such a ban notwithstanding, there is the simple truth that there is a sizable portion of the American public who would very much like to see it enacted.  The specter of terrorism has created an irrational fear toward people who are Muslim.  And many are quite will to give up civil liberties to take actions that they believe will better ensure their safety.  I don’t agree with them, but it is folly to just see them as an uninformed rabble.  They are real people with real feelings.  

Kamala is used to being loved.  She’s plucky and cheerful and wonderfully inspiring in her unwavering idealism.  It is surprising and terribly dismaying for her to realize that there are many people out there who fear her, who would feel much safer were she gone.  And this extends to the real world as well.  Ms. Marvel bursted onto the scene and was an immediate hit.  She was celebrated as the first major Muslim superhero and that, coupled with the amazingly high quality of her comic, made her an absolute darling of the progressive left.  Yet times have changed and the shift in political atmosphere in the states has very much emboldened people who have attitudes to the contrary to speak their minds.  And as one of the more visible Muslim characters of popular culture, Ms. Marvel (and her creators) has become the focus of a great deal of vicious and intolerant animus.  

Some may feel that it is inappropriate for G. Willow Wilson to incorporate all of this into once of her comics.  Who may think it better to keep comic books apolitical and just a man of escapism.  Yet I don’t blame her in the least.  How can she not think about things, not want to try to process and digest it all in her art?  Life and art always imitate one another, there’s really no way around it.

I’m curious about the story-arc being entitled ‘Mecca.’  Mecca with a capital ‘M’ is the capital of Hejaz, Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of The Prophet Muhammad and spiritual center of Islam.  Mecca with a lower case ‘M’ however can colloquially by used as any place in which a person very much wants to go, an idealized location.  The font utilized write out ‘Mecca’ at the beginning of the issue makes it impossible to tell if it is being written with an upper or lower case ‘M.’  It makes for a very intriguing ambiguity...

Recommended.  Four out of Five Lockjaws.  

[xaphrin]

Raven knew he knew who she was.

It was obvious, the way his stare would linger on the back of her head as she walked by him in the halls. The way his sentences would simply cut off the moment she stepped into view, and he would let his words hang in silence until she walked away.

[more under the cut]

At first she thought it was just that he found her attractive. After all, it had been nearly ten years since they last saw each other. Raven had grown out of her petite teenage body, and she had developed ‘feminine wiles’ as Zachary had called it. She didn’t feel all that different, perhaps a bit taller, but she had always chalked that up to the fact that now she was more apt to wear heels (it was easier to look imposing if she sported stiletto-sharp shoes). However, Dick never made any crude comments to her, asked her out for coffee, or even glanced anywhere south of her shoulders. After a few months, Raven had no choice but to admit that he knew.

And now they were in her cramped office together, with no windows and no escape.

“I need the reports on the autopsy from last week.” His hands slipped into his pockets and he stood there looking like the epitome of everything she shouldn’t want. She had not forgotten the last thing he had said to her before they parted ways – In another life, maybe things would have been different. It was meant to remind her that things couldn’t always end in the way they wanted them to, and Raven knew that.

Except now, they were living another life, both of them, and it felt weird to dwell so hard on those thoughts. It was another life… wasn’t it? A normal one?

“Which report?” Raven plucked the glasses from her nose and pursed her lips, trying to throw up that careful barrier she needed to protect her emotions. “I performed five autopsies last week, and if I remember correctly, you are not on any of those cases, Detective Grayson.”

He pressed his lips together and leaned back against the door of her office, his lips twitching as it clicked into place. Her toes curled into her shoes and she set her pen down next to her glasses. Raven refused to say it first. If he wanted to open that line of communication, then he would have to make the first move.

“Raven.”

Impressive. He certainly had matured at least enough to start talking without being prompted.

“It’s Doctor Roth now, you know.” She pointed to the stitching on the breast of her jacket. “Official and everything.”

He sighed and sagged against the door, his expression priceless. He looked tired and exhausted, but also just a bit amused. It seemed as if it were easier to talk to her now that there wasn’t an entire precinct of officers and detectives and bosses staring at them like they were in a fish bowl. Slowly, he made his way to the only other chair in the room and sat down.

“You look good.”

Raven lifted an eyebrow and glanced over at him. “Is that so?”

He snorted. “Come on, you had to have noticed. Especially after Zachary showered all that attention on you.” There was a note of jealousy in his voice, but Raven decided not to chase it. She knew better than to head down the rabbit hole. Dick nodded to the ring on her left hand. “So… still… engaged?”

“No. We never were.” She turned back to her computer, not liking the sour feeling in her stomach. It was one thing to talk about his past lovers, it was another thing to talk about her own. She didn’t want to, not when the one person she had ever truly wanted was sitting in front of her, looking practically dashing in navy blue. “It was a bit of a media stunt for a while, but we never had any intention of getting married.”  

“But you wear the ring?”

“It’s magicked. Zachary made it for me to keep my powers a little better controlled.” There was a long pause as she responded to an email, and it was so quiet that Raven thought for a moment that he had left. It wasn’t until he spoke again that she realized he was waiting for her to explain.

“And you wear it on that hand?”

“It fits on this hand. It seems rather silly to wear it anywhere else.” Raven sent her email and turned back to him, crossing her arms over her chest. She could feel it fluttering against her ribs, as if she was a teenager in love for the first time and it felt strange. Her entire life revolved around keeping herself guarded and away from emotions that caused turmoil, and yet here she was – in a too-small office with him. Licking her lips, Raven met his stare with one of her own. “Dick, what is this about?”

“Just catching up.”

“No. No, you are not. You are asking about Zachary, and bringing up my fake engagement.” Her nostrils flared just a little and she pitched forward, trying to read him the best she could. He was being ridiculous, and they both knew it. “You are trying to see how my love life has been doing. I don’t see why, you already told me you didn’t love me.”

“I… that’s not what I meant.” His voice skipped and he looked away, crossing his arms over his chest.

Raven sighed and rubbed the bridge of her nose. He was going to give her a damned headache if he kept this up. It was like he was purposefully trying to antagonize her at this point. Did he love her or didn’t he? Because he had made it perfectly clear that the only way he could ever love her was if it was a different life. She rested her hands in her lap and lifted an eyebrow. “So, what did you mean?”

“I… I don’t know, Raven. I was a kid at the time, I didn’t know what I wanted and I thought… I just…” His sentence trailed off and there was a grunt that gurgled up from the space underneath his chest. “I thought love would be easy.”

Raven snorted. “You’re right, you were a kid. Love is not easy.”

“No… it’s a lot of work.”

She waited a moment, turning back to her desk and sorting through her reports. “Is that why Star left?”

“No. That’s… complicated. And a story for another time, really.” He ran a hand over his face and looked up at the ceiling, another sigh escaping. “I hear her and Jason are having fun though.”

“So I am told. I try not to listen to too much gossip-“

He snorted. “But you’ll listen to gossip about me?”

Her lips tugged at the edge and she glanced back at him. “I would think that would be obvious.”

“Because you like to hear about me failing?”

“Because I like to hear about you.” Raven placed her hands flat on her desk, what little smile she had falling. “Because in spite of what you think, I still care very deeply for you, Dick.” Pause. “I still love you… which I suppose is a reason that Zachary and I could never make it work. Although we certainly tried.”

He looked shocked, and Raven wondered if something had short-circuited in his brain. Dick sat there, his hands in his lap, fingers twitching, and he stuttered over so many words that nothing seemed to come out in a coherent sound. Raven’s heart turned over in her chest and she sighed, hating the fact that after all this time, he could still make her feel so… foolish. She stood up and took a few short steps to him, running her fingers through his hair as he looked up at her.

“You still…”

“It’s stupid. You would think I’d have gotten over you…” Raven’s fingers brushed against one of the brass BPD pins on his lapel, and he just stared up into her face. “I wish I would have told you so much sooner than now. It would have made thing infinitely easier for me.”

“Me too.”

His hands reached out and wrapped around her fingers, and Raven had forgotten how warm his touch could be. She had forgotten the scars on his fingers, the little tattoo on his wrist, and the way his pulse beat under her own touch. She had forgotten so much about him, but it was all coming rushing back to her in a flood of colors and emotions. How had she managed to walk out of their life so easily? They had been friends, but she forgot all of that when there was so much physical space between them.

She didn’t know how starved for touch she was until he was here in front of her, reminding her of all the things she wanted. “I’m sorry.”

Dick pulled on her hands and she toppled forward, landing in his lap. Her lab coat tangled in between his thighs, pinning her to his chest. Without her few inches of height, she felt small again, like someone that needed to be taken care of. Raven’s hands curled against his chest, and she could smell the familiar scent of his cologne. He still wore the same scent, even after all these years. Her eyes closed and she rested her forehead against his own, just listening to his breath in the stillness of the room.

“Don’t apologize.” His hands rested on her curve of her hips, hot even through the cotton. “I… I was young and dumb and naïve, and I… I didn’t deserve you.”

Raven smiled. “You’re still dumb.”

He chuckled and tipped his head up just enough that his nose brushed against hers. “I’m learning to get smarter… starting with asking you out on a date.”

“I’ll have to think about it.” Raven opened her eyes and looked into his impossibly blue stare. Her heart turned over again, and it felt as though they were the only people on the face of the planet.

“Think about it?”

“You made me wait so long for that question, Dick.” Raven untangled her lab coat and stepped back. It felt strange to have this kind of back-and-forth again, as if those ten years hadn’t passed between them. Everything felt new and fresh and exciting, and Raven loved it. She smiled. “I think you can wait a day or two while I mull it over properly.”

He pouted.  

[linaliveshere]

My Top 15 albums

Music to me is a stress relief. It is something that reflects your mood, no matter how you are feeling. It transports you back in time, almost as if you are living and breathing in a different generation. Music liberates you, its helps you connect with the cores and values that you have and continues to help you grow. Music gives you the fondest memories, is the soundtrack to your life and much of the reason why we connect with others on an intimate basis.

For me, a university student who is at the cusp of starting the next chapter of her life, music is an incredible escape from reality. Over the years, my knowledge and acceptance of music has allowed me to collate and enjoy many artists of many genres. On twitter and Tumblr, I asked what you guys would prefer for me to talk about, and my top 15 albums of all time came in at number one. Below, with much difficulty may I add, I have sought out my top 15 albums of all time!

1. INXS: Kick

I honestly cannot fault this album in the slightest. INXS was such a powerhouse for Australian music and they bought our industry to the mainstream across the world. Michael Hutchence was such a prolific singer and songwriter, a true artist who could grasp the concept of emotion and reality and put it so well into a song. Kick was an album that kick-started (pardon the pun) the juggernaut, headed by the smash hit Never Tear Us Apart. This whole album from start to finish is pure genius, and honestly makes you feel like you’re on a never-ending roller coaster. If you have never listened to this album, you should.

Top 3 songs:

-Never Tear Us Apart

-Kick

-Need You Tonight

2. The Weeknd: House of Balloons

Known to most of us by his stage name The Weeknd, Abel Tesfaye has become one of the biggest superstars in the world. From record breaking singles and albums to top collaborations with artists such as Daft Punk and Lana Del Ray, his discography has come a very long way since his first proper release- House of Balloons. Everyone seems to say that the first release is always the best and I will dispute that, but not in this case. Every album Abel has done has been so different and incredible, but something about House of Balloons stands out. The raw stumbling’s of drug abuse and sexual desires that he was singing about was something next level. Others had done it before him, but the way he produced this album was next level. It was a considerably short LP for the XO, only 50 minutes long. But it is enough to transport you back to his harsh Canadian upbringing and why he is like he is.

Top 3 songs:

-Wicked Games

-Coming Down

-High For This

3. Kendrick Lamar: To Pimp a Butterfly

First thing I want to say about Kendrick and this masterpiece of an album was that HE WAS ROBBED ALBUM OF THE YEAR AT THE GRAMMYS!! Kendrick has always been very popular online- much like counterpart Chance The Rapper, and made his mainstream debut when this album- To Pimp A Butterfly, flew up the charts around the world. Along with doing the infamous festival circuit which include headlining iconic festivals such as Glastonbury, Coachella and Australia’s very own Splendour in the Grass, To Pimp A Butterfly gained more traction. It brings to the surface all the issues that we as a society are too reluctant to talk about or see the truth about- racial tensions, the police brutality, the treatment of people of colour in general- especially women of colour and so much more. What elevated this album though for me was when Kendrick did a mash up of ‘The Blacker the Berry’ and ‘Alright’ with him being tied up in shackles singing behind a jail cell door. America at that time was in the grunt of the presidential campaign, making it even more dramatic and brought the album to a new audience.

Top 3 songs:

-The Blacker The Berry

-King Kunta

-These Walls

4. The Killers: Hot Fuss

The Killers are one of those bands who continually fly under the radar but remain so popular. Having two older sisters with quite a big age gap between us, my introduction to The Killers was through them blasting this album in the car non-stop; but I didn’t mind that. Hot Fuss is the best debut album of any artist I have listened to. The Killers weren’t punk rock or rock and roll- they were alternate rock. It was good enough for the music geeks and to be played on top 40 radio. This album holds two of the catchiest choruses ever with the songs ‘Mr Brightside’ and ‘Somebody Told Me’. Every time I listen to Hot Fuss, it sparks a little flame inside me and I sing at the top of my lungs. Along with this, the lyrics to the songs on the album are absolutely phenomenal and from start to finish take you on a journey. There are tales of heartbreak and regret with ‘All These Things That I Have Done’ and ‘Jenny Was a Friend of Mine’, love and adulation with ‘Midnight Show’ and ‘Everything Will Be Alright’. This album is honestly timeless and no matter how old you are, is pure enjoyment.

Top 3 Songs:

-Smile Like You Mean It

-Midnight Show

-On Top

5. Coldplay: Viva la Vida

I have been to a lot of concert, shows, gigs and festivals in my almost 23 years of life, and Coldplay has come out on top every time. Much like others on the list, their entire discography is something that I will listen to over and over and not get bored of it. Despite my favourite song of all time coming from their album X&Y (Fix You), Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends, or the stadium stomper as it is known as by music geeks, is an album that cemented Coldplay a stadium tour status. The massive drum and guitar, as well as incorporating orchestra was the first of its kind that I had heard, and I fell in love with the album immediately. Chris Martin is one of my favourite singer/songwriters of all time, and his ability to take something usually so hectic and not usually incorporated into mainstream music and make it his own is something that I admire him for. What really made this album pop of course was the stadium vibe and the enormity of the sound.

Top 3 songs:

-Viva la Vida

-Cemeteries of London

-Lovers in Japan/Reign of Love

6. Rihanna: ANTI

Robyn Rihanna Fenty is and always will be my woman crush. After doing 7 albums in 7 years, my babe Rihanna took about 3 years out of the spotlight to create her latest and most bold album to date- ANTI. There is something about the authentic of this album that puts this above the rest. Having that time off and going back to her Caribbean roots brought this album to the next level. The mix of her old-school reggae and more modern r’n’b, along with the improvement of her vocals along the way helped elevate it, but her bad girl persona did remain- especially with the inaugural song from the album ‘Bitch Better Have My Money’. The song ‘Work’, with rapper Drake, sent this album to elite status. It is fun and makes you feel like you can take on anyone and anything, and in contrast, will pull at your heart strings with songs such as Love on The Brain’. I am still upset that she did not tour Australia with the album, so thanks RiRi!

Top 3 songs:

-Love On The Brain

-Kiss It Better

-Woo

7. Fleetwood Mac: Rumours

I have always known who Fleetwood Mac were, but I was introduced to this album only a short while ago. Stevie Nicks is an absolute boss. Fleetwood Mac became dominant at the time where social constructs were a lot different to how they are now. The fact that this album not only challenged music minds and records, but created the shift for social change as well. Artists like Madonna and Cindy Lauper were aided by the success of Stevie Nicks and the fact she was a main vocal in a genre dominated by white males. One of the reasons I love Rumours so much is because of the massive influence it had on the music industry. It also included the catchy songs like ‘Dreams’ and ‘Go Your Own Way’. Fleetwood Mac and especially Stevie Nicks are timeless and a once-in-a-generation artist who has as much influence as they did.

Top 3 Songs:

-Go Your Own Way

-You Make Loving Fun

-Oh Daddy

8. Michael Jackson: Thriller

Carrying on from the influence of Stevie Nicks, there is no one better who broke down barriers in terms of race, gender and sexuality like Michael Jackson. There are so many of his albums to choose from, but Thriller is the one that I enjoy the most in terms of music. The title song caused so much controversy, and everyone thought with this controversy that Michael or the album wouldn’t be successful. Boy, people were wrong. After having filmed the first feature-length music video and being an African-American, there were bans put in place. Michael defied the odds and became and even bigger star. Some personal favourites, which I enjoy belting out during a boozy night out like ‘Wanna be Startin’ Something’, ‘Billie Jean’ and ‘Beat It’. Another reason why I love this album so much is that it produced one of the most iconic moments in pop culture- the introduction of the moonwalk at the Motown 25 special on May 16, 1983. And yes, I am still trying to perfect the move.

Top 3 Songs:

-Beat It

-Billie Jean

-Human Nature

9. Ed Sheeran: +

Ed Sheeran is possibly the best singer/songwriter of the past 5 years. With his most recent album ‘Divide’ and the inaugural single ‘Shape of You’ breaking all kinds of streaming and charting records, it is no surprise that his music beforehand would be top-notch as well. Enter Ed’s first proper LP- Plus. This was such a raw album that spoke about Ed and the difficulties that surrounded him and other people, much like The Weeknd with House of Balloons. This album came into my life at a time where I was struggling, with songs like ‘The A Team’ and ‘Lego House’ indirectly playing with my emotions and opening a light to a lot of the problems that I was having. Ed toured this album twice, and his presence on stage reflects how people such as myself interpret the album as well. Oh, and I’ve also had the pleasure in meeting Ed and telling him how thankful I am for him!

Top 3 Songs:

-Small Bump

-Kiss Me

-Drunk

10. Beyoncé: Lemonade

This would not be a top album countdown without the mention of the most famous women of the modern era. Beyoncé has delivered hit after hit. When her latest album Lemonade dropped, it caused hysteria of all sorts. She has been the campaigner of the visual album as well after her Beyoncé release, and Lemonade was no different. Much like Kendrick Lamar, who features on one of the standouts of the album ‘Freedom’, Beyoncé used her audio and visual platforms to seek out the injustice that is happening. She also includes her daughter, Blue, in a lot of them and it makes it that much more personalised. Her vocals are still red hot, as proven by hits ‘Formation’ and ‘Hold Up’, which now boasts the infamous bat and car scene. This album is honestly one in a million and I can never get bored of it!

Top 3 Songs:

-Freedom (feat Kendrick Lamar)

-All Night

-Hold Up

11. Maroon 5: Songs About Jane

The first concert I ever went to centered around this album. Maroon 5 have been around for as long as I’ve been alive, and their music continues to adapt with pop culture. Adam Levine, the front man, was my first real celebrity crush, and this album did solidify that. Songs About Jane was a forefront in indie music at the time of its release, headed by She Will Be Loved and Sunday Morning. Their cover of Harder to Breathe and the inclusion This Love gives you Adam’s sensual voice right to your very core. the use of the guitar in this album is impeccable- in one song it will make you get up and dance when in the next it makes you feel like you could cry for days about your ex-lover. The lyrics and the execution of this album are timeless, and no matter what decade or era it is brought into, would be successful.

Top 3 Songs:

-She Will Be Loved

-Harder to Breathe

-Tangled

12. Taylor Swift: Red

I feel like Taylor Swift has been around for every turning point in my life. 13-year-old me found out who she was through my love of the Jonas Brothers and her guitar-twanging smash Our Song. Through the country phase to what is her best album to date- pop alumni Red. This album, like many of her others, tells a story of love and heartbreak, but also celebrates having the right people in your life. ‘22’, one of the biggest selling singles by Taylor, is one of my favourite songs of all time. Despite being noted by a lot of people as ‘pop trash’, the significance of this song resonates with a lot of people. It is about being care-free and living your life to the fullest no matter what. ‘All Too Well’ and ‘Red’ talk about heartache and how love in all forms can manipulate you in so many ways. This album is raw and full of emotion, no matter the genre it is placed under. The Red Tour was also my favourite Taylor concert as well.

Top 3 Songs:

-State of Grace

-All Too Well

-22

13. Kanye West: 808’s and Heartbreak

Say what you want about Yeezy, but he definitely knows his sound and his music. 808’s and Heartbreaks is an album that took Kanye out of the hip-hop world to the more mainstream. The mellowed down sound with the use of the heavy drop verberating in the chorus’ of most of these songs brought the genre and the album to another dimension. ‘Heartless’ and ‘Love Lockdown’, the two main singles from this work, are so well put together though the emotion elicited in Kanye while he is singing and rapping, as well as the tremendous loops in the beat. I have never witnessed music before or after this album that makes you want to get up and dance but cry your god damn eyes out at the same time. If you are one of those people who loves a continuous bop, this album is right up your alley.

Top 3 Songs:

-Love Lockdown

-Paranoid

-Say You Will

14.  Adele: 25

What a woman. I don’t have enough words to describe the feel, emotion and powerhouse vocal that is Adele. Unless you were living under a rock over the past 18 months, her song ‘Hello’ was everywhere and definitely set the scene for the whole album. Adele is one of very few people who can stand on a stage with little to no movement around her and manage to captivate millions. Her amazing voice capitulates almost every other artist in the industry right now. Listening to ‘25’ is honestly an out of body experience every time you listen to a song.

Top 3 Songs:

-Send My Love (To Your New Lover)

-I Miss You

-Water Under the Bridge

15. One Direction: Midnight Memories

This wouldn’t be a countdown without my absolute favourites of all time, right?! Midnight Memories by far is my favourite album from One Direction. They had a lot of song writing and production influence on this album, and it is very noticeable compared to their first two albums. The boys having that much influence on this album shone through, especially with the rock undertones and the sophisticated lyrics laced through all the songs. Alas, they did make this album with the fact that they were about to embark on a stadium tour, and this album is a massive stadium stomper. Harry, Liam and Zayn all shine vocally, whilst Niall and Louis’ songwriter impressed throughout the whole album. I honestly love this album with all my heart, and my eyes still water every time a song comes on because I miss One Direction so much. I am still bitter that I missed out on seeing this tour.

Top 3 Songs:

-Strong

-Happily

-Through the Dark

SPECIAL MENTION to Harry Styles and his new solo album, which would have been on the list if it was out already :P

[houstonlocalus-blog]

A New Local Film: “Nothing Really Happens”

Houston isn’t exactly known for a booming film industry, but local filmmakers Justin Petty and Joey Graham are breaking the mold and just completed their first feature length film, Nothing Really Happens, which was entirely shot in the city. Written and directed by Petty and produced by Graham, who also stars in the film, the surrealist comedy presents a unique take on adapting to adulthood. Following the completion of the film, Free Press Houston spoke with Petty and Graham about its conception, filming and their plans for a release.

  Free Press Houston: How did the idea to make a full length film come about and what inspired the script?

Justin Petty: It was around 2013. Joey and I had been making comedy shorts as The Straight Guys for several years at that point and I don’t think we ever officially called it quits, but there had been a general feeling within the group that we wanted to try something different. I was nearing 30 and the idea kind of originally came about with me looking at that and trying to make sense of what it means to be a grown 30 year old man, mainly because I certainly didn’t feel like I had any right to call myself an adult. That and the idea has always been interesting to me that there is a communication barrier between people that interact everyday simply because they are so wrapped up in their own personal stuff, or simply don’t care. I had recently watched the film Wrong by Quentin Dupieux [Mr. Oizo] and its awkward, surreal tone kind of struck a chord with me and, while very different from what we ultimately ended up with, it acted as fuel for this 15 page short film I wrote. I went through the script over a few beers with Joey and Richard, the other guys in The Straight Guys. The result of that was them basically saying, “This is a good start but what happens next?” From that point, I just kept writing pages and sending them to Joey. I had never intended to write a feature. I wanted to ease into bigger projects with a short film we could push into festivals, but Joey kept pushing me to write more and to see where this story took us. I ended up with a lot of pages. Well over 2 hours worth. In the end, we slimmed it down to around 90 pages and it had become a vastly different thing than what we started with.

Joey Graham: Please forgive us for The Straight Guys. But yeah, I was kind of done with internet sketch comedy around the age of 30 as well, and wanted to do some other things. I liked the peculiar vibe of his thing Justin wrote so I just kept pressuring the hell out of him to finish it. Still am really….there’s a few more things to do to finish the movie.

  FPH: How long did it take to complete?

Petty: Writing the script took about a year and a half with about 9 different drafts in total. Shooting took another year and a half and post production has taken us a little over 6 months.

Graham: Ugh. Too long. Luckily my beard didn’t go completely gray.

  FPH: How did you find locations to shoot in Houston?

Petty: I went into this project knowing if we were going to realistically be able to make a film, we had to work around what was available to us. So much of the film takes place in residences, parks and yards. We would just kind of come together as a group and talk about connections and friends who had interesting looking houses or access to fun locations and go from there. We did a bit of scouting for some of the outdoor scenes and scoped out a few parks around Houston. We tried to see what we could get away with quickly in public with a small crew while not drawing too much attention to ourselves.

Graham: Yeah. We utilized the Houston Film Commission a bit. But mostly just talking to people. We only did super illegal shit for one scene.

  FPH: Can you tell me how you found the actors?

Petty: The original short was written with a specific friend in mind as lead, but as I started developing the characters and fleshing out the story more, I realized we needed to go in a different direction. Our lead, Adam Edwards, had been a friend of ours for a while and worked with us periodically some music video productions. I don’t remember the specific moment we decided Adam was right for the role but we both kind of realized he was the only person who could play Dave. There could be no one else.

Graham: I told JP, Adam had the most emotive eyes, and the most free time. That’s like 80% of acting. A lot of the other casting was just cherry picking people we love from past comedy shorts or music videos. We had produced a few of Fat Tony’s music videos, so we had to bring him in as the talking mime. We had done a few videos for The Suffers so we snuck Kam Franklin in as a phone operator. And so on.

  FPH: What are your plans for a release?

Petty: Our goal is to hit the festivals hard in the fall. We’re planning on submitting to various Texas festivals for sure but who knows. Depending on the budget we have to work with after the fundraiser, we’d like to get it in as many festivals across the country — world? — as we can afford. The more audience members we can get in front of this thing, the happier we’ll be. We don’t have any official plans for an actual release yet, but we’d like to see where the festival circuit takes us and go from there.

Graham: Festivals aren’t what they used to be for indie film. But a true indie like this doesn’t really have a ton of other options. It’s a movie about a mattress store owner, not a documentary on Mattress Mack…which probably has, uh, some sort of built in audience.

  FPH: How can people see it?

Petty: We’re currently doing an IndieGogo fundraiser to support the cost of our festival entries where you can buy a ticket to our private cast and crew screening on June 26th as one of the perks. We’d like to do a few more test screenings around Houston to feel out how the film is received… maybe make some minor changes along the way, but we don’t have anything officially planned yet.

Graham: Yeah. Come to the screening. It’s a really weird movie. Bring drugs.

  FPH: How does it feel now that it’s completed?

Petty: This thing has been a labor of love for us for several years now and it feels super weird that we’ve finally gotten here. 4 years ago I never could’ve imagined we’d be sitting here with a completed feature film and it kind of amazes and terrifies me. It’s real and now people are going to ingest it. That’s crazy. The hard work of so many people have gone into this and it’s kind of a small miracle when any film reaches completion in tact, let alone one that was funded out of pocket and was made on nights and weekends over the course of multiple years. I want to thank everyone that sweated for this thing to exist.

Graham: Justin stole my small miracle line. This thing has driven me crazy, and it’s equally crazy to be done. I can go back to living a normie life after this. Thank God.

  Check out the trailer for “Nothing Really Happens”

A New Local Film: “Nothing Really Happens” this is a repost