#David just has terrible memories of such people

[a-chaotically-small-lunta]

Impulsive defense

This is a short-ish story of Blair, a young child who David took in as his own. After receiving a note from Micheal, David made his way to the city.

Warning: mentions of abuse, drugs, alcohol, blood, death, and fights.

The city was loud, cars rumbling around and people always having someplace to be. David had a love hate relationship with cities. On one hand it was where he was raised and provided so many resources to borrowers that no one would miss. Not to mention people who see borrowers in the city think they’re just large rats. On the other hand though, the city was dangerous. Too many people not watching where the go or what they do, all the cars and vehicles, not to mention the rats…both human and animal.

David eyed the alleyway waiting for the group of drunk men to leave. He was planning on visiting his friend, Micheal. Micheal was a borrower David had met while traveling around the city looking for anything useful and to spot any safe places for other borrowers. They met after David entered the human’s home and noticed the walls weren’t just filled with the usually dust and scraps, but rather were clean, had tools, places to rest, and many other signs that there was a borrower living here. David was invited to stay with Micheal and his wife Yael. They all bonded quickly, David was even invited to meet the birth of their child, Blair.

Once the drunk men had left, David quickly made his way across the alley and behind the large dumpster. Scanning the wall he found the small broken brick. He moved the small piece, exposing the inside of the walls. Quickly he ducked in and moved the piece back in place.

As David walked along he thought about why he was invited. Micheal said his wife had passed away, and that he just needed a friend for comfort. David understood all to well the feeling of losing a loved one, so when he received the message, he quickly made his way to the city off in the distance with the help of Laura who offered to take him after he told everyone about the note. A storm was going to pass by and she was willing to get a hotel for the night.

Eventually he found the small wooden door and knocked. Rustling could be heard from the other side until the door swung open revealing Micheal. He looked terrible, sickly even. His usual bright brown eyes were darkened and his dirty blond hair was a mess, with parts sticking up at odd angles from unknown substances. David didn’t want to know or even ask.

“Oooohhhh David! What are you doing her bro??” Micheal said leaning against the doorframe and slurring his words.

“Uhh ya sent me a letter talking about Yael, I thought I’d come by and ya know support ya.”

Micheal paused and stared off for a few seconds, “oooooohhhhh Right.” His voice sounded harsh before quickly changing back, “well come innnn….”

David, a bit confused, walked in while watching as Micheal flopped back onto the puff balls of a couch. Looking around he noticed that the house was a mess, tools and items scattered across the floor. A few pieces of furniture were flipped over and broken. The place didn’t used to look like this, it was a nice house and now everything was destroyed and gross. David noticed a dresser made of a matchbox and other materials was pushed in front of one of the doors that lined the wall.

“Uhhhh kinda let ya-self go huh?” David said glancing around trying not to stare at the globs of mold and food in the corner of the room and the ceiling.

“Brooooooo….yea maybe. Yael has been gone for awhile.”

“Yeah…when did she die?”

“Like a few months ago”

“Ohhh, and ya only told me now? I mean that’s fine and I’ll be here for ya but I would’ve been here earlier to help ya out and stuff”

“Nah nah it’s fine, soooo fine….”

“Okay…so you okay?”

“yeeeeee dude I’m TotAlly fIiinnnee. Happier toooooo wooooooo”

David paused a bit confused, perhaps he’s just drunk right now, his mind is lost a bit, “Mmh…where’s Blair by the way? How did they take it?”

“Who? Oh!!! Yeah he’s fine…but he uh is grounded right now”

“Oh…why?”

“Mmmmh lil dude almost got us caught the other night, so he has to be grounded…dude you want something to drink?”

“Uh no thanks…”

“Nahhhhhh bro lemme get ya something”

“Micheal” David said in a stern voice, “are ya okay? Ya seem out of it”

Micheal froze and stared at David, his eyes seemed to never focus fully on David.

“Yea..yea…I’m fine just…need a pep up or something…” Micheal got up and walked over, “stay here, make yourself comfy I’m gonna grab some stuff…it’ll be a sec…good stuffs in the storage heh” as Micheal clumsily walked away David looked around the torn up house. What happened here…it’s a mess. He seems way out of it…like he’s been drinking but where’d he get the alcohol? Jeez I didn’t think he’d let himself go so fast. Only a month and it looks like he’s been out of it for months. His muscles and body are thinner too…man what did you do.

David sat and thought as Micheal walked away, the second the door clicked behind Micheal a small knock was heard. David whipped his head towards the knock, which seemed to come from the blocked door. Another knock was heard and a soft muffled cry came from the other side.

David quickly walked over and shoved the dresser out of the way, unblocking the door. He pulled the door open and in front of him was Blair but the poor kid looked terrible. Blair had brown eyes and dark brown hair but usually the kid seemed so bright. On David’s other visits the kid would happily bounce around and looked full of life. Happily talking about adventures and asking David about any cool new stories. The Blair in front of him looked drained. Their hair was matted, they look like they haven’t had sleep in days. Their skin looked sickly and they were covered in bruises.

“Blair? What happened to ya kid?”

Blair stood and glance at the door Micheal had left through before looking back at David, who had crouched down to be even with the kid.

“Da-d…”

David froze in shock, “what do ya mean?” Blair froze as if terrified to say anything, “it’s alright, ya can tell me. Ya can tell me anything okay?”

Blair took a shaky breath and looked at David, tears threatening to fall out of their little sad eyes.

“He..for a-awhile he’s be-been finding stuff…st-stuff that ma-m-makes hi-m act weird… he start hitting m-me…and m-mommy… mommy tried to d-defend me whe-when he got tha-that way…he said if we let you kn-know that he’d h-hurt us…hu-hurt us worse…dad…he…he hurt mommy too much…sh-she stopped moving…I…I” tear spilled out of the kids eyes as he cried out, “I WANT MY MOMMY!!!”

David was shocked when the kid ran and wrapped their arms around him. He gently wrapped his arms around the kid. “Hey it’s okay…I’m here. I’ll protect ya…I have so many questions but I’ll ask ya later..” He held onto the sobbing child, how long has this been happening? Years??? Why did Blair tell him now? Were they desperate? What made them break out of their father’s forceful grasp?

“Let’s get ya ou-“ David paused as he felt the child grip onto him tighter as the door clicked, revealing Micheal

“What did you say” Micheal’s voice was stern, serious. In his hand was a homemade glass bottle…it was filled with a clear liquid that had a thin layer of powder on the top. David didn’t know everything about alcohol or drugs, but he knew enough that mixing them was not good.

“WHAT DID YOU TELL HIM?!?!” Micheal shouted at Blair, stepping forward. David quickly moved the kid behind him.

“Enough! Back off Micheal! You’re not okay, whatever you’re doing is not okay. You need help. I’ll help you but I can’t let you near them.” David stood firm as Micheal glared at him.

“YOU DON’T KNOW SHIT! IM THAT BASTARDS DAD! I DECIDE WHEN TO PUNISH THEM! And it needs punished.” Micheal started to step forward and David slowly backed away. The small child whimpered gripping onto David.

Micheal smashed the bottle, flinging glass and alcohol everywhere. “BACK OFF DAVID…Don’t make me hurt you too. Back off and listen to me. Unless you wanna get hurt too”

He shock his head, David wasn’t gonna leave the kid alone. He wasn’t gonna hand them over to them. He felt torn, his friend was lost…he wanted to help him…but he needed to get Blair out of here. When he didn’t move, Micheal started to run towards him.

David froze, everything felt in slow-mo. Micheal running towards him, the child screaming. But David’s mind was racing.

No no no. I can’t.

*Step*

“Don’t try anything fucking insect”

*Step*

no no…don’t hurt them please…they were just protecting him.

*Step*

Can’t let him hurt them. Won’t let them hurt them.

*Step*

Images flashed in David’s mind. Seeing his friend in a drunken rage, and seeing that drunken bastard’s fist dripping with blood.

The second his friend was readying to strike a punch with the bottle, David drove a fist right in Micheal’s face.

Micheal stuttered and looked back, astonished at what happened.

“Get to the door Blair. Don’t look back.” David whispered. Blair quickly ran to the door and Micheal tried to chase him only to get punched in the stomach by David.

“No no, ya ain’t going anywhere. Ya staying here to sober up…get help.”

Micheal slashed the bottle cutting David’s face. David tripped Micheal and grabbed his blue knife, holding it in defense. He’d worry about any cuts and bruises later. His body was shaking.

Micheal glared before chuckling, “oh using your mommy’s knife??? Mmmmmmh???? Are you scared David? Of me? All drunk like this? Remind you of something?”

David glared and tightened his grip, “Ain’t gonna let a drunk fucker ruin another child’s life. Don’t care if you’re their dad, don’t care now.”

“Ohhhhh David, what are you talking about? I’m fixing it.”

David quickly wielded his knife to block the lunging bottle.

“You aren’t like this? What happened?”

David pushed forward, staggering Micheal a bit.

“What do you mean? I’ve always been like this! I’m just a good actor. Ever since that kid came into my life, shits always been about it. Never on me.”

He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Was the man he knew just a facade? Something to make life seem normal? Why would he do that?

“Micheal we can work this out, we can find you help”

“I DONT NEED HELP!!!” Micheal lunged and tackled David to the ground. Trying to stab his face with the bottle. David was quick and blocked the bottle, earning a long cut on his arm. They stared into each other’s eyes.

“I just need you to join your parents. Ironic that’ll you’ll die the same way the did…just at a smaller scale.”

Why would he say that? WHY WOULD HE

David lost it, he threw Micheal off him and slashed the knife at him. Aiming for his chest. David slashed and slashed in blind fury, he thought he was seeing red before, but now it was brighter. He didn’t care anymore. He was on edge when he first saw him and every second this Bastard talked pushed him closer and closer. He finally snapped. Telling Micheal about his past was something he thought would strengthen their bond, show his trust. And he used it against him.

The two men wrestled around knocking things around and off places. Smacking each other’s heads into furniture and walls breaking most of them. David punched and slashed, eventually shattering the bottle with the knife with a well placed stab. With his weapon gone Micheal became more furious and tried scratching and biting David, but David quickly dodged and using his knife as a shield blocked most attacks. Sometime during the fight he pulled out the other knife and duel wielded them against his former friend. He pushed Micheal around until he managed to stab one of his knives into Micheals hand against the floor, causing a scream of agony to fill the air. David held Micheal down and with a knife to Micheal’s throat leaned down and whispered “I’d kill ya, it’d be like putting down a sick animal. But I’ll give ya a chance to fix yourself. Doesn’t matter if ya do though. Ya ain’t ever gonna see me or Blair again. So stay down, or I’ll keep ya down forever. You know it’s not my first time killing someone. Don’t make me add to my count.” David hissed out the last part before, slowly backing off the exhausted man. He yanked his bloodied knife out of Micheal’s hand and shoved his foot onto his chest. Glaring down for a second before walking to the door.

Micheal didn’t stand back up, and laid on the ground breathing as David walked out the entrance. He looked over and saw Blair against the wall, covering their ears and curled up.

“It’s over kid…let’s get out of here.” David said, extending a hand to the kid.

“Di-did you k-k-kill him?” Poor kid looked worried over their father. It made sense, though. They did love their father and just wanted the best for him, even though his father didn’t love him back.

“Nah kid, just knocked some sense into him. He’ll be okay, but for now I’m gonna watch over ya until he’s better alright?”

The kid looked down almost sad but relieved about the news. The kid nodded and grabbed David’s hand.

“Alright, let’s go then. I got a friend who brought me here, and she’ll bring us back to my home okay?” They nodded and David paused, “just so ya know…they’re a bean,” he watched the kid stiffen in fear, “but don’t worry, she won’t hurt ya. I trust her fully. She’s a good one, promise” the kid loosened a bit but still seemed on edge.

David guided the kid back towards the alley and walked through the walls of each building until they came across the hotel. He was grateful that Laura had offered to bring him to the city due to the bad weather. Flying a bird in a storm is never the best idea, and David only did that if there was no other options and he needed to leave. David watched the kid, noticing the kid eyed some of his cuts. Oh yeah…wounds…forgot about those..whatever.

Eventually the pair made it into the hotel walls. Heading up, David looked into each room trying to find Laura. He knew the floor she was on but had forgotten which room. Soon he found her room by peeking in and seeing her laying upside down on her bed. Her long curled brown hair a frazzled mess as she had a bored look on her face. Her rectangle glasses were on the verge of falling off but she didn’t seem to care.

Carefully David stepped out of the wall, holding onto Blair and giving them a gentle rub reminding them that everything was okay.

Once near the human David shouted, “Hey Laura! I’m back!”

Laura was startled and instantly slide off the bed, hitting her head on the floor. She glance over and smiled, “ow, you’re back that was quick, so ho-“ she froze spotting the child, “did you kidnap another kid?”

“First off, I’ve never kidnapped a kid. I tend to find them alone or abandoned, secondly…yes in a way but it’s fine…I’ll explain everything later.”

Laura made an annoyed face before awkwardly pushing herself off the ground and back onto the bed. She swung her legs around and got out of the bed before she lowered herself onto her stomach in front of the pair, “alright well you better explain, but for now.. Hello there, I’m Laura. You must be Blair, David’s talked about you and how you’re so brave and have this call to adventure.”

Blair stood behind David, clearly terrified of the bean, but as she softly spoke he slowly poked his head around and started to get closer.

“Don’t worry I won’t hurt you. Even though I’m a bit of a clumsy mess,” she chuckled, “hey you look hungry,” and with a glance towards David, “and like you’ve been through hell. Want something to eat? I got snacks and stuff”

The kid shyly nodded and with that Laura pushed herself up to a sitting position before extending her hand onto the ground, “go ahead and climb on. I’ll set you two on the bed and grab the snacks okay?”

With a small nudge of encouragement from David the pair of borrowers climbed onto her hand. Once they were secure and settled, Laura slowly lifted them up and onto the couch, not once standing. They both walked off with Blair still holding onto David, Laura stood up and walked over to a bag that had been thrown into the corner of the room. She returned with a small water bottle and two clear bags, one filled with snacks like pretzels, chocolates, nuts and the other with bandages and creams.

She set the items down and opened the bag of snack and water, setting them both down in front of the pair, “go ahead and get what you want, just don’t eat too fast” she smiled and watched as the kid cautiously approached the bag. Reaching in they grabbed a few things and snacked on them. Sitting next to the bottle watching the bean.

David walked closer to her grabbing some bandages to treat his wounds, “so you’ll tell me what happened?” She asked.

“I’ll give ya a summary, Dad’s a drunken addict who abuses the kid so I fucked him up a bit”

“Oh…oh, you okay?”

David paused as glance at Laura who was giving him a concerned look, “I’ll be fine…”

“Talk to me if you aren’t okay?”

“I will.”

“You’re lying but okay.”

David glared at Laura who only smirked, “what it’s true,” she said defensively, “you usually don’t like talking about stuff like that and that’s okay. I’ll be there when you want to.”

“Yeah yeah, I’m just worried about the kid is all.”

They both looked over as the kid was enjoying themselves with the snacks.

“It’ll be okay, we’ll figure it all out tomorrow. It’s late and you guys look like you need some sleep”

David simply nodded as he worked on bandaging himself up.

Eventually Laura laid onto the bed next to the pair yawning, “alright it’s probably best we get some shut eye, so…”

Laura squeaked as she felt a hug around her finger, which was causally laying on the bed near the borrowers. She glanced down at her hand to see the tiny child holding onto her.

“Thank you for the snacks”

Laura smiled, “it’s no problem. Here may I try something?”

The child nodded, and Laura gently scooped the child up and moved herself to laying on her back. She placed the child right on top of her heart as she laid back against the pillows and pulled the blankets back over her lower body.

“You okay there or do you want to sleep on the other pillow with David?”

David who had already laid on the other pillow looked over to see the scene. He shook his head. Laura knew that her heart beat was soothing to kids, hell David knew it was soothing, he just didn’t like being held for so long. Made him feel powerless.

The kid listened to her gentle heartbeat and shook their head, “this is nice” they snuggled up and Laura gently placed the thinner sheet over their body as a blanket. It didn’t take long for the kid to knock out.

“I’m surprised they took to ya so quickly” David said

“Well you showed them I was trustworthy so I guess it was easy to build trust up with them. Poor kid though…with everything that happened…”

“Yea…” David glanced away

“Don’t worry we’ll talk about it later.”

“We’ll have to ask the kid for more details. I don’t know much. Hell I don’t know who or how that letter was sent. Ugh I’m so confused and frustrated!” David pouted angrily.

“Hey calm down, you have your reasons for what you did. Just rest for now okay?”

David sighed and nodded. With a smile Laura took off her glasses and laid down to fall asleep, one hand carefully over the sleeping child. David however wouldn’t fall asleep, he stayed alert watching the shadows and walls for a few hours. Making sure Micheal wouldn’t come out of them. Eventually David passed out, he’d have to deal with this tomorrow morning sometime but that’s for later. The kid was safe now and that’s all that mattered right now.

#g/t #gt #gianttiny #giant/tiny #giant tiny #tw: abuse #abuse #tw: drugs and alcohol #drugs and alcohol #my writing #story #mentions of death #mentions of blood #blood mention #OC:David #OC:Laura #David doesn’t like people who abuse drugs and use them as an excuse for shitty behavior #David just has terrible memories of such people #G/T july #GTJuly #g/t july 2023 #this was sort of a quick story that I just sort of wrote and finished lol #so sorry about any mistakes and stuff in it I guess lol #g/t writing

[fuckyeahgoodomens]

David Tennant at This Morning show with Alison Hammond and Dermot O’Leary talking about Good Omens Season 2, 11.07.2023 :) ❤

DO: And David joins us now. I mean, this looks like a great show.

David: Oh, yeah.

DO: So, I mean, It's pure Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, isn't it?

David: It is, yeah.

DO: The whole thing. So tell us, so if people haven't seen the first series and they want to go back, set the whole scene.

David: So I'm Hell's representative on Earth, Michael Sheen is Heaven's representative on Earth, put there to do the biding of our respective Head Offices. But we found out that if we became mates and sort of helped each other out, it kind of cut out the workload, cancelled each other out. So we're best mates. But in Series One we end up having to avert the apocalypse, which we managed to do, but as a result of that, we get cut off. So we're now living on Earth as independent individuals.

AH: So do you still need each other, then?

David: We still need each other. We've only got each other now because we don't have Heaven and Hell anymore.

DO: Because you both love earth so much, you both like.

David: Oh, we much prefer living on Earth because Heaven's a bit stuffy and Hell's awful.

DO: So you conspire to thwart the Armageddon. Exactly.

David: We thwart the Armageddon. That's fine. But Series Two begins when the angel Gabriel, Jon Hamm, who you just saw there, shows up at Aziraphale, Michael Sheen's bookshop, naked with no memory, holding a cardboard box. So suddenly we're locked into the politics of Heaven and Hell again. We don't know what's going on. We've got a mystery to solve. Why is the angel Gabriel here? The angel Gabriel tried to kill us both at the end of the last series, so we've got to...

DO: But now he's kind of got amnesia and...

David: Yes. So he becomes like our weird child, in this sort of weird sort of eternal marriage that Michael and I are locked in.

DO: So many shows now use a book as their base and then they do really well and you can see the company and the writers go, better come up some new ideas, I suppose. So the book's obviously Terry Pratchett and then Neil Gaiman, correct?

David: That's right. They wrote that together years and years and years ago. Much beloved. And that's what the first series was. But Neil and Terry had always talked about possibilities of this sequel that they never got around to making. Terry's no longer with us. But when the possibility came up, Neil thought, well, listen, I've got some ideas. Let's spin it forward. Let's see if we can tell the story we were always going to tell. So we get to come back.

AH: Should we have a little sneak look at the new series? Let's have a look. So good. Did you ever think it was going to be this successful? Did you even know that you were going to go into a second series

David: Oh, no, not at all. No. There was only one novel, so we just thought we were coming together to do that. And I didn't realise how beloved this book was. I first read a script. But it means a lot to a lot of people.

AH: And the look of you is so striking. Did you have any input into that? A bit, yeah, we sort of all found it together, myself and makeup and costume and Neil Gaiman, who ran the show. So, yeah, we kind of arrived... in the book he's a bit more - because obviously the book was sort of early ninetues, so he was a bit more sharp-suited and a bit more Wolf of Wall Street. So we've kind of had to find the kind of modern equivalent of that.

DO: Is he... obviously you're playing a demon. Has he got any humanity in him or is he purely self-centered?

David: Well, he's not a very good demon. He's good at sort of the snarl and the swagger and pretending that he's terribly cynical, but actually his problem is that he's a bit too...  there’s a bit too much heart, really.

DO: He's alright

David: Yeah, yeah.

DO: Must be wonderful playing a baddie.

David: Oh, it's great fun, but he's not a baddie, is not really a baddie.

DO: Yeah, yeah.

David: And just like Aziraphale angel is not always as goody goody as he likes it, so they meet very beautifully in the middle.

DO: You and Michael Sheen. I mean, you've worked together a fair bit, don't you. I loved Staged. That was such fun.

David: Yeah!

AH: Have you ever not worked together?

David: Now we only work together.

AH: All the time.

David: Yeah. I mean, He's not sitting on this sofa, but he is backstage. We can't be apart.

DO: He's speaking in his ear right now.

David: Exactly, yeah.

AH: But you are... you have got a genuine friendship. You're growing old together gracefully.

David: We're growing old together?!

AH: You look good for it, I'm not going to lie. What's the secret, babe?

David: A lot of makeup. It's very thick.

AH: We've got to talk about the fact that you are returning to Doctor Who.

David: Ah, yes.

AH: I can't believe this. And can you tell us anything at all?

David: I mean, beyond that I'm doing it? I think...

AH: No.

David: Really. Because that's the fun of it, isn't it? Hopefully tt was a bit of a surprise when I showed up. When Jodie Whittaker regenerated into me.

AH: We were shocked.

David: It was a bit of a surprise, so we wanted to sort of keep some shocks, but Catherine Tate's back, so it's a bit like 15 years never happened, to be honest.

DO: Know about it for a while. Like... did Russell T get in touch and say...

David: Yeah, it sort of gradually kind of evolved as an idea and we thought maybe they'd let us do a one off for old time's sake. And then suddenly it became a bit more than that and we were back for a bit of a run.

AH: So how many episodes did you get to do?

David: We did three.

AH: Wow. That's incredible. What's it like to be back? Did he just slot straight back in?

David: I mean, sort of. It felt weirdly familiar. Yeah. And you think, 'Oh, will I still able to run as fast? Can I still kind of...?' But it was like we'd never been away. It was joyous. Yeah.

DO: And could we talk about your son? Because is your son in Good Omens with you?

David: Ty's in... has a part in Episode Two of Good Omens.

AH: Is he?

DO: And I loved him in House of the Dragon.

David: I know. He's very good. He's very good.

DO: What a relief.

David: There he is. I know, what a relief. Exactly. No, I mean...

AH: Imagine if he was bad.

David: Imagine if he was rubbish. How would we tell him? Sit down, listen...I know it's sort of the family business, but maybe joinery? So... no, he's really good. And he's annoyingly good looking. You know, he's just got it all. So it's lovely and great to get to work together. Brilliant.

#good omens #this morning #this morning 2023 #david tennant #interview #david interview #david about crowley #crowley #fun fact #crowley is a softie #videos #video interview #transcripts #ty tennant #david about ty #video transcripts #s2 interview

[mychoombatheroomba]

Back to Back . . .

Between the Bones (Leon x GN! Reader) - Chapter 6

You were fairly sure that, when one has a bad dream, they shouldn't look for comfort in a knife fight. Even so, it doesn't stop you.

(Cross-posted from Ao3)

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Chapter Index

TW: flashbacks/nightmares, ptsd, angst, terrible coping mechanisms

The song, as far as you were concerned, was stupid. Nonsense. Even so, you were smiling as it played. You weren’t alone in that. The faces around you were smiling, too. Laughing, eyes bright with joy. Even in army fatigues, those smiles managed to make them all look young. Carefree. 

You all huddled together around the radio, talking about how you wished the woman singing would just tell the audience what she “really, really wanted” in fewer words. Every person complained about the song, saying that you should all be listening to real music. Even so, no one made a move to change the station. Instead, they let the song play on, forgetting for a moment where and who they were. You watched from outside your own body, an unknown observer to a memory that didn’t feel like your own. 

No, whoever’s memory this was, they didn’t know to cherish this insignificant little moment. They didn’t know not to roll their eyes when David started dancing to the song, or to laugh harder at Sasha’s appalled expression when he did. 

They didn’t know that they would remember those names for all the wrong reasons. Too many more that you would never, ever forget, even if the world had. Names that were not given the places of honor that they deserved, but instead were slapped on some rock in a field, their bodies not even allowed to be placed beneath the headstones. 

You remembered them, just as you remembered the name on the spare tag that hung around your neck. 

That name meant everything to you, once. It had been your home and haven, your guidance when your world was reduced to ashes. 

And now, it was a reminder that nothing was safe. Nothing and no one. 

“Sergeant.” His voice called to you, and you turned. 

You would know that face anywhere, even with the tarnish of rot on it like it was now. Eyes that had been wise and warm were now empty, his skin paled by death. His fatigues were covered in blood, and his mouth hung open in a silent scream. Part of his head was missing from where you’d shot him. Where you’d killed him. 

“Captain . . .” you breathed. 

The music was gone. The voices of your friends, your brothers in arms, were gone. In their place, there were moans and snarls. More figures appeared from the dark, all wearing the twisted faces of people you’d lived with, trained with. Fought beside. Shared laughs and stories with. 

Calling their names did nothing, because they weren’t them anymore. You could only run, and run you did. Until the walls around you seemed to melt away into the black of night. Snow and ice crunched under your boots, and you were so busy looking behind you at the corpses trailing you, that you didn’t see the figure in front of you. 

You didn’t see the knife until it was buried to the hilt in your side. 

Eyes wide, you looked into the darkness, not believing what was happening to you, even though you’d lived and re-lived it a hundred times. You still couldn’t fathom it as the knife was torn free, taking chunks of flesh with it. When it slid back into your belly, you crumpled to the cold ground. It kept going until you were lying face up, staring at the snow falling over you. 

When you were gone, would you become like the rest? Would your broken body carry on for a while, looking for someone to sink your teeth into? Would you lose yourself completely? 

Let me die, you hoped. Prayed. Let me die and stay dead. 

You knew it wouldn’t mean anything. You knew it as the knife disappeared, and teeth took its place. So, you could only scream as they descended on you, their hands and teeth setting to work. Tearing into you, ripping you apart-

It hadn’t ended that way. That was the only way you’d known it was a dream. The only reason you’d been able to pull yourself out of it in time was because those corpses wearing the faces of your friends hadn’t pulled you limb from limb. The knife and its wielder hadn’t come from the shadows. You should have seen it coming a mile away. There were so many things that you should have done, and your mind loved to remind you of them. 

You survived. However much your dreams liked to make you imagine otherwise. However much, sometimes, in the back of your mind, there was a whispering that you shouldn’t have. 

Your hand found its way to the dog tags that hung at your chest, and you squeezed all three so tightly in your grip that the names likely made impressions on your palm. Your name, and a name that you hadn’t spoken aloud since that day in the snow, since you were forced to turn a gun on its owner. 

You couldn’t read the name ‘Simon Reynolds’ in the dark, but you knew it was there. It weighed on you heavily, like it always did. Like you needed it to. 

“Fuck,” you breathed, trying to calm your racing mind and heart. Then, after a moment, you let yourself fall back into your bed. Wouldn't find any sleep there, so you just repeated the mantra you’d clung to since you’d woken up in the hospital, your belly full of stitches and your life forever changed. 

Never again. 

⧫⧫⧫

Leon had become well-acquainted with the sinking feeling that something was wrong. He’d experienced it when he’d driven towards Raccoon City not too long ago, and since then, it had become something he learned to recognize and pay attention to. 

He felt a lesser version of that feeling when, on the way to his morning drills, he saw you across the camp. 

You were talking to Krauser, the Major’s arms crossed over his chest. Leon couldn’t see your face, not with your back to him. Krauser, though, looked pensive. He nodded once, saying something Leon was too far away to hear, and then walked past you. That feeling of dread came to Leon when he saw the smirk that Krauser wore. 

Leon didn’t have the opportunity to talk to you about that or about the conversation from the night before. Not before he and his squad filed into formation, each of them readying themselves for whatever was to come. Leon thought, for a moment, that you had been messing with him, because you weren’t there waiting for them. That worry was replaced by something worse when Krauser stepped up to the group. 

“Got something special for you today,” he began. “A preview of what you’re all in for.” He was smiling wide when you approached, and you weren’t alone. Leon recognized your squad falling into formation alongside his own.  

What the hell was going on? 

“Sergeant,” Krauser called, and you stepped forward. Any of the mirth that had lit up your eyes last night was gone, but so was the strength he usually saw in you. You looked resigned to your fate, whatever was about to happen. Like you were bracing for a storm that you knew was going to overtake you. You didn’t spare him any glances, and Leon had to wrestle down the urge to ask you if you were alright. Now wasn’t the time. Not as Krauser tossed you a practice knife and ordered your first opponent to step forward. It was one of Leon’s squad, but as Krauser went down the line with each one of your victories, Leon knew that it wouldn’t be long before you were faced down with someone at your own skill level. 

You knew it, too. You weren’t taking any risks - each of your movements meant to conserve as much energy as you could manage. Now that you were armed, the fights went faster - you could afford to be more aggressive. It saved you some time, but Leon’s squad had been improving and you had double the people to fight through. Twenty opponents, and the more difficult ones were going last. 

Leon wanted to say he had faith in you, but the way you looked before you’d started . . . 

He almost didn’t see it, he was so busy watching you fight. Still, Krauser’s red beret was difficult to miss. It pulled Leon’s focus, the recruit watching as his commanding officer strode over to the line of soldiers standing at attention while you fought. You’d made it through your first two opponents when Krauser placed his hand on the shoulder of a tall, intense looking man at the end of the line. One of your squad mates - Alejandro, if Leon remembered correctly. 

The Major’s mouth moved, and Leon stiffened as Alejandro broke from formation, stalking towards the fight that was happening in front of him. 

He didn’t realize that Krauser had handed him a practice blade until it was arcing towards you. 

Your eyes went wide, realizing you had another threat to deal with in the middle of blocking a swing. Leon’s squad mate, a shorter young man named Shinoda, looked just as confused as you. He backed away as Alejandro attacked, mercifully giving you the time you needed to put up a defense. You countered before stepping away, looking between the two men you’d been faced with. 

“You’re not going to be fighting just one opponent out there,” Krauser said, walking behind the two squads as he went on. “And you won’t always know the enemy is coming until they’re right on top of you. But you’ll also have the opportunity to work together, even if it ends up being with soldiers you’re unfamiliar with. So, Shinoda, Garza-” Leon couldn’t look behind him to see the Major’s face, but he just knew by the sound of his voice that he was smiling. “Make our Sergeant here work for a win, why don’t you?” 

This wasn’t fair. By the surprise still plastered over your face, you hadn’t been expecting to be tag-teamed. Whatever you’d been bracing yourself for at the beginning, Krauser had circumvented. It made Leon angry on your behalf, but that emotion took a back seat to his desire for you to win. You were a damn good fighter - one of the best Leon had ever seen. Even so, he knew from experience that once more than one opponent was added to the mix, everything changed. Your head was on a swivel, trying to keep track of the two of them as they circled you. Alejandro went around, moving to flank you, to trap you between his knife and Shinoda’s. 

The two cadets looked first to each other, and then to you. Then, with an understanding between them, they attacked. 

Leon felt his heart skip a beat as Shinoda slashed at you, going for your knife arm. He wasn’t as fast as you were, and he didn’t manage to avoid the counter cut you gave him across his own arm - a move that would have cut deep into his triceps. 

You’d decommissioned his good arm, but the moment you’d done it, there was another knife coming down at you.

Alejandro was taller than you, letting him comfortably bring his knife down towards your shoulder in a reverse grip. Your own arm flashed up so fast Leon almost missed the block and bind you managed to execute, just in time. What he saw with perfect clarity, however, was the fist that Alejandro raised to follow through. He saw it swing towards you, and his breath caught in his throat when he watched it connect with your nose in full force. 

You yelped, the force of the blow and your own feet scrambling sending you back, away from your opponents. Your free hand covered your mouth and nose, and when you pulled it away to examine it, Leon saw red. 

There were some sharp breaths taken in, a few murmurs, but no one said anything in protest to the hit. And Krauser? Leon turned to look at the Major, only to find him watching the fight, unbothered. “At attention, Rookie,” he barked, when he felt Leon’s eyes on him. “You might even learn something.” 

Leon remembered that first day he’d met you, when you’d struck him with that backfist. Krauser hadn’t stopped you, then, and Leon knew that he wasn’t going to stop this now. 

“Bruises are the best teachers.” 

By the time Leon looked back at you, your attackers had already moved again, taking advantage of the opening the punch had created. The onslaught that followed was brutal, and you were forced further and further back as you tried to defend. He saw your fear just as much as he saw your focus, and all he could think of was your words last night, and what they implied you’d been through. 

“. . . I was making the same mistakes . . .”

This was wrong. Even if he understood why it was happening, Leon could only think that it was wrong. 

But then, wrong or not, you weren’t asking them to stop. You didn’t even look to Krauser as the two men you were fighting lunged for you. You just bared your teeth, raised your blade, and fought back. 

When you had an opening, you went for Shinoda. It was the smart move, he was slower than Alejandro. Less experienced. If you could get him off the board, it might give you a moment to focus on the bigger threat. It worked, too. Circling the shorter man as he struck out, you managed to get him between you and Alejandro, just for a moment. Then, in a few quick moves, you were dragging your blade across his gut before kicking him towards his impromptu ally. 

And before you even got the chance to advance on Alejandro, Krauser moved and another soldier from your squad was sent forward. 

It was a training exercise. A brutal one, yes, but he knew that you would walk away from this, no matter how hurt you’d be. Krauser wasn’t looking to kill you. 

It was just a training exercise. 

That didn’t make it bother him any less. Standing there, watching as you avoided knives by just a heartbeat, or take punches and kicks that you weren’t fast enough to dodge . . . it felt like there was something in him, clawing its way through his stomach, demanding that he move. That he do something. 

You groaned as you took a knee to the stomach, just narrowly countering the overhead stab that followed. Twisting out of the hold and slashing wildly, you put some distance between yourself and your attackers. The guard that you put up after was half-formed, and you spat out some of the blood that had made its way past your lips. You were going to keep going, even if it was a losing battle. 

And he wasn’t going to just sit by and do nothing. 

You were in pain, and this was wrong. That was all it boiled down to. 

Krauser would kick the shit out of him if he interfered. If any one of them disobeyed an order, there would be consequences. 

In that moment, though, as Leon watched you get taken to the ground, he realized that he didn’t really care. 

⧫⧫⧫

You were going to lose. 

You’d known that going in, but seeing two knives coming at you after the dreams you had . . . you were unfocused. Unraveling. You'd needed this to ground you, even if it really fucking hurt. You tasted copper and it, combined with the strikes your gut had taken, made you feel like you were going to be sick. 

Not a dignified ending to things, but there were very few ways to lose with dignity, in your experience. Best you could do was go down swinging and do better next time.  

Alejandro blocked a strike from you, and his leg moved just a little too fast, hooking behind your own and pulling it out from under you. You hit the ground hard, the back of your head smacking into the dirt with a pain that felt like background noise. All your focus, once your eyes opened, was on the shadow passing over you and the knife it brought with it. You got your guard up just in time, and Alejandro’s knife stopped just short of your neck. He stopped your own knife just in time, too, and the two of you struggled for no more than half a second before a second shape came into view. 

This was it, then. At least you could say you put up a decent fight-

You looked over just in time to see a boot connect with the back of your other opponent’s knee, forcing her down. 

“Kennedy!” Krauser barked, just as someone took the knife from the woman’s hand and slashed its dulled blade across her throat. “Back in formation!” 

The recruit in question wasn’t listening, and you watched him rush towards you, his newly acquired knife aimed at Alejandro’s side. 

Oh, Leon. You absolute dumbass, you could only think as the soldier on top of you realized he was about to have more company than he planned on. Alejandro wasn’t the sort to let anyone get the drop on him, and he ducked away, rolling off to your side and freeing you from his hold. 

Once he was gone, you realized just how dazed you were as a hand was offered to you. It took you a second to process who it belonged to, but then you saw that hair above you, and you sighed. 

“What the fuck are you doing?” you asked, letting Leon help you up. Your head hurt, and so did your ribs, but his grip on you was steady and more reassuring than it had any right to be. Even so, him rushing to your side, disobeying orders . . . it made you feel a lot of things, and you didn’t have the time to put names to them all. “Get back in line,” you hissed, but it was too late. 

“Are you deaf, Kennedy?” Krauser asked, and you wished he sounded more angry and less amused. “Or are you intentionally disobeying an order?” 

Leon swallowed, but that was the only sign he gave that he was nervous. As he met Krauser’s stare, you realized just how brave this boy was. Brave or stupid. “‘You won't always know an enemy is coming until they’re on top of you,’ right?” He threw the Major's own words back in his face, and even you winced. 

Krauser’s eyes flashed, and then, God help you both, he smiled. “You want to play the hero, Rookie? Fine. Soto, Andersen.” You recognized both as people in your squad. Valeria was the owner of the first name, and she stepped forward with a glinting smile. Andersen. . . well, he was quiet, just like you. He was there to get the job done. He followed orders, and whatever Krauser wanted done now, he would do it with haste.  “You’re with Garza. Beat some sense into Kennedy.” 

You were surrounded, Alejandro on one side, Valeria and Andersen on the other. You were slow, tired and in more pain than you wanted to admit. Leon was fine, but he struggled against you. These soldiers were easily at your level. 

Things weren’t looking good, but you raised your knife anyway. 

It would be a good learning experience, once the hurt faded a bit. 

“You take Alejandro,” you said to Leon, stepping between him and the two fresh challengers. “I’ve got these two.” 

Leon nodded, moving into a guard and covering your back just as you covered his. He didn’t look fazed at all. It was the first time you’d ever seen him so sure of himself. You didn’t let yourself linger on that thought for long, not with the two knives in front of you coming ever closer. 

But you weren’t alone. How long had it been since you hadn’t been alone? 

“What’d you do to get him to like you so much?” Valeria laughed, spinning the knife in her hand with practiced ease. She looked past your shoulder at Leon, but you commanded her attention back to you when you sliced at her, missing her leg but making her retreat all the same. 

It was a fair question. It felt like all you’d done for Leon Kennedy was kick his ass six ways to Sunday, and maybe give him the occasional apology for doing it. You couldn’t fathom why he was willing to jump into a fight for you. Still, all evidence pointed to the fact that Leon did, for some reason, enjoy your company. Even if it was so often delivered at the end of a knife. Whatever the case, you’d come to like him, too, as dangerous as that was. 

He was going to catch hell for this. Least you could do was make it as easy for him as possible. 

So, when Valeria asked that concerning and puzzling question, you just exhaled hard through your nostrils, a spray of partially dried blood heralding your answer. “Shut up and fight.” 

Previous Chapter | Next Chapter

Chapter Index

A/N: THEY'RE BABY YOUR HONOR

#leon kennedy x reader #leon s kennedy #leon kennedy #jack krauser #resident evil x reader #resident evil 2 #resident evil 4 #resident evil #between the bones #gender neutral reader #leon kennedy x you #no y/n

[thesnadger]

20 Great Horror Podcasts To Fall Asleep And Have Nightmares To

I listen to a lot of horror podcasts, and if you’re looking for a spooky recommendation for October, I am here to provide. These are my personal top ten (not in any order) and ten rapid-fire “honorable mentions” as well.

The Silt Verses – Strange, soothing folk horror. Two followers of an outlawed god travel their deity’s great black river, hiding from a police manhunt and encountering other weird gods that have flourished in forgotten rural territories. There is a god in your fridge, a god in your radio, a god in your deepest regrets, and none of that is a good thing.

The Hotel – Someplace beyond time and space is The Hotel, where guests check in but they don't check out *Vincent Price laugh* instead meeting a violent death at the will of the Hotel. The truly stand out part is the hotel staff, who end up getting most of the focus. The interplay between these terrible monsters who are all trapped in hell together is absolutely fantastic, horror office politics at its finest.

The Magnus Archives – Jonathan Sims’s job is to record statements of encounters with the supernatural. But the more he records, the more connections he makes between these seemingly disconnected tales of terror. A horror/tragedy with a deep emotional core, difficult moral questions, and just the right amount of humor. You’ve already heard of this one why am I even telling you about it, it’s good.

Unwell – Mount Absalom, Ohio is a small town, the kind of place where you don’t lock your doors at night. Where the ghost tour at Fenwood House runs rain or shine. Where buildings still bear the marks of the last great fire in the Burning Woods. Where you might hear echoes of conversations long past in the observatory on Chapel Hill. Unwell is particularly memorable for its fun, colorful characters and for its themes of history and loss. A Midwestern Gothic mystery about family, memories, and the things that haunt us in the end.

Down – A submarine called the Virgil enters a seemingly bottomless Antarctic trench. Its mission: to map the pit and collect samples of any scientifically interesting creatures within. But when an encounter with one of these creatures goes awry, tensions form among the crew, and they begin to wonder how safe they really are. All the while, the Virgil descends … and descends … and descends.

Mockery Manor – It’s the summer of 1989, and people are going missing in Mockery Manor theme park. It’s up to a pair of teenage sisters to unravel the mystery and catch the killer – if they can get past their own traumas and work together. If you like 80s and 90s horror/slasher movies, this one is for you. The audio production values are some of the best I’ve seen, and include in-universe pop songs and wonderfully atmospheric 90s horror synth.

I Am In Eskew – David Ward is lost. He’s found himself in Eskew, a place of steep and winding streets, where the architecture changes at will and the rain never stops. Eskew grips its people tight, and does not let go easily. These are David’s stories of the city that has claimed him, and of someone who is looking for him there.

Gospel Of The Flood – The world is sinking. Slowly, day by day, the continents are vanishing under the waves. This is the age of the Flood. We follow a priest who has lost his faith, as he searches for the people he remembers in this doomed and dying world. A tragedy/existential horror about faith, despair, kindness, cruelty, and the tide that carries it all away.

The Lost Cat Podcast – Our narrator is looking for his cat. It isn’t the nicest cat, nor the most well-behaved, but it is his cat and he misses it. As he searches he encounters many people, many creatures, and some truly terrible things. He’d like to tell you about them. The tone for this one fluctuates from story to story, from genuinely horrifying to purely comedic to incredibly soft and gentle.

Archive 81 – A man named Daniel Powell listens to some audio tapes. This will surely not have severe consequences for anyone. Melody Pendras interviews the tenets of a building where reality wears thin at the edges. A play from golden age of radio brushes against something mankind wasn't meant to hear. Two siblings attempt an occult ritual left by their estranged (and now deceased) father. It's a lot of weird analog horror with fun found footage scattered within.

(Note: Archive 81 is genuinely nothing like the Netflix adaptation of the same name. The plot is entirely different, the characters act differently, the podcast is a surreal cosmic horror while the adaptation is a straightforward demon cult and Netflix made Melody straight. Don’t mention the Netflix adaptation in this household we all hate the Netflix adaptation here.)

Honorable Mentions: (i.e., I like them but for one reason or another they weren’t right for the top ten.)

Midst - More Fantasy/Weird/Western than horror, but if you like horror you’ll love the monsters, the cosmic horror reality storms and the truly weird imagery. The unique narration style is like nothing else I’ve ever heard and keeps the energy high.

The White Vault S1 & S2 – Frozen tundra horror, similar vibes to The Thing, in a found footage format. I mostly recommend the first two seasons, because they’re the most solid and they work as a self-contained story.

Old Gods of Appalachia – Appalachian folk horror, angry ghosts and forest gods. Some characters and threads run through it but largely each season is its own setting and story.

Alice Isn’t Dead – A truck driver searches America for the wife she long assumed was dead. Soft spoken road trip horror slowly unraveling an inhuman conspiracy.

Woe.Begone – More scifi/thriller than horror, but good shit. What begins as a mysterious and violent ARG with real-life consequences becomes a search for the technology that makes the game possible. Great music, fun narrator, dark themes.

Death By Dying – The Obituary Writer of Crestfall, Idaho just can’t stop himself from investigating the mysterious deaths he’s supposed to be writing about. Very silly and whimsical, more black comedy than pure horror with big Welcome To Night Vale vibes.

A Voice From Darkness – Parapsychologist Dr. Malcolm Ryder helps those who suffer from supernatural troubles on his call in radio show. I’ll warn that the update schedule is a bit slow and not super consistent.

The SCP Archives – A podcast that takes stories from the SCP Foundation wiki and gives them voice acting, foley and the full audio treatment. Picks a pretty good variety, too.

The Wrong Station – Anthology podcasts are always a little hit and miss, but the fact that The Wrong Station keeps the same writing/VA team from episode to episode really helps keep it consistent. I made a list of my favorite episodes here.

Nightlight – Anthology podcast with creepy stories written by black writers and performed by black actors. Like all anthologies, you’ll like some stories better than others, but they cover a pretty wide range.

#podcasts #podcast recs #horror podcasts #horror podcast recs #scribe don't look #nate don't look

[1moreff-creator]

Happy Birthday Rose Lacroix!

Except, don't shout it too loud, birthday girl is sleepy. Let's do the usual birthday analysis and song associations, but be quiet, she wants her sleep.

(Still her birthday in my time zone I win)

-Rose's backstory is revealed in Episode 5 of CH 2. Her family was poor, and to help with the financial situation, Rose started forging artwork. Thanks to her photographic memory and natural talent, she made a lot of money. However, at one point when she was 15, one of her clients left a trail leading back to her, and now she had to pay back ten times as much as she'd made, which was millions of dollars, for her actions. This would have ruined her family, of course.

-However, a philantropic organization named the Spurling Foundation, led by Richard Spurling, offered to pay her fines and clear her charges. The condition for this to happen was that any painting Rose made from that point onward would belong to the Foundation.

-Rose saw herself forced to take the deal, but it haunts her. She's extremely upset about not owning any of her art, of course, and so any time she makes an original painting, she makes sure to then cover it in black paint so as to not make anything for the Spurling Foundation without being asked. She doesn't regret the deal by her own admission, but she's not exactly happy with her life.

-This brings us to one of the main themes of Rose's narrative, which also happens to be one of the main themes of DRDT. The ability (or in this case, inability) to change and let go of the past. Rose is stuck paying back for the mistakes of her past for the foreseeable future. It's even expressed in her character design; her clothes are stained with paint, as her life is stained by the mistakes of her past. Her photographic memory, which allows her to perfectly recall anything she's ever seen to the tiniest detail, is another expression of the inability to let go of the past. The lack of change is also referenced in her secret quote: "In the end, the only thing I can do is watch my wretched life go on."

-Going back to her memory, while Rose has a flawless memory of everything she sees (see: noticing one sixteenth of an inch difference in her height), remembering things other people say isn't easy for her. She even forgot J's name that one time.

-Her memory situation is even referenced in the quote on Mai's page attached to Rose: "She remembers everything that is important to others."

-Speaking of J, according to Recap Foil Theory, J is a narrative foil to Rose. While J was born into wealth, her home life was still so terrible she wants nothing more than to separate herself from it. Meanwhile, Rose was born into poverty but (from what we see at least) loves her family, and while she's not happy with her situation, she seems to have accepted she can't run from her past. That's just the surface level stuff, there is definitely more to analyze there.

-Rose has admitted to having nightmares as a result of her memory, since reality, memory and dream tends to blur together in her mind. It's part of why she chose not to look at the second chapter crime scene.

-She has numeral II (2) in the David MV, connected to the phrase "Ego cogito ego (turbatus) sum".

This is a play on the phrase "I think therefore I am" (Ego cogito ergo sum), a phrase which implies the only thing we can be truly sure of is our own consciousness, which fits the aforementioned "nightmares and reality mixing together" thing.

However, the addition of 'turbatus' changes the meaning to something closer to "I think, therefore I am disturbed", which also fits how horrifying Rose's thoughts can be.

-According to some (read: mine) versions of color theory, she gets the word "world" in the David MV.

Because... you know what just go to the 2:25:03 time stamp of this video I made I am not talking about this fucking MV any more than I have to.

-She can do a pull-up, but only if there's grippy tape on the pull-up bar. She strong :O

-Her birthday (November 29th) falls on Electronic Greetings Day, National Evan Day (???), and among other things, the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People. I know I don't talk much about this kind of stuff in my blogs, but Free Palestine.

Fun facts!

-As per her profile, she likes sleeping and dislikes conversation, though we already kinda knew that.

-She has two moms (Iris and Holly), an older sister (Daisy) and a younger brother (Saffron). Yes they’re all named after flowers.

-Like most DRDT characters, she's American, right-handed, has no confirmed sexuality, and her hair color is natural.

-She smells like paint and chemicals.

-She likes "food that is filling (because she often forgets to eat)." :(

-She prefers wearing clothes which are eccentric and colorful, but not delicate.

-Her favorite ice cream flavor is red velvet.

-Her favorite color is lilac because she likes subdued colors. She doesn't have a least favorite color because they're all useful in the right situations.

Songs!

+Exorcism by CreepP

+Echo by Crusher-P

+Those Who Carried On by Ghost & Pals (fun fact, according to Spotify Wrapped I was part of the 0,1% most frequent listeners of Ghost & Pals, with 6531 minutes of play time. So a normal amount)

+In Iolite by Ghost & Pals (I don'y know if I've mentioned it, but this might be my favorite song ever if you're curious)

+DEATHBODY by Ghost & Pals (or it’s this one. One of the two)

+Marionette by KIRA

+End-World Normopathy by Ghost & Pals

+Two of a Kind by Ghost & Pals (okay I'm seeing why I'm top 0,1% for them lol)

+Dune/Sand Planet by HACHI

+Hyperdontia by Ghost & Pals (Reason: Memories theming go brr)

+The Dream Granter by Vane Lily (if you twist the story a bit it kinda fits with the singer being Spurling)

+Entomologists by Ghost & Pals (vibes)

+Piece of Art by KIRA (vibes and title, the actual lyrics don't have much to do with anything)

And Happy Birthday! A capella please, we don't want to make too much noise. Take care!

#drdt #danganronpa despair time #rose lacroix #character birthday #sorry if this one’s shorter than usual

[goodomensjail]

What Pride.com let slip:

GOOD OMENS SPOILERS BELOW

In the interview with David and Michael the interviewer clearly states that Azirpahale throws a Jane Austen themed ball. In episode 1 or 2 (my memory is already hazy) the street business relations organizer guy corners azirpahale in the pub and bullies him into being the host for the next street party/festival thing

Business relations president guy leaves and Crowley and azirpahale discuss how to make two humans fall in love, Crowley suggesting a rain storm like in the movies making them huddle under an awning together; Azirpahale says no no we need to follow Jane Austen’s lead she was the queen of human romance.

Then the BTS special was posted yesterday and we see Crowley and Azirpahale in their normal modern day costumes surrounded by people in various period costumes and modern day suits

Conclusion: azirpahale does throw the block party/business street festival thing and he themes it Jane Austen as part of his plan to make Nina and Maggie fall in love.

Conjecture: this modern day ball is intercut with Crowley and Azirpahale in Jane Austen times (per the costumes we have seen) where they meet her at another period ball. Since they specifically both say they knew her personally.

Best of both worlds.

TODAY in the interview with Nina and Maggie the interviewer asks about a potential season 3 and if Maggie and Nina could possibly have “a love connection” in a season 3…..

Conclusion: MAGGIE AND NINA DO NOT END UP IM A ROMANTIC RELATIONSHIP THIS SEASON despite our Angel and Demon and despite our knowledge from EPs 1&2 that Maggie has a crush on Nina.

Conjecture: we have been told there are two kisses this season right? (am i remembering that correctly? SOMEONE HELP where did i read that?? or am i spreading misinformation) We know EVERY but then…. If NOT Maggie and Nina like I assumed then who else? Or just another smooch for our husbands???

All I’m saying is pride.com is doing terrible at their real job but a great job feeding me

UPDATE Re: two kisses, this is what I was referencing but maybe “doubling it” just means one more kiss so now there’s two overall in two seasons??

https://twitter.com/neilhimself/status/1445603932173070351?t=jtvqrRJ23MLMtajdxF9hgQ&s=19

#good omens #gos2spoilers #go2 spoilers #good omens spoilers #gos2 spoilers #go2 #good omens season 2 spoilers

[inbarfink]

I guess the only thing that actually bothers me about the whole ‘David Theory’ thing in DHMIS, is how, like… I think it leads people to examine that aspect of the Death episode entirely as a Way to Decode the Secret Lore of DHMIS and stuff - and to kinda ignore the Meaning and Context of it in the actual episode?

Like, whatever or not the ‘David’ Stuff means something for some sort of Hidden Grand Narrative, I think it’s also important to remember that it also has a very important emotional theme within just the context of the episode itself.

Because the whole thing about Duck being buried under the name David and being memorialized with things he never did… leaving aside any possible lore implications, this is first and foremost a really poignant message about how much it hurts to see the people closest to you being remembered wrong. 

It is not uncommon for grieving friends and/or family to watch their deceased loved one get ‘twisted’ after their death, being immortalized as something different from what they remember, something they know is wrong. Whatever it is because of refusing to speak ill of the dead, or trying to fit them into a more comfortable narrative, or doing a Performative Mourning for a person you didn’t actually know well, or people just refusing to accept the person the deceased actually was...

(Like, okay, let's not beat around the googly-eyed anthropomorphic bush. I don't know if that was the creator's intention but this is a VERY common experience for queer folks. Like, 'being buried and mourned under the wrong name' isn't just some sort of absurd cartoony exaggeration - that is a real terrible thing that happens to real trans people!)

And it hurts because memorialization SHOULD be an important part of their healing process. It should be comforting that your loved ones will live on in the memories of people, that you can reminisce and commiserate about your loss with others… but sometimes, the person who lives on is just not the same person, sometimes no one seems to talk about the person you lost.

This is what Red Guy and Yellow Guy go through with the whole ‘David’ thing in the episode. The mourners claiming to be ‘friends’ despite not even knowing Duck’s proper name (I mean we don’t know it either but still) is just the most literal interpretation of seeing people performatively grieve for people they don’t even know.

And that whole angle, I think, is very important to the episode themes and - like - Red and Yellow behavior throughout it. Like, this is a huge reason why they couldn’t get on the ‘right’ way to grieve.

And if you want, you can also connect it to the Deeper Hidden Lore Theory about David. Like, I suggested it in a previous post the idea that rather than just Yellow Guy being some sort of version or manifestation of David Lesleyson - it’s all Three of Them who represent different aspects of David. And that Yellow is simply the favorite because he’s Lesleys favorite part of David - the innocent and inquisitive child. 

And you can connect that theory to this whole aspect of the Death episode. Like, the Three of Them are all different ways people remembered the actual David and Yellow was simply Lesley’s version. Or if he’s Lesley’s favorite because he’s based on the parts of David she’d like to remember. 

For Lesley, David will always be remembered as her innocent and curious little kid, no matter how much more complicated the truth was (he might’ve had more snarky and selfish qualities like Red Guy or Duck). And in a way, that is not much different than just straight-up burying him under the wrong name.

#don't hug me i'm scared #dont hug me im scared #don't hug me #i'm scared #dhmis #dhmis tv series #dhmis analysis #dhmis theory #dhmis tv show #dhmis death #dhmis david #dhmis lesley #lesley dhmis #david dhmis #red guy dont hug me im scared #red guy dhmis #red guy #duck dhmis #dhmis duck #dhmis yellow guy #yellow guy don't hug me i'm scared #yellow guy dhmis #yellow guy

[littlecello]

Lazarus Ending

Hello again!

First, I need to say a huge thank you to all of you who interacted with the write-up I did the other day. I honestly was a little worried to air out my negative feelings of that afternoon, especially because the audience as a whole (mostly comprised of middle-aged white men, I have to add) reacted so positively to everything - Fern and I felt so uncomfortable by the end. So to come here afterwards and have both our fears and feelings confirmed by so many people, it was a huge comfort. And also, I kind of feel like the fandom seems to have risen from the ashes (hah) somehow, in solidarity after this? Which is just wonderful to think about. So, again - thank you, from the bottom of my heart. I'm so glad we have this little space here that we've carved out for ourselves. 💕

Now, without further ado! I will do my best to summarise what Ashely Pharoah told us the overall arc, as well as the ending, of Lazarus would have been.

Caveat 1: They didn't tell us much, because apparently they're still trying to make Lazarus happen in some shape or form - the most likely option, according to AP, is going to be a graphic novel (good luck to the artist trying to get John Simm's likeness right lol), but nothing is confirmed. Still, this meant they really didn't want to go into detail on plot points.

Caveat 2: This is going to sound mean, but: Ashley Pharoah is a terrible public speaker. He explained the ending of Lazarus, but it was pretty jumbled and disjointed, so I'm having a hard time recalling it and putting it into one cohesive summary. I will do my best!

First of all, here is an addition to the summary of the pilot, which is relevant for the ending - I didn't think to add it for my first write-up, but have since added it for better understanding of the overall plot:

[In 2024] Sam returns to the crime scene once more, convinced that rapist PC was murdered. There, he is snatched by two men (who turn out to be two of the officers who most vocally turned against Sam) and brought to a carpark somewhere. As he's dragged out of the car, his eyes are blindfolded by bandages, and the script specifically stated "like in the music video for David Bowie's Lazarus" - this is where the Lazarus iconography was the most blatant. Sam also catches glimpses of a black star throughout the episode. It is implied that the officers, including rapist PC, are all part of an organisation that whose insignia is exactly that black star. The officers threaten him not to investigate rapist PC's death any further, but when Sam finally manages to get the blindfold off, the two men are nowhere to be found. This is when Sam decides to drive back to the care home to pick up Gene and take him for a drive, in hopes that it will jog Gene's memory or the car he had an argument with.

Now, with this in mind, please do your best to recall everything you can from both LoM and A2A, because here goes:

It turns out that the Black Star is the uhh logo? Sign? Of all the "bad cops" who have escaped "bad cop hell". Meanwhile, the "Police God" or "God of Police" (I swear Ashley said those words in exactly that order, I am not joking) has decided that Gene has done a good enough job as a guardian angel and is ready to go into The Railway Arms. But Gene doesn't want to? And then Gene, Sam, Alex etc realise that, indeed, the "bad cops" have escaped from "bad cop hell", and need to be caught. Which, I think? Is what they end up doing throughout the planned two series of Lazarus? And then at the end Gene does end up going into the Railway Arms and they all have a happy boozy party, and everyone we know and love is there (Ray and Chris got a name mention). Then, as the party goes on, the camera pans to the side to reveal a boy with two differently coloured eyes and slightly snaggly teeth sitting at the piano (three guesses who that is) and starts playing "Life on Mars?". All the cops fall silent and pause to listen, because "they all know what it means". Oh, and outside of TRA we see a black woman - she is introduced in the pilot as being Sam's Chief Superintendent in 2024, I can't remember her name unfortunately, but we also meet her as a 16 year old in 1977 and I think she was meant to start out as like Gene's informant? Anyway, at the end of the show, she's stood outside of the Railway Arms, and it turns out it is now her turn to be the guardian angel of cops.

Again, apologies if I got anything wrong, I found it REALLY hard to follow what Ashley Pharoah was saying, especially because by that point I was already so mentally worn down from all the shitty stuff and the men around us having a whale of a time, and some fairly awkward "questions" from the audience. But there you go. Anyone else who was there, please feel free to add anything I forgot to mention!

#Lazarus table read #Life on Mars #Ashes to Ashes #cello rambles

[mitochondriaandbunnies]

You Should Watch Miami Vice:

A treatise on the most poorly-remembered show of the 80′s

If you’re like most people, when you hear Miami Vice outside the context of a bar, you picture the following: shoulder pads, speed boats, bikinis, and pink and teal pastel. You probably think about the worst excesses of the 1980′s, of a kind of cultural sinkhole where there was nothing cooler than Ray-Bans and masculine posturing.

However, much like Captain Kirk is (mis)remembered as a sleazy womanizer, and the first Rambo movie is (mis)remembered as a paean to how AWESOME KNIVES ARE, Miami Vice has been frozen in pop-culture memory as something it really isn’t. A funhouse mirror reflection of what it was actually all about.  Because the thing is: Miami Vice is good. Like, really good. 

At its core, it’s a show that is:

Well-written, with a coherent emotional and thematic arc across its seasons, despite being made before the era of arc-based TV

Incredibly beautiful, with cinematography, directing, and musical/sound editing choices that literally changed the way television was produced

Deeply, sometimes painfully human, with main characters who are often wrong and/or make bad decisions with real consequences, and who often ‘lose’

And on top of that, it’s not really copaganda (no, really), and it’s pretty damn queer (yes, really.) It’s also an old-school episodic show, which means the characters have a ton of space to breathe and grow and be multi-faceted, and the production has room to experiment, both with technical stuff and the writing. There are episodes that are so deadly serious your mouth feels dry as the credits roll; there are weird, silly, fun episodes where utterly bonkers things happen; there are episodes that feel like David Lynch was moonlighting as director. It’s neo-noir, it’s magical realism, it’s a workplace comedy, it’s a treatise on how there’s no reforming unjust systems, it’s a love story about two men who refuse to grapple with the idea that they’re the most important thing in each other’s lives.

You should watch it. But let me keep trying to convince you, anyway.

Vice was the brainchild of Michael Mann and Anthony Yerkovitch, and in 1984, it looked and sounded like nothing else on TV. There’s an auteur touch to the majority of episodes-- not just a unified look, but a willingness to try things that worked in the movies on the small screen. When you watch a lot of shows from the early to mid 80′s, they look the same as shows from the 70′s-- en episode of Spenser for Hire could’ve been shot on the same day as an episode of Starsky and Hutch. People talk about the legacy of shows that led to our modern era of “prestige TV--” there’d have been no Sopranos without The Wire, etc-- but in a lot of ways, with its artistic, film-like framing, melancholic New Wave aesthetics, and abnormally high production values, Miami Vice is the grandpappy of all of them. 

The recurring cast is very small: for most of the show, it’s these seven characters. (No, I don’t know why this cast photo is posed like they’re at a wedding for someone they don’t seem to like very much. Literally all of the promo photos for this show look like terrible wedding or prom shoots.)

From the top left, we have Larry Zito (Hawaiian shirt) and Stan Switek (pink stripes); they’re initially the comic relief. They love Elvis and bicker like an old married couple, and as partners they get a lot of the surveillance jobs. They do not escape the show unscathed.

The two ladies are Gina Calabrese (blue belted dress) and Trudy Joplin (palm tree dress); I adore them and they are wonderful, and each of them gets a couple of solid episodes, but they aren’t always given the most spectacular scripts. Gina is both the sweetest, most naive member of the group and the one most likely to shoot first and ask questions later; Trudy is an expert researcher and cannot be arsed to do emotional labor for her dumb male colleagues.

The man in the black suit with the moustache is the squad’s lieutenant, Martin Castillo. Castillo doesn’t show up until episode six, and when he does the show’s whole tone kind of suddenly clicks into place. Castillo is weird. He speaks very little and blinks less; he makes eye contact with no one unless he is making so much eye contact it makes you want to bury yourself in the dirt. Also he’s maybe secretly a samurai?

Then we have the two assholes in front, our main characters: Sonny Crockett and Ricardo Tubbs. Sonny (white guy in spring green and lavendar, the kind of man who wears a sleeveless shirt under a blazer) is a career Miami cop with a history of unprocessed trauma, a conga line of dead friends and partners, a wife who is trying her best to divorce him, and a six year old son he has no idea how to parent but loves very deeply. Rico (Black guy in grey and white, the kind of man who wears a three piece suit in 98 degree weather with 100% humidity) is a New York transplant with a dead brother, an utterly bizarre sense of humor, the world’s worst taste in women, and a terminal need to fix every broken person he’s ever come across while also probably sleeping with them. Their relationship is the emotional core of the series. Neither of them is equipped to handle this.

Sonny is probably the worst-remembered part of the whole badly-remembered series. Pop culture positions him as a wise-cracking cowboy cop who drives too fast and lives even faster, when in reality mostly Sonny is just very depressed, very lonely, and almost certainly a self-hating closeted bisexual.

He is a sad, bitchy pretty boy who legitimately thinks the only thing he’s good for is waving a gun around, and he only drives his government-owned drug dealer Ferrari so fast because he’s trying to drive away from his feelings.

Vice is a five season show, and unfortunately, you’ll often see fans arguing about the seasons and whether or not you can or should skip any of them. Here’s the thing: it’s an episodic show from the 80′s. No matter how much Mann or any of the other showrunners tried to make it consistent across its runtime, that’s not really how TV works. 113 episodes does not a movie make. Because of this, each season does feel a bit different from prior seasons, and which season you prefer is going to depend a lot on your personal tastes. Nonetheless, I wouldn’t recommend skipping any of them-- when you do watch the show from the pilot to the finale, it really does feel like one coherent storyline.

Season 1: Many people’s favorite season. A good mixture of tragedy, comedy, mystery, etc. The first six episodes are still kind of “working things out” tonally, but the whole season is worth watching. My personal favorite S1 episode (Evan, the second to last of the season) isn’t available on all sources, but is an absolute must watch, especially in terms of providing context for understanding Sonny as a closeted queer man.

Season 2: My favorite season. The show has its footing and knows what it wants from its characters and its audience. I would argue that almost every episode of this season is a good one, and it’s thematically very consistent. (Also, I think, possibly the most “fun” season despite a lot of darkness?)

Season 3: Also a lot of people’s favorite season, although PERSONALLY I think of S3 as “the police brutality is good, actually” season. Dick Wolf (yes, that Dick Wolf) was the showrunner for this one, and he wanted it to be “grittier.” I think S3 is necessary for understanding Sonny and especially for understanding the relationship between Sonny and Rico, but it’s definitely the copaganda season.

Season 4: The season a lot of people feel you should skip, because it’s “too weird” or where the show jumped the shark. There are some... real strange episodes in this season, including one about aliens and another about cow semen. For real. I’ll be honest: I kind of love S4. It backpedals the grittiness and focuses more on the characters’ inner lives again, S4 also ends with a fantastic two part cliffhanger that is picked up at the beginning of S5.

Season 5: A truncated half-season with a couple of “lost” episodes that actually fit in before the finale. Season Five is sad. The fallout from the end of S4 is heavy, grim stuff, and S5 doesn’t shy away from showing how that has fucked everyone to hell and back. The finale of the show is thematically excellent and emotionally satisfying; while the show was cancelled, they wrapped it up successfully.

“Okay, fine,” you say, sipping the cafecito I handed you while I explained all of this, “so it’s not just about a cool guy in an Armani suit driving an Italian car really fast. But you mentioned it was gay? It still doesn’t sound very gay.”

Well. Let’s see.

There’s what should be a cringey “very special episode” about gay cops in 1984 that is instead one of the most heartfelt and upsetting episodes in the series. Never once does this episode no-homo the main characters, and in fact, men being able to touch each other is positioned as healing and necessary.

Sonny and Rico are the only people who think the other is funny. Their hands and eyes are on each other all the time. Rico used to watch Sonny’s college games on TV and remembers his number. They both repeatedly throw missions for each others’ sakes. They spend all of their time together. There’s an on-screen “I love you” (there’s a ‘man’ at the end but it rings like someone hedging his bets) and a few episodes later the character who received the I love you marries a random woman he literally met less than a week ago in what can only be described as the saddest and most desperate attempt to Not Be Gay Anymore ever caught on film. They cradle each others’ heads more than once. A song about “loving the boy with the pretty green eyes” plays in the background of a conversation they have about following each other to the end of the earth in the finale.

All.

these.

prom.

photo.

shoots.

  and whatever the fuck this is.

You finish your third cafecito, shaking slightly from the caffeine, trying to prevent me from handing you a fourth. “Fine,” you admit. “But I still need more convincing. I can’t just watch something that’s good and thematically whole and about two sad men in love. It needs to also have... have some kind of, I don’t know, je ne sais quoi about it. A little extra spice.” Your hand rattles the demitasse against the saucer as you speak.

I pull off my food service uniform to reveal that underneath, I’m dressed as a carnival barker.

WELL. LET ME TELL YOU, FRIEND, WE’VE GOT:

An absolutely golden 80′s soundtrack that is atmospheric, consistently used at pitch-perfect moments, and which has been preserved in its entirety without any licensing issues

A guest cast list that includes a ton of super fucking cool genre actors, musicians, poets, and other assorted famous people playing weird, fun roles (James Hong! Earth Kitt! Pam Grier! Frank Zappa! James Brown! ...G. Gordon Liddy!?) AND many of the future stars of the 90′s before they were famous (Bruce Willis! Julia Roberts! Liam Neeson! Helena Bonham Carter!)

Sonny has an actual pet alligator named Elvis. He lives on his boat and sometimes Sonny has to take him to the vet

Jai Alai

Rico is a vegetarian, which feels like a difficult thing to be in Miami in the 80′s

Izzy. Just. Izzy. The most perfect, most ridiculous, rat-bastard con man and wannabe poet, Izzy.

Episodes directed by both Starsky and Hutch

Sonny’s pathological need to put things in his mouth

Whatever is happening here:

I watch your face carefully for signs of acquiescence, but all the frothing at the mouth I’ve been doing has made it a bit hard to see through the foam. I assume you are convinced and hand you a seventh cafecito. You have not drank the fifth or the sixth. I will drink them when you leave, that’s fine.

MY JOB HERE IS DONE, I announce.

You ask me to elaborate on the whole “not copaganda” thing, trying to grab me by the candy-striped suspenders.

I can’t totally elaborate on that without spoiling a bunch of the show, but suffice to say: ultimately, Vice is about how you can’t change corrupt systems from the inside, that the police serve the rich and powerful, the function of vice cops is basically to create the illusion of order while letting the government quietly destabilize the countries the drugs are originally coming from, and that anyone who tries to be a “good cop” ends up eaten by the system, corrupt, or dead.

There’s some backpedaling on this in the middle of the series with the whole Dick Wolf thing (that man loves his fucking cops), and not every episode is totally consistent with its messaging, but season five definitely doubles down on “this is actually a bad system that really can’t be fixed.”

The show isn’t perfect (I mean. it’s still a cop show from the 80′s)-- it’s a product of its time, for better or for worse. But Miami Vice is really damn good. It’ll make your heart hurt in the best way possible. You will want, desperately, for Sonny to figure out that he’s worth something more than his career as a police officer. You’ll come out of it with a lot of feelings about Phil Collins. I think anyone who likes a good story about people has the potential to really fall in love with Vice-- I’ll admit I literally started watching it as a joke, and realized pretty quickly that everything I thought I knew about the show was wrong.

Satisfied with my answers, you try to leave.

I hit you with a plate of cocaine.

#miami vice #tv recommendations #fandom #80's #retro tv

[doll-elvis]

Oh, I would love to delve into discourse about the Stanley family. I'm not really a fan of them either, but I have empathy for their side of things. And from everything I gathered, I think both they and Elvis would've been better off not knowing each other, lol.

warning: talk of addiction, abuse of prescription medication, and use of illegal recreational drugs

thank you so much for sending this in and oh my gosh I completely agree with you: “I think both they and Elvis would’ve been better off not knowing each other” truer words have never been spoken !!!

to be honest I didn’t have much empathy for the Stanleys boys until I read this quote below for the first time ⬇️

LAMAR FIKE: “In defense of the Stanley boys, it’s well to remember that they didn’t ask to be there. And Elvis was stuck with having stepbrothers, so he made the best of it. I’m very partial toward David because I raised him from the time he was three years old. Or I feel like I did. Those boys have had it hard. What you have to remember is that they were corrupted by Elvis Presley. All of them were. Absolutely. No doubt about it”

excerpt from “Elvis and the Memphis Mafia” by Alanna Nash

It by no means cancels out some of the things that they have said about Elvis, like David and his accusations about Elvis’ death, however it did make me realize that they truly had no choice in being stepbrothers to someone as famous as Elvis, they were quite literally the only people on Earth who could say they had that kind of relationship with him, and I imagine it was one that was difficult to manage

However… I hold absolutely no empathy for Dee 🤧

Dee has always been predatory in her actions imo, and I’m not surprised he never liked/trusted her. She first tried to hit on Elvis, who was of course not interested, and when that failed, she chose to go after his father, who was likely vulnerable and starved for female attention after Gladys' passing. Dee Stanley was still married while she and Vernon were dating in Germany, which was just a terrible situation to subject her three young sons too

LAMAR FIKE: “Vernon and I were having breakfast in the restaurant, and this blonde came up in a white coat. Vernon introduced himself and said Elvis had been called away. So she made her moves on Vernon. Boy, she stalked him like prize game”

MARTY LACKER: “Elvis didn’t like Dee from the start. He questioned her sincerity, you might say”

BILLY SMITH: “The “Dee thing” turned Elvis away from his daddy. Vernon had been seeing younger women, and it was too damn quick after Gladys’s death. Elvis resented the hell out of it”

excerpts from “Elvis and the Memphis Mafia” by Alanna Nash

And then, years after Elvis’ passing, Dee came forward with a new book about Elvis (one of several that she wrote for $$) that made accusations such as Gladys and Elvis were in a inc*stual relationship. What is possibly more disgusting than the baseless accusation itself is that Dee only used persons who had already passed away to corroborate her claim like Vernon Presley, Minnie Mae Presley, and Alberta who worked for the Presleys and was very close with Gladys and Elvis

So not only did she disrespect the memory of Gladys and Elvis, but she used people who were no longer alive as her sources because she knew they weren’t here to say otherwise…Whew that woman was unbelievably nasty and the fact that even her own sons wanted nothing to do with that book speaks volumes ⬇️

And like you mentioned, I truly believe that both Elvis and the Stanley boys would have been better off if their relationship ended in the 60s. It is so sad to see what their relationship devolved too (being dependent on one another for drugs) and how all four of them became victim to addiction ⬇️

Billy smith: “Later on, Elvis kept them around for one reason and one reason only. And I hate to say this, but it’s true. To get drugs for him. Ricky and David were on the street. And Elvis, in essence, put them there��

Marty Lacker: “Towards the end the Stanley boys were there for three reasons: One, to procure drugs for him. Two, they would listen to him. And three, Elvis would preach to them and think he was teaching them stuff”

excerpts from “Elvis and the Memphis Mafia” by Alanna Nash

It’s hard to accept but I don’t disagree with Lamar Fike saying that Elvis and his lifestyle more or less “corrupted” the Stanley boys. I can’t say that Elvis was fully to blame for everything they did but he was asking them to procure drugs, both prescription and illegal, and that in turn led to them having to take the fall for Elvis, even going as far as getting arrested in some cases ⬇️

excerpts from “Elvis and the Memphis Mafia” by Alanna Nash

And since they were procuring drugs for Elvis, they often indulged in the same kinds that Elvis was using and because of their shared addiction, they became very dependent on one another as almost everyone else in the group was against using “street drugs” like cocaine ⬇️

JOE ESPOSITO: “For a brief time, Elvis even dabbled in illegal hard drugs. One day, I discovered that despite his professed concern for his stepbrother’s drug habit, Elvis had sent Ricky to Nashville to buy cocaine. “I want to see you,” I told Ricky when he returned. I hustled him into a private corner of Graceland, “Give me that bottle,” I said. “I can’t,” he whined, “Elvis will be mad”

excerpt from “Good Rockin’ Tonight” by Joe Esposito

excerpt from “Elvis and the Memphis Mafia” by Alanna Nash

excerpt from “My brother Elvis” by David Stanley

excerpt from “Elvis: my brother” by Billy Stanley

Them being around each other was just a recipe for disaster in terms of their drug use, Elvis simply couldn’t keep up with them and his health suffered as a result. And so long as the Stanley boys worked for him, Elvis would have access to more prescriptions than what was actually prescribed to him, and I don’t believe that they would have ever told him no or tried to stop him as they suffered from addiction as well. So how could have Elvis gotten better when they were always there to get him what he wanted? Infact it was Ricky Stanley who gave Elvis his final pill packet the early morning of his passing

One of the biggest disasters Elvis’ dependency on them caused was the incident where Dave Hebler and Red West threatened to assault Ricky Stanley for supplying cocaine to Elvis. Dave and Red saw how Elvis was becoming more and more erratic because of it, and decided they had to go to the source to stop it

This incident ended up being one of the reasons that they got fired alongside Sonny West as they were trying to stop Elvis, who was in active addiction, from doing what he wanted which of course didn’t bode well ⬇️

MARTY LACKER: “When Ricky started bringing cocaine to Elvis in Vegas, the sparks started flying. He got it from some of the guys in the vocal group. I think they got it from some pusher in Nashville. And Red and Sonny found out about it, and they told Dave Hebler. Dave went to Ricky and said, “If you bring it to Elvis one more time, I’m going to break both your fuckin’ legs.” And Red went in and said the same thing to the guys in the vocal group. So what did Ricky do? He went back and told Elvis. The next day, Red tried to talk to Elvis about trying to get off pills. This was up in the suite. Red was sitting up at the bar. Elvis was at the bar, too, and somehow the conversation got on that. Red said, “Elvis, this stuff is really bad for you. I wish you’d stop doing it and go get cured. I can tell it’s really getting to you.” Elvis sat there, and he said, “Yeah, yeah. I know what you’re saying. But don’t worry about it.” He was real calm. Well, a few minutes later, Elvis went to bed. And “he said, “Yeah, yeah. I know what you’re saying. But don’t worry about it.” He was real calm. Well, a few minutes later, Elvis went to bed. And brooded about it all night long. When he got up the next afternoon, Elvis came out of that room screaming. He just went nuts. If I’m not mistaken, he pulled an AK–47 [automatic weapon] on Red and threatened to shoot him. Sonny was there, too, standing right next to him. Elvis screamed, “Goddamn, Red, mind your own fuckin’ business! Telling me how to run my life!”Everybody always says, “If you guys really cared about him, you could have done something about him.” These people have no idea what went on. They have no idea of how Elvis was”

excerpt from “Elvis and the Memphis Mafia” by Alanna Nash

This quote from Marty is why I try to have sympathy for everybody in Elvis’ group, they were put into an impossible situation as they either had to watch their friend suffer or try to put it a stop to it, which often led to Elvis having an outburst and threatening to fire them. Essentially they were damned if they did, and damned if they didn’t ⬇️

JOE ESPOSITO: “Even the the Memphis Mafia occasionally tried to intercept drug shipments from various doctors. One night Red West accidentally broke a delivery boy’s toe, he threatened to break the kid’s entire body if he didn’t quit delivering to Elvis, but Elvis heard about it. He called me, Red, and Sonny into his bedroom, “I need it,” Elvis finally said with a piteous look. If anyone pushed to hard Elvis’ stock response was “If you don’t like it, there’s the door! Get the hell out of here! I don’t need you!”. He was manipulating us and we let him. “God, I’m going to straighten out my life but I need this right now,” he would intone fervently, his blue eyes wide and sincere, and we believed him”

excerpt from “Good Rockin Tonight” by Joe Esposito

Addiction takes no prisoners and I think it’s important to remember that those who suffer from it are victims themselves. My heart breaks for Elvis, for the Stanley boys, and everyone who loved them during this time, it’s an impossibly difficult situation to deal with

To finish this I want to include a quote that really shows how addiction can destroy a person, and make them become someone they aren’t. I think Dave Hebler, who was fired alongside Red and Sonny West, captures it perfectly ⬇️

excerpt from “The Elvis Experience” by Dave Hebler

#elvis presley #elvisaaronpresley #elvis #elvis history #elvis asks #the stanleys #the memphis mafia

[cosmicjoke]

I think maybe the hardest part of reading “The Tale of the Body Thief” is just watching Lestat sink further and further into this belief of himself as an irredeemable monster, as an actual devil.  His sense of guilt is vicious, but he doesn’t seem to understand how its very existence proves he isn’t a devil, he isn’t evil.  But as he goes through this truly awful experience of being trapped in the form of a human body, it’s begun to erode away at his memories of mortality, of what it was like when he was genuinely human, to replace it in his mind and in doing so, his estimation of what it is to be human.  He dreams of Claudia laughing at him and telling him that he’s a liar, that he’s always felt being what they are is better than mortality, that he never wanted to be human, that he hates being human.  You can see the dire consequences of this experience for Lestat.  He doesn’t realize being in a mortal body is only so awful for him because he isn’t used to it any more.  He wonders how he EVER endured it.  It seems horrible in comparison to the power and freedom he has in his vampire body.  It would to ANYBODY, especially after so long a period.  But he believes it to be proof of his own evil, how much he hates it.  It’s a reinforcement of his guilt and self-loathing, and of a despair in him, a reminder of the uselessness of trying any more to be part of humanity, to be good, to do good. 

His dreams and visions of David and Louis and Claudia are painful to read.  He imagines them chastising him, calling him out for his self-delusion.  He thinks how he made Claudia because he could, because it was his only way of creating something, of giving his own life purpose, like the candle in the church which can make other flames, and he imagines David asking him why he tries to explain all the terrible choices he’s made as an attempt at some higher purpose.  David isn’t really there.  Neither is Claudia or Louis.  Lestat is asking himself these questions.  He’s criticizing and calling himself out.  He’s drowning in guilt over his actions, over his impulsive and thoughtless nature.  He imagines Claudia telling him that all the deaths she caused were really his, because he made her a killer.  He imagines her telling him he’s had far longer to learn the difference between right and wrong than she did. 

Lestat’s entire negative self-image is so wrapped up in how he was raised, and it’s fucking awful to see unfold.  I know I keep going back to this, but Lestat was made to feel unworthy of love from the time he was a child.  He was made to feel there was something wrong with him, that his very existence and nature made him something of a monster, that he was a burden and a disappointment and a failure.  And that belief gets reinforced again and again and again each time things like this happen, each time he makes a decision which backfires and results in some kind of horrible outcome.  It’s like a self-fulfilling prophecy for him.  Like he’s been told all his life he’s a monster, and so he does things to prove it’s true.  And I think Lestat’s absolute terror at facing the disappointment of those he loves really says it all.  He’s horrified at the prospect here of Louis finding out what he’s done, of Marius finding out, of David finding out.  The thought of their disappointment is appalling to him.  And yet, again and again, whenever he gets himself into these horrific, terrifying, helpless situations, he cries out for them to help him.  When he ends up almost dying from hypothermia and is in the ambulance being driven to the hospital, he begs for their help, he begs for them come and save him.  We saw this from Lestat when he was trapped with Akasha too, or before that, when he played the violin for Akasha and Enkil.  In a way, I think, Lestat gets himself into so much trouble on purpose because he wants to test again and again if the people he loves truly love him in return.  He can’t really believe they do, even as he hopes desperately that they do, that they’ll come to his aid and prove him wrong, because he was raised to believe himself unworthy of love, as unwanted and a perpetual disappointment.  So he pushes again and again and again to see what it’s going to take to finally make the people he loves turn on him.  Again we come back to that self-fulfilling prophecy.  He’s certain he isn’t worthy of their love, and he sets out to make them admit it, to force them to admit what he thinks he already knows, that they really hate him, that they think of him as a burden. 

He’s convinced himself that he’s a monster, that he’s the very devil himself, that he does things purely out of selfishness and with a total disregard for the consequences because he’s evil, and he wants other people to acknowledge it, to tell him he’s right.  I think he wants that at the same time he wants them to tell him he’s wrong too, that he isn’t evil, he isn’t a devil or a monster.  He wants a confirmation from them so that he can stop suffering the way he does.  If he could stop feeling all this guilt, if he could really BE the monster he thinks he is, he wouldn’t be in so much pain.  Because a true monster, a truly evil being, wouldn’t feel any guilt for their actions at all.

I found the contrast between Lestat’s experience of the day time and his experience of the night before really fascinating and revealing as well.  Lestat’s feelings towards humanity, towards the people he encounters during the day, are incredibly charitable and kindhearted.  He’s horribly sick, deathly sick even.  But in the light of day, suddenly, the world and the people in it appear to him as beautiful as they would through his vampire eyes, where the night before everything seemed so ugly and plain and unremarkable to him.  He feels that his experiences in the day light are the experiences he was hoping for.  People see him and are kind to him, asking after his health, trying to help him.  He convinces himself that  he’s a part of them, in that moment.

“Many, many tourists braved the cold as I did to see the famous sights.  I reveled silently in their enthusiasm, realizing that all of these beings were affected by the broad open vistas of the capital city as I was affected by them- that it gladdened them and transformed them to see the vast blue sky overhead, and the many spectacular memorials to the accomplishments of humankind.

“I’m one of them!” I realized suddenly- not Cain forever seeking the blood of his brother.  I looked about me in a daze.  “I’m one of you!”

For a long moment I gazed won upon the city from the heights of Arlington, shivering with cold, and even crying a little at the astonishing spectacle of it- so orderly, so representative of the principles of the great Age of Reason- wishing that Louis were with me, or that David were here, and aching in my heart that they would so surely disapprove of what I had done.

But, oh, this is the true planet I beheld, the living earth born of sunshine and warmth, even under its shimmering mantle of winter snow...

... My heart was bursting as I realized that for these precious hours I wasn’t cut off from the sentiments expressed here.  Indeed, for this little while I mingled with the human crowd, quite indistinguishable from anyone else.

But this was a lie, wasn’t it?  I carried my guilt within me- in the continuity of my memory, in my irreducible individual soul: Lestat the killer, Lestat the prowler of the night.  I thought of Louis’s warning: “You can’t become human by simply taking over a human body!”

Lestat once again is seeking nothing more than to belong.  To find a place where he’s accepted and loved. 

He encounters a woman at the hotel he ends up staying in, who again asks after his health, observing that he must have been outside for a long time to be this sick, and he’s overcome with emotion at her concern.

“I stared at her, absolutely weakened by her concern, and realizing that I was in true danger of bursting stupidly into tears.  I wanted to warn her that I was a monster, that this body was merely stolen.  How tender she was, how obviously habitually kind.

“We’re all connected, all humankind.  We must care for each other, mustn’t we?”

He thinks she’s going to be horrified by what he says, but she only agrees with him, and asks again to let her call a doctor. 

This whole thing is absolutely heartbreaking, I think.  It literally just shows that Lestat only wants to belong.  But he’s so convinced of his own evil, that he can never truly feel like he does.  He’s too guilt-ridden. 

The last line of chapter 13 is really telling, though, in terms of what Lestat is missing.  He thinks he’s a monster, cut off from humanity in that monstrosity.  The nun who cares for him in the hospital offers to take him home with her, and as they’re leaving to get into her car, Lestat has to relieve himself, so he pisses in the snow.  And he says

“Lord God,” I said. “That feels almost good!  What are human beings that they can take pleasure in such dreadful things!”

Lestat is so self-loathing and so guilt ridden, he feels so cut off from humanity because he takes pleasure in “dreadful things”, like killing, like drinking blood from humans.  Because of his impulsive choices and need to break rules.  He hates himself for these things, and feels himself inhuman for being this way, and yet doesn’t realize that’s exactly what humanity is, sometimes.  Human’s themselves are the greatest monsters. 

Well, anyway, I’m loving this book.  I think I’m far enough in to make a determination on that.  I get why some people might hate it, but it’s such a rich psychological study of who Lestat is, and rather than making me sympathize with him less, it’s making me sympathize with him even more.  I feel for him so much, my heart breaks for him so much.  His fear of dying while he’s sick was heart wrenching.  Who wouldn’t be more afraid of dying the longer you’ve been alive?  Lestat thinks of himself as so far removed from his humanity, but he’s actually so deeply in touch with it, it’s kind of remarkable.  He understands the ugliness and horror of death, he understands how scary it is, to die and to never receive any answers.  He understands how unfair it all is.  He understands what it is to be alone, the fear of being unwanted and unloved.

He tells the nun

“And then I decided to do it, I didn’t care what he did with my body if he could put me into this human form for twenty-four hours so that I could see the sunlight, feel what mortals feel, know their weakness and their pain.

... and I decided to do it, simply do it.  Oh, I know it was wrong, wrong to let him go with all the power, but can you imagine, and now you see, I can’t die in this body.  The others won’t even know what’s happened to me.  If they knew, they’d come...”

He relates completely to that human need to be cared for, to be acknowledged and known and remembered.  It’s the thought of dying and his existence having no meaning, no purpose to anyone, the thought of dying in anonymity and alone that scares him so much.  It’s why he keeps thinking of Claudia, and her death, and wondering how she felt, wondering if she was scared in her final moments.  It’s those very qualities that make Lestat human, even if he is a vampire.

But he just can’t cut himself a break.  He’s so hard on himself.  And that’s completely human too.

#Lestat De Lioncourt #The Tale of the Body Thief #the vampire chronicles

[mariacallous]

(JTA) — In Pittsburgh, “10/27” has become a shorthand for the massacre, on Oct. 27, 2018, of 11 Jews as they gathered for worship at the Tree of Life synagogue complex in the city’s Squirrel Hill neighborhood. The nonprofit that is coordinating this year’s events marking the five-year anniversary of the shooting is known as the 10.27 Healing Partnership.

But that anniversary arrives as the Jewish world staggers under the weight of another date — Oct. 7, 2023 — when Hamas launched an attack that killed 1,400 Israelis in a day and pulled Israel into a war aimed at the group’s eradication.

For Rabbi Jeffrey Myers, rabbi of Tree of Life/Or L’Simcha Congregation and a survivor of the attack, the two events defy easy comparison. And yet, he said in an interview this week, the attacks in Israel compounded the trauma in a Pittsburgh community that was hoping this anniversary — which followed a guilty verdict and death sentence for the gunman in a trial that ended in August — would bring some degree of closure for the survivors, grieving relatives and the community at large.

Myers, in his first pulpit as rabbi after serving for years as a cantor, had come to Pittsburgh just a year before the shooting to lead a Conservative synagogue in a space shared with two other congregations, New Light and Dor Hadash.

He was just beginning Shabbat services that Saturday in 2018 when he heard a loud bang. When he realized it was a gunshot, he pushed three congregants into a supply closet and told others to drop to the floor. He managed to call 911 from up in the choir loft, and, seeing there was nothing else he could do for others in the building, barricaded himself in a bathroom.

By the time police subdued the gunman, he had killed 11 worshippers: Joyce Fienberg, Richard Gottfried, Rose Mallinger, Jerry Rabinowitz, Cecil Rosenthal, David Rosenthal, Bernice Simon, Sylvan Simon, Dan Stein, Irving Younger and Melvin Wax.

Myers became the public face of the worst antisemitic attack in U.S. history, and a spokesman for the commemorative efforts that have followed since. While the congregations worship elsewhere, the architect Daniel Libeskind has been hired to design a renovated complex that will eventually house a sanctuary, a museum, a memorial to the victims and a center for fighting antisemitism. (Dor Hadash and New Light plan to stay in their new locations.)

A month of anniversary events will culminate Sunday, Oct. 27, in Pittsburgh’s Schenley Park.

Myers and I spoke as Israelis continued to hold funerals and shivas for their dead and clamored for the release of the more than 200 people being held hostage by Hamas. We spoke about the impulse toward vengeance, his approach to fighting antisemitism and how to promote a positive vision of Judaism in a climate of fear.

“Despite all the ugliness I still have hope,” he told me. “I’m a hopeful person, despite all I’ve been through. I’m convinced there are more good people in the world than not. We just need that silent majority to become a vocal majority. But I have hope that we are capable of better.”

Our conversation was edited for length and clarity.

JTA: The fifth anniversary of the shooting is coinciding with these terrible, terrible events in Israel. I think in an interview you used the term “retraumatizing” to describe its effects on you and your community.

Myers: I don’t think the word necessarily exists in the English language, but I think it’s just the best descriptor of the whole concept of compound trauma for one thing and you have the next one piled right on top of it. It’s the same physical and emotional feelings. Except hopefully, this time, having been through it, you’ve developed the tools necessary to be able to make it manageable.

What are some of those tools? Because I know right now people are just struggling, whether they’ve lost family, or friends of friends, or just processing the loss of so many Jews in a single day. 

I have to say that I’m not a mental health professional. So I always encourage people to reach out to the right professionals. The things I recommend to people is, first off, to recognize that you do have those symptoms again, to be mindful of your body. What is your body telling you? Finding time for self-care is so critically important. Figure out some way to get sufficient rest. That’s not always easy because the brain doesn’t want to shut off. Make sure you eat, make sure you stay well hydrated, buy time every day for a timeout to see if there’s space to do something you’d like to do. For example, at this time of year for the Northeast, if you look for leaves, set aside an hour if you can take a drive. Just bring a chair and just take in the beauty of the leaves. When you have a lunch break, make it a lunch break.

Have you taken your own advice? What have you found particularly helpful over these five years?

All of those things. You know, put down the electronic leash and just don’t use it. Take a break. That’s what voicemail is for. And just stepping away from demands and just easing off the proverbial gas pedal for a little bit. Take time out for myself. Because I’m no good to my congregation at large if I’m not my optimum self.

You described the years waiting for the start of the trial as being “stuck in neutral.” You wrote, “It was a challenge to move forward with the looming specter of a murder trial.” Now that there is a verdict and a sentence, are you seeing a way forward?

The best way to describe it is the Greek myth of Sisyphus [doomed to roll a boulder up a hill without ever reaching the top]. And the most important thing is just get out of the way. When it comes running back down the hill, make sure it doesn’t run you over. The reminders are constant: Tree of Life is mentioned every day somewhere in print, every single day. Because we are the poster child for antisemitism in the United States.

And when Tree of Life reopens it will be more than a synagogue — it will be a symbol. How do you lead a community in that circumstance?

Just the fact that it opens will be an important statement to the entire Jewish community, the United States and beyond that we didn’t let evil win. It took a lot longer than we wanted [to rebuild]. We want to be in our building yesterday. But that being said, it will be a powerful symbol. There’s the beauty of Daniel Libeskind’s design, but to me more importantly is what emanates from the building in terms of who we are. What are the things that we do? Where are we focused?

Your community has launched a national nonprofit organization dedicated to uprooting antisemitism. What will make its approach different from other organizations working in this sphere?

It’s about identifying one’s niche. You’ve got these two massive legacy institutions, the Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish Committee, and all of these popup organizations doing also wonderful work. But frankly, there is a lot of duplication going on in organizations. What can we add to the conversation? We have the site. We have the story. We have the testimonies of survivors. That’s impactful. And to that end, that’s something that we can use carefully with the school children to teach them the story, not just of antisemitism but that it doesn’t end with the Jews. We can have schoolchildren come to us for a fulsome experience, not to leave depressed but to be able to leave saying, “What’s an action that we can take back to our community in our own way to further the goals of Tree of Life, to eliminate antisemitism, and to have respect for all of humanity?” With all due respect to all of these other wonderful organizations, they don’t have the capacity to do that in the way that we do.

I think some people might look at Tree of Life and come to another conclusion: That Jews aren’t safe, and all the money that synagogues have had to spend on security in recent years contradicts the message — and it is right in the name of the synagogue — that Judaism is life-affirming. Do you worry about that?

Really good question. I think of that when I go to other houses of worship, and recognize so many that don’t have security, and think that they’re immune from bad actors who will physically do terrible things for unexpected reasons. But whatever the reasons are, the sanctuary that existed in America’s houses of worship no longer exists. It’s a fiction. Our responsibility is to provide that balance between being open and welcoming, and yet safe and secure. That’s a really hard balance.

And that’s why we’re working with professionals to create the right balance, so that I don’t feel like I’m going through TSA to get into Tree of Life, but that people know we’re mindful that these are the realities. One shooter demanded a wholesale change across the entire American landscape for synagogues, and that’s the reality. So we have to be a model of how can you do that in an intelligent, non-threatening way.

But are there people who come to you and say, “Rabbi, I am trying to have a positive Jewish experience in my life, but I see what happened here. I see what’s happening in Israel, and I can’t get past the fear and towards something” (again, I’ll use that term) “life-affirming”? How do you respond?

It’s not fictitious. There are people afraid to come. That’s another reason to have livestreaming. We can say, “We care about you. And we’re going to do our best to use technology to provide ways for you to stay connected in a way that you feel safe. And we’re hopeful that as time goes on you can find ways to [overcome your fears].” But that’s what it means to be a domestic terror victim. And to that extent, I would submit that the entire Jewish community in the United States are victims of domestic terrorism on an ongoing basis.

Part of my answer has regularly been that the more antisemitism they do, the more Jewish we must do. There’s a vibrancy through community. No matter what the setting may be, whether it’s a joyous occasion, whether it’s a sad occasion, there’s something about the energy that you get when you’re in community. We recognize that as we began to come out of COVID. What’s the first thing people did? People missed hugging, that interpersonal connection that being on a screen does not provide. So there are ways to provide for safe gatherings, to just be in community with each other and those are important. And those we continue to do, whether it’s religious services, which is the primary function of a synagogue, or social gatherings, cultural gatherings, educational gatherings. Those are the things that we must continue to do and do even more of because if we don’t, then we give into that terrorism, and then the terrorists win. And I’m not doing that on my watch.

I want to take you back to the trial. I think a lot of the reporting talked about how the guilty verdict and the death penalty would bring “closure.” Did you experience it that way?  

There’s no one answer, frankly. A verdict can’t bring back your loved ones. So I don’t know if closure is the right word. Perhaps the best way to describe it is that a chapter ended. We flipped the page in this book that we’re writing. And, as has always been the case, the next page is totally blank. We’re now writing that next chapter. Now we can begin to move forward and really begin to explore what healing looks like. Because I don’t know we can really get “closure” in the way that I think people would want.

Right, you certainly can’t bring the loved ones back or erase what you experienced that day.

The reminders are there at any given moment. Your brain will replay the video that seared in your head of the day. And it’s not just say, Oct. 27 at precisely 9:54 a.m. when the video clicks on in my head every year. It can be at any given moment. Sometimes it’ll just start to play and you can’t shut it off. And that’s what it means to be a survivor. You have to learn to live with those things. I’ve got to go with it and let it play and get through it.

I know so many people right now who are thinking about vengeance, because 1,400 Israelis are gone in a moment as the result of acts of unbelievable brutality. And I think it’d be natural for anyone to want to seek vengeance. Have the last five years made you think about vengeance and both its uses and its abuses?

When we try to seek vengeance, we lower ourselves to the same level as the perpetrator. And then we’re no better than the perpetrator. And it’s not a holier-than-thou attitude —  it’s more that I become a victim in another sense, because it changes the biochemistry of who I am. And I refuse to let that happen. I’m not going to let the perpetrator make me then become another victim. So I recognize the mission that’s been foisted upon me because of this. And that’s where I focus my attention. Vengeance has never entered into it. I can see why people could be prone to that. I totally understand. It’s a natural response, to give yourself the space to cope with the horror, the anger, all of the emotions of it and to rush to that sort of judgment with potential regret later.

But it saddens me when I see people who respond in a comparable dangerous, violent way, because that doesn’t solve anything. Just as one mitzvah causes another mitzvah, one sin causes another sin. The initial feeling might be one of delight, but give it a little time further and you’ll discover there’s more regret than there was delight for going down that path. So I made the choice long ago. No, I’m not going to carry that anger with me, because it’ll overwhelm you and it can destroy you and I’m not going to let that happen to me.

I saw a tweet, and it’s so different it’s almost hard to compare the two, but someone said that what happened in Israel on Oct. 7 was like Tree of Life times 100. Have you been talking to folks in Israel or people in your congregation about how to process what just happened, and do you worry about the wrong messages that might come out of a traumatic event like the Hamas attacks — perhaps calls for vengeance?

When we try to name something that’s unnamable and unexplainable, we frequently try to find the right comparison. Which is why you’ve heard language such as the Hamas attacks being the single greatest loss of Jewish life since the Holocaust, to try to put it in some term that people can understand. It’s very easy for us to expand on that and just [hate] all Muslims and all Arabs. And I’ve been praying to God: “Please don’t let me go down that path.”

I don’t think what happened in Israel could be compared to Tree of Life. Yes, they’re both about the threat of antisemitism. But [what happened in Israel] is far more than just that. You’re talking about an existential threat to the existence of a country.

As a rabbi, as a Jew, I pray that God should inspire and impart divine wisdom upon all those in the right leadership capacities in Israel, to make good, smart choices. That’s far beyond my skill set to figure out what those would be.

Anniversaries are meaningful but also somewhat arbitrary. Do you worry that the lessons or memories of what happened on Oct. 27 will fade over time or, as we’ve seen in the past few weeks, be overshadowed or subsumed by tragedies that seem even bigger or just more recent?

The past two years I’ve been privileged to participate in the Flight 93 memorial service on 9/11, because the flight 93 memorial is in Shanksville, which is an hour east of Pittsburgh. Over time, the observance has lessened and lessened and lessened. That’s just human nature. It’s how we cope with a trauma like that. I expect the same thing to happen when it comes to the 10/27 commemoration. Those who hold it most dear will continue to observe it in whatever personal ways they can, but there’s a gradual lessening of observance. It saddens me, but it’s what I would expect, having seen it in so many other circumstances.

You experienced something perhaps no other rabbi has had to go through in the modern era. What don’t outsiders understand about the shooting or its impact on you personally, or as a community? What would you want every synagogue rabbi or synagogue president to know based on your experience?

Be prepared. Take those trainings seriously. Because you may be called upon to save a life. Be direct with your congregants in terms of how they need to respond to this. God willing, you never need to use CPR, but you take the course because one day perhaps you might.

Because, as Rabbi Marvin Hier of the Simon Wiesenthal Center said to me, if [Nazi hunter] Simon Wiesenthal was alive today, his response to the shooting at Tree of Life would have been, “What took so long?” Because that’s the nature of America. We have something like 12 mass shootings per week in the United States.

What do you think is the most proper, the most appropriate way for people to take a pause and remember an event like 10/27?

It’s complex in a different way. For the Pittsburgh Jewish community, it’s the only event that’s observed twice: a solar date [on the standard calendar] and a lunar date [on the Jewish calendar]. There’s a heaviness to it because we get through the public commemoration, then there’s the yahrzeit [22 Heshvan, which fell this year on Oct. 22]. The public commemoration is really important because it’s not solely about an attack upon three congregations in one building. For so many Pittsburghers, it was an attack upon Pittsburgh. So many took it personally. It’s about all of Pittsburgh and how we come together.

But in the end I think our Jewish tradition is just so beautiful and powerful: We gather, we pray together, we say Kaddish together. But when the entire community says Kaddish together, and you get to the lines where the congregation usually says “amen,” there’s nobody to say “amen” because we’re all mourners. To me that’s that incredible.

[monstersinthecosmos]

13. If you could draw effortlessly and as much as you wanted, what scene (s) would you draw for this character?

18. Do you prefer to see this character suffer or know peace? Angst or comfort? Both?

(character asks!)

13. I THINK AS FANDOMS WE FOCUS SO MUCH ON SHIPS WHICH IS FINE BUT I WOULD LOVE TO SEE JUST MORE QUIET MOMENTS OF MARIUS ALONE, BECAUSE HE REALLY IS SUCH A VERY LONELY CHARACTER? IVE ACTUALLY BEEN THINKING ABOUT THIS A LOT AND ABOUT THE MENTAL HEALTH EFFECT OF SOCIAL ISOLATION ON VAMPIRES, LIKE SO MANY OF THE ONES WE MEET SURVIVE BECAUSE THEYRE AROUND PEOPLE ALL THE TIME AND MARIUS DOESNT HAVE THAT AND I WONDER HOW IT WOULD CHANGE HIM IF HIS SOCIAL NEEDS WERE MET

but wowie like

suffering alone in his cell

suffering alone in the Shrine

suffering alone while he paints his house even though the house is full of mortals but he's apart from them and can't really connect

suffering when he spends big sleeps in the shrine and wakes up dusty and disoriented

crying his eyes out in the garden after pandora leaves

ALSO WHEN HE'S JUST ON BENDERS KILLING SO MUCH HE'S SPILLING THE BLOOD HE CAN'T DRINK OR WHEN HE'S SCREAMING AND BEHEADING PEOPLE IN THE GARDEN ?? 🥵

but ALSO like, in general I would love to see more ancient memories because we don't get enough! I want to see him and Pandora in Antioch! Him and Mael the night the met! Him and Avicus! MAYBE THE MAEL'S HEAD SCENE? Him being groomed for his own murder! Him crying on the floor trying to clean Eudoxia's blood! Cuddling into the sarcophagus with Pandora! Making out with Avicus!

I was just thinking yesterday that next time I have money to waste I wanna commission art of him and Mael when they'd sit together and Mael would try to teach him songs. :(

18. I LOVE SUFFERING but i do like the contrast of hurt/comfort. We need the comfort to make the hurt gooder. But like I think !! Sometimes in different fandoms, you'll see that the themes of the source material pop up over and over in fics and stuff, and I think with VC it's such a huge theme that people just want to be loved, and how monsters can still be loved, and how we are not our worst deeds, that we can fuck up and still have value.

And it's a theme that I think gets applied unevenly in the canon, especially in the later books as Anne was just like keyboard smashing the blorbos and having fun. So like, since the POVs are so Lestat-Heavy we get a lot of Lestat knowing he's a bastard and still desiring love and goodness, and then other characters are loved unconditionally and we never really acknowledge that they're bastards, or I think steps get skipped where Lestat essentially winds up being the flawless Mary Sue character who is never accountable for anything he does--we still make it from Point A (fuckup does something terrible) to Point B (he is still loved) but I think it becomes less nuanced in the later books and we don't really spend time with the redemption arc. (An example is like, TOBT is ALL about how he fucks up and we really look closely at it and work through it, vs in the PL trilogy when he like noncon bites David and it's all fine and we don't even talk about it.) And using Lestat as an example because he gets the most screentime, but Marius is exactly the same, and it's further complicated that we never get POV from characters who dislike him LOL.

So to answer your question like, I love seeing him suffer because I love angst LOL but I root for him, I want him to know peace, and I think the story has a lot more potential for nuance than what we got in the books, which is why fandom is here. THAT'S THE WHOLE POINT OF TRANSFORMATIVE FICTION LOL. (To me lol, that's my mission here.) But if he doesn't suffer first there's no real value in his being at peace, that's boring LMAO where's the FLAVOR where's the CONFLICT; let him fuck up and suffer and destroy his entire life first so that we have a puzzle to work out to make his way back.

[ziracona]

As promised! The finale of Act I for The Kid. : ) For the Tumblr readers, as always, a day or two early. [Fate/GO AU – The Kid (pt: 1, … 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, ?)] {Some spoilers for original Grand Order run/through Temple of Time}

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Mmmph…uhg. Head…hurts. chest…hurts… I…

Slowly, I blink, open my eyes. Where…am I? I…

There was a room, for a long time, and then another, big, empty room. With a sword. And I can’t remember why. I’m so confused. I can’t remember when I am, or why, or…M-my neck! I—

I feel a panic in my chest, and try to swallow on reflex, which should hurt, but amazingly it doesn’t.

It’s…bright here. The rooms should be dark.  And I was dreaming, I think. But I shouldn’t dream…? Why shouldn’t I dream? Right. I-I’m dead. But there were memories? O-of a fight, and a girl, and a boy, and I…had…

“Oh! He is up again!”

I’ve heard the voice, but I don’t know it.

I guess I’m not alone in here. Then I’m not in the big, empty room? I’m…

I try harder to focus my vision, and clear my head. It’s so much harder than it usually is. I feel like I’m going to vanish.

“Hey! Hey—Kotarou?”

Louder, clearer. That’s my name. And I know that voice a little. It’s…the…girl? I turn my head towards the voice on my left, and there are two blurry human shapes. A man, with green hair, and a girl with red hair, like mine.

HUH!? Wait. Th—but--then—it wasn’t a dream? I—

Memories come back quickly with the visual prompt, and my mind feels a little clearer. I keep blinking, fighting to be awake now for real, and my vision sharpens. It really is her. That happened after all? Really? …And…I’m still alive?

“How are you feeling?” asks my new lord, leaning in closer, troubled, “We tried what we could, to get you more mana! I was really worried, but the doctor said you’d be alright. Just needed a little time to recover.”

“Yes,” adds the man with green hair behind her, very apologetically. He was called…I…I heard his name. …David? “I am very sorry. I ah, I wasn’t entirely familiar with your history, and when we were banishing demons, I didn’t realize I should be controlling the area of effect on my banishment. I seem to have sort of knocked the wind pretty hard out of you. If I’d realized you were half oni, I’d have been much carefuler about that. I really didn’t know. Are you feeling alright now?”

“Oh…” I say slowly as my brain makes sense of that. So that’s what happened. I guess that makes a certain…sense. “Y…Yes,” I manage as I figure it out, “I think I’m alright now.”

“Good. I’m amazed by the recovery time, actually,” comes a cheerful, friendly voice I think I’ve heard before too, recently, but a man with peach hair I’ve never seen before moves into my field of view and stoops to place a palm against my forehead. My brain wants to jerk back from a strange human touching me, after the last month of memories, but I’m too exhausted and slowed to do anything but stare with eyes that aren’t seeing quite right yet. “You must have already been run ragged from the trap they’d been keeping you in, and immediately deploying a noble phantasm, then taking a banishment spell back-to-back, that’s some spirit origin you’ve got there. I suppose assassins need some hard survivability to fall back on now and again, but even so.”

He smiles at me. I usually view people with some wariness, because it’s only safe, and I feel even more strongly that way now, but this man has somehow got one of the most open and dependable faces I’ve ever seen. He must be…the doctor. That’s where I heard his voice, over the coms.

I guess it makes sense someone like that would be a doctor. And…that…i-it means he’s definitely on our side, then. Right?

“Again, terribly sorry,” says David with an apologetic little smile.

I try to focus back on him, and give a halting nod. My head is still struggling hard to catch up with reality. I seem to be having a hard time with that, since the trap. “…Did…it work?” I ask, turning to Ritsuka as I remember things that happened before, “Your plan?”

“Yes,” she says with a smile, “We did it!”

Oh good, I think with great relief. The idea of those people still being out there does not sit very easy with me, after the last weeks of my life. Months? I really have no idea anymore, I guess. Still. It’s…over. Wow.

Over. …Really…o-over.

“Thank you,” I say, looking up as the thoughts come full circle, “You saved me.”

She nods, and smiles. “You’re welcome. I’m just glad you’re okay.”

“He up an’ alright?” comes a voice I recognize more quickly as the cowboy’s, and I turn my head and see him. Actually, I take in the room for the first time too.

It’s…a hotel room, I think. A little couch and lounge area on my left, and a chair pulled close to the bed, that David’s sitting in. There’s another chair on my right, and a little dresser thing opposite me, then a hall far on my right, with the smell of food coming from it. I see a lot of the ones from earlier—the Caster and whatever was with him, over in the sitting area, but not next to each other. The green-clad archer with a hood is sitting in the chair on the right side of the bed—looks like he was reading something. The cowboy’s come from the little hallway. I don’t see the red archer and the lancer, though.

“Yes, hi,” I respond a little stuntedly as the cowboy walks over, and I remember he was speaking to me.

“Glad you’re feelin’ better!” replies the cowboy enthusiastically, clapping me on the shoulder like we’re old friends, “Had us worried there for a second! But hey—” He adds, turning towards Ritsuka for a moment, “We did it, right? That’s everyone now.”

She nods, smiling.

“Mission accomplished,” says Billy the Kid proudly, spinning his gun out of its holster and back in for show.

“Well, assuming things go well with Emiya and Cu Chulainn,” says David with interest, “Then, what does that mean for the rest of us?”

The doctor gives him a slightly nervous glance, and then looks back at Ritsuka.

“For…? You mean, after? Oh. Well…” She thinks a second. “…I dunno, I guess,” she decides, flushing a little when she looks around the room and meets eyes, which have all stopped whatever else they were doing to focus on her. “I uh. Wasn’t sure I’d get this far, so I didn’t plan far enough ahead. S-Sorry. I really didn’t uh… Well, I-I guess I thought I’d figure it out when I got there—Oh!” she adds, looking at the doctor, “Uhm. Doctor Archaman wants a chance to talk to us all about something important, though, so, that, I guess!”

The Doctor looks immensely relieved, happy even.

Huh. I wonder what this is all about? Actually…I—I don’t even really know what she’s talking about.

“And uh, after…” she says, almost to herself, and trails off, thinking.

“I-I’m sorry,” I pipe up slowly, struggling to at least prop myself up in the bed a little, and making it up against the baseboard, “Uhm. …I’m not sure I understand…what’s going on.”

The others glance at me.

“I uhm. …You said you freed me without…wanting anything in return,” I say slowly. I was going to say something else after, like ‘but you really wanted nothing else after? Even now? …What does that mean?’ but, it feels too strange to say. What does that mean, if it’s true? Do we just…get un-summoned? Have the contracts ended, and hang around until our mana is up? I’m…I feel very lost right now. …I guess I also might not be completely conscious. So, maybe I should keep my…mouth shut…

“Yeah,” agrees Ritsuka, “Sorry. I should have had a better plan than this-“

“—Hey I think ya did real well,” interjects Billy with great certainty.

“You did,” says Doctor Archaman, mind completely occupied somewhere else pretty obviously, but apparently clocked in enough to comment.

“Well. I guess we do whatever you want,” she decides, glancing at me, then the others, “I mean. I told Doctor Archaman we’d hear him out. But aside from that…” She looks back at me. “What do you want to do?”

“…W…W-what do I want to do?” I ask, very confused.

“Yeah,” she says, then glances around at the others, “I mean. You don’t have to stay, if you don’t want. But. It’s not hurting me to keep you summoned either. You could…I don’t know. Go to a theme park?”

“Huh?” says Robin, clocking in to this conversation for the first time.

“Yeah, or. I don’t know,” she says, thinking very hard, “I bet you don’t get to go sightseeing much or anything. But you could. What do you do for fun?”

For FUN?

I look at the cowboy for help, because I don’t know what to do, and he’s the only one I’ve talked to. He looks back, but the look on his own face is indescribable. It’s not a bad look, but it’s like all activity behind his eyes has short-circuited for a second.

“We don’t,” says the person whose class I don’t know, over by the Caster at the far side of the room. His voice is confused, wary almost.

The Caster on the other hand looks positively giddy. “Well I do! When I can, which isn’t usual, but hey! We don’t –what is the saying—look a gifted horse in the mouth? Let’s go do something fun! Yes! Excellent! Come on, Salieri!” He grabs the one whose class I can’t guess—Salieri?—by the shoulder excitedly, but the other man is staring so blankly at nothing he doesn’t even seem to notice.

Ritsuka looks relieved and pleased by the Caster’s response. Slightly more worried by the look on Salieri’s face as he finally registers the contact from the Caster.

I’m so confused, I think desperately.

“For…how long,” says Billy in a very strange, almost cautious voice, still looking a little like his brain has stopped.

“Uhm,” says Ritsuka, glancing at him and the rest of us, then back to him, “Well, however long you want? —I-I wouldn’t try to make you stay around, if you don’t want! I-If that’s what you’re worried about or something! But.”

“I’m sorry,” says Robin slowly, setting his book in his lap, “Are you offering to…set us up with indefinite…vacation leave?”

“Uhm. I guess sort of,” says Ritsuka uncertainly, thinking, “I mean, I did tell you Doctor Archaman has something important I promised we’d talk about, and I think he needs help with a serious problem. But. That can’t take forever, and if you all want to stay after, I uh, don’t see why you couldn’t.”

The spirits in the room all trade absolutely befuddled glances, except the Caster, who looks like he’s having the best day of his life. And I guess David, who just has a completely unreadable expression behind the unwavering smile on his face. This is the most confused I think I’ve ever felt.

“…This doesn’t happen,” I say just sort of automatically. I think I…I must be waiting to wake up still. I haven’t yet, right? This can’t be…a real thing happening to me…? Can...it…?

“Yeah,” says Ritsuka sadly, not understanding that at all, “I’m sorry most mages are so terrible to you.”

“No, I-…”

But what can I possibly say.

I try looking at the cowboy again, but he gives me a completely lost shrug, and then a worried little smile, and turns to look at Ritsuka himself.

“I-I appreciate the offer. Uh. We don’t…know how to respond, because no one’s ever said anything like that to any of us before, and we don’t have any kinda frame of reference to process it with, so we’re all gonna take just a second to kinda run it through,” he offers awkwardly, “I uh. I don’t know if that could even work. I guess you do got your big mana pool, so maybe you could do it,” he adds slowly, “But it’d be dangerous…Mages would be bound ta notice eventually—probably pretty soon. Target someone with—”

“—But with eight heroic spirits watching out for her, how much trouble could she possibly get in?” says the Caster with great enthusiasm, almost ecstatic at this idea.

Okay, this can’t really be happening, right? This is a dream. Surely, this must be a dream. I have gone completely insane from having my head half severed for so many weeks, and I’m hallucinating now to comfort myself. Right? That almost makes sense.

Yeah. I think that’s the only thing that could make sense.

Nobody would be kind to me. Not like this, anyway. People didn’t even treat me this way when I was alive.

“Well,” says David with a wave of his hand, “We are all jumping the gun a little bit. We have to make sure that things went well with the other two, and the last of Ur-Shanabi’s leadership. Make sure her parents stay safe,” he adds to Ritsuka with a reassuring smile.

Huh?

“-And there’s whatever the Doctor here has going on,” He continues with a nod at him, “But why not simply take things a little at a time, no? I mean, we really should stay a while, to be certain Ur-Shanabi does not re-form and begin doing what they did to all of us again, yes? So, it makes sense to stay a while.”

“My uh,” adds the Doctor hastily, and looking a little bit sorry, “my thing is uhm. It’s pretty serious, and…dangerous…” He looks very far away a second, then glances back up, and that sincere, just a little sad smile is there again. “But uhm. I think David’s right. Whatever else happens, take it a day at a time for now. We’ve all run ourselves ragged, the last…what’s it been?” He glances at Billy. “Forty-eight or so hours? And most of you have been through hell for weeks, or, even months. You all deserve a break. It…would be nice, to do something fun. Live a little. Heroic spirits…really never get to.” He looks both very sincere, and happy for us, and somewhere behind that, deeply, irrevocably sad, when he says it. I think…something very bad must have happened to this man, and even as not quite there as I think I must still be, I feel bad for him, seeing it.

David is looking at him, and I see almost the same sadness reflected in his eyes for a second, which surprises me, because it’s the first time I’ve had any guess what David’s thinking at all. But he smiles that same bright smile, like a shield, and the sadness is hidden again behind it. “Yes. Exactly. And you’ll come with us too! We’ll celebrate,” he adds, grinning at Ritsuka, “Something nice, for all of us! A victory party!”

“Yeah, okay,” she says enthusiastically, “That sounds great to me! Once Emiya and Cu Chulainn are back, we can ask everybody what they want to do, and figure something out—”

“—And between now and then, everyone can get some rest,” says David with great finality, still beaming.

“Get off of me, or I’m going to remove your head,” says Salieri, who I’d forgotten about, and I look over and see the Caster still hanging off him, from both shoulders now, and looking incredibly unthreatened by this.

“Please don’t antagonize him!” says Ritsuka worriedly, very threatened by this.

“I just want him to have a good time,” says the Caster, reluctantly letting go, but never dropping his smile.

“I think rest is a good idea,” says the Doctor, glancing at the spirits in the corner, and then back at those of us closer to him a bit nervously, “But uh—I don’t think we’ve given proper introductions yet. I haven’t anyway. And I’m sure all this is overwhelming enough on its own.” He shoots me a pitying look.

It is. I feel very grateful towards him.

“I’m Doctor Romani Archaman. A lot of people seem to have trouble pronouncing that, so if you want to call me Doctor Roman instead, that’s fine with me,” he continues with a kind smile, and then indicating the green-haired archer I already know as David, “This is King David, an Archer. You’ve met Billy the Kid, Gunner, and Ritsuka Fujimaru, human mage.” They nod or shoot me a smile. Billy flicks the brim of his hat up like a greeting. He moves on to indicate the other Archer, the Caster, and Salieri in turn. “That’s Robin Hood, Archer. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Caster, and Antonio Salieri, Avenger.”

Avenger. That’s…a hard class. I wish I knew what to say to him, but I don’t think he wants my condolences.

“The other two who were with us before, the Red Archer is Emiya, and the Blue Lancer is Cu Chulainn,” he finishes, “They’re out dealing with a problem right now, but I think they’ll be back pretty soon.”

“Thank you,” I reply, “I’m Fuuma Kotarou, Fifth Head of the Genji Clan. Assassin.”

There are little comments of assent or introduction from the circle, and it’s all much easier to process than the talk of infinite vacation leave. Did I imagine that? I have to have, right? I’m so confused right now. I should probably try not to act confused though. I want to be useful, to thank her for rescuing me, and that won’t help.

“Well, feel free to get some sleep if you like it,” says Billy the Kid as people disperse a little, coming over to take the seat King David was in before now that he’s vacated it to speak to Doctor Archaman, “But if you ain’t so tired, there’s good food, an’ Robin an’ I were gonna play some cards, if you want in.”

I thought I wanted sleep, but the idea of food outweighs that, and I manage to sit up a little.

“Thanks,” I say. Wait. Food? As a— “Are you…you said there is food for us?”

I look up for my Master, and she’s already vanishing into the little hall I smell food from, so I look back at Billy.

“Yeah, she’s unusual,” he says with a very proud grin.

“That doesn’t begin to cover it,” says Robin Hood, moving his chair over to Billy’s side of the bed, “But it’s completely in a good way.”

… “I…am not completely certain I’ve actually woken up again. Or that any of this is happening,” I tell them, a little worried it’s not a good idea to say that.

“Yeah, I felt that way too,” agrees Billy, nonplussed, “We never get treated ‘cept like shit. It’s happenin’ though.”

Huh. I’m still not totally sure I believe him, but. I … I guess if it’s a dream, at least it’s a really, really good one. And…even that’s quite the rare gift. We’re not supposed to dream like this anymore.

“Okay. Game’s called Faro. Easy to learn—trust me. ‘N I’ll go easy on ya,” says Billy the Kid.

“He will,” agrees Robin tiredly, “But only the first time. Then he’ll take you for all you’re worth.”

Scary…

“Ritsuka’s playin’ Bank, ‘cause I already taught her ‘n she’s actually pretty good at it,” he continues, then pauses to call to the rest of the room, “Anyone else want deal’d in?”

-------------------------

“So, be real,” I say, landing silently on the edge of the roof behind Archer and adjusting my grip on my spear, “The kid wanted us to talk to her, ‘just in case,’ but there was never any other way this was gonna go; the others sent us because they needed someone who could make sure we don’t just get her, we get all the information she had backups of too.”

“No,” replies Archer, side-eyeing me for a moment, “If the others wanted to send someone to torture out information, they would have asked Salieri to go.”

I snort. “No way; he doesn’t have the patience for that. Alone, he’d rip her head off in under a minute.”

“Look, it hardly matters,” says Archer with a sigh, turning to actually face me a little. “… What, does it bother you to be the one who seems good at this?”

“At killing?” I ask, genuinely surprised for a second, but no, that’s not what he means. He means ‘at being cutthroat’.

I consider.

“No, not really,” I decide.

He tilts his head like assent. “…Funny they’re wrong, though.”

“Hm?”

“Please,” he says, scanning the building ahead again, and then glancing over at me, “You’re not cutthroat. You picked two kids in a grail war as your allies. I’ve seen you die at least eight times in the stupidest of ways, just because there was something especially rotten you didn’t want to do.”

I can’t figure out if that’s a dig, or a backhanded compliment, or…?

“Oh, you can talk,” I decide to shoot back, because it’s the easiest response, “Under all that superiority complex, edgy shit you got going on, you’re really just a lifelong pacifist who got tired.”

Oooh, low blow. He did not like that.

For a long few seconds, he just narrows his eyes and looks at me, then he turns away, expression hard.

I think maybe I took that one too far.

“There. Top floor. See it?” he asks, and I do, immediately. Just for an instant, but the tiniest change in mana sparks in the third room from last on the far right. Hell of a bounded field hiding her, but we finally found the signature we were looking for.

“We got her,” I say, grip tightening.

He nods, eyes on the window.

-

It doesn’t take long.

I don’t know what I expected.

But it wasn’t what I got.

I forget, but he’s not like the rest of us. He’s not dragged around to mage summons off and on, and frozen on the throne otherwise. He’s in that reality marble of his, for a few moments, and then thrown out by the Counter Force to deal with some new threat. I forget that he’s not like the rest, because I see him so much. But he isn’t.

We entered the room silent, the curtain blowing behind us. Him ahead, me just behind, waiting.

He raised his sword calmly, and she saw him as she turned.

She was smart enough not to attack immediately. She knew her work well enough to recognize me and what I was, and not to recognize him and know he wasn’t one of hers. She asked.

He said, “I am an agent of the Counter Force. Sent to bring peace and stability whenever the living humans of a time throw the world too far off balance. I ensure the survival of the human race. Whatever the cost, whatever the call, whatever the reason. Without quarter, or excuse, or appeal. You cannot have aimed your hand at the Throne itself, and not expected this would come much, much sooner, than later.”

Director Ayase had nodded, slow, calm. Almost still, even in motion. “So. An answer to what happened last night that finally makes sense. I don’t suppose you people let humans off with a warning?”

He said nothing. He didn’t move. Weapon still, leveled, in the dark.

That was her moment to appeal, but she did not.

“And you?” asked Director Ayase, turning to me instead.

I raised my spear and grinned a smile of sharp teeth. “Revenge.”

“I didn’t realize that was the Counter Force’s business,” she’d said, turning back to Archer.

Expression almost blank, he held her gaze, and said, “One might say, it is our only business.”

That was her second moment to appeal. She did not.

She tried to kill him.

No equivocations, no fleeing, no apologies or attempts.

Only violence.

And she tried to kill him, not me. Not me first. Of all the things. I didn’t care enough to remember the exact words, but she said something about him still just being a glorified familiar, even if his master was the Counter Force, and she’d activated every trap ready in that room and tried to rip him to shreds. I could see on her face that she really thought she could do it, too. Certainty. As much as I’ve seen it, and as used to it as I should be, just how people with money will really, truly believe they can out-flank god herself will never cease to amaze me.

She did not.

I could have killed her, but I didn’t care who did it, and he didn’t need protecting. He was quick.

I had forgotten that he would be quick.

But, he always is. I certainly remember it now. Not quick to move, but quick to kill. Quick in the act of killing. Quick in making it over. He hit her, once, and she was gone, the next instant. Like an execution, not a kill.

I guess when your only job is revenge, that’s what mercy is forced to look like.

And it was mercy. Brutal, and ugly, and unmemorable mercy, but mercy still.

We went through the room after. He set her down, against the foot of the bed. Not undignified, not special. A neutral, basic respect. Like it was rote. And we found what we needed, and we left.

I watch him now with a little more interest, and a little less annoyance, than usual, as we head back. A flicker of mana on rooftops and through trees.

“Hey,” I say finally as we go, and he stops then and waits for me.

“I didn’t mean you got tired of being one,” I say as I join him on the rooftop. It’s getting close to dawn, but it’s still so dark, you wouldn’t be able to tell by looking. I only know because I can recognize the way it feels. “I just meant you got tired.”

He furrows his brow in I think genuine confusion, and then I see it click.

Archer opens his mouth and starts to say something, then doesn’t. I wait.

“…Is this an apology? Of some kind?” he asks finally, confused and almost amused, “Or are you insulting my level of professionalism?”

“Neither, I think,” I say, “I just think you make a poor cleaner.”

He snorts. “And who let Medea escape injured in that holy grail war where her master sold the execution right for his own servant to another contender..?”

Damn. Gonna be like that, huh?

But the tension from before is gone.

“That’s integrity,” I shrug him off completely.

“Sure,” he almost laughs. I return the grin.

Huh. This almost feels familiar too. Can’t remember any good times with this guy to be remem—

“Wait, shit, did we go fishing-?”

“What?” says Archer, completely taken aback.

“Was there like, some time we both got summoned somewhere, where that would have been a thing? For the life of me I can’t remember, but I can almost swear,” I reply.

“Why did you have to say that?” he asks, a matching look of consternation on his face as he thinks, “Damn it. Now I kind of remember that too. Why the hell would we-? Was Gilgamesh there?? AGAIN?”

“God, I hope not,” I say, “I fucking hate that guy.”

“Yeah, me too,” says Archer, thinking hard at the middle distance.

There’s a moment of us digging for old memories, and then I shake it off and turn to him, swinging my spear around to lean on it casually. “Well. Either way. At least now it’s done, and we can go back.”

“To what?” he asks automatically.

Huh. Good question. “Shit, I haven’t thought about that. Are we all just getting unsummoned?” I ask.

He shrugs.

Hm. Well. “Guess we’ll find out?” I offer, and it’s so weird a situation to be in, I laugh.

“I guess so,” he replies with what’s almost a laugh, shaking his head a little, “…I guess so.”

-------------------------

“It’s all taken care of.”

“All of it?” checks Ritsuka again, eyes huge.

“I promise you,” says Emiya with a patient smile, “They’re okay. We checked, and your brother is still out of the country. Your parents will be with family for the next month. No one who knew anything is around to do anything about it, and any records and backups have been destroyed.”

“They’re safe,” she checks.

He nods.

“Safe, and Ur Shanabi is dead,” chimes in Cu Chulainn, raising his glass of water.

She just looks at them for a few seconds in silence, then her eyes well up and she throws her arms around him, then motions Cu Chulainn close enough she can reach both, and gets him too.

“Thank you so much,” comes her muffled voice.

“Hey, you saved us from a fate worse than death. It’s nothing,” says Cu Chulainn.

“Yeah, we’re the ones need to be thankin’ you,” I chime in. She raises her head to look over at me. “I mean, I was dead! For months, I think. And you swoop in and save me, save all of us?”

“Dismantle a corrupt organization,” adds Robin, joining me.

“Yes. Save all of us, fight an impressive battle,” says Mozart from over in the corner.

“And the best part: we all made it out alive and fairly unscathed!” adds David gleefully.

I nod. That’s a damn good point. We really did great here, I think.

“…I. Wow,” she says, staring at all of us in turn with big eyes, “We really did it, didn’t we?”

“You did,” says Doctor Archaman with his soft smile, looking genuinely about as happy as we are. I can’t really figure the guy out, but no matter how he got mixed up in this, I guess he’s pretty okay.

“You helped too,” I say, feeling charitable.

He looks surprised, and then looks down and kind of smiles.

“You did!” agrees David readily, “Quite a bit! You blew the vault. Did some big magic medicine work. Ran an attack.”

“Alright alright,” says the Doctor quickly, “We all pitched in. You too. Even half dead, you really saved us there,” he adds, to Kotarou, who is watching all of this still from the bed. He’s sitting up now, and looks a whole lot better, and ain’t bad at cards, but I guess he’s probably pretty overwhelmed still. I would be, if I tried to think very rationally about everything going on, and I’ve been up the longest.

“Way to go team!” cheers Ritsuka, raising a fist. There’s a little chorus of assent or relief from everyone. Robin claps me on the back, and I elbow him in a friendly way back, and grin. Even the Avenger looks happy for the moment. Proud maybe.

“So—a celebration?” suggests David.

“Celebration?” echoes Emiya, turning to him as Ritsuka lets go.

“Yeah, it’s what she suggested. –Oh you two weren’t there for that,” I say, “But uh. Well. I’ll. Let her sorta.” I gesture, to try and pass the baton.

“Oh yeah! Right,” says Ritsuka, turning back to Cu Chulainn and Emiya, “When you two were gone, we started talking about what happens next. Uhm, I promised the Doctor we’d all hear him out, about this security situation he has at his organization. He said he could use help, if we’re willing to do that.”

They glance at the Doctor, and so does Robin beside me, and interesting look on his face. Huh. Wonder what that’s about. Maybe he already knows somethin?

“But before then, we thought we’d all go out and do something to celebrate! If—uhm, if you all feel well enough,” she adds.

We glance around at each other.

“I do,” offers Mozart with great enthusiasm.

“And she said after whatever the Doc’s got, we can all just stick around or do whatever,” I add, overtaken by a sudden Irish drive to add chaos to the moment.

It’s so worth it for the looks Emiya and Cu Chulainn both get on their faces instantly. Cu Chulainn like, triple takes, and Emiya looks like all activity behind his eyes short-circuits for about three seconds.

“I’m sorry—what?” says Emiya, trying to recover, and turning to Ritsuka. Behind him, Cu Chulainn’s eyes are just huge.

“Well, I mean,” says Ritsuka, suddenly uncertain over this response, “It’s not like I can’t sustain you, since I have so much mana. It would be really mean to just send you back to the throne, and, there’s no reason it would be bad for you to get to stick around. It sounds like you never get to do anything enjoyable, or rest, so it would maybe be pretty good. To uh…You know.”

Emiya still looks like he’s hitting error codes in his brain. Cu Chulainn has a massive grin starting to form.

“I mean—You don’t have to stay with me,” hurries Ritsuka, misinterpreting Emiya, “—y-you can go wherever you want! And if you didn’t want to stick around, that’s okay too. I just figure. Maybe you all would want uh. Want a break.”

“Well I do!” calls Mozart again, “And so does Salieri.”

Salieri turns to give Mozart the kind of look Emiya is still giving Ritsuka.

“Well shit,” says Cu Chulainn excitedly, “You’re actually serious?”

“Yes?” she says, confused.

He tries to say something, and then just starts laughing. So hard he kind of doubles over, and slaps a hand on Emiya’s shoulder to steady himself. Emiya turns and gives him a blank look for a few seconds, and then shakes his head and slowly comes back to himself, starting to smile as well.

“Are you two okay?” asks Ritsuka.

“Yes,” says Emiya over Cu Chulainn’s shaky, “Oh yeah,” through his laughter. “This just never happens,” continues Emiya, “It’s enough to apparently give someone a little bit of a nervous breakdown.”

“I’m not having a nervous breakdown,” manages Cu Chulainn as he continues to laugh, “It’s just funny!’

“It’s funny?” asks Ritsuka worriedly.

“Not in a bad way,” Robin answers for them, moving forward, “In a kind of cosmic way. It’s like being horribly cursed your whole life, only to win a 900 million dollar lottery.”

“Oh,” says Ritsuka, clearly not getting it at all, but encouraged at least.

“We can figure the rest out later, can’t we?” pipes up Mozart enthusiastically, “I say we go with the mood, and celebrate! What’s the last time anyone here has been out on the town?”

“’Out on the’—” starts Emiya, incredulous.

“Won’t that be a risk?” asks Salieri, which is the first thing I’ve heard him say in a while. It’s a wild sight, him next to Mozart, who’s a beacon’ ah light without a care in the world, n’him surrounded by an aura like he’s trying to compress all the rage and confusion and murderous intent I seen in him in battle, into a little one foot radius around his body and probably a couple ulcers, just to not destroy everything around him. Never seen someone look so clocked out in such a specific, intentional way. Kinda impressive actually. Like a bomb held together by force of will.

“Being spirits, you mean?” asks Doctor Archaman. He considers. “…Well, we—you—took care of Ur-Shanabi’s leadership. No one around should know to look out for you. What happened with Mercury, they possibly could be looking for Fuuma Kotarou, but they won’t be yet. Their priority will be figuring out who did this, and why. There’s always the chance of being spotted, by other mages, but I don’t think anywhere that would qualify as ‘out on the town’ is somewhere we’d be likely to be spotted. Or for mages to be. So…So long as you don’t do anything to draw attention to yourself.”

“Like…how we look?” asks Ritsuka.

I glance at her in surprise, then down at myself.

Oh. Haha. Yeah…The whole ‘cowboy’ thing might not scream ‘heroic spirit,’ but it sure screams somethin’. And I’m the most modern hero here, ‘cept apparently Emiya. An he sure don’t look it.

“Ah—uh, yes,” says Doctor Archaman awkwardly.

“We’ll go grab clothes first then! Something to blend in,” says Ritsuka excitedly, “I know a little shop that would be perfect, pretty close.”

The rest of us trade glances.

“Well, I’m in!” I decide, fully pumped. She turns and grins at me. Heh heh.

“I…guess?” says Emiya, almost mystified, while Cu Chulann offers something a little like finger guns from behind him, and Robin nods dissociatively.

“You already know I am!” chimes in Mozart, grabbing Salieri’s arm, “Come on, Antonio!”

Salieri just stares at him blankly. David nods sagely, and claps an arm around Doctor Archaman’s shoulder. Which is kinda hard, because he’s way shorter’n him. “You as well, Doctor! You’ve got a ruined lab coat, bedclothes, and that swimsuit, and none of those won’t grab attention.

Doctor Archaman looks chagrined.

I look at Kotarou.

“Uh…” he says when he notices, and returns the eye contact, “…okay?”

He sounds so unsure, poor guy. I’d be so lost too.

“Let’s do it,” I affirm.

Ritsuka nods. “Great! We can take the train.”

“We can?” Cu Chulainn asks her dubiously.

“No, she’s right,” sighs Emiya, “You see weirder stuff on the train.”

“Really?” I ask.

Emiya and Ritsuka both nod.

To my incredible astonishment, they’re right. We take the train, and barely get a look. I hear someone sigh. Two girls ask if they can take a photo and if David and Kotarou are cosplaying as ‘Guy and Azel’. Doctor Archaman panics and says yes. Other than that, we are left alone.

Ritsuka hops off the train and we follow her through city streets that still seem unimaginably big and full and clean, compared to what I knew. Like a maze, but, she seems to know it by heart, and we wind through the labyrinth to a quieter street and a white and blue building called 2nd STREET Total Reuse.

We get a bit of an odd look walkin’ in, but I guess the cashier ain’t paid enough to care, and Ritsuka goes up and excitedly asks a few questions about where stuff is, and the lady barely pays mind to us at all after that. I get dragged with Kotarou down an aisle, since we’re about the same height, and Ritsuka seems to be havin’ the time of her life pitchin’ ideas to us. So goofy. I can’t think of the last…ever? I guess…yeah, least as far as I remember, I ain’t ever gone clothes shoppin’, even just for the practicality of a disguise, since I was a heroic spirit. Usually if your master wants some incognito, you just go into spirit form ‘n wait.

It's fun. I never had cash to shop as a kid, but the few times when I was real little, ‘n my mom took me for fabric for Sunday clothes ‘n a treat, and the few times again once I started scorin’ as a thief, ‘n first used some spoils?

It was fun then, and it’s fun now. She’s passin’ out jackets and shoes and wonderin’ to herself out loud if it’s fine for me to keep my cowboy hat. It’s so…normal, and different, and carefree. Even just an instant in time, it’s great. Like stepping back into a day I was really alive.

Poor Kotarou looks like he’s still mentally almost 100% clocked out. I hear the others chattin. David seems to be draggin’ Doctor Archaman around the store, and the poor man’s just lettin’ it happen. Guess they must’ve really connected back when David knew him as a boy—rare to have that happen, but I guess I’d feel something like the same seein’ Ritsuka again after a long time. Mozart’s tryin’ to do the same to Salieri, and it’s a plain wonder the man ain’t killed him yet. They got a real complicated relationship. Salieri keeps arguing his clothes are actually normal enough to pass for contemporary, which might be true, because it’s kinda a dated suit, but it’s just a black suit. Mozart ain’t havin it, and Ritsuka leaves us to double-team him, and I have to assume he loses, because next time I see him he’s tiredly wearing a more casual suit jacket, and talking to Cu Chulainn by some shoes.

“You holdin up okay?” I ask Kotarou, glancing over as I’m finishin’ what I got goin’ and step back out of the changing room to see he’s still just holding an armful of things Ritsuka gave him, with his face blank.

He kind of blinks, and slowly turns his head to look at me.

“Oh. Uh. …I don’t really know,” he offers after a moment.

I nod. “It’s a whole lot.”

“Does…?” he hesitates, and considers, then looks up again, seeming more awake, “Does this all feel like it’s not really happening, to you?”

He said somethin’ like this back at the hotel, too. Guess he’s still feelin pretty rough.  “Mmm, it did at first,” I reply, thinking it through sincerely, “But I’ve been up for like, 48 hours now. Somewhere around day two, I think, I decided it must be real.”

“…Really,” he says thoughtfully, more to himself than me.

“It is surreal,” I say.

He nods slowly. “It feels like…I was going to say ‘something that would happen to somebody else,’ but, it’s not even that. It feels like something you wish could happen to even just somebody else, a little like you. But wouldn’t. Like you might say, ‘well, in another life, I got a master who just let me goof off and buy things.’”

That is a fair point.

“Guess it does. …I s’pose that means we’re livin the dream, huh?” I add after a second with enthusiasm.

He blinks. “…Does it?”

I consider again, then nod. “Think so.”

“Huh,” he says, thinking that through, “That just doesn’t seem like something that could really happen to me.”

I shrug. “Me either. But I think when somethin’ too good to be true finally happens, you just gotta embrace it whole-hog, ‘n go with your own momentum. I mean, it’s gotta be once in a lifetime, right?” I smile and nudge his arm with my elbow. “Better make it count.”

He thinks, and then smiles a little, and nods again. “I guess so.”

“I mean, we got the bad flip side of that too. Only a handful of us got trapped in death-torture device shit for a couple weeks, so, y’know. I figure we almost earned it.”

I get a real smile that time. He still looks pretty glazed over, but a lot better than he did.

“Plus—Damn Robin!” I interrupt myself, spotting him, “Lookin’ good!”

He pauses where he was about to step past the aisle, and glances at me and gives me an amused sigh and a smile. “This is literally just black jeans and a green shirt. You know that.”

“You’re wearin’ the hell out of it though,” I say.

He rolls his eyes but he keeps smiling.

“Go on,” I say to Kotarou, slapping him on the back to bring him back down to earth, and gesturing to the changing room. He nods and vanishes inside.

“So,” I say as Robin walks over, “If you could do anything in the world to celebrate, what would it be?”

“I don’t know. Get off the throne?” jokes Robin, sliding over next to me.

“I meant in a mundane way,” I say, fake miffed, “And you know it.”

“Mmm, alright,” says Robin without missing a beat, “Mundane celebration, mundane celebration…hm. Maybe I’d…Go visit the old stomping ground?” he suggests, looking surprised at his own idea.

“Like, go home? See what’s changed?” I ask.

He shrugs. “Maybe. Dunno.”

That sounds a little interesting to me too.

“What about just today?” I try.

“Just today?” he echoes, “Well…I guess I’d…” He glances at me and then grins. “Go drinkin’.”

“Yeah?” I ask.

“I mean, why not? It’s not complicated, or elaborate, but I miss spending time eating and drinking with friends between work. Just relaxing, sharing stories.” He gestures with an arm.

“Me too,” I agree, “And it wouldn’t hurt if it was somethin’ sweet! That girl gave me a chocolate earlier, and now my damn mouth can’t stop thinkin’ about the fact that sometimes food is sweet.”

“God, yeah,” agrees Robin with a faraway look on his face, “Man, it would be nice to get drunk. Not much, just a little, you know? Take the edge off.”

I nod.

“You think we can do that?”

“I mean, why not?” I say, “We’re already decided on goin’ to get food or somethin’.”

We look back out over the others we can see. Everyone but Kotarou seems to have their new outfit by now. Emiya looks so mundane dressed casually, and even Cu Chulainn looks virtually normal. It makes me almost feel like, even if it’s just for the next few hours, we’ll really get to be: people, alive, carefree. The little stuff you don’t miss enough till you’re dead ‘n gone. Doctor Archaman is up at the front with David, payin’, and they look so casual I could almost believe they’re family, doin’ something they’ve done 100 times. Any other day. ‘N Rits is over with Salieri and Mozart, trying to keep the Avenger from going insane, by the look of it. I know that, because I’ve met them, but if I couldn’t sense the mana from here, they’d just look like a couple old friends having a fight they don’t mean.

Behind me, Kotarou steps back out of the changing room. He’s got grey pants and red trimmed boots, a deep grey shirt. He could be Ritsuka’s classmate, like that.

He glances at me a little awkwardly, pushing some hair out of an eye, and tries to smile, and I feel the thought even more. We could all be anybody right now.

What a rare gift, no matter how long it lasts. I guess somebody up there’s still lookin’ out for me.

Robin looks over and smiles too, and then double-takes hard and says, “Wait a second.” He looks from him, to me, to himself. “Did she color code us??”

Huh.

I look down at my jeans and brown t-shirt. Up and over at Emiya in his black pants and dark red jacket, Cu Chulainn’s blue flannel and jeans, Mozart’s purple dress shirt and black pants and fancy green scarf, Salieri’s black suit and matching red scarf, David’s cream button-down and black pants with a little green vest.

“God Damn! She did!” I exclaim.

That’s so funny.

“Huh…” says Kotarou, looking down at himself.

“Look!” says Robin, about to lose it, gesturing towards the counter, “She even did it to herself!”

Oh damn, it’s true. She didn’t even need to buy anything, ‘cause she had clothes already, but she’s picked up a white jacket somewhere, to replace the one totaled by that trip to shreds in Ur-Shanabi.

“Well I’ll be,” I say.

“Not the Doctor, though,” says Kotarou with interest.

“David picked his,” says Robin, waving that away, “I saw it.”

From the way the poor man is wearing a slutty little white v-neck with red trim, and looking absolutely miserable about it, I am not surprised one bit to hear that.

“Come on!” calls Ritsuka from the front, seeing us and waving us over, “I think we found a good restaurant!”

I glance at Robin and Kotarou. Kotarou blinks, and then gives a shaky little smile.

“Somewhere we can drink?” asks Cu Chulainn with interest. She nods.

“Well, well, well,” says Robin, immensely pleased. He claps us both on the shoulder, gives me a grin, and heads over.

We follow.

-------------------------

“Alright, alright!” says David cheerily, sliding up to the table with my tray of drinks from the café outside.

“Hell yeah!” says Billy excitedly, taking the hot chocolate he asked for and setting it next to the half-finished glass of liquor on the table at his place.

“Seriously?” says Emiya.

“I ain’t gotta limit myself to one drink,” he scoffs, taking alternate swigs from both.

Emiya grimaces.

Yeah, I feel that. I can see drinking both, but alternating? Billy’s my boy though, so I keep my mouth shut and take another sip of the sake we were offered when we sat down. I don’t really care so much what I’m drinking, so long as it takes an edge off, and it is damn well doing that for me.

“And for you, Chavera,” says David, passing another hot chocolate to Ritsuka, who beams and picks one of the marshmallows off the top to chew on, before taking a swig. No wonder she and Billy get along.

“This is good stuff,” says Cu Chulainn, ignoring all of them in favor of the shochu he’s been devouring at a genuinely impressive rate. He’s not wrong. I’m pacing myself a little by mostly sticking with the lighter alcohol, because there is a very specific level of drunk I like to get, but I’ve had some of it too, and it’s quality.

“And dinner was amazing,” agrees Ritsuka, who’s still getting through the last of hers.

I’ve never had okonomiyaki before, but I would agree with that as well. This is pretty much exactly what I was hoping for when I told Billy how I’d prefer to spend my celebration. Go me.

“And you,” says David finally, passing the Doctor, who’s declined drinking alcohol, the last cup in the tray.

“Thanks,” he says, taking it and setting it by his plate.

“Okay, so. We’ve definitely met before,” says Kotarou, gesturing to himself and me, picking up where the conversation was before David’s return. He points to Billy and me then. “You’ve definitely met before.” He points to Cu Chulainn and Emiya. “You two have very definitelymet before. Many times.”

They give unhappy sounds of assent and turn to their alcohol.

“You’ve met, but only you remember it,” he says, indicating Emiya and me again.

Yeah. Very annoyed I don’t remember that one. Emiya doesn’t look exactly thrilled that he does, though, so probably we tried to kill each other. I guess it can’t matter now.

“You two know each other,” he continues, gesturing to Doctor Archaman, and David, “And you two know each other,” he finishes, indicating Salieri and Mozart.

“That seems about right,” I say.

“Archers really get around,” he says contemplatively.

I grin. Dunno why that’s so funny to me. Do we? Maybe we do.

“But this is your first time summoning heroic spirits, right?” he checks, glancing up at Ritsuka. She nods.

“Hell of a first time,” I observe.

“Atta girl,” cheers Billy, who is a little bit drunk.

She grins and flushes.

“It seems oddly fortuitous we’d have had so many meet each other before, and remember it,” says Kotarou with building interest, “I’m not sure I believe in fate as such, but, doesn’t it almost seem…”

‘Meant to be?’

Hm…

“Yeah, I think it’s nice,” says Ritsuka, “It’s like a reunion, in ways.”

David nods sagely and smiles. Beside him, Doctor Archaman watches that and smiles a little too, then takes a sip of his drink.

Man, I still cannot get a read on that guy at all. I’ve been trying, ever since Emiya brought it up, but. As sure as I am something is going on, for the life of me, I can’t pin down what. He seems nice. He seems normal. He seems fine, and mundane, and kind even. A little bit of a coward, a little out of his depth, but, I know he’s neither. No coward would have done what he did last night, or today, and no one out of their depth with heroic spirits can patch together a shattered spirit core. So why is he…?

And he’s damn convincing…

It makes me feel unsettled, but. Then he says literally anything, and I don’t anymore, because he’s the least worrying person I’ve ever met. It’s so frustrating. And he-

“…Is this…?” The Doctor’s face changes dramatically, almost to a disbelieving grimace. He takes another sip, and gives David an indescribable look. “Is this just a cup of warm milk and honey?”

David absolutely loses it in the chair next to him—like this is the funniest fucking prank on the planet.

Doctor Archaman is still giving him this look like he cannot believe he would do this, and I can’t get what’s funny about it at all. The hell?

“Seriously?” he asks, “Are you kidding me? You went to a coffee shop and ordered me milk and honey just to…”

He gives the sigh of someone shifting the weight of twenty years of exhaustion in the breath and shakes his head, but he almost cracks a smile too. David is just grinning elated at him.

“That’s so fucking stupid,” says Doctor Archaman, who I’ve not heard use this tone before.

“It’s funny,” argues David happily.

“Oh, whatever,” says Doctor Archaman, but he’s still drinking it.

“It’s good for you!” says David, pleased, grabbing his arm, “Makes those bones strong!”

“You’re unbelievable,” says Doctor Archaman, not looking at him, but he’s not mad anymore.

I look at Emiya. He’s watching too, and we trade a ‘Oh I saw it, but I don’t know what the fuck it was,’ look. Everything those two do just gives me more questions. Doesn’t alarm me. But the fact they’re so covert about shit that doesn’t alarm me at all, does alarm me a little. Uhg, I hate this.

Whatever, I think, turning back to my own drink.

“Well, I think it’s all wonderful!” says Mozart, circling back. He clinks his glass against Salieri’s cheerily. “Over two-hundred years, and we finally see each other again! And with the same master even! Not at war! What are the odds?”

Salieri sighs and looks at his empty cup. He sat down by me, originally, to get away from that man, but Mozart just dragged a stool over, forcibly somehow shoved it into the space between us, and is now practically in the guy’s lap. Poor bastard.

I refill his glass. He gives me a tired, grateful sigh, and downs it in one gulp. Jesus, and I used the shochu.

“Yeah, it’s real nice! I’m always happy to see Robin, and havin’ partners at all in any summon’s rare enough,” says Billy, raising his glass to me. I meet him with a smile, and we drink.

Somehow everyone kind of ends up looking towards Cu Chulainn and Emiya, I guess seeing them as the next logical speakers, and when they become aware of it, they trade disgusted glances.

“Don’t look at me,” says Cu Chulainn, “I’m never happy to see this bastard’s face. I just can’t get away from him.”

“Yeah, I’m so pleased every time a new opponent walks into the room, and it’s you again,” says Emiya, dripping sarcasm. Cu Chulainn grins.

“I can’t tell if you’re actually friends, or not,” says Ritsuka with a little worry.

“Oh, they’re friends,” says Billy the same time I say, “Friends,” tiredly, and Mozart says, “Inseparable.”

Neither of them like that one bit.

“Well, he’s not so bad I can’t work with him,” offers Cu Chulainn, deciding the meat on his plate is more worth his time than this conversation, and digging in, “Plus,” he continues, mouth chock-full, “less annoying to have him on my side, than taking way more of my time than it should to kill.”

“Yeah, that’s less annoying to me too,” agrees Emiya. I fuckin bet. I would not love to be killed by that specific lancer. He’s terrifying in combat. Even stalling against him wouldn’t be fun.

“I think it’s great to see old friends,” says David, very pleased.

“You couldn’t have even gotten shots in this?” asks Doctor Archaman, still stuck on the drink, “I…I did specifically say ‘oh just anything with caffeine,’ and you got one of the only things at a coffee shop that doesn’t have some.”

David shrugs.

“How about you?” says Ritsuka, smiling at Kotarou.

He flushes and smiles back. “Uh. I…don’t actually remember the summoning I met Robin Hood on in any detail, just that I’ve met him before for sure, somewhere. But I uh—I’m just glad to be anywhere other than where I was the last night.”

She looks happy for him, and Kotarou seems grounded by that.

“You can say that again,” agrees Billy.

“We’re all pretty lucky,” I say, raising my glass, “All things considered.” Most of the others toast that. It’s…all things considered, almost unbelievably true.

“You won’t say anything, but I know even you have to be pleased, spending time with me like life is normal again,” says Mozart to Salieri, sipping his sake happily.

“You really don’t get it, do you?” says Salieri finally, turning to give him such an exhausted look that I feel worse for him than I already did.

“Mm?” says Mozart, glancing over without a care in the world.

“I’m not happy to be here with you,” says Salieri, in great distress, “I would love to be summoned anywhere else. I am expending every amount of effort I am able, not to kill you right now. This is not relaxing and enjoyable: it is a nightmare.”

“It can’t really be that hard,” says Mozart, lowering his glass.

Salieri gets a look on his face that says Oh Yes It Fucking Can pretty clearly. The poor man looks so miserable and strung out.

“We’re having fun right now, though,” says Mozart.

“You, are having fun,” says Salieri.

Mozart sighs and sets down his cup, then shifts to face him. “Alright, Antonio. What would it take for you to have a good time?”

“You really don’t seem to grasp this situation,” says Salieri, almost amazed this time.

“You say, ‘the throne, blah blah blah, Avenger, perception, innocent monster,’” he waves his wrist in a circle, “’You’re compelled to kill me. You’re not doing it though.’ But resisting hurts? Like a command spell.”

“Not…exactly. It’s…” He hesitates, and glances at Ritsuka, then the rest of us.

“Come on,” says Mozart, “I’m taking it serious! I’m trying to help! Let’s figure this out.”

“You cannot just ‘figure it out,’” says Salieri in great distress, “It is what it is! My nature is changed. I am supposed to be the figure who kills you. I am half Antonio Salieri, and half just this concept of a man who is consumed by the desire for your murder. It’s not that ‘I’—the ‘I’ you think of, am compelled. It is that ‘I’ am made up, of multiple parts now. And not all of them are Antonio Salieri. Even if I put forward as much effort as it is possible for me, and more, I still cannot control the part of me that is not me, forever.”

Mozart watches that. For once, his smile disappears, and he looks almost concerned, or thoughtful.

“You do not ‘know’ what I am like,” pleads Salieri, encouraged by this, “because…I am not the man you knew. I am a part of him, or, he is a part of me. But the heroic spirit ‘Antonio Salieri’ and the man called that in life are not the same thing. I know, what I will do. Because I am in here, experiencing it. And I don’t…want to kill you. ‘I’ do, but the part of me you speak to, does not. But…I…I know it’s a battle I will lose. Because I have to win, every second, of every day, to not kill you. The rest of me only has to win once. Even for an instant. I am many things, Amadeus, but you of all people know me not to be perfect. I am not you.”

There is quiet around the table for a moment, everyone listening now. Thinking. Ritsuka looking so sad, and worried.

“…So, if you were ‘invented,’ to kill me,” says Mozart after a moment, thinking himself, “Would that do it?”

“What?” says Salieri.

“If you killed me,” asks Mozart earnestly, “Would that…’fix’ you? Would the rest of you go away, mission accomplished?”

Salieri looks so genuinely horrified by that. “I am not going to kill you!”

Mozart looks to the rest of us and holds a hand towards him like See??

“No! I—I mean, I will not choose to. I don’t…Amadeus-” tries Salieri frantically.

“-Would once be enough?” asks Billy.

“-No—no it would not,” says Salieri, looking relieved by the interruption, “You would return to the throne. It would not be permanent, so, I would not…cease.”

“What about the version who killed me though? Would he be fine after that?” asks Mozart.

“The-? What?” says Salieri.

“The one in the specific summons,” says Mozart, as if this is the most normal line of questioning in the world.

It’s very clear from his face that Salieri has no idea, but is not interested in this becoming a proposition even if so.

“Hmmm,” says Mozart with interest.

“…Amadeus, that would not…” starts Salieri worriedly.

“—Oh, you’re right. Leaning into your desire to murder me is probably not a good idea anyway, and I don’t want to die!” says Mozart, tone 180’d back to light again, “It’s not very fun.”

“Ah,” says Salieri, greatly relieved and a little shaken. He glances at Mozart, then takes a drink to steady himself.

“I do wonder if we could get the throne on a technicality, though,” says Mozart, picking up his glass and staring past it with great focus, “It’s worth the try, right?” He looks over at Salieri. “I mean, you are always welcome to make me die in the Shakespearian manner, and see if that would help.”

Salieri chokes on his drink so horribly I am sincerely concerned it might be killing him. Past me, Emiya chokes almost as hard, and Cu Chulainn spits his drink out and starts laughing uncontrollably. I am lucky I was between sips, and am just stuck staring at nothing and fighting for my life as I try to run that through my head without reacting. At the end of the table, I hear David hacking his lungs up too, and Doctor Archaman fighting a losing battle not to devolve into laughter.

Still coughing up his lungs, Salieri makes it upright enough again to give Mozart, who is beaming, the most pathetically betrayed look I think I have ever seen.

Holy shit.

Cu Chulainn and the Doctor are about to get to me. I am fighting not to laugh in this poor man’s face but oh my god.

“What?” says Ritsuka, deeply confused and worried. She looks from one person to another. “What? I don’t get it? What does that mean?”

“No one tell her,” chokes out Emiya with murderous intent, trying to get alcohol back out of his lungs. Which causes Cu Chulainn to lose it completely all over again, and it takes me with him this time. Billy is giving me such a confused look too, and that’s only making it worse.

“I don’t know either,” says Kotarou when she looks at him. God bless, I think, bending over the table to cover my face as I lose my struggle.

“Everything is terrible enough without you constantly mocking me,” says Salieri very quietly, a cloud of melancholy descending around him like a pillar of fire.

“But I’m not!” protests Mozart with his bubbly energy unaltered, “I mean it. I’m always down for a good time.”

I’m beginning to think Cu Chulainn, David, and I are never going to make it back off this table, and Emiya is starting to crack too.

“What the fuck is goin’ on?” asks Billy, kind of excited by this energy.

“No one tell the kid!” says Emiya again, this time in, I assume, all of our heads but Ritsuka’s, “I’m not kidding. I will end you.”

“We would have to be able to breathe to do it anyway,” I manage to think back from the table. My warrior’s heart feels Cu Chulainn agreeing with me from his own aching ribs three seats down.

“Uhm. Okay,” says Ritsuka kind of nervously, “I’m not really sure what’s going on, but, please don’t be mean to Mr. Salieri.”

“I’m not!” protests Mozart, intent, I’m sure, on making this even worse. “I love Salieri. I’m just trying to put some options on the table.”

Through the fuckin’ gasps for breath coming even from his thoughts, Cu Chulainn holds it mentally together enough to get a, “Including ‘on the table,’” through to the mental group chat before succumbing completely again, and it’s a fuckin’ murder-suicide to everyone else who knows what he’s talking about. Even caps Emiya, and I see David go back down at the end of the line.

We are strung out to be laughing like this like fucking high schoolers, I think, trying to regain any semblance of composure. Damn I hope Salieri was not one of the people who heard that.

Salieri gets up from the table and starts to leave.

“Wait! Antonio!” says Mozart, hopping right up after him, “Come back—I’m only saying it could be worth a shot.”

I consider going after them to make sure the Caster doesn’t get his head ripped off, but that now seems between them and God.

“Should I go after them?” asks Ritsuka, still completely lost.

“Uhm,” manages Doctor Archaman, who was spared Cu Chulainn’s comment, without a mental link, and is recovering faster than the rest of us, but not quite there yet, “Maybe? I’m not really sure. …I’m actually very un-sure.”

“Whoooo,” says David, wiping tears away with his palm, “What a morning, right?”

“Uhm...I guess I better should—I mean—I better. I should—I probably should,” stutters out Ritsuka, hopping up.

“I’ll come with ya,” offers Billy.

She starts to give him a grateful look, and then her expression changes.

“Everyone! Get out here! I don’t know what’s happening, but it’s really bad! Now!”

I have not heard the Caster frantic before.

“NOW!”

I am up before Salieri speaks, the others around me doing the same. I don’t know where those two went, but Mozart said ‘out,’ and we all think the same thing, and tear for the door. The Lancer doesn’t even bother, shattering a plate window and skidding out onto the street, fastest route between two points a straight line, and I follow on his heels.

I know the second I am out what they saw.

The sky.

“What?” I hear Ritsuka gasp. Fear, confusion.

Billy must have carried her with him.

I only vaguely register that.

Around us, humans in the street are pointing, whispering. Some calling out in alarm.

“Is that a bomb?” asks Ritsuka in a terror that must only come from living in the shadow of knowing what a nuke could do to a city.

It’s not though. I could feel that, if it was, even from a distance. But it’s.

It’s not heat and light. It’s nothing.

What the hell?

At the horizon ahead—

SHIT!

I turn and look, and it’s not just ahead of me. It’s behind. Left, right, all around.

Horrible, empty whiteness, at the edge of my vision. Like the world is an unfinished drawing outside the city.

It’s moving.

Oh fuck it’s moving.

Like a wave? No. Like…a scanner almost. Like a searchlight. The white emptiness on the horizon is streaking towards us, at a horrifying pace, and there is…nowhere to go.

Oh fuck. Everyone is about to die.

‘Everyone’? How big can—

“No!”

The most agonized sound I’ve ever heard.

I turn, and behind me, I see Doctor Archaman stumbling out into the street seconds after the rest of us, stuck running on human legs at a human speed.

There is an indescribable horror and terror and heartbreak on his face.

Like he’s done this.

No.

“This can’t!” He looks to David, who has gone white as a sheet, in desperation, “I-It’s not supposed to happen now! It can’t happen now! Not until the end of the year! This is impossible! There’s no WAY!”

He’s almost shouting at the sky, like he’s challenging the world itself on the reality before him.

“It can’t,” he whispers, broken and frozen in a moment of time.

Not like he’s done it. Like he…failed to stop it.

Something almost clicks in my head, but I know it’s too late now.

It is going to be too late for all of us in a second here.

No other idea what to do, I find Billy and move up, take his hand.

He’s set Ritsuka down. She’s still right by him, staring in horror at the whiteness descending on us all. When he sees me take his hand, he looks up into my face, and I see whatever he was thinking of doing, he lets go of the idea and accepts what I’ve figured out, looks at Ritsuka, and puts a hand on her shoulder.

She turns, face ghostly, and he gives her a look that says, “I’m sorry,” and she gets it too. Shaking, she takes the hand he holds out, and he pulls her against his chest. She buries her face there and shuts her eyes.

Ahead of us, Kotarou worriedly looks back at her, then moves closer and steps between her and the skyline, so she can’t see anything at all past him and Billy, and places a hand on her back.

In the streets around us, people begin to panic. Screaming, crying, standing still. Some run. I hear people deny this is happening; I hear a lot of them say ‘bomb,’ in a kind of horror I cannot being to describe.

I see Kotarou shut his eyes too, and hear him whispering words I can’t make out. I’m sure though, from the intonation, it’s a prayer.

I guess I should say one of those myself.

If there was ever a time.

“B'ní?” calls David frantically. He dashes so fast to Doctor Archaman I don’t see him move, and grabs the man’s arms. Doctor Archaman looks at him like a man drowning looks at the last piece of driftwood in a hurricane. “Think! There is a reason we met! We must have something!”

“We-?” Doctor Archaman looks at the skyline in desperation, and I see something like hope flicker to life on his face. “Archer!”

All of us look at him.

“Fuck! Emiya!” he corrects, pulling away from David to move, “Blade Works! It’s a reality marble? How long-? How many people—?!”

Emiya gets what he means immediately. “Go,” he says, I’m not sure if to him or to Cu Chulainn, or both, because both split the second he says it. He looks at me, too, like I’m meant to get something, and a second later I do. Oh shit.

“Billy!” I call as I hear him begin the incantation, “Get closer!”

I let go of him, and he grabs Ritsuka and runs.

“Please! Everyone! Anyone who can hear me! I can protect you!” calls Doctor Archaman desperately, screaming at the shop fronts and passers-by, the offices and stopped cars, workers, civilians. Anyone who could possibly hear, “Please! Get close! That thing is going to hit, and kill us all! If you get close to the man in red, we can save you! Please! Please it’s insane, I know this is insane, but look at the sky! Listen to me!” He turns in desperation and finds Mozart in the crowd, “Do something to show them!”

Mozart drags Salieri behind him and runs for Emiya, the sound of a piano suddenly in the air around him and bursts of flashing lights and sparks that mean nothing but spectacle appear around him, and people turn and look.

“Come on!” I call, shoving, trying to get people to move, “We can help you!”

It’s enough. Not for everyone, but in the face of the nothing descending on us, some people move when they see the lights around Mozart, and others follow, just to be trying, some last, desperate human attempt at life. I start throwing open doors, calling into buildings. The wall is getting here faster. On my far right, I see the Lancer who was doing what I’m doing a few seconds ago has now given up on persuasion and is just throwing people towards where they need to be.

Behind us, I hear Doctor Archaman call for Mozart to make the area of effect visible, and a second later a bright ring of gold light appears about fifty feet ahead of me. It’s much, much bigger than he made the phantasm last time. This must be the best he can possibly do.

Even so, it’s so little to a city of people. I see civilians in the street ahead of me rushing, trying to follow the shouts of, “This way!” and “Hurry! You can make it!” they are giving each other now, trying to reach us, trying to reach whatever is promising hope in the face of death like this. There’s no way they’re all going to make it.

I try. I run for them, and start doing what Cu Chulainn was. I see him far on the right, doing the same. Trying to catch people before the light, and throw them back towards the circle of gold Mozart laid for us. I try the first few times to not hurt them, but as wave of nothing tears towards us and the seconds I have left fall to single digits, I give up and just exchange broken bones for the surety whatever this awful, oppressive, horrifying nothingness bearing down us is, won’t get them.

It is like nothing I have ever seen, or felt. I dash between parked cars and am too late—watch the nothing wash over a man with his arm outstretched towards me. I see the terror on his face as it gets him. I grab his hand and pull, praying, and he comes back out of the nothing but a feeling passes from his hand into mine like my head has been ripped out by the nerve endings at the base of my skull, and left empty, and for a moment, it has been. I forget to move, or think, and the wall erasing a world reaches for us, and something grabs the back of my collar, and I am flung backwards. I hit the ground, and my head resets—pained, but still there, still my own, and I see Kotarou land with the man I saved in his arms, looking as terrified as I feel. He gives me an arm and I’m back up with him, returning to the wall of nothing now with the surety that anyone I am too late to save, is facing a fate worse than death. Somewhere behind me, I am aware of Billy and David and Salieri doing the same in other directions, Doctor Archaman and Ritsuka shouting, and Emiya reciting the last line of Unlimited Blade Works.

I grab people I don’t take time to see. I move like I have never moved before, in those last two seconds.

Behind me, I hear Doctor Archaman’s voice shout, “Now!” and I hear Emiya’s voice call out ‘WORKS!’

There is a surge of mana. People are clustered so tightly, clinging to strangers. We see the emptiness of the world erasing around us, sky, city, people, life. And as it touches us, we don’t.

Amidst screams, the landscape changes, and the sky is wrong, but it is sky. Empty, unmoving clouds, and gears the size of skyscrapers. There is a sun overhead somewhere behind the haze, and sand beneath our feet. An empty, barren hill and plateau, littered with swords like the headstones of a graveyard.

We all wait, a moment, to see if it will take. Wait for the whiteness to crack inside the grey sky here. Waiting to die.

It does not.

The seconds pass from four, to twelve, and we realize it is not going to.

We are not dead.

At least, I realize, finding Emiya, sweating, breathing hard, raised hand still outstretched, As long as the phantasm lasts.

#The Kid (fic) #The Kid #fate grand order fic #fate fic #fate go au #fgo au #fate go au fic

[bowenandjohnson]

having now finished druck s8, I’m incredibly saddened at how this season has gone, considering it’s the end of the second generation, and it’s unlikely that we will see any of these characters again. after 10 weeks, mailin is still a cipher—she had no internal struggles; her flaws were left unaddressed from previous seasons. there was no growth. overall, this season felt incredibly pointed towards silencing BIPOC members of this cast—particularly ish, which isn’t surprising given her comments. every episode, repeatedly, had ava and fatou either comforting or praising mailin for her “feminism,” her “girlbossing,” when it’s clear in seasons produced by q3/jünglinge that ava, in particular, would not say these things. for a season where finn was the LI, we learned nothing more about him or his family, besides that they run a furniture business impacted by the pandemic. yara was given a romance plotline with zoe, but that was entirely offscreen until the last two episodes. kieu my was only allowed to criticize the action mailin and zoe engaged with once, and it was apparently because nhungi and the others intervened on set. season 8 was also a season pointed towards conservatism—nora upheld purity culture in her final clip before departing for three weeks, and essentially shamed mailin, one of her best friends, for taking pictures of herself. in one of their fights, finn also did the same to mailin. zoe and mailin’s activist action with the destroying of books was essentially a parody of Teenage Activism™️, while in earlier seasons, activism was treated as something worthwhile, something important to engage with and discuss.

but the thing is, it just wasn’t season 8 of druck. season 7 had much of the same issues. the instas and sascha were static. the season, while hinting at the ideas of toxic friendship, did not touch on that internal struggle within isi from season 6, choosing to instead show the topic of gender dysphoria. while this topic is incredibly important, the new writers and SM team did not remember how isi was the one who introduced kieu my to the LGBTQ+ community, queer terms and language, and how she already was following drag queens and non-binary people on IG, and would have had some inkling into what was happening with themselves. the writers chose an easy route instead of building on the nuances already in the character. lou’s actions from s7 with the tampons could also be seen as a parody of true activism, and she also may have been a character created to fight back against the “isi is fatphobic!” allegations—but he was. that four minute clip in which he apologizes to ava for the bullying, and then it is never addressed again confirms it. the LGBTQ+ youth group & david could have been incredibly important for isi, but they were only shown in two clips; same with the turkish community, where they made a nameless neighbor into a bigot and homophobic and transphobic, rather than addressing the issues where consti essentially assaulted isi and made terrible comments towards her head-on. sascha, much like finn, didn’t have a personality beyond plant boy and LI either, and isi treated him like shit in his shoe until a bogus apology in ep 9. screentime was taken from BIPOC members of the cast and given largely to two white newcomers. eren had to fight for the pronoun scene, but also mentioned the efforts of the team/castmates to help them in that fight.

it’s sad to see the parallels between s5/s6 and how s7/s8 turned out. this last clip really showed me how much this cast had to fight tooth and nail to try and protect these characters who they loved. the cashqueens memory scenes consisted of s5/s6 references; as did the montage in between the cast speaking, again primarily about the early generation 2 seasons. overall, i wish the cast the best, i wish jünglinge & q3 the best. their talent is stunning, and i can’t wait to see what they do next. thank you, mina, sira, eren, frida, ish, zethphan, nhungi, madeleine, elena, anh, casper, paul, and paula. thank you for these characters. they will always have a place in my heart, even if the writing doesn’t. rant over!!

#druck

[julia-highstorms]

Eli - short series (Eli x Kiera (F!MC))

Summary: Eli Sipes reflects on the important people of his life.

Author’s note: this is a three part short series in which Eli reminisces about his childhood and adolescence (represented by the figure of Riya, his best friend), his young adult years until he met Kiera and the others (represented by David, his younger brother) and about the present and his future (Kiera).

Disclaimer: Characters belong to Pixelberry Studios. 

Rating: +18 - mature themes (tw: character death mention, gore)

Pairing: Eli Sipes x Kiera Tomoe (F!MC) - Wake the Dead masterlist

Word count: +2.3K

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Part One: Riya

Eli Sipes was by himself, sitting by the margin of the river, carving from a piece of wood he found nearby. 

He heard steps approaching, and glanced up briefly to see Kiera there. She sat down on the soft grass beside him.

"Whatcha making there?" - she asked, a relaxed smile playing on her lips. Not a vision that he would see often, but that was a special occasion.

They had survived the solstice.

"A bird. It's one of the easier shapes. My Dad taught me. "

He heard her chuckling.

"Shooting, fighting, and now whittling. Is there anything you can't do?"

"Can't draw a picture to save my life." - and that was true. He was terrible at it. His drawings were almost offensive, because of how insufferable they were.

"Well then, I guess it's a good thing you met me because I am an excellent artist." - she winked at him, a cocky smirk dancing on her lips. 

He cracked a smile and stopped his whittling to look out at the river. They fell into a comfortable silence for a long moment, just enjoying each other's company, hearing the soft sound of the river, birds chirping nearby, and their friends' laughter. Troy was now the one on the mission to teach Angel and Shannon how to swim. Or, at least, how to not drown. Sledge was still resting her back against a tree, protecting herself from the sun, clearly judging Troy's lack of teaching skills.

He turned his gaze back to Kiera, who was now laying next to him with her eyes closed, a serene expression on her face as she sunbathed.

And he felt… peaceful. For the first time in years.

He returned his gaze at the river and Eli let his mind run… memories of a lifetime ago floating back to his mind.

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"You can't get me!" - the childish voice ringed in his ear, followed by laughter.

"Careful, you two! Don't get too close to the river." - Mom shouted from nearby, as he sprinted after David.

It was summer and the sun was up in the sky. Crickets could be heard chirping around, and the weather was nice, perfect for a picnic.

Which was what the Sipes were having. That was a somewhat tradition they had in summer. Just like going to the amusement park whenever the boys were on holiday.

Still laughing after their little run, Eli and David joined their parents, who had just finished laying out all the contents of their basket. Fresh bread, biscuits, fruits, there was everything there. The boys promptly dug in, starved after having so much fun that morning. They loved going to the woods.

While the family of four ate and talked about school, a single ping could be heard. Dad checked his phone and immediately stopped eating.

"What?" - Mom asked as she saw the frown on her husband's face.

It took a while until the man could speak up.

"...Rahul didn't make it. Samir just texted me."

"Oh no…" - their mother covered her mouth in shock.

"The funeral will be tomorrow morning. He's asking if we'll be there. He'll send the address."

"Of course we will."

Eli immediately thought of his best friend. Riya Patel.

Ever since he could remember, Riya has always been around. The Patels were their neighbors, just living down the street. Eli and Riya went to the same kindergarten and were in the same elementary school, even in the same class, when the first news about this unknown virus broke out. They were just seven years old. 

The girl was the youngest of three. She had two older brothers, Ravi, who was twelve years older, and Rahul, ten years older than her. Unfortunately, Rahul, a senior in high school, was infected around that time and didn't survive the mutation (which they still wasn't aware of the disaster it would cause when people started turning into zombies).

Her parents, Samir and Prisha Patel, were both physicians and they helped their small community be up to date about the new virus as it progressed. Eli and Riya were old enough to be conscious about what was happening, but not old enough to fully understand the impact of it in their lives at first. 

…and it would change everything.

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"Dammit, I lost it! Did you see where it went?" - the girl with long raven hair tied in two braids asked, turning to the two boys behind her.

"Is it just my impression or this was faster than the others? I haven't seen one walk so fast!" - David asked, forcing his vision as he looked through the woods.

Eli stared at the sky, dark clouds looming over her.

"We should get back. It will start raining soon."

"At least the rain will keep these ugly bastards away for a while." - Riya smirked as the three of them returned to their community. - "Anyway, I heard that the experimental drug started being tested. Hopefully we'll have a cure in a couple of years."

Her best friend said nothing; he wasn't as optimistic as her.

Riya was the complete opposite of him: outspoken, fierce and a dreamer. So full of life. Even though all the horrors she and her family had witnessed - her parents were on the front of the research and trying to treat people -, she always firmly believed in a better world, where things would be good again.

Or, at least, free of zombies. 

The virus was long spread now and the whole world was aware of its disastrous consequences. Things turned worse after Rahul's death: more and more people got infected, whole cities got decimated by that horrendous virus. Kids started getting surviving lessons at school, like archery. Eli remembered listening from the adults that he and the other kids were the "warrior generation".

So, at 16, Eli, Riya and David were not common teenagers: the situation built them to be survivors, as that was the only reality they have ever known.

But they were still teenagers at the end of the day, with some teenage topics.

Like crushes.

Recently, Eli noticed that his younger brother liked his best friend more than just a friend. He wasn't one to pay attention to that kind of stuff, so he wasn't aware for how long David had started acting all nervous around Riya. But he indeed noticed.

Growing up the three of them together, Eli always felt that Riya was the sister they never had, even after reaching puberty. And he thought that David shared his sentiment, but apparently something started to change as his little brother hit adolescence.

Eli noticed that David suddenly started acting a bit nervous whenever he was around Riya, but also excited too, always wanting to share something that he had read in those scientific magazines of his to the girl.

And as much as the boy denied it, it was clear that he liked Riya Patel.

The small dialogue they had the week before was still very fresh in Eli's mind.

They had just returned from a food scavenger and were getting themselves ready to help Mom and Dad with dinner, when the oldest smirked.

----------------------------------------------

"So, you have a crush on her?"

"Who?"

"Riya. Obviously."

David scoffed, an offended mask on his face, but Eli knew his brother and when he was pretending. Especially because David was terrible at it.

"Of course I don't. Why would I?" - the younger said, but his face showed otherwise. - "Besides, she likes you."

"Nonsense."

"What? Don't tell me you haven't noticed it."

"She's just a friend."

"Maybe to you. But to her…"

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Eli was sure that David only said that to get the attention out of himself. There was no way that Riya would be interested in him. They were best friends.

But then, just a couple of months later, Eli Sipes found out the truth.

It was near the end of spring, when Riya showed up one day at the Sipes residence, looking for Eli. That was something very common, as they used to hunt together, but the boy sensed that it was a different occasion.

They decided to check the perimeter together to get the privacy she wanted. The two teenagers walked in silence, following the town borders, keeping an eye to the woods, their arcs in hand - they would often practice archery together - in case a drone showed up.

Riya suddenly stopped and turned to him.

"I'm leaving. I mean, we're leaving. Me and my parents."

Eli needed a few seconds to process that information.

"What?"

"Ravi texted. When he finally got a signal, he texted my dad. He's somewhere safe up in the mountains. Apparently it used to be a military headquarters with bunkers and now has become a 

 colony. They call it the Tower." - she shrugged. - "Apparently, it is big and there are safety in numbers."

"Are you sure? Isn't it safer to stay around here, where you know the ground and the people?"

"Eli, it's just a matter of time until drones come tearing down this place and invade our homes. We see this happening every year; our colony gets smaller day by day and the list of missing persons just gets longer. You know how in the summer it seems that they multiply. Mom and Dad think it's worth the shot going up there. And I think so too. Apparently, they have some kind of lab where they're making experiments to find a cure and it's as safe as possible. So…" - she shrugged again. - "Why not? Better than being here, just waiting for our deaths."

They stared at each other for a few minutes, in silence.

Eli wasn't upset or anything. He didn't have the right to feel so. That was Riya's life and her own decision to make. And she had already done it.

He just knew things wouldn't be the same without his best friend around.

He frowned.

"I'll miss you."

She smirked.

"I know." - and then, she fished something from her backpack and threw it at him, Eli catching it midair with one hand.

"What's this?" - he asked, arching a brow. She giggled.

"Why don't you just open it up instead of asking me? It's yours."

He gingerly opened the small gift. There was a thin, smooth fabric in it. A blue scarf.

"Figured I could give you something to protect you when you're hunting. And to make you remember me." - she smirked.

"Thank you, Riya. And of course I'll always remember you." - he smiled back at her, sincerity and warmth in his brown eyes.

Their eyes locked for a moment, neither of them really wanting nor ready to say goodbye. They both knew that it probably was the last time they would see each other.

"Eli… Can I kiss you?"

Riya had to bite a laugh when she saw surprise hitting her best friend's face. It was so rare seeing Eli getting caught off guard.

"I didn't know… you…"

"I know. You're a bit slow on this type of thing." - she chuckled. - "But yeah, I like you. I think I've always liked you. Never thought about telling you, though. It didn't seem necessary, plus, we had more things to worry about. Well, until my family decided to leave." - she shrugged again, not looking even the slightest nervous or embarrassed. That was Riya to him. Always confident. - "So? Are you going to grant me this last wish?" - her cocky smirk showed up again.

Even that confession felt so… Riya. She would always be like herself until the end.

Eli shrugged. 

"Okay."

He stepped closer, and the girl's breath hitched, surprised by his sudden closeness, her eyes locking with his.

She gently cupped his chin, her thumb tracing his lips, her black eyes gazing into them. The boy felt his heart leaping in surprise inside his chest by that delicate move. They have always been close, but never that intimate. 

And then, she leaned in, their lips brushing. Eli wasn't sure of what he should do, but he pressed back. Riya's lips were soft.

He felt her hands clutching his shoulders just before she deepened the kiss, her tongue exploring the inside of his mouth and he mirrored her movements, his arms enveloping her and pulling her in.

Eli didn't know for how long they stayed there, but it was long enough to make the sensation of kissing his best friend less strange. He also didn't know how she had learned to kiss like that, but Riya Patel was a good kisser.

"Goodbye, Eli." - she whispered when they finally pulled out. Her dark eyes were glossy, emotion taking over her.

"Goodbye, Riya." - he felt his lips tingling.

"Tell your brother I said goodbye. And to your parents too." - he nodded.

"I will. Good luck."

"Good luck to you too."

And then, she disappeared.

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Just a couple of days later, Eli was out with David and Dad hunting for dinner, when they met with McCain, an older man who had a ranch nearby.

"Have you heard of it, Sipes?"

"About what?" - his father asked.

"The Patels." - he shook his head, a somber look on his face. - "Their van was found just last night during our patrol routine." - Eli felt his heart stopping. - "It was a mess. There was blood everywhere." - he sighed. - "They were already long dead when we found them. All of them, including their girl. They couldn't make it to the mountains."

Eli curled his fists into bawls, feeling the air leaving his lungs.

She was gone.

Riya was gone.

She didn't make it.

He heard David gasping beside him, horror in his face, too shocked to say anything.

Riya was gone.

Just like that. Gone.

That night, as they went to sleep, Eli heard his brother crying himself to sleep.

He felt a gaping hole in his chest too.

She was the first person close to him that he had lost.

Riya was gone.

Goodbye, Riya.

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Tagging: @smetje24689 @gipsydanger17 @calliope-luve @euphorichappiness10 @tinfoilhat2719  @banirareiko @jerzwriter @choicesficwriterscreations - if you’d like to be tagged on or off my upcoming Eli x Kiera fanfics, let me know

#eli sipes #wake the dead #wake the dead choices #playchoices #choices stories you play #playchoices fanfic #choices fanfic #eli sipes x mc #eli sipes x fmc #eli sipes x f!mc #eli sipes x kiera tomoe #mc: kiera tomoe