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maglors-anion-gap · 1 year

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(@cosmic-walkers so sorry for the late reply - work was very busy this week. Posting our thread as a new post because I feel bad gumming yours up with a bunch of reblogs. RIP to everyone's dash tho, the ADHD is leaping out and this post will not be short.)

Note: the text in all the images has been copied into the image description function on desktop. let me know if for some reason it can't be accessed.

Anyway, cosmic-walkers and I had a really good exchange about maeglin and his treatment in text that got me thinking again about eol and the difficulties I've had engaging with his narrative even after coming around to a more nuanced.

I mentioned this in my tags and asked how folks go about repairing eol's narrative:

And I got a really thoughtful reply that, with permission, I'm sharing here so that more people can see it. Hopefully it is as interesting to you all as it was to me. (browse images right to left, top to bottom. comments organized in vertical order in each image).

Thank you @cosmic-walkers for taking the time to write that out for me. It absolutely makes sense, and I actually really love getting long messages because I feel like the length constraints of both tags and comments hinder free conversation.

I have a degree in public health, and my focus was interpersonal and family violence; I don't bring it up to toot my own horn, but rather to offer some context for readers here and to draw from as I analyze the patterns of behavior in the narrative. For what its worth, I think that more nuanced readings of eol's character line up pretty well with frameworks for understanding unhealthy relationships, abusive relationships, and family violence.

I think it makes people uncomfortable to engage with the idea that abusers are humans. I don't mean that people ought to feel a preponderance of sympathy for them (at the expense of their victims), but rather that humans have human triggers, motivations, and psychologies. Of course, we are talking about elves, but *vague hand waving.* I joke that my degree was the most expensive, circuitous way to get therapy, but it really did help to engage with concepts like family systems theory to understand my own life and move forward in healing past "that sucked and my abuser is a monster .... who somehow manages to treat everyone else well... why me?"

Family systems theory posits that abuse can arise in certain dynamics and be conducted by people who, in other dynamics, would not act abusively. It asks us to describe both the overarching family system as well as the subsystems that exist between different members. Noise in one subsystem echoes to impact the rest of the system. It emphasizes the impact of boundaries (divisions, openness or isolation, emotional closeness), roles (patterns of behavior, and who may be targeted/blamed/scapegoated), rules (spoken and unspoken standards, traditions, and guidelines), and hierarchy (power, who holds it, respect and lack thereof). People chafe against the the last concept, feedback and circular causality, because when applied incorrectly it can sound like the victims are provoking their own abuse - this is not true, and it should not be applied like this. It only means that a relationship yields certain behaviors depending on its climate, and that once a pattern of behavior is established it becomes harder to break.

When analyzing family systems theory, many people choose to pair it with the family resilience model, which prioritizes repairing the broken aspects of (sub)system relationships, hilighing positive characteristics and using them as strengths to propel other behavior change, and promoting flexibility, openness, and equitability of social and economic resources to stabilize (sub)systems to begin the healing process. Of course, not everyone wishes to remain in contact with their abuser. Of my two abusers, one I have cut contact with and the other I now have a healthy relationship with. But, utilizing models and evidence based practice like this is critical to actually understanding and then remediating abuse and its damage.

Edit 1/1/23: I forgot to mention the impact of stress on abuse. Many abusers release their stress, confusion, and concerns in the form of abuse because they don’t have another way to process and positively direct those emotions. This can be caused by lack of emotional intelligence or ability to self regulate and soothe, lacking interpersonal communication skills, poor modeling from their own role models. I’ve written evidence-based program plans for mitigating teen dating violence, and to make an impact you have to far in advance of the common age of onset of dating violence. We should be teaching stress management tools, emotional regulation, communication skills, and bodily autonomy is late primary and early elementary school. But many people connect dating violence and sex in their minds and don’t want to talk about it with kids. In reality, a lot of abuse happens because of disregulation, not because of inappropriate desire. This is compounded in real life by theories of power and hierarchical respect - if people feel like someone is of higher value than them, they treat them respectfully, but if they feel like they are the person of higher value, they feel it is within their rights (and perhaps a just affirmation/ defense of system hierarchy) to treat them as they please.

I bring all this up because after reading your comments, I tried using it to analyze the system of Eol, Aredhel, and Maeglin, and the subsystems between them. We agree that as a whole, their family system is tense, unequal, and prone to violence (not necessarily the physical kind). Edit 1/1/23: everyone in the family is experiencing stressors, including Eol himself. The way he responds to these stressors is not healthy and has an impact on the subsystems of their family.

The subsystem of Aredhel and Maeglin is the easiest to analyze in some ways, and there's a wealth of knowledge to pick over. The two of them are emotionally close, open with each other, ally with each other (as in, we do not canonically see either of them display pecking order behavior in which one abuse victim then abuses someone less powerful in another subsystem), and seem to have similar power distance (aredhel is his mother, but she is not characterized as being domineering toward him, and has about as much systemic power as maeglin in comparison to eol, though eol treats maeglin worse initially, forming a subsystem I discuss next).

Eol and Maeglin form a fractious subsystem. It is characterized by high power distance, emotional isolation (see: not naming Maeglin until he was far along in childhood), and Eol regards him more as a possession than as someone worthy of his respect and basic dignity (see: the attempted murder). Resources is a more uniquely human concept, but Eol is the lord of Nan Elmoth, he exerts some control over the forest, he maintains his own staff and people, and he has the ability to forbid (and enforce) certain behaviors. Maeglin spends more time with his mother than father (out of the house too, if memory serves, though this may not be so odd for elves) and dreams of running away to Gondolin, and it seems to me that Aredhel's tales of Gondolin (ironically, a city-prison of another sort) are so sweet to him because of his current family situation.

Aredhel and Eol form the third and final subsystem. I think it is important to note here that many, if not most, abusive relationships begin well. At baseline, many abusers are adept at concealing red flag behaviors until they successfully lock down their victim. But I am more interested in exploring the family systems model of abuse here (Eol is often analyzed using the characteristics of a serial abuser, and while some people fit that model, in combination with the terrible handling of race and culture in this arc, brute caricatures, and white damsels, I think it does more to reinforce an over-done reading that leans into rather than away from Tolkien's biases).

As you so rightly mention, Aredhel and Eol begin their relationship with a certain degree of love. We can see some differences in power, agency, and respect from the start - I am reminded of Eol enchanting the woods to draw Aredhel in. However, this is a storytelling device common to fairy tales, even ones intended to be read romantically, and because I am a huge lover of the Ballad of Tam Lin I must be honest with myself and admit that this alone can be taken as a stylistic choice and not an indicator of purely evil intentions.

The difference in power only grows as Eol forbids Aredhel to visit the lands of the Noldor; this puts her in a difficult bind, as she is also not welcome in the largest kingdom of the Sindar. In general, controlling someone's movements indicates a paternalism and lack of respect that it's difficult to build a healthy relationship on. Now, initially they do go about exploring together, and I think this is something that would have endeared Eol to Aredhel, something she would have enjoyed, something they could have found common ground in, and something that perhaps reminded her of old friends like Celegorm. As their relationship degrades, we see mentions of that closeness, emotional openness, and equity of station disappear. Now Eol goes about his business, Aredhel concerns herself with their son, and they wait until Eol is gone to flee.

On the topic of why people agree to the demands of abusive or otherwise toxic partners, when interviewed many people say that they would like to stay with their partner but that they just want the abuse/hurtful behavior to stop. Now, it's not always possible to achieve that, but many people love their abusers. They make excuses to themselves, their families, and to the medical and legal system to protect them. We cannot discount the impact fear, threats, isolation, and lack of resources have on this behavior, but it would be wrong to dismiss the emotional attachment many people feel. I believe this is a valid reason why Aredhel would initially entertain Eol's demand that she not travel in noldor lands (additionally, she has only had experience with her brother at this point, and Turgon eventually relented and let her go, so perhaps she thinks she can eventually wear Eol down into relaxing his restrictions). It would also explain why she pleads twice to save Eol's life.

Now, I think their relationship, even before Maeglin was (lovingly) conceived, was poised to fall apart. Eol cannot get past his opinions of the noldor, and while those opinions are not incorrect and are, on their own, valid to hold, he marries a noldor woman and has a half-noldor child with her. I think a certain lack of trust in Aredhel, and lack of respect for her cultural background, lays the foundation for his abuse of their son. I read some excellent meta recently about the functional impact of the Quenya ban, and the writer posed that by banning Quenya, the language and culture was associated with kinslayers - thusly, anyone who wanted to participate in political life in Beleriand (which required peace and intergroup co-operation) would have to disavow not just the kinslayings (despite being overwhelmingly kinslayers themselves) but also there heritage. I can see this kind of mentality come out strongly in Eol's treatment of Maeglin: he is concerned that Aredhel teaching Maeglin about her family is like a poison to him, that any faith he has in his wife's good nature or his own ability to parent effectively and teach Maeglin about his own culture is overwhelmed by the canker of noldorin culture.

I think this further corroborates your claim that their relationship slowly degrades from good to bad, because I don't think Aredhel would have tolerated that initially, and if we follow LaCE I'm not sure conceiving Maeglin would be possible with the degree of animosity we see toward the end of their relationship. But I might push a little on the idea that the relationship between Aredhel and Eol was healthy up until the birth of Maeglin. I think the introduction of Maeglin to the family, the creation of two new subsystems, the shift and echo of power within the system, all combine to catalyze abuse. But a loving relationship does not equal a healthy relationship, and loving and being loved by someone does not mean that you have a true, deep respect for each other. It is fully possible to be in love with someone, care deeply about them - and be unable to relate meaningfully to them, or understand their fears or needs. This is how I perceive Aredhel and Eol's relationship almost up until the moment she flees from him.

Now I have some loose end thoughts. Regarding the impact of Eol's parenting on Maeglin, there is some interesting research on chronic fear in children that I refer to now. Chronic (prolonged, or recurring) fear in children causes a host of acute and chronic issues later, both physiological and psychological. Blood sugar, stress hormone levels, sleep health, capacity for and strength of emotional attachment, attention span, short and long term memory, sociability and antisocial behaviors, and rage are all negatively impacted by experiencing chronic fear. Fear is a word that has certain connotations in people's minds, but in this context it can mean anything from living in a war zone, to experiencing abuse, to being bullied or growing up being discriminated against for any reason, to being food or housing insecure, to being routinely disciplined in an illogical/punitive manner. Not all sources of fear are imminent physical threats (there is a reason it is a separate and unique felony crime, for example, for a child to witness abuse taking place even if the child is technically safe).

So we can look at all this and apply this to how we think Maeglin thinks, feels, and interacts with the world considering his poor relationship with his father, the disintegrating relationship between his father and mother, his introduction to gondolin (and losing both parents), and then the discrimination he faces within Gondolin. He moves from one system of fear to another system of fear, and the irony is that his father couldn't stand him for his mother's heritage and the Gondolindhrim judge him for his father's. I think in some ways, Nan Elmoth and Gondolin are reflections of each other, and what happens when xenophobia, isolationism, and fear come into play.

Something else that came to mind while writing was that different groups of Sindar view the Noldor differently. Doriath views them as a challenger to the rule of Beleriand, and this is evident in how Thingol speaks of his kingship and the laws he makes. Some Sindar go with Turgon to Gondolin - though the ruling class, and the historians like Penlodh are all Noldor, so while Maeglin was not entirely alone in Gondolin, he still was not truly free, and the historical record after his death is most definitely biased. the Sindar in the north see the Noldor as allies - though again, similarly to the Sindar that took Turgon as their Lord, or the Edain immediately swearing to elvish Lords, I see Tolkien's bias and racial hierarchy creeping in here to determine "logical" progressions of events. I think all of this contributes to a very tense environment in Beleriand, between the noldor and the sindar, between different groups of sindar, etc etc, and different groups would likely have different fears/reactions to the Noldor. I think Eol was poised, with his cultural trauma, for his marriage to fail. And he is mentioned in connection to Thingol, not Círdan, so his cultural and political context comes into play here. Additionally, we have no idea how old he is. Thingol (and Círdan too iirc) is old enough to remember the Teleri that left for Valinor; this is speculation, but Eol could be as well, which would at least contextualize his intense reaction to the kinslayings as an even more personal grief.

This was a very long free-form way of processing what I think about Eol, and I think I can safely say I find him more interesting as a character now. I really wanted to like him! I tried so hard! I can find something to like about almost every character in the legendarium (even if it's just a "wow that is such an interesting/stimulating way to build characterization"). And I think I can do that with Eol now. I think there's so much to explore re: Nan Elmoth, his skill as a smith, and his relationship with the dwarves.

I actually think it was you that posted about Feanor and Eol being similar, and the thought crossed my mind again as I was writing this up, firstly because of their similar passions, but also because I think they respond to stress, fear, and grief in a similar way. Neither of them handle it well, and they take it out on the people around them. In fact, I think it's great to contrast these two. On the one hand, we have Feanor, grieving his mother, his father, the last bit of stability in Valinor, and feeling like he doesn't belong in that society, that he's tainted, and that everyone secretly hates him (Morgoth's brain worms aren't helping). On the other hand, we have Eol, who is grieving the murder of his kinsfolk, and who views the arrival of the noldor as the colonization and the potential obliteration of his people (a valid fear to have, and corroborated by those princes of the noldor who cross the sea not to fight Morgoth but to obtain kingdoms of their own). And of course, the threat of imprisonment in Gondolin for life is the last straw, and very important in my mind when considering what Eol does next.

It just came to mind, but you could perhaps draw a parallel between Eol trying to kill Maeglin as a perverse mercy killing to spare him the pain of being an outcast in Gondolin, and Denethor trying to burn himself and Faramir alive to prevent their remains from falling into the hands of the Enemy. Eol has a certain love for his son, and unfortunately it's the killing kind.

Again, I really appreciate you taking the time to talk with me, and I'm in agreement with you! It was really helpful to hear your thoughts. In a way, it was kind of freeing to hear you say Eol was kind of crap? The last conversation I had (years ago) with someone about Eol and transformative works, I got the distinct sense that they thought anything less than a fully exculpatory reading of Eol (and reworking the narrative to place the blame of Aredhel's death on "an accident" or "getting between Turgon's men and Eol") was not good enough to repair the narrative. And don't get me wrong! I actually really enjoy AUs and canon divergence, and this arc is no exception!

But sometimes I like to stick closer to canon, and pick apart the biases in the narrative and how they're impacting the characters, especially in an arc that is tied so closely to those characters. I had a pretty firm grasp of the biases at play, but I didn't have as good a handle on the dynamic between Eol and Aredhel and that really tripped me up when I considered possible adaptations to their arc.

My final thought is that I hate having the only character of XYZ background be the villain. I think the way I can potentially get around that is that because it's easier to repair Maeglin's narrative, it's easy for me to make Maeglin sympathetic. As you said, Eol is sympathetic, and nuanced, but also kind of a shitty guy. Whereas Maeglin is sympathetic, nuanced, does some things are are Not Well Adjusted, but also imminently likable once the narrative biases are stripped away. Most of Maeglin's "Crimes" in the narrative are like "he was in love with his cousin, but he was respectful and didn't say anything about it, but she was a mindreader and found out anyway," and "wow he's so close to the king, that's suspicious (even though they're blood related and that's not a red flag at all)" and "he gave up the city ... to gain his cousin as a prize ... but he was tortured first, so maybe it was the torture that really sealed the deal, not the cousin-loving?" Sorry, abrupt departure from academic language into dark humor. But yeah. Fully fleshing out both of these characters - and maybe including some of the sindar of Gondolin and Nan Elmoth as OC's even? - is maybe the way to go.

#Eol #Maeglin #Aredhel #Sindar #Nolofinweans #Gondolindhrim #meta #cosmic-walkers #tol-himling #long post

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ampleappleamble · 3 years

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—

Chomp. Slurp. Smack.

He glanced up at the group of foreigners. Nothing.

Slorp. Crunch.

Still nothing.

Hiravias was beginning to wonder if he was wasting his time.

He knelt over the still-warm deer carcass, watching the strange little party as they stood just beyond the treeline, talking and stretching and tending to one another's wounds while he licked the blood from his fingers, pulling each digit from his mouth with a loud sucking, popping noise. Ordinarily he'd never eat so ostentatiously– it was never a good idea to draw attention to oneself while eating in the wild, unless one liked having one's hard-earned kill stolen away by something bigger, stronger, and hungrier than oneself. But they still wouldn't look his way, and by now he was starting to feel full. Wael's bowels, how much more loudly am I gonna have to chew before they hear me and decide it's worth investigating? Maybe I should just throw a handful of offal at them instead.

It was unlike him to be so indirect with his intentions, but one never could tell how some estramorwn would to react to a tiny, hairy man openly approaching them with a toothy smile and copious amounts of blood smeared all over his hands and face and clothes. So he had decided to play it safe and try to lure them to him, although he had apparently underestimated either the foreigners' capacity for curiosity or the limits of their sensory perception. These foreigners were the strangest he'd seen out here in a long time, and he was dying to talk to them– for instance, there was only one Dyrwoodan among them, if their accents were anything to go by, and he actually seemed to be taking orders from the orlan in the group. That alone was reason enough to try to insinuate himself into their company, just to find out what was going on there.

He had a few other reasons for seeking their attention, of course. And they were curiosity-based, too. Mostly. Hiravias let his gaze drift slowly over the orlan woman as she allowed the feathered Ocean folk to lay her hand on the curve of her furry hip, a soft, golden glow emanating from the Godlike's fingertips. The orlan woman sighed in relief as the bruise marring her tawny skin faded in the golden light, and she smiled up at the other woman with gratitude, her thick, full lips parting just so, her long eyelashes fluttering.

He pulled his thumb from his mouth with a loud, wet pop.

The Ocean folk woman whipped her head around suddenly to face in his direction. "We are being watched," she hissed, her hawk's eyes narrowing as she searched the underbrush.

Finally! He feigned surprise at being "discovered" as best as he cared to, freezing and holding up his gore-streaked hands when the adventurers charged over, cautious but not aggressive. Yet.

"Woah, there, sorry if I startled you," he grinned, relishing the looks of confusion and disgust he was inspiring on the shiny new faces before him. "I was just enjoying the bounty of nature a little too enthusiastically, I guess. By the way, this isn't your forest, is it? Because if it is, you need a better game warden." He turned his head and spit out a wayward wad of gristle before wiping his mouth on his sleeve, and the wood elf in their party actually gagged and turned away. Hiravias couldn't help but feel an odd sense of satisfaction at that.

The orlan woman, on the other hand, seemed to relax a bit at his words. "I don't think Stormwall Gorge is in my jurisdiction, no. You took this deer down by yourself?"

"A stelgaer killed it, actually," Hiravias replied, smiling pleasantly. Not quite a lie. "A rather large and ornery one. Although the deer had a badly malformed heart and would have been dead within the year even if the stelgaer had never crossed its path. I'd show you, but, well, it was also a very delicious heart." He gestured to the carcass, spreading his arms wide before him. "Here, be my guest. There's no way I can eat all of this myself!"

The dwarf actually stepped forward, her eyes lighting up like stars in the night sky. "I call the shank," she said, drawing a knife while the fox at her knee slavered, panting eagerly. Everyone else remained where they were, their grimaces slowly intensifying.

"And here I thought Sagani was the only raw-meat-eater I was liable to encounter in the Dyrwood," the orlan woman chuckled, indicating the dwarf woman with a tilt of her chin. "You don't cook either, huh?"

"What, and burn out all the flavor? Wreck that incredible texture?" Hiravias scoffed, shaking his head. "Galawain would strike me down where I stood for disrespecting one of His beasts in such a manner, and for damned good reason, too! I mean, look at this–" He dug into the creature's guts and pulled out a fat, juicy loop of intestines. "How is this not appetizing?"

He held the viscera out to her, trying valiantly to fight the mischievous grin twitching into place on his face, but he couldn't quite help himself. "Here, go on. It's the best part! You won't regret it!"

She fixed her eyes on his, a smirk of her own slowly crawling across her lips as she crossed her arms beneath her ample bosom. "You first," she murmured, her voice low and smooth and sultry.

Well, shit, woman, say it like that and how can I refuse?

Feeling a bit sophomoric, but determined not to give up, Hiravias defiantly returned her stare as he stuffed the pink, glistening tube into his mouth and began chewing– and of course, instantly regretting it. "Mmmmm," he managed, performatively rubbing his belly even as he winced and drooled. "S-so... good..." The taste of shit and lingering digestive acids mingled in his mouth. So much for my full stomach.

The aumaua towering above them all choked out a half-laugh, half-groan. "My friend," he declared, "I somehow seriously doubt that."

"Desgant," the bird woman spat, baring her teeth in a disgusted scowl. She didn't look away, though, so Hiravias counted that as at least a partial victory. The dwarf and her fox watched, too, silently filling up on strips of raw venison with only mild bemusement on their faces. He was definitely in there.

Finally he swallowed, although it took him a couple of tries. "Well! Now I know it had elderberries for its last meal. Praise be to Wael for the revelation!" He wiped his mouth again, shuddering, and held out his filthy hand for a shake. "Name's Hiravias, by the way. It's been a good long while since I've shared a meal with such pleasant company, so... thank you for tolerating me." The little woman nodded, smiling, but she kept her hand out of his.

The Dyrwoodan snapped his fingers suddenly, pointing at Hiravias and grinning as though he'd finally solved some great and vexing mystery. "Oh! I got it. You're Glanfathan, ain't ya?"

He barked a short, sharp laugh in response. "This is the brains of the operation, then?"

"What Edér lacks in intellectual prowess, he more than makes up for in other fields, trust me." The orlan woman's smile turned kind as she gently patted the folk man's wrist. "I'm Axa Mala, the... the Watcher of Caed Nua." She almost seemed to have to force the words, as though she wasn't quite used to associating herself with that title just yet. It made him think of the Autumn Stelgaer, a pang of sympathy striking his heart. "What's a nice Waelite like you doing in a place like this, then?"

"Me? Oh, seeing what there is to see, eating what there is to eat, experiencing the wonders of this strange and beautiful and world the gods have blessed us with." He dipped his head low in reverence for a moment before peeking back up at her. "I'm a Druid of the Circle of Hawk and Ivy of the Fisher Crane tribe, you see, and I've been all over Eir Glanfath a few times over now, even pushed into the Dyrwood where I thought I could get away with it without having to face down a bunch of drunken meatheads calling me a hairy little face-painting catfucker. But I have to say, throughout all my travels over the years, I've never had the good fortune to meet a Watcher before."

Her smile broadened even as her eyes narrowed. "And you'd like to see more of this Watcher, is that it?" She may have taken a while to get rolling, but she sure caught up fast. "Well, a Druid's talents could certainly be a boon to us, as well as a native Glanfathan's knowledge of the land and the locations of Engwithan ru– uh." She stopped abruptly, her face blanching as she reflexively readjusted her satchel, pushing it a bit further behind her back. "Not that– we don't– I mean, uh..."

Right. There was that. He'd been so caught up in actually talking to other kith again– another orlan, at that, and not a Dyrwoodan orlan with that depressing, beaten-down, high-strung, constant-victim-of-horrendous-bigotry baggage they tended to suffer from– that he'd almost forgotten that they were a bunch of grave-robbing ruin defilers. He'd watched them descend into Lle a Rhemen hours before, and then he'd watched them emerge with their rucksacks bulging, and although his old protective instincts had flared up inside of him, the familiar rage and indignation wrapping around him like a fiery blanket, instead of shifting and pouncing on them or bidding the earth to open up beneath them, he'd just... watched. Waited. Thought. And now, in place of any lingering urge to gut them, he found himself wanting nothing more than to walk with them, talk with them. It had been so long since he'd run with a pack, and even though they were estramorwn with no respect for the land or for the Builders, they were at least kind to him and easy to talk to. And he knew he'd be lying to himself if he said he wasn't itching to find out what secrets lay buried inside the ruins of the Builders, just a little bit...

"You don't what?" Hiravias huffed, hands flexing at his sides, clenching them into fists over and over. "I didn't see you do anything. ...Maybe the gods did, and if so they'll rend your soul asunder when it passes the Veil, as would be your richly deserved fate, but..." He shrugged, forcing a smile. "This eyepatch isn't just for show, y'know; I really am half-blind. So maybe chance had it that my blind side was facing you when you did... whatever it is you did or didn't do."

Axa scratched at the back of her neck, blushing, not quite able to look at the Glanfathan. "Yeah, I, uh... noticed your Eye of Wael, there." The conversation lulled awkwardly for a moment, until suddenly she smiled at him again, her whole face lighting up. "Hey! Wanna help us track down some assholes who stole scripture from a temple of Wael? Maybe it'll redeem me a little in Their eyes, if indeed I've offended Them."

The aumaua brightened up as well. "Ondra's teeth, I'd very nearly forgotten about that! Will we go to Searing Falls as well?" He leaned toward Hiravias, his smile as bright as the sun and twice as big. "We were asked to go there by a priestess of Magran, you see, on a quest to realize a mysterious vision from her fiery Mistress..."

Edér frowned. "Hey, you said you'd take us to that battlefield where my brother died, look for clues there. ...I guess he ain't gettin' any deader, though, so it's no real rush. Just... you know. Be nice to get some answers, if we can."

Axa gave Hiravias a pointed look. "Well, you heard. Scrolls of Waelite wisdom, mysterious visions, and answers from beyond the grave. We'll have you if you'll have us. You in?"

He ran his tongue over his pointed teeth, smile broadening as he shouldered his pack. "With a pitch like that, how could I resist?"

—

#pillars of eternity #poe anthem infinitum #fic wip #first foray into writing hiravias!#party management soon to follow #thanks for reading ♡

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hello-im-not-a-possum · 4 years

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It takes a pack to raise a pup

“This is bad... What am I going to do?!” The gofer nervously paced around the infirmary, clutching the bitten arm in his hand before turning to face the Janitor “Please tell me that this is just a bad joke!” He pleaded “Please tell me that this is just a mistake...”

“Sorry ta break it to ya Bud.” The janitor lowered his cap down in sympathy. “But I ain’t jokin’ and I ain’t wrong about this: dat ova here is definitely a werewolf bite. I should know, I saw what my table an’ chair legs looked like after my first few full moons.”

As this was a very serious situation, he forced himself to hold back his laughter at the intrusive memory of his wife telling him that her solution to keeping him from turning the furnature into his chew toys was to swat his snout with a rolled up newspaper every time he ignored his bones and squeaky toys in favor of the table legs. This resulted in him letting out a noise that sounded like a cough.

“B-but what about my Ma and Grandpa?! They don’t even know that monster stuff goes down in the studio! How am I supposed to explain to them that every month, I’m going to turn into a blood-thirsty monster!?”

“If ya don’t wanna tell ‘em, they don’t have ta know.” Wally shrugged. “A lotta wolves don’t tell even their closest family members.”

“What if my Ma questions why all my clothes are getting ripped up?! What if Grandpa finds out when he sees me turn for the first- Oh no... WHAT IF I BITE THEM?! WHAT IF I EAT THEM AFTER I TURN?! WALLY, WHAT IF I END UP KILLING THEM?!”

Buddy felt sick to his stomach as he slumped down to the floor, Wally sat down next to him and patted his back.

“Hey Buddy, you’re gonna be fine. Trust me! There’s a ton of werewolves here at dis studio, none of us would mind showin’ ya the ropes or givin’ ya some good advice for dealin’ with this. Who knows, it might even be a little fun ta get a new pup in the pack.”

“Uuuugggggghhhhhhhhh...”

The Janitor’s words and smile didn’t reassure the nervous gofer, if anything, hearing that he and Wally weren’t the only wolves in the studio made Buddy wonder if the monster that bit him last week was one of his own coworkers. As he thought about it, The wiry music director who was in a constant state of irritation seemed like he was a good candidate to be the wolf who bit him...

He would be lying if he said he couldn’t imagine the man sinking those sharp teeth of his into a human being’s flesh.

“Buddy, c’mon, look at me. It’s gonna be okay, I’m not gonna lie to you, changing is always scary the first few times but you don’t have to do it alone. I can rally up the pack if ya need all of us or I can just keep this between you and me, but no matta what happens, I’ve got your back.”

“Thanks Wally...” He sighed as he still dreaded what was to come. “How soon can you get them?”

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

“Ta-daaaaa! Welcome to werewolves not-so-anonymous!”

Wally unfurled the crudely-made banner as Buddy walked into the break room, Susie clapped, Henry smiled and gave a friendly wave, and Lacie looked bored and unamused but gave a thumbs up and a half smile.

The gofer let out a sigh of relief that he didn’t know he was holding in. Wally alone could’ve been an outlier among werewolves but not all of them. He knew most of these people; the voice actress was hands down one of the most infectiously cheerful people he’d ever met, The Head Artist was a patient and kind man who the gofer looked up to as both an artist and a father figure, and while he didn’t know the mechanic very well aside from the facts that she wasn’t the most friendly or social of people, she didn’t seem half bad.

These people weren’t monsters, he wasn’t a monster.

“Alright, I know a some of us here already know each other but others don’t so lets start ourselves off with some introductions. Who’s going first?”

“Okay. Hi, I’m Buddy, I’m the studio’s gofer and I got bitten pretty recently so I’m kinda scared about all of this...”

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

On the day of the full moon, Henry rented a van with the intent to take the werewolf pack to a cabin in the woods so that Buddy’s first transformation would be in a secluded area.

“So how’d your folks take it?” Lacie inquired to break the silence. “They didn’t look happy when we picked you up.”

“They took it better than I expected, I guess?” The gofer sighed “I mean, my ma seemed pretty scared, but she seemed more scared for me than scared of me.”

“Yeah, that tends to happen...” Henry nodded.

“Guys, I have a question”

“Go for it.”

“If Sammy’s not a werewolf, then why is he coming with us? Wont he get turned?”

The music director rolled his eyes and took a very long sip from his coffee, he also wasn’t looking forward to tonight but for a very different reason.

“Nah... Don’t worry.” Lacie laid back and stuck her boots up on the dashboard. “Hell’s Songbird is cursed with something else so he’s immune to lycanthropy.”

Nobody noticed that the man had flinched at Lacie’s statement.

“...Is he basically an unofficial member of the pack?”

Wally and Susie’s eyes lit up at the question and they smiled at each other before answering.

“Yes.”

“Definitely.”

“Absolutely.”

Wally broke down laughing as Susie broke out her stage voice, even Buddy let out a soft chuckle at her dramatic movements.

“The grumpy banjo man is indeed the pack’s loyal brother, not by blood or spirit, but by true love-”

Said grumpy banjo man turned to face the back seat, the regular irritation in his voice gave way to a sarcastic, deadpan tone.

“If you people genuinely think I ‘love’ getting chewed, slobbered on, roughhoused with, pounced on, and ripped apart by a pack of near-mindless wild animals almost every single month, then you’ve probably been huffing too many ink fumes.”

“Yeah, yeah, so bein’ the ‘designated driver’ of da group isn’t always fun... But ya do it ‘cause you looooooooooove us!”

Henry sighed in a mix of annoyance and acceptance in a way that implied he knew exactly what was going to happen next.

“I’m a married man.” Sammy continued to deadpan. “I thought you knew that by now.”

This response only egged Wally on.

“Psssst! He’s not denyin’ it!” The janitor stage-whispered “So it must be true!”

“Shut UP Franks.”

Sammy huffed and crossed his arms, but not denying Wally’s statement, which led to a loop of Wally’s teasing and Sammy’s fruitless attempts to shut the conversation down, which was only ended by reaching their destination.

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

Buddy felt goosebumps as the van pulled up to the cabin and the sun slowly started to dip down.

“Here we are.”

“Finally! I swear, every single car ride I have with that. walking. headache. becomes the longest one I’ve ever endured.”

“Hey!”

The cabin itself probably looked like a much more warm and inviting place during midday, but as the shadows of the trees started to cast down on the humble little abode, it looked almost sinister. Although, that could’ve just been Buddy’s imagination working against him.

He hoped it was just his imagination working against him.

“Fuck, it’s gettin’ dark real fast.” The mechanic remarked as she looked at the sky. “Should we slap the meat on the grill now or just wait after we change and eat it raw?”

“We should wait.” The animator replied. “At this rate, if we try to cook it we’ll change before it’s halfway done.”

Buddy helped carry things into the cabin; a cooler, a couple of blankets, a duffle bag filled with dog toys and bones, they all seemed like reasonable items, but he couldn’t deny he felt something was missing.

“Hey Sammy, you’re looking out for us after we change, right?”

“Unfortunately.”

“So where are the ropes and chains? And isn’t there supposed to be bear traps and tranquilizers or something like them?”

The musician raised an eyebrow at the gofer.

“...Why would we need those?”

“...To tie us up and keep us from killing people?”

Sammy’s Jaw dropped at Buddy’s suggestion.

“Holy fucking shit... kid, you’re not turning into a monster, you’re just becoming a glorified puppy.”

“But you said it yourself, you get ripped up!”

“So?” Sammy scoffed. “That’s just what all dogs do.”

“He’s more of a cat person than a dog person.” Susie called out from the kitchen “Take everything he says about werewolves with a grain of salt.”

“Easy for you to say!” Sammy called back. “You’re not the one who had to cover over ninety-seven miles in different directions to round up a bunch of whimpering wolves because SOMEONE decided to set off a bunch of firecrackers just as the moon rose!”

“Hey!” Wally called out. “I said I was sorry!”

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

It was time.

Like it or not, he was going to become a beast.

He knew the others’ own transformations were happening right now, he heard their bones snapping and cracking, the changing shadows cast on the floor as he dashed to his own room praying that he’d make it in time.

In the madness, he saw a glimpse of what Sammy’s curse was. He wished he didn’t see that, it would’ve so much easier to trust Sammy’s protection if he didn’t know that burden of the musician’s curse was like a werewolf’s curse except the ‘wolf’ part was scratched off and replaced with something else. The chill that ran down his spine when his eyes met the monster’s also didn’t help.

Buddy locked himself in his room, quickly taking off his clothes so they wouldn’t get ripped during the change and wrapping himself up in the provided blankets to keep himself from seeing his own transformation.

His heart pounded against his chest as he heard someone whimpering and scratching at the door on the other side.

“Focus, Buddy...” He tried to reassure himself. “Deep breaths, don’t get scared...”

He highly doubted he’d be lucid for his first full moon, but the idea of losing his mind and becoming a ravenous monster just didn’t sit well with him, So he tried his best to stay ‘awake’.

No matter how hard it was.

The curse started off his own changes with either his skin, his senses, or his mouth. He didn’t know for sure as it felt like all three were happening at once as he spat out a bloody mouthful of his own teeth into his hands and watched fur sprout up all over his arms, the taste and smell of blood in his mouth and on his now paw-like hands, as well as the smells and sounds of everything else in the cabin was overwhelmingly nauseating.

“D-don’t freak out... the others have been through this lots of times... this is completely normal... Stay calm Buddy...”

He tossed aside the teeth and threw himself deeper into the blanket pile in spite of his body’s increasing temperature and new fur coat. The gofer couldn’t tell if the whimpering he heard was coming from the other wolves scratching at the door or from him.

The next thing the curse went after was everything else; muscles, bones, etc.

It was painful, but at the very least it was fast, he didn’t even have the time to whine for mercy before the malevolent force of the werewolf curse stopped. Buddy let out a sigh of relief as he dug himself out of his blanket cocoon.

He looked at the mirror and saw a frightened looking young wolf, his eyes still looked human and his fur seemed to match the color of his hair. While he didn’t like looking at this and calling it his reflection, he couldn’t help but feel a little bit proud of himself. In spite of fear trying to drive him to the same level as a wild animal, he was still him.

Or so he thought as he was startled by the sound of his door unlocking itself and creaking open.

He let out a yipe and started to bare his teeth and growl at the weird beaked creature that poked its head into his territory. The said creature was not impressed in the slightest and simply came into the room.

Buddy growled louder and snapped his jaws at the creature, his ears laid back and his hackles bristling straight up. While the creature did move away from his bite, it was still not impressed. Out of desperation, he lunged at the black-feathered beast, desperately trying to scare it out but the monster looked like it had dealt with this before as it glided out of the way of his attack and picked him up by the scruff of his neck.

The young wolf flailed, bit, clawed, and snapped at the creature. But he could swear that the beast’s only response to Buddy’s last-ditch efforts to keep himself alive were to roll its eyes and toss the wolf out of the room.

And into the line of sight of two other wolves. Both adults, one of them had pitch black fur, the other one had dark gray fur, but both of them had curious almost human-like eyes.

Thankfully, they smelled familiar to him. Even as a human, he could always recognize the smells of cleaning supplies, bacon soup, and ink. As he got a little bit more used to his new senses, while most of the smells and sounds were still new, and there was too much of it, he could at least identify what they were.

The black wolf came closer to him and sniffed his face before licking it. The other wolf pawed the first wolf’s face away from his own. Assuming that this was just some kind of greeting, Buddy sniffed the first wolf’s face and licked him back, the second wolf let out a noise that sounded like an amused snort.

THUNK

A loud noise from the kitchen that came with a new smell made him realize how hungry he was. Assumingly all thinking the same thing, the three wolves dashed into the kitchen to see the toppled-over cooler being raided by two other wolves. The bird like creature was biting and flapping its wings at them, clearly trying to keep them away from the coveted red meats the cooler held.

“STOP. EATING. PLASTIC!” The creature cried out to deaf ears of the pack. “YOU’RE GOING TO GET YOURSELVES SICK! JUST WAIT FOR ME TO UNWRAP THEM FIRST!”

This tyranny would not stand with the wolves, united as a pack, the five starved beasts joined forces against the giant bird-monster that stayed between them and their food.

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

Buddy woke up groaning with a headache, sore muscles, and an upset stomach the next morning.

Last night was a blur to the gofer, like a dream, the most of what happened during the full moon quickly faded from his mind as he woke up. If it wasn’t for the fact he could still see the bird-monster form of the music director looming over him in the cabin’s rafters, he would’ve chalked the whole thing up to just be a bad dream.

“Sammy?” He groaned. “What happened last night?”

“As soon as I opened the door, all of you ran to the fields instead of the woods.” The music director sounded like he was too tired to be irritated. “I tried to steer you back towards the woods because there was a barn over there, but as usual, none of you listened to me.” Okay, maybe he was still a little bit irritated.

“Oh no... Did I eat anything there?”

“No, but you did get your head stuck underneath a fence and whined until I let you out.”

Buddy blushed in embarrassment as he wrapped his blanket tighter around him.

“Don’t beat yourself up about it, everybody does stupid things the first time they change.”

“So how come you didn’t change back?”

“My curse isn’t determined by the moon, it’s determined by... other things. I don’t like talking about it.”

Sammy wrapped himself up in his wings, ending the conversation.

“G’morning.” Wally set down a fizzing glass of water by Buddy, the Janitor looked more exhausted now than he did after a 12-hour deep clean of the studio. “Ya might wanna drink that, it’ll help with the headache.”

“Thanks Wally.”

He smiled as he sipped down the liquid, while the gofer knew that the changes weren’t going to be easy for him to adjust to, at least he had other people who were willing to help him through it.

#hauntober #moonlight #bendy and the ink machine #batim monster au #buddy lewek #wally franks #susie campbell #lacie benton #Henry Stein #sammy lawrence #fanfic #it's werewolf time lads #body horror #took all night to write this

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arabellaflynn · 3 years

Text

For anyone who didn't catch it on other social media, I have finally moved out of the "temporary" apartment I was stuck in for 7 months, thanks to a lot of emotional and logistical support from friends, and a generous amount of financial support from the folks who gave to my GoFundMe. I am endlessly grateful to all of you, and if I weren't so goddamn tired right now I'd be more eloquent in saying so.

I've spent the past few weeks of unpacking and working out the bus routes around my new place trying to figure out how to explain what was so terrible about the last one. Most attempts devolved into page upon page of rage, which is not really what I want to be doing here. On the other hand, I also don't want to downplay how bad it was.

Spoiler: The temp apartment was Very Very Bad.

The tl;dr is that I was offered someone's spare room on the condition that I help out a little extra with household chores and caring for their rats, because the pet owning roommate had recently had back surgery and was still mobility-impaired. What actually happened is that as soon as they realized I had any basic life skills whatsofuckingever, I was cornered into becoming the 24/7 on-call House Adult. I would have gone on strike, but the other two people in the apartment were so terrible at coping with absolutely any aspect of being alive that if I had, one or both of them would probably be dead now.

That is not hyperbole. I sat back at one point and realized that I had talked to 911 dispatch five times in the preceding four months. None of those calls were for me. To be clear, I ain't mad about other people having medical problems. All five of those calls were appropriate and necessary uses of emergency services. I just resent the hell out of being the default option for handling all of it, even though none of the medical emergency problems were mine, and there were other people in the house. Literally, Short Roommate had a catastrophic asthma attack one night, and when she was wheezing too hard to talk she passed the phone to Tall Roommate -- who immediately ran to the other end of the apartment, banged on my door, and handed the phone to me. It got to the point where I just told the operator what was up, went downstairs to unlock the door for EMS, stood in the corner answering the occasional question until they hauled someone off to the hospital, and then went right back to bed, because none of this was my problem. And that's just the 911 calls, not even counting the number of times I had to talk her down out of a dissociative episode, or any of the other shit I was not warned about and did not volunteer to do. They wore me down until my only response to "a fellow human can't breathe" is "fuck's sake, why am I even involved here".

They both needed a lot more, and a lot more professional, help than they could possibly have gotten out of a random civilian roommate. They both fought tooth and nail against actually getting any of it. Every time Short Roommate was dragged to the hospital, her discharge papers included a big fat packet full of social services, resources, and business cards for actual physical people to phone. I know this because whenever I cleaned the apartment, I found them on the fucking floor, whereupon I placed them on her fucking keyboard, and told her point-blank to call these people. As far as I know, she never did.

I am neither qualified nor equipped to be a live-in caregiver for anybody. There is a fucking reason I have never wanted children. I keep critters because if you give them food, water, toys, and boxes to sleep in, you can leave them to entertain themselves for hours while you work or sleep, and no one will arrest you.

There was a bunch of other stuff. Tall Roommate rarely if ever cleaned anything, including herself, unless directly ordered to do so and given a detailed list of instructions of what you meant by "clean". I only ever got her to wash her own damn dishes once, and I did it by messaging her from the other room 'I just found a mouse in the sink eating snacks off your dirty plates GO DO YOUR DISHES'. She had a laundry list of problems, but the relevant one here is that she was high-support-needs autistic with no support and zero inclination to find any.

[Did I mention the mice? We had mice. All over. The rats murdered two of them when they got into the cages, looking for the free-feed bowl.]

Short Roommate clearly loved her rats but didn't actually do any of the rat care beyond petting and playing. One of them was tremendously sick at one point and needed meds q6h. She was supposed to be helping with that and didn't, which meant that I went several weeks on a maximum of six hours of uninterrupted sleep a night. I tore the fuck into her for that one, pointing out in exactly so many words that some of these meds were painkillers and if the rat didn't get them on time HE SUFFERS. Not doing any of the grunt work, Short Roommate evidently thought rats were so easy she should just keep getting more of them! She rescued two, one of whom was preggo, kept several of the babies, and started talking about waiting for one of the girls to grow up so she could breed him with one of her younger boys.

Gentle Reader, I promise you the only reason I did not strangle her in her sleep that very night was that I knew, deep in my heart, that I could not move the body down two flights of stairs by myself, and if I left it up to Tall Roommate, the corpse would still be in the apartment today.

If I were inclined to any sympathy, it would have died when Short Roommate moved out to shack up with New Boyfriend and New Boyfriend's Mother. She initially took all the rats with her, which made them officially not my problem anymore, but I woke up one morning to a message that said something like "[New Boyfriend's Mother] says that if I show up to our new place with the rats she's not going to let me in, [Tall Roommate] is coming back with all the rats and everything they own". I found out later that this was because their new place was in section 8 housing, where you are not allowed to have pets that aren't service or support animals. Which Short Roommate had known the entire time, and just... made no plans for. At all. Unless "ignore everything until bitchslapped by reality, then panic and make unreasonable demands of other people" counts, I guess.

Eight rats. She dumped eight rats on me. Eight. I wound up taking care of them all without help; Tall Roommate was incapable of keeping anything in her habitat clean, including herself, and I wasn't willing to let her neglect animals. I was actually down to one rat of my own, having lost my two venerable old men, and was looking for a new friend or two for Tseng. Which I had to stop doing, because nine fucking rats is a lot of rats, and I couldn't in good conscience bring Rats nos. 10 & 11 into this shitshow. Naturally, none of the rats got along; two pairs of boys had to be kept apart, and both of them tried to pick fights with poor Tseng, and four of them were girls that had to be kept away from all of the boys for obvious reasons. It was exhausting and a catastrophe.

Once I had the rats she apparently made no further effort to re-home them, although she did keep telling Tall Roommate to come knock on my door and take pictures of them. (I put a stop to this. Tall Roommate did it because Short Roommate had broken up with her to shack up with New Boyfriend, and Tall Roommate had literally no way to cope with this other than try desperately to get her back.) I bugged her to do something about this until, predictably, I had to contact the local rat rescue people to find fosters less than a week before my moving crew was scheduled. When I told her, she replied "oh, I was just about to submit that". Sure you were. And while you're here, I have this nice bridge to sell you.

[The four girls and two youngest boys went to Mainely Rat Rescue. It looks like the boys have already found a home, but the girls are up for adoption. I kept the two old men, who both have special care needs; Garion has breathing problems that involve his own asthma inhaler and a steady diet of NSAIDs, and Errand has attitude problems that involve picking fights with any rat who isn't Garion. They're both just shy of three(!) and unlikely to find homes through a foster program, plus I'm already their third caretaker, so I couldn't send them off with a stranger. They are currently sulking because I wouldn't supplement their dinner with all of my dinner -- which is to say, they're fine.]

The point is, my brain just about died off. The only time in that apartment that I didn't spend cleaning up after three grown adults, two of whom weren't even me, were the weeks after Short Roommate moved out to shack up with New Boyfriend, which she had broken up with Tall Roommate to do, and Tall Roommate took it so badly she ended up inpatient before she ate a bottle of Tylenol. (I called 911 when I overheard her plans. It was about 50% "a fellow human is in need of help" and 50% "argh jesus fuck THIS IS NOT MY JOB please go talk to someone who is actually paid to deal with this".) I am slowly clawing my way back to the surface, so if you'll just bear with me, I'll be back on Twitch this Sunday 3-7 Eastern, and type out more things that have been on hold while I tried to retain at least some of my marbles.

from Blogger https://ift.tt/3tNUiEa via IFTTT -------------------- Enjoy my writing? Consider becoming a Patron, subscribing via Kindle, or just toss a little something in my tip jar. Thanks!

#IFTTT #Blogger #Unsolicited Advice

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quinn-varden · 4 years

Text

Ears to the Ground

“Quinn.”

The young woman sits on one of the dock posts in Stormwind harbour, looking out over the sea. There’s a sound of clinking glass, perhaps from a nearby ship deck.

“Quinn?”

She sits on a rooftop in Old Town. The sun sets in the distance, the sky dimming as the smell of whiskey from the thermos fills her nostrils.

“QUINN!”

She jolts to attention, blinking bleary eyed a few times as her shoulder is shaken and she finds herself standing in the Pig and Whistle behind the counter, the glass in hand overly polished by this point. “Where you been girl? Off in yer head somewhere?”

Still a bit dazed, Quinn sets the glass beneath the bar with the other clean ones. Nose scrunches up, lips tightening with a chagrined look on her features. “Sorry Reese...Mister Langston. Not enough sleep yesterday I’m supposin’. Was daydreamin’ a bit. Won’t happen again.”

Reese Langston’s hand claps her shoulder. “Yeah, hope not luv. Look, I’d just send you home to get some rest, but I just got word Elly’s a bit under the weather and you know I’m not goin’ to push her too far. We got crowd enough tonight that I can’t have you just standin’ here polishin’ glass. Can you take the floor?”

Teeth drag across Quinn’s lower lip as she sucks it in, brown eyed gaze darting over the assembled patrons, before she exhales slowly. “Yes sir, yeah, I can take the floor today. Sorry, that’ll keep me movin’ and focused too. Thank you.”

Not but a nod given in return as the Tavernkeep turns attention back to serving those at the bar. Quinn snags a pad of note paper and the bar’s one good pen to stride out amongst the patrons.

It’s a fairly normal crowd, the usual assortment of ne’er do wells from about Old Town. Owners of nearby businesses stopping for a drink before calling it a night. And of course, a few travelers who don’t seem to have gotten the word on what kind of hole the Pig is, and decided to stop by.

Quinn’s mind begins to drift once more, daydreaming about other things, unfocused on the Bar work as she goes through the rote greetings, drinks, and food specials. Pen scratches out her chicken scratch on the pad, her simplistic notation of drinks, not that she needs to write any of it down really. In practice part of what makes Quinn good at this is her memory.

“...cut to pieces and strung up like some kinda display.”

She’s ripped once more from her idle thoughts by the sound of a voice nearby. What they’d been talking about before hadn’t even registered, but those words set off warning bells. There’s no real outward change, she’s good at not letting sudden reactions show on her features or in her posture, but no longer is she daydreaming.

“Don’t know what we’re supposed to do to make a living now.”

Quinn finishes taking her current order before feet carry her the distance towards the table with the two men. Both of them with dusty faces, large arms, short sleeves, the sort of ruggedness to them that makes them look like day laborers of some kind.

“Havin’ a rough go of it fellas?” Quinn asks with sympathy slipping across her malleable features. “Overheard you might not be able to work for a bit? Tell you what, doin’ a special today only. Give me a story worth hearin’ and your next pint is on the house. We like stories around here.”

“Aint one you’re gonna believe gorgeous,” the man who had spoken first replies. “But sure, I’ll tell it.”

“Don’t have to be true, just got to be good enough to be worth hearin’” Quinn teases back, glancing back down to her notepad. “So tell me your tale and what you’re havin’?”

“Shorter than he makes it out to be,” the second man replies first. “We been hired on for summer work at Grayson’s Lumber yard, out east end of Elwynn. Gets like that this time o’year, bring on a whole mess o’summer labor to finish before the hot season gets goin’ proper.”

“Sounds like you should be payin’ for your drinks just fine then,” Quinn flashes her brightest smile. Inside she’s mentally urging them to get to the point.

“Yeah well, that’s the thing lady, bunch of us been let go,” the first man speaks again. “Owner runnin’ the yard and his two sons turned up,” he blanches a bit looking up at Quinn, and then, in trying to spare the woman, “not livin’.” He finishes a bit lamely.

“It’s got to have been bandits, only ones who’d be twisted enough to cut folks up and then hang ‘em on display with wire like some sick Darkmoon puppet or somethin’ right?” The second man pipes in eagerly. “Only the foremen are convinced one of us must’ve done it, let us all go, sent us home and closed the yard. Maybe they got to...vestigate or somethin’ like?”

Quinn doesn’t bother to hide the downturn of her lips, the furrowing of her brow. “That’s terrible, there got to be guards sent out to look into that right?” She also feels her stomach turn a bit at the description. No wonder the first guy tried to spare her the details.

The darker skinned man, the second, scoffs at that comment, “Miss, now m’friend and I here are good upstandin’ people. But you got to know what sort of people tend to do day labor out there. They got to take whatever they can get to move them logs, and not everyone they toss coin to is on the up and up righ…oof.”

An annoyed grunt from the second as his friend kicks him under the table. “She don’ need to know all that. Anyway Miss, there you go, not too excitin’ a story but there it is. Man passed away, and now we’re all out of work. Even if it aint what you were lookin’ for, that’s got to be worth a pint right?”

Quinn scrunches up her nose, eyes rolling to the side as though waffling a bit on whether or not to reward the story. Inside she’s already recording the details she’d gotten, making a note that it’s time to make a new report to Vyn. Been too long since something worth noting has crossed her ears. “Yeah, alright, two pints of lager comin’ up,” pen works on page, taking down a rough description of the two gentlemen rather than their order, that seems more worth noting right now. Those writing lessons are paying off.

Then once more the din of the tavern takes over, and she lets her mind drift as she returns to the simple pace of work. For now, she still has this job to do. Tonight, it’s time to do the other half of what she’s paid for.

[ Mention to @lovelydeadlysocialite ]

#ic #plots #Strings & Slaughter #Informant Varden #Operative Mistcaller #Unit 8

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thedeviljudges · 5 years

Text

lucky number seven

Steve switches on the television, watches as the black fades from sparks of gray and multi-colored lights into a crystal clear image of Wheel of Fortune. There’s a ding and some shouting, and as he steps away from the medium, someone clears their throat and mumbles, “Can you turn that up, dear?”

He obliges, gives Rosie a smile and replies, “If we turn it up any louder, people will think we’re in a rave.”

She laughs softly, a little roughly from the scratch in her throat. “Wouldn’t that be something.”

“Is this good?” Steve asks after clicking the button, the rising number on the screen set to a level he knows he personally wouldn’t be comfortable with. It’s not about him here, though. He takes care of them the best he knows how, and sometimes that means exhaustion and over stimulation from the differences in how he functions in his life versus the people he takes care of.

“Better,” comes the reply, and with that, Steve leaves, knows Rosie won’t go anywhere any time soon. There’s a lineup on the television. It’s always on at the same time every day, and it’s the reprieve he needs to catch up on all his other rounds.

Heading straight for the reception desk, Steve rounds the corner, tapping his fingers against the surface of the wood. The folders he needs are tucked away under the desk, alphabetized and ready to find. There’s usually a chart on the computer, the one the receptionist is using, and Steve would normally bug her for information about who’s next on his list, but he knows this one. Like the back of his hand, Steve unfortunately pulls the file of his least favorite resident.

“If you frown any harder, your face is gonna get stuck like that.”

Steve blinks, turns toward the voice and finds Robin at the end of it. Her fingernail clacks against the mouse her hand is resting over, eyebrows raised like her point is important.

“I’m not frowning.”

She huffs a laugh and shrugs, turning back to what Steve guesses is college homework. Relief, in some sense, finds his way throughout his muscles. Then again, Steve hardly made it through his first round, and the thought of Robin going further in education is both daunting and excessive if not admirable. “Lies, Harrington.”

In return, Steve tsks but doesn’t argue. So maybe he’d been frowning, but it’s only because he’s on his next rounds. An unlikely presence in a home like this, where visitors come and go freely, where most of the residents are happy as they can be in a world that moves too fast for them now.

He doesn’t want to go, would rather avoid the next room altogether, but with a sigh, he closes the folder, places it back where it belongs and heads toward the bay. The medicine sits stacked in rows, locked behind a thick door in case anyone tries anything funny. He measures what he needs, pops the top off of a few bottles and grabs two cups for his journey.

The walls of the nursing home are pale yellow. Steve’s visited a few in his lifetime before working here, and he thinks they always choose the most mundane colors. They’re always dated, and he can’t tell if it’s a sign of the times or purposefully done to accommodate a sense of familiarity within the residents. Steve thinks that routine is much more conducive, but he’s not a painter, and his decision comes last in these matters.

Instead, he gets to decide whether he wants to enter room 104. It’s cracked halfway open, the television glaringly loud. It’s not that he hates the mister inside, but he gives Steve a run for his money when he’s having a bad day.

Most days are bad days.

Squaring his shoulders, Steve gently raps his knuckles against the wood frame of the door, pushing it open to find his patient sitting up in bed. The clothes he wears are from the night and not usually what Steve expects from him at this time of day. It’s nearing nine, knows there’s something to be said about starting the day off early, that previous sentiment racketing his brain from a redundant lecture.

“Good morning, Mr. Hargrove,” Steve says.

The man grunts in reply, but that’s all he gives Steve to work with. Eyes stare far away from the door to the blue light emanating from the tiny screen hanging from the wall. Voices echo in the space they have, somewhat small and refined because most of the folks living here have very little possessions, and if they had more, they weren’t always allowed to bring them in. Glass trinkets are dangerous and useless stuff after they pass is thrown into the trash. Most bring in books and pictures encapsulated in plastic frames, a reminder that they belong somewhere than just a home for the old.

But this room is bare to its core. The man inside no exception.

“I’ve your medicine for you,” he says gently, feet shuffling across the tile. Slippers sit next to the bed, ready for use, that Steve carefully maneuvers around. There’s not a lot of places to walk around like the shoes imply, and Steve often feels guilty they don’t have a better outdoor situation. The halls are only so long, and supervision is often required for other patients, but the sun would be nice sometimes.

Sometimes.

Steve sets the cups down on the nightstand and waits. If there’s one thing he’s learned, it’s that patience goes a long way with Mr. Hargrove, unfortunately. The inconvenience trifles with the limited time on his hands, always cutting it close with the next visit on his list.

“Don’t want none of that.”

Dwelling within his lungs is the urge to release all the air, let them deflate while oxygen runs across his teeth. The day doesn’t have to be difficult, but there’s always a caveat.

“I know Mr. Hargrove,” Steve says alongside sympathy. “But you know you have to. They’ll help you feel better.”

It’s a wry look he receives, dark pupils staring at him from the corner of older eyes. The crow’s feet are jagged lines that run from the corners of the eyelid back toward the thinning line of hair, what little is left.

The silence balloons between them, only the television playing against the stillness. Steve hears the remnants of Rosie’s show ringing in his ears, played on repeat from all the times he’s turned the television on just in time for a contestant to spit an answer.

He’s sure neither of them know how long they stand there, Steve not forcing his hand quite yet. There’s protocols and the like for individuals who make a rough go of it, but Steve often feels a little too nice to take those measures if he can do his best to coax everyone to follow directions.

After enough time has passed, and just when Steve is about to throw in the rag and try other bargaining tools, Mr. Hargrove’s fingers twitch, shoulders slumping as he angles himself properly. “Hand me the damn cups.”

Steve obliges, not saying a word least that propel the man’s decision to cooperate in another direction. With a watchful gaze, Steve makes sure that Mr. Hargrove swallows his pills, hands him the water when he’s got them in his mouth and breathes as evenly as he can in order to avoid further suspicion of his relief.

When he’s done with them both, he hands the cups back to Steve with another grunt, an aborted noise of dissatisfaction escaping past his lips.

“I’ll be back later for lunch,” Steve says gently against the noise of cheering. Blinking away from a stony face, it’s the first time he sees the television for what it is. A bunch of cars on a track racing in circles and counting down laps. “Call if you need anything.”

The cups give way in his hands, crumbling under the pressure of a curled fist. Steve doesn’t wait for a reply, and truth be told, he knows better than to. His shoes squeak as he walks across the tile and through the door, discarding the cups in the trash near the front desk. The file cabinet is already halfway open by the time he makes his way around the counter, Robin rolling back to position and paying him no mind.

Deep down, Steve’s okay. The draft from a room filled with contempt is stifling, but at least it’s another day for the books. At the very least, he can take that and run with it.

“Some motherfucker always has the nerve to take my damn parking spot.”

Robin’s ponytail swings in a fluttery mess of golden-brown, and Steve finds the map of freckles highlighted across her face from the hues of light cascading through the open blinds as she tilts her head.

“If you’d learn to be on time, dingus, then maybe you wouldn’t have a problem.”

“I’d argue that you’re doing it on purpose, but I know that’s not it. It’s not your car.” Steve removes the jacket from his shoulders, shaking the left sleeve until it slowly crawls down his arm. It’s an annoying thing he finds with the uniforms they have to wear; they cling to everything, and he finds that he gets stuck in clothes more often than he’s able to take them all off.

The jacket goes on the coat rack, Steve dropping into the second chair behind the desk. It’s early in the morning, and the crew on the overnight shift hasn’t yet left. Steve hears them shuffling about, gathering things that need to be cleaned and dumping the overnight trash into the bins.

“Hey, did you ever find out-”

“Fuck you, old man.”

Robin’s eyes meet Steve’s, going wide as her mouth slowly closes, silencing the question on her tongue. There’s more muffled comments that Steve can’t quite make out, but it drifts down the hall. It’s an argument if he’s ever heard one, and the hairs on his arm raise from the exaggerated scenarios running through his head.

They have protocol for unruly patients, but the most they’ve ever been instructed to do with possible visitors is call the police. Steve scans the reception area and finds no phone readily available. “Rock, paper, scissors?” he asks with a shoulder shrug.

Robin gives him a look, sighing. Her body isn’t rigid likes Steve, and he guesses that maybe she’s not been on the other end of a yelling match. That isn’t to say Steve enjoys them much, but his father has a way with words.

As he’s thinking, Robin brushes past him, startling him. Reaching out, he gentle grasps her wrist. “Let me handle it.”

Pointedly, she takes a look at his temple, the little scar left over from when he got into it with Tommy in senior year. Robin had been witness to it, played nurse and made him sit through the pain of the alcohol she’d used to wipe up the blood and clean the cut.

To avoid further conflict, and because there’s still deep voices resonated from down the hall, Steve pulls the puppy eyes that practically gets him anything he wants. Robin, normally immune, hesitates as she looks back. It’s cute, he thinks, that someone is actually worried for his safety. That’s still a thing he’s not use to, but he tugs at her wrist as he stands up, positions himself in front of her and smiles. “I’ve got it. Don’t worry.”

He feels like those are famous last words. Not that he actually believes in harms way, but Steve has seen patients act out or have episodes that leave people with scratches and pretty bruises. It’s not their fault, he knows; old age is nothing that he can outrun, but a body in distress isn’t always the easiest to handle.

He leaves Robin there, notices her sit back down out of the corner of his eye, and he’s relieved for that. Usually she’s the type to follow, always has Steve’s back in whatever dumb shit he’s trying to do, but truth be told, he’s been hurt far more than she has, and well, Steve has always been a bit of a mother hen.

As he walks down the hall, the voices become clearer until there’s nothing left. Steve, as he’d been listening this morning to the scrape of employee shoes on the floor, finds that there’s a much deeper set of footsteps amidst the others. When he pauses, peering into every room as he walks in case something is off, a door at the end of the hall opens. It catches his attention immediately with the force of the swing.

Dread immediately fills his body.

There’s a pair of boots on the floor, accompanied by legs in jeans. Steve trails his gaze up, following the shape of a human body leaving Neil Hargrove’s room.

Neil never has guests.

He’s blond. That’s the first thing Steve takes notice of. Untamed curly hair. Thick brows. Pink lips. The list goes on really, and Steve bits the inside of his cheek to bring himself back into focus. Into the real meaning of why he’s standing in the middle of the hall like an idiot while he tries to figure out who the fuck this man is, and how he knows Neil of all people.

When Steve focuses again, the man with no name is leaning against the wall just outside the door, runs his hands through those curls. There’s a tick in his jaw, unreleased tension building in the way he holds himself—in the slope of his shoulders, in the way his fingers tap against his jeans like he’s itching for something to do.

A good amount of time passes, lost in thought, lost in a hallway with no indication of time sifting through the ether. Steve stands there, and the man stays there until they both gain composure, Steve only moving when his companion pushes himself away from the wall.

As soon as he turns, he spots Steve. It’s kinda hard to miss him when he’s in turquoise scrubs against a yellow backdrop of nursing home walls. There’s the initial pause that comes, the startling thought of being caught so intimately, and then the inevitable change of facial features into one of pure anger.

Steve might’ve fucked up on this one.

His throat works, thick with saliva and unable to churn out the words he needs to bring help to a situation that had deescalated but might shift in reverse any second. The furrow in the other man’s brow creases, eyes glassy but hard, akin to a stone caricature. It’s like a gunslinger’s battle just without the weapons, and Steve feels his pulse escalating until it drops, suddenly.

Like a balloon bursting, the man licks the front of his teeth, smiles in the most dangerous way and continues down the hall like nothing happened at all.

Steve catches a glimpse of him as he passes. Pretty blue eyes and a chain around his neck. The denim jacket smells like subtle cologne, and before he has a chance to ask, the sound of heavy boots are disappearing.

The decision to run after him or go check on Mr. Hargrove is difficult. It’s obligations on both ends of the spectrum, but at the end of the day, it’s Neil that lives here so Steve shakes his head to unstir his thoughts until he’s planted in front of an open door and a bare room with nothing but someone inside.

Neil is in his wheelchair today rather than his bed. Steve would take it has a good sign if it weren’t for the way he’s got his leg stretched out in front of him. There’s the thought that maybe his visitor had done something wrong, busted up the knee and left behind pain, but Neil gives him a look that shuts him up, reminiscent of blue eyes who’d argued to speak his mind.

“Get the fuck out,” he grumbles in reply, reaching for the remote. The television isn’t so loud this time, doesn’t bounce off the walls like he’s used to. Steve doesn’t listen, not until Neil flips through the channels and settles on his station of choice.

It’s always the cars. Always the stupid cars on the track. The numbers counting down and Steve unaware of the rules of the game.

He suspects that Neil is fine, would probably bitch at him if he wasn’t. So Steve says, “let me know if you need anything,” and is just about to step out when Neil huffs out laughter.

At first, it sounds like it’s aimed at him. Steve feels that tell-tale leak of shame in his chest for wanting to be helpful and productive, but the flicker of the tv screen changes his mind in an instant.

It’s not just cars anymore. It’s a list of drivers with their sponsors and their numbers, and Steve can’t miss it for the world. Couldn’t if he tried.

Number 61 has vivid blue eyes. Curly blond hair, and a self-deprecating smirk that rings all too familiar.

#x #billy hargrove #harringrove #sort of #this fic should really be multi-chaptered but it came from a HC i had and this is the fleshed out version #so here we are so uh yeah billy aint in it much but like u kno #guess what billy's occupation is!!!!!!!!!!!!#lmao i didn't do it on purpose actually billy didn't have anything until the idea came to me randomly #so thanks brain for that super helpful

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cloudbatcave · 5 years

Text

The coati pointedly slammed the door as they got back into the car.

“I didn’t know.” Avonna mumbled, arms crossed, hugging herself. “How could I know, Danaa?”

At least she’d gotten the name right.

The coatimundi made a disgusted noise, her long face wrinkled in disgust.

“How could you not?” She replied, turning and looking out the other side of the back seat through the car window, out at the tenements and the worn streets.

Both were jolted as the car went over yet another gap in the road.

“It’s not like anyone talked about it.” The genet retorted sullenly. “They always said - I was told things were getting better.”

“You never went to see. You just believed them.”

Avonna stared out the window as the buildings rushed past, slowly leaving the neighborhood behind. The scenery became in better repair, and the stench of magical ozone began to leave her nose.

“It wasn’t my business.” She says, face feeling hot. What right does Danaa have? They were both raised the same way. Nothing makes her any better, gives her the right to act like this.

“Of course, it wasn’t your business.” She laughs, which is worse than anger, worse than mockery, and Avonna’s claws sink into the gray car seat.

“It wasn’t! You think it’s so - so funny? Were you born knowing everything?”

The quiet that fills the car makes her nervous, makes her fur stand on end. Her long tail bushes up and she clutches it as it twitches in her lap. Slowly, she turns, looks over at Danaa.

The disgust on the coati’s face makes her insides wither, and she drops her amber gaze.

“Hardly.” says the other biped. “Hardly at all. I questioned what people told me, I looked around. I noticed what the news didn’t report, what didn’t seem to fit. I noticed people who weren’t just seWards and seVisis, had the right handshakes, went to the right schools. I noticed they didn’t have anything we did.

If I don’t laugh, I’ll kick you out of this car, let you fend for yourself. Then you might learn a few things.”

“I’m sorry I’m so stupid.” the spotted biped retorts bitterly.

“The best apology is pulling your head out of your ass.”

She doesn’t know what to say to that. They sit in silence until the car reaches the apartment building in the old artificers’ section, the part of town less glamorous than the aristocrats’ but nowhere near the disrepair she’s just witnessed.

Claudius greets them with a wave, his part-robotic face unreadable as usual.

“Did the demonstration go as planned?” He asks, stepping aside to let them in. Avonna hardly notices as she walks, nearly tripping over his foot. She apologizes, and looks up to see…sympathy?

Danaa clicks her tongue impatiently, but Claudius pauses.

“It went fine.” The coati says, tapping her boot against the ground. “Some of us need dinner, Claudius. I have to go out again.”

He gives her a look only he can, organic and red mechanical eyes together as the rabbit cuts her off with a sharp gesture.

“You know this is only a tiny part of the suffering the Angvassars have enabled.” He says, switching his attention to the genet. His voice doesn’t accuse, doesn’t shame. It merely states.

She closes her eyes for a moment. A deep breath, in and out.

“Can you handle this, miss seWard?”

Danaa’s watching, she knows, without even looking at the coati’s face. The coatimundi will always be watching, waiting for her to slip up. Waiting to declare her useless to the cause.

She straightens up, gives him a stiff nod. She walks past him to the building’s interior, breathing slowly, clenching her fists.

Sparks crackle around her fingertips as she passes the doors of the apartments, and she keeps going, heading to the stairs.

Let the coati mock her. Let Claudius think she’s weak.

She climbs them, steadily, getting to the roof where the sun is setting on her rotten-hearted city.

A small glowing ball of electricity buzzes as it forms in her right hand, and she ignores the shaking of her body, the prickling of her fur.

She stands on the rooftop, looking over its railing, over the reformists’ garden and the distant skyscrapers, the gathering clouds tinged red.

With a wordless yell, she hurls the ball into the air and watches until it disappears into the sky, finally exploding far above and raining tiny sparks that dissipate and scatter across the street below, leaving the faint smell of magic behind.

Some passerby look up, ears perked and tails swishing, before continuing to walk. It’s just another odd incident in Geovyn, where magic is commonplace.

Her parents. Her college. The Angvassars. Now this ragtag bunch of high and mighty folk who think they’re so much better than she is, but demand her help.

None of them have taken her seriously.

“You are…upset?”

She whirls to see Familiar there, and her shoulders slump.

“Come here.” She says, voice little more than a whisper as she bends down on her knees, tail limp, save for the twitching of its black-furred tip.

It hurries over to her and places its head on her arm, looking into her with its blank white eyes that bizarrely, have some of the most feeling she’s ever seen on a face.

She stands up and Familiar flows up her body, settling on her shoulders as it always did when they went out on missions, head up and ears pricked in alertness.

She’d rather hold it tightly in her arms, but this is more honest. This is their reality.

“Only for now.” She murmurs. “Until we show them what we can really do.”

“You are willing to fight for the reformists?”

She would follow their orders, support their people, strike at their enemies.

She would turn the rot of the slums to richness. She would cleanse the magical pollution, campaign for their policies, turn Geovyn on its very head.

Even as it jarred her teeth, as her consciousness flickered, Avonna hurled another orb of energy at the sky. Seconds later, she saw a lightning strike.

This time the passerby stopped longer, and Avonna faintly heard the anxious mutters, imagined the concern in their eyes. They had nothing to fear from her, but one day, they would all know who she was.

The genet grinned with wild energy as her vision cleared, her eyes alight with magic as her tail lashed back and forth.

“I’m going to fight until they beg me to stop.”

END OF

THE MIND ELECTRIC

#as in theoretically when I hopefully write all of catching lightning #this is the draft of the end of the first part #Avonna is turning out to be a bit worse of a person than my original concept #but i feel that makes more sense really #given she's a privileged rich person thrown into a situation #where she's asked to care about shit she's blithely ignored her whole life #and there are supposed to be three books anyway #so more room for her to grow in the next part #and in storm seeker and tempest fall #she does have empathy? but she's shoving down that and her horror right now to be like ME ME ME I CAN HANDLE THIS I CAN PROVE MYSELF #so she doesn't turn into a puddle #so it's selfishness but also a coping mechanism #cloud writes #catching lightning

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robininthelabyrinth · 6 years

Text

Fic: That Cycle Thing (ao3 link)

Fandom: Flash, Legends of Tomorrow Pairing: Barry Allen/Mick Rory Series: Flashwave Week 2018 (Destiny Series)

Summary: "It's kind of weird, though, isn't it," Barry says, sitting in the clinic for the first time. "You know, that being a superhero or a supervillain is correlated with - well, developing a weirdo reproductive system?"

"Not really," Mick says. "See, it's not correlation. It's the other one."

"Causation? Wait, like, being a superhero means you go alpha or omega? But how?"

A/N: @flashwaveweek - Flashwave Week: ABO

——————————————————————————————

"New one, huh?" the big guy asks, not without sympathy.

"Yeah," Barry says. "Is it that obvious?"

"Kind of is," the guy confirms. "Mostly in the freaked-out way your eyes keep darting around. Don't worry. This place is totally confidential and a, what do you call 'em, a safe space."

"I appreciate that," Barry says, very sincerely. "I mean, you hear stories..."

"Pornorgraphy, you mean," the guy says.

Barry laughs. "Yeah, I guess. It's kind of weird, though, isn't it, that being a superhero or a supervillain is correlated with - well, developing a weirdo reproductive system?"

"Not really," the guy says wryly. "See, it's not correlation, it's the other one."

"Causation? Wait, like, being a superhero means you go alpha or omega? But how?"

"You know how a while back, Superman was the only major superhero?"

"Yeah?"

"You know how he and his cousin are basically the last of their species?"

"Yeah?"

"I'd like you to imagine a computer-robot-creature capable of reprogramming the human genetic code being real unhappy with that fact."

"Wait. Are you telling me -"

"The whole alpha-omega shit all of us powered folks get saddled with is designed to make us reproductively compatible with Kryptonians? You bet your ass. Literally, if you're an omega."

"That's - that absolute bullshit! Why not make them compatible with us?!"

"We've all asked that question," the guy says. "All of us. At length. Usually at volume. Everyone reacts differently to finding out about the cycles, but that reaction’s pretty consistent.”

“No wonder.”

“Either way, that’s one of the reasons why capes end up dating each other more often than not. My name's Mick, by the way."

"Barry," Barry automatically replies, then flushes. "I mean -"

"No, no, it's better this way," Mick says. "No hero identities in the clinic. Keeps fights and rivalries from the outside from coming inside."

"Right. That makes sense."

A companionable silence settles on them for a little.

After a few minutes, Barry clears his voice.

"No, it's nothing like the tabloids say it is," Mick says.

"Oh thank god," Barry says. "That stuff about, like, heats and ruts..."

"You get cramps and a mild fever and you're, like, a little more horny than usual," Mick says. "Pretty similar to a woman's menstrual cycle. Nothing at all like the mindless fuck-or-die no-standards do-anyone bullshit you hear about."

Barry sighs in relief.

"Don't get me wrong, sex helps with the cramps and stuff," Mick adds. "But it sure as hell isn't a total loss of your ability to make decisions. Unless you're, like, into that, but that's your own business, y'know?"

"Good," Barry says firmly. "That was - yeah. Not good. I don't know what I was more scared of, the omega heats where you can't say no or the alpha ruts where you don't care if someone else is saying no."

"Yeah, that is definitely not a thing! Anyone who tells you otherwise, they're being dicks. You tell the clinic what they're saying and they'll shut 'em down. Everyone respects the clinic, hero or villain."

"Good," Barry says again, then hesitates. "Uh, one more question, if that's okay..?"

"Sure, shoot."

"How do you, uh, know? Which one you are, I mean. Or which one someone else is."

"There's a bunch of signs," Mick says. "But you usually aren't one or the other, you know."

"What? You're not?"

"Nah. It's got something to do with stress, proximity to other capes, nutrition, hormones, emotional state, whatever, but most people end up swapping dynamics every few years. Pretty rare to be one or another all the time."

"Huh. I didn't know that."

"Most people don't. It's private, you know? Especially with all the misinformation out there."

"Superhero porn," Barry agrees. "Super-heroes, super-popular - and that's even before the cycle thing got into the mix."

"Yep," Mick says. "Congrats, you’re a fetish now. But what can you do?"

“Not much,” Barry agrees.

"Barry!" the nurse calls.

Barry starts. "Oh," he says, starting to get up. "That's me - I've got to go -"

"I'm sure I'll see you around, the way these things go," Mick says, waving. "But, hey - Barry?"

"Yeah?" Barry says, turning back.

"If you ever have any more questions about all this, I'm happy to answer 'em," Mick says. "Cape or no cape." Then he grins wickedly. “And if you ever want some help getting through those cycles, hit me up.”

Barry blinks, taken slightly aback – is he being hit on? He is definitely being hit on, holy crap, he’s being hit on by a very attractive man who is considerate enough to wait until Barry has a built-in excuse to exit the conversation, this is the best day ever – and then, slowly, smiles back at him. "I’ll keep that in mind. Thanks."

"Anytime."

Barry does end up meeting Mick again, sooner than expected - he's a speedster from the Gem Cities, so he's inheriting the mantle of The Flash from Jay Garrick, the older generation, and along with the mantle of the Flash come the Flash's rogues gallery, including the Rogues.

The Rogues, which include Heatwave.

Mick Rory.

Oh, well. It was probably too much to hope for that he'd be a hero.

At least, if he has to be a villain, he's a villain in Barry's jurisdiction. Heroes, Barry had discovered, are extremely territorial about their villains, always insisting on taking lead against them and butting heads over them.

(After the first the time Rogues visit Gotham, Barry abruptly realized that that means they'll be facing Batman's unique brand of massive overkill vengeance only without the vague fondness he has for his own villains; as this was followed immediately by Barry growing a spine and confronting Batman for the first time to insist that he be part of the investigation and subsequent fight, Barry understands the impulse much more.)

But, yeah. Barry goes through his first few cycles - omega cycles, currently - by lying on Iris' couch and making puppy eyes at her until she fetches him chocolate and hot water bottles, but then she gets together with Eddie and it seems a bit rude to impose.

At least Iris assures him she'll continue to pretend to be his love interest, since having one is apparently de rigueur for heroes, since everyone gets very judgy if you're feeling single for a while.

Even Batman has a love interest. Several, even.

But also, going through your cycle alone is...ugh. Mick was right, at least, in that sex isn't required (though superspeed makes taking a bit of time to scratch the itch an irresistible temptation), but Barry's starting to find that company really is.

And he's kind of short of that.

So when he heads out on reluctant patrol during the itching, annoying second night of his heat to find Captain Cold and Heatwave robbing a small jewelry store - no witnesses, no CCTV, barely anything worth taking to the point that Barry kinda suspects that the place is a Family front - he decides to tap Heatwave on the shoulder and say, "Uh, sorry, but at the clinic -"

Cold is in the middle of raising his gun but when he hears the word "clinic" he drops it with a sigh. "Of course he did," Cold says, rolling his eyes. "Mick, I'll see you when you get back."

"You do that," Heatwave agrees. "Barry, this is an anti-Family thing - wouldja mind if Len takes..?"

"Well, if it's an anti-Family thing -"

No one in Central likes the ever-warring Families.

Cold waves a hand at Mick and glares at Barry. "You be nice to him," he says, right before stalking out.

Barry flushes. "I mean - I didn't -"

He kind of did.

"It's all right if you just have more questions," Mick assures him. "Or even if you just want someone to hang around while you're being miserable. Doesn't have to be a hookup." He grins. "Unless you want one, of course."

Barry wars with himself and his own embarrassment for a minute, but Mick seems so calm and even Cold had been so casually accepting and damnit, Barry hasn't gotten laid in ages which is even longer for a speedster who occasionally time travels back in time to repeat a few days -

"The latter," Barry says, flushing red under his cowl. "If you don't mind."

"Not at all," Mick says, eyes brightening. He steps forward and loops his arms around Barry in prime speedster-carry position. "Well?"

Barry runs them out of there.

Turns out Mick was right: it really does alleviate the symptoms.

After the whole mess with Eobard and things blowing up and Barry feeling horribly guilty and nearly running himself ragged, he notices that his cycles are – different.

Less cramping, more mood swings, for one thing. Mostly going manic, actually – super hyper, super bad focus, none of which is good for super activities.

The horniness is way up, as usual, but now Barry’s suddenly eyeing everyone around him because is it just him, or did he somehow miss the fact that he’s surrounded by extremely attractive people?

It takes a few days of being twitchy for Barry to realize that he’s in rut instead of heat this time.

And, well, Mick did say…

“Oh, sure,” Mick says, holding the door to the Rogues’ hideout open and gesturing for Barry to come in.

“There isn’t, you know, a compatibility problem?” Barry asks, coming in anyway.

“Gay people existed on Krypton too,” Mick says solemnly, then cracks up when Barry gives him a look. “I don’t know, Red. I’ve never noticed a difference, whether it’s alpha-omega, alpha-alpha, omega-omega, whatever. Besides, I live with a whole coop full of alphas now; someone’s going to be shifting dynamics sooner rather than later.”

“Oh?”

“Having a lot of one type tends to result in equalization, apparently? Something about syncing up hormones. Dunno.”

Captain Cold – Len, he’d told Barry to call him – waves from where he’s lounging on the couch. “Glad to see you two lovebirds are keeping it up,” he says.

That gets both Barry and Mick to splutter.

“They’re not lovebirds, they're just fucking,” Mark Mardon opines. He’s digging into a pint of ice cream with a fork. Barry wonders if that has to do with the heightened hunger of the alpha, or the cravings of the omega, or maybe the Weather Wizard’s just a frat boy at heart. Who knows?

“We’re just leaving, that's what we are,” Mick says, grabbing Barry’s hand and leading him upstairs. “So don’t bother us!”

As soon as they’re alone in Mick’s room, he grins at Barry. “Sorry about ‘em. Can’t live with them…you know the rest.”

“Why are you all living together?”

Mick shrugs. “Supervillain thing,” he says.

“What, a shared inability to make rent?”

Mick laughs. “Nah,” he says. “We did a job, it went pear-shaped, and now some people are out to get us, so we’re huddling together for safety. S’cool, don’t worry about it,” he adds, seeing Barry opening his mouth to volunteer help. “It’ll all blow over soon enough.”

“Well,” Barry says. “I’m glad you guys are doing okay.”

Mick’s smile broadens. “I’m glad to see you too, Red.”

Mick does end up going omega after another few months, and he calls Barry on the number Barry’s given him – they’ve been texting a little, back and forth, because Barry’s really bad at doing the whole friends-with-benefits thing without also doing the, you know, friends part of it –with a request that Barry show up at a certain warehouse with his supersuit and without plans for the evening.

It’s awesome.

And, well, after that…

It’s not that they’re dating or anything, that’s for sure. They’re hero and villain, and they are not pulling a Batman-Catwoman shtick.

But Barry has Mick on his speed dial, calling him whenever his ruts or heats hit – he ends up going back to omega pretty quickly, since apparently that’s where his body’s comfort zone is – and Mick does the same, wherever he is on his cycle.

And, you know, maybe they hang out outside of that, sometimes. Mick’s pretty cool – no pun intended – and he’s very laid back, which Barry really appreciates given the usual high-key frenzy that he has to deal with as part of Team Flash.

So, yes, sometimes they go see movies, or go to dinner, or Mick will swing by Barry’s apartment and cook him something, even if it’s not exactly on their cycles.

Sometimes Barry goes to hang out at Mick’s place – which usually involves at least some Rogues, or at minimum Len, because Len and Mick are codependent best friends and Barry respects that, especially once Mick explained that Len is ace and didn’t give a damn about cycles in any direction.

(Also, Len sometimes has glowing blue eyes, usually when he's reading this big large Book on the couch, but Barry has decided not to ask about that.)

Either way, though - it works.

It’s – nice.

Barry’s happy.

Of course, Barry's hardly the only hero with a regular hookup for heats and ruts, but most of them at least pretend that said regular hookups are not with one of their villains. Barry, on the other hand, isn't much for pretending, and that means he gets the occasional Talk from his fellow superheroes.

The annoyingness quality of said Talk varies based on the person involved.

"Bad guy, huh?" Aquaman grunts. "Sure that's a good idea?"

"Truce applies in relation to clinic matters," Barry reminds him.

He gets a shrug in return. "Doesn't make it not a bad idea."

"I'm an adult capable of making my own decisions, thanks."

"You sure you're okay?" Cyborg asks, looking sincerely concerned. "I mean, he's not, like, taking advantage or -"

Barry takes poor brand-new Cyborg to the clinic and corrects his misapprehensions much the same way Mick did for him, though without the proposition.

"A villain, Barry," Oliver says flatly. "Really?"

"Huntress," Barry reminds him. He's never going to let Oliver live that down.

"She's an anti-hero sometimes," Oliver says. "But Heatwave -"

"Are you trying to say the Rogues aren't anti-heroes sometimes?"

"Not the point."

"I don't think you actually have a point," Barry says. "You want to register your disapproval. Well, it's registered."

"You know it's not that," Oliver says. "We're friends. I worry."

"I appreciate that. But seriously, I'm fine. Trust me. Mick and I have a good set-up that works for us."

"You know, if it's just a lack of other options -" Hawkgirl starts.

"I'm flattered," Barry says hastily. "But seriously, Kendra, no, I'm very happy as is." He pauses and frowns. "Tell me Oliver didn't send you."

"No, no - well, he did express his concern -"

"Punch him in the face for me, will you?"

She laughs.

"You know, it's really good that you're -" Superman starts.

"Nope," Barry says. "If this is a lead up to say something about Mick, you should stop right there. I'm totally happy to talk work and even fun hanging out stuff with you, but I'm still pissed at you about the whole cycle thing."

"...fair point," Superman concedes. "Well, good luck. My cousin says hi, too; she's hoping to get back to Earth soon and wants to meet him. Assuming you're not still too pissed at her, too."

"...it's hard to be pissed at Kara."

"It really is," Superman agrees, quite solemn. He doesn’t take any of it personally, which Barry really appreciates.

Wonder Woman just gives Barry a thumbs up, but to be fair Barry is pretty sure she's casually dating Golden Glider, so he wasn't really expecting a lecture from her.

And then one day he turns around and the urban legend of Gotham is standing behind him with a brooding expression.

"Don't tell me you have an opinion, too," Barry sighs. He’d known this was coming – Batman had an opinion on everything.

Usually a negative one.

Usually a negative one backed with data collected via an unnecessary amounts of stalking.

“No,” Batman says. “No opinion.”

“…what, really?”

Batman’s expression doesn’t so much as flicker. “Central City is beyond my jurisdiction.”

Barry blinks. “I mean,” he says, “not that I don’t appreciate that, but – and please don’t take offense here – it’s not like you really seem to pay attention to that whole jurisdiction thing for other heroes, so –”

“Central City itself,” Batman clarifies. “I can’t enter. None of the heroes can, not without your authorization.”

“…what now?”

“Well, excluding Diana,” Batman corrects, as if that was the problem with what he’d just said.

“Go back to the part where there’s a forcefield around Central City,” Barry says.

“It’s not a forcefield,” Batman says. “I’ve checked.”

“Then what?”

“A zone of no-interference,” Batman says. “If it makes you feel better, it’s been there for a while; I don’t think it’s actively harmful.”

“…okay,” Barry says. “And you didn’t feel the need to mention this before, so you’re telling me this right now for a – reason? I assume?”

“The zone appears to have changed.”

Barry isn’t very good at glaring, and certainly not at Batman, but he’s doing his best.

“Your relationship with Mick Rory.”

“Wait,” Barry says, “I thought we were talking about the – no-interference zone, I guess? You said you didn’t have an opinion on me and Mick!”

“Mick and I,” Batman says. “And I don’t. But I prefer to keep an eye on things that change.”

“You haven’t even told me how the zone changed!”

“It doesn’t just apply to Central City anymore,” Batman says. “It also applies whenever you and Mr. Rory are – together.”

Barry gapes at him.

“Just thought you should know,” Batman says, and then he’s gone.

“Oh, that,” Mick says.

“Oh, that?!”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“Don’t worry about it?”

“It’s just a thing.”

“Mick!”

Mick cracks a smile. “Sorry,” he says. Barry smacks him with a pillow; there’s several within easy reach from where they’re snuggling on the couch in the Rogues’ living room. “Couldn’t resist. It is just a thing, though. It's Lenny.”

“Len? I mean, Captain Cold? What about him?”

“Well, way back when, we joined this hero group for a while,” Mick says. “Called the ‘Legends’ –”

“What, really?”

“Yes, really.”

“You guys? As heroes?”

“When I said we all react to finding out about the cycles in different ways, I mean it,” Mick says dryly. “Len seemed to think we needed to try both sides of the villain-hero spectrum to see if it was different. It isn’t, by the way.”

“Okay,” Barry says, mildly disappointed. It would’ve been interesting to go villain for a little bit. Just a tiny little bit. A nice, not-always-on-call villain, who could probably sleep in on the weekends for once instead of having to deal with a brand new crisis of the week…maybe he could arrange a kidnapping instead? Mick would definitely oblige. “What does that have to do with a magical zone of non-interference?”

“Well,” Mick says. “Len ended up doing something stupid.”

“Wow,” Barry says dryly. “Look at me. I’m so surprised. Len? I assume it was extremely dramatic.”

“Well, yeah.”

“Shocker.”

Mick laughs. “Well, anyway, he ended up sort of kind of – getting blown up?”

“He what?”

“Long story. He got better, though –"

Of course he got better.

"- and anyway he ended up in this garden that exists out of space and time, and while he was there, he stole this book - you've seen it, the Book? - and now he has this weird part-time job, sort of, except the guy he stole the book from is sort of mentoring him for a quote, ‘more peaceful transition than my brother’ because apparently there was a whole thing or something, I don't know. So Len gets to spend some of his time here, instead of being stuck in the garden.”

“Okay. So he’s a part-time…bookkeeper?”

Mick cackles. “You hear that, Lenny?” he shouts. “You’re a bookkeeper!”

“You have no idea how literal that is,” Len says, wandering out of the kitchen. He’s got the glowing blue eyes again, and he’s holding the Book – a big, gigantic tome of a book, and there’s a chain going from the spine onto Len’s wrist. “See? I’m keeping the Book. I'm the Book keeper.”

Barry snorts a laugh, somewhat involuntarily. “What do you actually do?”

“Long story,” Len says. “Mick, the pasta –”

“There’s a bowl on the table.”

“You’re the best.”

Len wanders right back out again.

Barry wonders if now is a good time to ask about the glowing eyes.

“They go with the Book,” Mick says.

Barry blinks at him.

“The eyes. They happen whenever the Book’s around. Len thinks it’s cute that you never ask, by the way.”

Barry flushes. “I didn’t want to be rude.”

Mick shifts a little, pulling Barry in closer. “Don’t worry. He doesn’t mind if it’s you. You’re my plus-one.”

Barry pauses. “I am?” he asks hopefully. “Really?”

“I mean. If you wanna be.”

“Yes. I do. Definitely. For sure. I mean, assuming we’re talking about dating.”

“Yeah, we are.”

“Then yes. Assuming you want me to…?”

“Yeah, Red. I do.”

“Okay,” Barry says, smiling. “So, that settled, how does Len and the book play into the zone of no-interference?”

“I think the book gives him certain powers?” Mick says. “I’m not entirely sure. But either way, when he tells people to buzz off, they buzz off. And, uh, when I say that I might want a bit of privacy in my, uh, relationships, then…”

Barry starts grinning wider. “Then it starts applying whenever we're together once I made the move to being relationship material?”

“Basically,” Mick says, looking relieved that he doesn’t have to spell it out. “Man, am I glad that we ironed that dating thing out before I had to admit that.”

Barry laughs.

“So,” Batman says. He’s still wearing the cowl, even though it’s an engagement party and supposed to be low-key and clinic-truce rather than heroes and villains, but he has at least condescended to accept a slice of Mick’s delicious homemade cake. “When you say ‘Destiny’, you mean – actual Destiny?”

Len grins and throws an arm over Batman’s shoulders. “Wanna see my Book?”

“…that’s not a proposition.”

“Nah, I’m ace.”

“In that case, yes. I would very much like to see your – ‘Book’.”

“Great,” Len says. “You can come to my garden and take a peep. One of my new siblings is really looking forward to meeting you…”

#flashwave #flashwaveweek2018 #mick rory #barry allen #leonard snart #my fic

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jasonfry · 7 years

Photo

“Duty Roster” is my contribution to the unbelievably fun Del Rey anthology Star Wars: From a Certain Point of View. (Please go here to read more about the project and First Book, the charity it benefits.) As promised, here are some notes about the story and a discussion of its construction.

(SPOILERS MOST DEFINITELY AHEAD! SERIOUSLY! STOP!)

“Duty Roster” was my Plan B for From a Certain Point of View -- the scene I asked to do was taken. Happily, the consolation prize was pretty good: in the same email I’d also proposed a story I wanted to tell nearly as badly, which I described as “Wedge with the other pilots.”

But I had a twist in mind: my POV character wouldn’t be Wedge, but Fake Wedge.

If you’re not a massive Star Wars dork like I am, this will require a little explanation.

That’s Wedge Antilles sitting next to Luke in the Yavin 4 briefing room as General Dodonna tells the rather skeptical pilots the plan for attacking the Death Star. Wedge says hitting a two-meter exhaust port is impossible, even for a computer; Luke, apparently hell-bent on coming across as a yokel who says nonsensical things, replies that he used to bulls-eye womp rats, which aren’t much bigger than two meters.

Here’s the funny thing: the actor in that scene isn’t Denis Lawson, who plays Wedge in the cockpit scenes in A New Hope, as well as in The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. They sound the same, but they sure don’t look the same.

That’s because they aren't the same. Wedge is played by two different people in A New Hope. In fan circles, briefing-room Wedge became known as “Fake Wedge,” and arguments about the identity of the actor who’d played him went on for years -- until Lucasfilm’s Pablo Hidalgo dug into production reports and Web images and proved that briefing-room Wedge was an English actor named Colin Higgins.

Why the switch? By Higgins’ own admission, he kept flubbing the line and got fired. Happily, Hidalgo’s discovery led to Higgins joining the Star Wars convention circuit and getting some love and recognition from fans before his death in 2012.

So why does Wedge sound "right” in the briefing-room scene? Because all of his lines in the original trilogy were dubbed by a third actor, David Ankrum. If you were miffed by reports that Lawson had no interest in a Force Awakens cameo, perhaps you have more sympathy for him now. Also: you should stream the 1983 movie Local Hero. Lawson has a starring role, he delivers his own lines, and he’s wonderful.

Anyway, Fake Wedge became a part of Star Wars lore, with his different appearance just one of those movie moments in which you had to suspend disbelief.

For FACPOV, I figured we could have a little fun with that. Hence my proposal: I wanted to do a pilot story about Wedge, except I’d be writing about Fake Wedge, who wasn’t Wedge at all. He was another pilot who was frequently mistaken for Wedge, and hoo boy was he tired of it.

I thought that was pretty funny. My editor thought it was pretty funny. The folks at Lucasfilm, presumably, thought it was pretty funny.

I was pleased with myself (and tweeted out a picture of a Wedge figure standing next to Aunt Beru and her blue-milk pitcher), at least until I realized something I hadn’t thought through earlier.

Fake Wedge not being the same as Wedge was a gag. It was a pretty good gag, but a pretty good gag is still just a gag. It would take about 500 words or so for me to tell that joke. What would I do after that?

That’s where I realized I’d actually signed up for something pretty challenging, and got a little worried.

“Duty Roster” wouldn’t work if it was just a Fake Wedge gag. It had to pivot from that and become something else -- a story that captured the terror of the Yavin 4 battle from the perspective of those left behind and saluted the heroism of the pilots who’d fought in it. The reader had to start off identifying with Fake Wedge, but wind up appreciating and admiring Real Wedge. And Fake Wedge had to make that same journey.

I realized that was a tough landing to stick, and 2,500 words (or however long “Duty Roster” turned out to be) wasn’t a lot of time in which to stick it. Well, there was no way to solve it except to get to work.

Before we go any further: Is “Duty Roster” canon? Beats me. I wrote it as if it were, working carefully on Red Squadron’s assignments and making sure the scenes in Massassi Base matched the movie. But that's just good practice. I suspect The Powers That Be would rule that it isn’t -- they’d say Wedge is Wedge, long pointy nose or not. Which is just fine with me -- and, for the record, would be my ruling too. My only concern was telling a good story.

Job One was giving Fake Wedge a name. “Col” was easy -- that rather obviously honors Higgins. “Takbright” came after a couple of false starts, and was a portmanteau of two TV roles from his long career.

From there, I told the joke, which I will now ruin by explaining.

We see Col first, raging about the nickname he hates -- a nickname that I had to avoid specifying for as long as possible to make the joke work. A Mon Calamari tech, Kelemah, thinks Col and the person he’s confused with look alike -- but then all humans do to him. (Setup, plus mild social commentary.) Kelemah then notes that Col and his doppelganger sound exactly alike. (More setup, Ankrum tip of the cap, the most astute readers now realize what I’ve done.) A veteran pilot, Puck Naeco, almost says the forbidden nickname, but falls back to asking what, exactly, “the kid” said to make Col so mad. (Bit of misdirection, more setup.) Col recounts the two-meter objection we know as Wedge’s line. (Some readers now get it, which is a reward but means I’ve got to hurry to the punchline while they’re still smiling.) Biggs enters with other pilots, including Wedge. (Pieces moving into place.) One of those pilots, Elyhek Rue, mistakes Col for Wedge. (Board now set.) Laughter, and Puck explains that’s why Col is and will always be known as Fake Wedge. (Punchline, and scene.)

See what I mean? We’re less than two pages in and the joke has been told. Which is why I also used the gag to introduce the most important characters for the more serious story “Duty Roster” would have to become.

To pivot effectively, I couldn’t tell the joke and then take time to introduce a bunch of new characters to the reader. So we’ve got pilots and techs doing double duty for the gag and the serious story. There’s Puck, who’s Col’s mentor. Kelemah, whose technical knowledge will be critical later. Rue, who will be with us throughout. And of course Wedge himself. That’s a variant of a basic lesson: storytelling is most effective when scenes and/or characters are advancing the story on multiple fronts.

With the gag behind me, I had to establish Col as a sympathetic yet flawed character. And so I dived into that, setting up Col and Wedge as opposites in temperament and attitude. Col is dedicated to the rebel cause but thinks his anger reflects well on him; he’s too self-absorbed to realize it’s what’s holding him back. He sees Wedge as too quiet and reserved, perhaps even insufficiently devoted to the cause -- which is both unfair and untrue, and says nothing about Wedge but everything about Col’s immaturity and jealousy.

The pilots get their assignments, which is where Col’s dreams turn to dust. I had to engineer it so Luke’s flight of three is the last one filled out with pilots, and the final spot seemingly comes down to Wedge or Col. There’s no particular reason that flight would be announced last, so I suggested that Red Leader is filling flights in order from most-experienced pilots to least, with Luke a bit of a wild card since he’s just shown up. You can see the storytelling gears turning a bit there, which you’d rather avoid. But sometimes you can’t, and I like to think I got away with it.

A brief continuity note, for those who are interested: I’d filled out Red Squadron for The Essential Guide to Warfare, in a section whose most notable contribution was assigning Puck Naeco (originally introduced way back in the strategy guide for the X-wing game) to the up-for-grabs call sign Red 12. I was happy to do so again in “Duty Roster.”

The rest of the squadron had some alterations, though, to fit Rogue One. It was obvious that X-wing pilots who’d survived Scarif would fly at Yavin 4 too, so Ralo Surrel, Harb Binli and Zal Dinnes were in, and off-screen Legends pilots Rue, Bren Quersey and Wenton Chan got sidelined. But that fit perfectly with the theme of the story. It’s no accident that Rue, Quersey and Chan are the three pilots with Col as he watches the battle.

Col doesn’t get his spot on the mission, and so remains in the pilots’ ready room, alone in his misery. (Once again: he thinks it’s all about him.) Giving into his rage, he trashes the place -- only to realize Wedge has left his helmet behind. Wedge enters and tries to avoid a confrontation, but when Col tries to bait him he quietly but firmly puts Col in his place, showing the maturity and sense of camaraderie that Col lacks and the leadership he’ll display as a squadron leader in the future.

It’s a moment of realization for Col. Which is why he cleans up the mess he’s made and heads for the war room to stand with his fellow pilots. That’s his turn -- and it’s because of Wedge.

Col finds his place in the war room and the Battle of Yavin unfolds as we know it. Except we learn something new that’s really important: Wedge is flying an X-wing with suspect hydraulic lines that were patched up after Scarif. It’s risky, but his choice was to fly and take the risk or stay behind, and he chose to fly.

As a fellow pilot, Col understands the risk Wedge is taking. As the battle unfolds, he thinks about how each of the squadron’s pilots has a shot at becoming the rebel hero he’s dreamed of being. That’s a bit of the old Col, but he doesn’t stop there. He cheers for them (a marked change), and also understands that some of them have no chance at glory -- they’re flying to buy the others more time, and know they’ll have to sacrifice their lives to do so.

And he understands that once Wedge’s hydraulic lines are severed, he’s as big a danger to Luke and Biggs as he is to the TIEs chasing them. So Col doesn’t blame Wedge when he peels off -- in fact, in a sign of his newfound maturity, he urges Kelemah to tell Wedge to do so.

We then learn something else: Wedge charged his auxiliaries and tried to go back to help, which would have been a death sentence. It’s a bit of continuity added to a scene that doesn’t really work in the movie (where the heck is Wedge going?), but Col’s reaction is the key. He understands he would have done the same thing Wedge did, that it would have been a mistake, and begs Wedge not to throw away his life for nothing but pride.

The pilots return, but while everyone runs to congratulate Luke, Col hurries to find Wedge, who’s wrestling with the guilt he feels at having left the fight. It’s Col who absolves him, pointing out that Wedge took out six TIEs, ran the trench at full throttle, kept a malfunctioning fighter intact and then tried to go back. Because Wedge Antilles is that awesome, and because Col Takbright -- Fake Wedge -- has finally figured out that they’re both part of something larger, and that a single pilot’s identity (or mistaken identity) is far less important than what they can do together.

So that’s a wrap. Some other interesting bits for the trivia-minded:

Wedge’s malfunction has been described in various ways in various sources. I took bits and pieces of multiple explanations.

Luke’s simulator run is from the old Brian Daley radio dramas.

I didn’t know the canon status of Blue and Green squadrons, and didn’t want to open a canoncial can of worms. So Red Leader doesn’t know what’s happening with them either. Which makes sense -- he’s got enough on his plate. Since I couldn’t have the reader think Col could just join another squadron, I added the note about his having to go to the back of the line in such a situation.

Colonel Cor is mentioned in the Rogue One visual guide.

Kay-One-Zero is the Alliance evacuation code. Note that you don’t need to know that to understand the reference -- Quersey gives an explanation that reads right on the page but also helps those who don’t know every bit of Star Wars canon. Context is critical for making lore support a story instead of distracting the reader.

When Porkins dies, Rue quietly says “So long, Piggy, you will be avenged.” This is a thought balloon for Biggs in the original Marvel adaptation of A New Hope.

I accounted for the fates of Red Seven, Eight, Nine and Eleven, whose deaths aren’t seen on-screen.

#storytelling #star wars #From a Certain Point Of View #wedge antilles

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ask-de-writer · 7 years

Text

MAD - IRRITATED SCIENCE! : Bizarre Borderland : (Part 2 of 2)

MAD IRRITATED SCIENCE!

De Writer (Glen Ten-Eyck)

2488 words

written 2008

TUMBLR EXEMPTION

Blog holding members of Tumblr.com may freely reblog this story provided that the title, author and copyright information remain intact, unaltered, and are displayed at the head of the story.

Fan art, stories, music, cosplay and other fan activity is actively encouraged.

~~ ~~ ~~ ~~

PART 1 is HERE

~~ ~~ ~~ ~~

Had to wonder, you know, if folks learning to do this sort of thing wasn't the basis of the tales about witchcraft. Thinking it through a bit more, after destroying a few persistent vermin in my garden, I realized that if this was the foundation of witchcraft, those fears in the general population could be well founded. It took almost no imagination at all to see how someone with this sort knowledge could be a very real danger to the community at large. Especially if the general population treated the “witch” badly. I didn't intend to find out what would happen in a case like that.

I'd just got a pair of deer up close and doing a bit of a step-dance for a big flake of hay when I noticed the dust cloud of a truck barreling along the road from Al's place. I sent the deer away, cursing Al under my breath. Bad news only got worse when Al's pickup roared up my drive, scattering gravel as he skidded to a stop. Al bailed out with a rifle in hand, starting to aim at the retreating deer.

I glared at him. Al's rifle fell to the dirt from hands gone nerveless. Wide eyed with anger, he demanded, “Damn you, Art! What did you do to me?”

Not bothering to get up from my seat on the porch steps I replied tartly, “Me? I'm here on my porch. You are ten feet away. From here, it looked like you managed to drop your gun just in time to avoid poaching charges on top of the Felony Trespass and Protective Order violation.”

Frowning in a black faced rage, he flexed his now almost functioning fingers and retorted, “Poaching? No way! This is private land so its legal. No hunting without permission your signs says. Wasn't no time to ask first, so's I was gonna ask after I blasted 'em. Would'a given me a whole Winter's meat.”

Lips pulled into a tight line I snapped, “Only problem, Al, is I would have said NO. Those signs allow me to get game from my land. Desert game is spread thin and I don't share mine. At least not with you. I heard from Joe Sanderson how well you share yours.”

Al was looking down at his hands and flexing them. Still pissed off, he spit out, “Joe had it coming! Bastard wouldn't pay me for Neighbor Watch.”

I raised one eyebrow and pointed out, “Neither will I. Looks like your hands are better. Get into your truck and shove off. Don't come back, either.”

Al stared to bend over to get his rifle and just kept on going down. He landed in a heap on the scattered gravel of my drive. “Don't try to take that gun, Al, unless you want to leave here in a hearse.”

Twitching on the ground, Al yelled, “I knew it, you asshole! You've used some sort of evil witchcraft on me. I'll have the law on you for this!”

I smiled down at him from my vantage point on the steps. A sensible wolf would have stepped away from that smile. “One: Killing Felony Trespassers is legal, and that's what you became when you hauled out that rifle. Two: You have a Protective Order that requires you to stay at least a hundred fifty feet from my property line and do nothing to compromise my property, including discharge firearms on or across it. I can legally kill you for that violation, too. Three: Witchcraft IS legal. Four: I just sat here and watched you apparently have some sort of seizures. Five: I am calling the Sheriff's Office on your Trespass and and Order violations.”

I got on my phone and called the situation in to the County Police. I fixed a sandwich and went back out on the porch to watch Al. He was staying down. I knew that he would.

As I started to eat, Ratty popped up from his nest under the house. He did his little rat dance and got his chunk of sandwich. He settled down by my feet and happily nibbled his bread and cheese.

Al looked on in what I believe was genuine fear. Trying to point, he exclaimed, “There's the proof! You are a witch-man! That's your familiar!”

Amused, I replied, “Ratty? A familiar? The worst he could do is nip your nuts while you're down.”

Ratty squeaked firmly.

I laughed, “Right Ratty! Why should you risk lice and other crawling vermin just to bite Al's privates?”

Ratty expressed his opinion of Al by taking his part of the sandwich and retreating back under the house. With his tail up to show Al his ass.

Not too much later a deputy arrived. I greeted him, “Hi, Deputy Mustic. 'Fraid your cousin Al's in a spot of trouble. Seems to have not only broken the Protective Order, he brought a firearm onto my place. Trouble is, unless he's faking it, he seems to have some sort of paralytic neurological event. He's even trying to blame me for it. Witchcraft, no less. Can you believe it?”

Deputy Mustic closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “Of Al? I'd believe near anything. I gotta call for a backup and let him do this one to be sure that everything's done right. If I try to do the arrest, Al's lawyer is sure to try for a conflict of interest or some such because we're related.” The deputy got on his radio and I overheard him giving dispatch a piece of his mind for sending him out to deal with a relative.

Soon both the backup, Deputy Jorgen, and an ambulance were on the scene. Al was duly informed of his rights and placed under arrest while the ambulance crew verified with a pin that Al really was paralyzed. Deputy Mustic took me aside, day book out and asked, “Art, why didn't you call the ambulance? Even if he is my family, we both know that Al is slime. Still, you should'a called.”

I nodded, while watching Al being loaded into the ambulance to be hauled away, “I would have, Deputy. Thing is, he pulled that stunt on Sadie Halloway where he faked an injury on her place. Since she called the ambulance, she wound up getting stuck for near enough a grand. Al did it because she wouldn't pay into his neighbor watch scam. I won't pay him either and just figured he was doing the same to me as he did to her.”

Writing in his day book and flipping a page to finish, Deputy Mustic nodded, “I heard about that. Thought it might be the reason. Needed it clear for the record is all.”

More anxiously, now that he was done being official, he asked, “Any idea what is wrong? I mean, scum or not, he is family and I'm worried for him. Believe it or not, the kids like him at reunions. He does slight of hand coin tricks and card stunts really professional.”

I shrugged, “The slight of hand for entertainment is something I'd not have guessed. Slick as he is at lifting small tools and such, I should have known something like that was behind it. As for this, no idea at all. I am sure that it's not sunstroke. The AC in his truck was on and it works. I would guess that it might be an oddball stroke of some kind. Maybe an aneurysm or bleed in the upper spine could do it. Just a guess, though.

“Al appears to be sure what it is. I heard him telling both Deputy Jorgen and the paramedics that it's witchcraft. If it is, I don't think that I'm the one. Frankly, I hope he's right. Witchcraft is legal.”

Three days later, Deputy Mustic was back. It was an unofficial visit. Looking sad, he said, “Al died in the hospital, last night, 'bout midnight, Art. The doctors did find what it was but there was nothing that they could do. Doctor Collins said that it was the fastest growing neurological tumor that she's ever heard of. It was just near to the top of his spine. Inoperable. Al died swearing to everyone there that you cursed him.”

I watched a hawk soar overhead for a moment before I replied, “Not to speak ill, but if I could have, I would have. Didn't like him at all.

“You, on the other hand are one of the best. Never heard a single bad word about you, even from folks you've arrested.”

Deputy Mustic smiled but only slightly, “Thanks for that, Art. I didn't expect any sympathy for Al but I figured that you'd want to know.”

“Indeed, Deputy. My condolences to your family.”

As Deputy Mustic drove away, My mind was in high gear. I liked it out here, but it did get pretty lonely on occasion. The ease with which I influenced animals and settled Al's hash led to an interesting line of thought.

The next time that I was in town, I spotted a pretty young lady. Checking her out by 'feel' I found that she was not only available, she didn't like being tied to one guy. She enjoyed having a variety of lovers.

All that I planted was the urge to drive out my way. The weekend was fun for both of us. Besides bed, Sally hiked around the hills with me and even liked watching a hawk or buzzard fly. We took a bunch of pictures of her around my house and up in the rocks and hills. Nice cheesecake, barely risque. Good memories.

It turned out that Sally knew a fair number of other like minded friends. After she introduced me to her buddies, neither my days or nights stayed lonely.

---The End---

#MAD - IRRITATED SCIENCE!#Part 2 of 2 #Bizarre Border #written by De Writer

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alanakalanian · 5 years

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Cenk Uygur’s Non Denial of the Armenian Genocide... Hoax or Fact?

Well hello fellow Warriors!

I just thought it would be appropriate if I came out of retirement to speak again on the those many articles from years ago on two subjects, Cenk Uygur, and his side kick Ana Gasparian, that were so not worth my time and effort, but simply Genocide deniers and supporters. I even managed to retain a reply from Ana herself, so I did touch some nerves.

Why, you may ask, did these two, of all people, a Genocide denier, and support of that denier concern me with their most recent suspicious activities, well, fellow warriors it appears our recent AG denier, and cohort, are in the mist of twisting what they previously claimed. Now, the game plan has changed, and warriors best to keep you informed on this slippery duo..

Ironically, as my warriors recall, I ousted these two for the denier of the Armenian Genocide and supporter of a denier that they were. There was no denying it then for they were exactly what I have claimed.

Through intelligent, and incredible intel, I had thought I successfully exposed this duo for what they exactly stood for years before anyone even knew they existed or cared they did, but yet today, several years later it appears as if maybe their audiance has widen, and so now through sites such as these it appears his denial has only just been exposed. Also the ANC, (Armenian National Committee) a powerful Armenian organization has also spoke about his denial less than a year ago..

Well, negatory, newsflash, Cenk and Ana, the infamous denial and supporter duo, that our warriors ousted years ago, have only recently started making videos exposing them self as not “really” Genocide deniers any longer.

For those who had not heard of them before, now may not just know them but may find some iota of empathy for them.. Their videos IMO appear to have an extreme need for their audience’s sympathy, even pity.

Please don’t get me wrong, as I respect, and appreciate the facts when ever they surface, but I can’t help wondering if my 6 year old ago articles were taken seriously back when they did not care what others thought of their denial, a couple of freedom of speech violators would no longer be able to be making videos, “I almost recognize”.

Now, folks like ANC write about them as they were the ones to expose the duo to the world. What I do think is they did have much to do with him thinking twice upon his thoughts, also Ana’s.

Only difference is now, after all my plugging to seal the leak of denial when it was the biggest kind of denial on file, with side kick Ana defending that denial, I had no avail but for years, these guys, Cenk and Ana, have used the time to regroup, and find their own ways of beating the wrap, the Armenian Genocide denial wrap that is, without actually in Cenk’s case actually acknowledging it.

Even Ana has resorted to making videos pleading, and begging her audience to believe her recognition of the AG, and her non support of Cenk’s denial.

Unfortunately, Ana had not that to prove to me, I always believed she acknowledged the Genocide, after all, her ancestors she claims had escaped from it in 1915, but she fudged it all up by taking a job from a well known AG denier, and in some cases through his videos has shown a bit of racism towards Armenians as well.

About a year or more ago the ANC (Armenian National Committee) also dabbled on this subject.

For me, I have always stood for the facts, and the ones I had were, Cenk was against Armenians, and Ana his side kick did what she had to do to keep her job.

I also believed Cenk only kept her around mainly because she was Armenian, and no one not even astute warriors like AlanaKalanian could see through the Armenian blinders. Having an Armenian as a “young Turk” maybe he perceived others would believe he had nothing against Armenians, thus winning the Armenian audience, which I hear is pretty large there in California. Armenians are protestors, vowing to “never to forget”, the kind of people who form large peaceful groups, and can make a difference if need be. Cenk IMO, believed his career was on the line.

So years later, and many articles from this blog denouncing him for the infamous “You Tube” talk show host, Cenk Uygur (well at least in my world) for his denial of the Armenian Genocide, has almost ceased to exist till today as I realized what should of been exposed over 6 years ago is finally being recognized, but at what cost.

As my fellow warriors know, deniers in my experience just don’t see the truth, even if presented all the evidence and should by all that is justifiable miraculously sees the light, but no, many, how many ways the truth is served what you learn as I have, the truth is not what they lack. Actually, most are just heavy duty nationalists who know the truth but are just in denial of it and preferably want to stay that way. In which case this is what I had believed about Cenk.

It is worth mentioning that in the past I had an opportunity to speak to 2 non- nationalistic Turks out of I’d say a rough guess, give or take a 100 nationalist Turks, that I was able to speak rationally and prove successfully the Armenian genocide was a historical fact, the others mostly became very angry and had no crucial feedback on the issue..

Recently, Cenk made a public statement as did his co host Ana, the “Armenian young Turk” as I always fondly mentioned her, claiming that he no longer denies the Armenian Genocide, and her to me was a bunch of blah, blah, blah, which I will explain why I feel this way.

Ironically, all done rather recently. Perhaps a red flag…

As the statement so in consistent of a controversial talk show host, that as a matter of fact he no longer knows what he believes, but graciously asks that we, the public have patience with him.

What? Red flag, red flag, red flag…..

Either, you know right from wrong or you don’t. Yes, it is just that simple.

Since when do we allow our friends, family, and worst of all our “You Tube talk show hosts” the opportunity to continue having us believe in them and what they stand for when they won’t take a stand one way or the other in something we strongly believe in?

Is this how humanity feels when it fails?

We don’t know, we only know right from wrong..

What we discover is that these folks have chosen to take the easy way out. Yes, they have found a way, or so they thought to get truth awareness seekers like myself off their back and have tucked them as far back to the back of their closet shelf as possible -never to be heard from again.

Problem is they have allowed Uygur to achieve the best of both worlds, not me of course, or any of my warriors.

See, on the surface, he claims he is confused, ” still gathering facts”, but he claims he has come a long way, from being totally in denial, that is. As if to say, now he is simply unsure, like he is almost sure the Armenian Genocide did happen, but without actually saying the exact words..

So now from what I can see, Armenians, and non Armenians, are taking a lap of victory… As if they have won his acknowledgement.

Hmm.. not so fast.. Is he just appeasing all of us? As his side kick pats him on the back for all he has achieved. Between the Armenians and the Turkish nationalists, he is winning in his want for more, success.

Although, where I come from acknowledgements need to be said, with great compassion, it is called being sincere. Plain and simple.

In 1915 over 1.5 million Armenians were brutally murdered by the Turkish government, dubbed the “young Turks”.

No matter how or how many which ways Anna Gasparian tries to justify the name by claiming “young Turks” has several meanings unlike “nazis’, even an idiot knows that when he named his show he was a full fledged Genocide denialist, which can only mean they were obviously his hero’s. Murderers…

Here Ana claims in a video statement made recently,IMO was a pure act of desperation in defense of her own reputation,.

Did she mean any of it, IMO, not a single word..

Known her just a little too long, remember,

I was the one in 2012, where she defended Uygur’s denial in a reply to me.

In her own words that reply she claimed in her getting the job, that it did not come from a soul searching urge to get Cenk to recognize or to “chip away” at his denial. More like, her success is what we all Armenians should be grateful for. Complete opposite from what she claims in her recent video on the subject.

What happen Ana? A “Playboy” writer, found out you were not fooling anyone, as you had not fooled me years ago.

Now, faced with humiliation and lower ratings, there is more effort put in by you to see the Armenian Genocide gets the recognition it deserves, what it had always had deserved, but only now, out of the blue, it finally gets it. I might add that Cenk is not even in the AG tribute video.

Ana claims she took the job to chip, chip, away at Cenk’s denial, and yet she has only just begun. How long have they worked together? At least over 7 years…

Believe me, I don’t dislike these people, as hate is by far an issue, and being late is better than never, but their sincerity, that would even be a bonus.

In the mean time they need to stop the farce. When the denial that lurks discriminately in Cenk’s heart is fully gone, that is when he not Ana should claim it. Otherwise, it is just a stall process for higher ratings in my book. “Hey, look I maybe believe in the Armenian Genocide,” 6 million views…

Again, Uygur if you are reading this, the Armenian Genocide, means so much more than you just exploiting it for your insignificant ratings.

Just scroll the internet and what you’ll find is more than a handful of videos titled in some form about Cenk speaking on the AG.

Sadly, with no conclusion, all a waste of the actual people’s time who actually care deeply about this issue, for those that don’t, not really care, this not exactly making them awful people but just Cenk die hard fans, who want to see just a smidgen of hope that he truly is not not the dreaded Armenian Genocide denier he has been accused of being for years, and those of course, hard core Turkish nationalists, who grunt miserably towards Armenians, and want to believe Armenians are all bad in general.

In conclusion, if Cenk and Ana just may have gained more fans by their ill attempts to convince the public they need your patience when it comes to Armenian Genocide recognition, IMO, very easily could be conceived as a hoax, some others, not AlanaKalanian Warriors of course would suggest this is fact. If any truth is to be found here is they are taking a very sensitive, historical fact that has brought suffering to so many, and exploiting for what appears, IMO their own interests.

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mspriss-2u · 7 years

Text

Before the Fame

* Another chapter! This is definitely a slow build story, but it should pick up in another two chapters. Enjoy! Feedback is always welcome!*

Chapter 4

It was time to finish packing up for World Literature. Janelle was too happy because this morning had been terrible. She wasted coffee on her assignment and clothes before leaving the room, thanks to her roommate leaving her clothes in the path to the door. Was Callie still being salty after the little disagreement? Indeed she was still being a brat and it was pissing Janelle off. She knew the end of this class meant she had only one more class for today and it couldn’t happen quick enough.

“Hey girl, I just wanted to ask, do you know anything about this Jarrell party that is supposed to be happening?” Frieda asked as they were putting their things away.

Janelle sighed, she had seriously wanted to forget about this party, but thanks to Trina she had been reminded pretty much every day.

“Yeah, I’ve heard about it. My friend really wants me to go, but parties are not my thing. I don’t know if you have noticed being social requires a lot of energy for me.”

“I’m with you. Parties aren’t my thing either, but I have heard this is probably the party to go to if I don’t do anything else. I figured since I don’t have any major tests coming up, I will check it out for a little bit with my boyfriend and then leave,” Frieda shared.

“Same here, well minus the boyfriend. I need to show I am not a complete asocial being,” Janelle said with a small snort.

“Oh, you guys are going to Jarrell’s party?” Luke chimed in.

To be honest Janelle had forgotten he was even there. She was sure he had jetted out of the room like he usually does after this class.

“I am, but it will probably be the only one this year.”

“His parties are nice. They really don’t get too over the top. I heard you say you were going alone, would you like me to escort you? It may make you feel a little at ease knowing someone there.” Luke offered.

Frieda shot a look between the two. “Sorry guys, I have to go, but maybe I will see you at the party tomorrow night,” she said and then left.

“You know, you don’t have to watch over me. I am a big girl who can take care of herself,” Janelle replied with a raised eyebrow.

For a minute Luke looked flustered. “Oh no, I wasn’t trying to imply you couldn’t, I just thought….”

“Hey, calm down. I’m messing with you. You are more of a gentleman than I am used to dealing with sometimes. I am actually meeting up with my friend Trina there, but I wouldn’t be opposed to you being around to help me get comfortable. New people and a new place always makes me feel anxious and like I will break into hives,” Janelle admitted.

“That works! I will text you when the time I will come pick you up tomorrow,” he said.

She laughed when she saw his face light up and his smile widen.

“Alright thanks again, I’ll see you later Luke.”

xXx

Janelle took another look in the full length mirror on her closet door. She had toiled between two outfits for tonight and finally settled on keeping it casual and cute. She wore a black tank and wore a faded jean half top jacket and red skinny jeans with black converse hi tops. Janelle wasn’t necessarily a girly girl when it came to dressing up, but she definitely understood how to accent her curves and look nice when the time called for it.

“Well don’t you look nice,” she heard form the side of the room that had been on radio silence for the past few days.

Janelle gave her a skeptical look. “Well, thanks,” she said before looking herself over again.

“Look Janelle, I’m sorry. I was being an ass. I was just feeling back because I found out Mark was a complete ass and I guess I lost it seeing you near another one of his football buddies,” she said with a sigh.

Janelle knew from the get go that Mark was probably a tool, but she still felt for her roommate.

“Well, I guess I should apologize for being rude about it. I just don’t like anyone policing me.” Janelle said in conceded.

“And I’m sorry about Mark,” she added.

“No worries, I am glad I found out sooner than later…but I just want to know if we can let this blow over.” Callie shared.

“Yeah, we cool. It’s been weird not hearing you speak over there.”

Callie just gave a huff and smiled.

“So, why are you looking bootylicious, might I ask..” Callie said with a smirk.

“Girl, there is some party by a guy named Jarrell. Trina wouldn’t stop pestering me about it, so Luke is going to pick me up to meet her there.” Janelle explained.

“Oh….Luke who you are not dating?” Callie said with a sly smile.

Janelle gave her a death stare. “Don’t be funny Callie, I told you we friends.”

Callie put her hands up in mocked surrender.

“Ok, ok, I’m not pushing just asking. Well I hope you have a great time,” she said and then threw on her flip flops and headed out the room.

Right as she left, Callie’s phone buzzed.

Luke 7:50pm: Hey, I’m outside in front of your dorm?

Janelle 7:50pm-Ok, I’m headed down now.

Janelle got her things and then made her way down.

When she got outside she saw a large black truck. Luke had jumped out and walked over to her side of the truck.

“Hey, let me help you. I know this is a bit high, but I love this thing,” he said.

Janelle rolled her eyes in a playful gesture. She was capable of making her way in the truck herself, though it may have taken an extra moment, but she humored Luke since he was always determined to be the good Samaritan.

Once he assisted her in the car, he came back and got in the driver seat.

“Well do you think you are sitting high enough in this thing. I swear I can see at least a two mile clearing from sitting so high.” Janelle joked as they got on the road.

“Yeah, I know it is a bit over the top, but I love it. This comes in handy for any mudriding or tough roads I have to drive over when I go back home.”

Janelle didn’t reply she just smiled. Luke at times reminded her of home. Good country folk just enjoying life.

For most of the ride they sat in companionable silence, as the radio played. Janelle didn’t mind she was wrapped up in mentally prepping herself to be around a bunch of people she didn’t know, hoping that there may be one or two pretty decent people there that she will click with.

They pulled up outside a big house, with people all around. She could feel her eardrums bursting just from hearing the music in the distance.

“You sure you are good with this,” Luke asked as they were walking towards the house.

“Yeah, I knew this was supposed to be a big party, but this is even more than I imagined. Uhh, if you don’t mind if I tag along with you until I find Trina,.” Janelle requested. She could feel discomfort creeping into her already. She really wasn’t into crowds.

Luke stopped before they entered and turned to face Janelle, “Of course I don’t mind. Hey if it gets to be too much, I will definitely take you home, just let me know,” Luke reassured her.

Janelle nodded, “Got you. Thank you.”

Luke walked into the house blasting with music, crowded with people shoulder to shoulder. He reached out his hand for Janelle to hold, so they could make their way through the crowd to the snack table. He knew if they got there, there would be some open space and maybe it would be easier to track Janelle’s friend.

Once they reached the table, Janelle scanned the room for Trina. It wasn’t long before she saw her hugged up on some dude. She rolled her eyes, because she knew Trina was quick with the hook ups.

“Hey, I see her over there. You can go do your thing. I will let you know when I’m ready to leave.” Janelle told Luke before bee lining it toward Trina.

When she finally reached Trina’s side, she could tell she was approaching something that was getting steamy, but Trina had invited her despite her protests to come, so she had no sympathy.

“Well hello miss! So much for meeting up.” Janelle interrupted pointedly.

Trina stepped back from her person of interest and gave a huff. “Girl, my bad. It’s just you weren’t here when I got here and I didn’t believe you would actually come. But you’re here now, so let me introduce you to some people,” she said with excitement.

“First, this here is my boo thang, Desean. Ain’t he cute,” she said with a smile giving him those eyes filled with promises of finishing what they started later tonight.

Janelle just rolled her eyes at Trina. “Hey Desean, nice to meet you, I’m Janelle.”

“Good to meet you too. Aye, me and my boys have a little VIP couch over there, how about I introduce you to them.” Desean offered.

Janelle really didn’t want to be surrounded by a bunch of guys who were probably looking to hook up, but she figured it wouldn’t hurt to say hi, especially if Trina was around.

They walked over to a coach filled with guys talking. As they approach, attention turns to her and Trina, which makes Janelle feel increasingly uncomfortable.

“Hey y’all this is Trina and her friend Janelle. These are my boys Jackson, Ray and Lonzo.”

“Man, you found some nice looking ladies. How you doing Ms. Janelle?” asked Lonzo if Janelle had to guess.

“I’m, I’m great thank you. Umm, I am going to go grab me something to drink” Janelle said trying to make an exit and not let her nervousness shine through. She knew Lonzo was interested by she definitely wasn’t.

Before she could make her great escape, she turned around and bumped into Luke, who was being accompanied by two other guys that she would guess were on the football team.

“Aye, that’s my boy Luke! What’s up man? Come on an chill with us for a sec,” said Ray.

The guys all did their little handshake greeting.

Janelle stopped in shock for a moment, because it seemed like Luke was seriously in with everyone.

“Yeah, I got a minute, but let me check on something real quick.” Luke told Ray.

Luke turned to Janelle. “Hey, you good? I spotted you over here and you looked like you may hurl. These guys are pretty good people, no worries.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m good. I think maybe getting something to drink will help me relax a little. I swear I’m not a withdrawn type, it’s just this crowd is a bit much,” she admitted.

“Alright, well do your thing and if you need me I will probably be right here for a little bit.” Luke reassured her.

Janelle nodded and went to the table filled with refreshments. As she was pouring some Sprite, someone walked up beside her.

“Hey, umm I don’t mean to startle you, but I couldn’t help but notice you have been over here by yourself and I was seeing if you would like to dance. If you’re not with someone here already that is,” the mysterious guy asked.

He looked like he was right at 6ft, nice fade and hazel eyes. He definitely was easy on the eyes. Janelle figured it couldn’t hurt to dance a little. She was here to mingle and finish out her socializing requirement for the year.

“Well it would be nice to get your name first,” she said with a smirk.

“Oh my bad, I’m Patrick, and you are…”

“I’m Janelle, nice to meet you Patrick. Well now we know each other, are we going to get on the dance floor” she prompted.

Patrick reached out his hand and led her to the floor.

It had been a while since she allowed herself to get engulfed in a sea of bodies and dance her heart out. As she started letting herself get in tune with the music she found that her and Patrick moved well together on the dance floor. Janelle kept finding herself smiling and laughing at the sly little jokes Patrick told her in her ear while they danced the night away. Before Janelle knew it, it was already 11pm, way past the time she intended to be there.

When she told Patrick such, he tried to convince her to stay longer, but she didn’t budge. He then offered to walk with her outside while she tried to contact Luke to let him know she was ready to go.

As they waited outside, she noticed Patrick was more handsy.

“Look it was fun, but I really don’t like people touching on me. Could you please back up?” Janelle asked.

“Hey no need to get all prudish on me. I mean you were twerking on me like I was your only lifeline.” Patrick said getting defensive.

“I really wasn’t trying to start anything. All I asked was for space, so chill man!” Janelle said annoyed.

“Chill? Really, so you must lead guys on like this all the time.” He said incredulously.

Janelle was really confused now. “What are you talking about?”

“The sexy dancing, the flirting…I thought it was leading up to something promising, but I guess I was wrong.”Patrick said.

Janelle felt herself getting upset. Did this fool think he was about to get some? Pssh

Before Janelle or Patrick could say anything else they were interrupted.

“Hey Janelle, I’m sorry it took so long. Is everything okay here?” asked Luke as he walked up to her.

Patrick didn’t even answer. He sucked at his teeth and then left.

“It’s cool now. I am just ready to go home.” Janelle said as she starting walking towards the truck, leaving a confused Luke outside.

When Luke got into the car he asked if Patrick had did anything to her.

Janelle told him about the conversation they were having before he walked up.

“Well that’s a little grimy to expect “promising experience” after just meeting someone. I’m sorry for that whole thing. You looked like you were having fun with him at the party, so I didn’t think to just come check.” Luke said sounding guilty.

“And you shouldn’t have to worry about me, I’m not your responsibility Luke,” Janelle unexpectantly snapped. She immediately felt regret.

“I promise, I didn’t mean it that way,” she said back pedaling her outburst.

“I just still find it annoying and a figurative slap in the face that I would even need someone to have to look out for me because sleazy guys do exist. It’s just not fair… I’m not made at you, I’m just mad at the fact this guy thought I was an easy target for a lay,” she explained.

Luke looked at her with understanding.

“Well I’m telling you now, if I ever act like a jerk please feel free to call me out on it. You’re a good person Janelle and you should be treated like it.” Luke said and cranked up the truck to drive Janelle back to the dorm.

Since she still felt slightly embarrassed about her outburst, Janelle felt it was only right she kept conversation going to keep the awkwardness from filling the silence. They talked about basketball and Luke shard some details about his families.

Janelle joked that his family sounded like their own little version of Duck Dynasty with how much they like to hunt, fish and camp. Luke was fairly surprised that Janelle was an outdoor person herself and had grown up with a father as a fisherman.

By the time they arrived at Janelle’s dorm, they were sharing embarrassing camping stories. It was easy and it was comforting at the same time. Janelle had not really had a decent conversation with a friend in a while, so she appreciated Luke’s candidness and good humor.

“Thank you for putting up with me at this party Luke. It probably would have been a total bust if I had went with Trina. Heck, I think she ducked out with Desean soon after I left for the dance floor” Janelle shared.

“Oh, she did. She asked me if I was making sure you got home. Once I confirmed it, she was kicking dust out of there.” Luke said with a laugh.

“I think you may need to make more reliable friends.” He said.

“Yeah, I guess you’re right, but this was it for me. I’m done socializing for the next three months.”

“Well that sucks, you are pretty good at it when you are comfortable, plus the world deserves to see you smile more often,” he said with a adoring look.

Janelle knew she was blushing, but luckily he wouldn’t be able to tell.

“Well thank you again, and I will see you around.” She said as she jumped out the truck and closed the door before Luke could say anything else adorable to make her blush. She turned back towards the truck to wave Luke bye, as he waited for her to unlock the dorm door to see her get in safely. She saw him wave back and giving her a thoughtful look before driving off. Janelle walked up to her room and couldn’t help thinking her dreams would include dark black hair and blue eyes tonight.

#lukekuechly #lukekuechly59 #ilovelukekuechly #lukekuechlyfanfic #lukekuechlyfan #lukekuechlylover

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pj-mercury · 7 years

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Oops,

....my hand slipped.

Emile just finished setting up the panel, getting over the fact that Jon yelled at him for what-the-fuck-ever, and Emile is still really thirsty ever since he caught this nasty cold, he’s been drinking water out the ass, two bottles to be exact. He began drinking his third when he heard murmuring outside. The panel was about to start!

Jon walks over to Emile to make sure he had the events ready to go for the fans when he notices all the water bottles in the trashcan and one in his hand. "Lemme guess, you're down with a cold again, happens every year, it's like a tradition" Jon says, crossing his arms, going through a stack of cards of things he was going to mention at the panel.

“Yeah i guess. Looks like this panel’s going to be a long one too. Ugh, i just wanna go sleep.” Emile complained between sips of water.

"Oh, stop complaning today's gonna be a blast" Jon says to Emile as Tim bumps into Jon while carrying a whole bunch of camera equipment. "Sorry, this stuff is heavy" Tim says to Jon as he sets the equipment down on the table and begins to set it up. Tim looks over to Emile "Man, it looks like you haven't slept in 3 years!" Tim jokes with Emile.

Emile giggles, “Yeah right?” he began feeling a little funny, but he shrugged it off. They had to get the panel done and over with anyway, he wasn’t just going to flake out in front of a billion fans!

"Are you guys ready for a stampede?!" Jon smirks as he's about to open the doors, they could hear the fans screaming their names.

Emile nodded, “Let’s get it going!!” he shouted excitedly, which made him feel a tingling sensation in his lower abdomen. Emile hypothetically “d’oh” ‘ed himself for not using the bathroom before the panel! he hoped he would make it.

"All right!" Jon opens the door "Welcome to the panel everybody!" Jon shouts, Tim looking a bit nervous but excited. The fans huddle around the table, the crowd was getting heated, this has been the biggest panel they've had in 2 years. Tim finally got the camera ready and was recording the crowd's size. "Wooow" Tim says as he gets the massive shot.

As everyone starts to settle and have a seat, Emile sneaks out through the ocean of fans and tries to find a bathroom. He leaks a little, gasping as he has to stop to gain self control. he walks around a bit more before noticing a women’s bathroom. ‘There must be a men’s bathroom around, right?’ Emile thought, as the urge got worse. he saw a men’s bathroom, then gasped as he saw an “out of order” sign on the door of the men’s room.

“No..not now..” Emile groaned as the pressure increased on his abdomen. He groaned softly as he pressed his thighs together. Jon notices Emile trying to sneak out, "oh no you don't!" Jon grabs Emile's hand and brings him back to the panel. "The panel just started, what are you doing sneaking out like that?" Jon questions Emile while raising a brow.

Emile almost wanted to tell Jon, but he was too shy, he blushed, “I was just looking for a vending machine, y’know, for another drink?” Emile smiled at Jon, secretly covering up his tracks. "Boy. How much are you going to drink?!" Jon asks putting a hand near Emile's face. Jon could hear some female fans mumbling something about Protonconroy, Jon just sighs "Look, the vending machines are near the entrance, surprised you didn't see them on the way in, now I gotta go cater to these people" Jon looks down frustrated as he leaves the brunet.

Emile let out a huff, he did not like the way those girls stared at them, so he bought a fiji water to show that he wasn’t kidding. Emile goes up to the stage, and the microphone is handed to him unexpectedly. Looking around, he heard his fans cheering his name. “Hey everybody, we’re the runaway guys!”

The fans screamed and cheered, Jon walks up onto the stage with his hands up in the air like the special little shit he is and grabs the mic from Emile "I'm ProtonJon, if you need me I'll be here all day" Tim runs onto the stage too, abandoning the camera for a sec "don't forget me, NintendoCaprisun! How are you all doing today?" The fans all reply "GOOD!" Tim hands the mic to Emile as he runs back to attend his camera before someone runs off with it.

Emile grabs the mic from Tim, “and i’m Chuggaaconroy!!” This time, the fans cheered the loudest for emile as he sat back down. The pressure in Emile’s bladder was getting worse now. Emile looked over to jon as he passed him the mic. Emile then looked to the full bottle of fiji water and sighed.

"Glad to hear you're all doing fabulous today. Remember not to get too close to Chugga, he's sicker than a dog." Jon laughs, some of the fans go "Awww" feeling sympathy for one of their favorite Youtubers. Tim positions the camera over to Emile looking downwards at his full bottle of water that he hasn't even touched yet. Emile rolls his eyes as he opens his water and starts to drink. he waves a hand at Tim’s camera before putting the water down.

Tim smiles a little as his camera goes over the audience again, a whole buch of fans were recording too with their cell phones. Jon sits down and settles down a little as he opens up his own water bottle and starts to sip it. Emile took a quick glance at the condensation dripping from the bottle and shudders. He really needed to pee now, he had to tell jon!

“uh, Jo-“

"C'mon everyone let's start the panel!" Jon shouts as everyone cheers the guys on.

Emile quickly turned to face the crowd, and blushed, fidgeting a little. ‘I guess i could wait a little while, right?’ In his thinking, he was called up to play a competition game of Mario Kart with a fan. As Emile held the controller, he had the urge to grab himself, but the feeling quickly subsided as he kept playing, terribly at that since he couldn’t focus. The fan won, Emile lost, and Emile was to give out a prize to the winner. As he gave the prize, a single leak bled through his pants, although barely noticeable, was still there. Emile exhaled, he didn’t know how long he could keep this up.

"C'mon Emile, This little girl Jessie wants to play with you too" Jon says with his hand on an 8 year old girl's shoulder as she has this big ol' smile on her face. Emile mustered a smile, he couldn’t take the adorableness! He HAD to keep his fans happy, right? Five minutes later, another game done with, Emile walks back to his seat, every step sends a jolt up his spine, making him get goosebumps on his arms.

"Emile, you got another one, this guy's name is Mario" Jon mentions as he taps Emile's shoulder, this kid was wearing a full-on Mario outfit, who knows if his name was actually Mario? Emile weakly waved a hand to the cosplayer as he sat back down to play. Now it was a round of mario party, eatsa pizza? really? REALLY? Emile shrugged off how random that was, and got to the game. Again, he couldn’t really focus like in the first game, and he had to cross his legs while he played. another game lost, more prizes given out, and Emile felt as if he were to explode at any given moment. As he sat back in his seat at the table, he held himself freely and made sure no one was looking. he clenched his thighs together as he blushed strongly.

Jon was noticing Emile acting strange he goes up to Emile and whispers "are you alright, you're acting kinda funny?" Emile quickly put his hands to his sides and smiled weakly. “Yeah, i’m okay Jon!” His voice wavered. "Thats good to hear, now get back in there, you have another fan, this here is Juan" The blond says as he has a hand on Juan's shoulder smirking a little at Emile, knowing he's getting tired of losing.

Emile made a fake smile at the child, and went back to gaming. The game is sky pilots. Emile’s bladder felt like it was going to burst, he jiggled his legs as he tilted his head back and sighed, trying to ACTUALLY focus on the game, but couldn’t. another game lost for emile, juan thanked him for the prize as he walked back to the crowd. As Emile walked back to his seat, he noticed the door opening, it was Masae, she must be here to accompany the panel as well. Masae was letting the door open for Lucah, who was carrying more gaming systems in.

"Alright, we got 2 more hours folks!" Jon says getting everyone's attention.

‘Two hours?!’ Emile thought, his soul sinking to his shoes. he had to get out of here, he was going to- ‘No, i-i can’t! Not here!’ Emile couldn’t even muster the courage to even imagine if THAT ever happened! Unthinking, Emile ran out the door of the panel, making a beeline for a bathroom.

"AAA!! IT'S CHUGGAACONROY!!" A female fan screams, grabbing Emile by the back of his polo shirt. "Oh my god I love your videos, oh my god I love everything abiut you oh my god I love you oh my god!!" She says flipping out.

“N-No, please I-“

"I was watching your Splatoon let's play the other day while I was getting ready to fly up here, I was so looking forward to visit you I just love you so much oh my god, like you're amazing person omg like youre such an inspiration oh my god I love your videos and everything about you oh my god" she continues to ramble on and on.

“I-I’m so sorry!!” Emile yells suddenly, freeing the grip of the fangirl and running down the hall of the convention center.

The fan looks at Emile running down the hall and says "what the heck is his problem?!"

Emile felt horrible, for one, he left his fan hanging like a dick, but what to save, his loyalty or his dignity?

Jon looks over as a flood of fans go on to follow Emile. Jon sips his water "looks like Emile's having a fun time." Jon smirks being the snarky asshole he is.

Emile turned a corner and slowed his pace, grabbing on to his crotch with both hands, trying to hold back the flood, but to no avail. Emile froze as a wave of desperation came over him, he had to stop, he was going to have an accident!

Jon was curious to see how Emile was doing so he followed the stampede. Jon finally catches up "Looks like you're having fu-" Jon notices Emile grabbing onto his crotch. "You okay Emile?"

Emile turned his head slowly to face Jon, and a bunch of confused fans, and turns around slowly, tears in his eyes. He notices a men’s room right behind the sea of fans. Emile breaks down on the spot and the floodgates open. Emile takes his hands away from his crotch to see a wet patch forming on the front of his pants. he looks around at the sudden reaction of the crowd, back at his pants, and back at the crowd. he then gropes himself again. more urine escapes emile, and is now forming a puddle on the carpet, some even made its way into his converse high tops. A pleasurable euphoria washed over emile as he whimpered, giving up on trying to stop the flow. he kept going until the stream slowed to a fitful trickle and stopped. Emile was crying as he stood there, he put his face in his hands and cried for a while.

The fans gasped in horror as some fans took out their phones to record, Jon sees the fan recording and he takes their phone and throws it as he takes his hoodie off and gives it to Emile. "It's going to be alright, take it."

Emile was still crying, breathing unevenly as Tim tried calming Emile down by hugging him. “You’re gonna be fine, deep breath.” Emile took slower and slower breaths as he took jon’s hoodie, ran into the men’s bathroom, and locked himself in a stall. Jon goes into the bathroom with Emile and knocks on the stall door. "You okay in there?"

Emile wiped his tears on Jon’s hoodie, “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry Jon, I’m such a child.”

"No you're not, you should have said something Emile." Jon says, feeling sympathy for his friend. "Open up the stall, Emile"

Emile opens the bathroom stall, revealing his wet pants to jon, the blue denim clinging to Emile’s legs. Emile teared up again, “I’m sorry.” he whispered.

"It's not your fault Emile...C'mere" Jon says as he hugs onto his friend tightly. emile accepts Jon’s hug as he breaks down quietly in jon’s arms. they stay like this for a solid minute, before emile broke free of Jon’s hug. “i just wanna sleep…” Emile rubbed his eyes and sniffled.

"Same over here, Emile It's been a long day" Jon smiles as he looks at Emile lovingly.

2 notes · View notes

pphsreflections · 4 years

Text

Machines Roaming the Earth

Alex and Eddy continue their journey across the land, in search of Eddy’s creator. Alex suddenly stops and Eddy asks, “What is it, you smell something?” Then the voice in his head says, “Danger is in close proximity.” Then Eddy, without looking, puts his arm up and catches an arrow in midair. He turns his head a full 180 degrees. He then looks down in shock and says, “What the hell, oh my god, what is this?!” He looks and his vision changes. He suddenly notices a heat signature high in the trees about 30 yards away.

He hears the person whispering, “Sh*t, I’ve been spotted, gotta bail.”

The person climbs down the tree and Alex chases after him. The person runs through the trees and bushes. The constant snapping of twigs and leafs made it easier to follow this mystery man. Eddy keeps running and the voice asks, “Would you like to activate your weapons system?” His hand transforms and he takes a shot at the man. The person dodges but the blast hits the trees in front of him. They fall, blocking his path, and Alex tackles him. The mechanical growling is all this person could hear. Eddy notices the hood on her head and unveils who this person his. “This female is 5 '10, a master in martial arts, and stealth. Her name is Cassidy Reed, a warrior of a specialized group who takes pride in hunting down machines.” “Cassidy Reed?”

She answers, “YOUR DOG IS CRUSHING ME! GET OFF!!”

“Alex get off of her!” Alex obeys and Cassidy tries running away again. The computer says “Activate… extension arms.” Eddy’s arms extend and he catches her without even moving. He gasps and smiles in delight.

“Her emotional state seems to be a mixture of anger and sadness.” Eddy lets her go and says, “Ok, first of all, why did you try and shoot me with an arrow? What did I do wrong?”

“She looks at him in disbelief and says, “What did you do wrong, are you serious? You attacked my people, and forced us into hiding. You and your kind are a disease that need to be cleansed.” She pulls out a sword and tries to cut his head off, but without looking, he grabs it and snaps the blade off.

“I don’t know what you're talking about. I didn’t do anything, I don’t even remember who I am. I’m lost, trying to find my way.” She looks at him in shock, a cyborg who isn’t entirely evil? Who would’ve guessed?

She stutters, “I...I...I don’t believe you.”

She takes out a device from her bag and Eddy says, “Are you going to try and hit me with that?”

She replies, “Maybe, if you don’t shut it.” She puts this strange device, which looks similar to an eyepiece, over her eye and she looks at him with pity. “You’re alone, well not entirely, you have this beast with you.” Alex growls. “You want to find your maker. I’m sorry, maybe I shouldn’t be quick to judge. My father always said not all machines were horrible. I chose to ignore him and listen to everyone else.”

Alex remarks, “Wait, you come from civilization, can you lead us, maybe we can find my creator there.”

Cassidy replies quickly, “No, bad idea.”

After the discussion, Cassidy tells Eddy to not go with her. The only question he has is, “Why?”

“My people hate machines. They have to survive on scraps. They can barely have a full meal nowadays. Machines like yourself are responsible for that. Ever since this war, we have been trying to eradicate the machines from our world. They have studied your kind for years. For you, going to them would be suicide.”

“But I look human, how would they know?”

“Well for one, your dog would give you away. Unless you let him go, or kill him.”

“What! Hell no, that’s out of the question.” Alex growls louder than before.

“How long have you had him?”

“I don’t know, about… 1 hour.”

“Why do you insist on keeping him then!?”

“He’s the only one I have right now. I don’t really have a choice.”

“Fine, but either way, they will know you’re a machine. You have slits on your face and arms. A sign of metal plates covering the wires. You're done for.”

“Activate… cloaking system.” Eddy says, “Wait what?” He looks at his arms, only to realise, he could see through them.

“Hey, hello, where are you, where did you go?”

“Did I just...turn invisible?”

“Every cyborg I’ve ever seen, has never been able to do THAT. What kind of machine are you?”

“This keeps getting better and better.” he says with a smirk.

So they travel for about two hours, marching across the fields as the sky turns pink. The setting sun slowly fades from the horizon, and by 3 hours, it becomes a starry night. Eddy looked up at the stars, and then he asked Cassidy, “So, why did you hate me so much?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you seemed pretty angry when I caught you. Was it something personal.”

She sheds a tear and yells, “So what, now you want my life story!?”

She walks faster, ahead of him, and he remarks to Alex, “You better stay back. She can be a little tense.” He catches up to her and says, “Look, I’m sorry if I offended you or anything. I just wanted to get to know you.”

She looks at him less as a machine, and more as a man. “No, it’s fine, I just… with all that’s been going on, I’ve never really had time to relieve all this stress. I never have time for almost...anything, much less small talk.” She looks into his eyes with sympathy, as he is the first person to actually care about what she feels. “You know, I’m sorry for almost shooting you in the head with an arrow.”

They both chuckle and Eddy says, “It’s fine.”

“You’ve been really kind, and I thank you for that.” Eddy struggles with what to say. As he’s about to speak, Cassidy quietly says, “Cloak yourself, quickly, we’re almost there.”

“But why now, I don’t see anything.”

“Just do it!” He tries, but his legs are still visible. She notices and says, “Come on, this is no time for fun and games.”

“I’m trying.”

“Ok, um…” She notices a bush and says, “Hide behind there.”

He does so and a camera pops out of the grass and asks, “Retinal scan and voice command are required for access.”

“Cassidy Reed.” Suddenly, a secret door opens up and a stairway appears.

“Access… GRANTED!”

“Come on, we have to go.”

Eddy pops up from the bush and tells Alex, “Stay here, okay?” Alex nods and Eddy pounds his thighs saying, “Come on, not now, come on!” He hits them again, and now he can’t see his legs. “Perfect, okay let’s go.”

“All right, you ready to meet the P.O.T.?”

“The what?”

“The P.O.T”

“So.. POT” Eddy snickers. “What does it stand for?”

“Pro-Organic-Team.”

Eddy snickers much harder and Cassidy says, “Oh, come on.”

“I’m sorry, that’s just funny to me.”

They enter a cave and find an elevator. It goes down for a long while to reveal an entire colony. A bunch of average sized huts and huge spotlights above them lighting up the cave. The entire area seemed to be surrounded by a metal dome. Eddy smiles and has this look of awe as he looks around. He sees a training ground, and the gates and fences seem to be made from the remains of broken machines, and the weapons were no exception. He notices the giant digital clocks all around the dome as well.

Cassidy says, “Yeah, pretty cool right? Almost everything is made from the remains of machines, even the pavement you’re standing on. We do this to honor those who fought the machines with their lives. Don’t worry, most people usually come back alive after fighting machines… barely.” Eddy takes note of this and hears some people moaning and groaning while being carried to what seems like a medical station. He then notices a gateway leading to an upstairs area and asks, “Where does that go to?”

All of a sudden, a voice echoes across the area saying, “Everyone, gather around at the training arena immediately please!” The colony, including Eddy and Cassidy, gather at the arena to see a man standing on a wooden stool. The man looks as though he’s been through war, with burn marks on his face, a brownish-looking burnt eye, and huge scars on his arm. He has the demeanor of someone who’s competent and knows how to lead. His clothing is a ripped up cloak that has a mixture of dark and light brown. He holds a spear and Eddy sees chains dangling from the bottom of the blade, some which seem to be rusting. The bottom half of it is colored white as opposed to the top half being brown. He shouts, “Folks, today we gather around in recognition, as this day is the day all of this started. Six years ago, on April sixth, 2023, a man; Dr. Jason Deer, decided to plunge this world into total mayhem. Those who fought bravely against those horrid creatures, will always be remembered. And remember, even in the darkest of times, we still have each other, we still have our will, and that’s what keeps us going. To POT!”

The crowd yells, “TO POT!”

Eddy snickers, trying to hold back a laugh and Cassidy says, “Hey, have a little respect.”

Eddy replies, “Sorry.”

The man continues, “Let us take a moment to think about those who sacrificed themselves, to allow us to live on. Meeting adjourned.”

The computer tells Eddy “Power levels, draining, quickly. Conserving power. Systems failing.” Eddy looks at his legs and he starts to see them again. He whispers to Cassidy, “Psst, hey come here.”

They hide behind a hut and Cassidy asks, “What?” She looks at his legs and says quickly, “What are you doing? Turn back!”

“I can’t. I need to conserve power. Most of my systems are shutting down.”

“Ok, well… we’ll go through that door. It leads upstairs to our library.”

“You have a library?”

“Let’s go, but, be stealthy.” They walk slowly through the town and hid whenever someone was close by. They were just a few feet away, but eventually they had nowhere to hide and they had run as quickly as possible to the door. They go up the stairs and there was a woman behind the desk. Cassidy tells Eddy “Stay put.” and she walks up to the woman and says, “Hey Jessica, how are you?”

She replies back, “Great, how are things with your friend, the cyborg?”

Dylan Pados - gr. 11

#pphsreflections8

0 notes

unixcommerce · 4 years

Text

Kate Bradley Chernis of Lately: Marketers Hate Writing, but AI and Automation Eases the Pain

One thing a lot of people struggle with is writing. Whether it’s finding enough time to do it, or enough interesting topics to consistently publish compelling content that gets the right people’s attention, many marketers would rather do something else … anything else … than sit down and write. But the combination of AI and automation is beginning to change that whole dynamic.

Social Media Marketing AI

Kate Bradley Chernis, Founder & CEO of Lately — a platform using artificial intelligence to instantly transform blogs, videos and podcasts into dozens of social posts – joined me yesterday in a LinkedIn Live conversation to talk about how AI and automation is allowing marketers not only get more out of their efforts, it’s tapping into and using insights that is leading to self-generated content with human empathy included.

Below is an edited transcript of our conversation. To see the full conversation — including Kate sharing her thoughts and experiences on building a tech startup – watch the video, or click on the embedded SoundCloud player below.

Small Business Trends: What exactly is Lately?

Kate Bradley Chernis: It’s like having a pistol that’s really a rocket launcher type of idea. So you can take any blog. Any video, any podcast, a news article, that was written about your company. Like maybe some PR, and paste the URL into Lately’s artificial intelligence. Push a button. You could add a few hashtags if you wanted to, and what the AI does is it instantly goes out and it examines the last year of every social post you’ve ever published on any of your channels that you have connected to us. And it’s looking for the most compelling, engaging posts, the highest engaging posts, and it’s looking for the keywords that have appeared there in those posts, and it’s building a writing model based on your writing that resonates the best with your customers.

And then it pulls the quotes of what it’s ingested from your blog, for example, out into social posts, with the short link on the end, and the hashtags, and anything else you like. So think of it like a little movie trailer to the larger components, but often you’re getting three dozen social posts, because there’s going to be some incredible sentences that either somebody said or somebody wrote, each just a little taste of what’s to come if you were to click it. Does that make sense?

Small Business Trends: [Coworker] Cadi said I should ask you about Netflix.

Kate Bradley Chernis: Oh yeah. She loves this. So what Lately’s AI does, and this is really important for folks to understand, it’s not just automation, it’s artificial intelligence that really learns what works. So the same way Netflix learned what we all wanted to watch, and then use that data to recommend relevant content to you, and then use that data to create original content like The Crown. That’s now the most watched on its platform, because the AI learns what works. And that’s what Lately does as well with words.

Small Business Trends: How has AI not only changed what you do, but changed your approach to doing what you do?

Kate Bradley Chernis: So one thing that’s changed is certainly the way that we understand what resonates with our customers. That was the biggest one. Lately is actually a very robust platform that does way more automatically in the background, so that once you have this beautiful content generated by the AI, you want to do stuff with it. And so it’s our job to give you that ability, but we used to sell that part first and not the AI.

Small Business Trends: Wow.

Kate Bradley Chernis: Yeah, so it’s a strange kind of way that we had to flip it. And that was just really by watching what did our customers get into the most. And then also just connecting the story. So we learned how to demo the product in a certain series of ways where then you’d go: “Oh, Oh, Oh.” So multiple aha’s, which is super valuable.

And then to really also understand what the biggest pain point was. We thought time saving would be the biggest pain point, because that seems obvious. Who doesn’t want more time? And then money saving seems like a big point as well, but it turns out these days we’re all so saturated with many things that make our lives better that time saving and money saving becomes expected, but the writing, that’s a pain point that no one’s solving.

Small Business Trends: One of my buddies, Kenny Lauer, he says, “AI can absolutely replace the human. Maybe not Lately, but it’s absolutely possible.” Interesting. We don’t want to replace humans, or do we? I mean, you know.

Kate Bradley Chernis: Not in marketing though, Brent. Do you mind if I jump in on that one?

Small Business Trends: Go ahead.

Kate Bradley Chernis: The reason is because of emotion. So this is so powerful and people dismiss it. The whole reason sales people like to go and make the sale in person is because they know there’s such a higher value of conversion if you’re actually talking to a human. There’s that empathy sympathy. It all happens in that moment.

And so if you remove the human from the situation, you won’t get that. A robot just doesn’t do that at all. So that’s why you want them collaborating together. And the thing is, it’s so much more powerful. It’s not one plus one equals two. One plus one equals three with these two components.

Small Business Trends: Kenny Lauer replied, “AI will be able to deliver emotion and empathy, not a robot, a human AI personality.”

I know there are a couple of companies that are working on some of that stuff. I know Pega systems, they actually put into their customer engagement platform something called an empathy advisor.

Kate Bradley Chernis: Oh, wow.

Small Business Trends: Early days for that, but let me ask you, so do you think you will be able to include empathy into your AI layer to not only create the post, but to put the feeling, the human emotion, into the post as well? Is that something that you can see coming?

Kate Bradley Chernis: Yeah. Softball city Brent. So of course. Right? So this is the exciting part. We’re focused on AI creative writing, which is a blue ocean kind of field. And just to lay it out for you a little bit, right now Lately extracts short form content, ie, social posts, from long form content, ie, blogs, videos, podcasts.

Now down the road, that short form content will take other forms. Text messaging, sales chats, emails, even blogs themselves, but once we extract the short form from the long form, we’re then able to enhance that content. Whoops, where’s my mirror, enhance.

Small Business Trends: There you go.

Kate Bradley Chernis: And so one of the ways we enhance now is with the keyword weighting, which is what we’ve been touching on. We’re also able to enhance with tone of voice. So we worked with Anheuser-Busch and Bev over the summer, and we ingested 10,000 pieces of content from one of their brands, so one brand voice, into our AI brain, and at the end of the experiment we were able to push a button and Lately was able to create content from scratch in the brand voice and it was damn good and emotional.

Small Business Trends: Wow. So it’s not just about ingesting content, finding the snippets and pushing them out. Now you’re talking about generating the content in addition to that.

Kate Bradley Chernis: Yeah, it just needs that baseline of information. So those 10,000 posts is what it was learning from. And what it inspired us to do, by the way, and I’d love to know what Kenny thinks about this, our customers constantly were asking us, “Well, so Kate, how do you do it?” This is why I give those free courses.

How does Lately do it? We want to write Lately. And so we thought, well, let’s take what we’ve learned with our ABM embed project, and let’s turn that model on ourselves. So right now we’re taking all 40,000 social posts that Lately Kately has published and we’re running that through the AI brain so that we can then use that as the gold standard to recommend to our customers, and create different learning sets. So now one of them, as we move on, will be mood, so if you wanted funny posts you just hit a button. That’s awesome.

Small Business Trends: How do you measure success? Is this little piece I’m pulling out getting in front of the right audience, and the right audience is actually doing what we’d like them to do?

Kate Bradley Chernis: Yeah. So that’s the smartest question, of course, is what are the results? So we do measure, for us, we’re looking behind the scenes at how often our customers are auto generating content, and then how often they’re actually publishing that content, and then how well that’s performing and taking note of that database.

We use ourselves often as, I mean we dog food our own product. If you guys have heard of that term. I mean we, we drink our own champagne. So I’ll talk about us, because I can do that publicly with license. So for us, for example, we believe in 100% organic content, and the power of organic. We don’t do any paid ads. As many of you know, a lot of social media outlets have been pressing down the reach of paid ads. So we were like, let’s just do what we know how to do best.

I get a lot of inbound. I get a great, great bunch of interviews like this, because of my charming personality, and we auto-generate all that press. So, for example, we might take a recording of this podcast, we’ll put it through the auto generator and in just a few seconds we’ll get, let’s just say 60 social posts, it’s probably likely, and the goal of the AI is to then start you at third base, and for a human, which we love the humans, to come in and get it to home plate. So that’s the one plus one equals three equation. There we go.

Small Business Trends: There it is.

Kate Bradley Chernis: Yeah, mirror. So the way it works for us for example, is with those, let’s say 50 posts we get, I would pop in and just spend a few extra minutes humanizing them, maybe putting my voice on, making sure that everything is looking awesome from what the AI gives me. And then we like to stagger all 50 posts out over time. So what I would do, Brent, is I would actually probably tag you in most of those posts, maybe half of them, but if I broadcast them every day for a week, you’d be like, “Dude, you are annoying me. And I’m not re-tweeting this content.”

But if I spread it out once every three weeks, over the next few months, we’re both going to get a lot of long tail traffic. And so if you’re doing this often, and stockpiling your whole calendar in this way, it’s like it’s the new Evergreen, and for us it translates to a 50% trial to sale conversion. So those are the results we’re looking at.

And the reason is, is because the leads are already warm by the time we get to them. So what we look at is who’s liking our content, who’s commenting, and who’s re-tweeting it, and what are those people like? So we don’t do any cold emailing or cold calling, because if you’re already participating in my audience in some way, you like me, you know something about me, that hurdle is already cut in half for me.

And so again, we’re really putting that stake in the stand. Organic is the winner, and the reason is, is because these relationships. You know me, you’ve got some idea when my team member approaches you. It’s just a much different kind of conversation there. So we actually encourage and train our own customers on the same model, by request. So we do free courses every week. I joined those once a week.

Small Business Trends: What has been your experience in this whole [start up] process as, has it been what you were expecting? Has it been more difficult? Has it been less difficult? Tell us a little bit about your journey on that area.

Kate Bradley Chernis: Yeah, thanks for asking. I mean, you get punched in the face almost every day, to be honest with you, and it can come as a shock often, but you do get numb to it, because there’s things, it’s just so out of your control. The biggest thing that I learned, this year especially, was that the overwhelmed feeling wasn’t going away. The list of to do’s, and all the things that had to be done immediately, yesterday, on fire, was never going to go away. And I needed to change my perception of those things. So I did something that people have been telling me to do for years and I was like, “Are you kidding? I don’t have time for this.” Which is meditating.

Small Business Trends: Really? Okay.

Kate Bradley Chernis: Yeah. And the difference has been, for me, actually life changing, because the stuff. The punches in the face. All of these emergencies. They’re coming all the time. Like looking at the bank account. Ah! You know. And having the pressure of making sure my team is happy and good. And my investors and myself, but none of the outside stuff was going to change. So I had to learn how to change the inside stuff. And I’ve been trying to give that gift to as many other entrepreneurs as I possibly can. Because we all suffer from this. And most of the entrepreneurs that I know like to suffer alone. There’s a reason we do this thing, and you sign up for it.

So there’s nothing that I regret. Any punch in the face that I’ve had, I would take again, honestly, gladly, because it’s what has gotten us here, but also, I choose this ride, because the highs are so high. I mean the lows are so low, right? So I think knowing that’s the case, and that’s what you’re signing up for, I can’t wait to write the book. It’s going to be amazing.

This article, “Kate Bradley Chernis of Lately: Marketers Hate Writing, but AI and Automation Eases the Pain” was first published on Small Business Trends

https://smallbiztrends.com/

The post Kate Bradley Chernis of Lately: Marketers Hate Writing, but AI and Automation Eases the Pain appeared first on Unix Commerce.

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