#one single doc: too long. computer died

[justfigs]

i’m not gonna take nano seriously, as you can see, because i placed all of my previous words on it already, but i’m going to use it as word vomit to possibly, hopefully, barf out the majority of this draft, lie in a writing coma, then write the leftovers

#seems like fun #wait i just realised there's no good ways to formulate documents #chapter by chapter: too many docs #one single doc: too long. computer died #*dies #maybe i do extra folders and then chunks in there

[tilbageidanmark]

Movies I watched this week - 46

There’s no Happy End in Michael Haneke’s ‘Happy End’: 12-year old actrice belge Fantine Harduin poisons her mom, herself and helps her senile grandpère Jean-Louis Trintignant to drown. Her wealthy aunt Isabelle Huppert  breaks the thumb of her reckless son when he invites a bunch of Moroccan refugees to an exclusive family gathering. And her estranged father is a sado-masochist who cheats on his second wife too. It’s dark and melancholy and magnificent. 9/10

✴️      

Long Strange Trip, a cool & fair rock doc 4 hour long, about who the Grateful Dead were, what they did and how much their “Ethos, Man!” mattered.

I’m so sorry I only went to 5-6 Dead concerts, when I had the chance!

Most enjoyable film of the week, in a week full of them!

✴️      

Travelling Salesman, a very unusual intellectual thriller about 4 mathematicians who were secretly tasked by the NSA to solve the ‘P versus NP problem’, and now have to deliver and sign off their project. Not that I know what they are talking about, but apparently it’s a major unsolved problem in computer science.

Basically it was 5 people locked in a room, a-la-’12 Angry Men’, and it sounded nearly right most of the time. Different!

✴️      

2 Films about Nazi Germany:

✳️✳️✳️ Tomorrow belongs to me, the masterful introduction of broader meaning into Bob Fosse’s Cabaret: “The song marks the first time that the narrative moves away from the hedonism of the nightclub, and establishes the rise of the Nazi Party as the main theme of the story". (Photo Above).

The Joel Grey’s musical portions and the rise of fascism were superb, but the story of milquetoast gay ex-pat Michael York watered down the message considerably. 4/10.

(No wonder Ester, my ex, loved the Sally Bowles character...)

✳️✳️✳️ Hitler's Hollywood, AKA “German Cinema in the Age of Propaganda: 1933-45”, narrated by Udo Kier.

Between 1933-1945 circa 1000 entertainment films were produced by Nazi Germany. This fascinating historical retrospective examines, with hundreds of film clips, how Joseph Goebbels sought to use cinema as a means of mass indoctrination and control.

My most interesting film find of the week! 9/10

✴️     

It took me 3 attempts to get into Paolo Sorrentino’ Felliniesque The Great Beauty. The disaffected Jep Gambardella is a 65 year old, well-connected socialite & journalist who learns that his first and greatest love, whom he hasn’t seen for 40 years, has died. But after grotesque and spectacular La Dolce Vita adventures, he ends up walking melancholic and empty along the banks of the Tiber. Absolutely beautiful!

(Also, at 1:45, he goes into a massive installation of an artist, whose father took a photo of him every day since he was born...)

✴️      

2 terrific Jazz bios:

✳️✳️✳️ Music in the key of Oscar - A wonderful 1995 docu about (mostly) the reunion that Oscar Peterson had with Ray Brown and Herb Ellis after 20 years hiatus, as well as highlights from his career. Too good!

Prompt by this gem: Oscar Peterson teaches Dick Cavett what other piano players' styles are like.

✳️✳️✳️ Bird, Clint Eastwood’s biography of Charlie Parker. It’s nearly 3 hours long and straight-forward, but the music is too good not to be good. Eastwood himself was a fairly good (?) jazz musician and composer.

His wife Chan didn’t get enough credit for her saintliness. Both Forest Whitaker and Diane Verona were excellent in it. 8+/10.

✴️      

King Richard, a new, idealized biographical drama about Richard Williams, the father who "had a plan" for Venus & Serena, and his relentless push for their greatness. Inspirational & feel-good, yet 100% positive: The single real-life ambivalence came in one surprising line, when the mom mentioned his other children. In reality he had 15 children with at least 4 women. 7/10

✴️      

"Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in." - Out of The Past, a classic Film Noir starring (regular pot-smoker) Robert Mitchum, Kirk Douglas and the beautiful Rhonda Fleming. Sharp dialogue, cunning femme fatale and lots of smoking. 7/10.

✴️      

In her name is based on the real live case of Kalinka Bamberski case. Daniel Auteuil is a father, whose daughter is murdered by her German step-father. For 30 years he stubbornly pursued bringing charges against the doctor, until final conviction. It’s a hard to watch film. Also, as it covers 30 years, it jumps a lot and shows only highlights from the case.

✴️      

After seeing Joe Swanberg’s mumblecore bore ‘Build The Wall’ a few months ago, I swore not to bother with the rest of his films, but because I’m smitten with adorable eye-candy Anna Kendrick, I gave Happy Christmas a try.

I’m glad I did. Kendrick plays a happy-going, irresponsible, pot-smoking younger sister who comes to stay with her brother and his wife and his cute 2 year old son in their Chicago home. A very simple story, honestly told. 7/10.

✴️      

Game Night, a fun entertainment about Jason Bateman and Rachel McAdams, a competitive gamer couple and a role-playing murder mystery party.

5/10

✴️   

2 About Catholic priests struggling with their faith: 

✳️✳️✳️ Duval and De Nero are brothers in True Confessions. Duval is a homicide detective on a case similar to The Black Dahlia, and De Nero is a monsignor in the Los Angeles archdiocese of 1948. I loved it years ago, and I still do: Reminiscent of ‘Chinatown’, and one of the best of 1980′s slow dramas.

I was knocked out today by the first scenes, which were shot on the desert roads outside Adelanto, my old stomping grounds! 7/10.

✳️✳️✳️ Under the sun of Satan, Maurice Pialat’s dense religious parable. Gérard Depardieu is a tormented, self-flagellating rural priest in the early 1900′s whose faith is tested by doubts. It didn’t speak to me.

✴️     

Salvador Dalí & Walt Disney’s collaborated effort from 1945, Destino, which was completed & released in 2003. A 7 minutes surrealistic abstraction on Dalí planes.

✴️      

The beating heart of Spielberg’s America, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Close Encounter Part 2. Thankfully, most of the film is about the kids, and Peter Coyote doesn’t show up until the last 30 minutes.

First watch in 40 years, prompt by another tearjerker, 9 year old Henry Thomas audition for the role of Elliott.

✴️      

Produced by Mel Brooks, directed by young David Lynch, and with a touching scene of Anne Bancroft reciting Romeo & Juliet with the deformed Elephant Man. Sentimental period drama without the later Lynch twisted style.

✴️      

The Whistlers, a stylized artsy Romanian crime story that starts on a Canary Island, and ends at Singapore Changi Airport. But in between it was dull and uninspiring.

✴️      

Have a Good Trip: Adventures in Psychedelics, a Netflix docu about LSD, targeted mostly to newbies. I re-watched it after my LSD trip this weekend, but it was too celebrity-loaded, “comedic” and flat.

✴️      

"Alt-na-Shellach"! Hitchcock’s silly mistaken identity “thriller” The39 Steps. The detail I liked most about it was the late supper that Robert Donat cooked for Annabella Smith. He asked her if she’s hungry, and then he pulled a whole haddock out of the fridge, laid it on a pan and added some water to it to cook. Than He sliced a thick slap of white bread...

✴️      

Edgar Wright’s latest Last Night In Soho, and his first from a young women prospective - Not what i expected, and nothing I cared for too much. A bit like Polanski's Repulsion. With Terence Stamp & Rita Tushingham. 3/10

- - - - -

Throw-back to the art project:

Cabaret Adora.

- - - - -

(My complete movie list is here)

#movies

[lizardrosen]

@eirenical also asked "..and omg is it terrible to want to know about literally all your Les Mis, Narnia, and Star Wars WiPs?? Because I kind of want to know about all of them. XD" on my wip post

Les Mis

SINGING THE SONG OF ANGRY MEN is just my catch-all les mis doc from before I transferred everything from Word to Scrivener, meaning everything in there is before reading the book. I was probably really unfair to Cosette because i thought of her as competition for Eponine's happiness. Anyway, have a e/R fic i wrote based purely on dash osmosis, and complete with misspellings!

resurrection? was just a really strong image i had to write out and was always curious what the larger story would be. Basically Grantaire is smiling soppily at Enjolras and then thinks "That was before they died" and is sad and thoughtful about The Ideal.

Gray Is Okay - turns out I've already posted this one on tumblr! Grantaire and Enjolras talk about pronouns and convictions and uncertainty!

brietbart online - short fic where Enjolras gets himself worked up over right wing newspapers because “It’s good to know how the enemy thinks” and Grantaire helps him calm down. (Pretty sure this one was inspired by someone being Very Extremely Wrong about one of my favorite episodes of star trek, and then I noticed the source) This wasn't very good writing and it wasn't really going anywhere, so I'm never going to post it.

“Please Come Inside” - Enjolras is greyromantic and mostly he just loves all his friends, but he has a queerplatonic relationship with Courfeyrac which slowly develops into (possibly?) romantic attraction, and he's very confused and upset by this internal change and has to Process.

from my vague notes:

at some point they end up at a chinese restaurant because courfeyrac calls it "the ultimate comfort food" enjolras always makes a token protest when they go, but he secretly loves it just as much or more because salty foods are his weakness "we don't need to change anything we're doing," courfeyrac says as he stabs at an egg roll with a single chopstick, "or we can. Uh, your choice. But no matter what I won't be ashamed of you, and i'll trust that you aren't ashamed of me." (courfeyrac is not aro-spec, but he did introduce enjolras to the term) and they talk about their feelings and enjolras's main fear, besides that he's not aromantic at all, is that he'll be forcing courfeyrac into the closet, because even if whatever-he's-feeling is close to what someone else might call romantic, he still Can Not bear to have himself called a boyfriend courfeyrac mostly just wants enjolras to be comfortable, and he's willing to take whatever form their relationship eventually comes

Friendlier Skies - this one's my les mis space au, with a bunch of shorter stories that all fit into the same solar system. One of my favorite elements is that the Gorbeau Building has been remixed into a ship that accepts literally anyone as passengers with no questions asked.

And the Narnia and Star Wars are going under a cut!

Narnia

Gallivanters is an AU where instead of being from Narnia, Caspian is just a Spanish transfer student at the boarding school where Edmund and Peter are, and they have a bunch of nerdy adventures. I'm pretty sure Caspian/Peter was endgame in my head, but i never got that far.

once a king or queen was just my catch-all Narnia doc. Lots of Edmund, lots of Susan, and one ficlet where Susan Pevensie and Carrie White talk about the family they've lost and the girls they don't need to be anymore. I swear I remember writing a lot of Jill and Eustace too, but it must have gotten lost when transferring computers.

Theory of Narnia - technically not a WIP anymore, but I used the plot of Narnia to write an essay explaining different Theory of Knowledge concepts for extra credit in high school. It had footnotes and everything!

To Fill Different Lives was a passion project for several years! It was supposed to be for a fic exchange in 2010 but it got too big for me and I had to drop out. It's Jadis after the Last Battle, recounting her history to no one because there's no one left. Many things about it make me cringe looking back at it, but I still looove this opening:

I have lived for a long time, long enough to fill several different lives. Looking back, I begin to realize just how similar all of these lives have been. Each time, I had power, but needed more. Each time, I chose a color and assumed it as a part of my identity. And each time, there was a boy.

Star Wars

There Will Be Light - oops, I already posted this one on tumblr too! Luke has bad dreams after Obi-Wan is killed, and Han comforts him. Not meant to be shippy but it definitely could be!

Qui-Gon lives (and somehow everything is worse??) - never got past the "vague chatting" stage, but our conversation started with this

lizardrosen: you know how qui-gon tells padme something like "i can only defend you, i can't fight a war for you" ? and then the jedi order DOES fight a war for the republic eirenical: YES. lizardrosen: how *pissed* would he have been if he'd lived to find out about kamino and the clones and all of that eirenical: *nodnodnod* I think about that a lot, actually. About how Qui-Gon would have dealt with the war. Somehow, I think it would have either broken him completely... or broken his compassion for others. AND I'M NOT SURE WHICH WOULD BE WORSE.

and then we talked about how qui-gon and obi-wan and anakin are a really solid trio for a long time, so it takes a long time to break qui-gon's compassion, but it happens hard, and "obi-wan and anakin are never quite able to be the dynamic duo; they'll always be three minus one but they try, they try so HARD"

Obi-Wan after Revenge of the Sith is just what it says on the tin. He's sad and alone and trying to connect to Qui-Gon, but not quite ready for him even when he does finally show up. This one also has a really good opening paragraph!

Everyone Obi-Wan loves is taller than him. Everyone he has loved? Used to love? No, he loves them still, even those gone from the world, or out of his grasp. He would have grown to love Luke and Leia too, tiny as they are, if given half the chance, which is exactly why he cannot allow himself to take that chance.

#eirenical #les mis #narnia #star wars #my writing #friendship is great!

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Pluralist, your daily link-dose: 24 Feb 2020

Today’s links

How “Authoritarian Blindness” kept Xi from dealing with coronavirus: Zeynep Tufekci in outstanding form.

The Snowden Archive: every publicly available Snowden doc, collected and annotated.

Key computer vision researcher quits: facial recognition is a moral quagmire.

My interview on adversarial interoperability: you can’t shop your way out of late-stage capitalism.

81 Fortune 100 companies demand binding arbitration: monopoly and its justice system.

I’m coming to Kelowna! Canada Reads is bringing me to the BC interior, March 5.

A flat earther commits suicide by conspiracy theory: conspiracies are comorbid with corruption.

This day in history: 2019, 2015, 2010, 2005

Colophon: Recent publications, current writing projects, upcoming appearances, current reading

How “Authoritarian Blindness” kept Xi from dealing with coronavirus (permalink)

Xi Jinping’s refashioning of the Chinese internet to ratchet up surveillance and censorship made it all but impossible for the Chinese state to use the internet to detect and contain Corona Virus, writes Zeynep Tufekci in The Atlantic. Tufekci talks about “authoritarian blindness,” where people too scared to tell the autocrat the hard truths makes it impossible for the autocrat to set policy that reflects reality.

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2020/02/coronavirus-and-blindness-authoritarianism/606922/

(Cue Mao telling China to “eat 5 meals a day” because his apparats were too scared to warn him of impending famine, then selling off the nation’s food reserves for foreign currency because he thought it was surplus. Food production collapsed.)

Before Xi, a certain amount of online dissidence was tolerated because it helped root out dangerously corrupt local leaders before they could do real damage. It’s always hard to make autocracies sustainable because corruption and looting leaves them hollow and brittle.

When Xi took power in 2012, he restored “one man rule” and began a series of maneuvers, including purges, to consolidate power for himself. The rise and rise of China’s mobile internet made this far more effective than at any time in history.

“Authoritarian blindness” kicked off the Hong Kong protests because the state so badly misjudged the cause and severity of the grievances there. The same thing happened in Wuhan when doctors and netizens faced retaliation for describing early virus outbreaks.

The reality-debt built up by official denial always results in reality bankruptcy, eventually – so finally, the reports of the virus were so widespread and alarming they could no longer be suppressed. But by then, the virus had proliferated. This is an important point: “the killer digital app for authoritarianism isn’t listening in on people through increased surveillance, but listening to them as they express their honest opinions, especially complaints.”

That’s how you stabilize the unstable: by using digital authoritarianism to fine tune the minimum viable amount of good governance to diffuse public anger. It’s how you maximize your looting without getting strung up by your ankles.

The Snowden Archive (permalink)

The Snowden Surveillance Archive collects “all documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden that have subsequently been published by news media.”

https://snowdenarchive.cjfe.org/greenstone/cgi-bin/library.cgi

It’s indexed and searchable, created by Canadian Journalists for Free Expression and the Politics of Surveillance Project at the Faculty of Information at the University of Toronto. (Canada is a “Five Eyes” country that partners with the NSA on global mass surveillance)

There’s a “Portable Archive” version – a tarball with all the docs so you can create your own mirror:

https://snowdenarchive.cjfe.org/greenstone/collect/snowden1/portablearchive.html

They provide instructions for turning this into a kiosk they call a “Snowden Archive-in-a-Box.” Costs about CAD120.00

Key computer vision researcher quits (permalink)

Joseph Redmon is the creator of YOLO (You Only Look Once), a key Computer Vision technology. He’s just announced his resignation from computer vision work, citing ethical concerns with Facial Recognition.

https://twitter.com/pjreddie/status/1230523827446091776

His thread is really important, calling out the gap between what ML researchers SAY they want to do about ethics and how they actually deal with ethical issues: “basically all facial recognition work would not get published if we took Broader Impacts sections seriously.”

“There is almost no upside and enormous downside risk.” That’s some serious Oppenheimer stuff right there. The kicker? “For most of grad school I bought in to the myth that science is apolitical and research is objectively moral and good no matter what the subject is.”

My interview on adversarial interoperability (permalink)

The Firewalls Don’t Stop Dragons podcast (which offers information security advice and analysis for non-technical people) just posted part 2 of our interview on Adversarial Interoperability, Right To Repair, and technological fairness.

http://podcast.firewallsdontstopdragons.com/2020/02/24/adversarial-interoperability-part-2/

Part one went live last week:

https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1229842619380858885

In this one, I try to explain how John Deere’s war on farm-based repairs is connected to Apple’s war on independent repair, and how consumer choices can’t solve either problem — but collective action can!

It’ll take a movement, not individual action. Thankfully, such a movement exists. EFF’s Electronic Frontier Alliance, a network of groups nationwide working on local issues with national coordination. It’s the antidote to individual powerlessness.

https://www.eff.org/electronic-frontier-alliance/allies

81 Fortune 100 companies demand binding arbitration (permalink)

Binding arbitration was originally created as a way for giant corporations to resolve their disputes with each other without decades-long court battles costing tens of millions of dollars. SCOTUS ratified the principal in 1925: firms of similar size and power could use binding arbitration as an alternative to litigation.

http://www.onthecommons.org/magazine/we-now-have-a-justice-system-just-for-corporations

In the century since, corporations have eroded the idea of arbitration as something reserved for co-equals and have turned it into a condition of employment and of being a customer.

In an era of both monopoly and monoposony, it can be hard to find a single employer OR vendor who will conduct business with you unless you first surrender the rights your elected lawmakers decided that you are entitled to.

Today, the largest corporations in the world require you to “agree” to binding arbitration before you can conduct business with them: your monopolistic ISP or cable operator probably does.

As do Walmart, Uber, and Amazon (and not coincidentally, all three have crowded out all the competitors you might choose to take your business to if this strikes you as unfair).

In 2019, SCOTUS ratified the practice.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/13/business/binding-arbitration-consumers/index.html

81 out of the Fortune 100 non-negotiably require binding arbitration if you want to conduct business with them. “Arbitration is often confidential and the outcome doesn’t enter the public record” – if you get screwed you won’t know if it’s a one-off or a pattern.

This is especially pernicious in the realm of US health care. There is ONE pain specialist in all of Southern California that my insurer covers who doesn’t require binding arbitration. When I took my daughter to the ER with a broken bone, they threatened not to treat her unless we signed an arbitration waiver – and that ER is now owned by a PE firm that bought every medical practice in a 10mi radius and now they all do it.

We are literally replacing public courts with private corporate justice, where the “judge” is paid by the company that maimed you, or ripped you off, or killed you.

I’m coming to Kelowna! (permalink)

I’ve never been to Kelwona, BC or anywhere in BC apart from Victoria and Vancouver, so I am SO TOTALLY EXCITED to be appearing in Kelowna for Canada Reads on Mar 5. Please come and say hello! (it’s free!)

https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/cbc-radio-presents-in-conversation-with-cory-doctorow-tickets-96154415445

The event is a collaboration between the Kelowna Public Library and CBC Books, and I’m being emceed and interviewed by Sarah Penton. It’s going to be recorded for airing later as well (I’ll be sure to fold it into my podcast, which you can get here: http://craphound.com/podcast/)

A flat earther commits suicide by conspiracy theory (permalink)

A(nother) flat-earther has tried to prove that the Earth is disc-shaped by launching a homemade rocket. This one (“Mad” Mike Hughes) killed himself by pancaking into the desert.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/daredevil-mad-mike-hughes-dies-homemade-rocket-launch-filmed-tv-n1141286

This is awful. Jokes about “Darwin Awards” don’t change that.

When you scratch a conspiracist, you generally find two things:

Someone who knows chapter-&-verse about real conspiracies (e.g. “If you think antivax is so outlandish, let me tell you about the Sackler family”)

Someone who has been traumatized by conspiracies (belief that the levees were dynamited during Katrina to drown Black neighborhoods are often embraced by people whose family were flooded out in 58 when the levees in Tupelo were dynamited to drown Black neighborhoods).

A belief that the aerospace industry engages in coverups and conspiracies is not, in and of itself, irrational. Aerospace is the land of conspiracies and coverups. Look at the Boeing 737 Max!

Conspiracies are an epiphenomenon of market concentration. “Two may keep a secret if one of them is dead”: the ability to conspire is a collective action problem, wherein linear increases in the number of conspirators yield geometric increases in the likelihood of defections. When an industry is reduced to 3-5 giants, the likelihood is that every top exec at each company worked as a top exec at one or more of the others (to say nothing of the likelihood of intercompany friendships, marriages, etc). Moreover, an industry that concentrated will almost certainly be regulated by its own former execs, as they are likely the only ones qualified to understand its workings.

Many of us were appalled by the sight of the nation’s tech leaders gathered around a table at Trump Tower after the inauguration.

But we should have been even more alarmed by the realization that all the leaders of the tech industry fit around a single table.

We are living in both a golden age of conspiratorial thinking and of actual conspiracies. The conspiracy theories don’t necessarily refer to the actual conspiracies, but “conspiracy” is a plausible idea with a lot of explanatory power in 2020.

We spend a lot of time wondering about how we can fix the false beliefs that people have, but some of our focus needs to be on reducing the plausibility of conspiracy itself. Make industries more competitive and diverse, make regulators more accountable.

Put out the fires, sure, but clear away the brush so that they don’t keep reigniting.

I strongly recommend Anna Merlan’s REPUBLIC OF LIES for more.

https://boingboing.net/2019/09/21/from-opioids-to-antivax.html

This day in history (permalink)

#15yrsago: Labour MP Brian Sedgemore excoriates his own government’s terror laws in the speech of his lifetime: https://web.archive.org/web/20050227035611/http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200405/cmhansrd/cm050223/debtext/50223-21.htm

#10yrsago: How ducks, Nazis and themeparks gave America its color TV transition: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2010/feb/23/digital-switchover-bbc-spectrum

#5yrsago: Alex Stamos, then CSO of Yahoo, publicly calls out then-NSA Director Adm. Mike Rogers on crypto backdoors: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/02/yahoo-exec-goes-mano-a-mano-with-nsa-director-over-crypo-backdoors/

#5yrsago: A chronology of the Canadian Conservative Party’s war on science under PM Stephen Harper: https://scienceblogs.com/confessions/2013/05/20/the-canadian-war-on-science-a-long-unexaggerated-devastating-chronological-indictment

#5yrsago: Citizenfour, Laura Poitras’s movie about Edward Snowden, wins the Academy Award for best documentary: https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/edward-snowden-congratulates-laura-poitras-winning-best-documentary-oscar-citizenfour

#1yrago: Every AOC staffer will earn a living wage: https://www.rollcall.com/2019/02/22/alexandria-ocasio-cortezs-call-for-a-living-wage-starts-in-her-office/

#1yrago: Richard Sackler’s “verbal gymnastics” in defending his family’s role in killing 200,000 Americans with opiods: https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/02/sackler-behind-oxycontin-fraud-offered-twisted-mind-boggling-defense/

#1yrago: German neo-Nazis use Qanon memes to signal-boost their messages: https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-fringe-groups-are-using-qanon-to-amplify-their-wild-messages

#1yrago: French courts fine UBS €3.7b for helping French plutes dodge their taxes: https://www.thelocal.fr/20190220/breaking-french-court-hits-swiss-bank-ubs-with-37-billion-fine-in-french-tax-fraud-case

#1yrago: Apple to close down its east Texas stores to avoid having any nexus with America’s worst patent court: https://www.macrumors.com/2019/02/22/apple-closing-stores-in-eastern-district-texas/

#1yrago: Small business cancels its unusably slow Frontier internet service, Frontier sticks them with a $4,300 cancellation fee: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/02/frontier-demands-4300-cancellation-fee-despite-horribly-slow-internet/

#1yrago: Fast food millionaire complains that social media makes kids feel so entitled that they are no longer willing to work for free: https://amp.news.com.au/finance/work/careers/muffin-break-boss-fury-over-youth-who-wont-work-unpaid/news-story/57607ea9a1bbe52ba7746cff031306f2

#1yrago: Apps built with Facebook’s SDK shovel incredible quantities of incredibly sensitive data into Facebook’s gaping maw: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/22/facebook-receives-personal-health-data-from-apps-wsj.html

#1yrago: Super-high end prop horror-movie eyeballs, including kits to make your own: https://fourthsealstudios.com/

#1yrago: EU advances its catastrophic Copyright Directive without fixing any of its most dangerous flaws: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/02/european-governments-approve-controversial-new-copyright-law/

Colophon (permalink)

Today’s top sources: Four Short Links (https://www.oreilly.com/feed/four-short-links), Slashdot (https://slashdot.org), Naked Capitalism (https://nakedcapitalism.com/”).

Hugo nominators! My story “Unauthorized Bread” is eligible in the Novella category and you can read it free on Ars Technica: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/01/unauthorized-bread-a-near-future-tale-of-refugees-and-sinister-iot-appliances/

Upcoming appearances:

Canada Reads Kelowna: March 5, 6PM, Kelowna Library, 1380 Ellis Street, with CBC’s Sarah Penton https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/cbc-radio-presents-in-conversation-with-cory-doctorow-tickets-96154415445

Currently writing: I just finished a short story, “The Canadian Miracle,” for MIT Tech Review. It’s a story set in the world of my next novel, “The Lost Cause,” a post-GND novel about truth and reconciliation. I’m getting geared up to start work on the novel now, though the timing is going to depend on another pending commission (I’ve been solicited by an NGO) to write a short story set in the world’s prehistory.

Currently reading: I finished Andrea Bernstein’s “American Oligarchs” this week; it’s a magnificent history of the Kushner and Trump families, showing how they cheated, stole and lied their way into power. I’m getting really into Anna Weiner’s memoir about tech, “Uncanny Valley.” I just loaded Matt Stoller’s “Goliath” onto my underwater MP3 player and I’m listening to it as I swim laps.

Latest podcast: Persuasion, Adaptation, and the Arms Race for Your Attention: https://craphound.com/podcast/2020/02/10/persuasion-adaptation-and-the-arms-race-for-your-attention/

Upcoming books: “Poesy the Monster Slayer” (Jul 2020), a picture book about monsters, bedtime, gender, and kicking ass. Pre-order here: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781626723627?utm_source=socialmedia&utm_medium=socialpost&utm_term=na-poesycorypreorder&utm_content=na-preorder-buynow&utm_campaign=9781626723627

(we’re having a launch for it in Burbank on July 11 at Dark Delicacies and you can get me AND Poesy to sign it and Dark Del will ship it to the monster kids in your life in time for the release date).

“Attack Surface”: The third Little Brother book, Oct 20, 2020.

“Little Brother/Homeland”: A reissue omnibus edition with a very special, s00per s33kr1t intro.

[eye-raq]

Lethal Lust.

A snippet.

Rage flowed through him like molten lava.

His fury sprang to life.

His edge of irritation had definitely returned.

Today, at approximately 3:15 am, on Saturday, he was wearing a suit. A Harrogate Black Indochino suit made with 95% Merino Wool, and only 5% luxurious Cashmere; which was a shame because it added warmth, softness, and lightness. His feet were covered in D-ring detail Monogram Patent Leather formal dress shoes by Burberry. Fixing his silver cufflinks with obvious aggressiveness, he began to walk the length of the hallway.

It wasn’t a typical hallway located in a fancy banquet or ballroom. No. It was narrow and smelly. Windowless, and ancient. Gloomy with a sadistic secret. Hideously colored. Cold and annoyingly stuffy. And to top it all off, accompanied with flickering fluorescent light bulbs and walls with chipped off-white paint. When he walked,  you could hear the sound of his dress shoes bouncing off of the hollow walls. His hands were clasped behind his back casually, whistling to himself a random catchy tune he came up with. Godspeed to the person he was looking for, the one that earned him a bloody lip that leaked onto his once perfectly crisp and white dress shirt.

This was child’s play. Hide and seek was for five-year-olds named Sally, Susie, Billy, and Mikey. So much for trying to be a different kind of horror. No matter how much he veered away from that narrative, people still found him to be like Micheal Myers. How he couldn’t tell you. Micheal was clearly otherworldly and not human. As for him, he was all human. One gunshot to the head and he would drop to his knees with eyes as wide as saucers, falling forehead first in a pool of blood. One quick step and a precise strike with a Karambit knife would slice open his gut leading to a slow, yet painful death.

Speaking of knives, he was currently holding a kukri: a middle Asia knife that is weighed in the front. It gives the user more downward force and power. Commonly used to chop down tree limbs, or in his case...human limbs.

With sharp ears like a wolf, he could hear breathing. Struggling, pained breathing. It was coming from his right. Oh, how nice...a dark room with a tiny rusted window that reminded you of a dank basement that belonged to a serial killer. Funny...he was a serial killer. Not like a Ted Bundy, or a Jeffrey Dahmer. Nah, those were the kinds he went after. Those were the ones who ended up here in his secret layer holding on to their last breaths before the final image they see is the morgue lights.

He could taste blood. His anger felt so good but it would feel even better if he just had that son of a bitch. His nostrils flared. With twitching eyes, he made his way into that pitch black room like he had night vision goggles on. With his hunting and tracking skills, he makes his way slyly into the room, twirling that Kukri knife in hand skillfully like a switchblade. Taking in a deep breath, then exhaling, he finally speaks.

“Funny...I actually thought to tie your legs with a chain but the urge to kill you was eating away at me. Excuse my fault...you won’t have long to worry about that shit anyway.”

Moving his eyes from left to right, he walks along the cold concrete wall, dragging that knife across it with every step.

“You won’t believe what I have in my hand. It’s your Kukri. You’re familiar with those, right? You use them a lot when you murder all those girls, correct? I can understand why it gets the job done.”

He takes the knife and places it firmly in his grip, walking with a rigid form. He could smell the alcohol and infection on him and it was only a matter of time before he unleashed again on his prey. His disgusting prey. The prey who preyed on little girls...one, in particular, Samara Jenkins.

—————-

15 hours ago:

“This is NBC 6, South Florida News. Today, Miami Police found the body of the missing six-year-old girl: Samara Ella Jenkins. Daughter to pastors of Heavenly Home Baptist Church, Ertha Jenkins, and Sydney Jenkins. Their daughter had been missing for over two weeks now. Miami police have been searching day in, and day out for this missing pure soul, and today...they finally made a discovery.”

Erik watched while the news reporter drowns on. The camera scanned the Everglades. It looked particularly dry and withering; a fucking Gator central. With narrow hawk eyes, a single vein appearing in the middle of his forehead, he took in the news he really wanted to hear, no matter how hard it was to listen. He needed to listen. It was his God-given duty to listen.

“Young Samara was found here in the wetlands wrapped in a trash bag, surrounded by Alligators. It took great difficulty at first, but the Police have confirmed that it is indeed Samara. The family has asked for privacy at this time, and the immediate finding of her murderer.”

Pausing his TV, Erik got up from his seated position, walking through his living room and towards the kitchen. His steel toe Doc Martens dragged across the freshly placed tile of his Miami apartment, walking past the black marble kitchen island and directly towards his office. It was time. If his memory serves him, it had been almost a month since his last kill. The urge was building up so much within him he was ready to combust. The sound of his Father's old grandfather clock that was given to him as a gift before he died ticked in the background eerily. Finally, standing in front of his fireproof wall safe, Erik cracked his combination. Pulling open the door slowly, he came face to face with his treat.

He’d like to call it… a souvenir. He took pride in it like a child did a sand castle on the beach. They served as trophy cases to him. There, lies a box with blood slides. In it housed 46 slides of his victims. Taking the box, Erik places it on top of his glass desk. Opening the box, he ran a single finger gently across the top of the slides as the glass slightly clattered. At times, he would refer to the slides as “my secret” or other times, “my pride kills...my friends.”

It’s funny that he called them friends. A few he caught the attention of by raising a glass with an easy-going smile. For others, he would pick up a random conversation from maybe bumping shoulders about the Miami weather and how shitty their jobs were. Or even, dropping a hint of sexual interest that always seemed to work since his looks were beyond dismal. Ordinary. Regular. No. Erik was handsome. The kind of handsome you would find in a Calvin Klein add or sitting in VIP at some high-end club surrounded by models. Not a woman could walk by and not stop and stare.

“I guess I gotta make it 47,” he lets out controlled breaths, eyes watering with anger. The person's blood who would reside on the empty forensic slide goes by the name of Dean Orrin. 38 years old and an ex-military man. A man who should be registered as a Pedophile but instead walks the streets of South Beach proud and cocky. This man, what a son of a bitch. This redneck.  Such a waste of fresh air and space. The raging alcoholic and child abuser worked as a Respiratory Therapist at a children’s hospital. Can you believe it? A fucking children’s hospital. His shifts were Monday through Thursday, 9 am to 5 pm. He drove a 1992 Ford Mustang in red, seats covered in fresh leather.

Too bad the vintage car didn’t match this man’s physical appearance.

He was short, balding, square-shaped with a beer belly and a faux-friendly face that belonged to a white man you wouldn’t dare assume was a murderer of young black and Latina girls ranging from the ages of 4 to 10.

Erik would sit outside of Dean’s Miami Shores home on Ne 92nd Street. He lived alone, kept the doors unlocked to give off a friendly vibe,  picked up the newspaper every day around 8:00 am, and ate the same old Salisbury steak TV dinner around 7:45 pm in front of his flat screen; his prized possession. One evening while Dean was away, Erik took the time to investigate Dean’s home. Of course, he would find child pornography on his computer, and even worse an entirely dark room with cardboard boxes filled with photographs of his victims bound and naked.

Erik picked up a picture of little Samara, afraid and weak with ropes around her little body. His eyes watered with rage, biting down on his tongue and ignoring the pain. He felt worse pain anyway. This was sickening. How could you hurt such an innocent child? Such pure light? It made no sense to him. Clearly, Dean had something deep and traumatic going on with him to resort to this type of lifestyle. Erik had demons too, and he sometimes wondered if they were all one and the same; a family of murderers United. He’d keep Samaras photo, it would only serve to kill Dean even more. Slide number 47 would be clean no longer.

Erik has built a file on this man for over a month now. After finding out about the murder of his Neighbors young Latina daughter, Cassie, age 8, he began to piece together the parts that Miami Day Police failed to do.

Dean’s way of going about doing things was getting to know the children that came through Giving Hands Children’s Hospital in South Beach. He would give them treats, learn things about them, and extract whatever information he needed from their files. No personal contact involving the parents, no meetups or anything, just getting the information and kidnapping the children.

He didn’t do it so often. Dean’s stretch would be at least a month or two in between. Samara was his fourth murder. Erik broke it down one rainy night in his office how Dean successfully snatched Samara and killed her. Heavenly Home Baptist Church held fundraisers for their neighborhood. The last night Samara was seen, only two weeks ago on a Thursday, was the night of Youth Day. It was an open house for anyone to come in and be a part of because Heavenly Hope housed generous, God-fearing people. Little Samara took her badminton racket to the back lawn, never telling her mother she was going out for some fresh air. She’d been gone for over an hour and Miss Ertha made a plate filled with Samaras favorites.

Well, you could probably guess what happened next, right? Everyone at that church searched high and low for her. Her parents and siblings had sleepless nights, signs and billboards were made, all in a span of two weeks. It hurts deep like an open wound. Erik never had kids, probably never will...but still...he could feel their pain. No matter, Erik was a man of his word. He wasn’t great in combat with a keen skill in blood spatter analysis, tracking, and weapons training for nothing. He’d put all of that to good use.

———

Saturday, April 1st: the day of fools. 1:30 am.

Sitting in an expensive suit that he intended to wear on a date, Erik finally finds the perfect opportunity to catch Dean. Erik could only hope that his date wouldn’t be angry with him, after all, she practically begged.

This motherfucker couldn’t be serious, could he?

He was already drunk off of Jack Daniels and now he was gearing towards entering an 18 and over club on Ocean Drive. The rage in Erik boiled his blood. Was Dean trying to age up his victims now? Is cockiness getting to him since he hadn’t been caught yet?

All of these things added to Erik’s fury, but the fury was what he needed to stay amped up. Anger for Erik made him more proud. He was correct to lay down an extra layer of plastic this time.

“Sick motherfucker,” Erik shakes his head, a single finger tapping at the steering wheel of his burner car that he used for kills; some beat up old Chevy with a stolen license plate.

This vigilante never sleeps when it comes to a kill.

Just stay in the shadows, Erik…

Night time is your time.

You have to be cunning to outwit your foes. The flashing club lights ignited his face purple, red, and blue. Bodies moved about in packs, sweat dripping and fingers intertwined. Erik could almost feel the heart beats racing among him. Young and naive they all were, especially the young girl Dean was eyeing.

She looked to be about 19, a drink in her hand and braids so long they swept the backs of her legs. She twirled, shouted to the music, and twerked in her own little world. Dean was compelled. Erik could see the killing fetish in his eyes so deep his pupils dilated an almost pitch black. Erik wanted badly to choke him up right here and finish the job but then that wouldn’t help him, would it? Keeping to the shadows, Erik watched until it was time for him to make his move.

———-

“Feel like making a deal with the devil?”

The young girl with honeyed skin and full lips turns to Dean, a little jumpy from being caught off guard. She regarded him, eyes squinted.

“Excuse me?”

“I said, do you feel like making a deal with the devil?”

Dean pulls out a baggy filled with LSD, swinging it in front of her face. The girl was tempted for a second, that was until she looked back at Dean and saw the sweat covering his face, a faded tattoo of a pentagram on the inside of his wrist, and the maniacal way he licked his lips.

“Uhm, no thanks. I’m okay.”

The young girl gave him a generous smile before sauntering away towards the back of the club. Clearly, Dean didn’t like being told no. He stood still for what felt like minutes, staring at her retreating form until she disappeared around a corner and out of sight. Like clockwork, Dean follows, a hand deep in his pocket and shoulders hunched. It was time, Erik had to make a move now before the young girl became Dean’s new victim.

Ignoring lingering stares of passion that he didn’t like nor accepted, Erik maneuvered through the crowd as they parted like the Red Sea for him, finally around that corner and hot on Dean’s trail. Apparently, the young girl wasn’t going to the ladies. There was an exit straight ahead, the LED of the sign almost blinding and cryptic. With much more speed now, Erik dashes to the back door, black leather gloved hand pushing open the swinging doors.

His dress shoes met a puddle, and his hands clenched into fists. There was no sign of either of them.

Fuck.

Deciding to make a left, Erik followed his path down the narrow garbage filled alley, head moving from left to right to find him. To his luck, he could hear struggling, choking breaths. Keeping close to the wall, Erik looked around that corner at the edge of the alley, coming face to face with the devil himself.

Dean had the young girl smashed against the brick wall, his hand lazily rubbing under her skirt. Every time she tried to scream, Dean would smash her face further into the brick.

“Shut up...shut up...shut up...SHUT UP!!!” Dean yelled, spit flying and a snarl on his face. He looked red from anger.

“Keep still you black bitch!!!! Keep still or I will slit your fucking throat with my knife!”

Erik has seen enough now.

Pulling out his 9mm pistol with a silencer, Erik’s 20/20 sniper vision aided him as he aimed a bullet at Dean’s side, watching as the stout man fell to his knees in agonizing pain, releasing the young girl from his deadly grip. She kicked away and down the alley in the opposite direction, screaming in tears and limping. A life saved, and one before him ready to be taken away.

Erik watched with joy and triumph as Dean stared into the darkness with confusion and pain, rolling around in the mud, shit, piss, and garbage juice.

“WHOS THERE!!!!!!!!!!” He yelled between cries, blood staining his teeth.

“AM I GOING TO DIE?!!!PLEASE, NO. AM I GOING TO DIE HERE?!!!”

Erik made his way towards him, adjusting his gloves and storing away his gun. It was so dark, Dean couldn’t make him out, but he could hear his footsteps.

“OMG. Who’s there!!!!!!!!!!”

Erik picks Dean up one-handed by his collar, silencing him with a tranquilizer to the neck. Dean was now dead weight. Luckily, his car was parked on the other side of the alley, and the coast was clear.

———

“Wha? Where am I?”

Dean blinked twice, rubbing his right hand over his dry tears. Sniffling snot, wrists in pain from being wrapped in chains, Dean stares into the pitch black, figuring he had to be in the trunk of a car with the smell of gas and rubber. Was this his fate? Was God finally judging him?

Death clearly doesn’t discriminate.

He took the lives of young girls, so now the price to pay was his life.

And to think he had a chance tonight with another kill. Maybe, it was too soon to go out for another thrill.

He could feel his death.

The amount of pain he was in, he felt like he was dead already. Ah, now he remembers. Someone shot him in the ribs back in that alley. Aiming for his respiratory technique, Dean breathed slowly and steadily, trying his hardest to avoid the feeling of his own blood dripping from his gunshot wound. If only he could apply pressure without bleeding out so much.

Whoever this person was wanted to take their time with him.

The sound of the car door slamming followed by the car shaking from the impact made Dean go stiff. It was time to meet His executioner. And when his time is up, would they tell his story? Make him another missing person? Dean much rather be seen in the spotlight like the Zodiac Killer had been. Too bad he wasn’t swift enough. Was it a parent of one of his victims? an off duty cop who just had to bring work home?

Whistling began.

“What?” Dean’s voice was scratchy and pathetic sounding.

With the trunk now open, Dean could feel the humid air of Miami pour in. Catching his breath and bracing himself, Dean came face to face with an unfamiliar foe. He had dreads braided back, a crisp suit that must have cost a fortune, hands covered with leather gloves and eyes so cold they could petrify you. He looked like a mercenary, or maybe a hit man. He was young, could be around early thirties. He smiled sadistically. Fuck. Was this bastard as crazy as him?

“It takes a monster to destroy a monster.”

That statement alone was bone chilling. He had the same kill stare but with a different goal.

“You’re playing my fucking game now. No little girls to touch and kill here. You should fear me.”

Swiftly, The unknown man grabbed Dean by the neck, pulling him up and out of the trunk. Dean rolled onto his elbow, pain shooting through his arm and dirt filling his lungs. It was so overbearing that he felt oxygen deprived. With his feet failing him, Dean tries to crawl away, but of course, that wouldn’t work, he was too fat and too weak.

“You can crawl all you want. Your fate remains the same, motherfucker.” Like the Hulk himself gripped his legs, Dean was dragged back across the ground, feet flapping and nails clawing at rocks and dirt. He could feel his skin splitting. With one struggling kick, his foot met the man’s face, bloodying his lip. No words were said then. His eyes were ice cold and demon like. Dean didn’t know what hit him, but those eyes made him get on his feet, and he ran into the abandoned building straight ahead. He didn’t hear the man’s footsteps, guessing that maybe he was too hurt to follow him and find him.

Little did Dean know his weapon of choice: a Kukri knife fell out of his back pocket. Erik has that very knife in his possession now, more than excited to use Dean’s weapon against him. This was going to be one hell of a bloody night.

——-

It was just too easy for him. He needed a challenge. That’s it...a challenge. Maybe a Russian who escaped prison and decided to go on a genocide killing spree. Or a calculated serial killer who played him at his own game. Dean was easy prey. They all had the same motive: hide in the most typical places, pray to themselves and breathe so loud the people down the road could hear, or worse, bleed out and leave a bloody trail. Dean’s wound was beginning to smell. Erik’s sense of smell when it came to infected, rotting, flesh was nearly non-existent. It didn’t bother him one bit.

All the lives he took when he killed in Afghanistan, Iraq, the States apart of JSOC and when he was an ex-assassin made it that way. The scars on his skin were there to prove it. Now, he did the kills without taking orders from no one.

“Dean...you fat ass motherfucker. Dirty, disgusting, sick, smelly ass, redneck, motherfucker.”

Erik drew in his bottom lip between his teeth, the sound of the leather gloves on his hand crunching from how tightly his fists were clenched.

“Why little Black and Latina girls, Dean? What’s so special about them? Is it the fact that they aren’t as privileged as your kind? The colonizers?”

Dean was so fucking stupid. How could someone go so long with precisely killing four little girls but hide where Erik could see him? In a dirty corner filled with old dusty crates and broken glass shards, Erik could see the silhouette of Dean Orrin. His body was practically leaning over from how weak he was. All that blood loss failed him. No energy, no will power, just dead weight.

Letting out a stressed sigh, Erik pocketed the Kukri, walking over to Dean. Picking him up by the back of his hoodie, hopefully choking him, he began to drag him across the dusty cobweb filled floor, startling him and causing him to scream.

“You a bitch, you know that? You kill little girls like you a man but wanna scream like a woman because you are about to die. I knew chicks more gangsta than you.”

Erik laughs hard, finally back in that hallway and headed towards his destination.

“Tell me,” Erik yanks him, hearing him choke up.

“Why little girls? Got raped when you were a kid? Touched your ex little daughter in her sleep and got a hard-on? What?!!!” Erik releases Dean, turning to yoke him up forcefully. Dean’s blurry and dizzy vision made Erik look like five Erik’s. He could still see the hard eyes though, they could never go forgotten.

“ANSWER. MY. FUCKING. QUESTION.”

Erik’s breathing was the only sound, Dean’s mind forcing him to speak but words couldn’t form. That pissed Erik off...oh...that made him mad. Erik’s eyes flickered a moment, before taking one hand to retrieve the Kukri, twirling it between his fingers, and ramming it into dean’s side, opening his gunshot wound further.

Dean’s screams were suspended in his throat, eyes watery and teeth grinding. His breath hit Erik’s nose causing him to drop him on the floor, back to dragging his lard ass leaving a bloody trail.

——

The old morgue was famous back in 95’ but it was closed due to concerns with keeping the dead cold until it was time for burial. It was gated off with grass growing so high gators could live here. No one dares to trespass, leaving it as a haunted destination to never visit. Erik had it soundproofed, and he fixed it up himself. He never used the morgue refrigerators, what was the point anyway? He didn’t care to slow up the decomposition phase. His job was to hunt, kill, and discard of the parts. Currently, in this fully double plastic-covered room, Erik had Dean on an operating table in the charnel house, head and feet restrained. He blinked up at the lights, failing to keep his eyes opened. Dean was already pale, now he looked almost chalky with skin leatherlike. Erik removed his suit jacket, hanging it neatly on a nearby coat rack. The sleeves to his white oxford shirt were rolled up to his elbows, surgical gloves on his hands and an entire surgical gown with goggles included to shield the blood splatter.

A medium force (velocity) impact spatter:

Produced with more energy or force than gravity.

The force of the impact causes the blood to break into smaller size splatters relative to the amount of force applied.

This type of splatter is usually seen in blunt force, stabbings, and secondary splatters.

Produced when the majority of larger drops of blood are broken into smaller spatters with diameters of 2-4 mm.

The force associated with this type of spatter is greater than 25 ft per second.

His first victim, Alejandra Lopez was just 4 years old. It was a rainy week in Miami; they called for thunderstorms around 90%. She was riding her little training wheel bike colored blue and pink down a small suburb in Little Havana. Her slicker hood was up, rain droplets shielding her vision but so what? she was on a mission. Her dad nicknamed her little trainer, speedy. Giggling, she made a sharp turn, only to fall off and in the gutter. She winced in pain slightly, but Alejandra was tough. Her mother was passed out drunk on the couch while her father was pulling doubles at the auto shop. Alejandra carefully lifted from the gutter, whipping off the mud from her slicker. As her doe grey eyes lifted, she came face to face with her murder. He struck her over the head with a lead pipe, watching as her tiny body fell to the concrete, cracking her skull further…

Erik couldn’t sleep after seeing that on the news.

So terrible.

The thought of that crossed his mind just now, causing him to pick up a broken lead pipe he found near a construction site on his way home from the beach. Twirling that lead pipe in hand, he turns to Dean, clearing his throat.

“You remember Alejandra? In Little Havana?”

Dean swallows spit, his eyes struggling to look to his right where Erik was standing.

“I-I-Yeah..yeah the little Mexican girl. I-I remember…” Dean began to cry.

“You remember how you used a pipe to crack her skull?” Erik’s grip on the pipe grew tight and painful.

“...yes…”

“How did that make you feel?”

“...good...but please...don’t…”

“There will be blood, Dean. And guess what? I got a lead pipe.”

Erik began to walk forward, pipe resting on his shoulder.

“WHO ARE YOU TO DECIDE MY FATE?!!! HUH??!!!!!!” Dean screamed at the top of his lungs, causing himself to cough up blood. He was going to die anyway, no use in screaming.

“I’m the Judge. Jury. And Executioner. Don’t fucking bark if you can’t bite.” He sounded baneful and destructive.

Everything went silent, that was until the pipe broke the wind from how forceful Erik’s blow was. Erik aimed that pipe to Dean’s head, the sound of his temporal bone splitting music to his ears. Dean shook, fingers twitching, and eyes wide with pain. His nose began to leak, eyes watering in agony. At this point, he could beg for instant death. Erik did damage for sure, his brain must be ricocheting in his skull right now.

An ugly laugh escaped Erik’s mouth, the sound of the pipe hitting plastic only audible to him since Dean’s hearing was no more.

“I-I-I w-won’t Let you-you…” Dean chokes on blood. His heart rate began to slow further.

“The question isn’t who’s going to let me. It’s who’s going to stop me?” Erik took this as an opportunity to pull out his Kukri. Yes, his now.

“I can imagine how many times you wipe this clean. Fucking sick...and I thought my traumatic past was bad? I can’t imagine yours…”

Holding the knife firm, Erik brought it to Dean’s right hand, cutting it off cleanly. At this point, Dean couldn’t even scream. He was already dying, all he could do was wither in pain. Cutting the hands of a pedophile. You touch young girls and murder them, you get your hands amputated. His dick getting cut off sounded great but Erik didn’t even want to SEE IT. Without saying another word, his other hand was amputated. The blood splatter Erik knew well stained the plastic.

With a clenched jaw and savage eyes, Erik takes Dean by his greasy head, bringing that Kukri to his throat.

“This is for Samara, and all the other little girls you killed. They have no fucking life, now you won’t.”

Erik twirled that knife, swiping across Dean’s neck quickly, watching the blood splatter briefly before slowing to a drip. The life could be seen leaving Dean Orrin’s eyes under those morgue lights.

——-

First off, it’s important to understand what dead bodies are like. They’re very heavy, they absolutely stink, they attract flies and vermin practically from the word go, they release a lot of unpleasant substances, they bloat and they can even explode. Draining the fluids as quickly as possible and mixing them with a lot of bleach before flushing them would prevent this.

Should the body be found, you need to make it as difficult as possible to identify. This means destroying the teeth, finger, and toe prints, and the DNA. The first two are easy, the last one is more tricky. Erik wasn’t a forensic scientist, so he just settled for the teeth and toes. Living in Miami, water was an easy source to dump bodies. Erik used to settle for burying them, but that took hours and a lot of footprints left behind. To make his life easier, he simply dumped the bodies far out in the ocean while taking a routine route on his boat. Applying weights to the feet and covering them with heavy duty body bags always helped him out. This was the only way he could dispose of the evidence before the police got wind of it, which they never did.

Erik wasn’t a wanted man, at least, not as Erik Stevens. When he was Killmonger, international police wanted his neck. Killmonger came out to play when he took the lives of vermin to satisfy his needs, but he went away when he did his daily routines. Believe it or not, Erik had friends, a foster sister, and maybe a possible girlfriend. It was odd, Erik considered himself to be asexual. He didn’t find romantic attraction or love for a woman. It never interested him in having a romantic relationship with a woman. He had sex, though it was more so because he could not because he wanted to. Being asexual had nothing to do with his dick, it was about the sexual and romantic attraction that didn’t spark his interest. It’s not like he didn’t try. There were days where he wanted that, other days he just didn’t and they were most days. Erik was attractive, rough around the edges, a lady killer without even trying. He needed to move on, make it look normal, kill those who deserved it in secret. These were the words of his late foster father who was a fireman.

Erik…

He could hear his father's voice in his head.

Be strong, Erik. Remember, use your disorder for the greater good. Kill those who deserve to be punished...

With a heavy sigh and all his upper arm strength, Erik heaved Dean Orrin’s body over the railing of his boat and into the ocean water. So long Dean Orrin. The pedophile. The abuser. The murderer. Erik took out the tiny glass vial of his horrid blood, twirling it in hand before pocketing it once more, turning to grab up his Hennessy.

“Ah, they playing Wu-Tang tonight,” he smiles as if it were any other evening, sitting back on his suede all-white sofa with his dress shoe covered feet resting on the fancy glass table.

Time to sleep on the water again.

@goddessofthundathighs @hearteyes-for-killmonger @panthergoddessbast @blowmymbackout @chaneajoyyy @bartierbakarimobisson @madamslayyy

————-

If you want to be tagged, let me know.

#amethyst1993 #killmongrer #Erik Killmonger #erikkillmonger #killmonger x reader #black panther killmonger #angst

[thanksjro]

Eugenesis, Epilogue Scene Three: A National Holiday Is Declared

Mark your fucking calendars, folks, it’s a once in a lifetime event.

Now, what could be making Rodimus happy?

Telling himself that Kup isn’t dead, that Thunderclash isn’t dead, that Prowl isn’t dead, that the medics had managed to find their brains and fix them, that it wasn’t actually them who had died but some cheap copies.

Telling himself that Primus himself had given them the cure for the Inhibitor Chips.

Telling himself what he wishes was true.

Telling himself lies.

So, let’s try this again. It’s January 12th, 2013, and Rodimus Prime is awake and alive in the camp that is now home to the Autobots.

Rodimus has been spending the last few days listening to the recordings Perceptor made for him from the time he was busy being mostly-dead. He doesn’t remember any of the time he spent not-dead, but the scientists have been trying their hand at spirituality and more or less explained it to him as him ever-so-slowly approaching the event horizon of joining with the Matrix. The Matrix that we now know is a computer that makes babies, and that we’d already known was chock full of Unicron. Is this what being in the Cloud is like? Because if so, I’m just going to commit to a physical hard drive for all my stuff so my documents don’t become clinically depressed.

And while we’re on this whole not-really-dead thing: you know, retcons feel a lot less needing of justification when they aren’t being pulled by the same writer who made the retcon necessary in the first place, in the same piece of writing. Roberts, if you didn’t actually want to kill Rodimus, you shouldn’t have taken away all of his pigmentation and dusted his ass in a ditch after Kup went off the deep end.

I don’t think he’s actually happy, guys.

He’s currently staring out the window, totally not painfully aware of just how unbelievably tired he looks. Remember when this was the guy who went on fishing trips and joyrides with ten-year olds? Rodimus remembers. He remembers it very clearly. Someone let this guy take Animated Bumblebee’s place for a few days before he goes and finds a pod filled with robo-cancer or something.

It’s time to bury the pain again, as High Command comes through the door.

They made it! Rewind’s OTP lives, unlike him. Time to get down to business.

Rodimus thanks everyone for coming to the meeting, and starts going over the revamp process for the brand new Autobase- they’ve cleaned out the corpses, sorted them by faction, done god knows what to the ones that couldn’t be identified one way or the other, and we finally get to know just what in the fuck Jolup was doing Downstairs.  

…Alright then, Ed Gein. Is this how they were going to handle that dropped Phase Sixer subplot in Lost Light? Because if so, Swerve what the 𝚏𝚞𝚌𝚔.

Rodimus has decided that they’re just going to bury that nightmare under forty tons of plasto-steel, to never see the light of day again. Moving on, he says that Metroplex is recovering rather well from his transplant.

Oh! Hello, Metroplex. You’re looking very… alive. Didn’t you just spend the better part of the week dead and lying on the seafloor?

Turns out that Titans are pretty hardy- they just ripped his head off and slapped it into the middle of the new Autobase and he was good to go.

Rodimus hasn’t heard from Galvatron since he got back- I’m hoping it’s because Soundwave took matters into his own hands- and it’s making him a bit nervous.

Time for status reports!

Magnus has had teams searching for bodies (brains, really) that they can bring back to Ratchet to fix up. He asks Rodimus about potentially building another outpost on Earth, but it looks like he won’t be getting to see Oregon again anytime soon. There’s also the issue of literally everything Xenon told him back on Aquaria- he asks for a private audience for that. Magnus, did you really wait this long to talk to your boss about this? He’s got the Matrix inside him right now, and you didn’t think it pertinent enough to bring up sooner? Priorities, man.

Ratchet’s injected all the POWs with the anti-Chip, which has helped their physical health tremendously. However, not all of them are regaining the ability to transform, and that’s opened up a real can of worms, mental health-wise.  

I’m with Ratchet on this one. I know we don’t exactly have a ton of real estate on the bombed-out husk that is Cybertron, but surely there was something better than the epicenter of the Quintesson Antiholocaust/Transformers Holocaust.

Rodimus says that anyone uncomfortable with the camp can stay in Fort Max’s old place next door until they’re more open to the idea. The reason they aren’t staying at Fort Max’s altogether is because it’s apparently too small to house everyone. There’s, like, maybe three hundred of y’all left, and Max wasn’t exactly petite. Maybe I’m missing something here.

Rodimus, uncomfortable with the topic, moves on to one that’s equally as uncomfortable- Prowl. Ratchet wants to send him off with a full, personal funeral. He’s not dead yet, but he might as well be. Still no donor. Rodimus opts to let the guy die naturally, even after Ratchet explains that he might still be in pain even in a pod and knocked out. Geez, any more good news, doc?

Oh ho, you thought this would stop with just a single robot? Not even close.

Mirage is allowed to be in a bad mood this time. I can’t even remotely fault him for that. And Autobots don’t give parental leave? What a rip.  

Yeah, except they’ve all been Quintesson nightmare babies. This is what some folks might call a problem. Are you telling me that they can just catch pregnancy like the common cold now? This is tapping into irrational teenage fears. Christianity-based fears.

I have to wonder, what’s the general feel behind this process? It’s completely random, even when it happens to someone who’s supposed to go through it, and people just kind of stand there and watch it happen. I feel like it’d be really fucking embarrassing to just keel over and start going through mitosis in the middle of a room full of your peers. Then the whole murder-baby thing starts happening, and folks are drawing guns on your abdomen to top it all off. At what point do you just say “screw it” and have your torso removed?

Ratchet’s been storing the Quintessons in stasis pods, as opposed to Soundwave’s snap judgement of “kill now, repress later.” He’s run all the tests he can think of, and the things aren’t exactly hostile- they don’t really do anything, honestly. Perhaps murder-baby is too harsh a term. Still, they gotta figure out something to do with the little bastards. High Command’s been asking around off-planet.  

Well, there’s one mystery solved! Meeting’s over, Rodimus shoos everyone away, but Siren has something to report: he and Chromedome figured out Nightbeat’s final words.

Oh wow, I was WAY off. Road trip!

#transformers #jro #jro punches me in the face #eugenesis #part seven #epilogue #maccadam #Hannzreads #text post #long post #prose writing

[aegistomorrowtoday]

EPISODE 1: 蜂の巣の繭の蒸気殺人

It has been a week since this group of cyberpunks had all reconvened. The low-level street zeitgeist mourns the loss of one of their most talented tattoo artists, Chouji. The news media didn't give him or the other victims a name - labeling them as misguided youth and Synthetic Rebel Activists attempting to reignite the fires of the civil war of the previous world. Using the anti-synth sentiments of Suginami-ku to broadly paint this as just a nonsensical act of violence. There was no mention of the gunmen, just the seemingly innocent young people gunned down in the walkway. Not to mention they got Chouji’s name especially incorrect. Chojiro and not Chouji.

Business as usual in Tokyo Mega, the rhythm of the city was unaffected by the murders in Suginami-Ku. The police would investigate, the media would show only a sliver of the story to the public and the faces of those lost will be largely forgotten by all who didn’t know them personally. Eventually. Until then, the Izumi-Kai were invited to a memorial street race.The winnings were 5,000,000 won divided evenly among the top four competitors, Sef didn’t come in first but he stole a fast second in style. Even donating a portion of his winnings to the family of “Chojiro”, the fourth place winner also donated the entirety of their winnings to the affected family. The youth of the gangs saw this as a most respectful thing for the two racers to do, and the Feed noted that it was only Sef and the other competitor to part with some of their prize money as tribute. 

 Haru's patron has been called into the office moreover the week. Spending longer days than normal doing important company work. He doesn't talk much about it, just that it could save lives someday. Long nights in the very private corporate building and an armed escort to and from his home have spared him really noticing Haru’s new sword and choice of apparel - the previous jumpsuit having been shredded in the very gun battle that had the news all twisted up about pro-synth demonstrations. 

 The Hotel that Ard has rented upgraded his vacation suite from a standard 1 bed and bath capsule to a full Samurai class suite on the 300th floor. About the size of a small one bedroom home. The violence in one of the most peaceful sections of the city has prompted a sweeping upgrade package among the visitors to the city. For some reason or another, Lumos' has received multiple freelance consulting jobs through The Early Bird . The small Synthshop and Augment installer has a pretty regular clientele and freelance engineers and docs who rotate the hours along with the main proprietor, HNY-4456K. A synth representing a female who only really converses in snark and sass but will answer to Six or Six-K, she does wear a name tag that says Honey however, though no one calls her that out loud. 

After enjoying tea at the Nakahara Peace Garden the group give up on waiting on Ard. The Wormer PTST (Philanthropist Thrill Seeking Tourist) opted to stay-in that night. Probably to enjoy his swanky new hotel suite upgrade. Whatever his reasons, the three members of the so far unnamed crew decided to follow up on Sef’s hand issues. Fondly referring to the situation as the ‘hand-job’. All jokes aside, they thought it was in everyone’s best interest to go to the address they received from the scan last week. Heat’s died down by now and whatever trap or trick that Choji might have tried to spring has sprung by everyone’s death on that street last week. In theory, it should be totally safe and fine to just check the address out. 

The group arrive via taxi and motorbike and already the building itself is tall and wide, with a rotating door at its entrance with windows that hint at perhaps some type of luxury hotel experience or something similar. The lobby was tile, glass, and metal. A grand staircase curved around what looked to be obviously a long receptionist’s desk reminiscent of a check-in counter. In between the entrance and the desk were four minimalist lounge areas. Stylish cubist couches enclosed glass coffee tables that were ornamented with real paper magazines. Relics of the past or, a flaunt of the super wealthy? None of the group could really know for sure - but what they did immediately realize is that they were sorely out of place. Sef removed his leather jacket and put up his hair, his minimal augmentation lifestyle lent very well to the appearance of a wealthy individual with some western ideology on purism. The guards in black suits watched the trio as the group looked about trying to find a hint of their reason for being here. Sef spotted a staircase leading downwards; it was marked with the trigram for heaven.

 After sharing their misgivings about the irony, they descend and are met with another receptionist desk at the bottom of the landing who interacts with them directly, asking how they could be helped - more specifically asking Sef. After they present Sef’s palm as their business, a secret door is opened and they are allowed entry to an entirely different area, in both style and aesthetic. Lacquered wood floor and soft fresh soil filled with greenery. Real greenery. Plants that gave off oxygen and ate carbon dioxide. Plants that Sef - along with the majority of the entire city - had never even encountered before. At least not their biological counterparts. The party traverses a long hallway and are met with a luxurious banquet hall, hardwoods and greenery abound with patrons garbed in wealth beyond measure being served by a very poised waitstaff - most likely all synths. 

They are approached by a staff member wearing the same uniform as the receptionists at the desks they had already encountered. He greeted them to the soiree and judged by their demeanor and clothing surmised accurately that they were not where they were supposed to be. Sef showed his palm again and the staff member quickly told them where to go with a cheerful demeanor. They were directed down another long hardwood hallway to a waiting area just outside of a solid metal doorway. “Mr.Hong is taking his annual bath - he will be with you shortly.” The man would relay before walking off to attend to the other guests. The group moved down the hallway and took in their new and odd surroundings. Lumos’ the most technologically savvy of the group surmised that the panels nearest the door and the seating area were an inactive suite of some type of comprehensive security system

The door hisses open after about five minutes. Revealing a spartan office in decor. Minimalist, devoid of windows. There was a desk of metal and glass with a stone slab positioned behind it. There was a single bed in one of the corners and a metal locker that had been carefully decorated to look as if it was real wood. After a quick look around the office, a voice spoke to the group as the door closed behind them. The voice was that of Mister Hong, the owner of this office apparently. Moments later he would exit the private bathroom stark naked, dripping with water still and eyes as wide as dinner plates before he collapsed onto the floor and convulsed. Lumos, being the medical professional in the room immediately deduced the man was choking and he ran over to help, going so far as to inject the man with a dosage of nanites to alleviate the asphyxiation. They helped momentarily, allowing him to pass along the message of “Save Keiko Swan.” Keiko Swan is a well known ballet dancer in Tokyo Mega. A quick search on the Feed yielded that information. Scrambling for more clues, and more importantly a method of unlocking the sealed door to the room, the group found a key to the locker disguised as a wooden cabinet and accessed the computer of the now dead Mister Hong that was projecting onto the stone slab. They scoured his emails and found rather quickly that his name wasn’t Hong at all, but he was Shin Kosanji of Kosanji Talent, a tour promoter and small-time talent scout who was local to Tokyo Mega. Along with this information there was an unopened email from an unknown sender that showed a very graphic photograph of a cute asian girl with blonde hair carrying a chainsaw and a severed head. At first glance it seemed like a very guro-esque cosplay photo but upon closer inspection the group deduced that the photograph was very much real and the single line caption was some type of message: I do birds too. Among the possessions in the office the group found a smart suit, the latest in pocket computer devices, a cred card with 5000 won on it and a gold origami crane. As Sef discovered, the crane was made out of gold smart-paper. Paper that was inlaid with technology that acted as simple one or two way communication. Not a typical single use item but it was flashy and most likely saved. Unfolding the crane revealed that it was an invitation to an event happening that very night, with Keiko Swan as the star of the entire evening. If they were to save Keiko they needed to get to that event. Based on the invitation it would be taking place in New Shinjuku. In a Skytree. A tough journey for any of the three. 

Before they could ponder more the door unlocked and the group panicked. Each attempting to look nonchalant and unsurprising by the dead man by the bathroom as the metal entrance slid apart and in walked several staff members of the building they were in. They moved directly towards the dead man without pause and the group was questioned briefly by a younger man, a little younger than Sef on the death of Mr. Hong. He apologized for the interruption and sent the group on their way with a free access pass to the member’s only club of Hachi Rebisu. Step one for infiltrating the skytree was to look the part. Sef took Haru and Lumos to get a suit, using the found card to purchase Haru his first set of personal clothes. The seven year old synth chooses style over function with a red suit with a black dress shirt and white tie. The event is a black tie event. The obvious facepalming occurs but the group lets Haru keep the clothes as Lumos decides on a healthy medium of dress suit that isn’t too matchy-matchy in his own words, via his augment that allows him to simulate any wardrobe he desires. They call a lux cab their way in order to better emulate the rich citizens who lived in the skytree. New Shinjuku is a place of power and control amidst the wealth. Of all the districts the police presence is very strong, within and without the skytree. The streets are patrolled by roving mechanized drones with heavy anti-personnel weapons mounted on their shoulders and backs,while the Tokyo Mega Police Department has its headquarters here deep underground in a secure bunker facility. The urban paradise of the skytree is manned by countless cameras and rapid response police teams and privatized military. Only Sef and Haru knew this information off hand due to their criminal familiarity and privately regard their situation as they disembark the Ultralux transport. 

They are within view of Grand Station, a large theater hall that was the host of the event. There is a mass of police, unmanned drones and guests in suits and dresses for the occasion. Seeing this gives the group pause, as this event has a lot of people attending with a larger portion of them being law enforcement from the looks of it. If Keiko was in danger, the perpetrator was either embedded with the guests or the security. Ease of access to the building and the theoretical access to a weapon. Security forces were almost usually armed. Guests who had enough money, or looked like they had enough money could practically do anything or - more importantly -  carry anything. Just then the invitation started making noises from Sef’s backpack, he investigated. Unfolding the paper swan, the invitation is blaring a reminder for the event and to RSVP attendance in order secure seating. Sef RSVPs in Shin’s stead for obvious reasons. Moments later an anonymous and blocked number texts Sef’s phone. Detailing that they know who the group is and what they have - the most confusing part - and that they will assist the group if the three of them are interested in saving Tokyo Mega. If they decline, they are to find a locker in the Grand Station venue and deposit the golden origami crane within it. Within the same time span another message is sent across to Sef who is rightly freaking out about his privacy being compromised so quickly and easily - in the form of a hacked product ad ticker scrolling across the front of a nearby shop. Threatening violence if the group didn’t turn over the crane. Neither message named an origin but clearly one side had Tokyo’s best interest in mind. Or so they said. 

The following moments were crucial, the group decided to go for Keiko directly. Cut out the middle men as it were and protect the ballet dancer the best way they knew how. By kidnapping her until the danger passed. The group get in. They note the opulent architecture and the presence of a catering company providing the food and beverage for the event. Sef also spies children, no older than ten all sporting backpacks seem to be on the lookout for someone. They are dressed appropriately for the occasion but everyone so far in attendance is either remarkably youthful, in the prime of their lives or amazingly old. Natural grey hairs, wrinkles, the whole deal. 

After incorrectly remembering the details of why children were important - postulating they were Korporate Kids. The group makes their way backstage past the first floor kitchens. Before they can arrive at the dressing room they see that the police presence is strong and are greeted by an officer barring entry to the performers. Sef attempts to use status as a way to get through the tight cordon of security using their mission of keeping Keiko safe as the sufficient clearance that they needed. Sorely, they were denied and attracted the intervention of a Hiashi Miyamoto. Someone distinctly from Haru’s past. The exchange is terse but the group is allowed to leave and soon a representative of the concert hall escorts them to their reserved section overlooking the stage. Leaving a note that gave them a hint in their search for Keiko’s assassin. 

Do not trust the waitress. The words had been written on a napkin and Haru searched for a waitress among the waitstaff. Most were men, but some were objectively female based on his visual scan of. The three of them begin to panic, which waitress was it? How did they catch her? But that was when she appeared. A woman with blonde hair just delivered a tray of horderves to the next private box beside theirs. It was uncharacteristic of the staff, who all wore conservative black and brown hairstyles. Probably to match the setting of their work, real or not.  

It all came together now, it unraveled before Haru as he got everyone’s attention as the waitress in question slipped out of sight again. Most likely into the kitchens which had an entrance on this level of the theater as well. 

I do birds too.

#carbon2185 #cyberpunk #creativewriting #campaignjournal scifiseries

[thebeethathums]

Broken Together - 2

Pairing: Bucky x Reader (eventually)

Warnings: Fighting and general insanity.

A/N: Bear with me guys. I know that was a lot all in one swoop and no actual bucky. I just... it’s gotta be how I see it in my head. Please leave me feedback. This is a bit out of my comfort zone.

Wanda could feel the desperate hope coming off you in waves as it always did when they came in for more tests. Things had changed so much. She had hated you so fully when they had first begun, how could she not? It had seemed to her that with one hand you offered false comfort while the other caused their suffering. That was before. Before they had come in for additional tests one day and she had heard the whispers of your mind.

They were the first thoughts she’d been able to read, the first manifestations of her abilities, and in those whispers, she had heard your prayers. Prayers for this to end. Prayers for a window of opportunity. Prayers they would be your last subjects. Prayers you wouldn’t fail them. Prayers that you could endure as long as they needed you to.

From that moment on she understood- you were a prisoner with them and your sole hope was they would become powerful enough to end all of this. She could feel you were broken on the inside, barely holding it together, but she didn’t pry further. All you could do for now was help them grow stronger and offer a sense of normalcy when they were allowed to see you.

By the time she had brushed off your feelings, Pietro had already taken back your attention, stealing your coffee from your hand and downing it in the time it took you to blink.

“Pietro! The last thing you need is caffeine!” you tried to scold but the grin on your face told him it was half-hearted and he just winked, “Didn’t even see me coming, did ya, Doc?” You laughed, “You get faster every day. Soon I won’t even be able to get a sip before you’ve stolen it away.”

A red glow enveloped the cup, pulling it from his hands as Wanda raised a brow and chided, “Show off.”

The silver-haired boy just shrugged, snatching it out of the air as you turned your attention to her, “I see you’ve been practicing as well. Any progress in regards to control?”

The mug snapped into her waiting hand as if that was its sole purpose and she gave you a small grin, “You tell me.”

“Very good,” you praised, “And the headaches?”

“Virtually nonexistent.”

“Even better.”

Pietro stretched, leaning back in his chair so it was balanced only on the back legs with one foot on the edge of the table, “What’s the plan for today then? Do I get to break another treadmill?”

Wanda rolled her eyes, flicking her hand so the chair tipped past the point of no return, “You enjoy that too much.”

Logically, you knew the fall happened but Pietro was back in his chair before it could even hit the ground. You shook your head with a soft sigh, “No treadmill today, unfortunately. It’s time for another round of enhancement.”

Pietro groaned and Wanda shivered, you were always open with them about what was being done and what could happen but it didn’t change that the experience was harrowing. Enhancement days were the worst. You got up to show them your calculations and some diagrams at your workstation in the room as your assistants stepped in to prepare. You stopped them in the doorway with a sharp glare, “I told you, as I tell you every time, I will do it myself.”

The two stepped out with narrowed eyes, they had orders to try every time in hopes you would share more of the process and thought behind it and every time you turned them away. Wanda watched you let out a huff and curse under your breath as you typed up some parameters. She was glad you didn’t allow them to help despite the toll she knew it took on you. They looked at her and Pietro with the ravenous hunger of someone who wanted the power they now had and, if they couldn’t have it themselves, a need to control it.

All three of you jumped when a blaring siren sound filled the room accompanied by a light on the wall flashing an ominous red. A prickling chill ran through you starting in your chest and working all the way out to your extremities as your breath caught in your throat- this was it.

Through the viewing window, you could see, as if in slow motion the agent at the lab door coming in and shouting orders to your assistants while he waved around his gun. You took in a deeper breath after what seemed like an eternity and everything snapped back to horribly fast, your ears ringing with the screech of the alarm and the sound of gunfire from somewhere else in the facility. You grabbed the chair you’d been sitting in and shoved it up under the handle of the door to the lab proper to block anyone else from getting in.

Both Wanda and Pietro were calling out to you, you knew they were, but time was short. Your hands shook lightly as you rapidly mashed your fingers into the computers keys, pulling up the program you’d hidden in your research with a few clumsy keystrokes. As soon as you activated it all hell broke loose- cameras went down, coms failed, cells opened, locks failed, lights went out. Two years in this hole of a place didn’t seem wasted now. You grabbed your research tablet and shoved it into Wanda’s hands, forcing her fingers closed around it before throwing open the usually locked door opposite the one you had blocked. The chair was starting to creak with the efforts of those trying to get in and you knew it wouldn’t hold much longer. Your eyes met hers for only a fleeting moment before locking on Pietro’s with a single word, “Run.”

There was no time to argue. The chair gave way as you said it, your handlers bursting through with guns raised, and you put yourself between them and the twins. In a blink, pale blue discs enveloped your hands to block them from coming any further as you hissed, “Pietro! Now!”

You felt the rush of air signifying they’d gone and hoped desperately that it would be enough. You focused only on holding your position there, everything a blur of noise, bullets, and soft blue light as you let your body take the lead. Time seemed to pass slowly but you knew it was only your mind lacking the capacity to keep up with the moment or fully grasp what was happening. You were aware of more people arriving, glass being broken, and the siren still wailing but your sole focus was making sure none of them got past you.

A final stand.

You hadn’t expected to be hit from behind, a searing pain cutting through your left side before something hard came down on your head and darkness took over.

The next thing you were aware of was faint voices, rushed and distant, along with some beeping. They seemed to be very concerned about something. You caught words here and there…. ‘blood loss’.... ‘Critical’... ‘coding.’ You wished they would go away and leave you be in the quiet and after a moment you got your wish, the words slowing and fading to whispers before there was nothing again.

Much too soon for your liking, the noise started up again, a high pitch ringing disturbing your darkness, and you begrudgingly started to gather your wits. You were convinced after a moment you were dead. It was the only logical conclusion. The voices started up again, just whispers to start, and you strained to hear what they were saying. The harder you focused the clearer they became, interrupted only by the ringing which slowly morphed into a steady beeping. Okay… maybe not dead.

“Dr. (F/n) (L/n). S.H.I.E.L.D scientist before the fall. Presumed dead. Specialist in genetics and biochem, well versed in emergency medicine. She was working closely with Dr. List before her disappearance.”

You recognized that voice. It had been so long but the familiarity still tugged at your mind, making you focus harder. A wave of pain hit you as you could suddenly feel your body, brow furrowing a little as the voices continued.

A different one responded to the first, deeper and more firm, “How can we be sure she wasn’t part of the Hydra cell?”

The familiar voice answered, “We can’t. Not until she wakes. There are too many unknowns.”

You placed the voice suddenly, taking in a fuller breath causing the machines to beep a bit more rapidly before you released it in a hoarse whisper, “Hill.”

Maria jumped a little, looking over just as you forced your eyes open and squinted against the bright overhead lights. You repeated yourself a bit louder, “Hill… Maria Hill.”

After a moment, your eyes found her, trying to turn to look at her fully but a sharp stabbing pain in your head stopped you. You scrunched your eyes shut, “You’re a sight for sore eyes, Commander.”

You could hear her telling her companion to get a doctor before her voice came again, much closer, “How are you feeling, Doctor?”

You shifted a little to take stock of your pain, compared to all that you’d been through it was actually… bearable. After a moment, you hummed out an answer, “Sore. Not new. Head hurts. Little hard to breathe in deeply… but nothing broken. All in all not bad.” “You almost died,” she responded, tone unamused with a slight hint of scolding, and you smiled- that was the tone you always remembered from her. You opened your eyes again and she had an eyebrow raised at you questioningly. You cracked a wider grin at the look, “I could listen to you scold all day. You know that? God… tell me I was reckless. Ask me what I was thinking. Please. I won’t even argue.”

Your friend sighed and you felt her hand on yours, squeezing lightly, “We have a lot of questions, (F/n)... but it’s good to see you. Really good.”

Shifting a little to sit up cross-legged, you shook off the pain as you had so many times over the past two years, offering her a tight smile, “I’ll answer as many as I can.”

#bucky x reader #bucky barnes x reader #Slow burn #reader insert #mcu #marvel #bucky barnes #maria hill #wanda maximoff #pietro maximoff #maximoff twins #x reader #fighting #angst #injury #thebeethathums #Broken Together #IDK #STILL #IT JUST KEEPS COMING

[sweetness47]

Healing the Heart

Pairing Dean x reader

A/N: this is for the #AUhitlistchallenge hosted by @luci-in-trenchcoats

A/N/N: I don’t write angst and sad stories often. I tend to write with my heart, and sometimes I cry. So I hope this story works like I want it to.

Alternate universe: Single Parent

Warnings: Fluff, angst, mourning, maybe language? Possible light smut

Summary: After tragedy takes away the love of Dean’s life, leaving him to raise his young daughter by himself while dealing with the grief, a chance encounter gives him a new look on life, one that says maybe his broken heart can heal.

Her cries wake him up, and instantly he’s running down the hall to her room, rushing to her bedside to comfort and console her. “Mommy! I miss mommy!” she sobs. All he can do is hold his child, his heart breaking as fresh tears stream down his face.

“I know pumpkin, I know. I miss mommy too.” Dean whispers to her as he comforts her, stroking her hair until she settles down. He lays down beside her, watching her as she snuggles into his warmth, her pink bear joining the tender moment.

Dean realizes she might need more than just him, but he didn’t know how to help her. Did she need a psychiatrist, or a therapist, or a mom. In the morning, he made an appointment to see her doctor, maybe he had some suggestions to help her deal with the grief. The doc she usually went to see was on vacation, and his patients were being seen by the new doc there. He shrugged and agreed to the change, his daughter needed something, and he needed to know what.

He walks to the reception desk, his child close to his side, her small hand tucked inside his larger one. “Hi, Katy Winchester here to see Dr. Y/L/N.”

The receptionist nodded and motioned for them to be seated. Within a few minutes they were being shown to a room, brightly decorated to amuse the young patients, but all Katy did was cling to her father, as if she was afraid he would leave her too. She didn’t look up when the doctor first came into the room, but when she began talking, Katy listened.

“Hi Katy, I’m Dr. Y/L/N. How are you feeling today?” Y/N’s cheery pleasant voice seemed to bring the child to life, much to Dean’s surprise. She didn’t even react that well when family and friends stopped by. Dean looked up to the woman who had captured the interest of his young child.

“I’m sad Dr. My Mommy went to heaven and I miss her.” Katy’s small voice cracked as she told the doctor her problem. Y/N looked over at Dean to confirm this heartbreaking tale.

Dean nodded. “My wife died 4 months ago in a car crash involving a drunk driver. Katy has nightmares almost every night. I’m running out of ideas about how I can help her.”

Y/N nodded and turned back to Katy, offering to pick her up, to which the child immediately jumped at. Y/N lifted her up to the exam table and listened to her heartbeat, checked her ears, throat, eyes, and then measured her height and weight. She gave Katy a choice of sucker and gave her a sticker for being a good girl. While Katy ate the treat, Y/N sat down and talked with Dean. He went into some detail about how he’d met his wife, how happy they were, the pregnancy and the birth, and how Katy had reacted when her mother had first passed.  Tears fell down his face as he relived the memories, the funeral, how his child barely eaten or drank anything for the first week, how he’d been so scared of losing her.

Y/N’s heart broke as she listened. Tears glistened in her own EC eyes, threatening to cascade down her smooth cheeks. Katy reached out for a hug from Y/N, who was happy to comply, enveloping the small child into her warm embrace. She carried Katy over to her computer desk and sat her down onto her lap as she worked. She searched and made a consultation to see a child psychiatrist, but it wouldn’t be for another 4 months. She felt bad as she regaled this news to Katy’s dad, wishing secretly that she could do more. Then she thought of something, it wasn’t her usual style of practice, but this beautiful child needed more than a 4 month wait to see a psych who may or may not be able to help. Y/N, however, was fairly certain she could help a lot, and maybe help the dad recover as well. There wasn’t any harm in asking, was there?

She chose her next words carefully, the question had to be put in a way that wasn’t offensive, intrusive, or unprofessional. “Mr. Winchester, that four month wait can be a lifetime to a child, especially one that has endured extensive psychological trauma. If it’s alright with you, I’d like to be a stand in while she waits to get in. I will spend time with her, and with you, giving Katy the ‘mother’ she needs and by doing that, you can also grieve the way you need to. My work schedule is pretty routine, so I can come by every day, we can go to the beach, the park, pretty much anywhere.” She held her breath as she waited for his response.

Dean looked at the young woman sitting across from him, bewilderment written across his features. Never, in the last 4 months, had anyone ever offered anything even close to that. Sure, his brother had offered, but never anyone else, especially a stranger. His gaze glanced over her, taking in her flawless skin, her soft hair, and most of all, her loving way she watched his daughter, as though she were her own. He’d barely looked at another woman, but this one could make him change his mind.

He nodded, and her face lit up with hope. “Ok, but if I agree to this, I will need to know your first name and probably your phone number.” He smiled then added. “My name is Dean by the way.”

“Y/N. I’m happy to help. I’ll give you my number with the referral sheet. The psych’s office will also be sending you some papers to fill out and an appointment confirmation.”

They all stood up to leave the room, but Katy was unwilling to let Y/N go. She began to sob into her shoulder, the tears soaking the soft material of her light blouse. “Katy, please don’t cry.” Y/N whispered in her ear. “I’m coming to your place for dinner when I’m done work. Would you like that? Then after we eat, we can go to the park.”

Katy squealed with delight and hugged the doctor, then went with her dad, who handed Y/N a piece of paper with his address and his phone number. True to her word, Y/N showed up at Dean’s house, dessert in hand, and knocked at the door. She was greeted by a very enthusiastic young lady, who flew into the doctor’s arms and almost pushed her backwards with the impact. Dean was there, and steadied Y/N to keep her upright, his heart swelling with affection for his daughter, and for the woman now holding her. He still couldn’t get over the attachment Katy had made with the doc. The evening went well, filled with dinner, a tea party, Candy land, then, to Dean’s utter amazement, watched as Katy allowed Y/N to bathe her, read her a bedtime story, and tuck her in for the night. Katy snuggled under the blankets and closed her eyes as Y/N sat with her and gently rubbed her back. Once asleep, she and Dean quietly left the room, leaving the door open slightly, and went downstairs. As they sat down on the soft leather couch, Dean complimented and thanked the pediatrician for her help.

“I haven’t seen Katy that happy and compliant since before my wife passed. Thank you, Y/N, for the first time in a long time, I can see a light at the end of this tunnel. I don’t know how or even if I can ever repay you for this.” His words ended in a whisper as once again his grief came to the surface. “I miss her so much.”

Y/N moved closer and hugged him, and he took the opportunity to just release all the hurt, all the pain, all the emptiness. His sobs filled the living room, and she just held him, her hands running absently through his hair. Her heart ached for this man she barely knew, yet it felt so natural to comfort him. Without a thought to propriety, she placed a kiss on his cheek as he grieved, and rested her head on his shoulder.

Slowly, Dean calmed down, and as his mind came back into focus, he realized what she had done for him, and that she had kissed him. Y/N also realized at the same time what had transpired and immediately apologized.

“Dean, I’m so sorry. I…” His lips silenced her apology as they captured hers, his tongue invading, seeking, needing. Y/N let the kiss happen, and wrapped her arms around his neck. He deepened the connection, cupping her neck to tilt her face closer. She moaned and moved to caress his chest and his waist as he moved his hand under her shirt, seeking the soft mounds that lay underneath.

Soft crying broke the moment, followed by screaming. Like lightning, both Dean and Y/N rushed up to Katy’s room, finding the young girl sitting up in bed shaking. Y/N was there, holding and comforting her, Dean coming to the other side to do the same. “I thought you left me, like mommy did.” Her words tore through what resolve Y/N had left, and she told her the truth.

“Baby girl, I will never leave you. I promise. I will be here to tuck you in every night, and we will have dinner together every day. Go back to sleep honey. Ok?” Her soothing words had Katy calming down quickly, ready to go back to sleep. Again, Y/N stayed until she was asleep, then the two adults left the room, leaving the door open in case they needed to go in again.

Dean once again thanked the doc but she held up her hand. “Really there’s no thanks necessary. Katy is a sweet child, and I really want to help her. If you are ok with the promises I made to her, then every day we will be together for evening meals and tucking her in. On weekends and my days off, we will spend the whole day together, doing whatever she wants to do.”

Dean wholeheartedly agreed. They put on “The Sound of Music” and sat on the couch, snuggling into each other’s arms. Y/N found herself falling asleep, and the steady rise and fall of Dean’s chest told her he’d done the same. She closed her eyes and let the sandman take her to dreamland.

The first week of the therapeutic visits went amazingly well. By the end of that week, Katy had shown vast improvement in her overall demeanor, she no longer moped, or looked sad all the time. Her nightmares seemed to taper off, becoming less intense, and one night non-existent. Both Dean and Y/N considered this a huge step to recovery. They took Katy to the beach, the park, the zoo, and to a farm, where she got to ride a horse, Y/N climbing onto the large mammal with her and taking her around the corral. Dean watched them, falling harder for the doctor than he ever thought possible. They held hands, they kissed every evening when she left, and he found emptiness when she wasn’t around. Even Katy missed her, always pestering her father about her next visit.

Y/N caught glances of Dean, and all she could feel was the love she felt for him. This man had taken her dim perception of love at first sight, and turned it into a reality. She looked forward to their time together, both with Katy and after she was tucked in for the night. To be honest, she was a little disappointed they hadn’t slept together, but for the child’s sake, that was probably for the best. The last thing she wanted to do was rush into things, and have the relationship blow up, thereby causing major setbacks with Katy.

Week three came faster than anyone expected, and the changes in Katy were like night and day. This was far from the small unhappy child that had come into her office that many weeks ago. In fact, if anyone looked at her, they would never have guessed she had lost a parent almost 5 months ago. Dean ordered in Chinese food after they had spent the day walking through the hiking trails just outside the city. Katy didn’t take long to go to sleep, her eyes closed almost immediately after hitting her pillow. Y/N came down stairs and sat beside Dean, who wrapped his arm over her shoulder, and she accepted the invite. He kissed the top of her forehead and leaned into her.

“I love you.” His whispered confession came as a shock, both to Y/N and to Dean. She turned to him, meeting his beautiful green eyes with hers. Their lips found their way to each other once again, but this was different. There was need this time, lustful desire and pent up emotions mixed in. Y/N lay down gently on the couch, Dean’s large frame moving over her, covering her. His hands moved under her shirt to her milky white globes, kneading the large mound. Y/N’s moans urged him on, and he lifted the shirt and the bra, taking her taut nipple into his mouth, his teeth teasing the sensitive bud. She arched into him, his erection grinding into her core, heating it and filling her with intense pleasure. He moved off Y/N, her protests silenced as he picked her up, taking her upstairs to his room where they fell onto the bed together, continuing where they left off.

Morning sun peeked through the lace curtains, and Y/N stretched as she recalled last night. Dean was snuggled into her back, spooning her petite frame and the feeling was beyond amazing. She turned over, finding the current object of her thoughts awake, staring back at her.

“Morning.” His voice was husky, laced with desire and promise of something more.

“Morning yourself.” She answered, reaching up to kiss him, his lips meeting her half way. She moaned into the lip lock, and round two began, only to be interrupted by a small laugh and one extremely happy child jumping onto the bed.

“Y/N! You had a sleepover with daddy?” the innocent 4-year-old asked.

Both adults burst into laughter. “Yes Katy, I did. Is that alright with you?”

The young lady nodded eagerly. “Can you sleep over every night?”

Y/N’s eyebrows went up at the bold questions, but took it well. “I might, as long as your dad wants me to. Right now, though,” she paused, playfully poking Katy’s nose, “you need to get dressed and brush your hair. Can you do that for me? Then I will make some chocolate chip pancakes for us. How does that sound.”

A resounding “Yes!” filled the room, and she jumped off the large bed to get dressed. Dean and Y/N took that opportunity to dress and make themselves presentable. Making their way downstairs, Y/N stayed true to her promise and had chocolate chip pancakes hot off the grill, complete with whipped cream and syrup. Katy ate three, Dean ate five, and Y/N ate two. Katy helped clean up the dishes, another habit she’d picked up since Y/N had come into their lives. As she ran off to play with her dolls, Dean turned to Y/N, kissing her lightly on the cheek before he spoke.

“These past weeks have been amazing. I have seen such a positive change in Katy, and I have you to thank for all of it.” he paused. “I meant what I said last night Y/N. I love you. I want you to stay every night, every morning, every day, every weekend.”

“I’d love that Dean. I have fallen hard for you and for Katy. She’s such a sweetheart, and I am happy she responded so well to me. I love her as though she were my own, and I love spending time with her and with you.”

@legion1993 @luci-in-trenchcoats @akshi8278

#au hit list challenge #AU #dean winchester #dean x reader #single parent au

[woozletania]

Living with Rocket 6

"It's always something horrible," Peter Quill is prone to mutter when he learns some new awful thing about Rocket's past.  But some things are more horrible than others.  Some just gradually become part of you until you're not sure where they stop and where you begin.

*******************************************************************************************

It was their weekly routine.  Every week, on what Pete called Sunday or thereabouts if 'Sunday' was too busy, Rocket got out his tools and did a thorough scan of Lylla.  He then handed them over and she returned the favor.  Between the checkups on two Uplifts and Gamora, occasional visit from Nebula and running diagnostics on the translation implants they all had, they kept in practice.  Rocket and Lylla didn't get to operate on cyborgs very often so this was the next best thing.

Every week started the same, a shallow scan and a deep scan followed by socketing a probe in the data port each had to the left of their spine.  Lylla's cybernetics were a generation ahead of Rocket's and they got more useful data from her implanted data nodes, so it was their habit to spend extra time going over Rocket's scans for abnormalities. They were experts on each other's bodies and their own, even more than most couples.

Then one Sunday, as Star-Lord detoured around the apparent clutter of tools surrounding the two little Uplifts (the clutter was an illusion. Move a single tool a quarter of an inch and the raccoon would snap at you), Rocket saw something on one of the screens.

He didn't say anything.  He didn't have to.  Lylla, though  engrossed in other scans, felt him tense.  She didn't say anything, either.  Nor did she look as Rocket expanded and rotated a view of his own brain.

Turning a raccoon or otter brain into a human-level intellect took some cheating.  Each of them had numerous subprocessors implanted in their heads, purpose-built organic computers no larger than a peanut.   When an Uplift went well - and theirs had each gone extraordinarily well in the final analysis - these worked together with the animal brain.   You kept the excellent senses while adding intellect and, if desired, nearly superhuman additional attributes.

Rocket was an ace pilot and a crack shot.  He was also a frighteningly adept intuitive mechanic.  Were he not a Guardian and were he to receive the respect he received from the galaxy, he could make a very good living customizing weapons and equipment for anyone smart enough to hire him.  Thus he was the one to spot the anomaly in his own brain scan.  A line, a spot that had no obvious purpose.  Flipping through scans from previous weeks he found it had always been there.   The new scanner he'd picked up just made it more obvious.  What was it? What did the spot and line (wire?) do?

Lylla, though growing into an adept mechanic in her own right, wasn't as quick to spot such things.  He was built as a soldier and pilot who could build and fix his own gear.  Her specialization was quite different.  Lylla was a diplomat.

That meant, among other things, that you never, ever wanted to play cards with her if money was on the line.  Her intuitive grasp of body language, vocal inflection and facial expressions made it virtually impossible to bluff her.  She'd know your cards almost before you did.

So that night, after they'd stripped down to the fur and crawled through the little porthole under Rocket's workbench into their padded sleeping space, Lylla wanted to talk.

"Don't try to distract me," she purred as his talented hands began to roam.  He was very good at a lot of things and his clever little clawed hands were as adept at pleasing her as they were at snapping together bombs.  "You're worried about something you saw on your scan."

Rocket sighed.  "Can't blame a guy for trying." He curled up and the otter, longer bodied, curled around him.  It was their usual position when they were in bed to sleep as opposed to being in bed to do other things.  It put her whiskery muzzle behind his ear and he smiled as she tickled him.

"Now who's distracting who," he said as it was her turn to let her little webby hands wander.  "Do you want to know or not?"

"When you want to tell me," she purred, and as her hands continued to roam his mind turned to anything but talking.  An hour later, when the padded walls no longer echoed their chirps and growls,  he finally spoke up.

"There's something in my head," he said, and touched his forehead.   "A wire so fine I never saw it on a scan before.  It connects to one of my subprocessors."

"A control?" The worry was that there was a kill switch or other trickery buried somewhere in their bodies. It was one of the drawbacks to being a cyborg and one of the reasons Rocket was so adamant about the checkups.  Maybe they'd spot something on the twentieth scan they'd missed on all the others.

Rocket was silent until she nudged him.  Only then did he speak up.   "No.  Nothing like that.  I know what it is.  I've suspected it was there for a long time."

As he explained she nodded.  She had her reservations but Rocket had his reasons.  Afterward they snuggled up together to sleep, and that was the end of it...for a few months.

Three months of adventure, bounty hunting, mercy runs of supplies and medicine to outlying colonies - paid mercy runs, naturally - later came a call from an old friend.

"Call for you, Rocket," Star-Lord said from the pilot's seat. "It's Doc Foster."

Rocket, in the co-pilot position, nodded. They were docked at a   space station set up as a Xandarian outpost. They'd just finished taking on fuel and hypernet reception was good.  He stabbed a claw at a control and a screen popped up with Paul Foster's face.

Lylla nudged Rocket the second she saw the doctor.  Rocket already knew something was up from the badly concealed look of concern on Paul's face.  Rocket had gotten markedly better at reading human expressions since meeting his mate.

"Rocket," Paul said.  He considered the other Guardians for a moment until the raccoon spoke up.

"Pretty sure I know why you're calling, doc," he said.  "If it's something you saw on those scans I sent you a while back.  Lylla and I already know.  No reason the rest of this gang of idiots shouldn't." He gestured amiably at the rest of the crew.

Paul still looked uneasy.  "Are you sure, Rocket?  I swear I didn't know, and I was the backup cyberneticist.  It must have been something Tschu put in without documenting it."

"Yeah." Rocket hovered a claw over a control.  "I'm switching this to the common room.  We'll be there in a minute." His claw descended.   "OK.  You guys deserve to know this. C'mon."

A couple of minutes later, after Gamora and Drax unfolded the table that normally sat racked next to Rocket's work bench, they all took seats.  The faint smell of animal musk filled the room from the curtained-off nook under the bench that led to the Uplift's little sleep spot.  The smell had long since ceased to bother anyone.  The whole ship smelled of their two furry crew mates, just as it smelled of human and alien, but it was stronger here.

"Okay Paul," Rocket said, and leaned back as he looked at the screen. He put a clawed finger up against his skull.  "Wire."

"That's right." Paul looked down for a moment.  Though he was a good friend to the raccoon now, his role in Rocket's creation still wracked him with guilt.  "A wire into your pleasure center."

"Pleasure center," Pete said.  "What, to control you?"

Rocket leaned back further in his chair.  The others didn't miss how Lylla's hand stayed on his forearm.  Relaxed as the raccoon seemed, he was tense.  "This is what happened.  You know the guys that made me weren't the nicest crew around."

"That is why they are dead," Drax said with a typical lack of tact.

"Yeah.  Now, I don't remember much from when I was little.  Sometimes I can kind of remember my mom, just warm fur and safety...most of what I do know I read in their notes.  I was the youngest of a litter of four.  The other three were bigger and stronger and they took them away one by one to try to do with them what they ended up doin' to me.  All those cubs died.  Then they came for me." He paused.

"My mom was just an animal.  But she was a mother. She knew that they they took her cubs away they didn't come back. They had to kill her to get to me.  They cut her up for parts."

He looked up.  A year ago his eyes would be bright with tears.  A year before that, hard with hate.  Rocket was stronger now.  He'd grown. "That's neither here nor there.  Anyway, the first thing I remember for sure was hate.  How much I hated them.  So when they started makin' me do things, put together weapons an' such, I played dumb even when they tortured me.  I didn't start to cooperate until I heard 'em saying they were gonna cut me up to see why the Uplift failed.  And then it was just to stall so I had time to escape."

"An' it wasn't until I got out, after killing every one of 'em 'cept Doc Foster here, that I started to work on stuff.  Tools.  Weapons.   Flyin'.  Shootin'.  And you know what I found?"

Absently, seemingly without input from his brain, his little clawed hands disassembled his data pad to the components, then snapped it back together again.  He didn't need to look.  His hands knew what to do.

"I found I liked workin' on stuff.  And fighting, and flyin'.  Before I met Groot," he looked fondly at the adolescent tree.  "That and drinking was all I had. All that kept me together.  So I did it a lot.   When I met Groot I was five, I guess."

He smiled at the startled expressions.  "Raccoons mature fast.  Good thing they made me so I live longer than one.  Anyway, I was out of the lab for maybe three years when I met Groot and about all I did to make ends meet was fight an' make stuff.  I liked doing it an' I was good at it. It made me Units.  So why worry why I liked it so much?"

"Couple years later I met Pete and the rest a you losers," he said, waving at Mantis, Drax and Gamora.  "An' after that I got better.  Yeah, I know I was a mess.  You guys helped me a lot.  But pretty soon, I noticed something. I'd be workin' on something and just ignoring you.   Even though you were the best thing that ever happened to me."

He leaned his head to the side so his cheek pressed against Lylla's. "And then the real best thing to ever happen to me happened.  And sometimes I ignored even her. That's when I knew."

"You knew there was a control of some sort," Doc Foster said from the screen.

"Yup.  Some compulsion.  You don't make a little brain like mine smart without cheating.  Little organic processors implanted in the meat.  Wires, connections.  So I was always looking for what was going on.  There had to be something in there.  And then a few months ago I bought a better scanner, and there it was.  I saw it first checkup I did."

"That's horrible," Star-Lord said.  "It makes you work and fight?"

"Sorta," Rocket admitted.  "It just made it feel good.  But I grew up like this.  My whole life has been like this. I work, I fight, I fly, I feel good.  For a long time it was all I had. All that kept me alive and sane. And we can't get it out, can we doc?"

"No," Paul Foster said on the screen.  "Not safely.  Your brain grew around it as you matured.  And we can't shut down that processor node because we don't know what else it does.  If we mess with that there's no telling what it would do to you."

"Sooo..." Rocket reached over and stroked Lylla's nape, but he was looking at the other Guardians.  "This is who I am.  You put up with me, so it can't be too awful.  I just want ta say, and don't expect me to say this every time..."

"If you see me workin' and I don't hear you when you talk.  If I'm doing somethin' and ignoring you.  I'm sorry.  I just like to work.   Most of it's real.  Most of it's me.  A little bit of it isn't. Its just the way I am."

Pete could count on the fingers of one hand the times he'd heard the raccoon say 'I'm sorry.' One of them was the time Rocket bit him.  He didn't say it unless he meant it.

"I'm sorry, Rocket," Paul said from the screen.  "I didn't know.  I would have told you if I did.  I called as soon as I figured it out."

"It's not all bad, doc." Rocket leaned over and nuzzled Lylla.  "Its just something I hafta keep track of.  I have things better than that little wire now.  An' there are worse things to be addicted to than work."

And that was the heart of it.  Rocket knew about it now.  He knew what to look for and how to deal with it.  And of all the horrible things they'd learned about him, this was perhaps the least bad.  

Pete smiled.  "And the next time you do something stupid, or lose your temper, you have a ready-made excuse."

"Well," Rocket said, and smiled at Lylla,"There's that too."

#Rocket Raccoon #Guardians of the Galaxy #lylla otter

[pikespendragon67]

Moon Tide: Leblanc

The first date!

Iwai mostly texted Tae updates on how Kaoru was doing, recommended doses for the prescriptions, etc. But along the way, the two mildly conversed. Then, Tae texted first with:

My office doesn’t open until 9, unless there’s an emergency. Wanna have that first date? ;)

Iwai was slightly bewildered. He didn’t forget that the good doctor asked him out a week or so ago, but she wanted their first date to be in the morning? Huh.

This was also a rather spontaneous request, as it was now 6:50 that very same morning.

“Dad?” Kaoru asked.

“Hm?” Iwai turned to his son, realizing he stared at his screen for over two minutes. “Oh, uh, you feeling good enough for school?”

“Yep, I’ve been resting a lot and I’ve been taking the medicine.”

“Okay, but make sure you don’t over exert yourself.”

Kaoru nodded confidently as he made himself breakfast on the go.

“Stay out of trouble!” Iwai smiled as he sent his son off.

Now back to the matter at hand. Iwai didn’t really have customers until the afternoon, and it wasn’t any time near an important event, so opening up shop too late wasn’t that big of a worry.

Leblanc, right?

Iwai decided to freshen up a bit while he waited for Tae to respond. As he was brushing his teeth, she texted a picture of her in front of the small café. The caption below: Don’t keep me waiting too long.

Bold one. Not bad.

One quick Google search revealed that Leblanc was just down the street from Tae’s clinic. Ah, she must be a frequent customer there in that case. That explains it.

…Hm, since it’s the first date, Iwai should put in some effort to look good. And probably bring Tae flowers or something.

Be there in 20.

He decided not to be too frugal (mostly to show he wasn’t some desperate idiot that demanded affection) and get a single flower instead of a bouquet. The flower shop owner noted that a rose would be a bit much on the first date, especially for one so early in the morning.

“How about this other red one?” He asked.

“Oh, that’s a sorrel. It means affection. But usually women are the ones that give hibiscus flowers like these. How about a sunflower? They mean adoration.”

Seemed a bit too cheery for Tae, in Iwai’s book.

“Then these blue ones?”

“Oh, bluebells! Those mean humility or gratitude. And I’ve made sure these ones aren’t poisonous, so you don’t need to worry about that, either.”

Perfect.

With a polite nod after payment, Iwai set off with a bluebell in hand.

Thankfully, Iwai didn’t have to sprain a lung to get to his destination. Or break a sweat. That would be unpleasant to deal with.

Stopping for a moment, he noticed Tae on her phone and in her work clothes. Now that he got a good look at her, she was prettier than he remembered. …Maybe that was because he was too concerned about Kaoru’s health when they first met.

Tae noticed him, and walked toward him. He met halfway.

“Got this for you,” he said a bit too quickly as he held out the bluebell.

She seemed a bit taken aback at first, but then smiled.

“How thoughtful,” she replied. “I’ll forgive you for being a few minutes.”

Nailed it. …Wait, he was late? Iwai checked his phone to realize it was now 7:14.

“I’m only teasing,” Tae snickered. “Come on, the coffee should be brewed fresh now.”

“Oh, uh, right.”

Tae silently remarked about how cute Iwai was being as Iwai opened the door for her. Good thing he had manners even at such an early hour.

“Mornin’, Boss,” Tae announced nonchalantly. She confidently strutted toward a small bar seat.

“Mornin’, Doc,” the middle-aged man behind the counter replied without lifting his head up. He did, however, when he heard the other set of footsteps. “Oh? Haven’t seen you here before.”

“Make sure you don’t schmooze him too much.”

“I’m not that desperate for customers, you know.” He turned to Iwai. “How do you take your coffee?”

“Black, please,” Iwai replied.

“Usual latte for you, Doc?”

“If you’d be so kind.” She patted the seat next to her. Iwai then decided to stop being awkward and joined her. “Boss here makes some of the best coffee I’ve had.”

“Well, considering this is a café, I would hope he does,” Iwai chuckled.

Boss let out a small snort. He then placed a small vase in front of him, allowing Tae to place the bluebell in it.

“But do you work here part time or something?”

“Had I the time and culinary skills, probably. But, in case you’re wondering, everyone here calls him Boss.”

“Ah.”

“Real name’s Sakura Sojiro, just make sure not to use that when filing taxes.”

“Damn, and here I thought I could get away with it,” Iwai grinned before he introduced himself.

Sojiro placed the cups in front of the two, and the two thanked him.

“Ah, this is the good stuff,” Iwai sighed after taking a sip.

“Your fears of mediocrity have been officially diminished,” Tae smiled. “We should celebrate with curry.”

Sojiro amusedly rolled his eyes as he started making preparations.

“Before you ask, Iwai is the owner of the airsoft store in town,” Tae spoke before she drank her latte.

“Not bad,” Sojiro responded. “Must’ve been difficult to get the work space.”

“Yeah, I had to go in an alley so little kids wouldn’t stop by frequently,” Iwai said. “It’s always about location.”

Sojiro gave a sympathetic hum.

Footsteps could be heard from above, slowly descending until a familiar face appeared from the side. Iwai did a double check only to realize that this was in fact the kid he sold the model gun to. Akira seemed just as surprised.

“Yo,” Tae greeted.

“Uh, hey,” Akira waved. He nodded at Iwai, and Iwai nodded back.

“On your way to school?”

Akira nodded and passed the two.

“Hang on, I have some leftover curry you can take with you,” Sojiro spoke as Akira opened the front door. He finished packing it in a small bento box and placed it on the counter. “Make sure you’re not late.”

“Thank you,” Akira bowed.

Does he live here or something…? Iwai thought to himself.

“You’ve been making sure he eats enough, right, Boss?” Tae asked. “Last thing I want as a doctor is to hear that he’s malnourished.”

“He’s been getting better, thankfully,” Sojiro sighed. “Kid’s not used to eating a lot, though, so it’s been a gradual process.”

“And Futaba?”

“She’s been taking her vitamins, last time I checked. Still need to find a way to get her to exercise, though. I want her to be comfortable, but I don’t want her holed up in her room where she’s on the computer all day.”

…She doesn’t live upstairs, too, does she? Iwai once again thought to himself. Place doesn’t really seem suited to raise two kids, unless there’s an apartment upstairs.

“Thankfully you seem to have the patience,” Iwai said. “I have a son named Kaoru, and back in the day I’d have to count in my head so I wouldn’t end up throwing a tantrum along with him.”

“That right?”

“Yep, it’s actually how I met him,” Tae replied.

“How cute.” Sojiro then served fresh mild-flavored curry. The two thanked him for the meal before they cooled their first bites.

“Okay, I need the recipe for this,” Iwai said.

“And here you thought I would be schmoozing him too much,” Sojiro chuckled.

Tae rolled her eyes with a grin.

“You wanna go Dutch?” Iwai asked. “I don’t mind paying, but I don’t want you to think you can never pay for anything ever.”

“Yes, please. Boss deserves some of my hard-earned medical treatment money.”

“Only some, how unfortunate,” Sojiro sighed with an overdramatic tone. “You kids keep your noses clean, flu season’s approaching sooner than I’d like.”

“You too, Boss, don’t want there to be an epidemic just because you were too stubborn to rest,” Tae waved as Iwai held the door open for her again.

Sojiro turned his attention to Iwai and grinned, “Feel free to bring Kaoru over when you have the time. Maybe one of these days he can talk with Futaba and Akira.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Iwai smiled.

Tae and Iwai decided to keep up the friendly chats as they strolled toward Tae’s clinic.

“Boss seems to have taken a liking to you,” Tae said. “And he tends to give out pretty good assessments of others.”

“Thank God,” Iwai breathed. “Can’t believe you took me to see your folks on the first date. Could’ve given me a warning beforehand.”

“What, and risk you stuttering to try and impress him?”

“…Shit, you got me there.”

That earned a laugh out of the two of them.

“Be thankful I didn’t take you to my actual parents, though. My mom would still be on my ass about not being a housewife or whatever, and with Dad gone, it’s harder to get her to change subjects.”

“You don’t have to worry about my folks, either. Dad left when I was a kid and my mom flat out doesn’t care about me.”

Thank God I’m not in the yakuza anymore, Iwai thought. Last thing I want is for her to get involved, or for my former brothers to try and do something.

At last, they arrived to the front steps of Tae’s clinic.

“Oh, that reminds me,” Tae spoke. “That bluebell you got me was beautiful, hope you don’t mind me giving it to Boss.”

“Not at all, I’m just glad you liked it,” Iwai responded with a grin. “It was…kind of a last minute decision, if I’ll be honest.”

“Well, considering bluebells can be bad luck, I could tell.”

“Yea-wait, what?”

“Old superstition that hearing them ring would mean someone close to you died.”

“I…the flower shop owner said it meant gratitude or whatever, though.”

Tae chuckled to herself for a bit.

“Ah, don’t worry. It has good meanings, too. Like other flowers, it can be used for medical treatments.”

She then placed her hand on his cheek and pressed a small kiss on it.

“It also means everlasting love.”

#pikes writes #moon tide #persona 5 #munehisa iwai #tae takemi

[latetothegreysparty]

Empty

I decided to try my hand at Grey’s fanfic. Here’s something I wrote for the following anonymous prompt on @omeliafics:

“Set after 14x08, the little boy dies from the heparin, Amelia feels responsible cuz she told Alexa to chance it. She relates it to feeling responsible about her baby’s death. Owen is there to comfort her and finally gets why she’s so scared of having more children”

I think I strayed just a tiny bit from the prompt, so I apologize to whoever wrote this prompt. As the fic started to take shape, it went in a slightly different direction, and I just sort of went with it. Please be patient with me as I’m new to Tumblr, I’ve never written any Grey’s fanfiction before, and I’ve never really been much of a writer.

Empty

Empty. Everything was empty right now. The darkened on-call room Amelia was sitting in was empty. The coffee cup she had been staring at for the past hour was empty. The room that just this morning had been filled with the chatter of Frankie and his mother as they watched Doc McStuffins together was now empty, the sheets stripped from the bed and the name and vital signs erased from the whiteboard by the door. And Amelia herself felt so empty as she stared at that coffee cup, unable to do anything productive, but unable to go to sleep on one of the old bunks in the on-call room.

If she laid down and closed her eyes, she would see that little boy’s sweet face. She would see his smile and hear his voice talking to his mother about how obvious it was that she wanted to date Dr. Alex. She couldn’t bear to see that face and hear that voice. The guilt that was consuming her, leaving her empty and hollow, was enough to deal with by itself without the image of his face burned onto the backs of her eyelids, assaulting her mind as she tried to sleep.

So here she sat, staring at the empty coffee cup in front of her and willing something, anything to take her mind off of the death of sweet little Frankie. The death that she had caused.

Amelia looked toward the door as she heard it open. She could tell that Owen must not have heard about Frankie because he just shot her a passing glance as he strode across the room to one of the bunks, asking over his shoulder, “Are you about ready to take a nap too?” Amelia opened her mouth to respond, but the words caught in her throat, and she was left staring at his back, willing herself to say something. Or do something. Willing anything to happen that would break the painful emptiness of the last hour.

“What happened?” Owen asked, his head tilting in that way it tended to as he turned back to look at her.

“I, um,” she choked out, “It’s just been a long day.”

“Amelia,” Owen sighed, drawing out the syllables of her name. “You know you can talk to me about anything anytime. That hasn’t changed.”

Amelia stared at him for a few moments, simultaneously trying to decide if she was ready to address this problem out loud and if she was ready to have the most substantive conversation she had had with Owen since their separation. At this point, she figured she might as well. She couldn’t really feel any worse than she was already feeling right now. “Did you hear about Frankie, Alex’s patient with the AVM?” she whispered.

“Oh yeah, he’s having surgery tomorrow, isn’t he?” Owen asked.

“No he’s not because he’s dead,” Amelia bit out. Owen reflexively flinched, but he quickly caught himself and recovered. He shouldn’t have been surprised. This was Amelia. She never minced words. Her next words, though, truly did catch him off guard. “I killed him,” she whispered.

Owen’s mouth fell open a little bit, and then his legs were moving before he even realized it, carrying him over to the bed where Amelia sat. Amelia didn’t move as Owen sat down beside her. “Amelia, I’m sure you didn’t…” he began, but he was quickly cut off.

“No Owen,” she said forcefully, speaking louder than she had in hours. “He had Factor V Leiden, so he was on anticoagulation. He came to the hospital for vitamin K to reverse the anticoagulation before the surgery. He started vomiting and complaining of a severe headache, but we didn’t have his records, so we couldn’t see if he’d gotten the vitamin K. Alex came to talk to me, and I told him to give Frankie heparin. He hadn’t gotten any vitamin K, and he had a massive brain hemorrhage. I killed that boy, Owen.”

Owen’s heart clenched as he tried to think of something to say. He thought of the times a patient had died because of a decision he had made, and he knew there was nothing that was going to take her pain away, but he struggled to come up with something to say to help her through this. “Amelia,” he began, “you are the most brilliant neurosurgeon I know. This kid had the best possible care out there. You made a decision based on what you knew, using your knowledge to do the best you could to give him a chance at life. Sometimes we do everything we can and it still falls apart on us. It hurts like hell, but it doesn’t make you less of a surgeon. You didn’t kill him.”

“But what if I didn’t think like a neurosurgeon?” she whispered.

“Excuse me?” Owen asked, struggling to follow her train of thought.

“The choice to give him that heparin without knowing if he had gotten the vitamin K was not the choice of a neurosurgeon, Owen,” she explained. “That dose of heparin was not part of stroke protocol.”

“The system was down, you had no way of knowing,” Owen began to argue, but Amelia cut him off.

“No, Owen,” she said, her voice once again gaining confidence. “Stroke protocol states that you don’t treat a patient for ischemic stroke without confirmation that it’s not hemorrhagic. I knew that the CT was inconclusive. I knew that we were unsure if the anticoagulation had been reversed or not. I knew that giving the heparin was against protocol, but I chose to do it anyway. I could feed you some line about how protocols aren’t foolproof and I used my best medical judgment to do what we could with what we had, but that would be a lie. The truth is that, in that moment, I thought like the woman who spent weeks knowing that she had a baby growing inside her that had no brain. During those weeks, every time I looked in the mirror I wished that there was something we could try. I wouldn’t have cared if it had been a gamble. Having the opportunity to try something would have been far better than weeks of knowing that he was going to die regardless of what I did. So today, when I saw that little boy vomiting and crying, I knew that I was supposed to wait until I could confirm that his anticoagulation had been reversed, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t just let that boy suffer and die. So I chose to gamble, and it cost Frankie his life.”

By this point, tears were rolling freely down Amelia’s cheeks. As Owen reached out to brush the tears from her cheeks, he struggled to make sense of the sea of emotions swirling through him. He was devastated for Amelia. He would do anything to take away the pain of today, the pain of the death of her son, and all of the pain that seemed to find her in every season of her life. He was also shocked to have heard the words that had just come out of her mouth. In all the months of their marriage, he could not recall a single conversation that was as honest and emotionally raw as the one they were having now. Finally, he was grateful to her for trusting him with her pain, doubts, and guilt. He knew Amelia was a professional at hiding all of these things, and he was honored that she had chosen to share all of this with him, even in the place they were currently at in their relationship.

Owen wrapped his arms around Amelia, pulling her head into his chest much like he had the night she had met Penny at the dinner party. “Oh, Amelia,” he whispered, closing his eyes and struggling to come up with anything else to say.

Amelia sniffled into Owen’s chest for a few more minutes before breaking the silence. “Children are so beautiful and innocent and perfect,” she whispered. “The world is too cruel for them. My world is too cruel for them. Every child who comes into my world is broken by this cruelty. I am terrified of bringing another child into my world just so he can have his life shattered by a neural tube defect or a computer virus.”

As Amelia spoke, Owen felt the tears begin to well in his own eyes. For the first time, he thought he was beginning to understand why Amelia hadn’t wanted children after that negative pregnancy test. His heart broke for Amelia and for the tiny little boy who had only gotten to experience the beauty and depth of Amelia’s love for 43 minutes.

Amelia felt one of Owen’s tears run down onto her forehead, and her heart clenched. Here they were, sitting in a dark on-call room with tears streaming down their faces and no rings on their left hands, but finally beginning to pick up the pieces from the mess of their conflict about having children. As Amelia glanced down at the coffee cup that she had dropped onto the ground a while ago, she thought that she still felt pretty empty, but she was oddly at peace with it now. Perhaps one has to be emptied in order to be healed and filled again.

#omelia #omeliafics #omeliafanfics #amelia shepherd #owen hunt #grey's anatomy

[wine-porn]

I’ve always been a fan of Aglianico. Although in America, pickings can be slim, and–as it is considered a variety of great aging potential–often moderately old. Not that there’s anything wrong with old wines, not at all. But feeling these wines in their bright freshness–at their source–and seeing all the measures taken to PRESERVE that youthful fruit is something quite overlooked when only exposed to wines developing tertiary. There were several side benefits to experiencing the Aglianico at Tenuta Del Meriggio. First of all, it exposed me to Taurasi, the very special DOCG dedicated to Aglianico, but nearly overshadowing these powerful reds are the ridiculous whites produced alongside: Greco (Tufo DOCG) and Fiano (Avellino DOCG). It should also be mentioned a couple ancient, indigenous grapes are also produced: Coda di Volpe as a DOC and Falanghina, which Americans are probably far more familiar with in relation to wines from Campania–at least when I mentioned I was traveling there, Falanghina was the first word out of my wine-friends’ mouths.

While we’re on the subject of *Compania knowledge* I should mention what EYE knew about it going in. 99% of my exposure in several decades of drinking wine in the U.S. had been under the Feudi Di San Gregorio label. This is a brand fairly common in the US and pretty much represented the extent of my experience save for a few outliers over the years. As part of my research WHILE in Campania, I picked up this same label off a local shelf just to see how it compared to the stuff I was being exposed to at a boutique winery. The results were shocking. It is–quite literally–supermarket plonk, nowhere NEAR exuding the sort or lavish fruit and mineral experienced at Meriggio. And to think I have a fair amount of this in my cellar!

The other thing I always do before such trips to relatively unknown regions is to snoop around what others say. I went through my library of Usual Suspects on all things encyclopedic to wine and came away with not much more than I already knew. While most entries were promising of decent quality and variable nuance, most indicated the best-known brand to stick to as Mastroberardino, whose ‘Radici’ bottling I ALSO experimented with while in Naples and it, too, displayed the kind of dull, safe normal-ness and un-inspiring fruit the Feudi did. An interesting aside here is this is almost IDENTICAL to the VERY BRIEF wiki-page on Taurasi, which indicates in its scant dozen-sentences the appellation was relatively unknown until early this century, where it has exploded to over 200 labels BUT–as if tearing a page directly from Karen McNeil’s book–lists solely the afore-mentioned Mastro as the only “wine-of-interest”.

Well then. I’m here to change your mind about that.

Loyal readers will know I am not one to allow *the story* to over-shadow the stuff under the cork, but one of the beauties of spending an entire week on a winery is the ability to really get to know the proprietors, their ideals, and their goals. Keep in mind this was not a week on a region, or on a variety, not even within a consorzio of producers, but an entire week on a single winery. Oh, but there are way MORE benefits. Completely immersing oneself in the dining and sources of dining in a very tight area sheds light on the symbiotic relationship between the wine and local cuisine. And in gastronomic cultures this old, the association is obvious. Not to be ignored are the local sights and sounds, and spending an entire week nearly one-on-one with the proprietors of a local business which depends on regional intricacies allows ample time to *stop and smell the roses* as it were, with plentiful side-trips to sights both adapted-to naturally and created as part of societal history. From the rocky switchbacks overlooking the colorful Amalfi coast to narrow hillside villages in the shadow of Vesuvius–castles and churches and palaces and museums in between–all proudly reflecting their stitches in the fabric of a region, and all benefiting from the bounty–and climate–of the Mediterranean. Because we’re here to talk about food & wine, remember?

Tenuta Del Meriggio is a winery born from a life-long interest in wine by a family dedicated to–and still fully immersed in–the on-the-street healthcare industry. Both Bruno and Nunzio Pizza dreamed of making wine themselves one day and this rocky little hillside above Avellino is the fruition of their physical–and financial–dedication to this goal. No expense has been spared in this state-of-the-art winery, and it shares many complements with its dug-deep hillside location. The sticky volcanic clay holds moisture indefinitely, translating to wet natural cellar walls producing near-100% humidity and shiver-inducing year-round temperatures, but also hampering off-season cultivation of the stony slopes and contributing constantly to vine-concern–especially in springtime. Unlike some wine-production facilities I have been inside of in Italy, this place is near-sterile in cleanliness, the equipment computer-controlled and several of the pieces geeky enough to have a function outside the grasp of someone fairly familiar with winery-processes.

I won’t go into a whole lot of detail about the winery. It’s brand new; It’s beautiful; The inside of almost all wineries is identical–the age and layout and whether the floor-drains work the only variables. Two or three things did pique my interest enough to bear mentioning though. They have a water-reclamation system installed downhill of the crush-pad. If you’ve ever worked in a winery, you KNOW the incredible amount of water used–not consumed, used–in keeping everything flowing. This water all has to go somewhere and it doesn’t really have anything WRONG with it. So a series of ponds and sumps and a selection of plants and gravels produce not only water which can be used as irrigation on the rare occasion, but re-used in the winery for cleaning. Another wish-list item I will mention is their own cold-room. Probably 2000-2500 sqft–not to mention the 20′ high ceilings–it is capable of (at least) 0° Celsius and is used in both pre-production fruit and post-production bottle stability. Lastly, I loved the Austrian-oak (not variable top) upright fermenters where the Aglianico spends upwards of 45 days in primary. They are big though–I mean what the hell even IS 100hl??? But they are very pretty and I kinda want one.

Are the wines organic or the property biodynamic? No. But here’s the thing you have to realize about European wineries: EVERYTHING is automatically far more “organic” than American agriculture–even without the badge–and EVERYONE is striving to both grow grapes and produce wines with as little chemical sleight-of-hand as possible. Americans have this weird black-and-white on-off switch when it comes to “organic”, and I’ve seen their faces when they ask and get the simple answer, “No.” If you stick around long enough for the FULL answer–and a complete understanding of wine-making approach in Europe–apparent is the fact the vineyard manager and winemaker are doing their best to minimize applications and additives, but a healthy vineyard is more important than an organic one and a healthy fermentation is more important than a natural one. This is the same argument I proffer constantly to the ‘Natural Wine’ crowd: There are no Natural Wines, only NATURALER wines. Being certified organic cuts hard into a wineries ability to compete in Italy, and honestly, the natives are just not as concerned about that word *officially* appearing on a label. Make sure your wines are being thoughtfully made, and vague titles won’t matter.

The winery itself sits up at about 1500 feet elevation on a fairly steep south-facing slope with various exposures of varying degrees for various small blocks of fruit. The exact town is Montemiletto, near the town of and in the province of Avellino, in the district of Irpinia–which is also the appellation? in the region of Campania. Sorry, the Irpinia part I never was quite able to get a handle on in terms of specific geographical boundaries, although it IS the appellation. Got that all straight? The Taurasi and Tufo DOCG’s are nearby at slightly lower elevations. The pecking order at this winery (and similar to others I have witnessed) is an “agronomist” (basically: vineyard manager)–and at Meriggio, Mr. Bruno Pizza is also an agronomist–who works year-round almost equally with the “oenologist” (they don’t really ever say ‘winemaker’), who here, is a rather famous Carmine Valentino and CLEARLY performing the duties which stateside would be called ‘Consulting Winemaker’ (the consulting part doesn’t translate, believe me I tried). Then there is the full-time on-site winemaker they also call an oenologist or sometimes ‘Technician’ who clearly is performing in the function we would call Assistant Winemaker. After that, it’s just a bunch of pruners, pickers and hose-draggers, the daily minutia of management I got to witness first-hand and let me tell you it differs NOT ONE SPECK from here in California. Tenuta Del Meriggio also has at the helm a Communicazione Commerciale or something something–a marketing director–by the name of Paolo Sibillo, a very focused but gregarious former boxer who speaks perfect English and naturally has his finger on everything from production and pricing to packaging and distribution. It’s quite a team, but we all know Nunzia runs the whole thing.

But how are the wines? I know you’re here for the wines. Let’s talk about the whites first. How beautiful these things were. Perfect with all the seafood we ate all over town at numerous restaurants. Everywhere, the Greco and Fiano came out. The latter far richer and rounder than the former, and naturally a favorite with the Chardonnay-drinkers in the crowd. The Greco is angular and lean, more akin to Riesling to me and was my favorite whenever the two were presented. A couple of notes about my notes which later proved themselves factually: First, I kept noting KMBS in the Greco. Turns out ‘Tufo” is the rock they quarry in the region to make the cobblestones and it has a very high sulfur content. There’s one. Secondly, I insisted the Greco was tannic. Turns out it has a very thin, delicate skin which actually GOES THROUGH the press mesh, creating a bit of skin-contact in the fermenters and with it, tannin. Lastly, I kept getting oak in the Fiano, even though it sees no oak (the reserve does). You would SWEAR there’s oak in it. In reality, this is a by-product of them freezing the grapes for 48 hrs before pressing. (remember that cold-room?) It creates a nutty, oaky, full mouthfeel while preserving the fruit. So I’m not crazy, after all.

18 irpinia coda di volpe DOC  Big citrus and austerity but it kind of turned into a bit of sweetness, candy pie or something. Kinda dusty floral really really dusty… It’s a great standalone grape they only make a little bit of it most of it goes in the blend but it’s really sharp, acidic and has an interesting floral but yet teary softness to it that belies its intensity. 18 fiano di avellino (day 2) Creamy round vanilla nutty oak. Old worldy and full of applesauce, melon and kiwi. Green cleanness reverberates throughout the cellar funk. 18 fiano di avellino (day 3) I’m getting so much richness here, more than I got last night. It’s all cream soda in the nose nice Twinkie icing but not cream cheese frosting, no citrus, all chubby roundness. … Big round old world funk in the mouth, gritty soggy soil but a granular brightness. 17 fiano di avellino Nice and clean, none of the barnyard funk I get off the 18. Nice apple and peach little bit of spice, little cardamon… In the mouth full and rich again. I could sell endcaps of this to Chard drinker and convert them. It has all the full mouth feel that Chardonnay drinker, chablis drinker and sancerre drinker needs but also the acidity and the minerality doesn’t take a break. Mouthfeel goes on and on.

18 greco di tufo (day 2) Interesting funky nose, nice reduction and stewed fruit, good earthiness and body in nose, good mineral edgy sharp in nose: cream soda and sprite notes with KMBS? … In the mouth, full and rich, 13.5 guess: 14. Full and round, almost a seedy strawberry Sierra-berry goodness. Citrus rind edge sharp and cutting. Mid palate a lil thin then comes crashing back to almost tannic bitterness. A brilliant white wine. Absolutely world-class stuff. I love this wine. 18 greco di tufo (day 3) I thought I got a touch of potassium metabisulfite off the front this morning and it’s still here. I’m getting a lot more baking spice off of this one really interesting cinnamon and nutmeg and a pastry pastry cheese note… Ridiculous mouthfeel but not a California sort of atmosphere, a raspy and honest bitter and there’s no way to argue there is not tannin in this wine. This is a winter-time wine–it won’t keep you warm but it will keep you alive. 14 greco di tufo Bad vintage? A lot creamier nose… full mouthfeel, good pomplamousse and more applesauce, all your dreams are alive here, boys & girls, ridiculous acidity, crazy mineral. Solid mouthfeel for decades. This is not made as well as the 18 and I would love to taste the 18 at this age.

18 fiano di avellino selectione A little oak on this one but really not noticeable in the nose. I was expecting something more. Solid but it actually has come and gone the other direction from the non selection it’s really really light… Rich and full in the mouth but it doesn’t let you get too far down the road before all that mineral kicks in… all the Chardonnay drinkers in the room def prefer the non-selection. Bottled 2 months ago and the feel like it’s a little awkward at this moment. Still it’s brilliant brilliant stuff. 18 greco di tufo selectione This is clean and mellow in the nose I feel like some of the lovely stuff I like about the stainless steel has been eroded. I’m getting more potassium metabisulfite I feel like it might be really recently bottled? Tomato stem and water down honey in the mouth. Very mellow and smoothed out but you’ve got tannin still there. I’m sorry I’m just not the biggest fan of these selections which is pretty much par for the course with me. The regular bottlings have more fruit. To their credit although they are both very freshly bottled and and perhaps will settle down a little bit in 6-months.

15 irpania aglianico DOC Nice dense formidable Ruby with a barely faded edge staining with good legs… Beautiful & nails all the way through. Smooth down into a nice cherry reduction pomegranate where the chocolate tobacco is just pouring out of it even though it’s only 5. Nice green-briar but it’s a polished sort of briar. Acid is going to be there it’s just a breath in the background underneath all that cinnamon. In the mouth you can definitely taste the age. It has a crazy fruit to it but also a little bit of imbalance because the the tannins and the acidity are so huge, there’s a wall of dark fruit that lingers slightly behind it and is it saving grace. This needs about 4 hours in a decanter then you possibly could approach it. So much going on in the nose and in the finish that I feel sorry for the entry and middle. There is a really nice herb or herbaceous sort of rosemary oil thing going on in the finish that I could really get addicted to. A stupidly delicious wine. 14 taurasi aglianico DOCG Plain and elegant in the nose. Subdued at first. Dull briar fruit so huge, massive cherry luxardo finally blows up. So elegant in the mouth, mouth-wrackingly dry and acidic, I could literally drink this wine all day long I’m not going to fall into the crutch of comparing it to another region it’s just not fair. This is stupidly good, perfect barrel, good fruit. I will be a little bit concerned that maybe the fruit will not out live with the tannin but there’s gobs of it back there so it’s not really my place to say. 12 taurasi aglianico DOCG Showing a bit more garnet in the glass. Just a hint of brick at the edge. A little bit oxidized in the nose to be honest, creamy buttery big bread popcorn sort of nuances borderline on banana but not quite going there. Through all this nutty and reduced fruit shine calamata and Herbs de Provence notes. Ridiculous fruit, honestly more fruit than the 14 which would bode well for my question as to whether the fruit can outlive the tannin. 10 taurasi Aglianico DOCG Really starting to smooth there. Still all there but really starting to smooth out and the reduction on fruit is just absolutely gorgeous. Lithe and bitter and green, fruit a glorious bystander in the tertiary theme.

I know I was supposed to rant and rave about the Taurasi’s–and I did, to a point–but that little 2015 “regular” Irpinia DOC Aglianico was my wine of the day several times. I kept coming back to it as a benchmark for what the variety could do. I know it has zero barrique aging and was actually released LONG before it had this much bottle-age, but it is straight-up gorgeous. Funny thing is: later on in the week we attended a big formal dinner with local celebrities and notables. They served one red. I couldn’t believe it: My WINE OF THE WEEK: the 2015 Irpinia Aglianico. Good things come to those who wait.

And what the world needs now is more Greco and Aglianiaco.

These wines are available thru Siena Imports on the West Coast.

tenutadelmeriggio.it 

Getting to know Avellino I've always been a fan of Aglianico. Although in America, pickings can be slim, and--as it is considered a variety of great aging potential--often moderately old.

#Aglianico #Aglianico DOC #Avellino #Bruno Pizza #Campania #Carmine Valentino #Falanghina DOC #Fiano #Fiano di avellino #Greco #Greco de Tufo #Greco di Tufo #Irpania Aglianico #Irpinia #Italian wine #Nunzia Guerriero #Paolo Sibillo #SAverio Pizza #Taurasi Aglianico DOCG #Tenuta del Meriggio #Volpe