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dragonfly756 · 3 years

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Once again thinking about the parallels/foils of Lovelace and Lambert and Minkowski and Eiffel. First of all, the obvious, like, the communications officer and the mission commander, and their contrasting demeanors about their mission and in general. Classic serious guy/fun guy dynamics here, nice that they’re reversed for each set, but not anything Revolutionary.......Right?

But, if we want to get deeper into it, contrasting Lovelace and Minkowski first, they’re both going through almost the opposite emotional journey for the same reasons. If we take a look at where they are in the beginning, Lovelace is the fun commander, she gets her job done, OBVIOUSLY, both Lovelace and Minkowski are ruthlessly competent, but where Minkowski initially insists on rules and order, Lovelace is willing to be more....Chill. She jokes around with her crew mates, she goes on space walks to relax, she may have a lot to deal with, but she deals with it with charm and pop culture references. (Sound like anyone else we know?) and when we first meet Minkowski, she’s.....Not doing that, not willingly, anyway. She is all business, her ship, her crew, this is a capital S-Serious Situation and she is not here to play around. Far from making joke logs about getting attacked by green aliens, she hides basically everything she genuinely cares about (The lady who totally doesn’t like musicals, no not even a little bit, no wait Doug don’t go in there you can’t see her pirates of penzance shrine-) behind this wall of military regulations and her no-nonsense attitude.

And then Selburg happens, or Hilbert happens.

....And Lovelace shuts down everything. The warmth, the jokes. She doesn’t do it to be cruel, but because her entire crew, the people who grew to be her friends, all died at the hands of someone she thought she could trust. And then she comes back from the dead, to a crew almost exactly like hers, and she doesn’t want to be friends, because it hurts too much to imagine what happened last time. Welcome to her cold war, kids, because Isobel Lovelace desperately doesn’t want to care about anyone, she wants her revenge, and she wants to get home. Despite everything, she ends up caring anyway.

...And Minkowski doesn’t fall apart, but she reveals a level of emotional vulnerability previously unthought of for her, she is angry, and paranoid, she wants to chase a plant monster through the vents for days to regain some sense of control that she feels slipping away. She seeks reassurance from Doug Eiffel, a man she’s previously (For the most part) written off. She makes an effort to be nicer to Hera, SHE TELLS THEM ABOUT HER HUSBAND. WHO HERA (ALL-SEEING SUPERCOMPUTER HERA) PREVIOUSLY THOUGHT WAS “A TYPO IN HER FILE” AND NOT A REAL PERSON BECAUSE MINKOWSKI NEVER TALKS ABOUT HIM. And despite her mistrust of Lovelace when she first arrives. Despite the fact that she wants to think of her crew simply as coworkers, she ends up caring anyway.

Both of them get hurt so much, but in different ways. And in the end, they stand together for their crew, and for each other. Both stand, thinking they’re going to die, but they are stubborn, and brave, and despite everything they care about each other, and so they live.

Now to contrast Lambert and Eiffel. This one is a bit more tricky, considering how little we see Lambert in canon, but we know a couple things. He’s stubborn, he likes rules, and presumably has a poker face that would make lady gaga jealous. Barring just, y’know, his entire personality, he and Eiffel actually are really similar. Both are considered to be generally annoying. (Lambert for his rulebook quoting and stickler attitude, and Eiffel for his seeming lack of work ethic and general flippancy.) Both are communications officers that are ironically pretty bad at communicating effectively with other people. Both are surprisingly competent at their jobs when they apply themselves, And both (Kind of?) die in ways that are uniquely horrible to both of them. (I would also argue, though I have very little evidence, that they’re kind of the heart of their respective crews. Eiffel, because, well, he’s Eiffel. He’s this laid back sarcastic guy who doesn’t want his friends to get hurt, he’s a dork and a pacifist and at the same time so incredibly loyal to those he loves that he’ll play Marie Kondo with a supervillain in his own brain to keep them out of danger. And Lambert because I highly doubt anyone who cares about rules and safety that much is not going to apply that same passion and energy to being fiercely loyal and caring (In their own way) once you win them around.)

But remember how I said that the way they die is uniquely horrible for both of them? Yeah, let’s dive into that.

So Lambert dies of Decima, an illness created by someone everyone trusted, (Maybe even his friend.) A disease that makes you cough up blood, die slowly and painfully. Which, A: For someone who wants so much all the time to be in control and proper and right, the thought of dying from something that attacks your body and makes it so you can’t even move or breath properly without bleeding profusely must be terrifying, to gradually succumb to the grip of something that strips you of your dignity and mind is bad enough, but B: this is something he could never have avoided by going ‘by-the-book’ because the people in charge of his mission, the authority he looks to? They’re the ones who selected him for testing in the first place. The authority he follows is the literal reason why he dies.

And Eiffel ‘Dies’ because he loses the very memories of who he is. Doug Eiffel is many things over the course of the series, but above all, he tries to recover from his addictions while in space with a bunch of people he initially hates so he can be a better dad when he gets home, and when he realizes he causes harm to his crewmates, he tries to be a better friend to them too, eventually succeeding in being the heart of the team, as discussed earlier. The greatest tragedy for him, then, is not dying from the Decima that he’s also injected with, but from losing all his progress, from losing his friends, from losing the person he’s worked so hard to be. Naturally, this is exactly what happens. He saves Hera from having her brain wiped by having his be wiped instead, and in doing so loses all memory of Hera, Lovelace, and Minkowski, (Arguably his best friends.) and then, presumably, his daughter as well.

For both Lambert and Eiffel, these are not just bad deaths, they’re deaths of the self, and every step of the way, their identities and personhood are stripped away from them, and so they die.

#thank you for coming to my TED talk #it's very late and I can't sleep so you all get an essay about a podcast that ended two(?) years ago #Wolf 359 #wolf 359 spoilers #Doug Eiffel #renee minkowski #isabel lovelace #sam lambert

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hurlumerlu · 4 years

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Reepicheep. And I want an answer for every single one. Also: Minkowski, Marian, and Nightwing

alslkgjfyhdtt you don’t pull your punches X)

Reepicheep :

Sexuality Headcanon : that mouse is gay and there’s nothing you can do about it. Gender Headcanon : I feel like he has a very simple and straightforward relationship with his gender, the only problem being that other people make assumptions. Luckily, duels exist. A ship I have with said character : Listen I wracked my brain ALL NIGHT and I got nothing. Him and Caspian is too lover/beloved for me, we see him interract with our heroes when they’re kids, his fellow mice are all clearly crushing hard but he doesn’t seem interested. I will ship him with any minotaur who comes his way, though. Just because I can. A BROTP I have with said character : Lucy. The strong must protect the sweet. A NOTP I have with said character : Aslan. Not that Reepicheep can’t fuck God if he wants to but Aslan doesn’t deserve him. A random headcanon : that mouse is trans and there’s nothing you can do about it. (also he’s an excellent dancer) General Opinion over said character : what can i say except that he’s the best thing C.S. Lewis ever wrote ?

Minkowski :

Sexuality Headcanon : bi. (though when we didn’t know her spouse’s gender I was headcanoning her as a lesbian) Gender Headcanon : she probably hates how so many people tend to see her as a woman first and anything else second, but she wouldn’t define herself as anything else than a woman. A ship I have with said character : Minkowski/Lovelace (of course). A BROTP I have with said character : Minkowski & Eiffel (of course bis). i also really love her relationship with Hera. A NOTP I have with said character : I don’t really have one. Minkowski/Kepler would feel like a big disturbance in the Force though. A random headcanon : she’s a pretty good writter, even though it’s not particularly her thing. General Opinion over said character : she was never really my fave, but that’s only because Wolf 359 is so full of excellent characters. her sense of responsability toward her crew and the struggles it brings her are amazing and an excellent red thread all throughout the show. i also love how single-minded and dumb she can get when stress and powerlessness get the better of her, but that even at her worst she’s incredibly compassionate. AND i love the harpoon (of course ter).

Marian :

Sexuality Headcanon : it pains me to say that but she’s probably straight ? Gender Headcanon : well being a woman in her world is obviously not easy, but she draws strength from it, because drawing strength from the unjust things you fight is a very Marian thing to do. A ship I have with said character : the love bewteen Marian and Robin has been part of the myth for so long that i pretty much always ship them, but the bbc version is my favourite version of the ship. there’s a lust for life between them that is just A+ A BROTP I have with said character : Marian & Allan ! they’re perfect. Also Marian & Jack, and Marian & the abbess in a vaguely shippy way (what ? i said probably straight) A NOTP I have with said character : NOTP is a strong term but Guy/Marian just doesn’t work for me. i just... as a romantic prospect he’s kinda boring ? and seems to care more about Robin that her ? and they have zero chemistry ? and by the time the writers realize they need to sell us on that love triangle it’s far too late ? I just don’t really get it. A random headcanon : she has a very nice, mezzo singing voice and she’s not dead just chillin’ General Opinion over said character : fierce baby angel who deserves the best and is not dead just chillin’ I liked in earlier episodes when she was much more calculating than she became after, but the character developpment makes sense so it really doesn’t bothers me.

Nightwing :

Sexuality Headcanon : he’s bi. Gender Headcanon : he’s the kind of dude who says “it takes a real man to love [inserts “feminine” thing here] without shame”. A ship I have with said character : i don’t have any big ship, but Nightwing/Batgirl (or Oracle) would be the main one. and Nightwing/Deathstroke can be fun. BROTP I have with said character : the whole Batfamily, of course. also Nightwing/Starfire with benefits (and his friendship with Midnighter was anecdotic but fun) A NOTP I have with said character : nah ? i just don’t feel very strongly about his romantic endeavours tbh. A random headcanon : he’s not a good cook, but he definitely has a “kiss the cook” apron General Opinion over said character : i am contractually obligated to stan all the Robins but Dick has always been my fave among them. I tend to prefer Nightwing’s friendly, heart of the team iterations to his cold, calculating, vengeful iterations but i’m painting in broad strokes here, it’s great when he can be a bit of both, and I’m always happy to see him and to watch him leave.

thanks :D

#long post #ask game #me and my weird narnia feels #wolf 359 #robin hood bbc #detective comics #big up adrien

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amazingmsme · 4 years

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Through a Wormhole and Among the Stars Part 2

AN: Ok so I know it’s been a big PHAT minute since I updated this fic but I can explain: I honestly forgot I hadn’t updated. I got like 3 more chapters finished so I just thought I had posted more, so sorry for such the long wait! Gonna try to post more consistently with my chaptered fics, so expect to see more of this one, as well as upcoming chapters for Preventing Apotheosis. I still need to write more for A Loyal Companion & Everlasting Avengers, so I’m not too sure when I’ll get to those. I have a few one shots in the works, so be on the lookout for those as well! Now, on with the fic!

Kirk, Bones, and Uhura were the ones who opened the small ship once it came on board. They noticed some exterior damage, as if part of it had been blown up. They called out in the mostly empty vessel, hoping for an answer and heard a groan to their right, turning to see Eiffel slumped over in a chair. He looked like a complete wreck. He had gone bald, a few strands of hair that were still frozen were sticking up, and his skin was cracked all over his body. His fingers and toes were like bloody stumps after his nails fell off. His normally dark skin now had a sickening pale blue hue to it, and with his half closed eyes he looked like a frozen corpse. Bones widened his eyes when he saw the man who looked like he was barely clinging on. "Jesus Christ, how is he still alive?" he asked. Bones looked at him before grabbing his tricorder to scan his body, noticing he was somewhat awake. "Hey, I need you to stay awake, no good you fallin' asleep." Eiffel opened his eyes slightly only to shut them immediately. "'M already 'sleep," he mumbled, barely coherent.

Bones looked at the readings and shook his head, "Damn where do I even begin," he said in shock. He took out a hypo spray and inserted it into his neck, noticing how he tried to jerk away from the pain. It was good that he could feel that, it meant he was still responsive. "C'mon, I need you to stay awake for me," his tone was stern, but so much care was behind those words. Jim picked up his limp form and they rushed to sick bay.

After they reached the operating room, Bones set to work and Jim and Uhura were sent back to the bridge. "I'll let you know how he's doin'," Bones told him. He nodded and left his friend to his work, letting Nurse Chapel in through the door as he slid out.

"He's got some sort of virus in his system. It's not like anything I've ever seen, almost as if it was tailored to kill him. But the weird thing is that it seems to be dormant, at least for now. Hand me the regenerator," he said and Chapel complied, handing him the tool. "Thank you. And can you give him some pain killers?" It took a while, but he was finally in a somewhat stable condition. He was still out of it, but Bones knew that was to be expected. He was still hesitant to leave him however, so he decided to stay with him a little bit longer and check up on him throughout the night. He scanned his body once more, frowning when he saw no improvement on the mysterious disease. He needed a second opinion. Damnit, he needed Spock.

They talked for a while, discussing the symptoms and his current condition, hypothesizing about possible cures and treatments. He already looked better after warming up and using the tissue regenerator: his skin wasn't as cracked and his nails were already back, even if they were thin and brittle. As they talked in a loud whisper, Eiffel began to stir, mumbling in his sleep as he tried to shift his body. They stopped talking and Bones walked over to his bed, a warm smile finding its way onto his face as he greeted him gently, "Hey, you're up. How're you feeling?"

Eiffel rubbed his head, grimacing as he tried to sit up. Bones placed a hand on his shoulder, gently pushing him back into a laying position. He groaned, "Hera, turn down the lights." Bones disregarded the name, sure he was still delirious from passing out for so long, "Unfortunately I have to have the lights on no less than 40% in sick bay, so this is as dim as they can get. I'm Doctor McCoy," he said, holding out his hand. Eiffel stared up at him in awe, "No way." He took his hand and shook it, squeezing it slightly. "Oh man, everything seems so real," he said, looking around the room in amazement.

"It is real," Bones assured, but Eiffel shook his head.

"Nah, I'm pretty sure this is all in my head. I mean, you're all just characters, so this can't be real, right?" Bones blinked in surprise and Spock turned to him, "Perhaps the wormhole we passed through brought us to a parallel universe, one in which we are not real people," he offered.

"We better talk to Jim," Bones said before turning to Eiffel, "Stay here," he ordered. "Sure thing Doc," he said flashing him a thumbs up. He waited for the door to close and checked to see if the coast was clear before he made to stand. He stumbled forth on wobbly legs before catching himself. He stared in shock at his feet that were firmly planted on the ground and stomped once, twice. He grabbed a pen off of a nearby desk and let go, watching it fall to the floor. He wasn't floating. Maybe this was real... Or maybe it was his mind playing a cruel trick on him, trying to convince him that he was somewhere safe when he really wasn't. It wouldn't be the first time. Back on the Hephaestus he often dreamed that he was back on earth, on solid ground, and he had his normal life back. But he also had wild dreams that seemed well beyond the realm of possibility, and he was pretty sure this might be one of them. Maybe this was his version of heaven. He was a big enough nerd for it to be considered heaven.

He walked around the empty med bay and soon became bored. He knew he was told to stay put, but it was too tempting to slip out the door. If he were back on the Hephaestus, Hilbert would've just strapped him to the bed or have Minkowski or Hera track him down for him. But he wasn't on the Hephaestus, and probably never would be again... A little walk outside wouldn't hurt. Just down the hall.

He peaked out the door, checking both ways to see if anyone was coming before he stepped out. He pulled his iv stand through the door and started shuffling down the long corridor. Man, the Enterprise was a lot bigger than it looked on tv. He was half way down the hall when suddenly four people rounded the corner and they all stopped dead in their tracks. Bones was the first to recover from his shock and his expression quickly morphed into one of anger.

"What the hell did I say?" he yelled and rushed up to his patient, using his arm to help support him. It was clear that he was not happy with him, and it was honestly a little scarier than Eiffel thought it would be.

"To stay put..."

"That's right, so what are you doing out here?"

"I was bored! And c'mon, I'm on the freaking Starship Enterprise how can I not be expected to wander around?" Bones rolled his eyes, helping him back to sick bay and mumbling to himself, "Damn kid's just as bad as Kirk." Eiffel couldn't help but notice the quick smile that flashed on Kirk's face at those words and felt his heart flutter a bit.

Bones laid him back down on his bed and helped him get comfortable before taking a seat in front of him. "How're you feeling? You must be feeling pretty well considering the field trip you just took." Eiffel laughed briefly, "Yeah, I feel better than I did earlier."

Jim adjusted himself before he spoke, "I know this might be hard to talk about, but how long were you on that ship?"

Eiffel reached up to run a hand through his hair, but stopped when his fingers touched his scalp, remembering that his hair was still gone. He brought his arm back down with a dejected look that he quickly tried to mask as neutral. "Uh it's hard to say ‘cause I went in the cryo so many times, but I think a couple hundred at least? I was several thousand light years away from this base and my boosters could blast once every three days, so I'd put myself under, wake up, try the boosters, send out a distress message and repeat. I did that until I ran out of water," he explained. I'm still not convinced I'm off that fucking thing, he wanted to add.

"The state that we found you in was alarming, but I'm glad you're feeling better, just don't get up and go wandering around damnit!" Bones scolded, wanting to make his point clear. "Not only are you still weak and sick, but you could also infect other people since I don't know what the hell is wrong with you." Eiffel met his eyes, "The Decima virus..."

Everyone was very interested, but also very confused. He knew about this? And knew what it was? Bones decided he needed to get all the answers he could. "You obviously know more about this than me, so what is it, and how did you get it?" Eiffel snorted; he couldn't believe he was having to explain his disease to Doctor Leonard McCoy himself.

"Apparently I was the lab rat for a virus that's supposed to save humanity and make them stronger, but also slowly kills you since it's not perfected yet, or at least that's what I gathered from Dr. Frankenstein's fucked up excuse for injecting me with the modern black plague," Eiffel spat out and crossed his arms over his chest. He hated Hilbert for what he had done to him and betraying the whole crew, but after everything, he still missed him. The fact that knowing you'll never get the chance to see someone again, even if you can't stand them, makes you miss them. He was frustrated with himself for the fact he would give anything to see Hilbert again, because that would mean he was back with his crew. Still, he felt the bitterness rise as he spoke, "That bastard injected me with the virus after he already tested and killed Lovelace's crew, all while pretending to be my friend." He wasn't talking to them anymore, instead addressing himself out loud. "And now I'm stuck with it, and without him to keep it in check, I'll die." He stared straight ahead, refusing to look at any of them. He knew he was slowly going insane, he could feel it. His grip on reality slowly loosened and he just knew he was going to wake up on that tiny space ship surrounded by nothing but stars. He was brought out of his thoughts by two strong hands gripping his shoulders, "You're not gonna die because I won't let you." Eiffel blinked a few times and found himself staring straight into Bones' eyes, and it made him feel a little bit safer. And he believed him.

#wolf 359 #wolf 359 fic #wolf 359 crossover #star trek #star trek fic #star trek crossover #doug eiffel #bones mccoy #leonard mccoy #jim kirk #nyota uhura #spock #hera #dr hilbert #renee minkowski #isabelle lovelace #alexander hilbert

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geejaysmith · 5 years

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so Kat and I were talking on Discord again and you know what that means

Kat [Yesterday at 6:49 PM] bad end where Hilbert subdues Eiffel leaving Minkowski out to die and she either drifts into the star or gets flared before she suffocates and Hilbert gets clobbered by a really pissed off Minkowski 2 possibly accompanied by Lovelace if the DL wanted to indicate how peeved they were that he messed with Their Boy Eiffel: Commander I thought you were dead. And who's that? Minkowski: I have no idea but she also wants to kill Hilbert and right now that's good enough for me.

Gill [Yesterday at 6:53 PM] ...angry alien gfs. I might just have to write that AU.

And so, like most things inevitably do with me, this got out of hand, so:

WOLF 359 SPEEDRUN/FUNHOUSE MIRROR UNIVERSE/ALIEN MINKOWSKI AU:

Eiffel can’t get to his oxygen mask in time and gets KO’d; Hera might be able to cause an electrical fire on her own to activate the loophole in her programming, but not fast enough to let Minkowski back into the station in time.

Kat [Yesterday at 6:58 PM] Dear Listeners: he's hurting our boy!!!! D : Dear Listeners: unleash the hounds

Minkowski comes to aboard Lovelace’s shuttle while Lovelace is waking up from cryo and getting her bearings. Since she’s understandably disorientated, Minkowski assumes Lovelace must’ve pulled her onboard just in time to save her life - Lovelace knows this isn’t the case, but for now, doesn’t correct her.

Having no idea who each other are, they’re obviously suspicious about one another, but both know the command authentication codes so that at least checks out. Radioing the Hephaestus itself gives the two more evidence to back up their respective stories; Minkowski takes some satisfaction in Hilbert’s shock when he picks up and hears her voice on the line, only to look over at Lovelace and see her expression darken with white hot fury.

Gill [Yesterday at 7:20 PM] "Minkowski, how the hell did you-" "Selberg. I hope killing off your crew didn't turn into a habit while I was away." And like, as much as Minkowski can just about feel the rage radiating off of the alleged captain, Lovelace is using her calm, measured Menacing Voice, and that plus the way Hilbert's stunned silence turns into disbelieving terror lifts a few of Minkowski's doubts about Lovelace being who she says she is. Kat [Yesterday at 7:20 PM] ofc a wrinkle is that hilbert would've had plenty of time to get in touch with cutter by now

Okay, schadenfreude aside, now they have a problem: there’s no way Hilbert’s about to let the shuttle dock with the station, yet alone open the airlocks for them.

This might be where Lovelace tells Minkowski “so is now a good time to mention the bomb I have wired to my heart rate?” The details on that plot point are foggy still. Kat [Yesterday at 7:46 PM] Maybe hilbert overrode Minkowski's command authentication but 'hey Hera if Lovelace is the Hephaestus' commanding officer shouldn't you do what she says' or something

(Personally I’m a fan of this working to get the shuttle docked but not to get the doors open and that’s when Minkowski goes the full Carol Danvers. Doesn’t even realize anything Weird is going on, she’s far too focused on stopping Hilbert and saving Eiffel and Hera to notice she just blasted that door open)

(let me have my superpowered alien space commando chicks ok)

(It is very badass and Lovelace finds herself quite taken with the Commander.)

(I’m gay and I ship it)

Hilbert still wrecks Hera’s hardware but Minkowski has control of the station back, Eiffel is still loopy on laughing gas but largely unharmed, and they have a new potential ally in Lovelace (and the audio files she left on the station plus Hilbert both confirm her story) except tension still rises between them because Minkowski and Eiffel need Hilbert alive to fix Hera (and because Decima virus but they don’t know that yet) and Lovelace is in favor of killing him because he’s too dangerous to leave alive. Once she’s back online, Hera sides with Lovelace.

Hilbert got a message thru to Cutter about the alien transmissions, but may not be able to establish a connection to talk to the crew directly due to stellar interference. Either way, the crew gets to speedrun season 2 because they have every reason to assume a Goddard Futuristics Kill Squad is on it’s way.

Nobody knows about Minkowski and anything strange about her since getting space-marooned has some reasonable explanation. Lovelace and the rest roll with the explanation that she got the Commander onto the shuttle; Hera might know Minkowski’s vitals flatlined and stayed that way for hours but Minkowski is the only one she tells about it. With no reasonable alternatives, they chalk it up to stellar interference disrupting the signals from her spacesuit. When SI-5 arrives Kepler knows right off the bat that there’s Something Up with Lovelace, but given Hilbert jumped the gun in pronouncing Minkowski and Eiffel dead, he doesn’t suspect Minkowski.

Maxwell and Jacobi swap a few plot-beats; Maxwell is the one who meets her double in Time to Kill and Jacobi is the one taken hostage by the crew in Desperate Measures, the fallout of which leads to D a r k V e n g e a n c e M a x w e l l .

However, because Maxwell is smart and figured a few things out, her real aim with her countercoup is yeeting Jacobi’s body into the star to get him back, and shaking sense into Kepler so he doesn’t shoot him once they do.

She probably also figured out Minkowski’s a duplicate too and so shocks her out of her denial. Probably by spacing her.

She’ll be fine, don’t give me that look.

Full chat transcript below ft. WAY more details that haven’t shaken out into something coherent just yet, nonsequitor Adventure Zone jokes, and at least one Spider-Verse reference:

Kat [Yesterday at 6:58 PM] Dear Listeners: he's hurting our boy!!!! D : unleash the hounds

Gill [Yesterday at 6:58 PM] "send in the most competent of More Competent Women we have" my brain is taking this idea and running with it, I'm picturing Minkowski hazily slipping into unconsciousness as her air supply runs out only to very suddenly come to, realizing after a few good deep breaths that she's not back in the station. This craft looks like something somebody put together in their garage, it's too much of a mess even for the Hephaestus. meanwhile Lovelace steps out of cryo to find there is suddenly a stranger in a spacesuit aboard her ship, hyperventilating her way back to proper consciousness. Out the front window is a station that looks kind of like the Hephaestus, but she's probably just been out here too- you're the commander of the USS what now, ma'am

Kat [Yesterday at 7:08 PM] bonus points since Hera monitors their suits so Minkowski gets back on structure and is like I lived?? somehow? and Hera's like Commander your vitals flatlined hours ago

Gill [Yesterday at 7:08 PM] after taking a moment to sort out exactly how impossible the situation they've found themselves in is, back on the station, Hilbert gets an unexpected comms hail from Minkowski, who should've been dead more than an hour ago, and she wishes she could see the look on his face when he hears her voice. Though she does get to see how Lovelace reacts when she hears Hilbert, and if hearing from one dead commanding officer gives Hilbert pause, it's a whole different ball game when Lovelace gets on the receiver.

Kat [Yesterday at 7:20 PM] ofc a wrinkle is that hilbert would've had plenty of time to get in touch with cutter by now

Gill [Yesterday at 7:21 PM] hm, maybe the Dear Listeners run interference so the signal doesn't get back to Earth, or at least Cutter can't get a response in which ofc might just make him send a goon squad up there anyway, so Wolf 359 Speedrun My other concern would be "there's no way Hilbert's letting those two onto the station" which may require DL Godmodding anyway

Kat [Yesterday at 7:23 PM] eiffel just strapped to a table the whole time like the damsel in distress he is maybe he can still talk hera through some sort of hack if hilbert didn't bother to gag him

Gill [Yesterday at 7:24 PM] Dear Listeners: /metaphorically playing rock paper scissors to see which duplicate gets to go full Captain Marvel and BAMF her way back onto the station also Minkowski going full Commander Mama Bear and blasting a door or three open is a wonderful mental image Eiffel, half-conscious, strapped to a lab table, extremely sure Minkowski is dead by now and Hilbert is going to dissect him- and then the door is kicked open and there she is, so full of Righteous Fury she's literally glowing. also: Eiffel blabbering something about "oh my god Commander they made you my guardian angel, I am SO sorry, you didn't do anything that warranted being stuck with that job in this life or the next but if it's any consolation it's probably not gonna be a problem much longer" "Eiffel. Eiffel I'm not dead, Hilbert's been deposed, you can stop crying now."

Kat [Yesterday at 7:37 PM] Hera like Commander but you should be dead though.

Gill [Yesterday at 7:42 PM] Minkowski headed up to the bridge, carrying Eiffel over her shoulder (he is still slightly convinced this is his dying dream and now Hera is with them here in whatever afterlife this is, so perhaps he is not, in fact, in Hell) : Well radio transmissions shouldn't come from deep space and my second-in-command shouldn't try to kill me, a lot of very strange things are happening today. "also please tell me Captain Lovelace didn't kill Hilbert while they were alone, I have questions for him." (Hera: no but I wouldn't drag your feet, also who the hell is she and how did she get on this station.)

Kat [Yesterday at 7:46 PM] to preserve elements of using Hera's loopholes to outwit Hilbert though I do like the idea of them finding some hack to let the ship dock. Maybe hilbert overrode Minkowski's command authentication but 'hey Hera if Lovelace is the Hephaestus' commanding officer shouldn't you do what she says' or something Eiffel like you forgot to disarm my only weapon doc and that's my mouth

Gill [Yesterday at 7:51 PM] makes sense, also maybe Lovelace overriding Hilbert's override buys them enough time to cook up an emergency that activates Hera's emergency protocols, since that strikes me as a more secure foothold (Lovelace: I'm overriding your override! Hilbert: Well, I'm overriding you overriding my override!) (meanwhile, Eiffel starts a fire while strapped to a table, somehow)

Kat [Yesterday at 7:53 PM] Eiffel: Hey Hera remember when you ran a cleaning cycle on the something or other on the aft deck to try to be helpful and started an electrical fire? Hera: Yeah? Eiffel: This would be a great time to be helpful

Gill [Yesterday at 7:56 PM] Hera: oops, there's a fire! looks like we gotta open all the airlocks to vent the fire, including the one to the docking bay! He's locked himself into the bridge, Commander. (Lovelace: dibs on punching him first. Minkowski: not if I get there before you do.)

Kat [Yesterday at 8:00 PM] SI 5 gets there at some later point and Kepler is like ah yes, captain lovelace, definitely an alien. surprise bitch. there's 2 ofc hilbert lied in his message and said he'd terminated both Eiffel AND minkowski so maybe Kepler's like... a whole crew... all aliens

Gill [Yesterday at 8:02 PM] Kepler: okay, so what're the odds Hilbert jumped the gun vs I am now walking into a station full of aliens. shitpost brain chiming in with: Kepler: ok, is anyone in this crew not an alien? Hera: Me.

Kat [Yesterday at 8:03 PM] Eiffel's like an honorary adopted alien

Gill [Yesterday at 8:04 PM] alt version that could potentially be serious: Kepler: ok, fess up, I know there's at least one alien onboard. Eiffel: It's me extra meme'd version: Jacobi: She's an alien, she's an alien, he's an alien - I'm an alien! Are there any other aliens I should know about??? duplicate!Maxwell: (^:

Kat [Yesterday at 8:05 PM] Minkowski: Ok, we need to take out Hilbert. We have the element of surprise, but what other assets do we have? Lovelace: Is this a bad time to mention the bomb strapped to my heartrate.

Gill [Yesterday at 8:06 PM] Minkowski: The bomb. Lovelace: Yup. Minkowski: The bomb that is presumably armed. Lovelace: Yup. Minkowski: ...and where in this small, enclosed shoebox of a deep space vessel is this device? Lovelace: Wired into the shoebox's engine. Minkowski: Of course it is.

Kat [Yesterday at 8:09 PM] minkowski: I get launched off the good ship crazy and find the only person crazier within the next 8 light years. Lovelace: That's because I'm the only bitch that can handle it.

Gill [Yesterday at 8:12 PM] also, Minkowski: Could this day get any weirder. Lovelace: Uh ...as a matter of fact, it can. Minkowski: Please don't tell me you have superpowers or anything like that. Lovelace: Well, I don't, but tell me Minkowski, do your hands... normally glow? alternatively Minkowski is just too Righteous Fury to even notice the Dear Listeners trying to get a word in and now Eiffel is convinced she's secretly been an X-Man the whole time

Kat [Yesterday at 8:19 PM] Lovelace like so... cons? woke up back at the Hephaestus. pros? got a hot girl airdropped

Gill [Yesterday at 8:23 PM] Lovelace, initially: who the hell are you and how did you get on my ship and what the hell is happening, explain before my escalating heartrate kills us both Lovelace, watching Minkowski go full Captain Marvel after teaming up with her and the rest of The New Gang to stop her mutinous ex-friend: potential enemies to potential lovers inside of 20 minutes, that must be some kind of land speed record

Kat [Yesterday at 8:25 PM] heart rate is still a problem

Gill [Yesterday at 8:25 PM] better get a handle on those feelings or else my escalating heartrate will kill us both they could keep that ace up their sleeve for when SI-5 turns up early, if only for the irony of having an explosive device that can be potentially triggered by Gay Feelings and Daniel Jacobi in the same space station

Kat [Yesterday at 8:29 PM] gay bomb chicken Jacobi: my bomb was fake Minkowski: My gun was empty Lovelace: My bomb is very real

Gill [Yesterday at 8:33 PM] a concept: Jacobi figuring out Lovelace has a crush because combination of explosives expertise and gaydar, his reaction is something along the lines of "no, no, NO!! Nobody told me there was gonna be relationship drama on this boat ride, what the hell" also, Lovelace: in my defense my gun was also empty but my bomb is still very real

Kat [Yesterday at 8:35 PM] Jacobi you have no room to talk Jacobi like ok we've got the human/alien or maybe alien/alien going on but I misread the human/AI deal so that's one scifi trope we've avoided so far.

Gill [Yesterday at 8:36 PM] Jacobi, probably: I keep my workplace drama and my relationship drama separate, like a professional ought to. Minkowski: why do you people keep saying I'm an alien Eiffel: Honestly Commander I'm still holding out hope for the "mutant" route, do you perchance know a Charles Xavier?

Kat [Yesterday at 8:37 PM] re: your last I'm imagining Jacobi being like 'I'm upset about this for personal reasons but i'm going to be professional about it.' *clocks out* *screams*

Gill [Yesterday at 8:39 PM] (1) I'm laughing and (2) I mean Hera's the one that clocked out for break but that is technically still what happened in Dirty Work

Kat [Yesterday at 8:42 PM] My union contract says when I'm not clocked in I can be as dramatic as I want Kepler: remember rule # 8. No complaints. Jacobi: My shift ends in 30 seconds. They both watch the clock. 30 seconds later Jacobi: Son of a biTCH

Gill [Yesterday at 8:43 PM] Kepler: what union Jacobi: I'd tell you but then I'd have to kill you before you could get Cutter's anti-union hitsquad involved

Kat [Yesterday at 8:43 PM] The Jacobi Union

Gill [Yesterday at 8:44 PM] "help my Jacobis have unionized" though Gay Bomb Chicken + Lovelace almost puts me in mind that this AU is like an almost-mirror of canon and so Lovelace is the one who ends up talking Jacobi down somehow and it's Maxwell who does get Xerox'd in Time To Kill

Kat [Yesterday at 8:49 PM] this does raise. Questions about Cutter vs Minkowski and Lovelace can he only control 1 at a time

Gill [Yesterday at 8:51 PM] or they just actually succeed at covering up that one of them (Minkowski, probably) is a duplicate

Kat [Yesterday at 8:51 PM] also if you're saying everything's switched is Maxwell still the one who gets shot in desperate measures

Gill [Yesterday at 8:53 PM] Lovelace: I'll take one for the team, I'll be the alien. Minkowski: you really think they'll buy it /cue season 3 finale

Kat [Yesterday at 8:53 PM] honestly if jacobi got shot and maxwell went feral she'd probably win tbh

Gill [Yesterday at 8:55 PM] hm... Maxwell going full Rage Mode, getting to deal with the tasty dramatic emotions of Genuine Loss AND the consequences of turning on Hera, or Maxwell does still get shot but then a few hours later they find her walking around like nothing happened with no memory of the past two weeks both are delicious

Kat [Yesterday at 8:57 PM] I feel like instead of goading the others into it dark!Maxwell would either take out kepler herself or force Hera to do it Hera like, I'm not particularly morally distressed about this I would've killed him if you'd asked but you're making me so I'm mad

Gill [Yesterday at 9:00 PM] Alternatively Maxwell looks at the situation, remembers the Implications Hera might've let slip that, as far as appearances go, Minkowski came back from the dead to stop Hilbert and protect her crew, and says "okay, no. Not when it's her finger on the trigger and Jacobi's life on the line, let's back off and regroup." Kepler is not pleased with this decision of hers.

Kat [Yesterday at 9:02 PM] alternatively alternatively Minkowski: I'm sorry I killed your friend I guess? Maxwell: Actions speak louder than words. Help me yeet his body into the star. I think I've figured this out.

Gill [Yesterday at 9:04 PM] Lovelace comes back but the Dear Listeners decide it's more energy efficient if they drop off the new Jacobi while they hold their Contact Event so in this timeline it's Jacobi who's had enough of Kepler's whamma-jamma. Lovelace: doesn't it freak you out that they can just puppet you around?? Jacobi: yes but I'm very good at compartmentalizing. Also blowing off Kepler's hand? Strangely satisfying.

Kat [Yesterday at 9:08 PM] given the symbolism in play in canon there that's some sort of mobius double metaphor reacharound

Gill [Yesterday at 9:12 PM] canon timeline: "Disarming" = removing Kepler's right hand, foreshadowing his right hand man turning against him and no longer being a weapon in his arsenal Funhouse-Mirror timeline: Jacobi, Kepler's right hand man, can now be controlled by the Dear Listeners, so maybe Kepler gets a Replacement Alien Hand that the Dear Listeners can communicate through via sign language or writing wasn't sure where trying to work out THAT tangle of thought was gonna go but "help my right hand is possessed" is an a-okay destination by me

Kat [Yesterday at 9:13 PM] tbf many ASL signs are two handed, albeit often a doubled similar sign idk about other languages

Gill [Yesterday at 9:14 PM] hey my first thought was "the animatic with the sockpuppets is now a PROPHECY" I'm in full Insane Troll Logic mode

Kat [Yesterday at 9:14 PM] pryce is gonna have a hell of a time lobotomizing everyone depending on how far you want to take this but yeah the robot hand = getting ur robot lobotomy second in command so idk where u go there

Gill [Yesterday at 9:18 PM] hey, you've got so many duplicates walking around now, why save the psi-wave regulator trick for the finale? I mean there might not be enough if the star isn't blue but... I mean they had to test that thing somehow, right do they have a psi-wave generator lying around somewhere?

Kat [Yesterday at 9:20 PM] I assume it goes both ways, since it seems to be an increase that causes the possession, and cutter was essentially doing that to lovelace

Gill [Yesterday at 9:21 PM] or: Cutter challenges the known aliens (Jacobi and Lovelace, if they do successfully keep Minkowski on the down-lo) to a board game, and whoever comes in last place is gonna be the first one to get dissected!

Kat [Yesterday at 9:22 PM] Lovelace: What if you lose

Gill [Yesterday at 9:23 PM] Cutter: Then I throw one of your friends out the airlock while you watch! maybe they still tried to put Jacobi thru Processing first while unaware he'd been alien'd so he broke the neural scanner, and they just restraining bolted Eiffel, Maxwell, and Minkowski. Minkowski's restraining bolt is running but doesn't do shit, and she's stuck putting on the performance of a lifetime while she comes up with a Plan

Kat [Yesterday at 9:28 PM] time to use your acting chops I have another long day tomorrow, I should probably go to bed. Enjoy figuring out which of the like 500 strands of spaghetti we flung at the wall is the one that sticks.

Gill [Yesterday at 9:31 PM] o/ night night, I'll probably be typing at you to get some coherent Ideas out so enjoy THAT wall of text in the morning

Kat [Yesterday at 9:32 PM] I Will

Gill [Yesterday at 9:36 PM] shaking up the Contact Event aside I kinda like the idea of Maxwell's Rampage Of Revenge ending up being just one big gambit to get somebody to chuck Jacobi's body into the star... and then I thought "what if Minkowski has been stubbornly dodging that she got alien-resurrected this entire time and can keep finding explanations around the weird shit happening to her, and Maxwell's plan ALSO has her forcing Minkowski to face the truth?"

Gill [Yesterday at 9:45 PM] "Yes, all of this was a ploy to trap you in the decompression chamber, but it was also a ploy to get you to throw Jacobi's body into the star. I just thought to myself, hey, if I'm gonna go to the trouble of going Dark Vengeance Maxwell, I might as well multitask."

Gill [Yesterday at 9:52 PM] Minkowski: Did we NOT just agree that killing me or Kepler isn't gonna solve anything?? Maxwell: Oh you're right, it won't! Don't worry Commander, you've gotten lucky with airlocks in the past, right? Like how the Captain found you just in time? And that hour you spent with your vitals all flatlined was just a glitch, caused by "stellar interference"? I have a funny feeling your luck hasn't run out just yet.

Gill [Yesterday at 10:00 PM] so Minkowski gets to process that she was An Alien The Whole Time while Eiffel is probably off on his visionquest, Jacobi is Back and having a similar Bad Time, and Maxwell's escaped into the vents to keep Hera from killing her as violently as possible. Kepler and Lovelace are having the least amount of Crisis. slight alteration to this: by some Process Of Events, Eiffel gets to play out the Dramatic Rescue that happened offscreen in Box 953 and that's how he ends up outside and decides to jump into the star, or Minkowski goes on his adventure with him (though not as a frozen corpse the whole time if I can find a way to wrangle it even if I do have to invoke my right as a fanfic writer to jump this shark and say Fuck It, Alien Clones Can Breathe In Space Sometimes)

Gill [Yesterday at 10:26 PM] Minkowski, totally not freaking out herself: Eiffel, you still need to worry about conserving your oxygen supply, so I am giving you a direct order to not freak out. Eiffel, who I must note has not seen The Last Jedi: ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?! THIS IS LIKE IF PRINCESS LEIA KILLED JABBA THE HUTT BY FORCE-LIFTING HIM INTO THE SARLACC PITT FROM STRAIGHT OUTTA THE WILD BLUE NOWHERE! yes it did take me getting ready for bed to realize that sound can't travel in space if no air so Minkowski would have to Dear Listener-commandeer his comms channel to talk to him, unless we want to get into my Found Family Psychic Link conspiracy theories additionally a TAZ joke popped into my head and it's not gonna leave til I say it no matter how little sense it makes without twisting the narrative into a logic-pretzel Bob, after witnessing Minkowski just out-stubborn physics: how... what in the world are you? Minkowski: I'm bisexual. Bob: And do all... bisexuals have this power? Minkowski: /glances at Eiffel, raises an eyebrow Eiffel: ...I'm personally partial to the pansexual label myself, sooooo... Minkowski, @ Bob: Yes.

Gill [Yesterday at 10:47 PM] alternatively after a brief and entirely physically impossible conversation about what he's about to do, Eiffel's like, okay, I'm gonna cut my tether while you keep ahold of it, then you push off from me, I push off from you, I go see what our friends want while you go take command of your station. bc then that lets me do this: Minkowski: Okay, on three. You ready? Eiffel: ...no. You? Minkowski: ...not really. But maybe that's all it is, a- Eiffel: A leap of faith, right. Okay, on three. [muffled What's Up Danger playing from the Dorado constellation in the distance]

Gill [Yesterday at 11:01 PM] I still don't know what happens to Hilbert, sorry m'dude

Gill [Yesterday at 11:12 PM] Last thought before I succumb to unconsciousness for the night: I'm just gonna drive a monkey wrench right into those gears and toss out "instead of Hera manifesting a humansona in mental space she gets herself a custom meatsuit 3D printed, made from the DNA of her friends" and then just not think through the implications of that at all right now

Kat [Today at 6:21 AM] "brief and entirely physically impossible conversation" yknow you can't talk in space but you could sign in space I was also thinkin maybe the Lovelace/crew tension is that Hilbert still rips Hera's personality out and they want to keep him around to fix her and Lovelace wants to kill him bc he's too dangerous

Kat [Today at 6:42 AM] Maybe and/or instead of trying to kill him Maxwell's rampage involves trying to convince Kepler that the duplicates still count as people since she's going to all the trouble of getting Jacobi back and he better not just fucking shoot him again. and instead of his heel-face turn getting kicked off by a betrayal making him rethink his entire life it's Maxwell reading him the riot act like 'maybe you've told yourself these aren't real people so you can do more terrible shit to them but I'm getting my best friend back and you're going to like it' Maxwell: Repeat after me: I will not rekill Jacobi. Kepler, droning at gunpoint: I will not rekill Jacobi. Maxwell: And if I'm an asshole Lovelace takes another limb. Lovelace: Oh, I like Dark Maxwell.

Kat [Today at 7:06 AM] Kepler like, You want to invite one of these monsters on board just because it has a face you know. Maxwell: for god's sake, you've been living with the captain for months and you're telling me you really still believe that? (Idk how they'd actually make the delivery once maxwell asks for it, maybe they'd send him back as a peace offering when spitting Eiffel out?) Jacobi, recently returned from the dead in space: what the fuck upon getting back to the Hephaestus and immediately being apprehended by Cutter and co: what the fuck

Kat [Today at 7:14 AM] like Maxwell's real pissed and upset until the funeral and then once she sees Lovelace resurrect she's like Hey she starts off ranting @ Kepler for keeping secrets the same way as Jacobi did but then she's like "don't you get it, that's how we can get him back" Kepler, about 2 exits behind on the freeway: wait what

Gill [Today at 7:15 AM] Maxwell: I'm gonna need some help to get rid of a body Kepler: I mean I'm not following but ok Maybe the Dear Listeners have the presence of mind to just put Jacobi back on the Hephaestus directly He has a few minutes to reboot in peace before Maxwell leaps on him from the vents for Happy Reunion Time

#wolf 359 #conversations with kat #gill's AU children #listen Commander Mama Bear + superpowers was just way too sexy an idea for me to leave alone #to say nothing of the ANGST POTENTIAL #the DRAMA... the TENSION... the ALIEN GIRLFRIENDS...#long post

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shazzbaa · 5 years

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I do not know how to even start to explain whats been going on in that RP I’m in......

So, Magpie is running an event where everyone got invited to a Masquerade Ball, but like, they got invited by the Beetle Merchant who we’re all pretty sure is some kind of weird faerie, and so the masks we were given activate a magical disguise that for some folks radically changed their appearance, and also make it so you can’t tell anyone your real name while you’re disguised and aLSO we’ve been given a magical quest to find three keys hidden in the mansion -- itS THAT KIND OF THING

Turing is disguised as a human woman for the ball, and has picked “Ada” (as in, Ada Lovelace, it’S THEMATIC) as a pseudonym to go by for the night. She’s having an....... exciting time!! There’s magical doors and enchanted mirrors and a portal gun??? (we got to pick our own weapons) and also oNE OF THE ENCHANTED MIRRORS MAKES AN EVIL DUPLICATE OF YOU SO LIKE I OBVIOUSLY HAD TO DRAW THAT anyway here are some scribbles of Masquerade Things

(also Manny is in disguise in the third image, he belongs to @lookinlikeaking )

#CEO Turing #Fusion shenanigans #art #masquerade #shazz art #coloured sketches

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wilderwoodsfans · 5 years

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Interview: Wilder Woods on his debut album, family, forgiveness

By: Dominiq Robinson AXS Contributor Aug 1, 2019

Very rarely does an artist find success after emerging on the scene as a member of a prominent collective. However, William Stanley "Bear" Rinehart III, known as Bear Rinehart, has proven that he capable of standing on his own in one of the most fickle and harshest industries known to man. Bear alongside his brother, Bo Rinehart, founded the alt-rock band NEEDTOBREATHE, during Bear's collegiate years eventually adding members Seth Bolt and Josh Lovelace. Since then, NEEDTOBREATHE has released a total of six critically-acclaimed studio albums, been nominated for a Grammy for Best Christian Song/Performance for their song "Multiplied", and won a total of ten Gospel Music Association Dove Awards.

It takes a lot of faith for an individual to walk away from guaranteed prominence in order to rebrand themselves and become a solo artist, left alone to be the only person to judge by music critics and fans alike. Yet, Bear Rinehart has done exactly that taking up the new stage moniker, Wilder Woods, experimenting with different musical elements/genres, and preparing to release his self-titled debut solo album, Wilder Woods, dropping next week on Aug. 9 via Atlantic Records.

Now, with an upcoming album release date, three released singles, and an international tour set to kick off in September (Tickets), the "Supply & Demand" singer is ready to provide the masses with new raw, unfiltered sonic vibrations reminiscent of Motown's glory days.

And we here at AXS was able to carry out an exclusive dialogue with the new-look Rinehart brother to discuss his first-ever solo musical offering, his creative process, family, and most importantly forgiveness.

AXS: Alright, this interview is about you and your metamorphosis into Wilder Woods, but let's nip this in the bud... NEEDTOBREATHE tends to get labeled as a Christian rock band. I've read that that isn't particularly the case. Do you want to let the people know that [NEEDTOBREATHE] isn't in that category and speak on the dangers of putting artists in a specific box for the people?

Wilder Woods (WW): It's one of those things we don't love, we would never call ourselves that and never intended to be. But it's also one of those things where we've been doing this so long, you kinda quit caring about what people are calling you. I think we're just thankful now people are coming to the shows and like our music, and honestly, that's kinda where we're at. If I'm loading into a venue or something, and one of the crew guys is like 'I think it's some Christian band,' I definitely still roll my eyes at that.

AXS: It's gotta be kind of annoying having people put that label on you, but at the same time, you guys [NEEDTOBREATHE] are scooping up a lot of GMA Dove Awards. So, you are getting the proper recognition and accolades for your work.

WW: Yeah, man. 'Our band is the biggest band you're friends have ever heard of,' I say that on stage all the time. And it's just like, 'cause people will say that and they'll be like 'so, where are you playing at?' and I'll tell them that we're playing at the arena, you know? And they're still like 'wait, what?' It's one of those things we're proud of, at one point in time there was never any hype around our band yet, we've still made a career out of it so, you know, we're proud of that.

AXS: Wilder Woods is your debut album and first solo project. The creative process has to be totally different than sitting down with a collective, your brother isn't there and your other bandmates aren't contributing. So, what are the differences in your creative process for this particular project?

WW: Honestly, I started it on my own. I had a buddy across the street from me that had this little kind of like garage/apartment thing and I would go there to write and just get away from everybody. I spent several months writing for the record by myself and then I started collaborating after that. And the whole point of the record was for me to collaborate with new people and not just have it be the band obviously but with all kinds of producers and writers and really find some people that scared me. Meaning some people that would push me off my line, teach me things, and honestly, it became that process of experimenting with other producers and ended up landing on a producer that had never made a major label thing, you know?

So, it was just a guy that I felt like we got along great and what he was bringing to the table was so different from what I was bringing to the table. It really felt like in some ways I got other people around me to help me do it. I've always had that so, it was really helpful for me to invite other creatives into the process. Ultimately, a band is a democracy in a lot of ways and it's obviously nice is being your own boss when you're doing a solo record. Decision making takes a fraction of the time so, I think that that part is really fun but it's also incredibly scary, you know? [If you] fail or slip off on something then it's all on you. Whereas if you're in a band you can kind of spread the culpability out. (Laughs.)

AXS: In regards to the producer you were mentioning, are you referring to Gabe Simon? He was the major contributor to the project?

WW: Yeah, he ended up doing most of the project. He became like... what I call him my Quincy Jones. He really became a collaborator in a lot of ways, he wrote some of the songs on the record with me. But also, we just beat everything up. We'd have a song/demo that we'd know would end up on the record and we'd take it and see how weird we can make it and how messed up we can make it. So, I'd say he's someone that I've become really close to and instrumentally involved with the record and I could not have made it without him for sure.

AXS: I noticed your sound is very big when it comes to NEEDTOBREATHE. Your records are super well layered and warm but, it seems like with this new music you strip some of those layers and provide a more simplistic sound. Some of these records are reminiscent of early R&B and have a certain vibe.

WW: Yeah, I really avoided it at first then I thought how far out there can we take it. Then at the end, as the songs started fitting into the record, I felt like it was ok to do a ballad but for it to feel like something I would write. It became somewhat of a story, we were separating the Wilder songs from the Woods songs that way. The Wilder things were some of the lighter/alternative songs while the Woods stuff was a little heavier lyrically. Throughout some of those lyrics, I may even be talking to my kids in those songs.

AXS: About your new moniker... Wilder Woods is both of your sons' names combined.

WW: Yeah. Honestly, I don't have any delusions that when their eighteen they're gonna listen to the record and think it's cool. They're gonna think it's wack and they're not gonna like what I'm wearing on it. I remember my dad made a record in the '70s, he's a trumpet player, and I remember finding it when I was a kid and being like 'what is he wearing?!' and not thinking the music was that great or whatever. But, I want there to be lessons in [the album] for them, name it after them, and I want them to know it's ok to take a risk to do something new in the middle of your life like this. Also, I want them to be aware of the things that matter, the things that are important. There's some stuff on there about guilt and shame and I don't want them to have that. Obviously, they are going to feel it someday but I want them to know that I love them no matter what they do.

AXS: You speak on forgiveness on "Someday Soon" and mainstream music tends to veer towards more secular topics but you've found a good balance sonically while still remaining inspirational.

WW: Yeah, I think that's important, man. I don't care what people are doing but I want them to feel inspired when they listen to it. I want [the music] to take them to a place, you know? The last thing I would want is to influence them to make bad decisions or hate themselves more after listening to my music.

AXS: So far as using your family as motivation for your projects, is that something you're gonna continue to do as a solo artist?

WW: It will be interesting to see where I'm at next time around. Because this [album] is the first one, some artists tend to leave their families out of their work but for me, it was an opportunity to bring them in. My wife, she was in the first video we shot ("Sure Ain't"). [The label] called and said 'we need a model, like a really hot model or whatever...' and I was like 'I want to bring my wife and put her in this video.' To me, that's just more important, more valuable, it's a little more real, you know? I'm certainly not trying to become some kind of pop star who forgets who he is. I feel like bringing family with me. And honestly, my boys are super young, my oldest is four, but I would say since they've been born I've learned from them more than I have anybody else in the world. They teach me something new every day and that's what I wanted to sing about.

AXS: You describe that your trial and tribulations within your personal relationships have helped define who you are and made you a better person. What are your thoughts on the youth movement's views on relationships? Younger people tend to throw in the towel a lot easier these days due to the over-exposure of outside influences.

WW: I think that anytime that you can show a relationship with your wife that is good and healthy, like the relationship between John Legend and Chrissy Tiegen, that's positive to see. Growing up when I was in high school, we didn't have social media. So, I didn't have this perfect view of what everybody is going through, I had more [of an experience] of what actually was happening. And now, there's a lot of comparisons going on which makes people think 'well their lives are going that way' when in reality it's not true.

Secondly, I'm at that age where I'm starting to realize I've been married for a while but, mistakes are where you get to learn about yourself. They're just as good as the good things that happen to you, you know? When something bad starts to happen I think 'Ok, this is probably gonna lead to something better. It might not be right now and I might not know how.' I think it's more about perspective than anything else.

AXS: Totally understandable. It seems like not just artists but many people are struggling within their personal relationships these days.

WW: Yeah, there's a lot of stuff out there. There's a lot of traps. I've been fortunate enough to be shown grace. There's a song on the record called "Mary, You're Wrong" and it's mostly about that. I think it's not about how good I've been but how gracious the people around me have been and I'm thankful for that.

For me, I got married when I was really, really young. I think when I first got married, I probably didn't trust the grace and forgiveness that was always there from my wife. That's a lesson I've learned, she's got more than I think she does, you know? She loves me no matter what. Early on [in our relationship] I could have honestly been more open about things and would have learned a lot faster. I had to learn the hard way. If there's anything I've learned and it's not just with family or business or whatever but like, being open and honest and real, people have a lot more love for you than you think.

AXS: Do you have any expectations for your first solo album? Do you have any specific goals?

WW: I definitely have goals. They're more long-term though. I think this project will still be really new three years from now when I'm making a different record and will have the ability for the live show will be able to build on itself. I think that that will be a really exciting time. But at this time it's so new, I just want to take it slow. I want people to sorta attach themselves to a song and go, but it's gonna be a long build-up, you know? There are artists that I like now that took a couple of years to kinda break. So, if this thing is gonna work it's gonna be because we found new fans and not just NEEDTOBREATHE fans. I think we've made it different enough and weird enough and I'm excited about the live show that I believe in it in that way. This project is setting me up for where I want to be and where I see myself a few years from now.

Be sure to check out Wilder Woods self-titled debut album, Wilder Woods, upon its release on Aug. 9 (preorder here) And check out the video premiere of his acoustic version of his new single "Electric Woman" in the video provided above. Don't miss the opportunity to catch the "Light Shine In " singer/songwriter in a city near you during his fall tour (Tickets).

#Wilder Woods #wilder woods live #wilder woods tour 2019 #electric woman #electric woman live #electric woman acoustic #bear rinehart #needtobreathe #axs #interview #atlanticrecords

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waveridden · 5 years

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FIC: living on your own time

“Mr. Kerchev is just married, and there’s nothing more that newlyweds love on honeymoons than other newlyweds to show off in front of.” Kepler arches an eyebrow, presumably to let everyone absorb that. (W359 undercover as married AU, 3.1k)

A/N: this is actually a chunk of an abandoned WIP from a handful of months ago. I decided to rework the opening scene into something presentable. The longer fic, if it’s ever finished, would be Minkowski/Lovelace and Eiffel/Jacobi, with a little bit of Eiffel/Jacobi even shining through in this scene. (What can I say? I’m biased.)

AUcember || title lyric || read on ao3

“Ladies, gentlemen.” Kepler looks around the room. “What do you know about the Ukrainian mob? And Agent Eiffel, don’t say that you know they’re from Ukraine.”

Eiffel closes his mouth just long enough to frown. “That’s a legitimate piece of knowledge, sir, I think it’s to my credit that I- ow. ”

“Whoops,” Hera says cheerfully, and lifts her heel so it’s not crushing Eiffel’s big toe anymore. She’s smiling, which is the worst part. Smiling like she knows that she’s embarrassing him in a mission briefing. Smiling like she doesn’t care, which is even worse. It’s the ultimate betrayal.

Kepler doesn’t even acknowledge them. Consummate professional, that guy. “Of course, we have local mob chapters all over the country, but the main boss-”

“-is in Ukraine,” Eiffel finishes triumphantly, but this time it’s Minkowski who elbows him in the ribs. “Hey!”

“Time and a place,” Lovelace says mildly, from where she’s practically draped over one of Maxwell’s fancy touch-screen computer tables. Which is totally unfair, because if it were Eiffel, Maxwell would’ve pushed him on the floor by now.

“The time is now!” Eiffel protests. “We’re talking about the Ukrainian mob! There’s no better time!”

“I can duct tape his mouth shut if you want,” Jacobi offers, which, again, definitely unfair. If Eiffel said something about duct taping Jacobi’s mouth shut, Hera would make fun of him for having an oral fixation, and Kepler definitely wouldn’t make a face like he’s considering it. Eiffel tries to glare, but Jacobi just sort of smirks at him. “Solve a couple problems.”

After a couple seconds, Kepler sighs. “Just keep poking at him until he stops trying?”

Eiffel rolls his eyes, but Minkowski and Hera both say “yes, sir” in eerie unison, so it must not be worth the effort of arguing.

“Good,” Kepler says. “The Ukrainian mob - which is based in Ukraine, thank you, Agent Eiffel - is helmed by this man.” Maxwell, standing at Kepler’s side, hits a button, and a couple of images pop up on the massive display screen. It’s a blond white guy, early thirties, with that creepy dead-eyed stare that most mob bosses have. “Mr. Yevgeni Kerchev, who likes to cause a lot of trouble by dealing arms.”

“Seems young,” Lovelace says, propping her chin up on one palm. Her eyes narrow. “Let me guess, inherited?”

“Correct, Agent Lovelace.” Maxwell hits another button, and another image comes up, this time a family photo. “Here we have Mr. Kerchev, with his recently deceased father Piotr and his missing-in-action brother Viktor. This is all speculation, of course, but we’re pretty sure that Yevgeni killed both his father and his brother in order to take over the operation.”

“Mr. Kerchev is on watchlists all over the country. CIA, FBI, NSA, anything with three letters. Hell, the EPA probably has it out for him.” Kepler’s eyes sharpen. “He’s also stolen proprietary Goddard tech to redistribute.”

Hera whistles lowly. “I didn’t know you could steal from Goddard.”

“Generally, you can’t.” Jacobi frowns at the screen, eyes narrowing. “How’d he get away with it?”

“Mob connections, probably.” Maxwell’s mouth twitches. “Probably went all Godfather on some employee.”

Eiffel jolts upright, a slow grin already spreading across his face. “They made someone an offer they couldn’t refuse?”

Jacobi glares at Maxwell, who already looks sheepish. “You had to enable him?”

“Oh, don’t hold out on me now, Doctor.” Eiffel clasps his hands together. “Please, tell me more about Mr. Kerchev sneaking a horse’s head into Rachel Young’s bed.”

“You had to enable him,” Kepler repeats heavily, and this time Maxwell shrugs. “Fine. The point is, our goal is to bring Kerchev in as soon as possible. And luckily for us, it looks like we have an opportunity.”

“Wedding bells are ringing for Mr. Kerchev.” Maxwell hits another button, and a few more pictures pop up, all of Yevgeni Kerchev with a pretty blonde woman. “Meet Natalie Delight, and yes, that’s her real last name.”

“The YouTuber?” Minkowski says dubiously.

“Who taught you what YouTube is?” Eiffel demands. He recognizes her, now that he has a career to put to the face. “Hera, did you-”

“Me, actually,” Lovelace drawls, looking immensely pleased with herself. “Someone’s got to teach our good commander how to entertain herself online.”

“Remember before we worked with them?” Maxwell sighs, slanting a longing look at Jacobi. Even Kepler looks a little wistful, which hurts maybe more than it should. “Back in the good old days, when we would’ve been done with the mission briefing by now.”

“Already be on the next flight to Ukraine,” Jacobi mumbles.

“Not Ukraine,” Kepler says. “If you all don’t mind terribly, I’d like to get you sent on your merry way, so if you could let Dr. Maxwell and I finish with your mission briefing-”

“Aye-aye, sir,” Eiffel says, and doesn’t even protest when Hera lifts a hand to close her fingers over his mouth. He doesn’t even lick her palm, because that’s the kind of chivalrous guy and good employee that Doug Eiffel is.

“Go on, sir,” Hera says, and lifts her other hand to cover the first for good measure.

Kepler doesn’t smile, but Eiffel kind of gets the impression that he’s pleased anyways. “Natalie Delight has just married Yevgeni Kerchev, and they’re going on a honeymoon. South of France, lovely spa resort, vineyard attached, very remote. They’ll be there for ten days, and that’s ten whole days where Kerchev will be out in the open for us to find.”

Minkowski leans forward. “Sir, is this an assassination or an extraction?”

“Extraction, if possible. We don’t know what Kerchev did with the weapons he stole from Goddard, and we want them back.”

“Extraction,” Lovelace repeats. “Undercover?”

“Undercover. Mr. Kerchev is just married, and there’s nothing more that newlyweds love on honeymoons than other newlyweds to show off in front of.” Kepler arches an eyebrow, presumably to let everyone absorb that.

Eiffel glances around the room. If they need newlyweds, then they need two people. Hera never goes on missions, by virtue of technically not being trained for that, and with something this secretive Kepler will probably want Maxwell to stay in Canaveral.

And of course, SI-5 mission assignments are always… erratic, to say the least. Eiffel’s not really trained for any of this, but he’s still gone undercover more than once, so there’s a good chance that he’ll be going again. As far as partners go, Minkowski’s kind of an awful liar and Jacobi is about as subtle as a flaming sledgehammer, so that leaves…

“Dibs on Lovelace,” Eiffel says, even though it’s muffled by both of Hera’s hands. She grimaces, but digs her fingers into his cheek and holds on. “Hey!”

Kepler arches an eyebrow. “Something you want to share with the class, Agent Eiffel?”

Hera reluctantly pulls her hands away, and Eiffel grins. “Dibs on Lovelace?”

“It’s cute that you think it’s your choice,” Maxwell says, “but yes, that’s the plan. You and Agent Lovelace will be going undercover as newlyweds honeymooning at this resort.”

Eiffel grins over at Lovelace, who smiles back at him, looking pleased. Sure, everyone on this team likes to act like he doesn’t know what he’s doing, and sure, they’re normally right. But something about working with Lovelace makes him better at his job. Probably something to do with them actually being friends.

“What do you say, Isabel?” Eiffel wiggles his eyebrows, and she rolls her eyes at him. “Wanna get hitched?”

“Mm, I think I’m the one who proposed.” Lovelace glances at Hera. “Can we make that official?”

“I can make that official,” Hera says, because she is Eiffel’s best friend, and by extension his greatest enemy. “Congratulations on the engagement. And the wedding. I was Eiffel’s best man, of course.”

Eiffel beams at her. “Aw, baby, you know I wouldn’t have anyone else.”

Maxwell clears her throat, and all eyes go to her. She looks excited. Unnervingly so. “Sir?”

“Because this is such a high-priority mission, we need as many agents as possible in the field.” Kepler inclines his head. “Hera, obviously, you’re staying here with me, and Maxwell is staying because she has more than enough other projects to work on. So Jacobi, Minkowski, mazel tov.”

“No,” Jacobi says sharply. “No, sir, you can’t-”

“I’m going to have to object too,” Minkowski says, looking a little green around the gills. “You don’t mean-”

“I do mean.” Kepler fixes Minkowski with a placid look, and Maxwell has to hide her smile behind her remote. “Jacobi, Minkowski, the two of you will be going undercover with Eiffel and Lovelace. This is too serious to let go because you two are squeamish about it, do you understand?”

“Colonel,” Eiffel breathes, “it’s not even my birthday and you’ve given me the greatest gift of all.” Minkowski glares at him, but Eiffel can’t even bring himself to care. This is it. He’s died and gone to heaven, which must be real after all, because now he gets to watch Minkowski and Jacobi have to act like people. People in love. People in love with each other. “Hera, am I dreaming?”

“Maybe,” Hera whispers back. “But probably not.”

“Why do I have to be with Minkowski?” Jacobi demands. “Why can’t I be with Lovelace?”

“Eiffel called dibs,” Maxwell says, which is completely true. Eiffel knew he liked her for a reason. Maxwell is Eiffel’s favorite now. “That, and we’re pretty sure she’s the least likely to go stir crazy and kill him while you’re living together for ten days.”

“Minkowski’s really not my type. And for that matter, neither is Lovelace.”

“Do you want to be married to Eiffel for a week and a half?”

Eiffel carefully looks just over Jacobi’s shoulder, so it doesn’t look like he’s invested in hearing the answer. Because that would be desperate, and Eiffel isn’t desperate.

“Maybe Minkowski won’t be so bad,” Jacobi allows grudgingly, and Eiffel doesn’t let his face fall. He refuses. Hera bumps her hip against Eiffel’s, and he bumps her back, because there’s not much else to do in a moment like this.

“If only so Eiffel doesn’t die,” Minkowski agrees. Eiffel rolls his eyes. One of these days, these people are going to get tired of giving him shit. It hasn’t happened yet, but it has to one day.

“Congratulations on your vows,” Kepler says, with all of the infinite patience of someone who is very, very close to snapping at them all. “Eiffel, Lovelace, you’re our A-team on this. You’re going to make sure Kerchev is complacent and comfortable and having the time of his life, do you understand?”

“Yessir,” Eiffel says quickly, and Lovelace nods.

“Minkowski, Jacobi, you’re backup. You only contact Kerchev and Delight through Eiffel and Lovelace, never directly. You are there for intelligence, and you are there to make sure things don’t go wrong. Is that clear?”

“Crystal,” Jacobi grits out. If nothing else, Eiffel can appreciate the fun shade of puce that his face is turning right now.

“Excellent.” And just like that, the vein bulging in Kepler’s neck goes from “meltdown imminent” to “meltdown might be happening next Thursday.” Eiffel barely avoids sighing in relief. “You’re leaving for your honeymoon bright and early tomorrow morning, so get packed. Maxwell already emailed out your supply lists, and we’ll have some waiting for you once you get to France. Remember, you have ten days.”

“It’ll only take four,” Jacobi promises. Minkowski mutters something in agreement.

“Eiffel’s going to help me review comm devices,” Hera announces, and grabs him by the elbow. For such a tiny woman, she has hands of iron. It’s one of the things he loves about her, although maybe not in this moment. “Right, Doug?”

“Right,” Eiffel says, because he’s not about to argue with Hera about this. “Colonel, permission to check up on the comms array?”

Kepler nods. “Dismissed, both of you. Make sure you have something that’ll work well long-distance. You never know what kind of situations you’ll run into.”

Eiffel flicks off a quick salute before Hera starts tugging him towards the door. “Hey, Lovelace, wanna go ring shopping later?”

“I’d rather shave my legs with a potato peeler,” Lovelace answers blithely, ignoring Eiffel’s full-body shudder, because ew. “Goddard’ll have rings for us, right? We kind of need them.”

“We have a selection of standard-issue fake wedding rings,” Maxwell confirms, which is maybe the strangest sentence that Eiffel has ever heard come out of her mouth. She’s starting to say something else when Hera drags Eiffel out of the room and shuts the door behind her.

“Well,” Eiffel says slowly. He gets the feeling that he’s missing something here. “Comms room?”

“Comms room,” Hera agrees. “Great place to avoid being overheard.” She starts down the hall, moving so fast that it takes Eiffel aback.

He waits until he pulls the comms room door closed to look at Hera. “What?”

“What, me?” Hera frowns. “How about what, you?”

“What me?”

“Jacobi?”

Eiffel grimaces. “Yeah, that wasn’t the best.”

“That was totally unfair of him,” Hera says nobly, which, okay, that might not be true. Eiffel doesn’t have the best track record with undercover missions, but Hera probably doesn’t care about that. She’s definitely the best friend that Eiffel has ever had: she’s smart as a whip, she’s a good listener, and she is completely devoted to defending his honor even when he doesn’t deserve it.

“Maybe,” Eiffel hedges, but apparently that’s not enough, because she glares at him. “What? The guy’s allowed to not want to marry me for the sake of taking down a Serbian mobster-”

“Ukrainian.”

“Don’t tell Kepler I said that.”

“After your whole ‘I know he’s from Ukraine’ bit?” Hera snorts.

Eiffel winces. “Not my finest moment.”

He’s never going to admit it to anyone other than Hera, who already knows all his darkest secrets, but he kind of wants Kepler to like him. It’s partly a self preservation thing, because he gets the impression that people Kepler doesn’t like go away and are never heard from again. But it’s also because he’s pretty sure everyone else on the team likes him. Even if it’s the awkward, begrudging kind of liking that people start out with, they still like him. Kepler doesn’t seem to like anyone, but Eiffel’s going to try his best anyways. Because that’s what doing his job is all about. Or something.

Hera waves him off. “You’ll have another moment soon, don’t worry about it.”

“Thank you?”

“You’re welcome.” She flashes a smile at him, but it doesn’t quite reach her eyes. “Okay, we actually do need to do our jobs-”

“Do we?”

“Yes, Douglas, so pick a comms array for when you head off to France.”

“Alright, geez.” Hera only calls him Douglas when she’s patronizing him, or as a codeword something’s gone horribly wrong. He’s actually not sure which one of those situations is happening right now. But he gives it a minute, just to feel it out. He starts going through their communications devices - they need something that prioritizes the short-range, but Kepler was right about the long-distance - and settles on one of the newer models, setting it on the table in the middle of the room. “Think these’ll work?”

Hera, who seems to be settled in staring at the door, doesn’t even look. “Mmmhm.”

“Do you know what I’m talking about?”

“You don’t need me to tell you how to do your job, do you?”

Eiffel pauses. “Nnnnnnno?”

“Do you think those will work?”

He looks down at the case. “Probably?”

“Then they’re yours.”

“Hera, what’s-”

“Nothing!” Hera whirls around and slams her hands on the table. The comms room is small enough that the smack echoes, and Eiffel has to try not to flinch. “You know, maybe I’m trying to- to have your back on this whole Jacobi thing, which I still don’t get, by the way-”

“You don’t need to get it,” Eiffel mumbles, but shuts his mouth as soon as Hera’s eyes sharpen.

“Maybe I don’t need to get it, but I’m still trying to back you up with all this, and you don’t even seem bothered by it!” She folds her arms, and suddenly she looks far too small. “Maybe it’s bothering me, and I don’t know why it’s not bothering you that this is happening.”

Eiffel blinks. “This isn’t about Jacobi.”

She looks away, and Eiffel lets out a long breath. Of course it’s not about Jacobi. This is going to be the first time he’s going undercover since… since.

“Hera,” he says softly, and goes around the table so he’s closer to her. “All four of us are going to have a direct line to you and Alana the whole time.”

“The whole time,” Hera repeats, not quite mocking, and it feels like a fist wraps around Eiffel’s heart and squeezes. “Yeah, nothing’s gonna go wrong.”

Eiffel snorts. “Darlin’, something’s going to go wrong, and you and I both know it.”

She shoots a glare at him, which is completely undercut by how watery her eyes are. “Then why aren’t you worried?”

“Because I’m going to spend the whole time partnered up with Isabel, who’s one of the best people to have in a crisis. And Minkowski and Jacobi are going to be there, and they’re the best backup. And best of all-” he reaches out and rests his hands on her shoulders, as lightly as he can, and she relaxes into it - “you’re gonna be in my ear making sure that I don’t do anything too stupid.”

“You’d better not.”

“I’ll try my best.” Eiffel grins. “I’ll call you every night.”

Hera’s face relaxes into a smile, and Eiffel’s lungs collapse with relief. “You think your wife’s going to like that?”

“You know, I get this funny feeling that she’ll understand.”

“Every night,” she says seriously. “Last thing before you go to bed, no matter how late it is.”

“What’s the time difference between Canaveral and France?”

“Enough that you’ll be calling me and the other way around.”

Eiffel smiles and squeezes Hera’s shoulders. “Every night and twice on weekends.”

“Good,” Hera says, and steps forward to bury her face in the crook of Eiffel’s neck. “Come back.”

“I will.”

“Without the bad parts this time.”

“I will,” Eiffel repeats, and hopes more than anything that it’s not an empty promise.

#wolf 359 #w359 fic #jacoffel #eiffel x jacobi #like................. barely. but w/e #waveridden.fic #aucember18 #yall i am gonna be real i feel a Bit iffy about posting an old thing instead of writing something new but i am still recovering from those #overnight shifts so i am doing what i can for you!!!! i hope you enjoy the fic!!!!!!

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withastolenlantern · 6 years

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The automated doors parted as the detective stepped into the atrium of the main building. The bustle of commerce buzzed around her as self-important looking Ross employees flitted about in a disorganized dance she suspected was not dissimilar from the inside of a bee hive in spring. Peculiarly she could find no security or administrative desk to check into, and she stood, rather dumb-founded, unsure of how to proceed. “Off to a brilliant start,” she mumbled to herself, and stepped further into the lobby.

As she did, a holo blinked to life directly in front of her, startling her enough to cause her to skid to a stop in self-defense. “Good afternoon, Detective Inspector Chatham.” A full size human-impersonation stood before her, obviously generated from a projector somewhere in the floor or ceiling. The image was dressed in a sharply-fit grey suit with short heeled boots; a kerchief with a crimson R sat in the breast pocket of the jacket. The close-cut mop of hair on the model made the image gender-ambiguous, which Chatham supposed was likely intentional. It wasn’t often one saw a virtual intelligence of this sophistication: the processing resources required for both real-time natural language processing and spontaneous image generation were typically prohibitive. The titans of industry spared no expense, evidently.

“Goeie middag,” she replied to the holo, testing its capabilities.

“Ah, in het Nederlands als je wilt,” it responded in a thick accent, as if chewing on its tongue of light.

“Close enough,” Chatham laughed, moderately impressed. “Let us continue in English. I suppose you’re here to guide me to my interview with Lord Swansea?”

“I am here to provide any assistance you should require. The visitors badge you were supplied contains a wireless transmitter and personal identifier. It will allow you access to all pre-approved areas of the facility. A map has been downloaded to your personal data appliance.” The holo gave the detective a vague feeling of unease as it spoke, likely a result of her subconscious facial recognition training. They never could get the expressions right on these interactive holos. Try as they might, the human face still remained stuck firmly in the uncanny valley.

She opened her phone and discovered a facility map had been downloaded directly to it. A bright red R pulsed next to the icon for the thirtieth floor. “That’s the Earl, there, I assume?”

“Yes, mum. Executive offices, floor 30. Your position is indicated by the blue star icon. The elevator to your right will take you straight there. Will you require anything else?”

“Don’t suppose I can get a cup of tea?” she said, trying not to yawn at the previous evenings late escapades.

“I will have one waiting for you at Lord Swansea’s office.”

“Thank you. That will be all,” she replied, and with that the holo winked out of existence. “I will never get used to that,” she said to no one, and headed to the elevator. It opened immediately as she stepped in front, and sealed immediately behind as she entered. The floor counter started increasing as it flew skyward with a frankly frightening velocity. I don’t know whether to be flattered or terrified, Chatham thought. They’ve clearly pulled out both the dog and pony for this show.

Within a minute the elevator stopped, a chime indicating it had arrived at the appropriate floor. She stepped out into a long hallway with deep crimson berber carpeting. The walls were lined with portraits of various people, although Chatham wasn’t quite sure whom. The Earls Swansea had only existed for forty-some years, so it wasn’t as if the family lineage traced back far enough to the era of oil paint likenesses. She turned on the image processing function of her glasses and the overlay indicated it appeared to be members of the Ross Consortium board. Ostentation was clearly not synonymous with good taste, then.

She followed the indicator on her phone map to a large pair of glass doors, frosted in the shape of the Anglican “R” logo. She leaned to knock, but the doors gave way automatically and she stepped into the Lord Swansea’s office. The Ross Consortium CEO was sitting at a large polycarbonate desk, several spreadsheet holos open in front of him. He wore a deep navy sport coat over a taupe shirt, unbuttoned at the collar and without a tie. The detective could see the trademark balding patch at the top of his head, a gift of genetics from his mother’s side. The tabloids had a field day speculating over reasons he hadn’t had it filled in, but he remained resolute. “When you’re born this ugly, there’s nowhere to go but down,” he quipped when last pressed on the issue.

He looked up from the holos when she entered and stood to greet her. “Ah, Detective Inspector. Please do come in,” he greeted her with warmth she almost mistook for sincerity. He offered a firm handshake, and motioned her to a chair in front of the desk. “Please, sit.”

Chatham reclined neatly into a plush armchair in front of the desk. As if one cue, a steaming mug had already been placed on a side table next to the chair. She lifted it and took a small sip.

“That’s the quite the ARMI unit you have here,” she remarked.

“Pardon me?” Ross replied, a perplexed look on his face.

“The building intelligence. Autonomous Resource Management Interface.”

“Oh yes, quite. We call it HenRI,” the earl said. “The boys in the lab refer to it as Hal. I’m told it’s a reference to both Shakespeare and also a classic film about a rogue artificial intelligence.”

“That doesn’t strike you as perhaps a bit morose?” the detective asked with a sudden seriousness.

“Detective Inspector, I assure you this facility is in full compliance with UN resolution 1691 and all Ross technology, including HenRI, operates well within the Lovelace Limit,” the Lord Swansea said, matching her tone. “I can have the IT department show you the latest benchmarks, if you’d like.”

Chatham relaxed, if imperceptibly. Playing Turing police wasn’t in her mandate, but it would’ve meant a mountain of paperwork if she’d stumbled upon an AI violation as part of this investigation. Managing the human aspects was proving difficult enough. “No, that won’t be necessary.”

“Thank you. But yes, I find HenRI quite useful as assistants go. I had an actual personal secretary at one point, or well, I still do, but she’s mainly for show now. I’d say for pouring tea, but HenRI can even handle that, as you've discovered. In fact it handles most everything in the building, at least as far as I’m concerned. I’m sure it could run the whole company, if we let it.”

“You’re not worried it might make you redundant?” the detective asked.

“Oh, I’m afraid I’ve probably already done that to myself,” Ross said with a laugh. “Most days I’m more mascot than executive. At least in Parliament I only have a single Tory master, but here I often feel quite like the family dog, huddled under the table while the board and the lawyers toss me the occasional scrap.”

#the world ocean

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bro-ken-spoon · 7 years

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Wolf 359 Episode 51 and Communication

Okay so I’ve been having a lot of feelings about this episode and I want to write them all down. Please be aware that these are my thought processes and I don’t claim to be 100% right and if you disagree with anything I say I’d honestly love to have a conversation with you about it so you can teach me what I’m doing wrong. Also, major spoilers for this episode, if it wasn’t clear already! Okay, here we go!

I’d like to start off by making the claim that we are all Eiffel in some way. We have all done something that was offensive to others, no matter how hard we tried not to. Internalized racism is something that I personally grew up in. I will admit, it takes a lot of effort to unlearn that. When I grew up that way, I didn’t even realize I was being racist until I started making friends outside of the White Suburban area that is the deep south (where I’ve grown up) and started hearing the voices of people who were on the receiving end of the racism I thought was nothing. Even today, the snap judgements I make are racist and wrong a lot of the time, stemming from what I was taught, and I have to stop and think about how that would make the person in question feel before reevaluating what to think of them. Like Eiffel, for many years I though “well, it’s not like I can help that!” but just like Lovelace said, I can help that. Because I’m a white person, I shouldn’t ignore racism, and I shouldn’t be the main voice you hear speaking out against it. I should make sure that I am helping the voices of the POC around the world be heard while also backing them up and not letting that internalized racism that I was taught continue on to those I have the opportunity to lead.

I’d also like to point out here in this section that the choice of the creators to show this through a white person in the Minkowski scene was interesting. My theory, however, is that it is easier for white people to realize what they’re doing is wrong if you project the problem onto another white person. Being a white person and growing up around mostly white people, we’re more likely to understand the problem if it’s about us, we’re selfish. I would like to have heard something about Lovelace facing discrimination as a black person (I know there’s no canon basis for her race, but I think most people I know agree that it would be very easy to make that a canon thing and to talk about it.) That would be, in my opinion, an angle I would like to have heard, and I’m not sure why these things are not happening. However, I am not here to attack the cast or crew of this show. The people working on it are some of my favorite creators and they are not all white themselves, so I don’t think it’s fair to attack what they are doing. I would like to hear a response as to their thought process, but I’m not the person to ask that question, being, as I’ve mentioned, the whitest white person to exist.

This discrimination also exists in forms other than racism that I think this show metaphors very well. Now, I’m going to talk about how we are all also Lovelace/Minkowski/Hera, the person who I think everyone identifies with in this episode. We’ve all been there. We’ve all been in a position where people are saying hurtful things to us and we haven’t told them it’s hurting us, or at least I have and I’m projecting those feelings on to all of you. I am a lesbian. I am, again, in the deep south. These two things don’t mix. I’m not out to anyone in real life except a few friends. I’m very well versed in hearing things like “those gays are crazy and looking for attention” or “did you hear your cousin is gay, yeah, the whole family is distraught.” Those are two examples my parents have said to me. I just recently told them I’m not a conservative, and one of the responses I got was “at least you’re not gay.” Now, I’m not saying this so anyone will feel sorry for me, and I don’t think Lovelace and Hera and Minkowski were, either. This isn’t a pity party thing, it’s that people don’t realize that what they’re saying is hurtful. To my parents, telling a joke about a gay person is harmless. To me, it’s hurtful. I love Eiffel. I love my parents. It’s very easy to talk about someone who is being homophobic in a way that demonizes their very core, like saying that they’re just a bad person, but we can’t just see Eiffel (or my parents in this analogy) as a bad person, because, quite simply, he’s not. He’s done bad things, and he’s made mistakes, and he’s made mistakes he didn’t even know he was making, but that doesn’t mean he’s a bad person, and I think that was my main takeaway from this. I could also relate this to the sexism I face as a girl, or the transphobia some friends of mine face, or the ableism other friends face, but frankly I’ve taken up too much of your time already, and I think you get the idea. Whether the situation has you being an Eiffel or a Lovelace/Hera/Minkowski, this episode is relatable as fuck.

I want to mention another thing that hit home for me about the accents. This is kind of dumb of me, because people of different, actually oppressed cultures have this way worse than I do, so you can just skip this part, but I need to at least type it out. As you may have noticed (because I’ve said it a thousand times in this post, I’m a(n American) southern white girl, and that comes with a humiliating southern accent. The southern accent is really easy to make fun of because it is really easy to do and most people that have them are really dumb. I want to be an author, so I’ve worked very hard to learn good grammar, and when I write, I use it. But, when I talk, I sound like the dumbest person you’ve ever heard. Obviously, this is not as bad as what another person from a culture who’s people are widely discriminated against faces every day, but it’s still a major point of anxiety for me. The more quickly I talk, the worse it comes out. Sometimes, I talk slowly (like Kepler or something) so that people can’t hear it, especially when interviewing for a job or on my phone applications with colleges that are up north. My friends even make fun of me for it, occasionally, if I say something too southern. Again, that’s not nearly as bad as what it could be, just to reiterate. It’s just that I related to that a little bit.

This episode hit a lot of us hard. It took a character that isn’t just a total villain and showed through him the subtle discrimination a lot of people face every day, and that can be hard to swallow for the people who identify with Eiffel. All of us either needed to be told this or needed a way to tell others the very point this was trying to make. With the current news cycle, it’s easy to blame government and bad people for everything, but sometimes, we need to remember that we all make bad choices. We all have the power and do contribute to some kind of discrimination without knowing it, even if you don’t think you do, because everyone at some level thinks they’re a good person. We just have to decide what we’re going to do about it, whether we’re going to push those discriminate thoughts away and actively try 100% of the time to be better, or to be lazy and keep saying and doing what we want in ignorant bliss.

What this episode reminded me is that it’s not too hard to contribute to the amount of love in the world, and that if you try and keep trying, and educate those around you instead of letting things happen, we can make our world better. We can work together for this. We can point out these same things to the people in our lives, and, instead of getting defensive, get reflective.

The fact that the Wolf 359 crew used white people to relay a problem facing primarily not-white cultures is a flaw, but it works in pointing out that we all make mistakes based on these important issues. We ALL make these mistakes.

Thank you for reading. If you took issue with anything I said, I really am interested in having a discussion and learning what I can do better, so please tell me. I will make changes to this post if necessary, these are just my raw, untampered with opinions that I got immediately following my first (and second) listen to this episode. Thanks for giving me your time.

#wolf 359 spoilers #long post #i'm sorry if i offend anyone please tell me if i did #i want to be a better person

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mistfunk · 5 years

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CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS: "computer art" made by women (you know who you are) for a March 2019 artpack release

(sorry, our heart is in the right place but our being coy is not getting the job done: trans and intersex contributors enthusiastically welcomed also!)

Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace, was the first programmer, designing software for Charles Babbage's Difference Engine. The first use of punch cards for information storage were to communicate pattern instructions to Jacquard looms, automating the traditionally female labour of textile manufacturing. Through the Second World War and the space race, "computers" were women maths whizzes, crunching through ballistics equations by the roomful. Evelyn Berezin invented the word processor in 1969. Susan Kare was responsible for defining the modern GUI, first in her interface design for the Macintosh classic and subsequently for Windows 3, OS/2 and NeXT. Even the first superstars of ANSI and ASCII art for crying out loud, Ebony Eyes and jgs, were women.

So where were all the women in the digital underground of cyberspace? Here, as anonymous names on a screen, minds floating in a fishtank, where we were free from the drag factors of sexism, racism and ableism, was our opportunity to remake society, addressing its injustices and imbalances. I don't know what you did, bros, but you done messed it up.

Back in the '90s, the underground computer artgroup Mistigris bucked the trend and proudly had ladies among its membership. (In retrospect, for exceptional reasons we won't bore you with here, we determined that we had most of the ladies of the underground computer artscene among its membership.)

This year, in time for International Women's Day, we'd like to undertake an alternate history exercise and envision, with your help, just what a computer artpack consisting exclusively of contributions by women artists -- something unprecedented despite its reverse being bog standard -- might look like. Now all we need is contributions by women artists.

FAQ:

Q: ??! What the heck's an artpack?

A: Wikipedia does a pretty decent job answering that one.

Q: What should I make my art about?

A: I fell for that one once -- I thought that as the standard approach and subject matter of the digital underground derived from dudely pop culture power fantasies (the social rejects of cyberspace: reproducing the very systems that they felt oppressing them in wider society), it might be interesting to celebrate cultural artefacts more traditionally coded as "girly" (a different problematic can of worms), eg. less Spawn, more Sailor Moon, less Iron Maiden, more Tori Amos, less Henry Rollins, more Jane Austin -- but forget it: the purpose of this platform is not for a man to tell women what kind of art to make. Butch, femme, cyborg, we are just here to further disseminate whatever art women would like for us to share. Try us.

Q: What mediums and styles do you support?

A: Though to lesser extent in Mistigris, artpacks have traditionally been all about the textmode art (ANSI and ASCII art specifically), to the exclusion of virtually everything else. We've already extended our interest in the ANSI art aesthetic to pixelart, and our interest in pixelart to its real-world cousins made in cross-stitch and fusion beads, which already has us extended deep into the territory of creative women... we've just not enjoyed much success reversing the flow and importing the stuff back into artpacks, where we feel they belong. There are whole realms of creative work like fashion and dance, often dismissively written off as part of the domain of the feminine (like cosplay and Fortnite, right?), that no one has ever even bothered to attempt to represent in a computer artpack. What's up with that? But we're not solely fixated on arts and crafts -- undoubtedly the ladies in STEM fields have come up with VFX, algorithms and programs that would blow us away (supposing we were smart enough to appreciate the genius we were witnessing, you might need to dumb it down a bit.)

Q: When's the deadline?

A: IWD is on March 8th, we hope to have the collection released by March 4th 2019 at the beginning of its week.

Q: That's not much time!

A: Sorry, I spent a lot of time pursuing individuals I've worked with historically where I should have been casting wider nets. We're not expecting people to come up with new works just for us, but rather to toss us existing tasty tidbits from their portfolios for us to hype up and rebroadcast.

Q: What's the payment like?

A: While this venture and undertaking is well worthwhile of grant support and sponsorship, we hit on the theme too late in the cycle to line up any compensation. Contributors to underground computer artpacks are not traditionally paid (maybe in warez, and definitely in eliteness points), so for what it's worth, this is one regard in which there is no gender pay gap. The other eleven months of the year, it's the gents who are largely filling artpacks for free.

Q: You only want our involvement for just this one project?

A: We value and celebrate women creators all year round and should be so lucky to invite them to the table and have them stick around. In this particular case however the project simply cannot be done without their involvement, so first we need to get their attention... and then if we pass the audition, in a perfect world we might continue working together.

Q: I'm a dude of the manly variety who loves what you're doing here, and obviously I don't fit your submittor criteria for this collection. How can I help?

A: If you've got a passion for this aesthetic and have a sister, wife or daughter who's expressed interest but has never found a sufficiently supportive entry point into this weird world, you could put a word in their ear. Failing that, you can of course repost credited art by woman creators and buy their work. Most importantly, don't allow them to be mistreated in the workplace (hire them, promote them, and pay them equally to their male counterparts) or on social media by toxic dudes.

Q: You're the same crew who were just running pieces of cheesecake art for Valentine's Day?

A: It's true, we are vast, we contain multitudes.

Q: Is that really the best ASCII art taco you could draw?

A: The Unicode character set offers some better options.

#Mistigris #IWD #International Women's Day #call for submissions

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theradioghost · 7 years

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Below the cut, a long ramble on Wolf 359, personhood, the ending of Memoria, and the last scene of Bolero:

Gabriel confirmed a thought I'd always had during the AMA in saying the show is about, at its core, communication (and conversely, isolation) and personhood. Communication comes often through Eiffel, predictably: he speaks directly to us, his "Listeners," his voice becomes the voice of alien contact but is also always the voice of moral reason, of abstinence from harm. The show, Urbina says, is about the conversations between Eiffel and Minkowski; Eiffel, who hears voices; Eiffel, whose closest friendship is marked by the phrase "can you hear me?" Every single character is introduced to us as a transmission or recording (or Hera’s disembodied voice) -- as a message, an attempt to communicate.

I think it's Hera and Hilbert who bring personhood to the front at first. We also get Eiffel's lack of self-value, his conversation with Hera in Bach to the Future where he reveals just how dehumanizing it is for him to discover he was disposable, a guinea pig; but both of them struggle in that scene with damage caused by Hilbert, a character who has a markedly different view of personhood and what rights it confers. Hilbert has zero respect for their bodily autonomy, their individuality, their personhood; a person is nothing, an ideal is everything. It isn’t so much that he denies them personhood as that personhood holds no intrinsic value for him. In fact, much of how characters communicate is based on how they view and value one another (see Hilbert referring to Hera as "the AI," or the entirety of The Sound and the Fury). Everyone's personhood is in question when they are made into tools, defined as disposable. They’re not just fighting to survive; they’re asserting their right to exist, to be seen as full individuals and more than the tools of a distant corporation.

And personhood, of course, defines Hera's story. Is she a person? It's self-evident that to the story, and to Hera, the answer is and always should be yes. Again and again, in the face of everything people do to her, Hera reaffirms her personhood, her right to exist, her right to autonomy. (The very first thing that endeared Eiffel to me was the extent to which he treated her like a person -- never assuming she’s available at his every whim, calling her shutdown “killing his friend,” the jokes and pet names, the line where he calls her “the woman who makes my oxygen” -- has Hera been referred to as a woman at any other point?) And there’s a clear line drawn, too, among the other characters: your morality is defined by how you treat people like people, and often via Hera. The conversation where Lovelace acknowledges the problems her escape plan and threats present to Hera is a redemptive one. Hilbert’s act of betrayal starts with denying Hera free will and culminates in ripping out her brain. To Kepler, she is disposable; to Eiffel, so often the moral compass, she’s a friend.

Which is, I think, part of why people find Maxwell so compelling. How do we know where Maxwell fits in this scheme? (and now, how will we ever know? which may, in a meta sense, be the most appropriate choice. in real life, we can't assume we know and understand a person on the level we often do with a fictional character; with Maxwell, that truth is now equally closed to us. her personhood remains her own, not ours to neatly sort: Good or Bad. this is just one, very grandly thematic way to view her death, though.) Maxwell, who is willing to kill but saw both Jacobis as real people even if only one was human; Maxwell, who would alter Hera's memories and force her to act against her will, but also teach her to fight back, see her as a person, be infuriated by what Pryce did to her.

In one of the most directly dehumanizing acts of the show, Pryce instructs Cutter: not "her." never "her." just "it." this scene is deeply, disturbingly a violation. what Pryce does is framed as nothing but unforgivable (and just look at the fandom’s reaction to it; do we hate or fear anyone as much as Pryce?). and it is directly parallel to Kepler's use of "it" to describe Captain Lovelace. I’m literally so white I can’t buy foundation, so obviously there are limits to my comprehension of how damaging Desperate Measures was. And the misogynoir associated with her death at Kepler’s hands can’t be separated from his referring to her as it, as a thing. But I do think this scene is deliberately and consciously disturbing. Kepler’s language is not a casual choice by the writers. It mirrors his first time addressing Hera, where he knows her name but calls her by model instead; it mirrors Pryce, it mirrors Cutter’s casual disregard for the lives of the crew, it mirrors Hilbert’s disregard for the bodies of crew members past and present and other human, humanized corpses -- Lovelace’s crew -- which the show’s morally worst characters have disregarded. (Eiffel and Minkowski, meanwhile, continue to refer to Lovelace as “her,” by her name, even after Kepler “corrects” them to “it.” There’s a line being drawn here.)

There’s a conversation in Terry Pratchett’s Carpe Jugulum involving part-time moral philosopher, full-time witch Granny Weatherwax that goes

“And sin, young man, is when you treat people as things. Including yourself. That’s what sin is.” “It’s a lot more complicated than that—” “No. It ain’t. When people say things are a lot more complicated than that, they means they are getting worried that they won’t like the truth. People as things, that’s where it starts.” “Oh, I’m sure there are worse crimes—” “But they starts with thinking about people as things.”

Wolf 359, I think, takes a very similar stance. It’s not for me to decide whether, in light of her death, this scene at Lovelace’s resurrection is appropriate. I do think, though, that the show’s stance on personhood and acts like this has always been clear, and that this specific choice is directly connected to some of the things that the show has portrayed as the morally worst things a person can do. It made me feel sick to my stomach when I heard it, but I think it was meant to.

#tragic space office sitcom #wolf 359 #if this is Problems then that's something I'd be glad to know?#I am still puzzling my way through much of this #but this particular theme of the show's has always meant a lot to me #my posts #meta

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whimsically-ominously-auspice · 4 years

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This COVID

Unfortunately, the nurses and doctors are the ultimate victims and the worst part of the disease is their PTSD.

They, like most military, police, firefighters and EMT, sign up to risk their lives to HELP and SAVE others.

And they can't. This disease isn't intended to but is a by-product or side effect to cause them their own destruction of self, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

We have a website set up for them for their mental health -- it wasn't active.. Tree just activated it for y'all.

I apologize for that. So many people are calling them heroes and trying to lift their spirits and it is hard for them.

Like y'all...

Picture this...

Standing in a mass grave, trying to find a body still alive you can save... Help.. A mass grave... So I'm talking hundreds of dead bodies and then y'all be all parade and smile and have fun.

They're too busy trying to find a way to help. Trying to find that one breath from a body in that mass of bodies piled knee high.

They look up "oh them jets..." Same time that happens more bodies are being thrown down in that mass grave So they waist high...

By then them Jets have left just a cloud of memory

It doesn't help... Then they chest high with dead bodies... And they're getting buried alive trying to find a way to help.

Do you see what I'm saying? Can you feel that?!

Then they like man I gotta get outta here before I die myself, being buried alive....

Then who can help them? Is there someone strong enough to pull them out, to SEE THEM before the bodies are piled over their heads??

Doctors and nurses have committed suicide. Because they can't handle it.

Because what has happened... Is this is like a reverse WWII... Hospitals are now Nazi Concentration Camps. And the nurses and doctors are the Nazi just watching every one die.

(Note this is an EXAMPLE for the mind to grasp understanding -- i am not stating the doctor nor nurse ARE Nazi. I am merely making a reference to WWII and gas chambers and so on so people can get the visual understanding of the power of COVID and the pain of people that are opposed to Nazi. When she said "This is Real" it is where my mind went -- to the Holocaust which i know a lot about. I studied it on my own many times in my life. To understand how one person could take over the world. I did. In high school, my Oklahoma History teacher even took away my books because i would ask way too many questions about killing of Native Americans and i would say "but how--" and she said that i had a problem with focusing on the wrong thing and i said "but its happening in our world today!! Politicians and Governments!!" She took away the stack of books i had checked out on WWII and took them to the library and i followed her like pulling her jacket and shirt to stop her. She told the librarian I wasn't allowed to check out anymore books like that because I was a teenager and had unhealthy worries in the world. I burst into tears. "Obviously i have to save the world Because of people like you who won't take it seriously!! You're a Hitler yourself!! And you! I'll talk to you tomorrow!!" I spat to the teacher then librarian. And took off to my last class of the day. The Librarian know who i was and how i had spent hours in the library everyday during lunch and had told her how i said i wanted to compare WWII to the way Native American were treated in Oklahoma. And she printed a list of all the different kinds of books i checked out. Including kindergarten picture books for my own enjoyment. And the teacher apologized. She asked if i wanted to apologize to her for calling her Hitler. I said "not yet" eventually I did. In front of the entire class with an entire one and one eighth of a page of written materials comparing and contrasting her to Hitler and people we read about. I said "in conclusion, she may been an Army woman helping people make long disateraous of what they call walks. Of what i call pilgrimages, across many of what we now know are states, but not to be in charge but to be a comforting vessel during maritime war. A war that was unnecessary on water as it was on land and that is my meaning of using water words instead of land Because indeed i think she is a person we can trust but she may also be one of those people to set off a cannon to a far away ship until she finds out the truth of who is in it. But she certainly isn't a Hitler or someone that would order Native Americans to do the undeeded... She would be one of those to walk aside all Native Americans, help pass out blankets and medication. And so as she has apologized to me for firing up that cannon while I was away at sea to do ky research of course, i shall apologize to her for being upset she did and calling her the worst name possible. Which wasn't bitch. Nor ass hole." 10th grade, y'all.)

It is the worst possible place for a nurse or Doctor that signed up to be a comfort and to SAVE lives to be. The worst possible place.

And i can't help them... There is on the now activated website -- there is a place where they can request military services to come in and relief our nurses and others on the front lines, including police.

You just merely request how many and of what capabilities you need. So if you need just CNA (our hugest amount) or RN or PA or DR or so on and so forth.

They have their own pay scale thus allowing the people being substituted for to receive a special type of paid leave. The military can stay in one place at one time up to 9 weeks.

So also a rotation of 9 weeks on. 9 weeks off.

I apologize i thought it was already set up and available for all. But apparently things wanted to be done differently to try it and see how it works.

Now first is HOSPITALS. Basically if your name has the word Hospital in it. Then you're available. BUT you must have an EMERGENCY ROOM (ER) to qualify.

Now systems... Like Lovelace in Albuquerque has like 4 or 5 ER departments. So they go to the MAIN hospital first Then two weeks after rotate in at say the Heart Hospital then after two weeks the Woman's Hospital then a smaller so on and so forth.

Presbyterian, would begin at MAIN then go to Kirkland then so on and so forth.

This way if someone doesn't want to be treated by military. They have options of seeing regular doctors at the main stem branches.

Also it doesn't have to be a 100% but it can be a 25% so 25% of people take off for 9 weeks. Then another 25% take off for 9 weeks. And so on... So you'd have use of the military for 36 weeks.

It is a charity service.

I recommend that y'all cut hours. So a 40 hour nurse goes go 20 hours -- but stays at full time pay and benefits.

As part of our program, the healthcare and other workers MUST remain fully paid while taking time off. Otherwise we cannot assist.

It is for their hearts, their souls and their tears that we supply such a charity. Thus we cannot create more tears, more heartache nor more stress for these people.

So when making plans, hospital executives, please do keep that in mind.

Also for hospitals that refuse to relieve their workers, we have a system set up so that a nurse/doctor/etc can find a suitable replacement of higher quality according to paper. Similar but more advanced to the system that is used to place substitute teachers to teach hundreds school children per one jr high or high school day. And if the hospital rejects the substitute, then we have a system set up to sue the hospital on behalf of the staff. This system is only provided when a main hotspot refuses help.

Such as NYC. However NY has accepted thousands of National Guard already and Idk what exactly is occurring there but we have many side hospitals set up there.

So this is Never Before Seen shit since the Native American's Massacres (that's why i kept getting in trouble in Oklahoma History... The word Massacre.. Dude... I wasn't gonna pretend it didn't happen, Land O´ Lakes, where's our Indian Lady? The farmers didn't kill her, you did. -.-) and definitely not seen while we had this great amount of technology available to all.

So never before seen shit is gonna occur. I'm like yeah this is what will work professionally. And if they can't come up with something better and reject me, then I'll sue and ill win because they don't care and we got documented workers all over social media crying their eyes out.

She is the first African American I've posted but I've posted at least 4. Crying nurses. And i skip over a lot. I keep scrolling past a lot. I scroll past more than Y'all know that i Don't mention.

But her... She made me want to cry just like all the others. And Just like the others, i had dry eyes. Because we worked and worked and worked till we were all bawling our eyes out, taking heart medicine, whether like mine or just for heart burn. Even the little kids. I can't cry anymore. We made the solution for what and when the emergency pandemic would occur.

Hospitals have lost people due to suicide.

It is now time for me to step in. Or we will not have a doctor or nurse that is both alive and recognizable, they will be destroyed -- inside out -- starting with their hearts of mind.

I have had PTSD due to death of a stranger. I was only 18. And i hated myself for over 10 years.

So im gonna break out one day and call you all stupid for attempting to heal evil.

Because that was what I needed. And no one ever told me. And i got back lash. And i know that every single nurse and doctor that was working as hard as they could -- they needed to vent and hate. And i could be that person.

I smiled. I checked in. "Do they still hate me?" Yes "Good"

I know it helps a heart be healthy to have a place to throw hate. And i knew i would be safe from harm. While hate was thrown at me.

Then i took away me as that object of hate. And still healthcare workers are suffering and they're killing themselves. (They'll get to heaven if they deserve. A nice little break for them. Then they will come back when our other dead does. If they are deserving, if Earth is where they Belong. Otherwise they went directly where they Belong for Eternity)

So a quick fix band aid isn't it. It is as far as we predicted - a reverse WWII.

the sick going in... And causing innocent pain.

Instead of the innocent going in and dying by the professional purposely killing them.

This is the complete opposite.

Jack told me "quit hating on these nurses and doctors!"

Because i would scroll past and say "these fucking nurses. Dam it"

I'm not hating them. I'm hating their situation. I'm hating their inability to cope. Their inability to cope is because their inability to cope is due to their deep humanity... It is a character flaw. It is a curse and a blessing. It is the deepest and most difficult of work to breech that muddy waters, dig deep and find a bridge to drag up and build, there is one there in their souls.. But it is buried deep under much chocolate and flowers and all things good...

Unfortunately while being buried under dead bodies its nearly impossible to fix that bridge. Find that way to overcome the desperation, the HORROR their job has become

Even taking a break can sometimes not help... Sometimes it doesn't. But we include self care and encouraging messages from our military teams that substitute while the people take their time off.

Military are far more apt to be able to deal with dead. Military teams sign up knowing they must kill at certain times. They have a different view of death. They accept it and understand it.

A nurse or Doctor they fight it, that is their job. That is their souls and every hope they have in the world is to save lives.

Military, their job, is to make the world better.

Right now, military is just a better fit.

It's different types of brains. It is just different.

And I am sorry. And unfortunately I do know. I have killed a lot of people by hand, kidnappers caught in the act. I killed Pablo Escobar. Then I got amnesia. And I loaned my friend $500 to bail her boyfriend out of jail. It ended up in a suicide of someone he ratted on. I never got over that. It took a very long time. He was a criminal, yes. But I just never got over that loss of life. If I had never bailed him out... That one guy would still be alive.

So I am very sensitive and very understanding of these healthcare crying and not handling their jobs and killing themselves.

I fully understand it. So yes I will sue on behalf of staff that cannot get relief. I will fight and punch until those hospital executives come up black and blue saying "ok im sorry im sorry we can have substitutes and pay full prices for our staff to stay home and rest"

I may have forgot myself... Prior to age 15... But I remember since then. I know how I have suffered and why.

So I am extremely complex to know and understand.

It doesn't matter if you understand or trust me.

You must care and take a leap of FAITH and not one of suicidal consequences, hospital executives.

Because I understand being buried under dead bodies that I feel responsible for. Hating myself. For something that was never my fault and something I did to be nice. Naïve. I fully understand.

And its revolting, now looking back all I put myself through.

And I swore one day... I swore and I swore. I promised myself. One day im gonna use this all for good. That I can forgive myself.

I already did. I realized I'm not the one that needed to be forgiven. And I'm okay. I'm doing great.

But I remember and I will never forget those sleepless nights... The intense fear I had of myself and of doing anything for any reason. I was terrified. What if I go to the store and I effect someone?

What if I get in a car wreck and hurt some one?

I was terrified. Had I not healed thanks to JJFU. Some one I knew and trusted making guns and I said to him everyday for weeks "how can you make guns knowing someone could be hurt? Don't you think you will feel responsible if someone wrote to you and said a kid was killed with one of your guns? An innocent child playing by accident?"

He said "let me get back to you"

And one day he simply said "i can't control what other people do. If they don't lock up their guns or weapons and ammunition seperate. I can't control what a kid does. I hope no one ever gets hurt wrongly and unjustifiable with a gun i produce and make by hand. But, Sabrina, i can not control what other people do. And it isn't my fault what happens after the guns leave my hands and enter another's"

And this air i had been holding in since I was 18 years old just went out of my chest. And i started crying. And crying and i cried for days.

And he said "why are you keep crying? Who are you crying for?"

And I said "i am crying for ME"

"But why?! What did you do to someone so bad?!"

"Cause I hated myself for something I couldn't control.I hated ME. I refused to Love Me. I refused to Trust ME. And now I can cry for me because of what I Lost because I was an ignorant fool, to care too much beyond my control."

3 years later my friend was murdered. I could had prevented that, too. But I didn't get PTSD. Instead i chose to love him and be proud of him. And love us both for doing what was best for us.

I have both the obituary of David Galloway and Justin hanging in my kitchen. One gave me PTSD. One could have. I look at them both. And I say "I love me. But I can love you two and you can love me because I never wanted either one of you to be hurt"

Or I'll walk by "I can imagine you two are fine where you are today. Sorry I'm busy. But I hope you're happy and okay"

One is Zulululu and one is Human. The Zulululu, I got PTSD. He was a selfish drug addict that killed himself leaving behind two kids and a wife just because he didn't want to go to jail. The other was murdered and the last time I saw him, he asked to live with me. The latter should caused my PTSD. HE DESERVED MY PTSD.

But I didn't.

So military is better equipped to handle what is occurring in hospitals. Nurses do need time off even if the military does just set up new temporary hospital

Healthcare workers NEED treatment for what they have seen and gone through.

And I will fight for every single one to get the help they deserve and the time off they need.

Because I know they deserve it. I know they need It. I know how dangerous it is to overlook a simple day in the life of what they have had in the last few weeks.

Throwing them parties. Its kind, and it's sweet.

But it doesn't help anything, it doesn't help anything when the anguish and the PTSD has already set in. Sometimes it makes it worse..

So yeah I get pissed off they're not being helped and it comes out wrong.

So now its time to do it right.

This nurse asks y'all to stay home.

So y'all tell her you will if you will, tell her you can't because you got to go to work and you tell her where (like Gas Station, not the whole address) and y'all be responsible for you and your actions..

We can't control the world. But we can work together to make it better.... Right...?

I think so.

Or we're all gonna die trying.

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cherita · 7 years

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Book Blitz: ReWired by S.R. Johannes

How do you feel about cyberpunk? Me, I love it. Technology, hackers, large scale conspiracies — be they government or corporate (is there really any difference these days?) — I am here for all of that. I don't know how many times I've watched Hackers (cheesy though it seems now), and Mr. Robot is pretty much the best damn thing on TV today. Combined with my love of YA lit, a YA cyber-thriller like ReWired is right up my alley.

All the winking little nods in the synopsis, from the main character's alias being "Dark Angel" (shades of the early aughties Jessica Alba show?) to the hacker group being called the Orwellians, only makes me want to read it more. If you're a YA fan and have similar feels about cyberpunk themes, you might want to check this one out too. It's available now, and there's a giveaway obviously. Take a look:

ReWired

S.R. Johannes | YA ● Cyberpunk ● Thriller

YA cyber thriller, ReWIRED, by Shelli Johannes-Wells (writing as S.R. Johannes), which offers a fresh and exciting new take on the genre, and could be described as Ally Carter’s HEIST SOCIETY meets THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO for teens.

Sixteen-year-old Ada Lovelace is never more alive and sure of herself than when she’s hacking into a “secure” network as her alter ego, the Dark Angel. In the real world, Ada is broken, reeling from her best friend Simone’s recent suicide. But online, the reclusive daughter of Senator Lovelace (champion of the new Online Privacy Bill) is a daring white hat hacker and the only female member of the Orwellians, an elite group responsible for a string of high-profile hacks against major corporations, with a mission to protect the little guy. Ada is swiftly proving she’s a force to be reckoned with, when a fellow Orwellian betrays her to the FBI. To protect her father’s career, Ada is sent to ReBoot, a technology rehab facility for teens…the same rehab Simone attended right before killing herself.

It’s bad enough that the ReBoot facility is creepy in an Overlook-Hotel-meets-Winchester-Mansion way, but when Ada realizes Simone’s suicide is just one in an increasingly suspicious string of “accidental” deaths and “suicides” occurring just after kids leave ReBoot, Ada knows she can’t leave without figuring out what really happened to her best friend. The massive cyber conspiracy she uncovers will threaten everything she cares about–her dad’s career, her new relationship with a wry, handsome, reformed hacker who gets under her skin, and most of all–the version of herself Ada likes best–the Dark Angel.

With a deliciously twisty plot, the topical bite of Cory Doctorow’s LITTLE BROTHER, ReWIRED delves into technology addiction, internet privacy, and corporate/government collection of data, as it vividly illuminates the universally human questions about ethics, privacy, and self-definition that both underpin these socio-political issues and dovetail with classic coming-of-age themes. Ultimately, ReWIRED is about the daily choices we all make about who we want to be, how much of ourselves we choose to share with others, and the terrifying risks and exhilarating rewards of being ourselves, online and off.

READ AN EXCERPT FROM REWIRED

The Dark Angel

Some say technology kills. But these days, a computer is my only lifeline. I move through the warehouse and flip on the space heater before checking the outside security cameras, but the streets are deserted as usual. This is my safe space. A place to hide. Here, there’s no IP address to track. No connection to trace. Here, I can sneak on and off the grid without anyone knowing.

Undetected and untraceable.

Hacker Commandment #1: One can never be too paranoid.

I turn on the desk lamp and sweep my hand across the ugly DIY desk made of a few cracked two-by-fours and a slab of plywood. Yesterday’s pizza box and empty Dr Pepper cans jump off the edge, clanging to the floor.

I unzip my messenger bag. A tattered copy of George Orwell’s 1984 snuggles up to my cell phone, and my laptop peeks through the opposite mesh sleeve. Its permanent resting place. In case I need to bolt unexpectedly.

Punching the ON button, I boot up my computer. “Rise and shine, Zed. It’s show time.”

I sit back as the laptop runs through its morning routine without any complaint. The perfect companion. Someone who never talks back. Follows my every command.

Once Zed is up and running, I blaze through my ritual. Perform a few carpal tunnel stretches. Secure both wrist braces. And crack all ten knuckles... twice. Then I slip in my earbuds and jack up some Daft Punk. The louder, the better. My legs bounce to the beat, and adrenaline buzzes through my veins like data on a live wire. My nerves hum with anticipation.

As soon as the desktop pops up, I sign on to the satellite network with an encrypted password and return to my latest target: SocialNet. My fingers skip across my keyboard, adding a clicking beat to the music drumming in my ears. After editing my script for the umpteenth time, I hit and watch my creation. The program floats up my screen, disappearing into the cybersphere. Hopefully this will open the back door I need.

I started the SocialNet hack with another hacker a few months ago after suspecting the company was lying about their privacy terms. Rumor has it the company stores teen data and makes a ton of money selling it. This means a teen’s personal pictures, posts, and confidential profile information is up for grabs. Without teens knowing. All for a buck.

I would die if my information got it, so I wanna see if it’s true. And if it is, I need to shut it down. But after months of coding, I still can’t crack the stupid system. SocialNet is well protected, guarded by steel firewalls and an army of Geeks-on-Call.

Busting into the largest teen networking site in the world with a little laptop is like busting into Fort Knox with a wet firecracker. Nearly impossible.

Waiting, I tap my fingers on the table, hoping this program can find something interesting to make my day exciting.

Zed beeps two dirty words every hacker hates to see:

“Hmmm.” I bite my lip. “We’ll see about that.”

An alarm sounds off in the warehouse.

I race over to check the cameras.

A security guard strolls by camera three and stops in front of my door.

I freeze and hold my breath, waiting for his next move. Last thing I need is to get busted hacking.

About the Author

S.R. Johannes is the award-winning author of the Amazon bestselling Nature of Grace thriller series (Untraceable, Uncontrollable, and Unstoppable). She is a winner of the IndieReader Discovery Award in YA, an IPPY a Silver Medalist for YA Fiction, a Finalist in The Kindle Book Review’s Best Young Adult Fiction, and a Finalist in US Book News Best YA Book.

Since leaving Corporate America, she has followed her passion for writing and conservation by working with The Dolphin Project, the Atlanta Zoo, other animal rescue organizations, and by weaving conservation themes into her books.

Currently, she lives in Atlanta, GA with her English-accented husband and the huge imaginations of their prince and princess, which she hopes- someday- will change the world.

Find S.R. Johannes Online: Website | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads

Giveaway - Ends September 14

#bookish things #book blitz #cyberpunk #cyber thriller #september 2017 #YA Sci-Fi #YA books #YA lit

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readbookywooks · 7 years

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It was some time, however, before I consented to recognise that truth. Waking up in the morning after some hours of heavy, leaden sleep, and immediately realising all that had happened on the previous day, I was positively amazed at my last night's SENTIMENTALITY with Liza, at all those "outcries of horror and pity." "To think of having such an attack of womanish hysteria, pah!" I concluded. And what did I thrust my address upon her for? What if she comes? Let her come, though; it doesn't matter .... But OBVIOUSLY, that was not now the chief and the most important matter: I had to make haste and at all costs save my reputation in the eyes of Zverkov and Simonov as quickly as possible; that was the chief business. And I was so taken up that morning that I actually forgot all about Liza. First of all I had at once to repay what I had borrowed the day before from Simonov. I resolved on a desperate measure: to borrow fifteen roubles straight off from Anton Antonitch. As luck would have it he was in the best of humours that morning, and gave it to me at once, on the first asking. I was so delighted at this that, as I signed the IOU with a swaggering air, I told him casually that the night before "I had been keeping it up with some friends at the Hotel de Paris; we were giving a farewell party to a comrade, in fact, I might say a friend of my childhood, and you know - a desperate rake, fearfully spoilt - of course, he belongs to a good family, and has considerable means, a brilliant career; he is witty, charming, a regular Lovelace, you understand; we drank an extra 'half-dozen' and ..." And it went off all right; all this was uttered very easily, unconstrainedly and complacently. On reaching home I promptly wrote to Simonov. To this hour I am lost in admiration when I recall the truly gentlemanly, good-humoured, candid tone of my letter. With tact and goodbreeding, and, above all, entirely without superfluous words, I blamed myself for all that had happened. I defended myself, "if I really may be allowed to defend myself," by alleging that being utterly unaccustomed to wine, I had been intoxicated with the first glass, which I said, I had drunk before they arrived, while I was waiting for them at the Hotel de Paris between five and six o'clock. I begged Simonov's pardon especially; I asked him to convey my explanations to all the others, especially to Zverkov, whom "I seemed to remember as though in a dream" I had insulted. I added that I would have called upon all of them myself, but my head ached, and besides I had not the face to. I was particularly pleased with a certain lightness, almost carelessness (strictly within the bounds of politeness, however), which was apparent in my style, and better than any possible arguments, gave them at once to understand that I took rather an independent view of "all that unpleasantness last night"; that I was by no means so utterly crushed as you, my friends, probably imagine; but on the contrary, looked upon it as a gentleman serenely respecting himself should look upon it. "On a young hero's past no censure is cast!" "There is actually an aristocratic playfulness about it!" I thought admiringly, as I read over the letter. "And it's all because I am an intellectual and cultivated man! Another man in my place would not have known how to extricate himself, but here I have got out of it and am as jolly as ever again, and all because I am 'a cultivated and educated man of our day.' And, indeed, perhaps, everything was due to the wine yesterday. H'm!" ... No, it was not the wine. I did not drink anything at all between five and six when I was waiting for them. I had lied to Simonov; I had lied shamelessly; and indeed I wasn't ashamed now .... Hang it all though, the great thing was that I was rid of it. I put six roubles in the letter, sealed it up, and asked Apollon to take it to Simonov. When he learned that there was money in the letter, Apollon became more respectful and agreed to take it. Towards evening I went out for a walk. My head was still aching and giddy after yesterday. But as evening came on and the twilight grew denser, my impressions and, following them, my thoughts, grew more and more different and confused. Something was not dead within me, in the depths of my heart and conscience it would not die, and it showed itself in acute depression. For the most part I jostled my way through the most crowded business streets, along Myeshtchansky Street, along Sadovy Street and in Yusupov Garden. I always liked particularly sauntering along these streets in the dusk, just when there were crowds of working people of all sorts going home from their daily work, with faces looking cross with anxiety. What I liked was just that cheap bustle, that bare prose. On this occasion the jostling of the streets irritated me more than ever, I could not make out what was wrong with me, I could not find the clue, something seemed rising up continually in my soul, painfully, and refusing to be appeased. I returned home completely upset, it was just as though some crime were lying on my conscience. The thought that Liza was coming worried me continually. It seemed queer to me that of all my recollections of yesterday this tormented me, as it were, especially, as it were, quite separately. Everything else I had quite succeeded in forgetting by the evening; I dismissed it all and was still perfectly satisfied with my letter to Simonov. But on this point I was not satisfied at all. It was as though I were worried only by Liza. "What if she comes," I thought incessantly, "well, it doesn't matter, let her come! H'm! it's horrid that she should see, for instance, how I live. Yesterday I seemed such a hero to her, while now, h'm! It's horrid, though, that I have let myself go so, the room looks like a beggar's. And I brought myself to go out to dinner in such a suit! And my American leather sofa with the stuffing sticking out. And my dressing-gown, which will not cover me, such tatters, and she will see all this and she will see Apollon. That beast is certain to insult her. He will fasten upon her in order to be rude to me. And I, of course, shall be panic-stricken as usual, I shall begin bowing and scraping before her and pulling my dressing-gown round me, I shall begin smiling, telling lies. Oh, the beastliness! And it isn't the beastliness of it that matters most! There is something more important, more loathsome, viler! Yes, viler! And to put on that dishonest lying mask again! ..." When I reached that thought I fired up all at once. "Why dishonest? How dishonest? I was speaking sincerely last night. I remember there was real feeling in me, too. What I wanted was to excite an honourable feeling in her .... Her crying was a good thing, it will have a good effect." Yet I could not feel at ease. All that evening, even when I had come back home, even after nine o'clock, when I calculated that Liza could not possibly come, still she haunted me, and what was worse, she came back to my mind always in the same position. One moment out of all that had happened last night stood vividly before my imagination; the moment when I struck a match and saw her pale, distorted face, with its look of torture. And what a pitiful, what an unnatural, what a distorted smile she had at that moment! But I did not know then, that fifteen years later I should still in my imagination see Liza, always with the pitiful, distorted, inappropriate smile which was on her face at that minute. Next day I was ready again to look upon it all as nonsense, due to overexcited nerves, and, above all, as EXAGGERATED. I was always conscious of that weak point of mine, and sometimes very much afraid of it. "I exaggerate everything, that is where I go wrong," I repeated to myself every hour. But, however, "Liza will very likely come all the same," was the refrain with which all my reflections ended. I was so uneasy that I sometimes flew into a fury: "She'll come, she is certain to come!" I cried, running about the room, "if not today, she will come tomorrow; she'll find me out! The damnable romanticism of these pure hearts! Oh, the vileness - oh, the silliness - oh, the stupidity of these 'wretched sentimental souls!' Why, how fail to understand? How could one fail to understand? ..." But at this point I stopped short, and in great confusion, indeed. And how few, how few words, I thought, in passing, were needed; how little of the idyllic (and affectedly, bookishly, artificially idyllic too) had sufficed to turn a whole human life at once according to my will. That's virginity, to be sure! Freshness of soil! At times a thought occurred to me, to go to her, "to tell her all," and beg her not to come to me. But this thought stirred such wrath in me that I believed I should have crushed that "damned" Liza if she had chanced to be near me at the time. I should have insulted her, have spat at her, have turned her out, have struck her! One day passed, however, another and another; she did not come and I began to grow calmer. I felt particularly bold and cheerful after nine o'clock, I even sometimes began dreaming, and rather sweetly: I, for instance, became the salvation of Liza, simply through her coming to me and my talking to her .... I develop her, educate her. Finally, I notice that she loves me, loves me passionately. I pretend not to understand (I don't know, however, why I pretend, just for effect, perhaps). At last all confusion, transfigured, trembling and sobbing, she flings herself at my feet and says that I am her saviour, and that she loves me better than anything in the world. I am amazed, but .... "Liza," I say, "can you imagine that I have not noticed your love? I saw it all, I divined it, but I did not dare to approach you first, because I had an influence over you and was afraid that you would force yourself, from gratitude, to respond to my love, would try to rouse in your heart a feeling which was perhaps absent, and I did not wish that ... because it would be tyranny ... it would be indelicate (in short, I launch off at that point into European, inexplicably lofty subtleties a la George Sand), but now, now you are mine, you are my creation, you are pure, you are good, you are my noble wife. 'Into my house come bold and free, Its rightful mistress there to be'." Then we begin living together, go abroad and so on, and so on. In fact, in the end it seemed vulgar to me myself, and I began putting out my tongue at myself. Besides, they won't let her out, "the hussy!" I thought. They don't let them go out very readily, especially in the evening (for some reason I fancied she would come in the evening, and at seven o'clock precisely). Though she did say she was not altogether a slave there yet, and had certain rights; so, h'm! Damn it all, she will come, she is sure to come! It was a good thing, in fact, that Apollon distracted my attention at that time by his rudeness. He drove me beyond all patience! He was the bane of my life, the curse laid upon me by Providence. We had been squabbling continually for years, and I hated him. My God, how I hated him! I believe I had never hated anyone in my life as I hated him, especially at some moments. He was an elderly, dignified man, who worked part of his time as a tailor. But for some unknown reason he despised me beyond all measure, and looked down upon me insufferably. Though, indeed, he looked down upon everyone. Simply to glance at that flaxen, smoothly brushed head, at the tuft of hair he combed up on his forehead and oiled with sunflower oil, at that dignified mouth, compressed into the shape of the letter V, made one feel one was confronting a man who never doubted of himself. He was a pedant, to the most extreme point, the greatest pedant I had met on earth, and with that had a vanity only befitting Alexander of Macedon. He was in love with every button on his coat, every nail on his fingers - absolutely in love with them, and he looked it! In his behaviour to me he was a perfect tyrant, he spoke very little to me, and if he chanced to glance at me he gave me a firm, majestically selfconfident and invariably ironical look that drove me sometimes to fury. He did his work with the air of doing me the greatest favour, though he did scarcely anything for me, and did not, indeed, consider himself bound to do anything. There could be no doubt that he looked upon me as the greatest fool on earth, and that "he did not get rid of me" was simply that he could get wages from me every month. He consented to do nothing for me for seven roubles a month. Many sins should be forgiven me for what I suffered from him. My hatred reached such a point that sometimes his very step almost threw me into convulsions. What I loathed particularly was his lisp. His tongue must have been a little too long or something of that sort, for he continually lisped, and seemed to be very proud of it, imagining that it greatly added to his dignity. He spoke in a slow, measured tone, with his hands behind his back and his eyes fixed on the ground. He maddened me particularly when he read aloud the psalms to himself behind his partition. Many a battle I waged over that reading! But he was awfully fond of reading aloud in the evenings, in a slow, even, sing-song voice, as though over the dead. It is interesting that that is how he has ended: he hires himself out to read the psalms over the dead, and at the same time he kills rats and makes blacking. But at that time I could not get rid of him, it was as though he were chemically combined with my existence. Besides, nothing would have induced him to consent to leave me. I could not live in furnished lodgings: my lodging was my private solitude, my shell, my cave, in which I concealed myself from all mankind, and Apollon seemed to me, for some reason, an integral part of that flat, and for seven years I could not turn him away. To be two or three days behind with his wages, for instance, was impossible. He would have made such a fuss, I should not have known where to hide my head. But I was so exasperated with everyone during those days, that I made up my mind for some reason and with some object to PUNISH Apollon and not to pay him for a fortnight the wages that were owing him. I had for a long time - for the last two years - been intending to do this, simply in order to teach him not to give himself airs with me, and to show him that if I liked I could withhold his wages. I purposed to say nothing to him about it, and was purposely silent indeed, in order to score off his pride and force him to be the first to speak of his wages. Then I would take the seven roubles out of a drawer, show him I have the money put aside on purpose, but that I won't, I won't, I simply won't pay him his wages, I won't just because that is "what I wish," because "I am master, and it is for me to decide," because he has been disrespectful, because he has been rude; but if he were to ask respectfully I might be softened and give it to him, otherwise he might wait another fortnight, another three weeks, a whole month .... But angry as I was, yet he got the better of me. I could not hold out for four days. He began as he always did begin in such cases, for there had been such cases already, there had been attempts (and it may be observed I knew all this beforehand, I knew his nasty tactics by heart). He would begin by fixing upon me an exceedingly severe stare, keeping it up for several minutes at a time, particularly on meeting me or seeing me out of the house. If I held out and pretended not to notice these stares, he would, still in silence, proceed to further tortures. All at once, A PROPOS of nothing, he would walk softly and smoothly into my room, when I was pacing up and down or reading, stand at the door, one hand behind his back and one foot behind the other, and fix upon me a stare more than severe, utterly contemptuous. If I suddenly asked him what he wanted, he would make me no answer, but continue staring at me persistently for some seconds, then, with a peculiar compression of his lips and a most significant air, deliberately turn round and deliberately go back to his room. Two hours later he would come out again and again present himself before me in the same way. It had happened that in my fury I did not even ask him what he wanted, but simply raised my head sharply and imperiously and began staring back at him. So we stared at one another for two minutes; at last he turned with deliberation and dignity and went back again for two hours. If I were still not brought to reason by all this, but persisted in my revolt, he would suddenly begin sighing while he looked at me, long, deep sighs as though measuring by them the depths of my moral degradation, and, of course, it ended at last by his triumphing completely: I raged and shouted, but still was forced to do what he wanted. This time the usual staring manoeuvres had scarcely begun when I lost my temper and flew at him in a fury. I was irritated beyond endurance apart from him. "Stay," I cried, in a frenzy, as he was slowly and silently turning, with one hand behind his back, to go to his room. "Stay! Come back, come back, I tell you!" and I must have bawled so unnaturally, that he turned round and even looked at me with some wonder. However, he persisted in saying nothing, and that infuriated me. "How dare you come and look at me like that without being sent for? Answer!" After looking at me calmly for half a minute, he began turning round again. "Stay!" I roared, running up to him, "don't stir! There. Answer, now: what did you come in to look at?" "If you have any order to give me it's my duty to carry it out," he answered, after another silent pause, with a slow, measured lisp, raising his eyebrows and calmly twisting his head from one side to another, all this with exasperating composure. "That's not what I am asking you about, you torturer!" I shouted, turning crimson with anger. "I'll tell you why you came here myself: you see, I don't give you your wages, you are so proud you don't want to bow down and ask for it, and so you come to punish me with your stupid stares, to worry me and you have no sus-pic-ion how stupid it is-stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid! ..." He would have turned round again without a word, but I seized him. "Listen," I shouted to him. "Here's the money, do you see, here it is," (I took it out of the table drawer); "here's the seven roubles complete, but you are not going to have it, you ... are ... not ... going ... to ... have it until you come respectfully with bowed head to beg my pardon. Do you hear?" "That cannot be," he answered, with the most unnatural self-confidence. "It shall be so," I said, "I give you my word of honour, it shall be!" "And there's nothing for me to beg your pardon for," he went on, as though he had not noticed my exclamations at all. "Why, besides, you called me a 'torturer,' for which I can summon you at the police-station at any time for insulting behaviour." "Go, summon me," I roared, "go at once, this very minute, this very second! You are a torturer all the same! a torturer!" But he merely looked at me, then turned, and regardless of my loud calls to him, he walked to his room with an even step and without looking round. "If it had not been for Liza nothing of this would have happened," I decided inwardly. Then, after waiting a minute, I went myself behind his screen with a dignified and solemn air, though my heart was beating slowly and violently. "Apollon," I said quietly and emphatically, though I was breathless, "go at once without a minute's delay and fetch the police-officer." He had meanwhile settled himself at his table, put on his spectacles and taken up some sewing. But, hearing my order, he burst into a guffaw. "At once, go this minute! Go on, or else you can't imagine what will happen." "You are certainly out of your mind," he observed, without even raising his head, lisping as deliberately as ever and threading his needle. "Whoever heard of a man sending for the police against himself? And as for being frightened - you are upsetting yourself about nothing, for nothing will come of it." "Go!" I shrieked, clutching him by the shoulder. I felt I should strike him in a minute. But I did not notice the door from the passage softly and slowly open at that instant and a figure come in, stop short, and begin staring at us in perplexity I glanced, nearly swooned with shame, and rushed back to my room. There, clutching at my hair with both hands, I leaned my head against the wall and stood motionless in that position. Two minutes later I heard Apollon's deliberate footsteps. "There is some woman asking for you," he said, looking at me with peculiar severity. Then he stood aside and let in Liza. He would not go away, but stared at us sarcastically. "Go away, go away," I commanded in desperation. At that moment my clock began whirring and wheezing and struck seven.

#NotesfromUnderground

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