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shattersstar · 4 years

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pairing: jason todd x reader

summary: you and jason are f*ck buddies and you decide to get wine drunk while in the bath (inspired by this post)

warnings: semi nsfw (aka no actual smut but y’all do be talking about it..like a lot), drinking, fluff, brief injury mention, friends to lovers vibes

a/n: this is just over 4k and idek how that happened. anyways check out my resources tag before or after reading this and feedback is always appreciated.

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You appeared in the doorway, hipshot and a bottle of wine hung in one of your hands, fingers clutching the neck. The air was humid even from the entrance to the bathroom, the mirror fogged up and air thick. “Want me to turn on the fan?” You questioned from across the space, socked feet shifting through the threshold ever so slightly. You didn’t give a shit about the fan, not really, not when Jason was sitting in the bathtub a few feet away, naked and warm and he sent you a lazy smile. He shook his head no, chin jutting out in question, nodding towards the wine. “I was gonna get drunk on the couch and pass out here.”

“You aren’t going back to your place?”

“You want me to?” Another shuffle closer, bottle nudging your thigh as you moved.

“Do what you want.” He shrugged, water sloshing around him. You pulled your bottom lip between your teeth, as if debating your options. Of which there were three:

One, go back to your apartment, drink there if you wanted—you would—and deal with the arguing of your roommates who used to date.

Two, crash on his couch like you said and make him make you breakfast tomorrow. It was tempting.

And three, get in the tub with him and see where that takes you.

You knew where you wanted it to go, the same place most of your moments alone (or semi alone) lead too. It had become a steady occurrence for you two to casual fuck, even more so lately as you had been hiding out in Jason’s apartment. Your arguing roommates/exes had no problem dragging you into their fights, no matter what you were doing and often made you sleep on the couch so they could sleep in separate bedrooms. Jason had callously suggested telling them no, as if it was that easy. “It’s their place, and I’m sorta the reason they were sharing a bedroom in the first place.” You’d mutter, excuses falling from your lips until you’d crawl into his lap and apologize for staying over so often. He normally would just sigh and tell you it was fine. Part of him wanted to say more, to tell you he liked having you around, liked sharing his bed with you, liked everything about the crappy situation you found yourself in. But it was selfish and sentiment was always slow to rise through Jason’s chest, and slower to fall from his lips.

You hadn’t realized that a long moment had passed and the moisture in the air was starting to make your clothes stick to you. Your eyes fell back on him, his were closed, arms resting on either side of the tub. You traced his side profile with your gaze, skin shining with water, and the hair around the nape of his neck stuck to his skin as the bubble coated surface crept up his body with even the smallest shift of weight. You looked back to the rosé in your hand, shrugging small before crossing the space, kicking the door closed. It wasn’t for privacy—it wasn’t for anything you supposed. Jason lived alone, how he could afford it, you didn’t ask, and his neighbours were likely far accustomed to the private sounds you two shared that often leaked out from under doors and passed through walls. You blamed the hot body of water now a step away from you for the heat rising to your face.

You set the bottle down next to the tub, his eyes finally opening. The slam of the door didn’t disturb him, but the clink of glass against tile had him watching you. You didn’t say much as you straightened up, pulling off your socks, the shorts you found yourself in falling next. You yanked your t-shirt off, underwear the last thing to join the pile of clothes now dwelling on his bathroom floor. Jason’s eyes roamed over your body with a certain amount of casualness, it wasn’t hungry or flirtatious, it was just him taking you in like he had so many times before.

He still didn’t speak as you carefully dipped your foot into the hot water, finding the bottom of the tub and bringing your other leg over the side. He only bent his legs minimally, knees just poking out from under the water and caging each side of the tub. You didn’t object to the lack of space, you were invading his bath anyways. The water was almost painfully hot, shocking your system as you lowered yourself to sit across from him. The faucet prodded your back as you settled into the space, knees almost pulled to your chest. You let your hands sink next to you for a moment, before you were reaching over the side of the tub, soapy water rolling off your fingers as you plucked the bottle from where it sat. You had drank some of it earlier, sitting on the balcony and chatting idly with Jason. It was before the sun had set and you two had been sitting out there, before watching a documentary for one of your classes. You couldn’t remember how you ended up watching it with him, or why you were drinking beforehand, but all of that seemed far off now.

Far off as condensation rolled down the bottle, sweating in the humidity. You took a long, slow sip, the sweet, somewhat tart liquid slipping out the bottle and down your throat with ease. He was still watching you, head cocked slightly and gears in his brain turning. You could tell when he was reading you, thinking about aspects of you that you may never understand. His gaze was always a little intense, it sometimes made you squirm, and this was one of those moments. You pushed your shoulders back a little and held the bottle out between your two bodies. It was a little heavy, the rosé sagging into the bubbles. Jason breathed out a chuckle and took a sip of his own. He scowled ever so slightly, turning the label to face him and it was your turn to laugh.

“Stop buying cheap wine—it’s shit.” He huffed, although he did take another drink.

“I’ll stop buying cheap wine when I stop being broke.”

“Or I can give you money to buy something that doesn’t taste like depressed grapes.” You laughed again, although it was almost a scoff.

“First of all stop being a baby, this isn’t that bad and second of all I’m not gonna call you up every time I wanna buy liquor.” You explained, making grabby hands towards him. He handed you the wine with an eye roll.

“Why not?”

“What?”

“Half the time you drink it's here and I’m tired of having to drink whatever crappy stuff you buy.”

“I’m sorry my socioeconomic status offends you.” You teased, letting out a yelp when one of his hands wrapped around you shin and tugged your leg. He didn’t pull you under, only shifting you onto your tailbone before dragging your leg along the tile, draping it over his thigh.

“I just meant if you’re gonna get drunk here, drink whatever I have here instead of buying this dollar store shit.” He sighed, watching you grin from around the rim.

“I mean, I’m not one to deny free booze.”

“Of course you aren’t.”

“Hey,” You yanked the outstretched bottle back, pouting at him. “Still don’t appreciate you saying this stuff is shit though.”

“I’ll make it up to you later,” You raised a brow, it worked another eye roll out of him. “You get mouthy when you drink.” He sounded as exasperated as before, although there was a tinge of amusement in his voice. You only snorted, passing the wine to him. You spent some time just passing the bottle back and forth, sometimes talking or sometimes letting the soft sound of the water drift around your bodies. At some point you hadn’t taken the bottle back from him, shifting till your back pressed into the corner of the tub, faucet now jabbing your arm. You tilted your head back, bare chest rising and falling in slower breaths. Jason set the rosé onto the bathroom floor at some point, one of his hands searching under the water for the leg rested against his. Water rolled over his hands as his fingers wrapped around your ankle, giving it a gentle squeeze. Your eyes blinked open, your head looked heavy as you lifted it from against the slick walls.

“Just seeing if you’re awake.” He hummed, noting the way your other leg stretched out over him. You shifted forward slightly, feet planting on otherside of his body as you sank under the surface, back sliding against the tiles and knees bending. Your dunked your body under until your head bumped the bottom, a few seconds passed before you were sitting back up, now in the centre of the tub.

“I am now.” You smiled as water rolled down your face.

“You’re something else.” He declared, strong hands coming to rest on your knees and giving them a gentle pinch. Your eyes dropped to his left hand, a scar trailed from in between his thumb and index finger, curling down towards his wrist. It was long and sinewy, like a vine that staggered across his hand. There were small bruises and other scars one wouldn’t notice at first glance, but you had become accustomed to them. Used to watching his hands as they moved with a catlike sneakiness, always searching, always ready to tease. There had been more than one occasion when your own hand darted out to grasp his wrist without even looking at him. You could be eating at the mall or sitting in his car at a red light and his curious hands were always trailing towards you.

Sometimes you’d swat them away, with an indurated glare. And he’d reply with that stupid smirk, eyes glinting as if to say, do you really want me to stop? Most of the time the answer was no, but you couldn’t always give so easily into him, not when it was so fun not too.

Now though, his hands weren’t wandering, they stayed rested on you, warm and heavy. You liked something about this Jason, the tipsy, relaxed version of him you rarely saw. It was either sex or friends just hanging out, and this felt like something blurring both those lines. It was intimate and naked, but it was friendly and sweet. It made your mind swirl, but that also could be the alcohol slowly burning through your system. Something about all of the thoughts running and tripping over themselves in your head made a giggle bubble pass your lips, earning another squeeze.

“What?” He wondered as your shoulders shook.

“Just thinking about you doing this with other people—couldn’t imagine it.” You laughed, head shaking as he furrowed his brows at you.

“This? As in you inviting yourself—“

“Hey, hey, don’t get mean I meant it nicely.” You leaned forward, pressing a finger to his lips. He finally moved his hands from where they grounded you, slapping it away from his face playfully. “It’s nice that we get to do this—not many people can just sit around in baths with friends.” You explained better.

“But,” He licked his lips, straightened up slightly, as if the words would pull from his throat easier, “Why would you think I’d do it with other people?”

Oh.

You shrugged, “I dunno, guess I didn’t think I was the only person you were…” Suddenly any word to describe what you and Jason were left a bad taste in your mouth, fucking felt too vulgar, sex sounded too direct and making love was definitely not an option. “Doing whatever we're doing with?”

“Fantastic english.”

“Shut up, y’get what I mean.”

He only hummed in response, a look too thoughtful for the daze expression you wore fell over his face.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“Then why’re you looking at me like that?”

“It’s nothing.” You splashed a handful of water at him, letting out a head thrown back, almost shrieking sort of laugh at the unamused expression on his face. “Seriously?”

“C’mon tell me.” You whined, laughter dying down.

“Fine. C’mere,” His voice was all low and caramel—warm and sweet—as he beckoned you to him. You didn’t even hesitate, moving closer and letting him pull you into his lap, knees pressing to the floor of the bath and upper half rising out of the water before he sat you on his thighs. Goosebumps rippled your skin as the air—cooler now—rolled over your skin before you sank back into the water. Your bare chest brushed his, the water flowing between your two bodies and rising as he pulled you close. One of his hands stayed on the side of your thigh, the other trailed up your arm, setting on the side of your neck, thumb coming up to rest on your jaw. Your arms were wrapped around the broad expanse of his shoulders, one of your hands rested on the nape of his neck, fingers toying with the wet hairs there.

“I was thinking that why would I wanna fuck anyone else when I have you?” He admitted, a confessional spoken so casually, that you knew the wine had affected him at least somewhat. Sometimes it was hard to tell, but from the soft touches to tender confessions, it was easy to pinpoint where your rugged and reserved Jason tapered off into a muted version of himself. Like all the parts he kept hidden, too kind for the world he lived in, for the person he had become suddenly seeped out and it made you feel boneless and a little lovesick around him.

“That’s probably because your fucking me every waking minute.” You teased despite the dopey smile you wore, forehead resting on his.

“I’m not right now.”

A beat.

“You could.” Your voice was distant, like you were indifferent about the suggestion, because you were.

“Is that why you didn’t wanna leave?” He was so full of questions you realized as well. It seemed most days he knew what you were going to do before you did it, that he could read you like a book—not that you made it particularly hard anyways. And yet, a little drunk and sleepy underneath you, Jason didn’t seem interested in higher thinking, letting the questions and whatever else fall from his mouth with little care where they landed.

You pulled back a little, watching him, “I mean that’s always a benefit about being here,” You explained, feeling the laugh he let out more than hearing it, “But I dunno, you said it earlier I’m here a lot and there’s like no stressors here.”

“Ah—forgot about your roommates.”

“Yeah, plus I was gonna ask you to make my breakfast if I did get drunk and pass out on the couch like planned.” Your admission was lighthearted, but you felt his hand on your thigh tighten, just slightly.

“I wouldn’t have let you sleep on the couch.” He muttered, the hand on your neck sliding to cradle your jaw, your stomach twisting in the way only he could manage, “Not when you look so good in my bed.”

A chill ran up your spine, leave it to Jason to leave you breathless no matter what state he was in. You let your gaze fall to the space between your bodies, that was until he tilted your chin up and brought your lips to his. He was grinning into the kiss, the hand on your thigh now on the curve of your spine, pressing over so gentle into the wet skin. You let your eyes fall closed as he continued to kiss you, arms wrapping further around him as he brought you closer, the slightest pressure on your back and you shifted against him with ease. Soon your chests were flush, rising and falling in tandem. Jason mumbled something you did quite catch, his arms hugging around your frame, keeping you against him as he sank deeper into the bath, his head coming to rest on the edge and stretching out as best he could in the small space. You rested your head in the crook of his neck, water just at your chin now. His hands splayed on your back, fingers traced idly shapes as you let the tiredness that he pulled you from tug at the corners of your mind again.

You weren’t sure if you had fallen asleep, or just focused on the sound of his breathing and the soft patterns he drew against your skin, but you do remember coming back to reality as he carefully sat back up after some time. He made sure to pull you up with him, maneuvering you with ease. Soon your back was to his chest, his chin resting atop your head and his encircled you once again, hands clasping over yours against your middle. You adjusted yourself against his chest, relaxing your weight into him and detangling the mess of hands that rested in front of you so you could hold one of Jason’s. He obliged easily, his left hand intertwining with yours, his right forearm residing just under your chest and keeping you close, and likely upright. You didn’t mind the contact, the pressure of him against you in the slightest. It was different from what you were used to, and yet you welcomed it all the rest.

Once again you let the edges of your consciousness taper off, fading into something distant and calming. You definitely fell asleep that time, as you rouse when a hand lightly lightly squeezed your chest, his palm sliding from the soft skin to your neck, tilting your head out of the way as his lips moved from the nape of your neck to your shoulder. His tongue slid over the damp skin, biting into it when you nearly dozed back off. “We fell asleep.” He breathed against the side of your neck, kisses peppered there were followed by another softer, lazier bite.

“We?” You groaned, tone groggy.

“Is there anyone else here?” You only shook your head, not aware enough to pick up on the sarcasm. The lips moving against your skin didn’t help either, not when he moved your head to rest on his collarbone, lips finding yours. He wasted no time licking his way past your lips, tongue dragging across yours, exploring the inside of your mouth. He pulled away to twist you in his lap, kissing you hard once again. If you weren’t delirious from sleep, it definitely was because of him now. His tongue swiped the roof of your mouth and ran along the blunt edge of your teeth. The hand he used to adjust you so pilantly to his liking now rested against the column of your throat, flexing when you sighed against his lips. It was breathy and needy and you were too tired and still a little drunk to care.

“Water’s cold.” You found yourself saying as his lips pressed into the corner of your mouth.

“It is.” He agreed, biting into your bottom lip you barely noticed was pouting. “You’re such a tired little thing.”

“Kinda drunk too.”

“I can tell.”

“Ouch.” You were beaming despite your words, blinking up at him, nose judging his jaw. He was warmer than the water which made your bones feel heavy, all the airy suds now vanished. “What time is it?”

“How would I know?” You picked up on his tone then, pulling your brows together until he exhaled a chuckle against the juncture where your neck met your shoulder. He buried his face in there, seeking out warmth as well. “Can you get up?”

“Yeah.”

“Good, c’mon I wanna go to bed.” Despite his words the hand that crossed your body, now fallen to you solar plexus stayed unmoved and he kept breathing you in. You had no objections to staying here, despite the goosebumps riddling your skin and the shiver building in the base of your spine. After a loud inhale, your body rising with the expansion of his broad chest he pulled away from you, ushering you forward slightly. You scrubbed a hand over your face, trying to focus on the task at hand: getting up. You went to gather your legs underneath you, one hand resting on the outer edge of the tub when Jason rose from behind you. Water dripped off his body and fell onto you as you dumbly sat in the bath water. “Why’d you say you could get up?” He asked, wrapping a towel around his waist before moving back to you.

You frowned up at him, “I can.”

“Then why haven’t you?”

“It’s been like four seconds!” You exclaimed, only earning a click of his tongue before he bent over to haul you out of the water. You stepped over the side with ease, his strong hands gripping the sides of your arm, one coming to wrap around the curve of your elbow as you stood up straight. Once you were steady enough he passed you a towel, which you quickly pulled around your body. You let a shudder wrack your body, and without much of a word he was pulling you against him. You greedily obliged, hands wrapped around his frame, fingers spread on his naked back. “What did you say earlier?”

“I said a lot of things, whic—“

“Something about me drinking.”

“That you get mouthy?”

“Yeah, yeah that. Y’know what you get?” You looked up at him, chin resting on his chest.

“What?”

“Touchy.”

“Touchy?” He echoed.

“Yeah, I mean you kinda always are, but s’not like this.” He didn’t respond, eyes drifting from your face. Maybe you got intuitive when you were drunk too. “I like this though.”

“You do?”

“Mmhm, s’nice.” Your words blended together as you let Jason lean over and press a kiss to your forehead. You let yours eyes fall closed, resting most of your weight against him.

“Hey you better not fall asleep, I’m not carrying you to bed.”

“Ever the romantic.” You pulled yourself from him, about to turn around and gather your clothes from the floor, but Jason’s hand wrapped around yours and was tugging you out of the bathroom. “Wait—m’clothes—“

“Leave them.” He called over his shoulder, leading you towards his bedroom and softly pushing you to sit on his bed. He left you for a moment, heading to drain the bath you supposed. After a moment he passed by the bedroom door, wine bottle in hand. You could hear the sound of it hitting the recycling bin before he reappeared. Jason looked a little unimpressed when he found you still sitting there. “You can get in bed y’know.”

“And sleep in a wet towel?”

“Or in nothing.” He shrugged, your ears suddenly hot as he stood between your legs, both hands cupping your face. “Don’t wanna have to work to fuck you in the morning.”

You opened and closed your mouth twice before nodding at his words, “Should’ve led with that.”

“Duly noted, now go to sleep.” He kissed you again, lips pressing firm to yours. You and Jason weren’t really the kissing type, sure you’d make out with him on occasion, but it felt too intimate for what you two had become. It was more of an unspoken rule, and it sometimes happened, but never outside the confines of sex. And he was promising to fuck you come morning, but now wasn’t morning and he was kissing you—another side effect from the rosé, you distantly assumed—and it felt right.

He pulled away when your head started to lull back, as if it was too heavy for your neck to support. You let him untuck the towel and slip it from your body. Parts of you were still damp from the bath, but you didn’t care as you slipped under his duvet, hauling it to your ears and sinking into one of his pillows. You were sure you were asleep before you finished rolling onto your side, the heavy fog of exhaustion, liquor and a calm night lulling you to sleep. You didn’t even rouse as Jason joined you, thumb brushing away a stray droplet that drifted from your hairline down your cheek bone. He kissed your forehead once again, letting the rarity of an easy sleep wash over him as well.

#teehee wine drunk jason is here #i hope yall like it 🙈🙈#also i was listening to father john misty when i wrote this...can u tell #jason todd x reader #jason todd imagine #red hood x reader #red hood imagine #dc x reader #dc imagine #writing

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twilightprince101 · 3 years

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That's right, we got TWO Bugsnax OCs!! This fandom/game has lots of potential for stuff and has really been bringing out my creative juices! So allow me to introduce to you Gramble Gigglefunny's punk ex-childhood friend, Skatey Skitterlock!

Skatey and Gramble used to live in the same neighborhood when they were younger. Because of her personal life and being exposed to the world from a young age she's always been the rebellious type. She fights for the right stuff and does her research, but tends to do it in a more... direct manner, as she sees that as the most efficient way of getting her point across.

She and Gramble were reasonably close back when they were kids, Skatey helping bring out his more adventurous side, but after accidentally landing him in hot water with his family the two fell apart. Now, after years of being on her own, she finds out that Gramble accepted an invitation to Snaktooth, and decided to try and follow him to make amends and reconnect.

Once again below is an interview following a layout prompt from @cosmicheartz, so go check them out and feel free to shoot an ask if you're interested! I'm hoping to do more with her in the future!

Who are you? Name’s Skatey Skitterlock. I’m uh, a lead protest activist.

( What kind of things do you protest for? ) Oh you know: preventing the hoarding of cash, homeless’ rights for living, ensuring corporate fuzzhats stay in their lane, the usual.

( Does that bat have anything to do with the ‘protest?’ ) What can I say? Grumps are a lot more willing to listen with a bit of ‘encouragement~’

Why come to Snacktooth island? I’m sure you’ve met Gramble by now? You know, smaller guy, lives in the barn, a little too into the walking food? Him and I actually go back a bit. We fell out of touch a while ago, so when I heard he was going to this little island getaway, I decided to tag along to catch up!

( Gramble never mentioned you when saying why he came. ) He didn’t…? Well, my decision to come along was a bit last minute, I did come in one of the later boats when the island had open invites. He was caught a bit off guard when I first showed up, but we’re, somewhat cool now.

( Why did you and Gramble stop talking? ) ...look I know this is just how you do things, that this is your job, but I’d appreciate it if you stopped while you’re ahead, alright? I think you’re smart. Don’t prove me wrong, for your own sake.

Thoughts on bugsnax? They’re… okay I’m just going to be frank with you: I think they’re weird and I don’t like them. I hate how they skitter around, it’s freaky how they talk without mouths and the whole transforming thing is just… Eugh. Shelda had the right idea trying to ward people away from them, I don’t understand why anyone would want to eat them, much less treat them like pets.

( Aren’t Bugsnax the only food source here? ) Not entirely. There’s some actual fish farther out in the ocean if you look hard enough, plus the sauce that Wambus grows. It’s actually how Gramble and I manage to stay alive on this grump-forsaken island. Troubleham and I even have an agreement: hang out around his crop to scare off Snax, then Gramble and I get first sauce pickings.

( Bugsnax are scared of you? ) Bash an entire population of white strabbys into mush and I think anyone would be.

Why did you leave town? I left soon after Gramble did. After the whole incident with Wabus I knew he’d probably need someone watching his back. Especially when I realized that Wiggle tagged along.

( What’s up with Wiggle? ) To give an extremely condensed version, I’ve noticed how she eyes Gramble’s pets. As much as I’m against the whole thing Gramble has going on, they’re important to him. Gotta give him some space to work though stuff, and that means keeping them out of that has-been’s maw.

( What stuff is he working through? ) *Quiet growls, alongside the patting of a metal pat.*

Any info on Lizbert? Peh, Liz. Honestly I don’t know what the other grumps decided to follow her here. I’ve met people like her in my business, and trust me when I say, she just brought everyone out here to make herself feel better.

( What makes you think that? ) Well let’s consider the facts here: She recently got labeled a fraud from her Grumplantis debacle, she drags pathetically weak grumps to an island where nobody has come back from, and--despite the fact it could’ve made things easier for everyone--she never bothered teaching anyone else how to catch Bugsnax. Do I need to spell it out for you?

( I do need your opinion on the record actually… ) Sigh. She put herself as the only food source on this entire island, making everyone here depend on her. All Lizbert did was create a problem only she could solve. Why do you think everything fell apart the moment she vanished? She’s no brave adventurer, she’s just another dime-a-dozen big shot looking to stroke their own ego, nothing more.

( What do you think happened to her? ) I overheard Cromdo talking about how Lizbert might’ve stolen the boat and dragged Eggabell along. As much as he annoys me, I don’t think he’s too far off. From my experience, when people in power are put under pressure from those below them, their first instinct is to turn tail and run, even if it means selling out the people you claim to care about. I don’t know when we’ll see those two again, but I promise that when I do, it won’t just be her tusks being broken.

That’s all my questions Skatey, you can put down the bat now. Yeah yeah, I get it, I’m not the nicest Grump in town. But honestly, somebody on this island needs to hold those two accountable. What Lizbert did was immature and really hurt people here, her own friend probably the most. The poor guy really idolized her and does nothing but try and care for others, then the minute things turn south she abandons him!

I respect Filbo's attempts to keep everyone together, but after trying to chase after Liz for so long he barely sees anything in himself. Somebody needs to be angry on his half, so it might as well be me. It's the least I can do for him.

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periminkle · 4 years

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Orphic | 01

After moving into your own place, it seems life is finally going your way; the path to independence leading you to a quaint suburban town where even the grass seems to grow a little greener. Although a shocking encounter leads you to believe that perhaps appearances can be quite deceiving.

pairing: hybrid!jk x reader (first person)

genre: hybrid au, angst, fluff

word count: 7.3k (includes slightly edited version of preview!)

rating: PG-15

warnings: mentions of blood, swearing, scuffle, not nice people >:(

author’s note: the first chap! thanks so much for all the love for the preview and pls let me know if you enjoyed it bc i have even more of a praise kink than our king jimin :) i don’t wanna know if u hated it lmao get outta herE

→ previous | next

“Almost there... And... Done!”

I heaved the last of the sturdy boxes into the narrow doorway, pride bubbling at my unexpected strength. Droplets of salty perspiration were beginning to form at my temples and became increasingly uncomfortable the longer I stood there.

But, with a litter of obnoxiously brown boxes blocking the route into my recently purchased home, I had no way of setting foot past the minimal space by the doorway. “Shit.”

Spontaneously deciding that enough energy had been exerted for the day, evident by the shroud of darkness out the expansive windows, a few steps took me back out the front door. I followed the chipped white timber of the sides of my house, heading towards the back entrance.

Even though the plot was relatively large in size, the cottage built upon the land was minuscule; a single floor encompassing a kitchen, living room, hallway, bedroom and bathroom.

With that being said, the rest of the expanse was mine to revel in and admire. Hence the lack of fence encompassing my area, seeing as the forest bled its way into my recently mowed lawn anyhow.

The bulk of the towering woodland was hidden in a blanket of obscurity, brought about by the later hours that subtly induced unease. Those late night horror movie marathons only worsened the unrest in my mind.

I tried to dispel the disquietude with thoughts of the methodic chirping, courtesy of the tiny orchestra of crickets that seemed to be scattered in every which direction. The smell of the damp earth invaded my senses and relaxed my shoulders a fraction.

Albeit, the crunch of dead leaves being trampled under a heavy weight belonging to an unknown being unsettled me enough to break into a scurry along my wooden porch.

With a slight shiver slipping down my spine, I shook any solicitude off and slid open the unlocked door. I was greeted by the cool air conditioning of the indoors, as well as a telltale grumble from my own drained form.

I preheated a batch of leftovers that I’d thankfully packed from my family’s house, foreseeing how debilitating the move would be. Without regard to the lamentable furniture surrounding me, I plonked down on a creaky seat and felt my depleted energy stored slowly being refilled with each bite.

Even though my furnishings and house were humble, regret had no place in my mind for the difficult decision I’d made to pack up and leave my childhood home. Over there, the lights never flickered and scuffled furniture simply didn’t exist, with even the moldings on the walls lacking even a speck of dust.

But I witnessed, lived, through the monstrosities that lay beyond all those superficial aspects. The suffocating nature, not in the air that circulated around the place, but in the individuals with no respect for one another. My tolerance thinned over the years and I’d left the second I could.

Living in a secluded area of my tiny town had its own perks for my antisocial self — one of which being an absurd amount of land for a relatively cheap price — but the appeal of living in a bustling city wasn’t lost on me.

For reasons excluding my relatives, I was simply tired of having lived in a city my whole life and desired some form of change, meeting new mindsets and developing my own.

Before I’d even properly settled in, I’d been convinced that moving out here had been a brilliant decision. Saving up for a couple years to be able to rent out a cozy cottage with a stunning forest as my backyard was turning out to be my haven.

Albeit, the pesky bugs were certainly not a part of that bliss.

I detached myself from the distant thoughts about my life hundreds of miles away and focused on the scenery across from me, better able to observe the breathtaking quality of the tenebrous forest from the safety of my new home. The sylvan scent penetrated my home, having closed only the window screen behind me when I entered.

Hearing the weak mewl of some kind of feline peaked my curiosity, wondering if a neighbour’s cat had taken a long journey and gotten themselves lost. I picked up the slow movement slinking among the bramble that connected my backyard to the thick timberland.

The light from my lamps only extended so far and unluckily, I was unable to properly identify the animal staggering towards my back porch. My heart ached, thinking that this poor animal must be starving and in need of help.

An apparent limp in its movements tugged at the last of my heartstrings. My fridge was stocked full, being one of my top priorities when I moved in; so food wasn’t a problem right now. Deciding it would be nice to make a new friend, I gathered my own bowl and headed outside.

The sliding of the window screen startled the pitiful creature, making a hasty retreat in the form of a hobble to find refuge in the foliage, hiding and waiting for my next move. I let out a small smile, hoping to appear as friendly as possible as I slowly stepped out into the chilly night air once again.

“Hey buddy, what’re you doing out here?” I crouched down and laid the bowl on the floor. “It’s kinda cold out, hm?”

Not even the twitch of a leaf.

“Are you hungry?”

I was met once again with no reaction. Deflated yet understanding in the lack of trust, I pushed myself back up, grabbing the bowl. As I stepped towards the door though, I heard it again.

Mew.

With a quiet giggle, I turned back, winked at the still-hidden creature and stepped inside, sliding the door closed. The night was silent, save for the trill of the crickets reaching their own encore for the night when the door abruptly opened once again.

“You like tuna, bud?” A smaller plate with canned tuna, out of the can but still in its cylindrical shape was placed on the last step of the porch. “Thought you might like that more than leftovers, huh?”

Although the same lack of response took place, I wasn’t deterred this time, smiling one last time into the darkness. “Enjoy it, but not too much okay? Go back to your owner’s house after this.” I let a shiver run through my body from the cold nipping my bare skin before ambling back inside to finish off my own dinner.

Despite my words, I did hope the kitty would come visit again.

I felt yet another ache pulse through my stiff back. The absence of a proper bed to sleep in at night was duly noted and the task of assembling my bed frame was bumped up higher on my to-do list for the day. Another night of cuddling up on the freezing, rigid floor with only a flimsy sheet to cushion my restless body might strip a decade out of my life expectancy.

A feeble attempt to flatten out my wrinkled button up — that I painstakingly ironed the day before — proved as fruitless as the dozen other times I tried smoothing it out just this morning. I brushed the imaginary dust off my modest pencil skirt while I was at it, resigning to my rumpled fate.

Groaning, I swiftly nabbed a granola bar and a pre-made sandwich I’d filled with tuna, inspired by the incident with the hidden feline last night. Despite the gruelling urge within me to check for possible remainders on the porch step, the blinking light from the oven clock pushed me down the slender hall and back to my barricaded doorway,

I squawked in recollection, pushing at the hefty boxes in a flurry. Eventually, I created a tunnel which I crawled through, slipping some sneakers on before stumbling out to the bus stop. When I recalled that the closest stop was a five minute walk, time being a luxury I couldn’t afford right now, I broke into a sprint.

With heaving lungs, I reached the little blue shelter just as the bulky vehicle rounded the corner. A few steps, the tap of a card, the beep of the completed transaction, and a huff brought me on to an austere seat.

The same shade of prosaic blue within the bus itself led my eyes to the view beyond the dirty windows, marvelling at the vibrant greens and bright earthy tones that blocked any view of the sky.

Fifteen minutes condensed into seconds, my mind racing with the new possibilities and experiences this town would bring me. Even the prospect of the shy kitty returning again tonight prompted a brief smile.

Dismounting from the stifling vehicle, I took a moment to adjust to the blinding white shade of the laboratory; I pursed my lips in determination. Hoping to appear graceful with long strides, I made my way to the entrance, pulling open the heavy door with a click. A receptionist came into view.

She could barely be seen over the lengthy, curved desk, only the top of her coiffed strands on the crown of her head peaking through. As I approached, I took in her excessively teased hair and big brown eyes, accented with thick, black liner.

Clasping both hands together in a bundle of chilly nerves, I patiently waited for the tapping of the keyboard to cease before she turned one heavily shadowed lid towards me. “Hello, welcome to the Test Centre of Enriched Mutagens, how can I help you today?”

Only slightly intimidated, I fumbled with my fingers out of sight. “Uh, hi there. I recently got hired as a lab attendant here.” Cursing my distinctly timid tone I continued, “I was instructed to ask for a Kim Seokjin?”

A stiff nod and more typing was my only reply. Orbs remaining trained on the monitor in front of her as the lady picked up the receiver, punched some numbers in a rapid succession, then situated the phone between her right shoulder and ear. The fervent tapping continued.

I wondered what she was typing up that was so important.

“Yes, she’s here director,” she quipped. My gaze lodged itself onto her name tag, framed by her strawberry blonde locks. Bae Eunmi. “Of course, I’ll send her up.”

The receiver clicked in place as she nodded her head towards the left. After a couple seconds passed with no further acknowledgement, I became increasingly aware that the short interaction was all I was going to get out of the curt woman, trekking over to the elevator she had indicated earlier.

With only two floors to the laboratory, the trip wasn’t long enough to grant me time to compose myself from the abrupt conversation I experienced before I was met with a long hallway, ending with a sturdy door that had a slit above the bulky handle for a keycard.

Seeing as I had not received any sort of card, I peered around at the nameplates drilled beside the other wooden doors. This floor ominously had no windows, a dingy, low lamp the only source of light that allowed me to decipher the engravings.

I passed a few flashy titles before I reached Assistant Director Kim Seokjin.

With a deceivingly confident knock and a shaky inhale I picked up a faint, “come in.”

A rather spacious office was revealed as I pulled open the heavy wood — shelves filled with packed binders, loose papers scattered across the desk with a thin monitor practically concealed under neon coloured sticky notes. Even the two chairs tucked away in the corner had a teetering stack of paperwork on each seat.

I took a step inside the chaotic space and bowed to the man whose sunken eyes flickered to my own. “Hi, sorry to disturb you. My name is Y/N and we talked on the phone last week. I’m the new research attendant.”

He flashed me a kind smile through his exhaustion, his evidently dull features proof of a long night. Considering the sheer amount of paper work in his office, I wasn’t sure a good night’s rest was ever on this man’s schedule.

“Ah, yes, you came down from the city, correct?” I nodded in confirmation, glad he remembered our previous conversation. “My apologies that the director couldn’t meet you himself, but you’ll get to see my handsome face instead,” he chuckled, sounding faintly similar to a windshield wiper. “I’m Kim Seokjin, the assistant director, but you can just call me Jin, everyone here does.”

I felt my tense body slacken at his warmth and bright disposition despite his arduous workload. Unconsciously, I suspected the whole staff may be terse and unwelcoming, though I was thankful that I was pleasantly mistaken. In my comfort, a chortle escaped my lips. “Alright then, Jin, a pleasure to meet you.”

“Of course it is,” he exclaimed with a jesting harrumph. “So, how are you liking this lonely town so far?”

Taking a few steps closer I responded honestly. “Even though the loneliness hasn’t hit me yet, I feel like I can finally breathe here. The city was a bit much sometimes.”

Humming in an understanding tone, I watched him rise from his plush chair, plucking one of the many binders out of the shelf and placing it on top of the mountain of papers on his desk. “That’s a good mentality, you know? I hope you can always find the silver lining in any situation you’re thrown into.”

Jin grips one of the many contracts laid within and slides it over to me with a pen. “Sign each highlight please.”

As I read over all the nitty gritty details, the man across from me continued, “I really hope you can be as resilient as we need you to be, Y/N. I know it’s tough work, but I just have a good feeling about you.”

Not paying much mind to Jin’s ramblings I easily agreed and handed the completed contract back.

“Well, come on then, I’ll introduce you to the people you’ll be working with.”

I accompanied Jin back out his office and down the hall, past yet another sturdy wooden door. The strong, pungent scent of coffee assaulted my nose, confirming the new space I’d entered was the break room; two male employees lounging around and sipping on their steaming mugs.

“You finally came out of that office Jin?” A tall man leaning against one of the tables called out first, grinning with his dimples on full display. “I never thought I’d see the day.”

“Yeah, well, it seems like I’m the only one doing work around here anymore.” He jested, a playful smirk attached to his handsome visage.

“You can’t blame us, you know Hyunho and Minzi would never let us breathe the same air as their ‘confidential project.’ Wouldn’t want our ‘inexperienced hands’ ruining the whole thing.” The other man in the room rolled his eyes, taking another sip of the bitter liquid in his cup.

“We’re not getting into this again, you two.” Seokjin gave a stern look, any lighthearted air in the room dissipating along with his remark. He glanced back at me, nudging me forward with a tap to my shoulder. “This is the new lab attendant, Y/N.”

Although the sharp-eyed man spared a sympathetic glance my way he backfired with, “yeah, the third one this month.”

“Yoongi, I said that’s enough.” Although Seokjin’s words were strict and clipped, the palm rubbing over his face displayed his fatigue.

“I just don’t understand why we can’t even have access to the files, I mean we are researchers too, this is complete bullshi—”

“Y/N, I’ll be heading back to my office to finish up some paperwork, alright? These two can show you ropes.” The assistant director turned in my direction, the corners of his lips twitching upwards ever so slightly before trudging back to his office.

The shorter man slammed his mug down on the shabby table with a low, “goddamnit.”

“Honestly, I think this little guy is the best part of the whole place.” The dimpled man who had introduced himself as Kim Namjoon flashed his dimples, attempting to overcompensate for his gloomy partner, Min Yoongi.

The two had been working as lab assistants here for a few years now and despite the seniority, Namjoon insisted on maintaining a first name basis with both him and Yoongi. He also offered a tour, which I graciously accepted.

“A jaguar?”

“A baby jaguar.” The sprawled sleeping form of a pitch black feline met my eyes. “He was brought in about three months ago. His name is Taemin.” I carefully approached the cage, maintaining a safe distance as a general precaution despite his lack of consciousness.

Rather than providing comfort, I found that the muzzle locked around his jaws unsettled me further, which I found oddly paradoxical. I guess my designated tour guide picked up on my discomfort when he voiced, “he’s docile enough to us, but if Hyunho or any of his lackeys come by, he can get real aggressive.”

This was the second time that name popped up into the conversation and I quelled my blazing curiosity, dispelling any urges to question Namjoon about the mysterious figure. With the negative context his name was brought up with and the dark, brooding look Yoongi wore, I decided it was best not to prod, for my own sake as well.

I was brought back to reality when the animal in front of me shifted slightly. Despite my reluctancy to become attached, I couldn’t help but coo when a stretch wracked his small form, turning over in his sleep.

Although I had done my share of research into this laboratory before applying to the position and was cognizant that they didn’t harm any of their subjects — I knew Taemin’s life wasn’t in any danger, but he would be gone once all his testing was complete. I refused to get too emotionally attached in order to avoid future heartache.

I noticed his head cuddling deeper into his plush bed and knew my plan was futile. “You think he would like me?”

Namjoon let out a hum in thought, “I’m not too sure. You can try petting him if you want, just make sure to let him sniff you first.”

Slowly unlocking the cage, I extended my hand towards the muzzle, waiting with bated breath. The still sleeping animal brought up its head and placed his cheek in my cupped hand, letting loose a faint purr that I felt traveling up my palm. I stroked the edge of his jaw that wasn’t covered by the muzzle.

Oh no.

It was too late, Taemin owned every inch of my heart.

Gently placing his head back down onto his fluffy bed, my hand made a swift retreat as I flicked the lock back in place. I hoped I would be able to see more of the baby in the future.

Standing back up to face Namjoon I reluctantly tore my gaze away from the angel behind bars. Pondering when we would head to the second floor after having examined every speck of dust in the first floor, I voiced my thoughts to the lanky man. “So, are we heading back up now?”

A sigh met my ears and I turned to look at the brooding culprit who hadn’t opened his mouth since the tense interaction with Seokjin, simply tagging along the tour that Namjoon narrated. “We can’t introduce you to anything you haven’t already seen upstairs.” When he met my confused orbs he continued, “we can only enter the break room and Jin’s office up there, everything else is off limits.”

“Oh, um... I don’t mean to sound rude, especially since this is my first day and everything, but the equipment down here seem pretty... Insufficient for quality resear-” I stuttered out my concerns.

“Don’t you think we know that? Why do you think we go through lab attendants so quickly? Nobody wants to stay in a place that doesn’t have the proper equipment to perform any kind of substantial research. Not to mention neither of the head researchers trust us enough to even look at the stupid files.”

Namjoon piped in, probably sensing how heated the other man was getting. “We mainly just note the patterns in the bases of a variety of animals’ DNA that involve certain genes.”

“Not to say that’s not effective research, but scientists with your qualifications usually investigate more ground-breaking subjects.” I became a bit dejected at my own future here; I applied for a job here to further my ambitions, knowing this lab was well-known for its high quality studies.

Would I be forced to move back to the city? I couldn’t tuck tail and scutter home after all the effort and money I expended on this move, not to mention the disastrous situation I would be faced with if I returned now. No, I was desperate to find a reason to stick it out. “Why do you two stay here then? Why not just find another lab?”

“It wasn’t always like this, Y/N. It’s been over half a year now since the new management came in and basically brought in a whole new set of personnel with them. They took all the most expensive equipment upstairs and sealed it behind a locked door.”

“They even replaced the damned cleaning staff.” Yoongi scoffed out, painstakingly fed up with the circumstances.

Namjoon crossed his arms, giving a warning look over to man with bleached locks, probably in order to keep his anger from bleeding through for the second time today. “They were adamant about keeping Jin and he let us stick around, couldn’t leave this lab in the hands of complete strangers.”

“But why—”

My wrist was suddenly enclosed in Yoongi’s long, thin fingers, dragging me into the assistant researcher’s office they had familiarized me with half an hour ago. I saw Namjoon glance around before entering in after us and closing the door behind him.

Yoongi released his grip on me, leaning in close and hissing out, “it’s all some cryptic confidentiality bullshit. They’re doing something up there, something revolutionary, something dangerous, and they only trust their own people to keep quiet.”

With a hum, slightly intimidated, I questioned, “okay, but why did they evacuate the whole place, why not just build another lab and—”

Namjoon leant against the door, lowering his voice as well. “This is a remote town, there won’t be many people to question and investigate what they’re studying all the way out here.”

With many overwhelming thoughts raging, the locked door upstairs abruptly came to mind. “You don’t have the keycard either, I’m guessing.”

“You pick things up pretty quick, huh?”

After the draining events at work, I felt no motivation to peel off my thoroughly wrinkled items of clothing, having switched out of the lab clothes in the changing room back at work.

Rather than a physical enervation, the realization that my expectations to further my own studies was not a reality here sapped me of any incentive to unpack or do anything of value.

The temptation of warm pyjamas encasing my shivering body as I slept another night on the hard surface of the floor was almost reason enough to conjure up some hidden energy from the deepest recesses of my body.

I crawled my way though the makeshift hole I made earlier in the day through two of the boxes. Thankfully, no roommates meant that the house was absent of another being to pester me regarding the hassle I made at the entrance, though I thought it was quite clever considering my circumstances.

The sun had set many hours back, which I failed to detect as all my concentration was set on marking down the base sequence that brought about Taemin’s black fur colour. Jin was double-checking the state of each room before locking up for the night when he discovered my form, hunched over a microscope.

Continuing to the kitchen on hands and knees out of my present shortage in strength, I nearly decided to call it a night right there in the middle of the hallway. Though, I settled with briskly whipping up an egg or two in hopes that it would replenish enough energy to tidy up a bit before retiring to bed.

I left the eggs to cook as I departed, off to locate a plate, which I only had two of at the moment, courtesy of the unloading that needed to be completed at the doorway. A glimpse into the sink revealed the location of one suspect, dirty from yesterday’s dinner.

I tugged open the nearest cabinet to search for the other one because I sure as hell was not washing any dishes right now. But, instead of the ceramic I was expecting, the bare walls of the storage area stumped me.

The memory of the creature I’d met yesterday flashed through my mind, bringing about a sudden burst of excitement that had me shuffling my way to the backyard door, flicking the porch light on and staring at the wood that seemed to glare back at me.

No sight of the tuna or the plate.

Initially, I took extreme offence to the absurd situation. I graciously extended a helping hand to a vulnerable cat to enjoy some savoury tuna and the bugger decided to steal—

Wait.

How in the hell did the thumbless feline pick up the hefty plate in the first place?

After snooping around the surrounding area a bit, no sight of the pristine plate, I gave up. Maybe it held the ceramic in its mouth?

The mental image I’d conjured up brought a slight chuckle out of me, cutting short when catching sight of several crimson paw prints on the porch, accompanied by specks of the same hue. I pondered the unusually large size of the print, slightly larger than my palm.

An alarmingly large quantity of blood appeared with each step, the pace of my heart quickening with worry both for myself and the creature. Who could harm a massive animal like this and for what purpose?

I also thought about if the splotches would wash out with the rain or if I had to slot in a time to come out and clean off the marks. Although, the cleaning supplies were also in those unpacked boxes, so any stain removal had to be put on hold.

The bloody prints extended into my lawn as well, blades of grass covered in a layer of red. From what I could make out, the trail was U-shaped, beginning from the forest, coming to where I stood at the porch, then heading back.

A spike of fear travelled through me when a thicket shook violently. Were these stains left by the kitty I encountered the day before? From my limited knowledge in zoology, I doubted that large cats could even produce such pathetic mewls with their vocal chords, which were better suited to growl or roar.

But what was a creature of this size doing on the outskirts of civilization? I wasn’t too sure about how far the woodlands extended past my yard, but I was relatively certain that the bulkier predators had more than enough space to themselves without needing to expand their territory.

I was in the midst of this back-and-forth conflict with myself when I heard a familiar cry reaching my ears. Pushing back my raucous thoughts for a moment, I settled on responding to little thief.

“You’re back! Do you happen to have my plate by any chance?”

The lack of response confirmed my suspicions. I was now down to one, currently grubby plate in the house.

“Alright, fine, keep the damn thing.” The initial fear and suspicion I felt had simmered down quite bit, heavily due to the lack of aggression on the animal’s part and a distinct fondness I held for my first friend here that I wasn’t aware of yet. Though, I remained on guard, as there could always be another beast lurking.

In order to discover any of answers I was seeking, I knew that I had to take matters into my own hands and decipher whether my pitiful kitty was actually a large, ferocious feline— badly hurt, nonetheless. I took the portable first-aid kit out of my bag as well as the forgotten, squished tuna sandwich.

Removing the saran wrap and crumpling it into a ball, I placed the much-smaller-than-I-remember sandwich down on the wood as bait. “Guess we can’t be civil, huh bub? If you’re gonna steal my plate, have the courage to show yourself, you criminal," I teased and hoped to lure the cautious creature out.

Nothing.

“Hey, you wanna come and let me get a look at you? I can see if I can patch you up, how about that?”

Nope.

“Come on, look! You’re favourite tuna, in a delicious sandwich now!”

Nada.

I pouted at the bundle of leaves I knew the feline was hiding under, hoping to elicit some kind of reaction. Albeit, any sliver of hope was crushed with the lack of movement. Worry grew at the back of my mind, desperately hoping that the creature could live through their seemingly dire injuries. I flashed a regretful smile and lowered the sandwich on the last step.

At the very least, I wished that the snack would provide energy for its body to repair itself. With one last glance at the silent underbrush, I turned my back and lumbered into the confines of my cottage. Hopefully, I would get another chance to beckon the mammal out of its hiding place tomorrow.

The contrast of the dark droplets of blood against the light wood of my porch disturbed me more than I’d like to admit.

The daily routine of travelling to work, interacting with the few friends I made there and coming back home to attend late night meetings with my concealed kitty was growing on me. I was elated that I finally found a group of my own people, and not-quite-people, to converse and share thoughts with.

However, this town also seemed to have its own fair share of rotten apples.

I finally met the rumoured Lee Hyunho, a bulky man who introduced himself as one of the two head researchers. He seemed polite enough at first, but I detected the same brusque characteristic I noticed in the receptionist from my first day.

It appeared that all the staff brought in by the “new” management had this particular quality.

My own frustrations began to grow alongside Namjoon and Yoongi, constantly repeating the same tasks over and over again, day after day. When I tried to confront the other head researcher, Joo Minzi, about granting us more access to the studies they were conducting, she made it very clear that my “inexperienced hands” were not permitted to touch any of their files, test subjects or even approach the lab upstairs.

Charming, really.

The interaction left me fuming, much to Namjoon’s amusement, claiming that he now had two fiery beasts to quell. My interactions with the arrogant staff members were limited though, and bouncing between Namjoon, Yoongi, Jin, and the surprisingly amicable janitor made the work days bearable.

I also took immense pleasure in going against Minzi’s words by playing with Taemin every once in a while.

I was proud to announce my accomplishment in finally unloading all of the supplies within my many boxes to anyone that would listen, now able to revel in the tidiness of my living space. The guys were able to visit now too, previously refusing to crawl through my rather unique entryway.

Progress concerning my kitty was little to none, but I did discover that it was immensely therapeutic to relay my worries to the mammal, finding comfort in its presence.

I took the rustling of the leaves as acknowledgement for my exasperated tone. “I mean, I don’t even feel like a researcher there! It’s all ‘hey newbie, go get me a coffee,’ ‘this is classified, no touching,’ ‘you can’t participate, this isn’t a charity,’ blah, blah, blah...” I raised my tone and ended my rant with a pout, embodying the childish behaviour that encompassed how I felt I was being treated as of late.

“Remember the really cute janitor I was telling you about? Jung Hoseok? Well, he was telling me about some stuff he heard when he was cleaning the lab upstairs.” I heard a short swish of foliage being disrupted, which I assumed was a result of the creature tilting its head.

“Apparently, they’d made big advancements on whatever stupid ‘highly confidential’ project they’re working on. It definitely has something to do with the patterns in different animals’ DNA, but I can’t pinpoint exactly what they’re trying to accomplish...

“And guess what? Hoseok said he’d overheard that they’d lost a test subject a little over a week ago! There’s probably a mouse scurrying around somewhere, living his best, liberated life right now.” I shifted in place, adjusting my position to make myself more comfortable in the chilly night. “I just wish I knew what was going on, you know...”

“I wanted to prove them all wrong.” I sneaked a glimpse at the forest for any indication of a vocal response I knew the creature gave occasionally. In a small voice I added, “but maybe they were right.”

Another shuffle broke through my lengthy monologue and I facetiously grinned towards the camouflaged animal. “Y’know, I’m starting to really question whether you’re here for my company or for this,” I pointed to the tuna, disturbingly still in that short cylindrical shape.

I stared past the obscure stalks of the trees, having found consolation and tranquility in the space a few days prior, even from beyond my glass door. My initial apprehension of unknown monsters subsided and it was reassuring to know that my kitty was somewhere in there as well.

Another shuffle revealed a pair of bright, beady eyes meeting my own enlarged ones. I could feel my heart beating out of my chest by the sudden appearance, although I tried not to alarm the creature back into hiding by revealing my own trepidation.

Knowing the keen senses felines had, there was little doubt in my mind that the one across from me wouldn’t be able to pick up my instantaneous change in demeanour.

“You gonna come and get it or what?” With a slight nod towards the meal, I cursed the slight quiver in my voice and prayed that the creature felt comfortable enough to reveal more of itself to me. My curiosity was bubbling as I allowed my gaze to travel to the crown of its head.

I concluded that the creature’s fur was either pure black or another dark tone, hard to decipher when I didn’t have the enhanced night vision of the mammal perched a few metres away. Said feline made no further movements, keeping his gaze trained on me.

I analyzed the elongated slits that served as pupils, engraving the rich green shade of its irises into my mind, fearful that this sudden intimacy may scare the mammal off, never to be seen again. But, I found myself unable to divert my gaze, feeling as though I was staring at a physical manifestation of the pure soul of the forest.

It was utterly mesmerizing.

An impatient gruff left the creature’s mouth, snapping me out of my reverie and I resigned. “Alright, alright, don’t get your panties in a twist. I’m leaving alright?”

Maybe one day the mammal would feel comfortable enough to eat in front of me and I could migrate my dinners to the porch outside. Refusing to get too greedy, I reminded myself that the baby steps taken today were infinitely better than none at all.

With one foot in my house, I turned back to the tantalizing eyes, still focused on my pyjama-clad form as I beamed back gratefully. “’Night bud.”

The snapping of the lock clicking back into place alleviated some of the soreness of my overworked muscles as I took another step inside. My head fell back to sneak a glance at the ceiling, hoping to peek past the old plaster and stare into the eyes of any higher being out there.

I quickly considered whether to thank them for this opportunity of a lifetime or to curse them out for my seemingly limitless workload.

As my eyelids slid close in defeat, an exhausted sigh involuntarily slipped out into the silence. Kicking off my shoes into the pitiful pile by the doorway to join the rest of its brethren, I wandered deeper into my rather small abode in the darkness; only my padded footsteps and the zipper of my jacket being undone

Hearing my stomach rumble with its complaints, I made the couple steps toward the kitchen’s light switch. But, an abrupt halt came with the memory of yesterday’s optimistic plan of embarking on a trip to the grocery store after a short work shift.

Evidently, I hadn’t predicted the gruelling day I would have nor the extra hours that would be requested of me. I found that I’d been frequenting the store quite often as of late, the demand of food increasing once another mouth to feed came into question.

In a reluctant fashion, I pulled my jacket back up to my shoulders, knowing that the fridge was just as empty as my stomach currently was. I pushed my aching limbs back towards the entrance, pondering over whether the grocery store was even open this late in the night.

However, I was forced to a grinding halt once again as I heard a booming thump from my backyard and my blood ran cold.

I waited with bated breath as my heart rate elevated, pounding in my ears. A minute of stillness passed before yet another sigh escaped my jittery body. Another disadvantage of a remote plot included being frightened by every snap of a twig.

As a scoff passed through my chapped lips at my own cowardly antics, I began to resume my trek to the front door when another thud reached my ears. The recognition of the sound coming from the backyard alerted me that this time may be different, with the presence of an actual threat.

Following a series of gut-wrenching cracking noises, hurried footsteps approaching the wooden porch in my backyard startled me to action.

Hastily, I dashed back to the kitchen to grab an unnecessarily large kitchen knife out of the drawer and flew to cover behind my minuscule island. A quick glimpse down towards my chest revealed my shaking hands. Well, this is certainly one way to spice up my night.

Listening to the intruder fumble with the lock for a little while before it was being smashed into, I knew I couldn’t just stay cowering behind my kitchen island, waiting for this murderer to come and end my night (and all my subsequent nights thereafter). The rage behind having to buy and reinstall a new lock also propelled my need for revenge.

I took in a deep breath and steeled myself as the footsteps wandered in, coming straight towards the kitchen. A loud growl reverberated throughout my house and befuddled me further. Was the intruder simply a feral animal? The lack of a problem with my lock dismissed that thought but I couldn’t shake the feeling of a predator having sneaked into my house.

The feeling of being stalked.

I rapidly shook off that irrational thought, doubtful the stranger even knew of another presence in the house. As the intruder turned the corner — coming straight towards my hiding spot — I reared back a little before launching myself with my dull knife leading the way.

A screech made its way out of my throat as the intruder’s reflexes were evidently a lot better than mine, catching my wrist before I could inflict any damage. But, I refused to give in just yet as I attempted to smash the hard edge of my palm straight into the stranger’s nose in order to buy myself some time to flee.

Unfortunately, for me, that attack never reached its target as the intruder caught my throat in his other hand much faster and used his larger frame to smash my body against the fridge.

The wind escaped me, though I kept squirming to try whip my knee straight to his crotch as a final ditch attempt. I lightly cursed as a glimpse informed me the intruder was a brawny man.

He noticed my struggle and easily flipped me around, one hand finding purchase in my hair, banging my head against the cool metal of the fridge and the other held both of my hands pinned to my back. The knife clattered to the ground in a dangerous arc.

In the middle of wondering how the hell he gathered my wrists and disabled me in a split second, I felt a heavy growl in the shell of my ear. A cold shiver slipped down my spine, adrenaline slowing leaving my body as we both puffed out breaths of exertion.

What the actual fu—

“No hurt, need bandage and go.”

His broken English came out with a slight accent and I found myself nodding instantaneously as I tried to work out what he needed. “Okay, okay,” I muttered as best as I could with half my face smushed, “I have bandages in the big drawer by the sink. You can take those.”

I only received a grunt in acknowledgement. He nudged me with his foot to shuffle backwards with his hand still wrapped around my wrists and led me to the sink. Half curious about his motives and half accepting that I could never overpower the stranger, I followed obediently. Though that didn’t stop me from deliberating over how to outsmart the man.

Deciding on waiting for an opening or a slack in the grip around my wrists, I nodded my head towards the drawer I was referring to earlier and finally peered up at my intruder’s shadowed face. He wore a black ball cap on, aiding in hiding his features which were mostly guarded by the lack of light anyway.

A glance at the lower half of his visage allowed me to witness his pale lips and the small mole directly underneath them, as well as a sharp jawline leading to his exposed neck. Inconspicuously bringing my gaze even lower, I took in his matching tattered black outfit, confirming his bulky build and scuffed sneakers.

Maybe I could run to the nearest police station — which admittedly, was rather far, and provide a detailed description of the criminal. Considering if I made it out alive, of course.

With his vacant hand he swiftly pulled the drawer open, taking handfuls of bandages, gloves, bandaids and other miscellaneous items I crammed in there. The stranger stuffed as much equipment as he could fit into the large pocket of his hooded sweatshirt.

I would have found his full little pouch endearing if I wasn’t preoccupied with worrying over my own well-being.

Another awkward wobble later, we were back at the fridge. At this point, I was gathering all the courage I had left to aim for a pressure point on the criminal’s thigh that I vaguely knew the location of. I should have paid more attention in those self-defence classes, damnit.

Just as I turned to act, he bent down to pick up the discarded knife off the floor, effectively deterring my attack and forcing me into submission. He then turned to me to flash a slight smirk.

“Cute.”

Releasing his death grip on my bound wrists, he sprinted back out my now broken back door, heading off.

After a couple minutes of stewing in my thoughts, back against the cool fridge, I struggled to comprehend the brief interaction and the dark drops of crimson littered all over my white tiles.

I still have to go grocery shopping.

tags: @aurorakingsley

#jungkook fanfic #jeongguk fanfic #bts fanfic #jungkook scenarios #bts scenarios #jeongguk scenarios #jungkook imagine #jeongguk imagine #jungkook x reader #jeongguk x reader #jungkook au #jeongguk au #jungkook hybrid au #jeongguk hybrid au #was it evil to end on preview #it felt right tho #you gotta know what happens before to find out what happens after #that's my excuse anyway

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wickedmilo · 3 years

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LOVE LIKE THIS | MILO & METZLI

PLACE: Metzli’s Apartment TIMING: 8:20 PM SUMMARY: Grappling with his feelings of loneliness, Milo decides to confide in Metzli WRITING PARTNER: @deathisanartmetzli CONTENT WARNINGS: Addiction tw (brief mention of an intervention)

Milo was never sure how much blood Metzli kept in their apartment. And for numerous reasons, he felt it was better not to ask. Given their history together, Metzli might think he was being controlling, or refusing to trust them when it came to maintaining a healthy diet. But he also didn’t want to give the impression that he was eager to deplete their precious stash. It was why, as he knocked on the door to their apartment, he was grateful for his own stash, and the two blood bags he had slipped into his backpack before making the journey to see his friend. He still felt strange after their conversation. Even over text, being honest, and open could be emotionally draining. It was almost as though now that he had finally, in a way, said the words out loud, it was impossible to deny them. Impossible to ignore the aching in his heart, the longing for something that was so out of his reach. Rubbing at the marks on his throat, evidence of the trauma that was causing him so much turmoil, he did his best to repress his emotions. Metzli had invited him over to comfort him, he knew that much, but that didn’t mean he needed to dwell on why. “Metzli- it’s me, I mean you already know it’s me. I don’t know why I said that. Just- open the door?”

“Door’s unlocked!” Metzli yelled from the kitchen, finishing up making Yuca’s dinner. She was meowing in excitement, trotting around in circles as if to try and hurry their owner along. “If only you knew how spoiled you are, chiflada.” They smiled at her and led her into the living room where her food perch was. Leaping up, she completely ignored the familiar visitor walking in to focus on her food.

Metzli had a few movies picked out for the night, and of course, as they had mentioned, there were the signature Hispanic blankets with tigers on them. They were incredibly soft and always made them feel so comfortable and cozy. Nothing matched the impeccable designs or craftsmanship. “Pick out what movie you wanna watch first.” A finger pointed to the cases on the coffee table, knowing they’d get a great reaction from Milo.

Milo let himself into the apartment, his gaze searching the room as he kicked off his Converse. Letting the door swing shut behind him, he pulled the two blood bags out of his backpack so that he could abandon that too, carrying them both to the kitchen where he could hear Metzli preparing Yuca’s dinner. He wrinkled his nose as the smell of cat food hit him, but he couldn’t help feeling a rush of affection at the sight. It was so nice seeing Metzli in such a warm, and domestic setting. Regardless of what they told him about how it felt to exist without a soul, it was obvious they still cared about the animal. “I brought dinner for us.” He explained, setting the blood down on the nearest counter. “Hopefully it’s far more appealing than that.” He nodded his head in the direction of the food bowl, only turning his attention away from his friends when he was instructed to decide upon a movie. He wandered back into the living room, failing to hold back a peal of laughter when the various covers jumped out at him. “Underworld, Let Me In, Vampires vs The Bronx, 30 Days of Night, and… Twilight.” He read aloud, faltering as he reached the final movie. As funny as Twilight was, Rio had been the one to make him watch it. And suddenly he was bombarded by memories of them curled up on Rio’s couch, teasing each other about the ridiculous world of the Cullens.

And there it was again, that sense of heartache, of something missing from his life. He forced himself to ignore it, forcing it back down until it was nothing more than a minor discomfort. “I haven’t watched half of these since, y’know- since becoming a vampire.” He admitted. “Jeez, it’s so weird looking at them all…” From the quiet, ominous vampires of Let Me In, to the bloodthirsty, monstrous vampires of 30 Days of Night, every writer had their own interpretation. Their own version of what it meant to be undead. “Do you have a favourite?” He called. “Shit, you were alive when all of these came out. Like, an adult- I mean. Did you see any in the cinema?”

“That’s so rude.” Metzli blew a raspberry at Milo and trotted over to the kitchen and heated up the blood in two mugs to prepare for the movie. They pondered on what he had just said, not seeing any of the movies since becoming the very thing the movies glamorized. The microwave beeped and Metzli grabbed both mugs before heading back to the living room and answering Milo’s question with a somber look on their face. “We didn’t really have movies, you know? All the myths were basically just left to the imagination until, well, it wasn’t just that. Got to see the real thing up close and personal while I think...maybe four or five attacked me? It’s been a long time.” A clack sounded from the table from the mug being placed down, and a soft sigh pushed past tight lips, sitting down slowly.

With a shake of their head, they sipped and chuckled a little to alleviate some of the tension. Even though it was a little bit of a sensitive subject, it didn’t hurt nearly as much as it used to. Besides, Metzli wanted this night to be about friendship and care, not their troubles. “I really like horror, so 30 Days of Night is definitely one of my favorites. Pretty gory too. But no, I’ve never gone to the movies. Always thought the concept was weird.”

“I meant no offence.” Milo laughed as Metzli stuck their tongue out, listening to them absentmindedly as they readied the blood. It only took a few seconds in the microwave for the smell of copper to permeate the air, and he felt a familiar thirst constrict the back of his throat. Sometimes no matter how well fed you were, the temptation was there. It was undeniable. Glancing back up from the table to offer Metzli his full attention, he gratefully accepted his mug as they brushed past him, curious to hear them speak about being raised without movies. It was something he hadn’t considered, hadn’t really dissected in his mind. The world had been a very different place when Metzli was born into it. A very, very different place. Suppressing a shudder as he thought about how terrifying it had been to be targeted by a single vampire, he couldn’t imagine the abject horror of being attacked by four, or five. He took a drink from his mug, distracting himself with the rich, comforting taste of warm blood. It was strange to consume the same substance repeatedly without growing bored, or sick of it. When he was human he would obsess over a favourite food until he could no longer enjoy it. Until his body demanded he take a break, and find a fresh new flavour to fixate on. But somehow blood tasted better each time he tried it, he knew that was never going to change.

“I guess I didn’t really think about what genres you might like.” He shot his friend a sheepish grin. He should start paying more attention to the interests of those around him. Sometimes he got so lost in his own problems, he forgot other people were equally as complex. Everybody had shit to deal with, in the same way everybody found something different in books, and films, and other forms of artwork. “You’ve never been to the cinema? Not even once?” He asked, unable to hide his incredulity. He joined Metzli on the couch, picking up one of the blankets they had laid out ready for him. Setting his mug down so that he wouldn’t spill his drink and stain the material, he ran his fingers along the soft fabric, enjoying how gentle it felt against his skin. “You’ve not even been a little curious?”

Metzli shrugged, not really caring if Milo had ever thought that deeply about them. To his credit, they hadn’t really delved into interests and preferences. This was one of the first times the two had been able to sit down and take a breather from all the impending doom. “No, never been interested. Why bother going out in public when I can just watch a movie here? Can’t even have the snacks there.” The television came to life and the Playstation soon followed. There was no need for a dvd player when everything could be condensed to one console.

“All right, have you picked yet?” Mug in hand, Metzli leaned back and let an arm drape over the back of the couch casually, taking special care to make sure Milo didn’t notice. He seemed a little distant, not taking to his usual snarky personality where the two could go back and forth easily. Something was gnawing at him, but they weren’t sure if prodding was the right move. Taking the risk, they nudged their hand forward and ruffled Milo’s hair.

“You okay, Depresso?”

Milo laughed, shaking his head. “But it’s about the experience. There are some seriously cool cinemas out there. And even if the cinema isn’t the greatest, midnight premieres and shit can still be so much fun. It’s nice to sit in a room knowing you share a passion with everybody in there… I guess you kind of have that with your art gallery, huh?” Settling down against the cushions, picking up his mug again to cradle it in both hands, he watched the Playstation logo appear on the tv screen, chewing thoughtfully on his bottom lip. The Twilight DVD kept drawing his attention, and he couldn’t help but remember the same DVD on Rio’s coffee table. The way Rio’s face had lit up when he inserted the disc into his own Playstation. “I don’t know.” He answered, his voice far more disinterested than he had intended it to sound. He pushed his glasses up his nose, attempting to compose himself, although he knew there was no real use in making the effort. Metzli knew him, and the entire reason for him being here was his emotional state. He quite literally couldn't hide from them.

As if to prove his point, Metzli leaned back to join him, and he avoided their gaze, staring straight ahead despite there being nothing to watch just yet. “What? No, I’m fine-” He insisted, not moving away in time to avoid his friend’s hand. Pouting like a child as he surrendered himself to the treatment, he didn’t bother brushing his hair down again. Leaving it tousled, and unkempt almost to spite them. “I’m just-” He broke off, wondering whether he should finish his sentence. “I’m missing someone- Rio. I’m missing someone called Rio.” He was suddenly grateful for his inability to blush. “We got close a while back… he actually showed me Twilight to make me feel better about all of this. But he’s gone… he left, and I don’t know if I’m ever going to see him again. He was the first person to ever make me doubt what I want… you know? And now…” He hesitantly caught Metzli’s gaze, looking away again almost immediately. “It doesn’t matter, I’m being stupid.”

Seeing that Milo didn’t bat their hand away, they attempted to just run their hand through his hair, trying their best to be comforting. Missing people was extremely hard, especially when they made such a big impact on you and when you don’t know where they went. Metzli’s voice took on a caring tone, giving as much as they could to their friend, their…“Kid, that’s not stupid. You know how hard it is to get close to people? You did it and now that connection is just gone. That would hurt the strongest of people. Hell, I—” Their hand continued to show their affection and they secretly hoped he’d let them continue. “I would be pretty devastated if you left after we built this connection. You’re one of the few people I can stand, and one of the very few people I can trust. So no, Milo, it’s not stupid.”

Metzli looked concerned for Milo, wishing they could mend whatever wound was laying deeply and heavily on his heart. “Do you wanna say it? What he made you doubt?” The way he trailed off and seemed to dismiss his own feelings didn’t sit right with them. Though they knew what it was like to be in that position. A part of them understood the need to try to push it off, believe it wasn’t really there. Accepting the pain made it more real, and made it inescapable.

Milo stared down into his mug, tapping his fingers against it as he listened to what Metzli had to say. He felt ridiculous for being comforted by the hand in his hair, but he was. And he made no effort to move away from his friend. “Part of it is just… we were friends before, but we became real friends like, a month after I died. It was all so overwhelming and he just wanted me to be okay. I didn’t realise until after he left that I…” He swallowed, taking a sip of his drink so that he could avoid stating the painfully obvious. “I’m just mad at myself, I guess. For not kissing him when I had the chance.” It was the first time he had admitted anything close, even to himself, but there was no weight lifted from his shoulders. He didn’t feel any better for the admission, even if acknowledging it was somehow a relief. He had been confused for so long, maybe going forward he could be a little less so. “You mean it?” He caught Metzli’s eye, a frown creasing his brow as he stared at them. “That you can trust me?” Even his own parents didn’t trust him. And he knew there were a handful of people in his life dedicated to seeing the good in him, but it still didn’t feel real sometimes. It still felt incredible to hear.

Taking a deep breath, exhaling slowly as he considered his options, he leaned into Metzli’s touch. Not only did it give him the assurance he needed, it meant he had no choice but to move closer to them. With his cheek resting against their shoulder, they could no longer see his expression. “He made me doubt whether I really want to be alone. And for a moment I wasn’t… even Alex was someone. But when Alex kissed my neck it was like- like being back there. Like being attacked all over again, and I panicked. What if sex just isn’t a part of my life now? I don’t know what to think about that… I don’t know how to feel.” He knew sex wasn’t the only way of sharing intimacy with a partner, but it was something he had relied on for so long. The excitement, the rush, the physical pleasure… he didn’t want to lose that. And to begin to want more when he couldn’t even handle the bare minimum was so difficult. It caused his chest to ache with longing. “I never even tried… having a boyfriend, I mean. I never wanted that. And now I’m wondering whether I left it too late. What if I have? What if I wasted my opportunities and now I’m just… alone forever?”

“I mean it.” Metzli scooted closer, letting their legs touch and draping their arm a little more over Milo. They longed to comfort him, to take his pain and just feel it for him instead. He didn’t just lose a friend, he lost more than that when he was bit. A part of his innocence was stripped away, and made him feel scared and lost. “Milo, you have forever to live. This pain is something to grow from, and there is no set time line when it comes to healing. I know that doesn’t make it less real, though.” A firm grip rested at his shoulder, gradually pulling him in, letting him know he wasn’t alone. He never had to be alone again. Not if Metzli could help it. Even though they couldn’t fill that romantic gap, they could do their best to fill in the rest, and they knew Bex would do the same.

Milo’s hair moved around their hand as they doted on him and did what they could to appease the beast of longing and loss. “We’re kind of opposite. I think I’m gonna be alone forever, yet I fuck whatever woman will say yes. When all I really want is someone to be with in that way. It’s hard to be that vulnerable. It feels nearly impossible. Especially at the beginning, especially after you’ve been turned.” Metzli raised the mug to their lips and took a moment to pause and drink. A ball was forming in their throat, and this was the best way to push it back down and remain composed. “You’re thinking of everything in such finality when you haven’t even given yourself the chance to experience grace. Not from others, but yourself. You’re expecting to be okay, but that’s not how it works. You’re not going to be okay for a while, and that’s okay.”

Metzli placed the empty mug on the coffee table, breaking contact completely and not returning to it when they faced Milo. “You’re a catch. You have a big heart. And you just started your forever. Let yourself begin before you settle on an ending.”

Milo faltered, reminded suddenly of the way his mom used to wrap her arms around him. She would sit with him on the couch like this, or curl up beside him in bed just to help him feel safe. He blinked away tears, shrinking in on himself as he allowed Metzli to comfort him. They were right, of course. He did have forever, but that was an equally terrifying thought. He couldn’t imagine outliving his friends and family, he couldn’t imagine existing in a world without them. But one day he wouldn’t have to imagine, one day that would be his reality. Struck by a sudden urge to call his parents, he buried the feeling, focusing on what Metzli was telling him. “No, I know…” He murmured, a frown creasing his brow. Why did he have to heal, and grow? Why couldn’t he just be okay? It felt so unfair that he was struggling due to the actions of another person, another vampire. None of this was his fault. “We’re not opposites.” He added, still clutching his mug to his chest. He couldn’t drink from it without jostling Metzli, but the smell of the blood was enough to relax him. “I used to do that because I didn’t want anything more… and it was so easy.” Falling silent again, surprised by his friend’s honesty, he took a deep breath, mulling over the new information.

“You want to be with someone?” He echoed. “Really?” He wasn’t sure being vulnerable was the issue. He couldn’t let somebody near his neck without being transported back to his final moments, but that wasn’t about vulnerability. Was it? “It’s been seven months, Metzli. I should know what I’m doing by now.” As if they could hear what he was thinking, they continued, telling him he was valid in his frustrations, complimenting him in a way that he was far from used to. “Why, though? Why can’t I just work my shit out already? So many people I know aren’t struggling… I mean, I don’t think they are.” He knew everybody had parts of their life that weren’t necessarily easy to navigate. But he also knew more than a few people, supernatural people, who didn’t seem to let what they were get in the way of their lives. It was natural to them. They almost embraced it. “I’m not settling on anything.” He let out a quiet huff of breath. “I just- I don’t know what I want. I thought I did and now… everything feels so screwed up.”

“Here’s the thing, Milo. No one knows what the fuck they’re doing. All you can do, is try.” Metzli’s voice trembled slightly, knowing all too well what Milo is going through. “Everyone sews together masks with their heartstrings, the most vulnerable and delicate things. All in hopes that trying is enough. And it is. It’s akin to success.” The words felt almost preachy, but they were exactly how Metzli felt, what they wished someone had told them when they were sitting on the highway of loneliness. Thousands of cars drove past, but somehow it still felt so empty. When all they needed was someone to sit next to them, buy them time with nothing in their wallet. The time they needed to figure it all out. And since they didn’t have that, they had to settle for scarring their heart with all the blood they had to sell to pay down the debt of loss and misery. Milo didn’t have to do that. Not while they were around.

With a single nod, they smiled and pulled Milo into their chest to hold him tightly. “Yeah, I do. After over a fucking century, I do. And it doesn’t have to take that long for you. ‘Cause you don’t have to be alone in figuring all this shit out. I won’t let you.” Metzli chuckled for no other reason than the surprise of them uttering those words. It wasn’t one of amusement or humor, it was one of joy in being able to love a friend. “Everything is so screwed up now, and everything feels like a bandaid or wrong answer, but I can be your best guess. Bex can too. We can lay in the mess and clean it up together ‘cause doing it alone sucks. You’ll heal. Little by little. God that sounds so preachy and lame, but fuck it.” Tears fell down their face and they had to rush and wipe them. They couldn’t help but wonder when the fuck they got so sappy.

“I knew what I was doing before somebody decided to murder me.” Milo muttered, his voice quiet, and petulant. Things had been easier, yes, but he wasn’t entirely sure his words were true. His lifestyle hadn’t been sustainable. He lived each day to the next, never knowing where he was going to sleep, or how he was going to pay for the hit he was craving. His life plan had simply been to keep going until he inevitably burned himself out. Maybe that was why he felt so lost, because he actually had a future now. A vast one that stretched out impossibly before him. A begrudging smile tugging at his lips as he registered Metzli’s words, he hummed to let them know he was still listening. “Hm… you sound like a Hallmark card.” He made no effort to hide his affection for them, sincerely hoping they might be right. If trying could be considered enough, then maybe he was enough. He was trying for quite possibly the first time in his life and that had to count for something.

Allowing himself to be pulled closer against his friend, even if he wanted to withdraw he knew he wouldn’t be able to. He felt like a child again, transferring his worries and his pain over to an adult, somebody who could hold him and tell him everything was going to be fine. “I didn’t realise you wanted… is that why you’re so close with Macleod?” He asked, unable to stop the words from escaping him. He was curious to know, and it was a good distraction from his own thoughts. Eventually slipping out from under his friend’s arm, he missed the contact almost immediately. Vampires didn’t offer a lot of warmth, but the comfort of an embrace was still very much the same. He pulled his knees up to his chest, watching them to see if they were crying. He strongly suspected they might be, it was the only reason he had moved away from them, but they had already erased any evidence of their tears.

“I think it sounded nice.” He left no room for them to argue, taking a long drink from his mug so that they wouldn’t be able to counter his statement. No longer preoccupied by the feeling of his fangs pressing down against his lower lip, he realised it would feel far more strange to drink without them present. Yet another way he was growing used to his life now. “I’m really glad I have you, Metzli. And Bex, and Macleod and everyone else who cares… but especially you.”

“Did you, though? If you’re lost now, you were definitely lost before. It was just simpler then.” Metzli retorted quietly, smiling wryly and letting Milo put some space between them. At first they thought they had done something wrong, pushed too far, said too much, but no. Milo was checking on them. Soft eyes clung onto him and they continued on to begrudgingly answer Milo’s question. Not even they knew the answer, but maybe they’d find it along the way. “Not sure how close Macleod feels to me. I have feelings. And god, we connect. But…not sure she’d ever feel something for me, or if anyone could. But I think—sometimes—I…” It was so difficult to say it aloud. Once it was out there, there was no taking it back. “Sometimes I feel like I want to be with Bex. I know it’ll never happen. And I won’t act on it. But I love her. More than I’d like to. I think a lot of it has to do with how similar we are and how strong our connection is.” Metzli swallowed, but continued. “And if I’m that fucking nuts to possibly be in love with—I don’t know. Maybe it’s fine. Means I’m capable of it. Of loving. But I have no idea what I am, if I’m being honest. Maybe this is just strong platonic love and I don’t know how to decipher it.”

Knees met chest, making them so small as they uttered their truth. All Metzli could hope for is that Milo never mentioned it to Bex. “Wait what? Why especially me? Aren’t I like, the worst parent of the year or something?”

Milo wanted to deny what Metzli was telling him, he could already feel the beginnings of defensive anger. But it wasn’t fair to fight back, not when he himself had been thinking the very same. “Maybe.” He admitted, finishing what was left of his drink. Setting the empty mug down on the coffee table, he moved to rest his chin on top of his knees, holding his friend’s gaze as they answered his question. Their expression was so gentle, it was difficult to imagine anybody reserving that look for him. Maybe it was for Macleod, even before they clarified he had been so sure they shared a connection with her. But there was a chance it wasn’t quite as strong as he first assumed. Metzli didn’t seem to be in love with her. Feelings could mean almost anything. “Are you still seeing her?” He asked, curious to know whether their adventures were a thing of the past. If that was the case, he should be glad he was no longer going to be subjected to stories about what they got up to when they were together. But the idea actually made him sad. It was fun to feign disgust, but he had secretly been enjoying the idea of the two people he looked up to becoming romantically involved.

“Wait-” He blinked, his brain taking more than a moment to catch up with what Metzli had said. Bex? Surely they couldn’t mean Bex Bex. He could feel the illusion of a familial unit shattering, rearranging itself to fit this new piece of the puzzle, a piece that didn’t connect to any of the others. “You’re in love… with Bex?” Confusion was written across his features, and he stared at his friend, a million questions running through his head. “I thought not having a soul… can you love somebody like that?” It sounded insensitive, and that hadn’t been his intention, but his desire to know far surpassed his desire to tread lightly. Metzli certainly wasn’t treading lightly. “I mean, do you think it could be? I’ve never been in love, I only know how people talk about it… can you confuse romantic love with platonic love?”

Noticing the shift in Metzli’s body language, the way they seemed to be making themself as small as possible, he swallowed, inching closer to where they were sitting. “It’s okay, I’m not about to tell anyone. It’s for you to figure out.” He assured them. It was the least he could do after they had listened to him. “And no, obviously not.” He added, a smile tugging at his lips. “Organise a couple of interventions and maybe you’ll be getting there. You’re actually pretty great, y’know.”

Despair filled Metzli’s eyes and they felt a pang of embarrassment as they were asked if they could even feel anything. It was a good question, one they didn’t know the answer to. For all they knew, this was just an infatuation gone incredibly wrong. “I haven’t seen Macleod since coming back. I’ve reached out, but there’s been no response. I want to see her. She’s…wonderful. She’s so fierce and aggressive, but can be so kind and sweet. There’s no one like her, but l don’t even know if she’d be interested in something more.” Their hand reached for the pendant around their neck, the one Macleod had given to them. They hadn’t even taken it off except for when they thought it might get damaged.

“I don’t know what this is honestly, Milo. I just know that I love her. Intensely. In my own, soulless way, I love her. But of course, I need to ask you to not say anything. I’m still trying to figure it out.” Metzli sighed and shut their eyes tightly to string another sentence together. “I’ve tried researching ‘cause I’ve never felt it either. So many things point to platonic while others say romantic. I don’t know anymore. But the only thing that matters is that I let myself figure it out. Sorry.” Eyes avoided Milo’s ashamedly and they sighed again.

Metzli grew sad at the thought of Milo thinking his parents were bad because of what they tried to do to help him. Interventions were scary, but they were ultimately for the betterment of the person receiving them. They came from a place of love. Anger bubbled but they pushed it back down. He was lost, and forcing him to find the path wasn’t going to help. “I’ll have to tell you about this werewolf and then you’ll think differently.” The mood shifted a little more positively and Metzli ran with it. “Let’s pop a movie in and just…forget shit for a while. How does that sound?”

Milo smiled when Metzli began to talk about Macleod. He felt a sense of pride that he couldn’t really understand. Macleod wasn’t any relation to him, and she was far older than he was. He had no right to feel proud of her simply because somebody else saw the same spark, and yet, he definitely did. “Huh…” He knew Macleod had accompanied Metzli to confront the vampires sent by Eloy. Had it been too much for her? Was it possible she was distancing herself? “I haven’t spoken to her in a while, actually… maybe I should message her.” Glancing down at the pendant Metzli wore, he wondered whether it had been given to them by Macleod. He couldn’t remember ever seeing it before. He thought back to the first time he had seen Metzli after their journey, the awful open wound that had been ominously wrapped around their throat. Macleod was the reason they were still alive, probably the reason their head was still attached to their body. A truly terrifying thought. “I’m not going to say anything, Metzli.” It was in his nature to stay out of other people’s drama, especially when there was potential for him to get dragged into it. He knew when to keep his mouth shut, both for somebody else’s sake, and for his own.

“Hey…” He prompted them to look back up, hoping to dispel any of the awkward embarrassment they were obviously struggling with. It was weird, and confusing, but nothing for Metzli to be ashamed of. “Don’t apologise, okay? It’ll work out… everything will.” He knew he couldn’t promise that, but he so badly wanted his words to be true. Saying them out loud felt good, even if the statement was undeniably shallow. “Oh, Jeez-” A laugh escaped him at the sudden shift in conversation, and he shot his friend an easy grin. “I don’t want to hear it, okay?” He pretended to be horrified by the prospect. “That sounds perfect. Anything to get you to keep your mouth shut.” Climbing off of the couch, he pointedly swiped Twilight from the coffee table, making his way over to the Playstation so that he could slip the disc into the disc drive. He could hear Metzli behind him, getting more comfortable with their blankets, he could hear Yuca padding about the apartment, no doubt planning to join them the moment the movie began. And he could still smell what was left of the blood, the scent thick, and warm, and familiar. Things were complicated, he was beginning to realise they were always going to be complicated. But Metzli was right, the past wasn’t easier just because his problems were different now. He had so many things to be grateful for. As long as he had bad movies, a reliable source of blood, and Yuca, and Metzli, and every other person in his life that he cared for, then things were okay... Things were okay because he was okay.

#c:metzli #metzli and milo #addiction tw

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davidmann95 · 3 years

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So... Morrison’s 10 part interview on All-Star Superman, along with all other older Newsarama articles, just seem to have ceased to exist. One does not simply live without having those interviews available to reread... Can I find them anywhere else?

Rejoice! I finally borrowed a computer I could put my flash drive into, and emailed myself my copy of the Morrison interview. Here it is below the cut, copied and pasted direct from the source way back when, available again at last:

Three years, 12 issues, Eisners and countless accolades later, All Star Superman is finally finished. The out-of-continuity look at Superman’s struggle with his inevitable death was widely embraced by fans and pros as one of the best stories to feature the Man of Steel, and was a showcase for the talents of the creative team of Grant Morrison, Frank Quitely and Jamie Grant.

Now, Newsarama is proud to present an exclusive look back with Morrison at the series that took Superman to, pun intended, new heights. We had a lot of questions about the series...and Morrison delivered with an in-depth look into the themes, characters and ideas throughout the 12 issues. In fact, there was so much that we’re running this as an unprecedented 10-part series over the next two weeks – sort of an unofficial All Star Superman companion. It’s everything about All Star Superman you ever wanted to know, but were afraid to ask.

And of course there’s plenty of SPOILERS, so back away if you haven’t read the entire series.

Newsarama: Grant, tell us a little about the origin of the project.

Grant Morrison: Some of it has its roots in the DC One Million project from 1999. So much so, that some readers have come to consider this a prequel to DC One Million, which is fine if it shifts a few more copies! I’ve tried to give my own DC books an overarching continuity intended to make them all read as a more coherent body of work when I’m done.

Luthor’s “enlightenment” – when he peaks on super–senses and sees the world as it appears through Superman’s eyes – was an element I’d included in the Superman Now pitch I prepared along with Mark Millar, Tom Peyer and Mark Waid back in 1999. There were one or two of ideas of mine that I wanted to preserve from Superman Now and Luthor’s heart–stopping moment of understanding was a favorite part of the original ending for that story, so I decided to use it again here.

My specific take on Superman’s physicality was inspired by the “shamanic” meeting my JLA editor Dan Raspler and I had in the wee hours of the morning outside the San Diego comic book convention in whenever it was, ‘98 or ‘99.

I’ve told this story in more detail elsewhere but basically, we were trying to figure out how to “reboot” Superman without splitting up his marriage to Lois, which seemed like a cop–out. It was the beginning of the conversations which ultimately led to Superman Now, with Dan and I restlessly pacing around trying to figure out a new way into the character of Superman and coming up short...

Until we looked up to see a guy dressed as Superman crossing the train tracks. Not just any skinny convention guy in an ill–fitting suit, this guy actually looked like Superman. It was too good a moment to let pass, so I ran over to him, told him what we’d been trying to do and asked if he wouldn’t mind indulging us by answering some questions about Superman, which he did...in the persona and voice of Superman!

We talked for an hour and a half and he walked off into the night with his friend (no, it wasn’t Jimmy Olsen, sadly). I sat up the rest of the night, scribbling page after page of Superman notes as the sun came up over the naval yards.

My entire approach to Superman had come from the way that guy had been sitting; so easy, so confident, as if, invulnerable to all physical harm, he could relax completely and be spontaneous and warm. That pose, sitting hunched on the bollard, with one knee up, the cape just hanging there, talking to us seemed to me to be the opposite of the clenched, muscle-bound look the character sometimes sports and that was the key to Superman for me.

I met the same Superman a couple of times afterwards but he wasn’t Superman, just a nice guy dressed as Superman, whose name I didn’t save but who has entered into my own personal mythology (a picture has from that time has survived showing me and Mark Waid posing alongside this guy and a couple of young readers dressed as Superboy and Supergirl – it’s in the “Gallery” section at my website for anybody who can be bothered looking. This is the guy who lit the fuse that led to All Star Superman).

After the 1999 pitch was rejected, I didn’t expect to be doing any further work on Superman but sometime in 2002, while I was going into my last year on New X–Men, Dan DiDio called and asked if I wanted to come back to DC to work on a Superman book with Jim Lee.

Jim was flexing his artistic muscles again to great effect, and he wanted to do 12 issues on Superman to complement the work he was doing with Jeph Loeb on “Batman: Hush.” At the time, I wasn’t able to make my own commitments dovetail with Jim’s availability, but by then I’d become obsessed with the idea of doing a big Superman story and I’d already started working out the details.

Jim, of course, went on to do his 12 Superman issues as “For Tomorrow” with Brian Azzarello, so I found myself looking for an artist for what was rapidly turning into my own Man of Steel magnum opus, and I already knew the book had to be drawn by my friend and collaborator, Frank Quitely.

We were already talking about We3 and Superman seemed like a good meaty project to get our teeth into when that was done. I completely scaled up my expectations of what might be possible once Frank was on board and decided to make this thing as ambitious as possible.

Usually, I prefer to write poppy, throwaway “live performance” type superhero books, but this time, I felt compelled to make something for the ages – a big definitive statement about superheroes and life and all that, not only drawn by my favorite artist but starring the first and greatest superhero of them all.

The fact that it could be a non–continuity recreation made the idea even more attractive and more achievable. I also felt ready for it, in a way I don’t think I would have been in 1999; I finally felt “grown–up” enough to do Superman justice.

I plotted the whole story in 2002 and drew tiny colored sketches for all 12 covers. The entire book was very tightly constructed before we started – except that I’d left the ending open for the inevitable better and more focused ideas I knew would arise as the project grew into its own shape...and I left an empty space for issue 10. That one was intended from the start to be the single issue of the 12–issue run that would condense and amplify the themes of all the others. #10 was set aside to be the one–off story that would sum up anything anyone needed to know about Superman in 22 pages.

Not quite as concise an origin as Superman’s, but that’s how we got started.

NRAMA: When you were devising the series, what challenges did you have in building up this version of the Superman universe?

GM: I couldn’t say there were any particular challenges. It was fun. Nobody was telling me what I could or couldn’t do with the characters. I didn’t have to worry about upsetting continuity or annoying people who care about stuff like that.

I don’t have a lot of old comics, so my knowledge of Superman was based on memory, some tattered “70s books from the remains of my teenage collection, a bunch of DC “Best Of...” reprint editions and two brilliant little handbooks – “Superman in Action Comics” Volumes 1 and 2 – which reprint every single Action Comics cover from 1938 to 1988.

I read various accounts of Superman’s creation and development as a brand. I read every Superman story and watched every Superman movie I could lay my hands on, from the Golden Age to the present day. From the Socialist scrapper Superman of the Depression years, through the Super–Cop of the 40s, the mythic Hyper–Dad of the 50s and 60s, the questioning, liberal Superman of the early 70s, the bland “superhero” of the late 70s, the confident yuppie of the 80s, the over–compensating Chippendale Superman of the 90s etc. I read takes on Superman by Mark Waid, Mark Millar, Geoff Johns, Denny O’Neil, Jeph Loeb, Alan Moore, Paul Dini and Alex Ross, Joe Casey, Steve Seagle, Garth Ennis, Jim Steranko and many others.

I looked at the Fleischer cartoons, the Chris Reeve movies and the animated series, and read Alvin Schwartz’s (he wrote the first ever Bizarro story among many others) fascinating book – “An Unlikely Prophet” – where he talks about his notion of Superman as a tulpa, (a Tibetan word for a living thought form which has an independent existence beyond its creator) and claims he actually met the Man of Steel in the back of a taxi.

I immersed myself in Superman and I tried to find in all of these very diverse approaches the essential “Superman–ness” that powered the engine. I then extracted, purified and refined that essence and drained it into All Star’s tank, recreating characters as my own dream versions, without the baggage of strict continuity.

In the end, I saw Superman not as a superhero or even a science fiction character, but as a story of Everyman. We’re all Superman in our own adventures. We have our own Fortresses of Solitude we retreat to, with our own special collections of valued stuff, our own super–pets, our own “Bottle Cities” that we feel guilty for neglecting. We have our own peers and rivals and bizarre emotional or moral tangles to deal with.

I felt I’d really grasped the concept when I saw him as Everyman, or rather as the dreamself of Everyman. That “S” is the radiant emblem of divinity we reveal when we rip off our stuffy shirts, our social masks, our neuroses, our constructed selves, and become who we truly are.

Batman is obviously much cooler, but that’s because he’s a very energetic and adolescent fantasy character: a handsome billionaire playboy in black leather with a butler at this beck and call, better cars and gadgetry than James Bond, a horde of fetish femme fatales baying around his heels and no boss. That guy’s Superman day and night.

Superman grew up baling hay on a farm. He goes to work, for a boss, in an office. He pines after a hard–working gal. Only when he tears off his shirt does that heroic, ideal inner self come to life. That’s actually a much more adult fantasy than the one Batman’s peddling but it also makes Superman a little harder to sell. He’s much more of a working class superhero, which is why we ended the whole book with the image of a laboring Superman.

He’s Everyman operating on a sci–fi Paul Bunyan scale. His worries and emotional problems are the same as ours... except that when he falls out with his girlfriend, the world trembles.

Newsarama: Grant, what are some of your favorite moments from the 12 issues?

Grant Morrison: The first shot of Superman flying over the sun. The Cosmic Anvil. Samson and Atlas. The kiss on the moon. The first three pages of the Olsen story which, I think, add up to the best character intro I’ve ever written.

Everything Lex Luthor says in issue #5. Everything Clark does. The whole says/does Luthor/Superman dynamic as played out through Frank Quitely’s absolute mastery and understanding of how space, movement and expression combine to tell a story.

Superboy and his dog on the moon – that perfect teenage moment of infinite possibility, introspection and hope for the future. He’s every young man on the verge of adulthood, Krypto is every dog with his boy (it seemed a shame to us that Krypto’s most memorable moment prior to this was his death scene in “Whatever Happened To The Man of Tomorrow.” Quitely’s scampering, leaping, eager and alive little creature is how I’d prefer to imagine Krypto the Superdog and conjures finer and more subtle emotions).

Bizarro–Home, with all of Earth’s continental and ocean shapes but reversed. The page with the first appearance of Zibarro that Frank has designed so the eye is pulled down in a swirling motion into the drain at the heart of the image, to make us feel that we’re being flushed in a cloacal spiral down into a nihilistic, existential sink. Frank gave me that page as a gift, and it became weirdly emblematic of a strange, dark time in both our lives.

The story with Bar–El and Lilo has a genuine chill off ammonia and antiseptic off it, which makes it my least favorite issue of the series, although I know a lot of people who love it. It’s about dying relatives, obligations, the overlit overheated corridors between terminal wards, the thin metallic odors of chemicals, bad food and fear. Preparation for the Phantom Zone.

Superman hugging the poor, hopeless girl on the roof and telling us all we’re stronger than we think we are.

Joe Shuster drawing us all into the story forever and never–ending.

Nasthalthia Luthor. Frank and Jamie’s final tour of the Fortress, referencing every previous issue on the way, in two pages.

All of issue #10 (there’s a single typo in there where the time on the last page was screwed up – but when we fix that detail for the trade I’ll be able to regard this as the most perfectly composed superhero story I’ve ever written).

I don’t think I’ve ever had a smoother, more seamless collaborative process.

NRAMA: The story is very complete unto itself, but are there any new or classic characters you’d like to explore further? If so, which ones and why?

GM: I’d happily write more Atlas and Samson. I really like Krull, the Dino–Czar’s wayward son, and his Stalinist underground empire of “Subterranosauri.” I could write a Superman Squad comic forever. I’d love to write the “Son of Superman” sequel about Lois and Clark’s super test tube baby.

But...I think All Star is already complete, without sequels. You read that last issue and it works because you know you’re never going to see All Star Superman again. You’ll be able to pick up Superman books, but they won’t be about this guy and they won’t feel the same. He really is going away. Our Superman is actually “dying” in that sense, and that adds the whole series a deeper poignancy.

NRAMA: Aside from the Bizarro League, you never really introduce other DC superheroes into the story. Why did you make this choice?

GM: I wanted the story to be about the mythic Superman at the end of his time. It’s clear from the references that he has or more likely has had a few super–powered allies, but that they’re no longer around or relevant any more.

For the context of this story I wanted the super–friends to be peripheral, like they were in the old comics. The Flash? Green Lantern? They represent Superman’s “old army buddies,” or your dad’s school friends. Guys you’ve sort of heard of, who used to be more important in the old man’s life than they are now.

NRAMA: Some readers were confused as to how the “Twelve Labors” broke down, though others have pointed out that Superman’s actions are more reflective of the Stations of the Cross (I note there’s a “Station Café” in the background of issue #12). Could you break down the Twelve Labors, or, if the cross theory is true, how the storyline reflects the Stations?

GM: The 12 Labors of Superman were never intended as an isomorphic mapping onto the 12 Labors of Hercules, or for that matter, the specific Stations of the Cross, of which there are 14, I believe. I didn’t even want to do one Labor per issue, so it deliberately breaks down quite erratically through the series for reasons I’ll go into (later).

Yes, there are correspondences, but that’s mostly because we tried to create for our Superman the contemporary “superhero” version of an archetypal solar hero journey, which naturally echoes numerous myths, legends and religious parables.

At the same time, we didn’t want to do an update or a direct copy of any myth you’d seen before, so it won’t work if you try to find one specific mythological or religious “plan” to hang the series on; James Joyce’s honorable and heroic refutation of the rule aside, there’s nothing more dead and dull than an attempt to retell the Odyssey or the Norse sagas scene by scene, but in a modern and/or superhero setting.

For future historians and mythologizers, however, the 12 Labors of Superman may be enumerated as follows:

1. Superman saves the first manned mission to the sun. 2. Superman brews the Super–Elixir. 3. Superman answers the Unanswerable Question. 4. Superman chains the Chronovore.  5. Superman saves Earth from Bizarro–Home. 6. Superman returns from the Underverse. 7. Superman creates Life. 8. Superman liberates Kandor/cures cancer. 9. Superman defeats Solaris. 10. Superman conquers Death. 11. Superman builds an artificial Heart for the Sun. 12.Superman leaves the recipe/formula to make Superman 2.

And one final feat, which typically no–one really notices, is that Lex Luthor delivers his own version of the unified field haiku – explaining the underlying principles of the universe in fourteen syllables – which the P.R.O.J.E.C.T. G–Type philosopher from issue 4 had dedicated his entire life to composing!

You may notice also that the Labors take place over a year – with the solar hero’s descent into the darkness and cold of the Underverse occurring at midwinter/Christmas time (that’s also the only point in the story where we ever see Metropolis at night).

It can also be seen as the sun’s journey over the course of a day – we open in blazing sunshine but halfway through the book, at the end of issue #5, in fact, the solar hero dips below the horizon and begins the night–journey through the hours of darkness and death, before his triumphant resurrection at dawn. That’s why issue 5 ends with the boat to the Underworld and 6 begins with the moon. Clark Kent is crossing the threshold into the subconscious world of memory, shadows, death and deep emotions.

Although they can often have bizarre resonances, specific elements, like the Station Café, are usually put there by Frank Quitely, and are not necessarily secret Dan Brown–style keys to unlocking the mysteries. I think there might be a Station Café opposite the studio where Frank Quitely works and the “SAPIEN” sign on another storefront is a reference to Frank’s studio mate, Dave Sapien. At least he’s not filling the background with dirty words like he used to, given any opportunity

NRAMA: For that matter, do the Twelve Labors matter at all? They seem so purposely ill–defined. They seem more like misdirection or a MacGuffin than anything that needs to be clearly delineated.

GM: They matter, of course, but the 12 Labors idea is there to show that, as with all myth, the systematic ordering of current events into stories, tales, or legends occurs after the fact.

I’m trying to suggest that only in the future will these particular 12 feats, out of all the others ever, be mythologized as 12 Labors. I suppose I was trying to say something about how people impose meaning upon events in retrospect, and that’s how myth is born. It’s hindsight that provides narrative, structure, meaning and significance to the simple unfolding of events. It’s the backward glance that adds all the capital letters to the list above.

Even Superman isn”t sure how many Labors he’s performed when we see him mulling it over in issue 10.  When you watched it happening, it seemed to be Superman just doing his thing. In the future it’s become THE 12 LABORS OF SUPERMAN!

NRAMA: And on a completely ridiculous note: All–Star Superman is perhaps the most difficult–to–abbreviate comic title since Preacher: Tall in the Saddle. Did you realize this going in?

GM: Going into what? Going into ASS itself? In the sense of how did I feel as I slowly entered ASS for the first time?

It never crossed my mind...

Newsarama: I’d like to know a little more about Leo Quintum and his role in the story. He seems like a bit of an outgrowth of the likes of Project Cadmus and Emil Hamilton, but in a more fantastical, Willy Wonka sense.

Grant Morrison: Yeah, he was exactly as you say, my attempt to create an updated take on the character of “Superman’s scientist friend” – in the vein of Emil Hamilton from the animated show and the ‘90s stories. Science so often goes wrong in Superman stories, and I thought it was important to show the potential for science to go right or to be elevated by contact with Superman’s shining positive spirit.

I was thinking of Quintum as a kind of “Man Who Fell To Earth” character with a mysterious unearthly background. For a while I toyed with the notion that he was some kind of avatar of Lightray of the New Gods, but as All Star developed, that didn’t fit the tone, and he was allowed to simply be himself.

Eventually it just came down to simplicity. Leo Quintum represents the “good” scientific spirit – the rational, enlightened, progressive, utopian kind of scientist I figured Superman might inspire to greatness. It was interesting to me how so many people expected Quintum to turn out bad at the end. It shows how conditioned we are in our miserable, self–loathing, suspicious society to expect the worst of everyone, rather than hope for the best. Or maybe it’s just what we expect from stories.

Having said that, there is indeed a necessary whiff of Lucifer about Quintum. His name, Leo Quintum, conjures images of solar force, lions and lightbringers and he has elements of the classic Trickster figure about him. He even refers to himself as “The Devil Himself” in issue #10.

What he’s doing at the end of the story should, for all its gee–whiz futurity, feel slightly ambiguous, slightly fake, slightly “Hollywood.” Yes, he’s fulfilling Superman’s wishes by cloning an heir to Superman and Lois and inaugurating a Superman dynasty that will last until the end of time – but he’s also commodifying Superman, figuring out how it’s done, turning him into a brand, a franchise, a bigger–and–better “revamp,” the ultimate coming attraction, fresher than fresh, newer than new but familiar too. Quintum has figured out the “formula” for Superman and improved upon it.

And then you can go back to the start of All Star Superman issue #1 and read the “formula” for yourself, condensed into eight words on the first page and then expanded upon throughout the story! The solar journey is an endless circle naturally. A perfect puzzle that is its own solution.

In one way, Quintum could be seen to represent the creative team, simultaneously re–empowering a pure myth with the honest fire of Art...while at the same time shooting a jolt of juice through a concept that sells more “S” logo underpants and towels than it does comic books. All tastes catered!

I have to say that the Willy Wonka thing never crossed my mind until I saw people online make the comparison, which seems quite obvious now. Quintum dresses how I would dress if I was the world’s coolest super–scientist. What’s up with that?

NRAMA: Was Zibarro inspired by the Bizarro World story where the Bizarro–Neanderthal becomes this unappreciated Casanova–type?

GM: Don’t know that one, but it sounds like a scenario I could definitely endorse!

Zibarro started out as a daft name sicked–up by my subconscious mind, which flowered within moments into the must–write idea of an Imperfect Bizarro. What would an imperfect version of an already imperfect being be like?

Zibarro.

NRAMA: I’d like to know more about Zibarro – what’s the significance of his chronicling Bizarro World through poetry?

GM: It’s up to you. I see Zibarro partly as the sensitive teenager inside us all. He’s moody, horribly self–aware and uncomfortable, yet filled with thoughts of omnipotence and agency. He’s the absolute center of his tiny, disorganized universe. He’s playing the role of sensitive, empathic poet but at the same time, he’s completely self–absorbed.

When he says to Superman “Can you even imagine what it’s like to be so different. So unique. So unlike everyone else?” he doesn’t even wait for Superman’s reply. He doesn’t care about anyone’s feelings but his own, ultimately.

NRAMA: The character is very close to Superman, so what does it say that a nonpowered version on a savage world would focus his energy through that medium? Also, does Zibarro’s existence show how Superman is able to elevate even the backwards Bizarros through his very nature?

GM: All of the above. And maybe he writes his totally subjective poetry as a reflection of Clark Kent’s objective reporter role. The suppressed, lyrical, wounded side of Superman perhaps? The Super–Morrissey? Bizarro With The Thorn In His Side?

But he’s also Bizarro–Home’s “mistake” (or so it seems to him, even though he’s as natural an expression of the place as any of the other Bizarro creatures who grow like mold across the surface of their living planet). He feels excluded, a despised outsider, and yet that position is what defines his cherished self–image. He expresses himself through poetry because to him the regular Bizarro language is barbaric, barely articulate and guttural. And they all think he’s talking crap anyway.

It seemed to make sense that an interesting opposite of Bizarro speech might be flowery “woe is me” school Poetry Society odes to the sunset in a misunderstood heart. He’s still a Bizarro though, which makes him ineffectual. His tragedy is that he knows he’s fated to be useless and pointless but craves so much more.

NRAMA: Zibarro also represents a recurrent theme in the story, of Superman constantly facing alternate versions of himself – Bar–El, Samson and Atlas, the Superman Squad, even Luthor by the end. Notably, Hercules is absent, though Superman’s doing his Twelve Labors. With the mythological adventurers in particular, was this designed to equate Superman with their legend, to show how his character is greater than theirs, or both?

GM: In a way, I suppose. He did arm–wrestle them both, proving once and for all Superman’s stronger than anybody! And remember, these characters, along with Hercules, used to appear regularly in Superman books as his rivals. I thought they made better rivals than, say, Majestic or Ultraman because people who don’t read comics have heard of Hercules, Samson and Atlas and understand what they represent.

For that particular story, I wanted to see Superman doing tough guy shit again, like he did in the early days and then again in the 70s, when he was written as a supremely cocky macho bastard for a while. I thought a little bit of that would be an antidote to the slightly soppy, Super–Christ portrayal that was starting to gain ground.

Hence Samson’s broken arm, twisted in two directions beyond all repair. And Atlas in the hospital. And then Superman’s got his hot girlfriend dressed like a girl from Krypton and they’re making out on the moon (the original panel description was of something more like the famous shot of Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr kissing in the surf from “From Here To Eternity.” Frank’s final choice of composition is much more classically pulp–romantic and iconic than my down and dirty rumble in the moondirt would have been, I’m glad to say).

Newsarama: Tell us about some of the thinking behind the new antagonists you created for this series (at least the ones you want to talk about...): First up: Krull and the Subterranosaurs...

Grant Morrison: We wanted to create some throwaway new characters which would be designed to look as if they were convincing long–term elements of the Superman legend.

We were trying to create a few foes who had a classic feel and a solid backstory that could be explored again or in depth. Even if we never went back to these characters, we wanted them to seem rich enough to carry their own stories.

With Krull, we figured a superhuman character like Superman can always use a powerful “sub–human” opponent: a beast, a monster, a savage with the power to destroy civilization. For years I’ve had the idea that the familiar “gray aliens” might “actually” be evolved biped dinosaur descendants, the offspring of smart–thinking lizards which made their way to the warm regions at the Earth’s core.

I imagined these brutes developing their own technology, their own civilization, and then finally coming to the surface to declare bloody war on the mammalian usurpers! It seemed like we could develop this idea into the Krull backstory and suggest a whole epic conflict in a few panels.

Dom Regan, the Glasgow artist and DC colorist, saw the original green skin Jamie Grant had done for Krull, and suggested we make him red instead. Jamie reset his color filters and that was the moment Krull suddenly looked like a real Superman foe.

The red skin marked him out as unique, different and dangerous, even among his own species. It had echoes of Jack Kirby’s Devil Dinosaur that played right into the heart of the concept. A good design became a great design and the whole story of who Krull was – his twisted relationship with his father the Dino–Czar, his monstrous ambitions – came together in that first picture.

The society was fleshed out in the script even though we see only one panel of it – a gloomy, heavy, “Soviet” underworld of walled iron cities, cold blood and deadly intrigue. War–Barges that could sail on the oceans of heated steam at the center of the Earth. A Stalinist authoritarian lizard world where missing person cases were being taken to work and die as slaves in hellish underworld conditions.

NRAMA: Mechano–Man?

GM: An attempt to pre–imagine a classic, archetypal Superman foe, which started with another simple premise – how about a giant robot villain? But not just any giant robot – this is a rampaging machine with a raging little man inside.

Giving him a bitter, angry, scrawny loser as a pilot turned Mechano–Man into a much more extreme and pathological expression of the Man of Steel/Mild–Mannered Reporter dynamic, and added a few interesting layers onto an 8–panel appearance.

NRAMA: The Chronovore – a very disturbing creation, that one.

GM: The Chronovore was mentioned in passing in DC 1,000,000 and would have been the monster in my aborted Hypercrisis series idea. It took a long time to get the right design for the beast because it’s meant to be a 5–D being that we only ever see in 4–D sections. It had to work as a convincing representation of something much bigger that we’re seeing only where it interpenetrates our 4–D space-time continuum.

Imagine you’re walking along with a song in your teenage heart, then suddenly the Chronovore appears, takes bite out of your life, and you arrive at your girlfriend’s house aged 76, clutching a cell phone and a wilted bouquet.

NRAMA: One more obscure run that I was happy to see referenced in this was the use of Nasty from the old Mike Sekowsky Supergirl stories. What made you want to use this character?

GM: I remembered her from the old comics, and felt her fashion–y look could be updated very easily into the kind of fetish club thing I’ve always been partial to.

She seemed a cool and sexy addition to the Luthor plot. The set–up, where Lex has a fairly normal sister who hates how her wayward brother is such a bad influence on her brilliant daughter, is explosive with character potential.

They need to bring Nasty back to mainstream continuity. Geoff! They all want it and you know you never let them down!

NRAMA: Speaking of Mike Sekowsky, I’m curious about his influence on your work. I have an odd fascination with all the ideas and stories he was tossing around in the late 1960s and early 1970s – Jason’s Quest, Manhunter 2070, the I–Ching tales – and many of the characters he worked on, from the B”Wana Beast to the Inferior Five to Yankee Doodle (in Doom Patrol), have shown up in your work. The Bizarro Zoo in issue #10 is even slightly reminiscent of the Beast’s merged animals.

GM: Those were all comics that were around when I was a normal kid, prior to the obsessive collecting fan phase of my isolated teenage years. They clearly inspired me in some way, as you say, but certainly not consciously. I’d never have considered myself a particular fan of Mike Sekowsky’s work, but as you say, I’ve incorporated a lot of his ideas into the DC Universe work I’ve done. Hmm. Interesting.

While I’m at it, I should also say something about Samson and Atlas, halfway between old characters and new.

Samson, Atlas and Hercules were classical mainstays of old Superman covers, tangling with Superman in all those Silver Age stories that happened before he learned from his friends at Marvel that it was possible to fight other superheroes for fun and profit, so I decided to completely “re–vamp” the characters in the manner of superhero franchises. Marvel has the definitive Hercules for me, so I left him out of the mix and concentrated on Atlas and Samson.

Atlas was re–imagined as a mighty but restless and reckless young prince of the New Mythos – a society of mega–beings playing out their archetypal dramas between New Elysium and Hadia, with ordinary people caught in the middle – and Superman.

Essentially good–hearted, Atlas would have been the newbie in a “team” with Skyfather Xaoz!, Heroina, Marzak and the others. He has a bullish, adolescent approach to life. He drinks and plunges himself into ill–advised adventures to ease his naturally gloomy “weighed down by the world” temperament.

You can see it all now. The backstory suggested an unseen, Empyrean New Gods–type series from a parallel universe. What if, when Jack Kirby came to DC from Marvel in 1971, he’d followed up his sci–fi Viking Gods saga at Marvel, with a dimension–spanning epic rooted in Greek mythology? New Gods meets Eternals drawn by Curt Swan/Murphy Anderson? That was Atlas.

Samson, I decided would be a callback to the British newspaper strip “Garth.” Although you may already be imagining a daily strip about the exploits of time–tossed The Boys writer, Garth Ennis, it was actually about a blonde Adonis type who bounced around the ages having mildly horny, racy adventures.

(Go look him up then return the wiser before reading on, so I don’t have to explain anymore about this bastard – he’s often described as “the British Superman,” but oh...my arse! I hated meathead, personality–singularity Garth...but we all grew up with his meandering, inexplicable yet incredibly–drawn adventures and some of it was quite good when you were a little lad because he was always shagging ON PANEL with the likes of a bare–breasted cave girl or gauze–draped Helen of Troy.

(Unlike Superman, you see, the top British strongman liked to get naked. Lots naked. Naked in every time period he could get naked in, which was all of them thanks to the miracle of his bullshit powers.

(Imagine Doctor Who buff, dumb and naked all the time – Russell, I’ve had an idea!!!! – and that’s Garth in a nutshell.

(Sorry, I know I’m going on and the average attention span of anyone reading stuff on the Internet amounts to no more than a few paragraphs, but basically, Garth was always getting naked. In public, in family newspapers. Bollock naked. Let’s face it, patriotic Americans, have you ever seen Superman’s arse?

Newsarama Note: Well, there was Baby Kal-El in the 1978 film...

(Brits, hands up who still remember the man, and have you ever not seen Garth’s arse? Do you not, in fact, have a very clear image of it in your head, as drawn by Martin Asbury perhaps? In mine, Garth’s pulling aside a flimsy curtain to gaze at the pyramids with Cleopatra buck naked in foreground ogling his rock hard glutes...).

Anyway, Samson, I decided, was the Hebrew version of Garth and he would have his own mad comic that was like an American version of Garth. I saw the Bible hero plucked from the desert sands by time–travelling buffoons in search of a savior. Introduced to all the worst aspects of future culture and, using his stolen, erratic Chrono–Mobile, Samson became a time–(and space) traveling Soldier of Fortune, writing wrongs, humping princesses, accumulating and losing treasure etc. Like a science fiction Conan. Meets Garth.

Fortunately, you’ll never see any of these men ever again.

Newsarama: How have your perceptions of Superman and his supporting characters evolved since the Superman 2000 pitch you did with Mark Waid, Mark Millar and Tom Peyer? The Superman notions seem almost identical, but Luthor is very different here than in that pitch, and so is Clark Kent. Did you use some aspects of your original pitch, or have you just changed his mind on how to portray these characters since?

Grant Morrison: A little of both. I wanted to approach All Star Superman as something new, but there were a couple of specific aspects from the Superman 2000 pitch (as I mentioned earlier, it was actually called Superman Now, at least in my notebooks, which is where the bulk of the material came from) that I felt were definitely worth keeping and exploring.

I can’t remember much about Luthor from Superman Now, except for the ending. By the time I got to All Star Superman, I’d developed a few new insights into Luthor’s character that seemed to flesh him out more. Luthor’s really human and charismatic and hateful all the same time. He’s the brilliant, deluded egotist in all of us. The key for me was the idea that he draws his eyebrows on. The weird vanity of that told me everything I needed to know about Luthor.

I thought the real key to him was the fact that, brilliant as he is, Luthor is nowhere near as brilliant as he wants to be or thinks he is. For Luthor, no praise, no success, no achievement is ever enough, because there’s a big hungry hole in his soul. His need for acknowledgement and validation is superhuman in scale. Superman needs no thanks; he does what he does because he’s made that way. Luthor constantly rails against his own sense of failure and inadequacy...and Superman’s to blame, of course.

I’ve recently been re–thinking Luthor again for a different project, and there’s always a new aspect of the character to unearth and develop.

NRAMA: This story makes Superman and Lois’ relationship seem much more romantic and epic than usual, but this one also makes Superman more of the pursuer. Lois seems like more of an equal, but also more wary of his affections, particularly in the black–and–white sequence in issue #2.

She becomes this great beacon of support for him over the course of the series, but there is a sense that she’s a bit jaded from years of trickery and uncomfortable with letting him in now that he’s being honest. How, overall, do you see the relationship between Superman and Lois?

GM: The black-and-white panels shows Lois paranoid and under the influence of an alien chemical, but yes, she’s articulating many of her very real concerns in that scene.

I wanted her to finally respond to all those years of being tricked and duped and led to believe Superman and Clark Kent were two different people. I wanted her to get her revenge by finally refusing to accept the truth.

It also exposed that brilliant central paradox in the Superman/Lois relationship. The perfect man who never tells a lie has to lie to the woman he loves to keep her safe. And he lives with that every day. It’s that little human kink that really drives their relationship.

NRAMA: Jimmy Olsen is extremely cool in this series – it’s the old “Mr. Action” idea taken to a new level. It’s often easy to write Jimmy as a victim or sycophant, but in this series, he comes off as someone worthy of being “Superman’s Pal” – he implicitly trusts Superman, and will take any risk to get his story. Do you see this version of Jimmy as sort of a natural evolution of the version often seen in the comics?

GM: It was a total rethink based on the aspects of Olsen I liked, and playing down the whole wet–behind–the–ears “cub reporter” thing. I borrowed a little from the “Mr. Action” idea of a more daredevil, pro–active Jimmy, added a little bit of Nathan Barley, some Abercrombie & Fitch style, a bit of Tintin, and a cool Quitely haircut.

Jimmy was renowned for his “disguises” and bizarre transformations (my favorite is the transvestite Olsen epic “Miss Jimmy Olsen” from Jimmy Olsen #95, which gets a nod on the first page of our Jimmy story we did), so I wanted to take that aspect of his appeal and make it part of his job.

I don’t like victim Jimmy or dumb Jimmy, because those takes on the character don’t make any sense in their context. It seemed more interesting see what a young man would be like who could convincingly be Superman’s “pal.” Someone whose company a Superman might actually enjoy. That meant making Jimmy a much bigger character: swaggering but ingenuous. Innocent yet worldly. Enthusiastic but not stupid.

My favorite Jimmy moment is in issue #7 when he comes up with the way to defeat the Bizarro invasion by using the seas of the Bizarro planet itself as giant mirrors to reflect toxic – to Bizarros – sunlight onto the night side of the Earth. He knows Superman can actually take crazy lateral thinking like this and put it into practice.

NRAMA: Perry White has a few small–but–key scenes, particularly his address to his staff in issue #1 and standing up to Luthor in issue #12. I’d like to hear more about your thoughts on this character.

GM: As with the others, my feelings are there on the page. Perry is Clark’s boss and need only be that and not much more to play his role perfectly well within the stories. He’s a good reminder that Superman has a job and a boss, unlike that good–for–nothing work-shy bastard Batman. Perry’s another of the series’ older male role models of integrity and steadfastness, like Pa Kent.

NRAMA: There’s a sense in the Daily Planet scenes and with Lois’s spotlight issues that everyone knows Clark is Superman, but they play along to humor him. The Clark disguise comes off as very obvious in this story. Do you feel that the Planet staff knows the truth, or are just in a very deep case of denial, like Lex?

GM: If I had to say for sure, I think Jimmy Olsen worked it out a long time ago, and simply presumes that if Superman has a good reason for what he’s doing, that’s good enough for Jimmy.

Lois has guessed, but refuses to acknowledge it because it exposes her darkest flaw – she could never love Clark Kent the way she loves Superman.

NRAMA: Also, the Planet staff seems awfully nonchalant at Luthor’s threats. Are they simply used to being attacked by now?

GM: Yes. They’re a tough group. They also know that Superman makes a point of looking out for them, so they naturally try to keep Luthor talking. They know he loves to talk about himself and about Superman. In that scene, he’s almost forgotten he even has powers, he’s so busy arguing and making points. He keeps doing ordinary things instead of extraordinary things.

NRAMA: The running gag of Clark subtly using his powers to protect unknowing people is well done, but I have to admit I was confused by the sequence near the end of issue #1. Was that an el–train, and if so, why was it so close to the ground?

GM: It’s a MagLev hover–train. Look again, and you’ll see it’s not supported by anything. Hover–trains help ease congestion in busy city streets! Metropolis is the City of Tomorrow, after all.

NRAMA: And there’s the death of Pa Kent. Why do you feel it’s particularly important to have Pa and not both of the Kents pass away?

GM: I imagined they had both passed away fairly early in Superman’s career, but Ma went a few years after Pa. Also, because the book was about men or man, it seemed important to stress the father/son relationships. That circle of life, the king is dead, long live the king thing that Superman is ultimately too big and too timeless to succumb to.

NRAMA: There is a real touch of Elliott S! Maggin’s novels in your depiction of Luthor – someone who is just so obsessive–compulsive about showing up Superman that he accomplishes nothing in his own life. He comes across as a showman, from his rehearsed speech in issue #1 to his garish costume in the last two issues, and it becomes painfully apparent that he wants to usurp Superman because he just can’t be happy with himself. What defeats him is actually a beautiful gift, getting to see the world as Superman does, and finally understanding his enemy.

That’s all a lead–in to: What previous stories that defined Luthor for you, and how did you define his character? What appeals to you about writing him?

GM: The Marks Waid and Millar were big fans of the Maggin books, and may have persuaded me to read at least the first one but I’m ashamed to say can’t remember anything about it, other than the vague recollection of a very humane, humanist take on Superman that seemed in general accord with the pacifist, hedonistic, between–the–wars spirit of the ‘90s when I read it. It was the ‘90s; I had other things on my mind and in my mind.

I like Maggin’s “Must There Be A Superman?” from Superman #247, which ultimately poses questions traditional superhero comic books are not equipped to answer and is one of the first paving stones in the Yellow Brick Road that leads to Watchmen and beyond, to The Authority, The Ultimates etc. Everyone still awake, still reading this, should make themselves familiar with “Must There Be A Superman?” – it’s a milestone in the development of the superhero concept.

However, the story that most defines Luthor for me turns out to be, as usual, a Len Wein piece with Curt Swan/Murphy Anderson– Superman #248. This blew me away when I was a kid. Lex Luthor cares about humanity? He’s sorry we all got blown up? The villain loves us too? It’s only Superman he really hates? Genius. Big, cool adult stuff.

The divine Len makes Lex almost too human, but it was amazing to see this kind of depth in a character I’d taken for granted as a music hall villain.

I also love the brutish Satanic, Crowley–esque, Golden Age Luthor in the brilliant “Powerstone” Action Comics #47 (the opening of All Star #11 is a shameless lift from “Powerstone”, as I soon realised when I went back to look. Blame my...er...photographic memory...cough).

And I like the Silver Age Luthor who only hates Superman because he thinks it’s Superboy’s fault he went bald. That was the most genuinely human motivation for Luthor’s career of villainy of all; it was Superman’s fault he went bald! I can get behind that.

In the Silver Age, baldness, like obesity, old age and poverty, was seen quite rightly as a crippling disease and a challenge which Superman and his supporting cast would be compelled to overcome at every opportunity! Suburban “50s America versus Communist degeneracy? You tell me.

I like elements of the Marv Wolfman/John Byrne ultra–cruel and rapacious businessman, although he somewhat lacks the human dimension (ultimately there’s something brilliant about Luthor being a failed inventor, a product of Smallville/Dullsville – the genius who went unnoticed in his lifetime, and resorted to death robots in chilly basements and cellars. Luthor as geek versus world). I thought Alan Moore’s ruthlessly self–assured “consultant” Luthor in Swamp Thing was an inspired take on the character as was Mark Waid’s rage–driven prodigy from Birthright.

I tried to fold them all into one portrayal. I see him as a very human character – Superman is us at our best, Luthor is us when we’re being mean, vindictive, petty, deluded and angry. Among other things. It’s like a bipolar manic/depressive personality – with optimistic, loving Superman smiling at one end of the scale and paranoid, petty Luthor cringing on the other.

I think any writer of Superman has to love these two enemies equally. We have to recognize them both as potentials within ourselves. I think it’s important to find yourself agreeing with Luthor a bit about Superman’s “smug superiority” – we all of us, except for Superman, know what it’s like to have mean–spirited thoughts like that about someone else’s happiness. It’s essential to find yourself rooting for Lex, at least a little bit, when he goes up against a man–god armed only with his bloody–minded arrogance and cleverness.

Even if you just wish you could just give him a hug and help him channel his energies in the right direction, Luthor speaks for something in all of us, I like to think.

However he’s played, Luthor is the male power fantasy gone wrong and turned sour. You’ve got everything you want but it’s not enough because someone has more, someone is better, someone is cleverer or more handsome.

Newsarama: Grant, a recurring theme throughout the book is the effect of small kindness – how even the likes of Steve Lombard are capable of decency. And Superman gets the key to saving himself by doing something that any human being could do, offering sympathy to a person about to end it all.

Grant Morrison: Completely...the person you help today could be the person who saves your life tomorrow.

NRAMA: The character actions that make the biggest difference, from Zibarro’s sacrifice to Pa’s influence on Superman, are really things that any normal, non-powered person could do if they embrace the best part of their humanity. The last page of issue #12 teases the idea that Superman’s powers could be given to all mankind, but it seems as though the greatest gift he has given them is his humanity. How do you view Superman’s fate in the context of where humanity could go as a species?

GM: I see Superman in this series as an Enlightenment figure, a Renaissance idea of the ideal man, perfect in mind, body and intention.

A key text in all of this is Pico’s ‘Oration On The Dignity of Man’ (15c), generally regarded as the ‘manifesto’ of Renaissance thought, in which Giovanni Pico Della Mirandola laid out the fundamentals of what we tend to refer to as ’Humanist’ thinking.

(The ‘Oratorio’ also turns up in my British superhero series Zenith from 1987, which may indicate how long I’ve been working towards a Pico/Superman team-up!)

At its most basic, the ‘Oratorio’ is telling us that human beings have the unique ability, even the responsibility, to live up to their ‘ideals’. It would be unusual for a dog to aspire to be a horse, a bird to bark like a dog, or a horse to want to wear a diving suit and explore the Barrier Reef, but people have a particular gift for and inclination towards imitation, mimicry and self-transformation. We fly by watching birds and then making metal carriers that can outdo birds, we travel underwater by imitating fish, we constantly look to role models and behavioral templates for guidance, even when those role models are fictional TV or, comic, novel or movie heroes, just like the soft, quick, shapeshifty little things we are. We can alter the clothes we wear, the temperature around us, and change even our own bodies, in order to colonize or occupy previously hostile environments. We are, in short, a distinctively malleable and adaptable bunch.

So, Pico is saying, if we live by imitation, does it not make sense that we might choose to imitate the angels, the gods, the very highest form of being that we can imagine? Instead of indulging the most brutish, vicious, greedy and ignorant aspects of the human experience, we can, with a little applied effort, elevate the better part of our natures and work to express those elements through our behavior. To do so would probably make us all feel a whole lot better too. Doing good deeds and making other people happy makes you feel totally brilliant, let’s face it.

So we can choose to the astronaut or the gangster. The superhero or the super villain. The angel or the devil. It’s entirely up to us, particularly in the privileged West, how we choose to imagine ourselves and conduct our lives.

We live in the stories we tell ourselves. It’s really simple. We can continue to tell ourselves and our children that the species we belong to is a crawling, diseased, viral cancer smear, only fit for extinction, and let’s see where that leads us.

We can continue to project our self-loathing and narcissistic terror of personal mortality onto our culture, our civilization, our planet, until we wreck the promise of the world for future generations in a fit of sheer self-induced panic...

...or we can own up to the scientific fact that we are all physically connected as parts of a single giant organism, imagine better ways to live and grow...and then put them into practice. We can stop pissing about, start building starships, and get on with the business of being adults.

The ’Oratorio’ is nothing less than the Shazam!, the Kimota! for Western Culture and we would do well to remember it in our currently trying times.

The key theme of the ‘Dark Age’ of comics was loss and recovery of wonder - McGregor’s Killraven trawling through the apocalyptic wreckage of culture in his search for poetry, meaning and fellowship, Captain Mantra, amnesiac in Robert Mayer’s Superfolks, Alan Moore’s Mike Maxwell trudging through the black and white streets of Thatcher’s Britain, with the magic word of transformation burning on the tip of his tongue.

My own work has been an ongoing attempt to repeat the magic word over and over until we all become the kind of superheroes we’d all like to be. Ha hah ha.

Newsarama: The structure of the 12 issues involves both Superman’s 12 labors and his impending death. Do you feel the threat of his demise brings out the best in Superman’s already–high character, or did you intend it more as a window for the audience to understand how he sees the world?

Grant Morrison: In trying to do the “big,” ultimate Superman story, we wanted to hit on all the major beats that define the character – the “death of Superman” story has been told again and again and had to be incorporated into any definitive take. Superman’s death and rebirth fit the sun god myth we were establishing, and, as you say, it added a very terminal ticking clock to the story.

NRAMA: When we talked earlier this year, we discussed the neurotic quality of the Silver Age stories. Looking at the series as a whole, you consistently invert this formula. Superman is faced with all these crises that could be seen as personifying his neuroses, but for the most part he handles them with a level head and comes across as being very at peace with himself. You talked about your discussion with an in–character Superman fan at a convention years ago, but I am curious as to how you determined Superman’s mindset.

GM: I felt we had to live up to the big ideas behind Superman. I don’t take my daft job lightly. It’s all I’ve got.

As the project got going, I wasn’t thinking about Silver Ages or Dark Ages or anything about the comics I’d read, so much as the big shared idea of “Superman” and that “S” logo I see on T–shirts everywhere I go, on girls and boys. That communal Superman. I wanted us to get the precise energy of Platonic Superman down on the page.

The “S” hieroglyph, the super–sigil, stands for the very best kind of man we can imagine, so the subject dictated the methodical, perfectionist approach. As I’ve mentioned before, I keep this aspect of my job fresh for myself by changing my writing style to suit the project, the character or the artist.

With something like Batman R.I.P., I’m aiming for a frenzied Goth Pulp-Noir; punk-psych, expressionist shadows and jagged nightmare scene shifts, inspired by Batman’s roots and by the snapping, fluttering of his uncanny cape. Final Crisis was written, with the Norse Ragnarok and Biblical Revelations in mind, as a story about events more than characters. A doom-laden, Death Metal myth for the wonderful world of Fina(ncia)l Crisis/Eco-breakdown/Terror Trauma we all have to live in.

The subject matter drives the execution. And then, of course, the artists add their own vision and nuance. With All Star Superman, “Frank” and I were able to spend a lot of time together talking it through, and we agreed it had to be about grids, structure, storybook panel layouts, an elegance of form, a clarity of delivery. “Classical” in every sense of the word. The medium, the message, the story, the character, all working together as one simple equation.

Frank Quitely, a Glasgow Art School boy, completely understood without much explanation, the deep structural underpinnings of the series and how to embody them in his layouts. There’s a scene in issue # 8, set on the Bizarro world, where we see Le Roj handing Superman his rocket plans. Look at the arrangement of the figures of Zibarro, Le Roj, Superman and Bizaro–Superman and you’ll see one attempt to make us of Renaissance compositions.

The sense of sunlit Zen calm we tried to get into All Star is how I imagine it might feel to think the way Superman thinks all the time - a thought process that is direct, clean, precise, mathematical, ordered. A mind capable of fantastical imagination but grounded in the everyday of his farm upbringing with nice decent folks. Rich with humour and tears and deep human significance, yet tuned to a higher key. We tried to hum along for a little while, that’s all.

In honor of the character’s primal position in the development of the superhero narrative, I hoped we could create an “ultimate” hero story, starring the ultimate superhero.

Basically, I suppose I felt Superman deserved the utmost application of our craft and intelligence in order to truly do him justice.

Otherwise, I couldn’t have written this book if I hadn’t watched my big, brilliant dad decline into incoherence and death. I couldn’t have written it if I’d never had my heart broken, or mended. I couldn’t have written it if I hadn’t known what it felt like to be idolized, misunderstood, hated for no clear reason, loved for all my faults, forgotten, remembered...

Writing All Star Superman was, in retrospect, also a way of keeping my mind in the clean sunshine while plumbing the murkiest depths of the imagination with that old pair of c****s Darkseid and Doctor Hurt. Good riddance.

Newsarama: This is touched on in other questions, but how much of the Silver/Bronze Age backstory matters here? What do you see as Superman's life prior to All-Star Superman? (What was going on with this Superman while the Byrne revamp took hold?)

Grant Morrison: When I introduced the series in an interview online, I suggested that All Star Superman could be read as the adventures of the ‘original’ Pre-Crisis on Infinite Earths Superman, returning after 20 plus years of adventures we never got to see because we were watching John Byrne‘s New Superman on the other channel. If ‘Whatever Happened To The Man of Tomorrow?’ and the Byrne reboot had never happened, where would that guy be now?

This was more to provide a sense, probably limited and ill-considered, of what the tone of the book might be like. I never intended All Star Superman as a direct continuation of the Weisinger or Julius Schwartz-era Superman stories. The idea was always to create another new version of Superman using all my favorite elements of past stories, not something ‘Age’ specific.

I didn’t collect Superman comics until the ‘70s and I’m not interested enough in pastiche or nostalgia to spend 6 years of my life playing post-modern games with Superman. All Star isn’t written, drawn or colored to look or read like a Silver Age comic book.

All Star Superman is not intended as arch commentary on continuity or how trends in storytelling have changed over the decades. It’s not retro or meta or anything other than its own simple self; a piece of drawing and writing that is intended by its makers to capture the spirit of its subject to the best of their capabilities, wisdom and talent.

Which is to say, we wanted our Superman story be about life, not about comics or superheroes, current events or politics. It’s about how it feels, specifically to be a man...in our dreams! Hopefully that means our 12 issues are also capable of wide interpretation.

So as much as we may have used a few recognizable Silver Age elements like Van-Zee and Sylv(i)a and the Bottle City of Kandor, the ensemble Daily Planet cast embodies all the generations of Superman. Perry White is from 1940, Steve Lombard is from the Schwartz-era ‘70s, Ron Troupe - the only black man in Metropolis - appeared in 1991. Cat Grant is from 1987 and so on.

P.R.O.J.E.C.T. refers back to Jack Kirby’s DNA Project from his ‘70s Jimmy Olsen stories, as well as to The Cadmus Project from ’90s Superboy and Superman stories. Doomsday is ‘90s. Kal Kent, Solaris and the Infant Universe of Qwewq all come from my own work on Superman in the same decade. Pa Kent’s heart attack is from ‘Superman the Movie‘. We didn’t use Brainiac because he’d been the big bad in Earth 2 but if we had, we’d have used Brainiac’s Kryptonian origin from the animated series and so on.

I also used quite a few elements of John Byrne’s approach. Byrne made a lot of good decisions when he rebooted the whole franchise in 1986 and I wanted to incorporate as much as I could of those too.

Our Superman in All Star was never Superboy, for instance. All Star Superman landed on Earth as a normal, if slightly stronger and fitter infant, and only began to manifest powers in adolescence when he’d finally soaked up enough yellow solar radiation to trigger his metamorphosis.

The Byrne logic seemed to me a better way to explain how his powers had developed across the decades, from the skyscraper leaps of the early days to the speed-of-light space flight of the high Silver Age. And more importantly, it made the Superman myth more poignant - the story of a farm boy who turned into an alien as he reached adolescence. I felt that was something that really enriched Superman. He grew away from his home, his family, his adopted species as he became Superman. His teenage years are a record of his transformation from normal boy to super-being.

As you say, there are more than just Silver Age influences in the book. Basically we tried to create a perfect synthesis of every Superman era. So much so, that it should just be taken as representative of an ‘age’ all its own.

In the end, however, I do think that the Silver Age type stories, with their focus on human problems and foibles, have a much wider appeal than a lot of the work which followed. They’re more like fables or folk tales than the later ‘comic book superhero’ stories of Superman when he became just another colorful costume in the crowd...and perhaps that’s why All Star seemed to resemble those books more than it does a typical modern Marvel or DC comic. It was our intention to present a more universal, mainstream Superman.

NRAMA: In your depiction of Krypton and the Kryptonians, you show the complexity of Superman’s relationship between humanity and Earth even further. Krypton has that scientific paradise quality to it, but the Kryptonians are also portrayed as slightly aloof and detached, even Jor-El. But from Bar-El to the people of Kandor, they’re touched by Superman’s goodness. What do you see as the fundamental difference between Kryptonians and Earthlings, and how has Superman’s character been shaped by each?

GM: My version of Krypton was, again, synthesized from a number of different approaches over the decades.  In mythic terms, if Superman is the story of a young king, found and raised by common people, then Krypton is the far distant kingdom he lost. It’s the secret bloodline, the aristocratic heritage that makes him special, and a hero. At the same time, Krypton is something that must be left behind for Superman to become who he is - i.e. one of us. Krypton gives him his scientific clarity of mind, Earth makes his heart blaze.

I liked the very early Jerry Siegel descriptions where Krypton is a planet of advanced supermen and women (I already played with that a little in Marvel Boy where Noh-Varr was written to be the Marvel Superboy basically). To that, I added the rich, science fiction detailing of the Silver Age Krypton stories and the slightly detached coolness that characterized John Byrne’s Krypton, which I re-interpreted through the lens of Dzogchen Buddhist thought, probably the most pragmatic, chilly and rational philosophic system on the planet and the closest, I felt, to how Kryptonians might see things.

We also took some time to redesign the crazy, multicolored Kryptonian flag (you can see our version in Kandor in issue #10). The flag, as originally imagined, seemed like the last thing Kryptonians would endorse, so we took the multicolored-rays-around-a-circle design and recreated it - the central circle is now red, representing Krypton’s star, Rao, while the rays, rather than arbitrary colors, become representations of the spectrum of visible light pouring from Rao into the inky black of space. In this way, the flag, that bizarre emblem of nationalism becomes a scientific hieroglyph.

Showing Krypton and Kryptonians was also important as a way of stressing why Superman wears that costume and why it makes absolute sense that he looks the way he does. I don’t see the red and blue suit as a flag or as rewoven baby blankets. There’s no need for Superman to dress the way he does but it made sense to think of his outfit as his ‘national costume‘.

The way I see it, the standard superhero outfit, the familiar Superman suit with the pants on the outside, is what everyone wore on Krypton, give or take a few fashion accessories like hoods and headbands, chest crests and variant colors. In fact, all other superheroes are just copying the fashions on Krypton, lost planet of the super-people.

Superman wears his ’action-suit’ the way a patriotic Scotsman would wear a kilt. It’s a sign of his pride in his alien heritage.

Newsarama: Although All–Star Superman ties in with DC One Million, you style of writing has changed dramatically since then. How do you feel about One Million now?

Grant Morrison: I just read it again and liked it a lot. Comics were definitely happier, breezier and more confident in their own strengths before Hollywood and the Internet turned the business of writing superhero stories into the production of low budget storyboards or, worse, into conformist, fruitless attempts to impress or entertain a small group of people who appear to hate comics and their creators.

NRAMA: Obviously, this book is the most explicit SF–Christ story since Behold the Man, only...happy. Superman/Christ parallels have existed for decades, but this story makes it absolutely explicit, from laying his hands on the sick and dying to...well, most of issue #12. You’ve dealt with Christ themes before, particularly in The Mystery Play, but outside of the comics, how do you see Superman as a Christ figure for the “real” world?

GM: The “Superman as Christ” thing is a little too reductive for me, and tends to overlook the fact that Superman is by no means a pacifist in the Christ sense. Superman would never turn the other cheek; Superman punches out the bully. Superman is a fighter.

When did Christ ever batter the Devil through a mountain?

The thing I disliked about the Superman Returns movie was the American Christ angle, which reduced Superman to a sniveling, masochistic wreck, crawling around on the floor, taking a kicking from everyone. This approach had an odd and slightly disturbing S&M flavor, which didn’t play well to the character’s strengths at all and seemed to derive entirely from a kind of Catholic vision of the suffering, martyred Jesus.

It’s not that he’s based on Jesus, but simply that a lot of the mythical sun god elements that have been layered onto the Christ story also appear in the story of Superman. I suppose I see Superman more as pagan sci–fi. He’s a secular messiah, a science redeemer with tough guy muscles and a very direct and clear morality.

NRAMA: Continuing the religious themes, in issue #10, you have Superman literally giving birth to himself, both philosophically and as a character – a nice little meta–moment showing how Superman inspires a world where he is only fiction. How did that idea come about?

GM: It came from the challenge we’d set ourselves: as I said, issue #10 had been left as a blank space into which the single most coherent condensation of all our ideas about Superman were destined to fit.

I wanted to do a “day in the life” story. So much of All Star had been about this threat to Superman himself, so we wanted to show him going about a typical day saving people and doing good.

Then came the title “Neverending,” which comes from the opening announcement – “Faster than a speeding bullet!...” of the Superman radio show from 1940, and seemed to me to be as good a title for a Superman story as any I could think of. It seemed to distil everything about Superman’s battle and his legend into a single word. And the story structure itself was designed to loop endlessly, so it went well with that.

On top of that went the idea of the Last Will and Testament of Superman. A dying god writing his will seemed like an interesting structure to use. Then came the idea to fit all of human history into that single 24 hours. And then to show the development of the Superman idea through human culture from the earliest Australian Aboriginal notions of super–beings ‘descended” from the sky, through the complex philosophical system of Hinduism, onto the Renaissance concept of the ideal man, via the refinements of Nietzche and finally, down to that smiling, hopeful Joe Shuster sketch; the final embodiment of humanity’s glorious, uplifting notion of the superman become reduced to a drawing, a story for kids, a worthless comic book.

And also what that could mean in a holographic fractal universe, where the smallest part contains and reflects the whole.

Of course the next panel in that sequence is happening in the real world and would show you, the reader, sitting with the latest Superman issue in your hands, deep within the Infant Universe of Qwewq in the Fortress of Solitude, today, wherever you are. In “Neverending,” the reader becomes wrapped in a self–referential loop of story and reality. If you actually, seriously think about what is happening at this point in the story, if you meditate upon the curious entanglement of the real and the fictional, you will become enlightened in this life apparently. According to some texts.

NRAMA: On a personal level, you’ve explored all types of religions and philosophies in your work. What is your take on religion and how it influences humanity, and the Christian take on Jesus Christ in particular?

GM: I think religion per se, is a ghastly blight on the progress of the human species towards the stars. At the same time, it, or something like it, has been an undeniable source of comfort, meaning and hope for the majority of poor bastards who have ever lived on Earth, so I’m not trying to write it off completely. I just wish that more people were educated to a standard where they could understand what religion is and how it works. Yes, it got us through the night for a while, but ultimately, it’s one of those ugly, stupid arse–over–backwards things we could probably do without now, here on the Planet of the Apes.

Religion is to spirituality what porn is to sex. It’s what the Hollywood 3–act story template is to real creative writing.

Religion creates a structure which places “special,” privileged people (priests) between ordinary people and the divine, as if there could even be any separation: as if every moment, every thought, every action was not already an expression of dynamic ‘divinity” at work.

As I’ve said before, the solid world is just the part of heaven we’re privileged to touch and play with. You don’t need a priest or a holy man to talk to “god” on your behalf: just close your eyes and say hello. “God” is no more, no less, than the sum total of all matter, all energy, all consciousness, as experienced or conceptualized from a timeless perspective where everything ever seems to present all at once. “God” is in everything, all the time and can be found there by looking carefully. The entire universe, including the scary, evil bits, is a thought “God” is thinking, right now.

As far as I can figure it out from my own reading and my own experience of how the spiritual world works, Jesus was, as they say, way cool: a man who achieved a state of consciousness, which nowadays would get him a diagnosis of temporal lobe epilepsy (in the days of the Emperor Tiberius, he was crucified for his ideas, today he’d be laughed at, mocked or medicated).

This “holistic” mode of consciousness (which Luthor experiences briefly at the end of All Star Superman) announces itself as a heartbreaking connection, a oneness, with everything that exists...but you don’t have to be Superman to know what that feeling is like. There are a ton of meditation techniques which can take you to this place. I don’t see it as anything supernatural or religious, in fact, I think it’s nothing more than a developmental level of human consciousness, like the ability to see perspective – which children of 4 cannot do but children of 6 can.

Everyone who’s familiar with this upgrade will tell you the same thing: it feels as if “alien” or “angelic” voices – far more intelligent, coherent and kindly than the voices you normally hear in your head – are explaining the structure of time and space and your place in it.  This identification with a timeless supermind containing and resolving within itself all possible thoughts and contradictions, is what many people, unsurprisingly, mistake for an encounter with “God.” However, given that this totality must logically include and resolve all possible thoughts and concepts, it can also be interpreted as an actual encounter with God, so I’m not here to give anyone a hard time over interpretation.

Some people have the experience and believe the God of their particular culture has chosen them personally to have a chat with. These people may become born–again Christians, fundamentalist Muslims, devotees of Shiva, or misunderstood lunatics. Some “contactees�� interpret the voices they hear erroneously as communications from an otherworldly, alien intelligence, hence the proliferation of “abduction” accounts in recent decades, which share most of their basic details with similar accounts, from earlier centuries, of people being taken away by “fairies” or “little people”.

Some, who like to describe themselves as magicians, will recognize the “alien” voice as the “Holy Guardian Angel”.

In timeless, spaceless consciousness, the singular human mind blurs into a direct experience of the totality of all consciousness that has ever been or will ever be. It feels like talking with God but I see that as an aspect of science, not religion.

As Peter Barnes wrote in “The Ruling Class”, “I know I must be God because when I pray to Him, I find I’m talking to myself.”

Newsarama: When we spoke earlier this year, you talked about some of your ideas for future All Star stories. Are you moving forward on those, or have you started working on different ideas since then?

Grant Morrison: I haven’t had time to think about them for a while. I did have the stories worked out, and I’d like to do more, but right now it feels like Frank and Jamie and I have said all there is to be said. I don’t know if I’m ready to do All Star Superman with anyone else right now. I have other plans.

NRAMA: You end the book with Superman having uplifted humanity – having inspired them through his sacrifice and great deeds, and with the potential to pass his powers on to humanity still there. Do you plan to explore this concept further, or would you prefer to leave it open–ended?

GM: I may go back to the Son of Superman in some way. At the same time, it’s best left open–ended. I like the idea that Superman gets to have his cake and eat it; he becomes golden and mythical and lives forever as a dream. Yet, he also is able to sire a child who will carry his legacy into the future. He kicks ass in both the spiritual and the temporal spheres!

NRAMA: The notion of transcendence – always a big part of your work. But the debate about All Star Superman is whether or not it "transcends its genre." Superman becomes transcendent within the series itself, and inspires the beings on Qwewq, but does the work aspire to more than that? Is it simply the greatest version of a Superman story, and that’s enough?

GM: That would certainly be enough if it were true.

It’s a pretty high–level attempt by some smart people to do the Superman concept some justice, is all I can say. It’s intended to work as a set of sci–fi fables that can be read by children and adults alike. I’d like to think you can go to it if you’re feeling suicidal, if you miss your dad, if you’ve had to take care of a difficult, ailing relative, if you’ve ever lost control and needed a good friend to put you straight, if you love your pets, if you wish your partner could see the real you...All Star is about how Superman deals with all of that.

It’s a big old Paul Bunyan style mythologizing of human - and in particular male - experience. In that sense I’d like to think All Star Superman does transcend genre in that it’s intended to be read on its own terms and needs absolutely no understanding of genre conventions or history around it to grasp what’s going on.

In today’s world, in today’s media climate designed to foster the fear our leaders like us to feel because it makes us easier to push around. In a world where limp, wimpy men are forced to talk tough and act ‘badass’ even though we all know they’re shitting it inside. In a world where the measure of our moral strength has come to lie in the extremity of the images we’re able to look at and stomach. In a world, I’m reliably told, that’s going to the dogs, the real mischief, the real punk rock rebellion, is a snarling, ‘fuck you’ positivity and optimism. Violent optimism in the face of all evidence to the contrary is the Alpha form of outrage these days. It really freaks people out.

I have a desire not to see my culture and my fellow human beings fall helplessly into step with a middle class media narrative that promises only planetary catastrophe, as engineered by an intrinsically evil and corrupt species which, in fact, deserves everything it gets.

Is this relentless, downbeat insistence that the future has been cancelled really the best we can come up with? Are we so fucked up we get off on terrifying our children? It’s not funny or ironic anymore and that’s why we wrote All Star Superman the way we did. Everything has changed. ‘Dark’ entertainment now looks like hysterical, adolescent, ‘Zibarro’ crap. That’s what my Final Crisis series is about too.

NRAMA (aka Tim Callahan): Continuing with the theme of transcendence: The words "ineffectual" and "surrender" are repeated throughout the book. Discuss.

GM: Discuss yourself, Callahan! I know you have the facilities and I should think it’s all rather obvious.  

NRAMA: What was the inspiration for the image of Superman in the sun at the end? (I confess this question comes as the result of much unsuccessful Googling)

GM: I didn’t have any specific reference in mind - just that one we‘ve all sort of got in our heads. I drew the figure as a sketch, intended to be reminiscent of William Blake’s cosmic figures, Russian Constructivist Soviet Socialist Worker type posters, and Leonardo’s ‘Proportions of the Human Figure‘. The position of the legs hints at the Buddhist swastika, the clockwise sun symbol. It was to me, the essence of that working class superheroic ideal I mentioned, condensed into a final image of mythic Superman, - our eternal, internal, guiding, selfless, tireless, loving superstar. The daft All Star Superman title of the comic is literalized in this last picture. It’s the ‘fearful symmetry’ of the Enlightenment project - an image of genius, toil, and our need to make things, to fashion art and artifacts, as a form of superhuman, divine imitation.

It was Superman as this fusion of Renaissance/Enlightenment ideas about Man and Cosmos, an impossible union of Blake and Newton. A Pop Art ‘Vitruvian Man‘. The inspiration for the first letter of the new future alphabet!

As you can see, we spent a lot of time thinking about all this and purifying it down to our own version of the gold. I’m glad it’s over.

NRAMA: Finally: What, above all else, would you like people to take away from All Star Superman?

GM: That we spent a lot of time thinking about this!

No. What I hope is that people take from it the unlikelihood that a piece of paper, with little ink drawings of figures, with little written words, can make you cry, can make your heart soar, can make you scared, sad, or thrilled. How mental is that?

That piece of paper is inert material, the corpse of some tree, pulped and poured, then given new meaning and new life when the real hours and real emotions that the writer and the artist, the colorist, the letter the editor translated onto the physical page, meet with the real hours and emotions of a reader, of all readers at once, across time, generations and distance.

And think about how that experience, the simple experience of interacting with a paper comic book, along with hundreds of thousands of others across time and space, is an actual doorway onto the beating heart of the imminent, timeless world of “Myth” as defined above. Not just a drawing of it but an actual doorway into timelessness and the immortal world where we are all one together.

My grief over the loss of my dad can be Superman’s grief, can trigger your own grief, for your own dad, for all our dads. The timeless grief that’s felt by Muslims and Christians and Agnostics alike. My personal moments of great and romantic love, untainted by the everyday, can become Superman’s and may resonate with your own experience of these simple human feelings.

In the one Mythic moment we’re all united, kissing our Lover for the First time, the Last time, the Only time, honoring our dear Dad under a blood red sky, against a darkening backdrop, with Mum telling us it’ll all be okay in the end.

If we were able to capture even a hint of that place and share it with our readers, that would be good enough for me.

#All Star Superman #Grant Morrison #Superman

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warsmith-38 · 3 years

Text

How I would do RWBY pt.9

Season nine

RWBY and JN(P)R and the jobbers are all prepping to take the fight to Salem.

Big military invasion is planned targeting the Grimmlands.

Atlas is used as staging ground.

Atlas military, Ilia’s White Fang, SDC militia, Raven’s bandits, Mistral defense force, Menagerie commandos, and more are there to help.

Everyone even vaguely connected to Ozpin’s Council sends aid.

Vacuo’s defenders will lightly pepper the southern coast to make it seem like they’re still planning on attacking from Vacuo.

Everyone has scenes together about emotions and fears and whatever.

Invasion begins.

Goes well. A beachhead is established, casualties are minimal, and grimm are curtailed rather easily.

Normandy was a success.

They have to do what they came to do as fast as possible before Salem’s grimm from the south cross the continent.

The distraction did its job, but now they’re on their way.

That’s when the offensive grinds to a halt because nothing is ever that fucking easy.

Skirmishes become common, but no greater progress is made.

Then the casualty reports keep coming in.

Everyone except Ozpin reads them.

Morale is lowering, which in turn makes the grimm stronger, which lowers morale further and so forth.

Ironwood says that they need a big symbolic victory to restore morale and get things back on track.

Idea is a blitz, push as hard and fast into the Grimmlands as possible, consolidating as much territory as possible along the way.

Myrmidon is the only real strategic obstacle in the way.

Time is of the essence so plan is a go.

Night before the blitz.

Ruby gives a speech to WBY and JN(P)R.

Says that they’re all the best friends she’s ever had and that, even with all the problems going on, the time they’ve spent together has been the best time of her life.

Everyone has a few more scenes together.

Tai has a moment with his girls.

Raven tries to further apologize to Yang in her own way.

Weiss and Winter have video call with Willow and jailtime Jacques.

Blake has a moment with her parents who came with the Menagerie Commandos.

JN(P)R vow to each other that they’re going to either get Pyrrha back or put her to permanent rest.

Qrow and Ruby have moment together.

Ruby says she’s both out of her mind terrified and incredibly excited to kick ass at the same time.

Qrow says that that’s about right for Summer’s daughter.

Day of the blitz.

Coalition forces charge forth with the fury of…an uninterrupted carpool. What the hell?

There’s no fucking grimm.

The entire army is advancing into hostile territory completely unopposed.

Jaune and Ironwood realize what’s happening at the same time.

Sometimes the best defense is an overwhelming fuck you of an offense.

Pyrrha had withdrawn as many grimm as she possibly could in the timeframe and condensed them into two massive combined hordes.

And she’s sending those two hordes, in a pincer maneuver, directly against the sides of the coalition blitz’ spearhead.

Swarms of grimm hit them like a tidal wave.

The offence halts right then and there.

Fighting is brutal and ground is taken and lost at an alarming rate.

RWBY is shining beacon of hope against the darkness.

Killing droves of grimm as fast as the laws of physics allow.

Pyrrha gets involved.

JN(P)R intercept her.

Fight goes similarly to the last two but with one major difference.

Jaune, in his desperation, takes a blade to the leg and wraps Pyrrha in a bear hug, flooding her with his healing aura just to see what happens.

He doesn’t know what the hell it’s going to do, if anything, but it’s all he has at this point.

Pyrrha tosses him off but is visibly stunned and starts convulsing.

Her human parts are being affected by Jaune’s healing.

This gives them enough time for Ruby to blast her with white fire.

Pyrrha gives Jaune a sad look of longing before she collapses into his arms, once again dead and fading away into the wind.

JNR is sad at seeing their friend die… again.

The grimm lose all cohesion and even begin infighting a little at the complete removal of coordination.

The blitz continues all the way to Salem’s Sanctum.

They encircle and lay siege.

Salem and Ozpin communicate.

It’s finally here, isn’t it? The moment they both’ve dreamed about.

Chaos or order. Which will win in the end?

The day of fate has fin’ly come.

The siege is going rather poorly after about a week or so.

No headway is being made on being able to directly assault the Sanctum.

Artillery has little to no effect due to a magic bubble shield.

Swarm of incredibly powerful grimm operate as a sort of moat preventing infantry incursions.

Flying grimm lead to similar results on aerial attacks.

RWBY and JN(P)R are involved in latest offensive.

It fails. Pretty hard too.

Every day that goes on the more people get killed by the grimm.

This lowers morale.

This causes more, stronger, grimm to show up.

Same problem as before the blitz but with even more stressed logistics.

Scouts report that the grimm horde from the south is going to show up in under a week.

The worst part is that it would take just over a week for coalition forces to pack up and retreat.

Goodie.

Cinder has a moment of actually having a conscious and says she has a solution.

She knows of a way past Salem’s defenses and directly into the Sanctum.

The Cavern of Remembrance. (Yes, I’m nabbing the name from KH2FM, roll with it)

Rumor has it is that it’s a tunnel full of vengeful spirits of the departed.

Many have gone mad attempting to go through it.

Tyrian was the last to make it through, probably because he was pretty crazy to begin with.

Salem does nothing with it because the vast majority of people that go through there don’t make it out and those that do are either easy enough to kill on the other side or are susceptible to recruitment.

Ozpin makes the plan to send a strike team through it.

Should they survive, Ozpin will have Raven open a portal to give them a clean shot at killing Salem.

Nobody really likes this plan but they have few alternatives.

Decide that RWBY, JN(P)R, and CEMN would be the best options for the strike team.

Most of them (particularly Ruby and Jaune) cringe at the idea of working side by side with Cinder but roll with it because Salem is a much higher priority.

The teams get ready to go off.

Tensions are high.

Cinder leads them to the entrance of the cavern.

Everyone takes a moment to steel themselves and enter.

The great majority of the walk through the cavern is just that, walking.

So far it’s just a fucking cave tunnel.

Ren and Nora disappear.

It’s a straight, almost featureless, tunnel so they have no idea what the hell just happened.

Emerald and Mercury disappear next. Then Weiss, then Jaune, then Blake, then Neo, then Penny.

Ruby, Cinder, and Yang are alone now.

Yang gets a little angry, thinking that Cinder set them up.

The argument stops when they see a completely out of place cottage door ahead of them.

They enter it and are shocked to see Summer Rose, happily sitting with a pot of tea ready to pour.

The cavern is a font of old magic. It allows those who enter it one chance to speak to the departed spirit of someone emotionally close to them. Not necessarily a loved one, but someone important, good or ill.

As it turns out this has the habit of often making people want to ‘reunite’ with their loved ones or get killed by the spirit of the one they hated.

Ren and Nora are talking to their respective parents. They tell them that they’ve made it after all.

Weiss is talking to her grandfather. Calls him an old fart that history will only remember as a huge cunt.

Blake is talking to Adam. Specifically, depressed Adam that has lost the psychopathic streak.

Penny is talking to herself, the version of her that Cinder killed. Very trippy and self-reflective.

Emerald is talking to her mother. The last genuinely good influence she’s ever had before going good.

Mercury is talking to (read: says three words to and then starts fighting) his father.

Neo is…okay not talking, but with Roman. He teases her for going legit.

Jaune is talking to Pyrrha. Big happy lovers’ reunion.

Conversations range from tear soaked reunions to vitriol filled shouting matches to straight up fights.

Important bits, aside from emotional closure are as follows:

Mercury doesn’t get his semblance back from papa but awakens what would have been a second one.

It’s Armstrong/Greed style body hardening.

Jaune and Pyrrha have a moment properly saying that they love each other but are cut off prematurely, showing that Salem has resurrected her again.

Jaune has a new plan.

Everyone either connects again with the deceased and gains new resolve, or get pumped by telling the dearly departed dickhead to fuck themselves.

Ruby and Yang get confused as to why Cinder is there with them.

Cinder mouths off like a rude fuck.

Summer scolds her and calls her ‘Cinder Rose’.

Do the plot-twist dance, c’mon. (This was the thing that the Mad Scientist tried to reveal to Ruby)

As it turns out, Cinder is Ruby’s long lost fraternal twin that was stolen by Salem and raised in a horrible orphanage until Salem could come and ‘save’ her.

It was almost a contest between Ozpin and Salem.

Ozpin’s kid living in a well-structured and sheltered place with Salem’s living in a shitty environment with constant hardship. The one who’s system made the better kid, wins.

C+R+Y mutual BSOD.

After a few good shouts and some crying Summer tells her girls that she’ll always love them and be proud of them.

Summer and the cottage fade away and C+R+Y are really unsure as to what to make of this revelation.

Cinder is in the worse emotional shape she’s been in in the series.

They all agree to keep it quiet and just get on with things.

Repress now, react later.

Eventually everyone gets through their meetings and meet up at the exit of the cavern.

They’re right at the base of the Sanctum with the entrance to it in front of them.

Ruby shares brief secret words with Neo, Blake, and Emerald as everyone else is distracted.

They send a radio signal, Raven opens a portal and she, TQ, Ironwood, Glynda, Winter, and Ozpin come through.

Everyone moves into the Sanctum.

They enter the main foyer and Salem is standing atop the stairs waiting for them all dramatic and shit.

Says thank you to Cinder for giving her the opportunity to kill Ozpin.

Cinder calls her a bitch.

Says that she’s going to kill her for her mother’s sake.

Salem says that that’s easier said than done.

Myrmidon attacks with a shitload of grimm, including very crude resurrections of Tyrian, Roman, Adam, and some other jobbers.

It’s almost insulting how poorly done they are compared to Myrmidon.

Salem put all her time and effort into Myrmidon.

Big battle royale extravaganza.

The various resurrected try and fuck with people psychologically. Roman saying he never loved Neo, Tyrian bragging about killing Summer, and such like that.

This works on no one and the resurrected get decked but at least they tried.

The Council, baring Ozpin, get tied up against grimm.

JN(P)R distract Myrmidon and get her away into a separate room.

RWBY and CEMN get at Salem directly.

Salem boss fight start.

JN(P)R manage to redo the plan to knock off Myrmidon’s helmet.

Myrmidon believes she knows what they’re planning to do.

JN(P)R know she knows this and have planned around that plan she planned against their plan.

It makes sense, shut up.

Jaune kisses her and floods her with as much healing semblance as he can.

She almost dies, y’know, again, but the grimm taint is healed away from both the healing semblance and Jaune’s aura jumpstarting her aura again with the power of love.

N(P)R’s aura’s flood into Pyrrha as well because friendship and jury rigging Penny’s artificial aura system.

Pyrrha is unconscious, scarred, and in very poor shape. But she’s alive again, truly.

Not that they’d try it, but attempting similar plans with the other resurrected would have just destroyed them due to their comparably shabby creation.

JNP(P)R’s story is now wrapped up.

Yay!

RWBY and CEMN vs. Salem is still going on.

Lots of fire of both orange and white.

Fuck it, black fire too from Salem.

Summons and hallucinations.

Rage mode and NANOMACHINES SON.

Clone decoys and illusions.

Salem is enraged that she’s losing, decides fuck it and starts just blowing shit up with magic.

Ozpin comes in with the assist when Salem has taken a few hits.

He wants to kill-steal like a noob.

Ruby smiles as her own plan has come together.

Fight goes on, big spectacle, you know the deal.

Big crazy god powers combating each other.

TL;DR Salem and Ozpin stab each other at the same time.

Ruby had Neo, Blake, and Emerald fuck with both of their perceptions with their semblances to as many degrees as they can, making mutually assured destruction… assured (shut up).

Ruby even brags to both of them about it.

“There is no need for gods that only take,” –Asura (A really angry dude)

Calls both Ozpin and Salem bitches.

Both are enraged but the prophesy is fulfilled. Only one can kill the other so both now die.

So die the two worst mass murderers in the history of the planet.

It’s a BIGASS explosion.

Ruby wakes up at home, hoping to unholy fucking hell that this whole thing was not just one long dream after the Fall of Beacon.

It wasn’t.

Everyone is there to see Ruby and tell her that, yes, Salem and Ozpin are super dead.

Everybody wins.

Everyone else lived (She’s especially happy to see Pyrrha) and even got her flowers.

The one that draws her eye is the one that people say is the newest, a black rose.

It has a note saying ‘Ruins of Beacon. One week. –C’.

One week passes.

Ruby goes to the ruins of Beacon, alone, armed as she usually is.

Cinder is waiting for her.

Ruby doesn’t really want to fight Cinder now. She’s even talked to whatever authorities remain about getting Cinder a level of amnesty for helping in the last couple seasons.

Cinder tries to bait her into getting angry and attacking her but Ruby calls her bluff and tells her to just be honest for once in her life.

Cinder says that due to her upbringing she needs to contextualize events in a specific way.

Ruby needs to beat her in a fight. Properly.

No berserk insanity, no grimm arm weaknesses, just the definitive one on one show of strength.

Only then can she accept the reality where it’s possible for her to be sister to such a good entity as Ruby.

Otherwise she’s just going to fuck off to parts unknown, content with her stupid worldview.

Ruby tells her to stop being such a chuunibyou, but admits that she still has some shit to work out herself and the best way she knows to do that is a fight.

Ruby vs. Cinder.

Vergil 3 motherfuckers.

The definitive, badass, rival match, season and series final boss fight.

The wheel of fate is turning, heaven or hell, let’s rock!

The fight goes through everything.

Going from shooting, to melee, to fire duel, back to melee, to hand-to-hand, ending in a MGS4 style exhausted slugfest, all interlaced with flashbacks and shit, culminating in a mutual cross-counter.

Final punch, both of them nail each other on the cheek.

They glare at each other for a second, each other’s fists in their faces.

Cinder falls (ha) over first.

Ruby declares victory before collapsing next to her.

They have an absolutely exhausted heart-to-heart.

They reflect on the events of the series and accept each other as sisters.

Cinder accepts the name, ‘Cinder Rose’.

Four months later.

World is recovering from the conflict well.

Grimm still exist.

As long as negative emotions exist, Salem’s grudge will also. But without centralized control, the grimm are just hyper-combative and aggressive animals that crop up now and again, but can be curtailed easily enough if direct threat is posed.

Hunters still need to exist, but grimm aren’t world ending level threat anymore.

RWBY has been enjoying a little time off together as they do minor logistical work.

JNP(P)R have been palling around doing the same as RWBY, very much enjoying having Pyrrha back.

Team CEMN is now official with its members working as a sort of penal squad to work off their respective sentences.

They’ve got house arrest in their downtime though.

Only exception is when they’re working or have supervision from someone trustworthy.

Better than prison or doing the hempen jig so... take what you can get.

Kingdoms use the framework of Ozpin’s surveillance system as a communication and connectivity network instead of a ‘big brother’ type system of control.

Big get together with everyone.

Beacon is about to reopen under Headmaster Qrow Branwen.

RWBY and JNP(P)R decide that getting the Hunter GED equivalent might be the best option for them, considering they’re infinitely more experienced than any first year has a right to be.

Agree to a grad-student type arrangement to still be involved, though.

Everyone’s having a good time. Everyone’s connecting and blowing off steam.

Ruby peaks out and goes off on her own for a particular reason.

Ruby has final moment of series, talking to Summer’s grave.

Turn around and sees all her friends, family, and teammates.

Says she loves them all, half talking to the audience as well.

Red Like Roses plays as it fades to statues of Team RWBY in a cathedral or altar type place.

Fin.

Season nine done.

War arc done.

Series done.

Boom-shakalaka.

Season of mini-episodes mostly for the fluff, fun, and because I say so.

1. Cinder awkwardly bonding with her new family, despite her best efforts.

2. Raven having a moment with Tai and Qrow about Summer.

3. Pyrrha reuniting with her family post-resurrection and dealing with the fallout of Myrmidon.

4. Weiss and Blake visiting Jacques and Sienna in their respective prisons.

5. Ironwood, Glynda, and others talk about Ozpin, reflecting that he really was kind of an asshole.

6. Team CEMN on mission, very slowly becoming actual friends.

7. Team CFVY make plan to transfer back to Beacon during sparring match with SSSN.

8. Flashback episode for team RWBY when they were children and still had much to learn.

9. Ilia and Blake talking about the restructuring of the White Fang.

10. Un-incarcerated Schnees talking about the future of the company.

11. RWBY and CEMN little sparring fun for stress relief.

12. Flashback thing with team STRQ, going through their forming and breaking.

13. Cinder going on an apology tour. (Pyrrha still hates her guts but not enough to kill her).

14. Qrow and Raven have big over the top dork duel because they’re both dorks.

15. JNPR has moment of “Wow, we REALLY didn’t sign up for that but we made out fine enough,”

16. Team SSSN wondering just what the holy hell all that was about.

17. Ciel and Penny reaffirm their friendship with each other, even though their team is long gone.

18. Flashback to Salem and Ozpin’s original falling out, showing that they were assholes even back then.

19. RWBY are made official huntresses and start a proper career of grimm killing and peace keeping.

20. Flash forward a generation or three later and someone telling their kid/grandkid team RWBY’s story.

I did this because I felt the need to and nobody could stop me. Too many aspects of the show pissed me off just a little too much and I know that all this amounts to is my insane ramblings, but I did it anyway. Will I ever be put in charge of an actual RWBY reboot or something of that measure? Fucking no. Will this change anyone’s minds? Probably not. Was this entertaining to read? I certainly hope so. But, in the end, I had a ton of fun doing this and have made the points I wanted to make. That’s just about all I care about in the end.

I regret nothing.

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kerikaaria · 3 years

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Borahae Slimes Haul #2 Review!

Dean ( @eternalseokjin ) restocked with some new slimes, so of course I had to snatch a few!

Full disclosure, Dean is my friend and knew my birthday recently passed so he gave me some extra goodies (a free full slime, extra candy, and I’m pretty sure the amount of photocards and stickers were extra too lol. Dude gave me 3 Yoongi photocards because he knows how soft I am for that man) with this because he’s just amazing and sweet like that ^-^ Thank you, Dean!

First, here’s the link to Dean’s Etsy store, so if you would like to purchase some BTS-themed slime, definitely give his shop a look! And check out the store’s tumblr @borahaeslimes

I was lucky for the order to come really quickly, especially during this time of year. And once I started opening up the package, I got so excited! He didn’t tell me he had added Until Spring for free as a birthday gift, so it was such a pleasant surprise! (And a surprise blessing with the extra containers as well, for reasons I’ll explain later). Keep reading for a detailed review with pictures!

Also. my apologies for the pictures not being more condensed. Every time I attempted to adjust them on mobile, tumblr decided to give me an error so... ugh lol.

I’ll Show You

I’ll Show You is themed after the song ‘Magic Shop,’ and has such a lovely, relaxing scent. It comes with little iridescent flakies (if you’re a fan of Simply Nailogical like Dean and I, you’d probably call it Unicorn Skin) that are optional to put in, as well as a key charm. The flakies do somewhat poke your hand while you play with it, but it’s not hard at all so unless you have very sensitive hands I don’t see it being a problem.

The color is a gorgeous iridescent cream, and the flakies add another really nice layer to it as well. It’s a very beautiful slime, and I easily see myself taking it out when I’m having a rough day because of how lovely and calming the chamomile and lavender scents are.

Anpanman

The slime is themed after the song of the same name and comes with a custom-made clay charm with a comic-style onomatopoeia (recommended to NOT store inside the slime). The version I bought is the Bingsu one, since I didn’t know if I’d enjoy larger blocks being in my slime.

There is an option to leave it unscented to keep the clear slime from getting cloudy/tinted by it, but I really LOVE the blue raspberry jolly rancher scent and am so glad I opted to keep it! I enjoy the soft crunchy texture to the Bingsu, and this slime is just jam packed with them so it’s super satisfying to play with!

Until Spring

This one is themed after ‘Spring Day,’ and comes with 4 individually packaged colors which you can mix as you please, and a snowflake charm. One is a thick white snow fizz, the pink a bingsu (not quite as packed as Anpanman), and the blue and purple are clear-based slimes. The metallic shimmer of the blue is GORGEOUS, and I almost feel guilty for blending it all into the overall mixture.

The end result is this beautiful pastel purple, with the sporadic snow fizz and pink bingsu adding a unique texture. The smell is also very soft and lovely.

Sweet Life

Sweet Life is themed after BTS’ recent single, ‘Dynamite!’ The clay donut and record charm (again, recommended to NOT store inside the slime) are both handmade by Dean, and it also comes with a small bag of fake sprinkles. The donut came wrapped in plastic wrap and inside a smaller plastic tub than the slimes. And the slime itself is a very sweet scent - a little too strong to me personally, but nothing I can’t handle.

Alright, now this is the only hiccup I had in the order, so I’ll explain what happened.

While I did think something was a bit odd when I tore the donut in half, I didn’t pay enough attention before I started trying to mix it with the slime. It turns out, the container the donut was shipped in ended up getting cracked during shipment, and the clay had half dried by the time it got to me. So it was rather hard trying to mix that part into the slime. You might be able to tell in the second picture above, that there are chunks hardly mixed, if at all, into the slime.

Knowing that it was because the container ended up cracked doesn’t personally make me too concerned that others would have the problems I did. I spoke with Dean about it, and he helped me figure out what to do. The part I already started mixing with the slime started to absorb moisture from it and became softer and easier to work with as I let it just sit for a bit. The other half, I put into a (not cracked, airtight) container and poured just a bit of water on it. I let it sit while I was working with Until Spring, and periodically went back to it to mix up the slime or knead the water into the clay to help it along.

It didn’t take too long before it was able to all mix together and I ended with my final slime! I really love the texture. It’s really thick, almost like a putty and super satisfying! Also a side note, Dean said he isn’t quite sure how the slime he used for making his shop post ended up so brown, because his personal slime of this also ended up a similar shade of a blue-gray to mine. I do really like the color though, it’s a neat muted, almost teal color.

And this is where the extra containers due to the four individual slimes for Until Spring came in handy, since the tub containing the donut was cracked. I was able to use the little 2 oz containers for the rest of the slime that wouldn’t fit in the big container after mixing in the clay, so I didn’t need to go finding something else to put it in. What a happy little coincidence!

Extra Slime - Anpanman Block version

The extra slime I got this time was a sample of the block version of Anpanman, probably because Dean knows I’m new to exploring different types of slime and wanted to let me try it out. I can say that I’m glad I got the Bingsu one in my purchase, but I also don’t hate the chunky blocks as much as I thought I might. It’ll still be a very nice one to fiddle with here and there.

So overall, I’m incredibly happy yet again! I don’t blame Dean for the hiccup with the clay donut, since the tub getting cracked most likely happened in shipping - and everything was very well packaged, wrapped in bubble wrap and then tissue paper, and in a padded mailer so he did everything he could to try to keep it safe. And besides, although it was extra work, it still blended into the slime in the end so I’m happy :)

If you want to support small shops, Dean’s is a great one to go to! Unfortunately because of shipping prices being crazy, he can only sell in the US, but if you do live here and are interested, then definitely give his shop a browse! Here is the link one more time. --> Borahae Slimes on Etsy

#slime #borahae slimes #etsy #shop #etsy shop #small business #eternal seokjin #Dean baby 💜#lovely mutuals 💜#bts #bts crafts #bts slimes #spring day #dynamite #anpanman #magic shop

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deadmomjokes · 4 years

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ooh I'm so curious about your boon now. how myc of it are you willing to disclose? what's the setting? how does magic work?

I’m so flattered anybody’s interested in it at all! ^.^

I confess, I’m super, irrationally paranoid about idea theft, so I don’t share a ton of details outside of my writing group and alpha/beta readers, but I’m trying to get past that, so I’ll share a little bit and see if I can talk my anxiety down to sharing more later. Basically I say this to apologize for the fact that I’m being a bit vague here. It’s not because I’m offended you asked or anything, I’ve just got some issues of my own.

So the basic premise in a really shortened, simplified, and condensed version is as follows:

About 15 years before the story begins, there was a war with an evil sorceress. She basically converted all the other magicians to her side and they were just absolutely annihilating everyone. Three countries formed an alliance and ended up taking her out. Huzzah, day saved! The story picks up right before a big festival in honor of the 15th anniversary of the alliance’s formation. The alliance, while originally a military compact, has kind of spread into a trade compact as well.

The main character is the right hand to the King who initiated the alliance in the first place. His name is Ayris. He has no last name (other than his title, “Kingsman”) because he more or less washed up on shore and the King found him. He was kidnapped as a child from his home country by some of the sorceress’s goons and had his memory wiped and they intended to bring him to the Sorceress as a kind of sacrifice. Because he’s super magic. Only after they left is when the alliance was formed and so they had no idea that the war had ended and their boss was dead. They get home and go “oh crap,” and the King rescues this little boy and goes “oh crap” because this kid is magic, and people are kind of super duper against magic right now on account of the fact that magic folks just tried to wipe them all out. But he’s a big softie and doesn’t want anything to happen to this kid so he takes him in to keep him safe. Over the years, he realizes Ayris has a talent for fighting and is super smart and super observant, so he promotes him from ward to his bodyguard, and then to a kind of all-around advisor.

And that’s where Ayris starts his journey: Content with being his King/adoptive father’s right hand man, and hiding his magical abilities because if anyone knew he’d more or less get burned at the stake.

The complications?

First, one of the nations in the alliance is super xenophobic, and they don’t like that Ayris is a “foreigner.” Even though the poor kid has no memories other than the country in which he now lives. But he ~looks different~ too- he has dark skin, white hair, and blue eyes, in a country full of tan-ish average white folks- so there’s no hiding the fact that he’s not originally from here. So he’s got to deal with all that while still acting as the King’s right hand, which means he cannot avoid the xenophobes’ leader because he’s gonna be right there with the guy the whole time.

And, of course, we have the Big Problem: The Sorceress managed to survive, as most evil magicians will, of course, and she’s back because she has a score to settle. Specifically with Ayris’s King, who dealt the ‘killing’ blow. Which, another major subplot: Ayris does not know that. He has a Batman code about killing. He refuses to take a life, and as far as he knows, the King shares that determination, because he’s very vocal about talking things out instead of resorting to violence. All that is a very formative concept for Ayris. So when he finds out that his King saw no other way to deal with things and resorted to straight up killing, he has... a LOT to process. Because....

The issue is that the Sorceress needs batteries, essentially. She’s almost out of power just from sustaining her spirit for a decade and a half. So she subsumes all the kids who had been born magic and didn’t know it since her downfall, only surprise! When she reaches out to snatch them, she finds a grown man! Ayris is all like, “Excuse? Who are you and what do you want with all these small children?” and she’s like, “Excuse? I ate all the magicians last time.” and he’s like “I beg your pardon?” Because it turns out that after she turned the magicians to her side, she decided that was too much a liability and so she snatched all their powers, killing them. Why did she decide they were a liability? Another subplot! A few of them resisted her and tried to break free of her control, but it went horribly wrong and only one of them survived, but was totally severed from her magic powers. We actually meet that character- she’s a major foil (and hardcore frenemy) for Ayris.

BUT ANYWAY

The Sorceress and Ayris are now more or less linked because of the way magic works in this world, and she’s bent on turning him or controlling him because he’s pretty dang powerful. (Which is why her goon squad kidnapped him in the first place.) She has all kinds of tricks and is basically pushing buttons from the inside to break him down, so he’s dealing with an evil lady in his head who’s attached to his powers. So of course the easiest way to isolate and mess with him would be to mess with his magic and make it hard to control. So he’s trying to keep the King safe from her hit squad, make nice with the xenophobes, and hide his powers despite this chick messing with him and trying to out him. They also have to find a way to get rid of her before she builds her army up again and goes for Round 2, and find a way to get her out of his head before she manages to take him over like she did to all the other magic folks last time.

As for how magic works, it’s described in text as a second world laying over the top of this one. Most people exist in only one world, the one you where your body is, and that’s where their soul lives, too. But some people are born with part of their soul in the other world, called the Tapestry. These people have the ability to manipulate things in the physical world because of this connection to the Tapestry. They also have an inherent connection to everyone else who is a part of the Tapestry, hence how the Sorceress can consume peoples’ power and influence them so easily. Of course, doing anything to influence or harm others in the Tapestry was always taboo, she’s just the first that managed it on a large scale and escaped the punishment.

Powers could be more or less unlimited in type and scope, but because you still exist in the physical world as well, you’re bound by your body. What happens to you in the physical happens to you in the Tapestry, and vice versa. So if you kill someone’s Tapestry self, their body dies. If you hurt someone’s physical body, their Tapestry self is also hurt. (The sorceress managed to discover a way to separate her physical and Tapestry selves, and that’s how she escaped death.) But the point is, doing magic takes energy from your body, so the more and bigger you do, the harder it is, and you could, in theory, kill yourself if you tried something big enough.

Most magicians have a specific kind of magic that comes most naturally for them, so they would often specialize. Anyone can do any kind of magic, but individuals would often train in what “called to them” most. So one guy might specialize in telekinesis, another might specialize in all things water, one might specialize in healing humans, etc. The only kind of magic that was forbidden was altering or influencing peoples’ minds or will, and that’s what made the sorceress evil- she felt drawn to/called by Feelings, other peoples’ emotions. She was a natural empath, and wanted to turn that into manipulating how people felt and thought in order to settle conflict, but that was forbidden. She didn’t want to be controlled, so she ran away from the others, started exploring and experimenting on her own, and started messing with things that she shouldn’t have and ended up kind of warping her own sense of justice and morality by toying with things she couldn’t control or understand. So now she’s bent on domination and subjugation of people who won’t willingly listen to her, all in the name of trying to bring peace and balance and justice (which was the code of the magical order she belonged to).

I know that’s long to be a summary, but this is a very, VERY long and complex story. To the point that this is going to be two books minimum. I’m about 15 chapters into the first one and working on the first round of structural edits so I can get on to writing the back half of it (more like the back 3/4, like I said, this is going to be a LONG story).

Oh, you also asked about setting! I confess to yet another late-Middle Ages European base, but culturally I tried to diversify more. The country of Xenophobes is a polytheistic theocracy with notions of manifest destiny that they’re just barely holding back on because they’re friends with the neighbors now. The country the story takes place in is culturally not super religious, and highly tolerant for the most part, which is why it’s so sad that everyone turned against the idea of magic. The third country straddles the line between the hyperconservative and frankly quite annoying theocracy and the (moderately agnostic) more liberal, understanding nation to their south. They also have a pantheon, but they allow religious freedom (also, fun tidbit, their King is gay and has a husband and an adopted son); however, they don’t allow women in combat (whereas the country Ayris is a part of does), and the people are generally more skeptical of foreigners than Ayris’s country is (except their king; he LOVES Ayris and is more or less the fun uncle).

So yeah! Book One is Ayris discovering a lot about himself, magic, and the past, and dealing with the fallout from that, and trying to find a way to protect himself and his King. And Book Two is the bigger, multinational conflict and inevitable war, and Ayris dealing with the sorceress attacking him personally and trying to find a way to stop her while the world starts falling apart around him. I don’t want to say too much more because some Stuff Goes Down in the first book that’s influential to the second one, but also kind of a surprise at this point.

Thanks for listening and letting me gush. I’ve been working on this story-- the concept, worldbuilding, and then the actual writing of it-- for a cumulative 8 years now. It’s my baby almost as much as my actual baby, and I’m very protective of it and also terrified of letting anyone see it. The mortifying ordeal of being known and all that. (Luckily my writing group is super helpful, patient, and kind!)

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thisselflovecamebacktome · 3 years

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My personal connection with Taylor’s discography, part eleven: Happiness

Basically this is just a series I’m doing where I write down my feelings on what each of the Taylor songs means to me personally on a line to line basis both for my own sake to have it somewhere and for anyone who wants to know anything further about me.

So with that in mind, let’s get started.

Happiness

So much like the majority of Evermore and Folklore, Happiness reminds me of my family and the trauma of losing them which I’m trying to move past. Particularly, Happiness is the connecting point of the progress I’ve made moving forth and the reality that there’s still a long way to go and wishing I was further along the recovery road.

Honey, when I'm above the trees I see this for what it is

I feel like this lyric is pretty much what it’s like on ‘good’ days. Like when I have removed myself enough from the situation and pain, I can rationalise to myself that what happened to my family wasn’t anyone’s fault, it was just a bunch of well meaning people who made choices they thought were for the best but ultimately did more harm than good. I can also acknowledge that what happened was probably for the best and that while I’m in pain now, it probably would have been worse otherwise.

But now I'm right down in it, all the years I've given is just shit we're dividin' up

But most days aren’t ‘good’ days. Most days, it feels inescapable that I gave between 16 to 23 years to these people that were meant to love me unconditionally for my whole lifetime just for them to decide that what we had wasn’t worth sticking around for. Most days, I can’t move past the bitterness that I have knowing that I feel like I’ve wasted my life because genuinely lived my life as a mirrorball and gave my all to make these people happy and keep us together just for it all to fall apart anyway.

Showed you all of my hiding spots

I’ve always been an oversharer that kept her heart on her sleeve. I genuinely feel like I showed my family, and especially my immediate family, every version of myself. My highs, my lows, my strengths, my weaknesses, my likes and dislikes; I showed it all.

I was dancing when the music stopped

I’ve mentioned this a few times in this project, but despite the issues my family had, I really fucking believed we’d get out of this okay and that the others wanted to. And I wore rose coloured glasses as things were ending and people were showing their true colours because I wanted so badly to believe that it was just a bad fight and once things cooled down, everyone would pitch in to fix things. So when it finally hit that none of them truly wanted to fix things, I realised that the music had stopped years beforehand and I had just been living in my own fantasy world dancing to a beat that wasn’t there.

And in the disbelief, I can't face reinvention. I haven’t met the new me yet

I saw a post recently that said this line is pretty much Right Where You Left Me condensed into one lyric and genuinely I have not seen anything more correct in years. Like I am still sitting here nearly six years after this started and nearly four years since I finally accepted it (god realising it’s been that long hit me like a fucking truck, not gonna lie) wondering who the fuck am I meant to be now? Like even without feeling like I devoted my life/existence for these people, who are you meant to be if not a reflection of the people who raised you and were meant to love you unconditionally?

There'll be happiness after you

I know I will get my balance back one day and be happy. There’s a lot of practical steps that need to happen first, but I know I’ll get there. And even though I wish it was with my family, I’ve accepted that it won’t be and it can’t be dependent on them or else I’m going to end up like my mother and never happy.

But there was happiness because of you

As much as I still cuss out my family, particularly my father, I grew up as a daddy’s girl and family orientated person and not all of that was negative. Though I can’t currently look back at them without crying, I have photos of birthdays, concerts, events, holidays and even just random day to day life at home that brought me so much joy. Likewise, though not directly involved, I would not have had one of the best experiences in my life of going to Japan with my school had my parents not cared enough to work their ass off for it. And though it’s hard to remember at times, especially on bad days, that is just as important to remember as the fact I’m going to be happy one day if I truly want to heal.

Both of these things can be true

Like I said, both past and future happiness is important and doesn’t negate each other. I can accept that someone from my past that made me happy isn’t going to be the one that does it in my future without either being more or lesser than the other.

There is happiness past the blood and bruise, past the curses and cries. Beyond the terror in the nightfall

Growing up in a mentally, emotionally and at times physically abusively household has left me with a lot of scars and while there’s no way to ‘prove’ it, I genuinely believe was the start of my then undiagnosed PTSD as opposed to the events of 2011. While ‘terror in the nightfall’ can directly be linked with the PTSD symptom of having chronic nightmares, I also link it just as strongly with general self doubting thoughts. Like I am very much still in a place where despite wanting to, I constantly question whether I should get married and have children or even just make new friends because I don’t feel worthy of it. All it would do is fuck over these other people. Because like end of the day, if the people who were supposed to love me unconditionally for my whole life didn’t, why the hell would anyone else?

Haunted by the look in my eyes that would've loved you for a lifetime

I will love my family forever. And genuinely, if they hadn’t of left, I would have done anything to make them happy for the rest of my life. And the fact that I do not get the chance to do that haunts me, and while I can never know for sure, I genuinely think it haunts them too.

Leave it all behind and there is happiness

Though it’s been hard, I’ve reached a point where I recognise that if I want to be happy, I need to leave behind the ‘what ifs’ and ‘what’s “meant” to be’ and focus on what is and the people who want to be in my life.

Tell me, when did your winning smile begin to look like a smirk?

Like I mentioned, I grew up as a daddy’s girl. Growing up, he was always the ‘fun’ parent. The one who was smiling and laughing all the time. The one who propped me up when I felt down. The one I really thought believed in me. But somewhere along the lines, he took offence to me wanting him to step up and face his choices so that we could fix our family. And as a result, he took joy in, in his own words, turning my sister against my mother and I and pushing me to still see him in order for mum to get spousal payments before the legal settlement out of spite. So I spent years begging him to be different, really thinking it was just a moment of hurt just for him to take pleasure in it.

When did all our lessons start to look like weapons pointed at my deepest hurt?

I’ve hinted at the fact that my mother is still less willing to recover and move past what happened with my family. Consequently, she’s spent the last 5 ½ years being like a bull seeing red at all times. And though I’ve tried everything I could to help her (literal hundreds of letters to politicians and other related parties to step in, reaching out to family, constant meetings with lawyers etc), even going as far as to go to law school hoping to find a solution there. But none of it panned out like we hoped. And because richer people with better connections, more money and “smaller” issues that are unrelated to ours won their cases in court and because I’m fighting for future laws to prevent this happening again rather than the unwinnable battle with my now fully adult and moved on family, suddenly it’s my fault things turned out like they did. She genuinely believes I did not try hard enough and did not care enough about my family, and particularly my sister, when in reality, losing her was, is, and always will be the biggest heartbreak of my life.

I hope she'll be your beautiful fool who takes my spot next to you

I’ve mentioned in a few other posts that both of my parents have, in their own way, raised my sister and I to be rivals rather than sisters. And so when my father chose to not reunite our family, it felt like he was picking her over me. And in my bitterness, I spent a long time making comments about how she was either just as bad as he is and using him financially or she was an idiot who couldn’t see through his bullshit and was fine being nothing more than a trophy so long as she was his favourite.

No, I didn't mean that. Sorry, I can't see facts through all of my fury

With time and distance away from my father and the refusal to constantly lend myself to my mother’s negativity however, I realised that I really had been aiming my anger at the wrong person. My sister was 16 when she left. A literal child. Each and every adult in my family, my then 20 year old self included, owed her more than what happened. Even if she was a “problem child” who physically and verbally lashed out, we owed her more and we failed her. That’s the part about all this that will haunt me forever. It’s not what happened to me. It’s what happened to her and the ways I let my anger and my parents cloud my vision to the point I know in my heart that things would have been different and I could have done more to save this family had I not. And I know that that anger probably traumatised and provoked a lot of my sister’s actions too. And in all honesty? The anger probably came from a place of projection too because in realising my father would rather stick with his lies than his family, I had to accept that I had been the fool that spent years soaking up praise about my achievements just to find out that’s as far as his ‘favouritism’ of me went.

You haven't met the new me yet

I somewhat joke about it, but I genuinely feel like I became a new person in 2019. Though I’m obviously not like magically healed from the trauma or anything, and while I don’t ever see a way I can have these people in my life again, on the most part I have a new outlook on everything. On top of no longer blaming my sister, I’ve been putting the focus back on myself both in terms of things I could have done differently but also doing my best to not see my family’s decision to lie and take the easy way out as being a reflection on me. Because ultimately, it’s not about me; and it took me a long time to realise that. And there’s a sense of peace in that which is the first of many parts that they won’t know about me. And in many ways, that feels like the first step to rebuilding myself.

There'll be happiness after me

Much like how my life has kept going, so has theirs. My now nearly 22 year old sister has a son who’s about to be a toddler. She has friends I’ve probably never met. My other family members probably have just as fulfilling relationships and memories that I’m not part of. It’s sad, but that’s how life goes.

But there was happiness because of me

Again, just like how my anger doesn’t negate the positive memories I’ve had with these people, realistically it’s doubtful that every second of the 16 – 23 years they knew me was neutral at best for them.

Both of these things, I believe

Logically you cannot have one of the above and not the other. Like despite what my mother thinks, you do not just stop being happy one day just because someone, or in this case many people, left. But that new happiness you have doesn’t make the old happiness any less honest. Also just in general In still in a place where like I really have to believe that my family loved and were happy with me but also happy now or else I’ll have a mental breakdown. So yeah…

There is happiness in our history, across our great divide there is a glorious sunrise, dappled with the flickers of light from the dress I wore at midnight

Like I’ve said, I have had a lot of good memories with my family, and with them being night owls and our Christmas day events at my uncle’s tending to run for 10 – 12 hours, the use of the time of midnight feels all the more personal to me. And while like I said, these fond memories aren’t enough to go back to that environment, they’re enough to be a light in the dark that reminds me that I’ve been happy before and illuminate the way across the divide to be happy again.

I can't make it go away by making you a villain

Listen, I will probably blame my father and other family members for the rest of my days over what happened. But with the new me that came in 2019, I’ve also accepted that focusing on that both internally and feeling the need to demonise them to everyone by acting like they were the only ones to make bad calls and that some of those calls didn’t come from a well-intentioned but misinformed place doesn’t make any of the pain go away. Even if they were the devil personified, I cannot change what happened. All I can focus on is myself and my future. And that’s the only way I’m going to heal and find peace.

I guess it's the price I paid for seven years in Heaven

Despite everything that happened in my childhood before the split, I am someone who got through it still loving my family and not feeling traumatised by them (or at least not processing it as such) until my adulthood. And while that may seem very bare minimum for a lot of people, it’s also a lot better than a lot of people had it.

And I pulled your body into mine every goddamn night, now I get fake niceties

I know a lot of people see this as a sexual line, but I gotta be real, from the first listen, I pictured the moments where I held/hugged my sister through anxiety attacks and lash outs and my father did the same for me. And again, despite that intimacy, we’re now in a place where we’re only polite in public (not that I’ve seen them out but if I did) in order to not cause a scene/get chucked out of wherever we were. Also, I can see this being how my father viewed all the awkward silences (which I spoke about in my It’s Time To Go post) and whatever when I did go to see him after my parents separation, because again, it did feel more like obligation than actually wanting to be there and while I know he somewhat caused that by deliberately keeping the family apart, I still feel bad over it.

No one teaches you what to do when a good man hurts you and you know you hurt him, too

Even the worst of families never expect things to blow up in the way my family’s relationships did. There isn’t and probably never will be a manual on that shit. And there’s an inherit loneliness about that because while your other loved ones can stand by your side, ultimately you gotta go through that shit alone because no one really knows what to say. So all the guilt, anger, depression and whatever else you’re feeling is exactly that: yours and yours alone. And that makes it all the rougher.

But now my eyes leak acid rain on the pillow where you used to lay your head

After my sister and father left, my mother couldn’t bare to sleep in her and my father’s old room nor my sister and my old room; instead opting to sleep in the lounge room. As a result, I moved into my parents’ old room. Though I have all new furniture, it’s set up in much the same way my parents had it and so it’s hard to not think about how my father slept in the same place I am now for 20 years of my life and the same can be said about my sister being in our childhood room for 16 years of her life. And while I’m somebody who has blocked out the ability to cry over most emotions, I’m still someone who cries very easily when I’m frustrated which as much as I wish I wasn’t, I still am frustrated and have cried more tears than I’d like to admit over how easy it should have been to keep our family together and how they just didn’t want to. And because there is that bitterness with the frustration, it does feel far more toxic than regular tears.

After giving you the best I had, tell me what to give after that

As I’ve mentioned, I’ve blamed myself a lot for decisions I should have made differently in this process, so I see this more as a line to remind myself that I did all I could. Like I took the ‘nice’ route with the adults in my family only to be rejected, I tried the assertive route and was only met with being cut off, and even if I took the ‘nice’ route with my sister, there is no reconnecting people who do not want to be. They all made their choices and could have come back at any time to hear our side even if they didn’t want to at the beginning, but again, taking the easy route was more important to them than taking the right one and no amount of me giving them what they wanted was going to change that.

All you want from me now is the green light of forgiveness... and I think she'll give you that

This is another fantasy moment for me. Like I really hope that one day I can forgive my family. Not to be in their life or anything, that ship has sailed. But just for my own peace of mind. I feel like I’m almost there with my sister, but honestly? It feels like I’m never going to get there with the rest of them. Alternatively, I see this line as again, being about forgiving myself for the bad calls I made, and while I’m not quite there either, I definitely think I will get there someday.

#about me #happiness #taylor swift #evermore album #ngl kinda hate this because it took so long to do but i also feel like i somehow didn't get it all out despite it being far too long #also this process has shown me that happiness is by far taylor's most devastating song for me personally

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alayne-stonecoldfox · 5 years

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Uhhhh can you tell me more about your incestuous morally corrupt ship????

Uuhhhhh I can’t make my brain work enough to condense them down very well but I’ll try and ramble and you can see how long you can last without clocking out babe lol

Ezra Montaigne is the youngest son of the Matriarch of the Montaigne family (currently alive characters all stem from a set of five siblings) and he is the (somewhat) calmed down version of his hellish teenage/early twenties self, desperately attention seeking as the youngest, and the ‘spare’ heir to his oldest brother who he both idolised and resented, by acting out. Highlights include sleeping with his violin teacher as she was the most attractive women at the all boys school they sent him to (but it was ok because daddy’s money paid for the abortion). Setting the schools priests quarters on fire because he was a known pedophile, and the bastard REFUSED to pay the bribe money Ezra was demanding from the pervert to keep it quiet. He’s just HELL to every body of authority to ever get in his unfortunate way.

Then something happens. Hiram, the good and true responsible groomed from birth to succeed oldest son...disappears. He leaves. With the older wife of a very very bad man who should not be crossed, and with millions and millions of his dollars. The Montaignes are blindsides. No one can find him. Not even the very very bad man...which makes this man angry, which puts the Montaignes into a very very bad situation...but I best not talk about that night he made them pay for what their son had done, what punishment they took in his place....but Ezra never forgot, and Ezra found it very very hard to forgive, and after that, drugs seemed a great way to cope with it.

Experimenting with just about EVERY drug gets him in even more trouble, but he doesn’t care anymore, because even with Hiram gone, the Hiram that betrayed them, that wasn’t their to face the consequences the bastard coward had everything and gave it all away bastard, Ezra STILL wasn’t replaced as the favourite in fathers eyes so who cared anymore? Uppers downers 8-balls and oxy are SO fun, I’m very smart and capable I COULD be just as great as Hiram was, and so much more LOYAL because I love this family more than any of the fake, money desperate ‘friends’ around me, but no, no, it won’t be good enough. Hiram ran away and now I’m all the son you’re stuck with, Think I’ll run around the world, get tattoos, throw our family name even more under the bus of social standing, because at the end of the day, our money is more powerful than what they think of us, why don’t you just let them talk, we could wipe out any countries debt at any time we please, we can fund any politician we like, we can bribe any judge any court, our money is godly.

Except when one is cut off. Which dad eventually did, after Ezra attended a ball in Vienna and got in a fight with the heir to the throne of spain, but he doesn’t know what the bastards problem was, because he only fingered his mother, he didn’t fuck her like he’d heard, it was only a miscommunication. ANYWAY. Takes to living with his dear lesbians sister Tess in her art studio as she tries to be less of an aristocrat and more a bohemian (not without all her money of course, don’t be mad). Tries to suck a dick in a club bathroom in exchange for cocaine in an opportunistic turn of events, but decides even though he wouldn’t mind being bi for the cool points, even though tragically, he is heterosexual, it was rather traumatic in a way he wishes he could supress, and also this tastes disgusting, asks the old man just to give him half because even though he couldn’t go through with it, your cock WAS in my mouth for about five seconds, that worth something? no? ok, a scene ensues, Ezra is about 6′2 btw, all of the Montaignes can be flagged at any european social gathering, they are all legs. The blow job solicitor has him thrown from the premises. Ezra decides to hunt down the mans wife. For the drama. through this old dame, he meets one of her book club (read: swingers club) pals, who is a 45 year old duchess who wants her needs met. He becomes some sort of sugar baby? Why not. She buys him ALL the drugs and he’s basically siphoning ALL of her money out of her accounts as Ezra rather has a talent for lying, manipulating and finance. He’s very fond of her. Anyway, this is getting long, drugs drugs drugs, disappointment, clinging onto being as self destructive as he can at every turn, yadda yadda, overdose number 3 happens, drama, ENOUGH IS A FUCKING NOUGH. Dad corners him, alongside dear sister, ever loving mother, favourite sympathetic uncle, cousins who are his best and only true friends, chain him to a radiator as he is shaking vomitting incoherent for the past week due to drugs, he is told he has two options, and only two. Marry this girl I have chosen for you. She is aristocratic as well, but low down on the list of eligibility, but your in a position of beggar, not chooser. Her father is almost dead, and she will inherit a small (by their fucking rich rule the world with money standards) company and fortune, use this oppertunity to show me what you can make of yourself, OR, and heres your other choice, kill yourself. Heres the gun. We’ll give you a minute with the radiator.

Ezra married the girl, it is a desperately bleak marriage. She’s not ugly but she’s not pretty either. she’s english, and whines when Ezra and his cousins speak french. She’s always whining. About the man she wanted to marry and how he left her, how her father made her have an abortion because he was just a waiter. Her suicide notes aren’t even poetic. But at least Ezra, over a long long decade, puts his actual talents and brains to work. They’re almost as useful as that devilish charisma and high propensity for risk taking, scheming, and getting what he wants, when he wants it. He’s almost, almost getting along with his father now too, though mother scolds him for stepping on the oxygen tubes too long (it’s only a joke).

but then...

Incidents happen. Hiram Montaigne, the elder brother, the prodigal son, the runaway off the grid hasn’t been seen in almost two decades son after he ran away with another mans wife with millions and millions of stolen money son....returns. Cryptically. In a phone call to their dear lesbian sister Tess. He’s drunk. It was all a mistakes. He’s so sorry. He’s convinced he’s being poisoned? he doesn’t make any sense.

But when Ezra catches wind of this call, Tess and him are very close and share almost everything (by rich white aristocratic standards) he immediately has everyone of their phones tapped and traced. Because its their brother. Because he has to get his hands on him. Because he’s their family and they love him. Because he’s always dreamed of seeing him again and beating his betraying head against a rock. Because he’s in danger and they must help. Because how dare he have the nerve to do what he did.

He traces him. Successfully. because he’s Ezra Montaigne and he gets what he wants, and he’s wanted his brother for close to twenty years.

He comes to a lake house, all the way across Europe in Denmark, isolated. Small. Hidden. Hiram isn’t home.

But Ginette is.

Pretty girl. Wide eyed at the black cars (of course Ezra brought his most trusted security) that arrived at the house that barely saw anyone besides those from the small town, over 30 minutes drive away from their home.

The man asks her if Hiram Montaigne lives here. She says he doesn’t, but he does, it’s only that his daughter has only ever known the false person he had to be after he did what he did.

Ezra takes note of her bright blue eyes, like his, and his brothers, and her long lanky legs, and then her red hair. The woman Hiram ran off with had red hair.

Ginette asks him who he may be, and Ezra replies “I think I may be your uncle.”

#AND this is way too long #maybe i'll write up about gigi in a second post if anyones interested at all #montaignes #Anonymous

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greyias · 5 years

Note

This is not fair of me to ask, I'm sure you have plenty to do, but there is this post on reddit titled, "Is there an enjoyable way to read about SWTOR plot? I have fallen ill right after playing Umbara and I would very much like to know why certain someone did what he did, but I am unable to play and wookiepedia is quite a dry read. " He explains he has seizures from playing video games. I was wondering if you had something written that would help him out, or maybe you could write something?

Oh no, that poor guy! That really sucks to be invested in a story and then not be able to see how it turns out! I’m going to guess videos/playback of them have a similar issue 🙁

I totally will agree with him that Wookieepedia is definitely dry, but I’m going to boldly put this statement out here: it’s also incorrect.

At least the articles on Fractured Alliances were (and a few other TOR era articles I came across), to the point where I actually got really angry reading them because the assumptions were just so... blatantly wrong. And not well sourced. (This is a strange hill for me choose to die on, but I will go defend it nonetheless.) Granted I haven’t looked at them in several months, so it’s possible they’ve been updated since then? 🤷‍♀️

I haven’t written a full write-up on what happened in Fractured Alliances, but honestly I’ve been meaning to? Because the Wookiepedia articles irked me that much, I feel like someone needs to rant at length and correct them. I’ve just, erm, got a bit lazy and distracted and haven’t done so. Mostly because there’s actually a lot to cover, and a lot of misconceptions to correct, and sourcing is hard yo.

BUT! I can do a cliff’s notes version really quick to get him some answers. Although if it’s possible... maybe just link him this post in private if possible? Mostly because there’s some pretty big edgelords over on Reddit, and they make me tired (which is why I stopped even going over there to look at things).

Also I still haven’t quite lived down Gravedrog yet. I still can’t believe that blew up to the degree it did.

BUT! I can talk about Theron Shan, and his motivations all the live long day. Probably too long if we’re being honest. And I’ve definitely invested far more thought and energy into understanding what happened in this storyline (and why everyone did what they did) than is probably rational. But hey, we all have to have a hobby? And apparently mine is dissecting rushed/truncated video game storylines and their implications on characterization.

The TL;DR: Theron does what he does in Fractured Alliances to protect both the Outlander and the Alliance. And eventually by extension of the plot, everyone in the galaxy

(Whether or not a player or Outlander agrees with his methods for going about it is another debate entirely, but Theron definitely had his reasons, which were noble in intent, as all roads to hell are said to be paved with)

(Sorta) Cliff’s Notes Version of Fractured Alliances:

(okay this isn’t that short, but I promise it’s a lot shorter than it could be)

Once upon a time, we find a junky old spaceship in the swamp. We ignore it whispering creepily to us and a bunch of warning signs and decide to adopt it anyway

Sometime later, the entire cast of KOTET takes a reluctant field trip (see: KIDNAPPING) to Iokath.

While there, some stupid droid turns to Vaylin and says “Hey, you want to erase all of these Gemini droids free will?”

Because the entire expansion of KOTET got cut down by literally half, a lot of characterization shortcuts are taken and Vaylin’s like “HELL YEH”

All of the Gemini units are mindwiped save for one, a creepy little scarfed explorer who was off exploring Hoth or something. We get one e-mail from Hylo about this droid at the end of KotFE Chapter 16.

This lone Gemini unit, named Gemini 16, is traumatized by this and she’s like “Fuck having sisters! I want to be an only child!” and decides she wants to murder her entire droid family. Apparently it’s the only way to be sure this never happens again???

We defeat Vaylin, Valkorion, and take ownership of a shiny new fleet! Neat! Also, we install the Fleet’s control console with a known security flaw that we ourselves tried to exploit in KotFE (see: The Gemini Frequency) into the heart of our operations on Odessen. I’m sure no traumatized, misanthropic lone Gemini droids or crazy Zakuulans will use this to their advantage.

Oh wait.

Some guy we never met hates us because two kids were arguing over a piece of bread in the street.

This genius is named Vinn Atrius. He’s our villain.

He says “THANKS OUTLANDER-BAMA” and “We always had plenty of bread before YOU showed up!” and “Zakuul can’t just conquer and force everyone to bend to our will anymore :( :( :( :(” and “Won’t someone think of the children????” and decides he’s going to murderize him an Outlander. And the Alliance.

He decides to become a terrorist and frame us for his terrorist acts.

When he’s not starting whisper campaigns about how the Outlander is this horrible tyrant that must be stopped

Theron gets wind of Vinn’s plans, and decides to pretend he wants to be a cultist too! -- Vinn wisely slams the door in his face. This is the only wise thing Vinn ever does.

Vinn’s not a very good mastermind, so scary droid lady (GEMINI 16) says “Here honey, let me help you find a giant apocalypse machine”, although she doesn’t say honey because she hates everyone who’s not her

I actually skipped Iokath but I swear to god that’s an entire post unto itself, but someone tries to murderize the Outlander. Theron’s strangely calm about this. We’re supposed to think that’s because the TR8R WAS HIM ALL ALONG

This is stupid and goes against every characterization of Theron Shan up to this point in canon. I literally need an entire post to go into this, and am trying to keep things short.

TL;DR: This lady tried to murder the Outlander because ?????

I’m pretty sure the person behind the mask is the Scion, Oramis, and this part of the story/explanation got cut when they condensed everything.

Oramis and the Scions are also another post/explanation entirely

Gemini 16 lured everyone to Iokath

the full explanation is a post unto itself

but it’s the only thing that makes sense (with her motivation, Vinn’s motivation, their entire dialogue on their first meeting -- again, I’m trying to keep this “short”)

Sixteen literally has recordings of Team Outlander talking about who could have lured everyone there -- implying she was in the Iokath mainframe the entire time they were there on Iokath Fieldtrip #2

also, Vinn Atrius is as dumb as toast

🍞

Theron is actually pretty pissed about someone trying to murder his boss/best friend/girlfriend/boyfriend. And he’s pretty sure he knows who it is. So he goes into ultra THERON LOGIC mode -- which is to say, he becomes an overly paranoid loner -- and decides to infiltrate a death cult. (again). As you do.

Because via intelligence reports that are for some stupid reason hidden behind group content, he already knows that some conspiracy against the Alliance is afoot. And that they’re being watched. Apparently Lana forgot to read all of her Intelligence dossiers????

Since he knows we’re being watched, but can’t figure out how, logically the only thing to do is without any backup whatsoever, try and infiltrate the Death Cult that slammed the door in his face once already.

Luckily for Theron, Vinn Atrius is a dumbass and says “IDK... you’re pretty close to the Commander”

Theron says “Would a face like this lie to you?” while making this face in the cutscene: 😡

Vinn’s like “When you’re right, you’re right! Blow up a train for me?”

Theron: AHAHAHA SURE. I LOVE BLOWING UP TRAINS

Theron, Mentally: ...well, crap. I guess I could tell the Commander about this. BUT THE WALLS HAVE EARS--WAIT I HAVE A BRILLIANT PLAN

Theron proceeds to concoct the most elaborate stage play known to man, which includes:

Leading everyone to the front of the train

Where he can lure both the Outlander and Lana into the front compartment

And shoots Lana with a stun blast, something he has never done before to someone he’s trying to supposedly kill

Then he shoots at the Commander--but not really, because he was shooting out the window on the front of the train

Then he shoots again at the Commander--but not really, because he was shooting at the controls to bring up a shield that prevents the Outlander from following him

And oh no! Now there’s a shield between them, what a tragedy, I guess he can’t pretend to shoot at the Commander and miss for a third time. Guess it’s time to monologue like a Bond villain. What can ya do? It’s not like he has cybernetic implants that help him be an expert marksman. God, that’d be embarrassing.

Since he knows that he’s being recorded by some unseen person, he really hams it up for the camera. He makes this face again, because he’s decided it’s part of his tr8rsona: 😡

The Outlander can react in a variety of ways, but if one of those ways is “UM WTF???? WHY DIDN’T YOU TALK TO ME???” he suddenly breaks tr8r character and goes “I thought about it... but then you might have talked me out of it--AND WE CAN’T HAVE THAT!”

if you romanced him and say you still love him he makes this face: 😭

And then literally tells the Outlander how to escape from the train before like going “I’m really gonna blow up this train -- in thirty seconds -- gosh it would be a shame if you were still on this train in thirty seconds. When it blows up. When I pull the trigger. That I’m about to do.”

The Outlander leaps off the train, out of the convenient exit point Theron made, with Lana. They’re respectively like “?????” and “🤬🤬🤬🤬”

Vinn thinks this all very convincing. Sixteen is facepalming in the background. Vinn doesn’t listen to her. We don’t see any of this, but it’s kind of implied in future dialogue.

If you’re dating Theron and didn’t try to Force choke him, he sends you a letter going “I STILL LOVE YOU -- CAN’T EXPLAIN WHY I DID THIS BUT ILU PLZ DON’T FORGET ILU oh yeah and the alliance sucks and stuff i guess -- ps. ♥︎♥︎♥︎”

This is apparently something a tr8r would do, because Theron is Vinn’s go-to guy now. And decides to give Theron the task of retrieving a map to this place called Nathema so they can find a giant death machine to kill the Alliance.

Oh wait. That place called Nathema. That Theron has been to before. And knows the exact coordinates too because he was the pilot that flew them there. The place that Valkorion sucked the entire life out of and made a giant wound in the Force. THAT NATHEMA.

This is the part where normal people might think “Maybe I should reconsider my plans”, but they are not Theron Shan. Who shaves his head, throws away a jacket he’s been wearing since he was like fifteen, and heads over to Chiss space, to steal/blow up a map to the Ancient Death Machine.

Actually it’s revealed/hinted at on Iokath, on Copero, and then clarified once again in Nathema Conspiracy, that this machine is literally the Apocalypse

It wipes out entire worlds’ populations in an instant

Background lore indicates that its hunger is endless and has been waiting to rise again and there’s like prophecies about this

If activated and not stopped, this machine will literally annihilate all life in the galaxy

Theron blows up some more things at a resort, runs bravely away away, and then OOPS OH SO ACCIDENTALLY broadcasts his call with the Death Cult, who say their name on camera.

Shockingly, the Alliance intercepts the accidental-on-purpose broadcast and now know the name of Theron’s new cult: The Order of Zildrog

Then like forever and a day passes in real life, but who knows how long in game time, but I guess it’s like, six months or less according to a line of dialogue -- and finally Lana and the Outlander mysteriously get coordinates to a myyyyysterious abandoned outpost.

And by mysterious, I mean that Lana is the only one who can decode said coordinates because she and Theron came up with the encryption together on Rishi

It’s almost like he’s working from the inside or something

But if you tell Lana that she’s like “NO HE’S A TR8R GRRR THIS A TRAP”

It is not a trap

Lana and the Outlander wander around, and find a bunch of recordings someone conveniently forgot to erase detailing a bunch of infodumps that’s way too long for the Cliff’s Notes version, but boil down to showing and implying an entire novel’s worth of backstory:

Vinn’s manifesto

Theron unconvincingly pretending he really likes death cults

Vinn staring at numbers from data he got from Iokath and zomg Zildrog is reallllll -- the legends of his mighty hunger and DEATH DEALING are true! Squee! Just what he needs to get rid of that pesky Outlander!

Vinn recruiting people who really don’t like you into his death cult

Gemini telling Vinn he really sucks at this masterminding thing, but she needs someone who’s good with people so hey let’s team up!

Oh and she knows where Zildrog is

The Outlander and Lana escape before the space station blows up

Over on the Shuttle of Zildrog, Theron’s like “It’s all up to you now, Commander” and apparently Vinn hears that and is like “Hey Theron, did you remember to erase all of our super sekrit recordings and blow up the space station?"

Theron: 👌

Vinn: 👍

Sixteen: 😒

Back on Odessen Lana’s like “I KILL DA TR8R” regardless of your feelings on the matter as an Outlander. If Arcann’s still alive he’s like “Hey Commander, maybe go easy on Theron? I know the value of forgiveness. Maybe he had his reasons?”

You get corroborating information of literally everything we just learned on the Space Station OF DOOM and Lana’s still like “Nope, still gonna shank me a tr8r! No one tazes Lana Beniko and lives!”

I assume it’s a fun ride to Nathema

Okay I joke. She’s just being protective and "logical”, but honestly if you select literally every single dialogue option supporting Theron throughout this story, illogically Angry Lana can really start to grate after a while

On Nathema, we follow a myyyysterious signal -- to Theron. To the surprise of no one except Lana who’s like “JERKFACE STAY AWAY FROM THE COMMANDER”

Theron proceeds to tell an extremely abbreviated, and slightly more straightforward version of everything above.

If you’ve romanced him, he reminds you that he promised to do anything to protect you.

This includes shaving his head, updating his wardrobe, blowing up a train, and putting up with Vinn Atrius’s shit for months on end

The things he does for love

Lana still doesn’t believe him. At this point if you want to, you can be like “Lana plz” and she’s like “OKAY FINE--BUT I’M WATCHING YOU TR8R”

Gemini 16 was watching the entire exchange. Looks like SOMEONE’S cover is blown. Oh well, Theron was done with it anyway.

Vinn is SHOCKED. SHOCKED I TELL YOU.

HOW DARE

THERON????

HOW COULD YOU?????

YOU FRIENDED ME ON SPACEBOOK

WAS IT ALL A LIE

I KEEL HIM

Sixteen is just like “whatever let’s go activate Zildrog”

Vinn: Is this why he kept insulting our Lord and Savior Valkorion?????

Team Outlander fights their way to the site of the Ancient Apocalypse Machine. They meet Shroedinger’s Cultist along the way via holo.

He/she/they says “hi/plz die”.

There’s sixteen candidates for this spot (two for each class) -- but all sixteen are not death cultists at the same time

This is another thing that requires an entire post to delve into, so another time on that

Team Outlander arrives at the site where Zildrog was installed on Nathema -- coincidentally right at the same spot Tenebrae/Vitiate/Valkorion initiated his first death ritual to grant him semi-immortality. Fancy that.

Vinn has convinced everyone he’s recruited into his death cult to climb into these really dangerous looking pods; not surprising but they’re all basically dead -- because Zildrog required a human sacrifice to be reactivated

A human sacrifice???

In my ancient death machine?

It’s more likely than you think!

Theron shoots Vinn because he’s tired of his shit

Gemini 16 reveals that the Zildrog machine is one half of a larger death device built on Iokath. Where’s the other half?

OH BACK ON ODESSEN. Because it’s the Gravestone. Yes, I know everyone forgot about it at this point, which is kind of easy since we haven’t seen it since KOTET.

The Gravestone blows up the Eternal Fleet. Like, all of it. At once. Also the control console for the Fleet blows up too. This kind of detonates several things on base.

For some reason edgelords on Reddit think this is all Theron’s fault

As if the writers were really going to let us keep that Deus Ex Machina that would literally prevent them from going back to these same whiner’s precious Pub vs Imp conflict

And ignoring the fact that this would have been the end result even if Theron hadn’t gone undercover

I digress

Team Outlander fights Sixteen and defeats her.

Theron goes to try and finish shutting Zildrog down and Vinn Atrius is like

And stabs Theron in the back with a lightsaber pike

The Outlander can be like

“FUCK YOU ASSHOLE THAT’S MY BEST FRIEND/BOYFRIEND”

or “OH NOES”

or “ASSMUNCH I WAS GONNA DO THAT”

Vinn’s like “DRAGGONNNNNNNNN” as if he was recreating a scene from Dragonball Z, and the holo-Zildrog is like “Here, let me make you go Super Saiyan!” -- and gives Vinn a boss buff

Outlander and Lana fight Vinn and kick his ass. Then kick Zildrog’s ass. Yes, Zildrog is literally just a computer console in the center of the room, and if the Outlander more or less pulls a Kylo Ren on it

The Gravestone blows up -- everyone on Odessen is really confused

Lana tells the Outlander that “WAIT! Theron’s still alive!” -- she’s backed off her murderous rampage at this point and says we have to bring him back to Odessen to save his life

The Outlander can act like any sane person to their boyfriend/best friend/person-who-risked-their-entire-life/reputation-to-save-us/etc and go “Let’s take him home and save his life”

Or can be a dick and literally make Theron live out his worst fear of being abandoned by the people he cares about -- because despite the mountain of evidence that illustrates he literally did all of this to save your life, you can just walk away going “tr8rs never prosper”

This option shows what looks like him dying offscreen

I’m pretty sure he actually survives

Satele sends you a nastygram if you do this, where she directly contradicts a previous letter she sent (to Theron) if you tried to kill her in KotFE Chapter 12

Lana also is not happy with you if you do this, but not like, enough to actually leave or anything

Back on Odessen it’s revealed half of the members of the Alliance are fair weather friends and have abandoned you since you don’t own any super cool space ships anymore

If you brought Theron back with you, he limps up while you and Lana are shooting the breeze and asks if he can stay

You can say yes or no

If you’re romancing Lana you can propose to her around this point

If you’ve romanced Theron (and didn’t tell him to hit the road), you take an ill-advised walk as he’s still limping like crazy, where he reveals that he’s been having nightmares ever since Umbara about you walking away from him and he can never catch up

GEE WHAT DOES THAT SOUND LIKE

He says he knows he doesn’t deserve your trust or forgiveness, but still asks if you can give “your idiot spy boyfriend” a second chance

You can say no, of course, but if you say yes, there’s a dialogue path that leads to an adorably awkward proposal

And he promises that he and Lana will stay by your side no matter what

THE END

(of that story arc)

Sorry, I know that’s rather disjointed and rushed (despite being as long as it was)! But for such a rushed ending/conclusion, there’s actually a lot of moving parts to the storyline as whole.

At some point in the future I’ll try to actually expand upon some of those tangent points of “I need more time to explain this properly” -- because there’s a lot of them, and a lot to them. Also cross-referencing the pieces of canon takes time -- but I promise there’s actual canonical evidence and logic trains that make sense for all of that.

#tadibe #thank you for the ask!#fractured alliances #i honestly can talk everyone's ear off about this storyline #i went down way too many rabbit holes and research cul-de-sacs while waiting for story installments #(and despite this being the short version)#(i know it's still long)#(sorry!)#grey's silly swtor tag

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