#op do you do your laundry every five seconds
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Saturday linkdump, part the sixth
On September 12 at 7pm, I'll be at Toronto's Another Story Bookshop with my new book The Internet Con: How to Seize the Means of Computation.
On September 14, I'm hosting the EFF Awards in San Francisco.
I usually write this blog 5-6 days/week, but every now and again, I take a break, and when I do, I get massive link backlogs of stuff I want to write about, but lack the time to address in depth. When that happens, I turn my Saturday edition into a linkdump. Today, I present the sixth in the series – here's the other five:
https://pluralistic.net/tag/linkdump/
Why was I offline and away from my blog? I went to the dirt rave. Yes, I was one of the 70,000+ people stuck in the mud at this year's Burning Man, and when I emailed my editor at the New York Times to say I might be late on the op-ed I was working on, she asked me to write about what this year's mud crisis meant:
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/06/opinion/burning-man-flood-playa-climate-change.html
tl;dr:
Bad weather is normal at Burning Man (it's a feature, not a bug);
Mostly burners leapt to the occasion, which is what people almost always do in disaster situations;
This is the second Burning Man heavy weather year in a row;
The climate emergency is tipping the Black Rock Desert from "extremely challenging" to "impossible";
This isn't the last event, place and tradition that will have to be radically reconsidered in light of the climate emergency;
But now I'm home, in my hammock, with all the laundry done – just in time to leave again. I'm about to head back to my hometown of Toronto for a book launch. The Internet Con, my latest nonfiction (from Verso Books) came out last week, and I'll be appearing at Another Story Bookshop on Tuesday:
https://anotherstory.ca/events/29283
Internet Con is a "Big Tech disassembly manual." It explains how Big Tech got so big (lax anti-monopoly enforcement, which led to regulatory capture, which let Big Tech abuse our privacy, labor rights, and consumer rights), and how we can use interoperability so it's no longer Too Big to Fail, nor Too Big to Jail:
https://www.versobooks.com/products/3035-the-internet-con
You can read a long excerpt from the book in Wired, which lays out some of the shovel-ready legislative, regulatory and technical proposals that are the book's main purpose:
https://www.wired.com/story/the-internet-con-cory-doctorow-book-excerpt/
You can also hear me read the whole introduction and first chapter of the audiobook on my podcast:
https://craphound.com/internetcon/2023/08/01/the-internet-con-how-to-seize-the-means-of-computation-audiobook-outtake/
That comes from the audiobook, a DRM-free, independent edition that I financed, produced and narrated myself. You can get the audiobook everywhere except Audible, Apple Books, and Audiobooks.com, all of which have mandatory DRM policies. You can also get it direct from me:
https://transactions.sendowl.com/products/78992826/DEA0CE12/purchase
The DRM-free ebook is available everywhere ebooks are sold (Kobo, Kindle, Nook, etc), as well as in my own DRM-free ebook store:
https://transactions.sendowl.com/products/78992801/9C4FC2B8/purchase
Verso's books are sold in bookstores around the world; you can support your local bookseller by buying it through Bookshop:
https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-internet-con-how-to-seize-the-means-of-computation-cory-doctorow/18771891?ean=9781804291245
If you'd like a signed copy, there's stock at Book Soup:
https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781804291245
Now, it was inevitable that I would do a book event for Internet Con in Toronto – I've never had a bad event there, and I love my hometown – but the timing of this event was driven by a non-book-related factor. Talking Heads is appearing together at TIFF, to support the re-release of Stop Making Sense, the greatest concert film in human history:
https://pluralistic.net/StopMakingSense
People often ask me what my favorite book is, and I always tell them that you should never trust people who have one favorite book, as it inevitably turns out to be The Bible, The Fountainhead, or Mein Kampf. But while I don't have a favorite book, I have a clear and unambiguous favorite band.
If I was forced to listen to no music other than Talking Heads for the rest of my life, I would be perfectly happy. Ecstatic, even. Throw in David Byrne, Tom Tom Club and Casual Gods and I probably wouldn't even notice anything missing.
There's a running joke among my Burning Man campmates that whenever I'm in charge of the music, I'm just shuffling Talking Heads rarities, and whenever someone puts on anything else, I demand to know which Talking Heads album it came from. Which is all to say: I have tickets for the Talking Heads event at TIFF and I could *not be more excited.*
Continuing on the Canadian theme, one of the annual highlights of Canadian media is the Massey Lectures, a series of public lectures given around the country and rebroadcast on CBC. These are always great, but recent years have been superb – Ron Deibert's 2020 series was unmissable:
https://pluralistic.net/2020/11/10/dark-matter/#citizenlab
This year's Masseys are shaping up to be the GOAT. They're presented by Astra Taylor, an activist rock-and-roller turned documentary filmmaker who is one of the founders of the Debt Collective, fighting for student debt cancellation. Everything Astra does is amazing and her profile on CBC Ideas gives some background on the role that unschooling played in making her the powerful activist she is today:
https://www.cbc.ca/radio/ideas/astra-taylor-interview-2023-massey-lecturer-1.6959320
There's no question that things are messed up right now, but Astra and people like her shine out like beacons of hope. 17 years ago, self-described "democracy nut" Tom Stites gave one of the seminal lectures on the role news media play in democracy:
http://citmedia.org/blog/2006/07/03/guest-posting-is-media-performance-democracys-critical-issue/
17 years later – and from his perch as editor at the essential International Consortium of Investigative Journalists – Stites presents us a long-overdue, extremely pertinent followup: "Building Civic Energy is the Goal, Not Saving Old News Business Models":
https://banyanproject.coop/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Hope-College-speech-for-Banyan-website-1.pdf
Stites's intervention is extremely timely, because policymakers all over the world have made the mistake of thinking that Big Tech is stealing the news media's content, which is absolutely untrue. It is good, actually, to index news stories and let people discuss, quote from and link to news stories. News you're not allowed to talk about isn't news, it's a secret.
But Big Tech is stealing from news. They're not stealing content – they're stealing money. The Google/Apple duopoly rakes 30% off every subscription payment collected in an app. The Google/Meta duopoly rakes 51% out of every ad-dollar (and maintain that death-grip through creepy, privacy-invading surveillance ads). Meta and Twitter hold social media subscribers hostage, forcing publishers to pay to reach their own subscribers.
We don't want the news to be Big Tech's partners – we need them to be Big Tech's watchdogs. "Link taxes" and other profit-sharing arrangements between the media and tech cut against the civic energy Stites wants to build.
(You can read more about this – along with policy prescriptions for halting Big Tech's rent-extraction from the news – in "Saving the News From Big Tech," my EFF white-paper:)
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/04/saving-news-big-tech
If your spirits are lifted by stories of principled activists achieving important – and improbable – victories, you could do worse than to attend the EFF Awards on in San Francisco Sept 14 (I'm the emcee). This year, we're honoring Alexandra Elbakyan for her founding of Sci-Hub, the Library Freedom Project and the Signal Foundation:
https://www.eff.org/awards/effawards/2023
In more activist news: Mozilla produced a startling and astoundingly good – if demoralizing – report on the state of digital privacy and security in the automotive sector:
https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/privacynotincluded/articles/its-official-cars-are-the-worst-product-category-we-have-ever-reviewed-for-privacy/
Entitled, "It’s Official: Cars Are the Worst Product Category We Have Ever Reviewed for Privacy," the report reveals just how absolutely terrible the automotive sector is when it comes to privacy practices, collecting (and selling) (and giving away) information about your sex life, your geneology, your genetic characteristics, and your smell (no, seriously).
Their recommendations for which new car you should buy boil down to "don't buy a new car." I have been urging consumer research groups to release a report like this for a decade. There are whole categories of gadgets – like, say, "smart speakers" – that are unsafe at any speed. At a certain point, reviewers need to have the guts to say that every manufacturer in an entire sector is a dumpster fire and they should all be dragged in front of a firing squad – or at least a Congressional committee.
Cars, after all, are nightmares of privacy invasion and rent-extraction, the source of autoenshittification on a massive scale, a mobile form of technofeudalism:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/24/rent-to-pwn/#kitt-is-a-demon
The fact that cars score so badly on privacy is especially ironic given the campaign Big Car waged against the 2020 Massachusetts Right to Repair ballot initiative, in which car manufacturers held themselves out as the defenders of driver privacy from unscrupulous third parties who couldn't be trusted to handle the vast troves of data your car collects with every hour that God sends:
https://pluralistic.net/2020/09/03/rip-david-graeber/#rolling-surveillance-platforms
This is a familiar refrain: monopolists often claim that any check on their absolute authority over their users will expose those users to privacy risks. Apple has run a global ad-campaign claiming this, and while Apple does prevent Facebook from spying on iPhone owners, they also secretly spy on those customers in exactly the same way that Facebook used to, and lie about it:
https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/14/luxury-surveillance/#liar-liar
It turns out that giant companies just aren't good proxies for their customers' interests, and that the power they amass through monopolization shouldn't be counted on as a source of user safety. Monopolists won't reliably defend user privacy – that job belongs to democratically accountable regulators. That's an argument I developed in detail with Bennett Cyphers in our EFF white-paper "Privacy Without Monopoly":
https://www.eff.org/wp/interoperability-and-privacy
That is, rather than getting privacy by "voting with your wallet," you need to get it by voting with your ballot. "The market" is an election that you vote in with dollars, which means that the people with the most dollars always win. When there are zero cars on the market that are safe to drive, you can't vote with your wallet by buying a good one.
On a related subject, the DOJ Antitrust Division has brought the most important tech anti-monopoly case of the century, charging Google with monopolizing search:
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/06/technology/modern-internet-first-monopoly-trial-us-google-dominance.html
Part of the DOJ case turns on the fact that Google goes to extraordinary lengths to keep you from every trying another search engine, paying out more than $45 billion every year to be the default search on every device, program and service you might use. In other words, Google spends entire Twitter's worth of dollars every year, lighting it on fire to keep you from finding out about rivals.
Google argues that this is fine, actually, because these are only defaults, and users can dig through their settings to change their search engine. Sure, Google – and the first 20 search results you serve are only defaults, and it wouldn't matter if you were ordered to put them ten screens down, because users could always scroll to see them.
But search defaults aren't the only way that Google locks in searchers – and then harms us by invading our privacy. Google's ubiquitous Chrome browser ties Google's search to Google's invasive, nonconsensual, total surveillance. Chrome turned 15 this year and Google made a huge PR splash out of the anniversary:
https://blog.google/products/chrome/google-chrome-new-features-redesign-2023/
But all that puffery conspicuously failed to mention that Google had quietly rolled out its long-discredited, new surveillance technology, FLOC, which it pretended to kill in 2021:
https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/22/ihor-kolomoisky/#not-that-competition
FLOC is back, rebranded as the Topics API: this is a system for spying on you so advertisers can target you. Google is spinning this as a privacy improvement because it might someday replace "third party cookies," one of the creepiest web surveillance systems.
But as Ron Amadeo writes for Ars Technica, Chrome is the last major browser to support third party cookies – both Safari and Firefox block them by default. So Google is basically saying, "We are going to improve your privacy by changing how we spy on you, even though all our competitors don't do this kind of spying at all":
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/09/googles-widely-opposed-ad-platform-the-privacy-sandbox-launches-in-chrome/
This kind of gaslighting, where Google pisses in all our mouths and tells us it's raining, is the hallmark of a decrepit, arrogant, crapulent monopolist that needs to be shattered in the courts. Kudos to the DoJ for doing the people's business here – and kudos to DoJ antitrust boss Jonathan Kanter for promising that he will not go into corporate law when he finishes his stint in government.
The DoJ isn't the only public agency that's serving the American people. The FCC just announced proceedings to force cybersecurity labels for "smart" devices:
https://www.fcc.gov/consumer-governmental-affairs/fcc-proposes-cybersecurity-labeling-program-smart-devices
This is long overdue, and it's a welcome action from the FCC, which was hamstrung for years because cowardly Democratic senators joined with homophobic, libelous Republicans in blocking confirmation hearings for the amazing Gigi Sohn:
https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/15/useful-idiotsuseful-idiots/#unrequited-love
After years of abuse, Sohn bowed out. Now, Anna Gomez has been confirmed to fill that fifth FCC chair, turning the FCC into a fully operational battle station:
https://www.fiercewireless.com/wireless/senate-votes-approve-anna-gomez-5th-fcc-commissioner
The fact that there's all this great stuff going on in the administrative branch is easy to lose sight of amidst the circus of federal electoral politics, in which Donald Trump has retained his role as ringmaster and chief distractor.
Thankfully, we have expert Pantsless Emperor skewerers like Ruben Bolling around – his latest Tom the Dancing Bug revives his brilliant Calvin and Hobbes-inspired Trump gag:
https://boingboing.net/2023/09/06/tom-the-dancing-bug-a-calvinesque-and-hobbesian-look-at-taking-a-mug-shot.html
Well, that's me signing off for the weekend – I've got to pack for my flight to Toronto. If you're looking for more weekend fun, check out the trailer for Fractured Veil, the video game my old pal Chris DiBona has been working on for seven years and which is heading for Steam early access next month:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NjNd3QQnENU
Just watch it. I mean. Wow.
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/09/nein-nein/#everything-is-miscellaneous
Image:
Roel Schroeven (modified)
https://www.flickr.com/photos/roelschroeven/45413895
CC BY-SA 2.0
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/
#pluralistic#calvin and hobbes#mozilla#privacy#automotive#autoenshittification#enshittification#saving the news from big tech#privacy without monopoly#tom the dancing bug#ruben bolling#astra taylor#canada#cbc#munk lectures#democracy#political science#google#surveillance#monopoly#floc#topics api#chrome#chromium#browser wars#games#fractured veil#fcc#iot#internet of shit
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In December I got a job as a "park ambassador," which the description made sound like a desk job, an event coordinator, but actually turned out to be a manual laborer/groundskeeper. I got overwhelmed by the workload on my first day and quit the morning that would have been my second.
This month I got a job as a front desk clerk at a hotel. Those of you who follow me probably know that I had this exact job at a motel down in the Keys for years, so it was a lateral move, something familiar to fall back on, much easier than the suprise manual labor the park sprung on me. Well, turns out this place lied too because they're cross training me to be a housekeeper, which is ABSOLUTELY NOT worth my time and effort. That wasn't in the job description, and that was never brought up in the interview. Today was my first full shift, and it was horrendous from start to finish because there was simultaneously too much to do and not enough. What I mean is that every single task they gave me had ten or fifteen steps and substeps to follow in sequence, so even the simplest one was needlessly overcomplicated. There's a ton of shit to do, followed by long stretches of absolutely nothing. At my old job, my boss did not give one half of two shits what I did to fill the time; I could go on my phone or my laptop, I could read a book, I could draw, I could space out or take a nap, she didn't care as long as I immediately dropped what I was doing whenever the phone rang or a customer came to the door. No such luck here. I'm not allowed to read, I'm supposed to either sit there in silence or find something to do to look busy for the cameras. That's all it is, just pointless busywork. There are not 8 hours worth of tasks, but they expect you to do 8 hours worth of work!
Oh, and if the woman who's training me was really passive agressive all day about the fact that I asked her to go over the steps slowly so I could take notes and create a checklist. She made a really fucking annoying comment about how I'm the only trainee who has trouble retaining information, like I'm some drooling moron when it's literally my first day. She's younger than I am but she's already been married, had a kid, gotten a divorce, bought and sold two houses, and landed a career as a middle manager, so to her I'm lower than dirt, an abject failure, an example of how not to live your life. She made me feel about three feet tall, and the only thing that prevented me from calling it quits again was that I desperately need the money. This is the way it is: every day I'm scheduled is $100 dropped into my bank account. $15 per hour, 8 hour shifts, that's $120 per day before tax, something like $102 to $105 take home pay. I was hired to be part time, only two or tree days a week, but it pays weekly instead of biweekly so every Friday I'll get $200 or $300. This week they gave me a full 40 hours for training, so that's $500 if I can make it to the end of it without having another panic attack. If I imagine my boss handing me a $100 bill every day at clock out, I think I can get through this.
If they lied about the content of the job, I'm going to give it a solid 75% effort. I'm not gonna stress about meeting quotas or finding ways to look busy. I'm gonna keep using my checklists. I'm gonna keep them with me and go down them one item at a time in front of the customers because that's what I need to do, and if corporate doesn't like it they can fire me. This is just a job, not a career. I'm not an essential worker. I don't give a shit if a customer has a substandard experience. I don't give a shit if the elevator has scuff marks that need to be mopped. I don't care if someone leaves their laundry hamper next to the coin-op machines while they run. I am going to half-ass it all!
I have a disability and it has only gotten worse in the last five years. When I was in college I had good insurance and good medication, but now my plans have next to no coverage; the only meds I can afford are the msot common ones that doctors give away like candy. They don't work for me, but the good shit is too expensive, so i'm wallowing. I was barely able to function in the Keys, but I was driven by my goals of buying a car and moving out of my parents place; now that I've achieved both of those things, I have nothing to look forward too and have lost all motivation to even try. I am not alone, I know plenty of people who are in the exact same boat as me, but apparently none of them live within 500 miles. All my would-be peers up here are successful and functional. it comes easy to them. I'm the only one who seems to struggle. Surely I can't be the only one, but I never see anyone else like me in real life, only ever online. Are they just good at hiding it? Why can't I do that too?
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I couldn't help myself with this and I'm sure as shit not sorry. Enjoy the Batbrother fic! -Thorne
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The entire mission in Costa Rica would’ve taken two days to complete with the final night being the perfect time to eliminate the militia and their leader. He gazed at the rural camp through the scope of his rifle, surveying the small but well-guarded church building and courtyard. Five camps were set up around the church itself in a star set, the main headquarters in the middle, and a barbed wire fence surrounded the entire operation.
Getting in wasn’t going to be any trouble, at least not for Walker and Gutierrez; shifting the rifle, he could see them creeping up the side of the hill, staying in the tall brush. They were about thirty meters from the side of the fence that would let them in undetected; he’d provide sniper fire for anyone nearing them that they couldn’t get to in time.
All at once, Walker stilled in the brush, grasping at Gutierrez’s wrist. When Walker didn’t start reporting, he frowned and hit the button on his gun, murmuring, “Talk to me, Walker.”
The former MI6 operative grunted. “Somethings fuckin’ with my radar.” He glanced back towards where he was camped in the sniper nest. “Tell Asghar to figure it out.”
A new voice came over the line, rather agitated. “I don’t work for you and telling me to figure it out, isn’t going to make me. Maybe you could ask nicely.”
“Well, you ain’t called the fuckin’ ‘Eye in The Sky’ for no reason. Use the IFF and figure it out.”
“Arse,” she retorted, then she hummed. “Captain, Walker’s right, there’s something entering the premises. But I can’t tell what—it’s cloaked.”
He hummed quietly. “Where is it, Asghar?”
“East-side. It’s pinging the radar, but I don’t have a visual on it. Lemme circle around again.”
Glancing into the scope once more, he watched the east side carefully, when one of the militia members suddenly grasped their throat, blood spilling between their fingers. There was a split-second flash of a white tactical cloak shimmering, and his eyes went wide. “Everyone pull back. Now.”
All of his squad reacted with shock, but he wasn’t going to hear it. “All of you. Get out. Now. I know what’s inside the perimeter. Asghar land the Hawkeye. Everyone get to it.”
“Captain, what is it?”
“Nothing good, Mikhailovna.” He replied to the assassin with an annoyed frown. “Goddamn motherfucking asshole.” He scowled and watched another militia member fall, then another, and another. All within seconds. “Fucker took our job out from underneath us.”
“Who did, Captain?” Walker asked.
“A Ghost I don’t feel like engaging right now.” He said. “I gave you all an order. Back to the plane. Double time.”
“What about mission?” Mikhailovna questioned and he could tell she was already pissed.
“Our little guest’s already claimed it as theirs. I’ll explain later. Just get back.”
A round of disgruntled replies came in but he paid them no mind, simply watching the shimmer of the tactical cloak every few seconds go out as the soldiers dropped, throats slit.
***
He hefted the duffel bag onto his shoulder, watching his squad boarding the plane. His pilot stood beside him. “You coming with us or staying?” she questioned, and he hummed.
“Planning on staying for a while.” His eyes drifted to the hotel in the distance. “Costa Rica’s got some nice sights and I’ll need to find us another job since this one busted halfway through.”
She nodded as if suddenly remembering. “Yeah, about that…I haven’t seen you that spooked in a while. Who was that?”
“I wasn’t spooked.” he griped. “But it’s a vigilante who’s not exactly good.”
Nadeen crossed her arms over her chest. “So, they’re like us?”
“No. He’s not even like me or Jason. When he fights, he views it as an art, not a duty. He’ll kill anyone he deems necessary.”
“Psychopath much?”
“Congratulations,” he quipped dryly. “You hit the nail on the head.”
“Oh my god, seriously? He’s a psychopath?”
“Full-fledged, no remorse or sympathy.” He glanced at the servicers finishing the fueling. “You should go start up the plane. I’m sure everyone’s ready to be back home for a while.”
Nadeen looked at him. “What are you going to do the entire time?”
“Hopefully find a job he won’t bud in on. Tell everyone they’ve got a month leave.” He held out his arm, elbow bent, and fist curled.
Nadeen placed the outside of her arm, held just like his, against the outside of his. “Happy hunting, Captain. Stay safe.”
“You too,” he smiled, pulling away to walk off the flight line.
***
He stepped out of the shower and wrapped the fluffy white towel around his waist. His eyes caught his reflection in the mirror and for a moment he simply stared at himself. All the scars that lined his chest, the bullet wounds, the stabs, the slashes, the burns. Each told a story of a time he escaped death’s clutches. Barely. But still alive.
He shifted the dog tags that at his sternum and looked at the cicatrix on his skin; he didn’t like the memory that surrounded it and he shook his head, letting the tags fall back into place before he walked out of the bathroom and into the master bedroom. He’d left a pair of fresh underwear on the bed, and he removed the towel, slipping them on.
Figuring since no one was going to bother him, he tossed the towel onto the sofa beside the window and walked through the living room into the kitchen. He opened the refrigerator and pursed his lips, wondering if he should cook or order room service; the Casa Del Mar Residence had fairly decent service.
Suddenly his muscles tensed and the hair on the back of his neck stood; he calmly grabbed an apple out of the refrigerator, then spun, throwing it with deadly aim and speed.
Unsurprisingly, the half-masked man leaning against the laundry room doorway caught it, smiling at him. “Well done, (Y/N). You knew I was here.”
He felt anger flush through him, and he pointed at him. “I knew it was you. Only you’d stick your nose in a SPECTRE Op and stick around afterwards to gloat about it.”
Chuckling, the man took a bite of the apple, chewing before murmuring, “Why so upset, (Y/N)? I took out the target for you.”
“Yeah, and you cost me and my squad a few million dollars of payment.” (Y/N) scowled. “The fuck do you want Ghost-Maker?”
Ghost-Maker smirked at him. “I’d pay you back but I’m sure you’d tell me to shove my money where the sun doesn’t shine.”
“Again, what do you want?” he gestured around. “It sure as shit isn’t to mess up my vacation for a month.”
“I’m leaving in a few hours,” he shrugged. “New missions in Asia.”
(Y/N) looked him over a moment. “You know he told me the first letters of your name. ‘Kh’.” He hummed, leaning against the island. “There’s so many names it could be. Khalid. Khal. Khadim. Khai.” Eyeing the vigilante, he quipped, “I feel like I’ve already said it.”
“I’d tell you if you did.” He walked around the island and stood beside (Y/N).
“Really? You’d tell me?” he cocked a brow. “Can I call you ‘K’?”
“No.”
“Hmm…sensitive.” (Y/N) grinned. “C’mon K, lighten up a little you psycho.”
He rolled his eyes. “Anyone ever told you you’re hilarious?”
“Just a few people. One of those being my dad.” (Y/N) met his gaze. “So…why are you here if you’re leaving in a few hours.”
A smirk ghosted over the man’s face, and he took a closer step, now in (Y/N)’s personal space, in fact, standing just before him. “I haven’t meditated yet.”
He peered at him. “Something tells me you’re not talking about yoga.”
“No. I’m thinking something more carnal.” He murmured. “Seems like you could use some meditation too.”
(Y/N)’s eyes merely narrowed, and he glared at the man in front of him for a long while before sighing and grunting, “Fine. But if you tell anyone we fucked, I’ll kill you in your sleep.” He started towards the bedroom, listening to Ghost-Maker follow, chuckling behind him.
“I already told you, (Y/N). We’re going to meditate.”
“Meditate my ass,” he griped in return.
“Relax. We’re going to have some fun.”
“I’m topping.”
“We’ll see,” Ghost-Maker cooed, shutting the door behind them.
#batfamily x reader#batfamily x reader imagines#batfamily x reader imagine#batfamily imagines#batfamily imagine#batfamily#batbrother#batbro#batbro imagines#batbro imagine#batfamily x batbro#batfamily x batbrother#dc comics#dc imagines#dc imagine#dc#ghost maker#ghost-maker#bruce wayne#batman
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Star Wars Kinktober day- 1
Prompt: Symbolic jewelry
Sub! Tup x Female (AFAB) OC
Hello! Willkommen to the grand opening of me doing Kinktober (even if this post is a few hours late for the actual 1st 😅)! Here is my prompt list derived from Kinktober lists by @ink-and-flame. Their prompt lists are phenomenal, but for the sake of my ADHD I had to whittle it down into a more finite list of interests that I am comfortable writing and know at least a little about it, or else I’ll just get lost in the sauce of prompts! But seriously, go check out their lists, they’re incredibly varied and have something for everyone!
And now without further ado:
Tags: some drinking, sub male, femdom, nudity, almost pussy eating (working up to it in part 2!), pussy worship, praise kink, worship kink (is that a thing?), there’s no sex in this fic it’s just the lead up (she is spoicy tho)
Words: 1609
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Under his shirt, the chain and pendant Tup wore brushed cooly against his chest. As unpleasant as the gooseflesh it raised was, the reminder it gave him was anything but.
From the moment he’d awoke that morning, wrapped in arms as pale as the thin sunlight at that hour, he knew what he wanted and began to get ready. A few kisses pecked around his groggy girlfriend, Aurelie’s, face placated her awakening at his rising and he moved to her dressing table to grab the aforementioned necklace. If she wasn’t interested in playing, it would have been put away the night before in it’s felt case, but this morning he plucked it from it’s customary open place before the mirror.
Catching the morning bus he felt it leap and jump with the rhythm of the air vehicle as the pilot navigated Coruscant air-traffic. After the war ended and the clones were given their freedom, sentient rights, and a hell of a lot of backpay, there were questions of what was to be done with them. As it turned out, there wasn’t such a mass exodus from the GAR as previously thought there would be, though many opted to retire from combat positions. Tup chose to oversee the supply requisition and organization for the newly formed Search & Rescue Ops, a subsidiary of the Disaster Relief Squadron, helping places around the galaxy affected by natural disasters. It felt meaningful and good, and he could honestly say he didn’t miss having to carry a gun and constantly keep an eye out for clankers.
After a day of approving supply drops, running reports, and the pendant lightly caressing his chest with every slight sway, he was back on the bus home. A man scowled at him from among the crowd; some people would never see the clones as anything more than meat-droids undeserving of even the life they were given, but the pendant mocked that man’s ideas from behind Tup’s shirt. It was a gift of love freely given to him and he was worthy,
When he returned to his apartment Aurelie was still at work, not getting off until late. As he waited for water to boil he straightened up around the place, clearing dust from the nooks it always returned to settle and gathered laundry. When he came to the bed in their room he came to a spot by the bed and stopped, considered, and opened a drawer to reveal a medium sized case which he deposited neatly on Aurelie’s side of the bed. He already had the necklace, it never hurt to be proactive in terms of their play.
Half an hour later dinner was had and a portion of it was squared away in the fridge with a reminder to reheat it and enjoy and Tup was ready to meet a few of the boys at 79’s. As he changed from his work wear into something light blue and more casual, the afternoon sun caught the silver pendant resting on the tan skin of his breast bone, dying it almost the same shade of pink- before he could finish that thought a beep from his comm sounded informing him that his taxi had arrived outside.
20 minutes, a few levels down, and a familiar neon sign later, Tup was walking into a familiar bar. Nothing had changed about the place, only now armour and dress greys were a rare sight to be seen as the open opportunity for individuality to flourish among the clones led to some, interesting, experiments in style. ‘Speaking of which,’ thought Tup as a discordant but jovial chorus of his name called him over to a table in the corner. Fives, Jesse, Kix, Rex, Waxer, Boil, Cody, and even Wolffe, to his surprise, sat there having already gotten a small headstart on happy hour. It wasn’t a full reunion, others still at work or spread across the galaxy exploring life, but it was always nice to see familiar faces.
They took their time and paced themselves drinking, it was still early and they didn’t have to run off in an hour to prepare for a campaign and weren’t shotgunning a train of shots to try and forget one. Some of them had to be able to operate tomorrow morning though and they parted as the night lowered it’s curtain over day; Jesse and Kix remained however to scope out some of the ladies coming in with the party crowds.
As good as the times spent together were, Tup silently willed the air-taxi to carry him away faster through the legendary Coruscant traffic and back home. He’d worn the necklace, the empty place it would otherwise occupy obvious, if she hadn’t noticed then she would certainly see the familiar box he’d left resting by her pillow. Stars he was ready, the anticipation had built all day, the secret only he kept feeding his need. He was thrumming for whatever Aurelie had to give him.
The taxi stopped and he cursed the second it took for the payment to transfer, the minute in the elevator, the short march down the hall, and the door code he had to spend time punching in-
The entry was dark with the exception of a string of pink fairy lights strung along the wall and leading around the corner to their room. He grinned and, remembering to turn back and lock the door when he was already halfway across the room, soon came to the closed panel that marked their space. He knocked, “May I come in mistress?”
“Enter, darling.” A high, breathy voice answered.
As the door opened Tup entered the threshold and lowered himself to his knees, his hands finding their place on his lap as he gazed upon the shining woman perched on the edge of their bed (somehow, someway, his girlfriend, a part of his brain never ceased obsessing). She regarded him warmly, “Have you been a good boy today Tup? You took your necklace and I really hope it didn’t make you do anything naughty.”
“I was very good, mistress, just for you.” His voice was breathy and quiet, he had been good, and he anticipated his reward. His eyes drank in the milky skin that clothed the leopardess in repose before him, partially obscured by the long, wavy strands of pearly blonde hair.
“Oh I know Tup, you’re such a good boy. You wake me up with kisses, make sure I have food to eat when I work late, and you were so considerate to get our box of toys out for me. I don’t know where to begin, but good boys deserve to be rewarded, isn’t that right my beautiful boy?”
Aurelie’s voice caressed his every synapse as he breathed in air that still held the trace of a burn from a heavy incense and he was already in a state. Her words of praise had passed straight down from his ears to his cock, bringing him to a full erection from the half mast he’d been sailing at since walking through the front door. “Yes, please mistress, yes.” If it sounded like he was begging, Tup didn’t care. Her soft thighs were resting atop one another, hiding from him what he’d been craving all day. Just one simple shift was all it would take to reveal to him where she was no doubt already soft, sweet, and wet.
Her legs uncrossed, but she stood instead of spreading wider and came to stand before him, her curl-crowned mound a tease before him that turned his need to a desperate clamour within him. He held still, eyes glued to hers as she leaned down to him and brought her pillowy lips to kiss him, one hand coming up to cradle his cheek and the other fiddles with his collar for the necklace she’d gifted him. His hands were curled hard on his lap, restraining himself from the urge to reach out and touch; being so, so good and waiting.
Drawing the pendant along the chain away from Tup’s racing heart, Aurelie held it between them and teased: “Is this what you want Tup? Do you want to eat my pussy until you’re begging for me to fuck you, until you cum in me? Or maybe I’ll ride that handsome face of yours all night and let you cum in my mouth while you’re hard at work.” Tup could only manage a tortured moan, the pictures being painted in his head making him dizzy. She lightly laughed and graciously accepted that as her answer, gently leading him across the floor as she walked backwards with the chain still in her hand, him crawling on all fours after her. When she returned to the bed she sat as he looked up at her with lust and adoration.
Still holding the pendant, she slowly drew her legs apart, raising one to rest on the bed so her pussy and the glorious pink of her vulva were wide open on display for Tup in his current position. Aurelie considered the pendant again for a moment. “I’m glad I found that artist, it’s a wonderful likeness, isn’t it darling?” From the petal-like folds of her labia minora to the majora that protected them and the unique hood that shadowed her marvelous clit, it couldn’t belong to anyone else. The highest honour Tup felt was being lucky enough to be the one person allowed to worship it.
“Stars yes, mistress!” He agreed emphatically and Aurelie laughed lightly again and let the necklace fall back into its place from her fingers.
“Well, come and get your reward Tup.” He gladly obliged.
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So yeah, Tup as a Sub wears a necklace of his girlfriend’s vulva when he really wants to be her good boy (; It also helps that it’s really pretty ✨👀✨
Also sorry if this is a little off, this wasn’t even alpha read, let alone beta read.
Aurelie is one of a few OC’s I’ve used in my daydreams, she may make another appearance in another story if I think she’ll fit! I may try and do some art too…
As for the boys at the bar, I came up with ideas for what they’re up to now and may either write other Kinktober stuff in this AU, or do some drabbles later (though I could include the Kinktober stuff in an AU drabble, right?). I didn’t include it in the story though because I felt like it would disturb the flow too much. I’ll probably detail the AU in another post if I do end up doing that.
Kinktober works so far
Masterlist
#kinktober#kinktober 2021#star wars#the clone wars#sisterofleatherfrogwrites#tup#ct-5385#clone trooper tup#minors dni#sw#tcw#sw tcw#the clone wars fic#tup x oc#please let me know if I've broken tense#I'm bad at catching that#but please be nice as I am but a delicate frög
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You Give Love a Bad Name (Four)
MASTERLIST
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Chapter Four: Somewhere Classified
“What do you mean, the house was empty?” Alexander Pierce pushed aside his cocktail in favor of rubbing at his eyes wearily. “How was it empty?”
“Not just empty sir, but shot to hell.” Brock said on the other line. “I think they went at it and tried to kill each other and then when they couldn’t, they ran together.”
“The Black Widow and Winter Soldier wouldn’t run together even if the goddamn world was ending.” Pierce denied. “Additional options. A safe room built beneath the house?”
“Found it, destroyed it. The weapons racks were empty, so wherever the Soldier got off to, he’s well armed.”
“And the Widow?”
“She’s got bug out spots all over the country. We’ll never find her.”
“Damn it.” Pierce forced out an uneven breath. “Okay, you and your team stay on it. I’ve got to make a call to someone who might actually know what to do with this mess.”
“Oh no, not--”
“Yep.” he nodded grimly. “Stay on them and report back to me immediately with any word.”
“Yes sir.”
The phone went dead and Pierce pulled a different one out from a locked drawer, banged his head against the desk a few times and then finally dialed the only number he actually knew by heart.
“What do you want, Pierce?”
“Fury.” Pierce pursed his lips and tried for patience. “The worst has happened.”
“Oh motherfucker.”
************
************
“All I’m saying is that we could have jacked something better than a minivan.” Bucky complained as he merged into freeway traffic. “It’s like driving a bus, but somehow this is less cool than a bus.”
“Minivans are the vehicles people remember the least.” Natasha propped her little feet up on the dash and took a bite out of Bucky’s candy bar. “Their basic design hasn’t changed in the last decade, they rarely come in colors other than white, and people don’t want to look at them. No one wants to see a stressed out dad, exhausted mom and four bratty ass kids unload from a vehicle with sliding doors, sticky seats and a plethora of suburban paraphernalia.”
“Damn baby, you got something against minivans?” Bucky reached across the middle console and spread his big hand across Nat’s thigh. “You sound fifty shades of bitter about them. Oh and by the way, super glad the only thing that survived our little war last night was your summer skirt. My god, do your legs look good in this.”
“My legs do look good in this.” Natasha admired the shape of her calves beneath the flowy skirt. “I hate minivans because every day for the last three years, the Stepford wives have been asking me when we’ll have kids and offering me advice on which minivan to get. And by the way? I knew you stole my copy of Fifty Shades of Grey. I knew it.”
“I didn’t steal it.” Bucky disagreed. “I threw that shit away. You want someone to tie you up, just ask. Don’t read that nonsense, it’s abuse pretending to be romance. You want to be dommed sugar, I can do that all night long. But don’t read that trash and get off to it when it’s nothing good.”
Natasha cut her eyes at him curiously. “You have….very strong feelings about that book.”
“I have very strong feelings about my wife looking for something gross when I’d’a been more than happy to give her something real.” Bucky snapped, then swore and shook his head. “Don’t mean to yell, sorry, I just--”
“I think it’s terribly romantic that you would have tried that sort of thing with me if I’d wanted.” Natasha had to climb over most of the console to kiss Bucky’s cheek, but she did it anyway. “But I wasn’t reading it because I liked it, or got off to it or anything like that.”
“No?”
“Remember that diplomat that got killed last year? He was into it, so when word got out he was looking for a sort of specific scene and liked those books, I read up on them to see what it was like.”
“So what?” Bucky shot her a scandalized look. “You got the guy naked and all subby and then killed him?”
“Men like him deserve to be killed with their dick out.” she answered calmly. “Take this next exit, please.”
“It wasn’t my real parents at our wedding.” Bucky said as he switched lanes. “I paid a nice couple in the hotel five hundred bucks to stand up with me.”
“My sister who was my maid of honor is actually Maria Hill, covert ops, all around bad ass and probably on the list of people trying to kill us right now.” she commented. “Stay left and take the road around.”
“I’m not allergic to fish, I just hate how you cook salmon.” Bucky slowed down to take the corner and grumbled about how unwieldy the minivan was. “Use some damn salt, Nat.”
“Eh, like I said.” she shrugged. “I haven’t cooked a day in my life, no harm done. What’s your favorite color?”
“Green.” Bucky pointed to her eyes. “What about you?”
“Your favorite color is my eye color?” Natasha asked suspiciously. “Since when?”
“Since you took that shot of tequila on the beach and never broke eye contact.” Bucky confirmed. “I was basically fucked from that point.”
“You were basically fucked.” she agreed. “I rode you hard and put you away wet.”
“All about that Bronco life, babydoll.” he chuckled. “By the way, why are we going to Fury and not Pierce?”
“Because Fury runs the world and he’ll have the full story whereas Pierce will only have your side of the story.”
“My side knows things too, Tasha.”
“Oh not like my side does.” She laughed quietly at his disgruntled expression. “Plus, I helped design our building. I know exactly how to get in and out without making a scene. We’ll get to Fury’s office, erase our files and anything else even slightly incriminating and then we’ll get out and start a new life somewhere outside the borders.”
“And if we get noticed?”
“Then we have a minivan full of things that go boom.” Natasha checked on their pile of ammunition, guns and grenades taking over the back two rows of the van. “We’ll be fine.”
***********
Despite Bucky’s misgivings and how weirdly unsure he was about leaving the minivan parked in a less-than-reputable spot downtown-- “What if it gets stolen, Nat?” “Oh my love, we already stole it once, what’s the harm in it getting snatched a second time?” -- Natasha’s choice to go after Fury’s office proved to be a good one.
She really did know the building inside and out, right down to which of the man hole covers was a fake and led directly down to tunnels beneath the building, how far down the-- ick-- stinky sewer pipes they had to travel, and which closet they would pop into when the tunnels finally turned up and into the headquarters.
“This is the supply closet on the first floor. Backside of the security desk.” Natasha whispered as she wriggled out of the trap door and waited for Bucky to follow her. “The desk is for civilians that come in, and there isn’t actually anything on the next twenty levels, just elevator cables and empty floors. Offices start at twenty one and Fury is on twenty six. We’ll have to go through the elevator shaft and hopefully catch a ride on top of one of the cars.”
“No problem.” Bucky said confidently. “I’ve jumped on top of a car or two in my day. You were in Germany, weren’t you?”
“I vaguely remember hearing about the Winter Soldier ripping the top off a car on the Autobahn and then blowing up a tunnel.” Natasha slung an automatic rifle over her shoulder, looped a rope around her waist and strapped twin holsters on her thighs. “By the way? I love that you are so capable. This would be at least a thousand times more difficult if you really were the clueless meathead I thought you were.”
“...you thought I was a clueless meathead?” Bucky sounded halfway to scandalized. “Is it because I’m muscly? C’mon Tash, I can have brains and brawn.”
Nat only twisted her lips in a smirk and pointed up to the ceiling. “Give me a boost?”
“Sure thing.” Bucky lifted her easily, first by the waist then holding her steady so she could stand on his shoulders. “You really thought I was clueless, huh?”
“It was either clueless--” Natasha huffed as she wriggled herself into the air duct that would lead out to the elevator shaft. “Or I had to think that you noticed me keeping my distance and didn’t care enough to try and reach me. The clueless option hurt less.”
“M’sorry, Tash.” Bucky heaved his bulk up behind her, grimacing when his shoulders pushed against the walls of the duct. “Truth was, it was so nice to keep such an easy cover that by th’time I realized how far away you were and how much I missed ya, it was too late.”
“Hm.” was Natasha’s only reply before she set off down the duct, her skirt tucked into her waist so the material wouldn’t catch under her knees and trip her up.
It was a practical choice considering how impractical her skirt was for this sort of mission, but then again, it was her own fault for not wanting to stop and get more clothing and faced with the rather tantalizing view of his wife’s backside, Bucky wasn’t about to complain.
He was going to comment though.
“Y’know, I don’t remember you havin’ those sorta panties before.” he reached out and flicked the curve of one ridiculously pretty, barely covered butt cheek. “I would’a remembered these for sure.”
“Flick my ass again and I’ll break your hand.” Natasha retorted. “And maybe if you would have done laundry every once in a while, maybe you would have seen them.”
“Yep, that’s fair. I got no idea how to do laundry.” Bucky conceded with a quiet laugh. “Tell ya what, if you’re still wearing these when it’s all said and done, m’gonna take them off with my teeth.”
“If I’m still wearing them?”
“Yeah, if I haven’t ripped them off before then, since now that I know what you’re wearin’, it’s all I can think about.”
“You are worthless.” Natasha decided, and Bucky cheesed, “They don’t call me Bronco cos I’m subtle!”
The pretty redhead hung her head as she tried to quiet her laughter. “Sweetheart, I am well aware of why they call you Bronco. Now hush up, the elevator shaft is just ahead.”
The elevators moved fast in this building, swooping down in the blink of an eye and rocketing towards the top floors at dizzying speeds. Natasha wasn’t scared of much, but trying to jump onto a runaway elevator car without plunging to a horrifying death several floors down was sketchy at best, sort of terrifying at worst.
Thankfully-- or not so thankfully, probably-- Bucky wasn’t scared of anything and after decades of less than fun experimentation and constant training and tweaking of his particular brand of super soldier serum, he had lightning fast reflexes and impeccable timing and--
“SHIT!” Natasha yelped when Bucky just pushed her, clamped her mouth shut and prayed when she hung out in mid air on nothing for a few terrifying seconds before the elevator car rushed up to meet her.
Bucky was on the car a split second later, rolling over and covering Natasha with his bulk until she managed to get her breath back and it was there with Bucky crouched over her and the elevator humming beneath them that Tasha whispered, “You know, I never worried you didn’t have my back. Even when I thought you were clueless.”
“Hell sugar, I would’a taken on the entire Home Owners Association for you.” Bucky whispered back, dropped a kiss on her ear, then rolled off to crouch into a ready position as the car raced towards the top. “Any chance this thing is gonna crush us into super soldier paste at the top?”
“Nope, there’s only stairs to Fury’s office, so it will stop one floor above.” Natasha confirmed. “Fury figures if people have to come up the stairs to get to him, he can shoot them all before they reach the landing.”
“Charming.”
“Oh yeah, he’s a peach.”
The elevator slid to a stop quick enough to make their stomachs swoop, and while Natasha peeked down into the car to watch the top floor receptionist get in and push the button for back down, Bucky eyed the steel support beams in the elevator shaft and listened to the timing of the doors on the floor below them. The second he felt the slightest change in the car that signaled it was ready to move, he snatched Tasha around the waist and stepped off onto one of the support beams, held her close while the elevator dropped into the yawning nothing, then made sure she was secure before reaching up above their heads and wrenching an air duct cover free.
“Up and at’em sugar pie.” he grunted, and Natasha climbed him like a damn tree, clambering up his waist, onto his shoulders and then leaping off to fling herself into the duct. Bucky wasn’t quite as graceful, but while he was trying to get his frame into the narrow space, Natasha cut the wires to the vent security systems and once the nearly imperceptible hum of surveillance shut off, they both breathed a sigh of relief.
“Yeah babydoll.” Bucky wrapped his left hand around Natasha’s delicate ankle and squeezed gently. “Those undies ain’t gonna last this trip through the vent. You might as well drop trou now, there’s no way I’ll survive looking at your booty this long.”
“Behave.” Natasha warned, but her green eyes flashed bright enough to make Bucky’s mouth dry. “Once we’re out of here you can do whatever you want to my undies.”
“Fair deal. Let’s go.”
The vents let out in the stairs, and the moment they could stand up straight, both spies had weapons drawn and at the ready, watching for any movement, for any cameras that Natasha didn’t remember from before, for anything that sounded like voices on the floor above.
Up and up and up, and Bucky covered Tasha while she picked the lock, slid through the door to Fury’s office, and made a beeline for the computer at the desk.
“I thought you said you hated all this tech stuff.” Bucky commented as he watched her fingers fly over the keyboard. “What was that all about?”
“My love, I also told you it was adorable when you wore sandals and knee high socks.” Natasha glanced up from the computer long enough to send her husband a wry smile. “I lied about both things.”
“Our entire marriage is a sham.” Bucky lamented, and he was only half joking, mostly sad. “Tash, is anything I know about you true?”
“I never once faked it in bed.” Natasha kept typing, though her cheeks flushed slightly. “Never once. Even when we were as boringly missionary position vanilla as possible? You were always so good, and I don’t know if I hate it or love it that even when we were lying to each other, you still knew me well enough to wind me up like that.”
“Never faked, huh?” Bucky felt like maybe he shouldn’t be grinning quite so wide over that admission, and judging by the unimpressed noise Natasha made, she agreed. “Well if it makes you feel any better, I never faked it either.”
“I’m well aware.” Something blared an alarm on the computer and Natasha cursed under her breath before finishing, “Your mid-nut face is ridiculously stupid, there’s no way you could have faked that.”
“Fuck you, Tash.”
“We make it out of here alive, and I’m gonna make you do exactly that.” A few more key strokes and the computer made another one of those alarm noises. “Almost almost almost done, I just need a minute and then I can wipe everything--”
“Oh I’d hold off on that, if I were you.” Two new voices, Pierce and Fury walking into the office together, the two heads of competing espionage companies looking far too chummy for what they’d just discovered in the office. “No need to be reckless, Romanov.”
Guns up immediately, Bucky whirling around with rifle at the ready and blocking Natasha from view, thinking he did a good job of it too until he heard the familiar click of her guns on either side of his head and realized she had both pistols up and ready to unleash.
“I got you, baby doll.” he said easily, and Natasha murmured, “Oh, but I’ve got you first, my love.”
“This is cute.” Fury motioned between the two of them, his one good eye narrowed curiously. “The way you two act like you love each other instead of acting like you aren’t two minutes from killing each other. Romanov, hands off the button.”
“Hands are off only because they’re on the trigger.” she said coolly. “Tell me, Director. How long have you known I was cohabiting with the Winter Soldier.”
“Oh, I can answer that.” Alexander Pierce spoke up then, keeping more distance between himself and the two spies than Fury was, either more aware of exactly what the Winter Soldier could do, or more scared of what either pissed off operative could manage before he had a chance to defend himself. “It was the funniest thing, you know. I sent the Soldier deep cover to recover after replacing his arm. Only pulled him out for the most important assignments and we were ultra lucky that the Black Widow had seemingly retired and wasn’t disrupting our plans. We even hoped the bitch was dead but alas--”
He smiled tightly at Natasha. “--a pipe dream, as it were. Because about a year and a half ago when Fury and I decided to start sharing intel to take down a common competitor, we discovered that both our top operatives were under cover in the suburbs just outside the city.”
“The enemy of my enemy is my friend.” Director Fury cut in again. “All the things I learned when Pierce and I started collaborating and nothing prepared me for the Winter Soldier files. Not his violence, not his vengeance, not the way he looked exactly like the doofus beach bum Natasha had seduced into a sham marriage two years previous.”
“It was nice to finally get a picture of the Black Widow.” Pierce added. “Not so nice to see a picture of her in pearls and an apron in the holiday card from The Winter Soldier. So we did the only thing we could do.”
“Which was?”
“Watching the two of you for the better part of a year to see if you were compromised and sharing information, or if you’d gotten so lax in your duties neither had any idea they were sharing a bed with the enemy.” the Director said flatly. “Sent you both on the same assignment figuring it would kick both your training in. Natasha, I’ve never seen you hesitate on a shot before, and the Winter Soldier has never missed once. By not killing each other, you solved our problem for us.”
“The problem of how to retire the two most dangerous people in the world.” Pierce confirmed. “And then you pull this little stunt and are up here trying to delete files-- Come on, Romanov. You didn’t think it would be this easy, did you?”
“I dunno, I thought it was sorta hard. That elevator was no joke” Bucky muttered, and Natasha kicked him in the back of the foot and hissed, “Hush, damn it!”
“You know as well as I do the protocol for deleting files.” Fury interrupted, wagging his finger warningly. “It’s not so much a delete thing as it is a share it with the world thing. All your covers would be blown, bank accounts frozen, every bit of information including pictures and aliases dumped onto the internet for any yokel to find. Every warrant for your arrest would activate and you’d land on the top of the most wanted list for half the countries in the globe.”
“Guess we’ll have to find a country without a most wanted list then.” Natasha set her guns down and went back to the computer. “Watch them, baby.”
“Oh, I got’em.” Bucky promised. “You sure about this though, sugar? Sure you wanna blow it all like that?”
“It’s either this or they make us kill each other.” Natasha went back to typing, glancing up periodically at the two men. “You know that.”
“He knows that.” Pierce said confidently. “But I’m willing to make good on our original plan, if you are. I’d rather not lose two valuable agents, let’s cut our losses at one. Whichever one of you puts a bullet in the other right now comes back into the fold, no questions asked, no issues taken.”
“Same deal goes for you Romanov.” Fury was quick to add when Bucky raised an eyebrow. “Shoot the Soldier in the back and I’ll call off the hit. I don’t want to lose you, but he’s compromised you, so he’s gotta go.”
Bucky was silent, and the constant click click of computer keys paused as Natasha closed her eyes briefly.
“Honestly, Barnes.” Bucky’s head shot up in surprise when Pierce used his real name. “Natasha Romanov? The Black Widow? In what universe do you think she actually loves you? Do you really think you could have a happily ever after with her? She can’t cook, she can barely make small talk beyond asking about weapons, hell she can’t even have kids.”
Behind him, Natasha sucked in a harsh breath and even Fury looked uncomfortable with the sudden turn in the conversation, but Pierce either didn’t notice or didn’t care.
“How are you going to have a happily ever after with a woman who is less of a woman and more of a machine?” Pierce pressed, growing bolder as the door opened behind him and commandos filed silently in, guns raised and trigger fingers ready. “The Widow is so dedicated to her work she chose to give that up. You can’t tell me she’s going to be happy playing housewife in the suburbs.”
“Romanov, you brought a building down on the Soldier three years ago knowing full well it would kill him.” Fury growled impatiently when Natasha went back to typing. “Looked down your scope at him and killed him anyway. What’s different now? He lied to you for years.”
“Yeah, well I lied to him too.” Natasha spat, and then hesitated, a brief there and gone touch at her stomach. “Bucky, darling--”
“I don’t care about that.” Bucky tightened his hand on the rifle. “Don’t care about it, and to be real honest Pierce, you deserve a swift kick in the balls for trying to throw that in my wife’s face. Th’fuck is wrong with you?”
“Either way, there’s no way out.” The Director interjected. “You hit that button, your lives are ruined and these men will make sure you never see the light of day again. Don’t hit that button and kill the Soldier instead, I’ll make sure you’re taken care of. I won’t leave you out in the cold, Romanov. I promise.”
“You have always been good to me, Director.” Natasha said softly, mockingly. “But I’m afraid I’ll have to do the proper housewife thing and defer to my husband on this. Bucky?”
“Yeah, sugar.”
“Do you trust me?”
Bucky glanced over his shoulder lightning fast, saw all he needed to see in a blink of his eye and nodded. “With my life, Tash. Do you love me?”
“Viciously.” she whispered.
“On three then.” Bucky took a step back towards the desk, kept his rifle pointed at one or the other of their bosses. “One.”
“Two.” Natasha hit a final button on the computer and snatched the rope from her waist, backing towards the huge windows behind them, the ones that looked over the city and were several hundred feet above nothing. “My love?”
“Three---”
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SAY SOMETHING ABOUT THE CHAPTER!
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Laundry Duty
A short piece of Virgil-centric fluff for @fictivekaleidoscope to help her feel better after her op. I find Virg a challenge to write, so this took longer than the 10 minutes I originally promised XD.
Please excuse me while I scamper back to Gordon’s corner with my tail between my legs. Writing anything other than him is a bit like learning a foreign language for me.
Genre: Humour & fluff.
Characters: Virgil, Scott & John, with young Gordon and Alan in the background.
Summary: Virgil is the domestic househusband we all fantasise about, but with a dark twist...XD.
-x-
Virgil was not amused.
At all.
As if a solid week of back-to-back rescues garnished with a healthy amount of sleep deprivation hadn’t been enough, the massive pile of dirty laundry that was taking up two thirds of the floor was yet another nail in his green coffin.
Thunderbird Two’s pilot was flabbergasted at Scott and John’s laziness. Sure, he was guilty of not pulling as much weight as he usually did, but he was on his first day off in two weeks. Scott was into his fourth day of not being deployed and John had left EOS in charge of Five while he was planetside. Last time Virgil had checked, both brothers were perfectly healthy and as a result, more than capable of laundering their own clothes.
Scott had shrugged when Virgil had confronted him on the issue, not understanding why he couldn’t chuck all his dirty clothes into a pile and offload them onto Grandma. When John had suggested that he might do the same thing, Virgil had capitulated and very grudgingly offered to toss their clothes into the washer with his own. The embarrassment of one of his brothers getting deployed in an unwashed uniform for the entire world to see (and smell) would be enough to send him to an early grave.
Except, what had seemed like a good compromise an hour ago didn’t seem quite so good when it became apparent just how many items needed washing. There were the regular and spare iR suits, plus six days and five bodies worth of jeans, shirts, socks, pyjamas, t-shirts, swimwear…
Virgil scowled and resisted the urge to stamp on a particularly filthy looking shirt of Gordons. He was no househusband, but even he could tell that it would take at least six, possibly seven loads to get through this infernal pile. And considering each cycle took an hour and fifteen minutes to run, plus the fact that he’d probably have to pre-soak all of Gordon’s contaminated items, he was looking at between seven and ten hours of laundry on what was supposed to be his day off.
No way. Absolutely no way.
Anger completely overtaking logical thinking, Virgil grabbed an armful of clothes (instantly wishing he’d pegged his nose beforehand) and dumped them haphazardly into the nearest washer. Not pausing to consider material, colour or degree of dirtiness, he shoved everything in together. When the first tub was stuffed to capacity, he rummaged through the remainder of the pile and pulled out his own clothes before depositing them in the second washer. Heaven forbid he throw all his good shirts in with Gordon’s bright green swim trunks.
John’s white polo shirt was a different story.
Satisfied that the first washer was suitably stuffed (probably to the point where none of the clothes would actually get cleaned), Virgil double checked to make sure none of his own items were mingling with Gordon’s trunks and Scott’s socks. After finishing his inspection, he opened one of the cabinets and pondered over the choice of detergents.
Virgil quickly realised why laundry duty was the least favoured chore amongst his brothers – there must have been at least ten different types of detergent staring back at him. Scented dryer sheets, stuff for sensitive skin, perfume pearls, organic this and that, et cetera, et cetera…
Deciding to indulge in some petty revenge, Virgil selected the most ostentatious, sickeningly feminine detergent he could see; a bright pink bottle with a picture of a cloud on the front labelled ‘Sunset Marshmallow’. He popped the cap, inhaled deeply and nearly gagged at the cloying scent that assaulted his nose. It smelt like something a unicorn had vomited up.
Thunderbird Two’s pilot upended the bottle and tipped most of the contents into the washer containing his brother’s clothes. As the cherry on top, he also dumped in an entire container of scented pearls in the fragrance ‘Dusky Rose’, before slamming the lid shut and hitting the start button with an air of flourish. His mood rose considerably at the thought of his lazy ass brothers stinking like a garden.
Virgil’s own clothes were treated to a modest amount of regular lemon scented detergent and no fragrance pearls. Heaven forbid that he be caught smelling like a pre-teen girl.
Leaving both washers happily humming away, Virgil breezed out the door and allowed himself a small snicker of amusement.
‘Lazy suckers.’
-x-
Virgil didn’t know why, but somehow all his revenge attempts always ended up boomeranging back to bite him on the ass.
After his brother’s hideously perfumed clothes had finished their wash cycle and been tossed in the dryer with some more scented pearls for an extra dose of revenge, Scott and John had arrived to sort through and collect what belonged to them. Virgil, who had been fishing his own freshly scented (but not too freshly scented) laundry out of the second dryer had noticed some raised eyebrows and grimacing faces as the combined scents of Sunset Marshmallow and Dusky Rose hit both Scott and John square in the face (and nose).
All had seemed reasonably well up until that point. Scott and John had quickly caught wind of Virgil’s revenge act, but were both smart enough to realise that they had nothing to throw back at him. They had left their dirty laundry at his mercy, and now they (and John’s green polo shirt) were paying the price.
Virgil had insisted that they all eat lunch together before commencing their afternoon chores. Not willing to pass up the opportunity of free food, his brothers had agreed and were now sat around the kitchen island. Gordon was busy doodling on the sofa with a sandwich in his lap and Alan was taking a nap in Scott’s room.
What started as a fairly civilised family gathering began to disintegrate when John started to sniff and rub at his nose. Several minutes later, a light rash broke out on his neck and along his forearms. Several more minutes later, he was folded in half as a series of violent sneezes shook his frame.
“What – ACHOO– was – AH– in that – AH– stuff you put – AH– in our laundry? ACHOO!”
Virgil shrugged and resumed eating, “Don’t know. Price you pay for being lazy though.”
John wiped a tear from his eye as another sneeze took hold, “ACHOOOO!”
Scott grimaced as John directed a particularly powerful sneeze over his sandwich, “Argh, John! That’s disgusting! Cover your nose for god’s sake!”
“Virg,” John wheezed, doubling over into a flurry of slightly smaller, but no less violent sneezes, “Help me! ACHOO! Please! I – AH– can’t – ACHOO– stop! ACHOO!”
Virgil sighed and stood up from the table. He disappeared into John’s room and ferreted around in his brother’s ensuite before locating some foil wrapped tablets. Upon returning to the kitchen, he was mildly shocked to see the redhead tearing his shirt off and throwing it to the floor.
Virgil didn’t say anything, opting instead to hand John his tablets with a fresh glass of water. The medication disappeared down the middle brother’s throat in the blink of an eye, quickly followed by a large glug of water.
“How many of these do I have left?” John croaked, motioning to the wrapper in his hand before succumbing to another sneeze.
“That’s the last packet I could see,” Virgil replied, retaking his seat at the table, “Do you have some spares?”
John groaned and shook his head, “I’ll need to take – ACHOO– some more in about an hour – ACHOO– to get rid of the worst of it – ACHOO!”
Virgil sighed and dropped his head into waiting hands. He’d have to pick John up a fresh batch of antihistamines before the middle brother gave himself a nosebleed. The engineer kicked himself mentally, not out of guilt, but out of disappointment at his own stupidity. It was a well-known family fact that John was allergic to just about every damn thing on the planet. Peanuts, chamomile, celery, most types of pollen, kiwis, cinnamon and juniper to name a few. He’d even been allergic to the formula Alan had been given as a baby. Virgil had found that particular incident hilarious, but had retracted his humour after being informed that the redhead was honourably discharged from babysitting duty due being literally allergic to Alan.
‘Bad call, Virgil. You should have just shrunk all his clothes instead.’
Depositing his plate by the sink, Virgil picked up his phone and made for the hanger stairwell, “I’ll be half an hour, Scott. The closest mainland pharmacy is right on the Australian coast.”
Gordon hastily crammed the rest of his sandwich into his mouth before jumping up from the sofa and sprinting over, “Virg! Can I come with you? Please? I promise I’ll behave!”
Virgil didn’t have the energy to protest, “Fine, but don’t you dare wander where I can’t see you.”
Crumbs sprayed out of the little blonde’s mouth as he bounced up and down excitedly, “I promise! Let’s go!”
Scott snorted as Gordon rocketed out the door.
“Only half an hour, you say?”
In the background, John let out an exotic profanity as blood started to stream from his nose.
Virgil set his jaw.
“Half an hour.”
Revenge. Boomerang. Ass. Him.
#thunderbirds#thunderbirds 2015#thunderbirds fanfiction#thunderbirds tag#thunderbirds are go#gordon tracy#virgil tracy#scott tracy#john tracy#alan tracy#grandma tracy
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Mute/Rook - Confession
Yeah, this is the confession oneshot. (yay) Rook is hurt but doing his best to hide it, and Mute’s kinda blind to it. They work it out though, cause they’re functional adults (mostly... kinda... generally). Fluff, injuries, a lot of pent up anger/discomfort/frustration.
.
Mute was so incredibly bored. The house just wasn’t the same. Twitch and Glaz got deployed yesterday, and Rook was still out on his own mission. Where before he could convince them into a game of drunk twister, he was currently stuck on the couch playing the same game for the third time in a row.
If you were to ask, Mute would deny it, but the moment he heard keys slide into the front door, he was off of the couch and hurrying towards the door like a dog. Rook was on the other side, key still in the keyhole, and brows raised like this was only something mildly surprising. He wasn’t alone. Next to him sat a large, white, plastic bag.
“What’s in here?” he kicked it.
There was a crunch, and he froze as an impossibly angry glare met his eyes. With just one step, Rook was in his face, and pulling Mute down so they were at the same eye-level. It would be hilarious… had Rook not looked like he was just this close from putting him down right there.
“Those were my cookies, asshole.”
“I didn’t know,” Mute managed to say. Rook was protective of special things… and his snacks often fell in that category. But really, it was an unmarked plastic bag. Anything could’ve been there. “I’ll make it up to you.”
The glare lasted for another second before Rook released him. “I want ice cream from that one place we go to, and you’d better not let it melt on your way back.”
“But-”
“You said anything,” Rook cut him off.
“But that’s—”
He barged past his roommate to enter their shared flat. “Oh god, that mission went on for way too long.”
“Everything worked out though.” It was an unwritten rule that missions that didn’t go well went unmentioned in the flat. So, the fact that Rook was talking about his mission meant that Mute could ask about it.
Rook just gave him that look. The one that said that he just wanted to relax – that he couldn’t focus on whatever Mute was gonna throw his way. “Why don’t we put your stuff away then you can come with me to get that ice cream you want? I’ll still pay, but this way I can talk to a real person for once.”
“Nerd.”
“Shut up before I take back every offer I’ve made so far.”
Rook dumped his clothes into the laundry basket and walked back out. “I’m good, let’s go.”
“You stink, and you look like you’ve been wearing these clothes all week.”
“I have cologne, and to your other point, that’s because I HAVE been wearing these clothes all week.”
He disappeared into his room and came out smelling like he took a shower in his cologne. Not that Mute minded. He actually quite liked the smell, especially on Rook. It was just the message he was trying to send that bothered the Brit.
“I can’t believe I’m actually going into public with you looking like that,” Mute complained, but led the way out anyways.
He was sure that Rook rolled his eyes, but the fact that there was no verbal reply made Mute doubt his choice of activity. His friend turned unrequited crush was becoming more and more troublesome the more he tried to ignore it. Mute was always proud of his ability to stay quiet, yet still somehow prove that he was the smartest in the room, but that’s not like it was helping him here. Because Rook was a human version of a dog. Not in the sense that he was dumb, or blindly loyal, but in the sense that he seemed to see past all looks, accomplishments, and even words to see directly into a person’s soul. He looked for those he could trust, and when he decided they were trustworthy, then he poured his devotion into them.
So why would he like Mute? Mute was blunt, preferring to get his point across instead of dancing around feelings. He was always seen as someone who relied completely on logic and reasoning, someone who didn’t let his own emotions interfere with his actions. He was rarely a good person without reason. So what could Rook see in him?
“Are you going to drive, or are you gonna stare at the wheel for another five minutes?” There was something wrong with Rook. There had to be. His brows were furrowed, and those blue eyes pinned him in place. There was no joke, no smile, no smirk to let him know that his friend was only teasing.
Mute just nodded, and started up the car. The ride was completely silent. He tried his best to ask about the mission, he really did, but no matter what, Rook was only giving one-word answers. The sun was basically gone now, and by the time they reached ice cream shop, the stars had started to come out. Considering it was a weeknight, and early too, Mute wasn’t too surprised to see their favourite ice cream shop basically empty.
Rook immediately collapsed on one of their couches, trusting Mute to get his order. It was always the same anyways. Strawberry scoop with chocolate shavings and rainbow sprinkles, and a chocolate scoop with strawberry pieces and strawberry drizzle. He was predictable like that—
“I want something different, actually,” Rook murmured, startling Mute out of his own thoughts. He walked up to the counter and looked over all the flavours. “I’d like two mint scoops with chocolate chips and sprinkles please.”
Mute numbly watched as a frowning Rook placed and received his order. He wouldn’t even touch it while Mute paid, something the other never had the patience for. Really, even when Rook sat back down, there was just… something off…
“What’s up with the different order?” Mute asked. It was innocent enough, right?
“I can’t stand the colours red or pink ever again.” Rook played around with his desert, mixing the ingredients into one homogenous pile with a bored look. “At least not for the foreseeable future.”
Ah. Well, he knew that Mute actually liked the colour red, and even pink if he extended his reach that day. This was a complete change from what Rook was normally like. He liked to talk and share stories. He didn’t like to sit closed off from his other dinning partner while basically glaring at his food – one of his favourite foods – like it insulted his mother.
“Are you ok, man?” Mute asked.
“Yeah, just not as hungry.” He stood up, leaving his ice cream on the table, and walked out.
Mute hurriedly picked up his friend’s order and followed him out into the street, where he was waiting in front of the passenger door. Rook didn’t say a word, and he didn’t even offer to take back his ice cream while Mute fumbled with the keys. The drive back was just as dead as the drive out in the first place.
“Are you mad at me?” Mute asked, not unlocking the doors, instead waiting for a response.
Rook sighed. Those eyes studied him, and unconsciously, he started biting his lips. It was partly because he was nervous, and part because the way any sort of light framed his face was damn near—
“Why in the world would I be mad at you?” Rook rolled his eyes. He then glared at Mute until the door was unlocked. “Get your head out of your ass. It’s not meant to be a hat.”
Speechless, Mute followed, now determined to try and figure out why. “I’m sorry about the cookies, I honestly didn’t know what they were, and if you don’t want to share, then that’s fine too, I—”
“Is everything a joke to you?” Rook spun on his heel to face the SAS op who had struggled with everything from opening the door, to locking his car, to closing the front door, and was now trying to find a spot in their freezer so Rook could enjoy his abomination later.
“No, of course not,” Mute tried to defend himself. “But if you don’t tell me—”
“News flash, maybe I just don’t want to talk,” Rook muttered. “Learn to read the crowd.”
Mute stayed in one spot until he heard the door slam shut. This wasn’t right. That’s not how Julien normally acts… Right? He donned his spot on the couch and wondered about what he had done to piss his friend off his much.
When he woke up, it was about one in the morning, and his shoulder was screaming at him to go to his actual bed. Rook’s door was still closed, and the lights were off, though the lack of snoring told him that his friend wasn’t asleep. Still, from how they fought earlier, it was probably for the better if Mute just walked past and—
The door to Rook’s room opened, and he was dragged in, door slamming shut behind. He was about to struggle against the arms holding him in place when he smelled a familiar soapy scent. That, and the warm, wet spots forming on his shirt.
“The mission didn’t go fine. I tried to pretend that it was ok, but it’s not, Mark.” Rook’s sobs were muffled, but that didn’t mean Mute didn’t hang on to every word that was spoken. “Holy shit, I almost died, and… and the hostage almost died, and the grenade was… Doc said that… Oh god I can’t stop thinking about it.”
Oh. Okay. How to handle this? His brain was getting an error message, so he did what he assumed he was good at, and hugged his friend back. “Well, you’re standing here, the hostage was extracted, and you don’t seem to have any injuries. If you need to talk, I’m right here.”
Rook pulled away and lifted up his shirt. There were so many bruises, it was hard to see what his normal skin colour looked like. “A grenade landed near me, and I had to get pulled out from under rubble. I was unconscious and Doc said that had I stayed there for another minute, I probably would’ve suffocated.”
“Julien…”
“And it hurts so much. Even with painkillers. The cookies were a gift from the hostage’s family when they heard about what happened. And I swear to god, Mark, why would I be angry that you kicked them? I wasn’t going to eat them all anyways.”
“I… I’m sorry to hear, that, and the cookies… I don’t know! I honestly thought that was why you yelled at me!”
His teammate rolled his eyes and pulled him in for another hug. “You’re so smart, and yet you can be so frickin dense. I’m not alright, clearly. Why can’t you just… Ugh, you must hate me right now.”
“I don’t… Why would I?” I think I love you. And even though the way Rook was pulling at Mute’s shirt was starting to feel uncomfortable, Mute would never tell him to stop.
“You hate people who are irrational, or have no logic, and here I am, blaming you for not knowing something I never said out loud. That’s why you like Twitch more, right?”
“Julien,” at the sound of his name, Rook looked up into Mute’s eyes. Pity, by closing his eyes and leaning in, Mute wouldn’t be able to see his expression. He could feel it though. Rook first tightened his grip before relaxing into the hold, and holy shit – Rook was reciprocating…
“You’re such an asshole, Mark,” Rook mumbled between kisses. “I’m still angry at you, but I’m too scared to be alone.”
“Mhmm…” Mute tightened his grip to get even closer to his friend when the sharp hiss made him let go completely. “Sorry, I forgot about the—”
“Yeah.” He stumbled to his bed, and patted the side next to him as a sign for Mute to join him. “My nightmares won’t stop, and I need someone else to hold.”
“You want me to sleep with you?”
“And talk to me, and ask about how the mission went.”
“I did though. You just—”
“Not the stupid mission details, idiot. How I felt about it.”
Mark nodded and climbed in, adding, “Ok, as long as you’re ok with it.”
Rook fell asleep halfway through the first answer. Mark instead rolled over so they were face to face and looked over the injuries. Blunt force trauma to the abdomen, burn marks, minor cuts and flesh wounds. A little closer, a little faster, a little more powerful, and Mute would by alone here right now…
But he wasn’t. Because those strong arms were now clutching for something that wasn’t there, so Mute graciously moved in more to satisfy the need. And that’s how he fell asleep in his perhaps-more-than-a-friend’s arms
When he woke up, Rook was already walking around, popping a couple painkillers and washing it down with water. They made eye contact, and a familiar blush appeared on Rook’s cheeks.
“So… uh…”
“No.” Mute stopped him. “We don’t have to talk about what I did last night. How are you feeling? Is there anything I can do that will make your feel better?”
“Doc just said to rest and take these painkillers every six hours. The pain’s still there. Probably will be for some time, and there’s nothing you can do other than kiss me again. And just keep saying that last line. Hearing you say that is enough for me… for now.”
Mute just chuckled. This was the Rook he remembered. With the added benefit of the non-platonic cuddling he got when the other man crawled back into bed.
#r6s#rainbow six siege#mute/rook#mute#rook#fluff#confess your feelings#:)#I too would kill if someone crushed my cookies
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So, I was the OP for the eating disorder prompt and I absolutely loved what you wrote! Thanks so much for that little drabble, and I would love a part 2 if enough people like it! But I also can't wait until the next part of Lost, again, love your writing!
Part ONE / TWO / THREE / FOUR / FIVE
Richie’s arms felt too bare in Bill’s T-Shirt. He just hoped the other’s didn’t notice the way his collarbone poked out right where the shirt scooped. He shifted his hair a bit, hoping it would help in some way, but it definitely wasn’t that long. At least his arms were normal looking, in a way. Everyone knew Richie was thin. Of course he was. He was lanky, tall, gangly.
There was a crash in the other room, followed by a short “Billy!” from the younger brother. Bill rushed out of the living room, and Richie took his spot back on the floor in front of the sofa. His eyes returned to the screen. “Did I miss anything?” He asked Stan.
“You’ve seen this movie like ten times, Rich. No, you didn’t miss anything.” His voice was deadpanned, and while he sounded like he was tired of Richie’s shit, Richie knew he was just joking around. Richie had been joking too.
Their shoulder’s pressed together slightly when a jump scare fell over the screen, although Richie leaned forward, hoping to avoid a second splash of Beverly’s drink, until he saw that it was no longer in her hands. He leaned back, and tried to not think too much into the fact that his bony shoulder was flush with Stan’s. If he moved away it would be too suspicious.
Usually, Richie didn’t think too much into his skinniness. However, since he had just pointed it out to himself in the bathroom, it was on the forefront of his mind. It was sad, really, how much he had let it affect him. He hadn’t been swimming with the losers in years, using different excuses just about every time, most of them being sick on the days that they wanted to go.
“Are you cold?” Stan whispered to him, “You’re shaking…or are you just scared, Tozier?” The teasing words sent an actual shiver up Richie’s spine, and he scoffed at Stan.
He was scared, but not of the movie.
“I’m fine, asshole…give me your jacket.” He was a little cold, although the excuse was good.
Stan shrugged off his jacket and handed it over. Richie pulled it on and instantly felt more relaxed in his skin, and less like people could see right through him. Stan’s jacket was big on him, even if it shouldn’t have been. He zipped it up, covering his collarbones.
Their shoulders pressed together again. Richie was letting his thought’s trail away, his mind high in the sky by being surrounded in the other boys warmth, and smell, before Bill walked back into the room and broke it.
“Hey, Rich? Why don’t we go throw your shirt in the washer so it’ll be good when you leave.” Bill asked him, arms crossed over his chest.
Richie knew that face. He wanted to avoid anything Bill was about to say to him.
“Can’t you do it by yourself?” Richie asked, holding up the flannel towards the other male.
“No, I can’t. C’mon, Tozier.” The taller male didn’t wait for a response as he turned and started walking out of the room.
“Whatever you did, good luck.” Eddie quipped from his spot on the couch next to Bev, a grin on his lips.
“I did your mom, Kaspbrak.” Richie flipped his ex boyfriend off and walked out of the room with his shirt in hand.
Bill was already in the laundry room when Richie got in there, the washer already running. Bill was throwing some clothes into it, before his hand stuck out for Richie’s shirt. Richie swallowed thickly, and handed it over.
“Georgie’s worried about you, which is pretty normal, but this sounded different.” After putting the shirt in the wash, Bill closed the lid and turned to look at Richie. “So, do you want to tell me what’s going on, or should I tell you what Georgie just told me?”
Richie shrugged, “I don’t know what either of you is talking about. You know kids and their imaginations. We used to think there was some killer clown on the loose, remember? When Georgie went missing for a week?”
Bill shook his head, “That was different. That was us trying to deal with grief. You know that. Georgie has nothing to grief over, so why is he telling me that you look like a skeleton without a shirt on?”
Richie shrugged, “It’s almost Halloween, Bill. You know, Trick or Treat? Looks like you were tricked.” He turned to walk out of the room, when Bill grabbed his wrist.
“Richard, please. If there’s something going on you’ve got to tell us. You’ve got to let us help you.” Bill told him.
Richie tugged his wrist out of Bill’s hand, “There’s nothing going on. I don’t have a problem. And tell your little brother to keep his damn mouth shut…You should too.” Richie stalked out of the room.
He took his place next to Stan once more, his heart beating wildly. He’d just threatened one of his best friends. What the fuck was wrong with him?
…..
Part three, anyone? (;
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An ANBU Tradition
Rating: T
Words: 3489
Fandom: Naruto
Summary: Itachi Uchiha joins the ANBU under Kakashi Hatake's command. There's a certain tradition the ANBU has for new recruits, and Itachi is no exception.
Kakashi lay on his back, one knee bent up while the other extended. It was long past the time when he should have replaced his twin mattress with something that would actually accommodate his height. The only way he could fit was by sleeping with his knees bent; stretched out as he was, his head could either rest on his pillow or his ankle could hang off the foot of the bed. He opted for the latter. He held his newest copy of Icha Icha languidly above his exposed face, and his damp, white hair was brushed awkwardly back out of his eyes.
The laundry machine hummed in the background, keeping a steady rhythm as it spun nearly every article of clothing that the young man had to his name. The mission assigned to his ANBU squad took them weeks to complete, and his already spartan apartment was even more barren with its lack of basic necessities upon his return. Even so, the amenities that remained were a godsend for his right-hand man.
Without looking away from the pages of his book, he could see his towel-clad companion standing in front of the chest of drawers. Before he could ask, Kakashi instructed him, “Just take whatever’s there that’ll fit.”
Even if Kakashi had kept his clothing from three years ago, his broad shoulders and tall frame had always left Tenzo in his shadow. “Don’t you have anything that’s not made for a giant?” he asked snidely as he pawed through the drawers one-by-one.
“You’re the one who decided to wash everything you own,” Kakashi drawled as he turned the page. “Make do.”
Much to Tenzo’s relief, Kakashi hadn’t taken the only pair of drawstring sweatpants. The fabric bunched awkwardly at his hips as he pulled the strings to fit, tying them into a lazy knot. The legs were too long, and he had to be careful not to trip himself on the excess. As he dug for a shirt, he took his towel in one hand and began to dry his long, brown hair. He wanted to complain that he didn’t have ready access to laundry services or a private shower, but he was worried that Kakashi, out of petty spite, would bar him from using the ones in his apartment until he apologized. It wouldn’t be the first time.
The smallest shirt Tenzo found hung to the middle of his thighs, and if he held his arms out to his sides, it looked like a black bag instead of proper clothing. Unable to help himself, he frowned. “I look like a child.”
“Sixteen going on six,” Kakashi smirked as he snapped his book shut, a strange sight without his mask. He righted himself on his bed, crossing his legs in front of him.
Tenzo balled up his towel and threw it across the room, and Kakashi caught it with ease. With a toss, it landed in the empty laundry basket. Sarcasically, he began, “Thank you, Kakashi. You’re doing my laundry and let me use your shower, and you even called in some dinner. You’re the best captain ever!”
Tenzo made a lewd gesture, but there was playfulness in his eyes. “Fuck you, Senpai.”
To his surprise, Kakashi laughed. There was no way Kakashi could take him seriously dressed the way he was. Tenzo growled in indignation. He reached behind him and grabbed something from the dresser, throwing it at the white-haired man. “And put a damned shirt on, Hatake.”
Kakashi’s laughter faded into a chuckle that wouldn’t go away, even as he did as he was told. Tenzo had a feeling that Kakashi made those infuriating smirks and grins just as often on any other day, but that the expressions were hidden by his mask. He snatched the file folder of the kitchen table and walked over to Kakashi, taking a seat facing him on the mattress. He held it up and smacked his captain’s forehead with it. “We have work to do.”
Kakashi took the file and opened it. While he examined the pages, he set an elbow on his knee and bent over, his chin in the palm of his hand as he read. “Itachi Uchiha…” he mused, unclipping the child’s photograph from the file. “He’s young.”
“Not for our squad,” Tenzo corrected as he examined the score card. “He’s ten. Graduated to genin at six, like I did, and just a year after you. You joined at twelve, right? And Danzo had me in the foundation since I was five. It only looks that way because you’re old.”
“I’m nineteen.”
“Exactly.”
Kakashi took a swing at Tenzo’s head, which he narrowly dodged. “Lord Hiruzen appointed him. Good. We need to keep him away from Danzo until Itachi can manage on his own.” He traded Itachi’s photograph for the card Tenzo held. “He’s strong. From the looks of it, he should be able to keep up rather well. We won’t know for sure until we see him in action, though.”
Tenzo looked up and over, large eyes narrowing in suspicion. “No.”
The devilish grin Kakashi gave sent a chill down his spine, a thousand times more powerful now that it could be seen. “It’s a tradition.”
“Absolutely not, Senpai. Yugao still has nightmares, and she’s fifteen. Lord Hiruzen would kill you!”
“Us.”
“What?”
“Us. You don’t think I can pull this off on my own, do you?”
Tenzo drug his palm down the side of his face. “Kakashi…”
Clearly, this approach wasn’t working. Slyly, he reached out and grabbed Tenzo’s wrist, moving it away from his face. With his best puppy-dog eyes – which he’d long since perfected – he only had to say one word. “Please?”
Using both hands to cover his reddened face, Tenzo groaned, his head falling back against the wall in agony. “God, I hate you.”
“No, you don’t,” Kakashi retorted flatly as he thumbed through the rest of the file.
The standard-issue ANBU mask covered the dark circles under Tenzo’s eyes, much to his relief. He’d been kept up far too late while Kakashi made his plan, and his captain refused to let him doze off until he understood it thoroughly. By the time he was finally allowed to sleep, he’d managed to get in about four hours before Kakashi woke him by going about his morning routine. His senpai’s late-to-bed, early-to-rise habits were excruciating, but at least Kakashi decided to sleep that night rather than staying up until dawn.
If he was lucky, this would all be over soon, and he could get some much-needed rest. He stifled a yawn, refusing to show weakness around the rest of the team. Absentmindedly, he wondered if he could put down literal roots to keep himself standing.
To his displeasure, when Kakashi informed their teammates of his plan, they had all readily agreed. Even Yugao, who had suffered just a few months ago, gave her support. Ko and Yoji delighted in the ANBU tradition, and so Tenzo’s voice of protest was lost. All the same, there was a part of him that looked forward to it just as much as the others, even though he’d never admit it. He just wished he could hide it from Kakashi’s keen perception.
When their newest comrade stepped through the door, Tenzo wondered if he’d looked just as comical in his ANBU gear when he was that age. It fit Itachi, but the sight of the small, gaunt child in black ops armor was ironic. In his hand, he held a small mask, one he had no doubt just been issued. Impressively, the Uchiha carried himself without fear, facing his seniors like equals.
Kakashi stepped forward from the front of the group, removing his patterned ANBU mask. He held it in his left hand as he placed his hands on his hips, looking down at his new charge. He watched as Itachi followed propriety and bowed, introducing himself in a yet-unbroken voice. “My name is Itachi Uchiha.”
Only when he stood back up did Kakashi speak. “I’m your new captain, Kakashi. Welcome to Team Ro.” He placed his mask back on his face as he continued. “It’s a tradition here at the ANBU for new members to go on a mission with their team on the first day. Sink or swim, if you will. If you don’t think you can keep up, leave now.”
Itachi looked his captain in the eye, emotionless, and placed his mask on his face. Beneath his own, Kakashi smiled.
“Good. Yugao, brief him.”
The single woman of the group stepped forward, a map in her hands. She spread it out on the table and drew a gloved finger across the parchment as she spoke. “We’ve been assigned to stop a squad of Suna ninja from crossing the border. They seem to be a small group of scouts, but we can’t risk letting them get any information on our territory.” She looked up from the map to catch Itachi’s eye. “The third war might be over, but we can’t let our guard down.”
“Understood.” Itachi nodded, the perfect little soldier.
“Now that we have an even number, we can operate with pairs.” Kakashi began to gesture to members of the team. “Yugao, I want you with Itachi. You’ll be our sensory unit. Ko and Yogi, you’ll be the decoy team. Tenzo’s with me for acquisition.
Ko and Yogi, I want you to forge a straight path, passing the shrine. Tenzo and I will take a wide berth and block any retreat into the sand. Yugao and Itachi, you’ll come in from the side.”
“Got it!” the team chorused.
Yugao was pleasantly surprised by Itachi’s speed. Despite his small stature, he was able to keep her pace, never faltering. So far, so good. She didn’t say as much, withholding any praise until the end of the mission. It was common for new recruits to become overconfident, and overconfident ninja made mistakes.
There was a twinge on the edge of her consciousness, most likely emanating from foreign chakra. She held her path, giving Itachi less than a second to pick it up for himself. Really, she should have expected nothing less from one of Lord Hiruzen’s hand-picked agents.
“Here.” Itachi veered to the east without breaking his stride. He didn’t know what the strange chakra signature meant, but it was too foreign to belong to something of the forest. He’d been on enough scouting practice missions with his father to know he’d found something.
Yugao turned and headed in the same direction, pleased that he’d passed her test. Maybe the kid would make it to his next birthday, after all.
The sound of metal hitting metal reverberated through the trees. Yugao picked up two familiar chakra signatures – those of Ko and Yogi – as well as a muddled, concealed trace of someone trying to hide their presence. “Shit,” she swore under her breath. With a few powerful leaps, she put herself ahead of Itachi. “Keep close!” she ordered, unable to spare a glance over her shoulder to make sure he heard.
Itachi did as he was told. At this speed, it was more difficult for him to keep up, but as they moved, he sensed the skirmish as well. His new comrades were clearly in danger. Yugao remained in his line of vision as he pushed himself to go faster. Then, in an instant, she was gone.
The only sign of her was a flash of her purple hair as she somersaulted when her body hit the ground. Itachi dropped down, ricocheting himself from branch to branch along the ancient trees, earning himself a much softer landing. When his feet hit the ground, Yugao finished cinching the cloth bandage she’d wrapped around her forearm. He could see her blood, but it didn’t appear to be serious.
“Let’s go,” she ordered, her eyes scanning their surroundings. “They know we’re here. We need to get to Ko and Yogi.”
A kunai flew out of the forest and impaled itself in a tree trunk, millimeters from Itachi’s face. He rolled to dodge the attack, which was far from the last. He caught sight of a Suna nin hiding in the trees. From his black sunglasses and cloth-covered face, he seemed to also be a member of a black ops organization. Itachi’s hands flew as he formed familiar signs and took a deep breath; from his mouth erupted a ball of fire twice the size of his body in height alone.
The Suna ninja was forced out of hiding, right into Yugao’s trap. Her blade struck against the kunai in the Suna ninja’s right hand, which he held above his face. A swift kick to the abdomen knocked Yugao off her balance.
Itachi’s eyes spun red in anticipation, willing the enemy to meet his gaze. If he could only trap him in his genjutsu, they could farm him for information in a matter of seconds. However, luck was not on his side. In his moment of distraction, the enemy formed the hand signs for the Earth Flow Divide jutsu. A little too late, Itachi fled the ground beneath his feet. His fingers clung with desperation to the ledge in front of him, willing himself not to look down at the chasm awaiting his fall.
His small hands grabbed on to the thick tree roots, now exposed from the earth along the divide. It was enough to support the weight of a full-grown man, and Itachi pulled himself out with ease.
With a sickeningly wet sound, the Suna ninja jerked his kunai down and out of Yugao’s stomach. Her hands clutched desperately at the wound, but the blood pooling at her feet was already too much. She fell face-first into the grass, and Itachi’s shout was animalistic as he charged the enemy, ready to kill.
He was knocked to the ground, where he slid across the earth for several meters before coming to a stop. To his horror, a second ninja, dressed like the first, deposited two lifeless bodies at his companion’s feet.
In a voice like sandpaper, the second ninja taunted scornfully, “And then there was one. Should we let him run home with his tail between his legs?”
The first shook his head and rushed Itachi. The screeching noise that pierced Itachi’s ears was not, as he first thought, an auditory symptom of fear. In a streak of blue light, his captain jumped down, placing himself between Itachi and his attacker. With his lightning blade, Kakashi sent an electrical current through the kunai he caught with his bare hand. Instinctively, the Suna ninja dropped his weapon.
“Go!” Kakashi barked at his subordinate, who did as he was told.
Itachi ran past Tenzo, who threw up a protective wall of earth in his wake. He kept running, as fast as he could, but he wasn’t quick enough. A third Suna operative caught him with a sharp blow to the head, and he fell before his surroundings went black.
When he awoke, Itachi was greeted by darkness. His hands were bound behind his back, and he could feel the fabric of a blindfold against his forehead and cheekbones. He picked up Kakashi’s chakra nearby. It was faint, but it was there. He found reassurance in the fact that he wasn’t alone. “Captain?” he whispered, taking a risk.
A short, sharp hiss sounded to his right, a signal to remain silent.
The first Suna ninja’s hazy chakra entered the… wherever they were, and Itachi heard the sound of skin violently hitting against skin. He heard Kakashi spit and smelled iron. In the same, coarse voice, the ninja demanded, “I’ll ask you one more time. How did you track us?”
Kakashi growled deep in his chest, “I’d rather die.”
“You will, but not yet.” The menacing chakra moved in front of Itachi. “I want you to regret coming after us. You’re going to watch me kill the last kid on your squad before I leave you for the animals.” A fist lifted Itachi off the ground by the right strap of his armor.
He had to think fast. Itachi lifted his left shoulder and drug his face across it; once was all he needed. His red eye locked on to his attacker, who immediately let him go. Itachi maintained his genjutsu hold as he righted himself. The man screamed.
It was then that Itachi allowed himself to slip inside the nightmare. The Sand ninja hung limply from a cross. A single black crow cried out and landed on Itachi’s shoulder as he approached the man, his sharingan eyes cruel and calculating. With a swift flick of his wrist, he tore away the man’s cloth mask and glasses out of a desire to see the man who killed his teammates in his suffering.
Itachi staggered back in shock, the genjutsu broken. His captor fell to his knees, gasping for air. Itachi was enraged. In a voice too big for his small body, he snarled, “What the hell is going on here, Captain?!”
“Swear like that again, and we’ll have your mother wash out your mouth.” Yugao’s voice came from behind him, and he felt a kunai cut through his bindings. As soon as he was free, Itachi snatched off his blindfold.
In front of him sat Kakashi, who had removed his Suna garb, holding his head in his hands. The Kakashi to Itachi’s right went up in a cloud of smoke, leaving Tenzo in his place. So, it was a transformation jutsu. His body was shaking in anger when Ko and Yogi joined the rest of the squad. His eyes, still blazing red, narrowed. “Explain,” he ordered, as though they saw him as a threat.
Tenzo had rushed to Kakashi’s side, one hand on his back and the other on the front of his shoulder to steady him. He scolded his captain in a low tone, and words like ‘told you,’ ‘idiot,’ and ‘your ass’ reached Itachi’s ears. Kakashi lifted his head when his body recovered from the effects of the genjutsu.
“It’s an ANBU tradition to haze new recruits,” Kakashi explained. “We put Yugao through something similar when she joined, only she was forced to ‘kill’ Ko.”
“Shadow clone,” Ko added, trying to be helpful.
“I wasn’t expecting you to be able to use your sharingan,” Kakashi protested, almost pouting. “It seems like someone didn’t tie it tight enough.” His eyes flicked toward Tenzo.
“No. You know what? No. You hit me in the face. You actually hit me in the face.” Tenzo resisted the urge to smack Kakashi upside the head.
Itachi looked on, unamused. He was frustrated, angry, and relieved all at once. “Never,” he snarled, leveling each of his comrades with a look, “do something like that to me again.”
“Easy, kid. It’s a one-time-thing,” Yogi waved his hand. “You made it. You’re in.”
Kakashi smiled behind his mask. “Welcome to the ANBU, Uchiha.”
“Stop moving.” Kakashi grabbed the side of Tenzo’s head, trying to keep him still. He lifted the cotton ball to the cut on Tenzo’s cheek once more, and he flinched.
“It stings,” Tenzo complained. He clawed indignantly at Kakashi’s hand, which had taken a handful of his hair as an incentive to keep him in place.
“It’s worth it.”
“Easy for you to say, Jackass. I didn’t hit you.”
“I told you I’m sorry. I misjudged the distance.”
“Sure you did,” Tenzo snapped sarcastically. “Now let me go.”
Kakashi made a noise of disapproval, keeping his hold on him. “Not yet. Have to make sure it’s clean.”
Tenzo sighed, his patience wearing thin. “I don’t know why I put up with you.”
“There’s a list. Should I go chronologically or alphabetically?” Kakashi’s grip finally loosened, and he began to pack away the med kit which sat open on his kitchen table.
Tenzo got to his feet, radiating annoyance at Kakashi’s callousness. Without a word, he started for the door, but Kakashi caught him by the fabric of his shirt.
“Kakashi-”
“You said my name.”
“Yes.”
“You’re mad at me.”
“Yes.”
Silence fell as Tenzo waited for Kakashi to say something or let him go. He did neither for several seconds. Finally, he let go and trudged over to his bed, where he sat with his legs crossed and back against the wall. His eyes met Tenzo’s back as he spoke. “I didn’t listen to my voice of reason.” Another pause. “You were right.”
“I know.” Tenzo’s words were flat, but he had turned around.
Kakashi thought for a moment. “Would it make it even if I let you punch me in the face?” The look in his eyes showed he was serious. He was so far off the mark that Tenzo couldn’t keep himself from laughing. The white-haired ninja arched an eyebrow at his reaction.
“No, Senpai. I’m not that petty.”
“Oh, good. I was worried for a minute.”
“And Senpai?”
“Yes?”
“Next time, we use my plan.”
#kakayama#kakatenzo#naruto#naruto shippuden#naruto fanfiction#fanfiction#anbu black ops#anbu kakashi#anbu tenzo#anbu itachi#kakashi hatake#yamato tenzo#itachi uchiha
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10 Tips for the Chronically Ill Cosplayer
Part I of II | Let's Get Physical
Chronic Cosplay
There's a reason I go by Chronic Cosplay. I'm chronically ill and I'm absolutely crazy - as in, actually mentally ill. Don't look at me like that, I can get you the paperwork. This is not a drill. This is, however, an article that's both close to my heart and absolutely imperitive for your survival. I write about it on my blog, I talk about it in interviews, I answer questions from friends and fans alike - how to cosplay with a chronic illness (or a laundry list of them). This how to survive a convention without sacrificing your health - phyical or mental. It is, in fact, possible.
I learned how to do it the hard way. I spent entire Saturdays in hotel rooms in too much pain and far too tired to get anything done. I've passed out at conventions. I've collapsed and laid on concrete for hours, a circle of eleven people I didn't know sitting around me to keep me safe and cracking jokes to keep my spirits up. As much as the experience restored a significant amount of faith in humanity, it still entailed me laying on concrete for two or three hours in too much pain to do any more than crack a smile. I think you get the point. We'll cover some highlights from my extensive background of con crazy in Part II. For now, let's focus on ten of the most important lessons I've learned in my five years as a cosplayer with physical disabilities.
1. Make A Realistic Schedule
Oh, sure, you would love to go to the JoJo's Bizarre Adventure group shoot at 10am, book it to the lolita fashion panel at 11:15, meet your friends for lunch at noon across the building, change your cosplay, get to the [insert sports anime here] group photoshoot at 12:45, do another cosplay change at 1:54, and make it to your private shoot as Miku Hatsune for 2:10. It sounds like a dream, everything scheduled right in a neat line so you can get everything done. Let me break this down for you right now, you will get one of these things done and I can't tell you which one it is. I can tell you that you're going to have a surprise fainting spell before noon and you're going to spend the rest of the day in your hotel upset and in agony. Space your events wisely. Cross reference room numbers and the convention center map. I guarantee there will be two [insert sports anime here] group shoots a day, there will be four JJBA group shoots every three hours, your friends won't mind picking a closer restaurant, and you'll get to sit down at the panel. See how that works? See how you are not dead? Let's keep it that way.
2. Keep Your Cosplay Line Up Simple
Look, I get it. You have four sports anime, two Jo Jo's Bizarre Adventure per day, and you just made the perfect prop for your private shoot. I'm going to stop you right there. You cannot fit all of those in one day. You probably can't fit them all into one weekend. I brought nine cosplays to my third convention. I wore two. I wore two and I was still to exhausted to make a group shoot I planned. As much as you love every cosplay in your closet, please love yourself long enough to realize you will never have the energy to bring every single one of them. Pick your favorites, pick the ones with the group shoots you absolutely cannot miss. Pick a super comfy back up cosplay for when you realize you still brought way too many and you're about to pass out. At least pass out in a kigurumi or a swimsuit. Please don't pass out in the most complicated armored cosplay this world has ever seen. Do not impale yourself on your own EVA foam breastplate. Yes, it may be the sickest photo op all weekend, but you'll end up being the sickest con goer and not in a good way.
3. Swallow Your Pride
You can pretend you're not ill all morning but halfway through that four hour pre-reg when you're dehydrated; dizzy; and your knees give out, you're going to wish you'd asked your doctor for that note about needing accomodation because you are not able to stand in four hour lines. See what I'm getting at here? Yeah. Just get the note. Thank me later.
4. Use Your Mobility Aid (if you have one)
This could easily qualify for swallowing your pride. A lot of these will, I'm going to be honest with you. I know we, as folks with chronic illnesses, can feel a sense of shame or embarrassment for relying on mobility aids. I know this is especially hard when you're just starting to use mobility aids. There's a learning curve to them, it's not just you. But the fact of the matter is that your doctor would not sign off for you to get a mobility aid if you didn't need it. Don't jeopardize your health or ruin all your Saturday plans because you wanted to cartwheel through the halls on Friday in your Tai Li cosplay. If you want to set a mobility aid down or step out of one for a photo, fine. Do so wisely. Do so if you are capable of doing so. If you've paid $60 for a private photoshoot and you want to slide your cane or a crutch out of the way for a photo, have something to lean on. At least use your mobility aid for the rest of the weekend. If you're in a wheel chair or on a scooter, that does not take away from your cosplay no matter what anyone tells you or what you try to tell yourself. Between me; so many of my friends with mobility equipment; and Misa on Wheels, I promise there are plenty of people who believe in you. We believe in you and we don't want you to risk your health just because you don't think Princess Peach would rock a wheelchair. She totally would and so will you.
Side note: When it comes to canes, props check does not always understand the concept that some cosplayers have canes for use as a mobility aid and not as a prop. When you consider the myriad of characters with walking sticks out there, Ciel Phantomhive and steampunk anything for example, it's understandable that they will occasionally stop you to try and give it a zip tie. In my experience, letting them know it's a cane used for medical purposes and not as a prop is quick and painless. While you should not expect any more hassle after a quick explanation, should any volunteer or staff member insist on giving you more trouble or trying to take your mobility equipment away, ask to speak to a higher up immediately. I wish I didn't have to tell you that props check will probably flag you down upon entering the convention center, it's better to give out a heads up for any newer cosplayers or cosplayers just starting to use mobility aids. Wheel chairs don't seem to raise questions, neither do crutches of any kind, I haven't used my walker to a convention but I would assume that wouldn't cause any questions either. To any case user, keep this in mind and don't be offended when a volunteer who has no idea who you're supposed to be cosplaying is only trying to play it safe.
5. Slow Down
The one problem with convention schedules is how badly we all want to catch every single thing listed on one. The second you get your con schedule booklet, you start planning. You pull out your favorite pen and circling every single panel, event, and photoshoot you want to see or attend. We've been over this. Put the pen down. Let's fast forward to when you first step onto the con floor Friday morning. You're speed walking or speed wheeling your way down hallways, through exhibit halls, from friend to friend to that cosplayer you need to race after and flag down for a photo. There's so much space to cover and so little time in your three day weekend of nerdy revelry. Re-read that sentence. Three days is plenty of time. It's more than enough time. Save the power walking for your neighborhood PTA members and take it easy. Be the tortoise to your mind-racing idealistic hare imagination. Go slow. You're at this convention to have fun and relax. It's a vacation from normalcy, school, work, and the fifteen doctors appointments you have this month. If you rush your way through pre-reg, getting ready Friday morning, and rush from the hotel to the con center to keep up your speed oni level of exertion, take a guess on how much energy you're going to have for Saturday and Sunday. None. You will have no energy. You power walk your way to exhaustion and the rest of your weekend lay in shambles at your feet. Take a tip from Sub Zero and chill out. You'll get everywhere in your own time and still live to see tomorrow.
6. Carry A List
Scratch that, carry several lists. Type these lists into your phone's memo section, have a hard copy on paper in your wallet, have a post-it tab for the pages in your date book; notebook; or sketchbook. Make sure that if anything happens, your lists are easily accessible and easy to read. List any medications you take along with the dosage, list when you last took your medication, write a list of instructions of what to do or what not to do if a health emergency occurs. Whether it's fainting; too low or too high blood sugar; a migraines; seizures; or the myriad of other magical things that could go wrong, write out the protocol for how to handle it. Hopefully it won't come up, but let's play it safe. Write down your blood type, too, if you know it. Write down any medications you have an allergy to, write down foods you have an allergy to, write down the numbers for your doctors. The con health center can only do so much and nobody in there is a psychic. Make sure they have the right information to help you if things go south.
7. Speak Up!
There's a pretty big chance that your friend group isn't made up entirely of people with chronic illnesses. There's a pretty big chance these friends don't live with someone who has one or more chronic illnesses. There's a pretty big chance these friends are all about that PTA mom power walk life and they're all about standing in the middle of a hallway for four hours to debate about whether or not the premise of Yu-Gi-Oh! 5Ds makes sense or not. First of all, the premise totally makes sense and I will defend it with my very life. Second of all, your able bodied friends are not psychic nor are they going to think about whether or not you can stand for that long or walk that quickly if you don't say something.
What I'm trying to get at here is that you need to say something! "Guys, can find somewhere to sit down, please?" If they say no, they're not very good friends and you don't need that nonsense in your life. "Hey! Can we slow down a little? I can't walk this fast." If they say no, they are not very good friends and you don't need that in your life. Are you in the pre-reg line with your doctor's note waiting for a staff member to miraculously walk by until their disability radar goes off so you can ask about a more accomodating line? Nobody in the con staff has a disability radar and they aren't going to notice the piece of paper in your hand. Walk, limp, or wheel your way to the front of a pre-reg line and ask where to find the accomodating reg table. Someone will tell you and get you set up to avoid a lot of suffering.
If you have trouble speaking up for any of these things, keep a very loud and very confident friend with you. Give your very loud and very confident friend the "please help me with your loudness" look and stutter out a few key words such as "chairs," "too fast," or "special needs line." Don't thank me on this one, thank you very loud and very confident friend. Then thank your very loud and very confident friend for me.
8. Set Phone Reminders
Do you have any medication you need to take throughout the day? Probably. Are you going to remember when you took them with all the excitement going on? Probably not. Does your phone have a memo section, an alarm app, and a timer? Unless you're about that ironically oldschool Nokia brick life, your phone has all three. Type out the time in the memo section whenever you take your medication. Leave the memo app open and hit your "check all running apps" button for a quick look whenever you need to double check how much time you have before your next dose. You can also set an alarm for every dose you need to take that day. If you'll be in a panel, set your alarm to vibrate. Try using the timer on your phone instead of the alarm if you don't always take your medication at the exact same time every day. I can tell you that for me, it always depends on when I wake up.
If you're accidentally running late on medication or you ignored number 5 and it's all hitting you harder than a super saiyan, take a tip from Celty and communicate by typing it out. Not only is this completely appropriate given your current surroundings, but it's something I've used in my day to day life. I've texted someone right next to me "yo, i need to take meds, can we sit for a sec?" Convention centers can be louder than a jet plane, but you can still bet your bottom dollar everyone there is still going to check their phone. I've even typed "can't speak, pain," and made a very weak attempt at handing my phone to a family member from bed when I hadn't the strength to sit up. You know what happened in those situations? My friend helped me to a chair and got me some water. My folks picked up the phone, nodded, made some tea, gave me my morning meds, popped in a Yu Yu Hakusho DVD, and told me to rest for the day or text them if I needed anything. Durarara! is surprisingly good at offering some choice life lessons when you least expect it.
9. HYDRATE. EAT.
If I honestly need to explain to you why dehydration and extremely low blood sugar are things you should avoid, I just don't know what to tell you. However, if it's a matter of "I can't really chew solid foods" or "my stomach isn't cooperating" or "my meds cause really bad nausea and I don't know what to do," then I have a few ideas. One happens to be pedialyte. It's a god send for keeping hydrated when everything seems a lot more like the ending of Free! Iwatobi Swim Club's first season. It's also fantastic for kicking con plague in the face. I recommend it over sports drinks because Pedialyte, and it's generic knock offs, are made with simple sugars that are easier for the body to break down than the complex sugars found in your Powerades, Gatorades, and Vitamin Waters. Ensure is great for when you can't do solid foods but need some kind of protein and sustenance, provided you have no dietary restrictions in terms of dairy. Naked and Odwalla both have great smoothie-esque drinks that are as ridiculously expensive as they are ridiculously delicious. At a convention, however, a $4 smoothie-esque beverage is worth not passing out from low blood sugar.
10. Stay Close or Call a Cab
Hotel costs are the most expensive part of most conventions provided we don't include all the things you shouldn't have bought in the dealer's room but still left the convention with anyway. Some classic methods for avoiding the high cost of hotels include the "Stuff Fifteen People into a Two Bed Hotel Room the Size of a Closet" and the equally fun "Let's Walk Fifteen Blocks Back and Forth Every Day in the Most Complicated Craft Foam Armor and Highest Heels We Own" tricks. The former involves sleeping on the floor, accidentally bringing home the wrong wig, and risking getting stepped on every second you spend in the building. The latter is something no one with a chronic illness should ever attempt when traveling by foot or chair. Even with a wheel chair or scooter, it's still traveling fifteen blocks and exerting more energy than you should. If you absolutely must stay in a hotel that isn't attached to the convention center, even if it's only two blocks away, do yourself a big favor. Save yourself and call a cab. Well, these days it's more common to call an Uber, so pick whichever works for you. Either way, you'll get to where you're going without using all your energy for the day or increasing you pain/fatigue levels.
"But Chronic, won't it be expensive if I take a cab or an Uber back and forth three days in a row?" No, not really. If you've picked a hotel far enough from the convention center to require taking a cab or an Uber, you've likely saved enough money to cover some transportation for yourself. This also means the other people in your hotel room have saved money, which means you can all carpool via cab and/or Uber and split the cost between each other. For Otakon last year, a large group of friends and I chose to rent an apartment about an hour by foot from the convention center down in Baltimore. We used a regular cab company to get back and forth, a one way trip costing only $6. By using Air BnB to rent an apartment that fit eight people comfortably with a real bathroom and kitchen, we spent $45 dollars each on somewhere to sleep, then spent $36 on transportation for the weekend. Well, I spent about $36 on transportation given we didn't always carpool and I was the only person who relied entirely on cabs to my knowledge. My point here is that even if you have to sacrifice the convenience of a hotel adjacent to the convention you're attending, you don't need to sacrifice all your time and energy just to get to the convention.
What I really want to drive home is that your illness does not have to define your convention experience provided you adequately prepare yourself and go at your own pace. I urge you to take these points into consideration. I spent four years assuring everyone I always collapsed at least once during a convention, it was completely normal, and not to think of it as a big deal. I don't want you to believe that's true. I don't want you to suffer because of your pride. I don't want you to make the same mistakes I did. I don't want you to learn the hard way like I did. I made those stupid decisions so you don't have to make them. Please, take care of yourself. Take care of your friends. Be safe. Have fun.
#articles#chronic cosplay#chronic illness#disability#disabilities#cosplay#cosplayer nation#cosplayers#cosplayers with disabilities#con survival guide#comic con#anime convention#cripple punk#cosplay tutorial#cosplay guide
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Mutiny Answers (3/3)
1100 w
Cameron Howe/Donna Clark
ao3
pt 1/pt 2
>>CamHowe: RE: MY BOSSES: OP i am going to find you
>>OP: RE: MY BOSSES: The real issue here is that they /aren’t/ doing anything about it.
>>DClark: RE: MY BOSSES: Good! If they act on it it could implode horribly!
>>CamHowe: RE: MY BOSSES: ...anyway back in the real world not defined by donna’s anxiety i honestly think you should talk to whoever seems more likely to act on it to avoid secret longing gazes across the room and like, pining and stuff making it weird for everyone
>>CamHowe: RE: MY BOSSES: if they talk to each other about it at least theyll be clear on whats what and it wont permeate the whole space
Lev blinked. That advice was actually not half bad. He couldn't really maneuver it now, though. It’d be too obvious, and right now he had… some fires to put out. He rolled his chair over to Donna.
“Hey, how’re you doing?”
She sighed. “Okay, I guess, considering.”
“Not to get all up in your business, but…” Lev paused, trying to dredge up some helpful tip gleaned from the mediation chat rooms. “Have you thought about how she feels?”
She stared at him. “Really?”
“No, I mean, hear me out- I know you’re just trying to help her, right? You’re just worried about her.”
“Exactly and she’s acting like-”
Lev held up a finger in a shush motion and Donna looked at him like maybe he was testing her limits a little bit. “But she knows Joe was bad. You saw what it did to her.”
She nodded a little, biting her lip.
“And you know how defensive she is. So every time you bring it up it just makes her feel awful, like you’re chastising her for being weak or something. Obviously she's going to get all aggressive and sarcastic.”
Donna looked down at her hands. “Okay. Well, I kind of feel like an ass now.”
Lev smiled. “Part of being human.” It was starting to look like everything was gonna be fine.
Down the hall, a door slammed open, and Cameron stomped into the room.
“Donna, could i have a word?” she said, tersely. “In my office?”
Donna shrugged. “I don't know why, after airing my dirty laundry on a public forum, you're so suddenly concerned with privacy.”
“Just-” Cam huffed, grabbed her arm and yanked her out of her chair.
“Hey-”
“Just come with me!”
Lev frowned. He hadn’t planned for this.
PRIVATE CHAT
>>CamHowe: dont talk just type
>>DClark: If you wanted to chat on Mutiny why are we in your office?
>>CamHowe: i just realized ppl might be listening in
>>DClark: This is a little ridiculous, Cam. I was going to apologize and
>>CamHowe: nevermind its fine just look at these chat logs
>>CamHowe: “> MY BOSSES R IN LOVE : my 2 bosses are obviously in love and everyone can tell but neither of them is doing anything about it. it’s almost painful watching them dance around it all day and it makes working here really awkward. other than that they’re both really cool and would be great together. what should i do?”
>>DClark: ...I don’t understand your point here. We both saw that.
>>CamHowe: yeah but look at what they say later “>>OP: RE: MY BOSSES: theyre like. co-bosses i guess?”
>>DClark: Oh, like us. That’s fairly unusual, no?
>>CamHowe: i was too mad at you to notice at the time but “>>CamHowe: RE: MY BOSSES: its 1985 idiot plenty of places have open management structures including mutiny”
>>DClark: Wait are you saying this is about us??
>>CamHowe: the user data says theyre in this zip code so
>>DClark: But I’m straight!
>>CamHowe: sure you are. anyway we need to find this clown
>>DClark: Agreed.
>>DClark: Wait what’s that supposed to mean?
user CamHowe has left the room
“Cameron, you’re right next to me in physical space. That’s not gonna-”
Cam placed a finger on her lips dramatically. “Shhhh! The walls have ears!”
For the past ten minutes, Lev had been anxiously staring at Cameron’s office door. First there’d been some shuffling about and confused mumbling, but then- nothing. Total silence.
>>CamHowe: RE: MY BOSSES: OP i am going to find you
Oh mother fucking shit.
He barely had time to wipe the terror off his face before both women walked out to stand before them.
“Okay, we wanted to-” started Donna.
Cam cut her off. “Which one of you is it who can’t mind their own fucking business??”
Everyone looked at each other. “Who is it? Tell me!”
Total silence.
Cameron stood there for a minute, fuming. Then she turned to Donna. “Do the- do the mom thing.”
Donna rolled her eyes, but then she crossed her arms, and shifted her face into the perfect expression of not-angry-just-disappointed. “I’m going to count to five.”
From the back of the room Carl yelled. “IT WAS LEV!”
“Dude, really-”
Cam silenced him with a glare. “Office. Now.”
When he got to the door, she turned to Donna. “Not, not you. You- I don’t know, just, wait here.” Before she could protest, Cameron slammed the door behind them, and immediately turned to angrily whisper at Lev.
“Dude! I was going to talk her! Now it’s all- weird!”
Lev held back a laugh- that probably wouldn’t go over well. “Cam… It’s been weird for a while. The tension is like, visible to the naked eye.”
“No it’s not!” Then, more anxiously, “Is it?”
“Yeah, it totally is.” He thought back to the previous week, when Cam had leaned over Donna’s shoulder to check some code and they’d accidentally made eye contact and stayed frozen for, like, a minute. Yeesh. “Just- make a move. Cat’s out of the bag now, you know?”
“I guess…” She bit her lip.
Something was still bothering him though. “I thought you’d be more mad.”
“Nah. I mean, I had this kind of nightmare vision of Bodie being all- God. But it’s you, and well, y’know.”
Ah. They both nodded at each other knowingly.
“Anyway…” She gestured, “Kind of have to go clean this whole mess up.”
“Hey,” he said, as she turned to leave, “you guys are my bosses, but you’re also my friends. I’m here for you.”
For a second Cameron looked shockingly, suspiciously close to tears. Then her face settled back on a smile. “Ha, yeah, okay. Don’t get all tacky on me.”
She opened the door. “Hey, Donna, can we talk?”
“I- Sure.” Donna squinted around the roomful of guys listening intently. “Actually, let’s… let’s go get coffee somewhere. Far.”
Lev smiled proudly as they walked out the door, arm in arm. He’d done it! Kind of! With only minimal yelling involved!
From the silent room Bodie spoke up. “So like, what just happened?”
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Plastic in the Ocean: How We Can All Reduce Single-Use Plastics
New Post has been published on http://healingawerness.com/news/plastic-in-the-ocean-how-we-can-all-reduce-single-use-plastics/
Plastic in the Ocean: How We Can All Reduce Single-Use Plastics
This post is a humble plea to help be part of the solution to a problem that is much bigger than any of us… the growing amount of plastic in the ocean. We’ve known for a while some of the health issues related to plastic use, and now the environmental concerns are becoming increasingly alarming.
Plastic in the Ocean: A Growing Problem
We all encounter plastic everyday. In fact, I’d guess that it would be almost impossible not to encounter plastic in some form for even a single day since it is used in everything from clothing to automobile interiors to computers and phones. Our planet is starting to feel the effects of this massive plastic use.
Some sobering stats on the plastic problem:
Last year, just one of the major soda companies created over 110 billion plastic bottles worldwide.
There are an estimated 5+ trillion pieces of plastic floating in our oceans, weighing over 300,000 tons.
Surfers Against Sewage reports that the world produced 1.5 million tons a year of plastic in 1950, and now we produce over 320 million tons a year. And this number is set to double by 2034.
According to Vox.com, just some of the consequences we face due to growing plastic use are:
Over 100,000 marine mammals and 1 million sea birds die each year.
Two thirds of fish species suffer from for plastic ingestion and by 2050 there will be more plastic than fish in the ocean.
5 massive garbage patch plastic islands have formed in the oceans, including one between Hawaii and California that is as big as Texas!
This plastic is also increasing the acidification of the ocean and drastically increasing the chances of coral getting sick.
Recycling Isn’t the Answer
Plastic is designed to last a really long time. This means it can take up to 1,000 years to fully break down, and when it does break down it releases harmful compounds. Recycling is often presented as the solution, but it isn’t a complete or even viable answer for several reasons:
Only a small percentage of the world’s plastic is even recycled.
When it is, it costs thousands of dollars to recycle and the newly recycled plastic can’t even be sold for as much as it costs to recycle it.
We’re producing more plastic than we can possibly recycle and more types that can be easily sorted, which makes the process slow and inefficient.
Most of plastic is recycled into unusable forms that can only be made into park benches and rugs but not bottles, so more plastic is still being created.
See this article for more convincing reasons why recycling isn’t all it’s cracked up to be…
Bottom line: Recycling is better than not recycling, but it doesn’t reduce our overuse of plastic. We all (from individuals to companies and countries) need to start focusing on reducing our plastic use in the first place.
The Worst Offenders
Sadly, the plastic problem is one where individuals shoulder the blame while companies reap the profits. A January 2018 article in Scientific American explains how increased profit margins have encouraged major companies to lobby for continued use of these products.
In short, these companies have resisted measures like the five-cent deposit on plastic or glass bottles that led to a sharp increase in recycling. At the same time, they spend millions on ad campaigns like “Keep America Beautiful” and “I Want to be Recycled” that let us feel like we’re accomplishing something beneficial for the environment when our individual efforts can do little in the face of corporate plastic overuse.
Statistically, states and cities that enact an extra charge on plastic bottles and bags see use of these products reduce by 80%. We could even ban or create an opt-in only policy on single-use products like styrofoam and plastic straws. The problem is so widespread that legislation might be necessary, but I also always like to consider what we can all do individually without the need for laws and regulation.
Single-Use Plastics: What We Can All Do
This leads me to the small changes we can each make, which together can make a big difference in plastic use. Big companies may not want to stop using plastics because of profit margins, but if we all reduce our use of their products that use plastic, we can influence these corporations with our buying power.
Please…
This growing problem affects us all and is only getting worse! Please consider making as many changes as you can to move toward a low-waste or zero-waste mentality whenever possible.
Alternatives to Plastics: Easy Ways to Make a Difference
The following is a list of alternatives to single-use plastic, starting with the worst offenders. These products are most often found in the ocean and are easy ones to replace:
1. Plastic Bottles
In the US alone, 1,500 plastic water bottles are discarded every single second. Let that sink in. Every single second! We send over 38 billion to landfills and into the ocean every single year. And these are completely unnecessary! In the developed world we have access to clean water, filters, and reusable bottles. Let’s start using them.
Instead use:
A reusable water bottle in place of disposable ones
Your own water, smoothies, fresh juice, or teas from home brought from home
A water filter in your home instead of having to buy water (This investment will save money over time too.)
2. Personal Hygiene Products
Diapers, sanitary napkins, and other hygiene products are a big contributor of pollution. It can cost thousands of dollars to diaper one baby until potty training and contribute hundreds of thousands of disposable plastic diapers to the landfills and ocean. In addition, in a lifetime a woman may use up to 16,000 disposable tampons or pads, adding as much as $300 pounds of plastic waste to the planet.
Instead use:
3. Plastic Straws
Straws have been in the news lately and many people are already choosing to opt out. Just say “no thanks” to straws in general, or use eco-friendly alternatives instead.
Instead use:
4. Disposable Cups
Polystyrene (styrofoam) cups and disposable coffee cups (which are also lined with plastic) are very prevalent as well. Just like with bottles, these are an easy switch to make and often lead to healthier alternatives to beverages too.
Instead use:
5. Plastic Grocery Bags
We use the average bag for mere minutes before discarding it. In several places, officials have said plastic bags contributed to flooding by clogging drains and keeping the water from abating. And these types of plastic leach BPA and other compounds into our food and our skin.
Instead try:
6. Produce Bags
Produce bags are easily replaceable too. While the plastic ones in the store are so easy, some inexpensive reusable bags are actually much more convenient and save a lot of plastic exposure in the long run. As a bonus, they don’t rip and drop all of your produce if you pick them up the wrong way!
Instead try:
7. Plastic Containers & Food Wrap
If we’d all just stop buying anything that comes in a plastic container, I think we’d all see our health and our planet change almost immediately! But since that is a really tall order, we can start with some baby steps like reducing packaging from overly processed foods, storing our leftovers in reusable glass or stainless containers, and using non-plastic wrap.
This post has a full list of how I did this in my kitchen, but there are a couple of my favorites listed here…
Instead try:
8. Plastic Soap Containers
Many types of antibacterial soaps actually harm the skin microbiome, and they come in single-use plastic containers.
Instead try:
9. Bottles of Cleaning Products
In the same way, cleaning products are often just a small amount of the effective ingredient diluted in a lot of water and sold in a big plastic bottle! Many of these cleaners carry the same risks as antibacterial soaps and there are natural options that work much better.
I opt for non-toxic and safe natural cleaning concentrates and use these to make everything from foaming hand soap to all purpose cleaner and laundry soap. The concentrate comes in a single plastic bottle that is recyclable and I use this to fill reusable glass or stainless steel pump or spray bottles for use around the house. This reduces the need for dozens of other plastic containers!
Instead use:
10. Food Packaging
Most processed foods come in plastic packaging, and most of them aren’t great food choices anyway. Skip the packaged food and make meals and snacks at home to reduce packaging (and your body will thank you too).
Instead try:
Buying foods in bulk whenever possible
Joining a natural foods co-op
Supporting local farmer’s markets
Using stainless steel containers for school lunches
11. Gum
Might not be the first thing you think about when you think of plastic, but most gum does contain plastics and a lot of it ends up in the environment each year.
Instead try:
Take the No-Plastic Challenge for a Month
If you’re as concerned as I am about how plastic is affecting our health and our planet and want to make a difference, please join me in avoiding single-use plastics for a month. The rules are simple and we’re on the honor system, but here’s how to do it:
Make a plan for how you’ll avoid or replace these single-use plastic items. Carry a water bottle and reusable coffee mug. Stock your car with some reusable grocery bags, and meal plan to cook foods at home instead of ordering takeout. And swear off drinks in plastic bottles entirely!
Get any necessary supplies to have on hand instead.
Let us know in the comments when you’re starting and how it goes!
Will you join me in the No-Plastic Challenge? Do you have other ideas for reducing plastic use? Let’s get started changing the planet for the better!
Source: https://wellnessmama.com/398196/plastic-in-the-ocean/
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Monster Hunter: World -- Big Things to Kill
Monster Hunter is a series of game series that I never get to play on the PS2 era. Somehow, everybody could get a copy of it but me. The only copy I had was when my brother got ahold of one, but it was the Japanese version, and neither one of us understood Japanese at the time. So you can say it was unhelpful, like when you’re lost in Tokyo and your guide is actually another lost guy from Iran.
Not long after I started college, I was teased a second time when my pals whipped out their PSPs and played Monster Hunter by LAN. I remember them shouting "GET THE PAINTBALL" and "MONSTER'S ON AREA 15" and I thought "holy shit that looks fun" until I realize people were giving us curious looks with a slight hint of disgust and now everybody knows we're dweebs.
Now that my story's out of the way, consider this review an honest virgin viewpoint of the series. Because I'm new to the series, not because I haven't got laid yet. Alright fine it's both, happy?
The story of MHW is about humans pioneering the colonization of a "New World" with monsters in it, as opposed to the "Old World" which is old and with monsters in it. Okay, that wasn't the best description, but what the hell, right? The game didn't quite explain why we have to do this, but perhaps it's because the leather industry needed a shot in the arm or humans are just realistically evil evil apes with compulsive need to kill something lest civilization goes tits up. Actually not really, they do explain it after a while, and since this isn't a story that'll win any awards, I'm gonna spoil it right now: a big monster classified as an Elder Dragon went to the New World and we're sent out to figure out why. That's it.
Now off we go to kill everything with fangs and claws
If you think I was joking with that headline sentence, I was serious. In this world, every problem starts and ends with monsters. Luckily, that also means everything can be solved with good old fashioned animal slaughter, which brings us to the main point of the gameplay: monster hunting. There's only one point and ONLY one point of a MonHun game for me, which is BIG THINGS TO KILL. I mean ye got a series full of huge breathtaking monsters, what else are you gonna do about it? Well, I know exactly what i want to do: I want to track it, discover it, stand in awe at it's majesty, and kill every single one of them because I need materials for weapons, armor, and maybe some leftovers for furnitures and art projects. Nothing like culling lesser beings for fashion purposes, eh? And they say this game ISN'T realistic. And I kinda liked this system. The thought of beating a monster using it's own species' repurposed body parts while screaming "MY WEAPON IS YOUR MOTHER" amuses me somehow. Don't think about it too much though, the guilt will set in faster than you think.
In the eyes of the monsters, we are ALL Leatherface
The monsters are the lifeblood of the game. I mean it's in the fucking title. If they didn't focus on the monsters, somebody better get fired. Each monster has different elements and resistances, but they generally have the same weakness: getting the ever living shit beaten out of them. The only difference if you follow the strategies and hit them where it hurts is that the damage will be more effective, some monster powers will be suppressed, some parts will break, they will stagger more easily and eventually fall over, leaving them whimpering in pain on the floor while you beat them senseless, you MONSTER (which is ironic because you are the hunter which hunts monsters but your behavior is the monstrous one and now I've lost the will to explain the joke any further)
My only complaint about the monsters is how when you're halfway into the game and have already had a sizeable roster of monsters under your belt and made into your belt, it just makes you fight all of them again from the start. “Oh don’t be THAT sour, surely you’ll notice that they're stronger this time and you fight them in the neighbor's house sometimes?”. Well alright fine, but how about you think about the whole scenario for a moment? This kind of behavior, coming from a game which already had FIVE generations of monsters readily available. I think it is an absolute dick move. It's like winning a meet and greet with The Rock but all you get is 7 bootleg DVDs of The Scorpion King. And not to mention we still actually get to face off new monsters after we're done with the 2nd lap, one of them being the final boss. That seems like gameplay padding to me. But of course, as of writing this I've already gotten news of a new biome as well as a few returning monsters from the older series in the form of DLCs, and CAPCOM's plan just clicked in place. Why add the complete roster when you can patch em after as DLCs and make money, amirite triple A game devs?
You know what? I’m getting angry, so I’m gonna skip that shit and talk about the gameplay instead
Monster Hunter claims to be an RPG game and that's why it deserves a few hours of standing on the corner for lying. There is no role except the role of beating monsters till they're meat floss. The only choice you have is the weapon set. You can be the hard hitters with the greatsword, the switch axe or the hammer, the all-in defense guy with the lance and the charge blade, the support with the sword and shield and the light bowgun, or you can cheese the game with the longsword, the heavy bowgun, and the bow. You can also craft armors which has unique armor skills that will buff you with special abilities. There are also set bonuses which grants extra perks if you equip an armor set, but since I found out that it's better to mix-match your armor to focus on certain abilities, they're rather irrelevant most of the time. And while talking about mix-matching armors, I find the Layered Armor system to be a Godsend since it averts you from the blight of looking like a fucking clown on laundry day. Now, with the weapon systems and armor skills in action, it is only natural that you make a build that suit your gameplay so you can maximize your abilities and fulfill the needs of you and your group where everyone fills a specialized role. Oh wait, so it IS a role playing game after all...
Oh well, if anyone needs me I'll be in the corner wearing a hat that says 'dumb motherfucker' on it
The weapons in this game are a nightmare to me. Everything is slow and cumbersome. What isn't slow is awkward or weak. I mean even the double sword that looks whoosh whoosh locks you into a combo with each press of a button. This reminds me of Dragon's Dogma and that one time I got thrown in jail after I kicked an old man because I got locked into a combo. The worst part about the weapon has got to be the lock-on system that just straight up lies to you. CAPCOM, do you understand what a lock-on system is? It means that whatever I'm targeting and where ever they are, when I initiate my attack, it will go at their direction. You better give the lock-on system more respect from now on, because at it's current state all it does is yank the camera away into an awkward position while my character swings his weapon at God knows what. You know a pretty good example? The smart kid at the next table that gets straight As? The smart nerd whose answers you can peep on? Dark Souls.
Oh look! Another "game journalist" comparing things to Dark Souls, how original. Tell me all about MHW is the "Dark Souls of Monster Hunter".
Yes, I love Dark Souls, but not everything has to be like it. I mean if I fail to make my sex partner cum, I wouldn't want her to kick my balls in and tell me to try again next time after my balls pop out. I only refer to it this time because the lock-on is better than MHW. And in this game where the monsters can leap from Wester Ross to Nova Scotia, I'd say weapon tracking and a decent lock-on system is pretty much mandatory. But that's okay, I've come to accept and embrace it. No! I don't care that my fully charged super swing that I prepared for 5 minutes lands on a different zip-code to where the monster currently is, now stop asking!
In Brief
I love this game. I love taking down big powerful enemies, I love it’s co-op gameplay. Hell, even the strange weapon system is starting to grow on me. I love that it’s simple enough that you can bumble your way to victory, I love that there’s a ton of depth to the build that you can make from the weapons, armors, and the decorations, and I love how the difficulty ramps up nicely that you’ll have to make a build because you will have to master it to take on the really strong hunts.
That being said, I do have my complaints that I haven’t listed yet. It’s about how the game starts to get flat the moment you’re in your 100s. It’s even flatter if you’re doing it by your lonesome. So basically, it’s like marriage then; you start all lovey dovey, then it gets boring and eveything starts to feel really tough, and then it all falls flat when you reach 100. And by fall flat I mean you die because, uh, life expectancy, man
26/12/2018
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Hiched chapter 9
Chapter One
Justin
What a fucking public relations nightmare.
I’m at a charity event on behalf of Tate & Cane Enterprises. My new wife hasn’t been seen or heard from in two days; my best friend, Sterling, is in the bathroom fucking a waitress; and I’m standing here with a spatula in my hand, cursing them all a slow death under my breath.
We’re at a charity event at a soup kitchen. Supposedly, we’re doing good for the impoverished youths of our community, but it’s really just an excuse to empty the pockets of New York’s elite by serving them a very overpriced lunch. And considering I’m one of the cooks, I doubt it’ll taste like much. I enjoy cooking; I just rarely do it. I have one, maybe two recipes my mother used to make that I’ve mastered, and curried chicken salad isn’t one of them. The smell alone is nauseating. Though that could be because I have no appetite.
For the hundredth time, I wish I’d just hired Rosita and written her a blank check. If I had, they’d be eating like kings today. But the good cause isn’t the only reason I’m here. Hell, it’s not even my main reason.
As soon as I arrived at the soup kitchen this morning, the vultures of New York high society descended, peppering me with questions. How was the wedding? Why are you alone? Where’s your blushing goddamned bride?
Even if I had a clue how to answer, it was none of their fucking business. Selena’s father, Fred Cane, stepped in and saved me, telling everyone the ceremony was intimate and beautiful, and that Selena sends her regrets but was unable to make it. I volunteered for kitchen duty just to get a few hours of peace away from the public eye.
Or at least, that was the idea. I force myself to grin at the photographer who invaded the kitchen twenty minutes ago as his camera clicks away. If he asks me one more time where Selena is, I’m going to shove his thousand-dollar camera up his ass.
“How’s it coming?” the lead cook asks, looking into the massive stainless steel mixing bowl of chopped chicken dripping in amber curry.
“All set.” I slide the bowl toward him just as another cook sets a tray of pre-sliced croissants on the industrial kitchen’s counter.
They thank me for coming today as I remove my stained apron and toss it in the laundry basket on my way out of the kitchen.
A few more hands to shake, a couple of photo ops, and then I’m out of here. Sterling is still nowhere to be found, but the prick can find his own ride home. It’s not as if New York City isn’t crawling with taxis. And I’m not in the mood for company anyway.
When Selena stood me up at the altar, something inside me broke. I’d worked my ass off to try to show her that we could actually work as a couple, and I thought we were getting somewhere. Sharing an apartment, sleeping in the same bed, our sweet make-out sessions that were starting to turn into something more. And we were gelling at the office too . . . slowly turning the company around, one executive decision at a time.
I blow out a frustrated sigh. Never in my life have I worked this hard at winning over a woman. But Selena’s not just any woman. I grew up with her, placed her on this untouchable pedestal for twenty years, and she was this close to being mine. Before she ran off. And I still don’t even understand why. Though I have a damn good idea—
The heir clause in our inheritance contract.
Sterling was right. I guess she didn’t want me putting a bun in her oven after all. But I never thought she’d react like this. Scream and swear and cut off my balls, yes. Vanish without a trace, no.
In the event hall, people are mingling, shaking hands, and munching on the crudité. I spot Selena’s father at the far end of the room and start toward him. He’s a short, squat man with silver hair, a round belly, and a perpetual grin on his face. Basically, he’s like Santa’s brother. It’s hard not to love the guy, even when he won’t tell me what I need to know, and is being a royal pain in my ass.
“You ready to tell me where she is?” I ask, leaning in so only he can hear me.
He excuses himself from the man he was talking to and turns toward me. “Justin,” he starts, his tone jovial as if we’re discussing our upcoming yachting weekend on the Hudson.
“Cut the shit, old man.” I maintain a friendly grin in case anyone is watching. “Where is she?”
He lets out a heavy sigh, and for the first time, I can see that this is weighing on him almost as much as it’s weighing on me.
“She’s somewhere safe, that’s all that matters, and she’s mulling things over. She’ll be back when she’s ready. This is Selena we’re talking about.”
I nod solemnly. She’s as stubborn as the day is long. And he’s right. She’ll be back when she’s good and ready. Probably with an iron-clad argument, ready to negotiate the terms of her uterus with gusto. I smirk at the thought. At first I figured she was staying with Camryn, but after ransacking her best friend’s apartment, my new guess is one of Manhattan’s five-star hotels.
“When you speak with her again, tell her to call me,” I hiss under my breath. Fred and I have always been on good terms—he was my father’s closest friend, after all—but my patience has run thin.
He nods. “Of course I will.”
Just then, Sterling approaches with that just-fucked look. You know the one. Mussed hair, wrinkled collar, shirt untucked, smug-ass grin on his face like he just got his nuts off. The fucking bastard.
“Well, that was quick.” I check my watch. “If you need lessons in stamina, all you have to do is ask.”
An elbow in the ribs kills my smile. “Fuck off, Justin. We both know why you’re in a foul mood, and I don’t blame you.”
Fred excuses himself as Sterling and I trade jabs.
“So, was she fun?” I ask as we walk toward the exit.
“Of course,” he replies. But his eyes are on the door and there’s no conviction in his voice.
I’ve been there. Quick, unmemorable fucks with girls whose names I couldn’t even recall a mere twenty-four hours later. Which is all the more reason why Selena’s disappearing act feels like something had been ripped out of me.
Sure, we had our ups and downs, but I miss the banter, miss the way I could rile her up with the slightest of provocations. I just missed her.
I’m not looking forward to going home alone. The apartment feels stale without her. She hadn't even been there long, and already the place felt empty and void without her. Like all the warmth and charm has been sucked out by a vacuum. Only her scent lingers, and it makes me ache for her even more. Just when I started to get used to a woman’s touch at home, it was all ripped away. And that damn teapot she got us as a housewarming gift sits unused on the kitchen counter, mocking me. Why give me a peace token if she was just going to run out on me?
Sinking down onto the vinyl backseat of a cab, I let out a sigh. I’ve been hounding Fred about where she is, but the truth is, I don’t care. Well, I do care—every time I turn around and see she’s not there, her absence hurts all over again. But what I really want is to know why she ran out on me. Left me standing on the beach like a fucking idiot, waiting for our ceremony to start.
My head is swimming with questions, with anger and confusion and loss, and there’s an unexplained ache in my chest. It’s eerily familiar. Almost like the relentless throbbing I felt when Mum died. The kind of pain that fades a fraction with each passing day, but never goes away completely.
“You okay, buddy?” the cab driver asks, peering at me in the rearview mirror.
“I’m fine. Sorry.” Shit, I spaced out. I’ve been just sitting here in the back of his cab.
“You have somewhere you need to be?” he asks.
“Yes, home.” I give him the address, bewildered about the fact that I’ve started thinking of our shared penthouse as home.
My phone rings. My heart rate kicks up—for a second, I wonder if it’s Selena. But the name flashing on my screen for the third time today quickly informs me otherwise.
“Hello?” I mumble, deflated.
“How are you holding up?” Rosita asks.
She’s been calling every couple of hours, but this is the first time I’ve answered. Something about discussing it out loud—let alone with another person—might make this whole nightmare too real. But the sincerity in her tone is genuine and honest, and I suddenly feel like a dick for putting off her calls.
“I’m okay, I guess. Just confused.”
She sighs, and I can imagine her nodding her head, agreeing with me.
“When I learned you were getting married, I wasn’t sure what to think of this whole arrangement, but I figured if it was what your father wanted, it was for the best. He was a good man. And he loved both you and Selena.”
“Yeah,” I say, agreeing with her. But in times like this, where everything seems so fucked, it makes it hard to figure out what Dad was thinking.
I hear a rush of static as Rosita takes a deep breath. “But the more I got to thinking about it all, I realized I liked the idea of you getting married. Someone to cook you breakfast in the morning, someone to make sure you’re okay. A wife getting after you to make sure you take your vitamins. I liked the idea.”
I chuckle at her. “I can take care of myself, you know?” Rosita’s always been such a mother hen.
“I know, hijo,” she replies without missing a beat. “I know you can. But I liked that you wouldn’t have to.”
“You do know I was left at the altar, right?” As sweet as her sentiment is, the timing is horrible. Besides, it’s not like Selena is the doting, domestic type, bringing me slippers and serving me breakfast in bed.
“Of course I do. What I’m saying is that even though your ego is bruised, you need to take a deep breath and figure out why she left. See if there’s something you can do to fix this. Because I really think the two of you could work.”
I swallow the boulder in my throat. The only time Rosita has really seen Selena and me together was at her daughter Maria’s birthday party. A rare smile graces my lips at the memory. It was a fun day. Navigating Rosita’s enthusiastic extended family with my timid Snowflake by my side.
“I will listen to every word she says, I promise you that.” Whenever Selena gets around to coming back. If she comes back.
“Okay. Be good. Love you.”
“Love you too, Rosie.” I stuff my cell back in my pocket and hand a twenty to the cab driver as he rolls to a stop in front of our building.
Upstairs, I toss my keys in the wooden bowl by our penthouse door and wander inside. I’m really not looking forward to sleeping alone tonight. I consider heading back out, maybe to the bar down the street to drown my sorrows in a glass of fine whiskey. I flip on the light—and I freeze.
Selena is sitting on the couch. Her hands are folded in her lap, and she looks tired. Her dark blond waves are disheveled and that glow in her cheeks is gone.
“I need your help,” she says.
Has she been waiting for me? How long? And is that all she has to say? Four simple words . . . when four thousand wouldn’t be enough. And she’s asking for a favor?
My jaw tightens as disbelief darkens into anger.
“First, I need some answers,” I demand.
Chapter Two
Selena
I arrive back at the penthouse early in the afternoon. Justin’s not here, so I change into fresh clothes and eat a granola bar while I wait. I lie down for a nap, but end up just staring at the ceiling; try to work, but stop because I can’t focus; try to read a magazine, then resign myself to waiting on the sofa.
Where the hell is he? He wouldn’t be at the office on a Sunday—this is Justin we’re talking about. I try not to think about the possibility that he stayed the night with another woman.
But if he did . . . well, I’m the one who abandoned our wedding. I can’t blame him for thinking our relationship is over. For wanting to be done with me, and find a new girlfriend who isn’t such a hassle. Even though the last thing on my mind yesterday was hurting him.
God, the nightmare of the last forty-eight hours is still spinning through my head. I can still hear Brad’s voice on the phone, slithering into my ear like some horrible alien parasite . . .
• • •
“Good afternoon, Selena,” Brad said. “You really should check your e-mail more often.”
“Wh-what do you want?” I choked out.
“Check your e-mail and tell me if you recognize the attached photos.”
I hammered the End Call icon and tapped my e-mail app. One new message. I opened it . . . and my breath froze solid in my throat.
Of course I recognized those pictures. Back when we were still dating, Brad had nagged me to take some sexy naked selfies for him. And I’d caved, because I was still a gullible girl who thought he might turn into a decent boyfriend if I just tried hard enough and gave him whatever his slimy, shriveled little heart desired.
He’d had me convinced that he was a good man and all his selfish, controlling behavior was my fault. Whenever he was mad, it was because I’d provoked him. (Of course, when I was mad, I was just a childish bitch who looked for reasons to get offended.) He’d sulked when I didn’t want to touch his boner; he’d sulked when I suggested he could maybe touch my clit once in a while. Even when I’d caught him flirting with other women, he’d claimed it was because I neglected him.
So I guess I shouldn’t have put it past him to lie about destroying these nude pics either. I’d made him delete them off his phone while I watched, but he must have backed up the files somewhere beforehand. All twenty-two of them. Fuck.
I hit redial. Brad’s phone didn’t even finish one ring before he picked up.
“So?”
Squaring my jaw, I put on the hardest, most contemptuous tone I could. I refused to give him the satisfaction of hearing my voice shake. “Do you have some sort of point to make? Or did you just want to remind me what a scumbag you are?”
“Give up and let my father buy Tate & Cane,” he demanded. “I could also ask you to get down on your knees and suck my dick, but we both know you’re not even good for that much.”
“Only because you always jammed it down my throat like you were drilling for oil. Or compensating for something.”
“Do you want the deal or not?” he snapped.
Oh, Brad hadn’t liked that. I could just imagine his curled lip. I felt a rush of simultaneous triumph and terror at having pissed him off.
“I’m afraid this is a limited-time offer. If you want to save Tate & Cane, have your board e-mail me a buyer’s contract by the end of the week. Or I’ll release these photos—destroying your reputation and probably your company’s too—and then Daniels Multimedia Enterprises will just buy Tate & Cane anyway when its deadline is up. One way or another, my father will get what he wants.”
My heart was hammering so hard, I could barely catch my breath. I tried to buy time to think by arguing with him, digging for any crack in his resolve. “Is this all about your dad? What are you getting out of this?”
“Being a good son is its own reward. As well as building a strong company to someday inherit . . . and seeing a snotty bitch get what she richly deserves.” His tone impaled me like shards of ice as he went on. “Whatever explanation you prefer. Pick your favorite; it doesn’t matter.”
So that’s what this was really about—punishing me for daring to break up with him. Even for Brad the Demon Ex, this was insane. I’d never dreamed he’d go so far for such petty revenge.
“What matters,” he continued, “is your own decision. My offer is quite generous. I’m willing to pay millions of dollars for your company instead of just demanding you hand it over.”
I swallowed. “You said I have one week?” I asked, hating how small and weak my voice sounded.
“That’s right,” he said, sounding pleased to have finally reined me in. “Good-bye for now, Selena. We’ll keep in touch.”
At least, I thought that’s what Brad had said. I couldn’t hear over the rush of blood pounding in my ears. His last words could have been you’re fucked.
And they might as well be. I stared down at my phone, wanting to cry and puke and scream all at the same time. What the fuck was I going to do? What could I do? No way out. I couldn’t think straight. My already-simmering anxiety had boiled over. Animal panic flooded my brain. Can’t breathe. Trapped . . .
Even then, part of me already knew I needed help. I should have asked Justin. But how could I possibly face him? I’d handed Brad the rope to hang us both with. I’d given him exactly what he needed to destroy our fathers’ legacy and six thousand jobs.
Brad’s toxic influence came roaring back full force, making me relive all the sick, distorted feelings that our relationship had ground into me for over two years. My vision clouded, my lungs burned, my stomach twisted with anxiety.
No, I couldn’t tell Justin. The way he’d look at me . . . I didn’t know which would be worse, his disappointment or his pity. My pride couldn’t take another blow. I’d just shatter.
In that moment, I hated myself more than I’d hated anyone in my life. I was trembling with shame and helpless rage.
Why the hell did I ever take those pictures for Brad? I’d always let that scumbag use me, just rolled over and did whatever he wanted. If I hadn’t been so naive and desperate, I wouldn’t be in this mess right now. Why did it take me so long to hear the tiny voice in the back of my head screaming this relationship is wrong, it’s killing you, get out now?
Well, I’d listened too late. And unless I did something right now, our whole company was going to pay for my mistake.
I had to find Brad and stop him, although I had no idea what I was going to do or say when I got to his office. My instincts just screamed that there was a threat and that I needed to meet it and fight and kill it, because if I stood still, it would find me and hurt me first. Letting it come to me would mean that I’d already lost.
Half-blind with adrenaline, I ran out of the cottage, jumped into our rental car, and hauled ass for Nantucket’s only airport. I had one thing on my mind: taking down Brad and making him pay.
Dark and frantic thoughts barreled through my brain. I’d been right all along to feel skittish about marrying Justin. If Brad was going to ruin our company no matter what I did, then what was the point? If this exploded into a media scandal, the best-case scenario was that I’d have to step down while the company carried on without me. In which case, the question of my inheritance was moot. I could already see the headline—“CEO Forced to Resign Amidst Nude Photo Scandal.” Not how I wanted my first appearance on CNN to go down.
Nauseated, with tears stinging my eyes and still decked out in all my meaningless finery, I floored the gas pedal and left our wedding far behind.
The flight from Nantucket, as short as it was, still forced me to sit and think. I realized that I’d let my emotions run away with me—quite literally. How the hell was bolting supposed to fix anything? As satisfying as it would feel in the short term, I couldn’t just barge into Brad’s office and start screaming obscenities at him. No, I needed a plan before I acted.
I needed help too. But with my stomach still churning with anxiety and shame, I didn’t want Justin to know about my dirty pictures—or about how much power Brad apparently still wielded over me.
So instead of meeting Brad, I took a cab to an Upper East Side hotel, promising myself that I could solve this problem alone, and nobody would find out what I’d done for Brad or what he’d done to me.
I just wanted to feel like I wasn’t totally useless. I knew that stopping Brad wouldn’t make up for the way I’d treated Justin that day, let alone justify it. But I figured that a victorious return was better than slinking back with my tail between my legs. It was bad enough that I’d betrayed my fiancé; I didn’t want to dump all my problems into his lap too. I was determined to stay independent. I was Selena Fucking Cane. I would find a way to fix this.
In the end, though, I couldn’t keep inventing excuses to avoid Justin. I spent two sleepless nights pacing my hotel room, trying to brainstorm ways to defuse Brad’s blackmail threat . . . and I came up with jack shit. Every idea was worse than the last. There was no way I could fight back without getting other people involved and drawing attention to my dirty little secret.
At sunrise today, I gave up and went to bed, where my mind kept spinning until I fell asleep from sheer exhaustion.
Later in the morning, as I stared into the mirror, I was forced to admit what I’d known all along. I can’t do this alone. This mistake was too old and too deep to be undone easily—or maybe at all. And Brad’s claws were sunk too deep in me. Just remembering his voice on the phone made my heart race and my stomach twist. I could barely think straight, and that asshole wasn’t even here right now.
No, I had to face facts . . . and Justin too. So I took a shower and made my haggard face as presentable as I could. With nothing else to wear, I put on yesterday’s clothes—what should have been my wedding dress. I went downstairs, ate a bagel without tasting anything, and took a paper cup of coffee from the continental breakfast bar, then called a cab to take me to our penthouse.
It was time to go home to my husband.
• • •
The sound of the doorknob turning startles me out of my painful memories. I jolt upright and watch, my heart beating fast as our front door swings open.
Justin steps over the threshold . . . then sees me and freezes. He stares into my eyes like he’s seen a ghost. Anger, relief, and hurt fight for control of his expression.
All my carefully rehearsed words desert me at the sight of him. My throat feels dry, and with my heart hammering, I utter the first words I can think of.
“I need your help.”
For a minute he says nothing. He just keeps staring at me, fighting to school his features. Finally, he replies, “First, I need some answers.”
His voice is tight, barely keeping control. But he didn’t say no. That’s about the best I could have hoped for—hell, the best I deserve. I nod and rise to my feet.
“Where the hell have you been?” he asks. He still hasn’t moved from the door, as if he doesn’t want to get too close to me.
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OPERATION SUMMONED: Chapter 2
Anthony "KOVAK" Rodriguez was focused on the HUD, matching the glideslope of the aircraft to the precision approach path indicator as he goes in for his final approach. He added power as needed to prevent stalling at a lower speed. He keyed his mic to report on his position.
"Victor Tower, ten miles at angels two, final for Six Niner Five."
[Trocadero Six Niner Five, winds at one-niner-zero at two, caution wake turbulence of departing T-5, cleared to land two-five right.]
He smiled as he keyed in his mike again. "Cleared to land two-five right, Six Niner Five. We'll watch out for the trainer."
He continued his descent to the runway, keeping his airspeed above 130 knots. He breathed through his mask connected to the OBOGS, the taste of fresh air helped him enhance his concentration. Approaching the threshold, he trimmed down and pushed the stick forward until it is close to the ground, leveled the aircraft and set to idle; the engine gave a low sound as the rpm remained at its normal operating level. He kept the nose up for the main wheels to touch giving a nice and brief screeching sound as the rubber tires gripped the asphalt. He deployed the airbrakes and slowly tapped the brakes.
[Trocadero Six Niner Five, turn left and hold short of hotel-three, contact ground at 128.1 good-day.]
"Turn left and hold short of hotel-three, contact ground 128.1, Trocadero Six Niner Five good-day."
"Nice landing there." Skillet, his weapons systems officer, complimented behind him as he exited the runway to the taxiway.
"Thanks. Contact ground, please."
"Mhmh." He switched frequency to ground and keyed the mic on the stick. "Victor ground, Trocadero Six Niner Five, good morning, request taxi instructions for PacRim ramp."
[Trocadero Six Niner Five, good morning. Turn left at hotel, right at india-one, then proceed to PacRim ramp.]
Skillet wrote down what the ground controller gave as relevant information to taxi through the airport. "Left at hotel then right at india-two to PacRim ramp, Trocadero Six-Niner-Five."
[Six Niner Five, read back correct. Proceed as instructed.]
Kovak slightly advanced the power and pushed right pedal with differential braking. He powered on the taxiway, feeling the bumps of the cement through the seat. His right hand left the stick and let his arm hang on the edge of the closed canopy. The power of the twin advanced ultrafan engines is sensitive as does all other jet aircraft during ground operations, a reason why his hand left hand never left the throttle. He is now driving - literally driving- the aircraft.
"When is your leave?" Skillet asked.
"Two weeks. I plan to visit my brother then. Why?" He answered as he cleared left-front-right - a jetliner landed to his left - before turning right at india-two.
"Because..." An irregular breathing was heard through the intercom. "I'm inviting you as my best man to my wedding."
"Really? Congratulations! When did you proposed?"
"Three weeks ago. It was good timing. Jean was there for a convention so I proposed at her room."
"Nice..." He turned silent as he began thinking of an advice but all he thought of were a couple of gay jokes and a bad advice. "I should've married you long time ago."
"But WE are. Us fighting, arguing, and-"
"Oooookayyy I regret what I said."
They arrived at the far side of the airport where the hangar for Pacific Rim Defense - Aviation Wing was located. The marshal brought them in and parked on the yellow line. Holding on the brakes, they wait for the marshal’s signal to shutdown then went through the checklist for the shutdown procedures until the engine whirled down. The pilot opened the canopy, letting the cool breeze of the salty air rush through their sweating faces. A funny meme came out of this: If you turn off the engines, watch how they sweat; a cruel reality that pilots face after engine shutdown. They brought ladder up and the maintainers helped unstrap the harness to their parachute, and the cables to their helmets. The pilot and Skillet thanked them for keeping the aircraft airworthy as they head to their service vehicle with their flight bags and suitcase full of clothes back to the flight operations, where they debriefed their activities to their colleagues
Kovak rested quietly against the seat of the ready room waiting for the debriefing to end. In the room of sixteen people, both weapon systems officers and pilots all comprised of two flight divisions of the squadron they're attached to all talked of what the missions they did before, during, and after the flight; one was reprimanded for moving the aircraft while the maintainer was inspecting the aircraft before shutdown and was assigned for a safety brief later in the afternoon. That includes his WeSO. The squadron was part of a three-year package to a country in the southeast to assist in patrolling the seas and combat operations on the south of the country; surveillance, intelligence, and reconnaissance; and close air support. Their roles weren't only to fly planes and drop bombs but to train soldiers, marines, and pilots as Forward Air Controllers or Joint Terminal Attack Controllers; assisting in ground operations; training pilots in basic flight maneuver and advanced combat maneuver.
His eyes, arms, and legs slack as he slowly goes to sleep but his ears suddenly peaked in the middle of a silent conversation to his far right.
"So, did anyone ask about it?"
"About what?"
"You know... the rumor that there'll be a special contract for us?"
"Fuck off man. It's been out for two months now and we still have no answers. And if anyone did ask, it will be Grumman who'll do the digging."
"Yeah I know but-"
"No buts'... You are new here, right?"
"Yeah?"
"You better cancel your plans as soon as possible. Cuz' once it's green, you'll never be able to get out. Unless you were part of the second group or expecting a baby."
"But I AM. I'm going to be a dad in a week. Sharon is at the hospital waiting."
"Oh.... well... you could be lucky.... congrats."
Yeah, congrats.
He wasn't surprised on the rumor because it is an occasional truth. At thirty years old, he could have flown commercial as an airline pilot but, although he is a commercial licensed pilot, he wished to remain flying jets because of his love for them. And with no shortage of cash from his account, he is satisfied living a simple life, paying bills and student loans, and flying planes. But each mission wore him out not because of fighting, but the lack of excitement. Every mission he takes made him wear out more and more as it becomes repetitive. Less chasing, more bombing, half fun.
He slowly went back to sleep but the doors swung open to his left, bringing him back to the living. Remo walked in wearing an unusual pair of colors and proceeded to the podium where he brought out its contents and laid them in front of him. His pink polo shirt and brown cargo pants are unusual for the director of flight operations but his tired expression means nothing to the explosive questions they ask of his choice of clothing. "Okay settle down. First, I ran out of laundry. Second, this is from my daughter who just turned three. So, if you have any questions other than the color of MY shirt? zip it." He pointed to the one who raised his hands who immediately retracted. Remo stared at Kovak whose eyes slowly closed and has his cheeks resting on his hand. "Kovak, I assume you're done with the debriefing so no need to worry about that. But that's not what I am here. If you've heard rumors about a special contract for last two weeks now? Well, I'm about to disappoint you." He looked at everyone in the room as it turned silent. The pilot who talked earlier had his hands clutched the colored bead rosary, praying it would not be true. "Yes, they are true but-" The disappointment was heard as the whole room groaned and complained while some paid their bets. Remo continued, "But it won't happen until we have definitive on the date."
"Did Grumman confirm?" Skillet, playing with his pen, asked.
"Not only did he confirmed about the rumor. He even asked Bosshead and said something about something that only we can do." The room fell silent in disbelief as they heard the name of their employer. With the Bosshead's name, the rumor has officially recognized to be real. But what is unreal, is that the Bosshead, the founder of PacRim Defense, the company that Kovak worked for, rarely acknowledge any rumors within the company so it is a big deal.
"So?" Kovak, who listened to every word, caught everyone's attention. "We knew that the moment the rumor was heard it would be real no matter what. Heck, last year Jumbo canceled his family vacation to Hawaii when the rumor of the Iraq contract came out because his wife spent their savings on gambling." He pointed at Jumbo who’s at the third row behind him, nodding with a grunt.
The room burst into chatter. Remo continued with a loud voice. "Bosshead may want to mobilize the entire company for this 'special contract' of his which would not be the first time. Once you all are fully rested, I want everyone to be prepared for the announcement. Those with maternity or expected maternity, especially to Trumbo there, have your paperwork signed at the flight ops so that you may have your leave." The pilot who talked earlier gave a long breath. "Those with kids, you better make a letter that would impress the management. Otherwise, good luck. Dismiss."
They stood and walked to the doors. As Kovak stood with his flight bag on his side, Remo motioned him to come forward. He cussed in silence as he dropped his shoulders in surrender. Skillet saw his expression, giving Kovak a tap on the back and a nod as he passed by. He dragged his feet to the podium where the presenter packed up his laptop until only Kovak and Remo was left alone. Kovak gave a quick cough. "So, you knew?"
"Of course. What do you think am I? A buffalo with poor eyesight?" Remo replied.
"... Then?"
"No."
"Come on Remo, it's just two weeks. I got Hugo to take care of my shift with Skillet."
"I need you here to take care of the paperwork." Remo quickly made an excuse.
"I already took care of it. I filled up my briefing papers, debriefing papers, flight plan, inventory, what else do you need from me when I already have everything done?"
"Look," Remo stopped packing the projector and took a sharp exhale. "I can't approve of your leave of absence because Bosshead told me to. I don't know why but it all started when the rumor came out first last year." Kovak was confused. The rumor was out for a year and only now has it spread to his unit. Grumman, a man capable of finding secrets, probably kept it a surprise or was suppressed to keep the information out. Remo turned around then leaned forward as if he was telling a secret. Kovak followed. "In the last six months we have received provisions, ammunition, and spare parts from some suppliers we've never heard of and are now on-board the Goliath."
"This must be a VERY special contract to use the Goliath."
"Not only that, I heard that our ground units will be coming on board."
"...... That's interesting." In his head, the Goliath is a mobile air carrier capable of sustained flight, a similar role to seaborne aircraft carriers. Limited refueling, large crewmembers... ‘What is he doing?’
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The morning turned to afternoon. The airbase remained active as maintainers maintain the aircraft; marshals’ guiding the last few remaining transport aircraft to their ramps; controllers keeping the airspace clear, and security details patrolling the fences. The flight crew lifted weights, do cardio, and such other activities to keep their mind focused and their bodies ready. Kovak had finished swimming 10 kilometers on the indoor pool and is now at his last set of the ninety-kilogram bench press. His mind focused on the last repetition; his arms began to feel jelly as he pushed. "Aaaaaaaaggggghhhhh!!!!" He had finally extended and slowly returned the barbell to its holder. He breathed heavily as his lungs gasped for air. He breathed in deep and exhaled slow, repeating the process until his heart has fully calmed; the mirror in front showed him his expanding chest sucking air like a vacuum. He plugged out his earphones, flooding the ears with the industrial sound of machines banging against the hard surface. The exhaustion finally came up to him and reviewed what he was given earlier.
The Goliath is a mobile high-altitude VTOL mothership capable of sustained flight with limited refueling. 400 meters in length by 600-meter wingspan and an 80-meter height with a 75-meter double flight deck; powered by 12 advanced scramjet engines; and crewed with 3,000 personnel with the rest automated, it is the most advanced aircraft ever built by mankind and commissioned by PacRim, during the five-year Reclamation war and before Kovak was employed. The resources to fund is enormous and the technology to build is unknown territory, but Bosshead put up with it, establishing the company as a force to be reckoned.
So why? The rumor was intentionally out for two weeks, the contracts that were supposedly number in hundred only came out in few, and an unknown shipment of supplies came in with Bosshead's signature. Kovak wanted to keep looking but the more he looked, the more he didn't want to know. He picked up the towel from his bag and wiped the sweat of his face. "KOVAK!" He heard his name called through the entrance. Fia, the secretary/assistant to the Bosshead, waited for him, holding a manila folder on her side. Her black short hair matched her cute facial features, if only she has big breast. He stretched his legs and walked to the door where she waited. "Bosshead wants to see you."
"Now? I gotta go to the shower first-"
"N.O.W." She emphasized. She walked out of the door and waited for him to follow. "He wanted to talk to you about something."
He hesitated but reluctantly followed her out the hallway. Their steps echoed as they continued through the hallway. He saw her veins clearly formed on her head, a lot of stress accumulated to a related topic. "Is this related to the rumor?"
"I don't know..." A cracking sound was heard as she stretched her back then rubbed her head to relieve the pressure. "He's been busy a lot with the preparations while you were gone, putting all the public relations work on me full time.... Do you know what this is?" She gave the folder to him. He read the file word by word; letter by letter; the walking speed slowed. In each detail, he found words that doesn't match to a location or to a specific target. Each must be a different language but he doesn't know all of them. Kovak stood as she passed a few steps before she stopped.
"What the fuck is this?"
She smiled at the same reaction he has when she read the file. "That's not for me to explain." She walked ahead of him as he stood there in disbelief, but he is slightly angered.
"Explain?" He caught up. "This is fantasy! What the hell is this ex- astrea? sastrea? zastrea?"
"It's Xastrea. And, as I said, it is not for me to explain."
"Ha- how are you not freaked out? I just got here and just learned that we are mobilizing to a place that isn't here!"
"Because it took me the whole year to get used to what he might tell you."
"He? The Bosshead? Bullshit."
They walked out of the aviation department to the main building, where the office of the CEO and founder of the company works at. He kept silent as he resists the urge to punch her. They entered through the revolving doors to the non-slick marbled floors. The airconditioned environment made him feel naked, wearing only a tank top, shorts, and sandals; passing through potential clients or employees as they entered the lift to the top floor.
"I told you I should've taken a shower. I feel like a Canadian walking naked in the snow with a condom for a hat."
"Why? I kinda like it. Especially that tight shirt of yours."
“Please. I'm not here to indulge your perverseness."
"Oh?" She pressed the red button and the elevator stopped; the lights dimmed to a red emergency light. She covered the camera with a sticky note left on the folder and approached him seductively. "Of all the men I enjoyed, you escape me."
"Because I'm shy to women." He shrugged, a truth he can't deny and a very convenient tool to women like her. He doesn't find himself interesting to women but somehow, a few encounters here and there, they find him interesting. He only offered a peck to the cheek but they go for the lips when the opportunity rise. He inched closer to the red button but was blocked by her. "Come on Fia. I want to get this over with."
"We still have time. Why? Are you gay enough to fuck him in the ass?" Her face inched closer to his.
"If I am, then I wouldn't be this close to you." He moved closer that their bodies touch. He felt her curves through her formal wear, but hold himself short of releasing it. Their face is close for their nose to rub each other. She closed her eyes but the lights turned back on. He had reached for the button and the elevator continued its journey slowly 8 floors up. She felt disappointed as he pulled the sticky note of the lens. "Maybe next time."
"You sly." She kissed him briefly on the lips, biting them before they arrived on the top floor "I'll savor this taste. Until then, I should guide you to his office."
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The office of the chief executive officer and founder of the company is modest but not too lavish. He looked around the office as his boss, Frank 'BOSSHEAD' Oppenheim, continued his conversation in frustration. After the kiss in the elevator, he wiped off the lipstick of his lips His veins popped like Fia but more defined. He just remained quiet until he put the phone back at the receiver. Bosshead did a meditated breathing until his veins returned to normal. "So..." he crossed his hands and stared at Kovak, feeling that he may have gone passed his head and into the memory banks of his subconscious. "How was Fia?"
He was speechless but knew what he was doing. But still was confused with the question. He covered his mouth and coughed. "Sorry?"
"I mean, I've been trying to get close to her and only were able to grab her attention in just minutes."
Kovak kept calm but his inner turmoil screams panic. "I don't know what you mean, sir."
The atmosphere became tense as they both stared intensely at each other. Kovak mentally began making excuses using the truth as its basis. Bosshead smiled and waved his hand like a fly was there and disregarded the question he asked earlier. He stood up and walked towards the window that overlook the hangars that lined up along the taxiway. He gazed at what he had built and what he had gone through to make it come to this. "Do you know how this company came to be?" The room remained silent, as the cargo plane took off in full power.
"Yes, sir."
"Then you know that we started small. And now look at us. We are considered as an organized militia under the Sidonian constitution yet independent of the armed forces. The longest running private military contractor in the history of this world." Kovak nodded in agreement. Bosshead looked at him with an unknown determination. "And now, I am going to do something that may change your life again."
He knew what he was talking about and he must ask to ease his confusion. "Sir, Fia gave me a document that details a place that I do not know about. It isn't in any maps, or town, city, or a code word." He stood up and handed over the file to him. Bosshead glanced at the file. "This place, Xastrea, doesn't exist."
"I know." He threw the folder onto his desk and sat at the edge of it. Kovak guessed that Bosshead will say a cliché word that he has read or heard when he daydreamed. And he was right. "Because I AM from Xastrea."
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Kumusta! Chapter two is done! I have got to make a better numbering system but this will have to do. It feels kinda rushed when I type this chapter because I make the conversations but not the words behind it. Anyway, the third chapter will go on from here but I’ll have to review my work on this (or read a book) so feel free to comment!
As always, Salamat!
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