Sunday drive with the wife? Nothing to worry about.
Several years earlier.
Giving sort of adopted daughter driving lessons so she can escape boarding school. (He doesn't know that last part is part of her plan).
Jack: We're going down hill, lay off the gas pedal!
Tammy: Sorry, Jack! I think it's jammed! But don't worry, all that water down there will slow us down!
Jack: That's a lake, Tams! Cheeses, do NOT drive us into a lake!
Tammy: Whew! Well we rolled six times, missed four trees and a family of deer but we might have hit a bear...But at least we missed the lake. Pretty good for my first drive, right?
Jack: *Heavy sigh*
Tammy: *leans over* What is that? My grade?
Jack: ...My will...
Professional Work Escort
Wanda: How the hell do you talk me into these situations, Jack?!
Jack: You said you were chasing the next big headline, right? Well now it's chasing us!
Wanda: I wanted a headline! Not be IN THE HEADLINE!
I still feel mixed about the art. I really hope this artist can figure out how to draw people because I really really like the way they draw aliens.
I think I might see what they're going for with Max. My guess is that they made him mean because they are going to make his plumber past more morally grey. In the original it was very "he was a super cool alien cop who saved the day" but if they go the way of "he was basically a soldier for the US military so he probably did some pretty fucked up stuff" I could maybe get behind that. However I'm definitely calling my shot with this interpretation. I'm basing off the vibe of how he interacts with the military but I could easily be wrong about what they're doing.
I don't like how gwen is wandering around the RV and within about 5 minutes discovers it has sci-fi tech. Since the people reading this presumably will have watched the original I'm not super opposed to that being learned about already (still feels a little early pacing wise), but I just think they could have introduced it a bit more naturally than "Gwen randomly finds a big glowing button that isn't hidden at all."
Speaking of Gwen why the hell did she start driving the RV? What the hell was that about?
One thing about the plot I actually really liked is just how freaked out Ben is by all of this. He was freaked out for all of 2 seconds but the moment he realized him being on fire didn't hurt he was having a blast. But here he's incredibly freaked out by his body morphing (which is made even more understandable by the transformations being a bit body horror-y). He's completely overwhelmed and just started crying saying he wants this thing off his arm and that he wants to go home. It makes perfect sense for a kid of his age, ESPECIALLY a kid who's already going through a lot of emotions.
My overall impression of this issue is more or less the same as the last. I have mixed feelings about the quality of this issue but it makes me very curious and excited to see where they go.
if you want to lose weight, it's always assumed it's because you want to be skinny
if you want to exercise more, it's always assumed it's because you want to be skinny
if you want to eat better, it's always assumed it's because you want to be skinny
and so all information, advice, encouragement, and resources for these things is relegated to only being about this one singular goal. they don't tell you that building muscle while fat will help ease joint pains because your body can better support you, or that eating nutritiously will help your body have more energy and work more efficiently, or that working to maintain a steady weight, both up and down, will reduce stress on your organs. nope, it's all skinny skinny skinny skinny you wanna be skinny dont you wanna be skinny ooooo skinny
First just a random pic of Jack's angry head with no hat.
And then another barrage of self indulgence! Fanart!
And words to go with it!
_ _ _
I’d been staring at the same paragraph long enough to suspect it was changing every time I blinked. The file lay open beneath the pale pool of my desk lamp, stuffed with conflicting dates, cramped testimony, and handwriting apparently produced during an earthquake. I rubbed the space between my eyes, leaned closer, and gave it one more chance to cooperate.
The office door opened quietly behind me. I recognized Brie by the soft rhythm of her steps and kept one finger planted beside the line I was trying to read. “You’re late,” I said.
“So were you.”
“I was here first.”
“I don't think that's what late means.”
I smiled despite myself. “There’s coffee in the pot. I can’t promise the pot survived it.”
She crossed the office without answering. I expected her to pull up the other chair or perch against my desk, but her footsteps stopped directly behind me. Two small hands settled upon my shoulders.
I glanced back. “Hello.”
“Hello.”
Her thumbs pressed into the tight muscles on either side of my neck. Every word in front of me vanished as though the page had gone blank. She worked slowly at first, feeling out the tension through my shirt, and then drove both thumbs firmly downward.
My back straightened like a rod involuntarily. “Great Gouda!”
It made Brie gasp. “Too hard?”
“No.” I lowered my head a little, giving her better access. “I’m reconsidering several assumptions I’ve made about you.”
“What assumptions?”
“That I could take you in a fair fight.”
She gave my right shoulder a particularly solid squeeze. “You're making that face.”
I looked up at her as far as the angle allowed. “What face?”
“The one you make when something feels good and you don’t want anybody to know.”
“I don’t have a face for that.”
“You do. Your eyebrows go up.”
“My back nearly folded in half. That was alarm.”
“And yet you haven’t told me to stop.”
I hadn’t. I wasn’t going to, either. Brie’s hands were smaller than mine, but there was nothing delicate about the pressure she applied. Her thumbs found every hard ridge I had been ignoring for the past week and worried at them with the grim patience of someone settling a personal score.
“Where did you learn to do this?” I asked.
“I have hands, Jack.”
“So do I. Mine don’t know how to do that.”
“Yours spend all day holding coffee, cigarettes, and other people’s problems. They haven’t had time to learn.”
I let the file fall flat on the desk. “You’ve been hiding this from me.”
“You never asked.”
“I didn’t know that I could ask.”
Her fingers slid beneath the edge of my collar, brushing the fur at the base of my neck before returning to my shoulders. A slow, treacherous warmth worked its way down my spine, and I felt myself sinking into the chair. Then something brushed lightly against one of the chair legs.
...My tail.
I tightened it around my ankle before it could do anything stupid. The matter was handled. I was still master of every part of my person, and no evidence existed to the contrary. Then Brie pressed her thumbs beside my spine. A low sound escaped me before I could stop it, and my tail slipped loose, giving one pleased flick behind the chair.
She paused. “Oh! Did I hurt you?”
I reached up, caught one of her wrists, and put her hand back exactly where it had been. “You'll only hurt me if you stop.”
“I thought I broke something.”
“If you did, keep going. There might be a better spine underneath.”
She resumed more gently, which was pleasant but unacceptable. I tipped my head forward and murmured, “Harder.”
“Really?”
“Brie, I’ve spent years being punched by mice twice your size. And rats at least four times your size. You ain't gonna hurt me.”
She dug both thumbs into a knot beneath my shoulder blades with enough force to drive the rest of my dignity out through my teeth. Cheesus! My shoulders jumped, my fingers locked around the brim of the table, and my tail whipped free from my ankle.
Brie leaned over me, her voice warm with amusement. “You were saying?”
“I...may have spoken too soon.”
“I thought so.”
She kept working, easing the pressure only after the knot finally began to surrender. I tried pinning my tail beneath one heel, but it pulled itself loose and made another lazy pass across the floor. I caught it against the chair leg. It slid around the other side. By then the ungrateful thing had apparently decided it was enjoying the massage independently of me.
I attempted one last discreet maneuver, curling it tightly around my shin. Brie’s fingers moved higher, kneading the base of my neck, and my tail uncoiled at once. It began swishing behind me in slow, contented arcs.
There are moments in a mouse’s life when denial is the only remaining defense. I closed my eyes and hoped Brie was too preoccupied with my shoulders to notice what was happening at floor level. This hope survived for nearly four seconds.
“Jack?”
“Hm?”
“Is your tail trying to dust the floor?”
My eyes opened. “No.”
She squeezed my shoulders again. The traitor swept broadly from one side of the chair to the other.
Brie glanced down. “It seems very enthusiastic about something.”
“ Nuh, its just a draft it can feel. Old building.”
"Of course.” She pressed her thumbs into another tight spot, and my tail immediately picked up speed. “It clearly loves drafts.”
I reached down and caught it in one hand. “You could pretend you didn’t see that.”
“I could.”
“That would be kind of you.”
“It would.” She bent closer, her cheek almost brushing mine. “But then you might keep pretending you aren’t enjoying yourself.”
“I never said I wasn’t.”
“You were trying to hide the evidence under your foot.”
“It was becoming unruly.”
“Poor Jack Pepper. Overthrown by his own tail.”
Heat crept into my ears. I could face down armed men without blinking, but one small woman with strong hands and an observant streak could reduce me to holding my own tail like a misbehaving toddler. “It has a mind of its own,” I muttered. I couldn't believe I was this embarrassed over my own tail.
Brie laughed softly. “Apparently it’s more honest than the rest of you.”
She resumed the massage before I could assemble a respectable answer. After a moment my grip relaxed, my tail slipped from my fingers, and the damned thing went right back to swishing. I considered fighting it again, but Brie’s thumbs found the place where my neck met my shoulders, and discipline ceased to seem important.
“You’re terribly knotted,” she said.
“That sounds judgmental.”
“It’s an observation.”
“I’ve had a long day.”
“Feels like you've had a long month.”
“Touche.”
I reached behind the chair and slipped an arm around her waist, drawing her closer. Brie leaned over me without resistance, and I turned my head to press a kiss against the inside of her wrist. Her fingers softened against my shoulder.
“All of that....was underhanded,” I murmured.
“The massage?”
“There was no warning and I couldn't defend myself.”
"Why, Mr. Detective, the enemy never cares about if you are caught unawares or not."
I gave her a narrow look. “You’re enjoying this.”
“Very much. Better?” she asked.
“Much.”
“Can you turn your head now?”
I tested it carefully from side to side. “Full range of motion. Modern medicine has nothing on you.”
Brie tittered in appreciation. “I could have been a doctor, one of my aunties said! Or a...pro wrestler....I'm not exactly sure why." she stuttered reluctantly.
“You should come by every night.”
“I’m not joining your staff.”
“I’ll put your name on the door.”
“With what salary?”
“Coffee.”
“The coffee that may have dissolved the pot?”
“Free coffee.”
Brie lifted her hands from my shoulders. The absence was immediate and unacceptable, so I reached back, caught both wrists, and drew her arms loosely around my neck.
“I didn’t say you could stop,” I said. For the love of Saint Stilton I was whining when I said that.
“You started negotiating wages.”
“I’ll double them.”
“Two cups of terrible coffee?”
“Aaaand a kiss?”
She leaned down until her cheek brushed mine. “A kiss from whom?”
I turned my face toward hers, our noses nearly touching. “Let me make a few calls.”
Brie laughed and kissed me on the nose before straightening. I caught one of her hands, pressed it firmly back to my shoulder, and gave her what I hoped was a dignified, expectant look.
“You’ll get spoiled,” she said.
“Too late.”
Her fingers began working into my shoulders again, solid and sure. I settled deeper into the chair as the open file waited beneath the lamp, its troublesome paragraphs losing every competition for my attention. My tail continued swishing shamelessly behind me. Ah ta hell with it. This time I let it win.
Being a lover of physical media is a difficult battle, and it gets worse each year, but don't give!
There are decades of games to explore, ones that are iconic, and ones that are hidden gems. Now is definetly the time to start building your physical backlog.
For playstation, we've got 1 and half years to collect the games you love. scalpers are gonna raise the prices after that, so try to get the games you really want now. (of course don't make yourself broke by doing so, do not do that /srs)
Music and movies are a lot more stable at the moment, but there's no telling in the future unfortunately.
Stay safe, keep informed, and try to fight for our autonomy to actually own the things we buy!
It's the perfect time now to return to physical stuff
Not safe to post your face anywhere; print them out and put them in a photobook
The corps can listen to you, so write down your days in a journal
Streaming platforms and music apps are too expensive; pirate their shit, burn the files onto a disc, and keep them forever
AI is burning books. So STOP buying fuckass cheap books with obvious AI covers and AI content I swear to God; write more, buy more books, study more.
Appreciate old things, get a little pretentious and corny, perform all you want, fake it till you make it, right? Don't incriminate yourself if you fail from time to time (it's okay; I fall for the evil urge to buy journal supplies, too); don't do the evil people's job for them; they're already discarding enough jobs from the market.
And also, pirate the mega corps' property but genuinely support anything man-made, local, and passionate. Fuck Sony.
In some US states, lawmakers have pushed forward legislation to chip away at labor protections for children. It's cloaked in language such as "freedom of choice" and "teaching children the value of hard work". But they are backed by industries that have historically exploited children and treated safety regulations as suggestions.
Why are they doing this? These jobs are historically hard to fill because they are physically demanding and often have shit working conditions. They also have been done by migrant workers because they pay well and no one else wants to do them. But after the crackdowns by the Trump and Biden administrations on immigration, those jobs are going unfilled.
Instead of lobbying for immigration inform, these industries instead are turning towards relaxing labor regulations toward children. Children aren't able to advocate for themselves. So if they are underpaid or forced to work in dangerous conditions, they are less likely to speak up.
This is also a reason we're seeing a rise in pronatalism. Because corporations want more children to exploit. Us silly women need to stop whining and create more cogs for the machine.
Crisis pregnancy centers purposely made to look like normal abortion clinics so that pregnant women trust them but are really just anti-abortion "activists" and have the only goal of getting women to have a baby and using fear tactics, shame, peer pressure, and lying to do so. A lot of them are also not required to keep your private medical information private. Do not interact with them! For an actual abortion clinic locator, check directly below.
Quickly search the largest directory of trusted abortion providers in the U.S. Updated weekly.
Planned Parenthood Article On Crisis Pregnancy Centers
It was a day like any other. Until her. The woman. That woman. She waltzed into my office like she owned the place. Didn't have to say a word. I saw her voice the moment she walked through the door, wrapped in makeup and a cloud of perfume reserved for the sleaziest Tinsel Brothers party. Ah that voice. Not a contralto — the contralto. Thick, rough, like gorgonzola piccante slapped on a mozzarella platter.
Jack Pepper describing Vivian McCarthy, "Mouse P.I. for Hire"
Seeing Steve again wasn't the clean break I wanted. Cuz he was still dirty. Still a bastard. Still that cynical son of a... But he was my war buddy. And he wasn't dead. Part of me hated that I felt relief. Maybe he changed. Maybe he finally grew a conscience. Or maybe I'm the fool, growing yet another soft spot. Maybe. In the end, we're all just cogs in some rich man's machine. Grinding away until we break.
It’s the weekend but please pay attention to Congress! They’re trying to pass the bill H.R.7757 (The Kids Act), which would require you to hand over your ID to use any/all apps and websites you use. This isn’t about protecting kids. There do need to be better laws for protecting children online, but wanting someone’s government ID to prove it is immoral.
This bill has passed the House and is going to the Senate. The only thing we can do is call and email our senators; calling/emailing is how you can make your voice heard against bad internet bills. Don’t say “it’s unconstitutional, it can’t pass.” They’ve passed unconstitutional legislation before, especially when no action was taken.
