What do you mean 'Pre-Recession'?
After the year 2000, but before the economic recession of 2008, GM was making some weird cars. Retro styled cars, cars with high performance trims (for seemingly no reason), cars with LS motors mounted sideways, and of course, Saabs.
Why these cars came about is complex. If somebody is willing to offer a theory, I'm all ears. However, I'm not here to explore the roots of this issue, only what fruit it ended up bearing. While many of these cars may have continued production after the recession of 2008-2010, most if not all were born of the white heat of stupidity that lost GM $82 billion before this time. I say stupidity of course, because most of the following vehicles I would like to own one day.
GMC and Chevy Trucks with 'Quadrasteer' Quadrasteer was a rear-steering system developed by Delphi Automotive Systems, a subsidiary of GM. It was called 'quadrasteer' because, you guessed it, all four wheels were steerable at once.
Available on the '02-'05 Chevy Suburban / GMC Yukon XL & Chevy Silverado / GMC Sierra,
the system greatly reduced the turning circle of the long trucks. The system worked via a series of microprocessors that would asses the driving situation, and then turn the rear wheels with an electric steering rack. At slow speeds, like in a parking lot, it would turn the rear wheels in the opposite direction of the fronts, reducing the turning radius. At highway speeds, it would turn the rear wheels in the same direction as the fronts, making the big trucks more maneuverable and less prone to rolling over. The most it would actually ever steer the rear wheels was something like fifteen degrees.
The option was primarily aimed at people who tow frequently. Having rear steering makes driving with a trailer much easier, as it allows for the vehicle-trailer combo to take tighter turns (in a nutshell).
The Quadrasteer trucks were also equipped with
some manner of adjustable rear suspension, which you could tighten up when you were towing a heavy load, further increasing the truck's stability at speed. I'm not sure how these shocks worked, if they were magnetic, or had a type of internal valve adjustment. There's very little information about them online.
The Vortec 8100 / L18 The Vortec 8100 was a naturally aspirated, 8.1 liter big block V8 introduced as an option in 2001 on full-sized trucks, vans, RVs, and SUVs. Also popular as an engine in boats, the Vortec 8100 was marketed as an alternative to GM's Duramax diesel engine. This motor had a cast iron block, and cast iron heads. This gave it a gross weight of... 761 pounds. At the time, it was competing with Dodge's 8.0 liter V10, and Ford's 6.8 liter V10.
In stock guise, the engine had 9.1:1 compression and only 340 horsepower due to torque-optimizing truck heads. Speaking of torque, it made 450 ft/lbs at 3300 RPMs.
Pickup trucks equipped with this engine get around nine miles per gallon. For this reason (among others), the engine was discontinued in 2009.
Unusual Vehicles That Came Northstar-Equipped The first generation SRX ('04-'09), was available with the 4.6 liter, 320 horsepower Northstar V8 engine. Strange for a mid-sized crossover. It could also be had with magnetic shocks. It was available in either RWD or AWD.
The Buick Lucerne sedan could also be had with a 4.6 liter Northstar from '06-'11. Really, it's like a successor to the Buick Lacrosse Super. I say this because it is front-wheel-drive, just like the LS4 equipped cars were. You still get four 'Ventiports', and it makes about the same power, too (275-292 horsepower). It's also called the Lucerne Super, so there's that.
The tenth and final generation
Pontiac Bonneville (yes, they made a GXP) was also available with a 4.6 liter Northstar, albeit only producing 275 horsepower. A four speed automatic transmission was the only option. A modified version of this car set a FWD speed record at the Bonneville salt flats at 204 mph.
Both generations of the
Oldsmobile Aurora ('95-'99 and '01-'03)
(the first generation definitely looks the best) were also available with a FWD Northstar. It was the smallest eight-cylinder Northstar at 4.0 liters. It made 250 horsepower, and was strictly backed up by a four-speed auto. This transmission could not be shifted manually, but had two ferocity settings called 'Normal' and 'Power'. At the time this car was released, it was well-regarded for its nice ride, excellent build quality, and refined engine. Its body structure is also apparently extremely rigid.
Just look at that shifter. Looks like a beige leather Gumby. A highly modified (still 4.0 liter) twin-turbocharged version of this engine was used in a racecar spec of the Aurora for the Indy Racing League and IMSA. It made 650 horsepower. The engine is cool, but the car (The Aurora GTS-1) looks absolutely amazing. It
has a big wing, shoots flames, and has
gold wheels. It won first in its class at the '96 24 hours of Daytona.
This great picture of it was taken by reddit user robwoodham. Never thought my new wallpaper would be an Oldsmobile Aurora.
Chevy Colorado Xtreme The '03-'12 Colorado is on the GMT355 platform, and shares its basic architecture with five other cars. The
Colorado Xtreme is like the SS version of the Colorado, but its called the 'Xtreme'. What is it with marketers removing vowels from buzzwordy names? Why the fuck is 'Activ' a thing?
The Colorado Xtreme gets different front and rear bumpers, new side skirts, some fender flares, a different grille, altered headlights, and 18 inch wheels.
Mechanically, the car's suspension was lowered and stiffened up a little bit. This generation Colorado was available with a series of engines (including a 2.5 liter 4cyl, a 3.5 liter 5cyl, and a 5.3 liter V8), but as far as I know the Xtreme package didn't specify any particular one that you had to get.
You could get this trim on any body-style of the Colorado, so you could have it on the regular, extended, or crew cabs.
Tahoe / Silverado / Suburban Hybrid Most of you probably know they made a Hybrid version of the Tahoe and Suburban. They also made a Hybrid version of the Silverado pickup. Launched in 2004, It was GM's first hybrid passenger car. Really, this system seems pretty useless. It sounds like a sort of very aggressive start-stop. Interestingly however, the Hybrid Silverados were equipped with four regular 120v outlets (two under the rear seats and two in the bed). Construction crews apparently liked that kind of thing.
The pickup was discontinued in 2008, and according to Wikipedia, replaced with a new version on the GMT900 platform that had a CVT. This truck apparently sold very poorly, and sounds like an engineering nightmare.
"On its own, the V8 is rated at 332 horsepower and 367 pound-feet of torque. GM engineers say that combined output with the electric motors is 379 hp. The unique transmission houses the electric motors along with three different planetary gear sets and four traditional clutches"
(Wikipedia).
As far as the Tahoe goes,
Daddy Doug did a video about this car that's really gonna do a better job of explaining them than I am. I recommend you watch it.
They also made a hybrid version of the Escalade, and a pickup truck version of the Escalade, called the EXT. I don't think they made a hybrid Escalade pickup, though. What a shame.
Silverado SS & VHO / Vortec Max package The Chevy Silverado SS visually looks like a mix between the Trailblazer SS and the Colorado Xtreme. Launched in 2003, It is based on the 1500 Silverado Extended Cab. It was equipped with the 6.0 liter LQ9, backed up by a four speed auto. AWD was initially standard, as was a 4.10:1 final drive and four wheel disc brakes. In 2005 a RWD version became available, but this version ditched the rear discs for drums. After 2006, the RWD version was the only one offered. Buyers could also choose a cloth interior and/or a bench seat. Lowered suspension was standard, as were 20 inch alloy wheels. All the SS trucks, both RWD and AWD, used torsion bar style front suspension.
They also made a Silverado SS 'Intimidator', to honor the late Dale Earnhardt. It had different badging, a subtle rear spoiler, and some slightly different upholstery. According to a period piece by trucktrend.com, "It will include a lowered ride height, performance suspension, two-stage multi-leaf springs, Tenneco shocks, a stiffer front stabilizer bar and harder front jounce bumpers. It will also be rear wheel drive with a 3.73 locking rear differential."
It was only available in black. The VHO and Vortec Max packages are a total rabbit hole to research. First of all, they are not necessarily the same thing, however I don't know why they had to rename what are essentially to reasonably similar performance / aesthetic packages for the Chevy Silverado / GMC Sierra. These two packages are essentially just slightly different Silverado SS' without the aesthetic changes.
The Vortex High Output (VHO) package became available in Texas and other surrounding areas in 2004. The single biggest change from the regular trucks was the 6.0 liter LQ9 V8 This engine was shared with several other trucks, including the Silverado SS. VHO equipped trucks also got the Z60 High Performance suspension package, 4L65E transmission (four speed auto), and a 3.73:1 locking rear diff. Aesthetically, you got new chrome 20in wheels. This package could only be had on extended cab standard box 2WD trucks, and lasted until 2005.
In 2006, it was replaced the the Vortec Max package. It could now be had in 4WD, got different suspension than the VHO, and could be had with a 4.10 rear gear. There were a few other changes as well, but none major. It lasted until 2007. If you would like to read more about these confusing trucks, the
Silverado Wikipedia page is a great place to start. '00-'04 Cadillac Deville DTS' Equipped with Night Vision People like to shit on Cadillacs from this era, but the truth is that any issues with interior fit and finish were more than compensated by the technology they got. GM invented magnetic shocks, and a lot of the first cars to get them were Cadillacs. That must've hurt for a
SPORTY European brand when they had to license the technology from... Cadillac. Makes me smile thinking about it. Anyway, they were also the first cars to ever receive a night vision system.
That's right, night vision. The system utilized an infrared sensor behind the grille, which relayed data back to the vehicles heads-up-display. You got a black and white 'thermal' image, in your Cadillac, on your HUD, in the year 2000. The system was co-developed with Raytheon (the defense contractor) and lasted until 2004 when it was discontinued.
Here's a period television advertisement for the system. Pontiac G8 GT and GXP The Pontiac G8 is like the GTO, as it was a re-badged Australian import. More specifically, a Holden Commodore. They're a reasonably big and comfortable RWD sedan. It was for sale in the states from 2008-2009.
The base model has a 3.6 liter V6 and it's automatic only. We do not care about it.
The next trim up was the G8 GT, and it came with a 6.0 liter, fourth gen LS. It had about 360 horsepower, but still no manual transmission. On the outside, it looked a little different. It got clear (as opposed to red) taillight lenses, and quad exhaust tips. You could also get a fresh set of 19s.
The top dog was the G8 GXP. It recieved a 6.2 liter V8 out of the Corvette (the LS3), and finally; a six-speed manual transmission. This meant 415 horsepower and 415 ft/lbs of torque. It could reach sixty miles-per-hour in just 4.5 seconds, and complete a quarter in 13 seconds. It got GM's FE3 sport suspension, and big Brembo brakes. These brakes were definitely necessary, as the G8 weighed very near 4000 pounds. It of course got its own unique front and rear fascias, twin-scoop hood, and wheels.
If you're gonna get this car, I would say get the GXP. However, they only made about 1,800 of them, with 846 being stick. So uhh... good luck. There is one stick GXP for sale on Autotrader for around $19k, with 135k miles on it. Other cleaner examples go for upwards of $30k, even without a stick. Most of them are between $20k and $30k.
There was also some speculation that a 'Ute' (ElCamino car-style pickup) version would be imported. The thing actually showed up at the 2008 NY auto show, but was never sent to the United States.
It looked like this. There was also speculation they would release a wagon version, because they already made a wagon variant of the Commodore in Australia. This never happened either, but people often swap the fascias of these cars,
so we at least know what it would have looked like. You also have Bob Lutz to thank for this car, just like the GTO.
GMC Envoy XUV The Envoy XUV perhaps deserved it's own article, but honestly, it's really dumb, really boring, and it looks like shit. So I didn't want to write it. I'll struggle through a short description here.
This 'truck' seems very similar to the
Studebaker Lark Wagonaire from 1963-1966.
I'm gonna climb up onto my niche car knowledge high horse right now. Wow! I can barely see anything from up here!
The Wagonaire had a very similar arrangement to the XUV. A big sliding panel could telescope into the front area of the roof. This essentially provided the same functionality as the Envoy, and it also leaked like a colander.
The Envoy XUV's whole shtick was that you could put tall shit in the back of your Envoy--like you could in a pickup truck. Stuff like... I don't know... Ladders, grandfather clocks, a ficus--I don't get it. Why not just fold down the rear seats? Unless you have like, a big Tetris-style L shaped refrigerator box, this whole idea is pretty stupid! There's a reason why only one other car did this. GM expected to sell a lot of these--like thirty thousand a year. They sold more like 28 thousand
total after a brief 18 months in production.
Hummer H3 The Hummer H3 shared a platform with the Colorado. You could also get a pickup version of the H3 called the H3T. Both of these cars could be had with a 5.3 liter V8, or a 3.5-3.7 liter, five cylinder Atlas engine, making around 220-240 horsepower. The five cylinder could be had with--get this--a five speed stick shift.
So yes. You could have a 240 horsepower, five speed, five cylinder Hummer H3 that weighed at least 4600 pounds. Thanks GM!
Pontiac GTO / Holden Monaro / Cadillac Catera The Holden Monaro-based
Pontiac GTO was actually a great car. They're still popular today in and out of muscle car circles. They could be had with either a 5.7 liter LS1 (350hp), or a 6.0 liter LS2 from the Corvette (400hp). A stick shift was optional, they were rear-wheel-drive, and they were quick as all hell.
They were brought to the states as a Pontiac after the Holden-badged version received great praise from auto journalists when they drove it in Australia. Bob Lutz fought the good fight and got them imported over here so we could enjoy it.
The GTO in the states weighed about 3800 pounds due to its big V8 and sturdy suspension. It has four-wheel disc brakes, and independent rear suspension. The seats in all of these cars are apparently very good. They also pull .88g on a skidpad , and magazines at the time described them as soft, but good handling cars. They imported about 41k, and prices today are reasonable. Nice ones can be had for around $15k or less.
I recommend reading the Wikipedia article concerning these cars, as its well done, and contains every detail you would ever want to know about them.
Here's a link to that. I included the
Cadillac Catera because everyone forgot about it and it's on the same basic platform. It was actually just a re-badged Opel. Very sad car to look at, and drive. The only available engine was a 200hp 3.0 liter V6, and the only transmission was a four-speed auto. The last one was made in 2001, so it's just barely in my pre-recession threshold.
A Saab 9-3 SportCombi Rabbit Hole The 9-3 SportCombi is the wagon version of the 9-3 sedan. There were two different styles of front fascia for this car. The version I'm going to focus on is the final one, made from 2008-2009.
I found myself in this rabbit hole because I was going to combine the 9-2X article with a 9-3x Sportcombi article. I knew they made a 9-3x SportCombi Aero with AWD, which had an identicle 0-60 time as the 9-2X Aero. For all intents and purposes, they were nearly the same car (both AWD 'Saab' wagons with similar performance specs). I thought it would be a cool thing to do, however I ran into a conundrum.
Now, all of the following production numbers come from 'esaabparts.com', so don't come after me if my counts are not to your liking.
They made 2,060 9-3 SportCombi Aero wagons, but only 356 were AWD. It's complicated, too. Besides the regular Aeros, of which there are 221, they made the "Turbo X" cars. These are just black 9-3, AWD Aeros with a special badge. They made 135 AWD wagons in the "Turbo X" guise. That means we have 356 cars of identical spec, besides the transmissions and colors. Of those 356, there are 90 available in stick (these 90 are the ones I was looking for)
My new mission was finding one of these 90 SportCombi, Aero, AWD wagons with a 6spd stick. It's essentially a Saab 9-2X Aero, just much rarer and more niche.
Even finding automatic versions of this car was difficult. I found only one on Cargurus.
Frustrated, I broadened my search to ANY manual, AWD Sportcombi Saab (they also made the non-Aero 2.0T). This made me realize that, actually, the most uncommon version was the 2.0T stick, at just 76 total (so there's a total of 166 AWD stick SportCombis). Well I looked and looked, and only found sold ones. I think everyone who knows what this car is snaps them up as soon as they come up for sale. Besides the automatic Aero I found, I located two 2.0T AWD wagons with automatic transmissions. If you really want one of these cars, PM me and i'll send you the links.
Just get the 9-2X, though. I wasted my life looking for these cars.
Saturn Astra The
Saturn Astra was a re-badged Opel Astra, and it was imported in the United States in 2008 to replace the Ion. Available with just one engine, a 1.8 liter four cylinder with 138 horsepower, it was pretty bad. Transmission options included a five-speed stick or four-speed auto. The version pictured is the five-door, but they also came in a
three-door that didn't look half bad.
Doug DeMuro wrote a somewhat interesting article about them three years ago on
Autotrader's Oversteer. Apparently Doug used to be a Saturn Salesman.
He claims it's the coolest Saturn ever, but that's just plainly not true. How could this hold a candle to the mighty LSJ-powered Ion RedLine? Plus,
The interior on this car is truly dismal. Looks like somebody spray painted some clamshell packaging silver and glued Oreos to it. Everything I read about this car anywhere says it's a total piece. Parts are apparently very scarce, so you can get them for absolutely nothing. I wouldn't if I were you.
Conclusion The best part of this series was hearing the stories in the comments, and the feedback you gave me concerning the many assumptions I had to make. The threads are really a wealth of information concerning the cars themselves, and the human side of them.
I recommend anyone interested in this era of vehicles from General Motors (and why they went bankrupt) either read or listen to Bob Lutz's book Car Guys vs Bean Counters. Lutz was GM's chairman at the time. He spends some portions of the book patting himself on the back, and other portions disputing the merits of climate change. At other times, he's extremely critical of the media, and the left wing in general. That being said, he also has a good sense of humor, a genuine care and interest for cars, and he has a unique behind-the-scenes perspective on the whole situation. He's the sole reason why we got the Solstice, GTO, and G8 to name a few examples. There's a lot of great stories in the book I'm sure you would all be glad to hear. I recommend getting the audiobook. The narration is good and I listened to it while I was driving.
If you would like to read more of these sorts of stories-- I'm open to writing more, It's just tough for me to justify without being compensated. That however, does not mean you have to pay anything for them. Send a tip to somebody like Jalopnik or elsewhere, and they may give me a little cash to contribute pieces like this (with a little luck). The only reason I could do these posts in the first place was because I'm on break before my final semester of college.
Anybody who gave me encouraging or kind words I thank. In fact, I thank you very much. It made writing these a lot easier, and the thought that I could sit down and write something people actually look forward to is still a concept I am unfamiliar with. I apologize to anyone who thanked me for writing these posts and didn't get a response.
I will be backing up the final versions of these articles on my personal blog, [peterholderith.com](peterholderith.com). They will be corrected with all of the feedback you guys gave me, and I will likely add in a few stories you guys had to tell, with credit to your username. They will also have regular images instead of the annoying little formatted links I had to make when I translated the posts onto reddit. This will be done before I go back to school around the 5th, but probably sooner.
These posts may be over, but I still write the car satire site bald.tires as well. Me and the great people who write with me try to put stuff out three times a week, and we usually succeed. If you enjoyed the humor component of these articles, I suggested you either follow
@_baldtires on Twitter, or just subscribe via email on the site itself. Twitter is really the best place to get updates about this sort of thing when I'm able to make it happen.
Happy Holidays,
Peter
# Super Twins #3 - Crash Into Me
<< | < | [>]
Author:
OneKnownAsImp Book:
Super Twins Arc:
Crash Into Me Set:
49 --- It had been a terribly boring day until someone decided to blow the door to the jewelry store that Maggie Pye had been casing clear off its hinges. A trio of middle-aged thugs stomped in through the now open doorway, brandishing some advanced looking weaponry that clearly shouldn’t have belonged to them. One had a long sci-fi looking, would-be shotgun, another wore a glove with a bright glow that was quickly fading and the third wore a belt with some fancy-looking metallic orbs.
Two security guards scrambled for the door, unholstering their weapons, but the man with the glove thrust his arm out towards them, fist clenched. Their weapons jerked out of the guards’ hands and flew through the air, sticking to the glove as if it was a magnet. He unclenched his fist and the weapons clattered to the ground.
The gloved man thrust his hand out and batted his arm towards the guards, flicking his wrist. The two men blasted across the jewelry store, slamming into the back counter and flipping over it on either side of the cashier, dropping out of sight with a pair of thuds.
Maggie licked her lips.
“Hit the deck or get wrecked,” one of them belted.
The other two chuckled. Maggie just rolled her eyes. There was a hodgepodge of screams and gasps and then, as if in the midst of a choreographed routine, everyone flopped onto the floor.
Maggie found herself on the floor as well, playing a part. She was always playing a part. Today’s role? Frantic civilian. “Oh God,” she screamed dramatically, loud enough that they’d have to be hard of hearing to miss it. “The police, someone-,” she dug into her pocket and pulled out her phone.
“Have you lost your damn mind, girl?” The one with the gun lunged over and kicked the phone out of her hand and pressed the gun’s barrel against her nose.
She yearned to know what the weapon was capable of. She didn’t take these men for the cold, hard types that’d kill a woman at the drop of a hat, so she had to channel her excitement into a veneer of terror so as to maintain her role.
“Oh God, I’m sorry I, I wasn’t thinking.” On cue, tears welled up in her eyes.
“Clearly.” The gunman tapped the barrel to her head. “One more move and I’ll liquify you. He pointed the gun at a light mounted on the wall and fired. The light lost all form and dripped onto the floor leaving a puddle.
The goon with the orbs stomped over to it and kicked the puddle into Maggie’s face. She genuinely flinched, expecting it to be steaming hot but it was cool to the touch. She breathed a sigh of relief. Scars would make it more difficult for her to blend in and she didn’t want to have to continuously conceal burns on her face.
At once they all perked up as if just noticing the blaring alarms. “We’ve had our fun,” said the gloved guy, “playtime’s over. Now it’s showtime.” The other two men nodded and the one with the orbs pulled one off his belt. He pressed a button on it and softly dropped it in front of him. It ‘landed’ around waist height and just floated there. The orb expanded and unraveled, ditching its metallic form for that of a glowing pale-blue translucent sphere.
The one with the glove raised his arm above him and spread his fingers out. He strained, grunted and then all the jewelry leapt from their places, shattering glass in their wake on the way to the man’s gloved hand, which was glowing again. Maggie’s cell hitched a ride along with all the jewelry. She reached out toward it, but pulled back suddenly when the gunman turned back to her. She shrank back onto the floor, cowering, staving off the twitching hints of a smile.
In the end, once all the loot had made its way to the gloved man and stuck to his gear, it looked almost as if the man had shoved his hand into one very expensive beehive.
He whipped his hand towards the blue sphere and the entire haul obediently flew into it, rippling the surface of the orb on the way through and then disappearing completely from sight. The one with the orbs flipped a switch on his belt and the orb shrank and returned to its smaller metallic form. He reached out and caught the orb as it began to drop and snapped it back onto his belt.
“Job’s done in record time,” one said. The three men backed out and Maggie heard the screeching of a vehicle, and they were gone.
Maggie got up, dusted off her skirt and looked around. Sirens blared in the distance. Not 10 seconds after the men had retreated, she waltzed out the store’s now open doorway and made her way down to the street towards the parking garage she’d left her car in, her bag swaying at her side. She guessed that the men were focused on the jewelry and didn’t want to waste their time collecting and digging through everyone’s bags so other than her missing phone, she and the rest of the shoppers were mostly left alone. Of course the rest were liable to bawl their eyes out once the shock wore off, but not Maggie.
She made her way up to the third level in the parking garage and found her sports car. She may have been a university student but she’d always had her ways to make ends meet and then some. She plopped herself in the driver’s seat, flicking the peacock shaped air-freshener she had hanging on her mirror. She doubted peacocks smelled all that great but she happened to like this particular scent, which for ever reason smelled a lot more like a pine tree than any bird she’d ever been around.
She slid a second smartphone out of her bag and turned it on. Though her plans did not always involve losing her personal phone on purpose, she always kept a spare nearby just in case.
A digitized magpie call sounded from the phone as it booted up. As she pulled up the ‘Find My Phone’ app but the only phone that came up was the one that she held.
She thought back to her ‘confiscated’ phone and all the rest of the thugs’ loot disappearing into the orb. So it’s not traceable while inside the orb, then? That made some sort of sense. It was a gamble, assuming that the trio of robbers would allow themselves to be tracked via a cellphone, but she trusted her gut and always enjoyed a little improv.
But they had to dump their loot eventually, right? So Maggie waited. An hour, then two, then it got dark and she stopped really paying attention to the time. She was comfortable playing the role of a night owl anyway and she’d paid for all-day parking. Might as well milk that parking pass for all it’s worth. She’d heard that leaving her car idling for so long like this was bad for it but cars were replaceable. Her time was not and she didn’t intend to waste that on boredom.
It felt kind of like a stakeout really, or at least that’s how she kept from getting too bored with the tedium. She jammed out to the Cure, the Mountain Goats and the Maniaks, tuned into a news station every so often, and stared at her phone. Eventually she broke open a book of riddles, brain teasers, puzzles, all that jazz.
Finally she resorted to sketching. She did her best to sketch the three men from memory, to capture the chaos of the jewelry store, and to sketch what she imagined she herself must have looked like playing her part in that moment. Silly, pitiful, convincing. She drew their loot. She drew their gear which interested her most. It had to be worth more than all the loot combined.
She spent the most time on her sketch of the glove. That was the true prize of the lot. She assumed the gloved man was the de facto leader of the group because there’s no way someone would give out the best toy to a subordinate.
It was past ten when her phone finally blipped into existence in the app. She keyed the address into her phone, kicked her car into drive and made her way to the parking garage’s exit and toward her route. Eventually it led her to a decrepit looking warehouse in the harbor district. She parked close, but not too close to the building itself so as to not be conspicuous. “The game is afoot,” she muttered to herself.
--- (The Next Afternoon) “It’s good to be back.” Conner stepped out of an Uber and sucked in a breath of the Metropolis’s remarkably fresh, at least when compared to the other cities he’d been in, city air. He linked his hands behind him and bent pop, popping his spine.
Before he could finish his, Linda exited the cab and practically bowled right into him, sending him stumbling to the side. He cocked an eyebrow, but she only rolled her eyes. “Feels like we only just left Metropolis. It hasn’t even been two months. I wish we could just stay home. Or just in one place.”
“Lately it’s been hard to get you out of your ‘one place’. It practically feels like I’m staying in your room, not ours.”
Linda didn’t look Conner in the eyes. “I have my reasons, you know that. I’m working on it.”
Conner pursed his lips. “Uh, right. My bad, my bad.”
Martha stepped out of the Uber. “You two aren’t bickering again are you.”
“I’m not sure I’d call it that,” Linda said, then she turned and stared at their ride’s trunk expectantly.
“Linda, come on,” Conner muttered. “You know I didn’t mean anything by it.”
Jonathan finished tipping their driver, then jogged over behind Conner and Linda, slapping a hand down on each of their shoulders. “Come on you two, we only just got here and you’re both moping. Martha and I are the adults here. It’s our job to do the worrying for you two, though if you ask me worrying never did anyone a lick of good. Just enjoy this time we all have together, alright?”
“I don’t know how you can say stuff like that with a straight face, Mr. Kent,” Linda said.
“Like what, exactly,” Jonathan asked.
“That cheesy stuff. The same kinda stuff Clark likes to say,” Linda said.
“I guess we know where Clark gets it, huh,” Conner quipped.
Linda smirked. “Conner, you really don’t have a leg to stand on here. You’re cut from the same cloth, you dork.”
Jonathan just laughed, slapping his knee. Martha smiled.
“At least I’m not the dark lord of the grumps.”
“And that,” Linda said, tapping Conner on the forehead, “is exactly the kind of nonsense I’m talking about.”
Conner gave a toothy grin. “Snarky you beats mopey you any day.”
“Oh, can it.”
--- Linda and Conner hung out in Jonathan and Martha’s room until the two adults got settled, then crossed the hall to their own two-bed, room 500. As soon as they were settled in Conner left to poke around the hotel while Linda flopped belly down onto her bed, flipped on the TV and directed her attention to her phone.
A little while later, the door clicked open and Conner walked back into the room. “This place is pretty nice. The fitness area even has kettlebells and a rowing machine.”
“How’s the pool,” Linda asked.
“Bigger than you’d expect. It’s even got one of those looping slides. But more importantly it’s indoors leaving you without any excuse not to swim,” Conner said with a flourish.
Linda just shook her head. “Maybe I just don’t feel like swimming,” she said.
“Inconceivable. Unacceptable. Lame.” He glanced at the TV. “What’re you watching?”
Linda flipped to the TV guide. “Looks like it’s called Whiplash. I wasn’t really paying attention”
“I’m going out for a while. Want to come with?”
“You already know the answer to that.” Conner sighed. “That’d be a no then. You want anything while I’m out?”
“Maybe something sweet from Sundollar,” Linda said.
“Coffee Chip it is then. Back later.”
Conner slipped out into the hallway and knocked on the Kents’ door. Martha promptly answered.
“You guys don’t mind if I get out and stretch my legs for a bit, do you?”
“No, just so long as you stay safe out there.”
“Well then, Linda wants some coffee. Do you guys want anything?”
“Oh, nothing for us, dear,” Martha said. “Couldn’t drag Linda out of the room, huh?”
Conner shook his head. “I’m afraid not. The ball game is already going to be a stretch.” By now they were all used to Linda excluding herself from outings like this whenever possible. They didn’t have to be content with her isolating herself though.
“I would say that the two of you haven’t reached coffee-age yet, but with your Kryptonian biology it’s practically just brown, funny tasting water, huh? Let me get you some cash.” Martha disappeared for a moment and then returned with a good deal more cash than Conner needed.
“I don’t need this much just for coffee, Mrs. Kent.”
“It’d sure be a shame if it didn’t make it all back into my purse,” Martha said with a wink. “Have a little fun. I trust that you’ll keep your hands clean.”
Conner grinned. “It’d sure be a shame if any remaining change magically made its way back into your bag, too. I’ll try not to go too crazy with it.”
“You’ve got your outfit on underneath that, right?”
He wore a blue and black plaid shirt under his leather jacket and a pair of washed-out grey jeans. His shoes were blue basketball shoes, accented with red and black. He wore a grey pack on his back. He could just feel his costume hiding away underneath.
“Yeah, just in case. If you had to ask, I guess it must not be showing then, huh? Good.”
“Let’s just hope that you don’t need it today. There’s no reason you should have to get all wound up on our vacation.”
Conner took the stairs down to the ground floor and GPS’d the nearest Sundollar on his phone. There were three within a half-mile of him. He chose one a little further away, about a fifteen minute walk according to his app. He didn’t want this little jaunt into the city to be too too short. He threw on a pair of bluetooth headphones, turned on some music and made his way towards his Sundollar of choice.
“Hey kid, how about you grab one of these hero shirts?” Conner peeked over at a portly street vendor selling T-shirts on a stand. He had a small crowd on his hands, but that hadn’t stopped the man from taking notice of Conner. “They’re all the rage,” he continued. Conner was still about five minutes from his destination at this point, but curiosity got the best of him so he glanced over the stand
This being Metropolis, over half the shirts were in some way related to Superman. There were shirts with graphics of Superman flying, Superman standing majestically, and even Superman swinging a car around. Conner wasn’t sure that one had ever even happened. They even had a depiction of his public debut landing the plane. From there there was a litany of shirts depicting logos with slightly or vastly altered color schemes, even including purple and pink versions. Conner saw a few Supergirl shirts too, and shirts representing the members of the Justice League but he didn’t see any one shirt that quite matched his outfit. Conner wondered how Clark and the others felt about people using their images to turn a profit.
“Got any Superboy?”
“Sorry kid, the ladies buy plenty of Supergirl shirts but I did a test run of Superboy shirts and boys just seemed to prefer Superman shirts.” Conner winced. Even though he was weirdly happy for Linda, he couldn’t help but feel a bit slighted. Maybe Linda had benefited from Kara paving the way first with her brand. The man pursed his lips. “I didn’t think it’d upset you that much. I’ll tell you what,” the man rifled through some of the shirts, muttering to himself all the while. “Looks like the fit type, maybe a men’s large or XL… Kid, you play linebacker?”
“Uh, I don’t play football, nah.”
“Real shame, as big as you are.” The man scratched his chin as he eyed Conner. “Maybe try combat sports when you get a bit older. Mixed martial arts are all the rage.”
“Thanks, but, uh, I think that’d just cause problems for me.”
“Eh, I guess it isn’t for everyone. Just don’t be wasting your youth.” The vendor finally pulled out a black shirt with a red Superman logo and presented it to Conner. “This is one of the ‘cool’ designs that the kids seem to like. How about it? I’ll even give you, uh, ten percent off!”
Conner smirked. “Gee thanks, tax-free. How much for that one and one of those Supergirl shirts?” The man quoted a price and Conner paid in exact change. “Thanks.” Conner shoved the shirts in his pack, saluted the man, and then turned to leave.
“Best of luck kid. Stay safe out there, things can get crazier than you’d expect around here.”
“I’ll keep my head on a swivel.”
Conner made his way to the Sundollar and got in line. After a few minutes he reached the front of the line and ordered his and Linda’s drinks. He sat down on one of the soft leather chairs in the Sun Dollar lobby while he waited for his order to come out. Conner pulled up Facebook on his phone and casually scrolled down his feed in an effort to make it less obvious that he’d taken this down time as an opportunity to people-watch.
If he was being honest, the people in Smallville tended to only come in so many varieties, at least on the surface. That was to be expected when living out in the country. But Metropolis was a melting pot. People of all types lived in Metropolis. A cute desi university student stood behind an athletic man in his 40’s who had to be upwards of 6’6” and was built like a bodybuilder. A tall blonde military woman exited the Sundollar as a lean man in a suit entered Perhaps a stock broker?
Conner flicked his gaze back to his phone every time anyone seemed to glance over at him. Conner wished that Linda could be more comfortable venturing out the way she used to be. She wasn’t above people-watching herself. But for the time being he knew that that shared activity was mostly tabled. But he’d hold out hope that she’d feel comfortable enough to relax in a Sundollar with him, surrounded by strangers.
A sound poked at the edges of Conner’s attention, like a high-pitched computer fan first kicking into gear and then building. It was easy to ignore for a moment but it grated on his nerves as a dog whistle might bother a dog. He could not tune it out. Conner looked out the window following the sound and noticed that it was coming from a jewelry store across the street. Everything looked normal inside but his gut was telling him something was up.
There were still several drink orders ahead of him. Conner slipped out the door and started unbuttoning his shirt as he turned the corner into an alley-way. “This looks like a job for-” A Sundollar employee around Conner’s age leaned against the wall next to the alley’s dumpster and vaped. She stared at him as he unbuttoned his shirt, and seemed to be caught half-way between interested and weirded out.
Conner hurriedly buttoned the top few buttons back up and let out an awkward cough. “Uh, sure is hot out here,” he glanced at her nametag, “uh, Margot? He said her name with a questioning tone and immediately cringed inwardly.
She rolled her eyes, pushed out of her cool, leaning position and walked past him. “I have a boyfriend.”
“And I have an undershirt! Don’t get the-” she was already gone. “Uh, wrong idea…” Well that earned him some privacy at least. There was no one left in the alley so Conner leapt up onto an adjacent rooftop, landing smoothly with his feet only just on the edge of the rooftop. He was face to face with a middle-aged woman drinking out of a flask. Surprised he flailed his arms and lost his balance, falling to the side. His fall was cut short by a fire escape. The woman didn’t pay him any mind, seeming completely unphased that he’d completed a four story jump right in front of her. Do these types of things happen to Clark? Surely not, right? It had to be Conner’s luck or perhaps just his carelessness.
He jumped across the alley to the rooftop of the Sundollar, quickly stripped into his costume, put his jacket back on, slipped on his shades, shoved his stripped clothing into his pack and slid the pack to the corner of the rooftop.
As if on queue, Conner heard a loud pop and then the shrill crash of shattered glass from the jewelry store. People came pouring out of the store in a panic dispersing in every which way, even across the street between traffic-stalled cars. He spotted one girl running with blood staining a long white glove she was wearing. Conner hovered off the rooftop and glided over to check on the girl.
--- No plan was perfect, Maggie Pye thought. Even so, she felt that her plan for today had turned out particularly imperfect. It was a far cry from her improvised plan the night before. Of the three men that had robbed the jewelry shop with their fancy gear, only one had still been at the warehouse when she picked the lock and snuck her way in. On top of that, the robbery must have been awfully exhausting to him since she’d found him napping on a fold-out chair. In the time that she’d allotted herself to poke around the warehouse, she hadn’t been able to find the jewelry, but she had made a game out of slipping the telekinetic glove off the man’s arm without him noticing.
In the movies when the hero is trying to get a key or something off of a sleeping bad guy, it seems to take forever and the bad guy always seems to find himself on the verge of waking up, but this man had been particularly boring as he slept like a baby during the entire 12 second theft of the glove. It was comparatively boring but she wasn’t about to complain about that.
It was all she had gotten but it was what she wanted most anyway. She had spent the night messing with it, levitating an apple, pushing, pulling, lifting, lowering. She did the same for a five-pound weight. She’d manipulated multiple objects at once, though the more objects she had to focus on, the harder it became to manipulate them in more specific ways. She could move around a single coin floating in the air as a puppeteer might, two or three coins and things got a bit tougher to manage. Their movements would become jerky and if she lost focus, one or more of them might fall altogether. Any more than that and she was limited basically to simply single direction manipulation. She could push and pull a group of things, such as all the valuables in a jewelry store. But anything more specific than that and she might fail to move anything at all. Figuring out her limitations ended up becoming sort of a mind bending puzzle to her. The glove itself also almost seemed to open up a sixth sense. If you focus on an object you can almost sense it, connect to it, feel it without feeling it. But when you take the glove off, that feeling simply disappears as if it had never been.
She’d practiced and decided on the perfect trial run. Nothing too complicated. She was going to use it to make off with a single necklace before anyone could make heads or tails of the situation. She planned to enter a jewelry store in disguise, not one of her usual haunts, and yank a necklace right through its glass display case and into her bag so quickly that she would be gone before anyone had time to get a handle on the situation.
She browsed in the store for a several minutes, even asking the clerk if she could see a couple pieces of the jewelry, inquiring about prices and so on, all the while waiting for business in the store to pick up.
Maggie had been thorough with her disguise. She wore brown-eye color contacts, a red wig and had applied make-up to make it look as though she had freckles on her face. She’d padded out her waist and curvature to make her look, well, a good bit curvier than her naturally lithe build. In her purse she had a fake ID to sell this identity if needed. She wore a long blue skirt, a nice blue blouse, and pale-blue gloves that reached her forearms, the kind one might wear to go ballroom dancing, in order to hide the telekinetic glove underneath on her right hand. The glove had a gaudy sort of sci-fi look to it but was surprisingly form fitting enough to barely be noticeable when covered up and the colors she’d chosen to wear would make the glove’s glow much less obvious. She’d activated the glove some time ago, flicking it on with a thought, and just let it idle. During her practice run it had taken a bit to build up energy before the glove was usable.
The place filled up until nearly a dozen customers were wandering around, shopping, some by themselves, some as couples. And so Maggie waited until all the clerks were occupied and stood opposite the store from the necklace she had decided to target, making sure that there wouldn’t be anyone between her and the necklace. She didn’t want to make a mess of things on her first dry run with the glove. With her back turned to the target, she focused on the necklace until she could really feel it, then tried to link it to her purse in her mind and gave it a gentle tug.
Bad things come in threes they say. Maggie Pye believed it. Today those three things would come in the form of monkey wrenches, shoved directly into her plan. The first misfortune began with a loud popping sound, almost like a gun. Maggie whipped around to find the necklace bursting through the glass and hurtling towards her, not her purse, as if fired out of a cannon. She reached out towards it but before she could will it to push away from her it scraped across her the telekinetic glove and ricocheted into her bicep, cutting into it and dangling loosely from it.
She crumpled to the floor after taking the shot. She felt a sudden burning, stinging sensation, and blood dribbled down her arm onto her gloves. She gave an involuntary, sharp gasp and then finally her impulse triggered the glove. A shockwave blasted from the glove in all directions shoving people away from her, even knocking a few down, and shattering every glass jewelry display in the store and sending the shards sliding across the showroom floor.
The other shoppers froze for a moment and then worked themselves into a frenzy. Pushing and shoving they made their way for the exit. Curled up on the floor, Maggie did her best to think the situation through. As it often did, Maggie’s predicament called for some improv. Had anybody connected her to the shockwave? No one stopped to help her or even shot a hurried glance in her direction.
She snuck a peak at the camera closest to her, just above and behind her. It was one of those black dome cameras that you might see in a department store and it had been smashed directly into the ceiling. She found that she was glad no one had been too close to her. Some random person getting seriously injured would have complicated things for her. Especially in Metropolis, you might garner the wrong kind of attention injuring an innocent bystander.
She had chosen this spot to obscure the angle between the camera and her target, while also recording Maggie looking completely disinterested in any of the goings-on behind her. That plan was now seriously working against her. Could they still review the footage? The other, mostly undamaged cameras could have had their lens on her by chance. If anything it would look like the necklace just shot at her out of nowhere, but how obvious would the shockwave be? She imagined it’d be blatantly obvious. Speaking of the shockwave, what the heck was even going on? Was there something wrong with the glove? Had she just not practiced with it enough?
Maggie decided it would be best to just leave things up to her gut instinct. Still curled on the floor, Maggie quickly slid the necklace out of her arm and breathed a sigh of relief. It hadn’t cut as deep as she had thought. Blood trickled from the cut, and she would need to bandage her arm when given the chance, but it could wait. She slipped the bloodied necklace into her bag, stumbled to her feet, and merged in with the other few that had been knocked to the ground as they reached the doors. Even the clerks were trying to shove their way out of the store.
Just like that, she scurried out of the jewelry store and strode out into the crosswalk. She’d escaped the store but she needed to quickly find another crowd to blend into. She glanced down at the thin stream of blood running down her arm. She needed to do something about that too. She could hardly blend in at a coffee shop with blood-stained gloves. Freedom was in sight, but freedom flew off when her second misfortune, some Superman wannabe kid, came flying in wearing a suitably dorky, colorful costume and a leather jacket that she swore had to be older than she was. She resisted the urge to cock an eyebrow at him, choosing instead to fall into character. She could still make this work. She reached her left hand across her body to cover the wound. Maybe he would leave her alone if he didn’t see the cut.
“Miss, your arm is bleeding are you alright?”
“I’m fine, Superman, you should be sure to check on the others though.” The boy’s some hero or something but he was still green behind the ears. An attractive young woman, even one in a ridiculous disguise herself, could go far by simply appealing to a young boy’s ego, unexpectedly.
He balked a moment. “I’m not… I’m… Surely you don’t actually think... Well whatever. We’ll circle back to that in a minute.”
“I think there was someone left in the store,” Maggie lied. “There’s not, I already checked.” He rotated in the air, glancing at the other shoppers. Maggie stopped for a moment, turned back and saw the store’s staff standing outside. One was on the phone, perhaps with her boss or with the police. Blast it.
“Don’t you worry about me sir. I’m perfectly fine.” Maggie hurried for the end of the crosswalk.”
“Wait,” the boy shouted.
“Would you just leave me alone,” she snapped back over her shoulder. Before she’d realized it she’d broken character. Was it just an off day? There was a honk and the screeching of tired. She whipped her head to the right. A red sports car was swerving right at her. “Oh blast-”
The car disappeared from in front of her and she found herself in the boy’s arms, twenty feet in the air. She tried not to panic. Would he notice the glove? Was her wig still on? The boy seemed accustomed to this type of thing. Had she seen something on the Daily Planet’s website about him some time ago? She couldn’t remember. Think, think, think. Could Superman or boy or whoever… “Can you read my mind,” she blurted out.
“What?”
“Forget it. Put me down.”
“We’re going to do something about your arm.”
Maggie rolled her eyes. Something about the kid just pissed her off and she couldn’t find it in herself to piece her broken character back together. “Can you not read lips either? Put me the hell down.”
It was the boy’s turn to roll his eyes.
--- This girl was all over the place. Perhaps she’s just in shock, he thought to himself. Do people in shock roller coasteresque mood whiplash? Considering his super heroic extracurriculars, maybe he should look into how to deal with people in shock.
“You’re going to be alright, I won’t drop you.”
“Please do.”
Conner just shook his head as he touched down on the rooftop next to his bag and released the girl. “Just let me patch you up real quick. I’m only trying to help.”
“I didn’t ask for your help.”
Conner pointed at the girl exasperatedly. “You’d have gotten run over by a car if I hadn’t helped.” He pulled a shirt out of his bag and walked towards her.
The girl glowered at him “Only because I had to stop and deal with you to begin with.” She pointed accusingly. There was a humming noise from the girl’s hand. Conner felt a dizziness come upon him.
“No, no, no no,” the girl muttered, staring at her hand. One of her gloves seemed to glow just a bit. The humming escalated and Conner’s dizziness made way for a splitting headache. Before he could gather himself, he stumbled and nearly fell into the girl before catching himself.
Conner saw a sparkle in her eyes, not the cute kind, but the kind a championship boxer might have as they prepare their knockout blow after breaking their opponent’s guard. “Huh,” she said amusedly. Then she pointed up and some invisible force socked Conner in the gut and launched him a couple dozen feet into the air. He caught himself at the top of his ascent, letting his flight take over but something snatched him out of the air and forced him back down, smashing him against the rooftop in front of the girl.
“You could have just left me alone.” The girl pointed down and suddenly like how Conner imagined it would feel to be at the bottom of a pile in a football game, scrounging around in an attempt to recover a fumble. “You still could. All I took was one measly necklace. Let the Magpie fly away and Superboy lives to play the hero another day.”
Conner gritted his teeth. “I’ve had about enough.” Without prying his arm off the rooftop, Conner mustered all his strength and lifted only his hand, slamming it open palmed on the rooftop. The roof shook and the girl stumbled forward. The humming wound down a bit and so did Conner’s headache. The pressure on Conner’s back was gone. He lunged forward off the ground and caught the girl’s gloved, glowing hand and gripped it tight.
“You know, you’re really exhausting,” Conner said, smirking. He tapped into his tactile telekinesis. “See if you like it when you’re on the receiving end.” Conner nodded down at the ground and winked. His telekinesis floored her and she wound up curled on the ground, her right arm pinned underneath her.
He sighed as he picked the shirt back up. “I’m just going to bandage your arm and then we’re going to go on a little trip to the police station.
“Can’t… breathe,” she gasped.
Conner loosened his hold on her just a bit and knelt down next to her. He worked on getting her turned over so that he could work on her right arm. As he did, she thrust her right arm right in his face.
“Idiot,” she muttered, sporting a smirk of her own.
The glove hummed and the headache returned. She blasted him off of her but Conner was ready for it. It hadn’t carried him more than six feet before he tumbled backwards in the air, spread his arms and legs out wide and caught himself.
He reached out towards her matching her push with his own. The glove hummed louder, Conner focused harder, pushing through his headache. He was really working up a sweat. Some jewelry thief weirdo was pushing him a lot harder than was acceptable. He had to wrap this up before things got ugly for either of them. He punched the air between them hoping to amp up his own push, catch her off guard and knock her off her feet. She did the same, open palmed. There were popping and crackling sounds coming from the girl now. She glimpsed at her glove And Conner saw his opening. He flew forward, closing the gap in a blink and reached from above for her arm. He pushed, she didn’t let up.
Conner reached his right arm forward, fingertips extended as he’d seen Clark fly. Their fingertips met.
--- Magpie’s glove sparked and released another shockwave, this time focused directly at Superboy. It launched him into the air. She thought that she’d won but either her own push had recoiled back into her or Superboy’s push had finally gotten through to her. doing so lowered her guard and the boy’s own power pitched her off the rooftop and sent her plummeting towards a busy street. She flailed her arms reflexively and screamed bloody murder.
Before she could come face to face with her own inevitable death though, gravity seemed to reverse. At first, hanging upside down in mid-air, she came to a complete stop, giving her just enough time to catch her breath. Her wig slipped off and splayed over the windshield of a car that whizzed by just below. Then it was back to screaming her lungs out. She went tumbling end over end back into the air. She passed the rooftop she’d just been on and continued her involuntary ascent. She heard a deeper scream, and caught glimpses as she spun through the air of Superboy plummeting in her direction.
They slammed into each other in mid-air, leaving Maggie dazed, though she thought that they were probably falling. Superboy seemed to gather his senses first and just like that they were suspended in the air. They hung in the air for a moment in silence. She was awkwardly pinned against him somehow or so she thought.
“Put… me… the hell… down...”
He pressed his hand against his temple and massaged it. Maggie took a moment to catch her breath.
“Aren’t you supposed to have super hearing?”
“I’m not sure that I can.”
Maggie groaned. “You aren’t sure whether you can hear me?”
“No, I mean I’m not sure I can put you down this time,” he nodded down at her arm, “because I’m not carrying you to begin with.”
Maggie followed his gaze and saw that he really wasn’t holding her up at all. Her hand, palm open, was pressed against his chest, stuck to him like metal against a magnet, and she dangled loosely at his side. With an effort he pried her hand off of him and raised her up into a more comfortable position next to him but the moment he released her hand it snapped to his back and stuck. She tried to pry her hand off but the further she managed to pull her hand from him, the more forcefully it snapped back onto him.
He began a steady descent back to the rooftop. She gripped his shoulder for leverage and pried her right arm off of him as best she could and suddenly it stopped pulling towards him. Her arm swung all the way back away from him and she lurched sideways into him, sticking on contact just as the glove had. Whatever force was sticking them together didn’t seem to be limited to the glove. “I think I preferred it before.” Maggie just sat still, mouth agape, pondering how much of a joke her life had suddenly become in a single day thanks to this super idiot. They were nearly back on the rooftop when her power glove pulsed and made a pinging noise. “What the…”
The T-shirt that Superboy had been trying to bandage her with sprung off the rooftop and stuck to her arm. The glove pinged again and the boy’s bag followed suit, leaping at him, slamming into his back and then just hanging there. She couldn’t even bring herself to chuckle at it.
Was she only at three misfortunes now? At this point she felt like she must have passed that total a while ago. “You could have just left me alone, you know,” she whined.
“No way,” he said, his voice a little deeper than before. He puffed his chest out as best as he could with her stuck to his side. “Because a true hero always helps those that need it.”.
Next Issue: >> Super Twins #4 (Coming Soon) Tell us a little about yourself. I was born and raised in Colorado, am an aspiring polyglot, and split my time between Denver, D.C., Seattle, and Tokyo.
When did you first become interested in horror? My mom is Japanese. She has some
crazy ghost stories about growing up in
Matsudo-shi. Some of the best I’ve ever heard. So, I guess you could say it just runs in my blood?
Can we hear one of those ghost stories now? Sure, why not. When she was a little girl, my mom would go to and from school alone. To get there she’d have to ride the train a decent amount of time. One day, she noticed a woman following her from the train station back to her house. The woman looked…
wrong. Long, unkempt hair, sallow skin, sad eyes. The woman always mysteriously disappeared when my mom turned the corner to get into her house. Finally, after a couple days of this happening, my mom went crying to her
haha (mom), my
obaachan (grandma), and told her everything. Well, my
obaachan gets this look on her face and is like, “No, no, no. Don’t look at her, don’t speak with her, not ever.” Finally, it just stopped, and my mom never saw the woman again. Later on, when my mom was older, she asked my
obaachan about it and, apparently, a couple years before my mom and her family moved to Matsudo, a woman drowned herself in the well just outside their house. Her body was fished out, given a
sōshiki, and cremated, and the well was filled in, but I guess that woman never really left. Spooky shit, man.
Holy cow, that is scary! No wonder you became a horror author. Was there a specific moment you knew you wanted to write in that genre? My mom let me watch The Exorcist when I was, like, six. Pretty sure that did some damage. Horror is so universal. It’s such a visceral emotion—fear.
Where do you find inspiration? Have real life experiences ever made their way into your work? Folklore, mainly. And, yeah, definitely. Especially unresolved mysteries. I guess you could say the work the FBI does is, uh,
very close to my heart.
Mhmm, we see. jots down "Is possibly a secret agent" on our detective notepad So, uh, what unresolved mystery do you find most fascinating? Well, technically, I
am a public/civil servant who
does work for the government, but, unfortunately, I’m neither a secret nor special agent. At least, not yet. Perhaps one day.
Maybe.
There’s a fair few unresolved mysteries I find quite fascinating (albeit horribly tragic), particularly cold cases of missing persons. But I won’t get into those on here as I wouldn’t be able to do them justice or maintain the level of respect I think they deserve. So, I’ll stick to this one: Captain Kutchie’s Key Lime Pies. There’s an extremely well written deep dive on this you can find
here. It’s just…
bizarre.
How did you discover NoSleep? What prompted you to begin writing for it? Can't remember, actually. The fact that there were no prompts. For me, freedom begets creativity.
Speaking of which, you used to post frequently on /WritingPrompts. Was there anything about that structure you found preferable to NoSleep? Gotta be honest here, very little about
WritingPrompts appeals to me anymore. Back then it was just a way for me to get some words out.
Did you know you would be sharing Cooper's story with us on Nosleep from the beginning? How far in advance did you have his world planned out? I did. I had it planned out pretty far in advanced. I also knew I wanted to have interconnected stories because I
really love world building. Between us, I did have an entirely different trajectory planned out for the plot; basically, I was slowly going to explain what exactly the “black goo” named “
Legion” really is, but I nixed it in favor of bringing in The Overseer. My original plan could (and probably will) come back later on. Possibly in a longer format, say a book?
What NoSleep stories and/or authors have had the strongest impact on you? The Strangest Security Tape I’ve Ever Seen by
[deleted] (I know who it’s by, but they did delete their account so I’d like to be respectful of that fact). It’s, in two words,
fucking genius.
What's the most terrifying thing you've personally experienced? Almost dying.
What are some of your biggest influences from media? Everything from video games to comics to books to movies to TV shows. If I
had to choose a single creator from each category though, they'd be, respectively: Miyamoto Shigeru; Jonathan Hickman; Terry Pratchett; Joel OR Ethan Coen; Vince Gilligan.
Other than writing, what are some of your hobbies? What other creative mediums do you enjoy? Playing video games, reading, stargazing, watching shit, cooking, ranting about conspiracies, and investigative research. Uh, I like to paint.
You've shared some of that love of cooking with readers on your subreddit by posting recipes. Do you have any good recipes for the impending holidays? Oh, yeah, got just the thing. This’ll be sure to spice up any dreaded familial interactions or help you sink smoothly into those soul crushing moments of existential crises you’ll probably definitely have during this holiday season. All you’ll need is some ice, a glass, some Coke, some Jack Daniels, and your fingers for measuring how strong you want it.
Do you ever explore writing other genres besides horror? If so, what other styles of writing? Which do you prefer? Yeah, so, I actually don’t consider myself a horror writer. At least, not
really, and definitely not in the traditional sense. Most of my non-Reddit stories are science fiction and fantasy, and they're pretty hard and high at that. Which, honestly, is kinda strange since my mentor (as in the guy who taught me the craft for years) is Stephen Graham Jones and one of his good friends is Joe R. Lansdale. Got to shoot the shit with Joe a couple times in workshop. It was wonderful. What do I prefer? Huh, that’s a tough one, but I’d say speculative fiction (a cop out, I know).
Do you find sci-fi and fantasy to be something you consciously include in your Cooper series? Is it ever difficult to maintain a balance between horror and other genres? I’ve found that, for me, fantasy is a tad harder to blend into horror. Horror and sci fi, though, go really well together. Especially if you can manage that “technothriller” format (which, personally, is what I’d classify most of the Cooperverse as). And not particularly. But I
am certain that if I ever posted one of my hard science fiction or high fantasy stories that don’t have that splash of horror mixed in, people would be like, “What the fuck?” They’re shockingly different than my Cooptales.
How much time do you spend writing in an average day or week? Do you have any rituals that help you focus? Eh, it fluctuates depending on my work schedule. Anywhere from nine hours to none. Rituals? Nah.
Have any of your stories ever involved research? If so, what was involved? Yep. I always start with research. Anything from a quick scroll through Wikipedia to deep dives down internet rabbit holes to actually traveling out and visiting a place.
How do you keep your universe organized? Do you have it mapped out conspiracy wall style like we do? Man, I’ve talked about making one of these for
years, but I move/travel a lot, so I don’t think it’d be feasible. Instead, I have a slew of horrifyingly poorly written notes spanning across several graph books, scraps of paper I’ve scrounged up or found randomly or stolen, notes on my phone when I can’t find paper or a pen, and even, sometimes, my hand or arm until I
can find something better to scribble it onto. Mostly, though, it’s all in my head. Probably not the best place for it to be as I tend to lose my mind a lot (forgive me for that terrible joke).
Your story settings span all over the country; is there a location that particularly interests you? Louisiana.
Many of your stories feature different cryptids or government conspiracies. Are there any that you'd like to cover and haven't yet? Yes, several.
Are there any topics you feel are too controversial for you to address or that you prefer not to explore in your writing? On Reddit? Definitely. Outside of Reddit? Nope.
What are your feelings toward NoSleep's immersion/believability rule? What impact, if any, do you think the suspension of disbelief format may have when transitioning your work toward a mass audience unfamiliar with NoSleep? Oh, uh, well, at the risk of sounding like a total asshole, I think it’s cute. Do I think the suspension of disbelief format will have an impact if I ever transition my work towards a mass audience? Honestly, no clue. Not nearly even close to touching a mass audience yet. But, I mean, I don't
think so. I think consuming something fictional—be it through text or through a screen—will always have that suspension of disbelief factor surrounding it, you know?
Do you have any favorite reader reactions to your writing? Yeah, the lady who thought I
was Cooper in real life and DM’d me asking me to impregnate her. Gotta good chuckle outta that one. That said, people
really seem to want to ride Coop's, uh, Ducati. It's absolutely hilarious to me.
Readers have truly embraced Cooper and his cohorts, and are extremely active in your sub dedicated to him, /SuperCooperCanon. What is it about the character that you think resonated so strongly with the community? Honestly, no idea. I mean, I know I wrote the guy to be “objectively hot”, but attractive people aren’t always that interesting or likable. So, maybe it’s his devil may care attitude and sense of humor that people connect with? He’s also pretty self-reliant and confident and not afraid to show that, yes, a “tough guy” can (and does) cry/show emotions/empathize.
Occasionally, you've referenced users' comments on one story in the next, or included hints and codes that tie certain stories together. Are there any major Easter eggs you wish your readers would crack? Yeah, probably. I mean, I recently went back and reread all the stories (including all the supplementals) in the ‘verse in one sitting (took me a short six hours, there’s around 300,000 words) and even I was like, “Well, shit, totally forgot I was supposed to be doing something with that…my bad.” So, I can’t really hold anything against anyone for not catching everything.
What story or project are you most proud of? You mean besides all the shit involving Spooky McSpooks? Because it’s that. I mean, the asshole has the name of a goddamn
dog yet somehow still manages to be the smoothest guy in the room?
C’mon.
You recently revealed the relationship between Cooper and Elle. Considering his last romantic interest is out of the running, will Cooper ever find love? waggles eyebrows Oh…
uh…shit…I plead the fifth. I
will say this, though, someone I know in real life has been all but begging me to write a “Cooprotica” for ages now. Will I do it? I don’t know. If I did, I’d cringe so hard I’d turn into a black hole and consume the entire galaxy.
There have been Cooper sightings since the 1980s, leading fans to speculate that either these were of his father or that Cooper is somehow ageless. Can you shed any light on which theory is correct? Sure. It’s his “dad”.
In The Mojave Phone Booth, '80s Cooper has The Overseer's outfit in his car. Does this mean what we think it does...? Probably.
There's an isolated cabin with a locked door that Elle doesn't particularly want to talk about. Do we catch a glimpse of what happened there in My first job was at a video rental store? Sure did.
Cooper had a falling out with a squadmate that went by Shepherd. Was this at all related to the two agents that have been out to get him? Kinda? I think he was more disappointed in Coop than anything else. There are things they’ve said to each other that I haven’t shown yet. Shep is an interesting guy. His story arc isn’t over.
Which installment in the series was your favorite to write so far? What set that one apart? Oh, shit. This is a tough one. I’ve got a lot of favorites, mainly because the first person I write them for is myself, and I’m an idiot who giggles at my own dumb jokes I intersperse throughout them, like, a
lot. But, if I absolutely
had to chose one, I’d say…shit. This is hard. Huh. Uhhh. I don’t know? Maybe my
most recent one? Just because that fucker was
long. So long I ran outta character space and had to put part of it
over on my subreddit as a “supplemental” even though it was part of the same story. I’m also pretty fond of my
DIA story and the
Bridgewater Triangle one. Also, the
ones from Mrs. Popov’s perspective. And all the stories surrounding “The Hollow” (
Inbred Family,
Shit for Brains,
Chekhov’s Bazooka,
Unexpected Forces).
You've mentioned working on adapting the Cooperverse into novel form. Have you experienced any unexpected challenges or advantages during that process? How has writing with the intent of being published differed from posting to Reddit? Man, I’m like the boy who cried wolf with those novel promises, huh? But, yes, the short, simple answer is yes. The long answer is, well,
long. And I feel like I have to be
extremely careful here since people can get, uh,
very touchy about publishing, especially when it comes to being traditionally published versus independently published versus self-published. Truth be told, I don’t know how comfortable I am with answering these questions. So, I guess, that’s one of the biggest challenges: Trying to speak about the ins and outs of getting published in a way that won’t offend or piss off anyone else?
Man, honestly, this is something I have a lot to say about but have never felt comfortable doing so.
Sorry.
How much do we have to bribe you to publish a book of the series as it's laid out now, an anthology of everyone's encounters with Cooper? Unfortunately, money (and most material possessions) ain’t a thang to me, so I can’t be bought. In all seriousness, though, it just doesn’t feel right charging money for things people can consume for free, you know? And even if I did put anything out there that was purchasable, I’m a perfectionist, so it’d have to be spiffed up, like, a lot. That’d take some time.
What's the most valuable lesson you've learned since you began posting to NoSleep? "It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not a weakness; that is life."
As a successful author on NoSleep, do you have any advice for new contributors? Be careful. Attention and ephemeral internet points can be (and often are)
highly addictive. And addiction is bad, mmkay?
What are your short-term and long-term writing goals? Short term: Write.
Long term: Keep writing.
Community Questions:
From MagpieRhymes: Where did you inspiration for Cooper et al come from? Did he arrive in your mind, fully-formed, or did it take time to develop his story?
He’s an amalgamation of a lot of things. Both folks I know in real life and characters like (in no particular order) Leon Scott Kennedy, Hermione Granger, Samus, Geralt of Rivia, Master Chief, Fox Mulder, Aloysius XL Pendergast, Remus Lupin, Sirius Black, StrideAragorn II, Ellen Ripley, Jim Hopper, Lyra Belacqua, Sam Vimes, Link, Dale Cooper, and so on and so forth. I always knew that Coop was, first and foremost, going to be a smartass, but it did take a little bit of time to develop him into who he is now. His “personality” is subject to change, though, since I’m trying to make him as round of a character as I possibly can.
Submitted anonymously: Your Cooperverse stories are amazing. They're like a Lovecraftian Twilight Zone X-Files mashup, but better. How do you keep your plotlines from getting away from you? And what is your inspiration for the Overseer? Thank you so much for sticking with the stories for so long. Sincerely, a longtime fan
Whoa, damn, slow down there, buddy. Uh, first of all, fucking thank you. That’s high praise. Those are definitely three of my favorite things. Better, though? I dunno about that. And, hey, thanks for sticking with me so long, fucking flattered, man. Second, I honestly don’t know how I maintain all the plotlines. I guess I just have a knack for it? And some pretty badly written notes. Third, huh, what an interesting question. He’s kinda like The Smoking Man mixed with Vader mixed with a maniacal comic-book villain.
Submitted anonymously: Do you ever get tired of writing Cooper, or feel limited to only posting in that realm? Have you ever posted from an alt account?
Never posted from an alt account, scout’s honor; only have one reddit account because that’s all I can handle (I’m a bit of a technophobe). To answer your second question, well…
So, Coop is really fun to write and I’m a huge dork for conspiracies, but do I feel limited? A little. I mean, people pretty much only know me as that one asshole who only writes about that one asshole who always “saves” the day. And, despite trying to break from that trend, I can’t really blame ‘em. It’s entirely my fault; I’ve shoehorned myself into that position. This has limited me in two ways: people who, uh, aren’t particularly fond of me don’t actually believe I can write anything else, but then when I’ve tried to (and try I have), people who do like me quite a bit are upset that it’s not a Coop story. Fucked if I do, fucked if I don’t, you know?
Submitted anonymously: I love your work so much! Thank you for writing such great characters. Do you have a mental dream cast of who you'd like to see play any of them?
Hey, thanks, I’m truly honored. And thank you for your readership! That said, yeah, I do for some of my characters, but not all of the people I could see “as them” are professional actors or public figures I could freely name. If the Cooperverse ever went somewhere, you know, “big”, whoever plays Coop would probably have to be a complete unknown since there’s really no one currently working I could see playing him. Or, I’d have to do what Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child did with Pendergast in the movie adaptation of their book Relic and take him out completely. That’s no fun.
From EbilCrayons: When you first started writing for nosleep did you have ambitions of becoming populasuccessful or did it take you by complete surprise?
I mean, I’d take “populasuccessful” with a grain of goddamn salt, it’s not like I’m raking in the updoots over here. But, I will say, I do have a very dedicated fan base—(shit, I feel like a giant asshole with a giant head tootin’ my goddamn horn and it makes me uncomfortable as hell)—to whom I owe a lot to and am very fond of; seriously, they’re all fucking amazing. So, yeah, that kinda took me by surprise.
Submitted anonymously: Do you see any similarities between yourself and Cooper or any of your other characters?
I’ve always said that I’m nothing like Coop, but my good friends (who know me pretty well) all insist that I am. So, I guess I do? Not to (once again) toot my own horn or anything, but I’ve been told by a decent number of people that I’m fairly attractive and witty. Waitresses, people on the street, my coworkers, even teachers have all (at one time or another) called me cute and funny and shit, and it’s embarrassing as fuck. Also, I’m willing to bet that both people in real life who don’t like me and who do would absolutely all agree on one thing: that I’m a huge smartass. Always gotta be quippin’ about something or at someone with this dumb shit eating grin on my face. But, personally, I’d say I’m most like Coop’s Ducati or Scrambles. His Ducati because my words are essentially the “vehicle” he rides from plot point to plot point. Scrambles because—as cringe as this sounds—Coop kinda saved me too.
Submitted anonymously: If you were able to spend the day with any figure in the horror community (author, director, actor, etc.), who would you choose and why?
John Carpenter. Because he’s a fucking geniusman, that’s why.
Submitted anonymously: Your house is on fire, and your family is safe outside. What book do you grab before joining them?
Fuck. Shit. Uh…fuck. Shit. I’ll come back to this one. Shit came back to it and still don’t know. Fuck. Hold on. Okay, went and looked through all my books (and comics), and, I mean, I could say something cool like, “Oh, my first edition copy of Insert Discworld Novel Here,” or something smartassy like, “Oh, the Bible haha j/k 69 420,” or something clever like, “Embracing Defeat because it’s such an important deep dive into pre and post war Japan,” but, honestly, I’m gonna have to go with Still Life with Crows. Sure, it’s not the greatest book in the world and certainly not the most well-known, but goddamn I fucking love that fucking book.
Submitted anonymously: Would you/have you ever collaborate(d) with anyone else on nosleep? Is there anyone you'd like to work with?
I haven’t. I’m quite shy. Also, very busy. I wouldn’t want to let anyone (or, worse, multiple people) down by agreeing to do something I wouldn’t be able to follow through on. Of course I do, but, again, I’m shy and I fear mentioning anyone by name would put me in a precarious position of either them being like, “Let’s do it,” and then me just not being able to or (more likely), them recoiling in disgust and saying, “No. Absolutely not. And never, ever utter my username ever again.”
From Knoxx899: I feel like the Super Cooper series would make an awesome graphic novel, wouldn't you agree?
I would absolutely agree.
Submitted anonymously: Favorite guilty pleasure?
Haha, oh man oh man.
So, a year or so ago I had this awesome coworker who was, oddly enough, really into reading romance novels. And, I mean, not gonna shit on them (too much) for that, people can read whatever the fuck they want (so long as it’s not really hurting anyone else, of course). Well, one day, because I’m a smartass with a shit eating grin who won’t shut the fuck up at work, they dared me to read one.
They were all like, “Hey, DV, bet you can’t finish one of these, you fucking goddamn asshole of a person.” They knew I’m a voracious reader who will read just about anything, especially if someone does that whole reverse psychology shit on me. So, I was all like, “Oh, you’re on,” and I did.
It was titled, shit you not, Dreaming of a White Wolf Christmas. And it was about, again shit you fucking not, an unbelievably sexy writer who, as a child, was bitten by a wolf shifter. Yep, you read that correctly. So, because of this, she has to isolate herself and is all sad and lonely and like, “Oh, woe is me, my fertility clock is ticking,” because, you know, every so often she turns into a goddamn wolf and also, as I’m sure everyone is well aware, all women care/think about is having babies.
Well, enter hot as motherfucking hell private investigator, Owen, who—fucking surprise—is also a wolf shifter. If I remember correctly, he can smell when she’s “in heat” or something ridiculous. Anyway, so begins his attempts to woo her to join his pack and have his, uh, pups. It was godawful, but it was also, at the same time, absolutely fucking hilarious. Unintentionally of course.
I went on to read another book by this same author called SEAL Wolf in Too Deep. As you might’ve guessed, it’s about an ex-Navy SEAL who’s a wolf shifter (you can’t see it but I’m fucking cracking up as I’m writing this). He’s all hot as hell and broken and sad and shit and his (unbelievably attractive and I think much younger) police partner is like, “Oh, b-but senpai…I-I can heal your broken heart.”
Godawful, just the worst, funniest fucking shit I’ve ever read.
This lady, Terry Spear, apparently has a couple different series going on; some have Navy SEALs who shift into wolves, some are just billionaires who shift into wolves, some are bad boys who shift into—get this—cougars, some are just those terribly exotic Highlanders who are hot and rugged and ripped and (only sometimes) shift into wolves.
Next on my list is Between a Wolf and a Hard Place. Because, I mean, with a title like that how could I not read it? C’mon.
And now you know all my secrets.
Submitted anonymously: Favorite song lyric?
This is always subject to change, so don’t judge me too harshly.
“I was runnin’ down the road, tryin’ to loosen my load, got seven women on my mind, four that wanna own me, two that wanna stone me, one said she’s a friend of mine.”
Fun fact: I’ve actually stood on that corner in Winslow, Arizona. Yep. I seriously made the drive out there specifically because of that song. Literally all I did was drive all the way out there, stand on the corner as mysteriously as I could manage before hopping back into my car and taking off. Aren’t I quirky as shit?
Submitted anonymously: Which actor who's played James Bond do you think would be the best job at portraying Cooper?
Okay, so, here’s the thing, I see people saying this a lot, that Coop is like James Bond, and I kinda just laugh because who am I to shit on anyone’s opinions? Well, I’m doing it now. I’m sorry, but I just have to nip this in the bud before it keeps on growin’. Cooper is not at all like James Bond. Sure, there’s maybe like a single thing that is similar between them (being good with weapons), but I hand to heart believe there are many, many more things that set them apart. For one, Coop is decidedly not a womanizer and would always ask for consent. I’d even go as far as to say he’s extremely discerning when it comes to sleeping with people. Him, uh, “wooing” someone would be a pretty rare occurrence. Secondly, Coop doesn’t often kill with extreme prejudice. In fact, he’s more likely to do the opposite and let people go. Third, I specifically made him a beer man to show just how down to earth and unpretentious he really is. Fourth, James Bond is a goddamn psychopath. Yeah, I said it. And I’ve tried to go out of my way to show just how empathetic and caring and concerned Coop really is. (I’m not mad!! You’re mad!) But, if I was forced to choose one, I’d reluctantly say Daniel Craig.
From ByfelsDisciple: What do you think is your most underrated story? Your most overrated?
All of them are both underrated and overrated at the same time because I tend to fluctuate between extreme self-loathing and sickening cockiness.
From Poppy_moonray: Several of your stories take place in the southwest US. As someone who lives there, I can confirm shit gets real weird. Do you have any personal favorite urban legends/mythos from the region?
Shit gets real, real weird out there, don’t it? Well, there’s, of course, all the American Indian lore surrounding the place, but, out of respect for them, I won’t get into that. Rather, I’m gonna say government conspiracies. Shocker, I know. Particularly D.U.M.B.’s. Which are: Deep Underground Military Bases. I may or may not have written about one or two of those...
If you had to live in one of Joe R. Lansdale's literary worlds (a Joe R. Landscape, if you will), which would you choose and why? Would you be an existing character, yourself, or adopt a new identity?
Man, I honestly wouldn’t wanna live in any of that guy’s universes. They’re all so gruesome and unflinching and fucked. But, if I had to choose, probably Batman: The Animated Series. I’d be myself, meaning, I’d probably never even see Batman and my life would essentially be the same ole shit as it is now.
What fruit do you empathize with most strongly? What fruit fills you with an unbridled fury?
This is, uh, an odd question. Huh. This’ll really make or break me as a cool person, won’t it? Well, let me start with the unbridled fury one first. Coconuts. Fucking bastards. They technically can be classified as a fruit, a nut, and/or a seed. What the fuck are you, coconuts? Also, have you ever tried opening one of those fuckers? Emergency room visit waiting to happen. What fruit do I empathize with? Bananas. They look like dicks.
Were they any worthy new additions to your regular spooky October viewing list this year?
Yeah, I didn’t post the list this year because I was busy as hell. Apologies. Candyman was great. So was Halloween II, the part where he walks into the glass and it just fuckin’ shatters had me cracking up. C.H.U.D. was right up my alley as was The Gate. The Invitation was weird and really captured that feeling of social anxiety well. Rosemary’s Baby was real good, possibly the scariest movie I’ve seen in a while (and not just because it was directed by Polanski, that absolute disgusting piece of actual shit). But, I have to say, by far the best movie I’ve watched this year (and during my Halloween viewing) was Troll 2. Holy shit, I cannot describe in words how amazing that movie is. Oh my god, I love it with all my heart. Eddie (Gus’s boy) did a pretty great overview of it, but, honestly, please, please watch it if you ever get a chance.
When stalking you diligently researching for your interview, I came upon this comment you made for /WritingPrompts about a melancholy sentient potato. I have since spent nearly all my waking moments consumed with thoughts about what this potato has been up to. Can we please get a brief follow-up? <3
Hahaha, oh shit. That has to be my crown jewel of my Reddit writing “career”. I love that story. I’d say that the potato went down a dark, spiraling journey of self-discovery and came out the other side covered in weeds and baked as fuuuuuck.
From OnyxOctopus: How do you take your tea? What kind would you like? One lump or two? How many snickerdoodles can I get you? Are you warm enough? If not, I can get you a hand-crocheted afghan! Would you like one? ❤
Cold, unsweetened, mugicha. Though, I’m a big fan of (hot) Earl Grey, matcha, and sencha. Uh, are you offering me cookies? As many I can fit into my face. How soon can you get them to me? Oh, shit. I’d love one, but, please, don’t feel obligated to make one, those look like they take quite a bit of time and I wouldn’t want to inconvenience you at all (it’s beautiful by the way).
Submitted anonymously: What were your influences for writing the Super Cooper series? Obviously the parallels to Agent Dale Cooper from Twin Peaks are very obvious (I mean even the name is the same LOL!) But what influenced you to write such a long series in this sort of world with this much scope? I could see the series going on forever and would love if it did so!
You know that quote, and I’m paraphrasing here, be the person you needed when you were younger? Well, I felt like I couldn’t be that person, so, I wrote him. I’ve had my fair share of hardships and I’ve also seen some fucked up shit. The world can be a bad, bad, disgusting, unfair, evil place. So, just knowing that someone was out there doing whatever he could to make the world a teeny tiny bit better—even if he wasn’t actually real—cheered me right the fuck up. And I think others have picked up on that; I’ve gotten quite a few DM’s telling me how much Coop and his escapades have cheered them up as well. So, I guess that influenced me?
Hey, forever’s a long time now. Hopefully, I’ll be able to manage that.
Submitted anonymously: I mostly just wanted to say that Cooper's stories have really distracted me from studying for my finals but I still wouldn't change a thing, thank you!! What's the most fun thing you've gotten to do lately?
You’re very welcome, but, shit, go study for your finals! My stories will be waiting for you in the meantime. So, my friends got me a bunch of video games recently for a thing, been playing those during any downtime I have. They’re all quite fun. (Disco Elysium, Untitled Goose Game, Pony Island, The Hex, Night in the Woods, Overcooked, and Wargroove.)
From HateyMcHateFace: When is the super cooper book coming out and please make it so I can get it in Brazil? Also, how are you? Hope you’re doing great. Cheers.
When it comes out, I’ll personally ship you one, how’s that? I’m just short of perfect, man, hope you’re doing great as well.
Submitted anonymously: Have you thought about releasing book collections of the Canon? I'd love to have Coop in my library, and it would be easier to make my friends read it if I could buy them a physical copy.
Haha, for fuck’s sake, people, I get it! You want a book. I’m flattered as hell and also deeply sorry it’s taken me so long to get it out there, but, I have to say, please don’t force anyone to read anything, not even the Cooperverse. That said, of course I’ve thought about releasing a book collecting all of the canon. Will I do it? Eh. I’m not really keen on charging anything for words I’ve plastered online for free. But, I am working on something else that just might be worth a few dollars and some change. Promise it’ll be worth the wait.
Submitted anonymously: Which of your stories has been the most difficult to write, and why?
I think the most recent ones (the ones I’ve been writing after my long, uh, “hiatus”). Coop’s really been experiencing “the dark night of the soul.” He’s gone from, “Hey, I can do this,” to “Hey, this is all sorts of fucked up and maybe, just maybe, I can’t do anything at all.” Real wake up call for him. Hope he comes out the other side okay.
From _Pebcak_: Who shot first—Han or Greedo?
Oh ho ho. So, in the original version of Star Wars IV: A New Hope, Han Solo is forced over to a table at blasterpoint in the local cantina by Greedo--one of Jabba the Hut's minions. Greedo is there to bring Han to Jabba (or extort him) and, during their enitre conversation, has his blaster pointed at Han. Well, they have their little chat and then, suddenly, Han quick-draws his own blaster and shoots Greedo point blank in the chest, killing him.
Now, in the 20th anniversary rerelease, Lucas did was Lucas does best and fucked this all up, uh, I mean, "remastered" this. The above scene is edited (badly) to show Greedo firing first, and missing at point blank range. Not only does this make him look incredibly incompetent, it ruins the tension because Greedo can't hit shit with a blaster. I mean, he's like two feet away! Han was never in any real danger if Greedo misses from two feet away! But, more than that, it fucking obliterates Han's entire character development. Han is a rogue, he's no hero. By having him shoot first we learn this real fast; Han doesn't give a shit about fighting fair or for honor. He plays by his own rules, you know, as rogues do. His main motivator is looking out for a single thing: Himself. By changing the scene, Lucas effectively neuters this fact and turns Han into just another cliched hero archetype.
That's not Han.
Han shot first.
Han always shot first.
The "remastered" version can suck it.
Submitted anonymously: What question did you want to be asked that didn’t get asked?
I’m honestly surprised no one has asked if I’m a chick or a dude. My response to that would, of course, be: Does it matter?
Is it easy writing two stories every time you post? Why have you done this to yourself? Response: It is, in fact, not easy. And because I’m an absolute idiot, that’s why.
If your mom is from Japan, where’s your dad from? Response: North Carolina. Which is probably why most of my stories have that particular “twanged up” style people have come to recognize (well, that and because Stephen and Joe are both from East Texas…it rubbed off on me).
And finally: Why the hell is Coop always at libraries? Response: because he doesn’t have an office and is a huge unapologetic goddamn nerd.
Diggin’ divin’ into Darth's diegesis?
Check out all of Cooper's capers over at /SuperCooperCanon!
NoSleepInterviews would like to say a secret underground complex filled with mystery, intrigue, and creatures untold worth of thank yous to the eternally lovely and exquisitely talented darthvarda for indulging our Cooper obsession and granting us this marvelous interview! Your wonderful words were just the droids we were looking for, and we know the force will be with you and Spooky on all your future journeys! <3
We'll see you back here next month when our sugar daddy gets weird and asks us to deck the halls with the extraordinary EaPAtbp! We'll be hanging her interview on the NSI chimney with care on Monday, December 23rd, and taking all your holly jolly questions for her in /NoSleepOOC on Monday, December 16th!
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