#even after the tragedy that took place in their own community | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

deepouterspacecandy · 3 months

Text

Ink and Paper Hearts

I wanted to write something for Valentine's Day, and wound up with over 8k words. Sheesh! Anyway, I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. Thanks for being here! Be kind to yourself and others. 18+ only. Violence and sexual themes. Angst, fluff, etc.

Raised on a cattle ranch, you spent your early days on horseback tending to the farm and living off the land. When disaster left you orphaned, a ragtag group of survivors embraced you as one of their own. Over time, they had become your family, and together, you’d endure natural disasters, famine, and hordes of infected.

It only took one sweep of malevolent raiders to destroy your home and turn everything you’d ever known to dust. You escaped the attack within an inch of your life.

Isaac was the one who discovered you withering away in an old diner off the freeway, fending off the infected with nothing but your integrity and a baseball bat. His medical team, which accompanied him as they moved between compounds, took care of your recovery, and nursed you back to health.

The leader of the Washington Liberation Front admired any person who possessed the strength to fight and the compassion to care for animals simultaneously, and in exchange for a safe place to lay your head, you promised to do just that.

It was a relinquishment of power; you learned early on. Anything involving Isaac came at a cost. Your bond with him was duty-bound, but he offered you another chance at having a family and a purpose. After being all alone in that desolate place, you’d been more than willing to fall in line.

Still, you were a different person when you first arrived in Seattle.

Some would say naïve. You saw yourself as a practical optimist. Now, you’re not so sure.

It’s truly astonishing how a year of unrelenting conflicts with the Scars can diminish the brightness of your silver lining.

The ability to find distraction in your work is a double-edged sword.

A jack of all trades, you spend most of your time working with the four-legged soldiers of the WLF. You have extremely limited patience for the human variety, on both sides of the fence. You tolerate a handful of your comrades, but between assignments, you’re happiest with your nose in a book, savouring the quiet and escaping into distant realms.

The drive for escapism hasn’t been a difficult undertaking lately.

A group of thirty soldiers left the grounds on assignment last month, and only two returned.

It left the stadium halls quieter, heads hanging lower than what you’d ever witnessed. Interactions that would otherwise leave you with a sunny lilt, instead left you carrying a heaviness that you couldn’t quite shake.

Few civilians choose to dive into surface level banter like they used to and the collective fear and sadness shrouding the compound has kept it that way for some time.

It serves as a reminder that even with extensive training and the most advanced military equipment, tragedy can strike without discrimination.

Unchecked and alone, the infected will forever wander through the shadows, driven by an unending quest to find their next victim. Maybe the same idea is true for all adversaries.

Your primary objective is to ensure the community remains united and intact. If you manage to stay sane, that’s a plus.

“How are you today, my little sunflower?” Manny asks, mischievously tugging your jacket.

“You better be talking to the dogs.”

“And if I’m not?” he asks, kneeling to offer unlimited ear scratches to the newest litter.

“Well, then I guess I’ll have to refer you to every other time you’ve ever asked,” you say, giving the bottom of his boot a kick. “Don’t you have somewhere to be?”

“Yes, he does!”

A woman’s voice booms from the other side of the unit, and Manny forces a smile.

“The bane of my existence.”

You chuckle at his misery, knowing little about his relationship with Abby outside of the kinship they portray in combat and their supposed insufferable roommate arrangement. Something you’re only privy to after running into her after hours at the library as she was trying to catch some shuteye on the couch there.

“Will you quit harassing pretty girls and grab a damn dog already?”

As she approaches, tails of all shapes and sizes wag with incredible speed, exuding pure happiness. You wonder how much time she has spent in the kennels when you’re not around. Isaac has her spearheading every mission from here to Chicago, so you rarely see her. But the dogs never forget a kind face.

You exchange a few pleasantries with Abby before she drags her unenthusiastic partner to work. Manny’s womanizing ways at the stadium serve as a constant reminder of your boundaries in relationships.

You’re safer by yourself.

Abby does seem like a sweetheart, though.

----------------------------------------

“We ship out tomorrow morning,” Abby says, handing you an empty canteen and a backpack, a clipboard braced to her side by her white knuckled grasp.

Her abrupt tone makes you jump when it normally wouldn’t. She’s struggling to keep her voice steady, but you suspect she has more important things to worry her mind about.

“Right,” you nod. “Any idea how long?”

As she’s rushing to complete the next task, your query hits her at the worst possible second, adding to her already teetering stress load. You recognize it a moment too late and your teeth ache at the back of your jaw when she spins on her heel, pinning you with a glare.

“Do you expect a serious answer, or are you just trying to piss me off?”

“No, I—”

“Promises around here are as worthless as the ETA themselves, in case you haven’t noticed.”

Promises? What did that have to do with anything?

“I’m sorry, I swear I wasn’t trying to—”

“Anything else I can assist you with, soldier? Or can we finish wasting my time?” Abby bellows.

You knew it would be a mistake to leave the K9 unit, but circumstances with the Seraphites have forced your hand. They not only invaded WLF territory, causing destruction and casualties among your people, but they’ve also been blocking your teams from conducting supply runs, leading to a rather grim situation in the reserves.

“You don’t have to bite my head off,” you say, feeling the tension rise as you widen your stance against her more imposing one. “We’re all stuck in this mess.”

“Oh, really?” she seethes. “Good to know. I’ll be sure to hand you a shovel next time our people turn up in body bags. Give you a break from scooping dog crap to help us grownups with the actual shit.”

Abby is your superior and you know better than to test the hierarchy. The moment you denied Isaac’s advances, you tumbled from the top spot. But you’re no chump.

“What’s your problem?”

In a split second, Abby’s body looms over you as she detonates, “You’re my problem,” her breath hot against your face.

She flinches when you lose your balance and stumble backward, narrowly catching yourself. If her instinct was to rescue you, she restrained herself just in time, her hand frozen in mid-air. A twitch nags at the corners of her tired eyes.

“You’re no different from the rest,” you say, walking backward, chest heaving. “It’s all the fucking same.”

You’re down the hall and veiled by the four walls of your room before the opportunity to fumble your conversation further buries you in shame.

It’s going to be a long night.

----------------------------------------

Manny runs through his roll call sheet twice, inspecting each soldier with every measure but a squat and cough. If he thought he’d catch you on a minor clothing infraction, hell, a mismatched pair of socks, he’s sadly mistaken. You wouldn’t give Abby the satisfaction and besides, you hadn’t slept a wink preparing for this assignment.

“Where’s Anderson?” Manny asks under his breath. The team surrounding him dip their heads and you try to avert your attention. Brush it off like you had been too busy inspecting your gear to overhear him.

“We’re not going blind, are we, Alvarez?” Abby says, shouldering through the group to drop her bag on the tailgate of the Humvee.

When her arm brushes yours, you recoil, your fist hitting your stomach with a muffled thud. Her head snaps in your direction, but her gaze is less volatile than before. You make a point not to place too much trust in that emotional assessment, finding solace in the familiar sensation of your twisting hands.

“Alright,” she shouts above the murmurs of your unit, the quiet chatter falling into silence. “You will work in pairs, at all times, even when we are in proximity to each other. This is unnegotiable, so don’t ask me if you have to bring a friend to the pisser. The answer is yes.”

The group’s attention is undeterred, even as a faint chuckle escapes them, their eroded black boots facing her commanding presence.

“If you hear something, say something,” she continues, her chin bowing slightly. “It may save a life.”

You swallow thickly and lean against the armed vehicle, its cold steel biting into your back. It’s possible that your sleepless night will affect your performance, but you decide not to emphasize it and hoist yourself upright before anyone notices.

“Our destination is approximately sixty miles from here, and we will cross into Scar territory temporarily, so we’ll need to be cautious. Eyes on rooftops, balconies, you know the drill.”

The group divides between the Humvee and a military truck, and it’s only after twenty minutes of driving that you realize Abby has chosen you as her combat partner for the time being. You feel the weight of her thigh against yours, as she adjusts her legs to accommodate her backpack, and you’re left pondering her decision.

There is a clear sense of trust between her and Manny, making him not only her closest friend, but a lifeline in warfare. Does she think you’re weak and in need of a stronger match? You gnaw on your bottom lip at the notion, focusing on the greenery flitting past your window.

“Come on, Anderson, your balls aren’t that big,” Manny teases, gesturing to her outstretched posture, particularly the way her legs take up enough room for two. You shift toward the door to free up some real estate between you and concentrate back on the road.

As their banter fades into background noise, your attention shifts to observing the deserted surroundings, vigilant for any indication of danger. Apart from a pair of rabbits hopping around, the streets are completely motionless.

--------------------------------------------

The cavalry parks outside a derelict warehouse, its craggy roof adorned by a lush carpet of moss. Rust-bitten chain link fencing surrounds an expansive lot at the rear, cube vans with faded labels scattered throughout. It’s a tempting location to scavenge, but the prospect makes your stomach lurch.

The presence of tall grass and the lack of windows on each vehicle creates ample opportunity for trouble. A lurking enemy, dead or alive, is something you’d like to avoid. It’s possible that someone has already searched the vans, despite their undisturbed appearance.

“Let’s break this down into teams and tackle it all at once,” Abby announces, nodding at the parking lot and the adjoining building. “Six outside, inspecting the trucks, and six inside. We’ll scour the property first, and then we can set up for the night.”

“Wait,” you say.

She blows out a frustrated breath.

“This better be good.”

The temptation to tell her to fuck all the way off is intense.

“Maybe we should put a couple scouts up high, search the grounds together,” you say, pointing to the safest vantage points. “Eyes in the sky.”

“Any other suggestions?” she asks.

“I mean, no—but,” you begin.

Abby interrupts, holding her hand up. “Like I said. Six and six. We don’t need to be out here longer than necessary.”

“Fine.”

She guides you toward the building, her palm on your lower back, and you jerk away from her grasp. She may have the authority to call the shots, but you decide where you place your neck on the chopping block.

“I’m with them,” you say, trudging toward the trucks.

“Hey!” Abby says.

“Oh, Jesus Christ. What?”

She gives you a once over, gritting her teeth.

You throw your hands up and let them slap against your sides, waiting for her to hurl her discontent at your head, clearly eager to tear a strip off you in front of your squad. With a distant gaze, she fixates on the hollow space behind you before heading towards the warehouse.

----------------------------------------

It took several hours to secure the perimeter and set up camp inside.

Your heavy eyelids rejoice at the promise of rest. The team in charge of the mail trucks uncovered a mother lode of undelivered packages, chock full of useful supplies. It was almost as impressive as the haul the WLF brought back from the airport a few months back.

Within the building, soldiers set up their bedrolls among a labyrinth of cluttered offices. It’s quite comical to overhear the entertainment value of some dusty, redundant telephones and keyboards. You catch snippets of the amusing conversations while rearranging your own space, the sound of playful jabbering rising from the ashes, finally allowing you to release a deeply trapped breath.

Abby eases up on her protocols to make the rounds and ensure everyone is okay. You make use of the time alone to freshen up and explore, gathering candles from various boxes to arrange in your shared office, the wax and wicks a rare, comforting find.

Abby spots them as soon as she returns.

“Nighttime always feels darker away from home,” you explain, worried she might find them frivolous.

She doesn’t.

“Candles are good,” she says, picking one up to roll in her hands. She scrapes her thumbnail along the wax base and shifts on her feet. “I like them.”

“Alright,” you say, fiddling with the hem of your shirt.

You try to ignore the intensity of her gaze as it grazes over you, but beads of sweat build along your lower back. It might be time to crack a window. Occupying yourself with that activity, you grow increasingly frustrated as the most accessible ones refuse to budge.

“Let me try,” she offers.

“I’ve got it, thanks.”

“Suit yourself,” she huffs, and you glimpse her crossing her arms over her broad chest.

You reckon Abby isn’t used to being turned down, and it sours your stomach a little to be the outlier.

By climbing the desk closest to the wall, you gain some leverage and drive your palms into the ridge of the window. You feel the sharp edge digging painfully into your flesh, your back muscles tightening to an impossible degree.

“For fuck’s sake,” you grunt, putting all your might into another attempt, the image of a bottle smashing through the pane something you’d seriously consider acting upon if you were alone.

“Stop being stubborn and let me help.”

“I don’t need your help,” you groan, the tickle of sweat now threatening to break into a full stream down your spine.

“Sure seems like you do,” she says, the arrogance in her tone combined with the weight of her gaze on your back, sending your lid rocking chaotically over a burgeoning boil.

You suck in a rigid breath and ignore her remark.

“Look, if you just—”

“Abby!” you say, jolted by your own shout.

Manny must overhear the commotion, slinking against the door frame to clear his throat. As they murmur behind you, you bow your head and brace your hand against the glass, waiting to be reprimanded.

When you twist your body to offer an apology, the room is empty.

----------------------------------------

Even as the sun disappears below the horizon, the air in your office, as well as the rest of the building, becomes oppressively warm. You dig through your bag for a less cumbersome shirt but resort to stripping down to your sports bra and a pair of boxers. Abby hasn’t come knocking for a while, long enough for a clicker to obliterate you ten times over, but you temper your outrage.

Downstairs, there’s a treasure trove of unopened loot piled on racks, beckoning your interest. Abby abandoned her rule of two and frankly, you couldn’t care less.

Truthfully, she never wanders too far from her pack.

It’s possible she’s unaware of your whereabouts while you gather boxes from the metal racks downstairs in your underwear.

But it’s also possible she has eyes on you wherever you go.

----------------------------------------

“What’s all this?” Abby asks, lingering in the doorway.

Lost mail spills from the bins surrounding you. You’re captivated by the untold stories inside them. A peek into a world you’d never known.

“Letters, mostly,” you say.

Just inside the entryway, Abby slouches against the wall, absentmindedly playing with the fibers of the carpet using her socked feet.

“What kind?”

You’ve torn through dozens of envelopes, the contents of each one wildly different. It’s almost disturbing to imagine how many people had an entire universe they experienced through their eyes only.

You’ve already envisioned yourself journeying from one post office to another, gathering historical accounts and breathing new life into forgotten tales.

“I’m a bit lost with most of them,” you say, credit card debt and bank statements flying straight over your head. “Structures before the outbreak are a lot different from ours.”

Abby clicks her tongue, moving further into the room to sit across from you. She’s careful not to encroach on your space and a twinge of remorse worms into your belly. You offer an olive branch, handing her a photograph.

“But then there’s stuff like this,” you continue.

Abby’s eyes widen at the provocative image of a woman, her slender figure draped across a pristine silk sheet, the vibrant red of her lace panties and sharp stilettos creating a striking contrast. Attached to it is a note that reads:

When you’re alone, close your eyes, and I’ll be whispering your name.

Abby puffs a quiet laugh as a flush of pink creeps along the high points of her cheekbones.

“Who’s it addressed to?” she asks.

You search for the envelope among a sea of scribbled addresses and realize it’s a futile endeavour.

“I’m honestly not sure,” you admit. “I think I lost it.”

“Damn,” Abby smirks, running her thumb over the curled edges of the polaroid. “Lost in transit twice.”

You give a half shrug, noticing how enraptured she is with the picture. Her blonde lashes catch the candlelight at an angle that cast long shadows across her freckled skin.

“Manny would lose his mind,” Abby says, rolling her eyes. “He’s obsessed with shit like this—women in general, really. Horny bastard.”

You can feel the giggles bubbling up inside you, and you clamp your lips together to keep them from escaping. Abby Anderson, the most revered soldier of the Washington Liberation Front, sitting criss-cross applesauce talking smack about her best friend.

It is about the funniest thing you’ve seen in weeks.

“Have you—ever sent one?” you ask, treading dangerous waters and bracing yourself.

She blows out a ragged breath, pocketing the evidence.

You wonder if it’ll be a gift for Manny or something she keeps for herself. The notion causes vicious heat to rise across your forehead and down the bridge of your nose.

“Not a chance. It’s not really my thing.”

The mountain of mail between you becomes a welcomed distraction, and you make use of having a focal point to stare at.

When she tosses the question back your way, it throws your stuttering heart into a full gallop.

“Have you?” she whispers, leaning back to study you with a leg outstretched. The heel of her foot rocks to a slow tune only she can hear.

Her muscular arms bulge as she balances herself and you do your level best to pretend you don’t care. You expect her to wriggle uncomfortably or try to change the subject, but she doesn’t. Instead, she waits on you to bounce the ball she has rolled onto your court.

It’s you who can’t stop squirming.

“I haven’t found anyone worth the effort,” you say, and it feels a little embarrassing, maybe, but you figure honesty goes a lot further with Abby. “People suck.”

“Would you?” she asks. “If you found someone.”

Your racing heart leaves you dizzy.

It’s too goddamn hot in this office. You crane your neck to fire silent vitriolic arrows toward the stubborn windows, desperate for a fresh gust of air to grace the back of your damp shoulders. Abby stumbles to her feet, stepping over you to solve your problem once and for all.

With a soft click, the lock releases, and the window glides open, allowing the cool evening breeze to sweep through the space.

You squeeze your eyes shut and groan.

“I didn’t want to say anything,” Abby smirks, dropping back down to her spot on the floor. This time, she lies on her side, head propped up by her arm. “You almost had it.”

The crooked smile quirking up on her mouth hits you like a flashbang.

“I kind of hate you right now,” you say without venom. “But I should probably say thank you, huh?”

“Probably,” she grins, teeth raking slowly over the pout of her bottom lip.

She has freckles there too, and you’re suddenly envious of them.

“I won’t,” you blurt, tearing open another envelope. “Say thank you.”

“I wouldn’t either,” she laughs, and it’s a deep, warm cadence. A laugh meant only for your ears. She gestures to the letter in your hand. “What’s that one?”

The grin you’re desperately trying to hide causes your face to ache.

The brash woman you’re hardly accustomed to sharing a home with at the stadium is full of surprises, it seems. There’s a side to her that isn’t militant and melancholy, but rather the opposite.

She’s playful and witty. Her eyes, a staggering blue lake, are gentle and kind.

You could fall madly, painfully in love with a woman like Abby.

Abby herself, even. If she wasn’t an unstable box of dynamite.

You skim the handwritten letter with the tip of your finger, and another wash of warmth blooms inside you at the bulk of the sentiment.

“It’s a confession,” you explain, fixing your attention on the last paragraph. “He’s been in love with her for a long time, since they were kids.”

“Will you read it to me?”

Her gentle query sends a shiver of sunshine down your spine. Her eyelids are heavy like yours, and the shadows beneath hers speak volumes about the burden she carries. The weight of the world.

“Only if you promise to read the next one.”

“Deal,” she murmurs, sliding your bag over to use as a pillow. She snuggles into it and your whole body vibrates.

----------------------------------------

The trip home is lighter, despite the nearly crippling load. Clothing, toys, garden seeds, tools, home goods, toiletry items — the list is a mile long. You couldn’t take everything, but the mass of what hadn’t deteriorated or spoiled made it through the gates.

It’s a hopeful thing, not only to witness your group returning home unharmed, but with enough supplies to ease the strain taken from a new fruitful avenue.

The moment you and your squad walk into the chow hall together, you’re met with a chorus of cheers and applause. As Abby vanishes amidst the swarm of people, you exchange a few handshakes before seeking escape from the cacophony.

Your sleeping quarters are the chaotic aftermath of hurried packing and abandoned reading material, with your mattress being the only semblance of order in the disarray. It was Manny who taught you how to make your bed to military standards and perhaps his goal was to inspire more in you than routine, but either way, the habit stuck.

Gratitude simmers for it now more than ever, the crisp, clean sheets offering respite. Freshly showered and dead on your feet, you crawl into your cozy bed and drift away.

A thunderous crash shocks you awake.

You blink against the abyss, immediately comforted by the stadium lights leaking through your curtains. It drives other citizens insane, the absence of darkness, but you’re thankful for it.

Someone appears to be banging your door down.

“Cool it, already,” you say, scrambling for your cotton robe. The brutal assault on your sleep at this hour deserves to be outlawed—prohibited by the laws of the WLF. “Holy hell, are you trying to wake the whole neighbourhood?”

You tear open the door and any visceral anger coursing through you evaporates at the sight. Tall, fierce, and devastatingly gorgeous, all blended with the rich spice of amber liquor.

Loose tendrils of hair cascade along her shoulders and collarbone in protest of her braid.

“What are you doing here?”

“I have something for you. Can I come in?” Abby asks, and it’s not a question.

Before you can even request a moment to compose yourself, she unceremoniously dumps a heavy grey bin on your living room floor, adding to the chaos, before collapsing onto your couch.

“What’s going on, Abby?”

She may be a delightful, luminous drink of water when she wants to be. But damn, can she ever snore the walls down in record time.

You plop yourself onto the bin beside her and try to make sense of her unexpected visit. Should you venture down the hall to wake her roommate? There’s likely a sock hanging from the doorknob by now, but it’s an option.

“Anderson?”

The sound of your hands drumming on the sides of the plastic container fills the room, while you contemplate the amount of bourbon your crew has consumed from lunchtime until now. An indulgence that landed on your doorstep all the same.

When Abby whimpers and curls in on herself, you resolve to drape her in your heaviest blanket, hoping to help her tackle the unsteady beats of her sleep cycle and a looming hangover. She bundles the fabric in her fists and clenches it underneath her chin.

Captivated by her klutzy aura, you nearly trip on the forgotten bin.

The lid doesn’t want to come apart from its secured spot and you have the presence of mind to check for a locking device, just to be sure. There isn’t one, of course, but you’ll never let yourself live down the office window debacle.

It’s going to require elbow grease and a hefty tug. You hiss as it separates in several loud pops. Luckily, the noise only costs the weary girl on your couch a flinch or two.

Letters fill it to the brim, and you’re enthralled by Abby’s decision to bring them back with her. Your instinct is to open each one, but it doesn’t feel right without her there to chirp commentary at you.

“I don’t get it,” you breathe in disbelief, expecting your words to meld with the shadows and disappear.

Her ghost-quiet voice turns the thermostat up a thousand degrees.

“I was mean,” she stammers. “You didn’t deserve it.”

It appears that you’re tapping into her guilt-ridden subconscious, which feels so delicate you consider shaking her awake. You doubt she’d want to lay it all bare.

Does she always talk in her sleep?

“No, it’s okay,” you say. “Water under the bridge.”

Your response seems to placate her overworked brain. You can relate, as your own tries to lure you back to the land of lonely slumber.

You notice her face doesn’t relax, even when her breathing slows, the lines in her forehead streaked with dirt. To never find peace, even during sleep, must be exhausting beyond what most can fathom. It seems cruel to disturb her, even if she’s restless. You settle for leaving a glass of water on the side table for her before settling in at the end of the couch. If she startles awake, you’d rather she doesn’t do it alone.

Cramped onto the only slice of cushion she hasn’t claimed, you let the commotion of the day pull you under.

As morning greets you, you find yourself back in your bed.

The familiar scent of Abby drenches your blanket, but she’s long gone.

----------------------------------------

It’s your first day off in months, but you check the work assignment list to confirm. On your way back from the bulletin board, the classrooms are abuzz with joyful energy. Children eagerly play with the toys and delve into the books your squad brought home, and it gives you a sense of belonging. A goal beyond surviving.

Until now, you have thought little about your life beyond protecting the community. It always made sense to put your neck on the line for the greater good. While casually strolling past the gym, not in search of a certain soldier, you can’t help but wonder if there might be other adventures awaiting you.

Abby’s breath tickles your ear, and you leap a mile out of your skin.

“Looking for me?”

“Son of a bitch,” you wheeze.

She doubles over with laughter, imitating the strangled noise you make when you’re caught off guard. She takes a minute to catch her breath before she gives you a generous shove.

“You’ve got quite a potty mouth,” she teases, wrinkling her nose impishly at a passing group of young ones. “There are little ears around here, you know.”

“Yeah, well, they probably know better than to sneak up on a person,” you say, finding Abby’s laughter rather infectious. You bite back a grin. “Who does that? Is an apocalypse not enough for you people?”

Abby breaks into another bout of giggles, seeming to enjoy your newfound passion for merging the old world with the new one.

“Is it our apocalypse though, if we were born into it?”

“Yes, Abby, it is,” you huff, eager for your heart rate to return to baseline. “We’re in an active apocalypse and you’re awful.”

As she leans against the large window you’d been peering through, the sounds of the gym fade into the background. She tilts her head at you, eyes sparkling with intrigue. Clad in workout gear that accentuates her sculpted body, she doesn’t appear sweaty.

You must’ve caught her on her way in.

“Are you busy later?”

“Not really,” you say, fidgeting with a frayed string on your sleeve. “Are you?”

“Nuh-uh.”

“Okay,” you say, staring at a scuff on your sneaker before catching her gaze.

“Okay,” she mimics, directing her nose scrunch at you this time, turning your mouth dry. “Feel like being busy later?”

It’s not as if her tone is explicit or even her language, but this woman is a supernatural force. So, tingles rise into gooseflesh from your head to your toes, regardless.

“What do you have in mind?” you ask.

The roars of a lively group of soldiers reverberate through the gym, their spirited chants urging their champion to hurry her ass up. They beckon to her as if they are a part of the kindergarten cohort, causing both of you to snicker and shake your heads. One of them wolf-whistles, the rise and fall of the pitch echoing into the hallway. Abby wastes no time throwing up her middle finger in response.

“I can come by around seven. Does that work?” she asks, reaching for your wrist. She gives it a quick squeeze and slowly pulls away, her fingers sliding to the tip of your pinky.

Her simple touch is unexpected, and it electrifies you.

“Works for me.”

She beams, walking backwards through the gym doors, brows jumping at your frozen form.

You amuse her. This much is obvious.

----------------------------------------

A rhythmic tap grabs your attention, a stark difference from the first time Abby came knocking. But to keep with tradition, she doesn’t arrive empty-handed.

“You didn’t have to do this,” you say, gesturing to the dishes balanced precariously in her arms.

“I wanted to.”

She sets the meal fit for an army battalion down onto the counter and searches your kitchen cupboards for something to drink from.

With a single, forceful movement of her forearm, she clears space by shoving your knick-knacks aside to make room.

“Juice cool?”

The way she effortlessly makes herself at home in your space leaves you speechless. You nod.

“Good,” she says, a repentant grin tugging at the corners of her mouth. “Pretty sure I’m off booze for the rest of my life.”

With the same delicate touch she used to tidy your countertop, she pours the freshly squeezed liquid, causing both glasses to hover on the verge of spilling. Abby takes a step back to assess the situation before bending over the rims, producing the most obnoxious slurping noise. It nearly sends you into hysterics as she levels out both glasses.

She hands one to you with droplets of orange decorating her chin and the collar of her shirt.

“Thanks,” you chuckle. “Quality service right here. Plus, I love germs.”

Balancing the glass to the best of your ability in your right hand, you pull your sleeve over your left and use it to pat her face dry. Abby snorts, her normally lively body becoming static under your ministrations. She swallows heavily, and a calmness settles over you.

“I don’t have germs,” she pouts. Her eyes drop to your mouth for a split-second before her cheeks erupt in swaths of vibrant pink. “I swear.”

“You’re a mess,” you scoff, enamoured by this clumsy woman, blazing a path directly into the pit of your stomach. “Did you know that?”

As she nods, her broad shoulders relax, and her frenetic breathing begins to slow.

“Nobody else sees it,” she says, her words hanging heavy in the air.

The pressure of that emotional cargo would cause any person to buckle under the weight sometimes. It’s a strenuous life for everyone on base, but the expectations placed on her are especially burdensome.

“I see it.”

Your confession doesn’t offend her; instead, it seems to liberate her.

She sighs an exhale of relief, and it makes your heart squeeze.

“I can live with that,” she whispers.

The food was prepared with love as is anything set aside for Abby, and she tells you all about the cook who put it together. An original member of the Salt Lake crew, and a phenomenal chef, he got them through their bleakest days.

When the WLF opened their arms, he committed fully to helping Abby achieve her goals, working tirelessly to support her training and keep himself on the straight and narrow after their tragic end with the Fireflies.

She doesn’t go into detail about what happened, and your instinct is to let that be okay. The heart-wrenching rumours are more than enough to go on for now.

“He’s stoked for me to have a little downtime,” she says, waving her fork at the spread now spilling onto your coffee table across various plates. “Hence the whole smorgasbord situation. As soon as I told him—”

She pauses, letting out a little whimper of embarrassment, seeming to scold herself for being so open.

“Told him what?” you press, detecting a subtle grin playing at the edges of her eyes.

“He wanted to make an impression on my friend, I guess.”

Your neck tickles with heat and you attempt to ventilate by pulling the collar of your shirt away from your collarbone for a moment.

“The man can cook,” you say with your mouth full. It comes out funnier than you expected, muffled by chewing. “Sorry.”

“You’re quite a mess yourself,” she smirks, leaning to drape her arms along the back of your couch, scanning the state of your apartment. “Your poor books.”

“Hey, there’s nothing wrong with my books!”

She hauls herself off the couch to make an example of you, crouching at a cluttered stack. So, an earthquake must’ve hit only your room—what of it?

“I mean, this is just sad.”

“We can’t all have bookshelves and organizational skills, Anderson.”

“Says who?” she chuckles, her attention diverted by a novel that has piqued her curiosity. “This isn’t a lack of skill, either. Where’s your discipline, girl?”

Maybe it’s crouched in front of you, a blonde bombshell waiting to go off and properly reduce you to human rubble.

“I’m plenty disciplined, thank you very much.”

“Yeah?” she says, tongue tucked behind her teeth in challenge.

The audacity, when you’re currently over the moon about this delicious meal, you’ll likely never get to enjoy twice.

“Yeah,” you retort, wiping your mouth with the back of your sleeve like a feral beast. You strip off your shirt and toss it into the abyss, grabbing a clean one from its home on a toppling lamp.

Her bright bursts of laughter make you giddy, a woman who never finds time to play, sitting on your carpet waiting for you to join her.

“Who even are you?” she asks, and it’s so gentle it stops you midway through redressing to ponder her question.

The cotton tank top falls past your hips and you smooth it out, sensitive to the wrinkles in a way you haven’t previously been.

“It looks good,” Abby blurts, reading you like the sea of books strewn about. “You’re—good.”

There’s something about the fortitude of her honesty that helps you decipher between barbs and a genuine fondness for your idiosyncrasies.

Maybe she’s someone you can trust after all.

She shuffles across the floor to the bin filled with letters and lifts it above her head with ease.

“What on earth are you doing?”

As her brows jump mischievously, she dumps the skeletal remains of a past life onto your floor, filling the room with a waterfall of bones. It ignites a fierce desire to protect this girl—create a time capsule of this moment for the next generation to build upon.

A reminder that not all broken things are hopeless things.

“Well, now you’ve gone and ruined my tidy apartment.”

“My bad,” she giggles.

----------------------------------------

Each passing moment feels like tiny punctures in an hourglass, causing time to trickle away. You’re both aware of it, trying to stretch the night. Abby leaves for a spell to hunt down her chef, in pursuit of caffeine. She returns flushed and sleepy, the bitter aroma wafting through the door alongside her soothing presence.

Curiosity and exhaustion get the best of you, and you ask about her friend. His thoughts on your late-night rendezvous with history. She does a goofy impression that makes you want to wrap your arms around her, and you watch her in fascination like an old cowboy reel, projected onto your heart.

“He says you’re a bad influence.”

“Bullshit,” you snicker, tossing her another envelope.

“Okay, so he didn’t say that. But he did tell me to give him a heads up if I decide to run away with you.”

You try to push that thought aside.

“Really, now? And why does he think that’s in the cards?”

“He thinks you’re my dream girl.”

She speaks as if she’s describing weather patterns to you, and you’re bewildered. The blunt force of her words mixed with the softness of her tone leaves you shell-shocked. You search for a tether; silently categorize every reason it can’t be true.

“What did you tell him?” you ask, busying yourself with a letter you read while Abby was away.

A tale of woe between two quarrelling families. It reminds you of Romeo and Juliet, some less violent, modern-day version, and based on the contents of their struggle, you gather at least one of them was grateful for the pandemic.

“Do you really want to know?” she asks, pinning you with her gaze.

You nod, a buzz of energy flitting through you.

“Yes,” you say.

“I told him to go fuck himself.”

Cackles burst from your chest, finding her candour rather precious. Of course, Abby told the guy off. But she doesn’t look away after she tells you; doesn’t shrug or scoff. She studies your reaction and holds her breath until a tiny smile breaks her anxious expression.

You forget where you are in proximity to the earth for a second.

“I guess I’ll debrief you on that situation at a later date,” you say.

“I hope so.”

----------------------------------------

The sound of her steady breathing is peaceful as the light of early morning whispers through the fog. She idly sips at her coffee and takes her time, setting each letter into their respective piles. It’s engrained in her to keep things orderly, an obvious clash with your paper heap. Unlike you, she finds the government letters intriguing, even the boring ass mortgage and debt related ones, and reads them all thoroughly.

Your hand catches on an envelope shaped differently from the rest. Inside is a card, with a dozen raised hearts adorning the front in varying shades of red. When you flip it open, it reads:

With you by my side, every day feels like Valentine’s Day. Thank you for being my rock, my love, and my everything.

Your family never spoke of this while you were growing up.

“Valentine’s Day?” you yawn. “What’s that all about?”

You show her the card, and she rubs her eyes, nursing the tail end of her own yawn with the back of her hand.

“Give it here, woman.”

She looks it over to confirm her suspicions, and with a knowing smile, sits up straight. She taps the card against her knee.

“My dad told me about this.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah, it’s um—it’s a tradition people celebrated near the end of winter. A day to do things for the ones you love, I guess.”

“Like a holiday or something?”

“Sort of,” Abby says, fumbling a bit with her own understanding of it. “Romantic stuff, mostly.”

She rubs her neck, mulling something over while you try to wrap your head around this new information. One day out of the year to do what exactly? Who was supposed to do the things—both people? Did the traditions start after breakfast or were you meant to wait until suppertime? Was it an endeavour meant to last the entire day?

“My dad didn’t really make time to celebrate it,” Abby continues. “He was always too busy at the hospital and then my mom—well, she worked there too, so.”

The veil of exhaustion lifts when you realize she’s peeling back a wound right before your eyes. You suck in a breath and hope she doesn’t mistake it for anything but your desire to let her speak. She drops the card on her lap and wrings her hands.

“They did these small things instead, you know? On regular days,” Abby explains. Her body droops as she seems to pick through her retention of their conversations.

“Like what?” you ask, your voice just a hair above a whisper.

“Like—okay. My dad loved to dance,” Abby says, leaning forward with a sad smile, the slouch of her shoulders regaining composure at the happier memory. “He was fucking terrible at it,” she puffs a laugh. “But he was a music buff and when he met my mom, he said it was the best excuse he could find to get close to her.”

You ache for her to have them here to tell the story, instead.

“So, they danced together a lot?”

“All the time, according to him,” Abby says, her face lighting up. “He told me that my mom was super shy, so she’d always give him hell about it. But he’d ask her to dance pretty much anywhere. Parking lots, gas stations, one time they danced in the middle of the grocery store.”

You try to imagine what Abby’s mom looks like, but your mind can’t seem to conjure up anything beyond Abby’s own image, a showcase of strength and grit.

“Do you remember much about her?” you ask.

“Not really. She died when I was a baby,” Abby explains, adjusting the cuffs of her shirt. “She loved being pregnant with me, though, apparently.”

“Well, duh,” you murmur.

Abby crinkles her nose at you and bites the edge of her smile.

“Dad said her stomach got so big that he started dancing with her from behind. She’d rest her head on his shoulder, and they’d just sway back and forth.”

“I love that,” you say.

“Yeah,” she murmurs, fondness heavy on her breath.

Abby’s speech becomes slurred as the birds on your balcony greet the dawn.

“Every time they danced, the scent of her reminded him of a cabin in the woods, surrounded by these giant pine trees he used to pass on his way to work. He’d dream up this elaborate plan for them to quit their careers and live off-grid. I think he promised it to her about a thousand times.”

“That sounds kind of amazing, actually.”

“Yeah,” she says, tapping her nose with the Valentine’s card, her sleepy gaze drifting to yours. “He was a sap.”

She finishes with the most outrageously loud, cavernous yawn and you’re too tired to do much more than giggle at her larger-than-life spirit.

“You can crash on my couch again, if you want,” you offer.

She wobbles to her feet, reaching for your hand to help pull you up.

“I’m on assignment in a couple of hours anyway,” she says, supporting your elbows while you try not to slip on the paper graveyard below. “I’ll be MIA for a while, but let’s meet up when I’m back, if you’re up for it.”

“Totally.”

“Cool,” she whispers, her fingers tracing patterns on the tips of yours before reluctantly letting go.

As she turns to walk away, her steps falter, and she abruptly spins around to face you.

“Can I hug you goodbye?” she asks.

“Of course.”

Before you can blink, Abby’s arms wrap around you, and you’re a puzzle piece, snug in her embrace. She melts you from the inside out, the comforting rhythm of her heartbeat thrumming against your body. The heat of her chest against your cheek lifts blissful sleepiness from the edges of your resolve and a part of you wants to ask her to stay.

As she gently moves to cup your head and support the back of your neck with her warm hands, you instinctively wrap your arms around her waist, afraid she might drift away.

“I feel so safe right now,” you whisper into her shoulder, and she nuzzles closer, squeezing you tight. Your feet are nearly off the ground before she relaxes her grip.

“That’s the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me.”

----------------------------------------

Two weeks have passed since your visit with Abby and it’s hard to think about much else. It’s a pleasant distraction, even when the memory of her makes your insides flutter as if she tipped a bucket of butterflies between your ribs and set them free.

An unusually large number of soldiers from different stations have packed the grounds, and you’re grateful to have a unique job to keep you relatively separate from the chaos.

Dogs are coming home, but not all of them, and it shatters your heart to toss out their registration papers. You understand the nature of your contribution to this war machine, but it never gets easier. If you could, you’d gather up all the puppies and take them to the same cabin in the woods Abby’s father always dreamed about. Let them bask in the warm sunlight and frolic together amidst a maze of towering trees.

It’s a lovely thought followed closely by the sobering reality before you.

“You’ve done well.”

You drop the leash you were holding, and it clatters on the concrete.

“Isaac. You scared me.”

If Abby is a rare sight at the stadium, Isaac is a ghost. You haven’t seen him in months. He has expanded the WLF across several locations along the west coast and the number is only growing. Reports of a nearby prison piquing his interest have been swirling for a while now.

You’re not sure where he rests his head at night, but it’s almost never here.

“It’s nice to see you too,” he says, inspecting the four-legged fleet without getting close enough to pet them. “I hear your training program is working wonders.”

“I try. They make it easy,” you say, noticing that many puppies have tucked their tails between their legs. “What brings you to the stadium?”

“I’m—restructuring,” he explains, his footsteps echoing as he paces the unit, meticulously inspecting the facility.

Your heart sinks.

“What does this have to do with me?”

He exaggerates a smile, and it sets you on edge.

“You always ask the right questions,” he drawls, heavy hands landing on your shoulders. “I respect that about you. There’s never any fat to trim, just straight to the point.”

It’s more than you can say about him, frankly.

“I suspect you’ve heard about the prison.”

“I have,” you say, bending to pick back up the leash. A narrow excuse to put space between the two of you.

Isaac is still standing uncomfortably close, so you wrap the nylon around your wrist as an act of self soothing.

“Well, it’s proving to be an integral training facility. It’s both secure and unaffected by the flooding, which has been my biggest obstacle up to this point.”

You’d never seen the inside of a prison before, but you’ve read about them. A cold cement cage without access to sunlight, its surface striped with iron. It offered zero curb appeal. You made it a priority to give your dogs a comfortable enclosure for that very reason.

“They need me here,” you say, desperate to get ahead of his plan. “This is where I’ll be most effective.”

“I disagree.”

Your arms tingle with an icy chill as he turns to walk in the opposite direction.

“You said I’ve done well here,” you call out.

“It’s true,” he says over his shoulder. “And your expertise will be crucial. Transport leaves at oh-six hundred.”

---------------------------------------

You should pack to leave, but you’re frozen.

Isaac isn’t one to sugarcoat things and for once, you wish he would’ve.

You curl up in a plastic chair on your balcony and take in the fields below. Neatly organized rows of vibrant crops bordered by fruit trees, bursting with hues of orange and red. Berries snaking through walls of trellis, sweet and ripe. People milling about with baskets of laundry and boxes of produce, keeping society peaceful.

“You should’ve married him,” Manny sighs, dropping beside you. His hand rests on your knee. “Are you okay?”

“No,” you admit, pressing your fingers to the bridge of your nose. “All these fresh faces, and I’m the only one leaving.”

Manny moves his hand to your arm, offering a kind squeeze.

“You are not the only one,” he says, handing you a clipboard.

It’s a short list of dogs you’ll be taking with you, and you’re caught between wanting to laugh at Manny’s ridiculous disposition or sob at your utter misfortune. You wish the dogs could stay behind. They love when the little ones throw the ball for them in the afternoon.

“I have a life here,” you say, and it’s a plea to the universe. “This is supposed to be my home.”

Manny offers you a freshly picked apple and you roll the waxy surface between your palms. The image of Abby’s face flashes in your mind. Maybe it’s silly to feel so much, but you can’t stop it. The weight of never seeing her again makes you nauseous.

“I’m fucked,” you groan.

He wraps an arm around your shoulder to pull you in.

“Keep your chin up, Hermosa. Something tells me you won’t be gone long.”

----------------------------------------

Hey you,

I’ve tried to write this about a dozen times, and I still don’t know where to start. Fuck it, right?

I barely know you and somehow you made me miss you so fucking much while I was away. When I got home and you weren’t there, it felt like someone shot me in the chest.

Manny brought me your bin of letters and I swear I cried for the first time in years.

How did you get under my skin so fast?

I hear you were sad when you left, and that breaks my heart. It kills me thinking of you being unhappy. I hate that you’re somewhere I know nothing about.

What is it like over there? Are you safe?

I check in on the kennels every day. You’re missed around here a lot.

Keep your head up for me. I’m going to make this right.

Please write me back,

A.A.

You’re busy fixing the fence with a skeleton crew when a delivery truck arrives, and someone throws a letter at you. The thrill of it causes your heart to pound in your throat, a rush of adrenaline washing over you. It takes every ounce of self control to keep from disappearing to read it somewhere private.

Trucks come and go regularly, as they divide resources between stations. Isaac seems to prioritize the prison, especially on the artillery front.

You finish reinforcing the fence and race to your cell to lose yourself in your first piece of mail.

You can’t wait to steal a pen to write her back.

Abby,

I read your letter every day.

Okay, maybe more like three times a day, but who’s counting? Seriously… this place has no concept of time and I’m pretty sure there isn’t a single clock to be found.

It makes me sad you were sad. I feel like we’re on a carousel of sadness! We should change that. (Have you seen a carousel before?)

The dogs aren’t doing too bad. They like the open fields here and they’re allowed to sleep in bed with these smelly ass soldiers, which I think is more for us than them, truly.

Thanks for checking in on my crew there. Means a lot.

My bed feels like a hard slab of steel because it is, but at least I don’t have to make it every day. Don’t tell Manny.

It’s nothing like the stadium here. We don’t have gardens and schools and we definitely don’t have a gym. I know, devastating! How will I ever beat you in an arm wrestle now?

The hot water is a work in progress, so I’m learning how to not die during cold showers. That’s also a work in progress, but I squeal less now. Which is something, right?

Try not to worry your beautiful head. I’m tough. I miss your face, though. There’s so much I want to ask you.

Please tell me something about you that nobody else knows. I promise I’m the best secret keeper, ever.

P.S.

If you find any letters from actual prisoners, be sure to fill me in. I feel like they’d have some great tips!

Yours truly,

You hope she lights up as much as you did when her letter arrives. It’s all you can hope for, aside from her safety and possibly a warmer blanket.

To: My Favourite Inmate,

You sure know how to make a girl laugh.

It’s good you don’t have clocks. That way, you can’t obsess over how long you’ve been gone the way I do.

Shit, I should send Manny over there for one of those cold showers. I gave him that polaroid we found, and he hasn’t come up for air in weeks.

It helps a bit to know those pups are there to keep you warm at night. I hope I can be that for you soon. I considered writing another letter because I was afraid to say it, but I think I want you to know. You belong in my arms.

Something I haven’t told anyone before…

Sometimes I miss being a Firefly, especially since things around here are getting worse by the day—but sometimes I guess I don’t want to be anything.

Maybe I’d like to try being just Abby for a while, you know? I’ve never tried that before. What do you think that would look like? Would you want to be a part of it?

I wish you were here beside me.

I’ve made it my mission.

A.A.

P.S.

When you wrapped your arms around me, it felt like lightning.

#abby the last of us #abby x fem!reader #abby tlou #abby x reader #abby x you #tlou abby #abby anderson #lesbian

177 notes · View notes

greenthena · 5 months

Text

Buck up, Hamlet!

***Trigger warning: Death and taking your own life in the context of Shakespeare***

Aziraphale likes Hamlet. Likes the play so much, that he bats his eyelashes at Crowley until the demon performs a miracle to make the mopey Prince of Denmark more popular. Well, good job, the both of you, because four hundred and some odd years later, you still can't get through repertory auditions without some bugger hoisting a skull and starting that monologue. Not that I don't appreciate Hamlet from a structural and analytical perspective. And the Prince of Denmark is a character most actors would sacrifice several toes to play. But it's dark. It's not a fun one.

So why does Aziraphale like it so much? Why's this fluffy little angel so Hell-bent on one of Shakespeare's tragedies? Join me, friendly Good Omens scholars, and let's suss some shit out.

Crowley adamantly dislikes Shakespeare's tragedies. "This isn't one of Shakespeare's gloomy ones, is it? Arghhhh. No wonder no one is here," he complains, wilting like a floppy noodle. Of course, it doesn't take much for Aziraphale to weasel the demon into miracling more people into the audience. But Crowley makes a point to say that he "still prefer(s) the funny ones" as he's leaving The Globe.

Crowley, I would argue, goes to the theatre to escape his real-life situation. He's a bloody demon who, when he's not stationed on Earth, literally goes to Hell. And it's not a nice place. Crowley's everyday life (particularly when he's not around Aziraphale) revolves around pain and suffering--whether its his or someone else's is insignificant. What matters is that regularly sees and experiences tangible, visceral representations of tragedy in his actual existence. Of course he prefers Shakespeare's funny ones! They're a reminder that the world and the human race that he's accidentally become so attached to is full of more than torment and affliction. Crowley doesn't appreciate Shakespeare's tragedies because they're an extension of his own suffering, with which he's already intimately familiar. For Crowley, attending a Shakespearean tragedy is like picking a scab. You already know you've been injured and fussing with the damned thing only makes it worse.

This is not the case for Azirapahle. As an angel, he's not allowed to have any scabs, much less pick at them. Like Crowley, he sees suffering in the world. He knows that humanity is constantly facing difficult odds, and even the most wonderful of human lives eventually ends in death. But unlike Crowley, Aziraphale works within a system in which there is no gray space--and therefore, no room for an angel, an agent of the side of righteousness, to experience doubt in the Ineffable Plan. The Heavenly model is to deal with problems by pretending they don't exist. Heaven has an image to maintain, after all. Like, the sheer amount of repression we see amongst the Heavenly Host is honestly terrifying. I'm thinking about the way in which The Metatron frames the Fall and damnation of a third of the angels. "For one Prince of Heaven to be cast into the outer darkness makes a good story. For it to happen twice, makes it look like there is some kind of institutional problem." It's so cold and removed because to process something so traumatic would not fit the image of Heaven. So it's neatly boxed up and packed away into a soundbite that better fits Heaven's corporate brand.

Aziraphale's suffering is certainly no less than Crowley's. The angel's trauma is repressed. It's cloaked in shining bright hallways of pure angelic light. It's hidden behind false words and tight smiles. It's communicated passive-aggressively by abusers who still have the angel caught in their web of control and manipulation. At least Crowley's trauma is visible. When he fell, the demon took on a new appearance that physically demonstrates his suffering. He has access to feelings of anger and frustration and he's allowed to express these things because he's a demon. He doesn't have to be good.

Since Aziraphale is not permitted to own his emotions and his trauma, he outsources them. He enjoys Shakespeare's tragedies because they give him the opportunity to achieve second-hand catharsis. He may not be able to admit that he's suffering, but he can experience Hamlet's pain vicariously.

***Reminding you of that trigger warning, folks!***

And this is where we get to the question, "To be, or not to be?" This is the moment in S1 E3 when Aziraphale interacts with Richard Burbage, and shouts out, "To be! Not to be! Come on, Hamlet, buck up!" He says this with this coy little smile, obviously trying to get a laugh out of Crowley. But it's indicative of a more serious dilemma that the angel, himself, must parse out. In Shakespeare's play, Hamlet's query is expressed as he wrestles with the choice between life and death. Essentially, it's a contemplation of suicide--a dark part of humanity that Heaven manages by eternally condemning those who would risk it. However there's another way to read this question, not as life and death, but as agency and the lack thereof. We think of "to be" as the choice for life and "not to be" as the option for suicide. But the only way in which Hamlet can express his agency is by taking control of the one thing that truly belongs to him: his own life. So when asking this question of an eternal being, what exactly does it mean, "To be?" What does it mean for Aziraphale to express agency in his immortal existence?

In Western thought, we tend to divide things into binaries: right and wrong, black and white, good and evil...to be or not to be. Back in the Garden if Eden, Crowley first introduced Adam and Eve to the idea that they had a choice. The serpent presented two options, obey or disobey God's authority. Though I think a better way of looking at it would be to say, passively accept your role or have agency in your fate. This is Crowley's method. He never pushes temptations upon you. He just wants to make sure you know all your options.

Like Hamlet, Aziraphale is presented with the choice of, "To be or not to be?" He can sign on the dotted line and follow Heaven's authority or he can be an angel with agency, an angel that goes along with Heaven as far as he can. And though Aziraphale still struggles with how exactly free will pertains to angels, Crowley shows him time and time again that he has options--he can make his own choices. From the very first interaction between the angel and the demon on the wall of Eden, Crowley (ever the optimist) knows there is hope for some meaningful connection with Aziraphale, because the angel makes a choice for himself: he gives away his sword. And from that moment, Crowley realizes that this angel might be just enough of a bastard to be worth knowing.

It's no wonder Aziraphale gets attached to the tragedy of Hamlet. It allows him to observe and process the darker and more difficult emotions that he, as an angel, struggles to manage. And perhaps more importantly, the Prince of Denmark's famous soliloquy mirrors of Crowley's method of temptation, wherein the demon simply reminds him that he has a choice and that, even as an angel, he can find ways to express his agency.

#good omens #aziraphale #aziracrow #crowley #hamlet #shakespeare #free will #our side #ineffable #just enough of a bastard to be worth knowing

296 notes · View notes

bajingoarts · 5 months

Text

The Ratigans

Portraits of the Ratigan family members. Read more for all their names and backstories!

FAIR WARNING!! Some of this is very sad. Ratigan turned to a life of crime after a life of great sadness and tragedy...

Large credit to @suzie-guru for basically helping me create them and flesh them out.

Patreon (18+) | Twitter | Blusky

In order from left to right and down:

Seamus Ceannaire Ratigan

Seamus was a Rat of great integrity and pride. He did much in his community to try and uplift the local rat population. He rallied, gave speeches, and organized local marches in order to further the betterment of the Rat populous, often undermined and forgotten by the public at large. He believed in being better than what others thought of them, proving wrong the assumptions that Rats were all shifty, underhanded, feral, and prone to criminal activity. He taught these values to his family throughout his life. He was horribly disabled after protecting his oldest son Padraic, from a bigoted attack instigated by anti-rat sentiment. He was never the same after that. He died a few years after.

Losa Bella Ratigan

Seamus’s “beautiful rose” Losa was a child of both Italian and Irish Rats, and she had excelled in her youth as a popular operatic star. She sang in multiple languages and had even gigged at the English Opera House. She sang at one of the events Seamus spoke at. Each saw what the other excelled at and they fell madly in love. After Seamus was attacked, Losa was forced to support the family on her own. She resorted to petty theft and bartering in order to put food on the table. She survives her husband and most of her children now, and she lives in Ratterton trying hard to keep her husband's legacy alive. She’s highly disappointed at the state of her eldest son and mourns the tragedy of her family, but she remains a steadfast and confident woman.

Padraic Ratigan

The eldest son and most intelligent member of his family. Padraic was the pride and joy of his parents. A testament to the future rats could have with enough hard work and dedication. Padraic was accomplished in math, literature, engineering, and arts at a very young age. Despite losing his father at the age of 15 and endless family tragedy, his intelligence and tireless fight for a better life earned him a prestigious scholarship to Cambridge University. However, after a deadly rampage through the school he left and never returned. After the incident, Padraic went abroad with forged papers, eventually earning his degree as a Professor of Mathematics. He returned to England after years to begin building his criminal empire. After trying to overthrow the English monarchy, Padraic was defeated and placed in jail, where he now currently resides.

Lorcan Ratigan

The third youngest and the second son, Lorcan was all burning passion. He loved a good time and a good toss in the sheets with both lads and lassies. He led his life with his whole heart, unconcerned with what others thought of him. He often acted as the muscle when Padraic, Sorcha, and him got into mischief. Often the one completing all the dirty work neither of them wanted to do. But he was always happy to do so. Though not the smartest in his family by any means, he was unflinchingly loyal to them and to the ones he cared about. He began helping Padraic when he returned to build the criminal empire, moving shipments and scaring anyone who dared go against their family. While working at the docks he met a young debutante mousette. Their whirlwind romance led to an unexpected pregnancy. Lorcan took the fall for a scheme of Ratigan’s and was offered freedom in exchange for information on him. But Lorcan, ever loyal, refused to give up his brother. He was executed for his crimes, leaving his lover alone with their unborn child.

Sorcha Ratigan

The eldest daughter and second oldest child, Sorcha Ratigan is a calm, cool, and beautiful Queen of the Ratigan family. Though just as intelligent as her brother Padraic, there were limited options available to a rat woman. So she devoted herself to her career as a performer, following in their mother’s footsteps. She traveled abroad to Italy to train in their opera houses and spend time with her mother’s family there. Once she returned, she joined Padraic’s empire as a spy and informant. With Sorcha’s wit, confidence, and allure, she was able to handily trick men into giving her whatever she wanted. Money, vacations, and information. After Lorcan’s passing however, she blamed Padraic and left abroad to Italy where she currently resides, living with local artists and performing.

Saoirse Ratigan

The second daughter and fourth child. Saoirse is a firebrand. She has the justice seeking strength of her father and is a devoted civil rights activist. She heads labor unions, suffragette meetings, and protests at unfair legal proceedings for rats. She’s been arrested several times for disturbing the peace and for general unruliness. Her unwavering need to do the right thing has estranged her a bit from her older siblings once they got involved in crime. She believes in trying to do the right thing through uplifting the community, not through dark back alley deals. She currently works in a factory still living with their mother and taking care of her.

Rodrick Ratigan

Affectionately referred to as “Rod” by his family, Rod was always interested in the newly discovered use of electricity. He would experiment with coils and currents whenever he could, though often not aware of how dangerous it was. He might have gone on to school as Padraic did, but a plague fell over Ratterton at the time, taking him far too soon.

Carmella and Ciaran

The twins and youngest of the family. Completely inseparable, they were little mischievous tricksters. The twins were not in the world for very long though. Ratterton lacked proper medicine and trained doctors, so when the plague came and Cairan fell terribly ill there was little the family could do for him. Carmella was never the same after her twin brother passed, and she passed away years later from the same illness. It was said she passed with a smile, happy to be reunited with her twin.

#the great mouse detective #tgmd ocs #ocs #ratigan #padraic ratigan #Ratigan family #head canon #my art #year of the rat #rat #furries #rat furries

202 notes · View notes

astroluvr · 1 year

Note

oooohh how about a fluffy joel where reader works in the garden or something jacksonville and she's a little bit younger than joel and so soft and sweet and he's nervos to ask her out :(((((

From the Garden

pairing: joel miller x reader

word count: 2.6k, not proofread

a/n: this is my first joel miller fic, and i hope it lands well! i'm very open to suggestions, given that i've like never written for characters before, but i am very excited to share this & write more. my requests are open, and i hope you enjoy!

***

Everyone could see the tragedy and strife of Joel’s past and present deep in the lines of his wrinkles, and the fight he’d put up to make it to a place where he could know anything even resembling peace was apparent on the rough skin of his knuckles that seemed to rest in fists. After twenty years, and experiencing the unimaginable in the most literal sense, the last place Joel would’ve thought he’d end up in was Jackson. With a little girl on his tail that he was still trying to figure out what to do with- in the most affectionate of ways.

It took him a while to settle, though, to stop grimacing at everyone that crossed his path and holding onto his pocketknife that he kept in his front pocket when anyone got too close to Ellie or himself. He was quiet, reserved, remaining in the tiny house Tommy and Maria set him up in until it was time to go on patrol- a past time he quite looked forward to, but would never admit. He liked having the balance, knowing that he could go out and do something without it being for his survival, knowing that he was needed and helpful, and then being able to go back into the tall walls and lay in a warm bed where he could sleep without jeans.

Which is why the surprise that rippled through the community when you were seen leaving the dining hall with Joel was easy to imagine. You were young when the outbreak happened, not young enough that you couldn’t remember, but young enough to not have lost as much as Joel did. You didn’t have so much life under your belt just yet, given that it was just you and your mother, she was able to get you two to protection rather quickly. After she passed just a few years ago, you were out on your own, but luckily enough stumbled upon Jackson.

You can remember the first day that you met Ellie and Joel. You were settled in Jackson for a good while before you saw Joel Miller, word got around that he was Tommy’s brother, and you immediately felt a sense of trust being that Tommy and Maria took you under their wings and still kept you close. It was Ellie that came out of that little home first, who bumped into you while she was chasing a group of kids a little younger than her.

“Oh!” You gasped, a bundle of tomatoes tumbling from the woven basket and onto the dirt ground.

“Oh, shit!” Ellie said at the same time, and your eyes widened slightly at the language, but you couldn’t help but chuckle. “Shit, sorry. I mean, sorry.”

“It’s okay.” You said quietly, grabbing as many of the tomatoes as you could. Ellie was a little clumsy, dropping more than she could pick up.

“Ellie!”

The demanding tone of the voice was enough to make you pause in your movements, too, looking at the approaching figure in a thick pair of jeans and blue button up, similar to your denim jeans that were so worn they’d become soft, paired with a flannel over a white tank top.

Joel approached the both of you quickly, and Ellie rolled her eyes before standing up, dropping a few of the fruits back into the basket. “Chill out, Joel!”

“What are you doin’?” He stood a foot or so away with his hands on hips and you struggled to keep your eyes off him. “Shit, ��m sorry about Ellie.”

“Who said I did anything?!” Joel looked to you silently, and you shrugged your shoulders towards Ellie who kicked at the ground and muttered, “I apologized.”

“She did.” You stood up to face Joel and realized that he was a lot bigger than you thought he was. Closer to him, the white hairs that littered his beard and hair were a lot more obvious, and somehow made him more handsome. “And it’s okay, I was carrying way too many to begin with.”

“Alright, let me help you. You’re takin’ ‘em to the dining hall, right?”

“You don’t have to help me… Joel.” You were hesitant to say his name, but Joel didn’t show any sign of uncertainty when he bent down to pick up your basket, turning around and starting the trek to the dining hall.

From that point forward, the three of you were your own little group. Ellie would often skip her classes to come help in the garden, and when Joel wasn’t patrolling, he’d conveniently just be passing by the garden and ask if you’d need help with anything imaginable. Over the past few months, he’d become your best friend, your closest confidante, but he also wasn’t the most emotionally intelligent person out there. It was easy for you to tell Joel about your frustrations, and he’d nod and try to offer some words of sage advice, that would ultimately be met with an eye roll, but it always pained him to see you so upset- especially when it was out of anyone’s control.

Joel knew you’d been upset over a few pests in the garden that were slowly ruining a small portion of the crop. It wasn’t quite anything to panic over, but it still tacked on a lot more stress to your daily load, and it was significantly dampering your mood.

“Hey.” Joel said behind the white picket fence and you turned to face him, standing up and brushing your hands on the knees of your overalls.

“Hi, Joel. You alright?”

He nodded as he opened the fence and walked through. You frowned when you noticed how tired he was, and you were ready to invite him for a break, but Joel seemed hellbent on making his way into the garden with the heavy tote in hand.

“I’m fine.” He grunted, and you smiled tiredly at him. “Hey, did you ever figure out what’s eating at your plants?”

Joel always called anything that came from the garden yours, as if you were tending to each plant for your own gain, and not having it hauled away to the dining hall. You shrugged, and kicked at the ground, pretending that there wasn’t a mound of no-good kale in the corner of the garden.

You’d been too freaked out to tell Maria, worried that she might kick you out of Jackson or something worse, and Joel was the first and only person to hear of any of those concerns. The look on your face and the wild look of worry in your eyes scared him at first when you nearly ran into him when you got to his house. It had only been a couple of days now, but you were still plagued.

“No. I- I mean, I know what it is. They’re just little pests that have found their way in- I don’t know how. I-”

Joel couldn’t stand to watch you wring your hands for another moment before he finally took the tote from his shoulder to set it on the ground and pulled out a plastic red canister. You looked down at the little thing, and back up at Joel.

“It’s- It’s pesticide. I got it on patrol today. It shouldn’t be too harmful to the plants, but it is old, so I’d be careful with it. Also, not much.” You bent down slightly to pick it up, and look at the words across the label, before beaming at Joel in shock.

“Oh, my goodness, Joel!” You squealed, bouncing on your toes a little before giggling. “Oh, thank you!”

“You’re welcome.”

Every part of you dissipated except for your heart and eyes on Joel. You let your hands, your body, your mind take over you, and you cupped Joel’s cheeks, feeling chills strike you as the hair on his chin pricked your fingers.

Before Joel could speak or react, his own hands met your waist as you kissed him. You and Joel had never touched ever besides the light guiding hand to your lower back. This was different. It was electric, it was months and months of wanting for the both of you. When you finally came to your senses at the feeling of Joel’s fingers digging deeper into your flesh, you tried to pull away for a breath, but he only deepened the kiss.

When you two finally pulled apart only a second or so later, it was like seeing you took away all of Joel’s passion, and you never wanted to feel the way you felt under his gaze in that moment ever again. You never wanted to feel his hands leaving your body and running across his face as he cursed under his breath.

“Joel, I’m sorry.” You whispered, pulling your lip between your teeth. “I wasn’t thinking straight, and-”

“I’ve gotta go.” He licked his lips as he turned around, and you clasped your fingers together.

“Joel-”

“It’s not your fault.” He said over his shoulder, his eyes avoiding the canister and your face.

You stood in the garden feeling more confused than ever. You aggressively wiped at the tears that sat at your waterline, kicking at the canister. You hated yourself, hated yourself for thinking that Joel could ever feel the fire you felt when you were around each other, when he would look at you with a tired smile after you laughed at one of Ellie’s lame jokes, or when he would sit out on his porch with you after the both of you had a long day.

You shouldn’t have been surprised, you thought, in a world where you could never have anything you truly wanted, you certainly would never have Joel.

Joel wasn’t sure what it was about you, but something about you reminded him of his past the same way that Ellie did. As bittersweet as it was, he couldn’t help but imagine that maybe, just maybe, if the outbreak had never happened, you two would’ve still found a way to be together. Maybe you’d be running a florist shop, and he’d run into you on his way to some contracting gig with Tommy. Or at least that’s how he liked to imagine it.

Ever since that evening, Joel wasn’t himself. Or at least, the version that everyone had grown used to. He was still grumpy, and grunted more than he spoke, but he wasn’t letting bullshit slide as much as usual. When he had to go on patrol, he was focused on the mission, getting there and back. He didn’t make conversation as usual, or slow down to look at anything that seemed interesting. At dinner, he ate alone, only keeping a close eye on Ellie as she schemed with the other kids her age, As much as he would always counter against, it always found its way to you, watching as you always angled your body away from him and talked to the other members of the community.

It felt like a never-ending game, and for some reason, neither of you were ready to throw in the towel.

“This is stupid.” Ellie finally gave in, grabbing Joel’s hand on their way home.

“Ellie, what are you doing?”

“You’re going to talk to Y/N!”

Joel stopped short, snatching his hand from Ellie’s grip. “Stop it, Ellie.”

“What happened between you two? You love her.”

Joel bristled at the accusation, frowning deeply in his thick jacket as he rolled his eyes. “You don’t know shit about this.”

“I don’t-” Ellie turned to face him and scoffed before blinking exaggeratedly. “Look, you were literally the only human I had contact with for, I don’t want to know how long, so I know you, Joel. I can tell that you like her.”

“I get along with her.” Joel admitted, doing his best to get out of the conversation. “I just… I don’t want her getting attached. This world is too unpredictable, and she doesn’t get that. I can’t give her all this time and attention when I know it won’t last. I know you’re too young to get what I’m sayin’, but I can’t do it, Ellie. I won’t do this to her.”

Joel was forming a nasty habit of turning his back before he could realize he was doing it. He knew this wasn’t one of those things that Ellie would badger about, it was an argument about fish or ravioli for dinner, this was about something that mattered to her, too.

Joel was alone for a few hours before he got a knock at the door. It was closer to dawn than dusk now, and he was about to give up on waiting for Ellie. He stood up from the creaking reclining chair, rubbing the crook in his neck to get ready to scold the girl for running rowdy in the quiet community, but he was greeted with a surprise.

You stood before him in a large sweater, worn and faded, with a pair of tights on your legs. You looked tired and confused, as if you weren’t sure what bought you here. Joel didn’t greet you as he usually would, with a smile and short nod before sliding out of the way to let you in. Instead, you received eyebrows raised in surprise and his large frame blocking the light behind him.

“Ellie told me that you wanted to see me. She was with those girls she’s usually with.”

“Oh, I-” You cut him off quickly, wringing your hands nervously.

“We don’t have to talk about it. I get that you’re mad at me, and you probably never want to look at me again, so if you were calling me over to tell me that, then I appreciate your honesty. I’ll leave now.”

Joel couldn’t take that glimmering look in your eye and the way it seemed like you could hardly stand to look at him.

“Come in.”

“Joel, really, you don’t have to be nice about it. It was my fault; I shouldn’t have made a move on you like that. I’m sorry.”

“Would you stop apologizing and come in, so I don’t have to kiss you out here?” Joel could practically see all the air in your body trade places with shock after he spoke, and he didn’t have to repeat himself to get you stepping into his warm home.

You didn’t say anything when he shut the door and walled you up against it with his body. He bent at the knees to make eye contact with you, and for the first time in a long time, he didn’t ache because of it.

His hands, large and rough, held your face and you were close enough for your noses to brush.

“Why are you scared of me, Joel?”

“Scared of hurtin’ you.” He whispered, his chest rising and falling with anticipation. “I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I did.”

“You couldn’t hurt me if you tried.”

“I already did, but I’m gonna spend a long time making up for it.”

A smile graced your lips, and Joel couldn’t wait to kiss you. A giggle bounced between you, and it wasn’t clear who it belonged to. When you two broke apart, Joel almost couldn’t believe it. It’s been so long since he’d even touched another person like this, and he couldn’t believe that after so long, he was lucky enough to have you.

He wasn’t sure when you went from the door to the couch, but he did remember hearing the lock turn with you laying on top of him, your face in the crook of his neck with his hand on the small of your back. He lifted his head up slightly just in time to see Ellie walk through the door with a smile on her face.

“Did Y/N stop by?” she asked, and Joel hushed her quickly, earning a wide grin from Ellie. “I’m a fucking genius.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Joel laid back down, closing his eyes as Ellie dropped a thick quilt blanket over the two of you.

#joel miller #joel miller fanfiction #tlou hbo #joel miller x reader #joel miller one shot #joel miller the last of us #joel miller fluff #joel miller angst #boyfriend!joel

363 notes · View notes

nhuquyen · 2 months

Text

This scene suffered from the pace being rushed which makes it hard to understand what Kabru is going on about if you didn't piece together the story through his POV. This is unfortunate cuz this moment is so realistically messy yet is the satisfying moment when the leading and supporting characters finally come into an understanding.

Kabru's antagonism makes perfect sense only if the readers remove themselves from their favoritism to Laios.

I see some confusion over why he thinks Laios is an enemy of humanity. Firstly, Laios thinks the things that killed all of his family and community are cool. This alone to me is at least sympathetic enough to see why he harbors subconscious prejudice against Laios. It doesn't make him right, but it's logical enough.

Secondly, yeah he's in over his head with his own judgment and thinks too highly of his own motive*. Thirdly, he's bit of a dick to Laios I won't even lie here (I do blame stress for the punch) . But like everyone except Falin is a fucking dick to Laios when you think about it.

And to be completely fair, ever since he knew of Laios' interest till even here still Kabru's been flip-flopping between "This man might save us all" and "He would choose monsters over humanity, we are doomed if he got the power which he is very close to getting rn, let kill him". It's not like he went 100% antagonistic.

This is getting long so,,,My breakdown of Kabru's pov, which explains his actions regarding Laios, under the readmore.

Let see thru Kabru's pov in chronological order:

Taking it from the start, Kabru has a bit of a savior complex no doubt stems from his survival guilt. Being the sole survivor of a massacre by monsters it's understandable he feel that it's his duty to find out why it happened and prevent it from happening again. We saw him and his crew talking shit about how good he is at reading people, and he totally gonna topple the greedy governor and save this place. Then they continuously got their asses handed to them by monsters cuz while Kabru read people well, he can't handle monsters. So yeah he admitted deep down he's not making it to the deep.

So now Kabru wants to find someone he can trust to save the island. He got his eyes on Laios bc he can't read him. Laios is a damn good dungeon explorer and isn't motivated by greed while almost everyone is, so what gives?

Here we see Kabru reveals he had failed to get Laios attention while trying to get to know his mysterious party. This is my interpretation only but he was definitely pissed about it too. Kabru is a bit over his head about his own charm so Laios ignoring him probably stunk.

Even after knowing Laios' special interest he was like "huh so that's how he is" until the matter of dungeon master's power come up and it occurred to him "wait would this guy who loves monsters use the power to make the dungeon full of powerful monsters that will destroy people?" He definitely did not decide Laios was humanity emeny right there, it's a possibility. As much as Laios pulling through and save the island from becoming another Utaya tragedy is a possibility.

Here, we see him desperately clinging to the former possibility until the latter took over "It's too late to get through to him i have to kill him." But did it take over? In that panic, his true feeling comes out. He still wants to understand Laios as a person, he still wants to believe in Laios after all.

Wgile it's easy to get pissed at Kabru just as we did the the Shuro/Toshiro vs Laios fight scene. Fellow autistics know how much it fucking hurt to get your social ineptitude get dragged out like that. I do think Kabru's rant here is good for Laios. This is the first time somebody has admitted to want to get to know why he like monsters despite them hating the creatures. It's not the solidarity like what he and his sister has, but it's not total rejection. Again, his own party members who care about him want nothing to do with his interest (minus Senshi)

Tldr: Kabru's alright and his actions make complete sense even if it's flawed

#dungeon meshi #dungeon meshi spoilers #kabru

61 notes · View notes

awgeezitsthetoiletnator · 3 months

Note

your mind !!!!!!!! literally it's that its the desperate plea of them both being like this meant something to us both??? it didn't just irrevocably change my world view alone right? and now i've got to pretend to be normal about it because we are forever linked in the same circle like!?!?!?!

this is why i feel so unnormal about them both- Tracker being a crutch for Kristen when they were dating because her whole life has been her living a lie. She's moving in because she can't be with her parents but I'm sure she wonders if it's just because they are girlfriends. I wonder how Kristen feels about living in Mordred and Jawbone being one of her guardians (not even mentioning how she struggles playing like a child role- being that shield for her brothers and how we often see her square up to Sandra Lynn) now they aren't together, like does she feels out of place there? I also think that feeling of being out of place was echoed in the recent episode of oh Kristen's address hasn't been changed either- like none of the parental figures in Mordred did that for her- especially Jawbone who works at the school and would have know that was kinda important.

Similarly I think Kristen provided that role on Sophmore year (even being in a messy arc) to Tracker of being that support and the one who does listen to her. Like I wonder how Tracker felt when Adaine & then Fig joined the household- because she's no longer getting priority attention from Jawbone since he's so busy. Yes she's very independent but that's because she's had to be. Even looking after Jawbone before he got better- like they did live together she's probably seen the ins and outs of all his business. The way I see her definitely has a heavy influence from you recommending scream by beach bunny for Tracker because wow- just incredible no notes. Her just moving on to looking after Kristen- like to make herself feel useful and needed- like when she gets brought along for spring break she's like oh I thought you were going to abandon me. Like. Head in hands. My poor girl. (Tracker being an npc is so hard i need all her lore now brennan)

I think it's also why it's so like explosive with the withholding stuff about Jawbone because her and Kristen have become this codependent team because there is so much going on its like oh your my person right now and you still did this, you know all these things and yet my feelings weren't considered & were pushed aside.

Like even after this happens- Kristen then starts unravelling Tracker's religion through finding Cassandra. Which tears them apart. They are both so influential in each other's lives its so crazy.

Apologies for the ramble as this might all be so incoherent but i just have so many thoughts on them and their dynamics- but I think it's like the tragedy aspect of it all that is so aligned with this music. Like the greater the risk the higher the reward and all that- they are built up to be so life changing that the fall consistently follows them. Like we haven't spoke in months but I'm still happy that your religious uprising is going well- even in my commune with my own Goddess you still linger there too. (Not even getting into the Goddess being sisters it's just so much)

Like the Bang the Doldrums line of better off as lovers and not the other way around vs Kristen trying to be normal about calling them friends to her cleric teacher. Just rattling them in my brain for real. I also like Bros by Wolf Alice for them because it's such energy of like If i did come back would you still be there? I know it's selfish of me to ask but would you do it anyway. And definitely less emo but Renegade by Big Red Machine gives them so much. like specifically the post chorus and second verse. again sorry for the ramble but these new episodes are just making me think so intensely about them :P

please never ever apologize for sending such thoughtful asks to my inbox!! i’m sorry it took me so long to reply, but you gave me so much for think about…

- you’re so right about how layered and complicated kristen’s feelings on living at mordred must be now. they were probably a lot easier to overlook when she and tracker were together. the current status shift of “i’m living with my partner” to “i’m crashing with my friends” is wild to me. while i think sandra lynn and jawbone do their best to be good parents for the teens living in their house, there’s just so many of them that it’s probably be easier to parent the ones that usually lean on them for help (adaine) or show clear red flags (fig). (i know this is most likely because beardsley was the one who started the tremors bit during the last episode, but the way jawbone leapt up to protect adaine and fig but not kristen gave me pause. not because jawbone (or brennan for that matter) did anything wrong, but it made me wonder how many little things like that must happen every day in front of kristen and how she might feel about it). given kristen’s reluctance to their parenting and tracker’s personal, recent experience with leaving the church of sol, tracker probably seemed like the best person equipped to support kristen, even if it put her in a weird, uncomfortable corner where she is constantly caring for the person who is supposed to be her main carer as well - although it’s never as reciprocal as it should be. tracker leans heavily on her own experience to try and help kristen, which is why she works so hard to support kristen in establishing her church. she wants kristen to experience the deep, primal connection to YES!? that she experiences with galicaea, but it’s not the necessarily the same situation as kristen is the sole cleric responsible for her gods. due to how much is resting only on her shoulders, kristen’s issues always seem to eclipse tracker’s, but that doesn’t make it fair. tracker tries to help in the way she knows how and it’s still not enough. i’m so excited to learn more about why tracker wants to talk to kristen in the present day. in part, it’s probably because at some point they will be living in the same house again and they should be on good terms. but i also wonder if tracker sees the same pattern with kristen’s gods that cassandra does, and wants to offer kristen an out of her current situation by asking her to join the wolfsong revival. i don’t think there’s any universe out there where kristen would have ever chosen galicaea over cassandra when that path was first offered to her in sophomore year, but tracker could argue that lots of things have changed since that initial offer. in joining her, kristen would be one of many clerics and share the burden of responsibility for keeping a god alive. and maybe that’s a way they can actually be together again. 👀

- kristen’s aversion to being parented is so fascinating to me that it needs to be its own list item. it feels so relatable as an experience of an eldest daughter who’s been parentified for longer than she can remember. because i don’t even think it’s an aversion to being parented really - i think she’s expecting to be treated as a child in a way that’s familiar to her. when you combine kristen’s eldest daughter position with her status as the golden child due to her connection to helio, it’s not a far reach to say that the applebees treated kristen closer to another adult in the family than a child when she lived at home. i’m guessing she was privy to way more information and it was her job to shield and distract her brothers from it or filter it in a way that her parents approved. this is one of the reasons why i think she struggled so much while questioning her faith - her parents had always communicated with her in a straight and simple fashion and this suddenly shifted to unsatisfactory, emotional answers to her questions. (granted, i don’t think any answers the applebees would have given would be satisfactory based on how stuck they are in their worldview, but they jumped really quickly into just shutting kristen down instead of actually hearing her out) i think she’s seeking out that kind of straightforward parent-child relationship she used to have with her parents when she approaches sandra lynn after the tryst with garthy, like “tell me what’s going on and we’ll find the best way to share this with the rest of the kids.” i know that moment is followed by a “classic ally chaos moment” of kristen asking for whiskey, but i wonder if there’s a way to recontextualize it here. maybe she sees herself falling into an old pattern. maybe she can’t resist the temptation of actually being treated like a child instead of a pseudo-adult. maybe she’s worried that whatever answer sandra lynn could give her isn’t worth her positioning herself like this. no one wants sandra lynn and kristen to bond this season more than me i’m awake at night wishing as hard as i can believe me when i say this but i do think that she’s still trying to be a shield to the best of her ability from afar. i think the underlying question behind kristen’s decisions now when it comes to her brothers is “how do i turn the selfish action of leaving them behind into the best decision for everyone in the end without compromising my own autonomy or putting them in a situation where they get hurt?” she stays away from the applebees house so that her brothers don’t have to deal with the tension she would inevitably bring with her. she leaves them gold but without a note so her parents can’t interrogate them about their contact with her. and even in the last episode - choosing to simply confuse her parents and keep her cool instead of actively arguing with them is interestingly as calculated as it is chaotic because she probably comes off as less of a threat to bucky’s devotion to helio and more as a neutral eccentric. for now, it’s easier on everyone in that house if she is cast as someone whose head isn’t screwed on straight rather than a complete villain.

- i too would love to know more about tracker. all of your questions about how she might have felt when jawbone’s attention shifted from her to adaine and fig are right on the money. add all the codependency with kristen to the mix, it makes me wonder if tracker feels like she missed out on having deeper, possibly sisterly friendships with adaine and fig. i think trackerbees being so joined at the hip resulted in her holding fig and adaine at arm’s length as “kristen’s friends” as opposed to new family members. it’s telling that she only chose to leave mordred once she was certain that she could trust that jawbone would be safe with the people surrounding him AND that they were taking care of him as much as he was taking care of them. i don’t think she was waiting for something to go wrong per say, but the fact is that something DID go wrong and her instinct to hang around was justified. she watches sandra lynn and jawbone reconcile and that point in time happens to coincide with her decision to start the wolfsong revival and then she’s finally ready to leave with ragh at her side - the only other teen she allowed herself to get close to probably by accident bc they spent a good deal of time together when the PCs were off on bad kids only mini-missions during spring break. (also how are they going to share ragh. i’m hoping it’s all cordial in the end but how do you share a person who was a bodyguard / confidant for one of you but also was the cofounder of the lgbtq+ student union / honorary party member for the other for much longer than that. how do you do that) i’m so curious about her place in the birth order, but given that we’ve never heard about any siblings, i’m inclined to believe she’s an only child and it seems to fit. i’m an eldest daughter with a couple of only children as best friends and the dynamic of how straightforward tracker is in her actions while kristen is constantly playing 4D chess in her head to figure out the best solution for everyone rings very true for me. we know that her parents kicked her out after she was bitten, but she didn’t stray super far - not even outside the same pantheon of gods. granted, I think the lycanthropy made galicaea a natural fit for her, but i don’t think the journey to get there took as long as kristen’s journey to YES!? two sides of the same coin and all that

- ANYWAYS. the music of it all. i completely agree with your assessment of the tragedy and risk that emo music usually lends itself to, but i also like your other recs here! i was racking my brain trying to think of where i’d heard bros before - it was featured in the life is strange prequel (that also happens to center around another tragic sapphic couple). i absolutely love renegade for them and it made me think of “the 1” - another swift / dessner collab that feels very of the moment for them. i think about them a lot when i’m listening to adult mom. most songs i feel apply directly to one or the other, but i feel like “checking up” from their most recent album feels very attuned to their relationship right before they broke up when tracker was first on the road.

for anyone who has made it this far down, thank you for coming for my ted talk! i guess i have a lot more thoughts about these two than i knew. thank you again @sabrirene for sending this in!

#kristen applebees #tracker o'shaughnessey #trackerbees #fantasy high #fantasy high junior year #fantasy high: junior year #fhjy #fhjy spoilers #sabrirene

29 notes · View notes

faebriel · 7 months

Note

could you give us some misc c!niki or c!rainduo headcanons.. missing them hours

so true anon. here are a couple miscellaneous headcanons (from the silly to the sad)

c!niki headcanons:

this is kind of a worldbuilding headcanon but i hc that some players are born to parents while others are spawned out of nowhere? niki spawned in as a kid in perfect smp and along with the other parentless kids grew up in a kind of village-raising-the-children situation. that sense of community never left her no matter where she went

she's never been very good at self-soothing behaviours, even as a kid. baking is kind of the closest thing she has and even that requires a level of focus and precision that after manberg she doesn't always have

i think she and fundy tried to give each other home piercings (nose piercing for niki, earlobe piercing for fundy) with somewhat varied results. if not for manberg they also would have discovered the stick and poke

big on gardening

she's a very poor medic - she tried to take the lead on curing tubbo's firework wounds in pogtopia but doesn't have a great sense for medicine. she had to take a lot of advice from techno which at the time she found very frustrating, as she took a while to warm up to him

her favourite baked goods are strawberry related

she also has a nigh-supernatural sense for guessing what people's favourite baked goods are on vibes alone

i think she's typically a decent advice giver but she really struggles to comprehend poor mental health in another person and in herself - she takes it far more personally than she should :( if she was a better smarter friend she would be able to solve all mental illnesses ever. makes her feel useless when her friends are suffering, and then when her own mental health deteriorates she has zero tools to detect, understand or do anything about it

part of the poor blood circulation brigade (not only are her hands freezing in winter, they are so hot in summer !! )

c!rainduo headcanons:

they would 100% do subtle dorky shit like have matching socks i think. niki has definitely knitted them at least one pair. they own l'manberg flag socks

neither of them are particularly athletic compared to their peers but they're absolute fiends in like. skipping rope competitions

they play guitar and sing together!! wilbur is a pretty prolific songwriter and she was one of the few people he'd sit down with and they'd sit there and pluck out the notes while he reworked the lyrics

in the oooold (read: pre-l'manberg) days, wilbur used to play music and sing while niki baked. he stopped doing this in l'manberg because he got too busy with the presidency, and she was never quite able to talk him into spending an afternoon on it again

they spoke very rarely in pogtopia. wilbur tended to avoid niki because he struggled to comfortably reconcile showing off how far he'd fallen with how much he'd always held niki up on a pedestal and wanted to show off his best qualities to impress her. so he just kind of avoided her. niki was increasingly hurt by this (and his abandonment of her in the first place) so she didn't really seek him out - and she figured they would be able to sort things out after the war ended and they won l'manberg back, anyway.

wilbur used to insist on showering niki with gifts on her birthday! niki is the kind of homemade-gift-bursting-with-love gift giver

wilbur picked up smoking as a stress management habit during his presidency, but niki didn't know about it until pogtopia - she once saw him put a butt out on his wrist and she ripped him a new one in front of tommy and techno and it made the cavern unbearably awkward for like three days

niki and that damn coat. okay so wilbur gave her That Damn Coat in pogtopia before the war and they were this 👌 close to being so damn obnoxious about having matching fits if they weren't going through the horrors of tragedy at the time. niki kept it in new l'manberg - she wore it pretty frequently, but it freaked a lot of people out (the memories were too fresh...), so eventually she did in fact stop wearing it in public. after doomsday, she picked up wearing it again (under the excuse that it gets cold down in the underground city, which would be super convincing if it wasn't thin and weedy. and it's not like there's anyone around to judge her anymore, is there? it's like the world's most fucked up comfort object except it provides zero comfort whatsoever

when she joins the syndicate phil and techno give her a lovely matching cloak with the rest of them, because it gets so cold up in the arctic. niki gets the postcard from wilbur after their reunion saying that he's gone off to utah and he's not coming back and she eventually (finally) burns the coat.

these got sad. umm pre-l'manberg they co-invented a cocktail so cursed that after one night of partying it was subsequently banned from all events ever. legend says you can go up to a gas station attendant in utah and say the phrase "soul sand skittle-savoy affair" and he will immediately gag

#thank u for the ask anon... i love any excuse to rant about the them <3 <3 <3 #theyre silly! theyre sad. i miss them a lot #asks

21 notes · View notes

alexiethymia · 1 year

Text

I adored Crash Course in Romance and I adored the ending. The entire series made me feel so warm and full. Again, it’s a refreshing series for me because there were a lot of beats that didn’t turn out the way the usually would in other kdramas and which I really loved, mainly the whole miscommunication trope. I was worried that Chiyeol would push Hangseon away after yet another trauma, but instead he only pulls her closer. One of the main reasons why I just love, love this series so much is because they communicate. They are unbelievably supportive toward each other. Instead the pain and miscommunication comes through Hangseon and Haeyi’s relationship which again I love because ultimately the crux of this series was the mother-daughter relationship between these two. I loved it because it was a realistic depiction of the complicated feelings someone in Haeyi’s situation would feel. The pain of thinking all this time she was a burden on her mom, and Hangseon’s pain at being rejected. I love the both of them because they have such a good head on their shoulders. Logically, they know that it shouldn’t matter that Hangseon wasn’t the one to give birth to Haeyi but they still struggle with how they stand in relation to each other. And that scene at the end which parallels Haeyi running to Haengseon as a kid was just beautiful.

Chiyeol said that he was changing, and that theme of change being reflected in everyone was again just beautiful. These are just a few points that I really loved and want to show my appreciation for:

Hangseon getting to fulfill her dream no matter her age. I adore her seriously. It’s not all roses, not perfect. It’s realistic in that she still fails twice, but she gets to be confident and happy as she studies, largely in part because of the great support system she has and how content she is with life. After everything she’s worked for and sacrificed I am just so happy she gets to have everything - her dream, her daughter, the love of her life. No wonder Chiyeol is smitten.

Jaewoo and Youngjoo happy together.

Su-a becoming more human. I cheered when she gave Haeyi those notes and how she was more expressive. Again I’m happy for her, for the chance to change.

Weirdly enough I liked Su-a’s mom and her arc. Because just no, nothing excuses cheating, bastard and I love the way she reacted. Likewise for Sun-jae’s mom and her own self-reflection and that it was her kids who finally pulled her back from the path of self-destruction. For what it’s worth, even after the reveal, they always referred to Hangseon as ‘Haeyi’s mother’.

The fact that there were consequences, for the above characters, and as shown by what happened to Mr. Ji. Because again, what happened to Mr. Ji was still a tragedy. Unlike Su-a, Sun-jae, and their moms, no one was there to stop him and to pull him back. I still think there could have been a chance for him if he took Chi-yeol’s hand. Likewise with Haeyi’s birth mom. Even if she is now regretting being out of place, there are indeed consequences to her leaving, but the drama isn’t so cynical as to completely close the door on her being part of the family. And again I love the drama so much because of that.

The sweet, sweet domesticity. How Chiyeol is patient and impatient in his own way. How he doesn’t want to crowd her and let her fulfill her dream at her own pace, but c’mon he just really wants to marry her so bad already (like booking and then cancelling the wedding hall without telling her). The little parallels like how Hangseon is now in Chiyeol’s place when he was still studying, and how Chiyeol can be there for Hangseon the way her mom was there for him. The way he just cheered like crazy the same way like when Haengseon told him Haeyi topped the mock exam. It is so funny to me why he still pretends to be all cool with his family when they all know how dorky he is. He is just so proud of his family, but now he’s close enough with his students that he can share that immense joy with them. I am so happy for him. When he was screaming “SHE PASSED!”, he was also basically just screaming, “I’M GETTING MARRIED!!!” He was so excited, ecstatic even. I wonder if all his students are invited. I’ve always wanted that for him. I am also so happy he was able to reconnect with his college friend.

Haeyi x Sunjae end game!!! I must admit that I was ready to have my heart broken because they really went through the ringer, but again I am soft for the best friends trope, and Haeyi is indeed her mom’s daughter. Of course she would be all gruff and embarrassed and fall for a dorky simp of a guy who just adores her. I’m happy for all of the kids. I’m happy they moved past their parents’ petty politics and grew.

The! Little! Touches! Of! Sweet! Domesticity! Again I cannot shut up about it. The way he kisses her cheek as he tells her how proud he is of her. They way they kiss the back of each other’s hand. Picking her up, Hangseon feeling all the flutters at being pampered (as she should!), I absolutely knew he was just waiting to propose to her! Hangseon taking action and the both of them proposing to each other!! He is down bad but he will refrain as Hangseon asks so that she can focus (but seriously he should know better as a teacher haha).

The only minor complaint I have is that we didn’t get to see the actual wedding. Like what is with that and kdramas haha. I have lost count of how many kdramas where I really wanted there to be a wedding in the end, but never getting it.

But all in all, I am so happy for my parents and kids. This is one of those few dramas where I loved everyone and hated no one. I loved everyone’s stories. This was my comfort watch during the weekends. I am so glad I started and finished it. I think I’ll really miss everyone.

Found family at its finest. I am full. 10/10

#crash course in romance #ccir #kdramas #ramblings about kdramas #huhu I don’t know what to occupy myself with on the weekends anymore #everything was just so soft and warm #I loved the soundtrack that played during haeyi sunjae and then hangseon and chiyeol’s scenes #peak romcom #def gonna be one of my fave kdramas

105 notes · View notes

tomorrowusa · 27 days

Text

No matter how remote, bizarre, or ridiculous, Republicans will try to twist reality to fit their conspiracy theories.

Under Elon Musk, Twitter/X has spiraled out of control with MAGA freaks taking full advantage of the lack of content moderation. Just when you think Twitter won't get any worse, it gets worse.

The slow death of Twitter is measured in disasters like the Baltimore bridge collapse

As conspiracy theorists compete for attention in the wake of a tragedy, others seek engagement through dubious expertise, juicy speculation, or stolen video clips. The boundary between conspiracy theory and engagement bait is permeable; unfounded and provoking posts often outpace the trickle of verified information that follows any sort of major breaking news event. Then, the conspiracy theories become content, and a lot of people marvel and express outrage that they exist. Then they kind of forget about the raging river of Bad Internet until the next national tragedy. [ ... ] On Tuesday evening, I called Lisa Snowden, the editor-in-chief of the Baltimore Beat — the city’s Black-owned alt-weekly — and an influential presence in Baltimore’s still pretty active X community. I wanted to talk about how following breaking news online has changed over time. [ ... ] Here are some of the tweets that got attention in the hours after the collapse: Paul Szypula, a MAGA influencer with more than 100,000 followers on X, tweeted “Synergy Marine Group [the company that owned the ship in question] promotes DEI in their company. Did anti-white business practices cause this disaster?” alongside a screenshot of a page on the company’s website that discussed the existence of a diversity and inclusion policy. That tweet got more than 600,000 views. Another far-right influencer speculated that there was some connection between the collapse and, I guess, Barack Obama? I don’t know. The tweet got 5 million views as of mid-day Wednesday. [ ... ] Here are some of the tweets that got attention in the hours after the collapse: Paul Szypula, a MAGA influencer with more than 100,000 followers on X, tweeted “Synergy Marine Group [the company that owned the ship in question] promotes DEI in their company. Did anti-white business practices cause this disaster?” alongside a screenshot of a page on the company’s website that discussed the existence of a diversity and inclusion policy. That tweet got more than 600,000 views. Another far-right influencer speculated that there was some connection between the collapse and, I guess, Barack Obama? I don’t know. The tweet got 5 million views as of mid-day Wednesday.

When people are mostly interested in "flooding the zone with shit", it is useless to even try to refute their falsehoods.

It doesn't matter that the Dali is not US owned but instead has ties to Singapore and Denmark. And the construction of the Francis Scott Key Bridge took place almost entirely during the administrations of Republicans Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford when DEI did not even exist as such.

With conspiracy theories there are always loopholes and sub rosa circumventions to account for the obvious lack of clear evidence.

To MAGA Republicans, facts are irrelevant. All that matters is how fast their lies travel through online platforms. And one of those platforms, Twitter/X, has been lubricated by its far right owner to accelerate those lies.

If you haven't already, quit Twitter/X and encourage others to do so ASAP. Migrate to Mastodon or Bluesky and enjoy the comparative sanity on those platforms.

7 notes · View notes

palestaticexchange · 4 months

Text

THE QUAINTEST PUB IN NOWHERE

You stand with your hands on your hips in awe of your own prowess. Every pane is smearless, every surface spotless, every wall stainless, and every corner free from dust. The air is tinged with the smell of caustic lemon bleach and faint traces of the morning's burnt coffee.

You pride yourself on generating a pleasant atmosphere within your cafeterias. Little pockets of warmth and calm away from the general hubbub of Revachol... Whilst still being accessible to the average Revacholian wallet, of course. That was important.

When you took on your third cafeteria you were granted a rare opportunity. You *bought* the building - not rented - for a steal using the float from your first two locations. A risky move, but one that paid off.

The RCM had auctioned the little wooden lounge after it's previous owner had been sentenced to Reunion. A one-story wood beam hostel, 25 minutes out from Boogie Street, that carried a *bad* reputation after being outed as the location for a gruesome triple homicide. A tragedy, but not the building's fault.

Two years later it carried the reputation of an 'old man pub'. Not exactly the cozy Ubi Sant-style walkers cottage you had envisioned as you redecorated, but better than what the average Jamie Jamrock had previously referred to as the 'Death House'. Besides, keeping the ale cheap rather than leaning into the creation of a gastrotavern (bolstered by a subsequent hike in pricing for meaty little nibbles) meant you kept a near-daily rotation of regular clientele.

Old, ugly, smelly, alcoholics who - having avoided the barrel of a gun during the Revolution - resigned themselves to drink away the profits and memories of those friends and family members less fortunate. Rude, grizzled men; with fingers stained yellow from decades of smoking; and wet, bloodshot eyes. They *more* than kept the doors open however; so you'd keep your judgements to yourself.

A regular that, for some reason, your bar staff refer to as 'Salt Beef' (you don't care) grunts at you to communicate that you're blocking his path to the bathroom. You sigh and squish against the bar so the man can waddle past.

"You're welcome," you say.

The man grunts again.

Dragged from memory lane by the smell of imminent piss, you head behind the bar and heft a cardboard box on top of it. Your task for the day.

You're not a big believer in the supranatural but this box does carry an element of magic to you. You don't remember buying a *single* item within it, yet every year the amount of tat within seems to have doubled.

Glass stars, snowflakes, and arches. Woven wooden animals, gaudy little dolls in warm-looking clothes, dried lilacs, lavender, and snowdrops. Orbs containing water, glitter, and barren landscapes. Streamers in the silvery blue shade of cold. Potpourri heavy on the orange and shedding a constant dust that makes you sneeze as you unpack everything.

It is time to decorate for the Winter Solstice.

You both love and hate this errand. On the one hand; it's a change of pace, and signals the end of year windfall that accompanies alternative clientele. Portly women looking for somewhere with a wood burning stove to enjoy a seasonal brandy and laugh with friends at an ear-splitting decibel. Middle-class men forced to spend at least one weekend a year with their families in the morning, buying coffees for themselves and lemonades for the kids, then returning in the evening with their mistresses to share a bottle of 'your cheapest wine at the highest percentage please, mate'. The chintzy tat lures these people to your establishment like flies to honey.

On the other hand, you've been doing this job long enough to know that no matter how pleasant the task starts out - placing the globes on the mantelpiece just so, sneezing into the crook of your arm as the coffee table receives a vase of Potpourri - at some point you are going to lose your fucking mind.

It might be the 17th time a gooey stars peel itself from the window, or when you spend 10 minutes struggling with the end of the tape only to lose it immediately upon ripping off one, pitiful, piece. However, you are more than aware that at some point you are going to - calmly - walk into the cellar and proceed to scream for a good minute.

Thankfully neither your clientele, or staff, give you much thought. You recently hired a young man named Pascal; he's polite and does as he's told, however he seems to be powered by marijuana alone: which has a tendency to make him lax. Whatever. This is Jamrock: as long as he does his job (and smokes AWAY from your building) you're inclined to leave him to it.

The regulars you know full well would watch you have a heart attack in silence and step over your corpse to pull themselves another bitter.

You're reminded of this fact as Salt Beef grunts at you again as you attach a streamer to the front of the bar.

"Sir, with all due respect I am *not* in your way."

It's true: there's a wide birth between where you kneel on the floor and the nearest table. Salt Beef remains unmoving, staring at you in silence with arms limp by his sides, like the last apple on a tree long-since out of fruiting season. He has ample space to walk around you but he wants the space *you* occupy.

You sigh again. Working in the hospitality industry often means bending over backwards for the tiniest of requests from the biggest dickheads born this side of 00.

You flatten yourself against the bar, knees reminding you that although you're in your 20s you're on the wrong side of that decade, and thank yourself for cleaning the front of the bar as well as its surface. The smell of *new* piss as opposed to the stale passes behind you, then you're free to resume pinning the streamer in its rightful place.

It's then the brass tinkle of the door bell rings out signifying that somebody has entered your establishment. Your crusty Wednesday regulars are accounted for. All six of them. So you grip the countertop and rise from your position on the slate, ready to greet whichever seasonal bother has decided to grace you with their presence, with a smile of course.

That is one element of Winter Solstice decoration you'd always deemed too cliché: the angel. Swathed in white from heel to hair, eyes kind, and skin so pale that rosy cheeks came as standard. A beautiful, patient, adored symbol of femininity and power; something to be revered whilst still retaining a form that could be sold as *fuckable* to any lonely man for a pittance in the store.

Most modern angels are based off the countenance of one Dolores Dei. It made sense after all. Blonde, pretty, fragile in appearance while still boasting of absolute power. Who better to render onto cheap cards and cookies, post-death?

For you the angel never resembled Her Innocence however.

For you the angel was local and endlessly patient, kind to a fault, eyes open - not as an Innocence - but possessing an observance beyond her years.

For you the angel would pick up a shift when your assistant manager called in sick because he couldn't handle his gin.

Through the door walks your most favoured member of staff: Sylvie Malaìika. Not adorned with woven twigs, nor brandishing the silver cups of year end. She wears a simple warm jumper and carries paper bags full of shopping.

You're on your feet in an instant, already making your way towards her as she blows away hair caught in her face as the door swings shut on her. "Sylvie!" You cry in surprise. "To what do I owe the pleasur- here, let me help with your bags." As you reach her you hook your arm under the paper straps adorning her right side.

She uses the free hand to move remaining strands stuck to her lips, and *you* try not to pay attention to how glossed they are. "Oh! It's *warm* in here, thank God!" With a deft roll of her shoulder she lets the three bags held on her arm slide down it and into your hands, supporting the remaining bag in her right against her body. "Thank you, Garte!" She beams, knocking the wind out of you.

"O- of course!" You reply, splitting three bags between two hands and already leading her towards the best seat in the house; a plush armchair right by the stove.

"Oh it smells *lovely* in here! You're putting the decorations up, then?" As she sinks into the chair you hear the familiar clunk of glass hitting the ground. Her remaining bag must contain bottles of heavy alcohol, explaining the 3-1 split. "I've just been shopping for my family, thought I'd take a little break and get out from that dreadful wind."

The weather had been terrible today, the single-pane windows rattling in their frames as wind howled down the chimney. Days like these were unpredictable; the weather either filled your pub with people looking for a cozy place to escape the cold, or rendered it dead as folks cowered away in their homes. It made it hard to staff appropriately.

As you place her bags to the side of the chair, she routes through them as if to remind herself of their contents. "I've been sent out on a mission," she grumbles. "Grandmother gave me money and a list and expects me to return with everything on it." She sighs. "I didn't know how *hard* that would be when I agreed. For such a large city there's an awful lot of shops selling the same things," she smiles sadly. "And for a much higher price than Gran is used to at her age."

"Looks like you've made good progress at least," you say, nudging the closet bag gently with your shoe.

"Hardly," she sighs again, propping her perfect chin against her hand. "I could get everything she wanted for half the price and she'd still find something to complain about."

You'd heard variations on this tale before. As far as you could gather, Sylvie's grandmother was an esteemed battleaxe. Feared within their local community for her sharp tongue and cunning eye, but also revered for a *sharper* wit and thumb so green she could allegedly grow food from cigarette butts discarded in a gutter. You were both eager and *terrified* to meet her one day... Maybe... If you were *VERY* lucky.

"Ah," you hum. "But you've done your best! She surely can't ask for more than that." You give what you *hope* is a reassuring smile. "Would you like a drink, Sylvie?"

She smirks, "Only if you're offering."

"Of course!" The words leave your mouth before you can stop them. A solid 45% of you screaming in horror about *profits* and *financial goals* and the rest of you giddy with *holiday spirit*. You pound a closed fist against your chest. That might be heartburn actually.

Sylvie's eyes go wide however. "Oh! Lawrence, I was just joking!" She leans forwards and pulls a little blue purse from the bottom of one bag. "I'll get my own drink of course."

"Nonsense!" You wave her off, already smothering whatever arguing needed to take place within you. "Lets call it a... Holiday bonus if you will?" You shimmy forward conspiratorially in the practised technique of somebody trying to make a customer feel *special*... No... Not a customer... A *friend*. "Besides," you whisper lowly. "I can always write it off as wastage." You feel dirty all of a sudden. Very few in this city would shame you for taking the occasional perk from business work, especially when it's to *their* benefit, but all of a sudden you feel cheap. You want to buy this woman a drink from your own pocket...

However, the lowness of your voice doesn't seem to stop your bartender from picking up on the statement. "Solstice bonus, boss?" Pascal says grinning. "Don't mind if I do!"

"Well," Sylvie says, rising from her armchair and tucking her white mittens into one pocket of her coat. "If we're *all* having a drink then it would be rude to refuse." Fine. All *three* of you will have a drink. It's not like you were trying to buy her, specifically, a drink. Why would you be trying to do that?

Pascal lines three glasses on the bar as the two of you approach. Sylvie's attention is drawn as a white star suddenly peels itself from the window and lands on the floor with a sticky slap.

"Doing my head in..." You mutter. "The only consolation is this gives me a reason to finally throw them away at the year's end!"

"Have you washed them?" Sylvie says, cocking her head.

"What do you mean?"

The corners of her mouth flick up in a smile and she peels the star gently from the floor. Then, she walks behind the bar and rinses it under the tap. "It's covered in dust, see?" She holds the star out briefly to you before swilling it under the running water again. "It must be from that potpourri I can smell." Both you and Pascal watch her in silence as she returns to the window and presses the star against it.

The gooey cut-out holds with barely any resistance. When you were attaching them you'd ground your knuckles against the pane and they'd still fallen within the minute.

"It takes a gentle touch sometimes." She says with a smile, as if reading your mind.

Your breath catches in your lungs. She really is an *angel*.

"Cheers to that," Pascal says with a wink. You huff and take the glass from his hand as he raises it in her direction.

"Give me that," you mutter, lining it up with the others and pulling a bottle from under the bar. Firebrand Whiskey. Not the most *upmarket* liquor available but nicer than the swill to generally grace your pallet. As you begin to pour Sylvie crosses her arms on the bar in front of you and Pascal peers over your shoulder.

"Good thing I'm getting the tram back!" Sylvie says heartily.

"I don't think *any* of us drive..." You say, re-corking the bottle and passing a glass to each member of staff.

You raise your glass in a toast and Sylvie and Pascal follow suit, glasses clinking. "Happy Winter Solstice."

"To a bright new year!"

"Thanks for the free booze!"

You swig in turn. It's been a while since you've drank, you realise. The heat of the alcohol warms your tonsils as it slips past them. Then you're setting the short glass on the bar and staring directly at Sylvie's rosy cheeks. That heartburn returns. Probably the whiskey.

"Oh!" She says suddenly. "That reminds me!" She reaches into her bag - handbag, not paper one full of shopping - and brings out a little parcel wrapped with rough string. "For you, Lawrence," she says with a smile.

Man that whiskey really *is* giving you terrible heartburn. No wonder you don't drink that often. Probably *not* heartburn though... Is it?

Gingerly, you take the parcel from her and remove the string. By the time you spot the Spenny Pennies logo you're baffled.

She catches the awestruck expression on your face and raises her hands. "Discounted of course!" She admits.

Spenny Pennies is a six story department store on the promenade of Grand Couron. A verifiable gold mine of everything your little heart could desire. Toys, clothes, sweets, the newest technology shipped in from Seol, rare fruit grown on the other side of the Occident and encased in marzipan. Spenny Pennies products are WELL outside the boundaries of an ordinary Revacholian wallet. Except that sometimes fancy tins of biscuits are *dropped* and their contents broken, and if the contents aren't *perfect* then 'Callie Couron' won't be buying it. As such, these less-than-perfect items are sold for sometimes 80% off.

THAT is the only way these items end up in the hands of 'Jamie Jamrocks' like you lot.

None the less, the gesture is immeasurably kind and you take the box of broken biscuits with an unpractised timidness. "T- Thank you..." You say looking down at them. "There was no need, really-"

"Oh, be quiet," she says smiling. She takes another small swig of her whiskey and looks out of the window.

"Ne'er had one of these!" Pascal says, ruining the moment as he peers down at the brandy snaps.

"Hinting much are we?" You say dryly, already popping the lid of the tin.

"No, Sir, not me!" He raises his hands, eyelids fluttering, and still *very much* hinting how much he'd like a biscuit.

You offer a brandy snap to Sylvie first - of course - then Pascal, then take one for yourself. "Erm... Do we cheers with these?" You say, turning the little tube over between your fingers.

"Why not!" Sylvie laughs. "Happy Winter Solstice!" She says, mimicking the cadence you'd taken as *you* said that last time.

"To a bright new year!" You says in return, eyes sparkling as you toss her greeting right back at her.

"Thanks for the free biscuit!" Pascal chimes in.

And for an hour - in what used to be referred to as the 'old Death House' - three people share companionship, whiskey, and brandy snaps. Their good mood rings so true, that nobody even notices three more gooey stars peel themselves from the window.

#i wanted this out yesterday for actual winter solstice but unfortunately work got in the way *shakes fist* CAPITALISM!!#garte disco elysium #lawrence garte #Sylvie Malaìika #sylvie disco elysium #PALE STATIC LORE

12 notes · View notes

rruhlauthor · 2 months

Text

Book Review - The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

After reading, I learned this book was first published on 28 February 2017, which makes this a timely review at its seventh anniversary.

It’s difficult to write a book with social justice themes without the narrative dipping into a lecture-style and the author’s voice bleeding through. Angie Thomas pulled it off masterfully, and never once was the immersion broken while discussing themes. This book is clever and chooses each word meaningfully. The Hate U Give gripped me by the collars and would not let me put it down. The story is compelling and highly readable, covering emotionally heavy material and educating the reader on racial justice while also presenting a coming of age tale and lots of humor. This style represents its core message: despite growing darkness, we have to keep living. The narrator’s voice, the unfortunate ongoing relevance to current events, and the unrelenting suspense make this book a modern classic that I think should be in every high school.

The voice of the protagonist and the ways in which she interacts with her world and the people around her immerse the reader. Starr is a likable character, funny, resilient, and brave even when she doesn’t think she is. Her characterization was so strong I felt like I could meet her in passing on the street or follow her tumblr blog. She collects sneakers. She knows how to put price tags on groceries. She’s embarrassed by her parents’ dancing. The driving plot of The Hate U Give is the murder of Khalil and trial of 115, but the book is about so much more. The book is about Starr and how she grows into self-confidence and realizes her power to change her community. We care about Starr’s conflict with her friends and boyfriend, her worry about her parents’ marriage, and her complicated feelings with attachment to the place she grew up versus moving to a better life. Suspense never relents, lending a thriller feel to the story. Will Starr decide to speak up? Will 115 be charged? Will Hailey apologize? Will the family be able to protect DeVante from King? The people and places are described with such care they leap off the page. The appeal and success of this story is not from larger than life characters and events, but painful and heartfelt realism.

I had a few tears in my eye at the end of the novel, in a good way. There was no justice for Khalil, just like continues to happen in the real world. The Hate U Give was published in 2017, and it feels like little has changed since then in police reform. But there is still hope. Starr and her family get a better house, her mom gets a new job, the community help rebuild the store, Starr stands up for herself against Hailey, and she’s closer than ever with Chris who has shown he’ll support her in anything. The central message of the book is not loss but hope, a story about fighting for a better world because we live in it. This is what we need in face of rising darkness. The audience cares about the characters, cares about the tragedy, cares about justice, but the ultimate reason The Hate U Give hits so hard is that it doesn’t lean into despair. It says, “we must do something, and we can.”

I think this book should be taught in high schools. I certainly wish it was taught in the one I attended (a semi-rural, predominately white community). I know people would have a fit about the strong language, especially “that one news channel” as it was called in the novel, but the message is more important than a couple swear words the students would hear in the hallways anyway. It’s an introduction into learning about activism, written in a voice that is relatable and easily comprehended, wrapped in the attention-grabbing vibe of a YA thriller. Teens and adults alike can enjoy the storytelling and learn a lot from it. I certainly learned a lot about a culture that is not my own, and I’m grateful Angie Thomas created this and shared it with us. It surely took a lot of emotional labor, and the author’s emotional connection to the story shows and makes it all the more impactful.

Stories have the power to change the world, and if they didn’t, there wouldn’t be massive censorship efforts all throughout history. We’re living amongst the worst of modern censorship waves in the United States right now, with any book that mentions race or sexuality being challenged, even children’s books about things as unprovocative as doing hair. The Hate U Give covers dark subject material, but we need to not look away from the darkness in the world we live in. The enemy of hate is care. Through trying to understand one another and our struggles, we can be the light, like a star.

#book review #the hate u give

7 notes · View notes

blueisquitetired · 2 months

Text

ABANDONED WIP WEDNESDAY

This one's a two parter!

Mirror Image was originally going to be a dad!Ingo fic before I decided better of it. I like what I have now more, but there sure is a lot that got scrapped unfortunately.

This post will contain what was written for the first chapter, and the next post will be the overall outline plus one scene set much later in the fic.

Heroes and Villains, Alternate Timeline- Ingo is a Dad Now

Length: 2,000 words

Rating: G

No archive warnings apply

PREVIOUSLY ON- HEROES AND VILLAINS:

*Tragedy struck early last year when famed hero Chandelure perished in a battle against the dastardly Mirror Coat. No body was recovered, but according to the Hero Commission and Chandelure’s former partner and twin brother Eelektross he was all but guaranteed dead.

Yet, not all was as it seemed, as mere months later a new villain arose- one sporting similar powers and going by the name of Smokestack. This outraged Eelektross, as to him it was clear that this was his brother’s true killer- one that had murdered him and stolen his powers for himself. Eelektross declared war on the villain, and swore that he would not rest until his twin was avenged.

That is, until one fateful confrontation let Eelktross see under Smokestack’s mask.

Because what lie under that mask was no heartless killer, but instead Nobori- a scarred amnesiac who emerged from the burning rubble of Chandelure’s battle as nothing but a ghost of a man. A man who was forced to build himself from the ground up, relying on the community who took him in, and doing his best to pay them back for their generosity. And considering that hero skirmishes are the thing that hurt his community the most, his best plan of action was clear.

Now Eelektross, (or Emmet as he is known by in his civilian life) must confront the difficult truth that the world isn’t as black and white as he thought. That villains could be good people, heroes could be bad people, and that he’s been fighting his brother to the death for months now.

But more then that- he just wants to be with his brother again.

Will Emmet manage to confess to being Eeletross? Will Ingo accept such a thing if he did? And will the commission figure out what really happened to Chandelure? Find out in todays episode of…* HEROES AND VILLAINS!

Ingo is alive.

Ingo is alive! Messed up situation aside, that’s the most important part.

Sure, they’re technically mortal enemies at the moment, and sure he’ll probably drop Emmet like a hot sack of coals when he realizes he’s Eelektross, but still. Even if he finds out, (when he finds out, because Emmet can’t keep this secret forever) even if he does disown Emmet, at least he’ll be alive. Alive and happy and mostly safe. ….as safe as an enemy of the law can be.

But whatever! Ingo’s back from the dead and Emmet doesn’t want to dwell on the inevitability of once again losing the most important person in the world to him. He can deal with that later. Right now he’d rather spend whatever time he can have with his brother.

….after he gets back from the bathroom.

Playing with his fingers idly, Emmet really wished Ingo would hurry up so he didn’t have to be alone with his own thoughts. ….but he didn’t want to rush his brother or anything- they’d been talking for hours at that point and taking a bodily break was fine and definitely not an issue. Emmet’s head was just a bad place to be at the moment.

A scrabbling sound at the window caught Emmet’s attention, a humanoid shape huddled behind the curtains. He jumped to his feet as the window slammed open, curtains pushed aside as-

As a teenager rolled into the room.

Or what Emmet assumed to be a teenager. It was a bit hard to tell, as she immediately turned around to close the window behind her- but teenager was Emmet’s best guess. She was a bit on the shorter side with long black hair and a dirty white t-shirt, and when she turned back around Emmet was able to make out large gray eyes. Eyes that grew wider at the sight of him.

“Who-“ “TRAITOR!!” She shouted, before Emmet could get more then a word out. “I HAVE BEEN BETRAYED! FORSAKEN!! FATHER NO LONGER LOVES ME!!!” Dramatically, she crumpled on the ground, limbs splayed and the back of her hand to her forehead.

“Hello to you too Akari.” Ingo quipped from behind Emmet, obviously just coming back from the bathroom. “Why am I a traitor exactly?” “You know what you did!” She shouted, sitting up suddenly- and then pausing when she caught sight of of both Emmet and Ingo. “….ooooor not. When’d you get a clone?” Getting to her feet, she scampered over to Emmet and began to examine him thoroughly, making him feel a bit like a bug. Ingo pulled her back. “This is Emmet!” He told her, a his lips curling up into a little kitty smile. “He is my twin!” (He looked so happy saying that) “Wait really?” ‘Akari’ looked skeptical, and Ingo had to pull her back again before she could enter Emmet’s private space again. “‘Cause I thought you got another illusionist behind my back and I was not going to stand for it.”

“I am Emmet. Not an illusion.” He wished she would stop staring at him. “Who are you?” “Oh my apologies! This is-“ “I am Akari No-Last-Name-Given! Daughter of Nobori No-Last-Name-Given!” She punctuated every word with a dramatic punch or pose, as if she was a cartoon superhero. “I might look small but I’m stronger then you and will beat you up if you hurt my dad!!!” Dramatically, she ended her introduction in some kind of off brand ninja pose- one where she was obviously threatening Emmet.

Ingo looked torn between touched and embarrassed out of his mind. “Akari-“ “Because you coming out of nowhere is super duper sus and Dad is a complete doormat!” “Akari!!” “So if you think I’m gonna just accept you as my unc-“ She let out a high pitched squeal as Ingo grabbed her around the middle, throwing her over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry. “Apologies for Akari! She means no harm- she is simply a bit spirited.” “I DO MEAN HARM!!” Akari kicked desperately in an attempt to get free, but Ingo wasn’t budging.

“….You adopted a kid?” Emmet finally managed, watching his brother wrestle with the strange teenager with obvious fondness. “Ah, well, technically she adopted me but-“ “We’re both amnesiacs with superpowers!!! No one can prove we AREN’T related!!!” “I can.” The teen froze for a moment, obviously processing Emmet’s statement, before- “DANG IT!” And Ingo laughed, a loud mighty sound that Emmet missed. He couldn’t help but feel jealous that this strange teenager managed to coax it out of him, that she got to be Ingo’s family while Emmet was still a stranger. …But the thought was stuffed down almost as soon as he thought it. His jealously was stupid and petty, and not earned in the slightest. If he wanted to be Ingo’s family again he needed to work on it- and being jealous of Ingo’s kid wouldn’t help him get back in his brother’s good graces. If Ingo would even allow him to.

“Alright Akari, Emmet and I still have things to discuss. Why don’t you head back home and you can interrogate him another day?” Plopping Akari back onto the floor, Ingo paused for a moment- before giving Emmet a searching look. “…Assuming you would like to return?” “Yes!” Emmet did his best to keep the desperation off of his face. “Yes I would like that verrrrrry much.” “Excellent!” Ingo clapped his hand together in obvious joy. “Now then Akari, if you will please excuse us…” “Yeah yeah whatever.” With a twirl and flourish Akari began walking backwards to the door, flashing Emmet the ‘keeping my eyes on you’ hand gesture. “Watch yourself strange doppelgänger! I ain’t one to be messed with!” And with that ominous statement she bolted out the door.

“….spirited kid.” “Indeed.” Ingo smiled slightly with his eyes, before turning and gesturing back to the couch. “Would you like to continue our earlier conversation? Or would a change of tracks be preferable?” “Please continue.” Hesitantly, Emmet took Ingo’s hand and dragged him back to the couch. “The breaking system? Yes?” “Ah yes, that was it! So as I was saying…”

oOo

Apparently, despite being Ingo’s kid, Akari didn’t actually live with Ingo. She was technically under the care of some other apartment resident, but had the tendency to climb the fire escape and hang out in Ingo’s apartment. Ingo himself didn’t seem to do much actual parenting, but from the few times Emmet saw the two interact it was quite obvious they were close.

“Akari has amnesia as well.” Ingo explained one evening, as the two worked together to cook dinner. (Emmet wasn’t a cook by any means, but Ingo had invited to show him the ropes- and Emmet would never turn down an opportunity to hang out with his brother) “She seemed to see me as a sort of… kindred spirit, and declared herself my daughter.” “She has good taste.” Emmet joked, and Ingo turned away in embarrassment. “I- I would not say that. I am not-“ He shook his head. “It is… quite lonely living without memories. As far as you know you have no friends or family, and are alone in the world.” There was a pause as Ingo gathered his thoughts, the muffled audio of a neighbor’s radio being the only real sounds left. “Meeting you has been… wonderful- like a soothing balm on my soul. You fill a part of me I thought would never be full, and I cannot thank you enough for that.” He smiled slightly with his eyes, and Emmet did his best not to cry. “I believe Akari’s adoption of me was an attempt to fix a similar issue.”

Emmet, well Emmet couldn’t really imagine that. He had been destroyed when he lost Ingo- but at least he knew what he was missing. Ingo and Akari hadn’t had that luxury. “I am glad then. That you found each other.” He fidgeted slightly. “And I am- being with you is also-“ “I’M BACK!” Akari’s cry interrupted Emmet’s stuttered admission, leaving the man cursing his incompetence with words.

“Welcome back Akari!” Ingo called back, bumping lightly into Emmet’s shoulder with an apologetic look. “Emmet and I are almost finished cooking dinner, would you like to join us?” “Eh depends. What’re you making?” Akari shucked off her shoes and backpack as she stumbled into the kitchen area- making sure to give Emmet a distrustful look. “Stir fry.” Batting Akari’s hand away from the vegetables, Ingo does his best to steer her out of the kitchen. “You will need to wash your hands first though. The fire escape is filthy.” “Spoilsport.” She stuck her tongue out at him but did what he said anyway, running out of the room with her arms held out behind her back.

Dinner was in fact almost done, and in no time at all the three of them were seated together at a tiny table. The food was delicious, and Emmet was happy to spend time with his brother- but he wouldn’t deny that Akari’s glaring spoiled the atmosphere slightly. “Be nice.” Ingo scolded gently, tapping the side of her bowl with his chopsticks. “What?? I haven’t said anything!” “Yes, but you are glaring with the heat of a boiler engine on a steam train.” He gave her a firm look. “And as I happen to quite enjoy his company, I would rather you refrained from scaring him off.” “He’s still suspicious.” She grumbled quietly as she finally looked away, pulling her bowl up to her face and glaring at her noodles instead.

Emmet really reeeeeeeally wanted to fire back that he isn’t suspicious, and that he’s here for perfectly benign reasons…. but he can’t. At the end of the day it doesn’t matter that he wishes Ingo no ill will- he’s still Eelektross and he’s still keeping that secret. In some ways she’s right to suspect him.

So he doesn’t fire back, instead asking Ingo about work, all while ignoring the guilt that runs down his spine when Akari shoots him another glare.

He deserves it anyway.

#blue’s writing #WIP #submas #heroes and villains #subway boss ingo #subway boss emmet #akari pokemon

15 notes · View notes

thepastisalreadywritten · 10 months

Text

(CNN) — What was supposed to be a 10-hour journey to the Titanic shipwreck ended in tragedy, with all five passengers on the missing submersible killed in a catastrophic implosion.

Their deaths were confirmed Thursday, concluding a week-long search for survivors that was closely watched around the world.

The US Navy detected a sound that would match an implosion on Sunday, the day it went missing, and search teams have since found fragments of the Titan submersible, confirming those on board have perished.

But many questions still remain as authorities continue searching for debris, including when the implosion happened and what exactly went wrong with the sub.

Here’s what we know so far.

What is a catastrophic implosion?

An underwater implosion refers to the sudden inward collapse of the vessel, which would have been under immense pressure at the depths it was diving toward.

It’s unclear where or how deep the Titan was when the implosion occurred, but the Titanic wreck sits nearly 13,000 feet (almost 4,000 meters) below sea level.

The submersible was about 1 hour and 45 minutes into the roughly 2 hour descent when it lost contact.

At the depth the Titanic rests, there is around 5,600 pounds per square inch of pressure – several hundred times the pressure we experience on the surface, according to Rick Murcar, the international training director at the National Association of Cave Divers.

A catastrophic implosion is “incredibly quick,” taking place within just a fraction of a millisecond, said Aileen Maria Marty, a former Naval officer and professor at Florida International University.

“The entire thing would have collapsed before the individuals inside would even realize that there was a problem,” she told CNN. “Ultimately, among the many ways in which we can pass, that’s painless.”

Experts say it is unlikely any bodies will be recovered.

The US Coast Guard said Thursday it will continue the search in an effort to recover what it can but warned it was “an incredibly unforgiving environment down there on the sea floor.”

What’s next for the search effort?

Besides searching for the passengers, authorities will also continue to search the sea floor in hopes of discovering more information about what led to the implosion.

It will take time to put together a specific timeline of events, the US Coast Guard said Thursday, calling the underwater environment “incredibly complex.”

So far, they have located the Titan’s nose cone and one end of its pressure hulls in a large debris field, and the other end of the pressure hull in a second, smaller debris field.

“What they would do now is go back to that site and, like cookie crumbs, try to find a trail as to where that would lead,” said Tom Maddox, CEO of Underwater Forensic Investigators, who took part in a Titanic expedition in 2005.

He added that the debris pieces could still be “slightly buoyant” and be carried further away by ocean currents.

“So the big project right now is going to be trying to collect those parts,” he said.

“They’ll mark them, they’ll indicate where they were, and they’ll lay out a map of where those parts were found.”

What is the timeline of the disaster?

The expedition set out from Newfoundland, Canada, on June 16, with the Polar Prince support ship carrying participants to the site of the Titanic wreck.

Then on Sunday, June 18, the five passengers began the dive in the submersible, launched from the support ship, which remained on the surface.

They began the dive around 9 a.m., with their last communication to the surface at 11:47 a.m, according to Miawpukek Maritime Horizon Services, which co-owns the Polar Prince.

They were expected to resurface at 6:10 p.m. but were not seen; authorities were notified at 6:35 p.m. and the rescue operations launched, according to Maritime Horizon.

There seemed to be a brief window of hope after reports emerged that search teams on Tuesday heard banging every 30 minutes, though they were unable to locate the source of the noise.

But the submersible had only been equipped with 96 hours of oxygen, setting Thursday as a key target to locate and retrieve the submersible.

By Thursday afternoon, authorities confirmed the submersible had imploded, saying there does not seem to be a connection between the banging noises and where the debris was found.

A senior US Navy official told CNN the noises were likely some form of natural life or sounds given off by other ships and vessels that were part of the search effort.

It’s still not clear when exactly the vessel may have imploded.

The Navy detected a sound that was “consistent” with an implosion on Sunday, but it was determined to be “not definitive,” so the search for survivors or remains of the vessel continued.

The US Coast Guard said on Thursday it had set up sonar buoys in the water for at least the last 72 hours – meaning from at least Monday onward – but they did not record any sign of an implosion.

Who was on board?

The five men on board included the CEO of the tour operator, a British businessman, a renowned French diver, and a Pakisatani billionaire and his son.

OceanGate Expeditions, the Titan’s operator, said Thursday it believed CEO Stockton Rush and the other passengers to be “lost,” adding that the company’s employees were “exhausted and grieving deeply over this loss.”

Rush, 61, founded OceanGate in 2009 with a stated mission of “increasing access to the deep ocean through innovation.”

In a series of interviews, Rush said he believes deeply that the sea, rather than the sky, offers humanity the best shot at survival when the Earth’s surface becomes uninhabitable.

As CEO, Rush, who graduated from Princeton in 1984 with a degree in aerospace engineering, oversaw the company’s “financial and engineering strategies” and provides a “vision for development” of crewed submersibles, according to his bio.

But in his eagerness to explore, Rush often appeared skeptical, if not dismissive, of regulations that might slow innovation.

British businessman and adventurer Hamish Harding was also on board.

Based in the United Arab Emirates, he was the chairman of Action Aviation, an aircraft brokerage – but was better known for his various expeditions.

He was part of a flight crew that broke the world record for the fastest circumnavigation of the globe via both poles;

He was one of the first people to dive to the Challenger Deep in the Pacific Ocean, widely believed to be the deepest point in the world’s oceans;

He went to space on the Blue Origin flight; and

He was part of two record-breaking trips to the South Pole.

French diver Paul-Henri “PH” Nargeolet had decades of experience exploring the Titanic.

He served as the director of underwater research at RMS Titanic Inc., the company that has exclusive rights to salvage artifacts from the ship.

According to his biography on the company’s website, Nargeolet completed 35 dives to the Titanic wreck and supervised the recovery of 5,000 artifacts.

He also spent 22 years in the French Navy.

In a statement, his family called him one of the greatest deep-sea explorers in history, adding:

“But what we will remember him most for is his big heart, his incredible sense of humor and how much he loved his family.”

Lastly, Shahzada Dawood and his son, Suleman Dawood, were from a prominent Pakistani business family.

Dawood Hercules Corp., their business, is among the largest corporations in the country, with a portfolio spanning energy, petrochemicals, fertilizers, information technology, and food and agriculture.

In a statement online, the family patriarch Hussain Dawood and his wife, Kulsum Dawood, said:

“Please continue to keep the departed souls and our family in your prayers during this difficult period of mourning.”

26 notes · View notes

umekawa-eve · 2 years

Text

01 How did you meet part2

Characters: Guevara, Musashi, Tokugawa, SPEC, Dorian, Yanagi, Oliva

JUN GUEVARA

You don't know what's wrong with you, but you decide to take a trip to a middle-of-nowhere island in Central America before you graduate, despite everyone around you trying to dissuade you from going to an island with a black travel alert, but with the spirit of John Chau's ※ traveling to North Sentinel Island, India in an attempt to convert the tribe to Christianity, you went on the cruise

(※Note: John Allen Chau was an American Evangelical Christian missionary who was killed by the Sentinelese, a self-isolated uncontacted people, after illegally traveling to North Sentinel Island, India in an attempt to convert the tribe to Christianity.)

Although your end is not as tragic as that of John Chau, but it can also be described by the word "tragedy".

First, on a cruise to this island nation, you and your fellow passengers are robbed by pirates. You're in your room, working on your graduation thesis in psychology, and all of a sudden, your door is kicked in and men with rifles are yelling at you to bring out your valuables.

"Take whatever you want, but please don't bother me to study." You said coldly. You've been impatient with study, and now you've had a robbery that makes you even more unpleasant.

"Stop talking shit, take out all your money!" said the big guy who took the lead, still pointing his gun at you threateningly.

You laughed, and the laughter was pleasant, but the tone was light mockery, not so much a mockery of them as it was your own mockery of yourself.

"Anyway, my life sucks, and shoot me if you want. I don‘t care." You said, "After so many years of study, so many exams, and so many school debts, I still have to take the qualification exam for a Psychologist. Ah, I really want to die. I would rather die."

How ironic, you think, that psychology students are the ones who need to see a psychiatrist the most.

"Oh my god, are you okay?" he asked. His expression of surprise was masked by a bushy beard that did not fit his infant's face.

When your throat tightened, tears almost came out of your eyes. Yet you hold back your sadness, raise your head, and sniff hard because all the decisions you've made in your life have one goal in mind—not to show weakness.

"I'm fine." you whispered, but your voice didn't sound really fine.

In the end, they feel sorry for you, so they don't rob you. Instead, they comfort you and invite you to dinner on the island, which you also accept without any sense of danger (students lose their minds when they hear about free meals).

The place for the dinner was the house of the big guy with a baby face, whose name was Seth. Seth's wife Jenna has prepared a feast for you and the rest of Seth's pals, filled with local dishes.

To be honest, for you who usually have heavy schoolwork and can only eat fast food, although these dishes are not delicious, they are very delicious. Jenna stuffed your plate with a lot of food, and everything was delicious.

"Y/N, you're a college student, right? What department do you study in college?" Seth was particularly interested.

"Psychology." you replied.

"Then do you know what I'm thinking now?"

"…pardon?"

"Aren‘t you studying psychology?" Seth said. "You must be able to read minds, right?"

"Even though you study Economics doesn't mean you are rich."

Everyone laughed.

When everyone is full, Jenna serves dessert, but you can't eat anything, so you decide to take a walk outside.

You just want to hang around seth's house at first, but as a road idiot(a phrase in the Asian community, it means someone who has no sense in direction), you accidentally come to a beach, seth's house has long disappeared without a trace.

"Damn, road idiot really can't go out alone."

You sigh but decide to sit on the beach for a while before leaving, looking up at Orion, the only constellation you recognize.

The wind whipped up the water, and it looked spectacular. The undulating waves stretch to the far horizon, and the sea appears to be breathing to you. As if it also had a spirit, shifting its paces, whispering softly, patting lightly on the long and narrow lakeshore covered with shiny black pebbles. Except for the sound of the waves blowing across the shore, the water was eerily silent.

But suddenly, you feel water dripping onto your head.

Is it raining?

You look up, and you see a man standing on the headland, peeing, and the urine is still coming at you.

You quickly back away, dodging the yellow liquid.

"You fucking imbecile! Go to the goddamn toilet if you want to excrete!!" you yell at the man on the headland.

The man is taken aback by your sudden shouting, looks down, and puts things back immediately after seeing you.

"Sorry! Didn't see you there!" The man showed an apologetic smile.

"Damn it!" You endured nausea and took off your urine-stained coat and then said to the man, "What's the use of the police if a single word of apology can solve the problem?"

"Then what do you want me to do?" The man scratched the back of his head as if he was troubled.

You think for a while, then answer: "Are you an islander here? Can you take me to the JG Hotel?"

"Okay, but you should change your clothes first. My house is nearby."

"Are you trying to abduct me to your house, kill me and then dismember me?"

"Today is indeed a good day for the dead."

"That doesn’t sound right."

The man shrugged. "I'm fine with that if you don't mind walking around in clothes that smell like urine. And it's a long way from the JG Hotel."

Well, you really don't want to walk around in clothes that smell like urine, and it's really uncomfortable to have wet clothes clinging to your body, so you take the man's offer anyway.

(A/N: Please don’t follow strangers as y/n did.)

You walk to the headland, and that's when you see him for the first time. He was tall and muscular, with fairly strong muscles, which made his clothes look extra small; his thin face made him more prominent with cheekbones and a high nose; his hair was long straight black, about your age.

"Ah, I can tell that you are a beautiful lady just by your voice." he said to you with a smile, every syllable like flirting.

Unfortunately, you don't buy it. "Ah, I can tell that you are a jerk just by your voice." you said bitterly.

"You broke my heart, dear." he said.

"You just pee on me. Do you want me to thank you?"

You two just arguing like this on the way to his home.

"You can't just walk down the street. Let me run some water for you first." With that, he takes you into the bathroom, walks to the bathtub, turns on the faucet, and the hot water gushes into the bathtub. "I'll get you some clothes."

"Why are you still here?" you ask. "Do you want to watch me taking shower?"

He showed a shit-eating grin, "If you don't mind, I can also bath with you."

"Okay, okay, our conversation is over," you said as you pushed him out of the bathroom.

When the bathroom is all alone, you finally take off your clothes, turn off the tap and step into the tub, into the water. When you wash, the water in the tub gets dirty. You put clean water in it to flush your head and face clean. Then you lie there and stare out the bathroom window at the courtyard, enjoying the caresses of the hot water.

The next second, the bathroom door was knocked, and a voice came from outside the door: "I left the bath towels and clothes outside. Come out and get them, I won't look at you."

You said "ok" and waited until he was far away before opening the door to get the bath towel and clothes. You dry yourself from head to toe with a towel, then put on a T-shirt and shorts, but his shorts are too big for you and slip off immediately, so you just don't wear them, and the T-shirt is big enough to cover your upper thighs anyway.

After getting dressed, you walked out of the bathroom, only to find that he had been waiting outside the door for a long time.

As soon as he saw you, he whistled and said with a sly smile, "Wanna hook up? I can send you straight to heaven."

"I can also send you straight to hell ♡!" you said sweetly.

This is how you met Guevara.

MIYAMOTO MUSASHI

(Musashi: I don’t know. I never think of this question QAQ)

You are the granddaughter of Tokugawa Mitsunari, and you were sent to grandpa's house in Tokyo by your parents during the summer vacation, and you also met Miyamoto Musashi at this time.

When you heard grandpa Tokugawa Mitsunari say that this black-haired man with murderous eyes was Miyamoto Musashi, you laughed out loud, thinking that grandpa was just kidding you.

How could it be, you thought, Miyamoto Musashi was already dead, wasn't he? And the Miyamoto Musashi in your imagination is not like this at all. The Musashi in your mind should be like "Vagabond", not the man who looks slightly like a Ukiyo-style painting.

Until Musashi "slashed" you, of course, he didn't really cut you with a sword, he just made you consciously feel that you were cut. But this is enough to convince you that the person in front of you is Musashi.

"Do you believe it now, brat?" Musashi asked.

"I'm sorry I shouldn't have suspected you, but please don't slash me with your consciousness again." you said.

Musashi nodded, but still "slashed" you.

"You fuc--"

You were stopped by Tokugawa Mitsunari before you could finish. "Y/N, pay attention to your words and deeds, you can't be so rude to your elders."

You puffed out your cheeks and whispered why you were being blamed for no reason.

Tokugawa Mitsunari suggested again: "Instead of complaining here, why don't you walk around with Musashi? You don’t have anything better to do anyway. "

So, you have to take Musashi out for a walk.

"If you do that imitation cut again," you threatened in a low voice, "I'll throw you on the streets of Tokyo."

"I will take you with me."

"Is this the greatest swordsman of the Edo period? No wonder you never had a wife."

"How dare you?!"

"Looks like I hit someone nerve here."

"Forget it, I don't bother arguing with a kid. Can you explain what that is?"

You look in the direction Musashi is pointing, only to see a white-haired man in plain black outfit with sunglasses strutting down the street while eating a crepe.

"That's a handsome guy who looks like Gojo Satoru." you say.

"I mean what he has in his hands."

"That's a crepe. What? You want it?"

"It look like delicious."

So you went to buy a crepe with a pudding flavor, and ate it with relish directly in front of Musashi.

"Who told you to use your imitation cut to me? I won't buy it for you."

Musashi isn't mad about it, but he uses his height advantage to take your crepe and take a bite.

He commented: "This crepe is delicious."

"I'm going to kill you! You crepe thief!" You tiptoed and held up your hands, trying to get your crepe back from him.

As a result, you lost your balance and fell forward, but fortunately Musashi caught you. He hugged your waist and stabilized your body. You're overwhelmed by the sudden intimacy, your cheeks blushing uncontrollably, your heart racing.

Seeing your reaction, Musashi chuckled and said jokingly, "Just a touch makes you so blush, haven't you ever been touched by another man?"

You pushed him away immediately and took a few steps back. "I've had a boyfriend, okay?"

"What do you mean by boyfriend?"

"Uh, it means lovers."

"It's unimaginable! There are people who like arrogant and unreasonable women like you."

"Go to hell."

Then he "slashed" you again.

You really want to kill him (if you have that ability).

TOKUGAWA MITSUNARI

-i cant. i just cant. Swarry.

SPEC

-He likes feeding you bullets♡

DORIAN

- do you want candy?

YANAGI RYŪKŌ

-Musashi: What is the answer?

-Yanagi: It's oxygen.

-Doppo: It's wooden chopsticks and paper bags! !

-Yujiro: It's Iaido.

-Ryuu kaiou(probably): It's tofu.

-Doppo: It's David the Giant!

-Ali: It's JoJo (?)

-You: The truth is Jack's dentures.

-Some random dude: It's Hanayama.

BISCUIT OLIVA

- His heart is so small that there is only room for Maria.

#baki #baki hanma #baki the grappler #baki son of ogre #baki headcanons #baki dou #jun guevara #biscuit oliva #musashi miyamoto #Dorian #spec #hanma fluff #anime and manga #headcanons

97 notes · View notes