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#high civilization tour

nerdpoe · 7 months

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Danny, mid twenties, opted to travel the Ghost Zone for a few years before going to college. He meets a pretty cool Ghost couple, gets involved and makes it a throuple, and travels the Ghost Zone with them.

Their names are Martha and Thomas Wayne, and Danny's kinda head-over-heels for them.

Everything's going great!

They're traveling the Ghost Zone, touring ancient civilizations, Danny's getting taught medical shit from Thomas and management shit from Martha, and they're all having a good time.

Well, until Martha and Thomas feel the pull of getting summoned.

While uh...in a compromising position with Danny.

Danny gets dragged along.

Anyways, that's how Danny, High King of the Infinite Realms, gets introduced to Batman.

Even after his traveling session, when he joins the Justice League full time, the man still hates him.

#dpxdc #dcxdp #dp x dc #dc x dp #phanfic #story prompt #don't ask dude i was listening to “flirt with your dad” by tom cardy #fuckin favorite song

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thebrightestwitchofherage · 3 months

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The UN's Official Mission report on Hamas' Sexual Violence in Israel was published

Please take your time to read this. Israeli \ Jewish victims deserve the same protection as any other women.

The brief version can be read here.

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***I am not going to include any graphic detailing.

The pattern of Sexual Violence used by Hamas is very clear:

It was one of their key goals and tactics on October 7th.

You cannot say "Female Hostages are treated well. you're lying by saying they're raped" anymore!

Notice how they also said **Children**

Civilians were in fact burned inside their homes

This is also clearly a pattern used by Hamas, as this is just one of many examples they detail. -Hamas has also burned soldiers alive in their dorms and offices. That is also further detailed in the report.

This is not fake or propaganda

I can't believe I have to write this but this report is an official report (finally) made by the UN's Sexual Violence Office, as part of their yearly report.

They had a 2-week delegation that toured the actual Kibbutzim (turned crime scenes), interviewed eyewitnesses, spoke to families of victims, etc...

___

I do have to say I was mistaken in my earlier post, besides their conclusion, they have also written their recommendations:

...." V. Conclusions

Overall, based on the totality of information gathered from multiple and independent sources at the different locations, there are reasonable grounds to believe that conflict-related sexual violence occurred at several locations across the Gaza periphery, including in the form of rape and gang rape, during the 7 October 2023 attacks. Credible circumstantial information, which may be indicative of some forms of sexual violence, including genital mutilation, sexualized torture, or cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, was also gathered. 22

With regards to the hostages, the mission team found clear and convincing information that some hostages taken to Gaza have been subjected to various forms of conflict-related sexual violence and has reasonable grounds to believe that such violence may be ongoing.

The mission team was unable to establish the prevalence of sexual violence and concludes that the overall magnitude, scope, and specific attribution of these violations would require a fully-fledged investigation. A comprehensive investigation would enable the information base to be expanded in locations which the mission team was not able to visit and to build the required trust with survivors/victims of conflict-related sexual violence who may be reluctant to come forward at this point.

Regarding the occupied Palestinian Territory, while its scope did not extend to verification, the mission team received information from institutional and civil society sources as well as through direct interviews, about some forms of sexual violence against Palestinian men and women in detention settings, during house raids and at checkpoints. Though the mission team did not visit Gaza, the Office of the SRSG-SVC will continue to monitor the situation for any relevant allegations of CRSV in the context of the ongoing hostilities. The relevant UN entities present in the occupied Palestinian Territory will provide UN-verified information for reporting to the Security Council on allegations of CRSV, which will be complemented by the information obtained by the mission team.

VI. Recommendations

The mission team makes the following recommendations: a) Continue to encourage the Government of Israeli to grant, without further delay, access to the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem and Israel, to carry-out fully-fledged investigations into all alleged violations that would deepen the preliminary findings contained in the present report. b) Urge Hamas and other armed groups to immediately and unconditionally release all individuals held in captivity and to ensure their protection including from sexual violence, in line with international law. c) Call on all relevant and competent bodies, national and international, to bring all perpetrators, regardless of rank or affiliation, to justice based on individual, superior and command responsibility, in accordance with due process of law and fair trial standards. d) Encourage the Government of Israel to consider signing a Framework of Cooperation with the Office of the SRSG-SVC to strengthen capacity on justice and accountability for CRSV crimes as well as security sector engagement, training, and oversight to prevent and address CRSV. 23 e) Strengthen the capacity of the United Nations to monitor and report on incidents, patterns and trends of CRSV in both Israel and the occupied Palestinian Territory through the establishment of the Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Arrangements on CRSV (MARA), convened by dedicated technical specialists, namely Women’s Protection Advisors (WPAs), deployed to the region to ensure prevention, protection and coordinated multi-sectoral assistance to survivors/victims. f) Encourage relevant actors to uphold information integrity and ethical, trauma-informed representations of conflict-related sexual violence, including by respecting and safeguarding the dignity and identity of survivors/victims and witnesses of sexual violence, as sensationalizing headlines, media pressure and scrutiny, exposure of identity, political instrumentalization and pressure, and/or fear of reprisal can result in the suppression, silencing and discrediting of survivors/victims and witnesses, further compound trauma and increase the risk of social stigmatization. g) Urge all parties to the conflict to adopt a humanitarian ceasefire, and to ensure that expertise on addressing conflict-related sexual violence informs the design and implementation of all ceasefire and political agreements and that the voices of women and affected communities are heard in all conflict resolution and peacebuilding processes....."

Israelis have been repeatedly saying all of this for months now, while you deny it. I've personally had people tell me it's all "fake propaganda". You should all be ashamed.

I am infuriated at the fact that for 5 months, our evidence and word isn't enough for Anti-Zionists. Here is some undeniable proof for you.

Believe Jewish Women.

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hedgehog-moss · 1 year

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Record numbers of protesters all over France today. Images from Paris, Toulouse, Grenoble, Bordeaux, Clermont-Ferrand, Rennes, Lyon, Lille, Marseille.

Major highways and bridges along with train stations, ports, warehouses and refineries blocked by demonstrators and unions, many universities and high schools blocked by students, Tour Eiffel, Arc de Triomphe & Palace of Versailles closed to tourists, 25% of workers on strike in the national electricity and railway companies, 15% of all civil servants on strike. Protests were organised in every major city and many smaller ones. Could have added a lot more pics of huge crowds in Strasbourg, Nantes, Limoges, Orléans, Nancy, Annecy, Brest, Mulhouse, Pau, Montpellier, Rouen, Le Mans, Bayonne, Toulon, Tours...

And kudos to Brittany for consistently out-Brittanying itself this month, between the nurses who brought out the catapult again while playing the biniou, and the fishermen who sent a tractor to face down the police’s water cannon Transformers-style, your protests have a special place in my heart.

#frpol #there were small town marches in my rural region that brought out as big a crowd as we can possibly muster :')#i asked my mum if the France TV info livestream had mentioned small town protests and she said ''no they're on strike'' ah well. good #roads were blocked here too but nowhere near where i live or else pampe could have done her part in the national effort #she's used to being on roads for the purpose of being an inconvenience i think she'd have liked to use her skills for a good cause

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shitswiftiessay · 6 months

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“multiple posts in support of the lgbtq community”

her LGBTQ “activism” pretty much started and ended with the lover era. she released the musical equivalent of “it’s ok to be gay,” she waited until she was in a blue state on the eras tour to even barely address the anti trans legislation that was being passed in OTHER states (states she had just performed in where her speech would’ve made much more of an impact). and telling people to go vote without specifying who you’re voting for or bringing attention to the important issues is not activism. it’s merely a voting reminder. which is fine, but, y’know, it doesn’t make you an lgbt advocate. which she promised to be as she accepted an award for it.

and despite the fact that she’s reportedly “spending a lot more time” in fuckass missouri to be with travis, she’s yet to say anything about the anti lgbt legislation being passed in that state.

she also went off tumblr because people asked her to talk about BLM and swifties act like it was the cruelest thing in the world to expect of her 🙄 but she made a whole thing in her documentary about wanting to be on the “right side of history.”

and taylor did the black square too so if you’re gonna attack joe for that 💀

and she made some promises on twitter to be “loudly and ferociously anti-racist.” then she went on to date racist pos matty healy… and use ice spice as a shield. AND she also made sure that her publicist let everyone know that the “controversy” surrounding matty’s racism had NOTHING to do with her decision to split from him.

so… yeah.

these same miserable fucking swifties used to praise joe alwyn for speaking out against men abusing their power over women in hollywood but now their whole blogs are basically dedicated hate blogs to him. because he committed the crime of not marrying taylor so now they’ve decided he’s the worst man on the planet. 🙄

meanwhile taylor’s working with rapist directors, hanging out with SA apologists and high-fiving an abuser at football games. her feminism and “advocacy” is limited ONLY to herself and it’s painfully obvious she does not give a shit about anything that doesn’t directly affect her.

also, joe’s name wouldn’t have been added to that ceasefire letter if he didn’t WANT it added. it’s a risk to anyone in the entertainment industry to openly support palestine and no one’s name is going to be “just added” without their consent. signing that ceasefire letter may be bare minimum shit, but it’s still more than anything Miss Americana has said or done regarding this issue, which is absolutely nothing, and you have to ask yourself WHY.

also if you’re upset about people saying that taylor was encouraged to be more political because of joe… idk what to tell you that’s literally a canon event that came straight from taylor’s own mouth.

and it’s not that i think she’d be a trump supporter without joe but… it’s pretty obvious that since they’ve broken up (and even in the year leading up to the breakup) she’s not dared to do anything remotely resembling activism or being “controversial.” if anything she’s just too fucking narcissistic and self-absorbed to care about anything going on in the world, just like her bestie selena.

#anti taylor swift #shit swifties say #joe alwyn

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radiofreederry · 1 year

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Happy birthday, Paul Robeson! (April 9, 1898)

A celebrated actor and bass-baritone singer with a distinctive booming voice, Paul Robeson was born in Princeton, New Jersey to Reverend William Drew Robeson, a Presbyterian minister who had been born into slavery in North Carolina before escaping in his teens. The younger Robeson began acting in high school, and also excelled at sport. He won an academic scholarship to Rutgers University, which he graduated as class valedictorian in 1919. Robeson was socially conscious from a young age, and became especially concerned with inequality, both racial and economic, in American society. He attended Columbia Law School and worked for a time as a lawyer, but left the legal field behind due to its institutional racism. His talent for acting and singing allowed him to build a career in show business with the backdrop of the Harlem Renaissance, and he became especially known for his portrayal of Joe in Show Boat, with his rendition of "Ol' Man River" becoming iconic. He was also one of the first Black leads in American film history. In the 1930s, Robeson's social consciousness expanded, and he became interested in Africanism, anti-imperialism, and socialism, visiting the Soviet Union in 1934. Robeson would later reflect that his treatment in the Soviet Union was so starkly in contrast with the racism he experienced in America that he had felt like a full human being for the first time in his life. He became a left-wing political activist, supporting the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War and unionization in the United States. He was closely associated with a number of prominent socialists and members of the Communist Party, and supported Henry Wallace's 1948 Presidential campaign. He was also heavily involved in the early phase of the Civil Rights Movement. Robeson's political activities resulted in a backlash as the Cold War opened. He was blacklisted, forced to appear before the House UnAmerican Activities Committee, and his passport was revoked for several years, preventing him from touring. He retained popularity outside of the United States, and he was able to find some success touring in Europe and Australia, where he became the first person to perform at the site of the Sydney Opera House, singing the labor song "Joe Hill" for the workers building it. In poor health for much of his later life, Robeson died in 1976.

"My father was a slave, and my people died to build this country, and I'm going to stay right here and have a part of it, just like you. And no fascist-minded people like you will drive me from it. Is that clear?"

#birthdays #paul robeson

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mostlysignssomeportents · 4 months

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An excerpt from The Bezzle

I'm on tour with my new novel The Bezzle! Catch me next in SALT LAKE CITY (Feb 21, Weller Book Works) and SAN DIEGO (Feb 22, Mysterious Galaxy). After that, it's LA, Seattle, Portland, Phoenix and more!

Today, I'm bringing you part one of an excerpt from Chapter 14 of The Bezzle, my next novel, which drops on Feb 20. It's an ice-cold revenge technothriller starring Martin Hench, a two-fisted forensic accountant specialized in high-tech fraud:

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865878/thebezzle

Hench is the Zelig of high-tech fraud, a character who's spent 40 years in Silicon Valley unwinding every tortured scheme hatched by tech-bros who view the spreadsheet as a teleporter that whisks other peoples' money into their own bank-accounts. This setup is allowing me to write a whole string of these books, each of which unwinds a different scam from tech's past, present and future, starting with last year's Red Team Blues (now in paperback!), a novel that whose high-intensity thriller plotline is also a masterclass in why cryptocurrency is a scam:

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865854/redteamblues

Turning financial scams into entertainment is important work. Finance's most devastating defense is the Shield Of Boringness (h/t Dana Clare) – tactically deployed complexity designed to induce the state that finance bros call "MEGO" ("my eyes glaze over"). By combining jargon and obfuscation, the most monstrous criminals of our age have been able to repeatedly bring our civilization to the brink of collapse (remember 2008?) and then spin their way out of it.

Turning these schemes into entertainment is hard, necessary work, because it incinerates the respectable suit and tie and leaves the naked dishonesty of the finance sector on display for all to see. In The Big Short, they recruited Margot Robbie to explain synthetic CDOs from a bubble-bath. And John Oliver does this every week on Last Week Tonight, coming up with endlessly imaginative stunts and gags to flense the bullshit, laying the scam economy open to the bone.

This was my inspiration for the Hench novels (I've written and sold three of these, of which The Bezzle is number two; I've got at least two more planned). Could I use the same narrative tactics I used to explain mass surveillance, cryptography and infosec in the Little Brother books to turn scams into entertainment, and entertainment into the necessary, informed outrage that might precipitate change?

The main storyline in The Bezzle concerns one of the most gruesome scams in today's America: prison-tech, which sees America's vast army of prisoners being stripped of letters, calls, in-person visits, parcels, libraries and continuing ed in favor of cheap tablets that bilk prisoners and their families of eye-watering sums for every click they make:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/14/minnesota-nice/#shitty-technology-adoption-curve

But each Hench novel has a variety of side-quests that work to expose different kinds of financial chicanery. The Bezzle also contains explainers on the workings of MLMs/Ponzis (and how Gerry Ford and Betsy DeVos's father-in-law legalized one of the most destructive forces in America) and the way that oligarchs, foreign and domestic, use Real Estate Investment Trusts to hide their money and destroy our cities.

And there's a subplot about music-royalty theft, a form of pernicious wage theft that is present up and down the music industry supply-chain. This is a subject that came up a lot when Rebecca Giblin and I were researching and writing Chokepoint Capitalism, our 2022 book about creative labor markets:

https://chokepointcapitalism.com/

Two of the standout cases from that research formed the nucleus of the subplot in The Bezzle, the case of Leonard Cohen's batshit manager who stole millions from him and then went to prison for stalking him, leaving him virtually penniless and forced to keep touring to keep himself fed:

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2012/apr/19/leonard-cohen-former-manager-jailed

The other was George Clinton, whose manager forged his signature on a royalty assignment, then used the stolen money to defend himself against Clinton's attempts to wrestle his rights back and even to sue Clinton for defamation for writing about the caper in his memoir:

https://www.musicconnection.com/the-legal-beat-george-clinton-wins-defamation-case/

That's the tale that this excerpt – which I'll be serializing in six parts over the coming week – tells, in fictionalized form. It's not Margot Robbie in a bubble-bath, it's not a John Oliver monologue, but I think it's pretty goddamned good.

I'm leaving for a long, multi-city, multi-country, multi-continent tour with The Bezzle next Wednesday, starting with an event at Weller Bookworks in Salt Lake City on the 21st:

https://www.wellerbookworks.com/event/store-cory-doctorow-feb-21-630-pm

I'll in be in San Diego on the 22nd at Mysterious Galaxy:

https://www.mystgalaxy.com/22224Doctorow

And then it's on to LA (with Adam Conover), Seattle (with Neal Stephenson), Portland, Phoenix and beyond:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/16/narrative-capitalism/#bezzle-tour

I hope you'll come out for the tour (and bring your friends)!

Between 1972 and 1978, Steve Soul (a.k.a. Stefon Magner) had a string of sixteen Billboard Hot 100 singles, one of which cracked the Top 10 and won him an appearance on Soul Train. He is largely forgotten today, except by hip-hop producers who prize his tracks as a source of deep, funky grooves. They sampled the hell out of him, not least because his rights were controlled by Inglewood Jams, a clearinghouse for obscure funk tracks that charged less than half of what the Big Three labels extracted for each sample license.

Even at that lower rate, those license payments would have set Stefon up for a comfortable retirement, especially when added to his Social Security and the disability check from Dodgers Stadium, where he cleaned floors for more than a decade before he fell down a beer-slicked bleacher and cracked two of his lumbar discs. But Stefon didn’t get a dime. His former manager, Chuy Flores, forged his signature on a copyright assignment in 1976. Stefon didn’t discover this fact until 1979, because Chuy kept cutting him royalty checks, even as Stefon’s band broke up and those royalties trickled off. In Stefon’s telling, the band broke up because the rest of the act—especially the three-piece rhythm section of two percussionists and a beautiful bass player with a natural afro and a wild, infectious hip-wiggle while she played—were too coked up to make it to rehearsal, making their performances into shambling wreckages and their studio sessions into vicious bickerfests. To hear the band tell of it, Stefon had bad LSD (“Lead Singer Disease”) and decided he didn’t need the rest of them. One thing they all agreed on: there was no way Stefon would have signed over the band’s earnings to Chuy, who was little more than a glorified bookkeeper, with Stefon hustling all their bookings and even ordering taxis to his bandmates’ houses to make sure they showed up at the studio or the club on time. Stefon remembered October of ’79 well. He’d been waiting with dread for the envelope from Chuy. The previous royalty check, in July, had been under $250. The previous quarter’s had been over $1,000. This quarter’s might have zero. Stefon needed the money. His 1972 Ford Galaxie needed a new transmission. He couldn’t keep driving it in first.

The envelope arrived late, the day before Halloween, and for a brief moment, Stefon was overcome by an incredible, unbelieving elation: Chuy’s laboriously typewritten royalty statement ended with the miraculous figure of $7,421.16. Seven thousand dollars! It was more than two years’ royalties, all in one go! He could fix the Galaxie’s transmission and get the ragtop patched, and still have money left over for his back rent, his bar tab, his child support, and a fine steak dinner, and even then, he’d end the month with money in his savings account.

But there was no check in the envelope. Stefon shook the envelope, carefully unfolded the royalty statement to ensure that there was no check stapled to its back, went downstairs to the apartment building lobby and rechecked his mailbox.

Finally, he called Chuy.

“Chuy, man, you forgot to put a check in the envelope.”

“I didn’t forget, Steve. Read the paperwork again. You gotta send me a check.”

“What the fuck? That’s not funny, Chuy.”

“I ain’t joking, Steve. I been advancing you royalties for more than three years, but you haven’t earned nothing new since then—no new recordings. I can’t afford to carry you no more.”

“Say what?”

Chuy explained it to him like he was a toddler. “Remember when you signed over your royalties to me in ’76? Every dime I’ve sent you since then was an advance on your future recordings, only you haven’t had none of those, so I’m cutting you off and calling in your note. I’m sorry, Steve, but I ain’t a charity. You don’t work, you don’t earn. This is America, brother. No free lunches.”

“After I did what in ’76?”

“Steve, in 1976 you signed over all your royalties to me. We agreed, man! I can’t believe you don’t remember this! You came over to my spot and I told you how it was and you said you needed money to cover the extra horns for the studio session on Fight Fire with Water. I told you I’d cover them and you’d sign over all your royalties to me.”

Stefon was briefly speechless. Chuy had paid the sidemen on that session, but that was because Chuy owed him a thousand bucks for a string of private parties they’d played for some of Chuy’s cronies. Chuy had been stiffing him for months and Stefon had agreed to swap the session fees for the horn players in exchange for wiping out the debt, which had been getting in the way of their professional relationship.

“Chuy, you know it didn’t happen that way. What the fuck are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about when you signed over all your royalties to me. And you know what? I don’t like your tone. I’ve carried your ass for years now, sent you all that money out of my own pocket, and now you gotta pay up. My generosity’s run out. When you gonna send me a check?”

Of course, it was a gambit. It put Stefon on tilt, got him to say a lot of ill-advised things over the phone, which Chuy secretly recorded. It also prompted Stefon to take a swing at Chuy, which Chuy dived on, shamming that he’d had a soft-tissue injury in his neck, bringing suit for damages and pressing an aggravated-assault charge.

He dropped all that once Stefon agreed not to keep on with any claims about the forged signature; Stefon went on to become a good husband, a good father, and a hard worker. And if cleaning floors at Dodgers Stadium wasn’t what he’d dreamed of when he was headlining on Soul Train, at least he never missed a game, and his boy came most weekends and watched with him. Stefon’s supervisor didn’t care.

But the stolen royalties ate at him, especially when he started hearing his licks every time he turned on the radio. His voice, even. Chuy Flores had a fully paid-off three-bedroom in Eagle Rock and two cars and two ex-wives and three kids he was paying child support on, and Stefon sometimes drove past Chuy Flores’s house to look at his fancy palm trees all wrapped up in strings of Christmas lights and think about who paid for them.

ETA: Here's part two!

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/17/the-steve-soul-caper/#lead-singer-disease

#pluralistic #the bezzle #martin hench #marty hench #red team blues #fiction #crime fiction #crime thrillers #thrillers #technothrillers #novels #books #royalties #wage theft #creative labor

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littlemisslipbalm · 9 months

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Keeping Up With You

Josh Kiszka x gn!reader

Summary: “Mornings are meant to be spent with you,” Josh blurts out, nerves obvious in his voice. “Soft rock music playing while I bestow a thousand kisses across your body.”

A coming back together story

A/N: FLLUFFIEST AND ANGSIEST writing to date. The premise of this fic follows along the lyrics of tommy’s party by peach pit. One of my favorite songs so you should go listen as soon as possible.

Word Count: 8.9k | Warnings: breakup angst, alcohol consumption and weed consumption, swearing probably, ANGST and Happy Ending!

Join my Taglist!

You were running late. Not for anyone’s fault but your own. You didn’t want to go to Sam’s party, and yet, out of obligation or something like spite, you were dragging yourself there. You loved him and you loved all your friends that you were bound to see, but there was a nagging sense in your stomach that you were going to regret the entire night.

Maybe it was for liquid courage that you cracked a hard kombucha while you had gotten ready and then took a few (three) shots before stumbling out of your front door to the uber you had called half an hour after the start time of the party that was across town. Sam, like all the rich people in your life, chose to live in the nicest part of town and you couldn’t fault him even if it meant your uber cost an extra 10 dollars for the longer drive than if he had his party at a bar downtown like any civilized adult.

Walking into the party felt kind of like walking back into high school. Out of place somewhere you already didn’t want to be, searching for a lifeline. You saw the one person you’d probably know the best immediately upon entering. Sam was by the door, yammering about how the house needed more lights to the three unwilling participants in his drunken house tour. You called his name, getting his attention before getting pulled into a sloppy hug. You grinned and yelled over the bass-heavy rock “Happy Birthday, dude!”

Sam grinned back and yelled that there were drinks in the kitchen and to PLEASE help yourself. You bit your lip and gave two thumbs up to him and the people in his little entourage, before slipping past them to his kitchen, where you planned to help yourself, heavily.

There were more hard kombuchas sprawled across the countertop that were calling your name until a bottle of semi-decent-looking whiskey tucked in the back of the array of alcohol caught your eye. Scrawled messily across the label in black sharpie was the claim “JAKE’S” and you chuckled to yourself before pouring a double shot of it into the compostable disposable cup you had picked up from the stack at the far end of the counter. If it came to blows with that particular Kiszka, you knew you could take him.

You added in some root beer to the whiskey after checking that no one was around to see it and gulped at the drink, a little spilling down your chin with the amount of vigor you had used. You needed the alcohol haze on your mind to get heavier before you could face anything more at this party. The lights were dim and the music was thumping, people were talking loudly and laughing louder and you felt impossibly alone. And anxious.

The unknown hand that descended on your shoulder didn’t help the anxiety, but managed to placate the lonliness. You jumped, sloshing a little bit of your drink before whipping around to scold the owner of said hand.

“You swipe from my whiskey business, trouble?” Jake inquired with an arched brow.

Your eyes were wide on his face, before glancing down at your cup and back up to him, a bite of your lip overtaking your face. Guilt.

Jake’s usual casual smirk that he sported in situations where he was comfortable morphed into a grin. There was a tinge of sadness in his face, but he hoped the smile masked it enough. “Oh, c’mon, you know you can always take from my private collection. You’re the only one who can stomach it besides me, anyway.” He pulls you into a side-hug that is stilted but attempting to be comforting. “Wouldn’t have left it out if I didn’t want you to have some.”

You tried for a smile and took a sip. He’d left it out, hoping you would show. “Thanks, Jake. Your handwriting is atrocious, by the way.”

Jake’s smirk returns as he chuckles, his hair falling forward from behind his shoulders. It’s gotten long again since you’d last seen him. You didn’t want to think about the last time you’d seen him. Your eyes cast anxiously to the two entrances to the kitchen, searching and double-checking that no one else had come through the doors to surprise you.

Jake notices and leans into the countertop with his hip. “I was just about to go light up? Care to join?” He lifts up the joint she hadn’t noticed in his hand before.

“I don’t know…” You start, unsure why you would decline a chance to be away from the crowd already. Maybe how Jake was staring at you, the way he terribly hid his concern for you. Would he try to ask you how you were really? Weed always made him more earnest. But weed could help you, so long as you kept Jake away from certain talking points. All this going through your mind and what you swore was a certain head of curls pushing through the crowd at the far door of the kitchen made you say, “Uh, sure. Let’s do it.”

Jake went to say something in the way of how pleased he was, but just a quiet squeak came out when you quickly began to move out of the kitchen and away from the approaching curls. You grabbed Jake’s hand with the joint in it by the wrist and flipped on your heel, leading him out of the kitchen door you had entered through. You weaved through the people in the hallway, towards the closed door to the side yard where the light was off. It was unlocked thankfully and you quickly felt around the exterior wall for a switch you knew was there, before the empty outdoor space was illuminated. The music was muffled once the door was shut and you sat on the measly single concrete step below the door.

“Sam should really do something with this space,” you mumble, feeling capable of breathing and thinking and living once more.

Jake shrugged and leaned against the wall, looking down at you and then around the empty side yard. It was an afterthought, but why did you care? He was still trying to catch his breath from the sprint you had just performed to get you out of the house in what seemed like 5 seconds flat.

“I don’t think I’ve moved that quickly outside of a motorized vehicle in years.” Jake sighed.

“You should get a Peloton. It’s great.”

“I work out,” Jake says indignantly. “You just fucking flew, though.” Then he adds. “I didn’t know you had a Peloton.”

You shuffle your feet, staring at them as they move in no particular pattern. “Yeah…it was a gift.” You cough. “It’s a great stress reliever as well as a workout machine.”

Jake hums, a wave of realization washes over him as his eyes watch you, clumsily messing with your feet and your free hand. He doesn’t say anything else on the subject, though, and brings the joint to his lips, slipping his shiny silver zippo from his back pocket. It lights and he puffs on the filter.

There was no breeze tonight. No stars and no moon. It was like the sky had taken the night off–which you weren’t sure was allowed. And yet, there it was, endless black. Your hand expertly took the joint from Jake’s outstretched fingers.

“I’ve been on a T-break for the last few months,” you say when you hand back the joint.

Jake raises a brow again as he begins to puff on it again.

“Well, I said I quit, but here I am getting high, so it must’ve been a T-break.”

Jake chuckles and coughs a little on the smoke that catches in his throat from his laughter. You grimace in silent apology, accepting the joint back. Jake asks one single question for the remainder of the joint and for that you are grateful, even if it’s one of the worst questions he could’ve asked. After he asks it, he’ll leave you alone, but it’s killing him not to know. Or at least, try to know. You had been such a good friend to him and he missed having you around lately. He knew he couldn’t say that though. It wasn’t his place, but still one measly question couldn’t hurt.

He was lucky you were feeling so light and airy from the weed when he asked. If he had tried the question when you had first arrived or when he found you in the kitchen, you’re pretty sure you would’ve turned tail and run home crying.

“How are you really doing?” He inquires.

“I’m really high.” You laugh.

Jake sits beside you and turns his head, holding the joint out to the ground for ash to fall and the weed to burn with no lips around it to inhale the smoke. He says your name once and you know he’s serious.

You sigh and stick your legs out straight in front of you, your skirt flattens across your thighs nicely but you smooth your hands across it anyway and then grab at your drink beside you to take a sip. It’s almost empty. You look in his eyes for a moment and there’s that sadness and concern again.

“Did not want to come.” You say and Jake nods. “Came. For Sam.” You clarify and Jake nods again. “I know I’ll see him eventually. It’s fine. I’m fine.”

Jake nods and pats a hand gingerly on your shoulder and you grimace at your lap. He was trying so hard to navigate a difficult situation and you admired his courage.

“Thank you, Jake. For the smoke.” You say and pause, mustering your courage to just blurt it out. You stare at the wooden fence across from you. “And for being my friend, still. You’re a good guy.”

Jake shakes his head and pokes out the joint, not interested in smoking it anymore. “And you are too. A good friend…who deserves happiness.”

Your lips spread into a smile and you look at Jake in the eye for a moment before knocking your forehead against his own shoulder. Something you always appreciated about Jake was his ability to understand non-verbal communication. He allowed you to do that and understand it was you thanking him. Even if you couldn’t say more on the topic. He knew.

Jake blew out a breath after a moment, “Jesus, fuck, I’m high as shit.”

You giggle and it feels louder and sillier than anything you’d done all night. Oh fuck. “Yeah. I think I am too. Good stuff.”

“Josh’s,” Jake mumbles, moving to crawl back to standing, he needed water. “Sorry.” He mumbled with widened eyes when he realized the word, the name, that had left his mouth.

You roll your eyes and hold your arms out for Jake to help you stand. “He’s not some super-villain. Just my ex and your twin. You can say his name.”

Your eyes matched Jake’s red and droopy eyes as you stared at each other once he brought you to standing, both of you taking in each other’s state. It’s tense and quiet, the thumping music heavy at the door.

You keep your hands in Jake’s, enjoying his warm caloused hands. So much like someone else’s, yet so different. “Do we have to go back in?”

“I mean…” Jake looked down his nose at you. His voice dropped lower to a raspy almost-whisper. “We should probably go back. Right?”

You smile lazily at Jake and then drop his eye contact, looking at your feet, how close the two of you were standing, and then taking a step back. He was giving you the option, but you both knew there was only one right answer.

“Back inside it is.” You add a laugh to try to not sound too bleak. “To face the gallows.”

“I still think you’d make it as a comedian, trouble,” Jake adds.

The tension dissipates. Whatever crack in the wall that was there, a tiny possibility that could’ve grown if you wanted, was patched over and covered. Forgotten. You and Jake were friends. A lot of shared history and a lot of understanding, but it was better this way.

“My one man show,” you say, shaking off the memories of when it was a duo act. You and Josh loved a good bit and would drag them out as long as you could, staying in character for entire nights out or, once, an entire week during a family vacation. “I’m good, man.” You reassure Jake when he looks at you concerned again, with his hand on the door handle.

The music grows louder but is more muffled than before as the weed and alcohol successfully contain you in their all consuming bubble. You were thankful for the moment to gather yourself and to remind you that facing Josh might not be all that horrible. You could do anything when stoned, this was something you truly believed especially when the high was in its starting area, when you were first plunged into the strange warm fuzzy place in your brain.

Jake’s hand on your back pushed you through the crowd and you heard the words “refill” and “water” leave his lips so you began to wander towards the kitchen again. Once back, you’re mildly disappointed to see it’s not empty. It’s not crowded, there’s just three other small groups of twos and threes getting refills or lingering after having gotten their refills. The night was progressing, meaning more inebriation caused more plans to be forgotten half way through. Expert missions of moving from one area of the house to the next were abandoned when the roadmaps slipped from the de facto leader of the small groups’ brain when they had another sip of their drink of choice. You knew because you used to come to parties like these with groups.

Now you were a lone shark, or maybe just the remora to Jake’s lone shark, attaching yourself to him, just along for the ride as he made the decisions. He expertly slipped past the huddled groups without interactions, just nods of chin and his smirk. You noticed some of the whispers and shared looks from some of the people in those groups as you passed by, but chose to believe they were about how handsome and mysterious Jake was and not how you were with him.

Jake looked between the faucet and the cups he had forgotten were at the end of the counter, debating whether he would go back for one or not. Shaking his head after a moment of weighted silence, he opened the cupboard to the right of the sink and grabbed one of Sam’s precious souvenir pint glasses and filled it with water. You watched in mild awe that Jake did not fear his little brother’s annoying nagging if caught and desire for water to touch your cotton-mouth-y, well, mouth.

Jake stuck the glass under the faucet again and refilled it before holding it out towards you and you smiled. Accepting the glass, you turned it in your hand, observing the etching of Snoopy and Woodstock dressed as chefs holding a gigantic sandwich with the word ‘Philadelphia’ in red bold letters above them. Sam was weird, but you respected his collection. You’d even gifted him a ‘San Francisco’ one for Christmas a couple years ago with Snoopy and the Peanuts dressed up for a Giants game.

You sipped at the water and let it wash into the various pockets of your mouth before swallowing, humming in satisfaction. “Good stuff.” You repeated.

“Only the best.” Jake responds. “Whiskey time?”

He doesn’t wait for your answer since you're drinking more of the water. He picks up your abandoned cup and his own and snatches his whiskey from behind the more popular liquors: grey goose vodka in multiple flavors besides the classic, a few okay gins and tequila–tons of it.

You take the cup filled with whiskey straight and you grimace. You weren’t in the mood to drink much more, feeling plenty fucked up, and you definitely weren’t in the mood to stomach whiskey on its own. You do an obligatory cheers motion with Jake and pretend to take a sip.

“I forgot to tell you,” Jake suddenly says with a burst of energy and you widen your eyes, startled. “We’re doing a set later.”

“What?”

“Sam wants to, for his birthday. Have a jam sesh.” Jake shrugs and slips his phone out of his coat pocket, checking the time. “Honestly should probably check the setup, make sure no one trampled the gear. C’mon.”

You would think professional musicians would want a break from their job for their birthdays, but these guys loved it so much it was hard to keep them away. Plus, knowing Sam, he’d probably insisted on choosing the set list, making Jake and Josh take a reluctant backseat to what they would play. Were you intrigued? Yes. Completely and utterly apprehensive to watch Josh perform? Double yes.

You followed Jake out of the kitchen and through the bodies in the living room towards the open French doors leading to the patio and backyard. Sam had a temporary stage set up at the back of the yard that no one was standing on or messing with besides Danny who was checking his drum kit was okay already. Everything on the stage was secondary personal stuff, none of it their expensive favorites, but it still wouldn’t be great if any of it got wrecked.

A boisterous and booming laugh took your eyes off of Danny and made you fall out of step with Jake. Right beside the stage was Josh, grin plastered across his face and beer can sloshing haphazardly as he swung his arms wide as he regaled his small group with a big important story he dramatized to be even grander than it had been.

Your eyes scanned the group surrounding him, focusing hard to make out the faces in the dim light as you tried to keep walking, following blindly behind Jake who was pausing at the edge of the stage on the opposite end from Josh. You swallow hard and debate taking another sip of the whiskey, but decide it won’t help. Your legs finally bring you to standing awkwardly beside, but slightly behind, Jake as he talks with Danny. You positioned yourself to be slightly in Jake’s shadow unintentionally.

Danny greets you and your eyes flicker to him for a moment before returning to Josh, just a few feet from you now, but he still hasn’t seen you. You mumble a ‘hi’ and Jake explains for you that you were likely on a different planet from the joint you had shared. You nodded perfunctorily and then stuck your cup into Jake’s chest.

“I can’t drink this,” you say, barely above a whisper, still watching Josh.

He was winding down from the story, you could tell. His audience was enraptured, with one particular girl close by his side that you didn’t recognize. She was grinning, shiny and bright as she watched Josh in all his inebriated glory. In his element. Entertaining. It was magic to be so close to him in those moments, how it felt spiritual when he caught your eye inches away. How his teeth seemed to smile just for you when he placed his hand on your shoulder.

And there it was. Josh rested his arm around the beautiful girl’s shoulders, palm pressing her closer to him as he laughed and grinned. She smiled at him and you swore you saw him wink. It was drunken and dopey, but you saw it.

You hadn’t felt Jake take the cup from your grasp, but your hand fell to your side, now empty. Danny and Jake followed your eyeline and then met each other’s eyes and frowned a little.

“How about you sit right here?” Jake huddled you towards a lawn chair that was close to the stage, but against the house wall so no one would bump into it.

“So I get a front row seat to it all?” You mumble miserably.

“Here,” Danny says, passing his hyrdroflask from behind the drum kit to Jake, who hands it to you, flipping the mouthpiece open and instructing you to drink.

You should’ve left once you could feel your legs again, but you couldn’t stop staring. Thankfully, Josh hadn’t noticed. You probably would’ve died on the spot if he had caught your intense eye. Instead he gives the girl a squeeze and mumbles something into her ear. She laughs loudly and stumbles on her feet a little as she steps back from him. Josh turns towards the stage and clambers onto the top of it. If it wasn’t clear to you before, his lack of agility cemented it. He was close to belligerent, but holding himself together well.

It would be laughable when he almost tilts over right after he’s stood upright finally, but you’re not the person who can find that funny anymore without seeming cruel. Instead, you decide to take a sip of Danny’s water and shut your eyes, tilting your head back against the wall, hoping to ride out the rest of this night in a strange detached state. If no one spoke to you for the rest of the night you would be happy.

You willed away the disparate images passing behind your shut eyelids. A different reality your mind had conjured up specifically to torture you it seemed. Where you were beside Josh just then and the two of you had tumbled up onto the stage. First you guide his hips up and then he pulls you up after him, the pair of you happily and drunkenly falling over one another, tangling yourselves up into a few cables in the process. You two were laughing through it all and then Josh would stop and smile the smile that was just for you, a special gleam of love in his eyes you’d grown used to. He’d cup your cheeks between his palms and pull your face to his, a big blistering kiss bestowed upon your lips quieting your own laughter. It would lead you to falling deeper into love with the man who really saw you and forgetting where you were. And then the boys would holler at the pair of you and you’d hide your face in Josh’s jacket before he’d help you up, with a pat to your bum before you inevitably made it back to the seat you were in now.

No. Now there was only this chair. And a borrowed water bottle to touch your lips. Fuck. You moved your mind to your escape plan.

The music would start soon anyway and then you could probably slip out to call an uber after a few songs. You heard Sam join the rest of the band on the wooden stage a few minutes later, his long legs thumping as he jumped up onto the stage and his drunken voice louder and whinier as he asked Danny to check his bass for him, since he was the birthday boy.

You peek out of one eye, too amused to miss the visuals of this exchange and see Danny shaking his head and muttering under his breath as he picks up Sam’s bass. Sam is smiling triumphantly with his hands on his hips, tapping his foot impatiently like the prince he was. Then your eyes slide to the right and see Jake and Josh huddled around Jake’s amp.

Just close your eyes. But you can’t.

Josh is all antsy. He’s waving his hands about and rocking Jake’s shoulders. Jake’s murmuring words below his breath trying to placate whatever situation his twin seems to be troubled by. You know it’s wrong to strain your ears to hear the conversation but you can’t help it.

“…just aren’t really my thing.” You catch the end of Josh’s slurred sentence. He’s still grinning as he complains.

Jake shakes his head. “They’re Sam’s thing since it’s Sam’s birthday.”

“I know we agreed to it but can’t we just, I don’t know, not?”

Jake laughed a little and tried to hide it with a cough, his eyes sliding to you for a quick moment. “Josh, it’s like 5 songs.”

“I’m slammed, man,” Josh stumbles on his footing, adding to his case accidentally.

“Just sing the choruses and then hit some high notes. He wants to jam anyway, you’re not on frontman duty tonight.”

“Oh please, Jake. I’m always on frontman—“ Josh’s train of thought runs off the tracks when his eyes finally catch yours.

You freeze. You weren’t moving anyway but you freeze all the same. Blood runs cold. Spine rigid. You don’t know how to breathe and you were right. You are going to die.

Josh is frozen too and Jake watches it unfold. Both of your faces were completely open with the pain. You could see it around the eyebrows and the lips and how it swelled through the irises of your eyes as you looked at one another.

Someone smashing a beer can followed by the electric thrum of a bassline makes you bring your free hand up in the air. It’s supposed to be a wave as it travels to the height of your head and then loses momentum, pausing for a moment as Josh’s eyes flicker to the movement before it falls again.

You drop your gaze to your lap while Josh stays on you. His similarly intense gaze burns you. He wants to come talk to you even though he has absolutely no idea what he’d say to you anyway. His feet even begin to lurch towards the end of the stage nearest you, but Jake pulls him back.

That succession of chords on Sam’s bass was his signal that he wanted to get the jam session started. It was followed by a verbal announcement from the birthday boy as well.

“Everyone come outside now. It’s time to hear me play sweet sweet music for you.” Sam says into the mic before handing it off to Josh.

Josh looks over at you one more time but you make sure your eyes are anywhere else on the stage but his face. He licks his lips and swaggers to center stage.

“Friends and family, loved and loathed ones, day trippers and moonbeam chasers,” Josh pauses for the roar of the crowd. Smaller than their concerts, obviously, but still spirited for the size of this party. “What a glorious fucking night to celebrate the birth of the youngest Kiszka.”

Maybe Danny expected Josh to say more because there’s a pause before the drum kicks in. Josh turns on his heel to face Danny and signals him to start. Danny counts them in and Jake walks them into a perfect cover of “The Lemon Song.”

Josh hated doing Led Zeppelin covers but Sam loved the bassline on this song. He’d been obsessed with it when he first started playing and Jake enjoyed the guitar on it too. So here Josh was, proving every critic correct that he could sound just like Robert Plant. Jake shredded away on Jimmy’s solo chords and then lowered his amp for an extended moment to give Sam a proper bass solo. And Josh admittedly got into the song, feeling the vibrations through his chest, getting lost on stage.

They transitioned straight into “Cold Cold Cold” and “Feel Good Inc.” Both with heavy basslines. Josh liked these two because he got to use his tambourine in the first and had few words in the second. He also skipped a lot of the words in the songs, not knowing them, but holding the microphone towards the crowd, telling them to sing along when it was the chorus or popular parts of them.

Then they took a break. Normally Josh might joke around. Tell a story about Sam when he was a weird little kid. Instead, he just took a swig from his beer beside the unutilized mic stand and talked in Jake’s ear until Sam signaled he was ready to continue. He had moved to the keyboard he had also brought out for the evening.

“This one’s a little on the nose but, hey, what little bro wants, little bro gets.”

Josh started singing the first verse of “I’m going to be a teenage idol” and you grimaced. You loved Elton John and if you thought more highly of yourself you would’ve thought Josh’s reluctance to sing this song was because it reminded him of you.

He tritely pointed to himself when he sang “it kind of makes me feel like a rock and roll star.” He paced around the stage, continuously sweeping his hands towards Sam as he expertly played the hard keys for the song. He sipped at his beer and belted one of the later verses with a passion that masked what you knew was sadness. Josh was a professional, so he knew how to keep his shit together even when he was drunk, but he wanted off this stage and you knew it.

Then the song ended. Your eyes watching Josh’s demeanor shift. “Thankfully this one isn’t…or is it?”

“Psycho Killer” started up and you couldn’t help the laugh that came past your lips. You pressed your hand to your mouth, feeling like you were betraying yourself. Josh hadn’t looked your way since they had started but somehow either his trained ear heard that or he had some psychic sense, because he stared at you again, faltering on the classic song’s lyrics.

Given the conversation you eavesdropped on, you weren’t sure if they had planned to play “Happiness is a Warm Gun” but they transitioned into it seamlessly from the last so they didn’t stop and Josh knew all the words. You two had listened to the Beatles’ white album countless times together. It was your favorite of theirs. You’d put it on all the time with Josh and he’d happily listen along, always acquiescing to your arguments about it even though he preferred Let It Be. On lazy Sunday mornings when you never got out of bed until dinner time. On the road, for tour or for road-trips you’d take together up to the cabin or little Airbnbs you’d found in cool spots.

This wasn’t your song though and for that you were thankful. You might’ve thrown up if for some reason Sam had added that to the setlist. You might’ve found a way to time travel and kill Paul McCartney before he could add a bassline to that song if that would’ve stopped that. You’d give up the existence of that song before Josh sang it in front of a small crowd where you weren’t the one he was singing it for anymore.

Again, your imagination was running wild tonight. Seeing Josh’s beautiful face brought back every memory you had with him. The last few years had been the best years of your life. Meaning that these past few months have been the hardest of your life. Half the time you weren’t even sure if it was life anymore.

So many memories were from nights just like tonight, but he wouldn’t be some distant figure causing building anxiety as you steal glances at one another from across the yard. You used to be the one keeping up with him, telling stories together and getting drunk to aid in your fun rather than to run away from your hangups. Stealing kisses and sneaking off to empty hallways or plain taking off early to be alone together again.

You couldn’t help getting lost in the sound of Jake making the guitar riffs his own, the velvet of Josh’s voice and how all four of them meshed their instruments so expertly, making any song something special. Your eyes had shut and you were swaying in your seat to the music. Loving it. This piece of connection could never be severed. All your silly feelings forgotten for one blissful moment before the music came to an abrupt and cruel end.

Sam took the mic from Josh who almost let it carelessly fall to the floor. “Thank you all for coming! Love you guys!” Sam quickly called before being pulled off the stage by his girlfriend who was eager to make out with her man.

You grimaced. You knew how she felt. Goddamnit.

Josh doesn’t immediately come up to you. Not that you were hoping for that. You actually were dreading the moment when you two finally spoke again. You two hadn’t had much contact since the breakup, so your last verbal conversation had been about you picking up the rest of your stuff from his place in December. Over the phone. You still had a key so you came when he was out.

You pinched the bridge of your nose and sat forward, willing those memories to stay put in the locked cabinet you were never going to revisit. Leaving seemed like a good idea now. You’d paid your birthday dues, shown up and even stayed for the show. Slipping off seemed ideal. You just needed to return Danny’s water bottle to him.

He was still at the bandstand, in front of his drum kit with Jake and another guy from their work, Brian (you think). You stood, feeling a little better but still pretty high given your major break from the drug prior to tonight. You blinked a few times, double checking that none of the guys in the small huddle transformed into Josh suddenly before you got to them.

Jake gave you a hand up onto the stage and you thanked him, before handing Danny his water and thanking him for it as well. He reassures you that it was his pleasure and then he thanked you for leaving him water in it. He was a wonder to you and you smiled genuinely at his kindness. You missed him. You missed all of them.

You rocked on your heels and fidgeted your hands to rest on your hips. “Well, I’m gonna head out I think. This was plenty for me and my old self.” You proclaim when the conversation lulls.

Jake nods, not even trying to get you to stay, whereas Maybe Brian protests, saying the night was still young. Danny shoots him a look with a subtle head shake and you smile at your feet. These guys still had your back and for that you were grateful. You hugged Danny and told him to tell Sam goodbye for you in case you didn’t bump into him on your way out. As you were leaning into Jake’s warm side for the second time tonight, a voice interrupts the farewells.

“Dan, have you seen my elf–” Josh stops talking again, eyes widening on your face.

You don’t freeze this time, immediately dropping away from Jake. It wasn’t wrong, but you also couldn’t face Josh while touching his twin. Josh must have missed you within the group, hidden among the taller men.

“Hey, I was just leaving,” You say, your voice quivering a little with nerves, barely aware of what you were saying.

“Hello,” Josh slurs after a weighted moment. His eyes slid along your face and down your entire body, as if they had been starved of you since he’d last looked at you. He looks away, back to Danny. “I think, perhaps, I left it in the kitchen. Thanks Daniel.” He flips on his heel and wanders off.

You can’t help but watch him go. It’s not your fault your eyeline is directly aligned with where the girl from earlier is positioned right next to the door to inside. Or that you catch how he pulls her back into his side and she laughs at whatever he has said just for her. It was right in front of you. What were you supposed to do? Tear your eyeballs out? Now that’s a thought.

His bright mustard jacket eventually disappears between the various bodies and his hair is obscured by the dim lights in the house. He’s gone, laughing with her just like you two used to.

“Well, if that’s not my cue,” You let the silence that follows finish your thought for you.

Jake apologizes for Josh and you tell him it’s not necessary. Really. It’s been five months. It was mutual. If anything it was you who initiated it. If Josh can’t speak to you or if he’s seeing someone new. That’s just fine. Fine. So fine.

Your uber takes you home and you don’t cry. You don’t let yourself. Something possesses you in the morning to type out an email though. You’re not sure why you don’t just send a text. The email feels less personal, less intimate than a text. Less risky. And somehow more private. It was almost like sending a letter, which you used to send Josh on occasion–of course, those were love letters.

Hey there bud… You look at the words and almost throw your computer out of the window. Bud? Bud!? You couldn’t write anything else though, anything less was too little, too strange, anything more, like his name, was too intimate, too much.

How’d it go last night?

Your love letters used to read like poetry and you guessed this was kind of like that, but it wasn’t a love letter. You still could just save it as a draft and never send it after all.

I saw you at the bandstand looking pretty slammed. You used the exact word Josh had described himself last night. It had been repeating in your mind all night. Did you see me feeding my drink to Jake? Probably not I guess, you were quite the mess. And that girl who tagged along there with you, I never caught her name, but she seemed fucked up too.

You read it over and thought that it was maybe too harsh. But it was the truth. You needed to get it off your chest. He hadn’t let you talk last night so you wanted to share your night with him now even if you hadn’t gotten to last night.

From where I sat, she looked to be havin’ fun, keeping up with you just like I used to.

How’d it go last night? I’m sorry to have ditched out but I was pretty high. Heard from Danny that on his stumble home, Jake was puking up all the shit he’d drunk.

Though we didn’t talk much, how’d your evening go? You barely spoke a word to me, besides that slurred “Hello”... I happened to see without even trying, how she laughed with you just like I used to.

You were rambling, you couldn’t get it all out. But you cut yourself off. That was all you could say. So you read it over about five more times and changed a few commas and added spacing and you wondered if Josh would think you had gone off the deep end with this one. Your first form of communication with him in months. By e-mail for some reason.

The thought of not sending it crossed your mind a few more times before you took a breath and hovered the mouse over the ‘Send’ button. Finally clicking it when you finished the exhale. You wanted him to know.

When Josh woke up, close to noon with an awful hangover and an unfamiliar bed, he groaned and covered his face when the headache pounded against his skull harder.

“Fuck my life,” he murmured. He rolled from his back to his side, his legs swinging to tether him to the carpeted floor. Where the fuck was he?

“You’re awake!” The girl popped her head in, her hair wet from the shower she had just taken. “Do you want breakfast? Or coffee?”

“Uh…” Josh stared at his feet, wiggling his toes to remind him of reality. “No, I should go home.”

She smiles, sporting her best look, as if last night hadn’t emotionally wrecked her like it had Josh. That actually made sense. “Yeah. See you again soon?”

“Yeah. I’ll call you…” Josh reassures, beginning to put his pants on. His words were an afterthought as he pieced together last night's events. “Have fun at your ceramics class today!”

He shuffled out of the door just as she responded, towel still messing with her tips. “It’s painting!”

Josh mumbled his apologies as he walked down the street hoping that his car would pop up among the different vehicles parked on the street. He definitely hadn’t driven there after the party but maybe he had brought his car to her place beforehand. He was still working through the night. And his mind was focused on all the moments where you had popped up.

He’d seen you disappear out of the kitchen with his brother. He’d seen you next to the bandstand a couple times and then he’d seen you when he’d drunkenly asked Danny if he’d seen his elfbar. Could he be more of an idiot? He rubbed at his pained forehead again as he looked up and down the street once more before deciding that he hadn’t driven his car to this woman’s house.

They’d gone out on a couple of dates, set up by mutual friends that were closer with her than Josh but he was trying and he wanted to try. Even if all he really wanted to do was call you and beg you to forget about the last few months.

Too focused on making it home and one to always dismiss his email notifications, Josh didn’t notice the message from you until he had made it home and successfully made himself a pot of coffee and had a necessary shower, leaving him in his sweatpants and curled up in his bed that used to be shared, ‘ours’.

His phone had been charging so he unplugged it and rolled to the other side of the bed, which he still felt guilty for. Like you’d walk through the door any moment and playfully grumble at him for being a bed hog.

Complete privacy and total boredom eventually made him check his e-mail. He might have a package coming after all, he couldn’t remember, and his headache had mostly cleared away but looming anxieties nagged at him. He couldn’t keep getting drunk and hooking up with his casual flings. It was going to catch up with him and he knew it. He just hated to admit it.

Your name on his screen was especially sobering. He had longed for it to pop up. Preferably in a phone call or text format, asking to meet up and talk over everything one more time that actually leads to you getting back together. But hey, he’d settle for an e-mail at this point. Because that is what he had received.

He took a deep breath and allowed his hovering thumb to click down on it. It was your poem/accusation and he read it over and over double checking that it was indeed your words and not lyrics from a song or someone else. No, he recognized your voice in the words and how you phrased it. The ‘hey there bud’ made him laugh. You were so weird. He missed it.

All the love letters were in his side table drawer still. Maybe it would’ve been healthier to move them to a box not so close to where he slept, but he couldn’t bear it. You used to post them from around town so that they could get sent to the house you both lived in. It sent him over the moon whenever he recognized your handwriting of his name on the front of a piece of mail and you’d giggle behind your cup of coffee, slyly slinking off to let him read it in private.

After he’d finish reading, he’d wander the house until he found you and press kisses all over your face while he repeated confessions of love, over and over while you shrieked and laughed at his attack of love.

This e-mail made him sad, but also hopeful. He was going to reply.

Hey there…How’d last night go for you? I know when I saw you at the bandstand, I said I was slammed to Jake. Did you overhear or is that just some strange coincidence? I probably should’ve given some of my drinks away. I was quite the mess, you’re right.

And the girl…she’s a part of the mistakes I’ve been making since the break up. I’m sorry you had to see that. And I’m sorry all I said was Hello. I didn’t know what to say…as you could probably tell. Josh smiled down at his phone, your eyes had been so wide with surprise upon seeing him up so close. The look on your face had been a dagger to his heart, twisting deeper when you said you were heading out.

I was thinking back just the other day, remember when we used to sneak out late to go and blaze after everyone else at the party had gone home or passed out?

Seems like loneliness is all we’ll ever do now. At least for me. Maybe you weren’t lonely, I don’t want to assume. I was surrounded by people all night, these past four months too, and I’ve never felt more alone.

I’m glad you messaged me. I’m sorry I didn’t do it first. He wondered if he should add the next piece. Was it wrong? Should he leave it at that. The stabbing pain in his chest returned and he wanted to be brave for you. Just for the chance, you could shoot him down but he’d know that he’d tried. I’ve been going to a new coffee place downtown. Northside CoffeeHouse. I think you’d like it. They make the cinnamon rolls just the way you like.

Josh swallowed hard and sent the email before he could think too hard about it. He hoped he wasn’t being presumptuous that you would remember his routine. Coffee out on weekends usually between 9 and 10.

You read over the email that came through from Josh a few times. His mention of loneliness made your heart sink, you hated to think of Josh carrying a pain like yours. The thought kind of hurt more than your own heartbreak.

You knew what he was saying with his mention of the coffeeshop. Tomorrow he’d probably be there if you went when he used to. Josh was secretly a creature of habit despite advocating for chaos most of the time.

Josh arrived at Northside at 9 am sharp, just in case you came on the early side. He patiently waited in the line for coffee and took a seat by the window. He checked his phone every few minutes, confused why time suddenly moved so slow.

He remembered the first coffee date you had gone on with him. You both had been late so he should’ve known then that you were the one for him. He showed up twenty minutes late (ten by accident and then an extra ten getting apology flowers) and you ran in five minutes later, out of breath, apologizing that you were so late. Josh was overjoyed to tell you he’d also been late and was so extremely worried about you not being there when he’d arrive. He picked up the flowers on the table and handed them to you, shyly explaining he’d gotten extra late grabbing these and you’d laughed, glancing between the plants and the strangely bashful guy in front of you. You’d been hooked ever since.

You had been introduced to Josh when you had gotten invited to tagalong with a work friend to a VIP section of a concert series in Nashville. Josh and his brothers had been there and somehow your friend had run into them a few times at stuff like this. You hadn’t initially realized Josh was hitting on you as you talked the evening away with him about all things music and your very different jobs so you were surprised when he asked you out on the coffee date, but you hadn’t declined. Afterall, he was Josh.

The rest, as they say, is history. Much to your chagrin. You replayed that first date over and over as you paced up and down the cross street for the coffee shop you assumed Josh was now waiting for you at.

With a single white Peruvian lily clutched in your hand, you finally turned the corner and marched yourself into the coffee shop. You didn’t look in the windows, you were too focused on getting yourself through the door so you had to look around the room for Josh after entering. Your hand was holding so tightly to the flower’s stem you worried you’d break it if you didn’t set it down soon.

His back was facing you, he’d been looking down the other side of the street and had no idea you’d entered as he was beginning to resign himself to the fact that maybe you didn’t want to see him. It was almost 10 am when you arrived.

“Josh,” you sigh, hand touching his shoulder as you turn to face them.

He looks up and the smile on his face almost brings tears to your eyes. It’s the one you’ve missed so much. You can’t help the frown that it brings to your face as you will away the tears.

“Hey, hey, don’t cry,” Josh says, standing to hug you because he knew your facial expressions by heart too.

You laugh and the stem in your hand finally snaps at his touch. It’s too much. Josh pulls back and looks down at your hand and laughs for a different reason. He motions to the table and your eyes sweep the two empty coffee cups he must have drank waiting for you, his phone and a bouquet of the very same flower, just like the ones he’d given you three and a half years ago.

“Can I go order you something?” Josh asks softly. “I didn’t want to order the cinnamon roll until you got here. I wanted it to still be warm.”

You bite your lip. He was still so sweet and thoughtful. You laugh again and nod your head. He knew you needed a moment to ground yourself so he let you have some time to yourself. He walked to the counter and ordered what you always got and a cinnamon roll to share.

You placed your broken flower with his bouquet, your hands ran gently over the pearly petals, careful not to cause any dents or creases. After studying them, you feel a little less overwhelmed and you lift your head to watch Josh. He’s paying with cash and you’re endeared how he still clumsily handles the coins despite how often he likes to pay with physical money.

He thanks the barista who was now very accustomed to Josh, considering it was his third time up at the counter in the last hour. You smile sheepishly at Josh as he smooths his palms down his khakis, coming back to you.

Your conversation is stilted while he waits for his name to be called. He doesn’t want to get into the nitty gritty when he knows there’s an impending interupter. You thank him for the flowers and apologize for your broken attempt.

He smiles down at the baker's dozen of flowers. “I like it. Here.” His fingers delicately move the broken pieces back into place and then moves your single flower into the center of the bouquet. “It’s all patched up now.”

You smile and meet his eyes, knowing the Josh metaphor he was trying to obviously make. His name is called saving you from saying more on the subject for the moment. He hands you your drink and places one fork facing you and one facing him on the edge of the cinnamon roll’s box. You thank him again and he hushes you, saying you didn’t need to keep thanking him.

You quiet as you try the treat. Josh watches your reaction with barely contained glee, knowing you’d loved it. You had missed this feeling. This feeling of someone knowing you so well. How Josh took care of you and how, in return, you took care of him. You grinned, reassuring him that yes it was great.

You quiet down again about the food. Josh and you smile at one another and it feels like nothing has changed. You want to believe it.

“Mornings are meant to be spent with you,” Josh blurts out, nerves obvious in his voice. “Soft rock music playing while I bestow a thousand kisses across your body.”

“There’s the Josh I know,” you tease but you’re beaming at him.

Flashes of the mornings he was referencing came to mind.

Josh curled around you or you curled around Josh, Velvet Underground and Grateful Dead records on. Sunlight filtering across the floral sheets you’d bought for him as a welcome back from tour present after Dreams in Gold. Smooth skin against skin as Josh presses kisses to your forehead and yours against his sternum. He’s laughing when you tickle him and you laugh too, happy to be keeping up with him. Just like you used to.

lmk what you think!

taglist: @ofthecaravel @malany-gvf @whiterosekiszka @jaketlove @sinarainbows @gretavanfreaky

#josh kiskza fanfic #josh kiszka fic #josh kiszka x reader #josh kiszka x y/n #josh kiszka x you #josh kiszka fanfiction #josh kiszka fluff #josh kiszka angst #greta van fic #greta van fluff #greta van fleet fic #greta van fleet fan fiction #greta van fleet x reader #greta van fleet imagine

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sanctus-ingenium · 1 year

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Do the saints in the mez setting have ye olde fanclubs. Are there folk saints of mechs. Do people sell those like sainted tokens of like scraps of paint from the mechs or something

Not so much fanclubs in a fandom sense, that's a bit of a modern invention. They would have taken their worship very seriously and one of the most common pilgrimages of the time is a tour of all the stables, where you can get iron pilgrim badges made out of old armour plates. I have drawn Mercury and Mars wearing them before ⤵️

The badges are worn as a sign of devotion but also to prove that you've visited those stables, because as the stables increase in importance, they don't just let anyone wander in to see the relics and beasts. You have to prove that you've been to other stables before, the more the better, otherwise you may not be worthy of checking out the good stuff. It is expected that every member of the laity go on a pilgrimage at least once in their lives.

Craftspeople do capitalise on this by selling small devotional items that you can take home and set up in your own shrine. I've drawn one of these, a mass produced woodcut print of Leun, but these are super common and usually not of high quality, fudging details so that they might resemble any given beast if you just squint a little. This one is on the upper end, quality wise

But the most central part of how one is expected to 'commune' with a holy beast is in their breath. huffing fumes is right there in the scripture - I mean, they are practicing engine worship, so of course they're placing huge significance on the smoky part. Grifters often sell what are essentially empty bottles, claiming that they have captured some smoke or some of the beast's breath, making it, essentially, holy air. Fun fact, when an important member of the Church is dying, he has the option to request a death by engine fumes instead of a natural death, and in a severely hypoxic state they share their final wisdom with the congregation, often in the form of a prophesy.

So, onto folk saints! They do exist - assuming you mean large mechanical creatures which have not been built by the Church. in which case yep those exist, the theocracy has sole control of the fuel supply within its own borders but there are plenty of other parts of the world. But there are also beasts that straight up don't exist but are worshipped by the laity within the theocracy. Rumours of odd sightings spread into stories of some new beast who can help you fix your gout if you pray to him. The Church considers it heresy but just like in the real world, that doesn't really stop people. Except in the case of the annexed Midean region, where people practicing "idol worship" are executed.

Oh they were having one hell of a golden age before those damn Mideans decided they wanted independence about 300 years ago, and before the dragons stopped appearing with such frequency.

The slow fall of the theocracy began with the Midean civil war/war of independence, which was a narrow win for Mez but has been a burden on them ever since. The Mezian theocracy grew by annexing surrounding nations and cementing its chokehold on fuel supply, and its colonisation of Midea was what brought it to power in the first place, long before that, especially given that Midea was the world capital of of enginesmithing at the time and an exporter of fantastic technology. So that was all great, for the Church, until the war of independence which lasted almost a century. Midea lost and did not become an independent state, but it marked a significant shift in how the population believed & behaved. That's partially why Saint Lycaon was taken from Midea, he is essentially a hostage under threat of destruction if his people don't fall in line. The constant struggle to police those areas taxes the Church of its resources and civil unrest doesn't seem to be dying down any time soon.

Before the war, the theocracy's power was absolute within its own borders. After, it has retreated to its strongholds of Salvius and Forza (where the biggest stables are) and all but abandoned the more remote regions to fall to ruin. Not so much a spoiler, but a major plot point of the story, set at the end of this age, is that the final death-prophesy of a cardinal was: unless taxes were paid by the laity [dying of plague], the Church is under no obligation to send the beasts to aid them in times of peril. During the 'golden age', this would have been an unthinkable act of miserliness, and the Church would have sent those beasts out whenever and wherever, often to random villages not being attacked, just to give people a chance to see them. The massive waste of fuel was not a big deal because there was always sooo much more waiting, and the sky was full of dragons. Now, every drop must be preserved.

#setting: mez #thanks for the fun asks!

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eroguron0nsense · 6 months

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Assorted One Piece Modern AU HCs

The Whitebeard Pirates are all part of a shelter/relief/mutual aid network for drug users, unhoused people, and vulnerable youth. Ace looks up to them all immensely and volunteers part time, but he's still very much on a journey of self discovery and healing

Ace is a massive music nerd and hobbyist with a near encyclopedic knowledge of genre histories and subcultural spaces. He goes to a lot of local acts his friends are involved in, plays the drums and bass and hangs out at Brook's recording studio/jams with him from time to time while he's in town (Brook loves Luffy and his family, and he's just happy to entertain young people who make or love music and let them use the space). He's undecided in his major but kinda leaning toward sociology or social work.

(Rayleigh is his prof, and unbeknownst to him, a college buddy/old flame of his bio parents who recognized him immediately and has no clue what to do with himself.)

Sabo is, of course, a socialist student organizer in a poli-sci/law program and interning at Dragon's practice (grassroots activist turned civil rights lawyer). The ASL brothers live together in a shitty apartment with barely any heat. He's secretly a massive film snob and organizes Radical Documentary Screenings with Koala from time to time.

Dadan has a cabin like 2 hours outside the city in the mountains and the brothers crash there every now and then over the holidays. She's retired now and constantly gripes about having to feed and shelter her stupid kids every time they come home but she still gets teary whenever she watches them go. Their childhood bedroom and three bunk beds are perfectly preserved and cleaned, and she wouldn't ever dream of moving Ace's posters or Sabo's old bookshelf and criterion DVDs or Luffy's plushies and taxidermied insects.

Brook's band is a genre-blending indie darling that occasionally tours the country. I'm definitely not the first one to think of this, but Laboon is a Newfoundland with severe separation anxiety and Brook has to bring him on tour or to half of the group outings. The Rumbar Pirates are a local jazz act he performs with from time to time, and he may or may not have dated Calico Yorki.

Usopp (fresh out of high school) only recently reconnected with his father and they've been having awkward family dinners with Kaya but it's getting less weird having Yasopp around. He babysits the Usopp Pirates part time and they love him to pieces; he's low-key interested in studying Botany and horticulture and has been checking out local degrees and training programs.

Franky's in the middle of an auto mechanic apprenticeship and is debating trying to get into a mech eng program at Robin's university; he was raised by Tom as a carpenter, and has worked as one for a really long time, but he's increasingly getting into engines and inventing things and the family's very supportive. Robin's a Masters student doing an hourly TA thing in Clover's class on Archaeology of the Void Century, and they're married.

Sanji, naturally, works at the Baratie and Zeff lets him brainstorm and test daily specials or set menus for holidays. He and Pudding are in the same patissier courses at culinary school (she's obviously a baking major); they're exes who've stayed friends and care deeply for each other. The ASL brothers sometimes pick up shifts at the Baratie (with the exception of Luffy who broke way too many dishes)–Zeff really likes all of Sanji's friends and dumps leftovers on them

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edgeofthegibbuniverse · 2 years

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High Civilization Tour, July 7th, 1991, Wembly Stadium. They were looking fiiiiine. 🔥

#barry gibb #robin gibb #maurice gibb #bee gees #the bee gees #the brothers gibb #high civilization tour #early 90s #smokin hot

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sebastiancats · 1 year

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Probably a clue to the cult that kidnapped the twins

Ok, this is my first post here and I don't know much about English so I'll use the translator.I hope that a part of kurofandom can see this and tell me what they think.

A few days ago I started rereading the twin reveal arc manga, and since lately I've been doing research on gothic/medieval architecture, I saw this panel from chapter 135 and thought "this castle seems to be medieval".

then the idea of looking for information on satanic sects during the Victorian era occurred to me, and although in reality there was very little information about it, after searching for a while I finally found a page that told me about what I was looking for.

Well this information is about a man named Sir Francis Dashwood, like many of the young people of Victorian England who prided themselves on being part of blue blood families, he was an inexhaustible traveler. He toured almost all of Europe as part of his training, but he always expressed a very marked passion for Italy. Dashwood was a man of the world, surrounded by powerful friends in politics, banking and the art world. He held important positions in the civil service of England. He was also a notable lover of parties, music, food, drink and women in large quantities, in addition to art and Greco-Roman cultures. Quite a character with notable influences that he had access to practically what he wanted. He lived near the River Thames, in Buckinghamshire, in a huge mansion in West Wycombe, surrounded by luxuries and servants who fulfilled any mandate 24 hours a day. In it he held meetings with notable friends of his and members of Masonic lodges in which his vices surfaced permanently.

However, he had in mind the creation of a select secret group in which he could discuss freely about political and philosophical issues exclusively, made up of elegant and influential gentlemen from English high society. This is how he found the ideal place to carry out these meetings: Medmenham Abbey, whose owners were members of the Duffield family, and which was about five kilometers away from his mansion. The Duffields agreed to rent the property, erected around 1200 by a congregation of Cistercian monks. The place was perfect in every way: away from prying eyes and with an atmosphere of mysticism, thanks to its medieval air that enchanted Sir Francis.

He had a good number of statues of pagan gods moved to the property and decorated the walls with mocking phrases such as: Peni tento, non penitenti ("a stiff penis, no penance"). On the reception door he had the following legend engraved: Fay ce que voudras (<< Do what you want »), which would later be adopted by the magician Aleister Crowley as his personal phrase. The place was ready to receive Dashwood's guests and start the meetings of the new Hell-Fire Club. From this moment is where the myths and legends are born around the dark activities of this sinister cult where its members arrive at the abbey aboard small boats, dressed as monks, carrying candles in their hands and singing Gregorian chants.

It should be clarified that in reality the cult called themselves "The Monks of Medmenham". The name "Hell-Fire" club was more of a derogatory nickname.

So reading all this information I realized something, the phrase that this cult used was "fray ce que voudras" which means "Do what you want" or "Do your will" and this same phrase is used by the members of the cult that kidnapped to the twins.

In this part of chapter 135.

here I realized that when they arrive at that castle the receptionist asks "are you a monk?" To which the other responds with "Fay ce que voudras" (Do what you want). The same phrase used by members of the cult The Monks of Medmenham.

So I would assume that this is a hint that Yana left us and I don't see anyone else talking about it. I don't know if so many people from kurofandom follow me but tell me what you think about this, we should investigate further but I think this is a very obvious clue. 😸

#black butler #Kuroshitsuji #ciel phamtonhive #sebastian michaelis #No sé qué más agregar pero porfavor leanlo #kuroshitsuji theory

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rabbiteclair · 3 months

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more Girls' Last Tour thoughts, which are admittedly mostly thoughts I had for the first time about five years ago only to resurface today upon having a long conversation about the series with a friend. this one is fully spoiler-y

as far as emotional suckerpunches go, I personally think it's like... [the entire Silence chapter] > [Chito's breakdown after she realizes the Kettenkrad's bricked] > [the end of the Art chapter] > [the end of the Life chapter] > 'the planet will finish life's long work and go to sleep as well' > [the actual end of the series]. This isn't a criticism of it, since I really like the end. I just find it kinda funny.

similarly I find it funny that this series, where every named character is strongly implied to die either during or shortly after its events, which is about 40% ruminations on death, containing the line "currently, you two are the only surviving humans of whom we are aware," is categorized as an Iyashikei. H E A L I N G. I mean I don't even necessarily disagree but goddamn.

One of the core dichotomies of the series, I think, is... it repeatedly makes it clear that people have done horrible things here, and the amount of deliberate destruction that's gone on is absolutely monstrous. They stumble onto nukes and giant war robots that can blow up a city, and there are destroyed tanks and giant craters everywhere. Basically everywhere they go is a former war zone. But it takes a really positive view of humanity. Outside of the attack on their hometown in the flashback, every single person they meet is nice and helpful. Any time it delves into human nature, the message is 'actually humans are pretty cool most of the time, and our basic drive is to take care of each other, not this survival of the fittest bullshit.'

which is one thing that I think sets it apart from a lot of fiction in this space? It never tries any kind of 'humanity is doomed in the long run because we're all violent animals beneath the facade of civilization' message or anything. Humanity rules, and it's a genuine tragedy that things have come to this.

kinda related, the series does a lot to make it clear how all of this is an unfathomably large tragedy. There are tons of background shots of entire abandoned cityscapes, there's the chapter with the mass grave, the gigantic library full of books, and so on. The actual scale of 'no, really, everyone and everything has an end sooner or later' gets driven in repeatedly. At the same time, it spends a lot of time on how something as small as destroying a single diary can be a tragedy in its own right, too. I guess I'm just kinda used to media that takes that kind of grand high-level view dismissing the small stuff as trite and unimportant when we could be putting up another number with lots of zeroes to say how many people died.

there are a lot of different ideas floating around on things like what it all means in the end, and whether it's meaningful to leave anything behind. The AI is overjoyed when she gets her chance for oblivion. The people in the graveyard have a statue to watch over them. Chito's attempt to leave something in the form of her diary is ultimately futile, and while she learns to find other meaning, destroying her diary and the books still isn't portrayed as a good thing. Other people are recorded forever in images and videos, and it's wonderful. Ultimately I don't think there's any one answer or message. Keeping with the general existentialist kinda themes, what matters is what the people involved find meaningful in that context, but that drive to create and preserve meaning for the future is both universal and noble.

while there's a lot to be said about the visuals overall... the fact that basically the only thing on the upper layer is a spiral staircase leading up into the air with no destination sure is some symbolism, huh.

similarly, while it wouldn't change the events any, symbolically I think it's very important that their long, ultimately pointless meandering journey that ends in death was upward, not downward.

on another level, though, it's kinda implied that the higher strata are newer/more recently maintained. So it's also essentially them moving through (and revisiting a lot of) human history to take their position at the very end.

Yuu's gun is never used for anything but target practice, and then she chucks it aside as soon as it's too much effort to carry. They use an old tank for a shower. They find a working military sub with nukes inside, and it's only useful because there's chocolate and a way to look at the storage on a camera. The one time they really fire a weapon, it's horrible, and the one thing they kill is portrayed as a tragedy. Even their helmets are mostly a running joke of 'oh my helmet totally would've stopped that falling building.' For a series that includes a lot of military stuff, it regards military stuff somewhere between 'disdain' and 'indifference.' Very 'the world is ending and you think a rocket launcher is going to be useful? Put that thing down and help me look for food.'

that said, the choice to give them a vehicle from WW2-era Germany is still a pretty damn unfortunate one. Considering the series's consistent stance against violence, disinterest in war, and casually disdainful treatment of weapons and military stuff, I'm comfortable saying that Tsukumizu almost certainly isn't a closet nazi, but still. At best it gives the wrong impression to anybody who hasn't gotten about a dozen chapters in and started thinking about the themes, and there's nothing the themes do with it that wouldn't work basically as well with any other military transport anyway.

the fungus things apparently being the inspiration for the god statues is clear enough, but just what their deal is remains surprisingly undefined. I've always figured they were genetically engineered or something, made specifically to clean up the environment. Which is itself a hell of a thing if so, deifying the creatures that basically symbolize 'maybe we can undo the harm we've done, and if that takes longer than we live, at least we'll leave something behind.'

I really don't know how to feel about the whole Shimeji Simulation connection. (if you aren't familiar) On one hand I feel like it undermines a lot of the series' messages to go 'oh but just kidding, everyone's fine and nobody really dies for good.' On the other hand, as somebody who's read/watched through the series about half a dozen times and really marinated in the despair, my primary immediate reaction is 'oh thank god they absolutely deserve this.' And it isn't like I haven't written multiple stories about characters embracing their imminent demise only to turn out okay against all odds in the epilogue.

Yuu's gay little run. this is still a thought

#girls' last tour

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the-fiction-witch · 8 months

Text

Shut Up!

Media The Queens Gambit

Character Benny Watts

Couple Benny X Reader

Rating Smut

Kinktober Day Fifteen

Kinktober Concept Incest

Smut Incest / step sister x step brother / full sex/ raw sex/ cum inside

I made sure the place was clean or well clean enough when I heard a knock at the door, I sighed and went to open it up but I was taken back "Hey Benny" Beth smiled jumping to give me a hug "Hey, Beth!" I smiled hugging her happily letting her in "What are you doing here?" "Layover and the flights have been delayed until nine tonight, I figured I could sit in the hotel bar feeling sorry for myself or pop up and see you" she explained wondering though setting her jacket on the chair and her bag on the table "relax I'll be out of your hair by eight"

"No no it's fine it's just uhh not who I was expecting" "Oh? You expecting someone?" She chuckled turning leaning in the chair crossing her arms "Kinda" "I thought the place seemed clean, what you got your girlfriend coming over?" She joked heading to make herself a coffee "Ohh god no" "Don't keep me in suspense then" she laughed But the door knocked "Excuse me" I sighed walking as slowly as possible not really wanting to answer the damn door but I pulled it open begin faced her I just let her in without even speaking

"Hello to you too" she snapped heading inside hanging her black fur on the rack and heading inside with her red suitcases "ohh I didn't realise I'd have company" she smirked as she stood in my apartment in her knee-high black boots, black and white plaid mini skirt and white cream jumper, her thick dark hair with intense curls her hair pinned back with a small clip on each side just above her ears "Uhhh hi," Beth said rather surprised "Beth Harmon" she said offering her hand

"Y/n Watts" she smiled giving her hand a shake "No, you are not" I snapped heading across the apartment "Mom took it so I'm gonna use it" she snapped "I don't care, you're not a Watts don't use it" "I can do what I bloody well like Benjamin" "Uhh explanation please?" Beth asked "Y/n this is Beth, grandmaster and a good friend of mine" I explained "Beth this is Y/n. My…." I trailed off not wanting to say it "I'm his sister" She rolled her eyes "Step sister" I corrected "Huu he's never mentioned you" Beth spoke up "He doesn't like me" she smiled pinching my cheek as she walked across the apartment "Why would I? You've been nothing but shit to me since you turned up into my damn life" "Can you be civil for five damn minutes!" "Whatever," I sighed heading to my chair Eventually, Beth and y/n came over and the three of us sat chatting for a while even if I had to drink to even tolerate her but that's pretty much how this usually goes. "So what are you doing in New York?" "Touring a show, figured I'd be cheap and come stay in this dismal place then getting a hotel the whole time," she explained "and I promised the folks I'd check in on my stepbrother" "A show?"

"Y/n's an actress" I smirked "And you're a chess player. Folks are thrilled about that" "How exactly is this all set up?" "My dad met my mum and had me. Mum died and he got remarried" I explained "My mother met my father and had me and then my father died so my mother remarried. And then we became siblings" "Step siblings" I corrected "He's always been pouty about it," "Yeah because you just turned up and inserted yourself into my life" "You literally inserted yourself into my space" "In case it wasn't obvious we shared a bedroom" I sighed "You were an evil thing" "So we're you" We all chatted for a while until Beth had to leave for her flight, leaving me alone with y/n. "Guess you're not just a loner chess boy" she smirked going to unpack "I'm letting you stay here to be nice. don't be a dick because I am more than happy to throw you onto the streets" "No, you wouldn't" "I would" "You are such a cunt" "me! I'm not the dick here" "yes you are you've always been a dick" "You're just mad I took half your pocket money" "You broke my favourite chessboard!" "You decapitated all my stuffed animals!" "You sewed love hearts on my jeans" "You faked an allergy so we had to give my cat away" "I wasn't faking that cat made me sneeze. Because he was a huge fluffy thing and you never brushed him" "Maybe I would if I wasn't dealing with the fact you cut my pigtails, twice!"

"You waxed my pubes while I was sleeping!" "You broke my doll house!" "You just fucking turned up! I was still in a bad place after I lost my mum and you just fucking showed up! you and your mother. we'd barely buried mine and you just showed up. and I was expected to just put everything down and accept a new mum and a sister. I never wanted anything to do with you" "You think I did! Need I remind you my dad was barely buried too before I had to pack my life up and get shipped across the county, all I was told was we were moving, and when I got there I had a new dad and some jumped-up stepbrother to deal with. Don't blame me for turning up into your life, I didn't turn up I was dragged kicking and screaming" "You boo hoo precious little princess, you always were" "DO you have to be such a bastard about everything-" She yelled I was beyond angry, all I wanted to do was shut her up! tension boiling over I grabbed her face and kissed her mostly just to stop her from talking but the moment our lips touched it felt so heavenly like all the frustration melted away she pulled back and we both just stood bright red in shock "Fuck-" "Yeah…" "where did that come from?" "I have no idea"

"It uhhh it was kinda nice" "Yeah, it was. Weird But nice. I mean terrible awful and very very wrong." I explained but she grabbed my face and kissed me, I kissed her back wrapping my arms around her waist and pulling her closer until we both pulled back "It is nice" "It is, but very wrong, very very wrong, your my sister." "Stepsister" she corrected "Don't encourage me." "That's encouraging?" "Ohh shut up y/n" I smirked pulling her into a kiss and grabbing her ass squeezing it hard as we kissed she happily and eagerly kissed back rubbing her hands around my shirt, soon enough we were walking we kissed heading over to my bedroom until we stopped as her legs hit the bed so I pushed her down on my bed and climbed between her legs "This is for all the fucking years I spent in a bed next to you with you teasing the living crap out of me" "Did I?" she giggled "Don't play innocent you used to sit in your fucking bra just to tease me" "And how many times did I catch you masturbating while I was sleeping"

"Maybe I wouldn't have to if you came and took care of me" "Diddo" she smirked pulling me back to her lips heavily made out for a good while until I pulled away "We can't this is crazy-" I began but she smirked and turned on her stomach grinding her ass against me "Fuck it!" I groaned grabbing her hips and grinding hard on her I quickly undid my jeans and stroked my stiffening erection she giggled and tugged her panties down, I didn't waste any time burying myself deep inside her and started to pound fast and hard "Ughhhh fuck! You were an evil little thing, their precious little princess, I'm gonna fucking ruin you" "Ughhhh! you couldn't ruin me if you fucking tried. I remember your first girlfriend who walked out because you came in her hair" "I kept quiet about you fucking your eight-grade science teacher" "I passed didn't I!" "Yeah because you blew him under the science bench! you always were a little slut" "Like you weren't? those three girls you had in your Austin hotel that you never shut up about?" "It was a foursome there pretty rare I was allowed to get excited. I guess four people in one go isn't a lot for you is it?" "Ughhhh just shut up and fuck me, Benny!" She yelled moving back and forth in time with my thrusts we both got faster and louder she pushed herself hard against me as she squealed loudly hitting her orgasm I kept going working into her intense tightness until I hit my own burying myself as deep as possible. When I caught my breath I pulled out and lay in bed with her, "I think that helped. got the frustration out" "Yeah I think you're right" I nodded "We can't ever tell anyone about this" "I wasn't planning to" she laughs "Relax, genetically there's nothing between us we're not related by blood at all our parents got divorced we'd be nothing again" "Like that's gonna happen, too are smitten with each other and always have been" "Yeah, can't fault them for loving each other." "Fucked us up though" "No matter what you do you fuck your kids up, that's just having kids" "Yeah hence why I aint having any" "same." "Ohh don't tell them that they'll lose it they know neither of us is gonna give them grandkids" "I mean I'll give them grandkids if they want them" She smirked glancing at me "Lets not fucked the family tree up too much y/n"

#tbs smut #thomasbrodiesangster #tbs imagine #thomas sangster imagine #tbs imagines #thomas brodie sangster imagine #thomas brodie sangster #tbs #thomas brodie sangster smut #thomas sangster #benny smut #benny x reader #benny watts #benny fanfic #benny #bennywattssmut

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radiofreederry · 11 months

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Happy birthday, Kwame Ture! (June 29, 1941)

Born and credited in much of his early work as Stokely Carmichael, was a prominent civil rights campaigner, revolutionary socialist, and Pan-Africanist. Born in what was then the British colony of Trinidad and Tobago, Ture moved to Harlem at the age of 11, and became involved in political activism in high school, helping to boycott a local White Castle which refused to hire Black employees. In the 1960s, Ture became known as a prominent figure in the Civil Rights Movement, working with CORE in the Freedom Rides and organizing with SNCC. He grew dissatisfied with working with the Democratic Party through his experiences in the Civil Rights Movement, and turned to more radical politics. Influenced by the writings of Frantz Fanon and Malcom X, Ture came to embrace Black nationalism and Pan-Africanism as chairman of SNCC. Ture popularized the slogan "Black Power," and moved SNCC away from nonviolence as a central organizing principle. His activism made him a target of the FBI, which spread false information about Ture to tarnish his reputation and prevent a merger of SNCC and the Black Panther Party. Ture became an internationally-recognized figure, and he moved to Guinea in the late 1960s, where he became a student of Kwame Nkrumah and advisor to Ahmed Sekou Toure, renaming himself after them. The final decades of Ture's life were dedicated to organizing with the All-African People's Revolutionary Party globally, and traveled frequently to speak in favor of Pan-Africanism and socialism. He died in 1998 of prostate cancer.

“The job of a revolutionary is, of course, to overthrow unjust systems and replace them with just systems because a revolutionary understands this can only be done by the masses of the people. So, the task of the revolutionary is to organize the masses of the people, given the conditions of the Africans around the world who are disorganized, consequently, all my efforts are going to organizing people.”

#birthdays #kwame ture

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evis-gossip · 2 years

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Thoughts right now: Bucky being in love with a nerd/smart reader.

My mind is all over the place so here are some scenarios for different alternate universes:

Lumberjack!Bucky in awe while you pace from side to side of his cabin’s living room while you explain every Greek myth ever

Biker!Bucky lovesick while you rant faster than his bike about the true meaning behind The Secret History and how it is a masterpiece

Librarian!Bucky (i also imagine chubby!Bucky for librarian) saw you spend hours researching the Minoan civilization because lineal A hasn`t been translated yet and you needed to know why and when you told him how sad it made you it broke his heart

Avenger!Bucky amazed by the energy you radiate while trying to explain the concept of The Black Parade by MCR because it was never a phase, it’s a lifestyle

Mob!Bucky taking you to every bookshop ever just to see the smile on you face when you talk about literature (i have a whole concept for this, but haven’t gathered the courage to work it out)

Chubby!baker!Bucky oh so worried about you when you spent almost five hours straight sitting at his bakery teaching yourself latin to read the Aeneid in original, far too high on caffeine, far too low on real nutrients

Roommate!Bucky cuddling with you on the couch while you read and trying to get you attention for funny businesses but nothing can tear you away from hyperfixating, still he finds you adorable

CEO!Bucky taking you on a romantic trip to Paris and absolutely dazed when instead of giving you a tour of the city you stop and explain the history, art and architecture of every building. Yes, you dragged him for hours on end through Norte Dame

Neighbor!Bucky going feral when he found out you were fluid in any language other than English (he did try to convince you to se it for certain endeavors)

Had to get that out of my chest. I might work on some of them, maybe a drabble or headcanon, idk. If you guys would like me to elaborate on some, my asks are open and I’d live to hear what you guys think.

a Bucky gif as a gift for you

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