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notes-from-sarah · 4 months

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Graveside

Rating: G/K

Length: 6k words

Link on AO3, FFN

Summary: As Magneto lays his Anya to rest, he’s lost everyone he’s ever loved. Years later, he visits his daughter’s graveside again, this time accompanied by Wanda and Pietro. Claremont canon compliant. 70s-80s X-Men canon compliant.

A/N:

1953 portion takes place after Classic X-Men (1986) #12, “A Fire in the Night!”, 1983 portion takes place after Vision and the Scarlet Witch (1982) #4.

During this period of the comics, Magneto’s real name was Magnus so that’s the name I use in this story.

I’m using my own approximation on the timelines because comicbook math doesn’t always add up.

Since Wanda’s powers are very inconsistent throughout the comics I’m doing my own take.

1953

“Magda!” Magnus’ voice cracked, the smoke and heat had scorched his throat raw. Magda didn’t slow down, didn’t look back. He wanted to run after her, to catch hold of her and make her understand. But her couldn’t leave Anya. Magnus dropped to his knees in front of her small body. He wanted to stay there forever, he couldn’t believe what had happened. It just couldn’t be real.

The inn continued to burn and in the distance others were beginning to be alerted to the fact. Magnus knew he needed to go. There was nothing left for him here. There was nothing left at all. Taking off his coat he wrapped it tenderly around Anya’s body as a shroud. The final embrace he could not give her. Her body was so small.

The smell of ash and burned flesh filled his nostrils and made him choke. Bodies, burning bodies. So many bodies. Day after day with no end in sight. Magnus had thought he’d put that all behind him, thought that the nightmare was over. Apparently there was no escape.

Lifting Anya into his arms, Magnus began to walk. Once, there had certainly been a Jewish cemetery in this city, but he could not count on that any more. He would have to make do. Being careful to avoid the citizens who were beginning to stream towards the still flaming inn, Magnus wove through streets and alleys towards the edge of the city.

Magnus wasn’t sure how far he walked or for how long. More than anything he wished Magda was here with him, he wasn’t sure he could do this alone. How could she leave him and Anya at a time like this? Did she really care so much for those animals that had caused the death of their daughter? Was his slaying of them really so monstrous? He wanted to be angry, he wanted to be hurt, to scream or cry or something, instead a familiar numbness settled over him. Magnus just kept walking.

The night was deep and dark by the time he made it to the edge of the city. In the distance he could hear a train. He kept going. He had to find a place where his little girl wouldn’t be disturbed. Out past the edge of the city, the landscape resolved into countryside. Farms flanked the road on either side and Magnus knew the farm houses weren’t too far away. He needed to go further.

Turning off the road he walked on. His thoughts beginning to fill with memories of Anya. She had loved her mountain town in the Carpathians. She was close friends with some of the other children of the village and they could always be found playing together under Magda’s watchful eye. She did all the things you would expect a child to do. She climbed trees and skinned her knees and elbows. She caught bugs and frogs and stalked birds through the forest. She would pick handfuls of flowers to bring back to her papa all summer long, dirt smeared on her cheeks, her hair full of twigs.

She was such a bright and beautiful child, she was every bit as eager to learn as he was. He would teach her the names of the flowers and trees and he had been in the process of teaching her to read. She was starting to understand the alphabet and would sit on his knee puzzling out a book while he was studying a book of his own trying to teach himself algebra or geometry. Magda would say they were quite the pair of scholars. Magnus had always dreamed that his daughter would have the education he never did.

Magnus shifted the small burden in his arms. Wasn’t it just yesterday that he had carried her like this when she’d fallen asleep on the train? She had been so excited for her first trip away from the village. She had seen a picture of a locomotive in a book, but their remote village was nowhere near any tracks. When she finally saw one in real life she was ecstatic. She had said “Papa, they do exist!” He had joked and told her a fairy tale about how trains used to be dragons a long time ago, but had transformed themselves so they could help people get from place to place very fast. You could tell it was true because the trains still had the dragon fire in their bellies. Anya, of course, had believed him. She believed everything he told her. Even the lies like “I’ll always take care of you.”

Coming to the edge of a river, Magnus began to follow its course. He had no idea what the river was called or even where he was, but none of that mattered anymore. He walked on, the dark pressing in on him. Anya was still afraid of the dark. Often, she would wake in the middle of the night and crawl into bed with him and Magda. Magnus didn’t much care for the dark either. Almost any hardship or indignity could be endured in the daylight hours, but come nightfall such things became unbearable. It was just the way of things.

Coming to a rickety bridge, probably one shoddily made for local use, Magnus crossed over the river and found himself in wilder country. Crossing an overgrown field Magnus paused, his senses flaring as he felt something nearby. This power that he had was alerting him to the presence of something metal. Reaching out a hand, Magnus called to the metal laying half-buried in the dirt. To his surprise, the object leapt from its resting place and jumped into his hand. It was a steel bar, maybe forty-five centimeters long and quite hefty. It must have fallen off some farming equipment, but Magnus realized it could serve a purpose instead of rotting away to nothing. Sliding the steel bar through his belt, Magnus kept walking.

Finally, Magnus came to a stand of trees. Anya always loved the forest, she spent much of her days playing in them when the weather was nice. He hoped she would like these trees, they weren’t her friends from the mountains but they’d have to do.

Magnus made his way with some caution now, one never knew what sort of animals lived in a forest. In the mountains he was always careful about bears and wolves and feral dogs. The night was even darker here, Magnus found himself navigating more by instinct than anything else. Thick pine trees overgrew the entire area with a smattering of broad leaf trees in the mix, the forest floor was carpeted thick with needles and his footsteps were practically silent. Picking his way through the untamed brambles, Magnus found at last what he had come for.

A tall elegant tree stood in something of a clearing. Its branches arched high over the earth and the clean scent of pine filled the air. This was a place that could be made sacred. Gingerly, Magnus placed Anya in a cradle of knotted roots at the base of the tree. Then, drawing the steel bar from his belt, he began to dig.

The steel bar was better than nothing, but the process was slow as he carved away the soil. He tried not to think about how Magda should be here to hold their child while he dug. He tried not to think about how she’d abandoned him, abandoned Anya. How she hadn’t even wanted to say goodbye to their daughter. He tried not to think about Magda at all.

Scooping out soil with hands and steel, Magnus began to see the resemblance of a hole. It didn’t need to be very big, Anya was such a little girl. The soil embedded itself under his nails and stained his skin with its rich black color. The smell of the freshly turned soil threw him back to his own childhood. The smell of soil and lime as he’d dug his way out of a grave. Thinking back on it now, Magnus wasn’t sure why he’d bothered. Why did he keep living when everyone else died?

Magnus struggled as his improvised tool began to strike tree roots. If only instead of a bar it was a blade, then it would hardly slow him down at all. He was strong and would not stop until the task was complete. The bar seemed to react to his thoughts. It twitched in his hand and a current of energy flowed between himself and the steel. He wasn’t sure how this magic power worked, but earlier that day when he wanted something all he had to do was think about it. So he did just that once more. Focusing his mind on the blade he desired, Magnus gripped the steel letting the current flow back and forth between himself and the bar. The metal began to morph, and within moments it now had a razor keen edge. Magnus was mystified. How had he come to do this? Was he really some sort of freak, a monster cursed with unnatural powers? He didn’t know what to think, all he knew was that he had to keep digging.

The first light of dawn was creeping up the sky when the melancholy task was complete. Deep enough to not attract animals, the small grave was unlikely to be disturbed. Magnus went back to the roots of the tree and picked up Anya once more. One last time. Sitting with his back to the tree he cradled her small body. He wanted to weep, wanted to shed the tears his little girl deserved. But he could not. The numbness inside him was absolute. It was just another death.

Reaching up, he unclasped the necklace he wore. It was a gift from Magda, a gold Star of David she had given him when they got married. It was very small, it had not cost very much, but he wore it every day. He pulled back the coat and laid the necklace on Anya’s heart. “A gift from your mother and me,” he whispered. Anya had so often played with it when he was rocking her before bed. He had promised her that one day when she was big he would buy her one of her own. He had promised her so much.

Tucking the folds of the coat around his little girl once more, Magnus sat and rocked her, singing her favorite lullabies for the last time. He remembered so long ago when his grandfather had died. His father and nine other men from the community had come to say the Kaddish at the graveside. It has to be ten people, he’d been told. This is how we support each other in a community, his father had said. He had no community, one else at all, the lullabies would have to do.

The orange slivered edge of the sun peaked over the horizon and Magnus knew he couldn’t put this off any longer. Rising to his feet, Magnus brought Anya to the grave and lowered her in as if he were laying her in her bed after she had fallen asleep in his arms. For a long moment he gazed on the small bundle before he lifted his arm and let the first handful of soil fall onto Anya’s body. Handful after handful he filled the grave with the black earth. It was the burial he never got to give his family, the burial denied to so many of his people. A part of him could still feel the metal of the necklace, even when Anya was completely covered. With each handful it seemed like a part of him was being buried, too. The love he’d had for his wife and child, the dreams he’d had of earning a college degree, the life he’d hoped to give Anya as she grew up. All of it gone. All he had left was the smell of burning and the taste ashes in his mouth.

When all the soil had been replaced, Magnus took the steel bar. Turning it over in his hands, he pondered if his newfound powers might make a suitable grave marker for Anya. He hated to think that one day he would forget where he buried her. That he would be unable to find her again. Focusing his mind and feeling that inhuman energy flowing through him, he pulled and stretched the steel this way and that until he had a solid plate, decently sized and roughly square, in his hands. Was there anything this power could not do? If only he had discovered it just a few days earlier.

Even a feeling of regret could not break through the numbness as he traced his fingertip over the metal. The power still charged through him and wherever he traced his finger, an impression formed in the steel. Carefully working in Hebrew, he wrote the appropriate inscriptions as near as he could. His own studies of Hebrew had been limited, but he wanted to give Anya the proper marker no one else in his family had received. In smaller letters at the bottom of the plate he repeated everything in Russian, hoping that if some Soviet found this resting place they might have pity on a little girl and leave her be.

The steel plate gleamed in the morning sun which shone between the tree trunks. Something bright and pretty for Anya, it was the best he could do. His final gift to his daughter. Lastly, at the top of the plate, he drew a Star of David. Then, as he sang Anya a final lullaby, he buried the edges of plate in the earth at the head of Anya’s grave.

Standing and brushing the soil from his clothes, Magnus looked at the final resting place for his daughter. He stood there a while wishing for some tears to come, but they would not. He couldn’t even give his daughter the grief she deserved. Maybe he was a monster. At last, he knew he had to go. He had to try and find Magda, talk some sense into her. He had to find her and leave this revolting country. Maybe it was time to go to Israel. Maybe, at last, he could find some safety there.

“Don’t be frightened of the dark, my dear. I will come back and visit you very soon.” With that, he turned and walked away.

1983

“I want you to take a trip with me today, please, it won’t take very long.” Magneto stood on Wanda’s doorstep, the cool early morning breeze tugging at his clothes, the sun only just up. Wanda was surprised to see him, he hadn’t exactly phoned ahead, but this was important.

“Come in,” Wanda stepped back from the door and waved him inside. She was dressed in a deep purple that suited her red-brown hair more than one would suspect. It struck Magneto once again how very much like Magda she looked. He also thought he saw hints of his own mother in her face, maybe even his sister. How foolish he must have been to be around her and her brother and not even recognize them.

Stepping inside, Magneto saw Pietro sitting on the couch, bouncing Luna in his arms. Pietro’s daughter had grown so much in the months since last he’d seen her. “Good,” Magneto said, “the both of you are here, that will save a trip to the moon.” Wanda exchanged a glance with her brother. Magneto knew they were both still wary of him after he had coerced them into being part of his Mutant brotherhood. For him, that had been another lifetime. He didn’t even recognize the man he’d been back then. That didn’t change things for them, however. They still didn’t trust him. He didn’t blame them.

“What is it?” Wanda prompted.

Magneto glanced between his two children. Only recently had they learned of their true connection to each other. Regret over missing so much of their lives stung at him. “I wanted you to come with me to visit the grave of your sister.”

“Our… sister?” Wanda said, clearly taken off guard.

“You never told us we had a sister,” Pietro said, somewhat accusingly. His deep frown reminded Magneto of his own.

Magneto crossed his arms over his chest. He’d been meaning to tell them about Anya from the start, he just never found the right way to say it. “She died a few months before you were born. Her name was Anya. Today is the anniversary of her death.” All those years ago he’d promised to come back, so far he’d never had the courage to do so. For years he’d tried to forget everything in his past, his human wife and daughter and life and just bury himself in being a Mutant. Maybe, he had thought, if he pretended that none of that happened, that none of that mattered, he could be free of all the pain that went with it. Since his rebirth a few years ago, however, he couldn’t pretend anymore. Who he was and what he had been through were as inescapable as time itself. He couldn’t run from himself any longer. It was time Anya’s papa paid her a visit.

Wanda came over to Magneto and took him by the arm, guiding him to the couch. “Why don’t you tell us a little more about all of this. This is the first we’re hearing of this sister.”

Magneto sat on the couch and looked between the twins. He wanted to tell them everything, how he and their mother had escaped certain death in the Nazi concentration camps and had built a life for themselves before he got selfish and everything went wrong. He wanted to tell them all the little stories about their sister, how much their mother and he loved her and what a good big sister she would have been to them. He wanted to say all those things and more, but when he opened his mouth, the words wouldn’t quite come out.

Long ago, he’d felt nothing, now he felt too much.

Closing his mouth, he shook his head. “I don’t know how to say all there is to be said. Her name was Anya, she was only five-years-old. I haven’t been back since I buried her, I thought you might want to come as well.”

Wanda looked at her brother and some indecipherable communication passed between them. Pietro rolled his eyes and said, “Wanda, can we have a word in the kitchen?”

Wanda rolled her own eyes before jerking her head to the other room and the pair of them vanished through the door. Magneto didn’t try to overhear their conversation. Undoubtedly they were discussing if he was trustworthy enough to follow to who knows where. Certainly they were questioning his credibility or if he was lying to them to gain their trust. He knew he deserved such skepticism, he wished he might one day overcome it. Perhaps in the future he might be redeemed.

Pietro and Wanda came back into the sitting room a few minutes later. Wanda was being logical with her brother, saying “-Vision can watch Luna while we’re gone, it’ll be fine. He’s babysat before.”

“I know, I know,” Pietro said, holding up his hand to put a stop her persuasion, “I just hate leaving her, I miss her when I’m gone.” Wanda squeezed her brother’s shoulder encouragingly. Magneto was happy that they’d always had each other, even if he and Magda had never been part of their lives.

Wanda turned to Magneto. “We’d like to go with you.”

Pietro, ever the more surly of the two, added, “But if there’s any funny business, you’ll regret it.”

Magneto sighed. “Please believe me, Pietro, I’ve changed. I’m not the man you knew all those years ago.”

“That remains to be seen,” Pietro muttered.

Wanda, seemingly wanting to forestall any further comments from her brother, asked, “Where are we going?”

“The USSR."

. . .

It had probably been more than two decades since Magneto had used a passport or entered a country legally. He had long since given up thinking of himself as a citizen of any nation, and instead maintained that since he was a Mutant he was unaccountable to human law and practice. Today was no different. Using his powers to created a magnetic sphere around the three of them, he transported himself, Wanda and Pietro into the sky with his abilities. A journey that would normally take many hours could be accomplished in minutes, before long the three of them were touching down outside the Soviet city of Vinnytsia.

Magneto pointed to the city in the distance. “I came here with your mother long ago, I had an idea that I would earn a place at university and get a degree. I had such a desire to learn back then, I suppose that desire has not yet completely abandoned me. I thought I might be able to get back the education I had lost out on as a boy and maybe provide a better living for my family. Alas, it was not to be.”

Pietro looked around them, the mostly open countryside was carved into fields. “I don’t see any graveyards,” he observed.

“I was not able to lay her to rest in a graveyard,” Magneto said quietly. “The Nazis destroyed all the Jewish graveyards during the war, and the Soviets weren’t much better. I didn’t want someone to disturb her resting place. It was perhaps not a proper burial according to the traditions of our people, but it was what I could manage under the circumstances.” Magneto gazed around the horizon before finding the direction he thought he remembered and, motioning the twins to follow him, set off.

“Why haven’t you told us any of this before?” Wanda asked.

“I wanted to, but it is not always easy for me to discuss. When I think about what transpired, it is as if it happened just yesterday.” Magneto glanced down at Wanda. “I can still smell the fire.”

Magneto pressed on while the twins paused to share a look before continuing. Magneto wasn’t entirely sure where he had been on that night so long ago, but he centered himself and let his instincts guide him. That fateful day three decades ago was etched in his mind in sharp detail. Every thought and feeling flowed though him now as strongly as on that day.

The three of them walked through overgrown fallow fields as they wended their way deeper into the countryside. When Magneto saw the forested outcropping ahead he knew they had found it. He pointed to the woods and said, “There is the sepulchre where your sister lies. I can feel the marker I made her from here.”

“It looks peaceful,” Wanda said, gazing at the forest. “I can feel the quiet from here.”

Magneto glanced at Wanda and gave her a small smile.

Entering the shadow of the trees, the afternoon sun shone on them weakly through the boughs. A hush filled the air under the branches. Using his abilities, Magneto was able to feel the presence of the grave marker he’d laid. Treading softly, they came at last to the spot. Magneto knelt down and cleared the pine needles and other debris from the marker. With a flick of his finger the decades of rust and corrosion disappeared and the plate shone as brightly as the day he had laid it.

“Hello, Anya,” he murmured, “I’m sorry, Papa didn’t bring you any flowers.” Lowering himself to the ground, he kissed the steel headstone.

Wanda and Pietro knelt down on either side of him as he sat back up. Pietro ran his finger over the inscriptions on the plate. “What does it say?” he asked.

Magneto swallowed, his emotions beginning to throb in his chest and throat. He maintained careful control of his voice as he recited what was written. First in Hebrew, then in English. He didn’t even need to read it, he couldn’t have forgotten it if he’d tried. After living in Israel, his Hebrew was much better now than it had been then. Still, he stumbled over some of the words, unshed tears threatening to take control of him.

Wanda put a hand on his shoulder. “Tell us about our sister, Father.” It was first time she’d called him that.

Pietro nodded. “Yes, tell us what she was like.”

“She was the most beautiful of children,” Magneto began. “She was the true light of my life. She was every hope and dream I ever had for the future. Bright, curious, intelligent, kind, thoughtful. I don’t even know how to describe her. But you must know how I felt, Pietro, you must feel the same about Luna.”

Pietro gulped and nodded.

Magneto continued. “After your mother and I escaped Auschwitz, we settled in a village in the Carpathian mountains – on the Polish side. We eventually got married and we had a good life. I worked as a builder, I was quite handy and was able to build us a small cottage up there in the mountains. Soon enough your sister was born. She was such a nice, fat baby. I remember that well. I had seen so many starve and to know that she would always have enough to eat was a joy to me. After losing so many people during the war, I thought maybe Magda and I finally had a chance to begin again. We’d build a new family together and have a new life. One no longer stained by death and destruction. It was a dream that seemed possible then. Back in those days I’d never even heard the word Mutant. I thought I was human, like everyone else. If only I had known, what a difference it would have made.”

Wanda began to pick up fallen leaves from the forest floor around them. “Tell us more, Father,” she urged. It warmed Magneto to hear her call him father. It had been too long since he’d heard it.

“When your sister was five I had a notion that I might be able to earn a place at a top university here in the USSR. Such spots are difficult to achieve unless you are very intelligent, but I told myself that I could do it and your mother believed me. I uprooted our lives to come to the city where I might have a chance to get in.” Magneto now recalled the decision with a bitterness that leaked into his voice. If only he’d not been so selfish and delusional.

“The day we arrived, I went to find work. The entire city was still being rebuilt after the Nazis nearly destroyed everything so I knew I could get a job just about anywhere. When I returned to the inn where we were staying, it was on fire. When I went to rescue Anya from the fire, I was beset by secret police. They prevented me from saving her!” Anger flashed in Magneto’s eyes, the fury he felt then was still every bit as strong. “That’s how your sister died. She burned to death and I couldn’t save her. Watching her die, and like that, like I had seen so many others die, I couldn’t take it. Something in me broke loose and my powers killed all those around me save Magda.”

Wanda’s eyes went wide but Pietro merely said, “I understand.”

Magneto looked at his son, of the twins, Pietro was always the harder one to reach. “Your mother did not understand, I’m afraid. When she’d seen what I had done she ran from me and I never did find her again. She said that I was a monster and ran. She was so overcome she didn’t even stay to bury our daughter. I think a part of me has never forgiven her for that, but now I think I can understand it too. She was a good woman, Magda, but her life had left its scars.” Magneto ran his thumb over his sleeve where underneath he bore the Auschwitz prisoner tattoo.

“I didn’t know your mother was pregnant when she left me, and after I couldn’t find her I decided she was better off without me. It seems that all who love me are fated to a terrible end. Wherever she is, if she still lives, she is most certainly better off without me.” Magneto found himself thinking of Magda often, he’d never been able to find any more about what had happened to her but he hoped she was happy. Glancing between Wanda and Pietro he said, “Had I known of you two, believe me, I would have come for you. I’m sorry that I wasn’t there for you.” Magneto began to sweep his hands over the grave to clear the leaf and pine litter.

“Our adoptive parents were good to us,” Wanda said in a reassuring tone as she shaped her bundle of leaves into a small bouquet. “We were okay in the end and I can’t imagine my life without them.”

“And I am grateful for that,” Magneto said, giving Wanda another soft smile, “still, I regret all the time I lost with you two, and all the paths I’ve walked since your mother left me. I lost my way for a long time, lost who I was. I’m still not sure I’ve found it, but finding you and your brother makes me feel…” Magneto trailed off as he tried to put these emotions into words for the first time. “It makes me feel human again.”

Wanda leaned in and put an arm around Magneto. The demonstration brought tears to Magneto’s eyes. He ached to once more hug his Anya, to give Magda one last embrace before she left him forever. He wanted to say a proper goodbye to everyone who’d been ripped away from him. His mother and father, his sister, everyone he’d ever loved. Thirty years ago he’d knelt here alone, numb. Now, his children sat beside him and all the feelings he’d not been able to muster then came welling to the surface now. Covering his face with his hands, he began to weep.

Wanda and Pietro didn’t say a thing. Wanda just rested her cheek on his shoulder and rubbed her hand over his back. Pietro, somewhat hesitantly, patted Magneto’s back in what he must have thought was a soothing patter. Magneto struggled to regain his composure, but part of him was relieved to finally give Anya the tears she deserved.

Finally, Wanda spoke, “Father, I want to show you something.”

Magneto took a deep breath and lifted his face from his hands. He was unused to appearing so vulnerable in front of anyone, but he’d wanted the twins here for a reason. They deserved to know this part of their family’s story.

Wanda showed him the bundle of leaves she had and asked, “What was Anya’s favorite color?”

Magneto wiped away his tears and smiled as he recalled. “Yellow, it was her favorite because the sun is yellow and I always called her my little sunshine.”

Wanda smiled softly, her own eyes shining with emotion. “That’s beautiful. She sounds like the loveliest sister.” Wanda then raised her free hand and waved it over the brown leaves. Her red Mutant powers leapt forth and in the blink of an eye the bouquet of leaves transformed into one of yellow roses. “Now we have some flowers to leave for her.”

Magneto smiled, holding back a fresh wave of tears. “What a lovely gift you’ve made for her. I know she would be so proud of you.” Magneto turned to Pietro, “And you as well, Pietro. She would have loved to be your big sister. She would have taken care of the both of you so well.”

Pietro wiped his arm over his eyes. “Wait here,” he said, and with that he jumped up and sped off at top speed. Seconds later he was back, his arms filled with a huge array of wildflowers. In the space of a breath he’d arranged them into a lush wreath to frame the grave marker. “Sorry I never got to know you, big sister, I’m sure you would have been the best.” Together, he and Wanda decorated Anya’s grave the way Magneto wished he could have done all those years ago.

When they finished their task, the pair of them stepped back and looked at the beautifully decorated grave. “Is there anything you want to say, maybe a prayer or a poem?” Wanda asked. “I’m not familiar with the Jewish customs.”

A small pain lanced through Magneto’s heart. Of course they wouldn’t know such things, they were raised in a different culture. They had no reason to know the customs of their ancestors. “There are some prayers one might say, but I don’t really follow those beliefs anymore.”

“Then why don’t we make our own tradition,” said Pietro. “For this family.” Hearing that word from Pietro was like a balm to Magneto’s heart.

Wanda nodded. “Yes, something special from us to her.”

Magneto stood. “Last time I was here, I sang her her favorite lullaby. Will you sing it with me?”

The pair of them nodded. Magneto started, going slowly as he said each Yiddish phrase and waited for them to repeat it. It was a short song, the type you sing as you bounce your baby to sleep or sing with them before bed. Within a few repeats they had both gotten it and were singing it with him. Reaching out, Pietro took Magneto’s hand in one of his own, and Wanda’s in the other. Wanda took Magneto’s other hand, completing the circle as the three of them sang a lullaby for Anya.

When they left the graveside and returned to New York, Wanda invited Magneto inside for coffee and the three of them sat together, somewhat subdued, but between them now emanated a closeness that had not been present before.

A cry from the upstairs alerted Pietro that Luna was done napping and he darted upstairs to fetch her.

“Father,” Wanda asked, “do you have any pictures of Anya?”

Magneto nodded. “One, everything else burned in the fire. This one was saved because I always kept it in my wallet” Reaching into his jacket pocket, Magneto pulled out a photo in a clear plastic case. He gazed at it a moment before giving it to Wanda. “That’s your mother and Anya a few weeks before we left the Carpathians. They were my everything.”

Wanda took the photo as Pietro came back downstairs, Luna cradled in his arms. Wanda showed the photo to her brother. “She’s just a baby,” Pietro remarked, holding Luna a little tighter. “Just a little baby.”

Wanda traced her fingertips over the photo before raising it to her lips and giving it a soft kiss. “Hey sis, even though I never met you, I wanted to say that I love you.”

Warmth bloomed in Magneto’s heart upon hearing that. To know his children loved their sister made the distance between Anya and her siblings seem a little smaller. Made his life feel less like it was carved into pieces and made it seem possible that it was some sort of whole.

Pietro came to stand by Magneto. “Hey, um, Dad, do you want to hold Luna?” Holding her out he placed the baby in Magneto’s arms. Magneto looked down at the face of his granddaughter, her innocent eyes looked up at him as she gurgled and reached out to grab his nose. All three of them laughed and Magneto smiled at his family. He still had many amends to make, but the healing had begun.

#X-Men #Magneto #Erik Lehnsherr #Fanfic #Fanfiction #Magda and Anya #Wanda Maximoff #Pietro Maximoff #Family #6k words #Hurt/Comfort #Grief #Mourning #Child Death #Healing #AO3 #FFN

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wyattjohnston · 2 years

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or run away - jack hughes

series: we don’t have no time to waste

summary: it isn't always easy.

note: i've had this idea for months now and as far as i'm concerned it was going to be canon in this universe regardless of whether or not i wrote the fic.

i implore anyone and everyone to fight for access to safe and legal abortions.

word count: 3,580

warning: very frank mentions of abortions including the decision process, abortion related medical descriptions, emetophobia, references to eating disorders (bulimia), maternal death. please excuse any inaccuracies, i tried my hardest and did a lot of research but cannot promise this is flawless

Daisy heard the front door open and the loud conversation between Jack and Ty cut off suddenly, presumably as they took in how dark the apartment was. She managed to sit up in bed, resting weakly against some pillows and be smiling when he peeked his head into their bedroom.

He didn’t look convinced.

He sat down on the mattress beside her, crossing his legs and leaning forward to press his hand to her forehead—she wasn’t sure he’d be able to tell if she had a temperature but she appreciated the gesture.

“Have you gotten out of bed at all since I left?”

Daisy shrugged, saying, “It’s been less than 12 hours.”

“Yeah, but it’s already been two days and that’s two more days than you should have been in bed.”

“I don’t have any energy,” Daisy sighed, slumping back down into the pillows. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me; I haven’t been this sick in years.”

“I’m gonna call the doctor and try get you an appointment for tomorrow. You should be at least a little better by now.”

Jack helped her move down so that she was back under the covers, moving around enough so that he could tuck the covers up under her chin. He kissed her forehead, ignoring her protests that she didn’t want to get him sick, too. He wasn’t worried about it, though, because she didn’t have any obviously contagious symptoms and hadn’t even when she first started feeling unwell.

There was a conversation about what she’d eaten—crackers, but even they were tough to keep down—and the worry across Jack’s face was worse than she’d seen in years.

She made him go out to get her a glass of water and some more crackers, just so he would be distracted, and also asked him to send Ty in to say hello if only because they were both her boys and she needed the normality of Ty’s Roadie Recap even if they’d just ventured to MSG for the day.

Daisy didn’t hate doctors in a crunchy-mom sort of way, but, as much as she understood why they were necessary and that they were the quickest way to work out what was wrong, she didn’t like them.

Her memories of the hospital visits to see her mom weren’t vivid—a combination of her young age and ability to repress memories meant all hospitals blended together in a haze of sterile white walls and antiseptic and the ending nobody wanted—though it was the aura and the associated memories that did her in.

And it all came rushing back even when she was just heading into a doctor’s surgery.

None of it was very pleasant, especially not when she was already regretting even getting out of bed.

Still, she managed her way through a polite chat with the nurse, explained what was going on and was asked approximately a million questions while her vitals were taken. It was just like every time she showed up for a new prescription for the pill, only the nurse was making a few curious noises that Daisy wasn’t used to.

If only she had the energy to care.

Daisy didn’t hate doctors but she did hate how long they made her wait.

She was nearly falling asleep in the waiting room chair when her name was finally called by her usual doctor—a middle aged man with a terse demeanour who she’d found when she first moved to New Jersey and hadn’t ever left because he prescribed her what she needed without too much hassle. A smile wouldn’t kill him, though.

They went through the same conversation she had with the nurse, that she’d spent the previous two days in bed and a few days before that hardly able to keep food down.

“The nurse said that you didn’t get your period last month so I need to ask: is there any possibility that you could be pregnant, Daisy?”

“No,” Daisy said quickly, then hesitated and added, wide eyed and high pitched, “Well, I mean yes but we’re so careful about protection. Like we don’t have sex if there’s no condoms left and I’m also on the pill like—I can’t be pregnant.”

“To rule it out and for peace of mind, I’d like to do a test. You can take this jar to the bathroom right now and we can know in a few minutes, or I can draw some blood but that might take a couple of days to get a result back.”

“I’ll go pee,” Daisy whispered, picking up the small jar and taking a steadying breath. “It’ll kill me if I have to wait.”

She also wanted to talk to Jack and didn’t want to have to wait for the doctor to draw blood. Her phone was out of her pocket before she’d even left the room, her lip quivering. She kept her head low as she walked to the bathroom and could feel the rattle in her breath when Jack picked up.

“Are you done already?”

“Jack, he thinks I could be pregnant.”

“He always throws that out there as a suggestion, though,” Jack countered easily. “You come and tell me he’s said that after every appointment.”

Daisy wanted to be able to laugh about it, about how he’d asked her if she could be pregnant when she walked in with a poison ivy rash on her arm all because she regularly used the pill to skip her period entirely—and when she didn’t skip it, it didn’t always come.

Daisy put the jar down on the counter in the bathroom, staring at it as she whispered, “This time he’s making me pee in a cup.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, well… we can deal with that,” Jack said, the calmness in his voice so unbearably fake that Daisy let a tear fall. He sounded less fake, more determined, when he added, “You won’t be, anyway.”

Daisy did laugh then, weak and wet, wondering if she could actually just will herself to not be. She whispered, “I hope not,” into the phone and her reflection in the mirror.

“It’s gonna be okay, Daze.”

Daisy looked down at the jar again, sighing.

“I have to pee now,” she said solemnly, smiling a little at Jack’s abrupt laugh. “I’ll see you at home.”

“Call me when you’re done. Either way. I love you.”

Daisy agreed, if only because Jack sounded desperate.

The house was eerily dark and quiet, the boisterousness she usually encountered when she walked through the door missing as if the boys were on a road trip and it was unsettling knowing that they weren’t and should have been back from practice.

Jack was waiting quietly by the front door; Ty was nowhere to be seen.

Daisy wanted to go to bed, she wanted to cry, she wanted to vomit and it looked like Jack might’ve been in the same boat. She couldn’t remember a time he’d been so pale.

He reached out to touch her, his fingers barely brushing over her hips before Daisy was taking three steps back with her arms stiff by her sides.

“Please don’t touch me.”

“Daisy…” Jack said cautiously, his face turning a murky grey.

Daisy sighed, blinking back tears, “It’s not—I worked so hard to get past that and to change how I think but I—Jack, I don’t even want to touch my own stomach right now.”

“It’s not?” He didn’t sound as if he believed her, and she couldn’t fault him for that—not when he’d heard the same thing, that she’d beaten the bulimia, and soon after seen the exact opposite.

“It feels a lot like it, but it’s got nothing to do with what I’ve eaten or—” she inhaled deeply, letting it out slowly. “I really don’t want to be pregnant right now, Jack.”

Jack’s nod was instantaneous and his steps towards her slow. He kept his hands by his own side, letting her know that he wasn’t trying to touch her waist in any way, and Daisy sighed shakily when his forehead touched hers.

“I know,” he whispered, his voice also shaky. “You’ve got school and a plan that doesn’t involve a baby for a few more years.”

Another shaky sigh left her lips as she asked what she’d been dreading to ask the entire drive home, “Do you want to keep it?”

“No? I want you to get to do what you’ve planned and I’m gone a lot so I won’t even be around to help with a baby. And I like our life right now. I’m not ready for a kid.”

Daisy’s vision blurred entirely, and her shaky breathing turned into a full body sob as she collapsed into Jack. He was ready, though, his arms wrapping tightly around her shoulders, a hand cradling her head.

The first thing Daisy did when she woke up the next morning was schedule an appointment online. She didn’t want to wait any longer than she absolutely had to—though that did mean having to schedule around Jack’s games.

He was laying right next to her on the bed as she used her laptop with shaking hands and puffy eyelids. She looked to him before she finalised it, another check that he agreed with the decision being made, and then pushed her laptop onto her cluttered bedside table—not bothered by the things she heard falling to the floor—and buried herself underneath the duvet.

“I’m not going to tell my dad,” she muttered when Jack was buried underneath them with her, the duvet pulled over their heads. “He doesn’t need to know.”

Jack frowned. “Do I tell my folks? Mom’s going to kill me. I’ve got like one big responsibility and it’s to not accidentally get you pregnant and I fucked it up.”

“This is a freak accident,” Daisy assured him, wetness still present in her voice. “If you want to tell them then you should. You can, if you’re asking permission.”

He touched her face—he was being very careful to not accidentally touch her waist or stomach even if he normally would have pulled her closer that way—and kissed her forehead.

“I don’t know. Maybe I’ll tell her after. If I tell anyone else…” Jack trailed off.

Ty was the only person they’d told—a by-product of living with him and explaining to him why he’d been booted out so quickly and why there was a heaviness in the house that had never been there before.

Brie—Dougie’s partner—would find out soon enough because Jack planned on calling her to keep Daisy company while he had to play a game against St. Louis.

Daisy offered, to finish his thought, “It might be too real?”

“It’s already pretty real.”

“Yeah, Jack, it’s really real.”

Jack got home after the game, saying goodbye to Brie who had sat on the couch with Daisy to watch the Devils defeated the Blues, and bundled Daisy towards their bedroom without much fanfare other than Daisy stopping to greet Ty and congratulate him on his goal.

It was the happiest she’d been since she started to feel off-colour, a glimmer of hope and return to normal when she’d launched herself off the couch in glee. She told Ty as much as she hugged him tightly.

Jack was smiling at her when she joined him in their room.

“So,” Daisy said, using her renewed vigour to kneel on the bed and talk as Jack changed out of his suit, “I did some research into Judaism and abortions.”

Jack paused halfway through removing his jacket, getting stuck momentarily, and said slowly, “You didn’t have to.”

Daisy shrugged, trying to play nonchalant so she wouldn’t lose her ability to have the conversation, and continued, “I wanted to make sure I wasn’t condemning you to eternal hell or purgatory or whatever.”

Recovering and seemingly understanding Daisy’s need for the conversation to continue at a relatively fast and causal pace, he told her, while still undressing, “Neither of those really exist in Judaism.”

“Oh, well, it wouldn’t matter anyway because Reform Judaism is really cool about it? They’re really into it being the woman’s choice to decide. And while they don’t really want you to just have abortions for fun—which nobody is doing, obviously, despite what the whack jobs think—it’s not a giant unforgivable sin.”

“That’s… good,” Jack said, thinking through what she had said, and taking in the relief it had brought to her face. He reminded her, gently, “Daisy, you’re not Jewish.”

Daisy laughed, sarcastically, falling onto her back with her legs still tucked underneath her so that she could speak to the ceiling.

“Well, my religion is going to condemn me to hell and label me a murderer; I just thought I’d make sure at least one of us was safe.” She sat up again, making sure they were making eye contact when she said, “And I’ll probably be Jewish one day, right? Don’t want to start off on the wrong foot.”

The softness on Jack’s face was almost like nothing she had ever seen before but it came close to the earnestness in his expression when he’d proposed to her in the Vegas wedding chapel.

“Even if eternal damnation was on the cards for both of us—that doesn’t change anything. Not for me.”

“It doesn’t for me either,” Daisy admitted. “It did make me feel a little bit better, though.”

Jack was skipping practice to take Daisy to her appointment—she’d offered exactly once to have Brie go with her instead and Jack had shut it down.

He’d told Nico that he’d be missing—“I just told him that you had a thing I needed to be there for and he said he hopes you’re okay.”—and Lindy—“He knew what I was talking about. I told him you had an appointment and I had to be there, and he told me he could be discreet if we need any help from him. It was weird. How many guys has he had that conversation with?”

Neither of them cried that day; they were too nervous to do so. They didn’t do much talking, either, but they were never more than an arm’s length from each other from the moment they woke up and that didn’t change until they were at the appointment.

Daisy filled in what felt like truly unholy amounts of paperwork, her shaking hands making her normally perfect handwriting rather illegible. In the seat beside her, Jack was bouncing his me at a million miles a minute and twisting his head around at every noise.

They’d discussed the possibility of Jack being recognised in the conversation about Brie bringing her and, while he acknowledged it as a possibility, he wasn’t going to let it stop him from being there with her.

When she was called into an office, they both sat there and answered questions that Daisy couldn’t remember two seconds after they were asked; Jack answered some when Daisy stalled.

“Do you mind stepping out of the room, Jack?” The nurse asked. “There are some things we need to do that are usually more comfortable without an audience.”

“Uh, yeah. Are you okay with that?” Jack asked, nodding when Daisy nodded up at him. “I think I’m going to call Quinn.”

“That’s a good idea,” Daisy said, feeling a small weight off her shoulders knowing that someone in their family would know.

The nurse explained that they ask partners to leave the room so that they can ask questions that aren’t always well received, or that aren’t always answered truthfully in the presence of a partner. Daisy listened and answered, assuring her repeatedly that Jack hadn’t ever forced her into anything, including the making of the appointment—all she wanted was for Jack to be back and holding her hand.

As they were finally calling Jack back into the room as well as organising the ultrasound technician, Daisy made it clear that she wanted to hear as little from the ultrasound machine as possible. She didn’t want to hear much of what they were saying either.

Neither she nor Jack would see the ultrasound image, or hear much of it, but it was impossible to pretend it wasn’t there.

“Do you—can you tell when, like, conception was?” she asked too loudly for the silence they had been in. “We always use a condom and I’m on the pill so we have no idea when this could have happened.”

“I would probably put it at—” the tech paused for a moment — “the first week of February.”

Daisy’s brow knitted together, her entire face contorting as she tried to think back to when it could possibly have happened, “I don’t—”

“Vegas,” Jack said, interrupting her. He sounded hollow. “I don’t think we used a condom after the wedding.”

She squeezed his hand, already knowing that he was going to take that as a personal failure, and admitted, “I was really bad at taking the pill on time.”

She still is, truthfully, though she was already working out how to be more consistent in taking it.

Jack squeezed her hand right back.

“Do you need time to think about your options?”

“No,” Daisy said immediately. “I’m here for an abortion. We’ve already decided.”

It was hard letting Jack go when they started to prepare her for the surgery. It was the first time she cried all day, clutching his arm and begging them to let him stay with her. Jack wasn’t faring much better despite the strong face he was trying to put on. His attempts at assuring her that she was going to be fine, that he’d be there when she woke up, did little to actually comfort her.

At least the nurse looking after her was there and ready to take Daisy’s other hand, not quite a perfect replacement for Jack but it was better than nothing.

When Daisy did come to, Jack was right there as promised. He looked… relaxed. She felt relaxed. It was quite the contrast from how she’d felt when they pushed the anaesthetic through the IV.

She listened dutifully as she was given instructions on how to look after herself and was happy to hear that she’d be able to get on a plane to Vancouver the next week as long as everything continued to go as smoothly as the procedure had.

“You okay?” Jack asked cautiously when they were left alone.

“Yeah,” Daisy said, a small laugh bubbling out of her. “Was way more scared about being pregnant and now I’m not—so I actually feel really good. You okay?”

Jack nodded, leaning down to kiss her forehead before he wrapped her up in as good a hug as he could manage.

On their way out, some of the relief was lost.

Despite Jack being a strong and firm presence by her side, Daisy could still see and hear the people antagonising her from across the parking lot. She craned her head to get a proper look, but Jack caught her.

“We’ve just gotta get to the car,” Jack said, firmly holding her hand—partly as a source of comfort, but partly to stop her from rushing to meet the protestors face to face.

Daisy groaned, “But they’re assholes and I want to tell them.”

Jack’s laugh was small—he could picture her doing just that quite clearly. “And I’d let you if you hadn’t just been under anaesthetic.”

“They don’t even know what I did in there,” she huffed, unable to tear her eyes away from them. “Maybe I was getting prenatal vitamins.”

“You know they don’t care.”

With all her might, Daisy shouted, “Because they’re assholes!”

Heading back to Planned Parenthood was something Daisy did when she could, knowing that the protestors outside were only getting worse as legislation was changing around the country—as midterm elections were racing closer.

She sat and waited for people to show up and call for an escort, no matter what they were there for, because nobody deserved to walk past the protestors alone.

Daisy met a young woman at her car, dutifully ignoring the heinous things that were shouted in her direction and smiled kindly as the door opened.

“Just don’t stop walking,” Daisy said. “I like your shirt.”

“You’re a Red Wings fan?” the woman asked after looking down to see what shirt she was wearing that day.

“I grew up one, but now I’m more of a Jersey Girl.”

“I know they’ve been bad but I couldn’t imagine changing teams,” the woman said, Daisy could hear the horror in her voice. It wasn’t the first time she’d heard it, the betrayal in someone’s voice when they found out she’d moved on.

She never took it personally, and it served as a good distraction.

“My fiancé has a vested interest in the team, so I don’t really have a choice. Detroit is still my team in my heart; Seider winning then Calder was the most exciting thing to happen this summer.”

“If anyone else won it I would have fought the NHL.”

“I would have been right there with you,” Daisy agreed. She opened the building's front door and was thankful to drown out the yelling when it closed behind them. She said to the young woman, “And I’ll be right there with you when you leave.”

The decision you make is the right one.

#jack hughes fic #jack hughes imagine #nhl fic #nhl imagine #hockey imagine #hockey fic #homemade fic #we don't have no time to waste fic #title is from slide by the goo goo dolls #it would be ‘put your arms around me’ but I already used that for a different fic #‘do you wanna get married or run away’ is the whole lyric and well they already did the wedding thing #fic: devils

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sapphire-weapon · 8 days

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I said a few days ago I wanted to talk about this, and I still do.

With all of the rumors and speculation about RE9, there's a sentiment throughout the fandom of "x character needs to come back" or "it better not be Leon or Chris" -- and I've got some bad news, guys.

Until the legacy cast gets retired, it will always be either Leon or Chris. One of them will be there in some capacity. Chris has been designated as RE's primary protagonist, and Leon is its secondary protagonist (deuteragonist). It's that simple.

Part of it is brand recognition. Chris and Leon were the faces of the two most successful RE titles ever released (RE5 and RE4).

But what it really comes down to is that video games are a uniquely terrible medium for ensemble casts -- and that's only become more and more true as time has gone on.

When RE first started, games had an approximate development cycle of a year to a year and a half. RE1 was 1996, RE2 was 1998, RE3 was 1999, and CVX was 2000. Four mainline titles in four years. And other spinoff titles were getting released in between them, too. There was a stretch of time when we'd get 2-3 RE releases a year.

RE9 will come out in 2025 -- 5 years after RE8. It was 3 years between 7 and 8. And another 5 between 6 and 7.

And RE8 and RE9 were in development concurrently.

There's no yearly turnaround for game development anymore. Game development these days is 4-6 years. It requires teams in the hundreds. We only get one RE title a year if we're lucky, and it's going to be a mainline OR a remake OR a spinoff. Only one. There's no more simultaneous releases, because game dev can't support that anymore.

So in order to keep any semblance of a story straight at all, the focus has to be kept on either one or two characters, and that's it. Consider that it's already been 12 years between Leon's last game appearance and his next one. If Capcom was to give the spotlight equally to all of its characters, there might be 20-25 years between their titles -- and that's not an exaggeration.

So the complaint would still be the same. It would still be "where's x character???" But now with a completely disjointed story that jumps all over the place and has no central focus point for the audience to orient themselves on. RE would basically become Final Fantasy -- the games would be connected by name only but really have nothing to do with one another. And I don't think that's what RE fans want, either.

But it's not even just dev times between games, either. It's also the demand of the development process itself. You can't just put more of the characters into each game. RE is survival horror; it has to have a small cast by default. But even if that wasn't the case, it's actually really fucking hard to include more characters into a game's story due to the progression of gameplay.

An ensemble cast in films or books is intricately woven into the story in a way where everyone is relevant and their contributions matter for a big payoff at the end. Even in the 90s, that was pretty much unheard of; any RPG you play will have at least one or two "useless" party members -- characters that exist strictly for gameplay purposes because there wasn't enough room in the story for them to play a meaningful role.

It's impossible to keep everyone relevant in RE in a way that gives a satisfying payoff. It's just not possible. The cast has to be reduced for the story and the gameplay to stay tight.

Keeping the focus on Leon and Chris keeps things connected and keeps the audience engaged. Capcom is following the principle of "If you try to please everybody, you'll end up pleasing nobody." At least this way, the core audience of fans from the most successful games stay catered to.

This is part of the reason why I don't want Ada to be in RE9. There's so little room left for a large cast. Jill and Claire need to become the guys' main supports, because they're objectively more important. Cuts need to keep happening. The cast still needs to be pruned.

Because there's just not enough room for everyone. Dev takes too long. And for RE to keep its identity, the focus has to be kept on just a few core characters, or else literally everyone is going to get left in the dust.

#idk if i like this post #i wrote it at work while ppl were talking to me #but i wanted to get this conversation started #because RE fandom's expectations are unreasonable #this series will never give them what they want

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bleachbleachbleach · 8 days

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5/24 - 5/31/24

I've been having BIG emotions all week (about racecars; about getting to see best friends and old colleagues; about my life choices [for once, positively]; about multiple retirement parties and people I want to be when *I* grow up). And of course, about my Bleach blorbos. I haven't had time to actually write, due to needing/wanting to focus on life things, but I have spent a lot of time daydreaming different iterations of one particular scene, because I have also spent like 30 hours driving (and have either 8 or 12 to do today, depending on how the Great Construction Conspiracy goes) and what else am I going to do besides try not to get destroyed by white Silverados??

I do have a written version of this scene already, but I don't think I'll use it. It's from Hisagi's POV (in every iteration it is from Hisagi's POV), which is probably a dumb POV to do the scene from, but the other two characters involved can have their version of it in a few chapters, too. The problem with Hisagi's version, aside from him definitely third-wheeling it, is that Hisagi's relative lack of real context and his imagined context of the 92 other things he's thinking about mean that this one scene connects obliquely to like three other trains of thought that are... not really related but related in his mind. And some of them are in his chapter, and others are scattered across a bunch of other chapters as Things Hisagi Thought and Then Impulsively Shared, so that's a bit difficult to keep track of as I continue to change the scene.

I feel like the scene itself is probably only going to be like 7 actual lines, in the end, just because it's stuff I really like writing but am shy about sharing, so most of this is probably just for me. 🫣

Other thoughts:

-- I met a new guy at my old workplace whom I decided I do not like but who is definitely a Joe Shinigami. Like, I feel like he's Renji's dark double. He's very gregarious, and can tell a rollicking story (or thinks he can; he performs well, but it's maybe... too performed? too self-aware of how much character he is bringing to the plate? even as he's performing something self-deprecating?). He's a poet with the most jock energy I've ever encountered from a guy with an MFA. And, having participated in an MFA soccer league for multiple years (as a non-MFA interloper), I'm not saying that out of some misapprehension that poets can't also be jocks or vice versa. It's jock ENERGY specifically. I dunno, it's kinda like he'd LIKE to be Renji or was written to be Renji, and it's similar enough to be uncanny but wrong enough to be Wrong. And instead of really liking him in the way I really like Renji, I'm just like "Man, this guy sucks." XPP

I feel like this is probably someone that Kira definitely knows in the poetry circles and he's had this exact same review process about him.

-- I was at a dental appointment yesterday and my hygienist was talking about [American] football, which is something I know approximately three things about; but these three magic beans were enough to ignite her passion. She knew all the players by name and was describing the coaches and coaching style and their entire histories, and how much she liked and trusted this coach guy, and her enthusiasm was very lovely.

But because I am absolutely addled in the head with blorbo disease, during this entire football conversation my mind was running a backing track about how the way this woman knew and talked about JIM HARBAUGH was probably really similar to how people perceived AIZEN SOUSUKE pre-defection, and how even though we only see Hinamori struggle with feelings of ambivalence where Aizen is concerned and everyone else is straightforwardly angry/anti-Aizen, that's probably not actually true and Hinamori's feelings probably ARE echoed in many. Frankly probably in Hitsugaya, even though he's probably the most demonstratively anti-Aizen person anyone knows (depending on whether you were present for the Winter War or not; if you weren't then maybe you don't know anything). Because despite the fact that he seems fairly wary by nature and was rude about Aizen even when everyone thought Aizen was Good Guy Jim Harbaugh, I think Hitsugaya liked and trusted (/entrusted Aizen with) even more than even Hitsugaya thought Hitsugaya did. I'm basing this on exactly one panel in this essay I will--

"Man, the Lions did so well last season, didn't they!"

#stories for the sea #probably the only post in the entire world that mentions jim harbaugh AND hisagi shuuhei

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rhaenys-queenofkhyrulzz · 10 months

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mctna timeframe x wihwado retreat

okay so idk if this classifies as a meta post but it focuses on how the historical timeline meshes with that of the show to give up some tentative dates in the first 3-4 episodes. Long post after the cut:

Historically speaking, General Yi Seong-gye’s coup d’etat lasted from 22 May – 3 June 1388. Judging from the scene in mctna when YSG and Nam Jeon are in a fortress looking at the capital (your country vs your child scene) it only took a couple days to mobilise their forces to the capital. I say this cuz mctna shows that the amount of time this mobilisation process took was directly parallel to the time between Seon-ho’s first stab wound and his ruler of darkness speech.

I mean, one might think it would’ve taken longer in real life than was shown in the series cuz of the sheer size of the army. However, that’s not the case. Here is some fun info and calculations for my fellow overthinkers who think their fic readers will research every miniscule detail you write for historical and scientific accuracy:

As I have already mentioned, a typical horse can walk at a speed of approximately 4 mph (6.5 km/h), trot at about 8 and 12 mph (13.9 – 19.5 km/h), while it can reach at least 25 and 30 mph (40 – 48 km/h) when galloping.

Source: horsey info

Below is just a walkthrough of the calculating process.

So imagine the horses in that army are travelling at 6mph/ 9.66 kmph. The distance between Liaodong (for the sake of this post I’m using modern-day Dalian at the tip of the Peninsula as the starting point) and Gaegyeong (the capital & modern-day Pyongyang) is 359.2 km by land. For non-stop travel, this would take roughly 37.2 hours. Assuming they would start travel an hour after sunrise (aka 6:20 am at that time of year), set up nightly camp a half-hour before sunset (aka 7pm at that time of year) and would need to take at least one hour’s rest during the day for sustenance/bathroom/miscellaneous reasons, they would cover about 112.7kmph per day which is about 12hours of travel per day. If they push a bit on the last day, the army would’ve arrived at the Capital in around 3 days.

So along with a couple days of strategising before the coup, it can be said that the night Seon-ho was sent to get rid of the advance forces was circa May 17th 1388.

Between the first time skip and this night, we have maybe 2-3 days of seeing the bois on both the main army and advance troop sides. Let’s say the first time skip when we see Hwi at the end of ep 2 brought us to circa May 14th 1388.

Now the time skip itself lasted around 2 months. We can assume that Hwi was dragged to the docks somewhere around March 12th 1388.

If the military exam took place 1 or 2 days before that, let’s say our hearts first broke on on March 10th 1388.

Assuming that the training montage showing the boys getting ready for this lasted about a week as shown by Seon-ho’s different training outfits and the snippets of him treating his sword slash wound every night, the last day of happiness (aka the kite-flying) took place somewhere around March 4th or so. Using this, Hwi went back to the military exam sign-up officer on the day before and earlier on that same day March 3rd is when Seon-ho invited Hwi to the hunt with YSG.

Canonically, the boys first meet Hui-jae (which one can argue starts off the chain of events) 2-3 days earlier. Basically the scene from the pilot of our bois being all young and carefree and practicing swordplay together in the woods happens on March 1st 1388.

So yeah that’s the reverse order timeline of the first few episodes. If you made it all the way to the end, hope this can help you to further research whatever you need in further detail by using these dates as guidelines.

#i sacrificed too much sleep for this so imma go now #mctna #my country the new age #mctna meta #meta #historical fiction #idk why i decided to post this but it's on the internet now so funsies

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littlequeenies · 1 year

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BEDSITTER GIRL JANE ASHER [1966]

I'm sure that many of you are already quite familiar with this photograph of Jane Asher, it has been reproduced several times in various fashion books over the years, but it was originally published in a magazine editorial called The Time, The Place, The Dress, and (if you still need it) The Food, by Molly Parkin for Nova in 1966, and printed poster-sized over a double-page layout, measuring 51.5 cm x 34cm for full visual impact! Molly commissioned Ossie Clark and Celia Birtwell to design the dress especially for the feature, she specifically wanted something which represented not only the fast-paced, disposable, transient nature of the current youthful attitude towards fashion trends but also something with enough decorative value to end up on the wall in a bedsitter as pop paraphernalia after it had been worn at the weekend, rather than thrown out with the trash!

So what better candidate for potential 'wall art' than a printed paper dress! Celia painted her initial ideas in gouache, inspired by the work of Paul Poiret and illustrations from La Gazzete du Bon Ton. The finished designs were then printed onto a suitable Johnson & Johnson manufactured paper by the 'Art to Wear' company of Zika Ascher, and the dresses were made to order for the sum of 17s 6d each. I love the fact that Celia also took it upon herself to paint the vinyl floor tiles in the mock-up bedsit, mirroring the design detail from the border of the garment to complete the overall look. And that Molly (a woman after my own heart), attributed just about every single item on display in the magazine feature to its original source, from the Biba beads right down to the Woolworth lollipops and sticks of rock!

On the floor: Jane Asher in a dress designed by Ossie Clark made of printed paper fabric designed by Celia Birtwell; made to order in small, medium and large sizes, approximately 17s 6d. Bangle at Woolworths, 2s 9d. Vinyl floor tiles painted by Celia Birtwell. Lilac patent shoe by Russell & Bromley, 7½ gns. Amber patent shoe by Elliot, 8 gns. Coloured cigarette by Sobraine, 7s 2d for twenty. Coloured crepe stockings by Russell & Bromley, 6s 11d. Pop tin tray by Goods & Chattels. 9s 6d.

Close-up of the design detail from the border of the dress.

Above: One of Celia's initial designs for the paper dress rendered in gouache, inspired by the work produced at the Martine School of Decorative Arts in Paris. The school was set up by designer Paul Poiret in 1911 at 'La Maison Poiret' in an endeavour to realise his dream of creating a decorative arts movement in France which would be on par with the new developments in the arts taking place in Vienna and Germany at this time. The students mainly consisted of young working class girls between the ages of 12-15 years old, Poiret encouraged them to work freely from nature, organising trips to the countryside and conservatories whenever possible, but apart from this input they were otherwise without artistic supervision. His role was merely to stimulate their artistic taste without influencing or criticising them, in order to maintain the purity of the original source of inspiration in the work. He would then select a range from the finished designs which were suitable for reproduction and have them applied to fabrics, wallpapers, carpets, cushions and ceramics.

The work received an excellent response amongst art circles, and following an exhibition at the Salon d'Automne in 1912 the demand was such that Poiret opened a retail outlet called 'Atelier Martine' on Rue du Faubourg St Honoré. With a very favourable review in Vogue, the Martines went from strength to strength, also using their designs to create magnificent large scale murals, transforming hotels, shops, offices, private houses and the studio of dancer Isadora Duncan into exotic oriental palaces in the process. An international reputation was quickly established, however, the gathering momentum of the Martines success was stopped in its tracks by the outbreak of WW1 in 1914. The school closed for the duration of the war, with many of the students relocated to a safer environment. Business eventually resumed as normal in the aftermath, but although Poiret tried several times to re-establish his career and the Martine style, most notably in the mid 1920s with an extravagant display at the International Art Deco Fair in Paris, both failed to ever regain the immense popularity of their glory days.

Three designs for round carpets, typical of the Martine style, from the workbooks of the School of Decorative Arts.

The Table: green paper drum table by Hull Traders Ltd, £3 13s. On the table: Large glass jar, £2, full of Smarties, Liquorice Allsorts and Barratt's assorted sweets; glass-topped storage jar, 6s 6d, containing dolls' eyes from Pedigree Dolls; spice jars, 2s 9d; glass dish, 7s 6d a pair, contain bath oils at Boots, 6s 6d. All the glassware from The Scientific Glassblowing Co Ltd. Hexagonal coloured boxes by Goods & Chattels, £1 17s 6d a set.

On the wall: wooden beads at Biba's, 11s. Striped shoes at Fifth Avenue, £3 19s 11d. Red and green shoe by Walter Steiger for Bally, 9½ gns. Bead bracelet at Biba's, 5s 6d. Dress designed by Ossie Clark of printed paper fabric designed by Celia Birtwell, made to order, 17s 6d. Plastic earrings by Paco Rabanne, £1 10s. Bangle at Woolworth, 2s 9d. Pink patent shoe by Russell & Bromley, £3 19s 11d. Woolworth lollipops. Paper roses from Portobello Road market. Dried flowers at Natural Fern Display Ltd, from 3s 6d each. Large wooden beads at Biba's, £1 2s 6d. Pearly Queen dress from Hector Binney stall, Bermondsey market.

The Bed: emerald green wooden bed by Gary Griffiths at Vasa, approximately £30. Green sheets at John Lewis, £5 19s 6d a set. Orange and red shoe by Walter Steiger at Bally, 9½ gns. Leather and suede shoe by Salvatore Ferragamo, 14 gns. Woolworth's rock, 1s a stick.

IMAGE CREDITS

All content scanned and transcribed by Sweet Jane from an original article by Molly Parkin for NOVA, September 1966. Model; Jane Asher. All Photographs by Duffy. Celia Birtwell design in gouache scanned from Celia Birtwell by Celia Birtwell. *The Close-up of border design detail on the printed dress courtesy of the V&A collection. Carpet designs from the Martine School of Decorative Arts were scanned from A Fashion For Extravagance by Sara Bowman.

LINKS

Visit the Celia Birtwell website here. Listen to Molly Parkin on Desert Island Discs here. Watch Great Lives: The Molly Parkin Documentary here. Read about the life and times of of Zika Ascher here. View an issue of La Gazette du Bon Ton from 1914 here. And finally, read more about the career of designer Paul Poiret and view examples of his work here.

From @sweetjanespopboutique blogspot

#Jane Asher #1966 Jane #Jane model #The Time The Place The Dress and (if you still need it) The Food #Molly Parkin #Nova #Nova magazine #Ossie Clark #Celia Birtwell #1960s #model #muse #actress #1960s Jane #1960s fashion #Biba #Sweet Jane #Duffy

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pvrply-bruises · 2 months

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2024 Vision and Goals 🍀🌱

After a few harsh and challenging months, I have come back with plenty of motivation to lose weight and keep it down.

To congratulate myself, I'd like to point out I moved out of my parents' home, I quit a toxic job and landed a new, slightly better paid job, I am trying really hard to make my current relationship work and I have worked on changing my own damaging behaviors, I had a tough financial month and I have reset my personal budget as well as my spending habits and strategies.

Without further ado, here are the plans/stats/ideas to successfully lose some weight.

Note 1: I do not know my actual SW. Last time I weighed in, I was at 59 kg, but I definitely gained these past few months.

SW: *educated guess* 64 kg.

GW: 54 kg.

UGW: 50 kg *just enough to donate blood*.

Due date: End of 2024 (12/31/24).

Checkpoints:

05/12/24 (partner's birthday celebration)

05/26/24 (may's pay date)

06/23/24 (last week of final term at work)

07/07/24 (few days after dad's birthday)

07/28/24 (end of work break)

08/18/24 (long weekend)

09/22/24 (love and friendship day)

10/06/24 (after birthday check)

10/27/24 (before Halloween, yay!)

11/17/24 (nothing special)

12/08/24 (after candle night)

12/22/24 (almost Christmas!)

12/31/24 (end of year, NYE)

Strategies: under 4 axes of action (nutrition, ⭐vation, movement, finances).

🍓Nutrition: as a grown up, I need to function. In order to function while doing this, I need to ingest proper nutrients to keep my body as balanced as possible.

Eat meals (lunch or dinner) with the following arrangements: 1/2 a plate is salad, 1/4 is protein and 1/4 is carbs.

I will allow dessert, if available, 2X/week (weekday and weekend).

No juice, only water.

Snacks will consist of fruits, greek yogurt, fruit purée, a few dried nuts, low cal gelatin, ripened cheese, ham, eggs, etc.

No added sugar.

No alcohol unless beer (with partner) or wine. For special occasions only.

No vaping/smoking *this will be a tough one.

No chips, cakes, chocolate, fried food, candy or ultra processed snacks.

Counting approximate calories and have a limit of 1,300 cals daily. High restriction is easier to maintain long term. Also, I don't actually know the calories in my lunch because I don't cook it.

Use MFP for the previous point.

⭐vation: as an old timer in EDblr, I objectively know that food and exercise are the way, but my sick brain insists on this method. And the method works (at least for a while).

Fasting, daily, for 18 hours at least. From 6:30 PM until 12:30 PM.

OMAD 2X/week. Preferably lunch, but dinner if required.

Always skip breakfast. It's the easier to skip due to my routine.

Fasting less during the weekend if a social function requires it.

If working out harder than usual, EAT to avoid passing out.

Drink green tea, black tea, unsweetened herbal tea, coffee (stick to 2–3 cups daily). Drink as many beverages as you'd like, without sugar, of course.

Brush teeth 4 times a day: before work, during break, after lunch and before sleeping.

🤸‍♀️Movement: my 25-year-old body feels as if I am 47. I need further movement, not only to lose weight, but to feel ALIVE.

Walk 8k steps daily. How? Take the bus, walk a lot during my day, get off at a further bus stop and walk home; after work, go out and walk around the neighborhood to complete steps.

On July, either join the gym or take up dancing lessons. If schedule allows, continue this from July until December and then into 2025.

Sunday every 2 weeks, go to a hike at Monserrate. Time going up and down, track improvement. Do it alone, with my partner, with friends, raining, sunny, windy. Starting on 05/04/24.

If working out harder than usual, EAT to avoid passing out.

Buy a yoga mat. Use it to stretch.

Note 2: a side goal for this year is to reach my front and pancake splits.

💡Finances: as a human with dreams, hopes and aspirations, I need money. I make enough to live well, but hardly enough to save for later in life. Food expenditure needs a cut for me to grow my wealth.

After calculations, I spend about 20% of my monthly pay in groceries. However, this is if I EAT A LOT for dinner and buy inefficient food (nutrition wise). However, implementing all previous measurements, means I no longer need to spend that much on food. I will stick to a budget of 5.65% of my monthly pay.

Buy consciously, buy nutritious food. Stick to the general idea of: red meat, chicken breast/thighs, yucca arepas, cheese, fruit purée, chicken ham, tomatoes, green fruit (apple or pear), popcorn, rice, instant noodles, cucumber, red bell pepper, greek yogurt, blueberries, wok veggies.

Do NOT order take out, ever. Even worse if you have groceries at home.

Uninstall all delivery apps.

Only eat out twice a month IF BUDGET allows. If not, do NOT hesitate to tell people, 'it's not within my budget'.

Do NOT spend money at work. You have 'free lunch', you have a small allowance, and all they sell is crappy chips. Do NOT waste your money on vending machines or greasy cafeteria food *this is an easier one.

Do NOT buy clothes until you are able to maintain a certain low weight.

Rewards system:

Besides dropping pounds, it's encouraging to have a few prizes waiting to be claimed if the effort makes a noticeable mark in my body and mind.

63 kg: a pat on the back.

62 kg: finding the time and painting a small watercolor piece.

61 kg: going to a museum for free.

60 kg: going to a planetarium light show.

59 kg: do a fun, colorful make up for a Sunday photoshoot.

58 kg: measure my waist, legs, hips and arms.

57 kg: go to the botanic garden.

56 kg: go to an amusement park to have fun.

55 kg: go to a curly hair care salon to find out how to properly care for my locks.

54 kg: get another ear-piercing.

53 kg: buy a cheap but cute ring.

52 kg: going to the cinemateca for a foreign film showing.

51 kg: donate blood.

50 kg: buy enough clothes and shoes, for work and personal activities.

Tracking: I will post the following stats daily or as needed.

Daily cals consumed.

Steps walked.

Money spent on food.

Lts of water consumed.

Did I smoke/vape?

Did I drink?

Cups of coffee.

Hours fasted.

Weigh in.

I love myself. I loathe myself. I do this to find balance between my mind and my external world. I believe if I cultivate this type of discipline, I can conquer all other goals I have set for myself. I do this for me and me ONLY.

Love, me.

#st4rv1ng #tw ed sheeran #ed relapse #light as a feather #tw ana rant #ana buddie #pro for me not for thee #tw ana diary

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iss600 · 8 months

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The World and Lore of Hermit Heroes P.1

LOOOOOORRRRREEEE.

Sorry, had to get that out of my system for the Empires SMP peeps. Now, to note, I am mixing lore of several different TV shows and their worlds together so some things will be changed and messed with. I am a stickler for canon so this will be minimal but there is some stuff here and there that will be changed to fit the world.

I'll also add links to anything that might need further reading. Bits of lore that relate to a specific show will be color-coded to make it easy for anyone unfamiliar with the series to know what show it links to. In events where the majority of the text is lore-linked, only hyperlinks will be colored since otherwise it'd be a massive wall of text with one color and that's hard on the eyes after some time. Repeated mentions of the same thing will only be color-coded once, otherwise every mention of something like "Ephedia" would be colored and that might get annoying (it certainly did for me).

KEY: LoliRock Lore | Mysticons Lore | Miraculous Ladybug Lore | Winx Club Lore | Sailor Moon Lore

Parts of this Series

Part 1 (Empire of Ephedia, Creation of the Mysticons, Fall of Ephedia) - YOU ARE HERE

Part 2 (The Miracles & Creation of The Miraculouses, The First Sign of The Listeners) - Here

Part 3 (Empires SMP S1, Formation of Sirenix, The Sirenix Quest, The Solar Soldiers of Mezalea, Fall of the Empires) - Here

Part 4 (Fairies & Witches, Fairy Forms and Witch Forms) - Here

Part 5 (Current Time) - Here

Empire of Ephedia

So, let's start at the beginning with the Empire of Ephedia. This empire used to span the massive world of Empires SMP S1 from end to end. It was closed off, hiding away from the world. It was comprised of several smaller empires, the capital one being the kingdom of Gemima and it's capital of Drake City. Ephedia is where Crystal Magic was born, the magic type innate to every citizen born of Ephedia. Because of this, all Ephedians, young and old were capable of casting this magic and because it was so vital to their very existences, they would experience many side effects of the power such as longer lifespans upwards of 300 years, slower aging once grown and changes to appearance. Hair would change color while in the presence of Ephedian magic, becoming colorful and shiny with white magic.

While every citizen was able to use Crystal Magic, it was women who were strongest and most able to do so. This made Ephedia a strict queen-monarchy with a Queen reigning as the supreme ruler of Ephedia's empire whereas smaller empires had either a king or queen as their monarch. The King of Ephedia was instead a protector and ruled over the military and might of a kingdom, sworn to defend the kingdom. The women who wielded Crystal Magic would undergo a process known as "Shanila" when she was approximately 15 though younger cases around 12 have occurred (dubbed "early Shanilas"). Shanila is the stage at which a girl's power has grown enough that it can now progress even further, often likened to that of a caterpillar becoming a butterfly.

While Crystal Magic was often white magic, it also held a dark counterpart known as black magic. Black magic could not heal and would hurt both the caster and victim whenever used, so it was often used for evil purposes, necessitating a defense against its use. Since women were the most capable of magic, it was the princesses of every kingdom who were tasked to defend against black magic. Princesses were gifted items that allowed them to transform into an upgraded form, one that boosted their magic and powers and changed their outfit to one with a symbol on it, often one related to their kingdom or themselves. Most symbols were unique to the person but many times multiple princesses shared symbol types.

Creation of the Mysticons

Over time, Crystal Magic grew in strength, eventually attracting the attention of a race of powerful creatures, ones who could see, here, speak and do things with unknown limits to their power. They wanted the magic for themselves and attempted to destroy the empire of Ephedia to obtain it. Realizing that their very existence was in danger, the Ephedians created the Dragon Disc, forged in Gemima's Celestial Forge, an item that could imbue four chosen heroes with its own magic type and abilities, different from Ephedia's Crystal Magic.

These heroes were dubbed the "Mysticons" and were gifted lotus-shaped belt buckles to transform into the Dragon Mage, the Ranger, the Striker and the Knight. Their powers were each connected to an animal which could be called upon and summoned with a magic bracer colored to each animal and activated with a short phrase. A spellbook known as The Codex was also crafted, able to boost and increase the power of the Mysticons when used. The Mysticons were the most powerful force in the entire empire and would guard the many empires alongside the royal families of each one.

The Dragon Mage was the leader of the team, capable of calling upon the power of the Green Dragon. They wielded the Dragon Mage Staff and their special ability was called "Telekinesis". The Dragon Mage specialized in magic and sorcery, able to defeat enemies at any distance as well as commanding the element of fire.

The Ranger was the second-in-command, capable of calling upon the power of the Blue Wolf. They wielded the Ranger Bow and Arrows and their special ability was called "Super Speed". The Ranger specialized in expert marksmanship and ranged combat, defeating enemies from any distance without a sweat.

The Striker was the heart of the team, capable of calling upon the power of the Yellow Phoenix. They wielded the Striker Energy Hoops and their special ability was called "Pixie Blast". The Striker specialized in confusion and chaos, using explosions and whatever trickery they could to defeat enemies with pure madness.

The Knight was the tank of the team, capable of calling upon the power of the Pink Unicorn. They wielded the Knight Energy Sword and their special ability was called "Shield". The Knight specialized in melée combat, offensive and defensive moves, protecting the team and attacking with power, force and strength.

Fall of Ephedia & The Aftermath

Unfortunately, the combined powers could not prevent Ephedia's fall and the massive empire collapsed, taking every smaller empire inside of it with it. Drake City of Gemima took it the worst as the Mysticons were killed in the very heart of the city with the Dragon Disc and Codex shattering into 4 pieces and hidden by what remained of Ephedia's forces. The only remnant of Ephedia that remained to current knowledge is Crystal Magic which was passed down through stories and tales. After the destruction of its home, Crystal Magic was unstable and only able to be used by certain people. Meanwhile, the Mysticons remained dormant, pieces still scattered and for thousands of years, they were never called upon.

#ISS600's Hermit Heroes #LoliRock #Mysticons #Empires SMP

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psilocybinlemon · 2 years

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DARK ENERGY - Fairy Tail x Half-Life 2

For the past seventeen years, the Earth has been scourged by an extraterrestrial alien race known as the Combine. The remaining humanity is bound in shackles while the planet is sapped from its precious resources. However, a covert group of rebels still persists, aiming to defeat the Combine and restore their freedom.

Natsu, a proficient Resistance soldier, helps escort citizens from the Combine-controlled City 17 into safer regions, while his older brother Zeref works restlessly in his laboratory to create a functioning teleport. If that succeeds, the evacuation operations would be much smoother, and Natsu and his team wouldn’t have to constantly put their lives at risk.

The process stands still until the missing piece is found and delivered to the team by a scientist named Lucy. But at the same time, long-lost forces awaken and join the fray, causing the Combine to launch a full-term attack for wiping out the Resistance. Let the war end in either total victory or their extinction – no further compromise shall they allow.

// Modern Post-Apocalyptic AU, based in the universe of Half-Life series. Rated Explicit for death, blood and gore, terrible politics, war, that kind of stuff you see in First-Person Shooter games. Pairing: Eventual Nalu Chapters in Tumblr: 1 Also in AO3

PROLOGUE: 17

“In our obsession with antagonisms of the moment, we often forget how much unites all the members of humanity. Perhaps we need some outside, universal threat to make us recognize this common bond. I occasionally think how quickly our differences worldwide would vanish if we were facing a threat from outside this world.” - Ronald Reagan, Address to the 42nd Session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, NY, 1987

// December 5th, 2017. Tuesday, 4:45 PM. Black Mesa East // The 5th of December had always felt like an anniversary of sorts, but for what exactly, Natsu couldn’t tell.

From the rooftops of Black Mesa East, the scenery opened far and wide across the wastelands. The sun was descending closer to the horizon, nearly hiding behind the Citadel, the enormous tower that pierced the skies. Even from afar, Natsu could see the flying synths returning and leaving their nest of darkness. The shadows of that tower, the enemy’s main fortress, stretched over his life like the plague, but he still clung to the rays of light that shone behind it.

Sometimes, when he stared at the setting sun long enough, he could forget the weight of the machine gun that rested in his arms, but not today. Not on the 5thof December, because this day, seventeen years ago, the world as he’d known it had come to an end.

And his hands were still covered in blood.

He let out a weary sigh. On the outskirts of the distant city, a cloud of black smoke rose from the depths of the canal, approximately where Station 12 was located. Natsu had been there when the bombs unfurled and fires began to spread. Earlier this day, his squad had been escorting a group of citizens through the underground railroad, when out of sudden, the Combine had ambushed them. Such a thing hadn’t happened in years – they had been able to operate covertly in peace, but now, the enemy had finally sniffed them out.

Though dread and fear had been building up in his chest since it happened, Natsu still couldn’t comprehend it. His missions had never failed. He lowered his gaze from the sun to his hands. The dark crimson stains on his gloves and the splatters on his gun were still there, reminding him it had truly happened. They had lost every citizen they were supposed to protect. His partner lay in the infirmary in critical condition and the rest of the team were still missing. Though he couldn’t feel the pain, the weight of this failure held him in a chokehold, like an open wound he couldn’t cauterize.

Yet somehow, ill precognition remained with him. Today had been only the beginning. The worst was yet to come.

Then, he caught a signal of someone arriving on the roof. Carrying the codename “Scarlet”, another soldier came to his field of detection, but stayed there at the edge for a while. Natsu didn’t need to glance past his shoulder to know Erza was staring at him, unable to say anything. She often used to complain about him coming to the roof, but now her silence felt much worse than her yelling ever did.

“Sergeant Dragneel, it’s time for a mission report.”

Natsu turned towards her. Clad in her black Overwatch armour, the commander of the Resistance units stood next to the door. The expression on Erza’s face was stern, yet even she failed to masquerade her pain. There wasn’t any disappointment in it, no. Only sadness. As they exchanged a wordless gaze, Natsu answered with a nod. He dreaded the thought of reporting today’s events to their leader, but it had to be done, for the sake of the lives they had lost. So, he stole one last glance at the sunset, and followed Erza back to the building.

“So, what happened?” Erza asked after a long silence, as they walked through the corridor towards the leader’s office. Her tone was softer now, as if the titles and formalities had been stripped from their conversation, giving him an opportunity to speak from friend to friend. When he remained quiet, Erza glanced at him. “Natsu?”

He scoffed dryly.

“Everything went to hell.” __________________________________________________________

// December 5th, 2017. Tuesday, 7:13 AM. City 17 //

The day had just dawned bright and crispy, and the 47thevacuation operation for this year was almost complete.

So far, everything had gone according to the plans. Natsu’s squad hadn’t encountered any unexpected hindrances or obstacles, except for a certain barnacle accident in the canals that Gray refused to talk about. Either way, the mission had passed without further injuries, and Natsu was anxious to make it back to Black Mesa East. If they’d travel fast, he could sleep in his own bed tonight. That thought always kept him going.

Since arriving in City 17 late yesterday evening, they had found a place to stay in the apartments near the main railway station. Despite having slept for only a few hours last night on a thin mattress in the cold kitchen corner, no signs of tiredness adorned Natsu’s face. In the bleak morning light, he ate some breakfast with Gray. They had found some coffee and wheat crackers in the cabinets, yet Natsu had not dared to check their expiration dates. Snacks from the previous century filled his stomach just as well if he didn’t think about it too much.

“Hey, Natsu, guess what,” Gray said, holding back a snicker of a laugh. “That Combine’s‘non-mechanical reproduction simulation’is pretty lit shit.”

Natsu’s gaze shot from the newspaper to the black-haired man, who sat on the opposite side of the small makeshift table. “Man, what the hell?”

Gray took the first sip of the coffee that had stopped steaming a while ago. “Yeah. When their soldiers have earned a hundred credits, they can get that as a reward. It’s basically some virtual porn, quite realistic, but the Combine’s representation was rather… weird.”

“Don’t tell me you tried it.”

“I found the data when I was hacking into their servers yesterday. Of course I had to check what that‘non-mechanical reproduction simulation’was.” When Natsu didn’t answer, Gray spread his arms in defence.So that’s why he was locked in the bathroom for two hours last night,Natsu thought. “Don’t judge, it’s my job to sniff into these things as a data scavenger!”

Sighing, Natsu leant his forehead onto his palm, unable to look at his fellow soldier. The yellow-papered newspaper, painted by numerous coffee stains, wrinkled beneath his elbow. A familiar headline covered most of the first page, one he had seen too many times before.EARTH SURRENDERS, it said, loud and clear. The ink had faded in the passing of the years, but the date was still visible in the upper corner of the page.15th of December, 2000, ten days after the incident that had changed everything.

“Can’t fucking believe it has been almost seventeen years and there still isn’t a fresh newspaper,” Natsu muttered, trying to distract himself from Gray’s shit. He lifted the white cup to his lips and poured down the last of his coffee, grimacing at the bitter taste. Just to be sure which day it was, he checked today’s date on his wristwatch.December 5th. He sneered. “It was this exact day when the world went to hell.”

Gray was quiet for a while. Talking about the First Days always made him shut down. The men were of the same age – Gray had also been only five years old when the incident happened, but he’d never told where he was then. Natsu had shared everything of his story with Gray, even the fact that it had been his dad in the test chamber that fateful day. Yet somehow, Natsu had always thought Gray’s story had to be so much worse.

Though memories surfaced from the depths of his mind on this particular day, they failed to make him cry. Few things did anymore. He had cried then when his mother shoved him to the train with his brother and sworn she’d find them later. She never did. He had cried when the lights had gone out for good – he hadn’t been afraid of the darkness, but the creatures that lurked in it. He wasn’t scared of them anymore. But if he could tell the five-year-old him that he’d come to kill those monsters later on, he wasn’t sure if he would.

Maybe his younger self would be better off without knowing where life after the world’s end would take him.

“I’d rather…” Gray started and sighed. From the sudden darkening of his eyes, Natsu could tell the man had drifted into his memories as well. “I’d rather not talk about it now.”

Natsu nodded.

“Me neither.”

They were the only ones in the apartment’s small kitchen, but the distant chatter of others could be heard from the living room. The doors between the rooms had been removed some time ago, yet the design of the whole block must’ve been bleak long before the world went down. Except for their own fortresses and industrial factories, the Combine had built nothing on Earth. City 17 was formed on the foundation of some East-European city, and the architecture was still from the Soviet era. What exactly had been the city’s name before it became City 17, Natsu didn’t know, and it probably didn’t matter anymore.

By the time Natsu’s group arrived here, most of the block’s citizens had chosen, orbeenchosen to be deployed to the Combine. It seemed to be the fate of many neighbourhoods recently. Only a group of nine had stayed in the building trying to survive with the little food and supplies they had left. When they were asked if they wanted to leave the city, their answer was a clear, eager yes.

In the living room, Cana and Loke were sharing details of their upcoming escape journey with the citizens. There were three men and six women, which meant they’d have to divide into two groups to stay under the radar. Each time it surprised Natsu to hear that most citizens had no idea the underground railroad – or Black Mesa East, the largest Resistance base in the area, where the road led – even existed, but at least they had managed to keep it covered so far. The trip through the Xen-infested canals wouldn’t be easy, yet many still chose to take the risk. Life had been getting increasingly more intolerable in City 17.

“If you want, I can share the files with ya,” Gray said after the silence. “Wouldn’t hurt to have a good laugh, right?”

“No thanks, idiot,” Natsu answered and turned a page on the newspaper. To ignore Gray’s meaningless rumbling, he kept reading, even though he had read the same article hundreds of times.Portal storms continue. Windows to another world open across the globe. Stay calm and indoors to avoid panic, experts advise. Natsu scoffed dryly. Staying indoors hadn’t helped much when a portal to Xen could randomly open at one’s toilet, and a swarm of acid-spitting monsters flooded the house. It hadn’t happened to Natsu, but he’d heard enough stories. No one had been able to avoid panic on the First Days.

“Why do you always have to be such a grim bastard?” Gray asked, grinning. “I could just upload those to your BCI while you sleep, you know.” He reached across the table and gently knocked the small metallic dots on Natsu’s right temple. “Maybe that would make you happier.”

Natsu shoved his hand away, shuddering at the thought. “If you do that, I’ll kill you,” he warned, though Gray knew he didn’t truly mean it. Natsu joked about killing his second-in-command man at least once a day, but he’d never let any harm fall on his most-trusted friend. “I really don’t want to experience some fucked-up alien porn, thank you very much.”

“Oh yeah? Got enough bitches on your dick?”

Natsu scoffed and stared into his eyes for a moment. “I got one bitch on my fucking face at the moment.”

Gray smirked, leaning back in his chair. “I’ve heard some folks saying that they’d join the Civil Protection just to get a proper meal. I think they just wanna see some alien porn. Think about it, man. Some people are giving up their entire freedom for the opportunity.”

Natsu glanced at Gray’s cup. “Well, if they’re forced to drink coffee and eat crackers that both expired in 1999, it’s no wonder they consider joining the CP.” Then he dug an old lighter and a pack of cigarettes from the pocket of his cargo pants, took one and held it between his teeth as he ignited it. “Damn, these cigs are stale as fuck,” he muttered as he exhaled the cloud through the broken window, gazing down at the empty streets below.

Gray shrugged and took another sip of cold, black coffee. “If you don’t think about it, it ain’t that bad.” Gray laughed and beckoned at the pack Natsu had placed next to his empty coffee cup. “Gimme one of those.”

Natsu glared at him from below his brows. “Bad shit happens to greedy whores,” he growled slowly.

“Come on, just this once. I left mine at the base.”

“Too bad then. You have no idea how long it took to find a well-preserved carton.”

“Well, I guess I could tell Lisanna how much you’re smoking on the missions. Maybe she’d help you get rid of thatwell-preserved cartonby giving that to me instead,” Gray replied mockingly. “She’d hate it if you became impotent, you know.”

“Nah. She already knows how much I smoke, and I don’t think she even cares about my potency anymore, anyway,” Natsu answered and blew out some smoke. “You’re one really desperate bitch aren’t you?”

“Hey, I’m dying for a cig,” Gray whined. “Do you want me to beg or suck your –?”

“Man, just shut up.” Knowing he couldactuallydo that, Natsu gave in. “Here, but you’ll owe me a beer,” he muttered and offered the pack to Gray, pinching his brows when the man took two. Smiling wickedly, Gray put the extra one behind his ear, then stood up from the table and walked to Natsu, then bent down to ignite his cigarette on the burning end of Natsu’s smoke. As he straightened his back and leaned against the windowsill, Natsu’s scowling gaze was still on him. “That’s twobeers now,” he scoffed. “I hate it when you do that.”

“Whatever you wish, you grumpy cunt,” Gray answered, breathing out the smoke at Natsu’s face. He remained quiet for a moment, as if thinking back his words. “There’s some shit between you and Lisanna? That’s why you’re so cranky?”

Natsu shrugged. If Gray would rather not talk about the First Days, Natsu really didn’t like sharing his misfortunes with women. Both were equally catastrophic. “It’s complicated.”

“Complicated? As if you somehow forgot she’s your trainee and you shouldn’t actually be fucking her?”

“Something like that,” Natsu mumbled as he inhaled the smoke, then rubbed the back of his neck before exhaling it. “I don’t know. It just ain’t working.”

“It can’t be as bad as when you were Erza’s trainee, and –“

“For fuck’s sake let’s not mentionthat!”

“Jellal would skin you alive if he knew about it,” Gray snickered. “Hmm, I could use that to extort cigs from you, right? Why didn’t I think of that earlier…”

Natsu buried his face into his hands, holding the cigarette between his fingers, a bit further away from his hair. Sometimes even he couldn’t believe all the things he had done – and actually, some were so distant and unbelievable he kept forgetting about them, as long as Gray didn’t kindly decide to bring them back up at unfortunate moments. His little fling with Erza from years ago was a brilliant example of such things. Gray made sure he’d never hear the end of it.

Gray rubbed his chin. “We were in Erza’s squad when we raided the old warehouse near the canals, right? Remember that?” he asked, his tone less snarky than previously. Perhaps even he realised he’d hit the wrong subject, and it was better to shift to something else.

Natsu lowered his arms to the table, lifting his brow. “Was this the sex-tape case?”

“Yeah,” Gray laughed. “Somebody had hidden their VSC cassettes of home-filmed hot stuff into empty ammo crates. We took them to Black Mesa East and showed them to the vortigaunts.” Natsu’s open cringe made him even more excited. “Poor vortigaunts were so confused. What did they say? Shit, like,ga la lung... churr galing chur alla gung...”

Natsu failed to hold back his laughter as Gray imitated the vortigaunt speech. “You know, they often speak in our language until they wish to speak ‘unflattering things’about us,” he said and brought the cigarette back to his lips. “That probably meantgeez, these guys are fucking morons or something.”

“I kinda miss the vortigaunts when we’re away,” Gray said after a small silence, looking out from the window. “All they do is stare straight into your soul and utter poetry.” Suddenly, a frown formed between the man’s brows. He remained perfectly still while staring at the streets, until he flinched away from the windowsill. “Shit, the metro cops are here.”

“What!?” Natsu answered, disbelief and rage mixing in his whisper. He spun around in his chair and peeked out from the window, then instantly pulled his head back. A unit of Civil Protection, about six soldiers, marched down the streets towards the building. “Oh shit, you’re right.”

“Fucking hell,” Gray said, dumping the half-burned cigarette butt into the coffee cup, and then they both picked up their machine guns that had been resting against their chairs. He rushed to the living room with Natsu following his trail. The mention of metro cops – they probably hadn’t been listening to their whole conversation, hopefully – had already alerted the rest of the squad and the citizens. “We’ve gotta get going now. CP’s heading this way!”

“They’ve no reason to come to our place!” exclaimed one citizen, a younger woman whose name Natsu couldn’t remember – either Milly or Millianna, he wasn’t sure.

“Don’t worry, they’ll find one,” Natsu told her, and began counting the people. He made it to eight heads when he realised one was missing. When they had woken up an hour ago, there had surely been nine of them. “Where’s the dark-haired lady?”

“Minerva said she’d go pick up something important from the cellar, but she hasn’t gotten back,” the girl said.

“When did she leave?”

“Half an hour ago, maybe.”

Suspicion aroused in Natsu’s mind. “We won’t wait for her. The only important thing you’ll be taking from here is your lives. So, since the CP’s so kindly decided to raid this fucking building, we’ll escape through the roofs.” He gestured at Loke and Cana. “You two take them outta here, me and Gray will follow as soon as we can.”

Loke nodded, then ordered each citizen to the hallway. Natsu and Gray remained in the room as the others left, putting their helmets on their heads. While Loke and Cana wore just bullet vests upon long-sleeved jackets and scarves with the Resistance symbol, lambda letter, embroidered on them, Natsu and Gray were fully clad in Civil Protection armour sets. It was a part of their strategy, to use infiltration and escape methods to take citizens to safety. So far, it had always worked, and Natsu had no reason to doubt why it wouldn’t work this time.

Rubble sounded loud and clear in the staircase as the front door on the first floor was blown up, followed by many hasty steps. The short, blonde girl next to the brown-haired one fell pale as a ghost. “I told you they’d be coming for us next! It was just a matter of time!”

“Quit screaming and go,” Natsu ordered her, his voice transmuted by his helmet’s vocoder as he shoved the trembling girl into the hallway. He loaded his SMG just to be sure – despite using full armour stolen from killed CP’s, their cover wasn’t unbreakable. If they’d start asking too many questions, he’d have no other choice than to empty the magazine. Disguising into Combine uniforms and getting caught undercover meant gaining instant express to Nova Prospekt – a fate worse than death.

When the citizens had run to the second store on Cana’s and Loke’s lead, Natsu and Gray closed the apartment doors, pretending to have just finished a check-up. Through the vision shield of his helmet, Natsu detected the incoming soldiers before they reached the end of the stairs. He turned towards them, raising his hand to his brow.

“We’ve just finished inspection raids of this block. We found no disturbances in this sector,” Natsu reported with no falter in his voice.

There were eight of them, hiding their faces behind those white masks. It sickened him every time that the Civil Protection werestill human. They wore armbands with “c17:i4o” emblazons on them, and “C17” was printed on the back of their collars – same as Natsu and Gray, yet nothing about their hearts was the same. Just how many blocks had these bastards brutalized? How many had they killed, deployed to their forces, or sent to Nova Prospekt? Those who joined the CP had given up their freedom, theirhumanity,while the Resistance still clung to it, and wouldkeep clinging, no matter how hard the Combine tried to break them.

The leader of the squad held a stun baton, charged with electricity, in his gloved hands, as if eager to get to beat people with it. The officer stepped closer to them. “We’ve just gotten a report of a serious disturbance in this specific sector. According to the reports, there have been suspected anticitizens,” his voice altered into a robotic monotone, the same as Natsu’s and Gray’s.

… what?

“We heard the same, but we found no-one here. It must’ve been a false alarm,” Gray said. “This building is clear. We’re just leaving.”

The officer didn’t seem to believe them. “Fascinating. We weren’t supposed to have extra officers in this area today. Which shift are you in? Show me your IDs, so we can redirect you to your right area of responsibility before the big boss notices.”

Natsu and Gray glanced at each other, and though they couldn’t see each other’s expression, they knew they had the same thought.

They raised their guns and opened fire.

“243! Assault on protection team!” a soldier on the back shouted to his radio, the electric voice buried under the roar of the bullets. Natsu and Gray walked back while keeping their aim directly at the soldiers, and one by one their radios went static, a high-pitched humming echoing in the hallway. Blood splattered to the walls and began to pool on the concrete floor as the CP’s dropped dead, a sight Natsu had grown desensitized to long ago.

This time, they had the advantage of the surprise, but they wouldn’t have it again. When all eight men lay still and dead, sirens rang in the distance. One of them had managed to call for reinforcement, and before they’d come here, the Resistance was better to be far away. The Combine might be slow to wake, but once they’d get up, one didn’t want to get in their way.

So, Natsu and Gray began running.

“Shit,anticitizens? Did that bitch rat on us!?” Natsu growled, his mind connecting the dots rapidly fast. “There’s no other way the CP would’ve sniffed us out. I’ll fucking kill her if –“

“We can’t jump to conclusions. We’ll figure out what happened later, now we’ve gotta get the hell outta here!” Gray shouted and kicked open the staircase door Cana and Loke had closed. The circular stairway lead up to many levels, and soon they made it to the roof, the sirens sounding ever louder. Scanners – those flying machines taking pictures of citizens – floated closer to them, and Gray shot them down before running to the rooftops.

There was a route they had planned for a situation like this. They’d go along the roofs for about a few blocks, then descend back to ground level on a fire ladder, in hopes of leading the enemy astray. As they went, Natsu struggled – actuallystruggled, for the first time in ages – to concentrate on the task. His mind boiled with rage. Normally his BCI, the brain-computer interface, a part of technology stolen from the Overwatch, balanced the turmoil in his head when shit went to hell. Natsu’s brother had installed it on him years ago when he ascended to the elite forces of the Resistance, yet this moment proved that the unison of humans and machines was still far from complete – and Natsu found it oddly comforting to feelsomething for a chance.

But having a citizen turn against them was something that hadn’t happened before. Perhaps they were fools. They should’ve been expecting it as the Combine’s grip over the people kept ever tightening.

Until now, the Resistance could’ve trusted the people’s support. They had trusted thepeople,who trustedthem to fight the Combine, even if they wouldn’t want to fight it themselves. Just how much had the woman heard before selling them out? If the Combine knew about Black Mesa East, then it was critical to find out. It wouldn’t just possibly get them killed, it would endanger the whole Resistance.

As they ran across the roofs, hiding behind the chimneys and ridges while the sirens howled, Natsu’s inner turmoil began to ease. The momentary spike of adrenaline had been too much for the interface to deflect, but now it began to work as it was supposed to – keeping him alert, but suppressing his anger and distress. His brother always said that even the most perfect machines couldn’t always bendhislevel of emotional impulsivity – at least with the technology they had currently acquired. With each system update, he had felt it getting better, more intense, but at the same time, he lost another part of himself he didn’t think he’d ever get back.

By the time they made it to the fire ladder, the bullets were already flying.

A unit of Civil Protection had climbed to the building on the opposite side of the street, and from the roof, they opened fire. Natsu cursed silently and crouched below the half-collapsed wall, pulling Gray down with him as a rain of bullets swept past where they had just stood.

“We’ve gotta go down a different route. Can’t draw these motherfuckers to Cana and Loke,” Natsu whispered, holding tight to his gun.

Gray nodded, pressing a button on the side of his helmet, which opened an encrypted radio connection to Loke’s end. “Loke, do you copy?” he asked, and Natsu could hear a faint echo of Loke’s reply. “We’ll try to sneak behind the main station and head underground. We’re in a shitty place here, but we’ll make it. Meet us at Route Kanal.” Then he released the button, and glanced at Natsu. “Damn man, this is just like the old times, right?”

Natsu grinned at him, then looked up. The Combine forces seemed to have lined up on the other side of the street only, making their exit from the roof through the fire ladder impossible. So, Natsu peeked over the wall, aimed his gun and fired at the soldiers across the distance, though he knew his chances of hitting them were small. Only one high-pitched flatline sounded over all the firing. However, the distance worked in their favour as well.

On the edge of the roof, they could jump to the balconies, break the windows and proceed to the ground level within the building. To signal their agreement, Natsu and Gray nodded to each other, and then they went.

Running fast and avoiding bullets, they reached the edge, with no hesitation hindering their steps even when they noticed thereweren’tany damn balconies. This side of the block was covered by a forest of leafless trees, giving no spots for the CPs to shoot them here. Natsu grasped the rain gutter as he went down, hanging for a second before swinging forth and kicking in the brittle glass. Gray followed right after him as they jumped into the abandoned apartment, the sounds of a firefight still ringing loudly on the outside.

They quickly found their way to the hallway, then made it to the windowless staircase at the end of it, ever down through the empty stores until they reached the ground level. The front door led to the side of a park. Gray shot once at the glass, it shattered, and then they escaped back to the crisp, fresh air that smelled so heavily of gunsmoke. The CP no longer had a clear sight of them, they dispersed from the roofs, yet Natsu knew they wouldn’t hold the chase for long. If they’d shoot down all the scanners before they’d snap a picture of them, they could say they’d soon be safe.

Or so Natsu hoped.

Suddenly, another sound pierced the air. An artificial, feminine voice echoed loud from the broadcast speakers all around the city block. Natsu and Gray turned their gazes in the direction where it came, both knowing what it was: the Overwatch Voice, the harbinger of death. For too many, it was the last thing they ever heard.

“ATTENTION PLEASE. UNIDENTIFIED PERSON OF INTEREST, CONFIRM YOUR CIVIL STATUS WITH LOCAL PROTECTION TEAM IMMEDIATELY.”

All the guns went silent for a moment. Natsu knew he’d be petrified in terror without his BCI, as now the electrical signals it sent to his brain suppressed his ability to feel fear. Not a shiver ran down his spine as he stared at how the CP units descended from the roof, and a choir of running steps withdrew from them.

They were going in the opposite direction.

“ATTENTION GROUND UNITS. ANTICITIZEN REPORTED IN THIS COMMUNITY. CODE: LOCK, CAUTERIZE, STABILIZE.”

“She’s talking of just one person, right?” Gray whispered to Natsu as they hid behind the trees. Then, the ground began to quake as the steps of something gigantic approached – and from between the buildings Natsu saw a Strider passing by, with at least two dozen soldiers leading it – nearly as tall as the trees, the spider-like synth marched, still further away from them.

"CITIZEN REMINDER: INACTION IS CONSPIRACY, REPORT COUNTER BEHAVIOR TO A CIVIL PROTECTION TEAM IMMEDIATELY. FAILURE TO CO-OPERATE WILL RESULT IN PERMANENT OFF-WORLD RELOCATION."

“They aren’t coming for us,” Natsu realised. “What the fuck is going on?”

“I don’t know, but we won’t get a chance like this again! Let's get the hell outta here while we can!”

Natsu nodded, his gaze still locked on the Strider. Those monsters were rarely seen – when the Combine brought them to fray, it was better to start praying, and quick. “That’s one unlucky fucker who’s gonna get railed by that thing,” he muttered, then turned away and set forth to running. “Apparently they did something worse than we did.”

“Yeah, it isn’t every day the Combine gets pissed off like that. Let’s just hope Cana and Loke are alright,” Gray answered, then pressed the radio button again. “Do you read, Loke? We’re clear. Some shit is happening here, but we’re heading your way now.”Copy that, Loke answered the radio, and so Gray closed it.

The sirens behind them grew silent and distant as they ran through the park and jumped into the rainwater tunnel, making it to the other side of the city sector. In front of them, in the heart of the city, towered the Citadel. The Combine’s headquarters made navigating in the labyrinth of streets and buildings rather easy – across the years Natsu had learnt to recognize the landmarks so that he could always make it to the underground railroad, that started right near the main station.

They stopped in the distant alley near the plaza to catch their breaths and put their weapons on their backs. Though Natsu was still confused by all of that, he wouldn’t have time to think until they’d reached at least Station 12. He rested against the wall and stared at his boots for a moment, calmness settling into his mind again after seeing that Strider. The mission had to continue, after all.

“Everything okay?” Gray asked, and Natsu answered with a faint nod before raising his head. “Ready to keep going?”

They were almost there. To reach Route Kanal – the place where the underground railroad began – they’d have to cross the trainstation plaza, appearing as unsuspicious as they ever could. Usually, it went without a problem, as long as the Combine didn’t invite Overwatch soldiers to the fray. Those bastards could see through their masquerade faster than an atom would split. But if they’d just look like regular CP on patrol, everything would go fine. So, they took in deep breaths, and stepped out of the alley into the open square.

Compared to the previous onslaught, the plaza at the station was eerily silent. Only a few citizens seemed to have gotten off the trains and relocated to City 17. Natsu had heard how more and more of those who arrived were sent straight to Nova Prospekt – those were only rumours, obviously, but they always had more truth in them than the propaganda speeches they broadcasted on the massive screens.Welcome to City 17, sounded loudly from the speakers.It’s safer here.

They didn’t say a word to each other as they walked across the plaza. The citizens naturally avoided them, making Natsu feel sorry – if he could offer an opportunity to better life to all of them, he would. But each evacuation mission could only take so many citizens with them. As he’d seen today, City 17 was becoming an unbearable, more dangerous place. But as long as the Resistance was there, there was also hope. It beat within the hearts of those wearing the lambda symbol, even though Natsu’s scarf was hidden inside the CP’s helmet.

But as he passed by the station’s stairs, a strange feeling flooded his heart.

The feeling of being watched.

Natsu halted for a moment. He peeked over his shoulder, but saw nothing amongst the grey concrete, no scanners, no soldiers, no one. Still, he wassuresomeone was observing him. Someone familiar, someone he had lost since lost, shrouded in deep, deep shadows.

“Come on. We’re almost there,” Gray whispered to him. “Can’t keep them waiting for much longer.”

Then Natsu followed him, but the feeling in his guts just wouldn’t fade.

____________________________________________________

// December 5th, 2017. Tuesday, 7:00 AM. //

Silence.

Darkness.

Emptiness.

Time had stood still for him since he had made that fateful choice. It must’ve been years, yet now he was called for again.Rise and shine, the voice spoke, the same voice that had been the last thing he heard before falling into very, very long sleep.Rise and… shine.

There was a piercing light, blinding the eyes that had stared into the void for an eternity. A man in a blue suit appeared from the abyss, visions from his past endeavours vanishing through his waking mind. Faintly, he could remember the deal they had made.Keep my sons safe, he had asked from this man, who had promised tosee into it, as an exchange for his… assignment.

“Not that I wish to imply you have been sleeping on the job. No one is more deserving of a rest,”said the man, an otherworldly echo in his words. Slowly, the bleak void began to shift into a corporeal world.“And all the effort in the world would have gone to waste until...well, let's just say your hour has come again.”

In a moving train he awakened. The sceneries of an urban, decayed city passed quickly by, yet in that instant, he could tell that the world as he had known it was gone,ended during his absence.

“A right man in the wrong place can make all the difference in the world. So wake up. Wake up, and smell the ashes.”

Then the voice faded, and the train arrived at the station. A man, who stood in front of the wagon's doors waiting for them to open, paid him a confused gaze. He mumbled something about not seeing him get on, but there was bleakness in his voice, as if he couldn’t even care if strangers appeared on the train from nothing. The doors opened, and the man stepped out.

And outside, a public annunciation echoed with a familiar voice.

“WELCOME. WELCOME TO CITY 17."

#fairy tail #half-life #crossover fanfiction #fanfiction #fairy tail fanfic #half-life fanfiction #nalu fanfic #natsu dragneel #lucy heartfilia #gray fullbuster #nalu

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compressednerve · 6 months

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25 and 27 for the fic meme please 🙏

Thanks for the ask!!! :D Big rambling ahead <3

"25. What did you use to write? (e.g. writing programs, paper & pen, etc.)"

Most of my writing skill is fleeting based off how functional my brain is working that day, so I tend to go back and forth between hastily typed notes in Discord and attempts to flesh things out in google docs-- both of which I don't really love, but they're online and I can link the files easily to @parasitefun who's my creative partner and helps with my processes. I loathe the spellcheck/grammar function on docs! I used to write exclusively in notepad or OpenOffice back on my old computer but I find OpenOffice in general... lacking.

I wasn't taught to read or write in the uh... traditional way, so I usually have an exorbitantly difficult time with actually formulating sentences. So I guess using Clip Studio Paint is another program I use for writing, because I need to storyboard, assemble timelines of events, sketches of emotions... what have you. It helps me in "assembling" the information required for a plot, but usually I just end up scrapping the fic entirely and condensing it down to a comic or a few paragraphs attached to an illustration... for example, here's some sketches from a few weeks ago while I chip away at my millionth attempt at a chaptered longfic, this time now featuring Yung Northmoor!

Whether I complete this as an actualized comic or intermittent illustrations, or keep them as sketches for referencing certain vibes of the scene, is mostly up to luck if I even can keep the momentum up to carry the work to the finish line 😔 I am also extremely shy and precious about my WIPs most of the time, I feel like my sketches are very vulnerable... which is unfortunate because I finish maybe 15% of the pieces I start!!! This is due to CTE though, and thus for the most part cannot be helped at the moment. I think for 2024 a resolution I have is to try to hold myself to finishing at least one Large Project a month, cuz then at least I'll have 12! :D

Recently I ..........acquired.......... Scrivener which I hope will help with a lot of the messy notes and outlines become more organized. It's an old version of the program though, and I can't figure out how to make the text of the UI any larger which makes navigating the program itself a pain. It's also very informational dense. Which is. Difficult and maze-like for me to comprehend sometimes. Multiple times in the past few years I've bought corkboards, pushpins, notecards, and other utensils to try to help make physical note taking easier, but my arthritis makes my handwriting dogshit to a point where I can hardly read it myself... and we don't have the physical space for my pepe silva act XD Maybe some day, though!

"27. Did you do anything special to celebrate finishing a fic?"

I wish! I never really thought of doing anything special for finishing fics- most of the time if it's not painstakingly planned out like above process described, the only time I get anything finished is if I do it all in one single sprint... hence so many abandoned WIPs... It's hard to take something to the end when so much of my ability to even start it is based off random whims! I think I get the genuine ability to write, coherently and cohesively, maybe every few months. I'm inspired and writing fic in my head pretty much all the time as a part of my psychotic processing as filtering my distorted reality through the lens of characters and scenarios has been one of my main perceptions of the world from a young age due to childhood schizophrenia, but capturing it in actual words and sentences that other people can actually read is a whole other basket!

...So, I guess nothing really, other than a large sigh of relief and a feeling of release in having finally achieved what I was hoping to achieve, or at least, an approximation that's close enough to it that I'm satisfied. Maybe this is my sign to try to incentivize finishing things by setting up a reward if I can manage! :D

#ask game #thanks for the ask -w- i feel so special <3

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spacetimewithstuartgary · 2 years

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NASA’s Orion Spacecraft On NASA’s Artemis missions, a unique spacecraft will take flight. Orion, NASA’s newest spacecraft built for humans, is developed to be capable of sending astronauts to the Moon and is a key part of eventually sending them on to Mars. An uncrewed Orion will be tested on Artemis I and travel 40,000 miles past the Moon, farther than any spacecraft built for humans has gone before. This mission will prepare for a crewed Artemis II mission and subsequent missions that will deliver astronauts to the surface of the Moon and to the lunar Gateway. Orion’s crew and service module will carry astronauts to deep space. The launch abort system, positioned at the top of the spacecraft, is only used to pull the crew module and the astronauts inside it safely away from the rocket in the event of an emergency, and will be jettisoned after a successful launch and ascent atop the Space Launch System rocket. Crew Module Orion’s crew module, sometimes referred to as the capsule, capitalizes on more than 60 years of NASA space exploration experience. Built by main contractor Lockheed Martin, it can provide living space on missions for four astronauts for up to 21 days without docking to another spacecraft. Advances in technology for deep space travel such as life support, avionics, power systems, and state-of-the-art thermal protection will support the crew during launch, landing, and recovery. Pressure vessel The underlying structure of the crew module is called the pressure vessel. The pressure vessel consists of seven large aluminum alloy pieces that are joined together using friction-stir welding at NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans. The process produces a strong, yet lightweight, airtight capsule. Backshell Covering the pressure vessel is the protective cover on the cone-shaped sides of the crew module known as the backshell, made up of 1,300 thermal protection system tiles. The tiles are made of a silica fiber material similar to those used for more than 30 years on the space shuttle, and will protect the spacecraft from both the cold of space and the extreme heat of re-entry. Heat shield The bottom of the capsule, which will experience the hottest temperatures as Orion returns to Earth, is covered by the world’s largest ablative heat shield, measuring 16.5 feet in diameter. The heat shield will protect Orion as it enters Earth’s atmosphere initially travelling about 25,000 mph and endure temperatures of nearly 5,000°F — about half as hot as the Sun. The outer surface of the heat shield is made of blocks of a material called Avcoat, a reformulated version of the material used on the Apollo capsules. During descent, the Avcoat ablates, or burns off in a controlled fashion, transporting heat away from Orion. Forward Bay Cover The forward bay cover at the top of the crew module protects the top portion of the capsule and Orion’s parachutes during launch, orbital flight, and re-entry. It is covered with the same thermal protection tiles as the backshell. After the spacecraft re-enters Earth’s atmosphere, it is jettisoned at an altitude of approximately 23,000 feet to allow for deployment of the parachute system. Reaction Control System Thrusters The crew module has a propulsion system composed of 12 small engines called reaction control system thrusters. When the crew module separates from the service module for re-entry, the 12 thrusters are used to guide the crew module, ensure that it’s properly oriented with the heat shield facing downward, and keep the spacecraft stable during its descent. Interior Inside Orion, an aluminum structure of crisscrossing beams called the backbone assembly provides the floor structure where the crew seats will be attached and is where the crew stowage lockers will be located. Most of the equipment the crew will need to live in space on future missions will be stored here. The four seats in the crew module are designed to accommodate nearly 99% of the human population. The seats are adjustable to ensure that astronauts can reach all the controls while in their pressure suits. Crew Accommodations A number of accommodations will help astronauts feel at home. Tanks and a dispenser provide drinking water and a simple way to rehydrate and warm food. Orion’s hygiene bay will have a new compact toilet, with a design that makes use in space easier for both men and women. A built-in exercise device provides both aerobic and strength training for astronauts. In case of a radiation event, such as a solar flare, crew members will shelter themselves in two large stowage lockers on the floor of the capsule, using the dense materials on board as shielding. Displays and Controls Astronauts will operate Orion using a sophisticated display and control system that uses advanced software to aid the crew. The crew will be able to command the spacecraft using just three display screens, about 60 physical switches, two rotational hand controllers, two translational hand controllers, and two cursor control devices. Electronic procedures are also programmed into the system to aid the crew in daily and emergency processes, saving the crew time and space and making large paper manuals of system operations obsolete. Environmental Control and Life Support Systems Environmental control and life support systems will make the crew module a habitable place for astronauts. A new regenerable system removes carbon dioxide and humidity and keeps the cabin air clean. The system also maintains the spacecraft’s temperature and pressure and detects if the internal environment becomes unsafe. Orion’s Crew Survival System spacesuits interface with life support to keep astronauts alive for up to six days to allow them to return home in the event of cabin depressurization. Parachutes The crew module houses Orion’s parachute system. The parachutes ensure a safe landing for astronauts returning to Earth at high speeds in the spacecraft. Earth’s atmosphere acting as a brake on Orion will initially slow the spacecraft down from about 25,000 mph to 325 mph. Then, the system of 11 parachutes must deploy in precise sequence to slow Orion to a relatively gentle 20 mph for splashdown in the Pacific Ocean. European Service Module Below the crew module is Orion’s European Service Module, provided by ESA (European Space Agency) and built by lead contrac¬tor Airbus. The service module is the spacecraft’s powerhouse: supplying it with electricity, propulsion, thermal control, air, and water. Propulsion Orion’s service module provides propulsion capabilities that enable Orion to go around the Moon and back on its missions. The service module has 33 engines of various sizes. The main engine will provide major maneuvering capabilities while in space, including inserting Orion into distant retrograde orbit and leaving the orbit to return to Earth. The 24 reaction control thrusters are used to steer and control Orion while in orbit. Eight auxiliary engines are also used for translational maneuvers, essentially acting as a backup to the main engine. The propulsion system also has the ability to bring the crew home in a variety of emergency situations, including abort scenarios after the launch abort system has already been jettisoned. Power The service module’s electrical power system provides power for the entire Orion spacecraft. The system manages the power generated by the module’s four solar array wings, which provide enough electricity to power two three-bedroom homes. A total of 15,000 solar cells on the four arrays are used to convert light into electricity, and the arrays can turn to remain aligned with the Sun for maximum power. Thermal Control The thermal control system includes radiators and heat exchangers to keep the astronauts and equipment at a comfortable temperature. The thermal control system includes an active portion, which transfers the heat of the entire spacecraft to the service module radiators, and a passive portion, which protects the service module from internal and external thermal environments. Consumable Storage The consumable storage system of the service module provides potable water, nitrogen, and oxygen to the crew module, stored in tanks. Potable water is provided by the water delivery system, covering usable water needs of the crew for the duration of the mission. Oxygen and nitrogen are provided by the gas delivery system, with the amount of gases in each tank adjustable based on the mission profile. Orion’s crew module will separate from the service module shortly before re-entering Earth’s atmosphere. The crew module is the only portion of Orion that will return to Earth at the end of each mission. On early flights, high-value crew module components such as avionics, and environmental control and life support systems will be reused, with plans to reuse more components on later missions. Through Artemis missions, NASA will land the first woman and the first person of color on the Moon, paving the way for a long-term, sustainable lunar presence and serving as a steppingstone for future astronaut missions to Mars.

#space #science #Astronomy #physics #news #nasa #ESA #orion

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auranova26 · 10 months

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Notes on Cryas Chronicles

I want to go over some notes regarding the setting of the mythos of Cryas Chronicles as it is my creation, and little would be known unless you could read my thoughts.

So first of all, what is Cryas Chronicles? 🔷Cryas Chronicles is the name I give for this series that houses the reality of my OCs. This has been something in the works for well over +10 years at the time of typing this and is still ongoing in terms of development. It has been going through a number of restructuring processes. Originally, the idea of the series was the idea of a video game tetralogy, but I have since abandoned that idea. Now, it is just a series. It is intended to have storylines that spans over many years, generally following a cast of characters, somewhat changing the core cast of each story/saga as needed.

What is the setting of Cryas Chronicles? 🔷 The series takes place in a universe different from our own and one of the Cryas Darkstalkers mythos. The first story, Vicissitude Journey, takes place in a world where two planets are interconnected via a spacetime distortion. They are known as 'Umbralus' and 'Illumalus'. However, later on other worlds are brought into the mix as the series progresses. As of now, other worlds or realms that exist in this reality are: Jrukoshn Relm, Avalos, Sylverra. More will be added as needed.

What are some of the races that exist in these worlds? 🔷 As of right now they are the following: Umbrian, Illumin, Aunakin, Corrian, Jrukoshn, Avalocian, Hemo'eira, Celestian.

What are some differences between this reality and ours? 🔷For this, I will compare this reality to the Cryas Darkstalkers reality.

A year in the Cryas Chronicles reality is the equivalent of 400 Earth Days. While some realms have their own 'year' system based on their approximation to their star, the universal acceptance is 400 solar days equals a year. A solar day is accepted as 24 hours. The general calendar system is 12 months: 8 months have 33 days with 4 months with 34 days. The 4 months with 34 days generally are the month with signaled changes in the seasons of Autumn, Winter, Spring, and Summer. A big thing to take from this is that when I give the age of characters from this reality, that is based on this year system, so it will not be accurate to ages we use in our reality or in the Cryas DS reality.

Earth and humans don't exist in the Cryas Chronicles universe. That goes without saying, but this also means that without humans being a thing, certain terms don't exist in this reality. 'Humane' and 'inhumane' are examples of words that don't exist. Also, rather than me using the term 'humanoid' I will default to the terms of either 'intelligent liferforms', and other descriptors that don't involve the word 'human'.

Magic is generally accepted thing with many societies. Magic in this reality is understood generally as the ability to manipulate different forms of energy. It is something that has been able to coexist with science. While not everyone is capable of wielding magic, most can use it to some degree if they put some effort into it. Some are more naturally gifted.

Many cryptids don't exist in this reality. The concept of stuff like the undead, vampires, mummies, and many things do not exist in this reality compared to the Cryas DS one. However, the idea and existence of souls, spirits, and ghosts are a thing, just not generally accepted thing. It varies between different cultures.

That should hopefully give some context to things since I did share that blog earlier of the main cast for Cryas Chronicles: Vicissitude Journey.

I hope to have more to chare in due time, but feel free to ask away.😎✌️

#auranova26 #lore #cryas chronicles #oc stuff #oc lore #worldbuilding #realm #umbralus #illumalus #jrukoshn relm #hoo boy #lore dump #ocs

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bluejayblueskies · 2 years

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Hi, I hope I'm not too late to ask some Weird Writer Questions cause they sound fun! Number 24, 19, 13, and 17 (that last one for whisky would be cool but all your WIPS are lovely so pick whichever you want!) hope you have a nice day Jay!!

weird questions for writers!

(you're absolutely not too late--thank you for messaging! i hope you have a nice day as well 🥰)

24. How much prep work do you put into your stories? What does that look like for you? Do you enjoy this part or do you just want to get on with it?

for prep work, i used to (pre-tma and a little bit into the beginning of writing for tma) jump right into multichapter stories with a vague premise and no clue of the actual plot or ending, but i found it's easier to actually complete multichapter stuff if i have an outline and an idea of where i want the story to go, lol who knew? so my prep work now consists of, at minimum, a rough outline of the entire story arc from beginning to end, but usually a chapter-by-chapter outline of major story beats, approximate scenes, etc.. for whisky, i jumped in with a rough story arc and then made the chapter-by-chapter outline around chapter three when i started to get bogged down in 'what scene should i do next?' details. i usually don't do any prep at all for one-shots, since they're typically 1-2 scenes, but for longer ones i may throw together a quick bullet list of where i want the story to go

and i do not like outlining alkdsgjsag. it's probably my least favorite part of the writing process. (i'm currently for example avoiding fixing my whisky outline, which i need to change the last chapter for slightly due to a piece of lore i added contradicting my current ending.) i think it's because outlining requires the most decision-making about my story and the most critical thinking about, 'okay, what do i actually want to say and when do i want to say it.' i'm always much happier when i have the outline because it's so much better to write with one, but the process of making it? detestable lol.

(more below the cut because i got predictably long-winded with this)

19. Tell me a story about your writing journey. When did you start? Why did you start? Were there bumps along the way? Where are you now and where are you going?

this answer got very long, so buckle in and bear with me lol:

i started writing very young (perhaps second or first grade?) partly because my father is a copywriter and thus encouraged it and partly because i read so many books as a child. my elementary school had this anthology that you could submit to starting in third grade, and i remember writing short stories for it (that always ended up being too long--turns out i had chronic 'can't shut up' disease even at the tender age of 8).

getting into middle school, i started to write longer things. it's hard for me to remember exact dates, but i know i finished my first novel-length story around ... 7th grade? it is Extremely Bad by virtue of being written by somebody who had only experienced the world for ~12 years, but it's also probably one of the most out-there things i've ever written in terms of plot so i still give it a solid 5/10. (i can elaborate on it if people are interested! an in-depth discussion of it is just a bit beyond the scope of this particular question lol).

(i also wrote several stories that could best be described as uh. RPF between me & my best friends and their middle school crushes. including a whole entire trilogy with novella-length stories. but we're not going to talk about those XD)

i started and did not finish uhhh probably 20-30 other original stories between the years of 2011 - 2017, most of which are also not very good but that taught me a lot about creating characters, worldbuilding, writing styles and SPAG, and other things that helped me develop as a writer. there are a few that i do genuinely want to pick back up someday, but it's hard to get motivated to write original stuff and is much easier to simply write an AU and stick my blorbos in as characters. i think 2017 is the last time i can really truly say i actively worked on original stuff, since i fell into writing mostly fic after i graduated high school.

i wrote fic in high school too--mostly supernatural, sherlock, and doctor who stuff, because i was very much into superwholock--and most of it is still on my ao3. occasionally, people will jumpscare me by commenting on one of my old spn fics because i genuinely forget that people still might read them lol. i started my fic publishing journey on quotev though, and a little bit on wattpad and ff.net, before moving to ao3 in 2015 and never looking back. my stance on my old writing is that even though i've generally moved on with my life and cringe a bit when i look at it, i did write it once upon a time and liked it then, so i won't take it down and/or disown it. i'm sure in 10 years i'll look back on the stuff i wrote now and cringe too. so it goes.

i took a break from writing for ~ 3 years when i went to college, with the exception of the one (1) voltron fic i wrote that i am still quite proud of. (a multichapter fic i finished without making anything remotely close to an outline! wow!). tma will always be so incredibly dear to me because it reignited my desire to write (like. with a blowtorch. i have written over 610k words since summer 2020 when i started listening to tma, which 12-year-old me would have gone nuts over), and so far, i'm still going strong!

i think i have much better writing habits than i had when i was younger. i try to make an effort to do it every day, even when i'm tired or not really feeling it, even if the words are absolute garbage, even if it's nothing related to my current projects, rather than just riding the tide of motivation. i'm hoping that that means i won't be giving it up anytime soon (i certainly have many more plans for malevolent fics in the future including at least one more involved multichapter fic riffing off episode 20 👀) and i'm also hoping that i can jump back into original stuff with a fresh perspective and new ideas. who knows!

13. What is a subject matter that is incredibly difficult for you write about? What is easy?

the subject matter i have the most difficulty with is, funnily enough, romance arcs. i understand point A (characters meet and become friends) and i understand point B (characters are dating) but the stuff that comes in between??? it's a black box for me alskdjga. something happens there, but i (aro) could not tell you what it is. as such, i always feel like any romance arc i attempt in a multichapter fic has terrible pacing, where the characters are falling in love too quickly, deciding to declare their feelings too abruptly, etc.. i'm struggling with this a lot right now in ten thousand flowers in spring, and i'm glad people are leaving positive comments on the most recent chapter because i feel like the romantic pacing is all over the place but i genuinely do not know how to fix it. whisky doesn't suffer from the same issues for some reason. i think because both arthur and john are arospec, so i'm not technically writing a romance? john is very much in romantic love with arthur, but arthur is not--though as in canon, john is Arthur's Person Who He Cares About So Much. idk, i think their canon relationship is so intricate and complicated that i'm just going *shrug* about the whole thing and not worrying about it.

in terms of what's easy, i have a really easy time with fantasy--and, if that's too broad to be considered subject matter, then specifically the worldbuilding involved with fantasy. so i guess that would be fantastical environments? basically, i like a lot that there's no rules other than the ones that i create for myself, so i can do whatever the hell i want and it's correct because that's just how it is in this world! (see, again, ten thousand flowers in spring). of course, i still do research and think about what i want my world to look like, because going 'that's just how it is!' isn't a replacement for that and i don't want to be a lazy writer, but the flexibility is soooo nice. (i, for example, am not looking forward to researching how gangs actually work for whisky and will thus likely just. make some stuff up and hand-wave it away as being 'yeah that's just how the memphis gangs work, don't worry about it,' though i will also make an effort to learn the general structure of stuff.)

17. Talk to me about the minutiae of your current WIP. Tell me about the lore, the history, the detail, the things that won’t make it in the text.

hghhh the forbidden whisky lore 👀 there's a lot i can't say for fear of spoilers, but there is some stuff that probably won't make it into the story that isn't spoilery!

John was born on December 26, 1981 and is as of the most current whisky chapter 41 years old

Arthur was born on April 2, 1986 and is of the most current whisky chapter 37 years old

Arthur began touring around 2004 when he was 18 years old (he was recruited straight out of college/sixth form). However, he didn't begin composing professionally until 2005 and likely didn't get major movie gigs until closer to 2008. He was classically trained on the piano from a young age, though never on a university level, and his compositional and performance style has both popular and classical influences.

Arthur was born in the UK, recruited from the UK, and moved to LA as part of his contract. He met Bella in LA (so in this AU, Bella is American), and Faroe was born on November 13, 2006.

John started his pre-club career in 2002 at age 20, and quit that job and purchased the club around September 2016 at age 34.

Arthur wasn't lying in chapter one when he said that he comes to the club because he likes the wallpaper :) and John was not lying in chapter two when he said the club doesn't have wallpaper :) [this bit will make it into the fic, but i wanted to include it here anyway]

i also have a diagram of john's club that i keep forgetting to include in the end notes:

[ID: A sketched diagram of John's club. It is a square building with a front door on the bottom right side and a door to the basement on the upper right side. Along the left from bottom to top are John's office, the kitchen/food storage area, and the bathrooms. The backstage area lines the entire back wall, and in front of it is the stage, with doors on either side to access the backstage, a grand piano on the stage, and curtains separating the stage from the backstage. There are tables scattered across the main floor, and a wall with archway cutouts separates the main floor from the kitchen and John's office. Along the front wall is the bar, with seating in an L shape that leaves hallway space for John to access his office. The seat closest to John's office is labeled 'Arthur's seat.' A coat closet is in the bottom right corner. /End ID]

is this acoustically sound? don't ask me, i haven't finished that class yet alsdkjgsag. john has acoustic panels in the back to adjust the absorption of the room, i've made it canon XD

in terms of history, i genuinely don't remember where i got the idea for whisky from--i think i was just rotating piano player arthur in my mind one day, went 'hey what about famous arthur?', then went 'well what is john doing?', remembered how much i love small music clubs, and the rest is history. the entire second half of this fic (approx. ch. 8 onward) as well as john's backstory was not part of the initial concept at all, and i very much fleshed it out as i went while writing the first ~3 chapters. i think it's all fully fleshed out now though (excepting the little bit from the last chapter that i have to fix) and i am very excited for chapter 9 in particular :3

there is a scene that i really want to write that won't make it into the main story because it a) will only work from arthur's pov, and i want to keep whisky strictly john's pov, and b) because arthur is a smart dude and even though the scene would be very cool, it would 100% clue arthur in on some crucial things too early on. so alas, it will probably remain as an unrelated oneshot should i choose to write it in the future. (though it's also a scene that works better if the audience doesn't know what's going on either,,,,, but that could spoil them for things too soon as well because you all are also smart cookies, so,,,, much to consider)

aaaand for fun, here's an excerpt from the next chapter:

Buy him flowers, Lilly had said. Right, okay—which fucking ones? Does it matter? John feels like it matters, but he doesn’t have the first clue as to why or what the right choice would be. Is it weird to buy somebody flowers when they’re standing right next to you? That feels like something you get beforehand and then bring as a gift. Should he have planned ahead? Why is his heart beating so fucking loud in his ears?

#ask #puzzleglum #this is. so many words 😅#thank you for asking!! 💜

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