#Not vetted yet but looks very real

[zhvran]

Hello my dear friend,

Please don’t skip

My name is Sameer Al khaldi. I’m trying to get out of Gaza with my family to a safer place after surviving multiple strikes during the current Gaza war. With your generous donation our lives will be saved. Every single dollar counts. Please help by donating or sharing the below link. Thank you

https://www.gofundme.com/gtuw5-help-my-family-evacuate-to-safety

Sharing this! Please donate or boost not just like!! ❤️

[falesten-iw]

To Those Who Still Hold Onto a Shred of Morality and Humanity - Stand with Us and Don’t Forget Us.

Over 40,000 lives have been lost, with 70% of them being children and women. Among these numbers are my own family members—many of whom I’ve already lost.

My family, my cousin, aunt, their children, and grandchildren were all directly targeted by Israeli airstrikes. I’m sharing a video of my aunt and cousin to reveal the harsh reality we are facing in Gaza. In this video, my aunt bravely shares her story about how the Israeli army airstruck them along with their children and grandchildren. Even if you don’t understand Arabic, just watching her speak will help you grasp the immense suffering we are enduring in Gaza. You can see the vedeo in this post.

The few family members who remain are in grave danger, and I’m terrified of losing them too. We have a chance to make a real difference and give my 24 surviving family members a chance to live.

In Gaza, jobs are non-existent, and nonprofit organizations like the UN have drastically reduced their work on the ground. Basic necessities such as milk, food, and medicine are almost as expensive as gold. My family is struggling to afford even the essentials, and my mother urgently needs medication that we simply cannot afford.

I’m also sharing another video that shows the daily struggle people face just to get clean water. The suffering here extends far beyond my family; it’s a genocide affecting every aspect of life in Gaza.

Thanks to the generosity of those who have already donated, we’ve raised $535 toward our goal of $190,363- august 17th. I’m deeply grateful to each of you, but we still have a long way to go, and I need your help more than ever. Imagine if it were your family—how would you feel if they were in this situation?

For those who have created special posts or reblogged to amplify my voice, thank you from the bottom of my heart. Your support means everything to me and to my family. If you haven’t yet shared our story, please take just one minute to do so. Your voice could be the lifeline my family desperately needs.

You cannot continue to treat human lives as mere numbers. This is a genocide that demands immediate action. How many more should be killed before you all wake up? Will 40,000 lives be enough to stir us to action? 50,000? 100,000? 150,000?

Asking for donations and charity is something we never imagined having to do in Gaza before the war, and it’s heartbreaking that it has come to this. But if everyone who saw my last post donated just $10 or $20, we could reach our goal in no time. If you’re looking for a way to contribute, consider giving up your coffee, tea, or other “cup” for one day, one week, one month, or anything in between. Then, donate what you would have spent to help me. Please help us and donate now!

This is about more than just donations—it’s about preserving human lives and upholding our shared moral values. Your contribution can make a world of difference in our survival and ensure I don’t lose more of the people I love.

Demanding an end to this suffering is a matter of basic humanity. You cannot remain neutral in the face of such genocide. Please, let’s stand together. Enough is enough.

Every donation, no matter how small, brings us closer to hope and healing. Thank you again for your kindness and support. I will never forget it.

Vetted and shared by @90-ghost: Link.

Verified and shared by @el-shab-hussein: Link

Listed even as number 282 in "The Vetted Gaza Evacuation Fundraiser Spreadsheet" compiled by @el-shab-hussein and @nabulsi : Link

Additionally, Al Jazeera News has documented apart of my family's case: Link

Important note: ** 105 Swedish kr is just 10$ ** 1050 Swedish kr is just 100$ ** 10500 Swedish kr is just 1000$

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[onlyangel4]

I once again dont have any drivers in mind but pls do something with “waves of blue” by majid jordan🥺 thank you!!!!

waves of blue. ls2. smau.

fans have noticed that logan does not seems like he is enjoying his job anymore. but when his girlfriend joins him for the first time they realise that she is all he needs to be happy.

author's note: guys isn't it insane how much abigail cowen's real boyfriend looks like logan it actually blew my mind ngl

faceclaim: abigail cowen

f1lover

liked by user1, user2, user3 and 45,8273 others

f1lover: logan has been having such a bad season and you can literally see the light drained out of his eyes, he just always looks so deflated and it makes me so sad. i just want to give him a hug.

view all 1,175 comments

user1: i know y/n is really busy with work but he just looks like someone who needs a hug from his girlfriend

user2: he has not been happy ever since the beginning of the season

user3: everytime they pan to him he is frowning and it makes me so sad, especially since we now know he probably won't be back next year

logansargeant

liked by alexalbon, y/ninsta, oscarpiastri and 879,374 others

tagged: y/ninsta

logansargeant: had the best summer break back in miami with my girl. back to work in the netherlands this weekend.

view all 4,582 comments

y/ninsta: still can't believe i actually managed to get two weeks of summer break off this year

logansargeant: honestly i'm so grateful you did love, i had the best time with you

user4: this is the most american summer break post ever

user5: the only pictures i see logan actually smiling are the ones where he is with y/n

user6: caption makes it seems like he really doesn't want to go back to work

f1updates

liked by user7, user8, user9 and 78,283 others

f1updates: logan sargeant had a horrible crash during fp3, it is very unlikely that the car will be ready before the qualifying session, therefore he will be starting at the back of the grid. this is the beginning of yet another disappointing weekend for the american driver.

view all 1,329 comments

user7: oh logan, why is it always you?

user8: no longer he seems to hate his job now

user9: i'm so glad that he is okay that could have been really bad

user10: as much as i joke about wanting to be a wag i genuinely don't know how y/n does it, watching the man you love get in these dangerous situations and not being able to hold him afterwards would be so awful

y/ninsta posted a story

written: as many of you know i am a vet tech and i was on the night shift today, 8pm to 8am, logan's crash happened just before i finished my shift, i have spoken to him and he is okay, i just wanted to pop on here to kindly ask that you stop sending me pictures of my boyfriend's horrific crash asking for my opinion on it, i do not want to constantly see that when i open my messages, thank you loves now it is time for me to go to bed

logansargeantupdates

written: another race weekend more sad content of logan

logansargeant posted a story

written: look who happened to pick me up from the netherlands

y/ninsta posted a story tagging logansargeant

written: just watched my first in person practice session and jesus christ those cars are fast

logansargeant posted a story

written: p16 tomorrow, so close to q2 but we move, me and this girl are going to go have a nap

logansargeant posted a story tagging y/ninsta

written: my girl's first race weekend

f1updates posted two stories

story one written: the smile

story two: the reason for the smile

y/ninsta posted a story

written: here we go

f1updates posted a story

written: logan finished p16 but he is the happiest we have ever seen him, he ran down the pit lane to find y/n after the race and they shared such a happy loving embrace. seems like this american boy just needed his american girl

y/ninsta

liked by logansargeant, lilymhe, iamrebeccad and 283,834 others

tagged: logansargeant

y/ninsta: my first ever race weekend ! and i am so proud of my boy i love you so much logan and i can't wait to attend more races even if my heart can't take it

view all 4,585 comments

logansargeant: i loved having you by my side this weekend my love

y/ninsta: there is nowhere else i would rather be

lilymhe: it was so nice to have you in the paddock

y/ninsta: thank you for telling me what was going on when i had to shut my eyes

user11: they have only been to one race together and they are already my fav couple

user12: logan perks up whenever you are about it is the sweetest thing ever

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[pyrrhiccomedy]

What sort of proof would you need to believe that a fundraiser was real?

I actually put in the legwork to verify one of these fundraisers today (I wanted to see how hard it was to actually vet one of these posts). It took about an hour, but I was satisfied by the end of it that the person in question exists, is who they are claiming to be, has a GoFundMe, and that the GoFundMe being spread around is probably the same one being linked to (I wasn't 100% satisfied by what I could find on that count? but I ended up in a place where I was reasonably confident). I'm happy to share my work, and have added it below.

I've gotten a lot of nasty messages since making that post accusing me of being anti-Palestine. My heart and money is 100% with Palestine, and I've given as much as I can afford, to reputable aid organizations. I believe both in a free Palestine, and doing your own research on the recipients of your money when you decide to financially contribute to a cause.

Anyway, this is the GoFundMe that I think is legit, and below is the legwork I did to reach that conclusion. While I still think it is better to give to a relief organization if your goal is improving the lot of the people in Gaza, I don't think this one is a scam.

This is the fundraiser for Eman Zaqout, who - first of all - is a real person! This is very easy to verify: Googling her name returns a LinkedIn with a complete work history (she is a molecular biologist), her profile with Unesco, and her profile with the Palestine Academy for Science & Technology. You know, the kind of stuff you'd expect to see when you Google someone. Great start.

Next step: Is the person running this GoFundMe the real Dr. Zaqout? (While I have some sources which say she is in a PhD fellowship and does not yet have her doctorate, she is listed as Dr. Zaqout at the Palestine Academy for Science & Technology, and I'd prefer to use the honorific in case it may in fact be more appropriate.)

So. Dr. Zaqout joined LinkedIn in 2014. And she does link to her Instagram from her LinkedIn, and her Instagram links to the GoFundMe. That's a great start!

However, it's worth mentioning that her contact information on LinkedIn was updated less than 3 months ago (which includes the link to her Instagram). Given the number of Palestinians whose accounts have been hacked or spoofed by scammers in order to lend their scams legitimacy, I don't love that change. That coincides with the surge in scam activity following the All Eyes on Rafah movement gaining momentum. Plenty of Palestinians have had their entire social media presences stolen by scammers.

However again - her LinkedIn (which, as established, may be compromised) also links to a TikTok account! And the TikTok account has video! And that sure looks to me like Dr. Zaqout in the video! While the photo of her on LinkedIn is no longer trustworthy since we know her account has been updated in the past 3 months, there is also a photo of her here at Palast.ps, which is a legitimate scientific organization. And yeah, sure, a dedicated scammer could have hacked that too, but there are also photos of her on LinkedIn that look like this:

It's not the best photo in the world, but it's identifiably her. Fabricating this kind of ephemera is more than I would expect of your typical charity scammer.

And in the most recent TikTok video of her, she's even talking about a GoFundMe, on 7/17! And she posted another video on 7/21 in which she is not seen, but you can hear her voice, and it does sound like her.

Today is August 2nd. The last two videos uploaded to Dr. Zaqout's TikTok are just photo collages, so they can't be used to verify that she still has control of her social media accounts. But for now, I'm prepared to say with some confidence that that woman is Dr. Eman Zaqout, that Dr. Zaqout is legitimately a Palestinian scientist, she did actually start a GoFundMe, and that she was posting about it as recently as 12 days ago.

All right all right, we are cooking folks. The last questions we need to answer: is this actually Dr. Zaqout's GoFundMe? The last scenario we need to rule out is that her social media presence was stolen in the last 12 days.

Let's start with that GoFundMe.

First of all, it's not being run by Dr. Zaqout. That's normal: GoFundMe isn't supported in Palestine, and all Palestinians will have to rely on friends or family abroad to set up their campaigns and collect donations on their behalf. This campaign is being run by a Mazin Fakak. I think that's supposed to be this Mazin Fakak, which makes sense; he is based in Quebec, and Dr. Zaqout either studied at or is in close affiliation with McGill University, which is in Quebec. He also lists Arabic as one of his spoken languages. So far this is a plausible connection for Dr. Zaqout to have. His LinkedIn profile also hasn't been updated in over a year, which makes me disinclined to think this is a recently-stolen scam account.

My one issue here is that when I Google Fakak, this is all that comes up. A LinkedIn profile created in 2014 that hasn't been touched in over a year, and two GoFundMe fundraisers for Palestinian families. And Dr. Zaqout never mentions Fakak anywhere. I would feel 100% confident of this fundraiser if she did.

But while my investigation into Fakak didn't turn up anything that confirms the connection to Zaqout, it also does nothing to disprove it, and the circumstantial evidence available to me lends credibility to the claim. So while I land somewhere around 80% on the verifiable credibility of this GoFundMe, please balance that against my 95%+ confidence in Zaqout's legitimacy, and the fact that she appears to still have control of her socials as of 12 days ago. If she posts on TikTok with another live video again (and not a photo slideshow, which can't be considered verification of anything), then I'd say this one is completely safe.

[therealslimshakespeare]

Job Wanted: Bullshit Detector

Circa: April, 1944

Summary: In the wake of Ida’s miscarriage and the consequences of it, Gale Cleven is on a mission to catch the Allied serviceman who allegedly turned them all in. To do so he must spare time from his other duties, one of which he is loath to delegate. Until he recalls the perfect candidate.

Cast of Characters include: Gale Cleven, Lt. Kendeigh, Lt. Sanchez, Lt. Lu Smith, Ida Brady (discussed)

Warnings: 18+ with universe typical warnings applying. mild chapter for this universe with only referenced past torture, referenced past assault and referenced past miscarriage. 🙃 some hinted racism along with some general stalag angst and characters misinterpretations of each other, etc.

Author’s Note: this was partly inspired by learning the real Gale Cleven was sorta self appointed spy catcher in the stalag, which is very badass of him and very important

The only thing cutting through the anger for Gale was the immediate need for action. If he could not find the turncoat fucker this instant, he had to insure that he would soon. And to do so, he must spare some time from his other obligations, make up for lost evaluations, coordinate with Bucky, and even let other duties lapse. They had others who could fill in the gaps.

There was truly only one duty that chafed him in the aspect of delegating.

He chewed his cheek raw in contemplation of it, the needing of someone to fill his spot in vetting the new prisoners. While baiting out one spy, it would be unthinkable to let in a passel more. And in his time away, as punishment for Ida’s pregnancy, there had been little done in regard to vetting incoming prisoners.

The fact stood, though, Gale did not trust anyone else to be cantankerous enough, to object without arguing, poke holes without being provocative. To sniff out a fake with pure, cold blooded, bone weary cynicism for humanity.

Until he remembered her.

He tried not to remember her, as a general rule, and when they passed in the hall of the combine or when he would find her in her bunk above Smith’s or working out a detail with Kendeigh, they gave each other only the most professional of nods. An effective show of respect to appease the curiosity of those around them, watching always, and yet, he was sure they had not exchanged a single word.

But now he thought of her.

They are sat out in the mildest blizzard of the early spring, Gale and Maureen, when he chose to finally bring her up. The woman who cut him. “The fighter pilot.” he begins.

Maureen perks in the near death-like stillness around them, it’s late afternoon and miserable and so they are alone. Her Major never makes conversation for the sake of it anymore, never did much to begin with, but if he ever were to, he’d not start off with a name or a person. He’d start off talking about landscapes; all his relayed memories started that way. The color of the river, how much snow on the mountain, cedar pollen in Texas. “Sansheaz? San-, yes?” she supplies in answer to his query.

“Sanchez.”

“Yes, yes that’s right. Sanchez. Pretty name, rolls it off her tongue so fast it’s a skill in itself. Pretty woman. Lieutenant, too. What about her?” he does not make conversation so Maureen makes up for the lack with things she knows, things they both know. He counts on her chatter. They both know that, too.

“She settling in?” he ventures. It’s been months.

“Seems to be. She’s in with Smith.”

“Ah.” he knew that, she knew he knew that.

“They seem to be getting along well enough when I’ve dropped in, to look after the bite.”

“Good.” he hopes she will go on, the swipe of his thumb along her knuckle wills it so.

Maureen does. “Keeps to herself, never offered me her name. Smith and I’ve been calling her ‘Lieutenant’. But she has been helpful with roll call. Other duties. She’s an excellent officer when she bothers.”

“Good.”

“Smith likes her.”

“Lu likes everyone.”

“Not everyone.” Maureen corrects, a sudden and harsh sobriety.

“Most everyone.”

“Most. And that doesn’t make her dumb.”

“No.” Gale concedes, “No it doesn’t. But Lu does like everyone.”

“She’s got good sense about people. I’ve always trusted her on that. Except when it came to me.” Maureen, maybe growing weary of this doleful banter begins to grow wry, sardonic, morose, “No earthly reason for her to like me and it shows a complete lapse of judgment. But most other times, she’s onto something. Sanchez seems alright.”

Gale remains frowning. “Lu knows you’d die for her. Don’t know what other likability is needed around here.”

“Projecting much?” She teased, heartsick over his unwarranted loyalty.

“Maybe.” Gale is dogged, “But I know she feels that way. About you. Why wouldn’t she.”

Maureen’s thumb plays a duel with his over her knuckles, they swipe back and forth, he allows her to crush his briefly before she draws a trembling breath, lets out an anecdote he could almost feel her holding in check, “Lu saved me from a bullet in Ravensburg.”

Gale's thumb begs her to go on. He doesn’t dare meet her eyes, throw her off track. He stares at her playful thumb instead. Slightly flattened and a little off color even now the bruises have gone. The nailbed is a sickening dip of flesh where once there was smooth pink. It took months of swelling to leave before he realized they’d torn them out. Seemed he was always learning something worse.

“They were about to-to shoot Ida.” Maureen told her tale, husky voice gone soft, “ After everything they’d done to her and the scalping and- then they were going to just put her down. I didn’t know I was rushing to stop them till Smith stopped me instead. I just couldn’t imagine it -all this. Without her. Without Ida. Couldn’t just stand there. But it was stupid. Smith knew that.”

“Apparently Lu couldn’t imagine this without you.” He pointed out after a bit.

“It would’ve been awful. Wouldn’t it? All this without her.”

“Ida?”

“The colonel, yeah.”

“Yeah.”

“I know she’s not, she’s not much right now but I-i couldn’t imagine it.”

Gale chewed his lip, knowing what she meant by much, knowing it was true in a terrible sort of way and it ate at Ida worse than any of them. The baby. Then the loss of the baby. All that followed. “You told her that?” he asked quietly.

“What?”

“You told her that?”

“Told her what?”

“What you just told me. That this wouldn’t be bearable without her.”

Maureen blinked away the grit in her eyes, squinting at the hazy white horizon with discomfort. She had said something close to it, then delivered her dead child into the world days later like an act of gory penance. “Must I?” she sounded hoarse, and it was proof of what this place had done to her, stripped her down to, taught her harshly, that she got his buried meaning on the first try. However little she liked his suggestion, she understood it.

“Might be good to say.” he observed. “Don’t think plenty of things need sayin’ in this world that get said. Still, most things folks regret, are the unsaid.”

Ida could die. They all could die. Anyone of them could just bite it and the last inane quibble over socks or the last joke over soup would be the last sentiments ever expressed.

Or there could be a decade of this endless nothingness stretching before them consisting of nothing more notable or significant than said quibbles and jokes.

It made Maureen’s chest ache, and not from the cold. She didn’t know why that grieved her, the thought of all this being so meaningless, it grieved her as much as the thought of Ida dying, both feelings startling in their pain.

“It ain’t the end of the world to admit to someone you like that you -well, that you like them.” Gale was grinning at her, soft and compassionate, a little wicked in acknowledgement of their criminal admissions of the same to each other.

“She did so enjoy cutting me down to size.” Maureen muttured, thick and bitter and confused as flight school memories came up tangy and fresh like the blood in her bitten cheek.

“Because you were full of hot air.”

“She didn’t have to enjoy it so much.”

“Just cuttin’ ya down to somethin’ she could promote to a lieutenant.” Gale retorted, and his logic held a terrible persuasion to it.

“That was -flattering.” Maureen admitted. As confused now at Ida’s vote of confidence as she had been back then. It had first felt like a bribe, then a challenge, maybe even a commendation there near the end before -all this.

“First compliment you ever got that wasn’t given by someone kissin’ your ass, huh?” Gale leaned back against the step, pale throat bare and as white as the snow, “Still haven’t recovered, have ya?” He was snickering, or as close to it as prim and proper Gale Winston Cleven ever got, and if she wasn’t so sure he liked her, Maureen might have been terribly hurt by it. Instead she feared he was right and that was aggravating, but not new. Gale was always right. It’s why she stuck by him closer than ever these days, a harbor light in the soup of not knowing anymore.

“What are you thinking?” she changes the subject, not like how she used to with saucy annoyance or a pawing hand on his thigh. She asks because she knows he does not make small talk about people in this place. “In regards to the Lieutenant.”

“I’m thinking she’d fill in a job for me.” Gale replies, contemplative and still forcing himself to recall some of that night. Or rather, to spin the wheel of memory film from that day until it is no longer dark and burning and cruel but far enough back to when it was drizzling and bumpy and noon day with a fresh batch of prisoners and one scowling at him, casting accusations of him being a spy.

“Which one?” Maureen asks, she was asking about the jobs, not which memory. Gale snipps the tape right there on the memory of that day, just like he always did, right before it got dark and comes back to her and the front step and the blizzard that is dusting green shoots of grass by the steps.

Somewhere along the way Maureen has started to stroke the hair at the nape of his neck, icy fingers twirling a comforting dance there. “Gingerale?” she calls him further to the present. Gale wonders how long he’d been gone in his mind, he’s got to be careful with that. It’s one thing for her to notice, but if he starts with her, he might start lapsing with others, and he cannot. He simply cannot. So he gathers himself, lets the nickname ricochet around his skull until its sweet tease knocks out the ghastly replay of grunts and laughs, thinks about her fingers and the way she still loves to play with his hair while she plays with his heart, the way she encourages him to breathe when she touches him, nothing like the way the others nearly strangled him.

Then he thinks about catching the fucking rat that had the craven gall to turn them all in. That had Bucky beaten like that, had Ida kept to bleed out in the fucking cooler after miscarrying, that had Gale upping his concessions to the doctor, concessions that always somehow cost Captain John Brady more than him. He thinks about finding that rat, asking if the extra smoke or blanket or empty promise of an exchange was worth betraying his friends. He thinks about that, he thinks about snapping the fucker’s neck.

“Spy Master.” he grins back at Maureen in the here and now, genuinely happy to have thought of it for Sanchez, and there is after a moment, a look of such stunned concurrence on her face, he knows she knows it is wise. And he knows she knows why.

It is evening time when he acts, and he’d have rather done this in daylight but the evening chores keep everyone occupied, away from the combine even during the snowstorm.

It offers his only opportunity for real privacy. He intended to find Sanchez in the hall or on one such chore and ask for a moment. But he doesn’t see her, instead he stalls Lu on the steps as she heads for the kitchen, “Where’s Sanchez at?” he asks her as if he commonly inquires after the fighter pilot.

“In bed.” The furrow of Lu’s brows ask all sorts of questions her rank and regulation rule book constrain her from voicing.

“She sick?”

“Happens -cyclically.” Smith provides, and if he were unable to guess at the intended meaning, the blanch in Lu’s cheek’s at the mention of the ailment tells Gale Cleven that Lieutenant Sanchez is abed menstruating.

“Right. Save me a turnip.” he teases as he continues past her, swimming upstream of the men in the hallway leaving for dinner, and working his way towards her room.

She is sat alone at its table, bent over her work which seems to be the hem of a trouser leg, spread out on the table top and being subjected to row upon row of rhythmic stitches. There is a bean sack propped behind her back, he can see it through the slats. He would think it a pillow for support if he couldn’t smell the nauseating aroma of burnt dried lentils. He imagines the damn thing is heated and feels a wave of wistful admiration for the design.

It must not be his footsteps in the quieting combine so much as his looming presence after a moments observance that has her suddenly snapping her head up in appraisal of his company. Her eyes are as hard as he remembers and her scrutiny off putting, he is glad that memory is not warped. It will serve his purpose, it will aid in her new job. He is never sure what about her he remembers or invented or blended into Smith. Not even having Lu present can undo the tangle, he has been too cautious of looking Sanchez in the face to compare the difference.

He looks now. Because she does not move, nod, or rise as befits his rank, all the motions she goes through when others are around. She seems aware of the empty combine as keenly as him and her full concentration is on staring him down. He is glad he didn’t try this sooner, to swing by and exchange urbane pleasantries with someone who must find his very existence a burr in the memory. Just as she is to him. There is nothing to account for, no friendship to patch up, no harm to be forgiven. It is senseless to reconnect as there was no true connection. Even if he feels something heated and horrid thrumming between them even now.

“Spare a minute?” he asks her, and Major Cleven’s voice comes easily to his disposal, and he is glad of it.

He does not wait for her invite, as a major he does not need it. He walks past the threshold like it’s any other day and he’s here to inquire about Lu or make sure the poor drowned girl hasn’t passed. She is still in her bunk but there is no life there despite the heartbeat. They are alone. In Gale’s mind, they are alone.

“Sir.” Sanchez gives it to him right as he pulls out a chair and helps himself to it. Near her, but not too near. Not even he could stomach that. The sight of her hands make his gut twist oddly and he panics at the thought he might shake apart from some unwarranted recollection.

Tilled earth heaping against his face. Furrows cut from her nails.

“Smith said I might find ya here.” he informs, easy, normal. “Not hungry?”

“No.” she looks like she expects something awful. Her eyes are unblinking and still harsh, even this near. Perhaps Maureen is right and she is beautiful but he wants to shudder all the same. He can spot the difference now, between Lu’s eyes and her’s.

“Good work.” he comments on the pant leg, gesturing to it.

It makes her drop her gaze for the first time, a quick glance at the needle under her thumb, the ratty row of hem she is repairing. She looks back up, incredulous almost, he thinks, and at least that guarded expression has finally shifted. He watches some resignation come over her, filtered through annoyance when her full lips tightly peel back from her teeth and she responds as if forced with a: “Cannot let your young captain do all of it.”

Brady, he realizes she means Brady. Lu and Brady, that’s all he’s seen this woman really converse with. And Maureen. As lieutenants. “No we can’t.” he agrees. “Appreciate the help.” he wonders if her time of the month makes her more volatile or just miserable, he wants to laugh at choosing his timing so poorly, not only going into the Lion’s den but doing so when they’re hungry. She does not acknowledge that Gale thanked her, she just dares him to finish this.

He does, and again, Major Cleven finds a small smile to present with his offer, “I’ve got a job for you.”

Whatever she expected, it wasn’t that, apparently. Surprise looks awfully thunderous on her but it is surprise all the same, a chink in the armor. “Sir?”

“I have a particular case of business to attend to.” he entrusts her with this, “It will take me away from other duties. I have excellent deputies, they will fill them with ease.” He lets that hang there, baiting a reply.

“Your lieutenants are perfectly able women.” it is as if she is defending them to him, he wants to smile at the slip of loyalty. She only mentions the women, she must think he is here because she is a surplus female.

“I’ve got a job that doesn't require anything but a bullshit detector.” he replies, puts it out there as if tangibly on the table between them, “Something plenty of lieutenants, male and female, haven’t got for shit.”

“Sir.” it’s the least interested question ever, she is tired of him, unimpressed and unflattered and he doesn’t even think the question would deserve a question mark if in written form. He has never been more soothed at his choice.

“Need you to vet incoming prisoners.” he spells it out, “Spycatcher.” he abbreviates. He told Maureen the whole of his ambition for her skills, but here and now he’ll ease it out to her.

Even so, it cracks the facade, if only briefly, intrigue and perhaps a flicker of want flashes in dark eyes before they squint at him in suspicion. “Have you even taken that precaution before?”

“Yes.” he defends.

“Poor job of it.”

That stings but she’s not wrong. “Yeah. Apparently.”

“So you’re passing the responsibility to someone else?”

“You would be my representative, my deputy, given my authority in the matter.” Gale watches closely and gets little in the way of feedback, “We can’t stop prisoners from coming in, obviously, but we can isolate the ones we know or suspect. Trust the others. What happened with you. We know you’re trustworthy now. And I’m offerin’ you this as it suits your talents.”

A crushing suspicion of humanity’s worst intentions was an odd talent but he considered it such. He hoped she’d not think him facetious.

“You don’t think I’m the rat?”

Gale frowned, surprise creasing his face, “No. Not for a minute. The child is out, it’s dead, it-“ so much has changed, first the miscarriage and now the punishments, it���s a whole new landscape and it’s tedious and awful and if the SS do come and take over as threatened, it will be made horrific. “-the reasons to exclude you are over. I need good men, I need good officers. I need someone to take this job. Someone else takes it and it’s you at stake, too. You want a spy bunking above you?”

Sanchez looks angry again, but it is a passive, sour sort. He braces when her lips begin to move, “If you want someone duplicitous enough to drag information from unwilling individuals -you should offer the post to your lady colonel.”

That's not the post. The post is that of prime bulshit sniffer. But this anger poses another issue and his mind flits over it anxiously. “What’ve you got against Colonel Brady?” he sighs.

“Don’t play dumb.”

“Don’t play at insubordination, Lieutenant.”

“She-“ Sanchez began with venom before suddenly reeling back her voice, her expression, everything, it was eerie in a way, “-I would never have told her.” she began again, “But she made me think she knew, and then she pulled her fucking rank, and I told her. And if you are here to learn the full of it -there. I told her about you. Because she deceived me. Offer this job to her.”

Gale stared at the pants hem, regaining his thoughts. Ida knew. He knew she did but, she’d heard it from the source and he knew she did but— “She’s a colonel. She’s my colonel. She’s got a right to know. You didn’t do nothin’ wrong.”

“Of course I did not. She tricked me.”

“You’d have lied to her?”

“About that? Yes. None of her fucking business.”

“She’s our colonel-“

“Not mine!”

“She is our superior.” that went uncontested and Gale went on having gained that victory, measured and speaking to himself as if he could somehow conduct his reasoning over to Sanchez, “She had a right to know. And no one fuckin’ blames you. Not if you told the truth. Did you? You tell her why you cut me? That you thought I was gonna join in? Was gonna dishonor you?”

Sanchez was at war with herself, and in that terrible conflict she seemed half in want of an ally in Gale, and yet- “You think she believes me? If I were to tell her I thought you were capable of that? You? Who she knows and loves and praises? Jesus Christ in a fucking flight suit? You think she’d take a strangers’ excuse over her knowledge of your character? She wanted a reason to distrust me and she found it.”

Gale thought he saw guilt, well masked by fury but there all the same. Sanchez, he surmised, was sorry now she knew him. Sorry like she hadn’t been when they were being ground into the dirt, sorry like she wasn’t when he was lying on Benny’s thigh in the truck bed after, sorry like she wasn’t when he handed her the penicillin.

“Ida wasn’t mad at you for cuttin’ me.” he knew it, like he knew his own thoughts on it, he was so sure of Ida, “She was mad you didn’t say you knew me. That you knew of me before this place.”

“It’s not her’s to know.” Her voice had gone soft, defensive but burnt out.

“She’s a colonel.” Gale disagreed even as his own pride smarted horribly at the thought of being so known by someone so -Ida. He knew Ida also blamed him for not saying. “And she’s a good one to have on your side.”

Something else seemed to be on her mind, her eyes left his face to contemplate the bunk opposite. “You think your men will like having a brown woman vet them?”

“I don’t give a shit. I’m givin’ the job to the most capable…man…I can find.”

“They’ll hate it.”

Gale’s lips twitched. “You tellin’ me you’d mind that? Gonna ruin some social scene ya got goin’ here?”

Her breath came out harsh and he suspected if she were like Ida or Kendeigh, that would have been a laugh. It seemed to take her by surprise as much as him. “You’d -you would back me.” she pinned him with her gaze, hesitancy only in her words.

“Always. You’d be my deputy, Lieutenant.” she actually nodded when he said that, like she was considering, accepting maybe, he wasn’t sure. He knew she’d like the job. She had to be going nuts in here with only pant legs to hem. “It’s a critical job. And you could sit down for it.” he added right as he decided to stand up; her face looked briefly stunned.

Seemed like a good place to end this, on a high note, even if the high was a tiny ant hill: all in comparison to the morass they were in when he first entered this room.

“Yeah?” He asked her to accept.

“Sir.” she nodded.

“Thank you, for taking the job, Lieutenant.” Gale thumped the table once in adieu, she was still staring him down.

He’d made it back to the door when he heard her, “I really thought you -were.” the last word held such meaning in her tone he knew exactly what she meant, she was remembering too, she was recalling how she’ had sliced him open, furious as a wild cat. She had really thought he was capable of the worst. “Why would you think I’m a good judge.”

Gale stalled, hand grasping the wooden doorframe and looked back at her over his shoulder, Major Cleven managed to give the troops a grin, “Didn't say I needed a good one, just a suspicious one.”

💋 Hope you enjoyed! Feedback is a writer’s lifeblood, please feel free to scream in comments or the inbox, I love it and wanna hear it all. Trust me, nothing is “too dumb”. Your thoughts mean the world to me.

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[syndrossi]

Happy New Year! For the prompts, maybe something from the vet!Jon verse, like the boys deciding their names, or the twins teasing Jon about Laena (or any courtiers batting their eyelashes at him)?😂

You know, I 100% intended to do the latter (with bonus Laena joining in on the fun of teasing Jon), but somehow ended up writing the former instead! Ah well.

x~x~x

“Rhaegar, of course,” his brother said, hands twisting behind his head with enviable precision as he braided his silver-blond hair.

It was still strange to hear, and even stranger after his older brother’s—his older self’s—explanation of his original parentage, but Jon was able to hold himself to a shrug. “If I am changing my name, you should change yours.”

Rhaegar shrugged, looking unimpressed with his argument. “You do not have to change your name. It would merely be confusing otherwise.”

“Daemon said that I must,” Jon said with a scowl, flopping back onto their bed.

Their father had claimed that duplicative names might throw their parentage into doubt, but Jon suspected he merely didn’t wish to be tittered at for having two sons with the same name. And since their older brother had lived with his name longer, it fell upon Jon to change his instead.

He turned his head. “What would you choose?”

It was not as though Rhaegar were truly his father, not anymore, and he had been no older than Jon’s four-and-ten years when he had been drawn through the doorway at Summerhall. But he found himself curious nonetheless. 

“Well, you cannot be Aegon,” Rhaegar replied. That was their cousin’s name. “Or Daeron.” Yet another of their cousins’ names, much to Jon’s disappointment. Rhaegar’s smile was bittersweet. “Those were my brother’s names. The ones who died in the cradle.”

Jon had not known that. He did know that two of the mad king’s children had survived him, though Rhaegar of course would not. The son’s name was Viserys, he vaguely recalled learning. The daughter’s name eluded him.

“I like Aemon,” Rhaegar continued after a moment, “but then there is already Aemond.”

Their father had suggested Aemon despite that, though not for Jon.

“I am fond of Jaehaerys, but I do not think it suits you.” Rhaegar’s hands paused, mid-plait, his mouth drawing into a frown. “Nor do I think Daemon would favor it.”

That left only one real option. “Baelon, then.” That had been their father’s wish.

“He was a skilled warrior and dragonrider—and a good father. His memory seems dear to both Daemon and the king. There were no others who carried his name after and lived past infancy.” Rhaegar studied him. “Or you could take a name that has no legacy, like Valerion, who died in the cradle. Or you could forge a new one of your choosing.”

“But what would you choose?”

Rhaegar did not answer for a while, seeming to sense the importance of the question to him, until at last he gave a nod. “Baelon.”

If two fathers had given it to him, who was Jon to deny it? “Baelon,” he repeated, sounding it out. “Not because it was Daemon’s choice?”

“He had short hair like you,” Rhaegar said with that crooked little smile that told Jon he was teasing.

Jon combed his fingers through his own hair, which fell slightly past his shoulders now. Ordinarily, he would have asked for it to be cut, but then he would be just like Jon—the other Jon. “It is only short by our family’s standards.”

“It is long enough for a foxtail braid, I think. Would you like me to show you?”

Jon hesitated, though he was not sure why. His hair before had held a slight curl to it, which often kept it from his eyes, but his hair was straighter now. It did not quite have the thick weight of Rhaegar’s or Daemon’s, which had always seemed to him the strangest thing about their hair—fair hair normally seemed very fine, like Queen Cersei’s and her brood’s. But it could sport a braid without becoming wispy.

“Here,” Rhaegar said.

He had finished with his braid, which captured hair from around his face to dangle down the back of his hair, and he showed it to Jon. It wasn’t the simple three-strand that Jon had helped Arya with many a time, but a series of thinly woven strips that reminded him almost of the bones of a fish.

“I can braid yours, and if you like it, I can teach you to do it yourself.”

It was nothing like the fashions of the North, where men mostly just wore their hair long enough to keep their ears warm.

But you are not of the North, are you? Not anymore.

Neither of his fathers had been. And only one of his mothers. But often the wolf felt at least as thick in his blood as that of the dragon.

And other times he dreamed of the craggy mountains of the Vale.

He did not know who he was—or it felt like what he did know kept slipping from him, piece by piece. He was Snow, he was Redfort, he was Stone, he was Targaryen. He had traded his direwolf pup for a hatchling, his fierce auburn-haired brother for a contemplative, silver-haired one. Ned Stark’s dutiful calm for Daemon Targaryen’s frenetic fire.

Jon for Baelon.

But he was not defined by it, not in the way that being a Snow had ruled his fate before. His brother was Lord of Runestone, and Jon was not a threat to his power but rather his heir.

And a braid was a braid. It meant whatever Jon decided it meant, and he had yet to decide.

He turned around, presenting the back of his hair to Rhaegar. “Go ahead.”

x~x~x

This Rhaegar honestly would have very little attachment to Aemon as a name, since he has yet to become penpals with Maester Aemon. So the fondest name for him would be his grandfather's, but Jon is very different from the frail man that Jaehaerys II was! So Baelon seems as good a choice as any, if Aegon and Daeron are out of the picture.

And if Jon had still been unenthused, he was going to start throwing dragon names at him. 😂

[fandomofhappiness]

Shinsou Hitoshi's Parents (fandomofhappiness' headcanon)

So, I've been preparing this material and fanart for the last two months and I'm finally happy to share it with you. I've long dreamed of creating a family for Hitoshi (that weren't complete scumbags, but the most ordinary parents, like most MHA students have). So let's begin! (next part is here)

"They look like the most ordinary family, one of dozens that I've met before. And yet… There is something distinctly off about them. Perhaps, it's a tired hollow smile of a mother or a father's sickly features that indicate eternal weariness. There is something tragic that explains their son's continuous hostility to the world around him" (Aizawa Shouta, "Not Real Parent-Teacher Meeting").

"Your parents have been struggling all their lives trying to prove to the society that they deserve to be a part of it, Hitoshi. Give them a break sometimes, bitter kitten" (Shinsou Mikuru, "Meet My Aunt, Shinsou Mikuru")

Shinsou Utami

Shinsou Utami (Miryoku Utami before marriage) is Shinsou Hitoshi's mother and Shinsou Kazuro's wife. Utami is a woman with wild indigo-colored hair that flutters in the air, mimicking the underwater movements whenever she turns her head, and bright yellow eyes. She has pale pink skin and pointed ears. Utami enjoys wearing various jewelry, most often seen wearing nautical-themed earrings. When her Quirk, the Siren Call, activates, the whites of her eyes darken and her pupils lose their normal human shape and glow brightly.

Shinsou Utami is a peculiar and charming woman. At work, she is extremely focused and still very compassionate. Despite her not very happy childhood, she hasn't lost her slightly childish naivety, so sometimes during conversation, she can seem a little dreamy and light-hearted. One of the side effects of her quirk is External Charm. Even without using the quirk, people are drawn to her unusual and beautiful appearance, but this effect is short-lived.

Utami works at her mother's private vet clinic and also helps at animal shelter, providing free medical care for strays. Since she was little girl, she loved to sing, that is why Shinsous' house is always filled with quiet melodies when Utami cooks, takes care of animals or does paperwork. Moreover, she oftenly performs for public and charitable organizations. She doesn't like to talk about her Quirk and never uses it outside. However, she is fine to use it on her eternally sleepless husband, Kazuro.

Utami loves her only son, Hitoshi, with all her heart. She always tried to give him a better childhood, allowing him to participate in any hobbies and after-school activities despite all the complications that came with their Quirks. From her son's earliest years, she knew he wanted to be a hero. Although she and her husband had never forbidden him to dream about it or talk about it, she held out hope that he'd outgrow this desire and follow either hers steps, with his love of animals, or his father's because of his mathematical mindset. She wasn't afraid that he wouldn't be able to find a use for his Quirk, but the fact that there were many bright and attacking Quirks in the world that her son couldn't escape. Therefore, when Aizawa Shouta came to Shinsous for a parent-teacher meeting, she was curious to find out about the underground hero, even though she couldn't fully believe that someone really wanted to help her family.

Utami's Quirk, Siren Call, allows her to take control of men's minds the moment they hear her singing. To give an order, Utami must sing continuously, while putting her instructions into the song. The Quirk wears off when she stops singing.

Shinsou Kazuro

Shinsou Kazuro is Shinsou Hitoshi's father and Shinsou Utami's husband.

Kazuro is a tall and skinny man with dirty-blond unruly and spiky hair. He has deep blue eyes with white pupils. His whole face looks haggard and sickly, which sometimes makes him look older than his years. His cheekbones are prominent and there are large dark bags under his eyes. He prefers to wear baggy or oversized clothes to hide his thinness. He also constantly wears tinted glasses for vision, in which one of the lenses is cracked. When he uses his Quirk his pupils start to glow.

Kazuro is a reserved and quiet person. Straightforward and honest, but don't speaks much out loud. He's not a very sociable person, and rarely lets anyone touch him. This is partly due to his hypersensitive skin that remains as symptom of taking medications. He is prone to a infrequent depressive episodes. At the age of nineteen, he was diagnosed with clinical depression, which he struggles with for most of his life with medication and doctor visits. He works as a professor of mathematical statistics and probability theory at the university. He also provides private consultations for various enterprises, including military, rocket and architectural. At the same time, he secretly despises any economic calculations. He doesn't really like his job, as he has to deal with a lot of young people every day. Due to his Quirk and poor eyesight, he has headaches that lead to partial or complete loss of sleep. He often askes his wife to use her Siren Call to fall asleep.

With the birth of Hitoshi, Kazuro's life has changed a lot for the better. The birth of his son seemed to have awakened him, there were fewer severe depressive episodes, he plunged headlong into caring for his wife and son, taking a family leave at the university. He quit smoking and fiercely followed the doctor's instructions.

He is ashamed of his illness, which, as he thinks, hinders his family. Despite all his efforts, during Hitoshi's growing up, episodes happened, and he was physically unable to help his wife with care of his child. He supported his son when he failed the Hero Course exam. And although neither he nor Utami knew what Hitoshi had planned with the Sports Festival, he was proud to see his son on television.

Kazuro's Quirk, Optimal Output, helps him calculate the most optimal solution to any mathematical, logical, probabilistic problem. He needs to receive the input data, then he processes it using his Quirk, and identifies the best result from several options.

This is it for now. I have more information and art on them, and I prepare the next post soon. Hope you like them as much as I already love this family. If you have any questions you are very welcome to ask! :)

[thevoidstaredback]

Week two started off with the RSVPs coming in like a flood. Every single One Percenter that had been invited had accepted the invitation, stating that they'd be there. The heroes that had been invited had yet to respond, though they won't be marked as 'not coming' until the weeks end.

Week Two

Diana had been staring at the invitation for quite some time. She'd apparently been invited to a private Wayne Gala, a charity to raise funds to donate to the Justice League. It was an amusing premis, seeing as Batman somehow funded most of what they did when the U.S. Government fell short, but then she wondered if this was how he did it.

It made sense. He's one man, so he shouldn't have the money to fund the heroes of the world out of pocket. Then again, she didn't know anything about him. The tour of the Bat Cave - a hilarious name, by the way - only proved that point further.

The charity gala is a private event, tighter security than normal, invitations sent out only four weeks in advance, invitation check at the door, no press. But, why was she invited? By random, apparently.

She doubted the odds. 'Random' isn't a thing in Gotham.

Batman probably had something to do with this.

***

Clark was having a hard time believing what he was seeing. He and Lois, as well as Kon and Jon, had been invited to a Wayne Gala? Not even as press. They were going to be actual guests? It was so weird.

When he showed Lois, she'd spent a solid thirty minutes scrutinizing the thing, looking for any sign it was a fake. When she saw the seal, she'd laughed so hard that she fell over, then declared that it was real and that they were going.

He didn't get the joke. She didn't explain.

***

Getting invitations to galas wasn't a new thing for Oliver. He went to at least one in every major city every year. But, getting an invitation to a Wayne Gala that he'd never heard about before? That was a whole new surprise.

Dinah was also surprised by the invitation, but happy to attend. The information on the back said it was a semi-formal dress, and that the theme was Hero.

Ironic.

A charity gala for the Justice League hosted by Gotham's White Prince. Did Batman know anything about this? Probably. He seems to know everything. Honestly, Oliver wouldn't be surprised if the man knew who Green Arrow was behind the mask.

Actually, is Batman even human? He claims he is, and so does Nightwing and Robin, but then they turn around and do things that are decidedly not human-like.

But, who is he to judge?

Dinah was already picking out their outfits. She was going to theme herself after Green Arrow, so Oliver thought it fair to theme his own outfit after Black Canary.

Roy would be laughing his ass off at them. Maybe they could convince him to come with them? The invitation said to invite family... He should have him bring Lian, too. Brucie won't mind. He's a family man, after all.

Actually, that's probably exactly why the invite addresses the Queen Family, instead of just Oliver Queen and his plus one.

Also, why does Bruce want him to give a speech? Yeah, he'll do it, and yeah, he's a better public speaker than Bruce, but why? Was it a spur of the moment thing? Probably.

***

Hal stared at the paper suspiciously. Not once had he been to a fancy gala like a Wayne Gala. In fact, the fanciest party he'd been to were the parties thrown for the military vets.

Okay, so, bad example. Those parties are actually pretty fancy and fairly private, but still! A One Percent Party? Why would Hal get invited to one of those? He's perfectly middle-class, thank you very much.

He toyed with the thought of not going, the idea of Batman catching him in Gotham making him even more reluctant to go, but his curiosity was getting the better of him.

What was it like at one of these things? Would Batman really bust in and ruin the thing if he caught wind of Hal being there? What was Gotham's One Percent like? What was the Wayne Family like?

All very good questions that he wanted answers to.

He filled out the RSVP. He doesn't have anyone to bring with him, but maybe he could ask another hero? Maybe the other Green Lanterns will wanna be there. He's sure the Waynes won't mind. What'll they do, throw him out?

Well....they might, but they probably won't. That'll look bad.

He's got some calls to make before sending this back.

***

Wally had been the one to find the invitation. He'd been over to visit and stopped to bring the mail in for Iris. He knew that crest like the back of his hand because Dick's the one who introduced it to him.

That's right, he knows who Nightwing is. And he is very upset that he was left out of what's obviously a prank on the Justice League! He was gonna have to give his bestie a call. Tsk.

"We're going to this!" he declared loudly the second the door closed behind him.

"What is it?" Bart asked, meeting him in the entryway.

Wally was quick to hide the seal in his pocket. A room full of geniuses would figure it out in a second and he wanted to see this through completely. "Wayne charity gala in Gotham."

"Oh?" Iris asked from her place on the couch, putting her book down. Wally handed her the mail. "You just want to see Nightwing."

His grin was goofy. "Yeah, but don't go telling people that."

Barry plucked the invitation from his hands. "'Charity for Justice'," he read, "'for Justice League and associates'." He flipped it over. "It's addressed to the whole family, though we'll need to RSVP."

Bart set off in a fast repeat of "Please, please, please!" on 3x speed while Barry and Iris shared a silent conversation. Wally's grin grew. He knew they'd say yes.

***

Arthur didn't know how to react. Well, he did, but it was weird. He's a lighthouse keeper. Why's he getting invitations to some fancy party? He'd understand if he got the invite as Aquaman, but as Arthur? It's so weird.

He was going to accept. Mera was gonna make him accept. Probably on the grounds of 'just because'. But she's scary, so he's not gonna say no. At least they can bring Andy? Probably a bad decision. Like, a really bad decision.

Who'd watch over Atlantis while they were gone, though? Someone's gonna have to stay behind!

Mera won't stand for that.

Kaldur'ahm. They'll bring Kaldur with them. He'll be responsible enough to keep Andy in check when she inevitably slips away.

This is a bad idea.

He's going to regret this.

He sends off the RSVP anyway.

Part 11 Part 13

[fourstarsoutofnine]

To get away

Chapter 3; Roomies and Rumors

Part 1, part 2, part 3.5, part 4

You were afraid to turn your back. You didn’t want to let your roomie know you were awake. You felt him sit on the end of the bed to kick his shoes off. He didn’t feel as light as the sailor would be—nor the smith, so they were crossed off. And he didn’t feel as heavy as the old man or rancher would be… then, you heard a sigh… and he spoke.

“Can’t believe he wouldn’t room with me… but whatever, the champion’s your best friend now. Sure. Yeah. Thanks, traveler.”

That was the vet. Clear as day. You breathed in deep—but tried to keep it slow so he wouldn’t realize you were awake…

“You don’t have to pretend to be asleep, you know. I can tell you’re tensed up.”

So much for that… you sat up tiredly.

“I don’t like this situation any more than you do, but it’s just for a night. Two, at most. So just scoot over and we can handle this like adults.” He said, taking his armor and chainmail off.

You nodded quietly and scooted closer to the wall.

“And you can speak, you know. I’m not going to yell at you.” He rolled his eyes with a scoff.

“Sorry… I was just under the impression you didn’t exactly like me…” you spoke quietly, still worried that at the slightest chance to get upset, he’d take it.

“It’s not that I don’t like you.” He slid into bed next to you. “It’s that I don’t trust you. You arrive here and claim to not know how you got here, you have this mark on your hand.” He grabbed your wrist—very gently, actually—and made note of the triforce on your hand. “Which is the exact mark we heroes have, except on the opposite hand, and…I don’t know you. I don’t know your motives, if any, and I don’t know what’s to come of this. So for tonight and possibly the next night, we’re stuck sleeping beside each other. We’ll just have to take it with a grain of salt.”

That quieted you down again. He cleared his throat.

“So… goodnight.” He put a pillow between you and laid down, turning the lamp off. You sighed and laid down, turning over. The next morning, as you were still sound asleep, the vet was turned towards you, looking at you. He had a million thoughts running through his head. Who were you exactly? How did you get here? How do you have that mark?

Why couldn’t he bring himself to not feel for you?

He didn’t trust anyone besides his fellow heroes, and Hadn’t trusted anyone with his very guarded heart since Marin, and you know where that landed him. Heartbroken and alone. He was determined to never feel that again, and certainly not because of some mysterious stranger that was dropped in their world, unannounced and without reason. Alarms were going off in his head from that, bright red flags waving…

But he couldn’t hate you. He couldn’t hate you, cast you out, reject you.

Or at least, not directly, anyway. But he could distance himself from you. Put walls between you. Try to protect himself and the others, especially the traveler. And that’s what he was determined to do. He got up, frustrated with himself for lying there so long. He slipped his boots on and left the room.

“There you are. We were wondering when you’d get up.” The rancher grinned, crossing his arms.

“Yeah? Well it’s kind of hard to get out of a real bed after sleeping on the hard ground for weeks, forgive me if I want to pretend I’m home.” He jabbed back, the tiniest grin on his face.

“Is Y/n up yet?” The traveler asked, sending a shock through the vet.

“She’s still asleep. You’re welcome to try getting her up if you want.” He shrugged, rolling his eyes.

“Let her sleep.” The old man said. “She needs the sleep, I’m sure. Yesterday was rough on her.”

“Yeah she’s not too suited for travel, is she?” The sailor thought out loud. Unbeknownst to the chain, you were standing just outside your room, on the landing above where they were seated in the dining area.

“We could just leave her here, you know. The towns are safe. They’re always safe. She’d be better off here than with us. She can’t fight, has trouble walking long distances… she’d thrive in this lazy town.” The vet suggested. Your heart sank. It made you want to run. You wanted to run and hide. Tears pricked your eyes and clouded your vision. You didn’t hear the others protests to that idea, your heart was pounding too loudly in your ears, the blood that rushed your head made your ears and face hot.

The decision to leave felt right, even if it wasn’t. Not only was your vision clouded, but your judgement as well. Clouded by every hurt feeling in the book. You slowly crept down the stairs and out the door. If they didn’t want you here, they wouldn’t have you. You felt burdenous to them anyway. They had enough on their plate, too much to add you on top of that anyway. So, unarmed and stupidly, you walked along the edge of town with tears in your eyes. Your chest felt heavy and your head felt like someone was taking an ice pick to it all around. Your eyes burned, the edges of your eyelids stinging and feeling tighter with each blink you took to clear your vision from tears.

You didn’t notice the rustling in the bush…

[u-reblogged-a-scam]

Do not donate your money to, or reblog any posts from, @/furryreviewearthquake bc they are a scammer. Take down any of your reblogs if you haven’t already done so.

Oh look, my header is different! That’s bc I’m doing things a bit differently this time

I received some links to lists of know scammers from @slenbee, who’s part of a group of scam busters. Their lists include the names of scam blogs and their go-to scams (insulin, evacuation, etc.), as well as where they found their evidence for each call out. It’s a good list, and I thought I’d chip in and add some more evidence for each scammer that isn’t in these posts

Before I get into my list, I recommend you check out their posts here and here, as well as the evidence links provided in each one

Now, here are OP’s red flags:

OP previously went by “lastdosesworld”; the name they’re currently using in their empty PayPal (which are ALWAYS included in these scams) is “Alice Simatei”, but, if I’m assuming that only one person ever uses this pfp, they also have PayPal accounts under “Ronald Ogwila” (when they were “devotedclassycollector”) and “Sally Cheruiyot” (when they were “decaffeinatedcrusadesweets”)

(Regardless if these are the same person or not, you should still be wary of all of them)

This is yet another diabetic Palestinian scam (a common scam going around that’s used to prey on your sympathy during a genocide)

Their current “fundraiser” has a goal of $460; real Palestinian fundraisers are tens of thousands of dollars

OP is using a pfp that’s very familiar to me, as I’ve seen it used for other scams before. If you see this pfp, check for any signs they’re a scammer, bc they most likely are ⤵️

As I always say in my posts: Never trust a donation post linked to an empty PayPal account unless said link has been verified by a trusted source

Here’s an additional resource to help you spot the red flags of scams moving forward:

And here are some posts that go a little more in depth about the scammers that have been repeatedly spotted:

Tagging as many people in the notes of OP’s fundraiser post as I can; if anyone who sees this can reach out to those in the notes I didn’t tag and let them know this is a scam, that’d be really helpful not just for me, but for them as well

@firminfollowing @davi-remastered @riottalker @bbluberrys @palacholic @dinkdonkjoolian @incorrect-targon-quotes @kalbimeyakin @lollipopjewel @sareenawails @lovley-frog @jesse-pinko @fractoluminescence @kira-quartz @pixiedust5959 @cherub11m @that-dumb-bitch @myiahereesstuff @lolohe12 @caeleas @haplophrynemolliz @yonderghostshistories

[prophet-rebellion]

Jolene's Emergency Vet Visit

Description posted from GoFundMe Campaign:

So for those of you who gave followed me (and maybe seen the update) you'll know Salem has been missing for almost 6 months.

She was my ESA, and given my declining mental health, I didn't have much choice but to get a new ESA.

Enter miss Jolene Macchiato L. Whom I adopted almost two months ago and have whole heartedly decided to keep after realizing just how well we mesh.

You may also know I've been in the hospital the last few days - staying with my roommate who was admitted. I've been coming home to feed the cats and (unsuccessfully) treat them for ear mites. My new roommate was dog sitting and he brought fleas and ear mites into our home.

During this time, Jolene went to the bathroom on my bed multiple times. I at first chalked it up to stress and was told to keep an eye on here. Less than a day of being back from the hospital and her stool is light in color, runny, and most terrifyingly, has blood in it.

This is no longer an issue of stress, but could be a major intestinal/stomach problem when mixed with her inability to wait and use her litterbox. On top of that, she was running around like she was in pain, or something was wrong prior to going.

My second job is not a sure thing yet - it has been more than two weeks since the company reached out to me - and I have been looking for more. The money I thought I won was more a scam to get me down to the car dealership (which by the way, I hated as is because of the older man behaving increasingly grossly and inappropriate towards me).

My funding for Salem has stopped at this point - I have done every physical thing I can to find and bring her home. And now I need to focus on the new feline in my care.

I am taking Jolene to the vet tomorrow and using my new credit card - but there are limited funds and paying it back is my current concern when I have payments taking up to the 1,000s combined due these next two months.

I am setting it to $550 for now (because they take a portion), but the price my change depending on what the vet says and what is wrong.

I know she still need to get treated for ear mites ($300 on it's own) because the current medications I've been using are not working."

This is my fundraiser.

Additional pictures of her adoption papers added on here as well proving when I got her. JOLENE IS A REGISTERED ESA NOW.

Jolene as far as I have been told is two years old, though she is very small for her age. She is a sweet heart though she was likely on the streets for a most of not all her life before she was taken to the shelter and I adopted her a month later.

She is a sweet cat that just wants to check and make sure that you're okay. She'll cuddle. She doesn't meow but she does trill and sound like yoshi.

She just wants to make friends with everyone. And if you're not petting her enough then the grabs your hand and brings it right to her face as she stands on her back legs.

This is the last fundraiser I'm making. Ask anyone I know in real life and they'll tell you just how much I despise asking for help. I want to be able to do things on my own. But until I get one bite from the hundreds (literally) of jobs I've applied to as a secondary then I'm at a loss. I can't afford to wait and save up for this vet Visit - not when her health is on the line.

I can post a picture of her at the vets office tomorrow as well to confirm, along with the update of what they set.

GoFundMe

PayPal

Venmo

Currently $750/$750

UPDATE - 08.02.2023

UNDER THE CUT

We went to the vet today.

TL:DR - she is on medications for the next two weeks, roughly. She did very good at the vet and was very brave. $500 was close, it will come out to be roughly $700 all together after ear mite treatment; we are holding off for now until the other cat in the house can be treated or they will just jump between them, which gives some more time to get there funds. But the over the counter medications are not strong enough to fight the infestation, and depending on severity, it could lead to long term health problems.

So I changed it from $550 -> $750 (again, because they take a processing fee). I also added in there roughly $200 that had been sent from PayPal and Venmo to give a more accurate show off current raised funds.

Below are screenshots of the update explaining more, along with pictures of Jolene at the vet today.

(Straight up, I almost cried because in the right two months that I have had her this was the first time she had crawled into my lap to lay down and cuddle with me.)

[its-all-stardust]

Sugar || 1

Masterlist || Part Two

Steven Grant/Sugar Mommy!Reader

Word count: 1.9k

Summary: You meet Steven in a museum gift shop and feel an instant connection. Before you walk out the door you decide, perhaps against your better judgment, that you need him to be your sugar baby. Now you just need him to let you treat him right.

Author's note: hello and welcome to the most unoriginal title ever. this was originally intended to be a oneshot, but just as I was about to finish what ended up being this first part, I realized that would be impossible (unless I wanted an insanely long oneshot, which i did not). to be honest, i don't have a real plan for this series. i don't expect it to be very long, and there may be some Marc/Reader in the future, but for now, this is just about our boy Steven.

Series note: Set before the events of the Moon Knight series. I haven't decided yet if this is going to be following canon in regards to the powers/Avatar aspect but I'll let you know whenever I decide. Steven is still an alter, Marc still has DID, and assume Marc and Jake are around and know what Steven is getting up to.

It’s not like you were looking for someone when you visited the museum that day. Typically, when you do look for a new baby, you go through the regular channels. Word of mouth, the specific sites—the free ones and the paid ones. You’ve never just seen someone out in the world and thought Them.

It just wasn’t something that was done. It wasn’t something that you do. There’s no way to vet someone you met in person, and you don’t conveniently have all their personal details laid out in a neat format sent directly to you with the results of their background check.

You always thought picking someone you met randomly was a bad idea despite the fact that you haven’t exactly heard horror stories from others in these circles. You suppose it comes to the arrangement being based on trust. And you don’t exactly trust most people.

That is until you laid eyes on Steven, the slightly mousy yet also impertinent gift shop clerk.

You walked into the gift shop looking for a bottle of water. You had spent the last couple of hours wandering the Ancient Egyptian exhibit and needed a break before walking through the rest of the exhibits on display. You don’t know when you’ll next make it to the National Art Gallery, so you figured you’d make a day of it since you didn’t have any meetings to attend or calls to make.

You aren’t exactly impressed with the man when you first walk in. In an attempt to help another customer, he bumped into one of the displays and knocked down some of the figurines, smashing them on the floor.

“I’m so sorry!” he says, falling to his knees to start cleaning up his mess while the woman he was speaking to takes her child by the arm and steps away. But then he seems to change his mind and stands again. Looking over the display, he grabs one of the surviving figurines. “Here, this one’s perfectly fine.”

“That’s okay. I think he changed his mind,” the woman says, gesturing to her son. She then quickly leaves the shop without buying anything.

The man sighs, his shoulders dropping as he sets the figurine down and mutters himself. He then walks away from the mess on the floor to the back room.

When he’s out of sight, you step up to the display. Broken pieces of several figurines depicting a bird of some sort stare up at you helplessly.

You pick up one that appears intact, examining it. Although you just came from the Ancient Egyptian exhibit, you can’t tell which god the white plaster bird is meant to be. To you, it’s simply a bird of prey; its sharp beak and talons give it away, but it lacks any particular godly features.

Finding no fault other than that it’s a rather generic figurine, you set it back on the display with the other surviving merchandise. You’re about to pick up another from the floor, hoping to make the clerk’s job a little easier, when a voice stops you.

“Oh, no, you don’t need to do that.” It’s the clerk, having returned with a broom and dustpan in hand without you noticing.

“Thought you could use a hand, is all,” you say, smiling at him as you step away from the pile of broken figurines.

The man stares at you for a moment, frozen, giving you time to study him.

Curly hair falling over his forehead, large, dark eyes, clean-shaven, and baggy clothes that don’t quite fit him properly. 

Your eyes catch his name tag.

Steven.

All of a sudden, the man—Steven seems to flinch. You see a slight flush to his cheeks before he tilts his head down, hiding his face from view.

“Sorry,” he says as he starts to sweep up bits of several birds, though you’re not sure what he’s apologizing for. “Let me just clean this up, and I’ll be right with you.”

“Thank you,” you say as you wander away to look at the other souvenirs on display. You keep glancing at Steven, though, finding your interest piqued by him. 

“Make a mess again, Stevie?” a woman calls as she walks into the shop.

“You know that’s not my name, Donna,” he says as the woman walks past him into the back room. He follows, though he doesn’t look happy about it.

Steven comes back quickly, now missing the broom and dustpan, and when he spots you, the tension drains out of him, if only slightly.

“Sorry about that. Do you need help with anything?” He steps close to you, though still far enough away to maintain a respectful distance.

You just need your water, and you’ll be back out in the museum in no time. With your tight schedule, you shouldn’t waste a minute if you want to actually enjoy all the exhibits. But something in you, something about Steven, makes you stay.

“Actually, I wanted to ask,” you start as you lead Steven back to the display of figurines. “Who is this even supposed to be? It doesn’t look like one of the gods.” You point to the birds he knocked down.

“Horus, if you can believe it.” He scoffs as if personally offended. “Honestly, I wouldn’t look for anything in this shop to be all that accurate,” he whispers conspiratorially. 

“The gift shop in a popular museum can’t even be bothered to pay for accuracy?” you ask, even though you’re not surprised. The best way for businesses to make quick profit is to sell cheap products for far more than they’re worth.

Steven steps closer, keeping his voice low, not wanting to be overheard.

“My manager, Donna.” He gestures toward the backroom with a jerk of his head. “She’s in charge of ordering everything. When I saw she had picked out these, I tried telling her how inaccurate they were, that nobody would know who it was and have no reason to buy them. All she said was, ‘Nobody’s going to care, Stevie.’” He raises the pitch of his voice, a mocking impression of the woman in the other room.

“But you care.” It’s easy to see how much he does. Not everyone would get so worked up over an overpriced souvenir at a museum gift shop.

“Of course I do!” Steven says emphatically. “It’s why I work here. Well, not here here. Can’t say the gift shop is my favorite, but the museum—” He suddenly stops, cutting himself off as he stares at you.

You would think you’ve done something wrong, except all you’ve done is smile at him, the expression still on your face even now. Then you notice Steven is flushed again, and you can’t help but be pleased at the sight.

“Sorry, I’m just talking your ear off. You should have stopped me,” Steven says with an awkward laugh.

“I don’t mind listening to you speak.” The words are out of your mouth before you can stop them. Usually, you’re in better control of yourself, your words. You have to be.

Thankfully, Steven doesn’t find your honesty off-putting as some others have. He laughs again, this time with disbelief and a smile playing on his lips.

“You’re just saying that,” he says.

“You’re getting paid to sell things, Stevie, not to stand around flapping your lips,” Donna says as she walks out of the backroom, a box of merchandise in her arms to restock one of the shelves lining the walls.

“But I am getting paid to be nice to the customers, yeah?” Steven replies. Donna only rolls her eyes, a look he copies when she turns in the other direction.

You like seeing that he isn’t cowed by his frankly rude manager, even if he can’t exactly square up to her, not without likely risking his job.

What’s he like outside the gift shop when he doesn’t have to hold back? When he can say what he wants without being afraid of offending someone?

You push the thought away. You shouldn’t be thinking like that. Thoughts along those lines should be reserved for people you’ve properly vetted.

“Sorry about her. She’s…” Steven whispers, trailing off when he can’t find anything charitable to say.

“A bitch?” you supply. You don’t have to worry about offending Donna.

“Keep your voice down!” he half-heartedly scolds, placing a hand on your arm as he tries to suppress a grin. “I’m not saying you’re wrong, but I’d rather not get caught, thank you.”

You’re about to say something else when Steven’s face falls, horror replacing the glee. He quickly snatches his hand away, stepping back as he realizes how close he is to you.

“I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to—” He gestures to your arm but quickly drops his hand as if afraid he’ll touch you again.

“It’s okay,” you assure him. “I didn’t mind.” You would have minded if it had been any other man, but Steven…

Stop it.

“You’re sure?” he asks tentatively, looking like a puppy about to be told he’s a good boy, eyes lit up hopefully.

You can feel yourself starting to burn with an overwhelming want.

“Absolutely,” you say, and Steven sighs in palpable relief.

“Oh, good. Still sorry, though. For not thinking and all.”

And though you tried to deny it, you can’t stop thinking that Steven…could be fun. Something alights in you the more you look at him. The different sides you’ve already seen. His helpfulness, his genuine interest, and knowledge about the place he works. The roll of his eyes and complaints about a manager. A man who’ll snark back, but only just enough to keep from getting into trouble. How he spoke to you as if you were friends before the slight mortification hit, and he realized the two of you are nothing but strangers.

You recognize something in him, and it makes you want him. Want to lavish him with affection and praise and gifts. Want him to give that same affection back to you. You want him on your arm. You want to play with him, see what makes him tick.

You want to give him all you’ve never had.

You shouldn’t think about him like this, not when you don’t know anything about him.

But you know enough. Enough to intrigue you. And he intrigues you more than any of the others you’ve been with. None of them have sparked this deep desire, not so instantaneously, not until they worked out exactly what you wanted and played that role. They weren’t like this naturally.

They weren’t like you.

But it has to be a no. You can’t. You have rules.

And yet…

You glance at your watch, the thin band flashing gold on your wrist, the crystal face sparkling up at you in the light.

“I have to get going,” you say regretfully, and Steven looks slightly disappointed. You want to keep talking to him and wipe that look from his face. You have to force yourself to take a step back.

“But I’ll see you around, Stevie.” You’re practically possessed as the nickname rolls from your lips, even though you know, based on his interaction with Donna, that he doesn’t like it.

You just need to see that fire. Need to know what it’s like when it’s directed at you.

“It’s Steven, actually,” he corrects with a slight annoyance that he tries to cover with a smile. He even taps his name tag a little more forcefully than he needs to, as if to make sure you get the point. He may like you well enough to have a chat, but he won’t put up with things that displease him, either.

Oh, he will be so much fun.

You try to smile sweetly at him, but it feels more like a predatory grin spreading across your face. “Sorry. See you around, Steven.”

[transmutationisms]

how do i help gazans and others if i don't have a bank account? i want to help, and i've wanted to help, but it is not possible for me to give money. i've shared posts here, liked them on instagram and shared them there as well and it doesn't feel like enough

the reality is that posts made by longtime tumblr users who write fluent english get more notes and donations than gazans' own posts because this website is racist. so, sharing posts is a great start, but there are also so many people who need someone to actually write a post for them. if you drop a reply here or send an ask off anon, i can dm you usernames of people who need someone to write them a post about their campaign; i receive (i am not exaggerating) upwards of 200 such requests per day and am nowhere near capable of even replying to all of them, let alone actually writing that many posts. i know that many of the other people on here who frequently boost fundraisers are getting similar numbers of requests, if not more, and we literally always need more people to help.

it's also helpful to write updates on fundraiser posts, whether the original posts were written by you or by someone else. an update can be very basic (amount raised, distance to goal, currency conversion if it's a weaker currency than usd because that's what most of this website uses, link to vetting info if it's not in the original post) but you can also write a few sentences about the person's specific situation and needs. updates help keep a campaign circulating and show potential donors that someone is paying attention to this person. you can do this any time a fundraiser crosses your dash, when someone messages you or sends an ask, etc.

if you are willing to commit for a longer term, it is extremely helpful to 'adopt' a campaign (or more than one, if you can), meaning you commit to continue posting about that specific person until they reach their goal. this is more work, it's more stressful, but it can also make a huge difference for the person on the other end. i can also point you toward people who need this and have asked for it, if it's something you can do.

if you have artistic skills, original artwork is often helpful for drawing attention to a campaign. even just a quick sketch of a family portrait can be helpful for getting more traction on posts. i've also seen people make banners, cartoons, pixel art, you name it. donation posts generally do better when they're short but also eye-catching, and art is one way to help with that.

and you might consider whether you have any skills, artistic or otherwise, that you could offer as a raffle or giveaway to support these campaigns. i've seen people offer art or writing commissions, research skills, aquarium passes, gift baskets, plushies, fibre crafts, etc. frankly i think sometimes these giveaways are just helpful because they reassure potential donors (yet again) that the campaign is 'real' and has people looking after it. you can offer these kinds of incentives whether or not you're in contact with the person fundraising; i've even seen some people just offer commissions or raffle entries as a blanket offer for anyone who donates to any vetted campaign.

i also want to stress again that this truly is a situation where any commitment is better than no commitment -- like, can't adopt a campaign but can write someone an original post once a week? great, that's still helpful to that person. can't do that but can commit to writing short updates on someone's campaign once a day? great, still helpful. literally any time and effort you can put in is good, it's not an all-or-nothing proposition. i think most of us are capable of finding at least a few minutes to do something on this list.

[dreamerwitches]

Scene Zero for Dummies

I'm going to be a martyr and list out all the important plot beats for scene zero so that no one else has to slog through it like me. Let's goooo

Scene 1

Mabayu loves movies, is bad at socialising and lying, is most likely autistic, very lazy and works at her aunt's - Sakie - cafe. She's a year above most of the girls at school, in Mami's year.

While watching a movie, time pauses because of Homura and Mabayu gets paused too. She can resume the paused TV when she touches it.

Time pauses at school for her and she uses this time to copy a students answers during a test.

Mabayu sees Kyubey outside but Sakie doesn't see them, thinking she saw Amy. A cat that visits outside the cafe regularly.

Mabayu has a soul gem ring but doesn't remember where she got it from. She has no idea she is currently a magical girl.

At the cafe Mabayu gets a sudden vision of Amy getting hit by a car. She goes outside and sees it happened and Madoka is crying over her. Madoka and Sakie go to the vet with Amy while Mabayu looks after the cafe.

Amy suddenly gets better at the vet with the vets declaring it a miracle. This was because Madoka made her wish to save Amy.

The school goes on an annual visit to an auto plant (what a lame school trip huh). Mabayu accidentally wanders into a witch's labyrinth but Mami pulls her out with her ribbons.

Meanwhile, parts of episode 10 are happening during this. Homura is in her second loop. Eg. tells Madoka in class she's a magical girl too. Homura actually tells Mami and Madoka about her wish and being from the future here but the two have a hard time believing it.

Homura struggles fighting witches so Mami actually gives her a book on how to make explosives (guess she didnt look it up online this time eh?)

Mabayu follows Mami after being curious of her being a magical girl (she still doesn't know about them) but Mami acts weirdly saying she'll kill her (I have no idea why this is so out of character). Mabayu runs away in fear into a Bartels barrier and it kills her and later Mami (sigh)

Episode 10 plays out where Madoka becomes Kriemhild and Homura finds out about witches

Film 2

Mabayu is surprised to wake up at the beginning of the loop and thinks everything was a dream.

Kyubey finally approaches Mabayu saying they've already made a contract with Mabayu.

The Amy incident happens just the same as last time as Mabayu forgets to interfere.

Meanwhile, Homura is unsure about sharing the truth with others.

Mabayu uses her magic at school. She can turn invisible in her magi form by bending light. Her magic can also let her hear conversations from a way away as well as basically zoom in in real life.

She spies on Madoka and Mami in Mami's apartment. Homura enters, telling them not to listen to Kyubey but doesn't elaborate as she doesn't think they're ready yet.

Mabayu wants to find Homura's address at school so she can meet her but cannot find it in the staff room.

At the auto plant visit, Madoka and Homura fight the witch with Homura finally explaining her past. (but not the truth about witches) Madoka is fine with this, trusting Homura. Homura isn't ready to tell Mami yet.

Kyubey makes contact with Sayaka but she is dissuaded from contracting by Homura.

Sayaka knows about Madoka being a magical girl and is a little jealous she's so amazing. The scene with Kyosuke plays out ala episode 4 and she is swayed to contract.

Homura encounters Elly similar to Madoka in episode 4 and Sayaka saves her.

Madoka, Sayaka and Homura find Anja and Kyoko interrupts like in episode 5. Sayaka is suspicious that Homura knows Kyoko's name but is hesitant about telling Sayaka the truth.

Ala episode 10, Homura meets with everyone to tell them the truth. She tells them about witches but Mami and Sayaka don't fully trust her.

At the hospital, Sayaka wants to visit Kyosuke but Hitomi is already there. She overhears him saying he thinks Hitomi's visits are what cured his hand and Sayaka is very upset.

Sayaka's suffering arc plays out with it ending in Mami's breakdown.

Madoka and Homura fight Walpurgis with it ending in Homura killing Madoka before she can become Kriemhild. Mabayu resets along with Homura.

Film 3

Homura becomes coolTM

Homura shoots Kyubey outside Madoka's home, believing them to be dead now.

At home, Homura realises she can't tell the truth to anyone and will kill Walpurgis on her own. Mabayu arrives in her home, telling her Kyubey isn't dead.

The girls are two late and Madoka saves Amy, becoming a magical girl.

Homura is mad at Mabayu for spying on her and Mabayu gets nervous, running away.

Madoka is fighting the Minotaur witch at the auto plant but is struggling. Mabayu tries to help, using her weapon for the first time.

Homura stops time, stepping in. Mabayu is shocked Homura was going to abandon this Madoka just because she's contracted. Homura explains she doesn't want to connect to Madoka to feel the pain all over again because she knows she'll have to reset eventually in this loop.

Mabayu has a future vision. This shows that Homura can win but Mabayu will die. Knowing this is the best outcome, she goes along with it, dying.

Mami rushes over, upset at Mabayu's death. She later dies by Charlotte despite Madoka's warning. The two fight Walpurgis but fail.

Film 4

Mabayu visits Homura and both of them remember the last loop. She is at first rude but soon thanks Mabayu for sacrificing herself for the best outcome.

The two team up with Homura killing Kyubey outside Madoka's home again.

Kyubey visits Mabayu at home but she plays dumb, pretending to not understand them. She makes up a warning that if Kyubey tries to make Madoka contract something terrible will happen.

Meanwhile, Homura deals with Mami by making a truce. She'll tell her where witches will appear with her past knowledge so that she won't make any other girls contract.

Mabayu and Homura discover that the car that hits Amy was caused by a witch so they find the cause, defeating a familiar.

At the auto plant, Mabayu manages to stop Madoka and Sayaka from falling into the witch's barrier by helping them find the exit. Mabayu and Homura successfully fell the witch.

Unfortunately, Kyubey manages to meet Madoka and Sayaka, talking to them.

Kyubey tells Mami about these new candidates but since she made a deal with Homura she refuses.

Mabayu and Homura deal with Gertrud but Sayaka is injured in the crossfire. Homura uses this to warn Madoka from contracting as its dangerous.

Madoka approaches Homura and Mabayu, asking about magical girls. She is sad about Homura fighting alone and wants to help but Homura tells her adamantly not to.

Mabayu is worried that if Homura keeps telling Madoka about the danger of being a magical girl, she'll just want to help Homura more. Mabayu suggests they emphasise the fact she will no longer be human. Homura wonders if telling her the truth will help.

Madoka gets lost in Charlotte's labyrinth at the hospital. Homura decides to tell Madoka the truth about witches. Madoka then makes a wish to save Charlotte from despair, creating a strangely coloured Nagisa.

The girls then have to look after Nagisa who acts similarly to usual but more childishly. The group think that they can deal with Nagisa by fulfilling her wish.

Nagisa has nightmares of killing Mami as Charlotte and begins to think she's not a good person. She goes on a rampage, killing witches as well as Kyoko.

This film explains Mabayu's mother's backstory. She had a future vision that was never wrong but one day saw that she was going to die of illness and it broke her. She became a different person, begging no one to approach her in hospital.

Seeing no option to save Nagisa, Mabayu uses her magic to alter her memories. She cuts it like a film, removing her memories of killing Mami and Kyoko.

Nagisa gets a cheesecake baked by Sakie.

The girls fight Walpurgis and Nagisa is finally at peace so disappears. Homura resets

Film 5

Homura states they cannot let Madoka know about witches as they'll have another mess like Nagisa to deal with.

At the auto plant, Mabayu helps out Madoka and Sayaka again. Homura freezes time and kills Kyubey so that they cannot talk to Madoka and Sayaka.

Homura has sent Mami to another city so that she's out of their hair.

Mabayu is tasked with stalling Madoka and Sayaka from running into a witch at the mall but she's nervous about talking to them. Mabayu decides to ask Sayaka if she wants to work at her aunt's cafe.

Sayaka asks Mabayu why she wanted to hire her for work. Mabayu states she knows she collects DVDs but Sayaka is suspicious of how she knows so. Mabayu tries to lie but Sayaka sees right through her.

Kyubey tries to contact Sayaka to contract but she doesn't understand what they're saying.

Homura defeats Charlotte in the hospital. Kyubey appears and Mabayu uses a borrowed gun to kill them, masking it in the public space as a fire extinguisher going off.

Mabayu discovers that Madoka and Sayaka visited the hospital to see Kyosuke. Both Mabayu and Homura were unaware of him before now.

Homura asks Mabayu to see into the future but in it Sayaka has contracted. Homura realised she overlooked Sayaka while focusing on Madoka.

Homura is mad at Sayaka so prepares to fight her however Mabayu butts in. She doesn't want Sayaka to get hurt so asks Homura to let her deal with Sayaka instead. She plans on becoming her friend so she won't turn into a witch or have a bad effect on Madoka.

Kyoko doesn't interfere with Sayaka as she doesn't visit Mitakihara in this timeline.

Mabayu continues to fail at becoming closer friends with Sayaka as she's too bad at conversations. She's also put off by the fact she thinks of herself more as a senpai (an older classmate) than a friend.

Sayaka later fights Elsa Maria with Homura aiding. She is mad at Homura and an incident makes Mabayu appear where she was previously invisible. Sayaka is mad that Mabayu was working with Homura all along. The three tussle but oh what a surprise, Madoka contracts to make Sayaka no depress any more wow

Madoka and Sayaka fight Walpurgisnacht but fail, Homura resetting time.

Film 6

Mabayu apologises for messing up but Homura is fine with it since they learnt a lot. She honestly doesn't want to kill Sayaka at the end of the day.

Mabayu hires Sayaka again but this time knows her better, pointing out her love of classical music.

Sayaka discovers Mabayu is a magical girl but the two seem on good terms about it. Mabayu explains what she can remember of her wish (as it is still unknown to her) and that it was a wish for another person.

Kyosuke's tantrum from episode 4 plays out as Mabayu watches in hiding.

Sayaka is about to make her wish but Mabayu intervenes. She tries to dissuade her but fails.

Mabayu and Sayaka go witch hunting together. Mabayu chooses a song for Sayaka to fight to which apparently improves her strength.

Mabayu spies on Hitomi and Sayaka having their conversation like in episode 7. Mabayu is unsure how to cheer Sayaka up from this.

Sayaka asks Mabayu if she can see into the future about Hitomi's confession but backpedals, losing confidence. Mabayu hopes Sayaka will confess instead.

Sayaka seemingly decides to confess but Kyubey tells her she's no longer human and loses her resolve.

Sayaka faces Elsa Maria like usual.

Sayaka skips school the next day and later is found on the Soul-gem-throwing-bridge and does the deed herself. Unfortunately, this hustle makes Madoka contract whoops (she's really an idiot in scene zero huh)

Reset time whee

Film 7

Mabayu decides against letting Sayaka contract this time.

Mabayu pretends she has fortune telling abilities, trying to dissuade Sayaka from thinking about a contract and suggests maybe raising money for surgery for him instead.

Mabayu fucks up and Sayaka contracts anyway wow

Homura realises that Sayaka absolutely can't contract because clearly she's a fucking idiot

Madoka becomes a magical girl for Sayaka NEXT

Film 8

After Sayaka has the Kyosuke incident of 2011, Mabayu decides to cut her memories of it. She reveals that the target has to be thinking of the memories in order for her to cut them (great writing there…)

Walpurgisnacht comes and Madoka contracts, becoming Kriemhild.

Film 9

Mabayu practices fighting witches alone

Wow nothing really happens in this one huh. But it seems like the loops are finally getting to Mabayu mentally

Film 10

Homura and Mabayu leave town to stock up on grief seeds but Mabayu is killed by Kyoko

Kyoko kills Mami too wow thats so out of character…

Film 11

Mabayu realises that she continues fighting because of her admiration for Homura.

Kyubey suggests Mabayu replaces Madoka as the big entropy ending power source

Film 12

Mabayu suggests they get Mami to help them but Homura is against it

Homura instead recruits Kyoko, swaying her with the promise of plenty of grief seeds

Homura and Mabayu grow a little closer with Homura allowing her to call her by her first name. This makes Mabayu upset I think because she’s worried about getting too close with Homura

Kyoko tells Mami the truth about witches. Mabayu decides to cut Mami’s memories but sees herself in them, leading toooo

Film Mami Tomoe

Wow Mami is finally important thank fucking god! This is set before everything btw

Mabayu meets Mami with Kyubey and decides on a wish quickly. To remove her mother’s future sight so she no longer knows about her predicted death.

Mami and Mabayu work together by Mabayu holding back but using her future sight and Mami fighting for her, sharing the grief seed.

After an incident with a rookie magical girl, Mabayu learns she can cut memories. The girl seems to go missing and the two are worried, Mami thinking it's her fault

This bit is weird, it seems to play out like film 1 but from Mami's point of view. Mabayu suddenly seems to not know her. (Kyubey is affected too)

Homura is coolTM so its not film 1 I guess. Homura tells Mami not to talk with Mabayu.

Mami thinks Mabayu erased her memories of their time together.

Kyoko tells Mami the truth about witches.

Mabayu meets up with Mami and sees her memories which brings her old ones back. She realises Mami is guilty about leading other girls to their deaths by making them contract. Mabayu thinks she's a coward for cutting her own memories but leaving Mami with the burden.

It is revealed Homura was trying to keep Mami and Mabayu apart so that Mabayu wouldn't regain her memories of Mami and the time they spent together. (I dont really know why...)

Mabayu uses future sight for Homura, saying they'll win and fix everything, but this is a lie. She actually saw herself becoming a witch.

As Mabayu is close to falling into despair, Madoka wishes to save her.

Then we go to film 0, I dont know why this is getting so hard to follow...

It seems like this is the first timeline, the start of episode 10.

Madoka makes a contract to save Amy.

Mabayu is friends with Mami here.

Meanwhile Mabayu meets Ultimate Madoka??? It seems she is showing Mabayu these events.

Mabayu helps Madoka with the minotaur witch.

Mabayu sees Walpurgisnacht while future-visioning for the minotaur witch and tells Mami and Madoka.

Episode 10 plays out

The girls defeat Charlotte with Mami surviving.

Walpurgisnacht comes and Mabayu uses her future vision but sees they will fail and both Mabayu and Mami will become witches.

Mabayu lies, saying they'll defeat the witch.

At Walpurgisnacht, Mabayu confesses she lied before and she suddenly sees numerous films of the anime.

Mabayu says something dumb and cuts her own memories "Her future vision shows her a film with a future in which her vision of the future is already woven in. So if she erases her memories of despair, then the future will turn into hope!" like what the fuck does that mean? But Mami knew she was lying anyway cause she's a terrible liar so Mabayu you fucking solved nothing

Mami and Mabayu both die by Walpurgisnacht and Homura contracts.

Mabayu awakes in a new timeline and goes to cut Kyubey and Mami's memories of her.

And now we're FINALLY back to the main story

Mabayu cuts the film of her fate(?) I guess making it so she forgets about witches.

Madoka, Homura, Kyoko and Mabayu go to find Mami in the school where she's laid out a trap. She wants to 'free Mabayu of Homura's brainwashing' and wants to run away with her.

Mami doesn't want her memories to be cut because she doesn't want to stop being Mabayu's friend but in the end she accepts it, Mabayu cutting her memories.

They fight Walpurgis but fail, reset!

Film 13

Mami no longer comes up to Mabayu in the morning, she no longer remembers her as a friend.

Mabayu decides to cut Homura's memories of her and then from the entire film(?) I guess from everyone else.

At the cafe, Mami visits to buy cake and gets along with Mabayu.

The anime then plays out like usual.

-

And well that's it :T what a lame ending huh. Can you tell I was super fed up at the end? But... the story is here... sorry if things don't make sense in places, they don't make sense just as much in the story...

[ultravioart]

On a positive note, the comic for Hazard actually was interesting enough to make me look past his 'safe' for a punk character design. I'm hyped!

I did not expect overwatch to directly call out systemic ableism and classism in the story.

Kids in poverty being funneled into a military pipeline only to be spat out and cast aside as disabled vets in poverty is a very real issue in the world.

If Hazard was rich, he could have afforded prosthesis that actually fit him, ones that didn't cause him pain. Instead, only bc he could not afford better ones, the system gave him the bare minimum for survival, and instead of actually dealing with the root cause and issue they gave him pain meds. In his eyes, this was done so that the system could pay him to shut up, or face consequences. No different than what his parents went through. They wouldn't even give him the respect to tell him WHY the deadly crash that maimed him happened, nor do anything to prevent OTHERS from being hurt in the same way. The system is working as intended. The system didn't care about him, nor others. The system uses it's citizen's bodies for profit.

This panel hits so hard because visual story telling wise it says so much.

In this panel, the stray animal that saved his life is the only one who cares, as the fellow human beings he fought to keep safe as a veteran walk past him at full pace.

How in this panel, his disability is 'blocking the path' of the able bodied, his very existence a 'hindrance' to the able bodied, when the hospital path really ought to be the one taken into account for. Pushed out the door into a system that was never designed for him. Yet, anyone could be in his shoes. Anyone could become disabled, poor, or neglected. Anyone could become just another 'stray mutt' in the system.

How in this panel he is posed in a way where he has the choice to turn and 'go with the flow' of the system and follow the crowd and not look back.... or go 'against the flow' in the opposite direction of the crowd looking for other 'strays' like him left behind by this system.

Honestly props to the comic creators for even discussing systemic oppression to dorectly.

I also am incredibly interested in seeing if Sombra got her spine mods from the Phreaks or not, because it looks like similar tech in her short.

I just hope that the Phreaks are more RobinHood and 'guerilla warfare against the system to spark change', rather than purely anarchists blowing everything up bc lol. The Phreaks being anarchists would be a waste of story, just another gang that became radicalized and corrupt and causes harm and must be defeated by Overwatch. (I am only worried about this because Ramattra became radicalized and demonized for trying to prevent the extinction of omnics. Ramattra is fully in his right to physically resist omnic extinction bc omnics ARE finite and being killed. We STILL don't know what those null sector helmets are for... but for some reason Ramattra is written as emotionally hasty(???) to the point of horrible accidents happening, which makes no sense since he is a R-7000 built for war TACTICS, not an emotional human that can misremember. The way Ramattra's story is handled doesn't make sense imo, they write him as if he's a biological being.)

I hope Hazard aims for accountability and dismantling of oppressive systems, rather than having no rules at all thru anarchy (he as a child saw what no rules in small doses gave him: bad homelife, bad school life, no accountability, no fostering of the mind and well being. That's why I think making the Phreaks anarchists would be stupid to do. There are systems that CAN foster mental and physical wellbeing, cooperation is one of those systems and Hazard is pro cooperation.) He did have an "eye for an eye" against the forces that took out the Phreaks in Morocco, but to be fair Oasis is using minority report 'predictive crime ai' bs so I can't blame Hazard for wanting to hit Oasis where it hurts by stealing thier most secret tech. (Perhaps Sombra helped the Phreaks/gave them that clue since Sombra is against the eye conspiracy, and that eye conspiracy is connected to Oasis)

I also hope Hazard's character is used to discuss the discrimination disabled people face in the Overwatch world, because they really dropped the ball with Soujorn on that front. (Her book used ableism... as a metaphor for racism?!?! Awful stuff. Cyborg (life saving surgery for disabled) people canonically face discrimination in overwatch.)

Because of that, I am super interested in hearing Hazard's voice interactions for lore, I hope we get more lore on omnics and Oasis and the Sombra eye conspiracy, and I am curious about Hazard's kit and what he will bring to the table matchup wise. We will probably get more eye conspiracy lore with the release of the Morocco map tho, tbf.

[d-criss-news]

Darren Criss embraces technology and his mixed heritage in his Broadway premiere

Late last month, I spoke with Darren Criss for his upcoming Broadway premiere, Maybe Happy Ending, in which he plays a robot (a Helperbot to be specific) named Oliver who’s been deemed obsolete by technological standards. Another Helperbot, Claire, asks to borrow his charger, and thus begins a unique friendship between the two.

Maybe Happy Ending was written and produced in both Korean and English and has had performances all over the world. This production features Asian American creatives both on stage and behind the scenes. Criss himself identifies as half-Filipino on his mother’s side, and has said his feelings on his identity have evolved over the years. In 2018, he was quoted in Vulture saying that he did not identify as Asian American. In 2020, he would later shift his perspective after playing a half-Filipino character in Ryan Murphy’s Hollywood, telling People: 

“It’s a tricky cocktail in America ... Anyone who is biracial can attest to this: No matter how much or how little they look like their respective mix, it’s a constant work in progress … I’ve always been proud of my heritage, of being Filipino. Just because people don’t see it, doesn’t make it any less real to me.”

I got the chance to speak with Criss not just about identity, but about his career at large, how he relates to the character of Oliver, and what audiences will take from Maybe Happy Ending.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Bri Ng Schwartz: As a biracial person with Asian identity, how does it feel to be working on a show that’s been produced and written in both Korean and American? Darren Criss: This show isn’t categorically an Asian show. It is very much a universal human’s show, but it happens to celebrate and represent a large degree of Asian-ness. Anytime you can show up for your cultural identity, that’s always a very exciting thing. It’s very exciting that the vast majority of people working on the show, on stage and off, are of Asian American mix and descent. The Asian experience is not a singular experience. It’s a very large breadth of backgrounds, so it’s been fun for all of us to bring our own experiences and stories to the table. 

BNS: I saw you about 10 years ago at the Belasco when you were starring as Hedwig in Hedwig and the Angry Inch. DC: Oh boy. This will be a little different. 

BNS: Yeah, definitely different. As you return to the Belasco for Maybe Happy Ending, how do you think you’ve evolved as a performer in the last 10 years? DC: I hopefully have evolved as a person. If I’m the same person that was 10 years ago, then we have a serious problem. I’m just still trying to learn, still trying to connect as many dots as I can. Hopefully I never know the answer to that.

BNS: We are forever learning as humans. DC: Exactly. 

BNS: I spoke to your former on-screen father, Jon Jon Briones, a couple of months ago. DC: He’s the best, and he was part of this production! This show has been around in many iterations for a long time, and he actually was part of a reading several years ago. We find ourselves connected yet again, me and Jon Jon. He’s awesome. He’s the best.

BNS: Do you take any advice or inspiration from people like Jon Jon or other seasoned Broadway vets in your work? DC: There are these goalposts that artists may think are the be-all and end-all of what makes a successful career. Jon Jon’s consistency and longevity are the goalposts. He’s one of these guys, if I mention his name, half of the room knows him or has worked with him. There are a lot of guys like Jon Jon who just are constantly a part of things. And that’s the goal. Success in devoting yourself long form to the craft, which he has done in spades.

BNS: In Maybe Happy Ending you play Oliver, a Helperbot 3. Do you think there are any parallels between you and how Oliver perceives the world? DC: I am endlessly curious and endlessly trying to download and learn as much as I can from the world around me, whether consciously or unconsciously. I happen to be a human being, and Oliver is not. 

I’m still getting under the skin of this guy, of this robot. I’m finding a lot of parallels as far as the desire to please. I always say I’m in the service industry. I service ideas and emotions and people. That is my vocation. My programming.

BNS: Do you think that audiences are going to walk away from this show feeling differently about their technology? DC: Technology becomes more human in the way we treat it. When people put away their phones, they get sad. They’re like an appendage. We’ve already started to ascribe emotional connectivity to our non-human components. People will walk away with perhaps a more emotional experience with the human components they have in their life.

The battery life that our devices have are a microcosm metaphor for our own battery life, our own shelf life, and our own energy. The finite amount of time that we have, and really coming to peace with the idea that we are a transient technology ourselves, considering that, and hopefully, making sure that your battery life is spent on the right things, I think is the thing I hope people walk away with this show.

On top of hopefully singing the songs, because they’re beautiful. 

BNS: They really are. Thank you so much for taking the time today. On behalf of mixed theater kids everywhere, thank you. I don’t think I would be who I am without having you to look up to. DC: Thank you for letting me be a part of it.