#The Blight is now the new flu

[extravagantliar]

wild that the ama said that we can now do whatever we want

[piedpiperslists]

Hi! Do you have any recs on acts of service/thoughtful jungkook? If not, that's okay, its super specific 😅

Hi. So, it turns out I can't for the life of me tell if something is an act of service or not 😭 some of this might just be Jungkook being thoughtful or whipped, so I'm sorry if it's not what you're asking for.

This is over 20 fics so I'll put it under the cut.

* s - contains smut

This first list is all established relationship:

4:37 PM by honeytae - drabble (s) / established relationship Summary: A bad day never stays that way thanks to a man named Jeon Jungkook.

A Nugget of Comfort by madbutgloriouspond - drabble / established relationship Summary: Jungkook comes home to find you crying in the bedroom.

Breathe for You by illneverrecover - drabble (s) / established relationship, domestic au Summary: You’re always cold, but Jungkook comes up with the sweetest and most creative ways to warm you up.

Call Me by army-author - drabble / established relationship Summary: “You can call me whenever you want… Even if you don’t have a reason to.”

Colder than Normal by bubmyg - drabble / established relationship, college au Summary: Jeongguk doesn’t know how to handle arguments let alone proper apologies or it’s supposed to be cold and you’ve left your favorite hoodie at his apartment.

Sneezes And Cuddles by ditttiii - drabble / established relationship Summary: You hate being sick. You hate spring more, but somehow being cuddled by your boyfriend, makes it all worth it.

Sweetener by jeonbunnie - drabble (s) / established relationship, PWP Summary: Jeongguk knows just what to do to make you feel better.

Swings by thecozywhaleshark - drabble / established relationship Summary: A little playground date with your favorite golden maknae.

The Angry Snowman by artaefact - drabble / established relationship, college au Summary: When he lends you his hoodie.

Tongue at Work by 7waystreet - drabble (s) / established relationship Summary: Your boyfriend Jungkook surprises you at work with a little more than a cup of coffee on his mind.

Unwind by yoonia - drabble (s) / established relationship, college au Summary: When he helps you unwind from your study night.

“Why the hell are you bleeding?” by taeken-my-heart - drabble / established relationship

A Blight on the Heart by thatlongspringnight - one shot (s) / wc~13.3k / established marriage, historical au Summary: You married him because you wanted a new life, and even with the struggle, the fights, you’d marry him again any day. Or - Jungkook loves you from the moment he reads your first letter, and the rest is history.

Space by jeonbunnie - one shot / wc~4.8.k / established relationship Summary: All boyfriend Jeongguk wants is to be by your side, but honestly? You just need some space.

Taming of the Flu by kpopfanfictrash - one shot / wc~2.4k / new relationship Summary: When you are sick, the last thing you want to do is call your boyfriend for help. But somehow, he finds out anyways.

[...] Wear You Out by lemonyko0 - one shot (s) / wc~2.2k / established relationship Summary: No amount of warm baths and hot tea can lure you into sleep, but Jungkook knows just the thing.

And these are some that are not established relationship aus but I thought might also fit your request:

Heartbeat by blackswanswriting-blog - drabble / neighbors au Summary: Insomnia strikes once again. One night you end up calling your friend, Jungkook, for help. You used to think the best time of day was right around when the sunsets since you could enjoy all of the gorgeous hues that would paint the sky. However, over the past couple of months, that feeling has changed as Jungkook slowly becomes the only thing that can help you sleep when you experience a sleepless night. Now your favorite is between the hours of 2:00 am and 4:00 am. What started out as bouts of insomnia quickly became the most beautiful times.

Damn the Delivery Boy by deerguk - one shot / wc~9.6k / FWB, expecting parents au Summary: Jeon Jeongguk is a computer science major working as a pizza delivery boy, and you are an uninspired published author who has just started an art degree. When you realise that the delivery boy is your old high school crush, he keeps coming back, but with more to offer than just puff pastry and vegetarian supreme. Though little did he know that he would end up giving you something much more that flips both of your worlds completely upside down in the form of two blue lines and nine months.

High Demand by bunnyhugs77 - one shot (s) / wc~2.6k / dealer!Jungkook, college au Summary: A modern day Romeo and Juliet.

Sweeter than Strawberries by cinnaminsvga - onoe shot / wc~4.5k / strangers to lovers, bakery au Summary: At Euphoria bakery, seasonal changes also bring seasonal menu items. When you find out that your favorite strawberry shortcake milkshake was phased out after the end of summer, it takes only one puppy eyed look from you for Jeon Jungkook to make it for you anyway—just don’t tell his boss about it, alright?

A Still Day or a Hurricane by ahundredtimesover - series (s) / pastry chef!Jungkook, lawyer!reader, single mom!reader, strangers to lovers Summary: Driven by your perfectionist attitude and need to have everything in order, you planned that by age 30, you’d have made junior partner, bought your own apartment, and have children. You achieved them, of course, and while the last bit required you to take matters into your own hands - no thanks to your ex-boyfriend who dumped you but to your best friend who directed you to a fertility clinic - you’re now a 31-year old who pretty much has her life under control. You’re ready to raise your child on your own, that is, until the 20-something pastry chef flirts his way into your heart, messing up the perfect little life you worked so hard to have for yourself.

Two Point Five by bratkook - series (s) / handyman!Jungkook, FWB Summary: Who would have thought booking a handyman from an app would lead to this. Sure, you wish he’d mount you instead of just your television, but you could totally be friends. Right?

[grimacres]

Eco-War One - Ch.1

Another of my serialized, field-log-style stories. This one went on for quite a while, and is slowly but surely turning into the outline for a proper novel. Alien mushrooms that take over the planet and cause an ecological crisis - what is there not to love? Welcome to the world of Eco-War One!

Diary Log: Max Denton Field Engineer 2nd Class, Eco-Corps XXXI Habitat 17 “Blue Valley” Somewhere south of Warsaw, Poland September 2nd, 2035

We got to the subterranean housing units today, finally. Three months waiting out at the Warsaw camp, and then the transports finally picked us up two days ago. Cramped beyond belief, on those fat trains with the hermetic sealing, but after Warsaw we’re all used to living ass-to-elbow by now.

We’re on the seventh floor, Blue Lane, number 300-something. Still busy unpacking and figuring out the housing unit – everything is either brand new, or still covered in construction dust. The shelter has something like fifteen levels in total, with around a thousand housing units per level, and four people (minimum) per unit. Do the math: sixty thousand people in one place, and there are hundreds of these new silos being dug and furnished every month. Plenty of UN and Eco-Corps guys here too, in their blue berets and vests, and we run through weapon scanners whenever we want to leave the level or visit any of the communal spaces. Makes sense, I guess, but I can’t imagine how long it will take before it becomes chaos down here. The “new paint” smell will wear off around the same time as the patience and goodwill of everyone crammed in here.

Do we have an option? The camps at Warsaw were meant to be a step up from the ruins to the south and west, and even those camps were rough. Food lines for hours every day, and decontamination teams everywhere to steam and acid-scrub everything two or even three times a day. Illness everywhere, from regular vitamin deficiencies – and those horrible flu coughs – to blue-lung and scalp-rot and that weird thing where your nails fall out and your fingertips go numb. Our one tent-neighbor had that, and cut his one finger off by accident while making dinner one night. Didn’t feel a thing until he noticed the blood everywhere.

Will the shelter here end up being any better? Million-dollar question. Government says yes, and the Eco-Corps signed off on the idea. On paper, quite simple: make a sterile environment, practice strict access control with decontamination, and then – in theory – you can maintain the clean environment indefinitely. We live below ground, we work below ground, we spend all our time below ground, and only the brave or stupid folks find a reason to go back to the surface again. Well: the brave/stupid and the Eco-Corps guys, although they are a different case. Good luck getting through the UN lines too, for that matter: they control all access here, to keep Shining Path and the pluon out, and are basically going to be the white blood cells that protect us.

Grim though, actually: what does that make us, lurking below the ground?

A seed, hiding out the winter and blight, to sprout again in springtime?

Or a cancer, in a dying body, slowly rotting away in the dark?

Time will tell.

September 5th, 2035

They switched on the big UV lamps in the communal spaces today, and people literally cried. People who have not seen clear skies or plain sunlight in months – or even years, in some cases – crying as those big lamps came on. Felt amazing, and I’m sure it was 90% psychological. Mary agreed when we discussed it over dinner: that feeling of being underground, of living in a can, becomes a lot more bearable if you can at least go out to a space that looks and feels a bit like what we grew up with. Even if it is just forty-five minutes per day in the Prime Zone (that’s what they call the big park in the middle, where you get direct light); the rest of the time, we can use the walkways around the light-spaces to at least catch some reflected light. Access to the Prime Zone is purely by your ID chip, although some people are already gambling and selling off their PZ times to fund other habits. Bound to happen eventually. We have vitamin D supplements in most of our foodstuffs now, so skipping out on PZ time won’t kill you, but still – people will abuse this, I can see it happening (is that my old analyst training speaking, or my general distrust by now?)

Makes me wonder how they are going to regulate the temperature here, now, with those big lamps going for fifteen or sixteen hours a day, but I’m guessing the smart people who built this place already thought of that. Probably some type of draft circulation system in the upper reaches of the habitat, getting pumped out to the agri-caverns, and then cold air coming from downstairs somewhere to replace it. Round and round like a good little hydraulic system, except this one keeps upwards of sixty thousand people warm/cool.

Speaking of agri-caverns: Mary and her team opened up the next set of tunnels yesterday, and she came home with bloody fingers and missing fingernails after installing UV streamers and hydroponic lines for her entire double shift. They are behind schedule on getting the food sections up and running. Nothing life-threatening, given our stockpiles of foam-bread and that algae derivatives from Sweden, but it will slow things down for sure here. They are meant to have protein reactors up there by the end of the month, and no-one is sure about that timeline currently. Plenty to worry about regardless.

September 8th, 2035

Mary did another double shift yesterday, and passed out on our couch in the living space. I haven’t mentioned our housemates yet – Red and Jenna Holton, from “somewhere to the west” originally – and that is pretty much just because we rarely see them at this point. Red is on the boring crew on level thirteen, breaking ground on more side tunnels (the type of excavations which Mary’s team then uses) and putting in more time than Mary, and Jenna is in logistics at the warehouse district. She only works single shifts, but seems to spend her down-time at some other place. I think she’s not a fan of my Eco-Corps uniform, and is actively avoiding the housing unit while I am here. You’d think someone in Planning & Allocations would have checked for that before lumping us together.

Which brings me to the real news for tonight: Rec Unit 173 is heading out tomorrow, and I’m in charge of Bravo team. Standard water reclamation run, all by the book. Nothing fancy, nothing new, just the usual routine of finding and moving the old hardware. We have a Peacekeeper squad in support, just in case, and we have half a sector grid to work through. It will be the first reclamation run for our habitat, so the expectations are low/high: low for success, high for glitches and speed bumps. If we can just get all the civie volunteers to move in the same direction and not touch the wrong things, it will already be a Win in my books. Bonus points if no-one dies.

I wonder how the habitat is going to handle deaths - I just realized I have never given it any thought. Mulch reactors, to recycle and compost? Or would that be too much of a contamination risk, especially if there was illness involved? Cremation is probably the safest. Graves are out of the question, we won’t have any type of space for that in the bedrock layers - and if we buried people higher up in the softer soil layers, the risk of contamination comes back into play. I should ask Mary when she wakes. I probably won’t like the answer.

Diary Log: Max Denton Rec Unit 173, Eastern Defense Sector 7 Somewhere south-east of Warsaw, Poland September 9th, 2035 Mission: Day 1

Reclamation run Zero One, night one. RR01_01 according to the file header.

What a fucking day.

I’m writing this on my wrist compad, from inside an old apartment building we managed to find a clear space in just before sunset. The trucks are parked in the courtyard below, with the Peacekeepers on perimeter duty. Can’t say I envy them the night ahead. This sector is hell.

We left the habitat around 07:30, with the Peacekeepers leading in their Mantis rover and our two fat-wheeled Solomon trucks bumbling along behind them. Ten bodies per vehicle, myself in charge of the second Solomon (one team per vehicle). Driver is a kid named Eckelson, from somewhere up north. Drives well, but has not yet figured out how braking distances work. We set off to the sector grid we had been allocated, and it took us almost five hours of driving to get there. In a straight line, on a normal highway, it would have been perhaps ninety minutes? Absolute madness. We’re in a part of what used to be Poland, and now falls under that nebulous, shifting “Eastern Defense Sector 7” label. The handful of still-standing traffic signs we passed were in Polish, I think, but Eckelson said some of the later ones were Ukrainian. Who knows what this place was called before - no-one lives here any longer. The Shining Path warlords in Belarus have apparently been probing this area, and we passed some fresh wrecks along the side of the one road. Old Soviet personnel carriers, and those strange organic-looking poly-plastic rovers they have been growing in the Hong Kong labs. Then a handful of Eco-Corps wrecks too, mostly smaller rovers like the Mantis. Looks like two scout elements that had smashed into each other before retreating. Dense pluon forests surrounded the contact point, with golf-heads and purple parasols dominating, and I’m guessing the electro-magnetic interference from the golf-heads blinded the two scout columns until they were right on top of each other. Imagine dying because an alien fungus blinded your battle-cams…

Lunchtime arrived just as we reached our grid point. It had been an industrial park on the edge of a river before - in the Great Before, like the new generation calls it - and now… just ruins, and chaos, and rampant fungal growth everywhere. Gorkassy Park, something. The pluon lay on everything like a fluffy blanket, softening the corners and blurring the lines and making everything look half-melted and organic. You have to really squint and look hard - and use your imagination - to see the industrial lines beneath it all, to spot the sheds and warehouses and manufacturing floors that had once crowded the space here. Now: just pluon. Light purples, yellows, and shades of corpse-white, in a thick wave, drowning everything. We dismounted and started quartering the area, following behind the Peacekeepers as they checked for anything  hostile. Well… hostile and able to be shot. A large part of what we face here, cares little for men with guns and bombs trying to deter it. Everyone was in an Hostile Environment suit - us in bulky suits from the science division, the Peacekeepers in their sleek neo-carapace kit - and after the Peacekeepers finished their perimeters we began to spread out and follow our own search pattern.

We lost two Alphas and one Bravo before the first hour was out. The two Alpha guys walked into a room filled with bulloa bulbs, and got blown sideways through a third-storey window when something in the room triggered the bulbs. The third guy, behind them, says they stopped to check something on the floor, and the Peacekeepers found what could be an old SP tripwire in the leftovers, but it could have been anything. There’s old industrial wire everywhere, even more now after the blast. I’m furious - and resigned, now, more than ever - about the fact that no-one had briefed the idiots about bulloa bulbs. They are basically the claymore landmines of the pluon world, and if Hollywood has taught us anything after years of Vietnam movies, it is that you do not mess with claymores. Especially when the damn things grew their own spiderweb triggers through every space they occupied. With their spores now released, the next time we come back to that same space, in a month or two, the entire room would be solid with the same bulloa. Then when that mass blows, it takes the walls with it, and the spores spread even further, and… before you know it, in the space of a year or two, the building itself will be only rubble.

The Bravo kid stepped on a plank with a rusty nail that went through the ankle of his boot. He panics, rips his boot and mask off when he hyperventilates - and gets a lungful of cryateen and blue honey spores before his buddy gets his mask back on. We managed to get him back to the Solomon before he went into cardiac arrest, but after that nothing helped. He’s in a body bag in one of the storage compartments now, along with what is left of the two Alphas after their accident. Just a kid who volunteered to help, with some spectacularly bad luck.

We finished our initial sweeps after that, gave everyone the safety brief again, and tried to find a place to secure for the night. There were old laborer apartments on the western perimeter of the complex, and someone had fired out the fourth and fifth floor in the one block some time ago. I’m surprised the entire place had not burned down, actually, but something must have stopped it from spreading. We’re on those fired floors now, using the clean spaces - if you consider the soot and ashes a safer alternative to a pluon landscape - for our night camp. Everyone in their environ-cocoons for the night, and two people on guard at the stairway at all times. My shift is next. I don’t think I’m sleeping tonight.

September 10th, 2035 Mission: Day 2

I haven’t been awake this long, without sleep, for a long time. Today was a blur: we finished mapping the industrial complex, identified the components worth salvaging, and started dismantling the smaller components. Two eight-hour shifts, back to back. This entire area is classed as Environmentally Compromised, Unfit for Human Occupation - ECUHO, or just Echo when you get tired of pronouncing all the letters - so we can take what we need. Well: we being the Eco-Corps, and only as long as we have the proper paperwork. With the UN legislation from 2029/’30 coming in to aid the reclamation projects, Echo labels now let us strip and salvage anything we find above-ground, as long as there are no living claimants in the same area. A bit like the old maritime laws on finding a derelict ship in international waters, I guess, except we’re not trying to lay salvage and insurance claims against abandoned fishing trawlers in the Atlantic. Now we call it Echo because we’re left looking at echoes of our past lives (not my observation, someone on the Mime-net channel shared that a couple of years ago). Morbid, but not entirely untrue either. I feel like a carrion eater every time I take apart a machine or compo-stack that used to do something else before the world went to hell here. Seeing all those things that used to mean so much to other people, in another time, as they went through their daily tasks and dreams - and now we take it apart and use it to keep our habitats running. One of the Bravos said it felt like stealing clothing from a corpse, and the squad was pretty damn quiet after that.

No fatalities today, and only one casualty: an Alpha kid broke his arm when a container stack shifted and pinned him to a wall. No suit breach, thank the Pope. Kid’s doped to the gills on a stretcher in the Alpha Solomon now, with a tough tomorrow ahead of him.

We also had an afternoon light show, just after the clouds pulled in. Something detonated high up in the atmosphere to the north, and we had greens and purples dancing inside the clouds for a couple of minutes before it faded again. Almost like the Northern Lights, but definitely not something as harmless as solar radiation striking the atmosphere. The Peacekeepers shared a report from their battle-net, about a strike at Halverdt Station - but Halverdt is way over to the north-west, by my reckoning, so whatever we saw was something else. Shining Path testing new cloud-seeders? Fuck knows. Black rain rolled in after that, and we kept our work indoors for the handful of minutes that it pissed down with soot and black mold and kimpani blisters outside. The blisters look like little plastic eggs stuck inside a wet envelope - an orb with flat wings curling out in four directions - and they pop the moment you touch them. They can travel for hundreds of kilometers when airborne, according to the studies, so there is no way of knowing where they actually came from. Could be the next valley, could be Lithuania for all we know. Contains a mix of spores and a mild acid, and is an absolute bitch to clean once it gets into anything mechanical. I sent two of the Bravos to hose down our Solomon immediately after the downpour stopped.

I still don’t understand Shining Path. I mean, I’ve read their manifestos and notes and e-pamphlets that they flood into the public net, and I’ve read the psych reports and analysis shows from the com-net and the late-night forum pools on CNN and NBC and MegaNexus, and I just… I don’t get them. Who in their right mind can look at this unholy mess that we are in right now, and then think to himself “Hmm this is great, I want more of this”? We - and I use the Royal We here, as in ‘we the human race’ - are facing a tangible and substantial risk of complete and utter extinction, and SP wants us to embrace that. They want us to engage with the pluon, treat it as some type of savior or benign spiritual influence, and let it “change us for a better future” as they love to say. Commune with the spirits, feel the union of Gaia and Olmaya or whatever they call this supposed consciousness-gestalt that is in the pluon.

Where is the better future? We are corpse thieves right now, stripping the dead to keep the living going for another day - and SP wants us to stop fighting? Where is this Promised Land that they keep going on and on about? China? China is a hellscape, by all accounts: the rad zones on the Russian border from the Sunshine War, massed rabies in the south, and the industrial heartland overrun by fossil-eating pluon strands like white-vein and cracker mold. Beijing bombs everything that resists CCP authority, and still - SP moves where they will, takes over towns where they will, runs openly SP-aligned settlements along the Mongolian and Vietnamese borders, and nothing can stop them. They have even started building floating settlements on the river dams now, according to the satellite views.

I don’t understand them. Pluon - this plague of xeno-fungus - is not here to save us. It feels like Judgement Day, and Shining Path has become the fifth horseman of the Apocalypse.

I need sleep. We have two more days on-site before we can head back. The wind is up tonight, and my environ-cocoon moves and shudders around me like the intestines of some giant beast that has swallowed me whole. At least the apartment floors here are still dry after the black rain.

[thelostrainbowthenovel]

The third and final part of inking + coloring the old sketches for my TLR next-gen concepts, following after these previous two: Part 1 and Part 2! :3 These guys being from here. Like stated on the previous bios and sketches, I won't be touching these guys again for a long while as I have to focus more on the current story, but I might explore them here-and-there if I get any big ideas and they all will have more prominence if I choose to write a sequel book/novellas about them. But, we shall see when/if those times come!

For now, I hope you enjoy! :D Below are all their bios again(for the third time lol), from left-right and top-bottom!

================================================

* Briar Belmonte Daughter and oldest child of Rosia and Carmelo. Part of Erdennia's noble class. Oldest of all the next generation kiddos, she is born several months after the events of the main story have past. While Gaia was away to help find a cure for the Blight Flu and to help find Talia with the others, Rosia and Carmelo worked on trying to start their family again, feeling much more comfortable to do so again after Rosia suffered a miscarriage in the early years of their marriage. She soon became pregnant again, and this time the baby survived with no complications, having a healthy and safe birth. Everything was warm and peaceful during the first days for the new family, the new parents being beyond grateful to finally have their child and their daughter was quite the happy baby too. Briar herself grows to be quite the sweetheart, more down-to-earth than her Mama but still with a fun and playful side to her. She is quite close with her ‘Auntie’ Gaia, who absolutely adores and spoils her and the rest of her siblings. As the eldest child, one would expect for her to be exhausted from having to deal with all her rambunctious younger siblings, and while that is true on occasions she actually loves them all and does her best to be a good role model for them to look up to. * Basil Belmonte Son and second child of Rosia and Carmelo, younger brother to Briar by 2 years. Part of Erdennia's noble class. As the second-eldest child he often takes to ‘leader’-like roles amongst his siblings like his older sister, however more on a ‘lax’ level than her as he prefers for her to take charge with their plans most of the times. He is mostly a peaceful and chill boy, going with the flow of whatever his peers are up to. He takes after his father more in being rather practical and sensible compared to some of the chaos amongst the other noble children, though does have a hidden ‘wild’ side to him that is only unleashed during certain moments. * Thyme Belmonte Son and third child of Rosia and Carmelo, younger brother to Briar by 3 years. Part of Erdennia's noble class. Unlike the rest of his fun-loving and happy family, Thyme is more of the serious and brooding type. No one is really sure where this came from, but some suspect that it may be from hanging around the older children too much when he was really young, and having their ‘cynical’ attitudes rub off on him. While his family is more obsessed with flowers, especially with his father’s job as the royal gardener, Thyme prefers more of the ‘scary’ plants, like cacti or venus flytraps.

* Hazel Belmonte Daughter and fourth child of Rosia and Carmelo, younger sister to Briar by 5 years. Part of Erdennia's noble class. Hazel is the most outspoken of her siblings, having no filter sometimes when it comes to the things she says and she is rather impulsive in how she acts and talks before thinking sometimes. To her, she would rather say what she is honestly feeling even if her replies come off rash, as she sees no appeal in walking on eggshells with others. Despite her approach, she truly means well deep down and will apologize and feel remorse if she senses she has deeply upset someone. * Ivy Belmonte Daughter and fifth child of Rosia and Carmelo, younger sister to Briar by 6 years. Part of Erdennia's noble class. Being the same age as the Crowned Prince Aster, the two have practically gone through life side-by-side so far and are best friends just like their mamas are, both having the same compassionate natures to fight and stand up for what they believe in. Ivy is perhaps the most like her Mama, being a little free-spirit in what she wants to do, rather than feeling restrained and conforming to what others want her to be. This has gotten her into some trouble with the royal court and older nobles, but those who really know her admire her for her unapologetic approach to herself and life. * Sage Belmonte Son and youngest child of Rosia and Carmelo, younger brother to Briar by 7 years. Part of Erdennia's noble class. Unlike some of his more confident siblings, Sage is much more quiet and timid, preferring to keep only to himself or family when out in public or huge social gatherings. Part of this comes from having so many older siblings, as he often finds it hard to get a word in himself during family conversations or get much spotlight with his more humble nature. He does wish he could be more outgoing like his siblings, but he also enjoys his more peaceful life that he has now, where he can just chill with his drawing hobbies without having to worry so much about expectations.

[ilguna]

Congratulations on 2k Quinn!!! Could I request for your celebration #60 on your spin the bottle for Johanna please.

winter bug (Johanna Mason)

warnings; swearing

wc; 1.4k

prompt; 60. One of them is sick.

–

By far, the worst time of year to be dating Johanna is during the winter. Every single year without fail, she somehow catches the nastiest bug that’s going around in Seven. You always end up stuck taking care of her, and she’s not the easiest to be around when she’s absolutely miserable.

She must have it in her head that if she can’t be happy, then neither can you. It’s almost like she goes out of her way to make sure that you’re feeling the same way she is. It might be spite, it’s rare that you come down with any flu. Your immune system is crazy, and a part of it might have to do with the way you grew up. 

You don’t fear bacteria, the bacteria fears you.

The good news is that you’ve grown used to Johanna’s sick routine. You practically have it marked and circled on your calendar because it’s like clockwork. She’ll get sick once in the early winter, and a couple months later, she’ll get it in the spring due to mild allergies.

That’s why you normally have a stock of essentials for her in your house. You’ll keep her favorite dry foods in the cabinets, always on hand if she comes down with a stomach bug. You have cold medicine in your bathroom closet. She loves comfortable clothes and soft blankets because her skin feels sore. 

You have it all memorized down to the very last detail. It’s not an obsession, it’s an artform. And Johanna still can’t wrap her head around why you care this much. She doesn’t understand what she’s like during that week, how badly you get the urge to strangle her until her head pops off her shoulders.

Unfortunately, you cleaned out your supply last year, when you were sure that Johanna was going to die in your bedroom. You took her to the hospital twice, and both times they told you she was overreacting. She gave you this I-told-you-so look and then spent the last couple of days resting. By the following weekend, she was back on her feet and terrorizing Blight.

You’ve been too busy to restock it since. And you’ve honestly forgotten about it each time you went back to the store, always aiming to buy something else. It’s not a priority until it is, and that’s why you’re trying to pull together a comfort backset for Johanna before all the stores close and you’re left to her insufferable complaining.

You love her, you really do. And you’re a fantastic girlfriend for doing this for her every year, but if it were up to you, you’d snap your fingers and have her be well again in an instant. There’s nothing worse than sitting at her bedside, listening to her bitch about how bad the cough medicine tastes.

It’s not supposed to taste good, Johanna. If it tasted good then you’d never stop drinking it because you’d think that you’d get better faster. She did that with cough drops before, taking them one after another like they were candies. And now she can’t even look at a bag without violently gagging and screaming at you to get it out of the room before she puked.

You warned her that would happen, and yet she went and did it anyway. You don’t know why you bother with her. 

The shopping bags are getting heavier with every passing minute. You fix them over your shoulder, hoping that it’ll hold off the pain for another fifteen minutes. You went pretty deep into the shop alleyway, and now you’ve got to walk all the way out and get back to Victor’s Village.

You left when the sun had already set, the street lights flickering but on. They were supposed to be fixed a couple of months ago, and then they weren’t. The fund for them suddenly disappeared and you guys could afford to fix the Justice Building for the tenth time this year.

The Mayor of District Seven is a disgusting cheat. There’s been a couple of times where you got into a nasty spat with him. He’s angry that you can see right through his character, and you’re pissed that he still chooses to be an ignorant asshole about how he treats the people that live here.

You don’t want to walk home in partial darkness. The light bulbs have gone so bad that half of them are out. It’s a good thing that crime isn’t really a thing here, or you’d have to wait until daylight to do anything. 

The walk home is quiet, there are only a few people out wandering still, on their way home from the lumber yard. They break off sooner than you do, heading into their own neighborhoods, while you have to walk the furthest. Victor’s Village is the most secluded in order to give a sense of privacy and luxury. 

In reality, it’s a ghost town. Kids don’t come anywhere near it, afraid that you’ll jump out with jagged teeth to eat them. It can be lonely, but the village stays clean. The fountain isn’t littered, beside the few coins that you’ll occasionally toss in to make a wish. There’s no garbage in the bushes or around the trees. It’s quiet too. Victor’s Village is perfectly peaceful, after you survive something so horrific and scarring.

Also, the mayor has to keep replacing the light bulbs here, because the Capitol likes to take pictures of the neighborhood each year with you guys standing out front. It’s like an update to the citizens, a reminder to show them how many from each district has won so far. And for the dead victor’s, they’ll have a minute of silence to commemorate them.

It’s nice that they pretend to care sometimes.

As you walk up the steps of the house, you can see that the lights inside the living room are turned on. Your curtains are drawn shut to keep prying eyes from seeing what goes on inside. It doesn’t stop the sliver of light from creeping out, leaving a streak across the porch.

You open the door slowly, trying not to be loud. You’re hoping that Johanna fell asleep in the hour that you were gone. She’s been delirious, you’re afraid that her fever’s going to skyrocket and you’re going to have a repeat of last year. You hardly got any sleep, and you got the biggest headache for three days after from the amount of caffeine that you consumed.

Johanna is, in fact, not asleep on the couch. She flips her dark hair back, head turning to make sure that she’s hearing the door correctly. Her eyebrows are drawn together, mouth in a frown. There’s a ring of red around her nose because of the amount of tissues she’s been using.

“Hey,” You murmur.

“Don’t ever leave me again.” She tells you, voice nasally.

You let out a laugh, shutting the door, “I was gone for about an hour, you’re fine.”

“It felt like a lifetime to me.” She pulls the throw blanket around her shoulders, getting to her feet so she can follow you into the kitchen, “I’ve been starving, too.”

You roll your eyes, “Okay, I’ll get started right away.”

While you pull out the essentials, Johanna leans against your back, cheek pressed against your shoulder. She lets out an occasional hum when you show her one of her favorite soups, or a dessert that she particularly likes. You know she’s got to be tired by now, she was up early this morning, locked in the bathroom.

“Which one do you want?” You ask, motioning to her canned options.

“Chicken noodle.” She murmurs, “No dessert, I think I’ll puke it up.”

“Good choice.” You say, she backs off of you, reaching for the fuzzy pajama pants and the new blanket.

“These are cute.”

She wanders away, presumably to the bathroom, because you hear the door shut a couple of seconds later. You empty the cans of chicken noodle soup into a pan, turning the flames to the stove on while you try to find a spoon to stir it with. A minute later, Johanna comes out.

You turn in time to see her stupid pose, hands on her hips, “It’s comfy.”

“You like them?” You smile.

“Yeah,” She tosses the new blanket onto the couch, “Thank you, (Y/n).”

“You know that it’s no problem, Johanna.” You laugh, “I love you.”

She doesn’t say it back right away, coming to join you in the kitchen again, “I love you too.” She waits until you look over at her, “Thank you for staying.”

You make a face at her, “You know you’ll have to kill me to get rid of me, right?”

“Likewise.”

--

this is for my 2k celebration!

join the party -> HERE.

[ohtobealady]

I did an experiment and wrote a new story! I wrote it in its entirety before posting anything, but now that it’s done, here’s chapter 1. I’ll post the other four chapters later :)

It’s a little different from how I usually write, so here are some thoughts about the story and a little what it’s about if you’re interested:

It takes place in the week or so post S2E8 (the Spanish Flu). I feel like we miss a lot between that episode (which is set in April) and then the Christmas Special (which is obviously set at Christmas), so there were several really specific things that I wanted to explore a bit. And listening to @emma-hahn ‘s podcast (“Shall We Go Through”) for that episode really made me notice some things I hadn’t before. (I recommend!) and generally, as a Cobert shipper, I’ve tended to keep S2 at an arm’s length, but really, it had some real depth to it. (Apart from that P Gordon plot line … gracious me.)

I tried to work out how Robert and Cora began to move past their distance, why Cora didn’t go to Sybil’s wedding, whether or not Mrs Hughes knew about Jane and Robert (of course she did. She knows everything), and the little resurfacing of the baby boy from S1 that O’Brien feels such guilt for (as she should). I wanted to work out how Cora would really try to process that loss, especially in the context of how I see her character as someone who isn’t very good at engaging with difficult emotions, and knowing some cut lines from S1. (One in particular is that she tells Robert not to be “unkind” when they’re discussing the fact that his father assumed she’d have a boy.)

The story is primarily angst (obviously lol), but we know what comes next, so rest assured that there is a comforting ending.

[sequinsmile-x]

Endless Spring

Emily used to love spring.

-x-

Words: 4.7k

Warnings: Major themes of miscarriage/pregnancy loss.

Read over on Ao3, or below the cut

Emily used to love spring. 

The way the days slowly got longer. The blooming of the flowers. The promise of a new beginning that she always managed to find no matter where she’d been living. The early morning sun on a cool spring day was the one thing that had stitched her childhood together, the only familiarity she had ever been able to find. 

This was the first year she’d ever remembered dreading it. The way she used to fondly realise the sun had risen a little earlier was replaced with a pit in her stomach, an empty feeling she hadn’t quite been able to get past. The smell of spring in the air mocking her almost as much as the small cross on the calendar on their fridge door. A reminder of when she’d let her excitement overtake her usual practicality. 

They’d been trying since just before their wedding day. A mutual agreement between her and Aaron that they’d better get started sooner rather than later, acutely aware that time wasn’t on their side. Before him, she wasn’t even sure children of her own was something she really wanted. Always something she’d pictured she might have had in another life if things had worked out differently for her. But then she had fallen into this life with him, and his son that she loved like her own, and she wanted more of it. More of the family she had found in amongst the ruins of her old life. 

It was only six weeks after their wedding that the pregnancy test came back positive, excitement and relief flooding them both in equal measure as they stood in their ensuite with their arms wrapped tightly around each other. 

Emily immediately started to feel terrible. Morning sickness kicking her ass in a way she hadn’t anticipated. She told JJ she was pregnant, wanting to lament with someone who had been through it themselves, but other than that kept it between her and Aaron. Something just for them. 

It was something she was grateful for only two weeks later as she sat in her OBGYN’s office, Aaron’s hand firmly in hers as her doctor told her she’d had what was called a missed miscarriage. She’d never heard of a blighted ovum before that moment, but they were two words she’d never forget. She was sent home with medication and instructions she was grateful Aaron had paid attention to, her eyes fixed on the wall of the doctor's office to stop herself from breaking down right there. 

She’d taken only a week off work, although Aaron had tried to convince her to take more, the rest of the team convinced she’d been at home battling the flu. JJ was the only person she saw that week apart from Aaron and Jack. She’d come round with wine and a copy of a terrible movie. After gently getting Aaron to leave the house with Jack, something he only agreed to when Emily assured him she’d be fine, JJ sat with her. Talking about it when Emily wanted to, and everything but when she didn’t. 

Things had slowly returned to normal, the ache in Emily’s chest easing. They got through it together. Aaron had looked after her when she needed it, and she looked after him. 

Aaron knew she was struggling again, that the initial feeling of loss was just as strong as it was at the start now that what would have been her due date was looming. He was keeping a close eye on her, partnering her with himself more often than not at work. A slight abuse of power he usually wouldn’t allow himself that she knew they both needed. 

“Em?” 

She locks eyes with him in the mirror of the bathroom, the low lighting of the hotel they were in casting a shadow over them. 

“I’m ready,” she says, looking back at herself in the mirror briefly before she turns around to look at him properly, forcing a smile as her eyes meet his. 

“I’d ask if you’re ok, but I know you aren’t,” he says, taking a step towards her, his hand a familiar and comforting weight on her hip. 

“Aaron-”

“I’m not going to force you to talk about it,” he assures her, not missing now she sighs in relief, her shoulders looking visibly lighter, “but I am here if you want to.”

“I know,” she says, smiling at him, her hand resting on his chest. She idly plays with his tie, “And I love you for it,” she clears her throat, purposely changing the direction of the conversation before they did start to talk about it, precious time they couldn’t waste with the case they were working on, “I’m worried about JJ.” 

He sighs, the hand on her hip squeezing slightly tighter, “Me too, she’s getting too involved.” 

It was a child abduction case. Three young boys were dead and one still missing, the kind of case that meant all they really afforded themselves were a couple of hours of sleep in shifts and a change of clothes. They took shifts so someone was always working the case. 

Aaron had assigned JJ to work with the family, but over the last day or so there were signs she was getting too close to it. She’d showed up at the precinct the morning before wearing the clothes she’d had on the day before, a sign she had spent the whole night at the family's house. 

“I might put you with the family if I need to, if that’s ok?” He asks, not wanting to do anything to make his wife uncomfortable. 

“That’s fine,” she replies straightening his tie before she lets it go, laying it flat on his chest. 

“Are you sure?” 

She tilts her head at him slightly, a loving smile spreading over her face. “I’m sure, plus we both know families react better to a female presence in these situations, I’m your only other option.” 

He wants to push the matter, part of him unsure if he should place her with the family given what week it was, the date neither of them spoke about but knew was only a few days away. But he knows she wouldn’t appreciate that, his belief in her ability to do her job was very important to her. 

“Ok,” he agrees, nodding at her, and her smile widens. 

“Thank you for checking though, I appreciate it,” she leans forward and kisses him, her lips soft against his, “I appreciate you.” He opens his mouth to respond, but his phone chirps from his pocket, sure to be a notification from the team that there was an update. 

He kisses her once more before pulling back, “We should get going.”

___

It isn’t good news. 

The jacket the missing boy was last seen wearing is found near the dumping sight of the other bodies, a smear of blood on it that turns all their stomachs. 

The team are all in the conference room they’d set up base in, the tension in the air palpable. 

“JJ,” Aaron says, looking over at her, “I need you to update the family, they need to hear this from us before they see it on the news. JJ hesitates, they all see it, and Aaron exchanges a brief look with Emily before he looks back at the other woman, “What is it?” 

“I…” JJ says, drifting off as she clears her throat, her body tense as she seemingly attempts to protect herself from something, “I promised his mother we’d find him.” 

“You did what?” Derek asks, his voice incredulous as he voices what they were all thinking, “We never make that promise.” 

“I know,” JJ says, running her hand through her hair, “She kept asking and I just…I don’t know why I did it.” 

“You’re too close to this,” Aaron says, cutting over any further conversation, Dave and Spencer clearly ready to throw their opinions into the mix, “you can stay here and work on victimology,” he turns to Emily, who was already standing, aware of what was about to be asked of her, “Prentiss, I need you to go see the family, try and get ahead of this.” 

She nods, “Of course-”

“With all due respect, Hotch,” JJ says, her eyes hard as they look over at her, “I think I am the best person for this, I’ve built a relationship with the family. They trust me.” 

“You’ve got too close, JJ. Emily is perfectly capable of building a relationship with the family too.” 

“But-”

“JJ,” Emily says, trying to prevent the situation from escalating, highly aware of the local officers on the other side of the glass wall, all of them failing to pretend they weren’t listening to the raised voices, “Hotch is right,” she reasons, “plus you’re exhausted. You won’t be the best option for them right now, they need someone who can be objective.” 

“What that mother needs is someone who understands,” JJ replies, her jaw clenched, her fury clear. 

“JJ,” Derek starts, considering it his turn to try and reason with her, but Emily cuts over him, her own anger starting to rise. 

“What is that supposed to mean?” 

“What I mean is, you’re not a mother, Emily. How could you possibly understand what that woman is going through?” 

The room falls into silence, JJ’s words heavy in the air. The words heavier for her, Emily and Aaron as the meaning sinks in, the cruelty of them not something the others are aware of.

Emily swears her heart stops for a moment, the shock making her entire body freeze briefly as she stares at her friend. She sees the moment JJ realises what she’s said, her anger pouring out of her instantly, her eyes wide with panic. 

“Em-”

“I don’t see how that impacts my ability to be empathetic, JJ,” she looks over at Aaron, and sees how tense he is, his anger barely hidden, and she knows she needs out of this room quickly. She doesn’t want the others to know, and certainly not like this. “I should go,” she says, tightly smiling as Aaron’s eyes meet hers, “like you said we need to get ahead of this.” 

She leaves the room, turning quickly as she hears Derek telling JJ she’d been a little harsh, humourlessly chuckling to herself as she thinks to herself that he had no idea. 

“Emily.”

She turns to see her husband standing just behind her, his hand so close to touching her she can feel the heat of his palm. She can see the fire in his eyes, the sadness mixed with the need to protect her. 

“Not now,” she says, shaking her head slightly, “Not here.” 

He nods, his hand finally coming to rest on her arm, squeezing it quickly before he removes it, “We’ll keep you up to date.”

She nods in response before she turns again, leaving the precinct quickly, needing to be somewhere else. 

When Aaron returns to the room it’s just JJ left, the others all off doing the work he’d assigned to them, and she looks almost meek. Unsure of herself in a way he only remembered from the first time he’d ever met her. 

“Hotch, I-”

“Don’t,” he says, the harshness to his voice shocking even himself. He sees how she recoils slightly, her arms tight across her chest. “The only reason I’m not pulling you off the case entirely is that she wouldn’t want me to, and frankly we need as many people as possible.” He points at the board behind them, “Victimology. Now.” 

He walks away without looking back.

___

“Do you have children, Agent Prentiss?” 

Emily smiles tightly at the victim's mother from her space on the couch, her hands wrapped around a warm cup of tea she’d turned down twice before being handed it anyway. It was a question that she was used to. One that used to have a much simpler answer than it did now. It used to be a no and was what she thought would always be the answer. 

Now she had Jack, and she hoped with every part of her that she and Aaron would get another chance. That the loss they’d experienced wouldn’t be their only opportunity. 

“I have a stepson,” she answers carefully, smiling when the other woman smiles wistfully at her, “he’s from my husband’s first marriage, he lives with us full time.” 

The other woman chuckles humourlessly, looking down at the stuffed bear in her hands, the one her son usually slept with at night. 

“It’s hard, isn’t it?” She asks, and Emily looks at her patiently, letting her carry on at her own pace, “Being a parent.”

Emily nods, forcing herself to clear her throat to push down the emotions crawling up her throat. 

“Yeah,” she replies, “It is.” 

___

They find the boy, alive but scared, and the unsub is arrested. 

The mother is thankful, pulling Emily into a hug in full view of JJ before Derek offers to drive her to the hospital so she can reunite with her son. 

Emily is highly aware of JJ watching her, the apology she doesn’t want to hear yet on the tip of her tongue. 

She’s never been more grateful for how well her husband knows her, that so much between them could go unsaid. He somehow manages to orchestrate it so that on the jet home she’s sat by the window at the table, boxed in by him, with Derek and Spencer on the other side of the table. Blocking any attempt JJ could make to talk to her on the journey. 

It isn’t lost on her when they get back to Quantico that Aaron is harsher on JJ than the others, barely holding back the bite in his voice as he asks for her paperwork as soon as possible. 

Later, when it’s just her and Aaron left in the bullpen, the others long gone, she makes her way up to his office, gently knocking on the door before she walks in. 

“Hi sweetheart,” he says, smiling at her, “I’m almost ready, Jess said we can pick Jack up from hers on the way home.” 

“Actually,” she replies, twisting her rings around her fingers, “I think I’m going to go speak to JJ.” 

The wound was still fresh, the words her friend had thrown at her in anger still enough to make the air catch in her lungs, but she wants to talk about it. Sure if she pushes it downwards any longer it would burn her from the inside out. 

“Em,” Aaron says, his eyebrows knitting together as he stands from his chair and walks over to her, his hand catching hers, linking their fingers together. “Are you sure that's a good idea?” 

“No,” she chuckles, shaking her head, blowing out a steady breath, “But I want to, I need to.” 

He nods at her, leaning forward to kiss her forehead, the tenderness of it making her briefly close her eyes. 

“I’ll see you at home.” 

___

Emily blows out a breath as she rings the doorbell to the familiar house, the place she’d brought Jack to for playdates more times than she could count. 

She hears the thunder of small feet against the hardwood floor on the other side of the door, and smiles as the door swings open, Henry standing in front of her. 

“Aunt Emily!” He exclaims, his arms around her in a hug before she can greet him. She chuckles, smiling down at him as he pulls away. 

“Hey there little man, what are you doing out of bed?” 

“Henry, what have I told you about…” JJ comes into view, her words drifting off as she sees who is standing on her porch, “Emily…hi.” 

“Hi,” she says, swallowing thickly, “I thought we should talk.” 

Will walks up behind JJ, the look on his face enough to tell her that he at least knew some of what had happened. 

“Come on Henry,” he says, walking over and lifting his son up onto his hip, “I think your momma and Aunt Emily need to chat.” 

“Thanks, Will,” JJ replies, kissing Henry’s head as they walk past her, the echo of Will’s footsteps on the stairs loud in the otherwise quiet house. “Come in,” JJ says, and Emily realises she’s still on the porch.

She nods, walking into the house properly and closing the door behind her, her arms tight over her chest as she follows JJ over to the couch. The silence around them is awkward, something Emily didn't think she had ever experienced before, even when JJ had explained to her that they’d had to fake her death in the fallout of Doyle’s return. 

“Em, I don’t even know what to say,” JJ starts, shaking her head at herself. “I am so sorry.” 

Emily bites at the inside of her cheek in an attempt to hold back her emotions and clears her throat when it doesn’t work. She looks over at her friend and watches how JJ avoids her gaze, her focus on her hands in her lap.

“I was due this week,” Emily says, and she sees how JJ snaps up to look at her, something close to devastation in her eyes.

“Em-” 

“Not that I was far enough along to know for sure, but because we were trying I was keeping track. I did the math,” she smiles sadly, looking down at her hand as she twists her wedding rings around her finger,  she chuckles humourlessly, the sound catching in her chest. “I marked it on the calendar in our kitchen.” 

She’d been dreading it as the weeks ticked by, knowing that she’d eventually have to look at it all month. The little cross in the box on the day she estimated that would have hit 40 weeks staring back at her every time she got something out of the fridge. 

Aaron asked her more than once if she wanted him to take it down, not missing the way her eyes would flick to it, but she’d refused. It felt like doing so would almost be saying it had never happened at all, and she wanted to hold onto what little she had from that time, even if it hurt. 

“I’m so sorry, Emily,” JJ implores, and Emily looks up at her, “I didn’t mean it, I was just…angry and took it out on you.” 

“I know you didn’t mean it JJ, but it doesn’t mean it hurts any less. You were the only person apart from Aaron who knew about the…” she drifts off, still unable to say it out loud even after all these months without crying, her husband the only person she’d let see that, “you were the only one apart from him who knew I was pregnant. And you used it against me.” 

“No,” JJ insists, sitting forward on her seat and reaching out for Emily, stopping just before she touches her, not missing how her friend sinks further away, “That isn’t what I meant Emily, I would never-” 

“Then what did you mean?” She asks, her voice raising briefly before she closes her eyes and blows out a slow breath, acutely aware that Will and Henry were elsewhere in the house. 

“I don’t know,” JJ replies honestly, and they both know it isn’t enough, “I never should have said it.” 

“No,” Emily replies, “You shouldn’t have,” she looks at her friend, biting her lip before she carries on, unsure if she should, “I don’t have to have a child to be able to empathise with the fact what that woman was going through was awful. That’s not how it works-”

“I know, and-”

“And it diminishes my relationship with Jack,” she adds, shaking her head at JJ, “It implies that I can’t love him as much as you love Henry because I didn’t give birth to him. And I don’t think that’s fair.” 

“I don’t know what else to say other than I’m sorry, Emily,” JJ says, looking lost, her eyes shining with tears Emily knows she’ll shed the moment she leaves, “I know you love Jack. I know that.” 

Emily nods, unsure what else there was to say. She didn’t know if this had helped, couldn’t figure out if she felt any better or not, but she was glad she’d done this, that she’d said what she wanted to. 

“I should go,” Emily says as she stands up, her arms crossed in an attempt to hold herself together. JJ stands too, nodding, her lips pressed together as she clearly tries to hold back her own emotions. Emily turns to walk towards the front door, but looks back at the other woman, “I’ll tell Aaron to back off, I know he’s been hard on you since it happened.” 

“Oh that's fine, I-”

“He’s still your boss,” Emily says simply, shrugging her shoulders a little, “even if he is my husband too.” She walks towards the front door and opens it, turning back to look at her friend as she’s standing on her porch. “I’ll see you at work on Monday.”

“Em, we’ll be ok, won’t we?” JJ asks, her hand tight on the door handle, “I know it will take some time but…” 

Emily clears her throat, looking down at her feet briefly before back up at her friend, “I’m sure we will. Eventually.” 

It’s not the answer JJ wants, and Emily knows that, but right now it’s all she can give her. The betrayal, the hurt, so deep Emily knows it will take a long time to heal. 

She keeps it together as she drives home, her hands tight on the steering wheel as the last few days play over and over in her head. A grim showreel of everything she wishes she could forget, mixed in with what she knows she should have right now, what she should be about to have. 

It’s only when she parks on the driveway outside her home, the living room light shining through the window, that she breaks. The sound of her sobs echo around the car as she turns off the engine, her hands covering her face as she cries into them. Her chest aches with it, her sadness almost cracking her ribcage from within, and she can’t stop. 

She hears the door of her car click open, and feels the cool air engulf her as her husband unclips her seatbelt, his arm snaking around her as he gently guides her out of the car, helping her stand as he pulls her into his arms. She grasps the back of his shirt tightly, her face buried into his neck as she continues to cry.

Aaron feels his heart break as he holds her, her tears burning his neck a sharp contrast to the cool spring evening around them. The promise of new beginnings as trees grew their leaves, as flowers bloomed, almost cruel given what they had lost. 

“I’ve got you, Em,” he says, kissing the side of her head, “I’ve got you, sweetheart.” 

He holds her to him with one arm, reaching past her with the other to take the keys out of the ignition, gently pulling her forward just enough to close the door behind her, ready to guide her inside. 

He gets her into their home and leads her to the couch, helping her sit down as he sits next to her. She immediately curls into his embrace, an echo of when he’d brought her home after the doctor's appointment that had cut their dreams short. 

“Do you want to talk about it?” He asks as she calms down, his hand buried in her hair. 

“I don’t know,” she replies honestly, “I don’t know what I want other than to just not…feel this sad. She’s my best friend and she…she knows what happened.” 

“I know, sweetheart,” he says, kissing the side of her head, “I know.” 

She wipes at her face as she pulls away, the heel of her hand roughly pressing into her cheeks as the tears are almost immediately replaced. 

“You’ve got to let up on her a bit, honey,” she says, her voice cracking, and she half smile at him, her lower lip trembling as he frowns at her. His eyebrows knit together in disagreement. “You can be mad at her as my husband, but you can’t as her boss.”

Aaron blows out a breath as he nods. He wasn’t sure JJ deserved the amount of grace Emily was giving her. His wife’s ever-present level-headedness was one of the many things he loved about her, but he knew she was right. 

JJ, his wife’s best friend had upset her, her words cruel, cutting in a way he didn’t know she was capable of. But JJ, a profiler on his team, had simply become too involved in a case. Something they had all done from time to time. 

“Ok,” he agrees, “I’ll do my best.” 

Emily sighs, “Aaron-”

“That’s the best I can do, Em,” he says, clearing his throat, “I don’t remember the last time I saw you this upset,” he wipes a tear from her cheek, “But I promise I’ll try.” 

She smiles gratefully at him, resting her head on his shoulder as she holds his hand tightly. 

“It’s the timing, more than anything,” she says in a soft, sad voice. “If…if things had been different I wouldn’t have even been away on this case. I would have been here,” her chin trembles with the force of the emotion she was so tired of feeling, “We’d have been days away from having a baby.” 

He holds her even tighter until they are curled together in a way he wasn’t even sure where she started and he began. He still remembered the devastation on her face when they were told she had miscarried, the flash of emotion even she couldn’t control something he knew he would never be able to forget. He’d experienced his own grief too, the loss of something he had so desperately wanted enough to make him feel winded. But watching Emily go through it hurt in an entirely different way. He couldn’t protect her from it, no matter much he wanted to. 

It was only a few weeks later at a follow-up appointment that the doctor gently told them they could try again, that it was safe for them to do so, but it went unspoken that they weren’t ready yet. He’d mentioned it a couple of times since, fully aware if they wanted to try their time was limited, Emily’s age making things tricker the longer they waited. But he’d never pushed her, knowing it was her choice, her body. Her grief. 

“I…I want to have a baby with you, Aaron,” she says, almost as if she’d been reading his mind, her words quiet, her breath skipping over his neck, “I want it so badly it hurts, but I don’t think I could go through all of this again. I’m not sure I could survive it twice.” 

She’d never admitted it out loud before. Never told him that the reason they’d gone back to using condoms, something they hadn’t done since the very early days of their relationship before she went back on birth control, was because she was afraid. Afraid she couldn’t give him what they both wanted. Afraid that she’d have to go through all of this again, the sweet hope that had turned bitter so quickly it still made her chest ache. 

Aaron shifts so he’s looking at her, his finger hooked under her chin as he tilts her head to look up at him. 

“You, Emily Prentiss, can survive anything,” he says, sounding so sure of it that it makes her scoff and roll her eyes at him. He smiles at her, “It’s true. And no matter what, I’ll be here. Because I love you.” 

She smiles at him, and it shakes, but no tears fall from her lashline, “I love you too,” she closes her eyes as he kisses her forehead, “I want to try, I’m scared, but I want to.” 

“Then we’ll try, and we’ll go from there,” he replies, steadfast and sure as he smiles at her, tucking her head back against his shoulder. “One step at a time.” 

She nods against him, a tiny flicker of hope sparking in her chest waiting to catch fire as if his conviction could spread to her through touch alone. His love, his quiet confidence that everything would be ok, no matter what happened next, enough to get her through. 

“Yeah,” she replies, “one step at a time.” 

-x-

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[tiny-smallest]

day two - twisted

Rating: G

Characters: Joey, Henry, Sammy

Warnings: possessive, abusive behavior

Description: Joey loves his family more than anything in the world.

Also on AO3!

---

Sometimes Joey had to stop and reflect on what a lucky man he was.

His start to life was... hard. Rough. Terrible. Dreadful. There had been a lot to regret, a lot of suffering and tears. General misery. He never expected he’d ever gain anything beyond that, much less one day have such a wealth of joy.

To think it started with one boy. One boy, a bully, his victim, and a heroic resolution to not stand in silence.

If all he ever had was Henry, he’d consider himself blessed, and this was coming from someone who never quite believed in any god at any point. But no, he got even more- Sammy wandered into their lives!

And having known them from such a young age, he got to have a whole childhood of people who loved him, and not just the people his parents picked out for him to socialize with when they remembered he existed at all.

Henry and Sammy were all he needed. All he ever wanted. There weren’t words to describe his adoration. He knew he’d never have any other friends, but that was okay as long as they were there. All they needed was each other.

So it was hard when Henry met Linda.

She was a black cloud on their happy little parade, a persistent floating blight that blocked out joy wherever she went. She insisted Henry spend more time with her even though he had spent the whole day with her just three days ago, and Joey curled his nails inwards against the notebook he was holding when she smiled at him, a tiny little smug curve of her mouth, at Henry apologizing and promising to amend her loneliness.

It wasn’t fair! Now Henry would leave the house to go do things with Linda- and some of them were even things only they had done before! Why would he ever want to bring anyone to their favorite spots- much less her!

Sammy wasn’t pleased either. Joey held onto that with both hands and an iron grip. Surely he wasn’t crazy if Sammy agreed Linda was rude, and nasty, and not good for anyone, much less their Henry.

But then Sammy went and did say something crazy!

"It's not our choice. As long as she makes Henry happy, this is how it is." 

Joey gaped at him. Sammy wouldn’t look at him. He glared at the floorboards as his knuckles turned white gripping his arms. "This is his choice. We have to honor that."

But it was a horrible choice! Why should they have to honor anything! They were his friends; it was their job to help him make good choices! Smart choices!

But Sammy refused. And so the years played out and they all grew up and eventually Joey saw mail addressed to Henry about a wedding and the volume in the house that night near raised the roof.

How could he do this! How!

But despite his voice, all Henry would say, meek as a kitten, confused (was he playing dumb!?) and shaky, was that he loved her.

Sammy stepped in and told him to knock it off and he shut his mouth and disappeared to his room with a huff, feeling something close to... satisfaction at the soft sound of sobbing that he heard a split second before he slammed the kitchen door shut to blot it out.

Henry was very quiet the next several days. Joey just didn’t talk to him at all. 

Sammy was thankfully so busy with work due to a horrific flu outbreak among the band that he wasn’t around much to witness any of this. Joey didn’t think he could handle listening to Sammy lecture him as if that silly child understood more about life than he did. Why should he answer Henry’s little prompts for conversation? Why should he stay in the same room? He was leaving them. For her. Better get him used to what he was in for at her house.

But after a few days, when Henry finally approached him and begged him to be at the wedding, that he loved Joey and that he knew he and Linda didn’t get along but please please he can’t do this without him, and nothing will change that much because they’ll still be at work together and he’ll hang out with him all the time-

Well, it wasn’t like Joey... liked that, exactly, but he nevertheless felt something in him bow. Fine. He’d go to the stupid wedding if it would make Henry happy. He won’t say anything to Linda.

Henry’s face was like watching a flower bloom. Relief and joy was in every line of his face.

The wedding was at least only one day. He still wanted to kill her during it and he made sure to make a very quiet comment where she could hear it but not determine it was him who said it, but no bloodshed happened.

The things I do for you, Henry.

Actually, Henry wasn’t entirely wrong about nothing changing that much. he moved out and Joey felt the claws rake across the inside of his head, but he took a few deep breaths and talked to himself in the mirror.

Henry wasn’t moving away from them! He was just- moving to be closer to work, where they’d all see each other anyway, that was all! He totally wasn’t married (wouldn’t be married long fingers crossed) nope not at all! It was fine. He didn’t leave, leave.

And when it all did come crashing down anyway Henry would realize he was right and apologize as much as Joey deserved to be apologized to and he’d take him back with open arms and he’d go right back to living in his room and that would be great.

So when Henry’s wedding band kept catching his eye he could be forgiven for being tense about it, for fixing it or Henry with a stare for a bit too long. It was hard to remember your best friend was in fact married to a harpy.

He didn’t know why the ring suddenly vanished but he was glad it did. Was glad when Linda’s name never darkened his sanctuary again. He hadn’t divorced her yet but still- no news was good news, right? That hammer would drop eventually.

But then. Then.

Oh a hammer dropped all right.

An otherwise innocuous day, in the break room, and he was there, and several others, and Sammy was off at a corner table with Susie? When had he gotten close enough to anyone here to warrant that behavior?

... Was he blushing?

An icy grip claimed his heart and his lungs.

She was wrong for him- nice, very nice, but all wrong, all wrong for him, all wrong for Sammy-

Calm down. He’s laughing pretty hard. He’s probably just flushed- I mean- it’s weird, it’s- super weird- but please can you imagine? Sammy? In love?

Susie turned her head to wave at Allison as she walked by and bid a quick goodbye to Sammy as she got up to follow her out, and Sammy waved back and said goodbye.

He sighed, resting his cheek against his hand, watching after her, stars in his eyes.

No.

This would not happen.

It just won’t.

That was a promise.

[malikmata]

Notes from a Brown Boy - Kansas Diaries

*Author’s Note: Some people’s names have been changed to protect their identities

The rain was the first thing to greet me when I landed in Wichita. Overhead the gray clouds loomed, shadowing the farmland that yawned in the distance. Distance. At first glance, the city seemed like one long stretch of prairies and cracked parking lots, occasionally punctuated by billboards of grinning injury lawyers and lit up restaurant road signs.

If you spend enough time here amid the crumbling old buildings, watching the weeds sway in the vacant lots, you’ll feel the slow, inevitable creep of dread or something like it.

It’s easy to feel lonely here.

But, if you’re receptive enough, you’ll run into many friendly folks. Sometimes too friendly.

For example: During my first week, I went to Freddy’s, a local fast food chain, and ordered a crispy chicken sandwich with fries. The cashier, a young woman with glasses and short blonde hair, suddenly started confessing her fear that her 8-year old chihuahua wouldn’t live a long life.

“I still think of him as a teenager,” she said.

“Don’t worry,” I said. “He’s a chihuahua. They live long lives.”

Out here, in the most middle-of-the-road cities, you sometimes get a chance to show an act of passing kindness. While waiting in line at one of the hip, new cafes downtown, a place called Milkfloat, a tall elderly gentleman recommended which coffee and pastry to get.

“My wife says this place has the best cold brew in town.” Afterwards, grabbing his pastry and coffee, he wished me a good day. Most folks here always do and you better hope it comes true. Because here, like elsewhere, a day is filled with ordinary heartbreaks.

I will simply call her “Tita.” She works as a tailor at a department store, the only tailor working there, hemming and tapering racks full of suit pants under fluorescent lights. The nature of the job requires exact measurements and a keen eye for detail. She works hard, often skips lunch, and comes home dead tired. Her husband is recovering from 4 broken ribs after a car repair job went awry. Nothing can be done but wait until he gets better.

They live in a languid suburb on Wichita’s east side, a street with few sidewalks but plenty of lawn.

And noise. Plenty of noise. The neighborhood sits next to a car dealership. The skies overhead rumble continuously with airplanes and thunderstorms. Dogs bark at anyone who gets too close. A pickup truck blasts a corny country song as the cicadas and frogs belt out their lonely mating calls. Occasionally, a child’s laughter rises above it all.

Gossip is one of the great pastimes in towns like these. Even if you shut yourself up in your home, stories trickle in.

The neighbor across the street shot himself in the head.

The elderly couple that used to live next door got committed to a nursing home.

A fellow around the corner is on his third attempt to grow weed.

A college student starves himself morning to night so that he can save money for college.

Down the street, a kid lifts weights and punches the heavy bag hanging on his front porch.

Here, dumb luck seems, more so than in the big cities, the providence of God.

A man told me he got a job installing new carpets at a friend’s house. He was in desperate need of money, having sent most of it to his mother back home, who proceeded to gamble it away. When he ripped out the old carpet, he found a bundle of $10,000 dollars just lying there. His co-worker said, “We should split it.”

“No, no, we can’t take it.” the man said. He gave the money to his friend.

Sometime later, he went to the casino and couldn’t stop winning jackpot after jackpot. He brought home close to $16,000 in one night.

“So, if you do something good,” he told me, “God will remember that.”

Many people have come to live and die here, all of them wrapped up in the melancholic churning of faded ambitions and familial obligations.

Some people here have found something that returns them to the placidity they once felt in their youth. Sometimes that’s enough to keep them going.

For example:

I met Phil Uhlik, the namesake of the music store on E Douglas. He heard me playing an old Martin acoustic in one of the rooms. He shuffled in slightly hunched over, wearing a blue paisley shirt and brown shorts. He looked at the sunburst guitar in my hands and said, “It’s got a little beauty mark there.” He pointed to a small nick just above the sound hole. “All girls have beauty marks.” He pointed to his cheeks and smiled.

Uhlik started this music store 51 years ago and enjoys every moment of it.

“When you go to work for Boeing, that’s work,” he said. “But this, it doesn’t feel like work.” He motioned to the instruments all around him.

“How’d you get started?” I asked.

“I started off playing one of these,” he said, taking one of the accordions off a nearby shelf. As he strapped it on, all the years seemed to disappear. With a big crooked-teeth grin, he breathed life into the old accordion, his hands dancing up and down the keys. The smile never left his face as we bid farewell to each other.

I wish everyone in this world were as lucky as Phil.

I’m always seeking indie bookstores when I travel. Eighth Day Books provides much needed shelter from the summer heat. The shop was built 33 years ago and used to be located about half a mile east, in Clifton Square Village. About 17 years ago they moved to their current location, a 1920 Dutch-style colonial house on the corner of E Douglas and N Erie. Its blue trimmed windows peek through the foliage of neighboring trees.

When you walk in, you’ll see shelves of books on Christianity and Theological studies, most notably in the Eastern Orthodox tradition. I’ve never seen a bookshop with a section dedicated to Iconography.

Wichita, despite its size, feels like a small place. And with that cramped spaciousness, you’re likely to run into someone you may remember or who may remember you. Here I ran into my girlfriend’s 8th grade English teacher. A bald, bespectacled man with a gentle demeanor. After a bit of catching up, he said to us with a smile, “I hope all your dreams come true.”

The short story writer, Raymond Carver, once wrote: “Dreams… are what you wake up from.”

Wichita is a land that hypnotizes you; it makes you dream, dream of something beyond the miles of strip malls and airplane factories, beyond the shocks of wheat and windswept plains, beyond the doldrums and ennui. But it also shakes you awake, reminds you that you’re in it, that you better stop dreaming.

I’m not the religious sort anymore, having survived the regime laid down by my Catholic parents. But there is something enthralling, maybe even inspirational, when I look at the rows of beautifully painted portraits of saints and martyrs. Such solemn faces surrounded by golden halos. According to the Eastern Orthodox tradition, such paintings transcend art; they’re supposed to be windows through which you can glimpse the divine. They remind me of my grandparents with their judging eyes and moral seriousness.

My book haul for the day:

Snow Country by Yasunari Kawabata

The Diary of Anne Frank

Earthly Signs: Moscow Diaries by Marina Tsvetaeva

Near to the Wild Heart by Clarice Lispector

In that last book, I found this lovely little passage:

…”in the Revolution, as always, the weight of everyday life falls on women: previously--in sheaves, now in sacks. Everyday life is a sack with holes. And you carry it anyway.”

From Earthly Signs, P. 40

According to the 2019 United States census bureau, 15.9% of Wichita's population lives below the poverty line. That’s higher than the state average, which hovers around 11.4%. That’s not the lowest nor is it the highest in the country. As befitting its location, Kansas is right in the middle.

The minimum wage in Kansas is still $7.25 despite efforts to increase it to $15. When Covid-19 hit, city and service workers bore the brunt of the impact. You can keep all your empty slogans like  “We Love Our Frontline Workers.” Congratulate me all you want for my hard work but where’s my pay?

When you see that business here has returned to normal--people freely walking around without masks, no longer socially distancing--it still feels all too strange; we spent an entire year under lockdown. There’s still a pandemic by the way.

Loved ones fell ill, died alone, hooked up to ventilators in closed off hospital rooms. I believe every interaction now carries the weight of all those deaths. My family, like so many others, didn’t escape unscathed from the pandemic. My grandpa, Amang, caught Covid. Since he was an elderly citizen (and suffering from emphysema to boot), he was among those considered most at risk. We all feared the worst. Somehow he survived. The doctors called him a “trailblazer.”

Now, with businesses back to 100% capacity, I’m afraid that, just like the 1918 Flu epidemic, the past will fade like a nightmare upon waking. But it was so much more than that; it was an avoidable tragedy.

If you want to know what this pandemic has done to people and their livelihoods, is still doing to them, take a ride through downtown.

Things were already going bad before Covid hit. Back in 2004, the writer Thomas Frank wrote,

“There were so many closed shops in Wichita… that you could drive for blocks without ever leaving their empty parking lots, running parallel to the city streets past the shut-down sporting goods stores and toy stores and farm implement stores.”

What’s the Matter with Kansas: How Conservatives Won the Heart of America, P. 75

What led to all this blight? Frank attributes the decline to:

“the conservatives’ beloved free market capitalism, a system that, at its most unrestrained, has little use for smalltown merchants or the agricultural system that supported the small towns in the first place.”

-P. 79

The same story happens in a lot of places. A megacorporation keeps eating everything around it and leaves nothing else at the table.

The people are left hurting, a pit in their stomachs, and some asshole somewhere profits off of it.

While at the DMV, I overheard this:

“You have a good day now,” the security guard said.

“I’ll try my best,” a woman said.

My girlfriend heard them too and laughed.

“You really do have to try your best in order to have a good day here.”

At some point, we hit the town with a couple friends: Monica, and her boyfriend Will. Both are musicians trying to carve out their niche in a place that, on the surface, seems apathetic to creative pursuits.

It’s impossible to not be captured by their energy. As soon as we walk into their house, Monica, with her dark blonde hair draped over her shoulders, reached in for a hug. Will, a tall and bearded fellow with a bear-like presence, also went in for the hug.

“Ready to experience some Wichita nightlife?” Monica asked.

What is the nightlife here like? A group of high school punks wanted to fight us over a couple movie theater seats. Bored kids play rounds of “Chinese Fire Drill” at stop lights. I heard a nazi biker gang rolled into town at some point during my stay. Regular things like that.

At a low-key bar downtown called Luckys, I met a guy named Cory. He told me how he met a 15 year old kid loitering here, looking lost and forlorn.

“I don’t know what kind of advice I can give you but I’ll do the best I can,” Cory said.

This is the spirit I’ve often come across during my stay: A sort of slightly intrusive compassion. For a cynical Californian like me, the behavior seems a little strange, maybe even a little annoying. But I’ve come to appreciate the candor of it.

“Guaranteed we’ll know half the people here,” Will said.

Right away, he shook hands with the bartender—a high school friend of his—and asked him how his band was doing. Afterwards, we sat down and talked. Talking, after a year of pandemic lockdown, has become a lost art to me. But a little alcohol loosened the lips and suddenly I talked as though I’d known these people my whole life.

Will sipped his whisky on the rocks and told me:

“If everything in this world is meant to break down eventually, then any act of creation becomes an act of defiance.”

It may sound naive but to me, it’s true. I think about the words of the writer, John Berger:

Compassion defies the laws of necessity. To forget yourself and identify with a stranger has a power that defies the supposed natural order of things.

--The Shape of a Pocket, P. 179

Making art has to be, in some way, a compassion act, because it involves letting the environment and the people you meet speak for themselves, allowing a collaboration.

“When a painting is lifeless it is the result of the painter not having the nerve to get close enough for a collaboration to start… Every authentic painting demonstrates a collaboration.”

--The Shape of a Pocket, P. 16

You need to open yourself up, feel what someone is saying behind their words, and hopefully, feel what they feel.

Art, like Compassion, is defiant.

Among the 4 or so Asian markets here, you can find all the ingredients you need to cook up something good. During my first week, I stopped at a place called Grace Market. Like a lot of small Asian markets, it’s family run. A father from Taiwan. A mother from Korea. The son usually helps out when he can. Today (June 23), On this warm Wednesday morning, the son is manning the cash register.

“You’re from California? I’m from there too,” he said.

“Where at?” I asked.

“Sacramento. How about you? So Cal?”

“Nah, Bay Area.”

“Funny. That’s where my parents met.”

“Small world.”

On a different day, we met the father, a jovial man who never fails to say hi when you walk in. He came here over a couple decades ago from California, doing work for the US Army in Garden City. Once his service was over, he decided to stay in Kansas.

“I think you know why,” he said.

More and more young folks these days are leaving California. The high cost of living is presumably what’s driving this exodus. I told him I was also thinking of leaving the Golden State, as much as I love the place.

“Well, a town like this has a lot of potential if you want to save money,” he said. “If I tried to start this business in California, I don’t think I could’ve done it.”

The summer heat can, with the suddenness of a lightning flash, give way to thunderous storms. Speaking as someone from California, whose home has gone through excruciating periods of drought and wildfire, these nightly downpours are a startling yet relaxing sight.

The distant boom of thunder in the distance reminds you of how much of our lives depend on the weather, how small we are in comparison, how we are never separate from the goings-on of nature. The rain doesn’t come down lightly here. At night, it smacks and drums against the window pane with all the force of an animal trying to get inside.

But I don’t find myself frightened by it so much as awed by the combined power of wind and rain colliding against our rickety old house.

Kansas lies in the Great Plains, where layers of cool and warm air often combine into a low-level jet stream. Unimpeded by any natural obstacles on the wide flat plains, the wind roars across the expanse. Thunder growls over the prairie. And lightning flashes on the horizon in a fearsome red tinge.

The storm rages throughout the night, the only source of light in an ocean-sized plain.

“In general, the gods of the Wichita are spoken of as "dreams," and they are divided into four groups: Dreams-that-are-Above (Itskasanakatadiwaha), or, as the Skidi would say, the heavenly gods; and (2) Dreams-down-Here (Howwitsnetskasade), which, according to the Skidi terminology, are the earthly gods. The latter "dreams" in turn are divided into two groups: Dreams-living-in-Water (Itska-sanidwaha), and the Dreams-closest-to-Man (Tedetskasade)”

From The Mythology of the Wichita, P. 33

If you go downtown, you’ll see a sculpture called “The Keeper of the Plains.”

It’s almost 9 o’ clock when I get there, so large crowds have gathered to watch the ring of fire lit around its perimeter.

The statue was designed by indigenous artist and craftsman, Blackbear Bosin. Born in Cyril, Oklahoma, but living much of his adult life in Wichita, Kansas, Bosin was of Comanche and Kiowa descent and almost entirely self-taught as an artist.

When you come upon the Keeper of the Plains, standing tall on the fork of the Arkansas and Little Arkansas Rivers, you can’t help but feel a mix of admiration and sadness. It’s a striking statue, especially when set against the beautiful orange and lavender hues of the setting sun. But monuments like these end up reminding you of the Wichita peoples who were killed, displaced, driven from their land, and left to die in reservations, forgotten. The tribes that once lived here along the southern plains still show traces of their culture but now, you’ll see it mostly as a memory in a museum or as art hanging on the walls of a library.

I learned from a video by the Wichita Eagle that the last speaker of the Wichita language, Doris Jean Lamar, died back in 2016. It must be indescribably lonely to be the last speaker of a language. There is no one to have a conversation with, no one to whom you can confess your hopes or your regrets. But in the video, Lamar, even knowing that she is the last speaker, expresses hope that future generations will know what the language sounded like.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ScPkN_xGRI

Is forgiveness even possible when injustices are still committed today against native peoples everywhere?

Not enough can be said about the skies here, which seem at times so brilliantly marbled with peach and lavender colors that you begin to walk with your head perpetually craned upwards.

It’s this aspect, the overwhelming sense of the sublime, that will probably stay with me long after I’ve left Kansas.

I think again about the nature of dreams. It isn’t such a sin to dream about things, about things that haven’t happened yet, and about things that have happened. To quit dreaming seems too cynical, like admitting from the outset that everything is screwed, that you should stop trying.

During my stay here, I’ve met many people who aren’t so irony poisoned yet, people who are achingly sincere and kind. They haven’t stopped trying. There isn’t much room for cynicism here. I appreciate that a lot.

Farewell to you, Kansas, you and your clumps of cumulus and vast fields of cows and grass. I’ll see you again.

Check out Will’s music! It’s gloomy, melancholy, and LOUD!: https://teamtremolo.bandcamp.com/album/intruder

[novapark]

Base Background Lore

The basis for my overall simverse (in not just REM but other stories) is rooted in stories I started writing some years ago about Earth in the midst of colonial expansion. I only uploaded the first book as part of Nanowrimo in 2018 but the overall series is named “Don’t Wake the Sleepers” or just “Sleepers” in my head. 

Anyway, my sims are living in a universe several hundred years out from that initial colonial effort and have been exposed to the elements on different planets and changed as a result. There will be more on the evolutionary changes and why they’ve occurred when I get into the different “aliens” we have running around and where they came from. For now I wanted to kick things off with where it all began on Earth. Here is my original timeline for that collection of stories with a few additions that are applicable to REM’s world building.

Please note that the last time I updated this timeline before today was in 2018 so some of this is kind of uncomfortable to go back and read given the current state of the world. 

Also I apologize in advance for how text heavy many of these codex entries will be. I’m just really into world building.

2020’s - Automation leads to civil unrest in the west and a “cold war” of sorts begins between the masses and the elite. This culminates in a progressive shift after the oligarchs realize they have lost control and need to move left to avoid full overthrow. A basic income is instituted and the half measures bring temporary relief for most in Western economies. Some social issues are addressed but income inequality is still a problem. 

2032 - Space is officially opened for commercial work in an effort to boost the stagnant world economy.

2040 - The new goods and services brought in with the new age of exploration creates an unprecedented economic boom. This results in greater intermingling between classes and improves upward mobility worldwide. Around this time people start to work on the first long term colonies throughout the solar system. Most colonies were on asteroids at first during the 2030’s since they were easier to adjust for human needs and for the most part people didn’t live there long term. However the first large scale Mars colonization mission was early in these ventures and while it struggled it eventually was able to gain a foothold in that environment.

2045 - Emboldened by their early success colonizing the solar system, dreams of finding a “New Earth” start to flood into society. Everyone comes together to look for a clean new start.  The first orbital colonies go up around earth as people prepare their bodies and minds for the next great step in humanity.  Near lightspeed drives are invented and robotic probes are sent out around the galaxy to find suitable options. 

2062 - The first ships to leave the solar system with human colonists take off from Earth. The demand is so great that ships leave almost monthly for a while until an obvious depopulation problem slows the process down.

2064 - Phase 3 sleeper ships are implemented, the founding populations of Kas, Simat, Mirindea, and Getan leave Earth. 

2065 - To combat systems collapse due to depopulation, the governments of Earth encourage their remaining citizens to move into large Arcologies.  Most people do this as they offer full services and a launch port for those looking to immigrate off world. As a byproduct a worldwide resurgence in environmental repair and conservation comes into play. Some even call for an end of colonization citing the destruction of their own planet as an example of why they should just clean up the mess and accept the fate all living creatures have to. These people are considered radicals but their message resonates with a large subset of society. A religious movement eventually springs out of it based on old Pagan and Animist principals. 

2066 - A respiratory plague hits some of the arcologies, wiping out the population of one of the largest ones in less than a year. The push to leave Earth gets another boost and a secondary wave as a bitter public feels betrayed by “the planet” for sending the blight. Later it’s discovered to have originated with the Mars colony when people were passing between worlds. A normal flu virus had mutated. The Martians, having changed with it, were immune but the Earthbound and other colonial populations were not. A vaccine based on Martian immunity is developed and the crisis ends but more stringent travel restrictions are put in place and travel between intersolar colonies becomes less common isolating the different groups of humanity further. Some on Earth start to see those who left as less human and some colonists start to see those on earth as evolutionarily inferior. With fewer humans on Earth to support the systems in place due to continued depopulation and disease the old burden of poverty returns as upward mobility breaks down. It’s all about leaving now for the majority. 

2095 - With so few humans left on Earth proper the governments of the World announce that the final long range colonization projects will come to an end. Intersolar system travel will still be a thing but that humanity on Earth no longer has the resources to support larger projects. As such another mad rush to leave the planet ensues with the final ships set to take off in

2098 - The humanity that remains on Earth is largely sparse and sickly. There is a tremendous breakdown in automation support so most of humanity live in the remaining arcologies to better pool resources. The surface of the planet has had a resurgence in animal life and vegetation but most humans live in their settlements much the same as they had for the last thirty years and have become fearful of the new wild space outside of it. Despite this exploring ruins is a popular pastime for the youth and there are some special places outside of big cities still regularly seen by human eyes but the majority of the planet has now been left to repair. 

The final colony ships go up in their drydocks and there is a mad dash for those who remain to get well enough to leave. As the time for the final liftoff approaches lotteries go up as people who find themselves suddenly unwell try to sell their tickets. In response to maximize profits the shipping companies make them non-transferrable and hold their own auctions. 

Contact with the other human settlements off Earth is extremely limited now. Mostly reserved for members of government, though the orbiting stations tend to have better communications on a wide scale than the ground based governments. Most of the extrasolar missions are far out of range and the long range communication relays fell into disrepair. There are occasional large scale transmissions that make it back from the first wave of colonization but in general all is lost to the vacuum. 

The orbital station and asteroid dwellers are caught between these two worlds since they aren’t exactly one or the other and their settlements require a great deal of upkeep to maintain. They are mostly self-automated but need a human hand once in a while. As such accidents have become very common in those places and the people who live there have a general sense of abandonment. There are a group of Earthbound humans that specialize in offering services to their “sky cousins” but these organizations are small and receive little funding.

[bookandcranny]

Beatrice - Chapter Three

On a table in what she supposed was the dining room there was a floral centerpiece, dead and rotted. Freesias and baby’s breath were shriveled with blight and yet the dead petals remained frozen in place, refusing to fall. Gianna wondered if they’d somehow been preserved that way intentionally. She couldn’t imagine why, ugly as they were.

Soft footsteps padded across the tile behind her, and for a brief moment the anxiety resurfaced, seizing at her throat.

“Gianna?”

She took in a deep breath, letting floral sweetness flood her senses. “It’s me, Bea.”

Gianna was too stubborn to call out of work in the morning, but stubbornness only got her as far as until the gallery manager saw her flagging at her station and urged her to go home. The fumes from the conservators’ delicate chemistry could be dangerous on a good day if you weren’t careful, she reminded her, nevermind if you were already feeling sick. She wasn’t sick, just tired. At least that’s what she was telling herself. Still, she stopped by the drugstore just in case the faint nausea and light-headedness were indeed early signs of some bug.

On impulse, she also picked up some hair bleach and a box of dye. She hadn’t done anything new with her hair since before moving and her brown roots were starting to look more like branches. Normally this wouldn’t have bothered her except, well, for the first time in a long time there was someone she really wanted to look good for. If she was going to ask Beatrice out, first she needed to be in an attractive state of mind.

All her vanity was in vain however; by the time she’d arrived home whatever sickness had grabbed a hold of her was setting in in earnest, leaving Gianna feeling weak and off-kilter. With the last of her strength she managed to force down a couple painkillers along with a cold glass of water before collapsing into bed. 

When she woke up from her addled fever-sleep her skin was clammy and cold. She wrapped the blanket around her shoulders and forced herself to sit up, squinting in the dark of her surroundings. Something had woken her. The sound of that finicky overhead light blowing out after she’d passed out with it still on. Somewhere in between the passing out and now, night had swept over the city, but as was its nature, faint fluorescent light still streamed in from the world outside her window. She hobbled over and pried it open.

Though the breeze made her shiver, it also brought with it the sweetness she’d come to recognize as the combined scents of the Rappaccinis’ garden. The familiar smell revitalized her somewhat. Actually, she felt remarkably improved after just a few short minutes of sitting by the window. Maybe all this was just chemical fumes messing with her head. She’d never had a problem with it before, but she’d been working longer hours lately. That combined with the recent stress, of course it would leave her feeling poorly, she thought. 

Down in Casa di Rappaccini there were lights coming from every window and shadows moving before them. Gianna had never even entertained the idea of the family having company. Dr Rappaccini really didn’t seem like the kind of man to throw a house party in the middle of the week. 

Gianna pushed up the screen and went to climb down to her usual spot. It was only when she was hovering with her hands on the railing and her blanket still slung around her shoulders like a cape that she realized just how bad an idea that was. She was liable to break her neck or worse trying to climb down in the dark with a fever, and Beatrice certainly wouldn’t be gardening at this time of night. She was probably inside, socializing and having fun, impressing their guests with her vast horticultural knowledge and reciting poetry in Latin or something. Though it might get her attention, lurking around outside her party on the fire escape was not the way to get a woman to like you.

She returned to her apartment and to her bed, pulling the pillow over her head as if to guard against any more bizarre dreams. After a time, she managed to drift back into uneasy sleep, while violet eyes kept a watch on her window from below.

In the morning Gianna roused to a concerned call from work, but her groggy reply was more than enough to secure her another sick day. She went back to sleep for another couple hours, woke, forced down some more pills and some leftover stir-fry, slept, and finally woke again feeling not quite recovered, but at least somewhat rested.

She staggered to the bathroom and washed her face. Her skin was oily to the touch and her eyes were bloodshot but otherwise she didn’t look too bad, she thought. Recalling the night before, she went to sit by the window and indeed the fresh air made her feel worlds better. Whatever it was that was slogging through her system, she reasoned, couldn’t be too bad. Probably just some twenty-four hour flu or something.

As she leaned her head out the window she caught sight of Beatrice working in her garden as usual and she was out and shimmying down the ladder before she could remember her decision not to.

“Hey,” she called, her voice still slightly rasped with sleep.

Beatrice looked up and beamed at her, although her smile faltered slightly to see the loose curls plastered to her brow. 

“How are you feeling?”

“Oh, is it that obvious?” she huffed, trying to pinch some life back into her cheeks. “I’ll be alright, just a fever or something.”

“That’s why you weren’t here yesterday. I looked for you.”

Something in Gianna’s gut twisted hotly. “You missed me?”

“Of course I did.” 

It was a much more frank answer than she’d expected, and Gianna felt herself blush. No need to worry about her color after all.

“I was worried, I guess. You were acting sort of strange the day before. I thought I might’ve done something wrong.”

“No way,” she assured. Wow, I really am that obvious. “I was just sleeping this thing off most of the afternoon. I sorta thought you’d be too busy to notice, with the party you were having.”

Beatrice rolled her eyes. “My father was having one of his dinner socials. I couldn’t have gotten away for long either way but believe me, I would pick you over any one of his colleagues in a heartbeat.”

Gianna raised her eyebrows. “Isn’t that kind of thing hard on him? With his health, I mean.”

“He hires people for all the preparations and cleaning up after. Father can’t get out very much because of his condition, so this is how he… connects, I think. Otherwise he wouldn’t talk to anyone at all.”

“We all need to connect I guess.”

She nodded, looking away again. “He has his colleagues bring people for me too. Sons or nephews, you know. Boys he thinks would make a good match for me.”

“Oh. That’s… oh.”

“It’s sort of old fashioned, I know. I don’t really-- I don’t like any of them that way. You’re right though, we all need to connect. I used to think I didn’t need anyone else, but lately…”

Cautiously she met her gaze. Her brows were knit together like she was trying to piece together some puzzle in her mind. Gianna thought she should say something, offer some reassurance, but the image of Dr Rappaccini and his equally decrepit associates presenting her with an array of their eligible legacy offspring turned her stomach so sourly that she had to bite her tongue to keep from spewing something venomous.

Luckily or not, before either of them could speak there came a call from within the house.

“Beatrice, come here, girl!”

Gianna bristled but the young woman only turned and said sweetly, “Coming, Father!” She gave Gianna an apologetic glance and then added in a low voice, “There’s something important I want to talk to you about, but I don’t think I can do it here. Come over tomorrow?”

“You mean… like, in person?”

“Yes! Tomorrow my father is going to be out of the house from two to four o’clock. That doesn’t give us long but it’s the only time I can do it.”

Do what, she wanted to ask, bewildered and enticed all at once. 

“Are you sure you don’t want to just get coffee somewhere?”

“The code for the door is 5214. Meet me here. I promise it’ll be worth your time.” She fidgeted her hands together. Her eyelashes fluttered. “Maybe I can even show you around the garden.”

Something about the way she said that made Gianna suppress a shiver. 

“Of course I’ll be there,” she said. She hated to miss more work than she already had, but she doubted they would suspect anything. Even now her fingers trembled and some of that clamminess was returned to her skin, but oddly enough, she was feeling better than she had all week.

-----

The name placard next to the buzzer read G. Rappaccini. It didn’t sit right with Gianna, the conspicuous absence of the apartment’s other occupant.

Even though she knew she was expected, she felt compelled to announce herself. She pressed the buzzer and after a moment a quiet voice came through the intercom.

“Hello?”

“It’s me,” she said.

“Oh.”

She frowned. “Is that still okay?”

Beatrice let out a sigh. It sounded thin and tinny through the crackle of the speaker.

“Yeah, of course, come on up. Do you remember the code?”

Gianna punched in the numbers and made her way to the apartment. At least this complex had an elevator, saving her the strain of the climb. She was feeling less shaky but at the expense of her appetite which had vanished and made her wary of taking on too much additional strain. Her heart was pounding as it was, watching the floor numbers slowly tick by and thinking about how soon the two of them would be in the same room for the first time. 

Beatrice had never been too eager to meet up with Gianna outside their customary rendezvous, which Gianna had always attributed to her not wanting to leave her father alone for too long. She’d never analyzed her motivations too closely because doing so would mean having to take a serious look at her own.

The truth was, Gianna was scared. This thing she had with Beatrice was different than any relationship she’d had before, for reasons she couldn’t confidently place, and she was afraid that somehow breaking out of the pattern they’d established between them would change things, would tarnish the magic of it somehow.

Too close now to turn back, she stepped into the apartment. Right away the high ceilings and lavish spaciousness inspired a pang of envy. The furniture was antique, yet in pristine condition, everything so clean and crisp that it looked like something out of a catalogue. Not exactly homey. There were several signs of life however: books piled up on an end table in the living room, dishes drying in a rack by the kitchen sink, a stack of empty boxes piled up next to the garbage can. 

There was no TV or telephone, though she supposed that wasn’t so uncommon anymore. But paired with the furniture and the sterile environment it gave Gianna the feeling of being cut off from the modern world entirely. The very idea was stifling to her.

On a table in what she supposed was the dining room there was a floral centerpiece, dead and rotted. Freesias and baby’s breath were shriveled with blight and yet the dead petals remained frozen in place, refusing to fall. Gianna wondered if they’d somehow been preserved that way intentionally. She couldn’t imagine why, ugly as they were.

Soft footsteps padded across the tile behind her, and for a brief moment the anxiety resurfaced, seizing at her throat. 

“Gianna?”

She took in a deep breath, letting floral sweetness flood her senses. “It’s me, Bea.”

Beatrice looked different. Most notably because she was wearing canvas coveralls that seemed to be too big for her, the sleeves rolled up to her elbows to make room for a thick pair of gloves. For all the times she’d watched her working in her garden, Gianna had never seen Beatrice actually dress like a gardener. It made her feel a little silly for dressing up herself. She’d, perhaps optimistically, assumed that the first time they met face to face without the span of the alleyway between them would be a special occasion worth dressing up for. Maybe Beatrice didn’t see it that way.

“Are you still feeling sick?” Beatrice asked. “You don’t look so good.”

Gianna forced a grin. “Don’t worry about that. I’m just happy to be here.”

“Here, sit,” she beckoned. “I wasn’t even thinking. I’ll make you some tea.”

“That’s okay, really. I’m not much of a tea person.”

“You’ll like this tea, trust me.”

Gianna found she didn’t have the energy to protest and soon she was sitting in the kitchen holding a steaming mug. It was far from her drink of choice, especially in the summer months, but she gave in and took a sip for politeness’ sake. 

It was good. More than good, it was delicious! As soon as it was cooled enough she drained half the cup in one go. Almost as soon as she had, she found herself feeling better. Her headache was gone and nausea abated. In fact, she was starting to feel hungry.

“Good, right?” Beatrice smirked. As if she had read her mind, she fished out a box of cookies from the cupboard and slid them across the counter to her. “It’s a family recipe, made with herbs from the garden. Everything that grows there is medicinal. You just have to know how to handle them.”

“That’s incredible,” she said between bites. Now that her appetite was finally back it seemed to be making up for lost time.

Beatrice flustered prettily. “It’s not hard when you get to know the plants like I have. The garden was my father’s before it was mine, we grew up together.”

“So the flowers are kind of like your siblings,” Gianna joked.

She beamed. “Exactly like that. Drink your tea. You have to drink all of it for it to really work.”

Gianna did so.

“I know I didn’t say it before,” Beatrice murmured. “But I’m really glad you’re here too. To see you, really really see you, I can’t… there aren’t words, Gianna. It probably sounds crazy but sometimes, when I couldn’t see you, when I couldn’t speak to you, I started to worry you’d disappeared and I would never find you again. Sometimes I even worried you were never real at all. That’s why I… I was afraid to invite you over here. I was afraid to break the illusion, to lose you.”

She stared, speechless, her mouth gone dry. 

“I know how that sounds, I just-- for so long my world has revolved around taking care of father. I didn’t think I could have this, didn’t think I’d even want this. Not as much as I do, at least.”

“Beatrice,” she whispered breathlessly. “I know how you feel.” She reached across the countertop to touch her gloved hand. “I know what it’s like to want something and feel like you shouldn’t. I know what it feels like to be stuck in the shadow of parents who don’t understand you. I promise, you’re not crazy, and you’re not alone.”

The girl made a wounded noise, half gasp and half whimper, and clamped a hand over her face. “I’m sorry, I don’t know what--”

“It’s okay.” She threaded their fingers together. “It’s okay.”

Beatrice shook her head. “Gianna, I have to tell you something. Something important. Before we get in too deep or you hear it from someone else, I want you to hear it from me. I’m not normal.”

“I know, you’re not like anyone I’ve ever met.”

“No!” she cried, frustrated. “I’m not--”

The door creaked open and she spun around, pulling her hand away. Standing in the doorway was the hunched form of Dr Giacoma Rappaccini himself.

“Ah, good,” came the rasping voice of the elderly doctor. “You made the tea. I trust you’re feeling better now, Ms Alexander.”

Gianna tensed, unsure of how to respond.

“Father, you’re home early!” Beatrice chirped with false cheer. “I’ll make you a cup too then.”

“No need,” he said with a dismissive wave of his leathered hand. He set down his bag and shut the door behind him. “I had some this morning, remember? Ah, you might’ve been out in the garden then. You have been busy today.”

She shrunk back under the weight of his stare.

“It’s nice to finally meet you, sir,” Gianna said stiffly with a hand outstretched. “I’m--”

“I know who you are.” His laugh was the sound of dry reeds in a breeze. “Gianna Alexander. I’ve been keeping an eye on you ever since you started to show an interest in my daughter. I was curious to see how things might progress between you two, but considering the circumstances I decided it might be time to intervene.”

“Father--”

“Beatrice,” he reproached. “Going behind my back? Making secret meetings? You know better than that. Apologize to our guest.”

After only a moment’s hesitation she turned to Gianna and said, “I’m so sorry, Ms Alexander.”

Gianna balked. “What? You don’t have anything to apologize for.”

“I’m afraid that’s where you’re mistaken,” said Dr Rappaccini. “You see, there are proper steps to be taken in situations like this. My daughter should’ve spoken with me so I could arrange a proper interview. We could’ve had dinner. It would’ve been so nice.

“Instead, I had to find out what you were doing and pretend to leave my own home unawares just to get us all in a room together. I’m getting too old to play these games with you, Beatrice. It’s disrespectful to me and it’s disrespectful to our guest.”

“I’m sorry, Father.” Her voice had become empty, almost robotic, and she cast her eyes to the ground. Gianna felt a dawning sense of dread at the sight.

“Now then,” The old man pulled up a chair and sat with his hands folded over his lap. “Shall we get down to business? Beatrice, as you know, is a very special girl. In fact she’s the product of years and millions of dollars of research. 

“I’ve dedicated my life to studying the medicinal properties of plants and cross-breeding exotic species to develop into natural pharmaceuticals. Eventually I realized that no amount of remedies I could create in my lifetime would be enough to fix every inherent flaw of humanity, so I shifted my focus. Instead of searching for the perfect cure, I decided to create the perfect human being, one immune to mankind’s deficiencies. From my experience with altering and combining the genetic structures of various plants, I crafted a new, superior breed of human. Beatrice is the product of those tireless efforts.”

Gianna’s head was swimming. “What the hell are you talking about?”

Dr Rappaccini smiled ruefully. “I’ve long accepted that I likely won’t live to see my quest come to fruition. It took trial upon trial just to bring Beatrice into the world, and she’s only the first step. More accurately, the first generation.”

He put his hand on his daughter’s shoulder. “Someday, my Beatrice will be the mother to a brand new species, a new humanity. With their drastically increased lifespans, immunity to disease and disorder of the body and mind, and overall genealogical superiority, my creations will rapidly become the dominant species on earth, replacing the feeble excuse for intelligent life that exists now. And, well, with all that revealed, it’s obvious why I couldn’t let this little game of yours continue, isn’t it?”

He looked at Beatrice with an expression that was as a mockery of compassion.

“Socialization is fine, even healthy. I don’t blame you for that. It’s my own fault really, for not providing you with more enrichment and opportunities for companionship here at home. I’ll be more mindful of that going forward. In fact, if you want to continue these little play-dates I am in full support, as long as they’re supervised from here on out. Not for a while though, of course. That’s just what happens when you break the rules, my girl.”

Gianna stood up, slamming her hands down on the counter. “Are you completely insane? This is a person, your daughter, not a pure-bred show poodle!”

Dr Rappaccini spoke to her calmly, a faint amusement in his wrinkled features. “I don’t blame you for your anger, Ms Alexander, because I know it stems from ignorance. Beatrice is special but she also has a volatile, toxic nature the likes of which you can’t comprehend. She needs a guiding hand to help her control herself and make the right choice. Isn’t that right, Beatrice.”

“Yes, Father.”

Gianna stared at her friend in horrified awe. “Beatrice, you can’t possibly be okay with this.”

She didn’t move, she didn’t speak. She gave no indication she’d even heard her. It was as if she had been hollowed out, only the fragile husk of her remaining.

“You can throw as big a fit as you want,” Dr Rappaccini said snidely. “But as long as you are a guest in my home I have to insist you abide by my rules.”

Gianna glowered. She spared one last furtive glance towards Beatrice. Her chest ached. “Then I guess I’m leaving.”

--

next chapter

[winonalakefossils]

An Unwanted Guest

“Typhoid?” The woman gasped and turned in horror to her husband standing beside her in a state of shock.

“I am so sorry to give you the news,” the doctor offered apologetically, looking from one parent to the other. “Your son’s symptoms were at first consistent with appendicitis, but I am certain now—” he halted. “It’s very serious."

The once buoyant, gregarious teenager lay on his bed in the classic typhoid state. His eyes half-opened, his body motionless, his color gone.

Mr. and Mrs. Pugh were spending the summer at their cottage in Winona Lake with their three sons. Mr. Pugh, a humorist, entertained sold-out crowds on the Chautauqua circuit, performing in Winona and other resorts in Indiana. The grim prognosis turned the joyous family tradition of vacations at the lake suddenly tragic.

The doctor gently explained to the parents that their son presented all of the symptoms of an advanced case of typhoid and that he suspected a perforated bowel.

“The contents of the bowel have escaped through a tear and spilled into his abdomen. He is raging with infection. We need to get him to the hospital for surgery if there is to be any hope of saving him.”

The grave tone rendered the stricken parents mute. They nodded their assent.

The anxious family—mother, father and brothers—stood to meet the doctor as he approached. His expression prepared them for more bad news. Richard was critical.

“I did what I could, but he is hemorrhaging.”

“What’s next?” The father’s frantic voice begged for a cure.

“Our only option is a blood transfusion,” the doctor said with some reluctance before adding, “I can’t promise anything.”

Mr. Pugh gave a pint of blood and then sank into despair when his son did not respond. Out of desperation, another transfusion was performed, this time drawing from one of the brothers.  The Pugh’s hometown paper reported a slight improvement, but two days later, 17-year-old Richard succumbed to the dreaded typhoid fever.

 When Richard Pugh fell ill in Winona Lake in July 1920, fear of an epidemic gripped the leaders at the Winona Assembly, for it had been a mere eighteen months since the Spanish flu had ravaged the newly established military training camp there.

Sol Dickey, Secretary of the Winona Assembly, spent much of 1918 negotiating a contract with the United States War Department to host a training camp in Winona Lake. The availability of dormitories and a vocational school made it an appealing location for the specialized training of draftees. Dickey traveled to Washington, and people from Washington traveled to Winona. They struck a deal, and on October 15, 1918, a thousand young men from every county in Indiana began arriving.

Trainload after trainload of enthusiastic Hoosier sons, eager to participate in the war in Europe, pulled into the station, each one greeted with the local version of pomp and circumstance: a thirty-two piece band and free cigars. A veteran of the Spanish-American War carried the American flag while ceremoniously leading groups to special interurban cars for transportation from the depot in Warsaw to the new camp two miles away on Winona Lake.

By the following morning, the camp had several cases of Spanish Influenza. The number swelled to one hundred and fifty within two weeks. At this time, schools and businesses throughout the state were already closed to prevent the spread of the pandemic. But World War I had not yet ended, and the United States government continued preparing its fighting force.

Over the next several weeks, infections surged. Nineteen men died. On November 23rd, just forty days after their celebrated arrival, the soldiers climbed back onto the interurban and journeyed south to Indianapolis. The camp at Winona Lake was officially abolished.

Although an investigation concluded that the Spanish flu arrived with the soldiers and that no fault lay with the Winona Assembly, the memory of that blighted experiment still haunted Mr. Dickey. When he first received word that the Pugh’s son was sick with typhoid, he worried that if the contagion spread, the Winona Assembly could be in for another disaster like that of 1918. To his relief, no one else contracted the disease.

The Pughs sued the Winona Assembly, pointing a finger at the beloved Studebaker Spring where their son had taken a drink a few days before the onset of his symptoms. Mr. Pugh alleged that spring water had been contaminated by a busted sewer main and accused the Winona Assembly of bearing responsibility. The Assembly could not prove that the water was not contaminated on the day that Richard Pugh drank from it. And even though no broken mains were detected, city officials decided to close all of the springs on the Assembly grounds after an inspection by Dr. Hurty of the Indiana Department of Health.

Thus it was that the tragic death of young Richard Pugh brought the passing of an era. The beloved springs whose water had once been bottled and sold, the source of cherished fountains preserved on so many postcards, the inspiration for the town’s original name, Spring Fountain Park, were now identified as a health hazard.

In a tragic twist, two months after the closing of the fountains, a typhoid epidemic swept through Winona Lake. Papers reported the death of three-year-old Sarah Taylor visiting Winona Lake with her father, a widower. The Indiana Department of Health sent Dr. Hurty to investigate after learning of several more cases. Hurty looked first at the water supply. Having established that it was not contaminated, he turned his attention to the local dairies.

Dr. Hurty was a veteran crusader against unsanitary dairy practices. He came down hard on dairies because the victims of bacteria-ridden milk were overwhelmingly children. He sought to expose those who increased their profits by diluting milk with water that, if contaminated, spawned disease. He was on a mission to put an end to milk tainted with worms, blood, pus, manure, and insects. Hurty preached pasteurization as a matter of public health, but in 1920, the vast majority of America’s children still consumed raw, unpasteurized milk.  

Armed with these facts, Dr. Hurty launched a meticulous inspection of area dairies. When the results from the milk supply came back negative for typhoid bacteria, he tested employees and found the culprit. An asymptomatic deliveryman had unwittingly contaminated the milk on his wagon and set off an historic epidemic. Winona Lake saw forty cases of typhoid and the deaths of two children, Sarah and Billy. Neighboring Warsaw recorded similar numbers. One of the worst typhoid outbreaks in Indiana put an end to the sale of raw milk in Winona Lake when the city council passed an ordinance requiring the pasteurization of all milk delivered there. Warsaw did the same.

The Winona Assembly got to work advertising clean water and pasteurized milk to reassure the thousands of summertime visitors that they would be safe from the threat of typhoid fever. That promise proved true for the next two summers, the proverbial calm before the storm.

Thousands descended upon Winona Lake for ten days in June of 1925. On one of those days, Sunday the 7th, a dense crowd of thirty thousand swarmed the grounds. Eight thousand poured into the Billy Sunday Tabernacle filling it up to the doors. The overflow streamed onto the lawn and gathered around the amplifiers. Those that could took up positions at the windows to watch the service going on inside. Parked cars blocked the streets leaving drivers to fight their way through the stationary traffic jam. This was the annual Church of the Brethren Conference, and it drew an enormous response. Nothing but humanity as far as the eye could see!

June in Indiana is a fickle month. No one can be sure whether it will be cold or hot, wet or dry. Conference-goers rejoiced at an abundance of sunshine and warm temperatures. Sprinklers overcame the dry conditions, keeping the dust down and the lawns lush. Newly installed water fountains quenched the thirst of the multitudes rushing off to their meetings or savoring a leisurely stroll.

“We had a wonderful conference!” People exclaimed unanimously when the time came to say goodbye and head back to their home towns. They had come from all over the United States for several glorious days of meetings, reunions and religious services. The warm glow of good memories left little room to complain about a few inconveniences, like long lines at the restaurants, congested roads, water fountains that occasionally belched up dirty water, and a presumed bug that had caused painful stomach aches among dozens.

In the weeks that followed, several residents and Assembly employees contracted typhoid. The number reached thirty by the end of June. At the same time, Huntington County, forty miles southeast of Winona Lake, saw its own outbreak. A doctor attending those patients discovered that all had attended the big conference. He contacted the Indiana State Board of Health. Officials immediately dispatched an inspector to Winona Lake to investigate a possible epidemic.

News of more typhoid cases continued trickling in from among the Church of the Brethren congregations around the country.

As the number of typhoid cases climbed, so did the fatalities. Alma Williams, a widow and mother of three, passed away in Elgin, Illinois. Two sisters, Rose and Carrie, who attended the conference together, died three days apart. Fifteen-year-old Galen Neher had moved to Winona for a summer job. Upon his death, his grief-stricken mother hired a lawyer and threatened to sue the Assembly.

Certain now of an epidemic, the investigator turned his attention to finding the source. Several factors had to be ruled out. Had some among the conference attendees brought the disease with them? Was milk once again to blame? Were flies transmitting disease? Were any of the food workers asymptomatic carriers?

Upon debunking these theories, the investigator concentrated on stories of foul smelling water at the drinking fountains, the barber shop and in a few of the cottages. He visited an old cistern, condemned it and cited it as the source of the outbreak. He flushed and chlorinated the mains, after which he declared the water supply in Winona Lake as safe.

In response to the flurry of newspaper articles slamming the Assembly for the use of an old cistern, the company that supplied water to Winona adamantly defended its practices and demanded a second investigation.

A new inspector arrived to reevaluate the evidence. As a precaution, he ordered the vaccination of residents and visitors to protect against further spread.

The complaints of fetid water restricted the episodes to an isolated area and rendered the cistern theory highly improbable. Furthermore, the wells supplying the water did not test positive for enough bacteria to explain the virulent spread.

Then, an employee from the water company that was seeking to clear itself of responsibility happened to notice an inconsistency in the meter readings for three consecutive days in June when the numbers had gone lower instead of higher. This could mean only one thing. Water had flowed backward through the mains.  

While the drinking water came from local wells, the sprinkler system and the public toilets drew water from the nearby canal into which residential sewers drained. By some act of very bad planning or sheer ineptitude, the public water and the canal water systems had been joined under the public toilets, separated only by a valve. When the pump at the canal broke down one fateful day in June, someone, whose identity was never learned, opened the valve to keep the toilets flushing properly. The pressure variance sent polluted canal water into the mains and straight to the water fountains, the barbershop and nearby cottages.

The health department ordered the sprinkler system to be shut down immediately and permanently since it was potentially spreading the contagion throughout the park. Health officials also mandated that Winona Lake install a modern sewage plant before its next summer season.

It’s unclear exactly how many people contracted typhoid in Winona Lake in June 1925. The town’s deadliest and last typhoid epidemic may have infected as many as one thousand, claiming at least thirty lives.

 By the turn of the twentieth century, thousands of people visited Winona Lake every summer. They strolled along the water’s edge, weaved through shady paths, drank liberally from cool springs, and flocked to the hillside to watch the sunset. They swam, fished, picnicked and worshiped together year after year. The Winona Assembly prided itself in offering comfortable lodgings amidst peaceful surroundings. Its leaders sought the best talent and most articulate speakers to educate and inspire thronging visitors. However, typhoid, an unwanted guest, sneaked in and triggered six epidemics during the first thirty years of the Winona Assembly. When one considers the introduction of pasteurized milk, the closing of the iconic springs, emergency vaccinations, and the laying of a modern sewage system, it may not be an exaggeration to say that disease achieved as great an impact on Winona Lake as any convention held there.

[mamabearcat]

NaLu Fic Recs - SFW

Sooo, there was a bit of chat on the NaLu Discord about fic recs. I have read a lot of fan fiction; for a while there I had terrible insomnia, and I would go to bed, read fics all night, and then get up and start my day. 

But now you get the benefits! Here are just some of my favourite SFW fanfics. All these are completed fics on Fanfiction.net I have heaps of favourites that aren’t completed, and may never be, which is a little heartbreaking, but just the nature of the beast I guess. 

But, I digress - behold, a list of SFW fanfics for your viewing pleasure...and remember, if you read, give the writer some review love.

One Shots

Just Fine by Sofiesticated:  After being tortured for months, Lucy has begun to isolate herself, trying to assure people (mostly herself) that she's fine, but a certain Dragon Slayer doesn't give up on her so easy. Rated: Fiction M - English - Hurt/Comfort/Romance - [Lucy H., Natsu D.] - Words: 1,986

Play List by GeminiMab:  Every one loves new tech toys right? Well Lucy does! Unfortunately so does her team. Lots of friendly feels and a few sweet moments. Just a fun story that's worth a read for a laugh- Rated for cursing *I do not own FT or any of the other copyrighted material found within. I only own my plot line and insanity* ****Mostly placed Post Manga but could go anywhere after Tartarus**** Rated: Fiction T - English - Humor/Friendship - Team Natsu - Words: 6,328

Gift of the Sea by notjustanyfangirl:  Natsu is intrigued by the sad blonde girl that comes to the pier every evening, and decides to do something about it. An unexpected friendship leads to unexpected revelations. Mermaid!AU Rated: Fiction T - English - Adventure/Friendship - [Lucy H., Natsu D.] - Words: 6,458

Are You Still Watching by HerFairy:  Lucy needs a break from her overbearing father. What better way than watching Netflix over someone's shoulder at the library?Rated: Fiction K+ - English - Humor/Romance - [Lucy H., Natsu D.] - Words: 2,290

Love Me Now by Chikachoo:  Lucy had been through many bad experiences but this time almost broke her. She had never wished for the presence of a certain dragon slayer, with hair the colour of cherry blossoms, more than now. Rated: Fiction T - English - Romance/Angst - [Lucy H., Natsu D.] - Words: 5,439

Cops and Robbers by Rivendel101:  Lucy wakes up to the sound of running water, a blinding light, and a crick in her neck that tells her she had a really rough night. Though, she probably could have deduced that without the pain, considering she's pretty sure she fell asleep in a bathtub last night, according to her slightly hazy memory. (Rated for language and inappropriate thoughts by Lucy) Rated: Fiction T - English - Humor/Romance - [Natsu D., Lucy H.] - Words: 3,120

One Other Thing by xxSiLvErDrAgOnxx:  After Chapter 489 - Natsu and Lucy are sent home after their battle with August for some R&R because of an injury Lucy sustained, while the Guild plans its next move. Lucy's stubbornness brings out Natsu's frustration which only serves to irritate Lucy when she misunderstands the intention behind his words. Rated: Fiction T - English - Fantasy/Romance - Lucy H., Natsu D. - Words: 4,908

Together by SolidScriptJess:  "So don't you ever for a second think that I would wish to trade you. You're the light of my life you aggravating, irritating, loud, weird, caring, selfless, strong, beautiful girl. I love you so much." NaLu one-shot in which they've just moved in together and Lucy is trying to come to terms with the fact that Natsu had been engaged to Lisanna before he met her.Rated: Fiction K+ - English - Romance/Angst - [Lucy H., Natsu D.] Lisanna S. - Words: 2,814

Eye of the Beholder by madartiste:  Natsu realizes something about Lucy after seeing her in her old habitat. Rated: Fiction T - English - Romance - [Natsu D., Lucy H.] Erza S., Gray F. - Words: 2,915

Plan H by Toxineena:  So far, Erza and Gray were on plan H; H for hot spring. Needless to say, Natsu and Lucy hadn't been very cooperative. Rated: Fiction T - English - Romance/Humor - Natsu D., Lucy H. - Words: 4,834

Plan I by Toxineena: It was like his heart was just saying: Her. It has to be her, and no one else. Sequel to Plan H. Rated: Fiction T - English - Romance/Humor - Natsu D., Lucy H. - Words: 6,911

Thoughts from the Bathroom Sink by Tonoxic:  It felt kind of weird looking at her work from between his legs. Funny thing is he didn't even come here for this. In fact, he didn't even know she could do this. He was going to wait till morning for that but as soon as he had stepped into town, his mind instantly thought "I wonder what Lucy is doing?"  Rated T for angry Lucy's swearing.Rated: Fiction T - English - Romance - Lucy H., Natsu D. - Words: 2,433

Snow White and the Fairy Tail Mages by InLoveWithFairyTail:  The Fairy Tail gang decides to act out the classic story of Snow White! And it went well! Hahaha, no. No, it didn't. If it did, what would be the point of this story? "Our bedroom door's open!" "Wait one f***ing minute, we sleep in the same BEDROOM?" Rated T for swearing. One-shot.Rated: Fiction T - English - Humor/Parody - Team Natsu, Laxus D., Mirajane S. - Words: 4,276

Sausages – A Breakfast Story by Aryndiel:  Lucy needs some cheering up, and Natsu is just the man for the job. But the advice he's getting seems a bit strange. Will breakfast really help? More importantly, is Gray's face going to freeze that way? Why did Bixlow just spit his beer? What's wrong with Romeo? And will Gajeel ever find the answer to the question everyone's wondering about?Rated: Fiction T - English - Romance/Humor - [Lucy H., Natsu D.] - Words: 3,915

 Chapter Fics

Winter’s Blight by McSquidster:  Natsu had trusted Gray with Lucy's life, and the raven haired boy would be damned if he let their captors do anything to her. Nuclear Winter AU. Warnings: Mentions of rape and cannibalism.Rated: Fiction T - English - Suspense/Hurt/Comfort - [Lucy H., Natsu D.] Gray F., Jackal - Chapters: 5 - Words: 43,430  

Cops and Writers by jrhcomet:  Lucy Heartfilia, accomplished author, is in for the ride of her life when she teams up with Detective Natsu Dragneel to solve cases around Magnolia. (Castle with Fairy Tail) Please review, this is my first fanfic and tips are always welcome! I do not own Fairy Tail! Only this plot is mine. Rated: Fiction T - English - Humor - Lucy H., Natsu D. - Chapters: 23 - Words: 31,509

Life in Technicolour by stopnatsu:  Lucy Heartfilia has grown accustomed to seeing life in black and white, but she dreams of a more colorful world. Desperate to find where she belongs, she leaves her life behind, intent on fulfilling her childhood dream of seeing a rainbow. Will she ever be able to see the beautiful colors of legend? And is it true you can only see them once you meet your soulmate? Rated: Fiction T - English - Drama/Romance - Lucy H., Natsu D. - Chapters: 29 - Words: 92,011

Virtual Flames by MizzyPlatinum:  A blossoming internet (Tumblr) friendship soon develops into something more. Nalu. AU. Slice of life. Rated: Fiction T - English - Romance/Humor - [Natsu D., Lucy H.] - Chapters: 89 - Words: 241,288

Begin Again by waiting-for-you443:  When journalist Lucy Heartfilia is welcomed home from work by her boyfriend's fists, she does what most would do: calls the police. But when your psycho ex-boyfriend is a cop, things get complicated. It'll take a pair of rookie detectives, a journalist, and the entire Magnolia Police Department to ensure Lucy's safety. Rated: Fiction T - English - Romance/Suspense - [Lucy H., Natsu D.] Gajeel R., Team Natsu - Chapters: 11 - Words: 51,737

Big Sister Lucy by Kayla the kawaii gurl:  All she wanted to do was help young girls follow their dreams and find themselves. She never thought that she would be gaining a little sister and much, much more. AU NaLu! Rated: Fiction T - English - Romance - Lucy H., Natsu D. - Chapters: 25 - Words: 82,041

What Bloomed in the Heart of Winter by starmini:  A chance encounter with the Maiden of Spring sets off a chain of events that threaten the order of the seasons and the fate of the world. The Lord of Winter is willing to plunge the world into chaos for the sake of his desire. Yet, the Lord of Summer and the Maiden of Autumn will fight to stop him. Rated: Fiction K - English - Romance/Drama - Erza S., Gray F., Lucy H., Natsu D. - Chapters: 11 - Words: 28,685

One of the Boys by stopnatsu:  "I love you, Natsu," Lucy had whispered. Natsu smiled and replied, "I love you too, Luce. Like a brother." Nalu AU in which Lucy and Natsu are childhood best friends. Oh, and she's desperately in love with him, but he's too dumb to notice. After leaving to attend an all-girls' prep school, she returns, a changed woman. But will he even notice? Rated: Fiction T - English - Romance/Drama - [Lucy H., Natsu D.] - Chapters: 18 - Words: 54,533

Warm Feelings by Checkmate-13: Fairy Tail is forced into a team building activity that revolves around anonymous compliments. The consequences of these messages may have a bigger impact than they bargained for. NaLu. Gruvia.Rated: Fiction T - English - Humor/Romance - [Lucy H., Natsu D.] [Gray F., Juvia L.] - Chapters: 12 - Words: 37,794

Salamander and the Deadly Flu by Hejmdal:  Because given the right circumstances even the hyperactive dragon slayer can become an innocent victim to the "dangerous" disease. Rated for minor swearing (NaLu). Rated: Fiction T - English - Romance/Humor - [Natsu D., Lucy H.] - Chapters: 25 - Words: 84,054

Possession by HawkofNavarre:  She didn't belong to him...yet. Rated: Fiction T - English - Romance/Friendship - [Lucy H., Natsu D.] - Chapters: 20 - Words: 85,998

[thelostrainbowthenovel]

Part 3 to the previous part 1 and part 2, of finally sketching out the future kiddo concepts I originally made last year. I actually finished this part last week, but didn’t get to uploading here till now. But, I hope you enjoy!

(Their bios can be found below!)

=============================================================

* Briar Belmonte Daughter and oldest child of Rosia and Carmelo. Part of Erdennia's noble class. Oldest of all the next generation kiddos, she is born several months after the events of the main story have past. While Gaia was away to help find a cure for the Blight Flu and to help find Talia with the others, Rosia and Carmelo worked on trying to start their family again, feeling much more comfortable to do so again after Rosia suffered a miscarriage in the early years of their marriage. She soon became pregnant again, and this time the baby survived with no complications, having a healthy and safe birth. Everything was warm and peaceful during the first days for the new family, the new parents being beyond grateful to finally have their child and their daughter was quite the happy baby too. Briar herself grows to be quite the sweetheart, more down-to-earth than her Mama but still with a fun and playful side to her. She is quite close with her ‘Auntie’ Gaia, who absolutely adores and spoils her and the rest of her siblings. As the eldest child, one would expect for her to be exhausted from having to deal with all her rambunctious younger siblings, and while that is true on occasions she actually loves them all and does her best to be a good role model for them to look up to. * Basil Belmonte Son and second child of Rosia and Carmelo, younger brother to Briar by 2 years. Part of Erdennia's noble class. As the second-eldest child he often takes to ‘leader’-like roles amongst his siblings like his older sister, however more on a ‘lax’ level than her as he prefers for her to take charge with their plans most of the times. He is mostly a peaceful and chill boy, going with the flow of whatever his peers are up to. He takes after his father more in being rather practical and sensible compared to some of the chaos amongst the other noble children, though does have a hidden ‘wild’ side to him that is only unleashed during certain moments. * Thyme Belmonte Son and third child of Rosia and Carmelo, younger brother to Briar by 3 years. Part of Erdennia's noble class. Unlike the rest of his fun-loving and happy family, Thyme is more of the serious and brooding type. No one is really sure where this came from, but some suspect that it may be from hanging around the older children too much when he was really young, and having their ‘cynical’ attitudes rub off on him. While his family is more obsessed with flowers, especially with his father’s job as the royal gardener, Thyme prefers more of the ‘scary’ plants, like cacti or venus flytraps. * Hazel Belmonte Daughter and fourth child of Rosia and Carmelo, younger sister to Briar by 5 years. Part of Erdennia's noble class. Hazel is the most outspoken of her siblings, having no filter sometimes when it comes to the things she says and she is rather impulsive in how she acts and talks before thinking sometimes. To her, she would rather say what she is honestly feeling even if her replies come off rash, as she sees no appeal in walking on eggshells with others. Despite her approach, she truly means well deep down and will apologize and feel remorse if she senses she has deeply upset someone. * Ivy Belmonte Daughter and fifth child of Rosia and Carmelo, younger sister to Briar by 6 years. Part of Erdennia's noble class. Being the same age as the Crowned Prince Aster, the two have practically gone through life side-by-side so far and are best friends just like their mamas are, both having the same compassionate natures to fight and stand up for what they believe in. Ivy is perhaps the most like her Mama, being a little free-spirit in what she wants to do, rather than feeling restrained and conforming to what others want her to be. This has gotten her into some trouble with the royal court and older nobles, but those who really know her admire her for her unapologetic approach to herself and life. * Sage Belmonte Son and youngest child of Rosia and Carmelo, younger brother to Briar by 7 years. Part of Erdennia's noble class. Unlike some of his more confident siblings, Sage is much more quiet and timid, preferring to keep only to himself or family when out in public or huge social gatherings. Part of this comes from having so many older siblings, as he often finds it hard to get a word in himself during family conversations or get much spotlight with his more humble nature. He does wish he could be more outgoing like his siblings, but he also enjoys his more peaceful life that he has now, where he can just chill with his drawing hobbies without having to worry so much about expectations.

[thisdayinfavrd]

January 1, 2009

And the littlest one shall be called Box Breaker, for he is the perfect height for headbutting my cooch. @CcSteff (Stephanie) – 41

Most of what you call "erotica," I think of as "vagina fanfiction." @strutting (Jay Hathaway) – 35

I hit a squirrel with my car and it's still a better mp3 player than your zune. @bcompton (Doom Nibbler) – 32

Em sits in the midst of her collection of educational and developmental toys, having the time of her life. Waving a sock around. @toldorknown (Arch Stanton) – 29

I'm thinking of illegally downloading Pirates of the Caribbean just for the irony. @ttseco (Theo Tsecouras) – 28

I'm thinking about starting a blog in 2009 but I'm not sure the internet is really the place for all of my cat pictures. @bcompton (Doom Nibbler) – 26

Assuming the daughter is hungover, I called her cell phone and blew a whistle into it when she answered. Even as a mother, I'm a dick. @abigvictory (Michele Catalano) – 26

Once I start tooting the empty beer bottles, it's like, TOOT TOOT, HERE COMES THE PARTY BARGE! And then I look around and I'm alone and sad. @bcompton (Doom Nibbler) – 24

I can definitely see half a midget sticking out of my neighbors trash can. I don't know if I should call the cops or be proud he's quitting. @DieLaughing (J. Adam Moore) – 24

That Dick Clark muppet did an okay job considering the puppeteer obviously had a stroke. @awryone (Josh Donoghue) – 23

I'm gonna walk around all day whistling the Jetsons theme song to remind everyone that it's The Future. @phyllisstein (Blight Christmas) – 23

Running out of crackers doesn't mean you have to stop eating the cheese. @CcSteff (Stephanie) – 23

I sent my wife in to buy several bottles of hard alcohol at the liquor store. She is 7 months pregnant. @thedayhascome (Josh Hopkins) – 22

Man, was Dick Clark sloshed last night or what? @gruber (John Gruber) – 21

Having the flu on the 1st date is like being a scientist in a room full of models. No one is getting laid & chances are someone just vomited @FanEffingTastic (Kara) – 21

Kids are complaining that I take too long counting for hide and seek. It's because I'm eating their snack while they hide. @CcSteff (Stephanie) – 20

Started 2009 off right by pissing on the lawn of the Billy Graham Center as I ran through the campus of Wheaton College. @CcSteff (Stephanie) – 20

Wow, Ryan Seacrest just scored 100 percent on Expert Level in Douchebag Hero. @badbanana (Tim Siedell) – 19

Even in that Wrangler Jeans commercial where he's playing touch football, Brett Favre throws three interceptions. @badbanana (Tim Siedell) – 19

Now that it's the new year, I want to take this time to apologize for the mean and hurtful things I'll say about you and your mom is so fat. @thedayhascome (Josh Hopkins) – 18

[djinmer4]

Idea for a Remake

You know what series needs a reboot.  Captain Planet and the Planeteers.  But I’d change some things, of course.  This got kind of long so under the cut.

First of all, I’d mix up the rings.  Instead of each Planeteer embodying the Force they feel most connected with, they all receive the ring for the element they understand least.  So Wheeler, as a white American cismale, gets the Heart power because what he has the least of is Empathy.  His focus should probably corruption, apathy and maybe human trafficking.  Gi (whose name will have to be changed) actually comes from Beijing and has Air.  She sees the rampant pollution as merely a byproduct of progress and is aggressively defensive when others call China out on it because each and every one of the Western countries were just as bad if not worse when they industrialized and sees their attempts to stop the pollution as ways to inhibit China and other nations growth (and she’s more than a little right).  Kwame gets Water.  His issue might still be the exploitation of natural resources, but he’s used to siding with the humans.  What good is preserving an endangered animal versus a village facing starvation if it doesn’t eat bush meat?  Or non-pesticide cotton versus malaria?  Is ecotourism really advantageous for the locals or do the profits mostly end up in the hands of Westerners, with it being used as an excuse not to develop areas?  But on the other hand, is constant development introducing things like HIV and Ebola by jumping species through more exposure?  Linka, I would give Fire, and possibly more focus on the drug trade.  Or Russian corruption and warmongering.  She actually did get one episode like that in the original but more might be good.  That would leave Mat-Ti with Earth . . . and I don’t know what’s going on in South Asia right now to give him an issue.  Maybe like Gi he could be changed to a South American.

Most of the villains honestly don’t need to change that much, which shows exactly how far we’ve come since the original version.  I’d change Hoggish Greedly into a multi-star general and have him represent the military/industrial complex.  “Put up the wall and damn the butterflies!” would be a good slogan for him.  Looten Plunder would probably be younger and he’d be the CEO of one of those corporations that donate to Notre Dame, but don’t bother cleaning up the pollutants they put in water table from production.  He’d constantly be pointing out all the donations his company gives out, all the recycling measures they take, none of which actually touch the actual damage the industry does or changes that industry at all.  Very much good publicity without any substance behind it.  Duke Nukem should be changed to something about oil and fracking and the pipelines.  (I’m pretty sure the fact he wasn’t in the first place had something to do with our oil industry.)  And I’d make Barbara Blight into a lawyer, a lobbyist, rather than a scientist (it’s not science that’s the problem).

Gaia should definitely have a power boost and not be the Big Good, in fact, she might be the Big Bad.  Rather than the Planeteers being her rescue squad to deal with the crisis, they’re rather Humanity’s last chance to prove itself before being wiped out.  She’s not at all weakened by anything Humanity does and is at most amused by watching them.  She lets the Planeteer’s know about various crises, but if they can’t win, oh well.  She’s not even bothered by Humanity wiping out other species or pollution.  Species come and go.  The Great Oxygenation event killed off most of the planet and even a lot of the cyanobacteria but life went on.  The over-arching conflict of the series would be the Planeteers desperately trying to keep ahead of her by solving each crisis while Gaia sits there with a ticking clock.

Finally, Captain Planet.  Of all the conflicts and characters he should change the least.  If Gaia’s become a humanoid abomination beyond Good and Evil, waiting for the Planeteers to lose for her own amusement, Captain Planet is her way of leveling the field and providing some much-needed direction and firepower to the Planeteers.  He’s still kind, friendly, a bit corny and unlike Gaia will actually give them good advice.  He might be even stronger than his original incarnation as pollution and hate will not weaken him.  And heck, let’s make this guy even more overpowered, you no longer need all five rings to summon him, any single Planeteer can do so as long as he or she has her rings.  But of course, there’s a catch.  Every time he’s summoned, a disaster that specifically targets humans occurs.  It could be an earthquake like Fukushima, in the exact right place to cause cascading events to develop into a mega-disaster.  It could be a new disease like HIV or Ebola or the Swine Flu developing.  But humans will die every time Captain Planet is summoned.  What more there’s no way to predict where the disaster will occur.  If Linka summons Captain Planet, there’s an equal chance that the disaster will be in her Russia, the US, China or someplace that none of the Planeteers care about.  However, the other Planeteers can use their rings to block the summoning.  If one Planeteer wants to summon Captain Planet and four others don’t, the summoning doesn’t work.

I suspect in this case a lot of the conflict will boil down to trying to summon the Captain behind the other Planeteers backs or convincing at least two other Planeteers to side with you so that you have a majority rule.  Or trying to solve the problem without the Captain in the first place.