#The Last Mile

[teddywesworl]

if you're still doing the wip thing... The last mile? your mass effect au makes me feral

I just tried to answer this and tumblr fucking ATE my response but yeah i'm working on it, it's set half at the beginning and half at the end of the Reaper War with the Hawkins assigned to Project Crucible (part 1) and the London assault (part 2). tonally it's very me3 so im gonna be kinda nervous about posting it, especially as it may require a MCD tag lmaoooooo (not them though. never them)

i have no idea when it's going to be completed, though, so here's a sizeable chunk of the opening, complete with epistolary-ish framing device to match DTA:

EDDIE 1

Fig. 1: Perspectives on Tayseri Ward, an award-winning photograph of the Citadel by acclaimed asari photographer Lidilya Ranis, ca. 2182. Note the near-atmospheric effect of the gas and dust of the Serpent Nebula creating depth of field between the camera’s lens and the Presidium Ring.

*

The Citadel is different than he remembers, but it’s also the same.

He and Steve see it differently. Steve thanks air traffic control in person on their way through security and comments on the Sur’Kesh native trees freshly planted in the commercial district. Eddie marks the C-Sec man tailing them while they eat tacos from a super gimmicky Thessia-Earth fusion restaurant and spots a pickpocket watching them from an alley. It’s a human girl, maybe thirteen. No visible tattoos or marks, but that doesn’t mean much when the kid is wearing a beanie and a scarf and a bulky jacket that’ll hide plenty of take. Eddie angles himself so the cop can’t see his face, makes eye contact with the girl, and shakes his head.

They’re in the Mid-Ward, a part of Zakera that Eddie should know intimately. It feels strange not to recognize the large majority of the storefronts, replaced as so many were in the aftermath of the geth attack in ‘83, but the longer he looks, the clearer it becomes that the bones are the same. Eddie rebuilds the map in his head from the position of keeper ports, maintenance panels, walkways—and vents.

He falls behind Steve just staring at a vent tucked between an Armax vendor and a pop-up shop selling the elcor equivalent of beer. Steve walks another dozen feet, maybe, before he notices Eddie’s not beside him and doubles back.

“You okay?” Steve says, fingertips brushing Eddie’s elbow.

Eddie shakes himself off and nods. “Yeah, sorry,” he says. “Um. I used to sleep in there, I think. I’m pretty sure that’s the one.”

Steve frowns, his eyes moving from storefront to storefront, gliding over the vent like it isn’t there until he remembers. “Oh,” he says. His hand slides down Eddie’s forearm, and he laces their fingers together.

Eddie feels oddly disconnected from his own body. He doesn’t think he would fit in that vent, now, but that’s sort of the point, isn’t it? That’s what a duct rat is. You stop being a duct rat when you can’t fit anymore. Or when the wrong fan powers up and chews you to pieces.

Eddie unfocuses his eyes and doesn’t quite look at the C-Sec man still pretending not to follow them. It’s a turian, hanging around some fifty paces behind them, and he’s obvious in a way that’s kind of aggravating, because turians make up something like half a percent of the Mid-Ward’s population, and the real residents don’t dress business casual. There’s a tension welling up, raw from the vents and the cops and the collision between memory and immediate reality. He bounces on the balls of his feet, indecisive. Then he squeezes Steve’s hand, locks eyes with the turian, and crooks his finger at the guy, beckoning.

There’s a strange hanging moment where the cop looks like he’s gonna try to disappear into the crowd, but then he accepts that he’s been made and approaches. Steve looks surprised to see him; his posture gets a little guarded, so Eddie squeezes his hand again.

“That’s close enough,” Eddie says at a distance of ten or so paces. He’s not in the mood for this, doesn’t feel like playing a game, so he just says: “Why?”

Steve stays quiet, apparently satisfied to let Eddie handle this.

The turian’s mandibles twitch. “I’m,” he says. “I don’t…”

Eddie rolls his eyes. “Why’d they send you?” he says.

“They didn’t say,” says the cop. Eddie’s not sure he believes him, but at least he’s not playing completely dumb.

“Get out of here,” Eddie says. “Tell them you were made. Also tell them the Alliance doesn’t appreciate C-Sec harassing its N7s on shore leave.”

The mandibles twitch again. Turian hearts aren’t quite like human hearts, but the rhythm of this one changes enough to confirm Eddie’s suspicions that the guy at least didn’t know who Steve was. “Right,” he says. Leaving is an awkward thing, but he manages it, walking off in a straight line.

Eddie sighs when he’s gone.

“How long’s he been there?” Steve asks.

“Since security,” Eddie replies. “Fuckin’ amateur hour, sending a turian. Especially since there’s a ton of human cops now.”

Steve hums thoughtfully. “You ready?” he says.

“Yeah,” Eddie says, and it’s the truth. He wasn’t sure it would be, when Hop offered to call in a favor, when the message hit his inbox, or even when he stepped out of the Hawkins airlock and onto an Alliance dock this morning. He just kept saying yes and moving forward because he knew he’d regret it if he didn’t.

He keeps holding onto Steve’s hand as they move through and past the crowds toward Oji Way Warehouses, a row of storage units guarded by sectional doors and the occasional krogan hired gun. One such krogan, a scarred old brute with a cracked green frontal plate, approaches to grunt at them about what they’re doing down here, to move along if they don’t have business.

“We do,” says Steve. “We’re looking for somebody.”

“That so, soldier boy?” says the krogan. Eddie ducks his chin to hide a smile, because yeah, even in civvies, Steve sticks out like a sore thumb.

“Munson,” says Steve. “That’s the name.”

The krogan turns his head to get a better look at them out of a single eye. “What d’you want with Wayne?”

[goodblacknews]

Apple Adds $25 Million to Racial Equity and Justice Initiative, Increasing Financial Commitment to over $200M since 2020

This week, Apple announced its Racial Equity and Justice Initiative (REJI), a long-term global effort to advance equity and expand opportunities for Black, Hispanic/Latinx, and Indigenous communities, has more than doubled its initial financial commitment to total more than $200 million over the last three years. Since launching REJI in June 2020, Apple has supported education, economic…

[carmelasoprano]

Bernadette Peters, promotional image for The Last Mile (1992).

[steel-peach]

Ace Attorney 1 nostalgia trip drawings

[0vergrowngraveyard]

i think he does this sometimes

[honeycakelion]

the young prodigies

[doydoune]

names names names (3-4/4)

(1-2/4)

bonus

[thedaveandkimmershow]

So it's been one helluva month.

And it's not even over.

It's not been one helluva month only because of Kimmer's aunt Jacquie's fall at the end of last month that necessitated hip surgery after which Jacquie recovered some cognitive ability but her body in general was worse off to the point where she was transferred to hospice which is where Kimmer's right now managing Jacquie's care, being at her side every day and, like the rest of us...

Waiting.

It hasn't been one helluva month because of that, though. In fact, if the month was only about that it would've been a relatively manageable month.

What makes it the month that it is... is because that part of our lives was dropped wholesale into our show in progress. We just returned from our anniversary vacation in Orlando when, a few days later, Kimmer was on a plane to southern California ahead of Jacquie's hip surgery.

Now, the plan was to make sure Jacquie's pre- and post-op care was handled. The plan was to return her to her memory care home where she would successfully recover from surgery. The plan was for Kimmer to return home probably late the next week.

At this point, Kimmer's been there a month and a few days. Linzy went down for a few days a coupla weeks ago. I went down last week because Jacquie's health is like domino's falling and the broken hip was perhaps the second domino of something that was already ongoing.

All of that, by the way, is manageable on its own. Of course I doubt that anyone's life is composed of a single thing and ours is no different. Kimmer's, especially, is no different.

You see, when she got on the plane at the end of September, she took her show on the road. Her scheduled clients basically went down to southern California with her where she sees them online.

All her charting?

Done down there.

And then her doctoral program?

Yeah. She actually attended a coupla online classes during our vacation. We'd stop back at our room and she'd attend class for an hour.

Well, that program was just getting started and, very quickly, there were papers, quizzes, blogs, tests, formatting, reading, office hours, advisor meetings, dissertation prep, and so on. And the more time passes, the deeper into the obligations of the doctoral program she gets.

This is what I mean by one helluva month. Because aside from the doctoral work, the charting, and the clients, managing Jacquie's care has been a moving target. There are lots of pieces to it, not the least of which is Jacquie's ever-evolving condition and the family's plans on how to deal with the Now and the Future.

🤨

Now. Back at home, Linzy was keeping busy on top of her last-minute, whirlwind trip down and back from southern California.

Linzy's day job's at Off The Wall School of Music where she regularly and individually teaches a pretty all-ages group of students. She also does admin work and a bit of painting and finds herself enjoying not only the staff there but each of the students as well, both piano and vocal.

I think the age spread is something like 5 to 40. So there's never a dull moment and always a sense of adventure. 😊

Linzy's night job this month included performing at The Cottage in Bothell and Willows Lodge in Woodinville (actually the Willows gig is this Friday night). As well, she played another high-energy, next-level visual and sound production gig with Midnight High at Tim's Tavern in White Center. Lot of plans happening around Midnight High, by the way. The Future seems to be lining up for this band.

A little plot twist in the month: a pair of wisdom teeth in need of making an exit.

So that happened. 😬

Best thing, though?

I got a preview of the full album Linzy's gonna release under her Dream Patrol banner. It's a rough production draft of each of the songs she intends for the album... with a couple of the songs not yet painted with her Dream Patrol brush.

Many of the songs aren't complete. Some are. Every song, though, is on its feet. The Dream Patrol-ness of her work is definitely coming through. It's definitely another level or two up from her recently released EP, Made For TV, which features older songs.

These new songs, though, are in the process of making her first album an incredible stand-out piece of work. Especially as her Dream Patrol aesthetic allows her to be more cinematic, leaning into the emotions of her songs in a way that's not typically done.

And the live Dream Patrol show? What's it gonna look like?

Hand to God, it's fun just talking to her about it.

So that all happened this month, too.

😁

As I said, I went to visit Jacquie last week for a few days, just like Linzy did.

My October's yeah. It's a number of different post-production jobs done on location and at home. The glaring omission from this month is that The Combat Wombats didn't participate in this year's 48-Hour Horror Film Project.

Kinda bummed about that. 😕

For me, the most striking thing about October's that Kimmer 'n I haven't been apart for this long since we were first married and she went to Atlanta, Georgia, to attend Emory University's Wound, Ostomy, Continence program.

We were talking about it the other day and agreed that it's much easier to do what we're doing now with all the technology at our disposal. Cell phones especially, any time of day and night which makes coordinating everything we've gotta coordinate so much easier. We can share our mornings and evenings wherever we happen to be in those moments, say goodnight right before we go to bed. And so on.

Back in the day, we each had to be right there at a landline, a telephone wired into the wall of our condo. It was definitely not as convenient and inflexible as hell.

We did it, of course. Just as we managed my production trips to Europe through Internet Cafes and email.

We worked with whatever we had and thank God that's all changed for the much, much better.

☺️

October wasn't super about Halloween this year.

It couldn't be. It can't be.

It was a month about Jacquie and logistics and family and sharing this experience and waiting.

I just didn't wanna forget the other stuff.

🙂

[theshitpostcalligrapher]

oh my GOD my mom dug up a pair of heels I bought when I was like fifteen. have you EVER seen ANYTHING more 2010????

the wedge heel. the random stud straps. jesus CHRIST

[aspiringwriter22]

The Last Mile - David Baldacci | A Book Review

The Last Mile - David Baldacci | A Book Review #BookReview #BookBlogger #MysteryThriller

Title: The Last Mile Author: David Baldacci Genre: Mystery Thriller About the book: It’s the second book in the Amos Decker series. Melvin Mars is waiting to be executed for the murder of his parents twenty years earlier, but at the last minute, another man confesses to the crime. Amos Decker, a member of an FBI special task force, takes on the case because it has similarities to his own life.…

[snailianz]

[teddywesworl]

last mile uwu 🥺

good morning I’m getting to these finally!!!!

I’ve already posted the opening of the last mile here so here’s a bit further in

It goes against all of Eddie’s instincts to board the SSV Kilimanjaro, the largest dreadnought ever built by human engineers, the flagship of the Fifth Fleet and the Alliance Navy as a whole. Every part of it screams trap, from the decontamination suite in the airlock to the buzzing blue scanner that yields to an oddly corporate conference room with a sleek faux-wood table and a window into the abyss. The Kilimanjaro houses a crew of hundreds, and every one of them belongs heart and soul to Admiral Hackett.

It’s a small miracle, they say, that Hackett is alive, that he was on the Kilimanjaro when the Reapers shredded Arcturus Station and its forty five thousand inhabitants.

From the insane shit Hop’s been saying, it maybe wasn’t a coincidence.

Shit’s about to get bad, Hop had told them all months ago as the footage of the Bahak Relay’s final moments played, the unreal bowing and breaking of the vast machine and the white flash that killed three hundred thousand batarians on the colony below. Not everybody believes it yet, but they’re coming. So, any unfinished business you’ve got…

[rendevok]

Moon dance 🌕✨

[starcurtain]

Teyvat's "Most Down Bad" Award Goes to Alhaitham for a Second Year Running

Seeing everyone making fun of Alhaitham for his "stalkerish" tendencies in this event is funny, because I feel like a lot of people missed that "Be literally everywhere Kaveh is" has been Alhaitham's MO from the day Kaveh appeared in the game.

From only grabbing his house keys after Kaveh returned from the desert (he couldn't have had both sets of keys at the end of the Archon Quest unless he went home and got Kaveh's copy) to ditching conversations to get back to his house only after Kaveh came home, to showing up without any warning or explanation in Kaveh's hangout with some ridiculous excuse about hearing his voice through noise-cancelling headphones... Refusing to offer any help in the Temple of Silence story quest other than staying in the library with Kaveh...

Since when does Alhaitham willingly cover anyone else's duties?

But this trend of "Be everywhere Kaveh is" didn't start when they were adults. It was already in place when they were still Akademiya students--and it's a trend that didn't end even when they had their fight.

Even when they weren't speaking, Alhaitham dogged Kaveh's every step through published responses to Kaveh's research articles in academic journals. He insisted on keeping a line of communication between himself and Kaveh open, even if the only way to do that was through very public ideological clashes. Pulling Kaveh's pigtails to get his attention lolol. It's implied that, for at least the few years between their fight and Kaveh moving in, this was the only communication between them--Alhaitham's refusal to allow their connection to entirely fade away. (And the fact that this is revealed in Kaveh's character stories--through his precious journal that records the moments of his life that had the most impact on him--shows just how deeply he values the fact that Alhaitham didn't give up.)

Another relevant side note: Alhaitham never asked Kaveh to give up his half of their house. Knowing half of it belonged to Kaveh, knowing that Kaveh may one day want to reclaim his part of it, knowing that it was listed as theirs, Alhaitham moved into the house and made zero effort to change its ownership. He was completely fine with living in "his and Kaveh's house." The stories suggest it was only months later (or even longer) that Kaveh even noticed he had the house, and he transferred away ownership of his portion without Alhaitham ever asking him (or even seemingly wanting him) to do so.

Please, let that sink in. Alhaitham actively left his grandmother's (presumably comfortable) house to move into "his and Kaveh's house," with no apparent explanation for why, and after doing so, he made no attempt to change that "his and Kaveh's" label. He moved into the house with no promise that Kaveh wouldn't show up on the doorstep the very next day and move in too. It almost feels like another deliberate provocation--I've moved into our house, are you going to come stop me? LBR, if Alhaitham had had his way, Kaveh would have been living there with him from Day 1...

There's also the fact that Kaveh literally can't write on a single message board anywhere in the entire nation of Sumeru without Alhaitham hunting his messages down and responding to them (which absolutely no one else does, by the way).

"NUH-UH!" "UH-HUH." "NUH-UH!"

Alhaitham's own character stories tell us explicitly that one of Alhaitham's defining character traits is "He is never where you need him to be," yet somehow...

Shot, and chaser:

Any time Kaveh is in the slightest bit of need or danger or just wants Alhaitham near, Alhaitham is "coincidentally" exactly where Kaveh needs him to be, whenever Kaveh needs him to be there.

Alhaitham didn't just "happen" to run into Kaveh in Port Ormos, an entirely different city from where he was supposed to be working. He didn't just "happen" to read the same terrible book as Kaveh when we know he otherwise would not waste a moment of his time on poorly-written literature...

He didn't just "happen" to appear when Kaveh was upset and needed a distraction in the House of Daena during Kaveh's hangout. He didn't just "happen" to be sitting around waiting when Kaveh needed answers after the Archon Quest. He didn't just "happen" to find Kaveh's academic publications and every single message board posting and respond to them at length and in public.

The only person for whom Alhaitham just "happens" to be available is Kaveh, over and over and over again--because he is very deliberately making himself a constant presence in Kaveh's life.

Which is exactly what Kaveh's mother told Kaveh he needed.

(Like, out of all things, I think people really underestimate the devs deliberately paralleling the romantic relationship between Kaveh's mother and father with Kaveh and Alhaitham's relationship. If you want to point to one thing that says "These two characters are intentionally queer-coded," it doesn't get any more obvious than this.)

Alhaitham, are you not embarrassed to be this transparent??? 🫣

[stil-lindigo]

not a role model, former runway model

prints

[butterflyscribbles]

Working on a much larger comic but have a short and sweet moment I made as a break from it

People seemed like papa Tang so have some more📚🖍️❤️