#The line ��....where we first met” implying that they first met under that specific olive tree

[backpackingspace]

Okay so with the line "the olive tree where we first met" we have two equal hilarious options.

When penelope was sassily like oh I'll marry you if you make a living bed out of this tree right here! Cue penelope stumbling over odysseus very very carefully digging up the tree "because how else is he going to get it to itacha we can't have a wedding bed out in the open in sparta duh"

Or

2. Penelope, knowing that Helen's suitors would soon be arriving to take over her home for a while. Snuck out and went on her own wacky shenanigan filled journey where she scoped out all the major players. Odysseus caught her spying in an olive tree. And when she got back she told Helen she had dibs on the cutie from itacha.

[notmyrick]

Also long side note/analysis:

In s4e10, Rick was part of the resistance against the Galactic Federation in his 30's which he said he grew out of.

In the comics (#34) while he was in the band The Flesh Curtains (which some sources say started in his college years, not sure when it ended though) , he also was starting off as a weapons dealer and got his first client/ friend Krombobulous Michael (Mike). After making the deal, in the following panel, Mike goes off in a killing spree and if you include the initial gun, and assume he got all his guns from Rick, he has a total of 4 guns, which at max means he met Mike 4 times to deal him weapons. At least from the first deal. Then we see another deal with Mike and Rick, this would be the 5th transaction, which this is where Rick confesses he fell in love. He has shorter hair, looks happy, and has the vibe of slowly becoming simple Rick as he even tells mike that he should fall in love. Same comic, when mike meets his wife amy they have a love montage where in the end they got married and surprise surprise, Rick is there with his iconic flask drinking as one of the groomsmen or as the best man wearing his common getup.

So this gives us a rough timeline that by the 5th transaction, Rick met his wife Diane when he became a well known weapons dealer and by the time Mike got married to Amy, he either had problems in his marriage or Diane already divorced or died. Most people married around their late 20's and early 30's and assuming Rick did the same maybe on the late side. He was also still part of the resistance against the government.

Also in Rickshank Redemption, does "weird" Rick give off any I'm against the Federation vibes? Like the outfit has the same feeling of space Beth? Anyone?

At the ending of Auto-Erotic Assimilation beth says:

And I know I sound like mom but I can't sacrifice this whole family's safety just because I'm afraid you'll leave again, 

So this is something Diane would say, maybe not word for word, but certainly the same tone, vibe, and message.

This begs me to question how did Rick threaten his family's safety? For the smartest man in the universe, you would think it be easy to slip under the radar of the government considering that Earth wasn't really under the Galactic Federation until Rick was in his 60s/70s(his current age) in Rickshank Redemption. Sure they sent a couple spies, but they didn't give Earth an olive branch to join anytime prior to this episode. To me this means that Earth was under watch, but they werent worth much of the Federation's time. So Rick could be considered "not a threat" in his 30s (debatably). Also in this episode, it shown during this time (also debatable) that he was trying to figure out interdimensional travel. So breaking down the jobs Rick had, he was a weapons dealer, he was still part of the resistance against the government, he may or may not be working on earth to bring money to the family, and he was an at home scientist. That's a lot. It's nice to note that Diane was supportive of Rick's science endeavors although she might not know much. It looked like the family didn't have much conflict, at least in the early years of the marriage.

So what was Rick doing that was threatening the safety of his family? From Diane's/Beth's words, he was always leaving and the threat always starts when he left. So here is my 2 scenarios.

The Citadel of Ricks. When interdimensional travel becomes a Rick thing, they created a "clubhouse" or government where only Rick's exsist. But since this is an earlier time, it can be assumed that the Citadel was very "primitive" at this time. Sure there are a bunch of Ricks and a group of geniuses can achieve a lot, but not nearly the end product we see in the show. Rome wasn't built in a day and most definitely the Citadel wasn't either. Maybe a day and a half at best lol. Anyway, I just dont think that the power the Citadel has now, is what they had back then. They can be threats individually, but not a threat as a whole, at least not yet. And since a lot of non cooperative Ricks view this as a clubhouse or party, it could be safely assumed that it was used as such initially.

The Galactic Federation. In his 30s he was still part of the rebel alliance. Which one can assume, he was still a rebel during his marriage. Now this I see much less of a threat. As shared previously, I believe that Rick can go under the Federation's nose and stay hidden. As a matter of opinion, if the Galactic Federation knew where Rick was, which presumably he was soely labeled as a criminal instead of the smartest mammal who discovered interdimensional travel, they would've already threaten/take over his home planet and more specifically threaten his family to get him to concede. Which I believe is not the case because Diane couldn't sacrifice this whole family's safety which implies the threat was more looming and mental, than it was physical and present.

In Diane's case the Citadel of Ricks, yes can threaten the safety of the family despite being Rick, knew and are aware of Diane and Beth. They even have the advantage of portal tech and know the dimension they come from. Diane and Beth are essentially sitting ducks in this scenario and this can be a looming and mental threat compromising the safety of the family. However there are two caveats.

Beth's adoration

Rick's presence

While the Citadel is a threat, it would be more of a threat to Diane than Beth. Both caveats are linked to Beth. They can psychologically torture Diane with multiple Ricks. As a spouse, you hope the person you love comes back, but with the interdimensional travel the person who comes back may not be the person you married. In addition, this doesnt threaten the safety of the whole family, it only threatens Diane. And it seems to me as along as (a) Rick is cordial and father like to Beth, she would be willing to suffer the mental abuse of multiple Ricks. This is assuming that the threat came to them and as stated before, I'm less inclined to believe this because while yes it is a looming threat and definitely a mental one, it is also a physical threat because there is an actual entity invading and I don't think there was any physical factor when Diane spoke these words. Not only that, but it has to threaten the life of one Rick sanchez along with the rest of the family.

The term "losing you" can be interpreted in a lot of ways, but the most common I think of is death. If the Citadel was threatening another version of himself, then it would make sense that they would target the Sanchez family when they are together. And the only way to threaten Rick is to kill his family, and the only way to threaten the whole family, is to kill everyone. Which again I think, the threat should be more psychological and mental, than having an actual physical threat. This also contradicts that the family's safety is threatened when Rick leaves. For Diane, this is an inescapable scenario where safety is never guaranteed. Either way it should have enforced Rick to stay by his family's side instead of leaving.

Which brings me to the second point: Rick's presence. If they did torture Diane with multiple Rick's that wasn't her Rick, to Beth's childhood, her father would have more presence, even if he tried to sneak around the child (I'd like to think that Beth was like a bloodhound when it came to her dad). Also in her words, "I'm afraid you'll leave again" implies she constantly saw her father leave her mother, herself, or both.

With the Galactic Federation, I can see a little more meat to this. If Rick was still a rebel and actively participated in the front lines, Diane is essentially married to a solider, who has a very realistic possibility of dying on the battlefields. In addition if Rick is the weapons dealer and if he is as infamous as he claims to be, then he paints, not only, a target on his back, but his family's as well. Assuming his world state is similar to ours with the exception of us not having a Rick, then Rick is the first and only human to interact with other intelligent, sentient life forms. To Diane, Rick is easily recognizable. So a psychological looming threat is possible and can even manifest into something worse due to imagination. Even if the truth says otherwise, as long as Diane wasn't aware of it, she would just think the worst.

Now moving on to Diane and Beth. Don't take this to heart bc Diane had no speaking lines only rare appearances and mentions here and there, so I'm taking a few liberties with Diane. You could say these are a few headcanons I had of Diane (subject to change). Beth said she "sounds like mom" which I translate Beth is bringing up common issues or problem arguments they had when she was young. Essentially her argument is very reminiscent of the missing/late Mrs. Sanchez whether it was tone, topic, or opinions. So instead of word for word of what Beth said I made Diane say: I can't risk our family's safety just because I'm afraid of losing you. Which, like beth, sounds like an ultimatum, and to further emphasize that point I made her say in addition to that: Choose Rick, come home or stay out. In the episode Rick essentially implies that the creation of Portal tech is what caused the divorce or death of Beth's mom. Although there was a fabricated backstory, the show also implied that what was out of the shoneys were real. And we have a real memory of Beth and her mom standing infront of Rick's green portal in between Rick's favorite sports blooper and where he was in 9/11. To me there must be a connection with the portal and Rick's wife. So here is where the headcanon or possible backstory of Rick's marriage. I believe that Rick was still part of the rebels against the government during his marriage, that the federation was the looming threat that may compromise the safety of the Sanchez family. I believe that Diane was supportive, but was always frightened when Rick would be gone days at a time without a single word. So Diane actually proposes that Rick call her whenever he was in trouble. Depending on the Rick, he either calls her constantly to the point where he abuses it and depends on her to get him out of a sticky situation or he doesnt call her at all to the point where she is informed by a close friend of Rick because they were worried for Rick. Either way, it stresses Diane out to where she is jaded and worried at the same time. In this scenario, she saved rick from gods know what and essentially snaps. She confronts Rick to either come home or stay away because Diane realizes he's no good trying to protect the galaxy and being a father/husband, but he could excel if he focuses on one or the other.

Anyway this is merely for me of I ever wanted to explore this concept of Rick X Diane, or do like a one shot of this exact scenario.

[ober-affen-geil]

I did a post, by request, about forgiveness earlier based on two different character relationships we have seen with Alex. This is sort of related to that, but also about the small window into the Manes family dynamic that we are getting to see glimpses of. There will be spoilers for season 2 through 2x10 so heads up for that. (Also, you know, this is based ONLY on everything through 2x10 so I’m calling it like I see it now, no liability for future nonsense that may or may not joss me.)

We met Gregory in 2x10, another Manes brother, and an interesting parallel to Flint in 1x12 jumped out at me so I’d like to talk about it here. CW for discussion of child abuse, homophobia, victim blaming, and gaslighting.

What I want to highlight is than in both episodes, 1x12 with Flint and 2x10 with Greg, both brothers acknowledge the abuse Alex suffered under Jesse. But the way each of them does so and the way Alex receives the sentiment is wildly different, and I think it tells us a lot about the family dynamic of the Manes brothers that we are not otherwise able to see.

*A small disclaimer about my headcanons, we know in canon that Flint is older than Alex. Personally, the way I interpreted the body language in the scene with Alex and Gregory is that Gregory is younger than Alex so that’s where I’m coming from analytically. Also, given that we know Flint is being blackmailed by Jesse, it’s very likely that all the Manes boys were raised in an abusive environment. It does also appear, from remarks that both Flint and Gregory make, that Alex had it “worse”, so my headcanon is that Alex bore the brunt of the physical abuse.*

I’ll start with Flint, because we meet him first. Significantly, we meet him in a military setting. This is Jesse’s world. Also, as is implied later, Jesse’s sphere of influence. Flint has clearly bought into Jesse’s worldview in at least part (the aliens), and feels powerless enough against him to accept the rest as unchangeable.

We see this also in the way he talks to Alex, “Do you ever get tired being the black sheep of the family?” The phrasing of this is distinctly victim blaming in nature. As if Alex could stop being the “black sheep” if he wanted to. It’s not necessarily implying that Alex could choose not to be gay, we actually see nothing about Flint in canon that indicates he’s homophobic in the way Jesse is, but it is implying that if Alex stopped making trouble he could be accepted. Like the responsibility lies with Alex, not with Jesse.

In fact that seems to be Flint’s strategy of dealing with his father if Alex’s rebuttal (Do you ever get tired of following the flock?) is any indication. So Flint’s relationship with Alex falls along the lines of Jesse’s. Again, Flint seems to have swallowed part of it whole (Alex could prevent his abuse if he wanted to) and accepted some of it as something he can do nothing about (”I know it wasn’t easy for you, growing up with Dad” aka, Alex was, in fact, abused). 

There’s an interesting dynamic physically too. Discounting the moment in the corridor with the gun, since neither of them knew who the other person was at the time, there is a moment in the research room where Alex turns to leave and Flint grabs him

[ID: Inside the research and development room at the prison, season 1 episode 12. Alex is standing next to Flint (who is in uniform), arms folded close clutching the straps of his backpack. He turns to go and Flint grabs the top of his bag, yanking him back towards himself. Alex’s arms fling out slightly as he looses his balance.]

A couple things here. One, Flint is showing no regard for Alex’s personal space. He exerts control over Alex without hesitation; he doesn’t want Alex to leave and his first instinct is to prevent him from doing so physically. He puts his hands on him like they have a right to be there. Two, Flint yanks him in a way that puts Alex off balance. I don’t think it was necessarily deliberate, just the first thing he thought to do, but Flint knows Alex is missing part of his leg. Earlier in the scene Alex made reference to the fact that Flint is “able-bodied”, jerking Alex like that (towards his prosthetic side no less) shows complete disregard for the fact that Alex would have more trouble than most with keeping his feet. (He doesn’t fall but that’s not the point.)

The most telling thing though is Alex’s reaction to Flint. When he offers an, apparently genuine from his standpoint, expression of regret for Alex’s abuse (I tried my best to protect you from him) Alex rejects him out of hand (oh, spare me). To Alex, Flint’s olive branch has no meaning. Either because he feels it’s an empty gesture or because he believes it’s a false one. 

Gregory offers an opposing viewpoint. Like Flint, the setting in which we meet him is significant. Not only is it civilian, it’s on a Diné reservation where he apparently lives. We haven’t met Alex’s mother yet and we know almost nothing about her in canon so I can’t speak to exactly what it means that Gregory is choosing to center his life with his mother’s side of the family. But symbolically, from an overarching analysis standpoint (which is my playground), there are a few things.

Alex’s mother represents Jesse’s opposite in almost every way. In the physical, female versus male and Native versus White, but also ideologically. We know at some point that she left the Manes family, which represents a rejection of Jesse’s influence and beliefs. Gregory not only leaving the Navy when it was his time but also choosing to live in a place where the US Government has extremely limited legal jurisdiction represents a similar rejection. Something Alex acknowledges when he congratulates Gregory for “getting out”.

Gregory’s language also sets him apart from Flint, he repeatedly aligns himself with Alex’s standpoint over Jesse’s. “I don’t think I get to be free until you are, Alex” indicates that he feels it is his responsibility to carry the burden of abuse as long as Alex does. In fact, carry the burden of Alex’s abuse specifically, “Let me hate him for you” tells me he is not hating Jesse for his own reasons.

“I wish that I would have stood up for you more” and “I owe you that much” also places the responsibility for Alex’s abuse on Jesse (and himself, he feels guilty) and NOT on Alex. Flint seems to imply that it was something Alex could have avoided, or made less worse, if he had kept his head down and fallen in line. Gregory is placing the blame on the abuser, not the abused.

Physically, unlike Flint, Gregory respects Alex’s physical boundaries. They greet each other with a handshake, and when Gregory goes to say goodbye he offers his hand again. 

[ID: Alex and Gregory stand facing each other, their torsos and waists visible but their faces out of frame. Gregory takes his right hand out of his pocket and offers it towards Alex for a handshake. He makes no other move forward.]

Importantly, this is the only move he makes. He doesn’t move into Alex’s space and he doesn’t grab Alex’s hand. He’s following the lines set down by their previous interaction; he’s not asking or expecting anything more from Alex. He does not believe himself to have a right to Alex’s personal bubble. Alex is the one to initiate the hug, not Gregory. And again, Alex’s reaction is the most telling part in all of this. 

Aside from granting Gregory access to him physically (the hug), he also explicitly invites him to visit him in Roswell, granting access to his home and personal sphere. Alex is giving permission to Gregory to involve himself in Alex’s life, which is something we don’t see with Flint.

This kind of comes back to the forgiveness part I mentioned at the very beginning, it’s clear that Flint does not have Alex’s forgiveness or trust and that Gregory does. The thing is, neither one of them asked him for it, but the reason why dictates which one he grants it to. 

Flint didn’t ask for forgiveness because he doesn’t think he needs it from Alex. Flint is the one putting blame on Alex for how he was treated, in no way does he hold himself responsible for what happened growing up. In his own mind he did what he could and that was enough. Gregory isn’t asking for forgiveness because he doesn’t think he deserves it. It’s obvious that he is blaming himself as much as Jesse for what Alex went through, and he on some level expects Alex to do the same.

It’s a great dichotomy, and it’s a wonderful way of gaining a lot of insight into something that has only every really been off screen. I’m looking forward to finding out more of the Manes family dynamic as we go along, but picking scenes like this apart is honestly a little more fun for now.

[tokiro07]

Okay...

So the theory goes that Jumpman, the Mario from Donkey Kong, is actually the father of Mario and Luigi (based on the fact that the original DK is supposedly now Cranky Kong and the current DK, who has faced off against the current Mario, is the son of DK Jr.)

If that is true, then Jumpman is likely the same Mario that worked as a demolition man in Wrecking Crew, given both the era of the game and the fact that Jumpman could easily have been a generalized construction worker (as he was stated to be a carpenter in DK). There is a Luigi in Wrecking Crew, though, so maybe not, but who knows, twins could easily run in the family and maybe Jumpman named one of his sons after his brother 

Either way, that would mean that Jumpman, the father of the Mario brothers, worked with Foreman Spike, who for some reason hated Jumpman and his brother. Depending on the game, Foreman Spike bears a striking resemblance to either Wario or Waluigi. Now, we already know that Wario and Waluigi are canonically not brothers, so I’m not saying that Spike is both of their dads.

Just one of them. 

(Long post under the cut. This whole thing really got away from me, but I think it ended pretty nicely, so I hope y’all enjoy it)

Probably Wario’s, if I had to bet, given that we know Mario and Wario have known each other since childhood (stated explicitly in the instruction manual for Six Golden Coins), so it would make sense for them to know each other if their parents were work “friends,” and it would especially make sense for Wario to be as hateful of Mario if his dad, Spike, were hateful of Jumpman. Hell, it would even explain his name. Jumpman has a kid and names him after himself, and then Spike has a kid around the same time and decides to invoke some nominative determinism and labels his kid “bad Mario.”

How Waluigi fits into the picture is ambiguous, but with a number of simple solutions. While some early sources indicate that they are brothers (strategy guides, official websites, etc.), while later sources refer to them as either cousins (Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games) or as friends (Mario Sluggers, voice actor Charles Martinet). They could be adoptive brothers, but this wouldn’t really explain the visual similarities, unless Waluigi explicitly modeled his appearance after Wario or Foreman Spike. This wouldn’t require that they be brothers at all, though, as Waluigi could have done that even if he was just a friend. The cousin aspect works best at explaining the visual similarity and even the name, as that would mean that his name was chosen to spite Luigi just the same way that Wario’s was chosen to spite Mario. The only issue there is that we’ve never heard of Spike having any siblings. He’s had multiple conflicting designs, so MAYBE there’s multiple Spikes and Spike is a family name, but I doubt it.

Personally, while the cousin angle wraps everything up the most neatly, I’m still a fan of the idea that Waluigi is some kind of shapeshifted disguise for Tatanga, since the two are both purple misanthropes with an unhealthy obsession with Princess Daisy, a hatred for the Mario brothers and an odd friendship with Wario. This would also of course explain why the exact nature of their relationship is so unclear, since it would imply that they’re outright lying but can’t keep the story straight. I would rather the cousin thing, though, since I would like Tatanga to be able to make a comeback, but that would still be a really fun twist.

The one major hole in all of this, though, is that Pauline appears in Mario Odyssey and gives no indication that she’s not the same Pauline from Donkey Kong, implying that Mario and Jumpman are, as they’ve always been presented, the same person. However, there is surprisingly an explanation for this. You see, in the original Donkey Kong, the damsel in distress was a blonde woman referred to as Lady. It wasn’t until the remake for the GameBoy that she was redesigned to be the brunette Pauline that we know today. While particularly damning sources (Shigeru Miyamoto, Smash 4) have claimed that Pauline and Lady are the same person, various extended Mario media present them separately (The Cat Mario Show, a 1994 encyclopedia, various Mario manga), and even present them as having opposing personality types. Naturally, Shigeru Miyamoto should be considered the most credible source here, but that’s no fun, and he also said he was Bowser Jr’s mom, so I’m going to ignore him. 

So.

Jumpman’s pet Cranky Kong kidnaps his girlfriend, Lady, and he has to save her. Sometime later, Jumpman orders two children from the stork with Lady, whom he names after himself and his twin brother, Luigi, after a somewhat delayed delivery. His work rival, Spike, and Spike’s brother...Stanley the Bugman, why not, maybe he blames Mario for DK getting into his green house, both have children delivered around the same time, and name them Wario and Waluigi to spite Jumpman’s children. The Mario brothers and Spike children grow up to hate each other, and DK Jr. has also grown up and decides to kidnap Mario’s girlfriend, Pauline, just as his father did to Lady all those years ago. Mario saves Pauline, but unlike Jumpman and Lady who were brought closer together by their trauma, they break up, although they remain friends. Some years later, after Mario has established himself as a recurring hero to the Mushroom Kingdom, gets a toy line which DK III becomes weirdly infatuated with, leading to Pauline’s second kidnapping by a DK (or this is the first time, and Mario vs. Donkey Kong 2 was just a remake of DK on the GameBoy to give more context, the specifics aren’t too important here). Sometime after this, Pauline becomes mayor of New Donk City, which is adorned with references to Donkey Kong and his family’s crimes as if it’s all one big joke to these people. But I digress.

Somewhere in all that, Mario is given a castle for some reason, which is the last straw for Wario, who I imagine is working on a farm at the time, given that his best friend is a hen named Hen. Deciding that back breaking labor doesn’t satisfy his ambitions while his rival lives it up as a hero, Wario enlists the help of the alien Tatanga (who now that I think of it, he may well have met on his farm during an attempt to abduct a cow or something) to trick Mario to leave his castle so that Wario may steal it.

After Mario foils Wario’s plot and reclaims his castle, Mario extends an olive branch and invites Wario to play tennis with everyone, as that’s just the kind of guy he is. Wario, realizing he doesn’t have a partner, either a) invites his cousin Waluigi, who has gone into construction like uncle Spike (evidenced by his excavator in Mario Kart), since he loves sports and hates the Mario brothers as much as Wario does, or b) recruits Tatanga and has him disguise himself as someone who could ostensibly pass as a family member to lay low in case anyone tries to hold him responsible for his crimes (which they wouldn’t since they never try to arrest Bowser or Wario, but apparently he doesn’t know that)

As far as I can tell, the only thing we’re missing is where Waluigi was when Wario and the other Star Children were being delivered by the Stork and intercepted by Kamek. Perhaps he got passed over since he didn’t have a star? Maybe Bowser captured him and found he didn’t have a star, then discarded him. 

Actually, what if...

Waluigi was SUPPOSED to be delivered to Spike.

Waluigi was SUPPOSED to be Wario’s brother.

But when Bowser went back in time to find the seven Star Children, he messed up the route that Waluigi was supposed to be on. When the Stork got Waluigi back, he accidentally delivered Waluigi to the wrong house, the way he did to Mario and Luigi at the end of Yoshi’s Island (as shown in Yoshi’s New Island). Unlike with the Mario brothers, though, the Stork didn’t catch this mistake, and Waluigi grew up in the wrong household. Maybe it was even Stanley’s, and Waluigi’s inherently nasty personality clashed with Stanley’s kindly personality, but he still inherited his adoptive father’s love of plants! Can’t believe I was able to work that back in.

That’s why no one knows if they’re brothers, cousins or strangers! Because they don’t know who he was supposed to be delivered to, but they can’t deny the visual similarity! That’s why Waluigi’s so misanthropic, because he wasn’t delivered to the right house and he felt out of place! 

That last bit could easily be explained by being raised under Spike’s influence, though, since Spike is apparently the kind of jerk who would sabotage his own employees to get a bigger paycheck for himself. 

Either way, I think that lends to a really solid idea for the story of a Waluigi game.

A long time ago, I suggested a game where Waluigi somehow travels through time and goes through  levels themed around various Mario franchise titles (Waluigi’s Time to Shine), but now I know how to frame it! Waluigi, feeling odd about his family situation, asks Bowser how he travels through time so he can see where he comes from. Bowser throws him through a wormhole and Waluigi witnesses the events that lead to the Stork delivering him to the wrong house. He decides this is either Bowser or the Stork’s fault (Bowser makes more sense, but it would be super funny if the Stork ends up being the final boss) and journeys to exact revenge. The spell or technology tethering him to the past messes up, however, resulting in Waluigi being in flux and going through all of the Mario franchise.

It’d be really funny if when playing through the Yoshi’s Island section he becomes his baby self and knocks Mario off of Yoshi (resulting in Mario’s capture by the Toadies), giving Yoshi some weird new ability the way the Star Children did in Yoshi’s Island DS, but I’m not sure that having one level have a completely different control scheme would be the best idea.

It could also be that Waluigi rides Yoshi as a full grown adult, which would also be pretty silly given his lanky proportions. 

A Wrecking Crew level near the end would also be a fun way to bring the story full circle, revealing Waluigi’s relation to Spike and Wario, and establishing that Mario and Luigi are the children of Jumpman and Lady. 

Waluigi, Nintendo’s ultimate loose end, would be the catalyst through which all of the loose ends of the Mario franchise are tied.

Get on that, @nintendo 

Edit: This ended up having a couple of revisions, but rather then amend this post, I just ended up making two others. You can check those here and here

[anubislover]

Welcome to the Heart Pirates, Nami-ya

Chapter 1: The Deal

If someone had told Nami a week ago that she’d willingly seek out Trafalgar Law, she would have called them an even bigger liar than Usopp. The rest of her crew might have only paid attention to their own bounties, but since entering the Grand Line, the brilliant navigator had kept tabs on who was who in the pirate world. In particular, the Surgeon of Death’s reputation had chilled her to the bone. He was a rockstar in the criminal underworld, especially where the black market organ trade was concerned. Rumors of his cruelty, intelligence, and abilities were whispered in bars and back alleys, all with a tone of reverence and fear. Some of them had to be hyperbole; there was no way that the hearts he sold were still beating, right?

Still, she doubted his reputation was exaggerated to the extent of Luffy’s. Pirates, in general, were still self-serving scum willing to kill, exploit, and pillage. Her captain—that kind-hearted, trusting, ridiculous fool—was the exception, and that was why Nami was willing to confront the Dark Doctor. News of what happened during the War of the Best had reached even Weatheria, and though Haredas had tried to discourage her, she’d demanded he help her track down the Supernova that had saved her captain’s life. Perhaps the old man felt guilty over the tears she’d shed over not being there for Luffy—not all of them had been fake. It had helped that one of the other wizards had spotted the Polar Tang not far from the floating island, so he’d allowed her the use of a Weather Ball to go down for an audience with the Surgeon of Death.

“I saved your captain on a whim. I’m not interested in your thanks.” Leaning against the side of his yellow submarine, Law hardly spared her a glance, seeming more focused on studying the DEATH tattoos across his fingers. Nami knew it was a ruse, though; he wouldn’t have agreed with her demands to meet if he hadn’t been interested in what she had to say.

Stubborn and scowling, she crossed her arms and jutted out her hip. Short, orange hair brushed her cheeks as the soft ocean breeze caressed her. She wore the same tight t-shirt and white shorts she’d donned at Sabaody, and the high heels of her tan sandals gave an echoing tap when she’d landed on the metal deck. Part of her wished she could have dressed a little sexier in case she needed to use her feminine wiles in this meeting, but her options had been limited, and even if she’d had her full wardrobe, it was probably safer not to attract this strange and deadly man’s attention too much; she didn’t have her crew to bail her out if she got in trouble, after all.

As she glared at the bored-looking man leaning against the submarine’s steel hull, Nami started to wonder if she’d made a mistake. It was too late to turn back, though, so she took a steadying breath and stated, “Whim or not, I don’t like the idea of Luffy being in anyone’s debt; especially not a rival’s. I want that squared before we head to the New World. So, if you don’t want thanks, what do you want?”

Interest piqued, Trafalgar Law finally graced her with his full attention. Nami had to admit, at first glance, he didn’t fit the image of a pirate captain. His skin was a warm olive tone; she could lay in the sun for hours and never achieve a tan like that. Midnight blue hair, sideburns, and goatee framed his angular face, and the dark circles under his eyes implied he rarely got a decent night’s sleep. His clothing was casual, consisting of spotted jeans, black boots, and a yellow hoodie; hardly the apparel of a feared warrior. Atop his head rested a spotted, furry hat, and she wondered if it had sentimental value like Luffy’s did; she really couldn’t imagine why someone of Law’s reputation would wear such a silly accessory otherwise.

Being a pirate was about more than just looks, however. Up close like this, Nami could tell he was dangerous. Taller than even Zoro, though far leaner, the muscles of Law’s exposed forearms showed he wasn’t some skinny weakling. It was intimidating, to say the least, especially when the nodachi propped on his shoulder was nearly as long as she was tall, and her hand itched to use the Clima-Tact strapped to her thigh to turn herself invisible and run away. She keenly recalled seeing the vivisected pieces of navy soldiers that had littered the battlefield at Sabaody. Even if there hadn’t been any blood, the gruesome scene was like something out of a horror story. The sunny yellow of his sweatshirt seemed too cheerful for a man of his reputation, yet it easily enhanced the intensity of his calculating gold eyes.

Eyes that were locked on her. Assessing. Calculating. Appraising.

“That depends on what you’re offering,” he replied, not bothering to hide his lecherous grin as he gave her curvy figure a slow, penetrating once-over.

She shuddered. Of course he’d suggest that; men—especially pirates—were all the same. “Not what you’re thinking, that’s for sure. Look, I know medicine and the like ain’t cheap, and assuming you fed Luffy at some point, that’s a hell of a grocery bill. I’m here to pay you back so you can’t hold anything over his head in the New World.” Squaring her shoulders, she met his gaze unflinchingly. Much as she loved money, she knew the importance of paying one’s debts. More specifically, she knew the power debts could have over a person. “Just name your price. It might take me some time to get it, but I’m not called ‘Cat Thief’ for nothing. You’ll get your belli.”

Pushing away from the wall, Law slowly circled her, studying her like she was a new and unusual specimen he was eager to dissect. “You think I want money?” he asked, a low chuckle rumbling in his chest. “The hearts I sell on the black market are worth ten times your bounty. I can empty a safe of its contents without opening the door. Moreover, I saved your captain’s life, not his wallet. If you want to pay me back, you’re going to have to give me something more valuable than belli, gold, or jewels.”

“And what is that?” she asked, twisting around so she could keep him in her sightline. There was no way she trusted him enough to take her eyes off him. She’d feel more comfortable being stalked by a hungry leopard than the lanky surgeon.

One final circle and he stopped in front of her, looming over and blocking out the sun like the Grim Reaper himself. “Time. Your crew agreed to meet up in Sabaody in two years, right? Then spend one year as a member of the Heart Pirates.”

“Are you crazy?” she shouted, stepping back. “I’m not joining your crew! I need to spend that time training!”

He shrugged. “You can train aboard my ship. There’s no better vessel to study ocean currents with, which will be beneficial for getting to Fishman Island, among others. Besides that, I saw your fight at the Auction House; you desperately need combat training. And I’m sure your captain would hate for your thieving skills to get rusty. Can you do all that on Weatheria?”

It was infuriating how logical his argument was, mainly because his smile was uncomfortably smug. “My combat techniques rely on my knowledge of weather science. I can’t give up the opportunity Heradas is giving me,” she argued.

“You’ll still have a full year to learn from him once your debt is paid, Nami-ya. Surely the weather wizards understand how important your captain is to you; otherwise they never would have brought you here.”

Small fists clenched, nails digging into her palms. She hated how easily Law had backed her into a corner. He was cunning, calculating, and knew exactly how to manipulate the situation in his favor. She’d actually admire him if it weren’t focused on her. There was no way she was giving up without a fight, though. “That sounds like I’m getting the better end of the deal, which doesn’t translate to paying off a debt. What’s in it for you? If your skills are as impressive as you claim, surely you’re not in need of a cat burglar?”

“As my subordinate, you’ll use your numerous skills to aid me and my crew. I know you’re a talented navigator and cartographer on top of your infamous thieving abilities. Perhaps you could even help me run some cons with that incredible beauty and high alcohol tolerance of yours.” He chuckled at her shocked expression. “Mugiwara-ya talked extensively about you all; mostly in his sleep. Anesthesia has a fascinating side effect of acting as a truth serum, and I had to keep him under quite a bit so he wouldn’t rage about and tear open his wounds.”

Damn you, Luffy! Nami screamed mentally. She should have known he’d be an idiotic blabbermouth, even on death’s door.

Still, this needed to be done. It was too great a risk, letting someone like Trafalgar Law, the sadistic Surgeon of Death, hold a life debt over her nakama. He may claim he’d acted on a whim, but Nami knew pirates like him never did things out of the goodness of their hearts. Maybe he’d intended on calling in a favor at a later time, using her good-hearted captain for his own plans. Luffy would agree in a heartbeat, too, since he’d probably assume anyone who had saved his life was his friend. Thinking like that could get him killed.

That’s exactly why he needed someone like her.

The Cat Thief couldn’t fight like Sanji and Zoro, but she could protect her captain from the machinations of a rival. They had the strength, but she had the brains and survival instincts they lacked. She’d promised she’d make Monkey D. Luffy the Pirate King, and if she had to spend a year working for another crew to do it, she would. At the very least, she might be able to discover Trafalgar Law’s weaknesses.

And maybe—just maybe—she’d run into Luffy. She knew he’d fulfill his promise to meet them in Sabaody, but that didn’t mean she didn’t worry about him. He was an idiot, but he was her idiot, and if she had the chance to at least check on him, she’d take it. Law had saved his life; perhaps he knew where the rubber captain had disappeared to.

“So, do we have a deal?” Law asked, gold eyes bright and smile too wide for his narrow face. He could see the gears turning in her mind, grinding and processing until she came to the conclusion he desired.

A small voice in her head whispered that this was a mistake, that this was sounding too much like her deal with Arlong, but she pushed it away. Guilt at not being there for her captain far outweighed her distrust at making pacts with pirates. Swallowing down her fear and doubts, the beautiful navigator stuck out her hand, brown eyes meeting amber with determination. “Deal. I work with your crew for one year; not a day more.”

His calloused, tattooed hand engulfed hers, shaking firmly. Like a leopard that had trapped his prey and was eager to pounce and gobble her up, his expression was triumphant and hungry.

“Welcome to the Heart Pirates, Nami-ya.”

[rcyharper]

can you explain why you don't like new 52 roy? i don't know much about him so i'm curious

I’m gonna paste an edited version of an old answer I’ve given before. It’s kind of long so I’ll put it under a cut.

The gist of it is that the New 52 basically changed everything about him. His origin, his heritage, his history, his relationships with the Titans and Arrow family, his personality, his addiction, and so much more. They literally changed everything and none of it actually helped his character– most of these changes were made to prop up Jason Todd and Roy’s relationship to him. They were made to justify him being labelled an outlaw- a label pre-RP Roy would have never taken.

They completely disregarded his Navajo heritage. They removed his band tattoo on his bicep and replaced it with tattoos of a scorpion and a skull. His Navajo tattoo actually had meaning to him– we actually saw the story of where and why he got it, and we know how much and what it means to him. It’s important to him because it ties him back to his culture and it was the tattoo he got when he was officially officiated as a member of the Navajo Tachini tribe. His N52 tattoos generally have no meaning or point. They’re just… there. We never saw how or why he got them or what they mean to him. To me, they’re just there to make him look more “rebellious” to try to justify him being labelled an outlaw. His Navajo heritage gave him a unique perspective on life, whereas N52 Roy is just like any other guy. Him being Navajo also gave him a home he could always return to when needed, and his perspectives about family, death, life, etc. always added a unique layer to the character. Also, him growing up in a tribe came with a love of the outdoors and growing up with archery– that’s the reason he loves archery and is so good at it, it ties him back to his home and it’s something that was always a part of him. Granted, Rebirth did bring back his Native heritage but it was only in the GA issues he was in (which some writers, aka old Lobdell, didn’t bother to read and hence ignored.)

Another change the N52 made that I hate: his relationship with his fathers. Roy has three fathers: Roy Harper senior, Brave Bow, and Oliver Queen. They’re all inspirations to him and he looks up to all of them, but N52 made him hate 2 of them and erase the other one. Basically, what they did with each of them:

Like I mentioned before, N52 erased his Navajo heritage, so with that, Brave Bow was erased as well (he was brought back in Rebirth though, though they changed his name to Big Bow.)

Roy Harper senior, his biological father, was a forest ranger that died in a fire when Roy was 3 years old. He died saving a man (Brave Bow) who took Roy in. Roy senior was a hero Roy always looked up to and strived to be like, but N52 changed his father into a generic stereotypical absentee father who’s an alcoholic. Just another asshole father, how original…

As for his relationship with Oliver… while yes, Oliver and Roy did have their infamous fight pre-FP, but they never hated each other. This is a huge misconception among people. If people actually read the story where the fight happened, they’ll see that it ends with them being on okay terms, but moving in their own way. After spending some time apart doing their own thing, the two become closer than ever once they reunite and start getting closer again. They’re very much a father and son who love each other as any healthy father-son does. N52, however… changed that. It made them hate each other way into the present day, and removed a loving bond between the two that made them so close. it didn’t help help either of their characters and just made them both seem to be like assholes because of the things they’ve done. 

I have a lot more problems with Roy and Ollie’s relationship in the N52, I’ll get to them in a later point. But like I said, this point was about how N52 absolutely destroyed Roy’s relationship with his fathers.

Another thing I despise about N52 Roy is… Lobdell always wrote him as someone who needed to be taken care of. Someone that couldn’t be independent, which is just… the exact opposite of Roy’s character. Pre-FP Roy, after making his mistakes, goes solo to find himself and make amends. He, solo, worked on becoming a better person and making the world a better place so people wouldn’t go through what he did, and later, he was a single father who raised a daughter alone and he was a good father. N52 Roy always implied that Roy had to be babysat by Jason and couldn’t be left alone, or that he was too much of an idiot to handle himself (oh, how Lobdell loved to remind us that his Roy is dumb.) N52 kept portraying Roy as always needing to be with Jason or hating being separated from Jason and Kory… making him be so dependent is so against his character. He was completely independent when he went solo. He even refused to rejoin the Titans at first because he wanted to do things solo and find himself, and most importantly… he was a single father! A responsible father who independently raised a daughter… that’s why him being dependent is literally the opposite of his character.

And then there’s his addiction… N52 changed his addiction from heroin to alcohol (it was changed back in Rebirth but still.) Addictions are not and should not be treated like they’re interchangeable. The original drug addiction story, Snowbirds Don’t Fly, was an award winning story that changed the landscape of stories that could be told in comics. It was that good, and changing for just a generic addiction story is pretty ridiculous. The original story showed that Roy was the one who kicked his addiction away, all because of his will and drive to kick it away. He was the one who wanted to get rid of his problem. With some help from people around him (aka Dinah), he kicked it away and was determined to be a better person because of it. He wanted to become an educator and volunteer to help people dealing with addictions like his, and he wanted to help fight drug dealers and help fight the drug problem. That’s why he joined the DEA– he wanted to help people who went through what he did. Roy appealed to a specific demographic of teenagers that fell low and fell into drug addiction– something that hasn’t been done before with any other character– and he served as a role model as someone who overcame it. N52 just got rid of all that and not only changed his addiction type, but had him be completely be saved by someone else (who he shouldn’t have any relation to in the first place). N52 focuses on him relapsing and being tempted back all the time, which is against what the character stands for. The whole point is that he’s someone that wants to move on past his mistakes and become a better person and let others see him for who he is as a hero, but N52 keeps throwing his addictions back at him and him being literally labelled an “outlaw” is something pre-FO would never accept because it goes the entire idea of him wanting to move past his past and being something better, letting people see him for the good he’s done. He’d never accept being labelled as some sort of outcast, because that’s not what he is.

And then there’s his relationship with… Jason… first, even if they were in a team together, there’s no way in hell Jason would be the leader over Roy. That’s just ridiculous. Roy has led the Titans, Checkmate, and the Outsiders. He’s more level headed, nowhere near as damaged, and has so much more experience. Not only has he led all those team, but he led them well. Even Dick said he was a great leader and that he should lead the Titans in his absence. Roy’s character was completely changed to justify him being on a team with Jason that labelled him an “outlaw”. Roy was 19 when he met Jason, who was Robin at the time, and probably no older than 12 or 13. In that same story, Roy discovered he was a father. There’s just so many levels of maturity and experience Roy has above Jason. Jason being the one to take the shots makes no sense at all.

I also hate how all his relationships and history are disregarded to justify him being an outlaw and to prop up his relationship with Jason. Just some of the relationships that were gone include:

His relationship with the Titans? Completely gone and watered down to prop up their friendship. Lobdell takes every opportunity he can to insult Roy’s relationship with the other Titans to show Jason as his one “true” friend. Even when he wasn’t writing Roy in Rebirth, he still decided to include someone stupid line about how Roy was drinking because he was with the Titans, even though there was literally nothing in the Titans book actually indicating that, even more proof that Lobdell doesn’t bother to read other books and just makes up his own stuff. As a side note, relating to what I said about how Lobdell handles his addictions earlier, he seems to be the only writer show throws them back at him when he’s (aka N52 and that one crappy RHATO annual, and even a line in a book Roy isn’t in that makes, and most of it doesn’t make any sense when you look at what Roy is actually doing in Rebirth.) They literally were never thrown back at him in Rebirth except for one line in a comic written by Lobdell that Roy wasn’t even in. In just one and the one issue he wrote Roy in Rebirth, Lobdell managed to throw his addiction back at him and managed to undermine his relationship with the Titans to imply that Roy hasn’t been happy since leaving Jason which completely ignores what’s going in the book Roy is actually in. Ridiculous. I mean, even when Lobdell the Wally/Speed Buggy book, it ended with Wally celebrating with the Titans, and it had every Rebirth Titan there except Roy. It’s like this guy just wants to erase that part of Roy’s history.

His relationship with Oliver? Completely scrapped and changed. I talked about just some of the problems i had with it earlier, but one of my biggest problems with it is that their father-son relationship was completely thrown out in favor of making it a… weird co-worker type relationship or whatever it was. Instead of making Roy a kid who Ollie took in and had to raise, they made him what was basically an employee/associate of Oliver’s who had a falling out because of business issues with the company. His problem with Oliver was the reason went into in addiction, but the N52 completely changed that to say oh, it was that kind of but it was also actually because of Jason’s death, someone Roy barely even knew when he died. His relationship with Ollie was completely damaged and destroyed to justify Roy’s position as an “outlaw” and to make him more relatable to Jason. (Rebirth thankfully changed it back to a father-son relationship)

Also, Roy recovering from his addiction? Instead of being by Dinah and Hal and the Titans, nope, they replaced all of them with, you guessed it, Jason Todd and fucking Killer Croc of all people… again, his relationship with people that were family to him was all completely scrapped for the development of Jason and Killer Croc, again to try to justify him being labelled an outlaw since he can apparently only seek help from outcasts and to prop up Jason even more.

Basically, what I’m saying is that all of Roy’s relationships with the Titans, the Arrow family, and any other character that had meaning to him were completely and utterly undermined for no reason other than to prop up Jason Todd and his relationship with Jason. None of these changes actually benefitted Roy himself (other than the horrible attempt to label him an outlaw), they just made him worse- but they all benefitted Roy.

Roy’s personality also changed a lot. Pre-FP was lighthearted, but he was also serious because of what he’s been through and he was smart and great at what he does. N52 changed him into a literal idiot (like I said, Lobdell loved reminding us of this) who can’t handle himself alone and has to crack a dumb joke every second and doesn’t take things seriously and has to be babysat by Jason. Even when they tried portraying to do things like build tech, they still wrote him as dumb. Roy’s always been someone that was good with tech, since he obviously built his arrows, weapons, so many high tech bases, etc. But the N52 chose to portray that intellect by portraying him as a mad scientist... that’s literally what they refer to him as multiple times, or a “rockabilly genius”. Basically, they wrote him so that he could only build tech, but he gets so carried away with it to the point where he either destroys a lot of crap while doing it or if he’s unsupervised, he’ll spend all their money on it. They wrote him as someone who was so irresponsible and had to be kept in check, whereas Roy is actually someone who builds things when he needs to. He’s someone who prefers to spend his time either with his family, training, or volunteering somewhere. He doesn’t spend his entire time building things for no reason, he has to plan something out, know why he needs it and adds it in. Technology is a hobby for him that he occasionally spends time on, it isn’t an obsession and it’s nowhere near being his main focus. He was extremely dumbed down to serve a role of being the dumb guy who’s good with tech.

And it’s not even just relationships and history that were changed. They just changed him so, so much. His attitude towards life and how to deal with bad guys and killing, and his views on being a superhero were all changed from someone who genuinely wanted to be a hero to help people to someone who tried going hard and edgy and it just doesn’t work with what the character represents and is about. It all goes back to trying to fit him under the outlaw label– they changed his views and how hard he goes, what he is and isn’t willing to do, his tolerance on killing, etc. All of that changed to try to fit him and being an outlaw.

Another thing I’m not a fan of is one of the consequences of the bad attempt of labelling him an outlaw, which was his status in the hero community. Pre-FP Roy worked so hard on himself, to prove himself as Speedy and then Arsenal and then Red Arrow. He cares so much that other heroes see him for who he is and not his past and respect him for work, and he more than earned that respect. When he took on the Red Arrow name and joined the league, it meant so much to him because of him finally deciding to take on the family name and legacy, and to be up there fully after all he’s done. N52 made him an outcast in the hero community, made the league and all other heroes look down on him instead of being his friends. He looked up to the heroes and wanted to be treated as an equal among them, and he was-- he was just like any other hero, but that was all thrown out to, once again, justify him being an “outlaw”.

Another consequence of trying to label him an “outlaw” is that he just… doesn’t look like Roy Harper. Like, at all. I’ve already talked about how they replaced his Navajo tattoo with edgy tattoos to make him look edgy in the beginning of this, but it goes even beyond that. The extremely long and messy hair and the way he dresses so badly is just… not Roy. Roy is definitely someone who takes care of himself. Like I said before, he cares about how he presents himself and the type of image he sets, so this whole “don’t care” attitude they tried reflecting in his clothing and hair just didn’t make sense for the character because he does care, he’s not a rebel. Plus, there’s also the whole infamous trucker cap thing that they had him wear… not only does it make for such an awful look, but it’s also not practical, and Roy is someone who works a lot about the practicality about how his suit works, and he cares about being the best possible superhero he can be, and he doesn’t like wearing a cap beyond his Speedy days, let alone a stupid trucker cap. Also, the way he was drawn just didn’t look like him. Side note, but most of the time, he was drawn a lot smaller than he is for some reason, and for some reason the shape of his head was just… off. He just doesn’t look like himself at all. His whole look is just too messy and that isn’t Roy. 

Roy just doesn’t fit the “outlaw” label– he never has, and the fact that they had to change so, so much about his character to try to justify it is proof of that.

And finally… most importantly… Roy being a dad, and the erasure of Lian Harper. When Roy’s a dad, he was something to fight for. He has a reason to be a superhero and do what he does, to be responsible and to be more mature than he already is. Him being a dad completely changed him and gave him a reason to strive to become a better man than he already was, all for his daughter. He helped so many characters because of how his fatherhood changed him. Him being a father gave him so much happiness and brightness in his life despite the mistakes he made before. On top of that, Roy became a father when he was young. He risked his life just to see Lian and take her in. He could have easily ignored her and left her with Jade, but he chose to actively seek her out and risked his life to do so. He wanted to be a father. He wanted to raise his daughter right and be an inspiration for her, and to me that just shows the kind of man he was.

Being a father is one of Roy’s biggest character traits. It isn’t just some random thing, it was part of his characters for literal decades. It’s so much of who he is and holds so much of his development, and the erasure of it just changes so much about him for the worst.

Roy’s a character that meant something. He had a unique story with a unique background and perspective on life. Despite the mistakes he’s made, he still fought hard to strive to become a better man and hero. His relationships with the Titans and Arrow family and were such a huge and important part of his history. All those characters mean so much to him and they’re all his family, and they were closer to him than anyone. He was a Titans and Green Arrow character, after all. He was a role model that readers and characters would look up to and be inspired by. He was a character that showed despite the mistakes he made, there was always room for redemption and the path to becoming better and learning from your mistakes to become a more inspirational and better man.

And the N52 just threw that all out the window… and for what? Nothing good.

[wildflowerrambles]

Flare

Author’s Note: I am a Luke girl. I am a Luke girl. I am a Luke girl. But apparently I decided to take the scenic route that belongs to Calum Hood SO

This idea popped into my head & I mean, who doesn’t enjoy the thought of Calum as a firefighter? Yes please. Also, I’ve apparently been watching too much Grey’s Anatomy lately.

I would love to hear your feedback and I really hope you enjoy! Happy reading! <3

Pairing: Firefighter!Calum Hood x Reader

Word Count: 6,149

Warnings: mentions of death, alcohol

I trudged my way across the grassy surface of the park, ignoring the ‘Please Do Not Walk on Grass’ signs. I shoved my keys into the front pocket of my pale green scrubs. The morning had been rather hectic, starting around 5am when my pager went off. Thankfully, it led to an opportunity to scrub in on a procedure in the OR.

I would be even more thankful when this surgical internship was over and I could hopefully move forward into residency. With the test coming up in a few weeks, it’s all I could think about.

Calum waved at me from the picnic table where he sat with a few of his coworkers, laughing as he realized I was avoiding the sidewalks. He and the others were dressed identically in black pants and tshirts with the fire departments logo across them.

I was just grateful to even get a lunch break and I imagine he was, too. Which was another reason I chose to ignore to silly signs littering the park.

I plopped down next to the brunette as the rest of the crew greeted me. Dumping the content of my lunchbox onto the table, I felt a little like I was back in elementary school, which was when I met Calum.

My older brother and I played soccer at the same sportsplex that Calum did. During the majority of my brother’s games, I found myself running around kicking the ball with the boys my age rather than braiding hair on the bleachers with the girls. I only knew him as one of the dudes who kept stealing the ball away from me back then.

As I entered high school, my brother was deployed overseas and my world continued to somersault after that. My parents picked us up and relocated across town before dropping me into a new school. I remember seeing Calum’s familiar face during lunch and was relieved when he didn’t shoo me away. We bonded over our mutual passion for soccer and common disdain for literary essays.

Since then, we had graduated high school and were dropped into adulthood. Calum honed in on his soccer skills for a while before choosing to pursue a different avenue. He had been volunteering with the local fire and rescue team and decided to do it full time.

I, on the other hand, pursued medical school - surgery, to be more specific. Science had always been my niche in school and something about human anatomy fascinated me. I wanted to cut things open, mend the broken; I wanted to be a surgeon.

I wrinkled my nose as I sniffed Calum’s shirt a second time.

“You smell like.. Is that kerosene?”

“And you smell like hospital,” he retorted. I nudged his elbow with mine as he cracked a smile. “We’ve been running drills in the warehouse this morning.”

I hummed, taking another bite of my sandwich.

“Why do you smell so hospital?” he asked.

“I got to help with an aortic valve replacement this morning.” I sat my sandwich down, knowing I was about to go all out talking with my hands. “I got to watch a heart beat right in front of me, okay. Not from the gallery. Not from a cadaver. But with my own two naked eyes. Do you know how cool that is? I-”

“Mm,” one of the guys across the table waved his hand, “Not at lunch.”

I chuckled, rolling my eyes a little. It amused me that these big, burly men could rush into burning buildings and be first responders but couldn’t handle a little anatomy talk. I suddenly heard the pager clipped to my waistband begin to beep. Pushing my top out of the way, I checked it.

“Sorry. I have to go.” I said, stuffing my food back into my bag. “Oh, and don’t forget - it’s another night of Shark Week, so I’ll see you after work.”

Calum gave me a thumbs up as his mouth was too full to speak. I jogged a few steps before turning back to the table to yell one last thing.

“And the boys are welcome to come!”

-

There was a knock on the door at a quarter until seven. I skipped away from the kitchen where I was making dinner, opening the door to find Calum standing on the other side. I apparently made a face which was his cue for explanation.

“Ashton’s family is in town. Michael is deep into a video game. And Luke-”

“Is running a little behind,” Luke chimed in as he appeared from the apartment stairs, “but brought a bottle of wine.”

I laughed, “Fitting.”

-

I bolted upright from sleep when I heard the familiar beeping going off somewhere in the distance. I untangled my legs from Calum’s lengthy ones from where he had fallen asleep opposite me on the couch. Stumbling through my slumber, I found my pager at the bottom of my purse. As soon as I stopped it from beeping, I heard Calum’s begin to go off in the living room followed by the creaking of the couch cushions.

I stepped into the laundry room to grab a clean pair of scrubs, tugging them on as Luke groaned from where he lay stretched out on the rug.

“You people need to get better jobs.”

“You’re welcome to go sleep in my bed,” I replied, looking up to see him already halfway there as I pulled on my tennis shoes.

Calum snatched his keys off the counter and headed out the door ahead of me. It was still dark outside. I glanced down at my watch then to realize it was 4:22am. Opening the door to my car, Calum did the same a few spaces over from me.

“Have a great day!” he yelled.

“You have a great day, too!”

-

Pacing down the hall, I watched as several gurneys wheeled past.  

“Multi-car pile up,” one of the nurses said, shoving a clipboard in my hands, “Go find Dr. Bridges. I think she has some scans for you to look at.”

-

Clicking through the slides again on the computer, there were no signs for concern. Dr. Bridges had been paged back to the ER and left me with Alison, a fellow intern like myself. She told us to notify her if there were any concerns and thankfully, we couldn’t pinpoint any.

“Why do you smell like a boy?” Alison asked, snickering a little under her breath.

I raised a brow and shrugged. My clothes were clean.

“Oh,” I paused, “Calum fell asleep on my couch last night. His scent always seems to linger for some reason.”

She grinned at that.

“Wipe that look off your face before I smack it off.”

“Rude,” she laughed, “He’s at your house a lot. That’s all I’m saying.”

“He lives with three other guys. I would want to get away sometimes too if I were him,” I took the clipboard from Alison’s hands, scribbling down some notes in the patient’s chart. “Luke was there last night too. He’s probably still asleep at my house.”

I sprung up from my chair, heading to give the chart back to be signed off for release. Alison fell in beside me.

“I wasn’t implying anything. Just, given the history between you two-”

“Which was months ago,” I interjected.

“I was simply checking, that’s all. You can calm down.”

I shook my head at her as I tried to ignore the flush feeling in my cheeks.

Calum and I had kissed after a party several months ago. Liquid courage was my nemesis, and it seemed as if every time it entered my system after that night, the kissing kept happening. Things had gotten hot and heavy several times, but we drew the line at sleeping together.

After avoiding it for a while, we finally talked about it and hadn’t kissed each other since. He was my best friend, but the feelings that needed to correspond with such actions just weren’t really there.

I leaned against the nurses’ station, passing the clipboard to the nurse behind the desk and grabbing another one.

“She’s all good.”

“That’s what we like to hear,” the nurse smiled.

I flipped through the pages at hand as another round of gurneys burst through the double doors. I whipped my head around to the commotion. Dr. Bridges was already at the side of one stretcher as it wheeled past.

“Alison, go ahead and book an OR. You,” she nodded to me, “Catch Dr. Oliver when he comes in.”

I nodded as I heard the paramedics coming through the doors talking.

“Another round of the first responders were called in for backup and there was a collision on the way to the scene of the pile up. An engine and two police cars.”

My ears perked up at the man’s words. “Excuse me, did you say that a fire engine was involved in the accident?”

The man nodded.

“Do you happen to know which one? Uh, a name or number or something?”

He stuttered for a second before the guy next to him spoke up.

“I thought I overheard someone say Tabasco maybe,” he shrugged.

I felt my heart begin to beat faster.

“That’s Cal’s,” I mumbled, tossing my clipboard to the counter and taking off past the double doors. I made it outside as another ambulance had just pulled up and was opening its doors. I saw Calum sitting to the side as they pulled down the stretcher that I was relieved he wasn’t on, but my concern grew.

“Cal!”

His shirt was streaked with blood, a gash on his bicep oozing crimson.

“Calum!” I bounced to his side as someone handed a gauze to press against his wound.

“I’m okay,” he reassured, “The blood isn’t mine and I just need a few stitches. But that’s Cameron in there. That’s Cam.”

It was then that I noticed the tears in his eyes as he pointed in the direction of his friend and continued to ramble out of panic.

“Y/N!”

I turned to the source of yelling, seeing Dr. Oliver waving me in his direction.

“The patient’s spleen has already ruptured. We need to get him to surgery now. You’re scrubbing in.”

I glanced back to Calum who squeezed my hand.

“He’s one of my best friends. Please take care of him.”

I nodded, tightening my grip on his hand before darting off with Dr. Oliver.

-

I stood, holding the instruments in hands steady as Dr. Oliver worked across from me. Once inside, there had been much more damage than we initially suspected. The monitor began to beep frantically.

“His bp is dropping,” the doctor called out. There were people rushing around, supplies being passed back and forth, a whirlwind of things taking place around me in the crowded operating room.

-

I took a deep breath as I followed Dr. Oliver to the waiting area. I saw Calum sitting in the far corner, his arm freshly stitched and bandaged. He was surrounded by a few other guys from the station. He was the first to look up, locking eyes with me almost immediately.

His brows furrowed and I shook my head the slightest amount. His eyes fell and I stayed behind to allow Dr. Oliver to deliver the devastating news. I watched as their heads fell into their hands and tears began to run down my best friend’s face.

-

Calum gave up on fidgeting with his tie and walked over to where I was applying lipstick in the mirror. I pushed the black fabric into place, straightening his collar to lay flat.

Cam had started at the station the same day that Calum did. They had been placed on the same team since day one and had fought many fires together, ran into many smoldering building alongside one another. A few day ago, Cameron had been laughing at our lunch table and then I had to hear someone call his time of death.

There was no way I wasn’t going to be by my friend’s side and let him squeeze my hand so tight I thought it might break.

I looked up as Calum’s heavy lidded eyes stared down at my concentration. His eyes always reminded me of a fresh cup of coffee. The kind you would drink on a cool morning while the wind blew through your hair, peaceful and pleasant. But today they were filled with sadness.

“Ready to go?” I asked softly.

He nodded, grabbing his coat.

-

Calum was making small talk by the time we made it back to my apartment, which let me know that he was going to be okay. He had been incredibly quiet the past few days which was beginning to worry me, but little pieces of himself were starting to show again.

I had taken the morning off to be with him. Once he had fallen asleep on the couch, I decided to go on in for the evening shift. I covered him with a blanket and tip toed out the door.

I was still wearing my black dress and heels when I got to the hospital. Alison was waiting for me when I entered the locker room, sitting on one of the benches.

“How did it go?” she asked.

“Hard,” I sighed, unzipping my dress and pulling my top over my head, “But Cal’s gonna be okay.”

I slipped into the bottoms, lacing my tennis shoes before shoving my belongings into the open locker.

“Why didn’t you just change before you got here?” she asked, handing me my badge as I worked my hair into a ponytail.

“He fell asleep on my couch,” I waved a finger in her face when I saw a smirk begin to tug at the corners of her mouth, “Don’t even start.”

-

I tread lightly into my house a little after midnight, startled by the noise. Ashton and Michael sat on the couch, yelling at the video game on the tv screen. Calum balanced on the arm of the couch, screaming along with the other two.

“Um, hi?”

I kicked my shoes off at the door and tossed my keys next to my purse on the ground. They paused the game briefly to say hello as Calum pushed himself up and followed me into the kitchen.

“Where’s Luke?”

“He was in one of his moods where he plays music too loud and sits in the shower,” Michael answered bluntly, “We had to get out.”

I laughed as they went back to playing. Grabbing a water from the refrigerator, I turned to Calum who was leaning against the counter.

“Have you been drinking?” I asked.

He grinned, “What gave it away?”

“My house smells like popcorn. You only eat popcorn when you’ve discovered the stash of beer in the back of the refrigerator.”

“Guilty,” he shrugged with a grin, “How was work?”

I turned my back to him, reaching for an apple from the basket of fruit. I began cutting it into bite sized slices.

“Not too bad actually. I got to scrub in on an appendectomy and a cholecystectomy.”

As I continued slicing and rambling on about my evening, a pair of arms found their way around me, hands resting against the bar. I noted the familiar initials inked on them and before long felt Calum’s chest against my back. His lips ghosted over my neck, leaving a delicate trail behind. I bit away the tug of pleasure on my lips as I laid the knife I was cutting with down.

“What are you doing?” I mumbled under my breath. He reached for the ponytail holding my hair in place and tugged it loose. I spun on my heels, taking the stretchy band from his fingers and sliding it onto my wrist.

“You’ve had a long day,” I took the apple slices and wrapped them in a paper towels, “And I have rounds first thing in the morning, so I’m gonna head to bed. You guys are welcome to stay up. Just be sure to turn everything off before you go to sleep.”

Calum nodded before I headed to my room, shutting the door behind me.

-

I looked over at the time again before returning my eyes to the ceiling. I had been laying in bed for almost an hour and had yet to fall asleep. I could hear the boys still playing video games in the living room, but that wasn’t why. I could fall asleep just about anywhere. Noise didn’t bother me.

I kept thinking back through all the times Calum and I had locked lips over the past few months. And then to the conversation we had about keeping the recreational smooches to a bare minimum. We knew we weren’t trying to send each other mixed signals; it was best if we just cut out that bit so our friendship didn’t stand the chance of getting weird.

So why was I so put off by his advances tonight? It wasn’t the drinking. We’d been tipsy in every other occasion. I didn’t want to blame it on the fact that he’d just lost a friend. Typically in emotional situations, he’s light a cigarette and get back to business, which I’d seen him do lately.

Was it because the other boys were in the next room?

I turned on my side, burying my face in the pillow with a groan. I desperately needed to fall asleep, like an hour ago.

-

Life was back to being fast paced.

I sat across the table from Calum outside at a local coffee shop. It was well past 10pm and I was trying not to choke on my food from laughing so hard. There were very few people out at this hour, most of them like us with jobs that had chaotic schedules.

“I can’t believe he did that,” I wiped my hand on a napkin, shaking my head, “Actually, yes I can. It totally sounds like something he would do.”

Calum let out an audible sigh as laughter died in the back of his throat. He rubbed his thumb over the glass of his cup that was accumulating moisture. I pulled my knee into my seat, resting my chin against it.

“Gotta stay at the station tonight?”

“Yep. I’m on call.” Calum checked his watch before scooting his chair back and gathering his trash. “I should probably head that way.”

I followed suit in cleaning up my area, stalking next to the tall boy as he walked me to my car. Like the gentleman Mrs. Joy and Mr. David raised him to be, he opened my door and motioned me inside. He paused to lean against the open door.

“I think we’re planning to meet Mali for drinks tomorrow night if you want to come.”

“Heck yeah,” I grinned lazily, “Just let me know when you get off work.”

“I will,” he nodded as he forced himself to stand straight. “Drive safe.”

-

The buzzing atmosphere of the bar smothered me the moment I stepped inside. I managed my way through the sea of people over to the corner where I saw the boys standing around.

“Hey,” I cooed excitedly as I tugged on the arm of Calum’s leather jacket. He greeted me with a beaming grin as he turned around, drinking sloshing in his hand. His eyes wasted no time scanned the length of my figure.

“Well, don’t you look extra nice tonight,” he noted.

I bit my lip, running my fingertips along the fabric of the tee he wore underneath, pinching the material lightly.

“You don’t look so bad yourself, mister fireman.”

I spotted Mali walking back up from getting a drink at the bar and waved. Wiggling my way through to give her a hug, I noticed Calum place his hand in the small of my back to allow me past him. It lingered a little longer than I felt necessary, and I caught him doing it randomly throughout the night. It was a small gesture, one that felt foreign yet familiar all at once.

As the night drew to a close, we each caught an Uber in groups to head back to our respective homes. My face tingled from the alcohol in my system as I peered out the window. Mali was still talking animatedly with her brother next to me.

Her place was the first stop. The two of us waved goodbye and promised to meet up again with her soon. Next was Calum’s house. From the looks of it, the other three boys had already made it back, several lights being turned on throughout the place.

“Thanks for inviting me out tonight,” I said, leaning into his side.

“Anytime,” he smiled, “Let me know you make it home safely, okay?”

I nodded, his brown eyes staring down at me. He leaned over and pressed a kiss to my cheek before scooting out the door.

Turning my gaze forward, I noticed the driver looking at me in the rear view mirror.

“What?”

He shrugged, his voice pleasant, “You guys are cute.”

Instead of arguing the fact, I allowed myself to not fight the heat rising in my cheeks, a grin daring to creep up with it.

“Thanks.”

-

I met Luke on the sidewalk as I made my way to their front door, Petunia’s nails clicking as she walked happily next to him.

“Cal should be clothed but I make no promises about the others,” he said. Always reassuring, I thought. “But fair warning - he’s not in the greatest of moods.”

Upon entering, I could hear piano chords being played from the back of the house but no voices. The other boys must be upstairs. Dropping my keys in a nearby chair, Calum’s dog rounded the corner and made a b-line to me, wagging his tail enthusiastically around my ankles.

“Hey there buddy.”

Duke always did bring out the soft side of me, causing me to talk to him in my baby voice. It was a little embarrassing at times. After satisfying him with pets, he trailed along beside me as I made my way through the downstairs.

Calum sat at the piano, still dressed simply in black shorts and a white tee with a black cap over his messy hair. They must have drilled today at the station.

Sneaking up behind him, I poked him gently in the side. His body flinched slightly before he turned his head to find it was just me. I leaned against the edge of the piano as his fingers continued to roam across the black and white keys until he finally came to a stop.

“Not a great day, huh?” I asked softly.

He rubbed his eyes as he let out a single chuckle; he shook his head.

“It was the new guy’s first day.” he paused as I took a seat on the piano bench beside him. “I remember what it was like to be new and not really know what I was getting into. And I know he’s coming in under unfortunate circumstances, but.. He’s not Cameron.”

Calum let his index finger hit a key lazily at random. I could tell he was still deep in his thoughts.

“What’s the first thing I do when I meet a patient for the first time? Or when I’m reporting to an attending?”

He looked down at me, his brows knitting together.

“Their name,” I answered, “I say their name. It helps us to establish a sense of relationship with the patient. What’s the new guy’s name?”

“Uh.. Graham.”

“Greet him that way,” I let me fingertips tuck themselves away underneath his arm, his hand gripping the seat. I leaned a little closer. “You said you remember what it was like, and he probably feels out of place. But he will never take the place of Cameron. You know that.”

He nodded subtly as his gaze fell to my finger tracing the horseshoe inked on his forearm. I stared at his solemn expression, his weary eyes.

“Go get your cleats,” I stated. He looked up at me with confusion.

“What?”

“Go get your cleats.”

“Why?”

“Just go grab your cleats!” My tone was more demanding than either of us expected, but he stood up and headed for the stairs. “And meet me at my car.”

-

“Is this considered breaking and entering?” Calum asked as I fumbled with the lock on the gate. There was a large enclosed field a few blocks from the hospital. It was dark now and the stadium lights had automatically switched on.

“I know the lock combination. We use this place all the time for events, and I work at the hospital so I’m taking my chances.”

He chuckled, tossing the soccer ball back and forth between his hands. Pushing the gate open, he darted around me, dropping the ball to the ground and kicked it forward. I dropped my belonging to the grass as I heard a low rumble of thunder in the distance.

I rolled my eyes as Calum showed off some of the many tricks he still had.

“Are you gonna pass me the ball or not?” I yelled.

About that time, the ball zoomed past me. My mouth fell open. Calum laughed.

“You have to be ready at all times!”

I shook my head and turned to chase the ball. I stared down at the purple and turquoise cleats I’d gotten back when I first started college as I passed the ball between them.

Calum had always been so good at soccer. I remember envying him in high school and thinking he was absolutely insane when he gave it up. But he was also an insanely good fireman so I guess I couldn't give him too much grief for it.

-

Calum bent forward, resting his hands on his knees as he tried to catch his breath. I took advantage of the moment, kicking the ball past him and snatching the hat off his head along the way. He threw his hands up; I grinned, pulling it on over my head, the end of my ponytail hanging rather loose around my neck. I did a little dance as I kicked the ball into our makeshift goals.

“You have to be ready at all times!” I mocked. He placed a hand on his hip before pulling the hem of his shirt up to wipe sweat from his forehead. The dark curls he had concealed were now on full display.

I felt a bit of moisture run down my arm. Thinking it was sweat, I ignored it until I felt it again. And again.

Calum and I both turned our faces to the sky as raindrops began to pour. I noticed the droplets begin to drench his already sweaty tshirt. He’d chosen a great day to wear white.

I wasn’t phased by a little rain and darted down the field while my friend was still distracted. He snapped out of it pretty quick, sprinting in my direction. He managed to snatch the ball from underneath me.

Quick to act, I stuck myself in front of him. I managed to steal the ball back but he immediately intersected and got it again. I snarled lightheartedly, sticking my arms out as he tried to get around me.

“Hey, that is not fair,” he said in my ear. I giggled as he continued to struggle, watching mud that had begun to form  hit my socks. “Y’know what?”

I felt Calum wrap his arms around my midsection and lift me up. He kicked the ball as hard as he could to send it out of my reach before spinning us in a circle; chuckles fell from our mouths.

My feet finally planted the ground as Calum’s became tangled with mine, sending us tumbling to the soggy grass. Another wave of laughter escaped us as I sat up and looked over to Calum who was laying on his back, letting the raindrops continue to cover him.

My breathing began to steady as he peered up at me. Sitting up, he plucked the black cap off my head that I’d stolen earlier, pulling it over his saturated locks. He flashed me a grin as I shoved his shoulder.

We took the opportunity to race for the building just outside the wire fencing that provided an awning to escape the rain. I plopped down on the cement, stripping free of my cleats and dirty socks. Cal hung his hat on his knee and ran a hand through his hair. I listened to the rain fall, peaceful and steady; it had picked up a little now.

“Cam was planning to propose to his girlfriend,” Cal mumbled after being quiet for a while. “He had a ring and everything.”

I scooted back to lean against the wall next to him, sadness washing over me.

“Tragedy makes you question a lot of things. I know we stare death in the face almost daily, but it’s different when it hits so close to home,” he paused and I nodded in agreement. “I like you.”

His statement caused me to stop rubbing at the dirt on my hands and look at him. I saw his jaw flex before he continued to speak.

“And not in the ‘it’s 2am and I’m stuck trying to fall asleep in an uncomfortable bunk bed by myself at the station’ sense. But the.. ‘2 in the afternoon when I have to run errands after an early morning call’ kind. I find myself wondering if you were able to finish your breakfast before rounds, or if you skipped lunch and settled for a cup of coffee so you could scrub in on some awesome surgery.”

He finally looked me in the eyes, “I like you, and I’ve only ever kissed you when I was drinking because at least I’d have something to blame it on if things went wrong. And I am strangely sober right now.”

I stifled a laugh as he smirked. His gaze went back to his feet, playing with a loose string on the hemming of his shorts. I took a moment to admire him. I was also strangely sober, and he apparently didn’t know I had been fighting the same feelings.

As my eyes flickered down to his lips, my hand reached over and took his chin. I leaned over and pressed our lips together. After a moment, I felt him relax into the unexpected action. His hand found my waist and gently drew me closer.

It wasn’t like the kisses we shared before that were sloppy and erratic. It was purposeful, filled with intent and emotion. He nipped at my bottom lip a little which caused me to smirk a bit.

Another roar of thunder is what pulled us apart, the sound closer than it had been before. Calum bit at his lower lip, trying hard not to grin so wide.

“We should probably get going,” he muttered, his forehead resting against mine.

I pushed myself off the ground as he did the same, bending over to pick up my things. He stepped out into the rain to head back to the field to grab the soccer ball we’d left behind. I noted the amount of mud covering the back of his shirt from when we’d fallen earlier.

“Hey,” I called. He paused just inside the gate to turn my way. “You better not get the inside of my car muddy!”

He smirked with his tongue between his teeth before reaching over his head and pulling off his shirt, tossing it for me to catch. I shook my head as I caught it, warmth rising in my cheeks as I watched him jog off shirtless.

-

The hospital had been insane as of late with long demanding shifts and people competing for surgeries. But I still smiled a little when I thought about the fact that I had passed my exam and was finally a first year resident.

I dropped onto the couch the second I made it home. I probably hadn’t slept in about 40+ hours; my feet were killing me and I was beyond exhausted.

Nearly asleep, I heard the knob of my front door being turned followed my heavy footsteps. Calum’s scent hit me before he ever did. I groaned when I felt his body weight press down on me, his arms on either side of my body as he pressed a kiss to my cheek.

“I was almost asleep,” I whined.

“I’m sorry,” he answered, giving my cheek another peck. He sat up and began to strip off his jacket, laying it on the coffee table. Next, he moved to his shoes, kicking them off. He took an extra second to pull my own shoes off because I’d been too lazy to do so before he settled back on the couch with me. I snuggled my back closer to his chest as he brushed my hair away from my face.

“Are you going to be free Friday night?” he asked low in my ear. I nodded, eyes still closed. “We’re having a banquet in memory of Cameron, and I would love for you to come with me.”

“Of course I will,” I rested my hand on top of his, “But for now - snuggles and sleeps.”

He let out a low chuckle in my ear and I felt chill bumps forming on my skin.

“Yes ma’am,” he said, pressing his lips to the base of my neck.

-

Calum stuck his arm out and I happily looped mine through his. As we made our way to the front of the venue, he caught me checking him out again. He looked so handsome in his button up tucked neatly in his black trousers. I couldn’t help myself.

I placed a quick kiss on his lips before rounding the corner with him to the entrance. After greeting the chief and finding our table, he slipped off to speak to a few colleagues. I wandered over to the refreshments to grab each of us a drink. I got in line behind a lady who looked to be around my age. She looked familiar but I couldn’t put a name with the face.

“Hi, I’m Amelia,” she said sweetly, offering her hand to shake, “I was Cameron’s girlfriend.”

Was. That’s why I recognized her. I introduced myself and I could tell she was trying to place me as well.

“I’m Calum’s girlfriend,” I added. That was the first time I’d really said those words aloud to someone and I couldn’t contain the extra bit of enthusiasm. I just hated that she happened to be the recipient of it.

She laughed, “Ah, yes. It’s about time. The few times Calum and Cam hung out, he would mention you. Cam always tried to get him to make a move. It’s a pleasure to finally meet the young lady he spoke so highly of.”

“Well thank you,” I was flattered. “It’s a pleasure to meet you as well.”

We got our drinks and went our separate ways back to our seats. Calum had already made it back and glanced up as I sat his drink in front of him. He gave a grateful smile before taking a sip. He caught me staring again, but this time it wasn’t just because of his dashing looks.

“Are you checking me out again?” he asked, taking another sip. I snickered, lacing our fingers together.

“I adore you, y’know that?”

His features lit up gradually, a smile reaching all the way to his eyes. He squeezed my hand and brought the back of it to his lips.

“I adore you, too.”

We turned our attention to the stage as the lights began to dim and the chief began to speak.

“Thank you so much to each of you for coming out tonight in memory of someone very special to us. I’ve actually asked a close friend of Cameron’s to come speak a few words. Please give a warm welcome to Mr. Calum Hood.”

I joined in applause with the other guests. Calum  hadn’t told me he’d been asked to speak, which was probably to ease his nerves a bit. I watched as he took the stage and began to recap certain moments in his friendship with Cameron.

Unfortunately, tragedy often does make us rethink our own lives. It puts things in perspective.

I realized that my life was now filled with pagers and surgeries and schedules that screwed up my sleep. Before long I’d be taking on a fresh set of interns that had the same high hopes as me, and I’d get to come home to Calum in a way I hadn’t before.

I realized that this was my life, and that was my man.

And I couldn’t be more grateful.

[ncfan-1]

ncfan listens to The Magnus Archives: S4 EP121, ‘Far Away’

And we’re back with Season 4! The first episode was not what I expected in some respects, but in retrospect, I suppose I probably should have been expecting Jonny Sims to cover this as quickly as possible after the opening. Namely, what exactly it means to be entangled with the Powers—a very relevant concern for Jonathan Sims, who is currently only still alive because he is so badly entangled with one of those Powers. We have the return of one of the themes that has been recurring and central to the show ever since we found out that normal humans can become agents and avatars for the Powers, presented from a new perspective, and we have an interesting moment from Georgie. Onwards to my rambling thoughts!

- I was hoping we’d hear from Oliver (alias ‘Antonio Blake,’ the statement giver of MAG 11 ‘Dreamer,’ and whose presence is all but outright stated in ‘Hive’ and strongly implied in ‘Grifter’s Bone’) again, since his experiences seemed like a rather unique insight into the way the supernatural works here. I’m a little sad he’s been corrupted into becoming as inhuman as he seems to be (he’s only superficially human, now), but that is how the story goes, isn’t it? The more exposure you have to the Powers, the more you interact with them, the more you get wrapped up in the world of the supernatural, the less human you become. Another parallel/potential foil for Jon.

- And I could tell, judging from the sheer amount of interference on the tape recorder when he came in, that there was something seriously up with Oliver. Him being one of the undead, perhaps similar to Justin Gough or the gamesters, was interesting.

Related to that, though, is Oliver still associated with the End? Because he makes mention of spiders in his head, and the strands that held him in England, kept him from leaving, that he wouldn’t look at, seemed more reminiscent of the Web than the tentacles Oliver sees that are associated with the End. Because it sounds like there was a bit of a tug of war between the End and the Web for control of Oliver Banks, and to me, it’s not entirely clear as to whether he was fully claimed by one of them, or if he still has them both fighting over him.

The Web seems like a force in the world that would have the ability to stick its feelers into a lot of different situations. Beyond arachnophobia being a pretty common phobia, there are a lot of situations you can find yourself in where the fear of losing control, the need to keep control, or the fear that someone might exert control over you and abuse it. Children in abusive situations, either at home or at school or church or elsewhere—hell, it doesn’t necessarily have to be abusive; I suspect a child with overly strict and controlling parents would, even without abuse entering into the picture, be a potential target for the Web. (And no, I don’t think it’s a coincidence that most of the child statements—statements where the statement giver was a child when all hell was breaking loose—we have involve the Web, somehow.) Toxic work situations that involve an abusive, controlling boss, and you can’t easily get away from that job to find another. And if you yourself happen to be a person who needs a lot of control in your life, that might get the attention of the Web, too. If I had to guess at which of the Powers has the most victims, currently, I would guess it’s the Web.

- It is possible that Oliver escaped the End’s grasp by embracing the Web, instead. Last season, we saw Julia Montork describe finally being able to shake the influence of the Dark by embracing the Hunt. This may be an issue for Jon. He was initially marked by the Web, and seems to have escaped being claimed by it by rushing into the arms of the Beholding, instead, but he’s just as terrified of the Beholding, and even if he’s much freer about using the powers it grants him than Gertrude was, he doesn’t want it, doesn’t want to be claimed by it, doesn’t want to be anything but a human being. He’s an addict—the way he gets the shakes whenever he goes too long without a statement has all the hallmarks of withdrawal, and I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Jon took up smoking again during his conversation with Jurgen Leitner, just after he was first made aware of what was happening to him—but he doesn’t actually want it. So what’s a man to do?

Make choices, as it happens. And in this world, nothing is for free.

- Oliver’s story provides a good example of how things inevitably deteriorate when you’re too deeply entangled with the Powers. I can’t remember who said it, but someone on Tumblr said that the Powers run on nightmare logic, and I’m inclined to agree. If you’re someone who is more fed upon than feeding, if you’re who gives a Power satisfaction more by being something it feeds on than something that spreads fear of it to others, then your life is a living nightmare, now and forever (Not that I think the people who feed it constantly, the way Jude Perry is implied to, are having a uniformly wonderful time, either; the adoration must be mingled with fear—but that’s a topic for another post). You never reach the point where things are as bad as they’ll ever get, and can’t get any worse; it can always get worse, and it will get worse if it drags on long enough. And there is no escape. Case in point: Oliver.

It used to be that Oliver only saw the veins/tentacles when he was dreaming, but eventually—and I actually predicted this back in my recap of ‘Grifter’s Bone’—it started to get to where he could see them when he was awake. Perhaps the terror of seeing people’s deaths predicted in his dreams was starting to grow a bit stale, and the End felt the need to pick up momentum again, escalate things so that it could juice Oliver’s fear a bit more efficiently.

And it worked; the fear certainly wasn’t stale anymore. Oliver was desperate to escape seeing the veins in his waking life, and he went to great lengths to try to find a place where there were fewer people dying—only to find that, once out in the country, he could see the future deaths of animals, as well. The more afraid he became, the stronger his foresight became. The more he desired to escape it, the greater the lengths he would go to to escape. The more he tried to escape, the more deeply entangled he became. And the more deeply entangled with the End (and, it seems, the Web) Oliver Banks became, the more divorced from humanity he became, the more inhuman he became, until he was willing to steal a dead man’s identity to get a good night’s sleep, until he was completely willing to doom a ship full of innocent people to make it all stop.

- My favorite background music cue from S1 is back; I’m happy.

- “Under all that awful fear, it felt like… home.” This is what it means to be an Avatar. To be as terrified as you are fascinated, and as fascinated as you are terrified.

- Point Nemo is potentially a convergence point for a few different Powers. The great, terrible creature Oliver sees swimming deep under the water may be the Vast creature Antonia Hayley saw in ‘High Pressure,’ and water stretching on forever, the sky stretching on forever, is classic Vast territory. At the same time, this point of the open ocean, so far from land that the satellites in orbit overhead are closer than the nearest human settlements, is definitely something I associate with the Lonely—and until mention was made of Captain Maccabee, I swear to you I thought the ship was going to turn out to be the Tundra. And of course, I imagine the End must have at least a low-level presence everywhere on the planet, because everywhere on this planet there is, if only on a bacterial level, things that can die.

Point Nemo can’t be the only convergence point on the planet, and I wonder about those others. Are they places where the veil between our plane of reality and the plane the Powers inhabit are a bit thinner? Do the convergence points themselves act as interstices, places where reality is more fluid than in other areas? Or is it something else?

- Georgie immediately twigging to there being something very wrong with Oliver was an interesting moment, because they have both been marked—and, arguably, claimed—by the End, though only one of them actually actively serves any Power. Is it a moment of like recognizing like? I am, at least, half-convinced that when Georgie says that Oliver reminds her of someone, she was referring to the corpse woman she talked about back in Season Three.

- There’s an interesting moment where Oliver refers to the End and the Web as ‘he’ and ‘she’ respectively. I wonder if this is a personal conceit of his, or if he started assigning genders to different Powers after specific experiences.

- Oliver tells Jon that, like him, he has a choice. He’s no longer human enough for the End to claim him—he’s already long since crossed that line—but he’s too human to survive as he is now. As far as Oliver is concerned, the horrors of Jon’s new life will tear him apart if he doesn’t shed his humanity. Jon is at a transition point, and it’s very uncomfortable to be at that transition point, to be inhuman, and yet still human.

- And at the very end, Jon takes his first unaided breath in roughly six months, and the tape recorder goes haywire… which does not signal good things.

As Oliver said, Jon has to make a choice, has to choose, one or the other. And as I said, in this world, nothing is for free. Nothing comes without a price.

I’m not sure what Jon has done, if he’s finally firmly chosen the Beholding, or if he found some other, equally damning way to come out of the coma. What I don’t think is that he’ll wake up being instantly as inhuman as Elias had become by the time we met him. It doesn’t make sense for his character for him to go directly to that place after where we last left him in S3. Just remember, the very last thing we listened to Jon do before going off to stop the Unknowing was burn Gerry’s page. However difficult it was for him, he managed it, managed to take this stand against being fully subsumed into the Beholding and becoming fully inhuman, and that means something.

But I do think he had to barter another piece of his soul away to wake up—nothing without a price. And I think he’ll be struggling even harder against the tide, when he comes back. He might, perhaps, be not unlike Beric Dondarrion from A Song of Ice and Fire, who was brought back to life so many times, and was less himself every time.

- I have a speculation that may be blown completely out of the water come next week. As I mentioned earlier this episode, there’s roughly six months between the last episode and this one. What I suspect is that we’re starting out Season 4 in medias res, and that the teaser that was dropped probably takes place, chronologically, not long before this episode. That teaser did have an air of mid-season terror to it.

[libertariantaoist]

Throughout the 2016 presidential campaign, Donald Trump kept repeating a line  that stuck in the Establishment’s craw like a cherry pit stuck under a denture:  “Wouldn’t it be nice if  we could get along with Russia?” Russia and specifically Russian President  Vladimir Putin are consistently portrayed in the US media as implacable enemies  of the US and the West: it’s simply taken as the given. And yet, the biggest  revelation in Oliver Stone’s recent four-part series of extensive interviews  with Putin is how consistently and desperately Putin has tried to get along  with us. In the second interview, Stone points out that, after the 9/11 attacks,  Putin was “one of the first to call [George W. Bush] and offer condolences,  and Putin elaborates that more than a phone call was involved:

“Yes, we had planned military exercises of our new strategic forces for  the next day. And I canceled those exercises and I wanted the president of the  United States to know that. Certainly I understood that heads of state and governments  in such a situation need moral support.. And we wanted to demonstrate this to  President Bush.”

Contrast this with the behavior of the US government when Russian cities came  under attack from Chechen Islamic terrorists in the 2010 bombing of the Moscow  Metro system. While there was a pro forma denunciation of the attack, the American  propaganda network, “Radio Free Europe,” ran a piece entitled “In  Wake of Metro Bombings, Putin’s War On Terror Is Under Fire.”  The gist  of the article is that Putin, not the terrorists, was responsible for the attacks.  There is even a quote from Boris Nemtsov, the leader of a tiny opposition movement  whose death two years ago was naturally blamed on Putin, implying that the whole  thing was a “false flag” operation carried out by the authorities:

“’This happened right under the security  services’ noses,’ Nemtsov said, noting that the attack at the Lubyanka metro  station took place in close proximity to the headquarters of the Federal Security  Service….    ”Nemtsov adds that many disturbing questions  remain about the attacks.    "’Nobody can explain how two female suicide  bombers got to the center of Moscow. Nobody can answer how they got the explosives.  Nobody can answer what the police and security services were doing to prevent  this.’”

Radio Free Europe also referred to the 1999  apartment bombings that took place in Moscow and other major cities as “mysterious,”  bolstering the “truther”  views of fringe Russian oppositionists – including exiled oligarch Boris  Berezovsky – that the Russian intelligence services were behind the attacks.  According to the Russian “truthers,” it was all a plot to hand total power to  Putin.

Yet here is Putin telling Stone that allowing the US military access to Russian  bases in Tajikistan in order to fight the Taliban was right and necessary because  “We believe that this cooperation is in our national interest.” This says something  important about Putin, and his conception of how Russia’s foreign policy should  be run: he never allows emotions to get in the way of pursuing what he regards  as his country’s interests, objectively defined. And there are plenty of emotional  reasons for him to obstruct the US at every turn, for as the interview continues  Stone brings up Washington’s “regime-change” operations aimed at the Kremlin,  specifically CIA chief Bill Casey’s plan to utilize Islamic radicals against  the Russians after the fall of Afghanistan. Putin’s reply is revealing:

“You see, the thing is, these ideas are still alive. And when those problems  in the Caucasus and Chechnya emerged, unfortunately the Americans support these  processes…. Even though we counted on American support. We assumed that the  Cold War was over … but instead we witnessed the American intelligence services  support terrorists.  And even when we confirmed that, when we demonstrated that  Al Qaeda fighters were fighting in the Caucasus, we still saw the intelligence  services of the United States continue to support these fighters.”

Longtime readers of Antiwar.com, and of this column, may recall this  piece exposing the US-based support network enjoyed by the Caucasus “rebels”  via the “American Committee for Peace in Chechnya,” and the myriad connections  of Metro bomber Rezvan Chitigov, a US resident with a green card, to  Al Qaeda’s terrorist activities in the region.

US government support to the Chechen terrorists wasn’t just propagandistic:  as Putin points out, they provided technical and logistical support, moving  them around the battlefield. When Putin met with George W. Bush, he brought  this up, and the then President said “I’ll sort this out.”

He never did. Instead, the CIA actually sent a letter to their Russian counterparts  in response to Putin’s concerns, which said, in summary: “We support all the  political forces, including the opposition forces, and we’re going to continue  to do that.” So in public, the Bush administration was bloviating about the  centrality of the “war on terrorism,” while they were covertly canoodling with  Al Qaeda and allied forces in the Caucasus in a relentless campaign against  Russia.

And the same thing is happening in Syria today, with US support to Islamist  “rebels” intent on overthrowing the regime of Bashar al-Assad. “It’s a systemic  mistake,” says Putin, “which is repeated always. This is the same thing which  happened in Afghanistan in the 1980s. And right now it’s happening in the Middle  East.”

Stone presses the Russian leader for evidence of Western support to Chechen  terrorists, and Putin’s reply is that it was no secret, which it certainly was  not. The British government granted asylum  to Akhmed Zakayev, former “Prime Minister” of the breakaway Islamist “Chechen  Republic of Icheria” – whose forces carried out the bloody Beslan attacks on  Russian schoolchildren. The National Endowment for Democracy, the European Union,  and the Norwegian government funded  the “Russia-Chechen Friendship Society,” which published Chechen separatist  propaganda. When the Kremlin moved to shut this operation down, the Western  media pointed to it as evidence of Putin’s “authoritarianism,” and yet imagine  if the Russians started funding, say, a Texas secessionist movement in the US.  American lawmakers and officials can’t even meet with the Russian ambassador  without being accused of “treason”! Our National Endowment for Democracy has  honored the former “Foreign Minister” of the Chechen Isalmic “republic,” Ilyas  Akhmadov, with a fellowship, and he regularly  participates in NED events. Wanted  on terrorism charges in Russia, he was granted asylum  by the Bush administration.

Putin’s complaints about US policy are centered on three issues:

  Washington’s “regime change” campaign against the Kremlin.

 The US decision to unilaterally abrogate the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.

 The eastward expansion of NATO.

These are all interconnected, but it’s worth noting where and when they originated:  during the presidency of George W. Bush – when the neoconservatives were in  the drivers’ seat. And these policies continued throughout the Obama years,  with the Democrats now signing on to the Hate-on-Russia campaign and escalating  it beyond anything yet seen. As Putin put it to Stone, “And there’s one curious  thing – the presidents of your country change, but the policy doesn’t change  – I mean on principled issues.” That’s because the national security bureaucracy  – what conservatives these days are referring to as the “Deep State” (without crediting  Noam Chomsky!) – and not our elected officials are the ones really in charge.

While there’s some controversy surrounding the alleged promise made to the  Russians that NATO would not expand if the Kremlin agreed to allow German reunification,  the fact that the agreement was verbal and not enshrined on paper doesn’t obviate  its significance. And there is plenty of evidence  to show that there was indeed such an agreement. As Joshua Shifrinson pointed  out in the Los Angeles Times:

“In early February 1990, U.S. leaders made the Soviets an offer. According  to transcripts of meetings in Moscow on Feb. 9, then-Secretary of State  James Baker suggested that in exchange for cooperation on Germany, US could  make “iron-clad guarantees” that NATO would not expand ‘one inch eastward.’  Less than a week later, Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev agreed to reunification  talks.”

Yet NATO pushed eastward without interruption during the Bush years, and this  process continued under his successors, until today, with Trump in the White  House, tiny Montenegro is now  hailed as the latest entrant into the club – a country whose borders are  ill-defined, and whose combative internal politics are a constant struggle between  pro-Russian and pro-Western forces. Against whom, Putin asks, is NATO protecting  its members from? Who is the “enemy”? Clearly the answer is Russia, as the alliance  expands to the very gates of Moscow and Western forces engage in provocative  “exercises,” simulating a NATO invasion of Russian territory.

The ABM Treaty, once the cornerstone of détente, was nullified  by the United States – but why? The official explanation – at least, the one  given to Putin – was that the US had to build antimissile defenses against the  alleged “threat” from Iran. Aside from the credibility of the contention that  the Iranians were getting ready to strike Warsaw or Prague, the Iran deal, says  Putin, makes this rationalization obsolete. Yet still the antimissile shield  is being expanded, and the Russians are obliged to take countermeasures, lest  the US gain a first strike capability.

As I pointed out in the first installment of  this review, it’s fascinating to see the contrast between Stone, a committed  man of the left, and Putin, who’s closer to being a paleoconservative than anything  else. In reviewing the history of Russo-American relations since 1917, Stone  avers that “The United States and the allies did nothing to help the Soviet  Union when the Soviet Union was warning the world about the fascist threat in  Spain and throughout Europe.” He goes on to echo Stalin’s complaint that the  Western allies weren’t doing enough to help the Soviets, who were taking the  brunt of Germany’s assault. Left out of his historical account is the fact that  the Soviets were allied  with Hitler’s Germany, that the Soviets and the Germans jointly invaded and  divided up Poland, and that this was the genesis of the Second World War. Just  a minor oversight!

Juxtapose Stone’s uncritical view of Soviet foreign policy with Putin’s perspective:  the Russian leader considers the Warsaw Pact a mistake. Citing the Soviet withdrawal  from  Austria, a move which he see as creating an “asset,” and the agreement  over the neutral status of Finland, Putin contends that Russia – if it had followed  this course – would’ve been able to deal with the West “on a civilized basis.  We would have been able to cooperate with them. We wouldn’t have had to spend  enormous resources to support their inefficient economies.” Yes, Putin realizes  what American policymakers don’t see: that empires are a burden, not an asset.

The creation of the Warsaw Pact gave the West  an “excuse,” as Putin puts it, “to create NATO and launch a Cold War.” And he  makes a very salient point about how and why US foreign policy went off on a  dangerous tangent in the post-Soviet era:

“I think that when the United States felt they were at the forefront of  the so-called civilized world and when the Soviet Union collapsed, , they were  under the illusion that the United States was capable of everything and they  could act with impunity. And that’s always a trap, because in this situation,  a person and a country begins to commit mistakes. There is no need to analyze  the situation. No need to think about the consequences. No need to economize.  And the country becomes inefficient and one mistake follows another. And I think  that’s the trap the United States has found itself in.”

He takes his argument further, positing that  the whole society becomes infected with this unrealistic hubris, and it becomes  politically necessary for the leadership to follow this irrational course to  the very end.

Stone is excited by this kind of talk: he goes  into a riff about how what he’d like to talk about in their next interview “is  this pursuit of world domination” by the US. At which point, Putin draws back:

“Well, let’s agree on something. I know how critical you are of the United  States’ policies. Please do not try to drag me into anti-Americanism.”

I had to laugh when I heard that. It underscores  Putin’s view of the US, and the whole spirit of these interviews: while Putin  believes that the present foreign policy of US leaders is misguided, he holds  out hope that this is not a permanent condition. While Stone has this one-dimensional  view of the US as the Global Villain – as if this is an inherent quality  of American society, perhaps due to the nature of American capitalism – Putin  sees the consequences of what calls “the logic of imperialism” as an aberration.  

It’s a view with which I very much concur: American  imperialism is an aberration, a radical deviation from the course set  for us by the Founders of this country, and completely out of character for  the overwhelming majority of the American people, who just want to live in peace.  

In the first installment of this series, I said that there is plenty of real  news buried in these interviews, and certainly Putin’s revelation that the Russians  rejected Edward Snowden’s first contacts with the Russians, which occurred when  he was in China, qualifies. Apparently a request for asylum was made, either  by Snowden or his representatives, “but I said we wanted nothing to do with  that,” says Putin. The Russians didn’t want to aggravate their already difficult  relations with the US government. And this rejection was probably due in part  to the fact that “Snowden didn’t want to give us any information, and he has  to be credited with that,” Putin continues. “But when it turned out we were  not willing to do that yet, not ready, he just disappeared.”

So how did Snowden wind up in Russia? As my  readers may recall, he arrived at a Russian airport en route probably to Cuba  or Ecuador. However, the US mobilized its European sock-puppets and blocked  the route, and so he stayed in the Russian airport for weeks. He was eventually  granted temporary asylum because the United States had been consistently refusing  to sign an extradition treaty with Russia, despite the initiative undertaken  by Moscow at the time. “And according to our law,” says Putin, “Snowden didn’t  violate any law – he didn’t commit any crime.” And so with the US pointedly  refusing to extradite Russians accused of crimes – such as terrorism – to Russia,  “it was absolutely impossible for us to unilaterally extradite Snowden as the  US was asking us to do.”

Talk about blowback!

There’s more news: Stone asks about the extent  of Russian spying on the US, and Putin’s response is quite revealing, albeit  not in the way Stone or anyone else expected:

“Yes, sure, I don’t have anything against their spying on us. But let me  tell you something quite interesting. After radical changes – political changes  – took place in Russia, we thought that we were surrounded by allies and no  one else. And we also thought the United States was our ally. And this former  president of the KGB, of the special services of Russia, all of a sudden he  transferred to our American partners, our American friends, the old system of  eavesdropping devices on the US Embassy in Moscow. And he did it unilaterally.  Just all of a sudden, on a whim – as a token of trust symbolizing the transition  to a new level.”

There was, however, no reciprocal move from  the Americans: “We never witnessed any step from the United States toward us.”

Of course not.

[fantasyiswaybetterthanreality]

EXCUSE ME?!! You cannot leave these in the tags? \/

Young odypen courting was filled with wacky nonsense basically canon confrimed

The line “....where we first met” implying that they first met under that specific olive tree

Which has to have some absolutely insane logistics that only odypen (and maybe Athena) could pull off

Odypen being 🥰 🤝 rat bastards in love

Option one--Odysseus: Athena please please please helpppp me pen said she'd only marry me if I made a wedding bed out of this tree

Athena: once again I think you are praying to the wrong person but fuck it how do you think you're going to keep that tree alive

Odysseus: ....a large bucket?

Athena: gimme a sec okay I need to go have ares bash my skull in before I watch something this stupid

Athena: checking in on Penelope her chosen weaver only for her to be pulling her hair out

Penelope (to her cousins): why did I fucking say that! Beating fathers already an impossible challenge why did I say that! He's going to think I was making fun of him! He's not going to want to marry me now!

Helen: weren't you? Making fun of him?

Penelope: That's not the point!

Clytemnestra: Hey, he's digging the tree up and has the biggest bucket I've ever seen.

Penelope: what?! *Trips over every item in the room and gets tangled in her curtains blushing like crazy*

Athena: ....it's been a while since I checked up on diomedes training. He'd never put me through this nonsense

Option 2--Helen's maybe a little nervous and wants to know more about who she has to potentially marry and Penelope promises her she'll get a rundown.

Helen did not expect Penelope to disappear but she probably should have....it'll probably be fine. Right?

Some of the kings Penelope just straight up greets, some she stays hidden and spies

Odysseus is the only one who catches her (he trains with Athena in the olive Grove)

She was not happy when Odysseus nearly tripped onto her spear point face first when he saw the strange pretty girl)

And Odysseus who's been king for a few years now knows every lady's face because he'll probably have to marry one of them someday

Okay so with the line "the olive tree where we first met" we have two equal hilarious options.

When penelope was sassily like oh I'll marry you if you make a living bed out of this tree right here! Cue penelope stumbling over odysseus very very carefully digging up the tree "because how else is he going to get it to itacha we can't have a wedding bed out in the open in sparta duh"

Or

2. Penelope, knowing that Helen's suitors would soon be arriving to take over her home for a while. Snuck out and went on her own wacky shenanigan filled journey where she scoped out all the major players. Odysseus caught her spying in an olive tree. And when she got back she told Helen she had dibs on the cutie from itacha.