#Wars ages 30 years every time he hangs out with these two

[mercurymoths]

I recently watched Puss in boots: the last wish (I know, I’m late to the party) and really liked this dialogue :)

(I also wanted an excuse to practice lineless art again :])

Some close ups and the initial sketch under the cut for fun !

[mercutio-the-velaryon]

Challengers Meljayvik AU Part I - slightly nsfw btw cause its challengers...

cow farm, there's gonna be cows outside

Part I

Mel Medarda, 18 in 2006 - 30 in 2018, former emerging tennis star and it girl, coming from an upperclass background with a renowned family name, she as the chosen heir of the Medardas, disgraced the family businness by persuing a career as an athlete from a young age - fortunately for her, her pursuit proved favourable for her mother's political and economic ventures so she was eventually completely supported by her family - Tashi Duncan Variant

Jayce Talis, 18 in 2006 - 30 in 2018, humble boy from even humbler beginnings, Jayce's love for tennis started young, he'd watch the same set of matches over and over again until his parents finally cracked it and sent him to have lessons. It's there at 8 years old, he met Viktor, who was "volunteering" as the coach's assistant, by there early teens Jayce was being trained and coached solely by his best friend Viktor who had become an expert on the sport through mere observation - Patrick Zweig and Art Donaldson Variant

Viktor Reveck, 18 in 2006 - 30 in 2018, hailing from the Czech Republic, his working-class parents moved to the US for work and very soon regretted it, leading them to move back to their homeland once Viktor went to college. Viktor took a liking to tennis, because his parents found a box of VHS tapes in the attic of their new house when they first moved in and it was all they could afford to watch for a month or so because they'd spent all their savings on the move. His neighbour Sky was also interested in tennis and her father coached some pretty big names so Viktor started hanging around during his coaching lessons, after he and Sky became close friends - Art Donaldson and Patrick Zweig Variant.

Jayce met Mel first at his summer job, two years prior to the comp rhat brings them all together, part-timing at a country club. She approached him after he attempted to get some after-hours practice in on the courts. Mel pretended she was security, with a flashlight, yelled at him and scared the living daylights out of him. He had already known who she was prior because her face was plastered across all of the magazines he'd give out to club members. And he took very considerate but appropriate and not at all creepy notice of her frequently sunbathing by the pool every now and then. They friendly after that, but Jayce never built up the courage to ask her out. He tried to on his final day but she didn't show up.

At the Junior US Open (everyone is 18/19) Viktor makes Jayce come with him to watch Sky's match, but for the purpose of studying Mel, the most dominant player in the tournament. Jayce sits there pretending not to know Mel, but astonishment trumps his facade. He had seen her practice before at the country club but this was something else entirely, she was fierce and magnetic on the court and he was sitting there slack jawed, clutching on to Viktor's thigh, Viktor had also found himself distracted and entranced. Mel wins the match, ending it with a bellowing war cry. Viktor and Jayce are both hot and bothered, trying to play off how horny Mel Medarda had made them.

They find Sky after and console her. Jayce tries to catch Mel's eye from a distance to no avail, Viktor makes note of this attempt, scoffing at him but also somewhat troubled at the idea of Jayce and Mel potentially knowing each other because if they did it would be the first time ever Jayce kept something from him.

At the after party hosted by Mel's family, Sky leaves early a little downtrodden after her loss, Jayce and Viktor watch her leave, and see her bump in to Mel, and exchange pleasantries. Mel envelopes Sky in a hug, Sky melts and the two chuckle. Sky finally escapes and Mel makes her way to the dance floor. Viktor taps Jayce to signal that they should get a closer look. They stand a table with their drinks in hand eyes fixed on her movements. When she goes to her own table alone to take a sip of her drink, they approach with quickness.

"Hi, I'm Jayce Talis. I'm not sure, you remember," Viktor's eyes flicker over his best friend for a mere moment before taking a seat in front of Mel. "Viktor Reveck." Jayce stays standing.

"I remember, Jayce... and I know you, Viktor, your reputations proceed you, the ultimate best friend coach-athlete duo, they call you earth and moon, don't they?" Her gaze lingers on both of them.

Viktor sucks in a breath sharply as Jayce huffs in astonishment "I can't believe you know that,"

"So, who's who?" she asks, well aware of the answer.

Viktor, reeling from the adreneline of being known by the most dominant up and comer, finds his playful side and tilts his head to the side, "What do you think?"

She smiles, narrowing her eyes at them, pretending to assess but well aware of the answer.

Jayce interrupts unaware of the building tension, "You were incredible today,"

"Thank you" Mel offers politely.

"I mean it, Mel, you were fucking luminous, I've never seen anything like it, it didn't even feel like tennis... Sky is our friend though, we felt-feel bad for her," Jayce stumbles through his praise.

"She's quite lovely, but not lovely enough for me to pull my punches,"

"And what could make thee Mel Medarda pull her punches?" Viktor poses.

"Death," she says lightly, smirk etched on her features, as she sips her cocktail. Viktor laughs, snickering uncharacteristically.

"I'll be seeing you at Stanford, Viktor?"

"How do you know that I'm going to Stanford?"

"I keep my ear to the ground, when it comes to things of concern,"

"What are things of concern exactly?" Viktor bit his lip, anxiety looming.

"Things like wunderkind coaches with the potential to revolutionise the sport," she glances at the two, piercing them with her gaze.

Viktor felt even hotter in the face if that was possible. "Ah,"

"I'm taking a gap year," Jayce offered.

"What? Do you need time to figure out your life purpose? Something tells me it might be right in front of you," she meant tennis of course, but that didn't stop Jayce's heartbeat from thundering against his ribcage.

"Couldn't the same be said of you? You could go pro right now if you wanted why the buffering period with school?" Viktor says.

"Hmm, athletes burn bright but they also burn fast, I don't want my only skill to be hitting a ball with a racket"

Ambessa walks up to them, paying no mind to the two boys entertaining her daughter, and touching Mel's shoulder lightly"'Mel, they want photos" Mel bids the two farewell and they gaze after her longingly.

"Now what?" they say to each other simultaneously. They grin. Viktor's smile falls first. "Shouldn't we wait for her?" Jayce asks, Viktor grimaces, "Won't we seem too desperate?"

"You're right," Jayce nods.

"We should just go" Viktor says.

"Yes, let's go," Jayce agrees.

Neither of them move.

An hour later they're seated at the love seat. Viktor absently, rolling his cane between his hands and Jayce spreading dip on a cracker. Mel walks by. Viktor sees her and alerts Jayce hitting him with the bottom of the cane. "Hey" Jayce yells at the same time that Viktor yells "Hi".

She looks over at them and laughs a little, "Hi" she says back, approaching them. "You guys are still here,"

"Yeah" Jayce says standing, "great party by the way,"

"Thank you very much... but don't you have a final tomorrow , shouldn't you be preparing or resting?"

"We'll be okay," Viktor asserts not so kindly. Mel enjoys the traces of harshness in his words. It indicates more lies beneath the surface.

"I wanted to get your opinion on my technique,"

"My opinion?" Mel huffs, "Her opinion?" Viktor asks, no one had ever entrenched on his territory of coaching Jayce Talis before, it felt invasive. Not unpleasantly so.

Viktor's eyes rake down Mel doused in the shine of the moon and the fairy lights strung all around the area, what could he thing to say to a walking daydream "Do you smoke?" is all he can accomplish.

"Cigarettes? No not at all, do you?" her words we asked with no malice and yet suddenly both Viktor and Jayce felt ashamed of their habits.

"Yes" they say mournfully as if they were scolded.

Jayce suggests they go down to the beach, checking in on Viktor and if he could manage the walk, Mel shows them a more accessible route. They walk and talk about their homes and where they came from. When they get to the beach, Jayce and Viktor recline on some beach chairs and Mel perches herself on a rock. The waves crash serenely behind them.

The tendrils of smoke from their cigarettes float around Mel, dancing on the air around her, wisping past her nose. All she can feel are their eyes on her, all she can smell is ash and salt.

Viktor, brings up Mel being a phenomenon of the sport and expressing confusiona and shock at her not going pro immediately.

Mel laughs and cites her philosophy on tennis, one she claims, Viktor does not understand, "You're too motivated by ambition and single-handedness, there are so many moving parts and key factors in tennis, even when its not one on one, its as collaborative as team-based sport, more so even, the beautiful balance of trust and disdain with the person right across from you, its intense, there's only one force in the world it resembles,"

Viktor and Jayce edge forwards, as pulled as in as the tide.

She looks out at the sea and says "love... Sky and I, the world faded when it was just us, chained to each other, to a set rhythm, we disappeared into the rules of the game and so did everyone watching we were all drawn together,"

"You screamed," Viktor acknowledged quietly, Mel turned to face him. She remained silent, "When you hit the winner...I'd never heard anything like it"

She looks down, with a smile, Viktor watches her lashes touch her cheek as her eyes flutter.

Mel then says she has to leave and Jayce asks if she has a Facebook, Mel's unaware of what that is but Viktor clarifies by saying that Jayce is asking for her number and so is he.

"Are you asking as a set or separately?"

Jayce and Viktor stutter through their responses then finally affirm that they're offers are seperate.

Mel shakes her head and tells them she's not a homewrecker.

"We're not exclusive," Viktor jokes, "We even sleep in different beds now, you couldn't make it worse," Jayce adds, teeth gleaming.

Mel just hums in respone, Viktor suggests she come hang out with them in their hotel room later. She smiles at them and walks off.

Later in Viktor and Jayce's hotel room, they're strewn across their beds, in nothing but their shorts because of the summer heat - Viktor's recently removed both his back brace and leg brace with Jayce's assistance.

Viktor is now certain Mel isn't coming. Jayce is still holding out hope. They are both still smoking.

As the conditions start to irritate Viktor, he scoffs very bitterly "Mel isn't coming, Jayce" which temporarily shushes his partner.

But right then is when a knock resounds quiet enough for both of them to think they hallucinated it until resounds again much louder.

Jayce throw on a crumpled dress shirt and doesn't bother to button it up, leaving his torso on display, Viktor chucks on his stanford t-shirt, they chuck their cigarettes clumsily and they both attempt to make the room look a little presentable before clambering over to the door and opening it.

Mel who was leaning on the door listening in on their conversation and giggling, pulls back with a sharp gasp but neither of them seem to notice.

Jayce says a curt "Hi," and promptly swallows. Viktor offers a "hey" a moment later, leaning on the doorframe.

They end up drinking beer sitting on the ground, Jayce and Viktor reveal their backstories, Mel probes them about their relationship to each other. She asks them about any potential girlfriends. Viktor reveals he hasn't had any then goes on to reveal Jayce's several unhappy exes - which Jayce refutes then reveals that Viktor's absence of history is due to a lack of trying "people generally flock to him, if he wanted to do fine he could," Jayce says ruffling Viktors hair. Viktor slaps his hand away languidly.

"So..." Mel starts moving to sit on her knees and lean closer to them, her voice is an entrancing lull "How often does this happen... going after the same girl?" she licks her lips gazing at them.

"Not as often as you'd think," Jayce says. "We usually have different types," Viktor agrees.

"So, I should be flattered?" Mel caresses her chest dramatically.

"I mean... Aren't you everybody's type," Viktor hums, chewing on his thumb.

There's a beat, a moment of comfortable quiet.

"What about the two of you?" Mel asks

"What do you mean?" Jayce asks,

Jayce abruptly understands her meaning and vehemently denies, While Viktor stays quiet a look of deep contemplation on his face.

Mel turns to Viktor and asks him what the look is for.

Jayce disrupts Viktor's attempts to tell her what went down only making Mel more curious. Jayce finally relents and Viktor tells the story of them technically hooking up when they were sixteen after getting drunk for the first time, they didn't have sex, they did things next to each other.

Mel laughs at the absurdity of it finding it endearing, she then realizes that there's no beer left.

Jayce and Viktor fearing the beer was the only thing keeping her there, look at each other frightened.

Mel stands, towering over them, in their admiration, they take note of the shortness of her shorts, her silky skin, the way her velour jacket had ridden up and exposed her midriff.

She thinks for a moment, her hands on her hips as she meanders briefly before sitting on the on the edge of where the two beds have been pushed together.

"Come here," she says.

"Which one of us?" before the words could completely stumble out of Viktor's mouth, Jayce had gotten up in a flash and sat by Mel's side, Viktor quickly followed.

They're close, together, only a little space between them. Jayce and Viktor's gazes are fixed on Mel. She glances between them, slithering her head closer to Jayce, their lips so close their breaths mingle, just as Jayce goes to close in, Mel playfully curves away. Her half-shut eyes finding Viktor.

She leans in, bit by bit, looking in his eyes then at his lips over and over, she kisses him first, he reciprocates immediately but only with his mouth too scared to make any other moves. But when she draws him in closer with a hand at his neck, which quickly evolves into both hands cupping his jaw, he slides his hand over her thigh and rubs circles into the soft flesh. Mel pulls back. It takes a moment for Viktor to collect himself, his eyes cracking open slowly, his mouth still open.

Jayce is closer than he was before when Mel turns back to him, he's taller, peering down at her, she kisses him, cupping his face, he deepens it immediately, he gently places his hand at her cheek gently caressing over her hair, tentatively caressing over the curls, then resting his hand at her neck. Mel pulls away again and faces forward, pushing her hair behind her shoulders.

Viktor and Jayce move intuitively, holding Mel's hair back together, and pressing long and slow kisses into her neck with kisses. She huffs a laugh for no reason in particular, but as the sensation starts to get to her, her face grows stern from the pleasure, and her breaths become short and sharp. Viktor and jayce kiss up and down her neck, nuzzling into her collarbone too. They were there way back up biting her ears, whispering sweet nothings. They reach her cheeks and pepper sweet long kisses across, Mel encourages them closer lightly grabbing their jaws and bringing them closer to her lips.

When all their lips meet, Viktor and Jayce pull back and laugh it off, Mel laughs to but brings them back quickly. Nodding at them, she draws them back in slowly, and all their mouths meet. Mel's hands are frantic, at their jaws, sliding down their chests, in Viktor's hair, on Jayce's thigh. Jayce breaks away, trailing down Mel's neck again with open mouthed kisses as he trails back to her lips, Viktor trails down, from her cheek to her collarbone. Mel brings them all back again. A fervent heated display between the three commences once more, she escapes, leaving the men to their own devices watching as they inhale each other but glance at her as they do, deriving as much pleasure from watching her as she is from watching them.

"Okay, I have to go to bed," Mel says, getting up and suddenly everyone involved felt much colder.

"But wait what about your number?" Viktor asks.

"I told you, I'm not a homewrecker,"

"Please" Jayce says.

Mel, dedicated to fair play, offers an ultimatum, if Jayce loses tomorrow's match, Jayce gets Mel's number, if he wins, Viktor gets it.

"What? How does that work?" Jayce splutters.

"It doesn't really, pinning coach and pupil against each other, doesn't really work out, but if you win Jayce that'll be because of Viktor's efforts and if you lose it'll be because Viktor wasn't a good enough guide... take it or leave it"

They both look at her not willing to protest

"Good luck, gentlemen, put on a good show for me," she stalks out of the room.

"I could throw the game" Jayce hums leaping to his feet, his words laced with jest.

"Don't you fucking dare," Viktor seethes slapping Jayce's erection making the taller man keel over and land back on the bed. Jayce flicks Viktor's ear in agitation.

The next morning, Jayce loses the match, in a very close game.

To be continued...

[genderlessjacky]

ANOTHER ONE!!! @slumbrr-r

Two variations because I couldn't choose which one 🥹 anyways the new chapter released how are we feeling chat

Facts about my sillies down below because there are coming with EVERY one of these I make (because it's the only time I get to share them </3 no doodles this time though, I am working on a few)

(also warning, a LOT of yapping)

ages : Shrimpo (14-16) , Toots (10-12) , Holmes (mid 30's but has back pain of someone in their late 40s someone get him ibuprofen)

Shrimpo has a genuinely horrid sense of direction like Roronoa Zoro levels, he can build a robot arm for his dad but gun to his head he CANNOT follow a map with very clear instructions , I'm 99% sure he stills needs to do the hand thing to tell from left to right , if you ask him 'where is north' he points upwards . He also has TERRIBLE aim , like sure he can aim a punch to someone's face but if you're talking about shooting , just give it to a blind toon they will shoot more accurately

Toots has a very high pain tolerance because of her augmented ability, which is a bad thing actually because at times she would be like "yippee I didn't get injuried :)" and she has a stab wound on her left leg and she gets constant infections because of this , her immune system is a war veteran

She also like to climb toons / she's very clingy, like hopping on people's shoulders, hanging on their arm ectect, she mostly does it to her own family but she sometimes can't break the habit with other toons .

The difference between Toots and Shrimpos separation anxiety is that he tries to act chill about being alone before spiralling 30 minutes later and toots just clings onto people subconsciously and is VERY vocal about not wanting to be alone , but both don't know why they feel like this

Toots eats like she just got out of a 50 year prison sentence and Holmes eats slower then a snail attempting climbing to Mount Everest and probably succeeding (either chatting with other toons, reading his research notes ectect) . Shrimpo is the only normal eater among them

Holmes is probably banned from caffeine by brisktea personally . He also has horrid chickenscratch handwriting , like his notes are only for him to see and nobody else . His pair of goggles are for aesthetic purposes, moments when he needs to actually use it he has one one-eye-goggle tucked in his coat

Toots and Shrimpo have a dipper-mabel sibling dynamic (or Leo and Donnie from Rottmnt if you get the reference) but if Dipper was a bit more punch happy and Mabel started biting people

Holmes would actually be long DEAD if he didn't find toots and Shrimpo to snap him out of his grief turned research obsession, along with toots and Shrimpo too like if Holmes didn't save them they would also be twisted in the first 2 weeks (also they probably were at the outside for 3ish almost 4 years before getting recruited to Gardenview)

I took a lot of inspiration from the stan siblings for Holmes , like he has Ford's voice and energy but definitely Stanley's language and his personality if he was a bit more tired

Shrimpo is friends with a Goob , a Finn , a Gigi and a brightney from the production team (I'll draw them soon I swear 🥹)

[trekkiehood]

Headcanon meme:

For 1 Hogans Heroes character of your choosing (I hooooope I’m not hallucinating seeing you post it) and then Darry, or any Outsider character: ∇, ▼, and ♥️(the family one, idk if I selected the right heart emoji lol)

Yes I'm a huge Hogan's Heroes fan!!!

Hogan (my beloved)

♥ - family headcanon

In a rare turn of events, I view him as having a very strong, happy family. He has one older brother who is married and has a little boy and girl. Hogan's parents live in Ohio, his older brother lives fiveish hours away. He is close to his family. They are very worried about him. They are protestants and Hogan's mom especially reliant on the church during the war.

▼ - childhood headcanon

Hogan was a troublemaker. When he was little he was cute and could get away with it. There is slight resentment from his older brother about how much a young Rob could get away with (him being in a POW camp has softened most of that). His dad was hard on him and his mom let him get away with a lot. He wasn't a *bad* kid but he was very ADHD and trouble found him wherever he went. He was a momma's boy growing up but in adulthood has found a closeness with his father that was unexpected, likely due to his dad's WWI service.

∇ -. old age/aging headcanon

Hogan is a career man and retires a multi star general sometime after Korea. He doesn't have any kids of his own, but marries a widow who has at least two kids. He stays in close contact with his crew and they meet up every few years in alternating countries. He dies peacefully at home having more than made up the time that he lost in Stalag XIII.

Darry (also my beloved):

♥ - family headcanon

The Curtis's were ever poorer when Darry was really little but he didn't really notice they were poor until he started highschool. He really wanted a little brother but was perfectly content with Soda. When Pony was born Soda became obsessed with Pony and Darry felt a bit bitter about it but then quickly fell in love with Pony and wanted to take him to show and tell at school. They were a really close family but Darry was much closer to his dad than his mom. Birthdays were a big deal in the curtis family. They didn't always have money for a good Christmas but the birthdays were spaced enough that they could make a bit more of a deal about it (even tho Darry's birthday was so close to Christmas they still tried to make it special).

▼ - childhood headcanon

Darry was a good kid but he had a rough patch when he was around 15. That's when the world of soc v greaser became apparent to him and there was some resentment about where he was in life. Now listen he was never a bully. He never "went soc". He just had normal teenage angst. It took less than six months for him to get his head on straight and realize he was just going to not care about it and hang out with who he wanted to hang out with. He wasn't always big kid. He was small to average then hit thirteen and was always one of the biggest guys around. He kept expecting it to happen to Soda but it never did.

∇ -. old age/aging headcanon

Once Pony graduates college Darry doesn't know what to do. He's not even 30 and his body is already in decline. He keeps working bc he's not sure of what else to do. I kinda headcanon that sometime in his late thirties/forties he's either injured or his body won't let him work anymore and he moves in with Pony who is married with kids (he has at least a little girl). Pony returns the favor of taking care of Darry and Darry HATES it. He wants to work. He doesn't have hobbies. He doesn't have a life outside of survival. That "I just got a get thru tomorrow" mentality never turned off. After awhile tho Darry does become kinda domestic and starts like doing the dishes and folding laundry and my friend (CO_Raindrop) and I decided that he takes up knitting and the gang wants to make fun of him but doesn't bc he maybe disabled but he could still kick all their butts if he wanted to. Hopefully he finds a lady down the road and gets married but IDK lol

Thank you so much for the ask and for listening to my character ramblings!!! I had more thoughts than I thought I did 😂

[invarietas]

1/2/3 for the wildly specific questions -corditeheart

Wildy Specific Headcanon Questions / @corditeheart

1. What's the lie your character says most often?

Malachi:

Given how many rescue/infiltration/generic observatory missions he's done over the course of not only his career as a SeeD, but as a realm-displaced Glaive, the answer to this is, tragically, "You're going to be okay."

From sites of war, to the peripheral villages and cities in the path of destruction- Malachi has seen more than his share of futile rescues, and many 'last moments' of those with no one to call. Yet no pre-assessment is going to stop him from providing what last, miniscule comfort he can to those that need it most. Being a realist doesn't make him an asshole, and admittedly much of that is due to life experience and age.

Nyx:

Inversely, Ulric's largest lies tend to be some variety of "I'm fine"/"I'll be fine". Not only from battleground injury or overuse of borrowed magic, but from the egregious and untreated case of C-PTSD and survivor's guilt that haunts his near-every quiet hour.

From auditory hallucinations of his sister to dissociative flashbacks and what-if scenarios that underline his potential for failure, Nyx Ulric is very much not okay. Guilt eats at him and can reliably be said to be his driving force: why he is so dead-set on being 'the Hero'. Perhaps if he saves enough of those in need, he can be forgiven for failing those who mattered most.

Ardyn:

If we're talking about (recent) active duty lying; for the past 30 in-universe years this man has been deceiving and manipulating an entire Empire, and regularly (within the last 3 years) not even knowing who he is day-to day. Yet if I were to hazard a guess/establish a HC right here, I'd have to say it would be some variety of "There's no need to fret~." / "Don't worry~.", with a potential 'my dear' added on by instinct.

If we are to speak on simply the lie spoken most often over the course of time itself; two-thousand years of simmering in the betrayal of your kin and hanging like a slab of meat, bound to an Astral-guarded Isle whilst boiling alive in the rage and confusion on what you POSSIBLY could have done to deserve such agony-- I like to think 'He didn't mean it/it was a mistake...' was likely the most often, deliriously uttered lie told to himself to comfort his shattered heart over his brother's betrayal.

Grief is cyclical. Imagine that cycle yoyoing for millennia.

2. How loosely or strictly do they use the word 'friend'?

Malachi:

In terms of using the word in general? It's flung all over the place if it will help foster goodwill for whatever his missions may need. He'll cozy up to civilians, merchants- most anyone who shouldn't be exposed to the ugly of his work- again whatever that may be. The world is already a disaster (either 8's or 15's, it's all a mess) and most everyone is just trying to make it day in and day out.

Also, one gets more with honey than with vinegar.

In the emotional sense on who he considers his legitimate, actual friends worthy of his trust and vulnerability? It's... I wanna say astronomically rare.

In his native amnesiac!Glaive state (and to an extent his ff8verse), a warbond is built - for him - out of necessity. He trusts them to keep him alive; to do what they are trained to; to give enough of a shit that they all go home to do it all again the next day in a world on it's last legs. In that sense they're war buddies, brothers-in-arms. But the amount of people he has fought alongside to GET that sentiment can be counted on one hand (to his failing memory) and half are dead.

Malachi is a bizarrely mixed case of abundant-if-restrained compassion, vaguely pessimistic realism, caustic wit, don't-give-a-fuck-itis, and introversion. So the previous point isn't to say he's cold and distant. He's remarkably personable, and will shoot the shit for as long as such a mood lasts. He'll even play guitar when requested- not that he can remember where he learned to do so.

He's a friendly sort to most, but only considers a handful of people friends to himself.

3. How often do they show their genuine emotions to others versus just the audience knowing?

Malachi:

It depends on the emotion, the situation, and the opposing "other" muse he's interacting with. And believe me, I want to shove a hot pepper in my own mouth every time I say the words 'it depends' because... I say it too often. But in this case it's less 'oh, he's soooo changeable' and more he's fair willing to show emotions to those he knows and trusts to some degree.

He's secure in the knowledge he can beat ass if someone wants to be a dick about it.

But as stated before, it depends on the emotion, situation, and person combo- so I'd say the audience gets far more exposition because I'm a slut for it, no matter if the scene is him mean-mugging someone.

Nyx:

This one's a bit easier to answer, simply because Nyx - to me - is a 'keep to himself' sort for a myriad of reasons (outside his friend group). Be it 'I gotta be the hero' to 'my friends are having a good time, I can't bring em down' to 'I'm having a good time, who tf is this asshat crashing the party' and in any of those situations he tends to mask up-- aka, the audience will definitely see far more from my exposition.

Military training (to my extremely limited knowledge and thus portrayal) also doesn't quite encourage soldiers to be anything other than ready to deploy/the weapon they were honed to be. With enough time a soldier can outgrow that- and had this pretty face been less traumatised about who and what he could trust (fuck you Glautos), and not - y'know - internally crispy fried, he may have been able to loosen up.

Mind you I'd be more than down to write plots and developments where he learns to trust again!

[tulisankuuu]

Catatan Koasisten: Return of Spontaneous Circulation

October 20th 2022, and my life has led me into the ICU with a pulseless patient in front of me.

I had been here many times before.

I had gotten used to the beeping of machines, the delirious patients drifting in and out of consciousness. I had gotten used to the scent of alcohol, the sounds of nurses pacing back and forth as they rush to empty urine bags and change bandages. I hated to admit the fact that long before today, I had already gotten used to death.

I now know of the signs: Empty-looking eyes staring at ceilings, an occasional tear making its way from the corner of the eye into the mouths that hang slightly open, the way heat leaves the body from its ends, making its way to the middle, the way consciousness comes back like a lightbulb right before it goes out completely. Then the drop of heat in the core, the vital signs plummeting, and then the beeping of machines and then the silence.

Very rarely do people come back after an arrest, at least in my experience. This is because after the heart stops and oxygen in blood fails to perfuse organs throughout the body, it will undergo irreversible damage. Organs like the heart, the brain, ones that do the most important work rarely regenerate.

I looked at my watch and subconsciously started counting, recalling something one of my senior consultants once told me: For every minute a patient is in cardiac arrest, 10% of life is lost. It had nearly been five, therefore somewhere near a fifty-fifty percent chance of life.

I stood by her bed, hands interlocked on top of one another, pressing into her sternum and then recoiling. Counting one to thirty compressions then followed by 2 breaths, then onto the next cycle of 30 compressions to two breaths. A fifty to fifty chance; a tug of war with death. The senior doctor had placed monitors on her chest, monitoring for rhythm.

There. The fibrillation of ventricle. One of two shockable rhythms we have come to know in medical school. This would mean that the senior doctor would then grab a defibrillator to deliver electrical shock, then wait for the heart to restart itself, but at the time, I had never seen it before.

As he placed the pads onto her chest I knew now it was time for me to let go, as it was soon time to deliver the shock. The senior doctor charged the pads and the machine made a buzzing sound.

"I'm Clear, You're Clear, Everybody's Clear!" He said as a machine delivered one single surge of electrical current. 360 joules aimed at restarting the heart rhythm. For a second, her body tensed under the pads the way I had seen in movies before.

We looked at the ECG machine. A steady rhythm.

I immediately placed three fingers on her neck right on her carotid artery, and I’ll to my surprise-- a beating. It was weak, but it was there. Beating slowly and steadily, as if saying "here I am". As the heart picked up its rate I felt it beating harder against my fingers. I let out a breath of relief.

It seems that nothing is as tenacious as life. It clings to organs with sizes blown out of proportion, to hearts and lungs no longer able to compensate for their own failure. Life persists despite terrible fates, and strange hematology results. Insistent it is, stubborn almost.

There I was, a medical student all of twenty three years of age, playing tug of war with the angel of death.

That day, I witnessed something truly important.

[thebuckblogimo]

The day the Polish music died for 2 minutes and 58 seconds.

March 26, 2024

When I was a kid back in the '50s, my friends and I experienced a lot of "unsupervised play," something I don't think children get enough of these days. I'd like to tell you a story that illustrates the concept and what it may have meant for us later in life. First, let me set the stage...

It was the summer of 1956. I was nine years old and had just completed the third grade. My Dad, in his late 30s, was active in the Vincent J. Bieneik VFW Post in Detroit, as were most of his buddies who had returned home from World War II.

In those days the VFW held an annual picnic "out in the country" at the now defunct New Liberty Park, which, as best as I can recall, was somewhere south of Detroit Metroplitan Airport.

New Liberty Park was set up for summer time fun. Like several other outdoor venues of that era, it had an open-air pavilion, including a huge dance floor and stage for live music; separate open-air buildings for the sale of beer, soft drinks, hot dogs, potato chips and ice cream; and acres of parking in a wooded area that afforded an early version of tailgating.

My two sisters and I always looked forward to the VFW picnic. My mother would fill a wooden picnic basket with sandwiches and cookies, and pack Vernors ginger ale and Faygo pop. We couldn't wait to get there and compete in the water balloon toss, three-legged races and other games. One year the three of us swept the foot races for our respective age groups and caused a stir as parents complained about "that family that wins everything." Another year I was thrilled to hold a winning ticket for one of the VFW raffle prizes--an electric can opener.

My Dad was always involved with the picnic's planning committee. He and his VFW pals would smear grease paint on their faces, dress up as clowns and rent a trailer to haul a polka band through the Polish neighborhoods of Detroit to publicize the picnic. Also, he had been a childhood friend of Johnny Sadrack, who became a popular Polish band leader during the '50s and '60s, and my Dad recruited the group to play at the picnic.

There were outdoor speakers affixed to poles and buildings on the grounds at New Liberty. My Dad would bring a box of 78 rpm records from his collection--polkas and obereks--and play them on a turntable, rigged up to the speakers around the park, before the band began to play and in between its sets.

My brother Mark was born in February of 1956, and when it came time for the picnic that year he was only a few months old. So my Mom and sisters stayed behind--although I think my sisters came out later that afternoon with my Uncle Chester and Auntie Connie--while my Dad let me tag along in the morning when he drove to the park to set up for the carloads of people that were expected to line the gate on a picture-perfect day.

His plan was to turn me loose at New Liberty, load me up with enough money to buy tickets for pop, ice cream and potato chips, and let me roam the park while he did his thing.

I had a plan, too.

By 1956, artists such as Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, Little Richard and Buddy Holly had burst onto the scene and helped to revolutionize the popular culture with a new genre of music called rock 'n' roll. During the winter of that year the first "kid group" recorded "Why Do Fools Fall In Love?" by the Teenagers, featuring 13-year-old Frankie Lymon. I was hooked instantly by their sound. I bought the 45 at the neighborhood record shop and played it incessantly on my parents' "hi-fi." I soon started hanging out at the store--unsupervised--flipping through the record bins every week, and in the spring I was elated to discover that the Teenagers had released their follow-up recording, "I Want You To Be My Girl."

The record shop was sold out of the 45 version when I was ready to buy. However, they had a bunch on the 78 format. Feeling desperate to own the record and play it any time I wanted, I purchased the platter.

On the morning of the picnic my Dad gathered up his things, including his collection of polka records, and off we went to the park. I packed some things too--a rubber ball, a couple comic books and my prized possession, "I Want You To Be My Girl," and stashed them in the trunk of my Dad's classic, tri-color (pink, black and white) '56 Chrysler New Yorker St. Regis.

When we arrived at New Liberty, my Dad fired down a quick shot and a beer with his pals and went to work on getting things set up. Sure enough, he immediately hooked up the turntable to the speaker system and loaded it with a "stack of shellac." I went off on my own, exploring the woods, where I could clearly hear the music from the pavilion, while VFW members packed the coolers with beer and dry ice.

In the early afternoon, the band started playing Polish music at the pavilion. By now there were picnickers everywhere in the park, shuffling back and forth from their cars to the dance floor. From a wooden bench along the walls in the pavilion I sat alone and watched the dancers put down their moves.

I also watched for my opportunity.

Sure enough, after the band concluded its first set and the dancers went outside to take a break, my dad put on a stack of Polish records and the music again played throughout the park. I waited, watched and listened as the first group of tunes finished playing. Then someone put on another stack and the music continued.

I prepared to make my move.

I slid over to the turntable just inside the pavilion, carefully raised the stack of records from the spindle, pulled my 78 out from under my t-shirt, slipped it into the pile of records, put them back on the spindle, and returned to my seat on the bench.

A few minutes later I could hear, loud and clear, the distinctive bass voice of 17-year-old Sherman Garnes on the song's intro, blasting all over New Liberty Park: "Bay, bay, bay, bay bom, doo bee, do wop..." Then the Teenagers' three back-up singers fell in: "Bom dee doo wop bom doo bee doo wop bom dee doo..." And, finally, out poured the silky smooth boy soprano of Frankie Lymon: "Oh, oh, oh, oh...oh, oh, oh, oh...I love you baby and I want you to be my girl...Well, c'mon baby let's go down town..."

I recall watching the faces of people clogging the real estate between the pavilion and beer hut as the Teenagers sang. Truthfully, few people seemed to react to what was playing over the speaker system. Mostly they kept doing what they were doing--eating, drinking, talking, laughing, sweating. Did they like the song? Or not? Did they notice that something other than Polish music was playing? Or not? Someone surely noticed, I thought, and so I sat there feeling proud that I had introduced my music to the old people at the picnic.

I wasn't thinking about whether I had done anything wrong that day. I didn't feel as though I had played a prank. I was simply on a child's mission to share with my parents' generation how the music made me feel inside. If I had asked for permission to do it, I'm sure I would have been told no. So I just did it.

That's the sort of attitude most of my friends and I grew up with. We were learning right from wrong every day at home, to be sure. At school, we considered the discipline imposed by the nuns as over the top. So we were always trying to outsmart them. It was like a game we played every day.

Meanwhile, no one held our hands as we walked to school. Rarely were we driven to school. There were no school busses. There were only busses operated by the DSR (Departement of Street Railways). Our parents never seemed particularly concerened when we rode one--unchaperoned--to Briggs Stadium for a Tigers game. Nor did they seem to worry much when we rode our bikes 15 miles or so to Belle Isle.

As I said, we experienced a helluva lot of childhood independence in those days. Which sometimes resulted in consequeneces for our actions, while encouraging responsibility.

If you threw a buddy's gym shoes through an open garage window on the way home from basketball practice, well, the next day you had knock on the homeowner's door and ask for permission to retrieve them.

And if you fell through a plaster ceiling while playing in the attic of a "new house," you had to make some quick decisions. Hide? Run? Or face the music? Big decisions for a kid.

It makes me feel uncomfortable that nine- and ten-year-olds today are rarely allowed to walk a couple blocks to the store to buy candy. It bothers me when I hear about kids who aren't allowed to go to the park alone until they're 13 or 14.

I admit that there's lots of bad stuff going on in our world these days. But with the bombardment of 24-hour news that we endure every day on our computers, phones, TVs, radios, etc., I think the bad stuff often gets overly publicized. I don't think that things are nearly as bad on some of the the streets of our cities, suburbs and towns as they are depicted to be.

Practically every kid in my class, as well as those in the classes ahead and behind me, turned out to be darn resilient people. Many of them worked to pay their own way through college during the '60s. Others, as 18- and 19-year-olds, faced up to the draft with amazing courage during the Vietnam War years. In the '70s, we rocked it hard and faced the consequences of drug and alcohol abuse.

But I think we were prepped well to handle the issues we would face because we were brought up with a reasonable blend of supervision and autonomy. And in the end, but for a few, life worked out pretty well.

Allowing for a degree of common sense and reasonableness, it seems to me that it would do children good today to occassionally experience unsupervised play and less programming. I just don't think that every hour of a kid's summer day has to be filled with music lessons, travel ball, play practice and foreign language drills. The time that kids spend on internet-connected devices is what should be heavily monitored.

Kids need time to be kids. So they can experience the lessons that come with things like sneaking music into their parents' playlist or falling through a plaster ceiling.

[sineala]

How would you say fandom culture has changed over the years? What are some differences you notice between older and younger fandom folks?

I’ve been thinking for a while about how to answer this, and I’m not sure I have a really good answer, but I’m going to try.

I’ve been in fandom since approximately 1995. Maybe 1994. At that point, the world wide web was a relatively new part of the internet, and the fandoms I was in had most of their activity on privately-hosted mailing lists (predating eGroups/OneList/Yahoo Groups) and on Usenet newsgroups, with fiction beginning to be available on websites as part of either fandom-specific or pairing-specific archives as well as authors’ individual pages. Fanfiction.net did not yet exist. LiveJournal did not exist. AO3 definitely did not exist. If you wanted real-time chat, there was IRC. I was coming in basically at the tail end of zine fandom; zines were no longer the only way of distributing fanfiction, as fandom started to move online. So I have a selection of zines from 90s-era Western media fandoms but even by then zines weren’t where I was doing most of my reading.

I think in terms of generally “what it was like to be in fandom,” the big-picture stuff hasn’t changed. Fandom still produces creative fanwork and likes to, y’know, get together and talk about fandom. Also, almost every fight or complaint that fandom has about something is a thing that has been going on for actual years. People complain that, say, the kudos button is ruining comment culture because back in the LJ days the only way you could comment on a story was, well, by leaving an actual comment, or sending an email on a mailing list, and this might mean that people who would have otherwise commented have left a kudos instead. But back in the LJ and mailing list days, people were complaining that commenting was going downhill since the days of zines, when in order to comment on a story you had to write a real paper letter and mail it and because you had to do that, the quality of feedback was so much better than you got nowadays because people could just dash off a quick email or comment. You get the idea. Top/bottom wars are not new either. Pairing wars are not new. If you’ve been in fandom a while, you will pretty much have seen all the fights already. I think one thing that is new, though, is the fandom awareness of things like privilege and intersectionality and various -isms, as well as things like “providing warnings might be nice” (do you know how much unwarned deathfic I have read? a lot!) and I sure won’t say we’re perfect at any of this now, but I think fandom is trying way way more about all that stuff than it used to.

There are some fights we actually don’t have anymore, as far as I can tell. I feel like it’s been years since I’ve seen the “real person fiction is wrong” battle, but also I don’t hang out in a whole lot of RPF fandoms, so it’s possible that’s still going and I just don’t see it.

There also used to be a recurring debate about whether gay relationships that were canonical were slash or not. When slash started, obviously this wasn’t a question because there weren’t canonical gay relationships in fandoms, period. But as gay characters began to appear in media, people started to wonder “does slash mean all same-sex relationships, or does slash mean only non-canonical same-sex relationships?” Now, you may be reading this and think that sounds like an incredibly weird thing to get hung up on, but that’s because what appears to have happened is that the term “ship” (originally from X-Files Mulder/Scully fandom) has, as far as I can tell, come up and eaten most of the rest of the terminology. Now people will just say, “oh, I ship that.” For any pairing, gay or not, canonical or not. Fandom seems to have decided that for the most part it no longer actually needs a term specific to same-sex relationships as a genre.

Similarly, there are a few genres of fic that we used to have also pretty much don’t exist anymore. There are also plenty of genres that are well-entrenched now that are also extremely recent -- A/B/O comes to mind. But there are some kinds of fic we don’t write a lot of now. Like, I haven’t seen smarm in years! I also haven’t seen We’re Not Gay We Just Love Each Other in a while. There was also a particular style of slash writing where you’d basically have to explain, in detail, what made you think that these particular characters could be anything other than straight. You’d have to motivate this decision. You’d have to look at their canonical heterosexual relationships and come up with a way to explain why all those had happened in order to reconcile how this one guy could have romantic feelings for another guy. When had he figured out he wasn’t straight? Who might he have been with before? How does he interact with people in ways that make you think he’s not straight? That kind of thing. You had to, essentially, show your work. And these days a lot of fanfic is just like, “Okay, Captain America is bisexual, let’s go!” It’s... different.

Fandom also used to skew older, is my sense. A lot older. I don’t know, actually, if it really was older, but I get the sense now that there are some younger people who are surprised that adults are still in fandom. I have seen people saying these days that they think they’re too old for fanfiction because they are not in middle school anymore. And I think a lot of this has to do with the fact that the barriers to access fandom are a lot lower than they used to be. You used to basically have to be an adult with disposable income (or know an adult with disposable income who was willing to help you out; but even then if you were reading explicit fiction you also had to swear you were 18+, usually by sending in an age statement to whoever you were buying the zine from or to the mods of the list you wanted to join, so a lot of fandom was very much age-gated). Internet access was not widely available. Even if you had internet access, you maybe didn’t have your own email address, so you couldn’t sign up for mailing lists; free email providers didn’t exist. If you wanted to buy zines, you had to have money to buy them. If you wanted to go to cons, you had to be able to afford the cost of the con, travel to the con, et cetera. If you wanted to have a website you had to know HTML. Social media did not exist. You want to draw art? Guess what, you’re probably drawing it on paper! You might be able to upload a picture to your website if you have a digital camera or a scanner, but both of those things are expensive, and also a lot of people don’t have the capability or the money to download pictures from the internet (some people have data caps with overage charges, and some people have text-only connections!), so they won’t get to see it. Maybe you can sell your piece at a con! You want to make a fanvid? We called them songvids, but, anyway, you know how you’re doing that? You’re going to hook two VCRs together and smash the play and record buttons very fast! If you want anyone else to watch them, you are either making them a tape personally and mailing it to them or bringing your vids to a convention. Maybe you can digitize them and upload them, but it’s going to take people hours to download them!

(Every three hours my ISP would kick me off the internet and I’d have to dial in again. If it was a busy time of day, it might take me 20 or 30 minutes to get a connection again. And that was assuming no one else in the house needed to use the phone line. Imagine if your modem went out every three hours now.)

And now, for the cost of my internet connection, I can read pretty much whatever fanfiction I want, whenever I want it. I can see all the fanart I want! I can watch vids! Podfic exists now! Fanmixes exist! Gifsets and moodboards exist! If I want to write fic I can write it with programs that are completely free, and as soon as I post it everyone in the entire world can read it. If I want to draw or make vids that may require some additional investment, but I may also be able to do it with things I already have. Do you have any idea how good we all have it?

There are a couple of kinds of fan activity that don’t seem to exist anymore, though, and I miss them. I know that roleplaying still goes on, but I feel like these days most people who do real-time text roleplay have switched to things like Discord. I know that in the LJ days, RP communities were popular. But I really miss MU*s (MUDs, MUSHes, MOOs, MUXes..), which were servers for real-time text-based RP with a bunch of... hmm... features to aid RP. There were virtual rooms with text descriptions, and objects in virtual rooms with descriptions, and your character had a description, and they could interact with the objects as well as with other characters, and you could program things to change descriptions or emit various kinds of text or take you to different rooms, and so on. Just to, y’know, enhance the atmosphere. It was fun and it was where I learned to RP and I’m sad they’re pretty much gone now.

I also don’t think I see a lot of fanfiction awards in fandoms. Wonder where they went.

Going back to the previous point, the barriers to actually consuming the canon you are fannish about are way, way, way lower now. You can pretty much take it for granted that if right now someone tells you about a shiny new fandom, there will be a way to read that book or watch that show or movie right now. Possibly for free! Of course you can watch it! Why wouldn’t you be able to?

This was absolutely, absolutely not the case before. I’m currently in Marvel Comics fandom. If there is a comic I want to read, I can read it right now on the internet. I have subscribed to Marvel Unlimited and I can read pretty much every comic that is older than three months old; the newer ones cost extra money. But I can do it all from the comfort of my own home right now. I was also, actually, in Marvel Comics fandom in the nineties. If I wanted to read a comic, I had to go to a comic book store and hope they had it in stock; if they didn’t, I had to try another store. Not a lot of comics were available in trade paperback and they definitely weren’t readable on the internet. I used to read a lot of Gambit h/c fic set after Uncanny X-Men #350. I never found a copy of UXM #350. I still haven’t! But I did eventually read it on Unlimited.

Being in TV show fandoms also had similar challenges. Was the show you were watching still on the air? No? Then you’d better hope you could find it in reruns, or know someone who had tapes of it that they could copy for you, otherwise you weren’t watching that show. It was, I think, pretty common for people to be in fandoms for shows they hadn’t seen, because they had no way to see the show, but they loved all the fanfic. The Sentinel had a whole lot of fans like that, both because I think it took a while for it to end up in reruns and because overseas distribution was probably poor. So you’d get people who read the fic and wrote fic based on the other fic they’d read, which meant that you got massive, massive amounts of fanon appearing that people just assumed was in the show because it was a weirdly specific detail that appeared in someone’s fic once. Like “Jim and Blair’s apartment has a small water heater” (not actually canonical) or “Blair is a vegetarian” (there’s an episode where his mother visits and IIRC cooks him one of his favorite meals, which is beef tongue).

Like, I was in The Professionals fandom for years. I read all the fic. I hadn’t seen the show. As far as I know, it never aired in the US, and it certainly never had any kind of US VHS or DVD release. I’d seen a couple songvids. I eventually saw a couple episodes in maybe 2003, and that was because my dad special-ordered a commercial VHS tape from the UK and paid someone to convert it from PAL to NTSC. I didn’t get to see the whole show until several years later when I got a region-free DVD player someone in fandom sent me burned copies of the UK DVD releases and then I special-ordered the commercial release of the DVDs from the UK myself. But if I were a new fan and wanted to watch Pros right now? It is on YouTube! For free!

I think also one of the things about fandom that’s not immediately evident to new fans is the way in which it is permanent and/or impermanent. There are probably people whose first fannish experience is on Tumblr or who only read fanfic on FFN and who have no idea what they would do if either site, say, just shut down. But if you’ve been in fandom a while, you’ve been through, say, Discord, Tumblr, Twitter, Pillowfort, Imzy, DW, JournalFen, LJ, GeoCities, IRC, mailing lists. And sure, if Tumblr closed, it would be inconvenient. But fandom would pack up and move somewhere else. You would find it again. It would, eventually, be okay. Similarly, if you’ve been in a lot of fandoms, if you’ve made a lot of friends, drifting through fandoms is like that. You’ll make a friend in 1998 because you were in the same fandom, and then you might go your own ways, and ten years later you might be in another fandom with them again! It happens.

But the flip side of that is that I think a lot of older fans have learned not to trust in the permanence of any particular site. If you like a story, you save it as soon as you read it. If you like a piece of art, you save it. If you like a vid, you save it. Because you don’t know when the site it’s on will be gone for good. I have, like, twenty years of lovingly-curated fanfic. And I feel like people who have only been in fandom since AO3 existed might not understand how much AO3 is a game-changer compared to what we had before. It’s a site where you can put your fic up and you don’t have to worry that the webhost is going out of business, or that the site might delete your work because they don’t allow gay fiction or explicit fiction or fiction written in second person or fiction for fandoms where the creator doesn’t like fanfiction, or whatever. Because all of those things have absolutely happened. But, I mean, I still save pretty much everything I like, even on AO3, just in case.

So, basically, yeah, fandom is a whole lot more accessible than it used to be. I think fandom is pretty much still fandom, but it’s a lot easier to get into, and that has made it way more open to people who wouldn’t have been able to be in fandom before. There is so, so much more now than there ever was before, and I think that’s great.

[onigiri-dorkk]

Some thoughts after reading twt flare ups against Rivamika (🙄):

Most people throw a fit about Mikasa (22) versus Levi (37) post-series mainly because they’re fixated on 15 year old Mikasa and 30 year old Levi. Which I get. But also it’s not our fault that they can’t get over the fact that Mikasa grows up.

Then when they think of 22 vs. 37 their main concern is that in real life, those ages will be at completely different stages and places in life and have nothing to relate. Which I also get; that it’s an obstacle or a concern (but it’s not impossible to work out)

HOWEVER.

In the world of Attack on Titan, 22 year old Mikasa and 37 year old Levi HAVE. LITERALLY. BEEN. THROUGH. IT. ALL. TOGETHER. They have shared life experience together, and a shit load of it. They’ve served together. Traveled together. Shed blood and tears and risked their lives for each other. And those two specifically saved the world; they hit the final blow. People throw a fit thinking Levi would be seen as a creep for dating a 22 year old, but it’s not just a random chick he met on the street who he thinks is attractive? Mikasa has been his comrade for 7 years AND has become his right hand woman for much of that time.

On top of shared experiences, their loyalty and respect and care for each other is on another level. It’s a general consensus even in real life that admiration precedes attraction. Y’all can be best of friends for years, but a moment happens when you realize that friend is amazing and boom. Wanna marry her. 😂

People who don’t think that’s realistic for someone like Levi and his trusted comrade of 7 years, who also so happens to be a really freakin beautiful woman, AND who also happens to be comparable in strength and potentially now even stronger than him (like? When has that ever existed in Levi’s life?)… COME ON. A woman in his life who doesn’t have to be afraid of his strength??? A woman who won’t be afraid of his past as a soldier and the things he had to do??? Don’t get me started on how Mikasa has also always been the only one who isn’t afraid to speak up to Levi.

More realistic things! Levi has lived a life of suffering since he was a BABY. Life was never certain and sure for him. His mother passed, he almost died from malnourishment, he lost someone who he thought was maybe his father, he left the Underground, he lost Isabel and Farlan, he lost practically every squad and soldier he’s been given, he lost Erwin and Hange. That man has never once had a break. I don’t care how cold or against love he might be based on his trauma, but a post-war Levi would naturally want to find companionship and love. HE IS A 37 YEAR OLD MAN. Can’t tell me he hasn’t thought about love and settling down!!! And you can’t tell me that man will settle for a basic binch who he has zero shared experience with, who will likely be afraid of his superhuman strength, etc.

Another thing to address. Every Levi ship is with someone dead. EXCEPT MIKASA. (And honorable mention, Onyankapon LOL) Nothing else to say there.

Okay. I’m done here LOL. Just in my feelings for Rivamika this week. The nerve people have to say incest, p3do and say Levi would be a creep to date Mikasa. The fandom is dumb. 😩

[magic-missle-blog]

Ghost division

approx 5k words

The teacher stood in front of her class, looking over the rows of teenagers. The red sun shone through the glass illuminating the brightly coloured room and the wooden desks. The youngsters were mostly green skinned mammalian Drek, like herself, although she did have two reptilian Gath, shorter and stockier than the Drek, they sat on specially made chairs to accommodate there long tails, Their parents had recently moved to this colony, the new mines and the wealth therein drew sentients from all over the galaxy. Most were dressed in a similar fashion, dark blue trousers and skin tight teeshirts with a Varity of symbols of cartoon characters. She inwardly shuddered at the fashion sense of the young,

:readmore:

Off to the side was a older Drek, he was an elder, over 70 years old and even though his once blue hair was now all grey, and his back had a slight stoop, he stood proud and his eyes were bright. He had on a dark green military uniform, a couple of shades darker than his skin. The rank badge on his chest showed he was a captain, the dagger with wings on his sleeve showed he was in the war fleet.

“Class” the teacher began “We have a special guest with us today. As you know tomorrow is 'Alliance day', the most important holiday we have, and it’s a very special one. Tomorrow marks fifty years since the alliance between Drek and Gath, fifty years since the foundation of the united galactic council, fifty years since the Canidations were defeated and peace was restored to the galaxy.”

She took a breath. “Please give a warm welcome to captain Furon.”

The teacher clapped her 6 fingered hands together and sat down behind desk.

Captain Furon walked smartly to stand in front of the class. He precisely placed a bottle of water down next to some paperwork on the crowded wooden desk. All eyes were on his uniform and side arm.

He looked at the teacher. “Thank you for the most gracious introduction.” He said with a smile.

“I want to tell you about the battle for this colony; it was the turning point in the great war, but ...before I begin, who can tell me how the alliance started?”

A forest of hands rose in the air. Furon pointed to one of the Gath students. The student stood up and said in a hissing voice. “Sixty or so years ago a race called the Canidations tried to conquer the galaxy, they invaded and destroyed many worlds. The Canidations attacked both the Gath and Drek our empires bordered one another. We stood together, and fought off attack after attack, eventually driving the Canidations back into their space. After the war ended, our peoples joined in the alliance and started the galactic council, over the years we invited four other species into The Alliance.”

The reptilian sat back down.

As the student spoke Furon nodded along. Once the Gath had returned to his seat, the captain said “That’s the official bare bones history, but it’s not the full truth.”

Captain Furon looked around the class. “It started with the Canidations, that right enough, but what you don’t realise is just how powerful they were. They had more ships, more weapons than any other species, several times over. In their home system there was a gas giant with many moons, these moons were the size of small planets and the Canidations built factories. Giant factories that could mass produce warships in great numbers. Their fleet had tens of thousands of fighters, thousands of cruisers and hundreds of capital ships. The Canidations were a strong warrior race, with a high birth rate. The soon outstripped the resources on their home worlds and wanted more.” his voice turns cold “They were a plague. They couldn’t be reasoned with or bargained with, they believed they were the only true form of intelligent life, everything else was simply an animal to be destroyed.”

He looks lost in memories for a moment, the room is silent, hanging on his every word, For the first time the students actually grasped that standing before them was a warrior, a man who had lived through the horror of the great war .A man who had stood toe to toe with the Arachnidiod Canidations, who had spat in there ruby coloured multifaceted eyes.

Furon continued “In ten years the Canidations invaded and slaughtered five species and with every conquest their blood-lust grew and grew, they gave no quarter, gave no mercy. The wounded, civilians, even children were all fair targets to them.

The seemed unstoppable, we knew it was coming of course. The Drek and Gath were next in line, as the Canidations territory expanded it was a matter of time until they were at our door. We tried to build up our fleets, improve our weapons and fortify out colonies but it was futile.”

He reached for the bottle of water on the teacher desk and took along slow sip, then continued.

“Around 7 years after the war started the Canidations attacked a Gath border post, a few months later they attacked one of our convoys. Normally only a fool starts a war on two fronts, but the Canidations were so powerful and so arrogant they didn’t care. Then they made a mistake. They opened up another front. They attacked The Terrain Empire.”

The class murmured and looked around. This was new information. The Terrans don’t have an empire, they are generally vagabonds or mercs, and they are rare. The population only a few hundred thousand individuals across know space, in fact, no one in the class had ever seen one.

Furon continued “The Terrans, or Humans and they were sometimes known, were a relatively young race. They only had interstellar travel for a few decades, but they quickly built up a small empire. As a young race no one really considered them a threat, including the Canidations, but they were wrong. You see humans had one great strength, adaptability. The Canidations became warriors, but Humans were born for war. In the 5000 years of recorded human history there was not one single day when some part of the planet was not at war. They could see as well as we could what was coming so they built up their fleets and dusted off ancient tactics renewed and improved for a new age. When the Canidations first attacked the Terran Empire, they terrans would lose three ships for every one Canidation vessel killed, but with every battle, every loss the humans learned. They studied the enemy, they adapted. After six months it was one to one, and after a further six it took five Canidation warships to kill a Terran vessel. The humans tech advanced at an unmatched pace. They created new and unique weapons and defences, but it was not enough. Even with losses of 5 to one the Canidations were so many that those loses was a victory, however it slowed the advance into Terran space, and forced then to pull resources from Gath and Drek space to fight the Terrans, giving us much needed breathing room. The advance slowed, but it did not stop,”

Furon took a breath

“I want to tell you about a battle, a very important battle that took place here, in orbit of this colony towards the end of the war. This was the most important battle in the history of the Drek, because it paved the way for the alliance.”

“Back then this colony had around ten million people, and it was an important supply and repair centre for the fleet. At first it was far inside Drek space but as the Canidations pushed onwards this world soon became a target. We tried to evacuate the civilian population but we didn’t have the ships or resources, our fleets were spread so thin as Canidation attacks hit all over the empire. Around seven million people were left when the Canidation death fleet arrived. I was a young officer stationed in the bridge of the Warship 'Firestorm', part of small defence force, all that high command could spare. Our orders were to defend the colony at all costs.”

************************************************

Ensign Furon looked up from his screen. The green and black display flashed in warning. “Captain....sensors have just picked up a large Canidation fleet heading this way. We have 30 minutes until they reach the system.”

The captain looked around his small bridge. The red emergency lights shrouded his crew in an eerie glow, various consoles beeped for attention, chair creaked as people shifted. His crew were at battle stations, ready to fight and die if needed. The Firestorm was destroyer class Warship, Small and fast yet it packed a punch. He was proud of his ship and knew it inside and out. “How large?”

Furon checked his screen, “six capital ships, thirty cruisers, five carriers....we're outnumbered six to one.”

The captain checked the status of the other ships in his fleet. A ragged assortment of cruisers and destroyers most damaged to some extent from the constant warfare, they were only here as this was the closest repair station to the front. There were various other civilian ships in orbit and a large ring of defensive satellites. The civilians he could discount as they were unarmed, but the satellites might be able to help...and then there was the repair station itself, upgraded with the latest weapons..... Captain Brekka shook his head, in his heart of hearts he knew it wasn’t enough, the firepower the Canidation fleet had would cut through the colonies defences like a hot knife through butter.

“Comms open a general distress call”

“Channel opens Captain”

The captain

“This is captain Brekka of the Drek warship Firestorm. We have incoming hostile craft; we are in orbit of Baldur colony. If anyone can help. Please come. We have transport full of children, please assist.”

The Comms office waited a few moments, “nothing captain, no reply”

The first officer, a tall Drek with long lanky limbs replied “all ships are battle ready and moving into formation, plasma cannons are charging. The colony rail guns are active and defensive satellites fully powered. We'll squash those fucking bugs like a spider under our boots'”

The captain smiled a rare smile. He appreciated Firsts attempt to raid the crew’s spirits but everyone knew they didn’t stand a chance.

“Furon. Status of the evacuation ships”

Furon checked his screen. “Three are fully loaded and taking off, the remaining ten will be airborne within twenty minutes. There have been delays, people are crowding on. Its chaos down there.” The main view screen showed various scenes of the plant below. Parents trying to push their children onto the waiting transports, civilian craft fleeing. People fighting each other and trying to flee.

“Cutting it close...” the captain said. He pressed a button on his command console, opening a channel to his fleet. “Prepare to break orbit, defend the transports at all costs.”

The bridge crew looked at the captain. The first office spoke up. “But captain...the planet....there are seven million people...”

The captain, his face drawn, heart heavy, looked at the sensor display. He knew what was going to happen. Those capital ships would smash the space dock as the cruisers destroyed the satellites and ground cannons. Once the defences were down they would bombard the colony with fusion bombs. A few might survive in outlying settlements, or if they managed to get to the bunkers....but by this time tomorrow most would be dead. “There’s nothing we can do for them, but if we defend the transports at least the children will survive.”

Minutes seemed like hours. Furon checked and rechecked the status of the Canidation fleet as they drew closer. The tension was unbearable. A trickle of sweat crawled like a spider down his spine.

CLICK CLACK.

CLICK CLACK

Someone was clicking a pen.

CLICK CLACK

CLICK CLACK

CLICK ...

The first office strode across the bridge and plucked the pen from the officer at fire control. With a grunt the pen was crushed in the firsts strong hand.

Blue eyes glued to the screen, Furon was the first to see the Canidations dropped out of hyperspace just shy of the planets gravity well and began their approach at sub light.

Heavy cruisers bristling with weapons, smaller but faster destroyers, behind that the capital ships. Monsters made of titanium and horror, each one ten times the size of his own vessel. Last but certainly not least the carriers with their cargo of small deadly fighters.

“Five minutes until weapons range” Furon said. The captain sat in his chair, still as a rock watching the sensor display on the main screen. The transports had all reached orbit and were slowly moving out of the gravity well where they could safely activate hyper drive, but they were slow, far too slow.

“Captain” Furon said with alarm “Enemy fleet is breaking formation.”

On the screen the carriers offloaded their cargo of small sleek fighters. Fast and deadly shaped like locusts, they were moving around the Drek fleet to try to flank the transports, as the main body of cruisers attacked head on. The capital ships headed straight for the colony, where their large guns and mass drivers would rain death on the helpless people below.

The captain knew the colony was doomed; all he could do was try to save the transports. Save as many people as he could. He knew his duty, but hated himself for abandoning the colony.

The captain pressed a button on his command console “Sword, Wildcat, intercept those fighters, the rest of you, battle formation, buy those transports as much time as you can....it’s been an honour serving with you.” He cut the channel, nothing else needed to be said. He looked around the bridge crew, emotion plain on the green faces, anger, hatred, but no fear. They faced death but they wouldn’t go down easy and with luck their sacrifice would save thousands of Drek on those transports. The captain couldn’t have been prouder.

“Two minutes until weapons range” Furon said

The incoming ships slowly grew in size as they drew closer.

“Weapon range in 90 seconds, the first transport is 3 minutes from the minimum safe FTL jump point, the last transport is 10 minutes away. Fighters will intercept transports in 3 minutes” Furon said.

So, Captain Drek thought, it’s not all in vein, a few transports will be safe and we’ll buy the rest as much time as we can.

“Weapons range in one minute....wait...captain....I’m picking up something on Comms, its an audio . it sounds like a...a howl?” when the captain nodded furon opened the channel. An eerie moan, filled the bridge. Words, almost two low to catch were mixed in the scary sound, “we are the ghost division, we are your death...”

Furon had turned a sickly pale blue colour. He cut of the channel, and turned to the captain, he was about to speak when his station beeped. “Captain, its a distress call its...it’s from the Canidation capital ships... they want aid....the call has cut off”. Furon said confused.

The screen zoomed into capital ships closing in on the planet, but where the there should have been six monstrous death machine, only four could be seen. Two expanding clouds of debris still glowing, were the remains of the others. As they watched a bright red explosion blossomed from the main hull of another ship, it quickly consumed the huge vessel. As it died a bright yellow explosion from the rear of the ship, the fusion plant loosing containment no doubt, finished it off.

On the main screen an explosion destroyed an enemy destroyer, and then another destroyed a cruiser. Within a few second ten Canidation ships were no more than glowing space dust.

The line of incoming ships dissolved into chaos. They fired weapons all around. The Drek couldn’t see anything though, the Canidations seemed to have gone mad, firing at empty space.

The first office looked up “the cruisers and fighters are breaking off they’re heading to the capital ships...what the fuck is happening?”

The bridge was a jumble of activity. Sensor reports were coming in, the Comms system was going crazy as the other ships in the fleet reported the same thing, asking for orders.

Furon shouted over the noise on the bridge “something is attacking them, I’m reading...fuck I don’t know what I’m reading. I’ve never seen anything like this. Weird gravity spikes, then ships appearing then vanishing. If I didn’t know better I’d say the sensors were damaged.”

The screen showed the Canidation fleet in full retreat. Black ships around the size of destroyers appeared out of no where, fired a barrage of projectile and energy weapons then vanished again. It didn’t matter where the Canidations turned or how the dodged, a ship always appeared, fired and vanished. It made it impossible to target them, or get an accurate count of numbers. When the new sleek warhips were sure of a direct hit they would fire a large torpedo, the weapon didn’t seem to have any guidance, but it packed a punch. Any cruiser it hit was killed, and even the monstrous capital ships were destroyed. With one missile. Brekka had no idea what the warhead was, but it was immensely powerful. It seemed to vapourise anything it hit rather than exploding like a normal missiles

The Comms office piped up “incoming hail”

“On screen” Brekka said

The screen changed from the confusion of battle to a video call.

A tall dark skinned human in a dark grey uniform appeared on screen.

“I’m captain Conroy of the Terran warship Lucifer; we received your distress call. Your transports will be safe now, want to help us mop up the rest of these bastards?” he asked with a grin.

Brekka let out a Drek war cry and said to the crew.

“You heard the good captain. Give them Hell”

****************************************

“The battle lasted less than 30 minutes. We didn’t lose a single ship, neither did the humans. Only one Canidation ship survived, and that was because the humans let it go. ‘Teach them to fear the wrath of Earth’ Captain Conroy told us. We offered the humans shore leave but they declined, they had a mission. To spread fear among the Canidations, to hit hard without mercy and vanish like ghosts. That battle was a major victory, it inspired our people, and it showed that non Drek could help, would be willing to help so in turn we could help others. Due to the humans example the Firestorm was the first Drek ship on the scene when a small flotilla of Canidations attacked a Gath supply line, we helped save a half dozen Gath ships. The Gath returned the favour and soon we were fighting side by side. It was from these small actions the alliance was born. If it wasn’t for the Terran ghost division, the alliance would never have happened.”

Hands rose as Furon finished history. “What happened to the humans? How could they make their ships invisible, what kind of weapons did they use?” a jumble of voices asked various questions.

Furon smiled and raised his hands for silence.

“We don’t know what stealth tech the human ships used, we think they could manipulate artificial gravity in some way to bend light and sensor beams around the ships but we can’t replicate it yet. As for the weapons, well they used tungsten projectiles fired from rail guns and plasma based energy weapons for the most part...but those torpedoes... they were something else. We managed to recover a few that missed their targets. From what we gather they used some kind of exotic matter with negative mass to generate an antigravity wave, That wave was unstoppable, and any matter caught in it was destroyed and changed into energy. This caused a chain reaction, if effectively turned the ships own armour into an energy blast. “

Furon took another drink.

“As for what happened to them....they spread fear among the Canidations. For months Ghost division stuck Canidation ships. Burned colonies, wherever that eerie sound would play Canidations died by the hundreds and thousands. They spreads So much fear that the Canidations halted their advance into Gath and Drek space and committed almost everything to the destruction of Earth. The humans fought hard and made the Canidation bleed for every inch but eventually the humans were pushed back into their home system. tens of Thousands of Canidation ships dropped out of FTL into the Sol system, almost the entire Canidation fleet, almost every and solider so they could watch humanity die.

The terrans had pulled everything back into Earth orbit, every ship, and every colonist. Everything other than ghost division

It must have been an amazing sight, the two biggest fleets the galaxy has ever seen...ready to fight to the death.”

Furon looked around the class

“But the humans...they were vindictive bastards, and clever. From what we gather they built one last torpedo. It must have been huge, at least a mile long, and filled with millions of tonnes of exotic matter. They fired it directly into their own sun causing it to go supernova. The Gravity wave of the dying star made FTL impossible. The entire Canidation fleet was wiped out in one go, millions of Canidations, dead In a heartbeat, I sometimes wonder what when through their mind before they were blasted into ash. Then the alliance struck. Our ships, the combined might of the Gath and Drek empires attacked. We hunted down and wiped out every last Canidation ship, but when we arrived in the home system, we found it had already been killed. The ghost division had been there first...no Canidations survived the human’s wrath. The home world had been cracked open like an egg. Every planet and moon that had even a hint of canidation presence was sterilized.”

The Gath that had spoken earlier said with awe “the humans destroyed their own home world rather than let it fall...they must have been mighty warriors.”

Furon smiled

“Oh they were re than mighty warriors. They were inventors, thinker ands dreamers. After the supernova had passed and it was safe, mercy vessels from the alliance went into the remains of the sol system... we knew it was hopeless but we owed it to the terrans to look for survivors. We found the smashed remains of the two inner planets, and the irradiated husk of the fourth planet. We found a diamond thousands of miles wide, all that remained of the planet after the atmosphere had been blown away. But of earth there was nothing, no debris, no wreckage, nothing.”

“ Just before the supernova wave reached earth, our long range scopes picked up something odd, a massive energy spike. We think the humans somehow created an artificial wormhole, they used the power from the supernova to rip open time and space. They shifted their entire planet, their moon and the whole fleet and left the Canidations to die. They used their own planet as bait and their star as the biggest bomb the galaxy has ever seen. You might say its impossible, but Humans could dream the impossible and make it possible...I don’t know if it s true or not, but they might still out there somewhere and could come back one day., and if they do i hope to all the gods that they come in peace.

[liesoverthec]

OG 911 Character Details from Canon Pt 2

Hi y’all I’m back! I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who reblogged the last details post - I sort of just thought people would like it and it would die, so to see it travel and hopefully reach more writers was so great so thank you again!

Details under the cut since I went a little crazy 😅 and if this is your first time seeing this, the first part, and any future parts, can be found under this tag here!

Quick note before I get to the details - always, ALWAYS take details from dialogue or plot over details from the set or props if they contradict each other. The writers have the ultimate say over what happens on the show/for the characters, so whatever they say goes, even if it goes against something props has already laid down (eg, Chim’s birthday, sorry Libra crew. He’s an Aries or a Pisces). So keep that in mind for the future in case some of these details I have which are from props/set are changed in the future, or if you’ve noticed something yourself!

Also if you have questions, I am MORE than happy to answer them, although if you leave them in the tags on this post I’m probably gonna lose them, so if it’s something you’d genuinely like an answer to, drop it in my inbox! Besides my standard “ask” tags, I’m also tagging asks about canon details with this tag here. Every time I make a big post like this, I’m going to link all the asks I’ve gotten since the last post, but if you’re looking for more info in the mean time, that’s the other spot to look!

Buck has a grill on his patio.

Eddie doesn’t hang Christopher’s art on the fridge - instead it is either hung on the corkboard in Chris’ room to the left of the door, or Eddie puts it in an actual frame and hangs it using a hammer/nails in Christopher’s room. All the Diaz family has on their fridge is a bunch of bendy people magnets. (I absolutely ADORE him putting all this effort into treating Christopher’s art like it’s something you’d buy from a professional artist).

Info on everyone’s ages can be found here. (Little more discussion of Chim’s situation here).

Albert has a bachelor’s degree! I don’t know in what though, except that it’s some field for which is a Master’s is useful.

Athena was in a sorority in college, Delta Sigma Theta. Their website describes them as “ ...a sisterhood comprised primarily of Black, college-educated women ... [that] considers the issues impacting the Black community and boldly confronts the challenges of African Americans and, hence, all Americans ”, which I love for Athena, and feel is very in-character for her at that time in her life!

Chim is an aviators dude. When he wears sunglasses, they’re always aviators.

Athena also wears nothing but aviators.

Bobby wears square aviators.

Eddie, on the other hand, always wears Wayfarers.

Buck either doesn’t really like sunglasses or he constantly forgets he owns them, since we’ve only seen him wear them once in 60 eps, in a move I’m pretty sure was ONLY for dramatic effect.

Hen’s sunglasses change style over the seasons like her regular glasses do, but she tends to like browline sunglasses.

Info on Christopher’s school can be found here!

There are two colors of dispatch polo, and there doesn’t seem to be any rhythm or reason for who wears what. Maroon - Maddie and Linda. Blue - Josh and May. Jamal has actually worn both maroon and blue, so it doesn’t seem to be TOTALLY set in stone although I’ve never seen anyone else switch. Sue is too badass to wear a dispatch shirt.

Both Bobby and Eddie drive 4 door pickups. Bobby’s is navy. Eddie specifically has a black, 2020 GMC Denali 1500 pickup truck (in case you want to specifically look up what the inside of it looks like or what features it has 😂)

Info on the 118’s medical certifications can be found here.

Correction to Eddie’s living situation from last post: no next door neighbors, but instead UPSTAIRS neighbors. (Pointed out by Abigail in this ask). Also since someone else was wondering the notes of the last post - no, there is absolutely no discussion on the show of whether or not Eddie rents the apartment or owns it. But based on the fact that it’s 1) LA and 2) an apartment, my guess would be he rents it.

When Maddie isn’t feeling like herself, she tends to straighten her hair rather than curl it. It seems to be more when she’s uncertain about her place in her own and other people’s lives, rather than just when she’s simply worried - eg it’s straight in 2B, when she’s uncertain if she wants to continue working as a dispatcher/is unsure about her relationship with Chim.

For work, Chim, Eddie and Buck all use black duffel bags with a LAFD patch on the top. Hen uses several different cute bags, and Bobby seems to have a plain black duffel bag.

Watches - Bobby, Athena, Chim, Hen and Buck all wear their watch on their left wrist (but Athena ONLY wears hers for work, she takes it off at home.) Eddie wears his on his right wrist, and Maddie doesn’t wear one.

Chim (and Maddie by default) literally still have the exact same couch as in the pilot. (Which means that Chim has cuddled Tatiana on that couch, AND Albert has had sex on it. TIME TO GET A NEW ONE, BUCKLEY-HANS 😂)

The 118 has five different rigs - the engine (E118), the ladder truck (T118), two ambulances and the captain’s truck. 95% of the time, when the team is chilling in the cab of a rig and chatting (eg the ‘stuck under a live telephone pole’ scene in Jinx), they’re in the engine, not the truck. (Which I personally learned recently are NOT interchangeable terms!)

Athena and Michael got married when Athena was 37.

If you’d like to give Maddie a full name beyond “Maddie”, you should use Madeline. (I know, I know, in 4x04 she says Maddie is the name on her birth certificate, and that you should never use props details if they contradict script details, but I always thought that was a super weird exchange in 4x04 which could be explained by Maddie getting a nickname since she was born when Margaret and Phillip, you know, actually loved their kids and showed it, so of course Buck doesn’t get one, and in 4x04, Maddie was trying to avoid the entire issue of why she got one and Buck didn’t. But! Do what you want, and use Madeline as the full version of Maddie if you’d like, since that’s what’s on the BOLO in 2x13 😂)

Athena’s call sign is 727 L30, but she doesn’t have a specific squad car - the number changes throughout the series.

Chim really likes chewing gum, but he’s the only one out of the entire family!

The station has an Xbox One S, and it’s white.

In the real LAFD, there are stations 1 through 114. To avoid confusion while filming on the streets (I’m assuming), our fictional LAFD never uses the number of a real station. So if you want another station for a fic, and you want something that would be real in OUR universe, use the numbers 115 and above. They’ve gone as high as 221 in our universe.

Battalions - station 118 is in Battalion 7, which is also not a battalion in real Los Angeles. The 118 has interacted w/ Battalion 1, which is a real battalion, but other ‘non-real which makes them more likely for our universe’ battalions include numbers: 3, 8, 13, 16, 19 and above.

S1 Buck knew the term Jedi, but based on context, didn’t understand AT ALL the context provided by Star Wars, so there’s another edge of his pop culture limits for you.

Chim is the most tech-savvy out of everyone, hands down.

Athena has a VERY active Twitter account.

Abuela’s house number is 8902. I don’t have a street name for you unfortunately though. :/

Athena’s favorite flowers are white roses. None of the other women are really flower people.

Michael likes to wear purple.

When they’re at a call, Buck does pretty much all of the stuff with the hammer and the saw. Eddie does all the work needed with the drill.

Harry goes to Meadowbrook Elementary.

Buck lives on the fourth floor of his apartment building, across the hall from Apt. 416. The lovely @lovelessmotel found this listing for what is more or less the apartment. What happened was: the set crew rented this apartment for the one episode at the end of s2 when Buck moved in, and then over the summer before s3 built their own set of it, and changed some things - eg giving him an island, and moving the sink to a second counter against the far wall, you can see the changes here in this amazing gif set by the awesome Austen, but the listing should let you click around a little more upstairs and figure out dimensions better than what the show provides!

When Athena and Hen go out to eat together, it’s always fast food burgers and fries.

Waffles are Athena’s favorite food, and tiramisu is her favorite dessert.

Every takeout we’ve seen Buck eat has always been in a Chinese food takeout container, and we know he likes Thai food the best. EXCEPT! The one time we see him eat takeout with Eddie and Christopher, they have pizza. So take from that what you will......

Eddie has a cell phone and a landline.

Chim is a shameless multiple texter.

Chim and Bobby sleep closest to the door in their respective bedrooms (both right side of the bed if you are standing at the foot, facing the headboard), and Athena and Maddie sleep furthest away from the door (left side).

Some canon last names for other firefighters at the station in case you wanna add more people to a fic - Mitchell, Sanchez, Serrano (woman), Porter, Meyers (woman), Maxwell, Voyta

Hen and Karen really love decorating their house with dark/red wood.

Karen is Mommy and Hen is Mama.

Bobby has a brother, and a grandmother, and that’s literally ALL we know about his family outside of Marcy and the kids.

Evidence points to Eddie being the oldest child in his family.

Karen has multiple brothers (no sisters), but no idea how many - just that one of them is named Trey, and one of them lives in LA and has kids. They might be the same brother and they might not be.

Both Hen and Athena are only children.

Athena has been on the police force for 30 years.

Christopher and Denny are the same age (born in 2011), and Harry is two years older than them.

Michael lives in apartment 308.

The bank in this universe is CalAm.

Hen and Karen have a picture of Denny, May and Harry on their fireplace mantel.

Eddie having a black thumb + a lot of plants in his living room = him buying fake plants bc he likes the aesthetic ™ or someone (cough Carla cough) is taking care of them for him.

The COVID timeline in OG’s universe is fucked up compared to the real world’s, so it shouldn’t be used as a way to measure time! They just throw it in wherever it makes sense for the story they want to tell (eg the vaccines in s4 ep 8), since s3 was both done before COVID hit but also airing while it was happening. It makes absolutely no sense for May to graduate in March nor for Chris to be going to what is specifically labeled summer camp, and the vaccine plotline was INCREDIBLY early, even for real life, so don’t use anything from that as a measure of time. I’ve found except in specific examples, eg the two tsunami episodes, it’s very safe to say every episode covers a week - fall holidays on the show line up with their real life counterparts, indicating about the same amount of time is passing for us and them.

On that note - Jee-Yun was born in late January, early February 2021. (Conceived in Pinned, which was end of March/beginning of April, meaning Maddie was around a month along at May’s graduation in May ➡ 42 weeks + 3 days from then = late Jan/early Feb. Which unfortunately means we most likely won’t see her birthday celebrated on screen. If we assume she was conceived on the date Pinned aired, aka the very sexy hotel scene, then January 21st or 22nd would be Jee’s birthday, depending on if she was born after midnight or not.

Buck has had at least one other Jeep between the one Maddie gave him, and the one he has now, which means that when he needs a new car, he is purposefully choosing Jeeps.

I hope this was all as interesting/enjoyable to you as it was to me! And just to repeat - I love answering questions so pls let me know if you have any at all ❤

🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝

Tagging: @buckbuckley

[extremelyblackandwhite]

into the woods

PAIRING: alpha!bucky barnes x innocent omega!reader

WARNINGS: age gap (reader in her 20′s, bucky in his mid to late 30′s), smut, a/b/o dynamics

A/N: this has some acotar vibes because i was reading it while writing this but i hope you enjoy it. have fun xx

The High Lady of the North, is what they called her, or at least what they refered her. to whenever they spoke of her as seeing the daughter of one of the most powerful men in all the land was a rare sight. Those who knew her, knew her from her time at school and those who didn’t merely gossiped about her. They knew what she was, an omega, the first omega born in a family of alphas who had ruled over the land for centuries. Her birth had been celebrated as a gift to fertility yet, the most desired omega in all of the land was yet to participate in one of the Spring Celebrations where omegas going through their first heat would be chased by eager alphas into the woods. Y/N absolutely hated the mere idea of being thrown around like a piece of meat for alphas to go after and she was thankful that as years went by no sign of a heat was yet to come. Servants at the mansion would comment maybe she was an infertile omega while some commented she was merely buying her time. However, despite all those comments and all those titles thrown at her by people who did not know her, one person did know the reason why the omega High Lady was kept apart from everyone else. That person was James Barnes, Bucky for short. He, like everyone who surrounded her was an Alpha yet his task was merely to look after her whenever she wanted to venture around, not that she enjoyed to be out of her little walls for long.

He was quiet, a far cry from how loud every Alpha she knew was yet in his quietness and lonely demeanor, he had a power that kept everyone else at arms’ length. He wasn’t a brashy young Alpha who couldn’t control his nature, no, his inner wolf was always restrained with just enough of a facade that kekpt everyone else away. No one dared defy James Barnes unless they wanted to be beat to a pulp. That reputation had earned him a reputation which led to the job he had occupied for the past 3 years, starting during her 20th birthday. It hadn’t taken him too long to grow attached to her and her little quirks. Yet again, he was an alpha and she was an omega so he guessed biology played a role in it. 

She herself wasn’t much of a outgoing omega, instead keeping to herself with her piles of books and flowers. However, recently, she was even more hidden from everybody, staying in her room covered by her blankets and vanilla candles and god blessed anyone who attempted to bother her. As the days went by, it became perfectly clear to everyone what was happening; the 23 year old omega was starting her heat. 

     - I don’t need to be coddled! - she snapped at Bucky as he stood by her side. He wasn’t closer than he usually was, actually, he was even trying to keep his distance. Despite his control, he knew how strong first heats were and he knew how easily they could trigger a rut even in the most experienced Alpha. However, he couldn’t help but find it amusing how irritableshe was. 

     - I’m sorry, m’lady. - he chuckled. 

     - You find it funny? - she crossed her arms, cocking her head to the side in a menancing manner; yet, she merely looked like an upset child in that ridiculous periwinkle dress. - I’m to be bait for horny alphas and you think it’s funny. 

    - You’re being overdramatic, you’re not going to be bait. Everybody does it.

    - You didn’t do it.

    - I’m not an Omega. 

    - You didn’t join the other alphas either. - she noted, continuing her distance from him. - It’s sexist!

    - No one is going to touch you if you don’t allow it. You can’t force a mating bond onto someone, m’lady.

    - Call me m’lady one more time. - she rolled her eyes. 

    - Sorry, Y/N. - he smiled and she couldn’t help but forgive him and he couldn’t help but not take it seriously. He knew she wasn’t sleeping, way too overwealmed by pre-heat and preparations for it. Just last night he’d seen her carrying more pillows into her bedroom along with a full supply of food. - You still remember how to mask your scent?

    - Yes. 

    - Then they won’t even be able to detect you. They’re young alphas and will go for the omegas whose scent is stronger, you’ll most likely spend the night by yourself. 

The two continued to walk past the meadows, her eyes never leaving the woods close to her childhood home where she was certain to be thrown into the next night. She wondered if Bucky was right and that would be enough. Maybe he was right about forcing mating bonds but she knew they could force something else ... she wasn’t naive. 

    - You’ll be okay. - he reassured, noticing how lost in thought she was. - I’d never let them harm you.

    - You think I’ll smell bad? - she changed the topic.

    - No. - he chuckled at her question. - Omegas always smell sweet. Haven’t meet an Omega who didn’t. 

    - Even the one you brought to your room last week? - he had unbelievable control but he was still an Alpha and a very desirable one. While he’d gotten used to having a few ruts every year, lately it appeared as every month he was going into ruts and after an Alpha goes into rut, well, they need to mate. He expected her not to have noticed, her room was very far removed from everyone else’s, standing in the highest floor, far removed from every Alpha and Beta in the house. Yet, he should’ve known how attentive she was, how observant, how no detail went unnoticed. 

   - I’m sorry if I caused you any trouble.

   - You didn’t. - she didn’t look at him, continuing her walk around the gardens of the grounds she had grown up with. Roses of various colours were starting to bloom once again, creating a palette of soft hues which reminded her of soft spring paintings which hanged in the big halls of the old house. - They’re expecting me to find one, you know, a mate. They say they’re not but I know they are. 

   - Y/N ...

   - You could go. - she argued, the same thing she’d been trying to convince him for the past days. - If you go, no other Alpha will try to even go after me.

   - I’m too old for even participate in those things, besides you can take care off yourself. 

She decided not to rattle him, childish crushes set aside, she knew he could be the one to keep every other young and power hungry Alpha away from her but Bucky was a hard one to convice. He was in his mid thirties and despite his good looks, he remained unmated, mostly hanging around with Omegas and Betas whenever his ruts were particularly bad. Staff would tell her he probably had no mate due to his actions in the war years ago, but Y/N didn’t really believe them. Nevertheles, he remained set in stone in the idea of not even attending the event, always saying “An Omega’s first heat close is way too dangerous”. She’d always retort if it was dangerous then he should be the one to protect her, yet he shrugged it off. So, she was once again back in her own and as the hours passed faster and faster, she found herself staring at her own reflection dressed in white. The same features as her mother’s stared back at her, yet she was no Alpha woman and her own biology reminded her. Her skin was starting to boil hot, a reminder of what was yet to come. She hoped it wasn’t as bad, she hoped she could bathe in the river coursing through the woods for the evening.

She emerged from her house, walking up hill just to beginning of the the woods. Several other new omegas were around, much younger than her, eager to take this new step and find their omega. Y/N, on the other hand, felt like this was merely another joke from the world yelling in her face that she was an omega. She, the daughter of an Alpha leader, the lady who’d inherit all the estate including the woods, the High Lady of the North, was an omega. There was only one reason why they were excited about a heat, it meant she could produce children, alpha children to continue the bloodline. She was merely a dark weak branch in the tapestry of her family. Her eyes scanned the Alphas who were about to participate, no Bucky in sight. She didn’t know why she had hope he’d come. Part of her understood it was dangerous, after all Bucky was fresh out a rut, his rut having started around the time her pre heat started so it was no good to have him around. Nevertheless, she wanted him here. Her hands clutched the lotion Bucky had given him as she ran into the woods with the other omegas, their white dresses disappearing into the dark green. 

Bucky watched her from the crowd which had gathered to see the High Lady’s first attempt of a Spring cerimony. They clearly had nothing better to do, he thought to himself. How come her heat was that important? She was still a bright, intelligent woman who no question would well suceed her father as leader of the North court. 

     - You think she’ll come out mated? - one of the maids who’d come to see the spring cerimony asked.

     - Don’t think she wants to. - he commented, mostly out of politeness. The last thing he wanted was a rookie Alpha laying a claim on his omega. 

     - I surely hope so. We were so blessed when her pre-heat started so sudden 5 nights ago.

    - I thought it didn’t start up to 3 days ago. 

    - No, it was definetely 5 nights ago.

Shit.

Y/N continued to run through the woods, rubbing the lotion onto her scent glands in her wrists and junctures between the neck and shoulders. However, no matter how much her mind wanted to keep running, the heat was starting to overtake her and her legs were growing weaker and weaker until she tumbled onto the ground. Her head hit the ground, her eyes looking onto the stary sky as she heard the sounds of mating and footsteps. She just knew it was only a mere of time til someone found her and took her, but they only never be her alpha. No, it wasn’t the alpha she wanted. 

She clenched onto the locket which was the only relief against her own skin, praying she could gain some strength to get up and continue to run. She didn’t want this, she didn’t want any of the alphas she’d seen. They weren’t her alpha. They’re not alpha, her mind yelled at her. They’re not Bucky. 

The footsteps got louder and she reached for a sharp rock, preparing herself for whoever attempted to go after her. However, the person who emerged was someone who she had not expected. Standing away from her was Bucky, breath ragged and sweat covered forehead. Once his eyes set on her, his nostrils flared and he took a step back, faltering in his movements. 

    - Yo...you scared me. - she hiccuped, trying to move from the floor. 

    - Why aren’t you wearing the lotion, omega? - he’d never called her omega, he’d never dare to call his lady anything other than what she wished, yet Y/N couldn’t complain about being called omega by him.

    - I am. - ever the argumentative, she showed him the empty tin of lotion yet Bucky could still smell her, and how fucking sweet did she smell. - Bucky, I don’t feel good. 

     - Shit ... - he shut his eyes. Control yourself, he told himself over and over again, but her scent was just intoxicating. It filled every single sense, every crock of his brain, telling him to take her, to take his omega, the same omega that was laying on the ground. The omega whose mere pre-heat had trigged his rut.   

    - Bucky ... - she clenched her stomach. It was bad, very bad. Her skin felt like it was burning and her inner thighs were starting to get wet due to the slick which just kept appearing. She didn’t kknow what to do, no one had told her what a heat felt like, no one had told her how to calm down. Looking at Bucky only made it worse, her mind yelling at her to be near him but his eyes were clear, don’t get close. - Alpha, please. 

That name. Being called by his title by her of all people made him want to take her right there. No matter how hard he tried that’s all he could see in his head, making her feel better, knot her. 

    - It hurts. - she cried out. - I don’t know what to do.

She had heard from other maids who were omegas what to expect but she didn’t exactly know what to do. She was an omega in a family of Alphas; her father was an alpha, her mother was an alpha and so had their parents. She was the first omega to be born and it wasn’t her parents didn’t care about her they just didn’t know how to exactly raise an omega. It didn’t particularly help that she didn’t act like a stereotypical omega, or what an alpha family expected, so she was treated no different. Bucky also didn’t think her family talked much about mating; she was a high lady after all, the one who’d continue the family line. He wanted to help her, he really did but everytime he looked her, his inner wolf wanted nothing to but to lay his claim on her. 

His mind was overwhelmed with thoughts of helping her clashing with doing what’s best for her. Bucky, an old alpha, definetely was not the best for her and he wasn’t fit to be the mate of the high lady, he wasn’t fit to be anyone’s alpha much less someone’s mate. 

    - I want it to stop. - she took him of his thoughts. In the absence of his attention, she’d managed to lean against a tree, her hands pulling at her dress, attempting to get some cold air.

    - Not gonna stop for three days. - his voice was lower and she couldn’t help but feel entranced by him. She’d never seen him like this, acting like a pure alpha whose voice dripped dominance. His eyes shut again as her smell surrounded him once more. God, why did she smell so good? 

    - Make it stop. - she begged him. Him, out of all alphas, some sons of high lords themselves and here he was, the lower of the lowest born alphas. - Alpha.

    - Don’t call me alpha. - he would lose it if she called him alpha even just one more time. He was barely keeping himself away from her, despite how much he wanted her. God, he wanted her. He’d always wanted her. The other alphas weren’t enough, no one would ever be enough for her. 

His mind race with ways to help her. He could always try to lead her out the woods through the other side and sneak her back into her nest so she could go through her heat away from any eager alphas; yet, he doubted she could walk much at this moment and carrying her was not an option, not when she’d be so close to him, her skin touching his would end it for him. Yet again, he’d rather be damned than not help his Y/N. He couldn’t bare having her go through this when she didn’t want to. She deserved better than this, she deserved all the choices that were offered to her ancestors, no matter what biology dictated. Bucky would rather watch the world burn than to let her go through this a second longer. 

With his mind set on taking her back to his bedroom, he told himself he could control himself. He was in his thirties, he’d had ruts before and he could conttrol himself. He took a deep breathe in before getting up and walking up to her. Her scent got stronger and stronger but his mind wanted her well, wanted her to be completely and fully happy. The alpha put his arms around her and picked her up, her legs dangling from the his arms. Intuitively, her nose rubbed against the scent gland on his neck. Her body slightly cooled down and she cuddled against him, happily surrounded by the scent of pinewood and ash dust. Despite her being much calmer, he himself could feel his blood boil. Her scent was starting to morph with his and all he could think about was her being absolutely owned by him. Yet, he had to keep those thoughts quiet. This was his lady after all and he owned her vasalage. 

The night had dawned in and the once familiar woods were dark, filled with noises he knew too well and the sound of the creek passing by. He held her close to him, attempting to make his way through the darkness and out of the woods. A sudden noise had him stopping in his tracks. She looked up at him, with those eyes which just screamed trust within him, and a feeling of overwhelming possesiveness took control of him. He held her tight against his chest as his eyes zoomed onto the figure which made their way straight at them. He knew him. He was the son of a lord ruling over the south and Bucky absolutely hated him. He’d heard way too much about the young alpha to want him to stay away from his omega. 

   - Evening, m’lady. - he looked at Y/N, completely ignoring Bucky. She rolled her eyes, gripping Bucky’s shirt as much she could. - Bought Barnes with you?

   - Move along, Michael. She’s not interested. 

   - I didn’t know you spoke for her now. - he took slow steps towards them, stalking them like a predator to a prey. - Unless you’re thinking about taking her just for yourself. 

   - Go away. - Y/N managed to speak through her heat, although even speaking made her uncomfortable. 

   - You stink, Barnes. - he snickered. - Yet again an omega in heat and an alpha in rut is never a good match is it?

   - It’s none of your business. 

   - If you change your mind m’lady, just let me know. - he winked at Y/N before disappearing into the greenery. 

Bucky’s eyes grew darker, his insticts taking more and more of his thought process. He wanted to hurt him for even daring looking into his omega’s way but her mewling had him back on his mission to take her back to her bedroom, back to her nest.

Y/N, however, had her eyes set on Bucky. Was he on his rut? He didn’t look like he was on a rut and she had grown up in an house of alphas. She knew what a rut looked like and she knew no omega wanted to be near an alpha in rut. But Bucky wasn’t acting domineering, he wasn’t angry, he wasn’t making advances, he was just stoic. Maybe she wasn’t enough of an omega for him, people always told her she wasn’t enough of an omega. She wasn’t enough for him. He probably looked at her like a silly rich omega and the mere thought of it made her heart ache.

   - What’s wrong? - he stepped outside the dense greenery, seeing her house in the horizon. 

   - Is Michael right? Are you on your rut? - Bucky was pensive for a while. He didn’t want to scare her but he also didn’t want to lie to her. - I thought your rut was finished.

   - Got triggered. - he replied. - I’m not gonna hurt you, I’d never hurt you.

   - Does it hurt? 

   - Not my first rut, sweetheart. 

   - Is it because I’m not a good omega? - he snapped his head towards her harshly. No, his mind yelled out, you’re my omega how could you not be the only thing in this whole world which was good and bright. - Am I just not enough?

   - What are you talking about, sweetheart? You’re being delirious.

   - I know how alphas act around omegas, any omega. - he grip grew loose on his shirt as she looked down, unable to look at him. - Am I just ... not enough?

   - Y/N ...

   - You don’t need to sugar coat it for me. Nobody wants me. My parents didn’t want an omega, no one wants me to rule and not even the type of person biology dictated would want me wants me. 

   - You think I don’t want you? - his eyes grew dark, the baby blues replaced by dark blue all consuming. - You’re all I fucking think about ever since I met you. Ruts without you are a fucking nightmare because all I keep thinking is to find you and mate you. You’re my only omega. 

   - Then why won’t you mate me?

   - I’m not good enough for you. 

   - You’re my alpha. It hurts whenever you bring another omega to your room because all I want to do is be your omega and now, now you’re pushing me away. You don’t want me just like everybody else.

   - Don’t you dare say that. - ever. - Don’t you dare ever tell me I don’t want you.

   - Then do something about it.

She was just being defiant now, a sparky little omega. One of the many qualities which he adored about her; yet again he loved everything about her. He knew she was his omega, she had triggered his rut way too easily and based on the timing of his last rut and her pre-heat it wasn’t stupid to assume he’d triggered hers. Nevertheless, he was not the right person for her. She already had a tough time trying to get people to take her seriously as high lady, if she sported his mark on her lovely neck, it’d only make it harder. He wasn’t a particularly good partner to have, much less for a high lady. Nevertheless, those words stroke a chord on him. How dare she think she was not enough? Looking back at her, he could see it clear as day, the heartbreak scetched onto her lovely features. His instincts finally got the upper hand over his better consciousness and suddenly his lips were on hers. Strawberry laced flavours had him growling for more, for her body yearning for him and then the innocent kiss started to descend as he tasted her skin. 

His touch was soft and rough at the same time yet all she could think of was of him, having him. Her alpha. Her skin grew hot and cold in waves, his touch alone making slick run down her legs. 

   - You want this, omega? - he nipped at her scent gland in her neck. - You gotta tell me.

   - Please, Alpha. 

She leet out a small moan as he pushed her dress up, his fingers wandering close to her core as his lips kissed her skin leisurely. She wanted him, she wanted him so badly. His knee lodged between her legs, close to her pulsating core as he laid her down on the grass. She looked tempting, like a gift wrapped in white tafeta. How could he say no to her? How could he say no to his omega? He looked at her with lust filled eyes, head cocked to the side before leaning down to place a slow kiss on her lips, his hand massaging her breast, thumb teasingly rubbing her pebbled nipple.

His other hand replaced the pressure from his knee against her core, finger separating her folds as he started to circle her clit, his kiss silencing all her slow and earning moans. Her nails digged on his shoulders as she attempted to mutter a faster between his long kisses.

   - Shush princess, alpha is going to make you feel all better. - his voice was low, almost mocking how yearning she was. 

   - I want you inside of me, please.

   - You don’t need to beg, omega mine. I’m all yours. 

His hand moved to hold her waist as he aligned his cock with her entrance. His eyes searched for hers, wanting to look at her before he did it yet as he looked into her eyes all he found was love and trust. Someone loved and trusted him. His omega loved and trust him and that was all he could ever want. He leaned in to kiss her again before fully slipping inside of her. He went slowly, watching the way her face contorted with pleasure just for him, listening to her little moans before he was fully sheathed inside of her. The two moaned in unison and he stilled, looking for any sign of discomfort in her face.

   - Move, alpha. Move. - she begged, nails dragging up and down his shoulders. 

   - Whatever you want, sweetheart. - he leaned to kiss her again as he started to move in and out of her. She moaned out a breathy moan, hands holding onto him as he moved to kiss her neck, her scent making him drunk with pleasure. 

She was filled with him and all that yearning only seemed to heighten everytime he moved. He was her alpha and she was happy being filled by him, being his. He nipped at her neck, continuing his movements so he could hear all those lovely moans. God, he was drunk on it, her scent and her moans. He moved his hand to feel himself against her stomach. God, she looked pretty, so owned. Those waves of heat were back again as she started to clench around his cock. His movements quickened as he let out a groan against her skin, his thrusts were no longer controlled and merely looking for release until she let out a high pitched moan. 

   - Fuck, omega. - he growled, before biting her skin as ropes and ropes of white painted her walls. His knot inflated, keeping them connected. He didn’t think he’d be able to ever leave her. - Fuck, Y/N, I’m sorry.

   - You marked me. - she looked at him playfully, kissing down his jaw. - You’re stuck with me. 

   - I think it’s the other way around, m’lady.

   - High Lord James Barnes, it has a ring to it. 

   - Don’t say that. - he hide in the space between her neck and shoulder, licking the fresh mark on her neck. - I should take you back to your nest, sweetheart.

   - You’re joining me right?

   - A heat is three days, omega. We’re going to have fun. 

taglist: @kitty4860​

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““The Twins” is the local name for the two great Tevinter statues that flank the entrance to Kirkwall’s harbor. They are not merely for show: a massive chain net can be raised between them and the fortified lighthouse.”

“Kirkwall’s Lowtown once held the city's slaves. Individual sections could be closed off in the event of a rebellion, and the winding streets were designed to discourage slaves from attempting to organize.”

“Both the Viscount’s Keep and the chantry were built by the dwarves. They were originally intended to house the city’s magister overlords, back at the height of Imperial rule.”

“The Free Marches is not a single nation, but an alliance of independent city-states. Kirkwall, Starkhaven, and Tantervale are the largest.”

“Kirkwall has been ruled by a viscount since the Orlesian Empire installed one as governor in 7:60 Storm. The city retained the title even after it rebelled against foreign rule.”

“Kirkwall’s less illustrious residents assemble at the Hanged Man. The tavern's feature dish is its stew, made from a different mystery meat each morning.”

“Kirkwall was built almost entirely through slave labor. Part of the city was once a quarry, worked by thousands upon thousands of slaves. Massive quantities of jet stone were carved straight out of the rock face, eventually creating the pit that is now Lowtown, as well as the city’s broad harbor.”

“Kirkwall has had numerous dragon sightings, but they are generally peasant exaggerations. One “imminent high dragon flight” turned out to be an emaciated drake in a pained rage caused by passing a Griffon Helm.”

“Kirkwall declared the common nug a noxious vermin in 5:20 Exalted over fears that the animals carried the Blight. The extermination became known as the Battle of the Squealing Plains. It is not spoken of in polite company.”

“Don't play cards with Qunari--it's impossible to tell when they're bluffing. Don't play against elves, either--they never pay their debts. And never play against dwarves--they'll kill you if they lose.”

[rebeccalouisaferguson]

"I always just rode the waves,” Rebecca Ferguson says with a shrug. The comment hangs in the air, as if the Anglo-Swedish 37-year-old is only now processing that a combination of currents and tides has led her not just to an acting career but to the brink of big-screen stardom.

“I’ve never been ambitious,” she says. “I’ve always thought that that was a bad thing.” She’s seen others in the industry consumed by constant striving and asked herself why she hasn’t hungered for fame since childhood, slept in cars outside castings, barged into directors’ offices or thrown herself in the path of a producer. “But should I not be burning for this? Out meeting people and networking for the next job?” says Ferguson, who has chosen the sort of quiet, private life outside the big city that so many actors claim to crave. “My life just took another turn. But I’ve always thought: Am I where I should be?”

At the moment, on this late July day, Ferguson is slumped in the backseat of a Mercedes-Benz sedan, crawling through rush-hour traffic on the M4 out of London. She is capping off a hectic week during a particularly busy period. Most immediately, she’s coming from a table read for Wool, the Apple TV+ adaptation of Hugh Howey’s bestselling postapocalyptic trilogy. Ferguson is both the star and, for the first time, an executive producer. “I’m sitting in all the different rooms, listening and learning like the students,” she says. She’s filming Mission: Impossible 7, her third tour of duty in the long-running series that first brought her widespread recognition. She’s also promoting the film Reminiscence, the sci-fi noir written and directed by Westworld co-creator Lisa Joy in which Ferguson stars opposite Hugh Jackman. And now she is starting a press push and festival prep for her role as Lady Jessica ahead of the much-delayed release of Dune (in theaters October 22), director Denis Villeneuve’s reimagining of Frank Herbert’s novel. “After this film, I think everyone will see what I see in her,” the filmmaker says. “She has a beautiful, regal, aristocratic presence, elegance. But that was not the main thing: The most important thing for me was that depth.”

After tracing a long, meandering path, Ferguson has landed in a rare and rarified position: ascendant in her late 30s (still an anomaly for women in the film industry) and sought after by some of the biggest names in the business. “When you meet Rebecca, you just see it. She’s very open, candid, collaborative, hardworking, funny—and not pretentious,” says Tom Cruise, who handpicked Ferguson to star opposite him in the Mission: Impossiblefilms, which are known for their demanding shoots. “She just rose to the occasion every single time.”

In February 2020, when the pandemic began, Ferguson left Venice, where she’d been shooting Mission: Impossible 7, and hunkered down with her husband, their 3-year-old daughter and Ferguson’s 14-year-old son from a previous relationship at their farm in Sweden. After four months, Ferguson returned to the M:I set and basically hasn’t stopped working since.

Dune has sat idle for far longer. By the time the movie premieres, more than two years will have passed since it wrapped. Ferguson recently asked to screen the film again: “I miss it,” she says. She ended up bringing along her Mission: Impossible co-star Simon Pegg. After the credits rolled, Pegg broke into a smile and wrapped her in a congratulatory bear hug. “That’s all I needed,” she says.

Despite being a sci-fi epic based on a novel from 1965, Dune feels “very timely,” Ferguson says, pointing to its handling of environmental issues, religious zealotry, colonialism and Indigenous rights. The plot of the film, which cost an estimated $165 million, centers on occupying powers battling for the right to exploit a people and their planet, named Arrakis, for melange (or spice)—the most valuable commodity in Herbert’s fictional universe, a substance that provides transcendental thought, extends life and enables instantaneous interstellar travel. “Spice,” Ferguson says, “is equally about the poppy and oil fields.”

Ferguson’s Lady Jessica is a member of the Bene Gesserit, a powerful secretive sisterhood with superhuman mental abilities. She defies her order by giving birth to a son, Paul (played by Timothée Chalamet), who may be a messianic figure. “She basically just f—s up the entire universe by having a son out of love,” says Ferguson. In her hands, Jessica is equal parts caring parent, protector and pedagogue. Among the skills she wields and teaches Paul is “the Voice”—a modulated tone that allows the speaker to control others.

The movie was shot in Norway, Hungary, Jordan and Abu Dhabi, whose desert landscape stood in for Arrakis. Filming there was particularly arduous, as temperatures exceeded 120 degrees Fahrenheit, limiting the shoot window to only an hour and a half each day at 5 a.m. and again at dusk. “We were running across the sand in our steel suits being chased by nonexistent but humongous worms,” Ferguson recalls, referring to the sand-beasts later rendered in CGI. “To be honest, it was one of the best moments ever. It was the most beautiful location I’ve ever seen.”

Back in London, Ferguson is approaching home. She leaves the following day for a small town on the coast of England, where she plans to spend her first vacation in two years and to do some surfing. “Let’s hope it’s good weather,” she says. “If not, I’ll surf in the rain.” Not that she’s the sort to paddle out into storm swells. “I think I’ve managed to stand on a board once in my entire life,” she says. “But it was quite a high. Complete surrender to the waves and total control all at once.”

Born Rebecca Louisa Ferguson Sundström to an English mother and Swedish father, Ferguson grew up bilingual in Stockholm. She immersed herself in dance from a young age, enjoying ballet, jazz, street funk and tango. Despite being shy and prone to blushing and breaking out when forced to speak publicly, Ferguson found she was at ease in front of the camera. She dabbled in modeling and then, at 15, attended a TV casting call at her mother’s urging. Ferguson ended up getting the lead role in Nya Tider (New Times), a soap opera that became wildly popular, splashing Ferguson’s face into Swedish homes five times a week.

When her role ended about two years later, Ferguson was adrift. She had no formal acting training to fall back on, no clear sense of how to steer a career and no major connections to the industry. She had a short run on another soap and appeared in a slasher flick and a couple of independent shorts, then…nothing. “I was famous in Sweden, but I didn’t really have an income anymore,” she says. “So I went and I worked in whatever job I could get.” That meant stints at a daycare center and as a nanny, in a jewelry shop and a shoe store, as well as teaching tango, cleaning hotel rooms and waitressing at a Korean restaurant. She eventually landed in a small coastal town named Simrishamn, where she lived with her then-partner and their toddler son, content to be a where-are-they-now celebrity.

When fame again came calling, Ferguson ran away. She was at the flea market when she recognized the acclaimed Swedish director Richard Hobert, and he saw her. As he shouted her name, Ferguson grabbed her son, who lost his shoes and sausage, and fled. “I panicked,” she says. “I don’t know why.” When Hobert eventually caught up to her, Ferguson tried to act nonchalant as he proceeded to tell her he’d admired her work and pitched her on the lead role in his next movie: “I’ve written this role, and I think I have written it for you. Do you want to read the script?”

Her work in Hobert’s A One-Way Trip to Antibes earned her a Rising Star nomination at the Stockholm International Film Festival. She quickly got an agent in Scandinavia, then one in Britain. On her first trip to take meetings in London, she read for the lead in The White Queen, the BBC adaptation of Philippa Gregory’s historical novels about the women behind the Wars of the Roses. Ferguson got the part, and her portrayal of Elizabeth Woodville, queen consort of England, earned her a Golden Globe nomination and the admiration of at least one Hollywood heavyweight.

Ferguson was in the Moroccan desert filming the Lifetime biblical miniseries The Red Tentwhen the assistant director whisked her off her camel. “We’re going to have to pause shooting,” he said as he asked her to dismount. “Tom Cruise wants to meet you for Mission: Impossible. We’re going to fly you off today.”

Cruise had seen Ferguson’s work in The White Queen and her audition tape and couldn’t believe she wasn’t already a major star. “What? Where has this woman been?” Cruise recalls exclaiming to his new Mission: Impossible director Christopher McQuarrie. “She’s incredibly skilled,” Cruise says, “very charismatic, very expressive. As you can tell, the camera loves her.” Ferguson landed a multi-picture deal to star opposite Cruise in the multibillion-dollar franchise. He and McQuarrie built out the role of Ilsa Faust for Ferguson, creating the anti-Bond girl, an equal to Cruise’s Ethan Hunt. “We could just see the impact she could have,” he says. “She’s a dancer. She has great control of her body, of her movements. She has the same ability to move through emotions effortlessly.”

Ferguson threw herself into the films and quickly found a shorthand with the cast and crew. “There was a dynamic that worked very well with all of us,” she says. “One of the things I absolutely love is doing all the stunts.” That physicality has given her a reputation as an action-minded actor. “It doesn’t matter that I’ve done 20 other films where I don’t kick ass,” Ferguson says. “Mission comes with such an enormous following. That was what made my career.”

Ferguson’s M: I movies bracket a number of films in which she played opposite marquee names: Florence Foster Jenkins, with Meryl Streep and Hugh Grant; The Girl on the Train, with Emily Blunt; The Greatest Showman, with Hugh Jackman and Michelle Williams; Life, with Jake Gyllenhaal and Ryan Reynolds; Men in Black: International, with Chris Hemsworth and Tessa Thompson; The Snowman, with Michael Fassbender; Doctor Sleep, with Ewan McGregor. And now Dune, opposite Oscar Isaac, Javier Bardem, Zendaya and Chalamet, whom she calls “one of the best actors, if not the best actor of his generation—of this time.” She was similarly impressed by Zendaya, who plays the native Fremen warrior Chani. “She’s quite raw and naughty and fun,” says Ferguson. “She has an enormous f— off attitude.”

When Ferguson first spoke to Villeneuve about appearing in the movie, “he started telling me about this woman who was a protector, and a mother, and a lover, and a concubine,” she recalls. “I was like, ‘I’m sorry. You want me to play a queen and a bodyguard? And you want me to kick ass and walk regally?’ I was like, ‘Denis, why would I want to do that? That’s the last thing I want to do.’ ”

After the call, Ferguson says, “I went downstairs to my hubby and said, Oh, my God, he’s amazing, but I’m not going to get the job. I just criticized the character.” Ferguson worried she was being cast as a stereotypical “strong female character,” where “it’s constantly, ‘She looks good, and she can kick.’ That is not what I want to portray.”

Ferguson hasn’t always been able to work with collaborators who’ve given her the space to question or opine. “I’ve been bashed down. I’ve been bullied,” she says, though she opts not to say by whom. That was never a concern with Villeneuve, who welcomed her critique. He and his co-writers had already decided from the start to make women the focus of their screenplay adaptation, and he promptly offered her the part.

“I want Lady Jessica to be at the center, the forefront. For me, she’s the architect of the story,” Villeneuve says. “I needed someone who will convey the mystery and the dark side of the film in a very elegant and profound way. Rebecca was everything I was hoping for. She’s so precise. She brought a beautiful, controlled vulnerability—it becomes very visceral on-screen.”

Ferguson vaguely recalls trying to watch the 1984 version of Dune, directed by David Lynch, in her youth, but she fell asleep. And she had never opened Herbert’s novel until being offered the part in the new adaptation. As she dug into the book, she says, she learned that her character was subservient and far more like a concubine, forced to eat alone in her bedroom, not spoken to and not allowed to speak. Ferguson ended up relying primarily on Villeneuve for her research and prep—his notes and comments, his references and the pages in the book he suggested she focus on. “I would feel ignorant not to have read Frank’s book at all,” Ferguson says, though she admits there are parts of the sprawling novel (which Villeneuve is splitting into two films) she’s only skimmed. “I have to finish it.” That will not happen on her upcoming vacation, however. “Absolutely not,” she says “I am surfing.”

By the way, if you saw, I am snaking on the ground, snaking around my room to get good Wi-Fi—it’s not some dance or yoga thing,” Ferguson says. “You have to do that in this old house.” It’s a week and a half after our first meeting, and Ferguson is at her new home, a more than 500-year-old property southwest of London that has, over the years, been home to numerous English Royals. It’s more spartan than stately now. “Empty except for a rock star,” she says, turning her phone’s camera to reveal a framed duotone poster of Mick Jagger that’s leaning against the wall. “We haven’t even started renovating.

Ferguson has returned from her holiday fortified and with renewed confidence, thanks in part to her success on the surfboard. “I went up nearly every time,” she says cheerfully, “but the waves weren’t very high.” She shrugs. “I was proud. I was up. I rode them, not the other way around.”

After years of going with the flow, Ferguson is eager to replicate that sense of control in her career. She values her role as an executive producer on Wool, she says, “because I am, for the first time, a part of it from the beginning.” She relishes weighing in on every aspect, from casting (the show recently added Tim Robbins) to cinematography to her character—which has not always been easy for her. “Why do I feel it’s difficult to speak up? I still battle with these things,” she says. Alluding to those times she was pushed around in the past, Ferguson says, “I was angry, but it was more me getting off at ‘How can I let that happen? Why am I letting myself react this way?’ And I take it with me to the next thing where I go, ‘OK, how do I stop that from happening?’ ”

She is learning that she can ride on top of waves without giving up her agency or maybe just let them break against her. “I want to feel I can go home and think, That was a hard day or that pissed me off—and that’s OK,” Ferguson says, with a nod and tight smile. “Because I still stood there as Rebecca. I didn’t shift.”

[uh-oh-howd-i-get-here]

After All This Time (Bucky Barnes X Fem!Reader) Part 1

I have been brewing on this idea for a couple days now, and I finally got the gumption to write it out. I am super excited to share this with the fandom. This is one of my favorite fandoms and my current hyperfixation. I hope you enjoy this fic. I have no idea how long it's going to be, but it will be a series. I do not plan on following cannon after Endgame, it doesn't fit with the fic, but I'm working on one that is cannon.

Summary: The real world is a scary place, even more so when you’re alone. You live alone in a apartment filed with the figurative ghosts of your memories. You’ve both changed since you last met your fiancé, but can love mend the gap after all this time.

Pairing: Bucky X Fem!Reader

Warnings: Mentions of death, angst, and fluff if you squint. If you see any others please let me know!

Word Count: 1,168

Part 2-Part 3

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“I promise that I’m really alive.”

“I’m sorry, but without more proof we cannot legally prove that you are who you say you are.”

Y/N huffed and slouched in her chair. The lady who was supposed to be helping her shuffled her papers and cleared her throat. “It doesn’t seem very probable either. If you are who you claim you are then you’d be 105 and considering that you don’t look older than 25, I highly doubt that you are the Ms. Y/N L/N.”

“But I am!” Y/N yelped causing the woman in front of her to jump. “I’m sorry Ms.” She peered at the nametag on the woman’s suit jacket. “Clement. I have had a very long day of goose chasing and learning that I need to prove that I am still alive to get my own things. It makes sense, but I feel that it really doesn’t need to be this difficult. Besides, there are two people in the state of New York that are around that exact age.”

Ms. Clement looked around her office, probably wondering why she even bothered to get out of bed today. She then put the papers she had been shuffling into a vanilla folder and tucked it into a pile on her desk. “Those men are Superheroes. They have probable explanations as to why they are that old.”

“And so do I.” Y/N huffed.

Ms. Clement gave a fake smile, “Until you can provide legal documentation that you are who you say you are I’m afraid that I cannot move forward with a Certificate of Life. Please return when you have your documentation. Have a nice day!”

~

Y/N huffed as she walked down the street of New York City. She hadn’t known what to expect when she had arrived from Wakanda, but a legal goose chase wasn’t it. The Social Security Office had told her that she had needed at least three Legal documents that proved that she was who she claimed she was.

All she wanted to do was sit down in a corner and cry, but she had to get a place to stay for the night. She knew from experience how cold the streets got at night.

Y/N hardly recognized New York with all of its lights and noises. She wished for the New York she remembered from the 40’s.

She still knew where to go after all these years apparently because she stopped in front of a building that she knew by heart. The best years of her life were in apartment 9C on the top floor and a great view of the city. The best years until she was drafted into World War II as an army nurse. She shivered as a breeze rushed by her, then an idea struck her.

~~~~~~

The elevator was just about as old as she was which made her a little nervous. A quiet ding announced that she had arrived at the top floor. Everything looked exactly the same as it had when she left and she hoped with everything in her being that the apartment didn’t have new tenants.

‘It shouldn’t’ she thought. An upfront payment had been made to have that apartment belong to her and her-

Her heart stung but she shrugged it off. She could live in the past later.

She didn’t have a key to the apartment, it was inside, in the bowl by the front door. You didn’t need house keys in Europe. She pulled out a hair pin and pen she had taken from the last office she had visited. Unlocking the door was easy, it was from the 30’s after all. Taking a deep breath to compose herself, she opened the door and stepped inside and closed the door behind her.

Y/N wasn’t prepared for what she saw. The landlord was true to their word, the apartment was still hers. There were still sheets draped over the furniture, dust clung to every uncovered surface, and a musty smell filled the air.

Nostalgia filled her heart, but she had things to do before she let herself feel anything. She walked into the kitchen and opened the farthest cabinet and pulled out a tiny cup that had a tiny key in it. Grabbing the key she went into the guest bedroom and pulled down the lockbox from the shelf in the closet.

Inside was her passport, birth certificate, and her backup draft card. Along with other papers. A sigh of relief escaped from her. She pulled out what she needed and put the box back to where it belonged. Walking back into the main room, she took off her jacket and put it on the coat tree. Her papers in the pocket of her coat. As long as she didn’t make too much noise, she could stay here for the night.

She turned around and was dragged into memory.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

She was puttering around the kitchen getting things out to start making dinner. The front door opened, and the love of her life stepped through. With a sigh of relief, he took off his suit jacket and hung it on the tree.

He finally turned to look at her and he smiled, and she returned it. “Welcome home Love. How was your day?”

“It was boring. Paperwork and meetings. The only thing I looked forward to was coming home to see my best girl.”

Y/N blushed, and her lover walked over to the living room, got his pipe from the mantle and sat down in his worn leather chair.

About 30 minutes later Y/N called across the room. “Dinner’s ready”

He got up from his chair and they both sat down to eat and after both were done and everything was cleaned up, he retuned to his chair. This time though, she was curled up in his lap.

“We should do something fun this weekend Doll. Like a trip to the zoo or something.”

“I would love that.”

He leaned down a little to whisper in her ear, “I love you Y/N”

“I love you too James” she whispered back.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When Y/N came to again, it was almost dark out. She wiped the tears from her eyes and walked over to a chair covered in a sheet. With a simple motion she pulled the sheet from the chair and revealed a worn leather wingback chair. She didn’t bother to undrape the rest of the furniture; in fact she was very careful to make everything look undisturbed.

As much as she wanted to go to her old bedroom, she couldn’t. Even coming back to this place had emotionally drained her.

What she did do instead, was look at the pictures hanging on the wall and through the dirt and grime covering the glass, she could make out two people standing as close together as they could get. She was dressed to the nines and so was he. At the bottom of the picture written in loopy cursive was

James “Bucky” Barnes and his fiancé Y/N L/N

Part 2

[djarrex]

Does Order66! Rex have any anxieties about his accelerated aging? Does he worry that he will miss chunks of his kids' lives? I wouldn't even blame you if you wanted to write that part out of your universe's canon!

I do plan on mentioning his accelerated aging in the future of Post-Order 66 Rex. Is it twice the normal aging rate? I think? So like, as the war ends he's been alive for 13 years, so he's around 26. Priya's born about a year and a half after that. So at this point in time for the next chapter she's around 6-7 months old, putting Rex at like 30.

For every year his baby girl ages, he ages two. By the time she's seven, he'll already be in his mid-forties. When she becomes a teenager he'll nearly be halfway to 100. There will probably be a chapter or drabble or something where Rex is sitting back and just really realizing (bc he's been avoiding it) that his wife will long outlive him. He works out and takes care of himself and LOVE has a lot to do with health so he's wanting to hang on for as long as the universe will allow him to. He wants to be there for his cyare and for his children.

I have zero idea on how I'll end this series when it finally comes time, but it will definitely end happily!