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xpeachesncream · 4 years

Text

off the grid | six

summary: it was as simple as swapping places with a stranger from across the world to get away from everything back home. that is - until you meet Jimin. things become more complicated as he unfolds a new chapter in your life that you were initially trying to avoid.

pairing: reader x pjm

genre: post-college au, christmas/holiday au | angst, fluff, smut (to come)

words: 3.7k

chapter warnings: smut chapter! unprotected sex, multiple orgasms, fingering, oral (f. receiving), slight dirty talk, cussing, possible inaccurate depiction of transportation, events and whereabouts in South Korea since i only did my research thru the internet, fluff

notes: will be wrapping this up in the next few chapters!

> series masterlist <

Jimin was going to be busy for majority of the day with his parents, which left you feeling a little sad. But, you knew he had to do what he had to do and he had offered to come by and spend time with you tonight. As you were about to head out and explore on your own with the tips he had given you, a call from an unknown number popped up on your screen.

"Hello?"

"Y/N!" Jungkook's voice came through on the other line. "I hope you don't mind, I asked Jimin for your number not too long ago."

"No, you're good." You chuckled. "What's up?"

"Wanna hang out with me and Tae? We're gonna head to Common Ground."

"Sure!"

"Sick!" He exclaims. "I'll send you our address. Do you think you'll be okay heading over?"

"Yeah, I got it." You responded, remembering Jimin's directions to his place in the event you ever needed anything.

"Okay, just let me know if you get lost and I'll come find you." You chuckled before responding with a simple 'okay' to end the call. You were confident in your memory of the directions, which led you to their place in a matter of minutes. They didn't live too far from Yana, and you remember Jimin saying so since Yana doesn't drive and would simply take public transportation to and from places.

Upon your arrival at their apartment, Taehyung was cleaning up in the kitchen while Jungkook was throwing on a jacket. Jungkook gave you a little tour of their apartment, which was surprisingly clean and smelled of vanilla birchwood. Sooner or later, the three of you were off into town to visit Common Ground, which was considered Korea's first cultural space that was made out of shipping containers. The view and the entirety of it was pretty neat, and you kind of wished Jimin was here, but Jungkook and Taehyung were just as great of travel buddies. They talked a lot about their hometowns and what it was like moving to Seoul, plus how they truly value Korea and it's culture. You were coming to learn what a truly spectacular and beautiful place it was, and it was even more refreshing to hear from the boys themselves how much they loved being from Korea.

After navigating through the crowds and having spent more money on souvenirs and clothes, the three of you decided to eat up and grab some grub. For a minute, you lost Jungkook because he ran into some people he knew, leaving you and Taehyung to eat together.

"This place is neat isn't it?"

"Yeah, it's really cool. Thanks for taking me along." He nodded as his lips poked out while eating his food. You thought it was the most adorable thing.

"You know, Jimin's been really happy since you guys started spending a lot of time together."

"Oh yeah?" You giggled. Yes, Taehyung. Expose him.

"It's actually really nice to see." He chuckled. You knew him and Taehyung had known each other the longest out of their group, but he still held a very tight relationship with Jungkook, Hoseok and Jin. "He's always been the one to take care of people. I just wanna see him happy. He does a lot for the people he cares about."

"I know, he's really the sweetest person I've ever met. He's an angel."

"He was really destroyed over his ex." You continued to listen. "He loved her, a lot. He did everything for her and sacrificed a lot to keep her happy. But she couldn't reciprocate it 100% and that killed him time and time again."

"How long ago was that?"

"About a year ago? Even then, he tried not to have any bad blood with her after she had mistreated him. He has a good heart and mind. He deserves someone good who can take care of him." Your stomach fluttered with the countless butterflies, but most of the happiness you felt, also turned into anxiety. The days were counting down and you wouldn't be here for much longer. "He really, really likes you Y/N."

"I-I do, too. But-" Taehyung looked over at you, concerned. "I'm not going to be here for much longer." You shrugged. "It really sucks."

"Why don't you stay for a little more?"

"Work. My life is back in LA." He nodded. As much as it hurt you to say that, it was true. You wished it was easy to pick up your things and move around the world, but part of you felt silly for even thinking that over a holiday-solo-vacation love story.

"It's gonna be hard, but I honestly don't think Jimin cares. I think he'd make this work with you."

"But is that fair to him? Our time difference and-and, who knows when I'll get to physically see him again? Hearing what he went through.. what if I can't give him what he deserves?"

"I know all of it sounds like a mess and like it would never work, but don't you think you two meant for a reason?" He wasn't trying to be Jimin's right-hand at the moment, he was doing this because he truly could see how the both of you genuinely felt for each other. He hadn't seen Jimin have this glow, this type of genuine happiness to him in a long, long time.

"I don't know, I guess I'm just scared, and I would never want to put Jimin through anything he doesn't deserve."

"I get you." He replies. "But I do hope you know how much he cares about you. Like, I'm really not doing this because he's my bestfriend and all." He laughed. "But because I want to see the both of you happy."

"Thank you." You smiled at him toothlessly, the thoughts now flooding your head. All you wanted to do at this point was run into Jimin's arms and never let go. It would be your new safe haven. All you wanted was Jimin.

The rest of the day with Taehyung and (finally, again) Jungkook was chill, as you grabbed some desserts and played around at a nearby park before heading home to rest. You felt a sudden wave of exhaustion hit you, so you took a quick shower, threw on an oversized tee and shorts before retreating to the bed for a nice, late afternoon nap. You quickly texted Jimin that you'd leave the door unlocked so he could just walk in case you were deadass knocked out and couldn't hear the knocks or phone ringing.

Jimin had been helping his parents do a ton of revamping at their café, while also holding down the fort and doing what he can to help during peak hours. He was exhausted, nonetheless, but was excited to see you. He jetted off to the loft with food from the café to for some dinner, all while chuckling at the text you sent, wondering what the hell Jungkook and Taehyung had put you through today to knock you the hell out.

"Y/N?" He calls out softly. No response. He gently shuts the door and chucks his shoes to the side befofe laying the food out on the kitchen counter. It's peacefully quiet, even as Jimin climbs up the steps to the bedroom area. He smiles to himself as he sees you deep into the duvet covers, sleeping deeply like a baby longing for their afternoon nap. He sits on the edge of the bed, his fingers brushing through your hair, thumb softly caressing your cheek. You slowly open your eyes and smile, immediately sitting up to throw your arms around him. He laughs into your hug, pulling you in closer and running his hands down your back.

"Miss me?"

"I did."

"Aw." He chuckled. "Come here." He cups your cheeks and places a kiss on your lips.

"What a nice way to wake up."

"Yeah? What did TaeTae and Kookie do to you today?"

"Nothing, we just walked around Common Ground." He nodded.

"That's it?"

"We may have played around at a nearby park before going home."

"There it is." He laughed. "Are you hungry?"

"Starving, actually." You stretched.

"I brought some food from the café. Mom said I better feed you well." You chuckled.

"She's the sweetest." He had quickly brought you over to the café the other day, his mom and dad being the sweetest, and most loving people you have ever come across. You could immediately tell where Yana and Jimin got their mannerisms from. His mom couldn't stop holding onto you and telling Jimin how pretty you were, almost like she was telepathically communicating with her son and telling him to stop fucking around and get with it. You couldn't help but giggle at the look on her face.

"Come on." He nodded for you to follow him downstairs. He had paninis laid out, freshly toasted, with chips and more dessert. You pushed the coffee table in the living room forward a bit so that you both could sit on the floor and enjoy a good movie while eating the food. He had asked you more about your day and if Taehyung or Jungkookie had talked shit about him while you guys were out. You couldn't help but chuckle, remembering the serious conversation you and Tae had.

"Mm, actually," You finished up your sandwich and quickly washed your hands before heading back to the living room area. "Me and Taehyung had a pretty serious talk."

"About?"

"You, what else?"

"God, what did he say?"

"Nothing." You laughed, seeing his facial expression change.

"You can't say that you had a serious talk then not talk about it."

"Aw, is someone upset?" He pouted.

"Yeah, cause I'd like to know and I thought you cared about me." He dramatically responded. "I see that you don't, since you'd rather keep me hanging on a string like this."

"You're so dramatic, Park." You pinched his side, making him laugh. His laugh was certainly becoming a weakness for you. "He just told me that you've been really happy since we've been spending time together." He nodded.

"I mean, he isn't wrong."

"He also said that you really cared about me." You looked at him blankly, trying to read his expression and body language. He smiled at you, his cheeks getting hot and rosy.

"He also isn't wrong there."

"Taehyung really knows you, then."

"Since high school." He shrugs.

"That's about it, though." You spared him the rest of the details being that you really didn't wanna spoil the evening with such sad and negative thoughts about how your time was coming to an end here. Frankly though, you knew you had to deal with it sooner or later. That talk was coming either way.

"Hm." He says, pushing the coffee table up more towards the tv and throwing a blanket over both of your legs. He silently swung his arm over your shoulder and kept watching the movie on the tv. It was awhile before he broke the silence again with a sigh, his eyes still glued ahead of him. "I really like you, Y/N. I like you a lot. It's a little scary, but you don't know how much you drive me crazy with everything you do."

You held onto his hand that was hanging loosely from your shoulder and looked over at him. "I really like you too." At this point, you feel his eyes on you. They linger from your eyes, down to your lips and back up to your eyes.

"Then will you let me take care of you?" All self-control had gone out the window after seeing the look in his eyes. It was full of passion and lust, but nothing dark. He just wanted to be close to you and make you happy. He cared, and he wanted you to see that.

"Yes." You say breathily as his face edged closer to yours. He cupped your face with his free hand, instantly pressing a kiss onto your lips. The kiss began to deepen quickly, with Jimin tracing your bottom lip with his tongue, asking for entrance. You gladly let him proceed as your hand rests against his jawline. You took the initiative to pull yourself onto his lap and straddle him, your breathing slightly hitching when you feel his hardened member through his grey sweats. Your tongues are beautifully dancing around as he holds you tightly while you grind your hips against his.

"Hey, wait. Are you sure about this?" He pulls away, knowing the moment is intensifying by the minute. "You know I wanna do right by you, Y/N. I don't wanna do anything you aren't comfortable with."

"I'm sure. I want this. I want you." You respond almost at a whisper, your lips slightly grazing his. He simply nods and brings you back with a kiss. You gently palm his member, making him hiss and groan slightly at your touch. You continue to grind your hips onto him, slowly humping him into insanity.

"Fuck Y/N, honestly, you're going to make me cum if you keep moving like that." You chuckled.

"Don't." You plant kisses along his jaw line, watching as he shuts his eyes and tilts his head back. "I'd want you to do it inside me." You whisper in his ear.

"Y-You can't say things like that." He moaned.

"Or what?"

"You're an instigator, you know that? A really cute one." He says as he chuckles and gently lays you back down onto the ground. He whips your shirt and shorts off, quickly unhooking your bra and tossing it aside. His eyes widen at the sight of your exposed breasts. "So fucking pretty." He curses under his breath as he lightly sucks on your neck and around your breasts, before grabbing a nipple in his mouth and toying around with it with his tongue. You grip onto his hair as you slightly arch your back in pleasure. He bites onto his bottom lip before placing a trail of kisses down your stomach and down to your inner thighs before rubbing your covered clit through your soaked panties. He gently presses his lips onto your covered clit, making you yearn for more. "You're so wet."

"J-Jimin." You weakly call out. "Please."

"I got you, baby." He slips down your panties and inserts a digit into your throbbing pussy. You let out a small moan as he pumps his digit in and out of you, before inserting another two, with his thumb circling your clit.

"Ohhhh, fuck!" You squeal as you continue to feel his fingers stretching you out. You feel your wetness dripping out with every pump and covering areas of your inner thighs before Jimin releases his fingers and has you lick them clean. He lets out a small grunt watching your tongue circle and suck onto his fingers. He then latches onto your clit with his mouth. You feel his tongue swipe down your folds, teasing you with an in and out motion. You jut your hips upward but Jimin does a hell of a job preventing you from moving up any higher. You squirm in his grip, feeling your high coming close. "Jimin, fuck! You're gonna make me cum." You see his eyes look up at you, this time, full of lust. He simply nods as he continues to let his tongue suck you dry and explore the insides of you - the sight being enough to tip you over and make you climax. "Jimin!" You yell his name as your body twitches from underneath his grip. He gives your pussy one last lick, causing you to tremble at the sensitivity.

"You're so fucking pretty when you call my name." He says almost at a whisper. "How else can I make you feel good, baby?" He places soft kisses along your neck and jaw. You tug on his pants, causing him to chuckle and toss his shirt and pants off to the side.

"Please."

"Please, what? Use your words, beautiful."

"I want you deep inside of me. I wanna feel you." He bites onto his bottom lip and smirks. You run your hands down his chiseled abs and his V-line, completely in awe of how beautiful this man truly was. He was driving you crazy, everything about him. His eyes, his soft hair, his scent, his body. Good god.

He removes his boxers, making his hardened cock spring out. It was the most beautiful thing you've ever seen - perfectly long and thick, with veins running upward in various places. You pump him a few times, causing him to let out small moans, before placing your thumb on his reddened head to spread the pre-cum around his tip. He lowers his body back down onto you, his member teasing your entrance and gently grazing your folds. He kisses you passionately before you watch him grab his cock and place the head at your entrance. He inches in, lowering his body back down and bringing the blanket over your bodies while watching your eyes roll to the back of your head.

"You okay?"

"Mhm." You let out, your nails already digging onto his back. He kept a steady pace and slowly eased you into it. Your moans became breathy as he picked up the pace, his hands now keeping your legs opened wider for him. "Mmmmff, Jimin." You pleaded. "Just like that."

"Fuck, babygirl. The way you call my name." He quickly tilts his head back before ramming his body into yours as he became a little rough with it. Your thighs were folded up near your stomach as he held it there and continued to thrust in and out of you. With him picking up the pace, you felt yourself about to reach your climax and cum again.

"God, I'm gonna cum." You continued to moan loudly, until you were gripping onto the blankets and your eyes were rolling back once again. He greatly slowed down his pace, letting you ride out your high once more while placing kisses along your breasts and your lips. He wraps his arms around you and brings the blanket over while he sits back against the couch and lets you straddle him once more. The blanket comfortably sits below your waist, your eyes locked with his. He simply smiles at you, tucking a strand behind your ear and caresses your cheek. You gently and slowly ride him as you lean into his hand and place a kiss on his palm. His hands drop down to your waist, gripping onto them as you kept a steady pace while resting your hands on the couch behind him. You pick up your pace as you watch him squirm underneath you. He begins to call out your name, his hisses and groans accompanying the sound of your wet pussy riding him into the sunset.

"Y/N, fuck. Y-You're gonna make me cum." He tilted his head back, his hands losing grip around your hips as you rode his cock faster. "L-like that." He stutters. "Ugh, god." He hisses. You can tell he's about to let go with the way he's holding back his moans.

"J-Jimin, hmmmmph." You tilt your head back as you feel yourself about to cum for the third time tonight. "Please cum with me." You plead as your moans get louder.

"Oh shit, I'm gonna cum." He spits out as his fingers deep into your hips. You feel him fill you up completely as you ride out the rest of your high, Jimin's head now resting against your chest as you hold him close. You both stay in the position for awhile to catch your breath. After a moment, he looks up to meet your eyes and smiles, kissing you on the lips before helping you off his lap. He helps clean you up a bit before cleaning himself up and throwing his shirt and sweats back on. You fix the blanket onto the floor and drag some pillows down from the couch so you could lay on your stomach somewhat comfortably on the floor.

"You don't wanna get up to the bed?" Jimin laughed as he kneeled and rubbed your back.

"No, I'm too comfortable now."

"That good, huh?"

"Shut up, Jimin. Leave me alone." He laughed louder.

"I'll go grab another blanket." He says, going into the storage closet to grab another thick blanket to drape over your bodies. He lays next to you, his back resting against the couch as he propped his elbow up and rested his head on his hand. He continued to rub your back as you both looked over at the TV, the movie now nearing the end.

"I have to rewind the movie." You pouted, making Jimin chuckle.

"Go ahead." He watched as you flipped the remote up and brought the movie back to the last place you remembered seeing. You sunk your body into Jimin's, his lips lightly pressing on your head. Not even 5 minutes back into the movie, you felt your eyes getting heavy.

"Ah, I'm getting so sleepy though."

"You took a nap earlier. What do you mean?"

"I worked out a lot today." He laughed and lightly tickled you, making you hit his hand away.

"I see that. Go to sleep."

"Are you going to stay?" You mumbled.

"Only if you want me to."

"Of course I do." He smiled. "But what are you going to do?"

"Watch anime or whatever is on Netflix. Don't worry about me."

"Mmkay."

"Goodnight, baby." He whispers in your ear before kissing your cheek. The word baby made the butterflies come back (and the pussy throb, yet again, but you shoved that in the back of your mind because you definitely didn't have energy to go another round, as much as you wanted to).

Jimin watches as you quickly fall asleep, smiling to himself while he continues to play with your hair. He was happy. So happy. More than he's ever felt before and he wasn't sure how you were doing it. He was caught in your spell and he didn't even see it coming. You had him so undone. All he wanted to do was make this work with you and he was willing to, more than you knew. He didn't care about the time difference, he didn't care about your life being back in LA, he just didn't care about anything you've worried about because he believed you were worth it and he was going to put in this effort. You could figure everything else out later, but he just wanted this to be.

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Alexa, play: Vibez x Zayn

#bts #bts fanfiction #jimin fanfiction #jimin #park jimin #pjm series #pjm x reader #jimin x reader #jimin fluff #jimin smut #bts smut #park jimin smut #off the grid #otg #writing

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carmenxjulia · 4 years

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I put together a transcript of the 2 hour Q&A Interview the Carmen Sandiego Discord did with Showrunner Duane Capizzi. All of the questions were submitted by server members. You can read everything below the break!

Duane Capizzi:

Hi there!

Am I in? Is this thing on?

PizzaHorse:

Hi, welcome!

Yep, you're in the right place!

Duane Capizzi:

Sorry I'm late, I was wandering around some empty Discord hallways looking for the right room haha

PizzaHorse:

No worries. Let's get started!

Who is your favorite character?

Duane Capizzi:

Moose Boy!

KIDDING!

Alright, how to NOT get myself in trouble if my answer isn't "Carmen" haha.

But really, they are ALL my babies.

So I know it's going to sound like a cop out to some that I can't pick just one. But hmm, some for instances...

I love that she's so morally evolved at such a young age; her ability to always take the high road and never lower herself; her drive and conviction and dedication. Her ability to kick serious booty and look good while doing it. Her progressive values, her fashion sense. I could go on and on. But then there's Shadowsan and his arc; Chase and his. Julia, who's every bit as strong as Carmen but shows it in different ways. The Cleaners don't get enough love.

I'll close that question with an anecdote about The Cleaners ...

I love that all our characters are embraced and that everyone seems to have favorites. Our sound engineer Marcel is a pretty serious guy: he has a serious job that takes high levels of focus and attention. He's always deeply focused and not prone to small talk. Anyway, we were in the middle of our first or second sound mix, and he suddenly stops in the middle and turns around to face us. I'm thinking, "uh oh, we're giving too many notes." That's when I notice he's freeze framed the Cleaners. He says "I really like these guys." Then he turns around, hits play and gets back to work.

PizzaHorse:

What was the biggest challenge for coming up with new stories and plot for the reboot?

Duane Capizzi:

THE biggest? Sigh. I'm not sure I could come up with just one. Plotting is always challenging and we had the brain trust of the room, our trusty white board, and writer assistant to keep the threads of the ongoing storyline together. I think the single biggest ONGOING challenge was tracking which character knew what at any given time.

The caper part was challenging - coming up with new capers and keeping them interesting and fresh. But, it was the characters and their interactions that kept things fresh and interesting. Another museum heist? That's okay - Chase is on the case and he gets to interact with "X" this time (for instance).

There were also some episodes - Duke of Vermeer and Crackle Goes Kiwi come to mind - where there was SO MUCH SET UP needed to get the payoffs to work. I was really worried about too much talk/too much detail. Very "Swiss watch!" It took a lot of work to make sure it all clicked and was clear - hopefully it seems effortless on screen but I can't say there wasn't some sweat and the occasional tear (mostly from me - I'm a big cry baby

But really, what made it fun was that we had so many buckets to draw from: sometimes a story germ initially began with a character idea; sometimes it was inspired by global location; sometimes it was a clever way to update or reimagine an idea from old Carmen lore. Usually, it was some combination of all of the above!

PizzaHorse:

What was your favorite scene to write?

Duane Capizzi:

I think we have a theme here! "How can I pick just one ...?"

As a film buff, I got to indulge in some serious fan nerdery on this show: I got to write spy movies, yakuza movies, spaghetti neo-westerns (though turning it on its head: spaghetti westerns usually involve REVENGE and because of Carmen's character make up, this was sort of anti-revenge).

Is writing coming up with the idea or typing it? Haha. An "if a tree falls in the forest" question. The writing team and I had so many cathartic "that's how it goes" in the room. But on my own, writing the Pilot, was a very inspiring time for me: I remember laughing out loud the moment I thought of Chase falling on his own car (in part because of doing my spin on "that trope" that we've seen in so many hard boiled movies recently). But also how emotional I got when I imagined the simple but potent image of Black Sheep deciding to take her destiny into her own hands and walk that long corridor to the Faculty who we were about to meet for the first time.

I think I've cited this in another interview, but there was a period where I was completely immersed in Chase's arc and the scene where he would crack the location of VILE island ... by listening to Julia in a dream ... was a big one for me. It revealed he was finally open to admitting he needed Julia more than he would ever admit - yet, it was his own subconscious speaking.

The next morning, after cracking that scene, I bumped into Raf Petardi (voice of Chase) ... at the supermarket! It was very strange and hilarious

PizzaHorse:

Did you scrap any lengthy or funny scenes that you would be able to share?

Duane Capizzi:

With few exceptions, most scene cuts are done at the script stage so that the story board team doesn't waste effort over boarding. A variety of trims to any script are common, but they are usually for the better

The easier question to answer might be scenes were part of our "wish list" at writer room stage, but never made it to story or script. I hesitate to go too deep here (in the event that we might ever do more Carmen episodes in this canon - I'm not giving up hope). And there were cases where things we wanted to do earlier in the series wound up getting nixed or not fitting for whatever reason, but we got them in later - USUALLY FOR THE BETTER. So there's sort of a reverse Murphy's Law/rule of good fortune somehow in these things. But some fun things that didn't make it into the show, that leap to mind were: a Bollywood dance sequence (!). A Vegas caper involving Brunt wanting to steal an Elvis jumpsuit against the backdrop of an Elvis impersonator convention. We also thought it would be neat to get Maelstrom imprisoned so that Julia could interrogate him and he would play mind games with her - very Lector/Clarice!

PizzaHorse:

Were there any different treatments of Carmen you pitched before settling on the one we ended up with?

Duane Capizzi:

I was one of several "pitches" that I'm sure HMH heard before running with my version. But I can honestly say I've never pitched anything as fully formed: the take on Carmen felt so right to me, and clearly HMH and by extension Netflix agreed

I'll answer your question with an anecdote: I had the entire Pilot pretty well worked out, and pitched it in the first meeting. But one key thing that changed (much for the better!), simply because it wouldn't have fit without slogging things down ...

In my Pilot pitch, Black Sheep's escape on the boat was off screen: we see Shadowsan corner her, then we cut away. The rest of the Faculty show up to find SS's broken sword on the rocks, and are led to believe BS killed him (!). In the present, Crackle points his weapon at Carmen and prepares to pull the trigger. We know that Chase is on the way and may rescue her. The compartment door opens to reveal - not Chase - but Shadowsan! Big surprise! Then we cut back to BS's escape and find out what really transpired etc etc.

Crazy, right? SS would have been hanging out with the gang in season 1; we might not have gotten to 203 with his back story, since his sword was broken and he couldn't return it. Just one of those magical things where "things work out" the way they are supposed to. THAT SAID, it made for a heckuva pitch

PizzaHorse:

Are there any characters that ended up taking a direction you didn't initially anticipate?

Duane Capizzi:

GRAY.

I didn't know we'd make him amnesiac when I wrote the Pilot, that was something we came up with in our first week Writer Room.

And even then, when it became clear he'd be a key piece of the bigger puzzle, we didn't know how exactly (mostly the Season 4 stuff).

We did get very deep with a version where 404 ended with his protective streak for Carmen kicking into high gear, and they would be fighting off Vile Guards back to back in perfect tandem. Then, having chosen Carmen over VILE, it was Carmen who actually orchestrates Gray going "off grid" so that VILE can never find him again. Funny, I know that is arguably the version of Gray's arc that many fans might have preferred seeing. But in the tradition of spy thrillers and film noir, and for a lone wolf character like Carmen who is focused on her life mission and not romance, we stand behind where we went with him. We felt it was so much more compelling ... and truly more emotional that he totally has a get out of jail free card when he sacrifices everything (including his life, potentially) to save Carmen.

when she needs him most!

I know I made some controversial comments about Gray "not being good enough for Carmen" and I'd like to clarify that I meant, until that final episode. What he did was so selfless and heroic. Is there hope for them in the future? Who knows?! But I do hope we get to explore that one day

I'm sure Gray is living off the grid somewhere now, inspired by Carmen's selfless good and thinking of her from time to time.

PizzaHorse:

You mentioned in the interview with Alicyn that Carmen is a love story, but you were cut off before you could finish discussing. Could you elaborate on your answer now?

Duane Capizzi:

Ugh, yes! Sorry about that. I actually answered that privately for someone so will cut and paste that response here. Let's see if it works.

Something we never said in the show, but something I imparted to the creative team was: Carmen Sandiego is (among other things) a LOVE STORY, where every character in our ensemble is in love with Carmen in one way or another. Even if they don't know it! That love can take different forms: we see how spurned by Carmen Coach Brunt feels and why she retaliates so excessively. Chase eventually comes to realize that he too loves Carmen, even if he wasn't initially aware of it haha. One of the most moving things to me about the series is how all of the different factions come to Carmen's rescue at the end when she's not "in her right mind," without knowing the others are there too. It's a massive group effort to bring back the Carmen they love. But we weren't looking for a fairy tale ending for Carmen with ANYone - Carmen's a classic lone wolf anti-hero, that goes with the territory. At least at this stage in her journey.

PizzaHorse:

Were there other locations that you wanted to feature in the show that didn't make it?

Duane Capizzi:

I think we managed to cover a lot of ground and "cadence" between different countries/cultures/continents was important to us. Many "iconic" locations of course, and it would have been nice to explore some lesser known locations if we had more episodes.

One that we almost did was Niagara Falls, Canada - actually literally going to the Falls and doing a big hydro-electric caper, where Player could actually get into the field with Carmen and the team.

But ultimately, we wound up bringing Player into the fold the way we did and wound up stronger as a result. It made his "first face to face" with Carmen even more impactful, IMO.

PizzaHorse:

Were there any changes in production between the first half and the second half of the series?

Duane Capizzi:

Well, there was that Covid thing

But while it was no doubt a colossal undertaking to get the entire staff transitioned to work from home (animators! and their equipment!), we managed to make up for lost time WITHOUT a dip in animation quality. My fedora's off to our amazing team at Wildbrain for pulling it off!

We did lose some staff between orders, but that is a natural part of production unfortunately. Namely, one of our episodic directors Kenny Park, our first storyboard artist Dennis Crawford, and our story editor May Chan were among those who moved on to other shows during the break. But, as hard as their shoes were to fill, fill them we did!

PizzaHorse:

What is your favorite season?

Duane Capizzi:

Easy. Hands down, Season 3.

(crickets)

KIDDING!

Again, another "they're all my babies" answer (and yes, I love Season 3 equally

It's hard, because really when you step back I'm sure you'll agree it's a series, with stand alone capers; but it's really all ONE BIG MOVIE.

Season 3 is like the scherzo of a symphony: the shortest movement of four, and the one that tees up the big finale.

That's my hoity toity answer but I'm going to put to rest all of the various theories on what happened with season 3. It was a combination of two things: Netflix's desire to experiment with different ways of "dropping" seasons, and their desire to do a holiday themed drop (in this case Halloween, naturally). It became our challenge to come up with a theme (easy enough: masks), and the bigger challenge to serve their need while not interrupting our ongoing narrative. A challenge to be sure, but a challenge met. I think the biggest bump was perception: it was a short season and I know that was disappointing to many. But, by design.

So, Season 3 = an essential part of the whole. I don't think there's a wasted episode, and it gets everyone into position for the big finish. I can't pick a favorite season - you can't make me

PizzaHorse:

Were there any characters you had wanted to give more time to but couldn't due to time/plot restraints?

Duane Capizzi:

Well, there's the "what was on the white board" answer but hopefully some of those ideas will see the light of day in some way, shape or form some day. I think if we had more episodes, we would have shaken up the internal dynamic of VILE a bit more (as hinted at Brunt's displeasure with Maelstrom for leaving her hanging out to dry at end of 405 - a seed we planted "just in case," as some have noted). And we had more scenes in mind with Chase's partnering with Carmen for the first time that we had to cut to the bone because of what little room we had in that otherwise packed episode (worry not: it's mostly more gags, more embellishment, more twists and turns - but the important stuff is there). Mostly, and I don't think it would have been right for Season 4 but I hope to tell in the future, I think there's an interesting history between Shadowsan and Lady Dokuso - possibly tragic - that I would love to explore one day. (She was a cameo in Duke of Vermeer at the dinner party BTW, I'm not sure if anyone noticed. And we built a bigger role for her out of that)

PizzaHorse:

What are some pre-2000/nostalgic Carmen references you snuck into the show? Do you have a favorite reference that was included?

Duane Capizzi:

Doing that was so much fun! I'd say roughly 60% of the characters were from previous iterations of Carmen, though often in name only. We had fun reimagining most everyone to make them more relevant or updated or giving them a more colorful personality for starters.

"Suhara" was Carmen's Japanese mentor when she worked at the ACME Agency in a flashback episode in the 90's series, for instance. I don't think I need to spell out how we turned that one inside out

And Tigress was also one episode only: she was a "rival thief" to Carmen, but revealed to be an ACME agent in disguise - a persona created solely to bait Carmen. It was really cool of course, but it seemed like untapped potential so we made her an ACTUAL Vile Thief.

My own internal rule was to make sure the references/easter eggs wouldn't confuse anyone - they were there for those who were in the loop and window dressing. The one and only time i broke that rule was Dark Carmen's line from 407: "I do it for the mental gymnastics." It was one of the most absurd lines from the 90's series (IMO) and i was determined to have it come out of Dark Carmen's mouth. I'm sure it left some 7 year olds scratching their heads

aside from that, the key references were the music: I still tingle at how we worked the Rockapella theme into the Interactive Special; and the 90's main title theme (composed by Mozart!), in our Vienna episode ("They're playing my song"). If you wanted Rockapella or Carmen as a bad guy, well ... be careful what you wish for!

PizzaHorse:

Was there any improvised content from recording sessions that made it into any episodes?

Duane Capizzi:

Yes! Not much, because a lot of it would have pushed us into TV-MA haha

Mostly Mary Elizabeth - Coach Brunt has a POTTY MOUTH!

Mikey and Abby usually riffed their banter WAY beyond what was on the written page and had us in stitches. Some bits definitely made it in! But mostly there was too much or it would get off point (hmmm, much like my interview answers maybe? haha)

Sharon Muthu did rise to Pun Goddess status with "Mask and you shall receive." And Raf pitched me "Chasse means hunt in French" after one session and I said: "I'm going to write that in." I don't think he believed me. You can't say I'm not a straight shooter.

PizzaHorse:

If you could get more season, would you do it, and what type of story would you tell?

Duane Capizzi:

Well if that hasn't been clear so far, ABSOLUTELY

There have been discussions of course. It's up to the powers that be at this point. I will say this: the beauty and tradition so far has been that every iteration has been its own thing. I definitely think there are more "different canon" versions of Carmen that can be had and be a part of this wonderful tradition. After all, there were many naysayers for our version when it was first announced.

I will also say that if we don't get to tell any more stories in this canon with these characters, we've left a perfect gem that will stand the test of time. I would rather go out on a high note than overstay our welcome.

All that said, we worked within the allotted episodes given, ended it as we wished, but left the door open for other stories. I'd love to do an expansion and a deepening: pick up where we left off; find out what happened in those two years; and proceed to do the equivalent of Godfather II or Better Call Saul as related to the amazing originals they followed.

Let's hope! Keep putting good vibes out there!

PizzaHorse:

If you could pick a character on Carmen Sandiego who'd you switch places with for a day (you get to control their life and they get to control yours) who would you pick, and why?

Duane Capizzi:

Okay, THIS is difficult. So you're going Freaky Friday on me?

on a Sunday?

Hmmm, I know Ivy would get along with my cat ... but then I'd have to hang out with Zack!

That's the trick: I can't pick my favorites cuz I couldn't hang out with them!

(not that I have favorites - they're all my babies haha)

Okay, I have one: ROUNDABOUT. I could fill Shadowsan's seat - how cool is that? Then, I could enact all my evil fantasies - but still have a get out of jail free card cuz he'd be sitting at my desk!

(cut to Duane being brain wiped - D'oh!)

PizzaHorse:

Who are two characters who don't really interact in the show that you think could be good friends or work really well together?

Duane Capizzi:

Hmmmm. Okay, now I'm going to give you quick and sassy answers. Gray and Julia! They'd be so cute banding together to rescue captive Carmen (for instance). And they could also duke it out and maybe settle things between themselves re: shipping controversies instead of dragging me into it

PizzaHorse:

The FINAL QUESTION. Have you learned anything super impactful while working on the show?

Duane Capizzi:

Aside from Iceland's terrifically low crime rate?

I think I have learned to never underestimate how meaningful characters can be to fans. Social media has obviously brought us a lot closer to our fan base in more immediate ways: it's been really gratifying to hear/see/read feedback and not be writing things in a vacuum. It's been gratifying to see that ideas that were meaningful to myself and the creative team on Carmen that were crafted with care, have also resonated with our fan base. THANK YOU TO EVERYONE who has traveled on this journey with us - for embracing Carmen's world view, and her friends and foes alike. Take care everyone! Stay safe! This has been fun, thanks for having me!

PizzaHorse:

HUGE thank you to Duane Capizzi: for being here today.

Thank you everyone for watching and reacting!

Duane Capizzi:

Okay, gotta run - just gotta find the door

Anyway, really: THIS HAS BEEN AMAZING. I speak for everyone involved in the creation and production of Carmen: it has been an amazing and inspiring series and we're elated to see it connect with such a CREATIVE, TALENTED and INTELLIGENT fan base. Take care everyone! Until next crime...

#Carmen Sandiego #Duane Capizzi #CS Crew #Interview #Transcript

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honsoolie · 4 years

Text

step on me.

pairing: Yoongi/reader

genre: idol!au, crack, fluff

warnings: getting stepped on (is that a warning?) cursing, mention (1) of sex but it’s super tame

words: 2k

rating: pg15

a/n: thank you to @mindays for taking a look at this and @joonsrack for helping come up with alternate words for “kneel,” even if they didn’t make it to the final draft. read this on ao3 :)

“Is that something that you would be okay with?”

“What?” You blink, still not quite able to process what’s being asked of you.

This has to be a dream. You’re going to wake up soon, and laugh at how ridiculous your sleeping mind can be.

This can’t be real, but the way that the uncomfortable chair bites into the backs of your thighs tells you that it’s real. The earnest look in your manager’s eyes tells you that this isn’t just a joke. You know you’re fooling yourself.

“For a scene in the music video. Agust D will trample over the court officials as he raps. The director thought it would be a nice touch for him to step on someone. You know, to really show off the power dynamic,” Your manager says, like that’s a totally normal thing to say.

Like she’s commenting on the weather, except she’s asking you for your permission to be used as a footstool. You’re at a loss for words. You open your mouth to say something, but you come up with nothing.

“We could find someone else, if you’re not comfortable with it.” Your manager softens her gaze, leaning back in her chair. She moves to make a note on her computer, but you interject.

“No! No. It’s okay,” You say. You’re still fairly new to the agency, and you need the experience. You don’t need to be the new girl that also refuses to get her hands dirty.

You continue, “I can do it. I’ll do it.” At this point, you’re not sure who you’re reassuring.

“You’ll be thoroughly compensated for it, so keep that in mind.” She doesn’t buy your willingness, not yet. After all, who would be so keen to get fucking stepped on?

“Yes, of course.” You nod. You need to show that you’re serious about this job, that you’re a working professional, that you’re willing to buckle down for the sake of the company.

“He won’t be touching you for that long, it’s just one scene. It shouldn’t hurt.” Her attempts to assuage you don’t help.

“I understand.”

“Great. I’ll mark you down for it and we’ll begin shooting next week.”

“Sounds great.” You manage a tight-lipped smile, one that doesn’t reach your eyes. Your manager mirrors the sentiment.

“Thanks. Can you close the door on your way out? There’s a draft,” She says, eyes not leaving her monitor. When the door closes behind you, you laugh in disbelief.

One of your first big appearances in a music video, and your face won’t even be in it.

In the next week, you try to soothe the gnawing worry by watching interviews, fancams, anything to help prepare you for what’s to come. Knowledge is power, right?

But if anything, it makes it worse. You watch video after video where the many of the commenters are languishing over him. Ironically enough, one comment reads,

step on me, min yoongi :”(

It’s well deserved, honestly. It’s no lie to say that Min Yoongi is attractive, and even more so when he’s on stage. His charisma increases tenfold when he’s rapping into a mic, eyes trained on the thousands of fans before him.

You shut your laptop and curl up on your bed. There’s no way to make this easy for yourself, is there?

The day of the music video shooting, you don’t see any trace of Yoongi on set—and you hope to keep it like that, out of your own self-preservation. As you make your way on set, signing in and changing into your costume, the same hollow feeling follows you around in the pit of your stomach.

You’re sitting in the waiting room when someone clears their throat behind you. When you turn around, it’s the exact person you had hoped not to see before the shooting took place. The Min Yoongi.

“Ah, hello,” You say, bowing ninety degrees. When you stand back up, the hood of your costume falls over your eyes. You push your hood back down, the extra fabric pooling around your shoulders. You can only hope that you don’t look as ridiculous as you feel.

“So… I guess you’re the person I’ll be...” The Min Yoongi starts.

“Stepping on?” You offer. You both share a quiet laugh together, among the humming chatter of the makeup noonas and your other colleagues getting ready for the shoot. The air is so suffocating that it feels like you’re the only two in the room, or maybe it’s your own nervousness clouding your judgement. Oh God, this is so much worse than you thought it would be.

“Uh, yeah.” He looks, if anything, coy. It’s a charming juxtaposition to his extravagant get-up.

You spot the Jordan trainers he’s wearing. It’s a nice touch, anachronistic to the traditional clothes he’s wearing. Truly fit for a king, you muse.

You laugh, just to fill the awkward silence. “I’ve never done this before,” You say, like this is somewhere casual. Like you’re in your first boyfriend’s bedroom, and you’re getting ready to take the next step —but it isn’t. The circumstances are decidedly more glamorous. You’re sitting in some dimly-lit waiting room, talking to a celebrity you’ve idolized since forever, getting paid to be in a music video for a song that’ll rake in hundreds of millions of views.

Even before the cameras start rolling, there’s something about the blond wig and the scar and the aura that makes you want to get on your knees and worship. You’ve met big stars before, but there’s something about him that just commands a state of speechlessness.

“Well, I never have either.” He shrugs his shoulders, not taking his eyes off you—but you can’t bring yourself to meet his gaze.

You kick yourself for being so flustered. You’re a professional, you remind yourself . You’ve worked with Bighit before, for other music videos, this is supposed to be the same.

He’s just… so much taller in person. Perhaps not taller. Naver told you he was one of the shorter members of BTS.

Imposing, then. Ethereal, definitely. Nobody ever told you how delicate his features were, or how deep his voice was, or how warm his eyes were.

“I figured.” You try to look him in the eye, but your gaze falls wayward at every attempt. He’s being so professional, and down to earth, and nice . And here you are, barely able to form a complete sentence in his presence.

He laughs again. “I’ll try to make our first time memorable, then.” He gives you a familiar smirk, one that you’ve seen before. It looks a lot like the one that he has on before one of his verses on stage, like he has the world at his feet. Before you can come up with a response (not that you were going to, awestruck as you were), Yoongi was whisked away by a makeup noona for final touch-ups.

So much for a good first impression.

Never in your life did you think that you would be kneeling before Min Yoongi’s feet, dressed up as a Joseon era court official, waiting to be stepped on. What did you have to be so nervous for? After all, you weren’t the one doing the stepping.

You kneel at the tape marking that labels your place. Dozens of your colleagues take their places around you, forming a perfect grid.

Luckily for you, it’s not sweltering hot like the last time that you shot a music video with Yoongi. You remember the hot air of the room that you shot the Interlude: Shadow music video in, how crowded you felt among everyone else. He hadn’t noticed you among the sea of extras. Of course not. You looked the same among the faceless people, all of you donning the same black parka.

Even back then, months ago, you never saw him up close. You were fresh meat then, too focused on just doing the right job and staying under the radar. Certainly you weren’t close enough to get stepped on. Not even close enough to talk to him.

The concrete is warm beneath your touch and you close your eyes as the music begins to play from the speakers. The first shots that they wanted to take were just of Yoongi walking up and down the walkway, so that was easy enough. All you had to do was lay there, prone. You can hear his footsteps, feel his shadow pass over you. God, this was too much.

There’s no warning as to when it’s supposed to happen. You hear the director call to cut over and over as they switch angles, touch up Yoongi’s hair and makeup, give staging directions. When you hear the director say your fated scene is next, the anticipation crawls from the pit of your stomach to your throat.

But you still don’t know when. You don’t know what lyric or what second he’ll descend upon you, nor can you even see. All you can really do is lay there and let the concrete bite into your knees.

When it finally happens, it’s more shocking than it actually hurts. You gasp inaudibly under the music as you attempt to bear the weight of him, the air forced out of you. Yoongi isn’t exactly heavy, but you’re not exactly made to be stepped on. You bite your lip to try and stay quiet. It’s over just as quickly as it started.

“Cut!”

You sit up from your kneeling position, more breathless than you should be. Yoongi extends a hand out to help you up. His hand is soft, and so is his encouraging smile.

Oh God, his hand is soft. There’s an understated strength in the way he effortlessly pulls you up off the ground.

“I’m sorry,” He says, rubbing your shoulders. You are absolutely pliant under his touch. “Are you okay?”

Physically, you’re fine. Just peachy. But Yoongi looking deeply into your eyes with his hands on you is too much. It’s all you can do to nod.

“Mm-hmm,” You muster, but it’s barely more than a squeak.

“Let’s look at the shot, see if we need to do it again.” You had forgotten that it might have taken multiple takes, and you’re not prepared to have Min Yoongi help you up over and over again, touch you over and over like that again.

In a way, the shot looks a little glorious. The camera focuses on the Agust D in the video, before panning out to reveal the dozens of court officials that kneel before him. The delicate, soft features that you saw backstage are gone. The Agust D in the video, hooded eyes and all arrogance, jumps on one of the hooded figures. It looks like it should have hurt more than it actually did.

“Great,” The director says. “Let’s move on.”

The rest of the shooting passes by without incident. You wait until nightfall for the final scenes of the day, where you nod your head in time with the music as the black-haired Agust D usurps the king.

When the filming is over for the day, you move to get up, eager to get changed and eat dinner. When you push the hood out your eyes (for what seems to be the hundredth time today), Yoongi is again standing before you. He smiles.

“I’d love to work with you again.”

a/n: ummmm this idea popped into my mind a couple days ago while I’ve been procrastinating on the rest of my wips. even after a month after d-2 dropped, the yoongi thirst hasn’t left me. this totally wasn’t an excuse to watch the daechwita mv over and over again. i hope you enjoyed it as much as it did writing it!!

#bangtanhq #bts fanfic #bts crack #bts fluff #yoongi x reader #yoongi crack #yoongi fluff #bts scenario #yoongi scenario #yoongi #min yoongi #bts

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notbigondoors · 4 years

Text

Conflict and Consequence || closed with murder-popsicle

@murder-popsicle

Vision suddenly flinched, and the mind stone’s energy and glow flared sharply. Moving to sit more forward, he winced in pain and lifted his hand to touch his fingertips to the stone. He didn’t know how he knew, but it flooded his mind as clearly as he knew the headache he was feeling was not entirely his alone. Wherever Wanda is, she is in pain.

To say that he remained composed would have been a lie. Vision’s fists clenched and his lips formed a snarl. Rising from the chair, he sought out the man who had been reassuring him for days and days now that no harm would come to Wanda or any of the others arrested in that airport in Germany the day the Avengers turned on each other. The synthezoid found him predictably at the bar, still visibly bruised from his fight with Steve and Bucky, but that would garner no sympathy from Vision. Not anymore.

"Stark," Vision said loudly, approaching him.

"Hey, Junior!" Tony said condescendingly, pouring himself a drink.

"Where is she?" Vision asked, getting right to the point. "Where is Wanda? Where are the others?"

"Don't worry about it," Tony said dismissively, taking a sip.

"My worry festered into sharp and pointed concern and discontent ages ago. Answer the question,” Vision said with careful focus.

"I don't know," he said, shrugging and laying his hands on the bar.

"Do not test my patience,” Vision insisted.

"Are you... Did you just threaten me?" Tony asked, recoiling a bit in disbelief.

"I am indicating to you how serious I am, so that there will be no misunderstanding. No more lies,” Vision clarified.

"I'm sorry, when... did I ever lie to you?" Tony asked.

"You said she would not be harmed,” Vision replied.

"Look," Tony said with a sigh, "I didn't know any of this was going to happen, okay? And frankly, I don't like it any more than you do. But it’s out of our hands now."

"I have been inquiring for days, and you have been lying to me," Vision pressed, his even tone sounding rather ominous.

"Again, when... exactly... did I lie to you?"

"I felt her pain. Just now. Whether it is the mind stone's connection to her or her own magic reaching out to me, I do not know, but.. she is suffering. Now... what has been done to her? No lies."

"She's dangerous, Vision. Okay? They needed to ensure she wouldn't be able to hurt herself or anyone else,” Tony admitted.

"Tell me!" Vision said, raising his voice in a rare display of both concern and annoyance. His usually serene eyes showed a brief but explosive burst of golden-electric energy emanating out from their center pupils.

Tony heard the anger in Vision’s tone and it gave him pause. This had been enough to cause even the mild-mannered synthezoid to become emotionally effected. There was no way around this. He wasn’t going to let up and Tony knew he was stuck. "They had to make sure she couldn't use her abilities, so... they restrained her with... a straightjacket-like... brace... and a high-frequency-emitting collar... and... tranqs." He mumbled the last word, hoping to slip it by unnoticed.

"Tranqs," Vision repeated, focusing the most on that.

"Yes," Tony confirmed with a nod.

"Tranquilizers," Vision said, just for absolute clarification purposes.

"Yes," Tony repeated with the exact same nod.

"Where is she? Where are the others?" he asked angrily.

"I don't know. I don’t. That wasn't a lie. Steve busted everyone out days ago and they’re gone. They went off the grid. If they don't wanna be found, they won't be. Best to just leave it alone," Tony said, wishing the synthezoid would just drop it.

"Busted... everyone out... from where?" Vision asked carefully, his eyes narrowing.

Tony sighed again and slumped against the bar a little as he answered, knowing Vision wouldn't let it go. "The Raft. It's a maximum security prison off the New York coast meant for those... in need of... special accommodations." That was the nicest way he could have put that. Not that his careful wording did anything to keep the synthezoid from reacting negatively to it.

"After all that Wanda has been through at the hands of Hydra and the distrust it has sown in her, you authorized her to be drugged and forcibly restrained without legal counsel or fair trial in a maximum security facility?" Vision said bluntly.

"Come on, no I didn't,” Tony said, his guilt starting to get to him. “You think I was consulted on this? You think I did this?"

"Yes. I do," Vision said almost sadly. “I do now.”

"Well, I wasn't. I didn’t. You think I wanted them to send that poor traumatized kid to a heartless, sterile place guarded by specially-trained tactical military meant for psychopaths and serial killers?!" He stared for a moment, an oops expression coming over his face instantly. "Probably should’na said all that..."

Vision turned and walked away. He had heard enough.

"Where’re you goin'?" Tony called after him.

"To locate Wanda," he said with solid determination, stopping and turning so he could be sure to make eye contact. "And when I locate her, I will not be informing you of her location." With that he turned again and left.

Tony waited until he was out of earshot, taking a big gulp of his drink. "That's what trackers are for, Junior," he muttered under his breath. He was so confident in that, that he didn’t even jump up right away to try to track Vision the moment he left the compound. That would prove to be a mistake...

Once outside the facility, Vision disabled his internal trackers, already one step ahead of Tony. He needed time and privacy to form his own opinions, and he was not going to get that being tailed by the tech giant. He had trusted Tony to give him truthful and up-to-date information and he had been deceived. That stung Vision, if he was being honest with himself, especially since Wanda’s well-being had obviously been affected by decisions made without the rest of the team being consulted. This was not what had been outlined in the Accords, not what was right or just or even legal, not what Secretary Ross or Tony Stark had promised him would happen. Vision was angry, sad, worried, confused, and betrayed enough to want to be on his own right now. He would seek out the truth on his own and see it with his own eyes instead of trust an obviously unreliable filter of other human minds to do so for him.

For some time now, Vision had been working idly on changing his appearance for the purpose of camouflaging himself when out on missions. Realizing that this was now something of the utmost urgency and importance that he would need if he was going to go after Wanda, he worked even harder at it. If she and the others had gone off the grid as Tony stated, then they would not appreciate Vision’s conspicuous and highly recognizable self showing up at their doorstep, wherever they might be. Thus he took some time to perfect this shift in appearance as best he could, much in the same way he changed his density to either phase through walls or harden himself against attack. To accomplish that, he changed the arrangement of the atoms in his organic cells and their vibranium sheathes to achieve a more dense or more diffuse effect. The concept for his human disguise was similar and yet even more elaborate than that...

Vision not only altered the density of the atoms in the outer layers of his body, he also increased the ratio of organic tissue to vibranium, giving the outer layers the look and feel of either cloth or flesh. By altering the instance of other trace elements in his tissue he was able to alter color. So the flesh would look and feel like flesh, the sweater like a sweater, etc. Well, he had already mastered clothing in that regard. He didn’t wear real clothing, it was all part of his body, made in the image and feel of real human clothing. He now made human skin and hair in the same manner. The atoms that presented themselves first to the human eye or held up to the scrutiny of touch were a smokescreen for the rest of his body, hiding his true appearance. That combined with an imaging overlay of his entire body, a neuroelectronic grid of chameleon-like cells activated by power drawn from the mind stone, he was able to achieve a very realistic illusory and sensory effect.

Now... what he chose to look like had a lot to do with personal preference. His natural skin was dark colored, so for something different he chose a pale skin tone. For eye color, he chose the rarest among humans, blue. Perhaps that would help him keep some of his uniqueness, he reasoned. He didn’t have any hair naturally, so he chose to give himself some, and he liked the way blonde hair looked with blue eyes and pale skin. The result was something that looked decidedly human, but very far from his own natural appearance.

Once he was satisfied that he could move about in public and pass well enough for a human being, Vision searched for Wanda. It took him almost a day’s worth of flying, but he let the mind stone draw him to where Wanda’s energy was lingering. It was the same sort of gentle pull towards her that he felt that day in Sokovia, when she’d made the decision to die with her brother and Vision intervened. He didn’t know what emotional state he would find Wanda in this time, but as he honed in on an apartment building in Scotland, he was sure that she was there. Rather than just phase through the wall and look for himself, causing a stir and potentially alarming those inside who might at first misunderstand why he was here, Vision pressed the call button near the door. The voice that came through was a familiar one, saying that they were uninterested in anything anyone was selling and did not want visitors...

“Captain Rogers,” Vision said simply, calmly. Respectfully, too, since he imagined Steve was no longer captain of anything at this point, and yet Vision still honored his former title. “May I please have a word?” Only that, and then he backed up a few paces from the door and patiently waited. He wasn’t sure what to expect, but he knew Steve would recognize his voice, since he had been the first to comment on it immediately following Vision’s birth. He hoped for a peaceful encounter, and truly he was not there to hurt anyone, but he imagined that tensions and fears might cause some of those who might be inside the building to resent that he was there. Nevertheless, Vision assumed the best until the worst presented itself...

#murder-popsicle #vision rp #guest muse: tony stark #{feel free to bypass Steve or do whatever you want}#{i just figured he'd be the one to answer first heh}

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notoriousjae · 4 years

Photo

Love is a Little Box (For Home to Lay Inside) || Edeleth Fanfic (1/?)

Chapter Title: A Heart

Pairing: Byleth Eisner (F)/ Edelgard von Hresvelg

Rating: M

Chapter Description:

She’s read about Happiness: it’s the thing people lose in war; the emotion that sparks up the edges of their lips into a smile, or fills them with contentment when faced with something they’ve done that’s good ; it’s the emotion that everyone fights for and searches for as desperately as love, just as elusive and fickle, or so it seems in books and operas and plays.

Chapter 1 (Current) | AO3 | Below:

It's a peaceful day in Garreg Mach.

The sun catches along the lightly swelling waves of a familiar pond, wrinkles in blue caused by the light winds dancing Sothis’ fingertips along its surface. It’s hard to know whether Sothis was a Goddess but it’s easy to imagine that contradictory carefully carefree smile full of restraint and curiosity as small hands skimmed along the ripples of the pond in the heart of Garreg Mach, feeling moisture beneath palms--learning what water might feel like, again, for the both of them.

You need to experience things, Sothis would say and Byleth would experience them, because she had never known to experience them, before.

Or maybe Sothis would just...hover behind Byleth’s shoulder as she watched a line bob for an hour before she yawned, disappearing into the cold of a tomb she’s made in a baby’s chest that became the casket nestled in a woman’s.

It’s easy, too, to understand why people think Sothis is everywhere , because Byleth feels her, still. In the air...and the wind...and the water--

They were both familiar with the pond at Garreg Mach and a sense of... something--easy; warm; familiar?--stirs quietly in Byleth’s chest as she watches the pond and thinks of green eyes and hair and soft fingertips before she hears paper rustle a little behind her.

The feeling transforms a little like that tomb had.

“You know, Edelgard,” Byleth hums, chin dipping over her shoulder to watch her--a rare moment where both of them happen to actually be in the same place without a need for something sharp and pointy (or a strategic exit). “Fishing is a tactician’s game.”

Edelgard chuckles quietly to herself but looks up from her book all the same. Edelgard having time to read is probably rarer than them sharing time together, at all, and pulling her from it makes Byleth feel--

Hmm…

Her chin tips up in thought. It makes her... feel …

Edelgard interrupts.

“Is that so?”

Byleth nods, serious, and watches the way red fabric shifts as Edelgard turns to listen to her--to watch her--with the same rapt attention she had as a student, and still keeps to date in the war council.

“They say it’s chess, but that’s not the case.”

“They say that because chess is the tactical routing of an opponent. It’s meant to mimic a battlefield.” The Emperor practically quotes from the tactician’s guide and Byleth watches the breeze skirt over the surface of the water and wonders if Sothis would have fondly chuckled, but the only sound she hears is the water and the idle, far-away chatting of a few soldiers.

How would Edelgard feel, knowing a Goddess was so fond of her?

Byleth shakes her head.

“How many battlefields have you been on, El?”

“Countless.”

“How many battlefields resembled the neatly-drawn lines of a chessboard, where everyone took turns and you could predict your opponent’s attacks with statistics and math?”

“...none.” Edelgard looks pained to admit, begrudging, sighing as she tucks her book at her hip.

“Chess is just…” Byleth’s head tips, “...the memorization of strategies. You’re not creating anything new. When you’re facing someone in chess, you’re...just applying the most appropriate thing you’ve memorized that you can think of for that moment for the situation in front of you and hoping it works.”

“Alright.” And Edelgard stands, then, setting her book upon the bench, armored boots clicking as she walks along the stone towards the pond with that same studious look, hands settling on hips. Maybe one of these days they’ll both be comfortable enough fishing and reading and relaxing to do it without wearing armor. “Then what is fishing ?”

“Fun.” At Byleth’s amused look, Edelgard tutts and steps closer, obviously not having appreciated being baited over to the pier. She likely also wouldn't approve of the pun a little too similar to Alois' (and Petra's, lately) so Byleth keeps it to herself. A little more serious, “Are you sure you want to know? You don’t enjoy fishing. But I'm always okay teaching you.”

“You are currently the most renowned tactician Fódlan has ever seen. It could be argued you are a key point in elevating the war campaign into a rousing victory. If I have a chance to learn how that wonderful mind of yours ticks, I’d be remiss not to take it for the betterment of the Empire.”

“...you could have just said yes.” Brows knit, head barely tipping to the side--no longer teasing--and Byleth cuts off Edelgard’s undoubtedly annoyed reply. She doesn’t have to divinely intimate it’s coming to see it on parted lips, “Not everything needs such a complicated reason, El. If you’d like to learn, let yourself learn. You don’t have to explain your motivations just because people have questioned them in the past. And you don’t always have to do things to make you better , it’s fine to just fish. Although," A thoughtful look, "You’ll probably learn something in the process, anyways.”

Maybe Byleth has spent too much time answering the notes in the confessional.

“You’ll teach me to the end, won’t you?” It’s fonder--softer. Edelgard purses lips before letting the criticism settle, nodding. “Then...yes, Byleth.�� Byleth smiles and Edelgard’s shoulders visibly lose the last of their tension when she quietly smiles back. “I...suppose I would like to learn. Especially since it’s something you take such an interest in.”

Edelgard slowly unhooks gauntlets about wrists, setting them to the side, white gloves underneath catching the sunlight like melted snow.

“Fishing,” Byleth nods before reeling in the line. “Is a real battlefield. It’s long moments of waiting followed by sharp, tense moments of excitement. Everything is planning. You find fish like you scout your battlefield--” Once the line is reeled, she hands the pole to Edelgard, whose nose wrinkles only a little at the feeling of her gloves getting wet.

Unlike most nobles, after all, Edelgard doesn’t mind dirt and muck and mud--she had been covered in them for years. Battlefields weren’t glamorous.

(Neither was fishing).

And so Byleth feels her chest swell with... something as the other woman totes up the rod, ready to learn, like she had picked up a lance in lessons. Not proficient with it, but willing .

A challenge.

“So we scout our enemies--what do you see in front of you?” Byleth steps behind her and scans the horizon over her shoulder.

“A pond. I see a ripple in the corner--” A true general starts, “The wind is shifting the current towards me, so I’ll likely have to adjust how I throw my line in order to hit my target.” Her chin tips backwards and looks to her professor, who nods, encouraging. “The light is hitting the right side of the pond, and will fade across it in an hour, creating warmth for the fish, and they’ll likely follow it. They’ll stay below the surface because they’ll want to avoid predators. Or my professor’s infamous rod and net, which catches anything under its shadow.”

“You approach things like a soldier.” There’s a knowing praise on her lips and Edelgard straightens just a little beneath it, “And a leader of troops. You’ve noted some important things, Edelgard, which are good to trap the fish in this moment...but we need to think of the bigger picture. What else do you see? What do you hear? What do you smell?”

Light brows knit as an Emperor once more takes in the blue, glistening pit that’s become her battlefield.

Byleth leans forward to gently wrap fingers around her wrist, guiding the shorter woman backwards so that she can mimic her eyes with her own, listening to the faint gasp of breath that catches on lips before Edelgard seems to focus, determined, now.

A professor settles her chin on Edelgard’s shoulder, far more familiar in touching this student in particular, these days.

Rare, but...familiar.

And the way Edelgard eases just a little into her reminds Byleth that sometimes the rarest of things are welcome.

“What matters to people on a battlefield?”

“The same as what matters to people founding cities: food, shelter, water, and safety.” Edelgard immediately replies.

“So what matters to fish? Your goal is to trap the enemy and reel them in--what might stand in your way of that?”

“I see…” Realization floods that calm voice, Edelgard’s head moving about as she takes in the pond in a seemingly new light. “The monastery. It’s...four o’clock, coming into five, and that path on the left will be tread by the church service let out. They’ll be noisy and their footfalls will probably disturb the pond. The squires like to come here to throw rocks on Wednesdays, and the washing happens in the corner. They’ll be pushed into the middle of the pond, even though the light will be on the West end of it. And I smell…” Edelgard’s nose wrinkles. “...fish soup? How is that relevant? Are they scared of their fate?”

It’s... nice to hear Edelgard joke.

“Rain.” Byleth offers knowingly. “You can taste the condensation on the air, if you can't smell it.”

“How could you smell that over the kitchens?”

Byleth shrugs, stomach idly grumbling because she does smell the kitchens.

“Is this...how you look at everything?” Edelgard is looking over her shoulder, now, close enough that Byleth smells far more of her hair than the rain and it’s a welcome change. She could smell the clouds over the food, but Byleth isn’t sure anything but Edelgard could ever fill her lungs, in this moment. “Is this how you see battlefields?”

“Yes.” Hands curve gently over the rod, raising fingers to paint a grid in the pond where Violet eyes can follow, “It’s real chess. You’re good with strategy when you’re expecting it. You can plan in advance and are great facing adversity on the battlefield as a soldier--you’re always quick to react--but a battlefield is never as clean as chess. We both know that.”

She feels fingers flex beneath her own, gripping the rod not out of being corrected, but vigor.

“I see.” And Edelgard has always been good with critique--with that infinite urge to strive further --and there’s that tightness in Byleth’s chest, again. Warm and soothing, pressing herself against the flat of Edelgard’s back.

She hadn't thought holding someone could be so comfortable.

“You shouldn’t be...picking a strategy to go up against whatever opposing strategy you think you're seeing on the battlefield, hoping the one you picked is better."

“I... should be thinking of how they respond, and naturally taking in the world and their needs. You’re saying I shouldn’t just assume they’ll react tactically--but...naturally and true to themselves?”

“Exactly. Everyone has a primal urge--it’s true there’s...math and statistics, and we can always take two strategies and see which path people will be most likely to take, because the truth is that most people are just as skittish as these fish. If I toss a rock into the pond, they’ll flee to the other side, because we know they’re scared of it--it’s something they’ll avoid. But not everyone is as scared as a fish.”

“Many enemies are...noble. Are fighting because they believe in the opposition of your own wants and desires.” Edelgard quietly agrees and Byleth nods.

“So if you identify your enemy’s needs and desires--what they think is important, whether the rain will make them move, whether the light will keep them warm, whether the noise will scare them--you’ll know which way they’ll go, and you’ll know what they do. And then you go fishing.”

“I see.” Edelgard repeats, quieter, now, watching the pond for a moment before she asks, “Is that why you--” A rare pause and it sounds like she might think over the question before redirecting, or maybe rewording. It’s interesting enough for Byleth to lean back and watch her, fully. “...spared Flayn?” A moment passes before she continues, “We were surrounded by soldiers with the city on fire and I trusted you, I never hesitated to accept your choice in sparing her, but I didn’t understand, then, that it might have been…” She shakes her head, and this is one of those moments where she wonders if there’s a question behind the words. Edelgard is full of layers, she’s found, and while Byleth has learned so many of them, she feels there’s so many more to be found. A woman of secrets, all tucked away in a hidden box Byleth has yet to fully find. “Was it a tactical decision?”

A bare hand comes up to rest on Edelgard’s shoulder in thought, still pressed against her back as she thinks--lets the question settle before nodding.

“Yes. And no. Our enemies aren’t the only fish.” Byleth offers, “Flayn...didn’t have to die. Neither did Seteth. The best battles are the ones where you minimize casualties on both sides,” Her head dips to the side, remembering the heat on her shoulders. Her back. Remembering the way she had barely cupped Edelgard’s palm in curling fingers after the fighting in a rickety war tent on the outskirts of the battle, the puckered flesh of hands beneath gauntlets singed through and burnt along the metal of Aymr in the flames. The healing waves from Byleth’s fingertips had turned them into slivers of scars beneath red grieves--two more to match thousands that litter ivory skin.

She remembers the way Flayn had coughed, the smoke settled in both their lungs, fingers curled and bloodied into the tuft of a Pegasus’ quaking wings, matted with soot and blood. Both of them panting wisps of heat. Weak.

We’re family , she had said once, but looked at Byleth with nothing short of sadness, then. Not betrayal, just...sadness.

Perhaps that’s what family filled in people: hope, sadness, and loss in equal measure. That’s how Byleth remembers Jeralt. It's how she remembers Sitri.

It's how she remembers Rhea.

Byleth mulls over the words--the odd...ache that the memory fills in her chest--the worried gratitude that had settled on Edelgard’s features, after the fight. A look she’d seen several times, over the years, when Byleth had chosen Edelgard and life over a church’s firm thumb.

The Emperor of Fódlan, cloaked in red and black and on her knees in the soot, didn’t want the world to die (despite what some apparently claimed) and the moment Byleth offered someone might be spared, Edelgard always took the chance with equal parts relief and trepidation.

Just because war had been the only way didn't mean death truly was.

This thought, it-- feels--

“They needed an escape route. They needed to know that our battle was righteous, not wicked, I guess. To use...whatever words the Church probably used. If we took them, we took the battle, and we would demoralize the troops. But it isn’t always about killing. If we killed Flayn, Seteth would have been...inconsolable. He would have become a danger to fight, and he was already dangerous--we didn’t need to fight him. Some fires are better to...put out quickly, than let them burn and spread. Some fires are supposed to burn, but...not that one.”

Her brows knit and she’s surprised when Edelgard turns Byleth’s chin towards her own, something unreadable in her eyes.

And Edelgard waits, simply holding her for this brief moment, like she knows there’s more, because there is.

“ And I didn’t want her to die.” Byleth says simply, only to her--only in this safe quiet of a courtyard--and the woman who she intends to spend all days like this with, who nods as fingertips curl beneath Byleth's chin.

“How did you know they wouldn’t retaliate when you let them go? That they wouldn’t go back to Rhea?” Edelgard quietly presses.

“I didn’t, I guess...but I know my fish.” Byleth looks back towards the pond.

“Which is why we won.” Edelgard surmises. “Our initial strategy was outmatched when we arrived. And your responding strategy on the battlefield to split up and focus our forces around the fire--sparing key combatants... that’s what won.” And she sounds almost praising when she says, a little in awe, “You didn’t just choose a strategy or response, you...went fishing.”

“A tactician’s game.” Byleth’s voice skirts along her ear and Edelgard eases backwards against her enough that she can wrap an arm fully around a slim waist, now.

This information seems to cement Edelgard's drive.

“What do we do next?”

“We take all of that into account and cast the line.”

And so Byleth shows her the technical aspects of fishing--of how to throw and cast and reel in, despite the elements of noise and wind and heat. Shows her how to tactically assume where the fish might try to escape upon being caught on a line--how to pull it and unhook it without harming it and kill it the quickest way possible. She tells her about bait, and how to read shadows, and how to choose a fishing spot--

“So you just...stand here and wait for it to bite?”

“Like waiting for a charge on a battlefield. See? The anticipation--” Byleth lightly tickles her stomach and Edelgard chuckles and bats away her hands and Edelgard listens to every word, until she stands on her own and reels in a smacking fish that flops against her knee with no guidance, a few hours later.

Ever the quick study.

The warmth spreads through a chest still so unaccustomed to it and settles in her lungs and fills her so deeply that Byleth has to pull away to look at the happiness on Edelgard’s face.

Proud. Edelgard looks proud.

This feeling is...startling.

“I’ve forgotten how marvelous you were at teaching, Professor. Unorthodox, as always, but still so phenomenally proficient.” Edelgard hums , careful to unhook the fish exactly as shown, shaking away water and the scent from her fingertips before slipping back on gloves. And then turns her attention up to said professor. “You look yalms away.” It’s softer and Byleth slowly looks up from fingertips to familiar eyes, that warmth pressing against her chest...consuming. Distracting.

Her face contorts in confusion and she shakes her head.

Does she look far away?

“...I’m sorry--”

“Are you alright?” It’s even gentler, barely heard over the wind and the soft sound of the rain starting to gently patter about their feet and the fish in its bucket full of water in deep plops, and the pond where the fish scatter from its cold intrusion. Edelgard steps closer and Byleth nods.

“I’m...fine.”

“What is it?” It’s an invitation and Byleth must visibly hesitate because Edelgard steps closer, still, careful--

“I…” A huff of breath through lips, feeling-- feeling -- “I just... felt something, is all.”

“What do you mean?” Edelgard is rare with her affection on the grounds but fingertips raise up to gently brush ragged bangs from Byleth’s eyes. This is the closest she’s felt all month, even a moment ago in her arms, and an ache churns in Byleth’s stomach. It’s a testament to how much a student changed over the years, because she asks instead of assuming she knows the best recourse: “Are you in any pain? Do you want me to call for Manue--”

“No. No, it’s nothing like that. I felt--” Brows still knit and, words failing her, Byleth gently takes Edelgard’s hand and lowers it to her heart, where its weak thud aches (and aches) up towards the warmth of familiarity. Presses a palm of white against the black-cloaked, hidden place that used to be so still. It stirs like coal simmering beneath ashes, vibrating fingertips and her chest and her throat. It beats so steadily that Byleth might think it would scare those fish away. “I felt something. New.”

“Oh.” The realization settles deep in widening violet.

“Maybe not new , just...different. It all feels…”

Different.

Edelgard’s fingers splay over heart and Byleth’s breath catches, looking away.

“Do you know what it was?”

“No. It felt...like--” A tongue darts over lips before she tries-- “I’m still--” It feels so odd to say--to admit --out loud.

“You can tell me.” El promises, leaning closer so that it’s just them standing in the soft, gentle rain, neither of them minding. For the moment, at least, their voices barely heard over the sky’s gentle cry. Byleth hesitates. “My teacher…” El whispers in her ear, “They’re our problems, remember? You’ve taught me so much, the least I can do is help you untangle this.”

“I’m…” Byleth eases tense muscles beneath Edelgard’s fingertips, wordlessly lifting up her cloak to shield them from the rain, “I’m still learning what all of them mean. It’s like...waking up and trying to remember a dream. I’ve...I think I’ve felt these things before. I’ve just never felt them so...” Her head tilts to the side, “... strongly.”

“And what do you feel now?”

It’s started to rain a bit more, gentle, graceful drops. The kind that makes the grass smell like dew and hides the scent of enemies in a battlefield, even if it helps make their tracks clearer due to the mud their boots will sink into after it's settled, trapped.

The kind that makes Edelgard’s hair stick to her chin, if they’re out in it long enough, framing the curving edges of her smile on the unlikely occasion it’s only them en route to a mission or a skirmish or a battlefield.

Or fishing by a pond in Garreg Mach.

Byleth pulls up her cloak enough to block out the rain from Edelgard's eyes.

“I don’t know.”

“Alright.” Edelgard pulls enough away to see her in the shadows of the black cloak surrounding them, looking thoughtful and determined for a moment before she tries, “Then what...did it feel like ? What were you thinking? What did you want, in the moment?”

“I don’t know.” Byleth admits, trying to sort it through, calm and methodical, “...it was... good .” A little more certain, mulling it over before she repeats, firmer: “It was good.”

“Good.” El sounds relieved in a way likely only Byleth and Hubert would be able to hear of it in her voice.

“Warm. I was watching you fish and I was thinking of how much you’ve grown as a person, and into who I knew you could be, and how...” Her head tips upwards, thinking of the way Edelgard had looked at her own catch, realizing: “...proud of you I am.”

El blinks, rain tickling down cheeks to Byleth’s chin before she quietly...smiles. Beautiful. And the warmth is there but different , again. Spreading. Aching .

“You felt proud of me?”

“I...yes. I feel ,” Byleth settles on, a little more sure--a little more confident and sturdy--meeting Edelgard’s eyes with her second resolute nod, “ Proud of you.”

Byleth has read about pride. It’s the emotion that precedes arrogance in novels--the emotion that can heat someone’s palms to war; It’s the emotion that swells up in a lover’s chest when they watch the eye of their heart succeed, or a mother when their child writes a song and defies them to sing it to a nation; it’s many people’s downfall. Heroes. Villains. People.

It’s Byleth’s success, as a teacher. And...the woman who feels for Edelgard as she does.

“Byleth…” El softens and beneath the thin weight of Byleth’s coat, which must seem like safety enough from prying eyes and the scattered fish, she leans up to kiss her cheek, near the edge of lips, and the breath rattles in an Emperor’s lungs before it pushes out between them, steady and warm. Her voice rumbles like quiet thunder in the distance, but Byleth's never seemed safer beneath it, “Who I am, today, is because of you, I think you have reason to be proud.”

“You’re giving me too much credit.” Byleth murmurs, dismissing, and Edelgard kisses her again, near the other edge of barely curved lips, the sound of a fish flopping in the bucket next to them missed beneath the rain.

“My love,” Edelgard doesn’t laugh, but she does smile in her wry amusement, and that warmth burns and burns and burns in Byleth’s cool chest, “You don’t give yourself enough.”

Pride

Byleth knows this word, but didn’t understand its meaning.

Not until Edelgard taught her.

“Next time you feel something new, you should tell me,” El offers, “We can sort it through, together. However confusing it might be, certainly it’s no rival for our combined wits.” Byleth thinks on it for a long moment before she nods and looks down towards Edelgard's first catch. “For now...why don't we cook tonight's dinner?"

The cloak lowers as Byleth pauses, an almost shy smile tucking up the edges of lips before it smooths into something calm, "Sure. We'll cook it together."

There's many things Edelgard rouses pride in her Professors' chest. Her passion and compassion--her intellect and deduction--her triumphs and the way she's learned humbled, and with dedication, from her failures--her fishing and, perhaps, most of all...her smile.

Edelgard seems determined to add her cooking to that list and while Byleth has a staunch feeling that today will not be that day, she finds herself...excited(? Hopeful? Pleased?) at all the days they can spend finding out.

(Even if she always makes sure the Head Cook sets aside a separate meal for them, just in case).

Byleth leans over to pick up a small little wooden box off the bench and later that evening, slides Edelgard's first hook inside.

----

In truth to their vows to each other in the Goddess Tower, they become a unified front. Although Byleth is unsurprised by the fact that this means not much changes in their lives (outside of winning a war) because they were a unified front, before.

In strategy, battle, and tactics--in facing their enemies and their friends--but maybe... some things are different.

Like the nearly shy looks Edelgard sends Byleth’s way when no one is looking--or their moments, after the long days have set to night and the war counsel empties to two, that they sit and discuss what future might await them on the horizon, just out of reach but growing closer by the day.

‘I’ve always wanted to go to Albinea’ , El’s wistful hum is lost in the quiet of the room, echoing around them as she leans up against the table they once had lessons on. Byleth’s arms cross as she leans next to her, their hips resting comfortably side-by-side as they have for the past two and a half years.

Byleth wouldn’t be surprised if El insisted the past eight years.

Time has passed, since the war, but she’s learned it doesn’t stop. Not anymore. Then again, it never stopped for Byleth--it only ever folded backwards in on itself like a rumpled shirt or sifted through her fingertips like sand she’d intended to throw into the eyes of an attacker, but lost to the ground, instead.

‘Me too.’ Byleth’s hand idly scratches nails along her chest and she lets out a small breath when she feels Edelgard’s fingers barely skim along the inside of her wrist, both of them hovering over her heart. ‘Maybe we can go there, when this is all over with.’

‘Let’s.’ And El smiles and that feeling... blooms and Byleth’s hand stills along her heart and Edelgard stills along with it. A curious look must have settled on Byleth’s face, because the next thing she knows--

‘...perhaps you’re feeling...hopeful.’ Edelgard boldly offers, shifting a little closer and Byleth’s eyes flick down to her lips.

‘Is that what I feel?’

‘That’s up to you to say.’

‘Hopeful.’ She tastes before the summoning bell rings above them and they pull away.

Edelgard’s fingers linger in her own before they untwine, walking down the hall hip-by-hip towards the tower, their knuckles brushing with each step.

The moments are still rare, but they seek them out, now, the light from the sky catching along Edelgard’s ring before a glove is slid over fingertips.

Hope.

(Maybe not all futures must wait until after the shadows are scattered by light).

And hip-by-hip is how they tackle a professor’s removed, textbook examination of her own heart with Edelgard’s life experience (what she has of it), slowly sorting out the feelings that have begun to stir in Byleth’s chest.

They’ve both been removed from emotions for so long, maybe it’s nice for Edelgard to find them, too.

What is this feeling? Byleth learns to murmur in the air by Edelgard’s ear, and they’ll arrive at a conclusion, together.

‘Contentment’ in the early morning as Byleth sets tea down on the soft, rustling white cloth in the gardens, watching the steam curve around Edelgard’s smile like hair caught around her cheek in the rain, their wrists creeping towards each other beneath the chipped porcelain that’s survived far more than a war--something soft and settling like fresh linens on a bed Byleth is still getting used to sleeping on;

‘Disappointment’ in the moments their fingers touch and are pulled away by duty, the sound of their quiet laughter lingering throughout the stone halls similar to how the cathedral used to catch Dorothea’s voice as it rang throughout--aching and quiet as Byleth watches Edelgard’s smile fade into something serious and resolute;

‘ Amusement ’ Edelgard wryly comments as Lindhardt successfully spars Caspar by continuously ruffling his hair with a sleepy grin and a yawning, batting hand--fluttering like a bird’s wings against her ribcage, bouncing about bars waiting to break free;

‘ Sadness ?’ She asks Edelgard in a guess when the Emperor finds her in the courtyard overlooking a great chasm, her father’s and mother’s gravestones stalwart bastions against its empty void, as if they’re holding Garreg Mach’s penetrable walls of stone and lost faith from falling into the endless dark gravel below--muted and constant, a dull ache. It lessens, somehow, when Edelgard’s rare open touch skirts along her hip and rests along her stomach, guiding Byleth backwards against her chest.

Soon, Byleth has experience to back the names of emotions she’s read about and dully felt and Edelgard, ever one to rise to a challenge, has stepped behind her professor without a second thought, trying to answer the questions of a quiz before her.

“Joy?” Edelgard tries as Byleth’s fingertips run along the edge of a flower, blue hair spilling over shoulders and head tilted to the side in thought as she calmly regards El’s determination.

Thinks it through. No. It doesn’t sound right.

“I don’t think so.” She shakes her head, fingers curving beneath the edge of a flower, not wishing to disturb the small bird fluttering around the surface, lips barely pursing in thought.

She’s been in the Greenhouse for an hour, or so, watching this small little blue bird bat from leaf to leaf of a plant she’s been growing, fingers scratching thoughtlessly at her heart.

Byleth hadn’t asked what the emotion was, but Edelgard took it upon herself to find out, regardless.

“Contentment.” Edelgard tries again, brows furrowed in deep thought, herself, the leader of a ruthless strike force and a now-impervious Empire. It’s a tactical strategy--Edelgard had initially tried to talk it through with Byleth to see what she was feeling, what it reminded her of--

‘It’s a bird. I just see a bird , Edelgard.’

‘That’s not exactly helpful, Professor.’

--before talking through some of the more base aspects of what was stirring in Byleth’s chest.

‘ Well...is it positive?’

‘It’s...good, I think.’

When nothing else followed, Edelgard had sighed.

And then did what any leader might do: try to find a solution regardless of adequate facts, because it simply had to be done.

Peaceful? No. Nostalgic? No. Analytical? No. Joy? No --

And finally, contentment , which like the ones before it, is met with a shake of the head.

Edelgard frowns, the crease of it barely indenting between brows as she lays a hand against Byleth’s back, easing forward to look at the bird, herself.

At a loss and not admitting it, probably. Now that makes Byleth feel amused . That fluttery little bird in her chest, far warmer than it had been watching Caspar and Linhardt.

Most things are far warmer when she’s with Edelgard.

A cat by the doorway meows with what might be agreement and fingertips thoughtlessly curl around the stone of the planter’s box.

El hesitates before almost guiltily suggesting: “...hungry?”

“Hunger isn’t an emotion.” Byleth pauses, chin tipping up to look for Edelgard’s counsel, “It’s a need, isn’t it?”

“Hmm, I suppose it is. And I might be disturbed if you wanted to eat a swallow you found in the garden.”

“Mercenaries don’t have many choices, so I probably could. But if I had to eat anything here, I’d rather have that squirrel up the tree.” Byleth’s lips barely tip upwards and the leader of Fódlan looks up towards the tree as if taking in the squirrel for the first time with a barely wrinkling nose.

“And I’m still disturbed by your sense of humor , my teacher.” But Edelgard smiles all the same, a hint of her competitiveness ebbing in light of the softness of the air in the garden as Byleth turns from the bird to brush a strand of hair from violet eyes--it had been tickling Byleth’s shoulder, given their close quarters, and was a little annoying, but she doesn’t want it blocking Edelgard’s vision, either--fallen from a curving braid, tucking it behind that attentive ear.

“Maybe some emotions don’t have names.” Byleth’s head tips to the side, palm warmed by the soft blush along Edelgard’s cheek from the gentle touch of fingertips as she leans into a cupping hand like it is both thoughtless and a very conscious choice, all in one.

Warmth spreads from a clenching stomach to beating chest to curling fingertips, resting against El, who gently circles Byleth entirely in her arms, a little bolder every day.

Warmth.

Is this contentment? Maybe it is.

“Well...do you feel differently, now? Or is it still the same?”

Byleth’s head tips to the side, thinking it through before she leans close enough to taste El’s breath, wanting to be closer , somehow, which makes no sense since arms are wrapped around her and there’s no real way to get closer, is there? Or maybe there is.

Oh, she thinks there is.

Bergamot. Edelgard’s lips smell like the tea Byleth had brewed for her in the early morning, fingers curling around the ivory of a cup as a humming Emperor inhaled it through nostrils before taking a long, slow sip. The same tea likely sipped even when it grew cold throughout the day for a reason Byleth’s not certain of, and still doesn't feel the need to ask, because there's a certainty to the knowledge. This fact. That Edelgard is more than capable of brewing her own tea, but always seems to favor Byleth’s pot long into the afternoon, even after it grows cold.

Bergamot.

It’s not the first time Byleth’s had the urge to kiss Edelgard and it probably won’t be the last. Even though they’ve tackled everything together, they haven’t had much time like this, alone. Fleeting moments for months--

“I think I feel…” Byleth smiles--a little wider, however small it might be in comparison--gently guiding Edelgard closer as that blush spreads. “...distracted.”

And that quiet laugh tastes as nice as it sounds and it dances up into the air like the flutter of the bird's wings below them and it fills all of Byleth’s lungs with it until that content breath spreads through her and between them.

Edelgard's laugh is as beautiful as her smile.

Bergamot, she decides, is a good scent.

“Oh, are you, Professor? What by?” A light tease despite that flattering blush, gloved fingertips smoothing out the rumpled collar of a dark cloak; work that’s ruined the moment Byleth’s other hand raises up to gently settle in the small of El’s back, pressing her up closer, and those gloves fist in fabric until suddenly white is engulfed by the shadows spread over shoulders.

“What...do you feel right now, El?” It's a murmur--curious and soft, letting out the smallest flutter of a breath when one of those tangling hands falls down to her chest and rests a palm against the skipping beat of a heart. It’s...soothing, now, how Edelgard holds her. It's been so seamless, how hesitation has slowly morphed into...familiarity. How Byleth's body seems to expect it as much as her mind might, heart pattering like soft rain and shoulders easing like knots of a ship that have been unmoored into calm waters.

“Maybe...some emotions don’t have names,” It’s a breathless recall, leaning just a little further up into Byleth until their noses brush and the words sink onto parting lips like a welcome drink of water. “But...if this one did, I suppose it would be--”

“Lady Edelgard.”

Both of them tense, twisting around to see Hubert’s impassive face and devilishly twinkling eyes, voice monotone as Edelgard huffs underneath her voice--

“ Annoyance .” To Byleth’s quiet chuckle, before she says much louder, “ Yes , Hubert?”

Surprisingly, Edelgard doesn’t pull away, although she does give Byleth a far more apologetic smile as those white gloves once more smooth out the wrinkles they've caused in fabric before facing Hubert and leaning into the palm settled in the curve of her back for just a moment more--just a moment more--before Byleth’s hand dutifully falls, facing the familiar stoic vassal, as well.

“There’s word on the Slither’s movements on the outskirts of Hyrm.”

Both of them straighten their spines, then, tender could-have-beens once again tabled for another day. Another tomorrow, brighter than the day before.

They both have higher priorities.

“They’re heading towards Morfis?” Edelgard surmises and at Hubert’s nod, the Emperor sighs up towards her tactical counsel, something far more serious taking root in features. “It appears you were right, Professor.”

Neither of them take pleasure in this fact.

Those Who Slither in the Dark were not just slithering in Fódlan.

“But unfortunately there’s been even more...unnerving developments than just Morfis.”

The war room is full within the hour after Edelgard and Byleth have both been briefed, their heads bent and hushed whispers bouncing along the high stone walls.

The map sits stalwart upon the table, crisp and loose around the pins keeping it stapled to the large desk centered in the room, holes widened from half a decade plus of wandering hands shifting it about as eyes took in a war front.

In the center of the map still sits proud Garreg Mach, whose conversion these past six months following the Won War from a Monastery to a genuine officer's school has not changed its current occupancy of forces. It's true that many hearts' hatred eased with each and every day of Emperor Edelgard von Hresvelg's steady, firm rule--more compassionate than they had been lead to believe through the mayhem and tragedy that consumed houses for neigh a near decade--but not everyone was pleased.

While The Great Beast (as she's come to be called within the troops, propaganda and pamphlets continuous and circulated, still) Rhea was felled and Dimitri, Deluded King (a term Byleth frowns at in its use every time), put to rest, there is still upset in much of Fódlan. Uprisings and spattered, enraged, frightened villages fighting back against who they view as an evil conquering force, taking away their land and religion, combined with the nobles who clutched desperately to their power and riches and crests, insistent that equality threatened their livelihoods.

“Perhaps if your excess of...livelihood cannot exist with equality--if you believe you require the lesser futures of the men and women you swore to protect and serve as their noble leader to maintain it--then you do not understand the worth of human life, at all, and are not fit to hold your position over them, von Gideon.”

Edelgard had been cemented in history as a fierce leader, but her rousing speech at a large estate set ablaze by righteousness in the North East of what was beneath the Lions Snare, where a noble had tried to fight the Black Eagles by using his peasants for fodder, would likely go down as a key quote to attest to it. There wasn't a scribe in sight as Emperor Hresvelg held a glowing axe to the last noble nephew of Gideon's neck underneath his mansion's towering stone pillars, the disgraced man scrambling backwards in the muck he'd fallen into from the gallop of his dismayed horse, cowering on his back with sniveling pleas as his flee from battle was thwarted...but the story has been told time and time again by every soldier and in every tavern Byleth's been to since.

All with such a great dramatic flair and liberty to storytelling that she wouldn't be surprised if Alois wasn't the first one to tell it.

Edelgard's amused face as they sat on a carriage heading back towards Garreg Mach a month later after quelling another uprising was well worth the bumpy ride and sitting next to a skew-eyed pegasus.

'--that's not how it happened at all! Edelgard beheaded him on the spot after he spat on an orphan boy that was working for him!'

'Oh, is that so? I had heard him jailed 'n Enbarr with the rest of the noble filth, waitin' judgment.'

'Oh, yeah--yeah--had a friend there, took his head clean off! He's not jailed, he's a yalm under!'

'You don't have friends, Jaspard.'

Normally, they ride proudly, but given the Slithers’ spies having eyes in every hill, it would be better not to be caught unawares by a trap. It was wiser to sneak into a caravan than to take the entire group across the border when Ferdinand would already need to head Northwest and Petra and Dorothea South. At least, that’s what Byleth suggested off-hand to Hubert’s sighing assent, all of them breaking off to go separate directions in common clothes.

Which is why Hubert sets across from them looking unnervingly threatening towards a Pegasus that’s just licked his jaw in the back of a rickety, open-top caravan for the next three days. Byleth and Edelgard have settled next to each other far closer than they might have been were anyone else there.

This, for some reason, does not seem to improve Hubert's always dour mood.

‘I’ve never had roast Pegasus before. I wonder, is it a delicacy on the outskirts of the mountains?’ Hubert's smile is something reminiscent of the tales told of Byleth, herself, in the taverns: devilish .

Definitely not improvement. If this is how Hubert’s doing, Byleth can only imagine Ferdinand’s fear at riding in the back of a straw-filled cart.

Maybe he’ll think it’s an adventure. Caspar certainly looked excited.

'It seems this new Emperor wants the best for all people in Fódlan.' Edelgard pipes up underneath a particularly rough bump, a hint of red that might be indignation or amusement creeping up her neck and Byleth is just glad the farmers didn’t hear Hubert’s dry musing.

The men look back from their conversation and tilt their heads, appraising, and ultimately nod.

'Y'know, lady...you might be right.'

Byleth's sword easily tips underneath her nails to dig out the dirt, casually shrugging with a serious nod, stilling it underneath the next bump. 'She usually is.'

The red was certainly not ire, now, spreading further upwards and that same, amused smile twisting up Edelgard’s lips as lips brush along the dirt-scuffed cheek resting upon a sword's hilt, paying little mind to the weapon...or to Hubert’s heavy sigh across from them, it seems.

Byleth offers a smile, shifting to hold Edelgard beneath the next jostling bump so that she might steady herself against it. Out of the corner of an eye she catches t he Pegasus nosing beneath Hubert's chin as if trying to lift his scowl.

It's not a surprise it doesn't work.

'Oh, Hubert, we're just traveling companions. Wouldn't you say, Jaspard?' Edelgard's voice is practically sing-song over her shoulder and Jaspard, once more paying them notice instead of squabbling with his own companion about just how many nobles Emperor Edelgard von Hresvelg has beheaded, furrows brows thicker than the stray dog that wanders Garreg Mach's coat.

'Uh...yeah, sure?'

The pegasus licks Hubert's cheek and Byleth's head tips to the side, calmly noting:

'I think it likes you.' A thoughtful hum, 'I think you would make a good Pegasus Knight, Hubert.'

Hubert's scowl...thins. And maybe it's a trick of the eye--maybe the trees above them filter out the sunlight until it blinks--but she swears, just for a moment, she might see the hint of a smile.

Or, at the very least, Hubert no longer threatens to cook the pegasus for the remainder of the ride to town.

And thus thanks to word of mouth, the uprisings caused by nobles have been easily dealt with, and few nobles could find villagers to bolster their claims of outrage, these days.

Edelgard was fighting for them, not against them, and they were starting to understand that.

The uprisings regarding religion were...trickier, and Edelgard’s interference usually led to worse outcomes than if she hadn’t shown, at all, something she’d been reluctant to admit, but nodded after their last quelling of an insurrection led to every member of a church being toted away in chains.

Even now, Byleth is aware that had it been Rhea, the insurrectionists in the church likely would have been dead, instead of sitting in a jail, but the indignation of being locked up for ‘believing’ was gaining far too much traction to not be taken a serious threat.

‘It’s my job to lead--we’ve spilled enough blood, perhaps someone else might have a solution.’

‘I agree.’ Mercedes looks hesitant in the corner, but hardly meek. They all agree there’s been too much blood spilled. But Mercedes ultimately looks away before Byleth steps forward, eyes set on a girl she knows well.

‘...I think there’s a solution.’

All eyes expectantly look up save for Mercedes, who nervously watches Edelgard.

At Byleth's quiet insistence, these uprisings have been dealt with with the head of the New Church, Mercedes von Martritz, who has ended many of them before they started, establishing several Churches underneath Edelgard's cooperation , not banner. An organization subsisting within the Empire--alongside, not over.

So far, the most radical uprisings where Mercedes has not been successful in quieting them, Jeritza has settled them shortly after.

They’re thankfully far less prominent.

'I might hate this false Goddess and 'religion', but people still have a right to it, Byleth. Why would they think I would--everything I have done has been to protect them!' A rare frustration is as clear as a scowl upon lips, highlighted by the flickering candles that fortify the long spindles burning within a restored Cathedral. It paints Edelgard’s features in a soft, passionate glow, but also showcases the dark circles beneath sunken eyes. ‘They’re only prolonging their own suffering.’

'Maybe,' A shrug, gently stepping up behind tight shoulders to gently curl fingers around them. 'People are...protective over things that matter to them.'

‘That is true, isn’t it?’ Edelgard murmurs, shoulders tensing before they relax beneath scarred palms. ‘I suppose I am protective, as well. I am protective of everyone here--I’m protective of all of them. No one else has to die, if they would just--’

Byleth’s fingers skim along a cheek that clenches and eases just as shoulders had--dip down a neck that swallows and bobs--before wrapping around Edelgard's waist, guiding those sharp muscles and edges the rest of the way against Byleth's chest. A welcome embrace.

Edelgard sags against her like a sack of flour that’s been cut open, all the air in her lungs puffing upwards into the sky.

Because here, it seems, just like her muscles, she can hold on only so tightly before letting go. It's a feeling Byleth...can understand, now.

‘All you can do is...lead people, El. You can’t make their choices for them.’

Fingers hesitate for only a breath before they smooth along Byleth’s wrists along hips, pulling the taller of them closer so that arms wrap fully around her, twisting to raise her own arms around a craning neck before El's own head falls to rest there.

El fits so nicely here, like the proudest token nestled safely inside a box.

‘Then I’m glad I have you by my side. What are you protective over, I wonder--’

Edelgard’s chin tips backwards and Byleth holds her until a messenger comes shortly after with an updated report on Ferdinand’s slim hold in the Northwest.

It hasn’t gotten better, the two months since.

The war room is full of a tense silence after the news is shared, all eyes in the room focused upon the map of Garreg Mach, and the pins of their strongholds littering its aged surface. To the southwest, a few weeks’ journey away, lay a new pin.

A plague has started to take root in Hyrm, on the outskirts of Ordelia, much to Lysithea’s worry, similar to what had overtaken Remire but far worse. The stronghold borders what used to be the Leicester Alliance and the Empire’s hills--a key position against the annoyed nobles rebelling in the East looking to ride towards Enbarr.

The plagues’ spread is showcased by black pins trending a noted path upwards, adorned by the clean parchment quill of Ingrid’s handwriting.

Names.

“It’s spreading to the nobles with crests who sided with the Empire.” Ingrid concludes, face pulled downward as if a string had tied to her chin.

Sided with the Empire’s successful insurrection , as many people in Leicester would still claim.

“How could a plague attack someone with crests?” Caspar frowns, eyes flicking up towards the few empty chairs of their usual Black Eagle Squadron. Two notable absences with crests missing: Ferdinand, who has been dispatched to the Northwest of what used to be House Kleiman, whose strategic tactical position near the coast of the continent will be invaluable if Byleth’s hypothesis of the Slithers’ outreach stretching to their neighboring continents held true. Leonie rides with him, crestless. And the other was Petra, who had returned to Brigid to mend relations between the Empire and her country while assuming rule.

Dorothea, of course, was with her, but bore no crest, as well, and Byleth’s chin tips downward in thought, fingers tucking beneath a working jaw.

“Technically a plague infects, it doesn’t attack. But I suppose those who bear crests do have unique blood.” Hanneman offers thoughtfully, carefully cleaning a monocle with a handkerchief he tucks back inside his pocket. “It is likely attacking the unique signature of the blood that makes crests so extraordinary.”

“And if it’s attacking the blood , the options we currently have to treat it are, oh... nonexistent .” Manuela pouts in the corner, clearly disturbed, knuckles resting beneath her own chin as she takes in the map.

“Hmm...yes,” Linhardt perks upwards, either clearly deep in thought...or clearly deep in sleep, “Fascinating, really. It would have taken a good bit of experimentation on live blood samples of someone bearing a crest to create a strand of plague that could infect crest-bearers.”

Byleth’s eyes skim over Lysithea’s pale features before settling to her left on Edelgard’s stoic ones.

“Indeed.” Edelgard agrees, darker than any of them know. “Which can serve as a reminder of how dangerous they are--and always will be--until they’re wiped from existence. They’ve ruled by fear and oppression for so long that they don’t seem to know how to fight a war with any other tool. I fear this was likely their contingency plan from the start.” The discontent waters of violet flick up towards Byleth before once more settling on the board.

“So...if they’re going to worst case scenarios--” Sylvain rubs the back of his neck, scowling.

“It means we’ve got ‘em on the ropes!” Caspar pumps his fist and Linhardt sighs at the mere insinuation of probably how much effort it all sounds like but it’s Ingrid who steps closer.

“I think we should be cautious.” Ingrid sports furrowed brows and tense lines about lips but she’s grown so much since Byleth first met her.

They all have, judging by Bernadetta in the corner, quiet but present.

“Agreed.” Hubert nods, “They’re cunning beasts who have not yet revealed themselves to Fódlan for a reason. I would advise against underestimating them.”

“I concur, as well.” The Emperor herself agrees before leaning up from the board. “I believe you all know your roles. This changes nothing from our current effort to solidify our defenses in key strongholds. Cementing our hold over the continent and against opposing forces by sea is a high priority not for just putting out lingering opposition from the war, but from defending all of Fódlan. We need to keep an eye on our future as well as our present, my friends. The True War is still upon us. Be that as it may, Hubert, I’ll need you to notify Petra and Ferdinand of this immediately. We do not need to cause panic, but they need to be aware of the situation at hand in case it escalates. I do not want to send anyone to Hyrm until we’re positive the plague cannot be contracted by someone without a crest.”

“As you wish, your Majesty,” Hubert, with his ever-deep bow, departs shortly after.

“Manuela, Hanneman, Linhardt--”

“Fine, fine,” Linhardt yawns , “I suppose looking into this will at least be interesting . Let’s go ahead and solve it so that I can go back to bed.”

“Not everything has to be about a bed with you two,” Hanneman huffs and Manuela scowls, hands settling on hips. Indignant.

“ Excuse me--”

“Oh, that’s not what I meant and you know it, Manuela. I simply meant you were late to this meeting because you were--”

“Alllllright. Let’s stop shoving our feet in our mouth squabbling and go kick some butt!” Caspar, surprisingly, is the one to shoo them out, much to everyone else’s relief.

The meeting that lasts after is another few hours before the light that had graced the garden has fallen and started to rise, once more, faraway on the horizon but close enough somebody might be able to touch the ephemeral warmth of it if they became one with the shadows on the edge of its reach.

Soon enough, it’s just Edelgard and Byleth left in the thick of those shadows, candelight flickering above the edge of a map that’s slowly been stained red by blood and determination and time. White gloves had been replaced by a lightly-armored counterpart given the generals and commanders sifting in and out of the room and Byleth walks behind her, now, watching the way the light touches the dips of them and disappears in the red bend of knuckles above the map before calmly shifting.

Knowing fingers slowly undo the left gauntlet, its ply metal creaking loud enough to cover Edelgard’s surprised gasp for any ear but her Tactician's, who’s close enough to feel it warm the air. Fingers run over the scarred ridges of fingertips--and knuckles--and a wrist--before she does the same with the right, fingertips tracing a map she wishes she were far more familiar with than the one of Fódlan and the Empire below them.

Edelgard’s nose dips down, head hanging as shoulders barely shake and with a rattling, heavy breath. She leans back into Byleth’s arms, sagging just enough for those undressing hands to skim up fingertips to hips to arms to the other woman’s heart, nose brushing along the high rise of an Emperor's cheek.

She can feel an Emperor sift like that sand of time into a woman left behind in the steady beats of her heart, strong and certain below Byleth's palm. Rhythmic. Soothing. Like a war drum. Like the bob of a fishing line against water. Like the sound of footsteps walking alongside her in the hall.

Edelgard unwinds a little faster against her, these days.

And Byleth quietly kisses the ring on Edelgard’s finger and wishes it was Edelgard, herself.

“I realized what it was, looking at the bird.” Byleth quietly offers in her ear, knowing Edelgard has never been content with mysteries and secrets unless they’re woven by her own hand. “During the counsel.”

“And what was that?” Barely a murmur, the tension still pulling that smooth voice as taut as the string on Bernadetta’s bow, thin and sharp and deadly. But shoulders ease a little more as one of Byleth’s arms wrap around her stomach, gently twisting in a slow dance to press Edelgard’s hips against the table and hold her up within the certain strength of her own arms.

Byleth isn’t Hubert--she has no intention of taking Edelgard’s burdens solely upon her own shoulders so that she won’t feel them. Assuming her future wife is not capable of bearing the weight of her own life seems... undermining , somehow, after all Edelgard has accomplished and faced. No, Byleth is well aware of the Emperor’s strength.

Which is why she lets them stand together, instead, hand on a heart raising up to cup a cheek, instead.

“Protective.” Byleth offers, thoughtful and quiet. “I had seen a cat out in the garden--I’ve been feeding it, so it followed me. I’d forgotten about it, because I stayed with the bird for...an hour, before you came, and it didn’t feel like it mattered. But it did.”

It’s funny, that way. The strangest things cause emotions.

“Oh,” Edelgard’s features soften and it’s now that she seems to hesitate before she gently tucks her head in the crook of Byleth’s cheek, resting on her shoulder fully, once more. “You’ve always been far more compassionate than anyone knows. You have a habit of protecting little birds, don’t you? Animals--children-- students --”

“I know the bird can fly on its own, and it’ll see the cat coming.” Byleth wraps her arms a little tighter around Edelgard, then, whose hands smooth up the front of her shoulders, but this time they sneak boldly underneath the black of a cloak, flattening over biceps until the fabric puddles around scarred wrists. “But I couldn’t help but…” Brows knit as she tastes the word that follows, “...worry . I guess even though I had fed the cat, and I like the cat, and the cat is just...hunting. I understand the cat’s motivations--” Byleth closes eyes and feels Edelgard settle in her arms and--

And it’s...warm.

It spreads through her and settles and eases the tension she hadn’t known existed in her spine.

“You’ll fight for the bird, even against the cat. That’s...not the first time you’ve felt that way, is it? It’s a little bit of a heavy-handed metaphor, my love.” Edelgard murmurs, pulling away enough to look at her.

Byleth's read about protection: it's the desire to safe-keep something from harm; it's the emotion that wraps around shoulders like a hug, fierce. Loyal. It's a knight, like Jeralt used to be, if a person could be an emotion.

What emotion would Edelgard be?

“I know you can fight your own battles.” Byleth nods, determination settling in, “But I’d rather fight them with you.”

“As would I, Byleth.” El’s voice is quiet and her eyelashes flutter against Byleth’s palm, leaning...closer.

Until her scent once more fills Byleth's lungs and her warmth spreads through fingertips and palms and a clenching stomach and suddenly all she can feel is Edelgard.

“What’s...this emotion?” A breath, leaning down to rest their foreheads together, brows knitting as Edelgard’s fingers hesitantly raise to brush over her cheek--her neck--push up through her hair, as if she’s careful of it.

It’s the first time someone’s ever been careful of touching Byleth, outside of Rhea.

(Byleth has a feeling Edelgard wouldn’t appreciate the comparison).

“Hmm…” A thoughtful note sounds in the back of her throat as Edelgard leans closer in the earliest hours of the rising sun, light starting to creep up their bare hands and scarred necks and El’s soft, loving smile. “Anticipation,” Teeth tuck lips, “I would think.”

“Anticipation.” Byleth tastes with a smile and feels the thud of Edelgard’s heart in her throat and the shifting air between them and the feeling of fingertips growing a little bolder in their curl about her own craning neck, before leaning down and kissing her.

Love--

El’s gasp parts locked gates against lips and Byleth’s heart and the beating bird within as her fingers tangle in her hair and mutter ‘finally’ against her before they inelegantly clatter against the table and knock half of the scrolls off the top of it, the map tearing a little at one of the pins, both of them giggling and chuckling and--

Embarrassed and Happy and Giddy and Light--

--as they clean up the mess before Edelgard’s teeth tuck her lips and she blushes as she brings Byleth closer, once more. This time guiding her far away from the long table into the corner, sheltered from the kalleidoscope light of the stained glass windows in this shell of a building full of used to be’s and slowly heralding will becomes.

Neither one of them have had much practice at this, but love is something they can learn together, as well.

“Let’s try again.”

--Love--

Byleth hums as she kisses El again and again and again underneath the warmth of the sun until both of them part with flushed cheeks and knowing smiles and fingers that link until they’re forced to go their separate ways, a little more disheveled than they had been an hour before.

Love through tense weeks and months and half a year of a slowly spreading plague and continued fights. Love through stolen moments and kissed rings and emotions offered up into the air and caught by Edelgard’s lips.

“ Love ”--Edelgard vocalizes and offers, herself, as they lay in the grass by the gardens months and months later, tucked away in a corner where no one would think to look save for Hubert (because anyone who would look isn’t nearly as bold). Her finger gently, fondly tracing down the line of Byleth’s cheek like a painting, eyes bright and bashful as she leans above her.

“Is that what you feel?” Byleth asks, leaning into that fond finger and wrapping arms around her waist. It’s the first time Edelgard’s offered an emotion of her own instead of being asked--or implying it with an answer of Byleth’s.

They’re parting ways in a few hours--Edelgard to Enbarr and Byleth to the outskirts of Kleiman to help Ferdinand secure the territory after a surprising uprising in the Southeast of the fortress, near the coast.

A little too close to the coast, and a little too close to the spread of the plague that they’ve been monitoring since word of it rose. It’s convenient in the worst of ways that they’ve both come to expect, and it’s the wisest decision to send a tactician over the Emperor, however Edelgard desires to be on the front lines.

It was smart to send Byleth, they all agreed.

It’s funny, how time can move so quickly . She finds it hard to believe Ferdinand has been gone so long.

‘Let me go fishing’ , Byleth had murmured against the curve of Edelgard’s neck above mussed sheets and biting lips before everyone had arrived a week prior, hand curving over her hip and Edelgard’s fingers falling down to her chin and her neck and her heart as she hovered above her, hair cascading like a waterfall of moonlight. It was the decision that made the most sense.

‘I hate this --’

‘...I'm sorry.’

‘I hate this, Byleth--’

A blink, coming back to the present. Do emotions always do this? Are they always so...heavily tied with memories and moments and the flutter of violet eyes like a blue bird’s wings?

“Yes.” Edelgard looks away--unusual, given she’s the type to tackle problems head-on--and Byleth shifts upwards on her elbows.

Byleth’s read thousands of books and nearly half of them mention love. People were fascinated with love and...Byleth was too, in a way. She’d never felt it, and never understood it, and could never quite grasp its importance. On a battlefield she had watched people kill for it and die for it and live for it--

It’s something so complex to capture that it doesn’t have such a simple definition like the other emotions might--it’s like a...box. A wooden, rickety box tenderly made and nailed, full of emotions that are so cluttered and many that they all have to be contained so that they aren't spilled and lost and forgotten.

A box. Maybe this...cluttered thing made out of the wood of her chest filled with a dozen--a hundred--a thousand other emotions inside of it, carefully latched and closed and carried about in a rucksack from campsite to campsite, safely stowed. Hidden.

Yes, a box. This brittle wooden thing with love written on the outside of it. Love...written in an elegant pen by a white-gloved hand. Signed like a letter--like a name--because Byleth would know that hand anywhere it pressed, branding wood and ink and life beneath its touch. A thousand keepsakes of happiness and hope and anger and a million other things Byleth knows the definition to but has only recently fully understood tidied within its cramped confines. Love. Some people throw the word around so carelessly--

Manuela, who loves another person every week

--or have never quite found what was nearby them--

Dorothea, whose letters to her professor list Petra more than anything else

--or have never found its purpose--

Felix, who loves training, he claims, but loathes the taste of battle before sniping that Sylvain will waste away if he doesn’t join him

--and Byleth watches the way Edelgard says it as her chin dips. Certain and careful--like the word means more than she might know how to explain, herself, and Byleth thinks of the poems and the operas and the novels she’s read and imagines each of them on El’s lips before she leans up a little further, safely tucking the other woman against her chest.

She watches the sun dance along her cheek as Edelgard looks up at her through long lashes, blush and nerves tucking up a thin smile.

When Byleth was as tall as his knees, her father crafted her a box, and she thinks Love might be like that.

“El…” Byleth reaches down to curling hand and untucks a glove where a ring has settled for nearly a year, now, hidden away safely out of sight like so many things are. “I asked you to spend your life with me.” She reminds, lips brushing over it in a quiet ceremony. “We’re engaged. You don’t need to be nervous.”

The blush deepens and when Edelgard tries to turn away, Byleth catches her chin.

"I--"

“Is it...so hard for you to imagine I love you, too?”

Edelgard is unusually silent for a long moment before her hand raises up to Byleth’s chest, resting over her heart. And she smiles. This broken, hopeful thing that reminds Byleth of the night she had returned from half a decade of sleeping, or something close to it, something she doesn't quite understand yet buried deep in those eyes.

“If you do, then it won’t be difficult for you to promise me you’ll do everything in your power to come back to Garreg Mach. Promptly. In a month’s time, not five years. No more sleeping .”

“It’s not difficult for me to promise that.” Byleth immediately offers, voice calm, watching the way Edelgard’s features twist and contort beneath their own calm veneer like a fish beneath the pond's surface. “As long as you promise to keep up with your training in Enbarr. I would hate to have to come sooner to whip you into shape. No fighting is no reason for your axe work to get sloppy, Edelgard."

“ Professor ,” Edelgard gripes, though there’s a hint of a smile in her eyes, “I’m being serious . You honestly joke at the worst momen--”

Byleth kisses her, feeling tense shoulders ease beneath her touch as Edelgard’s fingers wind in her hair, pressing them both down into the red quilt they’d stolen from a student’s bed, its hue vibrant and harsh above the green grass that resembles a Goddess's eyes.

“...I love you, too.” Byleth whispers when they pull away and sees Edelgard’s conflicting shock and contentment in equal measure--her happiness and nerves-- but her smile seems to make the whole world feel...unimportant, just for a second. A moment.

An instant and five years, all in one.

"Then I expect you to return to me...my Empress." Quiet so only Byleth might hear, Edelgard's knuckles skim down Byleth's cheek and the empress lets out a rattling, soft sigh.

All of those books had made love seem so complicated, but it tasted right the moment Edelgard had offered it.

But Byleth doesn't have to ask what this feeling is. They're both far too familiar with war.

An afternoon later, Edelgard’s fingers lingers in her own amongst the troops as their hands clasp to part--their eyes meeting and staying before they can't, anymore--and the Emperor sees her advisor off towards Kleiman, her own convoy heading the opposite way to Enbarr, a box tucked in her bag and a dagger on Byleth's hip. She leads the charge on a horse at the helm, never one to shy away from the front lines, Hubert’s look knowing and calm next to her.

"Until we meet again, Professor." Hubert offers before turning about his own horse, both of them disappearing into the light cast off of the mountains as Byleth turns towards the darkness behind her, the beast she rides neighing appreciatively as she dips into the quiet shadows left by cascading trees into the sky.

“You look happier, Professor.” Ferdinand casually mentions offhand, the sound of their horses hooves sinking into mud accompanying them during the daylight. He had met her halfway towards Kleiman, their intent to set up another outpost on the outskirts hopefully not heard by anyone else in the Monastery.

There were shadows in every corner, after all. Or at least that's what Hubert liked to enigmatically drawl knowingly every time they talked about the Slithers having spies.

“Do I?” Her head tilts to the side, remembering her father once saying the same, long ago. She hadn’t realized emotions could ease the knots of muscles until something softer could be seen underneath. Not until Jeralt had mentioned it. She’s getting a little more used to the idea. “And your hair is getting even longer. It suits you.” It's pointed out in kind and Ferdinand preens at the observation, offering a dazzling smile as he sits straighter on his horse.

“Ah, yes. I had initially thought it was unbecoming of a noble to keep it unmaintained, but I find I like it far more.” His chin tips upwards towards the sun--command looks good on him, as well, their battalion following behind. Well-led and proud. “Edelgard, though my judgement would have been sound without her commentary, did also state that it complimented my eyes, a few years ago, and made me seem more approachable to commoners.” Byleth doubts those were Edelgard’s exact words, “It spoke great volumes that we both were of the same thought. There’s many things I never would have assumed I would have enjoyed outside of the nobility. Who knew hair could provide such a cautiously freeing sense of enjoyment? So I've let it grow longer.”

“I’ll help you brush it once it reaches your hips.” Byleth helpfully offers and Ferdinand laughs, surprised and shaking it over shoulders.

“That will not be necessary, Professor.”

“It can be very difficult to maintain.” Byleth seriously continues, pointing towards it off-handedly, “In a battle the last thing you need is a handle for someone to grapple you to the floor with, especially from your horse.”

Ferdinand scratches at his chin in thought, humming.

“Ah, I had not seen that angle, Professor. Perhaps freedom does come with its costs.” He seems plagued by this for a moment before Byleth nods.

“Dorothea arrives next week, we’ll have her cut it for you. She’s cut mine, before.” After pouting that Byleth had let it turn into a mess, anyways. Which is strange because Byleth’s hair has always been this way.

Was it messy?

‘Edie can’t run her fingers through a raven’s nest, Professor.’

‘I have no idea what that even means, Dorothea.’

‘ Oh, hopefully you two aren’t too thick-headed to find out.’ Dorothea’s sigh could push mountains to the edge of Fódlan. 'No wonder why she never gives me any of the good stuff in her letters.'

'What?'

'Nothing~~'

"She can keep it long but still manageable. Then you have both freedom and functionality."

Ferdinand perks upwards. “She does seem to have a great amount of experience needing to cut her own hair and not having someone to do it for her.”

Byleth sighs.

He’s making progress , perhaps that’s the best they can ask of him.

Fondness --she can hear Edelgard murmur in her ear, a phantom’s touch as her smile might skirt along her cheek.

A smile, soft and quiet, graces Byleth's lips, in kind.

“It suits you, as well.” Ferdinand offers and Byleth tilts her head to the side to regard him, a little distracted in her thoughts as they continue on. “Happiness.”

Ferdinand just smiles and Byleth nods after a long moment, realization donning.

Happiness is the word she thinks her father would have liked the most to hear she learned.

Happiness. It’s a word Byleth knew the definition to, but never quite understood.

Not until Edelgard gave it to her.

Love suits me, El --she can imagine humming along her shoulder, because for now the only emotion she can imagine settling in that sanded, shaped box labelled ‘love’ is the rattling, large one named happiness.

#edeleth #edeleth fanfic #fe3h fanfic #fic #mine #catch me coming back to tumblr just in time to make cruddy graphics for questionable fics :')#well #coming back to my personal tumblr #>.>#this fic was longer than ever expected #but they always are #I know the fandom isn't dead on ao3 now #I hope it's not dead on here because woo boi I'mma bout to follow a lot o blogs about it #no ragerts

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yasminmwong · 4 years

Text

Concept 2: Cities Flooded

Inspiration

‘The scariest variable is how quickly that flood will come. Perhaps it will be a thousand years, but perhaps much sooner. More than a billion people live within thirty feet of sea level today’

Throughout the book, there are a lot of references to rising sea levels. This is both in factual data, as a result from rising global temperatures, but also in the context of what this means for human life. The book reminds us that the rising sea-levels, that have already resulted in climate refugees whose homes have been engulfed by water, will cause devastation on our doorstep if we let it.

I wanted to create a cover that referred to these rising sea levels - but relate them to the reality of life as we know it. Often we think of climate disasters being far away and someone else’s problem. I wanted my cover concept to show a city flooded, surrounded by water. I think it’s very easy to assume that the devastation of climate change is only happening abroad, but it’s happening to so many people everyday.

‘What would be submerged by these floods are not just the homes of those who flee - hundreds of millions of new climate refugees onto a world incapable, at this point, of accommodating the needs of just a few million - but communities, schools, shopping districts, office buildings and high rises, regional cultures so sprawling that just a few centuries ago we might have remembered them as empires unto themselves, now suddenly underwater museums.’

For this concept, I wanted the title of the cover to be the image. I wanted to create a 3D look, of text that was itself being submerged in water. Therefore for this cover - the type itself would be the imagery. I was inspired by isometric styles of 3D text - such as the work by Kate Moross, Andrew Footit and Lex Wilson.

I wanted to try and created this in my own version, especially giving the text some texture as it would bring some reality to the image.

Experiments

Initially for this idea I had planned to create 3D letters by hand and submerged these in water - using photography to capture my concept. I began by create flat letters propped up by stands. This was relatively time consuming and didn’t give me the effect I wanted, the letters still looked flat although standing upright.

I went on to try creating box-type letters which fitted more to the idea I had in my head. I was really happy with the outcome, but it was really time-consuming. It took me about 3 hours just to three T’s and 2 H’s - which I knew were going to be the easiest letters.

I decided that even though this looked how I wanted it to, it wasn’t going to work for the finished product. So I tabled the hand-made 3D idea and decided to look into other techniques.

Looking at the references, and how they created their lettering, I decided to draw my letters out instead. I started by using the dotted paper in my typography notebook, and starting to get the effects I wanted (in a much quicker time-frame).

I decided I would instead go down this route and work on creating the letters with an isometric grid. I printed paper out and started designing my cover. I was really happy with how this turned out and I was able to quickly produce what was in my head. I took this design into illustrator and created a digital version - and voila!

For the backdrop - I experimented with some previous techniques of paint pouring and ink droplets to create water for the letters to sit in. I really liked visually how each of these looked but I felt they didn’t match the lettering or the feel of the book. The colours and playfulness of the lines created in the ones I created were too happy looking for the book I felt. I decided to replace it with a photo of actual water This made it much more realistic and therefore linked better to the idea of this being a reality of our future.

Reflection

I was really happy with my final design in the end and I was thrilled that I was able to produce the original concept I had in my mind from the beginning. I would have liked to create more texture on the letters perhaps by using photography of actual concrete buildings, which may have brought a bit of a grittiness to the cover.

I had thought about using isometric type for the supplementary copy as well, but I felt this took away from the title. I decided it was better to add these using indesign.

Using a stock image instead of a making was a tricky decision but I think it was the right one. By using an aerial view of the sea. I was able to communicate what was happening in the image better than if I had gone for a more abstract approach. I felt the style of the letters as well as the tone of the book was quite direct, so needed something a little less open to interpretation.

Had I been able to create the 3D letters by hand, I think I would have gotten some really interesting effects. That way I would have had more control over the lighting and realistic nature of the submerging in water. However, I’m still really please with how it turned out. I think the cover is able to convey many of the sentiments mentioned in the book around rising sea levels, coastal cities at risk and the idea of this being our problem, not someone else’s. I think the cartoony style of the letters may be slightly less serious than I was looking for initially, and perhaps working in more realistic textures may have helped that.

Overall I’m really happy with the final design and happy to have learned some new techniques on isometric design on the way!

#PRHcompetition #PBC_HNCGD1 #Bookbrief #bookcoverdesign

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thegrandimago · 4 years

Text

Texas is really going through it right now. More than four million people are still without power in Texas Tuesday morning after a serious winter storm jacked up energy prices across the U.S. and froze key infrastructure in the state. Like clockwork, reports of frozen wind turbines in Texas have given conservatives a new scapegoat in their unending battle to smear renewable energy. But the real story is much more complicated than that.

This weather is unprecedented for large parts of the Lone Star State. Every county in Texas faced winter storm warnings this weekend, and parts of the state were plunged into the coldest weather they’ve seen in decades. Major cities like Houston and Austin broke cold weather records as well. All this cold weather meant that folks were turning up their heat to keep warm just as all kinds of infrastructure from power plants to pipelines were freezing up or being taken offline due to the cold.

“About half of Texas homes heat their homes with natural gas, about half do it with electricity, and about half our power plants also consume natural gas to make that electricity,” Joshua Rhodes, a research associate at The University of Texas, said. “We just have this unprecedented strain on both our major energy grids that is just way beyond what they were designed to handle.”

Part of the state’s power outages come down to the fact that its infrastructure was designed to withstand extreme heat, not cold. Rhodes explained that while the grid is prepared for power surges during the summer, when people crank up their AC units, winters in Texas are so usually so mild that power plants take time off for routine maintenance. Power plants in Texas, he said, are also not winterized for this kind of weather like plants up north.

“Reasonable people would not have planned for this type of event,” Rhodes said. “This [cold] doesn’t happen here.”

But the idea of “frozen wind turbines” is a catchy one, and predictably, fossil fuel fans have latched on to these blackouts as proof positive that we Simply Can’t Trust Wind.

“You know how you unfreeze frozen windmills?” tweeted noted shitposter Rep. Lauren Boebert on Tuesday. “By sending up a helicopter that shoots out chemicals onto the blades. You need fuel for the helicopter. Keep that in mind when thinking how ‘green’ windmills are.”

Nevermind that this isn’t actually how modern turbines, which have built-in de-icing systems, work. It wasn’t just QAnon-elected politicians rushing to blame windmills.

“Herein is the paradox of the left’s climate agenda: The less we use fossil fuels, the more we need them,” a Wall Street Journal editorial from Monday crowed, going on to say that the grid is less reliable because of wind and solar. “The Biden Administration’s plan to banish fossil fuels is a greater existential threat to Americans than climate change.” (Lol, ok cool.)

Conveniently, both these viewpoints ignore the fact that wind turbines aren’t exactly alone in failing in the cold. In fact, they may actually be less to blame for Texas’s troubles than other energy sources. Some of the country’s biggest oil refineries, owned by big names like Saudi Aramco and Exxon, shut down operations in Texas Monday. Last week, several natural gas facilities and pipelines in the state also shut down as temperatures dipped and wellheads froze up.

“We don’t have the supply of gas that we normally do, and we’re consuming gas in record numbers, which is also depressurizing the gas lines,” Rhodes explained. “Natural gas power plants also require a certain pressure to operate, so if they can’t get that pressure, they also have to shut down. Everything that could go wrong is going wrong with the system.”

It’s true that Texas has the most installed wind capacity of any state in the country–wind can supply up to 60% of power in the state. But the grid is designed to allow for natural ebbs and flows in power sources, synchronizing when people need more or less power with when wind energy may be lower, like in the winter. ERCOT only plans for around 25% of electricity to be from wind in the winter; natural gas, on the other hand, makes up around half of the state’s electricity generation.

“It’s not like we were relying on wind, but we were relying on natural gas, and it failed terribly in that respect,” Rhodes said. “Yes, we have wind turbines that are iced up, yes, we have wind turbines that are not performing. We don’t typically rely on wind during [the winter], so we built the grid to rely on those other resources, and they didn’t show up, either. We didn’t plan for this.”

While it may take some time to do a full postmortem on what exactly happened to make conditions so dire this week, this isn’t the first time the Texas grid has frozen up both literally and metaphorically. In 2014, regulators found that wind energy was actually more reliable than both coal and natural gas during an early January cold snap. And in 2011—when Texas’s wind power capacity was one-third what it is now—state regulators ordered ERCOT to make winterizing updates. Since winterization is not mandatory, though, it’s not clear what the utility actually did to upgrade the grid.

“It’s too simplistic to say that one technology would have saved us,” Rhodes said.

But try telling that to fossil fuel lovers. Last summer, several conservative Texas politicians, including Sen. Ted Cruz, blamed blackouts in California on renewable energy and liberal policies despite the fact that there was little evidence that renewables had anything to do with the problem. And if history is any indicator, it looks like those people will ignore reality and point as many fingers as they can at renewables.

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simphibians · 4 years

Photo

this is my submission for @dagdagsims beguiling the heirs bachelor challenge (?) this is admittedly WAY more than i’ve done for any sim i’ve made.. ever LMAO but once i got started i couldn’t stop so .... enjoy my sim babies, under the cut is a massive ��interview” i made so @dagdagsims could get a better feel how they present themselves

Camping or Binge Watching Shows at Home?

Ashlyn: watching shows at home all the way,,, well it would depend on where and how we were camping, would it be camping or glamping? and the weather? If it was nice.. maybe, but if it was humid? gag no huge pass then

Fin: watching shows, I do not have time for all those bugs, ugh I’m getting the heebie-jeebies just thinking about it

Coffee Cup or Thermos?

Ash: Thermos I’m on the go far too much for that.

Fin: coffee cup, for me thermos just leave this... metallic taste? if I need to take my coffee I use a reusable cup rather than a thermos, because I’m not too worried about temp control, I only drink it iced

. Soup or Sandwich?

Ash: weather dependant

Fin: Yeah, very weather dependant, I will not eat a deli sandwich when it’s snowing out, now am I?

While walking: Music or Podcasts?

Ash: music all the way, I would get too distracted in podcasts.

Fin: podcasts, I think I would end up dancing rather than walking if I had music

At a movie: Candy or Popcorn?

Ash: Popcorn,,, oooo the possibilities are endless. Plus, who said you couldn’t add candy TO the popcorn ;)

Fin: ... Ash.. you.. astonish me sometimes.. also neither, I don’t care all that much for snacky foods, I’m a health junkie in its sorts

Tablet or Computer?

Ash: neither. my phone

Fin: depends on my workload, if I have loads to do I feel more productive on my computer as I’m almost,, locked? to a certain area, because my tablet I can go anywhere, so I find myself distracted

Toilet paper: over or under?

Both at the same time: under.

Working Alone or Working in a Team?

Ash: team for sure, it’s no fun doing things alone

Fin: I don’t connect to people in the same way Ashlyn does, but it would be impossible to run my nonprofit alone.

Okay! Just a last few more serious questions and we’ll send you on your way, how’s that sound?

Ash: Let’s do it

Fin: ha.. ha sure!

What drew you to meeting Atticus and Imogen?

Ash: oh! easy! my PR manager brought up the show to me and I was making fun of it but Fin here dared me to join! but now the more I read about Imogen the more I get this little pang of excitement, I love meeting new people and I make my living off of traveling and doing just that, so I’m just excited to travel, meet a beautiful woman, and whatever comes out of it, comes out of it. y’know?

Fin, crazy blushing mess: I.. well.. *clears throat* Ash showed me the flyer for the production and me being me thought nothing of it besides daring her to join, I forgot who I was talking to and my brain clicked as hers lit and I realized at that point she was going to give me puppy dog eyes until I followed with her. So here I am, not as cute as her story, I’m... a little nervous? I feel like this thing is out of my comfort zone, but first and foremost I would do almost anything for ash, and... I will not lie... Atticus... mmm.. let’s just leave it there if ya get me

What’s something you want to learn or wish you were better at?

Ash:.. hm... I wish I was better at slowing down and taking things in the moment, I’m always on the go, and while that brings me nice opportunities and I’m not ungrateful for the experiences I get to take part in but I find myself in situations where I’m not living in the moment or for myself but for others and sometimes I wish I could just... I don’t know disappear into the selvadorian jungles for a moment, go off-grid and recoup, okay now that I’m thinking maybe not the jungle, bugs, humidity, hmm nope. maybe I’m destined to be a cottage core lesbian? eh? *laughs*

Fin: I feel like wanting to learn or be better at things is just a normal human experience, like... what’s life if you’re not addressing things and adapting to the surrounding changes? so I just wish I had a more natural ability to adapt as changes are anxiety-inducing but I realize things change for a reason.. so perhaps I wish I was better at accepting change, and god an instrument I want to learn an instrument, we have a piano at our house that ash drug in from god knows where but I’m TERRIFIED to touch it!!! I’m inept to musical abilities, trust me, you don’t want to be around when I’m singing in the shower might lose the ability to process a decibel or two after that!

Alright, guys! Just one last question, what are some personality quirks you’d like the producer and show team know about yourself that hasn’t been touched on?

Ash: uh... To be honest, I can adapt to everything? I like an enjoyable challenge; I’m not shy, I’m an open person, but besides that, I feel confident in how I’ve expressed myself.

Fin: nope! I think we’re wonderful; we got it all, gay dads, trans, queer, deaf, oh vegetarian I am very vegetarian, meat .... animal meat, grosses me out I can’t, I used to as a kid but god I don’t miss it, yuck the blood, I despise it! But other than that, I too feel hopeful in my character representation, so... that’s it?

That’s it, guys! Thank you so much for your participation, I’m excited for you guys to meet the twins, it’ll be exciting to see how this blossoms, or fails? Who knows?!

#idk what to tag this #ts4 #dagdagsims #submission #??#dk bro

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brotheralyosha · 3 years

Text

Rick Hasen isn't getting much sleep these days.

One of the nation’s foremost experts on the laws that hold together democracy in America, Hasen used to be concerned about highly speculative election “nightmare scenarios”: the electrical grid being hacked on Election Day, or the pandemic warping turnout, or absentee ballots totally overwhelming the postal service. But now, what keeps him up at night aren about the concerted effort of Trump to try to alter the election outcome: Over 30 contacts with governors, state legislative officials, those who canvass the votes; pressuring governors, pressuring secretaries of state; having his lawyer pass out talking points to have Mike Pence declare Trump the winner even though he lost the election. I mean, this is not what we expect in a democracy.

For the first time in American history, the losing candidate refused to concede the election — and rather than dismissing him as a sore loser, a startling number of Americans have followed Donald Trump down his conspiratorial rabbit hole. The safeguards that ensured he left office last January after losing the presidential election may be crumbling: The election officials who certified the counts may no longer be in place next time he falsely claims victory; if Republicans take Congress, a compliant Speaker could easily decide it’s simply not in his interest to let the party’s leader lose.

To understand this fragile moment for American democracy, you could take a 30,000-foot view of a nation at the doorstep of a constitutional crisis, as Robert Kagan recently did for the Washington Post. Or you could simply look around you at what’s happening at the ground level, in broad daylight, visible to the naked eye, as Hasen has been doing. As he sees it, it’s time for us all to wake up.

“I feel like a climate scientist warning about the Earth going up another degree and a half,” Hasen told POLITICO Magazine in an interview this week. “The rhetoric is so overheated that I think it provides the basis for millions of people to accept an actual stolen election as payback for the falsely claimed earlier ‘stolen’ election. People are going to be more willing to cheat if they think they’ve been cheated out of their just desserts.”

Hasen has ideas about how to preempt some of this — they range from the legal to the political, and are the subject of a major conference that took place Friday at the Fair Elections and Free Speech Center, which he co-directs at UC Irvine. But even as he and other elections experts warn of a three-alarm fire, he’s troubled that Democrats in Washington seem to lack the same sense of urgency and focus.

“I think this should be the number-one priority, and I thought that Democrats wasted months on the For the People Act,” he says. “The Democrats’ answer … is ‘Well, the Democrats just have to win elections.’ There needs to be a plan B to that.”

If the same state and local election officials are in place in 2024 as in 2020 — many of them Republican — Hasen is confident they would be able to stand up to Trump’s pressure to disregard the vote count and declare him the winner. But Hasen isn’t confident they will be in place. Many election officials are fleeing and, he says, are “being replaced by people who do not have allegiance to the integrity of the process.” (We got a taste of that this week, when Texas announced an “audit” of the 2020 election results in four counties some eight-and-a-half hours after Trump publicly called for one despite no serious evidence of problems.)

Or consider how things might’ve played out in January if Congress’s makeup had been different. “What would have happened if the election was exactly the same, except Kevin McCarthy was Speaker of the House?” Hasen asks. “I don’t know that we’d have a President Biden right now.”

What realistically can be done to secure American democracy at this fragile moment? POLITICO Magazine spoke with Hasen this week to sort through it all. A transcript of that conversation follows, condensed and edited for length and readability.

When we spoke 17 months ago, you outlined a “nightmare scenario” for the 2020 election: That the pandemic would disenfranchise huge numbers of Americans, voting processes would be overwhelmed by absentee ballots, Trump would declare victory based on early returns and then once the absentees were counted and Biden was the victor, he’d claim fraud. I get the sense that the nightmare now is much worse. How did 2020 alter the way that you think through all of this?

In Sept. 2020, I wrote a piece for Slate titled, “I’ve never been more scared about American democracy than I am right now.” A month ago, I was on CNN and said I was “scared shitless” — the anchor badgered me into saying those words on cable TV. But I’m even more frightened now than in those past months because of the revelations that continue to come to light about the concerted effort of Trump to try to alter the election outcome: Over 30 contacts with governors, state legislative officials, those who canvass the votes; pressuring governors, pressuring secretaries of state; having his lawyer pass out talking points to have Mike Pence declare Trump the winner even though he lost the election. I mean, this is not what we expect in a democracy.

In 2020, there was a massive shift to absentee balloting; Donald Trump did denigrate absentee balloting despite using it himself and despite having his own ballot harvested for the primary; he lost the election but claimed he actually won; he made hundreds of false statements calling the election results into question; he’s convinced millions of people that the election has been stolen from him, and he is continuing to not only push the lie that the election was stolen, but also to cause changes in both elected officials and election officials that will make it easier for him to potentially manipulate an election outcome unfairly next time. This is the danger of election subversion.

The reason I’m so scared is because you could look at 2020 as the nadir of American democratic processes, or you could look at it as a dress rehearsal. And I’m afraid that with all of these people being put in place… when you’ve got Josh Mandel in the Senate [from Ohio] and not Rob Portman, I’m really worried.

Let’s dig into that. Traditionally, we talk about voter suppression. But what you’re describing is this whole other thing — not suppression, but subversion. Can you walk through that difference?

So, Georgia recently passed a new voting law. One of the things that law does is it makes it a crime to give water to people waiting in a long line to vote — unless you’re an election official, in which case you can direct people to water. That’s voter suppression — that will deter some people who are stuck in a long line from voting. Election subversion is not about making it harder for people to vote, but about manipulating the outcome of the election so that the loser is declared the winner or put in power.

It’s the kind of thing that I never expected we would worry about in the United States. I never thought that in this country, at this point in our democracy, we would worry about the fairness of the actual vote counting. But we have to worry about that now.

Given that shift from suppression to subversion, do you think the purpose of claims of voter fraud changed during the Trump era?

Sure. In two books of mine, I argue that the main purpose of voter fraud arguments among Republicans was twofold: one was to fundraise and get the Republican base excited about Democrats stealing elections; the other was to delegitimize Democratic victories as somehow illegitimate.

In 2020, things shifted. The rhetoric is so overheated that I think it provides the basis for millions of people to accept an actual stolen election as payback for the falsely claimed earlier “stolen” election. People are going to be more willing to cheat if they think they’ve been cheated out of their just desserts. And if [you believe] Trump really won, then you might take whatever steps are necessary to assure that he is not cheated the next time — even if that means cheating yourself. That’s really the new danger that this wave of voter fraud claims presents.

#yup!!!!!#it seems very very possible that at least a few states will straight up change the election results in 2024 #like it's not a secret! the state republican parties are actively setting up the infrastructure to do this #kind of unreal that the democratic party isn't doing anything about it tbh!!!#us politics #politico #long post

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rjzimmerman · 4 years

Link

Excerpt from this story from Rolling Stone:

Is there any hope now? Can Joe Biden’s Democrats do with 50 Senate votes — one of which belongs to West Virginia’s Joe Manchin, who once ran an ad of himself shooting a bullet through the cap-and-trade bill — what they couldn’t when they had far larger majorities under Obama?

If they again put their hopes in Republican hands, the answer is almost certainly no. “The reality is that the Obama administration desperately wanted bipartisan support for everything that they did. Unfortunately, that’s like waiting for Godot. It never shows up,” Markey says. “Today, people reflect upon what happened, and they realize that the Republicans will drag out each negotiating process for as long as they can, and then ultimately not be there with sufficient numbers in the end.”

The risk of going it alone with such a narrow majority, however, is that Democrats will eschew sweeping changes and instead aim for incremental reforms that have a better chance of succeeding. That may be easier politically, but it’s a compromise the planet cannot afford, says Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, a leader in the Democratic Party’s climate push. “Nature has told us what the test is,” he says, “and if we make all the politicians and all the groups happy but don’t pass that test, then we flunk.”

Hoping to succeed this time, Democrats are revisiting their last effort and changing, well, almost everything. For starters, they’ve recognized they need to talk more about what their climate plans can do for people, rather than how they work. “I think we sort of talked ourselves into thinking, ‘Boy, we can point to this great policy mechanism,’ rather than leading with all the great things that are going to happen if we address climate change in this country,” says Keohane, the Environmental Defense Fund economist. “It was sort of like we were leading with our chin.”

This time around, lawmakers are leaving behind the Obama-era obsession with free markets and adopting climate plans that better align with a more diverse and progressive movement that sees protecting the climate as part of a broader effort toward environmental, economic, and racial justice. Markey, a 74-year-old senator who first came to Congress almost 50 years ago, has adopted the language of a new generation of activists to talk about the current climate movement, saying it’s bolstered by “intersectional activism from Black Lives Matter, the Sunrise Movement, Indivisible, indigenous and native organizations, and peace groups, who are going to be pushing leaders to be as ambitious as possible.”

Democrats are also not pinning all their hopes to a single, do-or-die stand-alone climate bill this time, but rather looking to infuse climate provisions across their legislative agenda. “Anybody who is serious will get their stuff ready and just look for opportunity,” says one congressional staffer. In December, Democrats managed to pass $35 billion in funding for renewable energy, including a plan for the EPA to phase out hydrofluorocarbons, a potent greenhouse gas. It was one of the most significant legislative windfalls for green energy in the nation’s history, and it wasn’t even the headliner of the legislation, which was principally about Covid relief. Keeping climate out of the headlines can help bills pass with a bipartisan vote, says the staffer. His dream scenario for a climate bill is that “it goes through just getting a story on page A-6 of The Washington Post on the day it’s enacted — and never before and never after.”

One of the first big opportunities for Democrats during this Congress is the infrastructure bill they plan to push later this spring. The details are still being worked out, but what’s taking shape is effectively a domestic Marshall Plan — both for workers and the climate. In the package, Democrats hope to beef up the nation’s aging power grid; mandate utilities to rapidly transition from fossil fuels to carbon-neutral sources of electricity; expand public transit and high-speed rail; fund the infrastructure needed for an all-electric vehicle fleet; and make a massive investment in green energy and green jobs.

Democrats would welcome GOP support for their agenda, but they’ve made clear that they’re going forward one way or another. In practice, that means passing legislation through reconciliation, a provision in the Senate’s byzantine procedural code that allows some measures to pass with a simple majority — rather than the typical 60 votes needed to beat a filibuster. But even with reconciliation, Democrats would still need their full caucus on board, including Manchin.

#climate change #climate change legislation #Democrats #President Biden

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tester2080 · 3 years

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Nuclear power is necessary to stop climate change. Here's why.

15/09/21

I'll be covering a few different concerns and topics related to nuclear energy, such as:

1. Safety

2. Efficiency

3. Waste

4. Feasibility

Safety: When people think about nuclear energy, they usually instantly think of accidents such as Chernobyl and Fukushima and the risks associated with a nuclear meltdown. This causes people to write of nuclear power as dangerous and not worth it. However, this couldn't be further from the truth. In reality, nuclear meltdowns, especially ones that end up doing any harm, are incredibly rare.

Apart from Chernobyl, no nuclear workers or members of the public have ever died as a result of exposure to radiation due to a commercial nuclear reactor incident. Most of the serious radiological injuries and deaths that occur each year (2-4 deaths and many more exposures above regulatory limits) are the result of large uncontrolled radiation sources, such as abandoned medical or industrial equipment. (There have also been a number of accidents in experimental reactors and in one military plutonium-producing pile - at Windscale, UK, in 1957 - but none of these resulted in loss of life outside the actual plant, or long-term environmental contamination.

There have been two major reactor accidents in the history of civil nuclear power - Chernobyl and Fukushima Daiichi. Chernobyl involved an intense fire without provision for containment, and Fukushima Daiichi severely tested the containment, allowing some release of radioactivity. These are the only major accidents to have occurred in over 18,500 cumulative reactor-years of commercial nuclear power operation in 36 countries. [1] 2 major accidents in 18,500 reactor-years is incredibly low. Imagine if there was a single reactor built. If that had the same probability of meltdown as the average of all nuclear reactors so far, it would take 9,250 years for an accident to occur. The pyramids were built 4,691 years ago. If the Egyptians had built a modern nuclear reactor, it would likely still not have experienced a meltdown, and wouldn't for another 4,559 years. The FAA estimates there to be 25,506,000 flight hours per year [20]. In 2019 there were 86 plane crashes [21]. This works out to be around 3.37176 crashes per million flight hours. Comparatively, in total there have been 162,060,000 reactor hours and 2 main accidents. This works out to be 0.01234 accidents per million reactor hours or 273.24 times less likely for an accident to occur from a nuclear reactor than a plane per operating hour. Nuclear plants are similar to plane crashes in the way that they are incredibly rare, and therefore every accident sees major coverage. Just as you hear about every plane crash but not every car crash and therefore planes seem less safe than they are, you hear about every nuclear reactor accident but not every person who dies from fossil-fuel related pollution, or other deaths involved in the production of non-renewable energy, therefore making nuclear power seem less safe. Furthermore, the probability of a nuclear meltdown occurring is much higher when you include accidents, such as Chernobyl, which occurred in the 1980s, when safety was not as prioritised and therefore skews the current probability of a nuclear accident. It would be like including accidents from back in the 40s when assessing the probability of a plane crash nowadays. However, due to the low number of nuclear power plants and exceptionally low number of accidents, a more accurate figure is difficult to calculate. However, the risk of any nuclear accident occurring today is incredibly low.

Additionally, accidents are far from the only way producing power kills people. Air pollution, which largely comes from fossil fuels, kills over 5 million people a year, contributing to 9% of global deaths, and making it 4th highest contributor to deaths a year [2]. When you compare 5 million a year to the approximate 5,000 deaths overall from nuclear energy, the deaths from nuclear power seem incredibly low. Whilst obviously we must strive to reach 0 deaths, this is impossible with current technology. Air pollution resulting directly from fossil fuels is estimated to cause 4.5 million premature deaths a year [3]. The total electricity generation from fossil fuels is approximately 136,761TWh per year [4]. Given that (including accidents) nuclear power causes 0.07 deaths per TWh [1], if you replaced all fossil fuel electricity generation with nuclear power, approximately 9,573 people would die a year from all nuclear power related causes (mining, accidents, etc). This means that approximately 4.5 million people a year would not die that would have died had fossil fuels been used. That means that despite nuclear power being heavily opposed by the general public [5], the use of nuclear power would actively save millions of lives a year.

That brings us on to our next point. You may have looked at the safety graph and are thinking "well solar only kills 0.02 people/TWh and wind is only 0.04/TWh, compared to 0.07/TWh [1] - so why would we use nuclear? Why not just use solar and wind, after all, they kill less people." However, scaling up to a planetary (or even country-wide) level is really where ordinary renewables start to fail.

Solar and wind power alone can't scale up fast enough to generate the vast amounts of electricity that will be needed by midcentury, especially as we convert car engines and the like from fossil fuels to carbon-free energy sources. Even Germany's concerted recent effort to add renewables-the most ambitious national effort so far-was nowhere near fast enough. A global increase in renewables at a rate matching Germany's peak success would add about 0.7 trillion kilowatt-hours of clean electricity every year. That's just over a fifth of the necessary 3.3 trillion annual target.

To put it another way, even if the world were as enthusiastic and technically capable as Germany at the height of its renewables buildup-and neither of these is even close to true in the great majority of countries-decarbonizing the world at that rate would take nearly 150 years. [6] The storage of all the renewable power would also be an issue Bill Gates, who has invested $1 billion in renewables, notes that "there's no battery technology that's even close to allowing us to take all of our energy from renewables." [6] Our analysis demonstrates that realising nuclear energy's potential is essential to achieving a deeply decarbonised energy future in many regions of the world [7] While we are installing renewables at record speeds, at the same time the amount of fossil fuels we're burning for electricity still keeps rising year by year. Renewables have, so far, not been able to catch up with the demand for new electricity and so despite our progress, emissions from electricity are still rising world wide. [8] It becomes rather clear when you look at Germany, which has been actively removing nuclear power plants. Despite building huge amounts of renewable plants, they still get 49.5% of their energy from non-renewable sources [9]. Compare that to countries like "France and Sweden: In France, only around 10% comes from fossil fuels, while 67% comes from nuclear and 23% from renewables, primarily hydro [10]. In Sweden almost 30% comes from nuclear power, and almost 45% from hydro [11]. So we know that nuclear energy can work at scale."[12]. These countries clearly show how nuclear can be used alongside renewables to get the maximum benefit of both. Renewables on their own are not enough to power the entire grid, as they have periods where they must go offline. For example, wind and solar can only produce maximum power for 35.4% and 24.9% of the year respectively [13]. This means that the other 65+% of the time, energy must be taken out of batteries if we were to just use wind and solar. This is not feasible. However, compare those percentages to the incredibly high 92.5% of the year where nuclear power plants can produce maximum power [13]. Therefore, by having both nuclear and other renewables, nuclear can easily supplement the power generation when other renewables cannot. The only other power source close to nuclear's capacity factor is geothermal (74.3% [13]) however, that is not a feasible method of energy generation in most countries. Furthermore, nuclear plants are incredibly efficient. It is estimated that 1 pound of uranium can provide as much energy as 5,000 barrels of oil [24]. Regardless of how safe you believe nuclear power plants to be, if you want to stop climate change by powering the grid cleanly, they must be used.

When people think of nuclear reactors and the downsides, nuclear waste is a very common thing to be cited. However, 97% of the waste is low or intermediate level waste (90% and 7% respectively) and storage of it is not much of an issue [14]. The idea that we don't have any idea of what to do with the remaining 3% is untrue, "Safe methods for the final disposal of high-level radioactive waste are technically proven; the international consensus is that geological disposal is the best option."[15] "The concept of final storage in deep geological formations has become established as a means of safe radwaste management in order to ensure lasting protection against radioactive waste for people and for the environment. This method allows the radioactive waste to be kept away from human living environments in the long term - i.e. for many millennia." [16] "There is a common solution to the challenges of ensuring long term safety for spent fuel and of preventing weapon grade materials being illegally diverted and misused. Deep geologic repositories are the answer. The paper describes the specific engineering, geological, hydrogeological and geotechnical challenges involved at each phase in the development of a geologic repository." [17] In the incredibly rare scenario where there has been a leak, it has not caused any significant harm. In 2014 a leak was detected in a repository in New Mexico. 13 workers tested positive for radiation and even though every radiation level above zero is worth investigating, the radiation exposure was ten times less radiation than that delivered during a typical chest X-ray. [17] It is clear that safe storage of nuclear waste is not much of a problem, with the only issue being with potentially the amount of space it takes up, however, currently the amount of high level waste is "12,000 tonnes worldwide every year, which is the equivalent of a two-storey structure built on a basketball court or about 100 double-decker buses and is modest compared with other industrial wastes."[14]. A lot of this HLW can be reprocessed "As of 2013 approximately 370,000 tons have been generated worldwide since the first reactor was connected to the grid, of which roughly one third (124,000 tons) has been reprocessed" [18]. For example, "In France, where fuel is reprocessed, just 0.2% of all radioactive waste by volume is classified as high-level waste (HLW)" [15]. Additionally nuclear recycling [22] exists and could possibly be used to further reduce nuclear waste. However, costs for such reactors are high, and engineers in that area are rare. Additionally, there are fears about the plutonium created being used for weapons (although such a thing being successfully carried out is very unlikely) [23].

Despite the many recent breakthroughs in nuclear fusion [25][26] nuclear fusion is still likely at least 5 years away from reaching net energy output, and like 20 years away from feasibly being able to use it to power the entire grid. Whilst I wholeheartedly support the advent of nuclear fusion technology and development, and believe once it powers the entire grid we should start retiring nuclear fission plants. However, we cannot just hope that nuclear fusion or some other magic technology will swoop in and save us from climate change at the last second. We have already gone past the point of no return - at this stage we are simply attempting damage mitigation really

Many changes due to past and future greenhouse gas emissions are irreversible for centuries to millennia, especially changes in the ocean, ice sheets and global sea level. [27] Nuclear fission reactors are here now. They work. They can feasibly stop the effects of climate change. However, we must act now. We must stop decommissioning nuclear plants early, and try to rapidly build new ones. It is a race against time. As I have mentioned previously, renewables alone will not be enough. And I'm not going to argue that we should go entirely nuclear either. What we need is a mix of both. I have shown that nuclear power is safe, effective, and necessary. If we want to stop climate change, we cannot shy away from using one of the most powerful tools we have. Thank you for reading.

If you found this article changed your mind, or even perhaps just put you on the fence about nuclear energy, please share it or even just a summary of the points here, or in any of the sources listed, on any sort of platform you may have a following on. We must change the public perception of nuclear power for the better. We must save lives by reducing air pollution. We must save the planet. It is an immense challenge and we need as much public support of viable climate change prevention methods as possible.

If you have any questions or issues regarding this article, feel free to contact me at [email protected] and I will try to get back to you as soon as possible.

[1] https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/safety-and-security/safety-of-plants/safety-of-nuclear-power-reactors.aspx [2] https://ourworldindata.org/air-pollution#air-pollution-is-one-of-the-world-s-leading-risk-factors-for-death [3] https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/The-Price-of-Fossil-Fuels-full-report.pdf [4] https://ourworldindata.org/fossil-fuels [5] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/public-opposition-to-nuclear-energy-production [6] https://www.wsj.com/articles/only-nuclear-energy-can-save-the-planet-11547225861?ns=prod/accounts-wsj [7] https://energy.mit.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/The-Future-of-Nuclear-Energy-in-a-Carbon-Constrained-World.pdf [8] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhAemz1v7dQ - https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/elec-fossil-nuclear-renewables?stackMode=absolute&country=~OWID_WRL [9] https://strom-report.de/germany-power-generation-2020/ [10] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/elec-fossil-nuclear-renewables?tab=chart&country=~FRA&region=World [11] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/electricity-prod-source-stacked?tab=chart&stackMode=relative&time=earliest..latest&country=~SWE&region=World [12] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhAemz1v7dQ [13] https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/nuclear-power-most-reliable-energy-source-and-its-not-even-close [14] https://web.archive.org/web/20160313120210/http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-cycle/nuclear-wastes/radioactive-wastes-myths-and-realities.aspx [15] https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-cycle/nuclear-wastes/radioactive-waste-management.aspx [16] https://www.ensi.ch/en/waste-disposal/deep-geological-repository/ [17] https://onepetro.org/ISRMIS/proceedings-abstract/IS00/All-IS00/ISRM-IS-2000-015/50923 [18] https://www.nature.com/articles/nature.2014.14778 [19] https://www.boell.de/sites/default/files/2019-11/World_Nuclear_Waste_Report_2019_Focus_Europe_0.pdf [20] https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/by_the_numbers/ [21] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/02/plane-crash-deaths-rose-in-2020-despite-pandemic [22] https://whatisnuclear.com/recycling.html [23] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breeder_reactor#Discussion [24] https://web.archive.org/web/20140418044236/http://pandoraspromise.com/ [25] https://phys.org/news/2021-09-superconducting-magnet-magnetic-field-strength.html [26] https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/a37359406/nuclear-fusion-ignition-breakthrough/ [27] https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/

#nuclear #nuclear fission #fusion #nuclear fusion #fission #electricity #carbon #electric #zero emissions #greenhouse gas emissions #climate change #global warming #power #politics #ecofriendly #save the planet

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