#and who will be the people holding the knives

[wandering-pirate]

Mouthwashing Characters Headcanons

The Crew's Love Language ft. You

Captain Curly

Words of Affirmation

The captain is well-known for having his vocabulary overflowing with encouraging and uplifting words, a stellar reputation for giving good pep talks

Deep inside, he always loved hearing words of praise from the people he cared about the most. He always valued the affirmations from them, a foolproof method to make him smile and feel loved

For him, words are like fire, and people can either use them to warm someone up or burn a whole damn city

He never raises his voice at you when it comes to negative emotions, never when he's angry, frustrated, or panicked

He, however, is so enthusiastic when congratulating you or when he's excited about the topic you're both talking about

Your heart (and belly) can't help but feel very warm with the way he uses his words with his deep tone. If a kid asked you how a space superhero would sound, you'd bring Curly forward

With his effort to stay optimistic, you always make sure to tell him an encouraging word or sweet strands of praise whenever you see him and after he does something

"Captain, remember to stay hydrated, you're doing great, sir."

"You always know how to put the crew at ease, Cap. Appreciate it"

"You're so reliable, gosh, thank you!"

Every praise and affirmation you throw his way makes him blush and stutter, a polar opposite to his status

You make it a duty to compliment him sincerely. The hunk of a man ends up having a red face every time he receives your sweet words to the point that the crew teases him for it

"Cap, what's red and stutters?"

"I swear, Jimm--"

"Oh, oh! I know!"

"Come on, Daisuke, not you to--"

"You, after talkin' to Y/N."

The captain, co-pilot, and intern stared at Swansea’s retreating back after he butted into a conversation that the mechanic would find ridiculous even being a part of

You also made sure to never—I MEAN NEVER—use words against him, especially with secrets or information that he exclusively told you about (probably the reason why you and Jimmy ended the Captain's birthday party with knives at each other's throats)

Mechanic Swansea

Acts of Service

The old man was raised in a household where serving your family is the ultimate display of love

His father scoffed after reaching the last part of young Swansea's greeting in the Christmas card he gave him:

"I love you? Boy, you can't even make a decent cut on that firewood from a while ago"

"I love you's" are just empty words for him. When you really want to reach into his head and hammer some sense of what you feel about him, you gotta show it

However, unlike his father, he doesn't need a grand display of actions to know and notice. He actually prefers the little things you do:

Remembering his coffee preference and making it every morning

Giving him a massage in the area his hands seem to knead frequently

Putting his socks on before work

Giving him a pedicure (after leveraging that he'd eat you in bed for the whole night)

He also holds himself up to the same standard, always doing chores around the house whenever you're busy:

No stocks of pads and tampons? He'll make sure he gets the right brand you always get

Your favorite furniture that you inherited needs varnishin'? He's on it.

Your daughter's birthday is coming up, but you're too ill to make the cake? He ain't a baker, but he'd be damned if he won't at least try

"Daddd, is this... is this meat... on my birthday cake?"

"S'called 'cake of love' for a reason, darlin'. You don't question its ingredients. It's made of love"

What makes your heart flutter is not having to tell him all the things that need to be done. He knows what's lacking and what you need

When there are times you have to vocalize your concerns, he'll simply nod, and after a moment, it's done

Co-pilot Jimmy

Physical Touch

*Sighs* Need I say more?

Jimmy is the type who’s not comfortable with PDA, but he can't seem to keep his hands off of you when he feels threatened, (especially when Curly is having a casual conversation with you)

You can't blame the guy; he doesn't even understand how you fell for him somehow, but he's not complaining, and he most definitely will not let you go (possessive boi is a touchy boi)

His touches are not always sensual, and it actually surprises you how gentle he is when holding you

Whenever you're busy, he'd pass by to squeeze your waist or brush a touch on your lower back

When you're both around each other but are doing different tasks, he'd make sure to have a part of you touching him:

A hand on the thigh

A leg over your thighs

His head on your chest or shoulder or thighs (the boy's got magnets on your thighs, what can I say?)

And his personal favorite: having you sit between his legs with your back pressed against his chest.

One time, a frustrated Curly called you. It's been a week since Jimmy left for his job-training, and you weren't aware that someone was also getting through a torturous week like you and Jimmy

The captain was at the other end of his friend's damp mood

"I don't know what you do to him, Y/N. He's a completely different person when he's with you"

"Hmm, how bout massaging his hand, cap. It improves his mood, and it always works"

"..."

"Hello? Curly?"

"...Y/N, are you trying to get me killed? It works because you're the one doing it!"

Intern Daisuke

Quality Time and Giving Gifts

The boy loves spending time with you. He doesn't need to plan for what to do during those times you'd be together because he always finds ways to make you enjoy it so much that you have to keep a wristwatch to check how much time has passed

He's known to be a yapper but not the type of yapper that tires you

The man has a lot of questions for you to the point that you're concerned that he knows more information about yourself than you

Pointing out things he notices you do, like looking slightly at the right when you're lying or knowing how many moles are in your face and neck

It doesn't creep you out though, you picked up that he's very observant when he's interested and that flatters you that he take mental notes of these small things just by being around him

Whenever he knows that you won't be seeing him for a while, he makes sure that you know what he'll be doing and where he'll go

Basically the main reason when the crew - especially Swansea - would look for him, they'll go straight to you

"Hey kid, where's that boy again?"

"Toilet, Swansea. He said it's a raging diarr--"

"Yeah yeah, toilet's fine. geez."

Daisuke also buys you trinkets he finds that remind him of you—from crocheted baby mushrooms to obscure plastic eyeball keychains

"I understood the frog keychain last week, but... a turd plushie?"

"Cause I feel shitty when we're apart"

"Valid"

His gifts are very specific and you even cried one time in a store trying to outgift him, spoiler, you can't. He never makes you feel bad about it, he always claimed that he takes pride at being the Leslie Knope of the real world (iykyk)

Nurse Anya

Quality Time

She strongly believes that spending time with someone is the core of a relationship

She definitely isn’t the person to be clingy - nope, she's a queen with self-worth. If you don't want to spend time with her, don't expect her to chase you

The more you spend time with her, though, the more she opens up. For her, trust is something earned over time, and you made the effort to build that trust brick by brick

After falling for her harder, your trips to the medbay became more frequent with "accidental injuries"

"Hey, miss Anya."

"Hey y/n, kindly be careful. Don’t want you to have your 4th visit this week."

"Heh, what can I say? I hate breaking the streak. Gotta keep you on your toes."

"Y/N, it’s still Wednesday."

"Good time to give you your once-a-week training, right?"

Once she’s comfortable with you, her affection shows in the little things:

Putting your vitamins and supplements on accessible places because she knows you forget taking them

Giving you random psychology tests after finding our that you loved them

Or being comfortable enough to nap on your shoulders (you earned that trust on the hundred and tenth day)

You don't even have to talk while being together; as long as both of you are around each other, her shoulders relax, and her face is at peace

[wethotcrazy]

LET'S PLAY A FEW

pairing: Zhou Guanyu x Streamer! Reader

word count:

i have been cooking this up in my brain for so long now, like it has been weeks that i've been meaning to writea guanyu fanfic and now here it is yippie also i wrote this because guanyu is very dear to me and i am just gutted that he wont be racing next year

The stream was alive with the low hum of background music and the click-clack of Y/N’s keyboard. Her Tuesday night streams were a familiar routine for her viewers—three hours of CSGO, now smoothly transitioning into Valorant. She’d solo queued, half-focused on the game, half-focused on her chat. It was a relaxed vibe tonight, her soft voice filling the gaps as she responded to questions.

“Y/N, who’s your favorite agent?” one viewer asked.

“Hmm, depends on the day,” Y/N mused, squinting at the game. “But I’m leaning toward Jett lately. Fast, flashy… plus, I’m a sucker for knives.” Her words were accompanied by the sharp sound of her clicking through weapons.

Her team switched to defense. She’d been holding B site alone and wasn’t too concerned. “It’s always quiet until it’s not,” she muttered, eyes narrowing as she scanned the entry points.

And then it wasn’t quiet.

The enemy team pushed hard—four, no, five enemies storming the site. Y/N’s demeanor shifted instantly. She stopped talking mid-sentence, leaning forward, her entire focus honed in. Chat knew what was happening. They’d seen this mode before.

One.

Two.

Three clean headshots in rapid succession. Her chat erupted.

“SHE’S COOKING,” someone spammed.

“Demon time activated,” wrote another.

Four down, one left. Y/N’s crosshair tracked, and with one swift flick—the fifth player dropped.

“ACE!” Chat’s excitement exploded, emotes and all-caps filling the screen.

“Nice ace,” a voice said, calm and steady. Y/N’s body went rigid as a soft kiss landed on the crown of her head. Her breath caught in her chest.

Slowly, as if she couldn’t believe it, she turned her head to see Zhou Guanyu standing there, his face calm as ever, hands in his sweatpants pockets. His eyes met hers with an easy grin, one he’d worn countless times but somehow always made her heart stutter.

“Are you solo queuing right now? Want me to hop on?” he asked like it was the most normal thing in the world.

Y/N’s mouth opened, but it took her a moment to find the words. The situation wasn’t particularly funny, but a wave of giddy laughter poured out of her—that helpless, uncontrollable kind.

“I’m… I’m streaming right now, Bǎobǎo,” she said through breaths of laughter, wiping at her eyes.

Guanyu’s eyes flickered toward her monitor, realizing what had just happened. His gaze shifted to the camera. “Oh. Hi, chat,” he said with a casual wave like it was any other Tuesday night.

Pandemonium.

Chat’s messages scrolled too fast for Y/N to read. Everyone was freaking out. The calm, private nature of their relationship had only left the fans guessing. Speculation had been rampant, but this? This was confirmation.

“NO WAY THAT’S GUANYU.”

“WTF OKAY BOYFRIEND REVEAL.”

“Bǎobǎo?????????”

Y/N’s face was red as she tried to focus on the chat. “Alright, alright, calm down,” she said, fanning herself dramatically. She glanced up at Guanyu, still grinning like a fool. “You’re unbelievable.”

Guanyu’s only response was to tilt his head, his grin never wavering. “You’re the one who’s blushing,” he teased before walking off toward the kitchen.

Three years earlier, Guanyu had been just another viewer in Y/N’s chat—a regular with a verified checkmark that made him stand out. People recognized his name, but Y/N didn’t at first.

“Zhou Guanyu…” she read aloud, squinting at the name in her chat. “That’s… a Formula 1 driver, right? Chat, you’re messing with me.”

“No, it’s actually him!” chat exploded.

Sure enough, he’d donated with a message: “Big fan of your streams. If you’re ever down for games, I’m in.”

Y/N’s eyes went wide. “No way that’s real,” she muttered, half-laughing. But over the next few weeks, his presence became a regular occurrence. Guanyu’s name appeared in her chat, his playful comments lighting up the screen.

Then one day, he sent a Discord invite.

“Let’s play a few,” his message read.

He wasn’t what she expected. His sense of humor was sharp but subtle. He wasn’t loud, but he was confident. Their first few games were filled with banter and easy laughter. Somewhere along the way, it stopped being just "streamer and viewer" and became… more.

Soon, he’d hop into her streams without warning. His voice was instantly recognizable. Their interactions sparked thousands of clips on Twitch. Fans flooded her social media with theories. “Are they together?” became the constant question. They never confirmed or denied it, and after a while, the frenzy died down.

But when Guanyu’s race schedule allowed, he’d appear on her stream. Sometimes he’d just be a voice in the background, sometimes he’d play with her on-stream, and sometimes, like today, he’d forget she was streaming entirely.

Back in the present, Y/N’s chat was still in shambles. Guanyu’s sudden appearance had sent them into a spiral, and Y/N’s notifications were pinging nonstop. She’d read a few messages aloud, fighting the urge to laugh all over again.

“‘Tell him to come back’… No, he’s probably playing with Sweet Corn right now,” she joked, glancing over her shoulder.

“Does he call you Bǎobǎo?’” she read, the grin on her face growing wider. “Yeah, yeah, he does that sometimes. It’s…” She trailed off, her cheeks burning again. “Don’t worry about it.”

A few minutes later, Guanyu wandered back in with a bowl of fruit in hand, offering her a piece of mango. She took it with a raised brow. “You’re a menace, you know that?” she said, still half-laughing.

“Mmm,” Guanyu hummed in response, popping a piece of mango into his mouth. “You love it.”

“Yeah, yeah, I do,” she said softly, her voice quieter this time, almost just for him.

Chat caught every word.

[deezbignutz]

Redacted hc bc i got bored and like to project shit i/others do/have to characters :))))))))

Whenever Lasko sees anyone smoking/vaping or smells the smoke from it, there’s always a very clear frown on his face since he doesn’t like it when people smoke. Like a full on :C. He’d also always blow the smoke away or put the cigarette (if they were using a cigarette) out with his magic. (rip stoner Hux😔)

During their childhood, Elliott used to change his wardrobe whenever Aaron did to resemble his older brother’s. Aaron noticed this quite quickly and got really annoyed at first, but then he grew to find it very endearing and made sure to tell Elliott what he would wear when going out so he could prepare something similar to it.

Whenever Asher is driving or when he’s in a car and they pass a traffic light as it turns yellow, he hits the ceiling of the car. It’s a tradition he and his sister did when they ere younger and if you hit the ceiling of the car when passing a traffic light that’s turning yellow, you’d get an extra day added to your life, but if you do that when the light doesn’t turn yellow you get a day taken from your life. He then passed it on to the pack and they like to do it as a challenge for who can hit the ceiling first.

Huxley has a rock collection of rocks he either got while on vacation, on a walk, or just because he thought they looked cool. He used to just have it on the side of his desk, but now it has grown so much it has a dedicated corner somewhere in his house. He also has a rock with foundation on it. No, there’s no context. Just an oval rock with foundation on it.

Guy has a scar in the space between his thumb and index finger from a butter knife. He was washing the dishes one time and accidentally cut himself there with a butter knife he was holding. And now he was beef with butter knives and has put a little >:( on the handle of the knife that cut him.

Geordi has a little rubber duck on the front of the inside of his car. That’s it, he just has it. He doesn’t know where it came from, but it’s just there now. He calls it “Bartholomew Barbecue Barsalona Barbra Barbara Baraba the lll, barbaric barber bearing the botanic plague”

For the last day of the school year, Dear makes all sort of baked goods and gives them to their classes as a treat for making a whole year. They make sure to have specific treats for students that had dietary needs and saves some for the D.A.M.N. Crew.

Thank you for coming to my TedTalk :))))

[thatonecrazysidekick]

So, I wrote this a few nights ago, and this is basically how it came into being:

Brain: I see you've gone to bed early so you'll be well rested tomorrow, that's cute! Anyways, what if the Triforce was cold?

Me: ...what?

Brain: what if the Triforce was cold instead of warm? Glowing golden stuff is usually seen as warm, right? But what if is wasn't?

Me: that's cool, but I'm trying to sleep rn

Brain: well that's too bad, because I'm already thinking about it in great detail!! Better start typing away, because it's either that or try to ignore it, be unable to fall asleep until 1am anyway AND forget all but the vaguest details of it by morning! :D

And that is the story of how I went to bed at 10pm and still stayed awake until 12:30am typing out ALTTP Link (or pre-LU Legend) making his wish on the Triforce, with a sprinkle of a timeline split theory, in my phone notes. Please enjoy my creation.

----

Link’s lungs were burning, every breath feeling like it was dragging hot knives down the inside of his throat. His limbs trembled in exhaustion, and the Master Sword in his hands suddenly felt too heavy to hold. He let it slip from his grasp, watching it fall to the floor. It clanged loudly against the cracked stone, and the sound seemed to echo around the suddenly empty-feeling chamber.

Link had won. Ganon was gone.

Link had thought maybe he would feel a thrill of victory or something similar, like heroes always did in stories—not always, not the one who had fought the darkness before him and failed and died—but he just felt…tired. And maybe a little relieved, but mostly he was so, so tired. He wanted to curl up in a ball on the floor and never move again, but he remained standing.

His ragged gasps for breath were beginning to even out, the ache in his lungs fading. Link took a deep breath, holding it deliberately for a few seconds before letting it out, slowly. He glanced down at his hands. They were strangely steady, considering how the rest of him was shaking like a leaf in an autumn breeze.

A flash of light caught his eye—the Master Sword, still laying a few steps to his left. Its blade was glowing gold. No, that wasn’t right. It was only shining in one spot, more like a reflection of something else, but what…?

He lifted his head, and there it was: a bright, glowing golden triangle, hovering at about his head level in the center of the room.

The Triforce.

Link’s eyes widened, and he took a few hesitant steps towards it before stopping. He was sure that it hadn’t been there a moment before. He studied it carefully, looking for any sign of danger.

Nothing. Just a sparkling triangle of triangles.

“A wish for the bearer.”

A voice seemed to echo inside Link’s head, and he jumped. It didn’t seem to come from the glowing triangle before him, but from someone or something much older.

He glanced quickly around the room. He was alone, save for the vines creeping along the walls and the sword laying a few paces away, still where he had dropped it.

A wish for the bearer.

A wish? Could he wish for anything? The voice hadn’t said if there were limits, so he might as well try.

Link tried to think about what he wanted most, but his mind began to wander of its own accord. It strayed to the people whom Agahnim had harmed in his mad quest for power; the seven maidens, sacrificed for his twisted cause, the king, who had disappeared completely, the soldiers who had killed and been killed—who he’d killed— at the wizard’s beck and call.

It strayed to a too-large sword pressed into his shaking hands, and the dying breaths of the only father figure he had ever known.

It strayed to a weathered and moss-covered stone in a tangled and ancient wood, and a child who had fallen and taken the world with him.

A wish for the bearer.

Link looked up at the Triforce, gleaming with divine radiance in front of him.

It was not good. It was not evil. It was the purest form of power, and it was waiting for him to choose how to wield it.

He took a deep breath and reached out a hand.

He was half expecting his fingers to pass through it, like it really was made of light; brilliant but insubstantial. Instead, the golden surface was smooth and surprisingly cool, like a polished shield left under the shade of a tree in high summer. He curled his fingers around the edge of its lower right facet and closed his eyes. He knew what his wish was.

All those people who had been controlled and killed by Agahnim and Ganon, just for their blood or their status or for daring to resist; they hadn't deserved to have their lives cut short. They should be able to live.

Family. Maidens. Royalty. Soldiers. A lonely tale of a failed hero, recounted by all with pity and resentment.

The Triforce pulsed beneath his fingertips, its glow flaring bright enough that it seemed to cut right through his eyelids and burn into his retinas. The cool material grew colder, his fingers going numb as the triangle turned to ice against his skin.

He didn’t dare let go.

The light grew until it illuminated everything, embraced everything, became everything. It settled over Link like a second skin, one made of hoarfrost and crystal, and his breath turned to snow in his lungs.

He wasn’t sure he’d be able to let go now, even if he wanted to.

Link felt as though his blood was freezing in his veins, sending ice rushing towards his heart and spreading out through his limbs. His eyes were still screwed shut, he was sure they were, but the world around him was pure white and glittering with colors he had never seen before and certainly couldn’t describe. He was everywhere and nowhere and somewhere that didn’t exist but was definitely solid beneath the worn leather soles of his boots.

He tightened his grip with fingers that he couldn’t see or feel but knew were there, still wrapped tightly around the Triforce. It seemed to be the only truly real thing that was left anymore, beating a steady rhythm in his chest to replace the heart that it had petrified, golden power pouring through his veins instead of blood. It grounded him, froze him, blinded him. It unmade time and space themselves before reweaving them into a newer and more complex pattern of kaleidoscope textures and colors and shapes.

The Triforce hummed, a sound that he couldn’t hear but felt reverberating through his very soul, thawing him from the inside out until his heart was pumping blood and his lungs were filling with air and his skin was warm again.

Link opened his eyes.

The room was the same as when he had closed them, with creeping vines clinging to the pockmarked walls and shattered stones littered across the equally ruined floor, the Master Sword still nestled atop the debris. The Triforce remained hovering in front of him, its blinding glow having faded back into a soft shine. It felt cool to the touch once more, no longer so cold it burned his flesh to the bone.

His eyes flicked towards his hand, still wrapped around the corner of the Triforce with a white-knuckled grip. It was unmarred, save for the streaks of dirt and blood left over from his battle with Ganon.

Nothing around him seemed to have changed, and yet…

A wish for the bearer.

Something very important had happened just then, something far greater than what he had thought he was wishing for, but Link couldn’t put a finger on what it could be.

He placed his other hand on the Triforce too, wondering if he would be able to move it around and examine it. He might be able to find out how the supposed wishes worked if he could take a closer look at the source. As soon as both his hands were laid on the Triforce, it flared brighter—though nowhere near as brightly as it had before—and began to melt.

He jerked back, watching in wide-eyed fascination as sharp edges blurred and ran together, becoming a floating cloud of liquid light that slithered its way down the fingers of his left hand. It pooled on the back of his hand, sinking itself into his skin and tracing out lines to form an image of itself there: three smaller triangles, placed corner to corner to form the larger one. The symbol shimmered like gold leaf against the smudged and dirty parchment of his skin for a few seconds before fading completely.

Link continued to stare at his hand long after the mark vanished, turning it slowly this way and that to see if the Triforce would reappear, if any glimmer of gold would show itself through his skin.

Nothing. It was almost as if there was never anything there at all, save for the unnatural coolness that had settled into his bones alongside the Triforce.

A wish for the bearer.

Link finally let his hand fall to his side, moving to scoop up the Master Sword. His body ached in protest at every movement, but he pushed through it as he straightened up and returned the sword to its sheath before heading towards the exit. He needed to get back home, needed to see if anything had changed. He needed to see if Uncle was back.

A second chance.

Time to go see if his wish had come true.

[sweetm0uringlamb]

1 day until november 5th

[gomzdrawfr]

OC doodle with the 141 - tw: alcohol, small mention of death

Honest Feelings

[bottlehawk]

hello guys. the fucked up ecto-inverse of dirkjohn isn't davejake. it's davejane. this has been a psa. and you're welcome

[faaun]

oh my god ! haha . anyway a bit buzzed perhaps. anyway here's what happened on the date

[unexpectedbrickattack]

Peppino being a little magician makes me go :)

[theonlyadawong]

very interested in the type of training ada does to develop her fighting style

[orcelito]

here with another song. this one makes me think of Vash

it's about the Exhaustion. the eternal work to keep going despite the weight on your soul. the way death can sound so sweet in comparison to the current horrors of your life... but you keep going anyways, because there are things left to do.

and you cant even let yourself show that sadness. that Fear. because it's not what's expected of you. you can't show that vulnerability to people, and so you put up a facade to hide it all away.

you're still going, you can still keep going, but you find yourself wondering how much longer this can continue.

not allowed to show it, you just keep moving on.

[wantonlywindswept]

so if anyone needs some brain rot to watch out of sheer and utter boredom may i suggest

~ Knife or Death ~

which is a spinoff of forged in fire and is in theory a course where you bring your Super Special Blade and smash/cut shit and look cool and epic and fulfill your dreams of being a samurai/ninja/knight/viking/etc and get money at the end

but in reality it is a quick run simulator of popping giant holes in the egos of the type of assholes who think ‘yeah i can spin a knife and cut stationary melons, i’m so badass and now i get to show it on tv watch how fucking cool i am all these other people are LOSERS’

and then they get

absolutely crushed

and it is fucking great

[deadtower]

i don’t go here re: trigun (yet) but i had a dream a few nights ago and long story short now i have a trigunsona that is more just an OC if we’re being honest. they’re a half-vampire that that doctor guy hanging around knives made by accident. think the one scene in lilo & stitch (the movie) where jumbaa unveils stitch who’s slathering and spitting and speaking in an unknown language and jumbaa’s just like :D and you have vee (the OC) and conrad

[3liza]

https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/theyre-not-human-how-19th-century-inuit-coped-with-a-real-life-invasion-of-the-walking-dead

Indigenous groups across the Americas had all encountered Europeans differently. But where other coastal groups such as the Haida or the Mi’kmaq had met white men who were well-fed and well-dressed, the Inuit frequently encountered their future colonizers as small parties on the edge of death.

“I’m sure it terrified people,” said Eber, 91, speaking to the National Post by phone from her Toronto home.

And it’s why, as many as six generations after the events of the Franklin Expedition, Eber was meeting Inuit still raised on stories of the two giant ships that came to the Arctic and discharged columns of death onto the ice.

Inuit nomads had come across streams of men that “didn’t seem to be right.” Maddened by scurvy, botulism or desperation, they were raving in a language the Inuit couldn’t understand. In one case, hunters came across two Franklin Expedition survivors who had been sleeping for days in the hollowed-out corpses of seals.

“They were unrecognizable they were so dirty,” Lena Kingmiatook, a resident of Taloyoak, told Eber.

Mark Tootiak, a stepson of Nicholas Qayutinuaq, related a story to Eber of a group of Inuit who had an early encounter with a small and “hairy” group of Franklin Expedition men evacuating south.

“Later … these Inuit heard that people had seen more white people, a lot more white people, dying,” he said. “They were seen carrying human meat.”

Even Eber’s translator, the late Tommy Anguttitauruq, recounted a goose hunting trip in which he had stumbled upon a Franklin Expedition skeleton still carrying a clay pipe.

By 1850, coves and beaches around King William Island were littered with the disturbing remnants of their advance: Scraps of clothing and camps still littered with their dead occupants. Decades later, researchers would confirm the Inuit accounts of cannibalism when they found bleached human bones with their flesh hacked clean.

“I’ve never in all my life seen any kind of spirit — I’ve heard the sounds they make, but I’ve never seen them with my own eyes,” said the old man who had gone out to investigate the Franklin survivors who had straggled into his camp that day on King William Island.

The figures’ skin was cold but it was not “cold as a fish,” concluded the man. Therefore, he reasoned, they were probably alive.

“They were beings but not Inuit,” he said, according to the account by shaman Nicholas Qayutinuaq.

The figures were too weak to be dangerous, so Inuit women tried to comfort the strangers by inviting them into their igloo.

But close contact only increased their alienness: The men were timid, untalkative and — despite their obvious starvation — they refused to eat.

The men spit out pieces of cooked seal offered to them. They rejected offers of soup. They grabbed jealous hold of their belongings when the Inuit offered to trade.

When the Inuit men returned to the camp from their hunt, they constructed an igloo for the strangers, built them a fire and even outfitted the shelter with three whole seals.

Then, after the white men had gone to sleep, the Inuit quickly packed up their belongings and fled by moonlight.

Whether the pale-skinned visitors were qallunaat or “Indians” — the group determined that staying too long around these “strange people” with iron knives could get them all killed.

“That night they got all their belongings together and took off towards the southwest,” Qayutinuaq told Dorothy Eber.

But the true horror of the encounter wouldn’t be revealed until several months later.

The Inuit had left in such a hurry that they had abandoned several belongings. When a small party went back to the camp to retrieve them, they found an igloo filled with corpses.

The seals were untouched. Instead, the men had eaten each other.

[jadepresentingnipples]

Apparently the way to make me write about my OCs is to get me distracted while writing explanations for my choices on a survey in the tags.

[cracktopus]