#but any parents who are refusing to evacuate even when they can afford to are so incredibly fucking selfish

[flying-cat]

Two intense hurricanes hitting Florida back to back is fucking insane and like we already know Milton is gonna be category 4 (iirc) when it makes landfall but the fact people were downplaying it when they thought it would be a category 3 is crazy because HURRICANE KATRINA, KNOWN FOR BEING CATASTROPHICALLY DESTRUCTIVE, WAS A CATEGORY 3 HURRICANE (though a lot of its destruction was due to the levees failing in New Orleans). Milton's storm surge is going to be 15-20ft and the fact that anyone at all is CHOOSING to stay is absolutely fucking bonkers. It's one thing about people not being able to leave, which is the majority of people who have not yet/will not evacuate (which is a whole different issue because, by all means, people who are incapable of evacuating for any reason at all SHOULD be receiving help so that they CAN evacuate, but they AREN'T) but choosing not to? Crazy. Insane. Putting you and your family at risk because you want to be a stubborn fucking moron. And the people who are upset about having to cancel their Disney vacations, or people who are REFUSING to cancel their Disney vacations even with the current situation, should be ashamed. Those poor workers have to come to work, worried about their own safety, worried about the safety of their families, and the reason they have to be there is because they're expected to be there by people who don't give a shit about anyone else. What the hell are you going to do at Disney anyway? It's literally going to be raining for DAYS STRAIGHT.

[owlbearwrites]

More Rowan worldbuilding please!!!

Thank you for both asks, here is an extra-long bit of lore!

Rowan’s cybernetics / cryo

For this dealer’s choice ask, I’m going to talk about Rowan’s cybernetics.

CW: body horror, human experimentation

When we meet Rowan at the start of the story, he has multiple unpleasant surprises waiting for him. One, he’s about to find he was in cryo stasis for 200-odd years. And two, he has cybernetic implants he decidedly does not remember having pre-stasis (a bionic arm, and an eye scanner that’s basically google glass, but permanent).

Now, the stasis part may have been unexpected (especially the length of it), but parts of the journey leading up to it Rowan can remember. He and his parents had reservations in an orbital habitat (courtesy of Jack, who could afford it; even though he didn’t believe the apocalypse would happen; but he figured that several millions in fees was a small price to pay for his boyfriend’s peace of mind). He remembers evacuation: from his home in a purpose-build Boston suburb of Havenford via vacuum train link to the pick-up point, where the “lifeboat capsule” with a few dozen people in it was whisked away by the satellite lift/winch to the orbital platform serving as a hub/terminal for arrivals.

(The drama involved in that evacuation, during which Rowan very nearly elbowed his way back out of the capsule because of refusing to evacuate until Jack got there, and only stayed on board because of his parents’ tearful pleas… is a heartbreaking story for another time. As is his wait for Jack topside.)

Nevertheless, drama notwithstanding, Rowan remembers getting to the arrival terminal, being directed to a habitat he and his parents would be sharing with a few other families, and stepping into a decontamination capsule, to purge any radiation he might have absorbed during the evacuation process. Then… nothing.

So let’s talk about the ARK Corporation for a moment. They are directly inspired by Fallout’s Vault Tec, a corporation that was famous for building underground vaults to help humanity survive the apocalypse, but then using the populations of most of said vaults to run various experiments: some social, some biological, some a combination of both, all extremely unethical and non-consensual. Much like the protagonist of Fallout 4, Rowan ends up in stasis because his habitat was earmarked as one of the experimental ones, and the inhabitants would be unknowing guinea pigs in studying the effects of long-term stasis on the body.

But what does that have to do with the cybernetics, I hear you cry. Well. The destruction down on Earth turned out to be a lot more profound than ARK Corp, or at least parts of it, had expected - not to mention, rather ahead of schedule. The Orbital Sanctuary project, which was supposed to contain thousands of habitats and a complex infrastructure, was never finished. Over time, communication between parts of the corporation degraded, as did communication between individual habitats and their access to what infrastructure there was. So, fifty or so years after the initial evacuation, Rowan’s habitat was basically an abandoned spaceship in orbit, populated by a few dozen scientists, some of their children born on board, and similar numbers of subjects in stasis. With resources dwindling, the crew knew they couldn’t continue indefinitely, but even if they could locate other habitats in orbit to scavenge or move to, they had no way of safely traveling through space. (The habitat had been stocked with some space-worthy suits for external repairs, but they were not enough, and not rated for prolonged space walks.)

With no resources to build vehicles for space travel to another habitat, or enough suits that could withstand prolonged space exposure combined with the crew’s best attempts at a jetpack, the scientists began looking into making themselves more sturdy. The technology they did have on board was in the area of human-compatible cybernetics. And even though a lot of said tech was still in its infancy and not ready for field use, the habitat did have a sizeable store of human bodies on which compatibility experiments could be run…

It took several decades to achieve the results they wanted, but once they were done, the remaining scientists, their bodies upgraded in every way they could to improve their chances, got together the transportable supplies they could carry, and set off towards the closest habitat they had been able to track in the orbit. (Their mode of transportation can be best described as a jet-propelled buoy: something to hold on to as it moved through space.)

Unwilling to completely cannibalize the habitat in case they had to return, they left life support running on minimal, which was enough to keep the cryo stasis active for the few people who survived the experiments. Among them, a young man by the name of Rowan Woods, who, owing to his age, good health and a fair bit of luck, proved a very successful recipient of not one, but two cybernetic enhancements: a prosthetic arm with a full range of motion, and an ocular implant that improved his brain’s communication with the prosthesis as well as, when activated, had the ability to connect to available information networks and output data in a HUD.

[gohyuck]

pairing: head knight!jeno x monarch!reader (reader has genitals attributed to those considered biologically female but no pronouns are actually used)

genre: fluff, mild angst (they discuss an oncoming battle they must prepare for), smut (it’s mostly smut)

word count: 6.5k

warnings & notes (nonsexual): mentions of war/battle, mentions of injuries retained from past skirmishes, jeno is as tall as you need him to be in order to rest your head against his chest without leaning down, it’s kind of cheesy tbh they are disgustingly head-over-heels in love with each other, also a peryton is a fantasy creature that’s essentially a stag + a bird, also i know y’all must be tired of royalty aus but i swear this is almost pwp (except there’s context so there’s plot) so give it a chance (if you’re legal) i guess

warnings & notes (sexual): oral (giving and receiving for both parties), fingering (reader receives), spit kink (lmao sorry), general messiness honestly, mild knife kink (no blood drawn, he just uses a dagger to tear apart clothing), gratuitous usage of the name ‘lionheart’, jeno has a big dick because i cannot stop myself from doing that to y’all for some reason, some choking

special thanks to @moonlit-jeno​ @domjaehyun​ @waithyuck​ for reading parts of it/all of it beforehand!

the soft hours of twilight have their holds on you, chilling you to your bones even as you pull the heavy fur cape tighter around your body. you should’ve pulled something over your thin nightgown, you suppose, something to act as a middle layer between silk and skin and peryton fur, but it’s too late for that. you’re already out on your private balcony, overlooking a kingdom you’d do anything to see the sun rise on day after day. 

far, far past the outskirts of your humble realm, barely visible to your own eye, an unsettlingly large camp of soldiers is finishing setting up camp for the night. you watch as tiny, tiny orange pinpricks - no doubt the fires they’d set to make food, to alert you of their presence - begin to get snuffed out. finally, they sleep.

if you were any worse of a person, of a ruler, you would send your army after them now, hours before the battle is set. perhaps, if you were any less selfish, you would do so regardless of keeping your status as a good and just monarch. if you were any less selfish, you would shake awake the love of your life and hand him his cape after shedding it from your shoulders. you would tell him to rouse his men and women, to arm them to their teeth, and to fight for what is right using means that are entirely wrong. 

as if privy to your thoughts, your head knight stirs in the too-large bed behind you. you turn just in time to see him sit up and twist his body left, right, left as he stretches to rid himself of sleep. it’s too late - or maybe too early - for either of you to be awake. maybe you should have stayed within his warm embrace rather than gotten out of bed to size up the army of the kingdom of crithage. 

even now, you can’t help but strategize, at least on a basic level. crithagians are unused to the cold of your beautiful - but often frigid - ekoria. they won’t expect your people to fall upon them from the icy cliffs that surround their camp, nor will they be able to see over the oncoming blizzard your royal sky-reader has predicted. she has not been incorrect in many, many years. ekorians have, over the years, grown accustomed to heavy snows, among other weather phenomenon, so your army’s visual acuity is not to be questioned. 

that, and your troops are in the hands of the best warrior ekoria has ever had.

jeno. your jeno. your lionheart. you rein your thoughts in just as he pulls open the balcony door, closing it behind him with a soft click as he steps over the threshold separating in from out and warm from cold. goosebumps rise across his bare flesh the moment his skin meets air, and you don’t hesitate to slide his cape off and thrust it towards him, knowing full well that his arms will provide more than enough heat for you. he fastens it with ease, seeming slightly amused at how you’d been using it as a blanket, and gently grabs ahold of your wrist before pulling you into his chest and wrapping an arm around your waist. with his other hand, he takes a corner of his cape and wraps it around you, leaving you enveloped in both his hot-to-touch skin and the comforting fur. 

“they’re out in the valley, aren’t they?” he finally murmurs, leaning to place his mouth against your ear. jeno’s voice is thick and sleep-ridden, still raspy in a way that settles around you, inside you, within you. you lean back slightly, raising a cold hand to rest against the tattoo of a lion that adorns his left pectoral, mane stretching up to his collarbone and encroaching on his bicep. the lion has a scar on its right cheek. you pull away more, eyes landing on the thin discolored line underneath your lover’s same eye. 

it had been a longsword, meant to slash across your throat. jeno, with the speed of a star falling from grace and enough adrenaline to fuel a hundred men, had leapt across you in order to take it across the face. for crown and for country, bard’s songs later regaled of him. for you, he’d whispered to you that same night as you’d stitched him up, using the threading tactics you’d learned from the castle medic as a child. for you. always for you.

“my love?” jeno prods, and you realize you haven’t given his rhetorical question any acknowledgement. you hum, meeting his eyes with your own, and watch as he allows one corner of his mouth to turn up. 

“they only just put out their fires.” you finally respond, moving to be against his chest again. you rest your head against the intricate ink against jeno’s skin, finally letting out a breath of what one might consider worry. the air that leaves your lungs manifests into wisps out in the cold world that surrounds you. your lionheart pulls you ever closer. 

“you need not stress.” he says simply, and an outsider to your relationship would see no cohesion between your statement and his. still, you know precisely what jeno means, why he’s said what he’s said. you turn, pressing your lips against the lion’s forehead. above you, your own lion brushes his lips against your temple. 

“i have an army, a kingdom, even, to worry about, and yet i only fear tomorrow for whatever outcome befalls one man.” you whisper, and even you are surprised to find tears catching in your throat. you do not cry easily, not when you know firsthand how cruel the world can be. 

you only reign because your parents no longer breathe. 

tomorrow’s battle could easily bleed into next year’s war, and while your kingdom is prepared for such a thing, your heart may not be. your people are not belligerent, and neither are you. crithage had been the one to throw the first stone, had sent word that if you refused to relinquish your throne and bow your head, they would aim the first arrow, draw the first blood. no tears had been shed then, not even when you’d paced around your bedchambers, reading and rereading the note signed with blood red ink until jeno had physically pulled it out of your tight grasp. you hadn’t cried, not even when he’d said that he was willing to die if it meant keeping crithage out of ekoria, out of the kingdom you’d both built from ground up after the war that had taken your parents, out of the home you’d created together. 

“wherever you take us, i will follow. wherever you need me, i will lead.” he’d murmured the words against the lobe of your ear, standing beside and slightly behind your throne as you’d written out your reply to crithage in a room full of your advisors. nobody else had moved a muscle then, not even as you closed the envelope with hot wax and the royal seal. 

you’d sent back a much, much shorter letter than their own in response. 

a time and date for battle. nothing more and nothing less.

that had been so many months ago, so far away that the concept of time dissipates when you attempt to organize it in your harried mind. with a hostile army on your doorstep, everything suddenly feels far more real than it has before. your people have been evacuated, your troops have been trained. your lionheart is unafraid to the world, standing tall and proud at your side as he always has.

a sigh that starts from deep in jeno’s chest brings you back to the present. tomorrow is it, you’re reminded. crithage has seiged almost every other state between themselves and your beloved ekoria. if they get to you, they’ll have your head, raised high on a stake they’ll erect outside of the gates they’ll install to the place you call home. if they get to you, it means they’ll have gotten through jeno.

you can’t live in a world without him. it’s a dangerous attachment for a ruler to have, you’re well aware. if other kingdoms find out that your weakness is a person, one that lives and breathes, you’re not likely to ever see your love again.

it’s little comfort that jeno can’t live in a world without you, either. 

“i worry about not being here, at the castle, to protect you,” he mumbles into your hair. “i know that you are perfectly capable, and that you’ll have your own faction of our knights with you, but i- it feels as if i’m about to open my chest and leave my naked heart unguarded, right there for any arrows to pierce.”

jeno’s confession is simple, beautiful in the way the most ornate of daggers are: that is, you feel as if he’s just dragged a sharp edge down the length of your sternum, taking you apart piece by piece. his words cage you in, force you deeper into your own head in a way you can’t afford, not right now. 

“eloquent,” you hum, unable to resist teasing him even as the moment does not call for it. it’s to save yourself from your heavily beating heart. “it isn’t too late to make you my poet laureate, you know. no need to wield a sword tomorrow then.”

“and who would be your head knight then, hm? the current laureate? you want renjun to lead the charge against the crithagians? to be your lionheart?” your lover draws back to ensure that you can see his eyes, glimmering with mirth. renjun is an able man, and one of your best friends, but he is not the warrior jeno is. 

nobody is the warrior that jeno is. 

“such a foolish thing to say,” you smile up at him, lips folding from joking to earnest within moments. the merriment fades a little from jeno’s eyes at recognizing the change in your expressions. “you’re my only lionheart. always have been and always will be, even when you’re too old and gray and slow to be my head knight.” 

“someone seems confident of that happening.” he says quietly, raising the hand at your waist to come up and rest over your own hand that lies against his chest. you swallow, your own spit feeling too heavy for you to stomach, your throat dry and scratchy. 

“who else can have confidence of a victory rather than a monarch?” you ask, a smile that isn’t quite sad - but isn’t quite self-assured either - resting on your lips. jeno raises your hand to his lips, pressing one, two, three chaste kisses to the back and then repeating the pattern against your palm. he does not let go.

the two of you stand there for a stolen moment. you lay your head back against his chest, listening to the thundering of his heartbeat below the ink and skin and muscle and bone. he is real, and he is here. 

he is real. he is here. 

“the monarch’s lionheart, of course,” he murmurs, finally dropping your hand to reach back and push open the balcony door. “we only have four more strokes of time until i must go, my love. is this truly how you want to spend it?”

it’s evident that jeno no longer wants to mull over the what-ifs, not when he prefers living in the present more than anyone you’ve ever known. unsurprising, you suppose, for someone whose livelihood involves strategizing away his own mortality. you allow him to pull you back into your bedroom, immediately more comfortable when the door closes behind you, keeping you in with the body heat of your lover and the warmth of the crackling fire on the hearth in the corner of your room. jeno sheds the cape, draping it over the nearest chair, before bringing you back to his chest by placing his large hands against your waist.

it takes feeling his fingers against your skin through the thin silk of your slip to remember that jeno has nothing on. he’s always preferred to sleep naked, unlike you. though you hardly have any undergarments on, you at least wear a sheer gown most nights. 

you’d ridden him passionately before bed, tiring both of you out in order to get any semblance of sleep. as your lionheart pulls you flush against him, though, it’s difficult to avoid the way his cock hardens against your hip once more. you want to quip about how jeno’s insatiable, but he trails a hand up, up over your body to swipe a thumb over one of your hardened nipples, and you can’t help the sigh that escapes through your prettily parted lips. 

“will you get on the bed for me, love?” jeno’s voice is smoother now that he’s more awake, though you can’t help but miss the low growl that had come with the earlier rasp. he may be asking you a question, but you know that it’s an order in disguise. wordlessly, you step back, back, back until the wood of your bedframe presses against the soft plushness of the back of your thighs. jeno has not moved, choosing to stay put and appraise you instead. his eyes are hooded now, and as his gaze trails from your neck - he’d marked it up earlier, the kiss-bitten bruises not yet having faded from your skin - down to the curve of your chest, over the expanse of your thighs, he can’t help but reach one hand down to his dick, swiping two fingers over its head to collect his precum on his skin. 

jeno says nothing else, makes no other move. it’s to give you an illusion of control, you suppose. not that you need one. 

“should i rid myself of this, lionheart?” you ask, the words coming out breathier than intended. the nightgown leaves absolutely nothing to the imagination, and you’re sure he can even see the slick wetness that’s pooling against your inner thighs. jeno adores seeing your body more than anything, but the gown does not inhibit that. 

it’s no surprise, then, when he shakes his head no, instead finally moving to stand at the edge of the bed, slotting himself between your thighs as they naturally move apart to fit him in. his clean hand slides up under your gown, resting just above your cunt, as he raises his other hand to your face. 

“lie back, and open.” jeno states, no air of leniency about him anymore. you oblige, and your love leans over you, his dark gaze centered on your parted lips. 

he lays his two precum-coated fingertips against your tongue, pressing in and then down and revelling when you don’t gag but instead run your tongue over his fingers, cleaning them off for him. you haven’t gagged in a long time, your reflexes getting used to him in the way the rest of you is. when he withdraws his hand, your mouth stays open, and jeno can’t help himself as he leans over you and, after gathering it in his own mouth for a moment, allows his own spit to fall from his own tongue and onto yours. 

your eyes go wide at the action, and you know that he notices it even as he does not acknowledge it. even so, you don’t miss the smirk that crosses his face upon hearing your breath hitch. jeno has you in his palm.

satisfied, he stands, and you close your mouth and swallow a part of him with a part of you. jeno’s no longer looking at your face, but you can’t bring yourself to care, not when he’s ruching up your nightgown with growing hunger, not when he’s kneeling on the stone ground just to make himself eye-level with your pretty, pretty pussy. 

“i took you hardly any time ago,” he murmurs, breath hot against your skin as his mouth nears where you so desperately need him. “and yet here you are, laid open once more, all for me. only for me.”

“always you, jeno, please - ” you can’t get any more words out, the air being pulled out of you as he dives in and circles your clit with his tongue, bringing his two spit-soaked fingers up to press into you with almost no resistance. your reaction is instantaneous, walls clenching like a vice around his fingers as he lays a filthy kiss against your bundle of nerves, hips jumping up only to be kept down by jeno’s other hand, pressing down against the bottom of your stomach. 

“patience.” he pulls off of your clit just to growl the word out against the skin of your inner thigh, and the wet heat of his mouth directly against your flesh has you practically gasping out. when jeno sinks his teeth into your thigh as he’s often wont to do, you let out a full-bodied whine, the kind that starts in the back of your throat and rises up through the inner column of your neck, meant only for your lover’s ears. jeno laves his tongue over the marks he’s just created, as if to wash the pleasurable pain from your body. 

he does not reattach his mouth to your core, choosing instead to fall back and watch, eyes trained, as he scissors you open. with hardly any warning rather than his gaze jumping up to meet your own momentarily, jeno presses his thumb into your clit, using your slick wetness to eliminate any raw friction as he rubs slow circles against your nerve endings. he’s never failed to bring you to the edge with ease, and now is no different. you’d be embarrassed at how easily you fall apart just from his simple simultaneous motions, in and on you, but it’s jeno, and he knows your body maybe even better than he knows his own. 

keening, a loud, gasping wail, falls from your lips only for jeno to rise from his place in between your thighs and swallow your sounds with his open mouth, his clean hand coming up to cage you in against your sheets. the way you raise your arms to loop them around his neck is akin to the way a drowning man would grab on to a lifeline, and once he rises you pull him back into a longer, filthier kiss, where your teeth click against his and his tongue opens up your mouth the same way it feels like his touch opens up your body. 

you feel as if you’re being flayed, as if hellfire is the only thing comparable to the heat against your skin. jeno steps closer, just by the tiniest bit, and you feel his hand - the one shining with your arousal - brush past your hip before he uses it to wet his cock with one, two, three firm strokes. copious amounts of precum arise from the tip before being pulled down against his flesh with expert downstrokes. your mouth waters as you watch.

“my mouth, lionheart, please?” you finally gain the courage to ask what is on your mind, sitting up on your elbows as you begin to slowly find your strength. your love raises an eyebrow, and not without reason: jeno is a big man, making even you - a literal monarch - feel small at times, and this does not end with his personality or his person: you have never been able to take all of him into your mouth. the ache borders on painful, frankly, and jeno himself refuses to harm you in that way. 

“this, now, is about you.” he responds, and your heart cracks as you register that as a ‘no’. still, you speak again. you need him in your mouth, suddenly. it isn’t just a want. something has to anchor you to the here and now, it may as well be the head of his cock, heavy against your tongue.

“what is about me is about you as well,” you respond, and before he can lay his refusal down out flat, you slide onto the floor - warmer than expected - and tuck your heels behind your bare ass. “i need this. please.”

you’re directly in front of him now, face parallel to his strong thighs. jeno strokes up, squeezes tighter just below his frenulum, and you watch, struck, as precum beads at the tip and then splits into two streams, half sliding down his hard dick and the other slowly-but-surely falling to the ground, hardly a quarter of a step from one of your knees.

“give me your hand, then,” your knight murmurs from above you, drawing your gaze from his leaking cock up past the dainty curve of his lip to his hard eyes. “now.”

when you raise your hand up, you only put it up limply, unsure of what he means to do with the limb he’s asked for. your eyes must be swimming with questions, because jeno gives you a hint of a sweet, reassuring smile before allowing his expression to become stoic again… right before he grasps your given hand and straightens it out, gentler than expected from such a great warrior but harsher than he truly ever treats you. 

he’s passionate. this demonstrates it. 

before you can react, your body following your hand up off of your heels, though only slightly, as he yanks up your hand, jeno leans down and licks up your hand, from the bottom of your palm to the top, all while maintaining eye contact with you. he lets go, though you keep your hand raised, your gaze obviously dumbfounded. 

“a dry hand would rub me raw,” he explains, though the smirk that’s tugging at one corner of his mouth shows that he finds your wide-eyed expression at least mildly amusing. “we do not want that, do we?”

it’s amazing how easily he can get you under his thumb when you give out orders that hold his life in the balance on a day-to-day basis. maybe that’s why he finds taking charge in private so easy. maybe it’s his way of evening your dynamic out. even now, as he asks you an innocent question with no hidden meaning or reaction, you find yourself shaking your head along enthusiastically. no, of course you don’t want to rub him raw. of course you and him don’t want that. 

you raise the hand now deemed ‘not dry’ up as jeno watches, finally, finally wrapping your hand around it. your thumb and middle finger do not meet, no matter how tight you squeeze. your lover lets out a fulfilled groan at finally feeling a touch other than his own on his hard cock, and it’s a beautiful sound. you want more of it. you want more of him. 

as if mesmerized, you lean closer, darting out your tongue to lick experimentally at his slit. he holds his breath, a large hand coming to rest lightly against the back of your head and base of your skull, waiting. you take this as a sign to stretch your lips wider, engulfing the entire tip of his cock in your hot mouth. his grip tightens in your hair, and, in return, you clench around nothing. 

as you struggle to take more of jeno in your mouth, you do your best to stroke the rest of his cock with a tight enough grip to make him feel everything, but not tight to the point where you’re hurting him. regardless of how little you can take on your tongue - not your fault, by any means - jeno seems happy, barely able to stop himself from bucking up into the back of your throat. at this point, you’re essentially just warming his cock, so you pull off with a slick pop to look at him with slightly watery eyes. a string of precum and saliva connects your bottom lip and his tip, and when it breaks, you’re acutely aware of the mixture dripping down your chin and onto your nightgown. it’s no matter.

jeno’s thumb runs over your scalp, just above the bottom of your skull. you close your eyes momentarily to take in a deep breath. 

“you can force yourself down my throat, you know,” your voice is raspy when you speak, eyes fluttering open almost drearily. “i’m not too delicate for it.”

there’s something simultaneously raw and pure about the way you speak, and jeno recognizes that your headspace has changed, just a little. your need truly is all-encompassing now. he must tread more delicately than usual.

there’s so much love, so much adoration in your wide-eyed gaze. he only wishes to return it with the same intensity and double the care. 

“i know, love,” jeno responds, finally moving his hand in order to place two fingers under your chin. he tilts your face up, taking note of the way your eyes run over his tattoo before looking at his chin, then his jaw, then his nose, then his forehead, until, finally, you land on his eyes. you’re a tad bit unfocused, full of need, but that’s okay. you’ll always come back to him. he continues speaking. “you’re so strong. always so strong for me. that’s why you deserve to be rewarded, yes?”

“rewarded?” you’re confused, to say the least, though you do not dislike the direction jeno is suddenly moving towards. he only smiles, gentle and kind and good and yours. all yours. 

“on the bed, (name).” he tilts his own head, jutting his chin towards the bed you’d slid off of earlier. you don’t hesitate to follow, pushing yourself up onto your feet and all but scrambling backwards to be seated against the soft mattress. the blankets are all haphazard and the pillows aren’t straight, but that’s the least of your worries right now. jeno gives no other orders, only stepping closer and, without warning, winding his arms underneath your thighs and propelling you backwards, causing you to land, back flat, in the center of your bed. 

it had always felt inescapably large when you’d slept in it alone. now, it feels welcoming. safe. 

“you’re ready for me, yes?” the tone of voice jeno uses is soft, even as his rough palms push apart your thighs. you nod, murmuring a small ‘yes’ once you realize he’s waiting for you to verbalize your thoughts. this is all jeno needs to climb onto the bed and move in between your spread legs, settling back on his calves as his hands smooth over your hip bones and waist. it’s evident that he’s bent on taking his time with you tonight, likely under the illusion that that is what you want. 

it is not what you want. it is most definitely not what you need. 

“i need you within me, lionheart,” one of your hands clutches at the sheets beneath you while you stretch the other towards your lover, imploring. “soon. now. please.”  

“absolutely impatient,” jeno only chuckles in return, drawing an indignant whine forth from the base of your throat. he looks over your barely covered body once more before finally - almost in slowed motions as if to tease you further - rising up onto his knees. his hands stop moving against your skin, finally circling around the soft meat of your upper thighs. swiftly and fluidly, jeno pulls your body towards his, wrapping your legs around his own waist. his wet cock lies heavy against your pelvis, leaving slick precum against the apex of your thighs and the bottom of your stomach. he smirks. “is this what you wanted?” 

the motion of being pulled into your knight had forced the air from your lungs in a surprised yelp, and the feeling of his warm skin - he’s always supplied so much heat, it baffles you to no end - against your own momentarily blanks your mind. jeno repeats his question twice, cocky grin growing with each utterance, before you nod vigorously and sputter out something vaguely affirmative. yes. yes, this is exactly what you wanted, exactly what you want. 

you’ve been growing steadily wetter the longer your foreplay had drawn out, but jeno, ever-caring, still pulls back - his cock sliding against your thigh has you moaning - to slip two thick fingers into you, adding a third when he’s absolutely sure that you can take it. in no time at all, you’re grinding your clit against his rough palm, the friction absolutely heavenly. jeno makes no move to stop you, only gently forcing his fingers in deeper. 

a fourth finger is added just as your abused clit can’t take anymore, and you spasm on his hand as you fall past the point of no return. your second orgasm of the night washes over you, and you can’t help the muted but harried gasps you let out as your hips buck up, driving your head back into the mattress. jeno draws his fingers out slowly, licking your essence off of them with practiced ease. once your body has calmed down, you can only let out a small whimper, still basking in the intensity you’ve just experienced. 

jeno knows your limit, and knows damn well that you haven’t reached it yet. it’s because of this that, even as your walls are still clenching around nothing due to aftershocks that wrack your body, he places the fat head of his cock against your hole and slowly but surely slides in. the hands on your thighs move up to wrap around the sides of your waist, and his grip is bruising as he pushes deeper and deeper. even as he goes at a snail’s pace, you feel as if you’re being pulled apart only to be pieced back together again. you hold your breath.

jeno is halfway in when he realizes you still aren’t quite wet enough. he shifts slightly, carefully moving one of your legs up just a little bit higher, before swiping over your raw clit with a thumb he’s wetted with his own tongue. a moan flies forth from your mouth immediately, and a gush of wetness coats jeno’s cock anew as he circles over your bud with abandon. he’s finally free to surge forward and bury himself within your warm walls without fear of repercussions on your own body… so he does. the breath you’d been holding in is punched out of you, replaced with an honest-to-god wail. tears bud at the corners of your eyes at the stretch, falling as he pulls out almost entirely and slams into you again. 

jeno does everything in his life in order to live up to the name you’ve given him: lionheart. he is just and loyal and thoughtful as an advisor, and analytical and fearsome and ruthless as a warrior. sex is where both sides of him meet. it is where he is not just the kingdom’s bravest knight, or the crown’s right-hand man. it is where he is your lionheart, and yours alone, where your souls intertwine at the place your bodies meet. 

he notices how your hands come up to reach for him, leaning down so you can place one hand against his heart - against his tattoo - and throw the other one over his other shoulder. jeno’s nose is almost touching yours, though your bodies shift continuously as he keeps drawing back and driving his hips into yours with force.

he never ceases to make you feel full. 

your walls grip his cock tightly, amplifying every movement jeno indulges you in. the slide is slick and wet and perfect, but it is not easy. the head of his dick catches on your clenched walls every time he pulls out just to slam back in, forcing you to feel him with everything you have. it’s exactly what you want. 

he slows down his thrusting for a moment as he moves forward slightly, leaning closer still as he places one forearm against your head and raises his other hand to fondle your chest over your sheer clothing. somehow, this is no longer enough for you. jeno’s cock is fully sheathed within you as he swipes a thumb over one of your nipples, and the feeling of his skin pushing the cloth against one of your most sensitive areas has you shuddering in a way that causes you to squeeze even tighter around him. his hips stutter slightly, driving him impossibly deeper into you.

“jeno,” you rasp out, tongue heavy and dry. “my pillow. beneath my pillow.”

his eyes go wide as he processes what you’ve just said, his shallow thrusts slowing down. jeno gulps audibly. 

“your- love, your dagger?”

“need you to touch me.” you respond, holding his gaze and watching it clear up from confused to comprehending you entirely. he pushes himself up from his forearm to his hand, sliding out of you in the same movement. you whine sadly at the loss of contact, but jeno mutters a good-natured ‘be quiet’ almost immediately. 

“you know,” he starts, voice teasing, even as he pulls your dagger - black steel, quillions and hilt encrusted with blue jewels, black tempered glass at the pommel - out from beneath your pillow using the hand that had been fondling you earlier. he moves back down to his prior position, and your breath hitches as he presses the apex of the knife against the collar of your nightgown. “i’m already touching you.”

“more,” you moan out, the end of your word coming out almost breathlessly. one of your hands slides against his tattoo once more, as if feeling the lion will make it roar to life. “touch me more.” 

jeno chuckles, albeit darker than he had been earlier, and digs the dagger into the cloth in front of it without any further ado. you hold your breath willfully this time, not wanting to actually nick yourself on the blade, as he moves down your body, cutting the sheer gown open down its direct center. your lionheart dots his lips against your flesh in a trail in his wake, scraping his teeth against your skin as he sees fit. 

he leaves a quick, but filthy, kiss against your clit for good measure, eyes lighting up as you attempt to close your legs around his head on impulse, only to have them pushed apart even farther than before by his strong hands. once he gets to the hem of the slip, he throws your dagger somewhere on the stone floor - neither of you pay any heed to where it clatters - and rips it apart with his bare hands, hardly able to bear not feeling you around him for much longer. 

before you can do anything or say anything or even think anything at all, your lover surges forward and presses himself back into you with a grunt that sounds almost like a growl. his hands knead at your thighs as he finds his rhythm with ease, pounding into you with practice as if you’re an art medium and he’s a skilled master. he’s everywhere, all around you and inside of you and in the air and in your skin, and it’s all you’ve ever wanted.

“touching - ha - touching you enough now?” he asks, resolve crumbling bit by bit as he fights to keep himself from tumbling over the cliff’s edge before you do. you can’t dignify him with a response, unable to do anything but claw at his back and pin yourself further against his chest as if it’ll make even more room for you in his heart than there already is. he doesn’t need a response, anyways. jeno already knows. 

he knows just how close you are, too. just as close as he is. it’s because of this that jeno moves a hand up to curl around your throat just as he circles your clit with two fingers of the other hand, continuing to fuck into you at the same rate as best he can. with a sharp cry and the arching of your back off the bed, you clench around him for one final time before he comes to a halt, barely holding himself up over you as he releases within you with a shuddering, gasping groan. 

moments pass, stretching into longer than they typically are. jeno takes care as he slides out of you, climbing onto the bed and flopping down next to you right after. the feeling of his release, sticky and wet against your inner thighs, is unpleasant at best, but you can’t bring yourself to clean up just yet. instead, you turn your head to your side, your nose immediately brushing against jeno’s sternum as you realize that he’s turned his entire body towards your own. he lets out an airy laugh at the sensation, pushing half of the sliced cloth off of your body in order to run a wide open palm down your naked side. 

“good?” he speaks first, asking an arbitrary question. ‘good enough to make you forget?’ is what he means, knowing full well that you could never lose thought of what awaits the two of you. the sentiment is what’s important, though, and you let out an agreeable hum as a reply. the sex itself was great, of course. he’s well aware. 

“sleep, lionheart,” you say just as silence attempts to cloak the two of you. “we must be ready soon, as it is.”

jeno gives you no response, and you do not require one from him. instead, he pulls you even closer into his chest as if doing so will protect you from the crithagians across your kingdom. his entire world rests between his arms. you are both tired enough that sleep forces your eyelids closed swifter than expected, and as you fall asleep to your lover’s slowed breathing and muted heartbeat, you can’t help but, just this once, allow your worries to slip off your body as your torn nightgown does. 

just before the rise of the sun, jeno will have to get out of bed and clean you up as best he can before donning his clothing, his armor, and his cape. you’ll put his helmet upon his head, pull his visor down over his face after sharing a kiss that could be your last. it is always like this. jeno will rouse the army, you will dress and arm yourself, and meet with your own private troops. 

as the sun begins to take its place in the morning sky, luckily opposite your gaze, jeno will lead his people into battle, riding his steed far, far from you. you will watch him go, but he will not look back. doing so is unfortunate luck at best. you’ve ingrained this into his mind. 

you do not know whether he will be back or not.

you desperately need him to come back.

all of that will happen in due time, but now, you drift to dreamland, safe in the arms of the man you’ve sworn to be with until the end. he tightens his hold around you, and that is how you spend the night before battle, in total comfort and full of love. no matter what tomorrow brings, at least you have this now. at least you will always have this moment. 

the lionheart and his liege. your lionheart and his love. 

for now, you are at peace in the calm before the storm.

[after-witch]

Yandere Ransom Imagine

“That's some heavy-duty conjecture.”

Word Count: 2700ish

notes: unhealthy relationships, emotional and physical abuse, financial abuse, yandere

Imagine being a struggling adult working a full time job plus freelancing gigs just to get by in your one-bedroom apartment where the ceiling always leaks when it rains and you have to perform a complicated maneuver to make sure the door doesn’t jam up on you and you’re constantly worried about your landlord raising the rent.

Maybe a well-meaning friend gets you a gift card to an upscale bookstore because they know you haven’t had a new book on your shelves in years, or maybe you find $20 on the street like a veritable Charlie Bucket but instead of buying a Wonka Bar you head into a this fantastic artisan coffee shop on the rich side of town, a place that everyone always raves about on Instagram, just so you can try an expensive latte with hand-ground beans and flavors you’ve never heard of before--because don’t you deserve a treat, for once?

Whatever it is, wherever it is, Hugh Ransom Drysdale is waiting inside and sees you there.

And oh my God is it obvious that you’re out of place right off the bat. I mean, what the hell is someone like you doing in this part of town?

With your worn out clothes that are worn from necessity and not from being fashionably thrifted and your ratty purse stuffed with papers and candy wrappers that spill out when you dig in for your card or cash and your winter boots that you’ve probably worn 5 years in a row, ripped in the hell and patched with black tape that you hope people don’t notice.

It becomes even more obvious that you’re out of your element when something goes wrong. The gift card isn’t activated. The $20? A fake, probably a movie prop that blew in the wind. Whatever goes wrong, it means that you’re suddenly at the register, impatient people with real money tapping their expensive shoes behind you, unable to pay. You’re left standing there like a deer in headlights, unsure of what to do or say.

Normally he might just roll his eyes and remind himself that people like you ought to stick to your own shops, your own place. But something about the way your eyes go all downcast and you seem to shrink down in embarrassment makes him take pity on you. Like a stray cat in the alley hoping someone will toss it some scraps.

So he strides up and flicks out a card and hands it to the cashier, dropping a friendly greeting to them because he spends like crazy and they probably know him by name at this place, and he’s the one who hands you your coffee or your bag and your hands touch ever so briefly during the exchange.

He leads you away from the register--don’t want to piss off the spoiled debutantes and assistants on lunchtime coffee runs--and you stammer out a thank-you-thank-you and you promise you’ll pay him back as soon as you can and Jesus Christ, isn’t that just adorable? Someone like you, some lost kicked puppy who can’t even afford new boots, promising to pay him back?

He doesn’t care if you pay him back, but he finds that he would like something out of this exchange, so he says that instead of paying him back you can do him the honor of going to lunch with him. His treat. 

He insists. And you can’t really say no, can you? You are hungry and he did just pay for your things and it’s the least you can do to oblige his request.

He’s not stupid. He doesn’t take you to some razzle dazzle fancy restaurant where you’ll feel embarrassed and out of place. Instead he takes you to a quiet diner, classy not greasy, where you can have an easy conversation and tell him all about yourself.

It’s funny. Normally he brings up his family name, his grandfather’s books, to women he picks up, to get them impressed and hooked and pliable. Something about you, though. Something about you is making him want to turn this into more than a lunch date and pressure for a quickie in the car to repay him. 

So he holds back to see what he can do with you on his own. No quickie in the car, but instead before he drops you off--at a bus station, you insisted--he brushes his hand over yours. Can he get your number? He swears he can feel the heat coming off your cheeks as you fumble for your phone and let him put his number in your contacts.

He waits a day, then asks you out again. Dinner, this time. He asks you if you know any good places and you recommend a dive bar that you can go to after work (because 1) schedule and 2) cheap) and shit, he’s all for it. There will be time in the future to impress you with restaurants that have dress codes instead of sticky floors. You sit close on the stools and you buy him a drink (real cute, real real cute) and just for you he keeps the baggie in his pocket there all night instead of heading to the bathroom to liven things up.

Your relationship develops with an almost shocking speed. He knows just how to reel you in. I mean--look at you. Working your ass off at some dead end job, living in an apartment so shitty it takes you almost a month before you reluctantly agree to let him see it.

He can understand, though. Because you’re not that stupid and you know he’s wealthy, even before he casually brings up his family in a “it’s no big deal but I don’t want to keep things from you because we’re getting serious” sort of way. 

You pretend to be casual about it all, but he can tell you’re suddenly wondering: why the hell would someone from this wealthy family want anything to do with me?

It’s a question Ransom asks himself a lot. He asks himself this when he’s snorting coke off another woman’s stomach (hey, you’re dating, but he’s got needs and they aren’t met with hand-holding) or when he’s eating another greasy burger at a shitty bar because you refuse to let him buy you a nice dress to wear so he can take you out somewhere fancy.

You’re not the type of person he normally goes for, not at all. He has strings of girlfriends and flings, but they all tend to fit that same cookie cutter mold: wealthy do-nothings with their parent’s credit card who want someone else to spoil them for a while, without caring who it is or what they’re like. They’re easy pickings that Ransom can burn through and then toss aside when he’s bored of them. Some of them cry but a few days later he’ll see them on someone else’s arm, it’s the circle of life.

With you, though, there’s more. You don’t expect him to pay for dates or anything at all (even when he wants to spoil you a bit) and you have actual conversations and you seem to actually give a shit about what he says and does. You argue with him, too, when he wants you to do something (just let him take you shopping, for Christ’s sake!) or he asks you to move in (again) and you say no (again). I mean, you really fight with him, spitting words and all.

And unlike his previous girlfriends, you don’t come crawling back a few hours later because you want to buy a new purse with his shiny credit card. Instead, you make him apologize first. Fuck, that’s hot. It’s also something he tucks away in the back of his mind to work on later--but he’ll be damned if he doesn’t admit that he sometimes has the overwhelming urge to push you against the wall and fuck you for the first time right after a good argument. 

But he knows that would destroy your image of him entirely, so he holds back. He’s good at crafting a version of himself that appeals to others when he has to, and you’re maybe the first person that’s been worth all the effort he’s put into you so far.

But you need a push, a push that makes it so you can’t go running back to your shithole apartment when you fight or when you question whether or no you two have a future. You do, you’re just too naive--too inexperienced with money, to say it charitably--to realize it.

So he tips off the fire marshal about your apartment building’s shoddy fire escapes and well, damn, in the process of the investigation all the little corners that your landlord has cut come crashing down. At least they were discovered before it was the building that came crashing down.

But the evacuation of the building leaves you--and countless others--high and dry. You don’t have any family in the area, and your only half ass-decent friend in the city lives in the same building but her parent’s aren’t going to let a stranger move in.

When you finally realize you have no options and call him, voice tentative and embarrassed, he knows just what to say to get you to pack your meager belongings and wait for him to pick you up. He’s no-nonsense about it. 

He knows how to avoid deflating your pride, how to keep you from deciding you’d rather stay in a shelter than take his charity. You’ll pay him back, he says, you’ll figure out a rental plan or whatever. He even teases--he’s not the best landlord, but he won’t take 2 weeks to change the toilet if you submit a maintenance request. It makes you crack a smile and bam, just like that, he knows he’s gotten in.

That night, after takeout and wine and a Netflix movie neither of you paid attention to, you fuck for the first time on his expensive sheets on his expensive bed and afterwards, when you’re both sweating and cuddling and reveling in the afterglow, he makes a note to buy you some new lingerie. 

It’s all very homey, for a while. He could do without you leaving for work and working your ass off, with your freelance shit, sometimes staying on the computer until two, three in the morning. But it’s nice to have you close all the time, available to him whenever (almost whenever) he wants. He brings home takeout and you snuggle on the couch and he finally even convinces you to go out with him to a nice restaurant wearing something he’s bought and hot damn, do you look good, head-to-toe in the clothing he’s chosen for you. Especially, later that night, in private, in the lingerie. 

Does he love you? The word hasn’t left his lips yet, hasn’t crossed yours either, but he can feel it underneath the surface. No. It’s more than love. He wants you. He wants to have you. And not just for the afternoon or the summer, but forever. 

He spins daydreams about how he’ll clean you up nice and introduce you to the family. Probably to Harlan, first, because everyone knows that’s whose opinion really matters. Harlan will like you--he would probably like you without any primping or fixing, actually, which is more than he could say for his parents or anyone else in the family. Then once you’re in, you’re in--you’ll come to family dinners and vacation retreats where people always end up in ridiculous arguments, and you two can exchange snarky comments about the family on the ride home.

And yeah, sure. You fight sometimes.

He throws out your old clothes and buys you a wardrobe befitting someone he wants to integrate into his family. You fight about that.

He makes comments about you how you should quit your job or at least try to get a degree--he’ll pay, as long as you agree to go to a university within driving distance--to work somewhere more respectable than a chain restaurant. You fight about that.

He gets pissed when you want to meet some “friends” at a bar without him, because why would you need to go anywhere without your loving boyfriend in tow, unless you were trying to flirt with someone else? You definitely fight about that.

And, okay. Maybe he’s hypocritical.

Maybe he goes out late at night when you’re stuck doing your “freelancing work” and he’s in a rotten mood about it, and he ends up on the floor of a swanky club with drugs in his system and lipstick on his neck. He doesn’t come home until the next morning and you’re pissed and red-eyed and arguing with him, accusing him even, but you have no shitty apartment to stomp back to anymore so you’re stuck. 

Until you’re not stuck. Until he casually snoops through your phone and sees that you’re looking up cheap-ass apartments and hey, you’ve already booked a few interviews already. The thought of you slipping through his fingers makes him more sober than he’s been in a while. He’s got to do something. Not to himself, of course. But to you. To keep you with him.

It’s easy enough to get you fired. He’s a ‘Thrombey’ after all, and some nice crisp bills anonymously sent to the right hands is all it takes for you to come home one night, cheap mascara (he notes: buy you some better quality makeup soon) running down your cheeks. Your freelancing isn’t nearly enough to get you into an apartment.

He assumes that you’ll give up on the idea after losing your job, but you’re nothing if not stubborn (one of the reasons why he likes you) so you start the job hunt the next morning, fresh mascara in place. 

Damn, do you keep him busy. Anonymous calls. Cash in nice white envelopes. Rejection after rejection. You get so sad, so depressed. You don’t even want to go out to restaurants, so he orders in and you snuggle in his lap while he feeds you bites of orange chicken and rubs your back. It almost brings you two closer again, starts to mend the rifts that began when you refused to get over his occasional late night out.

But then you break the uneasy mending by snooping and woah, you don’t like what you find on his phone. 

You fight. 

Damn, do you fight. This time there’s no pretense of potential forgiveness as you begin wildly throwing your clothes into your ratty duffel bag from the back of the closet, telling him to fuck off fuck off fuck off, telling him he’s crazy, telling him that what he’s doing is fucking illegal and--

It’s the shock that hurts you the most.

The shock you feel when he grips your wrist hard and pushes back on your shoulder when you try to yank away, pushing you against the wall with a hard thud. It’s like having a rug pulled out from underneath your feet when you feel a slight ache in your back, on your shoulders, when you tell him to Let go, goddamn it and he only pushes back harder to keep you in place. It’s Ransom. It’s Ransom who’s doing this.

His voice feels unrecognizably cold when he leans in and hisses in your ear.

“You think you can just leave me? After all I’ve done for you? Let me tell you something--you won’t get another job within one hundred miles of here, within one thousand miles of here, unless I say you can. So just put your clothes back in the closet, chill the fuck out, and stop being such an ungrateful bitch.”

It’s the shock that makes you numbly hang your clothes back up in the closet, fold them again with shaking hands, and sit on the bed until the dam breaks and you cry.

And oh fuck, he’s sorry. Really. He wraps his arm around your shoulders and then he’s the one who’s crying and confessing that he didn’t want you leave him because yeah, he knows he’s a fuck up, he knows he’s got a drug problem, but he loves you. 

It’s the first time he’s ever said it out loud. He loves you. “I love you,” he says, again and again, half-laughing.  And he tells you you’re the only person he’s ever dated that made him want to be a better person but he doesn’t know how.

You don’t know what to say because maybe you do love him--but he hurt you and got you fired, but the tears on his face seem so genuine and he tells you he’ll never, ever hurt you like that again and fuck, he says, if you want to go get a job he’ll drive you to the interview right now just-let-him-blow-his-nose-first-please.

You make him sit down and then you’re the one apologizing and the rest of the afternoon is a shaky truce between you two as you drink hot chocolate and order in takeout and watch a movie together.

It’s not until you’re both under the sheets, satisfied and then showered, that you think about what he did to you in a clearer light. The thoughts weigh heavy on your mind, pulling and tugging. You think you might love him. He hurt you. He took care of you when no one else would. He cheated on you. 

I love you, he tells you, when your mind is starting to tug itself into sleep.

He hit you. He said he was sorry.

He hit you.

[blockwarden]

Selflessness in Times of Trouble: Looking Back on What We’ve Lost

As I sit down today on my patio, the sounds of a distant ice cream truck twinkling along with the violent whirr of a lawnmower, I can’t help but feel nostalgic for a time I never lived, a time where community and neighborliness ruled the roost, where we did what we could—what was necessary—to lend a helping hand.

Nothing makes me so nostalgic for this time than the current COVID-19 pandemic. The United States is in the midst of a dramatic, fatal spike in cases far before even the ubiquitous “first wave” has passed. The situation we find ourselves in has been politicized between those who follow CDC guidelines and those who don’t, those who blame China or call it a hoax and those who see and recognize the science behind it. While we’re bickering about red versus blue, almost 130,000 Americans are dead, and there have been 2.6 million cases in this country alone.

I don’t really care to get into the politics or the epidemiology of the current pandemic. It breaks my heart too much to see all this death, suffering, and strife. I myself lost my job as a direct result of the pandemic, as well as both of my parents. I know people who are effectively homeless because there is no rent relief, and I know people who’ve lost loved ones. Every single day, my heart aches more and more at the senseless and preventable loss of life we’re experiencing.

What I do think about often during this crisis is the loss of civil defense. Civil defense began during WWII as a way for citizens to protect the home front so troops could focus on the Pacific and European theaters. It was a way to keep people alive and safe, and ultimately was a tool for morale—if the men overseas had nothing to come home to but ash, what was the impetus to keep fighting?

As civil defense developed in both structure and focus after the war, it increasingly became an act of selfless duty to one’s country and—more importantly—their neighborhood. Air raid wardens took up the mantle of responsibility for their blocks voluntarily, dedicating hours of time after work and on weekends to creating lists of household occupants and their special needs, devising evacuation routes, planning and running drills, and educating the 30 or so people under their wing on how they could survive the atomic bomb. The Warden Handbook itself emphasizes this idea of neighborhood intimacy—you as the warden know who needs what, where they need to go, and what they need to do.

It’s easy to look back on civil defense and see it with rose-tinted lenses—of course, civil defense and general emergency management of the time was focused on the white atomic family. But there was still an effort made to be all-inclusive. The Warden Handbook itself suggests involving women as block wardens, and appointing persons as translators for areas where English was not the dominant language. There’s also endless documentation on how to protect rural populations—how to till your farms, how to protect your cattle, even how to treat and feed livestock and what meat is safe to consume after a bombing. It wasn’t enough, of course—civil defense hinged on the idea of a family having a basement and being able to afford to build a shelter, or having running water, electricity, or a radio. But at its core, civil defense was focused on preparing everyone. It was never about 100% survival—we knew that was never possible. But if we made a concentrated effort to prepare ourselves and our neighbors, we’d have a fighting chance to survive and rebuild.

And this is the crux of it all. Civil defense relied on neighborliness. It relied on the moral truth that we are all Americans and that we must do what we can to protect each other.

When civil defense was effectively disbanded with the creation of FEMA, we lost this. We lost this idea of helping each other. Instead, we sat back and expected the federal government to do the heavy lifting. We no longer took up the responsibility of preparing or responding. And we certainly no longer lent a helping hand to our neighbors. We saw this especially with the spike in gun sales at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, with the most sold-out ammo being common handgun rounds. Handguns, of course, being far less useful for hunting, but widely favored for self-defense.  

FEMA is too big and too broad to know the exact needs of your specific neighborhood though. It doesn’t know that Old Mrs. Johnson next door needs insulin, or that Mary down the block only speaks Hungarian. FEMA is not a successor to civil defense. FEMA is not your friendly neighborhood block warden who knew your name, where you worked, and if you had a basement for shelter. FEMA is, by all means, the faceless government agency that sometimes drops money and water bottles on a town in the hopes that it’ll help.

And I can’t help but wonder, can we ever get back to where we were?

When I worked in emergency management, my director and I had a pipe dream: establish student-led response teams. Our agency is not big enough to attend to everyone in a mass casualty emergency, but what if we could train students to respond? Essentially, what if we could bring back civil defense?

While there were a lot of factors that made this idea impossible, I wonder if we as a society even have that sense of selflessness to make it possible. We’ve seen people in times of crisis step up and help, yes, but it always seems to be the exception, not the norm. In the age of social media clout as well, this muddies the conversation. How many people are “doing it for the ‘gram” or are genuinely selfless at heart?

If anything, the COVID-19 pandemic and the spike we are currently seeing tells me that we could never get civil defense back. People are refusing to do the most basic things like wearing a mask and washing their hands. People are having meltdowns in groceries stores and coughing on people (which is assault in some states) simply because they were asked to follow the CDC guidelines. People were protesting during the April peak because they wanted to get a haircut or go to prom. If we can’t do the simplest things to protect others, how could we ever expect something as robust and thorough as civil defense to work in this country again?

The short answer is we can’t. The long answer is that somewhere in the last 20 years, we’ve lost the sense of community that made civil defense possible, but it can come back.

My memories of September 11th, 2001 are hazy, but I remember September 12th, 2001 vividly. I remember drawing cards for firefighters, blood donation centers popping up all over, American flags being sold out of every single store in the country. I remember older kids from my neighborhood enlisting, florists sending arrangements to funerals thousands of miles away. I even remember our president tearing up on live television.

If at any point in the 21st century was there a time that civil defense could have come back, it was September 12th, 2001. We did what we could, holding tight to the bounds of simply being Americans, and helped each other.

Ultimately, I fully believe civil defense—maybe not by name, but by concept—could return. But it starts with empathetic leadership, it starts with reinforcing the bond of country, it starts with knowing your neighbor, but more importantly, it starts with having a heart. It’ll take a massive cultural overhaul, but it could work.

People have lost faith in FEMA because it is too big and too slow to respond. But what if you had a neighborhood coalition with specialized teams? An accountant by day would have the necessary skills to tally stockpiles and rations. A sous chef would be able to lead a pop-up kitchen. A nurse could lend their skills to first aid. Electricians, plumbers, and construction workers too could be valuable members of debris clearing and repair teams. What if, when an emergency hit your neighborhood, you could respond as soon as it was safe to instead of waiting for FEMA or the Red Cross?

I might be naïve. I might have too much hope for the people of this country. But I do believe that we can do it. We might have lost the inherit selflessness of civil defense, but it can come back—in a new form, under a new name, with a new focus—but it can return. We just have to want it. We just have to change our thinking in a crisis. It is never us versus them. It’s us versus the disaster.

At the end of the day, we’re all Americans, and there is no duty so honorable as doing what you can to protect others.

-- Warden Elizabeth

[slaughterjaw]

LFRP: Celaryn Slaughterjaw

General–

Full Name: Celaryn Valena Slaughterjaw

age: 283 at death

birth date: December 3rd

race: Forsaken High Elf

sex: Female

gender: Cis

Romantic Orientation: Demiromantic

Sexual Orientation: Asexual

religion: Forgotten Shadow

spoken languages: Common (fluent); Orcish (fluent); Gutterspeak (fluent); Thalassian (fluent, rarely spoken out of spite); Darnassian (limited, a smattering of insults), Dwarvish (limited, a few colorful insults)

residence: Wherever the gold or battle goes; Iron Company PO Box # 12, Ratchet (for mailing purposes)

Professional–

occupation: Mercenary

education: Basic lower-middle class High Elven education, Farstrider-trained martial and tactical experience, Deathguard-trained advanced war tactics and leadership, some self-taught medicine and general Undead care.  Has surface-to-medium level knowledge on a variety of subjects from reading in her downtime.

combat experience: Farstriders, Deathguard, Hand of Vengeance, Defilers, a smattering of neutral freelance mercenary companies and wealthy nobles willing to pay.

titles: Former Deathguard Captain, Fireblood Heir

Physical–

Eye colour: Red

Hair colour: Ghostly white

Height: 6'6" (~2m)

Body Build: Athletic; strong

Tattoos + Piercings: None

Notable Physical Traits: Right arm is a metal prosthetic. Wrist joint is able to be screwed off, revealing a compartment for sundries. Also functions as a miniature cannon.; Metal jaw, canines are sharpened and spiked upward; Bits of armor are fused to her skin, edges jabbing into burned or scarred tissue; Clay is stuffed into small wounds to prevent insects getting in.

Relationships–

Parents: Emilian Fireblood (Father, deceased); Laelyth Fireblood (Mother, deceased)

Siblings: –

Significant Other: – 

Children: –

Other Relatives: Maj. Loremus Slaughterjaw (Adoptive father, deceased); probably a few distant sin’dorei relatives. Who knows? (DM for a pre-established thing!)

Mental–

“These plates have something of me in them. They are as wicked as a patch of brambles, as stubborn as a fortress… and hopelessly flawed.”

intelligence: Well-spoken despite lacking higher education afforded to the more privileged in High Elven society. Picks up on anything martial or physical-natured fairly quickly. Has a natural mind for war tactics and strategy. However, more scholarly subjects such as chemistry, physics, zoology, and botany still come naturally to her. Has surface-to-medium level knowledge on a variety of other subjects from reading in her downtime.

likes: Combat in any form, competence, competition, testing herself, alcohol, fellow Forsaken, books, weaponry, gold, strategy board games

dislikes: Being touched, stupidity, weakness, losing in anything, fanaticism, paladins, Silvermoon nobility, pretentiousness, Farstriders, harming the defenseless (i.e. civilians and children), corruption in leadership

fears: Becoming defenseless, loss of control, insects, open spaces, Trolls, fire

disposition: Eerily calm and well-spoken despite her usual towering stature. Can become boisterous when she finds something she’s interested in. Lives by a self-imposed honor code in daily living.

Traits–

extroverted / introverted / in between.

disorganized / organized / in between.

close minded / open-minded / in between.

calm / anxious / in between.

disagreeable / agreeable / in between.

cautious / reckless / in between.

patient / impatient / in between.

outspoken / reserved / in between.

leader / follower / in between.

empathetic / indifferent / in between.

optimistic / pessimistic / in between.

traditional / modern / in between.

hard-working / lazy / in between.

cultured / uncultured / in between.

loyal / disloyal / unknown / in between.

assertive / timid / in between

Hooks–

Mercenary: With Sylvanas breaking away from the Horde and the Forsaken as a whole having no direction, Celaryn can often be seen plying her skills as a sellsword in most Horde-aligned or neutral cities. She is known for taking work regardless of danger despite accusations that she’s a Banshee loyalist.

Farstriders: ‘Celaryn Fireblood’ is a name that is talked of with extreme disdain. Rumors among Farstrider circles describe her as committing acts of treason against the Magistrate and being charged with attempted murder. Afterward, she was promptly expelled from the Farstriders. Any records of what became of her afterward are seemingly non-existent.

Forsaken Military: After her death, Celaryn was a well-regarded soldier within the Deathguard. She exhibited a complete lack of a fear response in even the direst situations and refusal to retreat, sometimes single-handedly holding certain positions against waves of attackers. Her first displays of this were doing the Forsaken’s’ infancy as Sylvanas battled the Dreadlords for control over the free-willed undead. Her feats quickly drew the attention of superiors. She rose to the rank of Captain rather quickly, and later, she was inducted into the Dreadguard.

Arathi Offensive/Defilers: Cpt. Slaughterjaw saw action in Arathi Basin as part of the Defilers, only ceasing the fight to go to Northrend as part of the War Against the Lich King.

Northrend Campaign: Celaryn went to battle in Northrend as part of the Hand of Vengeance, stationed mainly in the Howling Fjord. She later participated in the assault on Icecrown Citadel, holding a portion of the outside battlements against constant assaults by geists and gargoyles

Gilneas Offensive: During the Cataclysm, Celaryn and her company were said to have mobilized south as part of the assault on Gilneas as part of the order by Garrosh Hellscream.

Legionfall: Celaryn was part of the Deathguard stationed in Stormheim among the countless other warriors, all too maniacally happy to have demon opponents that actually came back after being killed, providing endless combat.

Siege of Lordaeron: Cpt. Slaughterjaw could be seen participating in the Siege of Lordaeron, evacuating civilians below before heading to the surface and taking part in the defense of the city and counter-attack on Alliance forces.

War of Thorns: All too happy for another chance at fighting, Cpt. Slaughterjaw could be seen on the frontlines of Darkshore, gleefully hacking away at the Forsaken’s enemies.

[mister-tom-a-dildo-lover]

Hey can you please do Harrymort where Voldemort and Harry have to work together to help everyone because muggles find out about magic and the are jealous/angry/scared ? Please? Thank you.

Fandom: Harry Potter

Pairing: Harrymort

Tags: Canon-Divergence at the end of HBP so Dumbles is dead, Post-Graduation but Voldy is still alive and the war was still going and the Ministry wasn’t overtaken, it’s 2014, Bad!MuggleGovernments, Muggle leaders shoot themselves in the feet and the common muggle population take the side of magic, The Enemy and I have a common Enemy so we’re buds against them now, Drama, Murder, Dubious Morals, References to Sex, Hogwarts Professor Harry, Triggers for guns and bombs I suppose?, Violence, Prejudice, 

All he could really say about this shite was that it hadn’t even been a muggleborn who had been the cause of everything. As they’d grown up in the muggle side, they knew how to get by and what to avoid. But of course a Pureblood would consider themselves too good to learn about the muggle world. This was why Hermione insisted on all magically-raised children attending muggle Studies, even if the class was behind the present times back when they were still in school.

The ironic bit was that Lucius Malfoy had been the whole cause of this. On some ridiculous, self-directed plan to find Harry on his own and present him to Voldemort during the summer, he’d been caught by the CCTV on the street nearest to The Leaky Cauldron.

Arabella Figg had been the one to alert the magical side of the new events by sending Harry a rushed letter full of terrified words that barely made any sense. Thankfully, she’d attached a clipping from a muggle paper where it pretty much spelled everything out as photos of Lucius Malfoy covered the front page, the date prominent on the bottom corner, showing empty space one second, and then showing the blond wizard a second later.

MAGIC REAL! WIZARDS LIVING AMONG US EXPOSED!

It all started with a rushed order that every family ‘hiding’ magical people, should turn them in, or turn in any evidence they had of the existence of magic. The order had gone out three days in advance of a sudden flooding of law enforcement all over Britain. Permission had been granted for them to ransack every home no matter the inhabitants, and search for proof of magic. And if any was found and hadn’t been given up already, it would be confiscated and the entire household would be put under arrest.

Claims of treason against the Crown were being thrown about in Britain!

The clipping Mrs. Figg had provided him with also had a list of the villages where wizards were known to live in the UK. There had already been a plan set in motion to extract the muggles from the villages and if the magicals refused to cooperate, then the muggle law enforcement was given leave to use lethal force.

Harry, by the time he’d received the letter, had only had less that twenty-four hours left to get those villages evacuated lest the muggles started dropping bombs or raining bullets down on the innocent people living within.

And the thing was, he wasn’t working for the Ministry. He wasn’t an Auror. He was a bloody DADA Professor! He was trying to teach the children to protect themselves from Voldemort and his ridiculous, terroristic faction! Being an Auror wouldn’t have helped them in the least. And it wasn’t his bloody job to save everyone anyway!

Still, Harry remembered the emergency assembly he had to call. He wasn’t the Headmaster or the Deputy Head, but he still had a certain level of power as Gryffindor’s Head of House. And when he’d set off the magical alarms, he knew he’d need a good reason for it.

All 1,017 students had gathered in the Great Hall, clad only in their PJs and housecoats, and looking tired as hell. He’d felt bad, but knew there were more important things going on than getting a full night’s sleep.

He had the memory of that night stored in a cupboard now.

“I know it’s late and you want nothing to do with being awake now, but I need your help. Thanks to Lucius Malfoy stalking me about London on 3 August, in search of my place of residence, the muggle CCTV caught him doing magic near The Leaky Cauldron. And it raised questions in the government, and they proceeded to poke around that area and found the entrance to Diagon Alley, even if they can’t get in yet.”

He remembered the tired faces becoming more awake as they processed what he had been saying.

“Eventually they realised they needed more information and if these people doing magic were walking among them so easily, then they must be living in Great Britain for however long. They have made it mandatory for all muggles to give up anyone or anything magical that they know of, or risk prison time. They have been taking into custody all wizards they find, plus their possessions. Front page news two days ago showed Lucius Malfoy’s face and a list of all the villages in Great Britain that wizards are known to inhabit. The muggle inhabitants are being escorted out as we speak and the government plans to use lethal force if the magicals do not turn themselves in when the order is given at five this afternoon.”

There had been a deathly silence following his words. He could tell those not Pureblooded understood how dire the situation was. And his fellow teachers did as well. Snape looked ready to spit fire.

“For those who are still confused over why we have to worry, think of it this way. Muggles have weapons called bombs that can do mass damage in little time. They’ve used them in the World Wars. Think of a single Bombard Maxima powerful enough to blow all of Hogsmeade up and leave nothing but bricks and ashes behind. Muggles have access to these weapons and they are currently an option. There are now 7 Billion humans on Earth. Magical humans only make up 1% of that. They outnumber us, and that’s why they’re evacuating their people from of the villages. They are very willing to destroy their own land if compliance isn’t given.

“I need all of you to send these pre-written letters to your parents warning them to pack up their things and come here. All of them. I don’t care if your family is Dark. I don’t care if there are Death Eaters among the lot. Right now, I’m sad to say hat muggles are the enemy now until further notice. All other countries are also taking up arms against magicals. There is no more time us to be at each other’s throats over differing opinions. We can’t afford that now. I will be heading to Diagon Alley to get The Daily Prophet on this immediately. No shield is strong enough to withstand a bomb let alone many. As Hogwarts is Unplottable, it is the only safe place other than Gringotts, left in our immediate community. And you’ll have a better chance being allowed in here than in there.”

He’d left then, not even taking a moment to explain to McGonagall everything. They’d had their own evacuations to do.

And, for the first time ever, Harry had to do something he never thought he would willingly do. He opened up the link between he and Voldemort and called out to the man as hard as he could mentally.

The high-pitched whisper of Voldemort’s mind had permeated Harry’s own. It sounded almost mocking in a sense, despite the shock ringing true in it.

How lovely to hear from you, Harry. The way he said Harry’s name had always made Harry feel strange and this time was no different. To what do I owe the rare pleasure of your company?

Your minion fucked us all over, was Harry’s response.

As they were connected emotionally as well as mentally, Voldemort could feel Harry’s urgency, and his teasing bled away instantly. What happened?

Persisting in telling your minions that muggles are no threat to us is what lead to Malfoy Sr. of all people, exposing us and now they have endless amount of our people in custody, but also their possessions, and they are planning on open fire in any way possible, on all the villages our people reside in once the muggles therein are evacuated. The operation will begin at five this afternoon. And this all leads back to your minion not being bloody careful while stalking my arse through London!

Voldemort was silent for several moments. Enough time for Harry to make it through the Floo in his office, to The Daily Prophet Headquarters. He had a love-hate relationship with the place, but if needs must.

You are already begun to plan, Voldemort noted, sounding interested.

Everyone to Hogwarts. I don’t know how the other magical communities are going to handle this, but this is how I’ve decided to. You can either join us or not, but the offer was extended to the children already, and they’ve been told to tell their families with letters I’ve written up for them.

You’d work with me of all people?

Better you than being blown to bits. You lived through the Blitz, you should know how bad this situation is! You should know that we do not have time for petty squabbles right now!

Voldemort went silent for several more moments, which allowed Harry to burst into the Chief Editor’s office without warning, frightening the man inside in the process.

I will see you soon, were the Dark Lord’s parting words.

And that had been that.

The enchantments on Hogwarts had been strengthened and extended even further just to be on the safe side. And all roads leading anywhere near the mountains were quickly overrun with plant-life and hidden. Hogsmeade had been evacuated and bespelled to look like a common forest. Voldemort had been the one to do that bit of magic and admittedly it had been fascinating.

Several people added their power to Hogwarts’ Ward Stone. Not only was the magical of the former Heads within it, but joining them now were Harry, Voldemort, Snape, Flitwick, Hermione, and Kingsley for added protections.

The crisis hadn’t been fully averted as some couldn’t be reached no matter how hard they worked with the House Elves and Owls to alert everyone. And as Harry predicted, several villages were no more and hundreds of magical beings were dead.

Oddly though, may of the common muggle population felt that the governments were overreacting to the revelation of magic. Many were enraged over their homes being ransacked and destroyed. In only a month of time, extremists arose on the muggle side. A faction if it could be called that considering how large it was.

More than half of the known world wanted things to go back to normal. Wanted magical people and creatures to be freed. Wanted law enforcement to stop being the very things they claimed magicals to be. And that was Terrorists.

Numbers were rising by the day. 4B+ people agreed with this line of thinking. That was more than half the humans alive. And that had been the most shocking to the magicals all over the world.

The unfortunate part was that despite so many speaking out, the governments had the weapons of mass destruction on their side, so insurgency wouldn’t do much without the firepower to back up their words.

It had all gone to shite. And Harry could only imagine what was being done to the capture magical beings. He’d seen some muggle films before. He knew it wasn’t good.

The only other somewhat decent thing in this, was the fact that Voldemort couldn’t gloat about muggles being horrible when it was obvious that it was mostly the governments, and those who were religious nutjobs behind this trauma. The fact that more than half the muggles didn’t agree and were vocal about it, had stunned many of the magical population all over the world.

It was a chance Harry used to impress upon the people of their community that ever group would always have bad eggs, but that shouldn’t reflect on the whole group.

Day 227 since magic had been exposed because of one pompous twat(who had been taken to task very painfully or so Harry’s heard). That was two hundred and twenty-seven days of their community living in constant unease and fear over what could happen. Jobs having to be maintained from the safety of Hogwarts. The castle magically expanding itself to fit the most of Magical Britain’s people.

Fifty thousand people under one massive roof. The poor House Elves. The amount of work involved in the upkeep of the castle. The amount of spontaneous classes on household magic so that everyone could contribute to the best of their ability without anyone being overworked.

Most of Diagon Alley was gone save for some buildings left standing in the rubble. The mumggles still couldn’t get in or see what happened, but the devastation was heartbreaking.

And through it all, Voldemort was up Harry’s arse nonstop. Wherever he went, the man was not far behind. Literally. Always around Harry. Some rubbish about them being the only true leaders of their community. Kingsley wasn’t even considered as a Ministry representative in the Dark Lord’s mind. Voldemort didn’t care for him at all.

Voldemort had been annoying for many reasons before. Now all Harry could think of was his snakey shadow that stalked him all the time. More annoying than bloody murder!

Day 283 of being cramped inside Hogwarts. In so little time, beliefs and assumptions had been challenged. Misinformation had been corrected. Harry had learned more about Voldemort’s goals and the truth behind many of his actions. Dumbledore apparently had a habit of thinking he knew everything and therefore didn’t consider much else beyond his choices or assumptions in the long run.

Basically, the old codger had been wrong about a lot of things.

That didn’t mean the Death Eaters as a whole were okay though. Most were still prejudiced arseholes and needed to have said arses kicked repeatedly to rid them of their idiotic traditions, but it was nowhere near as bad as Harry had been lead to believe, and seemed like it could be reversible with enough work.

And if Voldemort was going to flirt with him so much, it truly seemed like reversing this shite was possible.

Harry didn’t fancy himself the saviour everyone had always wanted him to be, but the opportunity to mellow Voldemort out couldn’t be passed up. If there was a way to calm down the Dark Lording a bit and make him less inclined to violence for the sake of cruelty, Harry would be thrilled.

Besides… he was kind of into the slender, serpentine appearance. The forked tongue and slittled eyes were pretty arousing.

“Who knew it would take muggles and bombs and a planned, world revolution for this to happen?”

Voldemort’s chilly hands massaged the bare skin of Harry’s lower back, the differences in their body temperatures making gooseflesh pop up all over the younger wizard’s body. It was a good feeling though, and Harry snuggled closer as his body warmed up with interest.

“You’re still a cockwomble, but a more tolerant one now.”

“Brat.”

“Wanker.”

Voldemort rolled them over so he could be on top. His slitted pupils didn’t contract in the least with the shift of lighting hitting his face. It was kind of ominous and also really fucking hot. “You have your list of marks prepared?”

“Yes,” he groaned. “I know whose block I’m knocking off in the morning.”

After enough time, they finally were able to make a full list of all the British leaders set on enslaving the magical population. As with everything, not everyone in the government was a terrible person. It simply took time and effort to separate the good from the bad. Weeding out the rotten roots so to speak.

While muggles had guns and bombs, they couldn’t really build anything to sense when magic was being used, so there was still a chance to overthrow them. But Harry had argued, at least for Magical Britain, that they should only kill off the people that absolutely deserved it, and imprison the rest. More than half the muggle population was on their side anyway. In the meantime, those who had been wrongfully imprisoned would finally see daylight for the first time in 345 days. Magicals and muggles alike.

Further action would have to be sorted out later. For now, this was the best plan they had to return to the relatively safe world they’d formerly been living in..

“No entertaining notions of grandeur, Voldy. We’re moving on from that entirely.”

“If I agree will you stop calling me that?”

“No. But I’ll go down on you more often.”

“Then you have my word, my soul.”

Trying to use romantic terms to get on Harry’s good side. “Flattery will keep you in my bed.”

“If I recall correctly, this is my bed in my room, my soul.”

“Details, details.”

Tomorrow would be the tension and the danger, but for now, they could relax for a little bit.

A/N: This got away from me so quickly! Took some time but I finally did it. I can see this happening in a sense.

[rhosinthorn]

"As you wish" + stingluuuu

**This is a possible prologue for a fic buried in my files where Lucy goes back in time to stop Acnologia & the sending of the child dragon slayers through the Eclipse Gate. Slight warning for unnamed, non-graphic character death, particularly young children.**

She found him in the shattered remains of a building that had once been a school.

“I need to talk to you,” she said, picking her way across the rubble-strewn street, halting in what would have once been the doorway. It was late out, or perhaps early, and the ruins were lit by the moon, and the occasional streetlight that was still determined to work. “It’s important.”

“Not now,” he snapped, shifting the fallen timbers carefully, making sure not to set off a chain reaction. The entire village was unstable, what was left standing anyway. Mage teams had been working non-stop on rescue and recovery efforts since the report reached them, but it wasn’t enough.

It was the fifth village that week, just far enough from one of the cities or towns with a guild headquarters for there to be a delay in the message reaching them, in the ability of a mage team to scramble to help with the evacuation.

He huffed angrily, shifting another timber with a little more force than necessary, freezing as the entire structure creaked and moaned around him. Evacuation. It wasn’t about saving the villages, about driving off the monster. What had happened to Quatro Cerberus had certainly proven that.

Once the Black Dragon set his sights on a target, there was no saving the structures.

If they were lucky, they might save the people.

“If not now, than when?” Lucy challenged, and he imagined the way her eyes were probably flashing as she stood in the ruined doorway. “This is the fifth village this week. It’s getting worse, and you know it. Are you going to put this off until there are no more villages left and he starts going after cities? After guilds?”

“Your entire idea is ludicrous!” He sucked in a short breath as he moved another beam. There were maybe three more to go before he had enough space. It wasn’t that they were heavy, as a dragon slayer he could shift more, do more than most people, but he was weary. Five villages this week, three the week before, ten in the month leading up to this most recent escalation, and no end in sight. What had set the Black Dragon off, nobody knew, but he was terrorizing the countryside in a way that could only be found in the fragmented descriptions of a time when dragons had once roamed the land and hunted humans for sport.

It was then that the dragon slayers were created, he knew, remembering listening to the highlights from Rogue’s intense study of their origins and the magic involved. Created and instructed by the dragons who did not want humanity to be slaughtered without mercy for simply being what they were.

But there are no dragons now, he thought viciously gritting his teeth as he maneuvered into a better position to get more leverage. Only seven slayers and we’re nowhere near enough. The knowledge was as vicious as a dragon’s teeth, and had a way of getting under his skin and sticking there better than any splinter. Three slayers had faced the Black Dragon on Tenrou and were saved from obliteration only by the grace of their founding master’s fading magic. Seven slayers had faced down the dragons that poured out of the Eclipse Gate and it was only the gate’s destruction that saved them from slaughter.

Whether the Black Dragon was truly so powerful, or Sting and his fellows were shadows of what the slayers had once been. He honestly didn’t know what was worse, or which one he hoped was true.

“It’s the only way!” Lucy shifted in the doorway, and he could catch a glimpse of her hair, the blonde turned silvery in the starlight. “If we wait longer, more people will die! And the longer we delay, the more risks we run that one of us will die and we won’t be able to pull it off at all!”

“Who made you God!” Sting shouted, yanking the last piece of debris out of the way, his path clear. “Why should you be judge, jury, and executioner?”

“Do you think that I want this?” she shouted back as he carefully knelt down and reached into the opening he had created. “I know what it will cost, and I know what it means! But nobody else can do it anymore, not since…”

Not since Yukino died, Sting finished her sentence for her, ignoring the ache in his heart. Yukino had been the first mage to fall, having the misfortune of being in one of the first villages targeted after completing a mission. He had pressed her keys into Lucy’s hand after the funeral, closing her fingers around them as the blonde had tried to refuse. Celestial Mages were so rare now, nearly as rare as slayers if you limited your count to ones that could actually wield their magic properly.

“Laxus, Cobra, and Gajeel all agree,” she said after a long pause. “Wendy hates it, but she’s agreed as well. Natsu threw a fit, but he’ll come around eventually. Even Rogue said he’d help.”

He wanted to rage at the betrayal of his best friend, but he couldn’t bring himself to do so. Not when his hand finally closed around what he was reaching for. No, he just felt numb.

“Sting,” she murmured, just loudly enough for him to hear as he slowly began shuffling backwards along his cleared path. “Please, I can’t do this without you.”

“You’re talking about killing our parents. About stopping Anna from using the Eclipse Gate to send us forward.” He knew what her plans were, how carefully she had worked out every detail with her spirits, with the old woman from Crime Sorciere, with the other slayers. It was impossible not to know, with hearing strong enough to pick out her voice from across whatever disaster site they had been summoned to.

“It’s the only way,” she whispered into the silence that had fallen between them. “And I know what it will mean to you, will mean about the timeline we live in, but can we truly afford to be selfish?”

Yes, he wanted to say as he rose to his feet. Yes, he wanted to be selfish. There was so much he wanted to say, to do, and if she did this, if he agreed, none of it would ever happen. A year ago, he had entertained ideas about saying something to her, about maybe trying to figure out if they could ever be something.

But now it was all falling down around them, victim to dragonfire and death.

Carefully, he carried the bundle in his arms past her, out onto the street, into the small section he had cleared before he started work on the building itself. Lucy fell silent as he laid the small body in the street, the first of many children who had been in school when the Black Dragon attacked. Some of them had been granted the mercy of a quick death, but he knew that many of the small bodies he was about to recover had not been so fortunate. Even now, hours later, the ruins still reeked of pain and fear and despair.

It had taken far too long for word to reach them, for a team to mobilize, and those who had survived the attack suffered a slow and agonizing death waiting for help that would arrive too late to be of any true help.

Lucy was still standing in the ruined doorway when he rose and turned back to his self-appointed mission of recovering all of the bodies inside. Even bone-tired and covered in ash and grime, she looked radiant to him.

Emotions and words rose up into his throat, choking him as he looked at her, things he would never say, could never say, and after a long moment he knew the only thing he could say. “As you wish.”

If Lucy could hear the other words, the thousands of things he wanted to say compressed into three small words, she made no sign.

Perhaps that was for the best. The days were hard enough now, would be even longer still as he helped her prepare for this. Sting wasn’t certain if he could bear up under the strain if she walked away from him, walked through the Gate, knowing that she loved him and did it anyway, or knowing that his fairy tale never would have come true.

She eventually walked away, nodding her thanks, heading for somewhere else in the ruined village where someone was calling her name. When he was certain she was out of hearing, he allowed himself one moment of weakness. “I love you, Lucy Heartfilia.”

[sciencespies]

9 ways today's society is like the one that filled Earth with garbage in WALL-E

https://sciencespies.com/humans/9-ways-todays-society-is-like-the-one-that-filled-earth-with-garbage-in-wall-e/

9 ways today's society is like the one that filled Earth with garbage in WALL-E

More than 10 years after it was released, watching Pixar’s film WALL-E today is a chilling experience.

The backdrop of WALL-E and EVE’s robot love story is a dystopian society where humans have abandoned Earth to their trash and left robots to clean up while they cruise space.

When the much-loved animation came out in 2008, it was a bittersweet warning to use less, move more, and stop staring at the damn screen.

But we obviously didn’t heed it too well, because as of 2019, we already have an uncomfortable amount in common with the futuristic humans aboard the Axiom spaceship.

The one thing the film’s creators were way off on? The timeline. WALL-E is set in 2805 (humans left Earth in 2105), but according to some key measures, we might not be that far off in reality.

Here are nine signs we’re going down the same path as the humans in WALL-E.

1. We can’t stop buying stuff

Thanks to technological and social advances, every day more people are moving out of poverty and into the consumer class. We’re also living in a more peaceful time than ever before. What do we do with all that extra time, energy, and money?

We consume.

(Walt Disney Pictures/Pixar)

The average US household now owns 300,000 things; 10-year-olds in the UK have 238 toys – but only play with around 12 of them. We shop so much, we increasingly have to rent off-site storage units. And then every few seasons we throw it all out and start again.

With the internet opening up new avenues for consumption – shopping on Instagram, influencer-inspired buying, and now even publishers telling us what to buy – it’s not hard to imagine how our desire to buy new things is overwhelming the planet.

The Buy n Large tagline “Too much garbage in your face? There’s plenty of space out in space!” playing on loop in WALL-E could easily apply.

We never see the humans of the film before they leave Earth for the Axiom, but based on the waste and omnipresent advertising they leave behind, it’s safe to say they liked to shop, too.

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So is there a way to keep shopping and avoid that fate? Probably not – in the United Nations’ (UN) draft Global Sustainable Development Report 2019, researchers argue that this consumerist system isn’t compatible with protecting the planet.

“Economies have used up the capacity of planetary ecosystems to handle the waste generated by energy and material use,” the report explains.

2. We’re drowning in our own waste

The major plot line of WALL-E is that Earth has been overrun with garbage, making it unsuitable for plant or animal life. The WALL-E robots were tasked with cleaning it up, while humans enjoyed a five-year off-planet cruise (which, spoiler alert, ended up lasting centuries).

While we may not have city-sized trash mounds today, that doesn’t mean we don’t have a problem with the waste we’re spewing out into the environment.

(Walt Disney Pictures/Pixar)

Pollution is already one of the leading causes of death worldwide, killing 9 million people each year and predicted to get worse. A World Health Organisation study last year found that 93 percent of children on the planet are now breathing in polluted air.

With plastic waste and rubbish choking our plants and animals, and human-induced climate change increasing ocean acidification and forest fires, the planet is becoming a less friendly place for life – even our own fertility rates are dropping.

And it’s only going to get worse, with China soon refusing to take in any of the nearly 4,000 shipping containers of waste the US sends each day for recycling.

3. We’re dominated by mega companies

In WALL-E, society has become dominated by a mega conglomerate punfully called Buy n Large, or BnL. By the time Earth is abandoned, BnL has become so omnipresent, it not only covers cities with its advertisements and discarded products, but also owns the spacecraft humans leave on. It also has the power to declare global emergencies.

(Walt Disney Pictures/Pixar)

Today, there are just a handful of megacompanies that have huge power of the rest of us and our futures, capable of driving fake news, opioid crises, and covering up climate change.

In fact, just 100 companies are responsible for 71 percent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions.

And while the whole space thing might sound futuristic, don’t forget retail giant Amazon not only sells billions of products to consumers all around the world, its founder Jeff Bezos also owns Blue Origin – an aerospace company that aims to help facilitate ‘private human access to space’.

(Blue Origin)

4. We’re lonely, despite being more connected

Humans are more connected than ever before thanks to technology, and yet we also report feeling more isolated than ever. In many parts of the world, we’re having less sex and birth rates are dropping. Twenty-two percent of millennials say they have “no friends”.

This type of empty connection is mirrored in WALL-E, where the robots are more human than the humans are.

On the Axiom, humans have digital screens perpetually beamed in front of their faces that allow them to video chat, but we don’t see any intimate family groups. No one touches (until WALL-E and EVE come along), and we don’t see couples together, or parents with children – toddlers are raised by AI in classrooms.

(Walt Disney Pictures/Pixar)

5. Obesity is on the rise

Okay, this one’s obvious – one of the most striking things about the humans in WALL-E is that they’re all fat. Just look at how the Axiom’s captains have changed since the mission launched.

(Walt Disney Pictures/Pixar)

To be fair, space reduces muscle mass and makes you puffy.

But we’re not on a dissimilar path of weight gain. Obesity rates have nearly tripled since 1975 and are still increasing.

In the film, it probably has something to do with the fact that people no longer walk. Even as babies, they use self-driving hoverchairs to get them around.

That isn’t so far fetched – with self-driving car technology moving out of the lab, and people more sedentary than ever before, it’s not hard to imagine us all sitting back and letting technology drive us around.

And then there’s this photo, taken in Walmart in 2015:

(mlevid/Imgur)

In fact, BMW has already made something that looks suspiciously like the WALL-E chair, their ‘personal mobility concept’ vehicle i-REAL.

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6. We can’t stop staring at screens

I’m not just talking about social media here, but also Netflix, YouTube, Hulu… While we do use technology to connect with friends and family across the globe in ways we couldn’t in the past, the average adult today consumes five times more information daily than a counterpart in 1986.

We’re also watching close to eight hours of TV a day. Our binge-watching has even become an environmental issue.

The humans in WALL-E are just a small step up from this, with their screens now projected in front of them all the time – giving them 24/7 access to ads, entertainment, and shopping.

(Walt Disney Pictures/Pixar)

In one telling scene, two friends are chatting to each other online but never realise they’re actually right next to each other. Another woman only realises there’s a gigantic pool on the cruise ship after her screen is interrupted by WALL-E getting in her way.

Sound familiar?

7. We feel useless

In a crucial line in the film, the Axiom’s Captain B. McCrea tells the autopilot “I don’t want to survive, I want to live.” Up until that point, the only thing he’s done himself is read out the morning announcements.

The rest of the humans on board don’t seem to work at all. They’re purposeless – their roles replaced by technology and their home planet destroyed. Even back on Earth, WALL-E was left behind just cubing up waste and moving it from one place to the next.

(Walt Disney Pictures/Pixar)

Many of us don’t feel much more productive. A 2015 poll in the UK revealed that 37 percent of Brits think their job is meaningless. And scientists have predicted that roughly half of all jobs will be replaced by technology – not centuries from now, but in the next 20 years.

On top of that, we often feel powerless in the face of the climate crisis, with our best attempts at action dwarfed by the negative impacts from industry and government.

8. Going to space might be our only chance of survival… if you can afford it

The Axiom wasn’t taking people offshore as a humanitarian act – it was a ticketed, luxury cruise. There’s no mention of other evacuation missions from Earth, so if we assume the Axiom is all that’s left, what happened to the humans who couldn’t afford a ticket?

Probably the same thing that will happen, and is already happening, to those of us who aren’t rich enough to be protected from the worst effects of climate change.

Going to space is one option for human survival if our planet becomes so hot that it’s no longer habitable. But even with reusable rockets, space is expensive, and there won’t be room for everyone.

9. There’s still hope

As depressing as the film may be, there’s still hope for humanity. Life starts to bloom again on Earth. The antics of WALL-E and EVE wake up the passengers from their mindless scrolling. Captain B. McCrea fights back.

(WALL-E, Walt Disney Pictures/Pixar)

And there’s hope for us, too.

Yes, the outlook is bleak, but the science is clear – we can turn this ship around. Every degree of warming we can avoid will save lives, will protect ecosystems.

Perhaps the biggest difference between us and the humans in WALL-E is that we’re not useless – yet. We might feel it, but we still have a role to play in stopping the coming climate crisis.

In turning around our mindless consumption. In remembering that we vote governments in to serve our interests, not to protect the status quo. And we shouldn’t be scared to vote them out.

This is why we’re striking today. There is no news worth covering that could possibly be more important than reminding society that we still have a voice, and we still have power.

This article is part of ScienceAlert’s special climate edition, published in support of the global #ClimateStrike on 20 September 2019.

#Humans

[stopforamoment]

Fright and Flight (2 of 12)

Book: The Royal Romance (After Book Three)

Pairing: Bastien Lykel x OFC Rinda Parks

Word Count: 1,888

Rating: M for Language

Author’s Note: Obligatory disclaimer that Pixelberry Studios owns the TRR characters and my pocketbook with those darn diamond scenes. OFC with all of her quirks is all mine. My apologies if Tumblr or I do something stupid when I try to post this.

Summary: Rinda is second (and third, and fourth) guessing her decision to have Henry fly to Cordonia, but Bastien wants to be there to help.

. . . . Pretend Tumblr put a “keep reading” link here! . . . . .

Rinda was in a panic second-guessing her decision to come to Cordonia by herself and then have Henry fly separately a couple weeks later. In her head it made sense. She’d have time to get unpacked and settled in. She’d also have more uninterrupted time to work, and Henry would have additional time at home with his friends and grandparents. The difficult part was having Henry fly by himself. Well, he wasn’t by himself. There were other members of the exchange program who were going to accompany him, and this saved Rinda the cost of flying back to the U.S. and then back to Cordonia. Her parents would have flown with Henry, but her mother hated to fly and Rinda simply couldn’t afford the time for them to visit. She needed that time with just her and Henry to settle in. It made more sense for them to visit in November to celebrate Thanksgiving with them. Or maybe they would all fly back in June for an extended family vacation.

In her head it made sense. But now that she was making the last-minute preparations, realizing the hours Henry would be on the plane by himself . . . No. Not by himself. He would be travelling with other members of the exchange program whom she’d already met. They were the people who interviewed her and helped with her and Sarah’s transitions.

Rinda and Laura were in their classroom, doing a final push of preparations before Henry came. The plan was for Rinda to pick up Henry and they’d spend a couple days getting settled in at home, and then Rinda would bring him to school to show him around . . . and possibly have him help with final touches in their classroom. Bastien dropped some hints that perhaps some of the passageways were now safe to use, so she and Henry could do a few evacuation test-runs with him.

It was going to be fine. Henry was going to be fine. Rinda used to always be the relaxed and easy-going parent. Her own parents were somewhat strict, and her mother was paranoid to the point of being, well, Rinda’s Smother. There were many things Rinda didn’t get to experience in life because she lacked confidence or was too afraid to defy her parents. She didn’t want to do the same thing to Henry. Plus, Jameson was the worry-wart parent. He had seen the worst-case scenarios. There were days he came home, body shaking as he tried to hold back the tears because something tragic happened to a young child who looked like Henry or was Henry’s age. It was so hard for Jameson to let go and let Henry be a child. Now that Jameson was gone, now that Rinda experienced the worst-case scenario for herself, she had to work even harder to ensure she wasn’t smothering Henry or helicopter parenting. But, really. A plane ride across the Atlantic was excessive. What the fuck was she thinking?

There were times when Jameson and Henry would go off on a father-son trip, leaving Rinda behind to relax. Even though she was the easy-going parent, her heart would always drop as the car drove out of sight. Please God. My entire world is in that car. Please let them come home to me safely . . . Now it was just her and Henry, and her entire world would be on that plane, flying over the Atlantic for over eleven hours . . . for what? To uproot  to Cordonia for one semester? Oh, fuck. Fuck. What the fuck did she get herself info? What the fuck did she get Henry into?

. . . . .

Bastien was worried about Rinda. He heard her talking to Laura. He saw how she was pulling stands of hair out of her messy bun so she could twist her hair with her fingers, tying it in knots and untying it. She was fidgeting with her squish ball. Throwing herself into her work even more than usual. Two days until Henry was on that plane by himself.

Bastien didn’t want to interfere, but seeing Rinda so upset was bothering him. He knew he was more protective of her than he should be, that it was obvious favoritism because he didn’t feel this way about Laura or any of the other teachers. But they weren’t widows who lost their husband in the line of duty. They didn’t sob in his arms while their hearts were breaking. They didn’t make him laugh harder than he’d laughed in years or make him lose his train of thought when he gazed into their hazel eyes . . .

“Rinda?” “Hey, Bastien!” Simultaneously. She was lost in her work, but she looked up as she greeted him. Bastien usually startled people because he was used to walking quietly and blending into the background. But not Rinda. She could always sense when he was near.

Rinda laughed and invited him to sit down. “What’s on your mind, Bastien?”

Bastien sat down, suddenly unsure of himself. Normally when he needed to deflect he would lean back and stare silently. He perfected his steely, unflinching gaze and that uncomfortable silence though years of experience with the Royal Guard. Except it became an impenetrable armor that he unconsciously used when he felt shy or awkward in social situations. Which was often. The shy and awkward part. Not the social situations part. He tried to avoid those whenever possible, and his career definitely helped make that possible.

Rinda rolled her chair back and returned his silent stare with a smile. She was starting to figure out when he gave her that silent stare because he was truly upset with her, or something, but usually her—and when he gave that silent stare because something made him uncomfortable and he was deciding how to process it, or he was just forcing it to go away. Right now she was going to give him time to process, but she was ready to make a joke if he wanted space and needed to push her away.

“Rinda, you’re worried about Henry flying here, right?” Rinda turned pale and sucked in her breath.

Sucker punch right to the gut.

That was one of her many weaknesses. Henry. Figuring out how to navigate parenthood. How to get through the next 48 hours until he was safely landed in Cordonia, through customs, and in her arms getting the biggest hug ever. And she was still figuring out Bastien, but he already had her figured out. Or at least that’s what she thought.

“Yes. I . . .” Rinda shook her head. She couldn’t even deal with it right now and she unconsciously reached for a strand of hair and started pulling. “I’m sorry, Bastien. I know I haven’t been as focused as I should be.”

Bastien gently cut her off. “No, it’s okay. I understand. I heard you talking to Laura. And I know the details about Henry coming here because, well, that’s part of my job.” Bastien took a deep breath and jumped in. She was miserable and he could help her, and he was going to. Whether she liked it or not.

“Rinda.” His voice was firm. “There are Royal Guardsmen who need to fly back to Cordonia from the United States. I’ve already arranged for them to be on the same flight as Henry and the other members of the exchange program. They’ll be able to to fly out of Chicago.” He paused. “I’m sorry. I tried to make arrangements using the royal jet, but the King and Queen are on a diplomacy trip in France right now.” Rinda’s eyes widened.

The royal jet? Shit!

She knew he took care of personal security for the King and Queen, but she never really understood how much power Bastien had.

He continued. “We’ll be in constant communication with them during the flight, and the guards will escort Henry and the others so they can bypass customs. I’ll still make sure Henry gets a stamp in his passport, though.” Rinda was starting to tear up, but she bit her lip and laughed when he said that. Henry was actually really excited about getting a passport and getting his first stamp. Until a few months ago he only had a passport card that they used when they drove to Canada every summer. It made sense that Henry would still get his passport stamped, but funny how Bastien knew that would be so important to him.

“Rinda, I’d like to take you to the airport, if you don’t mind. I can get us through security so you can be right there when he enters the airport. We can go as early as you’d like. I’ll bring stuff to work on, so it’s okay if we’re there a long time. We can periodically check in with the guards, and you can even talk to Henry for a few minutes before they take off.” Bastien paused, then grinned. “I’m afraid we’ll still have to wait for his luggage to get cleared, though. And no promise the commercial airlines won’t lose it.” Bastien stood up. “So what do you think? Would that be okay?”

Rinda was quiet, taking deep breaths and trying to fight tears.

Gobsmacked. Crazy fucking word. I’m gobsmacked.

Bastien kneeled down by Rinda. “Hey,” he said quietly. “If you wanted to drive by yourself or do anything differently, please tell me. I can still make some changes.” Rinda leaned over and hugged him, whispering “Thank you, Bastien. Thank you.” He put his arms around her. “You’re very welcome,” he whispered back.

Rinda was the first to pull away and she wiped her eyes. “Sorry, but I’m not going to be responsible for ruining another one of your suits.” Bastien sat back down and smiled. He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and handed it to Rinda. She laughed. “Of course you would have a handkerchief for a damsel in distress.” She gave a wicked grin. “Bastien, why didn’t you offer me one on the last day of training? Why did you find such a large towel for me to wipe my face?” Bastien shook his head, refusing to answer her.

Rinda looked down at the handkerchief and furrowed her brows. There were raised dots sewn in a corner of the fabric. No, in two corners of the fabric. But it wasn’t Braille. Bastien was starting to stand up again when he saw her expression. “What is it, Rinda?”

“Bastien, the embroidery . . . are these constellations? This looks like Polaris and the Little Dipper . . . then this must be Dubhe . . . ” Rinda looked up and found herself staring at his shocked expression. “Bastien, are these Ursa Major and Minor?”

“Yes, Rinda, they are . . .” Bastien trailed off, too shy to continue. Rinda knew it was time to deflect with humor.

“Well, I promise to take good care of them. No booger bubbles, and I’ll wash the handkerchief before I return it to you. Cold wash, gentle cycle. Dry and iron with low heat. Deal?”

Bastien locked eyes with her for a moment, giving her a tender smile. “Deal.” He turned around and slowly walked back to his office.

[inhumansforever]

Inhuman of The Day

May 4th - Gorgon

Gorgon Petragon, the second cousin to King Black Bolt and the son of Korath, the former king’s brother.  Gorgon’s royal blood notwithstanding, he has remained something of a roughneck, much more at home at bars, brothels, and the battlefield than he is in the royal court. Exposed to the Terrigen Mist during his adolescence, Gorgon was transformed into a large, satyr-like hulk of a man, with greatly enhanced strength and durability as well as hoof-like feet that, when slammed down, can deliver devastating seismic waves.

The nephew of King Agon and cousin to the prince, Blackgarr, Gorgon was born into aristocracy.  Yet the plush lifestyle of royalty did not especially suit him.  He was a warrior through and through and was rarely content when not sparring and honing his skills as a fighter.  Gorgon became renown for his abilities as a combatant.  During the brief time that The Living Terrigen reigned as a stewardship king, Gorgon was promoted to viceroy and captain of the Royal Guard.    

Following Black Bolt’s ascension to the thrown, Gorgon maintained his position as viceroy and also acted as King Black Bolt’s personal bodyguard. When Maximus seized control of the Inhuman crown, Gorgon opted to remain loyal to Black Bolt. Gorgon’s father was killed in Maximus’ coup and his mother, Milena, was held hostage.  Maximus utilized Milena’s being his hostage as leverage that forced Gorgon to do the mad prince’s bidding.  To this end, Gorgon was sent to the world of the humans to search out Medusa.  Herein, Gorgon encountered the Fantastic Four.  After an initial battle with these heroes, Gorgon, Medusa and the rest of Black Bolt’s Royal Court teamed up with the Fantastic Four and together they were able to defeat Maximus and reclaim the throne for Black Bolt.  

Gorgon went on to prove himself an invaluable member of the Royal Family, serving valiantly in battles against formidable foes, including The Mandarin, Maelstrom, The High Evolutionary, The Sphinx, Psycho-Man, The Hulk, and many others.

He is by far the most headstrong and stubborn of the royal family; he never backs down from a fight and is by no means shy about speaking his mind, even in the presence of his king, Black Bolt.  His loyalty to his king notwithstanding, there have been incidents where Gorgon has grossly defied royal decree… first when he helped his Queen escape to Earth so to save her unborn child, and a second time when he conspired with his best friend, Karnak, to once more utilize the sub-caste Alpha Primitives as slave laborers.

Gorgon is additionally the most hedonistic among the Royal Family. He loves his drink and spends a good deal of time chasing potential bedmates. Although he is of high status within Inhuman society, it seems he often has rather poor luck in his romantic pursuits; likely a result of his frequently boorish conduct and the fact that he is something of a sloppy drunk. 

At some unspecified time, Gorgon met and fell in love with a fellow Inhuman named Myrra.  The two were wed and had one or possibly two children together.  Myra was killed in an accident (the circumstances of which have yet to be revealed).  Gorgon was grief-struck over the loss of his wife and this seemed to contribute to his becoming mired in his decadent ways as well as his being a neglectful parent to his children.

Gorgon has fathered two children, a daughter named Alecto and a young son named Petras.  It is likely that Myrra is the mother to both of these children, but also possible that someone else is the mother to one of them.  In any case, the relationship between Gorgon and his adolescent daughter has been quite turbulent following the death of Myrra.  Things came to a head when Alecto ran off with her boyfriend, a young Alpha Primitive named Reyno.  Highly bigoted toward the Alphas, Gorgon forbade his daughter from seeing Reyno and this led Alecto to flee with Reyno to Earth where they sought out amnesty with The Fantastic Four.  Gorgon tracked them down and Reed Richards ultimately chose to return his daughter to Gorgon, deciding it was not his place to interfere.  

Alecto and Gorgon eventually made amends and Alecto broke things off with Reyno.  The two young lovers later rekindled their relationship and went to live in a settlement Black Bolt had established where Inhumans and Alphas could live together in peace.  It is unknown to what extent Gorgon still maintains a relationship with his daughter.

Along with Alecto, Gorgon also has a son named Petras.  It remains unclear who Petras’ mother is.  It may be Myrra.  After Myrra’s death, Gorgon had a brief affair with  Medusa’s handmaiden, Minxi, and it is possible Minxi is the mother of either Petras.

Among his other duties, Gorgon additionally acted as head instructor in teaching the younger recruits of the Royal Guard.  His students have included the winged Inhuman, Tonaja, the king’s son, Ahura, as well as his own daughter, Alecto.  Later, Gorgon has been put in charge of the training many of the newer Inhumans created by the detonation of the Terrigen Bomb.  These new trainees include Flint, Naja, Iso, and Inferno.  Gorgon and Inferno have established an especially tight bond and friendship based on their mutual love of heavy metal music.  

At the onset of the Silent War event, Gorgon led a mission to try to reattain a cache of stolen Terrigen Crystals.  Gorgon was captured during this mission and an unscrupulous human scientist used Gorgon as a test subject to see what would happen were an Inhuman exposed to Terrigenesis a second time. This resulted in Gorgon being transformed into a beastly creature, even more savage and powerful than before. The effects of this secondary Terrigenesis either wore off or were undone by Inhuman science and Gorgon has since returned to his former physical self.

Following the War of Kings event, when The Inhumans were temporarily made the lords over the Kree Empire, Gorgon served as the chief of security on the Kree planet of Kon-Tarr.  Gorgon’s valor and hawkish views made him very popular among the Kree people… to such an extent that it caused friction between him and Queen Medusa, the then ruler of both the Inhumans and the Kree.

Later, during the Infinity event, Gorgon became quite concerned that his young son was ill-prepared for the oncoming threat posed by Thanos.  He decided that Petras should be subjected to Terrigenesis prematurely, regardless of the fact that exposure to the Terrigen prior to adolescence entails a greater risk of unstable mutation.  Gorgon’s cousin, Triton, tried to dissuade Gorgon of this course of action, but Gorgon refused to be swayed.  Petras was exposed to the mists and it resulted in his being transformed into a minotaur-like being.  Although Petras was endowed with greater strength and power, his transformation was sure to be viewed as monstrous by Inhuman standards… dooming Petras to a life of alienation among his peers.  

The population of Attilan were evacuated during The Infinity event, taken through the portal of Elldrac to many places unknown.  Following the Inhumanity Event and the establishment of New Attilan, Petras and the other children had yet to be located and Gorgon was near hysterical with worry over the wellbeing and whereabouts of his children.  Petra and many of the other children were eventually discovered and reside on the Royal Inhuman Vehicle (RIV).  

Gorgon has maintained a close and longstanding friendship with his cousin, Karnak, despite the fact that the two are quite different in terms of temperament and interests.  Gorgon and Karnak have been on many adventures together and have had a very close bond.  After Karnak killed himself, Gorgon would not speak of the matter and it may have been that it was all simply too traumatic an issue for Gorgon to deal with… choosing instead to repress his feelings over the matter.  Karnak later returned to life but he and Gorgon have yet to rekindle their close friendship.  

Just prior to the Secret Wars Event, Gorgon was critically wounded by the treacherous Inhuman, Lineage.  Lineage shot Gorgon in the back, severely damaging his spinal column and leaving him paralyzed from the neck down.  Although Inhuman medicine is quite advanced, it was unable to effectively treat Gorgon’s injury and he has been sequestered to a wheelchair.  It has been an especially difficult challenge for Gorgon.  He has always been a man of action, decisive and often impulsive; and not being able to move and act in the ways that he had been accustomed to has caused him great pain as well as a considerable self-reflection.  Gorgon’s son, Petras, had been located alive and well, yet Gorgon has been not yet ready to see him, fearful of what it might be like for Petras to see his once mighty father laid so low.  

After more fully digesting the massive changes to his life, Gorgon has decided not to allow his injury cause him to simply wallow in suffering.  He accepted Crystal’s invitation to join her ambassadorial team aboard the RIV and has redoubled his efforts to continue training the younger generation of Inhumans.  The new Inhuman, Naja, has quickly become his prize pupil and he has also taken keen interests in enhancing the abilities of Flint, Grid, as well as the unwilling Inhuman recruit named Jack.  

Gorgon has been outfitted with a specialized wheelchair.  It can act as a standard wheelchair, but can also transform into a type of bionic exo-suit that affords Gorgon greater mobility as well as a limited capacity to defend himself.   Using this suit, Gorgon accompanied his pupil, Flint, on a mission to locate the lost Inhuman settlement of Utolan.  

The ambassadorial team recruited a new Inhuman named Ash, who later chose the Inhuman name, Panacea.  Panacea possesses profound healing powers which she used to gradually heal Gorgon’s spinal injury.  Although Panacea’s treatment has enabled Gorgon to walk and even function as a combatant, a certain degree of the effects of the injury remained.  The injury has left Gorgon in a state of chronic pain, pain that greatly intensifies whenever he uses his powers.  

It was discovered that Gorgon’s son Petras had been never negatively effected by his premature exposure to Terrigenesis.  The exact nature of Petras’ ailment has been unrevealed, but it has led to him being kept in stasis in a medically induced coma.  Panacea has been working on curing Petras of this unrevealed illness and it is hoped that he will awake from his coma soon.  

Gorgon had hoped to be at his son’s side when he finally awakes, yet duty called and Gorgon opted to join Medusa on a mission to the cosmos to try and discover a new source of Terrigen.  

Shortly after beginning this mission, Medusa revealed to her teammates that she was dying from some sort of mystery ailment.  She had chosen to destroy the Terrigen Cloud so to save the Mutants and end the Inhuman/X-Men War.  Somehow, the Terrigen existent in her own genetic fiber was taking a kind of revenge on her, causing her to slowly die.  

Gorgon was greatly stirred by Medusa’s predicament.  It caused him to realize that he has loved Medusa, been in love with her, for a long while.   Medusa ultimately took notice of Gorgon’s fawning and confronted him on the matter and he admitted that he loved her.    No longer married to Black Bolt and staring down the prospect of her own demise, Medusa did not want to be alone and no longer felt bound to her duties as queen.  She chose to be with Gorgon and the two had a short affair.

The team’s mission ultimately brought them to the World Farm, a strange planet that was home to The Progenitors.  These Progenitors were powerful race of beings who could mold life through the use of Primagen.  Primagen could be distilled into Terrigen and the Royal squad attempted to steal a portion of this Primagen to bring back to Earth.  

The team had underestimated the power of the Progenitors and it looked as though they were going to be destroyed before they could escape.  In the heat of the battle, Gorgon chose to sacrifice himself so that the others could get away.  

He placed his hands not he raw Primagen, which had the effect of amplifying his powers to an exponential degree.  Greatly empowered, Gorgon slammed down his foot creating a seismic wave the cracked the planet in half.  The others were able to escape yet it looked as though it had come at the expense of Gorgon’s sacrificing himself.     

The Primagen ultimately cured Medusa of her ailment and the team had succeeded at creating a new source of Terrigen.  Some time later, it was revealed that Gorgon had not perished after all and that he continued to use his enhanced powers to battle the Progenitors.

Preview images from the upcoming Death of The Inhumans series shows Gorgon reunited with the royal family.  It has yet to be shown how Gorgon managed to return home and hopefully the matter will be addressed in the future.  

[rorykillmore]

i wasn’t gonna vent about this and i don’t want to talk about it but i’m about ready to lose my mind at my parents trying to force me into going down to florida on my own to take care of my grandpa while my grandma’s in the hospital

“you only work two days a week, you’re the only one who can afford to”  cool so i’m supposed to go down there and strand myself at their house and try to make sure he doesn’t do anything bad for him. i don’t even drive and i’m certainly not about to ask him to drive me places even for like, basic supplies we might need, when he has dementia. just the other week you warned me that he had a gun you were afraid he would use because he’d forget about people being in the house, but i’m supposed to handle ALL of this on my own.

never mind the fact that they know how badly i’m affected by memory loss/mental deterioration stuff due to previous illnesses in the family, let alone all the other stuff about this situation that’s downright triggering for me. i try really hard not to guilt my parents even though i feel they’ve failed me in some ways because i know they both blame themselves a lot for how horribly my freshman year of college affected me, but you know what i’m this close to being like “if i’m easily triggered by being forced into going a long way from home by myself it’s because YOU made me when i was just out of high school and obviously not ready, and if i’m afraid of people who are old and sick it’s because my entire life you’ve made me do things im scared of doing by being like ‘you know one day we’ll be dead and you’ll be alone!’”

it’s selfish but i’m also just beyond fed up with my grandparents at this point, their health has been off and on bad for ages and it’s INCREASINGLY become a problem that they live all the way in fucking florida with no one to help them at their age. like when there was the hurricane last year, they just fucking sat down there and refused to evacuate and made us worry about them. they’re too stubborn to consider hiring any help or getting any accommodations, they won’t move closer to us but they also don’t want to go to any kind of home, they don’t do ANYTHING to help themselves EVER, they just expect us to fly down there whenever there’s a problem. as if, even me aside, we have the fucking time or money to do that like 5 or 6 times a year. i’m just SICK of hearing about it and having to worry and feeling guilty because i never signed on to be able to handle this!!! i’m not even close to either of them!!!

[racheljoyscott]

- Columbine Conspiracy #2: Multiple Shooter Theory Pt. 3

If you have not yet done so, I encourage you to read the prior posts of this series before continuing with the following. Thank you.

Robert Perry, an expelled CHS student and TCM member, was positively identified by dozens of students and faculty. Student Bijen Monte irrefutably declared Perry as one of the shooters because of the severe acne, crooked teeth, pigeon-toe mannerism, and unique trench coat that he had. Perry’s trench coat was made of a cloth material, it was not a leather duster because he could not afford one; technically, Perry was the only member of the TCM who actually had a trench coat. Students Brian Frye (JCSO, 813), Lacey Smith (JCSO, 4,465), Crystal Archuleta (JCSO, 2,346), Tessa Nelson, and Matthew Connelly all echoed these rigidly specific details. Most of these students even picked Perry out of a photo lineup, which included Dylan Klebold. Perry slightly resembled Klebold, and many of these students stated that law enforcement pressured them into claiming that the person they saw was actually Klebold (not Perry), but they refused. Brooks Brown attempted to help the official narrative by telling law enforcement during his interview that Klebold had acne scars, despite no one else ever mentioning this detail, not even Klebold’s parents. Many students interviewed throughout the investigation claimed that Brown is a compulsive liar. Perry was seen driving an older individual on the campus of CHS by the aforementioned students before the start of classes. Likewise, many students saw Perry after the attack concluded. Breanne Cook, who victim Rachel Scott often wrote to and spoke with, identified Perry as a shooter to friends and law enforcement. Cook, who was evacuated to a local library after the attack, reportedly began hyperventilating because she saw Perry there, who had changed into tie-dye shirt; many people at the library also noted that Perry was at the evacuation site because of this obvious detail. Perry began working graveyard shifts at his job the same month as the attack; however, he did not show up for work on April 19 or April 20.

Chris Morris, a then CHS senior and TCM member, was also positively identified by an overwhelming number of students and faculty. Ashley Egeland identified Morris by name in her interview with Jeff Co. officials. Students Jake Apodaca (JCSO 665), Chris Wisher (JCSO 1260), Donald Arnold (JCSO 666), Patrick Neville (JCSO 1044), and Mike Kenny (JCSO 940), among many others, all described seeing Morris throwing explosives outside of the school. Just as Robert Perry’s claim to have been sleeping during the attack has been proven impossible, Morris’s claim to have been playing Nintendo with Corey Friesen, fellow TCM co-founder, has also been proven impossible because of this eye-witness testimony and unintentionally non-redacted pages in the final report. Fellow conspirator and TCM member, Joseph Stair, mentioned that Morris has anger management issues that caused him to act violently before the attack. Morris had previously been suspended for pulling a knife on students. In Morris’s own interview with law enforcement, there are two major discrepancies with the official narrative. Morris, along with Eric Harris’s ex-girlfriend, Sasha Jacobs, claimed that the Harris family had prior knowledge of the attack and of the construction of explosives that took place under their roof. The Harris’s never testified because they were refused immunity. Morris also claimed that Phil Duran, who worked at Black Jack Pizza with the shooters, had prior knowledge of the attack and willingly bought the guns for Harris and Klebold. If Morris claims to have known that these individuals were told of the attack, how can he claim that he, himself, had no prior knowledge on the attack and did not participate in any way, shape, or form? Morris was arrested the day of; law enforcement refused to acknowledge this (more on this arrest later).

Joseph Stair, also a CHS student and TCM member during the attack, was identified by a diverse number of eye and ear witnesses. Joseph, or simply, Joe, revealed a great deal about the TCM during his interview with investigators. Like Chris Morris admitted of himself, Joe Stair practiced satanism. Stair would reportedly carry around what he called “the devil’s bible.” Also, Stair and fellow TCM male members would kiss each other in public to disgust the students around them and promote satanism. As noted by investigator GB Mumma, Stair threatened to blow up Columbine on several occasions; CHS peer counselor Lindsey Ul corroborated this and informed law enforcement that police reports and internal Columbine reports were made on Stair and several other members of the TCM. Prior knowledge of the attack was abundant. I will get into more particular details on the TCM, including documented proof of Dylan Klebold’s involvement with the group in a later post. Students Salazar (JCSO 3761) Courtney Harible, Alicia Incinious, and Stephanie Duffy (JCSO 2919), among many others, all reported seeing Joseph Stair. The lack of redactions in these students’ accounts shows that they heard fellow shooters even call out to him “Joe, and not the word ‘yo.‘” Stair allegedly committed suicide in 2007, when many of those around him claim that he was preparing to become a whistleblower.

There were more personnel involved in the attack; however, these were the only three mentioned by name in the final report because they were the only three students, other than Harris and Klebold, who had attended CHS. I will describe the other people involved in later posts, which include TCM members from nearby schools and law enforcement. I also will provide documented evidence of prior knowledge, as well as new details of the TCM.

Intro to the Series

Columbine Conspiracy Post #1

Columbine Conspiracy Post #2 Part 1

Columbine Conspiracy Post #2 Part 2

**Again this is not my work. Not claiming these are true either, just theories**

[taniasinel]

Houston: We Have Rain

Hurricane Carla:  1961

Having grown up in Houston, I’ve lived through numerous hurricanes, starting with Carla in 1961.  Before Carla hit, my parents filled up our bathtub with water, which is what we always did back then, and then we “hunkered down” in the dark for a week.   Today, people no longer fill up bathtubs with water - not when you can stock up on gallons of bottled water from the grocery store. 

The bottled water aisle is stripped bare in preparation for Hurricane Harvey

Since Houston is just 50 miles away from the coast we usually miss the brunt of the eye of the storm where the winds will effortlessly pick up a car or a boat and toss it   down the road like a piece of paper.   Our enemy is more the rain than the wind.  Flooding from any storm, not just hurricanes, is always our issue in Houston.

Houston Astrodome welcomes Katrina Evacuees.  Many of these evacuees never returned to New Orleans, choosing instead to stay here in Houston.

Growing  up, hurricanes meant missed school and there was always a bit of festivity associated with being under a hurricane watch.  It wasn’t until missing school was no longer a goal, that hurricanes became scary adult stuff.   After Katrina destroyed one of America’s most beautiful cities, we all woke up to how destructive a hurricane truly can be.  Houstonians watched an entire city disappear under a wall of water – could that happen here?

Millions of Houstonians at a standstill, trying to evacuate during Hurricane Rita

Hurricane Rita hit Houston just a few weeks after Katrina.  Houstonians were so afraid after having just seen what could happened to a city that didn’t evacuate, that a majority did just that.  It proved to be a huge mistake to evacuate, miles of cars stood at a standstill for hours and hours.    In the end, over a hundred people died on the road trying to escape a hurricane that turned out to be relatively harmless.  We wouldn’t make that mistake of evacuating again.

 A few years later, Hurricane Ike hit Galveston hard, but Houston was lucky, yet again.  Ike’s winds were strong enough to wipe out electricity and Ben and I spent five hot days in the  dark,  without television or computers.   While it’s not fun to be without electrical power, at least we were safe and dry.

 The Addicks Reservoir in Houston – notice how close they built houses to this dam!!!!!

In Houston, a tropical rainstorm can wreck as much havoc as a hurricane –  it all depends on how fast and long the rain falls.  Our flat city sits at just 50’ above sea level and a series of natural bayous collects the rain water and then sends it back out to the Gulf of Mexico.  At least that is how it’s supposed to work.  In the 1940s, the Army Corp of Engineers built two huge reservoirs to help the bayous in case they ever overflowed. The problem is these two dams gave builders and homeowners a false sense of security and thousands of houses were built where the water would flow in case of a flood.  The dams were built to hold back a 100 year flood.  Our issue, though, is that Hurricane Harvey caused a 1000 year flood.

 Buffalo Bayou – Before Harvey.  Houston has developed this beautiful bayou to be used as parkland.

The same exact area – after Buffalo Bayou flooded during Harvey.  The bayous will keep rising until finally it overflows its banks, flooding the streets and everything else in its wake.  This is an amazing photo of the flood.

As usual with Harvey, it wasn’t the hurricane winds that hurt Houston, it was the rain.  After the eye came on land a few hundred miles away from Houston, the clouds moved over Houston and just stayed there, dumping over 50 inches of water in just a few days.  All that water has to go somewhere.  The engineers were scared the reservoir dams would burst so they started emptying them which caused even more flooding days after the Hurricane.  Over a week later, the engineers are still releasing the dam water – flooding will continue in these areas for at least 10 more days while the reservoirs are emptied.

Harvey came out of nowhere, developing so fast we were cavalier about it, convinced the meteorologists were wrong.  They weren’t.  They warned us that we would have unprecedented rain and that the hurricane would come here and wouldn’t leave.  It did. 

Here is what the storm looked like.

Here is how the storm would have looked if it was over Florida.  Huge.

Ben and I watched the news in horror.  Over 30,000 people were displaced.  At least forty people died.  The saddest story was a 3 year old who was found shivering, clinging to her dead mother.  Watching the elderly and the young try to escape the raging waters was gut wrenching.

This photo of elderly women trapped in the flood was one that caused the entire nation to take notice to how serious Harvey was. 

Here, the same group was shown after they were evacuated. 

We are used to certain areas of the city that always seem to flood:  Meyerland being the closest to us, always floods during bad storms.  But this storm was different.  During the rain, Ben and I kept checking our street looking at the water level.  There were a few days of extreme worry, but in the end, we were lucky, very very lucky.

Why?

For some reason our house is far enough away from any bayou or dam that it doesn’t flood.  But we hadn’t planned that.  Neither had my parents, or sister, or nephews.  Yet, we were all safe and dry.  Just lucky. 

In the end, you start to feel guilty about that.  Why us?   We had never made any great decision to move here, right here, where we would stay dry in a flood of biblical proportions.

Luck.

This is a four lane street with a large esplanade in the center.  Boats had to rescue people from their homes.

The people in this neighborhood all had to be rescued.

The freeway became a waterfall.

What you can’t see is how strong the current is in these waters.

Over a half a million cars were flooded during Harvey – new and used cars,  both.

An incredible photo of a flooded out neighborhood.  The boats look like tiny pieces of paper – and notice the truck flooded out.

Heroes

There have been so many heroes that have helped our city.  People who owned boats came from all over America to help rescue people stranded in their flooded houses.  Other people made sandwiches to hand out to hungry citizens.  The shelters were filled with clothes and toiletries donated by citizens from all over the world.  Without all these angels, the death rate would have been much higher.

Sorting clothes, towels and toiletries in a shelter.

The orchestra came and played for the evacuees.  Singers also entertained the families – even Harry Connick Jr. came!

Gallery Furniture

The owner of Gallery Furniture, “Mattress Mac” Jim McIngvale opened his stores and warehouses up to evacuees and first responders. 

Mac posted on his Facebook – “come on over!” – and people did.  He is an amazing man and I don’t think I’ve ever had more respect for anyone.  He sent out his huge furniture trucks to pick up evacuees.  He served food and even allowed pets to come along. 

Mac is a true hero.  No one asked him to do a thing – he just did it.

Other people became instant heroes.    Our mayor – Sylvester Turner was amazing.  He refused to call for a evacuation and faced criticism from national media and even our governor for that – but the Mayor was right.   You can’t evacuate millions of people in two days.  He continued to make tough decisions and stood by them.  He was strong and calming and proved to be the right man for the job.

  Jeff Lindner, the Harris County Flood Control District meteorologist became a folk hero during the storm.

And then there was Jeff Lindner –  the meteorologist for the Harris County Flood Control District.  I told Ben he was going to be a “star” and I wasn’t alone who thought he was special.  Someone started a Go-Fund account to “Give Jeff Lindner a Vacation.”  It was worth almost $20,000 in just a few days.

Another hero was Michael Dell, from Houston, of Dell Computers, who donated over $34 million of his personal wealth to the victims. 

And our football star JJ Watts started a fund that reached over $20 million!!  Incredible!!

These are just a few heroes – there are so many heroes whose names we will never know.

These people, the heroes with boats were so awe inspiring.  They saved so many lives – they were true angels.

And what about the animals?

During Katrina, when the buses finally came to rescue the city, they would not allow anyone to bring their pets with them!  It was a heart wrenching to watch – all the animals had to be left alone and their owners were even more distraught having lost their homes and now their pets, especially after having saved them from the flood. 

Houston decided to let evacuees bring their pets with them and here, you can see two dogs chill-laxing at the shelter.  Adorable.

This was another time that our mayor Sylvester Turner was so right.  He could have said – “no pets allowed at the shelters” – but he did the right thing, AGAIN.

The sun comes out!!

Finally after days and days the sun came out and life started to pick up a bit.  We got our first mail delivery – on a Sunday!  

But, for most people – cleaning up after the flood was just starting.

 The massive clean up starts. 

What now?

My old neighborhood, Meyerland, where my parents had built a house when I was in elementary school, was in the national news during Harvey.  Meyerland, the center of Houstonian Jewish life,  is located right off Braes Bayou and as the years went on, it would always flood during very bad storms.  But the flooding had escalated - Harvey marked the third time in three years where houses flooded in Meyerland.  The homes, many custom, were mostly built in the 60s and 70s – and their foundations are too low to survive a flood.  These houses need to be raised.

Those who can afford it are choosing to tear down their houses and new, elevated houses are built in their stead.  Others are choosing to elevate their existing house – raising it on piers to escape future floods.   But these people are the lucky ones.  Most can’t afford these options, nor can they afford to just walk away and take on the burden of two mortgages.

In Meyerland, this is one of the first homes that was elevated to escape future floods.  This house used have its foundation at ground level.  Now, it looks charming and safe. 

  This Meyerland house is in the process of being raised on piers.  The owners didn’t want to be flooded again.  To see even more houses – before & after they were raised, go HERE.

This house in Meyerland was torn down and replaced with a new house on an elevated foundation.  It is now high enough that it won’t flood.  To the right,  the neighbor’s foundation is at ground level and it floods each time there is a bad rainstorm.

Even our temple, Beth Israel,  also located in Meyerland,  flooded and all the prayer books had to be moved up out of harm’s way.

Meyerland owners have been facing the floods for years, but other neighborhoods in Houston are new to flooding.  Thousands of houses that have never flooded before and now under water.  What will happen?   They will have to decide to either renovate their house or to elevate it to avoid future floods.

Right now – those people who flooded out are ripping out carpet and sheetrock in order to be able to move back home.

This owner was ingenious – to save all their furniture from the water, they used Legos to raise everything in their house!!    I hope the water didn’t get too high in the house.

And then there was this man.  Last year, in a bad flood, he used an Aqua Dam around his home and you can see it kept the flood water away.   Houston used Aqua Dams on our freeways, so they must really work as long as the water doesn’t get higher than the dam.  This is a great idea  - they aren’t cheap, but if you can stop the flood water from ruining your house, it’s worth it.  Aqua Dam HERE.

The future is worrisome.  Houston will have to get experts to make tough decisions about zoning and flood plains and how we can be safe during storms.

People are still in need of financial aid here.

If you would like to donate to help those less fortunate in Houston, I think the best place to donate is the Hurricane Harvey Red Cross Fund HERE where the funds go directly to Harvey victims.

And finally, I want to thank you all so much for your good wishes and prayers.  It meant so much to me to feel your love! 

And now, our prayers go out to Florida who is facing Hurricane Irma.

from COTE DE TEXAS http://cotedetexas.blogspot.com/2017/09/houston-we-have-rain.html