#but particularly this version reduces me to tears every single fucking time

[cherishmimi]

"...because she’d just been slapping a band-aid over whatever she thought the wound might be, instead of letting herself bleed so that she could see clearly what needed to heal."

-Cherished Affliction, Chapter 31.

[hintofcolor]

If I’m in pain you are gonna feel it (I never got to tell him I loved him and it’s your fault)

Tim yells at Clark because he’s sad and misses his best friend

It was quiet. Cassie and Tim stayed back, while everyone else went up to the house, sitting under the tree that gave shade to fresh turned dirt and concrete slab. The trunk of the tree wide enough that they could sit side by side and still lean back against it. 

“Conner Kent,” Cassie read aloud the name on the tombstone, “the fact that that’s the name they went with makes me want to break the ugly thing.” 

“Go for it,” Tim responded as he leaned his head back and closed his eyes, willing the tears back in. He’s cried enough in front of people. “Maybe he’ll be offended enough that he comes back to tell you how rude it is to vandalize his grave.” 

Cassie chuckled, “If anyone would come back from the dead because of a hurt ego, it’d be Kon.” A small, soft smile settled on both of their faces.

They sat in comfortable silence just being in each other’s presence. They were the only two left. It hurt, but at least they had each other. It was nice, comforting, to just see the other. To watch each other’s chest rise and fall, to see their eyes flutter, tired and sad, glazed over with tears, but full of life. The sun turned a warm red and the sky lit up in vibrant colors. It was beautiful. It reminded Tim that Kon would never be able to keep the promise of showing Tim the sunsets in Hawaii

“You wouldn’t believe it man!” Kon beamed, “the sunsets and sunrises are unreal. It’s like they are fake. Like some one, I don’t know, painted them. I don’t know how to describe it.” Kon sat next to Tim on the water tower in smallville. Kon had flown up there, the whole ‘not being able to be himself’ thing weighing heavy. So they sat on the tower and Kon talked and Tim listened. When the sun started to set Tim smiled and made a remark about how beautiful it was and how he doesn’t see sunsets a lot because Gotham and pollution and such. Which in turn, made Kon start gushing about Hawaii. Tim turned to give Kon his full attention, while Kon sat with his arms resting on the barricade, his legs hanging over the edge, and his eyes glued to the sky. “You gotta see it I swear.”

“I believe you.”

“No I’m serious. I want you to see it for yourself. One day I’m going to take you to see a sunset in Hawaii. That’s a promise.”

 “I’ve got to head home.” Cassie’s voice breaking through the memories. “It’s been a long day, and it’s almost dark, I don’t want my mom to worry. Will you be okay? You can stay over at my place if you think your family will be to much.”

“Thanks Cass, but I’m okay.” Tim responded. A smile that didn’t reach his eyes settled in place. Like it belonged there. “I don’t think I’m through saying goodbye yet.”

Cassie simply smiled sympathetically. The look of his smile made her nauseous. She hurts too, so bad, but Tim has lost so many people already, she would give anything if she could just take his pain away. Seeing some one she loves in so much pain, knowing she can’t do anything about it, leaves her uneasy. As if she’s in pain for them. She wants to stay a little longer. Sit next to him, holding his hand, or resting her head on his shoulder, something to remind her that he’s still there, to remind him that she’s not going anywhere. She almost caved, sitting back down, staying with him till he was ready to go home. She even thought about going with him then too. Curling up in his too big bed, like how they all used to after a particularly difficult mission, leaving them feeling powerless and hopeless. All settled in one of their bedrooms, which ever was closest, just for the comfort of having other people around. They never talked, they just all silently got ready for bed and claimed a spot wherever was comfortable. However, she needed to get home to her mom, because as much as she loves Tim and wants to stick by his side, she really, really needs a hug from her mom right about now. To have her kiss Cassie’s head and tell her it’s okay, and that the pain just means that she cares.  

She flies off, refusing to go up to the old house. To many memories of the four of them are stored in that rickety barn and yellow home. She doesn’t want them tainted by grief. 

Tim watches her go. He leans his head back against the tree again. He was about to close his eyes when he heard footsteps approaching. He stood, perfectly ready to give whoever it was some privacy with Kon. Until Clark comes into view. An anger Tim didn’t even know he was harboring for the Kryptonian came bubbling to surface. Fast and Hot.  He pushed against the tree to stand up right and tall. 

“Are you proud yet?” He asked, venom dripping from every word. Clark turned to look at the boy briefly. Tim could see the guilt hanging heavy in his eyes. “He saved the world. Died a hero. That enough to convince you that he isn’t Lex? That he could be more than his DNA?” 

“Tim-” 

“No. I talk, you listen.” Tim spit. Clark recoiled, but stayed quiet. “You did nothing but push him away for absolutely no valid reason. What makes you think you have a right to stand here and grieve? When you were the one who made his life hell. For years, years Clark, I had to sit and listen as he doubted himself, doubted who he was, whether or not he was good, whether he was his own person. I watched him drive himself insane over his stupid DNA. Because of you, Clark! Because you couldn’t for three seconds consider that maybe, just maybe Kon is his own person. He had a mind, a beating heart, a soul, Clark, and you reduced him to a science experiment. You don’t get to stand here and act like this isn’t exactly what you wanted. Not when that stupid shield drug him down more than you could ever imagine” 

“I tried-” 

“YOU TRIED!? God Clark you can’t be this dense. The Kon you knew wasn’t even Kon! GOD! He changed everything about himself so that maybe, just maybe you would accept him! He died being a person he didn’t even recognize in the mirror. The clothes, that stupid t shirt and jeans, the hair cut, the glasses, his obviously dialed down personality. I can’t count how many times I listened to the same thing over and over, about how much he hated everything he had become, how didn’t feel like himself, how it was driving him insane. And every time I would tell him that there was nothing wrong with who he used to be and every time, every single time, he would respond with ‘Clark would disagree.’ All you did was change him into another version of you. Your opinion meant so much to him and you hardly even spared him a second thought. You wanna know how I know you didn’t try, because if you spent even five minutes talking to Kon like he was more than a clone bred to fight, you would know how much he hated Smallville. LOOK WHERE WE ARE STANDING! He couldn’t wait to get out of this place, and because you didn’t want to go through the, what, hassle? Of coming up with a story as to why he would be buried in someplace he liked. Buried in Hawaii? He is the in the one place that him feel even less of a person forever. God, Clark do you know how pathetic that is? How so royally fucked up that is? Do you know how angry he would be if he knew he had to spend eternity here? And yet you have the audacity to stand here and actually mourn him?.”

“I-” 

“I’m not done talking. You don’t get to mourn some one you wished wasn’t alive in the first place. We both know the only reason it hurts you so much is because this perfectly crafted ‘knight on a white horse’ person you created just took a hit. God, I wish in everything that some one would knock you off of that damn high horse. I am so sorry your hero complex took a hit. I am so sorry that you have to be the villain for once. That you couldn’t save Kon, whether it was from prime or himself. I am so sorry that you worked so hard to make Kon into Clark 2.0 only to have him die. I am so, so sorry that you regret not getting to know him. But that’s on you and only you. And that guilt you’re feeling, the guilt of not being fast enough. Of not getting there in time. Of letting some one die. Of some one dying thinking that you hate them. I get it. Trust me, I get it. A hundred scenarios running through your mind about how it could have been different, how you could have saved him. How you could have done better. How you should have kept them closer. When you are laying there at night, your stomach curled in on itself, your blood ice cold. The hot tears pouring down your face as some cruel reminder that you can’t escape from this. The type of guilt that has you hunched over the toilet, choking on your vomit because you can’t stop sobbing long enough and you’re body won’t let you do both. You don’t panic, you think if I go I deserve it right? You put on the cape and become sloppy and reckless because if you make it out, if you are able to go home and take them off, the pain will set back in. That guilt that is all encompassing, that drags with you all day and all night. Cause no matter what, you can’t wake up. That guilt? I can tell you with a doubt is the worse feeling you will ever feel. And I truly mean it when I say that I hope you choke on it. I hope you scream for help and no one listens. I want you to know what it feels like to be in so much pain while surrounded by people who make a living helping people. I hope people you consider family ignore your suffering. I hope that pain seeps into your skin. I hope the sound of Kon hitting the ground rings in your ears. I hope the sound of his heart stopping replays on repeat.” Tim’s voice breaks, tears are flooding down his face he can’t see anything, but he doesn’t care. He is so angry that nothing else matters. His voice drops to barely a whisper “I wish Kon were here. I wish he could tell you this himself. I wish he could tell you himself how much it hurt to know that you would never love him.”

Tim walked off, up the dirt road that lead to Kent’s long driveway. He paused at the old worn mailbox, before deciding to just keep going. He trekked down the long dirt road, with no clue where he was going. He knew Bruce would come looking eventually. He found himself lying on the cold metal walkway of the old water tower. He just stared up at the stars, like he was waiting for Kon to appear out of  the sky. He closed his eyes, tears still streaming down steadily and whispered the same thing over and over again. Maybe if he said it enough Kon would hear it. 

I love you. I love you. I love you.

[the-yellowturtle]

The Curious Case of Master Katara (Pt.1)

Rating: T

Relationships: Minor Katara/Zuko, Minor Katara/Yue, Katara & Toph, Katara & Sokka, Katara & Zuko, Katara & Korra 

Summary: In the sixth year of Fire Lord Zuko’s reign, Master Katara of the Southern Water Tribe is assassinated. (OR: Katara Becomes the Painted Lady!AU) 

CW: some cussing, mentions of violence, brief mention of the the desecration of a corpse, misogyny and Katara slander

Special thanks to @levitatingbiscuits for the beta :3 

AO3 Link 

An extremely popular saying in the Western Earth Continent, to save the Fire Lord and Avatar in your past life, means that an individual is extremely skilled or fortunate in some way; so much so that the only way a person could have earned such a splendid life was by living a virtuous past one. 

The phrase references Master Katara’s actions during the final year of the Hundred Year War, in which she saved the lives of Fire Lord Zuko and Avatar Aang. Although initially not common knowledge in the immediate years after the war, Fire Lord Zuko and Avatar Aang would go on to confirm multiple times that Master Katara saved both of them with her healing abilities. Strangely enough, it was Princess Azula, Fire Lord Zuko’s younger sister, that landed both of these mortal injuries. 

However, it is mainly thanks to Master Toph Beifong that this saying became commonplace. While teaching metalbending, Master Beifong was known to ask particularly arrogant students, “Do you think you saved the Fire Lord and Avatar?” Often hearing this remark, Master Beifong’s pupils soon began to compliment one another by saying that an individual “must have saved the Fire Lord and Avatar” to be so skilled in the bending discipline. When these students finished their metalbending training they would go on to further spread the saying throughout what was then known as the Earth Kingdom. 

-The Origins of Common Earth Phrases

Toph knows who she is. She is the Greatest Earthbender in the World. She is the inventor of seismic sense, truth seeing, and metalbending. She is the teacher of the Avatar, and one of the people responsible for ending the Hundred Year War. She is a Beifong, but she has carved out her own destiny and chosen her own family. 

Toph knows who she is and she is proud of that person, but it’s not until Aang comes to her one day after her metalbending class that a part of her wishes that she was only the second best earthbender in the world. She could keep metal bending and seismic sense, but truth seeing? She didn’t need that anymore; she didn’t want it.

“Toph, Katara… she… she’s missing.” True. 

“What are you talking about, twinkletoes? What do you mean, she’s missing?” Toph can barely feel his heartbeat over the ringing in her ears. 

“There was an attack. We don’t know what happened to her…. We can’t find her.” True. 

“You need to come with me to the Fire Nation, the rest of us are gathering and trying to find out what happened.” True. 

In the beginning, she is eager to help. This is her friend, and she’s probably out there waiting for them to find her. Toph can also totally hold it over Katara when she has to rescue her like a damsel in distress. Besides, she can’t sit around in the palace waiting for good news. Zuko isn’t allowed to go out there, but there is nothing stopping her. Toph volunteers her services without a question. She will be the investigative bureau’s lie detector; she is the only person in the world with this skill. They will get to the bottom of this in no time. 

They don’t. 

“She was purifying the water when all of a sudden she was struck by an arrow.” True. 

“No, it was two arrows!” True. 

“Arrows? I’m not sure… I didn’t really see anything. It looked like she just fell over… maybe she just tripped or something?” True. 

“One minute she was there and the next minute she wasn’t!” True. 

“She had to have been there! I even found the necklace she was wearing in the water!” True.

“It was the strangest thing. She got shot and then before my very own eyes she disappeared. She just vanished into thin air.” True. 

“Vanished? Her body? You think you’re all so mighty bowing down to the usurper, but then you trust gossip from the rabble. She didn’t disappear. One of the higher-ups brought the body back to the headquarters. Saw it with my very own eyes. Blue robes and everything.” True. 

“Yeah, I saw the corpse, too. We had a feast to celebrate killing one of the war heroes.” True. 

“It wasn’t the waterbender. It was some random peasant girl he came across on the way back.” True. 

“Where is the waterbender? Beats me, probably only the Spirits know now.” True. 

“I don’t know where she is! I shot her twice, she fell back in the water, and then she was gone! I blinked and she was gone!” True. 

“Why? Why did I do it? Because it was easy. You all think you’re so great, but she went down without a fight, that pathetic bi—” 

Toph is given the day off after she pummels the perpetrator through the wall. 

Eventually, they find all the hideouts and headquarters of the New Ozai Society. They find the leaders, their secret stash of funds and a list of their supporters. They find the body of the farmer girl the assassin happened across during his escape, and return her to her family for a proper burial. 

They never find Katara. 

In the past, Toph treated truth-seeing like a fun party trick; a way she could make her friends squirm. Now? She’s tired. She doesn’t want to know that Zuko is lying when he agrees that it wasn’t his fault. She doesn’t want to know that Sokka thinks Katara being alive is an unlikely possibility. She doesn’t want to know that Suki has doubts when she suggests that Katara’s reported injuries would have resulted in a quick death. 

She doesn’t want to see what people believe to be the truth anymore. 

Some semblance of closure finally comes to the group when Aang returns from his journey to the Spirit World. 

“Sokka was right. She’s with Yue,” he states, “She’s a spirit now… the Painted Lady.” True. 

Toph doesn’t know how to react to that statement. She knows Aang believes what he said to be the truth, but a part of Toph wants to scream. Stop using the flowery language, Twinkletoes! With Yue, with the Spirits, is a Spirit, dead; they’re all the fucking same! It doesn’t matter if she’s having a grand ole time with the Moon! It doesn’t matter if she’s some type of Spirit now! She’s gone! She’s not coming back! 

For once in her life, Toph Beifong doesn’t know what to say, so she says nothing. She hugs the others, visits the South Pole for the first time, and offers a shoulder to cry on. However, the tears don’t come for her. Not yet, at least. Maybe she’s tougher than she thought. Maybe that’s a lie. Maybe she’s just in denial. 

Maybe it’s real, though. Maybe Katara really is gone forever. Letting the entire world mourn her doesn’t seem in character for Miss I-Will-Never-Ever-Turn-My-Back-on-People-Who-Need-Me. Because Toph really needs her right now, and she’s still nowhere to be found. 

___

At first Toph doesn’t talk about it. She says her bit at the South Pole, and then Katara and all things relating to Katara are locked away, never to be prodded again. She’s a busy person, being the inventor of metalbending and all, and she doesn’t need to rehash her feelings over and over again for any curious passerby. Besides, isn’t this what Katara would want? For them to get on with their lives? 

So with the resolve of a saber-tooth moose lion, Toph decides to “get on with her life” and resume her position as the Greatest Earthbender in the World. 

Her plan quickly falls to shambles when she attends a play with her metalbending students as a reward for their progress in the discipline. She had thought the night out would provide her with some content to tease the rest of the gang about during their upcoming Ember Island trip. Oh, how wrong she was. Toph at twelve would have found the play hilarious, but Toph in her twenties, with a better understanding of the world, was furious. She was not sure how they managed it, but somehow a post-war Earth Kingdom production managed to treat Katara with less dignity than Fire Nation war propaganda.

Reduced to the ‘Water Tribe Girl,’ the role blatantly reflecting Katara was egregious in every manner. Throughout the play, when Water Tribe Girl wasn’t crying out for someone to save her, she was seducing the two main protagonists —the Fire Lord and the Avatar— thus causing a rift in their friendship. After a brutal onscreen death where a local hunter mistook her for game and accidentally shot her, the Fire Lord and Avatar rejoiced, for they were finally free of her wicked temptations. 

Despite using the Beifong name to promptly end the playwright’s career, she soon learned the production was not particularly unique. Once she started looking, there was a plethora of plays, stories, artwork, and rumors that seemed to thrive off of smearing Katara’s name. The better ones would portray her as the supportive love interest, the Avatar’s Girl, the cheerleader that had no skills of her own to offer. In the worst, she was an immoral temptress threatening to wreck the balance of the world, or a parable for children to learn about the dangers of not planning ahead. 

Toph had fucking had it the day she overheard her students using “tearbend” to mock one another. She couldn’t track down the creators of every shit opinion and piece of art, but she could directly influence the opinions of the people around her. She was never going to give them a rendition of her eulogy all those years ago nor was she going to let them see all the precious moments they shared, but she could tell them the truth. A version of the truth, anyway. 

“Katara was the only person in the world that could claim to be a Master of all three waterbending styles: Northern, Southern, and Foggy Swamp.” 

“Katara successfully traversed the Si Wong Desert with only a single pouch of water.” 

“Katara was such a badass in the North that they decided to start training women in martial waterbending.”

“At the age of fourteen, Katara led a prison uprising that freed hundreds of earthbenders.”

“During Sozin’s Comet, Katara defeated Princess Azula and saved Fire Lord Zuko’s life in under three minutes.” 

“Using only scrolls and secondhand accounts, Katara successfully revitalized Southern Waterbending.” 

It got easier for Toph to talk about her as time went on. She was neither an artist nor a poet, but she could do this. She could get it into her pupils’ heads that while she may be the Greatest Earthbender in the World, Katara was the Greatest Waterbender, and that they better not forget it. The statue she had metalbent of them together that stood outside in the school’s courtyard was sure to remind them if they slipped for even a moment. 

___

For the majority of her life, Toph spent her summers the same way. Once the students were out on their summer break, she would first visit the Fire Nation, then Kyoshi Island, followed by the Southern Air Temple, and finally the Southern Water Tribe. She would often see her family throughout the year, but it was important to set aside a time where it was guaranteed. It was a tradition, and not even the daunting task of traveling with a newborn could stop her from following it. Toph was extremely grateful, however, once Lin was old enough to be an eager participant. 

It’s only when she’s starting to get up there in decades that she adds a new stop to her route. About a day’s journey by foot from her bending school in Yu Dao, there’s a harbor town situated near a waterfall. It is here that one of the Earth Kingdom’s first shrines dedicated to the Painted Lady was constructed. After tales of a civilian ship avoiding disaster by being guided to the eye of the storm by a veiled woman had spread throughout the Western Coast, the Spirit had boomed in popularity. It was now a common practice before setting sail for people to visit the shrine with offerings to pray for a safe journey. The Painted Lady had come to be seen as the guardian of clear skies and smooth waters in the Western Earth Kingdom. 

Although it was never going to be the same as seeing her in person, Toph had found herself adding the shrine as the last leg of her summer vacation. Once arriving in town, she would use the ingredients she had purchased in the Southern Water Tribe and the knowledge Gran Gran had shared with her decades ago, to prepare a pot of stewed sea prunes. After her hard work, she would carry it with her up the steps to the Painted Lady’s shrine to present as an offering. 

Most people would donate money for the maintenance of the shrine or light incense when praying to the Painted Lady. However, Toph wasn’t begging a Spirit for any favors; she was visiting the dead. Gaoling may no longer be her home, but some of the traditions were still ingrained into her. In the Southern Earth Kingdom, you present your loved ones with food, and Katara’s favorite most definitely was her grandmother’s sea prunes. 

Toph has never encountered the Painted Lady in all of her years visiting the shrine, not that she ever really expected to. However, sometimes after she’s done wiping her eyes, she swears that her aching joints feel a bit lighter. 

“‘Till next year, Sugar Queen,” is how she always concludes her visits. If sometimes she hears a “Thank you” in the wind, then that’s between Katara and her. 

[seven--eyes]

due to personal reasons, I will write this abnormally long Sipian fic. thank you

My mind woken up, but my body had not. Get up. Move. Fucking. Toss the sheets off, at least. But nothing happened, my hands hardly stretched in response to my will to do so. I shifted my weight over and rolled to my back. My chest rose and shrank like a balloon, my sigh so swiftly taking the breath from me. Something in the first deep breath of the day put some fuel in the fire. Waking up now, sort of. Lean. Shift. Sit up. I said fucking sit up, do it; finally. Getting somewhere. 

I yanked on my uniform, laced my boots into place, and reluctantly and begrudgingly fastened the top two buttons on my shirt. Okay, now go to work. Wait no should I eat first? Nah. Fuck it, actually I’m getting coffee first. 

Okay, finally with coffee and clothes on, I can focus. Another deep breath; feeling the salty sea burn in the back of my throat and nostrils. That’s home. I had the fortune to make my first conversation of the day with Dollface. Arguably the best conversations to be had in the city of Elviasa. Great listener. She directed me to the charting room for more updates. 

The front of my skull flexed in a soft, vague twinge of pain. My eyes squinted in the sunlit rays of the towering room. Along the railings spiraling up the inside of the walls, Bo tangled herself along it. Dewey sat atop the last step of the staircase, dangling his legs to and frow. Without a care in the goddamn world.

“Good morni- wait, good afternoon, Sergeant!” Dewey chittered out. He chuckled afterward, probably towards the shitty look on my face. 

“Afternoon, little D.” 

His expression immediately dropped. “You know how I feel about that nickname.”

I tilted my chin up, towards him. I squinted deep and bounced my brows. “I know.” I reached for and pulled up the closest lounge chair, claiming it. “Where’s the Admiral?” 

“I think he’s in a meeting with Eon. As much as she doesn’t like the Captain, she can’t deny how many recruits and new shiney fishes she and her crews reel in,” he explained. Dewey looked clearly pleased as a result to finally be saying this outloud, “Captain’s one signature away from decorating her collar with another, fifth star!” 

“It’s about fucking time. She’s a damn fine woman.” I rolled my wrist, creating a little whirlpool in the coffee.

Bo began to sturr, unraveling her curls. Slowly slithering down the wooden shelves along the back wall under the railings. “Bo, quit that, you’re gonna knock all the maps off! Ugh. Anyway,” Dewey exclaimed. “She is. I’m happy for her, hell I’m even happy for us! Y’know how many wide-eyed kids I’ve seen Captain Gant-don’t take advantage of? Worked to the bone?” 

I cocked my head to the side. “Why ain’t Admiral got his paws in that shit?”

“You know how Eon is. Gantu is practically treated like honorary Admiral of the Fleet.”

I watched Bo slink down to the ground floor, groggily and lazily. “Oh yeah, right. I was so caught up in her making a good promotion decision for Anchor, I completely forgot she was a huge unempathetic bitch.” 

Dewey sighed heavy. “I wish I could forget that.” 

“‘Twas a fleeting, yet peaceful moment of bliss.” 

The mousefolk let the silence fall between us. He glanced awkwardly through the room, mostly to Bo who continued to tie herself around things. He tapped his claw to his book cover. Then, pulled it shut. “You should probably go talk to her, too.” 

I reached down to Bo, to offer a pet and greeting nose boop. “Huh? Why?” 

“Because I want you out of my workspace so badly I’m grasping at the straws, sergeant.” Dewey chittered sarcastically. “-Because you should just talk to her. She could use the company. Especially with her last day as your Captain. You ever even speak outside work?” 

I felt my hand tense up, frozen. “Yeah,” I lied. 

“Then that shouldn’t be too hard.” I offered only a grunt in response, and he shot me a weird sideways glance, like he was trying to understand the meaning of nothing. “Come on, Sam.” 

Moving my hand away from Bo’s face, she sadly tuck her nose back into her curls now that I wasn’t petting it. “Sure, sure. Right after I get some kinda work done.” 

.

For the rest of the morning and afternoon, I had to have cracked my back and knuckles at least a dozen times. Something in my bones just didn’t feel right. I mean, they never do, but moving and living was just particularly out of place. My coffee and black and bitter, but it didn’t liven my senses. The deep inhales brought in the same salty air. Yet, breathing back out left me a little more winded. What the hell was it. What was so off. What was it about what he said. God I just want to exist sometimes. I don’t get even that. What was holding me so close to the ground today... Never fucking mind, it was time for work.

...More of, time to work some then procrastinate the rest of the afternoon. To be fair, hand cramps kept me from writing, and my late start to the day kept me from surveying the crews. Everyone was already out and had done something. But then there’s Sam fucking Sipian working a desk. Who knew. Just get something done, idiot. Just write, cramps and sores can go fuck themselves. By the time evening had began to settle, and the fleets drifted back into Elviasa docks, I was looking to end the work day. I rose from my office and stepped out to meet the sailors halfway. 

Greeted by a few “Good evening, Sergeant” ‘s and “Hey, where’ve you been?” ‘s making my way down the docks, and pivoting or ducking under moving planks, barrels and cargo being taken from the ships. One particular sailor passed by with what, at first, looked like a carpet or blanket rolled up and tossed over his shoulder. But as the end of it slapped me in the shoulder, I turned. Nope; That’s.. That’s not fabric, that’s a whole severed sea monster tentacle. You think you’ve seen it all. And it was black, not navy or deep purple, just nasty, decayed, charcoal black. I squinted to it, walking backwards, immediately smacking into somebody head-on a moment later from making the connection.

Anchor immediately caught me by the front of my shirt. “At east, Sergeant,” she grinned, pulling me back onto my feet. “Sameal.” 

I shot a glance to her hand, still firmly held around my blouse. “Ee-evening, Captain.”

“You should watch where you’re going.” She cocked a brow. Her eyes eventually met her hand, where she too made a connection. She let go of me quick. First, straightening the wrinkles she put in the fabric before lowering her hand. I could feel in her expression she wanted to say something about uniform, but shut her mouth before her tongue worked faster than her respect. “It’s good to see you finally out and about, erm, Sergeant.” 

“Doesn’t feel good to be out,” I quietly muttered, straightening out my uniform. My hands fiddled with the front of my belt. “But uhh, word has it that you’re getting promoted.” 

Her eyes filled with a very precise emotion when she saw my fingers meddle with my belt buckle. Caution, confusion, professionalism and extreme judgement all at once. Anchor rolled her shoulders back. She started to walk nonchalantly as she spoke. “Honestly, Sipian, promotion just means I need to buy more overpriced, fancy uniform items.” Her voice stood out against the clamor of her crew hasting around the docks.

“But... regulations are really nonspecific. You only need items for your mess dress. You can actually make a difference as a supervisor.”

Anchor looked unconvinced. “And as an Admiral, I’d be in them regs more often than not as a supervisor. I’d rather be here, doing this,” she explained, ducking just as an orc walking past swung a barrel hoisted over his shoulder her way.

I was sure to draw out my words long and sarcastically to make sure she knew how worried and slightly stupid she sounded. “Well, climbing the food chain never made Sparrow like that. He’s with the people. He’s always around, on the field, showing his face instead of living it up like those sea lizards.” 

The ends of her lips stretched into a frown. “I’m gonna miss answering the call of the sea every day.”

“You’ll still get brought out as the big guns. Like the Blue Circle Project recently, or the Desert Coast old man Sparrow keeps talking about. Or even fishing out whatever the fuck those things are,” I made sure to nod towards another lad who carried one of the tentacle limbs. He was telling some over exaggerated sailor’s version of the story, prodding at... teeth imbedded into it’s skin. 

Seosul quipped with something I didn’t hear. I had my attention locked onto the two privates. The piece of meat on that thing. The unique patterns on it. There were gashes and tears in the flesh that weren’t bleeding or oozing. That sure looks a lot like... A lot like what downed the Legacy. Did he really single handedly severe the limb of a sea monster that could split his ribcage in a second? That could snap the mast of the Legacy with a little effort? The wide-mouthed, hungry beast of the sea? Reducing any great vessel to splinters and-

“Sipian?”

I blinked. “What?” 

“You seem distracted, Sergeant.” 

“Just curious is all,” I followed the sailor with my eyes for only a moment longer before he disappeared into the rest. “Curious of what you were up to out there, today.” 

Captain folded her arms. She noticed where my attention went. “Those Okakapi beasts Captain Lakken and his crew first discovered, the one symbiotic with the Sirens. We thought they were rare. Hell, the thing itself said they were rare. I guess they aren’t. Now, what were you saying?” 

I noticed I was anxiously tapping my claw on my belt buckle. “I was saying, uh,” I pretended to mysteriously observe the passerby's. “Want... wanna. D- Want tuh’ go out for a, a drink?” 

She tilted her head up. She looked surprised, because that’s what surprise looked like on someone as cool as Anchor. “Oh. I’d love that.” 

.

The Deep Serpent, I said. It sits itself up in Northern Elviasa, you know, where the rich elven fellas like to perch themselves. Where every kingsguard in Areona hopes to be stationed, only to pick up pretty women with a flash of their stars. The sexiest part of the sea, where you can watch the sunset over the deep blue, and it’s light casts bright orange and soft purple hues on the building and Oszh mountains. The Serpent was built tall and mighty, it’s spires tall like the Elven cityscape, but made from dark oaks and black pines. Like the cherry on top, a huge teal banner swung in the wind at the very top of the tallest tower. The end of it shaped like a large serpent tail. 

Yet I was too lazy to walk here, so I called a favor from Malphas Heat to open a portal here. I stepped out, heel first. I flattened out my shirt. Pulling my pant lip off my hips to tuck my undershirt in cleaner, I wiggled my leg because those fucking shirt stays just have to catch on your underwear, huh? They just had to make the straps as uncomfortable as possible? Who thought of these? They feel like leggings. Terrible BSDM leggings. But it’s fine, I look hot. And that’s what truly matters. 

I took a step into the bar, biting on my bottom lip. The energetic atmosphere of the place lifted my mood tenfold, as- FUCK I want to change, the straps itch. God why did I agree to this. 

From across the room, Anchor already had a drink in her hand. Albeit, she was hardly a sip into it. For once, her hair was completely down with no cover to hide it. Earrings peeked out from underneath her hair. Big, gold round ones. She wore a blank grey t-shirt under a dapper, fine fitting white jacket. Her jacket was lengthy in the sleeves and high in the collar, hemmed and decorated with patches and pins in a punk fashion. Her jeans were a colorful navy blue, skinny down the leg and hugging her hips. The pants had a very low waist line leaving... not much room to stretch in. Swinging one knee over the other, she dangled one foot off the ground, kicking her wide leather boots with a slight heel and way too many buckles.

I swallowed hard. 

“Sipian,” she greeted the moment she saw me pulling myself into a stool beside her. “Or should I say Sam, since we’re not at work?” 

I met her eyes. Suddenly, finding it really hard to imagine calling her by that first name. I bit the hook in my lip. “Either one’s fine, Capt-... Seosul.” 

She chuckled at my stutter. “ I feel that. You don’t get out from work a lot do you?”

“With all due respect, you’d be genuinely surprised, ma’am. Why do you think I’m so tired all the time? I have a street reputation to uphold, c’mon.” 

“More like you have notoriety.” 

I couldn’t help but flash her a toothy grin. I waved down the bartender to get served the cheapest liquor in the place; which was really not all that cheap in the first place. Stretching and cracking my neck with a roll of the skull, I scooped up the drink and wagged it near my lips. “I can’t wait to see how you paperwork around my notoriety. I mean I really gave Sparrow some work given how I was in my younger days.” 

“Your younger days are nothing I can’t handle.” 

“Oh? You think you can handle me?” My lips curled into a smug smile for a moment. I took a swig of my drink. The hard taste of it hitting my tongue and the back of my throat make me realize what I was suggesting. I choked- Fuck! -And tried to cough out the burn stuck in my throat.

She made an awkward, long uuuhhh noise. But eventually humored me like she always does. “I think I can. I’ve been your Captain for years now.” 

“Yeah, yeah. I... No, yeah,” I coughed with my teeth grit together. “Yeah you’re probably right.” 

Silence fell between us. Again. Like it always does. Like I always do. 

“Anyway. Enough work talk.” Seosul hit the bottom of her glass to the wooden bar. Then, she lifted it up to her eyelevel, offering a toast. “We’re here to have fun. To forget about the future.”

My focus lingered on her glass for a few moments too long. The icey sweat dripped down the outside of it, and wetted her palm. I finally shifted my attention into her face, her yellow irises glinting behind long eyelashes and lazy eyelids at half mast. Her half smile, that wasn’t even a smile, more of a smirk. I don’t think Captain ever learned how to be anything other than stone cold professional. But... she smiled. “To... making tonight, one great final night, Captain.” 

We hit our drinks together with a soft clink. 

.

TO BE CONTINUED IM TIRED

[barelycompiles]

Constructive Ways of Managing Quite Long Development Iteration Times

So you're a brogrammer now. You sling some Python, or Coffeescript, or bash, or whathaveyou. Now you're contributing so some mighty project, and it is taking quiet a while (in developer time) to build. Maybe the compiler is slow. Or the CI server runs a bunch of extra checks. Or you're generating virtual machines that take ages to install. Whatever your project, it can feel agonizing to change a few characters, start a build, and have to wait a long time for the build to finish before you actually know if your code is working. If you're lucky, the build runs sucessfully and you now have a working system to share with others. If you're unlucky, the build dies half an hour from now, and you'll be tweaking some more characters, triggering another build, and by then you'll have lost quite a lot of productivity. In an industry of instant gratification, latency measured below human perceptive levels, actually making your own software can be a very different experience to using premade software. Expect more pain and bugs than usual. When you clock out of a hard day's coding, you may have only moved the progress bar a few ticks, while the rest of the open source community seems to whizz by at light speed. It feels like being stuck in a local Turing tar pit, where even the most incremental code changes take forever to test. What a bother! Might as well ditch software entirely and go back to Triceratops trolleys or however things were done before computers.

The good news is that, as bad as a post-fifteen-minute build may be for software development, it's neither atypical nor fatal to the success of a project. You think you have it tough? Hardware development cycles can take months, so practice patience young programmer. If you're stressing about fixing that null pointer exception before the hackathon deadline in time for a pizza break, consider how the foreman feels managing a condo. He doesn't even get the benefit of instantly wiping his workspace when something builds wrong. A foreman (or forewoman) has to spend even more time and money to tear down any mistakes during construction. You got it lucky doing your jerb from a coffee shop.

As I said, it's not uncommon to suffer egregious build times that take far longer than a few milliseconds, stretching instead into the quarter hour, half hour, or multiple hour mark. This happens for a lot of reasons, basically ineptitude in build design, which we won't cover in this post. There are plenty of steps an engie can take to optimize build times, and if you're the punk suffering from those build times, I'm sure you know better than me what specifically is soaking up your productivity. If you can fix that, you should. A good technical leader will recognize when project structure is limiting productivity, and will reward anyone who can reduce these blockages. The technicals don't matter so much as the political power to effect that change. That's all I'll say about that.

Instead, this post is about what you can do to get the most out of a sucky code-build-test-repeat loop, where you've exhausted the technical and political possibilities for improving the loop time. Aside from rewriting the project from scratch (probably in Go), what can be done to stay productive in this hellish environment?

Recognize your daemons.

Take stock of the applications, services, processes, and so on that are sharing resources with the building project. If you're playing around in Photoshop the same time you're running a graphical benchmark, that probably adds some extra delay on top of the baseline delay. Disable networking programs, menulets, anything that is stealing precious resources from the build.

If you're building locally, consider moving the build process to a dedicated remote server. If you're building remotely and the server is always stalling, replicate the build locally. Even odds that the build system is awkward and designed for local operation XOR remote operation, i.e. not for both. If you can unify the build system so that it can run more similarly and successfully in both environments, that will exponentially improve production reliability in addition to improving build times. Use Docker. Anyway.

Debug logically.

Richard Feynman is said to have fixed a radio just by thinking about it. Some shit like that. The point is, you spend time thinking about a problem before you go and solve it. Especially when the act of solving it takes way more time than thinking about it. Become the compiler. Practice those stupid Java puzzlers. Once you hit Build, it will be very many nanoseconds in the future before you can fix the code and build again, so make every build count. Specifically:

Lint your shit. Your text editor can warn you of build-failing code before you actually build.

Unit test your shit. When you add functionality, write a dinky little test that should fail if the function is at all inaccurate. Learn the syntax for calling specific tests rather than the whole test suite.

Automate that shit. If you're setting up a database every code-test iteration, find some kind of process so that the computer does the work for you. Doesn't have to be a perfect POSIX compliant shell script. It doesn't have to be portable across different user accounts. It doesn't even have to be command line driven, just as long as YOU can get it to run and do the things you need in a basically reproducible fashion. If it fails half the time, run it twice the times.

Master the code base.

Software is shit. There is a very good chance that the build error you see bears the most strained and tenuous relationship to the actual source of the error. I hope you never have to debug microservices. Jesus.

In any case, study not just the error messages, but the code base as well, including the history. Does git-bisect show a particularly bad sequence of commits? Does churn show an unusually in-flux file? Does git-blame show a logic bomb your asleep ass slipped into development months ago? Which classes are poorly documented? Which classes' documentation are LIES? Baz Luhrmann would have sung "Add... Print statements." if he wrote this shit.

Boldly experiment.

In science, some experiments are so sensitive that they take decades to complete. You can't push a rover to mars faster than the laws of physics permit. So when the project calls inherently for long turnaround times, the thing to do is to pack that bitch with as many experiments as possible. Collect soil samples, record atomospheric measurements, take photos, gather dozens of metrics. It's a big investment, so diversify the treasures.

Do not be afraid to try out ideas on the code. Fork it. Branch out. Tie it up in an FPM bundle. Delete the parts that you don't like. Fix multiple bugs at once, because it's better to find out that 4 changes don't work in 1 hour than to find out that 4 changes don't work in 4 hours. Change the code to fix the top error message, and the next dozen, before you hit Build.

Fuck commit hygiene. What a waste of time! Do your dirt in a feature branch and rebase for cleanliness once the build works. Swap out dependencies, even just different versions of dependiencies. Pin that shit. Lock it down. Distrust semver. Control your space, now you have all the time in the world.

They say discipline boosts creativity. Not fascistic hierarchical discipline, just the idea that supplying your own structure to your work can actually lead you naturally and unexpectedly to new ideas. Try programming without classes and objects. Try installing operating systems without a mouse. What kind of algorithms would still work for that problem without losing idemopotence? How freeing is a system with full POSIX compliance? How freeing is a system with no POSIX guarantees? Change the system to work for you, or else change yourself to work in the system.

It can get so droll hitting Build, looking up an error code, changing one or two lines of code, repeat, repeat, repeat. Take a coffee break. Do something else for an hour, even if it's just coding in a slightly different project. To be pretentious, let your subconsciousness solve the problem for you while you consciously attend to other tasks. That single threaded grind can wear you down, so I personally recommend pipelining your life with more than just the same old same old. One of my coworkers had a multiple monitor setup. The first monitor was for coding. The second monitor was for "bullshit", basically Internet memes. Find your bullshit Zen. You can be productive, even when the system seems to be designed against productivity. Lurk in IRC; solo coding gets depressing after awhile.

If you're suffocating from long build times, breathe. You are not alone. Build times can certainly be improved, but history indicates you'll be far more productive if you treat long build times as axiomatic, just part of the inherent nature of the work. You can pine for a time machine to fast forward the build, or work on unrelated tickets, or program defensively. Standing still is not an option, not for this blog.