#clay would probably be the last person in the group to ask about technology

[stinkyhyena9000]

bro clay calloway is just like sombra from ow2 because i love them and theyre so cool and epic ;33

[trashcankitty12]

Helia Headcanons

Helia Scofield, nephew of Saladin; Master Artist in the making.

Don’t let his soft demeanor and pacifistic leanings fool you; Helia’s up for the fight if he’s needed.

(All headcanons are mainly for my verses: Left and the New Company of Light. Fair warning.)

-Helia was born to Harley and Hannah Scofield.

-Hannah, Saladin’s twin (and the elder twin, thank you) is an illusion-based witch who works with her Great Uncle’s army. She’s a commander of the Pegasus Unit of the Callistan Army, and unlike her brother, tries to keep herself out of trouble.

-Harley’s more of a gentle soul who enjoys art and runs an art gallery in Callisto.

-As you can imagine, his parents, though loving to him and though they did love each other at one point, have had many disagreements about their lifestyles and what would be best for the family.

-Harley was more pacifistic while Hannah preferred to ‘face things head on’. (Both have great strategic minds though, and… Tended to use them against each other.)

-At a young age, Helia showed potential for magic. Hannah and Saladin tried to help hone his potential skills as a wizard, but the best he could do was simple spells to make himself faster and stronger than normal and to send magic notes. (And a few other minimalistic spells. He couldn’t do anything fancy like his mom and uncle though…)

-It didn’t really bum him out too much though. In fact, it was partially a relief that he wouldn’t have to worry about hurting someone with his magic if his feelings or concentration went out of control. And he had an easy way of keeping his utensils nearby while he was working.

-Helia was in a junior sword fighting league as a kid, something his Uncle Saladin and his mother were very proud of. (Though his father thought it reckless and dangerous and ugly… Even if there was a sort of elegance to sword fighting when done right.)

-He also participated in art clubs at his school and did his to earn high marks in elementary and middle school. (He tended to be a daydreamer and often spaced out in class, especially if the subject was boring to him. Which became another argument for his parents.)

-When he was about 12/13, his parents decided to divorce. Hannah relocated and deployed to serve in Magix at the Callistan Embassy (and to be closer to her brother). His father remained in Callisto.

-He was actually happy that they finally divorced, thrilled to never have to hear one of their ‘we’re not really arguing, just having a heated discussion’ sort of fights. Having to decide where to live and what his plans for the future, however, made him sick.

-His social anxiety was through the roof anyway, and on top of all of this… His art took a bit of a dark turn and so did his poetry.

-How dare his parents fight each other and then demand he choose? How dare they implode on him like this?

-(Faragonda and Griffin were honestly the best people during this time. And so were his childhood friends. They helped him keep his cool and realize what he wanted and how to go about talking to his parents about this stuff.)

-Helia left the sword fighting league, he never really enjoyed it anyway except for the moments he was benched and could sketch the matches. And he decided to stay with his father and enroll at the Callistan Art Academy. His mother was so proud that he wanted to follow his dreams, and agreed to weekends and holidays.

-(Honestly his parents were just happy that he was talking to them again instead of pushing them away. They were so worried, they even went to therapy so they could try and do better for Helia.)

-Helia stayed in touch with some of his sword fighting league friends and kept up with his childhood friends when he went to the Art Academy.

-He loved showing off his new works and talking his friends into being models for some of his works. (One of his favorite portraits is of his best guy friend posing with his new weapon after being accepted into Red Fountain.)

-His parents did move on from each other. On his dad’s side, he has a stepdad and a lovely younger stepsister who adores him. (And he has a half-brother on the way!!)

-His mom remarried a fellow soldier, Monroe. And Monroe has two children of their own; Seneca and Marie. (Older stepsisters… They’re loud and boisterous, but they mean well and Helia enjoys watching them pose and give him fashion shows to help out his own work.)

-Though he was only at the Academy for a short time, Helia discovered many things about himself. (And made friends with the Princess of Linphea who had gotten in despite her age. The fairy is truly gifted in making topiary art.)

-He loves his charcoal brushes and using colored pencils when doing sketches. Something about the way it moves on the paper just makes him so happy.

-And he does love to paint, though he’s not much for water colors. (And never ask him to do a digital piece. The last time he tried working with a tablet, he nearly got electrocuted. Granted, it was probably a one-time thing, but he took it as a sign.)

-Poetry is second love, aside from sketching and painting. He loves being able to verbalize his feelings and put the words down that he can feel inside. Its one of the few ways he feels he can truly connect to people, since it’s easier to write down the words instead of saying them. (Though he has done poetry readings from time to time.)

-Between portraits and landscapes, Helia prefers landscapes. And he’d really gotten into architecture drawings before he left the Academy.

-Because his parents were often busy when he was a kid, he found he had useful skills to ‘adult’ while at the Academy and on his own for the first time. (He can cook fairly well, at least, you know what you’re supposed to be eating and it tastes pretty good. But he’s no Chef Langdon.)

-He was great at keeping his room spotless and clean. His workspaces however? Not so much.

-Over half his wardrobe is stained with either paint or charcoal or clay.

-(Yes, he can do pottery. Just not very well. In fact, it usually looks pretty shit, but hey, he tried.)

-After seeing the news about what happened in Magix and how his uncle’s school was destroyed and the people he cared about nearly died, Helia decided to transfer. (Which took a lot of convincing with his dad and the Dean of the Academy and Saladin.)

-But once he was in, he was in. And when given the choice about his weapon, he went with one his mother loves to use, the laser-string gloves. Great for restraint and for quick weapon-recovery in battle without potentially causing further harm.

-Add in his ability to make himself stronger, and he can wield that glove with the confidence of a sword fighter.

-He quickly clicked with Timmy once he joined their squadron, despite the two having different views of technology.

-Helia was Riven’s roommate though, and while their personalities didn’t compete with each other, they didn’t completely get along either. (Riven reminded Helia of Hannah with his ‘let’s just face it’ ways and Riven felt Helia wasn’t much of a hero if all he did was restrain instead of fight.)

-Of course, as time went on, Helia and Riven do have respect for each other, and have many inside jokes that came from their time living together.

-Helia quickly found he was one of the ‘advisors’ of the group, with everyone coming to him for advice. He was flattered, sure, but dudes… Just because he managed to get what he got, doesn’t mean he knows how he did it.

-Aside from training with his gloves, he’s good using a whip and decent with a sword. Bows and arrows/anything needing aim isn’t his strong suit. He’s also not the best at giving reports on how things went on their missions, which is why that task gets delegated to Sky or Riven.

-He trained as a medic too, deciding that while he wouldn’t be the best in a fight, he can help with the aftermath. And his squad kind of needed a medic aside from Timmy and Brandon…

-Helia may not enjoy fighting, but he’s not above doing what’s necessary when the people he cares about are in danger. There have been plenty of times, not just when saving the Magical Dimension, that Helia has risked his life and limbs to protect his friends.

-One such incident was a survival trip to the Marshlands of Amanal. Brandon never would have made it home in one piece if Helia hadn’t thrown himself at the hippogriff. (And he somehow managed to befriend it afterward. No, he has no memory of how he did it.)

-Helia tends to be a stress-sketcher. Worried about a test? Doodles on his notes from class. Worried about an upcoming mission? Sketchbook in hand. Relationship issues? Sketchbook.

-Oh! He’s a great pilot too! Helia has a great sense of direction and has grown up around the ships, so he knows how to work them. (Now, if you want to know what makes them tick or how to put them together if they fall apart, ask someone else. Preferably Timmy or Riven.)

-Helia has a whole stash of teas. A collection, if you will. (Something that he blames Faragonda for, but hey, it’s not the worst habit ever.)

-After all the traveling he’s done thanks to Red Fountain, Helia sort of understands better why his mom and uncle loved their military days so much. Seeing new places, learning new things, enjoying new foods… It’s quite an existence. (If you can look passed all the fighting and wars and invasions…)

-Yes, Helia does yoga. He also enjoys dance. (And with friends like Layla, Musa, and Nabu, he never has to do it alone.)

-Some of his favorite people to sketch: Flora, for her grace and beauty and the way she seems to just breathe life into natural settings; Sky, for his posture and presence and ability to always appear in charge; Layla, for her strength and grace and how every body of water seems to be at her command; and finally, Timmy and Tecna, As a couple, those two just radiate this feeling of joy and it just… How can you not want to sketch it?!

-(Kiko is also a favorite sketch subject. The little rabbit just has so much personality!)

-This may come as a shock to people, but Helia enjoys horror movies. Preferably the psychological/thriller-based horror movies. It’s the way they capture human emotion and it’s just so poignant and interesting. He wants to learn how to convey such feelings in his work.

-Between his parents, you’d think Helia was closer to his father… In actuality, he’s closer to his mother.

-His mom enjoyed doing things and showing him things and just getting him to be more active and curious as a child.

-His father was more of a watcher. An observer-type. Always looking for something awe-inspiring for his next piece. (Something Helia and Harley bond over now. And laugh at, from time to time.)

-Helia enjoys swapping sketching ideas with Bloom and Stella, looking to see what they’re up to and how they can try and work off of each other.

-(And he has done some physical character sheets and layout ideas for Tecna’s video game idea to help her see her vision more clearly.)

-Helia doesn’t play a lot of video games. They’re just not his thing… But he does have a soft spot for the Sims series after Bloom introduced him to it, and he enjoys this maze creation game that a Solarian gaming company came up with for phones (level 200!!!).

-He swears more than people think he does. It’s almost comical how shocked people are when they meet this ‘sweet and soulful guy’ and then he drops a few ‘f’ bombs while working on his projects. (Not just ‘f’ bombs either… Dude gets creative with his curses. Even Riven’s impressed.)

-Helia didn’t go to Earth with the others, instead taking up a job offer on Callisto to help with remodeling his great uncle’s barracks. (And now, the castle itself… He’s so honored it’s his designs in the works.)

-However, he does visit from time to time. It makes him a little sad though, seeing Earth the way it is. All the pollution creating cars, the strange fashion, the way people seem to disregard each other. It’s so sad.

-When the ‘saving the Magical Dimension’ stuff stops, Helia’s hoping to join with his father’s art gallery and to build on his portfolio of projects. (He knows he already has a few jobs waiting for him, like Stella’s coronation portrait for when she becomes queen.)

-He just hopes his works inspire and touch people the way they do as he works on them.

[nerdwaifuu-stories]

The Proposal

Happy (belated) Ninjago Oc Day! Ik I haven’t posted much on this account, but I figured it would be the perfect time to post something about my OCs.

Ig some basic info:

Word count: 4,966

Oc basics: the main two are Hisashi and Emon. Hisashi was a samurai/soldier who I have made Ronin’s (dead) uncle. Emon was a criminal who worked for Chen (although Hisashi doesn’t know about that. He just knows that Emon has previously done crime in his youth), but started to lose interest over time due to several factors. Another oc that’s mentioned is Lex. They are a friend of Hisashi and Emon’s, and they are actually an Oni.

Summary: Taking place roughly 25-30ish years before the Ninjago series, Hisashi is coming home from a mission. Since he and Emon have been together for some time, he figures it’s time to take it to the next step. He is one ring purchase and a ship and train ride away from trying to reach that next step.

If you want to know more about these characters, there’s some stuff on my art account @nerdwaifuu-art.

Hope you enjoy!

Cheers rang through the village as they saw the group in green armor entering the village. The soldiers marched through the middle, many with a look of victory on their faces contrasting the scuff, dirt, wounds, and exhaustion their bodies presented: all a worthy cost for a village's safety. Eventually their march and the cheering stopped as the chief approached the group.

"Oh great heroes, thank you! Thank you for saving us from those fiends! We will never forget what you have done for us! May the Creator bring you prosperity!" The chief cheered. Once he spoke his last word, the crowd of villagers' cheer erupted again, echoing the chief's message. From there, the chief and the captain went off to chat and the rest dispersed throughout the village. Some made their way back to the ship either to rest or prepare for the journey back to the city. Others remained in the village to chat or to explore. Amongst those exploring were two young men: a stout, short dark brown haired chatterbox and a long dark copper haired, silent listener. The two strolled through the village as one chatted away and the other listened while glancing at everything they passed.

"I wonder if the captain saw our hard work out there."

"Mhm."

"I mean we were kicking butt out there."

"Mhm."

"We should probably go to the medics to get our backs checked from how much carrying we were doing..."

"Mhm."

The stout man slowed his walk as he placed his hand on his friend's shoulder, "Hisashi, you good? You're quieter than usual, and it’s hard for you to be quieter than you already are..." He paused before he threw himself on track to a ramble, "Anyways, you just seem out of it."

"Yeah... Uh, yes, yes I'm fine, Shiro," Hisashi stumbled, "My mind's just on, uh, other things."

"Oh? Other things? What kind of other things?" Shiro questioned.

"You know... other things..." Hisashi kept scanning the surrounding stands and buildings.

"No, I don't know other things. How about you introduce me to them?" Shiro coaxed.

With a sigh, Hisashi stopped his mini search and said, "I'm just looking for some gifts..."

"Forrrr?"

Hisashi paused for a second, then said, "For my nephew-"

"Ah, why didn't you say so? No need to be so secretive with me," Shiro smirked, "C'mon, let's go find him something. One of these shops should have something he'll like" Shiro kept his hand on Hisashi's shoulder as he started to lead him. Hisashi resisted the push and said, "Actually, I know what shop I want to go to... I just need to find it again..." He looked around once more and then there it was: a small wooden stand run by a middle aged woman. The stand was covered with an assortment of items: jewelry, weapons, metal decorations, toys, metal sculptures, etc. He saw it the first time he arrived at the village and knew he had to stop by it.

"There it is," Hisashi took the lead and pulled Shiro with him as he approached the stand.

"Ah, hello boys~ Do you see anything you like?" The woman greeted them.

"My friend here is just looking, but I do see something I like," Shiro said, shooting a smoldering look towards the woman. The woman giggled and the two continued to chat (or Shiro commanded the conversation and continually bragged about himself). Meanwhile, Hisashi looked at the items. His eyes kept being pulled towards the actual reason that he wanted to come to the stand in the first place—a set of two matching rings sitting in a wooden ring box. Both were made up of a thick metal band that had a space cut in the middle where the gem was, making it appear as if the gem was floating. On the band, on either side of the gem, was a dragon carving colored gold. One ring had a black tinted band with a white gem while the other had a polished, silver finish and a black gem.

The woman noticed his interest in the rings and, once Shiro had taken a short pause, she shifted her focus, "I see that you've found something you like." She picked up the ring box and placed it in the middle of the table. Shiro shot a confused look at the woman and then at Hisashi.

"Oh, sorry, I was just looking at them. They're very beautiful," Hisashi admitted.

"Haha, no need to apologize for looking at what I'm selling, but thank you. My husband's... well, my late husband's father made them," the woman sighed, "Honestly the story is quite sweet. He came to this village and set up a blacksmith shop. A woman came into the shop one day and he fell deeply in love with her. He expanded his skills from weapon making to making small metal trinkets to give to her—" the woman glanced down at some of the other items at her stand before continuing, "She loved every single one and returned his love. Eventually, he decided it was time. He went into his workshop and began on his favorite project. The next time anyone saw him leave his shop, he went directly to the woman, took her somewhere nice, and proposed with these rings. She wore one and he wore the other..." A small smile formed on her face as she looked back at the rings, "Then they passed it down to my husband to use with me, and now here I am trying to sell them," she sighed, "I have no use for them now, and, even though I'm probably making some people roll in their graves, I need the money..."

"Awww, yeah that is really sweet. It's a shame you don't have a lady friend back at home, unless you and that Lexi girl have something~" Shiro teased Hisashi. Hisashi rolled his eyes. 'That Lexi girl' he referred to was Lex, but Hisashi only saw them as a friend. Instead, he had his eyes on someone else; someone else that he deeply cared about; someone else that he actually had something with.

"Plus we're here for your nephew. I don't think he'll have any use for these rings," Shiro reminded him.

"Um, right, of course..." Hisashi watched as the woman placed the rings back to their original spot.

"Oh, a nephew? Is he into metal work? Or I'm assuming he'll like the toys if he's young or the weapons perhaps?" The woman asked.

"Ah yes, a 5 year old who's into metal work-" Shiro quietly snickered. Hisashi shot a quick glare at him.

"Oh, he's quite young, scratch the weapons then," she chuckled.

Hisashi looked around the table some more and decided on one of the small metal figures and an old pocket watch.

"Ah, I'm sure he'll enjoy that," Shiro muttered sarcastically when he noticed the pocket watch was no longer ticking.

"He likes taking things apart and making new things, so yes, he'll probably enjoy this," Hisashi defended his choice.

"Is he trying to be an inventor?" the woman asked.

"I believe he does have an interest in becoming one. He's been fascinated with all the technological changes going on in the city. I don't understand it, but at least he's getting prepared for the future," Hisashi answered, starting to take out his money for his purchase.

"I forgot Ninjago City was going through all that. All the beautiful wood and clay buildings being replaced with tall metal buildings... It's insane."

"Yeah..." Hisashi and Shiro nodded along. While Hisashi searched for the right amount of money, he noticed that the remaining soldiers started to make their way back to the ship. He glanced back at the rings and turned to Shiro, "How about you head back to the ship while I finish up here?"

Shiro nodded, said his goodbye to the shop owner and left. As soon as he was out of earshot, Hisashi turned back to the stand and asked, "How much are the rings?"

The woman stated the price and said, "So you are interested in them after all?" Hisashi nodded as he took out the right amount of money for the rings, the figure, and the pocket watch.

"So is this for someone or just keeping it for yourself?" The woman wondered.

"I have someone at home waiting for me—"

The woman leaned forward, her eyes sparkling with interest. Before she could ask any questions, with a soft smile, Hisashi whispered, "I met h- uh, this person a while back and now we've been together for 5-6 years now... I figured I should do something special..."

"And decided it was time?" The woman asked at the same volume as him, with a large grin on her face. He nodded.

"Well, I hope the Creator blesses you both," she said, exchanging the items for Hisashi's money. He said his thanks and started to head off to the ship.

"Goodbye, may the Creator bring you prosperity and may the Great Serpent protect you on your journey!" The woman called out.

Hisashi turned around and asked "Great Serpent?"

"Oh, do people in the city not know this story?" Hisashi shook his head, so she explained, "According to some stories I've heard, there's a serpent that sleeps deep in the sea. She apparently used to rule the sea and was the reason for the waves and the storms, so people used to pray to her and give her offerings to keep her happy. Unfortunately that's all I know from the top of my head, and it's all probably just a story."

"Huh, sounds interesting. Thank you," Hisashi said before departing.

Laying his bed, Hisashi could feel the ship rock back and forth and hear his roommates chatting instead of sleeping, excited to be one step closer to home in the morning. But none of it blocked his focus on reading. His brain refused to let him sleep as the nerves have finally got to him. He had a ring in his possession, and he was hopefully going to give it away once he got to the city. To try to calm himself down in the safety of his bed, he took out some letters he got in the past few weeks. Each one started with "My Dearest Sai," and ended with "I can't wait to see you again. Love, Emon Sharma."

It was odd to think that these letters used to be closed off with a "Sincerely" or a simple "From," and "Love" was never a closing he had seen until 5 years ago. Even though it's been years, Hisashi's heart still flutters when he sees the word in Emon's handwriting. It still feels like such a new feeling, especially when he never acknowledged that such feelings could exist in him when he was growing up. Even when his brother tried to describe them when referring to himself and his now wife during high school, Hisashi never understood. Now he did.

After rereading each of the letters, he held the paper close to his chest. He tried picturing everything that Emon described. He tried remembering each random ramble that he sent him that Emon responded to. He silently laughed at the idea of him trying to make sense of everything Hisashi tried telling him. If he tried sending similar letters to anyone else he knows, they would just skim through everything and ask about how he is and how's work, avoiding to say "please tell me more about this random thing you learned ." Emon would be one of the only people who would say that.

The chatter in the room quieted down and the remaining lights started to disappear. With a sigh, Hisashi caught one more glimpse of the contents of the letters before it went completely dark.

"I can't wait to see you again. Love, Emon Sharma."

He softly smiled, folded the letters, and placed them under his pillow.

"I can't wait either..."

"Ah finally, land!" Shiro exclaimed once he and Hisashi got off the ship. Carrying their stuff (armor, weapons, supplies, letters, etc.), the two swerved their way through the crowds of people. Fellow soldiers were pouring out of the boat, being welcomed by their loved ones, going to a nearby inn or bar, or already beginning their ways home. Hisashi looked around at who was there, but he knew that his loved ones were in the city, which was a train ride away. He smiled at the thought of coming off the train to them, and clutched the ring box that hid in his pocket.

"Are you sure you don't want to stop for a drink? Or even for a snack?" Shiro asked, following his 6 foot friend to avoid getting lost.

"Yeah, I'm sure. Gotta make sure I catch the train," he said, glancing back to make sure Shiro wasn't too far behind.

"But the train's not going to leave for a bit," Shiro said, puzzled.

"I know, I just..." Hisashi trailed off and stopped in his tracks, leading to Shiro bumping into him.

"Oof- what's going on?" He asked, but got no answer. Shiro looked past Hisashi to see what was ahead, but it didn't click due to so many people being around. It wasn't until he saw two people: a short, medium tanned, black haired man with a scruffy beard and a towering, brown-skinned, short brown haired (hidden under a hat), female presenting person. The man noticed them and started to wave, then stopped and started approaching quickly while dragging his companion with him. Hisashi gripped the hidden ring box tighter as he started walking to lessen the distance. Once he was within a foot of the man, the man threw his arms around Hisashi and nearly lifted him off his feet within the first few seconds of the hug while saying, "It's so good to see you, Sai!"

"Woah, easy Emon. No need to break me," Hisashi chuckled, wiggling a bit to loosen Emon's grip and free his arms. Once they were free, Hisashi returned the hug and pulled Emon close while Emon buried his face into Hisashi's shoulder. Hisashi wished he could stay in this hug forever. He also wished he could just give Emon a big kiss, but he had to wait until they were in private; until they were in the city...

"Wait a minute—" Hisashi pushed Emon out in front of him, keeping his hands on Emon's shoulders—"What are you guys doing here?"

"Lex and I just figured that you deserved a welcome party as soon as you arrived," Emon confessed.

"And Emon really missed you and wanted to see you as soon as possible," Lex added.

"Yeah, that too," Emon chuckled, nervously rubbing the back of his neck. A smile stretched across Hisashi's face as he tried to hold in a laugh. His hand left Emon's shoulder and almost caressed his cheek, but he then remembered Shiro was watching from behind and they were surrounded by other people. He slowly pulled his hand back and hid it back in his pocket, trying to ignore the longing look in Emon's eyes. He then said, "Thank you, I missed you so much too. I couldn't wait to see you again..." Emon responded with a soft smile.

"Well, I missed you guys too," Shiro barged in, now standing next to Hisashi.

"Yes, it's good to see you, Shiro," Lex mumbled.

"I thought you would be much happier, Lexi," Shiro snickered. Lex's eyes were shooting daggers, but they tried to hide their gaze behind the brim of their hat as they said, "We best be going now. Don't want to miss the train." Before anyone could say anything, Lex had already turned around and started towards the train station.

"Ah what a shame. I wanted to talk with y'all more," Shiro sighed, "Well, see y'all back in the city tomorrow!" After an exchange of goodbyes, Shiro disappeared into the crowd.

"Well then, let's go," Emon said, linking his arm with Hisashi's. The two then followed behind Lex, trying to keep up.

"What was all the hurry about Lex?" Emon asked them.

Lex turned their head away from the train window and said, "Just didn't want to get stuck in one of his rambles. You get him talking and you'll probably end up hearing too much about what happened during the mission. I'm just not in the mood to hear how he 'sliced one man's head off' or whatever."

"That's fair," Hisashi said, also looking at the passing land outside the window. He was there when all of it happened, and he didn't need to hear about it again. He only wanted his mind on one thing and one thing only.

"Speaking of which, how was the mission?" Emon asked.

"Oh, just a typical mission. The thugs were playing hard to get for some time. Fortunately, we stopped them before anything too bad happened, and we didn't have many major injuries this time around. Just some scratches here and there," Hisashi answered quickly. He took one last look out of the window before sitting up and facing Lex and Emon on the other side of the table, saying, "But, despite the mission, the place we were at was very lovely." Emon leaned closer, interested to hear more.

"It was a small village by the ocean. Whenever we had a break, it was so calming to be on the white beach and just listen to the calm waves. And the village was really lovely too. It was filled with small shops and stands, and the people there seemed nice. They were very welcoming and always closed the conversations with something about 'the Creator' blessing you." Hisashi said. Lex perked up to full attention towards the end.

"The Creator? Like the creator of the town?" Emon asked.

"Or the Realm..." Lex muttered quietly, but, when they got confused looks from the two men, they said, "World. I mean world."

"Oh right, that makes more sense," Emon chuckled.

"Yeah, they often referenced them, but I guess they have plenty of other stories too. Before I was leaving, a nice woman at a shop said something about a Great Serpent—" Hisashi then recited what the woman had told him. Both Emon and Lex were leaning in close to hear every word. When Hisashi finished, Emon, with excitement in his eyes, and Lex, looking like they wanted to say something but decided against it, looked at each other, then back at Hisashi.

"Woah, that's so cool! Bet that was fun to hear about right before getting on a ship," Emon snickered.

"Yeah, but it's merely just a story," Lex uttered, leaning back against the seat, "Nothing to worry about."

"Have you ever heard of it?" Hisashi asked them. Lex hesitantly nodded, "All I know about it is the same as what the woman told you..." Hisashi could tell that they knew more, but he didn't want to force anything out of them. He could probably try finding a scroll or a book with more information.

"Anyways, overall the place was really nice. If we didn't have work and other stuff to deal with, I would say we should go there sometime," Hisashi said, mainly glancing over to Emon when talking. The idea of just leaving the city, getting on a ship, and sailing somewhere to explore sounded so pleasant, especially if it was with Emon and even Lex. He would even want to take his nephew once in a while. Just the 3 and sometimes 4 of them on a ship, seeing what the world offered. But their lives didn't allow for that. Hisashi had soldier duties to take care of while Emon and Lex had their own responsibilities, and there was just too much they would be leaving behind. Maybe one day in the future it could become a reality.

"Yeah, that would be nice," Emon said, smiling. Then the table went silent. Lex went back to looking out the window while the other two sat silently. Hisashi started to fidget with the ring box in his pocket, only bringing back the nerves. He looked up at Emon and could see he was shifting in his seat, shooting glances at both him and Lex. He wondered what Emon could be so nervous about.

Lex turned their head and sensed the nervousness sitting next to them and across from them. They shot a "say something and get it over with" look at both Hisashi and Emon.

"Sai—"

"Emon—"

They both paused and tried continuing, only further interrupting each other, "Sorry, go ahead—no you go ahead—no I didn't have anything to say—no please, I interrupted you—"

With a sigh, Lex barged in, "So, do you guys have any plans for today?" The two paused and looked at each other, waiting for the other to say something.

"I heard the weather is going to be super nice today. Maybe you guys can go to the park," Lex suggested.

"You are such a mind reader. That was what I was going to suggest," Emon said.

"I was actually going to recommend the same thing," Hisashi nervously laughed. He's so glad that he wrote Lex about what his plans were, or he would've just chickened out and waited to do it.

"Hah, perfect. Maybe we can get some lunch too. You're probably starving. I know I am," Emon said with a grin.

"Sounds good," Hisashi replied with a soft smile. He turned to Lex and mouthed the words "Thank you."

They smirked and mouthed back the words "You're welcome."

"Man, no matter how many times I come here, I always forget how good the food is," Emon exclaimed as he finished paying for the food. In defeat, Hisashi watched the check and the money leave. Him and Emon literally went back and forth about who would pay the bill only to find out that Hisashi had left his wallet at home due to him rushing to get ready and look nice for the day, so Emon came out victorious.

"I claim to pay the next check," Hisashi uttered while they got up and left the café.

"Haha, we'll see if you remember your wallet next time," Emon snickered, "Although it's not like you to forget it at all. Are you feeling well?"

"Yes yes, I'm fine," Hisashi chuckled, "Just adjusting to being home that's all..."

And just being a big ball of nerves, he thought to himself. At least he had the ring with him, or his whole plan would have gone down the drain because of one silly mistake.

"How about you though? You seemed nervous on the train," he asked Emon.

"Oh, uh, yeah. Um, yeah I'm good now. It was just being on a train. Y'know I don't really go on them," Emon said. Hisashi raised an eyebrow, but decided not to  further question him.

The two continued to chat as they walked towards and into the park. Circled by the new skyscrapers, the park sat at the center of the entire city. Full of green hills and growing trees, it was one of the few areas of nature in the city. It was still a work in progress as workers were busy with putting in new buildings, benches, and pathways, but it was still a nice place for a stroll and a proposal.

The two walked through the park, chatting and enjoying the scenery. While listening to Emon, Hisashi scanned the area, trying to find the best area. It needed to be a private area with no one around, but also needed to be a beautiful area.

All of a sudden, Emon grasped Hisashi's hand and said, "Come with me, I know a good place you need to see." He then started leading him up one of the hills, looked around, and then continued pulling him along. Down the hill, across some of the grass, and up a slightly taller hill. Once they reached the top, Emon stopped and tightened his hand around Hisashi's, looking out at the view of the entire park.

"Wow," Hisashi marveled at the view. It was beautiful... and there wasn't anyone else around... it was perfect.

"I know right. I came here all the time when I was younger. When I had no where else to go, I would just come here..." Emon's grip loosened, so Hisashi gently pulled his hand away and backed up slightly. He pulled the ring box out of his pocket and took a deep breath as he went down on a knee. This was it. It was time.

"It's crazy to think that I've come all this way," Emon continued, still looking at the view, "I used to come here as a young thief just trying to survive. That's all I thought my life would be until the day I died. But you've changed that..." Hisashi watched Emon go grab something from inside his jacket, but he couldn't see what. "...You've shown me that there's more to my life. Life is not just about trying to get by. It's about learning and experiencing new things. It's about love. It's about so much more than I know, So, I took you here in hopes that I can leave the lonely, barely living thief behind and enter a new chapter of our lives. Hisashi Arima, will y—" Emon turned around, about to kneel down, but he stopped halfway. In his hands was a long, wooden box with a black finish, kept shut with a golden latch. He quickly stood up and hid the box back in his jacket, his eyes not leaving Hisashi. He ran one of his hands through his hair as his face started to flush red. "Sai, I— oh my god..." was all he could say.

Hisashi sat there frozen, unsure what to do. He had planned this for weeks, but now everything just jumped out of his brain.

"Were you about to propose..."

Emon lips formed an embarrassed smile as he quickly nodded. Hisashi's mouth hung open and he looked down at the ring box, unsure what to say. Should he just try to stick to his plan or let Emon continue?

"Forget about me, go ahead," Emon whispered, gently pulling Hisashi's chin back up.

"Um, well," Hisashi cleared his throat and took a deep breath in, looking into Emon's eyes. They had a sort of calming aura about them now. Hisashi's lip curled up slightly as he gathered his words.

"I guess to play off what you've said, you have changed my life as well. Before I really got to know you, I probably seemed like a stone cold guy whose only purpose was to work until he no longer could. You have added more purpose to my life... so much more purpose. And, despite trying to understand everything, love was never one I could get a grasp of. Now I feel like I know at least a tiny bit about it from the past few years, and I'm willing to learn more with you. Emon, I love you so much. I will love you until the day I die. Even beyond death, I will always love you..." Hisashi took a pause, trying to catch his breath from speeding up towards the end without taking a moment to breathe. During the pause, he decided to open the ring box, resulting in a quiet gasp from Emon. He glanced up at him to see the reaction. His smile was bigger, but was being slightly hidden behind one of his hands. His calming eyes started to tear up as he looked up from the ring to Hisashi.

"Will you... would you... uh..." Hisashi started, but his mind was back to blanking out. Improvising clearly took all his brain power. It was his turn to blush red.

Emon chuckled, took Hisashi's one hand that wasn't holding the box, and asked "Will you marry me?" Hisashi couldn't help but laugh along as he quickly nodded. Emon then took the polished silver ring and slipped it onto one of Hisashi's fingers, and Hisashi put the other one on Emon.

"By the way, that was my line," Hisashi joked as he gave Emon his ring.

"Technically it was supposed to be mine," Emon said before pulling Hisashi up and into a kiss with his arms around his neck. Once they both pulled away, Emon held Hisashi close and rested his head against his shoulder.

"I love you so much Sai, and thank you for the ring. It's absolutely as beautiful as you are..." Emon said, then remembered his proposal gift. He let go of Hisashi, grabbed the box, went down on his knees, and held the box up.

"This is what I was going to give you... I hope you don't mind it not being a ring..."

Hisashi took the box from him and unlocked the latch. He lifted the lid to find a ornate dagger inside. It had a pale green jade hilt with silver sheath decorated with floral motifs and pale green and red gemstones. He gently picked up the dagger and unsheathed it to reveal a silver, double edged blade.

"This is beautiful," he said in awe, sheathing the blade and placing it carefully back into the box.

"I'm glad you think so. As soon as I saw it, I figured it would be a perfect gift," Emon said, smiling.

"It definitely is. Thank you," Hisashi said, giving Emon a quick peck on the lips.

"Well, should we get out of here and start the next chapter of our lives?" Hisashi asked.

Emon took a hold of Hisashi's hand and said, "I'm ready whenever you are."

They took one more look at the view, and Hisashi started to lead Emon.

"Let's go."

[alphapockets]

Discord: New Message Infodump

Yes this is not getting put in the widofjord tag because I don’t like filling up others’ searches with something that is not “directly” linked. *jazz hands* anxiety. BUT here is all I could think of and a sprinkling of things I have seen asked about or mentioned in the comments! May this and the last chapter hold you over <3

Q: Why a text fic?

A: Honestly? I have only ever seen one from VM (there may be others, but I don’t read many fics out of my niche sections?) that was between Grog/Vax (I don’t ship it but when it’s a bar shift #3 in a row that’s 14 hours long, you need entertainment). I had read also Call Me, Beep Me from the VLD fandom as well as Misuse of Stark Technology and thought that it was a strong platform for conversation and storytelling that shows multiple perspectives at once without the constant POV whiplash that can happen otherwise. And with the strong and chaotic personalities of TM9 and the diverse ways the NPCs interacted fit in, I hoped it wouldn’t be that hard to pull off.

I’ll be honest, I was not sure if it would work out or catch on as it is not the most popular form of storytelling. As many people said in the comments of chapters 1-5, people generally don’t enjoy texting fics and skip past them. I am glad I took the risk and that everyone has with me.

 Q: Is it true you have not watched past Ep. 40?

A: Yes. Campaign 2 came out just before I started school, and I decided school deserved my full attention. I was also not as attached at large with the cast as an ensemble as I was with VM. This combined with having anxiety and needing something to be finished before I can enjoy made it difficult to get back into C2. I was lucky that I started Campaign 1 a few weeks before that ended. I will probably watch it when everything is over, but I mostly follow through spoilers and Arsequeef’s gifs.

 Q: What are some of your influences for this?

A: I have seen a lot of people loving the realism of the conversations. I don’t watch TV or movies, but I watch streamers mostly, especially group streamers. Because of this, I tend to hear nothing but natural conversations. I also have been in group chats since the old AIM days and was a bartender for 6 years, so I have pulled from interactions that I have experienced around me. Often when something perfect happens in a chat with my friends I screen shot it for use later (the look spam and how do you uwu are both examples).

 Q: Why that area?

A: I like to use locations I know well if there is a lot of real-world interactions. I am from Massachusetts and I had used Savannah, Ga., for Here’s To Us, where I lived for 4 years.

 Q: Will the chat be renamed to The Mighty Nein or something similar?

A: No. The chat existed before Caleb as that and was set up originally by Fjord and Beau with Molly, Bryce, Darrow, and Yasha. It’s been the Game Hoes for too long in their life to change. There will be some side chats that appear and disappear.

  Q: Didn’t Veth work with Caleb?

A: Originally that was the plan, but halfway through the first chapter, I decided to space everyone out better and missed her name in one paragraph at the beginning of the chapter. I wanted them to know each other but avoid the trope of “direct connection” with strangers to lovers and text fics.

  Q: How tall is Fjord (and the rest of them by proxy)

A: I changed the heights because Caleb is canon “Average height” which in DnD is different than the US. So, he was given a few extra inches to put him at 5’10”. Fjord was scaled up because we love height differences to 6’3” because of that. By order of height:

Veth- 4’11, Kiri- 5’, Keg and Yeza- 5’3, Jester and Rissa- 5’4, Astrid- 5’5, Bryce, Beau, and Wulf- 5’9, Beau, Caleb, Molly, and Ava- 5’10, Yasha- 5’11, Darrow and Essek- 6’, Fjord and Gunther- 6’3, Cad and Enzo- 6’5.

I’m probably forgetting some people.

  Q: Why did Enzo’s arc allegedly end that way?

A: I’m not sure I’m done with him just yet, but the reason it had to be let go like that is simple: legality. Real world consequences to acts would have kind of thrown a wrench in how this all unfolds. And Molly was the character who I felt could bounce back the best from getting a solid ass kicking.

  Q: Why was Astrid faster at accepting than Wulf, and why is he so possessive?

A: Wulf was Caleb’s first real friend and that meant he was the redhead’s world. Astrid came second and she realized how quickly jealousy can sour something. Wulf’s jealousy fed into the break-up. So, despite the awkwardness, she wanted to show Caleb that she meant it when she said they could still be friends.

Wulf was Caleb’s first friend, and he has that sense of seniority in his mind and has a hard time accepting he is not being replaced when new people come around. And as a more dominant person, it was hard for him to have the normally docile friend speak out against him. He is still immature and needed to grow, but has a hard time seeing that is okay right now.

  Q: Where does everyone attend?

A: Amherst College- Astrid, Caleb, Essek, Wulf. Boston College- Cad. Emerson- Beau, Gunther, Enzo, Fjord, Keg, Molly, Rissa, and Yasha. Princeton- Bryce. Hofstra- Jester and Kiri. UConn- Yeza (Graduated). UMass/Boston University/Tufts- NPCs not brought in yet.

**Caleb has stated Jester lives in the City early on because Jester has all her locations on social set to NYC

 Q: Any reason why you picked those schools?

A: I’m a BC fan (and Providence College), my childhood friend went to Emerson, and I was accepted to Hoftstra before I joined the military instead. Amherst was a perfect “nearby” city that was another college town/I am maybe looking at Amherst for a PhD. Program.

 Q: Where is Darrow stationed when not crashing Bryce’s life or deployed? What does he do?

A: Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. He was attached to the 26th MEU (Marine Expeditionary Unit) that goes through the Mediterranean. He currently is on hospital duty as a temporary “relaxation period” for people who are deployed often. As he is a paladin, I thought it’d be a nice touch to have him as an FMF Corpsman.

  Q: Where is everyone from? The holidays showed people all over and it’s mentioned some people were not born in the US or where they were located.

A: This is where that spreadsheet I made comes in handy. Most of the people either grew up in or intend to stay in Massachusetts for a long while. As there are some of the major schools in that area, obviously people would be out of state.

Boston TM9 Party

The Clay Family is in Jamaica Plains, which is just outside of Boston proper. They are from there, minus Toya who is adopted as well and from Maine.

Molly was the godson of Cad’s mother, who is from England and his father had been stationed in England for some time, so when he was essentially orphaned and given up by the indirect family, she put through the paperwork to take him in. Fjord and Yasha stayed with them.

Fjord is originally from Texas, outside of El Paso. After he joined the Navy, he never intended to move home as he hated it there. He fell in love with New England when he was sent TAD (Temporary Assignment of Duty) to the naval base in Newport. He stayed and continued his education at Emerson.

Yasha is from Jamaica Plains as well and went to school with Molly and Ornna, who is the same age as them. Her dad is from South Carolina and her mother is from Okinawa. They moved up north for her dad’s work.

Beau is from Kentucky and her family is unreasonably wealthy. She decided to go to school someplace as un-Kentucky as she could fathom and was stuck between Berkley and Emerson but chose the former because the weather meant her mother would never visit.

The Amherst Crew (Astrid and Wulf) are all from the area except for:

Caleb, was born in Poland to a Polish/German family. They moved and when his family died in a fire (he was at a sleepover at the time) his grandparents took him in. Wulf was still there with his large family and

Essek had returned home to California for the break.

Astrid and her family spent 10 days in Key West for the holidays, which is why she missed the New York trip. Wulf stayed locally for winter break.

The Conn/NY/NJ Groups are pretty straightforward.

The Brenattos stayed in New Haven, where they moved when Luc was born from Amherst. They had moved so Veth could start fresh.

Jester was surprised by a visit from her mother on Christmas Day and spent it with her. It was the first time her mom came from the Ukraine, as Jester’s dad is the one who she moved with. She lives on Long Island not far from her school.

Kiri is from upstate New York and was home for the Holidays.

Bryce drove down to Louisiana. They and Darrow are from Marietta, but they were at their grandmother’s place in Lafourche Parish. Darrow returned to Jacksonville NC.

Others Keg and Gunther were in Rhode Island but separately, where they are both from, Rissa is from Maine and went home, and Enzo was in jail (he is from Lynn, Ma).

  Q: How old is everyone?

A: 5- Luc. 19- Kiri, 20- Jester, Rissa, Keg, and Enzo, 21- Beau, Molly, Yasha, Essek, and Astrid, 22- Caleb, Cali, Reani, and Wulf. 24- Cad, 25- Fjord and Bryce. 27- Veth and Darrow. 28- Yeza.

  Q: If Fjord has the GI Bill why does he live on campus or have a job?

A: For those who don’t know how the GI Bill works, the government pays for education and sends some money based on housing in the zip code of the school. Boston is insanely expensive and student living is easier. Essentially, he wanted the “college experience” and it was cheaper. He needs the job more because he knows better than to let himself get idle. If he does, he won’t focus on school. Like Travis, my Fjord has ADHD.

  Q: How did Veth and Caleb meet?

A: In a Juvenile’s in-patient program for at-risk teenagers and those suffering from mental health issues. Caleb’s depression and anxiety following the death of his parents and the constant bullying for numerous things and previous attempts or ideations had him labeled “at risk” for self-harm. He was in for 3 weeks. Veth was in for her kleptomania and possible signs of disruptive BPD or other developing personality disorders but aged out of the youth section when she turned 18. As most diagnoses cannot be done for those until adulthood, she was being watched for early onset signs.

  Q: How did Jester/Veth get into the group?

A: Jester met Beau, Yasha and Molly at NYCC two years’ prior in line for a panel. They met again at Anime Boston after exchanging Twitter handles a few months later. Jester had worked NYCC a year ago and helped Veth to a quiet room for Luc, who was fussing, then stayed with her as she was on break soon. She invited Veth to play a few games of Don’t Starve Together with her and Yasha before she was brought into the main group.

  Q: This is a really diverse cast. What is everyone and why?

A: Some were obvious choices such as Caleb being from Germany, Jester being from Eastern Europe (Ukrainian), and Molly as Irish (and English).

Others I did to flush out to make a group in a major city make more sense. Wulf and Astrid both have French/ Germanic backgrounds because in canon, they were raised in a similar way. Astrid is Jewish along with Caleb to hint at why it may have been easier for them to date if her family was stricter than his.

Fjord and Yasha faced some racial issues early on in the show (Yasha from where she was from and Fjord for being a half orc), so I wanted them to be people of color. Yasha is half Japanese because of her name and because US troops often marry someone from Japan when they are single and stationed there. Her father is Jamaican in decent. Fjord’s dad he figures is Black but they’ve never met, as his mother’s side are Mexican. I chose that because I wanted to keep the Texan because a lot of people in the service are from Texas. Also, as previously stated, I had too many naturalized or foreign students already and needed to not stress over how they would be around for the breaks.

Cad is English, Norwegian, and Swedish because Cad is a god, who why not make him a Norse god? Veth is half Cambodian partially because there is a decent population size in Massachusetts. Beau is the not white-passing cousin of her family which will come in later because rich families have secrets, yo. Her family has some Cajun/Creole in her like Darrow but it shouldn’t be there according to her family lineage. 

Essek is Persian, Rissa is Puerto Rican, Bryce and Keg are “Confused American Mixes” of everything. Cali I have not decided yet, but will probably have some English in her, Reani I have decided on Moroccan. Kiri is Korean. 

Enzo is an asshole (he’s also mix of random European heritage.) I feel like I missed someone.

  Q: Is Widofjord the only pairing we will see?

A: There are some others forming, including BeauYasha, which was one of the possibilities when I started. Molly/Essek/Astrid were a shock and some others I won’t spoil just yet are starting to bud as hopefuls.

  Q: Do you have an end game in sight?

A: Honestly, as this whole fic has taken on a life of its own, not entirely. It was originally mapped out to be 12 chapters long and have much of this condensed down with all the side characters removed, no Enzo or hockey games, and the extra fluff cut out. As I wrote it, I found I enjoyed that almost more than the Widofjord specifics. So, this has really evolved away from a Widofjord ONLY fic, I am aware. Endgame wise, when I feel the story is told, I will wind it down, but there are more elements evolving with every chapter and I want these characters to get the moments they’re aiming toward. I also don’t want it to drag on too long, so I know that this will eventually come to an end.

 Q: Did anything change relationship wise while writing?

A: 100%. Beau and Jester were originally who I expected to pan out, but my Jes couldn’t seem to devote to that because she had developed more attraction to Molly and Fjord than I expected. Beau and Yasha just clicked better. Molly was the next option for Jester, but then I decided to make Essek and Astrid actual friends with the TM9 and we see how that went.

 Q: Is Jester going to find something happier? It kind of sucked seeing her so down and withdrawn these last few chapters. And where is Nott’s role now?

A: I am trying with Jessy. I am. Here’s to hoping she behaves? As for Nott, she is shining as the mom friend, but her coming into the fray more means bad things are happening. And yes, that is on the way.

 Q: You keep hinting at something in both Caleb and Fjord’s pasts. Are we ever going to see that?

A: Yes. I am trying to space out the angst as much as possible. This was never meant to be a hurt/comfort type story, but people have mental health issues and those because pivotal to the story more than I intended. Maybe the curse of having complete access to everyone’s conversations? But they will be coming out.

[userboytatu]

Met Gala, Stony, 2.3k

In honor of the Met Gala tonight, I whipped up this quick fic. It’s so self indulgent but it’s fluffy and short. No smut, but I might be persuaded to do a follow up. Enjoy!

***

The flashes of the cameras were the first thing Tony could notice even before the limo rounded the corner. The paparazzi were swarming the entire entrance and media vans were parked well down fifth. 

While Happy was busy cursing every poor reporter that dared get in the way and mumbling god knows what, Tony checked his phone one last time, thumbing a quick email before sliding it back in his pocket. He glanced over at Steve. 

“You know, if you’d only let Carla style you-” 

“I’m fine, Tony. What? This is just a gala.” Steve peered out the window, his brow pinching slightly the way it always did when he got nervous.

“Jesus, I already told you, this isn’t just another gala, this is the Met Gala and Anna trusts me to carry this event-” 

“Just say it. Just admit you’re embarrassed by me and that I’m hideous and not worthy of being your date,” Steve said with that deadpan tone he used, and god his jaw could cut through glass. Tony bit his lip unconsciously, trying to get rid of inappropriate thoughts. This outfit was too tight to be getting hard.

Through the honking, Tony shrugged and smiled despite his efforts. “You know you’re the only one who could be my date, stud.” 

Steve’s eyes softened, a glint on his blue eyes as they focused on Tony. 

“I mean, Natasha and Clint are going together, Thor is bringing Jane and I’d have more luck convincing Bruce to smoke up with me than bringing him to one of these things. You were the only one left, obviously.” 

“Tony.” Steve rolled his eyes. “I just don’t see what the big deal is, we go in, we have dinner, we donate some money to keep the museum funded.” 

Tony was about to object to how Steve casually referred to 1.5 million as some money, but their car came to a stop. “We’re here, boss.” Happy announced. 

Steve looked at him once more, an expectant look on his face. “Do I really look bad?” 

The theme for this year was Manus x Machina: Fashion in an Age of Technology, which, duh. Of course it was important, when Anna had called Tony and asked him to host, it was a no brainer. This was practically made for the Futurist, and the media had gone ballistic when they announced Tony was co-hosting. This entire thing was built on the Mark LVII. Not to toot his own horn, but Tony had really outdone himself with this one. 

Dragging his gaze up and down the super soldier in front of him, it was hard to be objective. But Steve certainly didn’t look bad, he just looked... like himself. The Met Gala was meant to go outside your comfort zone and push the envelope on what fashion meant, if Jan had taught Tony anything, it’s that fashion is for the brave and bold. And he was anything if not ballsy. Steve, however, in his all black suit, head to toe Dior, looked like a devil put on Earth to tempt Tony into unspeakable acts. Did it scream fashion and technology, though? No, it didn’t. 

“Honey bunch, you look like sin incarnate.” Tony slid across his seat, making to get up. He leaned in, grabbing onto Steve’s bicep for support. “And I’ll make sure to let you know just how crazy you are making me with that outfit right after this thing is over.” His whisper made Steve shiver, and when he looked at his face, Tony could laugh at how big Steve’s pupils had become. He counted it as a win. 

He slid his sunglasses on and turned to the door. “But now, it’s showtime.” 

***

The steps in the main entrance were covered in a plush red carpet that felt thicker than some floors, and Steve appreciated the decoration lining up each side. People must have worked real hard for this event. 

“Tony! Tony, over here!”

“Tony, who’re you wearing?” 

The photographers were going nuts over Tony. Steve could swear a woman had fainted in the entrance. 

“This is a Stark original, darling,” Tony drawled, and twirled to let them get a good look.

And boy, was it a sight for sore eyes. 

The celebrities coming in were starting to gather around, some walking slower to let the photographers get a good shot, some talking with the cameras over on the steps. But not a single person had so many people focused on them as Tony. He had worked with those designers real hard, and what they’d come up with was a piece of pure technological genius that managed to look amazing and unreal at the same time. 

Nanotech, Tony had called it. Steve had sit through the entire explanation about the nanotubes and how Tony “would be damned before he let another ant sized fucker get into his suit,” but he’d only use it to design a new Iron Man armor until last year. When he received the news he’d be hosting the Met Gala, Tony had called one of those world famous designers and they’d work on this outfit for seven months. Versace, Steve thinks. 

The result was a nanotech armor that felt like fabric and looked like fabric, with the density of a hair and the resistance of a Falcon 9 spaceship. The suit managed to look slick and bulletproof at the same time, and well, the way it hugged Tony’s ass was reason enough to be here. 

Steve saw Tony’s arm reaching for him, and he walked up to join him in front of the cameras. “Dazzle them, Steve.” Tony grinned at him, and Steve felt his heart grow a little bit. God, he loved this man so much. 

The flashes were getting a bit too overwhelming for Steve, the way they always did, but even he had to admit it felt kinda good to have Tony on his arm and the whole world to see them. He had always admired Tony’s philanthropic nature and his tech genius, and the world needed to admire it too. 

“A kiss, give us a kiss!” 

The guys with the cameras egged them on, and since Tony liked to put on a show so much he figured he could do this for him. Tony looked at him and shrugged slightly, as if saying “it’s your call, Cap.” 

Good thing Steve’s reflects were so fast. He slid his arm behind Tony’s back and with the other one he held his left hand, putting his leg behind Tony’s thighs quickly.

The photographers started dog whistling and cheering when Steve swooped Tony and dipped him into the ground, kissing him softly. 

He felt Tony sighing and his lips parting, and it took all of Steve’s will to keep the kiss short and sweet, instead of doing what he really wanted to do. But he couldn’t resist swiping his tongue over Tony’s plush bottom lip once. 

He parted the kiss, but remained with Tony dipped like a princess for a second. The chocolate eyes he loved melted and blinked up at him. “Woah, you’re pulling out all the tricks tonight, Captain.” Steve felt inner pride swell at Tony’s slightly dazed expression when he said that.  

“Well, I have to make up for my terrible outfit, don’t I?” 

After that, they continued their stroll down the entrance, stopping to talk to reporters and saying hi to some of the other guests. Tony stopped to talk with George Clay? George Crowley? Whoever, he was familiar from that movie they went to see last month. 

“Hey, Steve,” A voice behind him said. “You look awfully ordinary today.”

Natasha came with Clint in tow, as Tony had said. Her red dress reminded Steve of a knight’s chainmail, but he couldn’t tell if it was made from the same material. “Nat, you look like a fairy tale. Where’s the charming prince?”

“Hey, right here.” Clint piped in. Well, he was wearing a suit just like Steve was. Except he had put on a type of metal prosthesis over his arm. Great.

“No, really, where is he?”

“Very funny, Cap,” Clint punched him with his metal arm. “You might wanna stop the banter and make sure someone doesn’t steal your man.”

Natasha arched an eyebrow, looking over his shoulder. 

Steve turned around to see Tony chatting with a different guy from the movie actor. This man was tall and blonde and- well, he looked like a real dickhead if Steve was being honest. But Tony didn’t seem to mind, as he was deeply in conversation telling a very entertaining story, judging by the man’s laugh. 

He shrugged. “I might have to take some measures.” 

Nat smiled at him, knowing he was joking, and pat him on the shoulder. “I’m sure he can fend by himself any potential suitors.” 

“Hey, did you see Thor?” Clint turned his head, cackling. “Holy shit, he’s gonna start summoning thunder soon.” 

And Thor was a few meters behind them in the main photo stand with Jane by his side, the media couldn’t get enough of him. He was swinging Mjolnir around, his cape glistening with the camera flashes. 

“Hey, that’s cheating.” Steve frowned. “He’s just wearing his regular battle outfit.”

“Well, how much fashionably avant garde can you get when you’re an Asgardian god?” Natasha tilted her head. “I think they look cute.”

“Yeah, just wait til he pours a storm over them. One of the paparazzi almost pushes Jane out in the curb.” Clint said. 

Tony appeared right beside Steve, his suit catching the light. “Hey Barton, lost your Robocop helmet back there?” 

“For your information, this is Armani. Not all of us can get a custom made armor suit.” 

“Miss Romanoff,” Tony kissed Nat’s hand. “You look particularly deadly today.”

“Thank you, Shellhead. I was going for that.” 

A reporter asked them to pose for a group photo, and then when Thor joined them they had to go through another eight rounds of posing for every media outlet in existence. Steve was getting a little bit antsy, but luckily the dinner came after this. He could eat. 

The darlings of the night were Tony and Nat, obviously. They posed for some duo photos and Steve had to admit, the sight of the two of them together could probably turn any man or woman, no matter the sexuality. 

Nat’s firey red hair was styled into a short, disheveled bob with bangs reaching her mid forehead. Her dress, now that Steve had seen it properly, was part dress and part chainmail indeed. She looked stunning. 

But Tony, Tony was on a whole new playing field. Right after the announcements and the opening speech, the media asked for some last photographs. Tony humored them and as the crowd rose into applause, he tapped something in the arc reactor (or nano case as he had called it), and the suit transformed right before them.

Steve had seen the way the tubes formed over Tony’s body many times, how it looked almost like a living entity, swallowing Tony, spreading around him to protect him. He must admit, he had been a weak man more than once and dragged Tony right after a debriefing into the nearest closet or conference room and, well. Let’s just say it’s incredibly easy to fuck someone wearing nanotech tubes, as they need to just open up around the right parts. 

And now the crowd was going crazy with it. The suit formed arm gauntlets, and then in the back, something that resembled the flight stabilizers that the armor often had came up, forming a circle of long spikes framing Tony’s head, with an almost regal nature. The suit went from a steel gray to the classic red and gold colors, and Tony smiled. Steve was getting as hyped as the crowd with this, honestly. 

“He’s born for this, it’s ridiculous,” Steve heard Clint say behind him. He thought of other adjectives rather than ridiculous, but whatever. 

***

The dinner was good, but it wasn’t shawarma or some greasy spoon’s cheeseburger. “God, I’m so getting burgers after this,” Tony mumbled, placing the fork and knife over his plate in a cross. 

“Tell Thor that, he just asked for doubles and the head chef had to come and tell him they don’t do ‘doubles’,” Steve chuckled next to him.

Things had been surprisingly well. The exhibition was exquisite, as always. Tony had to go find Anna for the final speech, but things were sailing smoothly. 

“Hey, how are you holding up?” Tony placed his hand over Steve’s on the table, turning to glance at him. “I’ve been so busy mingling and being the MC, I hadn’t checked up with you.” 

Steve smiled at him, nodding. “I get it, don’t worry. You’re the main attraction. I’ve been perfectly alright just sitting back and watching you.” 

Tony definitely did not blush at that. He cleared his throat. “Yeah, well, it’s easy to just stand back and look pretty when you have the experience.”

Steve put his hand on Tony’s thigh under the table, squeezing slightly. “Yes, it is. But I might have to stop sitting down and be right behind you, like a bodyguard. What with all these men coming after my fella.” 

Tony snorted. “Like a bodyguard, huh? Like Whitney Houston and Costner?”

“Have we seen that one?”

“No, I don’t think you have,” Tony tried to remember. “Doesn’t matter. It doesn’t end well for them.”

Steve’s hand felt warm and solid even over the nano layer of the suit. 

“But yeah, I might have to step up. I’d hate to cause scene at this fancy event, though.” Steve said, looking at Tony sideways. His smile was charming as ever.

“Captain?” Tony arched an eyebrow. “Are you getting jealous over here?”

Steve lowered his head, looking down at his hand on Tony. “I mean, I can’t blame them. You’re a vision in that outfit tonight.” 

Tony felt himself getting hot under the collar. Steve praising him always did things to him, weird, mushy things, dammit. 

“Thank you. You’re not so bad yourself.” Tony peered at Steve through his eyelashes. “Remember what I told you in the car? Cause I’m good on my word, soldier.” 

He enjoyed so much getting Steve riled up in public. His lips parted slightly, his eyes always widened and his jaw started clenching when he tried to control it. Steve never looked more attractive.

“Well, you better sweetheart. Because I have some ideas for this suit of yours.” Steve said quietly, his hand moving higher up Tony’s thigh and squeezing right before taking it away and turning his body, acting like nothing had happened.

Tony almost combusted. Right before he could suggest taking things to the restroom, he heard a voice in the speaker call his name. It was Anna. 

Dammit, time for the closing ceremony. 

Steve chuckled as he made his way up the chair. “You’re so paying for this, Steve,” Tony said, getting up behind him. 

“I sincerely hope I do,” Steve replied, biting his lip. He put his hands on Tony’s shoulders and patted him, a big smile on his face. “Now go get them, tiger.” 

Tony was adding this to the list of Reasons Why Steve Isn’t America’s Boyscout And He Has Everyone Fooled.

[jockedguy]

Unfreeze (Change Theory, part 1 of 3)

ONE

You can tell a lot about the guy in the picture up there.  You can see a slice of his life, just from the second that was captured by the camera’s eye.  

1) He’s not too bright.  

Look at his eyes, the way his face is moving from one thought to the next.  You can tell that it takes him a minute to process, that maybe he’s not too quick.  You wouldn’t be able to make a pun, or talk about current events, with this guy. He’s young, he’s in the prime of his life, he’s maybe a little disoriented because of the hot sun that’s been soaking into his brainpan all day.  Probably got a little spin on from that last in a chain of four beers he’s got in his hand.

2) He’s not from around here.

Here, in the city, where there’s barely a gasp of green, you don’t see guys like this.  You see a lot of reflections of the urban color palette, like how the sky reflects on the ocean.  Endless gray and slate.  This is a picture of a guy who would feel ill-at-ease in a city, hyper-sensitive to the inundation of noise and technology, to the constant floods of people with their shoulders ratcheted up around their jaws.  

3) He doesn’t give much of a fuck what you think.

This is a guy who’s worked his whole life outside, with his hands.  As a kid, he probably spent all his time crashing through the woods or smashing into the still water of the local swimming hole.  He saw the sunrise most days, and squinted into the dusking evening, as bats came out to lazily swoop from dark to dark.  He caught lightning bugs in a jar.  He shot off fireworks and smoked cigarettes at the gas station.  He has an easy confidence.

There’s more, too, I’m sure, but all we get is what we can infer from the split-second the photograph shows us.  

He’s the kind of guy I see on tumblr, scrolling endlessly through my perfect kind of man.  Of course, since I live in the city, this kind of guy is harder to find, except for various dirty phone chats or Skype messages.  Stuff that doesn’t last, but is enough to get me off quickly and efficiently.

Briefly (since this story is about me, too), I grew up in the deep South.  I knew guys like this, was surrounded by them - if you can ever really be surrounded by  anyone in the deep South, that is.  They were my cousins, my neighbors, my schoolmates.  I was always looking at them, even if I wasn’t, you know - “looking” at them.  My life took me quickly through school and college - I’m an intelligent guy.  I quickly understood what it meant to succeed, and with that understanding, I chose a career that would make me a good amount of money and best utilize my skills - advertising.  I’m very good at persuasion.  I see things very simply, and I speak very logically.  Clients tend to like that.  Hell, most people, including my small group of friends, like that.  I think they feel like it’s a nice break from the modern-day affectation of wandering around the point.  

I also happen to be a gay man, still single as I stare into my 30s.  I’ve had a few boyfriends, all of which except for one lasted less than a year.  I was never content with them - they seemed to need me in a way that I found kind of repulsive.  They were depressed, or lackluster, or we just didn’t have the same goals.  I’m a creature of change.  I’m not happy to sit in one place, thinking the same thing - I want to know how I can better myself, how I can be more efficient.  I’d started working out at the local gym, experimenting with my form, with my muscles, when I found you.

I’d never seen someone so much like a lump of raw clay.  And it wasn’t just that - it was as though that lump had been possessed of some metamorphic desire, some inherent drive.  It was almost as though I could see a hundred possible futures super-imposed on top of you as you struggled, over and over, to lift the dumbbell.  I could tell you were hyper-aware of yourself, of your surroundings.  Your eyes would dart surreptitiously from guy to guy, quickly sizing them up and  continuing with your lifts.  I could tell you weren’t the most confident guy, wearing a baggy t-shirt with sleeves and basketball shorts that came down to your knees.  Most guys would come to the gym wearing clothes that accentuate their bodies - you, it seemed, were trying to hide yours.

Who knows why it was that I was drawn to you.  You were just like so many other skinny white boys in brand new sneakers and ankle socks, headphones firmly screwed into your ears to block out the anxiety clawing at your brain.  Maybe it was that glint in your eyes, that metamorphic desire that I mentioned earlier - it reminded me strongly, almost in an olfactory way - of my own drive to transform, to better myself.  I caught myself wondering what your story was.  Who you were.  

I wouldn’t say I stalked you.  That’s not the right word, and I think if anyone asked you now, you’d agree.  There’s just some people in this world, you’re drawn to them - you see them once, maybe a handful of times.  Maybe they’re one of those “stranger-friends” that you see every day on your commute.  You just know, deep down, that this person is going to figure into your life, somehow.  

It was easy, actually.  I started seeing you in the gym more often.  Maybe you had just started going.  One day, after we happened to finish at the same time, making our neutral, civil nods to one another in the locker room, I just decided to follow you down the street.  In this borough of this city, I would hardly be noticed.  It was almost like you left a trail in the air, though - I was able to lag behind at least two or three steps without losing track of you.  You lived in an apartment building a few blocks away from the gym, slightly to the west and south of my own railroad apartment.  Conveniently, a small coffee shop across the street from your place served as my outpost.  I could watch you come and go as I pleased.

It didn’t take long to figure out that you were gay, too.  I actually got to see a date break down in a miserable fashion, watching you and a (surprisingly) much bigger guy part ways in front of your building.  As you went inside, he lingered by the front gate for a second longer than I would have thought, head hanging.  This only intrigued me further - this guy, whose t-shirt barely fit over his biceps, had been left cold by you at the end of the night without even a hand-shake.  

You became a challenge in my mind.  Your seeming distance, detachment from the world, was a heady ambrosia that left me not only curious (for the first time in a long time, believe me) but your continual drive at the gym spiked that curiosity and stoked the flames over a period of weeks.  

I knew you were gay, but it wasn’t the normal hookup situation.  I didn’t feel like I could make a move, cop a feel, arch a brow, have you sucking me off the in the showers before you knew what was good for you.  You were different somehow.  

On the day we first exchanged words, there was a massive weather pattern shifting and sliding over the city.  The Saturday morning was bright, passive, and breezy.  By noon, the sky was swirling with cruciferous heads of cloud.  By mid-afternoon, the thunder rolled & splayed warningly.  I don’t mind a rainstorm - I even love a great thunderstorm - and I headed out to the gym for my daily workout in just a sleeveless tee, basketball shorts, and my Nikes.  The humidity had balled itself up to a stifling percentage, and I found myself soaked with sweat before I even got to the front door of the gym.

I had been jogging in place on the treadmill for about five minutes, eyes on the ceiling-mounted televisions.  Our President was up to his normal dramatic shenanigans on one.  An episode of SVU was on another.  Recaps of NFL games blinked back and forth on the other.  I don’t actually remember when it was that you were beside me, but I remember you had the first word.

“Hey,” you said.  Your voice wasn’t reedy, wasn’t thin, but it wasn’t deep, either.  For all that, it had a steadiness and even had a wry twist to it, as though you had already seen the future of the conversation.

“Hi,” I replied, neutrally, not looking away from the screens.

“I’m Tucker.”

“Jordan,” I replied.  Edged my speed up a little.

“This might sound a little weird, but, um, I’ve noticed you around here a bit, and, well - I like your form, you know, when you lift.  Do you think you could, I dunno, help me out a little?”

You had a unique way of speaking.  It wasn’t hesitant, but it did involve a lot more words than I judged necessary.  But I was able to pay attention to the words that mattered.  Kind of like when all the letters are mixed up in a printed word except for the first and the last, but you can still see and understand what the actual word is.  

If anyone else had asked me that, I probably would have spit out some kind of laugh or awkwardly referred them to a personal trainer.  I’m not a personal trainer, and I don’t know how to make anyone else’s muscles grow.  But for you, well - like I said, you were different.  I was curious.

“Sure,” I said between breaths, maybe even surprising myself a little.  “I’m just warming up here, then I’m gonna head down to do some arms.”

“Ah,” you said, face falling a little.  “I was gonna do legs.  Well, maybe another time.”

“Well, I guess I could do legs today,” I found myself saying.  “Arms are a bit sore from yesterday.”  I flexed, to show you, and I remember seeing your eyes widen a little.

“We could compromise,” you said.  “Chest?”

“Deal.”

And just like that, our first workout session as bros started.  

We didn’t talk much, which I liked.  You went someplace deep inside of yourself when you lifted - as though it took intense amounts of energy to spark that mind-muscle connection.  You seemed to stare through your reflection as you sat on the bench, performing the pectoral flyes.  When we did talk, it was cursory.  Shoulders back, down.  Engage your abs.  Breathe.

And when it was my turn, you were the same way.  Focused on my body the way you had focused on yours.  Quick, instinctive comments.  By the end of our session, my chest ached like it hadn’t in a long time, and I could tell that you were exhausted, too.  You didn’t exclaim about it, you didn’t even groan.  When we stretched out to cool down, the only reaction you had to our workout was a squeeze of your eyes & a slight grit of your jaw as the muscle fibers stretched beneath your skin.

You pushed your glasses up on your nose as you slid out of your shirt and blinked in the light.  You were solider in the core than I’d imagined - even had the shadowed ridges of a four-pack beginning.  “Wow,” I said, impressed despite myself.

You grimaced, but flexed, and smiled bashfully.  It was at that moment that I fell in love with you.  

Well, maybe not you.  Maybe the you I could see in the future.  My boy.  

More like the guy you see there, in the pictures.

TWO

I could tell you were smart.  There was no denying that.  We started going for food after our workouts, which were at least twice a week, if not more.  It helped that there was an amazing Thai place just steps from the gym, and we could order a huge helping of chicken and rice from the kitchen.  A few of the other regular gym-goers would go there as well, some even of bodybuilder status, and I remember feeling a glow of welcome as we ordered for the first time.

There’s a nice, heady feeling that comes with a post-workout ache.  It’s a glimmer, an aura, almost like being drunk.  Tongues loosen, bodies are uncoiled.  More primal desires are closer to the surface of the body than other worldly concerns.  You spoke a little more freely - told me about your life.  You’d grown up in New England, you’d always been a loner, you liked books and TV shows, you smoked pot, you drank craft beers.  I had yet to see you out of gym clothes, but that was because we only met at and after the gym.  You’d been coming along nicely, and I’d mentioned that.  Your form was strong, your lifts were becoming smoother, we’d even added plates on the bench press.  But when you talked about your life outside the gym, your eyes skated around restlessly.  You picked at the neckline of your shirt.  You shifted in your skin.  

For me, that was like a vole rustling through the grass to a hawk on a branch above.  Everyone has their secret unhappiness.  For you, that was a sort of disappointment in yourself - you’d never really “found” yourself, you admitted.  That was part of the reason you’d started coming to the gym.  As a child, your father disappeared and you were left with only a wounded mother to give you guidance.  You never learned how to form your own opinions, for fear that they would damage the delicate balance of the household.  You found yourself, later in life, able to agree with any viewpoint - something that was both valuable, but also a massive handicap.  

To me, it was the way in.

Identity is a tricky thing.  You can either create it yourself, and defend it as best you can against the cynical hurricane of society; or you can collapse and let society give you an identity.  This last way is often the quickest way to unhappiness, and I surmised this was your quandary.  

I smiled, and leaned in.  “Dude, you’re doing fine.  Who cares about all that shit?”  I injected a good amount of masculinity into my phrasing, squared my shoulders.  Flexed, for good effect.  Grinned.  “Who you are is who you make yourself, right?”

“Sure,” you said.  And before I could believe it, you looked up from your protein and grinned back at me.  Flexed back.

“That’s the spirit!”  I held out my fist for a bump, and you laughed, but you bumped back with vigor.  “You wanna know a secret?”

“Sure!”  You were eager to hear my magic.  I savored how your eyes developed a hunger, how the blood pumped a little faster through your dilated veins.  Your pupils even opened a little wider, as if ready to take in anything and everything I was about to offer.  

I leaned back, clasped my hands behind my head - maybe winced once as my sore pecs felt the stretch.  “The secret is ... there is no secret.”

Your face fell.  “That’s ... it?”

“Hear me out.”

“Okay.”  You were a little wary.  Deer in the forest, but still rapt.  Maybe you were even a little hypnotized, even then, before anything.

“You make your own identity.  You gotta ask yourself, bro -- who do you wanna be?”

You sighed.  “That’s just it, man.  I don’t know.”

“Sure you do.”  I laughed, easily, for good affect, and reached over to squeeze your forearm.  I knew I had you, then.  “You know what you don’t like about your life, right?  You just told me.  You hate feeling like the guy who has all the answers.  You hate the constant barrage of news and politics.  You feel depressed and frustrated.  You can’t figure out how to make opinions.”

“Yeah...”

“Isn’t that how you felt when you started working out?  Confused, lost, overwhelmed?”

“Yeah...”  But something was dawning in your eyes.  I felt your forearm flex in my grip.  I didn’t let up on your eyes.

“And how do you feel now?”

“Stronger,” you said, immediately.   

“Nothing has to stay the same forever,” I concluded, letting my hand fall back, crossing my arms over my chest and shrugging.  “You have the power to change whatever you want about yourself.”

You sighed, and narrowed your eyes at me, unconsciously crossing your arms over your chest - just like I had, without even knowing it.  “So that’s it?  I just have to ... will myself into being a different person?”

“Is that what you want?”

You blinked at me.  This was the crucial moment.  I could almost feel the strong under-current of your desires, battering at your hesitation like a rain-swollen river at the banks.  If I’d done it right, if I’d led up to this moment perfectly, I’d hear -

“Yes.  It is what I want.”

I nodded.  “Okay, then.  You’ve taken the first step.”

You nodded, too.  “So what now?”

I spread my hands, then my mouth, into a wolfish smile.  “Now we begin.”

[To be continued.]

[buckysgoldenheart]

What Did I Do Wrong

What did I do Wrong?

Bucky x reader

Warnings: a tidbit of cursing

Words: 2639

Bucky doesn’t understand what he could have possibly done to lose the love of his life.

Submission Prompt:  Would you mind writing one where Bucky gets pranked by some Avengers that reader has ran away with someone else and has ended her engagement with Buckaroo? Angst and fluffy ending please 💘  

Bucky

Bucky slept in later than usual, way later. It was his first day off in weeks from fighting crime and ‘kickin’ ass,’ as Tony liked to call it, and he couldn’t wait to spend it with his fiancée. They had just gotten engaged last week, but Bucky had wanted to marry her the next day. Y/N only chuckled at the idea and said she wouldn’t mind having an actual wedding, something her mom could be a part of.

In all honesty, Bucky forgot about that little detail. Y/Ns parents lived in California and he had never met them. She insisted they would love him, but it made him so nervous that he often pushed all thoughts of that to the back of his mind. Plus, when it came to the wedding, Bucky didn’t have a family he wanted there other than his Avengers family, but he would do anything Y/N wanted.

When he rolled over in the bed, Bucky felt around for his fiancée. She was usually cuddled up to his side and it was weird for her not to be, but then again, it was 11 am and Y/N didn’t always like to sleep in. Bucky sat up, yawned, and ran his hands through his hair, then threw his legs over the side and started to walk to the bathroom. He got through the entire routine of washing his face and brushing his teeth before he noticed how less cluttered the area around the sink was. Usually, it was full of Y/Ns makeup, but today was different. Bucky scrunched his face in confusion but turned to leave anyway to head to the kitchen and kiss his girl good morning.

As he rounded the corner and descended the steps, Buckys face fell. Steve was there, Sam was there, Natasha was there, Bruce, Vision, Tony, Clint, all of them. As he neared the kitchen table, he saw that the team had finished breakfast and were all about to break away from the group to get some work done. They split off into different directions mumbling their good mornings to Bucky as they passed. All that was left was Natasha and Sam, both on their phones doing god knows what. Bucky still didn’t get the point of technology.

“Have you guys seen Y/N?” The super soldier asked, hoping to get a direct and simple answer so he could go right off and find her. The two Avengers looked up from their phones and gave Bucky a sympathetic look.

“Bucky…” Nat started and stood in front of him. “I…I really shouldn’t be the one to tell you this, but seeing as the others just passed you without saying a thing and Sam is a coward…” She whipped her head around to the Falcon and gave him an annoyed look before turning back to Bucky. “I guess this has fallen on my shoulders.”

Bucky formed a frown, but his eyes were wide and scared. ‘Did something happen to Y/N?’ Oh, God. If that were the case, he didn’t know what he would do. “Nat, what? What happened?”

Sam got up from his seat. “Ill leave you to it.” He mumbled before leaving like the rest.

“Bucky…John came by this morning while you were asleep.”

“John?”

“Y/Ns ex.”

“She never told me about a John. What happened? Did he do something to her?”

“No, no, Bucky. He didn’t do anything to her exactly, but he did talk to her.”

“Why didn’t I know about this? Why didn’t I know about him?”

“Bucky, Y/N and John were really, really close. Before you were around, the two of them were engaged. They were days away from getting married when he left her claiming he was too scared. And…well, he showed up this morning at the tower claiming he still loved her and was ready to be with her.”

Bucky eyes began to fill with tears. “Nat, what are you saying?”

She took one deep breath before continuing. “We tried to stop her. We tried to talk her out of it, but it was all of 5 minutes before she had some of her things packed in a bag and left with him.”

“What!? Why!? Why didn’t any of you wake me up???”

“She begged us not to tell you. She didn’t want to hurt your feelings. She didn’t want to cause you any more pain by having to explain to you that you aren’t good enough to be with her, so she was super quiet when she grabbed some of her clothes and stuff. We thought it would have woken you up, but I guess not.”

“She said I wasn’t good enough for her?” A tear slipped down his cheek.

“Bucky…” She sighed. “I shouldn’t have told you that. Y/N said a lot of things.”

Bucky’s vision turned dark. “Tell me!”

“Bucky…”

“TELL ME!!!”

“Fine! But you asked for it. She said that John was someone that met her standards and her parents loved him. She said that she was stupid to think that you could be the right man for her, that she could ever actually marry you and be happy, or that she could ever have children with you one day. She just doesn’t want those things…. Well, she wants them, but just not with you, so she left. I’m so sorry Bucky.”

More tears began to streak down his cheeks leaving water trails in their wake. He stepped away from Natasha and started to shake. “No! No! I love her. Y/N, she…She loves me…” He cried.

“Bucky, im sorry.”

But, he ignored her and ran back up to the room he shared with the girl he loved. He slammed through the door and ran for her closet, swinging it open so hard it almost fell off its hinges. Her things were gone. Her clothes, her shoes, scarves, everything. All gone. He scoured the rest of the room for any sign of her, but it was bare. She took everything.

Bucky sat on the bed and let his tears fall freely, leaving little water stains in the fabric of his grey sweatpants. He was trying to comprehend what was happening, but couldn’t. He would lose his mind without Y/N. He loved her too much.

He started to think of some way to find her and explain that he could change, that he could be what she wanted, when the water in his eyes caused something small on the night stand to glint in his peripheral vision. He blinked away the tears and reached out for the item.

There it was. Her engagement ring. The ring he had given her when he promised how much he loved her and how much he wanted to be with her forever. And there it was, just discarded off to the side like she didn’t care about it or him. Bucky let out a sob that shook the tower.

Y/N

Y/N and Wanda entered the tower arm in arm, shaking off the fresh snow that had started to fall outside. They unclasped and Y/N pulled off her jacket.

“God, Wanda, that was so much fun. I’m so glad you suggested it. “

Wanda squealed in excitement. “I’m so, so glad you liked it. I’ve been trying to get someone to go with me for forever.”

“Yea, well it was awesome. We should go again next week.”

“Yes, that would be great! I think I’ll ask Vision to go. Maybe now that I have another person to testify how fun it is, he might get on board.”

Y/N made a face. “Vision? At a pottery class?”

“Yea, you never know.” She smiled. “Maybe you should ask Bucky, too.”

“Somehow I think his metal arm wouldn’t do so well with the clay. It would probably drive him nuts.” Y/N chuckled and looked down at herself. “Speaking of clay, I really need to wash all of this off me.”

“I think I should do the same.”

“Hey, if you see Bucky on the way, let him know I’m back and in the shower.”

“You got it!”

As Y/N turned her back on her friend and walked to her room, she thought of her fiancé. This had, without a doubt, been the best week of Y/Ns life. Bucky was all over her all the time and they were getting married! Y/N never thought she would find the right person to spend her life with, but when she met Bucky she completely changed her mind. She smiled as she neared the bedroom and pushed open the door without a second thought.

Immediately, she was met with the eyes of her boyfriend, wet with tears, and looking like someone had just punched him in the gut.

“Y/N…” He whispered.

She ran over and got on her knees in front of him, reaching for his hand. “Bucky, what’s wrong? What happened?” He said nothing, just stared at her like she was a ghost and not his fiancée. “Bucky…please…tell me what’s wrong.”

He ignored Y/Ns question as if it was never even said. “You’re back? Did you forget something?”

“Of course, I’m back. Why wouldn’t I be?” Bucky started crying again and Y/N sat up next to him and hugged him around his waist.

“You’re not leaving me? You didn’t go with John?” He said with a little hope in his voice.

She unclasped her arms from around his waist and sat up to meet his eyes with confusion on her face. “Who the fuck is John?”

“Your ex fiancé.” He said, searching her eyes for some sort of recognition.

“Uh, no. I’ve only had the one fiancé and that would be you, baby.”

“What?!”

“Seriously Bucky, who is John?”

He didn’t respond initially, just huffed out a breath and opened his hand, revealing Y/Ns engagement ring in his palm. Y/N looked down at it with him. “Why aren’t you wearing it?”

“My engagement ring? Did it fall off the table or something? I just wanted to keep it safe.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I put the ring on the table so that I wouldn’t lose it or get it dirty at pottery.”

“Pottery?”

“Baby, I’m starting to get worried. Didn’t Nat tell you? She said she would. Wanda and I went to a pottery class this morning.”

As the realization hit him, his anger outweighed his confusion and sadness. Bucky let out a growl and took Y/Ns left hand in his. He slipped the ring on her finger and kissed where it laid. “Don’t ever take this off your finger again!”

“Ok.” She laughed, but it stopped when Bucky got up from the bed and went for the door. “Bucky, where are you going?”

“I’m going to kill Nat.”

“Why?”

“Because according to her, you ran off with your ex-fiancé, John this morning claiming that I wasn’t good enough for you and your parents liked him and you didn’t want to have my babies and---”

Y/N rushed to him as his tone turned aggressive. “Woah, baby stop.” She said and placed a hand on his chest that rose and fell with his rapid breathing.  “Nat told you all these things?” He only nodded his response. “What the Fuck!!!”

“All your stuff is gone, too. Clothes, makeup, everything.” He said gesturing around the room. When she looked around, Y/N saw he was right. Her closet was thrown open, everything gone, and all of her knick-knacks were gone. She might as well have never stepped in that room, because even after 2 years, it looked like she never had.

Slowly, Y/N registered Bucky’s hand start to rest on her lower back as she took in the room around her, but without second thought she pulled away and darted past him on a mission to find Nat. Now, she was madder than Bucky and he knew her fury would surely get someone killed.

“NAT!!!!” She yelled, making her way down the stairs with her fiancé in tow. “Nat, I swear to God! Get your ass down here!” Y/N stopped in the middle of the living room and crossed her arms in front of her chest, determined to wait for the red-head to get her sorry ass in here.

“Doll…I changed my mind.” Bucky started as he came up behind her. He snaked his arms around her waist and pulled her to his chest. “Instead of killing, lets just go back to the room and have sex.” Y/N ignored him completely, still waiting to kick her friends’ ass even when Bucky pulled her hair to the side and placed a kiss on her neck. “Doll, its really ok. Now that I know you didn’t leave me, I don’t care what happened. I’m just happy what she said isn’t true. You don’t need to kill anyone.”

“NAT!!!!”

“Jesus, what?” The couple heard from their right. When they turned their heads, Y/Ns vision went red. She pulled away from Bucky and stomped toward the woman that claimed to be her friend.

“Nat, what the hell is wrong with you? Why would you tell Bucky I was leaving him?”

Nat looked past Y/N to Bucky, he had clearly been crying. “It was just a stupid prank, you guys. Sam orchestrated it.” Then she reached in her back pocket and pulled out a 20-dollar bill. “He gave me this.”

Y/N groaned in frustration. “You know what? I don’t care who did it, or whose stupid idea it was. You hurt Bucky and therefore, hurt me. I am so pissed at you guys! So, you know what?” Nat looked at her in shock laced with a bit of fear. Y/N really was terrifying when she was pissed. “I am taking this…” She continued, swiping the 20 from Nat’s fingers and placing it in her own pocket. “And we,” she motioned between herself and Bucky. “Are going to go get burgers.” Then, Y/N reached around her and grabbed Bucky’s arm, pulling him along.

‘Y/N,” Nat started. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize this would be so upsetting.”

Y/N whipped around. “Really Nat? You didn’t think that telling the man I love that I didn’t love him anymore might be somewhat problematic? And not only that, you told him that I ran off with some guy that doesn’t even exist!” She turned again to Bucky and pulled him to the elevator. “You and Sam owe me, Nat. You owe the both of us! And I want my stuff back!” Then the elevator shut.

Bucky sat at the table across from his fiancée, both munching on the burgers they bought with Nat’s hard-earned cash.

“This is actually really good.” Bucky smiled as he swallowed a bite.

She chuckled. “I think it’s because we got them with Nat’s money.”

“Actually, originally it was Sam’s, which makes it taste even better.” Y/N smiled again, and Bucky’s eyes lit up. He loved to make her smile. “Are you gonna kill Nat?”

“Are you gonna kill Sam?” She countered as if it were the most casual conversation topic in the world.

“Specifically because of this, or from the two-hundred other things he has done to piss me off?” Bucky replied with a dose of sarcasm.

“Alright, well if you don’t kill Sam then I won’t kill Nat.”

“Who said I wasn’t going to kill Sam?”

“Hey, I won’t stop you, but I don’t think Steve would like it very much.”

“Ok, Ok. That would be a bummer. I’ll let it go for now, but I’m sure by tomorrow he’ll do something else that’ll just make things worse for himself anyway.”

Y/N looked at him with adoration. Bucky was everything she had ever wanted. She loved that they could be silly and weird together, even when just discussing whether or not Sam ended up dead by the end of the day. “I love you.”

“You sure?” He said, taking another bite of his burger. “According to Nat, this John guy was pretty great.” He smirked, and it earned him a fry in the face.

“Yes, I am sure.”

“I love you, too.” They smiled at each other for a moment before Bucky decided to ruin it. “But, I gotta tell ya, he didn’t sound too bad and I really don’t know if I can get your parents to like me.”

“Bucky…I don’t care if, for some ridiculous reason, they decide to hate you. If that’s the case, then we will elope.”

“You would elope?”

“Baby, I’d do anything to be with you and be happy.”

“Does that mean you want to have my babies one day?”

“Yes, Bucky, it means that.”

All he could do was smile. It was uncontrollable. “Then doll face, we can have whatever kind of wedding you want.”

 Tags: @dugan365 @moonlightimagination @pietrotheavenger @marvel-fanfiction @agentsinstorybrooke @dani-si @alyssiamking @wintersoldier98 @then-there-was-me-emily @prxttybirdz @tessvillegas @xceafh @jazzwoman897 @sebstanchrisevanchickforever19 @shitmymomsay @fandoms-who @meganwinchester1999 @ufffg @debra77 @rebelliouscat

[clonerightsagenda]

you seem to be the one to ask about this- i've read wee free men and hat full of sky, what should i read next in the discworld stuff?? can i just go anywhere, or is there an order?

You have unlocked a can of worms my friend.  Get ready.  

The first thing to understand about Discworld is that it is technically one series but really consists of several miniseries and some standalone books.  The two you have read are part of one miniseries about Tiffany Aching.  Those are actually the books I started with and are nice because you don’t need any preexisting knowledge about the world.  If you want to continue with that miniseries, the next book is Wintersmith, followed by I Shall Wear Midnight and finally The Shepherd’s Crown.  However, you should know that the last one is also the last book he wrote.  He wasn’t in great shape at that point, and it wasn’t entirely completed.  So be aware.

If you enjoyed these ones, Tiffany is preceded by another witch subseries, focusing on Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg (who are mentioned in the Tiffany books) plus some others.  That technically starts with Equal Rites, but that book is early when he was still getting his feel for the world, and so I wouldn’t start with it.  The characterizations aren’t consistent with later books.  Instead, I would read the witch series as Wyrd Sisters, Witches Abroad, Lords and Ladies, Maskerade, Carpe Jugulum. Then you can go back for Equal Rites.

Those are the witch books, and they’ll be most familiar based on what you’ve already read.  There are a few other main story lines.  Probably the most popular is the guards one.  These are set in Ankh-Morpork, the major setting for most of these books, and featured the city watch solving crimes.  The guards books tend to focus on crime, political intrigue, the faults of mankind, and a team working together, even as the mc (Vimes) tries to go solo.  In contrast, the witch books tend to focus on more magical issues, local and personal problems, and often have the main character having to go it alone to fix their problem.  There’s quite a lot of overlap of course, but that’s general.  The order of the watch books is Guards Guards, Men at Arms, Feet of Clay, Jingo, The Fifth Elephant,  Night Watch, Thud, and Snuff.

A third series is the Death series.  These focus on the character of Death and eventually his family.  These tend to be a lot more philosophical  (looking at issues of humanity, belief, values, etc.) and often have appearances by characters from the other sub arcs. The order is Mort, Reaper Man, Soul Music, Hogfather, Thief of Time.

Any of those are good to start with I think, although I would tend to recommend going to the witch or guards one next.  I love the death books, but they can be a little intricate if you’re not familiar with the world. Also imo although Reaper Man and Hogfather are fantastic, Soul Music is weak and the other two are solid but not my faves.

There are two other major series.  One is the industrial revolution arc.  This focuses on a few different characters but are grouped together because they look at the city progressing and getting new technology, often opposed by people who would prefer things to stay as they are. These are Going Postal, Making Money, and Raising Steam (focusing on  the character of con man turned civil servant Moist von Lipwig) and The Truth, focusing the the newspaper.  Fair warning, Raising Steam was written near the end of his life, is in slightly messier shape, and is also his attempt to wrap up a lot of plot threads, so I wouldn’t touch that one until late.  I would also recommend doing the guard series before this one, because it requires a little bit more understanding of the city.  That being said, I read Going Postal really early and loved it.  It’s definitely the strongest of this series I would say.

Finally, my least favorite series.  The wizards.  Discworld started as a parody of standard fantasy, and the early wizards books are mostly a series of trope subversions tied together.  They eventually moved beyond that, but I still don’t love them, and one of them (Interesting Times) has some really uncomfortable racial jokes.  Stick with satirizing your own country dude. These are The Color of Magic, The Light Fantastic, Sourcery, Interesting Times, The Last Continent (I did like that one), and The Last Hero. Unseen Academicals is sort of a standalone and sort of a wizards one - I do like that one as well.

There are also several stand alones. Small Gods is a knockout in that regard, a book talking about organized religion and faith. Monstrous Regiment is also really fun.  Overall though, I would recommend picking either the witch or guard series and going that way.  You’ll miss a few details that would only make sense if you’re reading all the books in chronological order, but its not that hard, and I think it’s better that way.

[teacher-lavin]

Wilner’s Epiphany

Edwidge Danticat (below) is author of The Farming of the Bones, a narrative whose traumatic events resolve in a woman endowing her people’s lives with meaning by knowing and saying their names after they have gone and the stories that their names inspire. 

Edwidge Danticat’s books create safe spaces for students to share their trauma. 

Wilner’s Dream*

The dream repeats. Every time, Wilner wakes up, his soul trembling. Angry. Frightened. Disoriented. It’s always Friday night. He’s 12-years-old again. He’s with his grandmother. She’s signing to him. He’s signing back. She has her cheque from her job cleaning offices in center city. They’re in the line for the teller at the bank. Grandmother gestures and tries to say the words in Kreyol. She makes sounds that she cannot hear. Wilner is signing back that he has the list of stuff they have to buy at the market and that he knows there’s not much time to do the shopping and to return home to prepare the meal. Then, Wilner hears the man in line behind them complaining aloud, “I wish these damn deaf people would stop their damn grunting like damn animals. They’re a disgrace.” Wilner feels it like he’s been punched hard in the stomach. He turns to the man and retorts loudly and clearly, “Mister, why would you even say that!” The man’s eyes stare blankly, then his face flushes pink, and he goes defensive. Fingerpointing back, he hollers, “Son, I wasn’t talking to you.” 

The heavily armed bank security guard struts up to the man. Wilner’s grandmother, feeling confused, is signing questions about the guard and the man to Wilner. The security guard asks the man if Wilner is making trouble, and the man is pointing his stubby finger alternatively at Wilner and at his Grandmother and telling the guard that “he’s a rude boy” and that his grandmother is “incompetent and shouldn’t be allowed to wander around like this.” The man’s body is heavy and wheezes and gasps for breath whenever he says something. He acts like a drowning victim abruptly swallowing the air. The man pauses and gasps after every insult, after every threat a deep breath, and after every charge to the security guard, he gulps. 

That’s when the dream goes fever-pitch. That’s when Wilner sees red in his sleep. He always wakes up perspiring profusely and scared that he’s been thrown to the ground, handcuffed, and arrested. Dragged away by the police. He always wakes up frightened that his grandmother is lost somewhere, crying, moaning and distracted to the point of delirium and not able to understand where she is or what has happened. Wilner feels the terror that comes  with anger, fear and confusion. He’s awake now. He blinks. He is not in prison. Did he hurt the man? Pause. No. Grandmother passed two years ago. Wilner feels his face.No bruises. He’s in his room. Sigh. Relief. Finally, a moment’s calm. 

Wilner’s Epiphany

In the hallway on my way to class.

Wilner:    Mister, I have made a discovery.

Me:    Wilner, I can’t be late? Are you OK?

Wilner:  No. I have made a discovery.

Me:   Can you tell me before class tomorrow?

Wilner:  But no. This is very important.

 Class bell rings.

Me:  (Resigned to being late, again.) My goodness, what have you discovered?

Wilner: (Making fun of my way of speaking.) My goodness, it’s Alexander Graham Bell. He wasn’t trying to invent the telephone. He was trying to invent a hearing aid. (He Smiles.)

I congratulate Wilner on his discovery and run to class. Later, Wilner comes by and explains to me that he originally wanted to write an essay for our class on the history and origins of his cell phone. I didn’t know much about Wilner. I did remember that he had wanted to write about the technology of his cell phone. I also knew that he had a habit of speaking very carefully, as if each statement were a kind of mindfully conceived thesis. When Wilner began researching by reading online about Alexander Graham Bell, to whom the invention of the telephone is attributed, Wilner learned that Bell had been an advocate for the hearing impaired. Bell had been experimenting with tiny electric speakers to amplify sound within the ear. When Wilner realized that Bell was impassioned to improve the lives of deaf people because members of Bell’s family struggled with hearing problems, Wilner felt that the fates were speaking to him. Wilner explained that his own grandmother and his sister both had experienced hearing problems. 

Wilner: Mister, I learned something that I had not planned to learn.

Me: Wlll you change your topic to Bell’s invention of hearing aids?

Wilner: But no. I want to write about how when a person plans to learn one thing, he can end up learning other, unexpected things. 

Me: Wil, I’ve noticed that you speak several languages. How many languages do you speak?

Wilner: (Counting on his fingers.) Kreyol from Haiti and home. French from school in Haiti. Spanish from when we lived in the Dominical Republic. English from here. Sign language all my life. 

Me: How did you do it? How did you learn so many languages?

Wilner: I had to. (Reflecting.) To survive.

Me: Did Bell need to invent a telephone or a hearing aid? Was there a necessity that drove him to invent?

Wilner: (With respectful frustration.) If you’re saying that “Necessity is the mother of invention,” that would be a gross cliche. I’m saying the opposite. No one can control what they will learn. What we learn in life, we very frequently do not intend to learn. 

Me: (speechless.)

The Farming of the Bones

That year, Edwidge Danticat’s novel, The Farming of the Bones, came right after our AP Class’s reading of James Joyce’s Dubliners. Wilner seldom spoke in class. Usually, he would wait until the last moment of a conversation to add a confouding question. For example, one day, we had discussed the pathetic qualities of Maria, a character in Joyce’s story, “Clay,” and we had reached the point of examining Maria’s sadness when Wilner entered the discussion to say, “So, the story makes us sad that the old woman’s family betrayed her. I agree. But hasn’t Maria also betrayed her family and us the readers, too? Maria wasn’t the victim you want her to be. She chose to go to her relatives’ party. She chose to work in the laundry where she worked, and she chose to sing the song that  made everybody feel sorry for her. For me, she is courageous. She is not a victim. I don’t feel sorry for her. I believe that the author wants the readers to recognize how brave Maria is and how weak-minded people who feel sorry for other people can be. Maria knows that she is deaf and that she misses things. It’s not a fact that you or her family are keeping from her.” Usually, after Wilner’s question or comment, the room would go hush for a while. 

On the day that we finished reading The farming of the Bones, a group of students walked into the classroom complaining.  

David:  Lavin, I’m so mad about tis book. I stayed up late last night to finish it.

Me:   Why are you mad?

Vicki:  He’s mad because of what Amabelle did?

Ines: (Shaking the book in her hand unhappily.) It was a big disappointment. 

We began class before the bell rang that day. Students were conflicted by their feelings for the character, Amabelle, whose life story unifies the novel. She is a Haitian servant in the home of a wealthy Dominican soldier’s family. The story is set against the historical events surrounding the 1937 massacre of Haitians by the Dominican dictator, Rafael Trujillo’s military. The majority of our class expressed anger with the book because the conclusion surprised them. Their collective condemnation of the Danticat’s novel went as far as Antonio saying, “Lavin, this whole novel was a waste of time because what happened last night or what didn’t happen.” Then, Wilner spoke.

Wilner:  (Addressing the entire class.) You know I’m just thinking that I never told anybody in class that I am from Haiti. Like so many of you, I lived in the Dominican Republic, too. So, I know those jokes about Haitians. You might have noticed that I didn’t laugh at them. Last night, you learned something about Amabelle, something that you didn’t expect to learn. Sometimes, you will be thrilled by learning what you didn’t expect. Sometimes, you will be horrified. I was not surprised by how Amabelle’s story ended in last night’s reading. Amabelle lost so much. The River ate her parents and other people in the book. The Dominican Police probably killed her lover, Sebastien. For me, the point was not that she lost those people, the point was that she loved them. Amabelle said all of their names and wanted to remember their lives. For me, Amabelle became all of those people, the people of Haiti who lived and died at that time. For me, they were all very beautiful because Amabelle loved them and tried to take them with her in her broken heart.

Class: (Speechless.)

In the classes after that day, it wasn’t unusual for Eva or Pedro to say, when the conversation reached a lull, “Wil. Tell us, what do you think? One such day, I had asked students to write about a dream that recurs in their lives and how they make sense of it. Several students turned to Wilner, at one point and asked him to read his dream account aloud to the class. Wilner had written about his dream in the third person. When he read from his dream journal, there was silence in the room.

Wilner: . . . . . . He always wakes up perspiring profusely and scared that he’s been thrown to the ground, handcuffed and arrested. Dragged away by the police. He always wakes up frightened that his grandmother is lost somewhere, crying, moaning and distracted to the point of delirium and not able to understand where she is or what has happened. Wilner feels the terror that comes  with anger, fear and confusion. He’s awake now. He blinks. He is not in prison. Did he hurt the man? Pause. No. Grandmother passed two years ago. Wilner feels his face.No bruises. He’s in his room. Sigh. Relief. Finally, a moment’s calm. 

Class: (Silent.)

Kyle:  Wil. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Your story is everyone’s story. (More Silence.)

Kyle: (Looking surprised.) 

Kyle, then, began clapping and the whole class joined in applauding, loud enough that the principal wondered from his office what ever can be going on in there. 

* All of the personages in this story are fictional fabrications with the exception of Edwidge Danticat whose novels and characters continually teach us lessons that we had not planned to learn.

[theliberaltony]

via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

You probably know Alabama’s new senator, Doug Jones, because he narrowly won a special election last year against a man accused of molesting underage girls. But there are probably quite a few things you don’t know about him. His first name is actually Gordon, and he is left-handed,1 hitches his head a bit when he’s making a point and is what experts on emotions might call an “active listener.”

That last point dawned on me while I was sitting in the back of an SUV as he praised the virtues of the peanut butter factory we’d just been to — “the technology!” — and we jostled along a central Alabama road on a late May afternoon. Throughout a sweaty, hair-netted tour, he had nodded and peered into things and patiently asked questions. (I, meanwhile, had strained to hear over the nut-rumbling din and contemplated a literal death by peanut butter underneath some sort of hot, belching still that smelled unnervingly like cookies.) The visit was a reminder of just how much the life of a politician is filled with interactions that are mundane for him but momentous for the other person; the conscientious officeholder knows that a bit of attentive listening can go a long way. That’s perhaps doubly the case for Jones, an Alabama Democrat wading through his state’s overwhelmingly Republican politics. Sometimes, he might not agree with what people have to say to him, but, by God, Jones will smile, nod and hear them out.

There are some exceptions, of course. We drove by a yard overflowing with tchotchkes and an unmistakable sign of the South. “I would probably not stop right there at the house with the Confederate flags waving,” Jones conceded in a creaky drawl that’s faintly reminiscent of another southern Democrat, Bill Clinton. “Probably not much point of me going there.”

Jones is the first Alabama Democrat elected to the U.S. Senate since 1992 (and that guy later became a Republican).2 His election in December 2017 came in no small part because of the strength of the black community’s vote. Black voters made up 29 percent of the electorate in the 2017 Alabama Senate race, matching their turnout for Barack Obama’s historic 2008 election (notable enthusiasm for a special election in an off-cycle year), with 98 percent of black women — who made up 17 percent of the electorate — voting for Jones. Jones also won independents and made inroads with liberal and moderate Republicans, groups that Obama performed poorly among.3 Jones’s coalition is disparate, to say the least.

Jones is a Democrat and a Democrat with pretty standard Democratic positions — he’s pro-abortion rights, for gay rights and the Affordable Care Act, and supports protections for illegal immigrants who arrived in the country as minors. But in tone and style he’s a moderate, and a moderate so convinced of the power of his moderation that he says his candidacy was actually hurt, not helped, by the molestation accusations against Roy Moore, his Republican rival. “We would have won by a larger percentage had those allegations not come out,” he told me. “Once those allegations surfaced, the level of interest increased, and the race became very tribal.” (Before the Moore allegations were reported by The Washington Post on Nov. 9, 2017, the race had been holding steady, with Jones at 42 percent and Moore at 48 percent, according to the RealClearPolitics polling average. Three days after the allegations became public, it was a 2-point race.)

But two years away from standing for re-election, Jones is faced with the reality of what it means to govern as a Democrat in a blood-red state in a country divided by tribal politics. President Trump won Alabama with 62 percent of the vote, and Jones’s tenuous coalition rests not only on the support of the black community, but also on those independents and Republicans — many of whom are white in a state still riven by racial tensions.

And that’s meant that Jones has had to become a culture warrior of a different sort, preaching peace, love and understanding to both his liberal base and his more circumspect constituents unused to voting for a Democrat. Call it the gospel of moderation. In today’s politics, a certain temperament is required to be a part of the center that’s barely holding. Most people would tire of centrist sermonizing and turning the other cheek, but Doug Jones swears by it. His re-election rests on whether Alabamians buy in.

Much of Jones’s time is spent toggling between Alabama constituencies. He assures some that their interests will receive the attention they’ve long gone without. With others, he’s feeling out how far he can push a Democrat’s agenda before turning them off. But with everyone, he’s preaching the power of forbearance.

That’s why on an evening in late May, Jones got up to address a crowd gathered for a public health fair in Lowndes County, a place where he won 79 percent of the vote, and apologized.

“At the end of the day, we’re all to blame, somehow, some way — we’ve all neglected this area,” he said. The statement could have covered any number of slights. Lowndes is part of what’s known as the Black Belt, a rural strip that stretches across the state and is known for its rich farming soil and its large population of African-Americans. It also has a public health crisis: Many residents don’t have proper sanitation systems.

“I literally had déjà vu the first time I stepped out of the van in one of these situations because it had the smell and the heat and the humidity — it was just like being in rural Vietnam or Cambodia or Haiti,” said Mark Elliot, who’s an engineering professor at the University of Alabama and has researched drinking water and sanitation issues in developing countries. The region’s clay soil can make septic tanks — which many residents of the impoverished area can’t afford to begin with — ineffective. Some people install straight pipes that send sewage directly into the ground only to have wastewater rise back up, puddling in yards.

Jones offered some extremely Jonesian advice to the assembled crowd to get state officials (implicitly he seemed to mean Republican officials) to respond to their needs. “Don’t argue, don’t get mad, don’t get angry, don’t shake your finger. Just say, ‘We need help,’” Jones said. “That’s the way we move forward.”

When I asked her if she was surprised to have a fellow Democrat in the congressional delegation, Rep. Terri Sewell turned to look directly at me. “I worked my ass off for this,” she said.

Jones is not an outsized personality, but he is a decent-sized one. A former federal prosecutor, he can talk, though not in an overly charming, anecdote-strewn way. It’s more that he just sort of says what he’s thinking into a microphone. It is this unassuming quality that dominates the Jones aura. He is not particularly tall, is neither skinny nor plump and has the balding pate of so many other 64-year-old men. He wears sensible shoes with support. Perhaps the one notable thing about his appearance is his pale blue eyes.

After the health fair, Jones and Rep. Terri Sewell, the only other Democratic member of Alabama’s congressional delegation and its sole black member, toured a National Park Service memorial to the 1965 Selma-to-Montgomery marches. Sewell and Jones are a practiced political duo — all chummy side hugs and comfortable banter.

When I asked her if she was surprised to have a fellow Democrat in the congressional delegation, Sewell turned to look directly at me. “I worked my ass off for this,” she said.

“I told him this could happen as long as we didn’t nationalize it — it came on the heels of the Ossoff election, and it was really important that we kept everything local.” (In one of the first special elections after the 2016 vote, Democrat Jon Ossoff lost what looked like a promising seat pick-up in Georgia’s 6th Congressional District after huge media and ad dollar attention to the race.) Jones tried to keep his distance from national figures and the media firestorm surrounding Moore — as much as was possible.

Jones’s real viability as a Democratic senatorial candidate was always going to inspire some excitement. In one recent year, the left-leaning parts of the Alabama electorate didn’t even have an official candidate: In 2014, Jeff Sessions — whose seat Jones now occupies — ran unopposed, receiving 97 percent of the vote. Jones, of course, benefited from a disillusioned moderate Republican electorate in his 2017 race and from the enthusiasm of Democrats who saw at long last a candidate who actually had a shot at winning. But Trump is still wildly popular in Alabama, and he’ll presumably be on the ballot in 2020, when Jones will be seeking re-election. “A lot of it has to do with suburban voters,” Giles Perkins, the 2017 campaign’s “Yoda” (in Jones’s words — “campaign chairman” in others’), told me about what the senator’s 2020 re-election prospects rested on. “We also have to grow our support in the more rural areas as we focus on rural hospitals and small banks and things that are essential to those communities.”

Turnout is always higher in presidential election years, and Jones will likely have to battle for his seat in front of an electorate filled with enthusiastic Trump voters who might want to vote a partisan ticket, aka anyone but Jones, the Democrat.

Jones’s appeal to black voters in Alabama remains key, and it might lie not just in his existence as an actual factual Democratic senator who got elected, but in his moderation. According to a 2017 Pew Research Center survey, the share of Democrats overall who identify as “liberal” has grown to 48 percent (up from 33 percent in 2008), but only 28 percent of black Democrats identify that way. A plurality of black Democrats, 40 percent, call themselves “moderate,” and 30 percent say they are “conservative.” Jones, for one, is well aware that he owes a huge debt of gratitude to the black voters of Alabama.

“I do think there is a sense of obligation for me to pay careful attention because they have been neglected, and I want to make sure that folks know that I appreciate their support and I want to be there for them,” he said. “I also want them to know that I’m talking about that message in other parts of the state.”

The next day, in another part of the state (one country over), at another rural health-care event, Jones was pitching himself to a very different crowd. It was a mostly white group that had gathered in a room at L.V. Stabler Memorial Hospital in Greenville, a small town in Butler County, where both Trump and Jones had won.

Statewide, Jones won independents, receiving 51 percent of their votes. Even though that’s a slim margin, his support among that group stands in striking difference to the 23 percent of independents that Obama won in 2012. Jones’s appeal to right-leaning voters who were turned off by Moore likely contributed to his victory. He also won 21 percent of moderate or liberal Republicans, while Obama won only 1 percent of those votes in Alabama in 2012.

But Terry Lathan, Alabama’s GOP chair, is skeptical of Jones’s chances, saying that many Republican voters stayed home because of Moore but won’t during a Trump year. “I can tell you the Republican Party and the activists are champing at the bit to get to him in 2020, and he’s got to know that,” she said. “You cannot play political middle of the road and not get run over. You’d better get on one side or the other.”

After a few minutes of remarks, during which Jones bemoaned that Alabama had “left a lot of dollars on the table” by not expanding Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, he took questions from the crowd. One came from a man in the back who introduced himself as “a local peanut man, barbecue man” and who wanted to know why the ACA was a good thing: “Because there’s a lot of people in our community who tell me it’s not.”

Southern politics have “always been a folksier, back-slapping good old boy kinda thing,” Jones said. “And I don’t mean that in a sexist way — I just mean it in a country way.”

It was the gracious version of a question that Jones will be asked again and again over the next two years. And he can be impatient with this GOP line. Jones told me that he’s sometimes frustrated by conservative Alabamians who want his help: “They see the federal government as not being good and don’t really fully appreciate the fact that their public officials need those federal dollars to help their roads, to help their schools, to help save their hospital.”

But Jones didn’t say that to the man in Greenville. Instead, he played the attentive listener, seemingly wanting to know how far to the left his constituents will allow him to go. “Let me qualify this because I don’t want you to think that I’m in favor of single payer like Bernie Sanders, but there is more and more talk about not single payer but a public option that people buy into,” Jones said. “I’m curious as to whether any of you have thoughts.”

People did. Some were open to the idea. Many talked about the high insurance deductibles people face under the current system — they can’t pay them. Dexter McLendon, the mayor of Greenville, a jowly man who wore cowboy boots with his suit and voiced some anti-ACA sentiments during the event, wrapped it up by delivering something of a locker-room pump-up speech: “We gonna sit down here and die and rot on the vine? I mean, I’m not!”

In the car, on our way to the event, I’d asked Jones about the way Southern politics is typically performed. “It’s always been a folksier, back-slapping good old boy kinda thing,” Jones said. “And I don’t mean that in a sexist way — I just mean it in a country way.” The Greenville mayor’s style was definitely channeling that legacy. But he seemed to like Jones, seemed to respect his game. “Let’s give him a hand,” he said, turning to the senator. “He and I don’t agree on everything, but he’s very nice to come.”

The Alabama touches in Jones’s Washington office are obvious. The senator’s preferred seat is a wicker rocking chair covered in white cushions, and the mantlepiece of the marble fireplace is bookended by two signed footballs, one emblazoned with the scarlet University of Alabama “A” (the senator’s alma mater) and the other with “Doug Jones U.S. Senate.”

The space is a visual reminder of how much Alabama and its buffeting political and cultural currents have shaped Jones. His political moderation might be strategically advantageous, but it also isn’t insincere. Jones and his politics are very much of a place and time.

In the center of the office mantlepiece is a picture of a young Jones leaning over to whisper in the ear of an older man at a microphone, Alabama Sen. Howell Heflin, a conservative Democrat who represented the state for 18 years. For a time, Jones served as a staff counsel for the senator. Heflin left the Senate in 1997 and was replaced by Sessions, meaning that Jones now occupies the seat of his former boss. (Perkins told me that Jones was originally considering a run for governor but that switched after a conversation in Perkins’s living room. “His heart had always been in the U.S. Senate,” he said.) Jones fondly recalled that he’d called Heflin during law school, asking if he could work for his campaign. The senator replied that he could if Jones raised enough money to pay for his salary. He did, getting the hang of fundraising calls from an early age.

Jones’s ideological evolution was gradual, although he was always interested in politics. “I don’t think there was an epiphany,” he said. “I didn’t consider myself a George McGovern liberal Democrat. I was not that anti-war at all — very socially conservative at the time.” He voted for Richard Nixon the first time he could cast a ballot but grew disillusioned by Watergate during college. He did field organizing in Alabama for Jimmy Carter’s 1976 campaign and then worked for Heflin. In 1988, when Joe Biden ran for president, Jones served as state co-chair for the campaign.

By that time, Jones was a successful lawyer, although he had yet to try the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing case, which received national attention for convictions of two KKK members for the decades-old crime that killed four young black girls in Birmingham. After he won the case, Jones considered running for the Senate. “People forget that I was going to do that in 2001,” he said. “I was coming off the church bombing case. It was Jeff Sessions’s first re-elect coming up — I really felt like there was an opportunity and so that summer after I left the U.S. attorney’s office, I started going around meeting folks, raising a little bit money, not a lot. And then 9/11 hit.” After that, Jones said, everything changed. It was too hard to run against an incumbent Republican in a deep-red state during the post-attack atmosphere. He’d wait another 16 years for a shot at the seat.

“I try to just hold my tongue and go off by myself and beat my head against a wall,” Jones said. “There has to be a certain element of discipline that comes with this job.”

Jones’s sense of history was on display during his maiden Senate speech in March, when he invoked something Heflin had written: “Compromise and negotiation — the hallmarks of moderation — aimed at achieving moderate, centrist policies for our country, should not be viewed as negatives.” Jones took to the floor to cite these words a month after the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. He spoke about the need for better gun regulations, called for senators to support his Democratic colleagues’ bills, but also said this:

“Frankly, I also enjoy guns. I enjoy shooting them. I like how they are made, their power, and their history. I own many of them, all stored in a locked gun safe that is, quite frankly, larger than what my wife initially approved a number of years ago. And collecting them and shooting them at the range or hunting is a bond I share with my son Christopher and many of my friends.”

Though the American South, especially in 2018, can be a much-maligned place in the eyes of many liberals, Doug Jones is a man of his culture. And he talks about it.

Jones certainly seems more at ease in Alabama. In D.C., he was still getting used to the senatorial pace of life, or, as he put it, “still drinking from the fire hose,” with constituent meetings and staff briefings done in “West Wing”–esque walk-and-talks on the way to committee votes. But back home, he was looser. After an evening event, he couldn’t wait to drive to an old Montgomery seafood place — “Jubilee! Jubilee! It’s Jubilee!” he shouted to members of his staff, jubilant that they had remembered the name of the restaurant after collectively blanking on it. In the car on our drive, he ribbed me about the state of football in my home state, Ohio (Jones is an SEC man through and through and has tickets to the Alabama games that entitle him to lockers in the stadium where he can store adult beverages of his choice to sip on, a nice perk, since alcohol sales are banned by the league), and proved most animated when talking about the history of Alabama politics, of which he seems to have an encyclopedic knowledge.

I asked him about segregation — Jones was born in 1954, the same year that Brown v. Board of Education officially ordered that U.S. schools be integrated.

“For me, segregation didn’t really mean anything,” Jones said of his early childhood. “It was just not something that as a child and growing up that you think about.” He acknowledged he grew up “fairly sheltered,” a white boy in an all-white neighborhood, though Jones said “it was not a hateful neighborhood — no one was out burning crosses.” Fairfield, a town outside Birmingham, where Jones grew up, is home to a U.S. Steel mill, where Jones’s father worked until he was 80 years old. I asked if his family had supported George Wallace, the Alabama governor who ran for president on a segregationist platform.

“Hell, everybody in Alabama supported George Wallace, sure!” Jones said. “Everybody was a Democrat too. The thing about the Democratic Party at the time — and I say this a lot when people say they want to bring the Democratic Party back — I say, ‘Hell no we don’t! Not the rooster!” A white rooster was the old symbol for the Alabama Democratic Party, and the logo was often accompanied by the slogan “white supremacy for the right.”

“I’ve tried to think back a lot to those days, and I remember some of the Wallace stuff. But in the back of my mind, there’s also something telling me that my dad was kinda a Ryan deGraffenried supporter,” Jones said. DeGraffenreid Sr., a candidate for governor, was a relative moderate by Alabama standards — meaning that he was still a segregationist — but he condemned Wallace’s inflammatory rhetoric. “I’ve never really talked to dad about that over the last few years,” Jones mused. “He might remember that — he’s got dementia, so you tend to remember things from far back.”

Jones’s long political memory is a reminder that while he is a new senator, he’s no political naif, but someone with a full life experience and a certain confidence in his decision making.

“He’s a good thinker,” Greg Hawley, Jones’s former law partner, told me. “I don’t think he’s what I would call a collaborative thinker. I think he internalizes a lot of things. He’s good at figuring out things on his own without a lot of input.”

Jones has had to think through some difficult decisions of late, particularly when it comes to Trump Cabinet appointments. He joined the majority of Democrats in voting against Gina Haspel to be director of the CIA but voted for Mike Pompeo’s nomination for secretary of state, one of only a handful of Democrats to do so, despite reservations about Pompeo’s history of anti-Muslim remarks and anti-gay rights policy stances. (Since taking office, Jones has voted in line with Trump’s position 56.3 percent of the time. The only Democratic senator who has voted with Trump more often is Joe Manchin of West Virginia.) Jones got pushback from some of his more liberal supporters for the Pompeo decision, including his son, Carson, who is gay.

“He expressed some disappointment in the vote, and I said, ‘I understand, I got it,’” Jones said.

In a highly partisan atmosphere, with the constant thrum of social media as background to nearly every political happening, it’s impossible not to get pushback on votes or public statements. I asked Jones, who seems preternaturally even-keeled, what does actually push his buttons.

“I’ll tell you what really gets me politically are the people who are disingenuous, who will pander, who are intellectually dishonest just to try to get a vote,” he said. “I try to just hold my tongue and go off by myself and beat my head against a wall. There has to be a certain element of discipline that comes with this job.”

It reminded me of some advice a friend had gotten from his father in moments of frustration: Measure your response by how it serves your goal, not by how it serves your fury. The newly elected senator from Alabama has lived long enough to know that immoderate fury does not serve the goal of the radical moderate.

“I guess I need to show you my picture,” Synethia Pettaway said to me, getting up from the dining-room table in her high-ceilinged, colonnaded home that, as she put it, “was not built for me to live in, but God saw fit for me to be able to purchase.” She meant a black woman wasn’t ever supposed to live in this pretty white house in Selma, Alabama.

She came back with a framed black-and-white photo showing five nuns in old-fashioned white wimples beaming down at a baby. There’s another person in the photo — Martin Luther King Jr. He’s looking at the baby, too, holding her hand.

“His birthday and my birthday are the same, so they wanted him to meet me because I was born on Jan. 15, 1965,” Pettaway said. “They say he told me I would be a civil righter, so I have been out there ever since.”

Pettaway is the head of the Democratic Party in Alabama’s Dallas County and one of a network of black political and civic leaders who helped mobilize voters for Jones. The county, which is 69.5 percent black, went for Jones with 75 percent of its vote. When Sessions ran uncontested in 2014, he received 4,825 votes and no write-in votes in the county. In 2017, Jones got 10,492 votes to Moore’s 3,485.

“The honeymoon’s going to be over next year — it’s over in 2019,” Sam Jones, the former mayor of Mobile, told me.

The black community of Alabama has for many years been underrepresented on the federal level, and its struggles for even a shot at equal representation are ignominious legend: police dogs, fire hoses and nightsticks. Pettaway is sanguine about Jones’s prospects for success — she wants to get things done, like getting funds for a better highway through the Black Belt — but she also cautions that Jones still needs to do work to build a deeper understanding of the black community. When F.D. Reese, one of Selma’s “Courageous Eight” who marched with Dr. King to register black voters, died in April, Pettaway said, Jones never reached out. Things like that would need to change going forward, she said. Still, Pettaway said, she’s one of Jones’s biggest proponents.

“The honeymoon’s going to be over next year — it’s over in 2019,” Sam Jones, the former mayor of Mobile, told me over the din of cocktail party chatter at the 100 Black Men of Greater Mobile gala, where Jones was delivering a keynote address. That’s when Jones would have to make real, serious decisions and be called more publicly to task. “I’d start planning for that right now,” the former mayor said.

For Pettaway, seeing the collective votes of black Alabamians put Jones into office was powerful — on election day, a video of a woman casting the first ballot of her lifetime went viral. In Pettaway’s eyes, the stakes of voting are too often obscured.

“People that you vote for determine where you’re born, how you’re born, who you’re born by,” she said. “They determine how you live, who you can marry and where you are married. When you die, they determine how you can be buried and where you can be buried. … They determine all of it. So voting is important.”

And Doug Jones needs to keep Synethia Pettaway’s vote.

[729renegades]

UP CLOSE & PERSONAL – JAY EMERY

STEVE MATTHEWS INTERVIEWS JAY EMERY

Hello everyone, welcome to another edition of Up Close & Personal for the Renegade Magazine. And also, today, we’re getting videoed as well, which is nice. Full technology today. So today sees me sitting in an unbelievable location in rural Worcestershire and I’m surrounded by fields and in a structure that can only be described as unique. I’m sure that you’ll hear more about the venue in due course and I’ll include a picture for the magazine. My guest today is as unique as the structure we are in… I think it’s fair to say that. And in my opinion, he’s one of the most interesting characters in the Renegade Faculty that I’ve ever met. I have to be careful here because this gentleman has had such a diverse life, we could spend about 2 days just talking about the experiences and job roles as he travelled the globe. But again, we’ll hear more about that over the next hour or so I’m sure. So as means of build-up… Brought up in a farm in South Africa, struggled through school due to dyslexia, from there to National Service in the South African Army, but had a dream to be a ski instructor. Yes, I know that’s pretty tough to piece the two together so I’m sure my guest will help us make sense of that transition. So, from farm boy to army, to ski instructor to street entertainer and magician, there are many stages in between but today he’s known as the Wood Fired Oven Pizza Guru. He now runs a hugely successful business that builds premium clay wood fired pizza ovens; he has a mobile franchise module that is ready to roll out and has just started an oven building school and is also launching Pizza for Profit which is a business coaching platform for mobile caterers. He is definitely someone who thinks outside the box, his ability to innovate and circumnavigate obstructions never ceases to amaze me and I hope I can do this guy justice today. I think this is possibly the longest introduction ever, but in truth I could have gone on forever, but I think I’d better get him talking before he bursts. So, it gives me great pleasure to introduce my friend and co-Faculty member, the Sultan of the Slopes, the Oligarch of Ovens and the Prince of Pizzas, Mr Jay Emery… Jay, how are you today?

Jay Emery: Hey Steve, man what an introduction… That must have taken you hours to write, little alone the research you must have done to find out about my history. Yea, it’s certainly been an interesting life and I’ve loved every minute of it, so thanks for this opportunity. Steve Matthews: No problem. So, I mentioned a load of things in that introduction and I’m sure we’re going to cover them all, some in more length and some in less details, but let’s start from the beginning, the early days, South Africa. Brought up on a farm in South Africa, is that right?

JE: It was more of a small holding on the outskirts of Johannesburg, but when you’re a kid, nine and a half acres is pretty big. And also, having to milk the cows and pasteurise the milk to make pocket money kind of kick starts the entrepreneurial spirt. So, I have my folks to thank for that… I was always as a kid dreaming up some kind of scheme for making some extra pocket money. And yea, the farm kind of gave me that yearning for the love of the outdoor space and I mean South Africa, in its own right, when I was a kid was just an amazing place. It probably still is an amazing place, I haven’t been there for such a long time, but when I went back to see my Dad just before he passed on, it wasn’t the South Africa that I remember… But, hey ho, we are where we are now and very happy with what’s happened, and it does all stem from that South African entrepreneurial spirit where, if you don’t get on with it, you die. It’s quite simple, we don’t have in South Africa a support network for health care, we don’t have a support network for benefits, so basically, you either work or you die. It’s as simple as that.

SM: You mentioned there about some of the schemes to make extra pocket money, can you remember any?

JE: Oh man! My sisters had horses when we were kids and I kind of did the riding thing, but it didn’t really interest me and so my Dad was at kind of ones and twos of how to fair the game or make the game fair. The sisters had horses so what are you going to have? We looked at having a go-cart and I thought that would be cool and then my Grandfather was a great inspiration, he was a true entrepreneur in the real sense of the word in South Africa and we kind of looked at getting a lawn mower. I thought that if I got a lawn mower, I could go and cut the neighbours grass and if I got a sit on one, I could do it a lot faster because pocket money was made out of pushing a hand lawn mower over about an acre and a half of front garden and it was a ball ache. So, the idea of getting a sit on lawn mower was just a fab idea and one that meant I could make profit. Unfortunately, shortly after that my folk’s business went into decline and I never got that, but I was really young then and my sister had just started work at the local drive-in, the cinema house, and she used to flip burgers there but obviously I was too young to work there, so I just used to go down and wash windscreens. I’d knock on the side of the car if the window looked dirty and started washing windscreens to get some extra money. I thought if they could see clearly what they were watching, then that would be a good investment, a good way of making money. I didn’t realise that at that age, you didn’t really go to the drive to watch the movie, you went with your girlfriend and so I got plenty of, “bugger off ” or “stop disturbing us” kind of stories, or in actual fact, if I just stayed there, they just gave me the money to rid of me, so they could get on with their shenanigans. There were loads of stories like that, for instance when I was in the army, you weren’t allowed cameras in the army… I always ignored all the rules, I used to take the camera into the base with me and take photographs of all the beds, the inspection beds, and I remember on my first pass home, the first leave I got, I spent the whole of the 3 or 4 days in my dark room developing all these pictures that I then sold as soon as I got back to barracks. And I actually got an email from a friend of mine in America, the middle part of last year. He touched based for the first time in a long time, we were in Officers training together, and he said, “Jay, you know the picture that you took of me next to my inspection bed, is still next to my bed to this day”… As one of the memories of our youth basically. It’s those kinds of memories that I cherish, and the fact that I could help people do something different and remember something different.

SM: Perfect! You obviously jumped into the army there… So, you obviously had to do National Service in South Africa?

JE: Yea, in South Africa, National Service was conscription based when I did it.

SM: Is there still National Service?

JE: No, it ended 2 years after I left, and lot people knew that it was going to end and so kind of delayed their entrance into the army. I didn’t, I didn’t go to University, I didn’t go to College, I went straight out of school into National Service. I was sixteen when I went into the army. It was without a doubt, the harder period of my life. I remember my friends saying when they’d been through National Service, “Jay, it’s a complete waste of time”, “Why do you want to waste time in the army, it’s just bloody stupid”, “What you want to do is, you want to go in and be a private, you want to go in and work in an environment where somebody tells you what to do, and do as little as possible. Get the 2 years behind you as quickly as you can, so you can get on with your life”. That’s not the way I saw it. When I was a kid I was bullied, I was the loner in the group, I was an outcast. I had very low confidence. I had quite extreme learning difficulties, and while I was probably one of the more intelligent people in the class, and the person that people would come to ask to solve complex problems in both chemistry and science, which were my two favourite subjects, I could never write the answer down. So, when I came into an exam situation, it was a nightmare. So, going into the army then was even harder, but I think in life, whatever you put in, you get out. So when I went into the army, I saw a 17 year old Lieutenant being saluted by a Regimental Sargent Major who’d been his whole life in the army, and I thought to myself, why do I want to be running around being told by somebody what to do, if at 17 I can get somebody who’s been in the army for 17 years to salute me, and right from literally the first week, I’d set an aim to be an Officer. I didn’t know in any name, shape or form what that entailed… I think if I had known, I probably wouldn’t have done it, but I did set my target to do that and I did everything in my power to rise to the challenge. To give you an example, it used to drive me mad… 60 people in a barrack and you’re now in basic training so you’re being woken before dawn, you’re being sent on route marches, you’re run ragged and there’s a Corporal whose job it is to make your life merry hell. I remember seeing An Officer and a Gentleman, and I can tell you, if Officers training was as easy as that in the South African Defence Force, it would have been a doddle, but it wasn’t!

SM: And he got the girl as well…

Listen to the rest of the interview at 729Renegades.com/ podcast

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