#cries because I live in Pennsylvania

[nerdy-talks]

[emo-batboy]

Trick or treat!

Hello :D Here's your treat

Battinson and Cars

He is a car guy. He loves his car. It is his baby. He can fill his car with gas, yes. That is a thing he can do on his own in his own garage with his own gas.

But he does not know how to operate a gas pump. (New Jerseyans are crying in solidarity.)

Bruce gets into so many car accidents.

Like yeah, he's Batman. But he's also that kind of driver who is perfectly okay when he's on autopilot, but the MOMENT he remembers he's driving a death machine on wheels next to other people driving death machines on wheels, and if you accidentally cut them off or forget to use your turn signal, they will rear end you?! He gets a little antsy :/

The second he overthinks it, he's making mistake after mistake. What are you gonna do? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

But when he's in his tricked-out batmobile engaging in a high-speed chase while narrowly avoiding death at every turn? A vigilante with no regard for the rules of the road other than "Do Not Hit People?" He’s suddenly a professional stunt driver! Fuck it!

That’s one of the reasons no one could possibly believe he’s Batman

"Bruce Wayne Reverses into Bush at Local Wawa, Cries as He Calls the Cops on Himself"

Then four hours later...

"The Batman Performs INCREDIBLE STUNT on Garden State Parkway, Saves Lives and Kitten Stuck in Tree"

You think these are the same person? Please be serious.

Anyway-

He is the only person in the JL who can reliably parallel park.

He's also a fucking speed demon. (This is Jersey. The Norm is going 90 in a 55. And back to the "autopilot" point) if he's lost in thought, he's definitely breaking the law. And overtaking like five cars a minute.

Alfred taught him to drive (and is lowkey the one that gave him driving anxiety. He is a very strict teacher.) Because of this, his first car was manual :) Now, he prefers it because it feels cool and action-y when he changes gears on the highway.

Bruce got into his first car chase when he was 15. (Baby's First Car Chase <3) Don't ask me how.  Don't ask why. Just know he does. (I mean, I do have an answer but I'm not giving it to you.) This also means he did it without a license because he was too young to even have a permit at the time.

He has a hatred for literally anyone with Pennsylvania or New York plates. Why? Because they’re slow as fuck and try to turn left at the intersection when there is clearly a jughandle??

(Homework for everyone that doesn't live in NJ: Look up "jughandle" or "jersey left" and tell me your thoughts.)

He was so pissed at the amount of potholes in Gotham that he personally filled them as Batman in the middle of the night. (Wtf are his billions of tax dollars going to?)

Once Bruce was muttering curses at the idiot in front of him with NY plates only to see Clark fucking Kent exit the car. Superman could not understand why Batman kept glaring at him for a week.

I did not spell-check this. Happy Halloween :)

[be-the-glenn-to-my-maggie]

ALRIGHT

When SOMEONE who is definitely NOT ME writes the Avatar high school au with Spider properly included, here’s how it should go:

-so my man Jake Sully has been paralyzed since The WarTM (I don’t care which one) and he and his delightful wife (school board hates her) and kids (school board hates everyone but Neteyam) have trouble finding a place that is accessible for Jake. Because of this they all live in a home in an old folks community.

-They live somewhere crazy like Pennsylvania where the drive between one place and another is 45 minutes so the kids are all stupid close and hate (love) each other.

-then one day a social worker drops a kid off to live next door with his decrepit and dying old aunt or something, it’s Miles Spider Socorro here in all his fun neglected glory, and all the Sully kids are like Mine that’s Mine, and he’s Scared but also like alright 🥺

-Spider spends more time at the Sully’s and outside then at his actual house and the whole time Jake and Neytiri are like who the fuck is feeding this kid who did shit to this kid and they’re like treating him like a wild animal that could be spooked but eventually he’s pretty chill and just part of the squad.

-now one day Spider learns that the house, one one Jake and Neytiri have been building for years to be properly accessible and ready for them in like this big woods property with like dumbass little American ninja warrior obstacle courses for Jake to do just arm shit on (I’m convinced that man is buff as hell) and a swimming pool for the kids but also for Jake to like throw them around in and shit. Neytiri’s got a massive garden and some little farm animals it’s all very quaint Pennsylvania woods shit and it’s closer to a better high school (where obviously they will meet the metkayina kids and we can have that romance plot). Spider learns that house is about done.

-Spiders like “oh better spend my last days before the inevitable heat death of the universe (the departure of my family)” and he’s like trying to keep a happy face. No one can quite figure out what’s wrong with him. Jake and Neytiri asked his aunt and social worker if they could bring him along years ago and everyone assumed they told him. OBVIOUSLY no one would leave him the kids would absolutely riot (and who would weed with Neytiri and listen to music in the mornings and who would pretend to hate The Bachelor with Jake and Lo’ak when Kiri puts it on).

-literally the comical confusion continues like they bring him to the house and show him stuff they built specifically for him. “Oh spider look this is your room, the ceilings are high for climbing and we made the sky have realistic constellations for you and Kiri to look at” and he’s like “wow they really want me to visit, I wish my aunt would drive me. Maybe I can walk over?”

-finally someone (probably Kiri or Lo’ak, bonus points for Neteyam or Tuk) asks why he’s being so weird about the move and he’s finally like “because I’m going to miss you all obviously?” And they’re like “you’re coming?? Idiot?? Why would you miss us?” And he cries obviously. I think this took place at the final night at the old house. Everyone insisted spider stay over for it and they all camped out in the living room. He was excited to be there but very confused as to why they wanted him there.

-someone is like “why would you think we would leave you?” And he just says “I didn’t think you wanted me to come” and that makes everyone cry of course. And I’m convinced that Neteyam and Lo’ak do this thing where when Jake is having a serious talk with them they sit down or kneel so he’s eye level so Lo’ak just makes spider sit and stage whispers “when he’s mad you have to make him feel taller” and it breaks the tension a little bit cause it makes everyone laugh

-so then Jake and Neytiri have to have a talk with him like “oops we thought the adults we knew didn’t treat you well told you we were taking you in, we should not have trusted them, go get ur shit and move it over now actually, fuck them, ur done ur ours now.”

-and he’s very confused as to how it happened really but less then 24 hours later he is watching The Bachelor in the new house while Jake pretends not to care who got the one on one and Lo’ak does a worse job of pretending not to care whose on the group date and Neytiri does the worst job of all pretending not to care about how little shit Spider brought with him

-then we get weird shenanigans of Spider learning to be a regular child with parents who care at this new high school with his siblings, probably some stuff like he doesn’t tell anyone when he stays after school and sends Parent Pick Up Pro Jake Sully (he is a stay at home dad who does CrossFit and builds shit in the garage that he sells on Etsy, he hangs out with Tonowari and Tuk all day you can’t convince me otherwise) into a full meltdown. Or Spider forged his aunts signature on a permission slip As Per Usual and because she’s not his guardian anymore people get confused and Neytiri pulls him aside during their special garden time like why didn’t you just ask us to sign it buddy. We will.

-and we also get ur classic Neteyam and Ao’nung plot and your Lo’ak and Tsireya plot because guess who is at our new school?? Swim team champs Ao’nung, Tsireya, and Rotxo, and Lo’ak is determined to join and impress Tsireya

-Tonowari and Jake are both stay at home dads, Tonowari usually works but right now he’s on dad leave for the baby and he and Jake go on walks with the baby strapped to Tonowari’s chest and it does like become every housewives fav hour of the day, but they are both devoted to their sugar mommies, surgeons Neytiri and Ronal (greys anatomy subplot with Ronal and Neytiri starting out as rivals when Neytiri comes into this new hospital but become friends in the heat of some stressful situation)

-Jake misses when Tuk was home all day with him tbh so I can see him being their full time nanny when Tonowari goes back to work just cause he’s not busy and is obsessed with babies (Buffy subplot where Jake goes back to school and becomes an elementary school teacher/guidance consular to help kids like him and Spider with bad home lives)

-he also was the coach of every sports team Lo’ak and Neteyam ever had and both of them loved and hated it because he would praise them too much then notice it and then criticize them to balance it out

-sometimes he comes to swim team after he finds out Tonowari coaches and Tonowari dubs him like honorary coach and Jake is parked on the side of the pool in his chair like “great butterfly kicks Lo’ak” and Lo’ak is like “YOU WOULDNT KNOW GO HOME DAD”

-Jake will not take that lying down so he’s like “okay see you at home for The Bachelor son” and Lo’ak tries to drown himself out of embarrassment but Tsireya taps him on the arm and asks him if he’s been watching this season and that’s how Jake wingmans Lo’ak into inviting Tsireya over for their Bachelor nights

-that is how Ao’nung finds himself at the Sully house for The Bachelor (Ao’nung hates The Bachelor)

-that is how Neteyam finds himself downstairs in the living room for The Bachelor (Neteyam also hates The Bachelor)

-that is how Neytiri finds herself walking into Neteyams room to ask him if he wants to watch The Walking Dead with her but finding him Busy with Ao’nung (Neytiri also hates The Bachelor)

[jgroffdaily]

That faraway shore’s not looking too far for Jonathan Groff!

The Merrily We Roll Along star nabbed the award for best performance by a leading actor in a musical for his work in the Broadway revival of Stephen Sondheim’s 1981 musical at the 2024 Tony Awards on Sunday, June 16.

After taking the stage to accept his first-ever Tony Award, Groff, 39, thanked his family for "always allowing my freak flag to fly without ever making me feel weird about it."

Through tears, the actor also addressed his Merrily castmates Daniel Radcliffe and Lindsay Mendez, saying, "You are more than old friends — you are soulmates. And I’m looking forward to watching each other change for the rest of our lives."

Groff, whose previous credits include roles in Glee, the Frozen franchise and Mindhunter, has been nominated for two Tonys before — in 2007 for Spring Awakening and 2015 for his portrayal of King George III in the original Broadway run of Hamilton — but Sunday marked his first win.

He went on to thank “Merrily We Roll Along” director Maria Friedman and fellow cast members Lindsay Mendez and Daniel Radcliffe, the latter of whom also won his first Tony Award on Sunday.

“You are more than old friends, you are soulmates,” he said of the two actors, “and I’m looking forward to watching each other change for the rest of our lives.”

He ended his speech by looking back on his childhood in Pennsylvania, when he would record the Tony Awards on VHS.

“To actually be able to be a part of making theater in this city and just as much to be able to watch the work of this incredible, incredible community has been the greatest gift and pleasure of my life,” he said.

Jonathan Groff thanked his family for backing his love for theater in a touching acceptance speech after his first-ever Tony Award win on Sunday.

The actor and singer, who previously received Tony nominations for his roles in “Spring Awakening” and “Hamilton,” won Best Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical for his portrayal of Franklin Shepard in the Broadway revival of “Merrily We Roll Along.”

“Thank you for letting me dress up like Mary Poppins when I was 3. Thank you for letting me act out scenes from I Love Lucy on my 10th birthday. Thank you for always allowing my freak flag to fly without ever making me feel weird about it,” said Groff of his parents, Jim and Julie Groff, and his brother, David.

He continued, “Even if they didn’t always understand me, my family knew the lifesaving power of fanning the flame of a young person’s passions without judgment. I walked through life with an open heart because you let me know that I could.”

Groff mentioned his move to New York, where he got a job waiting tables and volunteered with Broadway Cares/Equity Fights Aids, and expressed his gratitude to those involved in “Spring Awakening” who helped him become part of the Broadway community.

″[You] not only made that dream come true but also inspired me to come out of the closet when I was 23,” said the actor, who came out as gay in 2009.

“I’m now 39 and musical theater is still saving my soul.”

[corishadowfang]

Questions for 15 Friends Tag Game

Tagged by @siarven--thanks for the tag!

Rules: Answer the questions, then tag 15 people.

ARE YOU NAMED AFTER ANYONE?

Uh...not really but also kind of for my legal name? It was the name of a character in a soap opera my mom watched, and she liked it enough to use it for me.

My chosen name...also kind of falls under the same umbrella, but for different reasons, and, uh...comes with a story. So like--I was really into fantasy stories when I was a kid/teen (I say like I'm not still into them now), and I loved making up "fantasy" names, which...basically just meant shoving a bunch of letters together until I got something I thought sounded cool. One of those names was "Coriora." For whatever reason, I fell in love with this name, and it's shortened version, "Cori," and I used it for everything. Pokemon nicknames, random characters, a self-insert OC...

And my cat. Who I adopted a few months before I made my email and FF.net account. Which is when I officially started using the name "CoriShadowfang" as my primary username online. Teenage me didn't even have the thought in her mind that she could possibly identify with the name "Cori" enough to adopt it as her own, nor did she think of the potential consequences of sharing a name with her cat.

...On the plus side, it's funny to call my cat "Cori Sr.," and watch how people try to process that.

WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU CRIED?

Uh...I think Friday night? I'm pretty sure it was about something I was planning for a story, aha. (I cry VERY easy, haha, and the thing that spurs it does not necessarily have to be sad.)

DO YOU HAVE KIDS?

Do pets count...?

WHAT SPORTS DO YOU PLAY/HAVE YOU PLAYED?

I was signed up for baseball, basketball, and soccer when I was a kid, though of those, soccer was the only one I actually liked. I ended up running cross country and track in high school (though after that ended up running only for fun, since, uh...the competitive part of that wasn't very enjoyable for me, aha). In college I did fencing, which I loved and often miss a lot, but there...really aren't many places that offer fencing around where I live. I did do some long sword for a while a couple of years ago; transition to that from fencing was an interesting experience, since the fencing muscle memory...did not go away. ("What do you mean I have to hold this with two hands?? ...What do you mean I can't just stab them?!") That ended up being pretty expensive, though, so I only got to take lessons for a few months. It was still fun, though!

DO YOU USE SARCASM?

Depends on the situation! I use it a lot less online, because I'm worried about coming across as, like...rude or mean. When I do use it, it's often toned down a lot. Offline, it depends on who I'm around, and how they react to it. (Or if I'm just...getting really frustrated. Then it tends to come out more.)

WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU NOTICE ABOUT PEOPLE?

Uh, that's...a good question. Online, it's definitely their interests, and...I guess it's kind of also the same offline? If I'm given the opportunity, haha. Like--if I see you're wearing a Pokemon pin or reading a fantasy book or something, I'm immediately going to be focused on that, haha.

WHAT’S YOUR EYE COLOUR?

Mostly blue; the bottom of my right eye has a patch of green in it.

SCARY MOVIES OR HAPPY ENDINGS?

Happy endings! I never got into scary movies very much, aha.

ANY TALENTS?

Uh...I guess writing probably counts? I'm also a pretty good distance runner.

WHERE WERE YOU BORN?

The middle of nowhere, Pennsylvania.

WHAT ARE YOUR HOBBIES?

Writing, haha; I joke that it's all I do, but uh...it really is most of what I do. Besides that, I like drawing, reading, playing video games, and hiking. I guess playing card games/board games might also count? But uh, I do that a lot with my friends and family.

DO YOU HAVE ANY PETS?

Yes! Cori Sr. is still around, haha, and I also recently adopted a puppy named Luna. Obligatory pet photos:

HOW TALL ARE YOU?

5'4''

FAVOURITE SUBJECT IN SCHOOL?

Probably unsurprisingly, lit/creative writing, haha. I also really liked most science classes, too; learning about nature was one of my favorite things in school, and any sort of labs where we could go outside and actually study plants/animals were amazing.

DREAM JOB?

If money weren't a concern, and I could just do anything I wanted for the rest of my life without worrying about how to pay the bills...I would love to just write stories full time. Writing really is one of the things I'm the most passionate about, and I'd love to be able to pour my all into it without worrying about getting too burnt out or needing to take on extra jobs to make ends meet. Maybe one day...

I will tag...wait I need 15 of you...uhhh @starlightwayfinder, @cq-studios, @recusant-s-sigil, @scalacaelumx, @hallowed-nebulae, @serenedash, @thetwilightroadtonightfall, @rosie-kairi, @fin-al-mix, @kicktwine, @zmwrites, @talesabound, @gotchaocha, @bookwormally, and @lightwithinthedarknessu, if any of you want to do this! Absolutely no pressure, though! (And feel free to skip/leave out any you might feel uncomfortable answering/don't feel like answering.)

[sisterspooky1013]

Gaslight, Chapter 25/48

Rated X | Read it here on AO3

Just outside Washington, D.C.

It’s quiet other than the hush of the waves. No shrieking gulls, no laughing children, no tinny boom boxes polluting the scenery with pop music. The beach at night has always felt special to her, like walking through an empty movie set.

She’s not alone. He’s right beside her on the sand, his long legs stretched out and his bare toes glowing under the moonlight. His suit jacket is draped over her legs, his arm wrapped around her shoulders to keep her warm. Her little black cocktail dress was fitting for a movie premier, but the tailored jacket she paired it with provides little protection against the gusting winds pushing in from the ocean. Every time she shivers he tugs her a little bit closer, so she shivers again on purpose just for an excuse to lean heavily into the warm, solid mass of his torso.

He sighs. A heavy, dramatic sigh that could mean a lot of things, but she’s hoping it’s contentment. Because that’s how she feels, being here with him like this. Thousands of miles from everything that keeps them apart, from all the reasons it will never work.

“Hm?” she asks him with a nudge.

She sees him shake his head in her periphery, and she tilts her face up to look at him. His eyes are on the ocean, on the black, endless horizon. When he turns his face toward hers, the tip of his nose brushes the tip of hers and he smiles, then does it again. It’s so close, so intimate, that it makes her heart ache and her eyes water.

“I wish….” he starts, but stops himself. He doesn’t need to say it; she knows.

“I do too,” she says softly.

“Do you think…are LA rules the same as Vegas rules?” he asks, his tone a touch lighter.

“As in what happens here…”

“Stays here,” he finishes.

“Sure. Maybe. I guess that can be true of anywhere, if you decide that it is,” she posits, her belly twisting into knots.

“Vegas rules?” he asks, the most loaded proposition in so few words.

She nods, and he kisses her, and she no longer cares about the cold.

-

She allows herself to cry in the shower. Under the needle-sharp spray of the water, turned up as hot as it will go, she cries for the lives she’s lost, both those that belonged to her and those that she was forced into. She cries because she has no one to call, because she wonders if Cal got any sleep and if he’s managing the kids okay. She cries because she doesn’t know what to do next, or how to reach Mulder, or whether he is the same person she remembers him to be. When she’s done crying, when she feels wrung out and devoid of any emotion at all, she dresses and packs her things, checks out of the motel, and climbs back into Tiffany’s car.

She heads toward the Capitol campus, passing by landmarks that are familiar to any American, even those who have never visited. The early summer weather is still comfortably warm, and throngs of tourists clog every sidewalk around the White House, Lincoln Memorial, and Reflecting Pool. On Pennsylvania Avenue, she pulls onto a side street and watches the entrance to the Hoover building as suited federal employees filter in and out. Going inside feels far too risky, and likely with very little to gain, but the longer she watches the door, the tighter the pit in her chest becomes.

“That’s pretty good, Scully.”

“Better than you expected, or better than you hoped?”

“Well…I’ll let you know once we get past the easy part.”

She rubs the side of her head above her ear in an effort to relieve the dull throb that seems to have taken up residence there. When she starts to become nervous that someone might notice how long she’s been watching the building, she pulls away.

She drives aimlessly up and down streets both residential and industrial, occasionally feeling a flash of recognition when she sees the name of a business or a landmark. She feels such a flash outside a sandwich shop called Tito’s, and has the realization that she hasn’t eaten anything since sometime the day before. She parks in the lot of the strip mall and enters the shop, and a small bell above the door signals her arrival to a young man who emerges from behind a curtain.

“Welcome to Tito’s, what can I get for you?” he asks blandly, and she quickly peruses the menu before making a selection and paying with cash.

As the young man assembles her sandwich, she looks around the rest of the small shop. It’s somewhat of a hole in the wall, though very clean and well kept, and every sign is branded with Pepsi advertisements. There are a few other customers sitting around the dozen or so tables making conversation over their meals, including a young couple that are seated on the same side of the table whispering in one another’s ears.

“Fuck!” someone yells, and Dana whips her head around to see a man standing beside a table covered with soda, his lap bearing a large wet spot.

“Oh my gosh, I’m sorry,” his companion is saying as they dash over to the condiment area and grab a pile of napkins.

“Turkey and swiss for Dana,” the young man who took her order calls out, and she takes the paper sack from his outstretched hand.

Her head throbs and she rushes back out to the car, memories flooding her mind like a cresting river.

“You gonna eat that?”

“Yes, I am. In about three hours, most likely.”

He gives her a little impish grin and leans forward, placing his index and middle fingers on the table top and walking them slowly towards the remains of her lunch.

“Mulder, no,” she says in a playfully stern voice.

“Come on, you know you’re going to leave it in the fridge until the janitor tosses it,” he argues, now inches from her food.

She slaps his hand and he startles, knocking her water over as he snatches his arm back. It runs over the edge of the table and she gasps as the icy beverage soaks the entirety of her lap.

“Shit, shit, shit,” Mulder says urgently, moving to sit beside her and blotting at the tops of her thighs with two useless napkins. “Sorry, Scully,” he adds with a cringe.

“It’s okay; it was an accident,” she says with a resigned sigh. “Seems par for the day.”

He regards her with a somewhat wounded look.

“You’re having a bad day?” he asks, seeming surprised by the idea.

“No, it’s fine,” she says, her favorite platitude. “Just somewhat of a series of unfortunate events. My heat went out last night and the super said it might be a few days before he gets it working, and then my electric blanket decided now is the ideal time to break, and—it’s fine.”

“Your heat isn’t working? It’s thirty-five degrees outside, Scully,” he says with offense.

“It’s fine, Mulder—”

“It’s not fine. Come stay with me until your super gets it fixed,” he says, and she balks.

“No, I don’t want to put you out, Mulder. I have a space heater, it’s really fine,” she insists.

“Scully,” he says sternly, not at all playful, and she turns to look at him. “Please come stay with me. I want you to,” he says with great sincerity, and she feels a pang of affection and gratitude.

“Okay,” she agrees, and his mouth breaks out into a wide grin. “Thank you.”

She eats her sandwich behind the steering wheel in the car, wishing more than anything that Mulder were there to take the other half. She wraps it up and stuffs it in the glove box, then resumes her aimless driving. Her head is killing her and she decides to find a place where she can buy some Tylenol. She’s passing through a residential area en route to a major thoroughfare when a small white house catches her eye.

It’s nondescript for the most part. There are bars on the windows and a small sign advertising a security system posted in the front yard. The grass is cut and the flowerbeds are neat, though empty. It’s the kind of home that offers absolutely no information about its occupants, aside from their concern over intruders, and yet it feels familiar to her in a way that makes her head throb.

She parks on the curb and cautiously makes her way down the front walk and onto the small covered porch. There’s a “no soliciting” sign hung neatly beside the doorbell, and no welcome mat. She says a quick prayer and then reaches out and presses the button. A minute passes, and she’s considering whether to ring again when a staticky voice erupts from a speaker mounted above the door.

“How may we help you, miss?” asks the soft voice, and she looks around until she locates a camera in the eaves of the entryway.

“My name is Dana R—Scully,” she says, looking directly into the lens. “I think that I might know you, and…I need help. Please.”

She’s trying to strike the right balance between making clear that she’s in distress, but not coming across as though she’ll cause any trouble.

“Who sent you here?” the voice asks, and a smaller voice that sounds further away interjects with, “Let her in, she’s hot!”

“No one sent me,” she says, trying not to beg. “I…it’s hard to explain, but I think we used to know each other. We just can’t remember it.”

She winces at her own poor communication skills, and a loud thwack sounds from the door, followed by a series of smaller clicks and pops. She steps back and eventually the door opens a few inches, revealing the face of a middle-aged man with thinning brown hair and generous sideburns. He gives her a quick once-over from head to foot, and then another face appears above his. This man is quite a bit taller than the first, with stringy blond hair and square-rimmed glasses.

“You’re not with the government are you?” the blond man asks, and she shakes her head, though she’s not sure if that’s an entirely accurate response. “You wearing a wire?” he adds, and the look of genuine confusion on her face must be all the answer he needs, because the door swings open wider and the two men move aside to allow her entry.

The interior of the home is dimly lit and cluttered with computer equipment, though it smells clean. A third man joins them in the entryway, his suit and neatly trimmed goatee in stark contrast to his comparatively bedraggled friends.

“You believe we know one another?” he asks, and she recognizes the soft tenor of his voice from the speaker outside.

“I believe we did, yes,” she says carefully, her eyes roving around the great room and taking in news clippings and articles pinned to every wall, and electronics on nearly every surface that she couldn’t even begin to identify.

“Would you like to come in and tell us what you need help with?” the kind man asks, gesturing to a seating area with an outstretched arm.

Dana nods and crosses the room, perching nervously on the edge of an armchair. Whatever this place is, and whoever these people are, she can only hope that she is safe and among friends. The three men sit shoulder to shoulder on a couch perpendicular to her chair, the kind man in the middle and Sideburns closest to her.

“I think I’d remember meeting you,” Sideburns says with just an edge of innuendo—enough to let her know that it’s meant to be taken as commentary on her appearance, but not enough to make her feel unsafe.

“What is this place?” she asks, still taking in the overwhelming amount of tech and gadgets in the room. When none of the men respond, she looks back to the couch and sees them exchanging significant looks.

“Miss,” the kind man says with a placating smile, “I hope that we can help you, but we’d feel much more comfortable if you could tell us who you are before we disclose any of our personal information.”

She almost laughs at the irony of it, like being asked to provide ID in order to obtain ID.

“My name is Dana Scully,” she begins, her eyes trained on her hands, which are fidgeting in her lap. “And while I realize this sounds completely implausible and maybe a bit crazy, I believe that I’ve had my memory erased.” She pauses, giving them an opportunity to ask questions. She steals a glance at the men and they’re all watching her expectantly, surprised but not disbelieving. “I believe that we knew each other prior to this happening to me, and I desperately need some help…”

To her frustration and embarrassment, her throat tightens and her eyes sting. Tears will not lend to her credibility. Tears will not improve her situation. She pulls in a slow breath through her nose and lets it out of her mouth raggedly, and the three men exchange looks.

“Not to sound doubtful,” Sideburns says gently, “but if that were true, wouldn’t we recognize you?”

They’re not going to believe her, she can already tell. A fresh swell of hopelessness makes her shoulders sag with defeat.

“Again,” she says hoarsely, “I know this sounds implausible, but I believe that you’ve also had your memory erased,” she tries.

Eyebrows lift. More significant looks. But they aren’t laughing at her. They aren’t showing her the door.

“Even if it were possible, why would someone want to erase your memory, or ours?” the blond man asks.

“I’m not entirely sure,” she tells him. “I know that it had to do with my job, and a man I worked with. I believe we witnessed something, or obtained information that we weren’t supposed to have. Something important enough to whoever these people are that they were willing to go to great lengths to ensure that we didn’t remember it.”

“How do you know all this?” says the kind man.

She takes a deep breath before she begins.

“Two months ago, I woke up in the hospital after sustaining a head injury. I was diagnosed with retrograde amnesia that seemed to have wiped out my entire memory after some point in 1992. I learned that I had a husband and children, a home, a job, none of which I remembered. I tried to reacclimate to my life the best I could, but as time wore on I felt as though something wasn’t right. I kept having these dreams, these memories…I was eventually contacted by a man who gave me information about what was done to me, and why. I learned that my husband and children are strangers, decoys meant to distract me from the truth. And when the people who did this realized that I was remembering, they came for me.”

The uncomfortable silence makes her heart race, and she can’t bring herself to look at their faces. She stares at the coffee table, on which is a stack of newsletters titled The Lone Gunmen.

“That’s quite a story,” Sideburns says with melancholy in his voice.

“I know it sounds crazy,” she says quietly.

“It’s not that we don’t believe you, miss,” says the kind one, “but it would be helpful if you had some kind of evidence or proof. And I also can’t help but wonder what kind of assistance we could possibly offer you.”

Proof. She has the Numerol in her bag, but unless they have access to a lab and the scientific acumen to understand how anomalous the chemical composition of the pills are, that won’t help. The metal chip that Tiffany removed from her neck is back in Ellicott City. She feels a sudden burst of adrenaline as a realization pops into her head.

“Were you vaccinated against the Manatua Virus?” she asks the three of them.

“Yes, of course,” says the kind one.

“Then I believe that the proof is in you, at the base of your neck,” she says confidently. “A small metal chip was inserted subcutaneously at the time of your vaccination, and it somehow impedes your memory recall.”

“A chip?” repeats the blond one. “Like a computer chip?”

“I think so. I don’t know what its composition is or how it works, but I know that if it’s removed, you’re able to recall previously inaccessible memories. That’s what’s happening to me, and that’s what happened to my husband.”

“Why would we be involved in this?” the kind one asks uncomfortably.

“I don’t know,” she answers. “Perhaps solely because you knew me, and the man I worked with. There may be more to it than that, but I don’t have that information yet.”

“How do we know any of this is true?” Sideburns asks, doubt creeping into his voice for the first time.

“If you’ll allow me to remove your chip, you may remember it for yourself,” she suggests.

The three men sit back in their seats, looking at one another and then at her. She can only hope that their curiosity wins out over their skepticism.

-

It’s when she has Sideburns’ neck sliced open and is prodding around his soft tissue with a pair of tweezers that it comes to her. This time it’s not a violent jolt, not a proverbial anvil crashing into her working memory. It just slips out, like a song lyric you didn’t realize you still knew.

“Hold still, Frohike,” she murmurs, and the formerly squirming man freezes in his seat.

“How did you know his name?” the kind man asks, and now she freezes too.

When she looks up from the red gash in Frohike’s neck, she sees the world with new eyes. She sees Byers watching her intently, and Langly gaping at her. She sees Frohike’s apron hanging from a hook in the kitchen, and a half full bottle of tequila that she remembers helping the men drink on a particularly rowdy poker night. For the first time in months, she feels oriented in space and time. It’s like she’s been driving around, lost, and suddenly spots a familiar landmark. Oh, I know where I am now.

“You’re friends of Mulder’s,” she says, somewhat vacantly, her hands still poised over Frohike’s neck. “You all met at a convention in 1989, and he introduced me to you shortly after he and I started working together.”

“The computer and electronics convention?” Langly asks uncomfortably.

“Yes, I think so.”

“We met at that convention,” Frohike confirms, “but I don’t remember anyone named Mulder.”

Dana turns back to the surgical site and continues her exploration of Frohike’s neck.

“You will. Soon,” she says confidently. Within minutes, Frohike is freed of his chip.

Langly goes next, and then Byers. After taking some time to work through their shock at discovering they’ve been unwittingly carrying tracking devices around in their bodies for who knows how long, Frohike puts the chips under a microscope and they take turns examining the cross-hatch of metallic ridges that bear no identifying information. Next, he pours them each two fingers of scotch as Dana retells as much as she can recall from what Alex shared: the Spurious Project, the virus, the Numerol.

“I don’t take any medication at all,” Langly says, shaking his head.

“I’m not sure what the role of the medication is yet. Perhaps it wasn’t needed at your level of involvement,” Dana posits, the warmth in her belly soothing her frayed nerves.

“Dana, you’re talking about a nationally orchestrated mass effort to alter the memories of the American people, every man, woman and child,” Byers says gravely.

“I know it sounds implausible—”

“It doesn’t sound implausible at all,” he interrupts. “And the presence of those chips in our necks right where you said they’d be is evidence of that. I know that our government is capable of something like this, but what I find perplexing is that they’d go to such great effort just to eliminate the risk of two individuals sharing state secrets.”

“Seems like it would have been easier to just kill you,” Langly comments, and Byers shoots him a look.

“I know. Someone wanted us alive, but I don’t yet know who, or why,” Dana says. “But thank you for believing me.”

“Of course we believe you,” Frohike says, as though it should be obvious. “But now the question is: what next?”

Dana heaves a sigh.

“I need to find Mulder and somehow bring him along. I’m not sure if he’s remembering as well, but he certainly didn’t appear to be when I saw him.”

“I didn’t find any results for Mulder on the internet, even when I searched the dark web. What did you say he told you his name was? Spender?” Langly says as he pushes off against the floor and rolls his chair over to a computer.

“Jeff Spender, yes. And he said he lives in Philadelphia.”

A couple minutes pass in comfortable silence, the tick of the keys on Langly’s computer and the clink of ice in their glasses set over the constant hum of the machinery.

“This your guy?” he asks, rolling away so Dana can get closer to the computer screen.

Seeing his face is as much a relief as it is painful. It’s a professional headshot taken in a studio, and he’s wearing a charcoal suit and glasses, his hair combed to one side. He’s smiling, and the way it pushes his hooded eyes into little crescents makes her chest ache so acutely she brings one hand up and lays it over her heart.

“Yes,” she whispers, then moves to read the bio just beneath the photo.

Jeffrey Spender, MSW, LFMT, is a licensed therapist working with individuals and couples. A graduate of Oxford University, Mr. Spender specializes in supporting adults through major life transitions such as death, divorce, job loss, and retirement. Call for a free consultation today.

“Could you print that for me?” she asks, hoping that they’ll assume she’s after the bio and not the photo. “What about the Spurious Project, can you find anything on that?”

“That kind of information won’t be accessible on any mainstream sources,” Langly tells her, pulling back up to the computer and printing off the page. “We may be able to hack into whatever database it’s housed in, but we’ll need some time. Do you have any idea which branch of government is involved? CIA, DOJ, DOD?”

“No,” Dana says. “But we can assume there’s some level of involvement with the FBI, right? Doesn’t that seem likely?”

“Could be,” Frohike says with a nod. “We’ll do a little funky poaching and hopefully we’ll at least have a lead by tomorrow. Should we try to contact Mulder, or Spender, or whoever the heck this guy is?”

Dana looks at the sheet of paper in her hands, at Mulder’s smiling face. What she wouldn’t give to have him here, to have him remember her.

“Not yet,” she says regretfully. “I think we need more information first. More proof.”

“Where are you staying, Dana? Do you have a cell phone number where we can reach you when we have more information?” Byers asks.

“I’ll probably get a motel; that’s what I did last night. I left my cell phone at home so it couldn’t be used to track my location,” she says.

“Do you have a car?”

“Yes, sort of. A friend let me take her car when I left the hospital. She’ll come looking for it in a few days, though.”

Byers gives Frohike a pointed look.

“Give me an hour. I’ll call Ricky and get you all set up. We gotta ditch the car asap, and if you were thinking about calling home, don’t,” Frohike says sternly.

Dana glances at her watch. It’s almost 6:00. Cal would just be getting home with the kids and starting dinner.

“I haven’t, and I won’t,” she says with a heavy heart. “Set up with what, if I might ask?”

Frohike holds his hands out in front of him, palms facing her, and wiggles his fingers for effect.

“The works.”

-

The fake ID they gave her says her name is Melanie Newsome, a resident of Annapolis. She calls Byers from the burner cell phone Ricky provided her with to let him know when she’s made it all the way into the safehouse and locked the doors behind her.

It’s a one-bedroom apartment in a sparsely populated building. The few other residents she passed in the hall on her way up kept their eyes on the floor, and she wonders if everyone here is hiding from something. The apartment itself is modest but covers the essentials, including a couch in the living room, a mattress on the floor in the bedroom, basic toiletries, linens, and a small set of cookware and dishes in the kitchen. The most indulgent furnishing is a stereo with an eight-disc CD changer and detachable speakers, not unlike the one her mother owns. From the small balcony, she can see the pinking horizon as the sun slowly descends behind the city skyline.

She feels wrung out and emotionally exhausted, so she showers and gets into bed even though it’s still quite early. Minutes tick by, and she listens to the sounds of the city with raw nerves as she tries to relax enough to sleep. Every snick of a door opening, every padded footfall in the hallway, every voice echoing against the pavement outside, delivers a spike of cortisol that sends her heart thrumming. Finally, she abandons the bed for the couch, which somehow feels more secure. There is no TV to distract herself with, so she puts the Sam Cooke CD into the changer and gives the other songs on the album a listen, allowing his smooth voice to drown out the din of the world around her. Her mind drifts, and she nestles against the back of the couch as though it were a warm body, letting herself imagine that it’s him.

Darling you send me, honest you do.

Tagging @today-in-fic

[novelmonger]

Thanks for the tag, @freenarnian

Are you named after anyone? Yes - my first name after one grandma, my middle name after the other.

When was the last time you cried? Ummm...definitely Monday, at least. Might have teared up over Frodo and Sam or something in the past couple days; I can't quite remember ^^'

Do you have kids? Not unless you count my brain children (Mommy loves you, Jake Rogers! >3<)

What sports do you play/have you played? I play a mean game of Wii Tennis :) (aka flailing the Wiimote around like a crazy person)

Do you use sarcasm? Oh, never.

What is the first thing you notice about people? Uhhh...their hair? The general shape of their face?

What's your eye color? Brown

Scary movies or happy endings? Yes. (Signs is the perfect movie in this regard.)

Any talents? Mostly just writing. A head for grammar, I guess? Picking up new words in foreign languages?

Where were you born? I feel okay saying this because I don't live there anymore: Pennsylvania.

What are your hobbies? Reading, writing, watching movies/shows, playing video games, and a new addition is video editing!

Do you have any pets? Not personally, but I live with my sisters, and one of them has three rats and an axolotl. So I get to watch them and laugh at their antics and coo over how cute they are, but they're not my responsibility :P

How tall are you? 5'6"

Favorite subject in school? English, always. Looking back on myself, I have to laugh at elementary-aged Novie, because I used to hate grammar and spelling (I mean, I hated math more). But then when I reached high school, it kind of clicked that I was actually pretty good at it, it came to me much more naturally than math or science, and maybe the reason I always thought it was such a drag before was because it was so easy. There was no challenge! I also really really loved the psychology class I took in high school, so once I got to college it was a no-brainer to major in English and minor in psychology (and education, but that was for a scholarship).

Dream job? I'm working towards a job in scoping, which looks pretty rosy from where I'm standing - working from home, not really having to talk to anybody, spending your whole day correcting the grammar, punctuation, and formatting of court transcripts? It's like it was tailor-made for me! I've also thought it would be pretty cool to be a librarian, a copyeditor, or a transcriptionist, but from what I could tell when I looked into them, it would be a little hard to find a job that would support me, at least without taking more higher education than I could probably stand x.x

Tagging @sailforvalinor, @rainintheevening, and @x-i-l-verify if this looks like fun!

[petalsthefish]

if you get this, answer with three random facts about yourself and send it to the last seven blogs in your notifs! anon or not, doesn’t matter, let’s get to know the person behind the blog <3

Hi loverrrrrr (Taylor swift voice)

1. I trained and worked with the Budweiser Clydesdales when I was younger

2. I’ve lived in California, Colorado, Florida, Texas, Rhode Island, Virginia, Utah, Pennsylvania, & Arizona

3. My favorite place I’ve ever lived was the Florida keys in 2012. It was my favorite because we’d go diving in the canals everyday and see alllllll the Florida wildlife like manatees, dolphins, alligators, and more!! It was also a walkable island which was so nice (cries in american). Plus, all the seafood tacos a girl could possibly eat!!! It was heavenly.

[newstfionline]

Thursday, October 10, 2024

More than 2.8 million without power as Hurricane Milton slams Florida, causes deaths and flooding (AP) Hurricane Milton plowed into Florida as a Category 3 storm, bringing misery to a coast still ravaged by Helene, pounding cities with winds of over 100 mph (160 kph) after producing a barrage of tornadoes, but sparing Tampa a direct hit. The storm tracked to the south in the final hours and made landfall Wednesday night in Siesta Key near Sarasota, about 70 miles (112 kilometers) south of Tampa. The situation in the Tampa area was still a major emergency as St. Petersburg recorded over 16 inches (41 centimeters) of rain, prompting the National Weather Service to warn of flash flooding there as well as other parts of western and central Florida. The storm knocked out power across a large section of Florida, with more than 2.8 million homes and businesses without power as of early Thursday. Before Milton even made landfall, tornadoes were touching down across the state. The Spanish Lakes Country Club near Fort Pierce, on Florida’s Atlantic Coast, was hit particularly hard, with homes destroyed and some residents killed. By early Thursday, the hurricane was a Category 1 storm with maximum sustained winds of about 90 mph (145 kph) as it churned about 30 miles (48 kilometers) south of Orlando.

In the hole (NYT) Sometime in the next two years, the federal debt will likely cross a worrisome threshold: It will exceed the size of the country’s annual economic output (or GDP) for the first time since 1946. There are a number of causes, but what these causes have in common is a federal government that seems incapable of paying its own bills—and an electorate that tells pollsters it cares about the federal debt but votes for politicians who support low taxes and high spending. I know that the federal debt can be a hard topic to think about, partly because budget scolds have been warning for years that it is too large. Then it keeps growing, and nothing bad seems to happen. Those scolds can sound like Aesop’s boy who cried wolf. But it’s worth remembering what happens at the end of that fable: Eventually, the boy was telling the truth, and a wolf really did come to eat the town’s sheep. Likewise, the federal government will eventually face consequences for spending more money than it raises in taxes. Already, the costs of high federal debt are evident. About one-seventh of all federal spending this year will cover interest payments on debt the government previously accumulated. Over time, interest payments will account for an even larger share of the federal budget, leaving less money for everything else. The interest payments mean that the longer the government waits to deal with its growing debt, the more painful the solution will need to be.

Voters in the US don’t directly elect the president (AP) The U.S. has a unique system for electing a president, the Electoral College. In modern times, it has put disproportionate voting power in the hands of a few states that are fairly evenly divided politically. That forces campaigns to dedicate most of their money to the so-called battleground states. There are seven of them this year—Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. The lack of attention to other states leaves voters in much of the country feeling as if they and the issues they care about are being overlooked during the presidential contest. In two of the last six U.S. presidential elections, candidates have lost the nationwide popular vote but won the presidency. This includes former President Donald Trump, who lost the popular vote to Democrat Hillary Clinton in 2016 by nearly 2.9 million but still won enough votes in the Electoral College to become president. This often sounds crazy to people who live in democracies in the rest of the world. The U.S. is the only country to have a system where voters select a body of electors with the sole function of choosing the president. In most other democracies, the president is directly elected through the popular will of the voters.

A Cartel Battle Turns a Mexican State Into a War Zone (NYT) Bodies dumped on the side of the road. Gun battles in upscale neighborhoods. Tractor-trailers set aflame on the highway. People plucked from their cars by armed men in broad daylight. This is what it looks like when war breaks out within one of the most powerful criminal mafias in the world, the Sinaloa Cartel, pitting two rival factions against each other in a bloody struggle to control a multibillion-dollar narco empire. The bloody struggle between two rival factions of one of the most powerful criminal mafias in the world, the Sinaloa Cartel, has cost Culiacán, a city of one million people, hundreds of millions of dollars in losses, business leaders say.

Biden’s Cuba Policy Leaves the Island a Wreck (Drop Site News) The sight of hungry people scavenging through dumpsters and panhandling was once more common in cities in the United States and Europe than in Havana. But a series of quiet moves, first by Trump, and now by Biden, have produced a humanitarian crisis throughout Cuba. Cuba has been sanctioned for longer than any other country in modern history. But almost a decade ago the Obama administration softened sanctions on the island and restored diplomatic relations with Havana, admitting that over half a century of immiserating the island had failed to oust the communist government. The economic rebound was swift. But in the final weeks of the Trump administration, the White House put Cuba back on the State Department’s list of state sponsors of terrorism, alongside Iran, Syria and North Korea, for nakedly political reasons and without providing evidence. Cuba watchers expected that Biden would restore Obama’s raft of achievements, as he had promised. Instead, Biden has one-upped Trump by going further than the previous administration in attacking Cuba’s tourism industry—the main engine of the island’s economy. Two years ago, the Biden State Department barred foreigners who visit Cuba from visa-free travel to the U.S. That meant that people from the United Kingdom, France, Spain and 37 other countries found out that a mere holiday in Cuba could forfeit their visa waiver, and many decided not to risk a visit to the island. The terror designation, together with more than 200 sanctions enacted against the island since Obama left office, has pulped the Cuban economy. By driving down people’s living standards and crushing the dream of a better tomorrow, the Trump-Biden sanctions have produced a mass exodus from the island of historic proportions.

Spanish olive trees find new home on Hungary’s slopes (Reuters) Wine maker Csaba Torok, who grows olives on Hungary’s warm southern slopes near Lake Balaton, believes his trees from southern Europe have found a successful new home as Europe’s climate gets warmer. As southern Europe is hit by more frequent droughts and scorching heatwaves, the areas where olive groves can flourish appear to be shifting northwards, he said. Hungary’s winters have become palpably milder over the past years. Europe is the fastest warming continent in the world, the European Environment Agency said last month. Spain, which usually supplies around 40% of the world’s olive oil, has suffered poor olive harvests in the past two years due to heatwaves and a prolonged drought, doubling olive oil prices to record levels.

So, Are You Pregnant Yet? China’s In-Your-Face Push for More Babies. (NYT) The first time a government worker encouraged Yumi Yang to have a baby, she thought little of it. She and her husband were registering their marriage at a local office in northeastern China, and the worker gave them free prenatal vitamins, which she chalked up to the government trying to be helpful. When an official later called to ask if she had taken them, and then called again after she did get pregnant to track her progress, Ms. Yang shrugged those questions off as well intentioned, too. But then officials showed up at her door after she had given birth, asking to take a photograph of her with her baby for their files. That was too much. Faced with a declining population that threatens economic growth, the Chinese government is responding with a time-tested tactic: inserting itself into this most intimate of choices for women, whether or not to have a child. Officials are not just going door to door to ask women about their plans. They have partnered with universities to develop courses on having a “positive view of marriage and childbearing.” At high-profile political gatherings, officials are spreading the message wherever they can.

U.N. says it’s ‘seeing the same patterns’ in Lebanon as in Gaza (Washington Post) The United Nations’ Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights is “seeing the same patterns that we saw in Gaza” in Lebanon, a spokesperson for the agency said in a video shared on social media Tuesday, as Israel continues its military campaign in Lebanon and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned of the potential for “destruction and suffering like we see in Gaza.” Jeremy Laurence, the OHCHR spokesperson, said that in Lebanon, “the same means and methods of warfare that have been used” as in Gaza, “and as a result we are seeing civilians pay the ultimate price.” He also pointed to shuttered hospitals and mass displacement, among other parallels with Gaza. “The devastation is beyond belief for all people in Lebanon, as it is in Gaza,” he said. “We can’t let this happen again.”

In Gaza, children who survive Israel’s assault face a lifetime of trauma (NBC News) Osama Muhammad Abu Mustafa was convinced he would become an international soccer superstar. Playing on a local team at the municipal stadium in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, he envisioned a future “like Ronaldo.” He was 13. He was practicing soccer with his cousins when the bombs fell. “I had the ball—and then a missile fell,” he told NBC News’ crew on the ground in Gaza in an interview in his home, where he was still recovering months after the July 3 airstrike. What happened next is a blur, he said. But when he woke up, he was in a hospital bed, where he learned that one of his cousins, his aunt and her husband had been killed. He had also lost his left leg. “The occupation killed my dream,” Osama said. “They stole it from me.” Now, Osama struggles to find the will to leave his hospital bed, even in a wheelchair. Osama is one of hundreds of thousands of children whose lives have been shattered during Israel’s yearlong military offensive in Gaza. Like the rest of Gaza’s children, who make up about half of the strip’s population of 2.2 million, Osama bears no responsibility for the Oct. 7 attacks, nor the devastating war that followed. But children like him are paying a high price, with more than 16,900 killed, including dozens of infants under the age of 1, during the intensive Israeli bombing and ground operations.

Water gushes through sand dunes after a rare rainfall in the Sahara desert (AP) The Sahara desert in southeastern Morocco has flooded with more water than seen in decades, with two days of rain in September leading to several areas getting more rain in hours than they ordinarily would get in a year. The rain, an extratropical storm, has interrupted what has otherwise been six consecutive years of drought and will refill groundwater aquifers. Lake Iriqui, which is a lake bed that has been dry for the past 50 years, now had water rushing into it, and the village of Tagounite managed to get 100 millimeters of precipitation in a 24-hour period—unheard of.

A ‘Once-in-a-Lifetime’ Comet (NYT) Look up, stargazers: A comet discovered last year is getting brighter as it makes its closest pass by Earth later this week, and this could be humanity’s last chance to see the comet before it disappears into the cosmic depths. The celestial visitor is Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS, or C/2023 A3 to scientists. Astronomers are expecting the comet to be especially vivid, possibly rivaling the brightness of Jupiter in the night sky. The comet is expected to be at its brightest on Wednesday and potentially visible through the end of the month. “This one is, I would say, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” said Gianluca Masi, an astrophysicist based in Italy and the scientific director of the Virtual Telescope Project.

[highkey-lowkey-as-hell]

hi so today's watt week prompt is finding good things and while i have a kateva fic for this prompt over on ao3, they are my very absolute favorites of anything ever so i decided to also throw a hc post for them out there too!

they met in january ofc, in act 2, and i think they started dating in october or november that same year

they realized they liked each other pretty early on though, but both of them knew that this was not a good time for kate to be in a relationship so they both told themselves to wait, and who knows, maybe the feelings would go away and no longer be a problem

spoiler alert: they did not

there was a few times over the summer that eva almost confessed but stopped herself

but then in the fall, they finally start dating

kate is the one to ask eva out

and they're both so happy

so one thing i've always kind of thought about kate is that i don't think her parents get along very well

they're married, but they probably shouldn't be, and they fight a lot

it's a little bit of why kate is so scared of getting attached and being vulnerable

so in april or so, when she realizes she loves eva, it's kind of terrifying

and they're also nearing graduation, another one of kate's biggest fears

i don't think they go to college together, they're a couple states apart, and kate is so scared

and she's terrified of being vulnerable and terrified of getting attached and so realizing she loves eva feels catastrophic to her

so she kind of avoids saying it for a really long time

eva realized she loved kate around the same time, but she was really nervous and kept chickening out about it

but then, early june, they graduate

and after eva's grad party, they're in eva's room watching tv and cuddling and eva impulsively says it, around 10 pm

kate cries and can't say it back at first because she's so scared

but they talk it through and eva listens and around 2 am, kate says it back

they're long distance in college - eva goes to school in nyc and kate goes to pennsylvania

the distance is hard but they see each other when they can and slowly, kate stops being scared of losing her

kate graduates a semester early and moves to the city, and she and eva get an apartment with reese

it's the best

getting to be together every single day? nothing better

a couple years after eva graduates, she proposes to kate

kate sobs and ofc says yes

she and kate decide they need to get their own place before they get married, so they and reese part ways

they had a very very small wedding, literally just a couple friends and eva's family in eva's parents' backyard

they never have kids, but they have at least 2-4 cats at any given time

and a couple of dogs, never more than 1 dog at a time though

they’re the finale squads’ kids’ cool lesbian aunts

they live happily ever after bc they're my emotional support lesbians and i need them to live happily ever after

[everytaylorswiftsongisaboutcats]

Since folklore & evermore are sisters I have always thought of them as an entire story in two parts. Particularly when it comes to the paralells between seven & happiness :

Please picture me, in the trees. — Honey, when I’m above the trees, I see it for what it is. — I hit my peak at seven feet, in the swing, over the creek; I was too scared to jump in, but I was high in the sky. — But now I'm right down in it, all the years I've given, is just shit we're dividing up. — With Pennsylvania under me. Are there still beautiful things?

Showed you all of my hiding spots.

Cross your heart won’t tell no other.

And I've been meaning to tell you, I think your house is haunted. Your dad is always mad and that must be why. Past the blood and bruise. Past the curses and cries. Beyond the terror in the nightfall. And I think you should come live with me and we can be pirates. Then you won't have to cry… Or hide in the closet…

And just like a folk song, — I was dancing when the music stopped. — Our love will be passed on.

And though I can't recall your face… And in the disbelief, I can't face reinvention… I haven't met the new me yet…

There'll be happiness after you, there was happiness because of you. Both of these things can be true. There is happiness. — Love you to the moon and to Saturn.

Haunted by the look in my eyes — And though I can’t recall your face, I still got love for you. — would’ve loved you for a lifetime.

Leave it all behind. Passed down like folk songs the love lasts so long.

I guess it's the price I pay for seven years in heaven

Pack your dolls and a sweater, we’ll move to India forever. — All you want from me now, is the green light of forgiveness.

You haven’t met the new me yet, and I think she’ll give you that.

Please picture me, in the weeds. Before I learned civility. I used to scream ferociously, any time I wanted.

In our history, across our great divide; there is a glorious sunrise. Dappled with the flickers of light, from the dress I wore at midnight. Leave it all behind.

[besnail]

my mom wanted me to come to florida for thanksgiving to visit my grandpa who is dying and a lot of my family who is going to be there and i do not want to do that bc it would involve so much flying and driving and because my cat is in congestive heart failure and i just paid for 5k surgery+echocardiograms etc and my aunt and uncle are having some weird issues so i was like ok i am not going and my mom kept like begging me to but the thing is last year when my dad was having is liver fail/heart varicies stop functioning every 3 weeks my mom was always begging me to come back and see him before he died excessively and at great cost to me and he never did so i feel Really like Boy Who Cried Wolfed by my mom and so i was like ok it's probably just my mom being my mom so i will hold my ground even though i feel extremely guilty but at this point i guess my gpa really Is dying rn and this would be the chance to see him and also my dad is maybe actually dying for real but he's in pennsylvania and i haven't spoken to him in 11 months and i still don't want to but i feel stressed about both of these things so i wish i was going to florida in order to be doing Something but actually i guess i'm staying with my cat but he has 6 months to live instead of like Cancer In The Pancreas And Colon In A 95 Year Old Man time to live. unless i guess he dies suddenly as is the other side effect of congestive heart failure.

[velocitytimes2]

Have an angsty Metalsandwich blurb for your Sunday night.

Rating: T for drug mention Pairing: Steve x Billy x Eddie

Wrote this as a love letter to the anniversary of Eddie sacrificing himself for his friends because I'm feeling some kind of way about it.

tw: angst, major character death, canon character death

Steve only ever returns to Hawkins now twice a year, now. His mother comes to him for holidays, doting that he shouldn’t have to pack the entire family up from Pennsylvania to come see her when one-person traveling is easier than five. Robin lives in Spokane now, all the Byers had settled down in California again – both natural born and married-in Wheelers alike, Dustin in Silicon Valley, only because of his wife, Lucas traveling for broadcasting… No one really was left in Hawkins for Steve. But no matter what, he always came back, drove over the still two-toned pavement at Town Hall to turn left and head home. Six days a year. The morning before in to spend the day with mom. The day of. The day after to pick himself up and dust himself off and pack the Volvo for the drive home.  The dates are always the same. March, for a dried out red roses and a joint. July, for sunflowers, and a Marlboro (even though he quit at twenty-seven). Both with a six pack.  July is always a fight, always explaining that he just needs time alone on the holiday to his kids, how grandma sometimes needs him home – a lie but one that helps, watching his partner understand but still hurt that his choice had always been to go back. March sometimes fought back with attempts at late-season blizzards, and isn’t that the most hilarious thing. To know that even now, even forty-fucking years later he’s being bumped into by Eddie. Even when the weather sucks, even when the snow is falling or the fourth of July is the hottest in ten years, Steve goes, sits with his back to a headstone, and talks to the two boys he’d once loved with so much in his heart that he was delirious with it.  It wasn’t that he wasn’t happy, god he had fought and clawed and torn his way to it but he was happy. Was so in love again with someone who saw him for the bat in his trunk (still), and nights where he walked the halls to press a palm to each of his children’s chests, and the days he had to go and spend with the people who weren’t able to come see him anymore. Who hadn’t left Hawkins and survived.  He knows Nancy goes to see Barb. Sometimes, on the day he leaves Hawkins Steve does too. He tells her what he can about her friends. He apologizes for not being the person he should have been, for playing the role in her death.  He walks across the same cemetery and sits with Chrissy. Knows Eddie would want him to. He sometimes lays on his back and cries on her grave, making up stories of what he and Eddie and her could have been doing now in their thirties, forties, fifties. Sometimes he just tells her about how much he had loved Eddie, loved him quietly from the side, loved him loudly behind closed doors.  No one who Billy loved is in Hawkins. So Steve tells him about what he knows about Max’s life now. He keeps him up to date with what musicians are doing. The new and the old and the in between. He tells Billy about Eddie, how much he would have loved Eddie once he got past the whole nerd thing. How much they would have loved one another.  He always ends up crying to them both. Because how do you move past horrific deaths? How do you move on with the guilt that both times you were the one to live and they weren’t?  You don’t. But you can be happy.  He is happy. But he can miss them. Thinks it’s okay he misses them. Knows they’re happy he’s happy.  “I love you. I know you're out there somewhere, watching. I’ll see you next year, baby.”

[princesssarisa]

Autism headcanon:

Fern Arable (Charlotte's Web)

Note: This is about the book character only, not her portrayal in Hanna-Barbera's animated film or by Dakota Fanning in the 2006 live-action film.

*Through most of the book, she prefers animals to people. The only other child she plays with is her brother Avery; she doesn't seem to have any close friends. Instead, she's content to spend hours sitting quietly in the barn cellar and watching Wilbur in his pigpen. Obviously, being a loner and having a hyperfixation (animals) are two classic ASD traits, and a special affinity with animals is common for people on the spectrum too, especially children.

*Her mother is so concerned about her spending so much time alone in the barn instead of with other children, and how sincerely she seems to believe that the animals talk, that she consults the family doctor about her. The doctor is unconcerned, but it still shows that her behavior isn't "normal."

*Her uncle, Mr. Zuckerman, calls her "a queer child."

*Her fixation on Wilber and the other animals distracts her from practical things: for example, when she daydreams about him in class and accidentally answers "Wilbur" when the teacher asks her to name the capital of Pennsylvania.

*Yet she's intelligent for her age, with a more advanced vocabulary than the average eight-year-old (e.g. "injustice," "aloft," "sociable").

*At the same time, she's very sensitive and doesn't always think rationally or regulate her emotions very well. ("Fern, you will have to learn to control yourself," her father says.) She cries easily throughout the book, and at the beginning, she sees no difference between euthanizing a weak, undersized piglet and killing a human baby.

*When the rotten goose egg breaks, she reacts to the horrible smell by screaming and then starting to cry. A bit of an overblown reaction, unless she's hypersensitive to smell, as many people on the autism spectrum are.

*She sometimes doesn't seem to "read the room" very well. For example, at the fair, when Wilbur doesn't win first prize and the adults are all disappointed and sad, she interrupts the moment to ask for money to ride the Ferris wheel again.

*She understands the animals' speech when none of the other human characters can. When she tries to tell her parents about it, her mother thinks she's just making it up. While understanding animal language isn't an average autistic trait, it's still relatable to those of us whose perceptions and abilities are different than most other people's and tend to be misunderstood.

*In the end, as she develops a crush on Henry Fussy, she loses interest in the animals and stops visiting the barn, because she's "growing up" and wants to avoid "childish things." This might reflect that some children on the spectrum, especially girls, become more social and learn to "mask" as they get older.

Now some people might argue that these traits are just her being a child, or just her unique personality. I don't think E.B. White set out to write her as autistic. But I still think it's a valid headcanon. Especially since, from all I've read about White – his introversion and shyness, his own affinity for animals, his chronic anxiety, etc. – I sometimes wonder if he was on the spectrum himself.

[words-after-midnight]

15 questions tag game

Character interview edition: Gabriel

Tagged by @eternalwritingstudent (I've been tagged three times recently, doing them in the order I was tagged). Thank you!!

I've already done this game for myself (it's here, if you're curious), so I'll let some of my main characters have the floor. First up: Gabriel, the protagonist of my main wip, Life in Black and White. [Note: Gabriel is very emotionally guarded, self-deprecating, and lies habitually. I will clear up any lies that may arise in author's notes.]

Tagging (to do either for yourself or an OC!): @sunset-a-story, @ceph-the-ghost-writer, @winterandwords, @catchingbigfish, @ls-daydreams, @angelsofprey, @frostedlemonwriter, @nanashi23.

1. Are you named after anyone?

No, thank god.

2. When was the last time you cried?

I don't know. I'm not really a crier. [A/N: Abject lie lol.]

3. Do you have kids?

No. Maybe someday, if I can get to a place where I'm stable enough, both personally and financially.

4. Do you use sarcasm?

Sarcasm's the PG-rated version of my middle name, according to a friend of mine.

5. What's the first thing you notice about people?

Eyes, usually.

6. What's your eye color?

Hazel.

7. Scary movies or happy endings?

Both, even though I don't think happy endings are all that realistic, to be honest. Most of the time, anyway. They're nice to imagine, though.

8. Any special talents?

I'm perceptive, I guess? I'm good at reading facial expressions. Not sure that's a talent. [A/N: It's absolutely hand-eye coordination, but he thinks he's "clumsy" because his movements usually aren't ~fluid~ or whatever. Like, he stumbles around and drops shit sometimes, but I'd put money on him beating almost anyone at darts.]

9. Where were you born?

In a hospital. (Non-smartass answer: Scranton, Pennsylvania.)

10. What are your hobbies?

I really like to read, and I play a few musical instruments, but I'm pretty out of practice on the latter since I've been out of school. Other than that, I like hanging out with my friends, playing video games, watching movies, all that good stuff. Sometimes go hunting or to the shooting range. I like going to Borders and on coffee runs with friends. I'll hike or walk around town with friends when I have the energy. Is going on random trips in the boonies blasting music in the truck a hobby? I don't know, my life's pretty boring.

11. Have you any pets?

Nah, my sister's allergic to cats and dogs, so I didn't grow up with them. I'd be down to have one at some point, but I've always worried I wouldn't be that good or consistent at taking care of it, so ideally it'd be shared with a partner or roommate or whatever.

12. What sports do you play/have played?

*cackles* Have you met me? [A/N: He thinks he's terrible at sports. I think he'd be decent at quite a few sports tbh, but he lacks confidence in his own abilities.]

13. How tall are you?

About halfway between 5'10" and 5'11". [A/N: he's barely 5'10". He just refuses to admit that he's a full inch shorter than Jeff (in part because Jeff doesn't him live that inch down).]

14. Favorite subject in school?

English and biology.

15. Dream job?

I don't really have one, to be honest. I'm good at science, so I could see myself doing something in science or in the medical field.

[littleapocalypsekitten]

I find it kind of interesting how little of a shit we give about 9/11 anymore. I was alive then. I wasn't anywhere near New York or Pennsylvania at the time (I'm in PA now, but wasn't back then). I didn't know anyone affected, just saw it on TV on one of my school days at community college. It was Tuesday if I recall, because I had certain morning to midday classes and I was trying to sleep in before I absolutely had to get up when I heard my mother shouting from the living room. Anyway, everything was a shock to the system, a breaking of the image of America as high and mighty and impenetrable and everyone went kind of fucking crazy for a while. I mean, there were people trying to market parachutes for jumping out of buildings in case it happens again, everyone put flags on their car antennas, you were expected to both be in mourning and go super-patriot. In the war in Iraq that happened later due to Bush fronting a "war on terror" using 9/11 as an excuse, the French president criticized it and for a while, we were supposed to call French Fries "Freedom Fries" and to snub anything French, which I thought was ridiculous and personally refused to do. And... some of that ridiculousness, including outright ignoring families of those lost in 9/11 who cried out that their loved ones would not want a proxy-war in their name - and the rah-rah patriotism / conservatism, at least one country song about "putting a boot in your ass" directed toward...just the whole of the Middle East and probably any American who wasn't "American" enough... I think we all got burnt out. And, of course, some of the same people expecting the super-patriotism, the conservative politicians... It's like, what were you guys doing during a global pandemic? You were making it WORSE for the American side of things instead of doing your jobs and we started measuring our casualties (OUR casualties, as in just our country's, not the world's) in "9/11s." That is why on tumblr, I have seen 9/11 jokes about wizards and bees today. This is why on Facebook, the most significant event on my feed was my Facebook friend's cat's birthday. (Her name is Cheeseburger and she is four years old).