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fallen-gravity · 2 months

Text

One Call Away

It's 1982. Somewhere in New Mexico, Stan recieves a phone call from not-quite his brother. Someone is threatening to take his life. Whether Ford himself is desperately reaching out for help, or someone else entirely has him at gunpoint, Stan knows one thing for sure: He needs to find him and fast.

Alternatively: An AU where the payphone Bill used to call Stan while posessing Ford worked, and Stan is actually forced to listen to his "brother" threaten to kill himself.

Notes:

Caution: This fic has MAJOR spoilers for The Book of Bill. Proceed with caution.

Author's Note 2 Electric Boogaloo: God, this book has had a huge grip on my psyche all week. I'm losing my mind. I'm going absolutely feral. I lost my shit at the section of the Missing Journal 3 Pages where Ford revealed that Bill tried to make a phone call in his name to Stan threatening to kill himself. I audibly gasped. I read it three times. God. I'm insane.

No character death tag because nobody dies! This fic ends on a positive note, I promise :')

AO3 Link

Or under the cut:

When you’ve been scamming suckers out of their money as long as Stan has, you come to learn to expect that anything can happen. You learn to tend to your own injuries, you learn the best escape routes, you learn as many languages as you can in case you need to flee the country, you learn to disappear without a trace; when you expect everything, you learn to let nothing surprise you.

When you have a public phone line that anyone can call, you learn to expect that only about half of those calls are gonna be potential new customers eager to try out your products. When you’ve been relying on these new customers to provide the money for your next meal, you tend to pay attention to patterns; you notice when your commercials air, how many customers are likely to call in, and how long it takes for customers to realize they’ve been scammed and call back demanding their money back. To most, it looks like the world’s most elaborately thought out scam they’ve ever seen. To you, it’s survival.

Expect everything so you can be prepared for anything. That’s how Stan sees it, anyway. As long as he’s prepared, nothing can catch him off guard. If he knows what’s coming, he’ll never have to wake up in the trunk of a car with his hands tied behind his back ever again.

Unfortunately for Stan, though, that means being hyper-alert at all times, even in his sleep, so even the most mundane of noises can wake him up. If the couple in the hotel room next to him drops a bottle of shampoo in the shower, he’s gonna hear it and wake up.

If the phone starts ringing at god-knows-when in the morning, he’s going to shoot up awake, even if it just turns out to be some dumb telemarketer trying to reach him about his car’s extended warranty.

The alarm clock on the hotel nightstand tells him it’s nearing four-thirty in the morning when the complimentary phone in his hotel room starts ringing.

That’s…strange. There’s no way that could be a customer, because Stan never bothered to buy commercial spots for late night and prime time television. For one, prime time is incredibly expensive and has too many competitors who are selling actual products, and secondly, Stan’s found that he has the most success when he advertises on the daytime soap opera channels, because that’s when all the bored housewives and old folks’ homes are likely watching TV.

Could it be someone he’s pissed off? No, that doesn’t make any sense either, because they don’t usually have the courtesy to call before they show up with a shotgun or twelve. It can’t be Ma, since she usually calls when Pa goes away on his weekend trips to Atlantic City.

Nothing’s adding up. Every fiber in his being is telling him not to answer.

And yet…

He fears more for what will happen to him if he doesn’t answer.

He pats his hair down, takes a deep breath, and picks up the receiver.

“You’ve reached Stan-Co! Totally authentic and worthwhile products. If you need it, I have it. Stan’s your man. How can I legitimately help you today?”

“Stanley!” replies an all-too familiar voice, one he hasn’t heard in nearly ten years. “Just the man I wanted to see!” he says, despite not being able to see him and having been the one who called first.

“Wh- Stanford?!? The hell are you doin’ calling my infomercial line?” Stan splutters, too shocked to even bother trying to keep his voice down.

“Awww, that’s not a very nice hello for your favorite brother, is it?” Ford’s voice replies, sounding like he’s suppressing hysterical laughter.

Something’s wrong.

Stan may not have spoken to his brother in years, but he can instantly tell that something’s wrong.

“Stanford, what the hell is going on?”

There’s a short pause, and then Ford blows a raspberry into the receiver. “You’re no fun! I thought for sure you’d cry like a baby when I called!”

Yeah, okay, something is definitely wrong. “Why won’t you tell me what’s going on, Ford? Why the hell are you calling me so late? Why me? I thought you hated my guts!”

“Oh, I do!” Ford replies without a drop of hesitation, giggling like a madman. “But I don’t have much time, and there’s something really important I need to say, and you’re the only person I want hearing what I’m about to say.” There’s something…off about the way he sounds, not quite the slur of someone who’s drunk and far too energetic to be that of someone lacking sleep. But there’s something almost garbled about it, like he’s not all that aware of what he’s saying, and if Stan listens close enough he’s sure that he can hear an echo.

But Stan can recognize the cheap, static-y sound of someone calling from a payphone anywhere. Wherever Ford is, he’s calling from outside, and the last time Stan checked the only places outside that echoed were either very high up, very dangerous, or both of them put together. Stan does his best to repress the lump forming in his throat trying to imagine what kind of danger he possibly could’ve gotten himself into, especially if he felt the need to call him, rather than the cops, but he still can’t quite shake the tremble in his voice when he replies.

“Not much time? C’mon, Ford, don’t say that! I can help you! Screw this cold shoulder bullshit! I can help you! Just tell me what’s going on so we can figure this out together!”

An eerily long pause, and the next time Ford speaks it’s as if he brought the phone as close to his mouth as he possibly could.

“You’re too late,” he replies, colder and more dismissive as Stan’s ever heard in his entire life. “I’m going to take a swim in the frozen lake tomorrow, and I might not ever come back, so if you don’t hear from me, I just want you to know that it’s because I never loved you. Buh-Byeeeeee!”

“WAIT!” Stan screeches, and thankfully it’s enough to stop Ford from hanging up. “Ford, c’mon, there’s gotta be something I can do! You’re acting crazy! I’m not asking anymore, I’m begging! Where the hell are you?”

Another pause.

Then, a voice that doesn’t sound anything like Ford’s.

“Oh, goody! An audience! You want to watch him die so badly, that’s fine by me! I’ll even hold off just for you!” An ear-shatteringly high pitched cackle. “Gravity Falls, Oregon. If you want him, come and get him.”

“Him?! Who the hell is-” Stan snaps, but before he can ask any more questions, Ford hangs up, and all Stan is left with is the droning buzz of the dial tone.

Shit. Shit shit shit shit shit. Either Ford’s lost his mind and really is planning to off himself, or someone else is threatening to do it for him. Shit. Shit. Stan has to go now. Everything else be damned, if he doesn’t leave before this other maniac gets bored of waiting then Ford’s not gonna be there at all when he finally makes it to Oregon. That’s nearly halfway across the country from his hotel in New Mexico as is, so he already doesn’t have any time to spare.

He leaps out of bed, reaching underneath until he finds his duffle bag, and practically tears the place apart trying to get all of his belongings together. There’s something in his gut telling him he’s not coming back any time soon, and even if Ford had miraculously said he was only one state over, Stan isn’t willing to risk leaving behind anything important, weaponry included. How’s Stan supposed to know what kind of bullshit Ford got himself into? How could he live with himself if he assumed all was well and left his brass knuckles behind, only to find his brother half-dead in an alleyway somewhere?

He’s not risking it. Even if everything is fine, and Ford had only sounded like that because he was drunk off his ass and had no idea what he was actually saying, Stan’s not risking it.

Even if Ford doesn’t want him in his life, Stan’s not willing to risk losing him. Not again. Not permanently.

Once he has all his stuff together, Stan scribbles down a half-assed apology for housekeeping and tapes it to the door alongside a twenty dollar bill. He hastily tosses all of his stuff in the back of the car, and speeds off out of the hotel parking lot as if it were his own life on the line. He doesn’t want to think about the worst case scenarios, so for now he focuses only on the road signs for directions to the closest pit stop and hopefully enough energy drinks to last him the twenty-something hour drive he’s about to make.

Thankfully, the closest one is less than an hour away and open 24/7 to boot, so Stan is sure that his luck is turning around; all he has to do is pop in, grab a few things, and be on his way. He’ll be in Oregon before he knows it.

That is, of course, until he realizes that none of the maps at the place even have a so-called Gravity Falls listed on any of them.

“Uh, hey,” Stan calls out to the worker behind the cash register, who looks like he’s falling asleep where he stands. “You wouldn’t happen to know where Gravity Falls is, do you? Gravity Falls, Oregon?”

At first Stan’s not entirely sure if the poor guy even heard him, but then the worker eyes him up and down and sighs heavily. “You makin’ fun of me or something?”

Stan blinks. “What? No, A’course not!” he sighs, pinching at the bridge of his nose. “Look, I don’t exactly have a lot of time here! I don’t know why I can’t find it on any of your brochure maps, but I’ve got a gut feeling that someone I love is in a lot of danger and I need to get there as fast as I possibly can. Do you know where it is or not?”

For a brief moment the man still doesn’t answer, eyeing him up and down again, before he sighs and leans forward, like the information he’s about to give him is top-secret government information. “Alright,” he whispers, and glances around the store to make sure the two of them are alone. “I’ve heard things. Rumors. Crazy stories about ghouls and goblins and people who come and go without a trace of memory of who they were before they entered that town. I’ve got a general idea of where it is, but I’m not confident. If you’re willing to listen, I’ve got theories.”

Under any other circumstances, Stan would wave him off as insane and book it out of there as fast as he could, but he’s desperate for any information he can get, and he’s not entirely sure when the next time he’ll find anyone even remotely familiar with the town will even be. So Stan agrees, and does his best not to show how insane he thinks this worker is as he starts going off about the supernatural and monsters that sound like they belong in a Saturday morning cartoon.

If Ford really is anywhere near any kind of place that fits this man’s stories, it’s no wonder he sounded like he was starting to lose his mind.

After listening to the man ramble on for god knows how long and watching him draw circles in the map where he thinks the town could be, Stan thanks him by actually paying for what he came in for before jumping back into his car and speeding down the highway as fast as he possibly can.

It’s an agonizing two day drive, only stopped by the times Stan fell asleep at the wheel and forced himself to pull over and take a nap, and the time he was so desperate for food that he pulled off at some truck stop (with admittedly the grossest food he’s eaten since becoming homeless) for a hot meal. If it were up to him, he would’ve done the whole drive in one go, but it was when he nearly careened his car off a cliff trying to stay awake that he realized that he wouldn’t be any good to his brother dead, so he resolved to also take short driving breaks here and there to make sure he kept his energy up; if he really does need to fight someone when he gets there, he’s gonna need all the strength he can get.

Thankfully, upon arrival at Gravity Falls, Ford’s place of residence is much easier to find than Stan had feared; for a guy who’d been longing for a place he belonged since early childhood, Ford sure likes to stick out like a sore thumb wherever he goes. As soon as Stan goes around town asking townsfolk if anyone had seen anyone who looked like him “except a lot smarter, I guess,” nearly every single person he asks points off in the same direction of the woods and gives him the same confused sort of I think he lives somewhere in there. If he hadn’t gotten it from at least five separate people, Stan would’ve been sure that they were all screwing with him.

And, as it turns out…every single one of them is right. It doesn’t take that much venturing in the woods for Stan to come across the giant cabin aglow in eerie blue lighting and surrounded by tall fences of barbed wire with pieces of cardboard stapled to it and “KEEP OUT” written on them in shaky handwriting. If Ford is anywhere, it’s here.

Now…breaking into somewhere he’s not allowed? Stan can do that in his sleep. He’s done it hundreds of times, and he’ll probably do it another hundreds of thousands of times again before he dies.

But…

Seeing his brother again?

That terrifies him to his very core. Reason for driving all the way out here aside, there’s still a very real chance Ford’s gonna tell him he still never wants to see him again and slam the door in his face, and then Stan’s really gonna have nowhere to go. After everything, if Stan rescues Ford from whatever’s after him and he still tells him to leave and never come back?

What then?

…No. That’s not what matters right now. He can worry about that later.

With a shake of his head to brush off his thoughts, Stan rams his car into the fence hard and fast enough to topple it to the ground. He drives down the path until he’s close enough to the front entrance that he can hop out of his car as quickly as he can, but hidden enough that he won’t be seen if someone (or something) tries to escape.

Stan takes a deep breath as he exits his car and makes his way to the front door, and finds himself hesitating to knock the door as soon as he’s on the porch steps.

It’s for his own good, Stan tells himself. It’s for his own good. I’m just trying to help. It’s for his own good.

He stamps down on any last remnants of hesitation and knocks on the door, loud enough for Ford to hear but gently enough to hopefully assure him that it isn’t anyone who wants to hurt him. Almost instantaneously, Stan can hear the sound of objects falling and glass shattering from inside, like a spooked deer trying to dodge the headlights of an oncoming truck. Stan’s sure he can hear the sound of someone muttering, and he’s relieved beyond comparison that it’s the only voice he can hear coming from inside.

Because he can tell that it’s Ford’s voice.

Which means he’s still alive.

Stan huffs out a huge sigh of relief, and subconsciously begins patting down the wrinkles in his clothes to make himself more presentable. He waits, and he waits, but despite Stan knowing he heard Ford stumbling around inside, he never comes to answer the door.

Stan frowns. This is going to be even harder than he thought. Stan tries again, this time knocking exactly six times in the hopes that it’ll clue Ford in on the fact that it’s just him at the door.

As it turns out, though, that seems to be an even bigger mistake than knocking normally, because now the noises coming from inside sound even more frightened. From inside, Stan can hear a muffled string of curse words, followed by the sound of some piece of furniture being knocked over, and finally, the sound of feet trying and failing to sneakily run across a squeaky hardwood floor. Stan’s about to give up, head into town, and try reaching Ford from a payphone instead, but the door slowly starts to creak open before Stan has the chance to step down from the porch and get back in his car.

“Stay back!” Ford shrieks, his voice trembling. Stan still can’t quite see him, because he’s too distracted by the crossbow being shoved in his face. “I don’t care who you’re pretending to be, I will shoot if you try anything!”

Ford finally steps out into view, and Stan’s heart falls to his stomach. Sweet Moses, he looks so much worse than Stan ever could’ve imagined. His hair is a wreck, sticking up in some places and sticking to the side of his face in others. His eyes are bloodshot and puffy, which Stan can only hope is from crying and not something…worse. There’s a dried streak of blood running down from his right eye, and there’s scratches and cuts splattered around his face. He’s wearing a ratty trench coat, and the white shirt underneath is practically falling off of his body, concerningly torn to bits at the chest area. And from what’s left of the poor shirt, there’s splotches of vomit mixed with some other…unrecognizable liquids.

Stan can feel a foul-tasting bile rising in his throat at the sight of him. Surely anyone else would flee, thinking him to be clinically insane, but Stan refuses to sit around and ignore whatever caused his brother to turn out like…this.

“Stanford?” Stan splutters, failing to keep the shock out of his voice. “What the ever-loving fuck is going on?”

Somehow, that of all things is what seems to snap Ford out of his trance. He’s still clinging to his crossbow, but his fingers aren’t on the trigger anymore and his eyes are already looking less foggy than when he’d opened the door a minute prior. He blinks and rubs at his eyes, and takes a cautious, shaky step forward, like he’s afraid the ground will shatter like glass under his feet if he moves too quickly.

“S-Stanley?” Ford whispers, more to himself than to Stan, but Stan can’t help the sigh of relief that escapes him.

He’s not too far gone. There’s still hope. Stan goes to take another step forward, but before he has the chance, all the color drains from Ford’s face.

“Oh no,” Ford whispers, and the crossbow slips from his hand. “Oh no no no no no no no,” he mumbles, retreating back inside without closing the door. He comes back out moments later, gripping a flashlight in one hand and a VHS tape in the other.

Out of nowhere, Ford grabs Stan by the shoulders, prompting a surprised yelp out of him, and even more out of nowhere, Ford takes the flashlight and flashes it in his eyes.

“Ow! What gives!?” Stan exclaims, pulling himself out of Ford’s grip and rubbing at his eyes with his wrist. When his vision finally readjusts from the assault, he’s surprised to see that Ford’s whole posture has relaxed significantly. Sure, he still looks frightened out of his mind, but he doesn’t look like he’s about to shatter to pieces anymore.

“How long have you been here?” Ford asks, completely ignoring Stan’s previous questions.

“Uhh…” Stan pauses, admittedly taken aback by the question. “About an hour, I think?” he shrugs. “Had some trouble finding you, since some of the folks I asked around town didn’t seem to know who I was talking about when I asked about you.”

Ford’s eyes widen in horror. “You asked around town about me?” He splutters, but then clears his throat to regain his composure. “Did anyone try to get anything out of you? Were you followed?”

Stan snorts. “Puh-lease. The most dangerous person around here is probably me, and I haven’t eaten a healthy meal in weeks.” He shakes his head. “Nobody said anything. And if I was followed, I’d know. It’s something you learn to look out for when you’ve been living on the streets for ten years.” There’s a shred more resentment in his tone than he meant for it to be, but it seems to get the message across well enough. Ford sighs, and gestures inside.

“Come in,” Ford mumbles, his gaze falling to the ground. “I’m afraid I don’t have much time.” Without waiting for Stan, Ford turns heel and hastily returns inside. Stan does his best to follow close behind, but stops dead in his tracks as soon as he steps foot inside.

The whole place is trashed.

Trashed far beyond what Stan thought a single human could ever be capable of. There’s papers scattered everywhere, bottles of ink spilled and pooling everywhere, cupboards with holes smashed into the doors, broken plates and twisted rusty nails scattered all over the floor, a concerningly bloodied hammer on the kitchen countertop, multiple windows boarded up with splintered wood, and empty boxes of instant coffee mix strewn all around the kitchen.

Most concerningly of all, there’s a door that leads somewhere that’s covered with scratches and dripping with blood, and Stan’s not entirely sure whether that means something wanted in or if something was desperate to get out.

Stan’s not entirely sure which thought he prefers.

He doesn’t have too much time to stew on that, though, because he’s pulled from his thoughts by the loud thwack of plastic being smacked against the wall. He turns to the source of the noise, and he’s surprised to find Ford desperately trying to break the VHS tape in half. When that doesn’t work, he groans in frustration and resolves to throwing it on the ground.

“Uh…Stanford?” Stan tries, and reaches out to place a gentle hand on his shoulder, but Ford moves swiftly in another direction before he can reach him.

“I can’t do it,” Ford’s voice wavers with emotion. His head droops in defeat, and though his back is turned, Stan can see him cover his face with his hands. “I can’t do it. I’m too late. I can’t do it.” He starts to shake even harder, like his body wants him to cry but he’s forcing it not to happen because he needs to stay strong.

For who? Himself? For Stan? For someone else?

“Hey, hey…” Stan drops his voice to a whisper, hoping a calmer tone of voice will be more likely to get a proper reply out of Ford. Stan is one-hundred percent not calm, and is in fact getting more and more freaked out the longer he doesn’t get a reply, but the last thing he needs is to stress Ford out even more than he already is. “S’alright. I’m here, okay? Whatever it is I can help you with. I don’t even care if it involves any nerdy-smarts stuff. I can learn it for you. I can help you.”

For a few brief moments, Ford’s heavy breathing pauses. He turns to look at Stan, and it’s hard not to flinch at the fact that he’s looking more and more like a kicked, abused puppy. He looks like he’s genuinely considering replying, even goes to open his mouth, but clamps down on that moments later when another thought seemingly comes to him.

“I…” he stammers, and violently shakes his head again. “I can’t. I could never.” He starts pacing back and forth in place, rubbing his arms up and down together in a failed attempt to self-sooth. “I wish I could, but…” he trails off, but stops before he can allow himself to finish. He violently shakes his head again, like he’s not allowing himself to even think that things could possibly get better.

Stan scowls. That’s the last straw.

“Stanford.” Stan speaks firmly, and grabs at both of his brother’s shoulders. His grip is gentle enough not to hurt him, but strong enough to prevent him from squirming away. As it turns out, though, the strength isn’t very necessary, since Ford practically goes limp in his arms at the touch.

“Stanford,” Stan repeats as he turns Ford around to force him to look him in the eyes. “I’m not asking anymore. Talk to me. Tell me what’s going on. I know for a fact that I didn’t just haul my ass all the way out to Oregon from New Mexico worried sick to death that my brother was going to kill himself just for him to push me away again. I don’t know if something happened to you after you got rejected from that fancy nerd school, or if someone’s after you, or if you really are thinking about killing yourself. I don’t care if that phone call from the other day was a threat or just a drunk dial you made after watching too much Galaxy Sci-Fi Wars, or what, but I don’t need any of that to see how much trouble you’re in! You’re shaking! You’re hurt! Your house looks like it was hit by every single natural disaster all at once! I don’t care how it happened, I care that it happened. Talk to me, Stanford. I’m not leaving until you talk.”

There’s a heavy pause. Ford’s eyes are darting all around Stan’s face, and Stan’s not quite sure what he’s looking for. He doesn’t look angry or offended, but he doesn’t look all that convinced, either. It’s almost as if there’s a deep-rooted sadness in his gaze, like Ford’s not fully convinced of his honesty, and that breaks Stan’s heart more than anything else.

“You wouldn’t understand,” Ford finally replies, breaking eye contact but not bothering to break out of Stan’s grip.

Stan wants to laugh. If the situation were less dire, he would laugh. “Wouldn’t understand?” he replies, gently shaking Ford’s shoulders. “Wouldn’t understand what? Having a target on your back wherever you go? An expensive bounty on your head? You think I don’t understand having to sleep with one eye open? With having to pack everything up as soon as possible because you might not survive the night if you don’t leave? Or do you think I don’t understand being too scared to try leaving, because you feel like the moment you’re out of a so-called ‘safe zone’ is the moment someone’s gonna kidnap you? Or throw you in the trunk of their car? Or do something much, much worse to you? Just because you pissed off the wrong guy? Do y’really think I don’t understand that, Ford? I understand that better than anybody. I understand that better than I’m willing to admit.”

One final pause, and then Ford sighs heavily enough that Stan can feel the tension slumping off of his body. Stan finally releases his grip on him, and Stan is hugely relieved to notice that Ford’s posture already looks significantly more relaxed.

“You’re right,” Ford mumbles, and stretches his arms into the air to try and release any extra remaining tension. “You’re right,” he repeats, and nervously scratches at his chin. “Plus, uh…it probably would be easier to deal with this alongside someone else. I’ve…” he trails off, as if too embarrassed to finish. “I’ve been alone with my…thoughts for far too long. Some human company might do me some good.”

Stan snorts. “Ha! Listen to yourself. Human company might do me some good. If I’d shown up any later you would’ve turned into a full-time nerd robot!”

Ford cracks the tiniest of smiles at that, whether he’s aware of it or not, and then it’s right back to business as usual. “Alright, fine. You got me.” He rubs at the back of his head. “There’s…someone after me. Someone who wants me dead. I don’t really know how to explain it to you, but it wasn’t exactly…me that called you the other night. I mean, it technically was, since I was the one who was speaking, but it was more like…he was forcing me to say those things. There’s something of mine that he wants, but I’m afraid that if he gets his hands on it, it’s going to hurt a lot of people. No, scratch that, I know it’s going to hurt a lot of people. I know that, and he knows that, and that’s why he wants it. But that’s also why I refuse to give it to him. It’s a big vicious game of cat and mouse. He wants it, I don’t give it to him, he retaliates with violence. There’s no winning.” He takes a deep breath, clearly trying his damn hardest not to spiral again. “Either I give him what he wants or he kills me taking it by force.” He buries his face into his hands. “I can’t do it.” He whimpers. “There’s nothing I can do.”

“...Bullshit.”

Stan doesn’t even realize he’d blurted that out loud until Ford pulls his face from his hands to stare at him slack-jawed. “Come again?”

“I said that’s total bullshit.” Stan replies, firmly standing his ground. “Listen, Ford, I’ve been dealing with his type for a lot longer than I’m willing to admit, and lemme tell you something; that’s just what he wants you to think. He wants you to give up and assume everything’s hopeless, because the moment you lose hope and stop fighting is the moment he’ll strike. He wants you to think he’s got no weakness, because that makes it so much easier to exploit yours. Everyone’s got ‘em, Sixer, but only the cockiest and most powerful aren’t willing to admit that they’ve got ‘em, too. And you wanna know a secret? They don’t like to admit they’ve got weaknesses because they know what it does to them. They know the second anyone finds out about their weakness that they’re just like the rest of us. If we know their weaknesses, we can fight back, and that terrifies those suckers to their very core. That’s the kind of stuff that sends them running home to their mamas. If there’s even an inkling of a chance that someone’s gonna knock them off of their pedestal, or that nobody’s afraid of them anymore because we’ve got ‘em figured out, that’s what gets them. They get so obsessed over the power they have on others that they forget to stop and consider that others can have power over them.”

“I’m telling you, Sixer, no matter what this guy tries to convince you, he’s just sayin’ it to keep you complacent. He wants you to think he’s got no weakness because he’s terrified at the idea of losing his power over you. Once you stop letting him control you, he’ll have nowhere else to stand. Once he loses you, he loses everything. It’s not about whether or not you can fight back, it’s about how you’re gonna fight back. Because once you fight back and you take control, he’s gonna have nowhere to run, and then he’s gonna be the one backed into a corner. You can fight back. You can tell him no.”

“B-but-”

“Up up up, I don’t wanna hear it” Stan waggles a finger in his face. “If I’m still alive after all I’ve been through, I sure as hell know that you’re gonna make it, too. If I can chew my way out of the trunk of a car and tunnel my way out of a Colombian prison using nothing but cheap plastic cutlery, you can break away from whatever hold this guy has on you. Don’t sit around and wait for this guy to strike, you gotta stand up and strike first. He’ll never see it coming.” He slaps Ford on the back. “You’re a smart guy, Sixer, I’m sure that you of all people could figure out how to outsmart this guy.

Ford looks like he wants to believe him, like he wants to hope that things are gonna be okay, but there’s something that’s still tethering him to his fears. There’s the briefest spark of hope in his eyes, but it’s gone just as quickly as it arrived.

“I wish I could believe you, Stanley, but Bill, he’s-” Ford starts, but flinches like he’s been shot when he accidentally uses this other guy’s name. It breaks Stan’s heart to see his brother so fearful for his life, but it also makes his blood boil over with rage thinking about the power this guy’s got over him.

What, is saying his name gonna summon him or something? Did this Bill guy plant bugged cameras all over the house so he could keep a constant eye on Ford so he’ll know if he’s ever thinking of pulling something over his eyes? Is that why Ford’s place is so trashed? Did he tear the place apart looking for secret cameras and hidden microphones? What gives?

Ford freezes, as if he’s actually expecting this guy to kick his door in, and when nothing happens he audibly sighs in relief.

Stan crosses his arms. “But what? This Bill guy’s supposed to be different? More powerful? I’m tellin’ ya, he’s no different than any of the other jerks I’ve had to deal with.” He jabs another finger in Ford’s direction. “And even if he was, by some chance? Even if this guy is somehow the most powerful and feared dictator in the whole universe, what’s the first thing I said when I got here?”

Ford goes to respond, but then his cheeks burn red and stops, a clear sign that he’s forgotten.

“I said I’m here for you. I’m here because I want to help you. I could stand here and lecture you about crime lords all day, but nothing’s ever going to change if you don’t let me help you. I don’t care how big and tough this guy thinks he is! You’re my brother, Stanford. Nothing else matters more to me than my family. You even said it yourself earlier!” Stan throws his arms into the air in an exasperated manner. “Two heads are always gonna be better than one. Two pairs of fists are also always gonna be better in a fight. You don’t have to magically stop being afraid of this guy, but I’m telling you that it’s gonna be a lot easier if you have someone fightin’ the good fight with you. I wish I had someone when I was on the run from Rico and his gang.”

Ford frowns. “Stanley…”

“Point is,” Stan waves him off before he can go down a guilt-ridden spiral. “I’m not leaving. Matter of fact, I’m not asking you anymore. I’m telling you. I’m staying. Until we get this whole thing sorted out and send this Bill guy running for the hills, I’m not leaving. Protest all you want, but I’m gonna stay right here by your side until you feel safe again. Hell, I’ll even sleep on the front porch as lookout if you need me to! I’m tellin’ ya, I’m done asking nicely. I won’t let you kick me out this time, Ford. I’m here for ya through thick and thin.”

For a few painstakingly long moments, Ford doesn’t respond. But he does look like he’s deep in thought, which is a hell of a lot better than all of the flinching and nervous pacing he’s been doing since Stan arrived. If nothing else, that in itself is a huge improvement. But before Stan can start again, Ford pulls a polaroid out of his trench coat pocket, and despite a gentle tear at the corner seemingly from age, it’s looking like the most well-kept object in the entire house. Stan doesn’t bother sneaking a peek out of fear of breaking what little trust he seems to successfully be rebuilding with Ford, but whatever it is seems to bring him a lot of comfort; he only looks at it for a moment, but those few moments are enough to sneak a soft, nostalgic sort of smile onto his face.

“You’re right,” Ford finally says, the calmest he’s sounded all day. “I don’t think there’s any way I could tackle this on my own. But with some help?” He smiles sheepishly. “I think there’s something we could do.”

“There he is!” Stan exclaims, grabbing his brother in a chokehold and giving his hair a rough noogie. “I knew my brother was still in there somewhere!” he grins, and tussles him up one more time before letting go. “And hey, maybe after all this is over you can give Ma a call, eh? She’s worried sick about you, I just know it.”

“Hah!” Ford laughs, tiny sparks of confidence returning to his tone and posture. “Now that’s someone I’m really afraid of upsetting.”

Stan grins, and gives Ford a gentle slug on the shoulder. As hard as Ford’s trying not to show it, Stan can tell he’s starting to enjoy the company. As much as Stan really doesn’t want to admit it, he was desperate for this kind of company again. He watches for a moment as Ford starts to go around cleaning some things off the floor, and Stan can’t help but crack a smile as he goes to join him.

If there’s one thing Stan does want to admit, it’s that he never wants to lose this sort of companionship ever again. Situation be damned, he has his brother back, and that’s more than any material goods he could ever ask for.

Given the situation?

Well, he said he’d stay until Ford wasn’t afraid of this Bill character anymore. But if things were completely up to Stan?

Stan won’t stop until the guy’s dead for daring to mess with his family.

#gravity falls #my writing #tbob #book of bill #stan pines #ford pines #bill cipher

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runawaychar · 3 months

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Myst Master Post

Okay, so here's a massive infodump for Myst, made to introduce my friends a series that I've been obsessed with since I was a child. In light of the upcoming remake of Riven, I decided to share it with y'all. I'm gonna be laying down some spoilers to the Myst book series and the first three games - you've been warned:

Part 1: The fall of D'ni

The D'ni were an ancient civilization from another world that lasted for tens of thousands of years. They advanced technologically and scientifically further than we can possibly imagine, but along a different axis than we would recognize as progress. A good example of this is their apparent obsession with geology - the D'ni were obsessed with stability and longevity, and found metal a poor building material, since they built things for the long haul and steel doesn't last as long as stone. Their capital city also existed within a massive underground cavern, and as a result they made it their business to understand Rock.

In conjunction with Rock, the D'ni civilization was built upon the Art of Writing - they had the ability to create books that, when a certain page is touched, would transport the reader to the world described therein (but leaving the book behind - this becomes important later). A poorly written book would be unstable - the world within falling apart if instabilities weren't corrected in time. Linking books could also be written - smaller books that reference another preexisting book - essential to keep on your person if you ever planned on returning home from whatever world you warped into.

Now, the origin of the D'ni is lost knowledge, but it is known that they aren't native to any of the worlds they inhabited. Long ago there was a schism that resulted in the D'ni fleeing their homeworld into a book Written by their founding figure. Without a linking book back, they essentially cut themselves off completely from the worlds they originally came from. The book they fled into linked to the massive cavern I mentioned earlier. The book itself is described as one of the most detailed ever written, designed to last without instability.

It isn't revealed until the third book why, but the D'ni took with them a taboo that, if broken, would result in the writer being sent into a prison world - essentially an island or wilderness without a linking book back home. The taboo was this: never ever ever write a book with people in it.

So you can imagine their surprise when an archeologist on a dig in New Mexico stumbles into their cavern.

Slightly upset at the revelation that their super special custom-made paradise has natives crawling on the surface, they imprison the archeologist, named Anna, and proceed to have many big boy discussions about whether or not this surface creature is intelligent or just a philosophical zombie. She manages to eventually win her freedom by learning their language and speaking to them in it, but they forbid her from ever returning to the surface, lest more filthy non-Writers dirty up their cavern.

She gets taken in by a respected D'ni called Aitrus, who has a thing for surface girls. He happens to be friends with a Writer's Guild member called Veovis, who decidedly does not. Their friendship becomes strained and eventually breaks after Veovis learns they fuckin', but worse, Aitrus is teaching her the Art.

Meanwhile, we meet an incel called A'gaeris who has a chip on his shoulder about being kicked out of the writer's guild and likes to write reactionary pamphlets in his spare time about the dangers of "interbreeding" with natives, i.e. Anna. In the fashion of youtube skeptics, he calls himself the Philosopher, and fosters a cult following of D'ni fuckboys. He befriends Veovis and secretly frames him for a murder, guaranteeing his exile and radicalization as part of A'gaeris's master plan. He resents the D'ni for not giving him his dream job, and sees the acceptance of Anna as proof of their degeneracy.

Using this as an excuse to break taboo, A'gaeris writes a book in secret with a native population that he enslaves, and uses this base of operations to free Veovis from exile and recruit him into his shitty shitty schemes.

Having been convinced that the D'ni aren't worth saving, Veovis helps A'gaeris spread a deadly plague through the D'ni cavern, killing every member of a ten thousand year old civilization overnight. They load up bodies onto carts and link them into every book they can find, spreading the disease to every world the D'ni ever linked to... All because his best friend married outside his race.

Agaeris then turns to Veovis, and says "haha lets create a world where we can rule over everyone as gods" and Veovis finally gets it through his thick skull that maybe his new friend isn't as rational as he advertises in his debate streams. This revelation doesn't mean much in the face of freshly commited genocide, and doesn't last for very long before he gets shanked by A'gaeris.

Anna, Aitrus, and their shitty kid "internalized Racism" Gehn, manage to escape the plague by sheer accident, having made a pilgrimmage to the surface. Aitrus finally kills Agaeris by luring him into a linking book to a volcanic inferno, sacrificing himself in the process. Anna leaves the cavern with her terrible child and raises him on her own, a task made difficult by the fact that Gehn blames her for the fall of the D'ni and hates that he's part human.

So that's the first part of our story - a civilization isolated from an outside world and cultures that they considered to be less real than themselves, destroyed utterly because they couldn't handle contact with evidence to the contrary. Their refusal to link to worlds with other people, while understandable considering what people like Agaeris would do with the power, led to a brittle, deeply racist society easily toppled by a reactionary demagogue.

In the second part, we'll see what happens when an asshole romanticizes that society and attempts to rebuild it in his own image.

Part 2: Gehn is the Worst

A thing to keep in mind before I continue is that genocidal fuckery skips generations in the myst series, opposed by those unfortunate enough to be in the odd-numbered ones.

Let me compose my thoughts here and tell y'all about Gehn, proof that good parenting does not run in the Atrus family tree. Gehn was a mixed race child to a human and a D'ni, and that came with complications, physically and socially. He suffered a lot of illness and was sickly as a kid, and no one really thought that he'd survive to adulthood - worse, his teachers and peers hoped that he wouldn't. Incredibly bright and taught by brillaint parents, he made it into the Book-Maker's guild, second only in social standing to the Writer's Guild. While there he was harrassed and bullied mercilessly by his racist classmates, and internalized that hatred, resenting his mother and idolizing his father and the D'ni culture even as it collapsed around him. When the D'ni fell, he blamed the events on his mother's arrival to the D'ni caverns, and decided to rebuild the lost civilization entirely by himself. He abandoned her to solitude while he crawled through the D'ni ruins, trying to understand a people that he only really knew in childhood.

He also had a kid with a native tribe on the surface, who he suspected had contact with the D'ni millenia in the past and were therefore worthy of his notice. The mother suffered complications during childbirth, so he brought her to Anna for help, the first time she had seen him in years. The mother died, something which Gehn also blamed Anna for, and without even looking at his child he set out back into the ruins.

Gehn, filled with ideas about D'ni supremacy, finished the work that A'gaeris set out to achieve - he pieced together the Art from books he found, and Wrote (i.e. slapped together) several unstable worlds that he dominated as a God and destroyed.

Now, imagine that you are someone who desperately wants to write a book, but can't read. Imagine you are clever enough to piece together linguistics ex nihilo but too full of yourself to actually learn how to write your own original sentences. Imagine you have a lifetime of anger and access to the complete works of the Library of Congress. You may begin to understand the "incredible chaos that my father's economy of words has yielded", as Atrus puts it at the start of Riven.

Motherfucker literally took sentences out of Shakespeare and stiched them onto Steven King paragraphs because they seemed to "work right" in the original books. This led to horribly unstable links, where contradictions, mismatched vocabulary, pacing, and tone led to worlds on the verge of collapse.

Of course, Gehn wasn't to blame. Gehn was never to blame. "It must be the ink I'm using", mr. Fuckboy thought to himself. "My moleskin notebook just isn't authentic enough to convey my brilliance".

So he did as one does and wrote worlds with the materials he needed, and people in them to exploit as a workforce. He showed up, used D'ni technology and manipulation of the link to freak out the natives, and set himself up as both their boss and a deity, who's divine commandment was "clearcut your forests and hunt your wildlife to make me books".

After four failed attempts, Gehn finally created his first working age, which he called the "Fifth" age because creativity is for soyboy losers and has no place in big boy writing. The natives called it Riven.

This world was probably his most stable work ever, which is a very low bar. It was so fucked and so kludged together that it eventually split into five seperate islands. The contradictions were also enough to eventually creat a tear in spacetime, which we'll get to in a bit.

Gehn eventually realized that he needed an assistant to help keep the world stable while he did his godly duties, so like a the deadbeat that he was, he showed up fourteen years late to take custody of his teenage son. At first enamored by his cool dad with goggles and an ancient city, Atrus's opinion of his father started to sour when he realized just how boneheaded the old man was. Without the mythologization of the Art that made the D'ni super special in the mind of Gehn, Atrus figured out something in a couple months that his father couldn't do in a couple decades: these were just words. Like, what if instead of trying to create Othello by slapping together phrases you found in a dictionary and a farmer's almanac, you just wrote something original?

Gehn was not happy with this idea - how dare this fucking child sully the Art by trying new things?! Everything good has already been written by the master race, dumb dumb, what makes you think a half breed could do better?

Gehn burned Atrus's first book.

It was around then that Atrus decided his father was a dangerous moron. When Gehn finally took him to Riven and Atrus saw what was going on there, he knew he had to do something. Meanwhile, he met a cool girl named Katran, who found his stuttering and mispronunciation of her name cute in a lame puppy kinda way.

Gehn had, in the years before he suddenly remembered he had a son, tried to recruit assistants out of the Rivenese population - Katran was his best student, and so he decided was gonna marry her. Real Frollo shit. When Katran shows Atrus the book she had written by herself in secret, Atrus scoffed. It was full of contradictions, broke every rule of Writing. The grammer didn't work, the words were out of order. It was poetry. The world she had made surpassed anything the D'ni or Gehn had thought possible. She had linked to a torus world, kept together with spin gravity - A pillar of water in the center shot out of the world on the dark side of the rim, spilling out into the stars. This blew Atrus's mind, who had adopted his father's unconscious bias that only the D'ni could Write. And here was some "primitive" native in a dying world, who had managed to create something impossible. She had groked the concept of symbiosis and dialectics in Writing, and demonstrated that contradictions work if done in a way that complement the whole. She then shows Atrus another book - this one leading to a library on a forested island - Myst.

They make plans to imprison Gehn and keep him from destroying more worlds. Atrus links into Riven and destroys all the linking books he can find leading out of it -unfortunately, his father captures him in the act, and imprisons him. Katran is not happy about this. And from their base in Myst she happens to have in her possesion the book that Gehn wrote - his fifth age. She does some editing.

Part 3: Katran is so cool in the books holy shit

Now, y'all might be going, "but Char, if Writers don't create the worlds they link into, how can they make changes and write a world into tearing itself apart?" The answer given from on high, unfortunately for us, is quantum mechanics.

You see, when you write a book, you essentially are referring to a place in the multiverse that matches your description. In the Myst universe, everything that hasn't been observed/described yet is in a combination of all possible states. So you can't really write in a forest fire if the forest's climate is already described and precludes the possibility without risking linking to an entirely different age, but you can describe the unseen/undescribed tectonics to cause a lava flow. This also means that unstable worlds like Riven become even harder to patch the more you try, because you can't really take anything written back or remove observed inconsistencies without linking to an entirely different place filled with strangers.

This does mean though, that the Writers of these books have a horrific amount of power over the future of the worlds they link to, and shitty writers will doom all that live there.

So, with that in mind, Katran, seeing her boyfriend trapped by his abusive dad, decides that, actually, metors in the shape of GIANT KNIVES exist, and have always existed, moving inexorably through the unobserved void of space over countless eons in a direct collision course with her homeworld. There were probably less metal options, but Katran was not interested in those.

The collision and resulting earthquake opens Atrus's prison cell and the patch job that Gehn had done to contain the rip in spacetime his shitty writing had caused, and he soon learns a timeless lesson: never, ever, *ever* piss off your editor. The final showdown has Katran linking in to save her nerdy damsel boyfriend in distress, while his father rants about being God and air gets sucked, howling, into the void between worlds. They put up their finger at him and walk backwards into the void, linking out while he sputters at them and all of Katran's childhood bullies stare at the power couple in religious awe.

I may be editorializing a bit here.

The Myst linking book, the last way out of Riven, tumbles through the vastness of not-space, far away from the pretentious self-hating clutches of the world's worst writer with a god-complex... and ends up almost clocking a random hiker in New Mexico as it tumbles back to the most improbable place imaginable, the place where it all started.

This is where a 90's point and click computer game about pipe management begins.

Once on Myst, Atrus discovers that Anna, 100% done with her son's bullshit, had actually done the responsible thing and followed him into the caverns when he was collected by his deadbeat dad. She had written Myst and given it to her grandson's more competent significant other and helped orchestrate the rescue attempt in secret. Katran and Atrus then lived happily ever after had some more shitty kids.

Part 4: Pipe Management and Terrible Children

Turns out, Atrus was too busy writing journals, trying to figure out a future for what was left of the D'ni after generations of fuckery, and stopping Riven from completely collapsing to really do the whole genocide talk with his sons. And I assume Katran was too busy doing hot girl shit. So they kinda left their sons to run amok with the native populations of peaceful tree dwellers and waterworld survivors.

The sons weren't motivated, as Gehn was, by some imagined past empire, or as A'gaeris was, by some deep seated hatred of the culture that denied him a spot at the top. They just really liked it when people licked their boots, both in and out of the bedroom. Maybe they were a shitty influence on each other, in the way that fuckboys are. Or maybe the Atrus family just has the star wars gene. In any case, the brothers suck each world that their father let them loose on dry to satisfy their endless greed and bloodlust.

Achenar, the violent one, has torture devices in the rooms you stumble on on the game, holograms designed to scare the natives (something he picked up on from gramps, maybe), poisons, and a torture chamber filled with human remains.

Sirius, the greedy one, has chambers filled with jewels, fine wines and silks, hidden daggers, plundered wealth and thrones.

Atrus's solution when he learns about this was "Oh no, we better send them to a nice friendly age with nice innocent people who will show them how to be kind and stuff" and there goes Channelwood.

They were not taught how to Write, ironically because Atrus was worried about their maturity and didn't want another Gehn in the family. He also forbade them use two books. You see, Atrus was feeling guilty about trapping his father on Riven - not because he was torn up about his dear old dad, but because he had basically trapped him in with a bunch of innocent villagers who he was taking his anger out on. So he had been working with Katran on a plan to trap pops in a prison age, similar to how Veovis was trapped.

This plan involved two prototype books called Trap Books - books that *look* like they're gonna link to somewhere fun, but instead trap the linker in the void between worlds. He had realized that having a library of books sitting around for anyone who may stumble on a myst linking book to fuck with was not a a good idea, so he put the trap books on the shelves with the rest for extra security. There they would sit undisturbed until he was ready to face Gehn again. Or so he thought.

Sirius and Achenar, not content with simply fucking up Channelwood, embarked on an omnicidal mission - they exploited, terrorized, exterminated, and burnt every book in Atrus's collection they could get their grubby paws on. When Atrus realized what was going on, he tried to return home, but was tricked into linking to D'ni with his Myst book tampered with. Katran was similarly tricked into linking to Riven. These fuckos, thinking themselves kings of the multiverse, started to wonder about the two forbidden books - was dear ol' dad hiding the best jewels and slaves from them? Was this his secret stash?

...And this is how we find the Atrus family when the MC links to the island.

These idiots plead their case to the Stranger, each blaming the ruination of Atrus's collection on the other, and ask you to free them by collecting all the link pages that Atrus had torn out of the trap books and scattered across his surviving worlds. After some excellent pipe management, you collect enough pages for both for them to let slip that "hey, don't check out that green book in the hidden room, just get me the last page buddy". Of course inside the green book is a very irate Atrus, pissed off that this has happened a second time in his family's history. You free Atrus, he throws his sons into a fire, and they live happily ever afterfuck we forgot about Katran.

Part 5: The part where I spoil all of Riven (please go play this its so good)

So Atrus gives the stranded hiker (you) a deal - help him free his captive wife, get rid of a tyrannical godking, and evacuate the Riven people utilizing your incredible birdwatching skills and pipe management experience. In exchange, you are given a way home to your retail job. You pick him up on the offer, because confrontation makes you socially anxious.

You are captured almost immediately, and the prison book you brought with you confiscated by the cops. Fortunately, you happen to be on the same world that Katran was tricked to, and she has been *busy*. An antifa supersoldier knocks out the guard, takes the book to someone competent, and lets you out of jail.

Turns out Katran did the sensible thing and has been fomenting rebellion against god from the second she realized her sons were the worst. Meanwhile, you bumble around the islands for a bit, fixing their pipes and learning how to count while guerilla forces fight for their freedom.

You eventually learn that Gehn has been successfully (by some definition), writing books. Fuck. Not willing to let the Wheel of Time author loose on an unsuspecting multiverse again, you manage to apply your birdwatching skills and locate the rebel base. All according to plan. After beating you up a bit, they let you know that Katran has been locked up, presumably after trying to take down Gehn with fisticuffs, idk. Turns out that Katran and Atrus's exit was kinda a big deal, and led to a weird offshoot religion where they worship Katran and... Atrus for some reason. They formed a secret society known as the Moeity, who use the space knives as sacred symbols. Katran uses her exile in Riven to build a world with a secret treehouse for them to hang out in.

This treehouse.

You go to Gehn's HQ, trick him into linking into your prison book ("oooh nooo haha don't steal my only way home >_>") and set Katran free. You signal Atrus that the mission is a success by opening the star fissure and starting the collapse of the world while Katran evacuates her people. He shows up, thanks you, and you jump into the star fissure, returning to the 9 to 5 grind. It is lucky that the star fissure ends up opening in Anna's backyard a couple miles away from the D'ni cavern, because Atrus and his family getting into situations that can only be solved with pipe management skills.

Part 6: The final book

The last part of the story I want to talk about is from the Book of D'ni, arguably the weakest of the Myst Reader trilogy, set shortly after the events of Riven, I think. It's about Atrus finding D'ni survivors in linking books, and trying to figure out how they're going to rebuild, but Do It Right This Time(tm).

Eventually they unearth a massive ancient linking book underneath the zero point - the original linking location of Earth's descriptive book, and central location in the D'ni cavern. Turns out one of the original D'ni who fled to Earth decided to bring a linking book back home. This book leads to an age called Tehranee (no, seriously), where they encounter a thriving Ronay (the D'ni race) civilization on a lush paradise world. These people, who all live in massive opulent ziggurat palaces the size of cities, welcome the descendents of their wayward cousins who decided to fuck off ten millenia prior, and offer the D'ni survivors refuge in their utopia. Inside the palaces they live in the lap of luxury, playing games with mechanical contraptions and mazes, eating amazing food, having stimulating intellectual conversations and parties.

The other shoe drops when Atrus n' pals realize that the walls are unusually thick, and discover the slave races imported from a hundred thousand different worlds that toil and perish out of sight of the ronay so they can play their stupid games. There is a part where they realize that an indoor waterfall is literally powered by a crank - some poor person is forced to toil at the pump so they can have a water feature. So! Turns out there was a reason why the D'ni have a taboo about writing worlds with people in them - Because this shit right here is what they wanted to escape.

In a fitting end to the tehranee, the survivors happen to have brought A'gaeris's plague with them, having developed an immunity to it. The slaveowners all perish to smallpox, and the slaves lead a revolution.

The big takeaway Atrus has after his summer vacation is that maaaaaybe rebuilding the ronay civilization is not such a good idea. So he decides to close the sordid chapters of Tehranee, A'gaeris, Gehn, and his sons, and build a new age for all D'ni and the inhabitants of the worlds they touched, to live in harmony together.

Conclusions

Every story after this is kinda added on, I feel that this covers the main storyline. Atrus and Katran eventually have another kid, this one they parent way too well to overcompensate and ends up becoming the D'ni'satz Haderach.

Thanks y'all so much for listening to me ramble about a series really close to my heart - sorry for the tense issues, this was really stream of consciousness.

Oh! One last piece of worldbuilding I find Neat is the D'ni guild of Maintainers - they had the unfortunate job of being OSHA for books. When they found a unusual book or discovered one that had little to no info on the other side, they would link into it to make sure it wasn't leading to the center of a gas giant or covered in poisonous spiders. They did this while wearing something called an EV suit - a big bulky hazmat suit made of special Rock designed to be nigh unbreakable. The gauntlet had a linking book back home built into it, with a temporary membrane acting as a timer in case the inspector gets knocked out. There has only been one recorded instance of the EV suit being damaged by unfavorable conditions - The inspector had the misfortune of linking into a book just as its star went supernova (the helmet got a tiny crack in it).

Book of Ti'anna showed us the consequences of a racist, isolationist culture so fragile that, for all talk about stability and millenia of continued status quo, it collapses after it encounters a single person from the outside world.

Book of Atrus shows us what happens when an egomaniac fetishizes a glorified view of a mythic past and builds a fascist police state. It also shows just how incompetent and hateful such a worldview makes a person.

Myst shows us that even barring contact with some original historical sin, the atrocities from the past will come back to haunt us if we aren't vigilant against the impulses of greed and hatred.

Riven shows us that revolution is the only answer against fascism.

Finally, the Book of D'ni reveals what happens when fascism wins. It shows that the past was Terrible, Actually, and we should focus on building a future, rather than attempting to go back to some imagined golden age.

I think Myst:Exile shows how the past cannot simply be buried, however. Some victim from the past comes back for vengeance against Sirius and Achenar and steals Atrus's book, i.e. the future of the D'ni. Myst:Revelations is about forgiveness and redemption, and book five is about book jesus? idk. Uru is about saving a dying videogame studio before it gets bought out. Not sure if it's about anything else, I've been stuck on a puzzle since 2019.

Till next time.

#myst #riven #infodump #my writing

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soapiemomorphine · 2 years

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GUYS GUYS GUYS GUYS

bilingual tmnt 2012 and rotmnt head cannons!!

Ok so I’m Mexican American (ew america) and my mom was born and raised in Mexico

Yet I’m not bilingual

I’m taking Spanish class in my high school

This is what I think the rottmnt kids are going thru

My mother had to assimilate to get a job here. And I think that’s what rottmnt Yoshi had to do too.

But my mother refused to make my first language spanish, she wanted my life here to be easier.

I think Yoshi didn't want to be reminded of what he left behind.

He used his ninjitsu skills to become a movie star and actively runs away from his heritage from the show.

Not that he doesn't want to be Japanese, or that he wants to forget that part of himself, but he wanted to branch out and be Lou Jitsu, and japanese tradition and culture are not as important to him and his identity as 2012 Splinter.

He ran away from tradition.

I firmly hc that the rottmnt turtle know japanese in the way I know spanish; nothing beside the scoldings and the frustrated mumbling of their father.

"Kuso!" Their dad will yell as he stubs his foot.

"Konoyarou," He mumbles as he talks about a person who screamed at the sight of him.

"No Blue! Aho! Don't eat random stuff off the floor!"

I hc that rottmnt Splinter has a potty mouth, and because of the all his kids know is how to curse and scold someone in japanese, which you know, they use to insult each other.

The rottmnt kids have to go out of their way to learn japanese, it's an underlying language in their home and a part of their heritage, but they live like third generation immigrants.

As opposed to the 2012 turtles, whose first language was most definitely japanese.

2012 Splinter grew up, fell in love, and lived in Japan for the majority of his life. He loved his heritage and tradition, the only reason he moved to New York was because he was literally running for his life. It was chance that he ended up in America.

In Japanese schools, much like many other schools in different countries, have a class that teaches english bc ya know, it's the national language bc british and american ppl be pissbabies. So Splinter learned english, and like the good student he was, was good at it.

That why for he lived there he could live comfortably and could talk to others (like the pet shop owner), bc he already knew english.

Then he got mutated and four sons lmao.

So he raised them the way he was raised; traditionally japanese. The language, the tradition, the customs, everything.

So all the tmnt teetles are fluent in japanese, and a part of the reason they were not allowed topside before they were 15 is because they weren't done learning english yet.

They often forget words in english, and in the heat of the moment, it's the first language that comes up.

Raph and Mikey's english slang comes from the comics they've read and the movies they watched.

Leo's english mimics basic english textbooks and Captain Ryan's

Donnie sounds like an encyclopedia bc that's where he gets most of his vocabulary from.

TLDR: The rottmnt turtles only know insults and curse words in japanese while the 2012 turtles are bilingual; fluent in both Japanese and English because of the way their respective Splinters raised them.

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headgehug · 10 months

Text

beat generation dash simulator

📝 windblownworld

I need to run away and live on a mountain fr

#jack.txt #my buddy gary @ dharmabum has a good gig lined up for me next summer. #feels like forever away #fuck my life

( 1 note )

❕️This post has been flagged for the following community warnings: mature

📚 starvinghystericalnaked

okay, you know what, fuck you. fuck. you. there's nothing "obscene" about my poem. in fact the bible is more "obscene" than this. maybe if you had the guts to read it you'd understand that YOU are the problem. WE are the movement WE are the people WE are the answer.

🔁 🐒 oldbulllee14

Allen, I completely agree with you. Customs officials are a load of cock-sucking bastards. Next time you are in town, come over. I just got back from Mexico if you know what I mean.

🔁 📚 starvinghystericalnaked

say less 👀🍃

#like for real say less LMFAO if the feds are on tumblr we are so fucked

( 30 notes )

🚗 coloradocarjacker-deactivated04011948

"Well it's about time you wrote, I was fearing you farted out on top that mean mountain or slid under while pissing in Pismo, beach of flowers, food and foolishness, but I knew rhe fear was ill-founded for balancing it in my thoughts of you, much stronger and valid if you weren't dead, was a realization of the experiences you would be having sown there, rail, home, and the most important, climate, by a remembrance of...

🔁📝 windblown world

needed this right now. missing you, brother.

#does anyone know if neal remade or is he just gone? #did he say anything to anyone? he told me he was just remaking

( 2,396 notes )

🎶 bopaholicedie Follow

happy 1 year anniversary of the official annulment of my marriage

#if you're reading this jack go to hell. I wish you'd rotted to death in jail with that m*rderer #after all these years and not even a fucking thank you

( 2 notes )

📝 windblownworld

logging off indefinitely. my editor needs a draft of my book by the new year and I already blew my advance so there's no way I can ask for an extension. if you see me online tell me to fuck off

#mutuals can still send letters

Pinned post

( 0 notes )

❤️‍🔥 lucienspress

feeling blessed for all of my good friends today. real ones know — rip d.k. '44 — keep the hustlers and parasites at arms length, we'll get through this!

#this one goes out to you jack! 🙌 hit me up sometime

( 74 notes )

🛤 railmanmoriarty Follow

what's up motherfuckers! remade from @coloradocarjacker

🔁 📝 windblownworld

neal? holy shit. is that you? are you busy tonight?

🔁 🛤 railmanmoriarty Follow

kerouac my boy my lad my good man for you I am never busy I have to just drop carolyn off at the motel and procure a fine feast dinner for her and the kids and then maybe an hour two just setting around making sure she's and they're alright and then if you pick me up at 10 no I better say 10:45 not a minute later than ten forty five pm jack I will be fired up and ready to go out with you

( 4 notes )

📝 windblownworld

SAL AND DEAN ON THE PROWL TONIGHT JUST LIKE THE OLD DAYS!!! if you want to party with the OGs first rounds on me.

#NYC beat scene #jack.txt

( 12 notes )

❤️‍🔥 lucienspress

"Make 'em laugh, make 'em cry, make 'em horny."

#quotes #beatnik #beat literature #deep #counterculture #new york city #on the road core #kerouaquette #writer #writing advice

( 500 notes )

#jack kerouac #beat generation #beat literature #dashboard simulator #don't let this flop i spent way too long on it >_<

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evita-shelby · 2 months

Text

Not so different

For @peakyswritings and their fic's first anniversary!

Luca x Eva ft Nina Ferrante x Tommy

It was considered improper in Luca’s family to wear black to a wedding, but Eva’s husband had not said a thing about it, so she continued her custom.

Besides, the dress was a work of art and Eva had cultivated that image of otherworldly being thanks to the high pedestal Spinietta had placed her on.

A living saint who will be interred in the Vatican with her godfather and the lucky man she chose as her husband.

The Ferrantes were allies, possibly distant kin on his mother’s side and when Riccardo was told what Stefano had been up to, the Boss had to send his witch and his most promising Capo.

“Leave it to Shelby to make trouble.” Luca shook his head with a laugh after she regaled him the full story the jilted ---but relieved--- bride and her sisters had told her as they welcomed them to their home. “He always had a thing for Sicilian girls, when I lived in England everyone knew he’d marry Greta Jurossi, God rest her soul, no matter how much her father tried to drive him away.”

Luca knew the groom, a Romani gangster from his father’s city whom Luca and his brother had grown up with. It was Tommy Shelby’s own aunt who had been Luca’s sweetheart when he was a young man, something that Eva did not mind.

Not because the witch has overcome her jealousy ---the day Eva no longer wants to wring a woman’s neck for getting near her man will be when she is dead and gone--- but because Luca knows better than to trifle with her. Much like Birmingham and New York, there were quite a number of women here he’d slept with, but Eva’s baby fever ensured her husband barely even registered his exes were there.

“How did you manage to sleep with so many women in this village, if you have only been here twice?” the witch asked knowing he’d have nowhere to run sitting here in the pews as they waited for the mystery bride.

“Good girls like bad men, pussycat.” He smirked with his olive-green eyes sparkling with pride. “Why do you think Tommy is marrying his host’s daughter and not the one selected for him?”

They don’t continue speaking about Luca’s irresistible charms when the bridal procession begins. Even with the veil covering her face, Eva knows the girl is a beauty, one with a soul to match it and more than met the eye.

There was also that Nina had a spark of rebellion, something that set her apart from her cousins even if they shared looks and traits. Men like Luca and Tommy seek someone who challenges them, who intrigues them and cannot simply conform to the standard their societies have for women.

Italy is not so different than Mexico.

Though Eva had a vastly different upbringing, she was still expected to marry and have children and have no other dreams than keeping tradition. Eva was lucky that her family flouted convention and ensured she had the same education as a man and that she had as much freedom as a son would.

Nina Ferrante had her parents who loved and protected her even when she went against the grain, Shelby will be the man to let her have the independence a spirited woman like her desires.

As long as the Changrettas and the Shelbys remain tenuous allies, Eva would wish them all the happiness in the world and the fortitude to survive its troubles.

It is not until much later when they are properly introduced.

Luca takes the lead knowing he is being sized up by Shelby, and yet as they stand there viewing each other as potential threats, Luca’s congratulations hold a note of sincerity. They weren’t always enemies, once upon a time the Changrettas and the Shelbys were friends and neighbors before they were rival gangs.

“My family sends their congratulations as well. My stepmother was very happy to know you were able to find happiness after Greta’s passing, especially with someone more deserving than the barmaid and the whore your brother tried to marry.” Luca has two intentions with his words, the first was to hurt Shelby for sport and the second to give the bride a heads up should Shelby take up old habits.

A different person could tolerate infidelity, but in families like theirs an infidelity could cost the offender their life. Even if the bride forgave him, the Family would not.

“I have seen the two of you will be happy together, the two of you were meant to find each other. I hope you can visit us in New York soon, though not as lovely as Sicily, it has its charms.” Eva smoothed things over with the newlyweds or did what she could to assuage Nina’s fears.

The bride thanks her, though still unsettled by Luca’s words and Tommy Shelby’s change in demeanor.

They do not meet again until John Shelby leaves Angel beaten and bleeding on the shop floor. And all because Shelby’s secretary had become involved with Luca’s younger brother.

Shelby did not rein in his brothers when asked and now this was escalating to something no one wanted. You would think this business with the Russians would give Tommy Shelby a chance to keep his family on a leash until it was over.

“He wants your father-in-law’s territories; Lizzie is just an excuse. I fear he doesn’t understand the scale this war could be.” Nina, now older with children, an Oxford education and accustomed to her role as Mrs. Shelby, does not beat around the bush as they meet for tea in Birmingham’s city center.

“Your husband is as resilient as a cockroach, dear, he has cheated death so many times he and his brothers think they will do so again. If this war happens, I will be forced to take part for my husband and children’s sake and I promise you, it will wipe the Shelby name off the face of the earth.” The witch would give up her soul for Luca’s victory, if this war came to pass, there is nothing she would not do to ensure their enemies are all dead.

Luca has no qualms killing children, and whatever feelings he had for Polly Gray won’t save her either. If Angel or his father were hurt or killed in Shelby’s pursuit of power, no one, not even the family cat would be spared.

“What can we do to stop it?” the Italian woman asks swallowing her fears and seeking a better course forward. She has not lost her spark of defiance, or else she wouldn’t be here behind Tommy’s back.

“The same thing our families have always done to secure peace and prosperity, we bind our families through blood.” The witch sips her tea as if nothing out of the ordinary were happening there. Eva’s grown too used to negotiating truces with her status as the deity advising the Spinettas. “Though it will be a while until our children are old enough to marry each other, you have a young brother-in-law and I have an English cousin worth her weight in gold. Lizzie’s marriage to Angel will be part of bargain, or Shelby will have no allies when the Russians fuck him over.”

“They used to call me a witch back home, you know.” Nina takes it all in stride. “They ate their words when they met you and saw all that Stefano and his family had said was all true. The Spinettas are right to fear you, you and Luca could easily take the crown from them.”

The witch smiled, “Oh these mortals have a way of branding what they don’t like as witchcraft and when the real thing arrived at their doorstep, they found themselves too scared to speak.”

She’s the strega who will curse them to the deepest pits of hell or the benevolent santa who will make all their wishes come true. She is not Eva to anyone save her family these days.

“But, yes, we do plan on taking their crown. Your husband can have England if he helps us take America.”

#luca x eva #luca changretta #incantatrice fic #nina ferrante

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dontmeantobepoliticalbut · 7 months

Text

Under a bill advancing in the Arizona Legislature, a property owner would be able to kill or threaten to kill people who cross their property to illegally enter the U.S.

Although the bill does not mention immigrants, its sponsor, Republican Rep. Justin Heap, said in a committee hearing that his bill was intended to close a loophole to assist ranchers who may witness someone trespassing any section of their land, not just within a mile of their home.

The bill would modify the state's existing Castle Doctrine, which allows home and property owners to threaten to use deadly force to stop someone from criminally trespassing into or on their property. They can use deadly force only to defend themselves or another person. The law considers property to be structures for residency, occupied or not.

The proposal has drawn fierce opposition in the state, where in the past hard-line immigration laws have galvanized opponents, particularly Latinos, to beat back the laws and help erode the Republican grip in the state.

It comes as an Arizona rancher, George Kelly, faces trial next month on second-degree murder charges in the January 2023 shooting death of Gabriel Cuen-Butimea, who had entered the country illegally and was found dead on Kelly's property. Kelly has pleaded not guilty and said he only fired warning shots.

Rep. Analise Ortiz, a Phoenix-area Democrat, called the bill disgusting and inhumane and would allow "open season on migrants".

"It's terrifying. It would give people free rein to execute somebody and it would broaden extrajudicial killings," Ortiz told NBC News. "This is part of a broader anti-immigrant movement that we've seen coming from the right, which aims to dehumanize and vilify people who are coming to this country seeking asylum."

NBC News has reached out to Heap's office.

Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee spokesperson Abhi Rahman said the approval of the Arizona bill would mean the GOP is "one step closer to legalizing murder."

"Make no mistake, this bill encourages Arizonians to shoot first and ask questions later," he said.

Ortiz said she is certain that Gov. Katie Hobbs would veto the bill if it is approved by the Senate.

Hobbs has said she would veto a bill approved by Arizona lawmakers that would allow state police to arrest people who enter the country illegally. The bill is similar to one in Texas that was scheduled to go into effect next month but that was blocked by a federal court on Thursday.

NBC News has reached out to Hobbs.

In January, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott drew backlash when he said Texas wasn’t wasn't shooting people who cross the border illegally because Biden would charge state officials with murder.

The Tucson, Arizona, Customs and Border Patrol sector has seen a 149.6% jump in migrant encounters, which includes people crossing legally and those quickly expelled, this January over January 2023, according to CBP statistics. The crossings have risen in Arizona, while dropping in other sectors.

President Joe Biden was scheduled to visit the U.S.-Mexico border Thursday, making a stop in Brownsville, Texas, where migrant arrivals have eased. Former President Donald Trump also planned to be in Texas on Thursday, but was to be in Eagle Pass, where Texas has taken over a state park and has been staging its own immigration enforcement.

Biden is going on the offensive on immigration as polls show voters saying Trump would better secure the border and as Democratic governors have complained about a lack of resources to house and feed hundreds of thousands of migrants transferred to their cities.

Biden planned to hammer Republicans for killing a bipartisan border bill at Trump's urging.

Ortiz said Hobbs has made clear her frustration with the federal government over its lack of action on immigration and has taken what action her authority allows, such as sending National Guard to help at ports of entry.

The Arizona bill is likely to become a focal point in this year's elections.

Ortiz said Arizona has had to fight other state anti-immigration bills, including SB1070, that gave police authority to question people about their citizenship and immigration status and was partially struck down by the Supreme Court.

Latinos helped flip the longtime red state for Biden in 2020, with 74% of Hispanics who voted choosing Biden.

"The far right woke up a sleeping giant in the Latino communities and we have been awake. We have been organizing. We have been educated on policy and we have run for office and we are the ones sitting in these seats and activating our communities," Ortiz said.

"So if Republicans think they can play the same old tricks they played in 2011, they are sorely mistaken. Our Latino community will come out in force," she said.

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sorrownotsexy · 7 months

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Hi yall !! Thinking about Alejandro in the states. And he meets the love of his life there because she burns his mouth.

He's homesick. He’s usually away from home but at least he’s in Mexico most of the time. But the states suck and they’re nothing like home.

He's hungry too. And he’s sick of MREs fast food and hotel breakfast. But a starving man would dirt so he’s walking to the nearest McDonalds when he sees the truck.

A big ol p30 painted black with rainbow calaveras and a luchador eating a taco. There’s a mom and four kiddos and the truck is bouncing from the people inside?

The door opens up to a girl looking like a 50’s Cola ad in a long black skirt to her calves and hair braided with a bandana catching sweat in the hot truck, bounding out of the truck to get tackled by the youngest two. She hugged the babies who danced with her to the music that got louder when the door opened.

La Chona filled his ears and he smiled. That explained the bouncing of the truck the people had been dancing inside.

The family had been distracted when the girl caught the handsome soldier smiling at her teaching the babies how to step with the music and she burst into embarrassed laughter.

She got back in the truck and mom moved to let the young man place his order. He stepped up to the window and greeted her with a smile and a “hola señora, buenas tardes-” to be interrupted by her stepping back and giving him a hand motion that said wait.

“Daddy, he speaks spanish”

“So do you.” the dad replied not giving her any help

“No-”

“Take his order mija he’s gonna leave”

She knew her dad wasn’t going to help her so she turned to the man and smiled apologetically. “Uh lo siento soy no sabo?” she said, searching for the proper response. She was pretty sure she apologized incorrectly.

“Right?” she asked her dad who shrugged and laughed at her struggling.

“Um qué quieres?”

“I’ll take a number seven” he smiled

The men of the truck roared in laughter “Oh of course” she huffed, frustrated she should have just asked in the first place if he spoke english. She smiled anyway though and asked him about sauces.

“¿Qué es el asesino?” he asked with a snort

She smiled and leaned down as if it was some big secret “The hottest salsa in the west. Me and my Lita make it ourselves. Supposedly it’s the cause of death for John Disp, a grown man.” she giggled as she finished telling how it got the name.

“Oh now I have to try it.” he grinned

“Ya sure? Don’t wanna ruin your day.”

“I can handle it.” she laughed at him.

Her brother packed the man's five tacos, rice, beans and fork with the killer salsa for him. She gave him one last warning and he laughed it off so she traded him the dish in exchange for twelve dollars.

He sat down to eat his food feeling less homesick seeing a big family when he felt eyes on him. All eight members of the family were watching him waiting for the first bite with salsa, the girl standing with an extra large cup of horchata over ice. He laughed to himself and took the bite.

Just to be cocky he piled a lot on his first bite “¡CHINGADA MADRE!” and the whole family cackled. The girl went up to him holding the horchata which he all but snatched to drink down.

Still laughing and wiping tears the girl asked if he’d like some sour cream “Yes! Fuck, now!” he was breathing through his mouth and had tears rise.

One of the babies came up with a small lidded container of sour cream which he snatched to let melt on his tongue. Another one of the babies brought him napkins. He wiped his nose and took another swig of horchata. He was fine after that but the sting was still there.

The mom took the kids back in the car after and the brother and dad went back to the truck. “What in the fuck do you even put in that? Jesus.”

She laughed, wiping more tears “I grow the serranos and cilantro” she said a little proudly.

“Oh so they’re bred to kill?”

“Something like that” she smiled but had to head back to the truck as a new customer appeared.

The colonel finished his meal being mindful of how heavy he placed the salsa on his food. When the other customer was sitting eating their food he placed a put in the tip jar. “Para la horchata.” and left back to his hotel with a full stomach and a smile.

#alejandro vargas #call of duty x reader #cod mw2 #cod modern warfare #colonel vargas #alejandro vargas x reader #alejandro vargas x you

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runwayrunway · 11 months

Note

I was recently surprised to see this livery while boarding, and snapped a pic. Apparently enough people asked the crew questions to the effect of "Why is the plane yellow?" as we were boarding that the captain explained it during his take off announcements. Turns out we were on 'New Mexico One' (N8655D).

Maybe they were worried they accidentally got on a Spirit flight. Happens to the best of us. (Also, knowing pilots I think there's a legitimate chance he was excited about it himself and would have brought it up no matter what.)

This is your girl! This is actually New Mexico 1.2.0 - the New Mexico One livery is the fifth Southwest state livery, and one of the first special liveries they had full stop.

Southwest Airlines has had a lot of special liveries. The documentation is incomplete, but they have a timeline for them up to 2013 publicly available. It turns out there were at least three Shamu jets (unfortunately I cannot find the purported pictures of Herb Kelleher in a penguin suit), and that my guess was right - their first state-themed livery was a Texas one to commemorate their origin as an intrastate carrier.

Since then, they've released quite a few more in honor of some of their more-served or milestone states. The states with special liveries are Arizona; California; Colorado; Florida; Hawai'i; Illinois; Louisiana; Maryland; Missouri; Nevada; New Mexico; Tennessee; and of course Texas. These really vary in level of detail and inspiration, and I definitely have no desire or plans to do a massive joint post on them all. That is thirteen liveries. But there's one or two that have been hanging out on the distant fringes of my interest and one (Colorado One) has already been requested, so if anyone particularly wants to see any of them covered just know I am treating them as full, separate, self-contained liveries even though they're technically sort of a set. It just doesn't make any sense to do it any other way.

(I never want to see a Massachusetts One. The concept is actively repellant to me.)

Most of Southwest's special liveries have 'one' at the end, like Air Force One, you know, it's the famous plane, Air Force One, they made a film about it with Harrison Ford in. I do think hypothetically the implication of 'New Mexico One' would be a plane transporting the governor of New Mexico, but, well, that's their name scheme.

image: Southwest Airlines

This is the original New Mexico One, N781WN. Thanks to the information Southwest provides on its website for once I know the exact date a livery was debuted - 18th September, 2000. I'm not sure how to feel about the fact that this picture is younger than me, because it looks incredibly crunchy and vintage, like it couldn't have been taken later than 1985. I have a Polaroid SX-70 that was kept in working condition by a relative and it takes cleaner-looking pictures. It must have been taken very early on in the livery's lifetime because when Canyon Blue was introduced the tailfin was updated to match. As with all Southwest's special liveries - the tailfins remain untouched from the default.

image: Eddie Maloney

The initial iteration with the mustard-yellow and red tail looks very nice, seamless with the main body. Although the placement of the name on the fin is quite subdued and against the ethos of the low-cost carrier it is in the case of special liveries useful, making the interaction of the wordmark with the main design a non-issue. Part of me really wishes that they'd kept the old colors for longer or maybe even done custom schemes for the stripes on each of their special liveries, because the blue looks pretty out-of-place on the New Mexico livery. I'll be completely honest, I also think the older, more angular shape of the stripes suits the similarly geometric bulk of the design while the modern incarnation - the haphazardly placed little wordmark with no natural home on the tail, the fin which looks like it was removed from a wholly different plane - is just sort of generally worse than the original state. The use of a minimally-altered tailfin with a crammed-on wordmark does seem to be something about which Southwest is unwilling to negotiate, though, and I guess that's what I'm going to have to live with.

(...generally, I do have to live with all the liveries I discuss here, until the magical day that someone at a massive company decides that the opinions of a blog with under 1,000 followers are something they want to capitulate to.)

The basis of the livery is extremely straightforward. It's...the flag of New Mexico. This is a fantastic starting point. The New Mexico flag is my favorite of the US states' - though, to be fair, that's damning by faint praise in the extreme. Just based on the sorts of people I've met I feel like at least a few followers of this blog will have particularly vivid opinions about vexillology, but it doesn't take someone with the level of investment I have in liveries to know that most US state flags are just absurdly poorly designed. New Mexico's flag is not just acceptable but good.

Yellow and red aren't uncommon colors in flags, but the complete absence of very popular choices like blue and white definitely is striking. Unlike many US state flags, which are morasses of complex and jumbled iconography, it contains only one image - the sun symbol of the indigenous Zia (Tsi’ya) Pueblo group. Unfortunately, not only was the design not suggested by Zia individuals but it was used without the group's knowledge or consent, and there has been an ongoing discussion about this being properly acknowledged by the state - a good summary, albeit from 2012, is this El Palacio article written by the Zia Pueblo administrator.

I was pleasantly surprised to learn that Southwest actually did consult the Zia, including administrator and author of the above article Peter Pino. A contemporary news release from Southwest even discusses Zia children performing a Crow Dance as part of the ceremony. I was able to find a photograph of this in a blog post by a Southwest employee.

So safe to say people were pretty excited about this livery! Southwest's state liveries tend to be pretty beloved by the people from said state, as far as I can tell.

N781WN was retired earlier this year and sometime in the late summer the livery was repainted onto N8655D. The livery is largely unchanged except for the fact that it's on a longer plane now.

Anyway, I like New Mexico One. Not terribly much happens here in the way of detail so there's not much to say about it but I like the way it's placed at a sort of angle instead of just smacked in the middle of the plane directly above the wings or something. The fact that there's some yellow and red in the tail prevents it from looking as bad as it could (and definitely does on other state liveries) even though I kind of really genuinely dislike the wordmark placement like a lot. I'm not sure how they could have done it better. I just think if you're making it that small and out-of-the-way you could honestly just go without. Not like there's even one other plane flying around with this livery.

Why is the inside of the winglets totally bare? I can't be the only one that thinks that's strange, can I?

I'll give her a C+. I think there's a pretty low ceiling on how good a livery that's just the flag of New Mexico can be, and Southwest did a job I would call 'correct' - they didn't really mess anything up and they didn't have some sort of brain explosion that let them create a design more captivating than putting a good flag onto an airplane but leaving the tail Southwest colors. This is a good special livery and it seems like a nice little tribute to New Mexico, and it's always nice to see a beloved old livery be preserved on a new airframe. Congratulations to the people of New Mexico, particularly the Zia, on a pretty neat commemorative livery.

#tarmac fashion week #southwest airlines #grade: c+#special liveries

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rosainta · 10 months

Text

Day 3 of Rosain Quivan’s Daily Logs

Started December 9th, 2023 at 8:28PM, Home

Finished December 9th, 2023 at 11:33PM, Home

Log #3

Author’s Notes: Thank you for your support on the last log! I'm happy you enjoyed it, as unrefined as it was, but hopefully you'll enjoy this next one too. I want to keep these A/N's short as to have more time to write, and also to practice being more concise since that has been one of the challenges I've had with writing for a while now, so I'll just head straight on with it. This next one is an attempt at writing a chapter of an atmospheric story revolving around Medic and Heavy, of their blossoming friendship and maybe something more... up to you to decide! ;-) (The next log will be a Part Two to this, as the idea I have in mind is quite long, but feel free to leave your predictions down below!)

Title: King of Hearts (Part One) Fandom: Team Fortress 2 New Mexico, Badlands, Teufort City, The Cap Point 6:30PM, sometime during the Gravel War

"Ah, and here we are!"

The ambulance backs up into an empty lot, sealing its usual spot in the sea of other vehicles. Though the unusual choice of transport was initially an oddity, its frequent visits to this particular establishment had become so normal that no one bothered to question its presence anymore. The engine sputters to a stop, and its two unorthodox passengers hop out; the stalwart Heavy and the eccentric Medic, the iconic, unconventional yet unstoppable duo of the Badlands.

"Is good to be back, " the burly Russian exclaims, giving his comrade a hearty pat on the back as he slams the door of the ambulance. The latter grins, returning the gesture and slamming his own equally as loud.

"Yes, and it is good to have you back, mein friend! I don't doubt that the others will think ze same."

Heavy leads the way, the duo making their way towards the side of the building. Its dim neon lights glimmer in the darkening sky, creating a mixed atmosphere of class and risky fun. With the nighttime wind chills slowly falling upon them, the two quicken their pace and turn the corner. In front of them in big, shining yellow letters is a sign that reads: "The Cap Point - Teufort City's Best Bar & Tabletop Game Experience"

Heavy stops in place for a moment, looking up at the glowing signage above them. "Do you think little lady will be there?", he asks quietly.

"Pauling? Oh, I highly doubt it. Poor woman, always so busy with her work all ze time", the doctor replies, shaking his head.

"Is shame. Would have liked to challenge woman at poker; she always knows when I am bluffing", the big man chuckles to himself.

"Hah! Maybe it's because you can barely keep a straight face when you lie; your eyebrows always seem to lift up like springs, a bit like zis;"

Medic's eyes furrow, then arch into an exaggerated expression of surprise, mouth slightly agape for emphasis. Heavy scoffs, a smirk playing at his lips as he playfully crosses his arms.

"Now is doktor's turn to bluff; Heavy does not do that when lying. Heavy has excellent poker face, see?"

Heavy's face deadpans, his amused face suddenly turning cold. Medic's face, however, only grins with mischief, like that of a Cheshire cat.

"Is zat so? Well then, can you tell me where the whereabouts of my strudel from last night might be?", he asks teasingly.

Heavy's deadpan expression falters and, well, don't you know, so do his eyebrows, lifting themselves high enough they could touch the stars. Abashed, Heavy looks away to the doorways of the building, speedily turning to walk away from the sly practitioner.

"Heavy knows nothing of that, apologies", he says finally, quickly walking through the doorway. Medic laughs, satisfied with himself, and trails behind him.

As soon as they enter the establishment, they are greeted with the familiar, loud, cozy atmosphere of the bar. Various customers fill the many tables placed around the room, the bartop buzzing with animated chatter and cheery banter. Tom Jones's infamous "Sexbomb" booms on the radios, and a game of billiards is being played with such vigour at the back that you could hear the yells of the players resonate throughout the entire building. As usual, it emanates from its typical suspects.

"You've gotta be freakin' kiddin' me! What the hell is wrong with you?", a high, brash voice cries out.

"Scout, it isn't my fault that your embarassing lack of competence at breaking has made it difficult for either of us to score a point", a lower voice replies with a nasty sneer.

"Oh yeah? Well, how do you explain that the drunkest person on Earth and a wannabe American hero have scored more than you have the entire night?"

"Maybe because they had some sense to not stay on a team with a man in his twenties who can barely read!"

"Crikey, would the both of you just stop bloody bickerin'? Some of us here are actually tryin' to enjoy the game," a third gruff individual reacts.

"Shut up, this doesn't concern you!", the first two voices yell back.

Heavy laughs softly. "Looks like little men are having fun."

"Ja, why don't we go join in on ze experience?"

The two make stride across the bar, the shorter of the two men happily waving to the bartender on their way there. When they get there, the argument dies down and is instead replaced with curious excitement.

"Ey, long time no see, fat man!", Scout, the supposed incompetent breaker, exclaims.

"Ah, Heavy, it is a pleasure to see you again", Spy, the snarky Frenchman, says. "How was your trip to Siberia?"

"Was good, thank you. Is always good to see family."

Heavy takes a seat at the table next to Sniper, the attempted argument breaker, and signals for a waitress. Medic strikes up a conversation with Soldier and Demoman in the corner, excitedly babbling on about human heads, to which both of them join in without hesitation.

"One vodka", he orders, "and one sparkling water for doktor, please. Don't worry, I pay."

The lady smiles and nods, walking away to retrieve their drinks. Sniper smirks, surprised.

"Just got back and you're already feeling charitable, mate? Didn't your trip cost you enough?", Sniper laughs.

"Heavy does not mind. Doktor was there to meet Heavy at airport and buy him favourite food, so Heavy pay doktor back", he replies, matter-of-factly.

Sniper shifts in his seat, his smirk converting to a genuine smile of admiration. "Wow, it must be pretty nice havin' a good chum like the doc, huh?"

"Yes, is nice. Medic and I always nice together", Heavy says, returning the smile and turn to his friend.

From the corner of his view, he sees the Medic return his gaze and nod, a slight smile on his face and a grateful expression, before he returns to his own discussion.

The Australian takes a gulp of his martini and leans backwards in his chair, allowing himself to ease up in the comfort of the seat. He notices Heavy still looking at his friend in the corner, his expression content like that of one in a warm blanket. He scratches at the slight stubble on his chin, still observing him with intrigue.

"Say, why don't you tell me more about your friendship with our happy healer here? Seems like you two get along better than the rest of us mercs," Sniper says, adjusting his hat to better glimpse at the gentle giant before him.

Heavy looks back at the Australian and chortles, sliding his hand over the back of his head. "Ah, is very long story. Dok and I go way back, even before we became mercenary. You sure you want to hear all of it?"

"Sure, let's have a go at it. Probably be a lot more entertainin' than watching these two buggers argue the entire night", he sighs, loosely gesturing at the father-son duo as the tension begins to spark the flame of another petty anger-fest.

Heavy nods, understanding. He puts his bulky arms on the table and fully faces the marksman, inadvertedly causing the table and the fragile martini glass on it to shake a little, but neither seem to notice.

"Well", he begins, "it all starts when I first begin to live in Siberian Mountains with family, after escaping shoot-out in Gulag..."

To be continued in RQDL 4...

Credits: Team Fortress 2 by Valve Image source: Team Fortress 2 Written by Rosain Quivan Cross posted on Amino ( Rosain Quivan )

#tf2 #tf2 medic #tf2 heavy #tf2 sniper #tf2 spy #tf2 scout #tf2 demoman #tf2 soldier #heavymedic #team fortress 2 #tf2 miss pauling #writing #writing practice #rosain quivan's daily logs #heavy and medic are very close #how close is up to you to decide #part 1

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