#do people read this far down in the tags?

[hitlikehammers]

tremolo

…what if instead of learning clarinet or percussion, you could learn to read the music of hearts? 💕

rating: t ♥️ cw: love at first sight, car crash (off-screen), SUCH FLUFF ♥️ tags: ✨magical realism au, musician eddie munson, paramedic steve harrington, kinda soulmates (it makes more sense with the magical realism part), character study, softness

for @steddielovemonth day one: "Every heart sings a song, incomplete, until another heart whispers back. Those who wish to sing always find a song. At the touch of love everyone becomes a poet." —Plato

It was just like learning any instrument, really.

At least what they tried to convince Eddie to believe at the tender age of nine.

But it was all about finding an aptitude, apparently. Developing a talent. Fourth grade rolls around and he fucks up blowing with a reed, manages to give himself a tongue splinter. Nearly passes out on the brass. Ends up with the choir lady looking over horn-rimmed glasses and narrowing her eyes at him less like a teacher and more like a fortune teller or something, scrying what’s to come of him, like she can see through all that he is and will be, before she goes scribbling something on his little slip of paper already marking all the failed kinds of music he’ll never get to make and telling him: go to Room 011.

But no one ever goes to Room 011.

He meets a petite woman with mousy hair and clothes that look like they belong to someone else, somehow. She introduces herself as Miss L. She looks like a Miss L., so he doesn’t think any further on the point.

You will not play much, really, she tells him, and the way she talks is kinda funny, like she learned words but not from people actually saying them out loud. Eddie kinda likes it, though. The playing is only for emergencies, and if you find your True Note.

Eddie doesn’t know what most of that means, except for the fact that the whole point of trying—and failing—at all the instruments was to join the school band with something to play. So if that’s not what he’s going to learn, then what the heck is Eddie meant to be doing down here—is what he wants to ask.

He manages a little politer version of the same, his nan’d be proud. His dad wouldn’t care even if he was around and not behind bars. His uncle might be happy that Eddie’s kept his nose clean just this one time. So he figures he does okay.

But really, he just wants an answer. He was supposed to get to learn music. It was the one thing that was keeping this whole year feeling like he could maybe, maybe survive it.

It also means he doesn’t have to take the art class that’s mostly kindergarten crafts instead of real art, so.

“You will be learning music,” Miss L. answers, more patient than most grownups; “you are here to learn how to read the songs that hearts sing.”

And that is, by far, in all of his whole nine years of living, the most fucking absurd sentence that Eddie has ever heard.

——

He’d kinda thought it was a joke, when he left that first afternoon to get back before Language Arts.

Turned out: nope. It was not.

He’d maybe thrown something slightly less childish than a tantrum, when what he got was a big set of earphones and a box the size of an Easy-Bake Oven, where apparently he’d be playing some kind of recordings to start his lessons.

“Do you not wish to learn?” Miss L. asked so simply, and Eddie…

Eddie reminded himself that no matter how foolish and stupid this was, it couldn’t possibly be worse than making construction paper collages with Elmer’s glue, so.

He put the headphones on and pressed play.

——

His workbooks didn’t look like anyone else’s in band—in fact, Eddie didn’t think he was actually a part of the class band, like, he wasn’t expecting to play at the spring concert with the flutes and the trombones, anymore. When he had sheets of staves to fill out they didn’t have straight lines. He didn’t draw different circles with little flags and bridges connecting them. He…

“When there are no keys, and there is no time signature,” Miss L. had explained, and it took time to make any sense; “you are the rules, and you feel what is a melody,” she’d tapped something that feltbeautiful, like daffodils blooming, though Eddie couldn’t say why; “and what is a warning.”

And then she’d tapped again, and it clenched in Eddie’s chest like a tornado siren, and…yeah.

That was kind of the best explanation he could have asked for.

——

It’s in middle school, when everyone else gets new band directors while Eddie sticks with Miss L., that it starts to…well.

That’s when the fact that Eddie’s alone in his lessons, and no one seems to know quite what he does—and the other kids who get that kind of treatment are usually the ones who can’t add or spell right, who have some kind of problem to work on extra hard—but it’s around then that Eddie starts being called names for it.

It’s not too bad, at first. Eddie’s worked for his two full years of elementary school lessons to get through recognizing the songs, suffers the point where recognizing becomes unbearable, overwhelming—Miss L. never left his side when he held his head in pain for all the noise, all the songs because they were everywhere, in everyone, and how was he supposed to learn what was right and what was good and what was just okay but then what was also everything the opposite when he couldn’t even think—

But she taught him the tools, the ways to sift through the chatter, as she called it. Because not all of it was a warning; not all of it was bad just because it wasn’t beautiful.

Some of the noise just was.

She showed him how to trust his own ear; his own song in his own chest as a guide, because that’s why he was here: he had a gift, an aptitude, built in and in need of development. Liked they’d said in the beginning.

He’s nearly thirteen when she teaches him how to write his own songs, in the not-notes and the no-tempos. In the nameless flow of sound.

It’s when his classmates overhear one of those works-in-progress, the taunting gets worse, starts to hedge toward unbearable.

Until Eddie asks if he can just stop: quit this. It’s not worth it. He doesn’t want to be a freak.

“It is a rite of passage, to ask this,” Miss L. says slowly, no judgement, and weirdly no pity; “but I should tell you first,” and her eyes narrow more than Eddie thinks he’s ever seen them.

“Your skill is already greater than any I have seen, and is only getting sharper, more keen.”

And hell if a teacher’s ever said something niceabout Eddie Munson, let alone something that sounds like flat-out praise.

“They cannot hear the music, this is why they say those things,” she flicks her wrist less like conducting a chorus and more like shooing a gnat, like that’s the appropriate amount of consideration the comments deserve. “Your task has always been to teach them what they do not know, to show them the wonder they are ignoring as they live and breathe.”

And while it really would have been nice to know that before signing up for this…this what, calling? Vocation?

While that would’ve been nice, Eddie…Eddie can at least mostly understand he wouldn’t have understood any of it in the fourth grade.

He barely understands now.

But he can feel it. He understands how to feel the music that fills all those gaps.

“This is common,” Miss L. turns back to him, steeples her fingers while humming something from the radio: not bad, but not beautiful. That’s what she means, he realizes. The radio plays common.

“This,” and she puts a hand over her own chest and keeps time with her fingers on the tabletop as she hums a wholly novel thing out of thin air, and Eddie has never seen someone else recognize the music, has never watched someone compose in the veins where the songs that hearts sing are played, let alone in real time; maybe she never had because he had to lean for himself, first.

But it is kind of exquisite to witness.

“This,” she stops, and raises a brow pointedly in Eddie’s direction; “is human, built in your cells.”

Eddie couldn’t name why, precisely, but he feels…shamed, but also empowered. So different, but they make an almost compelling melody together as they clash.

“They will call you freak before they call you prodigy,” Miss L. says it like a fact, which…kinda sucks to hear, in all honesty.

“They will label you insane, before they recognize you as genius,” and the way she adds that part makes him feel like that was her personal burden to bear, and he aches for her in it.

“They will cry out garbage and nonsense,” and here, these words: these are the ones Eddie knows immediately he’s meant to be hearing, be weaving into notes the strongest, the ones she wants him to keep closest and never lose:

“They will cry out worthless,” she spits out with a venom he’s never heard her use; “before they will sob in the face of your masterworks, and how they will breathe magic in the soul.”

And…Eddie doesn’t know exactly what to do in the face of the conviction she says that last part with. To doubt it, as he instinctively wants to, feels vile; the most egregious disrespect. He can’t bring himself to even try. So, he asks instead, voice rough:

“When will it change?”

Because despite everything: he doesn’t want to be a freak.

“That I cannot say,” she sighs, and she does sound sorry; “and it may never change at all.”

Eddie doesn’t know if he’s built to handle that, the possibility of never.

“But even if you leave, here and now,” Miss L. cuts into his despairing; “even if you stop your learning, the songs will never leave you.”

Oh.

Oh, so did they…did they teach him to hear a endless goddamn curse, and as a fucking kid—

“You would always have come to hear them,” Miss L. must read his mind, or maybe just his face; “just never with any place to funnel the noise,” and he…guesses he should be grateful. He nearly went mad in those early years, before she taught him how to make new melodies, concertos the likes of which even the great masters hadn’t penned, because they played in a different medium. Their notes and structured time were useful, but limited.

And if they never heard otherwise, how would even the most brilliant talents know what they were passing over, leaving behind?

“Do you still wish to leave?”

Eddie turns, almost having forgotten Miss L. was still sitting there, watching him. Almost having forgotten what he’d come to ask, to give up.

There’s no question left, now.

He gets out his notebook, his pen, and starts as he always does.

With the listening.

——

It’s a genuine distraction—the songs get louder with time, but Miss L. tells him that’s a sign of his skill growing, his notice of the equivalents of key signatures and ligature notes in the heartbeats he passes every day—but it costs him passing senior year once, and then again, and almost a third time until by the skin of his teeth, he manages. While every other teacher shames him for it, derides him as incurably stupid, or at the very least unambitious to the point of embarrassment, the extra years mean more time with Miss L., and Eddie…most days, Eddie is nothing but thankful.

More time means Eddie also learns that the songs he hears are as much a public service as they are an art form, as much a defense mechanism as a craft. He knows when bullies are on the prowl, and to make himself scarce for their screeching cacophonies. He knows when he has to be less of a coward and step in when a wild rhythm makes him sick with its fear.

The more he pays attention to the not-quite-beautiful songs—especially when he thinks on them later and stumbles upon nuggets of the exquisite inside every way they weren’t—the more he remembers years ago, out of almost nowhere, but maybe…maybe everywhere, like it’d been written in his heart’s song the day she spoke it:

“My first day,” he enters the same room—not the same-same room but the one in the high school that’s as abandoned as all of them have been, always Room 011—but he enters the room close to the end of the year, the last year, with the question thick on his tongue, and woven the same in his song as he closes the door and feels his heartbeat quicken for no reason and every reason, like he’s long learned these songs always do.

Miss L., for her part, just nods; waits.

“You said,” Eddie rolls his lips together; “emergencies.”

It’s a delay tactic. They both know it.

She’s kind to play along.

“Mmm,” she hums; “the slightest bits, yes, you can shift the rules to change the song, because you made the rules to begin with,” she eyes him carefully, then. “But only by bits, and in only the most dire moments.”

Yeah, yeah, sure. He never thought he could like…write lines to coax a heart to sing itself back from the dead or some shit. He gets the point.

Again, they both know: that’s not the point he’s here for, heart pounding high in his throat.

“But then you also said something else.”

This time, she doesn’t nod at all; just stares. Eddie has to clear his throat twice to make a sound so as to ask:

“What’s a True Note?”

Because Eddie’s had a couple flings here and there. And the idea of anything real with someone else, alongside the weight of this…talent of his, this training that’s defined half his life by now: it’s really nothing more than a stray idea. But Eddie can’t really hide from the fact that, somewhere along the way, he’s suffused that idea with so much promise and potential, but with no legs for it to fucking stand on.

And he’s about to graduate. About to go out into the world and…who the fuck knows what.

He needs to either hold onto this insane, silly notion of some cosmic meant-to-be match waiting for him somewhere, that it’s at least possible, and then hold on to it like burning—or let it go, and get on with the rest of his fucking life.

“Do you know how I said you could sway the rhythm just the littlest bit, in the greatest of need?”

Of course he did. She literally just said it.

“Your True Note will sing like you have never heard before,” she tells him like it’s not something…immense; “and that song will sway your rhythm so much more than the littlest of anything.”

She just fucking says it, like it isn’t already swaying the rhythm his heart sings in. Here and now.

“That heartsong will change your world.”

And all Eddie can even think to ask, to make more plain in it, is just one thing:

“Will I change theirs, too?”

Miss L’s eyes lock to his and hold for enough seconds where it should be uncomfortable, where his chest starts to grow unbearably tight.

“Hmm,” she considers finally; “if it is meant to be that way.”

Eddie wants to scream. It’s not enough.

And still somehow, it will have to be.

——

In the months that follow his freedom, he misses Miss L. Kinda desperately.

But the lack of structure, the openness of knowing he has to find a way to piece together all the snippets of song he’s bombarded with: it is the reason he ever picks up a guitar. It’s the whole learning heartsongs thing that he has to thank for it, a roundabout journey toward the destination he’d wanted from the beginning.

Or else, that he thought he did.

It’s not just guitar, though. He eventually learns the woodwinds without ending up with a splinter in his mouth. Figures out the different harmonies at hand in making sure he tempers the way he breathes for the brass. He loves the piano, and the cello especially, alongside guitar and double bass: he makes a trip back home specifically to see her and ask—Miss L. tells him it’s probably because of their strings, like hearts have, too.

It feels right in a way things haven’t felt in a very long time.

Which is really how he comes to not only understand, but to accept in his bones: no matter if they ever call him prodigy or genius, if he ever plays a concert hall or anywhere but on a street corner with an open case for change, he was made for this; built for this. The woman with the horn-rimmed glasses who sent him to the basement music room saw it in him. Miss L. proved it to him by teaching him to prove it to himself. He doesn’t know if he’d have picked it, but he knows it was never something he could have picked or turned down in the first place at all: it’s who he is.

He is the music. He is the songs that hearts use for singing. And maybe someday he’ll meet someone who sees it in him, and hears his song, and sings ecstatic. Maybe.

He hopes.

But either way: this is his life.

This is his melody.

——

It takes years before they do sob for his masterpieces, for them to be ready for a style and cadence they don’t understand because they will never comprehend the language, that speaks deeper than the logic required for any of those rules. It takes a long fucking time before they start listening with the lens of the first song any of them ever learned. But the time does come, and Eddie is grateful, because he’d genuinely feared the maybe-never he’d been warned about. He’s glad that’s not where he is, now.

But now? Things start to happen almost unbearably fast. Shows here and flights there, guest appearances and interviews, record labels and live recordings, a book deal he can’t even begin to think about. The world tips on its axis and Eddie only really considered that happening to him for one reason: because of a song so beautiful, in a Note so True—this isn’t that.

But everything still feels upside down anyway; totally off-kilter.

He’s crossed ten time-zones this time. He’s exhausted, but he has a performance tonight, just like he did in the tonight of the place he just left. The car he’s in on his way to the next venue is sleek, like they all are now; his team is already there preparing, so it’s just him and some local hires he hasn’t even had a chance to learn the names of yet, which he hates. He hates being privy to their songs and not even knowing their names, let alone their stories.

He jots the notes he gleans from how they sing without their words on the drive across town anyway. Waste not, and all that.

Eddie has the pen in hand, cap between his teeth, when the truck plows straight into them.

What follows would be unsurprising, if Eddie could process it from a bystander’s point of view—as it is, the only thing he knows in the melee is the music.

He is devastated, as he reaches out for the slowing songs around him, knowing in the back of his mind what their slacking tempos mean, and marveling with something like horror at how beautiful each one is as it starts to fade: still unique, still something Eddie could braid into a piece, certainly one to draw tears.

His own song is ebbing, he knows, but it’s less important than the sweet melodies around him, especially—

Oh.

Eddie thinks, with what may be the last thought left to him as pressure and heat and pain tingle at the edges of the music, almost too strong now to be drowned out by the notes that are what Eddie is at his core: but he thinks he may be too far gone already, because what he begins to hear is…

Exultant. It’s…

If Eddie believed in a heaven, this would be what the hosts there sang. When the idea of divinity is bandied about, they can only ever be talking about some cheap imitation of what Eddie hears now. Luminous. Effervescent.

Beautiful in a way that exceeds the word itself so deeply that it barely fits, obliterates the notion on sight.

And what a gift, Eddie muses as everything dims to black, to hear such Notes, such perfect music as the last thing he has to hold onto in the end.

To end on something that’s True.

——

The next tones Eddie hears are mechanical. He winces—not bad but certainly not beautiful—and then winces harder because wincing itself fucking hurts.

He holds himself still, seeks the song he knows in his own veins: yes, and he’d been so sure it was gone, because there’d be an accident, a crash, he’d been thrown, crushed, songs all around him were dying and he’d heard the magnificent symphony of otherworldly perfection so—

“I’m technically not supposed to be here,” a voice interjects, or no: drips in leisurely, like comfort, like honey; “because you’re a patient, and I’m,” and Eddie forces his eyes open to see the voice come out of a man, who is pointing at his chest: a uniform. Medical.

“I’m not dead?”

All signs do point that direction but…Eddie had been kinda fairly sure he was done for.

“God,” the man chokes like he’s pained, like the idea hurts him, and why; “no,” and he says that a little fiercely, protective almost; “though not for lack of an effort.”

He looks tired, as Eddie’s vision starts to clear some more. He looks radiant. Exquisite.

Beautiful.

“You saved me?”

Because Eddie clocks the uniform now: paramedic. The ones who come onto the scenes and try like hell to save who they can. Heroes.

“I helped,” the beautiful man says, like a hero would, of course. But…it still doesn’t make sense. If the man does this for his job, then Eddie isn’t special, so then why is he so vehement, and then what of all the fading songs Eddie remembers, because Eddie had heard—

“What about,” he starts, but there’s a hand over his quickly, soothing.

“Everyone’s here, different wards,” the hero-beauty tells him in lows tones; “we don’t know if they’ll all make it through the night, but,” he nods, like…this is enough.

And it is. Except…

“How?”

And where Eddie is baffled, his hero just quirks a brow.

“Don’t tell me you never covered emergencies?” he asks skeptically. “Most dire moments, greatest of need?”

And it’s with those words that Eddie’s world slows very quickly to a halt. The music swells in a way he’s never known: because it’s always present to hear.

Buts it’s never been so tangible to feel, not like this, and with such…magnificence, no lesser word could touch it. Maybe he truly is closer to death than not, maybe that’s the reason for the fervor in this man he doesn’t know—the choirs of the angels Eddie wasn’t banking on swells and is visceral, and this hero sits before him, speaks the words that have haunted Eddie more days of his life than not, and—

“This was where the music took my life,” the man pulls at his collar, indicative again: the heroism. He…he saves people, because he, he also hears…

“But I couldn’t have done it without you.”

His hand on Eddie’s tightens, like gratitude, and Eddie…gapes like a fucking fish, and then—

“There’s something else.”

“Not just here to check up on the fruits of your medical miracle?” Eddie’s tongue feels heavy, thick in his mouth; he feels sluggish all over, weighted down and like he can barely move because…this man hears the music that hearts make.

Can he hear the ineffable beauty, like Eddie can? He must, that’s how it works, so why is he not in the same amount of awe—

“Not just,” the man smiles small, but real, a little hesitant. A little…shy, maybe, before he straightens, leans a little closer.

“Watch that screen,” and he tracks Eddie’s gaze until Eddie’s fixed upon the ECG, the most disappointing distillation of the songs he’s learned to find so much wonder in.

But then the man is pressing Eddie’s hand to his own chest, which…is forward, given they don’t even know each other.

Eddie is maybe still on, or at least just-recently-off, death’s door, and either way he’s fucking thrilledwith this development, warm beneath his palm.

“Now count.”

It only takes a moment, to put the gestures together into a statement.

The beat under his touch matches the line across the screen. Exactly.

But this man’s not the one attached to the monitor.

“Got it?”

Eddie nods, and the man doesn’t hesitate, lifts Eddie’s hand and presses it back to Eddie’s own chest.

“Again.”

And that’s…that’s not the same rhythm as the one on the screen; the songs don’t match at all.

But Eddie can still hear the one that does—the beauty. The exaltation.

“Can you,” Eddie asks, lifts his finger that’s got a clip on it, and the man’s a professional, he’ll understand—looks less than conflicted about disconnecting Eddie from wires and leads before clipping his own finger and letting the screen shift to a new cadence.

The same one under Eddie’s hand, in Eddie’s own chest.

“Holy fuck.”

“Yeah,” the man barely breathes, and Eddie notices now how intense his eyes are, focused solely on Eddie, and…Eddie remembers the words that came after the ones about emergencies. About how little he could help, but that he could still do something.

But with only one person, it could be—

“You didn’t just sway my rhythm,” Eddie half-gasps; “you made it your own.”

And oh: Eddie never tied the song of hearts to the song of laughter, but from this man, the huff of incredulous joy that slips from him now—they’re made wholly of the same stuff.

Symphonic. Staggering. Weeping to feel this much, in the soul, to be privy to such a…

Masterpiece.

“Worked both ways, it seems.”

“I heard you,” Eddie blurts out, because it makes sense now; “before I, when I thought I was,” dying, when he thought it was all over; “like I’ve never heard anything before.”

And now: of course this man hears the heavenly movement Eddie thought was a mercy before the end but was instead the arrival of everything he’d ever hoped to one day find, literally coming to rescue him in more ways than one; but that song is somehow commonplace to this unfathomable angel on the earth.

And what this man hears stronger, louder, dearer seems somehow to be Eddie, the song he sings from the chest, in how it’s causing those caramel eyes to glimmer, and to barely blink lest they miss something in just…Eddie.

“You never stopped,” the man says with urgency, with feeling; “your song never stopped,” and then he’s closing his eyes and laying both his hands over his own chest, where Eddie’s heartsong is ringing full and maybe changing his world, because the song in Eddie’s chest sure as hell has already changed his, and—

“It’s extraordinary.”

And Eddie, in years of ridicule, in months of celebration, in all the ups and downs and doubts and hopes this life of songs and hearts and rhythms and beats has left him with, in all of it—

Those two words rewrite his whole fucking being.

“True Note,” Eddie mouths more than speaks before he scoffs; “shit, but that seems like a really fucking inadequate thing to call it,” and his eyes lift to take in the man who he knows, he knows is going to be his magnum opus, or more: is going to write the magnum opus they will be and breathe and share from here to all ends:

“To call you.”

And there’s the clearest sense of a trip in a beat, but who it belongs to isn’t clear, and maybe that’s the reality for them both now: every subtlety of the song is now shared, now theirs.

“You could start with Steve.”

Eddie looks up, breath a little heavy, but the smile on the man’s face is broad and kind of overjoyed, kind of looks like Eddie’s chest feels:

“My name’s Steve.”

And that?

Best damn title for a symphony Eddie’s ever fucking heard.

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[dekusdante]

Well it's that time again for another JJK rant.

So by this point I would assume that most of you know my eternal hatred towards the enemies to lovers trope when it comes to Gojo x reader stories right.

Well we are back at it again cause I am hoping people know that this type of relationship isn't one that Gojo would ever go for. Like it's one of those things that the fandom latched on to like My Hero Academia Hawks being a flirty playboy. It's not something that fits the character but it something that so many people latched on to that they now believe that it's a thing.

Like Gojo knows his worth and value. He literally dislikes those that he views as stuck up or just down right unlikeable. Aka every reader in the enemies to lovers trope. Like you are telling me you hate this guy for no reason but it's okay because your only saving grace is that he finds you attractive.

Seriously.

That is the how 95% of them go. Also to even it out they would make Gojo do some out of pocket stuff to justify the reader treating him like dirt while also always making him the bad guy even if he did nothing wrong.

I am so sick of this copy and paste trope. Now I know i don't have to read it which I don't. If I see it I keep scrolling. Although there are gems I sadly just skip past them because I'm used to the bad and boring ones. (Lowkey reminds me of the dumbest Gojo x reader story on wattpad called Debt. Freaking dumbest reader/mc I have ever read couldn't even get past the first few chapters. The first and only time this has happened)

Another thing is bad reverse harem stories. Like I don't care the reader is 18! Why are men close to their 30s trying to have a relationship with them? Why is said 18 year old trying to have a romantic relationship with freshly turned 15 year old? Look 18 maybe considered an adult but it's still gross and it would have been better if the reader was 20 and up. Also if you want your reader to have love interests that are 15 then they should at least be under 18.

I am sick of gross age gaps, don't care if you are 20 years old dating a 30, 40, or whatever just make it legal! 18 isn't a cheat code!

Also harems suck since they either end up with no one, end up with someone not in the harem, or worst not even completed. Yet, the biggest crime is as I said it before the gross 18 year old cheat code.

Finally the last of my random rant which has to deal with genders and sexyal orientation. Stop writing about boy x boy if you are only going to stereotype them. Yes gay mean may like to be more of the feminine side but NOT all of them. Not all males who prefer to be a bottom want to wear feminine clothes and act like a femboy.

Not all trans people want to be just a title! Don't include them if you are not even going to try! Same with the non binary or gender neutrals. Don't include them but give traits that have a gender that goes against their stances. It's wrong.

Also I lied this is my final rant. Stop saying it's a reader story if you are not going to be neutral. For example giving a reader appearances that instantly alienate a reader. Sure I understand fem reader or male reader tags but to then give them hairstyles, skin tones that alienate others, or ect. I'm a POC (Person of color) and it sucks when you are reading something and instantly shown you are not included. Luckily the anime community is slowly but surely getting more inclusive. No I'm talking about those that want to read reader stories from fandoms like The Boys (Scarlett Witch took over i swear) or (Squid Games I know it's in Korea but dang why can't I be american?).

Anyway that's all. I would love to read and possibly reply to comments. Some may agree others not so much which is far I am criticizing something so it's 100 okay to throw it back!

[sanerontheinside]

On the basis of my own comment, "I fully missed this because I cannot handle the news except in ‘weekly postmortem’ format", I've decided to do a write-up of everything I've been reading about the crash over Washington, D.C.

If this isn't the sort of posting you'd like to see from me in the future, please feel free to block "#the post mortem". I'm not sure how many of these I have in me, but if I ever find myself struck by the fancy to do another, that is the tag I will be using.

I'd also like to thank Canary (canary_lux on Discord) for help gathering, scanning, and organizing sources, and for their insight on flight training.

Throughout this write-up, I will refer to the current president by number of term (45 or 47), mostly to differentiate policies enacted during his first term from the present.

Intro

On the night of Wednesday, 1/29/25, 67 people died in a collision between an American Airlines passenger aircraft and a military Blackhawk helicopter. This tragedy was immediately followed by outcry and the usual hunt for someone to hold accountable. This was also the first fatal air crash involving a US airline since 2009—a 16-year safety record.

While it’s tempting to assign blame to various politicians, parties, and policies for the accident—and in fact many do (FAA blames trump, trump blames DEI, FAA, Biden in particular and democrats in general, etc.)—sole political ownership cannot be assigned. The initial outcry drew attention to a hiring freeze for air traffic controllers, and to curt dismissal of FAA personnel, but the problem has been brewing for far longer.

This post mortem seeks to provide some context for the incident at Reagan National Airport by looking back at policies of the last two presidential terms, as well as the reality of local air traffic in Washington, D.C.

.

The Shortage

Before addressing the current shortage of air traffic controllers, it is important to note that since the accident all reports indicate the air traffic controller on duty that night gave proper instructions.

Both planes and military aircraft are equipped with Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B), but this system is suppressed at low altitudes because of the high likelihood of false alerts. At last reporting, the Blackhawk was at an altitude of 375 ft. For helicopters, the permitted flight ceiling over Washington, D.C. is 200ft.

With that established, however, there is still value in drawing attention to the national shortage of air traffic controllers (henceforward ATC's).

In 2021, the US Bureau of Statistics ranked air traffic control as the 4th most stressful job among all. The position has a high employee turnover rate due to transfers, resignations, removals, deaths, and attrition. An ATC's skills are unique, and costly to replace both in money and time, as candidates go through 2-3 years of training and must pass a rigorous exam.

During the COVID 19 pandemic, lockdowns drove down the volume of daily flights, putting many air traffic controllers out of a job. Agencies worldwide let go of trainees, stopped hiring, and stopped training new hires. In many cases, academies closed outright. Many air traffic controllers were offered early retirement.

Once travel restrictions were lifted, demand bounced back—and the aviation industry suddenly faced a bottleneck. A 2 or 3 year one, in fact. Flights haven't really bounced back perfectly since the pandemic; many airports experience serious delays—not least because they don't have enough ATC's.

In June 2023, the DoT inspector general reported that 77% of air traffic control facilities were understaffed. In December 2023, after a series of high profile near-misses, the FAA named a panel of experts to address air traffic controller fatigue. Reuters reported that air traffic controllers work mandatory overtime and 6-day weeks.

The FAA's response to these findings was to appoint a three-member panel to "examine how the latest science on sleep needs and fatigue considerations could be applied to controller work requirements and scheduling" until more personnel could be hired. Furthermore, the FAA Reauthorisation Act of 2024 expanded air traffic controller training capacity and required the FAA to update the training process.

Unfortunately, the near-misses and flight delays are likely to continue under recent policy changes.

.

The Policy of 45

The main reason for addressing the shortage itself at the top of this write-up is that a lot of early outcry held the 47th President's recent hiring freezes, cuts, and firings responsible for the accident.

Context is critical. Obviously, trump’s hiring freeze in no way helps this issue, and neither does the dismissal of people in leadership positions. Even the panel he dismissed was the Aviation Security Advisory Committee, which is geared towards TSA operations moreso than air traffic control.

But on the ground, it's probably his policies as 45 that did the most lasting damage.

In 2018, the proposed budget cut funds to the DoT by 13%, or $2.4 billion. The proposal eliminated funding for the Essential Air Service, a program that guaranteed continued commercial air service to small communities in the US which would not otherwise be profitable. Air traffic control would also be privatized under the proposal.

This 2018 post by Democracy Forward provides a good summary of 45's policies. (It's also an interesting read if you've been following the recent changes in regulation of airline fees. In brief, the struggle to regulate fees and accessibility has been ongoing since before 2013, and trump's policies are unsurprisingly airline company-friendly.)

By contrast, in 2021 the proposed budget for the FAA included $11.4 billion (increase of $432 million from FY21) to oversee the safety of civil aviation, and to provide for the operation, maintenance, communications, and logistical support of the air traffic control and air navigation systems. There were additional requests totalling over $8 billion to improve airfield infrastructure and grants for Aviation Workforce Development programs.

The final 2021 budget, the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, passed with $15 billion for airlines and airline contractors for a third extension of Payroll Support Program which would otherwise have expired at the end of March 2021. The extension prevented the furlough of more than 27,000 aviation employees. There was an additional $8 billion for U.S. airports.

As a result of 45's budget cuts, the FAA was forced to lay off many people. “He slashed our budget and a lot of people, including myself, were laid off. So, we’re just waiting to see what programs will continue,” a longtime FAA contractor, rehired under the Biden administration, told What A Day.

Former House Transportation and Infrastructure Chair Peter DeFazio also notes, "The unnecessary government shutdown [in 2019] shut down the Aviation Academy, and a number of people did not come back after the academy closed down." He cites this as a crucial interruption that was then followed by a yearlong closure due to the lockdown.

.

Congested Airspace

In his interview with Politico, DeFazio puts Congress front and center: "Every senator in particular wants a nonstop flight to and from wherever they live. As you saw, [Kansas Sen.] Jerry Moran said this was a flight which he had encouraged or otherwise supported. The last FAA bill, [Texas Sen.] Ted Cruz said he needed a direct flight to [San Antonio], so he engaged in a lengthy battle."

The bill referenced here is S. 1939, the FAA Reauthorization Act of 2024, which contained many positive items. This was the bill that required air carriers to provide a full refund for a cancelled or significantly delayed flight; it expanded air traffic controller training capacity and required the FAA to update the training process.

This bill also increased the number of daily round-trip flights allowed at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA), despite protests from the airport authority. (Though it should be noted that the new flights added to the airport's schedule by this bill have not yet been fully implemented.)

DeFazio has words for the military, as well: "And it’s one thing, when there’s an urgent need or a security issue, to move people by military helicopter to the White House or from one base to another in the D.C. area. It’s another to do it for convenience for generals and “very important people” who don’t want to sit in traffic. […] for training, they should be doing that in the hours when there are way fewer flights coming into National Airport."

The flight rules over Washington, D.C. are very complex, developed to manage civilian, military, and government traffic. It is simultaneously the most restricted and the most congested airspace in the country. Pilots have been complaining about the complexity of flight rules for years.

This stretch of the Potomac in particular is designated a Special Flight Restricted Area. In the words of Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), "You don't get to fly in that without additional flight training." All crew members aboard the Blackhawk were experienced, having logged 500-1000 hours. Transcripts of the air traffic control instructions and responses from the pilots in the minutes before the accident show that the Blackhawk crew twice confirmed visual of the plane with the ATC, including approximately 25 seconds before impact.

But in multiple stories published since the crash, there are quotes from pilots who had similar experiences in that area, and recall near-misses with passenger aircraft coming in to the same runway. One retired Army National Guard helicopter pilot recalls that he lost sight of the jet in the city lights and descended to an altitude of 50 feet to avoid collision with an unseen flight. There are at least two reports of near-misses under very similar conditions from 2013 and 2015.

.

The Post Mortem

The President's flurry of executive orders, hiring and funding freezes, have dominated the news cycle for the last 12 days. There isn't currently evidence to support that various budget and staffing cuts, including those attempted by 47 two days before the accident, directly contributed to the incident on January 29th.

However, cutting personnel, funding, and abolishing positions once vacated will increase the risk of accidents going forward. Many US government services have not recovered from the combination of 45's policies and effects of the pandemic. They are presently in a state where funding and personnel cuts will result in direct consequences to the American people, and likely very quickly.

As for the Washington, D.C. crash itself, it is indeed a tragic loss of life. In all likelihood, it could have been prevented by appropriate response to prior near-misses, addressing concerns voiced by pilots and professionals, or perhaps a less entitled Senate.

.

Sources

https://webcf.waybackmachine.org/web/20250120173159/https://simpleflying.com/us-atc-shortage-analysis/

https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/panel-review-us-air-traffic-controller-fatigue-after-near-miss-incidents-2023-12-20/

https://www.tumblr.com/gunsandfireandshit/774138773393063936?source=share

https://www.tumblr.com/huffy-the-bicycle-slayer/774137554059575296?source=share

https://democracyforward.org/work/sidebar-airlines-and-the-trump-administration/ (published 2018, edited 2022)

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/01/31/defazio-plane-crash-blame-00201767

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_United_States_federal_budget

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Rescue_Plan_Act_of_2021

https://phys.org/news/2017-06-pros-cons-privatizing-air-traffic.html

https://www.tsa.gov/sites/default/files/asac-charter-september-2022.pdf

https://www.wdsu.com/article/pilots-worried-dc-airspace-crash/63626297

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/experts-ask-why-black-hawk-helicopter-may-have-been-flying-above-allowed-altitude/

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/tammy-duckworth-american-airlines-crash/

https://commons.erau.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1910&context=jaaer

[re-bee-key]

They should bring a unicorn in as a test or a guide in Season 2. Maybe near the end, when Graydon is reunited with the party.

I have this wonderful scene in my head, where Graydon is suddenly introduced to the unicorn. And he is scared because he knows they can sense purity and abhor evil.

Hes not so much scared of the unicorn killing him, as he is of the confirmation that hes truely gone and corrupted. That he cannot be redeemed. And hes as evil and bad as his father always accused him of being. Even Elora fearing him when she saw what he had done.

But, as he stands there frozen. Cowering in on himself. Trying to avoid eye contact. The unicorn slowly and purposely approaches him. When it comes close enough to impale him and lowers its head, he flinches and closes his eyes. But instead of pain he hears the most melodic and angelic voice speak to him.

"I sense much conflict and darkness in your heart, Grayond Hastur. But," its voice goes soft and gentle, "it is not in the way you think. The darkness comes from fear and self loathing. There is so much goodness in you. And its being held back. Let go of the shackles youve put around your heart, and then you will find peace."

He sinks to his knees, tears streaming down his face. And as he looks up at her, eyes big and full of doubt and hope. She leans down and kisses his forhead. A flash of pinkish light shines and when she pulls back, there is a purple star on his forhead.

Elora and the others had watched it all. Silence and awe thick in the air. Graydon looked over to her, and face lit up in a smile as he sees her for the first time in months. The morning sun rising behind her, her hair glowing like a halo.

And she looked at him as the sun light illuminated his smile and felt whole for the first time in so long. She had found Arik and had already started uniting the armies behind her. But her heart has been clouded ever since Graydon died. She felt guilty at not realizing before what she now knew to be true.

She ran to him and before he could react tackled him into a big hug. And after a few quiet sniffles only he could hear she whispered into his neck

"I love you too."

[sad-leon]

(good future) Finding Home Pride edition <3

Trans Leo pride is something I see a lot, but personally, FH Leo wouldn't celebrate his gender. He grew up around Gali, who went through a lot of gender struggles, especially in his younger years, and with the brothers being so accepting, it's just another part of his life

But his lack of romantic attraction? That's something that stands out to him. He sees the brothers with their own attractions and crushes and such and realizes he stands out. He's different. But that's okay because he's still him and he's still valid

anyways~ it's pride month, which means i get to be even more annoying about aro pride ^-^

that final shot without text:

[carlottastudios]

CarlottaStudios's Unhinged Kaeya Lore Thoughts Post

Link to read the Google Doc:

AT LAST!!! TUMBLR KAEYA NATION, BEHOLD, THE NONSENSE THAT HAS BEEN OCCUPYING MY KAEYA-DEDICATED BRAINPAN FOR MONTHS!

Quick disclaimer/warning: This document is LONG, it's almost 50 pages, so please don't feel pressured to read the whole thing, especially not in one shot. Also, I have included some disclaimers at both the beginning and end, including the fact that I am not an expert in any of the stuff I've written about in this document and if I have made any mistakes, I apologize, feel free to offer corrections, so long as we're all nice to each other. That said, I don't plan on adding substantially more to this document (ex: a new section) as this isn't and was never meant to be The Kaeya Lore Fodder Post of all time. This is just me taking my lore/theory-adjacent thoughts on Kaeya and yeeting them into the void to see if anyone else is interested.

Speaking of interested persons, a few people have expressed interest in this and even asked me to tag them, which is INCREDIBLY flattering and touching (seriously, thank you so much), so I'm tagging them here: @thenerdhoard @eternal-dokja @prophecyflame @mosamosa3pakosh

I plan on eventually making a mindmap to go along with this word document, but that will be for another day because this was already quite a big project to undertake and I need some rest. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy!

[moldy-flowers]

The interesting experience of being pro Sasuke, anti konoha, pro tobirama, anti Naruto ending, pro Sasusaku, anti Itachi, pro Sakura, anti SasuNaru, pro Tobirama×Izuna, anti Madara, pro karin, anti Orochimaru, pro Uchiha and anti Hashirama. And also as much as I hate the guy danzo was kind of hot when he was younger...

[unordinaries]

presented without comment

(chapters 280 + 344)

[umbreonix]

I forgot I never posted this outside of discord XD but this was a lil secret santa exchange I did for @ponie-cornious <3

[bittersweetresilience]

say hi to me i don't know, i just remembered being so much brighter, i guess

cigarette ash like wildfire burning holes in the nighttime open scars feel like barbed wire white lies flying high like a ceasefire dropping flags on the shoreline this is as far as i can feel right 'cause what you don't know can haunt you

and all we ever wanted was sunlight and honesty highlights to want to repeat let's get away from here and live like the movies do i won't mind when it's over at least i didn't think for a while

don't drag it out living like that doesn't mean a thing

so let's, make a great escape and i'll be waiting outside for the getaway it doesn't matter who we are we'll keep running through the dark and all we'll ever need is another day we can slow down 'cause tomorrow is a mile away and live like shooting stars 'cause happy endings hardest to fake

and i wanna let you know i wanna let you go but i just can't bring myself to speak but this is how it goes the end credits, they roll this bridge was built over kerosene but we can watch it and all i ever wanted was sunlight and honesty highlights to want to repeat let's get away from here and live like the movies do i won't mind when it's over at least i didn't think

so let's run, make a great escape and i'll be waiting outside for the getaway it doesn't matter who we are we'll keep running through the dark and all we'll ever need is another day we can slow down 'cause tomorrow is a mile away and live like shooting stars you can wish away forever but you'll never find a thing like today

[lokh]

i appreciate the changes they made for the sake of theatricality in the film

[soaps-mohawk]

Hey! I love your story so so much and I always look forward to new chapters!

I do have a question though. Is the whole General Shepard cameras thing still is part of the story? I feel like the buildup was so good and then it just disappeared and became unimportant. Like if the guys never find out about it, it's whatever.

I dont mean this as an insult to your writing at all, but I'm just wondering if it's gonna come back at all since it's been so long since it's been thought about by the mc.

Again, I love your work

You'll have to wait and see

[ahalliance]

how do i turn qantoine’s spontaneous marriage proposal to qetoiles into evidence of his early-days fear of qfrench drifing away and keeping secrets from one another

[unluckyxse7en]

So I don't have 'the book of bill' yet, but it's making the gf tag trend so i poke my head in once in a while when the tumblr search preview promises and denies me an art i might be interested in

I am fascinated by the discourse. Although one particular post seemed like it was trying to suggest Bill is entirely aroace - and therefore billford shipping is Unwarranted - based on quotes from the book where bill makes a whole point of being all 'eww humans and their relationships are gross or whatever'

And like. As someone aroace. Y'kno what he absolutely could be. But I feel like... after a point a) it goes against the text of all gravity falls material (and more importantly, Sub-text) to assume that he's being entirely 1000% honest and is not even a teensy tiny bit lying or In Blatant Denial because like. Lbr, it plays into his crafted untouchable villain image to take his hokey 'lmao humans Gross and Foreign and Silly' words at face value;

and b) him being aroace doesn't go against any of the stuff that's leading to people hyped on the ship train either, in this case. Specifically because there's a LOT of cues, implications, so on and so forth, that make it clear Bill had some sort of possessive fixation on Stanford. Romantic, platonic, qpr, whatever.

Was it healthy? Obviously not, kind of the whole point of the events that were the basis of everything we see onscreen in the show. But that doesn't mean it's not there either. Whatever it is.

And honestly even if he were aroace he's clearly some sort of favorable, if only because he used his own goddamn romance advice on Ford in the series finale. Even if you argued he's trying and failing to manipulate ford using romance tactics and doesn't feel it like. He obviously is not as repulsed as he's trying to sound if THAT'S the angle he played. Which again calls the veracity of his words into question, just a bit.

(Also a note on another quote I saw - in a section titled "exes" - yeah he claims he has none, wants nothing to do with it etc. But there is also BLATANT lines blacked out above that. That should kind of tip you off that maybe. He's not being honest with us besties.)

Idk. I may be taking the intent of the aroace post out of context and/or misunderstanding tbqh, part of why I'm making my own post. But that and the people screeching how the dynamic is toxic - as if that prevents it from being there in the text, and makes it unexplorable - just had me thinking.

[autisticcole]

Heheheheheho I have gotten some of the Dragon Age books (🏴‍☠️) and this is gonna really let me dig into some stuff, especially my favorite guy Cole, cause now I can read his OG appearance, I want to see how much stuff Cole says, especially during his quest actually makes sense, and how much is in-universe "both sides are right"ing about not listening to what Cole wants to do.

I am mainly talking about Spirit!Cole thanking Inky for not making him change... Despite the fact that thoughout Cole's quest Solas ignores what Cole wants (Like being binded) & wants to do (Kill the guy who beat beyond beating a 12 (at most) year old (most likely, it isn't outright stated (to my memory) the Templar who fucked up the paperwork was also one of the ones who physically abused him, but I feel it's a pretty safe assumption) & got that child killed due to neglect & faced no consequences) but ultimately the choice that causes Cole to thank the player for not changing him is the one where you listen to Solas over Cole (Or well Varric, who also doesn't let Cole do what he wants but is closer to what Cole would have done if he had went alone for the confrontation) & in this route I would say Cole's character changes a lot more, especially as he forgets the original Cole, which... Rubs me wrong, but I'll save my more detailed thoughts for 1. After I fully read Asunder & 2. Either a full Cole analysis or a detailed post about my thoughts on his quest & routes (& maybe how I'd rewrite them, as a Autistic person & a ally to the aroace community)

Anyways my point is that I want to see how true it is characters rejected or wanted to change Cole, I want to see what leads him to feel that having two men argue & tell him who he is supposed to be & do only to have a third person decide out of those two's options for what he should do is remotely a situation where he's been accepted.

[doedipus]

a large amount of time I've been spending on -untitled undefined scope original fiction project- since the last time I posted about it has been trying to develop the protagonist concept I came up with last summer or whatever into like, a character that would feel real and era appropriate.

it's fun research to do. naturally a lot of the details I assigned to her are things that I already think are cool, so it's been a lot of fun trying to trace her traits back through the relatively recent past, getting reminded of how much things have changed, or where the gaps in my intuition are, and then doing a flurry of reading to get a sense for exactly how someone like her and the people around her could have happened and what her life was probably like leading up to her present day. hopefully this results in some good good verisimilitude.