#dunk on holden

[smallhatlogan]

I think Tamsyn Muir's main writing issue is that there's like, no hierarchy in the language used for descriptions. Everything gets a detailed description with flowery language(often used in unconventional ways), from a shitty couch to this big important mysterious door. And these descriptions keep appearing in big blocks of description, so at a certain point my eyes just glaze over and I go "I hope I'm not failing to absorb any important information here"

Despite this I am still quite enjoying Gideon the Ninth lmao. I don't know if there's just something in it that really appeals to me or if reading so many unfun books has reset my tolerance for bullshit and now I'm like "sure the language is kind of overwrought but at least these characters are fun and the mysterious shit is actually intriguing"

[hotvintagepoll]

Congrats to the ultimate winner of the Hot & Vintage Movie Men Tournament, Mr. Toshiro Mifune! May he live happily and well where the sun always shines, enjoying the glories of a battle hard fought.

A loving farewell to all of our previous contestants, who are now banished to the shadow realm and all its dark joys and whispered horrors—I hear there's a picnic on the village green today. If you want to remember the fallen heroes, you can find them all beneath the cut.

What happens next? I'll be taking a break of two weeks to rest from this and prep for the Hot & Vintage Ladies Tournament. I'll still be around but only minimally, posting a few last odes to the hot men before transitioning into a little early ladies content, just like I did with this last tournament. The submission form for the Hot & Vintage Ladies tournament will remain up for one more week (closing February 21st), so get your submissions in for that asap! Once the form closes, there will be one more week of break. The first round of the Hot & Vintage Ladies Tournament will be posted on February 29th, as Leap Year Day seems like a fitting allusion to leaping into these ladies' arms.

Thanks for being here! Enjoy the two weeks off, and send me some great propaganda.

In order of the last round they survived—

ROUND ONE HOTTIES:

Richard Burton

Tony Curtis

Red Skelton

Keir Dullea

Jack Lemmon

Kirk Douglas

Marcello Mastroianni

Jean-Pierre Cassel

Robert Wagner

James Garner

James Coburn

Rex Harrison

George Chakiris

Dean Martin

Sean Connery

Tab Hunter

Howard Keel

James Mason

Steve McQueen

George Peppard

Elvis Presley

Rudolph Valentino

Joseph Schildkraut

Ray Milland

Claude Rains

John Wayne

William Holden

Douglas Fairbanks Sr.

Harold Lloyd

Charlie Chaplin

John Gilbert

Ramon Novarro

Slim Thompson

John Barrymore

Edward G. Robinson

William Powell

Leslie Howard

Peter Lawford

Mel Ferrer

Joseph Cotten

Keye Luke

Ivan Mosjoukine

Spencer Tracy

Felix Bressart

Ronald Reagan (here to be dunked on)

Peter Lorre

Bob Hope

Paul Muni

Cornel Wilde

John Garfield

Cantinflas

Henry Fonda

Robert Mitchum

Van Johnson

José Ferrer

Robert Preston

Jack Benny

Fredric March

Gene Autry

Alec Guinness

Fayard Nicholas

Ray Bolger

Orson Welles

Mickey Rooney

Glenn Ford

James Cagney

ROUND TWO SWOONERS:

Dick Van Dyke

James Edwards

Sammy Davis Jr.

Alain Delon

Peter O'Toole

Robert Redford

Charlton Heston

Cesar Romero

Noble Johnson

Lex Barker

David Niven

Robert Earl Jones

Turhan Bey

Bela Lugosi

Donald O'Connor

Carman Newsome

Oscar Micheaux

Benson Fong

Clint Eastwood

Sabu Dastagir

Rex Ingram

Burt Lancaster

Paul Newman

Montgomery Clift

Fred Astaire

Boris Karloff

Gilbert Roland

Peter Cushing

Frank Sinatra

Harold Nicholas

Guy Madison

Danny Kaye

John Carradine

Ricardo Montalbán

Bing Crosby

ROUND THREE SMOKESHOWS:

Marlon Brando

Anthony Perkins

Michael Redgrave

Gary Cooper

Conrad Veidt

Ronald Colman

Rock Hudson

Basil Rathbone

Laurence Olivier

Christopher Plummer

Johnny Weismuller

Clark Gable

Fernando Lamas

Errol Flynn

Tyrone Power

Humphrey Bogart

ROUND 4 STUNGUNS:

James Dean

Cary Grant

Gregory Peck

Sessue Hayakawa

Harry Belafonte

James Stewart

Gene Kelly

Peter Falk

QUARTERFINALIST VOLCANIC TOWERS OF LUST:

Jeremy Brett

Vincent Price

James Shigeta

Buster Keaton

SEMIFINALIST SUPERMEN:

Omar Sharif

Paul Robeson

FINALIST FANTASIES:

Sidney Poitier

Toshiro Mifune

and ok, sure, here's the shadow-bracket-style winner's portrait of Toshiro Mifune.

[sunny-mercya]

Casino Blues

02.2. All or Nothing

Rusty Ryan x Male Reader | Platonic! Danny Ocean x Brother Reader

Fandom -> Ocean's Trilogy

Masterlist | Previous / Next |

Linus thought, that the Royal Casablanca—the Casino of all Casinos—looked rather ordinary. Like a normal tourist vacation ship and nothing at all spectacular.

Though when they had stepped inside, Linus was astonished surprised—because the inside, the furnished set up, was so extraordinary and smelling—literally—like royalty.

Placing your sunglasses on top of your head, you gave the young lady at the receptions a warm smile of greeting.

»Good evening, Names DeVill—[Name] DeVill—and I would like to get a Chip for the Gloria Round. Start capital is five hundred million, plus the nine thousand insurance fee for my three staff members.« you said, gesturing to Linus and the Malloy Twins.

The way you said it, implies that you had been in Royal Bianca before. Otherwise, Linus couldn't understand how you could perform your acting so well.

»You had been here before or?« asked Linus you, when you had stepped through the double doors and into the lounge of Gambling Paradise.

»Mhm, yeah, when I was ten and then around age sixteen.« you replied, shushing Linus—who was about to ask another question—with a hold up of your fingers.

If the Gloria Round, a special Poker table—where there are only the Card games of the Madness Category being played—is only reserved for the grand players of the richest, then how come you're able to get one?

There was also the question, how you said "DeVill" as your surname—it does rings a bell in mind though—when it should be Ryan.

~~~

Linus, who stood next you—acting as your assistant—and watching you play, was getting just a tiny bit overwhelmed—anxiously even—with the way, how you played.

Now he could understand why Rusty had said, to never play against you. You really are merciless—mad—even.

It's the way how you sat there, so causal—leg swung over another—but also posture straight, implies a seriousness of professionalism.

But what really causes a disturbance towards the other players—bringing them out of their own concept and comfort, their confidence slowly breaking apart like biscuits being dunked into tea—was your ability of mimic.

You didn't really had a pokerface, it's more a type of jester—cheshire cat—one, with how you would glance at them, face stoic like stone—sometimes raising an eyebrow or moving your head in a certain direction of angle—and then you would break out into a smile, whenever you had a winning pair or bluffing them into a belief.

You had won every game so far and those games—be it; Devil's House, Texas Holden (the old original version), Jester Day or Crowns Deal—had been played in the last past hours at least more than thrice.

The nickname; Devil's Gambler was a true fit for you.

»My, my, Ladies and Gentlemans, where do you think you're going?« you begun, when the first player started to get up, after you had won yet again a round of Texas Holden—proudly proclaiming a Yeehaw.

»Through this whole evening, how many hours? Ten hours we've played all the card game at least over three times, except for Royal Flush and I believe it's the perfect game to end such glorious night, isn't it? Or do tell me, it seems that you're all—how do they say?—aah, yes, scared. The Royals of royals from the highsociety of richness, cannot be mere mortals and be scared from a single play of Royal Flush, now can they?«

Now you started to taunt them and it worked. They sat down on their chairs again.

„Linus. End the Game and get [Name] out of there.“

Linus didn't registered Rusty's voice, too engrossed with what you're about to do next.

»Exactly. That's what I thought. Now, I would say for this last round to make it into a majestic night, to make it truly a memorable highlight, we'll go; All or Nothing.«

„Fuck.“

All or Nothing meant, you betting the whole money—the sums you've won so far and what's still left in the Start Capital—you have.

And Royal Flush is not one of those simple card games, like Texas Holden—even though it belongs in the category of Madness Games—which could be, with good practice and some luck, won—no, this Card Game was the toughest and roughest of all of them.

Royal Flush is a game, which can turn you into a sobbing mess of self-doubt if you realise you're about to lose.

~~~

When you had started laughing, during the final set of Royal Flush, it had spooked Linus so much that he flinched visibly—thought for real, you were either about to lose or simply had lost it now—and then he remembered what Rusty had told him; make sure [Name], under no circumstances, drinks any kind of alcoholic beverage.

When Linus asked why, all he got was; Medications.

You're sober though—Cola the only drink you had all night long—and that's brought Linus minimal pressure of anxious he felt at the beginning back—because there was no reason for you to laugh so carefree during such a serious moment.

Why, thought Linus—swallowing hard, when you laughter got uncontrollably now, till you're just a wheezing mess at the table—are you like this?

»Game, set and match. Royal Flush.« you said, bringing your cards down onto the table and looking the last remaining player directly into the eyes. Grinning wicked wide.

„Games over, Linus. Get [Name] out of there, before he starts another game.“ „Linus. We meant it. Get out.“

»A pleasure it was to had you, prince of Monaco, as my opponent and bringing you to tonight devastating loss.«

Linus wanted to sob now. There's an actual prince and you beat his royal ass in a mere card game.

»So's mine. The son of Delpho DeVill surely care for another round, doesn't he?«

»Your highness, I apologise, but my Boss needs to attend another meeting now. Perhaps next time and nice to meet you.«

Linus pulled you up from the chair and out of the room, Virgil and Tuck following right away—from another room—with a luggage carrier full of bags, which are filled with way much money than Danny had said to win.

Rusty had to catch you, when—once being outside of the Ship and on the docks—you came running into his arms and prepped kisses all over his face.

It was clear, when you had started to dance with Rusty around—singing off key one of the songs you had at your wedding—and also accepting Rusty's marriage proposal, which hadn't even asked—as you two are already married—that one or more of your Colas had been spiked with something. You wouldn't have acted like this otherwise.

If you only had wanted to play more rounds and going to the auctions, then Danny or Rusty could've said; it's the Gamblers high which runs through your veins like ecstasy—but that wasn't the case.

»Linus, I know you probably have lots of questions and perhaps your confused, but later. Eventually.«

~~~

Besides what Rusty, in a moment of annoyance, had said to you—he had a few ideas how to make it up to you—didn't regret it, when he, as promised long ago, could finally pay you free.

So laying next to you in bed and having you cuddle up in his arms, was a heavenly bliss—Rusty wouldn't exchange for anything.

[starteas]

I think Siona, while not a seafood fan (she’s allergic!), would take her crab rangoons and place them upside down and make them act like little Creatures! Holden would join her, but he would like dunking them in sauce and acting like a terrible monster! It makes Siona laugh and laugh while Felicity and Mika look on in disgust (but then Davin picks up a rangoon and pretends it’s a knight) so they all end up playing together!

[judgeanon]

Plastic Skies - Models 9 and 10: Sk 16 and Fairey Swordfish

It’s a prop plane double feature WWII spectacular!

Due to a number of personal circumstances, 2023 hasn’t started off quite like I would’ve wanted, and since most of those circumstances involved money, I wasn’t able to jump right away from the F-16 Falcon I bought in February to the next project I had in mind. But thanks to a kind act of generosity, I was able to not only keep my meager hobbyist skills sharp, but also breathe new life into some old models.

Now, here’s the thing: I’m not really into old school propeller planes right now. I kinda used to, I remember building a very neat P-51 Mustang when I was a kid, but thanks to Ace Combat I’m far more interested in jet planes at the moment. So no Spitfires or Hurricanes or Messers for me, no thanks. I’m good for now. However, about a week after finishing the F-16, I received in the mail a care package from an overseas friend who for the last couple of years has made it a tradition to send me a box of old toys, comics and other random stuff. Of course, our postal service usually delivers them around March, so it’s a bit of a late present, but a very welcome one nonetheless. Especially this year.

Very thoughtfully, my friend had packed in not one, but two whole model kits in the box: a Swedish Sk 16 from Heller and a British Fairey Swordfish from Airfix, both in 1/72 scale. A quick search on Scalemates confirmed that both models were from the 80s, and the Swordfish’s mold was from 1958, which I naturally found thrilling. There’s something very fun about working on something older than you are. Plus, it turned out that these models had a backstory to them: my friend had bought them with his family at a second hand market, so second hand that the Sk 16 had already been started. He never got around to actually putting them together though, and despite his family’s repeated requests over the years to just throw them out, they remained there, safely boxed up.

(In this case, the cockpit and fuselage had been glued and the black stripes already painted, albeit a bit haphazardly)

To be honest, I didn’t know much about both planes, which only added to the excitement. The Sk 16 turned out to be a Swedish version of the very popular American T-6 Texan, a plane that also flew in my own country’s air force. And the Swordfish is better known as the English naval biplane that helped sink the Bismarck (and the star of Garth Ennis and PJ Holden’s graphic novel THE STRINGBAGS). So these were, by all accounts, very fun planes already. And I was ready to have some fun with them.

Above all else, I think my favorite part of doing old planes is all the exposed engines and exhaust tubes. I’ve mentioned before how much I adore metallic paints, and I immediately realized that this would be a great chance to break them out. And of course, having both planes have movable propellers, which I also love. I know a lot of hobbyst like to build models as a snapshot of a singular moment in time, but I prefer them to be toys, things to play with a little, so any “play-features” like this immediately makes my heart soar. Look at that little prop spin. Weeeeeee!

The Sk 16 was a very fun build. The hardest part had already been made, after all, and the rest came together very quickly and very snugly. Not having any weapons also helped a lot, and I appreciated having an excuse to use the box of yellow paint I’d bought months ago. The canopy was a pain, and I fear I’ll never be able to have the pulse or right tools to get them looking just right, but I still see at least some improvement over previous attempts.

The other thing that was shockingly comfortable and even fun were the decals. Given the model’s age and remembering my bad experience with the Berkut, I was terrified that the decals would dissolve into water the moment I even thought about dunking them. To my surprise and joy, not only did they not break, they were also extremely easy to place. I’m rarely fully satisfied with my decal placing skills, but this one is probably the best I’ve done so far.

The whole thing was done over a weekend, and once I was done, all that was left was deciding whether I wanted to age it up or not. I consulted with the friend who’d sent me the model, who decided for me: this old plane had to look old.

Fortunately, my washes worked like a charm on this little wasp, which gained a couple of decades overnight. I showed it to my friend, who gave it his seal of approval and also mentioned the thing about his parents asking him to throw the models out if he was never gonna build them. So of course, I did what any person would do in that situation: asked him if he wanted an online album of all the finished model pics I had so he could show his parents. And of course, he said yes.

That’s kind of the thing: as much as I enjoy building models for myself, every time I finish one I find myself burning with the desire to show it off to everyone. I know that’s nothing unusual, but the thing is, I’ve rarely had the chance to show off something I made to other people. Everything I do is either prose, which is not exactly a thing people can just take a quick look at, or comic book scripts, which have the same problem. Even when they’re beautifully turned into actual comics by some incredibly talented folks, it’s still hard to whip ‘em out and go “This. I made this.”

Now, I have a folder in my cellphone full of finished model pictures to pull out like a proud dad just in case anyone asks. And even if they don’t ask, odds are they’ll see at least one.

(friend’s parents did indeed see the pictures and were reportedly surprised to see those old things looking so good. Which is another thing I’ve found very pleasant about model kit making: with the right tools and the right application, even an inexperienced newbie can make a 40 year old kit look impressive)

Pretty much the day after I finished the Sk, I started work on the Swordfish. This one didn’t have any work done other than some pieces having been awkwarldy separated from their sprues, but the plastic felt nice and everything seemed solid enough. Plus, for the first time since I started, I had to paint not just one, but two tiny little plastic men:

It... didn’t go terribly well, mostly because I refused to actually go out and buy new paints for them, but with apologies to my friend, it’s easier to cheap out on things when you weren’t the one who bought the model. Apart from that, I also decided to replace the goose egg blue that the kit’s instructions suggested for the undercarriage with the weird light grey I’d bought and used for the bottom of the F-16, since I still wanted to try it out. That turned out to be... not a mistake, per se, but it didn’t do me any favors.

As it turns out, it’s *REALLY* hard to get something to stick to this kind of paint, and there was a lot of sticking to be done with these two wings. Even worse, some of it was done practically blind, since fitting the struts and bars into their holes turned out to be harder than it looked. Looking back, I probably should’ve just glued the whole thing together first and painted it later, but I figured getting the paints in first would be better than having to sneak tiny brushes into hidden crevices.

Particularly troubling were the bars right in front of the pilot, seen here hovering like a full inch above where they should be. Not ideal at all. In the end, I had to resort to far more glue than I wanted and holding everything in place as best I could until it dried. The results look decent enough from an angle...

... annnd then you look at it from the front.

Ouch. Of course, I also skimped on using wires and stuff, but I was already getting a bit peeved at this old stringbag. On the other hand, painting the grey camo was an unexpected delight. All the paints worked well with each other, and the end result was pretty lovely, if not exactly historically accurate.

Soon enough, all that was left were the decals, and here I ran into a different problem: yellowing. Although there was also a bit of that in the Sk 16, the plane being bright yellow helped hide a lot of it. No such luck here. I tried leaving them out in the sun inside a plastic bag, which the internet said was the cure for yellowing, but they also warned me it would take a few weeks or even a month depending on how much direct sunlight they were getting. Which in my apartment is precious few. After two days, I caved in and said fuck it. Yellowed decals it is.

I’m not proud of what I did, but the odds are pretty good that I’d still be waiting if I hadn’t. Once everything was ready and varnished, I broke out the washes again, only this time I didn’t go for the full Sludge Treatment. Instead, I focused only on the details, the flaps and some other areas. I could lie and say it was to give it a cleaner look, but in all honesty, I was just kinda tired of it by now and didn’t want to deal with having to clean the sludge.

The results are a bit hard to tell, since the flaps were already pretty visible, but it was still a nice relief to have it all done and looking decent enough for another online album. The response I got from friend’s parents was similar, and similarly, it made me feel quite happy with myself.

Overall, I enjoyed this little detour into prop planes. But above all, I think what I enjoyed the most was the idea that doing model kits is turning into My Thing. That people are starting to pay attention, and that in some near future, the answer to “What should we give Judge for his birthday/christmas/wedding gift?” will always inevitably be a little plastic plane to build. Not just because it’s fun and because it opens the door to all kinds of surprises, but also because I think there’s something very unique about being able to tell someone “Hey, thanks for the gift, wanna see what I did with it?”. It’s a rare kind of connection, a back and forth of thoughtfulness and creation, and I’d like to do more of it.

But first... it was time. Time to finally knuckle up, shake that bottle of light gray paint and face my personal final boss of model kits. I just didn’t expect it would happen during one of the worst weeks of the year so far.

[melancholy-ember]

i think i mentioned it to you once but i want to say again how much i love these nuances of lucy — she's drowning. maybe… literally. the same time that the love she feels for kate is her lifeboat vest it is also the strange, chaotic and frightening immensity of an ocean. ironically, kate and the sea are two things that, at that moment and according to your fic, lucy is afraid of. it's beautiful.. fuck, it's all beautiful. painful, yes, but painfully beautiful. god pls! :( i don't want to think about your fic ending hahahaha BUT i am soooo here for whatever you write and missed moments or interludes will be welcome and i'll love to read.

You have absolutely hit the nail on the head. Home run. Slam dunk. Touchdown. Whatever other sports analogies there are because that’s all I’ve got!

Lucy is very very much drowning in her feelings, because she doesn’t know how to process them. All she could focus on at the hospital was the relief that Kate was alive, and every time she stepped into that room it was a reminder of how close she had come to losing her—pair that with their last disastrous interaction right before Kate ended up getting shot and that’s a lot of guilty/fear/worry/pain/love mixed together. Kind of hard for the anger to truly surface in that situation, and then you add in that Kate got hurt saving a little boy and it just magnifies everything.

But Kate’s not in the hospital anymore. And Holden is gone.

There’s no more distractions from the anger/pain/heartache, and adding in a trigger—more on that in upcoming chapters—Lucy is essentially a ticking time bomb of repressed feelings. Those emotions can only be shoved down for so long.

As for FTAHT’s ending, if I stick to my plot line—which I’m doing really good about so far!—we’re like... maybe a third of the way there? Maybe a little bit more than that? Not quite halfway. There is still plenty coming, and honestly with how much support it’s gotten (seriously, I’ve been absolutely overwhelmed with the love, it’s like the biggest motivator in the world so thank you guys so so much), I’m definitely going to open up prompts for it when the main fic is finished. I don’t see it “ending” for quite a while!

[attourney-at-lycan]

What is catcher in the rye about because all I’ve heard is people dunking on holden (the MC? It’s whoever the MC is if that’s not him) and calling him a spoiled dick

yeah pretty much he’s an rich asshole- catcher in the rye is about a this dude running away from school and throughout the book he’s experiencing things that i completely forgot- i think he wanted to grow up fast or something bc he’s like “fuck yeah im gna get bitches” but ends up not going out w/ the woman he meets? i think they end up having a therapy session

i think he originally wanted to leave to a diff place but ended up going back home and staying because of his sister

i am not sure what goes on bc i read this my freshman year in hs

but i rlly liked holden, i rmbr he was such a funny little shithead and that kid was definitely mentally ill- i’m pretty sure holden said something about having a manic episode at the end unless i read that somewhere else

[docrotten]

13 SLASHER FILMS THAT INSPIRED SCREAM and HORROR NEWS OF THE WEEK

This week on HNR, movie news of the week and the top 13 Slasher Films that influenced the SCREAM franchise . All this, and more, coming up next…Join your host Doc Rotten are the scariest, goriest, bloodiest co-hosts on the 'Net: Dave Dreher, the lead news writer at Gruesome Magazine, and Crystal Cleveland, the Livin6dead6irl.

HORROR MOVIE NEWS

Jamie Lee Curtis dedicates Oscar win for Best Supporting Actress in Everything Everywhere All At Once to "Hundreds" including Genre Fans! Source: Deadline

Alicia Witt and Blair Underwood join Nicolas Cage and Maika Monroe for Osgood Perkins' next feature, Longlegs.

Warner Bros. is courting Jenna Ortega for Beetlejuice 2. Source: Hollywood Reporter

TOP 13 SLASHERS THAT INFLUENCED SCREAM (Chronologically)

Norman Bates (1960, Psycho)

d. Alfred Hitchcock

a. Anthony Perkins

Billy (1974, Black Christmas)

d. Bob Clark

a. Albert J. Dunk (uncredited)

Leatherface (1974, Texas Chainsaw Massacre)

d. Tobe Hooper

a. Gunnar Hansen

Michael Myers (1978, Halloween)

d. John Carpenter

a. Nick Castle and Tommy Lee Wallace

Curt Duncan (1979, When a Stranger Calls)

d. Fred Walton

a. Tony Beckley

Mrs. Pamela Voorhees / Jason Voorhees (1980, Friday the 13th)

d. Sean S. Cunningham

a. Betsy Palmer and Ari Lehman

Frank Zito (1980, Maniac)

d. William Lustig

a. Joe Spinell

Cropsy (1981, The Burning)

d. Tony Maylam

a. Lou David

The Miner / Harry Warden (1981, My Bloody Valentine)

d. George Mihalka

a. Peter Cowper

Russ Thorn (1982, The Slumber Party Massacre)

d. Amy Holden Jones

a. Michael Villella

Angela Baker (1983, Sleepaway Camp)

d. Robert Hiltzik

a. Felissa Rose

Freddy Krueger (1984, A Nightmare on Elm Street)

d. Wes Craven

a. Robert Englund

Charles Lee Ray / Chucky (1988, Child's Play)

d. Tom Holland

a. Brad Douriff

Check out this episode!

[cripplemagics]

Jay's hunger games verse

this gets long so sorry about putting it under a cut

Jay was born in district 12 to an unmarried couple. Their mom ended up selling them to peacekeepers looking for 'unwanted' people to send to the capitol for experimentation at the age of 6. Their dad never knew.

Poppa Holden was a scientist at the capitol who took pity on jay and harbored anger at the government for allowing a child to be put through such torture. so he faked their death and brought them into his family's home to raise them. So Jay grew up in One.

At the age of fifteen Jay was announced tribute for One after their name was put in hundreds of times without any reason given. In reality the games keeper, a seventeen year old named Elias Jaune, had told Poppa Holden that he'd reveal the Holdens to be traitors against the capitol for saving Jay unless they allowed him to rig the reaping to make them tribute.

Elias's reasons for this was that he'd been stalking and infatuated with Jay for years during his education. An education that had been expedited due to his keen interest in the games and ability to analyze the events quickly. When approached by Elias, Jay vehemently denied his affection which angered him. This is his revenge.

Jay was distraught upon hearing the news. Understanding this meant death, they announced their true birthplace and that they'd be fighting for twelve in spirit even if the capitol tried to make them fight for one. Their trust in the Holdens was further fractured when elias revealed his plan in a visit before the interviews.

Jay's fellow tribute was a sixteen year old boy named Fen. While callous about them at first, Fen became more understanding towards them during training and vowed to protect them so they could win. Love ultimately blossomed between them.

This ultimately led to Elias having Fen killed by mutts in front of jay during the climax of the games. He'd turned the river water to acid and had the pack of mutts drag Fen into it. Jay, knowing that they'd end up as Elias's prize upon winning, dunked their face into the acid in hopes of either dying or scarring their face enough to become undesirable.

Although they survived Elias put them through extensive reconstructive surgery by convincing Snow it was necessary that One's victor still be presentable. After this he all but bought them, keeping them around for conversation and entertainment. (There is the insinuation of prostitution of 'desirable' victors in universe. While Elias doesn't like sharing Jay, he'll sometimes engage in this to torture their psyche more.)

Jay still fights back. They often paint coded messages of rebellion and espionage that are obscure enough to be hung in capitol galleries as masterpieces of modern art. When they're able to they send money to their remaining family in twelve. their mother eventually died of an overdose between selling them and their win.

Eventually they do make it back to twelve and live in the victors area there. But its maybe ten-twelve years before the events of the trilogy.

Between catching fire and mockingjay elias abducts them and they're put with the other victors who rebelled (johanna, annie, peta, etc.) Poppa Holden is forced to experiment on them as delayed punishment for his supposed crimes and they almost die before being rescued with the others. Their one endeavor at this point and only reason for joining thirteen is to kill elias. After this is undecided in terms of whether i'll write them dying or living.

[always-tilting-at-windmills]

[eggsaladstain]

james “can’t catch a break” holden is lowkey the FUNNIEST character on the expanse and him thinking elvi was trying to comfort him when she was really having a scientific breakthrough makes me cackle every single time

this man has saved humanity more times than any one person should reasonably be expected to and the whole show is just him getting dunked on by everyone around him for 5 seasons straight

someone help him he is TRYING his BEST

[elirandom]

My brain keeps spinning on 4x09 - 4x10. Like when everyone's back on Rocinante including Murtry. And Holden has asked (that look demanded a promise) Amos not to kill Murtry previously.

"Oh and Amos, don't kill him while I'm gone."

Amos face is so frustrated that Holden asks this of him. "He has it coming".

And Holden's face softens in that honest way he has of asking people difficult things "I know but it's important to me. [read do this for me, I need this from you] Promise."

And Amos dunks his head back like he can't believe he's doing this but he's gonna, and then looks at Holden like do you know what you're asking of me? But yes, I promise I won't do it. And it's all in a look & it's there between them, wordless trust. And Holden nods, complete faith in Amos.

And then Amos just looks at Murtry who sighs like he'd been tense the whole time over these homicidal assholes who's ruined his day. But at least the one who shot Wei won't kill him for now.

And then back at the ship, where Amos had his hands healed and Alex comments on his hand looking good. And Amos being Amos wiggles his regrown fingers, " I'm gonna test it out right now" & heads for Murtry's cell/room. Because he promised Holden he wouldn't kill him, & there's a lot of leeway in that promise.

Still he waits til Murtry throws the first punch, & then he opens the floodgates with a thank you. Like Murtry made this so much easier for him, his mind is such a mess right now after what what Murtry made him do. Because he put Wei between them, she was just a chess piece on Murtry's board he could sacrifice. And Amos held to his principles, he stood by his team, protected his captain, yet had to kill this woman he liked for it. And if her head hadn't been so full of Murtry's bullshit & lies about money & dreams about climbing out of the mud & on top the pile maybe she would have listened to Amos.

And in my head Holden knows exactly where Amos had been when he comes into the galley still wiping his hands on a towel. But he hadn't interfered because he'd left his trust in Amos hands.

"Did you leave him alive?"

"I promised I would didn't I?"

"Coffee?" And that would be it between them, even if it feels like something so big of a building block has been set between them. This steady rock underneath their feet, the captain & his second.

[sunnys-rewatch-blog]

S2, E17

"The Blond Leading the Blind"

Toby and Emily used to have such a great friendship and there's nothing left of it just because he started dating Spencer. Whhhyyy.

Holden was genuinely interested in Aria when he asked her out...I do love the idea of queer tension in his martial arts. He could be demisexual (ace-spec), bi- or pan- romantic. Yeah! But, also, can we talk about how they all assume he's gay because he's never tried to kiss Aria without her consent? Did we really just say "all wlw get in Emily's car without asking- all straight men to Aria's car!"? Trying to kiss Aria is now the hetero rite of passage.

Is he supposed to be canonically gay, though?

Why is Garrett making so much conversation with Caleb? Do they even know each other?

Mona has every right to be mad at Hanna. Like, she really could have gone and made way better friends if she didn't spend so much time obsessing over this group. Straight up, Hanna always has time to show up for the other girls' issues- like, physically walk up to their houses in the middle of the fucking night- but she can't return Mona's phone calls while she's going through a breakup? Not to mention the so-called friends Hanna keeps showing up for largely stood by while Alison bullied and ostracized her and they don't do much at all to address that. It comes off like Hanna was probably friends with this girl squad because she felt like she was under pressure to be popular.

Why is Wren being so flirty with Spencer in the hospital?

"Jenna would kill and eat her own mother to get back at us"

For someone who regrets SA-ing Toby, Jenna sure keeps acting predatory with him every chance she gets.

Is Ezra even a good teacher? So far, the people doing the most raving about him have been students who were really into him. He seems to give his male students an especially hard time. This college student is trying to get constructive criticism on his work, and Ezra is just dunking on him because "it's not realistic." Let me side-step how unrealistic his whole life is, right now. When a teacher in an English class gives you a creative writing assignment, isn't it usually based on some school assignment or module you're teaching? Like "write a poem similar to Edgar Allan Poe's 'The Raven'" or "Reimagine this scene between Hamlet and Ophelia?" Ezra sure hands out a lot of creative writing assignments for a teacher who doesn't even teach creative writing. What was the prompt? Did he specify that "gritty realism" was an inherent piece of whatever assignment he handed out, or does he just like kicking other men in the balls? Because if this guy didn't understand the assignment, that's constructive criticism for him as a teacher.

I get that his inability to enjoy the wistful romance is supposed to be an indication of his mood or whatever having to separate from Aria but all they've shown me successfully is that he cannot demonstrate any teaching or leadership skills, or any objectivity, unless his romance life is going perfectly. Maybe Byron was right about him being mediocre. Why am I supposed to see this man as such an amazing teacher? And I feel like it's a huge red flag that he's specifically like this with men, I just can't put my finger on it.

Are Aria's parents really going to be okay picking their daughter up drenched from the rain?

[welcometogrouchland]

enterprise characters divided into whether they’d be a supernatural fan, a doctor who fan, a sherlock fan, or a homestuck

SIGH

Jo: Homestuck. She likes the elaborate sprawling plot because it means she gets to feel smart memorizing the lore. Jade and Rose stan. Does also dunk on Homestuck for being the way it is. You would not know she likes this comic if you asked her to talk about it

Dolly: doctor who. His favorite is the eleventh doctor (that's Christopher Eccleston right??) And the current one (13th??? Want to say????). Used to watch it on weekends with his moms. He's here for vibes and he likes watching the horror episodes/the ones that give you shrimp emotions with Holden.

Aurora: supernatural. She only stuck with it for like 10 seasons (better off that ppl who watched to the end but still watched too long 😔). Says dean is gay and homophobic. Loves the superhell memes

Holden: got through one season of Sherlock because she read 1(one) Sherlock Holmes book as a kid (defs the one w/ Irene Adler in it) and felt really smart for it so decided to give the show a try. She finds Benedict Cumberbatch inherently rage inducing though and thus stopped after the first season (good for her.png)

Only ones involved in fandom spaces are Jo and Aurora and Aurora is semi-ironic abt it

[goose-books]

so what’s the deal with valentine van velt?

great question. their parents and teachers ask this also. anyway this post is to explain why i have a project that i never made a fancy intro post for. also to make you look at my art

what is it?

it’s a book! well, a book in progress. by yours truly max gooseboy.

there’s a little blurb over here, but in short: it’s about four days in the life of a very annoying, very unhappy teenager named valentine. (that’s the little bastard you see above.) the story’s told in a mixture of first and second person - it’s narrated by a self-admittedly unreliable patient in an OCD program, talking to a “you” that is valentine themself.

...i will admit in my head i’ve taken to calling it “holden caulfield goes to exposure therapy”

why are you so vague about it all the time?

primarily because the target audience is, and always has been, me.

my other projects are much easier to talk about, because they have fun taglines and they are fundamentally what they claim to be on the tin. plus i do genuinely think other people will like them! i am excited to share them with the world! so VVVID is my weird baby in that it’s rather unorthodox and written for an ideal audience of Me.

i hate to call it slice-of-life, because that term tends to have a peaceful fluffy connotation and this is… definitely not that. but it is a winding and strange little story. the unreliability of the narrator is a plot point. i have held off on making some kind of Flashy Cool Please-Reblog-This Intro Post™ for this project because i don’t want to promise something i am not going to deliver on! i don’t want people thinking i’m going to offer a stunning murder mystery (did valentine even get murdered? god knows) or a tearjerking found family story when what am i really offering is… a twisty little thing about mental health, mostly.

plus there are substantial bits that are… very overtly based off of my experiences with mental health. and i do not want people seeing a post about it and thinking that i have come to write Groundbreaking Ownvoices Fiction About Mental Illness when i am writing about me and my experience specifically, if that makes sense. and like... i dunno man i genuinely don’t know if other people on the planet will enjoy this thing! i don’t know if it is going to be objectively “good”! but i sure am going to create it anyway! it is a gift to myself!

but if you don’t want people to see it, why are you posting about it?

i don’t not want people to see it! i’m not saying, “too bad if you want to see it someday, you can’t, it is locked in a box at the bottom of a trench and only i have the key.” i just don’t want to misadvertize :> but i do like to talk about the things i am working on and i definitely want to be able to open the text post creator and complain about / dunk on valentine for being incredibly annoying and difficult to write. so. here we are

what is your plan for it, if not to lock it in a box and throw it down a trench?

this is a great question! i do not know! i’m in the home stretch here (if i actually sit down and Do It i’ll have it finished in a week, knock on wood) and after i finish the first draft i’m switching focus to nanowrimo prep lmao. and after that... perhaps i will write a second valentine draft. perhaps i will stick it back into the files to come back to in the distant future. perhaps i will polish it up and put it on the internet for the, like, two people who have expressed interest. who’s to say. who’s to say.

“max i would like to hear more about this”

my askbox is open!

“max i think literally all of your other projects sound more interesting never talk about this again”

my askbox is open for you to say this to me also!

“max i want that twink (valentine) obliterated”

[revving my car engine] don’t worry it’s happening

[catgirlthecrazy]

Muse and Knight

Warning: this fanfic contains major spoilers through Tiamat’s Wrath.

AO3

Summary: The transition from uneasy allies to family doesn’t happen in a single moment. Not even a dramatic one. It’s a slow change, like a sunset. You can’t see it happening, just see the results when it’s already happened.

Holden and Clarissa’s relationship, through the years.

The coffee machine was broken. Again. Holden pressed his forehead into the cool brushed steel surface of the machine. “I don’t ask for much. Really, I don’t. Is this so unreasonable?” The red text of the error message shown even through his closed eyelids. It seemed almost irritated at him for expecting it to perform the function that was the entire purpose of its existence.

The galley door slid open. “Oh,” a soft voice said. Clarissa hovered at the galley door. 

“Hey,” he said. “You’re up.”

Clarissa seemed to teeter on the edge of leaving. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you were awake." 

Holden shrugged. "Couldn’t sleep. Figured I’d start shift early. Or, I was going to."  He gestured helplessly at the red error message. Holden’s head already ached in anticipation of caffeine withdrawal.

Clarissa frowned and crossed the galley, inspecting the error message. "It’s not working?” She power-cycled the coffee maker and hit the brew button again.

“Already tried that,” Holden said. As if agreeing, the machine buzzed angrily and spat out the same error message as before. 

“Hmm. Let me take a look.” Clarissa left, and returned with a bag of tools and parts. A minute later she had the machine on the floor, back panel removed and parts exposed to the open air. Not for the first time, Holden was struck by a sudden sense of surreality. Just a handful of years ago, this woman had tried to destroy him and everyone he loved. He could still remember the murderous rage she’d inspired in him. Now she was fixing his coffeemaker, and he was weirdly ok with that.

He’d like to say that the assault on the slow zone had been the tipping point. The moment when she’d moved in his mind from “person who’d tried to kill him” to “part of his crew.” But these sorts of things never worked like that. It was like a sunrise: you couldn’t see the sky turning from black to blue while it was ongoing. You could only notice the results after they’d already happened.

“Ha!” Clarissa pulled out something metallic and charred, with little dangling wires like tentacles. “Power leads burnt out.”

“Is that hard to fix?" 

"No, this part swaps out pretty easy.” She opened a utility organizer labeled Replacement Parts: Galley in neat handwriting that definitely wasn’t Amos’. She pulled out the pristine twin of the burnt out part and wired it into the machine. She put the machine back together, and ran diagnostics. This time the message was a happy green. She made a little animal noise of satisfaction. “There, all fixed.”

Holden clapped her on the shoulder. “You are my favorite person in the solar system.” He turned to the machine and started a new brew. “You want me to make some for you?” When she didn’t answer, he turned to look at her. 

There was an odd expression on Clarissa’s face, one his caffeine-deprived mind couldn’t quite decipher. “I… yes, I would love that,” she said.

Weeks later, Holden would learn that Clarissa actually hated coffee. That morning, though, she drank the whole cup.

***

Pátria was a big colony. To Holden, a child of cramped and crowded Earth, that still felt a little strange. Pátria only had a few settlements, and only one that could rate the label ‘city’- barely. But by the fledgling standards of extra-solar colonies, it was a metropolis. It had paved roads and a sewage system and real buildings not made from scrap and mud. And it had recreational swimmers.

The day was uncomfortably hot, the kind of hot that made his shirt damp. A few families with young children were splashing in the local lake on the outskirts of the town. A floating platform had been set up in a deeper part of the lake. One adolescent took a running leap off and cannonballed into the lake, splashing his friends and prompting screams and shouts. A few nearby waterbirds croaked their annoyance and flew off. Holden found himself grinning. 

“People do this for fun ?” Bobbie’s voice was acrid with disgust and amusement.

“What, swim? It’s not that uncommon on Earth,” he said.

“Those birds have been pooping in there. And the fish. And whatever the hell kind of microbes they’ve got.”

Holden shrugged. “That’s true on Earth too. People still swim in ponds and lakes there. Remind me to tell you about some of my family’s trips to Flathead Lake.”

She shot him a look. “Yeah, and that's also disgusting. But at least Earth lakes have our flavor of shit and microbes in it. This will have alien shit and microbes in it. Who knows what that does?”

Holden opened his mouth to answer, but Clarissa beat him to it. “They test the water regularly here. It’s not safe to drink without treatment, but you can swim in it just fine. So long as you don’t swallow too much, anyway.” She was taking off her shoes and rolling up her jumpsuit pantlegs as she talked. “I looked it up before we landed.” She set her shoes aside, socks neatly tucked in, and walked purposefully towards the water. It took Holden a second to understand why. Then he grinned and shucked off his own shoes.

Bobbie groaned. “If your feet melt into green slime, don’t come complaining to me,” she called.

They both ignored her. Clarissa was already up to her ankles by the time Holden reached the water. Her face was turned up to the sun like a flower, her expression pure bliss. 

“I don’t think I’ve been anywhere near a real lake since I was a kid,” Holden said. The water was delightfully cold. The soft wet sand slid comfortably between his toes. 

“Last time I was near a lake was when me and Amos were trying to get off Earth. Not much time for swimming then.”

“And before that?”

“Probably the same lake, the last time I summered there with my parents. We used to go there every other year. It was… nice.” She had the same distant tone she got, discussing her old life. He’d never pressed her much about it. So Holden changed the subject. 

“I forgot how good cold water feels on a hot day,” he said. He crouched down and started splashing water on his face, careful to keep his mouth closed as he did so.

Clarissa was digging out handfuls of sand out of the lake bottom and watching them flow through her fingers underwater. “I know. I almost want to just dunk myself in and float for a while." 

"But?”

“But I don’t fancy walking around in a soaking wet jumpsuit the rest of the day.”

“Those colonists got their swimsuits from somewhere. We’ve got a few hours. We could go get some. Have some shore leave on the beach.

"You think anyone else will be interested?” Her tone was amused. Holden glanced behind him. Bobbie was still shaking her head at the whole affair in amused disgust. Amos was staring at them with the blank non-comprehension of someone watching a foreign religious ritual. Alex and Naomi were back on the Roci, but he suspected their reaction would be much the same as Bobbie’s. Lake swimming wasn’t something people did outside of Earth- or it hadn’t been until now. And Baltimore didn’t have any bodies of water a sane person would want to swim in. It occurred to Holden that, though Clarissa wasn’t the only other Earther on the crew, she was probably the only one who shared any of his fondness for the place.

“Maybe not,” he said. “Do we need anyone else?”

She smiled. “I guess we don’t.”

By the time they were done at the lake, the day was nearly gone. The two of them walked back to the Roci’s landing pad, chatting animatedly, beneath a sky transitioning from blue to azure to black.

***

When you lived day in and day out with the same people on a small ship, a certain level telepathy emerged. From the tone of Naomi’s humming, or the way Bobbie took a ladder, or the rhythm of Alex’s fingers on the controls, Holden could take a barometer reading of each of his crew. So when Holden saw Clarissa sitting in the galley, gripping her mug of tea in a very particular way, he knew something was very wrong. Unfortunately, the telepathy didn’t tell him why.

To buy himself time, he started making coffee. Holden knew so much detail about his crew personal and work lives that, whatever their mood was, he usually had plenty of context to guess what the cause was. He didn’t know of anything in Clarissa’s life that could be behind her anxious mood. She hadn’t had any fights with the other crew that he knew of. There weren’t any looming mechanical problems or existential threats. He wondered how to go about asking what was bothering her.

Holden sat down at the table across from her. “What’s bothering you?”

Her eyes focused on him, like she’d only just noticed he was there. Then she laughed. “Always the direct approach.”

He grinned and shrugged. “I’m not very good at this.”

She grinned back for a moment. Then it faded. “I got a message from my sister.”

Two thoughts collided in Holden’s head: I thought your sister was dead slammed into I hope she’s doing well and jumbled together in his mind. Just barely, he stopped himself from blurting I hope she’s dead out loud. He knew Clarissa had siblings besides Julie. She never talked about her birth family except in the past tense, so it was easy to forget that most of them were still alive.

“Not good news, I take it?”

“My father is dead.”

The news was like a dropped tool in an empty cargo hold. Her father. Jules-Pierre Mao. The man who had probably held the record for bloodiest hands in the solar system until Marco Inaros came along to steal the title. It was hard for Holden to think of the arrogant man he’d encountered on Luna so many years ago as related to the tired looking mechanic in front of him. The Venn Diagram between the two had so little overlap these days that they were nearly separate circles in his mind. “Um. Wow.” He took a long pull from his coffee. He couldn’t make this about his own feelings right now. “How are you feeling right now?”

She didn’t answer for a long moment, but Holden chose to wait and sip his coffee. He didn’t have to wait long. “When I was young, he defined my life. Father was like a gravity well. So much revolved around him, and you couldn’t pass near him without accounting for how he’d alter your trajectory. Now he’s gone, and it’s hardly worth a story on the news feeds.” She smiled wryly. “He would have hated that.”

Holden frowned into his coffee. “You know, now that you mention it, that’s kind of weird. I mean, yeah, it’s been a while since he was in the news, but he was kind of a big deal back in the day. I’m surprised I haven’t heard more about this.”

“I’m not. He was held in Mossoró when the rocks fell. They were hit bad by tsunamis. They couldn’t find most of the bodies. It’s only now that the courts have made it official.” Clarissa’s voice was so flat, like she was reading off a list. 

“So you’ve known this was coming.” Holden wondered if that was the reason for her mood. He could remember one of his grandmothers, who’d been gravely ill for so long before she died that he’d felt more relief at her passing than loss. And with that relief, guilt.

“I suppose I did.” Clarissa cocked her head in bemusement. “I’m surprised you didn’t know that. You’re the one who put him in prison.” There was no hint of reproach in her voice. Almost, they could have been talking about a famous football player whose career Holden hadn’t kept up with.

Holden shrugged. “Honestly, I kind of stopped giving a fuck about him once he was in prison. So long as he couldn’t start wars, I didn’t really care.” Holden winced. “I uh, may not be the most comforting person to talk to about this.”

Clarissa just smiled at him. “I think he’d hate that even more than the lack of news coverage.”

Holden wasn’t entirely sure how to respond to that. “So… You sound pretty calm about this. But I can tell something’s bugging you. Anything you want to talk about?”

Clarissa frowned into her mug. “When I got the message that he was dead, my first thought was 'good.’ I don’t like that.”

Holden took a long sip from his coffee to buy himself time. “No love lost between you two, then?”

“I don’t feel anything about him. No love, no hate. I’m just very, very glad that he’s gone forever now. And I don’t like that I feel that way. I didn’t think I was that kind of person anymore.”

“I mean, to be fair, it makes me a little happy to know he’s gone for good.” Clarissa looked up at him sharply, and he shrugged. “It probably doesn’t speak well of me as a person. But I think it’s just part of being human.”

“Maybe.” She stared at her drink. “I still feel like I’ve failed somehow.”

Holden strongly disagreed. But he knew by now that she didn’t really want him to prove her wrong. Just listen while she worked through it on her own.

And the truth was, Holden could sympathize with her sorrow, but he couldn’t entirely empathize with it. Mao was her father. He understood intellectually why parent-child relationships could fall apart so completely and irreparably that she could react this way. He could agree entirely with the reasons why. He knew that the only right you had with anyone in life was the right to walk away. But he couldn’t really feel it. He had always gotten on well with his own parents. It was hard to imagine anything different.

He took her hand. “Well, for what it’s worth, I like the person you are now,” he said.

“And who do you think that person is?”

“The person who fixes things. The person who won’t let so much as a squeaking hinge stick around for long. The person who builds things.”

She didn’t answer him. She just smiled a small smile. They sat together in companiable silence for a long time. 

***

When his interrogators told him about the body on Medina, Holden thought they were lying. Surely, it was a tactic to make him admit something. Surely, the photos and autopsy reports were fake. Surely, they couldn’t have found Clarissa Mao, shot twice amidst a half dozen dead Laconian soldiers. When Holden finally let himself believe them, he waited for them to tell him who else in his family had died. Months, then years passed, and the news never came.

He couldn’t grieve. He couldn’t afford to. If the Laconians knew just how deep a weakness it was, if they understood that she was more to him that a mere crewmate, they’d never stop hammering away at it. So he threw all his efforts into diverting them. He opened up as much as he could on the alien threat. The Tempest anomaly. The Ilus artifact. Elvi Okoye.

When he finally got free, he was too preoccupied to think much about older pain. The flight to the gate, Bobbie’s death, Amos’ strange resurrection: all of these overwhelmed his attention like a well lit room overwhelms a single candle. When the grief reminded him of its presence, it wasn’t how he expected it.

The cabin door squeaked. It was such a soft little sound, it took Holden weeks to notice it. He was so wrapped up in the joy of being back on the Roci, of not being on Laconia, that most other things were background noise. But as time went by, as they passed through the Laconia gate, through the slow zone and into the Gossner system, Holden noticed the small rattling whine of a mechanism not quite in alignment.

“It’s just a squeak.” Naomi shrugged with her hands when he mentioned it to her. “I can have Amos put it on the to-do list, but I guarantee you he’s got a couple dozen other items on it already. This might never make it to the top.”

“I know it’s pretty minor in the grand scheme of things,” Holden said. Experimentally he cycled the door a couple more times to see if the noise was consistent. “I just can’t remember the last time a squeak stuck around this long." 

He meant to sound casual. Evidently he failed, because Naomi’s expression softened. "I miss her too.”

Holden sagged a little, like a spring losing tension. “I wanted to believe it was a bad dream. Or a lie to make me admit something. The Laconians sprang it on me suddenly. I think they were trying to surprise me into letting something slip.” He could still remember the feeling like a dunk in ice. Like a confirmation of his worst nightmares. 

“Did they tell you how it happened?”

“Some. 'Likely involved in terrorist activities’ was I think how they put it.”

“She saved my life. She saved the whole underground.” And Naomi told him the story of the jailbreak, the traitor, and Clarissa’s last stand. 

Holden couldn’t speak. In broad strokes, what Naomi told him wasn’t far off from what he’d already guessed. But he hadn’t fully appreciated just how much he owed to Clarissa’s sacrifice. Naomi’s life was one item at the top of a very long list.

Naomi pulled him into a hug, and Holden broke. His body shook with the quiet sobs that he’d never allowed himself on Laconia. She murmured soothing words whose content mattered less than their tone. He could feel some of her tears wet on his forehead. He wasn’t sure how long they stood there like that. He had the raw sense of having burned a deep infection out of a wound.

“I’ve got a few spare hours,” Naomi said. “I could grab some tools. We could fix it together." 

"That,” Holden said, voice still ragged, “would be great.”