#granted he never had an issue with carriers or anything

[furshrimps]

Now that Sammy's been doing better for a while I've started thinking again that it would be a good time to see if I can find a better home for him.

In my logical mind it seems the better choice for each of us, overall. For him, for me, even for Bats. I would sorely miss his incredible over-the-top goofiness and that he so easily is motivated to play with or without toys, and just his personal quirky flavor of endless love and affection, his abundant happiness. Knowing myself, I'll probably even miss the challenges in some way. A very bright light of love would be disappearing from my life, and just thinking about losing it makes me cry. The other thing I'm not looking forward to is that I probably should inform his breeder, and I probably could do without whatever she has to say about it. I'm imagining it wouldn't be something nice necessarily, based on my previous experiences with her (although I'd be happy to be proven wrong about that, it could very well be just my fear of rejection speaking). Still, I think she deserves to know IF I indeed find someone I'd trust him with.

On the other hand. To know him in good hands that can provide more training, more enrichment, better/ easier vet care as he gets even older. All things I do struggle with a lot since my health took a turn for the worse, and which I already did struggle with from the start, albeit much more low key. It would lift a huge responsibility from my shoulders, and maybe grant him the chance of a more fulfilled life in the years he has left. I knew from the start he's not the dog for me, that he requires more energy than I have to give, even though I tried my best to provide him with everything I could give him during our years together. And we definitely did give each other a large amount of great experiences that I wanna say we both don't want to have missed.

But I think I at least should try. I'm thinking of making it a requirement that any interested person will visit us a number of times to spend time with him and do things with him, so I can see if he starts opening up to them at all, and maybe see how they handle him in his not-so-good moments. Ultimately, I would leave that decision for Sammy himself, though, since animals tend to have a good idea about where they need to go themselves. I think he deserves to be given that chance. If it works, it works, and I'd be happy to let him go to a better life. And if it doesn't work, it doesn't, then he stays here for the rest of his life and we'll make it work somehow. However that is, but in some way we'll make it work if it comes to that.

[nancypullen]

Weird Stuff

I spent a very long day at work today, nothing was just simple - everyone had an issue to be solved. That's fine, it happens. It isn't like that every day. People come to the library seeking answers and wanting help. I can't always give them the answers they want (no, we can't do your taxes for you, and no, I can't file your divorce papers either) and they're not always nice about it. Today a woman absolutely wore me out because I couldn't/wouldn't transfer the info from her old phone to her new phone. I told her gently several times that she'd be better off taking her phone to Verizon/AT&T/or whatever her carrier might be, and they'll gladly assist her. She wasn't having it. Turns out she has basically a burner phone from Walmart on a plan called StraightTalk. Then she told me that she didn't even have the new phone yet. What?!? She was so testy with me because I couldn't grant her request and she didn't even have the dang phone! Another guy needed help printing some mailing labels attached to an email he received. I printed his attachments and then he gave me hell because he thought they were too small. I printed them exactly as he received them! Note: they were perfectly-sized mailing labels, clearly legible. All day long it was just a parade of disgruntled patrons. That's not even my beef with the work day. Here's what I have a problem with - since my very first day at the library (a month ago!) I can count on one hand (maybe one and a half) the number of times I've heard a please or thank you. Not even kidding. Maybe it's my years in the south, where no one would dream of asking anything of anyone without a please and thankyousomuch, that makes it grate on me so. But I don't think that's it. Even in my airline years, from Alaska to South Florida, most folks used common courtesy and manners. Here in Denton, that's not a thing. I mentioned it to several coworkers and they all concurred. I suppose they're used to it, but I hope I never grow accustomed to it. Would you ever dream of walking up to anyone in a store, library, coffee shop, etc and barking out your demand before snatching it without a word and walking off? It's the darndest thing. I'm truly puzzled by it. When did that become okay? Am I old-fashioned to think that manners are important?

The silver lining to all of that is that I don't feel bad when I have to tell a rude person that I can't grant their request. It used to kill me to have to disappoint someone. The philosophy at the library is "get to the YES", meaning find a way to satisfy that patron. So I can't file your divorce papers, but here are some contacts for free legal advice. No, I can't fill out your tax forms but let me put you in touch with the AARP folks in Federalsburg who will do them for free. No, I can't tell you what that lump is (and please pull your shirt down) but here's the number for Public Health, let's get you an appointment. That sort of thing, all day long. I think most people think of libraries as lovely, quiet places where middle-aged women in cardigans point you toward the books you're looking for - that is not the public library of today. And that's okay, but please use your best manners! I'm begging you. PLEASE. <---See how easy that was? Okay, my ranting and whining is over. Surely tomorrow will be a delight, right? My schedule for Wednesday shows that I start my day with a couple hours of "circulation prep" which means pulling books to transfer to other branches, filling hold requests, emptying big plastic totes that come back to us from other branches and processing those materials - all blissfully tucked away from the ungrateful public. Perfect. Wherever you are and whatever you're doing, I hope it's satisfying for you. I hope it's more than just a paycheck (not that paychecks aren't important, after all they buy chocolate and feed the cats, right?). I hope that your soul feels satisfied at the end of the day. I used to leave the school library knowing that I'd helped some kids, perhaps saved them from a disastrous grade (here's how you cite a source), introduced them to a new author, or just let them hang out in a safe spot during a lonely lunch. That was a good feeling. I wish that for you. Honestly, I wish that for all of us. That's it from me. I'm off to bed. The mister is in Minneapolis visiting Matt for his birthday week (I want to be there!!) so it's just me and the cats. We watched a little murder on tv and had soup for dinner. Girl party! I've had a good soak in the tub and now it's time to snooze. I need my rest before getting pummeled by the public again. Until next time - stay safe, stay well. XOXO, Nancy

[kiranxrys]

Alone Together Episode 1 Transcript - Alexander Siddig & Andrew Robinson

I hadn’t seen a transcript for this episode going around on Tumblr yet and I thought I would quickly make one to share with anyone who would prefer to read or wants to read along/revisit the first episode in text form (and the YouTube subtitles are mostly useless, annoyingly). Please let me know if you think I’ve made an error anywhere and I’ll amend it!

watch: one | two | three | four

read: two | three | four

ANNOUNCER (ON-SCREEN): ‘Alone Together’ - a DS9 companion, Episode 1 - ‘These Days’. It has been about 25 years since the Dominion War ended. The Federation isn’t quite the same. Starfleet is much more consistently militarized these days. Earth may be paradise, but humanity is less ideologically empathetic. Since the recent Romulan attempts to extinguish synthetic life by infiltrating Starfleet Command, benevolence is taking a backseat to security these days. 

Elim Garak has been Castellan of the Cardassian Assembly since the new order was established following the Dominion War. Garak, of course, also has direct control over a newly resurrected Obsidian Order, though not by title. 

Julian Bashir is still a doctor on Deep Space 9 but is also coordinating the activities of Section 31. What we’ve learned is that upon sharing a consciousness with Luther Sloane using stolen Romulan technology, his genetically enhanced brain committed much of what he learned to his eidetic memory. That information had to be contained but could be put to good use. He was given little choice in the matter. Maintaining his cover as a Chief Medical Officer in the Bajoran sector met his needs, and he saw no reason to change.

[fade to black]

JULIAN BASHIR (VOICE ONLY): Mission log, stardate 737114. I’m approaching Cardassia Prime in response to a rather enigmatic request for medical aid from Castellan Garak, the leader of the Cardassian government. Though it’s hardly surprising that Garak might be withholding information, it seems that a reunion of sorts will be forthcoming. I’ve left the Infirmary in the capable hands of Doctor Jabara while I’m off the station. I must admit, I’m not entirely sure what to expect. 

JULIAN (ON-SCREEN): Bashir to Central Command, I’ve just entered orbit of Cardassia Prime, requesting approval to transport to Cardassia.

ELIM GARAK (VOICE ONLY): Stand by, Doctor. Don’t be in such a hurry.

JULIAN: Garak. I didn’t expect you to be at the Central Command, it’s good to hear your voice.

GARAK: My dear doctor, are we starting the lies already?

JULIAN (LAUGHING): It’s true, Garak. It’s good to hear your voice! That’s not a- Look, more importantly, if you’ll grant approval I can beam to your current location.

GARAK: Doctor, I’m not at Central Command. I’ve merely intercepted your subspace communications link. Unfortunately, Doctor, the Federation will not be setting foot on Cardassia today, and, to be quite honest, you don’t want to be here.

JULIAN: Garak, your message suggested some urgency in my arrival. Quite frankly, what the hell am I doing here if I can’t beam down?

GARAK: Would you uh- [laughs] believe pure, unadulterated nostalgia?

JULIAN: Would you?

GARAK (ON-SCREEN): [laughs] I missed you too Doctor. So, how is life on the station?

JULIAN: Well, Bajoran fashions just aren’t the same since you left.

GARAK: I’m sure.

JULIAN: But much of life has returned to what it once was, as much as it ever could, I suppose. Now-

GARAK: I was sorry to hear about Dax.

JULIAN: Thank you. I um… I miss Ezri every day. Ten years. I, well, that is- we, Dax and I, we tried to make it work. I- I was so happy Dax made it back to Trill on time. Cairn and I, we were very different people. He’s a botanist – can you imagine? Dax as a botanist. I suppose it’s why Keiko didn’t seem to mind my business as much. She and Dax had so much to talk about but, well, once the Symbiosis Commission discovered our continued relationship, well, we just uh- we couldn’t-

GARAK: Doctor, there’s no need to explain.

JULIAN: No. Dax always encouraged me to talk about my feelings, though there’s not much else to say, really. I had never really considered being in love with another man, but it was Dax. Ezri, Jadzia, even Cairn, it was Dax, is Dax. But we- we just couldn’t- I didn’t-

GARAK: It is difficult to find a good counselor to sort out our deepest sorrows these days.

JULIAN: I suppose it is.

GARAK: You’re an honourable man, Doctor. You loved Dax, you could do nothing less than your heart demanded. I know the pain of love all too well, especially a love that has everything working against it.

JULIAN: Ziyal.

GARAK: Ziyal, yes. Yes, even exiles have hearts, Doctor. Even [laughs] Elim Garak. When it comes right down to it, he has a heart as well. In fact, my heart is partially the reason why I’m here.

JULIAN: So, this is a house call? Damn it, Garak, why didn’t you tell me on subspace? What- what are your symptoms? Why don’t you want me to beam down?

GARAK: Well, so many questions, one hardly knows which to answer first.

JULIAN: Your symptoms, Garak. What is wrong with your heart?

GARAK: Well, it’s not just my heart, Doctor. Actually the most concerning symptom seems to be a degenerative condition that causes the ill to be especially susceptible to suggestion. Luckily my infection is relatively new, and rather unexplained as my exposure to the public tends to be limited to state functions and the like, you know, the life of a politician.

JULIAN: The ill? Garak, what are you saying?

GARAK: A virus, Doctor. Cardassia appears to be facing a- a minor health issue. We’re trying to contain the infection to one region, but we may have moved… far too late.

JULIAN: A minor health issue? You are a champion of understatement! ‘The ill’ suggests that this isn’t just about you but your ability to hide the facts seems to have been tainted over the years.

GARAK: Doctor?

JULIAN: Since your speech at the Lakarian City memorial, the ridges on your neck have grown paler and your breathing rate has increased.

GARAK: You liked my speech?

JULIAN: Damn it, Garak, you contacted me! How is this the first time that I’m hearing about this? Why is the planet not being quarantined? Your message said ‘medical aid’ – I assumed that I was just coming here as a preliminary consultation having something to do with one of your colonies. Now it sounds like an outbreak that needs to be contained.

GARAK: Doctor, quarantine means announcing the problem to the galaxy. This is an internal matter. You obviously don’t appreciate the severity of this virus, but you needn’t worry – no one is allowed to leave Cardassia, no one is currently being permitted to enter the atmosphere.

JULIAN: I cannot imagine you can contain the population without a reason. Just how bad is it?

GARAK: Oh, I’ve given them a reason, Doctor, but you shouldn’t worry about that. There are more important things requiring your focus right now.

JULIAN: Of course. How much- how many are infected?

GARAK: At last count, the virus had been contained to three continents. Nearly 68% of the population in those regions has been infected.

JULIAN: And you call it a ‘minor issue’ Garak?! That’s a pandemic!

GARAK: Doctor, when I say that the ill have developed a degenerative condition, I speak specifically of their thought processes. It is true that we have determined that it is a virus – a biological contaminant of sorts – but the Central Command is hardly a healthcare organization and while the degeneration is affecting the cardiopulmonary system as well, all of the symptoms seem to be driven by misfiring neurons, and therein lies the problem.

JULIAN: A virus that affects the brain is no small problem. The fact that early infections are showing in terms of dysfunction relatively mild systems doesn’t mean people won’t start to die.

GARAK: Yes, Doctor. And I haven’t.

JULIAN: My God, Garak. You’re infected.

GARAK: Why do you think I contacted you? I want the best.

JULIAN: And hoping that my genetic enhancements will allow me to diagnose your symptoms without scanning equipment?  

GARAK: I really have missed your mistrust, Doctor. The physicians here have the tendency to avoid the necessary dispassion for harder truths. You, however, have a refreshingly forthright bedside manner.

JULIAN: Wow, a compliment. You must be neurologically compromised. Well of course, of course I’ll do everything that I can. Do you know anything more about the virus? How is it passed on? How does it proliferate in the body? Have your doctors attempted any therapies that show any promise?

GARAK: Well, it seems to take several days to propagate in the carrier. During that time, sufferers develop a rather serious cough... [inaudible] …the dispatcher reaches the brain so our assumption it that it is spread through the air. Most hospitals have been closed to all but the infected to try and control the outbreak. As a result, our doctors are learning from their patients as they are treating them. As it stands now, they can only treat symptoms. Medical staff is reporting to external bodies to ensure that anyone studying the infection isn’t also battling a neurological disease. Progress is limited and all too slow.

JULIAN: Garak, I’m not sure how I can help you if I can’t examine you or access your data.

GARAK: Doctor, I’m afraid I can’t allow you to put yourself at risk. After all, I’m counting on you to save us all. And I believe that an outside perspective may be exactly what we need.

JULIAN: So no pressure?

GARAK: You’re a bright man, Doctor – put that genetically-enhanced brain of yours to work.

JULIAN: Well, I can’t examine you from orbit. My shuttlecraft sensors may be able to me that you’re alive, they can isolate you for transport, but they can hardly determine more than the most modest of life signs, and while I can see outward symptoms, Garak, I can’t for the life of me figure out how to see through your skull. I suppose I could transport a tricorder down there for a preliminary scan.

GARAK: I’m afraid I can’t allow that, Doctor.

JULIAN: Oh, of course you can’t. Can you send me your most recent medical scans?

GARAK: Unfortunately, no.

JULIAN: And why not?

GARAK: All of my genuine medical records are routinely deleted and replaced with falsified data. All data rods in which those records once existed have been destroyed, all computers in which the data rods were placed have been vaporized. My dear doctor, I’m the leader of the Cardassian people! Especially now, I can’t afford to broadcast my weaknesses to all, to anyone who feels they could exploit them.

JULIAN: The more things change, the more they remain the same.

GARAK: Meaning?

JULIAN: A presumption of godliness, most certainly a great paranoia. You haven’t managed to find yourself a staff that you trust to protect your life. To be quite honest, I’m surprised your staff doesn’t have implants that allow you to control them.

GARAK: Oh, Doctor, your assumptions hurt me deeply! Of course they do. If news of this infection gets out, and I can’t be clearer than this, Cardassia will be devastated. And we won’t be the only world that will fall.

JULIAN: Garak, you seem to believe that I can cure this virus from orbit, without any information.

GARAK: Well, Doctor, this virus doesn’t only infect the average citizen. Everyone is at risk. Everyone – the government, the military. Imagine if only a few of their people were infected. They find it difficult to concentrate. They’re finding themselves susceptible to suggestion. And what if intelligence agents of foreign governments found their way to Cardassia during this crisis?

JULIAN: It could destroy the Cardassia you’ve been rebuilding for over two decades.

GARAK: Yes.

JULIAN: But quarantine would keep foreign nationals off-planet and keep the rest of us safe from infection, assuming it can even infect off-worlders.

GARAK: Again, Doctor, it would announce the problem before we have a solution.

JULIAN: But it could help produce the solution you so desperately need!

GARAK: The risk is too great, Doctor.

JULIAN: Garak! Lives are at stake!

GARAK: Hundreds, perhaps thousands, to save billions. Doctor – will. You. Help. Me?

JULIAN: First and foremost, I’m a doctor, Garak. And I’m your friend.

GARAK: Yes. One more thing we should keep to ourselves.

JULIAN: You know Garak… you are being more paranoid than usual. You remind me of the exiled tailor I met so many years ago.

GARAK: Ah, but as you said yourself Doctor, the more things change-

JULIAN: The more they stay the same. But Garak, so much has changed. You’re the leader of your people.

GARAK: Julian… let’s drop the pretensions, shall we?

JULIAN: Whatever do you mean?

GARAK: You know that I have rebuilt the Obsidian Order, and the reason that I know that you know is because I know that you are working for Starfleet Intelligence. Your posting at Deep Space 9 is merely your cover. Why would a religious sanctuary like Deep Space 9 need a doctor of your capability, with such a limited Starfleet presence? I must admit, you have done an excellent job of obscuring your intelligence role.

JULIAN: Dear, dear Garak. Have you been keeping tabs on me? I suppose of all people you would be the only person I might be able to trust with such information. Assuming any of your conclusions are true. But Starfleet still has a presence and Deep Space 9 is still a major way station for commerce and diplomacy in the Bajoran sector.

GARAK: Of course you can trust me with sensitive information Julian-

JULIAN: [chuckles]

GARAK: -at least until there’s a reason you can’t. Oh, but let’s hope it never comes to that. I do like you; I did from the very beginning. You may be my only true friend. Since Mila’s passing, our all too infrequent exchanges have been my only respite from a world without trust. The political world on Cardassia deplores a vacuum and the old ways are clung to, even after the war. It took me years to bring Cardassians around to another way of thinking. The arts are celebrated, the people are fed. Life is no longer a struggle, but… paranoia is rampant once more.

JULIAN: Then I suppose you’ve been the ideal leader.

GARAK: Well, I do appear to have the appropriate skill set and experience, yes.

JULIAN: You could always go back to being a plain, simple tailor.

GARAK (LAUGHING): You would be surprised by how many of my old vocations I still dabble in. I’ve even taken up taxidermy! Yes, it’s true! But stuffing a tribble isn’t as challenging as perhaps a six-legged [uncertain] marsupial, but it passes the time. And so many wonderful things fit inside an animal that need only trill to appear alive.

JULIAN: [laughs]

GARAK: But as you said Julian, you are my friend, and one of the things I learned from working in the Obsidian Order under Enabran Tain, was that friends are a liability. Enemies are easy. Friends… friends are the challenge. When I was his protégé I had a job to do, relationships were tools to achieve my objectives. I don’t have time for friends, I don’t have room for emotional attachments.

JULIAN: And then you were exiled.

GARAK: And then… I was exiled.

JULIAN: I had no idea.

GARAK: About what?

JULIAN: Am I your only friend?

GARAK: Well… the only one living.

JULIAN: You said that your cardiopulmonary system seems to be demonstrating symptoms consistent with this neurolytic virus.

GARAK: Mm-hmm.

JULIAN: I need to at least access the database being used by the off-site researchers working on a cure.

GARAK: I’m sorry to disappoint you, Doctor – I’ve never been an ideal patient, as you well know. But while I trust you, I cannot risk any access that Starfleet Intelligence might have built into your shuttle.

JULIAN: Garak, you’re tying my hands. Do you have access to a medical scanner? Can you scan yourself?

GARAK: I’ve been a tailor, a gardener, a spy, who’s to say I’m not a doctor as well?

JULIAN: I suppose stranger things have happened.

GARAK: Oh, a shapeshifter saved the galaxy by going for a swim, a Starfleet captain turned out to be a god, a Cardassian legate turned out to be the devil, you were married to a woman three centuries your senior – stranger things, my dear doctor, happen all the time.

JULIAN: You may have a point. Although to be fair, Dax is three hundred years older, not Ezri. Ezri was several years younger than me.

GARAK: Semantics, Doctor.

JULIAN: Ah, here we are.

GARAK: I’m sorry?

JULIAN: I’ve created an encrypted backdoor to your central database.

GARAK: Ooh, of course you did. Yes, but it won’t help you. Our researches are working in a closed system, it is impossible to access their research through the central network.

JULIAN: Damn it, Garak, I’m trying to help you! I encrypted the access, there was no danger to you or you people! I used a fractal regression to develop access points at either end.

GARAK: And I sincerely appreciate your efforts, Julian. That’s why you’re here. And of course that is why I am convinced no one else will be able to save us.

JULIAN: I cannot do this without any information about the pathogen. And even the smartest person in the galaxy would be hard-pressed to develop a cure to an unknown virus quickly enough to prevent its spread or knowledge of its existence to the outside world.

GARAK: I have faith in you, Doctor. And to put your mind at ease, you should know that very few citizens on Cardassia are even aware that they are infected. And I’ve committed the Order to a substantial misinformation campaign to keep it that way.

JULIAN: How long do you expect that to last? The longer the infected believe that they’re free to live their normal lives or even to travel to and from health centers for treatment for whatever malady they believe they have, the faster the real virus will spread.

GARAK: Well, it seems its symptoms vary in their intensity. The cough can be persistent or periodic. And when that initial symptom passes, the neurological symptoms cause sufferers to present a variety of ailments. It is only those doctors who discovered the virus and were subsequently visited by some associates that are aware of the larger problem. And they are the very physicians currently researching the virus on my behalf.

JULIAN: If you are able to contact them then there’s no reason that I can’t access their data!

GARAK: Doctor, we’ve been through this.

JULIAN: Garak, we’ve been through a lot of things!

GARAK (LAUGHING): Yes.

JULIAN: You didn’t call me here to explain Cardassia’s post-war isolationist bureaucracy!

GARAK: [laughs]

JULIAN: I came because a friend in need asked me!

GARAK: You didn’t know why I called you, Doctor. So please, don’t offer me your selfless pretense.

JULIAN: Pretense?! You think after all this time your lives and deceptions would keep me from helping you? I can tell when you’re lying Garak, and you know when I’m telling the truth. I promise you that no one will ever know about your role in the cover-up of the virus, at least not from me.

GARAK: I… I want you to set course for the southern polar region of Cardassia Prime. The magnetic interference will make it more difficult for prying eyes to access your subspace signal. You’ll find that my alleged paranoia has a purpose. 

JULIAN: Computer, set course 118 mark 72.

COMPUTER: [chimes] Acknowledged.

JULIAN: Engage at one-quarter impulse.

COMPUTER: Course laid in. [chimes]

JULIAN: My signal was encrypted from the very beginning. I assume the same is true of the signal you used to isolate and redirect my subspace carrier wave. Isn’t it a little bit late to begin worrying now, Garak?

GARAK: Our signal may be secure between one another, but any system can be breached given enough time and expertise. And what I have to tell you…

JULIAN: Just tell me, Garak. I’m over the polar region as you asked.

GARAK: Yes, so you are, so you are. Now, good, wait- wait… Good. Now that we’re comfortably alone, let me ask you this: do viruses normally pop up undetected in a population with little to no prior warning? And how many unknown pathogens exist in a planetary ecosystem with our level of technological development?

JULIAN: Well, to be quite honest, pathogens can unexpectedly adapt or cross species barriers. Centuries ago on Earth, industrial pollution led to a climate change which in turn caused previously isolated microorganisms to be released into the biosphere.

GARAK: Yes, you truly have an answer for everything.

JULIAN: It comes in handy. But I suspect you’re going somewhere with this so please, continue.

GARAK: Our research has found some… peculiarities in the viral RNA, and admittedly I don’t understand all of the specifics, but, to put it bluntly, the virus has been engineered. I’m sending you two images of the viral RNA we’ve discovered. The images are all that I can risk sending you now. If you can find the source, you may find a cure. Alternatively, if a cure was not developed… you can avenge my death.

JULIAN: Not currently one of my skill sets, Garak. But why the pretense? You could’ve told me this immediately- actually, don’t answer that. I’ll need some time to do an analysis of this to determine what might work to counteract the viral infection. Annoyingly, there is no systemic treatment that I can even begin to research without knowing the underlying cause. But over the last twenty-five years, you must’ve made all sorts of new enemies. According to the latest intelligence, the only dangerous political intrigue is coming out of the Romulan Empire these days.

GARAK: Yes, well, leading a government comes with its own risks, to be sure, Doctor. But why do they have to be new enemies? Of course the Romulans have never been great fans of mine – I mean I left their embassy’s grounds-keeping staff so many years ago. Oh, those poor orchids, they’ll never be the same. And there’s always Kai.

JULIAN: The Kai.

GARAK: Ah, Kira- Kira, dear Kira’s never been a fan of mine.

JULIAN: We both know that Nerys would have never worked this slowly if she wanted to kill you.

GARAK: [laughs]

JULIAN: And she would only kill you. But Nerys is hardly the same person since she left the militia to join the Vedek Assembly, and now that she’s the Kai, this level of genetic manipulation would have to accomplished by someone with intimate knowledge of the Cardassian physiology as well as the capacity to evade security of your medical system.

GARAK: Yes, although like I said, it is an internal Cardassian matter. I’m sure there are plenty of elder Cardassians who would enjoy watching my life come to an end from torture. Dukat’s father- I mean, uh… [laughs] to one kanar-induced tryst with the man himself, to finally becoming involved with Ziyal, and whatever else-

JULIAN: Wait- wait, wait, wait you- hang on, you- you and Dukat?

GARAK: Ooh, yes. Surprising, isn’t it? Yes, two nights, maybe, before my exile, I’d been feeling quite powerful. I wouldn’t have normally lowered my guard even among my fellow Cardassians. Dukat was enjoying his second bottle of kanar, was looking for someone to blame for his most recent failures to overcome the Bajoran resistance, and there I was. He promised my death from across Quark’s bar. Later that evening he found his way back to my table to apologize – uncharacteristic, absolutely, to be sure. But kanar can do that to a man. We stole away to a quiet corner on the second level to talk, and then we found our way to an unoccupied holosuite.

JULIAN: I don’t know what to say.

GARAK: Well, I don’t need to tell you, Doctor – it was an unplanned direction for my evening to take. And suffice to say it didn’t soften Dukat’s general opinion of me. [laughs] He did keep his distance for a long time afterward.

JULIAN: So, that story had a happy ending, if you’ll pardon the pun.

GARAK: Pun?

JULIAN: Uh, it- it’d be funny on Earth. Though tragic, too – sort of like a sad clown, really. Miles will love it.

GARAK: Doctor, could we perhaps find out what is slowly eating away at me before revealing my darkest secrets to Professor O’Brien over an ale.

JULIAN: Of course, of course. I think the first step is to cross-reference known immunogenic agents that could have been introduced into your system. Even if the virus is a new pathogen, its mode of infection could be a million different things. You should review your schedule and try and determine an environment over which your control was limited, a place where the food and drink could’ve been tampered with or perhaps a place where you could have been unexpectedly exposed to an air assault. But… about this dalliance with Dukat-

GARAK: Oh Doctor, please. Provincial human attitudes aside-

JULIAN: Of course.

GARAK: -your species didn’t always have synthehol, and every species seems to go through a period of poor choices. Believe it or not, Cardassians are a passionate people, a people who yearn to find joy wherever it may lie. And remember, that we were in the midst of a Bajoran occupation and there wasn’t much joy to be had for those of us assigned to Terok Nor. Decades later, my reforms are helping to shape a modern Cardassia.

JULIAN: Understood. Though I take exception to the word ‘provincial’.

GARAK: Oh, of course you do. Now, let me take a look at my agenda… According to my doctors, I could have been exposed more than a month ago.

JULIAN: A month? Well, you certainly waited long enough to contact me.

GARAK: Well, well we do have doctors on Cardassia, and I wouldn’t be much of a leader if I didn’t look to my own people before seeking outside assistance. However, I’m not naïve enough to trust them completely. And what kind of leader would I be if I did?

JULIAN: Fair enough. I need to get some biometric information, please, from you if I’m even to begin researching cures. Can you transport yourself to a hospital with proper scanning equipment that I can access?

GARAK: Oh dear, I- I- I can do better than that, Doctor. I can do better than that. My residence is equipped with some of the best holographic technology in the quadrant – what type of equipment do we need?

JULIAN: I didn’t realize Cardassia had made such strides in holography.

GARAK: Oh, the technology is Federation, actually. Cardassian engineers build wonderful ships, but their work with artificial intelligence isn’t what it should be. Political life has its perks – I even have an EMH.

JULIAN: Well can I talk to him?

GARAK: Doctor, he’s obviously offline during this crisis. We’re wasting time better spent on the issue at hand! Now shall we begin?

JULIAN: Alright. Well the first thing we’ll need is a standard biobed with-

GARAK: Doctor, doctor, wait- I’m detecting a coherent signal directed at your shuttle. Yes, the magnetic currents over the poles should’ve obscured your presence. We may have a problem.

JULIAN: Hang on, it looks like an encrypted subspace signal… but I can’t determine the origin. Stand by, I’m trying- it’s… it’s from Earth. Well, I think I’ve got it. One moment… Jake?

[fade to black]

[CREDITS]

[anangelicday-mrwolf]

Wolfsbane : Noblesse Fanfic (post-ending)

(previous chapter)

Chapter 70 – Stepping Into the Daily Life  (Last Chapter)

“Frankenstein...” 

For the second time, Lunark and Muzaka sang in unison, the former out of anxiety and the latter out of fluster. 

Lunark was making pretzels out of her arms and legs in her lord's presence, in snow-white dress shirt loosely curved around her form and black shorts that werewolves don when they must find themselves on examination tables or in experimental tanks. 

Her style could not even meet the minimum demands to qualify as “stylish,” but Muzaka knew that she would never dress like this on her own.

Inevitably, his suspicion was directed to the man standing next to her, and Muzaka mercilessly spun his eyes and kicked at his head to blueprint the plan the blonde man was harboring. 

And then Frankenstein fired a shot aimed right through his calm.

“Lunark and I are together.” 

The unseen flame shattered Muzaka's eardrums, to hop and bounce between gyri and sulci of his brain and throw out his poise. 

“Don't tell me... You mean, 'together' together?” 

“'Together' together.” 

“Frankenstein!” 

I'd thought I told you to please make sure she'll give up on her feelings!

How can you do this to me?! 

Muzaka could not do anything more than keeping his lips parted in frenzied shock, lest she learn about the secret deal he made with Frankenstein. 

Much to his relief, Frankenstein knew how to keep a secret a secret. 

“I'm aware of what you fear. Of course you'd fear. You should know very well what human-werewolf love is like. After all, - forgive me - you had to suffer grievous parting with Lady Eileen and Miss Ashleen.” 

At once, Muzaka's lips furiously collided with each other, at the mention of names that had been flowers and thorns engraved into his heart. 

Now the petals have fallen, the thorns removed, leaving behind only nostalgic perfume, which he can now relaxedly albeit rarely articulate. 

In this case, however, perhaps because they came after Frankenstein's withdrawal from his request, Muzaka was quite unhappy. 

He would have been caught in rage not long after, if it were not for his knowledge that Frankenstein will never break a promise unless there is a very good reason to. 

“You wish Lunark wouldn't even catch a glimpse of what you had to walk through. There's no guarantee that she will be safe from the sabotage from her own kind. Love with humans is considered a taboo in your clan. But you don't wish to leave this pseudo-tradition untouched, do you?” 

Right afterwards, Frankenstein was pinned with arrow-stares silently demanding explanations. 

“I could feel various changes gliding over your domain ever since you returned to the throne. Such as, training warriors based on their natural-born power, untainted by experiments or body modifications. Improvement on relations with nobles. Demise of history of sacrificing your very kind, under orders of Maduke. And I bet amelioration of the counterpart with humans is included on your list. 'Cause lately the wolfkind has benefited from humans, not limited to me. And in order to do that, don't you think you must turn the table in favor of relationships with humans?” 

“...So, you're saying I should make use of your relationship?” 

“Consider it a destruction for creation. We'll destroy the wall that must now be brought down, to give rise to the seeds waiting to sprout from underneath.” 

No sound came from Muzaka, but he was deliberating. 

Frankenstein was right; with new era must come new rules, according to which he must remove the disconnection between mankind and wolfkind. 

And Frankenstein was offering a hand in this matter, which as a werewolf lord he must accept it. 

Lunark's face was a hint that Frankenstein was not the sole advocate of this suggestion. 

As for Muzaka's secondary concern, he dreaded that Lunark will not be able to fully dedicate herself to the QuadraNet Project and post-eradication of the Union due to her unreciprocated love. 

That is, unreciprocated love that will soon assume a wholesome relationship and thus serve no more as bars in her path, if Frankenstein is to make her emotions flow freely like thawed river. 

And yet Muzaka could not help but weigh the pros and cons, as he was worried that Lunark's choice will eventually turn into a tragedy. 

Lunark knew this, and hence she decided to be a lawyer for herself. 

“I know you care for me, my lord. You have been caring for me ever since I was a child. But trust me when I say this - the reason why I choose this path is not because I expect only happiness.” 

As Lunark put together her words, her hand slowly snaked its way towards the man standing next to her, to clasp his fingers and show how iron-hard their hearts are woven. 

“When there's spring, there's winter. When there's light, there's darkness. In other words, when there's darkness, there's light. And when there's winter, there's spring. That is our world. That is life. So is love, I believe. When there's happiness, there's misfortune. When there's misfortune, there's happiness. Happiness is not the only treasure I expect inside the chest. I have simply chosen to open it.” 

Tremor evaporated from Lunark as her speech carried on. 

The pair of pink diamonds on her face was sparkling with conviction instead of credulity, with confidence instead of arrogance. 

“It doesn't matter how stormy our path will be. No howl of rain or avalanche of water will make us release each other's hand. So please, put your faith in us and watch us. Nothing can stop us, as long as we're together.”

Tremor was gone from Muzaka as well, by the end of her deliverance.

But the werewolf lord's mouth was fixed in its place, not even as much as mumbling what is winding in his head. 

And Frankenstein's patience was on a strike for the day. 

“If this is how things will be, I will expend one of my wishes right now.”

Lunark merely let her head lean on her shoulder, clueless about Frankenstein's so-called wish. 

In devastating contrast, Muzaka's eyes tumbled up and down, in overwhelming disbelief of what he had just heard. 

“You said you will grant me any wish, as long as it's in an earthly power. I hereby state my first wish - I want you to be the carrier of banner in support of our relationship.” 

Muzaka shook his head, while Frankenstein eyed Lunark as a promise of details after this. 

“For the love of wolves, I bet no one can best you when it comes to stabbing my sanity at the least expected moment. How can you pull that one from under your sleeve right at...” 

“So? Are you saying you can't?” 

“...Of course not. I gave you my word. It only makes sense for me to keep it. But you don't need a reminder of what would happen if you so as much as even drive her to tears, do you?” 

Muzaka half-heartedly laid out his warning, to which the pair responded with a beam. 

A beam that ultimately urged a smile from Muzaka, which turned out to be short-lived thanks to Frankenstein's follow-up. 

“And allow me to use my second wish. I need you to give Lunark holidays right now. Two months would do it.” 

“Say what?! You can't demand it without any prior dis...” 

“I already had a discussion. We already had one.” 

“No, I meant...! Okay, sure, talking to Lunark is one thing, but you didn't discuss it with...!” 

Muzaka could not even finish his words, before he pushed the palm of his hand into his forehead. 

He knew nothing can beat Frankenstein when he is in his deal-with-it-for-all-I-care mode. 

“No wonder Lunark is dressed like that. This is what you had in mind?” 

“Obviously. Lunark's duties are not impossible at the hands of other warriors, are they? Not to mention Union can only watch themselves as the result of the recent trouble at Seoul; their manpower has already dwindled before the event. Which is why this would be the perfect time for Lunark to enjoy a vacation.” 

Peaceful was his voice, but Frankenstein was basically rubbing - no, stabbing into Muzaka's face that he is more than willing to have a discussion involving fists and claws if he is not to issue a pass from the office for Lunark.

Soon enough, the werewolf lord nodded and waved his hand. 

“Fine. I'll make sure Lunark's absence will not hinder us for the next two months. Now run along. Be free.” 

“My gratitude, my lord.” 

“Much appreciated, Lord Muzaka.” 

Frankenstein and Lunark bowed and turned to leave, but then Muzaka unzipped his lips after a bit of delay. 

“Lunark.” 

“Yes, sir?” 

A momentary silence captured Muzaka, gazing at Lunark with her body rotated halfway towards him. 

“Nothing. You look beautiful today.” 

Replied Muzaka, his lips curled into a somewhat nostalgic, wistfully affectionate curves. 

'Ashleen... Eileen...' 

As soon as Lunark and Frankenstein left with a brief smile, Muzaka scooched into his throne, to resummon the scent ghosting within his heart. 

Lunark had no fear for winter or darkness, as long as she had Frankenstein with her, so she claimed. 

It was reminiscent of his stance when he met Eileen. And when he had Ashleen. 

A stance that was closed off into a tragedy. 

Nevertheless, for some reason he could not help feeling this will not be the same for the two of them. 

Which is why in reality, he had been smiling inwardly as Lunark was speaking in defense of their relationship. 

And he was about to give in to their protest, which was preceded by Frankenstein's use of his wishes. 

'Looks like my clan is now walking towards an actual change. Eileen... Ashleen... How I wish I could have met you two in this era.' 

Regret cannot undo or do what is done or not done. 

For now, the only thing he can do is to light up his hope for the future and pray for luck. 

So that one day, relationship between humans and werewolves will be but part of daily life. 

'I know you two can do it. So just stay the way you are, loving and beautiful.' 

*****

Few days later, KSA headquarter 

“What's up? I'd thought we've still got time until the departure.” 

Yuigi was checking her bag for one last time, before she turned towards her visitor. 

“Are you sure you won't regret this?” 

“Of course I'm sure. You don't take me for some toddler, do you? I think you've gotten your standards too high, now that you're way out of the Union agents' league, including mine. You seem to have forgotten how I used to lounge at the top of the pyramid called the Union.” 

“That's not what I...” 

Takio could not hide his disappointment. 

They had previously plotted a scenario of signing her name on the list of tenants at Frankenstein's house. 

He was expectant to see her impeccably freed from the shadow of the Union, to relish an ordinary life. 

And she knew what he was thinking. 

Yuigi had been lost. 

She had been lost between her life as Yuigi of Cerberus and her long-lost life as Raciela, like a frog unwelcome at both the earth and the water. 

But now she was even convinced that the reason why she had been lost, crouched without direction and assurance, was simply to hop higher than she could ever pull off in the past. 

“I'll be fine. I have found the new direction in my life. Now it's my duty to dedicate myself to my new mission and pay for my days at the Union. So don't worry and be faithful to your ordinary life. Do that for me. Besides, it's not like this is the last time we'll ever see each other. We'll be talking on designated basis, and I'll drop by whenever I need maintenance on my kits. I'll see you then.” 

Takio's disquiet disappeared as he listened to her. 

He was relieved. 

She may not be able to take on an ordinary life, but there is no need to worry about or be sorry for her. 

She just proved that she has landed upon the new agenda of her life as well as a respite of heart, and that was good enough for him. 

“I like the coffee from that cafe we visited. I'll make sure to buy you back. So wait for it.” 

And that was when Yuigi - that was when Raciela smiled. 

For the first time, she smiled a smile full of a human heart, no longer an artificial sneer. 

*****

“You ready?” 

The 3rd Elder greeted Raciela upon her entrance to the KSA rooftop.

The white-haired man was donning a long coat identical to hers, hooded and furnished with a heavy backpack, surrounded by Tao, M-21, Taesik, the doctor, Yeonsu, Sangin, and Raizel, whose phone was connected live-time to Lascrea and the heads of noble clans standing in the Lord's Hall. 

Then at last, the last of the gang made their arrival. 

“Boss!” 

“...Lunark?” 

“What are you doing here...?” 

Lunark's feet effortlessly glided upon the rooftop, and the 3rd Elder made a stiff, awkward recognition with his eyes, in acknowledgment of the length of hiatus in their encounters. 

Pow!!! 

At then the werewolf lashed out an unwarned punch, driving the man right to the edge of the building. 

“M-miss Lunark! He's no longer sturdy enough to...” 

“Handle my power. Yes, yes. I know. I knew that. My fist knew that. I heard how his perfection as a cyclist has been undermined, to the point that he now needs training wheels to ride a bike. Which is why I made sure you wouldn't get to hold a funeral for that guy.” 

She was telling the truth, the 3rd Elder realized, as he put himself back on his feet, rubbing a side of his face. 

His face did throb, so hard that he wanted to stick his hand and rummage through his head to check and see if his brain is intact. 

Contrary to the pain, the only damage he suffered was abrasion that would take less than a minute for recovery. 

Plus, he could see how Frankenstein was smirking behind Lunark, his arms crossed. 

He and Frankenstein did have a word about his betrayal, which ended - sort of - with apology and forgiveness. 

Apparently such process did not completely rinse off the grudge, and the 3rd Elder had no say in this matter. 

He knew he deserved it; actually, he deserved more, he thought. 

<Are you sure you will have no regrets?> 

Lascrea's question chimed through the phone. 

It was a rare occasion for her to start off a conversation with a voluntary question. 

And not a syllable or a vowel has changed with the 3rd Elder's answer. 

“I'm positive. This is what I must do. I must pay for the choice I made out of fear. And for the losses and sacrifices I called upon as a result.” 

When he held Helga's hand, the 3rd Elder was full of fear. 

He feared his followers' sacrifices, the Union's labor, and his tears would be wrong. 

He feared his followers, the Union, and he would be wrong. 

Wrong, fruitless, and in vain. 

However, now he has accepted the truth. 

He accepted that his followers, the Union, and he were wrong. 

He accepted that he has been forcing himself to be deaf and blind to the truth that had been with him since long ago. 

“The Union was originally based on the human crusade for the welfare of mankind. I admit the Union's standing point and pathway have been lethally distorted for the past few centuries. So now it's only logical to cleanse the Union's orbit and spend its final resources and manpower for what is truly meant for humans. So now there is only one thing the Union must do - making itself gone for the sake of mankind, and thereby protecting the ordinary world for the ordinary souls. And I shall take my responsibility for the past, the misdeeds, and the sin of the Union. And for the calamity at Seoul.”

Quoted the 3rd Elder, in solemn announcement of his motive for repentance. 

“I'm afraid I can't set for you the date, but once the last shade of the Union is wiped off clean... I will gladly hand over my life. I know I am being more than shameless, but please, I'd like to ask you to wait until then.” 

And he gave his word that he will never again betray these people. 

He will never again betray the mankind. 

He will never again betray himself. 

The white-haired Icarus who blindly coveted the sun's position was saved from his plummet towards the sea by these people - those endeavoring to protect ordinary life - as well as the ordinary people. 

The moment his steps were about to carry him off the concrete floor, the 3rd Elder whispered an addition. 

“...Benjamin.” 

All eyes and ears perked up at an unfamiliar name. 

“It's Benjamin now. That is my true name. The name I shall answer to from now on.” 

Sheepish but true, that was the smile from Benjamin. 

That was the last of himself he exhibited before taking himself and Raciela away towards the horizon. 

And Frankenstein was the one to break the still that lingered. 

“You okay? Let me see your hand.” 

He inspected her hand, his every contour and plane dripping concern.

“Aww, maybe I should have loosened up a bit. My hand stings a little.” 

Lunark stage-whined, sticking out her hand free of any speck, let alone a wound. 

A sight that gave the spectators an illusionary impression of watching how their sanity was being burned alive. 

“We need to talk about this. When did they end up... Like that?” 

“By 'like that,' are you referring to what I'm thinking?” 

“Probably. Did you see his face when Miss Lunark punched Mr. Benjamin? He appeared ecstatic... And enamored. By her.” 

“But is it just me, or do they actually look great together?”

After indulging in a brief moment of fluff and endearment, Frankenstein turned to face the crowd. 

“Now why don't we scatter? We must go.” 

“Go where?” 

“Go out for our very first date.” 

All listening mouths fell open at the fall of a four-character vocabulary they fathomed not even a pact with the devil could pull out from his throat. 

That is, all mouths except for Raizel's lips. 

Frankenstein made a serene smile as he met Raizel in the eyes, a sign that he had made his choice. 

“I shall see you later, master.” 

As always, Raizel responded with a gracefully breezy smile. 

It did not take long for the rest of the audience to catch up with their atmosphere, curl the corners of their cheeks, and shower the two in celebration. 

“To be honest, I was wondering when you two will officiate it.” 

“Congratulations, Mr. Ex-Chairman.” 

<Please send Lunark my regards. And those of my heads of clans.> 

Not losing their focus on each other even a bit in the middle of the pleasant commotion, Lunark and Frankenstein jumped towards the streets. 

*****

“Look. They're talking about the Noblesse's ex-sanctuary, aren't they?” 

Lunark asked, her finger pointing a huge screen covering a facet of a building at the Gwanghwamun Square. 

Frankenstein nodded after reading the headline, of the breaking news that the international environmental facilities and institutions have selected the Bermudan Treasure Chest as a special protection site, to perform and engage in extensive protection. 

“Aren't you disappointed? You wanted to collect his power from that place.” 

She was alluding to the proposal he made on the day she revealed the secret behind the resurrections following the nuclear missile incident. 

The proposal on retrieving Raizel's power from his ex-sanctuary to replenish him was denied, due to the theory that taking away Raizel's power might lead to extinction of life at the place, since his power has already made itself a cradle, manna, and haven for the local marine creatures. 

“Humans are now working together to save that place. So one day, things will settle down. Let's tell ourselves things will settle down.” 

“At times like this, I feel perhaps humans are not hopelessly hopeless. Humans can be cannibalistic and destructive with their surroundings for the sake of their good, but on the other hand they know how to be altruistic and protective of the world. If I never knew you, I would have never known.” 

Frankenstein gasped a laughter at her bashful comment. 

“Now that's an honor. Speaking of which, I'd like to teach you more. For example, how human fare with their lives. How you can spend a daily life in the human world. What do you say?” 

“Great. Please do. Teach me how humans... How a couple share an ordinary day.” 

Lunark's words were confident, yet her face was blushing. 

Frankenstein held her hand, his mouth arched in a gentle smile. 

They knew they cannot make any promise on their future. 

Just like how they did not expect the breaking news of the day. 

They cannot tell what will be waiting for their discovery tomorrow. Or in an hour. 

Still, they promised themselves and each other that they will devote themselves to this day to the best of their abilities. 

They will hold their hands and be true to their love. 

Thump. Thump. Thump. 

Frankenstein's and Lunark's hearts serenaded a duet of dazing flutter, as they walked into the crystal-clear sunlight illuminating their path to the ordinary life. 

And the day could not be sunnier. 

(Illustration by. RyO - you can find her DeviantArt page here)

I’m so sorry it took much longer for me to post this chapter. I was working on another series that I’m about to submit for a competition, and I had no idea it’s way past my usual posting time. I’m terribly sorry about the delay - what a way to wrap up the series. :’(

At last... My fanfic has reached its conclusion! I posted the first chapter of this fic on April of 2020, and it took me roughly a year and 4 months to finish it. And for the first time in years, I’m having a mixture of emotions cascading upon me as I write my final postscript, including but not limited to elation, bittersweetness, ruefulness, etc.

I made a lot of discoveries on what I lack as a writer throughout my journey with this fic. I had much more stories to include on my mind (most notably the relationship between Rael and Seira) but I had to delete them all from my outline for the sake of word count and constancy with the main topic of this fic. I might recollect them and write about them as a sequel to this fic, but right now I can’t think of any plot that I would find satisfying. And it would take a long time for me to land on a storyline that I would be confident in, enough for me to compose a fic with. And as the number of chapters grew, I ended up making mistakes regarding the details and plot. I remember how with chapter 68, I didn’t notice beforehand how I made several fatal mistakes that could compromise readers’ comprehension of the story, and I had to edit it for at least 3 times. Not to mention the story got kind of loose and lost its tempo over time. I happen to be working on a separate series (which has nothing to do with Noblesse) on a Korean website, and I’m having trouble with it due to the loose contents. This fic gave me an opportunity to look back on what I need to work on as a writer, and I will certainly do that. 

On the other hand, this fic did not leave me fruitless. I think I did a pretty good job and could gain a lot of experience on making story-wise allusions and references throughout chapters, to weave separate scenes together and thus bind 70 chapters into a wholesome series. Most importantly, I’m satisfied with how I could make use of and investigate my personal interpretations and creations on what was left after the final chapter of the original webtoon (such as the reason why those that were engaged in the nuclear missile incident could make it back to life, the faint-but-surely-there romance between Rai and Lascrea, the last of the Union after its destruction, and most of all the relationship between Lunark and Frankenstein).

In all, I gained a lot of regrets while writing this fic, but above all I am happy with my creation since I managed to write about everything I want in the exact way I wanted.

My tremendous gratitude for those of you who have been staying with me throughout this fic. It was not perfect, and it came with a lot of words to read, but I thank each and every one of you readers out there for visiting my fic. Although I happen to be busy with an independent project of mine, one day I’d like to bring another Noblesse fic for you, short or not.

Once again, thank you so much for enjoying my fic so far. Thank you, and that is all! :)

[duhragonball]

Hellsing Liveblog Chapters 25-27

This is the first leg of the “D” arc.   I had originally planned on trying to do the whole thing in one post, but it’s pretty long and meanders in places, so instead I’m going to break it up, starting with the part that wraps up volume 4 of the collected editions.

Much of these first three chapters just showcases Millennium preparing to depart their secret headquarters in Brazil.  They have three blimps, maybe more.   We already saw the Graf Zeppelin III, but there’s also a Graf Zeppelin II and a Hindenberg II.   Also, the Major refers to all of this as “Operation Sea Lion 2″.  The original “Operation Sea Lion” was Nazi Germany’s plan to invade the U.K. during World War II.   It was never enacted, however, because the Germans couldn’t establish air and naval superiority over the British.  Basically, the Major is declaring that he has finally achieved what Hilter could not, thanks to his “Last Battalion” of 1000 vampire soldiers.

The bridge of his flagship (flagblimp) has this big comfy chair on a robot arm, and a panoramic world map.   The arrows on the map point in all sorts of nutty directions, including the United States and other European nations.   I could have sworn I had heard some mention in Hellsing Ultimate of Millennium sending forces to the U.S., but the international angle was never mentioned again, and I assumed that I must have imagined it.  In any event, the Major made it clear that his target is Alucard specifically, so it doesn’t make a lot of sense to invade places where Alucard is not.

The Major prepares to take his seat only to find Warrant Officer Schrödinger sitting in his chair.   Remember, Schrödinger inexplicably teleported himself to London to address Hellsing and Iscariot, and then he got shot and killed for his trouble.   But now he’s back, alive and well.   He mocks the Major for being to slow, and the Doctor scolds him for his insolence, but the Major orders Doc to back off.   This is a running gag throughout the rest of the series.  The Doctor keeps trying to chastise Schrödinger, but the Major lets him do whatever the boy wants, almost like he’s some favorite pet.  

Meanwhile, an unidentified helicopter tries to land on a British carrier, the H.M.S. Eagle.   The Captain orders his crew to open fire, but the first officer suddenly does this:

So yeah, the first officer is a vampire now, and he’s sold out Queen and Country for Millennium.  He and a handful of vampire crewmen kill the rest of the crew and turn them all into ghouls, allowing the helicopter to land, making way for...

This lady, Lieutenant Rip Van Winkle.  I should point out that in the pages leading up to her boarding the Eagle, she was singing Engelandlied, a German war anthem from World War I.   She’s nutty, is the idea.

So, I’m gonna go ahead and put forth my fan theory that all the bad guys we dealt with prior to Rip were just patsies for Millennium, and not actual members in their own right.   This includes Tubalcain “Dandyman” Alahambra, because, for all his powers, no one ever said his rank, leading me to think he didn’t have one.   Same with the Valentine Brothers and any of the vampires Alucard and Seras were sent to fight during the first dozen or so chapters of this manga.   Millennium may have turned them into vampires, and in some cases they even let them in on Millennium’s inner workings, but they were never more than cannon fodder.   Jan seemed to understand this, although Luke and Dandyman seemed to believe they were genuinely created to represent the new pinnacle of vampiric power.   Even the Doctor thought Dandyman had a strong chance of beating Alucard, but in the end they were just experiments meant to test Alucard’s mettle.

And, really, the rest of Millennium is not much different, except Rip and the others actually know why they’re being sacrificed, even if they don’t necessarily understand how or when.

Meanwhile, Seras still won’t drink blood, and she keeps trying to eat regular food instead, even though she struggles to swallow every bite.   I’ve never been very clear on whether vampires in Hellsing can eat non-blood food or not.  Seras is doing it, albeit painfully, but I don’t think she really gains anything from it, except whatever coping mechanism this is supposed to serve.   

So in walks Sir Integra, who dumps a bag of medical blood on her table.  Seras never really answers Integra’s question, but she already told Walter, and it’s not much of an answer.   The heart of the matter is this: Seras really doesn’t want to be a vampire.   Or, maybe, more accurately, she doesn’t want to stop being human.   The trouble is that she already lost that battle way back in Chapter 1. 

In many ways, Seras has accepted her fate.   She works for Hellsing, recognizes Alucard as her vampire master, and so on.  I think she understands that this is the only life she can have now, and her will to live is strong enough that she appreciates what Alucard and Integra have done for her.    At her core, Seras is a public servant, and fighting monsters for Hellsing is not so different from fighting crime as a policewoman.  I think she sees her current condition as a means to that end.   She doesn’t crave power like the evil vampires we’ve seen thus far.    Seras views her abilities as a means to an end.   Alucard biting her gave her a way to stay alive and continue fighting the good fight.

However, she doesn’t want the baggage that goes along with that.   She wants to retain as much of her humanity as she can, and drinking blood is the one thing that she has some control over, or so she believes.

But Integra’s far too practical for that dilemma.   Alucard was willing to respect Seras’ relucatance, but she needs her troops on their toes and ready for action.  So she takes a knife and cuts open her finger, and then orders Seras to lick the blood off.    This is... disturbingly sexual, and one of a number of scenes that reminds me that Hirano Kouta had done a lot of, er, adult comics before Hellsing.   I think he did a lot of uniform fetishy stuff too, which is why Seras and Schrödinger’s uniforms look so similar to each other.   Both are meant to resemble German WWII gear.   I’m willing to grant some leeway here, because there’s probably only so many ways to do a finger-licking scene like this without sexualizing it a little, but the last bit with the saliva trail is just revolting. 

So, what’s bugged me for a long time was that if Seras drank (a little) of Integra’s blood here, why did this subplot not get paid off until much later in the story?  She drank blood, didn’t she?   Well, yeah, but Integra ordered her to do it, so it doesn’t count.   This came up a couple of times earlier in the story, when Walter and Al mentioned that she wouldn’t drink blood willingly.  It’s not just an ethical issue for Seras, or she’d simply chow down on the medical blood.  I guess Integra could force feed her every night, but that wouldn’t solve anything.   This is about Seras accepting her transformation as a fait accompli.   I think this is why she very nearly drank Alucard’s blood back in Northern Ireland, when it sure looked like there was no other way for her to survive.  But if she’s just sitting there with no one making her do it, and no urgent need to do it, she’ll refuse every time.  

I think Hellsing uses the premise that a vampire has to do more than just bite a human to turn them into a vampire.  That is, Alucard had to put his own blood in Seras’ body to complete that transformation.   I think that’s how it worked in the Dracula novel, and Seras herself mentions it in the Gonzoverse anime.   But that wouldn’t count either, because it’s part of the change itself.  The idea is for the new vampire to partake in blood-drinking by choice, and until that happens, they won’t get all the cool powers.   

One other thing, Integra takes this opportunity to mention that she’s a virgin, which is a weird flex for this situation, but okay.  In Hellsing, that means Integra could become a vampire herself, but not if Seras bites her, because it has to be a vampire of the opposite sex.   In any case, Tegs warns Seras not to bite down during this creepy finger-licking KFC-hentai thing.   

Back in the damn ocean, Lt. Rip van Winkle is welcomed aboard by the traitorous crew of the Eagle.   She asks them how it feels to be a vampire, and causally reminds them of their treachery.   Then she gives them new orders, which are to die by her magic gun, which fires a bullet that can turn around in midair.

And so the First Officer and his lackeys learn the same lesson as the Brazillians working for the Dandyman, and the Dandyman himself, and the Valentine Brothers and whoever else.  Millennium might turn you into a vampire, but that hardly means that you’ll live forever.   Millennium always demands treason as payment for their help, and it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that they might betray you sooner or later.

Besides, Rip doesn’t need the British crew, because she has her own henchman on board her chopper.   While she waits for them to wake up, she paints a swastika on the deck, just to make it clear that they’ve taken control of the Eagle, which she renames the Adler.  That’s German for “Eagle”, you see.

Back on his blimp, the Major cuts this twenty-minute promo which basically amounts to “I love war, we have no particular agenda except to wage endless war for the fun of it.”   Back in England, Alucard is eagerly awaiting their arrival.  

[soulvomit]

Talking back to the Geek Social Fallacies: they’re a non-intersectional analysis that doesn’t take into account how diverse our community is, and assumes we don’t have agency in our own social relationships.

Geek Social Fallacy #1: Ostracizers Are Evil

From the website:  GSF1 is one of the most common fallacies, and one of the most deeply held. Many geeks have had horrible, humiliating, and formative experiences with ostracism, and the notion of being on the other side of the transaction is repugnant to them.

I think this is true some of the time, but not all. Here is the problem with how this is framed. The biggest problem with this (like with the rest of the analysis of the GSF) is that it’s a non-intersectional viewpoint of a diverse set of spaces that have unspoken traditional power dynamics. People outside of those dynamics - women, POC, and or LGBTQ people - talk about those dynamics *all the time.* Plenty of geek social issues aren’t individual, they’re structural.

There is a lot of geek exceptionalism here: it’s as if geek culture exists in a hermetically sealed bubble apart from the rest of society or its dynamics, pissing contests, or biases, and it’s as if problems that take place within geek space, are specific to geek space.

It’s also as if geeks don’t have agency or ever choose their friends and spaces with intention, and never reject or ostracize people. Plenty of us are geeks/nerds because we don’t hang out with just *anybody* and a lot of us really do think we are smarter and or more successful than a lot of other people in our own social class (which is part of the unspoken class anxiety in nerd/geek identity). A lot of us have defensive walls up in non-geeky spaces - but there are some of us who actively think we’re more interesting, higher class, better informed, or smarter than non-nerdy/non-geeky people.

Finally, the problem with assuming that the problem is “Ostracizers Are Evil”

assumes that geeks/nerds don’t prioritize some friendships within their group over other friendships, and ignores that structural and or unconscious biases may exist in geek/nerd space just like they do in other spaces. The person asked not to be an ostracizer is so often someone who’s expected to do emotional labor/be “the Giving Tree” or who has a more subordinate status in the group. The people we’re expected to tolerate aren’t merely some elephant in the room that everyone is working around, the group is often actively prioritizing that person over the people who don’t like that person. They’re not merely tolerating them. They put up with Jason the Creeper and Cat Piss Man because they like them and/or Jason and CPM go way back in the group! 

Geek Social Fallacy #2: Friends Accept Me As I Am

The origins of GSF2 are closely allied to the origins of GSF1. After being victimized by social exclusion, many geeks experience their "tribe" as a non-judgmental haven where they can take refuge from the cruel world outside.

Well... maybe this is true for some people, but the problem is, there are power dynamics *within* geek/nerd culture. This is another case where I feel like the author isn’t seeing the forest for the trees. Plenty of people don’t find geek/nerd culture to be a haven and don’t take acceptance for granted! Just because geek/nerd culture may be a haven *for some cis het men* from some kinds of gender essentialist tropes, doesn’t mean it’s a haven for other people.  

If you’re somebody who is always fighting for space in that world because it’s the only space you get to have *anywhere*, and you’re always running into the power dynamics of other groups, then it isn’t that easy to miss in geek/nerd culture. 

Geek Social Fallacy #3: Friendship Before All

I’m not really arguing with this one as a common problem within geek space.  I do wish analysis of it would go further, because I feel there’s often an active codependent or enabling/co-addictive process. People really do get addicted to fantasy based stuff, and to video games, and to media. Even addiction specialists acknowledge this. But there are very few people doing analysis of addictive dynamics, anti-recovery, or enabling within geek/nerd space. One of the problems is that this is really pervasive in geek/nerd space and it’s almost impossible to get away from unless you completely quit geek/nerd space altogether, at least for a while. The thing is, many cases of “Friendship Before All” aren’t necessarily that the person has a broad feeling of this, as much as it reflects a specific codependent or co-addictive relationships within the group. (The fallacy I keep seeing here is again the assumption that geeks don’t have social agency, or specific social choices.) Some geeky spaces can even get into folie a deux dynamics or cult dynamics. 

The problem I had dealing with maladaptive daydreaming (which is often seen as addiction-adjacent) was that geek culture, especially tabletop gaming, was actively reinforcing it, and I actively needed to get away from that group for a while to get a handle on the maladaptive daydreaming that was taking over my life. The thing I needed to NOT do was be around people who obsessively daydreamed about their “ships,” or in any space that encouraged me to spend ten hours a day daydreaming about my RP characters. (I do RP again, but only because I’m in a space where it doesn’t take over my life.)

I had a couple of uncomfortably intense friendships that were as enmeshed as they were because they were based around us sharing the fantasy lives that neither of us could share with other people, let alone reveal to the world, and because we enabled each other’s bad escapist tendencies.

Geek Social Fallacy #4: Friendship Is Transitive

Every carrier of GSF4 has, at some point, said:"Wouldn't it be great to get all my groups of friends into one place for one big happy party?!"If you groaned at that last paragraph, you may be a recovering GSF4 carrier.GSF4 is the belief that any two of your friends ought to be friends with each other, and if they're not, something is Very Wrong.

I won’t say I’ve never seen this, but in a lot of cases, I don’t think it’s anything but the behavior of *young and socially inexperienced* people in general. It also assumes that we are talking a group of people who are all potential in-group and none of whom are ever one-down or on the business end of bias. It assumes that geeks never compartmentalize their friends, which is wrong - lots of us do, especially if we’re social climbers (which lots of geeks/nerds are and won’t admit it). (Let’s be honest, would YOU really introduce everyone you have ever gamed with, to the people at your staid/conservative job that you’re trying to get promoted at?)

GSF4 ignores the phenomenon of gatekeeping.  If you’re ever the person on the other end of gatekeeping of any kind, you certainly don’t experience every geek wanting to introduce you to all of their friends. It’s another case where I feel like the author’s viewpoint is just too narrow and that their generalizations are based upon a small set of people who are themselves always the gatekeepers.

Geek Social Fallacy #5: Friends Do Everything Together

GSF5, put simply, maintains that every friend in a circle should be included in every activity to the full extent possible. This is subtly different from GSF1; GSF1 requires that no one, friend or not, be excluded, while GSF5 requires that every friend be invited. This means that to a GSF5 carrier, not being invited to something is intrinsically a snub, and will be responded to as such.

This is another case that tries to oversimplify and lump multiple kinds of situations in geek/nerd space into one Grand Unified Field Theory: experience of *young* social spaces, experience of structural bias/gatekeeping, individual neediness (or projections coming from same) that also happens outside of geek spaces, and dynamics that happen with lots of subcultural spaces.

The biggest issue I have with the author’s analysis is about the structural bias, because GSF5 totally ignores 

ignores the existence of bias and structural stuff in geek/nerd spaces. And I don’t deny that GSF5 actually exists, but it has to be analyzed intersectionally. In adult spaces, I feel like I’ve seen people more often accused of some form of GSF5 to gaslight them about elitism, than I’ve seen actually being carriers of GSF5. 

I mean, what if you *are* being excluded and everyone around you is saying “don’t be silly, we don’t exclude people?” What if it *is* a snub and you’re told you’re imagining things? What if you’re actually not being invited to the thing?

There *is* an issue in geek space where individual cliques of friends intersect with larger groups, and friends-of-friends, and friends-of-friends-of-friends. But plenty of geeks just associate with their specific cliques.

[mldrgrl]

Prompt for my dearest & most favourite fan-fic author: Mulder to Scully -- "That's not nothing. It's definitely something." I envisioned a rated-R, 90s-era M&S, but you can of course choose whatever you wish. I'll be overjoyed nonetheless. Love, Joy.

Oh, dear, sweet, lovely Joy Anon.  I’m so sorry for what I’ve done.

The One That Never Wasby: mldrgrlRating: PG-13

Mulder has been happier in the past few weeks than he can ever remember being.  Not since he was a kid, since before his sister was taken, before his parents started fighting on a regular basis, before the idyll he believed he grew up in was disillusioned forever, had he ever been so happy.  He’s tried to keep his exuberance to a minimum, but most of the time he’s just bursting with joy and he unable hide his delighted smile each morning he greets his partner.  She’s warned him a few times, rather half-heartedly if he does say so himself, to tone it down or he’ll give them away before they’re ready to face the world as a couple, and he tries to put a lid on it while they’re at work, he really does, but it’s hard.

He’d expected that in opposition to his pure glee, Scully might amp up her usual stoicism, but she’s actually softened a bit.  She doesn’t chastise him nearly as much as she normally would when he makes off color jokes or tries to be funny.  She actually looks at him with amusement.  Her eye rolling is minimal.

This week though, something is off.  She’s expressionless most of the time, doesn’t smile or groan.  She’s been quieter.  Granted, they’ve spent most of the week in the field, he doing interviews, Scully conducting autopsies, but after hours, when they wasted the taxpayer’s dollar on two motel rooms, she claimed exhaustion all three nights and curled up into a little ball and fell asleep as though he wasn’t there.  And despite this new and blossoming relationship they’re forming, the handful of times he’s asked if everything is alright, she tells him she’s fine, which has always been Scully-speak for ‘not fine, but leave me alone.’

He waits until the case is over and they’re back at home to force the issue.  He’s been feeling a mixture of concern, annoyance, and hurt feelings by her resistance to talk to him.  He doesn’t expect miracles by any means, that overnight a switch would be flicked and with sex would come easy communication, but he had hoped that she would be willing to share her feelings a little more.

“Will I be calling Wong’s or House of Hunan?” he asks, as they prepare to close up the office for the evening.  

“Oh,” she says, pausing as she zips up her laptop inside her carrier.  “Um.”

“Or not.”  He loosens the knot in his tie and kicks his chair under his desk.  

“I just hadn’t thought about it.  I’m not actually that hungry.”

Mulder frowns and feels the pull of his brows forming a divot in his forehead.  The food is beside the point.  It’s code for ‘your place or mine?’  Wong’s is up the street from his apartment, House of Hunan is on the way to hers.

“You skipped lunch,” he points out.

“Did I?”

“Is everything alri-”

“House of Hunan,” she interrupts, slinging her laptop case over her shoulder.  “If you don’t mind picking it up, I can call it in on the way home.”

“I don’t mind.”  He shakes his head and stares at her intently, but she isn’t looking at him, she’s looking everywhere but him as she collects her things to head out.

He walks her to the elevator as usual, with his hand placed gently at the small of her back, sneaking glances at her all the while, but she doesn’t turn towards him.  In the parking garage, he sees her to her car and she meets his eyes for the first time as he holds the door open for her and she slips inside.

“Drive safe,” he murmurs.

“I will.”

She pulls the door closed and he follows behind the taillights to his own car as she slowly drives away.  The drive will take under an hour, even with the stop to pick up the food, but he takes his time to give her a bit of space and to figure out how he’s going to confront her about her uncharacteristic demeanor this week.

She’s had time to change into jeans and a sweater, and he’s glad she’s gotten comfortable.  There’s a bottle of wine on the table too when he lets himself in and he takes that as a good sign.  He sets the bag of take-out down before he shucks his jacket and unlaces his shoes to put them by the door.  He took his tie off in the car and already unbuttoned the top button of his dress shirt.  He’s rolling up his shirtsleeves when she passes by on her way to the table and he stops her with a bump to the hip.

“Hey,” he says.

She gives him a brief smile and a pat on the chest before she lifts on tiptoes and quickly kisses him on the mouth.  He leans down to chase her lips, but she ducks away and rifles through the bag of takeout.

“Smells good,” he says.

“It’s the pineapple chicken.”

“I was talking about you, actually.”  He sidles up behind her and drapes himself over her back, slipping his hands up under her sweater.  She tilts her head a little and he nips at her neck as he squeezes her breasts softly.  When he looks down he can see the outline of his knuckles through her thin sweater.

“Thought you were hungry,” she says.

He nuzzles her neck.  “Mmhm.”

“The chicken will get cold.”

He relaxes his hands and let’s them slide down her ribs to her hips, but he doesn’t let go of her, just changes his hold.  “What’s wrong?” he whispers into her hair.

“Nothing.”

“Scully.  Talk to me.”

“It’s nothing.”

“Promise?”

She sighs and rests her hands against his arms.  “Can’t you let it go?”

“Have you ever known me to let anything go?”

She turns suddenly in his arms, startling him, and wraps her arms around his neck, pulling him down into a kiss.  He’s lost in it almost immediately, even though he knows she’s deflecting and he should stop.  She feels so good though, her body pressed tight to his, legs shifting against his thighs.

Before he knows it, she’s got his belt undone and she’s pulling handfuls of his shirt towards her as she backs into the table.  She wiggles up onto the flat surface and draws him in with her legs hooked over his hips.  She lays back and he follows, but not completely.  He stops short above her, breaks their kiss and braces his hand by her head to look down at her.

“Let it go,” she whispers, blue eyes glistening brightly.

“I can’t do that, Scully.  Not now.”

She grows limp under him and looks away.  When she blinks a tear rolls down her cheek she quickly reaches up to brush it away.  She swallows once and then turns her head again to look up at him.

“If the in vitro had worked, I would be due right around now,” she says.

It feels like his heart drops out of his chest and his stomach twists into knots.  He straightens, finding it hard to breathe as he’s crouched over.  Scully lowers her legs from his hips and stares at the ceiling.

“That’s not nothing,” he says.  “It’s definitely something.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Doesn’t…of course it…Scully…”

She bites her bottom lip and lowers her eyes.  He pulls her up and into his arms and holds her as tight as he can.  He can feel her heart thumping swiftly against his chest or maybe it’s his, or they’re the same.  Her fingers are curled against his shoulders like she’s trying to get a grip on him, but can’t.

“Don’t dwell on it,” she says, but her voice is pinched and strained and he knows she’s not trying to convince him, she’s trying to convince herself.

“I’ll find a way.  If it’s what you want, Scully, I’ll find a way.”

There is a heavy silence that follows, one in which the sound of their harsh breathing is amplified and seems to grow louder and louder in Mulder’s ears.  He buries his face in Scully’s hair.

“What about what you want?” she whispers.

“Mostly I just want world peace and to make you happy.  And I’m not being glib, that’s really all I want.”

“I believe you.”  She sighs against him and tilts her head up so her face rests against his neck.  “I don’t know if it’s a baby that I want, Mulder, it’s the reminder of what they took from me that really does it.”

“I wish I could-”

“I know.  I know you do.”

Mulder bites his lip and tries not to cry.  He hadn’t felt the loss of what they never had until this moment and he doesn’t know how she bore it nine months ago.  She had to be even stronger than he ever realized.

“I’m not giving up on a miracle though,” she says.  “I can’t.  I won’t.”

He waits until the knot in his throat is swallowed down to answer.  “Then maybe there’s hope.”

The End

[izzy-b-hands]

Happy At Home-Part Two

Part Two, road trip stuff! 

Forgive that this probably isn’t one hundred percent historically accurate in terms of driving time-I’m literally plugging it into Google maps and just kinda going with it because I’m so bad at time estimates, and what I have been able to research about cars in the 40s and early 50s didn’t give me an exact way to estimate how long each leg would take. I’m tryin’ here, lol. This is what I get for being determined to finish a multipart fic at one in the morning. 

“Please get in the carrier?” Eugene asked hopefully. 

Queen stared at him, and he could swear it was really a glare. Gunner and Little Sid had gone into their carriers with some prompting, but she was being a damn diva about it. 

“Young lady, you listen to your father and get in there,” Snafu scolded as he passed them on his way to the front door, on his seemingly hundredth trip to put another box in the car. They were leaving a lot behind-the furniture, even the stuff they’d bought themselves, plus some little knick-knacks that it was just easier to leave behind. Yet they still had far too many boxes to cram into the car. As it was, there would be just enough room for the cat’s carriers and the litter box-the cats would be getting a bathroom break every two hours of driving, they’d decided. 

Queen licked a paw, and Eugene sighed. “Please, do it for me.” 

She looked back up at him. 

“I’d feel a lot less nervous about this move if you were my best girl and just went right into your carrier. I promise it’ll be worth it, if you’re good,” Eugene said, trying not to think about how he was essentially begging a maybe ten pound creature to listen to him. 

But it worked. She let out a dainty sigh, then trotted into the carrier and settled as he shut the door of it. 

“There’s my girl,” Eugene praised as he poked a finger through the wire door for her to sniff and lick. 

“I think that’s it,” Snafu said as he came back in, dragging snow in after him. “You and the kids ready?” 

Eugene nodded and grabbed his coat. “Ready as we’ll ever be.” 

“We’re gonna be okay,” Snafu said, moving to help him pull the wool coat on. “No matter what.” 

Eugene turned to him and kissed him as he took hold of his hands. His fingers were cold, but his lips were still warm. “I know. Just gonna take getting there and a while for me to shake this.” 

“You take all the time you need. I got you,” Snafu replied. “C’mon. Let’s get the babies in the car.” 

“They’re gonna hate this,” Eugene said as he picked up Queen’s carrier. “You ready to listen to that much yellin’ and hollerin’?” 

“They might surprise us,” Snafu said, grabbing Gunner and Little Sid’s carriers as he walked out the front door. “Give ‘em a chance.” 

Eugene turned off the lights, then stopped to look at the not quite empty, yet not as full as it had been apartment. It was strange, seeing it like that. Knowing they wouldn’t have another night on the couch together, falling asleep with books in their hands or staying up too late talking. Not having the same open window in their bedroom for Gunner to go in and out of as he prowled the neighborhood, only to return before the end of the night to curl up by their feet. No more finding little Sid and Queen asleep in the linen closet, always left open for them. 

“You can get the door, right? I already gave that asshole my key,” Snafu said, breaking the spell. 

“Yeah, I got it,” Eugene replied, and stepped out of the doorway to close and lock it while Queen meowed at the cold air. “You okay running the key down, or should I?” 

“Naw, I told him I’d be back down with yours,” Snafu said as he set Gunner’s carrier down to grab the key and shove it in his trouser pocket. He picked Gunner back up and started down to the landlord and the car, leaving Eugene with Queen and his thoughts. 

“Just another sort of adventure, right Queenie?” Eugene sighed. 

She meowed angrily as the wind picked up. 

“Fair enough. Rude of me to be askin’ you questions while you freeze. Let’s get you in the car,” he replied and went down to the car. 

Snafu was settling the other two in the car, fussing with the placement of the carriers while they yowled at him. “Your daddy just had to be right about you hating this, didn’t he? Just hush, we’ll be there before you know it, you’ll nap…fuck’s sake, I hope you’ll nap.” 

“The kids aren’t happy?” Eugene said as he passed Queen’s carrier to him. 

“Oh no, they’re thrilled. Singing a song about how much they love the car, can’t you hear it?” 

Eugene winced at a particularly piercing shriek from Little Sid. “I can. Lovely.” 

“Isn’t it just?” Snafu laughed as he got Queen settled in and shut the car door. “We’re gonna be serenaded until they fall asleep. If they fall asleep.” 

Eugene got in the passenger side-Snafu had agreed to drive for the first leg of the drive, ideally all the way from Annapolis to Richmond in Virginia. “They’ll sleep. That’s one of their favorite things. Just give them time to get used to the sound of the car, the bouncing. I mean, they’ll still hate this, but they’ll sleep at least.” 

Snafu shook his head as he got in, and started the car. “How about you? Gonna try and sleep?” 

“We’ve barely been awake,” Eugene replied. Granted, it had been a very busy morning of quick packing and buying what they didn’t have but needed, namely the cat carriers. “Besides, who’s gonna keep you awake?” 

Queen let out what could only be described as an angry scream, and Snafu pointed to the back seat. “That might do it.” 

They laughed as Snafu got them onto the road, but the pit from before was back in Eugene’s stomach. It was one thing to say they were doing this, but actually being in the car, driving away from what had been their home? That was a whole other game, and he wasn’t sure he knew the rules of it well enough to play it right. 

They stayed quiet as they drove-the cats were making enough noise for two cars, let alone just theirs. It was comforting, just watching Snafu as he drove. The little twitch of his jaw every now and again, and how he’d instantly toss his arm across Eugene if they had to make a sudden stop. The way he’d occasionally crack and roll his neck, yet never complaining that it was stiff. 

There was the rest of the state, plus entirely new ones to watch as they drove too. Different flora and fauna, neighborhoods and main streets with little shops unique to them, all passing them by. 

The two hours passed faster than he’d expected. They’d left a little after noon, then suddenly it was about 2:30, and they were pulling up to a gas station in Richmond. 

“Ugh,” Snafu grimaced as he got out of the car. “Gotta walk about for a bit before we keep goin’, or my legs are gonna waste away.” 

“Same,” Eugene admitted. It hadn’t been that horribly far, but his legs and back didn’t care about that. “Least the kids are finally quiet.” 

The cats had finally calmed. They didn’t look pleased, but they were quiet. 

“Yeah. I’ll let them out, probably one by one to see if they need their box. Don’t want them trying to run off,” Snafu said, opening the back door to lean in and take the cover off of the litter box. 

Eugene wandered while Snafu fussed with the cats, looking around at the surrounding buildings. He always wondered how things might have been different, if the train had stopped anywhere else. If they’d gotten off of it sooner, or tried to go back to Mobile or New Orleans together. He wouldn’t change any of what had happened for anything, but at the same time he couldn’t help but be curious. 

“We’re all cleaned up and fueled up. Ready to go when you are,” Snafu called from the car. 

“Really? No extra walking, or a bathroom break?” Eugene asked as he jogged back over. 

Snafu shrugged. “I’m okay. But if you need a minute-” 

Eugene shook his head. “Nah. Just-I don’t know.” 

“All up in that smart head of yours, overthinkin’ things?” 

He smiled. “Yeah. I guess so. Just thinkin’ how weird it is, driving through all these places. All these people living and going about their day. Wondering what it’d be like if we’d ended up here, or anywhere else.” 

Snafu nodded. “I think about that too, sometimes. Would we have found a decent place to live? Decent jobs? As it is, I still can’t get over them bein’ okay with us just up and going, never to return.” 

“Told them both it was a family thing. They understood,” Eugene replied. He’d taken over calling their jobs that morning, as soon as he knew their supervisors would be in. The library he’d been working at raised no issue and asked no extra questions about it once he’d mentioned family, and the mechanic that Snafu had worked for only asked kindly if everyone was going to be okay before wishing them the best and saying he’d miss Snafu around the shop. 

“Good idea. I mean, it technically is. Any idea what you might do once we get down there?” Snafu asked. “I’m thinkin’ I’ll just see if there isn’t another mechanic in need of help. Like workin’ with my hands like that, think I’d miss it if I did anything else.” 

“Not exactly. But since we don’t have to pay for the house or anything, kinda thought about school,” Eugene replied as he went to the driver’s side and got in. 

Snafu nodded and went to the passenger side. “Well, whatever you wanna do, I’ll help you get it however I can. I’m not much for studying, but I promise I’ll do my best to help, if that’s what you end up doin’.” 

“You could go back too, if you wanted,” Eugene said as he started the car and pulled them back onto the road. This next leg was a bit longer, three hours rather than two, taking them to Fayetteville, North Carolina. He just hoped the cats would be okay with the extra hour of driving. 

“Aw jeez,” Snafu sighed. “I mean…someone has to be bringing in some cash for food. I’ll let you go back and get your degree first, then we can worry about me.” 

“If you say so,” Eugene smiled. He suddenly had an image of Snafu in a pair of thick glasses, poring over a textbook. It was both incredibly goofy and wonderfully adorable, and if anything horribly inaccurate. The actual image of Snafu studying, he figured, was similar to watching him read. Usually with a look of slight concentration that just wrinkled his brow, with his shirt off if it was summer or a blanket over him in the winter, slouching on the couch or laying with his legs across Eugene’s lap. The sight always made Eugene lose his spot in whatever book he was reading. 

They settled into their comfortable silence as Eugene drove, and eventually he heard the sound of Snafu snoring. He’d been waiting for it-he knew he was more tired than he’d let on. They’d both taken their coats off midway on the way to Richmond, as it got warmer the further South they went, and now Snafu was using them both as a blanket. 

The trip felt longer when he was driving, and he couldn’t help but yawn as he pulled up to a gas station in Fayetteville a little after six o’clock. 

Snafu woke with a start as he turned the car off. “Sorry, sorry. I passed out on ya. Didn’t mean to.” 

Eugene shrugged. “Not a big deal. Not much to do if you aren’t driving, might as well sleep. I know I will. Speaking of-you really wanna keep going? We can probably find a motel room easy enough.” 

Snafu chewed at his bottom lip, then shook his head. “Bet they won’t want us to bring the cats in. And if they ask questions-” 

“Friends can go on road trips together,” Eugene said, but he couldn’t convince himself that Snafu was wrong. It was an added factor, wondering if they’d be questioned in any way or unable to find a spot to rest based on what people might figure out about them. They were being careful-no kisses, no hand-holding, even though it killed him not to do any of it. But you could never be too careful. 

“I’ll be okay,” Snafu said. “Tell you what, how about we go hour by hour for the night? Just pull over on the shoulder or wherever we can for a few minutes, then switch. We can both get a bit of sleep, but neither one of us has to drive too exhausted.” 

“I like that,” Eugene said as he got out of the car. “What say we hit the bathroom, then she’s all yours?” 

They made their break quick, then switched sides as they got back to the car. For a second at the front of the car, Eugene paused to grab Snafu’s hand and give a squeeze. He couldn’t bear not touching him in all the little ways they usually did. 

Back in the car, Snafu grabbed his hand and pressed a quick kiss to it before starting the car. “Ready for Augusta?” 

“Sure!” Eugene laughed. “Just another three and some hours away, right? Oh god-we aren’t driving anywhere for a week after this.” 

“Agreed,” Snafu smiled as he started the car and they headed out yet again. “Now get some sleep-you only got an hour, after all.” 

He didn’t need to be told twice, leaning back in the seat and using Snafu’s coat as a blanket. He had a feeling it would be a quick hour.

[toughcookiegirl]

It’s been a long time...

I haven’t posted an update on this blog in two years. Yikes! So sorry to the people who have been checking up on this. Everything’s gotten so hectic with covid so this blog was completely forgotten.

To give a little rundown: My daughter Diana is autistic. She’s a premutation carrier of fragile X syndrome. She has social anxiety and sensory disorder.

My son Colin does not carry the fragile X gene. More on him in a bit.

To give an update on Diana...she is THRIVING. She is 9 years old (4th grade) and doing phenomenal in school. When she first started school in Kindergarten, her IEP was focused on the fact she could barely speak and couldn’t comprehend most of what the teacher was saying. She could read (she’s hyperlexic) but she couldn’t understand and writing a sentence was an hour long fight. 

Now she’s in the gifted program with strong talents in the visual-spatial areas. She’s doing great in STEM related subjects. She’s now writing essays and short stories. She loves digital animation and constantly puts up little fun animations on her Scratch. She now has friends at school and at girl scouts. Such a major deal for my little loner girl!

Her speech is still a bit awkward (her speech therapists say that her words get easily jumbled in her head and she halts a lot trying to get them out), but she’s speaking and communicating with others. I look back on my blog and I see how anxious I was but now I’m so grateful that she’s doing so well in school. Even her ILC teacher couldn’t stop gushing about her during our last conference, saying that Diana is the model student and a great example of what can be accomplished for others in the program. He believes this is the last year she’ll be in ILC because he truly feels she has no need for it. Ironic that the teachers feel that the year she did in virtual schooling from covid was probably a large contribution to her confidence and social growth. 

It’s so hard to believe that Diana, who struggled so hard in school, had so many breakdowns and difficulties, finally hit her stride in the 4th grade. 

Now over to Colin. When Colin was 3, I took him to childfind to get him evaluated because I was worried he was going to be delayed like his sister. Other than some mild issues with not wanting to play alone, they found nothing wrong with him. Colin is incredibly social (unlike his sister) and had no speech delays. 

However, with Kindergarten, he’s struggling. His Kindergarten teacher is the same as Diana’s, so we thought it might be an advantage. But unlike his sister, Colin doesn’t have a diagnosis and he has no IEP. He’s having trouble focusing, he can’t write on his own, he doesn’t do anything unless he’s told specifically what to do, and he barely knows any of his sight words. He still speaks in baby talk.

Granted, covid is partly to blame for his delay. Preschools around us shut down during the pandemic so he never got to go. Also, I was warned by Diana’s speech therapist to look out for Colin’s speech since younger siblings imitate their older siblings.

It breaks my heart that Colin is the slowest kid in his class and there are so many factors that could be why. Colin’s doctor believes he’s just behind because of covid. I have a feeling it might be a sign of ADHD or dyslexia. Currently, his kindergarten teacher is having the school’s speech therapist meet with him. I’m bracing myself for the news that she feels we should get him to a specialist. 

We’ll see what happens. I just have to remember that this feeling of uncertainty is the same thing I felt with Diana when she was his age. I know it’ll pass, and with help he can get better. 

Covid was the worst and best thing to happen to our family I guess.

[shireness-says]

Playing the Part

Prologue: Overture

Summary: As a stage manager who's clawed her way up from bottom, Emma Swan can handle just about anything thrown her way. But does that include handsome lead actor Killian Jones? A CS Broadway AU. Rated T for language. Also on AO3.

A/N: It’s finally here - the Broadway AU I’ve been threatening to write for ages! I’m excited to finally post this, and I hope you’re excited to read it. I’ve got a bunch of these saved up - 7 completed chapters and significant chunks of 4 more - so I should be able to post these every Monday.

I had a lot of help getting this to its final state, so special thanks to @katie-dub for coming up with the title, @kmomof4 for proofing my outline, and @snidgetsafan for her ever-exceptional beta skills. Y’all are the best.

Each chapter title will be pulled from musical songs. The overture is traditionally the music that plays after the lights dim but before the show starts, and oftentimes sets the stage for the show to come by combining snippets of the musical numbers to come.

Overarching disclaimer: my theater experience is purely on the community theater level and only on the techie side, not the acting side. I strive for accuracy, but pull on my own experience and as such may not achieve it.

Tagging those who have expressed interest or I think will like this: @winterbaby89, @thejollyroger-writer, @mythologicalmango, @allons-y-to-hogwarts-713, @revanmeetra87, @onceuponaprincessworld, @courtorderedcake, @snowbellewells, @branlovesouat, @aerica13, @searchingwardrobes, @teamhook, @awkwardnessandbaseball. Send me a message if you want me to keep tagging you or to be added to this list!

Without further ado: enjoy!

Emma Swan falls into working theater crew somewhat on accident.

That’s the story of her life, really – unexpectedly pregnant at 18, moved to New York on a whim (the reasoning being roughly “if not now, when?”), ended up with a job at Granny’s Diner because it happened to be next to what must be the only free parking in the city, and with a roommate because the owner’s granddaughter just happened to be looking for an apartment and a roommate at that very time.

In the same vein, while it was less of an accident that she became friends with Mary Margaret Blanchard (NYU theater major and friend of Ruby’s who liked to study at the diner), it was entirely by chance that Mary Margaret got her working crew. The truth of the matter is that Emma had a 4-month-old and very little cash, and the NYU theater department needed someone to do some scenery painting. While she may not have been the most artistic of people, Emma was pretty sure that she could handle putting paint on the wall. She could come in whenever she wasn’t working at Granny’s, and best of all, she could bring Henry with her in his carrier. It’s a perfect convergence of circumstances. The powers that be must have been pleased, because come show week, they’d asked her to stay and help move sets. And after that, well… things just spiraled from there.

The funny thing is that Emma had never considered herself a theater fan. When she had started working NYU shows, it had just been a job, not some great passion. Granted, she had only seen a terrible high school production of Fiddler on the Roof and a nearly worse community theater production of Ragtime – and both only because they were free and through her school at the time. There just wasn’t really a chance to see any quality theater as a foster kid. Ruby, when she found that out, naturally decided to fix the situation immediately by taking Emma and Mary Margaret to see Chicago for her own birthday. And as soon as Emma heard “All That Jazz”… she was gone. There was no going back.

Emma somehow found herself an unofficial member of the NYU theater family, especially when visiting lecturers and special events used the auditorium – events that still needed staffing but that the theater majors were reluctant to assist with. From there, she followed Mary Margaret and Ruby (their own aspiring costume designer) through their own smaller roles and shows. Ruby took extra classes in hair and makeup at a local cosmetology school, hoping to expand her portfolio of talents. Mary Margaret kept adding to her resume any way she could, working on any show that would cast her. And Emma somehow continued working her way up the ranks, recommended by word of mouth, towing a toddler (and later a child) along with her. Somehow, all those fortunate accidents brought her here, to this moment – an adult with her own place, a great kid, a support system of friends she views as family, and an ever-rising positive reputation in a decently paid profession. For someone who thought, ten years ago, that her life would be a series of dead end jobs and tiny apartments shared with roommates she’d despise, every day is like she’s living a dream.

This feels like the pinnacle of her achievements, however. She’s certainly worked as a stage manager before – in fact, it’s become her own niche, calling the shots. Her unconventional education has resulted in a working knowledge of nearly all the aspects of technical theater, which has proved incredibly helpful in dealing with her various colleagues. It’s like speaking another language - people are more willing to fill her in on the more complicated terminology when she shows she knows the basics. But this… this is a whole different thing. This isn’t one of her Off-Broadway shows, or one of her limited runs, but a major production. It wasn’t supposed to be – when she signed on as stage manager, set to work with a young director she came up with at NYU, it was still Off-Broadway, an adaptation of Pride & Prejudice they already knew would either be a huge hit or sink into obscurity. But then, some investor who loved the original work caught wind of Merlin’s vision, and suddenly, they had a significantly higher budget, a theater right in the heart of the theater district, and likely a lengthy run – if all goes well. Oh, and one more thing had significantly increased – the pressure on everyone involved.

Of course, just to complicate things, the change in venue isn’t the only thing weighing on Emma’s mind. Initially, Emma had been asked to serve as one of the assistant stage managers, to work backstage the way she prefers and relaying the stage manager’s orders, helping the entire show run smoothly. However, even that plan had changed. The intended production stage manager, finding herself pregnant with twins and violently ill as a result, chose not to participate in the show. Emma can’t blame her – she remembers how tired she was with Henry, and he was only one baby. But Merlin had then asked Emma to step up into an expanded role, saying that he trusted her for this position more than anyone else.

Emma’s flattered, she really is, but the truth is that she’s never run a show at this level. Call the cues for a show, check the equipment, coordinate everything that needs to happen? Yes, sure, of course. She can do that  in her sleep now (somewhat literally, sadly – she’s developed an unconscious habit of dreaming the various light cues). She’s stage managed her smaller shows without any issues. But with a budget this large and stakes this high? Feeling like she personally is the linchpin that could make this show soar or crash in spectacular fashion? On a show they’re all aware could make their careers? That’s new, and terrifying, and Emma privately wonders if she’s the right woman for the job.

But she takes the promotion for that very reason - it’s new, and an incredible opportunity to get her name out there if the production succeeds. She’d be an idiot to turn this down, but that doesn’t make her any less nervous.

Really, at the end of the day, this latest promotion is representative of how she’s made her way through most of her career – a bunch of happy accidents and an unwillingness to say no to any opportunity, now having lead her to a cold room and a crowd of men who all want to be Mr. Darcy.

Nice.

Honestly, this part of the job leaves her as basically a glorified secretary, recording everyone’s contact information so that she and Merlin can handle callbacks later. He asks for her opinion every so often, but honestly, what is he expecting her to say? She can’t carry a tune, and her opinions are usually “yeah, he seems like he won’t be a complete pain in my ass”. They’ve already pre-cast their Elizabeth – a lovely woman named Belle French, who had been an up-and-coming TV actress before an ugly scandal with a prominent producer – but Merlin had wanted someone new for Mr. Darcy. Emma can’t help but understand and agree with that decision – Mr. Darcy is somewhat of an unknown factor for so much of the source material, it seems appropriate that their actor also be something of an unknown quantity, someone the public doesn’t know how to define yet. Unfortunately, they must have overly emphasized the arrogant side of Darcy in the casting call, not the shy romantic, which seems to have brought out every egotistical actor in the city - all convinced that they would be perfect for the role. Don’t get her wrong, the arrogant façade Darcy presents is certainly important (and definitely present in this room, good lord), but Pride & Prejudice was one of the few books in high school Emma actually enjoyed – she knows there needs to be more than that. Whoever they choose needs to also be able to pull off a certain amount of vulnerability, a certain level of discomfort and awkwardness. So many of these would-be Darcys are just too… suave for her taste.

That’s why she’s particularly hopeful about this next prospect. He had swaggered in, as confident as the rest, but as she’d watched him interact with the others, there had been a certain amount of nerves that the rest weren’t letting show. He aces the choreography audition (perhaps because he throws himself into rehearsing in a way the others don’t, like it’ll ruin their persona if they’re shown practicing the steps), has a singing voice that will work well for Darcy (while looking adorable, scratching behind his ear when they ask about his relatively small experience on the stage). What really sells things for Emma, however, is how, when introduced to Belle for a test of how they’ll act together, he stutters over all his words and turns bright red after finally blurting out a “oh, I’ve heard so much about you!”. He’s an awkward mess behind that swagger and false confidence, and it’s a little perfect.

(It doesn’t hurt that he’s easy on the eyes, and one of the more polite Darcys she’s dealt with today.)

So when, after a very long day, she’s asked her opinion about the variety of men who auditioned that day, Emma doesn’t hesitate to put her personal vote in for Killian Jones.

God, she just hopes she doesn’t come to regret that decision.

[sparklytastemakerwitch]

What is a Paper Making Machine?

I know you’re looking for a paper bag machine that’s why you are here.

Maybe, you want to be a paper bag wholesaler or make branded designs for your retail business.

The truth is, paper bags are dear packages for food vendors, retailers, and even manufacturers.

But, how can you venture in this business?

Or, what is the most cost effective way of making paper bags?

Today’s guide debunks the facts behind paper bag making process and machine such basic definition, working principle, classification, design, technical specification, etc.

So stay with me to be an expert in paper bag making industry.

Let’s begin with some facts.

Apart from the other devastating problems associated with plastic bags, did you know that synthetic bag manufacturers produce about one trillion of those bags in a year globally?

Did you also know that it takes one thousand years for a single bag of this kind to biodegrade?

Yes, that’s the scariest part of it.

Due to that, most governments are imposing bans on these carriers.

The alternative?

A mega-shift to more environmentally friendly paper bags.

So basically a paper bag making machine is a state of the art machine that gathers, folds, stamps, and processes papers to produce clean paper bags.

These paper bags are for use in the packaging of goods in various industries such as food, pharmaceutical products, grocery, and baking industries.

The bag making machines come in various configurations depending on the type of bags for final production.

Therefore, the paper bag making system should be versatile enough to cater to the dynamics in the paper bag manufacturing.

Today different paper bag making stakeholders such as the machine manufacturers, raw material suppliers face a lot of shifting customer demands, government regulations, changing prices, etc.

It’s thus good only if the machine can afford the manufacturer some relief.

For that matter, it means that you need to know all the factors related to the paper bag making the machine.

Besides, all the accompanying dynamics before making a purchase.

Luckily, I have compiled all that you need to know in this article.

The history of development and use of paper bag making machine dates back to the 19th century.

During these early stages, the systems were simple and mechanically operated.

With that, we move to the next step.

Where to Use Paper Bag Making Machine

Take a moment to reflect on the occasions you use a paper bag.

Indeed paper bag forms a vital integral in our lives today.

From simple uses such as carrying random goods to more complex ones such as in pharmaceuticals to wrap up drugs.

One thing is for sure.

Without paper bag making machine, we would be missing a significant aspect of our lives.

Surely, there are numerous uses of paper bag making the machine.

Subsequently, the produced paper bags can be classified under different distinct categories depending on their purposes.

We carry stuff in them -– groceries, clothes, gifts, trash and booze. I carried my lunch to school in one until the fourth grade because my mother would decorate them with stickers and drawings. People add sand and candles to them to illuminate their neighbourhoods at Christmas. Disgruntled sports fans cover their heads with them. But how many people know where the flat-bottomed paper bag came from? Or that its invention was a triumph of feminism over patriarchy, and of brains over bullying?

For most of recorded history, containers were made of leather, wood, cotton and reeds. Paper, made by hand one sheet at a time, was a luxury, used only for books, records and letters by the literate few. In 1799, a French inventor named Louis-Nicolas Robert was granted a patent for a machine that produced rolls of paper. This invention brought paper to the masses. Soon, merchants were using rolled paper, or ‘cornucopias’, to package small quantities of goods, with predictably messy results. They also constructed rudimentary paper bags by hand, which was a time-consuming and not always successful process.

The race was on to produce a paper bag that was both sturdy and easy to make. In 1852, the American Francis Wolle received the first patent for a square bottom paper bag machine. It used steam and paste to create bags in the shape of envelopes. Though the machine became popular, the bags it produced were cumbersome and of limited use – picture a load of groceries in a large envelope-shaped sack. Still, they were better than nothing at all, and factories producing the bags multiplied. In the late 1860s, Margaret Knight, a tall, endlessly inquisitive and hard-working New Englander, went to work for the Columbia Paper Bag Company in Springfield, Massachusetts. Within a few years, her ingenious designs would revolutionise the industry.

Born in 1838, Knight’s childhood was shaped by the industrial revolution. At first glance, hers is the classic victim’s story – raised by a widowed mother, and put to work by the age of 10 in the brutally inhospitable cotton mills of New Hampshire. But from her earliest days this uneducated labourer had an agile, inventive mind. While still a child, Knight saw a fellow worker injured when a steel-tipped shuttle shot off a loom. She soon created a shuttle cover to prevent any more accidents, and her invention was adopted by her factory. In an interview with the progressive Woman’s Journal in 1872, she recalled her unconventional youth: As a child, I never cared for things that girls usually do; dolls never possessed any charms for me. I couldn’t see the sense of coddling bits of porcelain with senseless faces: the only things I wanted were a jack-knife, a gimlet, and pieces of wood. My friends were horrified. I was called a tomboy; but that made very little impression on me. I sighed sometimes, because I was not like the other girls; but wisely concluded that I couldn’t help it, and sought further consolation from my tools. I was always making things for my brothers; did they want anything in the line of playthings, they always said: ‘Mattie will make them for us.’ I was famous for my kites; and my sleds were the envy and admiration of all the boys in town.

By the time she joined the Columbia Paper Bag Company as a lowly factory worker, the 30-something, unmarried Knight had spent years as a ‘Jill-of-all-trades’, becoming proficient in daguerreotype, photography, engraving, house repair and upholstering. Spending long hours at the factory, she soon heard of current efforts to create a flat bottom paper bag machine that could efficiently manufacture flat bottom paper bag. ‘I am told that there is no such machine known as a square-bottomed machine,’ she wrote in her journal. ‘I mean to try away at it until I get my ideas worked out.’ Independent of the factory and without her bosses’ knowledge, Knight began to study the issue intently.

By 1867, she was hard at work on creating a machine that could ‘cut, fold and paste bag bottoms itself’. Her work kept her up at night, leading the manager of her boarding house to declare: ‘I saw her making drawings continually… always of the machine. She has known nothing else, I think.’ Her work on the machine also bled into her shifts at the factory. This initially annoyed her superiors – until she showed them her plans – which led them to believe that she had a ‘keener eye than any man in the works’. After a ‘rickety’ wooden model of her machine proved successful, producing thousands of ‘good, handsome bags’, she had an iron version produced in 1868. While the machine was at a Boston shop to be refined, it was viewed by Charles F Annan, a would-be-inventor of dubious morality.

Knight prepared to apply for a patent for her new machine. In 1871, she was shocked to find that Annan had already been granted a patent to the machine, which he claimed as his own. The dispute ended up in court, where the cash-strapped Knight spent $100 a day to hire a patent attorney to prove that she was the machine’s true inventor. Annan’s lawyer argued that an uneducated, self-taught woman could never have built such a sophisticated machine. He was countered at every turn by the mountains of physical evidence and eye-witness testimony Knight produced. ‘I have from my earliest recollection been connected in some way with machinery,’ Knight protested. In the end, the commissioner of patents found in favour of Knight, though officials could not resist chastising her for waiting so long to apply for her patent. However, since Knight was not a ‘man of business’, this oversight was forgiven.

On 11 July 1871, Knight was granted patent number 116,842 for her ‘new and improved shopping paper bag machine for making paper bags’. She soon formed the Eastern Paper Bag Company with a partner, and became a media darling for her revolutionary machine, which did the work of 30 labourers. The new stand-alone, flat-bottomed bags were quickly adopted by large department stores and grocers, and Knight was awarded a royal honour from Queen Victoria. In 1883, Charles Stilwell of the Union Paper Bag Machine Company, working from Knight’s patent, further advanced the paper bag with his invention of a machine that produced the Self-Opening-Sack (SOS), the pleated flat-bottomed bags that are used today.

The vivacious Knight, dubbed by one paper the ‘lady Edison’, would spend the rest of her long life – she died aged 76 in 1914 – inventing. By 2006, when she was inducted into the Paper Industry International Hall of Fame, it was estimated that around 25 billion paper sacks were used annually throughout the world.

In the past decade, Knight’s dramatic story has been told in two popular children’s books – Marvelous Mattie (2006) by Emily Arnold McCully, and In the Bag! (2011) by Monica Kulling. She is emblematic of a whole multitude of female inventors, such as Mary Anderson (the windshield wiper), Katharine Blodgett (non-reflective glass), and Stephanie Kwolek (Kevlar), who created life-changing inventions within industries – and a world – dominated by men. Their stories are important and should be better known. They can inspire future generations of girls and young women to tinker, experiment and invent.

[one-of-us-must-be-crazy]

Who surprises the other in the middle of the day at work with lunch?

This also got crazy-long for a short reply so its under a cut again

Adjusting to normality included going back to work. The pay-out from Weyland-Yutani was enough that she didn’t need to ask for her shop back at the docks, however after a case of cabin fever combined with post-traumatic stress sent her into a mental breakdown, her (partner? boyfriend? lover?) suggested she find something to occupy her mind and hands, and possibly get her outside.

It was surreal, being back here after so long away, after so much happened. Here, the private engine shop that serviced everything from cars to crater rovers to flight carriers and segments of space stations, the biggest changes that happened since she had left was that their boss retired, and they hired a new electrical engineer. Oh yes, and they were all rather excited to tell her about the new lift. Utterly mundane.

Still, it was something to do, something to focus on and think on, and throwing herself into her work had always been how she worked through her earlier (though much more minor) issues. The new boss was a previous team member who liked her enough, and everyone welcomed her back with relative warmth. And coming home the first day to someone who had–against orders–made a nice dinner and procured a bottle of wine; followed by a back rub that she wasn’t sure made her more relaxed or more awake than she’d been all evening.

Ripley’s first two weeks went by as such, sometimes having to be nearly pulled out of bed by her well-meaning resident robot. By Friday he noticed, however, that while she always had a piece of toast, or handful of whatever fruit she could find (”Why do you do this to me?” “You don’t eat enough vegetable material and cannot survive off pad thai and pizza alone.” “I did so far and turned out–well, I’m alive aren’t I?”) and always a large mug of some kind of caffeinated drink. Once to his horror she had poured a bottle of emergency energy shot into her travel cup with a soda, and walked out the door as if it was a normal thing for her to do. Considering the level of soda left in the fridge, he realized that she’d been taking one to work each day; but the more he looked over their supply he realized that unless she was buying lunch on her break, she had been having a can of diet soda every day.

“Ripley? Someone’s looking for you,” the kid, one of the newer employees, gave her a cautions glance. He’s mildly afraid of me. Good.  “Looks like a guy from the company.”

“Jesus fuck.”

She sat up, turned off her welding torch and took her mask off, debating between preparing to defend herself, or to just start a loud profanity laced tirade against whatever demon they sent to her.

Instead, she was greeted by a much better scenario entirely.

“Chris,” she sighed. “You’re a cliche.”

“In my defense I didn’t think that you would have been welding on the dock’s electric again. Haven’t they replaced it?”

“Apparently not,” she nodded to an older patch job, about seven feet down where this scene had played out two years ago. “And not that I don’t like seeing your face, but….why are you here?”

“I brought you lunch.”

“You didn’t have to do that,”

“Did you pack lunch?”

“I–”

“A can of coke doesn’t count.”

“Okay so no, but you always cook dinner so I’m fine, really. I prefer to work while everyone else is on break anyway.” she wiped her arm over her forehead, in an attempt to clean up some of the soot and sweat, only succeeding in spreading the grim and adding oil to the mess. Samuels bit back an amused smile. 

“Too late, I already walked here–”

“You walked, that’s like…it’s a fifteen minute commute by trolley how the fuck–”

“My batteries last a little longer than a human’s.”

“……right.”

“And it’s already on your break room table, if you’d like to take your legally required thirty minute break now.”

“Company man to the core processor aren’t you?” she teased lightly, bumping his hip with hers as she walked past him and enjoying the half-second of flustered bewilderment it earned.

The break room table had a steaming bowl of oatmeal that didn’t look like the lumpy instant kind she usually bought, and a plate of various fresh fruits beside it.

“I had fruit this morning,”

“And the suggested amount for a female of your age and activity level is more than one strawberry on your way out the door,”

“I’m not a child,”

“Looking after your health isn’t a way of belittling you, at least not intentionally. I merely want to keep you around for as long as I can.”

Oh. That was sobering.

“How about I promise to pay more attention to my diet and you agree not to micromanage my phsyical health?”

“Agreed,” Amanda sat down at the table, giving his latest creation a hesitant taste, knowing full well it wouldn’t have the three spoons of sugar she usually dumped in hers. None. Still, it wasn’t bad, and she was torn between asking where he learned to cook so well, and not wanting to see his sheepish smile when he, in a guilty tone, mumbled something about just downloading the instructions. 

“Any good?”

“Very, thanks. Sit down, stay a while before you hike back,” 

“….Thank you,”

“You didn’t just thank me for asking you to stay with me?”

“I don’t know if I’ll ever fully adjust to you permitting, requesting my company.”

“Mmm, the adoration is nice now, but it’s gonna get stale quick. Adjust. Get used to it. I told you before that I’m keeping you–until you decide you want to leave. And then please, leave. But for now…” she smiled. “I like the view, and would like you. To. Stay.”

Amanda started to eat, no longer embarrassed at doing so in front of someone that didn’t need to, and Samuels reached across the table for her hand that wasn’t holding a spoon, another marvel, that he could request her touch, and she would grant it with a smile. 

“The last time I was here, I wanted to touch you–oh that sounded…wrong. I meant in a…in the way a human would perhaps give a touch, social contact to give you comfort but even if my programming allowed me to do it…You gave off the sense that you would have broken my hand if I tried.”

“You’re probably right.”

“I love you.”

It didn’t shock her, didn’t surprise her in the least; once he had managed to say the words without stuttering, or outwardly panicking, he had been saying it at random moments, at least once a day. And each time he did it, it still seeped in and sent an icy heat through her. A reminder of the impossibleness that she wasn’t, as she always assumed she was, destined for isolation.

“There’s a supply closet in that door behind me.”

“Relevance?”

“Never mind,” there wasn’t enough time left to her break anyway, but the look he was giving her was melting her from the inside, and even if it wasn’t for sex, she wanted to hide somewhere with him, holding him close and tight, feeling his vitals hum under his skin he’s alive and he’s with me and we are safe, he’s alive, he’s here, we’re safe.

Someone in the main area of the shop starting a metal saw made her jump, and Samuels sprung up from his seat to reach over table, his hands on her shoulders “Easy, luv…”

“Sorry–I’m sorry nothing’s bothered me yet–I was just zoning out and  I–”

“I worry about you. I know you’re safe here, but…I still worry.”

“We’re a mess.”

“At least, for me, a synthetic could probably think of very few people to ‘be a mess with’ than an engineer. I’ve lucked out in every possible way.” he was perched on the side of the table to her right, one hand still on her shoulder, moving up to hold the side of her face.

“I have too. No one’s ever brought me homemade lunch at work before,” she pushed the bowl and plate aside, and sat up next to him, impressed the metal retired-worktable could hold them both. “I’m doing something nice for you tonight. Message me what kind of wine you want, or tea, or beer, or whatever you want. And then anything you can think of, I’ll do it.”

“You don’t have to,” he said softly, as she rest her forehead against his, their noses brushing before she kept hers to one side of his,

“Not just physical; I mean anything. Any movie you want, any updates, upgrades, decor for the flat…Let me do something for you,”

“It isn’t necessary,”

“Please?”

“I’d like…us to read tonight together, maybe work the micro-generator you brought home last week, take a bath, and then you can tell me about this place, and about your first job here,” 

her eyes crinkled a little, where confusion would be on its own with anyone else wanting to know specifics, there was also affection, and an annoying inability to hide her sheer joy at having a connection with another person. Even someone that few others would consider to be a person.

“Why in the world would you care about that?”

“I only know your past on paper, passive and one-sided, told by people that neither liked you nor knew you. And thus far, my dear, every time you display another facet of yourself, I find that my ability to care is only made…stronger. I like that feeling, and both selfishly, and for your own sake, I want to know everything about you that you could share,”

“Tonight….then tonight…like an interview then. You and me.” She leaned on him, and he leaned back with her, supported on the table by his free arm.

“‘Interview is rather clinical, so correct me if I’m wrong but couldn’t ‘learning more about one’s partner’ be considered a date?”

“Well you’re supposed to have those before you move in with someone.”

“I had no idea,” his sarcasm entertained her to no end, if only for how long it had taken her to realize he was capable of it.

“Now you do, and we have a date tonight.”

“Thompson?”

“Yeah?” 

“Who’s in there with Ripley? Boyfriend?”

“Company exec. I think he’s just a ‘droid though, so it can’t be anything too serious.”

“In that case go in and get her, then kick him out.  I don’t like those things–or those people–crawling around my shop poking for code violations.”

“Will do.”

[indianbusinesstimes]

Meet The Founder Of Omnipresent, Aakash Sinha; The Man Who Aided India To Reach The Moon!

Regarded as one of the pioneers in robotics and drone technology in India, Omnipresent Robot Tech was established in 2009 with a vision encapsulating the potential of drone technology in the country. In an exclusive interview with Indian Business Times, the Founder and CEO of Omnipresent, Aakash Sinha, takes us through his momentous journey.

He has a technical background with MS in Robotics from Carnegie Mellon University in the US. To apply his knowledge and gain some experience with research, he took on the roles of Research Scholar and Robotics Research Scientist at Lockhead Martin, which is a company active in the Aerospace Technology space. Being fascinated by robots, he, then joined another American firm, iRobot Corporation which designs and builds consumer robots.

It was post this experience that he decided to take the plunge and establish his own firm under the moniker, Omnipresent Robot Tech in 2009. The idea was to make robots, which was his area of expertise by then, into flying drones for applications that the world would witness only after a few years. Starting from there, to being the man to develop software for the mighty Chandrayaan - 2, Aakash Sinha and Omnipresent have surely come a long way. During this interview, Sinha elaborates what Omnipresent does, what are the potential areas of applications that are yet to be explored and some valuable tips for all the budding entrepreneurs out there sitting on the fence. So, without any further ado, let us get into this adventurous journey which is bound to get you motivated to follow your dreams as well.

“This kind of technology (Drone Technology) is something that people call disruptive technology. It has the potential to fundamentally change the way life, business and work are conducted.” - Aakash Sinha told Indian Business Times.

Humble Beginnings

The first (of many) landmark achievements that came Omnipresent’s way was the application in one of India’s largest oil refineries. Aakash Sinha demonstrated the use of a drone to monitor the defects and real-time parameters in the refinery which was done manually prior to that. The problems with that were the risk of life (because a person had to climb on the towers without any dedicated safety equipment) and heavy dependence on the data provided by that individual. Now, as one could imagine, the room for human error and inaccurate reading or information is very high in such situations. The drone technology solved these problems by being unbiased messengers which relayed the real-time images and information about the situation of the components and monitor everything. Resultantly, the drones were able to bring forth the issues that even the refinery personnel were unaware of. Realizing the immense value of drone technology, Omnipresent bagged its first project with the oil refinery and never looked back.

“Won’t be surprised to see the consumer drone market flourish where everyone might own a personal drone just the way they carry their mobile phones. It could be their companion on a solo trip to click selfies, record videos and capture the moments on a vacation.”

Current Applications

Arguably the most prestigious project undertaken by Omnipresent was developing the software for creating 3D images from a regular pair of images by Chandrayaan - 2 through its Rover, Pragyaan to map out the surface of the moon. This helps the Rover to navigate its way around the obstacles and generate a 3D model of the terrain of the lunar landscape. By creating this model, it became easier to simulate the Rover and enable movement from earth remotely. The very same rover is being sent with Chandrayaan - 3 with a comprehensive tech support from Omnipresent.  Evidently, it is an ambitious project and reflects the company’s vision to create something affordable and simple but effective.

Apart from this ground-breaking concept, the drones and robots from Omnipresent find usage in surveying, surveillance and inspection in large industrial establishments. The biggest industrial giants in India including Reliance, Adani and Aditya Birla Group reap the benefits of these services. Furthermore, Omnipresent has already secured projects from 6 State Governments in the areas of mapping, surveying and other sectors after having realised the potential of drone technology. The amount of cost and time saving through the use of drones is simply unparalleled and almost unthinkable just a decade ago. The other prominent services of Omnipresent entail cleansing of water bodies, enabling remote services during the Covid times, IOT (Internet of Things) based video analytics for vivid and sharp videos and images from the sites where drones are used, precision agriculture for spraying the right amounts of insecticides, pesticides, fertilizers and irrigation using drones and robots, detecting a failure in a crop to ensure quick corrective response.

“I see drones as flying robots. They can move by themselves and sense their surroundings. According to the situation, they can react as well. There was a tremendous need in India for something like that back when I started Omnipresent in 2009 and not a lot of people were doing it.”

Future Potential

The future prospects of drone technology are undeniably massive. As a matter of fact, we are at that stage of evolution of this technology that we can’t fathom the full-scale utilization of this technology. If you think we are exaggerating, consider the example of something we have all lived through, the Internet. Back in 1983, when the Internet is believed to be invented, could anyone have ever thought that it could allow us to watch someone a thousand miles away or get you anything you wish right at your doorstep? Even after almost 4 decades of the Internet, we are finding new applications. The drone technology is merely a decade old and the future is beyond comprehension.

However, we could see where it is headed and what the plans are for the next few years. In a few years’ time, drones will be used extensively for food and parcel deliveries, e-commerce and fast commerce, drone taxis which can cover hundreds of kilometres, mapping which would be used to measure every centimetre of ground in India and have the digital information available in any part of the country, complete overhaul in the drone-based agriculture which employs over half of country’s population, industrial assessments like communication towers, power lines, factory chimneys, cooling towers, surveying and constructing roads and highways as announced by the NHAI (Nation Highway Authority of India), Railway track maintenance, defence arsenal, passenger carriers for inter-city commute and much more.

The idea is to bring transparency for everyone involved so that the overall efficiency could be enhanced significantly. For the tech savvy, Omnipresent envisions that the most relevant future drone technology would be something known as the “Drone Nerve Center”. This could enable virtually any number of drones to be connected to a central headquarters to send and receive data and initiate the desired actions. Again, this software has been used in Pragyaan, the rover of Chandrayaan - 2, for perception and navigation. “All these are areas which we already know about and the trials have also begun in a few of these” – Aakash Sinha is confident that there will be at least 2 or 3 unicorns from this field in the immediate future and Omnipresent will be one of them. To put it simply, the possibilities are infinite.

“Not a lot of people know this, but Agriculture is a sector which will be highly driven by drones in a few years’ time. Over 50% of the Indian population finds employment in agriculture. Drones will be able to release adequate amounts of pesticides and diagnose problems in the crops timely, thereby cutting down input cost and boosting agriculture yield upto 20%.”

Commercial Drone Technology Requirements

Beginning to be used much more extensively, the Government realizes the potential and relevance of promoting drone technology in India. Consequently, the Govt. has announced a few relaxations to this formerly tightly restricted and regulated space. This has proven to be a boon to the companies in this space. The DGCA (Directorate General of Civil Aviation) has over 300 designated “green zones” where even the large drone (max weight 500 kg) would not require any permission to fly unto 400ft. In these areas, even long-range drone flights, night operations, variable payloads, deliveries and spraying are permitted. The “yellow zones” would require an automated permission to fly unto 200ft keeping 12 km away from the installations and airports. Furthermore, the drone weighing less than 250 g will not even require NPNT (No Permission No Takeoff) from the DGCA or the Government. Drone heavier than 2 kg would require a government-trained pilot but going forward, the Govt. might grant exemptions from these regulations on a case-by-case basis.  Aakash Sinha has applied himself tirelessly to receive all the certificates and licenses to fly the drones legally in India.

“We must laud the Government for the visionary policy relaxations to allow drone industry to grow exponentially. From being a heavily regulated space, the drone industry has become almost self-regulatory. This decision will attract myriad new investors to this sector”.

Valuable Lessons for Upcoming Entrepreneurs

It is not every day that one gets the guidance of someone for free, who has achieved so much in his field of expertise. We recommend you make the most of it by trying to apply these words of wisdom by the man himself. During the interview, when asked about how an entrepreneur should go about building his business, handle the company/products and tackle the investors, Aakash Sinha had the following gems to share.

•   An entrepreneur should not be passionate about the product blindly, but must have some actual data to ensure that the idea he is investing his time and resources in, has a chance to become successful.

•   An entrepreneur must relentlessly focus on improving his/her product or services every single day.

•   One must always look for the right investor and not anybody who is willing to throw his/her money around.

•   Ideally, the vision of the company must align well with the investors to achieve maximum potency.

•   Chase the big dreams but don’t think that you will always succeed, also be prepared for failures. Constant learning from failures are the stepping stones to big success.

“The future of drone technology lies in the software. With new requirements, you will relentlessly need to keep updating the software for drones. If you are someone who is interested in software programming, the drone industry is bound to be the future-proof space, especially in India” – Concludes Aakash Sinha.

[sixtyfivehundredmiles]

U.S. Senate Voting this Week on Looser Rules for Great Lakes Ships Dumping Ballast Water

The U.S. Senate is set to vote on a measure this week that conservation groups say could have devastating — and permanent — consequences for the Great Lakes.

The legislation attached to the U.S. Coast Guard Authorization Act calls for giving the Coast Guard the exclusive authority to regulate the shipping industry when it comes to discharging ship-steadying ballast water that can harbor invasive species.

As the law currently works, both the Environmental Protection Agency and the Coast Guard share management of ballast water discharges. The shipping industry contends this situation, along with varying state ballast regulations, has created a regulatory quagmire and that the new measure will streamline things for the industry and still protect the Great Lakes and other U.S. waters.

Conservationists contend ballast water management belongs in the hands of the EPA, and stripping the agency of that authority means significantly weaker protections for the Great Lakes that have been ravaged for decades by contaminated ballast water discharges.

“The measure exempts ballast water from the Clean Water Act, and that’s a real problem because the Clean Water Act is the best protection for our waters that we have,” said Rebecca Riley, an attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council.

“The stakes could not be higher,” the National Wildlife Federation said in a news release that said a vote on the measure in the U.S. Senate could come as early as Wednesday. “The passage of the Vessel Incidental Discharge Act will be ‘game over’ in our efforts to effectively protect U.S. waters, businesses, and communities from invasive species.”

The push to loosen the regulations is the latest chapter in an environmental saga that started in the early 1970s, when the EPA made a decision that had momentous consequences for the Great Lakes: It quietly removed contaminated ballast discharges from the list of industrial pollutants to be regulated under the newly adopted Clean Water Act. The rationale at the time was that ship-steadying ballast tanks weren't a form of pollution because they held nothing but seawater.

“This type of discharge generally causes little pollution,” the EPA explained when it published the regulation granting the shipping industry exemption in 1973, “and the exclusion of vessel wastes from the (Clean Water Act) will reduce administrative costs drastically.”

Dan Egan is the Brico Fund Senior Water Policy Fellow in Great Lakes Journalism at the University of Wisconsin- Milwaukee School of Freshwater Sciences. In this role, he will report on pressing issues facing the Great Lakes. Editorial content is controlled by Egan and Journal Sentinel editors.

The problem is that ballast water is anything but dead weight. It can be teeming with a dizzying array of life, from microscopic viruses to noxious algae to exotic mussels and fish from faraway ports.

The Great Lakes have suffered dozens of species invasions since the exemption. None of this “biological pollution” has done more damage to the world's largest freshwater system than the quagga and zebra mussels, which have decimated fish populations and helped spawn chronic algae outbreaks, including a poisonous one that knocked out Toledo's public drinking water supply for two days in 2014.

Conservation groups first successfully sued the EPA in 2006 to force the agency to begin regulating ballast under the Clean Water Act, and in the subsequent decade the environmental groups, unsatisfied that the agency was actually doing enough to protect the lakes and other U.S. waters from new invasions, continued to press the agency in court to do more — and continued to win.

The final court ruling came in 2015, when the Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruled unanimously that the EPA had acted “arbitrarily and capriciously” in setting its ballast discharge regulations. It ordered the agency to evaluate stiffer standards in terms of the number of living organisms allowed to be discharged from ship ballast tanks.

That won’t happen if the new measure, known as the Vessel Incidental Discharge Act, or VIDA, becomes law.

How the Laws Work Now

Both the Coast Guard and EPA currently require foreign ships sailing into U.S. waters to first flush their ballast tanks out in the ocean and refill them with saltwater. Shipping advocates contend this eliminates up to 99% or more of invasive foreign organisms in a ship's network of ballast tanks.

The problem, studies have shown, is that just one ballast tank can harbor hundreds of millions of living organisms, which means millions of living creatures in each tank can still survive a flush. All it takes is two organisms to launch a new invasion.

The weakness in flushing-only protections for U.S. waters has long been known, and because of this both the Coast Guard and EPA have plans to eventually require all ships sailing into U.S. waters be equipped with ballast water treatment systems that kill unwanted hitchhikers, using things like heat, chemicals, filters or UV light to disinfect ballast water.

Both agencies initially adopted similar treatment standards, in terms of the number of living organisms that could be discharged per cubic meter of ballast water — the very standards that the court has said are not protective enough.

The EPA explained it adopted those standards in 2013 because existing treatment technology could do no better in terms of killing organisms inside ballast tanks. The court, however, disagreed and said the EPA didn't adequately consider all treatment options, and it ordered the agency to do so and come up with a better plan by the end of this year.

That court order will essentially be nullified if ballast regulation is turned over to the Coast Guard. Conservationists also contend that if VIDA becomes law, the Coast Guard and EPA’s existing standards will be locked in for years, if not forever.

The reason: the EPA’s Clean Water Act is designed to force ever-stricter pollution reductions on industry. Polluting industries are typically required to receive a permit every five years that allows them to discharge a certain level of pollutants into a water body. The idea is that the permits will become stricter and stricter over time, as pollution control technology continually improves.

Think of it as turning a screw. The Clean Water Act is designed to continually tighten that screw until an industry gets to zero discharges, which is the ultimate goal of the law. Because the Coast Guard isn't required to follow those Clean Water Act requirements, conservationists fear that screw will never tighten once the EPA is removed from regulating ballast discharges.

The shipping industry sees the situation differently.

“Without VIDA there is no end in sight this multijurisdictional morass,” the Lake Carriers Association stated in news release earlier this year. 

(source: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)

[anonthenullifier]

The Synthezoid's New Clothes

Gift for: Anya aka @atendrilofscarlet

From: Your SVSS co-host aka @anonthenullifier

AO3 Link: http://archiveofourown.org/works/13090083

Message: This gift is to thank you for 1. being a wonderful person and 2. putting on the SV Secret Santa. Because you always host these events,  you never get to participate, and so here is your gift. It’s not quite the same as an anonymous person making it for you, but hopefully you don’t mind that too much :D I know you only requested the baby carrier, but when you mentioned our holy trinity of Vision’s clothing, it became a challenge to incorporate them all into one story. I hope I’ve succeeded at this and also that you don’t die of Vision-clothing-induced overload. Merry Christmas! 

To everyone else, I sincerely hope you enjoy this!

Written for the Scarlet Vision Secret Santa 2017

Wanda had never given much thought to the development of style, at least nothing beyond a vague awareness of it in her own life. At some point in time she purposely sought out darker colors, tested out the way different types of necklaces fell and how certain metals felt on her fingers, listening to the sound they’d make clicking against a mug as she wrapped her hand around the ceramic curves. But then it became more or less unconscious, her body drawn to burgundies and scarlets, sometimes wearing army green for a touch of lightness, and black dresses were always far more enticing than pastels. But she had her entire life to form these habits, which is why it is so intriguing to watch this man - she thinks that’s the best term - who is barely a month old attempt a lifelong journey in a matter of weeks.

It started with snarky comments by Stark (unsurprisingly) about how Vision, a name she has only recently grown accustomed to using without hesitating on the syllables, is always ready for battle, his teal and red bodysuit donned no matter what he’s doing: reading, watching tv, training, cooking (the correct terminology here would be burning down the kitchen but he calls it cooking), or going for a walk. Wanda, much to her own seething annoyance, agrees with the gist of Stark’s comments, curious about the man’s lack of a wardrobe. She’s unsure if he actually has clothes or even if he needs them, his current attire materialized out of nowhere minutes after his creation. Yet she also recognizes the unease on his face when Stark, followed by the others, pester him, the confusion that pulls his serious mouth down whenever they point out his inhumanness by way of informing him he is doing something “weird,” and it causes a surprising tightening in her in chest, one that feels an awful lot like protectiveness. Why she needs to protect this god-like man, she hasn’t decided, but she has always allowed her emotions to guide her and so she forms a plan.

“Vision?” One of the certified “weird” things he often does is float in corners, golden cape billowing despite the lack of wind, a regalness to his contemplation that always makes her think of monks in quiet gardens.

He swivels towards her, a tiny, millisecond long uptick to his mouth that could be described as a smile. “Miss Maximoff. How are you?”

The Miss Maximoff has been addressed before, a gentle yet clearly too subtle suggestion that most teammates use first names, but that, she determines, is an issue for another time. “I’m,” the answer is awful, Pietro’s loss a constant, heart numbing fog, but she tries to answer in the moment, a recommendation from Sam as a means to begin functioning in day to day life, “okay. You?”

“Oh,” he seems surprised every time she inquires about him, and she can’t help but wonder if anyone else ever participates in niceties with him. “I am quite well, thank you.”

As with most of their interactions, they fall into silence quickly, Vision rarely pushing her for more unless she indicates, usually through follow-up questions, that she is amenable to keep talking (this is not to be confused with his inability to recognize when it is and is not okay to phase into her room with questions). So Wanda breathes in, twisting her fingers together as she thinks about how to broach the topic with him. “I’ve heard Tony commenting on your clothes.” Vision is quite skilled at hiding his emotions (her teammates have a betting pool going on if he has emotions, but Wanda has felt his mind and she knows the answer) yet he is unable to hide the tensing of his shoulders or the slightly frantic twist of his electric blue irises. “You don’t have to change, if you like this,” she waves her hand, indicating the heroic apparel, “then wear it. But, um, if you,” this plan was ill-plotted, or so she realizes now as she fumbles for what exactly she wants to suggest, “want to test out some different styles, I’m happy to give you my opinion.”

The man stares at her, the intensity sparking the air between them with tiny puffs of heat, her own hands growing restless as she waits for a response. Then he frowns, head dipping as he studies his crimson hands, the corner of his golden cape pinched between his thumb and index finger. “I would,” he scrunches the material between the pads of his fingers before slowly tilting his chin up just enough to make eye contact with her once more, “like that, very much.”

“Good.”

“Where do you suggest we start?”

The already tenuous plan did not actually reach the point of his agreeing, leaving Wanda to improvise. “I say start with copying from other people, try something different each day until you find what you like.” Her own style grew from playing dress-up with her mother’s clothes, playing with her hats and belts, finding that she favored boots over heels and dresses over skirts, so who’s to say it won’t work for Vision.

Another upturn of his lips settles the idea, an appreciative nod confirming he has understood her suggestion, and then, apparently deeming the conversation done, he phases away, a “Have a good day, Miss Maximoff,” hovering in the air where his body once did.

The next week is unusual, entertaining, but also a bit painful to watch. Vision starts with Stark, walking into breakfast on his first day of experimenting wearing an AC/DC t-shirt and jeans. Wanda instantly knows it is not right for him and suspects he can feel it as well, his steps not nearly as confident as usual, his shoulders turning in just enough to give him a general air of self-consciousness. The wrongness of his clothing is cemented when Rhodes looks the man up and down, “Did you raid Tony’s closet?

Day two, at the guidance of Wanda, he tests out Steve’s more neutral look, a gray short-sleeved t-shirt with khaki pants and a leather jacket. This goes over slightly better, no snide comments from any teammates, and Wanda has to admit, only to herself, that the clothes do nicely accentuate Vision’s body, though she’s not sure why that was the first thing she noticed. But Vision seems unimpressed. So next he tries Sam, an even more relaxed version of Steve, yet not quite the I-don’t-care-what-anyone-says level of Tony. Wanda immediately shakes her head no, an action met with Vision’s concurring nod.

It’s on the fourth night, as he’s sitting on the couch in a suit reminiscent of the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents that work in the control room (a look that is almost right but just a touch too formal), that she first realizes she never considered if he might actually have a notion of what he likes. They are all spread out on the couches, Nat having the honor of selecting the movie for the evening, telling everyone it was time they watched some classics, not Steve-level classics, but close. Cary Grant - well John Robbie in the movie - is eating breakfast, wearing a baby blue sweater over a multi-colored turtleneck, and she can feel Vision shift next to her, lean forward enough to scrutinize  the screen with squinted eyes. Sam patrols talking during movies (despite being one of the bigger culprits) but Wanda decides to risk it. “You okay?”

Vision glances over at her, a rare enthusiasm twirling his irises as he says, “I like his sweater.”

“Try it out tomorrow,” she studies the man on the screen in an attempt to visualize the outfit on Vision, consider how baby blue would go with his skin tone, “but maybe a darker color.”

When he strolls into breakfast the next day, stride finally returning to its usual confidence, Wanda chokes on her tea. The gray trousers combined with the navy sweater are enthralling. How they ever thought anything else would match his personality, embody him as a person, is beyond her, because this is most definitely him . Wanda swallows her tea, coupling her thumbs-up with a congratulatory smile.

From then on Vision has two distinct looks, the sweater and slacks combination and the heroic body suit and cape, both representative of him as a person, but different enough to highlight he is more than just an Avenger. It is also enough to silence any snarky dissention from Stark, and has a fascinating effect on Vision. The otherworldliness is still there, always brimming below the surface, evident whenever his head pops through the wall of her room or he frightens Rhodes by materializing just behind him in the kitchen, or when he shifts from his sweater to his uniform in front of everyone as if this is the most common mode of getting dressed, yet it is tempered. Which, now that Wanda considers it, as she stares across the Monopoly board at the casual crossing of his legs, perhaps it is not Vision who has changed but her own perception of him, a thought that is equal parts curiosity and guilt.  “Wanda?”

The clothing is not the only change, a closeness forming between them, one she never anticipated and yet finds her heart racing whenever he walks into a room, or when they spar in training and she bests him, resulting in an encouragingly proud smile that always flips her stomach. Mostly, however, she notices it in moments like these, her first name comfortable on his tongue, a friendly question rotating with the gears of his eyes that transports her several hours before when her cheek was pressed to the soft cashmere of his sweater as they read on the couch. “Yeah, Vizh?”

“It is your turn,” she starts to answer, but is silenced by a deceptively innocent smirk on his face, “though you are about to enter my corridor of doom.”

Laughter has been difficult since Pietro’s death and yet she finds herself giddy at so many of the dry, carefully chosen words from the man across from her. “Hey, you can’t steal my term.” The corridor of doom, as Wanda calls it in moments of blissful victory, is when one person owns every single property in one stretch of the board, which, unfortunately, he has managed to do quite well in this game.

“Oh, my apologies.”

“You should be sorry.”

Months ago he’d have sulked, a minuscule hunch of his shoulders that only she would have noticed, but currently his lips are cocked into a disarmingly confident arc. “I will henceforth endeavor to desist from utilizing your trademarked terminology.”

“Good.” Wanda blames her next comment on how relaxed she is in this moment, the guard she so carefully constructs around everyone else falling over anytime he so much as breathes near her. “You know Vizh,” her eyes roam along the crisp lines of the collar of the button-up shirt he always wears under the silken threads of his navy sweater, and then down to her ripped leggings and tattered hem, “you always make me feel so underdressed.”

His skin bunches around the Mindstone, thoughts careening around her statement, small flares of disquieted concern spiking from his mind, palpable to her even without direct connection of her powers. “I have never considered you underdressed.”  

The genuineness of his confession mixing with an odd, unreadable dilation of his pupil causes her to falter and wish she could take it back. “It’s not a bad thing, just,” the explanation is far weaker than she anticipated, the last of her reasoning coming out in what she hopes is a nonchalant, even tone, “an observation.”

Wanda realizes she should have anticipated what her comment would do, his traditional dressy attire remaining for meetings, press junkets, their weekly coffee adventure (Nat calls it a date, a term Wanda denies if only because she can’t stand the slightly patronizing way the spy winks whenever she sees them together), and any outings where the public or paparazzi might appear, but on lazy days in the compound, the sweater becomes a navy thermal. The dress pants stay, something Wanda is quite thankful for as she finds herself admiring the impeccable fit of his pants more and more, but the thermal is less formal, still a touch refined, but she no longer feels out of place cooking next to him or curled up on the couch reading.

He is actually wearing this thermal the first time she kisses him, what starts as a peck to his cheek slowly moving to his lips, the wide-eyed, ensnared expression on his face encouraging her to steal another and then another, stopping only when Natasha coughs from the corner of the common space. But it is when he is wearing his usual sweater that she first learns how to phase away his clothing, taking control of the Mindstone in a moment of passion, hands running along the lines of vibranium that flow with his muscles, discovering that a brush of her fingertip to the points where his skin fuses with the metal leads to a shiver and a hurried, uncontrolled intake of air. Where discovering the wardrobe that personified him was enjoyable, Wanda finds herself far more intoxicated by the process of removing each layer of his carefully constructed appearance, drowning herself in the way his body responds to her own, the feel of his skin to hers, much different than the cashmere or the knitted thermal, a fascinating and inexplicably breathtaking experience to feel the contrast between the cool vibranium and his warm skin.

Once he comes to accept her adoration of his body as genuine, internalizing it to mean he is not hideously inhuman, understanding that she desires him exactly the way he was made, his clothing starts to morph. Short sleeves in the summer that highlight his arms, in the fall sometimes he forgoes the collared shirt under his sweater, allowing the branches of vibranium to be on fully display, he even, after her hundredth (give or take) time admiring his calves, wore shorts for one of their vacations. This doesn’t mean he is completely comfortable in all things, an adorable prudishness instilled in him over certain articles of clothing.

“Wanda this is truly ridiculous.”

The statement is incredibly true but Wanda refuses to give in, body bouncing on the mattress as she waits for him to finally leave the bathroom. “That’s what you said about the speedo, Vizh, and you’ve come around to that.”

This is a lie, even on their honeymoon, when they had the entire island to themselves, it still took an unnecessary amount of encouragement for him to walk on the beach, tiny teal swimsuit providing barely any coverage of his glorious body. “I most certainly have not come around to the speedo.”

Wanda rolls her eyes, fingers clasped and cheeks starting to hurt from the broad smile on her face, “Come on, you know it won’t be on for long.”  A sigh resonates in the bathroom, bouncing off the walls until it has enough force to exit the tiny crack under the door and reach Wanda’s ears. Slowly, reluctantly, and painfully he opens the door, immediately covering his face with his hands, as if that will be useful in stopping her gaze. “Oh yeah, that,” the pain in her cheeks intensifies as her lips rise to their apex, eyes taking in the tiny red shorts lined with white fur and the matching hat on his head, “is absolutely ridiculous.” To be fair, he did lose a bet, foolishly believing she couldn’t beat Sam in a pirozhki eating contest, and, in entering said bet he did agree, again, foolishly, to willingly wear whatever holiday attire she chose. Even though Christmas is not her traditional choice, she felt a bit less sacrilegious ordering a sexy Santa outfit than a sexy dreidel. Despite his discomfort, Wanda is not one to allow a victory to go to waste. “You can take it off once you give me your best Santa impression.”

His hands leave his face, eyes widened in abject horror at the suggestion, a slight shake of his head preceding his slow steps back into the bathroom, “That was neither explicitly nor implicitly stated in the deal.”

“Maximoff,” the use of his newest nickname briefly breaks through his unease, mouth lifting into a small smile as he bends his thumb to play with the vibranium wedding ring adorning his finger. “You know you’re ridiculously sexy, right?” Wanda pushes her palms into the fluffy duvet beneath her, casually approaching him with a purposefully exaggerated sashay.

“So you insist.”

When Wanda reaches him she places her hand just above the shorts and then walks her fingers up his stomach at an achingly leisurely pace, her eyes never leaving his own, tracking his defiance as it wilts, grinning the second his eyelids close as she reaches his sternum. “You are right about one thing.”

The response is an unarticulated “Hmm?”

“This,” she reaches up to snatch the hat from his head, tossing it to the side, “is not the best look for you.”

As the years progress, there is a slow, almost imperceptible evolution of his (and her, if she’s being honest) clothing, one that she had been warned about from Clint. The week before their wedding he had pulled her aside, explained how she should relish the honeymoon phase of a relationship but also remember that it never lasts, that at some point the excitement and giddiness even out. Even though she wholeheartedly denied his assertion, it did turn out to be true, though it does not equate to the myth that the romance is lost, simply that in growing closer and far more comfortable with each other, things shift, what once seemed the pinnacle of romanticism gives way to an understanding that some nights Vision willingly doing the dishes after an Avengers’ party is just as sensual as him surprising her with a room full of candles. Both, in their own way, are clear signs of his continued love. This translates to their clothing as well, particularly once they buy their own house. When living at the compound, casual meant still being fully dressed and presentable, now every morning Wanda has the pleasure of watching Vision walk around in sweatpants, shirt sometimes manifesting depending on his mood. He even ditches the loafers at the door, phasing away the shoes so he can traverse the house in argyle socks, occasionally in the summer he even goes barefoot. One day, though she has never been able to convince the rest of the team of this, he even wore jeans and a t-shirt, but he quickly determined that might be too casual, even for him. Yet none of these changes fully encompass this new portion of their lives as much as her current situation.

Wanda had been assigned an undercover mission, probing the newly rumored formation of a Hydra-esque underground corporation in Sokovia. It was supposed to be a two week ordeal, but she and Bucky managed to not only identify the threat but neutralize it in just over a week. Typically she would inform Vision of the change in plans, but Bucky, in his own recently realized streak of romanticism in his pursuit of Natasha, convinced her that it would be quite charming to surprise her husband.

With the utmost care, Wanda had used her powers to silently open the door, ducking out of any potential sightlines just in case he was near the front of the house. There was no Hello or Wanda? , no surprise phasing of his body out of the floor, Mindstone charged and ready, and so Wanda gingerly reaches out with her powers, just enough to assess roughly where he is located but never actually touching him since he is always attuned to her presence in his thoughts. Based on her intel, he seems to be in the living room, which is thankfully sectioned off by a wall.

Wanda enters the house, shutting the door just as quietly as she opened it, and then stops, head tilting to the side as she listens to the sultry, smooth flow of saxophones and trumpets. She utilizes the coverage of the music, slipping off her shoes before walking any further, and creeps along the wall, leaning forward enough to peer around the corner, unable to stop her smile as she takes in Vision’s bare feet propped up on the armrest of the couch and the shine of vibranium from his head on the other armrest.

Channeling the advice of Natasha, Wanda crouches low, pausing every three steps to reassess her target, happily noting he has not moved at all since she spotted him. After a painstaking crawl through the room, she finally reaches the couch, breathing in to calm herself and then standing on the exhale with an enthusiastic, “Maximoff!”

Vision tenses, pupils dilating as the gears in his eyes spin at a breakneck pace before he slowly blinks, lowering the book in his hands to lay on his chest. “Wanda?” Her name is a tad shaky coming from his lips, the aftereffects of her successful surprise clear and satisfying, but that all fades once she actually looks at him.

“I knew it!” One of their wedding gifts, years ago, had been a matching set of plush, heavenly soft embroidered (Mr. and Mrs. Maximoff, respectively) bathrobes. Vision’s response had been polite yet dismissive, pointing out that he had explained to Tony the uselessness of buying him clothing since he could simply manipulate his molecules to wear anything, but he still, to humor both her and Tony, tried it on. He would even join her in wearing it whenever she decided to have a day of relaxation, an action she always assumed was his way of appeasing her, but now she knows the truth. “All this time, you actually do enjoy wearing it.”

Vision’s eyes have not calmed, an unnecessary swallow conveying his discomfort at being caught as he sits up, his entire body, minus his head and bare legs, completely devoured by the fluffy white robe. If ever a sight could be the considered the epitome of absolute comfort, it would this. “I believe,“ slowly he sits up, irises settling into their usual soothing rhythm, "I always agreed with your assessment that they are,” his fingers run appreciatively along the edge of the robe, “quite luxurious.”

“They are.” Her husband starts to stand, probably with the intent to greet her, but Wanda holds out a hand, “No, stay there, I’ll be right back.” His acquiescence to her command leads to one of her favorite memories, an evening alternating between lounging and slow dancing barefoot in robes far too expensive to think about, drinking wine, and listening to jazz.

For the most part, Vision's wardrobe has since remained fairly static, some small changes are occasionally introduced based on the fashion of the times such as his (thankfully) brief phase of sweater vests or the summer he almost exclusively wore polos, khaki shorts, and boat shoes. But his preferred clothing choice never strayed too much, still favoring his sweater and slacks combination, the veritable essence of his being. Recently, however, he has started to accessorize, well, Wanda smiles as she watches him, just one accessory and it is not a fashionable option. It was about six months into being parents that they discovered Tommy’s love of being strapped into the baby carrier, but, much to Vision’s surprise and Wanda’s mild heartbreak, Tommy only calmed down if he was snuggled against Vision. Which is how they’ve ended up in this moment,  Vision’s sweater obscured by heather-colored straps and buckles wrapped around his body, his right hand placed firmly under Tommy’s bottom, and his left hand alternating between gesticulating his side of the conversation and soothingly running along the sprouts of white hair sticking up from their son’s head.

Wanda shifts slightly in her seat, transferring Billy from her left to her right arm, eyes never leaving her husband and son. The plan for the twin’s first birthday was to allow the boys to be passed around, spend time with their crazy aunts and uncles, even Tony, though the animatronic Iron Man toy he gifted the boys is a bit unsettling. But plans rarely ever work, particularly with children, and even more so when Tony is involved.

Five minutes earlier, Tommy, who recently learned how to walk with the assistance of a box that was waiting to be recycled, had journeyed over to the bright, glittery presents and tempting puffs of tissue paper. The motion-sensored Iron Man doll recognized the movement, Tony’s voice coming from the doll with an I am Iron Man! as the toy raised its hand and shot a plastic rocket into the living room a believable booming sound effect. Tommy, quite rationally, freaked out, falling to the ground with fat tears rolling down his little cheeks. Tony and then Steve and then Natasha, followed by an overconfident combination of Clint, Scott, and a giraffe rattle tried to calm the boy down, but the only real solution was clear. Vision met Wanda’s eyes, a resolute nod confirming the plan before he phased upstairs, falling back through the ceiling seconds later with the baby carrier in hand. Frantically he worked through the process, looping the straps around his body and fastening the ridiculous amounts of  buckles, and then slid Tommy into the harness, easing him gently forward to lay against his chest. The crying ceased in seconds, replaced by a contented babble.

Wanda smiles as she watches Vision break from his conversation with Pepper, Tommy rousing in anger at something, and bend his neck just enough to place a soothing kiss to the top of their son’s head, instantly quieting him. It is a big difference from where Vision was a month into his life, but Wanda has loved him through it all, cherished the tiny changes and the evolution of his being, but she knows, even with all of the memories and all the outfits, nothing compares to who he is now. He’s still a hero, never changing his uniform or the godly billowing cape, but he is also just a man, one of indescribable power and compassion, standing near the refreshment table in black slacks and a questionable mint-colored sweater with navy chevrons, with their son strapped to his chest.

[letdecemberburninflames]

Sore Loser

Peter Pan x Mermaid!Reader | Part 5

Summary: Part 1  Part 2  Part 3  Part 4  Part 6

Fic Type: Peter Pan x Mermaid!Reader Series

Warnings: Profanity, off-the-charts sass

Author’s Note: This one’s for you, anon. (And, as always, comment or message me to be added to the tag list.)

Peter found her in a lagoon, perched atop a rock, tail in the water, iridescent scales visible above the water line. He had appeared on the beach, and her back was turned to him. He didn’t announce his arrival; he didn’t need to.

“I despise you.” Y/N said in a quiet tone sharp enough to pierce one’s soul, without turning around.

Peter rolled his eyes before responding. “Don’t feel so exclusive darling, because you’re not the only one that does.” He leaned against a tree, arms crossed, smirk playing on his lips.

Y/N swam beneath the surface to shore. She rose out of the water, eyes narrowed. “I’d be thoroughly surprised if I was.” She replied with a scathing tone.

Unsurprisingly, it appeared as though Y/N and Peter were headed towards yet another heated argument. Despite the fact that there were no spectators, this disagreement promised to be just as heated, if not more so.

“I, for the life of me, can’t understand why you’re so upset. What could I have possibly done to make you so perturbed?” He was mocking her.

“Well, existing for one thing.” She shot back hotly as she wrung water out of her hair.

“You’re more snarky than usual today.” He noted, ignoring the way her linen shirt clung to her wet body.

“As much as I appreciate your observations, there are things for us to discuss.” She refused to let him talk his way out of this one.

Pan responded coldly. “Like what? I don’t see anything of great importance pertaining to the two of us that needs discussing. Now, you and Devin on the other hand…”

“I would’ve thought that feigning ignorance was beneath you.” She quipped. “I guess you learn something new every day.”

“As I said before, I honestly have no idea what you’re going on about.” With that, he spun on his heel and began to walk away.

“I never would’ve taken you for such a coward.” She scoffed, leaning on a boulder.

He stopped mid step and turned around slowly. “What did you just say?” The nerve of her to imply-!

Y/N crossed her arms. “So all it took to get you to listen was to bruise your overinflated ego?”

Pan ignored her assertion. “What makes you think you have the right to define me? Of all the derogatory statements, you chose to deem me a coward?” Peter Pan feared no man, nor beast. He hadn’t come across even the remote idea of feeling cowardice in hundreds of years. She was infuriating!

“Is that not what you are? You may be able to put on this act for everyone else, but I can see right through it. You hate the idea of feeling weak, so you derive pleasure from making others feel that way.” She rattled off angrily.

“I only bring to light what existed previously. I, for one, have no weaknesses.” He replied levelly.

“Oh, yes you do.” She replied, gathering her clothes from the beach. “You’re not as fearless as you appear to be.” She walked past him, and Pan didn’t even have to look to know she was smirking.

He was begrudgingly beginning to accept his feelings for the girl, and much to his dismay, it appeared that these feelings were not simply lust or a passing infatuation. He wanted so badly to solve the complex enigma that was Y/N. He had a strong desire to explore every facet of her mind, and leave no thought untouched. He wanted to know the thoughts that ran through her mind before every word she spoke.

He still hated her, exceedingly so. Yet still, his feelings for her prevailed through their conflicts. He loathed her existence, but could not deny his feelings. He despised dwelling on these feelings, despite the fact that he did so quite often. He liked to torment himself with the thought of her. She was driving him mad. How very masochistic. But even if these thoughts did torment him, it was a very good type of torment. A very good torment indeed.  

However, there was still the small problem of Devin. It was evident to even the blind that she cared for him, and vice versa. But he knew more about Devin than she did. He could be manipulative, arrogant, and stubborn. She could very easily end up hurt and come crawling to him for help.

---

Days, (perhaps weeks, but who knew for sure) passed and not once did Pan speak to Y/N. She regarded him with the same icy silence, and spent most of her time with Devin, unsurprisingly. She had returned to the compound, with no comment to the lost boys about where she had been. All but Devin and Peter were oblivious to the fact that she was a mermaid.

Meanwhile, Felix was becoming quite tired of being made a into carrier pigeon. Since Pan and Y/N refused to speak to each other, he had to act as the go-between. This was especially exhausting when they stood on either side of the camp arguing about something and Felix was made to run back and forth to deliver snarky comments and equally snarky comebacks. At one point he considered changing their messages just to tick them off and get them to stop fighting. Something along the lines of a confession of undying love from either party.

Devin couldn’t of been more pleased with himself, and took every opportunity possible to gloat when Y/N wasn’t around. Because damn. All of the lost boys, even Felix, admitted that she was possibly the damn finest thing God had ever created. Sure, they hadn’t seen a lot of girls, but Y/N was beautiful in a quiet and reclusive way. Not stunning. She was simple, but perfect. They were after all, boys. Devin loved to touch her. Put his hands on her hips, run them through her hair, anything to boast that he was the only one who could actually touch her.

Pan refused to admit that he was jealous of Devin, and was even more enraged that Felix was right. About everything. Pan practically seethed whenever Devin kissed her in front of him. It annoyed him even more that he seemed to have very little respect for her. When Y/N wasn’t around, sure enough Devin could be heard making derogatory remarks about her. Not that Peter had done any different. Most of her time here he had spent putting her down, whether or not she was around. At least Devin had the decency not to talk about her like that to her face. Pan was slowly beginning to realize that he had set himself up for failure the moment that she had stepped foot on Neverland. He had been granted an unattainable prize that he would drive himself mad with trying to win. Because beneath all his spite, he loved her. But she held nothing but animosity for him, and he could hardly blame her.

However, Y/N was having mixed feelings about Neverland. She wanted to leave more than anything. She was a free spirit, and hated the feeling of being trapped. At first she wanted to go home. Back to her father’s ship. However, it had been months. For a while she had believed that he would rescue her, but as time went on this proved untrue. That alone was enough to break her heart. She decided that she would settle for anywhere but Neverland. However, there was the issue of Devin. He had taken her under his wing, and protected her. She craved his soft touches and reassurance. But his heart had been claimed by the island years ago. He had no desire to leave, and wished for her to stay with him. But she couldn’t. She had to leave. This place was draining her, encircling her mind and snaring her senses in a beautiful and intricate trap. Devin was simply one of the threads tying her down, no matter how much she loved him.

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