#harry route 23 | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

batboyblog · 8 months ago

Text

Things Biden and the Democrats did, this week #18

May 10-17 2024

The Justice Department endorses lifting many restrictions on marijuana. Since the 1970s marijuana has been classified as a Schedule I controlled substance, the most restrictive classification for drugs that are highly addictive, dangerous and have no medical use, like heroin. Schedule I drugs are nearly impossible to get approval for research studies greatly hampering attempts to understand marijuana and any medical benefits it may have. The DoJ recommends moving it to Schedule III, drugs with low risk of abuse like anabolic steroids, and testosterone. This will allow for greater research, likely allow medical marijuana, and make marijuana a much less serious offense. President Biden welcomed DoJ's decision, a result a review of policy he ordered. Biden in his message talked about how he's pardoned everyone convicted of marijuana possession federally. The President repeated a phrase he's said many times "No-one should be in jail just for using or possessing marijuana,"

The Department of Interior announced no new coal mining in America's largest coal producing region. The moratorium on new coal leases has been hailed as the single biggest step so fair toward ending coal in the US. The Powder River Basin area of Wyoming and Montana produces 40% of the nations coal, the whole state of West Virginia is just 14%. The new rule is estimated to reduce emissions by the equivalent of 293 million tons of carbon dioxide annually, the same as taking 63 million gas powered cars off the road.

Vice-President Harris announced that the Biden-Harris Administration had broken records by investing $16 billion in Historically Black Colleges and Universities. Harris, a graduate of Howard University, is the first President or Vice-President to have gone to a HBCU. The Administration's investment of $900 million so far in 2024 brought the total investment of the Biden-Harris administration in HBCUs to $16 billion more than double the record $7 billion. HBCUs produce 40% of black engineers, 50% of black teachers, 70% of black doctors and dentists, and 80% of black judges. HBCUs also have a much better record of helping social mobility and moving people out of generational poverty than other colleges and universities.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development announced $30 billion dollars in renewal funding for the Housing Choice Voucher Program. The program supports 2.3 million families that are in need of housing with vouchers that help pay rent. This funding represents a $2 billion dollar increase over last year.

The Department of Agriculture announced $671.4 million in investments in rural infrastructure. The money will go to project to improve rural electric grids, as well as drinking water and wastewater treatment infrastructure. The money will go to 47 projects across 23 states.

HUD announced a record breaking $1.1 billion dollar investment in Tribal housing and community development. HUD plans just over 1 billion dollars for the Indian Housing Block Grant (IHBG) program. This is a 40% increase in funding over 2023 and marks the largest ever funding investment in Indian housing. HUD also is investing $75 million in community development, supporting building and rehabbing community buildings in American Indian and Alaska Native communities.

The Department of Transportation announced $2 billion in investments in America's busiest passenger rail route, the Northeast Corridor between Washington DC and Boston. This is part of a 15 year, $176 billion plan to rebuild the corridor’s infrastructure and prepare for increased ridership and more trains. So far investments have seen a 25% increase, 7 million riders, over figures last year. a fully funded plan would almost double Amtrak service between New York City and Washington, D.C., and increase service between New York City and Boston by 50%. It would also allow a 60% increase in commuter trains.

HUD announced plans to streamline its HOME program. Currently the largest federal program to help build affordable housing, the streamlining of the rules will speed up building and help meet the Biden Administration's goal of 2 million new affordable housing units. HUD announced last week $1.3 billion dollars for the HOME program, which built 13,000 new units of housing in 2023 and helped 13,000 families with rental assistance

The Department of Interior announced $520 million in new water projects to help protect against drought in the western states. The funding will support 57 water related projects across 18 western states. The projects focus on climate resilience and drought prevention, as well as improving aging water delivery systems, and improving hydropower generation.

The Departments of Agriculture and HHS have stepped up efforts to wipe out the H5N1 virus prevent its spread to humans while protecting farmers livelihoods. The virus is currently effecting dairy cattle in the Texas panhandle region. The USDA and HSS are releasing wide ranging funds to help support farms equipping workers with Personal Protective Equipment, covering Veterinary costs, as well as compensating farmers for lost revenue. HHS and the CDC announced $101 million in testing an monitoring. This early detection and action is key to preventing another Covid style pandemic.

The Senate confirmed Sanket Bulsara to a life time federal judgeship in New York and Eric Schulte and Camela Theeler to lifetime federal judgeships in South Dakota. This brings the total number of judges appointed by President Biden to 197. For the first time in history the majority of a President's judicial nominees have not been white men.

Bonus: The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that transgender health insurance exclusions were illegal. The ruling came from a case first filed in 2019 where an employer refused to cover an employee's gender affirming surgery. The court in its ruling sited new guidance from the Biden Administration's Equal Employment Opportunity Commission that declared that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act protects trans people in the work place. These kinds of guidelines are often sited in court and carry great weight.

#Thanks Biden #Joe Biden #democrats #american politics #marijuana #marijuana legalization #climate change #climate action #HBCU #howard university #affordable homes #native american #Trans rights #judges #h5n1

215 notes · View notes

pinturas-sgm-aviacion · 29 days ago

Text

1942 10 24 Daylight over Milan - Graham Turner

After attacks on Genoa on 22/23 and 23/24 October, which were designed to coincide with Montgomery's El Alamein offensive, Harris at the morning conference at HQ Bomber Command on 24 October decided to switch targets to Milan. Unlike Genoa, with its ports and shipyards, or Turin, with its war industries, the attack on Milan - the political and commercial centre of northern Italy - was for morale purposes and the effect on the civilian population. As a result, this attack was unusual in not being one single night raid. Instead, Harris chose to split the attack: 5 Group's Lancasters by day - perhaps to highlight British air superiority over a major Italian city - and the other Groups' 'heavies' at night. This battle scene features the daylight attack, which saw 88 Lancasters take off to bomb the aiming point of 'Milan "A"' - the city centre - though this caused controversy afterwards when it became public that the Duomo had been the aiming point . Seventy-four aircraft dropped 51.8 tons of HE bombs and 81.5 tons of incendiaries on Milan. As cloud over Milan was down to 3,000 ft, and since the bombs dropped included a good number of 4,000-pounders, release from below this height was in some cases avoided so a number of Lancasters stayed above the cloud, bombing at between 8,000 ft and 12,000 ft. A number went below the cloud and down to 2,000ft to identify the aiming point, however, and this is depicted in this battle scene. One Lancaster even got down to 50ft, where, the Italian authorities claimed, it strafed buildings and machine-gunned people in the streets; indeed, the Lancaster of Wg Cdr J. M. Southwell, 9 Squadron's CO, admitted later to having 'used 7,000 rounds machine-gunning two trains on the Milan-Novara railway and strafing what he said was Novara'. Nonetheless, photographic evidence - taken both during the bombing and later on by a reconnaissance aircraft - revealed that a large amount of damage was inflicted - mainly by fire - on industrial premises all over Milan, and the railway lines to Bologna,Genoa and Venice and along the St Gothard route had been severed. The main railway station had been particularly damaged, as were areas around the Porto Novara Station and the Parco Solari and many industrial premises, such asthe GEC Engineering Works, Municipal Tramways and the Caproni aircraft factory. Mussolini publically admitted damage to nearly 2,500 houses, with 450 completely demolished. For the British, the losses were three Lancasters(3.4 per cent), one having crashed over Milan and two others shot down by Luftwaffe night-fighters around Caen in France. These were light considering this had been a risky long-distance run in daylight across Axis-dominated Europe.Damage to aircraft was another matter, however. Several bombers had been damaged either by flak over Milan or enroute, by colliding with a seagull over the target, by a Macchi C.202 Folgore, by hitting high-tension electric cables,or by crash-landing at an emergency airfield in Sussex. A total of ten aircraft (11.45 per cent) were damaged, half ofthem seriously. While the day raiders were landing at their bases in England, another force of 71 aircraft, comprising the Stirlings,Halifaxes and Wellingtons from the PFF, 1, 3 and 4 Groups, was already over Milan. Although thick cloud covered the target, they could see the glow of the fires started by the Lancasters five hours earlier, and proceeded to bomb those. Further destruction to Milan, although not extensive, was caused

#graham turner

23 notes · View notes

serialadoptersbracket · 11 months ago

Text

Round 2, Match 23: Kaname Date vs. Jack Starbright

Submitted kids:

Kaname Date: Mizuki Okiura (or Date in AINI), and Iris Sagan

Jack Starbright: Alex Rider and Tom Harris (and i wouldnt be surprised if by the end of season three she's also adopted Kyra Vaschenko-Chao)

Propaganda under the cut!

Kaname Date:

1. "uhh implied spoilers i think but well. mizuki was literally legally adopted by him. as you can probably tell by the name change. and he was just dating iris' mom for only like 3 months before she went "hey so when are you going to marry my mom and become my dad. no i'm serious marry my mom. anyway can we play ratty cake." also the way he advices ryuki and bibi in aini is fatherly to me, even if i don't think the relationships r pseudo-fatherly i just think he's a good role model and if that's not what a good adoptive father is that goddamnit what's the point"

2. “Literally decided to take Mizuki away from her abusive family (he’s friends with her father) after just hearing about it, and called them bad parents for doing so. He meets Iris like once and then was like damn guess I’m a stepfather now and hangs out with her for a whole route like. He would adopt anyone. (AINI SPOILERS) I feel like Amame counts a little bit.”

Jack Starbright:

"was about to quit her job of looking after alex but then alex's guardian died and she went "guess he's my kid now" and didn't look back. and alex's best friend is always around so fuck might as well adopt him too while we're here. (to be clear, she does become alex's legal guardian at the end of season two, tom is not legally her kid he's just always at her house even when alex isn't home.) i'm almost certain she's trying to adopt kyra as well. jack is a twenty something year old woman who went from "i just look after this one kid when his uncle is away on business trips" to two "i have two teenage sons" pretty much the minute her boss died and she never looked back. she never asked for these kids, but she loves them more than anything and sacrifices so much to keep them safe."

#kaname date #aitsf #ai the somnium files #hayato yagyu #alex rider #alex rider tv #jack starbright #serial adopters bracket #round 2 #tumblr tournament #tumblr polls

15 notes · View notes

yeahimwiththeband · 5 months ago

Text

—> with the band chapter 23

no, i won't.

warning: huge, huge, huge blow up. Second biggest fight in the book after tell the truth.

A/N: love on tour fic. big romance, so fluffy, with moody harry (who is growing and changing!).

word count: 3.2k

The week after the open mic, Olivia didn’t have a record deal with Eddie’s new label—but she did have a deal memo for new recordings at his studio, including access to a sound mixer who could work with her (somewhat stolen) vocal tracks.

She and Izzy took the long bus route—three transfers, plus a long wait—to the studio, where Izzy dropped her off before heading over to her parent’s for a weekday shift at the store. Izzy found her mom hunched over a sewing machine, totally focused. Vast parchment sheets of new hand-drawn patterns spilled out of her cramped office into the new hallway. Izzy watched, impressed. She peered in at the patterns: not a frill in sight. New spools of thread crowded the kitchen table, and Izzy even found a couple of bolts of fabric stacked into her room. Izzy wandered into her room, her old phone charger still poised for hours of scrolling beside her bed, her old bottles of skincare from her elaborate and time-consuming evening routine covered in dust on her vanity.

Izzy had an idea.

When Eleanor stepped out to check out a new raw fabric supplier, Izzy and her father ransacked Izzy’s old bedroom. Anything from her grandmother, Izzy left. But they took apart her childhood bed and emptied the closet, storing the frame there along with the heavy end tables and four of six lamps. Izzy's dad moved the desk to the window, and started to move in Eleanor’s sewing materials, machine, and serger. Izzy lined up her thread spools in colour-sorted rows on Izzy’s now-empty bookshelves. She glanced at herself in her old mirror: the whole room looked so small now.

Her dad disappeared downstairs to keep a lookout for Eleanor’s return, so he could put his hands over her eyes and do the whole surprise thing. Izzy pulled back the closet’s accordion doors and dragged her old mirror inside, when it caught on something entangled in the carpet. It was her green dress, the one she wore her first night on tour. That she had ordered secretly and hidden away, then put on for an unnamed singer that Lydia really wanted her to go to, that she couldn’t get out of.

Izzy picked it up and smoothed it out—the Satin was creased, and the smear of lipstick where Lydia had drawn a heart on her chest had darkened over time. Izzy held it up, when her dad burst in with her mom, taking his hands off her eyes. Izzy smiled brightly and lowered the dress. Eleanor's face opened up in happy shock.

“So?” Her dad asked, wheeling around to see his wife's reaction. Eleanor took it all in. With the heavy curtains pulled back and furniture mostly gone, the room looked lighter. Two desks were pulled together with her sewing machine, and her thread lined the shelves like trophies. The ironing board and empty hangers in the closet begged for new styles to be made. It was a huge upgrade from her sewing corner in their office, and it meant her little girl wasn't moving home.

Izzy fixed her eyes on her mother expectantly.

“I love it,” she said. Izzy and her dad smiled, and gave each other a jokey high five. Light poured in across the sewing machine and serger, making them look almost magic.

Izzy’s father disappeared to find the family’s bottle of celebratory grappa.

“Thank you, Izzy,” Eleanor said quietly.

“My bed’s still in the closet. I may still need to crash at some point.”

Eleanor smiled and looked around. She very much doubted that.

“What's this?” she asked, uncrumpling the green ball in Izzy’s hands.

“Just an old dress, found it in the back of the closet. Construction isn't great.”

“I remember this,” Eleanor said, turning the dress over. “It’s so pretty. I don't think I ever got to see it on you.”

Izzy’s eyes filled with tears. She looked at her mom, lost for words.

“You should get dressed up more often,” Eleanor continued.

“I should,” Izzy replied.

“I can get this stain out for you,” Eleanor said, running her hand across the fabric. She pulled out a tray of intimidating looking solvents from a cabinet in the hall and laid out the dress on the ironing board.

“Lydia’s in California now? With her husband?”

“I think so,” Izzy said, laying bare their rift.

“Quite a shock for your uncle.” Lydia had reconciled with her dad that Christmas, before she married George. “But Lydia's a good girl. She’ll be alright.”

“I hope so,” Izzy said, adding, “I think so.”

“She convinced Mrs. Shepherd to leave you that heap back home, you know.”

“What?”

“She pleaded with her. I was there, for a visit. Though Mrs. Shepherd wasn't that hard to convince. She wanted you to have a great adventure.”

“I think she got what she wanted.”

“I’m glad she did,” Eleanor said.

“Me too,” Izzy replied.

Eleanor worked on the dress and Izzy sat down in front of the sewing machine. She took out her phone.

Another veil had been pulled back and Izzy felt she could see almost everything clearly. Lydia, trying to crash her into Harry on the tour, then in Italy. Lydia, trying to fix everything.

Izzy opened her albums of the trip and its amazing flowers.

I know what you did, she wrote. She selected several photos and sent them. Thank you.

…

I know what you did.

Lydia nearly dropped her phone. She glanced across the studio at George, in the middle of his solo, worried she had made some imperceptible noise. Lydia smiled a bit: they were talking again. Izzy wanted to talk to her.

Then the photos arrived, and the second message. Lydia lifted her hand to her mouth—even without Harry, Izzy seemed happy. Her attempt to control everything was all for nothing, and that was okay. Harry was nowhere to be found, and Jess had written three new bangers: all astoundingly real and bitter love songs. Harry hadn't been returning her messages, but they were meant to go to a “dinner date" Ryan had arranged in Malibu so they could be papped. Lydia could read Ryan’s lips from the other side of the glass.

“It’s so fire,” he said into his phone, frantic. He planned to send the tracks out as soon as they were done recording them—he needed these ones to work, and he was insisting in several intense phone calls that Jess was ready to headline, that this had been his plan all along. He was pushing for their own tour—longer, bigger, louder. But maybe it would be different this time, Lydia thought; Tara wasn't using, and maybe out of respect for her—or just their own terror from her overdose—Lisa and Jess weren’t using either. Moving into the hook, George squeezed his eyes closed and dropped his face down, inches from his finger. He was totally lost in the music. And it was fire, real rock’n’roll. Lydia stole a photo of him and posted it.

…

Harry, all of a sudden, was done. Understanding, maybe for the first time, had Izzy had felt when she left California, he had finally procured a copy of the contract he had signed that fateful morning after the best and worst night of his life.

“Mate, what did you get us into?” Elijah dropped the contract back down onto his coffee table. “Rights in perpetuity, throughout the universe, to leverage voice recordings in AI applications for any purpose?”

“Sorry,” Harry mumbled.

Mitch, sitting opposite him, shook his head, holding up one of the contract's many pages in front of him. “Stipulates that riders be confined to a limit of two fruit plates per person, melon selection only?” Mitch read.

“Again, sorry.”

“No mango, Harry?”

“My voice is going to be used to sell mattresses?” Elijah asked.

“Bruh,” Mitch added.

Naomi leaned back on the seat next to him, eyes closed. “I can’t play anymore of your fun teen tunes,” she wheezed, joint in hand. “I’m almost 30. It’s just wrong.”

“How do we get out of this?” Mitch asked.

“We are allowed to record new music,” Harry ventured, leaning forward.

“If?” Elijah prodded.

“If we walk away from our masters.”

“Our recordings!”

“All of them?”

“And all our profits from them forever, yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Naomi sat up. “We wouldn’t be allowed to play your old stuff unless we re-recorded it.”

“Harry’s version,” Mitch said.

“You signed this without us, mate,” Elijah said. “We don’t even have a band name. It’s just Harry Styles, and his crew of randos in the back whose names you don’t need to know.”

“It won’t be like that this time,” Harry promised.

“I know it won’t,” Elijah said, surprising himself with his tone.

“With a new band name, and songwriting credits,” Naomi said. “There’s no label who will push us out of the spotlight now. You’ll have to share it.”

Harry nodded. “There won’t be any fruit plates for a while, Mitch. It’s risky."

"Especially for those of us who don't just casually have an apartment in LA," Naomi added.

"It's a huge risk, to rip this up. I won’t be able to afford this place if we buy out the contract. If we don't, we'll be totally cut off from royalties, right away—no more monthly cheque.”

“Fuck it,” Mitch said, standing up. He picked up the contract and tried to rip it in half. But it was too thick. They burst out laughing.

“That would have been a cool moment,” Naomi said.

“I have scissors,” Harry said. “One second. We’ll cut it up.”

“We could try tearing it in sections,” Elijah said, “everyone take a page.” Together, they filled up his flat with torn up paper.

...

Olivia and Izzy and Meg had spent the morning at a pig farm an hour away, hauling two large aluminum tubs plus manure into the back of a rented van and driving them back to the store. It was the sort of errand that only best friends would do.

“Did you really need me for this?” Olivia protested, delicately wiping off her long fingers.

“I helped you with your open mic!”

“That was a little different.”

“I imagine the open mic involved less pig shit,” Meg added.

Izzy’s final project for her course was going to be a safe and sustainable street redesign model—no blind corners, lower speed limits—with her idea for plantings as the practical portion. Her mom had volunteered the space outside the store—full sun—for the planters. But the tubs were harder to move from the van to the sidewalk than she had imagined.

“Why are these so heavy?” Olivia sighed.

“Here, I’ve got it!” Meg eased the edge of the tub from the van bed toward the asphalt, but the whole thing tipped its weight onto her forearms a little too quickly—spilling onto the asphalt, denting its side.

“Meg!” Izzy complained.

“That side can face the windows,” Olivia offered.

With some effort, they were able to drag the tubs into place on either side of the store’s entrance.

“Now, just one more quick trip for the soil.”

“I have to record in an hour,” Olivia said.

“It’s date night, except lunch because of my new work sched, so I have to go too,” Meg said, hugging Izzy goodbye. “Also, aren’t you supposed to be opening now?”

“Why do you guys call it a date when you’re married?” Izzy asked.

“You’ll understand when you’re married.”

Olivia shot Izzy a friendly eye roll. After much thanks from Izzy and goodbye hugs, they left Izzy and her empty tubs for their very full lives. Izzy adjusted the planters and stepped inside, flipping the store’s sign from closed to open. The store was immaculate and much less cluttered than it used to be; there wasn’t much for Izzy to do.

A few customers trickled in within minutes: three in the first hour. A woman about her age bought a skirt, shocking Izzy thoroughly.

Izzy walked around the store with a duster looking for something to do when she caught a glimpse of herself in the store’s three-way mirror, polished up to a new shine. She surveyed her fit, which included a vest from the store and jeans she bought on tour; she smiled at her reflection, until she noticed her muddy shoes. Oops.

Just then, tires squealed to a stop and the front door flew open with such force that the mirror rattled. Izzy leapt off the pedestal to steady it, grabbing the frame just in time.

“Izzy?”

Izzy knew that voice anywhere.

A red cloud raged down the aisle toward her, suede fringe slapping the racks, heeled boots slamming against the floor like they hated it for existing.

“Jess Harper,” Izzy said, trying to control her tone. She couldn’t keep the shock out of her voice.

“What the fuck is your problem with me?” Jess shouted, stopping feet in front of Izzy.

“What are you doing here? Aren’t you supposed to be—“

“In California? But you don’t care about supposed to be, do you?”

A customer scurried out of the store behind Jess, justifiably terrified. The door closed behind her, and Jess and Izzy were alone. Jess crackled with electricity, rooted in front of Izzy like a lightning bolt.

Izzy’s heart raced, but she didn’t feel afraid—something must have happened.

“I know it’s you,” Jess said.

“What’s me?”

“Please don’t insult me—I never believed your bullshit, Izzy.”

“I know. I always admired that about you,” Izzy fired back; it sounded like an insult, but it was true.

Jess stepped back, knocked off her guard.

“You and Harry,” she hissed.

“I haven’t spoken to Harry in months. Not since New Year’s Eve.” It hurt because it was true.

Jess searched her eyes.

“Bullshit.”

Izzy shrugged defiantly.

“I know you’re the one ruining his life.”

“There’s no me and Harry, Jess.”

“Don’t say my name like we’re friends. Why did he tear up his contract?”

“He tore up his contract?”

“He cancelled all his appearances. He spent all his money buying back his masters—I mean all of it. He’s flat broke. No producer will touch him now, Izzy. He won’t record again. Do you realize what you’ve done?”

“I had no idea—“

“If it weren’t for your meddling in California, he’d still ahve a good contract. He’s not a musician anymore, because of you.”

“I’m flattered that you think I’m this powerful. But I don’t think anyone can take music away from Harry. He’ll always have that voice.”

“That voice doesn’t belong to you.”

“I’m aware, Jess.”

“Are you? You’re not one of us, you don’t get it. You never did. That’s why you’re trying to separate him from our label—“

“I had nothing to do with—“

“—so he could, what, come here and work at this place with you? Do you honestly think this is where Harry belongs?”

Izzy looked around the store, cheeks burning in spite of herself. She refused to be ashamed, but as usual, some of what Jess said was true and it stung.

“I know you were the one behind his little scheme to send Dave away, packing him off to Eddie. George’s output is, like, nothing; I’ve had to do all the writing myself.”

A customer opened the front door, heard the commotion, turned around and left. Izzy was stunned. Harry sent Dave away?

“He could never be with you,” Jess went on. “It would never work.” Izzy was like a wall, and it surprised Jess. Jess couldn’t seem to make her crumple.

“He should be with someone creative,” Izzy thew back. “Someone who gets it, like a sculptor or a ballet dancer or like…a musician or something.”

Jess’s eyes widened wildly—Izzy felt pity for her briefly, lured into a fake relationship. Izzy knew that feeling. “What have you told Harry?” She said in a begging tone. “What plans have you two made?”

“We haven’t made any plans. We’re not together. You just said that would be impossible, anyway.”

“It would be impossible. But you may have temporarily affected his reason in California, when he was miserable, making him forget who he is and who he belongs with—“

“If I managed to do that, I’d be the last person to admit it, Jess.”

“Izzy, do you know who I am? Maybe the tour and all that time you spent following us around made you feel like we were vibing or something. I play arenas of 50,000 people. Just like Harry. You? You work here.”

Following us around stung. “If you and Harry are together, then you have no reason to worry about Harry and me.”

“We’re meant to be together. I can’t believe you’re trying to get your claws into him now, after I let you stay on the tour!” It was hard for Izzy to hold onto the sympathy she felt for Jess.

“You let me?”

“And kept my mouth shut about George so you could have your stupid little fling. Aren’t you done stealing other people’s boyfriends?” Jess pulled George’s name out like a knife.

“As you just said, I didn’t know about George and Lydia.”

“But you do you do know about Harry and me. Don’t bullshit me: are you two together?”

“No.” Izzy said, the resoluteness in her voice hurting her. “We’re not.”

Jess’s shoulders dropped. She tilted her head back, then brought her gaze back down to Izzy.

“And you’ll stay the fuck away from him?”

“No, I won’t.”

“What?”

Izzy took a breath and said it again, slower. “I won’t.” Izzy doubted she'd ever see Harry again, but she wouldn't promise Jess to stay away from him. She didn't want her to have that satisfaction.

Jess’s jaw tightened with rage. “You don’t care how much you hurt him, do you? His reputation is already destroyed because of you. Could you imagine what people would say if he throws it all away for this?” Jess gestured around the store. “For you?”

“I’d like you to get the fuck out of my store now, Jess.”

Jess turned and flew toward the door, turning back to toss out: “These clothes are fucking ugly.”

Izzy walked up to the door and watched Jess peel out, leaving rubber on the asphalt outside. She picked up a cigarette—still burning, evidently tossed there by Jess–from one of the tubs to drop it in a sidewalk bin, watching Jess’s car disappear down the street.

Izzy put her hand to her chest. She could hear her heart beat in her ears, faster and faster. Jess had come to the store all the way from California to break up her and Harry, a couple that didn’t exist. All the new pieces of their story swirled around her: Harry sent Dave away and the Jess Harper band was recording again, Harry broke away from Ryan, Harry and his band bought back their own masters. And Jess thought Izzy was behind it all, behind all of these good things he was doing to save his own life and soul.

Izzy closed the store for the afternoon and drove back out to pick up the soil, and bring down the seedlings she had been growing in her bedroom. As she planted them and watched their little neon green shoots reach up, she felt more and more hopeful. The feeling spread through her like that sunrise feeling she had; she felt calm, like things were going right, that maybe a good thing was happening. Her own words rang out with every heart beat: no, I won't.

Jess would probably tell Harry how ridiculous and delusional she thought Izzy was; or maybe she wouldn’t tell him about their little conversation at all. Harry had blown up his whole life in her absence, Izzy realized. Why?

#harry styles fic #harry styles fanfic #harry styles fanfiction #love on tour #hslot #love on tour fic #romance readers #pride and prejudice #pride and prejudice and anxiety

5 notes · View notes

conradscrime · 1 year ago

Text

The Disappearance of Mountaineer George Mallory

November 02, 2023

George Mallory was born in Cheshire on June 18, 1886, and from a young age he was interested in climbing. When he was only 7 years old, Mallory climbed the roof of his father's church.

In 1904, an experienced mountaineer named Robert Lock Graham Irving took Mallory on as a climbing companion after the death of his original partner. Both Mallory and his friend, Harry went with Irving for a trip to the Alps.

In February 1909, Mallory was invited to Wales for a climbing trip at Easter. After this, Mallory was given an application form for membership into the Climber's Club, joining in May 1909.

On July 29, 1914, Mallory married a woman named Christiana Ruth Turner, just 6 days before Britain entered World War I. The pair ended up having three children together, two daughters and a son.

Though Mallory had an extensive education and worked as a school master, he did have to enlist in the army and served throughout World War I, eventually ranking up to lieutenant in 1917.

By January 1919, Mallory returned to his teaching position which was at Charterhouse, though he was not fully happy being a teacher. He wanted to get back into mountaineering. In January 1921, the Royal Geographical Society and the Alpine Club established the Mount Everest Committee to finance an expedition.

Mallory was contacted by the committee asking if he would be interested in this expedition, the crew planned to do a trip later in 1921 to figure out the best route to reach the summit, and then in 1922 they were going to go again, this time actually reaching the top.

Mallory at first was not sure if he wanted to go -- it would mean that he would have to be away from his wife Ruth, and children for a chunk of time and he was sceptical the group would be able to accomplish this.

Eventually Mallory and his wife were convinced it would be the opportunity of a lifetime, and in February 1921, Mallory accepted the invitation formerly, though it was noted he showed no emotion and was definitely not excited for the trip. It was in February 1921 that Mallory resigned from his teaching position.

Leading up to this point, Mallory had quite a bit of experience having done various climbs and reaching summits. He completed several expeditions in the Alps, since his first climb in 1904. Specifically in the Alps, both Mallory and his friend Harry suffered from altitude sickness.

On August 18, 1921, Mallory and 3 others left their camp at around 20,000 ft. They discovered a gateway to the mountain, and after figuring out the most viable way to reach the summit, on September 23, 1921, a group of climbers left camp to descend into the East Rongbuk Glacier, to pitch camp. The frostbite and winds were extreme however, and eventually on September 25, 1921, Mallory called off the expedition.

It was the groups goal to be the first to reach Mount Everest's summit. On May 20, 1922, Mallory and his group began this goal. After two failed attempts to reach the summit, in June 1922, the group tried a third.

At one point during their ascent, an avalanche began on an ice cliff above, sweeping over the group. Mallory and three others were able to dig themselves out of the snow, unharmed, but saw a group of 4 porters had fell 150 ft below them. The avalanche had caused another 9 porters to be swept into a crevasse.

A search and rescue effort was started, and 8 out of the 9 porters were found. Unfortunately only 2 of them had survived. This was the end of the third attempt to the summit.

Mallory's next attempt at reaching Mount Everest's summit wouldn't be until June 1, 1924.

By June 8, 1924, Mallory and Andrew Irvine, would begin their attempt to reach the summit at 8 am. This morning, another climber, John Noel, perched himself at Eagle's Nest Point, with a camera so he could film Mallory and Irvine. The flimer also had 2 porters with him, however no one could see Mallory or Irvine.

By 10am, still having not seen any sight of the two mountaineers, the cloud and mist had completely obscured the view of the summit ridge.

The last person to see Mallory and Irvine alive was Noel Odell, a support climber, just after 12:50 pm. He saw them from a distance, two black spots moving, before the clouds obstructed his view. Mallory and Irvine were never seen alive again.

On June 9, 1924, Odell and another inspected the Camps, looking for Mallory and Irvine to no avail. It was impossible for the two mountaineers to have returned to camp, as everything they had left there was as it was — having not been touched. After days of searching and finding nothing, the expedition was over and on June 15, 1924, the surviving members returned home.

On June 19, 1924, Ruth and Mallory’s children received a telegram stating that Mallory and Irvine had died. On October 17, 1924, a memorial service was held.

On May 30, 1933, almost 11 years after Mallory and Irvine had disappeared, an ice axe had been discovered at an elevation of 27,723 ft, by the leader of the expedition, Percy Wyn-Harris. At first, Wyn-Harris and his climbing partner, Lawrence Wager left the ice axe where they had found it, but after their own failed attempt at reaching the summit, on the way down Wyn-Harris decided to take the ice axe, leaving his own in it’s place.

The ice axe was eventually determined to either be Mallory’s or Irvine’s, though it is unsure which mountaineer’s it was. After Odell inspected it, he noticed there was 3 marks on it, which Irvine used to mark his equipment. Ruth stated that she had never known Mallory to mark any of his stuff that way, so most likely the ice axe was Irvine’s, however, some of the expedition members from the 1933 expedition believed the axe belonged to Mallory because it had Swiss manufacturers.

In 1962, Irvine’s brother found a military swagger stick, which belonged to Irvine and it had the same 3 identification marks on it.

In 1937, a man named Frank Smyth wrote a letter, and in the letter he stated that during the 1936 British Mount Everest expedition, he scanned the North Face of Everest with a powerful telescope and saw a body, believing it to be Mallory or Irvine. This sighting was unknown until 2013, when Smythe’s son revealed it in a book, after finding his father’s letter in a diary.

The 1999 Mallory and Irvine Research Expedition began, with the goal to find evidence of the 1924 British Mount Everest expedition and find information about whether or not Mallory and Irvine reached the summit.

On May 1, 1999, around 10 am, members of the expedition reached 26,900 ft, where they were going to set up camp. Setting off, it was 11:45 am when a member found a corpse laying at 26,760 ft. The body was partially frozen, but well preserved to the cold condition, fully extended and had both arms outstretched with the head pointed uphill.

The right leg was broken, with the left leg crossed over it, suggesting the mountaineer must of been still conscious. The rear of the body was exposed, the wind having blown away some of the clothing. The exposed skin was white, but the hands and forearms appeared dark. Most of the internal organs had been consumed by alpine choughs, a specific type of bird. The birds had pecked away leaving damage to the right leg, buttocks and abdominal cavity.

Tied to the waist was braided cotton climbing rope, the right foot had an intact green leather hobnailed boot, but the left boot only had the tongue remaining on it. Many had suspected that Irvine had fallen in 1924, and this body was his.

When looking at the layers of clothing and removing them, there was a label on the shirt with red print, “G. Mallory.” The body of George Mallory had finally been discovered, almost exactly 75 years later.

Mallory’s body had several injuries — his tibia and fibula of his right leg were broken, his right scapula was deformed, his right elbow had been fractured or dislocated. He had multiple cuts, bruises and abrasions, his ribs had been fractured. It was without a doubt that Mallory had fallen. The climbing rope that had been looped around Mallory’s waist had crushed his ribs and burned his skin. It was also determined that when this happened, Mallory and Irvine were roped to each other. The exact circumstances are unknown, no one will ever know what caused the accident or made them fall.

A few weeks later, an oxygen cylinder was found at an altitude of 27,789 ft to 27,805 ft. The cylinder’s stamp no. 9 confirmed that it was from the 1924 British Mount Everest expedition and was used by Mallory and Irvine.

Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay, the first mountaineers to have reached the summit of Mount Everest, welcomed the news of the discovery of Mallory’s body, and acknowledged that Mallory might have reached the summit of Mount Everest decades earlier.

There are many theories about what led to Mallory and Irvine’s deaths in 1924. Research in 2010 suggested that an extreme storm may have led to their deaths. The research provided stated that when Mallory and Irvine attempted the summit on June 8, 1924, there was a drop in barometric pressure and temperature. Believing this could have resulted in a blizzard, however, Odell described the morning of June 8, 1924 as clear and not extremely cold, but turned into a severe blizzard by 2pm which lasted until 4pm.

While it is unknown what exactly happened, many researchers believe the weather was way more extreme than previously believed, and this could have contributed to the deaths of both Mallory and Irvine.

On November 14, 1944, Mallory’s younger brother, Sir Trafford Leigh-Mallory, an Air Chief Marshal, crashed into the French Alps, everyone on board was killed. Mallory’s daughter, Frances Clare, married a man named Glenn Allan Millikan who was killed in a climbing accident on May 25, 1947 at Buzzard’s Roose in Fall Creek Falls State Park.

Frances’ sons, Mallory’s grandchildren, Richard and George Millikan became climbers and were very well respected in the 1960’s and 70’s. On May 14, 1995, George Mallory, Mallory’s grandson reached the summit of Everest, leaving a photo of his grandparents on the summit, ending “unfinished business” for his grandfather.

In early 1923, Mallory was asked why he wanted to climb Mount Everest, his answer: “Because it’s there.”

#true crime #crime #unsolved #unsolved mysteries #unsolved case #solved #mystery

24 notes · View notes

mightyflamethrower · 3 months ago

Text

U.S. Army Sgt. Quandarius Davon Stanley, 23, died last week from injuries he sustained while working on the pier built by the Biden-Harris administration for the purpose of delivering humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza.

As Breitbart News reported, the pier was a core promise of President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address. Biden assured Americans that there would be no “boots on the ground” — though, as Breitbart News pointed out, there would have to be U.S. personnel at sea, and at risk. The cost of building the floating pier was $230 million.

As Breitbart News’ Kristina Wong noted, the pier regularly broke apart due to storms and high waves in the Mediterranean. Wong also obtained exclusive video of the pier rising and falling dangerously in the surf.

Sources also complained to Wong that lives were being endangered for a “photo-op.” The administration itself admitted that there were other, more efficient ways of bringing aid to Gaza, principally over land and via truck, even if aid was stolen. Aid offloaded on the pier had to be trucked into Gaza anyway, rendering the sea route superfluous.

The pier opened in mid-May and was closed by mid-July, having only been operational for a total of 20 days. During the course of its operations, three U.S. soldiers were injured. Two returned to work; Stanley was disabled, then died.

Stanley was recently medically retired by his unit because his injuries meant he would be unable to continue military service, a defense official said. He died on October 31. “Stanley was injured while supporting the mission that delivered humanitarian aid to Gaza in May 2024 and was receiving treatment in long-term care medical center,” Capt. Shkeila Milford-Glover, a spokesman for the 3rd Expeditionary Sustainment Command, said Monday. … It’s unclear how exactly Stanley was injured, though officials have emphasized that it was not combat related. Stanley’s injury — as well as the minor injuries of the two other troops — were first confirmed by Vice Adm. Bradley Cooper, deputy commander of US Central Command, who told reporters in May one individual was “undergoing care at an Israeli local hospital. He was injured out on a ship at sea.”

Israeli sources also reported that Palestinians no longer wanted aid from the pier after Israeli helicopters rescuing Noa Argamani and three other hostages from Hamas were filmed touching down in Israel on the beach near the pier

3 notes · View notes

employee052 · 7 months ago

Text

the ocs and their inspirations

feat my ocs yasuo n harry, n my IRL sona and narry

wanted to do some sillies with my little webcomic boys aksjdh

#artswin #tsp narrator #ocs #original characters #route 23 ocs #yasuo fraiser #harry jameson #naroz #ozrator #digitalmuse #selfship #qpr selfship #self ship

37 notes · View notes

route23-webcomic · 8 months ago

Text

been in hella artblock so im tryna do small blorbo shitposts based on audio for a bit, so heres smth with Harry n Yasuo (plus eclipse)

#artswin #animswin #suggestive #suggestive cw #just in case bc they REALLY goin in for da smooches for a bit #the audio is from waitress too btw i didnt know that for a bit so ty reese askdjh #route 23 webcomic #oc #ocs #webcomic ocs #blorbo art #harry jameson #route23 ocs #route23 #yasuo fraiser

29 notes · View notes

oswinunknown · 9 months ago

Text

sorry for no art today, had a shit day n had no motivation to draw, but i did doodle a lot so heres a small hurt/comfort comic with my webcomic blorbos yasuo and harry

idk, i think harry's face is so cute in this sdkhf. n yasuo my boy <3

(@route23-webcomic)

#artswin #update #ocs #webcomic oc #route 23 webcomic #r23 webcomic #yasuo fraiser #harry jameson #oc #original character #doodle #comic

18 notes · View notes

pillowspace · 10 months ago

Note

abt that music ask. 5, 11, 23 and/or 30? :3333

BAHAH THAT IMAGE IS SO CUTE

5:A song that needs to be played LOUD

Okay, for nostalgic reasons, my mum used to BLAST E.T. by Katy Perry in the car SO loud, and now I can't listen to it any quieter or else it feels like a whole different song, so I haven't heard it in a few years. As for something I still listen to... I like playing Bones by the Killers loud I suppose. Oh and definitely Sweet Nothing by Calvin Harris!

11:A song that you never get tired of

The song I've been listening to for the longest without ever once growing tired of it has been Don't You Dare Forget the Sun by Get Scared, it's had some kind of immunity on me for the past several years

23:A song that you think everybody should listen to

Oooo you want to listen to The Crane Wives so baaaaaad

30:A song that reminds you of yourself

So my answer probably isn't gonna be what you're expecting. I tend to prefer making up characters and feelings for songs regardless of its tone, so the only songs I actually relate to are songs that hit a bit too close to home for me to say. So I'll be going a different route:

This song does not remind me of myself as a person or my experiences, etc. But it reminds me of some of my oldest interests. I was delighted when I first heard this song because it reminded me of the exact kind of vibe I've been in love with since I was 7 years old. Dark songs that... feel like Halloween, but not in a silly way? It gave me a sense of nostalgia for a song I'd never heard before. It reminds me of my little self who would obsessively rewatch the haunted castle episode in Sonic X like I was in love even though my mum had found it creepy. (I will warn that the lyrics are dark though if anyone listens)

#ask

14 notes · View notes

hashtag-girlblogger · 11 months ago

Text

how to live like it's 2014 again

If you're anything like me, you're nostalgic for everything. I am constantly wishing to be somewhere else or in some time else. I'm nostalgic for the 60's (I was born in 2001), nostalgic for the early 2000's (pop is just not the same), and most of all–I am nostalgic for 2012 to 2016. I think it is widely agreed that these years, especially on Tumblr, were the last best years many of us have ever had. I was a baby, still in middle school and just 15 years old in 2016. But wow, what a time to be alive. Music, movies, TV, pop culture, fashion, the internet–the world was a better place.

I have been toying with the idea of exiting mainstream society (as best I can) for sometime now. I've been thinking, "Is it possible to live in another era while stuck in the constantly evolving 2024?" Can I abandon social norms or things of "the time" and just live like it's 2014 again?

I've thought about what this would mean, what it would look like. Only listening to Halsey, Calvin Harris and Marina. Splurging at Victoria's Secret and wearing the iconic Tease perfume at all times. What's TikTok? You don't use Valencia on your Instagram posts? I'm obsessed with WeHeartIt. Look at my new Penny board!

Alternatively, I could take the Arctic Monkeys, soft grunge, American Apparel and Marlboro cigarettes route. All black, watching AHS Coven and wondering if I have secret witchy powers too.

I think where all these feelings come from is that the current state of the world is just not feeling so good (to put it nicely). The world is accelerating at a speed I do not want to keep up with. Social media and technology are great but it has literally become this crushing weight. "Just delete social media then." Yeah fair. I guess I just feel so disconnected from my life. From my real life. Like I spend so much of my time venturing into other worlds I've made up in my head. Like 2014 Tumblr. It's not here anymore, it's gone, but I live there. A part of me is still there.

I'm like 12 or 13 years old. Was still a competitive cheerleader, which I regrettably quit when I got to high school. I spent everyday after school with my friends, making video stars or doing gymnastics in the field. We would walk around our neighbourhood, talking about god knows what and enjoying every minute of it. I looked at the future and it could be anything. I could be anyone and do anything I wanted. I feel like that's what I really want. Maybe I miss the music and clothes and vibes of that era buy what I'm really craving is how purely simple and free I felt, how connected I felt to my own life.

Now I'm 22, soon to be 23. Graduating college soon, heading into my big girl job, big girl career. Totally terrified and also excited. But I spend my time alone, so much time alone. My social battery is always empty, I rarely catch up with friends. When I do, we always have to be doing something. Dinner, drinks, movies, parties, dancing, classes. It's never, just come over let's hangout. And I get it, we're young adults, we are supposed to be doing stuff, we are meant to be out and about living our best lives. I guess I just want it to feel different. I want it to feel like it used to.

Okay sooooo.

This is how to live like it's 2014.

Talk to your friends, often and without any agenda. Create the ultimate playlist, this one's pretty good:

Binge CW shows and trashy reality TV. Totally freak out when someone says you look like Violet from AHS (this actually happened to me at work the other day and I couldn't stop smiling). Say screw the trends and wear some skinny jeans and those Alexander McQueen ankle boots, Alexa Chung approved. Get off your phone and be alive now. It's 2014, you don't have a worry in the world.

#2014 #2014 tumblr #Spotify #thatblog

9 notes · View notes

winterpinetrees · 6 months ago

Text

Questions and answers (the gap years part 23)

July 3rd

Shiprock, NM

Locked out of the loop, Sierra questions an elf for information that is at least partially true. It’s a test of endurance. She’s not great at social cues but it’s clear that somebody is lying.

……………………

When they finally meet that strange blond soldier, Sierra is going to have a few words. Not only is her left arm stiff like she’s spent the past week hauling car engines instead of sitting in The Audacity, it seems increasingly likely that she’s being spied on. They’d been careful before the ambush. They’d used no cell phones, taken special routes to avoid license plate recorders, and had two elves with illusions to cover them. And yet they were ambushed at a campsite so deep in the woods that NASA built an observatory there. There’s a persistent ache behind her eyes, and as if that wasn’t enough, the elf decided to stop them from breaking the spell by airdropping a memory she doesn’t want to dwell on. Sierra’s never been stabbed before! It sucks!

So Sierra is now lying on a woven carpet, staring intently at the place where the floor meets the earthen walls. Her headphones are digging into the side of her neck. Litayo’s foxdog rests his head on her chest and she doesn’t bother to pet him. The elderly noble elf sits on a chair and glances down like she’s nothing more than a stain on the fabric.

“So if Sierra is being tracked, what do we do with that?” Brian asks. Despite spending nearly all of their time on the road, Brian is less suntanned than he usually is by early July. “And don’t say to leave her behind. That isn’t an option”.

“Well, the spell can’t work like a GPS tracker. It’s more likely that Kebero can see through her eyes,” Marin suggests. He suddenly decided to share that the soldier declared their name at the end of their encounter. Amedi Kebero of the new apex’s High Council. No one recognizes the name. Apparently he didn’t think it was relevant? They’ll add that to Clay’s list of suspicious things. They’re running on seriously limited data, and they know Marin and Zerada aren’t above brainwashing.

“Like Harry Potter,” she adds. There were moments over the past week where her vision went red, and the headaches. Could those have been signs?

“I don’t know who that is-“

“You know Captain Kirk but not Harry Potter?”

He glares. “I’m more worried about the…” Marin gestures to the deep red lines that start on the left side of her neck. “The marks. They haven’t gotten worse, but I’m suspicious”.

“So what is the plan?” Brian asks again.

“I guess we just keep you out of the planning and hope Kebero isn’t good at geoguesser,” Clay says too lightly. “But they know where we are. We’ve got to go, now”.

Everyone groans, even too-composed Zerada.

“We’ve already stayed here for a night, and we got Marin a proper cast. It wouldn’t have been smart to stay anyway!”

Clay, Brian, and Marin sheepishly apologize and walk off into another room to plan their next moves. Zerada goes with them, holding Brian’s hand, but she’s not sorry about it. Sierra sits there on the floor with the fox and someone else’s pain as they go. Social interactions are always like this. You miss one thing, and then the momentum is broken and you are out of the loop for good. Well, time to do her own research. Hopefully she comes out of it with a net increase in stuff she knows and without getting brainwashed.

Litayo was zapped by the psychic attack at the same time that she was. He seems far less flustered by it, probably because he’s clearly been through traumas of his own. The elf is old, which according to Marin’s explanation of elven aging means that he could be over five hundred. He wears the vambrace of the nobility his right wrist (left handed?) and has an assortment of scars. She moves to sit across from him. She’s a head shorter than the elf, but sitting in a chair makes her feel less like a child.

“So. Litayo Califex? Is that another noble genus?” She asks. Her hands are shaking, so she puts them in her pockets.

“Yes. Symbolized by the pronghorn antelope,” he replies calmly.

“Is that less powerful than Adust? Why doesn’t she have your last name?”

“It is, but elves usually inherit power along the female line”.

Neat. All of humanity will end up as second-class citizens if the elves take over, but girl power or whatever. She laughs at her own internal joke and feels stupid. “What about Marin?”

“His mother was the apex. Or if you are asking about his status as the heir, the matriarchy is more of a suggestion”. He lowers his voice. “And his Highness was never meant to inherit”.

“He’s not?” Marin seems to follow behind Zerada, but he always talks like he was the Sondaica heir.

“He was never officially disinherited, but some of his cousins were better candidates. I don’t think the old apex wanted him to lead either. And her bloodline is… questionable. She was fit, but more by environment than genetics, yes?”

She does not say yes back. Sierra’s the granddaughter of Mexican immigrants on her mama’s side and colonists who got rich off apartheid through her dad. She was born too early, and probably could have landed herself an autism diagnosis if those parents were less casual about how weird she is. This isn’t rhetoric from a brave new elven world, it’s just old eugenics with a sci-fi aesthetic. In short, all this talk makes her want to punch someone.

She wants the story though, so she takes a page from Clay’s book and plays along. “So what was wrong with her?”

“How much has Marin told you about the Sondaica twins?”

“Nothing?”

He laughs. “High nobility are usually too fragile for the twins and the mother to survive, so such a circumstance is avoided. It was unheard of when Marin’s grandmother had twin girls. Apex Emer and Cai”.

She says something affirmative to get him to keep going.

“Genus Mercuralis was in power back then, as they are now. The leader of the Lazarins was Adversary Tyern Sondaica, Marin’s great-uncle,” he pauses and smiles to himself. “He was a great man”.

“Was he killed in the coup?”

“Long before. He reached old age and left for the void rather than abdicate to a mundane life”. That’s got to be a euphemism for suicide, right? Marin has mentioned void magic as a way to travel though… “The descendants of Tyern and his siblings are those in line for the throne. However, Marin is the only eligible descendant of his branch”.

“So someone’s been disowned?”

“He has no siblings, and his mother’s twin is in self-imposed exile and, as far as I know, childless,” he holds out his hands with his palms up. Litayo’s eyes glow and an image hovers above each one. They aren’t tinted or holographic. It looks like the elf is holding photos, except that they don’t cast shadows. Both figures have similar faces and black hair, but little else in common. They appear mixed-race, whatever that means in the elven world, and one twin looks more European than the other.

“When they were born, it was thought that Cai was the runt of the litter,” he lifts his right hand. Cai is the paler twin, but her skin is still darker than Sierra’s. Her hair is loose and long in the image, somewhere between wavy and curly. She looks younger, thinner, and there is a look in her dark eyes that makes Sierra think Cai was a quiet child.

“In truth, Emer was the one who had lost. She was born with too little magic, and Cai with exceptional gifts,” Emer looks like a warrior. She smiles in the image and wears an outfit that leaves her muscular arms uncovered. Her hair is in thin braids that make Sierra think she must have had about the same hair texture as her son. Emer’s eyes, however, are a striking green.

“So Emer grew more quickly even though they were the same age,” she reasons out loud.

Litayo seems relieved that he doesn’t have to explain everything. “They ceased to look like twins within a decade. Cai was forever the younger sibling, refusing responsibility. They could have been an apex as powerful as Lazarus -do you even know who he was? But they had little interest in the throne-“

“Wait, ‘they’ meaning Cai? Are we switching pronouns?”

“Yes. The English language is so inconvenient to use,” he mutters. “Cai had little interest in anything related to the physical world. Meanwhile, Emer was fierce and proved herself more worthy of the throne than anyone else. It was unknown if her lack of magic was heritable though, so she had only one child, a prince betrothed to the most gifted daughter of Genus Adust”.

“So he’s a spare”. Brian is the third son of his family. He’s a spare too. Maybe Zerada is into that. In contrast, Sierra is the favorite child, despite her dad having two older kids from a previous marriage. It’s surprisingly smooth in the family, but yet another reason why she never, ever googles her own name. (Well, she never googles anything else either. Sierra is a firefox loyalist and her adblock is always on).

Just then, the curtain to the other room sweeps open, and that spare prince looks out to see his future in-law holding an illusion of his dead mother and disgraced aunt. His arm is in a futuristic cast, but it will still take a couple of weeks to heal. None of their allies in the village knew how to heal him using magic.

Sierra speaks louder to address Marin as well as the older elf. “What did Cai do?”

He hesitates. “She and my mother had a falling out seventy years ago, and a physical fight as well. It’s one of the first things I can remember, and I haven’t seen Cai since,” he replies. Zerada’s expression is unreadable, like when she screws up wiring and a device completely bricks, when there isn’t even an error message or electric shock to warn something’s wrong. Litayo reacts though, and Clay’s eyes narrow at his reaction. She’s not good at reading people, but her friend has enough emotional literacy to share.

“Who’s Cai?” Brian asks. Sierra summarizes the conversation. Cai is the too-powerful, exiled, twin of Marin’s mother.

“Damn. We should try and find her next”.

Clay turns toward Marin. “Well, why’d they fight?”

“It might have been over politics? My mother loved the human world, but she was still the apex, and had to protect her people first. I’ve heard that Cai loved human science more than anything else. I don’t know much else about her”.

“Seventy years ago was the Manhattan Project, so the timing works out if they fought over bombs,” Sierra replies. “Was she at Excalibur?”

“How am I supposed to know that?”

She thinks back over the stories she’s read in the depths of online forums or heard from old physicists. There was an emerald green figure with a spear at Project Excalibur (Emer, or another Sondaica), but there’s legends of another mysterious man too. Someone androgynous, racially ambiguous, and somewhat incorporeal appearing like a warning spirit at dangerous sites. It was seen checking wires at CERN, watching computers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and shielding scientists on the night Excalibur was destroyed. People have begun calling it “The Professor”, to be respectful. (It’s tradition to give him a mention when you write a paper).

Could it be Cai? Her only concern is that The Professor is always described with pale eyes. The metaphors about them are the creation of traumatized astronomers. The figure who saved them (or drank their coffee at two AM) had eyes like a nebula, or the Milky Way above a remote observatory. Witnesses say the Professor isn’t all there anymore, as if the electric charges that make matter sometimes forget about it’s hands. Maybe his eyes glow with magic? Multiple colors of magic combine to white if they are used at once. What if Cai is so strong that everything cancels out? She’ll ask later.

Sierra jokes with the boys about their classified next stop and they wander back to the car. She waits in the doorway for a moment and stares back at Litayo. Councillor Kebero must have seen him through the spell. He might be doomed.

“Okay. Last question. What was up with that psychic attack? Are elves stabbed… often?”

He smiles, but it might not be genuine. “How can the fittest be determined if life is no longer a struggle for survival?”

Shut up, elf. She steps over the threshold and into the sunlight. “I thought elves rarely went to war”.

“That wasn’t war. I’d be more specific, but you might tell the heirs, and they can’t know details until they earn vambraces of their own”.

Sierra has to convince herself she isn’t injured as she walks back to the car. In the fading memory, she isn’t able to see much. Her vision blurs and the sky above her is black and red with ash. There is a stab wound in her back, a slash across her chest, and half of a dagger in her ankle. She steps into the backseat and remembers staggering away from a body in the dry grass. Three bodies. Sierra doesn’t recognize them, but she feels the weight. The Audacity is electric and silent. There is nothing to drown out the memory. It must have been another ambush. Sierra can empathize. Maybe that’s why she can’t put it out of her mind.

………………

Cai uses any pronouns with no preference, but elves default to feminine pronouns and terms. In my notes I more often use he. Do whatever. Be free. Cai won’t be too relevant for a while.

I don’t have an answer for whether or not Sierra is actually autistic. Like most of the cast, she’s a so-called gifted kid. She doesn’t have a diagnosis and she isn’t pursuing one.

Sierra’s dad is a better and more decent version of Elon Musk. Yes Elon Musk’s family got rich off of apartheid.

Next time, the humans talk history and fireworks on what could be the last Independence Day as they know it.

@lokiwaffles

#by me #the gap years #my ocs #writing that *is*

4 notes · View notes