#i grew up in Mississippi and Louisiana

[lupismaris]

The Opening Act of Spring- a Black Sails Fic. Chapter 3

The Ranger’s have a castle above the clouds, the delta bayou’s favorite undead son hasn’t changed much despite appearances, and we meet the patriarch of The Walrus- one of the beloved queer bars in west Brooklyn- Hal Gates. 

The condo The Rangers shared on West End ave was high up in a shiny new building, overlooking the Hudson river and the west skyline of Manhattan. Silver wasn’t surprised that his sister had opted for a sleek home with floor to ceiling windows and polished wood floors, she had always day dreamed about a place above the clouds, untouchable like the men and women they conned for eating money. And now, as he and Anne stepped out of the private elevator, it seemed as if her dreams of that life, to a point, had come true. Of course the life time of suffering and blood that had gone into it could hardly been denied, but as with all things Max did, no one would know it. Grace and Elegance masked all, by careful design.

Silver whistled at the well lit space, kicking off his shoes at the door. Sunlight was starting to spill into the open concept living and dining room. The lime washed walls were decorated with elegant pieces of art, contemporary and colorful to contrast the neutral tones of the condo itself, the furniture mid-century modern with its rich honey toned wood and brass metal accents. House plants and vases of flowers, well loved and flourishing, were tucked into every sensible corner and open surface, bringing life into an otherwise sterile home, one that Silver would have expected to see in a high end magazine review.

“She’ll be in the studio, through there,” Anne said, nodding to a room past the kitchen. She handed over the bouquet of Irises. “Give these to her. I’m gonna make sure Chaz is up for work.”

“Sure, thanks, by the way-”

She waved it off and disappeared down the dim hallway.

“Right. Good talk.”

The studio had, as expected, the best lighting in the whole condo. It was a corner unit and the studio sat right at the corner, able to scrape together whatever sunlight available at whatever time of day. Silver had to guess that Max’s bedroom was graced with either the next best natural light, or the best light fixture money could buy to mimic it. The room was filled with various dress forms and metal figures, each draped in different fabrics that would, in time, become cocktail dresses and gowns. Two work benches were littered with supplies, pages of sketches and two sewing machines, boxes of sexing tools, pens and pencils and drafting tools, shelves covered in bolts of lush fabrics in jewel tones and soft neutrals. All that was what Silver expected to find, the heart and soul of his sister’s enterprise laid bare.

But over by the windows, where Max was seated, stood an easel and canvas, with several half finished canvases of varying sizes leaning against the glass awaiting their turn. A small table attended to Max’s right, carrying a tray of oil pastels and a cloth for her hands, a pair of chamois for blending, and her morning cappuccino long forgotten, its foam clinging to the sides of the porcelain bowl.

His sister had always wanted to take up the finer arts, or so she had told him, but their lives had never allowed them the time. Too much running, too many lies, too many masks, and whats more, gutter rats like them had more important things to worry about than the delicate curve of a shadow on the page or how to blend charcoal, didn’t they?

Silver stood there silently for a few moments, watching as Max blended the soft peach of sunlight into the clouds she was attempting to capture, the view from her window shifting ever so slightly so that her canvas was a perfect dream of the Morning sky. Her dark curls, coiled more tightly than his own, were tied up high on her head with a silk scarf, the rich green and gold of it reminding Silver of laurels, a perfect contrast to her darker skin.

Of them all, Max’s laurels were most deserved.

“No one likes a ghost in the doorway, mon cher,” she said over her shoulder, taking up a robin’s egg blue pastel.

“I’d disagree but I’d hate to ruin so lovely a morning-”

Her laughter was as sharp as a jaybird’s call, joyful and just a little mocking. “Oh you’re exhausting. Come on then, you’re already half an hour late as it is you cad.” 

Silver felt himself smile, his first honest smile since landing at JFK, and let himself enter the room properly. Max set down her pastels and wiped her hands, twisting on the stool to face him. Her lounge set, knit leggings and loose tank top of bone white, looked soft and well loved. She wore no make up, the only colour on her cheeks the stray smear of blue pastel along her cheek bone from a misplaced finger, and the only jewelry Silver could see was the delicate gold bracelet he had given her years before after their first big score.

And a simple gold diamond ring on her left ring finger.

“Well now when did that happen?” Silver asked with some astonishment. He’d expected a phone call if not a photo if Anne had finally popped the question after years and years of domestic bliss.

“It hasn’t, it’s a place holder,” Max said, though the soft blush in her cheeks meant it still meant the world. “She grew tired of people presuming things, had me pick out something classic until we could custom order something better. You know I wouldn’t choose a diamond for the final product.”

“No you had always been partial to pearls or emeralds, I remember that.” Silver kissed her temple and passed over the irises. “These are from her by the way.”

“Thought as much, you never bring me flowers.”

“No I bring you shiny things worth stupid amounts of money and leave the romantic gestures to your beau.”

Max rolled her eyes and got up to find a vase for the flowers, leaving Silver to poke around the studio like a curious stray cat. “I imagine those gifts are still at your hotel, since you look like shit and Anne said she found you drunk in a bathtub this morning?”

“Mmm it wasn’t my best wake up call I’ll give her that.”

“You don’t drink, mon Cher, I take it Jack’s plan didn’t go as well as he hoped?”

It was a question, but Silver felt the rhetorical tone even with his back turned.

“Did you suggest it to him or did he think it up all on his own like a big kid?”

“Now now don’t be too cross, it could have been worse.”

“How exactly? With Flint gutting me in public? Strangling me in an elevator? Tossing me off a balcony? Or do you have a more romantic kind of murder in mind?” Silver asked dryly, dropping onto the vintage loveseat by the windows.

Max set the vase of Irises on the closest work station and turned to face him with a sigh. “Are you finished feeling sorry for yourself? Or would you like to wallow in self pity for a few more minutes?”

“Few more couldn’t hurt.”

“You’ve had more than enough time I think and I don’t want to hear it.”

Silver pushed his sunglasses up onto his hair and blinked and the sun filled room. “As you wish. I’m just saying it was a dick move. And I’m a little surprised at you, shacking up with Flint after all this. When you were the one who knew before we all did that it was worth it in the end.”

Max crossed her arms and leaned back against the workstation, taking in Silver’s haggard face, bloodshot and shadowed eyes. “More than just a drink then hm?”

“Oh I’m sorry if it was Ellie would you have done better?”

It was cruel and he knew it. His sister’s eyes hardened for a moment as she considered him.

“Yes. Because I did the work you haven’t.”

Silver sighed and turned his gaze to the window.

“I don’t owe you an explanation,” she said after a moment, “You abandoned us. You had the opportunity to stay and have a real chance at something better and you walked away, so what I choose to do in my business ventures is none of your concern, Silver. You gave up that right.”

“Then why ask me here?”

“You abandoning us does not mean we have chosen to abandon you.”

It took effort not to look up as she crossed the room, coming to sit on the love seat next to him.

“Even if you’d rather we did,” She added.

“That- that’s not-” He sighed, turning to her and shaking his head. “I don’t wish that, you know I don’t.”

Max smiled at him and reached up to tuck a few stray curls behind his ear. She said nothing, just let his empty lie hang lifeless in the space between them for a moment, before asking about his flight in from Istanbul.

He had never been able to lie to her, and she had never been able to lie to him, not in any way that had mattered. Little white lies and surprise parties were possible, sure, but when it mattered? Eventually it would unravel, the fibers fraying and thinning as they tried to spin them, faster and faster until they were left empty handed and shamefaced. The only lie that stood was, in a sense, a shared truth- that neither of them had existed before their meeting, that their lives had begun the moment they had met in the back room of a dusty and dirty whore house in some city they pretended to forget the name of. Before that there had been nothing. That was the only lie they would permit.

And maybe it was better that way. Maybe it was better that Max knew Silver was lying when he said he didn’t want to be forgotten, abandoned to his self made misery while she and her lovers built new beautiful lives for themselves in castles on clouds. Because otherwise he’d have to admit it out loud, admit that he wanted to play the martyr and be left to the consequences of his mistakes.

That he didn’t think he deserved a second chance.

Some people didn’t deserve to be saved, right? Didn’t deserve to prove themselves bettered? Maybe, just maybe, he was one of them and the best thing he could do was let that be the case. Especially if it meant he didn’t have to acknowledge that he had in fact made the mistakes in the first place.

But he’d never win that argument with Max, not if she had it in her head that, for whatever reason, he was meant to be a part of their bizarre new lives.

Did he resent her, and the others, a little, for said beautiful new life? Despite it being everything they had bled for all those years? Yes.

Did it make sense? No not even remotely.

He found himself chewing over the thought all afternoon as they had an early lunch, the other Rangers joining them in the dining room. Rackham tried to be a gentleman and offer Silver his one punch to the stomach over drinks-gone-ary, but Silver refused him with a tired laugh.

“Let’s keep a running tally for now,” he said, letting Rackham pull him into a hug. “I’m sure you’ll earn another soon enough. Besides, I think both of us have had our nerves shaken enough over the last twenty four hours-”

Rackham laughed and kissed his cheek as he let him go. “Haven’t we just. There is nothing quite as terrifying as that man stalking you across a room. I thought I’d forgotten that fear but no, no, it has been thoroughly reintroduced to my nightmares after yesterday.”

It had never left Silver’s dreams, the way it felt to have Flint watch him from across the room, move with him, appear suddenly at his side like a phantom.

“You try bein’ in a fuckin kitchen wit’m,” Vane said over his shoulder, his rumbling voice raised slightly to be heard over the rhythmic thud of the knife against the cutting board. “One moment you’re alone gettin’ mise set no body but christ to talk to n’the next he’s there raining hellfire down. If he didn’t announce himself he’d get gutted for scaring a man.”

Rackham sat at the breakfast bar so he could watch Vane cook, “That’s a trait you share darling.”

“Doesn’t mean I gotta like it on him now do I?” Vane asked, feeding Rackham a slice of radish with salted butter.

Silver fought the urge to roll his eyes. They’d become bizarrely domestic and exhausting in their retirement, Rackham smitten in his expensive lounge wear and Vane wearing an apron with his name embroidered on it, putting the finishing touches on a cheese board and salad while the spanakopita finished baking.

It would have been gross, in the way it was for you to see your best friend mack on their new beaus. That is, if Silver wasn’t ultimately struggling with the concept of Vane as a kept house husband who fixed lunch for his roommates and only had a job to keep him out of trouble and wore, of all things, embroidered aprons.

Silver could distinctly remember the day he learned that Vane had removed another man’s head for pissing him off, after all. He had seen the aftermath alongside Max, her ex and the rest of the Guthrie smugglers. It wasn’t something you easily forgot.

Rackham had done the truly impossible. He’d take the wild thing and domesticated it, just enough to fool to world into thinking it had always been so. Silver made a note to never question his capacity for sex, romance, or sheer power of will ever again.

If nothing else, the embroidered apron was going to take a lot of getting used to.

He said as much later that afternoon, relishing the loud burst of laughter that rang out in reply.

“If Jackie hadn’a spent two days makin’ the damn thing-” Vane shook his head, his long hair tossing as he did. “Shoo ain’t catchin me wearin’ another that’s for damn sure. Jackie made it, understand?”

Another park, this time across the bridge, with a stunning view of the river, the sparkling glass and metal skyline of Gotham across the way. Silver had followed Vane to Brooklyn once lunch had finished, Max and Rackham off to a busy afternoon of fittings and model interviews for the summer look book, Anne joining them as she often did. So Vane had found Silver a spare helmet and pulled his vintage Harley out of the private garage, slipping the valet a few bills on their way out of the back entrance in a way that felt very routine, and they made their way to Brooklyn, slicing through traffic.

Silver watched the various pedestrians pass them by, the two of them seated comfortably on an ornate promenade bench, Vane’s bike parked a few feet away on the curb. “Still, considering you used to pitch such a fit about things like that? I distinctly remember you giving Flint so much shit whenever he told you to wear a shirt. Or say please.”

Vane snorted, all sharp teeth as he smiled in amusement. “Mmm but it is fun fuckin with that old queen innit? He cared far too much about respectability when it didn’t right matter n’he knew it, but it made him feel better to scold about it anyhow. Sense of control when it was all falling apart.” He shrugged. “Just cause Jackie get’s me playing nice doesn’t mean I believe it. Just means I believe it enough for his sake, you know? Makes him happy, makes him smile, so I believe in it enough to bring bout that result and keep one foot toeing the line should Jackie forget they don’t play fair. Means, end.”

There was that all encompassing “They” again, alongside a shadow that Silver thought he recognized, of the man who’d burned off his own finger prints at 13, who never quite understood Flint’s need for decorum, but seemed perfectly at home with Silver’s deeply rooted fear of commitment.

“And the means of working for Flint?” he asked when Vane didn’t continue.

“Mmm.”

There was a pause then, as Vane watched the clouds slowly roll in over head. A small, ghost of a smile played on his lips, as if he’d remembered some little joke that Silver wasn’t party to.

“Why I get the feeling you been asking this question all day?” he asked in turn, rolling his head over to look at Silver. “It’s eatin’ you up real bad innit, us tolerating each other again?”

Silver looked away with a sigh. “It doesn’t make sense.”

“Shoo, does anything about any of this? Johnny we stole the world out from under those fuckers and what’d I get in turn?”

On the expressway below the promenade, a truck’s exhaust backfired. Smoke, the smell of burning oil filled the air for a moment as the clouds continued to shift over head, memories taking shape in the altered light as Vane continued.

He hadn’t been there, the day Charles Vane had died. It hadn’t been long after he’d lost his leg and despite a clean amputation and proper antibiotics, his lack of rest had lead to an infection. Silver had been laid up in a safe house for three weeks, during which Vane had been captured on a raid.

“A noose,” Vane continued, “A coffin. If it had gone any different, if a fucker had been a smidge less upset that  afternoon-” he laughed again, a darker, older sound and dropped his head back to look up at the clouds. Silver could see clearly the scar the rope had left, resting where his adams apple should have been, faded slightly with the years but haunting them all the same.

In the small courtyard of Rogers’ largest factory town to fall, Charles Vane had been strung up like the animal the world had thought him to be. Silver had learned later that some small speech had been made, the warden being kind enough, or stupid enough, to give Vane parting words. Whatever was said had been the last bit of fuel for the fire. In the riot that followed, his body went missing.

Silver had never been brave enough to ask him how, whether it had been sheer dumb luck or all part of a grander plan. Something told him that Vane would just level him with that tired, oddly wise look, and just smile, before changing the subject entirely.

“You and Flint tried to kill each other. More than once,” Silver reminded him, trying to change the subject. “Couldn’t agree on anything-”

“Who says that’s changed?” Vane shrugged, getting to his feet and stretching his arms high above his head, cut sleeves of his work tshirt riding up to show the faint edge of old scars long the underside of his pecs. “Said it before, Say it again- ain’t no body making that queen into a trophy but me.”

“Yeah but-”

“’Sides, something healthy bout that if you askin me. We different men, sure, he may be soft, but only I know just how so. Certain kinda intimacy you only get with a man you decide to be the end of, one way or another. Wouldn’ you agree?” Vane’s smile was teasing as he pulled out a cigar from his bag and fished around for his lighter. Silver pulled out his and waved for him to lean in.

Vane did so and held still, lips pulling at the cigar while Sliver lit it, smoke curling around his tanned face. “Thats a kind of love ain’t nothin’ gonna replace. Not comfort, not peace, not gold. Not even sex.”

Their eyes met as Vane pulled back, Silver feeling pinned under a gaze not for the first time that day. It was all he could do to stare back at the gray eyes that shifted behind cigar smoke.

“You used to want comfort, now I think bout it,” he continued, “easy comfort even. Mmm. Now you lookin more like me every day, Johnny. It’s a lean look on you. Pity we never wanted to be the end of each other. Otherwise, I think we’ a been interestin, you and me. Guess I gotta leave that to the old queen.”

Vane patted Silver’s cheek when he didn’t reply and moved around the bench towards his bike. It was time to head to the bar and for Silver to disappear back to Manhattan. That was the safest thing to do.

“Vane.”

“Mm.”

“You’d tell me if he wasn’t retired.”

Vane straddled the bike and puffed at the cigar for a moment. Silver didn’t look back at him.

“If he was out of retirement, I’d be out of retirement. Game’s not fun without that fucker in it.”

That might have been the truest statement he’d heard in the last 24 hours. Silver sighed and nodded, letting his head hang and his body sag into the bench a bit. He listened as Vane kickstarted the old bike, the engine revving to life.

“Make sure ya get home before the sky opens. Don’ want them findin’ ya in the gutter-” came Vane’s shouted goodbye before the roar of the bike echoed away down the street and Silver was again left with the settled ambient sounds of the promenade and the dark clouds building overhead.

*

The patriarch of the Walrus sat in the alley when Vane’s bike pulled up, where he could almost always be found before the happy hour rush began, his heavy form settled comfortably into the old bar chair they kept propped up against the wall. Hal Gates looked up with an unimpressed look, tired eyes peering over the reading glasses that sat on the tip of his nose to read the now forgotten copy of the week’s Brooklyn Daily Eagle that sat on his knee.  

“Bout fuckin’ time you got here,” he said flatly as he watched Vane park his bike with a laugh.

“Shoo I got five minutes n change, can’t fault me for that-” Vane paused to pull out his lighter, which had been in his front picket the whole time, and relight the cigar.

“You know damn well that’s not what I’m talking about you shit. You want to tell me whats got him in a fit this time?”

“Why should I know, boss?” Vane flashed him a sharp smile and climbed off the bike, grabbing his bag from the saddle box.

Gates sighed and pushed himself to his feet, tucking the newspaper under his arm. Vane had a couple inches on him sure, the cocksure attitude that drove some people to the edge, but Gates didn’t need to posture when he closed the space between them. Two steps across the alley and he hummed in tired amusement as Vane watched him expectantly.  

“Because,” Gates said simply, reaching up to take the cigar out of Vane’s mouth, “He’s looking for you.”

With a sharp smile of his own, Gates helped himself to the cigar and returned to his chair. Before Vane could make his no doubt clever remark, or at least follow up on the cigar stealing, the back door to the kitchen flew open.

“Ah, there he is, on cue-” Gates murmured, puffing at the cigar and going back to his paper.

“Now wait a goddamn-” Vane tried to say, as Flint came out of the open door like a wolf from a cage, grabbing him by the front of his shirt. The momentum of his movement had them stumbling backwards, Vane pushing back against him, the two of them half wrestling on their feet.

“Where the fuck is he?” Flint snarled. “Where- So help me Vane I will break your fucking jaw where is he-”

“Fuck is that gonna do- break my jaw ya cunt how is that gonna-”

“I know you’re a part of this Rackham can’t keep shit to himself-”

“Hey what’d I say about ya goin’ for Jackie-”

“Jackie can go to hell unless you tell me where the fuck he is!”

Flint managed to get his ankle around Vane’s, getting him off balance enough to shove him back against the alley wall. He kept one hand in Vane’s shirt while the other closed around Vane’s throat, threatening but not so tight that he couldn’t get the words out.

“Tell me,” he repeated.

“Get fucked.”

“I will make you talk so fucking help me Vane-”

Vane smiled, all top teeth, and pressed into the hand at his throat. “How ya gonna do that hm?”

Flint didn’t move forward, the way Vane’s goading invited him to. He could feel the slightest pressure of Vane’s hand against his stomach, it acted as a warning. Sure enough when he glanced down, Vane’s trusty old butterfly knife was resting against his shirt, the same empty threat as Flint’s hand around his throat. Vane held his gaze with a lazy, hungry smile that called Flint’s bluff with the satisfied smugness of a card shark. Flint hated him in moments like that, hated him deeply. It would have been so easy to tighten his hand and squeeze, but only if it were anyone else. Vane knew just how to make good use of that butterfly knife.

“If you two are quite finished stroking each other off,” Gates said after a moment, “I have a bar to run and happy hour starts in twenty minutes.”

It took a moment, but with a snarl and a huff, Flint shoved Vane against the wall and stormed back inside without another word, leaving Gates puffing at his cigar and watching Vane toy with his butterfly knife.

“So you want me on bar or-” Vane asked.

“Oh no, he will be on bar. He needs to be on a tight leash tonight and I will be holding it, thank you. You keep your head down and behave yourself on the line please or I’m calling Jackie.” Gates folded his paper and stood again, pushing his reading glasses onto his head and gently stubbing out the cigar to save the rest for later. “Do I even want to know what this is all about?”

“Silver’s back in town.”

Gates blinked, then sighed with a decade’s worth of resignation. “My personal twink from hell. Fantastic.”

He stopped Vane just inside the kitchen. “Don’t tell the boys. Not yet, not with Flint so keyed up about it and all. We don’t need it to be a bigger mess that it clearly already is.”

“Shoo, alrigh’ boss.”

“Go on with you then. I’ve got a hell-hound to keep in line tonight.”

Vane’s laughter followed him through the kitchen. Said hell-hound was braced against the darkest corner of the bar, staring into a glass of dark rum.

“Are we talking about this?” Gates asked.

Flint glared at him from the corner of his eye and knocked back the rum. He poured himself another drink and put the bottle away.

“Alright then. You’re on bar with me and Muldoon-” Gates held up a hand as Flint made to argue. “No. I don’t care. This is how it is, am I clear?”

The alternative was, as it was for every member of staff (Gates included) going home for the evening. If Flint went home he’d spend the night driving himself insane or worse, wandering the city, tapping into contacts and allies, trying to eliminate all place where Silver couldn’t be. If he was at their bar he could at least stay tethered to something that felt like reality, at least for now.

“We can talk it over after close tonight,” Gates added softly, resting a hand on Flint’s back, “Figure out a plan if you like. But you know you can’t be in the kitchen with your head in the past.”

After a pause and a slow deep breath, a bit of tension eased out of Flint’s shoulders.

“Fine.”

Gates rubbed his back for a moment. He grabbed the rum bottle again and topped off Flint’s drink, before pouring himself a matching glass. The bar was mostly empty, one high top occupied by someone with a beer and a book, a booth hosting a late lunch date, one regular nursing his aviation at the end of the bar. They could take a moment just the two of them.

“We’ll figure it out, Jamie,” Gates told him, knocking the glasses together. Flint nodded weakly and said nothing, taking up his glass, tapping it gently against the bar top, and downing it with ease.

Across the street, watching the foot traffic and cars pass the brick street front of the Walrus with its custom neon sign and myriad pride flags catching the growing winds, sat a busker. He was a familiar sight on the block, playing his bass guitar under the scaffolded walkway to whatever audience would stop to listen. As the sky opened up and people hid under the scaffolding, his audience grew for a time.

Amongst them, a young man with a camera who was as interested in the bar across the way as he was in the busker’s performance. Silver had to admit he was grateful for the cover, between it and the storm, not a soul from The Walrus, patron or crew, noticed him.

Yes it was risky, even with one of his casual get ups on (you’d be surprised how often people ignored trucker caps and hoodies), and no it wasn’t like he thought Vane or the others were lying.

He just needed to see it for himself, needed to see Flint’s retirement happily ever after with his own eyes for it to seem real. Or so he had thought.

Seeing it in that moment, seeing Flint slip out front for a moment and stand under the awning to have a smoke, his attention fixed wholly on the storm clouds overhead-

It didn’t help. It just sent him running back to Manhattan with his metaphorical tail between his legs.

[necromelli]

growing up, I always pictured district four down south. like, Louisiana + Mississippi typa beat. maybe even a lil bit of the Florida panhandle and/or little bit of Texas. and maybe I'm biased bc I'm from the south.

so, stripping away from canon geographics + culture from the West Coast, can you imagine country boy! Finnick Odair?

he's a master at knots, nets, and traps still. he can fish like no one's business. that's all still the same. but now you've got crawdad fishing. warm water almost all year round except for a few short months where it's sweltering during the day and freezing at night. you've got swamps and water birds now too — ducks, geese, pheasants just past the borders. Finnick breaking the rules by going into the marshes to catch said birds, just because it's fun.

Finnick who has an accent, a little southern twang in his voice. Finnick who has no problems working in the day, even after winning his games, because that's just how he grew up. Johnny down the street didn't get to fish because he's sick? Finnick's out there before dawn, catching as many crawdads as he can fit in his net. you've got some bass thrown in there, maybe some oysters, too. Community is everything in a southern town.

Finnick 'god bless her heart' Odair talking to the Capitol women. He's got that southern charm, that way old Baptist church ladies gossip and sound so damn sweet. He's so sarcastic but none of the posh capitol people pick on it. Saying "no, you are as cute as a button, I promise!" to Capitol women because they just swoon over the compliment, not realizing that Finnick is calling them childish and immature.

old southern mama! mags who gifts finnick his own little cowboy hat after he wins his games. and Finnick, who refuses to let the women touch it because not only is it from mags, there's that unspoken rule about wearing a cowboy's hat. (Iykyk)

[honkytonkdyke]

hi i’ve just learned that will graham is a southerner from louisiana this is not a fucking drill. okay i think it makes sense that he went to new orleans. but i think because it says he moves there he probably wasn’t from anywhere with a lot of cajun influence so probably northern or central louisana closer to mississippi or maybe east texas but i think since he grew up poor the first makes more sense. i think it’s easier to lose an accent that isn’t cajun and i think it makes sense with the way he annunciates we really don’t see him slurring his words in the show and i think that’s because he probably had a really thick accent and is trying to cover it up. he annunciates his words very clearly and purposely and i’m going insane i need write a fic

[theywhoshantbenamed]

ABO Headcanons

California being a dormant omega. He doesn't quite look like a classic omega, being taller than even many alphas, but he has the nurturing tendencies (wanting to adopt Austin and wanting to care for him when he's cold). He's also unafraid of most Alphas - which is a quality considered undesirable in old society - and has often argued against them. An Alphas Voice works on him, still, but using their Voice has been made illegal in many states(not yet federal law).

New York as a dormant Alpha. He doesn't look much like one of his gender either, being of medium build, and he's shorter than some omegas like Mississippi or Florida. He has the aggressiveness of a stereotypical Alpha, but it's still nothing like a dominant's. He's not as territorial, but a majority of the Northeastern states are also Alphas of varying rank, and he grew up thinking it's what he's supposed to do

Alaska is a dominant alpha. It's surprising to many - not that he’s an alpha(he certainly has the build of one), but that he is a dominant one - because he's remarkably laid back. When people tell him this, he gets a little bothered, but refuses to show it. Being an alpha doesn't mean he has to be loud and aggressive all the time. However, his chill attitude also probably derives from a lineage of strong A genes, making him a higher rank than many.

Texas is a dominant alpha, the biggest stereotype. He's loud, proud, and loves to argue. California's got spunk, but he's raised to believe omegas are weaker, and that creates conflict in him. Also, internalized homophobia time, he is attracted to other Alphas

Florida is a recessive omega. He doesn't show any of the qualities typical omegas do, and his heats tend to be irregular. When it comes to recessive omegas, I think the Voice does work on them, but only when used by someone of strong A lineage, like Alaska(not that he would ever use it). The only real indicator that he's an omega is his medical records, if you can even find them. Otherwise, people just have to believe him. When it comes to pheromones, he can smell the scents, but they have little to no effect on him

Louisiana is another case of a dominant alpha with a lack of aggression/territoriality. He's heard it all, from every gender, about how he should act. He, frankly, doesn't care. He's confident in himself, and he's never felt more understood than by Florida, someone who knows what it's like to not fit in with people of your secondary gender. At the same time, however, he finds himself feeling more like a dominant Alpha around Florida than he ever did before. He wants to protect him and scent him and even make him submit at times. It scares him, especially since Florida isn't affected like he is, and he doesn't know how to allow himself to express these desires. They're normal to other dominant alphas, but not him.

Georgia is a dominant omega(wooo first one!) who very much fits in with his secondary gender, with a tendency to care for others and bring a sense of calm to those around him with his scent. His attraction is strictly towards other Omegas and Betas He loves Florida very much and the same is true vice versa. He is nervous around Alphas, though, for some reason.

Nevada is a dominant Omega; definitely lives up to the standard. His confidence as a Queen is a given, with an ability to make Alphas submit to him. Despite his status, his preferences lie most commonly in Betas. He has on-and-off relationships with Connecticut, Colorado, New Jersey, and even Gov.

Gov has no secondary gender. It's one of the things that's always separated him from the States. It’s never stopped him from keeping order between them, but hes never surprised when someone decides to challenge his authority. Thankfully, he’s got enough dirt on everyone to keep him cushy in his position.

[phoenixinthefiles]

So basically we all know Miles is from New York he’s a NORTHERN U.S citizen

I can almost always tell whether other people who write him are from the north or south (or neither) depending on how they write him

Most Miles 42 or 1610 writers aren’t even American

BUT from the ones who are I can tell that most aren’t from the south or they have family who live up north so they know the difference OR they’re just good at disguising their southerness.

Because there is a PRETTY big difference between the way even black people with our pretty distinct vernacular and sometimes accent, talk. It depends on what region or state we’re from.

Like someone who lives in Texas and grew up there wouldn’t talk like someone who grew up in New York

Even when you’re writing a black character who grew up in Georgia they’d stick out like a sore thumb in Alabama, or Mississippi, or Louisiana, and those are all southern states

And someone from Chicago (central state) wouldn’t talk like someone from Missouri (another central state)

Obviously there are MANY exceptions to this observation (a big one being the influence of friends/family members from a different state)

I just think it’s kinda cool that something like difference in dialect and accent can be observed through writing a self-insert fanfic—something that many writing analysts look over

idk I just like things like that

[omgcatboi]

Same anon as before haha

You have a nice twang to your voice, like there’s a hint of southern or Appalachian, but on top of it a more classic surfer dude drawl. And then you’ve got the kind of gravelly undertone with it that teenage boys get when they spend a lot of time straining (whether it be yelling at video games or projecting across large distances/on a farm, there’s this almost stretched sound to the voice like it’s not quite adjusted to how it’s being used yet or how much room it takes up). It’s very pleasant to listen to, and almost lulls me into a trance.

Your chuckle too is very nice. I was trying to place who you reminded me of and I think it’s Chris from total drama island.

The southern is from my mom's side of the family from Mnt Hermon, Bugalosa, and Batton Rouge Louisiana ( not where family roots trace all the way back but those are around where my younger immediate family on that side is from ) I lived in Mississippi just about a twenty minute drive from Mnt Hermon on the way to Franklinton Louisiana. So that's where that part comes from. Because I'd visit out there all the time as a kid.

Surfer dude drawl comes from where I was born and raised in North Florida. I grew up in a big city on the beach there.

My voice sounds like it's strained because my dad's voice carries and so does mine. You can hear us from across the front yard easily. Even before T, my voice carried. So now that it's adjusting to being deeper, it's got a strained sound to it from overexertion more than likely.

So there's some Jay lore 😂

[ausetkmt]

This holiday season, many Americans will tour historic mansions in the Southern United States that are beautifully decked out in traditional wreaths, garlands and mistletoe for Christmas.

At Mount Vernon, George Washington’s Virginia mansion, tourists are promised candlelit tours and a “festive evening” of refreshments, 18th-century dancing and more. Visitors can even meet a reenactor playing Martha Washington, America’s first lady.

At the state-run Hofwyl-Broadfield Plantation Historic Site in Brunswick, Georgia, promoters promise attendees a “magical experience” during the holiday event, learning how “Christmas was celebrated on a Southern rice plantation during the 1850s.”

What these tours teach is how rich white Southerners once celebrated Christmas: singing Christmas carols, dancing, drinking the cider brew wassail and enjoying refreshments or formal meals.

Few make a serious effort to tell what Christmas was like for the enslaved workers at these plantations before the American Civil War.

What’s missing?

When the black historian Brandon Byrd visited Belle Meade, a mansion in Nashville, Tennessee, for its Christmas tour a few years ago, he was shocked that the slave community and their harsh realities were barely mentioned. Instead, he reported, the tour guide mostly related “stories about the white men, women and children who woke up to Christmas in the mansion’s plush bedrooms.”

By the American Civil War, nearly 4 million slaves in all toiled in the Southern states, and about a million lived as servants in mansions and as field hands on large plantations with 50 slaves or more. They did almost all the grueling household and field labor that kept these places going, often sleeping and cooking in primitive cabins and working in unhealthy conditions under the threat of the whip.

In fact, the historic mansions hosting Christmas tourists never would have been built without the profits generated by slave labor. The grand Nottoway Plantation and resort in Louisiana, which traditionally puts on a Christmas event, was constructed just before the Civil War by some 155 slave workers.

Fictional tales and memoirs

In researching my 2019 book “Yuletide in Dixie,” I discovered that many historic plantation and mansion sites are reluctant to talk about slavery at their Christmas events. This is partly because administrators want to avoid topics that might make paying guests angry or uncomfortable.

But the omission of black Southerners from these holiday tales also stems from pervasive myths about slave life at Southern plantations before the Civil War.

For a long time, many people got their ideas about slavery at these places from memoirs, novels and short stories written by white Southerners after the Civil War. These stories, now outrageous for their racial stereotypes, not only justified the institution of slavery, they also made it seem like all enslaved people had fun on a Southern plantation at holiday time, dancing, singing, laughing and feasting for the holiday season, just as their masters did.

Susan Dabney Smedes, a white girl who grew up on a Mississippi plantation, published a memoir in 1887 called “Memorials of a Southern Planter” that made slave Christmases sound like wonderful times. Smedes wrote about how slaves wore their best clothes for Christmas, played a word game called “Christmas Gif’” with their white enslavers and drank eggnog their master made for them.

In a fictional tale published in the Century Magazine in 1911, an enslaved carpenter named Jerry even turns down the freedom that his master offers him on Christmas because he likes his life as a slave so much, and especially the Christmas present his master specially picks out for him each year.

Many of these memoirs and preposterous short stories and novels about happy slave Christmas experiences were so popular that they were republished in new editions over and over again from the late 1800s and early 1900s until, in some cases, the present.

Smedes’ “Memorials of a Southern Planter” was regularly republished for a century after its first appearance.

Many Americans got falsely pleasant images of slavery and especially slave Christmases from reading these works, and these wrongful impressions not only affected how the public thought and still thinks about slavery but, more specifically, how site administrators at Southern historic mansions and plantations planned their Christmas programs.

Whipped and sold on Christmas

I read many documents to find out how slaves actually spent their Christmases. The truth is deeply disturbing. The image shows the scars from whipping inflicted on the back of a slave. Mediadrumworld.com

On the one hand, the majority of enslaved people did get some them time off from work during Christmas, as well as feasts and presents. Some got to travel or to get married, privileges that they didn’t get at other times of the year. But these privileges could be withdrawn for any reason at all, and many slaves never got them at all.

Slavery was a brutal system of forced labor to enrich those same owners. Even over the holiday, masters kept the power to punish slaves. A photo taken during the Civil War shows a man who was whipped at Christmas. His back was covered with scars, showing that when masters punished the people they held in bondage, they often did so brutally.

There were other cruel forms of punishment. On one South Carolina plantation, a master angry at an enslaved woman he suspected of miscarrying her pregnancy on purpose locked her up for the Christmas holiday.

Masters sometimes forced enslaved workers to get drunk even if they did not want to drink, or wrestle with each other on Christmas simply for the amusement of the master’s family.

Likewise, I learned in my research, slaveholders bought and sold plenty of people over the holiday, keeping slave traders busy during Christmas week.

Escapes and panics over slave rebellions

It is revealing that many enslaved black Southerners also chose Christmas as the time to try to escape to freedom, despite the difficulties of traveling in cold weather with few supplies.

The famous black liberator Harriet Tubman, for example, helped her three brothers enslaved in Maryland to escape bondage over Christmas in 1854. Obviously, slaves like the Tubman brothers greatly resented their enslavement, or they would not have agreed to leave.

Evidence shows that many slaveholders knew their slaves hated their condition. Although the U.S. never had a major Christmas slave rebellion, Southern whites frequently panicked over frequent rumors that their slaves planned to revolt over the holiday. They armed themselves, conducted extra patrols, banned black people from the streets of cities and executed or whipped slaves whose behavior they thought was suspicious.

Panics over Christmas rebellions took place frequently. They were, at times, confined to a state, as in Charleston, South Carolina – then a British colony – in 1765. Or, they could spread in the entire American South, as one did in 1856. As I found in my research, Christmas revolt panics continued all the way through the Civil War.

These panics made Christmas a bad time for many slaves, who passed their Christmases in great fear that they would be rounded up and killed.

What’s changing?

Some Southern historic plantations and mansions are beginning to include a more accurate history of slavery in their presentations of the past.

Montpelier, the Virginia plantation of U.S. President James Madison, and Monticello, the famed mansion and plantation of Thomas Jefferson, for example, have been making efforts for several years now to work more accurate presentations.

Yet another onetime slave-owning president’s preserved site, James Monroe’s Highland, likewise is striving to provide a far more comprehensive look at the enslaved people who once lived there and the conditions they experienced.

There are signs that such changes are taking place elsewhere too. In 2013, for example, the Ben Lomond plantation in Virginia featured in its holiday programming the tale of how enslaved people murdered the place’s owner over Christmas. That same year, Montpelier, once home to President James Madison, asked its interpreters at Christmas to explain to visitors that whites living nearby were afraid of violence by Madison’s slaves.

Christmas programming, however, is changing more slowly than programming at other times of the year. That is because many would like the holiday event to be a fun one.

But a public acknowledgment that slavery was immoral, horrific and resisted by its victims in the form of more sensitive and informative Christmas events at historic mansions and plantations might just be a step toward racial reconciliation in the U.S.

[randomvarious]

Little Joe Blue - "Standing On the Threshold" Jewel Spotlights the Blues, Volume 1 Song released in 1969. Compilation released in 1994. Blues

Excellent tune from this underappreciated guy who was born in Mississippi, grew up in Louisiana, moved to Detroit, fought in the Korean War, went back to Detroit, and then moved to Los Angeles in the 60s to record for some sizeable labels, including the great Jewel Records, based out of Shreveport, Louisiana. Critics often chided Little Joe Blue for sounding like a copycat of B. B. King, but, I mean, if you can sound like B. B. King, then you are one hell of a bluesman yourself, aren't you?

[rottingmanifesto]

"Motel" for whatever oc strikes your fancy! (Or if you'd rather do a character that's fine too I'm not picky LOL)

I’ll do Dasia since I haven’t written her much! Also I just made up a college so uh. yeah don’t take that as canon

—

Roughly all the buildings look the same the minute you hit the bayou, and for a second, any semblance of Mississippi-Louisiana differences seem just as rotted as the last shanty you drove past. Roxy’s got a head full of ideas about making all this seem/become/be better alongside her old man and now you. From top of the DPU nursing program to on the road to the shittiest motel in New Bordeaux, Louisiana. Can’t say this is the path you predicted.

Papa always said some bullshit about the necessity of accepting things as they were, save when he was 3/4ths down a Jack Daniels and ranting ‘bout the destruction of all evils. At some point you grew up and Papa didn’t. At some point you grew as tired as everyone else and needed to do something.

At least the mattress ain’t too shitty, and you got a gig at the ritzy white-folk hospital that should cover a few months’ stay. Hell, you could get an upgrade if you wanted. But there are people out here with it worse than a leaky roof and half-tank-full Potomac. You reach to the phone to dial Roxy’s number after shoving the suitcase under the bed.

“It’s Dasia.”

“You get to the hotel?”

“Yeah, real dump.”

“Figured. Curse of pro-bono work, huh?” You chuckle. “You could stay with MJ if that’s of any interest.”

“Prefer not, drive would fuckin’ kill my car. But thanks.”

“I could fix it up for you.”

You’d pay everything you had to have that happen. “Only if you want to, I mean, it’s a shitbox on wheels but it runs.”

“I’ll swing by sometime this week. You get the booze, I’ll bring my toolbox.”

“Aight, works for me.”

You pray she doesn’t hear the grin on your face through the phone.

[dovesndecay]

you can identify as queer and it can still also be a slur like these two things can be true. it is not ahistorical to say it's a slur when I've literally witnessed it being used as a slur. you have clearly never lived in the bible belt where people say 'those dirty queers'

The first time I remember hearing the word "queer," I couldn't have been more than a couple years old. Maybe 3 or 4. It was on the television.

"We're here, we're queer; get used to it." echoed through the room.

Now, I couldn't tell you which adults of my childhood were around me. I couldn't tell you the specifics of their conversation. But I remember the ... very specific flavor of condemnation that hummed behind every word they said.

I spent the majority of my life, with brief sojourns to other states, in a town of less than 15,000 in the toe of Louisiana. We had more churches than grocery stores or schools.

The unique sound of Southern Disapproval is one very familiar to me.

I was lucky -- mom's bi, too, and dad's an ally. But their support, even before I knew for myself that I needed it, didn't shield me from the queerphobia in others.

I never came out to my very southern grandmother. Maybe she knew, maybe she didn't. I stopped hiding it as much after I moved from Louisiana to Mississippi, and then to Florida, feeling more comfortable exploring my gender away from my family and our culture.

The reason I never came out to her was because every time I thought about maybe telling her, "I'm bisexual. I'm nonbinary. I might be some kind of aspec but we're not dealing with that right now" I would remember.

Midday at her kitchen table, in the house I spent most of my adolescence, where she let me play with bread dough and made me chocolate milk, and smoked her cigarettes. My back is to the tv, my focus on the task of rolling dough in my hands -- oh, stimming even back then -- and I am frozen by her furious exclamation, "Ugh, disgustin'. Gay men are one thing, but lesbians, I just don't fucking understand that nasty shit."

I grew up hearing that [relative] "dresses like a bull dyke." Disapproval. Judgemental. Found wanting.

I grew up learning that trans people were jokes or fantasies, but never real people.

The first time I heard the word queer, it was a battlecry.

It was a statement of existence, and a refusal to keep dying silent.

All of our words are slurs, and I get to choose which ones I reclaim for myself.

[female-malice]

With her feet rooted on the ground and her voice steady, Colette Pichon Battle seems to be the type of person most of us would want nearby in a crisis. When she speaks about climate change displacing millions, she uses measured words to describe strategies to dismantle structural racism, build alliances in community, and provide legal services for equitable disaster recovery. As I listen to her TED Talk, I’m reminded of a cheer from my high school in coastal Alabama: “Rock, rock, rock, rock, steady, eddy, eddy, eddy, rock! Rock steady.” So I wasn’t surprised to learn she describes her superpower as “seeing patterns in chaos,” an apt skill for the organization she founded, the Gulf Coast Center for Law and Policy, now called Taproot Earth.

Working on the frontlines of climate disasters caused by hurricanes, sea level rise, and fossil fuel companies, she knows that recovery for industries has been quick, and recovery for communities has been slow. From Houston, Texas, to Pensacola, Florida, her work brings climate change to the community level, especially with women at the heart of neighborhoods and households.

“We found that the folks most willing to get to know each other were actually women,” she said in an interview with Reimagine. “When women talk about their communities, it’s sort of like women talking about their children . . . So a lot of the moral fabric and the moral movement of a family and of a community is done through the women.”

She and her staff used a meeting format called the People’s Movement Assembly, which involved Black, Latina, and Asian American women learning about each other’s lives and agreeing to reach a vision together. From there, groups of women followed through on actions, such as talking about the climate crisis and extractive industries with elected officials in Louisiana who needed the vote from people of color.

In Bayou Liberty, just north of New Orleans, Colette grew up in the house built by her grandfather, where her mother was born. There, water was a way of life: “The bayou is green and lush and all the things that equal bountiful life,” she told TED Radio, “But it is also watery and muddy. You can smell everything.”

She remembers the names of particular hurricanes along the Gulf Coast, much as I did growing up in Alabama. During the eye of the storm, family members would get into flat-bottomed boats called pirogues to check on neighbors before retreating to safety inside while the other band of the hurricane passed. But the water became unrecognizable given the severity of Hurricane Katrina. As an adult, Colette practiced law in Washington, DC, but after the destruction of Katrina, she vowed never to leave her beloved Gulf Coast again.

When she first saw the Louisiana flood maps at a community meeting, Colette says her life changed. The maps explained how the thirty-foot surge from Hurricane Katrina could flood her community as well as those in Mississippi and Alabama. She realized the land lost from sea level rise was the buffer to her own home—a buffer predicted to disappear. “I wasn’t alone at the front of the room,” she explained. “I was standing there with other members of south Louisiana’s communities—Black, Native, poor. We thought we were just bound by temporary disaster recovery, but we found that we were now bound by the impossible task of ensuring that our communities would not be erased by sea level rise due to climate change.

“I just assumed it would always be there. Land, trees, marsh, bayou. I just assumed it would be there as it had been for thousands of years,” she said. “I was wrong.” Knowing climate is predicted to displace more than 200 million people by the next century, Colette advocates for preparing for global migration by restructuring social and economic systems rooted in justice, such as investing in public hospitals before the impact of climate migration or additional storms like Hurricane Ida. It’s not like we don’t know what is coming, and Colette knows preparation is a life-and-death matter.

“Climate change is not the problem,” she said. “Climate change is the most horrible symptom of an economic system that has been built for a few to extract every precious value out of this planet and its people, from our natural resources to the fruits of our human labor.”

What holds clear and steady is her belief of what can be done now. “It’s already possible, y’all,” she often tells people, with the practical sense of someone who can get things done. Colette knows women who have the most to lose from climate disasters also know what it’ll take to plan for the future and anticipate the storm.

Reprinted with permission from Love Your Mother: 50 States, 50 Stories, and 50 Women United for Climate Justice by Mallory McDuff © 2023.

[saphyrenights]

August 2022 marks the 30th anniversary of Hurricane Andrew making it's historic impact on the Bahamas, southern Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, and other parts of the south and east in 1992. It was the first category 5 hurricane to make landfall in the United States since Hurricane Camille in 1969. Since Andrew, only one other category five hurricane has made a US landfall: Hurricane Michael in 2018.

Adjusted for inflation, Hurricane Andrew caused almost $50 billion in damage, leading to the collapse of Florida's homeowner insurance system. In the years since, building codes were vastly improved in south Florida to withstand powerful hurricanes.

65 people died as a result of the storm, with most fatalities occurring during the recovery phase due to accidents and medical emergencies. Given the enormous amount of damage Hurricane Andrew caused, the shockingly low death toll (especially in Florida) has sometimes been partially credited to meteorologist Bryan Norcross and his 23-hour-long broadcast before, during, and after Andrew made its first US landfall. As the hurricane battered the television studio in downtown Miami, Norcross kept up a calm, steady flow of information and encouragement to everyone listening/watching, even as the storm forced him and his fellow anchors into a small concrete "bunker" for safety.

A humanitarian crisis grew in the aftermath of Hurricane Andrew. Neither President George H. W. Bush nor Florida Governor Lawton Chiles wanted to take responsibility for the government's delayed response to Kate Hale (Miami's deputy emergency management coordinator) and her requests for help in south Florida. With few structures remaining operable, people were becoming dehydrated from lack of water, starving from a lack of food, and desperation grew more prevalent among the survivors. Even with private citizens from all over the country attempting to help the people in south Florida, it wasn't enough. Society broke down into lawlessness and fear. Government reinforcements finally arrived almost a week after Andrew ravaged southern Florida and the northern Gulf coast. 1992 was an election year, and many people cited Bush's delayed disaster response as the reason they voted for his rival, Bill Clinton.

Hurricane Andrew had lasting ripple effects on everything from the insurance industry, to the local ecology (displaced pet pythons formed a breeding population in the Everglades, for example), to national politics. Though its legacy has been eclipsed by arguably more catastrophic hurricanes like Katrina, Maria, and Michael, Andrew marked the beginning of a new era of devastating hurricanes to ravage a more connected United States. In 1992, cell phones, live satellite feeds, cable TV, rudimentary internet, and improved computer modeling kept Americans all over the country informed about Hurricane Andrew in a way that didn't happen just a few years earlier with Hurricane Hugo. Hurricane Andrew marks a milestone in modern disaster messaging and communications.

As we progress through yet another hurricane season, let's not forget the lessons that Hurricane Andrew taught us 30 years ago. 1) Be prepared BEFORE disaster strikes. 2) Working together for the greater good can literally save lives. 3) If authorities tell you to evacuate, LEAVE. 4) A battery powered radio is a lifeline when the electricity goes out. 5) Studying history can prepare us for the future.

Thanks for reading, and stay safe.

***

edit: This was in my drafts. I forgot to post it back in August. I didn't want to delete it, so I'll just post it now, a day late and a dollar short. IDK if anyone following me will get anything out of it, but I like writing essays, so...here ya go.

[notsoinnocentlittleangel]

Some Joanna driving things:

-Joanna thinks everyone should know how to drive a manual transmission, but not necessarily that everyone always should drive it.  She prefers manual, but she does see the appeal in automatic, especially if you live in an area with a lot of hills or traffic (”first time I went through that I-75/85 downtown Atlanta mess with my manual, I learned why people drive automatics”).  But she absolutely believes everyone should at least know how to do it.  

-Despite her tendency to be reckless and impulsive, Joanna’s a good driver, mostly.  She doesn’t tend to speed as much as you might guess, and she has good driving skills.  She can get road rage, if somebody does something really stupid.  Don’t let her drive on snow or ice, though.  She has almost no experience doing it and it’s one time she actively tries not to drive.  

-She likes driving smaller roads as opposed to interstates.  She really prefers US 90 to I-10 when going along the Gulf Coast, for instance (it’s actually one of her favorite drives, especially through rural deep south Louisiana and when it runs right next to the beach in Mississippi).  She grew up in a small town and driving on little backroads.  She does take interstates frequently.  If she’s traveling a long distance, or especially if she needs to get somewhere quickly, she’ll take the interstate.  

-Of course, when she worked as a mechanic, Joanna wore an actual mechanic’s uniform.  But she’ll work on her own cars with whatever she has on.  She has definitely gone under the hood in a nice dress at least once.  The very first time she helped her grandfather work on his old Mustang, she was in a skirt.  

-Don’t touch her radio without asking, or she’ll probably threaten to duct tape your hands or lock you in the trunk.  Or both.  

-You know she really trusts you if she lets you drive her car.  

[itsawhumpsideblog]

For America's Bright Starry Banner, Book 1

If you'd like to be added to a tag list, let me know! Content notes: sad goodbyes, past physical abuse and resulting injuries The lyric that starts this chapter is from the song that inspired Patrick's character. It's "Honest Pat Murphy of the Irish Brigade", another one with a dozen variants. This is the one I grew up hearing, because we had this tape in our car (back in the stone age when cars had tape decks- and I'm not as old as that makes me sound). https://youtu.be/LKVk8ScYA-w

"Says Pat to his mother, "It looks strange to see

Brothers fighting in such a queer manner,

But I'll fight till I die if I never get killed

For America's bright, starry banner."

~Honest Pat Murphy of the Irish Brigade

Our lives in New York were hard sometimes, as Patrick's mother had hinted in her letter of so long ago that they would be, but they were good, too. I got work with Patrick at the docks, unloading ships, and in a way it was like old times. We spoke more English than we had at home, but luckily we had found rooms in the same building where the Murphys lived and now, instead of running next door, we were forever running up and down stairs between apartments, which wasn't so different at all.

It was the fall of 1860 and Patrick and I were 17 when I really became aware of the politics of my new home country. I had gotten into the habit of reading the newspaper over the summer. If I managed to have a few extra pennies I bought it from one of the newsboys on the street, or scrounged old editions out of the garbage when money was too tight. There was talk of rebellion in the southern states if Abraham Lincoln was elected. I wasn't overly concerned with the politics of the thing, but Patrick followed them closely.

"If the South secedes, Micheál, there's going to be a war," he said very seriously one evening.

"They won't, though," I replied. "It'll never work to just leave a country like that- think of Ireland and the British."

Patrick just shrugged. "It worked for the Americans once before," he pointed out, "And it could happen again, if Lincoln's elected."

"Do you suppose we'd have to go in the army?" I asked.

Patrick shrugged again. "Don't know. I think I'd have to go. I've been here too long I suppose," and he laughed. "I don't think I could watch the country fall to pieces now."

Patrick, as usual, was right. Lincoln was elected that year and was inaugurated March 4th of 1861, just four days before Patrick's 18th birthday. Patrick was immensely satisfied with the outcome and considered the inauguration his birthday present.

As Patrick had predicted, the Southern States had begun to secede right after the election and just a week after the inauguration, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina and Texas were calling themselves the Confederate States of America and had written their own constitution.

Everything happened fast from then on. In April, the Union arsenal at Fort Sumter, in South Carolina, was fired on by the "Confederate States of America" and the war began in earnest. My birthday was later that week, and Patrick joked that his birthday present might have been the inauguration, but that mine was the war. Of course, I thought, it stood to reason that Patrick would have that luck.

Naturally we weren't content to stay home and miss the excitement, and one afternoon Patrick and I left work and went to join the militia.

We found ourselves in a long line of men standing in front of the recruiter's table as the recruiter, who looked rather surprised to see such a gathering, went through the line methodically, asking for birth dates, names, heights, hair and eye colors. We were nearly to the front of the line when all of a sudden Patrick, who had been lounging and looking bored, stood straight up.

"Hey!" he called. "What the devil do you think you're doing, boy?" I looked curiously to the young man stepping up to the table, and realized with a start that it was Declan. There was fire in Patrick's eyes as he marched to the head of the line and collared his brother.

"What the devil are you playing at?" he asked again. Declan looked sullen. His jaw stiffened in the same stubborn manner Patrick should have recognized in himself, and he burst out,

"I'm enlisting and you're not going to stop me."

"Of course I am," Patrick insisted. He turned to the recruiter. "He's only sixteen," he explained and gave Declan a much more gentle push towards the door. "Go home, laddie. I'll be there soon."

"Fine," Declan spat and left.

Patrick and I looked uneasily at each other as he joined me again in line. At last it was our chance. Patrick stepped up to the table and the recruiter looked him up and down.

"Name?"

"Patrick Murphy," Patrick said confidently, his familiar accent ringing through the room as the rest of the line looked on. Something about Patrick made other people stop and watch him.

"Age?"

"18 this past month." This passed without comment as the recruiter wrote down the information.

"Where were you born?"

Patrick gave the name of our village. "In Ireland," he clarified.

"Occupation?"

"Dockworker."

"Hair?"

"Red," Patrick laughed.

"Eyes?"

"Green."

"Height?"

"Near six feet."

"Can you write?"

Patrick nodded.

"Sign here," the recruiter said tersely, and with a flourish Patrick picked up the pen and signed his name. Then it was my turn. We went through the same routine.

"Name?"

"Michael O'Sullivan," I said and glared at Patrick when he laughed. He was like Mother- unwilling to get used to the Americanization of my name. He never called me anything other than Micheál. The recruiter, however accepted my answer but when I stated truthfully that I was 18 he looked at me strangely. Shaking his head as though unable to believe it, he wrote that down too and moved on.

"Where were you born?" he asked me, in the bored tones of one who had asked the same questions a hundred times. I answered with the name of the same village as Patrick and he looked at us more closely for a moment before moving on.

"Occupation?"

"I work at the docks."

"Hair?"

"Black."

"Eyes?"

"Blue."

"Height?"

"Five feet, nine inches."

"Can you write?"

"Sure, I can." I signed my name as Patrick had done and we were officially enlisted.

When Patrick and I arrived home, not much later, we were the property of Abraham Lincoln himself for the next three months. We had our orders to report in two days to board a train to, as far as we could guess, march south to end the rebellion in time to be home when our enlistment ran out.

We were in high spirits until I opened the door of my apartment and realized that nobody was inside. A little more cautiously, we went up to the Murphys apartment and opened the door to find our families sitting there waiting. Declan looked daggers at us both as we came through the door and our mothers had clearly been crying. Maura was staring determinedly at her sewing and Bridget and Colleen were nowhere to be found.

Patrick's Da, who had taken it upon himself to be father to my sisters and me as well, was staring out the dirty window to the street and when he turned and we saw the look on his face, I felt Patrick brace himself for the impact.

"What have you done?" Mr. Murphy said in a terribly quiet voice, and I heard Patrick gulp air.

"I've enlisted," he said more steadily than I would have done. I added, too loudly in the silent, still room,

"So have I." I heard my mother sob and out of the corner of my eye I saw Maura brush her hand quickly across her eyes.

"Micheál, I've lost your Da," Mother burst out. "I can't afford to lose you, too."

"Mother, nobody's going to die," I protested. "I'm not, sure, and Patrick's not either, so don't worry!"

She shook her head. "You can't get out of this, can you?"

"No!" I exclaimed. I was about to say more when Patrick poked me. I quickly closed my mouth and Mother just shook her head and that was the end of the conversation. Somehow, no more was said about the war that evening, or about our enlistment.

In fact, nothing much was said about it until the morning we were going to leave. I didn't sleep much the night before and when I woke for breakfast with Mother and my sisters, the mood was sullen and sad. Very little was said over the meal, until I rose to go.

"I should-" I began awkwardly and Mother began to cry. I could see from their red eyes and the way Bridget wiped her nose that it had been a long night for my family.

Maura came around the table and gave me a hug. I realized with a start that though she was still four years older than I, she was now much shorter.

"You be careful, Micheál," she said. "And write us." She choked up and hugged me tighter. I took a long look at Bridget, too, as she hugged me. She was taller than Maura, like I was, though she was only 16, and I was suddenly sorry that I was going to miss the next three months with them. Surely it wouldn't be any more than that, and three months wasn't so long, I thought, to comfort myself, and at last turned to Mother.

I had been most worried about saying goodbye to Mother, but when the moment came she held up well and I was relieved.

"Be careful, my son," she told me and then, kissing me, added simply, "Until we meet again, Micheál." She held me at arms length and looked at me so tenderly that I had to look away or start crying myself and after a moment Mother smoothed my hair back and kissed my forehead one last time before she let me go.

I couldn’t make myself speak and I waved and tried to smile as I walked out the door. I felt better when I met Patrick on the street, however. I could see that we weren't the only ones saying goodbye to our families at that moment, and the flying flags and crowds of people in the streets restored my spirits. Just like that, I was excited for the adventure which I was sure we were about to have.

When I think back on it, I realize: We had no idea.

After hours of hurrying up in order to wait, we were at last marched through the streets of my beloved adopted city to the train station to go south. Patrick and I marched side by side, grinning. We were about to start off on the adventure of a lifetime. It was crowded when we got to the train, and Patrick and I milled around with the rest of the newly-minted soldiers waiting to board it.

Near us, a woman with an accent from Dublin was tearfully bidding her son goodbye.

"Be careful, Teddy," she begged, wiping at her eyes with a handkerchief. "Come home safe to me, you hear?"

"I will, Mother," the boy replied, sounding embarrassed. She hugged him and then he submitted to hugs from a group of girls, apparently his sisters, and a very small brother. At last, after second hugs from most of the sisters and a third from the little boy, he tore himself away from his family to a chorus of, "Bye, Teddy! Write us! Come home soon!" I grinned at the look of relief on his face.

Patrick and I, when we finally stepped onto the train, found a set of benches that were empty and next to a window, looking over the platform where crowds of people waved to their loved ones about to leave for the war. We sat next to each other and relaxed at last, but we had only been there for a minute or two when a strangely familiar voice said from my elbow, "Micheál?" and I turned around in surprise. A tall, skinny young man was standing next to me, running his fingers through his brown hair.

"Jack!" I cried, jumping up to shake his hand. "Where did you come from?"

"I could ask you the same," he laughed and then looked at Patrick, sitting on the bench and watching us curiously. "And is this Patrick, himself, the famous Patrick Murphy?"

"That I am," Patrick grinned, standing to shake Jack's hand.

"Patrick," I said, "Jack Lynch, seasick all the way from Ireland to the New World. Jack, Patrick Murphy, the apple thief." They had both heard stories of each other, and laughed. Jack sat down across from us and after a second another boy sat down beside him.

"I didn't think I'd ever make it on this train," the boy said, in an Irish accent like we all had. It was the boy from the platform, the one with all the sisters and he looked around after a second, as if he'd just noticed us for the first time. "You don't mind me sitting down here, do you?" he asked. We shook our heads, amused. I liked him already.

"Name's Ted McGrath," he said, pronouncing it the Irish way- McGraw- and again there were handshakes all around. We introduced ourselves and settled back into talking about the war, and what we expected from it, and about all the heroic things we planned to do.

"I tell you, we'll have those rebels running back down South in a week- at most," Ted declared. "When they let us Irish boys at it, we'll show them down in Dixie how things are to be." We laughed and agreed. All President Lincoln really needed was us.

"They'll promote us, sure," Jack chipped in.

"Captain Patrick Murphy," Patrick mused and nodded. "I like the way it sounds. With Lieutenant Micheál O'Suilleabhain by my side."

"Michael," I said automatically and the three of them laughed and shook their heads.

"You can take the lad out of Ireland, but you can't take Ireland out of the lad," Patrick joked. Jack and Ted laughed and I rolled my eyes. It was then that we noticed the boy standing quietly at Ted's elbow, looking uncomfortable.

"Can we help you with something?" Patrick asked kindly and the boy colored up.

"Begging pardon," he said with an accent that matched Patrick's but was thicker- perhaps he had come more recently from Ireland- "but could I sit down? The other seats all look to be full."

"Of course," Patrick said, gesturing to the seat opposite himself, next to the window. "Ted, Jack, shove over and give the lad some room to breathe."

The younger boy looked grateful and sat as far in the corner as he could squeeze himself.

"And what's your name?" Patrick asked the newcomer.

"Rory Coleman," he answered, ducking his head.

"If you don't mind me asking, Rory, how old are you?" Ted wanted to know.

"Near eighteen," Rory replied in that frightened voice.

"How near eighteen?" Ted asked dryly.

"Nearer seventeen," Rory amended, blushing and then when Ted raised an eyebrow, he admitted, "Sixteen."

"That I'd believe," Ted said, satisfied.

"Will you tell anyone?" Rory whispered, looking around anxiously.

"Not a soul, right lads?" Jack assured him, looking seriously at us. We nodded, but Patrick looked uncomfortable.

"I've a brother your age, Rory," he said. "I didn't let him enlist and I know you didn't ask me but I think you'd be better off at home."

Rory frowned a little and, blushing, worked up the courage to ask, "What makes you think that?"

Patrick looked startled. "You're too young for the army, that's all. We'd all be better off at home, only the rebels have started this and it's up to us to put a stop to it. But you're too young. We're all of enlistment age."

Jack colored a bit and chuckled. That was when I remembered that he wasn't eighteen yet and I laughed, too.

Rory shook his head and looked down at his feet. "I wouldn't be better off at home," he said, so firmly that we let the matter drop.

We slowly went back to joking around, with Rory sitting quietly watching us and laughing sometimes at something we said. Soon enough we had talked ourselves out and exhaustion overtook us. Ted, to our amazement, leaned over and folded his arms on his knees and, laying his head on them, went to sleep. Rory leaned against the side of the car and watched the distance speed by. Jack whistled under his breath. I looked around at everyone else in the car and wallowed in boredom.

We reached the train depot at Washington, D.C before dark and were herded out to set up tents.

"All right, men," the officer in charge shouted at us. "You'll collect your blankets and a day's rations and sleep here tonight. Tomorrow you'll get your uniforms and start learning to be real soldiers. Dismissed!"

We collected what we needed for the night and set up next to each other, the five of us in two tents. We talked about how difficult it would be to sleep, and we were right. The ground was hard no matter how I lay on it, and everywhere I tried to put my head there seemed to be a rock. I could hear the other boys tossing and turning, and it was hours before I was ready to be asleep.

Then, the next morning, we were awoken for the first time by reveille. It was a sound I would get used to someday, but on that morning, waking up fully dressed and with a red mark where my face had been pressed against a rock all night, I couldn't remember when I had been more exhausted. It was worse than my long hours at the docks- at least in New York, or at home in Ireland, I had come back to a real house at night and slept in relative warm comfort.

I got up anyway and hauled Patrick out of the tent. At the sound of the bugle he had merely smiled in his sleep and turned over.

"Wake up," I grumbled at him, shaking his shoulder. "Come on, lazy."

After a moment his eyes opened and after another split second they focused and he sat up quickly, then stood and left the tent.

"Well," he commented, stretching, "that wasn't so bad."

"Speak for yourself." Around us, men were coming out of their tents, yawning in the crisp spring air and stretching. Fires were started and coffee was put on to boil. After a moment, the flaps of the tent next to us were thrown open and our new friends made their way out.

Jack looked around at the field full of white tents and campfires and grinned.

"We've made it boys," he said and Ted, stretching his arms over his head and yawning, nodded. Rory, following behind them, said nothing, a shy shadow, but he gazed with those solemn eyes out over the tents and gave a satisfied nod.

Soon, our fire was started and we were eating the hard biscuits we had been issued, and drinking some coffee that Ted had made. We were just waking up enough to start wondering how we would know what to do next, when a bugle call was sounded and a sergeant came through yelling, another sound we would soon get used to.

"That means fall in! And that means you, and you and you," he informed us at a roar, shoving men into place and kicking dirt on a fire that one man had been putting fresh wood on.

"You've got to get going, laddie!" the Sergeant replied to the stunned look on the man's face. "You've no time for that! We've things to do!" The man must have decided that it would be futile to argue; he stood up and headed off with the rest of us, shaking his head.

As you can imagine, our attempts to fall into some kind of formation were not met with approval.

"What the hell kind of a formation is that? You're in the army now, not back on the farm digging potatoes! Stand up straight there! You, get your hands out of your pockets!" Ted moved his hands to his side, looking furtive and the Sergeant laughed. He paused for a moment in front of the five of us, who stood shoulder to shoulder. "Mary, Mother of God," he sneered. "They've enlisted children." He looked strong Ted, the tallest of us, up and down. "Do you shave?"

"Yessir, I've been shaving a few years now," Ted replied. The sergeant shook his head. 

"How about you?" he barked at Rory, and Ted moved closer as if to step between them. "Stand still at attention!" the Sergeant snapped, and turned back to Rory. "Well? Do you?"

"Yes-yessir," Rory stammered quietly, probably lying. The Sergeant snorted, but he left Rory alone. Harsh, he could be. Cruel, he wasn't and it didn't take a particularly discerning mind to sense Rory's fear.

"You likely looking lads are going to be fitted out in uniforms like real soldiers," the Sergeant yelled. "You'll go over to that tent and pick up one of everything they've got and then you'll trade until you've got what fits you. And if those bastards at the quartermaster's give you any trouble, you tell them Sergeant O'Malley'll have their hides and if they still gives you trouble, you come find me and I'll deal with it myself and you can be sure there'll be no more trouble, then. Right! Dismissed!"

Reeling slightly from the ordeal and trying to figure out what to make of our Sergeant, we meandered over to the quartermaster's tent. There was a wait, and then each of us was loaded down with shirts, drawers, pants, a pair of shoes, blankets and the like; everything we could carry and possibly more- Ted ended up carrying Rory's shoes after he dropped them for the third time- and we were sent back to our tents to put them on.

With no women around for miles, we changed right there in front of our tents, exchanging brown trousers for sky-blue and civilian hats for army issue caps. Patrick struggled with a shirt twice the size he needed, while Jack laughed over a pair of pants that came past his knees, but not much farther. We looked around after a moment and realized that Rory was nowhere to be seen.

"Rory, lad?" Jack called, looking around, and from inside their tent a voice answered,

"I'm in here."

"Why?" Ted asked, but Rory said simply,

"I'll be out when I'm dressed." He could evade a question better than anyone I had ever met.

"But why-" Ted began and pulled the tent flap back and looked in.

Then he stopped cold. His eyes widened and, curious, we gathered around too and one by one fell silent.

Rory stood inside the tent in his army pants- he had been lucky enough to find a pair that fit him, more or less,- but with his shirt off. He was staring at the ground, but we were staring at him. We could see across his back and up his shoulders, and disappearing into the waist of his trousers, a web of fine pink scars and a few open red cuts. His right shoulder was a massive blue bruise and there was a healing cut on his chest.

Ted stepped over and put a huge hand on Rory's shoulder. "Lad, what happened?" he asked quietly, a tone of voice we had not yet heard from him.

Rory looked up then, meeting Patrick's eyes. "I told you I wouldn't be better off at home," he repeated in a shamed whisper. Patrick just nodded.

"How old is that cut?" Jack asked. Rory shrugged.

"Maybe a week, now. The cuts on my back are newer."

"He should see the doctor," Jack said sounding shocked. "Come on, Rory. Let's go find him," he continued in a kind tone. Rory shook his head.

"I'll be fine- I always am," he said.

"How can you march like that?" Patrick demanded and Rory shrugged again.

"I've learned, is all," he said, his face burning, and we never got a chance to press the issue because the call came again to fall in and we were bound to obey. Ted, being Ted, took matters into his own hands.

Before Rory could put his shirt on again, the Sergeant could be heard standing right outside our tent bellowing.

"Sir!" Ted called, stepping out of the tent. He had Rory by the shoulder still, and pulled him along. "Sir, Coleman can't keep drilling, sir."

"Why not?" the sergeant asked absently, and Ted simply turned Rory forcefully around. I half thought that Rory would faint; his ears had gone totally red and he was biting his lip. I had never seen anyone look so ashamed, and to this day the sight has never been equaled in my experience.

"I'm inclined to agree with you," the sergeant said evenly. "All right, Coleman, go see the doctor about that and come back to duty when he gives his approval." With that, the sergeant walked briskly off and we scrambled to gather our gear and follow him- all except Rory.

We drilled late into the afternoon, and by the time we were finished I was nearly asleep on my feet. We went back to our tents when we were dismissed, grateful not to be on guard duty that night, and ate dinner quickly and without enjoyment.  

The next day began in the same way- we woke up uncomfortable from a night on the ground and went for drill. Today, though, something was different- when we formed up on the drill field, there were ten boys, a few of them not older than I was, standing there in neat grey uniforms. They were coolly sizing us up and just knowing that they were watching made me feel inadequate. I tried to stand as straight as I could at drill, to march as sharply and handle my gun as competently as it was possible for a man to do, but they still found fault with every step and breath we took. It was a long morning, but in the afternoon I could feel the improvement, just a little at a time.

That evening, we sat up late around the campfire. I wasn't as tired as I had been the previous day, and I wondered whether I might be getting used to sleeping in that tent. Though I was lucky enough to have a nice cot back in New York, it wasn't as though I had slept on one all my life. I thought of our room in the boarding house before we left Ireland.

"How's your back?" Patrick asked Rory as he wandered back from the sinks.

"I'm better, thanks," Rory said, ducking his head. He had been, by all appearances, working pretty hard although he was supposed to be resting. There was always enough firewood and when we came back from drill Rory had usually begun supper. We were grateful, but we wondered whether he was taking care of himself as he should.

"You wouldn't believe the fun you're missing," Jack told Rory sarcastically. He explained how drill was going and what we had been up to. "And you're lucky enough," he finished, "to be excused from duty and miss all of this exciting work we're doing."

"I'm not sure lucky quite covers it," Rory said dryly. Jack simply shrugged; perhaps that was so.

"I came from Ireland with my family five years ago," Rory said quietly and instantly we stopped moving, stopped talking, nearly stopped breathing in order to hear the story. Typical of him, it was tersely and quietly told, no extra details, no elaboration. "And then my mother and father died. I was in an orphan home, until they sent me out of the city on the Orphan Train. I went to Western New York. I was thirteen, then, and I was almost too old, so I was chosen first. They thought I would be helpful on the farm." Rory shrugged with his good shoulder, and then continued, slowly, "I did everything I could. And, when I couldn't, they whipped me. Last week, I spilled soup. I forgot to brush the horses in the morning. I tried to run away. Then I ran away for good, in the night. And I came to the army." He fell silent and the story was over.

"Jesus, Mary and Joseph," Ted breathed. I realized that I, too, had been holding my breath. There was a long silence which Rory, being Rory, did not break. It was Jack who finally spoke.

"You're here now," he said, clearly casting about for something to say. "And you'll never have to go back." Rory nodded in relief.

We were silent for a long time, deep in thought, and sort of shocked by Rory's revelations of that evening. When the signal sounded, we wished each other good night and simply went to sleep.

We drilled under the watchful eyes of those little grey-coated taskmasters day after day. Rory's back healed and when he joined us again we were surprised to find that he seemed to know what he was doing. At least, he knew his right from his left, which many of the recruits did not. Still, his gun was nearly as tall as he was and he was a slight boy. Strong, it was true, but not quite big enough to haul his gun along with any amount of equipment. I often saw the Sergeant watching him at drill as he sweated and struggled to manage the gun and the marching all at once.

One day, the Sergeant pulled Rory aside, which we had been expecting, and then, to our surprise, asked Jack to come as well.

"Boys," he said to them, "We all know neither of you should be here. If I'd been your recruiter, you wouldn't be." Jack looked amazed- he'd thought he was passing for eighteen perfectly well- and when he opened his mouth to protest, Sergeant O'Malley held up a hand. "It's no use boy, I know what I know." Jack closed his mouth and looked sullen.

"I think," our Sergeant continued, "that we can strike a deal that'll serve both our purposes. You'll stay with the army and I won't be worrying about Coleman tripping over that musket every time he picks it up. What would you think of drumming?" he asked, looking at Jack, "and you," he said, turning his stern gaze on Rory, "do you think a fife might suit you?"

Jack and Rory traded looks and Jack shrugged. "I don't see why not," he allowed. "I don't know how to play, though."

"That's just fine," Sergeant O'Malley said. "We'll get you a drum and then some lessons. A few of the men here know what they're about. Finding a fife teacher will be more difficult, but let's see what we can do." He started off, leaving Rory and Jack standing still, and when he realized they were no longer following, he turned around. "What are you waiting for? Come on, never put off until tomorrow what could have been done today." With that, he turned briskly and kept going, Jack and Rory jogging to keep up.

By the time they got back to camp, we were sitting around the fire, cooking supper and dying of curiosity.

"What was that all about, then?" Patrick asked, and then noticed the instruments. The drum, strapped around Jack's neck, was hard to miss and Rory took his fife out of his pocket and held it out to show us.

"We've been detailed as musicians," Jack explained.

"Can you play at all, either one of you?" Ted asked bluntly.

"Not a bit," Jack said. "In fact, I haven't tried it out yet."

"Come on, then," we encouraged him. "Let's hear you play something." Jack picked the sticks up clumsily and beat a little bit on the drum until somebody from the next fire, his face safely obscured by the dark, yelled peevishly,

"Shut up that drumming. Hasn't today been bad enough yet?" With a hearty laugh, Jack stowed his sticks and set the drum behind him so he could lean on it.

"How about you?" he asked Rory. "Suppose you can get a sound out of that thing?"

"I think I can," Rory said with a quiet confidence and to our complete shock, he put the fife to his lips and played "Lorena" so sweetly that I felt my jaw drop.

"Rory, you can play?" Patrick asked, though the answer was obvious. Rory just nodded and blushed.

The same voice from the next campfire called back, "Drummer, you ought to take a few lessons from your friend there. We'll hear that again any day, laddie." Rory fairly glowed.

Next

Masterpost

[miku-blogging]

I feel like I should draw 3 Mikus specifically for this trend. North Carolina (where I live rn and where I grew up) Mississippi (where I lived for high school) and Louisiana (where I lived for middle school)

[daphnethebanjolover]

My impressions of New Orleans, as a Texan, after a week of living here

Rain. It has rained several days in a row here, but I grew up in Houston, which is also close to the Gulf, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised, but every other day, it's like, "Severe thunderstorm warning," "special weather statement," "flash flood warning." Is this what it's like living in non-drought conditions?

The roads are so confusing. It feels like all the major roads have medians, and when you turn left at an intersection of two roads with medians, there's a mini-median in the center that you have to go around.

On a similar topic, potholes. I'm worried for my car's suspension.

On another similar topic, the drivers. Multiple times, I've been waiting for an opening to turn, and the person behind me just went around me. Is this normal? Am I wrong for wanting to be a safe driver?

The sun rises at least a half hour earlier here than in San Antonio. It makes sense since it's farther east, but it's still strange being woken up at 6 AM by the sunrise.

I'll also have to get used to the idea of waking up to hearing crows cawing outside my window every morning.

It's strange seeing how common street parking is in the urban areas. I've had to re-learn how to parallel park really fast.

I just got an interview from a school on the West Bank. I didn't know that part of town was the West Bank until I was messaging with my parents and my dad said, "That school is on the West Bank. You might want to take a Lyft so you don't have to drive across that huge bridge," and I sat there for a few seconds thinking, "but it's on the east side."

Why is the West Bank on the east side?

And yes, I'm going to take a Lyft. There is no way I'm ready to drive across the actual Mississippi River. I did not have to deal with this in San Antonio.

I wore my "guten Tag, y'all" shirt to the grocery store the other day and didn't think twice about it until I got home. I wonder if anyone noticed. (For context, that shirt has German and Texas flags on it.)

Also while I was at the grocery store, I saw the sign over one of the aisles that has the stuff in it, and I don't remember exactly what it said, but I thought, "Yep, I'm in Louisiana."

I was doing partner work during the training I'm in with my teaching certification program on Friday, and my partner asked me to move my "booksack." It took me a full three seconds for me to realize she was talking about my backpack. I also heard an admin at the school where I'm doing summer school talk about booksacks. It's amazing how much the language changes just by moving one state over.

(If you're waiting for me to talk about the school system, I already read up on it in December. This post is about the stuff Internet searches *don't* tell you.)

Such as how beautiful Lake Pontchartrain and City Park are in person. My parents and I drove by the lake after dinner, and it was amazing seeing it lit by the twilight with all the people just hanging out. I wish I get the chance to explore the city when I'm not working.

Finally, Google Maps keeps telling me the speed limit is 55, even when I'm in a residential neighborhood. Does anyone else have that problem?