#if i die blame math paradoxes

[creatively-dysfunctional]

I was reserching mathematical paradoxes for a math project and like,

Who give math fucking steroids.

At first its like: look at this series of numbers the answer looks integer doesn’t it, well fuck you it is ½ because of geometry . Then it is like look at this ball, now see me dived this ball into two balls that each have the volume of the first one with some sets tomfoolery. Then just forgot about physics. This horn has unlimited surface and limited volume. We call it Gabriel's horn because we want to shove how hard we break all of his rules with mathematical mind fuckery to God's face. It is also used to symbolize the judgment day because we already turn God's order upside down and you can’t do shit about it. There is also mathematical jargon and I am still mad about that. Like you guys barely use words why do you need to modify regular normal words to fit into your unholy math magic purposes.

[ecfandom]

Polis 433 Ch. 11 Sneak Peek

Hi babes, I’ve fallen a little behind on my new updating schedule, so I wanted to shoot you all a sneek peek to tide you over. The full chapter is almost done. I may be able to get it posted tomorrow if my day goes smoothly. Cheers!

“What the hell happened?” Elliot growled as she slid on her knees to Lexa’s side.  Lexa was pale and deadly still. She patted Lexa’s cheek, then checked her pulse.

“I don’t know,” Erin said, a hint of panic in her voice. “She asked to go to the bathroom. I got pulled away with that code and when I came back...”

“Her pulse is thready. Get Taryn, I can’t lift her by myself. Bring a cart.” Erin nodded and ran out of the bathroom. Elliot turned back to Lexa, cradling her head in her hands. “Lexa, hey. Come on now. Hang on.”

She put her fingers back to her pulse, only to find it was gone. “No, no, don’t you do this,” she said, swinging her leg over Lexa’s hips and starting compressions. “I did not piece you back together in the middle of a desert for you to die on a bathroom floor, you asshole. Come on!”

Taryn burst through the door, followed by Erin and the crash cart. “What’s going on?”

“It’s Lexa. She’s arresting,” Elliot panted.

“How long?”

“Just happened.”

“I need one of epi,” Taryn said to Erin, calm, but urgent. As soon as the injector was in Taryn’s hand, she jammed it into Lexa’s upper arm, watching Elliot as she listened to Lexa’s chest with her stethoscope. A second passed, then another.

“Got her,” Elliot breathed, yanking her scope out. “Let’s get her on a bed. Page cardio.”

Within seconds, Lexa was on a bed in a trauma bay, covered in monitoring equipment as the ER staff worked to stabilize her stressed heart.

“Hey, what’ve you got?” Dr. Katherine Daniels, head of cardio, breezed through the doorway with a fourth-year resident on her heels. Where Taryn and Elliot were all hard, angular, and handsome lines, Katherine was the spitting image of Aphrodite— feminine, powerful, and drop-dead gorgeous. Her golden hair was half up, showing off her striking cheekbones and brilliant green eyes. Her long, chin-length bangs tucked behind her ears framed her face perfectly. As beautiful as she was, all of it paled in comparison to her brilliant mind and unparalleled skill.

“Lexa Woods, 29…” Elliot paused, doing the math in her head. “More like, 30 year old female. Sudden collapse, thready pulse, then arrest. Got her back with compressions and epi.”

“How long was she down?” Dr. Daniels stepped forward and listened to Lexa’s heart.

“Less than a minute.”

“So no brain damage.”

“Not unless I missed something.”

“I’ve got an EKG,” Taryn announced, detaching the paper report and studying it. “She’s tachy, but no sign of infarction.”

“Her pulse is still weak. Let’s get her some inotropic support,” Katie ordered. “Start a Dobutamine drip at 3 mics. Add norepinephrine for bp, and get a blood gas. Let’s get Respiratory down here, her lungs are a mess.”

“You call Respiratory,” Taryn said to one of her residents. “I’ll get the blood gas.”

“History of heart disease?” Katie asked Elliot, watching Lexa’s blood pressure even out as the meds entered her system.

“Myocardial infarction in 2007 caused by mass hemorrhaging from multiple GSWs.” Elliot answered.

Katie looked up at Elliot, surprised by the dramatic history. When she noticed the brewing storm in Elliot’s piercing, blue eyes, it made sense. “She’s a veteran,” she stated, rather than asked.

“Yeah.”

“You knew her?”

“Pieced her back together in Afghanistan myself,” Elliot said, looking down at Lexa with a hint of fondness. “She’s never had any issues. She’s a firefighter. She worked the factory fire today, so my guess is CO poisoning and hypoxia.”

“What the hell is she doing as a firefighter with a history of infarction? There’s no way that’s a good idea.”

“Yeah, try telling that to Lexa.”

“Does she have a death wish?”

Elliot grinned. “Death is afraid of this one. Trust me.”

Katie rolled her eyes. “Butches,” she said, shaking her head. “Alright, let’s get her admitted.”

***

It was a beautiful summer morning. So beautiful it was hard to imagine the factory fire the town had suffered just two nights prior. It was a paradoxical dichotomy that left Clarke feeling slightly unsettled and on edge, as if she were forgetting something. As she dug a hole in her flower beds and planted her Zinnias, she ran through her patient list, assured by the end of it that she’d checked everyone, and all were covered through her day off.

She sat back on her heels and wiped the sweat from her forehead with the back of her garden-gloved hand. All was well it seemed, and yet she couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong. She looked over at the other side of her garden bed and watched Ellie and Raven planting side-by-side, a smile crossing her face at the sight of her dirty baby.

“You’re going to need a bath later, Ms. Bean,” she called out, laughing when Ellie turned to her with a giant smile and face full of soil.

“I’m going to run her inside real quick for some water,” Raven said, hoisting the two-year-old onto her hip. “Want anything?”

“Water would be good, thanks.”

Raven watched her for a moment, her eyes narrow against the slanted morning sun. “You okay? You’re awfully quiet this morning.”

Clarke nodded and began digging another hole. “Fine. Just tired.”

Raven watched her for a moment longer, not buying it. But if Clarke was one thing, it was stubborn. “Okay, well. Let me know.”

Clarke looked up once again and smiled, both appreciative and unnerved by how well her best friend read her. “I’m good.”

Raven nodded and  walked inside, leaving Clarke alone with whatever it was plaguing her thoughts. “What should we drink, Elle? Water? Milk?”

“Juice!” Ellie squealed, leaning towards her high-chair in the eat-in kitchen dining space.

“Of course. How silly of me to think anything different.” Raven settled her into the chair and crossed to the fridge, swinging it open with a sigh. “You mom’s fridge looks like an actual adult human being lives here. My fridge has exactly one string-cheese, old milk and a six pack of beer in it.” She leaned back and peered around the door at the toddler. “This is why I’m single, isn’t it?”

Ellie paid her no mind. Her curiosity was fixed on the security panel by the back door that sat inches from her highchair. Her stubby arm reached out for it, fingers tracing the colorful buttons.

“Don’t play with that, Ellie,” Raven called, then dipped her head back into the fridge.

“It’s toy,” Ellie called to her.

“No, not a toy. It looks like one of your toys, though doesn’t it?”

“Yes. Colors!”

“Yep, lots of colors.” Raven poured Ellie a glass of apple juice, then two glasses of water for she and Clarke. She walked the apple juice over to Ellie and leaned back against the kitchen table. It was early, but the day was already warm, and she drank greedily from her glass as Ellie did the same from her snippy cup. Ellie looked at her, puzzled for a moment, her little face frowning in consternation.

“Wexa?” She asked, handing Raven her empty juice cup. Raven looked at it, confused.

“That’s a cup,” she corrected. “Sippy cup.”

“Wexa!” Ellie shrieked.

“I don’t know what that means, kiddo. I’m sorry.”

“She’s looking for Lexa,” Clarke said, coming down the hall. She stripped her hands free of her gardening gloves, and kicked off her shoes and socks until she was barefoot. She took the cup from Ellie and filled it with water, handing it back to her. She ignored the pout Ellie threw her way at the discovery that there was no juice inside.

“That’s...interesting,” Raven said, cautiously.

“Don’t read into it. She’d get attached to a shoebox if you let her.”

“That’s no way to talk about my very intelligent goddaughter with better taste than you.”

“Let’s not start with this again, pease?”

Raven considered letting it go, given how tired Clarke sounded, but her curiosity got the better of her. “Start what again? Your attraction to the insanely hot fire fighter that literally no one on earth would blame you for because she is the sexiest thing alive? The same chick your daughter likes so much she’s asking for her by name? Or was there something else you were referring to.”

“Raven.”

“I heard she saved twelve people herself in the factory fire. That’s hot, dude.”

“That’s reckless,” Clarke snapped, that pestering nag from before fraying her nerves and sparking into anger. “She’s reckless and irresponsible. I don’t care how hot she is, that’s what matters. Behavior matters.”

Raven sat quietly for a moment, recalibrating. Something had obviously touched a nerve in Clarke, but she wasn’t quite sure what it was. Talking about behavior, specifically recklessness, could be about her father. It could be about Jack. It was hard to say with Clarke, her sweet, but excruciatingly private friend. “She’s a first responder, Clarke,” she said gently, careful to tread lightly. “What we do is inherently risky. I don’t think Lexa takes any unnecessary risks.”

“She has a hero complex,” Clarke retorted, leaning back against the counter while she pressed the cold glass of ice water to her cheek.

“Are you sure she’s not just a hero?”

“Are you sure you’re not the one attracted to her?”

“Oh, I am attracted to her. Who isn’t? But that’s not the point.”

“Then hurry up and make it, please.”

“I just think maybe you’re a little hard on her, given the things you’ve been through,” Raven said, dipping a toe into the uncharted waters of Clarke’s psyche. When Clarke said nothing, Raven smiled sympathetically at her. “No one would blame you for being cautious. I’m just saying, maybe don’t knock it til you try it. I think you’d be surprised at how great Lexa is.”

“No, I wouldn’t be,” Clarke said, the frustration apparent in her voice. “I know how great she is. Outside of her work, she is the most kind, gentle and stunningly attractive woman I have ever met. But she’s also careless, and I have a small child with a big heart to consider.”

“And your own heart to consider, right?” Raven asked quietly, cocking her head to the side in an attempt to find Clarke’s lowered gaze. When Clarke looked up and scowled at her, Raven smiled. “I don’t think doing her job makes her careless,” she said, coming to stand next to her. She hopped up onto the counter and nudged Clarke’s arm with her knee. “The opposite, in fact. I think she cares deeply about what she does.”

Clarke shook her head. “ Doing her job is pulling those people out of the fire. Being careless is not getting checked out by a doctor after working a chemical fire. She was breathing in CO2 and who knows what else. That’s going to strain her heart. Hell, it could even kill her. She knows all that, as a paramedic, and still, she didn’t want to be admitted because she had paperwork to do? She has a hero complex, and she’s reckless, Raven. I don’t doubt that she cares very much about her job, but when it comes to herself, she’s careless and irresponsible. I’m sorry, but I just don’t have room for it in my life. I can’t care about someone like that.” She pushed off of the counter and crossed to Ellie, lifting her out of the highchair and onto her hip.

“Did you text her?” Raven asked after a moment, both sad for her friend’s guarded heart, and amused at Clarke’s inability to see how much she already cared.

“Yes,” Clarke said, quietly as if ashamed to admit it. “Twice the night of the fire and a few times after that, but I’ve been stuck in the NICU for the past two days.”

“If you’re worried about her, I can ask Anya.”

“Who’s Anya?”

“Lexa’s sister. The one we met at the parade.”

“Oh, that’s right. I remember her. Amazing cheekbones,” she said, recalling the way Raven had blushed around the tall, striking woman.

“We’ve sort of been...hanging out. I haven’t seen her for a bit because of work, but I could ask her about Lexa if you want me to.”

Clarke whipped around, a grin already on her face as she eyed Raven’s closely. “Oh my god. You slept with her already, didn’t you?”

Raven laughed and shrugged, trying to seem nonchalant. “One or twice.”

“Holy shit. Well?”

“She’s fucking amazing.”

“Oh god, no. Nevermind. I don’t want to hear that.”

Raven laughed again. “She’s amazing in bed and in general.”

Clarke frowned. “Oh no.”

“What?”

“Is she going to break your heart?”

“Why would you think that?”

“Because you have feelings for her, and I know you. You told her it was just sex, didn’t you.”

Raven shrugged, not quite making eye contact. “It is. For now.”

“Uh huh.” Clarke wanted to say more, but before she could, she noticed the faint siren sound she had barely registered before growing louder. Too loud. She looked to Raven, then to the security panel on the wall where she noticed the black, digital words scrolling across the screen. “Jesus Christ, again?”

She walked over to it and punched in the code, ending the alarm. “Can you hold her?” She asked, handing Ellie to her without waiting for an answer, and turned towards the hallway leading to the front door. Ellie shrieked and pushed against Raven’s chest, desperately trying to get down. She was screaming to be let down, seconds away from a full on temper tantrum, when Clarke gave up, jogged back down the hall and took her into her arms.

“We are not playing with Lexa today, but you can say hello,” she told her toddler sternly as she opened the door. She was frustrated and annoyed, and if anyone asked, she would say she hated having to do this again. Yet, when her eyes scanned over the truck and the men filing out, the fluttering excitement in her chest disappeared. Lexa was nowhere to be found.

***

“She’s okay,” Taryn said, walking up to stand next to Elliot in Lexa’s patient room doorway.

“I know she is.”

“That’s why you’ve been standing here for the past ten minutes?”

Elliot shot Taryn a wry grin, but move from the doorframe. She had no other place to be right now. Might as well be here. “You know, when I got to her in Afghanistan, for the first time in my career, I didn’t know where to start. They teach us the ABCs--airway, breathing, circulation.”  Elliot chuckled. “She had issues with all three. Had I been here, with an entire ER staff and trauma team, we all would have had our jobs. You could have handled her burnt airway. I would have started in on her three gunshot wounds. Cardio would have kept her heart beating, while Plastics handled the third degree burns all over her body. There’d be nurses and residents to pump meds, get her stable enough for surgery.” Elliot folded her arms and studied Lexa, but her eyes weren’t seeing. Her mind was elsewhere, remembering. “But in Afghanistan, at the end of the day, it was just me. And I was terrified I’d lose her. Something about her...I just knew I couldn’t handle losing this one.”

[geraldbrunskill]

Big Dumb Bike

Up until September 2nd, 2019, my friend Shivaune had a bike. It was big and it was dumb. I’m sorry Shivaune, I know you fancied your bike but I hated it. Every time I came near that big dumb bike, it would fall over and injure me. Because it was too big. It was also very dumb. I’m glad it fell off the RV and got run over by an eighteen-wheeler. 

From the cheap seats that were 2018, the promise of 2019 had all the telltale signs of a Cats remake. More of the same shit, reheated, with a side of fuck me. It’s not that I felt undeserved of reward, per annum or otherwise. Hammer in hand, I’d been busy forging my chisel into the granite that was this teenage decade until my arms gave out. Reinvention is hard, and all of the sweat equity had me feeling salty. As the clock struck midnight, I fully expected 2019 to knock over my beer whilst bogarting the last bong rip. I felt stuck in the bedroom of an adolescent century that only wanted to jerk off and play fortnite.

2019 when uttered aloud sounded very similar to, “Old donkey balls.” It felt gray-market, like that baby-grand piano I bought from Costco on the cheap. It was never gonna stay in tune, the damn thing was made outta bamboo chips and old Suzuki motorcycle parts. What genius at Suzuki thought to himself, “Well, our jeeps were awful, our motorbikes remarkably average, so let’s give the piano biz a go.”

Didn’t Suzuki reinvent math? I’m no genius but I’d have kept my money in math. It is made of numbers after all.

If we’re honest with each other, it would’ve been irresponsible to assume anything more optimistic for 2019 and we both know it. Halloween was on a Thursday. That meant costume parties the weekend before and after. Surely we’d get lured into spooky revelry on the actual holiday as well. Halloween spending would officially succeed the cost of a one-bedroom condo in Vancouver. You can’t blame the Chinese for everything.

So it was on the last Monday of 2018, riddled with anxiety about the imminent deluge of unyielding adversity that was undoubtedly speeding toward me, I was half in the bag by 8. In the morning. I remember little about the day, and even less from my toast, sans the grotesque level of insincerity. As friends jetted to Tahoe, Tulum, and Florianópolis, I stayed put in LA county. Paris sure as shit wasn’t gonna fix this mess.

WTF 2019?

I’m not saying that my ship came in, but I rented a canoe last June and it didn’t even capsize. Somehow, I stepped in some figurative shit while avoiding the more unpleasant, literal kind. 2019 had to have been aware of my contempt for it. And I got rewarded?

Every time I get a taste of the good stuff I immediately want more. I think that’s called being a junkie. But if I’ve learned anything it’s that life loves a good kick in the nuts just when I’m not looking. Certainly hope and optimism are the butter and flour in every disaster cake. 2020 might not sound like old donkey balls, but it's obviously a harbinger.

Proceed with caution with our new 2020 vision lest we forget that some pretty serious shit will go down this year that has the potential to leave a mark. We’re collectively approaching a fork between the high and the low road. Civil discourse drive, or Civil War boulevard. Mind the speed bumps because they’re on both. (Thanks Obama.)

Covetous gluttony shows no sign of easing and American Jesus seems to be okay with that. It’s that damn winner’s paradox- sharing the winnings inevitably leaves less winnings for the winner. All of the best Republicans know this. Then again Jeff Bezos hates Trump and he still doesn’t have to pay taxes. I don’t get it but who the heck am I to question the geographically divine. (Jesus not Bezos.)

Whatsay we at least stop taking the piss out of each other from behind the shadow of our computers. Keyboard warriors rest ye fingers. We humans actually need each other. I think we have a lot more in common than our Facebook discourse would suggest. It’s like we have a biological need to have someone to hate. What if we quenched our bloodlust by hating on things and stuff rather than other people? We could have a lot of fun with this. Like how I hate Shivaune’s big dumb bike. I love Shivaune. I hate her big dumb bike. That satisfies something in me I can’t quite explain. I can think of a million things to hate...

Seven-day bank holds. These must die a terrible death. Elon Musk’s rockets can come back from space and land in the same place they were launched but it still takes 7 days for a check to clear? I call shenanigans. You know what else I hate? February. Whose bright idea was that? “Hey guys I’ve got a great idea. February!” No, February was a terrible idea. How about the asinine phrase now uttered by every performer since 2004 - “Make some noise!” Cue the blood boiling. Even if I came with the intention of making some noise, I will not be told when to do so. I’ll do it when I’m damn good and ready. Not a minute sooner. And if you keep saying it, I might not make any noise at all. Oy there’s so much stupid shit currently in the lexicon. "Spirit Animal,” “To Die For,” or the biggest offender of all - “On Fleek.” That one is so smackable I might paint it on a heavy bag as a motivator to actually work out this year. Resort fees. The most terrible idea ever conceived. I could write a book, and maybe I will because this just felt good. Was it good for you? I think this could really work. Kumbaymuthafuckinya 2020. Every time I feel like hating on someone I’m gonna hate on some thing instead. And I’ll share it with all of you. It’s worth a shot at least.

Gather ‘round all you socialists. You racist uncles. Calling all libtards and proud boys, Hasidics and goys. The whites and the browns make the world go around. Good guys with guns, illegals and sons. I’ll see your Bernie bros and raise you one basket of deplorables.

I’m going all in for 2020. Let’s hug it out.

Don’t stand next to Biden though he can be a little handsy.

[frequencied]

GAMMA FACTOR, OR: WHAT IT MEANS TO BE OLDER

matt is eight years, eleven months, and twenty three days older than pidge.

"so you take the reciprocal of the square root of one minus the speed over..."

"matt," pidge protests, pen clattering loudly against the desk.

"you wanna be in the garrison someday, right? you're going to be doing these kinds of equations all the time."

pidge looks at him with brows furrowed (skepticism), lips knotted tight like she's bit into a lemon (distrust). this wouldn't be the first time matt's led her on for a joke. but his tone now conveys nothing but honesty (not the first time) and simple patience, tapping the tablet's screen. a couple small equations are scribbled in pidge's hand: here, the distance to kerberos. there, the speed of the ship matt and sam will take to get there. the proposed time of the journey. pidge may have only just started learning algebra in class but there's no way in hell matt's sister is going into middle school without a grasp of the fundamentals of calculus. she's a holt.

"just trust me, okay? it'll be worth it. so you take the speed— in kilometers per second, of course— over c and square that..."

pidge follows obediently, writing out two long trails of digits.

"that's a lot of zeroes," she says.

"it's a fast ship. okay, now plug it into your calculator..."

there's the soft clacking of pidge's fingers typing the equation into her calculator. 

"wait," she squints. "why is it off?"

"why is what off?" he asks, though he can't hide his grin— the one that says I know why, I'm just not telling you.

"the time. it should be ten million. it's ten million and thirty."

lights dance behind matt's eyes like fireflies. "because of special relativity. you remember how I told you about the twins paradox? how if one twin shoots off into space, when they come back, the earthbound twin will be older?"

a second passes. another. when it finally clicks, pidge nearly jumps from her seat.

"we're the twins!"

matt is eight years, eleven months, and twenty three days older than pidge. minus thirty seconds.

they make it to kerberos. matt wonders as the ship reaches its approach velocity if those fifteen seconds come all at once, if pidge back on earth isn't running through a class like an emulator set to double speed. or maybe it happens when they slow down, he thinks maybe he can hear shiro's stretched-out tones as they run through landing procedures as they have a thousand times before. relativity is just that, after all: relative.

they make it to kerberos. they don't make it home.

he tries to keep track of the dilation with the rebels. lose a minute. lose a second. everything becomes twisty with FTL, the mathematical twisting of his equation far easier than the mental twisting he has to do to accomodate to the new circumstances and new allies. but he doesn't spend all his time in his own ship where he can rely on sub-second engine logs; some days he spends aboard vessels that aren't his, stolen from this outpost or that galra cruiser he doesn't entirely understand the nuance of. olia tells him he spent three weeks in a cryopod while his sinews stitched themselves back together after a bad mission, and no one had bothered to log the time or distance of their FTL hops while he was under. he took the average of his weekly time dilation and used that, though the answer always left him unsatisfied. inexact.

he knows this relies on pidge having a consistent velocity. he picks earth, telling himself she must be safe there. it's a comforting thought when the enemy is spotted in the same system as his listening outpost and he flips the switch he prays he never has to flip, the one that shuts off everything but the barest life support; the outpost may be positioned at the far end of a dead system, but it bleeds radiation and rebel transmissions in a way that makes it shine brighter than its pale dwarf star to anyone looking to root out these kinds of stations.

and believe him, there are a lot of people trying to root out these stations.

but the calculus is relaxing. it's relaxing, and more importantly, it serves to keep his mind sharp through the mundanity of a listening outpost. he finds new ways to entertain himself with numbers. he can see the sun from here, so he starts with that— measure the distance from the parallax. use his rebel-provided star charts to find constellations he recognizes on earth, and link them back together to see their strange, malformed shapes from a totally different perspective. orion becomes a giraffe, with an elongated neck and four lopsided limbs. cygnus? now it's a beetle.

he does the math again and again. he tries to lose himself in the numbers. he tries to not think about the fact that for however long it feels like matt's been up here, from earth, it's been longer.

matt is eight years, eleven months, and twenty three days older than pidge. minus seven days, twenty-one hours, and sixteen minutes. he thinks.

matt keeps an eye on voltron.

it's half pragmatism; the rebels need eyes on the defenders of the universe to make sure troops are deployed as necessary, either with or without voltron's backing— sometimes they need cover. sometimes it's about striking somewhere while voltron draws away firepower somewhere else. and while this war has made him a soldier, it's not something that's ever been at his core; matt's rebellion comes at the end of encrypted messages, with colour-coded maps and logs; he compiles data, he watches, he looks for patterns. a war is a puzzle.

pidge tells him they're going after lotor. pidge tells him about the fight. pidge tells him, in an overconfident tone that has become surprisingly like her— the pidge who finds matt is a far cry from the pidge who he knew on earth, but the change isn't an unwelcome one. quite the contrary. he's glad to see her so sure, full of their mother's fire and their father's good judgement— that they're going to stop him, because they're heroes. they have to, right? defenders of the universe.

matt tells her to be careful, because like him, you can never tell pidge not to do something.

voltron goes to fight lotor. voltron does not come back.

matt scrambles with shaking hands and panic screaming up his spine, fighting to keep his tone calm as he outputs for days on all frequencies: where is voltron? has anyone received confirmation from voltron? is voltron still alive?

is my sister okay?

days stretch to weeks.

did I fail her?

weeks stretch to months.

did I fail our parents?

the galra sense this absence and hammer the rebels hard. they're stronger, more voracious now; like an animal with its back to the wall, the empire senses its impending doom and only fights with the sick kind of desperation that can only be found with something coming undone. every line the coalition built is burnt to cinders by sendak and the empire. the blades fall. the rebels do, too. matt's crew of two dozen is reduced to six, and they hide away with the lights off like scared children from the boogeymen.

months stretch to years.

but while he knows the what, he refuses to acknowledge the why. pidge didn't leave a trail. but it's not because she's dead. pidge can't be dead. voltron can't be gone. they need them— they need the defenders of the universe. they're going to lose this war otherwise. she's just busy. she has other priorities. pidge isn't kind enough to leave a trail like matt had because she doesn't have time. he doesn't blame her— can't blame her. pidge doesn't understand what it is to be a big brother, doesn't understand what it is to have your entire being, your beating heart exist to protect another. even when matt was taking his tentative steps into real, tangible rebellion, his every action was guided by a single thought: find me. if shiro is out there, if his dad is out there, if pidge is out there, they'll find him. he hid the clues well, disguised them in math and tricks so deeply ingrained in the holts that only the holts could find them. they had to. they had to.

he looks for them instead in what's missing. places where things should be. the universe is now defined by her absence; so, too, is matt. every instant not spent on the run is spent looking for her.

they find her, eventually. or: she finds them. because of course she does. she always finds them.

when matt sees her again, she's in the hospital, with bae bae giving two loud thumps of her tail as matt approaches. matt pulls his limbs around her and hugs her as gently as he can, fighting every part of him that screams to squeeze and never let go. he lets her talk about the journey through the void, the road trip (he laughs at the name, but it's an expulsion of air, all reflex with no humour), the battle that saved them all. he watches transfixed at her excitement, how even in her darkest moments when they were sure they would die, she burns with the knowledge that they couldn’t. he clenches his fists well below her line of sight until four half-crescents bleed in his palms and tries to not cry.

sitting in this room, watching her body slowly heal beneath sheets and gauze, he wipes away all those calculations of fractional seconds snatched by special relativity. because minutes and days mean nothing when compared to telling their parents that pidge might be dead, to watching his friends and loved ones be taken one by one by the empire in the face of the gaping maw of their absence. 

matt is eight years, eleven months, and twenty three days older than pidge. plus four years.

[solarpunk-gnome]

One of the great paradoxes of digital life – understood and exploited by the tech giants – is that we never do what we say. Poll after poll in the past few years has found that people are worried about online privacy and do not trust big tech firms with their data. But they carry on clicking and sharing and posting, preferring speed and convenience above all else. Last year was Silicon Valley’s annus horribilis: a year of bots, Russian meddling, sexism, monopolistic practice and tax-minimising. But I think 2018 might be worse still: the year of the neo-luddite, when anti-tech words turn into deeds.

The caricature of machine-wrecking mobs doesn’t capture our new approach to tech. A better phrase is what the writer Blake Snow has called “reformed luddism”: a society that views tech with a sceptical eye, noting the benefits while recognising that it causes problems, too. And more importantly, thinks that something can be done about it.

One expression of reformed luddism is already causing a headache for the tech titans. Facebook and Google are essentially huge advertising firms. Ad-blocking software is their kryptonite. Yet millions of people downloaded these plug-ins to stop ads chasing them across the web last year, and their use has been growing(on desktops at least) close to 20% each year, indiscriminately hitting smaller publishers, too.

More significantly, the whole of society seems to have woken up to the fact there is a psychological cost to constant checking, swiping and staring. A growing number of my friends now have “no phone” times, don’t instantly sign into the cafe wifi, or have weekends away without their computers. This behaviour is no longer confined to intellectuals and academics, part of some clever critique of modernity. Every single parent I know frets about “screen time”, and most are engaged in a struggle with a toddler over how much iPad is allowed. The alternative is “slow living” or “slow tech”. “Want to become a slow-tech family?” writes Janell Burley Hoffmann, one of its proponents. “Wait! Just wait – in line, at the doctor’s, for the bus, at the school pickup – just sit and wait.” Turning what used to be ordinary behaviour into a “movement” is a very modern way to go about it. But it’s probably necessary.

I would add to this the ever-growing craze for yoga, meditation, reiki and all those other things that promise inner peace and meaning – except for the fact all the techies do it, too. Maybe that’s why they do it. Either way, there is a palpable demand for anything that involves less tech, a fetish for back-to-basics. Innocent Drinks have held two “Unplugged Festivals”, offering the chance of “switching off for the weekend ... No wifi, no 3G, no traditional electricity”. Others take off-grid living much further. There has been an uptick in “back to the land” movements: communes and self-sustaining communities that prefer the low-tech life. According to the Intentional Community Directory, which measures the spread of alternative lifestyles, 300 eco-villages were founded in the first 10 months of 2016, the most since the 1970s. I spent some time in 2016 living in an off-grid community where no one seemed to suffer mobile phone separation anxiety. No one was frantically checking if their last tweet went viral and we all felt better for it.

Even insiders are starting to wonder what monsters they’ve unleashed. Former Google “design ethicist” Tristan Harris recently founded the nonprofit organisation Time Well Spent in order to push back against what he calls a “digital attention crisis” of our hijacked minds. Most of the tech conferences I’m invited to these days include this sort of introspection: is it all going too far? Are we really the good guys?

That tech firms are responding is proof they see this is a serious threat: many more are building in extra parental controls, and Facebook admitted last year that too much time on their site was bad for your health, and promised to do something. Apple investors recently wrote to the company, suggesting the company do more to “ensure that young consumers are using your products in an optimal manner” – a bleak word combination to describe phone-addled children, but still.

It’s worth reflecting what a radical change all this is. That economic growth isn’t everything, that tech means harm as well as good – this is not the escape velocity, you-can’t-stop-progress thinking that has colonised our minds in the past decade. Serious writers now say things that would have been unthinkable until last year: even the FT calls for more regulation and the Economist asks if social media is bad for democracy.

This reformed luddism does not however mean the end of good, old-fashioned machine-smashing. The original luddites did not dislike machines per se, rather what they were doing to their livelihoods and way of life. It’s hard not to see the anti-Uber protests in a similar light. Over the past couple of years, there have been something approaching anti-Uber riots in Paris; in Hyderabad, India, drivers took to the streets to vent their rage against unmet promises of lucrative salaries; angry taxi drivers blocked roads last year across Croatia, Hungary and Poland. In Colombia, there were clashes with police, while two Uber vehicles were torched in Johannesburg and 30 metered taxi drivers arrested.

Imagine what might happen when driverless cars turn up. The chancellor has recently bet on them, promising investment and encouraging real road testing; he wants autonomous vehicles on our streets by 2021. The industry will create lots of new and very well-paid jobs, especially in robotics, machine learning and engineering. For people with the right qualifications, that’s great. And for the existing lorry and taxi drivers? There will still be some jobs, since even Google tech won’t be able to handle Swindon’s magic roundabout for a while. But we will need far fewer of them. A handful might retrain, and claw their way up to the winner’s table. I am told repeatedly in the tech startup bubble that unemployed truckers in their 50s should retrain as web developers and machine-learning specialists, which is a convenient self-delusion. Far more likely is that, as the tech-savvy do better than ever, many truckers or taxi drivers without the necessary skills will drift off to more precarious, piecemeal, low-paid work.

Does anyone seriously think that drivers will passively let this happen, consoled that their great-grandchildren may be richer and less likely to die in a car crash? And what about when Donald Trump’s promised jobs don’t rematerialise, because of automation rather than offshoring and immigration? Given the endless articles outlining how “robots are coming for your jobs”, it would be extremely odd if people didn’t blame the robots, and take it out on them, too.

Once people start believing that machines are a force of oppression rather than liberation, there will be no stopping it. Between 1978 and 1995, the Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski, sent 16 bombs to targets including universities and airlines, killing three people and injuring 23. Kaczynski, a Harvard maths prodigy who began to live off-grid in his 20s, was motivated by a belief that technological change was destroying human civilisation, ushering in a period of dehumanised tyranny and control. Once you get past Kaczynski’s casual racism and calls for violent revolution, his writings on digital technology now seem uncomfortably prescient. He predicted super-intelligent machines dictating society, the psychological ill-effects of tech-reliance and the prospect of obscene inequality as an elite of techno-savvies run the world.

The American philosopher John Zerzan is considered the intellectual heavyweight for the anarcho-primitivist movement, whose adherents believe that technology enslaves us. They aren’t violent, but boy do they do hate tech. During the Unabomber’s trial, Zerzan became a confidant to Kaczynski, offering support for his ideas while condemning his actions. Zerzan is finding himself invited to speak at many more events, and the magazine he edits has seen a boost in sales. “Something’s going on,” he tells me – by phone, ironically. “The negative of technology is now taken as a given.” I ask if he could forsee the emergence of another Unabomber. “I think it’s inevitable,” he says. “As things get worse, you’re not going to stop it any other way,” although he adds that he hopes it doesn’t involve violence against people.

There are signs that full-blown neo-luddism is already here. In November last year, La Casemate, a tech “fab lab” based in Grenoble, France, was vandalised and burned. The attackers called it “a notoriously harmful institution by its diffusion of digital culture”. The previous year, a similar place in Nantes was targeted. Aside from an isolated incident in Mexico in 2011, this is, as far as I can tell, the first case since the Unabomber of an act of violence targeting technology explicitly as technology, rather than just a proxy for some other problem. The French attackers’ communique was published by the environmentalist/anarchist journal Earth First! and explained how the internet’s promise of liberation for anticapitalists has evaporated amid more surveillance, more control, more capitalism. “Tonight, we burned the Casemate,” it concludes. “Tomorrow, it will be something else, and our lives will be too short, in prison or in free air, because everything we hate can burn.”

If the recent speculation about jobs and AI is even close to being correct, then fairly soon “luddite” will join far-right and Islamist on the list of government-defined extremisms. Perhaps anti-tech movements will even qualify for the anti-radicalisation Prevent programme.

No one wants machines smashed or letter bombs. The wreckers failed 200 years ago and will fail again now. But a little luddism in our lives won’t hurt. The realisation that technological change isn’t always beneficial nor inevitable is long overdue, and that doesn’t mean jettisoning all the joys associated with modern technology. You’re not a fogey for thinking there are times where being disconnected is good for you. You’re just not a machine.

Radicals: Outsiders Changing the World by Jamie Bartlett is published by William Heinemann. To order a copy for £17 (RRP £20) go to bookshop.theguardian.com or call 0330 333 6846. Free UK p&p over £10, online orders only. Phone orders min p&p of £1.99

[metzili]

Things that Have Happened To Me at School: January-March

Boy: I’ve lost all faith for the human race. Do you know how many things people have managed to get stuck in their rectum?

Teacher: you need to stay away from the internet

Boy: the internet needs to stay away from me. It depends on who gets the restraining order first

...................

(My teacher plays music while he teaches)

Teacher: *stops* oh yeah, this is a good one.

Boy: what is it?

Teacher: what? Have you guys never listened to Spoon?

Girl: oh yeah. I love Spoon. I also love when they did that song with Fork

Girl 2: and that Spork fanfiction? Omg that was great

...................

Music: starts playing Ke$ha

(The only music my teacher plays is classic rock)

Everyone: *gets quiet*

Teacher: the fuck is this shit

Class: OHHHHHHH

...................

“Hey, listen to this song about grilled cheese”

...................

(In band class)

Boy: *playing around*

Girl: Adam, stop acting like your chair placement!

Everyone: oooohhhh

Boy 2: low blow, man

Boy:*slowly melts to the floor*

Me, who rejoined band a week ago and took his chair placement:

...................

Teacher: I have to warn you that at the end of Act II of Macbeth-

Girl: SATAN SHOWS UP

Teacher:...you’ll have to read the last scene by yourselves

................

My Latin giving a lesbian dating advice. He told her to not even bother with the girl she liked if she won’t even text back because that’s just rude

..............

Teacher: okay so who can give me an example of a paradox?

Girl: Spaghetti is a noodle and a noodle is spaghetti?

Teacher:..no

....................

Girl- oW HE HIT ME Teacher- I don’t blame him you’re more annoying than my nephew

.....................

Teacher: apparently it’s bad luck to say Macbeth before a theatre performance

Girl: wait how is it bad luck

Teacher: it’s like...how it’s bad to say Voldemort

Class: ohhhhh

Boy: see, if you want us to understand, just talk in harry potter references

Teacher: noted

Girl: okay but why is it bad luck

Teacher: weird stuff happens if you say it, like one time someone traded the prop knife for a real one and an actor accidentally killed someone on stage

Girl 2: what I want to know is if that person was charged with murder

Boy: yeah because it was accidentally

Girl 2: I’m gonna look it up

Teacher: you can’t find murder charges from hundreds of years ago in a different country.

Girl 2: I can if I hack into the British government’s FBI

Teacher: what

Girl 2: what

...................

“So, how’ve you been? Been bothered by any fuckboys lately?”

...................

Teacher: why are you looking up where I’ve lived before

Girl: Just because

Teacher: but how

Girl: okay so in tech class we found this code thingie that literally told you everything about someone so we looked up our teacher and found out everything like we even found out where he was holding his wedding in a month

Teacher: great. I’m teaching a class full of hackers

...................

“I get to write short essay introductions because I’m a short girl”

...................

My math teacher wrote the number 8 really weirdly and everyone noticed and this one girl, Riley, made fun of it so my teacher changed the 8 into an R and proceeded to write “Riley sux” on the board for revenge

...................

Teacher: Justin stop acting like a lazy piece of crap

Girl: You can’t say that!

Teacher- I can say it because I’m a lazy piece of crap

...................

Boy- I betted on the Patriots winning and I got $5 from my coach

Teacher-Betting is illegal

Boy-

Teacher-

Boy-

Teacher-

Boy- *runs out of room*

Teacher- YOU’RE GOING TO JAIL

...................

“Boy shut your turtle-looking Michelangelo face up”

“Excuse you I’m Donatello”

...................

Teacher: I mean, who wakes up in the morning wanting to do evil to other people

Boy: Donald Trump

(This was Inauguration Day)

...................

Teacher: *singing* My name is Riley and I’m a loserrr

Riley: True

Teacher : And I have no frieeends

Riley: tHAT’S NOT TRUE

Teacher: I DIDN’T MEAN IT

Riley: YES YOU DID

Teacher: You got me there

...................

Teacher: So why is Macbeth angry about *sees a girl taking pictures* Zipporah taking sELFIES UNDER THE DESK

Zipporah: he’s just jealous of this nude lip gloss

...................

Teacher: Mussolini spoke of reviving Roman greatness-now where have I heard that before? Sounds kind of like “Make Italy great again”

...................

“Why does Snoop Dogg need an umbrella?”

“Fo’ drizzle”

...................

Teacher: We’re going to be outside this period so let me put on my jacket so I can look like a full on pimp

...................

We were doing IRL geometry questions outside and the last question was if the tree in the parking fell, which administration's cars would be screwed. (Yes, that was how it was written) When we were done, our teacher said to just screw it, we’re going to walk straight through the office instead of going around the school to look like gangsters. He also said to wink if we saw any administration and say that we figured out how to destroy their cars.

...................

Teacher: *reading an email* important weather information is being sent to you

Girl: can we leave

Teacher: it’s just a thunderstorm warning

Girl 2: SEVERE thunderstorm and tornado warning

Teacher: why do you care so much? I thought all you kids wanted to die

Girl: yeah but I want to die in the my aesthetic house not this dump

Teacher: you don’t want the firefighters looking for your body saying “ew can you believe this girl died in this place it’s total trash”

Girl: yes

...................

Girl: *clearly distressed* DID YOU KNOW CRAYOLA GOT RID OF DANDELION YELLOW

Boy: *also distressed* I KNOW

Girl: It was the best yellow! W H Y

Teacher: wtf

Girl: I mean why did they add another blue they already have like six of them

Teacher: I’m sure if you find the volume of this metaphorical 100 meter crayon Crayola will re-instate dandelion yellow

...................

Girl: can you please check your email for the weather email

Teacher: there’s nothing there because no one cares whether you live or die

[foxcroft-rpg-blog]

Congratulations, Chayya! I really liked the way you talked about the fen as almost a tribe and compared them to the Roma. That was really interesting to read. I think you’ve got a great grasp on our little ball of sunshine and your para made me weep. Additionally, your face claim swap to Alberto Rosende has been approved. 

Thanks again for applying! Please create your account and send in the link, track the right tags, and follow everyone on the masterlist as soon as you can. Welcome to Foxcroft!

OUT OF CHARACTER Name: chayya Age: 24 Preferred pronouns: she/her Time zone: EST Activity: I’d say I’m about an 8/10. My current job requires some travel and, during those two or three day trips, it can be really hard for me to get online. Other than that, though, I get on at least once a day to check on the dash and note any replies needed. As for producing replies myself, I generally keep a regular pace of every other day – as long as there are responses for me to whip up. Anything else?: nope!

IN CHARACTER Full name: Dominic Loveless Date of birth: March 20 (pisces-aries cusp babies) How long have they been in Foxcroft: Dominic’s blood runs in ley lines through Foxcroft. The land is as much his as it is the namesakes. He was born in that swamp and he’ll probably die near it too – hopefully too close to Hazel’s age. Sexuality: Bisexual biromantic. Dominic is attracted to all people, really. He finds the beauty or light in even those people that society might call “ugly.” Mostly, he’s attracted to nice people and to nice people who are interesting. Regardless of gender or appearance, too much. FC change: I really love Alberto Rosende, actually. I know you said he’s too clean cut (and I totally see that) but I just think his little smiling face bursting with actual rays of sunshine would work well. I was also considering Jacob Artist, but wasn’t sure if the FC had to remain Latinx POC. Either way, I’d also be perfectly happy to stick with Posey :)

MORE How do you interpret this character’s personality? How will you portray them? Include two weaknesses and two strengths. Have I said ball of sunshine, yet? Because BALL OF SUNSHINE. Dominic is everyone’s friend. He is nice to everyone, even those who aren’t nice to him. He’s always ready with a smile and a wave for everyone. Always trying, extending hands and olive branches. Always joining up, willing to put his time and effort in. It never matters to those who are determined to hate him, of course. But those people don’t matter to him, so much. And if someone makes it clear what they think of Dominic, he just sort of smiles and shrugs, as if he didn’t understand the language they were speaking. He’ll never be one to start a fight, or even fight back if someone else starts one. But he is one to say, constantly, and over and over, that he belongs in the town as much as anyone else. As much as the Foxcrofts themselves. Dominic is a self-assured, is what it all comes down to. He knows who he is and he likes that person and so he’s able to be that person, in the face of such awful prejudice against him. [patient] - Dominic has been waiting his whole life to be accepted, to be liked, to be treated how he treats other. It’s been 22 years and it hasn’t happened yet, but that’s fine. He knows it’s coming. He knows people will get wiser. Even with this murder stuff, even with the rumors about sacrifices… It has to be coming, it just has to be… [friendly] - Dominic is smiley and happy and ready to make the world a kinder place, one second at a time. He’s probably the universes single-most bestower of “random acts of kindness.” To him it’s just…doing what’s right. He has nineteen items in line at the grocery and the person behind him has two? She can go right ahead. Someone is struggling with a mountain of papers? He can help carry some. Are you not getting the world problem in math? Well, neither is he at all, but hey, two heads are better than one, right? Dominic is always ready to give a little piece of himself. Sometimes he ends up getting embarrassed, a lot of times he ends up getting snubbed and exhausted at the end of the day. But at the end of the day, he always knows that he didn’t do anything to intentionally hurt someone or make their day worse. And that’s worth everything to him. [short-sighted] - Dominic doesn’t really have the ability to parse out what his attitude might mean to different people. He doesn’t get that others might think he’s holding a grudge. Or that he’s arrogant or a whole host of other things that people might be thinking. It also means he doesn’t really know when to quit. He keeps giving chances, smiles, friendly hellos, to people who really don’t deserve another chance. [vague] - Nothing ever bothers Dominic. That is to say, a LOT bothers Dominic, but he puts all that inward, not outward.He’ll never comment on it (especially not with his confidante dead). A wise rapped once said, “Anger is just love/ left out/ gone to vinegar.” All of Dominic’s being is love, shoved out to all and everyone. How long until all that turns to vinegar? How long until he taps into the righteous anger that he so deserves to access?

How did this character react to the death of Hazel Abrams? Adam Foxcroft? Hazel meant a lot to Dominic. Hazel was…his best friend. Perhaps one of his only friends, really. He misses her constantly, like an ache that never goes away. The injustice surrounding her death, that no one believes him, that people think he might be responsible, only makes things worse. Makes mourning her harder. No one knew they were friends, so why should he get to be sad? It’s caused him to withdraw a little more. Stay closer to his family and his mother – who knew, of course – so that he can adjust and grieve in peace. As for Adam… Well, he didn’t know the kid. He was sad when he heard he had been killed, because it’s sad when anyone dies, but he was also a little…excited. Or maybe just relieved? He thought that another death would mean that the police would do better with Hazel. There would be more evidence for them to find. Instead, though, it was just more of the same. Cops asking him where he had been and had he ever gotten in a fight with Adam?

How do they see the town and its people? Think about the different groups of people and prejudices the town holds about them. Dominic loves Foxcroft. He loves all of it and all the people, in spite of how the town views him. It certainly has made things more difficult for him, but Dominic appreciates, at least, that no one pretends to like him. He never has to wonder who his real friends are – that’s always obvious. With the police on his back about the murders, though, things have been getting a little more hostile. And it is a little harder for him to keep that smile on his face. Overall, though, Dominic knows he belongs in Foxcroft because he knows he belongs in the swamp, to the swamp. So no matter who hates him or how much, it never really bothers him. Which tends to only make them hate him more.

For non-human characters: What does this character know about what they’ve become? Have they had any experiences that made them aware that weren’t exactly human? Elaborate. I’ve been considering the fen as a sort of family tribe. Something passed down through generations – after all, the tales about the swamp people have existed far longer than just Dominic. His mother was fen and probably his father wasn’t – otherwise he wouldn’t have found it so easy to leave. To Dominic, being fen is just like being human. Just another…shade of human. The thread of family tradition in the larger tapestry of who he is. He and his family don’t talk about it in so many words – his mother has never said to him, you are not human. But she talks about the connection to the swamp, the way they’re more suited to this environment to anywhere else. And well, he was always a good swimmer. I mentioned earlier that Dominic knows he belongs in Foxcroft because he knows he belongs in the swamp – it seems to bear repeating in this section. It’s his being a fen that truly supports that feeling for him. Basically, I’ve been viewing the fen a little bit like the Roma. In that, it’s an ancient sort of lifestyle that holds some truly awful stereotypes and prejudices against it. Something that seems inherent Old World, and close to the earth.

Please include 1-2 possible plots you see for this character. GONE TO VINEGAR: I mentioned that one too many rebuffs of Dominic’s kind nature could be just the thing to set off the bomb. I think that anger from him would be an interesting reaction – and it could present an opportunity for some other cools things to happen: who sees it? What’s their reaction? Do they tell the cops? Does it make them more sympathetic to him? MISADVENTURED PITEOUS OVERTHROWS: I’d love to see Dominic up against the Abrams or even the Foxcrofts. He’s just a boy who had a friend who is know in over his head. I want to see how they might push against him and how he would react – especially with the Abrams, the family of this girl he loved, blaming and hating him? I think it would break his heart. KNOW THYSELF: I’d love for Dominic to discover more of what he is exactly. Maybe this could be through his absent father? Maybe his mother finally tells the whole story of this family tradition? Maybe it’s just through research and carefully asked questions. I think if Dominic knew a little of the reality behind his ties to the swamp, it could help complicate his identity. Paradoxically, it would inject some doubt into his identity and make him wonder about how much of what he does is in his nature and whether or not being born of the swamp is necessarily a good thing.

WRITING SAMPLE Option #2 There was something about the earthy thickness of the air. Something about the palpable sensation: You’re getting close. You’ll belong again. Sometimes, Dominic could even hear it, the actual voice of the swamp, speaking and reach out to him. Calling him home. He could stop the frantic pedalling, then. Let himself just coast on momentum, into fuller trees with lower branches. Maybe it was suffocating to some, but it was just the pressure that Dominic needed. Like a container, keeping him together.

Even with the air full of swamp, it helped him to breathe easier. Calm the stinging tears over his cheeks. Cool the rush of red that had blossomed over his cheeks. Still, though, his mind raced, whirred from thought to thought, bouncing. It hadn’t been quite this bad since he was a kid, since before he was diagnosed and sitting in one place seemed impossible.

It probably hadn’t looked awesome, him darting off as soon as he heard the news, but Dominic couldn’t help it. Sitting in that place seemed impossible.

He tossed his bike to the side of the house, wheels still rattling as they spun drunkenly. The door screamed as he crashed through it and his mother jumped from where she was wiping off Stephanie’s face. “Baby?” she asked, moving to him. “What is it?” Stephanie’s big eyes were set on her brother, watchful and unblinking.

Dominic gasped and gulped, tried to find words as his mother cooed to him, “What’s wrong, Dom? C’mon, baby, tell me what happened.” Her fingers carded through her hair and he buried his face away in her collar. He was taller than his mom, had been for a few years, so it was an awkward angle but she held him still. With a horrible, retching inhale, Dominic blurting, “Hazel’s dead.” Sobs bubbled out in trails after, his shoulders shaking as his hands came to hold on to his mother like a lifeline. “She was murdered.”

His mother just closed her eyes, laid her cheek his head. Kept petting his hair and murmured soft words to him.

EXTRA How would you feel about this character dying?: I think I might be all right with it, if a little sad of course. Given the opportunity to create a custom character or something in the aftermath. Mostly only because I understand with Dominic as a main suspect in the murder, it might be “necessary” to the plot. But I really would be heartbroken to have that happen to this little lamb. To summarize: acceptable, but not ideal. Why did you choose this character?: BALL OF SUNSHINE. I love the idea of someone who is almost completely unruffled by an entire community’s perception of him. Additionally, I’m drawn to the concept of the fen and someone close to nature, but a part of nature that is usually seen as something dark or dangerous. Extras: you can find my pinboard for him here! How did you find us?: the lovely stella referred me!