#its been ten thousand years (eleven months)

[starlitcrows]

chapter 19 of the ff7r fic

[itstheendofthegoddamnworld]

Demon Knight: Odel

[I plan on making a part 2, I just needed to write something, to begin with!]

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Part 1  |   Part 2

Ad Laetitiam et Pacem

“It is set in ink. I will not hear anymore else of it,” your father, the King declared. “You will marry Lord Meriweather’s son by the arrival of spring.”

Perhaps in the hopes of pleasing your father, you would have heeded to words, to remain dutiful as princess of the realm and make your family proud.

That same night when you heard of your fate, you prepared to dress comfortably in a washerwoman’s ensemble, before slipping out the high window.

To hell with the arrangement, I would rather live a life of celibacy. This fate will not ruin my life.

The third daughter out of six and the eighth out of eleven living children, you had many brothers and sisters older that would be set for better matches from well-known lords and ladies. Yet, you were not put to become queen or to be married off to a wealthy lord, you were assigned to marry a minor lordling, his youngest son feeble and health ailing.

Of all the four sons of Lord Meriweather’s brood, you had to be matched with one with no proper destiny. Hugh was sickly and frail, not a knight or the heir to his father’s land, he was predestined to nothingness, and upon your first meeting with him, you snidely advised he was better suited to abstinence than to displeasing his future wife.

To your dissatisfaction, it had to be you that would be disappointed.

The moonlight acted as your only guide as you run blindly through the streets of the capital. Dead of life with only a few patrolling, you were able to squeeze into dark shadows, ducking and weaving before you found yourself on the outskirts of the capital. Its high, towering walls were manned, but you covered your face with your hood, ducking your head as you run out, away from the life you knew.

The adrenaline pumped swiftly in your chest, and a sense of freedom was overwhelming as the smile broadened on your face, racing your body as fast as you could through the woods.

Months of planning had come underway, and the only place you knew would be deserted; was Whitehaven Hold.

Your other option could’ve been to stay with your older sister, Alinor. Eight years your senior, she was married at eight-and-ten to a well-known and comely lord, giving him babes a year into their marriage.

Father will know I will go to her. You knew it would be a rooky mistake. He knew how much you loved your sister, how you missed her dearly after she was sent away to live the rest of her days in someone else’s castle.

Your older brother, Cassius was four-and-twenty, acting as a scholar in the south, but they did not accept women to the life of academics. No, it would’ve been harder to dress as a man to be accepted into his school.

It was a day or two away, and you spent your nights by a fire, rummaging for food and keeping what stale biscuits you hid in your dress pockets. You lay, wide awake, with no knowledge of where exactly you could go next.

The morning came easily when you arrived at the sight, a smouldering heat and smoke billowing from the mess in front of you.

Whitehaven Hold was a twisted, horrid sight. The battlements for a two-hundred-year war, its walls were burnt and destroyed, the stone had crumpled as it burnt and melted like candles, thousands burning inside. It acts as a haunted sight for travellers, with no Lord or Lady sane enough to reside there.

You entered through the battered doors, cold and damp easily enveloped you as you shuddered, looking around. It had been quickly looted of items by travellers, with not a sight of heirlooms or gold in sight. What remained was tattered and worn furniture, rooms dark and clammy and all the very same.

I’m not staying here before I lose my mind. You thought in disgust, but the thought of residing brought you to chuckle. The Lady of Whitehaven Hold- imagine the look on father’s face. It would not be good to stay a day or two before the cold enters your system and bring the chill quickly. It ached in your chest, not knowing where you could go next. South, always south. Away from it all.

The rooms were simple and easy to roam, a large, broken dining hall, fit for a Lord, wife and many heirs, its kitchen located on the far side. The table was battered and disarrayed, little to nothing scattered that remained of contents of food and dirt. You continued, walking past the cold entrance, up towards what remained of the grand staircase.

Spotting at the very top, are three displays of suits of armour, posing in similar positions. Their hands were positioned to have a greatsword in their hands, but only one remained in the grasp, the one in the middle.

You observed its armour, shinier and similar to molten black obsidian, it gleamed as if recently polished. You flicked your finger across the armour, its armour hummed low as you dragged across its armour to inspect for dirt.

“Hmph, just as I thought. A collectable.” You scoffed, wiping the grime from your finger as you stared up into its helm. The helmet was a beautiful display, gleaming in brilliance, except when you looked into the eyeless sockets of its eyes, something was not supposed to be there.

Eyes staring back. Alit with burning, enraged flames.

“There is little of me that I would class as a collectable,” a low, rumbling voice boomed, startling you rigid. You stepped back, towards the staircase, watching in horror. The talon-like fingers twitched momentarily, before another jolted with life, the whole hand was soon moving with existence.

The suit of armour slowly and lazily tested its movements, its long leg swung forward, groaning and choking as the armour moved. His fiery stare was towards you, raging with anger. “You are not meant to be here. You are trespassing.”

“No one lives here.”

“The Lord of Whitehaven Hold resides here, and I must protect my Lord from all.”

To your surprise, his fingers jerked to grip the hilt of his deadly sword tighter, a flash of silver startled you as he unsheathed the mighty weapon, before you were staggering, sprinting back down the stairs, hearing the squeaks of worn armour following hotly behind.

Leaving through the front door was an easier move, but with adrenaline pumping quickly in your chest. You stumbled and fell, your body kicking to keep moving, to hide, to do anything to get away from the deadly sword.

Something swung just behind you, a scream bubbling over you as his sword got caught into the wall, clinging with a hiss as it hit the wall and avoid taking a chunk out of you. You continued to run, in hopes you could find anywhere to hide, but no matter, the knight was hot on your tail.

You swept around the table, the knight rounding the other side, eyes flaming with the sword ready to swing before something caught his eye, something behind you. His sword lowered as he took in the damaged painting behind you, and you too turned to see what it was he was looking over.

The painting was of no doubt, the old Lord of Whitehaven Hold, yet he had been the first and last during the two-hundred-year war, murdered by conspirators who took over his castle after their coup.

There was a sadness that filled the knight’s eyes, lowering his sword, his entire demeanour changed to become defeated. “He’s gone?” His voice was gravelly and soft.

“He was murdered two-hundred years ago,” you spoke carefully, still gazing periodically towards the silver of his large sword. “There has not been another lord of this Hold since.”

The knight did not answer for a moment, looking at the painting with a solemn gaze that was so vivid without seeing the rest of his face. “Oh,” was the only word he spoke, before he sheathed his sword, marching back and away from the hall, back up towards the stairs.

“Hey, where are you going?” You stared in disbelief, uneasily tailing behind him a few feet. You watched how he climbed the stairs stiffly, moving back towards his display.

“I am no longer needed,” he spoke quietly. “I am free from my pact.”

“Pact from what?”

“The pact grants anyone who rules this hold the protection and my sword.” He moved towards to set himself in his display once more, propping the sword out to rest between his hands once more. You were by the bottom of the stairs, cautiously standing there. “I am no longer needed.”

Your cheeks heated the same way a child would grow in a tantrum. “Well, what if I became the next resident?”

His eyes peered over you, wide and in incredulously. “You’re a mere washerwoman.”

You remembered your clothing, the ones you snuck out in, and you knew you had no way of making him believe you. “Would you believe me if I said I was a Princess—and runaway one?”

He scoffed light-heartedly. “You’re rather funny, aren’t you?”

“I am!” You insisted. “My father is the current King, Cassius XV. My oldest brother is Crown Prince Isolde. My mother, Queen Adora, was forty when she passed, giving birth to my youngest sister, Margarita.” You told him your name, the one you despised using.

He did not answer once again, yet he seemed amused. “Anyone could know that of the current rulers.”

“I can read that,” you pointed towards the small display name, written in the old language of Ald, passed down to royalty and nobles to keep alive. “Would a washerwoman know about the culture and language of Ald? Would a washerwoman even know how to read?”

“Maybe so,” he assessed warily. “What is a princess like yourself doing out here?”

“My father wished to have me married off.”

He inquired amusedly. “You ran away from your betrothal? I don’t think I’ve heard of such a thing before.”

“You don’t know many princesses.” You muttered.

“Perhaps,” he mused. “It is known many Princesses of the past have been fond of comely knights and princes from far lands. It would be their dream to be married off.”

“Hugh Meriweather looks more weasel than man.”

The knight looked perplexed, but he did chuckle at your words. “Weasel, you say? I’m unsure there is some tale of a Princess and a weasel.”

Fairy tales are nightmares in reality. Just stories to keep girls happy. You thought. “It isn’t some fairy tale. I have no say in who I can love.” You huffed, crossing your arms. “That is why I’m here. Running away from the fate destined for me; misery, squeezing out babes and dying from childbed fever. You wouldn’t have to worry about being wedded off, you’re just a piece of talking armour.”

The silence that followed your passing words made you realise that you may have overstepped. You peered over at him, and though his face was shielded, you could tell your words had insulted him.

“You’re talking to a piece of talking armour.” He jeered and your cheeks had rouged once more in embarrassment. “What then, little Princess? You believe your father would not find you here?”

“He can sure try to.” You huffed. “I will not leave here.”

If he had eyebrows, you could be sure he had a face of exasperation. “You think you’ll have protection here?”

You shrugged nonchalantly. “You’re here.”

“I’m free from my pact, however.” He recalled.

“What about forming a pact with me? It can’t be that bad.” You said excitedly, too naively to think anything of it. You’ve had knights in service of protecting you your entire life: how different could this be?

“Princess,” his voice was laced with unease. “If you go ahead with this, you will need to sacrifice something of your life.”

Your silence was a tell-tell sign that you were uncertain. Sacrifice something, like what? You thought about the things you had to you: you had no titles to own, no claim to the throne, so you couldn’t give that up (you doubted you would’ve if you did own one). It seemed like an easy deal, yet nothing came to mind for you to give in return, until—

“I shall give you my hand in marriage.”

The knight recoiled almost as if he had been burnt in his ink-black armour, his demeanour changed to seem hesitant, almost incredulous to your offer. “What about Hugh the weasel? You don’t think I’m a married man already?” He asked.

“You wouldn’t be here if you were already married now, would you? You would be with your lady wife.”

He seemed pleased by your words, stepping forth towards you, around the table, before he was standing in front of you. His full height towered easily over you, and you imagined what he looked like without the helmet on him.

“I, swear by my name and honour, to protect and keep you in my stay, for as long as you may live. I am yours, Princess," he says. "I will shield your back and give you my life in the moment of need.”

You easily presented your hand to him to take into his, there was warmth oddly in his armoured fingers, and his obsidian suit of armour hummed and almost felt as if it was burning up on the inside before the knight brought your hand to his lips to place a kiss to your knuckles.

“Arise, sir-“

“Odel. Sir Odel.”

[butchtwelfthdoctor]

thinking a lot about time horror and how it relates to doctor who recently. like idk if 'time horror' is a thing as such but you know what i mean right. starts off small. rose discovers she missed a whole year of her life & had no idea. martha lives through the year that never was, and then it never was. she's a whole year older and has lived through so much, so did her family, lucy saxon and jack, and no one will ever know. donna thinks she has years of married life with lee only to discover that that time wasn't real either. in one of teh audios ten spends 7000 years trapped inside his own head in a time dilation that only took ten minutes for everyone else.

amy and rory get it constantly - rory dying in angels take manhattan in that apartment building, in the broken tardis hallways when amy thinks rory spent his whole life waiting for her. amy waiting 36 years for the doctor in that parallel timestream. the girl who waits - the inherent tragedy of waiting for a time traveller. rory spending 2000 years as a plastic centaurion. he can only half remember it but it was very real while he was living it. the pandorica. eleven spending 200 years avoiding his own death. river knowing that every time she sees the doctor he may know her less and less.

clara lives and dies thousands of times. she sees the doctor live and age nine hundred years and then regenerate over the course of one evening. she is ripped from death to discover the doctor spent four and half billion years, an incomprehensibly long time, trapped in a loop in order to get her back, and he doesn't remember that but it happened. ashildr lives so long she forgets who ashildr is. bill waits ten years for the doctor to come back, watches him spend weeks raising his eyebrow, only for him to miss her by two hours. yaz waits ten months for the doctor not knowing where she is, and jack spends nineteen years trying to get into a jail cell beside her to break her out. jack harkness lives for billions of years too. he is changed in every way possible and becomes somewhat of a lonely god himself. he gets stranded in the past and has no choice but to keep living it, hoping he'll see the doctor again

we see sarah jane, mel, ace, teagen, who spent decades thinking they would never see teh doctor again - thinking they were abandoned, or in sarah janes case, that they never even got to say goodbye. by the time the doctor sees donna again, its been around a thousand years for him. fifteen years where she didn't remember and a thousand years where he very much did.

[mariacallous]

BRUSSELS — While no European leader or bureaucrat has threatened to deport 20 million people or ban Muslims — except, perhaps, former President Donald Trump’s favorite European, Hungarian strongman Viktor Orbán — the European Union and Trump are closer on the issue of migration than words may suggest.

EU countries have individually pushed to crack down on migration after substantial surges in support for anti-immigrant parties in various European elections this year.

While they mostly eschew the racist, xenophobic rhetoric Trump uses to describe immigrants, in the cold, hard light of policy their positions are not all so different. At a meeting in Brussels, EU leaders spent hours discussing migrant processing centers, speedier deportations and “hybrid warfare” by hostile powers using migrants to destabilize EU countries.

“A new wind is blowing in Europe,” said the Dutch anti-Islam, anti-immigration populist Freedom Party leader Geert Wilders in Brussels on Thursday after a meeting of far-right leaders.

Migration has been at the forefront for Europe’s politicians since 2015, when more than a million migrants, many of them Syrians fleeing war, made their way to the bloc.

In the ensuing decade, the EU collective has shifted from the “we can do it” stance of former German Chancellor Angela Merkel to trying to shoo new arrivals away from the EU border altogether. In 2023 fewer than 300,000 people made it to the continent; this year the EU’s border agency, Frontex, estimates about 160,000 migrants have reached Europe.

In recent months, nearly a dozen European countries have instituted some form of border restrictions in an attempt to deter migrants, refugees and asylum seekers.

Poland this month announced a temporary halt to processing asylum requests from migrants arriving from neighboring Belarus, invoking a security threat. Germany’s Olaf Scholz instituted border controls this summer to stop undocumented migrants from crossing into Germany after a Syrian man stabbed eleven people, killing three. Six other countries, including Italy, France and Austria, have introduced border checks. 

Some analysts say if Trump were to return to the White House, it would put more wind in the sails of those who have matched and mirrored his administration’s ambitions on migration.

“Certainly, many member states that have pushed for a restrictive approach to migration will be watching the American elections very closely. This will give [EU countries pushing for more restrictions] further bargaining chips to push for their preferences both in the U.S. as well as in the EU,” said Alberto-Horst Neidhardt, head of European migration and diversity at the European Policy Centre.

Returns and deportations

The vague terminology around “return hubs” and “processing centers” mirrors Trump’s “Migrant Protection Program.” The initiative, colloquially known as “Remain in Mexico,” took effect in 2019 and forced tens of thousands of non-Mexican migrants back across the U.S. border to Mexico to await migration decisions there.

In a letter to leaders this week, Ursula von der Leyen, head of the EU’s executive branch, endorsed the idea of what she called “return hubs,” buildings to detain migrants in non-EU countries. (Spain’s prime minister, a relatively lonely voice on the matter, on Thursday rejected the idea after the EU leaders met.)

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has inaugurated “processing centers” in Albania where people headed to Italy will be transported — echoing Australia’s policy of sending asylum seekers to Papua New Guinea to have their claims processed.

Meanwhile, France is pushing to change EU law to facilitate deportations to third countries. And the EU already has thousands of kilometers of physical fencing at its external borders — a setup that far exceeds Trump’s ballyhooed but abortive border wall with Mexico.

Some experts argue that the mainstreaming of hardline rhetoric is leading to policy changes that favor Europe’s right.

“If you listen to Orbán and Meloni at times and others like [France’s far-right leader Marine] Le Pen over the years, the rhetoric has been as harsh and as virulent as what we hear from politicians like Trump in the United States,” said Judith Sunderland, associate Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch. 

“There is an intent to make it sound like it’s legal, like it is in line with international law.”

The policy changes have similar aims to those of Trump and his running mate, J.D. Vance: Reducing the number of new arrivals and sending people back to their countries of origin, even if those places are potentially unstable or unsafe.

“We have to recognize the current solutions don’t work,” said one EU diplomat who was granted anonymity to speak candidly about the conversation.

That is something Trump and many EU leaders would agree on. 

What’s in a word?

The major difference, though, is in style and tone. Europeans tend to tiptoe around contentious issues.

Take the d-word: “Deportations.”

For Trump, who has vowed to deport between 15 and 20 million people from the U.S. if re-elected in November, using the word “deportation” is a badge of honor. 

“Under the Trump administration, if you came in illegally, you were apprehended immediately and you were deported,” the Republican presidential hopeful crowed at a rally in July. “That’s why, to keep our family safe, the Republican platform promises to launch the largest deportation operation in the history of our country.”

For European leaders and officials, though, the d-word (which is linked, for many in Europe, to Nazi deportations to death camps during World War II) is almost taboo. The bloc’s officials speak gingerly of “returns” or “return hubs” to describe the enclosed camps or detention centers they’ve set up outside the EU.

And when it comes to describing how migrants reach its borders, EU leaders tend to tread carefully again. 

While Trump has no qualms about qualifying some migrants as “illegal” and decrying “illegal immigration,” in the EU migration that doesn’t come via airports or other official routes is officially described as “irregular.”

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is the one EU leader to buck the trend, doing away with European niceties and fully embracing Trump-style rhetoric, and straight-up villainizing migrants with his right-wing nationalist stance. The strongman leader vowed earlier this month to bus migrants to Brussels, copying a similar vow by Florida governor Ron DeSantis, who sent migrants in his state to Martha’s Vineyard, a posh vacation spot in Massachusetts.

“I have been chest-deep in the bloodbath of the migration debate for quite some time,” Orbán recently told a press conference in Brussels, channeling Trump.

Forging ahead

But it’s not all smooth sailing for Europe’s migration hardliners — some leaders are facing setbacks in real time.

This week, Meloni proclaimed Italy’s migration policy “a model for Europe.” But on Thursday, while she gathered with other European leaders in Brussels, her offshore detention centers in Albania hit their first hurdle. 

Four of the 16 migrants sent to Albania have already been put on a boat back to Italy because they were children or were considered vulnerable (only male adults who are not considered vulnerable can be taken to Albania after a screening at sea under Italy’s own rules). 

Opposition groups and NGOs immediately called the project a failure.

“It will have very real consequences on people around the world, potentially, because those other countries look at what the EU is doing to them and say, well, you know, why should we guarantee people’s rights?” said Sunderland from Human Rights Watch.

The bigger concern, for some critics, is that harsh rhetoric and measures on migration will open the door to other policies.

“Migration has really become a Trojan horse for conservative forces to then push an agenda that goes beyond migration,” said the European Policy Centre’s Neidhardt.

[moon-megami]

New Neurologist

Today I had a very inconvenient auto-rescheduled neurologist follow up appointment. I've only seen the actual Neurologist once, but he didn't find anything 'wrong' with me other than "it's probably migranes", so I got shuffled off to one of his nurse practitioners. This time I got a new one since the old one was no longer there. If anything, the old NP was passionate and caring, which helped. But she was mostly making sure the headache that likes to shatter the base of my skull hasn't came back and that I'm using my CPAP. I've been using 500mg of Magnesium to keep that skull-shattering pain away, and it's working. No one is going to pry that supplement out of my cold dead hands.

She starts out with the broad question "How are you?". A loaded question for someone who has a thousand problems. How am I? For which part of me? I could only muster up that my POTS was acting up because I got a stomach bug last week and my body hasn't caught up. I could kinda tell she didn't really 'follow', not a great sign. I felt slightly dizzy when standing yesterday, I had to use the scooter at the store to get myself a birthday present. She looked at my BP and just said "It's normal". No shit shirlock.

She steers the conversation to my headaches. My regular GP gave me Topimax at the beginning of January to try, but I was really weary of the side effects. I had finally eluded to him the fact I was smelling and tasting cigarette smoke out my nose and it had gotten worse and worse since August (I experienced phantom smells for at least 7+ years), so he gave me a low dose of 25mg Topimax because it could be a migraine aura. Checks out I guess. I've always known I have painless headaches or at least non-conventional headaches. About a week ago I finally noticed the effects and the smell is mostly gone. But the brain fog is still there.

The brain fog. I've always had brain fog since I've been diagnosed with POTS and Dysautonomia 13 years ago. I was 22 when all my issues started. But recently, around August or so (along with the phantom smell), it has gotten so much worse. So much so, that I can barely do my job. I'm a web programmer, and I need my brain to work. I need to be able to write more than a few lines of code a day, and yet, lately, that's all I can muster. Following a few trains of thought has been hard for me the past few months. This is a different beast of brain fog. As I sit there pouring this out to my new NP, tears roll down my cheeks. She asks me if I'm "sure" it just didn't start happening with Topimax (because one of the side effects is cognitive decline and brain fog). I reiterated to her, no, definitely not. If only I could show her my git history, hah.

She says "Let's take a little test". She gets up and brings back a paper, saying it's a memory test or whatever. I thought to myself, ok, this is easy. I don't like being put on the spot but I put my best effort face on anyway. She gave me 5 words to remember at the start of the test. Easy. She put a timer on one minute and told me to list as many animals I can think of. Sure.

"Cat, fish, chicken, dog, ... bird ... lion .. giraffe ....... cat ....." before I knew it, the timer was going off and I was sitting there in a ball pulling my hair out practically. Ugh. Failed that one miserably. I've always been bad at pulling things out of my ass. Go ahead, ask me where anything is. I know exactly where it is, but don't get the word "dresser" out of me when I tell you "its on the thingy over there".

Next was a few math problems, took me longer to answer but I think i was still riled up from the last question. After that I had to repeat back numbers backwards in increasing length, easy.

Next, I had to put an X on the triangle. She hands me the paper. I go straight for the square and mark it and she's like "No... that's the square." FUCK. "oh.. uh.. oh yeah the triangle lol haha". She then tells me to draw the hands of the clock "ten til eleven". I re-read the sentence next to the clock to make sure I understood and drew the clock, perfect, yep.

Next she read me a short story at the bottom of a paper and I answer all the details she asked for after. At the end she asks me for the words at the begining of the test.

Oh yeah. Those.

2 of them I was certain of. Pen and Tie. 2 I wasn't sure but I tried to remember her gestures at the time, Ball and Shirt, surely. The other was a mystery.

She takes the paper and totals the score. She had a slight downturn in her smile as she looked at the answers and the score. She says to me "Perhaps we should refer you to a center for further evaluation.". I asked her what I scored, out of curiosity. She forced a smile and scooted her chair closer to me. I know a polite blow when I see one, and it was coming. "Well... I expected a little higher score for someone your age and education level". There is is. Boom.

I asked her what I scored and what I missed. She said I got a 20/30, which doesn't mean much to me. But apparently, I only remembered 2/5 words, and missed all the number backward questions except for the 2-digit one, she seemed to have forgiven me for the triangle mistake. I drew the clock wrong. WAIT. I DREW THE CLOCK WRONG? Damn, I'm really stupid. Yeah, I drew it as 11:55 and not 11:50. All I had to do was draw a straight line with 2 arrows. Ugh. At least I got all the details in the story right.

So she wrote up some labs I have to go get now, told me to stop taking Topimax, and wrote me a prescription for Qulipta, which, as you know, is a very expensive medication. CBC, TSH, Total T4, B1, B12, Folate, D 25 hydroxy. All will come back normal I'm sure, I've had most of them checked recently anyway. And that referral, which will probably also take months to hear back from. In the car, I was mad at myself and a little sad. What did the test mean for me? I have always had... difficulties in some departments. I know I had learning difficulties, but I've always conquered them. I have never let it define me or interfere with my successes.

As soon as I got home, I wrote my GP an email through my portal explaining that she wanted me to stop taking the Topimax and start Qulipta, and about my test result. I had mentioned the crippling brain fog to him on my last visit too.

He wrote back in the evening, I assume after all his patients for the day. The tone of his correspondence came off to me as slightly spiteful, and I don't know how I feel about it. I've been building up a great rapport with him for 4 years, trusting him with more and more of my symptoms as I went along, him listening to just about every one of them and offering is best knowledge.

"I only have experience with Topimax and not Qulipta, but it seems like they have convinced your insurance to cough up the money for the expensive drug by using your cognitive test to justify taking you off Topiramate."

So was I just... used? Was all that test for was to get a kickback for a drug? It didn't feel like it, surely she wouldn't have bothered with ordering all the labs and that referral for further testing to a completely unrelated center? Talk about knocking me down a few inches more, to how already diminished I was feeling earlier today after my appointment. I feel mad and betrayed, but did he really mean it the way I am taking it? Was he mad I went against his own recommendations?

Again my closest friend is no help, he tries to comfort saying he'd score the same as me. From my quick Google search, and I do mean quick, because I didn't want to scare myself, 'normal' educated people my age don't score that low, even if they try. I don't tell my husband because I don't want him to worry, he has anxiety and worries too much. I only tell him things I am certain about. I don't know what to do with myself but type what I feel here and cry.

I guess that's the point of a blog.

[ftm2bbw]

That's the hope, right? I mean, if your body thinks you're pregnant, then surely it'll know to stop after nine months. Either it'll force you to birth nothing (which could be interesting on its own) or it'll figure out that you're not actually pregnant and shut everything down. Those really seem like the only two options. At least the good thing is that not actually being pregnant means you can keep eating your favorite foods (and your favorite coffee) both to sate your bottomless appetite and to manage your ever increasing dysphoria.

When you look in the mirror, all you can see is "Woman." Massive, leaking tits that could feed a household or more. Wide hips perfect for pushing out child after child after child. An ass and hips that some women pay tens of thousands of dollars to emulate and they don't even come close. And a belly, swollen and (to the outside observer) incubating a small army of children. You emanate such femininity and fertility that it's a wonder that people don't start spontaneously ovulating in your presence. Of course, given the way that people gawk at your curves, you probably do inspire your fair share of, shall we say, procreative activities. Fitting for a fertility goddess.

And it only gets worse. Your boobs get bigger and milkier. Your ass gets bigger and your hips get wider. And your belly keeps growing. You live in perpetual fear, wondering which milestone will come first. What'll happen sooner, you'll hit the nine months mark or your ass will become too big to squeeze through the doorways in your home? Every time you struggle to stand up and you have to waddle around your gravid belly, you wonder if it'll be the last time you can stand before your belly becomes too big to navigate around. And the proportion of your day spent draining your tits only increases as your milking convinces your body that the demand is ever-growing.

The only thing keeping you going is the thought that, eventually, it has to end. You'll hit that nine months mark and this nightmare will finally be over and maybe, if you're lucky, you might be able to go back to some semblance of normal. You find yourself actually growing excited, truly pleased for the first time in months when the nine month mark comes.

And goes.

Okay, well, you don't know exactly when it started, so maybe your calculations are a bit off.

There are some cases of delayed birth, so ten months isn't a big deal.

You scour the internet, desperate to find cases of pregnancies that lasted for eleven months.

When a full year rolls around, it finally starts to sink in that it's never going to end. Your body is just going to keep going and going and going, trying to support and make room for a litter of babies that would make some animals jealous. The worst part is the mixed messages the hormones are sending through your body. On the one hand, it thinks that it still has to get bigger, the growing of your body only barely outpaced by the growing of your appetite. You now spend nearly half of your waking hours milking and you're starting to wonder if it wouldn't be worth it to get an automated pump that you can hook yourself up to while you sleep. Your udders are just so full in the mornings. On the other hand, your body thinks that it's been enough time and it's time for you to get knocked up again. Your body aches for it in the most embarrassing way. When your friend comes over to check on you (and bring you your coffee. You're up to three a day, now), you can feel your body aching for him in a deeply embarrassing and decidedly womanly way. If you could lift your hips, you'd be offering yourself to him. It really is an animalistic heat, a deep-seated, instinctive need to be bred. And the worst part is that your belly is now so massive that you can't even reach with a toy. The best you can do is to squeeze your fupa with your thighs and hope that it gets you off. That or ask your friend for help. You know he would. He's so helpful. But you're not that desperate.

Not yet, anyway.

It wouldn't take long until I was dependent on him, too. I'd be far too embarrassed - and let's be real, far too lazy and fat - to leave the house at that point. Not to mention how I'd have to content with my aching, leaking tits if I went out in public.

I have to wonder if he'd get more bold the more I...developed. Almost as if he could guess exactly what urges I was struggling with. If he'd steal a feel here and there, or make pointed teasing comments. Of course, I'm sure he'd only encourage me to drain my tits and keep eating. And to enjoy the ritual of my daily coffees, naturally.

[fakenewsfactcheck]

What IS normal is that in some cultures, statements like that are made almost poetically: not meaning that there are literally children dying of heart attacks, but that it feels as though children are dying of heart attacks, dying of fear, in these grave and tragic circumstances. And in other cultures, such statements are either made as facts, or as "close enough" to the facts.

And I think that OP was speaking poetically, metaphorically, expressing what feels like a deeper truth, rather than presenting something you can fact-check.

I also think that the majority of the 17,500 notes on here are assuming it's literally true.

Unfortunately, what is also normal now is that people will immediately, 100% believe a completely unsourced factual statement that Palestinian children are dying from heart attacks. With zero evidence. Zero numbers. Zero examples.

Zero critical thinking, is what I'm saying, as nicely as I can. I realize that people are believing this out of an immense amount of concern and compassion.

But also, it's very clearly not true.

Heart attacks aren't caused by fear. Heart attacks aren't caused by nervous system exhaustion. Not without preexisting heart problems.

And no part of Palestine has experienced anything like near 24 hour bombardment for even one month, much less eleven.

If you go to Google News and put in, say, "Gaza" "children" "heart attacks" --

Okay, so one Israeli child died from a heart attack. Triggered by the rocket alert sirens. A few weeks after Israel was invaded by terrorists who tortured, mutilated, and burned their way across an area larger than Gaza in just one day.

But the fact that the shock of yet another siren caused her heart attack (in a country that has gotten an average of 4 missile attacks per day since 2001) probably means she had an unknown preexisting condition.

Dr. Noa Rosenfeld, the manager of the emergency children’s ward at Assuta, told the Ynet news site that incidents of heart attacks are rare, but some people are “very sensitive to adrenaline in high doses that can cause them a cardiac problem.”

Nothing else in the news about heart attacks in children. Not from any source, from CNN to Al-Jazeera.

I did find one about strokes in children during war:

"We see strokes in children aged 12 to 13,” Liashko said. “Before the war, such cases were really unique. But now, our health system has children with strokes.”

Inna Ivanenko, Director of Patients of Ukraine, the nation’s largest patient organization, added in an interview she knows of even younger stroke victims.

“Ten,” she said quietly.

The surge in pediatric strokes is just one facet of the escalating health crisis affecting Ukrainian civilians, the country’s health minister said. Years of war have left the entire population, not just children, at higher risk due to extreme stress and untreated post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

“People have strokes 10 to 15 years earlier,” Liashko said. “Also heart attacks, 10 to 15 years earlier.”

If you all remember the months and months of "Israel has killed more people in Gaza than Russia did in Ukraine!" You might be thinking something like, "if this is happening in Ukraine, it's gotta be happening in Gaza too!"

First, Ukraine is MUCH bigger than Gaza. That means a MUCH larger number of children, which means more tweens who might have strokes.

Second, Russia'a current invasion of Ukraine has been going on for two and a half years. And it actually began its attacks on Ukraine ten years ago.

Third, its attacks are far closer to genocide.

Genocide often includes forced population transfer:

The transfer of hundreds of thousands of people from Ukraine is part of a deliberate and systemic strategy, laid out in Russian government documents.

An “emergency mass order” describes the “distribution” of 100,000 Ukrainians to some of the most remote and impoverished regions of Russia. None was to be sent to the capital, Moscow....

One refugee, Bohdan Honcharov, told the AP that about 50 Ukrainians he traveled with were sent to Siberia, so far away that they effectively disappeared with little chance of escape.

Genocide typically includes the attempt to erase all evidence a culture even existed:

Eight months after Mariupol fell into Russian hands, Russia is eradicating all vestiges of Ukraine from it – along with the evidence of war crimes buried in its buildings, such as the famed Drama Theater where demolition started Thursday.

The few open schools teach a Russian curriculum, phone and television networks are Russian, the Ukrainian currency is dying out, and Mariupol is now in the Moscow time zone.

On the ruins of the old Mariupol, a new Russian city is rising, with materials from at least one European company, The Associated Press found....

Russian authorities in October dismantled Mariupol’s memorial to victims of the Holodomor, the Soviet-engineered famine in the 1930s that killed millions of Ukrainians, according to video posted on Russian television. They also painted over two murals commemorating victims of Russia’s 2014 attack on Ukraine, images obtained by the AP show.

And most relevant here, genocide involves killing a massive percentage of a group: usually between 30%-90%.

The repeated statement that Israel had killed more people was, factually, entirely untrue. It was based on the UN's count of deaths that it had been able to independently verify, something that has largely stalled in both places because war.

As of August 2024, the UN has verified almost 12,000 deaths in Ukraine. But in Mariupol alone, just in the first three months of 2022, the AP found that the death count was probably over 75,000. Which is still almost twice the deaths in Gaza over the past year.

Back in May [2022], when the city finally fell, the municipal government in exile estimated 25,000 people at a minimum had died. But at least three people in the city since June say the number killed is triple that or more, based on conversations with workers documenting body collection from the streets for the Russian occupation authorities.

In short, there are many reasons that Ukraine is more likely than Gaza to see children having strokes.

I'm just giving that sort of detailed comparison so people can understand why there also haven't been reports of children in Gaza having strokes. (And yes, I did check.)

I know, nobody will see this. But in the hopes that I will one day be wrong, there it is.

palestinian children are dying of heart attacks because of the constant fear and nervous system exhaustion of near 24 hr bombardment. for ELEVEN FULL MONTHS palestinian children have been dying of heart attacks. dying from fear.

[libraryofcirclaria]

1405 to 1416

Library of Circlaria

Remikra Timeline

 The Silonk Amendment

Signed into law by Prime Minister Silonk early January 1405, the series of legislative changes, informally known as the "Silonk Amendment," dramatically altered the EIFA Forum. Under these changes, Tier I was now democratically elected by the members of Tier II, and was also not industry-selective. Multiple industries were now represented in Tier I. As a result, the scriptfire industry saw a major increase in funding in the coming years.

The Tri-Platform Integration Project

In September 1405, the Commonwealth Council wrote and passed legislation authorizing the effective merger and budget reconciliation of the lightfire industry, dymensional fire industry, and a part of the South Coast Deal. On 23 September, the Tri-Platform Integration Project was signed into law by Prime Minister Silonk, and, on 2 October, the business merger took effect, resulting in the integration of the now-ailing Leon-Kontacet Trust. In 1406, the formal budget reconciliation of the Project took effect.

Not long after, to compliment the project, the Council voted to change the public fiscal schedule from a quarterly to an eleven-week schedule.

The First Thysaren Environmental Crisis

In September 1407, a series of freak events occurred in various locations throughout the nation, where flocks of birds fell out of the sky dead, and thousands of people were hospitalized for psychosis symptoms, of which 600 died. A thorough federal investigation found the chemical, Thysaren, to be the cause.

Thysaren, a compound regularly used to enhance the development of the gyroplane industry since the 1370s, had been a primary source of controversy regarding its toxicity to the environment. After much debate, the Commonwealth government permitted its use in moderation. By the first decade of the 1400s, however, numerous claims demonstration the ability for long-term exposure to do as much damage as untreated Benjamin Arnold Syndrome to the human brain. In the wake of the September 1407 crisis, the Silonk Administration placed a ten-month ban on its use.

The OCEA Fallout

Another fallout in the remaining lightfire industry market led to an economic crisis toward the end of 1408. As OCEA investments plunged, numerous reports found the existing Commonwealth platform, established over 100 years previously, to be corrupted and costly. In response to passed legislation by the Commonwealth Council to end funding for the platform and reconcile the budget for a new platform, Prime Minister Silonk, in October 1408, ordered the platform to be shut down.

In March 1409, the Silonk Administration established a new OCEA platform. While the platform bore striking similarities to the original, there were notable differences. The most important difference was that this new platform was governed by an appointed board and existed under more stringent privacy measures in order to protect it from corrupt Circlarian interests.

1410

After the ten-month ban, Thysaren was carefully reintroduced back into the market under strict regulation. The agenda to control its impact on the environment, however, came to a failure in February 1410, when the Second Thysaren Crisis hit. This time, portions of numerous wildlife species were dying out, drinking water in many parts of the nation become highly toxic, crops were failing, and an additional 900 people died. In response to this, the Silonk Administration placed a complete and permanent ban on the chemical.

On 6 June 1410, Prime Minister Silonk signed the Ninth Amendment of the Constitution, which provided a firmly grounded right of functional establishment for the Darkfire Community. Of the provisions of this Amendment included the Darkfire Community's right to continue its functions in spite of any external interference, the right to impose non-disclosure of sensitive information to foreign entities, and right to carry out non-compliance to foreign inquiries.

In conjunction with a divided opposition, the passage of the Ninth Amendment and handling of the Thysaren Crises earned Silonk re-election for the 1411-16 term.

1411-1412

The establishment of the Ninth Amendment paved the way for the setup of "mobile community units," or MCUs, along with increased defenses, beginning in 1411.

Meanwhile, integration began between the scriptfire industry and the Library of Circlaria. Up to this point, the Library had consisted of dymensional planes based on books and manuscripts. Such a collection was inconsistent and disorganized. However, in conjunction with the Tri-Platform Integration Project, books and paper manuscripts began being copied onto scriptfire platforms. As the Library became more uniform, dymensional planes remained independent but became otherwise integrated into one system, something for which former Prime Minister Kontacet strived.

It is important to note that during this time, the nation of Locin had, in May 1411, voted to officially leave the Remikran Union. In January 1412, the decision took effect, meaning that, while certain economic ties remained with the Remikran Union, Locin no longer accepted Remikran Union currency. As it became part of the South Circlarian Trade Federation, the nation enacted further logistics in customs, as a result. This would have a profound impact on the Commonwealth and Remikran Union.

1413

In March 1413, a Commonwealth military general used a Kontacet-style "fearful" tactic against a foreign entity in the South Coast Trade Deal during a logistical confrontation, resulting in concern in the Commonwealth for diplomatic consequences. In response, the Commonwealth Council met, where it quickly wrote and passed the South Coast Diplomatic Protocol Act, with its main provisions being rules for civil disengagement and continuance of business.

Meanwhile, the re-emerging Trader Party touted the above Act as not being sufficient for diplomatic standards, and stated that better diplomacy was needed in order to regain prosperity relative to the Circlarian Realm. Such stances gained popularity, and, on Election Day, the Trader Party gained half of the Commonwealth Provincial Governor seats, slightly less than half of all seats in the House of Representatives and slightly more than half of a third of the seats in the Ministry Council. Prime Minister Silonk would consider the results of this gubernatorial election to be a "fluke."

1414

An economic conference was held with the Edoran Regiondom in January 1414, during which the Edorans admitted the technical sector of the scriptfire industry to not be as profitable as was stated during the years of Kontacet's Administration. This spurred a motion in the Commonwealth for the EIFA Forum to withdraw significant amounts of funding from the Tri-Platform Integration Project. That month, as a result of this drastic economic shift, the Commonwealth Council quietly voted to discontinue the Project altogether. The Trader Party called for a replacement Project with more consistency and unity, boosting popular support only to be further bolstered by sympathy over the death of Former Prime Minister Raoul Robinson in December.

1415

In June, a large storm system, known as the Great Storm, ravaged the East Coast, adversely affecting traveling and infrastructure, and putting the Commonwealth under economic strain. In light of this, Stanley Arland Moore, the son of Arland Terrace Moore, rose to popularity with his promise for a unified front for economic prosperity. During the week of the Primary Elections that September, he stressed the importance of integration between the Darkfire Community and the trade sectors of the Commonwealth economy. On Election Day, after winning the Trader Party Primary nomination for Prime Minister, Moore, in his speech, spoke the words: "We need integration. And we need it badly."

1416

The darkfire industry carried out a trial known as "encapsulation," which did not meet economic quotas as expected. Investors in this project withdrew suddenly, triggering government intervention. Nevertheless, panic ensued as the darkfire industry temporarily shut down. In response to this, on 16 April 1416, the Commonwealth ratified the Tenth Amendment of the Constitution, which prohibited any public or private entity from imposing so-called "binding schedules" upon the darkfire industry.

Moore's campaign platform called for unity between the Darkfire Community and the trading front, a concise agenda for expansion in the scriptfire plane sector of the scriptfire economy, and enhanced diplomatic measures with foreign entities. With Silonk's re-election platform simply citing the risks posed by Moore's agenda and calling for closer alliance with the Great North, Moore won the Election on 16 September, as the Trader Party gained majorities in both Houses of Council.

<- 1393 to 1404 <-

[iriemorning]

timekeeper

time is a very fickle thing. it’s a manmade construct alongside calendars. there are different time zones and different calendars around the world. the earth can go through a massive wipeout and the new civilization that emerges would invent another concept of time starkly different from what we‘re subscribing to right now, which we all follow to maintain order. even the earliest epic ever recorded—the Epic of Gilgamesh from the ancient city of Sumer and Mesopotamia—was referencing a much earlier civilization that we dont know of.

only two thousand years of this planet ever being acknowledged is a dastardly degeneration of all its progress and all that has been. humans are also fickle. we keep on changing with the times, but we also severely downgrade how much our generational actions directly affect its impact. we treat time as a ticking clock and a reminder of our dues, work, and mortality on earth; but turn a blind eye when it comes to finally having the chance to make its arrowheads circumvent in our favor.

it’s ironic considering how progressive we’ve become and with the rise of AI it’s the most opportune time to think outside the box, but barely only make it when it comes to serving what’s actually functional for the greater good and what comes after. time is manmade, and thus, we shall be ruling over it like it’s our empire and not act like its slave. we can reinvent it again and again, not as a mandate, but in our own little corners. it starts in the mind. we can paint our timing.

even in the little things. especially in the little things.

i already talked about how i live my life in seasons; almost episodic. as this year’s summertime ran its course, my own concept of time just got brighter and brighter. in a single month, i experience three decans. kind of like a pie in three slices. i am always focused on a single goal and it always takes me nine, ten or eleven days to build up to that goal. its not fixed because the total days of the month are uneven. for example, on the first ten days of april i was focused on recovering my body after camping in the mountains. the next ten days i was preparing to go to the beach with my best friend. another ten days for rest time and reflecting on my trip. those are my three decans in a month. they’re like episodes that contain a beginning, middle, and end. the first decan would be peaceful, the second decan the busiest, and the third decan would look like not a lot is happening in my external state but there’s actually a lot of internal transformation happening inside me since im meditating and reflecting. all decans are interconnected and equally as important.

numerology also comes into play. i noticed that on days with 5 (5th, 15th, 25th) i would receive a new piece of information, message, or announcement that would kickstart the current decan im in. kind of like a plot twist in a story, since i have reached the midpoint of the ten-day rule. on days with 9 (9th, 19th, 29th) im already receiving a preview for whats gonna happen in my next ten days, as im close to finishing my goals for the current decan. in my own experience, every 25th and 29th of the month were always the most impactful since the twist and climax would encompass the three decans i just went through in a single month.

viewing my schedule this way made me properly invest my energy in the rightful places. it lessened my worries and overthinking; to take it easy on a single goal one decan at a time. i could only have limited energy but i can very much manipulate time within my own means. i painted my own timing.

of course this would only work if you observe your own capabilities first ahead of time. take a breather. look back at your past goals that youre proud of and how you achieved them. i broke free from the seven day-rule and made it ten days because that is how i naturally operated in the past few months. the gift of realization only upgraded my lifestyle even more.

just remember that it all starts in the mind. get creative.

[avatar-news]

An eleven-year-old Avatar Yangchen meets a new past Avatar and travels to the Spirit World for the first time in the first official preview from Chronicles of the Avatar: The Dawn of Yangchen

With the highly anticipated first Avatar Yangchen novel by The Rise and Shadow of Kyoshi author F. C. Yee due to hit shelves in under two months, we have our first official preview from the prologue: Voices of the Past; and Chapter One: The First Step, courtesy of Gizmodo!

In it, a young Yangchen is an uncontrolled conduit reliving past Avatars’ experiences both good and bad, including a new named past life: Avatar Gun, whose tragic memories of a haunting failure send her into a feverish state.

You’ll learn more about Avatar Gun in the preview, but with them we now know of ten named Avatars:

Wan (fire) ...

Gun (unknown element) ...

Salai (unknown element) ...

Szeto (fire)

Yangchen (air)

Kuruk (water)

Kyoshi (earth)

Roku (fire)

Aang (air)

Korra (water)

Man, this franchise is so cool. Note that we don’t actually know the order Gun and Salai are in.

We also learn the names of five past Avatars’ team members: Jetsun (Yangchen's older sister, featured in the preview and the POV of the prologue!), Mesose (Gun's companion), Angilirq, Praew, and Yotogawa, as well as the name of the Earth King who died about ~300 years before Yangchen’s time (so about ~850 years before ATLA and about ~920 years before TLOK, wow!): Earth King Zhoulai.

With all that lore setting the tone, we then follow Yangchen’s first journey into the Spirit World at age 11, at a stone circle above the Western Air Temple similar to the one at the Eastern Air Temple where Yangchen’s future life, Korra, enters the Spirit World for the first time centuries later!

Without further ado, you can read the full preview here:

Voices of the Past

Jetsun paced down the hallway, trying to stay ahead of the screams.

The high ceilings of the Western Air Temple tended to make echoes of whispers and explosions of dropped teacups. Though the girl was back in the infirmary being watched by the elders, her cries of pain sprang from every surface, bouncing off the hard stone.

Jetsun couldn’t take it anymore and broke into a full run. Ignoring decorum, she sped past her sisters, ruffling robes, upsetting inkpots, prematurely ruining colorful sand paintings that were meant to be ruined only once they were finished. No one scolded her or gave her sharp looks in passing. They understood.

When she ran out of floor she jumped. The upside-down construction of the temple meant that despite its overall size, there was very little space to stand on, nothing connecting the spires but thin air and a three-thousand-foot drop. She didn’t have her glider. Eminently dangerous, but she could make the leap without it.

Air at her back and air against her robes gave her enough loft to land on the next tower, the one containing the Great Library. Tsering, chief caretaker of the books, waited in front of the tall shelves. The older woman’s kind eyes were edged with worry. “I saw you coming. Is it happening again?”

Jetsun nodded. “Mesose,” she said.

Tsering blew out a breath, a silent whistle of frustration. “That could be Mesose, famous scholar of the Ru Ming era. There’s a Mesose village in Hu Xin; it might have been named after a founder. Or it could just be someone called Mesose, in which case we’re stuck.”

Avatars tended to run in exalted circles. Or they elevated the people around them to fame. “It has to be the first one,” Jetsun said.

Another wail turned both their heads. The child was suffering. “Help me and it’ll go faster,” Tsering said. “Northwest corner, start with the poetry shelves, Ru with the three drops of water radical.”

They split up to search different sections of the ancient vault. Jetsun ran her eyes over labels and titles as fast as she could. Not every book fit on a shelf. Many of the tomes kept at the Western Temple were so old they were written on bamboo slips instead of paper. She passed rolled bales of text wider around than some of the pillars connecting the ceilings to the floors.

Five minutes later she emerged from the library’s depths, clutching a treatise on she didn’t know exactly what. What mattered was the author’s name.

Tsering met her by the door. “I couldn’t find any leads. You’re holding our best shot.”

“Thank you.” Jetsun sprinted back in the direction she came, the book tucked under her arm.

“Use your glider next time!” Tsering yelled.

~~~

Jetsun burst back into the infirmary. The huddle of elders parted to let her through. The girl’s thrashing had settled into dry, cavernous sobs. She pounded her fist on her pillow over and over, not the involuntary shaking of a fever but rather the deliberate motion born of a steady, all-consuming anguish that should have been beyond her eight years.

“We’ll leave you two alone,” Abbess Dagmola said. She and the rest of the nuns filed out. Too many people sometimes ruined the effect. Jetsun opened the book to a random page and began to read.

“ ‘The level of risk can be determined by elevation, nearness to the source of water, vulnerability to rapid flows, and potential economic damage,’ ” she said. Confused, she briefly turned the volume to look at the cover. A Discourse on Floodplain Management.

Why in the world do we have this book? Jetsun shook her head. It didn’t matter. “ ‘Understanding previous measures taken to mitigate the damage from flooding is essential, for they might compile danger instead of reducing it.’ ”

The girl took a shuddering gasp of air and relaxed. “Half a year and that’s as far as you’ve gotten?” she said, smiling at no one. “You have to stop taking on so many projects at once, Se-Se.”

It worked. Thank the spirits, it worked. Jetsun kept reading, plowing through the unfamiliar concepts mechanically. “ ‘On the subject of silt deposits . . .’ ”

The first time the child went through this, they had no clue as to what was happening. The healers did their best to cool her fever and keep her as comfortable as they could. As the incidents reoccurred, her babbling, incoherent at first, started to coalesce into sentences, names, slices of conversations. The words meant nothing to her caregivers until one day they heard her talking to His Majesty the Earth King Zhoulai. A man she’d never met, who’d died three centuries ago.

Thankfully, the abbess had thought to take notes. She’d written down every intelligible scrap, and in scouring her pages she pieced together a pattern. The names. Angilirq, Praew, Yotogawa. Names from every nation.

Names of past Avatar companions.

Not every phantom the child spoke to had made it into the annals of history, and some that had were never acknowledged as having close ties to an Avatar. Jetsun could only imagine the stories lost to time, filtering through the girl, merest fragments sticking in her throat.

And the conversations were pleasant, frequently enough. She would laugh with her friends in towns that had been renamed, provinces that no longer existed. Jetsun had watched her leap from her bed and bellow at the success of legendary winter hunts, sit on the floor and meditate with someone else’s inner peace.

But occasionally she would have waking nightmares. Bouts of sorrow and rage that threatened to tear her apart. She wouldn’t mutter names but scream them as if she’d been betrayed by the universe itself.

By accident, they discovered she could sometimes be calmed by figuring out the past figure she was talking to, when it was possible, and speaking back to her from that perspective. The deeper they could dive into the role the better, like parents reading a bedtime story, doing voices and parts. Familiarity was the best balm they had, and they acted their hearts out for her.

The girl nodded off by the time Jetsun reached a chapter on the proper construction of seawalls. Tsering entered the room. No glider, Jetsun noticed. She probably wanted to see if she could still make the jump too.

“How is she?” the librarian asked.

“Better,” Jetsun said. “Who was Mesose?”

“A companion of Avatar Gun,” Tsering said, coming over to the bedside. “Skilled poet and engineer, who died in Ha’an when Gun failed to hold back a tsunami.”

Jetsun found a sour taste rising in her mouth. “Failed?” Not the choice of words she would have used for someone, Avatar or not, bravely confronting a force of nature. Ha’an still stood today as a port when it sounded like it could have been wiped off the map along with everyone who’d lived there at the time.

“It’s what’s written. After Mesose drowned, Gun disappeared for quite a while before returning to duty.”

You were grieving. If the waters that Gun fought were the same ones that killed Mesose, then both the girl and the past life raging through her might have personally witnessed their friend take their last breath before plunging below the waves. They would have searched for a body in the wreckage.

And worst of all, Jetsun thought, they would have had to struggle with the terrible question of what if I’d done things differently? What if, what if, what if? Perhaps Gun was the one who’d demanded the label of failure.

It was simply unjust. To remember the events of a single life was painful enough. Reliving dozens of lives would be . . . well, it would be like getting caught by a tsunami. Swept away by forces beyond your control.

“She’s a smart kid,” Jetsun said. “If she keeps having these visions, she’ll figure out who she is long before she turns sixteen.”

Tsering sighed. She reached out and stroked the sleeping girl’s hair, now matted with sweat.

“Oh, little Yangchen,” she said. “What are we going to do with you?”

The First Step

At the age of eleven, Yangchen had known who she was for a while on an intellectual level, and treated her Avatarhood with a child’s seriousness at the behest of her elders. This is a very important secret, all right? Like Tsering’s custard recipe. Best not to talk about it until we figure a few more things out.

The involuntary bouts of vivid memories still occurred. The ease with which past Avatars slipped into Yangchen’s speech troubled the leaders of the Western Temple. She would eavesdrop on their discussions about her, air spouting herself under windowsills, hiding behind pillars.

“You know, we keep asking that question, what do we do with her?” she heard Jetsun say one day, sharper than she usually was with her elders. “The answer is, we’ll prevent her from hitting her head on the ground, and when the memories are over, we’ll carry on. That’s what she needs from us, so that’s what we’ll give her. Nothing more, nothing less.”

As if Yangchen needed another reason to worship her older sister. Jetsun wasn’t related to her by blood, or maybe she was in the manner of fourth or fifth cousins, but it definitely didn’t matter. The girl who cut up fruit in a stupid way but at least gave you the symmetrical pieces was your sister. The girl who showed you no mercy on the airball court and laughed in your face as she kept you scoreless was your sister. Jetsun was either the person who would listen to Yangchen cry with utmost patience, or the one who’d upset her in the first place.

So it made perfect sense that Jetsun would guide her through her first attempt at meditating into the Spirit World. A guide was an anchor as much as a pathfinder, a calling voice in the darkness. “Don’t have so many expectations,” Jetsun told a Yangchen buzzing with excitement. “Not everyone has the ability to cross between realms. You won’t be less or more of an Avatar, or an Air Nomad, or a person, if it doesn’t happen.”

“Pfft. If you did it, I can do it.” If you did it, I need to do it. To become more like you.

The older nun rolled her eyes and flicked Yangchen on the forehead where her arrow point would eventually be.

~~~

They went topside to the meadows above the cliffs of the Western Air Temple. There was no need to travel all the way to the Eastern Temple, the jumping-off point for many spiritual journeys, when they could try closer to home first. Besides, Jetsun scoffed, the extra sanctity of the Eastern Temple was more reputation and less proven truth.

In the grass was a meditation circle, a stone slab floor laid level in the earth. Five columns of rock jutted out around the circle, unevenly spaced. They looked like fingers and a thumb, the triple Air Nomad whorls at their tips the prints. Yangchen knew about this place but had always avoided it. “It feels like a giant is about to grab me.”

“Or let you go,” Jetsun said. “A hand either opens or closes. But it can’t do either of those twice in a row.”

Yangchen never knew how Jetsun managed to be so blunt and cryptic at the same time. The two of them sat in the giant’s palm, facing each other. They weren’t alone. Abbess Dagmola and Librarian Tsering had come along and relegated themselves to assistants, setting up incense, a windhorn. The abbess herself was going to ring the meditation bell. There was no hesitance by the two much older women in deferring to Jetsun as guide.

The session began. The smoldering incense was sharp and earthy, like tree resin. Yangchen could feel the overtones of the horn through her stone seat. She lost count of the bell strikes that both marked time and pointed out its meaninglessness.

She suddenly saw a bright glow through her closed eyes, as if she’d been laboring under clouds the whole time. When she opened them, the light was intense but not blinding. Colors were brighter, as if the elements themselves had been ground in a mortar and then repainted on the backing of the world. Red flowers in the meadow glowed like embers, green veins pulsed through canopying leaves the size of house roofs, and the sky was bluer than a cake of solid indigo dye.

Yangchen had performed a feat of Avatarhood. It had not happened to her involuntarily, it had not struck her down like thunder between her temples, it had not racked painfully through her limbs to damage the landscape. She’d done it. She’d done it.

Her victory. And best of all, her favorite person in the world was right there beside her to share the moment. “Huh,” Jetsun said, in one of her classic understatements. “First try.”

Yangchen wanted to laugh and leap a mile into the air. But she would maintain a cool head, just like her guide. “Maybe I only remembered how.”

“Humility isn’t more important than the truth. I think you pulled this off yourself.”

She thought her heart would burst. Over the hills of the Spirit World, a pod of great winged whales, translucent and jellylike, slowly floated through the sky. Nearby, a bouncing mushroom released a cloud of spores, which turned into twinkling fireflies.

She was struck by a question. “What do we do now?”

“That’s the beauty of it,” Jetsun said. “We don’t do anything. There is no use to the Spirit World, and therein lies the great lesson. Here, you don’t take. You don’t anticipate or plan; you don’t struggle. You don’t worry about value gained and lost. You just exist. Like a spirit.”

A pout of disappointment crossed Yangchen’s lips. “Do we have to exist in this one spot only? Can we at least explore?”

Jetsun grinned down at her. “Yes. Yes, we can.”

Yangchen took her sister’s hand and decided there was a chance she might like being the Avatar.

Adapted excerpt from the upcoming book Avatar, The Last Airbender: The Dawn of Yangchen (Chronicles of the Avatar Book 3) by F.C. Yee, published by Amulet Books, an imprint of Abrams; © 2022. Courtesy of Gizmodo.

[akystaracer22]

I have a habit almost nobody practices. It's stupid, completely inconsequential and I've even been bullied for it. But I like it, and it's become such an important part of me that I can't change it if I tried.

It's called Timekeeping.

A thousand milliseconds in a second.

Sixty seconds in a minute.

Sixty minutes in an hour

Twenty-four hours in a day

Seven days in a week.

My habit goes on.

It's always there at the back of my mind, keeping track of that funny little thing called time.

I know it's been exactly Ten years, Four months, Two weeks, One day, Twelve hours, Thirty-seven minutes and Sixteen seconds as of this moment since I have started this habit. It was hard at first, what with the whole concept of time being all but erased from the planet, but the old internet was still reliable for those who used it. The concept of time fascinated me from the moment I first heard of it, and I couldn't help myself, I became possibly the only human alive to keep track of it.

It had its upsides and its downsides however, like all things did. The adults didn't really like it at first, and my peers bullied the fuck out of me for it. But it almost became a challenge for me, how good could I get at "keeping track of time" as I call it.

Turns out pretty good.

Today when I woke up I was able to tell that I'd been asleep for exactly seven hours, three minutes and twenty four seconds, which is supposedly below average from what I read.

Later, when one of my classmates asked how long it would be until first period ended, before anyone could reply with the stupid boring "Soon" or "When the bell ring's" I blurted out "Twelve minutes and Fourty-eight seconds."

Believe it or not but I'm not trying to sound pretentious. When the concept of time becomes applicable my mouth works before my brain does. My class know the basics of my "Timekeeping Condition" as the adults call it. They know the units and how many are in what but... they don't get it get it.

Being able to "tell time" as the old humans put it is just part of who I am now... and it's weird. I know it is. I tried to stop once too but all it took was my friend joking about how he'd been alive forever and the words "Fifteen years, Eight months, One Week, Six Days, Thirty-two minutes, and Fourty-nine seconds," slipped out before I even had time to process I said them. That was One year, Eleven months, Three weeks, Two days, and exactly One hour ago.

Two day's, Eight hours, Fourty mintues and Two seconds later found me in the office of my local GP, but that moment with my friend was when I realised that it was going too far.

I'd only seen my friends birth certificate once, his family was super traditional and it was the only thing with a time in the house.

It was the first time I was ever scared of my ability to keep track of time.

It was like I'd been cursed with some sort of time related affliction, maybe it was the gods way of punishing the people of earth for forgetting that once so important measurement. That pillar of society that has been forgotten in the changing tides of history.

My parents certainly thought so, yelling at the doctor and Seven Hours, Thirteen minutes and Seven seconds later the Psychiatrist that the doctor referred me to. Pleading to find something to fix me, to save me from myself.

I felt like a madman that day.

I still have to have tests taken, scientists just love to try and figure out just how my brain got so damn good at this. How it's able to latch onto those specific numbers associated with time - my Math grades demonstrated it was just time - and keep track so perfectly that even years later I can tell people with complete accuracy the exact time and date they requested.

"When did the session start."

Fifteen minutes, Thirty seconds, and One Hundred and Eighty-Six milliseconds from now.

"How long has it been since you have last eaten."

Three hours, Twelve minutes, Seven seconds, Eight Hundred and Two milliseconds ago.

"What will the date be in 103... day's? is that the term you use for it?"

April the Third Thirty Twenty-one.

Every Two Weeks, since that fateful day they learned my little habit had taken over too much of me.

I felt like a lab rat... I was one.

I don't know what will happen to me come the inevitable summer holiday's. I'm seventeen now I know what will happen.

My parents never said a word about employment or further education. They talked about moving, about this nice little place I'd feel at home. They talked about a cage.

I have to go to school each day knowing I'm ticking closer to my last day free. I think my friend knows it too, he stopped asking me to play time keeper for me. He started asking me more questions of how it worked. He asked me to teach him how to tell time like I can.

I hate how much it means to me to actually have someone sitting with me every day whenever possible, listening intently as I'm able to explain in depth with an actual person, a friend, how I tell time.

Just Yesterday he was able to announce how much longer until the bell rang to signal the end of lunch. I hugged him for the rest of that time because it just felt so good to have someone else keep track of the time for a second I almost felt human. What my friend did was more than any of the whackjobs "monitoring" me ever thought to do.

He also came over to my house and discussed way's he could potentially become a full on Psychiatrist in the future, he had a whole path mapped out and everything. He definitely has the grades to do it.

He shouldn't be doing all this for me, I'm just too desperate to say no.

When in doubt, just keep the internal clock ticking Horace.

Just keep it ticking.

It’s the year 3020, and humans have achieved immortality through advanced technology. However, with the option of living forever, the concept of time has lost all meaning. Write a story about an average day in this new reality.

[kirozai]

-Mushroom Anon-

I’ve been quite serious on this blog, so why not lighten the mood?

Let’s strike a deal. If you enjoy this AU, write at least ten headcanons related to it, yeah?

WARNING: Mentions of Cousin AU, I have squatting rights u_u

Imagine SAGAU!Teyvat.

Now imagine Mario Kart 8.

Reader isn’t the most powerful, but they do have a better reputation than the average creator. Sometimes, the other deities visit in secret to deliver gifts and exclusive treasures on special occasions. This year is no different. Once every ten millennia, every creator across the universes gather to participate in a battle for speed. Nobody could afford to be absent, not if their honor could help it.

Anyone could host it, really, but everyone agrees that Teyvat has gorgeous scenery and a thrilling landscape. Which is why the reader has been pacing around their room without rest, not even noticing that their shoulder had been bruised from all of the clumsy movements.

Of course, once they finally do ask for Teyvat’s help for the first time, they agreed.

The preparations were smooth. For the first few weeks, fleets upon fleets of lakitus (basically this AU’s maintenance staff xD) arrived in Teyvat for construction. Reader specifically selected Mondstadt and Inazuma for it’s spacious environment, but tracks a little outside of the two nations were spotted as well. Stalls and shops were moved aside, strange and unfamiliar technology was placed, billboards were built for citizens in remote areas, and constant safety checks were performed with the local government. Not to mention the impenetrable barrier that was established to protect bystanders from possible disasters.

After a month had passed, the gods descended. Teyvat better be prepared to welcome eleven more creators otherwise the reader will never forgive them for it. Liyue was the designated “lobby” for reader’s fellow divinities due to its market diversity and totally not because Morax’s pride was injured for not being nominated. Trust me when I say that some of these gods will be expensive. If they don’t leave with at least a million dollar tab per person, I wouldn’t believe that they were here at all.

Then came the final week of preliminaries. Lakitus wielding sports cameras, fishing rods, and colored flags were becoming more and more frequent. Deities are beginning to ride briskly on the race tracks, familiarizing themselves with shortcuts and experimenting with the security measures. Most of them are heading from Liyue, to Mondstadt, and all the way back to Inazuma. Hey, they’re driving electric vehicles, where else better than Inazuma to refuel?

Now, it’s the day of the race.

And every sentient being in Teyvat horribly regrets their support.

They began in Inazuma, since it’d be irrational to waste the extra electricity traveling elsewhere. As soon as all the countdown lights glowed a crimson red, the archon war suddenly looked like a 17th century comedy show that failed because of it’s cringeworthy romance plot.

I mean, the creators are bashing into each other with enough fervor to slaughter a thousand archons upon first contact. Who wouldn’t be terrified? That doesn’t even include the speed items, stunt ramps, varying colors of shells, and bombs. Now the citizens understand the true reason for the barrier; no one other than the mighty twelve could survive this.

Lakitus are scrambling across the sky, vigorously fishing up gods once they’ve been flung out of bounds like it’s their new religion. Several of them lingered behind, using the numerous waypoints to film their competition. But nothing beats the anguish of watching their creator being targeted by two consecutive blue shells and losing their item to a lightning strike- why do I feel like the electro archon might have to run now?

Oh, poor them, this is only the first round… of two separate race tracks. Reader better at least win a gold medal or else the following chaos would not be worth it.

MARIO KART? HELLO WHERE DO U COME UP WITH THESE THINGS 🤩 (im obsessed)

[chubbology]

The Munchies

prompt: a stoner feedee's girlfriend uses him to test out new edibles and deals with his munchies

Remmy returned home from visiting relatives on the last day of December, and he was very glad to be back. They’d fed him well and his pants were tight, but all the small talk and bad vibes had been as much of a drag as usual.

He opened the door to his apartment and breathed in a familiar, potent scent.

“Baby!” Brianna ran from the kitchen and tackled him.

“Happy almost New Year! Wanna hear my resolution? Baking and getting baked. Check it out.”

She brought him over to the counter, where she was almost done filling up three containers of what Remmy had no doubt were various edibles. He ignored the kitchen mess.

“I’m liking what I see,” Remmy laughed.

She preened and then pinched his love handle. “I bet you do."

"These aren’t your typical brownies, though," she said. "This is gourmet.” She kissed her fingertips in a muah.

The first container was full of moist shortbread, the second with a kind of apple crumble dish that looked divine. Last but not least, the third had a jumble of what like peanut butter cups.

“Try something!” Brianna gushed. She seemed to be a little floaty already. “You’re gonna be my new taste tester. I think I could really be good at this. Make some cash, too.”

So Remmy tried one of the peanut butter cups. His eyes widened, and he smiled. “Bri, these are incredible.” He ate another.

“Take it easy. Two should get you stoned. So says the recipe anyway.” Brianna rubbed his pudgy forearm as he eyed the rest in the container, biting the inside of his lip. “Hey. If you’re just hungry, I can fix that. You wanna eat?”

“I’m starving,” Remmy said. A lie, since he’d had a big lunch before driving back. But he could eat.

“Okay, I’ll get you something! Pay day was Monday. Let’s splurge. What do you want?”

McDonalds, Remmy’s mind supplied easily, in an almost salacious tone. His relatives thought they were too good for McDonalds, and now his body thrummed with the desire to just get a truckload of those greasy combos and revel in the guilt and satisfaction of eating every last unhealthy bite.

Then again. Brianna probably wasn’t okay to drive right now, he didn’t feel like getting back in the car, and the scale told him he’d hit 240 recently, “Let’s just order in.”

“Sounds good to me.”

That night, as they ignored the idiots on television bringing in the New Year, the two of them picked at the apple crumble - which tasted as brilliant as Remmy had suspected - and lounged around, enjoying their high. Brianna barely touched her Chinese takeout, and Remmy ate all of his. Then hers. Then he started grazing the kitchen for more food.

Over the course of the next week, the two of them finished off the rest of what she made, plus some more recipes that turned out delicious. Brianna got a pleasant high every time, and Remmy enjoyed the edibles, too, although his experience was slightly different. It was just—

He just—

He got hungry. Munchies but on unholy overdrive. Cranked to eleven and a half. With every high, Remmy became a little more overwhelmed by the sheer amount of food he felt compelled to pack away, savory and sweet. Takeout and fast food and quarts of ice cream. Nuts and fruits, too. Jar of peanut butter here. Tub of icing there. He’d never been very active, so it came as no surprise when his clothes began stretching over his chest and belly and thighs and ass. He popped a button getting dressed one morning and couldn’t stop thinking about it the rest of the day. He hadn’t realized it would happen so quickly, his body converting all the calories into flab. Flab that padded him out chubbier than he already was, and then more on top of that. In the mirror, he started to look big.

Brianna seemed unfazed by her boyfriend’s growing girth. She took to her baking resolution with as much gusto as she did anything that interested her, and even into March, April, and May, she was selling the edibles well and raked in money that almost made her day job obsolete. Remmy was constantly praised for being “the bestest taste tester ever” and enjoyed a steady stream of free highs to balance out the lows of spending most of his time working his IT job from home.

Working, gaming, watching old movies. Remmy already stayed sitting most of the day, but as he gained weight, gained a lot, filling out his desk chair to its limits, crumbs becoming his constant companion, he felt even less like standing up. His weight climbed to 280, 290, 300.

June, July, and August passed uneventfully, and pretty happily, too. Brianna stopped asking him what food he wanted from the grocery store and just bought him things. Bought him things she knew he’d eat when he got high, things that made his ass spread wider on the couch, his arms round out like sausages, his pudgy chest start to really droop. The scale said 320, 330, 340.

Remmy gave up trying to gain control of the new appetite Brianna’s heavenly edibles seemed to install in him irrevocably. When he craved, he ate, and he ate. And like a dam breaking, his body surged with so much excess fat he began spilling out of even his newest clothes.

He was a little ashamed, sure. But quite a few of his relatives were fat, so they couldn't talk, and it felt like sweet revenge to embarrass his irritating parents by becoming so overweight. As for everyday life, well, he just moved around from room to room slower, wore the same stretchy clothes a lot, and that was it. Remmy did mention his weight in passing sometimes to gauge Brianna’s feelings about it, but Brianna only ever giggled, called him cute, and passed him her venti sugary monstrosity of a coffee concoction, which he thoughtlessly sucked down to the dregs, ingesting a thousand-plus calories just like that. This made her eyes sparkle, huge and utterly endeared.

“Like a piggy,” she said, thumbing his fat cheek. “Always willing to eat.”

In bed, she made it clear she liked him the way he was, and was becoming. And it wasn’t long before Remmy realized he was into how big he was becoming, too.

They continued like this. Getting high together and watching movies and making out and snacking. Well, Brianna snacked. Remmy feasted. Gorged himself, to put it precisely, with Brianna’s enthusiastic help. “You look good soft,” she’d tell him, playing with belly fat that his stretchiest t-shirts couldn’t cover anymore.

Remmy would swallow another bite of a snickers and spread his huge thighs a little, with effort. “You call it soft, but I’m the one who gets tired moving from the office to the kitchen.” I’m so heavy, he wanted to say. God, I’m so heavy.

“Just move your computer to the kitchen then,” she said. “Duh.”

It was a seed planted that came to fruition a month later - when Remmy’s food cravings became unmanageable and his weight climbed past 360 - that he felt he would simply be more productive during his day job if his breaks to get food from the kitchen were shorter.

By November, whether he was high or not, Remmy was grazing all day, everyday. What Brianna got from the store became insufficient, and he started a habit of ordering take out most days. In big portions. His scale creaked at 375. When Brianna wasn’t home, he sometimes ate takeout on the scale to see if the number would rise.

On Remmy’s birthday in early December, Brianna made a fresh batch of his favorites again: the peanut butter cup edibles. After ordering pizza for delivery, she got in the shower, and Remmy scarfed down three of the big cups as soon as they cooled. Then he waited, leaning against the counter, scrolling on his phone, belly hanging, feet hurting. He didn’t want to go to the effort of sitting on the couch and getting back up again when he could just stay in the kitchen, where he knew he’d end up anyway.

He scratched his supple underbelly. Found a pack of Twizzlers and started eating those.

Soon enough, his breathing slowed as he felt the high slowly come over him. And, as expected, his whole body immediately began to tingle for satiation. Fattening food sung to him from the pantry and fridge and freezer all at once, and it was all going to make him so huge and heavy he wouldn’t be able to stand on his own wide feet, but he wanted it anyway.

He didn’t care if he was pushing 390 now. He’d blown up, yeah. Inflated from a thick guy to obese and waddling. At this point, he was so pumped so big with blubber that he couldn’t twitch without jiggling, but so what? He was hungry. Being high made him want to consume, and so he did. He couldn’t stop. Didn’t want to.

Remmy opened the fridge and took out his birthday cake, which Brianna must have stuck in there after getting home from work. He couldn’t wait to eat it properly. There was no way he could wait until after the pizza came. Besides, it was his birthday. Remmy took off the plastic lid of the round, triple chocolate cake and felt his nerves light up with anticipation. He was going to eat it all, and there was no stopping him.

He found a knife and cut himself a slice three times the size any reasonable person would take. Desperate to get the goodness into his mouth without delay, he skipped a fork and bit right into the gooey, dense cake and mouse and fudge. God, Brianna was so perfect for getting him the unhealthiest cake imaginable. She knew he didn’t care if he was ten pounds heavier tomorrow, if his fat ass ripped his sweatpants open, if he ate so much he couldn’t haul himself to bed—she knew he needed this.

He ate slice after slice, and it was mostly gone when Brianna got out of the shower, looking sexier than usual in her matching purple lingerie. She’d gotten chubbier with so much junk food in the apartment, and fat clung to her in all the right places. But her pudge was a far cry from his angry-red stretch marks and neck rolls. Hell, his moobs had grown bigger than her tits.

She found him in the kitchen, eating and holding his drooping belly, and she rubbed his back, cooing at him when he apologized.

“It’s okay. I figured you wouldn’t be able to wait all night. How are you feeling?”

“Good,” Remmy said, but all he could think about was getting his next bite. As she watched him, he tried to hold out. Tried to prove he could stop eating for two seconds. Three seconds, four - his resolve broke and he crammed the rest of a slice into his mouth and chewed, choking back a moan.

“You get the munchies so bad, don’t you?” Brianna grinned and leaned against his belly, patting and cupping his weighty breasts in the way she knew pleased him. “Let’s get you sat down. I’ll bring you what you need. Just sit and relax and watch whatever you want.” They moved to the couch and Remmy sat, the cushions wheezing, his thighs and belly quivering. Brianna tucked the remainder of the cake into his pudgy hands. “Don’t worry about a mess. It’s your birthday. And there’s more where that came from.” She winked. “I just needed to keep this cake refrigerated because it’s fancy. There’s a whole sheet cake on top of the fridge that’s cheap and huge. Covered in icing. Perfect for munchies.”

Remmy could only feel a wave of relief at this news. There would be more cake. And after that, there’d still be more junk in the cabinets. There was pizza coming. His high was just right. Brianna turned on the television to his favorite show and he settled further back into the cushions, feeling his second chin swell out and engulf his first. Everything was just right. He was lucky to have Brianna and food. So much food.

A year later, around the same time, Remmy skipped his usual trip to see his relatives for the holidays. At 520 pounds, it was simply too much effort to move.

*

Thank you to the reader who commissioned this work!

I'd love to write more. Check me out <3 etsy.com/shop/Chubbology

[jiminrings]

umm maybe this is me projecting bc i am messaging you during my break but for a drabble request, yoongi in a retail setting???? 😐😐😐😐 oc could either be a co-worker or a regular customer who asks too many questions 😔😌

retail-type beat

drabble week: day three

drabble week masterlist

pairing: customer!yoongi x retail worker!reader

wordcount: 3k

glimpse: "hi! almost thought you were hiding from me for a second. anyways, is this sweater wool or cotton?"

feedback + support mean the world to me!!

the last time you checked, work doesn’t start until nine

you kNEW it doesn’t start until 9 in the morning, so clearly that’s why you’re just wearing slides instead of your sneakers

the company uniform is either black or purple (it has to be from what the store is selling though so you can get to choose) with of course!!!! a lanyard!!!!

and you know this, because you’re still wearing your slides from home because it isn’t opening time yet

“goddamn it, i forgot to bring my slippers,” jin moans the moment he walks to see you, looking down on your feet that only reminds him he’d be stuck in his cool yet painfully uncomfy sneakers

he’s probably the only co-worker that you’re truly close with, not feeling the urge to sell him just to get a free day

“i told you to get the sneakers that nurses use!!”

hands-down one of the best purchases you’ve ever made

retail’s hard and it’s not exactly the best-paying job!!! thankfully the franchise owner is a bit more generous so that’s why you get slightly-higher hourly pay

“i would if they looked a little more seasoned,” jin snorts and stubbornly crosses his arms, “i might sacrifice my pride and buy some compression socks.”

OOOOOH THOSE ARE GOOD TOO

makes you feel like ur walking on air

but lol no seokjin isn’t ready to buy those just yet

he’ll settle on some blisters and putting salonpas patches because they look cooler that way, thank u very much <3

jin yawns, talking about finding a steam iron somewhere to replace a blowdryer so he could break in his shoes

“you wipe the glass this time.”

oh right he absolutely hates wiping down the glass — even before opening!!! even when there aren’t any grubby kids that would soil it instantly with their equally as grubby hands

you don’t mind it honestly

you might honestly like it

you prefer wiping the glass a hundred times over than steaming clothes

there is nOT a single thought in your head when you spray on the solution to the glass, rag and squeegee tucked between your fingers when-

maybe you should’ve hOLY FUCKING SHIT

it’s not opening!!!! it is nOT nine o’clock in the morning!!!!

you know that the shop you’re working in is pretty fucking famous and it’s located on one of the most populated streets ever BUT THERE’S ALREADY SOMEONE

although the bucket hat seems familiar from a distance and-

oh it’s just yoongi

yoongi?

yoongi’s already here????

:O

yoongi, the guy in question, is an always customer!!

no, not a regular customer — an always customer

he comes every week and maybe even twice within that period

he’s a nice talkative customer who likes asking questions and even occasionally guides the other customers on what to buy and where to find it

he’s yoongi!!! of course that’s expected of him

he’s been going here long since you ever started working here, and jin keeps iNSISTING that he’s been here more frequently since you started like a year ago

but doesn’t he come at eleven in the morning?

“woah, yoongi’s already here? — doesn’t he come at eleven in the morning?”

?!!?!!

“i was just thinking the exact same thing.”

jin bangs the glass with his fist and you automatically wince and frown

you dO like cleaning the glass panes!! you didn’t say you liked cleaning them a second time :(

“YOONGI!”

“YES??”

you push jin’s fist away to wipe at the smudge his hand left

“IT’S NOT OPENING YET!”

“I KNOW!!”

wow they’re uh

they’re really loud

sometimes you forget how seokjin could be since it’s been awhile since you heard him yell

lol no one’s been shoplifting recently so you haven’t been hearing him

a mind-blowing idea is for jin to come outside and talk to him in a normal talking voice, so your ears would stop ringing

“HEY! WHAT IF YOU JUST ENTER EARLY IN?”

“REALLY? IS THAT EVEN ALLOWED??”

"YOONGI, EVERYONE ON THE FLOOR KNOWS YOUR NAME. NAMJOON EVEN GAVE YOU A CUSTOMARY BIRTHDAY GIFT, AND WE DON'T GIVE CUSTOMARY BIRTHDAY GIFTS TO ANY OTHER CUSTOMER!!"

namjoon, who technically should be called mr. kim because no one really thinks to call the franchise owner with their government first name, is actually pretty cool

but he's too busy these days and haven't been visiting because he's too busy tending to his newly-opened coffee shop

as if the money he earns from opening his franchise in a day alone isn’t enough :0

"IF YOU SAY SO?"

you’re the one who hikes up the roll-up door in the slightest, enough for only yoongi to enter and not encourage anyone else to nOT enter when it’s still not opening time!!!!

he only has to crouch a little but he still has to dust his thousand-dollar pants as if he crawled through mud

his cream-colored slacks with a large black hoodie that has a giant bear embroidered on the middle of it and mules

... you don't hate his outfits

pretty cute, actually

it's yoongi!!

you'd never catch him lacking!!!

you don't even have to envision him rocking the shit out a paper bag

one time, he came in the store wearing the WRINKLIEST brown linen jumpsuit that no iron could possibly fix and he still pulled it off

toon-teen-ten!

oh god that’s the sound of the intercom

and the sound of the intercom equates to jungkook

... as in jeon jungkook who’s the floor manager and his constant top one goal for every month is to endearingly annoy seokjin

he’s young and mischievous!! but if you were to ask him, only you and jungkook are the people in this floor he’d actually get drinks with outside the shop

“seokjin come to the lingerie department right now, please.”

you see the thing is :D

“now this is just funny

there’s walkie-talkies for everyone here!! jungkook likes intercoms, and seokjin like yelling!!

“WHY ME AGAIN?? I’VE ALREADY FOLDED-“

“there’s a literal rat and i need yOU to catch it!! you know that i hate rodents!!”

him and jungkook are forever gonna be on this eldest-youngest brother dynamic and while jungkook pouts and shared the extras that he gets, jin is the one who kills the bugs :D

10/10 totally fair

fine then!! he’ll catch that goddamn rat

that leaves you and yoongi. alone.

“why did you come so early this time?”

you ask out of courtesy, genuinely baffled too because you know that yoongi’s a creature of habit

yoongi’s eyes pop out, head fervently shaking no

“i’m typically not the type to do that, no.”

???

is he-

are you-

are you both talking about the same thing

yoongi’s face flushes in embarrassment, his mind just then registering what you were actually saying

“o-oh! it’s because last night, i dreamt of the sweater i saw here last week!!"

oh right

typical :D

"need me to find it for you or do you already know the aisle?"

you align the folded shirts by the corners as you pass, looking at yoongi briefly while he trails behind yoh

“not unless you pulled it out already."

he's hoping that dear god you haven't

the black sweater with the moon aND buildings on it and when you turn on the flash, the windows of said building reflect it right back???

he SHUDDERS just by thinking about it

it’s gonna go with everything!!! an instant boost of serotonin every time he sees it

"for you, yoongi?" you shake your head, a small smile on your face that he only sees every once in a while, "i'd comb through the entire stock room."

wait

that’s sweet :((

“i’ll hold you to that.”

you know what??? you're less cranky when it's only him, and a couple of hundred people less

your smiles aren't for customer-service and you don't have misplaced clothes hanging from your shoulders and your walkie-talkie isn't talking in latin

or when no one’s asking you to reach something from the top shelf

or when you’re on the way to the intercom because a kid got separated from their mother

or when someone’s approaching for a refund for a shirt who has a stain that’s 100% no doubt customer error

his feet immediately move on its own because he’s memorized the outline of this too many times

there it is!!!

the sweater he’s dreamt about is already on his hands, only a handful few left

the piece is considerably more expensive than majority of the items here, so that’s why they’re all spaced-out instead of being clustered altogether

yoongi rarely goes to the dressing room, regardless if it's a full-house or not!!

he could just look at an item and immediately tell that it’s made for him ta know

he's beyond sure that this sweater fits him perfectly, but he may want to be here a little longer

yoongi may have say inside one of the fitting rooms and spent a little time in it just to sit on the chair inside, not fitting the sweater at all

he's gotten his item SO quick and he wished he could've just walked slower or pretended to not know where it was!!!

he wants to spend a little more time here

you don't hate yoongi!!! but sometimes he could just be... yoongi

he's quite talkative and strikes it whenever, making you unguarded

he could be overbearing but like an overbearing kind of nice

yoongi’s nice!! he’s the type to ask a lot of questions sure, but he’s also the type that would point the other customers what to buy and where to find it

he’s the type to find an obvious faulty stitch on a shirt, but he’d just quietly exchange it instead of asking for the manager

he’s the type you wouldn’t want to stand behind in line because it would take a long time for him to finish, but he’s also the same one who buys giftcards with generous amounts for family and friends

yoongi’s kind of cool and that’s cemented on your mind

"what do you got for me?"

he materializes out of nowhere, spooked because you thought he already ringed up and was out of the store already

it just happens to be ten minutes before opening and you’re doing last-minute arrangements on a new spread

well, yoongi most certainly is still here and his attention’s piqued

“we have... a new collection."

you clear your theory, awkwardly gesturing because you’re more than aware that yoongi hasn’t seen this either

“yeah, i know that. but like, what's going on??" he gestures to the displays and racks, squinting his eyes, "what's the theme? what's the material?"

:O

uhm you haven't read the brief about this

you aren't even sURE if there is one!!

doesn't everyone make up something on the spot in retail

or atleast that’s what seokjin tells you

“the theme," you clear your throat, scratching your temple before gesturing towards the full rack, "is everything."

“everything?

yoongi’s eyebrow is raised, not expecting that answer at all

you look back to the new feature, and nOW that you think about it,, there's no cohesion at all

“y-yes. the shop was going for the theme of uhm, everything... all at once — yeah, that's it. everything all at once."

it’s a nice way to put it when not one bit of the new collection goes together

“hmmmm. i like it,” yoongi nods solemnly and tilts his head, “and the material?"

"the material?"

you repeat, eyesight not the best so you can’t really tell anything off the bat or uh aNYTHING really

"t-the material is shirt."

they're all shirts!!! that’s it

yoongi grimaces in disgust, the first time you’ve seen of it

“what?? you can't say that.”

he outsretches his hand to the nearest article, holding it up by the hanger

"this, right here, is satin. see how it shines like silk, but doesn't feel like silk?"

uhm yes

you have a gist of what he’s saying but yes

yoongi picks up a pink button shirt this time, flipping it inside out

"this, is silk charmeuse. look at the inside, is it smooth?"

okay where is he going with this

he urges you to put your hand on the fabric and uhhh you didn't sign up for this???

it looks smooth, sure!! end of discussion

"yea-..."

“it's not. it's rough. it is smooth, but it's dull. silk charmeuse is still silk, but the backing it has is different from the lustrous part."

okay yoongi

you’re starting to feel uncomfortable and it has to do something with the tone he’s using on you

“can't believe you didn't know that!! how about this," he plucks out a shirt with a tiny print at the middle of it, "cotton or polyester and rayon?"

"i don't-"

there’s an itch in your neck that you want to scratch, a tell-tale sign that you just wANT to remove yourself from this situation

“come on!! it's a dead giveaway!!"

:((

why is he being like this?

toon-teen-ten!

“y/n, panty section please. jin almost got bit by a mouse and he needs comforting. two minutes until opening, people!!"

jungkook speaks at the right moment, and jin’s little incident is enough of a reason for you to bolt

yoongi's still looking at you but you can't afford to embarrass yourself further

“bye. happy shopping."

huh?

yoongi’s face falls when you leave as cold as that!! typically when you were going to show him out (when it’s regular shop hours), there’d be a smile :((

there's not even a customer service smile :(((

yoongi goes to the only cashier that's open so far and it happens to be far away from you and a teary seokjin

seokjin's fine he didn't even get bit!! that much he could say

but are you okay? uhhh you kinda went cold on him by the end and he thought he started on a good note

yoongi doesn't visit for another week and you don't find yourself counting the days until you meet him again

you did not have a devil wears prada moment where anne hathaway has an epiphany for fashion knowledge

you just felt belittled at a job that isn’t exactly what you wanted anyways

needed, yes. but wanted? not exactly

you know that basic knowledge about clothes is required in a retail job like this and you have it!! you do!!!!

you’d know more if only there were actual available resources for employees to know!!! nobody besides yoongi asks anyways

you’d know if you have time to yourself and aren’t working two jobs trying to make ends meet and tHEN you could pull up a book or something!!!

you’d know if your life is as lax as yoongi’s and could have the budget to buy new things for yourself every single week

“jin, i need to ask you something.”

he hums as called, looking at you briefly until you get on with it

“do you know the difference between silk and silk charmeuse?"

he shrugs casually while you're sitting inside one of the closed-off fitting rooms to catch a break, sharing a burger because the store’s packed-packed

why did you ask him? it’s too easy

“one's made by worms, and the other's a pokémon."

that,.,., could not possibly be righti* it brings you a laugh and you honestly don’t even try to correct him

it’s 11:15 and you kNOW it’s time to resume your shift, straightening your shirt because atleast one (1) person would hound you when they see a familiar red lanyard

oh you’re hounded alright

“hi! almost thought you were hiding from me for a second.”

yoongi????

oh

you haven’t seen him for a week and you don’t know what to feel in all honesty

"anyways, is this sweater wool or cotton?"

wow

you're quite speechless as he holds up the item

really?

this thing all over again???

why are you even surprised

the only thing that yoongi gets your customer service smile, fishing your hand from inside the sweater to show him

“70% wool."

that's it???

NO GOOD MORNING????

you're mad at him, aren't you?

he knew it :((

he knew something was wrong but he just didn’t know what

he’s gonna fix this!! he will

which is why the very next day, he takes the day off from his work and comes to the store at a time he knows you’d surely be there

you're on cashier duty and you like it actually :D

you have an option to sit and the way you’re just gonna scan pricetags (and occasionally enter the code if it doesn’t work) is really appealing

“good morning!"

you’re about to grab the items from the basket laid on the counter and your eyes could only see the very familiar hand

the same one you’ve seen go through racks and racks

yoongi??

he sets his items one by one, buying himself more time

the first one is the same exact sweater he came to wait for before opening

“you already bought this."

you tell him even before you could hold it back, looking back at him briefly before you scan the tag

“i know. i just wanted to see you."

oh

oh

yoongi threw a bunch of other items (individually) so it would be a longer talk, but you scan each item quickly that he’s grabbing things from the counter

hand sanitizer!!! hair ties!!! keychains!!!! yeah he needs them

“i'm sorry that i tend to spring shit on you most of the time. you don't need to know the difference between silk and silk charmeuse."

you only chuckle then, a meek smile on your face

"it's okay, yoongi.”

“it's not."

... it’s not?

yoongi fidgets, opening and closing his mouth like he’s nervous!!! he’s never had his credit card cancelled but he could only feel that this type of jitterness is more than the former

“can i make it up to you? no lanyards, no baskets, no customer service?? i don't wanna fuck things up with you."

“don't feel obligated-"

“i know i could be a condescending ass who expects people to automatically know fabric and whatnot, but i wanna make it up to you."

alright yoongi’s a really good apology-maker

you mIGHT be even flustered a little

“you're holding the line, yoongi.”

“i cleared my schedule."

“i haven’t!!!!!” - guy in the back

“dinner at my place at 8. i-i promise to make your hard-earned break after your shift worthwhile!!!"

hmmm

maybe that wouldn’t hurt

“okay. just because you're holding the line."

“fine by me."

:))

yoongi transfers all the items he bought, all but one, to his tote bag

he hands back the paper bag to you, scribbling his address on the back of the receipt before he does

he lingers a little while at the counter, the people behind him ALREADY switching lanes to the one seokjin’s just opened beside you

it's the sweater that he has too

yoongi scratches the back of his head, this time being the meek one

“what? m-matching sweaters for our first date. s'cute."

[moldisgoodforyou]

you'd come with me?

wordcount: 1.5k

lol this picture just makes me laugh we love a mich ultra man

“How much longer?”

“Just a few…” Sophie answered Rafe absentmindedly, biting her bottom lip in concentration as she typed.

They’d assumed their usual positions while studying in her room - she was sprawled out on her bed, while he sat at her desk, concentrating on whatever homework he had for the day. She’d banned him from the bed during study time, much to his dismay, claiming he was far too distracting. (He still got away with distracting her half the time anyways, slinking over and tucking his large frame into her side like a dog that had overgrown its owner’s lap years ago.)

“Rafe?” She broke the silence after a while, punctuating her sentence with a firm shut of her laptop.

“Yeah, baby?”

“I just applied for a grad program.” She told him nervously, unsure of what his reaction might be.

He shrugged, not turning his attention to her. “Okay? I thought you applied to Ohio State’s, you’re basically in already.”

“Well, yeah. But, um - can you look at me, please?” Sophie bit at her bottom lip, anxious.

He glanced up and finally noticed her nervous energy, then came over to sit next to her on the bed. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong, it’s just big news. Maybe. I don’t even know if I have news yet, really -”

“Spit it out, Soph.” He nudged his knee against hers, concerned.

She nodded, taking a breath. “Okay. I applied to three other places, too. Two are in New York, one’s in Texas. And I know, I should have told you, but I wasn’t even sure if I wanted to do it in the first place, I kind of applied on a whim - well, I’ve been perfecting the application essay for weeks, but -”

“Soph, hey, it’s okay.” He cut off her rambling and a broad grin spread across his face, completely surprising her. “New York and Texas, for real?”

She raised her eyebrows and fidgeted with her ring, glancing at him worriedly. “That doesn’t worry you at all? That we’d be apart?”

She’d thought about how to tell him, when to tell him, for weeks now. She’d been hiding that she was interested in applying to other schools since June and though she felt incredibly guilty, she kept thinking back to long distance and how sad he seemed sometimes. She couldn’t break him with the news again so soon, not when she saw the way he lit up when they were together again and how content he was. Not when she saw how hard it was for her to support him from thousands of miles away, knowing physical touch was a big thing he relied on for comfort in their relationship.

He interrupted her train of thought as he took her hand, lacing their fingers together. “Sophie, baby, do you know how many jobs are in New York and Texas?”

“Wait, you’d come with me?” She stuck her bottom lip out a little, overwhelmed and almost near tears at his response.

“I was planning on following you no matter what.” Rafe smiled encouragingly, reaching out and stroking his thumb over her cheek. “If you’ll have me.”

“Oh.” She said softly, growing shy. “You’re sure? You could go wherever you wanted, I don’t want to hold you back -”

“Hey, hey, none of that. Where’d you apply, when do you hear back?”

“You’re sure this isn’t an issue.” She asked warily, not wanting to undermine his feelings.

“I’m positive.” He gave her a proud grin. “What schools?”

“Okay, um. Columbia -”

He let out a long low whistle, nodding. “Impressive.”

She blushed, finally grinning back. “Hush. Columbia, Syracuse and UT Austin. Isobel already got into Syracuse. Columbia’s my top choice, but that’ll probably never happen.”

“Of course it’ll happen, get out of your head.” He leaned down and kissed her, smiling against her lips. “Look at you, big shot, applying for an Ivy.”

She relaxed, her hands trailing along the hem of his shirt, and ducked her head to hide her grin. “Stop. It’s not that big of a deal.”

“It is that big of a deal. When do you find out?” He shifted to lay down by her, then tucked a piece of hair behind her ear.

“Um…not for a couple months, I think. You’ll really follow me?”

“Course I will, if you’ll have me.” He nodded earnestly.

“Yeah. I’d like that.” She beamed, nudging her nose against his. “You’re my favorite.”

“Love you too.” He responded. “Wait, did you just apply? Like right now?”

She nodded, biting the inside of her cheek. “Just finished my Columbia essay, I did the rest last week. Now I wait.”

He smoothed his thumb over her cheek, making her relax again. “You’re so damn smart. Should we go celebrate?” Rafe gave her a cheeky grin. “Double scoop with sprinkles?”

She rolled her eyes. “Doesn’t have the same effect now that you get it for free.” As a part of his internship program, he’d received a punch card for 25 free visits to Jeni’s, their favorite ice cream shop - they’d hardly made a dent in it since returning to school.

“No, I pay extra for the sprinkles and your waffle cone.” His grin gave way to a slow smirk and he kissed her neck, sucking gently for a moment. “We could celebrate other ways…”

“Wait, no, I actually do want the ice cream.” She pulled away before he could leave a mark, giving him a warning glance. “I gotta make up for what I missed over summer.”

He laughed, getting up and offering his hand. “Alright. C’mon, genius. Jeni’s is waiting for you.”

She took his hand, but didn’t stand. “Wait, Rafe. You’re sure, this is okay with you? I know you have your job lined up and all…”

Rafe paused, shrugging. “Yeah, well. Uh, Brooklyn got the job offer too, she’s already accepted it. So I wasn’t too psyched about it anyways.”

“Oh.” She nodded, thoughtful. “Have you been to New York? Or Austin?”

“I have. You haven’t? You want to go visit when you get in, so you can make your final decision?” He tugged on her hand, pulling her up into a hug and pressed a kiss to her forehead.

“Not sure I could afford that.” She mumbled, resting her head on his chest.

“Man, too bad you don’t have a boyfriend with money to pay for those trips.” He hooked a finger under her chin, tilted it up so he could look her in the eyes and see her scowl. “If you want to visit, we’ll go. Easy weekend trip.”

“Right.” Sophie nodded, unsure. “Maybe. I’m not even sure I’ll get in, I’ll probably be stuck here in Columbus for another year anyways.”

“Hey. Stop talking like that. You’ll help me look for jobs in New York and Texas, right?”

“Of course I will.” She confirmed. “You know, we could probably find something related to film in New York…”

He scoffed and looped his arm around her shoulders, steering her out of her room and down the stairs. “I think my dad might write me out of his will if I did anything adjacent to the film industry. Waste of my time, he says.”

She frowned, letting him usher her out to the car. “Maybe you should go talk with the career counselors, see if there’s options to combine both. You’re good at marketing too, maybe there’s something there?”

“Not sure. Haven’t really thought about any of that.” He dismissed her quickly, feeling uneasy like he did any time he thought about his future outside of school.

Sometimes he realized he was really good at absorbing other people’s interests, like he was able to always match his personality into a perfect mold to other people’s expectations. With Colin and James, and now Sophie, he was able to let his guard down a little and figure out who he was, who he wanted to be beyond his father’s expectations. He felt like he was thinking about this ten years too late - eleven year old Rafe had always written his ‘dream job’ in school as working for his dad. Now he was about to graduate, set to get a job, and wasn’t even sure if he could list his hobbies outside of hanging out with Sophie and his friends, and watching movies.

“Look, I just...I don’t want you to lose sight of what you’re actually interested in just because you need a job. You don’t have to hate your job.” She told him, carefully.

“I know.” He nodded, shutting down the conversation. “Today’s not about me, though, we gotta celebrate you, hotshot over here.” He grinned at her, leaning over to kiss her quick across the seat. “I think they have the chocolate cake back in stock, I’ve missed it.”

She picked up on his hesitation, but didn’t push it. “You’re such a creature of habit.”

“No, you’re just a psychopath picking a different flavor every time.” He shook his head as he reached his hand to rest behind her seat, turning around to back up. “Good thing I love you anyways, smart girl.”

“Love you too, sweet boy.” She replied with a smile.

taglist: @drewstarkey @lemur46 @jjmaybanksbaby @edgeofgr8 @quxxnxfhxll @obxtess @hoodpankow @vtgirl802 @outerbankies @messagesinthesky @nicolecarsley @svechnikolan @ilovejjmaybank @obxtess @abbyj1822 @oopsiedoopsie23 @g4bster @jjmaybankzz @freddymaybank @dontjinx-it @illbesafeforyou @moniamaybank @tovvaa @jailcalledlife @sunshineitsfine44 @randomficsandshit @outerbankspreferences @outerbanksbro @karsinner @kkmaybank @whoeveniskendall @lemur46

[woman-loving]

The “Homosexual Traitor” and US Anti-Gay Purges

Selection from The Deviant's War: The Homosexual vs. the United States of America, by Eric Cervini, 2020.

According to the Russians, Colonel Alfred Redl of the Austro-Hungarian Empire had slightly graying blond hair and a “greasy” outward appearance. He spoke “sugar-sweetly, softly.”

Beginning in 1901, Redl worked as a high official in Austria’s Evidenzbureau, where he single-handedly built its counterespionage program. He had more access to classified information than perhaps anyone else in the empire.

In Vienna, Redl’s homosexuality was an open secret. He often appeared at society events with his longtime “nephew,” and he maintained several other affairs. He had no reason to be fearful of exposure, since even the emperor’s brother enjoyed cross-dressing and the occasional army officer.

Redl closely guarded his work as a double agent, however. During his service in the Evidenzbureau, he offered Austrian war plans to the Italian military attaché in exchange for cash. An Italian intelligence officer later recalled it “required no effort” to recruit him. Redl simply mailed envelopes full of Austrian secrets and received thousands of krone in return.

He then began sending military plans to the Russians, too. Redl became fabulously wealthy, lavishing gifts on his lovers and driving two of the empire’s most expensive automobiles. For years, no one seemed to question how he afforded such extravagances on his government salary.

In May 1913, after Austrian counterintelligence officials intercepted a Russian letter containing six thousand krone, they staked out the Vienna post office to identify its recipient. They were appalled to discover Redl.

The army wanted to keep the matter quiet, since public knowledge of treachery at such a high level would have been a profound humiliation. After following him to his hotel, Redl’s own protégé handed him a pistol. Army officials always maintained that Redl voluntarily took his life.

News of the colonel leaked, fact became intertwined with fiction, and the myth of the homosexual traitor came into being. A Berlin newspaper described Redl’s “homosexual pleasure palace, filled with perversities.” The Austrian Army needed a scapegoat for the 1.3 million casualties in that first year of World War I, so it blamed Redl and the larger, more insidious “homosexual organization” that protected him within the military.

Three years later, when a young Allen Dulles, the future CIA director, arrived in Vienna to work at the U.S. embassy, he found everyone still whispering about the homosexual spy who had lost the First World War for the empire.

By the end of World War II, America had become a more open place for homosexuals, but they also confronted novel threats conjured by a political coalition that exploited the uncertainty of the new world order. In 1945, only months before President Roosevelt died, Republicans and Southern Democrats formed the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). In the 1946 midterm election, after Republicans pledged to “ferret out” threats to the “American way of life,” they won the first congressional majority in sixteen years.

In March 1947, President Truman established the Federal Employee Loyalty Program, and the government began investigating its employees to determine their loyalty. Three months later, the Democrat-controlled Senate Committee on Appropriations warned about “the extensive employment in highly classified positions of admitted homosexuals, who are historically known to be security risks.” The committee empowered the secretary of state with “absolute discretion” to purge employees, including homosexuals, who threatened national security.

In September 1949, America learned that the Soviet Union had detonated its first nuclear weapon. In October, eleven Communist leaders were convicted for advocating a violent revolution in America, and in December, China fell to the Communists.

On January 21, 1950, a jury convicted suspected spy Alger Hiss of perjury.

On February 3, authorities arrested physicist Klaus Fuchs for nuclear espionage.

And on February 9, Junior Senator Joe McCarthy stood before a women’s club in Wheeling, West Virginia, and announced, “I have here in my hand a list of 205—a list of names that were made known to the Secretary of State as being members of the Communist Party and who nevertheless are still working and shaping policy in the State Department.”

Nobody else had seen the list. When reporters caught him at an airport and demanded to see it, he offered to show them—then realized he had left it in his baggage. His number of alleged Communists soon changed from 205 to 57. “Rarely,” The Washington Post declared, “has a man in public life crawled and squirmed so abjectly.”

On the evening of February 20, McCarthy arrived on the Senate floor with an overstuffed briefcase that purportedly contained his list of Communist-linked security risks in the State Department. For six hours, he provided a warped summary of eighty-one cases, relying on unproven allegations from a three-year-old congressional investigation. “In short, the speech was a lie,” concluded historian Robert Griffith.

Two of the cases involved alleged homosexuals, who were “rather easy blackmail victims,” explained McCarthy. It was a shrewd maneuver: what editorial board or politician would dare argue that sexual deviants belonged in the federal government?

McCarthy would later recuse himself from hearings on the issue of homosexuals in the government. At forty-one, the senator was unmarried, and the issue raised questions about his own sexuality.

Other Republicans took the lead. A week after McCarthy’s Senate speech, his colleagues coerced Deputy Undersecretary of State John Peurifoy, a security official testifying in defense of his department, into making a startling admission. In only three years, he admitted, ninety-one homosexual employees had resigned upon investigations under Truman’s loyalty program.

And with that, as the New York Post referred to it, the “Panic on the Potomac” began. Conservative newspapers leapt upon the admission. Congress scheduled hearings. Homosexuality, observed a columnist on Meet the Press, became “a new type of political weapon” that could “wreck the Administration.” The chief of the Washington Vice Squad testified there were “3,750 perverts employed by government agencies.” Republican senator Kenneth Wherry alleged the Soviets were using a list of American homosexuals—originally compiled by Hitler—to blackmail federal employees for government secrets. Washington, he said, faced an “emergency condition.”

The Senate committee tasked with solving the homosexual problem, led by Democrat Clyde Hoey of North Carolina, began closed hearings in July. Admiral Roscoe Hillenkoetter, the director of the government’s new Central Intelligence Agency, testified first. He arrived with a thirty-eight-page statement, and ten of those pages chronicled a “classic” case, one “known all through intelligence circles,” an example that would leave “no doubt as to the fact that perversion presents a very definite security risk.”

Of all the intelligence available to the CIA, its director chose to rest his case against homosexuals on the forty-year-old story of Colonel Redl. In Hillenkoetter’s retelling, Redl had been an “honest” man who found himself in an imperial army with unforgiving policies against homosexuality. The Russians hired a young newsboy, who “became very intimate” with Redl. Next, they broke into the colonel’s room and caught him in an “act of perversion.” After threatening to expose him, the Russians gained copies of the Austrian war plans prior to the outbreak of violence.

And so a single urban legend, the telling of which was almost entirely, verifiably inaccurate (in fact, a 1907 Russian diplomatic cable had falsely labeled Redl “a lover of women”) became the primary piece of evidence that guided federal employment policy toward homosexuals for decades to come.

The CIA director then explained the “general theory as to why we should not employ homosexuals or other moral perverts in positions of trust.” He gave thirteen reasons to the senators.  

1.  Homosexuals experience emotions “as strong and in fact actually stronger” than heterosexual emotions.   2.  Homosexuals are susceptible “to domination by aggressive personalities.”   3.  Homosexuals have “psychopathic tendencies which affect the soundness of their judgment, physical cowardice, susceptibility to pressure, and general instability, thus making a pervert vulnerable in many ways.”   4.  Homosexuals “invariably express considerable concern” about concealing their condition.   5.  Homosexuals are “promiscuous” and often visit “various hangouts of his brethren,” marking “a definite similarity to other illegal groups such as criminals, smugglers, black-marketeers, dope addicts, and so forth.”   6.  Homosexuals with “outward characteristics of femininity—or lesbians with male characteristics—are often difficult to employ because of the effect on their co-workers, officials of other agencies, and the public in general.”   7.  Homosexuals who think they are discreet are, in reality, “actually quite indiscrete [sic]. They are too stupid to realize it, or else due to inflation of their ego or through not letting themselves realize the truth, they are usually the center of gossip, rumor, derision, and so forth.”   8.  Homosexuals who try “to drop the ‘gay’ life and go ‘straight’ … eventually revert to type.”   9.  Homosexuals are “extremely vulnerable to seduction by another pervert employed for that purpose by a foreign power.” 10.  Homosexuals are “extremely defiant in their attitude toward society,” which could lead to disloyalty. 11.  “Homosexuals usually seem to be extremely gullible.” 12.  Homosexuals, including “even the most brazen perverts,” are constantly suppressing their instincts, which causes “considerable tension.” 13.  Homosexuals employed by the government “lead to the concept of a ‘government within a government.’ That is so noteworthy. One pervert brings other perverts. They belong to the lodge, the fraternity. One pervert brings other perverts into an agency … and advance them usually in the interest of furthering the romance of the moment.”

The testimony of subsequent intelligence officials echoed that of the CIA director, and the Hoey committee’s final report primarily drew from the testimony of its lead witness, sometimes verbatim. As the Hoey report concluded, homosexuals were ipso facto security risks. Colonel Redl remained its only example.

Hillenkoetter’s thirteen principles became official government doctrine. The government incorporated the Hoey report into its security manuals, forwarded it to embassies, and shared it with its foreign allies. “The notion that homosexuals threatened national security,” explains historian David Johnson, “received the imprimatur of the U.S. Congress and became accepted as official fact.” When the federal government needed to justify its homosexual purges, it simply pointed to the Hoey report.

Dwight D. Eisenhower won the presidency in 1952 with the help of the slogan “Let’s Clean House” and whispers that his opponent, Adlai Stevenson, had homosexual tendencies. Three months after his inauguration, Eisenhower signed Executive Order 10450, which expanded the government’s purging authority—originally given to the State Department—to all federal agencies. Any employee who exhibited “criminal, infamous, dishonest, immoral, or notoriously disgraceful conduct” had no place in the federal bureaucracy. With a Republican in the White House, the purges became less of a spectacle and more of a quiet, well-oiled machine. In Eisenhower’s 1954 State of the Union, he boasted of removing 2,200 security risks in only a year.

McCarthy’s downfall came later that year, but the purges remained alive, as did the rumors that always seemed to saturate America’s capital. After two Republican senators learned that the son of Senator Lester Hunt of Wyoming, a Democrat, had been arrested in Lafayette Park, they gave Hunt a choice. He could withdraw from his 1954 reelection campaign or face the publicity of his son’s homosexual arrest. The Senate was virtually tied. If Hunt resigned, he risked shifting power to the Republicans.

On the morning of June 19, 1954, Senator Hunt, a straight victim of antigay political blackmail, entered his Capitol office and shot himself with a .22-caliber rifle.