#lucky village's oversight

[rottendollface]

The Horror of Our Love. Chapter 1.

Co-author: @bigtimesalt8196

Character: Childe Tartaglia | Ajax.

Image: Picsart AI.

Warnings: NSFW; Ajax is older than in canon; broken time line and age line for the sake of plot; female virgin reader, incestuous relationships, family abuse, misogyny, mentions of rape, unprotected sex, black magic, blood and flesh magic, body horror, sacrilegious, Foul Legacy Childe, breeding kink, miscarriage, marriage, grooming, pregnancy, erotic lactation, murdering, abyssal soulmates, serfdom system in Snezhnaya; all the characters are adults; 18+.

Childe remembered his childhood with sadness: the world around him was silent and colorless; his soul, timid and gentle, couldn't find needed endorsement, as no one seemed to care about him and his role in this doomed world either. He was dreaming about adult life: the life where he would be significant and needed like all the adults around him, the life where people would listen to his words and would be interested in his opinion. 

Father held the Bible in his right hand, and all of his kids, except Ajax, who preferred to hold it in his left hand, did the same. Father told that sin couldn't come into their house, and everyone believed it, and routine in Ajax's house was calm and silent under the strict oversight of ikons of Tsaritsa in a shy light of lamp. 

Childe grew up in the village among the boundless sea of snow and sharp icicles, which were hanging from the roofs and trees like lethiferous rocks that were covering the underwater ground. Rural life was simple and boring: the biggest part of the year people were waiting for the short summer to come to get the previous harvest and sow a new one. In Snezhnaya everything did its best to adapt to the hard climate, and Childe still saved in memory how he was helping father in haymaking time, reeking with sweat and feeling how his skin was burning from unusually hot and mighty Sun. After haymaking Ajax's hair became dull and bright, and his body remained tanned until winter came to cover everything with a solicitous blanket of snow, and nature was resting until new summer – again and again in a sacred circle, despite all the worries and tragedies of human life.  

Ajax was too young to experience death: one of newborn brothers died on a second day of his small life – Ajax remembered a dark bundle and a little coffin that looked like a toy boat that he used to play with when he was little; for him it was confusing and seemed like a game: Ajax couldn't understand why the cheerful face of mother became dark, and her eyes seemed to be blind to her other kids. She remained silent for a couple of days, but she didn't stop working – she tried to distract herself from grief with hard work, and her portly strong body was unusually strange for Ajax. The older brothers told him: it wasn't the first time someone of her kids had died, but mother was a very sensitive person. Tears of pity to his mother still were bursting from Ajax's eyes every time he recalled this memory. 

Ajax had to grow up when you were born: all the elder brothers had already left, and he was the next one to take responsibility for his family on his fragile shoulders. He didn't like that his family had to work for some noble: parents worked for days and nights for someone who didn't care to raise salary, and the same faith was waiting for everyone in his family, as all of their breed were peasants. Mother told Ajax to be grateful: the landowner they worked for was a good man who visited the village rarely and stayed at the capital. Their duties weren't hard – he just needed to work and be happy for surviving another day. Ajax liked to take care of cattle and horses, and chop firewoods; his favorite were fishing and salting the part of catch which his family was allowed to keep for themselves – but the fact that some man, who was lucky enough to be born in a different social class, was owning Ajax's whole family made him feel sick. They didn't have to worry about the earth, and nobles were obligated to take care of their peasants, but the law was on noble's side: nobles were allowed to deprive their peasants of property and send them out of the village, nobles could punish their peasants as much as they wanted. There was a way to get out of life like this – and Ajax was determined to end it.

Ajax was confused when father yelled at him and punched him at the back of his head: he told Ajax that it was just a whim, just an eagerness of youthful maximalism and inexperience in life. While father was worried about the money and all the taxes he would have to pay from leaving their master, Ajax was thinking about human dignity and the value of his sisters and brothers as a person, not forced labor. Ajax missed the moment when the relationship between father and him started to worsen, but the awe and respect he once had to his father now were gone, and irritation took their place. 

'Old man knows nothing about life,' Ajax used to tell his older brothers, who lived in the two nearest houses in the same yard. 'Times have changed, but he is too stubborn and stupid to understand this.'

Older brothers, Timofey and Gleb, weren't good people. When the veil of childhood fell off Ajax's eyes he realized the bitter truth: Timofey and Gleb were thinking about heritage only and were splitting the house, cattle, horses and everything that belonged to their parents already without thinking about younger siblings. Timofey wanted to own all the horses and the workshop in which father was making leather. Gleb didn't care about horses; he wanted only the workshop as the most successful business of their family. Both Timofey and Gleb were apprentices, but the father promised to bequeath the workshop to one of them.

They turned out to be ungrateful vultures who were arguing about the heritage almost every dinner with their alive and healthy father sitting right next to them. It was useless to foster them now, so father only looked at both of them with a heavy gaze and kept silent. When the argument turned into a fight, he usually just punched the dinner table, and they calmed down immediately, changing the topic to bring father's wrath on someone else – Ajax was the favorite victim before your birth. Father had a heavy hand and rather rancorous mind. He punished his kids physically in a nasty, painful manner. He remembered all the misbehavior of his kids and waited until the end of the week: on Sunday, right after weekly visit to the local church, he called the names of a guilty one and brought a rod that was moistening in saline for a couple of days. The execution was simple: the guilty sat (or layed – everything for the comfort of his children) on the bench, while father was whipping them mercilessly. For crying and screaming, he added whips; for keeping silent, too. It was impossible to seek leniency and the total amount of whips dependent on father's mood. Once, he was so mad at Ajax, so he broke three rods on his back – and the scars still didn't heal. That's why father was respected in the village, and no one could say a word against his: Ajax's family was the example of perfection, a beautiful wife, and obedient kids who treated elders with honor – the dream of every snezhnayan man and the indicator of a mighty husband.

Everything went wrong when you were born. You brought your mother difficult childbirth and painful labor, an eclipse closed the Moon and put the earth into the darkness the moment after all the households heard your first cry. Mumbling of the old midwife; exhausted, thick body of mother and bowls with reddish water because of bloody towels that were thrown into it offhandedly: the atmosphere of your first birthday was torturing. 

'What are you doing here, huh? Stop hanging around and get lost! Walking here like flies to manure...' Midwife pushed Ajax with her shoulder, walking through the door with one of the basins in her flabby old hands. 'Not a year without your mother bringing another unlucky soul in this world.' 

She gave an unfriendly laugh, and Ajax remembered her cracking dry voice. Ajax heeded and heard the old midwife mumbling to herself. 'I've never seen such an ugly birthmark on a newborn girl before.'

Father was absent; even mother took you in her hands reluctantly, more from obligation than from sincere desire. 

You were growing up just like Ajax – forsaken by everyone and regularly scolded by father. But there was one thing different from his childhood: you weren't allowed to leave the house no matter what. Your parents didn't care about giving you education or socialization, seeing it as an unnecessary option, harmful even. You were naturally talkative and curious, and it was a big problem of yours. Adults were waving you away as you irritated them with endless questions; no one wanted to spare a moment for you, so you played alone with old broken toys that you got from Ajax. 

Ajax's heart ached badly every time he found you alone in the back room of the house (which was used as a storage for newspapers and books), or saw you waving your tiny hand to him through the window when he was working outside. You had nothing else to do but to watch your relatives working in the yard through the frosted window, or sit in the back room and imagine your toy soldier (a poor soldier who lost his hand when he belonged to Ajax, and who's uniform became dull and dirty long ago) reaching the highest peaks of the book mountains to save his princess from a terrible villain. There wasn't enough money in the family to buy you new toys, so Ajax carved out a wooden kitten and gifted it to you. You didn't get presents very often, so you were very happy to get such an ineptly made toy. All the cuts and wounds from thorns healed immediately after Ajax had seen a smile blooming on your face and felt you hugging him. He was the only one who cared about you, and Ajax could tell that he raised you and replaced you both parents. 

You loved him more than any other relatives and had a natural girlish desire to marry your older brother after growing up. It didn't trouble Ajax at all – he played your silly game gladly, never seeing a problem in it. He knew it would end soon, but for now, he kept entertaining you by telling you stories about beautiful brides and true love they had for their grooms.

Ajax felt strange by the fact that he was treated like a beloved son by mother, but you were a stranger to your own family. Maybe because of this you looked different from everyone, and the difference in your appearance was showing clearly with every year: your exceptionally noble features and inborn elegance and grace of moves didn't match the family's dense bodies with broad shoulders and strong limbs. You were such an angelic, precious little creature that Ajax couldn't even imagine you drawing water on your scrawny shoulders or damaging your subtle palms with cleaning and sewing. With every year of your life, you became more dreamy and quiet; youthful charm was slowly taking over children's carelessness. But the one special thing about your behavior had never changed: you had always run to hug Ajax every time he went home.

You didn't attend school, so Ajax taught you to read and count, he gave you his textbooks, and tried to explain everything he had known – he wasn't a disciplined student and his knowledge was rather average, as he was oriented on providing for his family and working as a horseman at noble's lands. Ajax did his best to teach you important moral things: piety, love for your homeland, and many others — but for a rowdy teenager like him, it was an unbearable responsibility. For your own good, you were a fast learner, and soon enough, you had the same level of knowledge as Ajax and didn't need his moral guidance. The back room became your favorite place, and you spent hours here, searching for an interesting book or a newspaper with a catchy title to read and learn something new. 

Your family was shorthanded, and your parents had to let you leave the house to shovel snow, clean up the kennels, and help Ajax on the stable. Guests almost never visited your parents. If they did, they had to notify them and receive permission – and during friendly gatherings you were hiding in your room by order of father. You didn't question such a strange behavior of your parents: you thought it was normal and everyone lived like this.

You had domestic duties like cooking or mopping floors mostly, but sometimes Ajax taught you how to take care of horses. He made you friends with the calmest and the most sociable one – you were afraid of it at first but the way the old horse ate treats from your palm, tickling your skin with its lips, helped you to forget all your fears. The horse's name was Iskorka, and it gladly took you on its back, admitting you as its equestrian. Iskorka and many other horses liked Ajax, as he was a good ostler. They had always had enough hay and treats, and Ajax bathed them carefully, brushed their manes, cleaned and trimmed their hooves regularly. Their stalls had always been cleaned, and not a mess could be found on the stable – that's why horses from your family were popular between villagers and people bought them gladly. It was a strong, hardy, and sociable breed, so they were used both in field work and riding. A true pride of the family. 

Ajax's favorite routine was breaking wild horses: he adored the adrenaline and sense of danger that made his body cover with shivers. Ajax got hurt a lot of times during the process and wasn't afraid of wounds or any critical situation that could happen. Sometimes you were lucky enough to see him in these moments: it was surprising for you to watch your gentle and kind brother acting so powerful and aggressive as the thrill blurred his mind. The act of dominance Ajax was showing against a wild animal didn't match the way he behaved with you, and you didn't want to see him like this. For your childish mind, Ajax was the epitome of a good person, so you refused to see him doing such cruel things because you considered them bad. He explained to you why he had to do this and how much it meant for family's sake, but you didn't understand it – you were overexcited from the new horizons of your existence and your infant senses couldn't focus on such complicated things like family's sake and need.

You were lucky enough not to face your father's punishments: you learned from the experience of others, and during interactions with him, you didn't make any mistakes. Any request of his you completed as best as you could and right in time – it was enough to satisfy him and make him leave you just with a couple of insults (a "wuss" was his favorite one towards you). All your childhood (the biggest part of which you forgot by the time you reached your teenage years) and adolescence you spend as a ghost of your own house: your father remembered about you rarely but when he did, he was watching after you with a heavy pensive gaze that made you walk on your tiptoes and forced you to live somewhere on the background not to burden him. You had never stayed in his presence for too long: it hurt you to realize that he was irritated by you, but you had seen a lot of times how Ajax was punished for no reason, so you preferred to run away while it was safe. Every time you heard the nasty whipping sound of a rod striking the skin and your brother's muffled grunt, you cried silently and waited until the end of the execution to run to your brother's room and help him treat his wounds. 

Mother had never visited Ajax after punishments: she was busy calming Teucer, Anthon, and Tonia from crying, as all three of them were afraid to take Ajax's place. It was strange for you to understand that Ajax and you weren't kids anymore. Your childhood passed by like a disturbing dream: it was fast and unstoppable, and all the warm memories about it were related to Ajax only. He was your knight from fairytales; you trusted him with all your secrets and thoughts. Ajax helped you endure not only confrontations with your family but the feminine hardships of growing up too: when your first menstruation started, your mother had just thrown clean clothes at you and shamed you for being disgusting. She left you crying with no pity, shook your hand off of her dress roughly as you caught her by its hem to stop her and ask for forgiveness – you didn't want to be disgusting and make her angry because of this. Ajax had to explain to you what was happening to your body. Without confusion, with a stern, dry voice, he just stated the fact – now you were a maiden, and soon you would reach marriage age. 

It was hard not to notice that from this moment Ajax stopped treating you like a child. For him you were an adult now – and he took you with respect and counted on you to gain wisdom on how to be a homemaker. Now, it was your turn to prepare food for the family, babysit younger siblings, and provide them with parental care. Ajax didn't accept your help on the stable anymore and didn't let you do man's work that required physical strength. Ajax gave you the warmest clothes and blankets, appealed to you to watch after your health. 

Ajax had taught you that he would always be on your side. He taught you to trust him and never rebel against him – your older brother had known what was best for you, and you agreed with him: he was responsible for you, in Snezhnaya it was an unspoken rule which came from one generation to another without doubts. You asked him for advice numerous times, and he was always right. He was the only man who could touch you, the only one to solve your every problem, the only one to teach you how to be a good woman and wife. He was your support, and he had never demanded a reward from you but you gave him all your love and adoration because he deserved it, you believed. No one could ever compare to him: your older sisters ignored you, Gleb and Timofey hated you. What about Tonia, Teucer and Anthon, for you they were just young cuckoos who pushed Ajax and you out of the nest. You were jealous of them receiving love from mother: your heart ached every time you saw her giving them kisses on their chubby cheeks. Your stomach twisted painfully every time you caught her nursing Teucer or Anthon, and a yearn for mother's warm hands was taking over you. The only feelings you knew for younger siblings were envy and irritation.

They didn't love you back, as everyone else in the house: they got fussy in your presence, every time you tried to calm them down someone of them started crying and calling for mother's attention. It hurt you even more if Ajax came to help you: they enjoyed his presence; especially Teucer, who was Ajax's new favorite youngest sibling. Every time after another failed attempt to babysit Anthon, Teucer and Tonya you got a nice punch at the back of your head from father and plenty of insults as well. A sad sack, idiot, nitwit and many other offenses were spoken out loud by him so everyone could hear your disgrace. Public humiliation of yours was normalized in the family, so everyone could say anything to you without fear of revenge. 

You couldn't fight back. Words were stuck in your throat and you just kept silent every time your family acted unfairly with you. Whenever you started crying from such a rough treatment, you were shamed by mother for overreacting and being dramatic. You craved for her attention, as every child you wanted to be noticed and communicated with, but the forming sense of human dignity didn't let you humiliate yourself by acting needy. You dreamed of her soft hands hugging you gently and pressing you to her thick figure, that smelled like bakery and freshness. But instead, you found yourself in the dusty backrooms of the house, hugged by Ajax, roughly and clumsily: never taught how to properly comfort someone, he was pressing you to his chest as hard as he could, so you could feel how sorry for you he was. His calloused, coarse hands were patting you on your head and wiping tears off of your face. Unlike your mother, Ajax smelled strongly with sweat and his hands had a subtle stench of fish that he was gutting for dinner.

Ajax tried his best to cheer on you. Deep inside his soul he saved the childish sentimentality, so he felt extremely guilty for you and wanted to make up for his siblings' behavior. Ajax promised you that he would take you out of this hell: he wanted to live in the city and vowed to you the sweetest life with happiness and joy. He knew that all his promises were impossible to complete and was left helpless, as he had nothing else to offer you instead. Ajax lost his ardor long ago when he got a taste of an adult life. He realized quickly that he would never make enough money to buy his family out, and humbled himself into being a good peasant, but still he was dreaming of being free, and gave your mind the sweet drug of dreams that would never come true. Ajax wished he wasn't so timid. He wanted life to give him an opportunity to become stronger and braver – and despite all his current beliefs, he felt that something was waiting for him in the future, something hopeful and great…

[crows-murder]

ADHD Mac

oh yeah im doing this

there are two things im 100% about Angus MacGyver

1 he is a bi disaster

and 2 he has ADHD

before elementary school, no one really thought anything was out of the ordinary with Mac. his parents thought his hyperactivity and inability to focus well was normal for a toddler.

even if they got suspicious, Ellen got sick and she became a priority, not Mac’s odd behavior.

after Ellen MacGyver’s death, James couldn’t even look at his son, seeing his late wife in his blue eyes and blond hair, much less worry about his son’s attention problem that were increasingly frustrating the teachers.

Mac’s teachers in first grade aren’t too hard on him and his wandering attention and inability to sit still for too long since his mother had died recently.

they blame it on the trauma of losing a mother and dismiss it, though get more frustrated with Mac.

as early as second grade, Mac shows signs of having an exceptionally sharp mind, but his teachers are frustrated with him because he can’t seem to concentrate in class and struggles with his homework. Mac gets exceptional grades despite that.

his grades are so good the administration bumps him up two grades.

Mac starts fifth grade at 8, but it doesn’t get easier for him, or less frustrating.

he has occasional emotional outbursts, he’s always fidgeting, leaves a lot of tasks unfinished and has problems focusing. the other students find him weird on top of him having skipped two grades and he has no friends other than Bozer.

Mac works on his homework for hours, trying desperately to focus long enough to finish it, missing obvious details and getting reprimanded by the teachers.

his father becomes more secluded so Mac can’t ask him for help, and instead tries to force himself to study until his head hurts and the words swim around the paper like unintelligible squiggles.

Mac’s teachers complain about his poor organisation skills, unable to understand that this “mess” is Mac’s own version of organized.

Mac feels like no adult believes him when he says he can’t focus in class, that he couldn’t finish the homework, so he stops trying to convince them and instead takes it in.

he’s in sixth grade when his dad leaves for good, and it makes Mac’s already low self-esteem worse and wonders guiltily if James left because Mac struggled with simple tasks.

and so he works even harder, makes more efforts, tries harder.

it’s a real struggle that drives Mac’s frustration to tears many times, but it never feels like it’s enough. he still struggles working in group projects, he procrastinates, he loses track of time.

sometimes he can’t even physically bring himself to do his homework and ends up rushing it in the morning.

and of course, sometimes he gets lost in a personal project for hours on end without even realizing it.

Mac was always fidgeting, and started twisting up paperclips to keep his hands occupied and found that it helped focus his mind on the task ahead.

people thought he was distracted, but twisting paperclips meant that he was actually focusing much more easily.

as Mac grew older, he still couldn’t take criticism well. only Bozer really knew this, and even light criticism could make  his low self-esteem plummet.

this paired with Mac being often bored and under-stimulated (mainly in school) made Mac’s school experience difficult.

he graduates at 16 and goes straight to MIT where things slightly get better, feeling like some of the stress of grade school finally leaving him and giving him more room to breathe.

when his grandfather's call came, Mac was 18 and finally felt like things were going right.

he went to join the Army, hoping his history of lack of focus won’t hinder him much.

in Afghanistan, Mac is (usually) able to put all his focus on the IED and forget the world around.

the other soldiers think he’s just a really good EOD tech who can ignore the gunfire surprisingly well, but it’s actually because oh his hyper-focused brain.

when he and Jack are discharged and hired by DXS, Mac starts to suffer from secondary depression.

he finally goes to see a doctor who gives him his diagnosis and prescribes him antidepressants and suggests he sees a mental health professional.

Mac does and he gets diagnosed with ADHD and his prescribed ADHD medication and his doctor even suggests seeing a therapist.

despite Mac's hatred for pills, he still takes his antidepressants, but refuses to take the ADHD meds, refusing to be dependent on pills for the rest of his life.

he manages to keep it a secret from everyone, even Bozer.

but Mac decides a therapist would be helpful, and so he schedules a meeting.

and then he keeps going, every week.

therapy helps.

a lot.

though he felt like he was back to square one, like in school, feeling under-performing, but only this time with mild depression.

his therapist explains that the depression was caused by his brain being constantly under-stimulated, and of course war didn’t help.

over the months, Mac slowly gets better and feels like he’s finally moving forward, and talking to someone about a mental issue he never knew he had really helped him.

he feels guilty not telling anyone, but he isn’t ready to tell them yet.

months later, Mac decides to tell Bozer and sits him down and explains to his best friend how he was recently diagnosed with ADHD (Bozer told him it explained a lot) and mild depression because of it

Bozer understood and respected Mac’s wish to keep it under wraps and tells him that if Mac needed anything, he could always (always) come to Bozer. Mac felt even more grateful for his best friend (I love their friendship oh wow--)

no one but Bozer knew for a long time.

it wasn’t even added to his file, so not even Patti (later Matty) or Oversight (screw him anyways) knew.

after fifteen months on antidepressants Mac’s therapist decides he could come off the medication.

the withdrawal is… rough

but Mac refused to take any days off (despite what his doctor said), lest he roused suspicion.

Mac just powered through the intense stomach cramps, sweating, shivering and nausea as best as he could.

Jack was suspicious, but Mac assured him it was just a stomach bug, and Jack let it be since he could see no physical wounds that could cause this.

Mac’s withdrawal lasted a little over three weeks, and Bozer was trying to be there for his best friend as best as he could.

Mac would sleep in fits, threw up every other night and couldn’t stand eating or even looking at anything salty or sweet

when Mac started to get better, looking and feeling more healthy, Bozer took him out to one of the best restaurants in LA as a way to celebrate and made Mac pancakes for breakfast all week.

Mac told him it was entirely unnecessary, but Bozer cut him off by telling him that if someone could beat depression, it was worth celebrating.

it effectively shut Mac up and made him wonder for the thousandth time how he was lucky enough to meet someone like Bozer.

for the whole week, Mac is in a much happier and brighter mood than he’d been in in a long time.

it took everyone by surprise and caused Jack to ask if he was okay. Mac had just smiled and said that he’d never been better.

Bozer was just glad to see Mac act the way he used to when they were still in grade school. he missed this version of Mac.

Matty being Matty found out bout Mac’s therapy sessions and his antidepressant prescription and ADHD diagnosis and asks him about it (more worried about his well-being than his performance in the field)

Mac apologizes for keeping it a secret but told her that he’d gotten off the antidepressants months ago (to Matty’s relief) and that the ADHD was nothing to worry about.

Mac knows that he won’t be able to keep his therapy sessions and ADHD a secret from everyone forever, but still doesn’t feel ready to tell anyone.

Mac told them one by one, all at different times

he told Jack first, who was concerned for his partner but couldn’t bring himself to be mad at Mac for keeping it to himself.

telling Riley and Cage took a while, but he finally got it out, and felt relieved that he didn’t have to keep it a secret anymore.

after season 3, when Mac gets reinstated, his first order of business is to schedule an appointment with a therapist (Nigerian villages, as it turned out, don’t have therapy clinics)

James MacGyver tries to be the dad he hasn’t been to Mac since he was five, but missed a lot and doesn’t believe his son’s claim to have ADHD.

it destabilizes Mac’s firm belief in the diagnosis and sends him spiraling

Matty is not happy.

you do not want Matty to not be happy with you

whether or not you’re her boss.

she and James have a heated discussion when James says he wants to remove Mac’s ADHD from his personal file.

let’s just say Mac’s mental health is something no one talks about unless they want to really go at it with James.

and Mac tells them to drop it. he doesn’t have to listen to his father’s opinions (as he is an adult himself) and doesn’t want anyone fired on his behalf.

idk if it’s just me really liking the idea of Mac seeing a therapist (boy needs it)

or just thinking that it would explain a lot about Mac (his habit of playing with paperclips, his hyper-focus, etc...)

but i like the idea of ADHD Mac.

also it would make a lot of sense idk

[raendown]

Haven't seen this before so not sure if you are okay with it but...Hashirama/Kakashi with maybe only one bed trope or something?

AO3

-

Hashirama was aware that his every step practically bouncedhim back in to the air like a spring but he couldn’t help himself, he was justso happy. As the Hokage he very rarely got to leave the village for any reasonthese days, let alone for actual missions, and he’d started to think he wouldspend the rest of his days locked in that drafty office with Tobirama standingover his shoulder frowning until he completed his paperwork. Getting handed anexcuse to escape that life for a just a few days was a literal dream come true.

And having Kakashi with him? That was more than the cherryon top, that was a boon he hadn’t even dared to dream of.

“If you bounce any higher I may lose you up in the clouds,”his companion murmured.

“Can’t help it,” Hashirama declared cheerfully. “I’m just sohappy!”

“Maa, I can see that.”

He turned to Kakashi with a big smile and asked, “Aren’t youhappy? You love getting out on missions!”

“True, I like seeing how the world hasn’t changed yetbetween this time and the time period I come from.” His companion assumed athoughtful look – or at least Hashirama assumed it was a thoughtful look.Sometimes it was hard to tell through the mask.

For a few steps he was thoroughly distracted contemplating themystery of what lay underneath that stretchy mystery barrier but Hashirama didn’trealize he was staring so blatantly until Kakashi came to a stop and cocked hishead to the side with his one visible eyebrow raised up to the line of his slantedheadband.

“Is there something on my face?”

“Oh! No! I was only…well, I was wondering what your facelooked like.”

“Yes, lots of people do,” Kakashi teased him and Hashiramagroaned.

Neither brought the subject up again as they continued ontheir way, making easy conversation until evening came and they realized thatin Hashirama's eagerness to leave the village he had failed to plan out accommodationsfor where they would stay the night. His oversight left them scrambling to locatethe closest town and praying there were still rooms available. Lucky for themthere was indeed a single room left. Unfortunately for Hashirama's continuedsanity there was also only one bed in that room.

“The situation is my fault,” he admitted easily, “so Ishould be the one to take the floor.”

“You think I’m going to let the Hokage of our mighty villagesleep on the floor?” Kakashi tossed back. Hashirama narrowed his eyesdoubtfully.

“Wouldn’t you?”

“Probably. But not if it’s you. I wouldn’t mind just sharingthe bed if it’s you.”

He winked and then turned away to dig through his pack for somethingand it took until he stood up again for Hashirama's poor unprepared brain toreboot after that comment. As Kakashi tootled off to the bathroom Hashiramacontinued to stand there like a fool for several minutes without doinganything. Eventually he was able to shake off the stupor and eye the bed.

Spatially speaking they could indeed fit on that mattresstogether with few problems despite the fact that neither of them were smallmen. If it was only a matter of space he would have no worries. The problem wasthat the limited space meant cuddling around each other and he wasn’t sure if Kakashihad factored that in when he’d said he was fine with sharing. Sure the manmight be a genius, he was sort of infamous for catching details that othersmissed much like Tobirama did, but he was only human. There was bound to be afew things he missed sometimes.

When the bathroom door opened again Kakashi didn’t look theleast bit surprised to find Hashirama there with what was probably quite ananxious look on his face.

“If you don’t want to I would understand,” his companionsaid.

“Oh I would like to! I mean I wouldn’t mind! Ah, um, oh dear.That probably sounded terribly awkward. And I’m only making it worse now, aren’tI? Please stop me from talking!” Hashirama wrung his hands together fretfully,worried he’d just given away too much and ruined their friendship, but Kakashi onlygave him that adorable eye smile of his.

“Yeah alright.”

The last thing Hashirama expected was for Kakashi to pulldown that infernal mask to reveal a handsome face with a cute mole. But if thatwasn’t surprising enough he followed such an incredible reveal by leaningforward to steal a chaste kiss, rocking back on his heels afterwards with acheeky grin.

“Sharing the bed doesn’t bother me if it doesn’t bother you,”he murmured.

“Oh my,” was all Hashirama could say in a shaken voice.

Evidently he’d had nothing to worry about all along.

[danwhobrowses]

Whatever Happened to: Sheska?

So, as promised, the first of hopefully many posts of the ‘Whatever Happened to’ series, where I bring up characters that just, fell off the map. For our first one we will begin with a character disappearance that always confused me, Sheska from Fullmetal Alchemist Manga and the Brotherhood anime There will be Spoilers for the story so if you haven’t read/watched it then...maybe you should

When was she last Seen? While in the 2003 anime series Sheska maintained a recurring role as Winry’s female friend and helping uncover the dirty secrets hidden by the Homunculi and in turn the Military. However, in the Manga and Brotherhood anime, Sheska is last seen in Chapter 34/Episode 16, both titled ‘Footsteps of a Comrade-in-Arms’. In it she is revealed to be covering for Mustang as he digs for information regarding Hughes’ death - mainly out of solidarity since Hughes did give her the job that pays her bills and keeps her mother in a nice home, and the least she can do is assist in helping find the culprit. She unfortunately lets this slip to ‘Captain Focker/Fokker’ who is Envy in disguise (but still a Focker if you ask me), which leads to the whole Maria Ross frame-up. From there we never see or hear from Sheska again, we don’t see her at Central when it’s attacked by Briggs, we don’t see her fall victim of the countrywide transmutation circle and do not we see her in the Chapter 107 splash

Which, frankly, is ridiculous given that characters dead, alive and barely in the story like Sheska was are here, including Fu, Hughes, Grumman, some no-names in the bottom and one no-name at the top right corner, Rebecca, Mustang’s old Ishval squad and Henschel. An oversight maybe, but it still leaves the question mark, what DID happen to Sheska? Theory 1: Sheska was Murdered Leaking that she knew about Mustang’s digging, covering for him and her photographic memory is two very dangerous tidbits of knowledge for one person to have, even if the Homunculi look down on humans up to this point they have been extremely efficient in not leaking their own information. So a worst case scenario could be that the Homunculi killed Sheska, quietly disposing of her and maybe even covering it up, she was on a heavy workload and could’ve ‘crumbled’ and disappeared to work in a nice undisclosed village. The fortunate thing that goes against this theory is that Mustang would notice, and since Hughes’ death she had been a lot more relaxed with her workload, it would also be in the Homunculi’s nature to only take care of things when it looks like a critical moment.  Another plausible way Sheska may’ve died is via the Mannequins or when Our Father freaking Kamehameha’d half of Central Command, but then she would have to be fighting the Mannequins and not escaped Central when the Briggs soldiers gave them a chance, and Sheska would run if she were there. She may’ve also suffocated under a mountain of books like how she almost did when we first saw her, if she ever actually gets to go home anymore. Theory 2: Sheska was Dishonorably Discharged Given that Mustang is treated with contempt for digging into the Hughes case and his actions in making people believe that he scorched Maria Ross, it would be possible that the higher ups would use this as an excuse to discharge her from the military, to sever a connection Mustang would have in Central who could provide him information on Father’s plans. Envy may’ve been a lighter hand as Focker but Focker himself or any other members of Bradley’s high council may opt to picture it as harboring criminal activity. Sheska isn’t exactly one to come crying to the Elrics about this either so it’s not like it’d be huge news, the reason this may not work however is that Sheska still has all the dots Hughes had, she just hasn’t connected them yet, and the Homunculi keep tabs on people like that.  Theory 3: Sheska was Transferred Like most of Mustang’s crew, Sheska may’ve been moved by association. Her absence from Central Command would fuel this and after she’s finished completing all the records there’s not much else she is useful for in the eyes of the military. Since she has no career goals, she could’ve simply been moved to a smaller military office - her ignorance to the happenings protecting her from being in warzones but not out of the country circle’s range. She may’ve also been transferred normally, maybe another library got burned down or maybe they rebuilt the Central Library and had her repopulate that with all the normal books and secret alchemy cookbooks and actually declutter her apartment with all the books that are there (okay it bothers me, where does she sleep? Does she have a book bed, next to her book oven and book fridge and cooks book eggs for bookfast in her book pan in her book kitchen?). Theory 4: Sheska left the Military on her own accord While she never expressed displeasure in working for the Military we leave Sheska in a pivotal moment in the plot, the next episode/chapter Mustang supposedly burns Maria Ross to a crisp. Not knowing it part of the plan, Sheska may’ve felt partly responsible in the ‘murder’ of Ross and disgusted by Mustang’s actions, which could have led her to leave the military. There are other reasons she may’ve quit her job also, she may’ve found a new calling or as said before the Library could’ve been rebuilt and she could’ve gotten her old job back from that or another closer-to-mother library/general job, she may’ve left to tend to her ill mother if her condition worsened or simply moved to a job with a career track - hell if you wanna go wild maybe she went to become an Alchemist, that photographic memory would be handy if she had the aptitude. The backdrop of this like the previous theory of her leaving the military is that this’d prevent the Homunculi from keeping tabs on her, while it is possible that Ross’ death would’ve prompted her to leave, the military may’ve offered an alternative of transfer or another government job so to keep and eye on her. Theory 5: Sheska slept through the whole thing A comical theory, but the records department isn’t something one would frequent in a lot, I mean Mustang was able to sleep in a storeroom for a bit completely undetected. It would be funny if Sheska did miss all the action from falling into a comatose sleep in a basement or something having been overworked, and given the isolated placement completely missed the Mannequin Soldiers, thought the Circle stealing her soul was a nightmare and then napped again through the whole Father fight. This is unlikely because it obviously didn’t happen, as I said Sheska’s workload doesn’t take a huge toll on her anymore so she wouldn’t pass out...not until after the Father Fight when she has to rewrite all the paperwork destroyed by Father’s Kamehameha, it’d be a good laugh though. Theory 6: Sheska was there, you just didn’t see her One of the most plausible theories is simply that it happened but there was no need to focus on Sheska while it was happening. Falman also had a great memory and worked with the Briggs men and the Armstrongs had worked in Central for months, so her talents weren’t exactly needed for the situation, she likely escaped the mannequins and left Central Command intact. It’s likely but it’s still annoying, we could have shown her in this scenario, even if it’s when Buccaneer saved those women (imaged in manga since I couldn’t find a screen of the scene in anime) they could’ve thrown in Sheska, could’ve shown her losing and regaining her soul, at least some closure on that would’ve been nice given that we saw every other player and the people of Liore during the Promised Day.

Theory 7: Sheska still works for the Military, she just wasn’t There The final theory that is as plausible as the prior, Sheska was basically away that day. We saw it with Brosh who only arrived at the scene because he was disgusted by Mustang and then elated that Ross was alive, a ‘bookworm’ like Sheska may’ve taken time off to witness an eclipse, and if she didn’t she may’ve simply had the day off. Another thing she could’ve done is gone on holiday, I doubt she went to Xing to meet the Armstrongs while they were statue hunting but maybe she went out of Central. She could’ve visited her mother, visited other family, gone to a place with other libraries and stuff she may have hobbies in. The downfall of this theory is that none of it escapes the circle, hostilities with Creta, Aurego and Drachma mean the only way out of the country is by crossing the desert, which doesn’t seem up Sheska’s alley, which means we circle back to why didn’t we show her? We showed Liore, Kanama, Resembool and Rush Valley, the latter just to specifically show Paninya - someone who had less screen time than Sheska, no offence to Paninya but if we gave time for her lying on a random floor (lucky she wasn’t fixing a roof) we could’ve just put Sheska in a room face first in a book for a second and that’d be that. So yeah, the mystery of Sheska racks my brain, mainly out of desire for closure but also because she still played a valid part in Ed and Al’s journey. Without her they would’ve never obtained Marcoh’s notes, which meant they would never have found out the properties of a stone, they would’ve never gone to the Fifth Laboratory and thus never learned about the Homunculi marking them as a sacrifice - since Ross got framed because of her, Ed would’ve never gone to Xerxes either, meaning he wouldn’t have figured out the transmutation circle or found the Ishvalan slum to discover that Scar killed the Rockbells, that discovery led to the confrontation that became a turning point for Scar’s redemption arc too. Sheska also inadvertently was necessary for Mustang’s plot also; had the brothers not gone to the Fifth Laboratory they would’ve never gotten Barry the Chopper as an ally (who in turn busted Ling out of jail, meaning everything Ling contributes to is a byproduct of Sheska’s action) but if she hadn’t have told Envy about Mustang’s digging they would’ve never framed Ross, which meant that they never would’ve had opportunity to capture Gluttony, kill Lust or discover that Bradley was Wrath. These are big things as well! Could someone just like, poke Arakawa for an answer? Or are we just gonna expect a Launch situation (save her for another day). Out of the 7 theories I would rank them as Most to Least Likely: 6, 7, 3, 4, 2, 1, 5 Most to Least Preferred: 3, 5, 7, 4, 6, 2, 1 Maybe one day we’ll find out, but for now it’s all headcanon, but whatever did happen to her, she is not forgotten.

[battlestar-royco]

2. 9. 10. :)

2. pick one sight, smell, sound, feel, and taste to describe the aesthetic of your novel.

WIP 1: a misty valley, citrus and gunmetal, a revving engine, velvet, chocolate

WIP 2: a latticed window overlooking a snowy forest, a burning campfire, Trollabundin by Eivor, smooth stone, mulled cider

9. what’s the first line of your novel?

WIP 1: Death, black and burned, lurked in the house.

WIP 2’s opening line changes a lot, but here’s one I’m considering: It was lucky that the men had left the fox to die in the snow.

10. what’s a line of dialogue you’re particularly proud of?

The sardonic crinkle around Erringer’s eyes disappeared. Sierra said softly, “Terin failed to slit my throat when she had the chance. So I won’t suffer for that oversight.”

WIP 2 (more of a snippet than a line!):

“I was a traveler before Baskria, too,” Resya said. She’d had enough trouble evading average prejudiced hunters before joining the clan. If the Seven had been around when she was rogue, she would have been the perfect mark: young, unskilled, scrawny, afraid.

She felt Faryn’s analytical eyes on her back. “What clan?”

“I was alone,” said Resya.

“No clan?” Zali said.

“No clan.”

It was a lie. Before she stowed away on a cart in the soldiers’ caravan, Resya had found a place with a tightly knit family of witches who hid deep in the forest. The smoke from their small ring of cabins rarely attracted hunters. They were located just beyond a gorge, too far from Torrodine and the village circle to be worth the bother–or so they thought. They kept to themselves and roasted meat on spits, baked sweet bread on hot slabs of rock, and shared steaming pots of spiced tea.

That hadn’t lasted for long.

[quest-draws]

Excerpt from The Story of the Seven: Reconstructed, an archival initiative seeking to recreate Madame Lucretia’s original notes with as much accuracy as possible. The following has been compiled by comparing post-Story accounts from dozens of dedicated chroniclers, with oversight from Madame Lucretia and the available members of the Starblaster’s crew. 

Excerpt begins 

Cycle 36, day 6

     We’ve finally found a sign of civilization, as well as plausible evidence that we are all blind idiots. As we flew over yet more icy foothills, Merle (Of all of us!) noticed that one of the mounds appeared to be smoking. Under more careful examination we realized that these ‘foothills’ were actually snowed-covered buildings, meaning it is quite likely the other foothills we’ve seen the past few days were also actually buildings. 

     We, the best and brightest of our deceased world, saviors of multiple realities, the last and only line of defense against the relentless malevolence of the Hunger, wasted nearly a week looking for signs of life when there were entire cities directly under our hull. At the risk of sounding pessimistic, I think this world may be fucked. 

     Now that we’ve realized our mistake, Captain wants us to backtrack and see if we can find a settlement closer to Lup and Barry’s original prediction of the Lights trajectory. However, Lup’s trying to convince him that we should do some reconnaissance in this village first. 

LT: Look, there’s no point going backwards in this fuckin’ blizzard if we can just-

CD: -We are way, way off, the- they’re your calculations? Do you- 

BB: [crosstalk] They’re our calculations, Lu

LT: [crosstalk] I know.

TT: [crosstalk] You calculated ‘em. calc-calculated the shit outta- 

[LT puts up a hand to silence the others]

LT: Look I’m not dunking on my calculations, cause they’re tight as shit, ‘natch; outside looks like someone put a flock of doves through a woodchipper. You wanna fly through that?

CD: [crosstalk] I’m not- 

MB: [crosstalk] Gross?

LT: [crosstalk] Been flying six days straight, you wanna keep, keep flyin’- 

CD: I don’t wanna fly through the scenario you just made me visualize, no. This is just snow. 

[MB raises his hand kind of awkwardly. Mags, c’mon, you’re not 12]

MB: Uuum, Cap’nport? No offense but you look kinda beat, are you sure?

CD: Wh- excuse me. Are you questioning my piloting abilities, Magnus?

MB: [crosstalk] ‘Course not, just-

CD: [crosstalk] I’ve flown us through, through literal eldritch death pillars - 

MH: [crosstalk] ...do look a little tired -  

MB: I know!

[captain gets out of the pilots seat, oh dear]

CD: What was that? Merle? 

LT: It’s been nearly a week, Captain. You haven’t slept. 

CD: Neither have you!

LT: Yeah, and I’m pissed about it! 

BB: look everyone’s a little frazzled- 

MH: I’m fine. 

BB: [crosstalk] Merle, oh my-

LT: [crosstalk] Merle!

TT: [crosstalk] Hahaha holy fuck Merle! Not the time?

CD: You know what, okay, fine! Okay, we’ll vote. Let’s vote. Who thinks we should go down there? 

[Lup, Mag  LT, MB, and BB all put up their hands]

CD: All right, and who says we should turn back?

[CD, TT, and MH put up their hands]

CD: Lucretia.

TT: Lu- Baby-Lu, fuckin’ put dowait I forgot to put myhandupfuck

LC: I’m not answering to that, but I do thin k 

[TT attepts to take my fuckin

Taako tried to take my journal, and while I understand his intentions it’s imperi

BABY LU NEEDS TO STOP WRITING OUR CONVERSATIONS IN REAL TIME AND PAY ATTENTION TO THE WORLD AROUND HER

BABY LU WILL GET HER JOURNAL BACK WHEN THE GROWN UPS DECIDE WHAT WERE DOING IN THIS FROZEN FUCKING HELLSCAPE 

     After my journal was so rudely stolen, we decided that it would be best to have some of the crew investigate the settlement while the others got some rest. Captain landed the Starblaster just out of sight (not far with the weather) and Lup, Magnus and I made our way into town on foot. We were ushered into the smoking building Merle first noticed almost as soon as we were in sight of it. It’s apparently some sort of tavern/town hall, with one long, open room punctuated by tables and some truly massive support beams. 

     Chiana, the innkeeper (or possibly Mayor? Chief? They are definitely some measure of authority figure) was quite unsettled by our sudden appearance. It’s apparently unusual for people to travel between communities at this time of year, especially in the middle of the night (which it apparently is. We seriously lost track of time with the storm blocking out the suns). They’ve insisted on putting us up until the storm settles some. We have of course accepted, but we decided that it might be best not to mention our true intentions here. They were spooked just by us appearing in a blizzard, we don’t need to bring up the rest of it. We notified Capn’port that we’ll be staying a few days to gather info, and since then Lup and Magnus have been having quite the time chatting with the assorted patrons/guests. 

     This really is quite a spectacular building. The ceiling is only about 7 ft. high (Lup and Mags can both touch the ceiling), but it’s so wide and long it doesn’t feel cramped. It’s hard to estimate how large it is exactly; the hall is a patchwork of additions, none of which quite match up. Here an extra nook were the hall was widened, there a slight indent were an old support must have collapsed. Wood flooring giving way to tile, tile being overtaken by carpet, and then carpet receding back to wood again. The support beams are the only consistent element, solid blocks of wood punctuating the room at even intervals. 

    But the room’s really dominated by the kitchens and the dance floor. The kitchens are spaced along the northern wall about 50 ft. from one another, one in each corner and the last right in the center. The latter is the only one operational at the moment, and Chiana’s not making anything more complicated than some mulled cider (which, for the sake of accurate chronicling, I must say is delicious). I thought at first the stove here was heating the hall, and while it’s fairly large on closer inspection that doesn’t seem plausibe. It’s far too warm, even in the farther corners. I suppose the surrounding snow might provide some insulation? 

     Besides that, there’s a raised dance platform in the center of the hall, in front of the middle kitchen. Lup’s dragged Magnus and a two middle aged women onto it, though there isn’t any music at this hour. She's currently waving at me to come join them. I’ve been nursing the drink Chianna gave me so I’d have an excuse to stay seated, but I think I’d better relent before Lup tries to physically drag me up there. They’re really acting silly tonight, but I suppose we all needed to blow off some steam. 

     Alright. Okay. I probably should have noticed this when I first started drinking, but the alcohol here seems to be quite a bit stronger then I’m used too? Or what Lup and Magnus are used too. I didn’t notice until I went out on the dance floor and I kind of tripped but at first I thought that was just me being clumsy or tired, but then when I started actually dancing it was worse like, I’m usually a good dancer. And Lup was acting especially silly and so was magnus, even though he should have a better constitution than us because he’s not a squishy wizard he’s a beefcake. Lup said that. 

Fuck okay I am definitely a little tipsy here I should stop writing. But I was going to write somethig down it was important? we were dancing, and then I was stumbling and I said like Lup I feel kinda tipsy but I only had one drink and she said Aaaaaww ‘Creesha, you are suuuuuuuuuch a lightweight lol but then she fell over and Magnus laughed and one of the ladies we were dancing with asked how much she’d had and shed had three, which made them laugh because apparently threes a lot here. And then we all sat down for a bit and we were talking about travelling and it was kind bullshit because we are trying to blend but we mentioned THE LIGHT THAT 

THAT WAS IT LIGHT LIGT light the light what was that aaaaah what was OH MY GOD I CAN’T REMEMBER THE REST FUCK I [[handwriting becomes illegible]]

okay okay I went back to talk again and I had a few more drinks because chiana gave me more drinks they are actually super sweet i mean chianna. Chianas super sweet. They actualysaw  the light when it landed sorta they saw a flash through the storm but not in the direction we came. Lup’s been trying to redo her calculations on some napkins she thinks the blizzard had something to do with it but shes still  really smashed I dont think now a good time for math Lup 

Lucretia darling are you gonna nag me or are you gonna oh my god I dont know how to spell half those words Lup Im a fucking drunk journalist dont pull the fucking jargon out on me

Barry please tell me what Lups saying in words drunk  journalist understands

A drunk? Lucretia? Whats going on?

Lup: Baaaaaarrry holy shit did you remember to to do the thing for the storm

BB: Lup? Lup you’re- Lucretia give your stone to Lup I can hardly understand her

LT: hiiiiiiiiiiiii barold, hiiiiiiiii, we fucked uuuuuup

BB: oh wow youre super smashed

LT we fucked up Barry! we didnt-interference! the storm created interference and we fucked up the direction and

BB Lup that doesn’t make anysense? our equipment relies mostly on magical energy unless the storm has arcane origins

LT: oh hey, MORRISON DOES THE STORM HAVE ARCANE ORIGINS?

Morison: MS: (shes one of the dancing ladies) I dunno where arcane is but the storms local. amma constein cursed the whole country side bout 20 years ago after liddy halloway dumped her

SEE BARRY

BB: okay yeah that would definitely throw off our readings but its not like we could have known that beforehand. I mean we know now, so I suppose its a good thing you guys went down there even if you also got fucking wasted, for some reason

?: whose fucking wasted (oh its taako

TT: heeeey chucklefucks whats this about you getting crunk on your uuuuh super important potentially, world saving info gathering mission?

MB taako taaaaaakoooooooo booze is super cool down here? I had a bunch

TT: eh yup I could guess

MB: but not like a super bunch? A little bunch. Its suuuuper strong its great

TT hahaha oh. oh you are so lucky cap’nports asleep. What about you, baby lu? tell me-tell me you, at least are treating this mission with the uh, gravity and maturity it fucking-fucking nesessitates fuck you taako im 58

TT whelp haha BB please just give m emy stone back  

im 5 fucking 8!!! Im not a baby godamnit. Im a grown ass women ill get as crunk as I fuckin wanna on this sweet ass booze and you cant have any taako you bitch hahahahha oh my god lucy someone please tell me shes still writing this down I nee

taakos a jackass im a grown fucking ass women an he wasnt even really a hundred when he joined cause hes a LIAR and A JERK comparatively in terms of relativ ageing im more an adult then him but he still calls me baby lu he could call me lucy or creesh like Lup calls me that i love her she? so nice Lup brought me another drink and we danced more but not well cause everthings floaty and I lay down so my head wouldnt float to high the ceilings still really low Lup lay down with e and magnus came in he was screaming cause he went out in the snow he was trying to do the dip thing were you go in a hot spring right after but theres no spring only cold magnus. everythigs only cold magnus why do you do this to yourself?magnus. chiana is making him sit by the stove in the kitchen and they wont give us any more drinks i told them i was 58 and also an alien but that didnt convince them which is probably fair. they dont know. taako knows he has no excuse

chianna gave us a room and its really dark its in the basement it super warm I think there actually is a hot spring but like underneath sorry mags that probablywhat you were thinking but still. super dumb. god Im gonna be so bad in the morning. the storms clearing up a little so well probably go then I hope captains not mad Im not sure he knows but we proly found the light so he cant be too mad. I  need sleep. I need to sleep. good night journal Ill miss you love Lucretia

Cycle 36, day 7

Firstly, I am never drinking again. Ever. Secondly, as soon as I get back to the ship, I am burning these pages. Posterity is not worth this level of embarrassment. 

Cycle 36, day 8

     Lup, Magnus and I had some trouble getting back. Though we weren’t nearly as intoxicated as the previous night, we weren’t precisely sober either. Between Magnus stopping to puke every five minutes, Lup’s persisting lack of balance, my truly excruciating headache, and all the motherfucking, goddamned snow, we nearly got lost on the mile-long hike back to the ship. The others had a field day teasing us, and I can’t even be mad at them for it. Looking over my own notes is literally, viscerally painful. To reiterate: I am never. Drinking. Again.

     I am not going to destroy those pages, however. It’s the only written account I have of what Chiana and the others told us about the Light, and it would be irresponsible to get rid of them before we’ve properly found it. Besides, Lup and Taako both practically begged me to keep it in. I don’t understand why Lup want’s this reminder of our idiocy to remain in tact, but damn she is hard to argue with. She’s also tried to insist that “baby-Lu” is a compliment, but won’t explain how so. I take back all the nice things drunk me said about her. 

     Maybe later I’ll go back and just stick a summary were those pages are, but for the mean time they’ll have to stay.

      I spent most of yesterday just resting, once we got back. I don’t think I honestly realized how tired I was until then. It’s only been 8 days since the last apocalypse, most of which we spent searching, frantic and blind in a literally cursed blizzard. Much as I hate to say it, I may need to take Taako’s advice and stop chronicling in real time. Just for a bit. I’ll pick it up again when we find the Light. 

     Time to go save another world.

End of excerpt. 

[editors note: Can I just formally request that, should we ever see Fisher and Junior again, I be permitted to feed these pages to them, in hopes that they might be erased permanently this time? Please?

- LC ]

[editors note: Madame Lucretia’s request is noted and denied.

- TT ] 

[mercurialmist]

Iona Mitchell, A short text about a rock which I quite like, 2021

Over there is a nice rock. A big rock, several meters up, down and across. 256 millimetres is the official minimum size for a boulder, so it could easily be categorised as such. In the summer, when it is less icy. people must try to scramble up its sides. Bouldering. Do they get a sense of satisfaction when at the summit? The field stretching for a solid 20 meters below them, before rising to a dwarfing cliff face? This boulder isn’t majestic in size. Unimpressive while also not being exactly pathetic. It lives in the awkward borderland, between monolithic and meholithic. Online it says that common language treats a boulder as ‘a rock which is too large to move’. It doesn’t specify whether this means ‘too large to move by hand’, which is frankly a pretty large oversight. Could this rock be moved by a machine thereby losing its status of ‘boulder’? By quick guestimation, it probably weighs 80,850 lbs, which is more than a tower crane can carry but no fear! A mobile crane could feasibly do the job. So, this boulder is a boulder in terms of the space it occupies, but also, could be lifted into the sky at the flick of a wrist, provided you have enough expertise in the world of cranes to know not to use a tower crane for the job and so, is a mere pebble in other respects. It looks a little like a marmot. Or possibly a bear, depending on the angle. Both animals are native to this region, although bears only in the historic sense. There are plenty of bears on flags and shields, though. The old population evolved into two dimensional simulacra of fur and claws, survival of the flattest for an age of images. At dawn animal prints are visible in the snow. A marmot print is eerily similar to a humans handprint. A gene splicing disaster, a small child confused with a rodent, left to wander the frozen forests. A hare print is laughably phallic. Some mornings the hillsides are dotted with desire-lines made entirely of cartoonish cocks. You don’t see many of the culprits though. Their activities are clandestine. We did see a hare barreling into the piste one night, nearly pancaked by an infant speeding in a toboggan. It would’ve made a horrifying image, a set of penisy-prints emerging from a corpse. But no marmot, nor, of course a bear, has been spotted since the summer. Except for this rock. Because of its placing, there is a possibility that this rock was deposited here by a receding glacier. A quick glance from the only geologist in the village could tell you, but she’s too stone faced to approach.When glaciers carry and deposit rock they also erode it. So, perhaps the depositing glacier purposely formed this rock in its animal shape? Was it inspired by continental pre-holocene cave paintings? Animals leaping across rock walls, charging and in flight. If people elsewhere were creating depictions of lions and tigers and bears, what’s to stop the glacier engaging in the contemporary visual arts discourse of its time? Its comforting, perhaps, to think of the glacier as a socially engaged artist. Carving honest portraits of the quotidian inhabitants of its community. But, one must wonder how anonymous the stone-creature really is. Perhaps, as with our own history of portraiture, it was a portrait specifically of a marmot king. Or a bear politician. Or a war hero rodent. How much was the sculptor-glacier paid to produce this portrait? Did it sell out in the process? Perhaps it was a labour of literal love. Perhaps the softhearted glacier merely meant it as a gift, perhaps for the mountain to which it clung so tightly? Rocky deposits are termed drift. The name of the movement of the ice, and its detritus. It’s a good word. It conveys a sense of being pulled along. A lifeboat tied to a bobbing ship, a firm hand tugging you through a swaying crowd, a wilful loss of control. Can you see the trajectory of this rock as it glided with the speed of decades, and the firm hand of the glacier which dragged it along? It might’ve travelled miles and miles in the cocoon of an icy tongue. It must be so restless now. Stuck motionless, in its flat field. As Africa shuffles closer, rubbing rocky shoulders with the eurasian plate, greeting each other with bubbling volcanoes and rumbling earthquakes, the rock rises. Year by year and centimetre by year, until, maybe, if it’s lucky, the topography of this place will rumble and it will roll again.

See more of Iona’s work at: https://www.everythingforever.net/iona-mitchell

[roll-for-stupidity]

Naruto D20 Episode 2.1: AKA Dow Catches Them On The Flipside

After MUCH too long a wait (and a bunch of scary irl stuff), I finally got back in the D&D saddle to run the debut session of my second team of ninjas!

Back when I made the decision to have two distinct teams (like four months ago lol), the only thing I knew right off the bat was that I wanted this team’s sessions to have a much different tone, and I wanted them to experience the plot from a vastly different perspective from our team of Leaf ninja.

If the ninja from the Leaf were raised in a society free from terror and conflict (due to the peace created by the 7th Hokage’s oversight and raw strength basically destroying any threat before it happened), the ninja from this team were raised in a society ravaged by infighting and turmoil; and what better setting than the village hidden in the Mist: Kirigakure

You know, the village that created the first major villains in the source material?

From there, I decided in order to achieve the tone I wanted, I had to throw my players right into the action. A simple delivery mission becomes a murder mystery then becomes, to their knowledge, an assassination attempt on their very lives.

Let’s start with the mystery. I knew that in order for this to be fun and entertaining, clever decisions made by my players had to rewarded with evidence or hidden secrets. And in that regard I really feel like I hit the mark. And my players did very well too. They found nearly everything I hid for them, and not for lack of difficulty. One of my players even decided to check what I thought would be one of the most obscure clues right off the bat: a trap door hidden under a rug.

Meanwhile, my other two players dutifully and thoroughly investigated nearly every other inch of the house for clues, discovering, to their shock and horror, a decomposing dead body: the very body of the man they were to make a delivery to!

From there, they discovered an object was missing, and an object was left behind, possibly incriminating a ninja from a village that isn’t so unfamiliar....

Then finally the three decided it was best to send someone down to check on what was under the trap door. The lucky player found himself at the bottom of a ladder with a torch to his left, as well as some flint and steel to light it. Upon doing so, I’m not entirely certain he was prepared for what he saw

A giant, triple masted ship with a gangplank leading from the rocky outcropping in which he stood up to the deck of the ship, and on that gangplank, a man with a harpoon gun now aimed at his head.

After a quick exchange of “who are you”s, the rest of the ninja team soon followed the first player down the rabbit hole

(I’ll let my players decide later who was Shaggy and who was Scooby in this scenario)

The players explained, quite unconvincingly, that the person the harpoon wielder was here to see was dead in his room up above. Upon ordering the three to remain where they were, the man, presumably the captain of that ship, climbed the ladder to see for himself, returning a few minutes later, looking sullen and in shock.

The man’s complete demeanor and approach to this situation had changed. He gave the trio no choice and demanded they come with him if they wanted to live, to which my players were like:

Then an explosion happened, and one of my characters attacked the dude and got knocked out which very quickly turned their answer to

But they hopped on his ship and are now on their way to the Land of Tea, where the man claims they can lay low until he can “get to the bottom of what’s going on.” And that is where we left our young heroes at the end of 2.1

Must admit, not my absolute best work, but I’m still pretty happy with a lot of what happened. Need to figure out the next step from here but a solid opening to what looks to be a promising side of the campaign.

If there’s a lesson to be learned from this session it would probably be to be willing to change the ultimate outcome on the fly due to unforeseen factors (like backstories that had not been finalized before the session), even if that means moving the campaign in a different direction than the one I initially planned or preferred. That being said, I’m excited to see where things go from here.

I’ll leave you with what I left my three players:

Ciao for now!

[cityalps]

19 OF OUR FAVE CITY ALPS MOMENTS FROM 2019

1. Receiving the studio keys from an old pharmacy 

After nearly two-years of dreaming about City Alps and all we hoped it would be, we finally found a space that we believed would work for our training philosophy and community. We received the keys to an empty shell with bright pharmacy lights the only remnant from its previous life on 1 February 2019. Its was such a weird feeling. A mixture of extreme excitement and trepidation. Taking the plunge was, without a doubt, the best decision we ever made regardless of where this journey takes us!

2. Hiring our builders, Richard Sprik and family (and involving Toine and Ad)

We were fortunate to be referred to a dream construction team, Richard Sprik and his family. The execution of the renovation process was unbelievably professional and the team was always ahead of schedule, with the oversight provided by Toine and Ad (our two advisors that Eljse put us in touch with). Without our above experienced and warm Dutchies, the outcome might have looked very different. Georgia was constantly trying to get Richard and his brothers off the red bull and smokes and onto the veggies and fruit, with mixed results (recall having to eat most of the dust-covered carrots). They were a great bunch of guys and an absolute pleasure to work with.

3. Painting with mates 

Once the construction team had done most of the heavy lifting, the space still needed to be painted and all smaller jobs completed. Our friends were incredible in volunteering to help get it done.  We honestly could not have done it without them! It involved long hours and some serious manual labour. But they were so selfless, supportive and helpful. With the exception of Zachs wall (the wall that took three weeks to paint due to peelage, scrapping, re-painting, peelage, sanding, painting, re-scrapping, sanding, painting), it was so much fun to spend time with mates over a few beers, great mixed spotify playlists, primer and the City Alps dark blue. It made a difficult task, a wonderful memory of what true friendship really looks like.  

4. Pre-opening Chambles ski-trip 

Months before we pulled the trigger on the rental agreement, we had planned and booked a Ski weekend with friends. We nearly pulled out of the trip due to general busyness and everything that needed to happen/overseeing the building process before we opened the City Alps doors. Ultimately, we decided at the absolute last minute to just ‘DO IT’ and it was definitely the right call. It was a recharge and served as a reminder of what we were really trying to achieve with City Alps: a space where you train to do something adventurous outside of the studio (it was also the first sale of 12 City Alps winter sweaters, with the brand being taken to Tel Aviv, Neurembourg and Geneva). 

5. Opening 42-day crew 

We launched City Alps with our opening 42-day special and it lead to the core group that is mostly still in tact. We think of some of our more consistent and strongest members, and many of them joined during this initial 42-day period. We like to think of this elite core group as the glue that holds our community together. It was a fun 42 days. 

6. Wim Hoff experience 

A big part of what we want to do with City Alps is around organising workshops and events geared towards endurance athletes. The first workshop we organised was the Wim Hoff method and the idea of recovery being a key component to any training program. Martin Pet (a former age-group level Dutch triathlete) took us through the 3 pillars of the Wim Hoff method, namely breathing, cold therapy and exposure. It was an enlightening experience to be submerged in an ice bath in March outside the studio, with our new neighbours passing and wondering WTF we were doing. All about being comfortable being uncomfortable. 

7. JBs adventure talk 

We are a community inspired by adventure, whatever that means and looks like for you. For Jean-Baptiste our fellow City Alper, it meant cycling from Zurich to Cape Town via the west coast of Africa. JBs talk was inspiring and thought-provoking. He has such an interesting view on the world and experiences. We loved hearing his story and people still refer to it in many post-ride coffee conversations at the City Alps cafe. More adventure talks to follow next year. 

8. La Chouffe trail weekend 

The annual City Alps trip to La Chouffe was as fun and enjoyable as ever. We love this race and it did not disappoint - for new and experienced trail running it was equally as exciting. We also had some strong City Alps performances, putting the many studio hours of training to test. Come on Olle, Dave, Elsj and Agata, City Alps needs a podium for this one next year. No pressure. 

9. Dolomiti Xtreme Trail 

Thomas recently asked us if we are working for the Dolomiti Xtreme Trail after we pushed (successfully now) for him to join. The answer is no (well not yet anyway). But we love this race and the whole 150km cycle from Venice to the start, eating polenta and running in the most spectacular scenery, is near-impossible to beat. We cannot wait for 2020! This race is as authentic and adventurous as they come! 

10. Nutrition workshop

Ok so this happened in a pre-game changers world. It was really informative and interesting. Our biggest take-away was that we, as athletes, should be eating far more than we think. That little gem has come in handy over the Christmas period. Seconds? Um yes please. 

11. Second 42-day crew 

We launched our second 42 in August, and it lead to a whole new batch of strong and wonderful City Alpers, as well as transformative physical changes for some. Dorte, Mathues and Mita were all worth winners. 

12. Getting married 

Easily the happiest moment for of 2019. Our rock star City Alps team held the fort strong and we arrived home in Amsterdam from our home in South Africa, to many wonderful celebrations and excitment all around.  

13. Our Coaches

We have been really lucky to find the best team of instructors. They are all such unique humans (and athletes), and bring their own special stamp and quality to the City Alps experience. So grateful to have them in our team! 

14. Steph and Niels 

Steph our host, neighbour (serendipitous this) and fellow City Alper is the hostess with the mostest. Always welcoming and warm. She sets the mould for all the hosts to follow.  Niels also gets a special mention as occasional host and full time City Alps vlogger. We love Niels. 

15. The bar 

This late addition to the space has been such a win. We love having good quality filter coffee at the bar and catching up with members. This is normally where great adventures are discussed and arranged with new friends, where high fives are given out regularly and where Strava stats are compared… because if it’s not on Strava… it didn’t happen!

16. Sam and Xoliswa 

In 2018, we raised funds for the Chintsa Running Club in South Africa. Chintsa is where Georgia and I met. Supporting the running club from the village is something that we feel very strongly about. The running club was started by a really inspiring local trail runner, Steve. Steve has given something positive to a community where hope is sometimes hard to find. We sponsored two of the top runners from the club to participate in the UTCT in Cape Town. It was the first time that either Sam and Xoli had left the Eastern Cape province and they were so blown away by the whole experience. We can't wait to see how this experience manifests in their lives and in the lives of the running club going forward. 

17. Sunday ride vibes 

We are loving the longer Sunday endurance rides. Such great training and banter all around. So glad we introduced them to beat the winter blues. 

18. Dreams fulfilled and goals achieved 

Watching some of you write down goals on the goals wall and then tick those goals off is so inspiring and motivating for us. Also, to see the improvements in strength and endurance in some of you has been amazing. It's always those members who are the most consistent that get the biggest rewards. No secrets. Just consistency and hard work.

19. You all 

We love you the City Alps community. We can honestly say that our biggest highlight of 2019 has been meeting you all. We feel so privileged to have many wonderful, strong and like-minded humans to train with and to do trips together. The 2020 is going to be our strongest and most exciting decade yet.

Written by: Dayne and Georgia Muller 

[jacensolodjo]

Choice Excerpts from Borderland, A Journey Through the History of Ukraine by Anna Reid

Hanna (Hrytsay) was seven years old when collectivisation began in 1929: People didn’t want to enter these collective farms at all, but they were forced to. They took everything – land, grain, ploughs, animals. And as if that weren’t enough they took the bread out of the house. My grandfather was a blacksmith; he resisted for three years. They took his horses, his smith’s shop, they banged with hammers on the walls to see if he had hidden any grain. They even took the seedcorn for the next year. A barn or a stable was a symbol of wealth. If you had a metal roof on your house, you were considered a kulak, and sent away to the North. You know Tykhon’s house over the road – it had an iron roof. The only reason it wasn’t confiscated was because he was ill and had to have his leg amputated – the activists took pity on him. 

The local church – ‘it was a beautiful one, with bells’ – was demolished and its icons looted. ‘People protested but it didn’t help. There was a man called Myron who lived right here – people used to go to his place to read the Bible and sing hymns. Then he disappeared too.’ 

Hanna’s family sold ‘everything – icons, clothes, pillows’ to buy rye. But by the winter of 1932 they were living off anything they could find. ‘People were eating straw and lime-tree leaves, making kasha out of bark, nettles. I went to see my uncle, and they served a dinner. There was a stew – I saw something strange – tails sticking out of it! It was made from mice!’ Compared to most villages, the Lukovytsyers were lucky, because they could trawl – illegally, using blankets – for fish and molluscs in the Dnieper. Even so, two families died. On the other side of the river things were much worse: ‘People were killing their children and eating them.’

Exactly how many people died in the Great Hunger of 1932– 3 is unclear. As Khrushchev admitted in his memoirs, ‘No one was keeping count’. Contemporaries spoke of 4 or 5 million. The historian Robert Conquest uses Soviet census data to arrive at a figure of 7 million: 5 million in Ukraine, 2 million elsewhere in the Soviet Union. Another 6.5 million, he reckons, died in ‘dekulakisation’ immediately beforehand. If Conquest is right, the whole operation killed over twice as many people as the Holocaust – thirty-four lives not for every word, but for every letter in this book. These may well be underestimates, since Soviet census data are unreliable. When the post-purge census of 1937 turned up an embarrassing population deficit, Stalin promptly had the officials in charge arrested and shot. Subsequent counts, one can assume, erred on the side of optimism. 

The term ‘famine’, with its implication of natural disaster, is the wrong word for what happened. Unlike the Irish potato famine of the 1840s, the deaths of 1932– 3 were a deliberate, man-made event. Crop failure was not to blame, since the harvest of 1932 was only slightly smaller than average, and actually better than that of the previous year. Nor can it, by any stretch of the imagination, be put down to bureaucratic oversight. By the early autumn of 1932 Stalin and his ministers undoubtedly knew, because local communists repeatedly told them so, that the countryside was starving, but ordered that food requisitions continue none the less. Right through the famine, storehouses full of ‘emergency supplies’ were kept locked and guarded, while people died in thousands in the villages round about. During the less serious famine of 1921– 2 (also the result of grain requisitions), the Soviet government had allowed Western relief agencies to provide food aid; in the far worse conditions of 1932– 3, it denied that famine existed at all. 

The official explanation – seconded, until quite recently, by standard Western textbooks – was that collectivisation was a painful but necessary step towards modernising the rural economy, the famine something obdurate peasants brought upon themselves. ‘You can’t make an omelette,’ Stalin is said to have declared, ‘without breaking eggs.’ But even from this point of view, collectivisation was counter-productive: deporting all the country’s most successful farmers and starving the rest to death was hardly the way to go about boosting agricultural output, and Soviet farming has not really recovered from the blow even now. Like Stalin’s purges, which killed hundreds of thousands of stalwart Party supporters and most of the Red Army officer corps, the collectivisation famine of 1932– 3 is so incredible, so seemingly self-defeating, that it is unsurprising that many historians have interpreted it as some sort of self-perpetuating blunder, a freak act of God. 

The most convincing explanation for the famine is that it was a deliberate, genocidal attack on rural Ukraine. The groups the Bolsheviks most hated and feared, and had had most difficulty subduing during the Civil War, were the peasants and the non-Russian nationalities. The Ukrainian countryside – home to the Soviet Union’s largest and most turbulent ethnic minority and to its richest and most self-reliant peasantry – embodied these twin demons in one. For centuries visitors had contrasted Ukraine’s ‘smiling’ farmhouses, so clean that ‘a traveller might fancy himself transported to Holland’, with Russia’s rural hovels. Their prosperity was not only the result of a richer soil and milder climate, but of the fact that most Ukrainian farmland was individually owned by independent smallholders, whereas Russian land was held communally, and periodically redistributed by councils of village elders. Communism – which to the peasant meant collectivisation – was thus even less popular in Ukrainian villages than in Russian ones. By 1928 there was one Party member per hundred and twenty-five peasant households in the Soviet Union as a whole, compared to only one per thousand in Ukraine. When Stalin ordered collectivisation, Ukraine was where it encountered most resistance and where it was enforced most harshly. Though there was also widespread famine in the Russian Kuban (where many Ukrainians also lived), and among the Kazakhs, Don Cossacks and Volga Germans, proportionately higher grain quotas in Ukraine ensured that it bore the bulk of deaths. ‘Truly, truly,’ wrote Vasiliy Grossman in his autobiographical novel Forever Flowing, ‘the whole business was much worse in the Ukraine than it was with us.’

[genogenocrazycatman]

Throne - Chapter 6

Throne [Archive of Our Own, FanFiction.Net]

Characters:  Original Female Character, Red Haired Shanks, Benn Beckman, Lucky Roo, Yasopp,

***

“I can be very disarming.”

“Looks like you’ve been disarmed,” I jabbed, not looking up at him.

Benn let out a loud laugh at that.

Shanks grinned. “You wound me.”

“Clearly, I’m not the only one.”

***

Chapter 6

  “Fuck,” I swore, grabbing my blanket and pulling it up over my head.

  The sun was pouring through my bedroom windows. Whoever had initially built the tavern had a thing for morning sun, seeing as when they drew up the plans, they included eastern-facing windows. Either that or this was a horrible, horrible oversight on their part.

  It had slipped my mind to shut the curtains the night before. It had been so long since I had slept past sunrise that I’d forgotten how annoying the morning rays could be.

  I let out an irritated growl at the realization. I had overslept. I had been in bed so long that the sun and the people of Aurora had risen. I was running way behind. Opening Balor’s third eye had taken a bit out of me, but it was nothing compared to what it used to be.

  I was probably off from the store. Gene had no doubt heard about me trying to boil a man from the inside and was probably under the assumption that I was laid out, unable to move.

  While I was sure I could handle a typical workday this time, there was no way he would let me try. If I showed up at the store, he’d send me home with a rant about how he’d been running that store long before I was born.

  Back to the negatives, I hadn’t gone to pick up my groceries. Most of the village was up by now, including Tel and his goon squad, which meant that my food was probably in his possession.

  I should’ve gone back to sleep instead of thinking about how my morning was wasted. But it was too late for that now. I was wide awake.

  I sat up and ran my hand over my face. ‘Damn it.’ I rose out of bed and cracked my joints. I wasn’t even sore. Just going Balor without using the third eye made me feel like I had gotten beat up by a bunch of wild gorillas. It usually went away after I rested for a few days or when Marco used his flames of restoration.

  I headed to the bathroom, stripped out of my night clothes, and got in the shower. I let the warm water run over me, relaxing my tense muscles. I was already late. A shower wasn’t going to make things worse.

  I loved the water. I used to love running around in the rain, standing under waterfalls, diving into the sea. I felt alive in the water. My father used to tell me that we were all children of the sea. That had always stuck with me. Maybe that was why the ocean felt like home. Even now, I yearned to return to her even though she had rejected me.

  Once the water ran cold, I stepped out of the shower and wrapped myself in a towel. I brushed my teeth before dressing in a too-large shirt that one of the boys had left behind and a pair of shorts.

  Dressed, I headed to the kitchen, put the kettle on, and scanned my cupboards for something to eat.

  Three knocks on the door pulled my attention from my search.

  The three raps were too quick to be Gene, and that hag didn’t knock. She banged on the door and screamed at me.

  I eyed it warily for a moment, waiting to see if they knocked again, which they did.

  I approached slowly. There was a distinct possibility that this was some stupid prank set up by one of Tel’s idiots. I would open the door, and something would blow up, or there’d be some dead animal. That was an annoying habit they had gotten into when we were teenagers.  

  Three more knocks.

  I pulled the curtain back from the small window, peering outside.

  My unease gave way to confusion upon seeing who stood on the other side. I unlocked the door and pulled it open. “Captain?”

  “Good morning, Miss Elizabeth,” he responded cheerily.

  “Did you get lost?” I asked. “The bar’s downstairs.”

  “I’ve never lost my way when there’s booze at my destination, though I can’t say that I’d mind getting lost if it led me to a pretty girl’s apartment,” he said. “But that’s not why I’m here. I have a delivery for you,” he said teasingly, holding a basket towards me, which I was reasonably confident I had seen on the porch of the inn before.

  I tentatively took it, checking its contents. “You grabbed my groceries?”

  “It was either me or what’s his face,” he offered. “But I figured you’d much rather I show up here than him.”

  That was for sure. The last time I slept in, Tel had picked up my groceries and pelted them at me when I left for the store in the morning.

  This was before I had started training with haki. Even now, observation was the type that I was least adept with. Not only was it embarrassing, especially since they made sure everyone knew about it, but then I had to go around paying everyone for the shit that they threw at me, so they didn’t think I was a thief and would continue our arrangement.

  “Are they paid for?” I asked. “Because it won’t matter if it was you or Tel if no one left the cash.”

  “I did. I couldn’t have people thinking my favorite outcast was a thief.” Shanks wore a warm smile, leaning against the banister.

  “Thank you,” I said, the words catching in my throat.

   The sincerity in my words caught both of us off guard.

  It was a simple favor, but it meant a lot to me. My brothers didn’t give a shit about my reputation. What reason did they have to? They were pirates, and they didn’t live here.

  But I did. I had to see these people every day. While I didn’t care about what people thought of me from a personal standpoint (If they had a problem, then fuck ‘em.), I did care about how their opinions of me affected my everyday life.

  It’s exhausting having to behave in a way that is above reproach because even the most minor of slip-ups will be used against you. And it’s fucking annoying when those actions aren’t even your own.

  “I- Thanks. Give me a second, and I’ll go grab some cash.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” he said, waving me off.

  “You don’t have to buy my groceries,” I said.

  “I didn’t have to bring them either,” he retorted, “But I wanted to. I’m also supposed to tell you not to even think about going near that store today.”

  I rolled my eyes. “I figured.” I adjusted the basket on my arm. “If you won’t let me pay you back, at least let me make you breakfast,” I offered. “I was just about to make some for myself anyways.”

  “You don’t have- “

  I cut him off, an easy smile on my face, my tone smug, “But I want to.”

  He chuckled, grinning back at me. “I guess I can’t argue with that, now, can I?”

  “Not at all. Come in.”

  I stepped aside, allowing Shanks into my apartment. I led him through the living room into the kitchen. “Have a seat.”

  I moved my kettle off the burner and placed a frying pan on the flame, lowering the heat.

  “Nice place,” Shanks complimented, sitting at my kitchen table.

  Seeing him at my doorstep was strange, but seeing him at my table was surreal. It was something about how domestic it looked.

  He was a powerful pirate. It was easy to imagine him on a ship, in a tavern or battle, but not in my kitchen, fingers drumming against the table, looking around at the items hanging on the wall.

  I thought back to when my father would visit my mother and me when I was little, but I couldn’t remember him ever being in my home. We were always out, or my mother and I were on his ship. Thinking about it as an adult, I realized that he probably couldn’t have fit in our house, but still.

  “Thanks. Rayne lets me rent it. It had been sitting empty ever since she moved out.”

  “She used to live here?”

  “Yes, and I try not to think about that too much because I don’t want to think about what she used to do here.”

  It had been an upsetting moment, to say the least, when I realized that any of Rayne’s raunchy stories from her younger years probably took place in the same place that I called home.

  Shanks scrunched his face up in disgust.

  “Exactly.” I pulled out a second mug and another infuser, filling it with tea leaves. It was a blend that Izo had brought me on his last visit.

  “How long have you lived here?”

  “Since I was dropped off here,” I answered easily. “Rayne lived here when she was young but moved out when she got married.”

  “She was married?”

  I nodded. I had been surprised, too, when I first found out. “Yeah. She doesn’t talk about her husband much. From what I’ve gathered, they met on the seas. They came back here and settled down, but he was always drawn back. One day, he went off and never came back. I don’t know what happened, whether it was his choice or she lost him. She doesn’t want to discuss it, so I don’t ask.”

  I filled the mugs, setting one down in front of Shanks.

  “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.” I went back to my cupboards. “I was thinking pancakes, maybe with those blueberries you picked up for me. Oh! I think I have chocolate chips in here somewhere! Do you have a problem with a sweet breakfast?”

  “No, not at all,” he answered, chuckling.

  I glared at him over my shoulder. “What?”

  “I didn’t say anything,” he raised his hand in surrender.

  “Maybe not with your words, but you did with your tone. I prefer to do the mocking, not being mocked.”

  “I wasn’t mocking you. I just didn’t think that you would be one for sweets.”

  “And why is that?”

  “Badass bartender, who can kick the shit out of an entire pirate crew? Not exactly someone I think of having a weakness for chocolate chips.”

  “People can surprise you, Captain. I never expected you to deliver my groceries or be up before noon.”

  “Touché.”

  “Word of the night.” I returned to grabbing the necessary ingredients and measuring them out.

  “How do you feel?” he asked.

  “I’m perfectly fine, just a headache. Balor used to kick my ass, even in hybrid form, but now it’s just when I open the third eye. It just depends on how long it was open. Last night’s incident wasn’t that bad. I didn’t keep it open that long, so a little extra sleep did the trick.”

  “I’ve seen a few fruits take a toll on its user like that, but I’ve never seen one like yours.”

  “Most people haven’t. What about you? It’s hard to believe that you wouldn’t have one.”

  “I don’t. I never really saw what all the hype was about.”

  I laughed at that. Never saw the appeal. He’d already sailed with the king of the pirates and was nearly as strong as my father. Really, what more was a devil fruit going to accomplish?

  “You’re something else, Captain. Could go after whatever fruit you want, and you think they’re overhyped.”

  He shrugged. “All that hype means we’ll fetch a pretty penny if we ever come across one again.”

  “Again?”

  “A couple of years ago, we came across the Gomu Gomu no Mi.”

  “The gum gum fruit? I never heard of that one.”

  “Turns your body to rubber.”

  “How much did you sell it for?”

  “We didn’t. A kid ate it.”

  I paused my mixing, turning to look at him, incredulous. “Did you just say a kid ate it?”

  “Luffy,” he elaborated, his expression fond.

  “How old was he?”

  “Seven? He’s probably nine or ten now.”

  I balked. “You let a child eat a devil fruit?!”

  Shanks was quick to defend himself. “We didn’t let him. We were dealing with some bandits-”

  “You are not helping your case,” I interjected.

  “They came to the tavern and-“

  “Captain!”

  “I DIDN’T TAKE HIM THERE! The girl there watched him. The bandits came looking for trouble, which we did not give them, but while we were laughing about it, Luffy ate the fruit.”

  I just gawked at him for a moment. “So… A kid ate a devil fruit… Because you weren’t… Paying attention?”

  “It would seem, though, to be fair, I’m a pirate, not a babysitter.”

  “So, you let a seven-year-old steal your loot, which was worth hundreds of thousands of bellies because you weren’t paying attention?” I deadpanned.

  He deflated a bit. “Alright, that I should be ashamed of.”

  I nodded in agreement, stirring the batter.

  “Luffy’s a strong kid. He’s fine with it. He was way more upset about me losing my arm than eating the fruit.”

  “Captain, please tell me that he was horrified by the story and not that you somehow brought a child to a situation where you lost a limb.”

  “He told off the mountain bandits, so they took him as a hostage. We beat most of them, but the leader took Luffy to sea. I went to save him, and a sea king took my arm.”

  “One: I don’t have children, but if I did, I would never ever let them anywhere near you. Two: I’m having difficulty believing that a sea king took your arm. I know that you have conqueror’s haki, and even if you didn’t, I know that you are more than strong enough to take out a sea king. Even I can take out a sea king. I thought you lost it to like Hawk Eyes or someone.”

  “Luffy wants to be the pirate king. With a spirit like his, he might actually be able to do it one day, but he’s foolish and reckless.” His grin returned.

  “He’s seven,” I pointed out. “Kids have to-“ I nearly dropped my bowl. “You gave up an arm to teach a kid a lesson?!”

  Shanks’ss smile didn’t falter. It seemed to widen, if anything. “I like to think I placed a bet on a new era.”

  I shook my head in disbelief. “That kid must really be something.”

  “Who knows? Maybe you’ll meet him someday.”

  ���Maybe. But usually, crews head straight for the Grand Line. They don’t take the time to explore the four blues. Granted, getting from one sea to another is hard, but still. You can take so much from them before heading into the Grand Line.”

  “Wisdom from your brothers?”

  I snorted. “No. Those idiots were either born on the Grand Line or flocked to it like moths to a flame. I learned that from those,” I said, gesturing to the bookcases that wrapped around the corner and lined the wall in the living room.

  “What are they?” Shanks asked, looking behind him.

  “Why don’t you pull one down and find out?”

  He reached out, grabbed a book, and placed it in front of him, flipping through it.

  I poured the batter into the pan.

  “Are these all captain’s logs?”

  “Whenever my father defeats a crew, he takes the captain’s log and sends it to me with one of my brothers. They’re my most prized possessions.”

  I looked back to see which one he had plucked off the shelf.

  “White Tipped Sebastian,” I noted, peering over Shanks’ss shoulder. I returned my attention to the pancakes so they didn’t burn. “A fishman. He led a rebellion against the crew that had captured him with the others aboard. They started their own crew after defeating the captain and commandeering the ship. They did pretty well for themselves until they decided to challenge the Old Man. After they lost, they joined the eighth division.”

  He placed it back on the shelf and grabbed a different one.

  “Ugh, why did you have to pick that one?”

  Unlike the others, which were mostly wrapped in humble brown and black leather, this one was red with gold accents. “The bastard convinced people to join his crew just to turn around and sell them at Saboady. “

  “Do you have all these memorized?”

  “You seem to forget that I have quite a bit of time on my hands. I spend most of it reading.”

  “Yeah, but you have a ton of logs.”

  “Well, I don’t get to leave. I don’t even get to go on vacation, let alone have grandiose adventures on the sea, which would be fine, but I don’t get to have a normal life either. I don’t have friends. I don’t go out.  The only people who don’t hate me are either elderly or related to me, and even then, that doesn’t mean they all like me. So, I have to live vicariously through those logs, the news, my brothers, and I would say crews like yours, but if I’m being honest, I’ve never met a crew like yours, who I can talk to like this.”

  I took a deep breath. I hadn’t meant to blurt that all out, but it always annoyed me when my brothers or Rayne were surprised at how much I read, how many things I’d sewn, or how many recipes I tried. What the hell else was there for me to do? Maybe it would be different if I was trapped in a big city, someplace that was constantly changing, but I was in Aurora, where we did the same shit every damn day.

  “I spend a lot of time reading over those logs, so yes, I have most of them memorized.”

  Shanks sensed that it was a bit of a touchy subject and didn’t comment on my rant, which I appreciated. Instead, he focused on the logs. “Who’s your favorite?”

  I stacked the finished pancakes on a plate beside the stove and poured more batter into the pan. While those cooked, I set the table.

  “I don’t know that I have one favorite. My favorite captains are those who genuinely care for their crews, who see their men as more than a crew, but as friends, as family. I think that’s why I like you and your men so much.”

  “That’s it? It has nothing to do with my ruggedly good looks or chivalry?”

  “I mean, it’s mostly those deep, deep pockets you so generously tip me from.”

  “Ah ha! There’s the real reason. You’re all about the loot.”

  I shrugged, placing the pancakes in the table's center and depositing two onto his plate. “What can I say? It runs in my blood. Plus, you have looks, but I’m not sure good is a word I’d use, not rugged either. Maybe ragged and-”

  “Ridiculous…” he finished flatly.

  “Exactly! Now you’re getting it.”

  “You’re mean, Eliza,” he said with a pout.

  I sat down and snatched up a pancake for myself, trying to ignore the bubble of laughter trying to escape.

  “I would have you know that there are women across the seas that have told me they find my roguish appearance sexy,” he boasted.

  “It doesn’t count when you pay them.”

  Shanks’s jaw dropped before he threw his head back, letting out a loud laugh that probably could be heard in the tavern downstairs.

  Sure, I teased him, but Shanks wasn’t hard to look at. He was tall with skin tanned by the sun pulled tight over his muscles, which were almost always on display, seeing he always rolled up his sleeves and never did more than half of the buttons on his shirt. Like this, laughing openly, eyes dancing with amusement, it was easy to see why so many found him alluring.

  At the same time, his sharp features and smug, at times arrogant, grin played to the devilish rogue, which was only emphasized by the sense of danger the three parallel lines across his face emanated.

  My eyes caught the three jagged lines marring his flesh, bringing to the forefront of my mind a question I had been sitting on since I first saw him.

  “Can I ask you something you probably don’t want to answer?” I asked once he settled down.

  “You mean aside from that?”

  I rolled my eyes. “Yes, aside from that.”

  “Go ahead. I think it’s only fair at this point.”

  “Did Teach give you those scars?”

  Shanks sighed, seeming burdened, like an invisible weight was on his shoulders. “Yeah, that was him.”

  I nodded solemnly, reaching across the table to push the red strands hanging in front of the scars back, giving me a clear look. “Looks like his handiwork.”

  “You’ve got quite the interesting family, Miss Elizabeth,” Shanks said with a sad smile, leaning his head into my palm.

  “He is not my family,” I corrected quickly, pulling my hand back. “If my father can choose his sons, then I can choose my brothers. He doesn’t make the cut. I know the others believe that Teach is an underachiever. No one really thinks too much of him, but he’s…”

  “Dangerous,” Shanks finished.

  “Yeah, but there’s something else there. My brothers are dangerous. You are dangerous. However, none of you make my skin crawl.”

  Shanks nodded. “You’re dangerous, too.”

  “How could I forget? Tel reminds me every five minutes.”

  Shanks scoffed. “Despite what he and all of the other backward people here tell you, being dangerous isn’t inherently a bad thing. In fact, I would say that it makes you quite powerful, which is why I don’t understand why you let people treat you the way they do.”

  “Says the man, who let me rib him for losing an arm during our first meeting.”

  He shrugged. “That stuff doesn’t bother me. But Tel does bother you.”

  “Tel calls me a monster; to be fair, he’s right. I slaughtered 100 men in a single night.  In the beginning, it really messed with me, but as time goes on and I think more and more about what they did to me and what they planned to do, I feel less and less remorseful. Sometimes, I think back to that day and the rush I got, and I wish I had enjoyed it more.

  “They’re right to be afraid. I could very easily lose my shit one day and destroy this whole village.

  “But they don’t know that. Tel has no idea what I’ve done or the full scope of my devil fruit abilities. Tel has no fucking reason to think of me the way he does. He keeps trying to push me, poking and prodding, hoping that I’ll become the monster he thinks I am, and that pisses me off.

  “I’m tired of people manipulating me and controlling me, forcing me to be their puppet, their weapon, their bait, their trophy, their monster.”

  I paused, taking a deep breath.

  “Sometimes, I think I’m an idiot and that I’m still being played. Trying so hard not to be what Tel thinks I am, that I’m doing what he wants, not causing problems.”

  “Eliza, you’re not an idiot. The fact that you recognized any of this is proof enough of that. And I don’t think Tel is capable enough to trick you. You’re a smart woman. Not so smart as to not let a dangerous pirate into your apartment, but smart.”

  I snorted, taking the lifeline that Shanks offered. “Listen here, Red Hair. I’m not saying that I would beat you because I doubt that I would be able to, but you said it: I’m dangerous, too. If we fought, you wouldn’t be coming out of that unscathed.

  “Plus, you’re smart too, smart enough to know that despite your status, hurting me would cause a war. Maybe you and your men would win. Maybe you wouldn’t. But there would be death on both sides. I told you that one of the main reasons I like you is how you treat your crew. You wouldn’t ask them to die over someone like me.”

  Shanks scoffed.

  “What?”

  “Maybe you’re not that smart after all.”

  I narrowed my eyes at him. “Maybe I should’ve poisoned your pancakes.”

***

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***

Master List | Mobile Version

[moanaamovies]

Vivarium review – home is where the hell is

In one of the creepiest episodes of the vintage American TV series The Twilight Zone, residents of the apparently idyllic Peaksville find themselves cut off from the rest of the world, terrorised by the petulant yet godlike mind of a small child. Adapted from a story by Jerome Bixby, the episode (ironically entitled It’s a Good Life) struck a chilling chord with audiences in 1961, watching from behind their picket fences, mesmerised by its darkly comic vision of a world in which failing to think happy thoughts was punishable by death, or worse.

You can see a trace of It’s a Good Life (which has continued to resonate through popular culture) in Vivarium, the second feature from director Lorcan Finnegan and writer Garret Shanley, a paranoid fable in which the aspiration of acquiring a dream home turns into an increasingly surreal nightmare of imprisonment. Jesse Eisenberg and Imogen Poots (who recently co-starred in Riley Stearns’s The Art of Self Defense) are Tom and Gemma, the young couple searching for a place of their own. She’s a teacher, he’s a tree surgeon; together, they have been urged to get on the property ladder. But finding the perfect place is proving tricky.

Vivarium review

One minute Tom and Gemma are happy-go-lucky young lovers, the next they’re terrified, exhausted wrecks When they meet creepy estate agent Martin, whose awkward unearthly smile wouldn’t look out of place in a David Lynch remake of Galaxy Quest, the couple’s instinct is to bolt. Instead (presumably driven by their desperation to become homeowners) they follow Martin to Yonder, a Stepford-style development outside the city (“near enough, and far enough – just the right distance”). Here, they promptly become trapped in a maze of little boxes – endlessly reproduced rows of identical houses, all the same shade of sickly green, all with the same surgical strip of grass out front. And all eerily empty…

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The title Vivarium (a container for observing small animals in a re-creation of their natural environment) provides a signpost for where this is going. Suffice to say that Tom and Gemma find themselves in a pastel-coloured simulacrum of suburban hell, raising a monstrous child whose arrival is prefigured by a horrifying opening sequence of a cuckoo invading a nest, screaming to be fed by its bewildered surrogate mother. “That’s nature,” Gemma tells one of her young charges, “that’s just the way things are,” adding forlornly that “it’s only horrible sometimes”.

As with all such Twilight Zone-style fantasies, it’s the details we recognise that make the unimaginable seem immediate. While Yonder looks less like a set from The Truman Show than an infernal version of Teletubbyland (the digital landscapes and barrage-balloon clouds are appropriately artificial), the gradual disintegration of our central couple remains skin-crawlingly close to home. From their initial in-car bickering about who gets to drive (“Give me a go,” “What are you, six?”) to their chippy despair as entrapment sinks in, Tom and Gemma’s relationship fractures along all too familiar lines. One minute they’re happy-go-lucky young lovers, looking forward to a life filled with possibilities; the next, they’re terrified, exhausted wrecks, held hostage by the shrieking demands of an alien child who mimics their every word and gesture, living in a dream-world neither of them wanted, each blaming the other for their predicament.

FacebookTwitterPinterest Watch a trailer for Vivarium. In his director statement, Finnegan (who reportedly drew tonal inspiration from Hiroshi Teshigahara’s 1964 classic Woman in the Dunes) describes Vivarium as addressing the “fantasy version of reality that we strive towards” in world where “consumerism is consuming us”, and in which the promise of ideal living is “the bait that leads many into a trap”’. There’s an element of Cronenbergian revulsion in the tasteless, plasticated food parcels that keep Tom and Gemma alive, while the echoes of horror movies – from Village of the Damned to Poltergeist – increase as the satire turns ever more sinister. Yet even in its most overtly chilling moments (a third-act descent into hell recalls a memorably hallucinogenic sequence from Terry Gilliam’s Brazil), Vivarium keeps its tongue placed firmly in its cheek, reminding me somewhat of the absurdist, smiling tone of Jocelyn DeBoer and Dawn Luebbe’s recent picket-fence parody Greener Grass.

You can see the seeds of Vivarium in the ghost estates of Finnegan and Shanley’s chilling 2012 short Foxes, and there are times this feels like a single idea stretched to feature length. But there’s enough visual and thematic invention to keep viewers gripped and unsettled, particularly in these unprecedented, isolated times.

Vivarium is available to stream on all major platforms

America faces an epic choice... ... in the coming year, and the results will define the country for a generation. These are perilous times. Over the last three years, much of what the Guardian holds dear has been threatened – democracy, civility, truth. This US administration is establishing new norms of behaviour. Anger and cruelty disfigure public discourse and lying is commonplace. Truth is being chased away. But with your help we can continue to put it center stage.

Rampant disinformation, partisan news sources and social media's tsunami of fake news is no basis on which to inform the American public in 2020. The need for a robust, independent press has never been greater, and with your support we can continue to provide fact-based reporting that offers public scrutiny and oversight. You’ve read more than 5 articles in the last four months. Our journalism is free and open for all, but it's made possible thanks to the support we receive from readers like you across America in all 50 states.

[getnewresidentialprojects-blog]

Ten Things To Avoid In New Residential Projects In Mumbai

We carry over four a long time of real property excellence to creating and building premium residential towers, gated communities, townships and workplace properties. Like the landlord is liable to pay the cost of normal repairs or the Residential Property Mumbai maintenance and vice versa the licensee has to pay the cost of electrical energy that's being consumed by them over a span of years. In comparison, only three% of presidency tasks remained stalled. We choose land parcels which are properly-positioned and make sure that the designs of our tasks are economically viable for the areas through which they're located. Runwal says completing tasks on time is critical in his enterprise. India is trump organisation's greatest worldwide market, with 4 real estate initiatives underway in mumbai, pune, kolkata, and gurugram.

Most projects offer these schemes in the pre-launch or launch phases, and they are a great way for developers to lift money for building. Kalpataru volunteers spent quality time with particular children at jidd (a faculty in thane), showed eager Residential Projects Mumbai interest in understanding the problems confronted by these youngsters and donated gardening equipment to the school. First property developer in south india and the third in the nation to receive the certification. Manish agarwal considers himself lucky and he has his bank to thank for it. The 29-year-old mumbai-primarily based marketing supervisor nearly bought a disputed property in a excessive-rise constructing. At the least two dozen new projects have been launched in mumbai and its suburbs since the onset of navratri last tuesday. But, one recent advertisement by the pune-primarily based dsk group, for their select tasks in pune and mumbai, instantly caught the attention of both prospective residence consumers and competition.

So far as the group's enterprise into business New Projects Mumbai tasks is worried, dlf cybercity hyderabad, dlf it park kolkata, dlf it park pune, dlf company park gurgaon have housed a few of the main multi-national corporations owing to its incredible infrastructure to meet the requirement of the fortune 500 corporations. This does not embrace residential tasks that are in the pipeline. Each second businessman needs to stay in mumbai resulting from growing potential of the town to vary thousands and thousands into billions. Rw: the principle vision we had for celoxis is to help New Mumbai Property corporations to see projects through to profitable conclusions - every time. Privately owned land consisting of 86 villages protecting 15,954 hectares (39,420 acres) throughout the current limits of navi mumbai and additional villages measuring an additional 2,870 hectares (7,one hundred acres) were acquired by the federal government of maharashtra.

Parag has inculcated within the company a tradition of excellence and innovation, built around quality, customer centricity, know-how and sustainable practices, manifested in kalpataru's award profitable venture portfolio. Primarily reras could have an oversight on the actual estate transactions and promote timely and passable completion of initiatives, protect client interest and convey about transparency in all proceedings New Residential Projects In Mumbai related to the sale, development and handover of projects.Since inception in 1986, the kanakia group, with its penchant for ‘perfection' in all it does has earned a definite reputation as one in all india's premium developer and is rated as one of the prime 10 actual estate improvement brands. Worth of real property projects in mumbai: value of the new actual property initiatives in mumbai is the most attractive a part of these projects.

  Tags:New Projects In Mumbai,New Residential Projects In Mumbai,Residential Property In Mumbai,Redevelopment Projects In Mumbai

[ma-ballin]

“What you don’t know can kill you”

Epic Measures by Jeremy N. Smith

Verbatim from Blinkist:

Epic Measures (2015) tells the incredible story of how one man, Christopher Murray, came to build the most comprehensive medical study ever assembled. Find out what motivated Murray and his dedicated team of collaborators to build a worldwide map of every disease and illness known to man – and discover how his remarkable work has revolutionized the face of world health.  

What’s in it for me? Follow one man’s quest for better health data across the globe.

Imagine that you’re out searching for a bookshelf that will fit perfectly into a specific nook in your home. But there’s a problem: you don’t have that nook’s measurements. Or, even worse, you have five different sets of measurements but are unsure which, if any, is correct. How, with such poor data, could you possibly select the right shelf?

Now imagine a similar issue – slapdash data – but on a major, and majorly complex, level. Well, that’s essentially what’s plaguing global health.

It might seem unbelievable that something as important as global health was marred with bad and insufficient data, yet that’s exactly what Rhodes Scholar and PhD Christopher Murray found. This is the story of how Murray discovered the lack of reliable data regarding public health and what he did to combat it – all to get an epic measure of and clear perspective on the best ways to allocate money for improving the health of the world.

In these blinks, you’ll learn

why reports on longevity could differ by 10-15 years in UN data;

how having UN departments focus on specific diseases left data gaps; and

why both quality and quantity need to be measured to get a correct view of world health.

"What you don't know can kill you."

Christopher Murray’s remarkable childhood taught him important lessons about how to analyze and treat disease.

If you were lucky enough to go on a family vacation when you were ten years old, you may have engaged in pleasant leisure activities, like hiking or enjoying the sights and food of another country. Christopher Murray’s family did trips somewhat differently.

When Christopher was ten years old, his parents took him and his three older siblings on a yearlong sabbatical in Niger. This was no random trip: his father was a cardiologist; his mother, a microbiologist. The family planned to work at a hospital in the Sahara desert.

The hospital needed all the help it could get. When Christopher’s family arrived, the facility was lacking running water and electricity, not to mention staff.

Luckily, the family had brought some portable equipment with them, and Chris served as an errand boy and organized supplies. Meanwhile, his older brothers worked as nurses and aides, stitching and dressing wounds.

The family worked together to fight malaria. After noticing that more people were catching the disease in the hospital than in the villages around it, they started taking blood samples of everyone in the area and studying the health statistics of their patients and visitors to figure out what was going on.

Their research showed that the malaria outbreak had begun when the hospital started distributing vitamin supplements; tests showed that these supplements increased the iron count in patients’ blood. This led the family to the conclusion that the elevated iron levels were probably attracting parasites that thrive on the mineral, which in turn promoted infection and increased the risk of malaria.

The results were published in the prestigious medical journal Lancet. This kind of tenacious research is a perfect example of the kind of work that would stay with Christopher as he grew up, pushing him to work hard to help people.

The Murrays continued to run various mobile clinics throughout Africa and fight disease. These experiences, and the teachings of his father, showed Christopher that one of the most important skills in medicine is careful analysis.

In the 1980s, health organizations used poor and unreliable methods to measure world health.

If you had to travel around the world and measure the health of each country, what factors would you look at?

When Christopher Murray was in medical school in the 1980s, the single biggest indicator of a country’s health was the infant-mortality rate. But this is a misleading index. Though getting a child through its first year of life is important, it’s a small factor in overall health.

In fact, focusing in general on how long people live is not an accurate way to gauge health at all.

A healthy and active person can live to be 80 years old, but so can someone who spends most of his life bedridden and plagued by diseases. If you’re just looking at life expectancy, these two diametrically opposed lives would provide the same result.

Simply counting the number of deaths in an area is insufficient as well, since crucial differences are left out of the equation – those between, say, an infant who dies of malnutrition and a 90-year-old who dies of natural causes.

Making matters worse, these statistics can be measured in very unscientific ways.

In the 1980s, the United Nations used five different methods, producing life-expectancy results that could be off by as much as 15 years.

For example, looking at the life expectancy in Congo from 1980 to 1985, the World Bank estimated it at 60.5 years; UN estimates placed it at 44 years.

Part of the problem was that the UN relied on the answers people gave to questionnaires that were never verified or checked for consistency. Any answer provided was taken at face value.

Therefore, according to the UN, the life expectancy of Pakistanis might dramatically rise while that of people in Gambia might drop by nearly ten years – all in the course of a single year. Furthermore, countries like Mongolia and North Korea were, according to the information the governments provided, "exceptional" places for living a long and healthy life.

Sometimes no information could be obtained, in these cases, they followed a 30-year-old formula from 1955 that suggested a country’s life expectancy should increase by 2.5 years every five years.

Health data was also skewed to justify ineffective work and funding.

As you can imagine, these methods from the 1980s are a statistician’s worst nightmare. And things weren’t much better at the World Health Organization (WHO).

At WHO, 95 percent of staff was organized into different departments based on specific diseases, and they all had tiny statistics teams.

For these teams, statistics were a way to justify whatever they were working on and to get whatever funds they were requesting.

This meant that no work went into alternative solutions. Ask a team what method saved the most lives, and the answer would always be whatever cure they were working on. If asked about the second-best method, no team ever had an answer.

There was also no central oversight between the departments at WHO. This made it easy for different departments to count the same death multiple times and to overestimate on their statistics, which increased the chances of getting more funding.

When Murray compared WHO estimates for infant deaths with UN estimates, he found a 10-million death discrepancy. The numbers provided by WHO for just four diseases (malaria, diarrhea, pneumonia and measles) were already more than the total infant deaths the UN accounted for.

Murray addressed these issues in one of his first published papers. He called it “the 10/90-gap,” which explains how these methods, and focusing on infant mortality, resulted in 90 percent of the world’s health problems receiving a mere 10 percent of the research funds.

Tuberculosis is a great example. In 1990, it infected 7.1 million people per year and killed 2.5 million of them. But since these victims were adults, it went unnoticed.

Murray pointed out that, with early intervention, a brief course of chemotherapy would cure 90 percent of tuberculosis patients for less than $250 per person.

Murray’s paper was noticed by WHO, and they not only endorsed his treatment but put him on the new steering committee for tuberculosis research. Subsequently, the World Bank devoted $50 million to tuberculosis projects in China.

Estimates suggest that these actions saved five million lives in three years.

"Deaths translate into money for child health programs. Deaths are money."

Murray developed a better method for measuring world health by focusing on quality of life and years lost.

With his foot in the door, Murray set about inventing a new way to collect better data. His results would transform the way we look at world health.

For starters, it’s important to consider how many years are lost when someone dies.

So, if a country’s life expectancy is 80 years, then a 5-year-old child dying of pneumonia can be recorded as losing 75 years of life, whereas someone dying of a heart attack at age 70 has only lost ten years.

Murray also developed a new way to rate non-fatal illnesses based on how detrimental they are to your quality of life.

It works by using a scale from 0, which indicates no change in health, to 1, which is considered the equivalent of death.

One non-fatal illness is loss of hearing. This is ranked as a 0.2 illness since it’s judged to take away roughly one-fifth of a person’s perfect health. In other words, it is seen as taking away two years of your life for every ten years lived.

Ranking illnesses can lead to some controversial decisions, but Murray and his collaborators largely avoided this. A consensus was reached by bringing together international experts as well as people from the general public, and sending out surveys to homes around the world.

All this input led to a broad agreement upon the general severity of illnesses, though, of course, environmental factors can definitely make things worse for some people.

And since both of these systems consider how many years an illness can take away, they can be combined to present an accurate picture of overall health.

Murray’s team could now count all of the years lost to both early deaths and non-fatal illnesses and assign every health problem a number called a disability-adjusted life year (DALY).

This information can then be gathered to provide an accurate overall measurement of what is ailing the population of a specific nation, be they young or old. In a way, it’s not unlike finding the health-equivalent of a country’s gross domestic product.

The results of Murray’s study exposed neglected areas and earned him criticism and scorn.

With their new system in place, Murray’s team published the first Global Burden of Disease papers in 1993, using over a decade of data from every country to shed new light on what was ailing everyone, both young and old.

The scope of this work was enormous. Nearly every death in the world was accounted for, including the illnesses responsible for 90 percent of the world’s disabilities.

They conveniently broke things down into three groups: communicable diseases such as malaria and measles; non-communicable diseases like diabetes and alcohol dependence; and injuries, which are caused by things like falls, road accidents or war.

The results were a wake-up call, and not everyone was happy. The study painted a clear picture of which parts of the world were being neglected, and where resources were being misused.

In Sub-Saharan Africa, simple dental problems were as problematic as anemia.

In the Middle East, injuries were causing four times more health issues than cancer.

And throughout Asia, neuropsychiatric diseases, such as depression and anxiety disorders, were taking a much higher toll than malnutrition.

This is just a handful of the many surprises the study provided, and there was a considerable backlash since the findings made WHO look pretty bad at their job; Murray’s numbers showed that 90 percent of their staff was working on issues that impacted less than half of the global health loss.

A good example is injuries. Though injuries accounted for 12 percent of global health loss, WHO only had one person devoted to them.

Since gathering, organizing, comparing and presenting all these statistics from so many different countries was such a significant challenge, many people were wondering if there might be some errors in the work.

But it was also obvious that the previous model was severely inaccurate, and that having one single metric for all the data was a superior way to go.

Eventually, the controversy faded and policy makers now had a clear picture of what areas needed help the most.

Pushed out of the World Health Organization, Murray formed a new institute to improve world health.

If you’ve spent time in the world of science and academia, you’ve probably heard the motto "Publish or perish.” But in bureaucracy they live by another code: "Don’t embarrass the higher-ups.”

Since WHO and the UN are governed by different member states, it was perhaps inevitable that some of these nations wouldn’t be happy with how they were evaluated and ranked in Murray’s reports.

In 2000, WHO released one of Murray’s reports that ranked the health systems of each nation based on how fairly, responsively and effectively they operated. The United States ranked 37th, between Costa Rica and Slovenia.

Eventually, Murray’s boss stepped down at WHO, and the new management got rid of Murray's department and put him in the new role of advisor, which carried no real authority.

In an effort to continue doing meaningful work, Murray looked to the academic community, where he could rely on peer-reviewed scientific journals to ensure that his work continued to be taken seriously.

Eventually, in partnership with the University of Washington, and with private funding from Bill Gates, Murray founded the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) in 2007.

Gates was a perfect match for Murray. As a visionary who loves putting data and numbers to use, he saw the importance of Murray's work and had the resources to help bring it to life.

Now Murray had a supportive boss as well as a big staff and a bank of supercomputers at his disposal. This meant he could take his methods to a whole new level and go into greater detail than ever before.

With his new and improved tools, he could produce data that gave a number representing how harmful a certain snakebite or tropical disease was to Afghani men between the ages of 30-34.

Even if WHO decided to ignore or dispute his numbers, there was no one to stop him from becoming a major player in global health.

Murray’s organization now publishes updated and easily accessible versions of the Global Burden Study.

Every year, $7 trillion dollars is spent on global health, and it is Murray’s goal to make sure this money is used in the best possible way.

This is why, in 2012, Murray’s studies began focusing on intervention and including reasons why diseases were breaking out in the first place. And once the root causes for certain diseases were identified, it was also apparent how government intervention could easily help prevent these illnesses.

One example of a leading root cause is household air pollution; it’s the 4th biggest risk factor since many homes still heat and cook with coal, wood and dung, which can lead to many ailments, including an increased risk for stroke and heart or pulmonary disease. One simple but significant step would be for governments to encourage cleaner methods of cooking and heating by offering subsidies.

Murray’s methods also offered insight into how interventions can be adjusted to prevent other problems from arising.

By analyzing relief efforts between 1980 and 2010, Murray saw that while world hunger was being addressed, many countries were subsequently facing a battle against obesity. Over the course of two decades, because the right adjustments weren’t made, diseases related to malnutrition were replaced with increased rates of high blood pressure, high blood sugar and physical inactivity.

Murray’s other goal was to make this increasingly detailed data accessible to the public, so he introduced an interactive online-visualization tool.

It allowed anyone to go online and organize and compare the data they’re interested in and then zoom in or out to focus on whichever area is of interest. This way, world leaders and school children all have access to the same information.

Of course, the media does as well. A reporter can easily see that men in Nevada have the same life expectancy as men in Vietnam and use the evidence provided to generate news stories and create momentum that will hopefully lead to action and change.

The key message in this book:

To really understand how to help humanity, we need to know how every disease and illness impacts us and to be able to track their development over time. Instead of isolating our efforts to treat specific diseases, we need to treat people and adapt to their ever-changing problems. To help achieve this goal, 20 years of hard work, and over 500 collaborators, has produced a remarkable tool that every country can use. With the Global Burden of Disease Study, nations and citizens can effectively identify their risks and align their health systems to fight it.

Actionable advice:

Stay strong and flexible.

The leading causes of disability are very similar all over the world. Chief among them are lower back and neck pain. So, in order to prevent these ailments, take regular breaks and don’t forget to stretch yourself. Exercise your core muscles and consider consulting an expert to help improve your posture.