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queenshelby · 2 years ago

Text

THE FUTURE (PART ONE)

See Introduction and Character Index HERE

Pairing: Emmett (A Quiet Place) x Original Female Character

Warning: Age Gap, Forced Procreation, Past Sexual Abuse, Angst

Words: 3,655

It was early Sunday morning and the air was still crisp, but not really cold. The weather had just turned after a rather cold winter and Caitlyn sat in her favourite spot overlooking the island. There was a large rock surrounded by grass from which she looked down at a few cottages below. Though early Spring, the tree under which she sat was still fully leaved, providing welcomed shade against the heat of the bright sun.

It would be 90ᵒ or more again that day, she thought. The long, hot summers continued to start earlier every year, even after the industrialisation had come to a natural end following the invasion.

The invasion, of course, changed everything. It forced humanity to turn back to basics, using only the essentials for what was required in order to survive. Agriculture had been simplified to meet the needs of the remaining population and, at least for now, it was only safe to live on the islands where guards took turns, ensuring the safety of each community.

Thus, it had been years since the greenhouse gas pollution had slowed and almost stopped. But the CO² molecules could last up to 90 years in the atmosphere, meaning that the global warming would not be stopping any time soon and this was obvious to Caitlyn now that, every day, she watched the crops dying off slowly.

Caitlyn worked on the island, lending a hand with washing, growing food and assisting at the medical centre. She played an active part in the community but, even so, according some, her participation was not good enough.

Unlike many others, Caitlyn was not with anyone, and took no interest in having children of her own. Yet, she was raising to young boys, one of whom was deaf just like her.

“Is that not good enough?” she always wondered when she was approached by members of the council, enquiring as to whether she had chosen a partner yet so that she could finally partake in this so-called procreation programme which had been implemented by the new government of the islands communities.

“Why procreate if there aren’t enough resources for all of us to survive? Crops are drying and animals aren’t breeding quickly enough for us to consume. It will only become worse” she wrote down in the little book she carried before, once again, on this same Sunday morning, gazing fondly at the beachside huts nearby.

As usual, on a Sunday, the island was quiet. It was a rest day. The only day in the week where no one was doing anything and it was pretty much the only time one could observe the raw nature of the dozens of cabins, the bunkhouse, the dining hall and the workshop without the island’s inhabitants keeping busy. Some houses were there already when the first people arrived on the island. These had been holiday homes of wealthy men and women who, by now, were probably dead. And then there were some newer and much simpler buildings too, some of which were made of roughhewn planks taken from the island’s fir and pine.

Caitlyn herself lived in one of those newly constructed and rather basic cabins, sleeping on a bed she had built herself in the corner of the living room. The two boys had their own room, separate to the living area, and there was no bathroom inside the cabin.

To shower and wash, she would either use the outdoor hose she had installed or walk to the community hall, which was being utilised by most inhabitants of the island the days. There were only a very few men and women who were given these proper houses and, those who lived in them, had to share them with several others.

Evelyn Abbott for example lived in one of those mansions. She lived there with her new partner Joe as well as her children and their respective partners. Evelyn’s daughter Reagan had become your best friend on the island and, albeit the fact that she was a fair bit younger than her, Caitlyn had much in common. She, too, was deaf and unlike with many others on the island, Caitlyn was able to communicate with her. Reagan had a partner who had learned sign language as well. His name was George and George was now teaching his and Reagan’s daughter to learn this silent kind of communication as well. Reagan and George also opened a school, wanting all children to learn how to communicate this was and this was something that had been well received by parents.

Then, of course, there was Evelyn herself and her son Marcus who Caitlyn was able to communicate with and there was also Emmett, who learned sign language from Reagan and Evelyn over the years.

Emmett was different to anyone else on the island. He was twenty years older than Caitlyn and the first person she had met from the island. It was him and some others who, when Caitlyn was captured by rebels on the mainland, saved her simply out of kindness. Yet, if one was to meet him, one would certainly not think of him as a kind man. To the contrary. One may in fact be fearful and afraid of him due to his stern demure.

Emmett often kept to himself, inhabiting a cabin near the beach which he shared with his dog Scooter. Scooter looked as rough as Emmett did at times and, during most weeks, Caitlyn would only see him once or twice when he ran out of food.

He utilised his own crops and shot rabbits or caught fish to eat. His life was simple and he certainly liked it that way.

Emmett featured a large scar on his right leg which was the result of an attack by one of the creatures. He had that looked at by the medical staff once in a while, but only after his friend Evelyn would force him to. Usually, it would be Caitlyn who was dressing the wound when required and this is pretty much the only time he would “talk” to her, at last until today which is when, again, he interfered in something she would rather not have experienced.

***

It was that very same Sunday morning which Caitlyn took for herself, relaxing and breathing in the beautiful scent of the sea. She watched some birds and then, eventually, she spotted Scooter running across the soft sand on the beach nearby.

There was no sight of Emmett though. He was probably fishing or hunting again which reminded her to be careful. Caitlyn was, of course, unable to hear the shots or any verbalised warnings when the hunters were around and figured that, so long as she kept a close eye on her surroundings, she would probably be fine.

Just recently, a group of three young men had joined the inhabitants on the island and they did have a habit of startling Caitlyn and Reagan. They too were hunters and it became a running joke for them to fire off their guns in the presence of these two women. Thus, much to Caitlyn’s dislike and anger, one of them did exactly the same thing again today while she was trying to relax and embrace her surroundings.

A shot was fired to her side and, in a moment of absolute, saturated terror, Caitlyn eventually turned around and saw one of the three men standing behind her, starring into the void.

“What are you doing, shooting this gun right next to me?” she indicated angrily but, of course, he did not understand.

“I thought it would be funny to see your reaction” the man then said and, luckily for her, Caitlyn was able to read his lips, at least to some extent.

In the end, however, she did not respond further to his comment and, instead, rolled her eyes at him. The way he utilised the words she read from his lips was insulting and Caitlyn attempted to ignore his presence the best she could.

Unfortunatly for her, however, the man approached her and sat down by Caitlyn’s side.

“You heard about this law, didn’t you? The procreation bullshit the council is trying to implement. Yeah?” the young man then said after making Caitlyn look at him, knowing that she could read his lips if he spoke slowly and, after comprehending what the man was saying, Caitlyn nodded.

“Good. Now, listen Sweetheart…Jordyn and Kai both want you because, clearly, you can’t talk back. You are mute and it will be easy living with you. So, I kind of want you too but I need you to tell me who you want. Kai, Jordyn or me? Who shall it be, hmm?” he then wanted to know, causing Caitlyn to shake her head effortlessly.

“Neither of you” she indicated angrily, both with her lips and hands, which was something the stranger was able to understand without a problem. Caitlyn felt insulated by the stranger’s remark and the stranger was not pleased with Caitlyn’s answer and smiled, sarcastically, before reaching for her tightly.

“Luckily, you won’t get a say. Council will decide for you. We all offered ourselves as potential suitors” he then said but Caitlyn was unable to hear it as he was holding on to her from behind, muffling her mouth with his hand.

But of course, it is not that she could have screamed anyway. She tried, but no sound came out past her lips as the man used his other arm to wrap it around Caitlyn’s body.

Caitlyn then tried biting the flesh of his fingers, kicking, lifting her arms to hit and claw and fight back, earning her Scooter’s attention. Being a dog, he had a good intuition and was barking loudly now.

"Shit!" the man exclaimed a Caitlyn’s teeth were finally meeting his skin. He pulled his hand away for a brief moment and Caitlyn struggled to get loose. There was no chance that she could out-muscle him, but she threw him off balance nonetheless and they both fell to the floor.

After she fell to the floor, Caitlyn was on her hands and knees, trying to move away from the man when he grabbed her foot. She turned around and kicked at him and he shouts again.

“Fucking whore. You will learn to like this” he spat as he was climbing on top of her, pinning her legs down with his body while he fought to control her arms, to hold her still like that.

Caitlyn’s wrists had now been pinned down by one of the man’s arms while his other hand was searching along her body, groping her. Her shirt was bunched up around her ribs during the struggle and he easily pulled it above her breasts, leaving her exposed as he moved down her stomach, tugging at the drawstring of her shorts and shoving his hand into them and between her legs.

Caitlyn used all of the strength she had left in one single burst as he tried to thrust his fingers into her, pushing him off, turning around to pull herself across the muddy floor again. She was crawling towards the forest until, all so suddenly, there was another gun shot.

Caitlyn, of course, did not hear the shot but she felt the earth vibrating beneath her body and, when she turned around, she saw that her attacker was bleeding heavily. He was screaming in agony. Caitlyn could see it on his face. The terror and pain.

She sighed with relief and looked into the opposite direction only to see Emmett and Scooter now standing in front of her. Emmett was holding out his hand after he tugged away his rifle.

“Can you stand up?” he reciprocated and Caitlyn nodded in response before crawling onto her knees.

Emmett then helped her into a standing position and she hugged him tightly, making him feel rather uncomfortable.

Then, immediately after realising that Emmett was out of his comfort zone, Caitlyn withdrew as she already felt Emmett’s chest heaving. He sighed and clearly did not enjoy the physical contact.

“Are you okay?” Emmett then indicated with his hands. “Do you need to see the nurse?” he wanted to know.

“I am fine. Thank you” you indicated to him in turn.

“I will take you to your house” Emmett then said and Caitlyn turned around again to glance at her attacker.

“What about him?” she wanted to know.

“He can crawl down the hill and face council or he can take his chances at sea. It is up to him” Emmett said, knowing that council would just log him up or expel him from the island anyway for what he tried to do to Caitlyn.

A few days later…

A few days had passed and your attacker had, indeed, made a run for the sea, worrying about the fact that council would execute him as this had become common practice on other islands.

Emmett and Caitlyn, of course, had reported the incident to the authorities and it was Evelyn who counselled Caitlyn over the past few days, requiring her to open up about what happened.

Evelyn cared for Caitlyn simply due to the fact that she wasn’t so indifferent to her daughter, Regan. Not only was Caitlyn unable to hear or speak, but she was also stubborn, kind and strong headed.

Just like Emmett, Caitlyn liked to mind her own business and, with that being the case, Evelyn had a hard time to address the elephant in the room. Time was running out for her and, since Council had been very demanding when it came to following the new laws and rules, it became rather difficult for Evelyn to now, following the incident, convince Caitlyn to take on a potential suitor.

“Why do men get a choice in this, but women don’t?” Caitlyn asked Evelyn as Evelyn had told her again that both, Kai and Jordyn, have offered themselves to her.

“I did not make this law, Caitlyn. But I can see how it is beneficial” Evelyn explained but Caitlyn simply shook her head and requested to be left alone.

“Caitlyn, you need to find someone or we must choose for you” Evelyn told her sternly and with great concern, knowing very well how vulnerable Caitlyn was.

“I was abused on the mainland. For days, I was beaten and…” Caitlyn began to say before tears started to tumble down her face. She was unable to say the words but Evelyn already knew. She knew what happened to Caitlyn and took her into her arms. “I do not want to be alive if I must live with a man who does something like this to me” Caitlyn then explained and this saddened Evelyn. She was worried about Caitlyn doing the unspeakable but, yet, she had to follow the laws. As a member of council, she had to enforce them and there was no way around it.

“You do not know Kai and Jordyn. They are not nice men. Despite, I cannot even communicate with them” Caitlyn then pointed out while Evelyn continued to embrace her.

“Someone else then, perhaps?” she whispered, seeing whether Caitlyn was prepared to be with someone other than Kai or Jordyn, but Caitlyn shook her head.

“Caitlyn! Please! I do not have a choice. I must pair you with someone” Evelyn begged but Caitlyn shook her head again.

“No. You don’t. Take care of the boys for me and I will leave the island. It is simple. I will just leave” Caitlyn said, seeking an out from this horrible arrangement but Evelyn knew that she did not stand a chance. She knew that she would die on the mainland.

***

Later that day, at the council meeting, the first topic on the agenda was the procreation law and non-compliance thereof. Evelyn was required to report on the progress of finding you and another single woman a potential suitor and when she made suggestions to the other council members, they were a little confused.

“For Laura, I propose Kai as a potential suitor. They have already been intimate so this shouldn’t be an issue” Evelyn pointed out and everyone voted in favour.

“So Jordyn shall be assigned to Caitlyn then you think?” one of the other members asked but, to this question, Evelyn shook her head.

“No, I propose Emmett as a potential partner for Caitlyn” she then said, causing Regan’s chin to drop. Regan too was on the council and so was a woman by the name of Lorraine who appeared to be opposed to this idea.

“Emmett?” Lorraine asked before breaking out in a chuckle. “Evelyn, are you okay? Are you running a fever or something?” she then joked, seeing that Emmett did not even engage in community issues or the like. He was an outsider and opposed this law.

“Emmett is at least twenty years older than Caitlyn. It is improper. Despite, did he even agree to this?” Lorraine thus asked and Evelyn shook her head.

“No, not yet, but provided that he will, I consider him to be more suitable than Jordyn” Evelyn explained but Lorraine simply shook her head.

“How so?” she asked, seeking an explanation for Evelyn’s reasoning.

“Well, for starters, he knowns sign language and Caitlyn if deaf. He also had children before. He was a father of two sons. He can look after Caitlyn and the boys and he can communicate with Karl, the eldest” Evelyn explained and, just after she did, the majority of council voted in favour of the proposed pairing. Except for Lorraine. Lorraine was still against the union.

“But the purpose of this exercise is not to find the boys a father. The purpose is to get Caitlyn to have children and, like I said, Emmett is much older than her” Lorraine thus pointed out.

“He is only 45 and probably still capable of fathering a child though, Lorraine” another council member said, not knowing that Evelyn chose Emmett for totally different reasons. Evelyn knew that Emmett would not hurt her and simply assumed that intimacy would never ensue.

“Yes, but the new law only applies to men and women under the age of 35” Lorraine argued nonetheless, causing Evelyn and the other council member to intervene.

“That is true, but if Emmett agrees, then this point becomes a non-issue” the other council member said, following which it was agreed that Evelyn would talk Emmett about and this is exactly what she did later that night when, under false pretences, she invited him to her house for dinner.

***

“So let me get this straight Evelyn…” Emmett began to say sternly while looking into Evelyn’s eyes after she had brought up the proposal. He felt betrayed and somewhat angered by her request. “You want me to move in to Caitlyn’s house and pretend to be a father to those kids who are living with her and then you want me to sleep with her so that she can fulfill her womanly duty to this new regime? Is that it?” he then asked sarcastically before finishing the rest of his moonshine and standing up abruptly. His arms were crossed and he appeared rather upset by what Evelyn had suggested to him and, by this point, Evelyn too was lost for words.

“So to tell me, am I going to force myself on her? Or do I simply assume that she has consented to this madness?” he then asked while Evelyn tried to think of something else to say while Emmett rambled on, cursing in anger.

“Fuck! This kind of nonsense is exactly why I do not socialise with anyone on this fucking island…this fucking bullshit…” Emmett spat before Evelyn tried to calm him down.

“This is not what I meant Emmett, and you know that…” she eventually stammered but Emmett interrupted her again.

“What I know is that, six fucking years ago, women had a choice about what they wanted to do with their bodies and I remember you and Nora standing up about these choices when the state brought in the abortion bill. Do you remember that?” Emmett asked her abruptly, seeing that this so called “Law of Procreation” was troublesome and offensive.

“Well Emmett, I hate to break it to you, but a lot has changed since then. Most of us are now dead and, in order for the human race to survive, we will all need to make sacrifices. This includes Caitlyn. She will need to make a sacrifice as well” Evelyn exclaimed but Emmett was getting rather angry.

“You know what she has been through, right?” he asked. “You know what the rebels did to her and now you expect me to do the same?” he asked but Evelyn shook her head.

“No, I do not expect you to do the same Emmett. I know what Caitlyn has been through and I know why she has distanced herself from most men on the island and this is why I spoke to her. I gave her a choice. She wants to leave the island but I think that, if she is paired with a man who she can trust, she may be willing to stay. You can pretend to be with her. I know you would never force yourself on her, but other men might. So please Emmett. I am begging you. Despite, you can communicate with her and Karl. No one else can” Evelyn pleaded but Emmett continued to shake his head in anger.

“I will think about it” was all he said next but Evelyn urged him to make a choice. She needed to know before the next council meeting.

Please comment and engage. I love getting comments and predictions pretty please!

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mariacallous · 9 months ago

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Jalon Hall thought she was being scammed when a recruiter reached out on LinkedIn about a job moderating YouTube videos in 2020. Months after earning a master’s degree in criminal justice, her only job had been at a law firm investigating discrimination cases. But the offer was real, and Hall, who is Black and Deaf, sailed through the interviews.

She would be part of a new in-house moderation team of about 100 people called Wolverine, trudging daily through freezing weather to offices in suburban Detroit during the early pandemic. When she accepted the job, the recruiter said via email that a sign language interpreter would be provided “and can be fully accommodated :)” That assurance unraveled within days of joining Google—and her experience at the company has proven difficult in the years since.

Hall now works on responsible use of AI at Google and by all available accounts is the company’s first and only Black, Deaf employee. The company has feted her at events and online as representative of a workplace welcoming to all. Google’s LinkedIn account praised her last year for “helping expand opportunities for Black Deaf professionals!” while on Instagram the company thanked her “for making #LifeAtGoogle more inclusive!” Yet behind the rosy marketing, Hall accuses Google of subjecting her to both racism and audism, prejudice against the deaf or hard of hearing. She says the company denied her access to a sign language interpreter and slow-walked upgrades to essential tools.

After filing three HR complaints that she says yielded little change, Hall sued Google in December, alleging discrimination based on her race and disability. The company responded this week, arguing that the case should be thrown out on procedural grounds, including bringing the claims too late, but didn’t deny Hall’s accusations. “Google is using me to make them look inclusive for the Deaf community and the overall Disability community,” she says. “In reality, they need to do better.”

Hall, who is in her thirties, has stayed at Google in hopes of spurring improvements for others. She chose to talk with WIRED despite fearing for her safety and job prospects because she feels the company has ignored her. “I was born to push through hard times,” she says. “It would be selfish to quit Google. I’m standing in the gap for those often pushed aside.” Hall’s experiences, which have not been previously reported, are corroborated by over two dozen internal documents seen by WIRED as well as interviews with four colleagues she confided in and worked alongside.

Employees who are Black or disabled are in tiny minorities at Google, a company of nearly 183,000 people that has long been criticized for an internal culture that heavily favors people who fit tech industry norms. Google’s Deaf and hard-of-hearing employee group has 40 members. And Black women, who make up only about 2.4 percent of Google’s US workforce, leave the company at a disproportionately higher rate than women of other races, company data showed last year.

Several former Black women employees, including AI researcher Timnit Gebru and recruiter April Christina Curley, have publicly alleged they were sidelined by an internal culture that disrespected them. Curley is leading a proposed class action lawsuit accusing Google of systemic bias but has lost initial court battles.

Google spokesperson Emily Hawkins didn’t directly address Hall’s allegations when asked about them by WIRED. “We are committed to building an inclusive workplace and offer a range of accommodations to support the success of our employees, including sign language interpreters and captioning,” Hawkins says.

Figuring out how to accommodate people like Hall could be good business for Google. One in every 10 people by 2050 will have disabling hearing loss, according to the World Health Organization.

Mark Takano, who represents a slice of Southern California in the US House and cochairs the Congressional Deaf Caucus, says that Google has an obligation to lead the way in demonstrating that its technology and employment practices are accommodating. “When Deaf and hard-of-hearing employees are excluded because of the inability to provide an accessible workplace, there is a great pool of talent that is left untapped—and we all lose out,” he says.

Unaccommodated

Hall was born with profound bilateral sensorineural hearing loss, meaning that even with hearing aids her brain cannot process sounds well. Two separate audiologists in memos to Google said Hall needs an American Sign Language interpreter full-time. She also signs pre- and post-segregation Black ASL, which uses more two-handed signs and incorporates some African American vernacular.

During her childhood in Louisiana, Hall's parents pushed her into speech therapy and conventional schools, where she found that some people doubted she was Deaf because she can speak. She later attended a high school for Deaf students where she became homecoming and prom queen, and realized how much more she could achieve when provided appropriate support.

Hall expected to find a similar environment at Google when she moved to Farmington Hills, Michigan, to become a content moderator. The company contracts ASL interpreters from a vendor called Deaf Services of Palo Alto, or DSPA. But though Hall had been assigned to enforce YouTube’s child safety rules, managers wouldn’t let her interpreters help her review that content. Google worried about exposing contractors to graphic imagery and cited confidentiality concerns, despite the fact interpreters in the US follow a code of conduct that includes confidentiality standards.

Managers transferred Hall into training to screen for videos spreading misinformation about Covid and elections. She developed a workflow that saw her default to using lipreading and automated transcriptions to review videos and turn to her interpreter if she needed further help. The transcriptions on videos used in training were high quality, so she had little trouble.

Her system fell apart late in January 2021, about 20 minutes into one of her first days screening new content. The latest video in her queue was difficult to make sense of using lipreading, and the AI transcriptions in the software YouTube built for moderators were poor quality or even absent for recently uploaded content. She turned to her interpreter’s desk a few feet away—but to her surprise it was empty. “I was going to say, ‘Do you mind coming listening to this?’” she recalls.

Hall rose to ask a manager about the interpreter’s whereabouts. He told her that he and fellow managers had decided that she could no longer have an interpreter in the room because it threatened the confidentiality of the team’s work. She could now talk with her interpreter only during breaks or briefly bring them in to clarify policies with managers. She was told to skip any videos she couldn’t judge through sight alone.

Feeling wronged and confused by the new restrictions, Hall slumped back into her chair. US law requires companies to provide reasonable accommodations to a disabled worker unless it would cause the employer significant difficulty or expense. “This was not a reasonable accommodation,” she says. “I was thinking, What did I get myself into? Do they not believe I’m Deaf? I need my interpreter all day. Why are you robbing me of the chance of doing my job?”

‘Pushed Aside’

Without her interpreter, Hall struggled. She rarely met the quota of 75 videos each moderator was expected to review over an eight-hour day. She often had to watch through a video in its entirety, sometimes more than an hour, before concluding she could not assess it. “I felt humiliated, realizing that I would not grow in my career,” she says.

Throughout that February, Hall spoke to managers across YouTube about the need for better transcriptions in the moderation software. They told her it would take weeks or more to improve them, possibly even years. She asked for a transfer to child safety, since she had heard from a colleague that visuals alone could be used to decide many of those videos. An HR complaint filed that spring led nowhere.

Black and disabled colleagues eventually helped secure Hall a transfer into Google’s Responsible AI and Human-Centered Technology division in July 2021. It is run by vice president Marian Croak, Google’s most distinguished Black female technical leader. Hall says Croak supported her and described what she’d been through as unacceptable. But even in the new role, Hall’s interpreter was restricted to non-confidential conversations.

Hall says the discrimination against her has continued under her new manager, who is also Black, leading to her exclusion from projects and meetings. Even when she’s present some coworkers don’t make much effort to include her. “My point of view is often not heard,” Hall says. In 2021, she joined two gatherings of Google’s Equitable AI Research Roundtable, an advisory body, but then wasn’t invited again. “I feel hidden and pushed aside,” she says.

Hall filed an internal complaint against her manager in March 2022, and an HR staffer has joined their one-on-one meetings since October of that year. One of the interpreters who has assisted Hall says the friction Deaf workers encounter is sadly unsurprising. “People truly don’t take the time to learn about their peers,” the interpreter says.

The allegations are notable in part because a civil rights audit Google commissioned found last March that it needs to do more to train managers. “One of the largest areas of opportunity is improving managers’ ability to lead a diverse workforce,” attorneys for WilmerHale wrote. Hawkins, the Google spokesperson, says all employees have access to inclusion training.

Hall says when she has access to an interpreter, they are rotated throughout the week, forcing her to repeatedly explain some technical concepts. “Google is going the cheap route,” Hall claims, saying her interpreters in university were more literate in tech jargon.

Kathy Kaufman, director of coordinating services at DSPA, says it pays above market rates, dedicates a small pool to each company so the vocabulary becomes familiar, hires tech specialists, and trains those who are not. Kaufman also declined to confirm that Google is a client or comment on its policies.

Google’s Hawkins says that the company is trying to make improvements. Google’s accommodations team is currently seeking employees to join a new working group to smooth over policies and procedures related to disabilities.

Beside Hall’s concerns, Deaf workers over the past two years have complained about Google’s plans—shelved, for now—to switch away from DSPA without providing assurances that a new interpreter provider would be better, according to a former Google employee, speaking on the condition of anonymity to protect their job prospects. Blind employees have had the human guides they rely on excluded from internal systems due to confidentiality concerns in recent years, and they have long complained that key internal tools, like a widely used assignment tracker, are incompatible with screen readers, according to a second former employee.

Advocates for disabled workers try to hold out hope but are discouraged. “The premise that everyone deserves a shot at every role rests on the company doing whatever it takes to provide accommodations,” says Stephanie Parker, a former senior strategist at YouTube who helped Hall navigate the Google bureaucracy. “From my experience with Google, there is a pretty glaring lack of commitment to accessibility.”

Not Recorded

Hall has been left to watch as colleagues hired alongside her as content moderators got promoted. More than three years after joining Google, she remains a level 2 employee on its internal ranking, defined as someone who receives significant oversight from a manager, making her ineligible for Google peer support and retention programs. Internal data shows that most L2 employees reach L3 within three years.

Last August, Hall started her own community, the Black Googler Network Deaf Alliance, teaching its members sign language and sharing videos and articles about the Black Deaf community. “This is still a hearing world, and the Deaf and hearing have to come together,” she says.

On the responsible AI team, Hall has been compiling research that would help people at Google working on AI services such as virtual assistants understand how to make them accessible to the Black Deaf community. She personally recruited 20 Black Deaf users to discuss their views on the future of technology for about 90 minutes in exchange for up to $100 each; Google, which reported nearly $74 billion in profit last year, would only pay for 13. The project was further derailed by an unexpected flaw in Google Meet, the company’s video chat service.

Hall’s first interview was with someone who is Deaf and Blind. The 90-minute call, which included two interpreters to help her and the subject converse, went well. But when Hall pulled up the recording to begin putting together her report, it was almost entirely blank. Only when Hall’s interpreter spoke did the video include any visuals. The signing between everyone on the call was missing, preventing her from fully transcribing the interview. It turned out that Google Meet doesn’t record video of people who aren’t vocalizing, even when their microphones are unmuted.

“My heart dropped,” Hall told WIRED using the video chat app Sivo, which allows all participants to see each other while a hearing person and sign language interpreter speak by phone. Hall spent the evening trying to soothe her devastation, meditating, praying, and playing with her dog, which she has trained in ASL commands.

Hall filed a support ticket and spoke to a top engineer for Google Meet who said fixing the issue wasn’t a priority. WIRED later found evidence that users had publicly reported similar issues for years. Microsoft Teams generally will record signing, but Hall wasn’t permitted to use it. She ended up hacking together a workflow for documenting her interviews by laboriously editing together Meet recordings and screen-captured video using tools that she paid $46 a month for out of her own pocket.

Company spokesperson Hawkins did not dispute Meet’s limitations but claims support for the Deaf community is a priority at Google, where work underway includes developing computer vision software to translate sign language.

Google leaders have often paid lip service to the importance of including people with diverse experiences in research and development, but Hall has found the reality lacking. Despite her understanding of the Black Deaf community and research into its needs, she says she is yet to be invited to support the sign translation work. In her experience, Google’s conception of diversity can be narrow. “In the AI department, a lot of conversations are around race and gender,” Hall says. “No one emphasizes disability.”

Her research showed Black, Deaf users are concerned about the potential for AI systems to misinterpret signs, generate poor captions, take jobs from interpreters, and disadvantage individuals who opt for manual interpretation. It underscored that companies need to consider whether new tools would make someone who is unable to hear feel closer or further from the people with whom they are communicating.

Hall presented her findings internally last December over a Google Meet call. Twenty-four colleagues joined, including a research director. Hall had been encouraged, including by Croak, to invite a much larger audience from across the company but ultimately stuck with the short list insisted upon by her manager. She didn’t even bother trying to record it.

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theregrator · 2 years ago

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Biography

Name: Pantalone Age: 36 Gender: Male Height: 185cm when he’s not crouching, 175cm when he’s crouching.

Background

i. Birth Pantalone was born into a poor family, as the youngest brother with five older sisters, who frequently received handouts from the clergy. Pantalone is born deaf and had poor communication with his family. Once Pantalone was old enough, his father urges him to join the clergy, and so he did.

After joining the clergy, Pantalone seldom visits his family, but made a point to visit them once every month. The clergy taught him sign language and lip reading, giving him the most basic and fundamental education. Eventually, Pantalone learned from them the healing arts and became a decent physician who offered his services to the people who came to their church for help.

Some time in between those years, war happened. When the church was destroyed, Pantalone, one of the (un)lucky ones who survived, was left stranded on his own. He spent 3 years in the wild, living off scraps and begging. Life eventually pushes him towards stealing and getting himself into the service of the rich. He grew envious of their lifestyle and realised how money made the world spin. It was the first time in his life he realised that what the church previously taught him could be used to earn money.

When he was still a clergyman, he had never used his skills for money.

ii. Living in the slums

Picking up his old craft once more, Pantalone sharpened his abilities and slowly offered his services to more noblemen, climbing the corporate ladder one step at a time. He’s seen the best of lifestyles and secretly craved for them, but unfortunately, his outstanding abilities drew the attention of the wrong people, which did not help with Pantalone’s arrogant and haughty demeanor. A few people joined forces to cast him out of their space, throwing him back into the slums.

With nowhere else to go, Pantalone had no choice but to work for crooks and the gentry of the slums. The slums are not pretty, especially at a time of war. From there Pantalone caught various diseases, recovered, caught them again, rinse and repeat. A few years later, this proved to be severely impacting his health. His health and body deteriorated, and he became chronically ill. He would fall sick at the briefest gust of wind or the slightest change in weather. His skin would bruise at the most gentle grip. He is perpetually coughing and is on long-term medication. He is incapable of physical combat.

iii. Joining the Fatui The Fatui originally recruited him to be their physician, but Pantalone turned them down. Instead, he fought for a role to be involved in social order, and got it.

The Fatui in general is amused that Pantalone’s spiteful and arrogant behaviour hasn’t changed even though he’s physically handicapped in battle. Pantalone knew how to fight, but can’t ever since living in the slums and becoming... this. He is, however, still internally a violent person and did not shy away from threats and insults when someone apparently crosses him or pisses him off. His body is probably the only thing that prevents him from asserting (actually) harmful physical violence on people who he holds grudges against, Pantalone resorting to simply fantasizing himself avenging himself through playing various scenes in his head where he could actually choke someone with his bare hands, all the while behaving politely with them on the outside and speaking words that held daggers.

He is known for wearing a thick fur coat all the time in the Fatui and rarely leaves the Headquarters because of his chronical illness.

iv. Dottore’s mentor and partnership

(If your muse is Dottore and incompatible to this section, feel free to ignore it completely)

At some point, the Fatui recruited an outcast, Dottore, who was still a student back then, and assigned Pantalone as his mentor seeing how they’re both “doctors”. Pantalone tutored Dottore what he knew since joining the Fatui as instructed, although he’s constantly annoyed by Dottore’s rudeness and other behaviours towards himself, calling him a “brat”. Despite all that, however, Pantalone could not deny that Dottore is a rather gifted individual in their line of work and understood why Pierro recruited him. This is probably one of the only times Pantalone shows any positive behaviour: he truly passed on everything he knew to Dottore, until he’s got nothing left to teach him. Aside from business and economics, of course, which Dottore is uninterested in. After claiming that he has nothing left to tutor Dottore on, Dottore officially “graduates” from his mentorship and hence became partners.

_______________________ Last revised version: 2023-04-25

#♝ ❛ biography.

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swldx · 2 years ago

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RNZ Pacific 1318 9 Apr 2023

7440Khz 1258 9 APR 2023 - RNZ PACIFIC (NEW ZEALAND) in ENGLISH from RANGITAIKI. SINPO = 44344. English, English, QRM=weak CRI cochannel. s/on w/dead air fb music (no bellbird int.!) until pips and news @1300z anchored by Todd Zehner. A tornado struck East Auckland Sunday night as severe thunderstorm watches have been issued for much of the central and upper North Island. Fire and Emergency New Zealand said they were responding to multiple calls for assistance. The calls include roofs lifted off houses and fallen trees, mostly in an area from Flatbush to Tamaki. A civil defence centre has been opened in Howick. The advocacy group, Save Our Venues, wants urgent action to resolve noise conflicts in central Christchurch At a recent meeting, the city council approved measures to help residents and entertainment businesses coexist, downtown, these include finding a way to advise potential buyers. They're moving into a live music area. In Australia, advocates for the deaf community are calling for jury service to be made more inclusive as it is in the United States, where deaf jurors regularly serve. In New Zealand, support is provided for deaf jurors. Investigations found that groups of Tesla employees privately shared videos and images from the cameras in the manufacturers cars, including recordings made inside customers garages. The news agency writers interviewed nine former employees, who were at the company in the United States between 2019 and 2022. Some of the recordings caught Tesla customers and embarrassing situations such as a naked man, approaching a vehicle. One ex-employee recalled a crash video that showed a Tesla driving at high speed in a residential area and hitting a child on a bike. The worker said that video spread like wildfire around a Tesla office in California. Sports. @1303z trailer for RNZ "Media Watch". @1304z Weather Forecast: showers, some heavy. Isolated showers by afternoon. @1305z "All Night Programme" anchored by Catriona MacLeod. Backyard fence antenna, Etón e1XM. 100kW, beamAz 35°, bearing 240°. Received at Plymouth, United States, 12912KM from transmitter at Rangitaiki. Local time: 0758.

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ckret2 · 4 years ago

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Alright let’s talk GVK spoilers!!!

My reactions as best I can remember them!

- love how Kong is humanized from the very first scene, like every time he shows up he’s humanized so much more than other titans are. If that was at the expense of other titans being made likable I wouldn’t enjoy it so much, but like, Godzilla is made pretty lovable over the course of Monsterverse, Mothra is too, and all the titans featured for long are given recognizable emotions that let us see them as more intelligent and feeling than “just” animals; so all of them are made understandable/likable/sympathetic. But of them all, Kong is the only one really humanized. Which makes sense, because like, big monkey! Basically our distant cousin!

- And they kept playing, like, normal songs for him, which cracked me up.

- I really appreciated how you could SEE the titans in this movie. After all the weather effects to hide the titans in KOTM, there was such a clear difference in this one from the very start. Kong in the daylight! Godzilla makes his first attack at night, and even then you can see him much more clearly than you can for most of KOTM! Nice!

- after the Iwi were portrayed as silent stoic witnesses in Skull Island, I really appreciated that they took an Iwi character, made her a main character, and gave her dialogue and a real role to play in the story while also keeping her deaf/mute. I think that was a good way to improve on the way that the Iwi got got sidelined in the last movie while still maintaining the worldbuilding!

- I didn’t appreciate so much that, y’know, they murdered the rest of her people off-screen in order to do it. Couldn’t they have gone “her parents died so she got adopted by a Monarch agent that was close to her family, but like, the rest of her tribe is fine”? Or at the very least “their island got fucked up so they had to be evacuated but like they’re settling in somewhere else”? “They’re living under this island dome with Kong and they know what’s up and Monarch’s keeping them in the loop and they decided they’re chill with their new dome home, but this one girl likes to go on adventures with Monarch”? Something? Did we have to kill them all off? Y’all make up an entire fictional indigenous culture and then murder them off-screen when you don’t need them? Just let them live.

- a few minutes in I was like “hold on, we’ve got two characters that speak sign language, we’ve got a giant gorilla, gorillas learn sign language, is there any reason they can’t teach Kong?” and then later I was like “OOOOOH!!” Humans and titans learning how to communicate with each other has been one of my favorite themes to explore in Monsterverse fanfic so I was absolutely tickled to see it getting explored in canon, too.

- That said I think it’s hilarious that the girl managed to teach Kong to sign without, like... anybody seeing. Kong’s hands are above the tree line and there are cameras everywhere, how did NOBODY with Monarch see him signing.

- Bernie’s weaponized being an annoying coworker to such a degree it can only be called an art, and I really appreciated it.

- Godzilla’s extra chonky in this movie and I dig it. Roomie noted he was extra crocodilian and I dig that too.

- “There’s been no confirmed titan sightings in three years” I don’t buy that for a minute. They’re BIG. Rodan NESTS IN VOLCANOES. They found a MOTHRA EGG. Humans have A SCARILY WELL-FUNDED ORGANIZATION DEDICATED SOLELY TO FOLLOWING TITANS AROUND. Like, most of the lore in GVK that I don’t personally like, I can be like “eh... I can tweak it just a little bit with headcanons to make it work for me...” but NO confirmed titan sightings? You expect me to believe ALL of them moved underground when we’d previously seen them all prefer to live above ground? You expect me to believe that now that they’re all AWAKE, they learned how to HIDE?? Uh-uh. And at the end of KOTM there was stuff in the credits about using titan droppings as biofuel, obviously they’re still walking around up top! Can’t take that from me. Nope.

- Who the FUCK is Ren Serizawa and how is he related to Ishiro Serizawa? IS he related? Maybe they just dropped the surname as another “yeah this is a Godzilla movie for Godzilla fans” easter egg but I have a hard time believing that he can’t be somehow related to the other character with the Very Important Last Name who was so important in the last two Godzilla movies. If he is related I’m sure it’s been explained in a tie-in comic or the novelization or something, I’ll look it up later.

- I had to look up how much weight huge battleships can carry while writing a KOTM fic where Ghidorah hitches a ride on one, and y’all, I had to pull weird gravity-negating magic to get him to ride on that boat. Godzilla and Kong woulda sunk that boat like a rock. All I could think during that scene is “this wouldn’t work and I know that because I DID THE RESEARCH and I wasn’t even getting PAID.” I’ll choose to believe that Monarch gets special heavy duty ships designed to carry titans but nobody mentioned it because it wasn’t relevant to Kong’s journey.

- The bit where they could see where Godzilla was swimming because he’d got half a ship hooked to him that was bobbing around on the surface, didn’t Jaws do something like that with a buoy? It’s been ages since I’ve seen Jaws. Anyway good reference.

- Insert “they’re gonna need a bigger boat” joke

- I LOVED the part where they shut down all the ships to get Godzilla to leave. Both because, one, it’s a spectacular callback to KOTM’s “turn off all the guns so he knows we’re not a threat” that makes it seem like now that’s just what Monarch knows what to do to get G to chill out, and two... we know that Godzilla backs off either when he’s killed his enemy or when his enemy has yielded to him. At the end of KOTM—and the end of GVK—the act of yielding is presented as very ceremonial and uniform across species: everyone lowers anything they’ve got that could be dangerous (claws, fangs, beaks, axes) and bows to show Godzilla they’re not gonna fight. Battleships, obviously, can’t bow, but even without being inducted into whatever secret titan cultural intricacies might be going on, humans have figured out their own way to “bow” to Godzilla: cut all the power, so their ships can’t move and can’t use weapons. I know the movie presented it as “playing dead,” but c’mon, if Godzilla could hear MechaG power up from halfway around the planet then he could hear that Kong’s heart was still beating, and he’s been around enough boats to know humans can turn them off and on when they want. The humans bowed to Godzilla. He accepted that they yielded and left.

- Mark Russell looked like such a dad in this movie, like he’s retired 100% from being a rugged action hero and now he’s just Pure Dad. I like him better when he’s a dad, it’s a good development for him. He got like 3 lines and I’m like “I appreciate this character development.”

- Despite all my qualms about how conspiracy theories and extremist groups are handled in Monsterverse (and WHICH conspiracy theories they decide to reference), I really love Madison and Bernie’s dynamic. The adult man who’s the excitable wide-eyed believer in every BS conspiracy you can possibly imagine; and then the serious, severe Teenage Girl On A Mission who’s hypercompetent because she was raised for five years by a friggin doomsday cult militia; and despite having wildly different personalities they’re just, in total agreement about everything. Handled just a BIT differently (like, leaving out the more gross IRL conspiracies) they would be a wildly fun comedic duo—especially with Josh the Only Sane Man coming along as the hapless sidekick. And they all play off of each other so well! Both in a comedic sense, and in more serious moments—when Bernie talked about his wife, there was a real moment of empathy between him and Madison with very little said. I’d watch an entire movie just about the three of them. I’d watch a TV show.

- On the one hand I wasn’t too much of a fan of KOTM’s “all titans... are inherently In Tune With Nature... nature has a Balance, because that’s a Real Thing and not an anthropocentric concept to describe how we like nature to act, and they automatically restore it... because they’re like, some kinda borderline divinities or something... we should probably be worshipping them...” thing; but, now that it was totally absent in GVK, I sorta miss it. Like I feel like there needs to be a balance, a few humans who are like “i lowkey worship these dudes?” and a few others who are like “they’re cool but like, that’s a lil extreme” and that neither side be presented as Right in how they regard titans’ relationship with nature.

- “All titans come from THE HOLLOW EARTH” nah I don’t buy that it’s silly. Basically, what I object to is the idea that all titans have some sort of intrinsic similarity (they all come from the same hitherto-unknown location; they all are part of the same pack that has the same alpha; they all are fueled/fed by the same energy source; etc) rather than letting them be SEPARATE species whose only unifying traits are “they’re all big enough to fuck everything up everywhere they go” and “they’re big enough that the typically-insurmountable barriers between different biomes (mountain ranges, valleys, long distances with terrible weather) aren’t insurmountable for them, so even if they’re specialized in different environments they still all have to deal with each other pretty often.” I’ll make some exceptions for convergent evolution (i.e., claiming multiple titans developed similar traits that are relatively easy to spontaneously evolve and a prerequisite for a creature to survive at such a large size). But I can’t buy “this big gorilla has more biologically in common with this big crocodile-iguana than he does with, say, gorillas,” or most of the other “all these titans have THIS IN COMMON” claims that Monsterverse makes, including “everyone’s from hollow earth.” So I’m tossing that out the window and substituting my own headcanons. Some might’ve evolved there but some evolved on the surface. Maybe a majority of them like ducking in and out of the hollow earth like some kind of titan shortcut system. Kong’s species, I can buy, IS native to hollow earth, considering that they built a whole-ass society down there with tools and architecture.

- I’m SO curious about the little underground Kong home, the Godzilla motif in the floor, and the axe that appeared to be made with a Godzilla scute. What’s the story there??? We know Godzilla’s species and Kong’s species are ancient rivals. Is it because Kong’s species hunted Godzilla’s to steal their scutes to make weapons, seeing them as a valuable resource the way, like, early humans considered woolly mammoths a valuable resource—thus making that Godzilla on the floor equivalent to cave art of mammoths made by people who hunted them—until the Godzillas got pissed and started fighting back en masse? Or were Godzillas and Kongs already enemies when Kongs decided to start making weapons out of their corpses? Did they use to be allies, fighting together, with Godzillas voluntarily offering shed scutes and/or bones of their deceased members to Kongs, and that place used to be a shared home until they started fighting?

- What about that power source, is it something that was already there that both Kongs and Godzillas started to deliberately harvest for technology/atomic breath? Or did Godzillas automatically channel that stuff and Kongs exploited/borrowed/traded with Godzillas to utilize it too? Or is the power from Godzillas who collaboratively poured a bunch of power into the place thus that Kongs were able to use it too? I doubt Godzilla’s species CREATED all that weird energy but the question remains of whether, like, they channel it FROM underground, or naturally produce the same thing in their own bodies, or what.

- Godzilla using his atomic breath to dig a hole STRAIGHT TO KONG just to KICK HIS ASS is hilarious. How lucky that Hong Kong just HAPPENS to be straight over Kong’s house! Were all the tunnels to the hollow earth made by pissed off Godzillas who wanted to kick monkey ass??

- I loved the aesthetic of the battle scene in Hong Kong, with the brightly colored neon building outlines, VERY cool look. The choreography of the battle scene was great too, especially

- we literally broke into applause when Kong shoved the axe handle in Godzilla’s mouth. Love it, perfect callback, that was the ONE thing from the original King Kong Vs Godzilla I was hoping to see referenced and there it was.

- You could really see a difference in how Kong and Godzilla fought—Kong doing a better job at using tools and the environment, Godzilla fighting more like a reptile. They seemed to emphasize Godzilla’s more animalistic behaviors in this movie to accomplish that contrast—he was down on all fours and moving like a crocodile more often, he was clawing at Kong’s chest—but even though it seemed a bit different of a combat technique it also didn’t seem out of place compared to how he fought in prior movies. And we’ve already seen that if Godzilla’s involved in a fight and one of the combatants knows how to use the environment, it’s typically not gonna be Godzilla. (See: Ghidorah using the reflection in a building’s windows to see what’s behind him, and recognizing a nearby power source and biting it to juice himself up.)

- So many of Godzilla’s enemies seem to have specialized in negating his atomic breath in order to combat him! The MUTOs directly suppress his ability to use it—and it makes sense that that’s an inborn ability they have, since they evolved to use Godzilla’s species as prey. Kong has a weapon that both acts as a shield to absorb the breath and turn it back against Godzilla’s species—they didn’t evolve to counter Godzilla, but they developed tools once a rivalry happened. Ghidorah’s the exception—which makes sense, since he came from space—but even at that we see him using tactics specifically to take into account Godzilla’s most powerful weapon (such as keeping one head on lookout for when he starts glowing so that they know when they need to dodge).

- LOVED the reveal that MechaG was based off of Ghidorah’s brain, it has vibes of both the Kiryu Saga and the way that Heisei MechaG is based off of Mecha-King Ghidorah. Not the most surprising plot twist, since we’d theorized that they might use San to make MechaG, but I wasn’t 100% sure they were gonna go with it until they finally did. Even when I was going “huh, the mecha pilot’s chamber looks weirdly organic” I didn’t make the connection to WHY until the reveal, lol.

- “Ghidorah’s necks are so long that the heads have to communicate with each other telepathically” that’s COMPLETELY WILD but I love it, it follows very well from their prior portrayal as telepathic empaths in Heisei, it lines up with their emphasis on electricity (because BRAINWAVES AND ELECTRICITY, hey ho movie monster pseudo science!), and it very much compliments my own private headcanon that they’ve got some psychic/mind control abilities.

- The movie ended with both “Godzilla won, technically” but also “since they teamed up as equals, the ending doesn’t FEEL like ‘Godzilla wins, Kong loses’ but rather ‘they both won against a common foe’” and since I’m on both Team Godzilla and Team They Should Be Friends, I’m happy with this outcome. Plus since the last time they fought, the Japanese movie company graciously let the American monster win, so it’s only polite that the American movie company graciously let the Japanese monster win.

- There were just a few too many humans in this movie. I was intrigued by Ren but we didn’t get much out of him, but like I guess somebody had to be in the pilot’s seat other than the Apex CEO. Didn’t care for the author of the hollow earth book, I feel like his role was superfluous. Didn’t need the Apex CEO’s daughter there at all, coulda done without her. How about this, combine all three roles. Instead of having a whole-ass author who knows about the hollow earth, just casually reference that Rick from KOTM wrote a book about it since he was the expert, and (since he wasn’t in this movie) say that he tragically died going to explore the hollow earth himself, and that way we’ve got the book with the “titans are from there” theory AND an excuse to share the “humans die when they go underground” info. Now, have Ren be working for Apex as a pilot for Mechagodzilla, but have him be MechaG’s pilot because he’s also a good pilot in general, and can fly those HEAV things. Have Apex send him to Monarch to be like “hey, you guys trust me right, since I’m Ishiro Serizawa’s relative? We at Apex have heard all about your failed hollow earth expedition, and due to Ishiro I’ve got some past ties to Monarch so I’ve got high clearance with y’all, so I could bring over this useful Apex tech that’d let you go underground and use what I know about hollow earth from my past time at Monarch to help guide things.” Once they’ve got the little chunk of energy stuff and go topside, he hustles it straight to Apex and straps into his seat to run MechaG. Bam, you’ve combined “person who knows enough about hollow earth to help the expedition,” “person who represents Apex’s interests and gets the energy,” and “person who pilots MechaG” into one character, in a way that takes three flat/underdeveloped characters and turns them into a single interesting character with a lot going on and some intriguing ties to the rest of the cast.

I think that’s everything?? Hoo.

#gvk #godzilla vs kong #gvk spoilers #godzilla vs kong spoilers #godzilla #meta

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somnolent-snufkin · 3 years ago

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Dolores' Hearing

Dolores was born partially deaf.

A short fanfiction about the headcanon that Dolores was born with partial hearing, and her gift was given as a result of it. This is my first time writing an Encanto fanfiction. I know it's probably pretty terrible.

"Pepa, look.." Felix spoke softly, sitting next to his wife on their bed. He held their new daughter, though it looked like a little soft brown blob wrapped in plenty of yellow blankets to Pepa's tired eyes. Delivery had been tough for her and the family. As much as she was praised for her gift of weather, it wasn't a pleasant experience. The emotional and physical distress she had gone through had translated into harsh hurricane force winds and lots of rain. Thunder and lightning seemed to be timed with her pain.

But despite the very damaged room around her and Casita rebuilding some of its structures, Pepa was happy to see her daughter safe. She gladly held the little one in her arms. The gentle sprinkle of rain coming from her cloud above was formed from tears of joy. It may have been fairly normal to Felix and Pepa, but it seemed their little one was a little bothered by the droplets. Though she calmed down fairly quick.

"Oh.. I'm a Mama now. You're a Papa now too." Pepa sleepily smiled. "What was it you wanted to name her, Felix?"

"Dolores.." Felix responded. "Seems nice?"

"Si.." Pepa said softly. "It fits her." She gently brought her fingertip down to Dolores' tiny little nose. Carefully, she loosened the blankets to hold her little one's hand. Tiny fingers wrapped around her one ring finger. The two gazed lovingly at her, feeling nothing but joy and love. But Pepa's cloud quickly returned when she heard a distressed noise come from the other side of the door.

"Oh! I didn't hurt Julie, did I?" Pepa worried. "Oh, she must be hurt.. so far along with Isabella.." Her worries and panic were shown through the thunder above her. When her thundercloud became bigger and far more severe in its strength, she quickly switched her attention to the baby girl still resting in her arms. Thunder had struck loudly, but it seemed that Dolores wasn't very responsive to it. It wasn't until a flash of light hit did she respond.

"Hey, mi vida, breathe.." Felix reminded her, calmly setting a hand on her shoulder. "Your sister is strong. You know that. Julieta will be ok. We can focus on Dolores for now, yeah?"

"Yes.." Pepa settled down and cleared the cloud above her absentmindedly. "Let's focus on Dolores."

As Dolores grew older, her parents began to notice something. When they would call her name from afar, not much of a response would come of it. When they said something quietly, Dolores wouldn't really notice. However, when they talked to her directly and were close to her, she would respond just fine.

At first, they didn't worry too much. Perhaps she wasn't paying much attention or she didn't like to socialize. Though when Abuela became unhappy with how her hija didn't respond to her, Pepa began to worry that perhaps there was something wrong with her daughter. She was worried. They spoke to the people in the town about it. Their local doctor, who hadn't been too pleased with the family ever since Julieta was given her gift of healing through cooking, did finally speak to them about Dolores. The doctor revealed that Dolores may have partial hearing loss. The two had asked how they could help their daughter. But his only response was to find ways to communicate through signing and to possibly bring Dolores to him for treatment. Whatever that could possibly be.

Bruno had offered to view the future of Dolores, to see if her hearing may be restored one day. But Pepa declined after the previous vision's side effects on the town. Her brother's gift might have been a stronger one when it came to using the encanto's power. She wasn't willing to risk it. Though Bruno did do a reading without her knowledge. Thankfully, his vision showed a very positive outcome. But he still couldn't bring himself to say anything.

Julieta had made Dolores many different meals in an attempt to heal her possible hearing difficulties. But it seemed that she could only restore parts of her hearing, though they would fade once again over time. Pepa appreciated her sister's attempts to help, but she seemed to have accepted her daughter's disability.

Dolores learned to live with her disability. Her Mama and Papa would help her through conversations, guide her in the dark, and keep her safe. Sometimes her Mama would let a rain cloud form above her so she could feel the rain, and on rare occasions, hear the rain as well. It was a pleasant feeling. Tia Julieta and Tio Bruno would try to help her in any way that they could. Julieta cooked the occasional empanada and even made an entire Arroz Con Pollo in an attempt to save or restore some of her hearing. Bruno, however, listened to the girl's incoherent talking whenever she tried to speak. He was willing to spend half an hour hearing about whatever words she learned that day.

As her gift ceremony approached, Dolores was excited to receive whatever gift the encanto had chosen for her. She was eager and yet so hesitant at the same time. Her family was happy to help her through it. Julieta cooked her favorite foods so she would have the best possible hearing during the ceremony. Bruno listened to her talk and rehearsed what was being said. Mama and Papa helped her prepare.

Finally, the time had come…

Dolores was dressed in her best attire, a beautiful dress with her favorite shoes. Her hair tied up and her ears adorned with her little gold earrings. She remembered what she rehearsed with her Tio. She made sure she walked the right way and was facing Abuela when she spoke. Mama had told her what she would have to do with the candle beforehand. So all Abuela had to do was hold the candle in front of her, and she held it. As Abuela's mouthed moved and she gestured towards the carefully forming door, Dolores brought her hand up. The doorknob was a beautiful gold and it has a 'D' engraved into it. She held onto it, and as her door formed.

"Ohh.." Dolores gasped suddenly. She could hear the heartbeats of her parents. She could hear Abuela's words. She could hear the murmurs of the crowds below. She could hear.. everything. She could hear well!

Oh, maybe a little too well…

"We have a new gift!" Abuela announced quite loudly. "Dolores-" Dolores started to cry and rush towards her Mama. She hid her face in her dress and cried. Pepa was quick to hold her up and try to comfort her. Though her stress was beginning to create a bit of a cloud. Felix tried his best to comfort his wife and daughter, but it was a bit difficult not knowing what was wrong.

"Dolores, what's wrong?" Felix asked.

"Loud! LOUD!" Dolores cried. "Too loud!"

"Aye, don't start those firew-" Felix could only get part of the way through before the celebratory fireworks were set off. Dolores, now gifted with unbelievably powerful hearing, was absolutely horrified.

"Casita, please tell me you gave her a room to rest!" Pepa shouted, covering her daughter's ears. "You gave me one!" She rushed up to the door as it formed the carving on its face. It formed a display of Dolores with her hands near her ears and her eyes wide open, which was different from the previous set of doors. Aside from Bruno's, of course. Nobody had open eyes. But the details didn't matter at the moment.

Pepa and Felix rushed into the newly formed room with Dolores. The room was a little more complex than they thought it would be. It was bigger, had more space, and had sound-deadening walls around the place. The only sound that played was a gentle rain. The room had a very comfortable bed, full of pillows and blankets. There were plenty of places to rest and relax. There were also a few desks with paper and pencils. But the room was quiet, and that's what mattered.

"What encanto give me?" Dolores stumbled through her words, feeling a little embarrassed when she could actually hear her mistakes.

"I don't know, mija. But you can hear us?" Pepa asked quietly.

"Mhm! I can hear.. everything.." Dolores sighed.

"I guess the encanto gave you your lost hearing. But.." Felix paused briefly to raise his hands up. "Hearing or no hearing.." He signed the same message as he spoke. Though it wasn't any official sign language, they did come up with things to sign. As he spoke, he brought his hands up to the back of his ears. He put them behind his ears, and then covered his ears to signal 'no hearing'.

"We love you always, Dolores." Pepa and Felix said together, signing it to their daughter just as they had said it. Dolores smiled and rested her head on their chests. They brought her into a warm embrace, comforting her and keeping her safe.

"I.. love.. you!"

#encanto #encanto dolores #dolores #encanto pepa #encanto felix #encanto fanfic #encanto fanfiction #fanfic #writing #fanfiction #reminder that I am not hard of hearing and i wrote this in a fantasy mindset #so i apologize if there's anything here that could be offensive #tw implied pregnancy #tw hearing loss #tw disability #tw sensory overload

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official-hawknose · 3 years ago

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Anyways bc I havent talked about it much lately in my scourge lives rewrite(still need a goddamn name for that..), here’s some stuff

Scourge and Cinderpelt both similarly ache during cold nights, leafbare and really in general when the weather gets colder. Rain makes Cinderpelt’s joints ache, and Scourge’s paws as well.

Scourge’s voice is still higher pitched & similar to the description in canon, but he speaks much quieter on average. He rarely raises his voice, and now it hurts to try.

Snowkit is afraid of open spaces, they stick to the edges of camp and thus far, other cats bring them their meals. Firestar plans on moving the freshkill pile to make it more comfortable for them, though. They can only handle open spaces when another cat is with them, which is good because Ashpaw, Fernpaw and Bramblepaw rarely leave their side, unless the trio have to go training. Similarly, the trio of apprentices come back and show Snowkit what all theyve learned. Snowkit isn’t officially an apprentice, not yet. But they’ll be apprenticed to Brackenfur when the time comes. Firestar intends to wait until they’re more comfortable, and the clan is able to efficiently communicate with them.

Snowkit also has severe scars along their back and sides from the hawk, their fur is too short to cover them. Speckletail often spends time staring at the scars, knowing full well a cat their age shouldn’t have them. Speckletail retired shortly after Snowkit was taken, and before they were returned.

Snowkit’s still deaf, they have no hearing at all. When they’re apprenticed, they’ll likely stay apprenticed for a while longer while Brackenfur adapts the usual methods and moves he was taught, so it’s easier for Snowkit to do.

When Cinderpelt was first injured, Fireheart left to Windclan to ask Deadfoot for advice on what to do. Deadfoot, being deputy, couldnt leave his clan to help Cinderpelt. But he still offered his advice, despite his paw being different than her injury. Cinderpelt trained for a while once fully healed, trying to be a warrior. She decided after a while she liked Yellowfang too much(”No kit in their right mind would want to work with a grumpy cat like you!”). She returned to train with Yellowfang, gaining her name a bit later than most other med cats would.

#text #scourge lives au #hickoryrambles #queue

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arigatouiris · 4 years ago

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zenosyne // m. atsumu x reader

Author’s Note: I like breaking cocky anime men that I find attractive and giving them a lot of angst because I’m evil and how much I love Miya Atsumu is beyond comparison uwu Hope ya’ll like this angst fest~

Also I understand that cheating is a bit of an iffy topic, and I’m sorry if this material offends anyone here. I can picture this scenario and I’m sorry if some of you don’t agree. Feel free to let me know what you think.

Word count: 5649 words

Pairing: Miya Atsumu x Reader

Warnings: angst, swearing, trigger warnings, abusive households, alcoholic parent, fluff at the end

The average human being took 21 days to break a habit; but if that average human was Miya Atsumu, breaking the habit was as sporadic as the weather in Tokyo. He never liked Tokyo as much, and found home within Hyogo, but his games had him move so much that it sometimes made him yearn for a place that no longer existed.

Miya Atsumu did not have habits that he wanted to forget. Unless that habit included staring into the stands, searching for you, it was harmless.

After their penultimate win for that season, the MSBY Black Jackals celebrated; the crowd was loud, the cheers were everywhere—Atsumu always hated the loud that came with the audience, but he tolerated it because you would stand among them, waving at him, a large grin on your face, all directed at him. He’d raise his hand and hold it in the air for a couple of seconds, for you to see, and you would—before your grin only got wider. Atsumu would never admit what that sight made him feel, a sight that he believed he’d see for the rest of his life; but there he was, during their penultimate win that season, and you were not there.

It wasn’t even a force of habit, because his eyes never landed on the stands before. Or had they? Did Atsumu always do this? It had been over three weeks since permanently severing ties with you, and yet, his eyes kept travelling back there.

Three weeks—as long as it took to break a habit.

It was no breakup, Atsumu remembered very clearly how the phone conversation went. There was no verbal acceptance of the relationship ending, it was just one fact over another, and a misplaced goodbye from your end. You’d always managed to bag the good person card, and he didn’t mind giving it to you, either way.

“Miya-san!”

Shoyo’s form created a disturbance in the blond’s mind—the shorter male’s hands were raised to give him a high-five, which Atsumu absentmindedly delivered. But his mind was elsewhere. They say absence was also a presence, on a metaphysical level, the absence of scorpions falling from the sky itself contains the absence. The moment the mind comprehends the absence of something, that something is perpetually present. It was inevitable to miss you, because your absence screamed your presence louder. And he hated himself and hated you, too, for the ruin you’d made of each other.

But, you would be there. During every single game.

Starting from high school to how his career passed in the Black Jackals, Miya Atsumu’s sassy girlfriend would be present in the stands, cheering quietly, chuckling at his misses, nervous at his slips, and ecstatic at his victories.

Miya Atsumu wouldn’t call you perfect, but he knew in all angles that you were. Once you let someone in, you were impossible to forget. There was something about you that crawled inside a person and built a nice comfy home there, your goodness expanding until it filled every limb. You were strangely relatable to an M&M, he thought. A reverse M&M, all sweet and smooth on the outside with a tough shell inside.

It went without saying that back in high school, he was a bit of a jerk; not just anyone would catch his eye. And if Miya Atsumu was dating just one girl from his third year till he finished university and entered a sports contract with the MSBY Black Jackals, you were truly something else. In high school, you were in a non-canon school band, you sang, played the guitar, and you were part of the track team. You scored well in studies, you wrote papers based on some research findings that he barely had any idea about—you were practically all over the place and it was hard to miss you.

Miya Atsumu wouldn’t call you perfect, but he knew he’d be an idiot if he used any other word to describe you.

He loved every second of being with you because you wouldn’t make it easy for him. The second Atsumu felt like things were becoming stagnant, you’d either go missing or you’d throw at him a new challenge—you’d even fucking beat him at volleyball if you had to (thankfully, this never happened). You were constantly moving, leading the way, the complete opposite of what Atsumu thought most relationships would entitle with him around. it wasn’t that you tried hard to please him, no; it was that you were this way all this while, and Atsumu was just lucky.

You confessed to him first, serenading him in front of the entire volleyball team—throwing him for a toss and then laughing at his reaction of absolute surprise. It was as if he wasn’t allowed to be surprised at all, because there you were, pointing at his face and gawking, laughing till you had tears in your eyes.

“What’s with that face, ‘Tsumu-Tsumu?”

Oh, how you got on his nerves.

After that incident, when the school walked around talking of how you’d humiliated Miya Atsumu by throwing a pretend confession, he’d known the truth. You’d never pull something like that without a base; he knew that your words and feelings were true, but he also knew that you’d not just stop there. So what if you liked him? That did not mean you were under his beck and call—and god, that drove him crazy.

“Go be someone first, pretty boy,” you’d said and he had no idea what the fuck you meant.

As much as Atsumu loved back and forth flirting, with you, it just got frustrating because he knew that he was the one being thrown under a bus more than you were.

Two weeks went by with air flirting and tension filled winks in the corridor, which thus forced the blond to physically drag you into the broom closet in Inarizaki’s volleyball club gym, and seduce you using the mere power of his lips, tongue and hands. His words were a demand and that made you chuckle, that chuckle that made him want to simultaneously end your life or scream into the skies—he had no idea. But, you would never admit that the way he kissed you right then had stolen your words and the laugh was merely a shy response to maintain the cool demeanor you had so flawlessly carried out till then.

“Miya-san, is everything okay?” Shoyo’s voice alerted Atsumu when they were heading out of the stadium.

Atsumu ruffled the boy’s orange head before chuckling, “Ya just caught me a bit off guard there.”

It had nothing to do with Shoyo. He walked out with his team toward where the bus was, and a slight ringing sounded in the blond’s ear. He was aware that hearing a C minor in your ear constantly when no noise surrounded them was an indication of deafness, but right then, only your face kept flashing in his mind because you were the one who told him that.

You would tell him a lot of things, starting from random facts about volleyball players in Russia, to the way dolphins communicated, or even about the first man who climbed the tallest peak in the world.

But, Miya Atsumu never realized that you would never, ever speak about yourself. The attention was always directed either at him or the world, and it hurt Atsumu to even think of how he never even noticed that she remained invisible all throughout this time. it was as if she didn’t want to speak about herself, like she was living a double life but there was no way Atsumu would know about it because he just never asked.

Dating Miya Atsumu, he realized, was like dating a narcissist; the only difference being, he genuinely cared for you but he wasn’t accustomed to think of others before himself.

No one had told him it was a problem until Osamu had pointed it out, just days after breaking up with you. He was a walking box of angst waiting to spill onto the person who tried to help him, and there wasn’t anyway Atsumu could change unless the person came equipped.

It was unfair, and strangely, close to impossible.

“You were looking at the stands.” Shoyo pointed out, when they got into the bus.

Atsumu blinked before humming, wanting nothing more than to ignore this boy’s curious claims. But, Shoyo’s eyes were nothing like yours—your curiosity was directed at him at all times, but it was never demanding.

Even if you weren’t the sort to direct any attention toward yourself, Atsumu didn’t want to think he was so bad that he wouldn’t have listened if you had just asked. If you had just told him, about anything at all that was bothering you, he’d downright throw everything aside and listen to you; but saying that now, after everything was broken, was rather easy and convenient, even his mind was telling him that these excuses were privileged.

You came with a stubbornness he hated in others, but somehow grew to love in you. And that trait of yours prevented you from telling Atsumu anything about your life at all.

The first time Miya Atsumu tried to break up with you, he wasn’t really thinking straight.

The relationship was moving in a steady pace, something he wasn’t used to with girls. You were busy with track, he was busy with volleyball—what he didn’t know back then was that you were busy with academics, track, your band, and a whole lot of other things he’d only learn of years later. But, the reason Atsumu chose to break up with you for the first time was because you were just never around.

You’d come to his every game; this went without saying, but you’d disappear right after. You’d reply to his messages hours after he’d sent them. You’d come to school earlier than anyone he knew, and he’d see you leave when his practice was about to end.

Communicating you became a task and Atsumu didn’t need to be responsible for that, and while this remained a good, solid reason to break up with you, he still never asked you if you were okay. If Atsumu could go back in time, he’d slap some sense into himself, but things passed in a way only to make him regret in the future—he had no say in it now.

He approached you one evening just before practice, noticed how your winter uniform clung to your skin, your face a bit red from the biting cold, your hands buried in your pockets. Atsumu wouldn’t miss the way his stomach flipped at your eyes sparkling to meet his.

“What’s up, Tsumu?”

“Ya know... This ain’t workin’ out.”

It was the first time he had seen you cry. While 17-year old Atsumu believed it was mainly because he tried breaking up with you, 23-year old Atsumu recalled the way your eyes were already red before he told you, of how there was a mild bruise under your left eye, how your hair was disheveled—and he remembered faintly hearing you tell him that you don’t get cold too easily, so the fact that your hands were shoved in your pockets meant that you were hiding something.

If only Atsumu had known back then.

“H-Hey, (y/n)?”

Just before you were about to tell him it’s alright and it was stupid of you to burst out crying like that, Atsumu’s arms wrapped around your considerably smaller frame and pulled you close.

“We’ll work it out, yeah?”

He was a tad bit annoyed that it didn’t go according to plan, but if he knew how much of a dick he was being back then, Miya Atsumu could have saved himself a great deal of hurt.

Pulling away, he noticed you’d already wiped your tears away. You smile at him, apologetically, invariably throwing his heart to the side, and take his hand in yours.

“I’ll make it up to you.”

And you did. You delivered each time and Miya Atsumu was always thrown for a toss. But, there was a gnawing feeling at the back of his throat, which Atsumu would only realize was guilt years later.

The first time he finds out that your father was a drunk was when you make a dark joke about it.

I’d say that my dad is an alcohol enthusiast, not alcoholic, per say.

The way you said it, it sounded hilarious to him right then. You were laughing, the boys around him were laughing—he should have judged from Osamu’s expression that one of your habits was to turn trauma into humor, but Atsumu ignored his twin brother’s expression and just focused on how intoxicatingly hilarious you were.

As he sat in the bus that was taking the MSB Black Jackals home, Miya Atsumu regretted laughing at that joke.

If only.

Those must be the saddest two words in the world, Miya Atsumu thought.

On some nights, he wonders if his heart would be filled with anything but this regret that was blinding him day in and day out. He had a bad case of the 3:00 am guilts; the ones when he’d simply just lie in bed awake and replay all those things he didn't do right. Because, as he knew, nothing solved insomnia like a nice warm glass of regret, depression and self-loathing.

“Yer a cool girl, aren’t ya?”

“Is that what you see me as, Tsumu-Tsumu?”

He remembers chuckling, ignoring the fact that your eyes looked puffy.

“Yer the coolest girl in the world to me, (y/n)-chan.”

It was then, drowning in regret, while the bus moved him back to his hotel room, did Miya Astumu realize that living with heartbreak was easy if only it weren’t accompanied by regret.

He hates thinking of how you’d been so supportive, and how you’d still visit each of his games being a grad student, and yet—he was the one who went ahead and threw it all away. The itch in the back of his throat, the one that he felt for the first time back when he was trying to break up with you for the first time, was starting to grow. The itch was getting a bit difficult, Shoyo had to give him a bit of water, slap his back—and yet the itch didn’t subside.

Tsumu-Tsumu, did you try breathing?

Why was it so difficult to breathe with you absent? How dare you take his breath away and never, ever return it?

Some part of him wondered how hard you’d laugh at him if you saw him right then. He was the one who hurt you, he was the one that wronged you, yet, he was the one who broke up with you. If there was a class for disgusting people, Miya Atsumu topped that list effortlessly. It’s true, he never really cared about people disliking him but the thought of you greeting him with anything but a smile twisted his heart in painful ways.

When he was signed with the Black Jackals, Miya Atsumu thinks of breaking up with you for the second time.

He’d have to keep moving, which meant most of your relationship would be long-distance. He wasn’t sure if balancing a volleyball career and a relationship would get him where he wanted to be—so he decided he’d just end things with you before it got too serious.

If only he’d understood back then that a three-year relationship was serious enough, Miya Atsumu would not have gotten drunk and would not have made out rather provocatively with a strange woman whose name or face he did not remember the next day.

The love he felt for you was a borderline comfort that he had drawn out during his high school days. Miya Atsumu pictured it to be the sort of love that is mostly evident when you’re around, supporting him, cheering for him in that quiet, endearing way that you do—but thinking that way was giving you way little credit for what it actually was. Loving you was building a time bomb for himself the second you were not there. Loving you was building the anticipation for your exit, which then brought in the tragic, dark, bone-crunching pain that only came because he had hurt you in so many ways that you’re now forced to push yourself away because he is clearly not good for you, and you clearly deserved better.

The first time he saw you ever since kissing someone else, Miya Atsumu took nearly three seconds to come clean. But it was after spilling the words ‘I cheated on you’ did he notice something that inevitably shattered his soul.

You had a bruise on your chin, your eyes are red, your skin dry, your hair looked terrible—you clearly were not having a good time.

How could he have been so blind?

“(y/n), what happened—”

“Atsumu, you what?”

Heh, he thought before his mind reminded him of his narcisism. How many times had he even asked you how you were doing? What you were doing? How many times had he bothered to ask you if you were doing alright?

The answer devastated him.

“So, this is it then,” You said, and it was when you looked away did he find a splotch of red in the white of your eye.

His heart was rummaging in his chest. The gnawing feeling was back at the edge of his throat. He’s standing there, knowing something was clearly wrong with you, yet all he was acting out on was his own selfish desire of breaking up with you because the thought of continuing this and getting hurt later on was scaring him more.

Miya Atsumu was festering his own demise and he had no idea that he was doing it.

The expression in your eyes was as bitter as nightshade. Atsumu could feel his fingers shaking at how your lips were quivering right then, but you were doing everything you could to hold on. He could see now so clearly how your eyes were welling up with tears, but you chose fortitude over displaying emotions in front of him so you shoot him a smile and tilt your head the way you’d always done before—one of the reasons why he chose you in the first place.

“Tsumu, I hope you’re happy wherever you are,” All he wanted was to scream her name out loud, “That’s all I want.”

How much he hated you right then because every word you said you meant it.

The night three weeks ago, he remembered getting back to his apartment and vomiting his guts out. Miya Atsumu released everything out into his commode, the contents of the food he ate the day before and perhaps that morning—tears stinging the corners of his eyes as he sat there, haphazardly, breathless and tired; hair disheveled but eyes constantly bringing your image to him again and again and again.

What’s done is done, he keeps telling himself, but fuck, why does it feel like he just killed someone?

He was so blinded by your apparent perfection that he didn't recognize the tremendous pain behind your work. You gave him hundreds of images, so many chances to see that you were in trouble. He had failed you.

Atsumu shut his eyes and felt someone tap his shoulder. Turning to his right, he noticed Shoyo, looking at him curiously.

“We’re reached, Miya-san. You look ill.”

The gnawing feeling at the back of his throat was growing.

“Oh! And,” Shoyo grabbed something from the back of his pocket. Taking out his new cellphone, he displayed something to the blond, “Today’s the reunion!”

Fuck, Atsumu thought before running a hand through his hair. It was too late to cancel, Osamu was already going. A part of his heart hoped you’d be there, but he knew that it was wishful thinking.

“Did you have a highschool girlfriend, Miya-san?”

“Hm, yeah—”

Her name was (y/n).

Suddenly, Atsumu grabbed his bottle and chugged the water down, hoping the gagging feeling would subside.

“Miya-san?”

“Yanno, I’ll see ya later, squirt.”

The reunion was placed in a dingy looking bar, only because it was the closest to the university. Atsumu chuckled when he saw Osamu sitting at the corner, looking annoyed. Waving at his brother, Atsumu walked over to sit beside him, in absolute silence, before hearing Osamu click his tongue.

“You smell disgustin’.”

“Nice to see ya too, Samu. I just had a game—”

“Couldn’tya shower?” Osamu sighed, running a hand through his hair.

It didn’t take long for Atsumu to bring you up.

“She ain’t here,” Osamu said, rolling his eyes, “Head from ‘er friend, Sakura something, that ‘er life is practically shit.”

Atsumu wasn’t too surprised to hear this, but there it was again, the gagging feeling at the back of his throat.

“Didja even know ‘er father used to drink, Tsumu?”

He did. He knew.

“So fuckin’ self-centered,” He heard his twin whisper to himself. “Tis a surprise to me that she was even with ya for so long.”

He knew. Yet, he never once addressed it. Never once asked you how you were. Never once bothered to allow himself to know; it was as if he was comfortable being praised within the bubble you had created for him, sheltering him from your nasty background. Only now when he thought about it did he realize how terrible he was, as a friend, as a boyfriend, as a lover—he had failed to be a decent human being to you.

“O’er there’s Sakura something,” Osamu said, pointing to a girl Atsumu remembered would always stick by your side. “She was in the track team with (y/n).”

Atsumu normally would have stayed away; maybe it was the alcohol, maybe it was the deep mourning he had been feeling from the past few weeks, but in actuality, it was the gnawing feeling that was threatening to spill, it was killing him.

“Sakura-chan, it’s been a while.”

The way this girl sent a glare to Atsumu’s direction almost made him laugh.

“Let me guess, you want to know about (y/n).”

“Was it that obvious?” Atsumu rubbed the back of his head.

Sakura sighed, “Listen, I ain’t tellin’ you shit because you asked. I’m tellin’ you because it’ll do her good to see someone right now and it might as well be you because it clearly won’t be anyone else.”

What the hell does that mean?

“A month ago, (y/n)’s father left them,” Atsumu’s eyes widen, “She had to almost quit college, but her mum found a job at a convenience store. But, (y/n) moved out of her dorm and lives at home now, saving up on the grad school money and helping out.”

“Her father... He...”

“Listen,” Sakura snapped, clicking her tongue, “I ain’t tellin’ you no more of this. Go see her or don’t, she doesn’t need you. God knows you ain’t good for her.”

Atsumu almost nodded at the girl’s statement.

“She told you nothin’ because well, did ya ever ask?”

He goes back to his room after that shit-fest of a reunion, Osamu patting his shoulder a couple of times before making a move. Once he was back, Atsumu instantly broke down—the tears stinging his eyes as they fell, it was as if his tears were made of acid because it had been that long since he had cried for anything.

His hands were shaking, and he needed to do something to stop them from shaking—the feeling was intense and he hated every second of it. Throwing a nasty punch to the wall, Atsumu’s hands were bruised instantly before he realized he was a pro-volleyball player. Heading to the sink, he placed his hands under the running water and breathed, noting that his breath was hitching. He looked out into the water and just stared. Closing his eyes, Atsumu’s legs found themselves dragging him to every corner of his hotel room—finding an inch that could comfort him that night. He settled for the balcony, under the stars, where he found himself begging the sparkling lanterns of light to cure him of himself—his past and the kaleidoscope of mistakes, failures and wrong turns that have stacked unbearable regret upon his shoulders.

The loss of their final game of the season did not him him as hard as it would otherwise have. In the dressing room, he felt his phone buzz and his heart jumped out of his ribcage at the name that had popped up on his phone.

(y/n): Jump set, back set, one set, two set, if setting were easy, they might let you set!

It takes Miya Atsumu less than a few seconds to call you.

“Tsumu? Is everything okay?”

“Where are you?” It was eerie that you were whispering, but it was even eerier that he didn’t know where you were.

He always knew; it felt so strange.

“I’m at work, actually—”

At work? Aren’t you a grad student? He wanted to ask, but words refused to slip out of him right then. The silence stretched out, heartbeat after heartbeat – taut, excruciating. And then, finally, came the first sound:

“I want to see you.”

His voice betrayed him; he didn’t sound like himself, but here he was, stretching out far and thin by a person who made zero effort in ruining him but had invariably managed to do so.

It takes Atsumu even less time to book a cab and head to your location. What surprises him is that it’s the very same convenience store that your mother supposedly works at, but why did you say you were working there? Atsumu’s sudden curiosity over your wellbeing, over your life threw him for a toss. This was not how things were, but this was how things were supposed to be.

And there you were, standing outside the door, hands in your pockets, the green uniform of the convenience store over your clothes.

You stood there, in all your candid glory, confident, yet shy, and angel-like. Your (h/c) hair always seemed to capture whatever available light there was, and your skin, much to Atsumu’s annoyance, was flawless. Today you were wearing a black turtleneck that accentuated every curve and your jeans were structured in a way that they made sure they highlighted the best part of your legs. You had a thick aura of battle around you, and your face was almost doll-like, it was so pleasant to look at.

“Ya work here?” Atsumu wasn’t grinning, you felt odd.

Blinking, “Mum’s a bit tired so I’m covering her shift. Are you—”

“Why didn’t ya come to the reunion?”

“I had to submit a paper earlier today. Sorry, I’d have loved to see everyone!”

Your cheerfulness kills him, and he only hopes it doesn’t show. But, he takes a good long look at you. Yes, you’re just as beautiful—but you have dark circles around your eyes now. You’ve lost a bit of weight. You’ve lost that spark in your eye.

Clearly, you were having a difficult time. Miya Atsumu finds that his heart is breaking at the revelation.

“Tsumu, are you okay?”

Fucking hell.

“Stop.”

Your eyes widen, “Eh?”

“How am I? How are you?! Tell me what’s wrong, (y/n)! Tell me what’s happenin’ with you, I never... I never asked ya so ya never tell me? Am I really that fucked up of a guy? That ya can’t... I loved ya, (y/n), I still... Damn it! I fucked up, okay? I fucked up big time! (y/n)—”

You walk over to him and pat his head, but Atsumu instantly slaps your hand away. You shoot him a glare before patting his head once more and pulling him down forcefully, his head on your shoulder, breathing into it.

“Dad left us,” Atsumu freezes at your words. “He used to drink. He’d throw things sometimes. He didn’t really hit anyone until we’d go over to stop him—”

“That’s fuckin’ horrible—”

“He had his own issues.”

Atsumu pulls away before cursing, “Stop bein’ so fuckin’ understandin’ all the damn time!”

You find yourself giggling at his actions.

“It’s okay now.” You said, giving him a kind smile.

Atsumu shakes his head, “It’s not. It’s not okay, (y/n). What the fuck—Why... Why were you even with someone like me? What the hell is wrong with ya?”

He could see how the anger built up in your eyes, but he wasn’t finished.

“You’re so fucking... perfect,” He rubs a hand over his face in frustration, “Grad student, supporting yer mom, you... you came to every single game o’ mine. Every single game, damn it... I never knew ‘cause you barely showed any signs, but why... Why the fuck were ya with someone like me—”

“Tsumu... You kept me alive, you know?” He refused to believe it. “When I was with you, I could forget things from my life that would have otherwise destroyed me. I grew to love you because of how passionate you were and that passion blinded me,” You went ahead and held his hands in yours, not ignoring the freshly formed bruise on his knuckles.

“I was with you as a choice, Tsumu, and I’d choose you every single fucking time. I wasn’t with you because i had nowhere to go. Don’t ever think that, okay? Because I can very well live fine by myself! I chose to be with you because I love you and I’ll do anything for the people I love,”

He had never seen this face of yours. It was enchanting.

“And I get it, people say choose yourself over boys, but maybe, choosing you was what kept me healthy, because look at me, Tsumu,” You point to yourself, tears leaking out of your eyes, “Take a good long look!”

Miya Atsumu’s eyes widen. You’re so tired, it’s as bright as day now. The spark in your eye almost gone.

“Loving you helped me, and I’m not saying that your self-centered assholery is toxic, no. Yeah, sure, it can be toxic, but I needed it at the time. I... I am not perfect, Tsumu. I’m so far from perfect that it’ll knock your socks off!”

You were rambling now and he remembered that trait of yours—a rare aspect from his past; you’d ramble when you got nervous, your hands flailing cutely in front of you, tracing invisible lines in the air as you tried to narrow down your words. Atsumu’s gaze softens, as he lets you.

“P-Perfection doesn’t come from someone hiding their pain well, it’s... it’s dark and gritty and bloody and sweaty, because it’s so fucking hard—” Your voice breaks in the end.

Atsumu doesn’t waste time in pulling you to his chest, shushing you and kissing your cheeks in the next minute; he holds your face like you are the most precious thing ever.

He takes a breath before asking you something he was afraid to, “I cheated on you, didn’t you get mad?”

You nod, “I got hella mad, I’m still a bit mad, of course! Hey, just because I’m madly in love with you doesn’t make me a doormat, yanno?” You fumble.

Atsumu notices how red your face is now, and he smiles. A genuine smile—one that you hadn’t seen on Atsumu in so, so long. Your hand is in his and he bends to your level, his forehead on your shoulder, and it first comes out as a whisper,

“I’m so sorry, (y/n).”

Your eyes widen slowly.

“I’m so sorry, I love you so much. I’m sorry—”

A second later, you wind your hands around him, hugging him, and it shushes him.

You don’t hesitate, “You gotta make it up to me, you know?”

Atsumu smiles so warmly as he wipes the tears off your eyes, nodding. His hand glides down your arm, folds over your hand. His fingers lace with yours, palms kissing. You could feel the fast thud of his heart through this single touch.

“I’ll do that for the rest of my life, (y/n).”

You make a disgusted face a second later, “Stop being so sappy, Tsumu, ewwww.”

Your hands grasp his collar and bring him down to your level, as you plant a kiss him on his lips. Atsumu kisses back but you could feel the hesitation in his bones, and it annoys you. You pull away, and say the one thing Atsumu has been dying to prove to you.

“Kiss me like you missed me, Atsumu.”

They say a kiss is a secret which takes the lips for the ear. When Atsumu kisses you right then, he could have been whispering the secrets of the universe to you, but you didn’t care. His mouth came down on yours. And that was it. All the self-control he’d exerted over the past weeks went, like water crashing through a broken dam. Your arms came up around his neck and he pulled you against him. His hands flattened against your back, and you were up on the tips of your toes, kissing him as fiercely as he was kissing you. He clung to you more tightly, knotting his hands in your hair, trying to tell you, with the press of his mouth on yours, all the things he could never say out loud.

“I love you so much, Miya Atsumu,” You say, your hands on his cheek, “I’m sorry for not opening up to you.”

With a shake of his head, “I’ll never let ya go, (y/n).”

At that second, neither of you realize that Miya Atsumu would never look at another; the gagging in his throat was gone, replaced with the need to constantly wonder about you—a need to have you by his side permanently. Perhaps, this was growth. One would never know. But, whatever it was, Miya Atsumu was glad that he had found a habit he didn’t ever have to break anymore.

#miya atsumu #miya atsumu x reader #atsumu x reader #atsumu miya #atsumu #atsumu miya x reader #osamu miya #miya osamu #inarizaki #msby black jackal #shoyo hinata #miya atsumu imagine #haikyuu x reader #haikyuu #reader insert

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meteorologistaustenlonek · 10 months ago

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More danger from flooding than from severe weather this time around, but a lot of rain possible that could cause its own dangers.

Also, more about the upcoming severe weather training sessions you could attend, plus a special severe weather workshop for the deaf & hard-of-hearing community.

All that and much more in tonight's @WDEF News 12 exclusive video #weatherblog #WeatherOvertime. #ShareAndEnjoy

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saiki-in-jsl · 4 years ago

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No Powers Saiki AU (3k)

Where he also has anxiety and selective mutism. (But also, nobody has powers. And that volcano issue never happens because I SAID SO.)

Uhm uhhhh, in no way am I a doctor, so this may not be very accurate. Sorry!!

TW: Panic attack, I don’t think this one needs a skip so I’ll just leave it as that (but if you need one, tell me :eyes:)

Also on my ao3!

Also well shit, I do like myself some good Kusuo and Akechi friendship :,)

Also also, ugggghhhhhh, the italics stuff don’t go through when I copy and paste from my docs rip. This is why I prefer ao3 more (and because their tagging system is HEAVENLY) so if you wanna read with all them proper italics I suggest switching to my ao3

ALSO ALSO ALSO, RIGHT WHEN I FINISHED THIS, I DISCOVERED ASL AND JSL ARE COMPLETELY DIFFERENT SO D A R N H E C K I’M SORRY. I did a big oopsie,,,let’s,,,pretend that asl,,,is,,default,,?

Saiki Kusuo was not your typical boy.

Since he was young, it had been painfully obvious that he was a gifted child, surpassing his brother by intelligence and strength. This had drawn many curious scientists to him, and after several tests that went on for hours and hours, he finally broke. He stopped talking and he stopped wanting to be around people.

His mother, equally as tired of the scientists as her son was, decided to hide his identity away from the public, constantly moving from location to location to avoid the people who knew of her son’s abilities.

This barely helped with Kusuo’s social development as a child, so the more he moved, the more he decided that he would much rather live in an isolated world than a world filled with people with prying eyes and loud mouths.

He did make a friend once though, but it barely lasted due to unforeseen circumstances that involved a few beat up bullies, and it had surprisingly hurt when he had to move away again. Akechi was his first real friend, and realizing that he won’t be seeing him again felt weird.

As much as he loved being alone, a friend would’ve been nice.

So the night before they moved away, he had pushed open his parents’ door, gripping his pajama top tightly, and whispered really really softly to his mother, “Mama. Will I ever make a friend?”

It was the first time he had spoken in a very long time, in fact, his mother couldn’t remember the last time he had spoken to her without pointing and hand gestures. So predictably, she cried and hugged him tight, mumbling how sorry she was for ruining his chance at making a friend, too caught up with trying to avoid those nosey scientists.

Middle school went by like a blur, aside from the occasional school switch that still happened, yet not as often as elementary. He didn’t remember a single thing that happened during those school days, maybe a few anxiety attacks in the bathroom and a sad attempt at trying to socialize, but that was it. Maybe it really was easier to be alone, at least he wouldn’t have to worry about losing his breathing from the sheer amount of stress he got from the assembly hall.

Highschool came and Kusuo had a new plan: Accept that having friends are not necessary and speaking with your mouth is dumb.

He quickly learnt how to use ASL, much preferring that language over vocally speaking, and made sure his grades were as average as possible. He had excelled through middle school and elementary school like it was nothing, but it had led him to be placed on stage many times because of this. So no more of that, because that was a recipe for disaster to him.

Kusuo made sure everything was in perfect place before heading to school. He made sure the school knew about his condition, and he also made sure to let them know he didn’t want to be publicly known as the school’s “mute kid”, so he’d definitely blend in without an issue.

Kusuo couldn’t believe what was happening. He hadn’t even fully registered his first year of highschool properly and his second year was already here.

To start off, he had friends, something he did not expect to have. He could predict many things, the weather, what people were thinking, and if he tried hard enough, he could even predict who would walk by his classroom in the next second. But he did not see this one coming.

He didn’t even know how. Nendou was a dunce who went from copying his homework to hanging around and inviting him out for ramen and Kaidou was a chuunibyou who thought Kusuo’s hand gestures was some sort of secret language and ended up perceiving Kusuo as some ally to Jet Black Wings.

Yumehara, for no reason other than the fact that Kusuo looked cute, decided she was meant to be with him. A lot of effort was taken to avoid her, but just as she lost interest in him, the class- no, the world’s idol decided she’d have a crush on him too. Then there was the class representative, Hairo, who constantly screamed and moved and how does he not get tired?

Then there was Kuboyasu, Toritsuka, Aiura, and so many people it made his head spin.

But they all had one thing in common when they communicated with him, and that was the fact that they all thought he was deaf. Granted, people who use ASL were commonly deaf, so he wasn’t blaming them for assuming so, and it did help him a little since this made them talk less around him and gave him a good excuse for ignoring them half the time.

Two years he spent in this highschool, and not once had he fired rapid ASL before. He never got the chance to, and he didn’t have much care for doing so. Mostly because most of the people around him didn’t even understand sign language.

But sometimes, listening to Toritsuka talk on and on about some cute girl could really put you on edge. Especially when he kept egging Kusuo on about the type of girls he liked.

The thing was, Kusuo didn’t like romance. He liked observing it and the idea of it, but he would never want to be a part of it. Frankly enough, he didn’t find any joy in it, he much preferred a life of solitude.

“C’mon, I know you can understand me, Saiki,” Toritsuka poked, grinning widely. “What kind of girls are you into? Or perhaps are into boys? Seriously, tell me, maybe we can go on a double date sometime. What about Teruhashi--“

Kusuo scowled, taking a step back and suddenly flying into fast ASL that roughly translated to several insults and long explanations as to why Kusuo wasn’t going to tell him. Toritsuka only blinked in surprise, because he swore he just saw the middle finger between those fast hand gestures, and he took a step back, raising his hands in defeat.

“Relax! Alright!” Toritsuka said, dropping the subject for good. “Next time fling me a note or something, that is seriously intimidating!”

Kusuo winced, feeling the third piece of paper Kaidou had just flung at him hit his head. This had been going on for the whole period, and Kusuo wondered why the teacher hadn’t noticed it yet. Most of the notes Kaidou sent weren’t serious anyways, and clearly not worth writing back to him.

He barely understood the references the boy was making anyways.

“How about we hang out after school? Do you like cake?” The last note read.

Kusuo smiled softly. “Yes, I do like cake.” He wrote, and with ease, he strategically threw it back so it would land perfectly on Kaidou’s table.

Being around Teruhashi was not ideal at all, because wherever she went, many people would follow. Kusuo hated crowds more than anything, it made his throat close up and his face a little sweaty, though his facial expression would never express his discomfort.

It would always remain blank and devoid of emotions.

Which always peaked Teruhashi’s interest. She found it a challenge to make the “deaf” kid who barely spoke gasp at her beauty, it would be a mighty achievement, yet no matter how hard she tried, it just never worked, which only pushed her to try harder. It resulted in her falling in love with him, unfortunately.

“Saiki does have a cute face though,” Teruhashi mumbled under her breath right as she walked along with Kusuo. She assumed he couldn’t hear her, so she regularly said things like those quietly to herself whenever he wasn’t looking her way. He appreciated the compliment at times, but sometimes, they do get a little creepy.

Nendou probably didn’t understand the idea of deaf people, or perhaps he thought his idea was pretty smart. Either ways, Kusuo sometimes couldn’t understand why he had to shout at him to communicate.

Did Nendou think deaf people just had very very poor hearing? Probably. But it often got annoying when they were in public places, and Kusuo couldn’t even tell him to quiet down because he couldn’t tell when exactly he was actually shouting.

Both his shouting and talking volume were around the same range.

But, it was rather nice of him to go out of his way to learn a bit of sign language just so he wouldn’t have to shout at Kusuo anymore. It was actually pretty nice having an ASL buddy.

Note to self, do not use ASL around Kuboyasu too much. He will and can mistake them as gang signs and get either sappy or angry. Kusuo said in his head as he watched Kuboyasu stare off into the distance with his fists clenched, reminiscing about his gang days.

Several times Kusuo had mistaken Hairo’s sad attempt at ASL as actual words and once spent half an hour straight wondering why the boy had signed refrigerator geese to him during that dodgeball game.

Saiko had once walked up to him and declared that whatever “nonsense” Kusuo was going to sign, he’d know right away what they would mean. At first, Kusuo found it hard to believe that the rich boy had taken time to learn ASL within his one day of being in this school, but as it turned out, all Saiko did was hire a translator to follow him around to translate Kusuo’s words.

That was possibly the most amount of effort he’d ever seen from Saiko, and it was good enough.

Kusuo wondered if learning ASL had magically made him more attractive. Aiura would not leave him alone, with her blonde hair, tanned skin, overly accessorized things, and bubbly personality. She wasn’t like Teruhashi, who attracted more men than Kusuo could count on his fingers, so she wasn’t as annoying to be around with.

But then again, she was more forward than Teruhashi too, so it didn’t make her more appealing either.

Seeing Akechi again resurfaced too many feelings. He hadn’t really realized how much he missed his first friend, but then again, the same boy was probably very aware of Kusuo’s high intelligence and may accidentally reveal his secret with that blabbering mouth of his.

Though, Kusuo had to admit, Akechi hadn’t changed one bit since the last time he saw him. Besides the haircut of course, and some other details, like how good he was at deducting now.

Being around Akechi was always strangely comforting back then, there was just something about listening to him talk that made Kusuo feel comfortable. You could say his talking was like white noise to Kusuo.

“Why does everyone assume you’re deaf? You’re not deaf, you just don’t like talking a lot, right? Why don’t you tell them that? Is it because you find it easier to pretend to be deaf? I can understand that, you were always really quiet, which was nice because you were a great listener too. I never found out why you up and left our elementary school without saying goodbye, but you were crazy sma--” Okay, that was when Kusuo made him stop talking, and Akechi took this as a hint to keep it a secret. There was a pause before Kusuo finally signed something to him.

Sorry.

“Nothing to apologize! I don’t think it was your fault anyways, but your plan worked like a charm honestly,” Akechi smiled. “I hope you missed me, because I know I missed you. We have a lot of catching up to do, I’ll start! So basically…”

Kusuo did. He really did miss him.

A play. Their class was doing a play.

After all that effort of trying to stay off the stage, he still couldn’t avoid it.

He’d feel bad if he didn’t show up to contribute, so he definitely couldn’t just ditch them. The most he could do was play a background role, but even then he’d still be painfully aware that he would be in front of the whole school, and he just couldn’t handle that.

But seeing everyone giving their all to make this play work, Kusuo couldn’t help but join along, regardless of his own condition.

Practice for the play went smoothly, and he found himself being able to cope with it. All he did was sway around like seaweed, since that was his role, and then walk off when his scene ends. Easy, nothing too complicated, he would be fine.

Until Saiko got his sensitive feelings hurt and decided to pull their budget on literally everything, including the costumes. Now, Kusuo couldn’t care less about that issue if it weren’t for the fact that; if the other cast didn’t have their costumes, they wouldn’t stand out as much, and there’d be a higher chance of the audience staring at him.

Yet there wasn’t much time to do last minute preparations for props and clothing, so everyone was encouraged to try their best in making their own costumes before the deadline. Kusuo predicted that no one would actually follow through, and for once, he wished he was wrong.

Apparently he didn’t wish hard enough, because that was exactly what had happened during the play. Everyone mostly came in their gym clothes, some with small props to make it look like they’ve tried, and some who just didn’t do anything at all.

When Kusuo’s scene finally came up, he and the rest of the people who played as seaweed scrambled onto stage, making waving motions with their arms to simulate seaweed underwater. Things went well for the most part, Kusuo did as practiced and waved around just like his other seaweed playing classmates, but the longer he stayed, the more aware he became.

Eyes, everywhere, in front of him, staring too hard, too long. Their mouths are moving, but he can’t hear what they’re saying, it was like they were on the other end of a glass wall. Were they talking about him among themselves?

Had it always been this warm on stage? Was it normal for his hands to shake? Was he breathing? He didn’t remember exhaling, nor inhaling. His throat went dry, his whole body rigid from...fear?

Someone was pushing him, someone else was pulling him, but he can’t properly grasp what was happening.

The world went a bit blurry before he completely went dark.

Kusuo woke up in the nurse’s office, body aching and throat dry. He wondered how long it took for him to wake up, but depending on the sun outside, it may have been an hour or so. He sat up slowly, groaning slightly from the pain, before suddenly being attacked by a hug from a familiar person.

“Pal! You’re okay,” Nendou cheered, finally pulling away from the hug to double check on his friend. He lifted his hands, proceeding to sign to him, You just suddenly fell over after they pulled you off stage.

My bad, Kusuo signed back tiredly. Sorry.

“What’d he say?” Kaidou nudged Nendou. Did he really have to ask? It was quite obvious.

“He says he’s fine.” Nendou answered, completely leaving out Kusuo’s apology, which he found strangely comforting yet offensive.

“He literally had a panic attack on stage, what do you mean he’s fine?” Kaidou argued, then he looked over at Kusuo with a deeper frown. “Why didn’t you tell us you were having an attack?”

“He wasn't being attacked,” Nendou said blankly.

“A panic attack, it’s different,” Kaidou huffed. “Saiki, not to be intrusive, but do you have anxiety?”

Did...he? He honestly never thought about it properly. Sure, he did have anxiety attacks every now and then when he was a kid, but this was the first one he had after a long time, so he never really considered he might’ve had anxiety.

Actually, it was starting to all make sense to him now that he thought about it.

“I’m going to take that as a yes but you didn’t know,” Kaidou said slowly, concern laced in his tone. It made sense that Kaidou would know, it did seem like he used to have the same issue.

“Oh for sure, can’t you tell from the way his eyes had widened just now by half a centimetre?” Akechi piped up from behind.

Good freaking grief.

He knew his mother didn’t trust doctors, but Kusuo really needed to see one after literally fainting in school. Not only that, it wasn’t his first time having an attack either, this was just the first time it had gotten this bad.

Sitting in a psychiatrist's waiting room felt odd, because it seemed a lot more homey than a regular doctor’s waiting room, with paintings hung on the walls and carpeted floor. He wasn’t particularly nervous, but he knew his mother was, because the hand she was using to hold onto him was shaking.

It’ll be okay, he reassured, squeezing his mother’s hand tight.

And it was okay. The lady was really nice to him, gentle and understanding, she barely pried and most of the questions she asked were pretty normal. She was a little surprised to learn that Kusuo could speak, but not in a way that was obvious, only Kusuo could tell that she was.

Communication with her was sorta slow. He had to type onto his notes app on his phone for her to read to answer her questions instead of hand signing, which he didn’t really mind all that much.

His mother, who had been waiting outside for them to be done, immediately got up when Kusuo was finished and asked several questions, one being: Did he need to take medication now?

Fortunately enough, it seemed like his case wasn’t too severe yet, mostly because he could still handle being around people without an issue, so he didn’t need to take any meds for now. Although his selective mutism was pretty serious, it wasn’t too bad either in his case, due to the fact that Kusuo spoke through sign language rather than verbally, so he wasn’t completely mute per se.

He came back next week, and the next, and many more weeks after that. He really liked this therapy thing.

“So your friends think you’re deaf, so you’re using that as an excuse to ignore them sometimes?”

Oh, when she put it like that, it just made him sound like an asshole. But yeah, he pretty much was doing that.

“Is there a particular reason why?”

Kusuo drummed his fingers on his lap. There were many reasons why, but those reasons had long lost their meaning. At first, it was because he didn’t want any friends, but now that he did have friends, there wasn’t any reason for him to keep following them through. No matter how many times he told himself he didn’t like them, they were still his friends.

“And why do you not want any friends?”

“Making friends was hard, keeping friends was hard, and losing them was even harder.” Kusuo typed out. “I guess I stopped trying. But then they started coming to me, and it was weird because I had already accepted it.”

“So you got scared?”

She could say that.

She uncrossed her legs, only to cross them back moments later, and adjusted her glasses, leaning forward, “It’s okay to feel scared about losing your friends, but if you’re going to push everyone who wants to be with you away, then how are you going to know if they’ll truly leave you? There’s nothing wrong with wanting space, but people do need other people to survive.”

One of the many things he did like about his friends was the fact that they all knew he enjoyed sweets. It was pretty obvious that he did, with the way his face would smile softly and soften at the taste of coffee jelly.

Surprisingly, they never notice that he’d much rather be left alone. Either that, or they don’t care.

It was a small outing event, they were mainly just eating and talking, but also trying their best to include Kusuo as much as possible, even though he didn’t mind being left alone with his coffee jelly and cakes.

“Man, I feel bad not including Saiki in conversations sometimes,” Kaidou mumbled, assuming Kusuo didn’t know what he had just said because he wasn’t reading Kaidou’s lips. “Since it’s hard to talk to him sometimes.”

“I’m sure we’re trying our best,” Teruhashi beamed, making Kaidou flush red.

“We should probably just learn sign language like Nendou did.” Kaidou hummed, rolling a fork between his thumb and finger. “It’d be a lot easier.” Though possibly soul crushing for him, considering Kaidou had cram school and such already on his schedule.

“Sounds fun,” Kuboyasu commented. “I’d be down. Maybe we can surprise him.” Oh that was just too much, too nice, Kusuo didn’t even know what he did to earn this much love.

Nendou snorted, grinning widely as he pumped his fist on his chest, “I can teach you all!”

“That would save a lot of money.”

Kusuo stopped eating, a rare sight to see despite him being undisturbed, and he placed his spoon down. Everyone stopped talking, looking over at him in confusion before he finally opened his mouth, surprising them even more.

“I can hear you,” Kusuo managed out. “I always could.”

Teruhashi was the first to react, eyes widening and her face turning bright red. All those comments she muttered, he had heard them all.

Nendou blinked, smiling widely with his arms spread wide, “Congratulations on learning how to hear, pal!” Not quite there, but appreciated.

“Uh, uhm, OF COURSE! I knew the whole time,” Kaidou flashed a charming grin, which would’ve worked if it weren’t for the awkward pose he was doing.

Kuboyasu only stared, and drank his tea, “Oh. Well.”

“Sorry.” Then Kusuo paused, and raised his hands to sign. Felt more comfortable being like this, but you all are too nice to me. So the least I could do was tell you the truth. I don’t talk because I have selective mutism.

Nendou translated for them, and they all softened hearing this. Kusuo pressed his back against the booth seat and fiddled with his spoon before taking another bite. That felt easy, and weight lifting. Now that they know, he didn’t have to feel so bad about them going out of their way to do things for him just because they thought he was deaf.

“Of course I knew from the beginning,” Akechi boasted slightly, eyeing Aiura and Toritsuka with a smug grin. Aiura rolled her eyes at him, but pointed at Kusuo with a narrowed look.

“So you, like, could hear us the whole time,” she confirmed with him again. “I always thought you were just stupid smart, or something, at figuring things out despite not being able to hear, y’know?” Well, she wasn’t wrong about the smart part.

“That is so annoying!” Toritsuka blurted. “You’re annoying! Jeez! Would’ve been so much easier! Did you not tell us because you want an excuse to ignore us?” Kusuo recounted the number of times he avoided Toritsuka running towards him from behind, pretending he couldn’t hear him.

He proceeded to shake his head, very very slowly.

“He’s lying, by the way,” Akechi whispered. Kusuo clicked his tongue at that, earning himself a cheeky grin from Akechi.

Well that was that, now they all knew Kusuo wasn’t some deaf kid, even though that info might’ve spread throughout the school, which he really couldn’t care less about.

It was really nice, though, having friends he could trust.

#the disasterous life of saiki k #saiki kusuo no psi nan #saiki kusuo no ψ nan #saiki kusou #saiki kurumi #nendou riki #teruhashi kokomi #kaidou shun #aiura mikoto #toritsuka reita #akechi touma #kuboyasu aren

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antiquechampagne · 4 years ago

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Antique Champagne - CH 50 - Lost

Hancock found himself back out in the street after a few hours. Amari ‘gently’ requested he remove himself from her lab after several spirited rounds of discussion between the two of them. Reluctantly, he only left once he was assured Payne was in stable condition.

Now he slowly paced the cold cobblestones, his eyes cast down, lost in thought.

“Hey John, you okay?” a gruff voice broke through the mayor’s mental fog. Looking up, Daisy was tenderly smiling at him, a disfigured hand resting on his own.

Hancock returned her smile with a tired grin and shrugged. He furrowed his brow before asking Daisy a favor. “Can you get everyone around? I think I’ve got something they’ve got to hear.”

She gave his hand a little squeeze. “Sure thing, John.”

Hancock walked to the square, The Third Rail’s neon sign buzzing loudly. An invisible weight felt like it was bearing down on him, making it agonizing to keep standing. Wearily, he sat on a weathered bench just as people, his neighbors, began filtering into the square. Some tried to chat with him, but he sat like a stone, one hand propping his head up, the other in a coat pocket.

Murmurs rippled across the crowd as it grew, but still he sat.

Finally, with a sigh, he lowered his hand from his face to his lap and looked around. The crowd stared back at him, quietly waiting for his words… words that fluttered around in his brain like startled butterflies.

“I’ve got something to tell you all. I’m not sure…” he trailed off and shook his head. He started again. “I bet some of you are wondering why I’m down here with all of you and not up there—” he nodded towards the balcony above, “Well, looking down, talking down, that’s just not cool.” Hancock finally looked past the brim of his hat, seeing all the eyes of Goodneighbor staring back at him, waiting. He almost choked up. He stood up, giving himself an excuse to look back down at his feet. “The fact of the matter is, I don’t deserve to be up there. I probably don’t even deserve to be down here.”

A huge lump burned painfully in his throat. The image of Fahrenheit toppling over the railing flashed in his mind, as did the thudding sound of her hitting the ground.

“I fucked up. I stood up there and told everyone to be on the lookout for Institute assholes when I didn’t even notice the traitor right beside me the whole time.”

From his pocket, he produced the bloody metallic piece he had pulled from the imposter’s scrambled remains.

“I don’t deserve to be your mayor.” Hot tears burned in the creases of his eyes. “You should probably just throw my ass out to the Commons for what I let happen here.”

The crowd gasped. Several people tried to talk, to raise his spirits, but their support fell on deaf ears. Hancock slumped back down onto the bench, staring at the thing in his hands.

“That’s bullshit!” someone shouted angrily. The pure cantankerous strength behind the words forced Hancock to look up and watch Clair step out of the throng. “Everybody in this God forsaken town are fuck ups, and you know it.”

She put a gnarled hand on his shoulder, a starkly out-of-character kind gesture for her. “You forgot the second part. The part where the entire town fought and took back their town, inspired by your words.”

A familiar gravelly voice piped up. “Of the people, by the people!” Kent tentatively pumped a fist into the air and looked around. Before he his hand had a chance to fall, a chorus joined him, chanting.

“Of the people, by the people!”

Clair leaned in close to his rotten ear. “I think you’ve got your answer, Mister Mayor.”

Their genuine enthusiasm infected Hancock. He really did have the support of everyone in town. His sad expression turned jubilant, his confidence was returning, bolstered by the raucous response of the crowd. Pride and gratitude swelled in his chest. Moved to speak, he jumped up on the bench so he could see everyone, making sure he could look each of them in the eye.

“Well shit, you all sure know how to make an old ghoul blush.” Laughter rippled through the crowd. “But one thing I do know. If you have my back, I for damn sure have every single one of yours! One thing this little insurrection has made perfectly clear is this: Goodneighbor now has a clear enemy. An enemy that now sees us as a threat! But those Institute bastards just learned Goodneighbor isn’t going to roll over and give up! FUCK THE INSTITUTE!” The crowd cheered.

He waited for them to quite a little. “Now, does this mean we are going to change who we are here in Goodneighbor? Fuck no! Everyone is still welcome! They are never going to change who we are! But… keep your eyes on new visitors; we aren’t going to let any Institute assholes worm their way into Goodneighbor again! What we’ve got to do is look out for each other. Check in on your friends. Hell, even your enemies! Get real neighborly! No one else will be replaced. Never again!”

The mayor jumped down to rounds of shouts and raised fists. Passing through the crowd, hearty handshakes and joyous hugs greeted him. His heart felt like it would burst, full of the trust and love of the whole town.

The community driven high was short lived. As the citizenry filtered away, he couldn’t help but feel like a black hole had opened around him. Worry crept back into the shadows of his brain. To keep it from swallowing him completely, he made his way back to the Memory Den’s basement.

Over the next few weeks, Hancock and Amari fell into a routine. During the day, the Mayor would make the rounds in town, checking on people and watching the progress of new fortifications along the wall. Where some groups might have devolved into fear and paranoia, Goodneighbor came together with a renewed fervor for independence and defiance. Hancock was proud to see small changes taking hold. The ties that bound the community together had been strengthened by the fire they had survived. He smiled easily in the streets, joking and carousing with those who crossed his path. The pain and the bloodshed melted into the collective past. In the evenings, however, he grimly returned to the Memory Den for his nightly vigil over Payne. He would pester Amari for any new information about Payne’s recovery until she became frustrated and left her patient in his care.

Payne’s progress was terribly slow, but steadily the different areas of her brain began to reconnect, lighting up Amari’s diagnostic equipment. Weeks turned into months with no signs of her consciousness returning. In the grueling hours of the night, Hancock keenly felt the pain of being on his own. Doubt and fear ate at his nerves. The only thing that kept him going was the fact Payne was recovering slowly. So slowly.

#antique champagne #hancock #goodneighbor #fallout #fallout 4 #fo #fanfic #fan fic #fan ficiton #ao3

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davalynbaker · 4 years ago

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racist as f*ck (se01-ep03)

Here we are, back at it again. Episode three. Advanced apologies because this summer has been a doozy. I lost my great-grandmother in June (every day without her feels surreal) and after some inner debate against that good old IMPOSTER SYNDROME, I went back to school to finish getting my bachelor degree.

The adventure through school is a blog post for another day but I’m here to talk about Insecure so let’s get to that.

This episode was written by Dayna Lynne North and directed by Melina Matsoukas.

Music used in the episode here.

Issa goes back home but her reunion with Lawrence is a series of very awkward events. They haven’t worked through anything! The whole issue throughout this entire season is how incredibly shitty these two are when it comes to communication. I swear to god, watching them interact with each other was stressing me out.

In the middle of all this, Issa and Lawrence are suffering with work woes. Lawrence’s head hunter basically tells him that he needs to dial it back even though the advice falls on his stubborn and deaf ears. Meanwhile, Issa walks in on a group conversation (Freida included) about her that’s clearly about her.

“They’re having secret white meetings and they’re sending secret white emails.”

There isn’t one black woman that has worked in a predominantly white space that’s walked around with a scarlet letter tattooed on their forehead after making one mistake while their white coworkers are given several chances for improvement. It’s just one of the many complexities of systemic racism in the workplace.

What else is new?

At home, Issa explains her frustrations to Lawrence but he gives her the generic, “You have to work twice as hard to prove them wrong.” It’s not very supportive and when he turns around and explains to Issa about his own struggles with the head hunter, he is met with indifference. Issa absolutely should have listened to him because his feelings are also valid but every day, it’s the same conversation about the same damn problem. Lawrence, need to get over this shit and get a fucking job.

Nobody wants to choose a job that they feel will set them back a few paces. I never planned to do admin work in my thirties either but bills need to be paid. Issa tells him that she agrees with the head hunter and Lawrence doesn’t give much push back. I’m sure at this moment, he feels guilty for not offering the emotional and financial support that Issa needs but Issa also could have been a more supportive partner in this situation. There’s nothing more frustrating in the world than knowing you are qualified and will work hard for these jobs, only to be met with so many dead ends. That couldn’t be easy for Lawrence. (I can’t believe I’m actually defending him)

Trying to make it work, Lawrence offers to get a bite to eat but Isssa declines and goes off to have dinner with Molly.

After expressing her Lawrence woes, Molly gives Issa the “Love is a two way street” speech and Issa is not in the mood to hear that. Molly made a lot of sense in that situation but don’t worry, that’s the last time I’ll be saying that in this update.

Later, Molly and Issa join a group of friends and we meet the rest of the quartet: Tiffany (Amanda Seales) (along with her husband Derek [Wade Allain-Marcus]) and Kelli (Natasha Rothwell). In short, Tiffany is the bougie one and Kelli is the horny one. Not much of that changes until the most current season when Tiffany is given a really great storyline. Kelli, not so much.

Molly is still trying to figure out how she feels about Jered, so she invites him to this friend circle so everyone can also gage their opinions of him. They immediately fall in love with him. He’s charismatic and easy-going while also doting on Molly. But then she finds out that he’s never been to college and suddenly shifts her views on pursuing a relationship with him.

We’re only three episodes in and I’m already tired.

The next day, Issa has a beach day for the kids. One of my favorite scenes in this episode is when the kids replace “bitch” with “beach” because kids are little shits BUT THEY’RE JUST SO FUNNY. Quick shout out to Too $hort as one of the kids goes, “What’s my favorite word? BEACH!” That got a good laugh out of me. Her beach day is successful and she basically proves her racist white coworkers wrong and gets an apology from Frieda in the process.

As Issa is at beach day, Lawrence visits his favorite bank teller, who I lovingly coined Titty Tasha. No, I’m serious. Tasha is fine as hell. Lawrence laments to her about finding a job or lack thereof, but Tasha boosts him and strokes his ego which is really all he wanted from Issa.

But also, like I said, Tasha has big boobs and Lawrence may think he’s just being friendly but he’s not fooling me. He’s not fooling anybody with enough sense to know what his aim is. He even purposely lets someone skip him in the line so he can speak to Tasha.

Men are funny.

While Issa is succeeding at beach day and Lawrence is subconsciously flirting with Tasha, Molly is harassing her black coworker. I mean, she wasn’t necessarily harassing the poor woman but the fact that she stayed quiet when Rashida or “Da Da” as she liked being called was introduced and her white coworker said he didn’t see color, just someone that was going to be getting her coffee makes this even more strange.

Molly represents a very particular kind of elite black person and they always get on my nerves. I’ve had bosses like this, teachers and principals, classmates, family members… you name it. They hide behind these weird politics and ideals of how black people are supposed to behave around white folks all in the name of, “can’t let them see us being too authentic.” Girl, fuck these white people. Your white coworkers get raises and praise for doing half the work you do and you’re worried about a black girl that refuses to code switch to get ahead? Sounds like jealousy to me.

Anyway, Da Da rightfully tells her off and Molly doesn’t take that as a moment to reflect but only to be self-righteous. This could have possibly marked the beginning of my dislike for this character, to be honest.

Also, seeming to just not “get it,” Molly gets accepted into the elite Black People Meet website called “The League” and calls Issa to boast about it. Issa wonders why she is still doing this after she spent a whole ass night trying to see how her closest friends felt about Jered. Molly’s reasoning is that The League has a better group of black men to date since Jered didn’t go to college.

And yes, we know that’s a stupid reason but there’s a deeper layer of self-sabotage here concerning Molly.

Issa basically points out how ridiculous this is, but Molly just doesn’t think Issa gets it. Or at least, Molly doesn’t want to hear Issa be honest with her. So she goes on her date but just before she heads inside, she tells Jered she just wants to be friends. Molly is counting a chicken before the egg hatches - which is just one of the many characteristics given to her. No, I don’t like Molly but I think it’s a testament to great writing that they do something so simple with this character because it will be something that appears in future episodes.

After her successful beach day, Issa comes home to find Lawrence fixing dinner but she’s got takeout in her hands. Damn, you guys can’t even properly communicate about dinner.

Issa puts the dinner away with some frustration but chooses to eat the dinner that Lawrence prepared on the couch. This very obviously pisses Lawrence off because they really need to have a talk about her running away and him being a bum, so an argument ensues. Issa spills food on the couch and Lawrence uses the couch as a symbolism for the giant ass stain in their relationship. He blurts out that he’s trying and she’s not supporting and Issa has a moment of realization after a montage of when they first purchased the couch (and were happy) up to the present (when they are not) while Mocky’s “Weather the Storm” plays on. God, this scene was so good because we see this couple, who once loved each other so much, slowly fall apart as the singer’s haunting voice floats from scene to scene.

Issa tells Lawrence that she’s sorry and she is going to try and do better while Lawrence admits his faults and agrees. They toss out the couch and buy a new one because you know, symbolism and all.

New couch! New beginnings!

Or something like that…

In the meantime, I’ll be back with another recap and discussion of the episode!

#insecure #issa rae #yvonne orji #jay ellis #natasha rothwell #amanda seales #wade allain-marcus #lisa joyce #langston kerman #melina matsoukas #hbo: insecure #tv: insecure #dayna lynne north

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asweetprologue · 5 years ago

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Fandom: The Witcher Pairings: Geralt/Jaskier Words: 16,147 Chapter: 3/5 Summary: After a job goes wrong, Geralt must rely on Jaskier as he is left blind and deaf. As they attempt to navigate the curse and find out how to lift it, Geralt comes to realize that his feelings for the bard have grown deeper - but how can he know if Jaskier returns those feelings if Geralt can't see or hear him?

Also on AO3 | Part One | Part Two

your skin carries echoes of me (part 3)

Geralt realized that they were approaching Anchor long before Jaskier did. Under normal circumstances he might not have noticed it, but focused as he was on the scents surrounding him he easily picked up the faint traces of people in mass on the breeze. Typically it wasn’t a truly welcome smell; Geralt disliked cities on principle. They were too loud and too bright, filled with people that he couldn’t determine the motivations of and monsters that hid in plain sight. He prefered the blunt wilderness, where every creature lived on pure instinct - eat, mate, survive. It didn’t make the fights easier, but it made them easy to understand.

Jaskier led them quickly to an inn, where the thick smell of cooking meat and fresh bread replaced the sour, dirty smell of the town’s main road. Cities, Geralt mused, weren’t all bad, particularly if he could get a hot meal and a bath out of the visit. And they had the added benefit of halting Jaskier’s complaints about dirt under his nails, at least for a bit. Not that Geralt could currently hear them.

It was still fairly early when they arrived in town. After storing their effects safely in the inn, Jaskier led Geralt out and down the main road once again. Before long the dense smell of people was joined by the sweet aroma of honey glazes, jams and warm dough. People brushed past him constantly, and he was glad of Jaskier’s hand around his wrist to keep himself firmly grounded. They stopped occasionally, presumably while Jaskier chatted with various merchants in the - square? marketplace? After several minutes of walking around Geralt felt something soft and slightly sticky pushed into his free hand, and he grunted in annoyance.

“Jaskier, you’re supposed to be asking about healers. Not sweet rolls.” Jaskier patted his arm, consoling, and Geralt glowered in what he hoped was the bard’s direction. As Jaskier began to pull him along once again, he reluctantly bit into the roll in his hand. It was delicious, subtly packed with spices and coated in a thin sugar glaze. They probably couldn’t afford to spend money on something like this, but Jaskier always enjoyed the finer things.

A few hours passed, and eventually they made their way back to the inn. Once in their room, Geralt said, “Did you find anything?”

There was a quick tap on his shoulder. Yes. Geralt nodded, relieved. “Assuming we’ll go tomorrow.” Another tap. “Is it another witch?”

There was a moment of hesitation, and then a double tap, negative.

Geralt frowned. “Healer?” This time there was a single affirmative tap, and he nodded again. “Fine. First thing in the morning.”

That night, Geralt stayed down in the tavern attached to the inn while Jaskier performed. While in the previous village he had taken his meals alone in the room while the bard charmed people out of their hard earned coin. Tonight, he was faced with a much more crowded room, judging by the smell. The idea of trying to make his way through the throng without Jaskier’s assistance was unappealing, and the ale was fair. Geralt sat in the booth Jaskier had pushed him into nursing his pint, and waited for the end of the set.

It was exceptionally strange to experience Jaskier performing when he couldn’t hear him. Though he didn’t admit it out loud, the bard was a captivating presence on stage. His voice was simple but clear, never faltering, and his enthusiasm for the songs and the audience was infectious. Geralt often found himself tapping a toe along to the more upbeat tunes despite himself, watching Jaskier as he bobbed around the room. Sometimes Jaskier would look at him with a wink when he mentioned the White Wolf in a ballad, and Geralt would have to turn into his tankard to avoid smiling, or worse, blushing like a youth.

Now, though, he could only imagine Jaskier’s sly glances as he sat in his booth. During the rowdier songs he could pick up the beat by the sensation of vibrating floorboards as people stomped their feet joyously. The smell of human excitement filled the room, the sharp smell of sweat and enthusiasm. If he concentrated he could almost feel Jaskier’s voice in the air, weaving a greatly exaggerated narrative of his own exploits no doubt. It made something in Geralt’s chest ache dully, though he wasn’t sure why.

When Jaskier finally pulled them through the crowd to their shared room, Geralt felt more intoxicated than the handful of ales he’d had should allow for. A strange sort of frustration filled his chest. When the door closed behind them he took a deep breath, trying to steady himself. Instead Jaskier’s scent flooded his awareness, sending him even further off balance. He felt Jaskier reach out to touch the side of his jaw a moment later, the soft we’re alright pressed into his skin with hesitation, like a question. Before he could stop himself Geralt found that he had reached out in response, seeking Jaskier’s heartbeat as he pressed his palm to the other man’s chest. He felt a subtle vibration there, like the shudder through the floorboards downstairs that spoke of Jaskier’s singing, and he realized with a start that the bard was still speaking even though Geralt couldn’t hear him.

The sensation abruptly cut off. Feeling slightly beside himself, Geralt said, “Could you sing?”

There was a long moment of hesitation where Geralt wondered if he could perhaps disappear and live the rest of his life as a blind, deaf hermit in the woods. Then the hum resumed under his fingers, rising and falling, hypnotic. When Jaskier pitched his voice low, the sound echoed through his ribcage and shook under Geralt’s palm, only to fall to a whisper on the higher notes. He stood with his hand pressed against the base of Jaskier’s throat as the bard sang, feeling the blood rushing beneath in counterpoint to the vibration. After a few minutes, or perhaps even longer, the hum faded, and Geralt was left with nothing but the sensation of Jaskier’s heavy breaths.

Geralt reluctantly went to move his hand but was stopped by Jaskier’s own palm pressing it back into place. Geralt felt a flush creep up his neck, and he fervently hoped that the room remained dark enough to hide it from Jaskier’s human eyes. He was intensely aware of the bard's breath ghosting over his cheek, the rapid drumbeat of the other man’s heart under his palm. After a moment Jaskier released him, and Geralt retreated slightly, feeling nearly dizzy at the sudden loss of contact. He cleared his throat. “I’m going to meditate. Goodnight.” He didn't wait for a tap in response, unable to stand the thought of Jaskier’s skin against his again so soon. Shuffling a few feet away, he settled into a meditative crouch and tried to ignore the way his hand still felt warm where it had been pressed against Jaskier’s chest.

The bard did not touch him again that night, and Geralt wasn't sure if he was disappointed or relieved.

* * *

The healer that Jaskier had found lived a ways away from the large town. Geralt knew that it was a ways away because he and Jaskier had been walking along a ragged path through the woods for the last half an hour. The forest was already dominated by the thick smell of rotting leaves, the air here promising the coming of winter in a way that it hadn’t in the south. The damp chill nipped at any exposed skin. It wasn’t enough to bother a witcher, but Geralt hoped that Jaskier had thought to borrow his thicker cloak. Humans were distressingly prone to disease once the weather turned.

Despite Jaskier’s hand in his, it was slow going on the trail. If he didn’t move carefully, any raised root or bush could trip him. Each step was exploratory, his weight kept firmly back until he knew that the ground before him was solid. Jaskier tried to help by leading him around obstacles in their path, but it was difficult for him to communicate exactly what lay in their way. It was several frustrating hours before they reached their destination, and Geralt knew that it would be no better heading back.

There was no sharp, ozone smell of magic around the hut when they arrived. Instead, the various earthy scents of herbs permeated the area, speaking to the variety of the healer’s remedies. Geralt followed Jaskier past the threshold, the crisp autumn air fading as the warmth from the interior of the hut rose to meet them. He stood for a few minutes as Jaskier presumably conversed with the healer, and then he was pushed into a chair by insistent hands.

The next several hours were a test on his patience. He was poked, prodded, turned this way and that, his ears and eyes examined thoroughly. Determined hands - not Jaskier’s - poured several different concoctions down his throat, none of which seemed to have the desired effect. Finally the ministrations stopped.

Instead, thin fingers reached for his hand and wrapped it around a wooden shaft. By the weight of it he thought it might be something like a bo staff, perhaps a foot shorter than he. The hands showed him how to slide the staff out before him to check the way forward, as elders often did with canes. Geralt had to admit that it was a good solution, and perhaps one that he should have thought of sooner. He had been trained to use a staff for combat, of course, so the weight of it was comfortable to him, and being able to step more surely would certainly be a boon.

Forced to accept that the healer could do nothing more for them, Jaskier and Geralt set off back towards Anchor and their lodgings. Their time was significantly improved as Geralt quickly learned to test the space before him before stepping. He still stumbled occasionally when the ground became uneven, but there was less of a risk of him tripping bodily over a stone or running into a tree face first.

He tried not to feel relieved when Jaskier took his hand again to steer them in the direction of the inn.

* * *

Unfortunately the fact that the healer had been unable to help left them back at square one. So far as Jaskier had been able to convey, there were no magic users currently in residence in Anchor, and Geralt assumed that any other healers would be even less helpful than this one. Traveling to Vizima was the next logical step, but the path between Anchor and the larger city was a notoriously dangerous one. The Magpie Forest to the north was always running rampant with wolves, ghouls and wraiths, and Vizima Lake sometimes felt like it had more drowners prowling around than Skellige. Bandits were less of an issue, but with so many nobles and merchants coming from Cidaris and Novigrad it was still a definitive threat. He’d been less concerned about the path from the south, scattered as the villages there tended to be, but the three or four day ride ahead of them would be difficult in his current state.

Geralt sat cross legged in the middle of their shared room, pulling potions out of his pack to double check. He could still easily tell them apart by smell, and he weighed each in his hand to test their capacity. As he said so, he cleared his throat awkwardly. “I need to go to Vizima,” he said to the silent room. “To see Triss.” He tapped one of the potion bottles in his hand restlessly before forcing himself to still. “She should know how to break this fucking curse.”

He felt a thump in front of him as Jaskier sat across from the potions. He could picture the bard perfectly, if he tried - blue eyes wide and inquisitive as Geralt spoke, hair in disarray from their brief walk through the woods. Jaskier typically did most of the talking in their relationship, but whenever Geralt did speak the bard would go quietly attentive, his full focus on the witcher. Frequently it didn't seem to matter much what Geralt actually said. Jaskier would do as he pleased, regardless, but he still listened to Geralt like he was being told the greatest story he’d ever heard.

Geralt had never realized how much time he spent just looking at the bard, but apparently it had been a frankly embarrassing amount.

Jaskier had not moved to make any sort of contact with him, so apparently he was still waiting for Geralt to continue. He cleared his throat again. “Vizima takes you further from Oxenfurt. The road will be dangerous. If you’re going to go your own way, I just need to -”

He was cut off by a light cuff against his ear. Instinctively he reached up to catch the offending hand, giving Jaskier what he hoped was a deeply offended look. The hand in his own twisted to pull his closer, arm stretched out over the potions between them. Jaskier’s finger touched down lightly to trace on his palm, something that had worked in the past to communicate basic ideas. The path of Jaskier’s finger tingled across his skin, and he almost forgot to keep track of what the bard was trying to say.

I. D. I. O. T.

Geralt let out a grunt that he couldn't hear. “So you’re coming?” A quick tap against his palm, almost before he’d finished speaking. He frowned. “It will be dangerous. And you almost always winter in the city. Are you sure?” Another tap, and then Jaskier gripped his hand fully, warm palm to warm palm. Geralt was frozen in place until the bard finally released him what felt like eons later. Clenching his fist to try and rid himself of the lingering sensation, he said, “Well. Alright. We’ll leave in the morning.”

Part Four

#witcher #the witcher #geralt of rivia #geralt #geralt x jaskier #geralt x dandelion #jaskier/geralt #jaskier #fan fiction #fan fic #witcher fic #the witcher series #my work

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