#so he's much more mission report when he gets to 2019

[sevs-corner]

Gary “Roach” Sanderson if he was in the CoD: MW Series (2019-2023)

LOOK-- I really like Roach (i watched the remastered mw2 2020 recently) and I wish he comes back later on in the current MW series. So for now (and my coping-ness) let’s imagine his dynamic with the gang! (These are all HCs with some in between dialogue and plot, and I'll be using some major plot points from the campaign. A lil' heads up, its been awhile since i've watched the gameplay so the timeline might be a bit confusing lol) Masterlist here ! And a previous HC of Roach here !

Roach gets recruited around the same time Gaz does, after the mission in London when Gaz’s team was trying to stop a cargo right in the middle of the city.

Roach is one of the many officers that gets called in for back-up

And then finds himself working in tandem with Gaz, covering each other’s backs as they try and secure the hostages

Price shows up as per usual and saves the two from under the rubble

Afterwards, with the two surprisingly not broken, they handle the aftermath and comes in the scene where Price recruits Gaz after he admits they had a great deal of info on the bust but was unable to act on it

Roach agrees, seeing the movements and reports that Gaz makes to their boss in the SAS, and feels mutual of how restricted they are right now

Seeing their conviction, Price gives a call to Kate and adds an additional person to the team-- Roach.

Then they all go on all sorts of missions together, Roach actually being the more grounded but chaotic of the three

So, lets say he adapts the shenanigans we do as players when we play as his POV in game

Randomly, he is picking up all sorts of guns from the ground, constantly swapping and taking too long to loot enemy bodies (that sometimes Gaz does it for him so they could move on quicker)

Price on the other hand just lets him does his thing-- until he rushes forward like a maniac and go guns blazing in the Embassy

But, he also gets scolded by plugging up comms from humming-singing, and--

what the fuck- PUT THE BANJO DOWN--

He's the type of person to be like that one guy who plays jazz music on his comms in a gun fight (yeah i made a gundam thunderbolt reference mhmm)

You'd think he'd go deaf but no, he takes peace in the chaos

Reveling and thriving in it actually, like he’s too used to the scene (he is but he would rather work in the moment then act in worry and in constant stress)

Roach was almost tempted to go with Alex and Farah for their cause but thinks about how he’s a much better fit with the 141 guys, and how he could see himself working in the squad long term

He eventually meets Johnny and Simon on the mission to get Hassan

Yet that goes to high and hell when he was a part of the A squad, barely clear of any wounds- luckily, nothing fatal

But the situation he found himself made him more energized with serotonin, easily making quick work of the combatants in his vicinity— doing his best to cover for his comrades who were still recovering

He knows Soap and Ghost would be here immediately but he tries to convince to focus on the mission, to let him handle it as he hunkers down for a moment to reload

They both deny, checking out first the crash site before checking out Hassan, and coming up empty

Until Roach finds the metal shipping carrier, calling over Soap, then Ghost and showing the find of that disdained American rocket

Soap, is obviously confused, and doesn't quite piece it together until Kate discusses it with him

As the others got busy with their personal mission

Of course, we're having Roach join the Ghost-Soap duo in Las Almas

Because of needing more man power in capturing Hassan of course

He hops into the mission somewhere in the middle, in the mission in getting Hassan with the assist of Graves and his shadows

Roach definitely hissed at this man on instinct and had to be held back by the armpit by Ghost

Even though he had a bad feeling swirling in his stomach, he kept it in and somehow ended up on the same squad as Graves going into the Oil Rig mission

Anddddddddddddddd you can guess how it went with him-- horribly

Personally, I can see how Graves to be this straight-laced guy when it comes to missions in a way that, if someone diverts from the mission or does something that may jeopardize it even a little-- he is going to flip

So that's what Roach exploited, the comms in his ears blowing up every time he goes for a risky kill or -instead of going for a stealth kill- he's going in guns blazing with a very, very exhausted Graves behind him

But the thing about Roach, no matter how reckless he is, he gets the job done

Graves wanted to oh so leave him in the Oil Rig before he and Soap exploded it, but sadly Ghost had told him and Alejandro to get the hell outta there before he could (such a damn shame)

But at least he gets to capture him in the streets of Las Almas

He got quite unlucky actually, about to meet Soap and Ghost but one wrong move got him captured

Ghost and Soap obviously becomes worried, and they're (with Rudy) are more determined than ever

And yep, this is the moment where Roach just sees red

Wreacking absolute havoc in his way with rage filling his veins

If there was anything that was going to tick Roach off, it would be his own allies hurting

Loyalty, whether in the military or not, is special

And if you use him and his allies for your own bitter ends and means?

Oh, you are in a world full of hurt

So much so, that you wished he spoke the merciful words, "pick and God and pray" by your death bed

He doesn't, not for Graves and definitely not for the man he called the General- Shepherd

He swears that Shepherd counted his lucky stars that night when they couldn't locate him after "getting rid of Graves and his lackeys for good"

But it doesn't end there- their job never does

This time, he accompanies Price and Soap into infiltrating the building for Hassan, leaving Overwatch to Ghost and the other team climbing the tower led by Gaz

He is back to, not even exploding the glass and breaking it, but pushing himself off the side of the building and cannon-balling straight through (with, suprise surprise, little to no injuries sustained)

He's a miracle ball of sunshine really

Soap then follows through and Price just... he could care less at the moment with Hassan (who is once again near their grasps)

Roach wanted to stay and help Price (who didn't get shot fatally but was still hurt from the blow) but his captain said to go

Thus, he went--

Doing his best to cover Soap as they finally steal the detonator from him but eventually run out of guns, and eventually--

Get

Shot.

Soap has to decide now- whether to save his comrade and friend or to stop the fucking missile from destroying the white house

Roach knew the cogs that was turning behind Soap's eyes, so he grabs his cheek and head butts him

Telling Soap to get his priority straight as he forces himself back up to distract Hassan

Soap tries to decode and hack the missile as soon as possible when the coast was clear

Luckily, he had just a couple of seconds to spare

Unluckily so, he saw Roach's pliant body in Hassan's hands- being dragged right in front of him

Soap is enraged, wrestling and trying to get the upperhand on armed Hassan

Luckily, Ghost always has his back-- shot on point, direct, and done in one click

With a heavy breath, he gives his thanks to Ghost before calling an evac- checking Roach's condition

Hands are cold to the touch but his artery pulse--

Faint!

By the time MW3 rolls around, Roach is up and at 'em!

Refreshed and recovered with the proper treatment and therapy

Some grazes to the nerves on his shoulder but its still all good and working--

"Ow!"

Yeah, he can't overexert it like before

Which makes the Tf 141 relieved...for now

A/N: Cont for the MW3 part soon! I just wanna freshen up with the plot on Makarov 'cause it was a bit confusing to follow so yeah lol

[anothercrisis]

alright consider me attached hook line and sinker for the prikolai agenda <3 do you perhaps....🤲......have any headcanons or thoughts abt them....👉👈

personally I'm attached to the idea of nikolai and price sorta co-parenting gaz <- just finished the 2019 game again and is In The Feels (tm)

Welcome aboard the Prikolai ship! This is your captain speaking. We are presently stumbling our way along, but we’re expecting smooth sailing shortly.

And absolutely I do. BUCKLE IN BABES

(This is going to be a short messy list, because I’ve only had Prikolai for a few days, but there will be more to come the more research I do.)

Nik is the only person Price will allow himself to be truly relaxed around. He trusts Nik that much, to keep an eye so he doesn’t have to. Even when he’s off mission surrounded by his soldiers, even if diligent Ghost is there, Price can’t quiet the part of him that stays alert. But if Nik is with him, he feels safe enough to relax.

Nik fell first, Price fell harder.

Their love languages are acts of service and quality time.

Nik knows how hard Price works and he likes to do whatever he can to lighten the load on Price’s shoulders. Does Price need to get a report from Ghost before he can get some sleep? Okay, Nik makes Price take a few minutes while Nik goes to find Ghost for him. He’ll send Ghost to Price with a bottle of water and a sandwich because who knows when Price ate last. While Price wraps up his workday, Nik makes sure Price has clean comfortable clothes to change into when he gets back to his room, makes sure there’s no clutter in the space that would stress Price out when he was supposed to be relaxing.

They like to take walks together. It helps clear Price’s head and helps Nikolai ground himself after being in the air for an extended period of time.

They’re not much for PDA. They’ll sit next to each other a little too close to be casual. Nik will sometimes put his arm around Price’s waist and sometimes Price will hold Nik’s hand. Price likes to kiss Nik’s cheek and Nik likes to kiss Price’s forehead. Anything more usually happens when they’re alone.

They smoke together. And pick fun about each other’s preferences.

Gaz adopted Nikolai before Nik adopted him. Gaz could see the comfort Nik brought Price and that was enough for him, though he did attempt to give Nik the shovel talk. Which wasn’t easy, because Nik is a big Russian man, intimidating even when his default state is content and comedic. But Nik took it very seriously when Gaz approached the topic, promising him that he had nothing but good intentions with Price.

Price gets hurt more often than Nikolai does. After Price has been forced to medical, Nik will gently assess the bandages himself, locating all the scraps and bruises, just because he likes to keep track of when Price gets hurt where. He also makes sure Price tends to them properly. When Nik gets hurt, Price mothers him like a toddler who’d gotten hurt for the first time, which is hilarious to Nik because Price is smaller than him and he’s adorably angry when he’s worried.

Nik is older and taller than Price, but not by much.

Their relationship crept up on them. They’d been good friends for many years and somewhere along the way started spending more time together, sometimes even on leave. They kinda just woke up one morning and were like, oh we’re together aren’t we.

Legally married, not long after they got together officially. And yes, because they love each other, but the original thought was that they wanted to be the first person contacted if something were to happen to either of them.

Nik wears both their rings when Price is in the field. If he’s piloting the mission, he wears them on the chain of his ID tags beneath his clothes and ignores the fact that he would get into trouble for it.

The 141 boys adopt Nik quietly when they notice something going on between him and Price, but they accept him more loudly when they notice the rings and subtle touches.

Price’s favorite son is Gaz and he won’t admit to it. Nik’s is Soap and he will tell everyone that. They genuinely love all their sons equally.

Price learns bits of Russian from Nikolai. He started asking for translations and lessons when Nik started to speak to him in Russian with this soft, loving look in his eyes. Price eventually uses Russian pet names for Nik, and Nik picks up English ones to use for Price.

Their love is just…soft, quiet most of the time. Their lives are high-intensity, high-risk, and they both find comfort in the steady company of the other’s love.

[eaglesnick]

“‘Private education is not fair. Those who provide it know it. Those who pay for it know it. Those who have to sacrifice in order to purchase it know it. And those who receive it know it, or should. And if their education ends without it dawning on them, then that education has been wasted.”  - Alan Bennett.

One year ago almost to the day, Sir Kier Starmer, our new prime minister, promised to end the “snobbery” that surrounds academic vs vocational education. Speaking in Gillingham Kent, he said the ‘class ceiling' needed to be broken and he vowed to fight the existing reality that social background - and by default, economic background  - determines a child’s future opportunities.

This pledge was part of his fifth mission statement where he promised to “break down the barriers of opportunity at every stage for every child.”  More importantly he emphasised:

“This mission is my core purpose and my personal cause: to fight, at every stage, for every child, the pernicious idea that background equals destiny, that your circumstances, who you are, where you come from, who you know, might shape your life more than your talent, effort and enterprise.

“No, breaking that link, that’s what Labour is for. I have always felt that. It runs deep for me.” (Keir Starmer:05/07/23)

Starmer is absolutely right when he says a child’s socio-economic background determines the opportunities open to them. Money buys privilege. One reason private schools are so popular among better off parents, especially the very rich, is that class sizes are so much smaller than in the state sector, and as is well known, “smaller classes lead to higher quality education”. From early years of prep schooling right through to the elite universities such as Oxford and Cambridge, money buys academic success. It is no accident that 60% of top university student intake is private school educated, while just 25% is from state schools: the rest being overseas students.

But it is not only the quality of education than counts when it comes to future opportunities – social networking also plays a major role. Sending your child to a private school not only increases their chances of academic success, it also builds up “social capital".

This interesting headline says it all:

Getting the job: it's not just who you know, its how you know them" (nature: 23/1022)

If you know them from public school, especially boarding school, then you are recognised as "one of us" and you reap the advantages.

The dominance of the privately educated throughout Britain’s "upper echelons of power" was recognised by the conservative Prime Minister John Major, who was shocked at the difference a private education made to opportunities for success.

Starmer’s ambition to end the disadvantage of being a state educated pupil by raising educational standards in state schools is admirable but it is not enough. In a report into who gets the top jobs published in 2013 the researchers came to this depressing conclusion.

.”Our work discounts the notion that higher education levels the playing field between students of differing socio-economic backgrounds. Beyond academic achievement, our analysis suggests there are other reasons why wealthier and more advantaged students, and particularly those who attend a private school, are significantly more likely to secure a top job."  ( Macmillian, Tyler and Vignoles:“Who gets the Top Jobs? The role of family background and networks in recent graduates’ access to high status professions.” ; IOE December 2013)

Nothing has changed since 2013. In 2019 Statistica carried this headline:

“The UK's top jobs are dominated by the privately educated…our report shows, the most influential people across sport, politics, the media, film and TV, are five times as likely to have attended a fee-paying school.”  (Statistica: 25/06/19)

And in 2023 we had this report:

“Private school alumni…gain a disproportionate share, relative to their small numbers, of highly influential jobs in British public life and in business. (UCL: Private schools and British Society: 29/11/23)

Given Starmer’s “mission” to break the ‘class ceiling” is at the ‘core’ of his being, then he has gotten off to a very poor start in trying to remedy this gross social inequality. Originally he promised to strip private schools of their charity status.

“Keir Starmer vows to scrap charitable status for private schools” (LBC: 28/11/22)

Less than a year later, like so many of Starmer’s pledges, this plan was abandoned.

According to The Conversation (27/06/22) charitable status for private schools is worth “£3 billion a year”. It is certainly true that Rugby School is “raking in millions a year thanks to London rental property”. (Coventry Live: 06/04/2025).  Eton College, Britain’s most famous private school and the provider of 20 British prime ministers, has been described as having:

“…huge investments in securities and property - £568mn at August 2022 – chipping in handy amounts each year, tax-free thanks to its charitable status”. (Financial Times: 29/09/23)

Under Starmer the privilege provided by private education is to continue. Money buys smaller class sizes, better academic attainment and a build up of social capital through networking with others from wealthy families. Hiding behind the bogus claim of charitable status these schools for the privileged save millions of pounds in tax relief while the state sector is starved of sufficient funding. Rather than doing yet another U-turn, Starmer should have been planning to  close  private schools altogether.

If he is willing to surrender so easily to privilege and wealth on his “core” beliefs then he has no right to be Prime Minister, and his claims that his administration is all about "change" is just hollow rhetoric.

[samanthahirr]

Hosiery Habit Headcanons

Bond washes his socks by hand, every day. Every pair of socks, no matter where he is, whether at home or on a mission. He learned in the Navy that you can never have enough pairs of clean socks (he will never speak of that month-long assignment to the rain forests of Guatemala EVER), so he religiously washes his used socks each night before sleep and lays them out to dry before he packs them away in the morning.

Felix introduces Bond to his pair of lucky socks on their first joint mission. On a Sunday morning, when Bond dons thick wool socks for their hike through the Andes, Felix slides on his lucky socks and sends his thoughts heavenward for a much-needed victory. That night, when Bond points out that Felix’s lucky socks let them down—their mission having fallen apart spectacularly—Felix checks the score on his phone and scoffs that they made two interceptions in the final quarter and won by 7 points. Bond gives him a queer look. Maybe Bond doesn’t believe in sports rituals, but Felix will do whatever it takes to support his favorite team; even if he can’t attend in person, he’s not gonna let the Saints down.

Moneypenny wears plain hose at MI6 (with the exception of her monthly, when she wears the pairs with extra tummy shaping), nude with no embellishments. Although there was one memorable holiday party when she purchased and wore a pair of full-fashioned stockings with the seam up the back that caused quite a kerfuffle. There were so many collisions and bruises amongst the staff attributed to her hosiery that HR had to request that she restrict their use to extracurricular occasions only.

Tanner makes a point of dressing appropriately and not drawing undue attention to himself. However, he has a sizable collection of novelty socks courtesy of his children’s gifts over the years, and he takes comfort in having a piece of his home life with him when at his stressful job.

Q is not a morning person and, as such, can’t be arsed to tell the difference between navy and black when getting dressed before dawn. He doesn’t give a shit whether his socks match his trousers; he has more important concerns on his mind, thank you very much. And outside of the office, he avoids socks altogether; barefoot in loafers or trainers is his preferred style.

MI6 Medical released an emergency advisory in 2019: No toe socks in the office! The infernal footwear became all the rage in 2018, and they did no harm so long as staff wore proper footwear to protect their feet in hazardous areas. But when a Q Branch technician reported to Medical limping badly, staff were appalled to find that he’d shoved his toe-socked foot into a colleague’s borrowed footwear to enter one of the more hazardous labs, and the toe-sock seams had cut off circulation to more than one toe over the course of three hours. Never again!

Alec learned early in life the importance of blending in and conforming to expectations. It earned him a reputation for being steady and dependable at the orphanage and later in the Navy. One of the easiest ways to conform was to mimic the styling of the most respected person around you. At school, it was the head boy. In the Navy, it was his commanding officer. And at MI6, it’s Bond, whose style is the fiddliest to imitate. (Those bespoke suits cost a bloody fortune!) Most obnoxious are Bond’s favorite silk-blend socks, which are nonabsorbent and require delicate washing. But Alec bides his time, keeps in line, wears the damn socks, and passes himself off as a loyal operative while he makes plans for his eventual defection….

Mallory dated a peer a couple decades back; a handsome fellow who cut a very fashionable figure. Mallory has some fond memories of their time together, as well as a keepsake set of platinum cuff links…and an unfortunate kink for sock garters. Mallory resolutely doesn’t own or wear any himself, but he’s aware that Bond and Trevelyan wear them on occasion. He does his best not to think about that when they’re seated across from him, their trouser hems riding up their ankles, eyeing how taut their socks are pulled, and wondering.

Madeleine has always hated the cold, and Altaussee is a bleak wasteland of tourists and ice. Her office, with its impractical exterior glass walls, is always two degrees lower than the interior rooms, and her usual hose doesn’t keep her ankles warm enough for a full day of listening to billionaires’ midlife crises. She’s taken to keeping a pair of double-layer cabin socks under her desk, and she kicks off her high heeled pumps and slides the cozy socks on overtop her hose every time she has an appointment in her blasted icebox of an office. 

The sweaters that Q’s cats wear are cozy. The sweaters are warm. The sweaters feel like safety and Q’s gentle fingers sliding them on. But once a year, there is more. There are hats. There are strange collars. And there are socks. The socks are the enemy. They are confinement. They are slipping imbalance. The socks slide on like punishment for imagined crimes. Q lifts his cats and places them on the cat tree. Q coos, “Don’t you look precious.” A shutter clicks, and his fingers are no longer in the way, no longer trying to stop the inevitable. The socks are prey. They must be destroyed. Long claws pierce them. Rend them. Teeth dig in, merciless, and shake them limp. Dead socks taste of cotton victory. “Sorry darlings,” Q laughs. Surely Q will learn from this. There will not be socks again. “Not for another year,” Q promises.

[outeremissary]

kasperia character journal please? 👀

Hi Romeo! Sorry this is a lil late (days later edit: now a lot late), time kind of stopped functioning for part of Friday, hahhh . Anyway some good luck on this one being the only one I have screenshots from while my laptop hangs between this world and the next! (days later edit: it's actually dead forever) Anyway, this was admittedly a bit of a cheat because it is a tabletop character journal, but it's a WIP to me and I like working on it. Counts!

Anywayyyy. I don't think it's actually been said on Tumblr at this point, but Kasander and Asperia are two parts of a dissociative identity disorder system (I don't know if this is too jargon-y an explanation...?). Not the only two, but the two who interface the most with the outside world and in some ways have the strongest feelings about "Asperia's" life. In tabletop, their journal is how they communicate with one another to mitigate the effects of losing time and to get some sense of coordination with what they're doing. On a meta level, it helps me track what each of them knows about game events and how they feel about each other (and any other alter who adds something to the journal). Relationships within the system aren't really something that generally makes sense to externalize into regular RP. The journal is a helpful way to develop that running self-exploration side plot without derailing what's happening in session.

It's been a really fun exercise in character voice. I love writing epistolary type stuff- Carmen's mission report character journal was one of my favorite parts of playing her back in 2019- so it's been very relaxing to me. Excited for our hiatus to end to gather more material for it. I've gotten a little off track from some original plans though- one significant concept I'd had going in was that Kasander's parts of the journal are written as direct letters to Asperia, while Asperia's were supposed to be written as a diary as if the other pages didn't exist. Stubborn willful ignorance from someone struggling to come to terms with their reality. Unfortunately, it's very fun to write things that are a little bit more communicative ^^;; I'll probably have to rewrite pieces of recent parts of the journal to be a bit more in line with that intent before adding the next chunk to our party's notes drive. Not a lot room to develop the twins' relationship over time if there's not much distance between the start and the end, after all.

With that said, some of the direct exchanges are very fun. Pros and cons.

It's also fun to think through what's tracked and what's omitted (intentionally or unintentionally). Kasander loves describing the cultural experience of a location but carefully skips mentioning having actually spent money on things. They're always on thin ice with the funds. Asperia keeps (mildly exaggerated) accounts of personal achievements but completely skips over failures, especially failures that involved injury to the body. She needs to communicate a sense of superiority- something that certainly works when Kasander apologizes profusely any time the body is hurt under their care.

(yeah it seemed like a good idea at the time to use a more "handwritten" font for the final thing but I've been having A Lot Of Regrets)

I unfortunately don't have a screenshot, but the journal has also had one small addition from Paracelsus as well. It's just a to-do list of ways to organize and restock the crafting supplies. Very typical of them. Asperia thinks he wrote it, like everything Paracelsus writes.

Also fun to get to work in some in-world explanations for things that raise some meta questions, like not having some items that I need for my character concept (I ran out of starting equipment budgettt). This bit is also consistent with the pattern that Asperia avoids referring to Kasander by name.

How common the two of them actually sabotaging each other's possessions is has yet to truly be established, but it is an aspect of what the party thaumaturge refers to as their "feud."

Pros over BG3: they are aware of and communicating each other, and they didn't have to have five near death experiences for it to happen. Yay!

Cons over BG3: lot more hostility from Asperia persisting past that point. Kasander did in fact ruin their life a little.

[yes-i-am-happyaspie]

Every once in a while I get a wild hair to go into one of my old fics and fix all the typos and correct the horrendous mechanics. :)

Stay With Me by happyaspie

Published October 2019 - Part 5 of The Junk Drawer of Spidey Fics

No Archive Warnings Apply || Rated Teen || Word Count: 17,896 || Irondad, injured Tony Stark, Whump, Hurt Comfort

Summary: Tony is injured on a mission and Peter is left trying to cope. Luckily he has His Aunt, Happy, and Pepper there to support him along the way because, at the moment, everything feels unbearable. All he can do is try and trust it when the other adults in his life assure him that Tony will recover.

[Excerpt Below the Cut]

It was Friday afternoon and Peter was sitting at his desk dutifully scratching out the notes his teacher had projected onto the board in front of him. As he did so, his foot was eagerly tapping under his desk. There were only a few hours left in the school day and as soon as it was over he would be swinging himself towards the Avengers Tower to see Tony. 

The man had been gone on a mission for days. When it had first come up it had caused a great deal of tension between the two of them because Tony had been adamant that Peter not come along. It was going to be a long, rough mission and Peter had school. Final exams were coming up soon and the man wanted him to be there to review the material with his class. "I don't care that you think you already know it all! School comes first, kid. You're not coming. Period," Tony had shouted as Peter tried to hold his ground. He was supposed to be an Avenger in training but after having been left out of the last several assignments because of school he was starting to feel less and less like a part of the team and more like some sort of a mascot. Yet no matter how much he pleaded, Tony wouldn't relent. ‘Kid. There will be other missions and as soon as the right one comes up, I'll let you know. This isn't it. It's too risky. Just, just go to school and I'll see you on Friday. I promise to tell you all about it, yeah? ’ All Peter had been able to do was nod his head because he knew he'd already lost that fight. So, rather than continuing to shout, he hugged his mentor good-bye and told him he would be there the second school let out for the weekend.

So that's where he was now, anxiously waiting for the bell to ring so that he could dart out of the building and swing to Tony who would no doubt be waiting for him with a large pizza or maybe some kind of sandwich. All he knew was that there would be something there for him to snack out as Tony regaled him with every exciting detail of everything that had taken place while he'd been away. Just as his mind was starting to drift away from the extensive notes he was meant to be taking he was jolted out of his thoughts by a voice booming over the intercom. "I need Peter Parker to report to the front office please and have him bring his things with him," the tinny voice called out causing all heads to turn towards him.

The teacher waved his hand towards Peter to indicate that he didn't feel the need to repeat the message that they'd all clearly heard and went back to droning on and on about the American Revolution. His mind felt tangled with worry and confusion as he began to rapidly cram all of his items into his bag. He couldn't think of one reason why the office would be calling him, let alone why they would feel he needed to bring all of his things with him. Tony would never pick him up from school early and he didn't know of any appointments that May would be coming to collect him for, leaving him with no other rational ideas.

On his way down the hall, he'd managed to convince himself it was nothing to worry himself over but upon walking into the office Peter's heart dropped down into his stomach. May was standing there and that wouldn't have been so troubling had Happy not been standing a half step behind her. He locked eyes with them immediately and while May tried to offer him a cautious smile, Happy's features remained decidedly pained. Suddenly every casual thought about forgotten appointments or unexpected paperwork flew out of his head and were replaced by mild panic. "Wh-what's going on? What are you doing here?" he asked carefully.

Happy swallowed and turned his head, while May reached out a hand towards him. "Let's not do this here, Sweetie. Come on, the principal said we could use his office," she replied in her most gentle voice. The voice she only used when the news was going to be devastating and all at once dread filled his chest cavity like ice water.

By the time Happy was closing the office door behind them, Peter had been able to once again find his words. "It's about Tony. Isn't it," he whispered, having already inferred what was going on. It was the only reason that both Happy and May would be there. The only reason why they would look so-scared to talk to him and when they both nodded in the affirmative his mind went to places he'd never imagined they would go. The idea that Tony could die on a mission had never crossed his mind until that moment. "Is, is he-?" he breathed out, unable to get any further. His tongue had gone numb and his head was starting to swim.

[Continue Reading on AO3]

[sixstringphonic]

OpenAI Fears Get Brushed Aside

(A follow-up to this story from May 16th 2023.) Big Tech dismissed board’s worries, along with the idea profit wouldn’t rule usage. (Reported by Brian Merchant, The Los Angeles Times, 11/21/23) It’s not every day that the most talked-about company in the world sets itself on fire. Yet that seems to be what happened Friday, when OpenAI’s board announced that it had terminated its chief executive, Sam Altman, because he had not been “consistently candid in his communications with the board.” In corporate-speak, those are fighting words about as barbed as they come: They insinuated that Altman had been lying. The sacking set in motion a dizzying sequence of events that kept the tech industry glued to its social feeds all weekend: First, it wiped $48 billion off the valuation of Microsoft, OpenAI’s biggest partner. Speculation about malfeasance swirled, but employees, Silicon Valley stalwarts and investors rallied around Altman, and the next day talks were being held to bring him back. Instead of some fiery scandal, reporting indicated that this was at core a dispute over whether Altman was building and selling AI responsibly. By Monday, talks had failed, a majority of OpenAI employees were threatening to resign, and Altman announced he was joining Microsoft. All the while, something else went up in flames: the fiction that anything other than the profit motive is going to govern how AI gets developed and deployed. Concerns about “AI safety” are going to be steamrolled by the tech giants itching to tap in to a new revenue stream every time.

It’s hard to overstate how wild this whole saga is. In a year when artificial intelligence has towered over the business world, OpenAI, with its ubiquitous ChatGPT and Dall-E products, has been the center of the universe. And Altman was its world-beating spokesman. In fact, he’s been the most prominent spokesperson for AI, period. For a highflying company’s own board to dump a CEO of such stature on a random Friday, with no warning or previous sign that anything serious was amiss — Altman had just taken center stage to announce the launch of OpenAI’s app store in a much-watched conference — is almost unheard of. (Many have compared the events to Apple’s famous 1985 canning of Steve Jobs, but even that was after the Lisa and the Macintosh failed to live up to sales expectations, not, like, during the peak success of the Apple II.)

So what on earth is going on?

Well, the first thing that’s important to know is that OpenAI’s board is, by design, differently constituted than that of most corporations — it’s a nonprofit organization structured to safeguard the development of AI as opposed to maximizing profitability. Most boards are tasked with ensuring their CEOs are best serving the financial interests of the company; OpenAI’s board is tasked with ensuring their CEO is not being reckless with the development of artificial intelligence and is acting in the best interests of “humanity.” This nonprofit board controls the for-profit company OpenAI.

Got it?

As Jeremy Khan put it at Fortune, “OpenAI’s structure was designed to enable OpenAI to raise the tens or even hundreds of billions of dollars it would need to succeed in its mission of building artificial general intelligence (AGI) … while at the same time preventing capitalist forces, and in particular a single tech giant, from controlling AGI.” And yet, Khan notes, as soon as Altman inked a $1-billion deal with Microsoft in 2019, “the structure was basically a time bomb.” The ticking got louder when Microsoft sunk $10 billion more into OpenAI in January of this year.

We still don’t know what exactly the board meant by saying Altman wasn’t “consistently candid in his communications.” But the reporting has focused on the growing schism between the science arm of the company, led by co-founder, chief scientist and board member Ilya Sutskever, and the commercial arm, led by Altman. We do know that Altman has been in expansion mode lately, seeking billions in new investment from Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds to start a chip company to rival AI chipmaker Nvidia, and a billion more from Softbank for a venture with former Apple design chief Jony Ive to develop AI-focused hardware. And that’s on top of launching the aforementioned OpenAI app store to third party developers, which would allow anyone to build custom AIs and sell them on the company’s marketplace.

The working narrative now seems to be that Altman’s expansionist mind-set and his drive to commercialize AI — and perhaps there’s more we don’t know yet on this score — clashed with the Sutskever faction, who had become concerned that the company they co-founded was moving too fast. At least two of the board’s members are aligned with the so-called effective altruism movement, which sees AI as a potentially catastrophic force that could destroy humanity.

The board decided that Altman’s behavior violated the board’s mandate. But they also (somehow, wildly) seem to have failed to anticipate how much blowback they would get for firing Altman. And that blowback has come at gale-force strength; OpenAI employees and Silicon Valley power players such as Airbnb’s Brian Chesky and Eric Schmidt spent the weekend “I am Spartacus”-ing Altman. It’s not hard to see why. OpenAI had been in talks to sell shares to investors at an $86-billion valuation. Microsoft, which has invested more than $11 billion in OpenAI and now uses OpenAI’s tech on its platforms, was apparently informed of the board’s decision to fire Altman five minutes before the wider world. Its leadership was furious and seemingly led the effort to have Altman reinstated. But beyond all that lurked the question of whether there should really be any safeguards to the AI development model favored by Silicon Valley’s prime movers; whether a board should be able to remove a founder they believe is not acting in the interest of humanity — which, again, is their stated mission — or whether it should seek relentless expansion and scale.

See, even though the OpenAI board has quickly become the de facto villain in this story, as the venture capital analyst Eric Newcomer pointed out, we should maybe take its decision seriously. Firing Altman was probably not a call they made lightly, and just because they’re scrambling now because it turns out that call was an existential financial threat to the company does not mean their concerns were baseless. Far from it.

In fact, however this plays out, it has already succeeded in underlining how aggressively Altman has been pursuing business interests. For most tech titans, this would be a “well, duh” situation, but Altman has fastidiously cultivated an aura of a burdened guru warning the world of great disruptive changes. Recall those sheepdog eyes in the congressional hearings a few months back where he begged for the industry to be regulated, lest it become too powerful? Altman’s whole shtick is that he’s a weary messenger seeking to prepare the ground for responsible uses of AI that benefit humanity — yet he’s circling the globe lining up investors wherever he can, doing all he seemingly can to capitalize on this moment of intense AI interest.

To those who’ve been watching closely, this has always been something of an act — weeks after those hearings, after all, Altman fought real-world regulations that the European Union was seeking to impose on AI deployment. And we forget that OpenAI was originally founded as a nonprofit that claimed to be bent on operating with the utmost transparency — before Altman steered it into a for-profit company that keeps its models secret. Now, I don’t believe for a second that AI is on the cusp of becoming powerful enough to destroy mankind — I think that’s some in Silicon Valley (including OpenAI’s new interim CEO, Emmett Shear) getting carried away with a science fictional sense of self-importance, and a uniquely canny marketing tactic — but I do think there is a litany of harms and dangers that can be caused by AI in the shorter term. And AI safety concerns getting so thoroughly rolled at the snap of the Valley’s fingers is not something to cheer.

You’d like to believe that executives at AI-building companies who think there’s significant risk of global catastrophe here couldn’t be sidelined simply because Microsoft lost some stock value. But that’s where we are.

Sam Altman is first and foremost a pitchman for the year’s biggest tech products. No one’s quite sure how useful or interesting most of those products will be in the long run, and they’re not making a lot of money at the moment — so most of the value is bound up in the pitchman himself. Investors, OpenAI employees and partners such as Microsoft need Altman traveling the world telling everyone how AI is going to eclipse human intelligence any day now much more than it needs, say, a high-functioning chatbot.

Which is why, more than anything, this winds up being a coup for Microsoft. Now it has got Altman in-house, where he can cheerlead for AI and make deals to his heart’s content. They still have OpenAI’s tech licensed, and OpenAI will need Microsoft more than ever. Now, it may yet turn out to be that this was nothing but a power struggle among board members, and it was a coup that went wrong. But if it turns out that the board had real worries and articulated them to Altman to no avail, no matter how you feel about the AI safety issue, we should be concerned about this outcome: a further consolidation of power of one of the biggest tech companies and less accountability for the product than ever.

If anyone still believes a company can steward the development of a product like AI without taking marching orders from Big Tech, I hope they’re disabused of this fiction by the Altman debacle. The reality is, no matter whatever other input may be offered to the company behind ChatGPT, the output will be the same: Money talks.

[rooting-for-the-anti--hero]

NPC LIST

Aiden Mertz - Quarterback for the Florida Gators - Older Brother of AJ Mertz - 27 - FC: Diego Barrueco

Aiden is going to college in Florida on a football scholarship. He’s a fairly famous person and is well-loved by his parents. Because he was ‘normal’ and a good athlete, their parents usually let AJ fall to the wayside and didn’t often care for her. He is cruel and rough with her, and doesn’t care if he hurts her. He is the reason she got kicked out of her house.

Arkadiusz Wyrzykowski - Business Associate of Gregory Chadwick - Married To Justyna Wyrzykowski - 29 - FC: Kristof Pituk

Arkadiusz is a business associate of Gregory’s, as they work for the same organization. The pair were on a three year long mission in Poland to replace a politician with a choice pick from their organization’s lead, pretending to be married. They rarely got along when not in public, and Justyna pretended to be a maid at the estate they were planted at so she could still be around her then boyfriend. Arkadiusz and Gregory do not often see eye to eye, and now Gregory would prefer not to see him at all. Arkadiusz did not help his mental health for several reasons.

Carol McCormick - Mother of Kevin, Kenny, and Karen McCormick - Ex-Wife To Stuart McCormick - 46 - FC: Jamie Lee Curtis

Carol McCormick became the sole parent to their kids when Stuart was arrested four years previous. Karen was the only one of their children that still lived at home, but the house became different once he was gone. Carol maintains that she was the abused one, when she was just as much at fault as her ex-husband. She served him divorce papers after he went to prison, and the proceedings gave her her divorce and custody of Karen. She is somewhat close with Kevin and his kids,. A mouse of a man started dating her, only to give her an STD and leave when she started showing terminal symptoms. Kevin and Karen have been caring for her, though Karen only does it out of obligation to her brother.

Charlotte Chadwick - Wife of Jameson Chadwick - Mother of Gregory Chadwick - 47 - FC: Cate Blanchett

Charlotte always has to be the best at everything that she does, and has passed this on to her son in the form of making him a perfectionist. She is very controlling of her son, and has to make sure that he is the absolute best. Very often, her and her husband fight, because she is close with Mole’s mother. Their abuse stretches to Gregory, as well. Wine is her drink of choice, and Gregory is convinced she doesn’t drink anything else. She prefers Mole to her son, and refuses to accept that he is gay. Instead of trying to hook Gregory up with a Good Girl, she keeps trying to hook Mole up.

Christie McCormick - Wife of Kevin McCormick - Mother of Gil and Fauna McCormick - 29 - FC: Debi Mazar

Christie is Kevin’s wife, as she made herself “homeless” in order to avoid being served the divorce papers. She stays with her parents when not harassing Kevin and their children, and is waiting for the day he lays hands on her. She will physically and verbally abuse their children and has hit Kevin on more than one occasion. She has made false reports to CPS in hopes of getting the kids taken away from their good home and put into hers so she can “do God’s work” and end them. Kevin despises her.

Crofton Banks - Father of Pete Thelman - Ex-Boyfriend to Lily - 54 - FC: Lane Davies

Crofton is Pete’s father, and Lily’s ex-boyfriend. She was pregnant at 18, he was 24, and Crofton stayed with her and Pete until Pete was 3. He then couldn’t take lying to his family about why he wasn’t willing to marry Lily. He fled one night without a word, took a plane to New York, and never looked back. He left them with money for rent the next month, and to cover food and other expenses. He is a trust fund baby and never worked because he had to, but because he wanted to. He met his current fiancé while doing contracting for the mechanic he worked for.

Dennis Kennedy - Ghost; Lover to Arthur - Died in 2019 - 57 - FC: Jeffrey Dean Morgan

Dennis died of a brain aneurism at the age of 57, with no family in South Park and nobody to take care of his end-of-life expenses, he was taken care of by Father Maxi. He paid funeral costs and performed his funeral himself. Now, Dennis roams the graveyard, and has formed a very strong emotional relationship with Arthur, both in his proper timeline and in the current one he finds himself in. He’s usually in the graveyard, and so is Arthur, so they can spend time together. 

Filmore Anderson- Homoflexible Biromantic Polygamous Cis Male - 20 - FC: Aaron Bernards

With his familial ties to Rosie O’Donnel, Filmore managed to become something of a child actor. He worked in Hollywood, moving with his family, from first to eighth grade, and then moved back to South Park. His father was involvedin a scandal that killed his acting career. However, he wanted to stay in entertainment, and chose to be a Youtuber through the rest of school. He continues to do that and his music work on the side.

Jameson Chadwick - Husband to Charlotte - Father of Gregory Chadwick - 49 - FC: Daniel Craig

Jameson is a hard man to get along with. He is very business oriented and will not accept failure. His beliefs have also transferred to his son in a desperate attempt for approval. However, it is hard to gain, and he has never been very favorable of his son. He is very homophobic, due to thinking his wife is cheating on him with Mole’s mother. However, it could also be that he has had bisexual leanings in the past, and he refuses to accept that part of him.

Jeremy Smith - Father of Georgi and Firkle Smith - Husband to Marie - 42 - FC: Christopher Dennis

Jeremy can be rather cruel and neglectful to Firkle, but adores Georgi like they’ve never done anything wrong. While his abuse to Firkle was never physical, that didn’t stop Firkle from hating him. Georgi is not fond of their parents, either, because of how they treat Firkle. Marie is the one that pulls all the strings, and he just lets her take control.

Marie Denton-Smith - Mother of Georgi and Firkle Smith - Wife to Jeremy - 45 - FC: Maggie Gyllenhaal

Marie never wanted Firkle, only Georgi. When he came out sickly, she honestly hoped he’d die. And then, he just didn’t. She doesn’t care what he does, but when she’s at the house, she expects him to behave. He often doesn’t, and she has hit him and thrown things at him in the past. She is n’t afraid to hurt him and will do it especially if Georgi isn’t around to say something or know about it.

Mimsy Ellison - Asexual Homoromantic Unsure Cis Male - 25 - FC: Jake Sim

Mimsy is a very sweet man who is still rarely seen without Nathan. He does his best to help his longtime friend and semi-boyfriend, though he knows there are things he can’t help him with. They have a strictly romantic relationship. Mimsy enjoys working with his hands and does construction when he’s allowed to work, but for the most part is on disability. Woodworking is a hobby he is very proud of, as well as gardening. No matter who the person is, he is always ready and willing to help them. Despite Nathan’s allergy, he is quick to come home with stray cats that he finds, only to have to be told they cannot keep it.

Nor’Thollia “Thalia ” - Bound To and Caretaker of Firkle and Georgi Smith - VERSE DEPENDENT - Unknown AgeAppears 30+ - FC: Samantha Lemole

A demon summoned by a young Georgi after the purposeful death of her brother, Thalia took the lives of the Smith parents in order to resurrect and preserve Firkle’s. She took over as their caretaker and doctor, and keeps a close eye on Firkle. As much as she cares for Georgi, as well, she is overprotective of him and does not often let him out of her sight after his curfew.

Quaid Thomas - Closeted Bisexual Biromantic Mono/Polygamous Cis Male - 19 - FC: Darwin Gray

Quaid was always lost without Filmore to direct him, and the two remained friends while Filmore was filming early on in school. However, he didn’t have someone to follow in school, so he turned to befriending Ike. It kept his grades afloat, since Ike was so smart, and he managed to make Ike fairly popular. When Filmore returned, it was with open arms, and Quaid put him back at the top of their little group. They remained friends with Ike, however. Quaid is a follower and will do almost anything asked of him by Filmore. He has endlessly bullied Firkle since Kindergarten.

Sawyer Michaels - Stepfather to Pete Thelman - Affianced To Crofton - 37 - FC: Sean Kanan

Sawyer was born to a lower-middle class family that always had to work for whatever they had. His mother and father raised him and his four brothers on his mother’s grandfather’s land. The boys and their father took care of the land, the animals, and the upkeep, while their mother took care of taking eggs and milk from their respective producers. Family is and has always been very important to him, and he encourages Crofton very heavily to try and reconnect with Pete and fix their relationship.

Tuong Lu Kim - Owner and Proprietor of  City Wok, City Apartments, City Motel, City Airlines, City Skate Rink, and City Arcade - 45 - FC: Bai Hai Long

Mr. Kim has become a business tycoon in South Park, thanks to a man name Mr. Chaos. He owns several businesses and a few tracts of land just outside of the town, and a cattle farm that he didn’t slap his name on. He is a landlord, as well as an owner of entertainment and a food establishment, as well as a pilot. He keeps an iron fist on the town, not permitting a single Mongolian into the business sphere, and tries to get others to run any out of town. He will pay good money to anyone that gets rid of them, no matter if it’s making them leave or killing them.

[in-tua-deep]

au where five found out about vanya's powers in the apocalypse? Like maybe he found Reggie's book or he saw the eyes of vanya's corpse?

oh man like. that would be interesting to be sure, if Five managed to find Reginald’s book in the apocalypse

(He doesn’t read it at first, not for a few months after he finds it. He opened to the page that detailed Reginald’s experiments with how long Deigo could hold his breath in clinical unfeeling words and has to put it away while he breathed - not too deeply though, he didn’t want to breathe in more ash than necessary)

But he eventually does. He sits Dolores up and rages and vents to her, cursing Reginald’s name with every new sordid detail, every new terrible sin he now knows to hurl at Reginald’s feet. He reads no great loss under his section and he’s too dehydrated to weep but something breaks inside his chest nevertheless

(He’d never thought that dad loved them, not really. He might have hoped, back when he was little but he knew better now. He was thirteen, old enough to know better. But he’d at least thought that dad found them useful. 

Five had tried to hard, trained so much, been so adaptable. Even then he was no great loss.)

Five finds out from Reginald’s book about Ben’s death. Cold words that describe the way his brother died. Reginald seemed to care more about Ben’s death than Five’s presumed death, but that could be becuase Ben’s power was always bigger than Five’s. More violent. More efficient. Of course Ben was a greater loss, Five’s power wasn’t even inherently useful for fighting.

(Klaus’s power wasn’t useful for fighting either. Reading Dad’s dismissive words calling Klaus a failure makes him bristle. Reading about Reginald locking Klaus away in the mausoleum for days make Five want to hurl the book against the wall.)

Finding out about Vanya is - it’s weird. Vanya was always so ordinary. He loved her of course, for fucks sake he was the only one who cared to interact with her half the time. He loves all of his siblings but he has no illusions about how casually cruel they could be to one another.

But he reads about her powers and clenches his fists and wonders what Reginald would have done if Five had stayed, if Five had kept on his path of rebellion. Would Reginald have drugged him, too?

(Reginald had the power to take their powers away. Five wonders what Klaus thought when he found out, if he had cursed and sworn and raged at the man who watched his son suffer and turn to drugs to deal with seeing things no child should ever see. Reginald had the power to help, and he tortured Klaus instead.)

Because - of course Five assumes that they know. He reads Vanya’s books as well when he comes across it, tucking it into his wagon. He wonders when the truth came out, because the rage that drips from those pages is very real. Vanya doesn’t mention her powers in the book of course, but she would have been what, in her 20s when she wrote it? 

Vanya said in her book that she left home at 18, which means she’s had years to get the drugs out of her system and discover what their father had taken from her. Did she think that they knew? That they had kept it from her? Is that why the pages of her book drip with bone deep hurt, making Five’s fingers shake with the ache of them

(Or it could be the hunger, a now constant companion)

Five keeps both books close, even though he wants to vandilize Reginald’s book half the time. It’s strange to see the insight on them and their powers from the perspective of a scientist, odd to see the written results of the torture they went though

(He almost rips the page on the effects of electricity on his warping powers out on principle, but he just ends up curled around Dolores as he trembles involuntarily at the memories)

Five has so few belongings when he is recruited to the Commission, or at least has very few personal ones. He leaves Dolores behind in the apocalypse with a heavy heart but she’s too big to take with him. Too big to hide.

(Five always learned to only take what you can hide, because what you can’t hide will always be used against you.)

He tucks Reginald’s notebook in the waistband on his pants, the hard edges against his back a constant almost reassuring pressure. Vanya’s book gets pushed into one of his deep pockets. The glass eye gets shoved into his sock the same way he used to hide scavenged bills and quarters he would then place beneath the floorboards of his room

(He wonders absently if his money stash was ever found, but it doesn’t really matter now does it?)

He goes through the Commission with the knowledge that he has a bomb hidden away. As much as he keeps the notebook around out of a sense of sentiment he knows he doesn’t want it to fall into the hands of the commission, doesn’t want them to have this dissection of his powers on hand

(he has so little of his siblings left, just the bitter words of Reginald and Vanya both - the irony is that no matter how much Vanya extolled being excluded she had constantly been by Reginald’s side to write down observations, listening to his words, by his side more than any of them. sometimes he reads Vanya’s vicious words and hears the echo of their father in them. It makes sense. He still hates it, just a little bit)

He writes his equations into Vanya’s book instead of Reginald’s. He doesn’t like to read the red book, only opens it to look at the photos included so that he won’t forget what his siblings look like, tries to ignore the words that detail exactly how much force it takes to pop Luther’s bones out of his oh-so-durable joints

He solves them one day, or at least comes close. Closer than he ever had before, and he figures why not? Time for another little experiment. Who knows? Maybe he’ll add this one to dad’s book.

He pushes, and pushes, and then he falls and he’s in a courtyard he hasn’t seen in decades staring at people he hasn’t spoken to in just as long. He looks at them all with wide eyes

(He looks at Allison and hears his father’s clipped tone stating how Allison in improving at overriding survival instincts, he looks at Luther and hears Vanya’s childish voice accusing him of caring more about being a hero than anything else in his life, including his family, he looks at Klaus and sees a face covered in ash and blood with unseeing eyes)

He looks down at himself and sees smaller hands with smoother skin, absent of the burn marks from the variety of fires he’d set in the apocalypse, absent of the crooked knuckles from when he’d crushed two fingers in some rubble trying to get to a can of food, absent of the cracked and brittle nails from malnutrition and food issues

“Shit.” He says, with feeling.

He can feels the press of the glass eye against his leg, the solid weight of Vanya’s book in his pocket, the edges of Reginald’s notebook digging into his skin as he hauls himself off the ground and into a standing position.

They have a family meeting in the kitchen.

Sort of. Five flits about, snagging bread and peanut butter and marshmallow fluff from the cupboard to make himself a sandwich, trying to avoid looking too desperately eager. He hasn’t had his favorite food in so long that the anticipation is actually insane.

“What’s the date?” Five asks, and learns that he doesn’t actually have all that long until the end of the world. But hey, it’s doable. Probably. Unless the reason the world ended was like, political nuclear war or something? But there would probably be survivors of that somewhere, so it was more likely something bigger scale.

(It has to be something he can stop, or this was all for nothing. He refuses to believe he doesn’t have a chance.)

“Cool, so like, the world is ending.” Five says, because why the fuck not? He has all his siblings in one room (except Ben, he has failed Ben, will always have failed Ben because he’s a coward who couldn’t return to a time when Reginald Hargreeves was alive) and he has Reginald and Vanya’s words pressed into his brain, “We have eight-ish days to fix that.”

“Five, what the hell are you talking about?” Luther demands.

Five waves his hand, “Dad sucked, I time-travelled, the end is nigh. I figured even you could grasp that.”

(His eyes ghost over Luther, skittering about the room. He can’t look at Luther’s body without remembering the cruel diagrams pain stakingly inked into the book as Reginald grumbled about failed experiments.)

“You went to the future?” Diego says, voice full of doubt that make his voice harsh. It’s so much deeper than when Five left, no more of the cracks of puberty.

“No shit.” Five says, and he’s so tired. “I was in that hellscape for forty-five years.”

“Forty-five years?” Diego squawks, as though he’s personally offended.

“That would make you... fifty-eight?” Luther’s voice also has doubt in it, and Five can’t really blame him looking at his squishy little barely teenage body.

“Dad was right,” Five manages to get out without gritting his teeth, “Time travel is a crapshoot and sometimes your body does fun and wacky things on you, blah blah blah trees and acorns.”

“Prove you’re from the future!” Klaus demands, eyes bright as he leans across the table, “What’re the lotto numbers, baby brother?”

“I think they’re ‘fuck you the world had already ended by the time I ended up stuck there,’ Klaus.” Five says, mock thoughtfully before tearing off a chunk of his sandwich.

It tastes like ash and peanut butter. Only Five’s genuine trauma regarding food waste and the fact that most things tasted like ash in the apocalypse have him still chewing his food and swallowing.

“Rude.” Klaus says, making a ‘blat’ noise in disappointment.

“Dad’s rich as fuck, wasn’t him kicking the bucket essentially like winning the lottery?” Five points out, and this time it is Luther squawking at him in disapproval.

“Don’t talk about Dad like that!” He demands, and Five has some more uncharitable thoughts about the way Luther’s arms flex just a little unnaturally underneath that big trenchcoat.

“I like this version of Five better.” Klaus declares, looking like Christmas has come early.

“Dad was murdered and you guys don’t even care.” Luther spits out, looking very offended.

“You were murdered and I care very much about that.” Five retaliates, and the entire kitchen goes quiet.

“Can you elaborate a little, Five?” Allison says, ever the diplomat.

(That’s a lie. Allison started more fights than Diego, probably. She just got caught way less often.)

“Well. I mean, I dunno if murdered is the right word considering everyone was dead. You might have just been collateral damage, who knows? Does murder imply intent?”

“Everyone was dead?” Vanya says, voice very quiet.

Five shrugs, then nods, then shrugs again. He doesn’t like thinking about it. “Yeah, but that’s not going to happen this time.”

“I don’t have time for this nonsense.” Luther mutters, and Five valiantly tries to ignore him. 

“Five, are you - are you sure you’re alright?” Vanya’s voice wobbles and she looks like she wants to reach out and hold him or something ridiculous like that. She looks at him with big sad brown eyes, “Dad did say that time travel could... mess with you a little.”

Allison nods and oh, Five does not have time for this bullshit. 

“I have proof.” He says, and he reaches back and pulls out Reginald’s red notebook and slams it onto the table.

“Is that Dad’s - ” Luther cuts himself off, looking at the notebook with wide eyes.

It is very clearly beaten up to hell and back. Ash has stained the edges of the pages grey and there may or may not be a gouge across the front from a near miss with a bullet while working at the commission. It is a book that has clearly been through hell.

Five also dig’s Vanya’s equally beaten up book from his pocket to dump on the table as well, equally stained with ash and barely held together after being read over and over again for decades, including being used as a notebook in the final years.

(Vanya lets out a little gasp, hand flying up to her mouth with the knowledge that at least one of her siblings read her book. Certainly not the one she thought it would be.)

Five reaches into his sock to pull out the glass eye triumphantly, setting it down on his small stack of treasures.

“What the fuck?” Diego is the one to ask.

“If I time travelled from that day in 2002 to right now, how the fuck would I have Vanya’s book?” Five says triumphantly, “It came out in 2015.”

“Why do you have an eye?” Allison sounds slightly horrified.

“It’s the key to figuring out who caused the apocalypse.” Five says, turning it over in his hands, “It’s gotta have something to do with it at least.”

“Why does he have Dad’s notebook?” Luther demands, sounding equally outraged.

“Found it.” Five shrugs, like the little scavenger he is.

(Emphasis on little. His suit still almost fits, and reading the numbers in Reginald’s notebook versus seeing how fucking tall all his siblings got in person is frankly unfair.)

“Oh my god, okay.” Allison says, throwing her hands up in the air like they’re all nuisances. It’s a familiar Allison look, and Five actually feels a little soothed by the memory. “So the world is ending, Five is back from the dead, and our only clue is a goddamn eye?”

“I was never dead.” Five points out, “But basically, yeah.”

“I don’t have time for this, I have to get back to my daughter.” Allison says, shaking her head.

“I mean if you want Claire to live I would think stopping the apocalypse would kind of be a priority.” 

This draw Allison to a halt from where she’d been gathering herself to leave, “You... know her name?”

Five makes the executive decision to not mention the torn out magazine cover featuring his sister and niece that is pressed between some of the pages in Reginald’s journal. “I’d like to meet her one day.”

Just like that, Allison has been won over.

“Do you think it has something to do with whoever murdered Dad?” Luther asks seriously, even if the question makes Diego groan like this is an argument they have had before.

“Who knows?” Five shrugs, “But if we’re splitting into investigation teams, I call Vanya.”

Vanya startles from where she has been sitting quietly, “Me?” She asks, eyes wide.

“Yeah.” Five nods, “I mean, with Ben gone you’re probably the team’s heaviest hitter.”

“What?” Several voices ring out in confusion.

Five blinks, a little confused himself. Unless - “Wait, did you never train your powers?”

“Five,” Vanya says slowly, like she’s explaining a simple concept to a particularly dim child, “I don’t have powers.”

This was - this was unexpected. Why did he not think of this explanation? It’s just - he has now known about Vanya’s powers for like way longer than he hasn’t. It’s almost second nature to think of Vanya as having powers by now. And she doesn’t know.

“Oh boy.” He says, picking up Reginald’s notebook, “This debriefing may take a bit longer than I first thought. Oh, and at some point we should probably cut the tracker out of my arm as well.”

“The what out of your what?”

Yeah the day doesn’t really get much better from there.

[fatehbaz]

M*sk in 2018, speaking about Boca Chica: “We’ve got a lot of land with nobody around, and so if it blows up, it’s cool.” M*sk in September 2019, at an event in Boca Chica: “We are working with the residents of Boca Chica Village because we think over time it’s going to be quite disruptive. [...] So probably over time it’s better to buy out the villagers.”

Space/X launch site; the mouth of the Rio Grande; the Gulf Coast; Laguna Atasacosa National Wildlife Refuge; three newly proposed major fossil fuel export terminals; the US’s only known resident ocelot populations; and the US-Mexico border all meet at this one site near Brownsville. In May 2019, on a mission to create “the commercial version of Cape Canaveral” (which M*sk says would eventually host 3 launches per day, which would require up to 10 billion pounds of rocket fuel use per year) the company filed federal paperwork to transform the location from merely a launch site to a “testing” and “experimental” site as well, which was significant enough to increase its insurance liability $3 million to $100 million. The company is now buying out the entire community of Boca Chica, with around-the-clock constant noise, construction, etc.

Text and photo excerpts below from Rachel Monroe, “El*n M*sk, His Rocket, and the Grand Scheme that Tore Apart Boca Chica.” Esquire. 27 February 2020.

Excerpt:

M*sk has said that he’d like to see as many as three launches a day from Boca Chica. “I did the calculation -- that’s more than nine billion pounds of fuel per year,” said Dave Mosher, a reporter for Business Insider who covers Space/X. “I don’t think you can get the fuel there fast enough.” Even so, in 2013, at a hearing before the appropriations committee of the Texas state legislature, M*sk laid out his vision for “the commercial version of Cape Canaveral.” He was there to support two bills intended to lure Space/X to the state. One would reduce a private space company’s liability in the case of a nuisance complaint; the other, written by the congressman from Brownsville, would empower county officials to deny access to public beaches when “spaceflight activities” were on the calendar. In his speech, M*sk was by turns encouraging and coy. “Texas is our leading candidate right now,” he told the room. But also, “any support Texas can offer will be helpful.” Perry signed both bills into law. [...]

According to Brownsville’s then mayor, Tony Martinez, M*sk told him, “One day, you are going to read that a man left Brownsville and went to Mars.” [...] Riding high on his promise of economic expansion, M*sk didn’t encounter much resistance. The city, county, state, and University of Texas system put together an incentive package worth nearly $40 million. “El*n says ‘Man, you guys need a new airport.’ Even though he doesn’t fly commercial,” Martinez recalled.  [...]

Last May [2019], the company quietly filed paperwork with the FAA indicating that its plans for Boca Chica had changed. Instead of being a commercial launch site to send Falcon rockets into orbit, it was now home to Space/X’s “experimental test program,” through which the company would design and build Starship. And because Starship was now central to Space/X’s vision of its future, Boca Chica was, too. The government required the company to up its liability insurance from $3 million to $100 million, [...] but otherwise approved the pivot. None of this was immediately apparent to the people of Boca Chica, however. [...]

At the end of September [2019], when tensions were at their peak, the residents of Boca Chica Village received a message from Space/X. The private space company was publicly unveiling its new spacecraft here, at the southeastern tip of Texas, and they were invited. The gesture came as a surprise. Earlier that month, homeowners in this tiny community [...] had received another letter from Space/X, via Fed/Ex. “Expansion of spaceflight activities,” it read, “will make it increasingly more challenging to minimize disruption.” Given the company’s ambitions -- massive and, as the residents had come to learn, always shifting -- Space/X wanted to buy their homes. [...] By mid-fall [2019], Boca Chica Village began to fracture. The homeowners who had accepted the buyout offered in September felt judged by the holdouts; the holdouts felt betrayed by the sellers. [...] Boca Chica will soon be less a “poor people’s beach” or a community [...] than a busy industrial corridor. Indeed, the beginnings of a liquefied-natural-gas export facility at the Port of Brownsville are already visible on the horizon. [...] As with so many of M*sk’s visions, it seemed at once difficult to take seriously and dangerous to dismiss.

[End of excerpt.]

-----------------

More news from July 2020:

[sitp-recs]

hi friend. what are your softest recs for someone in need of comfort? -primavera

Hi friend! First of all, big hugs to you 💗 just the other day someone asked for romantic fics and while my definition of romantic is probably different than others, I’ve put together a few of my favorite soft/comfort fics here. I’d also add these gems:

Thermodynamic Equilibrium by @dorthyanndrarry (2017, Teen and Up, 5k)

Harry's far too hot. Draco's always cold. And somehow against all odds, together they create a perfect equilibrium.

Ice Snakes, Glow-worms and Wolverine Stew by khalulu (2015, Mature, 8.4k)

Harry Potter apparently wants to talk to Draco about something, but odd events keep getting in the way of that conversation – and bringing them closer together. Featuring serpentine travels, misbehaving birds, dubious roofing projects, a gay beach, and an unexpected matchmaker.

Tidings of Comfort by @blamebrampton (2012, General, 10k)

When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life. Luckily for Draco Malfoy, London has places where the tired can rest and recover.

Love, Actually, is All Around by @punk-rock-yuppie (2020, Teen and Up, 10k)

It's Christmastime, and Harry has just started as the new Minister of Magic. It just so happens that Draco works in his office as well, a holdover from Kingsley's tenure. Naturally, love is in the air.

A Song, Incomplete by RurouniHime (2013, Explicit, 11k)

Draco’s photograph took up the entire top half of the Prophet’s front page. Below the photo: DRACO MALFOY DEFENDS SON OF FORMER LOVER. As if that were breaking news.

Solve Us Like a Mystery by tryslora (2013, Teen and Up, 12k)

When Harry stops in at the bookstore where Draco works, they find a surprising shared interest in mysteries. Draco doesn't expect to see Harry again, and he definitely doesn't expect to become the subject of unexpected investigation that may endanger the life of his unborn child, and at the same time, may bring him the kind of happiness he never thought he'd have after the war.

Stealing Sweaters by @dorthyanndrarry (2017, Teen and Up, 13k)

It's their eighth and final year and over the course of several months, Harry and Draco have managed to become close friends. Their friends are entirely certain that they ought to be much, much more. So they just decide to... help things along.

Countdown by dysonrules (2014, Mature, 14k)

When the Wizarding world is plagued by random outbreaks of Dark Magic, the Ministry assigns Curse-Breakers to assist Auror teams on their missions. Harry shouldn't be surprised when Draco Malfoy is assigned to his team, but is Malfoy a Curse-Breaker, or a curse-bringer?

How We Throw Our Shadows Down by thistle_verse (2017, Teen and Up, 14k)

Draco has finally found the perfect, rare piece to complete his collection. The only problem is that the item belongs to Harry Potter, the last wizard on earth Draco wants to ask another favour from.

All Roads Lead Home by @dracogotgame (2015, General, 15k)

Draco is strong-armed into spending the first Christmas after the War with the Weasleys. And Harry Potter.

White as Snow by @bixgirl1 (2018, Explicit, 19k)

After a quick escape from danger, Harry and Draco find themselves trapped in a blizzard, a small cabin their only refuge from the storm. It's the perfect place to recover and regroup — and to have a long-overdue conversation or two.

Nice Things by aideomai (2020, Mature, 22k)

The first thing that happened was Theodore Nott came back from France.

On the Turning Away by @blamebrampton (2014, General, 25k)

It’s one thing to be good at not making a besotted fool of yourself over a man when he's busy being the most famous wizard in the world and you're tucked away quietly in Wiltshire. It's quite another when you have to see him every morning.

Faint Indirections by ignatiustrout (2019, Teen and Up, 29.7k)

Draco Malfoy is the last person Harry expects to turn up in Boston, Massachussetts. But now he's here, and he won't stop requesting books from the library where Harry works.

I'll Floo Home for Christmas by jadepresley (2017, Teen and Up, 39k)

The Ministry Christmas party is the biggest event of the year and Harry absolutely does not want to plan it, and he certainly, one hundred percent, does not have a crush on Draco Malfoy.

Like Lightning at your Fingertips by potterwatch (2019, Teen and Up, 43k)

The problem with living with another insomniac is, eventually, they find out you’re an insomniac, too. When Harry and Draco return for their eighth year, they think they’ll see very little of each other. Then McGonagall assigns them to room together. And the castle starts breaking. And there’s that thing with Potter’s magic.

Seeker, Chaser, Keeper by VivacissimoVoce (2013, Mature, 59k)

Rumor has it that a wealthy investor is starting up a brand new professional Quidditch team and he’s looking for players. Harry and Draco both want to make the team, but there can be only one Seeker. Will competing for the position bring them closer or drive them further apart?

Little Deaths and How to Avoid Them (or Draco Malfoy's Guide to Stop Dying and Start Living Instead) by dustmouth and nerakrose (2018, Teen and Up, 96k)

Malfoy is way too interested in coroner reports for somebody who's definitely not looking for ways to die, Harry wants to be friends with him, and Ginny wants to break up with Harry. Features: Little League Quidditch, an abundance of bath bombs, happy endings, and gay robots in space.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

August 18, 2021

Heather Cox Richardson

It is still early days, and the picture of what is happening in Afghanistan now that the Taliban has regained control of the country continues to develop.

Central to affairs there is money. Afghanistan is one of the poorest countries in the world, with about half its population requiring humanitarian aid this year and about 90% of its people living below the poverty line of making $2 a day.

The country depends on foreign aid. Under the U.S.-supported Afghan government, the United States and other nations funded about 80% of Afghanistan’s budget. In 2020, foreign aid made up about 43% of Afghanistan’s GDP (the GDP, or gross domestic product, is the monetary value of all the goods and services produced in a country), down from 100% of it in 2009.

This is a huge problem for the Taliban, because their takeover of the country means that the money the country so desperately needs has dried up. The U.S. has frozen billions of dollars of Afghan government money held here in the U.S. The European Union and Germany have also suspended their financial support for the country, and today the International Monetary Fund blocked Afghanistan’s access to $460 million in currency reserves.

Adam M. Smith, who served on the National Security Council during the Obama administration, told Jeff Stein of the Washington Post that the financial squeeze is potentially “cataclysmic for Afghanistan.” It threatens to spark a humanitarian crisis that, in turn, will create a refugee crisis in central Asia. Already, the fighting in the last eight months has displaced more than half a million Afghans.

People fleeing from the Taliban threaten to destabilize the region more generally. While Russia was happy to support the Taliban in a war against the U.S., now that its fighters are in charge of the country, Russia needs to keep the Taliban’s extremism from spreading to other countries in the area. So it is tentatively saying supportive things about the Taliban, but it is also stepping up its protection of neighboring countries’ borders with Afghanistan. Other countries are also leery of refugees in the region: large numbers of refugees have, in the past, led countries to turn against immigrants, giving a leg up to right-wing governments.

Canada and Britain are each taking an additional 20,000 Afghan women leaders, reporters, LGBTQ people, and human rights workers on top of those they have already volunteered to take, but Turkey—which is governed by strongman president Recep Tayyip Erdogan—is building a wall to block refugees, and French President Emmanuel Macron asked officials in Pakistan, Iran, and Turkey to prevent migrants reaching their countries from traveling any further. The European Union has asked its member states to take more Afghan refugees.

In the U.S., the question of Afghan refugees is splitting the Republican Party, with about 30% of it following the hard anti-immigrant line of former president Donald Trump. Others, though, especially those whose districts include military installations, are saying they welcome our Afghan allies.

The people fleeing the country also present a problem for those now in control of Afghanistan. The idea that people are terrified of their rule is a foreign relations nightmare, at the same time that those leaving are the ones most likely to have the skills necessary to help govern the country. But leaders can’t really stop the outward flow—at least immediately—because they do not want to antagonize the international community so thoroughly that it continues to withhold the financial aid the country so badly needs. So, while on the streets, Taliban fighters are harassing Afghans who are trying to get away, Taliban leaders are saying they will permit people to evacuate, that they will offer blanket amnesty to those who opposed them, and also that they will defend some rights for women and girls.

The Biden administration is sending more personnel to help evacuate those who want to leave. The president has promised to evacuate all Americans in the country—as many as 15,000 people—but said only that we would evacuate as many of the estimated 65,000 Afghans who want to leave as possible. The Taliban has put up checkpoints on the roads to the airport and are not permitting everyone to pass. U.S. military leaders say they will be able to evacuate between 5000 and 9000 people a day.

Today, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark A. Milley tried to explain the frantic rush to evacuate people from Afghanistan to reporters by saying: “There was nothing that I or anyone else saw that indicated a collapse of this army and this government in 11 days.” Maybe. But military analyst Jason Dempsey condemned the whole U.S. military project in Afghanistan when he told NPR's Don Gonyea that the collapse of the Afghan government showed that the U.S. had fundamentally misunderstood the people of Afghanistan and had tried to impose a military system that simply made no sense for a society based in patronage networks and family relationships.

Even with Dempsey’s likely accurate assessment, the statement that U.S. military intelligence missed that a 300,000 person army was going to melt away still seems to me astonishing. Still, foreign policy and national security policy analyst Dr. John Gans of the University of Pennsylvania speculated on Twitter that such a lapse might be more “normal”—his word and quotation marks—than it seems, reflecting the slips possible in government bureaucracy. He points out that the Department of Defense has largely controlled Afghanistan and the way the U.S. involvement there was handled in Washington. But with the end of the military mission, the Defense Department was eager to hand off responsibility to the State Department, which was badly weakened under the previous administration and has not yet rebuilt fully enough to handle what was clearly a complicated handoff. “There have not been many transitions between an American war & an American diplomatic relationship with a sovereign, friendly country,” Gans wrote. “Fewer still when the friendly regime disintegrates so quickly.” When things started to go wrong, they snowballed.

And yet, the media portrayal of our withdrawal as a catastrophe also seems to me surprising. To date, at least as far as I have seen, there have been no reports of such atrocities as the top American diplomat in Syria reported in the chaos when the U.S. pulled out of northern Syria in 2019. Violence against our Kurdish allies there was widely expected and it indeed occurred. In a memo made public in November of that year, Ambassador William V. Roebuck wrote that “Islamist groups” paid by Turkey were deliberately engaged in ethnic cleansing of Kurds, and were committing “widely publicized, fear-inducing atrocities” even while “our military forces and diplomats were on the ground.” The memo continued: “The Turkey operation damaged our regional and international credibility and has significantly destabilized northeastern Syria.”

Reports of that ethnic cleansing in the wake of our withdrawal seemed to get very little media attention in 2019, perhaps because the former president’s first impeachment inquiry took up all the oxygen. But it strikes me that the sensibility of Roebuck’s memo is now being read onto our withdrawal from Afghanistan although conditions there are not—yet—like that.

For now, it seems, the drive to keep the door open for foreign money is reining in Taliban extremism. That caution seems unlikely to last forever, but it might hold for long enough to complete an evacuation.

Much is still unclear and the situation is changing rapidly, but my guess is that keeping an eye on the money will be crucial for understanding how this plays out.

Meanwhile, the former president of Afghanistan, Ashraf Ghani, has surfaced in the United Arab Emirates. He denies early reports that he fled the country with suitcases full of cash.

—-

Notes:

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/18/world/asia/ashraf-ghani-uae-afghanistan.html

https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/afghanistan/overview

https://asiatimes.com/2021/08/the-root-of-russias-fears-in-afghanistan/

https://www.sigar.mil/pdf/quarterlyreports/2021-07-30qr-section2-economic.pdf#page=14

https://www.reuters.com/article/usa-afghanistan-funding-int/u-s-other-aid-cuts-could-imperil-afghan-government-u-s-watchdog-idUSKBN2B72WJ

https://www.dw.com/en/eu-will-have-to-talk-to-taliban-but-wary-of-recognition/a-58890698

https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2021/08/17/treasury-taliban-money-afghanistan/

https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2021/08/18/business/afghanistan-lithium-rare-earths-mining/index.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/russia-taliban-afghanistan-putin/2021/08/17/af53a9ec-ff4c-11eb-87e0-7e07bd9ce270_story.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/08/18/afghanistan-kabul-taliban-live-updates/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/aid-groups-warn-of-possible-refugee-crisis-in-afghanistan-far-beyond-western-evacuation-plans/2021/08/18/0d7094fc-0058-11ec-825d-01701f9ded64_story.html

https://www.npr.org/2021/06/21/1008656321/how-does-the-u-s-help-afghans-hold-on-to-gains-while-withdrawing-troops

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/08/18/afghanistan-kabul-taliban-live-updates/

https://www.reuters.com/world/canada-accept-20000-vulnerable-afghans-such-women-leaders-human-rights-workers-2021-08-13

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/07/us/politics/memo-syria-trump-turkey.html

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/08/18/afghan-refugee-debate-fractures-gop-506135

​​https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/18/politics/us-must-rely-on-taliban-for-evacuation/index.html

John Gans @johngansjrFrom what I'm seeing and hearing, the reasons for the mess in Afghanistan might be far more 'normal' than many are suspecting/suggesting -- driven more by typical pathologies in government & Washington. More to be learned. But a few thoughts. 1/x

533 Retweets2,195 Likes

August 18th 2021

https://www.npr.org/2021/08/15/1027952034/military-analyst-u-s-trained-afghan-forces-for-a-nation-that-didnt-exist

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[ozzdog12]

2020 Top 7 (and 1)

2020 am I right? We saw an insane amount of games come out and 2 brand new consoles. What a wild and weird year for gaming, and life in general. In case you are relatively new here, and to be honest that would be completely fair considering I don't post very often on Tumblr anymore, every year going on the last 4 years (on here) I have done a Top 7 (& 1) for my favorite videogames of the year. Check out 2019, 2018, & 2017. What’s wild, as I look back on my list of games that I’ve completed and played, only maybe 10 came out this year. 2020 was a huge backlog year. 

Lets get on with the ‘And 1!”

Favorite Game that Didn’t Come out in 2020: Control (PS4)

Control may very well have been my 2019 Game of the Year, had I played it in 2019. I LOVED Control. I wanted to play it in 2019, but initial reports that it was a little rough on base consoles put me off until it was fixed. And Holy smokes what an insanely fun and trippy game once I finally started it. I knew within the first 20 minutes this was going to be the shit when I went down a hall, walked into a room and talked to the “janitor” left out a door behind him and the entire building had shifted. I’ve always liked Remedy games, but from a distance. Max Payne 1&2 and Alan Wake all oozed with weirdness and intrigue, but never enough for me to finish them. I missed out on Quantum Break. The story is Control is just the right amount of mind f*!$ for me and builds a universe I didn’t know I needed. It take some time to piece everything together, then everything just clicks. The game does have a weird difficulty spike when fighting bosses and the checkpoints were too far apart at times, but those were later patched. I spent an insane amount of time within the Federal Bureau of Control building and even more time after that with the Foundation and AWE DLC and it STILL wasn’t enough. I wanted more. Outside of Prey, I can’t think of another game that stuck in my brain more after I’d finished it. Control is absolutely a MUST PLAY title. In a world where everything sort’ve feels similar, Control stands out of the crowd.

Number 7: Astro’s Playroom (PS5)

I never thought in my wildest dreams that a game I had almost zero interest in playing would end up on my list of favorite games this year. Astro’s Playroom is being labeled as a ‘Tech demo’ but that feels like an insult to what it is. It’s a full fledged game and its free! I’ve paid more for less. A charming little platformer that lives and breathes the history of the Playstation. So many cool Easter eggs and references. It certainly centers its gameplay around the DualSense controller and everything it can do, but at its core, its a completely approachable and forgiving 3D platformer. I played it just to see what it was about, next thing i knew I had completed all the levels and wanted to further explore all the nooks and crannies within the game. I wanted to see everything the game had to offer and I had an absolute blast doing so. Makes me kinda wish I’d played the previous game on PSVR (I’d have to have a PSVR too)

Number 6: Spider-Man: Miles Morales (PS5)

Another quality title, albeit a spin-off, from Insomniac to add to their Spider Man universe. Gameplay felt obviously like Spider-Man, but Miles has unique abilities that made the game feel different enough, especially the cloak and stealth. I enjoyed the fact that it was short and concise. The issue with most ‘open-world’ games is that they are entirely too bloated with unnecessary filler content (I’ll get to that in a later game), something I felt the first game suffered from, but I also understand why they are there. However I could’ve use one or two more story missions to help flesh out some characters, but it wasn’t required and didn’t change my opinion one way or the other. My one BIG gripe was with Miles himself. He is an extremely smart young kid, but so incredibly naïve. Peter Parker tells him the one thing he SHOULD NOT do is tell people he is Spider-Man. I get it, that’s part of his growth, but Miles thinks he can just solve his problems by revealing his identity and it almost certainly never works out. 

Number 5: The Last of Us: Part 2 (PS4)

The Last of Us Part 2 may be the most polarizing game in the history of the medium, but for the absolute wrong reasons. I’m in the minority that I very much enjoyed my experience with TLOU2, quite a bit actually. Its better in every single way over its predecessor, except the overall story. There are plenty of fair criticisms to be had about the story and various things within the game itself, but I thought the gameplay was so tight and crunchy. There were genuine moments of suspense and terror that I felt that no other game has ever given me. The entire hospital section (2nd time) was so susensful, I had to put my controller down to gther myself. Some of my favorite moments in the series I experienced with a character I wasn’t overly fond of. How many games can do that? The Last of Us Part 2 was meant to invoke emotion, not necessarily joy. I think that's what people lost along the way. Say what you will about the direction Naughty Dog has taken over the years, but you would be hard pressed to find a studio that makes games graphically better than they do. Yes, I know about their crunch culture, but this is not a place for that. I will say, the game was a tad bit too long, which is not something it typically say for a single player, narrative driven game. The pacing and the way the story was told wasn’t my favorite, but I respect what it was trying to do, even if it failed in some aspect of that, I finished the game within the week it was released. Something I RARELY ever do. I’m a father and I related with Joel a lot in TLOU, but I also recognized how wrong he was. There is a lesson to be learned. Your actions always have consequences and while he was doing what he thought was the right thing, it wasn’t his choice to make, and in doing so set up a series of events that were entirely avoidable, but again, that’s the point isn’t it?

Number 4: Grindstone (Switch)

I’m counting this as a 2020 game since it just came to the Switch this year ( less than a month ago) but its not the first time I’ve played it. Grindstone was the only reason I kept my Apple Arcade subscription and when I let it lapse, there was a void I just couldn’t fill. I bought Puzzle Quest on Switch but it just wasn't the same. Its THE perfect game for bite sized play, even though in its addictive nature, you’ll clear a few levels and an hour has passed before you know it. It has the perfect amount of depth that most ‘match’ games don't. You have different weapons, items, and outfits w/perks to use and experiment with to keep it fresh. I went months without playing my Switch and when this was announced in August, I couldn’t wait! Sadly, I had to wait 3 months, but since then I have spent so much time on the Switch. It gave me a reason to play it again. The art style and humour is great. The variety of enemies and challenge is just right. I can’t recommend it enough. Seriously, check this game out!

Number 3: Doom Eternal (Xbox One)

I will be the first to tell you, I did not like Doom (2016). I found it extremely boring and trite. I understood what Doom(2016) was doing and it succeeded, maybe too much. Nostalgia is a helluva thing. So in saying that, I was mildly interested in Doom Eternal. Doom Eternal is nothing like 2016 outside of it being a Doom game that connects to the rest of them (& also being a sequel to 2016). The mechanics are drastically different with more platforming (for better or worse). Eternal is challenging, at times very hard, especially early on. Eternal has no respect for its players, in a weirdly good way. It laughs at how you’ve played FPS before this one and WILL MAKE you play it its way, not your way. Yes, you point and shoot, but ammo is scare and you MUST use everything in your arsenal. No more using just 2 guns for the whole game. The enemies are relentless. Sometimes you have to pause and take a breath after a battle because you go a 100 mph for the whole fight. You have to continuously move or you die. There is an enticing rhythm to it. I categorize Eternal as ‘Blood Ballet’. Its a game where when your feeling it, much like a rhythm game, you get in the zone and there is no stopping demons from getting slayed. Surprisingly, unlike most games in the genre, it seemed to get easier (sans one extremely frustrating platforming section late in the game) the longer you played it. Was that a testament that I ‘learned’ the Eternal way or it truly did get easier? I don’t know, but the final Boss(es) were....easy.. I had more problems and deaths within the first 4 hours than I did the final 8-9 hours. The multiplayer was also surprisingly fun. The older I get, the less interested I am in multiplayer, but I found myself coming back for more for a good month or so. 

Number 2: Gears Tactics (Xbox One)

As 2020 comes to a close, I came to a stunning realization. I might be a bigger Gears of War fan than I had previously thought. Don’t get me wrong. I love Gears, but I seem to love Gears more than I thought. I'm way more invested into the lore than I recall. Anyways, Gears Tactics is everything XCOM 2 SHOULD’VE been. Not only does Gears Tactics utilize the Overwatch action, its makes it EXTREMELY important. The story revolves around the father of Kait Diaz, Gabe and a ragtag group of mostly random soldiers to take down Ukkon. Anyone who is remotely interested in the Gears universe will love the story and references. The gameplay is just so damn satisfying. The bosses are very challenging and different. I actually had to change my strategy to finish the final boss. I experimented with a totally different style of class and was rewarded for it. The post game stuff is also aplenty. This game scratched a VERY specific itch for me and I’m itchy to jump back in. I’m glad this came to Xbox One because I’m current computer could not run it.

Number 1: Ghost of Tsushima (PS4)

I have a very odd relationship with massive open world games. I love them, but I get very burnt out on them. They all have a relatively same-y formula and are often populated with bloat. GoT does have some of that but to its advantage, its not very populated, in a good way. One of the things that I really appreciated about GoT and its side quest is most of them felt meaningful. The thing that really stood out to me about GoT is the absolutely satisfying combat. It just feels SO GOOD. It requires timing and patience. There are different fighting styles for different enemies and even the armor you wear is more than just cosmetic. The combat is so fun and satisfying that I was immediately excited when they announced Legends, a multiplayer add on, for free. Its so much fun and is a blast to play with a group of friends. I’m sporadically still playing the Legends mode. I initially wanted to play the game in ‘Kurosawa’ mode but I am glad I didn’t because the game, even on the PS4 is stunning, and on the upgrade on PS5 is jaw-droppingly smooth. I did play the entire game in Japanese with English subtitles. I still don't know what Jin’s English voice sounds like. GoT does a good job a drip feeding you new abilities and things to keep things fresh. I love stealth and once I unlocked it, I spent the majority of every battle taking out as many enemies as I could while in stealth mode. Ghost of Tsushima does a lot of things very well, that the few things it doesn’t can be easily overlooked.

[eryiss]

Eryiss Fanfiction: 2017 - 2021

2022 - Present Fanfics

Multi-Chapters & Long-Shots

Opposition, Attraction (Freed x Gajeel) - 21/9/2021

Freed and Gajeel were total opposites in every way, only connected by the guild. When they were forced to train together under Makarov's orders, they expected antagonism and mistrust. Instead, they were given a lesson in how quickly opposition can turn to attraction. The issue: let the budding relationship simmer away, or let it explode. [Canon Divergent | Complete | 42k Words]

Education in Wizardry and Romance (Fraxus) - 14/7/2021

Freed knew he had a lot to learn about being a professional wizard, and when he was paired up with Laxus for a mission he expected to learn a lot. He didn't expect to spend a day with him in a hot tub, and he certainly didn't expect to get an entirely unrelated education about life and about love. [Canon Verse | Fraxus Week 2021 | 7k]

Albion House (Fraxus) - 14/1/2021

Freed and Laxus live incredibly different lives. Freed is a corporate lawyer in the capital city, and Laxus works as a handyman in a countryside hotel. Despite their differences, their lives collide when Freed inherits a house in Laxus' village, and hires him to make the derelict building liveable. But the closer they get, the more they seem to offer each other. [Modern AU | Complete | 54k Words]

Once Dead, Now Judged (Fraxus) - 5/9/2020

Freed The Dark has never had the respect of the other Gods. But when war breaks out, his lover Laxus is taken away from him and his friends are forced into the fight, he finds his grasp on who he is slipping, and old resentments are brought forward. In his seclusion, he is forced to find out who he really is and what he's capable of. [Mythical Gods AU | Event Fic | 23k Words]

Canyon Bound (Fraxus) - Completed 21/7/2020

After a crappy post-college first year, Laxus jumped at the opportunity to leave town for a week for a road trip with his friends. He intended it just to be a week away with his friends, but when he meets an unfamiliar stranger, the vacation turns into something much more. [Modern AU | Complete | 27.2k Words]

Wrestlers Retrospective (Fraxus) - 26/6/2020

Laxus Dreyar and Freed Justine are two of the most famous and influential sportsmen in Fiore, revolutionising the culture of modern wrestling. In this unique, exclusive retrospective, two of the most powerful people in the sport speak of controversy, succeeding in wrestling, and finding love while doing so. [Modern AU | 18.1k Words]

Eight Days In Transit (Fraxus) - 5/4/2020

Laxus’ life has always been hard, and he has to make tough decisions. One such decision leads him onto a luxury train to Paris which he doesn’t have a ticket for. He’s stranded on the vehicle, with no money and no plan. And then he discovers Freed Justine, a writer who offers him a chance to survive this damn situation. [Victorian AU | Complete | 22.0k Words]

A Vow To Protect (Fraxus) - 15/3/2020

Laxus Dreyar, prince of Fiore, has been trapped in the town of Magnolia for months by order of his grandfather. After a failed attempt at leaving ends up with the prince injured, his grandfather punishes him by adding a new guard to his retainer team. An arrogant, up-tight, overly confident, handsome bastard named Freed Justine. [Fantasy AU | Complete | 37.6k Words]

The Life of His Deskmate (Fraxus) - 26/4/2019

Laxus Dreyar: Reporter for Fairy Tail and member of an elite group of investigative journalists: The Raijinshuu. When trying to get evidence to bring down a criminal family, he finds himself at the wrong end of a gun and is saved by someone he didn’t believe existed. A vigilante who is closer to Laxus than he could ever imagine. His deskmate: Freed Justine. [Superhero Au | 22k Words]

Blade Of The Wanderer (Fraxus) - 18/2/2019

Laxus’ life was fine. Not comfortable, not as good as it could be. Then a stranger entered the walled town of Magnolia, a stranger named Freed Justine, and everything changed. [Samurai AU | Complete | 31.8k Words]

Gambler’s Luck (Fraxus) - 30/12/2018

A drunken night at a bar; that’s how it always starts. A few shots, some self loathing and a decision you would never make when sober. But for Laxus Dreyar, the morning after doesn’t include regret, copious amounts of aspirin and a stranger in his bed. For he only made one drunken decision, becoming the personal driver for professional gambler - Freed Justine. [Modern AU | Complete | 141.1k Words]

The Captain’s Charm (Fraxus) - 20/7/2018

Freed Justine: infamous captain of the ship Raijinshuu and pirate of the seven oceans. Laxus Dreyar: faceless night in a society he doesn’t belong in. Fate brings them together, but will the knight succumb the the captain’s charms [Pirate AU | Complete | 10.7k Words]

Fairy Tail: Drabble Collections

A Sprint, Not A Marathon (Freed x Jet)

Freed finds eyes drawn to Jet after returning from Tenrou, and he doesn't understand why. Jet has opened his heart to new opportunities, and it pulls him towards Freed. A chance of fate, and a pushy friend, pull these two men together and kickstart a romance neither man could have anticipated. [Canon Verse | Ongoing]

Rare Pair Week Submissions (Multiple Ships)

A Collection of one shots, SFW and NSFW, for different Rare Pair Ships: Laxus x Gajeel, Freed x Mard Geer, Bickslow x Freed & Loki x Hibiki. [Canon Verse, 12k Words]

Christmas Drabbles 2021 (Fraxus, Gajeed, Fraxeel)

A series of short Drabbles and fanfics that were written for the week before Christmas, with a few different ships and a few different universes. [Varied Verses | 10.2k Words]

Pride Month One Shots (Fraxus, Freed x Gajeel)

As part of the Fairy Tail ‘I Take Pride In What I Am’ event. I had written 30 short one shots, half of them for Fraxus. These included canon compliant, modern AU and Victorian fanfics. They can all be navigated by master list linked above, and there’s individual summaries of each of them. [Varied Verses | 34.4k Words]

Smut Drabbles (Fraxus)

A collection of multiple smut based adult drabbles. These were all based off a smut based prompt list. Individual summaries of these drabbles can be found in the links above. [Canon | N S F W | 22k Words]

Fairy Tail: One-Shots [SFW]

Two Types Of Nightlife (Bickslow x Natsu | Freed x Gray) - 31/12/2021

Bickslow and Natsu are the kind of men who thrive in a nightclub, so of course they gravitate towards each other. Without words they’re dancing, flirting, and maybe something more. Gray and Freed do not belong in a nightclub, but they can make the best of a bad situation. Lamenting over bad friends and a bottle of champagne, maybe the night might not be so bad after all. [Modern AU | Thunder Legion Rare Pair Week | 2.7k Words]

King of His Dreams (Freed x Mard Geer) - 30/12/2021

After his death, Mard Geer Tartarus only lived in the minds of his demons. Where his other demons killed his remnants, Freed allowed him to remain. Now, two years later, they meet in Freed's dreams, converse, toy with each other and flirt. Not a situation either expected, but they both find it rather enjoyable. [Canon Divergent | Thunder Legion Rare Pair Week | 2.4k Words]

Best Of A Snowy Situation (Fraxus, Raijinshuu BROTP) - 5/11/2021

Freed had not been looking forward to returning home for Thanksgiving, so when a snowstorm left him stranded on campus he had been delighted. But his three roommates weren't going to be happy, and it fell to him to make sure the day would not be terrible. And with a good meal, roasted marshmallows, and a vicious snowball fight, he managed to do just that. If only he wasn't so utterly distracted by Laxus Dreyar. [College AU | Raijinshuu Building | 4.9k Words]

Sick, Spooked, Surprised (Fraxus, Raijinshuu BROTP) - 31/10/2021

Bickslow loved Halloween; he always had. So when his first Halloween in college happened when he was sick, he was less than pleased. But thankfully, his new roommates were kind of amazing and knew how to make it up to him. [College AU | Raijinshuu Building | 3.5k Words]

The Day It Began (Fraxus, Raijinshuu BROTP) -14/10/2021

Moving into college can be difficult, but for the newest occupants of The Raijinshuu Building, it's a particular struggle. After all, a disenchanted musician taking an engineering degree, a wannabe influencer at college for the aesthetic, a pretentious academic who secludes himself in his room, and a party boy looking for a good time aren't an obvious group of friends. Not without a nudge, anyway. [College AU | Raijinshuu Building | 4.6k Words]

Set To Boil (Fraxus) - 15/8/2021

Forced to be sociable by his so called friends, Laxus finds himself attending a five week cooking class. An insulting and stupid idea, and one he resents them for doing. He would have thrown it in their faces, if it weren’t for the smug prick teaching the class, with his handsome face, delectable body, and annoyingly enticing way of keeping Laxus on his toes. [Modern AU | 6k Words]

Part Of The Party (Fraxus) - 9/8/2021

Laxus has returned to the guild, but is still scared of not being accepted. Freed does what he can to help, and insists that Laxus attend some of the events held in the guildhall. Over the course of a year, and four different parties, the guild starts feeling like home again. And Freed, well... Freed has something to confess. [Canon Divergent | 4.2k Words]

The Masters Of Magnolia House (Fraxus) - 21/7/2021

Magnolia House was an odd place. Owned by the reclusive madman Dreyar, and run by his supposed lover Freed, getting an invitation was seen as a death sentence. So when the letter arrived at Lucy's door after months of anonymous blackmail, she felt her life was over. How wrong she was. [Aristocracy AU | Fraxus Week 2021 | 9.2k Words]

The London School For Delinquent Boys (Fraxus) - 20/7/2021

Sent away to a delinquents academy, Freed knew life wouldn't be easy. That was proven to be the case when he met Laxus, a cocky, aggressive arse who used his fists over his words. At least, that's what he thought when they first met, but things can change over the span of a year. [Boarding School AU | Fraxus Week 2021 | 4.2k Words]

From The Fields Of Italy (Fraxus) - 19/7/2021

Being personal security for the president, Laxus always had to be alert, particularly in a foreign country. This would be fine, if it weren't for the beautiful waiter who kept catching his eye at every moment. [Bodyguard AU | Fraxus Week 2021 | 2.5k Words]

A War To Be Ridiculed (Fraxus) - 18/7/2021

Perhaps having an affair with Russian spy in the middle of the cold war wasn't a good idea, particularly when Freed worked for the American Secret Service. But it was fine, America and Russia were never going to actually fight. Killing those they saw as traitors, however, was apparently a different story. [Cold War AU | Fraxus Week 2021 | 4.1k Words]

Four Ways To See The Dawn (Fraxus) - 17/7/2021

Long distant relationships are difficult, made worse when it's between two men in different colleges. But Freed and Laxus will make it worse, and if secret phone calls late in the night are what's needed then that's what they'll do. [College AU | Fraxus Week 2021 | 3.8k Words] Off The Moral Path (Fraxus) - 16/7/2021

Being a demon was boring, particularly in peacetime. For Freed, passing the time consisted of sneaking into nightclubs and forcing men off the moral path. Thankfully, the angel with beautiful wings and almost rigid set of morals was always there to make things interesting. [Angel/Demon AU | Fraxus Week 2021 | 2.2k Words]

THE S0U1MATE SYSTEM (Fraxus) - 15/7/2021 THE S0U1MATE SYSTEM. A week-long experience guaranteed to find you your soulmate. Laxus had dismissed it as nothing but crap, and brought himself a ticket to prove it. It would have gone well, if it weren’t for the handsome guy running the program who kept catching his eye. [Futuristic AU | Fraxus Week 2021 | 8.5k Words]

The Life of a Song (Fraxus) - 06/6/2021

Being a rockstar, Laxus had to endure far too many chat shows. Usually he would grin and bear it, let the pointlessness of it roll off his back, but not this time. He was alone, forced to keep his budding relationship with Freed secret, and done with it. Fucking done with it all! But he had a way to fix it, and all it would take was a little courage. [Modern AU | 3.8k Words]

The Man I’ve Become (Fraxus) - 29/5/2021

Laxus was a complex man, and sometimes he would have days where his mood drops, and his self-esteem takes a nosedive. But Freed knows how to help him. How better to raise a man's opinion of himself than to show him how he's perceived through the eyes of the man he loves. [Canon Verse | 2.8k Words]

The Biker In The Parking Lot (Fraxus) - 28/1/2021

There had only been one reason he had come to the damn school reunion, and that had been to catch up with Freed. What he had expected was Freed to be the big city lawyer he always wanted to be. What he had not expected was him to be wearing a brilliant leather jacket, adorned with piercings and tattoos, and riding a spectacular motorbike. [Modern AU | 4.7k Words]

A Splash Of Reality (Fraxus) -  18/1/2021

Freed has taken great joy in watching Laxus become not only a powerful mage, but a celebrity as well. As any dutiful husband would, he saw it his responsibility to make sure Laxus' new found fame didn't go to his head. And what better way to accomplish that than to splash him back to reality. [Canon Verse | 2.8k Words]

The Training Retreat  (Fraxus, Nalu) - 16/3/2020

With the Grand Magic Games fast approaching, Freed suggested that he, Laxus, Lucy and Natsu train together for a week. In the isolation of a forest, the two couples get closer and unlikely friendships are made as their magic improves. [Canon | Request | Contains Nalu | 4k Words]

Portrait of a Lightning God (Fraxus) - 22/1/2020

With a crappy job and no financial support, Laxus needs money. On Bickslow and Evergreen’s advice, he goes for an audition to model for the reclusive painter Freed Justine. A man he knows nothing about, but finds himself enthralled by. [Modern AU | Request | 4.7k Words]

A Pattern of Dots and Dashes (Fraxus) - 19/1/2020

Laxus has always been good at seeing patterns. So when Freed starts to tap out a pattern, Laxus can’t help but pick up on it. The more he thinks about it, the more it drives him crazy. But as he looks into what this pattern means, he starts to realise just how romantic his boyfriend can be. [Canon Verse | Request | 2.7k Words]

Both Addictive and Electric (Fraxus) - 10/1/2020

After finishing filming for the final season of the fantasy series Fairy Tail, Laxus finds himself at a party. Across the dancefloor is Freed, a co-star and a man who Laxus respects more than any other actor. But his feelings are more than just respect, and the space separating them is an ocean, but Laxus wants to change that. He just needs some time. And courage. [Acting AU | Request | 2.5k Words]

Walking Through the Year (Fraxus) - 21/7/2019

The walk to and from the guildhall had always been something that Freed had taken for granted. But now, dating Laxus and sharing that walk with him, he found himself enjoying the scenic pathways more than he could have expected. [Fraxus Week | Canon Verse | 4.4k Words]

Feast of the Dragons (Fraxus) - 20/7/2019

After a fire takes place at the girls dorm, Wendy finds herself sleeping in a guildmates house until something more permanent can be organised. After waking up to Laxus entering the unfamiliar house, the young woman finds something new about her guildmates and shares a midnight snack with the unfamiliar dragon slayer. [Fraxus Week | Canon Verse | 4.2k Words]

A Complicated Type of Hope (Fraxus) - 19/7/2019

Sitting in his bed, Laxus beside him, Freed’s mind starts to wonder. He thinks back to the first time he met the man he would fall in love with, and the hope that came with that meeting. A complicated type of hope, but hope none the less. [Fraxus Week | Canon Verse | 3.7k Words]

Solace and Steam (Fraxus) - 18/7/2019

Having been given a second chance to become an S-Class mage, Freed had put his focus on making himself strong. The issue was that he overworked himself, and Laxus couldn’t deal with it anymore. So what else could he do but take his husband to a hot spring to relax? [Fraxus Week 2019 | Canon Verse | 3.7k Words]

A Second First Date (Fraxus) - 17/7/2019

After a continuous steam of bad things happening, Laxus finds himself in an almost constant bad mood. Not wanting his husband to feel like this for any longer, Freed devises a plan to cheer up the man he loves. All he needs to do is have a second first date with the man.  [Fraxus Week 2019 | Canon Verse | 3.6k Words]

Late Night Drinks (Fraxus) - 16/7/2019

On a seemingly unassuming mission, Freed and Laxus’ lives change when the former proposes to the latter. After returning, one of the first things they decide to do is celebrate their engagement with a group of their close friends and family. [Fraxus Week 2019 | Canon Verse | 4k Words]

The Beasts of Fairy Tail (Fraxus) - 15/7/2019

The idea of performing a Unison Raid had previously felt unattainable for Freed and Laxus. But after hearing stories of their guildmates managing to perform the spell, the two powerful men make it their goal to do the same. [Fraxus Week 2019 | Canon Verse | 3.7k Words]

The Champagne Suite (Fraxus) -  17/3/2019

On the one year anniversary of their wedding, Freed and Laxus chose to go on a vacation to the beautiful town of Akane. Their love as strong as they day they wedded, they find themselves in the luxury Champagne Suite. [Modern AU | 2k Words]

A Night On The Cobbles (Fraxus) -  16/1/2019

The streets of Magnolia have always been beautiful, more so in the dead of night. After a day of drinking and celebrating Makarov’s birthday, Freed and Laxus find themselves alone on the cobbled streets of their home town, and get caught up in the beauty of it. [Canon Verse | 2.8k Words]

The Heart Grows Fonder (Fraxus) - 20/7/2018

After months without so much of a conversation, Freed gets a letter from the exiled Laxus asking for a meeting. During their reunion, they will both come to the conclusion that distance makes the heart grow fonder. [Fraxus Week 2018 | Canon Verse | 4.3k Words]

A Spectacle For All (Fraxus) - 21/7/2018

When called upon by the organisers of the Grand Magic Games to entertain the crowds during the day of rest, Laxus and Freed indulge in a stage match and truly make a spectacle for all. [Fraxus Week 2018 | Canon Verse |4.6k Words]

Thought’s of an Old Man (Fraxus) - 22/7/2018

Freed and Laxus are soon to wed, and they have called upon Makarov Dreyar to write a speech for their reception. The old man faces some difficulty with getting out the right words, but when he manages to listen to his heart he makes something beautiful. [Fraxus Week 2018 | Canon Verse | 4.9k Words]

A Patchwork Romance (Fraxus) - 23/7/2018

During a difficult mission, Freed is injured and Laxus is called upon to patch him up. As a form of distraction, the two begin to talk about the times they have taken care of each other throughout the years. [Fraxus Week 2018 | Canon Verse | 3.9k Words]

Our Lives In Print (Fraxus) -  24/7/2018

While moving some old boxes from the attic, Laxus discovers one filled with old Sorcerer Weekly editions, all containing articles about Freed, Laxus or the Raijinshuu. As he and Freed start to read through them, they reminisce about the years and about their relationship. [Fraxus Week 2018 | Canon Verse | 3.5k Words]

Stories of the Stars (Fraxus) -  25/7/2018

When a calm evening alone in a forest leads to Freed and Laxus resting under the stars, conversation slowly turns to their opinions on the idea of gods and how they view mythical creatures. [Fraxus Week 2018 | Canon Verse | 2.3k Words]

Solace In Your Arms (Fraxus) - 26/7/2018

The war is over and Laxus is back in Magnolia. But his husband hasn’t yet returned and Laxus finds himself feeling more and more nervous. And then, as the afternoon begins, a train arrives. [Fraxus Week 2018 | Canon Verse | 4.1k Words]

An Evening With Makarov (Fraxus) - 5/11/2017

After being a couple for some time, Freed and Laxus decide to take the next large step in their relationship. But to do this, they need to survive an evening with Makarov. [Fraxus Day 2017 | Canon Vere | 4.1k Words]

The Newest Member (Fraxus) - 5/11/2017

Upon stumbling into the guildhall on a late night, Freed and Laxus happen upon the last thing they expect to see. But when called upon, the men are more than capable of looking after the new, infant member of Fairy Tail. [Fraxus Day 2017 | Canon Verse | 4.1k Words]

The Start of an Eternity (Fraxus) - 5/11/2017

Today is the day. The day they meet at the end of the alter. The day that is theirs and theirs alone. The day where they promise themselves to one another, for and eternity. [Fraxus Day 2017 | Canon Verse | 3k Words]

Teasing and Treachery (Fraxus) - 5/11/2017

On a vacation in one of the most romantic places in Magnolia, Evergreen and Bickslow are sure they can nudge Freed and Laxus into finally getting together. The only problem: Freed and Laxus are together, and are well aware of their teammate’s previous nudges. [Fraxus Day 2017 | Canon Verse | 4.8k Words]

Romantic Beginnings (Fraxus) - 5/11/2017

Romance doesn’t come easy to Freed and Laxus. They’ve prioritised other things for all their lives, so it’s not second nature to them. But, on their first date, they decide that maybe romance isn’t such a bad thing. [Fraxus Day 2017 | Canon Verse | 2.6k Words]

By His Bedside (Fraxus) - 5/11/2017

Being a mage, danger is everpresent. But knowing that doesn’t make it any better when you’re at your lover’s bedside, hoping to god they’ll recover but knowing it might not happen. That’s the situation Laxus finds himself in. [Fraxus Day 2017 | Canon Verse | 4.3k Words]

The Nightly Routine (Fraxus) - 20/7/2017

A task by the guild master has driven Freed and Laxus to spend their spare time in separate rooms, much to their displeasure. So when an opportunity arrises for them to have the night off, the leap at the chance. After all, it’s healthy to break the routine. [Fraxus Week 2017 | Canon Verse | 3.5k Words]

Reversal of Fate (Fraxus)  - 21/7/2017

At a low point in his life where everything seems to be on top of him, Freed finds himself sitting alone on his apartment stairs. He finds himself questioning why fate was being cruel to him. But, in a complete reverse to what he expected, fate decides to send Laxus Dreyar to his door. [Fraxus Week 2017 | Modern AU | 4.4k Words]

Overnight Training (Fraxus)  - 22/7/2017

Being apart from your partner is a part of any mages life, it’s normal and unavoidable. But when you have a bad day and your boyfriend is away, walking through a forest in the middle of the night is justified. At least to Laxus Dreyar, it is. [Fraxus Week 2017 | Canon Verse | 2k Words]

A Nervous Habit (Fraxus)  - 23/7/2017

Everyone had a different way of coping with being stressed, Laxus used his music. So here he sat, in a hospital corridor, blasting music through his headphones to distract himself from reality. Just waiting to hear the news about his fiancé. But until then, his world is music. [Fraxus Week 2017 | Canon Verse | 2.1k Words]

When The Games End (Fraxus)  - 24/7/2017

A night of poker can be exhilarating, dramatic and endlessly entertaining. The Raijinshuu’s monthly poker night was something they always looked forwards to. But for Freed and Laxus, what happens after a game of poker can be just as enjoyable as what happens when you play. Even if it’s just sleeping. [Fraxus Week 2017 | Canon Verse | 1.9k Words]

A Day For Spoiling (Fraxus) - 25/7/2017

There are certain moments in a relationship that are special. Landmark moments that only happen once. So when Freed and Laxus Move in together, they decide to celebrate the landmark by spoiling each other rotten. [Fraxus Week 2017 | Canon Verse | 4.1k Words]

Playing By The Pool (Fraxus)  - 26/7/2017

Laxus and Freed could be seen as stoic and only focused on their work. This wasn’t true. they had more than enough of stupid, playful fun with each other. Unlike most of Fairy Tail, however, they reserved these moments for rare occasions. By the pool on their honeymoon, it was the perfect moment to have stupid, playful fun with each other. [Fraxus Week 2017 | Canon Verse |2.4k Words]

The Longest Walk (Fraxus) - 30/1/2017

Laxus was tired, all that was in the way of sleeping was the short walk to his bedroom. But it seemed his rune wielding boyfriend had something else planned. A walk that should have taken minutes at the most became the longest walk of his life. And damn it was the best walk of his life. [Canon Verse | 4.6k Words]

Fairy Tail: One-Shots [NSFW]

How To Seduce Your Rune Mage (Fraxus) - 17/8/2021

Freed and Laxus have always flirted, it's just something they had done. But after Laxus returned from exile, the flirting died away as Laxus re-established his position in the guild. But Laxus finds himself missing the flirting, and knows a way to bring it back. Unfortunately for Freed, it requires more teasing than any one man can take. [Canon Divergent | 5.9k Words]

Many Hands Make For Light Work (Freed x Laxus x Gajeel) - 24/1/2021

Laxus had been stressed for weeks; overworking himself to the point of exhaustion. Being a stubborn man, he refused to accept any help or criticism from anyone. Thankfully, Freed and Gajeel knew exactly how to get his mind of his troubles. After all, what better way is there to achieve a good night's sleep than to be fucked into unconsciousness? [Canon Verse | 3.4k Words]

Reaching Breaking Point (Freed x Gajeel) - 21/1/2021

Two weeks. They had spent two weeks unable to touch one another, to kiss one another, to feel one another. That was why Freed had taken Gajeel to the damn hot spring in the first place: so they could have some time alone. So when half of the guild showed up and kept interrupting them, Freed felt his patience wearing thin. [Canon Verse | 4.2k Words]

Wax and Runes (Fraxus) - 29/9/2020

When Laxus was told he was going to have a romantic dinner with his husband, he expected just that. He didn’t expect to end up on his knees, surrounded by runes, blindfolded and with Freed standing above him. Nor did he expect the use of a candlestick, and the wax it created. [Canon Verse | 2.1k Words]

The Duality of the Cravat (Fraxus) - 25/9/2020

The cravat can be used in many ways. It can be a perfect accompaniment to a formal outfit. In a medical emergency it can be used as an improvised bandage. Or, when you and your boyfriend are fucking, it can be a damned good way to tie him up. This was something Freed knew very well. [Canon Verse | 2.5k Words]

Demon Hunted (Fraxus) - 29/3/2020

It’s Laxus’ birthday, and Freed makes sure it’s a day to remember. His final gift is simple: indulge in Laxus’ most sick and twisted fantasy. So now Laxus stands half naked in a forest, hunted by his demonic husband. [Canon Verse | 2.3k Words]

During The Storm (Fraxus) - 20/10/2017

During a week away from Fairy Tail, Laxus finds himself enraptured by a storm. After Freed mentions his previous opinions of storms, Laxus begins to make comparisons between the mage and his element. Soon, the couple find themselves making love during the storm. [Canon Verse | 3.8k Words]

[all-my-friends-were-glorious]

NPC LIST

Aiden Mertz - Quarterback for the Florida Gators - Older Brother of AJ Mertz - 27 - FC: Diego Barrueco

Aiden is going to college in Florida on a football scholarship. He’s a fairly famous person and is well-loved by his parents. Because he was ‘normal’ and a good athlete, their parents usually let AJ fall to the wayside and didn’t often care for her. He is cruel and rough with her, and doesn’t care if he hurts her. He is the reason she got kicked out of her house.

Arkadiusz Wyrzykowski - Business Associate of Gregory Chadwick - Married To Justyna Wyrzykowski - 29 - FC: Kristof Pituk

Arkadiusz is a business associate of Gregory’s, as they work for the same organization. The pair were on a three year long mission in Poland to replace a politician with a choice pick from their organization’s lead, pretending to be married. They rarely got along when not in public, and Justyna pretended to be a maid at the estate they were planted at so she could still be around her then boyfriend. Arkadiusz and Gregory do not often see eye to eye, and now Gregory would prefer not to see him at all. Arkadiusz did not help his mental health for several reasons.

Carol McCormick - Mother of Kevin, Kenny, and Karen McCormick - Ex-Wife To Stuart McCormick - 46 - FC: Jamie Lee Curtis

Carol McCormick became the sole parent to their kids when Stuart was arrested four years previous. Karen was the only one of their children that still lived at home, but the house became different once he was gone. Carol maintains that she was the abused one, when she was just as much at fault as her ex-husband. She served him divorce papers after he went to prison, and the proceedings gave her her divorce and custody of Karen. She is somewhat close with Kevin and his kids,. A mouse of a man started dating her, only to give her an STD and leave when she started showing terminal symptoms. Kevin and Karen have been caring for her, though Karen only does it out of obligation to her brother.

Charlotte Chadwick - Wife of Jameson Chadwick - Mother of Gregory Chadwick - 47 - FC: Cate Blanchett

Charlotte always has to be the best at everything that she does, and has passed this on to her son in the form of making him a perfectionist. She is very controlling of her son, and has to make sure that he is the absolute best. Very often, her and her husband fight, because she is close with Mole’s mother. Their abuse stretches to Gregory, as well. Wine is her drink of choice, and Gregory is convinced she doesn’t drink anything else. She prefers Mole to her son, and refuses to accept that he is gay. Instead of trying to hook Gregory up with a Good Girl, she keeps trying to hook Mole up.

Christie McCormick - Wife of Kevin McCormick - Mother of Gil and Fauna McCormick - 29 - FC: Debi Mazar

Christie is Kevin’s wife, as she made herself “homeless” in order to avoid being served the divorce papers. She stays with her parents when not harassing Kevin and their children, and is waiting for the day he lays hands on her. She will physically and verbally abuse their children and has hit Kevin on more than one occasion. She has made false reports to CPS in hopes of getting the kids taken away from their good home and put into hers so she can “do God’s work” and end them. Kevin despises her.

Crofton Banks - Father of Pete Thelman - Ex-Boyfriend to Lily - 54 - FC: Lane Davies

Crofton is Pete’s father, and Lily’s ex-boyfriend. She was pregnant at 18, he was 24, and Crofton stayed with her and Pete until Pete was 3. He then couldn’t take lying to his family about why he wasn’t willing to marry Lily. He fled one night without a word, took a plane to New York, and never looked back. He left them with money for rent the next month, and to cover food and other expenses. He is a trust fund baby and never worked because he had to, but because he wanted to. He met his current fiancé while doing contracting for the mechanic he worked for.

Dennis Kennedy - Ghost; Lover to Arthur - Died in 2019 - 57 - FC: Jeffrey Dean Morgan

Dennis died of a brain aneurism at the age of 57, with no family in South Park and nobody to take care of his end-of-life expenses, he was taken care of by Father Maxi. He paid funeral costs and performed his funeral himself. Now, Dennis roams the graveyard, and has formed a very strong emotional relationship with Arthur, both in his proper timeline and in the current one he finds himself in. He’s usually in the graveyard, and so is Arthur, so they can spend time together. 

Filmore Anderson - Homoflexible Biromantic Polygamous Cis Male - 20 - FC: Aaron Bernards

With his familial ties to Rosie O’Donnel, Filmore managed to become something of a child actor. He worked in Hollywood, moving with his family, from first to eighth grade, and then moved back to South Park. His father was involvedin a scandal that killed his acting career. However, he wanted to stay in entertainment, and chose to be a Youtuber through the rest of school. He continues to do that and his music work on the side.

Jameson Chadwick - Husband to Charlotte - Father of Gregory Chadwick - 49 - FC: Daniel Craig

Jameson is a hard man to get along with. He is very business oriented and will not accept failure. His beliefs have also transferred to his son in a desperate attempt for approval. However, it is hard to gain, and he has never been very favorable of his son. He is very homophobic, due to thinking his wife is cheating on him with Mole’s mother. However, it could also be that he has had bisexual leanings in the past, and he refuses to accept that part of him.

Jeremy Smith - Father of Georgi and Firkle Smith - Husband to Marie - 42 - FC: Christopher Dennis

Jeremy can be rather cruel and neglectful to Firkle, but adores Georgi like they’ve never done anything wrong. While his abuse to Firkle was never physical, that didn’t stop Firkle from hating him. Georgi is not fond of their parents, either, because of how they treat Firkle. Marie is the one that pulls all the strings, and he just lets her take control.

Marie Denton-Smith - Mother of Georgi and Firkle Smith - Wife to Marie - 45 - FC: Maggie Gyllenhaal

Marie never wanted Firkle, only Georgi. When he came out sickly, she honestly hoped he’d die. And then, he just didn’t. She doesn’t care what he does, but when she’s at the house, she expects him to behave. He often doesn’t, and she has hit him and thrown things at him in the past. She is n’t afraid to hurt him and will do it especially if Georgi isn’t around to say something or know about it.

Nor’Thollia “Thalia ” - Bound To and Caretaker of Firkle and Georgi Smith - VERSE DEPENDENT - Unknown AgeAppears 30+ - FC: Samantha Lemole

A demon summoned by a young Georgi after the purposeful death of her brother, Thalia took the lives of the Smith parents in order to resurrect and preserve Firkle’s. She took over as their caretaker and doctor, and keeps a close eye on Firkle. As much as she cares for Georgi, as well, she is overprotective of him and does not often let him out of her sight after his curfew.

Quaid Thomas - Closeted Bisexual Biromantic Mono/Polygamous Cis Male - 19 - FC: Darwin Gray

Quaid was always lost without Filmore to direct him, and the two remained friends while Filmore was filming early on in school. However, he didn’t have someone to follow in school, so he turned to befriending Ike. It kept his grades afloat, since Ike was so smart, and he managed to make Ike fairly popular. When Filmore returned, it was with open arms, and Quaid put him back at the top of their little group. They remained friends with Ike, however. Quaid is a follower and will do almost anything asked of him by Filmore. He has endlessly bullied Firkle since Kindergarten.

Sawyer Michaels - Stepfather to Pete Thelman - Affianced To Crofton - 37 - FC: Sean Kanan

Sawyer was born to a lower-middle class family that always had to work for whatever they had. His mother and father raised him and his four brothers on his mother’s grandfather’s land. The boys and their father took care of the land, the animals, and the upkeep, while their mother took care of taking eggs and milk from their respective producers. Family is and has always been very important to him, and he encourages Crofton very heavily to try and reconnect with Pete and fix their relationship.

Tuong Lu Kim - Owner and Proprietor of  City Wok, City Apartments, City Motel, City Airlines, City Skate Rink, and City Arcade - 45 - FC: Bai Hai Long

Mr. Kim has become a business tycoon in South Park, thanks to a man name Mr. Chaos. He owns several businesses and a few tracts of land just outside of the town, and a cattle farm that he didn’t slap his name on. He is a landlord, as well as an owner of entertainment and a food establishment, as well as a pilot. He keeps an iron fist on the town, not permitting a single Mongolian into the business sphere, and tries to get others to run any out of town. He will pay good money to anyone that gets rid of them, no matter if it’s making them leave or killing them.

[heartofether]

Episode 13 - Dog with a Bone TRANSCRIPT

[You can listen to the show wherever you get your podcasts, or go to our “Listen” page if you’re on desktop.]

AUTOMATED VOICE

[INCREASINGLY SLOWLY] Please state your message.

[THEME SONG PLAYS.]

VAL

Three-eyed Frog Presents: The Heart of Ether.

[THEME SONG FADES TO A STOP.]

[PHONE BEEP.]

[INT. AGENTS MAY AND JUNES’ COMPANY VEHICLE, DRIVING INTO DAUGHTLER, WASHINGTON, MIDDAY.]

[THE TWO ARE HEARD DRIVING THROUGH THE TOWN.]

AGENT MAY

This is the audio log of Operation Saturn, phase 1.2. Investigation taking place in Daughtler, Washington, 2019. Set to last for two months minimum. This is day one. Conducted by Agents May and June. All recordings are legal property of the Harper Foundation. Any unauthorized access to these recordings will result in—

AGENT JUNE

[OVERLAPPING] Does Daughtler know no God? That church is crumbling like a communion wafer!

AGENT MAY

Agent June.

AGENT JUNE

I’m just saying! You’d think for a place of worship, they’d take better care of it. Basic maintenance, maybe a new paint job.

AGENT MAY

Well, I guess the people of Daughtler aren’t particularly religious.

AGENT JUNE

Oh, not that I care. I’m an atheist. Raised in a Catholic household, which went about as well as—

AGENT MAY

Look, in the future, could you please avoid speaking over me when we’re recording important information?

AGENT JUNE

What important information? We just got here.

AGENT MAY

Well, if we’re going to be constantly on the record, I would like to maintain some level of professionalism.

AGENT JUNE

Ahh. Hate to break it to you, bud, but if you expect me to shut up for this whole mission, I think you will be greatly disappointed. I am, you see, constantly burdened by great ideas—trust me, it’s exhausting.

AGENT MAY

[SARCASTIC] I’m sure it is.

AGENT JUNE

[AFTER A BRIEF PAUSE, HE SNORTS A LAUGH.] DVD rentals? Dude, who’s renting DVDs in the digital era of pirating—I mean, uh, legally buying and streaming everything online?

AGENT MAY

[DEADPAN] Nice catch.

AGENT JUNE

Anyways, where are we heading first? I’m guessing the motel?

AGENT MAY

Actually, we’re going to make a quick detour. Stop somewhere for a quick interview.

AGENT JUNE

[HE GROANS.] Seriously, dude? We have so much time to do that kind of stuff. Can’t we just, you know, relax for our first day? Settle into Weird Town, USA?

AGENT MAY

I’d like to start this mission off on a good foot. It would be valuable to meet some of the residents, see what they’re like. Besides, this particular individual is important enough that by establishing a relationship early on, it may be beneficial in the long run.

AGENT JUNE

Ugh, fine. Who is our person of the hour, then?

AGENT MAY

Actually, it’s less about the person and more about where they’re living.

[A BEAT.]

AGENT JUNE

Yeah, dude. Obviously. They’re living in Daughtler, Washington. You know, the place we’re investigating?

AGENT MAY

[OVERLAPPING] I mean their house.

Agent June, please, please tell me you know who Bernard Kelly Valencia is.

AGENT JUNE

Obviously, dude! That’s like asking a chemistry student if they know what an electron is. [THEN, UNDER HIS BREATH] Actually, I failed chemistry, so maybe that isn’t the best analogy.

But yeah. Bernard Kelly Valencia. Super weird dude that the entire town was kinda freaked by. Supposedly was well-known among the Ether community for his vast range of research conducted with Dorothy Wood. Nobody actually knows where all that work went after he and Dorothy died, though.

AGENT MAY

Actually, it’s possible some of it was left behind in his own house.

AGENT JUNE

Wait, seriously? Didn’t all of his belongings go to his son afterwards?

AGENT MAY

According to the original house plans, there’s an attic. His son, after leaving the house once and for all, never mentioned there being anything in the attic. This could mean it was just empty, but that fact would have to have been noted at some point. His son was thorough in his complaints about clearing his father’s house, from what we could find. It’s possible nobody ever even bothered to look up there.

AGENT JUNE

So you think he had something in his attic that just never got found?

AGENT MAY

That’s what the Foundation believes.

AGENT JUNE

Alrighty, then. That’s not too bad. We just break into a dead guy’s house and pillage through his attic. I mean, how hard can that be?

AGENT MAY

It’s not that simple. There’s a new tenant living there.

AGENT JUNE

Ahh, I see. Do you think they know?

AGENT MAY

Perhaps. There was a recent missing person report linked to the house—an inspector who the landlord sent out to investigate a supposed mold problem.

AGENT JUNE

Classic.

AGENT MAY

Which leads us to believe that the new tenant is at least familiar with Ether—assuming the mold problem was of supernatural origin, which is probable due to the house’s location and the report filed by the landlord describing the mold: yellow, with an odd scent.

AGENT JUNE

So, what’s our plan? Are we just going to go and ask to search the house?

AGENT MAY

Unfortunately, the Foundation couldn’t acquire a formal search warrant. We’ll have to convince the new tenant to let us in of their own free will.

AGENT JUNE

Who is this person, anyways?

AGENT MAY

Her name is Irene Gray. She’s twenty-one years old. Works as forestry aid.

AGENT JUNE

Do we know anything else about her?

AGENT MAY

Let’s just say the mold inspector isn’t the only missing persons case she’s connected to. Four years ago, an 18-year-old girl named Rosemary Quinn went missing. Officials think it’s likely she ran away. Irene Gray was Rosemary’s girlfriend. The police’s interview with Irene states that the two of them had planned on running away together not long after the date Rosemary had gone missing.

AGENT JUNE

Way to rat your girlfriend out like that.

AGENT MAY

She could have been desperate for any sort of lead, even if that meant getting herself and Rosemary in trouble. And she did get in trouble, I believe, though not with the law, per say. Irene couldn’t have known where Rosemary had gone, though. She was so emotionally devastated after the event, there was little chance she was faking it or lying to cover for Rosemary. She actually started therapy not long after.

AGENT JUNE

So, why does it matter? Did they ever find Rosemary?

AGENT MAY

Unfortunately, no. The official record states that the last place she was potentially seen was a local animal shelter, where she dropped off her cat, whose name she said was Sage. This, however, does not sync up with reports from her family claiming the cat’s name was Sir Griffin the Third, which led to some uncertainty. They had a difficult time tracking her after that, though. All they had to go off of was one potential gas station siting, but all that resulted in was another dead end.

AGENT JUNE

Uh, you still haven’t explained why any of this matters.

AGENT MAY

[FRUSTRATED] Could you just be patient for one— [HE HUFFS A SIGH.]

Look, it’s important because it’s unlikely Irene Gray will let us explore her house if we just ask nicely.

AGENT JUNE

So, we have to use bait?

AGENT MAY

It could be a mutually beneficial relationship, is what I’m saying. We both have something the other wants.

AGENT JUNE

Wait, does the Foundation, like, know what happened to that girl?

AGENT MAY

Not quite, but, potentially. I’ll show you what we have once we stop the car.

AGENT JUNE

Great! This should be interesting.

AGENT MAY

[UNDER HIS BREATH] I’m sure it will be.

[PHONE BEEP.]

[RECORDING ENDS.]

[INT. IRENE GRAY’S HOUSE, MIDDAY.]

[IRENE IS ON A PHONE CALL WITH ADEN. ON HIS END OF THE LINE, THERE IS THE LOOPING SOUND OF A BROKEN FAX MACHINE ATTEMPTING, BUT FAILING, TO PROCESS PAPER.]

IRENE

It’s a fax machine. How do you not know how to use a fax machine? I’ve literally watched you do it before.

ADEN

Well, I thought I knew! And I mean, come on, how come you get to judge me when you can’t even use your phone properly?

IRENE

Oh, my god—Aden, it’s my day off. Can’t you just look it up?

ADEN

I don’t know how to describe the problem in a way a search engine will understand. It’s too—you know—specific.

IRENE

Ask someone there, then. Carol and Julia probably know better than I do.

ADEN

Julia’s sick, and Carol’s on some important phone call. Look, I just—if we have to replace this thing and it’s my fault, I’m going to freak out—

IRENE

Okay, wait until Carol gets off the phone and then—

ADEN

[WORRIED] What if it sets on fire or something?

IRENE

[FRUSTRATED] It won’t! It’s probably just jammed.

ADEN

But what if it does?

IRENE

[SNAPPING] Jeez, dude, just go find the manual! Why are you calling me?

ADEN

[PANICKED, STUTTERING] Because I’m panicking, alright? Look, ever, ever since the mold incident, I’ve been so scared constantly of everything. Every tiny thing that happens feels like it’s the end of the world, especially because that dude’s van went missing and it’s like you guys are just constantly waiting for the police to just show up at your door—

IRENE

[HER TONE SOFTENS, GROWING SYMPATHETIC] Oh, Aden—

ADEN

[CONT.] —and you and Carol almost died, and I did nothing. Okay? I sat in my office and talked to the knitted cat on my desk while I had a panic attack and did nothing.

I just want to find some way to, to do good, to fix something, but instead I think I ruined the fax machine and now I’m just failing you and Carol, again.

IRENE

[CHOOSING HER WORDS CAREFULLY] Hey. Look, I—I’m sorry I snapped. It’s not…it’s not that big of a deal.

ADEN

[COMING DOWN, GUILTILY] No, no, you’re right. I shouldn’t have called you on your day off.

IRENE

It’s fine. Seriously, don’t worry about it. Do you need me to go down there and look at it?

ADEN

No, don’t. I’m kinda starting to calm down, and I think if I can’t find the manual, I’ll just wait until Carol gets off the phone.

IRENE

That’s a good idea.

[A BEAT.] Um, if you need a distraction or anything, we can still talk for a bit. I know how anxiety can be.

ADEN

[SINCERE] That means a lot, Irene. Thank you.

IRENE

Of course.

Is there anything in particular you want to talk about?

ADEN

[A BEAT, THEN, HESITANT] I actually have a question. I’ve been thinking about it for a bit, but if it’s too personal, you don’t have to answer.

IRENE

I mean, I think you’ve already seen me at some pretty low points, so…

ADEN

[HE CHUCKLES.] Alright.

[CAREFULLY] You said you had a girlfriend who went missing.

IRENE

[A BEAT.] Yup.

ADEN

What was her name?

IRENE

[A HESITANT BEAT.] Rose. Er, you may have seen the name Rosemary Quinn at some point, but it was years ago.

ADEN

Yeah, I don’t remember. Sorry.

IRENE

It’s fine.

ADEN

What happened to her?

[THERE’S A PAUSE.]

IRENE

[GRIM] We never found out.

For a long time, I’ve thought that she just decided she was sick of her life as it was. Ran away to start a new one without telling anyone where she went. It would have made sense—she had planned on doing it for a while. Even took cash from her savings out in chunks so nobody would be able to track her card when she did. Her mother simply wrote this off as poorly thought-out impulse purchases.

We had planned our entire future together, though, and for her to just throw it out didn’t make sense, it—well… [SHE TRAILS OFF.]

ADEN

I’m sorry.

IRENE

I thought it was her mom at first, though. Grace Quinn. [SHE SAYS THE NAME WITH VENOM.]

They investigated Grace for domestic abuse. Believed Rose ran away to escape a dangerous situation. Upon Rose not answering her bedroom door, Grace, well…broke it down. Rose had locked it before she went out the window, and her mother just—decimated the doorknob to get in. At least, that’s what the police report says.

ADEN

Jeez.

IRENE

Without the child there, however, it was difficult to prove any abuse. I had some texts. Her aunts had a couple of anecdotes. That was all, though. Grace refused to admit to anything, of course.

ADEN

[HESITANT] Was there? Um, was there abuse?

IRENE

[A BEAT.] Yeah.

ADEN

I’m so sorry.

IRENE

It was rarely ever physical, but it definitely happened.

ADEN

I mean, if Rose was trying to escape something, I hope she was safe in the end.

IRENE

[PAUSE, THEN, SOFTLY, ALMOST SAD] I do, too.

[A BEAT.] That wasn’t all, though. Grace acted really strange afterwards. When police asked what had happened the night before, she said she couldn’t remember. Seriously, she didn’t have any concrete details. She said she had just woken up that morning and Rose was gone, but her story kept changing in little ways. It was disorienting.

She seemed…paranoid. Jumpy. Confused, even. Angry, but her anger wasn’t directed anywhere. I might have felt bad for her if just the thought of her hadn’t made my blood boil. I mean, I imagine your daughter going missing has gotta have some sort of effect on you, even if you’re not on good terms with her.

Grace wasn’t entirely there, though. Looking back, it’s a lot more clear. I…know some things, I didn’t know back then. I just, I wonder what was really wrong with her. I haven’t talked to her in years. Certainly not about to start now.

ADEN

I mean, I kinda sympathize with her, but also, she doesn’t sound like a great person.

IRENE

Oh no, she’s horrible. I know I should feel some remorse for all the awful things I’ve said about her, but I don’t. Not really.

When Rose first went missing, I became blinded by rage. I screamed at Grace when I saw her. Cursed in her face. Said it was all her fault, because I was—well, I was scared, and I had no other explanation. My dad had to drag me away before I attacked her.

ADEN

Jeez, Irene.

IRENE

I’m obviously better about my anger management now. Therapy at least did that for me.

ADEN

I mean, I get it. I can’t imagine how hard that must have been for you.

IRENE

Yeah. Um, yeah. [IT SOUNDS LIKE THERE’S SOMETHING ELSE SHE WANTS TO SAY.]

Thanks, Aden.

ADEN

Of course. If you…I mean, I know it’s been a while, but you can always talk to me about it. I’ve said that before, but, y’know.

IRENE

I appreciate it.

[A PAUSE.]

ADEN

I think Carol’s call ended.

IRENE

[TEASING] And did the fax machine catch on fire?

ADEN

[HE LAUGHS.] No. No, it did not.

[IRENE LAUGHS. ANOTHER PAUSE.]

IRENE

[MORE SERIOUS] Aden?

ADEN

Yeah?

IRENE

I’m…I’m working on something. It’s a personal project.

ADEN

[CAUGHT OFF GUARD] Oh. Okay.

IRENE

I don’t think I can tell you what it’s about, but…just so you know. I mean, I trust you, so.

ADEN

That’s—um, that’s fine. Uh, let me know if I can help at all?

IRENE

Sure. I’ll talk to you later.

[AS THEY SPEAK, THERE’S APPROACHING FOOTSTEPS ON ADEN’S END OF THE LINE.]

ADEN

You, too. Thank you again for talking.

IRENE

Not a problem. Bye.

ADEN

Talk to you soon!

CAROL

[IN THE DISTANCE] What did you do to the damn—?

[PHONE BEEP AS ADEN HANGS UP. IRENE SIGHS.]

IRENE

[CONFUSED] Oh, uh. Didn’t realize my phone was recording. [MUTTERS] When did that start? Guess I turned it on at some point.

[A BEAT.] Well, Rose. I’m talking to you now. Not just some figment of you in my head, but, you.

I know you’re going to hear these. I don’t know when, but you will. Of course you will.

[A BEAT.] Only problem is, I’m kind of at a dead end. My only lead so far is a mysterious recording that popped up on my laptop with no explanation. I have no idea how any of those files got there. Do I just have to wait until whatever weird force that gives them to me decides to throw one my way?

It’s like gambling at that point. I don’t know when I’ll get something or if what I find will be helpful or not. I mean, hell, I could get a new file on my computer and it’ll just be some voicemail I sent you sophomore year about baking brownies. Who knows what I’ll find or when I’ll find it?

I have to figure out something more reliable. Maybe figure out where the recordings are coming from, and if I can use whatever it is to my advantage. Or, I don’t know, Phoebe is coming over at some point to look in my attic. Maybe I should just—

[THERE’S A KNOCK AT THE FRONT DOOR.]

IRENE

…huh. Wasn’t expecting anyone.

[IRENE IS HEARD GETTING UP AND WALKING TOWARDS THE DOOR. AS SHE APPROACHES, THE AGENT'S MUFFLED ARGUING IS HEARD, GROWING LOUDER AS SHE GROWS NEAR.]

AGENT JUNE

[MUFFLED] I'm just saying, it could be pretty cool, you know? I'm all like, "Ooh, ahh, no, tell us what we wanna know, and you're like—"

AGENT MAY

[MUFFLED, OVERLAPPING ] June, you're too impressionable by all of these movies that you watch.

[IRENE OPENS THE DOOR, BUT THEY CONTINUE AS IF SHE ISN'T THERE.]

AGENT JUNE

[CONT.] No, no, listen. It could be great, it could be great! We could like, stand back to back, and like, ooh, finger guns—

AGENT MAY

No, I'm not doing finger guns!

IRENE

[OVERLAPPING] Um, can I help you?

AGENT JUNE

[TO AGENT MAY] Okay, but just try it—

AGENT MAY

[HARSHLY CUTTING HIM OFF.] Yes, actually. Is this the residence of Irene Gray?

IRENE

[SKEPTICAL] Who’s asking?

[AGENT MAY IS HEARD FLASHING HIS BADGE.]

AGENT MAY

We’re Agents May and June of The Harper Foundation. We’d like to ask you a few questions, if you don’t mind.

IRENE

The hell is that?

AGENT JUNE

Ah, see, that’s the point: you’re not supposed to know. [A BEAT.] I mean, well, we do leave kind of cryptic ads in the local paper sometimes, but, still.

AGENT MAY

[UNDER HIS BREATH] Agent June.

AGENT JUNE

What? I don’t choose to put those weird ads there!

IRENE

[UNIMPRESSED] …so, what, you’re secret agents?

AGENT MAY

If you’d like to call us that. May we come in?

IRENE

Why?

AGENT MAY

We just need to ask you about a few things. I promise it won’t be long.

IRENE

…are you going to, what, search my house?

AGENT JUNE

You got something to hide?

IRENE

[DEFENSIVE] No! I’m sorry that I value my privacy.

AGENT MAY

We’re not searching your house right now. This will be much easier for all of us if you comply, Ms. Gray.

IRENE

[SHE THINKS FOR A MOMENT, THEN, DISGRUNTLED] Fine.

AGENT MAY

Thank you.

[IRENE IS HEARD LEADING THE AGENTS INTO HER HOUSE, CLOSING THE DOOR BEHIND THEM. THEIR FOOTSTEPS ARE HEARD AS THEY ENTER.]

AGENT JUNE

It’s a nice place you got here. Oh, wow, did you paint that yourself?

IRENE

It was a gift.

AGENT JUNE

Ah, gotcha, gotcha.

[THERE’S A PAUSE AS THEY STOP WALKING.]

IRENE

Well? Take a seat. Be my guest.

[AGENTS MAY AND JUNE ARE HEARD SITTING AT THE TABLE. THERE ARE TWO LOUD THUNKING NOISES, AS IF SOMEONE IS HITTING THE TABLE.]

AGENT MAY

Agent June, take your feet off the table.

AGENT JUNE

Sorry, sorry.

[SHUFFLING NOISES AS AGENT JUNE MOVES HIS FEET.]

IRENE

Can I get you both anything to drink?

AGENT JUNE

There are your manners!

AGENT MAY

[UNDER HIS BREATH] You’re one to talk.

AGENT JUNE

Whatcha got?

IRENE

Um, water? I could make coffee? I also have lemonade in the fridge, but that’s for emergencies.

[A PAUSE.]

AGENT JUNE

I think I’m in the mood for an emergency lemonade. You, Agent May?

AGENT MAY

I’m fine, thanks.

[AS THEY CONTINUE THE CONVERSATION, IRENE IS HEARD GRABBING THE LEMONADE OUT OF THE FRIDGE, TAKING A GLASS FROM THE CUPBOARD, AND POURING JUNE'S DRINK.]

AGENT MAY

How long have you lived here, Ms. Gray?

IRENE

Not long. I moved here for work.

AGENT MAY

And what do you do?

IRENE

[HASTILY] I’m an engineer.

AGENT JUNE

Mm! Enjoying the area so far?

IRENE

It’s nice. The people are friendly.

[SHE SETS AGENT JUNE’S LEMONADE DOWN ON THE TABLE.]

AGENT JUNE

Much obliged.

[HE TAKES A DRINK LOUDLY. IRENE SITS DOWN ACROSS FROM THE TWO OF THEM.]

IRENE

…well? You said you had questions.

AGENT MAY

We’re here to ask you about a missing person.

[A TENSE PAUSE.]

IRENE

Which one?

AGENT MAY

Which one are you thinking of?

IRENE

[SHE PAUSES.] Are you talking about Rosemary Quinn?

AGENT MAY

[A TENTATIVE PAUSE.] You and Rosemary were close, correct?

IRENE

Why do you care?

AGENT MAY

I’m asking a question. An answer would be nice.

IRENE

[HESITANT] I knew Rose, yeah.

AGENT MAY

When was the last time you saw her?

IRENE

Um, it was two days before her disappearance, I believe?

Look, this should all be on her file. I don’t see the need to recount this all to you unless they’ve opened the case again. Hell, you’re not even cops, are you?

AGENT JUNE

Oh, don’t be that way, Irene. I know this case isn’t as recent as the other one you’re involved with, but you should be able to remember, right?

IRENE

The—

[THERE'S A LOW, EERIE INSTRUMENTAL AS IRENE'S BLOOD RUNS COLD.]

IRENE

[BLUFFING] What other case?

[AGENT MAY SLIDES A PIECE OF PAPER ACROSS THE TABLE.]

AGENT MAY

You were the last person to see this man, correct?

IRENE

I, um, I don’t know him, no.

AGENT JUNE

You’re not as good at lying as you think you are, you know.

[HE'S HEARD FLIPPING OVER A PIECE OF PAPER TO EXAMINE IT.]

AGENT JUNE

[CONT.] I mean, why lie to us about your job, anyways? There’s no shame in being a forestry aid. I’m sure it’s a lovely profession.

IRENE

Who the hell are you people?

AGENT MAY

Relax, Irene. The Harper Foundation has already taken care of his vehicle and rerouted the case so it doesn’t trace back to you. Investigators will come up with a dead-end soon enough, and nobody will know what you did.

AGENT JUNE

You’re welcome for that.

IRENE

I— [THEN, GUILTILY] I didn’t kill him.

AGENT MAY

I’m sure you didn’t. That’s not important right now. We’re just trying to give you a nudge in the right direction so maybe then you’ll be inclined to tell us the truth.

IRENE

Why? What do you want from me?

AGENT MAY

If you’d give me a moment to speak, then I can explain.

[IRENE HUFFS A SIGH, BUT LETS AGENT MAY SPEAK. HE FLIPS OPEN A FOLDER.]

AGENT MAY

Are you aware of this house’s previous tenant?

IRENE

You mean Bernard Kelly Valencia? His reputation precedes him, but I never knew the guy.

AGENT MAY

That’s correct. We believe he left something behind after he died, however. Something that could be incredibly beneficial for the Foundation. Have you found anything like that?

[IRENE STAYS SILENT.]

AGENT JUNE

[WHISPERS TO AGENT MAY] I think she’s trying to plead the fifth.

AGENT MAY

We expected such stubbornness. We’re not asking you for this for free, you know. We believe we may also have something that would be beneficial for you.

IRENE

And, what is that, exactly?

AGENT MAY

I’m glad you asked.

[HE'S HEARD HANDING A PAPER TO IRENE. MYSTERIOUS MUSIC BEGINS PLAYING IN THE BACKGROUND.]

AGENT MAY

Sometime in July, the same year Rosemary Quinn disappeared, a dusty yellow bicycle was found in the middle of nowhere in Oregon. It appeared to have had a broken piece in the front where a basket was supposed to be attached. It was never brought to the police, so unfortunately, it could never be examined as possible evidence.

AGENT JUNE

Hiker who found it posted about it on Twitter, though. The guy didn’t have many followers, so it never got traction.

AGENT MAY

This photo was taken not too far from Bent. If this is Rosemary’s bicycle, it could mean that we have a possible travel path for her after her disappearance.

[A TENSE PAUSE.]

AGENT JUNE

Oh, that was quite the shift in your expression, Irene. Have we struck a nerve? [MELODRAMATIC] I guess young love tends to leave such sore, open wounds, doesn’t it?

AGENT MAY

If you let us look at whatever it is Mr. Valencia left behind, we can help you find Rosemary Quinn. It may take some time, but we believe we can determine what happened to her. We just need your help.

[THE MUSIC STOPS. THERE'S A LONG PAUSE.]

IRENE

Get out.

[SHE'S HEARD GETTING OUT OF HER CHAIR.]

AGENT JUNE

Wh—hey!

IRENE

[GROWING MORE UPSET] Get out, I said. Get out!

[AS SHE SPEAKS, SHE'S HEARD PHYSICALLY GRABBING THE AGENTS AND PUSHING THEM OUT OF HER HOUSE. WHILE SHE'S AT IT, SHE GRABS THEIR FOLDERS AS WELL, THOUGH ONE PAPER STAYS BEHIND.]

AGENT JUNE

Hey, no, stop! You can't just grab our things like that! Please.

AGENT MAY

[OVERLAPPING, STUTTERING] Hey—!

[BOTH AGENTS STUMBLE OUTSIDE. IRENE IS HEARD THROWING THEIR PAPERS OUT THE DOOR.]

AGENT JUNE

Woah!

AGENT MAY

That's confidential information, you can't keep that in your house—

[SHE CUTS HIM OFF BY SLAMMING THE DOOR. THERE'S A PAUSE AS SHE BEGINS PACING THE FLOOR.]

IRENE

Who the hell do they think they are? Do they think I’m just some sort of—some sort of tool for them to use? Do they think they can dangle Rose over my head like I’m a dog with a bone, all over some—

[SHE PICKS THE PICTURE UP OFF THE TABLE, STOPPING HER PACING]

IRENE

Some picture of a bicycle?

[THERE’S A PAUSE AS IRENE STARES AT THE PHOTO, BEGINNING TO CALM DOWN.]

IRENE

[CAUTIOUS HOPE.] Is this really your bike, Rose? Why would you tear the basket off? You loved that basket. [WANDERING INTO DAYDREAM TERRITORY] You’d put flowers I got you in it and then ride around your block. Said it made you feel like you were in a painting.

[A BEAT.] Maybe I shouldn’t have kicked them—

[THERE’S ANOTHER KNOCK AT THE DOOR. IRENE STORMS BACK OVER TO IT.]

IRENE

[YELLING] I told you to get out! I’m not some stupid—

[SHE OPENS THE DOOR, AND REALIZES IT'S NOT THE AGENTS.]

IRENE

[EMBARRASSED] …dog.

TEEN

Well, I sure hope you’re not.

IRENE

[AWKWARDLY] Um, hi. Sorry, it’s just, someone else was just over and—

TEEN

Those two dudes? Yeah, they didn’t look very happy. That one guy, the one who had his tie undone for some reason, he had to chase one of the papers down the street. It was really funny.

IRENE

You were watching?

TEEN

Well, I didn’t realize you had a line going out your door of people waiting to talk to you.

IRENE

[DEADPAN] I’m new to the famous life.

TEEN

You’ll get used to it, I’m sure.

IRENE

Well, are you here to interview me and talk about my darkest secrets?

TEEN

That would be cool, wouldn’t it?

IRENE

[DISGRUNTLED] Not after the day I’ve had.

TEEN

Well, you see, I’ve actually been dying to meet you. My mom told me about you, said she met you at the store. I don’t know if you remember her, but from what she told me, it sounds like maybe you could use a bit of help.

IRENE

Your m— [IN SHOCKED AWE] Oh my god, are you the meat lady’s kid?

AVERY

Actually, my name is Avery.

Wanna grab lunch sometime?

[PHONE BEEP.]

[RECORDING ENDS.]

AUTOMATED VOICE

Today's quote is: "Most of the people are homesick anyway, and a little lonely, and they hide themselves in their hair and are turned into flowers."

Tove Jansson in Sculptor's Daughter, 1968.

[A PAUSE AS A HOLLOW NOISE BEGINS TO GROW IN THE BACKGROUND, FOLLOWED BY STATIC.]

AUTOMATED VOICE

[SLOWLY, AS IF STRAINED] Sometimes, when I close my eyes, I can feel it—

[THE VOICE IS CUT OFF BY STATIC.]

[OUTRO MUSIC & CREDITS PLAY.]

[AN EXTENDED PIANO VERSION OF THE NIGHT POST’S OPENING THEME PLAYS IN THE BACKGROUND.]

NIGHT POST PROMO

Hello there, citizen. You’ve lived in Gilt City for a while now. Maybe you’ve wondered, when you wake in the morning and retrieve the letters tucked neatly into your postbox, just where your mail comes from. It comes from the Night Post, of course. Those faithful couriers deliver it while you’re sleeping--all the better that they stay out of sight, and keep the unseemly strangeness that follows them out of our city, in the Skelter, where it belongs.

Ahem. If, for some reason, you’d like to know more about Gilt City’s conscripted couriers and the burden that chose them, their secret hopes and fears, the ancient, untamed threats that hound them on their nocturnal journeys--you have only to listen. The Night Post is a supernatural audio drama by an all-LGBT team, delivered weekly, in dead of night, to wherever you listen to podcasts.

Find answers at nightpostpod.com.