#the obvious solution would be to marinate something but i have nothing that needs marinating...

[loveletterworm]

Does anyone have any ideas for what i could do with leftover pickle juice i have no ideas at the moment but i keep keeping the jars because i feel like i shouldn't waste this amount of pickle juice and its starting to clutter my fridge. Watering it down to drink it was a mistake i don't know what possessed me to do such a thing

[the-bar-sinister]

Bleeding, Broken, Mended (81315 words) by VickytheSnake, thesavagesabretooth Chapters: 14/16

Summary: Law is certain that he was 'rescued' just so Doflamingo could kill him himself, but Doffy has other plans. As far as he's concerned, Law's decade-long quest for revenge was nothing more than a sad misunderstanding. He wants to remind Law how things used to be. He wants to find a way to bring Law back into the fold-- back to him-- forever.

catch up here

-

They spent the next twenty minutes or so verifying Monet's identity as she pranced about in Baby 5's body. 

But Doffy didn't really need any assurances. It was obvious that it was her, and it was surreal. He held her in his arms and smoothed her hair and told her how glad he was that she was there. How proud he was of her and her unshakable loyalty.

He promised her that they'd get a proper body for her, even if they had to do something like steal one. 

Doffy glanced at the doll that Sugar had been making, and at Law— at Corazon. "Would you be able to put her in something like a doll, temporarily, or does it have to be organic? I'm guessing it does."

The young man nodded. "Yeah, I can't exactly gift it with the magical ability to move on its own or anything. If I try, it'll just— I dunno. Hang there. It won't adhere."

Monet sighed, arm looped around Doflamingo as she leaned against him in Baby 5's body.

Baby 5 jumped up in Sugar's body. "What if you get Sugar to …." she paused for a long moment. "she just called me stupid, nevermind." 

Doffy's nostrils flared with frustration and he sighed. "Alright, we'll find another solution. At least we've got the opportunity to find a solution. Better switch them back for now."

"I dunno, Baby 5's got a real nice body." Monet joked, to Baby 5's quiet shriek of 'no!!'

Corazon smiled wryly "If you can get me a spare body somehow, I can probably manage." 

"There are possibilities," he mused thoughtfully, stroking his chin. "Temporary and otherwise."

There were always marines and other worthless people around who might be used in a pinch. but his mind immediately went back to Punk Hazard, and to Caesar and his experiments. Maybe he'd know something.

"Either way, Doffy…Monet." Law gave her a warm smile. "Glad you're still here. We're gonna fix this."

The woman laughed, before she drifted over and grabbed him in a tight hug. 

"You'd better. You owe me, you bastard." Doflamingo watched as she squeezed him, hearing her murmur, "I knew you didn't really wanna lose us." 

It was a lot. It was a whole lot to deal with. But Doffy was glad to have to, and he was sure that Law was too. And Monet. It would be a complicated situation, but as Trebol would say, thank all that's unholy they did have to deal with it at all. As strange as this was, Monet being gone forever would have been worse. Had been worse.

Still, a few minutes later after they'd been switched back and he'd hauled his Corazon out of the room, he rested his hand exhaustedly over his shoulder as they headed down the corridor.

"You really need to get taller," he murmured.

Corazon snorted, looking up at him incredulously. "Yeah look. I haven't had my second growth spurt yet. Get off my ass." 

"Off your ass? I couldn't reach it unless I bent over, Corazon," Doffy snickered and shook his head. "Thanks for your work back there."

"Anytime, It's one of the things I'm here for, ain't it? Can't make it up to you if I don't use my power for the good of the family, right?" He glanced over his shoulder. "...I'm glad she's still here, somehow." 

"Same," Doffy nodded. He tugged his cabin door open ahead of them with a jerk of threads. "Don't get me wrong there's plenty to question how the fuck that happened, but I'm hesitant to look a gift horse in the mouth."

It had, however, opened his mind to other disturbing possibilities.

"It coulda been anything. Their bond, some fucked up twist of fate. I dunno for sure." Corazon huffed as he came to a stop outside the door. "...inviting me in, Doffy?" 

"Dragging you, in fact," he said, tugging him along with him. "Unless you're going to tell me you have somewhere urgent to be."

"I'm still on your ship ain't I?" He leered petulantly. "Where else could be more urgent than the captain's order?"

Doffy flicked his fingers against the strings, but obediently allowed himself to be half-dragged into the room. 

"You'd have to tell me," he drawled, letting himself drop down into his familiar chair. "I'd hope nothing– but I'd be willing to hear you out."

"Well there's nothing, alright." Corazon looked up at him with his dark and serious eyes set over the half-smile he'd worn a lot when he was younger— in the times he wasn't hissing and growling like something feral, at least. "If you wanna spend time with me, you've got me." 

"Did you forget that's part of Corazon's duties?" he teased, leaning on his hand. It seemed like such a long time ago now, those old days when he'd drag Law off to sit with him and read comics, or listen to music, or just to hear about what he'd been doing.

A part of him had known it was selfish to rely on Law for comfort when he'd been so young. But what had he been supposed to do? With Vergo away, and Rosi—-

Anyway, Law had enjoyed it, too. He was sure of that.

Law's smile softened, and he held up his hands with a long suffering sigh. "I haven't forgotten, Doffy, and I ain't complaining either— I could use a little time. Like the old days." 

"Like the old days," Doffy agreed fondly. "It's been a hell of a day already, eh? Just one more thing, and then you can help me relax."

-

Law was having a weird first day as Corazon. Weird, chaotic, but ultimately good. Monet…Monet was somehow still, well not alive, but present which was a miracle beyond anything he'd ever seen before.

It was obviously her. He'd known the instant she started talking. Whatever strange force had tied her and her sister apart was something beyond even the warped view of science he held with his devil fruit and its 'magic'.

She was here, and he looked forward to helping her become herself again, no matter what it took. One more way to make things up to the Donquixote family, in a big way— and to undo his greatest recent regret.

Now, with that behind them, Doflamingo yanked him into his private quarters, his boudoir. He felt his face flushing once more, frustrating in how excited the idea made him get.

It was just like old times, he told himself. He was there to help Doffy relax. To be a companion. A friend.

It wasn't like it was going to turn into some bodice ripper.

"Another thing, huh?"

"Yeah, just one. I hope to hell it'll be quick." Doffy's face grew briefly serious and he tapped his chest. "Reassure me I'm alone in here."

"...." Law's eyes widened. "you wanna know if Rosi is…lingering in there, Doffy?" 

"The thought occurred to me all of a sudden," he said, darkly. "Never had reason to think it might be anything other than my own… memories. Better safe than sorry, right?"

Law could tell that Doffy was trying to keep his tone light, even cavalier, like it was basically little more than a joke. A precaution. But Law could tell from the set of his jaw it was more than that.

Law knew Doffy well enough to understand the man was genuinely terrified. Afraid that the ghost who'd haunted the last 13 years of his life was more literal than metaphorical.

He nodded seriously, and opened his room enough to get a sense of Doflamingo, reaching out into him with a twist of his fingers.

Only a short time ago, he would have killed— literally killed— for the opportunity to strike while Doflamingo was so defenseless. But that was another man's vengeance . He'd been consumed enough. 

Doflamingo must have felt the same way. He sat there completely unguarded, laying his life in Law's hands, perhaps without even considering how vulnerable he'd made himself.

Law reached into him, feeling the warm presence of Doflamingo's soul inside his chest. "....I don't see anything other than your own spirit, Doffy." 

Doflamingo wasn't heartless after all. He had one— and only one— right in his chest.

Law watched him exhale and close his eyes. "That's that, then. Yeah. Knew he wouldn't have stuck around."

"Yeah, he wasn't exactly the type, was he?" Law laughed weakly as he dropped his 'room'. "It's just you, Doffy. You and your own heart." 

His smile came back, weak at the edges and he touched his chest. "Give it to me straight, doc, how black and withered are we talking?"

Law snorted with a wry smile. "Like a raisin. But a shockingly big raisin, so you got that going for you Doffy." 

"So more like a prune, got it." Doffy giggled and leaned back in his chair. "Thanks for helping me clear the air on that. Would have nagged me a bit."

Again, dismissive, flippant. But Law could tell the idea might have gnawed at him.

It had gnawed at Law too. The moment the idea came up, he felt a sting of fear of his own. What if Rosi was still present? What if he was still around?

What if he judged Law for his sympathy for the man Rosi always called 'the devil himself'. Ghosts— spirits. He'd be a fool if he told himself they weren't real. Not with the way they were so evident and provable in the world around him.

Monet was proof enough. Spirits existed, and they could linger.

Rosi— he'd trusted and believed in him for years, despite the way he'd been treated. Despite the trauma of the doctors.

But Doffy was there for him, too. Then, now…

He grabbed the edge of Doflamingo's coat with a half smile. "Happy to help. It'd nag me too."

Thank all that was unholy that Rosi really wasn't here. 

He found himself suddenly scooped by Doffy's arm as he grabbed his coat, and the larger man pulled him up against his lap, smiling wider in return.

"It's just you and me, now."

Law's face flushed bright red as he fell against Doflamingo's lap. He really was much smaller than him— much smaller than most people in the gang, much to Baby 5's amusement earlier in the day.

And of course it meant Doflamingo could manhandle him while he was already off balance.

Doffy chuckled as he fell against him, grinning, or maybe even leering down at him. "Like we were saying before that diversion. Just like old times."

Law looked up at him, well aware of how flushed and warm he felt against Doffy's body. "...just like old times. Only I'm not a shrimp anymore." 

He made a show— an obvious show— of looking Law over, his grin slicing his face again under his red lenses. 

"Not a shrimp any more, he says. I mean I guess you sit a little bit heavier in my lap than last time we did this. A little."

Law narrowed his eyes up at him. 

"...a little he says. As if I ain't taller than…" Well. A handful of marines. Some of the girls in the crew. Luffy. "People." 

"People," Doffy repeated, his grin more shit-eating than ever. He laughed, his hand still resting on Law's hip where he'd scooped him into position. "I'll give you— you're taller than Derringer."

Law snorted. 

"Yeah, he's the real shrimp here, Doffy. He's even from the ocean." He shifted, his hip rubbing against Doflamingo's hand as he leaned back into his chest. "....this is uh."

Intimate. It was intimate and it was killing him. 

"Yeah?" Doffy grinned down at him. Was he daring him to say something? Or was he just… being Doflamingo? Who was always very physical and thought personal space was something that happened to him, not to other people. "It's what, Corazon?"

Did Doffy still think of him as a kid?

Law realized he had no idea as he shifted against his lap again. "...a bit different than back then, that's all." 

"I guess that's true." Doffy's gaze felt intense on him, despite Law's inability to see his eyes, and despite the inscrutability of his enduring smile. "Should I put you in your own chair?"

Something about the smile and the phrasing reminded him of Dressrosa— Doflamingo had 'put him in a chair' then. He'd chained him to the heart throne.

Law felt his face flushing deeper, and he sputtered for a moment before catching himself. "You fuckin' wo…no! No I'm real comfortable right here, Doffy!"

Doffy laughed and leaned in toward him, bringing their faces together. "Well,that was an enthusiastic answer."

He was close, too close– and his heart was pounding in his chest. Doflamingo. Doffy. His boss, the man who saved him, the man he tried to kill. He was one of the largest figures looming in Law's life…

Why did he have to be so handsome? So fucking magnetic?

"Was it?"

 "Sounded like it to me, Corazon," Doffy purred. He pulled him suddenly even closer and Law found himself half engulfed in the ridiculous feathered coat that was always around the man's shoulders. "Tell me for real— did you ever miss me? Even when you were trying to kill me?"

One of the feathers tickled his cheek as he reached out to place his hand on Doflamingo's chest— at first to push away, but he found his hand lingering as he looked up at him.

He had missed him. There was always a traitorous part of him that missed him.

 "That's why I knew I had to finish it quick, Doffy…yeah. There was a part of me that always missed you." 

"Knew it," he chuckled. Doffy's hand shifted on his body, large and warm, moving up over his side as he looked down at him. His chest was warm under Law's fingers. "You know it was a hell of a shock to see you in the papers two years ago. Not just to know you were alive. I was still picturing you as a kid."

Law's fingers curled against his chest as he laughed. "That must have been a shock alright. You haven't changed a day, except maybe getting more 'i've decided to dress more like every day's a vacation day'."

He'd pictured him as a kid, huh? Did that mean that view on him had changed now?

Doffy chuckled again. "Well I mean every day was pretty much a vacation in Dressrosa, Law. You missed the nice weather. But also— my hair's shorter. You, though, you changed a hell of a lot more."

Law half knelt, raising himself up to run his hand through Doflamingo's hair with some effort. 

"...so it is." he smirked, looking into his eyes. "damn right i have…in a lot of ways. What'd you think when you saw me, huh?" 

Doffy's smile hitched into a smirk as he leaned ever closer to him. "First thought? Kid grew up into a pretty handsome bastard. Second thought? Damn, that's a lot of tattoos."

"...yeah well, maybe I found out I liked tattoos, huh?" 

Handsome bastard…

It was basically the same thought Law had had about Doffy for years, even as he pushed it down and out of mind.

He huffed. "Careful calling a guy 'a handsome bastard' while he's sitting on your lap, Doffy." 

"Careful, hmmm? Warning me to be careful implies there might be a result I won't like, Corazon." Doffy's tongue showed slightly between his teeth as he gave him a teasing look. He paused and his grin hitched wider. "So what are you trying to warn me about?"

Law felt his face flushing deeper. 

"You might make him think that you absolutely don't just see him as some fucking shrimp kid anymore." 

Doffy laughed and his hand rode higher, almost up to Law's chest. "Oh is that what you're thinking about? Doffy lets kids run around with guns and swords and booze and cigarettes. Even though he made me Corazon he probably still thinks I'm a kid. Is that what you're thinking?"

The feeling of his fingers trailing up his body was like a thousand little sparks of anticipation crawling through his skin. He grit his teeth, looking down instead of into his staring eyes. "...the thought mighta crossed my mind, yeah." 

"Well then," he purred. Law could feel his breath on his face, and the sweet smell of his oiled coat surrounded him. Doffy reached up and put his fingers on his jaw, the sharp moons of his nails sending another prickling sensation. "How about I clear that up?"

A heartbeat passed, as Doffy seemingly waited for his answer, or his rejection.

Law's head was spinning. From a decade of resentment and deliberate, desperate hate, to finding himself back in Doffy's company, to becoming part of the family again, to becoming Corazon— all the way here.

Here on Doflamingo's lap being asked to take the forbidden step forward and more under the man's power.

He swallowed thickly, nodding his head once. 

Doflamingo didn't wait for anything more than that, and he didn't say a word. He jerked Law close and he kissed him— rough and hard and immediate, sucking at his lips and pressing his tongue to invade his mouth.

It was overwhelming. He was surrounded by him. His kiss, his body, his scent.

Law pressed into him, enveloped in the garish pink feathers of his coat, smelling the oil and the smell of booze thick in his nose as he leaned up into the man's kiss. His tongue met Doffy's, brushing against it as a thrill rolled through his body.

Even more than accepting Corazon, Law knew this was a moment of surrender. 

This was everything he had fought and steeled himself against for thirteen years, dissolving in an instant as he let Doflamingo kiss him and hold him in his lap. Thank all that was unholy that they were alone, because if the ghost of Rosi had been there, there would have been a great wailing and gnashing of teeth.

But they were alone, and he was in Doffy's arms.

His tongue lingered on Law's lips for a moment, and then he licked his own, as if he were satisfied with a meal.

"Does that clear up my feelings on the matter?" he purred, his sharp face still hanging near Law's like an overbearing moon in orbit.

Law looked up at him, catching his breath with a shit-eating grin plastered on his face. "Maybe. Might need more convincing, actually." 

Doffy laughed, tilting his head back as he did. "More convincing! Dia's right, you are a greedy little bastard! But I'm happy to convince you, if that's what you want."

He slid his thumb over the sharp curve of Law's jaw as he smiled— no, leered— down at him.

Law arched his hand against his thumb, his breath feeling hot as he met his eyes again. "Greedy, huh?" he scoffed before he shifted to press his hand firmly against Doffy's chest, at the opening of his shirt. "Whatever. Convince me, Doffy. I'm your Corazon, ain't I?" 

-

"I'm your Corazon, ain't I?" 

The words sent a shiver of absolute delight down Doflamingo's spine, the taste of Law's lips lingering in his mouth.

His Corazon. His. Law wanted to be his. Law was his. Law had always been his, he had just been stolen from him, cruelly, more than thirteen years ago. Now he finally had him back, without so much as a ghost hovering over their reunion.

And now Law was begging him to kiss him. To hold him. To make him truly his. The little grouchy bastard might say he 'needed more convincing' but what Doffy heard was 'please kiss me, Doffy. Kiss me until I can't think of anything else. Kiss me until I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that this is where I belong'.

And Doffy shuddered with delight to hear it. With delight that Law wanted him. Beautiful, handsome, mean, wicked grown-up little Law wanted to be kissed and held and loved like the man that he had become. 

Doflamingo's man.

And Doffy was ecstatic to give him exactly what he wanted. 

It was exactly what Doffy had always wanted. 

The first time Doffy had seen Law, shaking with rage and full of hateful determination, he had seen the man that he might become. A man with a heart just like his own heart. And he had been determined not to let anything stop him from seeing Law become that man. Not even a terminal disease would stand in his way; nothing would stop him from seeing Law, a child who was so like himself, flourish and grow the way that Doflamingo had. He wanted to see the man that Law became, and for him to become his man. His Corazon.

And here he was. Beautiful, and strong, and angry, and mean, and wanting Doffy to kiss him.

Maybe everything that had come between them for so long had been worth that.

"You're my Corazon," Doffy promised, rubbing the curve of his thumbnail over Law's sharp, handsome jaw. "You're not a kid any more, you're my Corazon, and I will prove it to you as much as you demand, you handsome little bastard."

He pulled Law suddenly and sharply close to him with his threads and thrust his tongue back between his lips, savoring the way it filled Law's mouth and heaved against Law's tongue.

Law was Doflamingo's Corazon.There was no question of that any more. He had left a child and come back as a man, and now he was right where he belonged.

And Doffy was never going to let him leave again.

-

Doffy made good on his promise, kissing Law over and over again, his threads tugging him closer, trapping him against his broad, warm chest like a fly traps a spider.

The threads held him tight, as strong as they ever were— as strong as they were back in Dressrosa but not at all as sharp. Law's head was spinning as he caught his breath between kisses, his face burning red as he pressed against Doflamingo.

He'd proven it, alright. He'd convinced Law, utterly and completely. He didn't just see him as some reckless, insane kid anymore. The thrill and glow of excitement that simple fact brought him was almost embarrassing.

Almost. 

Eventually, after what seemed like an age of the world, Doflamingo let him catch his breath, still dizzy and warm on his lap. With a manicured nail Doffy traced the shape of a heart over Law's chest.

"I'll go on and keep convincing you," he purred teasingly. "But give me an update, Corazon. oOw are you enjoying the position?"

Law took several deep breaths, feeling the nail lightly pressing against his chest as he craned his neck to look up at him with a thin smile. "I'm sure you will, Doffy. But…I think I'm likin' it a lot. I slipped right into it, you know? That was exactly what I was afraid of back then." 

Doffy's smile grew teeth, and he chuckled, rubbing his thumb up and down Law's chest. "I'll just bet it was. I wish I had guessed— I would have had a more convincing argument for you back when I had you chained to the heart throne." He dragged his tongue suggestively over the points of his teeth.

Law's heart skipped a beat, and his eyes went wide despite his attempt to compose himself. The thought flashed unbidden through his mind of himself chained to the throne of Corazon, as Doflamingo convinced him with his hands on his….

He shut the thought down as his flush deepened and a hot tension grew below. "Y-yeah I bet you woulda, Doffy." 

Doffy giggled and grabbed a lock of Law's hair, tugging at it under his cap. "Like in a bad novel, like you said at dinner the other night."

Law glanced off to the side. Just like one of those bad novels. 'Seduced by the Pirate Prince' or some bullshit like that. A bodice-ripping tale of corruption and seduction.

He squirmed on Doflamingo's lap. "...you remembered that, did you?" 

Doffy shifted under him in return, and Law got the feeling that the whole scene was a bit exciting for him. He chuckled richly. "It stood out, Law."

Law's hips rested firmly against him, feeling that excitement all too well as he shrugged his shoulders. 

"Can you blame me? You invited me to dinner…in a seastone cuff…after saving me from the ocean despite us being recent enemies. That's a saucy novel plot, not real life." 

"Well, we had a little more lead up than that," he chuckled. "But I seem to have a knack for—"

They were interrupted suddenly by a sharp knock on the door, and Law felt Doffy tense under him, his displeasure written on his face.

Law tensed against him, his fingers digging into his coat as he whipped around with a sharp grimace. Of course. Of course someone came now to interrupt. Right when Doflamingo was getting excited.

Despite Doflamingo's obvious annoyance, Law didn't have the chance to move anywhere before he yanked the door open with his threads.

"Come in," he grumbled.

Vergo was at the door, and Law caught sight of Bepo behind him.

"....." Vergo pushed up his sunglasses. "Hey boss." He spoke as if it were the most normal thing in the world to see Law cuddled up on Doflamingo's lap. Like he'd forgotten that it'd be weird. Knowing him…he probably did.

"Got a minute?" 

Bepo on the other hand, had put his paw against his muzzle, turning to look away a little.

"A minute at least," Doffy sighed heavily. "If it's something important I've got significantly more than that."

Law turned a deeper red, trying to wriggle off Doflamingo's lap before he imploded in a sea of self-consciousness. It didn't work, so he kept his eyes averted towards the ceiling instead of at Bepo's embarrassment.

Vergo chuckled. "I mean…it's pretty important. We've got an island in the way. One of the weird ones that the pose didn't pick up from the looks of it. It's directly in our path. Had Vi take a look and she tells me it's completely surrounded by navy ships. We're around 12 hours or so away from it, weather permitting. Wanna know if you wanna take a detour. You know. For those marine heads." 

Doffy's expression turned from sour to intrigued, and he ran his finger down Law's chest, despite his poor attempt to wriggle away. 

"Well now. Marines, eh? I know everyone's been itching to bust a few heads. Let's head for it. Have Vi get together a full write up of the situation and if it turns out it's gonna be a pain in the ass we'll avoid it instead."

"A bunch of navy bastards on an island huh?" Law murmured as the prickling sensation of his touch rolled through him. "Should make for some fun exercise."

Vergo saluted Doflamingo with a thin smile. "You got it, Doffy. I'll ask Vi to get on it. Should have the full write up when you're done having fun with Corazon."

Law sputtered indignantly, staring at him with wide eyes "We ain't…Shut up!" 

That got a laugh out of Doflamingo, who grinned wickedly. "Sounds perfect. Thank you both." Law watched as Doffy's gaze snapped to Bepo. "Don't worry, Beps, you'll get him back mostly intact."

Bepo made a choked noise and shielded his gaze again, nodding.

Law buried his face against Doflamingo's coat. "I'm never gonna live this down."

Vergo chuckled before patting Bepo on the shoulder. "Don't worry buddy, you'll get used to the way things are around here soon enough. Come on. Let's go report to Vi." 

"R-Right. Uh, later, Captain. Corazon." 

Law heard Doflamingo chuckle again, still buried against his chest as the door clicked closed. "Whoops."

"Whatta ya mean, 'whoops!'?" Law growled against his chest. "You coulda let me up to save face!" 

Doffy tugged him closer, his threads still wrapped around him. "Oh, like you wouldn't have been just as embarrassed and twice as awkward to be leaping up from my lap. Really, I just saved us both a couple of dumb conversations."

Law looked up at him, huffing sharply. In a way he wasn't wrong. It made things simpler. Now Vergo and Bepo had seen the two of them practically fucking with their clothes on. Made it pretty damn clear where things stood without the need for a long and drawn out awkward conversation.

He brushed his fingers through his coat with a narrowing of his eyes. "It's because you're embarrassing, Doffy." 

Doffy laughed, and put two fingers under Law's chin, tilting it upward. "You know you're one of the few people who'd actually dare to say that to me."

Law's neck craned, his lips lightly parted as he looked up at Doflamingo as he took him in. Striking, charismatic… handsome. Doflamingo was a man who drew people into his 'pace', just as he'd warned Luffy.

It never took long, it never took much for people to start dancing along to the beat of his drum, dangling from the strings of his fingers. It wasn't a surprise that most of the crew wouldn't dare to call him embarrassing. They all loved him to the point of near worship.

Maybe Law did too, in a way that came off vastly different.

He smirked at him. "You like it, I know you do." 

"I love it," Doflamingo snickered. "You sassy little bastard. Maybe I am a little embarrassing— but I think you like that."

Law flushed deeply "oh yeah? You gotta prove it. I ain't admitting shit, Doffy." 

"You want me to prove it?" Doffy's smile almost became a sneer, and he suddenly put his hand right on the crotch of Law's pants. "You don't seem any less excited than before the door opened."

Law felt Doflamingo's fingers grab him, stiff, through the layers of fabric, his body squirming under the touch as he wound his fingers into his coat's feathers. "...you've got a point there."

Yeah, it was true. He wasn't any less excited. He was uncomfortably excited through the whole interaction and all the way till now. Doffy had an effect on him. An intense one that washed over him like the sea's waves. 

"I do," Doffy purred, leaning down toward him again. "So I think I'm right when I say you don't mind me being a little embarrassing."

His hand lingered where he left it, without any indication he'd be moving it any time soon.

Law shifted his hand, brushing it down Doflamingo's chest with a snort of breath. "If there's anything the last two years have taught me, it's that I've got a horribly embarrassing taste in men." 

"Oh well color me fascinated on that little tidbit," Doffy purred. His other hand rested on Law's chest now, and he was face to face with him again, the sharp tip of his nose brushing Law's. "You can tell me all about it. But later. Maybe after Vi's report."

Should have the full write up when you're done having fun with Corazon. That was what Vergo had said.

Law could feel his breath on his face, the brush of his skin against the tip of his nose as his body pressed tight to the other man's— bound and commanded by Doflamingo Donquixote. 'Having fun with Corazon'. He could see exactly where this was going to lead, their first consummation of their reforged connection.

"Gonna fuck me then? Is that it? Fuck me, go to a meeting, hear about my love life?" he huffed softly. 

Doffy's sharp tongue poked out and licked Law's lower lip. 

"I could," he said, the weight of his hand heavy on his chest and between his legs. "Or maybe I should make you wait. Have a drink while you go get an update from officer Bepo. Get busy with some paperwork. Drag you back to my room in oh say… a day or three."

Law could see himself reflected double in Doffy's blood colored lenses.

He flushed deeply, looking at his own scowling face reflected back at him as he pressed firmly against Doflamingo with a sharp huff of breath, his fingers snatching down between his own legs to brush Doffy's crotch with his fingers.

"You'd wanna make us wait that long?" 

Doffy was just as hard as Law was— just as excited. It was impossible not to feel it. It was impossible not to think about it.

But he just smirked at him, and his fingers stroked up over Law's jaw and neck. 

"I'm a surprisingly patient man, Corazon. I've waited this long. I could keep waiting."

Law brushed his fingers against his crotch with a frown, feeling his body heating up as he pressed closer to him. "....what if I don't wanna wait, huh?"

Everyone always called him reckless, impulsive, dangerously so— maybe they were right. Maybe it really was, the way his body clamored for him to jump right into an amorous tangle with Doflamingo. It was a way to reaffirm his decision, to get a taste of what his quest for vengeance took from him…

It was hot. 

Doffy laughed at him again, cupping his face. "Tell me you don't want to wait, Corazon. Tell me what you want from me."

He froze, nuzzling his cheek against Doflamingo's hand with a soft hiss of breath. 

"...I…I want…" he leaned closer, huffing sharply. "I want you to fuck me, Doffy. Okay?"

He spat it out, too flustered to do so delicately. 

Doffy's chuckle sent a thrill down Law's spine as his thumb tickled his jaw. "Oh, with pleasure, Corazon. With pleasure."

Doflamingo's strings drew him tightly to his chest, making it feel, once again, like he was under his power as he pressed a rough, deep kiss on him.

Law grabbed his coat with his hands, using it as well as the strings to press himself close as their lips collided. It was a rough, passionate kiss full of desire and expectation.

He'd accepted Doffy's help. He'd joined the crew again as Corazon. He'd already fallen back into their clutches— so why not fling himself directly into the flames of passion? If he was going to be a Donquixote again, then by all that was unholy, he was going to go all the way. 

[queenof-literature]

A Sick Wild Child - Chapter 6

Hi all! Here's chapter 6 of A Sick Wild Child! Thank you so much for all the support of my first ever story. I don't know how many chapters there will be, but I'm having a lot of fun with it! (I finally get access to a computer again tomorrow hopefully, so my Tumblr posts will stop looking so weird!) Warning: Vomiting in this chapter.

The entire camp was almost packed up within twenty minutes. Considering they had been here longer than usual, Time was impressed. It only became more obvious how worried they were for Wild. While impressive, it unfortunately gave Wild very little time to rest his chest before they had to move him. Time glanced over at Wind, who had taken to braiding Wild’s hair in some places to pass time and sooth him. Even from where he was helping Twilight pack Epona, Time could see the stutters of Wild’s chest. The cub was in a lot of pain, and his brothers could do almost nothing to alleviate it. 

    “Time?” Wind called out hesitantly once he noticed him looking over that way. Twilight and Time both trekked over to their two youngest. “He’s mumbling again and slurring his words and it’s making his breathing worse.” Wind stated with an uncharacteristic grim look upon his young features. Time and Twilight had to kneel down to hear it, but once again Wild was murmuring apologies to all of them. Hylia, just what was Wild dreaming about?

    “Hey, Cub, wake for me please?” Twilight said softly as he rubbed a gentle hand on Wild’s chest to try and sooth the pain. At the contact, Wild’s eyes shot open as he tried to jump to his feet. He barely even got his shoulders off the ground before he became nauseous and his stomach began to spasm from the quick movement. Time reacted quickly and rolled him to the side and held him up slightly. Just this little movement caused absolute fire to race up Wild’s sides, but any sound he would have made were interrupted by his stomach beginning to dry heave. 

    Time held onto Wild as he threw up nothing but bile and spit onto the ground beneath him, tears coming steady from his eyes in agony, his chest caught in an endless mix of dry heaving, coughs, and choked sobs. Time sighed. Even while sick, Wild was holding back and trying to act strong. 

    “Let it out, Cub it’s alright. Happens to the best of us.” Time whispered in his ear while Twilight rubbed his back and Wind ran his hands through his hair. What the rest of the group called Time’s “Dad Instincts” were going insane. Is this what having children felt like? Wanting to take all their pain away, even taking it upon himself if necessary? Wanting to shove all these boys away where the world could never hurt them? But also being proud when they looked the world in the face and bit back? Is that what it is? It was a scary feeling, but not one Time would trade away. He loved all these boys, and one of the youngest was suffering, something Time wouldn’t stand for. Finally, Wild’s heaves calmed down. 

    “There you go, buddy. You’re okay.” Time soothed as he laid Wild on his back once more away from the bile. Wild was muttering random words and apologies in between deep gasps for air, many of which made their hearts clench. Wild still seemed trapped in delusions none of them could pull him out of.  

    “Time we can’t move him like this.” Twilight stated worriedly. 

    “We don’t have a choice, Pup.” Time uttered. “More monsters will follow the last ones and we’re vulnerable here. We didn’t choose the most ideal camping spot. Even if we get some distance between us and here, that’s better than nothing.” Time felt eyes on his back. Looking up towards camp he saw all the boys packed and ready to go, concern clear as day in their faces. Even Legend was struggling to keep his face neutral. 

    “But what if we run into a monster? Or for that matter, a Guardian? Whoever is carrying him can’t just toss him down and fight! Hyrule said that his ribs are fragile now, what happens if he gets hurt again?” Twilight raised some very good points. Time knew he wasn’t being stubborn and he wasn’t trying to question Time, he was just worried for his cub.

    “I know Twilight.” Time sighed. “There’s not a perfect solution here, But you know we’ll all step forward to protect Wild if that happens. But we can’t stay here.” Time wrapped an arm around his protege. 

“I know, Time. I’m sorry. I just don’t want him to get hurt again.” Twilight leaned into his embrace. 

“None of us do, Pup. We’ll figure it out.” Time comforted. Twilight nodded, looking slightly less troubled. Time squeezed his shoulder and and pulled away, turning to address the rest of the boys. “Are you all ready to head out?” Time called, receiving words of affirmation. Time nodded and beat Twilight into reaching for Wild. “Oldest to youngest remember.” Time teased when Twilight turned a small glare his way.

Time thought for a moment about the best way to go about this. An over the shoulder carry was absolutely out of the question, and really so was carrying Wild on his back. That would put a lot of unnecessary pressure on Wild’s chest that it couldn’t really handle at the moment, so he settled for a bridal carry. If Wild were awake and coherent, he would have fought tooth and nail against this, but it was the best option they had. Time reached down to pick Wild up, only to be met with foggy blue eyes.

“Hey kiddo, I need to pick you up. It’s gonna hurt a little bit but it’ll be over soon okay?” Time placed a hand on Wild’s cheek to get the kid to look at him.

“Wh-” Wild was interrupted by his lungs spasming as his ribs screamed in protest.

“Shh. Don’t talk, just focus on breathing.” Time soothed. He gently put his arms under Wild’s knees and shoulders, before standing up as steady as possible. The muffled scream Wild let out hurt Time more than anything so far. It was his decision that put that scream in Wild’s throat. Twilight might be right, but Time had given his orders. Now he just had to hope they were the right ones. Wild’s breaths once again grew shallow and erratic, shaking hands slowly lifting to bunch into Time’s tunic to ground himself. “It’s alright.” Time pressed his forehead against Wild’s. He didn’t understand why the boys jokingly referred to him as the group’s father. He was so awkward in comforting these kids it was just plain sad. Thankfully, Wild’s breathing evened out enough to move him further. Carrying someone bridal style was more difficult than on one’s back, but Time could handle it fine. He would have to pass him to Twilight at some point during the journey though, or the pup would pitch a fit. 

“Alright, let’s head out.” Time announced. Time started walking passed Epona in the direction they had chosen. Epona huffed and sniffed Wild’s hair once Time got closer, clearly expecting the injured hero to be put upon her back with Twilight, even with the load she was already carrying. Time smiled. Just like his Epona. “No girl, I’m carrying him for now. He’s not well enough to ride.” Time nuzzled his head slightly into Epona’s mane since he had no free hands. Epona huffed again and continued sniffing Wild’s hair. Looking down, Time noticed a tiny smile on Wild’s troubled face, hands twitching slightly like they wanted to reach out and sooth her. It seemed even while unconcious Wild tried to ‘spoil her rotten’ according to Twilight.

The group decided to move upwind in order to be tracked by less monsters. They had absolutely no idea where they were in Wild’s Hyrule, and he wasn’t coherent enough to ask. It couldn’t be anywhere near the middle, they didn’t see Hyrule Castle, but there also weren’t any large landmarks like a lot of mountains or the trees in the place Wild had called Akkala. Wild’s Hyrule was massive, and they had no idea if there was a stable anywhere near here and none of them could work the slate properly to check. Overall, it was a mess. 

Four looked at Wild in Time’s arms and winced slightly at the four loud voices within his mind at that moment. Vio hadn’t stopped making suggestions about how to help the boy, suggestions they had already tried. Blue was yelling for the murder of all Moblins. Red was voicing his concerns whenever Wild expressed any pain at all. And Green was trying to calm all of them down while also yelling at Four to do something whenever Wild whimpered slurred out apologies. Four appreciated them trying to help, but dear Hylia they were going to give him a headache! He looked again at Wild and sighed quietly. Even after Hyrule’s words, he still blamed himself slightly that he didn’t notice Wild’s wound sooner. He knew it was silly, Blue told him that, but it still wouldn’t leave his head. He was known for being observant, but he didn’t see this coming. Blue, Vio, Red and Green were right though. He couldn’t do anything about it before, but he could help now.  

Legend was pissed. They were lost, they were antsy, and Wild was hurt. Time was carrying Wild in the center of the group, the other seven forming around them in case a monster popped out of the trees. As stupid as it was, Legend wanted to be the one carrying Wild, he wanted psysical proof that he was there and still breathing, not like Marin… but no. Twilight had to come up with the stupid rule that it was oldest to youngest, and he wasn’t old like Time or freakishly strong like Twilight. Legend sighed and looked at Wild again, then turned to see Hyrule’s dumb smirking face. ‘You’re soft’ the look screamed, and Legend wanted to hit him. 

~

    “My turn Old Man.” Twilight smirked. They had been traveling for around an hour now, which Twilight deemed enough to take his turn. Time rolled his eye at his proteges’ overprotective tendencies. 

    “I’m fine for a bit longer, Pup.” Time sighed. 

    “Whatever Old Man, you keep carrying him and your back is gonna go out. Let the freakishly strong one carry him.” Legend sassed. Twilight sent him a look that was a mixture of insulted and grateful. Legend wasn’t completely kidding. Time shouldn’t be forced to carry Wild the entire way if they had other options. 

“Fine. We’ll take a small break here and continue shortly.” Time stated, making his way off the beaten path the heroes had found themselves on. In Wild’s Hyrule, paths didn’t ward off monsters completely, but they were less likely to show up than in the middle of the woods. The group sat slightly off the path in the shade of the trees above. While they took a breather, Time tried to transfer Wild into Twilight’s arms. The boy simply whined and burrowed into Time. Sky laughed lightly. Sky knew that Wild used to be intimidated by Time, and probably still was. If he could see himself he would be mortified. That thought made Sky frown slightly. Wild had no reason to be embarrassed for seeking basic human comfort after so many years alone. Sky had been trying to teach him that, and he was improving at least. 

“Damn, Cub. I’m offended you would choose Time over me. Your own mentor!” Twilight stated dramatically, causing the other Links to laugh. Wild seemed to relax his hold on Time when he heard Twilight’s voice, allowing Time to gently transfer Wild into the younger’s arms as Wild groaned and winced. He did better than expected on the journey, only gasping a couple of times when the road got a little bumpy. Time assumed it was out of pure exhaustion he didn’t react much on the road, but he’d take anything right now. 

“Alright. Let’s get going again.” Time commanded. The others rose and gathered around Twilight this time, each of them looking for a place to camp along the way. Another hour later and Wild seemed to be getting slightly restless in Twilight’s arms, as much as he could without being able to move around. His hands were clenching and unclenching Twilight’s tunic and he was reacting more often to smaller bumps on the road. Hopefully they would find a place soon so Wild could lay down. 

“What about there?” Hyrule called, pointing to a small rock wall with an overhang, surrounded by trees. Time mulled it over. They had moved relatively far, even in Wild’s massive Hyrule. And the overhang provided shelter they didn’t have before and a side that wouldn’t need to be watched as much tonight.

“That seems like it’ll work. Nice one Hyrule.” Time saw Hyrule’s eyes light up at the praise. Wild and Hyrule were similar in that way. Both wary of opening up, but beaming under praise and gentle touches. Most likely because they had been the loneliest, Time thought sadly.

The group meandered over there, excited to finally be at their destination, but not wanting to leave Wild unguarded. Once they got closer, they could hear a small amount of water, causing the group to relax even more. Now Twilight wouldn’t need to go hunting for water for Epona and they could stock up some bottles for the next few days. Four grabbed Wild’s bedroll off of Epona as soon as they stopped, giving her a small pat as he passed which she seemed to appreciate. Four carefully laid Wild’s bedroll near the back of the overhang, not enough for it to radiate cold off the hard stone, but also far enough away from the fire for the fever he was still sporting.

Twilight brought Wild over and carefully laid him down. Once he moved away though, Wild freaked out. “T-Tw-” Wild’s words bubbled in his throat before dying off in a loud wheeze. 

“Put your pelt over him again.” Four suggested. Twilight rushed to unhook it and placed it over his cub. Wild calmed down slightly, and Four internally thanked Green for the idea. 

“Who knew you’d get so clingy when sick.” Twilight chuckled while soothing some of Wild’s stubborn tufts of hair sticking up. There was no malice in his words however. It felt nice to be needed. Besides, Wild could probably shoot Twilight through the leg with an ice arrow and he would look into those damn bright blue eyes and forgive him instantly. Not that there was anything to forgive him for at the moment. Wild was never the burden he thought he was, and never would be. 

“You want some more salve?” Legend called from where he was helping unpack Epona.

“Nah, it’s not awful right now. We’ll save it.” Twilight called back. Legend simply nodded and went back to work. Twilight looked at Time, one of their silent conversations passing between them. ‘You need help?’ Twilight’s expression asked. ‘No. Stay with your cub.’ Twilight nodded and looked back down at Wild. Stay with his cub he would.      

[cateringisalie]

I wanna ask about bdii but I'm not sure if you're playing? plus I'm still in the middle of it lol. Sooo how about Aerith!

Good call! (though am playing BDII but I’m only about a hour or so into it)

 OTP for them: A three way tie! Cloud/Aeris; Aeris/Tifa; Aeris/Tifa/Cloud; give me any of them and I will be so very happy.

BROTP for them: Aeris & Avalanche – any combination of them (including the ones above). Also weirdly Rude now I’m thinking about it (This might be Remake’s fault)

Other Ships: Barret/Aeris, Reeve/Aeris, Reno/Aeris, Aeris/Sephiroth, Aeris/Vincent, Aeris/Squall, Aeris/Cloud/Zack (but like the one instance in The Sky and the Dawn and the Sun), and – pretty sure this was your suggestion and probably half-joking but it has been rattling around my head ever since – Ringabel/Aeris (which to my knowledge has still not been done/I should probably try/BSecond made the mechanics of getting them into the same scene so much easier...). Oh, Aeris/Being Alive is good too – though comes with caveats *side-eyes Remake*

What kind of fic I’d write about them: What I am writing about them: The Aeris as a scavenger in her childhood fic is slowly inching towards a new draft; there’s the trio of Resident Evil/FFVII mash-ups which will feature her as a main character (in place of (seemingly confusingly) Claire, Jill and Sherry) which I have finally started. And some mid-canon smut. Because apparently I cannot help myself.

A favorite canon moment: Remake is Remake and I have expended too many words on the thing, but Chairith remains an absolute delight no matter what.

Color that reminds me of them: While pink might be too on the nose, it’s hard to shake the connection. That said! While typing I realised green is possibly as or more apt for her.

Song that reminds me of them: Bad Guy by Billie Eilish thanks to @effortlesslyuncool

A headcanon about them: She doesn’t like to be too hot and has always wanted to see snow for real – not knowing of course she used to live in the far North.

A random AU I think up on the spot for them: Aeris Gainsborough: Planeswarden facilitates the Other Ship ramble up there. How about; Aeris Gainsborough: Marine biologist; Ifalna got her and Aeris out of the city and as far as Costa del Sol – both have remained somehow undetected and Aeris spends her time exploring the corals and reefs around the resort area/fighting local governance about conservation. Somehow the rest of the cast run across her in a succession of other events that need more mapping to get around her absence earlier in the story.

And cut for length because I went off on this last question...

Anything else: I remain highly amused that both OG and Remake Aeris have been deemed troublesome or problematic or abusive or stalkerish or toxic or some other bad term and are in fact the true villain of FFVII/somehow only toxic in their associations with Cloud. Literally everyone else is FINE and she is perfectly lovely with them. But with Cloud she cannot help but be a horrible, horrible person who makes his life an unending hell.

For those unaware, their extensive list of crimes includes:

 1) Asking Cloud to spend time with them instead of taking him straight to Sector 7 (and while the specifics are different between the versions, that this is something she (unspoken) insists upon while Cloud is apparently champing at the bit to get going and not spend time with Aeris.

 This seemingly strips Cloud of the remotest shred of his own agency?

 And is so very weird – not like Aeris is literally the only person who can navigate Midgar and I do not understand why Cloud cannot avail himself of some simple, pragmatic solutions like ditching or refusing to help Aeris at multiple opportunities (like in Remake when she literally leaves him outside Leaf House, or fleeing from Elmyra’s house when she’s upstairs in either version etc) and asking literally anyone else how to get to Sector 7 or using the layout of Midgar itself as a starting point for figuring out the route (he is in Sector 5. If he looks towards the centre of the city, Sector 4 is on his right, Sector 6 is on his left. If he keeps going left he will eventually come to Sector 7. Even if Cloud is somehow unaware of the city’s structure/layout he will be able to extrapolate by looking up from the slums at how the Upper plate looks/how the reactors are labelled. This is not difficult. Also Remake’s secretive way into Sector 7 doesn’t even come up until they reach the park/we see the gate is currently closed, so it’s not because he knows he needs her solely for this otherwise mysterious route/he can still hang around in the park until the gate opens for other through traffic if he’s desperate to get there. There is no actual urgency on getting back to Sector 7 as far as *he* knows – hence why he doesn’t actually hurry) or finding a map or using the station (which should then also circumvent the gate Cloud doesn’t know about) and so on and so on)

 2) Not wanting to be left behind when Cloud tried to leave in the middle of the night (I mean, how dare she want to spend time with him/everyone is so weirdly adamant that she hasn’t, say, overheard Elmyra’s request to Cloud and thus KNOWS it’s not strictly his opinion to stop her going with him/he once again makes almost no effort to deter her when he runs into her. Oh and her not doing that will near definitely cause Marlene’s death to say nothing of most/all of Avalanche except Tifa)

 3) Making Cloud leaving in the middle of the night without alerting her trivially more difficult (given that he can still leave without her hearing and bursting out of her room doesn’t really gel – if she was a mastermind, not sure Cloud should be able to avoid it on tip-toe really)

 4) High-fiving him repeatedly (the monster. Not like she stops when he seems uncomfortable/he later makes the first move to high-five her so... I don’t get it).

 5) *Might* know the whole plot in Remake and thus is culpable for every death in Sector Seven (which is... 1 or maybe 2 named people (there are those tragic sector 7 people without names or context we see die at the pillar admittedly) depending on how you count – and at least one of those (Biggs) is definitively alive come the Remake epilogue, so one named person (Jessie) who was blown up in a fight with Shinra. The villainy of Aeris! Oh sure you are told other people died, but sector 7 denizen’s major concerns seem to be the structures within the sector which doesn’t really indicate any other casualties actually occurred. Those not explicitly depicted would seem to be okay as no one mentions them either: you’d expect Johnny to bring up if his parents died (and like, maybe he doesn’t know, but he cannot have missed the plate-drop and his parents live in the sector and his relationship with them never seemed horrible so, surely he would care a little/react differently if they were dead))/Wedge to mention Jessie’s parents but neither happen). Oh and for Aeris to do the obvious intervention to fix terrible events would increasingly derail the plot even just in the first part, so, *maybe* she doesn’t know the whole plot (or else has some strange reason why she can’t interfere) and that conjecture is not accurate?

[sergeantjhart]

Task 02 - The Third Degree

The interview was a good idea. Jesse knew that with at least some certainty. It was a way to at least know who they needed to keep an eye on, to try and weed out anyone with bad intentions before they even stepped foot into the town. It wasn’t flawless by any means, but maybe it would do them better in the future than just welcoming anyone off the streets...They didn’t need another Kit in their midst, after all. 

But that didn’t mean he wasn’t dreading it. It was, in essence, a job interview. And sure, he was already slotted in to take on the role in the newly formed council and had been part of making this whole interview a reality, but that didn’t make it feel any less like a means of proving his worth to be here. That he was here for a purpose and here to stay - hopefully, anyway. 

He cleared his throat as he sat down across from the interviewer and recorder, faces and names blurring just a bit as he instead focused on the questions being asked. 

Where do you come from?

“Originally from Chicago,” he answered simply, shoulders lifting in a bit of a shrug. There wasn’t that much more to it.

How would you describe yourself as a person?

“Uh-” he hesitates a minute, considering the question. How would he describe himself as a person? He’d never had to really think about it before. “I don’t know, really. I guess loyal, driven, a leader. At least, I aspire to be, anyway.” He hated talking about himself. It was easier to concern himself with others and not deal with himself. 

How many walkers have you killed?

It’s an interesting question, truly. The number of walkers a person killed spoke to their experience out there in the apocalypse, how they were able to handle themselves in this hellish world. It also took a special kind of person to keep track of that. 

In the beginning Jesse could remember avoiding it at all costs. They didn’t know anything about this ‘virus’ or these people - were they still people? Were they alive? Was it possible to get them back? But when it was life or death, Jesse chose life and chose his family, time and time again. 

“I don’t know, honestly. Avoided it for a while, but when it was necessary it was necessarily.”

How many people have you killed? Why did you kill them?

He knows that this question is meant to be since the outbreak, he knows even to anticipate it. Yet he can’t help thinking back to the war, to those he had killed without all that much thought. Sure, another example of kill or be killed, another example of doing what needed to be done. And yet...

But even without considering before the answer doesn’t really come easily. Because he remembers all the blood on his hands, what he’s had to do to survive. When months had gone by and walkers became common creatures they all knew had to die and weren’t going to be coming back - well, the lines blurred between the living and the dead. He didn’t like to admit it, wanted to pretend that sentiment wasn’t true...but in that period before he’d stumbled upon Fairvale and had a little sense and hope knocked back into him --

“Jesse?” 

His name pulls him back to reality a little and he looks up at the interviewer, clearing his throat. “Uhm, 8 people. I think. Wait - 7, I guess...” He folds his hands together tightly, certain that it wasn’t the answer they were expecting or looking for. It’s written firmly in their expressions even as they try to compose themselves. A killer as part of their council? Had they just opened themselves up to another Kit? 

He tries to tell himself it had to be done, every death at his hands were for a reason. First because of a bite that had been hidden away, one that transformed the former companion into one of those things. There hadn’t been any consideration in that one, even if they had become something of a friend. They didn’t really count, either - technically they were no longer a person when Jesse pulled them off the boy and slid a blade into their temple. It was the kid that was truly his first, one that had reminded him so much of Liam, that he’d come to want to protect just as much as his own baby brother.

Bitten on the forearm, terrified of what was going to happen to him, the group stood around him with solemn expressions. Perhaps because they all knew what needed to be done but none of them was willing to step forward and do it. In part also because the boy’s older brother had fallen to his knees beside the younger, clinging to him for dear life with seemingly no intention of letting anyone else get close. 

“We - You have to help him.” He still remembers the look of desperation in Liam’s eyes as he pleads for Jesse to save him, to keep their friend from dying at the hands of this - disease. But Jesse’s no doctor. All he knows is a bite means death and becoming one of those monsters. But if the disease can’t spread then maybe there’s a chance? The idea of removing the infected limb turns even his stomach, brings back flashes of memories that he’d buried down deep - so similar the situation and yet so incredibly different. 

But living with one arm less than before was better than dying.

“Hold him still -” 

In the end, it didn’t even matter. While it didn’t seem that the disease would take him, it was the blood loss and infection that did. And that blood was now on his hands, seeping into his skin, burned into his memory. 

But what came next was worse, a grief stricken older brother to the boy that lay dead on the operating table (though realistically it was nothing more than an old bar top, with supplies that never should’ve been considered for the task at hand). When they’d pulled Liam towards him with a hand around his chin, ready to snap his neck at any moment. You took everything from me, now I’ll do the same to you. 

If the roles were reversed, Jesse wasn’t sure how he would’ve reacted. But somehow a life for a life didn’t make sense. He tried to plead with him, talk him down...but eventually there wasn’t any choice left. If he wanted to keep Liam alive (and he’d rather die than let anything happen to him) then pulling the trigger and putting a bullet in the brain of someone he’d begin to consider a friend was all he could do...

That story was still fresh in his mind, one that replayed in a loop with different (sometimes better, usually far worse) outcomes if he closed his eyes for too long. But he’d be lying if he said it hadn’t gotten easier after that. To say he’d killed a person, a human, living person - but he’d done it because it meant surviving. Keeping himself or his family alive. 

Are you searching for anybody?

“Yes.” He may have stopped in Fairvale to hang his hat and to have somewhere to call ‘home’, at least to some extent, but he wasn’t going to give up on his family. He’d just needed to refuel, recuperate, make a plan...

“My parents, my little brother, Liam. We got separated when a horde of ‘em came through. I told them to run while I drew the walkers away...” There had to have been a better solution -  he thought that over and over since that day. They should’ve stuck together. But in the heat of the moment it seemed like the best option, and he’d assumed they’d circle back and find each other again without issue. They’d done it again and again. Told him to hide, told him to stay there - and he’d always managed to find him again. 

But not this time. By the time he’d circled back to where he’d last seen them there was no sign of them. And he searched. And he tried not to think of what it meant that he couldn’t find them, that they weren’t here, that this wasn’t as easy as it had been before.

He stumbled upon other groups of survivors, pockets of people who had their own agendas and ended up on the wrong side of his gun in the desperate search for his family. But Fairvale had been the first place that actually sparked a little bit of hope in him. Maybe they’d found it already - no, that hadn’t been the case - but maybe they would find it, too. Just as he had.

Why are you here?

It’s a question he’d asked himself a few times since he’d arrived just a few weeks prior. Why are you here? Why wasn’t he still out there looking - not that he wasn’t taking every opportunity to continue the search. “Because I’m no good to them dead. Because I can do something here. Because chasing a moving target is impossible.” He can only hope that that’s been the problem, that with both of them constantly on the move the odds of them finding each other decreased with every passing day. If he stayed in one place - or at least had a place to go back to - then maybe that increased their odds of finding each other again.

Would you consider yourself a team player?

“Sure, yeah. I’ve always operated best on a team, I think.” 

Are you the type of person who will try to make the best out of a bad situation?

The best out of a bad situation. Like trying to survive when the world was burning around them? “I’m not sure any of us would be here if we didn’t at least have some sense of that.”

What skills do you have that will benefit the community and your fellow survivors?

“I was in the marines, a few years back. I’ve been told I’m a good leader. I try to keep the best interest of the people around me at heart. And I’m not a bad shot.” 

Can you handle yourself in a crisis?

The answer, again, felt pretty obvious. “I think I’ve proven that already, but given we’re all still standing here i think for the most part the answer to that has to be yes for all of us.” They were living in a crisis - for over six months now. If they couldn’t handle themselves in a crisis then they were either extremely lucky to still be alive or already dead.

What are you willing to do to protect the people and things you care about?

“I -” He’d already killed to protect Liam. He’d more quickly step into the line of fire than let anything happen to those he cared about, if he knew it would keep them safe. “Anything.”

Do you have any pre-existing medical conditions our medical staff should be informed about?

This was another question he wasn’t looking forward to. His disability was often hidden from others, behind a pant leg he looked no different unless you knew to pay attention to the slight hitch in his gait. For the most part it didn’t hinder his abilities - running wasn’t as easy as it had once been and he couldn’t be on his feet for lengthy periods of time without discomfort, but he imagined almost everyone suffered those ailments if only in a very distinctly different way. 

He just didn’t want people looking at him like he was broken. At least not in that way. He’d seen the pitying gazes all through his recovery. This, as much as he hated to say it, could be a fresh start. 

But he also wasn’t stupid. He couldn’t do all of this own his own. Sometimes, he’d need a little extra help. 

Pulling up the leg of his pant to reveal a hint of the prosthetic beneath, his shoulders lifted in a slight shrug. “I’d prefer to keep it discreet, if possible.”

[ashdoesfandomarchieved]

Hey!! Could you write something shippy about Boimler and Mariner? What if Boimler regularly spent time in the holodeck acting out certain scenarios and situations with Mariner? 👀

A/N: This was way angstier than I meant it to be. And way less sexier. I apologize in advance.

ao3

She glares at him, mouth pressed into a thin line. “What happened to having each other’s backs? I put my ass on the line for you. Repeatedly.”

He winces. This conversation is not going how he’d planned. “Mariner, I-”

Mariner clenches her fists and straightens. “No, you don’t get to say anything after what you pulled. Fuck you.”

The image freezes and Boimler resets the simulation.

What seems like years ago, he remembers lecturing Tendi overusing the Holodecks for fun. The details are fuzzy. It was before the “GUYS I MADE US INTO A MOVIE'' incident with Mariner, but after that weirdass thing with Rutherford and his rogue program. He thinks she and Mariner had been using it to watch Ransom in an array of—what he now admits-hysterical situations—but can’t be sure.

She and Mariner have gotten up to so much shit, he can’t keep track.

He doesn’t know why he’s remembering it now. It was a random conversation that happened a long time ago—a few months after Tendi was assigned to the Cerritos? –so there’s no reason why he should be thinking about it right now.

Liar, a smug voice intones in his head. It sounds vaguely like Mariner. Boimler aggressively shoves it down.

This isn’t for fun, he anxiously tells the voice in his head. The voice is quiet. It does nothing to soothe the turning of his stomach.

It’s been three months since Boimler requested a transfer back to the Cerritos. Three months since he’d run into Rutherford and Tendi on shore leave and the three of them got swept up into a ridiculous, interplanetary civil war that took three different starship crews to settle out. Three months since he’d almost died more times than he can count on all his fingers and toes, three months since he thought Tendi had died, miles away from her home, on a world which would never remember her name, three months since Mariner swept in and fixed everything.

It’s been three months.

Not that he’s counting.

Somewhere between being in a remote alien prison with Tendi and hiking for a month in a perpetually dark wilderness with Rutherford, Boimler had come to the belated conclusion that his career didn’t take precedence over his friends.

(Also, if he’s being completely honest, he missed the chaos of being a lower deck ensign. Not that he still doesn’t want to be in the upper ranks. Just not without his dumb, dumb friends.)

After it was all over—and he’d realized that Tendi was alive—he put in his transfer request, surprising all his peers.

“This just isn’t a good fit for me,” was his official statement.

Captain Riker gave him a bland look. “You worked with Beckett, didn’t you.” His voice was flat, but his eyes were amused.

“Is it that obvious?”

“She rubs off on people. Don’t let her give you a hard time,” he added, signing off on the request. “It was nice working with you, Boimler. If you ever need anything, let me know.”

And so here he is, a newly minted ensign again, on the lower decks of the Cerritos.

(Captain Freeman is thrilled. “All operations have been down by 18% since you left. Good to have you back, Boimler.”)

Tendi and Rutherford seem hyped to have him back-Tendi especially, who’s been a little clingy with everyone since her near-death experience-but are acting uncharacteristically nervous around him. This isn’t a surprise. The tension between him and Mariner when she’d shown up on Roxadt II was insane and was only getting worse with every day. It’s been six weeks since he’d transferred, and she’s found a reason to be in a different room for all six of them.

Hence the simulations.

That makes absolutely no fucking sense, the Mariner-esque voice in his head sneers. Just talk to her you fucking wimp.

Boimler ignores it.

“Scenario A-187,” the clinical voice of the simulation intones. The simulation restarts.

It goes exactly the same way 186 other scenarios had gone. He corners Mariner. She stays quiet. He apologizes. She explodes.

Mariner’s anger had always burnt red hot. He’d first experienced it when an ensign got a little frisky with Tendi after she’d repeatedly told him no. Mariner’s fury at the situation felt justified. Vindicated. The ensign had been demoted so hard, Boimler was certain they’d seen the last of him for like. Well, forever.  At the time he’d been astonished that she’d managed to pull it off, but after finding out about her familial connection to the Captain, it made sense.

He’d seen a glimpse of that anger a few more times—when Captain Freeman had forced her to go to therapy, after Rutherford had been captured by rogue Klingons, that one-time Ransom tried to promote her.  But never toward Boimler.

Oh, she’d get irritated with him.  “Loosen up, Boimler, it’s not that bad.”

“Look, the worst that’ll happen is that we get a note to file-stop yelling!”

“Dude if you don’t chill the fuck out I might actually throw you out of an airlock.”

Standard Mariner reactions, right? Yeah, she’d been pretty pissed when he took the promotion (his voicemail had been blowing up for the first 48 hours after he transferred), but it had died down fairly quickly so he had logically assumed that she had gotten over it.

He assumed wrong. If her icing him out was to be taken into account. So here he was, six weeks in, desperate and stressed from his friend’s apparent dismissal. The obvious solution, his sleep deprived brain decided, was to simulate a conversation with her using his high-tech program on the holodeck.

This may have not been the best idea. But he’s calculated the probability of anything going wrong and it’s under 3%, so he’s almost guaranteed success.

(So, of course, it blows up in his face, in true Boimler fashion.)

“Okay, I have a pretty high threshold for weird, but this might take the cake,” a voice slowly says.

Boimler startles. Whirls around. Shuts down the simulation. “Ohhh shit-”

“Yeah shit,” Mariner says, stalking into the room. “What the hell, dude?”

“This isn’t what it looks like!” Boimler sputters out, panicked. The simulation is shut down, leaving them in the empty holodeck room, but the echoes of Holo-Mariner’s rage still resonate between them. Actual Mariner is staring at him, face somewhere between completely shocked and furious.

“Did you use your dumbass hyper realistic program to simulate a situation with me so that you could cheat later?”

“I mean, kinda?”

“Then it’s exactly what it looks like!” Mariner slaps a palm over her eyes.

“Well what was I supposed to do?”

“I don’t know—maybe talk to me like a person? Not use your creepy, hyper realistic simulations to roleplay it?” She drops her hand and glares up at him.  

Boimler rolls his eyes. “You literally created a simulation to kill the entire crew because your mom made you go to therapy.”

“Yeah and it fucking worked.”

“Then why are you yelling at me?!”

“I’m not!”  she shrieks. “I’m very calmly telling you to fucking talk to me next time!”

“There’s not going to be a next time!”

Mariner stops, mouth open. “What?”

“Look, I get it. I fucked up and you apparently don’t do second chances! I was trying to make things right but clearly it isn’t working. I’ll stay out of your way now.”

Instead of pacifying her, this seems to make Mariner even more furious. “You fucking asshole. what am I supposed to say to that?” she shouts, stomping up to him.

He groans in exasperation. “Apparently nothing, considering you don’t want to talk to me!”

Her hands grab his collar, pulling him down to eye level with her. “I literally just said to talk to me next time!”

“And how was I supposed to do that if you’re avoiding me?”

“You’re the one who fucked off in the Titan to god-knows-where,” Mariner grits out.

So they’re actually doing this. Boimler swallows hard. Takes a breath. Tries to quell the anxiety welling in his gut. “I’m sorry.”

“Right after you said you didn’t care about rank or shit,” she adds, twisting the knife.

“Yeah. It was really shitty of me.”

“And then you ghosted me for like six months.”

Boimler winced. “Yeah—I. Yeah.”

Mariner’s iron grip on his shirt loosens, but she doesn’t let go completely. “That was really shitty of you.”

Not sure what to say, beyond apologizing again, Boimler gives a jerky nod.

“You came back.” She stares at him, eyes unfathomable. “The Titan wasn’t everything you dreamed it would be.”

It’s not a question.

Boimler still has an answer, though. “It was.”

She stiffens. He pushes forward, intent on getting this out while he still has her attention. “It was everything I wanted in a career. I was doing what I wanted, everyone took me seriously. Our missions came straight from the Admiralty and they treated us like we weren’t a joke. I loved it.”

“Then why are you here?”

“Because I care more about my friends then I do about people taking me seriously.”

Mariner freezes and then lets out a strangled laugh. “Now I think you’re the simulation. Who are you and what have you done with Boimler?” She pokes at his cheek.

He grins. And then falters. “For what it’s worth—and I know it’s not worth much—but. I am sorry. I wasn’t a very good friend.”

“Yeah you weren’t.” She lets go of her grip on his shirt completely and draws back. “You said you were my best friend and then you left. For Riker.”

“That makes me sound like the love interest in a cheesy drama. And like I’m hooking up with Riker.”

“I said what I said.”

Boimler laughs. It feels real for the first time in a long while. “Are we good?”

“No.” Mariner smiles. “I’m going to give you so much shit and you’re gonna grovel for like months and then I’m going to tell my mom that you used to holodeck to simulate certain situations with me.”

“If you do that I’m transferring back,” Boimler tells her. “Your mom finally likes me; I don’t need her ejecting me out of an airlock.”

“She wouldn’t do that.” Mariner waves him off.

“She totally would.”

“Yeah, she totally would,” she agrees. Grabs his arm and begins dragging him out of the holodeck. “So maybe I won’t tell her. I am telling Tendi though and she’s gonna give you so much shit considering you reemed her out over misusing the holodeck.”

Boimler makes a face. “I’ll probably let her too. I’m such a hypocrite.”

“You are, but it’s super weird to hear you be honest about it. Stop being all apologetic, it’s weird.”

They’ve reached the corridor. Mariner steers them in the direction of the bar. “Only if you promise to deck me if I ever make a dumb decision like that again,” he says, giving in and allowing himself to be manhandled. It’s the least he owes her.

“Deal. And the next time you use your weird, hyper realistic simulator—which doesn’t even fucking work by the way, I’m not that much of a bitch—you gotta promise you’ll use it for sexy reason only.”

“Sexy reasons only,” Boimler deadpans. “You know they log everything we do down there.”

Mariner wiggles her eyebrows up and down. “I know.”

“You’re disgusting.”

“And you’re uptight, but you’re the one who was playing with simulations of me.”

“That sounds way worse than it actually is,” he cringes.

“No, it doesn’t. I would take some sexy action over your sad, sad trauma simulations any day. Next time I catch you, you’d better be having fun with it.”

“Mariner, what the fuck—”

They dissolve into good natured bickering. She says something lewd and he rolls his eyes and elbows her and she squawks in protest and threatens to get him thrown in the brig. It’s normal, but it’s also not. There’s something new in the air between them that wasn’t there before. Tension, but not negative. It’s charged with. Something else.

Boimler doesn’t examine it too closely. Better to let it work itself out naturally. After all, he has all the time in the world now.

[ruminativerabbi]

Hatred, Fear, Hope

Like most Jewish Americans, I was caught off-guard back in 2017 by the sight of white supremacists marching in Charlottesville, Virginia, and carrying aloft the flags of the Confederate States of America and Nazi Germany. (That they were also carrying the so-called Gadsden Flag that was originally used by the Continental Marines during the American Revolution—the one designed back in 1775 by Christopher Gadsden featuring the words “Don’t Tread on Me” beneath a coiled-up, scary-looking rattlesnake—struck me primarily as a sign of how little these people know about the values upon which the nation was founded in the first place.) The sight of those flags being held aloft proudly and defiantly was beyond upsetting, but not particularly confusing. But what was confusing—to me and I suspect to most—was the chant “Jews will not replace us,” which I hadn’t ever heard before and which I now realize I misunderstood, taking it to mean something entirely different than what it apparently does mean.

Taking the slogan at what I thought was face value, I understood the marchers to be declaring their determination not to allow themselves to be replaced by Jews eager to take over their jobs and leave them without work and eventually destitute.  In other words, I imagined this somehow to be tied to the marchers’ skittishness about the job market and their need to find someone to blame in advance for losing jobs they fear they only haven’t lost yet and in which they fear they will eventually, to use their own word, be “replaced.” It hardly seems like a rational fear, but that’s what it felt like it had to mean, and so I ended up taking it as just so much craziness rooted not in anything corresponding to actual reality but in the malign fantasy that, left unchecked, we Jewish people will somehow take over the world and install our own people in whatever jobs we wish without regard to where such a move would leave the people currently holding them. And that is what I sense most Jewish people—and maybe even most Americans—hearing this chant took it to mean.

But now that I’ve read more, I see that that is specifically not what “Jews will not replace us” means and that the slogan specifically is not about Jews replacing Christians at work at all. Instead, the chant encapsulates the marchers’ fear that we Jews are working not to take over their jobs ourselves but to replace them at work with third-party others chosen specifically to deprive them of their livelihoods and their places in society. And who might these other people be? That, it turns out, is where anti-Semitism and racism meet: the hordes of jobseekers the marchers fear turn out not to be Jews at all, but hordes of dark-skinned immigrants feared already to be pouring over our borders and insinuating themselves into an already-tight job market. And it is those people who, because they are presumed ready to work at even the most menial jobs for mere pennies, are imagined to be threatening the white (i.e., non-immigrant) people who currently hold those jobs and who earn the American-sized salaries they use to support themselves and their families.

To say this is crazy stuff is really to say nothing at all. Yes, we have a huge and so-far-unresolved issue in this country with illegal aliens living in our midst and I’m sure that those people do take jobs that legal residents might otherwise have. And lots of non-crazy people, myself definitely included, are eager to find a way out of this morass that we ourselves have created by failing to police our borders adequately and by allowing the number of undocumented illegals in our midst to grow from a mere 760,000 or so in 1975 to something like 12.5 million today with no obvious solution in sight.

So wanting a reasonable solution to be found—one that is fully grounded both in settled U.S. law and in our national inclination to be just, fair, kind, and generous, and one that doesn’t make after-the-fact chumps out of all those countless millions of people who followed all the rules and immigrated here fully legally—is not crazy at all. What is crazy is the fantasy that Jewish Americans somehow possess the secret power to order Walmart’s and Costco and every other American business to fire specific employees and replace them with pre-selected others regardless of whether those others are or are not here legally. Crazier still is the contention that American Jews somehow control American immigration policy, and that we are somehow able imperiously to issue instructions that must be obeyed both to Democratic and Republican administrations. But craziest of all is the belief that, precisely because American Jews are so supremely powerful, we must be attacked violently before we order the administration to let even more immigrants into our nation. That, after all, was the specific reason the Pittsburgh shooter gave for his savagery in a comment posted online just before the attack: to give the officers of HIAS pause for thought before they work to bring in any more “invaders [to] kill our people.” My post-Pittsburgh proposal is that we stop dismissing that line of thinking as aberrant looniness that no normal person could actually embrace and start taking it far more seriously.

It feels natural to consider the various kinds of prejudice that characterize our society as variations on a common theme. And in a certain sense, I suppose, that is true. But these pernicious attitudes are also distinct and different, both in terms of their root causes and the specific way they manifest themselves in the world: misogyny, racism, and homophobia, for example, are similar in certain cosmetic ways, but differ dramatically in terms of the specific malign fantasies that inspire them and thus should (and even probably must) be addressed in different ways as well. And we should also bring that line of thinking to bear in considering anti-Jewish prejudice: similar in some ways to other forms of prejudice, anti-Semitism also has unique aspects that it specifically does not share with other forms of bigotry. Indeed, the fact that the anti-Semitism put on public display in Charlottesville was rooted in the haters’ groundless yet powerful fantasy about the almost limitless power imagined somehow to have wound up in the hands of the hated is all by itself enough to distinguish anti-Semitism from other kinds of prejudice. And not at all irrelevant is that it appears not to matter at all how impossible it feels to square that fantasy about Jewish powerfulness with the degree to which powerless Jews have suffered at the hands of their foes over the centuries, and particularly in the last one. In that regard, I would like to recommend a very interesting essay by Scott A. Shay, the author and Jewish activist, that was published in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette a few days after the shooting at Tree of Life Synagogue and which readers viewing this electronically can access by clicking here.

Nor is this a problem solely of one extreme end of the political spectrum. In the wake of Pittsburgh, the spotlight is on the anti-Semitism that characterizes the extreme right, but the same light could be shone just as brightly on the anti-Semitism of the extreme left…and particularly when it promotes hostility toward Israel’s very right to exist and to defend itself against its enemies. Indeed, the assumption that Israel—instead of being perceived as an outpost of democracy smaller than New Jersey trying to survive in a region in which it must deal with nations and political terror groups that openly express their hope to see Israel and its Jewish population annihilated—is perceived as an all-powerful Goliath seeking to eradicate its innocent opponents militarily rather than to negotiate fairly or justly with them, is part and parcel of this fantasy regarding the power of the Jewish people. Coming the week after Hamas fired over five hundred missiles at civilian targets in Israel, each capable of killing countless civilian souls on the ground, the image of Israel as the aggressor in its ongoing conflict with Hamas sounds laughable and naïve. But maybe we should stop laughing long enough to ask ourselves how this myth of Jewish power—whether focused on American Jews imagined to be in control of American foreign policy or Israeli Jews imagined to be intent on crushing their innocent victims for no rational reason at all—perhaps we should ask ourselves how we might address, not this or that symptom of the disease, but the disease itself.

Distinct (at least in my mind) from theological anti-Semitism rooted in the supersessionist worldview promoted for so long by so many different Christian denominations, this specific variety of anti-Semitism seems rooted not in messianic fervor but in fear. And that, I think, is probably how to go about addressing it the most effectively: by pulling that fear out into the light and exposing it as a fantasy no less malign than inane. By forcing young people drawn to the alt-right to look at pictures of the innocents murdered in Pittsburgh and to ask themselves if they truly have it in them to believe that U.S. government policy was until two weeks ago being dictated by 97-year-old Rose Mallinger or by Cecil or David Rosenthal, both gentle, disabled types whose lives were built around service to their house of worship. By forcing young people poisoned with irrational hatred of Israel to look at the portraits of the 1,343 civilians murdered by Palestinian terrorists since 2000 and to see, not predators or fiends, but innocent victims of mindless violence. By insisting that young people drawn to fear Jews and Judaism be exposed to the stories of Shoah victims—and, if possible, to surviving survivors themselves—and through that experience to understand where groundless prejudice can lead if left unchecked and unaddressed.

To hope that no one is drawn to extremism is entirely rational, but it really can’t be enough. Just as young people who seem drawn to a racist worldview should be forced—by their parents and their teachers in school, or by society itself—to look into the eyes of those poor souls gunned down in the Emanuel A.M.E. church in Charleston on June 17, 2015, after welcoming their murderer into their midst for an hour of Bible study, so should society itself rescue young people from themselves once they are perceived to be embracing the kind of anti-Semitism that led directly to Pittsburgh…and be forced to confront the bleak hatred that has taken  root in their hearts and to see it for what it is: a fantasy rooted in fear that can be overcome and eradicated by anyone truly willing to try.

[eurydice-khthonios]

There was an animosity that persisted between them in the days following the encounter at the library. There was ice in the air between them. It didn’t go unnoticed, the cold anger aimed at Eosphorus and the distaste aimed towards Asra. There was some questioning of course, towards Asra. None from the other courtiers, none from the Count. There was no need, it was of little importance. Though for fate, it always kept forcing them together.

Asra’s very presence was a point of contention and the latest reason for Eos’ newly stoked ruthlessness in her duties. It was the reminder of Hyperion, not the man himself. Though his words in the library would’ve been more than enough to earn her ire by themselves. The fact that Hyperion was part of her life, again, and tainted it even beyond the grave was infuriating. She’d made something of herself in Vesuvia’s court. She’d become important all on her own! Yet here he always was, always in someone’s spotlight taking her opportunities away from her. Hyperion always had the last laugh.

They’d had a few arguments on Hyperion. She stood by her stance of how selfish Hyperion was, that he could never truly love someone as much as he loved himself. Asra spoke differently on him.

Eos knew well enough that no one knew Hyperion like she did.

“You can give and give and give, and there’ll always be someone who never gives back.”  

There’d been moments where they’d been forced to interact. The courtiers worked close with the progress of the plague. Vulgora with the eradication of the red beetles, Volta detected plague in food and people. Valdemar… Dissected. Eosphorus meanwhile handled the public. Specifically ‘ensuring’ that water was clean, and public baths were running.

She did not do a great job at that. Though it was hard, the plague infected everything. The best she could do was ensure that nothing was falling apart and let the virus take its course.

It was such thankless work. Always people demanding more.

“The water is filled with beetles and plague!” “The aqueducts are filling with red water!” “We can’t keep drinking this!”

At least these people had something to drink. Could they not be grateful for that?

In the moments where Asra and Eos were forced to work together, there seemed to be moments where Asra wanted to speak of things that did not include snide remarks that could be dismissed and on topic comments. The first syllable of Hyperion’s name built up in his throat before he forced it away. He would raise his hand to almost touch her shoulder, to gain her attention. Moments where they were left alone filled with a silence that anticipated something from him yet left unsatisfied. It was forming into an annoying itch in her mind.

That did not always colour their interactions. When they could both remain on topic, there turned out to be far more workarounds to her usual method of using the system as a diversion than she’d anticipated. Though Asra, by all means, was supposed to be working with every other ‘honored guest’ to cure the plague he always found some time to poke holes in her solutions. In the end, they only saw each other during her meetings with concerned citizens and when Lucio decided to hold banquets to check on the progress of the cure.

The banquets always glowed with golden light, and the smell of rich food and delicacies from other lands that ladden the long table they all sat at. The courtiers sitting on either side of the table nearest to Lucio. Surrounding him like a hoard of the red beetles that now plagued Vesuvia’s waterways and food stores. On the opposing end from Count Lucio, sat his wife the Countess Nadia. From there, other guests filtered in and found their own seats among them.

Asra sat nearest to the courtiers, forced to sit across from Eosphorus. A glare aimed at Lucio and Eosphorus both scarcely hidden. She knew not what Lucio had done, but with a glance towards him at the corner of her eye, she could still understand the animosity. When it came to Lucio, one either lusted after him or despised him. Sometimes it was both; That’s when it got really interesting.

The conversation at dinner largely consisted of the search for the cure. Lucio was getting worse and worse by the day, or hour more like. His hair becoming greasier, the red more and more obvious. It was becoming disturbing to be around him for some. The servants tried to limit contact for fear of catching the plague. Eosphorus herself wasn’t so sure if The Devil’s bargain would keep her from catching it either, it certainly hadn’t saved Lucio. Rather, a deal was the cause of it.

The conversation remained largely on the plague. It made for unappetizing dinner conversation. Eos taking more to pushing around various items about her plate. In truth, she got sick of this. She had it better than most, but she’d rather not eat herself silly to the point of being overstuffed. This was not of some feign or shallow ‘I am far too rich and aware of my superiority to possibly eat this way’ behaviour. She merely liked the idea of moving after a meal.

There was a discussion between Asra, Doctor Devorak, and The Count. About their progress. Admittedly the conversation was largely lead by Devorak as he talked on his theories, about how the plague could be blood or black bile based. Leeches, to Lucio’s chagrin, were his main method of a cure attempt.

Eos speared a piece of meat, marinated in one kind of sauce or another, and began to lift it to her mouth. Eyes glancing up.

A flash of red came across her vision, a beetle crawling its way into the cup seated in front of Asra. Without looking at it he reached for it, bringing it up to his mouth. The beetle just barely peeking up over the rim.

If that insect bit him, or worse, if he swallowed it. He’d be infected with the plague, with no deals with magical beings to prolong his life. He’d die. That would be the last person to link her and her brother.

Fate’s weave had been torn apart, the course that lives should’ve gone on had been diverted from their original paths. Despite that, there was something inside of Eos. Reminiscent of the young magician that should have of lived in Vesuvia for years in her aunt’s old shop, who kept her hair in a ponytail for as long as possible before brushing and redoing it and preferred old clothes to expensive furs and silk. An Eos that might have been, but wasn’t.

She lunged forward, hand extended to close over the cup and bring it down. Her knuckles brushed against his lips, just barely managing to shoot her hand into the space between his mouth and the cup before slamming it down. The wine inside spilled up over the edges, wetting her palm and the beetle crawled out between her fingers. She snatched it, holding it between her thumb and index finger.

Asra was staring at her. It could’ve been so easy to let him get bitten, to end the itch that he was. To end the last reminder of Hyperion.

She pushed away from the table, crushing the beetle in her fist.

“Volta, Vulgora, check for others. Where there’s one there’s more.” Volta jumped at the chance to investigate further the feast that had been set before them, and Vulgora seemed more than ready to crush any other bugs that happened to be hiding among it all. The table erupted in conversation and panic as Eos left. The remains of the beetle sticking to her hand and cloak billowing behind her. She had to wash her hand, had to boil it. She would not allow herself to end up like Lucio had.

She headed for her office. The best place to barricade herself in until she dealt with this mess. She slid down the door once she had it locked, holding her wrist in her other hand.

There was something inside of her that responded to the feel of Asra’s lips brushing against her knuckles, to the look in his eyes as she slammed the cup down and crushed the red beetle. Something that should’ve begun in different circumstances a long time ago, but was only growing now.

There was something disconnected in her mind, and it worried her.

[stunudo]

BAU Prep School AU: Class of 18

Welcome to the Frederick Buchanan Institute located in scenic Quantico, Virginia, a senior high academy that shapes the best and brightest minds. Its motto is “Behavior, Analysis, Unity,” the mascot the Submariners, colloquially “the Unsubs”. The small school supports the most accomplished faculty from across the country. (image link)  2016-2017 school year  Class of 18

Forward

December 31, 2017 4:17pm

Derek had gotten comfortable; the steaks were marinating and there were just a few things to grab from the grocery store. He brought up a college bowl game he had recorded while they were flying home from Chicago. Somehow, he naively thought he could watch it while Penelope was in the shower, as he didn’t need much time to get ready himself.

“Derek Avery Morgan! I know that’s not your middle name, but it’s the middle name I gave you in my head before I knew your real middle name. What are you doing?”

“Watching the game?” Derek answered sheepishly, quickly hunching his shoulders for the onslaught. “Baby girl, the food is ready, and you were in the shower.”

 Penelope stormed into the room, placing herself unceremoniously between Derek and the television screen. “What about the decorations? The liquor? The little sparkly hats? Derek, it is our first New Year’s Eve Party, it has to. Be. Purrrrr-fect!”

Derek’s head fell, he gathered his features to not display the amount of amusement he had at her berating him in nothing but a barely cinched towel. He tried to look her in the eye, but his lingered along the way up her body. His mischievous grin caused her to stomp in frustration. She held up a manicured finger, “No! Don’t you even look at me with those bedroom eyes! We have people coming over and you have decorations to pick up.”

“Can I at least get a goodbye kiss?” Derek stood, his sultry voice causing Penelope to roll her eyes. The towel on her head shifting slightly.

“Fine,” She muttered, pretending not to enjoy the way his lips trailed up her jaw. His hand slipped inside her towel and found her bare waist. “Oh, this was a bad idea.” She huffed as her hands linked behind Derek’s neck. Her towel was soon forgotten on the floor of the living room.

7:03pm

Tara strolled through the bourbon aisle at the liquor store just down the street from Penelope and Derek’s place. She ignored the appreciative stares from the men standing behind the counter with the scratch offs and Black and Milds. She had a knee length wool coat over her favorite maxi dress, her unneeded heels marking each graceful step. She didn’t feel obligated to bring something, since Penelope undoubtedly had more than enough food and drink on hand. But she hated to be the first one to arrive, so she killed time on one of the busiest drinking nights of the year. She watched the kids maneuver in the parking lot, doling out their cash to the one legal friend or one with the most acceptable fake i.d.

The brusque man behind the counter with the jilting accent rolled his eyes and refused the frat boy his stash. Tara smiled despite herself, one less driver to worry about tonight, she thought. She settled on a bottle of Jim Beam Black and left the small store with a wistful wink for the law-abiding business owner. The night air was cool, but no where near as cold as New Hampshire in the winter. She enjoyed the block and a half walk, just people watching. Something had struck in the back of her mind after her would-be date with Rossi, something like an itch had taken over.

8:37pm

“Wait! Spence, your tie!” Elle giggled as she pulled his arm back, forcing him to face her. She straightened the satin strands as he tried to bite back the guilty smirk. “Don’t look at me like that! We’re already late!”

“And whose fault is that?” Spencer teased, holding his elbow out for Elle to slip her arm through.

“Yours. Now, stop beaming like a kid in the candy store or everyone will know.”

“I can’t help it.” Spencer tried unsuccessfully to make his face more serious, he shrugged as Elle knocked on the front door. She rolled her eyes, thinking how lucky he was to be cute and hopeless, because she couldn’t stay mad at him for being completely enamored with her.

“Happy New Year!” Derek’s boisterous voice burst through the door as he froze staring. “Elle? Reid?!”

“Hey, Derek,” Elle slipped passed him with a half hug and into the heart of the party. Derek meanwhile tried to have a silent conversation with Reid who was desperately confused by the coach’s dramatic eyebrow motions.

“Man, you mean to tell me, that you, Dr. Nerd-Point-O brought Elle Greenaway to my New Year’s Eve party?!” He clarified with ample approval.

“I’d think it was obvious, Coach. I mean, we’re only living together.” Spencer gave Derek a wilted glance, tucking the tousled strands of hair behind his ears.

“That’s who you were talking about at Tutoring Hour!” Derek swatted Spencer’s chest in a biting back hand. “You dog! Well, congratulations, man, good for you!”

“Thanks, it is good, actually.” Spencer turned bright pink as Derek caught on, because Elle’s hair was particularly pinched in one place and Spencer’s shirt wasn’t tucked in in the back.

“Let me know if you want the tour!” Derek called over his shoulder as he went to let Haley and Hotch in.

Penelope squealed across the room as Elle subtly slipped into the conversation with Chris Callahan, Matt Simmons, JJ and the hostess herself. “You came! Oh, Elle-O-V-E, my sweet, I am so glad you came!”

“Hi, Penelope. How many have you had?” Elle mumbled as she hugged the affectionate blonde.

“Oh, pish, I’m home, I’ll have one more at midnight, but three if you’re serious.” Penelope squeezed Elle one last time before getting back to Chris talking about his new surround sound system. She haphazardly explained who Elle was to Matt and they nodded cordially. JJ and Matt gave Elle an impressed and appraising smirk (respectfully) as she explained she was also Spencer’s live-in girlfriend.

9:12pm

Emily was picking at the veggie tray, desperately trying to look casual while she dwindled the tower of sugar snap peas down to a single layer. Spencer had forgotten to eat and had unceremoniously began filling a tiny snack plate with each of the major food groups, hovering over the toothpicks stacked with cheese cubes. Because though he loved it, dairy didn’t always agree with him. Quickly, Spencer arrived at the veggie tray as Emily was looking off into the party vaguely.

“Phenethylamine, which is often shortened to P-E-A, is actually found in those crunchy varietals that you have been devouring. It’s one of the—"

“Love chemicals. Isn’t it the aphrodisiac found in chocolate?” Emily replied, her voice even and nearing on friendly.

“Research in the eighties linked them, however there has been no repeat success in linking libido and chocolate. But, it can’t hurt. I mean, everybody loves chocolate.” Spencer snatched the last pea pod from the tray as he finished.

“Right. Wow, Reid, got enough food there?” Emily exclaimed as she saw his overflowing plate.

“That’s the plan.” He sighed as he caught Derek and Penelope gossiping across the room. “Emily what would the easiest way to explain how much I regret being unnecessarily cruel last year, be? Well, last school year, and you didn’t deserve that.”

Emily’s eyes narrowed, she watched him twitch as he waited for her response. “Spencer,” his first name sticky in her mouth, “I- I said a lot of things I am not proud of. Let’s just call it square and move on.”

“Really?” Spencer’s eyes still held that brilliant innocence within them.

“Really, Reid.” Emily’s deep-chested chortle burst through. “Happy New Year.”

“And to you,” Spencer bowed his head and headed to find a spot on the couch.

10:48pm

Aaron Hotchner stood back and admired his friends and staff. He was in good company, his beautiful wife laughing at his side, listening to Luke retell a joke so she could memorize it. Around the house his team was reveling in witty conversation and exquisite food. His body was warm from proximity and alcohol, but Haley anchored him in place, instinctively. Luke had acclimated unexpectedly well to life at F.B.I. and Hotch was proud of his choice. He was lamenting losing Simmons when JJ returned from maternity leave next semester and wished he could find a way to keep him on board.

“Well, ask Strauss, there’s got to be funds available.” Haled exclaimed. Hotch hadn’t realized he was thinking aloud. The realization and blatant solution abruptly brought him back to the present.

“How did a guy like me get such a smart and gorgeous wife?” Aaron murmured as Haley huffed in faux exasperation.

“Forgive my husband, he gets like this when he drinks.” Haled sighed through a giggle as Aaron started playing with her hair. “Mr. Serious most days becomes an expressive sap once you get more than two drinks in him.”

“Nah, it’s alright, I mean, there are worse drunks to have around,” Luke grinned, downplaying how out of character the headmaster was acting. He was having a great time getting to know Haley. There were a lot of people he got along well with since moving to Virginia, but something about Hotch’s wife clicked within him. Like a long-lost sister or middle school friend, he felt they could talk for hours and never be bored with one another. Perhaps it was the pleasantness that had caused Luke to miss the forlorn glances from a particular groundskeeper looming near the wine rack on the counter.

11:23pm

“Just use the master, through the bedroom,” Penelope insisted to Tara when she asked for a bathroom. It was awkward waltzing through her co-workers’ intimate spaces, but she had a feeling there were more than two people occupying the other bathroom and she did not have the patience for that wait. It was clear that Derek was wiggling his way into Penelope’s well-established space. The vibrant colors and hanging beads leading to the walk-in closet signature of the guidance counselor while the chest of drawers with minimal jewelry and cufflinks a hint of Derek’s masculine elegance.

She hadn’t realized someone had left the bathroom and caught her snooping. “It’s weird walking through their room, right?” Kate clucked as she lingered at a picture of Derek’s extended family.

“Completely… enthralling,” Tara held up a a particularly oddly knotted tie. “I’m not going to ask.”

“Good idea.” Kate hummed, her bright face more smiley than normal. “I’m having a blast! Are you having fun?”

“Yeah, I was in a mood earlier, but now I’m better.” Tara confided, they were standing in the near the door way, Kate leaning against Derek’s dresser while Tara stood nearly a foot taller than her.

“Oh? Anything the matter?” Kate’s caregiver instincts etched into her face.

“Nah, don’t worry about it.” Tara smiled, letting her friend’s features ease back.

“Uh-oh, looks like somebody still left up some Christmas decorations,” Kate giggled as she pointed to the sprig of mistletoe behind Tara’s head.

“I mean, it’s Penelope, that could be a year-round tradition for her,” Tara shrugged.

“Yeah, but I mean. It’s bad luck to not kiss under it, isn’t it?” Kate seemed overly concerned and as Tara knew the history of the poisonous plant she remained skeptical until Kate stepped over and stood directly beneath it.

“Are you serious? You want me to kiss you, just for luck?” Tara rolled her eyes as she turned to face the very curvaceous petite brunette.

“Duh!” Kate added, closing her eyes and lifting her jaw. Tara’s lack of inhibitions returned full force as her lips met Kate’s. Her hands cradled the nape of Kate’s neck as her mouth opened, if by surprise or pleasure Tara couldn’t be sure. But she did know that Kate was kissing her back, her nimble tongue darting against Tara’s.

“Uh, is anyone in the bathroom?” A voice broke the women apart, their faces burning and eyes locking on to the source.

11:52pm

“Holy crow, it’s almost midnight!” Penelope lept up from the couch where she had been nestled between Grant who had been sipping a massive glass of red and tucked beneath Emily’s reclining legs. Emily huffed as she had catch herself from falling off the couch with an uneven back arch and balancing act with the coffee table. The fact that she held it and sat comfortably back down on her end of the couch, earned her a few hoots and applause.

Penelope shuffled out of the heart of the party to gather the champagne and her midnight smooching companion. “Chocolate Thunder Assemble!”

“That doesn’t really work when you’re looking for one person,” Chris Callahan smiled casually from one of the bar stools.

“Hush!” Penelope pointed and shushed the large man. “Derek! I need thee! Oh, here you are! Pop the bottles, Hot Stuff. We got flutes to full, fill.”

“I’m at your service, Sweet Thing.” Derek purred, easily going down the row and letting the fizzy liquid to snake out of two of the four bottles they had bought for the twelve o’clock toast. They scrambled throughout their home doling out disposable cups and noise makers. Matt graciously changed the channel to the Times’ Square Countdown in NYC. Elle and Spencer were discreetly handed sparkling cider by a winking Derek.

Impeccably timed, Penelope snapped her 2018 headband on as she linked hands with Derek. They stood to the side, enjoying the view of their guests bunching together to chant the formidable countdown.

10

9

8

Spencer and Elle were bumping elbows and shoulders, knuckles and knees to each beat of the countdown like goofy kids.

7

6

5

Emily stood behind JJ her glass held lazily at her hip as they swayed to the chorus around them.

4

3

Chris, Kate, Haley and Hotch all stood in a line pumping their fists as if it were a pep rally.

2

Tara sidled up to Matt as he looked like her best bet for a passing kiss at the buzzer.

1

“Happy New Year!” The room erupted as the year fell over, bringing hope and happiness in a haze of alcohol and incorrigible optimism. Across town many of their students were celebrating in much similar fashions, yet the teachers carried on, kissing cheeks and hugging one another as if this, truly, would be the best year of their lives. Penelope and Derek were the last to break for air, well, they thought they were.

After hugging everyone again, Penelope stumbled slack-jawed upon Luke and Grant locked in their own intense bubble. She cleared her throat; the room fell silent around the alarmed hostess.

“Uh-kem!” She tried again, prodding Luke’s shoulder forcefully with her fingertip. Dramatically slowly, Luke and Grant separated themselves, their clothes twisted at all angles from their torrid make out session. “Finally! Hugs, the both of you, c’mon!” She made grabby hands in the air as both men begrudgingly stood to give her a squeeze. Once sated she pushed them back together and started collecting empty plates and cups.

Soon the partygoers said their goodbyes, Matt volunteered to drive Grant and Luke, somewhere as neither one of them were quite sober. He paused before he slipped on his seatbelt to check his phone, finally at nearly twelve thirty he received the message he had been waiting for. He replied simply before tucking his phone back into his pocket. “Alrighty boys, whose place is closest?”

Back inside, Elle helped JJ sort through the pile of coats on Pen’s purple duvet.

“Can you believe what a difference a year makes?” JJ waxed philosophical, Elle’s face fell at the harsh reality of last New Year’s Eve.

“Hey, JJ?” Elle caught the blonde off guard as she pulled her hair out from the collar of her winter jacket.

“What’s up?”

“Look, I know what’s done is done. But, I’m really sorry I encouraged you last year, with the guy in the bar. I was miserable and was using you as a distraction from my own shit.” Elle exhaled. “What I’m trying to say is, I’m sorry, JJ. I know it worked out for you and Em in the end, but it shouldn’t have been like that. And some of that is on me.”

“And I wouldn’t have had Henry.” JJ countered. “Elle, I understand that making amends is one of your steps. But, there’s no amends to be made. I made my choices and I’ll continue to live with the consequences. Deal?”

Elle watched her friend closely, her fierce eyes burning with authority, but also a genuine sympathy. “Life is too short for holding on to past mistakes, Elle. I forgive you, but in the end, you have to forgive yourself.”

Elle nodded, letting the tears sting as she gave JJ a half smile. They fell into a gentle hug, friends that had countless moments between them and endless chances for more. Spencer knocked on the door jam when he found Elle and JJ embracing.

“Ready?” He asked simply, trying to hide the concern from his brow as the women chuckled away the tears.

“Yeah, let me just give Pen our best,” Elle smiled simply, leaving a peck on Spencer’s chiseled cheek. JJ and Spencer shared a look, he waved at her before turning to follow Elle out of the bedroom.

Jan 1, 2018 1:34am

“I can’t believe he is still asleep!” JJ shook her head after checking on Henry for the third time since coming home.

“Let him sleep, babe. We can enjoy the extra time to ourselves,” Emily was gently removing her signature heavy mascara, watching JJ in the mirror behind her.

“Who would have thought our world could change so much in a year?” JJ whispered into the hallway. Emily let the memories and confusion float through her thoughts, watching JJ process the same moments from her point of view. The guilt still haunted her, Emily could feel it when Will’s face shown on Henry’s features or when Elizabeth Prentiss made one of her wildly passive aggressive comments.

“From then until now, I wouldn’t change a thing, Jayge.” Emily held JJ’s hands in her own, trying to draw those cerulean irises to focus on her coffee-rich ones.

“And next year? Will we still be here? Together?” JJ asked, more burdens then Emily imagined weighted her words.

“If you’ll have me.” Emily said it simply and before she knew it. But she accepted her words as truth, buttoning her mouth from further confessions.

JJ’s interest was piqued, but instead of answering she laid her head on Emily’s shoulder, her lover’s arms encasing her exhausted form. They stood like that as long as JJ needed, Emily stroking her hair as she grumbled and sighed. Time passes and we either change or we get lost along the way, but Jennifer and Emily were doing it together whether they realized what a miracle they had started or not.

Next Chapter: Slump

@mentallydatingspencerreid @dontshootmespence @ultrarebelheart @lyrasilverroseelizabethamanti @cynbx @rikersgirl22 @pllfrommars @wheresthewater  @darknesstoglowing @adropintheocean1234567 @tleighstone12 @unitchiefwives @sam-carter-in-training @prettyboysjello @ddreammcatcher @thegirlinflames  @night–hawk @t25luver @onlyalittleteenwolfobsessed @thismiss02 @literallyprentissstwin @usercorgis @natalie-fangirl @holding-on-to-francis @nikkipea @alisonxnguyen @nsanchez1992 @callmesandwichplease @theonlyonelives @emmiej @sherlokiwholmes 

[gwynbleiddyn]

n7 headcanons;

i’ve been sitting on these for a while, developing them for my own canon and thanks to a recent discussion regarding certain N7s, i decided it’s about time to share ‘em! tagging @omegastation ;) 

ftr, these are purely headcanons made up based on my own interpretations and i’m not imposing these on anyone!! just wanted to share.

what do we know?

N7 is a vocational code within the Systems Alliance Military. aka training directed towards a specific set of skills that significantly enhance an individual’s performance in their field. Interplanetary Combatives Training (ICT) essentially cherry picks officers from every branch of the Alliance military and packs ‘em off to The Villa for what appears to be the training course from hell.

simple stuff, right? best of the best. nothing more, nothing less. 

what do i assume?

to keep it simple, I’m a fan of the idea that N7s are perhaps more morally grey than we’re led to believe. they aren’t the cut and dry soldiers that are the bricks and mortar of the Alliance, there’s something special about them and I believe that’s something up for interpretation in a lot of different ways. this is just my take on it ;)

1. N7 vs Spectre Operatives

N7 is the pinnacle of achievement within the Alliance. N-designation refers to the Alliance Special Forces, and the numbers 1-7 denote the rank. N7 is the cream of the crop, and everybody knows it. 

To that end, those who attain the rank are permitted to wear it on dress blues and armour - the only ICT designation that may be worn. It’s a status symbol, without a doubt. Is it meant to intimidate or impress? Depends on the bearer. But this brings me to my first point: N7s are permitted to distinguish themselves in the same way council Spectres can, even if they express it differently. If we pretend that Bioware are capable of utilizing symbolism for a second, there’s a link there and it’s something that captures my interest. We need to acknowledge the history of the council here too: the fact that Shepard is the first human Spectre makes the link a little more defined - outside of the council, humanity relied on its N7 operatives to get the hard stuff done, just like the council relies on their Spectres. Shepard is the first to bridge that gap, and for me, the first to highlight just how similar these two factions are.

Alliance acting beyond the law in humanity’s best interests i.e Alpha Relay? Send an N7 operative in.

Council dealing with a fragile situation that could potentially break the delicately brokered peace i.e Prothean Beacon / Eden Prime? Send a Spectre operative in.

2. N7 vs Alliance 

Okay, this might seem contradictory, but for me personally, I feel there’s a distinction between the Alliance as a whole and N7 operatives. Kind of like an island within an island, lol. 

It’s very obvious that N7 missions are kept separate from the general Alliance docket, and there has to be some way of sorting out those missions from the standard patrols and recon runs. To me, that distinction lies in whether the mission is mostly legit, or whether it’s a little more grey than they’d like to admit. I keep going back to the Alpha Relay assignment because it’s a perfect example of something that Hackett (and presumably the Committee) wants to keep quiet, b/c it inevitably carries a potentially disastrous fallout if the mission goes wrong.

This is the kind of stuff that makes me wonder how much of a divide there is between a bona-fide Alliance marine and a marine-turned-N7.  Kaidan’s line about acting with integrity comes to mind here, especially in the context of what’s just transpired w/ Udina. I feel like he’s realizing what Shepard’s known all along. Duty conflicts with morality a lot more than it should.

3. N7 dossiers

This point is completely and utterly made up for my own universe purposes, but it’s a headcanon I’m thoroughly enjoying so I’m gonna share it.

Given the risk each N7 undertakes on their assignments, I like to think each N7 operative would have some sort of failsafe in case the mission goes FUBAR and they’re KIA/MIA. This is something I had to think of a solution for in my main fic, and it led me to the idea of each soldier having a dossier which could be unlocked only by other N7s with a shared passcode and specific protocol parameters i.e the operative in question must be formally listed as KIA/MIA before it can be activated. The dossiers contain basic biometric data as well as mission info / past assignments / leads, all condensed down into an encrypted file. Keeps the secret stuff secret, but also allows for another N7 to step in and take over from where the last left off. 

4. Alec Ryder as an N7

Okay, I have so many damn questions about this guy! For now, I’ve managed to headcanon my way through some of his mess. We know Alec was discharged from the Alliance after his illegal AI research in council space, but there is a huge focus on his N7 rank in Andromeda. Most would probably agree that a discharge from service means you lose the right to display your rank, so why is he still toting it around? Even Ellen calls Alec an ex-N7. 

So, again, pretending Bioware didn’t just royally fuck themselves over with plotholes, this leads me to think that N7 rank takes on its own separate ‘meaning’ even after being released from service. It’s (well, in real life terms at least) illegal to display a rank you haven’t earned, but Alec (and even Shepard during ME2 when they’re an Alliance defector) still wears the armour. He earned the rank. He knows it gives him a certain degree of status in Andromeda too; people rely on him for leadership, even outside of his Pathfinder role. We see that much on Habitat 7.

And given what Alec’s done as we find out through the course of the game, I feel like that rank gave him a lot more than just a front to hide behind. 

tl;dr N7s maybe aren’t as morally straightforward as we thought and I fuckin’ dig that idea.

[vincent-frankenstein]

Define Dancing

ya boi finally wrote some fluff! 

I was listening to the wall-e soundtrack and got inspired. Loosely based around the dancing scene in wall-e, but not entirely.

Summary: Roman realizes just how over-worked Logan is and decides to take him on an adventure. Logince/ RoLo

Knock, knock, knock.

Three loud knocks echoed their way through Logan’s room, through the soft piano music playing through his headphones, and a call a moment later: “Logan?” He didn’t look up from the notes on the desk in front of him, didn’t respond beyond a grunt as he scanned lines and lines of theories and possibilities with tired eyes, didn’t stir as the door opened and someone made their way inside.

“What have you been doing in here, specs?” Roman asked, striding up to him with one eyebrow raised, his arms crossed over his chest, his voice filled with his own special boisterous kind of concern. “We haven’t seen you all day — and, dare I say it, I believe we’ve missed your nerdy ramblings.”

Logan didn’t respond beyond a nod towards his work, reaching up to readjust his glasses as his mind untangled a particularly difficult equation. The desk in front of him was cluttered, covered in papers and pens and books and all manner of nerdy things — everything that he needed to work through one of Thomas’ problems, to finally find a solution.

Roman made a dissatisfied noise, annoyed at the lack of response. He shifted from one foot to the other, leaning over Logan’s shoulder to gaze at the pile of notes. “Is this what you’ve been working on all day?” he asked, craning his neck to look at Logan’s face. His eyes narrowed; slowly, he straightened up, and Logan could feel his glare on the back of his neck.

It was obvious that Roman had seen Logan’s bloodshot eyes and mussed hair, the bags under his eyes and the stress in the tight line of his mouth, and it was also obvious that he didn’t like that very much — but Logan didn’t have time to care about what Roman liked or didn’t like, not when he was so close to a breakthrough.

“Alright, you’re done.”

Logan’s pencil stalled in the middle of writing, and he turned to look up at Roman. “No,” he said, and to his relief his voice didn’t sound nearly as tired as he felt. “I’m not done yet.”

In one quick movement, Roman snatched the pencil from his hands, and Logan whipped around, his mouth wide open and ready to protest — but Roman cut him off, shaking his head and tutting. “You’re going to end up killing yourself,” he said, shoving the pencil in his back pocket so Logan couldn’t get to it.

“We are facets of a personality, Roman. We cannot die unless Thomas does.”

“Hush, nerd,” Roman said. Logan shook his head, turning back to his desk and pulling another pencil out of a drawer. Roman made a sound between a gasp and a growl and snatched that one as well.

“Stop!” Roman cried as Logan simply reached into the drawer again, producing another pencil from its wooden depths. He sighed, rolled his eyes, ran a hand through his hair and looked at the ceiling like he was praying for strength, and then fixed Logan with a stern glare. “You’re done, Logan. That’s enough.”

“Roman, I cannot be ‘done’ yet. I have to —”

“—Take a break,” Roman finished. “You have to take a break. Get up.” Logan would have protested — but Roman’s voice left no room for arguments; he got to his feet with a sigh and stood before Roman with his arms crossed over his chest. “I need to solve this problem for Thomas,” he said, pushing his glasses back up the bridge of his nose. “I cannot take a break, I’m close to completing this.”

“What you need to do is stop over-working yourself. You’re of no use to Thomas if you can’t function.”

That was logical. Logan would have felt proud if he wasn’t so intent on getting back to work. So he ignored the logic in the statement and tapped his foot impatiently and tried to think of a way to convince the prince — but his brain had been fried, sauteed in a gravy of math and logic and left on the grill too long until it had burned to a crisp; and he, as logic, could not think logically, couldn’t get his brain to work through the fog of stress and exhaustion, and that was a terrifying concept. So maybe Roman did have a point, though Logan loathed to admit it.

“Fine,” he relented with a heavy sigh. “I suppose you do have a point.”

“Of course I do,” Roman said, tilting his head up confidently. “Now, come along, pocket protector.” He took Logan by the hand and began leading him through the room, towards the bedroom door. 

“Where are we going?” Logan asked, reaching behind his glasses to rub the blurry spots from his vision.

“To take a break,” he said, a hint of excitement in his voice. “This is something I’ve been wanting to show off for a while, but Patton is cooking right now, and Verge is too busy being an Emo.” He set his hand on the doorknob as Logan wondered how he’d managed to audibly capitalize an E, and pulled open the door with a dramatic flourish.

Woah.

Logan’s breath left him in one swift whoosh of amazement.

Gone was the hallway outside his door — instead a sea of velvety black met his eyes, an ocean of dark filled with brilliant twinkling spots of golden light. The galaxy itself had taken residence in the space outside his room. He could feel its pull as he stood in the doorway — but it wasn’t the pull of an endless cold vacuum; it was the pull of something different, a feeling akin to that of learning something new, to that of pure discovery. It was wonder, pure and simple; he tilted his head to one side and furrowed his brow, gazing out into the endless sea of ethereal beauty.

Roman released his hold on Logan’s hand, took a step back and then sprung forwards with an excited whoop. He dived through the doorway as though he was diving into a pool, allowed the lack of gravity to catch him and send him floating off into space.

“Amazing what a little creativity will do, huh?” Roman asked, his grin proud and ecstatic as he did a dramatic spin through the zero-gravity. “What are you waiting for?”

Logan lingered in the doorway, his eyes wide as he watched Roman aimlessly float away. By all accounts, this shouldn’t be logically possible — but wasn’t that the point? He’d been marinating in nothing but logic for the entire day, for a long enough time that he, as logic, had gotten sick of thinking logically; something illogical and fantastical might be a nice break, wouldn’t it? What was he waiting for?

The answer, he found, was nothing. A small smile tugged at the corners of his lips; he felt a bit of that exhaustion melting away. He let go of the door-frame and slowly, carefully, stepped through the doorway.

The change was immediate. He had to hold onto his glasses to keep them from floating off his face as his tie floated upwards and whacked him in the nose. The knot of stress in his stomach seemed to loosen as he floated up and away from the door, farther into the sea of stars, cushioned by the soft lack of gravity.

“There we go,” Roman said, floating towards him. “Now, isn’t this better, Spock?” Logan ignored the nickname and nodded.

“This is... Interesting,” he admitted, and there was a twinge of awe in the soft lilt of his voice, a sparkle of wonder in his chocolate eyes that made Roman’s heart flutter with pride. “How did you —”

“Imagination, my dear nerd.” He floated backwards, and offered his hand to Logan. There was a princely smirk on his face, utter confidence in the jaunty tilt of his head, and his smile grew as he asked, “are you coming?”

“Coming where?” Logan asked, as he tried to tangle his glasses in his hair to keep them from floating away.

“On an adventure.”

He looked at Roman’s outstretched hand, and then at his face, framed with a halo of golden brown hair as it floated around his head, illuminated by starlight, and wondered: what did he have to lose? Then he took the outstretched hand and found that Roman’s excitement was infectious, found that there was a smile growing on his face as Roman led him out into the sky.

And so they floated. The space around them was horribly inaccurate, Logan knew — horribly inaccurate but still beautiful, still awe-inspiring. The problem that had caused him so much stress seemed so small now; he seemed so small now, so tiny among this endless void of galaxies, planets and stars and all manner of incredible things. Roman led him towards the brightest part of the sky, a cluster of golden stars, humming a familiar song as they floated closer.

With his free hand, he reached towards the glowing cluster, wiggling his fingers dramatically. He looked at Logan with a wide grin on his face as a tiny star broke away from the group and began to float towards them.

Roman took Logan’s other hand, cupped them with his own and allowed the star to gently land inside his palms. It was amazing; glowing yellow and white and twinkling magnificently, it was warm in his palms and seemed to send waves of relaxation through his whole body.

Logan only had eyes for the star in his hands, his face washed in golden light, his eyes shining with awe, but Roman — Roman only had eyes for Logan. There was an intense realization on his face — realization and shock and something else, something softer and fonder that turned his grin into a gentle smile, a smile without a hint of smugness or pride.

Logan looked up, and Roman quickly changed his expression back to a prideful one, silently prayed that Logan hadn’t noticed the severe fondness that he’d held — but Logan was grinning, no hint of suspicion or confusion in his eyes — and Roman’s heart fluttered at the sight of the normally calm man so flustered and excited.

“Roman, this is —” He stopped, lost for words. “I —”

Roman laughed at his inability to speak — because how many times had he managed to get Sir Speaks a Lot speechless? Surely he could count the times on one hand. “I know, nerd,” he said. “Amazing, isn’t it?”

Logan could only nod, returning his attention to the twinkling star in his hands, and as Roman gazed at the man in front of him an amazing thought came to mind. What better way to end an interstellar, stress-killing adventure than with dancing? He was a prince, after all — dancing was sort of his thing.

So he cleared his throat and lifted one hand, sending the star floating above them so it could send its warm light across the both of them, and offered Logan a rare completely-kind smile. “Want to dance?”

Logan returned his gaze to Roman, tilting his head to one side in thought. “I don’t know how to dance,” he said, shaking his head. Roman chuckled.

“I’ll teach you,” he said with a smile. “Come on, specs — live a little!”

He thought for a moment, biting his lip — and then he nodded. Roman took his hands, setting one on his shoulder and another around his waist; both began to blush, though it was hidden in the star’s light. “Just follow my lead,” Roman said softly, and they began to dance.

Logan was awkward and stiff, focused intently on doing was Roman was doing, on dancing as perfectly as he could — but as time went on, as Roman twirled him through the galaxy, he relaxed, allowing himself to get lost in the movement, in the feeling rather than the thoughts. It was an amazing feeling, dancing in the weightlessness of space, dancing in each others’ arms, surrounded by the glow of a thousand stars.

With a mere thought, Roman was able to fill the mindscape with a familiar tune, and they danced and twirled along to the swells of the soft song. The song was reaching its climax — beautiful sounds floating around them — and another crazy, wonderful idea came to Roman. He spun Logan away from him, and then pulled him back, and their lips collided in a soft, unsure kiss as the music swelled dramatically.

Logan pulled away a moment later, his eyes wide. Roman mirrored his expression. There was a second of silence, a moment where neither knew what to do — and then Logan shot forward and connected their lips once more.

And there they stood, among the stars, their bodies and their souls intertwined, and there they stayed until they needed to breath. When Logan pulled away, his face was flushed and his eyes were wide — and he was smiling lopsidedly, a new kind of happiness in his eyes that Roman had never seen before.

Roman was grinning, too, as he raised his hand and brought back the door. “Ready to get back to work?” he asked, his voice breathy and awed, pushing them towards the door.

“I —” He stopped, took a breath, his voice barely above a whisper. “Yes. Yes, I think I can work now. Thank you, Roman.”

“You’re welcome,” Roman said with a laugh, letting go of Logan as they landed on his bedroom floor. Logan readjusted his glasses, put his tie back in place, his face still red and still stretched in a wide, happy grin. He leaned back up, connecting their lips one more time in a quick, soft kiss, and then turned on his heel and retreated back into his bedroom.

Roman reopened the door, and the hallway materialized into view. He closed Logan’s door behind him as he stepped outside, and slumped against it, his breath leaving him in a low, amazed whistle. Who knew that nerds were such good kissers? Slowly, softly, he reached up and touched his hand to his lips, and smiled.

He had to get Logan to take breaks more often

[junker-town]

How sports is Seven Worlds, One Planet: Episode 7?

Christophe COURTEAU/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images

David Attenborough’s new show is epic ... and sports.

We continue our extremely important mission to conduct a scene-by-scene review of the BBC’s new nature documentary, Seven Worlds, One Planet, in order to see how sports it is. We determined that Episode 1, which focused on Antarctica, was reasonably sports. Asia was very sports, as was South America. Australia was more drinking than sports, and both Europe and North America were extremely sports. Now it’s time to wrap things up with ...

Episode 7 Africa

Scene 1: Nutcracking

I don’t think we appreciate how important the invention of writing is. Not only does it allow you to transmit facts (as far as I know, bookkeeping was, more or less, its original use) writing also allows the transmission of culture across time and space. Without that, animals are left passing along knowledge through direct demonstration, generation by generation. The requirement for direct contact, as you might imagine, drastically slows down the spread of knowledge.

In the Congo, a chimpanzee mother is teaching her daughter how to crack a nut. This is a relatively delicate operation. It requires finding a suitable anvil, with a nook to prevent the nut rolling around. The hammer must be the correct hardness and weight. The mother chimp makes it look easy.

Not the Nutcracker you’re used to seeing during the festive season. #SevenWorldsOnePlanet pic.twitter.com/oRTMwYz91B

— BBC Earth (@BBCEarth) December 8, 2019

But this is the ease of experience. It can take up to a decade to master the skills required to reliably crack nuts, and the five-year-old has an idea of the basic mechanics and nothing more. Trial and error is the solution, and there’s plenty of error. She tries a pebble, a boulder and a stick, to no avail. Eventually she settles on the right answer: going back to mother and having her do it.

The little chimp is too young to be a millennial but these are some highly millennial vibes.

Aesthetics 6/10

Chimpanzees are pretty cool and there’s something beautiful about watching a child learning a new skill. Even if I was worried about the poor little chimp crushing her fingers the whole time.

Difficulty 6/10

I have gone through literally hundreds of hours of wilderness survival training, and would still definitely injure myself at least twice if you gave me a rock and told me to crack nuts with it. I’m pretty confident I could eventually eat it though.

Competitiveness 0/10

No contest.

Overall 12/30

Tools are sometimes used in sports, but do not, in and of themselves, constitute sports.

Scene 2: Cuckoo Catfish

Sometimes nature documentaries show me things that totally blow my mind. This is one of those times. Lake Tanganyika’s ecosystem is dominated by cichlids, which are some of fishkind’s best parents. That may seem like a low bar, but they’re actually not bad at it. Some of the more hardcore cichlids are mouth-breeders — after laying their eggs they take them into their mouths and let them develop in a safe place. Even after the eggs hatch, the young cichlids use their mothers’ mouths as a refuge.

Nature being nature, this creates an opportunity for some dastardliness. The cuckoo catfish, like its avian namesake, is a brood parasite. And while cuckoos parasitise nests, their catfish friends manage to get their hosts to raise the catfish’s fry inside their mouths. As the cichlids spawn, the catfish eat a few of the eggs and spawn themselves. Their eggs are ingested by the mother cichlid.

A few days later ...

Peek-a-boo! I see you! #SevenWorldsOnePlanet #Wasntexpectingit pic.twitter.com/WOkBJgnugv

— BBC Earth (@BBCEarth) December 8, 2019

Yep, that’s a baby catfish. And guess what it’s going to do to its adopted brothers and sisters?

Aesthetics 2/10

I’m really quite disturbed by those baby catfish coming out of that poor mother fish’s mouth.

Difficulty 8/10

A cuckoo waiting for birds to leave their nest so that they can sneak in and lay eggs is one thing. Pulling the same trick on a fish which uses its mouth as a nest is quite another.

Competitiveness 3/10

There’s not really much of a fight here. Once the catfish arrive the little cichlids are screwed.

Overall 13/30

Cuckoldry is also not sports.

Scene 3: Cheetah Brigade

In Kenya, a cheetah family hunts as a pack. Five-strong, they can bring down prey many times larger than would be possible for a lone cheetah, but with five mouths to feed they must also hunt much more often. Using scrub as cover, the gang tries to ambush a herd of topi.

Cheetah are the fastest land animals alive, but they’re not fast enough to overcome a head start of more than a few dozen feet. That means that, once out in the open, detection could ruin the hunt. That’s what happens here: the topi scatter, the cheetahs switch targets to a nearby herd of zebra, and one promptly gets bulldozed by an angry mare.

Botched hunts aren’t just individual, momentary failures. They set the entire savannah on high alert. If the grazers know predators are on the hunt, they’re much harder to ambush. The cheetahs you can see aren’t the ones that will get you.

Incredibly, the cheetah gang uses this to their advantage. Antelope possess merely an indifferent grasp of arithmetic, so they’re well not prepared to assess just how many cheetahs they need to be keeping an eye on. So the topi end up keeping a close watch on four of the cheetahs harmlessly parading in front of them.

In formation #SevenWorldsOnePlanet pic.twitter.com/qtRyRS7Ndg

— BBC Earth (@BBCEarth) December 8, 2019

The fifth? Well, that one is behind them and about to ... yeah. The topi run away from the ambush, but they’ve let the lead cheetah get too close. The four other cheetahs join the fray, and the gang can have a nice meal. Pretty clever.

Aesthetics 9/10

That running form is really something else. Cheetah hunts are special sequences.

Difficulty 10/10

The topi hunt is difficult enough — they’re fast and beefy critters — but the use of a decoy group to catch their attention while the trap is set really elevates the whole hunt. That takes a lot of careful thinking. Good work by the cheetahs here.

Competitiveness 9/10

It takes a gang of five cheetahs plotting carefully to bring down one topi, which makes this pretty well matched.

Overall 28/30

Obviously sports.

Scene 4: Vampire Birds

Big animals (and small animals, although theirs are mostly less obvious) come with parasites. Lots of parasites. This creates a niche for parasite-feeders, which is taken up on the African savannah by the oxpecker. These little birds are more than happy to keep any big animal as free as possible from ticks, lice, and whatever else they can find.

Keeping it chill, ignoring the little dude on my face.#SevenWorldsOnePlanet pic.twitter.com/c9mq8NlQmi

— BBC Earth (@BBCEarth) December 8, 2019

Oxpeckers will go pretty much wherever food is.

Not what we meant when we said leftovers were yum. #SevenWorldsOnePlanet #didntgetthememo pic.twitter.com/OK6UxPIie5

— BBC Earth (@BBCEarth) December 8, 2019

But while you might think that having oxpeckers around to clean you up sounds quite pleasant, there turns out to be a dark side to these otherwise benign little assholes. When they eat ticks, they also get a snack of the host animals blood — and they’re more than happy to cut out the middleman, if they can.

If an oxpecker finds an open wound, they’ll peck away at it, drinking blood and preventing the wound from healing. Hippos, territorial, aggressive and armed with dental sabres, are quite good at giving each other open wounds, and oxpeckers therefore are big fans of hippos.

The hippos try to dislodge their vampiric guests by splashing water on them, which fails to deter them. They also try a hippo special: the poop helicopter. No, I’m not embedding that gif. Don’t be gross.

Aesthetics 1/10

Every creature in this scene is pretty ugly, and then we get the hippo poop storm. Why!?

Difficulty 10/10

Being a hippo-annoyer sounds like just about the most dangerous job in the world.

Competitiveness 10/10

An oxpecker against a hippo is like David vs. Goliath except also Goliath throws his poop at people.

Overall 21/30

Disgusting sports, but sports.

Scene 5: Desert Hyena

In the Namib, an abandoned mining town still has one reclusive inhabitant. A brown hyena ghosts through the broken-down buildings, using them as shade against the desert sun. And she’s not quite alone. Her twin cubs await her in their lair, four months old and hungry. The mother hyena needs to bring back some meat.

While a dead town might provide good shelter, it’s not much of a hunting ground. The Namib itself isn’t much of a hunting ground either. It is something like the oldest desert in the world, bedecked by endless dunes of sand, blasted by the tropical sun and wind. How can there be enough food to support predators of any kind?

The answer lies with the Benguela Current, off Africa’s western coast. The Benguela brings up cold, Antarctic waters, which are nutrient rich and capable of supporting a vast quantity of marine life. Some of that marine life comes to the shore.

The shore is exactly where the mother hyena is heading. Fur seals congregate here, and she’s able to pick off a baby seal and flee back towards the dunes. She’s not the only one who wants possession of her kill however; and she has to face down a jackal pack to return her prize to her family.

Aesthetics 10/10

Everything about this scene is wonderfully dystopian. Brown hyenas are also surprisingly pretty animals, with long shaggy hair which looks extremely snuggly.

Difficulty 8/10

Killing a baby seal is obviously rather trivial, but making the trek back and forth from the desert lair in scorching heat is not.

Competitiveness 10/10

The jackal pack’s late intervention really makes this scene. Five jackals against one hyena trying to bring food back to her cubs makes this very interesting indeed.

Overall 28/30

It’s official: killing baby seals is sports. If you’re a brown hyena and live in the desert. Otherwise it’s just being an asshole.

Scene 6: Termite Quest

The Kalahari, adjoining the Namib, is slightly less hostile ground. Here there is some food, if you know where to look. A lot of it is underground, in the burrows where termites make their homes. Getting in there requires some specialist tools. Some of those tools belong to the pangolin.

Licking the plate ‍♂️#SevenWorldsOnePlanet pic.twitter.com/0008zwp4kd

— BBC Earth (@BBCEarth) December 8, 2019

With an acute sense of smell to detect their prey and strong, claw-tipped front legs to dig them out, pangolins are specialist insectivores. (The protective scales probably don’t help them as much with their food, but they’re also pretty neat so I am listing them as well.) When a pangolin cracks upon a termite nest, that gives other critters, like small birds, a chance to get in on the action too.

But a pangolin can’t go properly underground, so they can only really scratch the surface of termiteville. Getting to the good bits requires an even more specialised termite-hunter. Say hello to the aardvark.

The aardvark is the world’s largest burrowing animal.#SevenWorldsOnePlanet pic.twitter.com/ySB7DNgxaK

— BBC Earth (@BBCEarth) December 8, 2019

Aardvarks are big, hungry and more than capable of digging to depths of ten feet or so, enough to root out even the most well-protected termite colony. They need to be, as well — an aardvark needs to eat tens of thousands of termites a day. Climate change, however, is impacting the Kalihari’s aardvarks. Droughts have reduced termite numbers, and that has placed their predators on the verge of starvation.

Aesthetics 10/10

Pangolins are objectively some of the coolest creatures on the planet and I enjoy watching them very much.

Difficulty 8/10

You try digging ten feet down with your bare hands and get back to me.

Competitiveness 2/10

It’s not shown here but soldier termites are capable of giving some pretty impressive bites, even if they’re outgunned by the pangolin and aardvark.

Overall 20/30

Probably sports.

Scene 7: Elephants

An adult bull elephant needs to eat something like 200 lbs of food per day. That would be difficult enough in times of plenty, but during droughts, when there’s little food to be had, they have to get inventive.

There is still food about, in the dried-out forests of Zimbabwe, but it’s hard to get to. Trees are producing seed pods, but they do so up on their highest branches, well out of reach of even the elephants. Packed with protein, these pods are good eating. But how to get them?

Some elephants have learned a good trick — albeit one that requires incredible strength and balance:

“He weighs over 5 tonnes. This is a truly monumental effort.”#SevenWorldsOnePlanet pic.twitter.com/6xBohrr3KO

— BBC Earth (@BBCEarth) December 8, 2019

That is some impressive stretching.

Aesthetics 8/10

Elephants are cute, but the parched forest doesn’t really do them justice compared to more verdant shots.

Difficulty 10/10

That’s a five-tonne elephant rearing back onto its hind legs. What? How?

Competitiveness 0/10

It’s not shown here but soldier termites are capable of giving some pretty impressive bites, even if they’re outgunned by the pangolin and aardvark.

Overall 18/30

Difficult enough to be a de facto sport.

Scene 8: Well This Is Depressing

To close out the series (this is our last scene!), BBC takes us on a tour of what’s going wrong with the planet. Climate change is already impacting every continent on earth. Habitat destruction is causing animal numbers to plummet. Poaching has all but wiped out some of Africa’s most majestic creatures. We are, in many ways, killing the rest of the world.

This is not merely an aesthetic question or one of being morally good versus morally not. Ultimately this is a world we all rely on, and we are contributing to its sickness. As the climate crisis deepens — climate change has been settled science since before I was born, incidentally — we will not only impact the animals showcased in this series but also deepen crises that materially affect our own communities.

Cities are starting to get close to running out of water and crop failures look increasingly likely. Sea level rise, caused by melting ice sheets on Greenland and Antarctica, will render coastal communities increasingly vulnerable to flooding. We’re already in the shit and nowhere near the worst of it.

It is our collective responsibility to mitigate this crisis as best we can. We must dismantle the structures which have allowed this to happen without consequences. We must accept that personal choice alone can’t save us in the face of rapacious behaviour from corporations. We must force our governments to confront the problem head on.

And we must also hold those responsible to account. For generations, fossil fuel companies have suppressed scientific knowledge about the damage they have been engineering and spreading misinformation instead, all in the name of profit. This is a crime against the rest of humanity, and the decision-makers involved then (and involved now) must be prosecuted and made to repay society.

The crisis is here and we cannot avert it. But there is hope nonetheless. We can lessen the damage it will do by mobilising to de-carbonise the economy, to move away from waste and greed and destruction in the name of “growth”. Mitigation now will save our children and our children’s children from the real brunt of the storm. We live in depressing times, but we ought never to forget that something can be done about them.

A better world is possible, and it is up to us to build it. Will it be hard? Obviously. Is it the only way? Yes.

[avanneman]

The New York Times, more sinned against than sinning. Or not.

The New York Times has caught a lot of grief for its “1619 Project”, which claims to explain all of American history in terms of slavery. And much of it is justified. Damon Linker, writing in The Week, gives a reasonable overview: “The New York Times surrenders to the left on race”, Damon offers praise where praise is due:

Now, there is a lot to admire in the paper's presentation of the 1619 Project — searing photographs, illuminating quotations from archival material, samples of poetry and fiction giving powerful voice to the black experience, and gripping journalistic summaries of scholarly histories. Much of it is wrenching, moving, and infuriating. The country's treatment of the slaves and their descendants through the century following emancipation and, in some respects, on down to the present was and is appalling — and the story of how it happened, and keeps happening, is extremely important for understanding the United States. Bringing this story to a wide audience is a worthwhile public service.

But there is a whopping downside as well:

Throughout the issue of the NYTM, headlines make, with just slight variations, the same rhetorical move over and over again: "Here is something unpleasant, unjust, or even downright evil about life in the present-day United States. Bet you didn't realize that slavery is ultimately to blame." Lack of universal access to health care? High rates of sugar consumption? Callous treatment of incarcerated prisoners? White recording artists "stealing" black music? Harsh labor practices? That's right — all of it, and far more, follows from slavery.

In fact, I found the packaging so off-putting—so portentous, condescending, and cheesy—“Everything you learned about slavery in school is wrong!”—as if we were all a nation of Homer Simpsons stretched out in our lazee-boys before our beloved wide screens shoveling honey-glazed pork rinds into our gaping Caucasian maws with both hands for fourteen hours a day—all of us who don’t work for the New York Times, that is—that at first I skipped the whole goddamn thing, only to go back and discover the same mixed bag that Damon described.

Many of the articles were good, but, shockingly—so shocking, in fact, that Timesfolk may not even believe me—I knew a lot of it already. When I was a boy, which was waaayyy back in the fifties, I read Booker T. Washington’s Up From Slavery, a book about slavery written by someone who’d actually been a slave, inspired to do so after first reading a “Classic Comic Book” version of Washington’s story. Later, in the tenth grade, I stumbled across Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man, just sitting there on the library shelf, where any dumb ass could pick it up. (I thought it might be like H. G. Wells. As it turned out, it was even better!)

And what about James Baldwin’s “The Fire Next Time”? How about The Autobiography of Malcolm X? Or Soul on Ice? These were all works that received immense publicity decades ago—before, I suspect, many Timesfolk were even born. And what about “today”? I remember several decades ago a black woman telling me she thought interracial couples were crazy to expose themselves to the sort of hatred they received from both blacks and whites. Today, interracial marriage is (almost) passé. Recently, the Times own Thomas Edsall published a long piece examining the impressive gains in both education and income levels for some (but not all) blacks. But the 1619 Project isn’t interested in “good news.” Over a century ago, House Speaker Thomas Reed congratulated Theodore Roosevelt on this “original discovery of the Ten Commandments.” One could offer similar praise to the New York Times.

I was intrigued in particular by the “Everything you learned about slavery in school is wrong!” pitch. Well, if so, New York Times, tell me, what are our kids learning, not 60 years ago, when I went to school, but today? Nikita Stewart fills us in: ‘We are committing educational malpractice’: Why slavery is mistaught — and worse — in American schools.

Nikita begins her piece by quoting a text book written in 1863 (not a misprint) in the South. Guess what? It’s totally racist! Totally! Who could have imagined? Also guess what? Things haven’t changed that much! How do we know? Nikita tells us so.

Stewart follows the pattern used in many of the pieces, taking an egregious example from the past and then “explaining” that things haven’t changed much. For the meat of her article, she relies almost entirely on a study by the Southern Poverty Law Center, an organization that has done good work in the past but now is largely a solution (and a very well funded one, at that) in search of a problem. Of course the SPLC is going to find that America’s school books don’t adequately teach the role of slavery in American history. How could they not?

Part of the problem, Stewart says, is this: “Unlike math and reading, states are not required to meet academic content standards for teaching social studies and United States history.” She’s presumably referring to the “Common Core” standards, but states are not “required” to meet them, and in fact the whole “standards” movement, pushed by the Obama administration back in the day, has since fallen into considerable confusion, in conjunction with the entire Trumpian revolt against “experts”.

Speaking of her own schooling, Stewart tells us, “I was lucky; my Advanced Placement United States history teacher regularly engaged my nearly all-white class in debate, and there was a clear focus on learning about slavery beyond [Harriet] Tubman, Phillis Wheatley and Frederick Douglass, the people I saw hanging on the bulletin board during Black History Month.” How does she know she was “lucky”? Doesn’t she “mean” “My own experience was contrary to my thesis and therefore it must be exceptional”?

Instead of selectively quoting a handful of “experts” she chose to tell her what she wanted to hear, why didn’t Stewart do some actual leg work, or chair work, by reviewing the textbooks used in, say, California, Texas, New York, and Florida, the four largest states, containing about one third of the entire U.S. population, and including two states from the Confederacy? Isn’t that what the “1619 Project” is supposed to be about?

Because we most definitely need to examine the way the history of slavery and the Civil War is taught and understood in today’s USA. Nothing is more obvious than that leading figures, or “would be” figures, in the Trump Administration, starting most obviously with Donald Trump himself, and including former chief of staff/four-star Marine General John Kelly and dumped (dumped and disgraced) putative Federal Reserve Board appointee Stephen Moore, all cling to the absurd and disgusting notion that the North was the “bad guy” in the Civil War. As Moore “explained”, “The Civil War was about the South having its own rights”—you know, the right to enslave and oppress millions of human beings.

But it isn’t only the Trumpians who still maintain a soft spot—and a grossly meretricious soft spot it is—for the “Lost Cause”. Poor David French, who gets it from both the left (for being a conservative and, worse, an evangelical Christian) and the right (for being insufficiently bad ass), is going to get a little for me. There’s good Dave, as in this excellent article in which he both describes his laudable efforts to prevent the muzzling of “wicked” Christian groups on campus and denounces proposals on the right to restrict the First Amendment rights of those on the left (largely “the media” and “Big Tech”):

Never in my life have I seen such victimhood on the right. Never in my life have I seen conservatives more eager to rationalize passivity and seek the aid of politicians to make their lives easier. They look to politicians — even incompetent, depraved politicians — and cry out, “Protect us!”

Admirable words. But here are some not so admirable, in an unfortunate piece with the unfortunate title “Don’t Tear Down the Confederate Battle Flag”.1 After launching into a scarcely objective account of the South’s motivation for succession—scarcely better than Moore’s—French falls into total small-boy, flag-waving, saber-waving mode:

Those men [the southern armies] fought against a larger, better-supplied force, yet — under some of history’s more brilliant military commanders — were arguably a few better-timed attacks away from prevailing in America’s deadliest conflict.

So yay Team Dixie, right? If only “we” had won. Then slavery forever! Is that what French dreams of? That southerners could continue to exercise their “right” to whip millions of black men, rape millions of black women, and sell their children for profit? If only those few attacks had been better timed! Damn it!

Couldn’t the Germans say the same thing about World War II? If only we had won. Then the Master Race forever!

These “brave men” at whose shrine French worships, wantonly murdered all black Union troops they captured, in utter violation of the most basic “laws” of war. When Robert E. Lee (French’s “gallant” hero, of course) marched into Maryland and Pennsylvania, he captured black American citizens and impressed them into slavery, sent them south to labor in defense of their own oppression. Mr. French fancies himself a Christian. But sometimes, it seems, Christians forget.

Afterwords It’s “interesting” that both Chief Justice of the United States William Rehnquist and Supreme Court Justice Antonine Scalia felt somehow compelled to parade their opposition to Brown v. Board of Education, Scalia “explaining” that liking the sort of judicial thinking that produced Brown because it produced Brown was like liking Hitler because he developed the Volkswagen—which by the way is entirely untrue,2 but whatever, Brown equals Hitler, got it?

French says “battle flag” because as a true southerner he knows that the familiar “stars and bars” was not the flag of the Confederacy. ↩︎

The Volkswagen was largely designed by an Austro-Hungarian designer named Béla Barényi in the mid-twenties and then “modified”, sans credit to Barényi, by Ferdinand Porsche a few years later. Hitler planned to put the car into production as a "people's car" but, unsurprisingly, the cars that were built were all for military use. After the war, an enterprising British major thought the bombed out VW factory could be repaired and used to create jobs for workers in a shattered Germany. ↩︎

[asleepinawell]

Silhouette

A Story About Shaw

(AN: About two weeks ago I posted Destinations, a story about Root and liminal spaces. I knew I wanted to do a companion piece for Shaw, but I couldn’t figure out the theme. The phrase that kept coming to mind was negative space, but it took me awhile to figure out why my brain settled on that. The result was quite different from Destinations, but it kinda had to be. Silhouette was...much harder to write and might be more polarizing than the last for a couple reasons, but nonetheless I hope you enjoy it).

After the accident, Shaw comes home one day to find a framed picture in her bedroom. It's a photograph of herself from a few years ago. In it she sits solemnly between her mother and father who are both smiling, laughing. Her father’s hands is resting on her shoulder.

Shaw is puzzled, unsure why her mother chose to put this picture on her dresser. By this point she’s realized that people surround themselves with photographs to feel connected; the photos are a reminder of the things pictured in them, a shortcut to the emotions those things evoke.

The day the picture shows up on her dresser, all solemn in its heavy black frame, Shaw stares at it, trying to understand what her mother expects her to do with it. She’s...not content with her father’s absence, but she’s not sure how a picture is supposed to help. She stares at it for hours, but only ends up with a headache. When she moves to a different, larger room the next year, she leaves the framed photo behind on the dresser. Her mother notices, of course. She doesn’t say anything, but the photo shows up on the desk in Shaw’s new room the next day. Shaw stares at the picture again, but still comes up blank. Her mother must have had a reason for moving it, so she keeps thinking about it, tracing the implications of the actions and expectations. Tries to understand why it’s so important to her mother that she keep it. A year later they move to a new house. This time it’s the first thing she packs.

She’s sitting in her apartment at three in the morning, bouncing a tennis ball off one wall and catching it. She knows her neighbors can hear it, that they’ll probably call the building’s super tomorrow to complain. She keeps bouncing it. She catches the ball on the rebound and looks around the room. There’s some light coming in through the shades from a street lamp outside, casting bright lines across the bare wood floors. Her desk is the only real furniture aside from her bed, and the books and papers on it are stacked neatly. She wonders if she’s supposed to throw that all out now, light the dumpster on fire. Is that the proper way to conclude a chapter of her life? They’d told her she didn’t care about her patients, that it didn’t hurt her when she lost one. She can’t argue with that exactly. But…. But after her patient, Loftin, died she’d spent the next evening reviewing every action she’d taken, trying to find places to improve technique, hone reactions. Sure, she didn’t feel sad, or guilty, because there was no reason for her to. She knew she’d done everything it was possible for her to do at the time; all that was left was continuing to improve so that the next time she’d have more options. Would having a good cry help her next patient? She’d stumbled upon another resident sobbing in the bathroom one day. The distraught woman had just lost her a patient, her first, had asked her how she dealt with it. Shaw had been irritated, told her to get better at her job so it wouldn’t happen again.

Wasn’t that the obvious answer? She throws the ball at the wall again, harder this time. By the time her neighbors complain the next day, she’s already moved on.

Apparently she isn’t suited to saving lives, but maybe she’s suited to taking them.

She understands the contradictions of being a soldier. Taking lives, and, by doing so, saving lives. But saving lives isn’t the skill she’s congratulated for, and isn’t what catches the attention of the ISA. No one asks her why she wants to join the marines, but then no one had ever asked her why she wanted to be a doctor.

She sits in a room full of very fresh corpses, her gun trained on a man named Lewis who’s staring at her in horror. She knows that operational procedure suggests she should shoot him, not leave any loose ends, but as of about an hour ago she doesn’t work for the ISA any longer. And, while she wouldn’t lose any sleep over putting a bullet between Lewis’s eyes, he isn’t a threat. She didn’t take the job she just lost to shoot the Lewis’s of the world. He runs away into the night as she sits on the couch surrounded by the men she just killed and the absence of the one she let go.

“I read your file and I’m kind of a big fan.”

Shaw’s biggest fan apparently has a thing for her sociopathic tendencies. The more time they’re forced to spend together, the more she wonders why. This…Root seems to generally dislike people, finds them useless, and Shaw decides the flighty, homicidal sadist must think she’s found a kindred spirit in her.

Except… sometimes Root’s face softens when Shaw’s pulling a bullet out of her or checking a bandage. As if somehow Shaw’s actions are louder than her irritated retorts.

As if Root sees that what Shaw does is sometimes more telling than what she is.

There's never any question of her not holding onto the kid's dumb medal.

That framed picture her mother had given her never did anything for Shaw, but it hadn't cost her anything to leave it on her desk. And sometimes her mother would see it there and smile.

She hangs the medal on the light by her bed.

Harold tells her she has a binary moral compass and she has to suppress the urge to roll her eyes.

Root’s still stuck in her cage in the library and Reese is off on his suicide revenge mission. She rather likes Reese; he doesn’t pry where he’s not wanted, and she can appreciate his decision to hunt down Quinn. But Finch wants her help and apparently his conceptions of right and wrong outweigh Reese’s desire for retribution. She’s not sure what Finch thinks her motives are for beating up half of Brooklyn, because it isn’t like she doesn’t want Quinn dead as well. But Finch would hardly be the first employer to assume she’s casually violent without cause.

The thing is, she doesn’t like many people, but she’d liked Carter, respected her. And while she recognizes Reese’s claim on this revenge, she wants to make sure he gets it.

But, well, Finch is the boss, and Reese is in bad shape, too damn lost in his own head to acknowledge that he needs to stay alive at least long enough to pull the trigger. And things might be dull without him around, so fine, she’ll play along.

But Reese keeps managing to stay ahead of them, and time is running out.

Of course, there’s an obvious solution.

Shaw has (mostly) gotten over the taser incidents. She got to punch Root in the face (which had been immensely satisfying) and then Root had sat in a cage and had Finch preach at her for days on end which Shaw can only imagine was excruciating. They’re probably even now.

And all that is irrelevant anyway because the mission is finding Reese, and Root is the fastest way to that goal.

Finch is having none of it, though, too enmeshed in his owns fears. She wonders again exactly how emotions help save lives.

Root is dangerous, unpredictable, and a pain in Shaw’s ass, but she’s also a valuable asset, and they don’t have the luxury of requisitioning help from the morally unimpeachable (if such a thing even exists, which Shaw highly doubts). But Finch is unable to see past the parts of Root (and, Shaw realizes, the Machine) that terrify him to the parts that could be invaluable to them now.

Shaw finally gives in to the urge and rolls her eyes. Binary moral compass, her ass. Someone here's got one, but it sure as shit ain't her.

She doesn’t say that though and eventually, when it’s almost too late, she gets her way.

Reese lives.

Root examines her apartment as if she can see something beyond the bare walls and lack of furniture.

“What?” Shaw asks, but Root only shakes her head.

“It’s very you,” she says.

Shaw holds back a scowl, strangely disappointed by the answer. She knows she doesn’t let it show on her face, but Root seems to pick up on it anyway.

“I meant, it’s…” Root tilts her head, searching the ceiling for inspiration. “…it’s direct.” She lets out a frustrated sigh, still unhappy with her word choice. “There’s nothing here that doesn’t have a reason to be. It’s…honest, and you can see the important parts easily.”

“Nothing here’s important.” Maybe the guns in the fridge, but even those are more practical and she knows that isn’t what Root meant.

She's suddenly very glad she'd pocketed that kid's medal right when they'd gotten here. Something tells her Root would have immediately honed in on it.

Root’s smiling now, like she knows something Shaw doesn’t. “Maybe the things you find important aren’t things that can be put on shelves, Sameen. Not that you have any shelves.”

She probably thinks she sounds clever, insightful. Shaw rolls her eyes, something she does a lot these days, especially around Root.

“Whatever.”

Maybe inviting Root here was a mistake.

She doesn’t kick her out though.

She finds she likes working with Reese even more than she’d expected. He does have an irritating habit of flying off the handle and running headlong into needless danger, but he’s otherwise easy to be around. 

He teases sometimes, and it’s almost affectionate, his awkward way of showing he gets it, he gets her. Not completely, but more than most people do.

She’s glad they saved his life.

She’s used to being thought of as a blunt instrument, and so she’s a bit nonplussed by the way Root keeps insisting she cares. That’s not something anyone’s ever accused her of before and she’s annoyed by it as a reflex.

She’s annoyed by it the entire ride out of the darkened city on a damned bike, and when she steals a car on the other side of the bridge, and all the way across bumblefuck New Jersey to make sure Root doesn’t get shot before she can tell her how annoyed she is.

She watches her own shadow biking furiously alongside her over the bridge. That’s all most people see, she knows. Her shadow, empty and dark, miming out her movements because it can’t do anything else.

Root predictably insinuates she was worried about her and Shaw isn’t nearly as annoyed as she’d planned to be.

“Did Harold tell you anything?” Root’s fidgeting with her jacket, uncomfortable.

She’s shown up tonight out of nowhere, the first time Shaw’s had word of her since the hotel incident.

She doesn’t think she’s ever met anyone as prone to getting shot as Root. She’s got some sort of nutso martyr complex that should make Shaw steer well clear of her. And yet here she is in Shaw’s apartment. Again.

“Tell me what?”

She’s pulling her medical kit out already because god knows Root probably did a half-assed job getting her wounds treated.

“Nothing. It’s not important.”

“Okay.”

She wonders what Root had said that Finch thought she wouldn’t care about. He might have been right about that, in some fashion. In a way that made sense to him anyway.

She’s glad the Machine doesn’t tell Root this time, about how she’d once again gone to try and find her. Because then Root might tell her whatever it was Finch hadn’t and Shaw isn’t sure she’s ready to hear that.

She’s not ever going to be able to tell Root what she thinks she wants to hear. That’s not who she is.

But there is one thing she can do.

Back when she’d left for college, she’d brought that picture her mother had put on her dresser, been sure to let her know she’d packed it. She’d put it on the desk in her dorm room, the only decoration she allowed. 

She hadn’t put it there for herself.

The first time her mother had come to visit, she’d seen the framed photo and had beamed at it just like Shaw had known she would.

Root doesn’t smile when Shaw kisses her. Definitely doesn’t smile when she locks her in the elevator.

But then Root had already known, or at least strongly suspected. Or at least hoped. And now she knows for sure, a parting gift, the only one Shaw can give.

(And maybe, Shaw admits to herself (because if it’s the last chance she has she might as well be honest), that kiss had been for herself, too).

Do the others know now? Were her actions finally loud enough to drown out the deafening quiet people could sense within her?

She supposes she’ll never find out now.

When they’d trained her in the ISA they’d gone on and on about detaching the mind, taking it someplace safe. She’s never been able to detach her mind like that because she’s never needed to. Nothing has ever been able to get inside her head enough to do damage.

At the time she’d assumed a safe place was an actual place, a location. She finally understands why the exercise had been a waste of time for her back then. And why it isn't a waste anymore.

Samaritan can’t figure it out. With all its power and knowledge, it’s still ignorant when it comes to her. It knows what she is and (like so many before) it expects her to act according to her programming. When she doesn’t it tries again and again, convinced she’s only being stubborn and that eventually she’ll act as it expects.

She wonders if it knows that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

Eventually it tries a new approach, but now it’s gone too far in the other direction. It expects her to react like Reese or Finch might, to be swayed by its mathematics of human lives.

She remembers her first meeting with Root, how she said torture almost never works. Torture is about getting inside someone’s head and now she’s glad Root never did get a chance to try and get inside hers.

Because she’s the only one who stood a chance.

She’s unsure of everything when she breaks free, off-balance in a way that’s completely alien to her. But she knows that going back, getting near the others, near Root, is the wrong thing to do. She has to keep her safe.

Root will understand because she always does.

She enjoys her time in the desert. It's quiet, and the wide open spaces are soothing after all her time imprisoned.

She thinks it might be nice to stay here a while, away from all the complications of the world. She'd lost track of time while she'd been locked up, why not lose a little more?

But she doesn't stop walking, headed in a straight line towards the one place she can't go.

Her shadow lags behind her across the landscape.

She can go anywhere in the world now that she’s free. Anywhere that isn’t New York City. Root is almost definitely still in the city, so she absolutely cannot go anywhere near there and that's all there is to it.

She heads straight to New York.

She won't let herself look for Root or the others, but she won't leave either and eventually the inevitable comes to pass.

And it turns out she’s the one who doesn’t understand (and apparently Samaritan doesn’t either), because Root points the gun at herself and suddenly Shaw’s annoyed and mildly worried, things she hasn’t felt in quite some time. At least not in this way.

They sit in the park most of the night, in a spot Root promises is free from surveillance. Samaritan might not be watching her, but Root sure is. Her face practically glows.

It brings back whispers of the simulations, of Root swearing she’d never given up looking for her, and Shaw raises a hand to her ear without meaning to.

“Hope you didn’t miss me too much,” she says, unable to stop herself from dangling out a line from the script she’s long-since memorized.

Root’s silent at first, her eyes full of things she won’t put into words.

“John and I almost blew up Control after you...after everything,” she says at last. “Fired a rocket at her car and then stuck her in a cage and tased her.”

She tilts her head to one side and manages one of her mischievous grins. “Well, I tased her. John brooded threateningly in the background.”

Shaw’s surprised at the choked laugh that escapes from her throat. This was one response she’d definitely never heard in a simulation. And even Samaritan hadn't been able to predict the weird fondness Root has apparently developed for Reese.

She wonders what else she's missed, how much everyone's changed. Where she fits in.

“I’m glad you came back here. To New York, I mean,” Root says and Shaw is reminded of that first time Root had been in her apartment, all that nonsense about the things that can't be put on shelves.

“Pretty bad idea under the circumstances. Would have been safer for you if I’d stayed well away.”

“No. It wouldn’t have been.”

There’s an expression on Root’s face she can’t quite define, and she thinks that maybe staying away wouldn’t have kept her safe. Not from some things.

On some level she must have already known that. After all, she’d come back here.

It’s a little overcast the next morning, standing there under the bridge, and she casts no shadow. There’s nothing to see here but her.

From the other’s expressions she can tell that her absence left a hole and she wonders what that looked like to each of them, what part of their world had been missing.

Looking at the others makes her think that maybe she understands a little about what Root's expression last night had meant. That there hadn’t been a Shaw-shaped hole in Root’s world like there had been for the others.

If the Machine’s silence had torn Root’s world to shreds then Shaw’s absence had surely demolished what was left of it. There couldn’t be a hole in a world that was gone.

But that’s not the expression on Root’s face now.

The others stare at her in wonder and disbelief, like she’s not real.

But Root….

Root looks at her like she’s the only thing that is.

(AN: I’m aware that ‘Shaw’ is not her real last name and she wouldn’t have had it as a child. I chose to use it for consistency since referring to Shaw as ‘Sameen’ when writing in her POV feels weird to me.)

[meggannn]

im a fuckin mess rn thinking abt how much i love FMA and ME at the same time, my love for both these stories could move mountains, and i remembered when i first played me3 last year, i realized that i thought ME is the second-best story i’ve seen that explores humanity for... what it is, and what it’s worth, with fma being the best. i’ve been meaning to revisit that idea for a while, because i was so busy playing in the moment i didn’t really think abt why. so anyway here’s some dumb meta. mild spoilers for ME and FMA

(this isn’t a post meant to make the argument that FMA is better, though imo since FMA is like... quite likely the closest a human being has ever come to making a perfect story, that might color some of my meta here.)

i ran into this quote the other day that really sums up my ideas abt what i think both stories are about: "If you are writing any book about the end of the world, what you are really writing about is what’s worth saving about it." — Justin Cronin

both stories involve a protagonist serving in the military. both stories involve humanity doing terrible things to itself, either to survive or in the nature of supposed “evolutionary progress.” both stories involve very tough discussions on morality and the value of human life (or in ME’s case, sentient life at all). both stories use the theme of body horror, and “swallowing” people (souls or genetic matter) to create “the next stage” of humanity under the guise of “the betterment of the world/universe.” both stress the emphasis on personal relationships being one of the strongest reason why life is worth living.

(i feel like i’ve blabbed a lot about how shepard/garrus themes remind me of mustang/hawkeye too, which may be one of the reasons i’m so attracted to it, but that’s a post for another day)

ultimately what i like abt these stories is that they line up all of the reasons why humanity can be terrible and inhumane and selfish, it lines up the very worst that we do to each other, and yet for every reason why, they give edward and shepard reasons to find double that many reasons to fight to preserve it. there is no question that for all their valid criticisms against humanity, the reapers and father must be stopped.

for example, the reapers harvest genetic matter in every cycle in order to continue their function. it’s a matter of continuation for them; every cycle is a fight for their survival as well. but there’s absolutely no question that they are in the wrong.  if peace were an option, it should be taken, but it isn’tt. the reapers don’t know the meaning of peace, however much they think they were built for it. and maybe that’s why the ME3 ending irritates and also fascinates me. the catalyst shows up and makes one last-ditch attempt at convincing shepard that synthesis is the correct path forward for all sentient life in the galaxy, because the reapers are scared of dying, too. they don’t want to be destroyed. they want to convince shepard that destroying them is against her better interest. for me, the answer is still obvious: i chose destroy because i believe any species whose very nature requires active endangerment and widespread destruction of other life forms is not a species worth saving. (maybe on earth, nature conservatists will say that says something about my bad politics, but for the sake of fictional species in scifi, that’s my stance.)

and we... kind of have a similar thing in FMA, but on a different kind of level, with the homunculi. at the end father is revealed to be a relatively simple thing that is absolutely terrified of confinement, of losing the individuality it has gained with its human origins (that it enjoys rejecting). it was extracted from the gate of truth and given the material properties of a human, including all of human’s flaws, and very human desires: knowledge, power, wealth, with the means to achieve them and absolutely no ethical code. i think what i like about father as a villain is that... he was born from humanity just as much as from the essence within the gate. he is everything that’s wrong with us spruced up with the power of a god. and he is defeated by the best of us who come together to say “humanity can and must be better than you” and decide that they’re going to make it that way.

obviously with ME it’s less of an emphasis on humanity and more of a “our differences make us stronger” story. substitute in humans for aliens and humanity for sentient life and the sentiment is much the same. one thing that actually irritated me when i first played ME was the fact that there was so little difference between humanity and most alien species. the asari and turians and salarians etc are not particularly stronger or smarter or more advanced, however they sometimes acted like it. they could be just as petty and arrogant and violent. then i realized that’s kind of the point of the story (not to mention what drives the necessity for a protagonist in story-world): what if we make it to the final frontier and... everyone else out there is just like us? within the sake of the story, it means that no one else is going to solve our problems, and when the reaper threat comes, we can’t count on someone else to save the day. we’re going to have to roll up our sleeves and do it ourselves.

father consumes human souls to create philosopher’s stones for energy he uses to keep consuming souls. reapers convert humans into husks and break down their genetic material to create more reapers. both of them see themselves as the apex of life, the top of the food chain.

there’s this great set of lines from van hohenheim to father in the climax of the show: “you insist on treating humans like a lower life form. but don’t you see? only through them can a philosopher’s stone be created. and only through a stone can a homunculus arise. but what does a homunculus produce? what do you create? creation is all, and you’ve done nothing but destroy. you may think you’ve reached a perfect state of being, but all you are is a dead end.”

like, what kind of an awesome fucking message. a huge insult, but he’s right. what’s the point of a species that doesn’t give back? what did the homunculi ever offer to the world that humans weren’t already? and what did the reapers give back to the universe? they took and processed and recycled people but they never changed the status quo; the universe literally remained static. life had no chance to grow beyond fifty thousand years. the reapers’ programming assumed that self-destruction was an inherent trait in organic life. they considered themselves the betterment of all life for accepting this inevitability and for destroying civilizations before it became a reality. and it’s possible they were right, that it is an inherent trait and our biggest weakness, but without the chance to evolve beyond it, like, how are we ever gonna know for sure? the reapers’ are the pessimist’s solution to solving modern civilization! and shepard is the stubborn optimist’s response to the reapers! i love that.

and also, about the military aspect... god this post is so disorganized... so i’ve been thinking about how both stories tackle the fact that, by necessity their protagonists are part of the military. (i’ve been meaning to write some meta about how bioware specifically uses the military in ME/DA as, like, a prop? but i always forget.) first off, i actually love that shepard is a soldier. for me, it gives me something to latch onto about the character, and it tells me a bit about who they are. thanks largely in part to the writing and hale’s fantastic voice acting since i always play femshep anyway. but in a larger sense I just... i love how FMA talked about the military while simultaneously being wrapped up in it. it was a story about that openly discussed imperialism, genocide, warmongering, and the dangers of military states. in ME, there was none of that, because i guess nobody wants to see real life politics in a video game, people would throw fits. so they don’t want to hear criticism of the rl military within a game that features a badass commanding officer like shepard, who has devoted their life to the alliance.

again, for me... this is not a bad thing for shepard’s character. i like it. it makes sense that shepard is a marine first. we need a war hero who cannot hesitate when making tough calls. but i have to admire that FMA went further. edward is in a position to see the military’s faults more clearly; shepard is a top agent who often has to find the best possible solution to a problem with her hands tied behind her back. edward is part of an organization with a centuries-long history of abuse that he finds himself unable to defend or stand buy the more he learns about it; shepard is built by the military, rebuilt by a paramilitary terrorist group, and then used by both and forced to fight for others with no promise of help in return. god where was i going with this. anyway i like FMA just that bit more because i feel like wherever ME was going... FMA hit the high score, then kept going and going until it doubled that high score. and maybe also at FMA’s heart is a glimpse at the ME3 ending that could’ve been. i don’t know.

anyway what is the point of this post. the new point of this post is that i just remembered greed didn’t deserve to die and im gonna fucking call arakawa about it right this second

[animalistauntamedblog]

Cover photo: Endangered Steller Sea Lions VLADIMIR BURKANOV / NOAA

If the 6th Age of Mass Extinctions we have now entered as a result of our own activities, sees off the human race along with all the other species on the planet, our epitaph might read (should there be a handy alien around to carve it in stone) “They thought theirs were good ideas at the time ….”

In The Magnificent Seven, this was the answer Vin (Steve McQueen) memorably gave to Calvera (Eli Wallach) when the bandit was so puzzled why a man like Vin decided to take the job of protecting the lowly villagers from his pillaging gang: “It seemed to be a good idea at the time ….”

In that instance, things turned out well – mostly. But so many of humankind’s bright ideas that did seem good at the time, have in the longer term proved to be runaway nightmares.

Thanks to modern science and technology we can now design babies to our own requirements; engineer mosquitoes to make themselves extinct; make drones used by conservationists and poachers alike; construct slaughterhouse equipment that make it possible to slaughter 140 hens per minute; choose custom-made dogs in different patterns and colourways; and grow human organs in pigs. We can move mountains, and I mean literally. There is no end to our inventiveness.

Is there anything we can’t do?

For all our cleverness, when it comes to gazing into the crystal ball to foresee where our handiwork might be leading, our talent is zero. Our remarkable human ability to turn every bright idea into concrete reality is matched by our singular inability to predict where those bright ideas might take us. Perhaps we are just eternal optimists, blind to any possible downsides.

Whatever, that blindness has sadly brought us to a point where 26,500 endangered and critically endangered species of plant and animal find themselves on IUCN’s Red List, thanks entirely to us.

Endangered: the California Condor, the Great Frigate bird & the Whooping Crane

Take that once-bright idea very much in the environmental spotlight recently. That material without which life as we know it is unimaginable. Plastic. Invented 1907. I know, I couldn’t believe it either. So useful it’s insinuated its way into every nook and cranny of our lives: from swimsuits to spaceships; cars to clingfilm; windows to wipes; aircraft to astroturf.

Plastic certainly has always seemed not just like a good idea, but a brilliant one. This ultra-handy substance managed to sneak well passed its centenary before we woke up to precisely what we’d let loose on the planet. How were we to know?

Futurology – the science of anticipation

Enter the futurists, those whose task it is to gaze at that crystal ball for us and forecast what kind of world new developments are propelling us towards. More than two dozen of these horizon scanners have got together with environmental scientists – William Sutherland, professor of conservation biology at Cambridge University at the helm – to put their collective finger on which emerging trends are likely to make an impact on Nature and biodiversity in 2019. Perhaps it’s not so surprising that they are hedging their bets on the outcomes of the trends they’ve identified, conscious that any one of them that seems like a good idea right now, may have unintended, unwanted, or even unforeseeable repercussions.

Emerging Trend for 2019 No. 1

And heyho we’re back to plastic

Remember when yellow plastic ducks first started washing up on beaches across the globe?¹ The thought of these tiny bath ducks ‘escaping’ and navigating the vastness of the oceans seemed no more than an amusing story at the time. There were actually 28,000 of them out there, a whole container load, lost overboard in the North Pacific in 1992. “That flotilla of escaped plastic ducks joins millions of Lego pieces, sneakers, styrofoam insulation, plastic crates and a plethora of other items lost at sea.“  It’s reckoned that containers lost overboard every year number in the thousands, and many of them filled with items made of plastic. Items that never even get to be used. A single container can carry 5 million plastic shopping bags.

Add that to the colossal amount of plastic we humans continue to actually use and throw away, and we have one enormous problem. We use 300 million tons of plastic each year, and at least 100 million marine mammals, a truly horrifying figure, are killed each year from plastic pollution.

After all this time, we’ve finally woken up to the environmental devastation our love of plastic has wreaked, and the trend the futurists identify is: people coming up with solutions.

An obvious one is to re-use plastic trash to produce something else we need. An ingenious professor of engineering in India has come up with a highly original use of plastic waste: turning it into hard-wearing, long-lasting roads.

“To date, thousands of kilometers of highways in India have been paved using the process he invented.” 

Another approach is to make plastic plant-based and biodegradable, and NatureWorks based in Minnesota, is doing just that. Their eco plastic ‘Ingeo’ is already in use in everything from 3D printing, through building construction and landscaping, to food packaging. Here’s how they do it.

The Ellen MacArthur Foundation is proposing a more fundamental shift – an economy based on better design, manufacture and recycling. At present we run on a linear economy – buy something, use it, throw it away. Some of our plastic trash does get recycled, but each time it is recycled, it becomes less and less usable. The Foundation would like to see a circular no-waste economy where items such as cellphones are designed and made so that at the end of their useful life they can be easily broken down into their component parts (glass, plastic, metal) ready to be recycled into equally high quality goods.

“Yay!” we say. All these ideas are impressive, aren’t they? But our futurists are cautious, unwilling to come down off the fence on one side or the other. Because how can they be sure that years down the line, we will not be repeating that refrain, “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

As the futurists say,“From changes in recycling approaches, to the use of biological agents to degrade materials, to the manufacture of substitutes for conventional plastics from plants, [which as of now only makes up half a percent of all plastic produced] all alternatives will have ramifications of their own for food security, water use, ecosystem integrity and more. Not only that, but the promise they offer — whether it’s realized or not — could defuse other efforts to reduce rather than shift plastic consumption.”

NatureWorks though is in the early stages of a process to make biodegradable plastic straight from greenhouse gases without even using plants. Can this be anything but good?

If we can make drastic improvements in our plastic use, on an individual as well as corporate and international level, there may still remain sea turtles, whales, dolphins, sharks, sea birds et al, to thank us. They have precious little to thank us for right now.

No. 2  Sunscreen

In 1938 a Swiss chemistry student Franz Greiter got a touch of sunburn while climbing Mount Piz Buin in the Alps. So guess what he did – yes, he went home and invented the first sunscreen. And for decades since, sunscreen’s been protecting us from turning an uncomfortable shade of pink, as well as more serious health issues.

Then in 2016, sunscreen joined the ranks of those brainwaves that seemed so good at the time, but might actually have been a huge environmentally-costly mistake. In that year a scientific study was conducted to ascertain if oxybenzone, an active ingredient of the stuff, was damaging coral reefs. The researchers concluded that it was. And several islands and states in the world have already banned it.

Oh, if only there were something ‘greener’ we could use to block those harmful UV rays!

Well, there is. We can harvest it in small quantities straight from nature, from algae to be precise, and it goes by the appealing name of Shinorine. As of now scientists have proved they can synthesise it. The next step is to scale up production.

Once again, our futurists are reluctant to come down on one side or the other. Is Shinorine going to be good for the environment, or prove as harmful as oxybenzone? All they will tell us is, “Widespread adoption of shinorine without sufficient research could expose corals or other aquatic and marine organisms to a new substance with unknown impacts.”

They are undoubtedly right to err on the side of caution. If only we had been so wise before we unleashed all our agrochemicals, our agro-waste, and yes, our plastic, our fossil fuel gases, our nuclear power, and indeed a superabundance of ourselves on to suffering Nature.

No. 3  Making rain

Last week, “the Department of Royal Rainmaking and Agricultural Aviation said it was preparing to deploy two planes for cloud seeding between Tuesday and Friday, if conditions are suitable.”  Right now Bangkok is shrouded in a pall of smog, and Thailand’s Department of Royal Rainmaking hopes a downpour of the wet stuff will clear the air. (On the website there is a tab called “The King and the Royal Rain”)

Meanwhile in Tibet, China is poised to send up a battery of rockets to release silver-iodide particles in the clouds, with the aim of making it rain over 1.6 million square kilometres of land, a vast area almost the size of Mexico. In 2017, northern China suffered its worst drought on record, With their rockets they hope to ensure water security for their own people, especially farmers, downstream.

Cloud-seeding has been around since the 1940s, but nothing on this kind of scale has ever been attempted before. Unsurprisingly, this is worrying our futurists. They fear such a dramatic alteration to the weather will damage Tibet’s rare alpine steppe and meadow ecosystems, in turn threatening its rare endemic species.

Photos from Wild Animals on the Tibetan Plateau²

Tibet is already the one of the largest sources of freshwater in the world, in third place after the North and South Poles. 46% of the world’s population rely on water originating in that country. Tibet, the Roof of the World, high in the Himalayas, lies three miles above sea level, its water feeding 10 major rivers across 11 countries of South-East Asia.

There are no simple certainties about the Chinese plan. It could all go horribly wrong, and have who knows what consequences, not just on the Tibetan plateau, but across a vast expanse of the globe. It certainly has the perturbing potential to be yet another bright idea that seemed like a good idea at the time…

No. 4  Fishy oilseed crops

The possibilities of genetic engineering are endless. So advanced are we as a species, we now have the knowhow to redesign almost every living thing to our own requirements. So why not modify oil-producing crops to produce “the omega-3 fatty acids that are normally found in fish and prized for their health-promoting capabilities.” Fantastic, especially for vegetarians and vegans. And the wild fish populations.

But… Why does there always have to be a but! The modification will displace some of the plants’ natural oils. How will this affect the insects that feed on them? If one study showing caterpillars metamorphosing into butterflies with deformed wings is anything to go by, the answer is “badly”.

It’s a zero-sum game. Benefitting one side of the equation (us) automatically means disadvantaging the other. This is true of so many of our bright ideas from the past. Yet we still don’t seen to have grasped that disadvantaging other animals, the environment, Nature, in pursuit of our own ends is only a short-term fix that is certain to boomerang back on us. And time is running out.

Other trends the futurists identified

that will make themselves felt one way or another in the environment this year include:

microbial protein for livestock

deeper sea fishing

modification of plant microbiomes

the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture’s decision not to regulate the use of gene editing in plants

the development of salt-tolerant strains of rice

and China’s creation of a whole new river

Read more here

A couple of biggies they didn’t spot

a. The expanding market for whole-roasted cricket

Insect mass-rearing, though in its infancy is apparently a fast-growing industry. The unfortunate cricket can be fed on nothing but weeds and agricultural by-products, making it a source of protein far more sustainable than the animals we more usually associate with farming.

“Reared insects are increasingly seen as an environmentally friendly alternative to meat, even by the United Nations. The future food for a growing world population.” And a readily available source of protein for malnourished children.“Even very poor people would be able to rear crickets.”³

b. Biodiversity offsets

We’ve grown familiar with the idea of carbon offsets. If you need to take a flight somewhere, you can buy yourself enough carbon credit to offset your own portion of the plane’s emissions. Then the money is used in climate protection projects.

Biodiversity offsets work on a similar principle. Setting aside protected areas for Nature to compensate for and minimise the impact of large-scale industrial projects like new mines or dams, or at the other end of the scale, new housing. Recent research discovered 12,983 of these set-aside habitat projects across 73 countries occupying an area larger than Greece. “153,000 square kilometres is a big chunk of land.” And in spite of its being a relatively new idea, it’s catching on fast.

“This is the start of something major,” says researcher Dr Bull, “‘Biodiversity offsets – ‘No Net Loss’ policies, seeking to protect our natural environment, are being implemented very quickly.”

Could this be a promising step towards Half Earth for Nature?

One final trend the futurists have hope for – Insurance for Nature

The futurists picked up on a joint project involving the Mexican government, the Mexican tourist industry, The Nature Conservancy, and – of all things – the insurance industry. Between them they have set up a trust fund to protect the Mesoamerican Reef in the Caribbean. The fund can be called upon for restoration projects in the case of damage to the reef. In effect, the reef is insured.

The futurists think schemes like this have potential for the insurance industry to “play a role in protecting natural areas and helping damaged habitat recover from disasters.” The model could be replicated worldwide to preserve and restore Nature.

Are they right? Where will it all end? Can our clever innovations save the planet and us with it? Or will they just turn out to be more of our brainwaves that seemed like a good idea at the time? Any crystal ball gazers out there?

¹“Many of these toys inadvertently became part of a massive scientific study: beachcombers have been finding them ever since, helping oceanographers refine their models of ocean surface currents.” The Science Museum

² Clockwise – the Tibetan antelope, the pika, the Tibetan blue bear, the Tibetan wild ass, the snow leopard and the Tibetan wolf

³ This one is not for me as a vegan. But then, I’m fortunate enough not to have to live in poverty with malnourished children

Further reading Fixing the environment: when solutions become problems

Related posts

Futurology Offers More Hope than Fears for the Animals & the Planet

Hope for the Animals & the Planet?

There is Always Hope for the Animals & the Planet

Ten Fascinating Ways Technology is Saving Animals

How Drones Might Just Save Our Endangered Animals & the Planet

‘WILD’ Needs Us to Save Half for Nature

Sources

15 trends with big implications for conservation in 2019 | Ensia

Sunscreen: a history

        Predicting what’s in store for Nature in 2019 Cover photo: Endangered Steller Sea Lions VLADIMIR BURKANOV / NOAA