#the urge to participate in mass madness

[tacccja]

the ending scene in goncharov (1973) is truly beautiful, i cry at its symbolism every time

[twdsunshine]

Midnight Confessions (One-Shot)

Summary:  Negan throws a New Year’s Eve party at the Sanctuary, but how will the reader react when his ulterior motive is revealed?

Pairing:  Negan x Reader

Warnings:  Language

Word Count:  1,780

Check out my bio for a link to my Masterlist!

Author’s Note:  The second of my New Year-themed one-shots to celebrate the reopening of my blog.  Hope you enjoy and thank you for reading!

*****

Glasses chinking. Raucous cheers.  The subtle glow of fairy lights.  Tinkling laughter.  The scent of roasting meat and laden trays of canapés.  Sequinned dresses.  Suits and ties.  The clickety-clack of high heels against the concrete floor.  If you squinted your eyes, blurring your vision against the ill-fitting nature of the clothes, the holsters at hips, and the bleak setting of the old factory, you might almost be able to believe that you'd gone back in time to before: before the world went mad; before the dead started walking; before you lost everything you'd ever known.  

That Negan would use his resources to throw a party to bring the compound together for New Year's was, you supposed, one of the reasons he was so highly respected as a leader.  It was an extravagance, one that so many could no longer afford, and yet he knew…  His people needed this: to feel normal for a night; to remember what it meant to relax and enjoy themselves; to reinforce exactly what it was that they were fighting for, surviving for.  Even the most fearsome of his Saviors, those you would try to avoid in the halls and refused to make eye contact with, seemed mellow tonight, champagne-tipsy and full-bellied as they circulated amongst the masses.  There was a buzz of excitement in the room but, more than that, there was a sense of calm, of peace.  You drank it in from where you stood on the sidelines, more comfortable as a spectator than a participant.  You felt sure it wouldn't last beyond the holidays.

A warm touch ghosted against the small of your back, barely grazing the fabric of your dress, before a deep voice interrupted your reverie, honey-sweet yet rough like gravel.  'Well, fuck, doll.  I promised myself that I would spend my night dancing with the most beautiful woman in here, and it's taken me until almost midnight to fuckin' find you.'

A small smile played on your lips as you glanced over your shoulder at your admirer, your breath catching in your throat at the sight of the man that stood there.  He was still in his usual leather jacket, butter-soft and worn with age, but beneath it he wore a crisp white shirt, the top button undone and allowing a small tuft of chest hair to peek through.  Yet, despite the more formal outfit, you could tell that Negan was relaxed, his lean body lacking the tension that usually drew him up tall, his breath laced with the intoxicating tang of whiskey.

'Does that line usually work?' you teased him, tongue loosened by the alcohol humming through your bloodstream.  You wouldn't normally have dared to speak back to your leader that way, knowing as you did his reputation, despite not having been at the Sanctuary for more than a few months.  Over that time you'd formed a solid working relationship with him, reporting to him regularly in your role as a kitchen assistant, keeping him up to date with supplies and meal plans, letting him know if you were getting short of any vital ingredients.  But you'd never been as close to him as you were now, his chest coming flush with your back as he moved nearer.  Cheeks aflame, you fought the urge to lean against him, to experience the sheer strength and breadth of his torso pressed against you, instead turning so that you were face to face and could see the flirtatious gleam in his eyes.  

'C'mon, princess,' he persisted, and this time when he inched closer his hands landed on your hips, holding you in place so that you couldn't retreat, humming in satisfaction at the satin-soft curves beneath his fingers.  'One dance, that's all I'm askin'.'

'But nobody else is dancing,' you pointed out, the music barely loud enough to cover the cacophony of conversation in the hall.

'Well, that's their fuckin' loss.'  You couldn't move away.  Negan's touch was gentle but firm, and, though you knew he'd release you if you insisted on it, you couldn't bring yourself to do it, blaming the champagne and the dimples beneath his salt-and-pepper stubble as he grinned at you.  Almost unconsciously, you found yourself reaching up to loop your arms around his neck, resisting the urge to disturb his slicked-back hair as you cast a glance at the ornate, antique clock that had been hung on the back wall for the occasion.

'Where are your wives tonight?  Surely you want to see the New Year in with one of your harem?'

His laugh rumbled through him, his tongue snaking out to wet his bottom lip as he fixed you with an amusement-laced glare.  'Sure know how to kill a mood, don't ya, doll?'  When you returned his look in silence, he sighed.  'What?  You're gonna make me say it?'

'Say what?'  Your brow creased with confusion, punching another laugh from him, the vibrations flowing through you and bringing the butterflies in your stomach to life.

He ducked his head, lips brushing against your ear as he whispered, 'You're the only one I want by my side at midnight.  Fuck, I thought that was obvious.'  You blinked dazedly at him, certain that somehow he'd got this wrong.  Maybe he thought you were someone else.  Maybe he was more drunk than he seemed and didn't know who you were.  Maybe…

Your doubts were forced away when he began to sway with you, guiding your movements with the slightest amount of pressure applied to the curve of your waist, your name - definitely your name - falling from his lips as he gazed down at you, chocolate irises sparkling.  'Y/N, I haven't laid so much as a fuckin' finger on any of my wives in weeks.'

'Y-you haven't?'

'Trust me, I've been tempted, but, shit, doll, I haven't been able to think of anyone else since you came shufflin' into my office, lookin' like you'd rather be exactly anywhere fuckin' else, to tell me we were outta spaghetti.'  He scoffed at the memory with a shake of his head.  'Fuck, you were so goddamn cute, I just wanted to wrap you up 'n' stick you in my pocket where I could keep you safe.'  At your huff of disbelief, he went on.  'Look, I can't explain it.  Trust me, I know it makes no fuckin' sense.  But there's just something about you, doll.  Can't get you outta my head.'

Your brain was slowly catching up, and you knew you needed to speak, to say something, anything, instead of just gawping at him.  'B-but… I mean, w-why?  Why didn't you say anything before now?'

His shoulders slumped and he turned his attention to his feet, his boots shifting left and right as he kept you moving, unwilling to let the dance come to an end.  'Truth is, it's not always that fuckin' easy,' he admitted.  'With my wives, sure, that's a piece o' piss.  They always need something from me, so, most of the time, I know what they're gonna say before I even ask the question.  But with you…'  He tailed off, letting out a deep breath.  'I'm not gonna lie, princess.  You got me feelin' like a goddamn schoolboy again.  Guess I just couldn't find the words.'

'I…'  The look he was giving you was dripping with sincerity, and for a moment he stopped being your terrifying and fearless leader and became just a man - a man who was holding you as if he was afraid that you might bolt at any moment.  Giving into temptation, you carded your fingers into the hair at the back of his neck, tugging lightly on the ends and receiving a low growl for your efforts.  'I had no idea.'

'So, whaddya say, doll?'  He tipped his head towards the room behind him, dragging your focus back to the party that had seemed to fade away during his confession.  'You gonna make all this worth my while?'

'What do you mean?'

'This is your fuckin' party!'  You were gawping again, and he lifted his arm to spin you, giving you the opportunity to take it all in.  'If you can't put the moves on a pretty girl with no repercussions on New Year's Eve, then when the fuck can you?'  His facade faltered for a moment, his tone lowering once more.  'Needed some kind of excuse in case you blew me off.  So…'

'So,' you echoed him, as, around you, the room burst into a messy, semi-synchronised countdown.  Ten… Nine… Eight… 'It's nearly midnight.'

'Looks like.'

Once you'd given into it, his pull was magnetic, your hands slipping from his neck to fist the collar of his shirt, dragging his face down to your level.  Realising your intentions, the last traces of uncertainty finally disappeared from his face to be replaced by a devilish smirk, though you still kept him waiting as the final seconds of the year ticked down.

Seven… Six… Five… Four…

His lips were so close, hovering just millimetres above your own, his gaze unblinking as he watched you cling desperately to your self control.  It had been so long - so, so long - since you'd last been this close to a man, especially a man that had the sort of effect on you that Negan did, and your senses were overloaded by the masculine scent of him, pine and peppermint and leather, and the heat of him as he pressed against you, clutching onto you as if his life depended on it.

Three… Two… One…

You sucked in a shaky breath.

Happy New Year!

His mouth crashed down on yours, swallowing down your gasp of surprise at the intensity of the kiss, long fingers sliding to your throat to tilt your head back and give him better access.  In that moment, you knew that you could die right there, in his arms, and be completely content with your lot, because you had tasted heaven.  His lips were velvety soft, his stubble burning against your cheeks, and he kissed you like he was drowning and you were his last source of oxygen.  The world around you melted away, the noise fading to quiet, until all there was was you and Negan and the devastating kisses that you couldn't pull away from.  Your lungs were burning, your whole body trembling in his hold.  Even when he finally relinquished your lips, his own breath coming in ragged pants, you found that yours was shallow, heart racing, pulse pounding in your ears, and you knew with absolute certainty that this new year would be one that you'd never ever forget.

'Happy fuckin' New Year, princess.'

'Yeah,' you agreed in a whisper, 'it is.'

*****

Feedback is always appreciated and reblogs make me fuckin’ ecstatic 🖤

Thank you for reading 

[crossbowking]

More Than This

Summary: (Set during season 3) Daryl and Reader are on a supply run when they find themselves under attack.

A/N: Hi everyone! So this is the very FIRST installment of a series I want to start on my page where we get a bunch of author’s together and write a collective one-shot! I had a blast putting this together. It was so amazing to get a feel for everyone’s different writing styles and it was also super cool how the story ended up blending together.

The order in which we wrote was chosen by a random number generator. After all the participating author’s sent me their pieces, I edited them together -- some stuff was changed or cut for continuity purposes/length. The only thing us author’s had to go off of was the summary -- the rest was up to us! Everyone seriously did AMAZING.

Each author will be tagged after their correlating piece, so be sure to give them all some love!

Thank you to everyone who participated! I hope you all enjoyed the experience!

Happy reading!

xx crossbowking

Masterlist

Tip Jar

Dim and dirty sunlight filtered in through the grimy supermarket windows, providing enough light to see the walker’s blood staining the worn linoleum.

You wrinkled your nose and yanked your knife out of its rotting head before stepping away from the mess. The stabbing you'd gotten used to, but you didn’t think you’d ever get used to that smell.

You looked up when someone stepped into the aisle, but it was only Daryl. You’d recognize those broad shoulders and that crossbow anywhere. You gave him a quick smile and cleaned your blade on the walker’s torn pants. “I think this is the last of them.”

Daryl looked down at the walker. “Better stick together, just in case.”

You nodded, re-sheathing your knife and letting him lead the way.

The two of you did one more sweep of the store before you started your search. You went aisle by aisle, looking under broken shelves and moving piles of cardboard and other debris. But your mind was only half on the task at hand, too distracted by thoughts of Daryl.

You didn’t know exactly when you began to notice the clear blue color of his eyes or how much you wanted to reach out and brush the hair out of his face when it began to grow long. You didn’t know when you started missing him when he was off hunting or how happy it made you when he came back safe.

All you knew was that you were head over heels and that kind of scared you.

You chanced a glance at him and when he looked up from what he was doing and met your gaze, you felt that familiar lurch in your chest. The mad urge to tell him how you felt overtook you. “Daryl, I —”

The front door of the store slammed open, cutting the moment short. You had time to whip around and take in several bedraggled men spilling into the store and realized they were aiming their weapons at you.

But Daryl was there and he was grabbing your arm and yanking you into his chest and diving behind the nearest piece of cover just as shots began to split the air. (@mundieoriley​)

Your heart pounded in your ears along with the sound of hailing gunshots.

Daryl held you in an almost painful grip against him, the furious look of protection etched onto his face.

You desperately tried to catch your breath, feeling panic start to rise inside you.

These people came from absolutely nowhere. How long had they been following you? How could you have not noticed? How could Daryl not have?

You had no time to speculate as the sudden silence that followed was just as jarring.

As you stirred in his arms, Daryl pulled away just enough to look you in the eyes and placed a finger to his lips. You nodded and felt yourself calm slightly, the blue sincerity of his eyes radiating some kind of strength you believed in.

"Find ‘em," a gruff voice called out against the stark silence. "Gut the asshole, but don't mark up the girl.”

You could hear the sneer in the man's voice and your stomach turned.

Daryl's grip on your ribs tightened at the words possessively, and if it wasn't any other situation, you would have enjoyed the sensation to no end.

You, in turn, tightened your grip on your knife, trying to be ready for anything.

The sudden sound of multiple people walking in your direction made your eyes flick to Daryl's in a plead. A plead for direction, a plan, any communication as to what you should do. But Daryl had hardened over, the look on his face showing that he was ready to take on a hundred men if that's what it was going to take. (@rhyatt-deauxtreve​)

He didn't move until it was almost too late.

You tried to loosen his grip because the men were so close and you had to move now. And then you were roughly pushed forward, Daryl's hands no longer holding you tight against his chest.

You ducked away when the first bullet hit the shelf to your left. You didn’t have time to think, you just ran, half bent, hiding behind cabinets and shelves. Your blood was boiling and you distinctly heard the beats of your own heart. Somewhere behind you, the deafening whistle of a bolt cut through the air.

Suddenly Daryl was a little ahead and on your left. He turned around, loaded the crossbow, hiding behind the wall, and fired another bolt.

They were close, too close, and the small distance that you’d managed to win was rapidly shrinking.

As if through the cotton wool in your ears, you heard Daryl suddenly groan in pain.

A bullet had gone through his right side.

“Daryl!” you yelped.

But before you could react, he grabbed your hand and pushed you into a small room, looking over his shoulder every few seconds. “Lock the door and stay quiet,” he muttered through gritted teeth.

“What!” you yelled and immediately lowered your voice. “Are you out of your mind? Get in here, there are too many of them!”

“Ain’t gonna fight,” he shot you a glare. “Gonna lead ‘em away. Now listen to what I say and stay.”

And then he was gone, shutting the door behind him.

Soon you heard firing and shouts. The men ran past your door. You stopped breathing and closed your eyes, praying to whatever God for them to pass you by.

And then, as soon as it had started, the firing stopped.

Sudden silence engulfed the store.

Nothing. There was absolutely nothing. You no longer heard the voices and shooting. Just dead silence.

And that’s when fear, primal fear, took over. (@aisling-beatha​​)

"Well, this sucks like the world's worst vacuum,” you muttered to yourself in nervous indecision, breathing away the panic before the idea of hysterical screaming could set in. You chewed on your fingernail while pacing the length of the musty, moth-infested maintenance closet. "Honestly, what was the man thinking? He's just been shot, for God's sake! He has no business leading a bunch of murdering thugs anywhere. It should be me leading them away.”

Your eyes narrowed and your jaw set as everything inside settled into a deadly calm.

You eased the door open a crack and peeked through, knives at the ready, along with a sturdy wrench you'd found and shoved into the back pocket of your jeans.

Sensing nothing of immediate import, you crept out into the gloom of the store's main area to search for clues as to Daryl's whereabouts, all the while keeping to the deepest shadows in complete silence.

One of the raiders was crouched over a fallen display of ratty old magazines, no doubt rummaging for one where the women wore as few clothes as was decent for the mass consumption standards of a grocery store.

Sliding up behind him like a ghost in the night, you pounced.

After a quick and dirty wrestling match — though he had the size advantage, he was stupid-drunk and you had the jump on him. One heavily booted foot dug into the man's spine as you leaned over him, blade a hair's breadth away from slicing his throat.

Your voice was flat, low, and completely without mercy. "I'll ask only once. Where is my friend?” (@darylconnieftw​​)

He slowly let go of the magazine still in his grip, starting to chuckle.

You felt anger rising in you as his lips formed a slight smirk. You couldn’t help but press your knife even closer to his throat, trying not to kill him then and there.

He lifted both of his hands in defense, visibly amused.

You swallowed, hoping Daryl was still alive and okay – or at least as okay as he could be considering he had gotten shot.

The man moved a little, making you shove your knife against his larynx, clarifying that you wouldn’t hesitate to slice his throat if he did something stupid.

“Whoa,” is all he came up with, glancing up at your silhouette.

You bit your lip, the taste of blood encasing your teeth as you tilted your head to look him dead in the eye. “I ain’t joking,” you stated, causing him to raise his eyebrows in a small nod.

You took a deep breath, calming yourself, before taking the knife off his throat and onto his lower arm, placing a deep cut on his wrist before pulling it back up. He screamed out in pain, his eyes asking for permission to stop the bleeding with his shirt, which you granted.

You listened to his panicked breath for a few seconds, blinking a few tears away. “I asked you something,” your voice was barely more than a whisper, yet low and aggressive.

He stared at you, stuttering as he answered. “The, uh, the guy with the dirty hair and, and, and wings on the back of his, uh, vest?”

You rolled your eyes, leaning in. “Are there any other people your group attacked in here?”

He swallowed and shook his head as you suddenly noticed a shadow to your side. (@rxsenkrxnz-imagines​​)

A good thing that had come out of all of this was that after the world ended, you’d acquired very good reflexes.

It was vital to have them good and sharp now, it was the new normal. You would’ve died many times over if you hadn’t, everyone would.

And that’s what got you to swirl around without even having to think about it, bringing the man’s overweighted body with you to face the source of the shadow, the knife nicking at the skin of the big man’s neck, making him whimper. There was a flicker of proudness and a dirty pleasure inside your chest for being able to make a big, bad man whimper.

You’d never thought that you’d be able to do that one day.

From over his shoulder, your eyes focused on another man, this one much more threatening looking than the one under your knife. He was lean and muscular and the hatred and danger in his eyes made you shiver, even though you didn’t let any of them notice.

“Stop right there, asshole,” you said between clenched teeth and the firmness of your voice surprised even yourself. “Or I’ll slit his throat open!”

Of all the things you thought the man would do, a smile was not one of them.

He lowered his head, keeping his eyes on yours, the smile making you sure you’d vomit after all of this was over. “Do it,” he said. “I don’t care. Go on, darling. Do it.” (@elisdays​​)

Well, that was not what you were expecting to hear.

You recognized the man’s voice though, it was the same one who spoke earlier and you put together that he was probably the thug pack leader. “Don’t test me!” you shouted, although you were sure he wasn’t testing you.

A snicker escaped the man’s lips. “I ain’t testing you, darling, I mean it. Do it, kill him.”

“C-come on, man! Don’t egg her on, she actually will!” the man in your grasp whimpered as he begged for his life.

The leader’s eyes fell on the one you held captive. “Sorry, Greg, but you know how it is. The more of you around, the less time we all have with this pretty one. Be a good boy and let her kill you. You’ll be remembered for your loyal sacrifice.” His words sent a shiver up your spine.

These people, no, these monsters were absolutely sick. You already knew that this new world brought either the worst or the best out of people. It was just unfortunate that most of the world became the worst versions of themselves.

“Go on, princess! What are you waiting for?” the man took a step towards you as he urged you to kill his henchman.

You needed to think of something and fast.

“You know what? This is a waste of time,” the man sighed, pulling his gun from its holster.

You gasped as Greg screamed, the thug leader pulling the trigger and shooting Greg in the head. You felt the dead weight of his body fall limp onto you and you tried to use this to your advantage. You shoved the dead body forward and ran, dashing behind shelves as the body fell onto the thug leader.

You needed to get out, you needed to get away from these people and most importantly, you needed to find out where the hell Daryl went.

Panic struck your heart when you thought about him. Was he okay? Did he run into more of them? Did he kill them? You shook your head before you could finish your thought process. Now was not the time to panic and cry. (@ddixons-angel​​)

Pull yourself together — that’s what you had to do now.

You crouched down behind one of the empty shelves, near the exit. But what were you to do? Not like it was an easy decision to make. You had to stay alive, that much was clear. Ending up dead wouldn’t be too big a use to Daryl right now.

The thing that worked in your favor was the thing that terrified you most. The reason for these men wanting you alive had very little to do with the goodness of their hearts.

You were pulled out of your thoughts by the sound of the grumbling leader, seemingly to have wrestled free of his buddy's dead body.

You should’ve been out of here by now, but you knew that running blindly wasn't going to do you much good — who could even guarantee that you wouldn’t be running straight into the rest of the guy's merry band of thugs? No, you weren’t an idiot.

You stilled completely, not daring to draw a breath as you heard the man's footsteps creep your way.

“Come out, come out, wherever you are!” he sang out mockingly, stupidly giving out his exact position.

He was just a shelf away, practically standing right behind you. (@of-storms-and-sadness​​)

Once he was at arm’s length on the other side of the broken shelf, you reached through with your blade, stabbing him twice in the thigh.

The pain you inflicted caused the man to groan out, cursing through gritted teeth. When he composed himself, he swung around the corner but was met with an empty aisle, excluding the cans and blood that littered the floor.

Before he could take another confused step, you struck from behind, going for his armed hand.

With his wrist in your grasp, you forced the barrel to face off to the side. The gun went off as you backed him into the shelf, using the opportunity to jab your blade into his abdomen once — twice — thrice.

If you hadn’t caught him off guard, you highly doubted that would’ve been the outcome.

The combination of his back slamming against a hard object, your deadly grip on his dominant hand, and you gutting him, caused the gun to slip from his hold and clatter to the floor. You managed to kick the weapon aside before you were roughly shoved into the rack across from you with such force it knocked, not only the air out of your lungs, but your knife out of your hand.

Blinking away your blurred vision, your mind frantically tried to come up with an idea of what to do next. Should you try to reach for the discarded gun? Your knife?

No — there was another weapon in play.

Just in the nick of time, you shrieked and ducked down, barely missing the fist that was meant to make contact with your face. You kneed him in the groin before reaching into your back pocket, feeling the wrench that you had nabbed from the maintenance closet earlier.

Positioning yourself behind the crouched man, you held both ends of the tool, bringing it over his head and to his neck. Your back greeted the ground as you laid there and applied pressure, choking the life out of the once cocky and determined bastard.

“Be a good boy and let me kill you,” you taunted his words back at him through clenched teeth as he struggled.

Once the man went limp, you shoved his body off you with a grunt and went to grab your knife and the owner-less gun — it was yours now.

All of a sudden a shot rang out.

Daryl.

Where was Daryl? (@twdeadlysins​​)

You squatted down, jamming the knife in your hand into the soft flesh of the leaders’ temple, knowing that it could only take mere minutes for the dead to rise again.

You slowly crept over to the entrance of the store and peeked outside, checking if there were any more of the thugs outside.

Your hands were slightly shaking and your heart beating frantically in your chest as your eyes traced the empty street outside of the store. You needed to get to Daryl fast, he needed your help.

The gunshot you had heard had nearly made your heart stop. Had the thugs already killed him?

Since you could not spot any immediate danger, you slowly made your way out of the store.

You chewed nervously on your bottom lip. You had not seen what direction Daryl had led the thugs, but you figured you just had to start somewhere.

You held the knife in your hand, your eyes and ears ready to pick up any movement or sound as you moved along the side of the building. You glanced over your shoulder, making sure that no one was creeping up on you as you moved forward.

Your steps suddenly came to an abrupt halt as you bumped into something solid.

You yelped and raised your hand, ready to strike, but a firm hand around your wrist stopped you.

“Easy girl, it’s just me,” you heard Daryl’s raspy voice and your wide frightened stare locked with his sky blue orbs.

You let out a relieved whimper and threw your arms around his neck, hugging him. “I thought you were dead, I heard a gunshot,” you said as you hugged him tightly.

Feeling how he flinched, you took a step back and your eyes traced down to his side where he was shot.

“Oh god, you’re hurt. We need to get you back to the others before you bleed out,” you whispered, feeling your heart start to speed up again.

The two of you were not out of danger yet. Daryl was shot and you knew it was up to you now to get you both to safety. (@easnuppa​​)

You wrapped your arms around Daryl's waist, leading him toward the truck you’d parked a little way back.

Fear gripped at your heart with every step you took, every wince Daryl tried to keep in, every little bit of blood he was losing. “Nearly there, hold on,” you pleaded to Daryl, the truck finally coming into view.

You opened the passenger side door and took as much of Daryl's weight as you could, helping him get in. You took a glance at Daryl as he sat in the passenger seat, his head leaned back on the headrest and his eyes closed.

You had never been more scared in your life as you were right there in that moment.

You quickly closed his door and rushed to the driver's seat where you promptly started the engine and began your tense journey back to the prison.

With every minute that passed, your panic started to rise, Daryl's breathing started to slow, and more blood was seeping through his fingers that were putting pressure on his gunshot wound.

“Keep pressure on it, Daryl, you hear,” you said loudly, trying to keep him awake and distracted.

But as you looked over to him, he was unresponsive.

“Daryl!” you screamed louder, hoping to wake him up, but failed. “God, no please,” you begged, tears threatening to fall as you took the hand you didn’t need and placed it on his wound, keeping the blood flow at a minimum.

“Daryl, don’t leave me, you can't do this to me,” tears now falling down your face as the gates of the prison came into view. “Please help me, it’s Daryl!” you screamed out the open window to whoever was on watch.

“He's breathing but barely,” you informed whoever came to help, feeling helpless as you

watched them cart off Daryl’s unconscious form. (@jodiereedus22​​)

Everything felt fuzzy.

The world spun around you, noises muted and muffled as the driver’s side door was yanked open. A pair of hands grasped onto your arms and you allowed yourself to be pulled from the truck, finding it impossible to move on your own.

A rough hand grabbed your chin, forcing your gaze upwards, your vacant eyes locking with Rick’s frantic ones. He was mouthing something you couldn't quite make out, his hands moving to grip either one of your shoulders, giving you an abrupt shake. “— happened? What happened, Y/N?” Rick’s voice broke through the fog, scanning your features wildly.

You opened your mouth to respond, confused as to why no words seemed to be coming out.

Rick appeared to swallow his frustration, instead taking a deep breath and placing his hand on the side of your neck. “Hey, hey, it’s alright, Y/N, it’s alright,” he soothed before his eyes hardened. “Was this the Governor?”

You swallowed audibly, forcing yourself to calm. “I-I —” you stuttered, exhaling shakily. “I don’t think so. W-We got — we, uh, we got ambushed. And Daryl —” your voice broke at the thought of what had happened.

“Listen ta’ me, Y/N,” Rick intervened, his tone noticeably softer. “Ya did all ya could do, alright? Ya got him home. Ya did all ya could do,” he reiterated.

You took a steadying breath. “I-I need to see him — I need to be with him.”

Rick nodded, a knowing look in his eyes. “I know ya do.”

Things still felt hazy as you made your way into cell block C. (@crossbowking​​)

You sat on top of the steps and waited for news on Daryl. You hoped that he was going to be okay.

After a little while, Hershel hopped out of his cell. "I stitched up his side. But he hasn't regained consciousness yet and his breathing is labored,” he told you.

You headed inside and looked at him.

"Just give me a shout if he wakes up,” Hershel told you and left you alone.

You looked at Daryl and sat beside him. "Dare, you have to wake up, please,” you said with tears in your eyes. (@leej2468​​)

You hoped he heard you so he knew he wasn’t alone.

The afternoon dragged on slowly, yet you never left his side, afraid he would wake alone. You waited impatiently, perched on a stool next to his bedside.

The events of the day played in your mind, making your heart shatter more at the fact that Daryl almost got himself killed trying to keep you safe. Furiously swiping at the tears forming in your eyes, you just hoped that he would wake up and everything would go back to normal.

But you knew, deep down, you didn’t want things to go back to normal. The unspoken feelings you had were eating you alive and today just proved that you had to tell him before something happened to either of you. You knew he cared for you, he fucking proved that today, but you had to tell him that you wanted more.

You couldn’t help but take his limp hand in your own, slightly squeezing. Eyes trained on your joined hands, you almost didn’t notice his eyes flicker open slowly.

He didn’t say a word, only gripping your hand tightly, eyes wild. “Yer alright,” he managed to gasp out, his other hand reaching up to touch your face.

“Don’t try to move,” you whispered a reply. “Let me get Hershel, okay?”

“Don’t,” he rasped, trying to tug you back to his side. “Stay.”

You couldn’t help but bring his hand to your lips, kissing his rough knuckles. He sighed at the feeling and you leaned into his hand. “I thought I lost you,” you whispered, mostly to yourself in relief, but he heard it.

“Ya won’t lose me,” he mumbled, his eyes lazily trained on you as if he would doze off any second.

“You know what we have is special,” you whispered, raising your hand to move strands of hair from his eyes. “I want to know if you feel the same. I can’t wait anymore to tell you how I feel, especially knowing that something could happen.”

He paused, his expression softening. “I know,” he finally said gruffly. “I want...” he trailed off, thoughtful, trying to come up with something to say. “I wanna protect you, keep ya safe, but —” he inhaled sharply. “But I want more.”

You let out a sigh you didn’t realize you were holding. “Me, too,” you replied, and he nodded, his eyes closing. You leaned forward, lips on his forehead, and he didn’t flinch back like he usually did at physical contact.

Instead, he let you, without restraint, his tense posture relaxing under your touch.

“I love you and I can’t lose you,” you whispered, your lips barely on his skin.

He nodded. “Me, too.”

You leaned back, still holding his hand, letting him rest. (@writerzunite​​)

Fin.

A/N: So what did everyone think! 

Let me know if this is something you’d like to see/participate in again!

And make sure you go check out these awesome author’s other stories!!!

Forever Tag List

@jodiereedus22 @momc95 @distressed-honking @apocalypsekid @lillyrosegirl @messiahofdystopia @reddhead95 @coffeebooksandfandom @xabigail-miwx @kazzieglove @side-effectss @selenedixon @auntiebyn @rubysglowingeyes @dreamingofonceuponatime @wtfcas @charity1080 @cbarter @mtngirlforever @hanaissupergirl @a-dlv @kickin-with-dixon @sugakookiexx @heyitscam99 @alwaysananglophile @vodkasindream @the-bleeding-rose @the-obsessive-fangirl @daryldixionfan1universe-blog @munchkinfox @hp-hogwartsexpress @alilarkin99 @maddybeck01 @mrsdaamneron @randomtwistedlife @anything-for-the-archer @kittieswritingspot @sesshomaru-lover @x-everrosekillings-x @hopplessdreamer @cltex84 @the-lady-corvidae @fakesoniapayne @cutiepiemimi13 @qhbr2013 @frienah @mummy-woves-you @azanoni-blog @rirylgrimeson1 @seninjakitey @cole-winchester @andiejones @countrygal17a @jinkies-its-a-writer​ @katsandwriting @mildnoobs @always-hopeful- @kilyra @sourwolf-sterek32 @wilhelmjfink @antiformidable @sapphire1727  @pumpkinqueenbaka @bruised13peach @tatertot1097 @sassi-luna  @youkilloryoudie @winchester-angel @zzeacat @queenlouisa2001 @captain-shannon-becker @my-current-fandom-is @drina365 @risingphoenix761 @twdeadfanfic @feartheendlesssummer @wanna-see-my-lease @bestillmystuckyheart @negans-wife @judymosali @thatsoragan @monetfatalia @burningrupture @firehoopinmama @nicknack2814 @senecat17 @ancientwhispers @divadinag @lonewolf471 @qrangr @apossiblegentleman @cxgrimes @ifatfirstyoudontfricassee @gruffle1 @iminlokisarmysofi @superflannel @the-bottom-of-the-abyss @crazyaboutnorman @deliciousassafrasssandwich @fireeyes-on-teller-dixon-grimes @aint-ashes @s7g @amongthewildthingss @writinqss @dawsonfyre @twdsfix @teyema @baseballbitch116 @crowleysreigningqueenofhell @of-storms-and-sadness @bvbwestfall @pancakefancake @mblaqgi @littletexasgirl @the-specific-oceans @rhovanian @theunofficialduke @eiresworld @dashesoflipstick @daryldixonandfrogs @death-unbecomes-you @dandydragonz @elizabethserrato @bleakmidwintr @oh-balls-you-idjits @daddys-little-princess67 @mikahowl @pansexualgrapes @brightnss @thegirlwithoutaname87 @chickenparmandstoicvulcans @oncemorewithfeelingg @fand0m-fiend @dontputyourfckingdrinkonmytable @ruinofkings @ivars-snowflake @cathwritestragediesnotsins @delightfuldela @easnuppa @pineappear @death-unbecomes-you @lilred254 @starlesseyez @buckmecaptain @xxtwizztedxx @walkersbetripping @rampagewriting @mcrmarvelloki @mundieoriley  @beefcakebarnes @youhavemyfantasticbeasts @iminlovewithasuperboy @teaxerz @hotdigggittydogg @missscarletawesome @vampromancy @mel-2a @thatmentallyunstablefangirl @kayninejayne  @jll72-blog @right-til-the-end @daintychlo @iheartmusiclove @xxstylestrashxx @rasax45v @serfyan18 @a-radiant-sun @whatthefrickcrowley @thehybridsqueen @xmistressmistrustx @embracing-illusions @twisted-tasty14 @blankmoniker @angel79sworld @lokilover2000 @keybangs @hidinginohio @lonelyangelseekingdemon @nightmaresenpa @art-flirt @azanoni @thesnowfaerie @citlalireedus @viriditiez @alanegaming

Let me know if you’d like to be added/removed from the tag list.

[singofsolace]

Madam Spellman Fictober Challenge: Week One Masterlist!

Week One: Public Spaces

And She Means Everything To Me by witchesmortuary (@witchesmortuary)

Rating: T ~ Words 1,871

Zelda and Lilith have been sleeping together for 4 months now and Zelda is slowly falling in love but too scared to tell Lilith. But Lilith takes the opportunity after Black Mass to visit her; a talk about feelings ensues.

crawl home to her by Singofsolace (@singofsolace)

Rating: M ~ Words: 7,644

Zelda and Lilith go on a lovely hike up a mountain, but when the weather changes, they’re forced to seek shelter. Kissing and cuddling ensues.

Cup Of Coffee For Your Heart by bainel (@bainelland)

Rating: T ~ Words: 1,305

“The bell above the door chimed once again. Zelda turned her head towards the sound, sure this time it would be her niece hurrying towards her with apologies rolling off her tongue. The disappointment she initially felt quickly evaporated at the sight of a stranger entering the bookshop.“

Desk Work by Anonymous

Rating: M (but deserves an E for Desk Sex!) ~ Words: 1,592

Zelda tries to get some work done.

Green Was the Color of the Grass by Saturn_Silk (@saturn-silk)

Rating: T ~ Words: 9,053

As Lilith got up, she spotted a woman sitting in the shade on one of the nearby benches, and she almost did a double-take. The woman was breathtaking. Her arms and legs were on full display, thanks to her short-sleeved black dress, and the afternoon sun deliciously illuminated her milky white skin. Lilith followed the skin of her arms to her neck and up to her face, which was partially hidden behind a stylish pair of sunglasses. Then, there was the hair. The woman’s hair was curled in loose waves, cascading over her shoulders. Lilith couldn’t figure out whether it was red or more of strawberry blonde, but all she knew is that she had a sudden urge to run her fingers through the tresses to establish if it was as silky as it seemed.

OR the AU where Lilith and Zelda constantly see each other it the park, but it takes months for either one of them to make a move.

If on a Winter’s Night a High Preistess by hypothetical_chainsaw (@evilqueensandlesbianvampires)

Rating E ~ Words: 1,768

The newly crowned Queen of Hell and her High Priestess have run out of viable locales for their rendezvous where they won’t be disturbed by one of the Spellmans, a demon on the warpath, or a student desperate for a homework extension. The alley behind Greendale Town Hall will suffice, right?

Leather coat by DarkGirl (@darktweet)

Rating: M ~ Words: 1,776

Zelda knew the leather coat was Lilith’s favorite piece of clothing. It drove the ginger mad how she never wanted to be apart from it.  She also loved how it looked on her, black, shiny, entrancing her to pull at it and run her hands to the fabric.

What she didn’t like, was the way it was making them late for their restaurant reservations.

Our city of love by LilithFeminaPrima (Twitter: michelleownsme)

Rating: M (but deserves an E) ~ Words: 5,980

Zelda is overworked. Lilith has to fight to be allowed to take care of her. They go on a trip. Smut and fluff ensue.

Queensland by madamnovelist

Rating: G ~ Words: 1,473

"Zelda is speechless. She knows more than ten languages and, in this moment, she remembers none." Set somewhere in part 3. Zelda really wants her and Lilith to relax and Lilith doesn't know anything about feelings.

Same Time Next Week? by praisemadamespellman

Rating: M (but once again, deserves an E) ~ Words: 4,072

Mary Wardwell and Zelda Spellman go to the movies.

And this poem by @allaboutthatgillybox​

Thank you all so much for participating in the first week of the challenge! I’m amazed and heartened by how many people created new work for this prompt.

[roguephoenix85]

Excuse me but fuck Zeke

So Zeke wanting to euthanize his own people - a okay! But he’s so sympathetic and his backstory so sad! He outright murdered a bunch of people of Paradis and the entire Survey Corps including Erwin and that’s fine? A people that HE IS A PART OF AND SELF LOATHES THAT HE’S ESSENTIALLY COMMITTING GENOCIDE TOO! 

But EREN. Oh noooooo Eren bad. For eliminating 80% of the world to even the odds against his people when THE WHOLE WORLD NEEDS THEM TO BE THE BIG BAD FOR WORLD UNITY. “We must let the world punish us for our ancestors’ crimes.” I would LOVE to hear you say that to people who have been marginalized in US society and tell me that you’d tell them that to their faces. You’d tell black people terrorized by the police and the justice system that. You’d tell migrants seeking asylum that. You’d tell the AAPI community who are getting brutalized IN THE STREETS FOR EXISTING THAT.

Some of you have never been openly discriminated against or targeted for who you are and it shows. You don’t get to extoll Zeke and in the same breath say Eren is the worst one just because the amount of people Zeke seeks to eliminate is smaller than Eren’s. He’s a fucking school shooter. He hates his own people because his dad was a dick so instead of just being mad at his dad, you guys think it’s fine that he takes it out ON HIS OWN PEOPLE. That’s EXACTLY what school/mass/white supremacist shooters do. Do you celebrate the Sandy Hook shooter because awwww his life must have been really hard so it’s fine that he murdered children and then took himself out? Of COURSE you don’t! He’s a fuckin asshole who took his bullshit out on innocent people. He was protecting NO ONE. ZEKE IS PURSUING A PERSONAL GOAL BASED ON A PERSONAL WRONG AND IT’S IN NO ONE’S INTEREST BUT HIMSELF AND THE FASCIST COUNTRY HE CHOSE. 

So tell me - how is it that EREN is the worse one when what he did was to ultimately protect his people and ensure their right to live by scapegoating himself? The king was a fuckface for being a self-loathing asshole and messing with his people’s memories and bodies to alleviate his own sense of guilt. Eren fucked with his friends’ memories so that he could create the narrative they saved humanity and ultimately protected everyone left on the island. Why is what he did WORSE than Zeke? Just because it involved more people? 

Zeke sought to kill his own people out of a sense of revenge against his father and to “eliminate suffering” when guess what? Being alive IS suffering. It’s living with the knowledge that you will die someday. That fucked up things will happen seemingly without reason. And instead of making it better for more people, he fully participated in the torment and execution of his own people. Cuz “my daddy was mad and disappointed in me”. Cuz someone else TOLD HIM his Dad was bad. Was Grisha a dick? YES. But that doesn’t mean that Zeke gets to take it out on everyone else. 

Just like Hange had no right to make the decisions she did “for the Eldian people”. She was not the head of the military and she herself admitted multiple times that ultimately she’s not the one to make the decision, it’s the people. It’s the ultimate hypocrisy that she can sit and try to take a moral high ground just because she didn’t like the choice she made. She CHOSE. And she made a choice she regretted. Or, more to the point, she wanted to make BOTH decisions at first but, once again, one choice was eliminating her own people and operating out of fear that “oh the world will fear us” LIKE THEY ALREADY FUCKIN DO and the other was taking out the other side with force. There ARE NO TWO SIDES in this. One side wants your people dead and scapegoated and they don’t CARE OR WANT to listen to you despite what you believe are your best efforts. The other side wants to live after realizing and understanding the truth and, understandably, being BIG FUCKING PISSED about it. 

You can’t sit there and say Zeke’s bad is less bad than Eren’s just because of scale. They’re both bad for different reasons, but the ultimate reasoning for their bads are different. Zeke was acting for purely selfish, self-loathing, and vengeful reasons because of a personal wrong he took out on HIS OWN PEOPLE, and made the choice FOR THEM to try and euthanize them. Eren was acting out of a sense of protecting his people, eliminating the titans, and freedom. Yes, it was personal freedom for himself as well as his people, but the ultimate goal wasn’t out of “my daddy was an ideological fool and I’m mad at him so all of our people should suffer” - it’s “yeah, fine, I’ll be the bad guy if it ultimately means getting rid of the titans, giving my friends a better shot at a long life, and evening the playing field.” Yeah, he wanted this, but he also knew somewhat, after getting those memories from Historia, that these actions would ultimately lead to the end of the Titans and give the best shot for his friends and people to live. He didn’t know Sasha would die and it’s not like that outcome he wanted. He just moved forward knowing from the founder that these were the actions that were needed to make it end. 

If you haven’t personally suffered deep systemic injustices for a long period of time, I can understand why Eren’s actions and this ending would have been disappointing and why Zeke’s actions make more sense and why you’d empathize with him, I really do. But I urge you to listen to marginalized communities and tell them that the best solution would be to allow others to off them for unity. My AAPI friends certainly don’t agree with that. My BIPOC friends don’t agree with that. My friends with disabilities don’t agree with that. They don’t want revenge against the world, but the sure do want it to fuckin stop and as long as the US is a militarized white supremacists police state that allows them to murder with impunity for existing while not white and abeled, and there is no justice for these crimes against them, holding hands and asking for world peace isn’t going to do it anymore when governments are being run by narcissistic scapegoating sociopaths who want them dead for being different. 

FUCK Zeke. He’s a well written villain but to say Eren is worse than him or that Eren’s actions are unjustified but Zeke’s are comes from place of privilege and “not rocking the boat”. Zeke is literally working for the fascists knowing full well what they are. The people of Paradis before the basement reveal didn’t. The people in charge, some of them consisting of people who AREN’T EVEN ELDIAN, chose that. “Your blood is the blood of slaves” and all. 

“Freedom” usually costs something to someone. Whether compromise or lives lost or societal structures crumbling. It all depends on how you want to acquire it. And if the other side doesn’t want to compromise, do you go “okay, I guess I’ll die to make you happy?” That was the choice Historia was presented with - and she chose NO. It’s what the people of Paradis are forced to come to terms with - and they ALSO chose no. They’re not going to die to make you happy. They’re not going to suffer anymore for your benefit. And since you gave them no other choice and won’t work with them, what else is there but to fight? 

Zeke sucks ass and is indefensible. I get why he did what he did, but he’s a fuckin school shooting coward and no. No no no. He’s a selfish piece of shit for continuing his plan. He only stopped because he finally got a moment with Daddy and by then it was FAR too late. He’s a grown ass man taking his anger out on the world because of his dad. Nah, fam. 

[arrivalation]

2020: An Account

This year has been a nonstop, off-the-rails bullet train ride into what looked at first like chaos, but ultimately was a tearing down and reconstruction of my entire being. Because I know myself and I know I won’t remember much of this later, I’m recording it here. It’s hard to put some of this information out, but the universe regularly urges me to be more open. So here I go.

January

I got married.

It was, without contest, the absolute best day of my life. I’ve known since I was real little that I wanted to be married, that I wanted to be loved the way M loves me and to love someone just as much. I don’t know how to explain the feeling of having achieved that, and being able to share that with my entire circle. @abyssalsun​ made it down!! (my only regret is that @ladyoriza​ couldn’t make it, but I’m still so glad we got to make it to theirs). As often as I can, I revisit the memory of going to @chromecutie​’s house afterward, thinking it’d just be the four of us there, and opening the door to find a whole impromptu surprise party happening. Everyone cheered for us when we came in. I played CAH with Mordred, my brother and his wife, and several friends from out of town. By all accounts, these people would never have been in the same room together, but they were, and it was transcendent. It’s been almost a year, and I still haven’t recovered from all the planning and stress; but now that I’m past it, I can say with relief that it was 100% worth it.

February

We bought a house.

Up until this point, I’d been planning a wedding, participating in house-buying stuff as best I could, interviewing for a job I ended up not taking, and dealing with life-long mental illness that was festering and reaching critical mass. But then stuff started wrapping up. The wedding happened. The house was ours. We moved in. I could finally fucking breathe. LMAO bitch you thought.

March

The pandemic reached us.

I guess by this point it had probably already been in the US for a couple months, idr. But it wasn’t until March that things really started happening. People started dying in droves. New cases spread like wildfire. I remember thinking that this would be the zombie apocalypse, because at this point, I don’t think the CDC knew much about the virus. In my anxious mind, that was a completely reasonable assumption. My boss had us all start working from home. We all thought it’d be just a couple weeks.

April

I settled into working from home.

It didn’t take me long to get used to it, maybe a week. I hadn’t yet gotten used to my new hour-long commute from the new house to work, and so working from home quickly became my new normal. But I didn’t know yet why working from home was so good for me. All I knew was that I now had the brain-space to process things. I had the energy to do yoga and cook and do hobbies, and the time to appreciate and care for the home I lived in. I could think more clearly because there was no one else around to distract me. There was sunlight I could bask in. I felt human for once, and that became vitally important and infinitely valuable to me. Despite that, I still struggled with extreme anxiety, panic attacks, and some of the worst depression I’ve suffered through since I was a teenager. Outside my house, everything was a fucking mess and no one had their shit together.

May

I went back to the office for a few weeks.

There was a lull in pandemic activity. My boss had us all start coming back to the office again. At this point, I couldn’t make heads or tails of reality anymore. Everything was changing, nothing was stable. I desperately needed to stay working from home, because that was the one thing that felt Good and Right, but I had no real argument other than, 'I just need to.' So imagine me, at this point a soggy, run-over sloppy joe, attempting to return to normal. As you might think, it was... bad. I cried and hurt all the time. I think I really freaked out my boss with the way I reacted to coming back to the office. But then the second wave hit, and we all went back to working from home again.

June

Uncle Mike died on the first day of the month.

My uncle had been sick for a while, but no one was expecting him to die so suddenly. None of us were ready for it.

I also died that day.

It might sound dramatic, but I mean it quite literally and honestly. Over the years, I had gained suspicion that I was on the autism spectrum. M graciously found me a psychiatrist that took my insurance (and happened to be right next door). I wasn’t even going in for that - I was seeking treatment for my anxiety and depression. But I had amassed a (very long) list of my symptoms, and I brought it with me and read it to my doctor. I wasn’t even a quarter of the way through the list when he stopped me. I’m paraphrasing here, but in effect, he said, “No, yeah, you’re definitely autistic.”

I remember the way my body felt. Like someone had detonated a bundle of TNT in my chest, and I was burning from the inside out. At the time, I didn’t realize this emotional immolation was purposeful and executed by the universe to get rid of this old structure and build a newer, better, stronger one. For about fifteen seconds after he said that, I was relieved that it had been that easy, that there was an explanation for everything that my ADHD didn’t explain. It made a ton of sense why my environment was so important to me. And then I felt something unnameable. It was obvious to my doctor that I was autistic. Had it been obvious to everyone else? Why hadn’t it been obvious to me? I read the rest of my symptoms to him in a daze. I don’t remember how the rest of the appointment went.

And then I burned quietly and ungracefully until I was a pile of ashes. I didn’t know this at the time, but apparently it’s common for newly-diagnosed autistic people to have such dramatic and painful reactions, especially if they weren’t well-informed on the condition. Which I wasn’t.

I started therapy.

I also started learning about my “flavor” of autism. It was arduous, embarrassing, isolating, and ugly. I became aware that I had been masking my whole life, and I was astounded by just how often I did so. What really crushed me was knowing that I’d always have to mask to protect myself. I also became hyper-aware of the things that made me Feel Bad. Inexplicably, I stopped being able to react to those things the way I used to. Previously, if something made a loud and unexpected sound, I would suppress my reaction, because it’s not cool to get mad about it. But I found I couldn’t do that anymore. I had no choice but to react the way I needed to react. I realize now that this was to make me aware of what things make me feel a certain way so I can either avoid them or learn better tools to deal with them.

The therapist I saw wasn’t specialized in autism, and she wasn’t any help in that area, but she did teach me some important things. Like, “Is it reasonable for me to feel ____?”

July

Black hole.

I don’t remember a whole lot from this month, except sifting my own ashes through my fingers and crying. Every day brought a new revelation, a new thing that clicked. All of it was helpful and very painful. My psychiatrist recommended medication, but I’d had a bad and long-lasting experience with medication as a teenager, so I suffered through the pain on my own.

I shouldn’t have. I got so low I didn’t want to be alive anymore. But I think it took reaching the bottom and feeling that much pain for me to get over my fear of pharmaceuticals. 

I got into astrology.

I had been interested in it for most of my life, but it wasn’t until this point that I started studying it in depth. I discovered it was a language that I could use to translate so many things about my own life that I didn’t understand. It was a rulebook in a time when I desperately needed rules - but one just flexible enough that it taught me how to stop thinking in binary.

August

I got medicated.

There was a big adjustment period, of course. It didn’t cure me. But it did start to make things easier. And it helped to know that, even if I didn’t believe it at the time, I deserved to rest. I deserved not to feel so much emotional pain all the time.

I turned 30.

It was easily the second best day of my life. I learned a lot of important things, like that it’s important to be present, that I’m seen and loved (just the way I am!!), and that I deserve good things. M planned a whole day of surprises:

I woke up at my leisure and we had coffee on the couch. He got me a cute card with one of our inside jokes inside - I still have it.

We went to our favorite combination lunch place and bakery, which I believe was our first real outing since the pandemic started.

We stopped by a tattoo place. I almost got a tattoo.

He set me loose in Texas Art Supply.

We got dim sum for dinner.

We had a lovely virtual cocktail hour with @chromecutie.

He bought me an ipad!!

I became Spiritual™.

I had been agnostic for the past decade or so, slowly and subtly slipping into nihilism, without realizing how detrimental those ideas were to me. I’m not sure what I thought spirituality was before, but I wasn’t into it. I had always rolled my eyes at people who talked about “a higher power”, auras, and spirit guides, until I became that person.

My psychiatrist introduced some powerful ideas to me, ones that meshed well with my previously-existing idea of how the universe worked. I won’t get into details here. That’s a whole other post. Ask me though - I’d love to talk about it.

Anyway, I started (intermittently) meditating. I learned some exceptionally powerful stuff. I felt my scaffolding being erected.

September

I started learning who I am and why I am this way.

I started seeing a new therapist. She thinks like me. She follows my erratic, forking trains of thought. She sees me and offers real, actionable feedback and solutions. Working with her, I’ve gained the ability to see my life from a 30,000-foot view. I can see now why I’ve felt so lonely my whole life. I understand how my family’s dysfunction has shaped me. I know now that I have the opposite of a victim complex - by default, I believe I am so awful that I feel sorry for everyone who has to deal with me. Because that’s what I was taught to believe. Learning that I deserve to take up space, set boundaries, say no, and be wrong sometimes is still a hard lesson for me. But most days, I believe it now. It takes other people believing it and convincing me. I still need that reassurance often.

My parents sold my childhood home.

Mentally, emotionally, I still lived there. I was still the inverted victim, still beholden to my stepdad’s whims and my mom’s complete cognitive dissonance. This was a blinking neon sign from the universe that it was time to move out. My mom told me when the closing date was so I’d have time to drive down and look at the house one last time. I didn’t go, and I still don’t regret it.

I started learning my boundaries.

After my spiritual move-out, I learned I don’t have to jump when my stepdad holds out the little circus hoop. When he otherwise shows zero interest in my life but still baits me with passive-aggressive texts, I don’t have to answer!! What a concept! I don’t have to feel guilty for not talking to my mom more than I do. We have very little in common, and I still have a lot of things to work through regarding her.

I learned how not to be so reactive.

Or rather, I’m still learning. Something else I learned in therapy is that over the course of my life, I’ve developed a desperate need to defend myself and to justify every action or thought I have, even to myself. It’d been especially troubling at work. My RSD led me to felt stupid, incompetent, and unseen daily; if my boss complimented someone, I believed it also meant he thought I was stupid and bad and wrong, otherwise he would have complimented me too. If my boss said something that even remotely sounded like I’d done something wrong, I’d race to build an impenetrable defense: “This is the reason I did that. Here’s my line of thinking. Do you understand? Can you please understand?”

Now I know that so little of what everything everyone says or does at work is about me. I can appreciate a coworker’s accomplishment and also realize it doesn’t take away anything from me. I’m not stupid or incompetent, and I’m a valuable part of the team. A lot of times, my boss and I are on two different wavelengths - that’s because I think a lot faster, which can be frustrating for him sometimes. He doesn’t fully understand me, but that doesn’t mean I’m doing anything wrong.

October

I let go of an old friend.

This was especially hard, because I had known this person for years. We’d gone through a lot together, and we’d shared some really important and emotional story plots and characters. I had agonized over whether I was truly important to her or not. It didn’t matter how much I loved her as a friend, or how badly I wanted us to be close again and remain close. I had learned to read the universe’s signs, and it was clear it was time to move on.

November

The election happened.

I was expecting things to turn out badly, but I still hoped for something good. And then something good did happen. I cried watching Harris’ speech. I felt a tenuous hope that things might finally start looking up, societally. I still haven’t really let myself fully embrace that hope, but every time I see a court shoot down another lawsuit, or hear about trump’s own conservative republican supporters tell him, “Okay, buddy, it’s time to step down,” I feel a little better. 

M and I went non-monogamous.

There’s so much I want to say about this, but it’s for another post. Suffice it to say that like every other experience this year, it has been unexpectedly challenging and ultimately a catalyst for  priceless growth. I’m unfathomably grateful that we’re doing this together, for the things we’ve learned so far, and for how much closer this experience has made us, even when I didn’t think we could get any closer. 

Turns out I’m not gray-ace.

I had identified as such for a couple years, which was why we wanted to try non-monogamy in the first place. On the surface, it perfectly explained my sexual personality. But every time I told someone my identity, I felt inexplicably sad. When I read about others having “normal” sex drives and “normal” relations with their spouses, I felt jealous.

Turns out I’m just traumatized, lol. Walking along this non-mono path has unearthed a lot of things, including this gem.

December

This was our first married christmas in our new house.

One of the handful of good things the pandemic has done for me was allowing me to back up my boundaries with hard evidence. It’s been difficult dealing with my stepdad bullying me about not coming over for thanksgiving, and having my mom subtly guilt me into making plans for next year already. But what I needed this year was a quiet holiday, instead of the usual weeks-long chaos, and I got it. And it was fucking delightful. I’ve dreamed of days exactly like that one - spending a tranquil morning with my spouse, sipping coffee and listening to music and eating treats. Deciding exactly how we want our holidays to be, because we deserve to.

I’m scared of what’s to come in the new year. I’m still an anxious mess, and some days I’m not strong enough to pull myself out of the spirals I throw myself into. I’ve gotten used to the pandemic holding my hand, allowing me to shelter in my home, helping me enforce my boundaries, teaching me who I am. When it’s over, I don’t know what will happen or how I’ll react or what I’ll learn next. I’m not finished rebuilding, but I don’t think that’s the point. I’ll never be fully rebuilt. But at least I’m figuring out the new layout.

[theculturedmarxist]

When Nancy Pelosi and Mitch McConnell teamed up to invite NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg to address a joint session of Congress, they had every reason to expect the April 3 speech to be a big hit with U.S. media and political elites. The establishment is eager to affirm the sanctity of support for the transatlantic military alliance.

Huge reverence for NATO is matched by how dangerous NATO has become. NATO’s continual expansion — all the way to Russia’s borders — has significantly increased the chances that the world’s two nuclear superpowers will get into direct military conflict.

But in the United States, when anyone challenges the continued expansion of NATO, innuendos or outright smears are likely.

Two years ago, when the Senate debated whether to approve bringing Montenegro into NATO, the mud flew at Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky after he showed up to object. An infuriated Sen. John McCain declared on the Senate floor: “I have no idea why anyone would object to this, except that I will say — if they object, they are now carrying out the desires and ambitions of Vladimir Putin, and I do not say that lightly.”

Moments later, when Paul said “I object,” McCain proclaimed: “The senator from Kentucky is now working for Vladimir Putin.”

With those words, McCain conveyed the common madness of reverence for NATO — and the common intolerance for anything that might approach a rational debate on whether it’s a good idea to keep expanding an American-led military alliance to, in effect, push Russia into a corner. Doing so is understandably viewed from Russia as a dire threat. (Imagine a Russian-led military alliance expanding to Canada and Mexico, complete with some of the latest missile systems on the planet.)

Ever since the fall of the Berlin Wall — and the quickly broken promises by the U.S. government in 1990 that NATO would move “not one inch eastward” — NATO has been closing in on Russia’s borders while bringing one nation after another into full military membership. During the last three decades, NATO has added 13 countries — and it’s not done yet.

NATO members “have clearly stated that Georgia will become a member of NATO,” Stoltenberg asserted days ago while visiting the Georgian capital of Tbilisi. He added: “We will continue working together to prepare for Georgia’s NATO membership.” For good measure, Stoltenberg tweeted on March 25 that he was “delighted to observe the joint NATO-Georgia exercise” and “honored to meet veterans & serving soldiers,” adding that “Georgia is a unique partner for #NATO & we are stepping up our cooperation.”

Very few members of Congress can be heard raising any concerns about such reckless expansion. The Senate is key, because adding a country to full NATO membership requires Senate approval.

My colleagues at RootsAction.org have just launched a constituent email campaign on this issue. In every state, people are contacting their senators with individual emails urging them to oppose NATO expansion. Such constituent pressure needs to escalate.

But lobbying is only part of what’s needed. As NATO marks its 70th anniversary next week with a range of activities — including a White House welcome for Stoltenberg on Tuesday, his speech to Congress the next day and an official “celebration” on April 4 — counter-actions including forums and protests as part of a “No to NATO” week will be happening in Washington.

A statement from the campaign says that “NATO and a just, peaceful and sustainable world are incompatible…. It is an unjust, undemocratic, violent and aggressive alliance trying to shape the world for the benefit of a few.” Such evaluations of NATO in the real world are a far cry from the adulation that will be coming from mass media next week.

Trump’s decision to roll out the White House red carpet for NATO’s secretary general is consistent with the administration’s actions during the last two years. Media narratives that fixate on occasional warm rhetoric from Trump about Russian President Vladimir Putin have fueled illusions that Trump isn’t pursuing aggressive anti-Russian policies.

While many Democratic politicians and U.S. media outlets have portrayed Trump as soft on Russia and uncommitted to Western militarism, such claims don’t hold up to facts. Trump and his top deputies have repeatedly affirmed a commitment to NATO, while his overall policies (if not always his rhetoric) have been dangerously bellicose toward Russia.

In an email message to the D.C. area encouraging participation in “No to NATO” events next week, RootsAction pointed out: “Trump has evicted Russian diplomats, sanctioned Russian officials, put missiles practically on Russia’s border, sent weapons into Ukraine, lobbied European nations to drop Russian energy deals, left the Iran agreement, torn up the INF Treaty, rejected Russia’s offers on banning weapons in space and banning cyberwar, expanded NATO eastward, added a NATO partner in Colombia, proposed adding Brazil, demanded and successfully moved most NATO members to buy significantly more weapons, splurged on more nukes, bombed Russians in Syria, overseen the largest war rehearsals in Europe in half a century, condemned all proposals for a European military and insisted that Europe stick with NATO.”

When NATO Secretary General Stoltenberg gives his speech to the assembled members of Congress next Wednesday, you can count on the House Speaker and Senate Majority Leader to be right behind him. The bipartisan enthusiasm will be obvious — in tribute to a militarized political culture that is vastly profitable for a few, while vastly destructive in countless ways. Only public education, activism, protests and a wide range of political organizing have the potential to disrupt and end the reflexive support for NATO in Washington.

[fangirl--writes]

Unattainable. Jervis Tetch X Reader

Summary: Reader is a bouncer at Club Siren and takes their job protecting patrons very seriously and when they’re interrupted by a famed hypnotist things don’t go as either of them planned. Jervis finds something he can’t have and finds himself challenged by this unlikely adversary.

Words: 2’732

Warnings: None

*******************

I’m slowly getting through this pile of stories and it’s taking longer than I expected.

Feedback is greatly appreciated!

*If you’ve requested something it is coming, and I apologize for any delay.*

Thank you so much for hanging on with me!

Enjoy!

The club was packed tonight, Barbara had really hyped up the arrival of this new act.

Gotham’s elite crowd had swarmed the place curious to see the true talent of the headlining act, a world renowned hypnotist named Jervis Tetch.

Even you were intrigued by the idea, but not to terribly excited as you took another sip of your drink watching the crowds intently.

They fawned and awed as Barbara introduced him, stepping out from behind the curtains waving almost shyly tipping his hat at the gawking crowds who cheered.

A façade. A mask to hide his true ego fueled nature that burns bright when crowds are watching. You saw through his trick, but Barbara insisted he would be a “breath of fresh air” compared to the singers and musicians that populated the blue lit stage.  

It was typical of a performer, even a very talented one to get full of their selves rather fast. The Sirens wasn’t just some corner bar, it was one of Gotham’s brightest stages and stars burned out quickly hence the vast rotation.

A flicker of movement caught your eye, and gracefully you moved from your bar stool to walk amongst the patrons, a collective gasp pulled you to glance over your shoulder.  

A gentleman was being convinced he could balance on the back of a simple chair with the mere power of Jervis’s suggestion. You shook your head moving towards a table in the back, your eyes met the gaze of your coworker heading in the same direction sensing the disturbance.

New performers always brought out the creeps, Gotham’s grossest and most garbage masquerade themselves painted up as nice pleasant gentleman busting at the chance to get the attention of a lovely patron.

Not on your watch.

Tonight seemed no different either; just an hour ago you’re hulled out a sleaze-ball who attempted to slip a substance in a drink. You smirked as his bloody and bruising face begged for mercy in the back alley he swore it wasn’t him, had no idea how that got in her drink.  Tabitha took over after he cried in confession, coughing up a pool of blood in the process sputtering as his lungs gasped for air. He wasn’t crying for long.

You hoped she’d at least wipe off your silver slugger before stowing it behind the bar. She had a habit of letting it dry on your precious bringer of justice. Your sights set on the bouncer who nodded to you pulling up an intoxicated gentleman who had sat himself down in the middle of a table of Gotham’s finest; they had this one and unfortunately  he wasn’t putting up a fight as you watched  him half dragged and  staggering to the back door.  You casually joined a cluster of women marveling and giggling about the curly haired gentleman on stage.

You watched him momentarily; the timid man you’d seen earlier had a charismatic aura, just as you’d expected, he was  now beaming brilliantly as he gently urged his assistant to balance on one foot assuring the other patrons, and more so the spouse that he was in fact completely safe. The man blank faced stared out into the crowd complying as if on cue earning a round of ooos and aahs impressing your little group.

The hypnotists’ dark eyes looked out into the dim room taking in the praise sights set on your back corner tipping his hat in thank you.

“Isn’t he amazing?” one of the women cooed pawing your side gently her eyes gazed longingly at the stage. “I’d let him hypnotize me.”

It took a heavy throat clear to mask your gagging. “He’s wonderful.” You agreed with a nod rolling your eyes to the side a little disappointed you couldn’t take that drunk.

Your employers urged you to ‘blend’ using the 4 house rules. Smile, Agree even if half- heartedly, Laugh with, not at. Fake it until you make it. Blend in. Happy guest are your priority as an employee of Club Siren.

Mad clapping and cheers of adoration cued your leave and you slipped through to your perch at the bar, ears filtering out the scene as the performance drew to a close.

There was a par tide of guests as they shuffled; you hesitated forward wondering why the space around you had cleared so quickly, The hot light of the main spotlight hit your form all the wandering eyes were locked on your frozen form.

This was going to make your job a lot harder.

A tap on your shoulder pulled you from your tunneled state of mind, instantly your head turned expecting a distraught or disgruntled guest or a pleading eyed co-worker only to find the deep eyes of Jervis Tetch himself staring back at you, his lips were parted in speech and as he reached out his gloved hand to your form.  

Nope.

Your eyes narrowed cocking a curious brow, flickering around to the patrons who watched you eagerly.

Not happening

Not doing it.

“Miss?” His suede voice echoed through the silence pulling your attention back to his face that was set in question as he spoke again straightening himself as he did so.

“Will you accompany me to the stage?”

You took a reluctant step back, trying to shrink away under the spotlight that loomed over you.

Your heels shuffled as you chewed your lip nervously. This was to be expected with audience participation acts, rarely did it happen to the employees. Never had it happened to you, the sneaky shadow lurking in the back, barely noticeable in the mass of party dresses, glittering jewels and gleaming faces.

It seemed you’d be noticed tonight.

Jervis smiled a knowing toothy grin as he offered his hand again. “I swear to you Miss?

“Y/n.”  You answered eyeing his hand like it was a loaded gun.

“Miss Y/n, no harm will come to you.” He turned to the waiting audience. “Folks let’s give Miss Y/n some encouragement.”  

Applause erupted through the room followed by the familiar whistle of your employers.

You caught Barbara’s blue eyes from across the room as she waved for you to take the hint. Always agree even if half heartily. That little rhyme of hers ran through your head like a tired old record. However; it never failed when situations were tense.

You gulped down a breathe collecting yourself, as an employee of Club Siren presentation was a corner stone to your job, even though your job was a little different from the normal bartender or wait staff; however, forget it and you can find yourself on the street head spinning faster than you can blink.

The tender voiced hypnotist parted his lips in gracious grin as he offered his arm gently leading you through the waiting crowds to the brightly lit stage. They were eating up your timid reactions and his assuring responses boosting the anticipation to the main event.

He tipped himself bowing politely as before turning his dark eyes to you, eager to peek into your sub conscious, noting the tough display you’d shown hours earlier hidden in the back corners of the club as you dragged out the predatory man to meet justice.  

Oh, what secrets your little mind would hold, unraveling for him at the single snap of his gloved fingers. It was almost too tantalizing as your soft eyes looked over him quizzically.

It was almost too much. Jervis had made a believer out of many a skeptic before and there was not a doubt or fault in his mind that he could not do the same to you as he reached into his breast pocket for his faithful watch.

You took note as the audience’s chatter died as he showed it to them and then to you, it was just a golden pocket watch, a beautiful antique that he picked up somewhere along his travels. You would go along for the ride if it would let you keep your job.

It opened with a pop enticing a murmur of excitement from the knowing audience. Your eyes cut to your employers, knowing full and well they believed in this ‘showman’; Barbara at least, Tabitha was unsure saying earlier that there was a vibe about him.

Being on stage you felt it, a seeping almost darkness that lurked behind that fading grin, his dark eyes dimmed to an almost predatory gaze that you’d seen on the faces of the trash you took out back. It was almost un- nerving.

“Y/n.” You turned back as the hypnotist gently brought your attention back to him, the watch ticking softly in his hand as he brought it up to your eyes.

It irritated you, the fast past ticking made your fingers curl into your palms digging in and dragging into the soft flesh. Your skin itching as he spoke -

“Listen to the watch. The way it’s ticking synchronizes with your heart beat.”

Your gaze fell on the watch dragged into the small face eyes following the brass hands; the gentle ticking fell over your mind, blanketing your every sense in a calming wave. Then a burning roared in your subconscious, like a white hot spear was poking into your thoughts; you stiffened from your slouch, the gentle ticking that lulled had turned to a mad pounding raging from all sides an unseen force surrounding you on stage.

Your fists gripped tight at your sides, palms shaking as you pushed back burning sensation trying to dive into your sub conscious.  The two of you engaged in an unseen battle of will. It would not win, he would not win.

A weight fell upon your hand as the hypnotist fingers intertwined with yours breaking up your tight fist pulling you in closer. His face masked to an almost blank slate to hide his surprise. Normally he’d wait until the second command before divulging into the simple sub conscious of his patrons, but he couldn’t wait, and now as you pushed back fighting to keep him out, he saw a challenge before him. You were focused on the watch, you slacked on command like all the others before you, but why were you still so tense in his hand? Jervis squeezed your palm hoping you would falter but to no avail.

“Look into my eyes, not above them, or around them, but deep into their center.”

His voice echoed in your ears drawing your gaze away from the watch to his widening eyes pooling with darkness, they called to you, beckoned you to stare into them linger at the center.

Drown in them, let the walls crumble and open yourself to him and alone.

Y/n

Stay. His voice was faint in your ears.

You forced your curled palm to lie flat against your side gulping down a breath as another raging wave attempted to overtake your conscious state, the crowd below rustling. You guessed that this was not how the first performance had gone catching a glimpse out of the corner of your eyes to see their gawking expressions and the faint murmur.

The audience was questioning him, THE Jervis Tetch. He looked at your rigid form a fragile mask hiding your pained expression, by now he’d be swimming in the lake of your mentality drinking in every detail of your life, all the while you quacked like a duck on stage. Yet, he heard nothing, felt nothing as if a barrier blocked his path, forcing him out to his own thoughts.

Never had he seen anything like this, sure some resistance and feeble push back against his imposing mind was to be expected, but nothing as staggering as what he was witnessing. Your palm was glistening with a thin layer of sweat under the heavy stage light, heart threatening to burst out of its boney cage as you sucked in a shaky breathe. By the looks of your trembling form, this charade of yours was just about over.

You held the hypnotist’s gaze noting how he broke for a split second to gauge your stance. He was bewildered at the fact you resisted him. His brows knitted together as a faint smirk crossed the corner of his thin lips.  

A roaring rage of pain seared itself in your mind; his presence was heavier this time as he wormed his way into your subconscious his mental weight bearing down on top of your tattered mind. Your eyes squeezed shut trying to force him back out, your nose scrunched in agony as you threw your remaining strength at keeping the hypnotist at bay.

A faint voice flittered in your ear; it was soft calling your name from a distance.

Y/n

Your eyes snapped open instantly as the voice grew louder, recognizable as it spoke another name.

“Mr. Tetch!”

It rang out in the silent hall, catching the hypnotist off guard as he stumbled back his hand gloved hand slipped from yours turning his attention toward the audience.

“I’m afraid some unforeseen issue has arisen and I’m going to have to steal Y/n back.” The bubbly voice of your employer broke the silence. She stepped gracefully through the crowd, Tabitha waiting on the side as Barbara made her way up to the stage.

You hesitantly stepped back feeling the release of your hand. The thick presence in your mind faded as Jervis’s attention was pulled elsewhere. A grateful grin graced your face as Barbara gently led you off the blue lit stage to Tabitha’s waiting arms, guiding you down the steps as you wobbled like a toddler.  

“How much have you had to drink?” The dark haired assassin lead you to the bar letting you go to fix you a drink. “Half a glass I swear.” You steadied yourself the edge of the table top clutching the smooth granite surface for dear life.

A roar of applause broke out behind you, as Barbara gave the closing, your body tensed at the sudden sound as Tabitha slid a glass across the table. “You sure you’re alright?” She scooted up beside you easing your trembling form into a stool. “You too looked like you were about to kill each other one moment then the next you looked so sick I thought you were going to puke and we don’t need a repeat of the jazz singer incident.” She watched with concern as your hands take the cold drink.

You were still shaking as Barbara thanked Mr. Tetch and he gave a grateful wave to his loving audience saying they wonderful they were, his eyes trained on your form as he soaked in the last applause. You tried to keep your gaze trained on the ice in your drink, but you couldn’t help but be pulled back to the dark presence on stage.

Jervis keep your gaze as he backed behind the curtain; his heart fluttering in his chest as he took an ill breath.  He hadn’t felt this way since his dear Alice, dear, sweet, Alice. He longed for her, but this as an unforeseen wrench in his perfect plans. Never would he have imagined he’d meet another who made him question his gifts, challenging his power and knocking him down with an almost ease.

However; you hadn’t been completely successful in keeping him out of your sacred subconscious. He’d barely scratched the surface before you tossed him out again, and now he needed more like a bite from a forbidden fruit, a hunger that he couldn’t quell began to rise as he peeked out from behind the satin curtains once more, both your employers were at your side as you tried to calm your nerves; your little mind obviously flustered, trying to make sense of the past half hour. It was almost too delightful as he chuckled quietly to himself slipping back behind the heavy curtain; he had you now, seeing just enough to know that you’d be trapped in his little game, his little bird.

He’d devour you until not a single inch of your succulent mind was left untouched by his presence. He yearned to feel you again as he headed out into the dark street planning his return he’d cage you, but for now he’d let you wander in an endless sea of question as he whispered his last thought to the empty street.

“Fly my little bird, fly free, but I fear, my dear, you’ll never escape me.”

[rahimaldemir]

Official Harran City Blog

Featuring articles from a news blogger employed in Harran just before and after the outbreak.

This site is old, but I don’t know exactly when it was last updated.

Articles are listed from newest to oldest. Every article has a ‘read more’ under it, but doesn’t actually take you anywhere when clicked. The date at the top of the page is from when I access the site to get screenshots.

Transcription:

This will be my last message A farewell. I’m at a crossroads now and, before I see the bottom of this bottle, I must  decide where I’m going from here on. ...

I killed her. I really did. I had no choice. When I reached the kindergarten, I found only children and one elderly babysitter with her husband. I asked about my son and they pointed to a locked room. “She came for him in the morning,” they said, ”but she was acting strangely. She looked sick”. ...

THIS IS A F... ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE! I don’t find other words to describe it. What’s happening in the streets is pure madness. My wife’s stuck at her workplace, my son still at the kindergarten. We had to wait till they unblock the streets, but I couldn’t just sit back and wait. I decided to hide my family here in the office, so I went out to buy food, water, and so on for storing.

I’m all alone here I was supposed to write more news, but nobody cares anymore, nobody’s here. Two days ago only half of the team came to work – the rest suddenly took leaves. Yesterday, there were three of us. People disappeared without a word. Today... it’s just me. I desperately hope that there’s still somebody out there that reads this page. I’ll be reporting for you as long as I can. That’s the least I can do with so much madness around. ...

Harran Under Military Protection Based on an agreement with Harran’s Ministry of Defense, the army has now full power to execute directives of the Global Relief Effort. Colonel Kadir Suleiman has been appointed the commander-in-chief of the enforcement forces. Civilians are requested to comply with their orders and observe the curfew. All instances of disobedience will be prosecuted. All acts of unrest and violence will be severely punished. More to be announced soon.

CURE SEARCH: Volunteers needed! To all Citizens of Harran: a cure for the epidemic, developed by the Global Relief Effort, has passed initial laboratory tests. To facilitate further works on the cure, the Ministry of Defense is looking for volunteers to participate in clinical trials.

OFFICIAL ANNOUNCEMENT: Harran Under Quarantine Citizens of Harran, Due to the rapid spread of the epidemic and new centers of the disease appearing every day, the Ministry of Defense has decided to put the Old Town district under quarantine. The operation will be carried out by soldiers and employees of the Global Relief Effort. All citizens are asked to cooperate with the authorities. The goal of the quarantine is to protect the people of Harran against the disease and increase the efficiency of treating those already infected. ...

FIELD HOSPITAL AT STADIUM An increasing number of Harran citizens are suffering from the unknown epidemic that broke out in the city a few weeks ago. To facilitate treatment of the sick, the Ministry of Defense and the City Council have opened a field hospital at the Harran Stadium.

Extraordinary Congress of Doctors in Harran The Ministry of Health announced that an extraordinary congress of doctors is to take place soon. The main concern is to identify the origin of the virus and contain the epidemic it has caused. Among international specialists invited to the congress is the Global Relief Effort, a humanitarian organization experienced in fighting outbreak across the globe. The Ministry is desperate to find a quick and effective solution, as the condition of many infected patients is deteriorating fast, making them less and less aware of the reality around them and the state they are in.

ATTENTION:EPIDEMIC OFFICIALLY ANNOUNCED! Today the governor of Harran officially declared a state of epidemic. As a consequence, schools are to remain closed and all visits in hospitals are prohibited. Moreover, all mass events are now canceled. Harran citizens are encouraged to limit using public transport to the minimum and stay at homes.

Harran Nearing a State of Epidemic Due to the increase in rates of infection among the residents of Harran, and ineffectiveness of currently available cures, the city is introducing strict safety measures. Schools in the city have been cancelled until further notice.

Flu Attacks Again The flu season is still on. The city Health department reports a major rise in rates of infection. This year's mutation is the toughest on record. The symptoms are that of a typical flu, but extremely severe. There have been reports of many cases where the patients loose conscious and show signs of aggression.

Police Warn of Unusual Attacks In the last three days Police has reported a rise in unusual attacks. The victims were attacked in broad daylight, just in the city center. No one was badly injured, and no possessions were taken. One victim was taken to the hospital with suspected bite marks. The Police urge all residents to take extra precaution.

City Center Real Estate Auction The City Council has announced that the incomplete commercial real estate projects that are located on West Street will go up for auction. The surrounding areas are mainly housing developments.

Harran Film Festival 2014 We would like to invite all residents and visitors to our very own film festival, which will take place next month, on the 21 of December, at the outdoor section of our cinema.

Restaurant Day A friendly reminder that this weekend our city will celebrate Restaruant Day, the international event where amateurs can become chefs for one day. Market Square is the place where all the action will happen, where local food vendors, restaurants, and amateur chefs, who for one day, will be able to showcase their taste-buds tantalizing specialties.

Harran Goes Car-Free for a Day Environmental awareness reached Harran at last! As various ecological movements gain popularity among the citizens, our city council has decided to join the trend. To show the determination in creating a more environmentally friendly community, the authorities have declared December 13th as a Car-Free Day.

Power Disruptions Announcement Please note that today there will be power outages in certain regions of the city.

Accident on Royal Street Attention to all drivers and public transport passengers. There is heavy traffic on the intersection of Royal Street and College Street due to an accident. The intersection of Goldsmiths Street and Mercante Street is also congested due to traffic lights failure. If on route, expect delays. If possible, please use other routes.

Erol Assani Harran’s New Mayor As of today, Harran city has a new Mayor. Erol Assani took the official oath during his first City Council session.

Know Your City The City Council and the Academy of Harran invite all citizens to free tours around our beautiful city. The idea behind the “Know Your City” campaign is to familiarize all of us with the intriguing history of our home.

Tender for Public Bike System Invalid? It is highly likely that the city council will declare the recent tender for a public bike system invalid. The reason is that all submitted offers exceeded the maximum cost which the city was prepared to pay.

Praise for Bright Harran Minds On the 3rd of November Doctor Khalim Abbas and nurse Sumry received the Merit of Harran award. These awards are bestowed to people who have shown great dedication and contribution to the city of Harran.

Election Results: Erol Assani in the Lead On Monday around 1pm, The Regional Election Council announced the results of the last election. In the first round of votes for the Mayor’s office, Erol Assani has won the seat with 56% share of the votes.

New Kindergarten Opened in Harran The Department of Trade and Investments has signed a contract with SWATSON & SON to build a new pre-school. The new educational facility is planned to be complete and fully operational by 2016. The pre-school will be built on the same grounds as the old pre-school on Khalif Mandala Street.

Elections around the Corner The 2014 Harran Local Elections: 29-30 November  The residents of Harran city will be able to cast their vote in the upcoming city-wide elections. The results of the election will determine who will be the new Governor of the city of Harran, and the new members of the local Parliament.

Cheaper Parking in the City Center After the discussion with the residents, the Harran city council has decided to lower prices on parking within the city.Currently, the rates stand at 5 Harran dollars per hour for each passenger vehicle and 10 Harran dollars for each bus. The cost for all day parking is 50 Harran dollars for each passenger vehicle. The new rates that will be introduced was of 1st of January will charge 4 Harran dollars for the first hour, 3 Harran (Harranians maybe?) dollars for the second hour, and 2 Harran dollars for the third. The remaining hours will be charged at 5 Harran dollars per hour. A whole day cost will be capped at 40 Harran dollars.

[wikifoxnews]

What you don't know about Fourth parade shooting - Wiki, Bio, Age, Crime, Incident Details, Investigations and More Facts

A mass shooting during a July 4 parade in the affluent Chicago suburb of Highland Park killed six people and injured dozens, authorities said. Police said the shooter was still a fugitive after he opened fire indiscriminately with a rifle from the roof of a building overlooking the parade route just after 10:00 a.m.

Shooter

The shooter, who was tipped off by police, is still "armed and dangerous", he is described as a white man with long black hair and is between 18 and 20 years old. He was wearing a blue or white shirt, police said. A witness told WGN TV he saw the shooter when the shots rang out, saying, "He was very military, methodical in the way he ducked and fired." Other witnesses, including some who initially mistook the shots for fireworks, told the Chicago Sun Times they counted at least 20 shots. "I heard 20 to 25 gunshots in quick succession. So it can't just be a gun or a shotgun," said resident Miles Zaremski.

Video Footage

Footage from the scene showed hundreds of parade participants - some visibly bloodied - fleeing the parade route when gunfire rang out just 10 minutes into the parade. At least 6 dead, dozens hurt in Highland Park July Fourth parade shooting https://t.co/v3nNYaDUbP via @nypost — Bo Snerdley (@BoSnerdley) July 4, 2022 Chairs, strollers, children's bicycles and blankets were among the items left behind during the escape. "At 10:14 a.m. this morning, our community was terrified by an act of violence that shook us to the core," Mayor Nancy Rotering said at a press conference. "Our hearts go out to the families of the victims at this devastating time. On a day when we have come together to celebrate community and freedom, we instead mourn the tragic loss of life and fight the terror that has befallen us. ". Witnesses reported seeing several bloodied bodies covered in blankets on the ground immediately after the gunshots rang out. Gina Troiani said she was standing at the start of the parade route with her 5-year-old son and her kindergarten class when she heard a loud noise she first thought was fireworks, until until someone starts yelling at a shooter. "We just started walking in the opposite direction," he said. "It was just kind of a mess," added Troiani. “There were people who had been separated from their families and were looking for them. Others just dropped the car, grabbed their kids and started running.” Debbie Glickman, a local resident, said she was in a tank when she saw people fleeing. "People started saying, 'There's a shooter, there's a shooter, there's a shooter,'" Glickman said. "So we just walked. We just walked. It's like mass chaos out there." He added: "I'm so mad... It's so sad." Police urged residents to take shelter at the scene as authorities continued to search for the suspect. The Lake County Sheriff's Office said on Twitter that it was assisting Highland Park Police "in a shootout near the Independence Day Parade route." Illinois Rep. Bob Morgan tweeted that he was at the parade and there were "multiple injuries." Rep. Brad Schneider, whose district includes Highland Park, said he and his team gathered at the start of the parade route when the shooting happened. “Hear the dead and the other wounded. My condolences to the family and loved ones; my prayers for the injured and for my community," Schneider tweeted. "Enough is enough!" Read the full article

[langstexmachina]

yoyoyo

so im planning on writing a chaptered fic and i went to go make an account on ao3 bc what self respecting vld fic writer doesnt publish on ao3? but guess what i learned

Y O U   C A N T   J U S T   M A K E   A N   A O 3   A C C O U N T

so now im going to have to wait until the twenty-seventh so i can receive an invite to join kms but im not mad im actually super psyched.

im doing that orchestra headcannon that i had the other day so theres that

also this is going to be my first long fic that hopefully doesnt crash and burn like my other ones have mostly because im excited to write this one. i think thats the difference. like yeah when i was writing mcr i was excited bc who doesnt love gerard way? but this is the first fic that ive tried to write that im able to relate to completely. with my other long ones i only tried to write something that i thought i would enjoy reading which could have been divided into a few very distinct categories back in the day:

suicidal teen fem boy in distress

mental illness (mostly but not limited to depression and schizophrenia)

abuse (parental or relationship)

questioning gender identity/ gay in an intolerant household etc

or that shit where two people just couldnt communicate and they ended up going round and round through the same tedious problems and its the same plot told over and over and it literally never ended (looking at you amanda todd. After literally was my middle school everything but rereading it is literal torture. i hope your editor straightened that out when you published it oops)

SO thats what i had been working with and like dont get me wrong- it literally was what i was hella into when i was a kid. i loved reading about the fem boy who wanted to kill himself but met the boy of his dreams and flushed all of his blades. those fics about schizophrenia and stuff got me into psychology- something that i am now genuinely interested in majoring in. i still live for that gay shit. and number five was actual shit that i cant stand anymore but thats fine because we all grow up and change and are less problematic pieces of shit who no longer romanticize depression and suicide

(((side bar))) 

there is a difference between romanticizing depression, suicide etc. and using it in character development. i am a firm believer in the idea that we can and most definitely should talk about mental disorders in our writing. you dont need to be a medical professional to make a statement on depression, bpd, did, or any other disorder out there. you dont have to be experiencing a disorder to talk about it. hell i dont want anyone to go through that kind of pain man. but its totally important to integrate it into our media. especially today when everyone with a mental disorder suddenly has a thirst for blood and should be detained in mental asylums so they never hurt anyone in our perfect society!!!1!

i believe that society, today especially, has this innate need to separate themselves from anything  that isnt conventionally “normal”. they do this by dehumanizing anyone that they dont understand. then pinning them as the scapegoat in many situations

ie recently with mass shootings. instead of focusing on the obvious, literal weapon that is the genuine issue- the news turns focus and immediately- before anything was even verified- states that the shooter was a teen with a mental illness which sparked talk of opening homes to detain and keep “troubled teens” instead of focusing on the problem of the actual weapon that is actually killing actual people.

(((side-er bar)))

no i dont think we should take guns away completely. that would be stupid. in america? that shit would never get passed. but i do think other countries have it right. give people guns and regulate ammunition. anytime somebody wants to buy more ammo, they have to return the old magazine. this keeps people from stockpiling- drastically cutting down on mass shootings like the tragedy in florida

(which by the way i am totally urging everyone in school to participate in the walk out on the fourteenth. im not allowed to because my school will suspend me and i cant do that (mom’s words not mine) but if your school is in support of it or you dont mind taking the risk please please participate in the walk for our lives)

BUT ANYWAY BACK TO THE POINT AFTER A LONG ASS TANGENT THAT REALLY I PROBABLY SHOULDNT TALK ABOUT ON HERE

like i was saying- yeah that stuff was fun to read but it was hard for me to write because i was either dealing with that shit and it hurt to talk about, or i totally couldnt relate to it enough to write about it.

but with this? oh babe orchestra is my everything. ive been playing in orchestras for nine years and the violin for sixteen. if theres anything that i know, its orchestra. and i love it. i want to write my own musical- including writing out all of the music. i fucking adore everything about string instruments (band we have to TALK)

so this is something i enjoy with characters that i love so its going to be good and im super excited and i really hope you guys will enjoy it.

- day

[arielsojourner]

Skywalker Family Values

Think Parent Trap mixed with Addams Family put in a blender with Star Wars, the Original Trilogy. I know I just posted part 4 but part 5 just CAME to me. Not sure when Part 6 may come. Again, warning, this is a very ROUGH draft.

Part 1 and 2 (along with the prompt that woke up my muse in the first place) are HERE.

Part 3 is HERE.

Part 4 is HERE

Part 5 begins . . .

/// Dear Father,

I hope you got my last message. I haven’t heard back from you yet. I hope you’re not still mad about what happened at the end of school. I didn’t mean for things to get that out of hand. Really. 

Nevermind, if you are too busy to comm, just stay safe. But could you just send me the things on my supply list? If you can’t send them all, just the first 5 things on the list would be a big help. Or you could just come and get me and bring the things yourself. We could do the plan together. The plan really needs 2 people. Please? I really need to see you and ///

Scowling, Luke erased the entire message and tossed his datapad aside. He couldn’t send that to his father! He needed to handle this himself! He wasn’t a baby. He was 11 years old!

He started to pace back and forth, trying to think what to do, but he was just so angry. He had a deep seated urge to raze all the buildings to the ground and lay waste to his fellow campers and the camp directors. It would serve them right if he did it! Once the care package from the Executor arrived he would show them. He’d show all of them that he was really his father’s son!

Especially the Princess.

Luke stopped in his tracks and took several deep breaths. No, he told himself. He needed to be calm. He needed to remember that just because people said horrible things or were mean and thoughtless didn’t mean he had the right to teach them a bloody and violent lesson in manners. Just because they whipped defenseless creatures, murdered innocents for sport, caged mothers and babies, and enslaved sentient races didn’t mean they deserved to die horrible painful deaths, begging for mercy, screaming that they were sorry for being horrible, cruel, thoughtless, bigoted, evil–

He needed a project, Luke thought to himself suddenly. That would take his mind off things. He just needed something to distract himself with until he could think about things calmly and rationally. That was what Obi-Wan would suggest and he always gave good advice.

He wished Obi-Wan was here.

He wished his father was here.

He could go work on the scanner, that needed some work. Luke hadn’t been able to meet up with Han and Chewie last night because of his fellow campers, but he could work on it now. Working on the scanner would be productive and calming.

Mind made up, Luke double checked that Artoo was still charging comfortably and started hunting for his spare boots. He had just found them when the comm system blared to life.

“Hello, campers! Just a friendly reminder from your helpful camp counselors Gary and Becky Granger that those interested in participating in today’s sport hunting activity should start getting ready for our 1100 hour departure time. The hunter with the most confirmed kills will be specially honored at tonight’s dinner dance event. Those campers who wish to remain onsite can participate in jewelry making, swimming, and archery. Riding lessons will resume next week when new animals are delivered so until then, please enjoy using the canoes and other watercraft during your leisure time. We hope you all have a wonderful day here at Camp Chippewa, the Empire’s foremost summer camp for privileged young adults!”

Then again, Luke thought with a growing sense of righteous anger as he shoved on his boots, sometimes being calm and rational was overrated. Sometimes all you needed to do was to take action, and damn the consequences.

Digging into his suitcase for his favorite tools, Luke headed out to perform some sabotage.

*

“They’re sentient beings and you have them in cages! Cages! Those are mothers and children in there! You’ve been committing murder!”

“Princess, I think you’re confused,” Becky Granger said with a smarmy smile as she tried to lead  her out of the stables. “Yes, they look like cute little pets, but they are just animals and they can be dangerous. We don’t want you getting hurt.”

“Besides, you really shouldn’t even be here, your Highness. This is hardly the place for a young woman of your background,” Captain Greg Granger added even as he looked around with sharp eyes. He was sure that Erso was somewhere nearby but he couldn’t find her. He’d only found Princess Leia and her droid when he’d gotten word of another disturbance around the barn and stables the day after the incident with the fathiers.

“It’s a mistake, the Senate got it wrong!” Leia argued. “I just had a conversation with several of the Ewoks. My droid translated their speech. You need to let them go right now.”

“Your Highness, I–“

“Gary, is that smoke?” Mrs. Granger said suddenly, cutting her husband off, pointing in the distance.

“Smoke?” he echoed and then turned. “What in the ‘verse?” 

A guard came running into the paddock. “Sir, the speeders and the bikes, they’ve been destroyed.”

“Destroyed? Are we under attack?” Captain Granger demanded.

“Lock the camp down. We must protect our campers,” Mrs. Granger said with breathless worry. “Oh, Gary, we have to makes sure everyone is safe and happy.”

“It looks more like sabotage, sir,” the guard offered.

“I guess that means no more hunting trips,” Leia said with a pleased smile. “Good, that gives us time to fix this horrible mistake. I’m going to comm my father right now and he will look into this immediately.”

The Grangers shared a look and then rounded on the Princess. “I’m sensing something friction here. I think you’re not quite embracing the Chippewa spirit, Your Highness,” Captain Granger said with a slightly deranged smile. “Not to worry though. All you need is good friends, good fun, and a little time in the Happiness Hut.”

*

Luke kept his head high as he was “escorted” to the tiny cabin surrounded by a picket fence and flowers by Captain Granger and a cadre of armed guards. He was pushed through the door with a chirpy “have fun” and the door was locked behind him.

Prepared for the worst, Luke stepped inside a room decorated in pastels and propaganda posters of Imperial might. It was like a Imperial Navy recruiting center had been decorated for an audience of kindergartners. A massive picture of the Emperor on his throne surrounded by smiling happy children and genuflecting adults dominated one wall.

It was enough to make a person want to gouge their eyes out.

A holoscreen was on, piping out a cheery tune as animated human children sang songs about how amazing the Empire was. Sitting on the couch in front of the holoscreen, two throw pillows pressed against her ears and her eyes tightly closed was Princess Leia Organa.

Great, not only was he stuck in this torture chamber but he was stuck inside with the privileged stuck up two faced prig from Alderaan. Rolling his eyes, Luke fished out his multitool which the guards had stupidly failed to take from him when they’d caught him at the scene of his crime. He used it to pop open the back of the holoscreen and shut the entire system off. The Happiness Hut was plunged into blessed silence.

Leia carefully cracked open one eye and then another and gently lowered the pillows from the side of her head.

Luke stood there next to the silent holoscreen and scowled at her.

Blushing under his gaze, Leia set the pillows aside and tried to straighten her mussed hair. “Thank you,” she said in an overly polite tone.

Luke rolled his eyes and grabbing one of the chairs, dragged it over to a window, as far away as he could from the Princess. He then proceeded to sit down and ignore her.

Leia huffed, embarrassed and upset. How dare he just ignore her when she had been polite! Well, two could play that game. She was going to ignore him right back! She sat back into the couch, crossing her arms over her chest. In silence her eyes wandered over the paintings and posters covering the walls, proclaiming cheerful slogans of Imperial xenophobic might. She wished she had her datapad with her but at least the holoscreen was off.

She shook herself suddenly, realizing she’d closed her eyes and nearly dozed off. Sitting up a bit straighter she looked over at the boy in the chair. He hadn’t moved from his seat by the window. There was no chrono in the room so no way to know how much time she’d spent trapped inside nor any idea how long they’d both be stuck together.

Fed up with sitting, Leia stood and came over to look outside the window. Luke continued to ignore her. This far away from the main camp, it was hard to tell what was going on.

“What’s happened?”

“They’ve ordered the repair and clean up of all the speeders and bikes so they can resume their fun in the forest,” Luke said tersely.

“It’s barbaric!” Leia hissed. “I talked to the Ewoks in the barn. They’re sentient and terrified. This is mass murder.  We have to do something about it.”

“We?” Luke asked with one arched brow. “I’m already doing something about it. Chewie and Han and Ghosh and the other “help” at the camp have been doing something about it. Don’t you worry about it. People of your quality and breeding can just continue to be outraged while you enjoy your camp experience. No need for you to take action. You leave it to us nothings.”

Leia wanted to snap back at him for that. But those had been her words. He was only reminding her of what she’d said. Taking a deep breath she fought down her anger and tried to respond calmly.

“I can help. I can plan and organize the campers to protest this. If I can get to a long range comm unit, I can comm the Senate offices for Alderaan and fix this.”

“The Grangers aren’t going to let you near a long range comm and all other messages are read and censored before they are sent on for long range transmission home. Everything shipped in and out of this place is searched. You’d need some sort of prearranged back door slice through a point to point encrypting source to get around that and unless Threepio is built with something I don’t know about, you don’t have that. Besides,” Luke said sitting back in his chair. “The Senate is utterly useless, don’t kid yourself. It was useless under the Republic and it is even more useless now. If you really want to save lives Princess, protest is just going to keep you locked up in here, and stop us from saving the Ewoks.”

Leia wanted to argue as a matter of principal but struggled to think of how. Luke had good points. It was so infuriating. Strangely enough he reminded her of her mother (her real mother), and her efficiently ruthless planning of the Rebellion against the Empire.  Leia knew from long experience that arguing didn’t get her anywhere with her mother and it wasn’t likely to get her anywhere with Luke. It was time to concede and maybe, just maybe, apologize.

She hated doing both, especially when the other side was right. But she wanted to be a Rebel, the best Rebel there was, and the best Rebel there was would help regardless of their pride.

“I still want to help. If you have some sort of plan in the works, I want to be a part of it. I want to help the Ewoks. Just . . .  tell me what to do.”

Luke finally turned to look at her. The black eye on his face had darkened and his soot stained hair was a disheveled mess. He said nothing. He just stared at her, waiting.

“And,” she continued feeling a burning knot of shame inside. “I’m  . . . sorry for what I said to you. I shouldn’t have said those things.”

“But you still believe them,” Luke said evenly. “You still believe I don’t have a family.”

Leia opened and closed her mouth in frustration. Anything she said now would either be a lie or start another argument. She thought back to her lessons with Auntie Breha and Uncle Bail. What would they say?

“I don’t know,” she finally said. “I don’t know you or Lord Vader enough to say. I just said things that were rumors, that other people were saying. I said them because I was angry but that didn’t make them right or necessarily true.”

Luke tilted his head to the side, considering and then sighed. “All right, you can help.”

“Good, what’s the first step?”

Luke pointed out the window. “There will be a signal when the Grangers are on their way back to let us out so I can turn the holoscreen back on. When they get here we pretend that we’re pacified.”

“And then?” Leia asked eagerly. She had hoped to spend the summer with her mother on a Rebel base. She hadn’t expected summer camp to give her the opportunity to fight against the Empire. “How are we going to free the Ewoks and stop the campers from killing or kidnapping anymore?”

“I’m waiting on a few things at mail call, but even if they don’t come, we’ve got a back up plan. Threepio could be a big help, though. I’ve been looking for some way to communicate with the Ewoks.”

That was not the level of planning detail she wanted to hear but she tried to be patient. “Threepio will help too, but what about me? What do I get to do?”

Luke thought for a long moment and then a devious light lit his blue eyes. “You can play nice. You can pretend to be reformed. You can kiss up to A’Man’Daa and her friends and Mrs. Granger. You can be our spy on the inside and help cover for us and distract them as we get everything ready. With me busting up the speeders and bikes, they aren’t going to trust me at all anymore, not that they ever really did. But you, you can be just like one of them and fool them all.”

“A spy,” Leia breathed in excitement. Now that was more like it. “With a code name and secret code phrases and everything so I know who’s on our side.”

“Exactly,” Luke said with a growing smile. “Can you do it, Agent– er . . . Agent Sand?”

“Agent Sand?” Leia said in disgust. “What kind of a name is Agent Sand?”

“Sand is coarse, and rough, and irritating, and gets everywhere. It’s the perfect name for a spy and the perfect name for you,” Luke insisted cheerfully.

“It’s a horrible name! I refuse to be called Agent Sand!”

“Too late, its done,” he said standing up and walking over to the holoscreen. “You’re our spy, Agent Sand. No take backs.”

“Why you-you scruffy looking, laser brained–“

“That’s good, that’s exactly how you have to talk to me when you’re spying,” Luke praised her.

“–slime ridden–“

“Don’t peak too soon, Agent Sand.”

“Nerf herder!” And with that she swooped up a pillow and smacked it into Luke’s face.

[dornishsphinx]

I've not had the time to really participate in @personaweek this year, unfortunately, but I decided Day 8: AUs was as good an excuse to tidy up the Avatar!AU Tatsujun snippet I've had on the backburner and post it! (For those concerned, and I know there's definitely at least one person following me who needs to avoid them, there's a vague LOK spoiler that just occurred a little sooner in this particular version of the Avatar world.)

Memories of the Red Fields

"What's this?"

"It's a panda lily. One of the acolytes from the Earth Kingdom told me about them. They're extraordinarily rare, apparently, and only grow on the very edge of active volcanoes. It seemed appropriate."

"You always did love flowers."

"You remembered?" Jun asked, a small giggle hidden away behind his hand.

"How could I forget? Do you remember when you dragged me out to the Red Fields?" He paused a moment, to see if there was indeed a moment of recognition. Jun's face flickered, but he didn't respond; Tatsuya continued, not quite knowing why it was so important that Jun hadn't forgotten: “It took us the whole morning to get there and we were exhausted when we finally reached home. But you were insistent on seeing the wild fire lilies before their season ended."

"We—we went via Sunbaked Stone, did we not? You decided to go barefoot over it and convinced me to do the same."

Tatsuya felt himself blush.

"It's all right," said Jun, with his little half-smile. "I know you did genuinely forget not everyone can regulate their foot temperature. And I forgave you when you insisted on carrying me the rest of the way. It was very gallant. Even if it meant the journey took twice as long. And it was so late when we—”

He frowned, considering. "It... it was late when we actually got there, wasn't it?"

Tatsuya nodded. Jun looked relieved.

"Well, maybe that was for the best. Do you remember the red of the evening sun sinking over the fields? It was like everything was ablaze. And the fire lilies were twice the size of the potted ones in the city, if not triple. I can almost still smell them. Then it got dark, of course, and we couldn't find our way home. Everyone was so worried. Maya led the search party, since she could follow the light of the moon easier than everyone else. She still had that smile of hers plastered on to keep up morale; I didn't even realise she was scared.”

“She just about iced my feet when she healed them up," said Tatsuya, when Jun lapsed into silence.

"Mine too." Jun laughed again, a high, light sound. "I suppose this makes it the second time I've dragged you off to look at some pretty flowers. How did you put up with me? Though to be fair, the first time I really did need to go. Fire lilies only bloom a few weeks a year. I needed to see them before..."

Jun trailed off.

He'd known. Since that day, probably since before that day, he'd known he was going to leave. Tatsuya chastised himself for being surprised. The mass airbending revival had happened months before that day. Yet it still hurt more than he'd expected.

"I couldn't keep Father in the dark,” said Jun, like he could hear his thoughts just as well as Tatsuya himself; maybe even better, “He loved the Air Nomads: he went to the Boiling Rock for his writings on their culture. It would have been better if he was the one who got—"

He faltered, before letting a tiny wisp of wind whirl around his empty palm.

"Well. This." He snapped his fist closed. "He'd have appreciated it so much more than me. I was selfish."

You still should have said something to us. Tatsuya remained quiet; an easy enough thing after years of silence. But Jun still looked at him, his one visible eye glistening but resolute.

"I just. I never wanted to have to choose. Between the dream everyone thought Father was crazy for dreaming—the revitalisation of an entire culture—a destiny the spirits themselves seemed to have laid out for me; between all that and you."

Tatsuya felt himself freeze, like one of the evil waterbenders from all those childhood stories had stopped his blood from flowing.

"I knew the right choice. But I was weak. You all were my only real friends. The first ones I'd ever had. I couldn't let go, so I just didn't let myself think about it. I was going to tell you all, I swear. Before I told Father. I knew he'd want to leave immediately for the Western Air Temple. But then—"

He broke off then, abrupt, his face contorting into a painful snarl Tatsuya immediately felt the urge to smooth out, to bring back the reminiscent smile that had been there not seconds before.

"I'm an idiot. A weak, selfish idiot. How can you stand to be around me?"

Jun looked down at the panda lily cradled in his right hand; his fingers tautened, curling over it like a spider-cat engulfing prey. Tatsuya felt the space between them slowly grow, though they were both stone-still, as though Sudo's son were there, ripping them apart with that horrific mad glee he'd never be able to unsee—

He pushed in closer, imaginary ghosts be damned.

"You're not an idiot, Jun. Or weak or selfish."

Jun's smile returned, though a hollower version. He wiped his eyes before any tears could fall.

"If you think that, you must despise me for what I've done. The things I believed about you—how could I have ever thought about you like that? You, of all people. I had no right."

"I might have done the same things in your position."

"You don't have to lie to make me feel better."

"I'm not."

He laid a hand over Jun's tense fist where the panda lily still lay, then said, as near to gentle as he could manage: "I thought you said these were rare. You shouldn't go about crushing them."

Jun looked at him. Tatsuya looked back, unflinching, until he felt Jun's fist relax.

"You're far too forgiving."

"I can hold a grudge. This just doesn't merit one."

[marchforourlivesla]

Thousands of demonstrators at L.A.’s March for Our Lives rally marched from Pershing Square to Grand Park, carrying handmade signs and banners that said, “Protect kids, not guns” and “I shouldn’t be afraid to send my child to school."

Joining demonstrators around the country, tens of thousands of Southern California residents enraged by the gun violence that has ravaged American schools and other public places flocked to downtown Los Angeles on Saturday to call for stricter gun control laws.

Under grey skies, demonstrators in L.A.'s March for Our Lives rally walked from Pershing Square to Grand Park, carrying handmade signs and banners that said, "Protect kids, not guns" and "I shouldn't be afraid to send my child to school."

The sound of drums, tambourines and call-and-response chants rippled through the crowd of thousands of students, parents and grandparents and echoed off the historic buildings of Broadway's theater district.

"What do we want? Gun control! When do we want it? Now!"

At a rally in front of L.A. City Hall, Mayor Eric Garcetti led the crowd in a call and response chant: "Whose streets?" he said, as the crowd roared, "Our streets!" "Whose Lives?" "Our Lives!" "Whose nation?" "Our nation!"

The mayor said it was an historic day led by the country's future leaders, "the students who are here today."

Garcetti pointed out California's bans on assault rifles, bump stocks and waiting periods on gun sales as a model for federal legislation and closed with a message for President Trump.

"Get with the program Mr. President, or get the hell out of the way!"

Comedian Amy Schumer, cousin of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York) who also attended the march, spoke to the survivors of the Parkland shootings.

"We stand together for your senselessly slain classmates and friends and say this has to stop!"

At the end of the march, actress Rita Ora sang a rendition of the 1960s protest song "For What It's Worth," and some members of the crowd chimed in. She told the demonstrators: "You're going to inspire the whole damn world."

Crowds gathered Saturday in more than a dozen California cities, including San Francisco, Oakland, San Diego, Santa Clarita, Long Beach and elsewhere.

Speaking at an afternoon rally in Santa Ana, Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, touted Proposition 63, which he proposed and campaigned for, as California's answer to the NRA's sway over federal gun policy. The 2016 voter-approved initiative banned ammunition magazines that hold more than 10 rounds and makes it a crime not to report lost or stolen guns.

"We changed the trajectory of the debate, not just in this state but all across the rest of the country," Newsom, who is running for governor, said of the state's laws. "Gun control saves lives!"

Organizers with NextGen America, a group started by California billionaire and activist Tom Steyer, who has already put $1 million into a nationwide youth voter registration effort, were helping to sign up new voters in Santa Ana.

"As much as we love your voice, we want to make sure your voice is counted on Nov. 6," Steyer told the crowd. He said he plans to spend $30 million helping Democrats flip the House of Representatives this year, $3.5 million of it organizing young people in California.

At a rally outside San Francisco City Hall, U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein noted her support for an assault weapons ban in her tough re-election campaign and urged demonstrators to extend their activism to the November mid-term elections.

"There is a bill in the Judiciary Committee to ban assault weapons with 30 cosponsors," she told the crowd. "The problem is the gun industry. They will go out and they will support mightily people in other states that will refuse to do this. Here's what I'm asking you to do...Will you march? Will you register? Will you see that people vote and see that you vote and your friends vote for those that would rid this country of guns?"

The crowd responded: "Yeah!"

The worldwide day of action against gun violence was sparked by student activists who have pushed lawmakers to forgo campaign contributions from the National Rifle Assn. and enact stricter gun control laws in the wake of a Feb. 14 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla. that left 17 students and teachers dead.

In the thick of the march on Broadway, a group of teenagers that included Myles Pincus, 15, carried a long banner adorned with red handprints that read, "NRA has blood on its hands."

Pincus, a student at Fusion Academy, urged people not to conflate the issues of mental health and gun violence as they advocated for change. He said he had "myriad" mental health issues, and ostracizing people like him won't solve anything.

"I don't need to go to school and get patted down just because I have depression," Pincus said. "This is not a mental health issue. This is a gun issue, period."

Many teenagers at Saturday's rallies said they looked forward to turning 18, when they could vote for candidates who will support national gun control measures.

California election officials staffed a booth where adults could register to vote, and 16- and 17-year-olds could pre-register. The initiative, which activates teenagers' voting eligibility when they turn 18, has pre-registered more than 88,000 people since its launch in 2016.

Sheva Gross, a child development professor at UCLA, came to the march with her daughters Talia, 8, and Flora, 11. Gross carried a sign adorned with peace signs that read, "I'm so mad, I can't even think of a slogan."

The girls have gone through lockdown drills at their Culver City elementary school that make them nervous, Flora said. She added: "To not come home again, like, ever — it's overwhelming."

Gross was in the classroom with future teachers and child welfare workers 15 minutes after the San Bernardino massacre and an hour after the Parkland shooting. She said the fear in her students' eyes was evident.

"They grew up with this, and they're terrified," Gross said, breaking into tears. Flora hugged her.

Retired school principal John P. Johnson, 68, and his wife Margy came from Corona to march for their 13 grandchildren. Johnson, who knows the AR-15 well from his time in the U.S. Navy in Vietnam, held a sign that read: "Veterans against assault weapons."

"There is no reason to purchase an AR-15 here or anywhere in the world," Johnson said. "It's used for the battlefield. The bullets kill within seconds."

Brianna Cornejo-Perez, a 14-year-old student at Santa Monica High School, came to the march with her mother, a former teacher. A fellow student in Santa Monica had posted a Snapchat photo of himself holding a gun, making fun of gun control and the Parkland shootings, unnerving her.

"We used to have lockdown drills — now we have active shooter drills," Cornejo-Perez said. "It's a bit scary."

Cornejo-Perez and her mother said they support school psychologists, anti-bullying campaigns, and other resources for kids who don't fit in, rather than armed security guards or police officers.

Giselle Jimenez, 17, of Alexander Hamilton High School, held a sign reading, "Silly me, I didn't know that not wanting kids to be slaughtered by assault rifles was being political."

"A school shooting could happen anywhere," Jimenez said. "The next victims could be me, my sister, any one of my friends."

Ariel Burgess, 22, who recently graduated from UCLA, said there was a shooting the month she was accepted to the university. It made her question whether she would be safe there.

"Every shooting I'm saddened but never surprised," she said. With "every shooting, the urge to change gun laws gets stronger, but nothing gets done."

Cara Rosenbaum, 32, of Leimert Park held a sign that read, "My daughter is due in May. I'm afraid to send her to school."

She said it's terrifying to think about bringing a child into the world and having to worry every day about whether she will come home from school.

"As I'm preparing for parenthood, there are so many things I need to think about," she said. "The safety of my child while she's trying to get an education should not be one of those things."

At the end of the march, about a dozen pro-gun activists gathered outside Los Angeles Police Department headquarters. They waved American flags and held signs reading, "Ban Jihad, not guns" and "Guns will ensure our freedom."

They were separated from the March for Our Lives participants by yellow caution tape, a line of officers, a line of police bicycles, and a line of volunteers who wore orange vests and black shirts that said, "We can end gun violence."

"How long have you been pro-mass shooter?" one man shouted across the barriers.

"All lives matter!" a pro-gun protester shouted back.

Another said, "My best friend is black!"

Jarime Uzziel, 43, said he was "standing against additional gun control." He said he wants teachers to be trained and able to carry firearms.

Natali Valle, 20, stood on the other side and shook her head, pulling her friend into a hug. They had come by to see if the counter-protesters had any valid points, and quickly decided the answer was no.

"When people argue back and forth, there's no communication happening," said Valle, a student at Mt. San Antonio College in Walnut. "This division is … what's causing America to fall apart."

Times staff writer Sonali Kohli contributed to this report.

gale.holland@latimes.com

andrea.castillo@latimes.com

laura.nelson@latimes.com

UPDATES:

6:35 p.m.: This article was updated with new comments from speakers in Santa Ana and San Francisco.

5:05 p.m.: This article was updated to include comments from speakers at an afternoon rally in Orange County.

3:50 p.m.: This article was updated to include comments from Mayor Eric Garcetti and others.

2:35: This article was updated with more comments from demonstrators.

1:35 p.m. This article was updated with quotes from pro-gun counter-protestors, and from singer and actress Rita Ora.

12:30 p.m.: This article was updated with more quotes from demonstrators.

11:50 a.m.: This article was updated with more comments from demonstrators and more details about other marches around Southern California.

10:20 a.m.: This article was updated with new comments from demonstrators.

This article was originally posted at 8:40 a.m.

[pope-francis-quotes]

22nd April >> (@ZenitEnglish By Jim Fair) #PopeFrancis #Pope Francis’ Homily during the celebration of Holy Mass at Casa Santa Marta on Wednesday, Second Week of Easter.

Casa Santa Marta: #Pope Calls on Nations to Unite in Covid-19 Response

Create ‘Fraternal Unity Dreamt of by the Founding Fathers of the European Union’

As he began Mass in the Casa Santa Marta on Wednesday morning, Pope Francis urged all nations to be united as they face the Covid-19 pandemic, reported Vatican News. The Holy Father prayed especially for Europe, stating his desire that it address today’s situation in the matter hoped for by the founding fathers of the European Union.

“At this moment in which unity is very necessary between ourselves and between nations, we pray today for Europe, so that Europe might succeed in creating this fraternal unity dreamt of by the founding fathers of the European Union,” Pope Francis said.

In his homily, said Vatican News, the Pope reflected on Jesus’ words to Nicodemus in the day’s Gospel (Jn 3:16-21): “God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.”

Pope Francis said this passage contains a wealth of theological revelation about Redemption. He focused his attention on two aspects: the revelation of God’s love and the existential choice between light and darkness.

“God loves us,” said the Pope. “He loves us madly. As one saint used to say, God’s love seems like madness.”

The cross, said Pope Francis, is the highest expression of this love. He added that everything is revealed to those who contemplate the cross.

“So many people, so many Christians, pass time gazing at the Crucified… And there they find everything because they have understood. The Holy Spirit teaches them that therein lies all science, all of God’s love, and all Christian wisdom. Saint Paul speaks about this, explaining that all human reasoning is useful only up to a certain point. But true reasoning – the most beautiful way of thinking which also explains everything – is the cross of Christ, is Christ crucified, who is scandal and madness. But He is the way. And this is the love of God. God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son. Why? So that everyone who believes in Him might not perish but might have eternal life. This is the love of the Father who wants His children with Him.”

Pope Francis then reflected on the choice between light and darkness. He said there are some people – “including us sometimes” – who are unable to live in the light because they have become accustomed to darkness.

“Light blinds them and they cannot see. They are like human bats: they can only move about during the night. We ourselves, when we are in a state of sin, find ourselves in this condition, unable to tolerate the light. It is easier to live in the darkness; light slaps us on the face and shows us what we don’t want to see.”

Though it is difficult to face what the light reveals to us, said Pope Francis, it is worse when the eyes of the soul become ignorant of the light.

“So many human scandals and corruption teach us this. Those who are corrupt do not know what the light is, and don’t recognize it.”

Pope Francis concluded inviting us to let the light of God’s love shine in our lives through the Holy Spirit. And we can ask ourselves:

“Do I walk in the light or in darkness? Am I a child of God? Or have I ended up like a bat?”

The Masses in Francis’ chapel normally welcome a small group of faithful, but due to recent measures’ taken by the Vatican, are now being kept private, without their participation. The Holy Week and Easter celebrations in the Vatican were also done without the presence of faithful but were able to be watched via streaming.

Likewise, the Pope had a private Mass for Divine Mercy Sunday, with very limited participation by others, at the Roman Church of Santo Spirito in Sassia. One could watch via streaming.

It was announced at the start of the lockdowns in Italy that the Pope would have these Masses, in this period, be available to all the world’s faithful, via streaming on Vatican Media, on weekdays, at 7 am Rome time, along with his weekly Angelus and General Audiences.

In Italy where more than 24,000 people have died from coronavirus, public Masses are still prohibited. To date, in the Vatican, there have been seven cases of coronavirus; at least two people healed.

The Vatican Museums are now closed, along with the Vatican’s other similar museums. There have also been various guidelines implemented throughout the Vatican, to prevent the spread of the virus.

For anyone interested, the Pope’s Masses at Santa Marta can be watched live and can be watched afterward on Vatican YouTube. Below is a link to today’s Mass. Also, a ZENIT English translation of the Pope’s full homily is available below:

The Pope’s Homily According to the Transcription of Vatican News

This passage of John’s Gospel — chapter 3 –, the dialogue between Jesus and Nicodemus, is a true treatise of Theology: everything is here, in this chapter. And every time we read it, we find more richness, more explanations, more things that make us understand God’s revelation. It would be good to read it many times, to approach the mystery of Redemption. Today I will take up only two points of all this, two points that are in today’s passage.

The first is the revelation of the love of God. God loves us and loves us — as a Saint says –, <to> madness: God’s love seems madness. He loves us: “He so loved the world as to give His Only-Begotten Son.” He has given His Son, He has sent His Son and He sent Him to die on the cross. Every time that we look at the crucifix, we find this love. The crucifix is, in fact, the great book of the love of God. It’s not an object to put here or there, more beautiful, not so beautiful, older, more modern . . . no. It is precisely the expression of God’s love. God has loved us so: He sent His Son, who annihilated Himself to death on the cross out of love. God so loved the world as to give His Son.

How many people, how many Christians spend their time looking at the crucifix– and they find everything there, because they have understood; the Holy Spirit has made them understand all the science, all the love of God, all Christian wisdom is there. Paul speaks of this, explaining that all the human reasoning he does is useful up to a certain point, but true reasoning, the most beautiful way of thinking, but also what explains everything, is the cross of Christ, is Christ crucified, which is scandal and madness but is the way. And this is the love of God. God so loved the world as to give His Only-Begotten Son. And why? So that whoever believes in Him may not be lost but have eternal life. It is the love of the Father who wants His children with Him.

To look at the crucifix in silence, to look at the wounds, to look at the heart of Jesus, to look at the whole: Christ crucified, the Son of God, annihilated, humiliated . . . out of love. This is the first point that this treatise of Theology makes us see today, which is Jesus’ dialogue with Nicodemus.

The second point is a point that will also help us: “The light came into the world, but men loved the darkness more than the light because their works were evil.” Jesus also takes up again this question of light. There are people — we too, many times — that can’t live in the light because they are used to the darkness; the light dazzles them, they are incapable of seeing. They are human bats: they can only move in the night. And we too, when we are in sin, are in this state; the light smacks us, it makes us see what we don’t want to see. But the worst <thing> is that the eyes, the eyes of the soul, from living so much in the darkness are used to it to such a point that they end up ignoring what the light is. And the many human scandals, the many corruptions point this out to us. The corrupt don’t know what the light is; they don’t know it. We too, when we are in a state of sin, in a state of estrangement from the Lord, become blind and we feel better in the darkness and we go thus, without seeing, as the blind, moving as we can.

Let’s let the love of God, who sent Jesus to save us, enter us, and the light that Jesus brings, the light of the Spirit enters us and help us to see things with the light of God, with the true light and not with the darkness that the lord of darkness gives us.

Two things today: the love of God in Christ, in the crucifix, in the everyday. And the daily question we can ask ourselves: “Do I walk in the light or do I walk in the darkness? Am I a child of God or have I ended up being a poor bat?”

The Pope ended the celebration with Eucharistic Adoration and Benediction, inviting <the faithful> to make a Spiritual Communion.

Here Is the Prayer Recited by the Pope:

My Jesus, I believe You are really present in the Most Holy Sacrament of the altar. I love You above all things and I desire You in my soul. As I cannot receive You sacramentally now, come at least spiritually into my heart. As if You have already come, I embrace you and unite myself wholly to You. Do not permit me to be ever separated from You.

Before leaving the Chapel, dedicated to the Holy Spirit, the Marian antiphon “Regina Caeli” was intoned, sung in Eastertide:

Regina caeli laetare, alleluia.

Quia quem meruisti portare, alleluia.

Resurrexit, sicut dixit, alleluia.

Ora pro nobis Deum, alleluia.

(O Queen of Heaven rejoice, alleluia.

Christ, whom you bore in your womb, alleluia,

Is risen, as He promised, alleluia.

Pray for us to the Lord, alleluia).

Translation by Virginia M. Forrester

22nd APRIL 2020 16:50POPE'S MORNING HOMILY

[pixel3dapksqm75o-blog]

Pixel Gun 3D how to disable ads?

What are the best guns in Pixel Gun 3D?

You will end up hand a map from the game where all of the skin places like, rocks along with constructions are denoted that you can look for protection. The Pixel Gun 3D app can be a mass world shooter next combat royale game. If you want to help take part in a shotgun, you’re definitely not keen on sort – you want that peak dent now complete assortment fight and then people really should pick this place over any other shotgun. Following detail a person is going with will be the Pixel Gun, it is a great handgun in addition to much better than others that’ll rate people silver.

If anyone don’t get the uzi, the shotgun will be the greater solution. The Pixel Gun 3D app can be a bar world shooter and clash royale game.

Price intended for gamblers grows older 12 yr of age along with older, Pixel Gun 3D is free to download inside the App Mass next Search engines Engage in Keep yet elements in-app adverts in addition to grips. Coins will be the central currency on the game. The campaign mode could be the safest Pixel Gun 3D cheats intended for beginners than some other means of the action reasonably. Pixel Gun 3D is often a pleasure action game.

How do i train my pet in Pixel Gun 3D?

You'll be create a map from the game where the many hiding corners like, rocks with constructions become tag so that you can seek animal shelter. They have an outside coaching camp for your beginners. It can be currently unidentified in case a identical game is going to be get otherwise not really. You need to amount as much as around even 5 clearly by simply performing them as well as every levels you have gems.

The reason why don’t I propose the Mega Gun below? Good, due to the fact it is absolutely mad also compels zero skill with all the large fireplace regard after that the exploding rounds afterward I don’t would like to promote visitors to use it since I be expecting a soon nerf regarding that gun. At this point below include the weapons that we really urge that you worked with – I'll in addition revise that list next every single equilibrium update within Pixel Gun 3D to keep it being considerably around court when possibile.

Read till the conclude to have the Pixel Gun 3D on how to be able to gain tickets. The best feature relating to this mode could it be focuses the persons head with the struggles. 5 and even more over a hundred zillions players become at present lifted positive inside game. Below, you will get cool maps, good graphics, potent weapons, strong persons, and also a number of almost all dangerous persons.

Pixel Gun 3D how to get coins and gems fast?

It is used for upgrading your current spirits. And so the next item I really do is have a very daily purpose pertaining to myself. In this wonderful multiplayer game, vote for a blocky quality then seek to holder upwards numerous destroys as it can be. At present the sole equivalent game is needless to say, Pixel Gun 3D.

Pixel Gun 3D cheat is a free fps game with barely any physical violence And it is a new birth for you to shooter games. If you want to act a shotgun, you’re not keen on range – you need to tall break here solid array fight after which a person must collect this place over every other shotgun.

You've to try and do a collection of concerning processes to have the requested amount regarding tickets. The wins tend to be 3 to help 5 gains with a given map. You will discover 3d pixel guns that will shoot also "eliminate" various other participants, there is absolutely no body inside the game. Pixel Gun 3D offers you a lot of likelihoods in order to make coins from the game.