#they’re not meant to have the same structure each time
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i don’t really get why people wanna change the vocal roles of rv (irene rapper, seulgi main vocalist, wendy main vocalist, joy sub vocalist, yeri sub rapper) so bad. i personally think they fit very well + they vary depending on the song, which is what’s supposed to happen in a music group?? it’s just the general set-up for their songs, although it doesn’t inherently mean that’s how it’ll be all the time 😭
#a lot of people want joy to be a main vocalist and replace wendy or seulgi and i just. don’t agree really!#i love joy’s voice and it’s beautiful + her solo debut is amazing#but i think the vocal roles are the way they are for a reason#simply bc bye bye for example would lose flavor without joy Giving it energy in the backing vocals#like the vocals would fall flat without her support#and it also wouldn’t really be the same if she were always on main vocals because her voice gives a certain feeling to the song#so when it shows up it gives that feeling depending on the song . and the general mood for songs changes depending on what song it is#so when the arranger thinks her voice will add the most / a lot to a part she’ll be on main vocals!#like it’s not Set In Stone. and that’s why i don’t get why people complain about it tbh because that’s not how songs work#they’re not meant to have the same structure each time#so joy will be on main vocals too. she just also has another role she needs to fill but wendy fills it sometimes and so does seulgi#depending on what it needs!#like yeri will do that too#same w the rapping it changes#idk. idk#it seems like a very little thing to me because it already fluctuates the way most people who complain want it to…#plus i think there are worse issues with rv in particular so maybe that’s why im less bothered by this thing#🧸#hope this made sense Ummm#i do have my Thoughts on their treatment of joy (and yeri tbh) in particular but i won’t get into that bc it doesn’t necessarily correlate#to the topic of this post. But trust i am not blind in that regard. i actually talked w my sister about it for like 7 HOURS last night
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Maple Heights 1: The beginning
In the quiet suburban enclave of Maple Heights, everything seemed to have its place. The two-story homes, with their neatly trimmed hedges and spotless driveways, lined the streets in perfect symmetry. It was the kind of neighborhood where everyone waved hello, the lawns were always green, and the local church bells rang every Sunday without fail. Families gathered in the evenings for barbecues, the kids played soccer in the park, and the routine felt timeless.
But recently, something strange had started to creep into Maple Heights. It began with subtle changes that no one could quite put their finger on at first—little things, like men in the neighborhood who began dressing differently, speaking in more structured, rigid ways. Then, almost overnight, more and more of the men started showing up in identical black Fred Perry polos, each one with distinctive yellow details—a thin stripe running along the collar and cuffs, and the iconic laurel wreath logo embroidered on the chest. These weren't ordinary polos, though. The fabric had a glossy sheen to it, almost rubbery or latex-like, and they were always worn with the top button fastened tight.
The Evans family had been living in Maple Heights for a decade now. Paul and Greg, a married couple raising their three sons—Luke, 24; Michael, 22; and Tyler, 20—had chosen this neighborhood for its peaceful atmosphere and sense of community. Paul worked from home as a software engineer, while Greg ran the local bakery that everyone in town loved. The boys were a lively bunch, each with their own interests—Luke was the athlete, excelling in soccer; Michael spent his time writing music and drawing in his sketchbook; and Tyler, the tech whiz, could be found in his room building gadgets from parts he scavenged at local sales.
Their lives had always been filled with laughter and activity. Weekends meant cookouts in the backyard, bike rides around the block, and movie nights with popcorn on the couch. Church wasn’t a big part of their routine, but every Sunday, Greg made it a tradition to bake fresh pastries and drop them off at the church before opening the bakery. It was his way of staying connected with the community, even if they weren’t particularly religious.
But lately, both Paul and Greg had started noticing changes in the neighborhood, especially among the men. It started with Mr. Anderson, two doors down. He had always been friendly—waving to Greg every morning as he walked his dog past the bakery. But now, Mr. Anderson was different. His usual flannel shirts and casual jackets had been replaced by a sleek black Fred Perry polo with yellow details. Even stranger, the fabric seemed almost rubbery, the way it caught the light. And the way he buttoned it all the way to the top, stiffly and neatly—it made him look more formal than usual. His conversation was short, stilted, and somehow… off.
One evening, as the family gathered around the dinner table, Paul brought it up. “Has anyone else noticed how people around here are dressing differently?”
“Yeah,” Luke said with a frown. “A bunch of guys at soccer practice started wearing those weird black polos. I mean, they look cool, but... everyone’s wearing them, like, every day now.”
“They’re Fred Perry shirts, right? But they look... shiny,” Michael added, tapping his fingers against the table in thought. “And they all button them up to the top. It’s kinda weird, like they’re in some sort of uniform.”
“It’s not just the shirts,” Greg chimed in, shaking his head. “People are acting strange, too. Customers at the bakery used to chat, laugh, but now they come in, order the same thing, and barely make eye contact. They’re so... focused.”
Tyler, the youngest, leaned forward, eyes wide with curiosity. “I saw a bunch of them after church last week. They were all wearing those black polos. I thought maybe it was some church thing.”
Paul and Greg exchanged a concerned glance. “It’s like some sort of group,” Paul said, lowering his voice. “They’re all starting to look and act the same.”
Over the next few weeks, the changes in the neighborhood became more noticeable. More men—fathers, teachers, even some of the older teens—were now dressing in the same glossy black Fred Perry polos, the yellow details standing out sharply against the dark fabric. Each man wore his polo the same way, with the buttons done all the way up to the top, giving them a sleek, almost uniformed appearance. Even their mannerisms had changed—conversations were short, their expressions calm, almost vacant.
Luke noticed it most on his soccer team. At first, it was just a couple of the players who showed up to practice wearing the polos. But soon, half the team had swapped out their jerseys for the slick, rubbery Fred Perry shirts. And once they did, their personalities shifted. They became more focused, more intense, and eerily synchronized. Luke, who still wore his usual soccer gear, felt out of place. His teammates, now all dressed in the black polos with their yellow accents, would glance at him with strange looks, as if waiting for him to join them.
“I’m not wearing one of those,” Luke said to his dads one night, slumping down on the couch. “They’re all acting weird, like they’re in some kind of club. And the coach is in on it, too. He wore one at the last game.”
“I’ve seen the same thing with my friends,” Michael added. “They’re always wearing those shirts now, and it’s like they don’t talk about anything else. It’s not like them.”
Greg sighed, leaning against the kitchen counter. “Even the customers at the bakery... I’ve noticed more of them wearing the polos. They don’t smile, they just take their coffee and leave. And today, one of them asked if I wanted to come to some gathering after church this Sunday.”
“That’s the second time we’ve heard about that,” Paul said, frowning. “Tyler, you said you saw them after church too, right?”
Tyler nodded, his eyes wide. “Yeah, they were all standing around talking after the service. But they weren’t really talking like normal. It was like they were all... rehearsed.”
Greg shivered. “I don’t like this.”
That Sunday, Paul decided to see for himself what was going on. After the church service, while Greg was delivering his pastries, Paul slipped into the side area of the church where the men were gathering. As he stood at the back of the room, he watched them closely. Every man was dressed in the same black Fred Perry polo, the yellow details gleaming under the fluorescent lights. Their shirts were perfectly buttoned up to the top, their expressions calm and focused as they listened to the man leading the meeting. His polo looked newer, glossier than the others, and his voice was firm but soothing as he talked about the “importance of unity” and “the future of Maple Heights.”
It was more than just a social group. This was something bigger, something that was spreading.
When Paul got home, he told Greg everything. “It’s not just the shirts,” he said, pacing the living room. “It’s like they’re all part of some bigger plan. They’re getting more men to join them. It’s like the whole neighborhood is changing.”
Over the next few weeks, the transformation continued to spread. Luke’s soccer team was almost fully converted, the boys showing up to practice in their glossy Fred Perry polos, barely speaking to anyone who wasn’t wearing one. Michael’s friends had stopped hanging out altogether, and whenever he saw them, they were dressed in the same shirts, their conversations short and emotionless. Even Tyler’s teachers had begun to show up to class wearing the same outfits.
One afternoon, Greg came home from the bakery with a tight look on his face. He held up a Fred Perry polo—glossy black with the yellow logo and details—and tossed it on the kitchen table.
“They gave this to me today,” Greg said quietly. “They said it’s time for me to ‘fit in.’”
Paul stared at the shirt, his stomach twisting. “We need to figure out what’s really going on, before it’s too late.”
But deep down, they knew it was already spreading faster than they could stop it. Maple Heights was changing, and it wouldn’t be long before the entire neighborhood was transformed, one slick black polo at a time.
The next week...
Luke stood on the edge of the soccer field, his cleats digging into the grass as he stared out at his teammates, all of whom were already dressed in their glossy black Fred Perry polos. Their yellow-detailed collars were buttoned up tightly to the top, and the sheen of the shirts gleamed unnaturally in the late afternoon sun. He shifted uncomfortably in his old practice jersey, the only one left who hadn’t made the switch.
Over the past few weeks, more and more of his teammates had started showing up to practice in the strange uniforms. At first, it was just a few of the guys, but now, every single one of them wore the latex-like black polo. Coach had been pushing them harder too, but in a way that was unnerving. The drills were more intense, more synchronized. The team barely spoke to each other anymore, their conversations replaced by curt instructions and short exchanges.
Luke felt the pressure mounting every time he stepped onto the field. He knew the others noticed that he was the last one holding out. His friends, or who they used to be, barely made eye contact with him anymore. They’d glance his way with strange, expectant looks, as if waiting for him to join them, to give in.
As practice started, Luke could feel the weight of their eyes on him. He jogged through the drills, but something felt wrong. The usual energy of the game was gone, replaced by an eerie, robotic efficiency. His teammates moved in perfect unison, their movements mechanical, their expressions blank but focused. And all the while, Luke couldn’t shake the feeling that they were watching him—waiting for him to fall in line.
“Luke!” Coach’s voice boomed across the field, pulling him from his thoughts. “Come here.”
Luke jogged over, his heart pounding. Coach stood on the sidelines, his own black Fred Perry polo perfectly buttoned, the yellow details gleaming in the sun. He had been wearing the shirt for a few weeks now, and ever since then, practice had felt more like a drill session than a sport. The coach’s eyes locked onto Luke’s, calm but intense.
“You’re the last one,” Coach said, not unkindly, but with a firmness that sent a chill down Luke’s spine.
Luke glanced at his teammates, all of them standing in formation, watching silently. “Coach, I’m just not sure about the mask. I don’t really feel like I need to wear it,” Luke said, trying to keep his voice steady.
Coach smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “It’s not about the mask, Luke. It’s about unity. The team needs to be united—on and off the field. You’ve seen how well we’ve been playing lately. We’re stronger, more focused.”
Luke shifted uncomfortably, glancing back at his teammates, all eerily still, waiting. He didn’t want to admit it, but there had been something different about their games recently. They were winning, dominating even. But it didn’t feel like a team anymore—it felt like something else, something controlled.
“I just don’t think it’s for me, Coach,” Luke said, though his voice faltered. The pressure was mounting, and deep down, he knew he couldn’t hold out much longer.
Coach’s smile faded, replaced by a look of quiet authority. “It’s time, Luke. You don’t have a choice anymore.”
Before Luke could respond, one of his teammates stepped forward, holding out a neatly folded black Fred Perry polo, the yellow details catching the light. Luke stared at the shirt, his stomach turning. The fabric looked slick, shiny, almost alive, and the thought of putting it on made his skin crawl.
The teammate, a boy who had once been Luke’s best friend, met his gaze, his expression blank but somehow expectant. “Come on, man,” he said softly, his voice calm but emotionless. “It’s just a shirt.”
But it wasn’t just a shirt, and Luke knew it. It was something more. The moment he put it on, he would no longer be himself. He would become just like them—another piece of the machine.
Luke stood frozen, his mind racing. He thought of his family, of his dads and his brothers, and how hard they were trying to resist the changes sweeping through the neighborhood. He didn’t want to give in, but here, on the field, surrounded by his teammates and Coach, he realized he was alone. There was no escape.
Coach stepped forward, his hand resting heavily on Luke’s shoulder. “You’re part of this team, Luke. You need to be like the rest of us.”
Luke swallowed hard, his throat dry. He reached out, his hand shaking slightly as he took the shirt from his teammate. The fabric felt slick and cold against his fingers, heavier than he expected. His mind screamed at him to stop, to throw the shirt away and run, but his body didn’t listen.
Slowly, he pulled the black Fred Perry polo over his head. The latex-like fabric clung to his skin, tightening around him as if it had a will of its own. He adjusted the yellow-detailed collar, his fingers trembling as he buttoned it all the way to the top. The moment the last button clicked into place, a strange warmth spread through him, and his thoughts began to blur.
His mind felt foggy, distant. The resistance he had clung to for so long started to slip away. His shoulders relaxed, and for the first time, he looked at his teammates not with fear or hesitation, but with calm acceptance. The shirt fit perfectly, and for a moment, Luke wondered why he had ever resisted in the first place.
Coach smiled, patting him on the back. “Good. Now you’re part of the team, put this on.”
Luke nodded slowly, his mind quiet. He took his place among his teammates, their faces no longer strange or unsettling, but familiar—like they had always been. The game started again, and this time, Luke moved with them in perfect unison, every step, every movement synchronized.
As the sun set over the soccer field, the last of Luke’s resistance faded into the background, replaced by the quiet calm of uniformity. He was no longer an outsider. He was one of them now.
After practice, Luke walked home in silence, the cool evening air brushing against his face. His mind felt strangely still, as if the buzzing thoughts he had carried all day had finally quieted. The black Fred Perry polo with its glossy sheen and yellow details clung snugly to his body, and the weight of it no longer felt strange—it felt… right. The top button was fastened tight, and though he had been uncomfortable with it at first, now it felt natural, like it was exactly where it should be.
Luke walked home from practice, the full-face rubber gas mask still tightly fitted over his head. The dark, glossy material gleamed faintly under the streetlights as he passed through the quiet, suburban streets of Maple Heights. The once-familiar neighborhood now felt distant, his breathing slow and controlled through the mask’s filters, muffling the sounds around him.
His black Fred Perry polo, with its yellow details and buttoned-up collar, clung to him as he walked, the rubber of the mask and the shirt making him feel as though he was locked into something permanent. Each step felt heavy, yet he was calm. His mind was quiet now, his thoughts no longer his own.
As he approached his house, he saw the warm glow of the kitchen lights through the window. For a moment, something stirred inside him—an echo of the boy he used to be, the Luke who would come home to his dads, joke with his brothers, and feel like himself. But the mask pressed firmly against his face, silencing those thoughts. He reached for the door, knowing they would see him like this.
When he stepped inside, the familiar warmth of home hit him, but it felt different. His dads, Greg and Paul, turned from the kitchen counter, their faces going pale as they saw him standing there, dressed in the glossy black polo and the full-face rubber mask.
“Luke?” Greg’s voice was filled with shock and concern, but Luke didn’t respond. He simply stood there, the mask concealing any expression, the filters hissing softly with each breath.
Paul stepped forward, his voice shaky. “Take it off, son. You don’t have to wear that.”
But Luke didn’t move. The mask stayed on, its grip on him firm, the strange calm washing over him once again. He was home, but he wasn’t the same anymore. And as his dads stared at him in disbelief, Luke knew that the boy they once knew was slipping away.
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as promised— some girl!driver fashion moodboards !!! starting off with my personal favs charles & george & lewis ❤️🩵💜
lengthy explanation + some more headcanons for each below:
i *personally* believe these three would be very traditionally feminine so this is reflected in my choices again this is all according to my *personal* headcanon which might not be the same as yours and that’s ok.. and yes they wouldn’t be decked out in designer/editorial 24/7 they’re athletes so they’d most likely live in puma or nike tech or lululemon or something idk but if they made as much money as their canon counterparts they might as well serve cunt on a daily basis idc this is my blog and i make the rules
charles
- warm autumn; lots of red obvi i don’t care that canonically charles’ favorite color is blue You’re Red Because I Say So
- i feel like she would get a little quirky and avant-garde with it… she does not have a single plain white tshirt it’s All statement pieces
- following up with the last point some of the cuter stuff i found were cropped tops and all that but i also wanted to pay homage to boy charles who’s a cozy mouse so we also have some cute sweaters in here for her..
- didn’t know how to showcase this here but she wouldn’t wear a bra and it is important to me that you know that
- slight animal theme here with the cheetah print and tabi flats.. it just makes Sense To Me
- for the making of these moodboards i didn’t really look for specific brands or fashion houses i would just pick pieces from my own pinterest boards as i scrolled through them but ive said time and time again that charles would be a die hard miu miu girl it just makes sense to me !!!
- keywords: playful + eclectic + romantic
george
- cool summer; i went with light and airy colors so lots of cream and cyan and powder blue
- silhouette wise i wanted to go with tight/confining pieces ?? to show off her self-discipline and uptightness… character design 101
- i feel like she’d (FOOLISHLY and BLASPHEMOUSLY) be self-conscious of her height so shoe-wise she’d do flats/oxfords/loafers/boat shoes (lol i know..) but if she *had* to wear something more formal she’d go with kitten heels
- keywords: intellectual + subdued + structured
lewis
- bright spring; i stuck with purple/magenta/silver as the main colors on this moodboard for the sake of visual cohesion but i feel like her wardrobe would be much much much more colorful
- with this one i knewww i needed to step my pussy game up bc of who we’re dealing with… someone who knows Actual Fashion.. so i knew i could not for the life of me make something ugly or god forbid boring
- lots of fun glitzy glamour ! i had to physically restrain myself from not doing just cunty clubwear bc this is meant to be for present-day self-actualized crunchy granola lewis not old testament hooking-up-with-rihanna lewis.. ik that version of herself speaks to her like venom
- like boy lewis i feel like she would like to show off her guns so lots of sleeveless tops 🙂↕️ but also some more billowing silhouettes !
- she’s tiny so she’d lovee to wear a big ass platform
- keywords: glamorous + sleek + futuristic
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cat and mouse for a month or two or three • ttfd
chapter eight of the tortured firefighters department
previous chapter | masterlist | next chapter
cw: fem!reader, afab!reader, no descriptions of reader, brains is recovering, idiots in love, short chapter after a huge hiatus I'M SORRY OK , no proofreading otherwise i’d never post this (lmk if i missed something)
A new routine took place. You spend most days inside your apartment, classes online since they were checking all the buildings on that side of the campus, on medical leave from your job because, on top of the broken ribs, they wanted you to recover from the burnout you got yourself into. That also meant you were taking mandatory therapy sessions, and maybe after a month they could let you work again. It was like being grounded from what kept you fueled in your late twenties.
Their first mistake was giving you way too much free time while bored. You wrote pages upon pages of your thesis in your first week. The moment you hit send and sat to wait for your professor’s notes, you found out you couldn’t reorganize your home because it was considered too much effort for your broken ribs. Your kitchen became the latest victim.
But a real victim to all your boredom was one door down the hall, who probably regretted giving you a copy of his keys — to be used just in case of an emergency.
“What the hell are you doing, Brains?” It was the third time this week that Buck arrived at his home and found out you were there, just casually chilling,
“Reading!” You were upside down on his couch, a romance book in your hands.
“I don’t think this position is good for your ribs. Can you sit like a normal person?”
“No. It’s boring. Also, I’m gonna babysit Chris tomorrow, so I’m hijacking your Xbox.”
“Why aren’t you doing that at your place?” He pointed to your silly reading position.
“Because I needed to tell you about your video game. Are you hungry? There’s some lasagna in your fridge.”
“Did you make it?”
“Yeah. Now shut up, they’re finally confessing their feelings for each other.”
Buck turned the TV on just to get some noises into the silent apartment. You were too busy with your book, he was too afraid of doing something he would have regretted later. Somewhere between his first and second plate of lasagna, you put the book aside and started to pay attention to the news.
“Big rescue, hm?”
“I don’t know why they keep building towers with paper thin structures and too many glass windows with shitty fire alarms. What happened to the good ol’ bricks and stones?” He was eating at the table, probably destroying the food in record time.
“Excellent question. I’ll look it up and give you an answer tomorrow”
“You’re really bored, aren’t you?”
“Oh, what gave it away?”
“It’s definitely not the same book from yesterday, you cooked a lasagna as big as the ones Bobby feeds us, you’re gonna babysit Chris on Eddie’s day off.”
“He needs to run some errands, and Chris hasn’t been feeling good lately, probably just the flu. So I offered my services for the day. What’s wrong with that?” You stared at him. Was he cuter upside down than the other way around?
“Nothing, it’s just… are you ok?”
“Please, don’t pull a therapist on me, I already had my mandatory session today. I swear I’m ok, I’m just bored of doing nothing. No adrenaline, no deadlines.”
“You’re really addicted, hm?”
“What can I say, Buckley, I wasn’t made to stay still.” As soon as the local news was over and football started, you moved back to your book. Buck got up and went for some beers. “I’m just gonna finish this and I’ll see myself out.”
“I’m gonna charge you rent for my couch.” He sat on the floor, right next to your face. Third time in his living room was a charm, right?
“Wasn’t the lasagna enough?”
“I thought that was for my Xbox. Want one?”
“No, thanks.”
You opened your book again, but the sudden proximity with Buck was the only thing you could focus on. The five o’clock shadow, the red birthmark on the left side of his face, the brightest eyes you’ve ever seen… Staying alone with your thoughts for too long was making you think of things you once judged impossible.
It was a split second, but he caught you red handed, staring at him. You smiled and moved your eyes to the pages of your book, not sure where you left off.
One big hand snatched the object from you. You turned to your side to complain and retrieve it, giving Buck the perfect opportunity to bring your lips close and kiss you. It barely turned into a deep kiss before you took some space to process what was happening. Your action made Buck a little confused, blinking his eyes and nervously messing with his own hair.
Your ribcage started hurting, so you moved your body carefully until you were sitting on the floor, face to face with him. Giving him enough time to change his mind, to say he actually didn’t mean it. Because how could he kiss someone like you?
You thought you’d never see a glimpse of fear on the eyes of one of the most fearless men you knew. Buck was too stunned to say anything, his full, pink lips slightly open. Your hand found the curve of his neck, your cold skin over his boiling hot veins.
You leaned in for another one. He pulled you closer carefully. However, it was nearly impossible to avoid the messier, helpless kisses. Evan Buckley was finally taking over your mind, maybe even your whole body.
Both of you had to move back a little, taking quick breaths after such intense kisses. You rested your hands on his shoulders and smiled.
“Did it really take me getting trapped in a burning building for us to have the courage to do this?” You bit your lower lip, trying to avoid him noticing your blushed cheeks.
“I don’t know about you, but I wanted to do this for a long time,” he confessed.
And it caught you by surprise. So Maddie was really telling you the truth.
“Wait, how long?” He avoided eye contact and you laughed. “No, Buck, please. Tell me.”
“Do you remember that shift I got your number with Eddie? So,” he took a deep breath, “I was planning on asking you out that day, but I just… I chickened, ok?”
“And right after that you ate all my cupcakes when I was at Maddie’s. Off to the best start, Buckley.”
“Not my best move, ok?” He laughed. “How many months ago was it?”
“No clue, to be honest.” You pecked his lips again.
Buck’s arms held you close, not willing to let you go. His lips were just inches away.
“Should I remind you of my doctor’s orders?” you whispered.
“You’re never walking into danger on my watch again.” Buck finally let you go, but it was written in his face it wasn’t what he wanted. His touch lingered a little longer, a little too deep. And you were sure you were mirroring his actions.
“I know.” You got his video game console and your book. “See you tomorrow?”
“Sure thing, Brains.”
You leaned over, leaving a goodnight kiss and a promise to come back to whatever you just started.
+++
“Ok, do you want some snacks? I,” you checked your storage once again, noticing how you should’ve added “do groceries” to your list. “How are we feeling about popcorn?”
“I love popcorn!” Chris replied, his focus on the TV screen.
“Popcorn it is.” You turned the machine on and measured the serving. You heard knocks on your door. “Just a second!”
Maybe Eddie was back because Chris forgot something in the car? No, he had everything in his backpack. You opened the door, but your eyes stayed on the kid on your couch. “Really, Eddie, don’t worry. I can watch him for as long as you need and… Buck.”
“Hi.” Even if he looked like he just left the shower, his voice sounded like he ran a marathon and stopped at your door.
“Buck!” You both heard Chris from the couch. “Are you joining us?”
“Only if Brains let me.” He smiled, waiting for you to invite him in.
“How could I say ‘no’? Come in, we are playing video games and having popcorn.”
“You can play with me!”
“I’ll be there in a sec, Chris. I just need to talk to Brains first,” he pulled you aside and out of Chris’ view. Not like the kid is paying any attention to you, anyway. “Hey there.”
“Hi. Why do I have a feeling you’re here to babysit me?” You move to your kitchen, rushing to find the popcorn bucket in your cabinets.
“Can you blame me? You have two broken ribs, self diagnosed burnout syndrome,” you mumbled, “ok, your therapist said you have it, and you’re babysitting Chris on a day you’re supposed to wake up after 3.”
“It’s just for a few hours, and he’s not like Jee-Yun,” you pointed out the reality: Chris was just a little bit sick and Eddie didn’t want him to be alone. “So you’re here to see if I have plans for today.”
“Kinda.” He opened the top cabinet and gave you the bucket. “Do you?”
You elbowed him on the torso, playfully.
“Watch your step, I know his reputation.” You pointed to Chris over your shoulder. “But the answer to your question is no.”
Buck smiled, satisfied with himself. “Hey, Chris, orange or apple juice?”
“Apple, please! I’m crushing you!” The kid's voice indicated a promise to end Buck’s character.
“Ok, buddy, if you say so,” he turned to you and whispered, “so it’s a date?”
“Yes, Buckley. Now are you gonna help me with Chris or not?” You served two glasses of apple juice.
“Sure thing, but I might need to run some errands later because,” and he stopped himself. “You’ll see.”
a/n: hi is there anyone here still? i know guys, i was gone, no sign of life, but hey, i'm back (i hope so). IT FINALLY HAPPENED! i had to make this chapter shorter than usual because otherwise it would be too big. so that's it. see ya soon!
#evan buckley fanfic#evan buckley#evan buckley x reader#evan buckley x you#9 1 1 abc#9 1 1 fanfiction#evan buck buckely#buck fanfiction#evan buckley imagine#effie writes
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(Fiddling around with a new MCU time travel idea)
There are a couple of kids in Tony’s living room.
Well- there’s one bonafide child, early elementary school age, and then one teenager somewhere on the cusp of young adulthood. But Tony would bet if he put their ages together and divided by two, he’d get a number in the realm of ‘should probably still have a babysitter when the parents go out for an evening’, ergo, kids.
They’re still asleep, for the moment. Or, unconscious, rather. Not awake, at any rate, and they haven’t been since falling through a big glowing circle into his living room, teenager curled protectively around the little girl. Which is a little annoying for two reasons; first and foremost, Tony has questions, but also he’d rather not have Pepper or anyone else walk in and demand to know why there are two unconscious children lying on his sofa.
That’s just such an awkward question. Though he does at least have proof in the form of security footage that the pair arrived by means entirely beyond Tony’s control. Speaking of which; Tony flicks a finger, and JARVIS dutifully rewinds said footage to the beginning, and plays at an again-reduced speed. Ultimate slo-mo doesn’t reveal any answers, however. There’s no prior warning before the light flares, startling video-Tony into spilling his coffee as he crosses the room, and no hints to be found beyond swirling white and orange as the kids fall through. The light vanishes as soon as they’re clear, then the boy hits the floor, hard. There are honest to goodness cracks in Tony’s floor, he had JARVIS run a scan on the structure beneath his lovely thick carpeting just to check.
No cracks in the kid’s bones, though. And- okay, in all honesty, questions and unknowns and everything else aside, Tony does prefer it that way, rather than the reverse.
As far as JARVIS could tell with further scanning, neither kid bore any injuries - just some lingering traces of quantum energy, fading further with every minute. With any luck, as soon as that finishes up, there’ll be some waking up and answering of questions.
Though of course Tony couldn’t just sit around and do nothing while he waited.
The little girl is definitely wearing designer brand clothing: durable sneakers, high quality shorts and collared shirt, a lightweight jacket that wouldn’t look out of place in a magazine for children’s spring collections. Also, just to hammer home the fact she comes from money, JARVIS detected extremely sophisticated tracking beacons inside every single garment. Even the socks. Tiny devices, clearly some kind of advanced nanotech... With a mini Stark Industries logo etched onto each one.
Trouble is, Tony’s never made beacons this small and impressive before.
Her watch is a similar conundrum. It’s red and yellow, clearly meant to look like any other cheap Iron Man themed child’s decoration, except for housing what Tony would swear is the same sort of satellite connection he puts into all of his suits for JARVIS to link up with. Top of the line encryption, tiny hologram projection, more tracking software with options to send specific distress calls, and all of it bio-locked, which- which should have been a problem. Even without an AI present in the device to fight him, it should have taken Tony significant time to crack through the locks and get a good look at the watch’s internal circuitry. Instead, it- recognized him. Recognized his bio-signature, and let him in.
He’s still mulling over the implications of that one.
Now, the teenager, there lie some other mysteries. Far shabbier clothing, for one thing. The ragged shoes alone look like they’ve picked up grime walking from one side of NYC to the other and back. Jeans with a faded appearance that’s not artistic enough to be artificially crafted; sweatshirt that has some amateur stitchwork patching up the elbows; t-shirt with holes in the hem and a cartoon character Tony didn’t recognize on the chest.
Thing is, JARVIS didn’t recognize the character either. Not even after running a search through the whole dang internet. And it wasn’t an indie creation, there was very definitely a Disney logo on the shirt’s tag, where it stuck up from the back of the collar.
And then there’s what the kid’s got under his clothes.
No, Tony did not undress him, but peeking out from under the cuffs of that sweatshirt and visible in the gap between pants and shoes is a very different sort of material. Durable, flexible, extremely form-fitting to be hidden so well by regular garments. Physically rifling through the kid’s sweatshirt pockets turned up a pair of gloves and mask, too. Very Halloween-y, Tony would probably jump out of his skin if he turned around to find those big white eyes looming out of the dark. Attached to the gloves, he also found a couple of small gadgets, fairly sophisticated, capable of spitting out an atrocious substance clear across the room. A large, sticky web still occupies the far wall by his bar as proof.
Those, Tony gingerly set down next to the girl’s watch, to be considered later. When their owners are awake, and capable of telling him things like hey don’t touch that button.
In the meantime, he’s finally accepted there isn’t much left to do but wait, idly replaying the security footage over and over, less idly hoping there’s some kind of change before any company arrives.
His luck, perhaps predictably, falls through.
“Sir,” JARVIS announces into the otherwise quiet room. “Miss Potts is on her way up.”
With a long, drawn out, highly exasperated sigh, Tony sets his empty glass aside and stands to face the music.
---
“Time travel,” Pepper says flatly. That’s a very clear, Pepperish tone of you can’t be serious. But before Tony has a chance to voice his defense, she’s already sighing, and bringing up a hand to rub at the bridge of her nose. “Why do you think this is time travel?”
So he starts reviewing the data.
The cartoon character that doesn’t exist yet only earns a raised eyebrow - when Tony gets into the particulars of the girl’s watch and trackers, Pepper looks a little less unamused, a little more disconcerted. Pointing out the boy’s suit and gadgets and drawing her attention to the web still occupying his wall even earns two whole startled blinks. “That’s... Tony.”
“Yeah.”
“Tony.”
“Yeah,” he repeats, fully in agreement. “But it’s either time travel, or R&D has been doing some serious overtime tinkering without letting either of us know!”
Pepper rubs a hand over her face, sighing again. When she pulls it away, her gaze goes to the pair of kids, girl still held in the boy’s arms, both of them laying on their sides where Tony managed to haul them up onto his sofa when the whole bizarre event began. “What do we do, then?”
“Not much we can do, besides haul them down to the infirmary and try injecting things to induce an early wake-up call.” Even as he says it, Tony swipes up and enlarges the holo-window with the energy reading and its total dissipation countdown. T-minus eight hundred and seventy-three seconds. “Otherwise, wait to see if anything happens in about fifteen minutes.”
Pepper let loose her third sigh, and went to get a glass of wine.
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okay, here's that whole "mate day" thing I was gonna talk about the other day LMFAO
So, the whole mate day vs. kidnapping thing in demonkind is something I’ve thought about a fair amount when planning Constellations out. I had to do a “wedding day” of some kind for obvious reasons and also just to capture that moment of them becoming mates. And of course I thought about “kidnapping/courtnapping” as an option, but the more I thought about it, the more I think it did a disservice to the world-building and structure of the AU.
So, demons kidnapped humans A LOT in JTTW and in other such material and various things would happen because of it. They’d have to live in hiding, they’d get hunted down, fights/wars break out, etc. They’d also get punished by the divine for interfering or doing something they knew they shouldn’t have done.
When it comes to demons kidnapping their own kind, I believe that custom was expected, but then we also have the whole “demons fighting each other, not agreeing with the union, hunting down their own kind, territory disputes, etc.,” there, too. I thought it would cause problems either way, but, more than that, I thought about how societies and customs change over time.
We see this with the divine, how they create new magic and come up with new systems and such things when it comes to organizing the multiple workflows within Heaven. They still, unfortunately, rely too heavily on paper, but regardless, I believe there’s been a change in Heaven compared to thousands of years ago.
I think the banquets that are held are a bit more modern. The attire and such is the same, but the food, the activities — I think those adjusted slightly to incorporate more influence from the other realms, mainly those of the demi-gods and mortals. More exciting and entertaining things.
There’s also the presence of magic and how new subsets are created frequently. This allows them to use magic in new ways to enhance these get-togethers. I haven’t given extensive thought to this, but it is something I keep in mind.
And, obviously, there’s the mortal realm. Mortals have changed substantially over the years, coming up with new technology, making advancements at a quick pace — and all without magic. The divine would glance down at those advancements and study them. And demons… Demons live side by side with mortals. Their societies are heavily integrated. Demons hide in plain sight. They would get inspiration from mortal behaviors and rituals and celebrations.
So! I think, since the “courtnapping” thing often led to more trouble than it was worth, some clans of demons started to play around with the idea of improving this idea. They look to the mortals and the divine for inspiration and see that…actually having a feast and celebrating is more fun, actually. It gets the community involved, no fighting, and everyone gets to enjoy themselves. Also increases the purchase of demon-made goods (LMAO) and all that. They’re helping each other this way.
I think iterations of this evolved through the centuries. Maybe courtnapping turned into “Demon A kidnaps Demon B and takes Demon B to Demon A’s residence so the union can be blessed and, if it is, then PARTY!” that kinda thing. Then it possibly evolved into “both demons are secluded together for some time and, if there’s no bloodshed after three days, then the union was meant to be” like different things like that.
Because, not only does demonkind have the influence of mortals and the divine, they also have THE Monkey King who resides on his own mountain and makes his own rules. Wukong wouldn’t want to incite more fighting when he’s already got demon kings killing each other. He’d want a more peaceful solution. So he’d take influence from mortals, too, especially since he spent so much time with them learning their language and way of life. He’d bring those lessons home and mix them with the previously established ceremonies that FFM partook in.
And if the Monkey King’s doing it, then all of demonkind kinda peeks their heads over to see what it’s like. And it’s fun! Having a nice, big feast and the two (or more) demons that are getting married get to spend a day to themselves and exchange gifts and love on each other.
So, mate day grew into what it is now over time. I wanted to show that societies change to give respect to not only the world-building, but to time. It’s a great way to show how things came to be. And I just don’t think that, with demonkind being so close to mortals, they wouldn’t pick up on the fun stuff they’re doing.
And they just add their own flavor to it! Demons have their own foods, drinks, things they do for fun, etc., that they bring to the mate day celebration. It’s a great time to try new things with magic as they light the sky with fireworks or put on shows or play music. It’s an opportunity for advancement.
Demonkind is also like. A fully thought of thing in Constellations, though we haven’t had time to go that deep into it. But when the Gold and Silver demons were hiding in that cave with an illusion — demons hide in plain sight, they’re always looking at humans (to eat them but whatever). But demons have their own marketplaces hidden in the mountain trails of certain peaks, their own towns and cities that have been created with magic and hidden. I wanted to give respect to that and how demonkind is its own society with its own rules.
They hate (some respect) the divine. Some of them hate each other. But most are just trying to live, and doing mate days like this allows for so many more demons to live and thrive and it allows unions to lead to bonds being forged between families and clans, etc.
I wanted there to be this structure, and it was perfect for Wukong to have this place in it, because FFM didn’t have a defined set of rules. That’s why Macaque said he proposed because he was taking inspiration from mortals and from demons, smashing the two ideas together. The concept of “mates” is a demon thing and has existed forever, but how two demons became mates? That was ever-changing. So, Macaque went the proposal route (at that time, some demons were still doing courtnapping, but it was getting phased out). And also, Wukong brought that idea home and told it to his family with excitement that humans had ALL THESE DIFFERENT WAYS to celebrate things, etc.
I think it’s a cool way to tie multiple things together: Wukong’s journey of learning about humans + how demon society changes just like every other society (and also just giving demons more respect toward their customs, etc.) + giving history to the world and showing how things can change + maybe having some characters that prefer the old ways.
#constellations fic#I just like how celebrations and rituals can change over time tbh#like looking at different iterations of major holidays#what things stay and what things were left behind#it's interesting af
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Was looking up every mention of Aurora in the books for the char study piece I want to write about her and my jaw dropped here because I had been misremembering that “She was the only person who he could not dazzle, and he loved her for it.” line as being a Bluesey quote when it’s about Niall and Aurora… yikes @ myself. But really when you isolate just that line it is very romantic and fits the definition of romance we see for the other main couples. Bluesey Pynch and Jordeclan are all structured as
character A (Gansey/Adam/Declan) who is a social masker and disconnected from the ‘real them’ to some degree in a lot of interactions with the world around them x character B (Blue/Ronan/Jordan) who in Blue/Ronan’s case especially is very authentic and blunt and fearlessly themselves, that’s a little more complicated with Jordan who also has to perform as a version of Hennessy and then kind of find herself outside of that at the same time she starts her relationship with Declan, but she’s imaginative and creative the way Blue and in a less artistic way Ronan are and that proves an “authentic” contrast in a similar way, and she’s a helpful relationship for Declan in some of the same ways as Bluesey/Pynch.
So understanding that’s a notion and type of dynamic this verse generally paints as romantic, Niall and Aurora’s relationship being a warped take on the formula is pretty interesting! Niall wants to be with someone who sees the truth of him and wants the truth of him, which was Mor who is also too complicated and sharp-edged for him to understand or to give him the type of love he wants, so he has to craft someone both much sweeter who is a more conventional housewife for him, but she couldn’t be someone who agreed with him 100% of the time because she had to be fundamentally different from him and also provide him with the faintest, most easily controlled glimmer of what he liked about Mor’s challenging nature, without any danger of her actually leaving or overpowering him. So Aurora can contradict him or call him out when she says he’s lying about the way Ronan was born, but she can’t truly Challenge him there’s a difference. I do get the sense from the way the brothers talk about her and the few flashbacks to her in that time she was more dynamic and complex pre Niall’s death than the Aurora we meet in trc present, which makes sense based on the mythology, and I don’t see a reason for her to not have an individual personality the same way Mathew and Jordan do although it would still be comparatively muted by her role.
But basically, Niall wanting the same thing Gansey/Adam/Declan do but not being willing to actually build a recirprocal connection with someone with autonomy and offer them support too. There’s no Gansey comforting Blue after Persephone passes or Bluesey connecting over their similarly curious natures and wants and strange-loving relationship with Henrietta, and also none of their arguments which are honestly quite integral. If Niall’s… well does Niall have friends probably not, but theoretically if he had a male friend who made a comment like Henry’s very unfortunate r*pe joke in BLLB Aurora’s wouldn’t take Niall to task for putting her in that situation at all she would probably just smile along… None of Adam and Ronan’s conflicts or their viewing each other as equals would be able to occur same for Jordeclan.
I feel like seeing how that desire to have someone unconditionally understand you can be warped to the point of not respecting your partners agency or seeing them as a person outside of what they provide you really puts the main relationships into perspective for how they’re different, is what I meant to say. That’s not to say they’re without flaws (and they would be boring if they were), and I think some of the notion that perfect understanding is possible is one I would have liked to see questioned a little more than it is in canon, because I think these relationships provide the chars with types of understanding they crave and Might know them better than anyone else, but that doesn’t mean said understanding is absolute. As much as I love Bluesey I do think it’s fair to point out there’s sometimes a gap between how much Blue is encouraged by the narrative to understand Gansey and how much he has to reciprocate because of some misogyny and classism in the narrative, so there’s that. Or rather I’d say he reciprocates the understanding but less so when it comes to gendered conflicts. I think the ideal version of the Pynch arc in TD3 would be that it’s meant to challenge the notion we should rely on one person / our partner to always understand us fully by making it clear how terrible their communication has become and the gaps in their understanding related to their contrasting life goals and desires. It would actually be a really fascinating thing to deconstruct with them and if it had panned out I think that storyline could’ve been something truly special, but then either because of an audience feedback loop or just Maggie getting cold feat about some concepts, there’s a major backtracking to actually-love-solves-everything, Like, in isolation Adam telling Ronan that he’s the only Real thing in his life at this point and that’s worth too much to let go of is really romantic …. but then if you truly think about everything in the text around it and where Adam is at this point, and your reading a tad more cynically, you could also say that it reads less as high romance and more as a sunk cost fallac- but I digress the point was that Aurora & Niall’s relationship functioning as a mirror to these protagonist relationships is interesting, and there’s more to be said about the Mor&Niall/Adam&Ronan parallel and how it intersects with the comparison but I don’t have the energy.
(Also worth noting that while comparatives exist the m/m relationship is obviously never going to operate under the same gendered lines as the m/f romances and so any of those comparisons would be imperfect).
TL;DR Niall and Aurora’s romance is a warped mirror of the protagonists (Bluesey Pynch Jordeclan) romantic dynamics in that they show how a relationship built on a similar dynamic premise of desire to be understood could be horrifying if one stops respecting the other party as an autonomous being outside of the understanding they offer them.
#s speaks#Trc#tdt#aurora lynch#niall lynch#blue sargent#richard gansey#adam parrish#ronan lynch#declan lynch#jordan hennessy#my meta#Aurora fic#(for reference)
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Question, in the first few chapters on WondLa, before Rovee gave Eva the translator, were you able to decode what Besteel and Rovee were saying? I’m still having a hard time trying to figure out what they’re saying. Still wondering what Shee-na means.
*spreads arms dramatically* My time has come.
Lmao. I love conlangs, so I've definitely tried to translate the non-human dialogue a couple times over the years, so I'll give it my best shot!
First, I think "shee-na" probably means "quiet" or a variation thereof, given that Rovender makes a shushing motion when saying that. As for book dialogue:
"'Ovanda say tateel?'" (pg. 69, Rovender)
Likely "What are you doing?" I'd be inclined to translate as "Who/what are you?" instead if not for the fact that Rovender says this same thing to Eva when she's hiding under Otto on pg. 94. They're sort of familiar with each other at this point, so it doesn't make any sense to ask who she is again.
"'Daff effu Cærulean?'" (pg. 77, Besteel)
Possibly something along the lines of a snarky greeting, or "What are you doing, Cærulean?", or even "We meet again, Cærulean?". From context clues, I'd say Besteel and Rovender have crossed paths before (they seem slightly familiar with each other; Besteel knows Rovender by name) and have a history of not liking the other/Rovender keeps messing with Besteel. This is also why I'd posit a snarky greeting.
"'Tuda neem,'" (pg. 82, Besteel)
"Don't worry," meant in an extremely worrying fashion.
"'Kap und gabbo.... Ta, broog iffa yu nabba,'" (pg. 83, Besteel)
Context seems to suggest "ta" is "yes" in the common Orbonian language. The whole thing is perhaps "You can't escape [or you are scared].... Yes, you will be perfect [or: you will live]," possibly as a reference to his mission to capture specimans to free Redimus.
"'Oeeah. Te banga nee peezil,'" (pg. 83, Rovender)
"Oeeah" is an exclamation, so has no translation. Possibly "see what he's doing there"?
"'Dot, dat.'" (pg. 83, Rovender)
"Stop, no." "Dat" appears to be "no".
"'Peesa van shuuzu,'" (pg. 84, Rovender)
"Going up is the only way out"; "peesa" is "up".
"'Ta! Ta! [...] Peesa.'" (pg. 84, Rovender)
"Yes! Yes! [...] Up."
"'Pra! Dooma boffa!'" (pg. 85, Besteel)
"Back! Stupid animal!" (translation note: what an asshole)
"'Dat, dat, dat. [...] Te,'" (pg. 85, Rovender)
"No, no, no. [...] There,'"
"'Tasha, zaata,'" (pg. 87, Rovender)
"Alright, go,"; "zaata" is "go".
"'Bluh, sizzu feezi,'" (pg. 88, Rovender)
"Bluh" is an exclamation and has no translation. "Feezi" means "nymph"; this seems to be a word Orbonians-- or at least Cæruleans and/or Halcyonus-- use for children. Eva is referred to as "the nymph" and-- I believe-- "the nymph of the forest" and, in the 200 years later epilogue, the language blend of English and the common Orbonian language gives us "'Feezi, known as Eva'", providing a direct translation. This whole phrase, then, could be "Bluh, ridiculous nymph."
"'Feezi meed! [...] Ya battee meer de hagrim Ruzender. Wha seesha?'" (pg. 88, Besteel)
"The nymph is gone! [...] You're to blame for this, Rovender. Where is she?"
"'Grazeet! [...] Zaata! Zaata! Zaata!'" (pg. 90, Rovender)
"Move! [...] Go! Go! Go!"
"'Nassa Ruzender Keet!'" (pg. 92, Besteel)
"Goddamn [or Orbonian equivalent curse word] Rovender Kitt!"
"'Tista baffa fooh!'" (pg. 94, Besteel)
"Get back here!"
"'Gabu Baasteel!'" (pg. 94, Rovender)
"[insert Orbonian curse word] Besteel!"
"'Feezi! [...] Zaata! Zaata!'" (pg. 96, Rovender)
"Nymph! [...] Go! Go!"
"'Dat, dat, dat, [...] Feezi zaata. [...] Ruzender zaata.'" (pg. 96, Rovender)
"No, no, no. [...] Nymph go. [...] Rovender go." Sentence and grammatical structure are likely heavily simplified due to neither of them being able to understand one another and Rovender being like "what is the most simple thing this weird kid could understand"
"'Grasset de fugill Ruzender!'" (pg. 97, Besteel)
"You're dead, Rovender!"
"'Ewa seetha tadasha,'" (pg. 99, Rovender)
"That was exciting," said by someone who wishes this never happened.
"'Ta! Feezi!'" (pg. 99, Rovender)
"Yes! Nymph!"
"'Zuzu, zuzu,'" (pg. 100, Rovender)
"Wait, wait,"
"'Kip! Kip!'" (pg. 100, Rovender)
"Talk! Talk!" The transcoder later has Rovender say "Tes, continue kipping" as it calibrates, so "kip" is probably "talk".
"'Dat, dat, dat, feezi, [...] Doot, doot, ba kip!'" (pg. 100, Rovender)
"No, no, no, nymph, [...] Closer, closer, and talk!"
"'Dat, [...] Peesa tobondi feezi, ta kipli.'" (pg. 101, Rovender)
"No, [...] Keep it up close, nymph, and talk."
"'Zazig. I try to peebla foo,'" (pg. 101, Rovender)
"Sort of. I try to make it easier,"
"'If you do, [...] you hret graaveem my speech.'" (pg. 102, Rovender)
"If you do, [...] you understand my speech."
I think that's all the Orbonian language we get; I hope this helps! :)
#no accounting for besteels accent of course#i like conlangs but i dont think i could really get into it like linguists do...#wondla#the search for wondla#wondla trilogy#beans answers
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now that i have recovered from the emotional shock of seeing *that* akutagawa scene from chapter 88 animated in HD 4K (i thought i’d have another week to emotionally prepare myself LMAO), i just wanna be a little bit of a nerd and say that i really liked the cinematography/composition this episode.
in particular, i really enjoyed the anime’s decision to draw visual parallels between this fight and previous fights (in particular, the fight against francis, which is important because it is the first time they worked together).
after all, this fight is the culmination of everything they’ve done together. from the combining of their abilities, coming to an understanding with each other, realising the potential of beast-beneath the moonlight-rashoumon… bringing back similar shots that were used in previous fights is SUPER effective at highlighting the parallels and how far they’ve come, in my humble opinion.
here are a few things i noticed:
- first of all, both of them activating their abilities one after another is an explicit nod to S2’s fight;
- the confrontation/conversation in the hallway from S2 (to an extent! they’re on the same sides, which caught my eye);
- akutagawa blowing up the engine room on the ship, and kyouka doing the same during the first fight between him and atsushi (S1);
- and a similar angle being used for black tiger claws / koukko zessou as a nod to the fight in the S3 finale.
the parallels — though maybe less explicit, *are* still there in the manga? like, the entire “structure��� of the fight so to speak is very similar to the francis fight in S2 — akutagawa finding atsushi, taking place on a(n air)ship, breaking away from the fight to strategise before confronting the final boss (then, francis, and now, fukuchi) is undeniably a nod to that fight? i love that this is given its due in the anime as well.
another thing about the cinematography this episode i loved was them using the clock as being the indicator of fukuchi’s fuckass space-time sword doing its thing. that was a really nice touch, in my opinion; the cuts in between were jarring and disorienting and really helped put us into sskk’s shoes.
and as for the background design alongside the clock itself — there were a couple of things about them i enjoyed:
- the number of floors / levels of the ship in the back (5, as a nod to the five ways an angel decays, the DOA)
- the blue of the clock is meant to be reminiscent of fukuchi’s sword, i’d argue, with the way both of them pops out of the sunset/orangey-red lighting
- the clock’s design being super ornate and gold plated reminds me a *bit* of a tabernacle (where they keep unused eucharist in a church) — and thus brings up connotations of sacrifice. that white bridge-thing beneath the clock as well reminds me a lot of an altar, too (see the image above the last to see what exactly i’m referring to, because image limit)
okay, yeah, that one might be a bit of a stretch, sure. but its placement as being above them, combined with the two tables/boxes to the left and right of the ship’s bow (which looks very much like a cross, btw) gives it a distinctly religious, altar-kinda feel, i’d argue. and crosses have been used in S4 as symbolism as well!
(tbh, there could even be a bit more imagery i’m missing, because — the angels of the DOA refers specifically to the buddhist conception of an angel. i’m not too familiar with buddhist imagery, but i thought that this was worth pointing out regardless!)
the last thing i want to say is that the red and blue symbolism went CRAZY this episode. i don’t have much else to say because it was super obvious — they even reused the same “black tiger claws” shot from S3, after all — but i do wanna point out that the symbolism even went into the carpets. the fucking carpets.
like, the shift: it’s red when akutagawa’s leading the conversation but changes to blue after atsushi’s suggesting of the submersible as a strategy? i mean, i don’t know if this (or anything i’ve said, to be fair) was intentional or not, but it’s a cool detail anyway!
personally, i enjoyed this episode, the action was great, and all of this too was a really neat addition as well! and now… uh. we wait for the chaos to get worse i suppose !? (laughs nervously)
#while i haven’t been enjoying S5 as much as i did S4 i think they still did pretty good w this episode#there was a lot i really enjoyed about this episode!!#studio bones will always deliver on the action. we can count on that bit at least LMAO#next week though…. it’s shin soukokover#bsd#jem rambles#bsd s5#bungo stray dogs#bsd spoilers#atsushi#akutagawa#shin soukoku#bsd atsushi#bsd akutagawa#bsd sskk#sskk#i do mourn the loss of some of the nuance of their characters but. they did say at the panel the anime focuses more on action sooo 🥴#you win some you lose some i guess#only reason i was able to make this post btw is because ive watched bsd so many times to the point shit’s literally engraved into my brain#it’s bad for me NDLDGAJ#bsd analysis#bsd anime analysis#bungo stray dogs season 5#bsd season 5
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Hiiii attacking your ask box while I procrastinate 😛
So regarding Passione’s structure: Been doing a lot of reading lately on the mafia and have found that interestingly, the Neapolitan mafia is generally much more fragmented than other mafias in Italy, particularly the Sicilian and Calabrian mafias (the Cosa Nostra and ‘Ndrangheta respectively).
That is to say, the “boss of bosses” model seen in other mafias is not really present in Calabria and Naples, where the gangs are instead smaller and more numerous, controlling many minor sectors of criminal society instead of one broad huge, organization blanketing massive swathes of the land.
This makes me think about the odd way that Passione’s hierarchy is illustrated when we’re being given exposition about it in the story. Although Passione is depicted as this pervasive, all-powerful thing, it seems to be very horizontally organized overall, which makes me wonder: Is Passione a singular gang, or is it meant to be more of a replacement for the Camorra in the story altogether, i.e. a loose coalition of clans operating broadly under the same roof, but generally independent from one another?
Or is it some weird mix of both? Each “squad” seems more like its own distinct thing than a unified part of a larger whole given all of the infighting, but everyone ultimately takes orders from Diavolo anyway. I wonder if the Camorra also still exists in this universe, parallel to Passione…
The structure of Passione seems to be rather lacking in middlemen altogether: there aren’t many “tiers” of it to climb. There’s the grunts, then squad leaders like Bruno or Risotto, then caporegimes like Polpo, and then directly above that is Doppio+Diavolo.
The structure at the top is definitely fucked backwards no matter which way you look at it because Doppio/Diavolo is his own boss and his own henchman at the same time and he doesn’t seem to have a consigliere or any other personal advisers—just his personal guard, who seem to mostly just be… hitmen? There doesn’t seem to be much evidence that Cioccolata, Squalo and Tiziano et al. conduct much business for the gang. They’re just… attack dogs, I guess ?
(To note, the official illustration of Passione’s hierarchy says that the position that belongs to Doppio should be a consigliere, but this is more of a non-combative, lawerly, legal-counsel type role which is something that Doppio appears by all accounts to be woefully inadequate for, so this doesn’t really make sense.)
There’s also oddly not much mention of blood relatives within Passione: I don’t think we hear of any gangster characters who are actually related to one another, which is highly unusual for the mafia. Is it because near everyone seems to be a stand user, save bottom-tier lackeys like Luca? Do they put less stock into blood relations in Passione because of this (and maybe also because of the boss discouraging such things)? Do they skip over most of the formalities of being “made” because they find the stand arrow test to serve as a sufficient initiation? This is the stuff that keeps me up at night.
That is some very interesting real-life context. The only gang I've read a book on so far is Cosa Nostra, but organized crime in Italy definitely goes beyond that and varies from mob to mob. Personally, I doubt there was too much thought put into how Passione replaces the real-life mob structures in Italy; Araki was probably just thinking "media-like depiction of an Italian mob" and didn't pour himself into study of real-life mob structures or anything.
I always kind of assumed other gangs were practically irrelevant, since conflicts with other gangs are never mentioned and Passione seems to be so powerful that it's basically the "main" mob in Italy due to its high concentration of Stand users and monopoly on the drug trade. (Though Purple Haze Feedback isn't canon, it does make a point that Passione is powerful beyond powerful in terms of mobs with Giorno in charge.) Though, there really isn't enough info given to tell, just like a lot of things with the mob in VA, lol.
I have also noticed the whole "consigliere" deal before- I made a post about it some time ago. Personally I get the feeling that VA was just using "consigliere" functionally as a synonym for "underboss", since they mention a "right-hand man" in the structure. It's a little annoying and inaccurate, but what can you do?
The lack of family dynamics playing a role is definitely something I noticed Passione strongly breaks away from real-life mobs in. The concept of family is extremely important in most real-life Italian mobs, with gang higher-ups often operating within families and successors being sons of the boss. Passione, on the other hand, seems to have absolutely none of this.
This also makes Diavolo's hatred and avoidance of family really interesting, and indeed, what causes Vento Aureo's attempts to have Passione mimic a "typical mob structure" come out extremely broken. There is nobody planned to take over if something happens to Diavolo because Doppio is his underboss (who wouldn't work as a successor for obvious reasons) and he cut off all potential family and connections to people besides himself. I guess that just goes to show Diavolo's sheer confidence in himself and his distrust of anybody else that might replace him. He also might have just truly not given a shit about what will happen to his empire after he dies.
Passione is, in my opinion, a pretty simplistic idea of a mob. It's written just enough to get a vague idea of what it's like and also to get the plot working, but upon further inspection, you really realize just how vague it is as an organization. It makes me want a prequel to see how Diavolo started all of it even more lol.
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Purgatory
BTS Series: ⬅ Table of Contents Also available on Neocities! P&J Taglist (Check out my Google form to get added): @elegant-paper-collection @auroblaze@zeenimf @vacantgodling @foxys-fantasy-tales Banner art by @auroblaze
Traditionally in Christianity, Purgatory isn’t a place, like pop culture depicts. It’s actually a “cleansing ritual” that some people have to go through to be worthy of Heaven. Sometimes it involves literally being cleansed in fire! However, I’m going with the more pop-culture-y depiction of Purgatory because it better fits the tone of the story, and allows me to do a little more sociopolitical commentary. Which I love, and will always do. Anyway, here it is!
The Structure of Purgatory
In the quilt of the universe, Purgatory is a fascinating square. It holds a mirror to Earth, reflecting it as a plain, unchanging, eerie dreamworld. There are things that look familiar to the souls that wander there, but with a distinct alien veneer that reminds them they are not in the same place they left.
Souls who aren’t worthy of Heaven, but aren’t sinful enough to be sent to Hell, are prescribed time to think and to repent in Purgatory. God gives them a second chance after death to reconcile their sin, and once they’ve atoned to His satisfaction, they’re permitted to take their place in paradise. Those that aren’t forgiven wander until their souls eventually fade to Hell.
Those wandering Purgatory cannot enter or exit of their own volition. The process of forgiveness or fading can take centuries. Hundreds of years of circling in the same empty plane with other souls, just as aimless. Simply put, Purgatory is a holding cell, for those souls who have nowhere else to go.
Wandering Souls
Though they certainly can, the immortal beings of other realms rarely appear in Purgatory. Angels and demons can travel in and out whenever they wish, but angels appear only to bring souls there or relieve others of their roaming, and demons have little use for souls that can’t be further corrupted. The souls of Purgatory have very little company outside each other.
The souls that wander are given little direction as to how they’re meant to appropriately repent. They have not broken their relationship with God, they’re assured, only injured it, and that injury can be repaired with time and atonement. However, many souls in Purgatory are confused as to why they’re even supposed to be repenting. Lying, gossiping, drinking to excess, failure to pray, and suicide are all on the list of venial sins that these lonely souls are meant to be making amends for.
For those confused, they have plenty of time to work through the feeling. Souls in Purgatory are meant to consider their mistakes in life, atone for them, and God would recognize the way they’ve held themselves accountable and offer forgiveness. Eventually.
Some souls, though, become frustrated. Some felt their sin was unavoidable, some felt they didn’t have a choice. Some had no idea they were sinning in the first place, they thought they were doing the right thing. It’s difficult for many souls to capitulate to a God they had never believed in, or to apologize for something they couldn’t have averted.
But even among those that atone as best they can, the resounding silence from above becomes disheartening indeed. After centuries and centuries of wandering, plenty expect that they’ll never be forgiven, no matter how long or how many times they repent. When the angels appear to usher the scant few forgiven souls to Heaven, leaving countless others behind, the demoralization drives them deeper and deeper into despair.
Forgiveness and Fading
The process of being forgiven is, in writing, very simple. Once God has decided a soul wandering Purgatory has repented to His satisfaction, He orders an angel to bring them to Heaven.
In practice, the qualifiers for “satisfactory repentance” are vague. The criteria for one soul might be wildly different from another, regardless of their sin. Some are waiting for a short amount of time compared to the souls that wander the longest, and there doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to which souls are accepted and which aren’t. God seems more determined than ever to smoke out the unworthy, and the length of time it takes for any one soul to reach forgiveness stretches far longer than many of Heaven’s agents think is justified—though these angels are wise enough not to voice their criticisms.
Part of the unspoken concern lies in the fact that souls in Purgatory don’t stay there for eternity. The longer they sit, the more they despair, the closer they are to giving up on the chance of being forgiven altogether. Many don’t see a point, after waiting for so long. God had abandoned them, left them to rot and tread the same ground over and over, waiting for a forgiveness that would never come. When these souls turn their backs on Heaven, there is only one place for them to go.
Hell doesn’t “claim” souls from Purgatory. Demons aren’t sent up to collect them, and it’s not as though the souls from Purgatory are itching for damnation. Instead, God watches these souls slip farther from forgiveness, and eventually He lets them go. Like a fishing line, He stops reeling them in, and releases them to the depths.
And though Hell doesn’t necessarily gather up these lost souls on purpose, Lucifer will accept them happily. After all, what better way to motivate his army than with more fodder to be made an example of? What better way to show them how pointless God’s plans are, than with the very souls He claimed to love so much, abandoned at their doorstep? The constant churning of Purgatory’s lost souls are the perfect talking point—remember how much God loved His creations? This is what He thinks of them now. The only option becomes overthrowing Heaven, and proving themselves righteous.
The angels in Heaven who are brave or foolish enough to speak of this problem openly, do so in whispers. They wonder why God is so concerned with keeping out every soul with even a sliver of impurity. They wonder why so few souls get brought up from Purgatory these days, and even if they do, why they stay there for so long. They worry about innocent souls going to Hell under their watch, suffering needlessly for the sake of holy paranoia.
And then they’re decisively hushed, for fear of joining the unholy ranks.
There it is! Those of you who read Justice’s backstory on Tumblr might have found some of this familiar.
I’m not sure how much of all this lore, from Heaven on downwards, will make it into the full story, but I’m glad I got to share it with all of you to make sure someone other than me gets to hear my thoughts!
Thanks as always for your support!
— Annika
#original writing#original fiction#original character#original characters#spilled ink#writers on tumblr#writeblr#writeblr community#annika talks#P&J#Pride & Justice#P&J: Worldbuilding
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👀Kirishima popular with men and not boruto uglified unhappy married with a woman? Fuck everything else i won(ill take this crumb i was so scared 💀)and my girlss momo, mina, jiro, tsuyu and specially ochaco my fav <3 love seeing them doing ok this is my win, bkdks can have whatever they want idgaf if the girls, some others charas. and my token gay kr (beloved)implied are ok. The rest is to much to unpack i pretend i do not see it atleast it could have been worse, what did you think rival?
honestly i’m really happy with it! i’m really happy that you can tell horikoshi was losing interest in including the obligatory romance and he actually followed through with having uraraka and deku both move on from it, but at the same time in the penultimate chapter they still hugged without it reading as confirmation that they’re in love or whatever. made me happy!! even ships that seemed plausible and like hori was leaning towards them (kamijirou for example, which i actually think is rly cute) weren’t explicitly “confirmed” and i think that’s really refreshing. for such a quintessential shounen manga to move away from the obligatory romance is really dope to me as someone who loves shounen but hates obligatory romance, lol.
especially having just watched naruto, where kishimoto clearly thinks that a person cannot be considered “fulfilled and successful” if they’re not married, despite that not being relevant to the plot up to that point at all, it makes me happy to see hori not falling in the same pitfall. id say the bar is on the floor but it happens literally so often that it’s a genre staple so i think it actually is deserving of a little credit that he moved away from it so completely.
kirishima is gay ☝️ this i know. everyone has known this forever. he’s always been coded gay. it’s one of those situations where whether hori meant it or not (i lowkey find it hard to believe he didn’t recognize what he was doing) it is true, and a hero popular with men is the nail in the proverbial rainbow coffin. i was also glad that he got an aside becuz he’s been sort of left behind by the focus of the story for quite a while it seemed like hori had forgotten that he was such a key player for a while in the middle, so even though i’m still sad his relationship with bakugou was all but forgotten he did still get a nod at the end that most other characters didn’t get.
REALLY LOVE THAT MIRIO IS THE NEW NUMBER ONE AND NOT BAKUGOU. because mirio is literally more talented than him.
pissed about deku getting that tech that lets him be a hero again. i think honestly with the theme of not all people are created equal but we must love and support each other and find our niches nonetheless, it kind of loses its punch of deku to just. have a quirk still essentially. i thought him losing it was dope, and for him to remain the greatest hero of all time but have to pass on the torch because his time in the spotlight was over, whether it was luck or hard work he couldn’t stay a hero forever. because when it comes down to it he was born quirkless, and actually that’s okay, because he still has knowledge and talent and love to offer the world and he still has friends who love him. but whatever. tch
even though they didn’t go through with it, i really loved that all might was the one to suggest eliminating the popularity aspect of the hero chart completely. i think it really demonstrated how much HE has also grown over the course of the series, what he has learned and how his values have changed. i honestly think that would’ve been a better conclusion than whatever mixed bag thing hawks was setting up but it’s whatever. i think more structural changes are necessary and there should’ve been more explicit exploration into what those would look like imo, rather than just “people are nicer now cuz deku inspired them to be nice”. it’s not that it’s BAD because ultimately the structural issues of bnha’s world stemmed from social attitudes, and if those attitudes changed then that’s the first step to uplifting people born with scary or unusual quirks or born as heteromorphs, but at the same time it doesn’t give you the feeling that this peace is going to last.
LOVED DEKU’S FINAL CONVERSATION WITH SPINNER. I LOVE SPINNER AND I LOVE HIS WHOLEHEARTED LOVE AND DEDICATION TO SHIGARAKI AND I LOVED THE FOCUS HE GOT AT THE STORY’S TAIL END AND SEEING HIS REACTIONS TO HOW SHIKAGRAKI WAS CHANGING UNDER ALL FOR ONES INFLUENCE
anyways not perfect by any means, but i’m happy with it ^_^ horikoshi bit off a lot and i think i’m okay with how he decided to tie it off. i think platonic bakudeku is fun and interesting but i think it was better when it was bakugou crying suddenly cuz he thought he’d never be able to compete with deku again since he lost his quirk. if deku gets his quirk back it’s like okay. whatever. would’ve liked to see him continue to respect deku when he was quirkless again. but it’s fine. i still maintain that ppl who think they’re romantically involved don’t get it at all
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10
Hazel eyes bore into the back of my skull. I didn’t dare turn around and flip him off in the middle of Battle Brief. Instead, I kept my attention on my notes.
I still sat with my squad, but I kept a barrier between us. Clipped responses to questions, declining extra study sessions, avoiding their pitying glances. It wasn’t completely out of the norm for me, and they didn’t press for more.
It made it easier as I watched them all develop the smaller magic. As I watched them all discover their signet powers.
As soon as class ended, I threw my belongings into my bag and made to leave. Sawyer opened his mouth to say something but I shoved past him into the aisle of the auditorium. He had tried for the past couple of weeks to get my attention. I just couldn’t do it.
I had made it into the hallway and almost out of the building before my arm was grabbed and I was pulled behind one of the giant pillars holding up Basgiath’s stone structures.
“Missed me?” I asked Garrick Tavis, but my voice didn’t have its usual bite.
“You haven’t shown up to our training sessions in weeks,” he hissed, keeping his voice low.
“Didn’t realize you were waiting for me to show up.”
“I wanted to make sure you were okay after everything that happened.” His grip on my forearm tightened. We both glanced down at it, having forgotten about where his body still touched mine, and he slowly released his grip.
“I’m fine, Tavis.”
The corner of Garrick’s mouth turned upwards. “Back to the last names?”
“Are we done here? I have things to do.” I attempted to push past him, but he put his arm up, blocking my exit.
“Beatrice.” He said my name as if it was a reverent prayer, low and quiet just for my ears like I was the only god he prayed to. A flush of heat snaked its way up my spine and across my chest.
“I’m okay.” All of my bravado disappeared around him. He had pulled me out of the water, sputtering and gagging around the lake water in my throat, and flew us back to Basgiath in the early morning. He had seen the aftermath of my meltdown and still wanted to come check on me. “I feel lost and I’m struggling to refind my place here, but I’m figuring it out day by day.”
“I heard they assigned you to deliver Markham’s reports to the infantry quadrant. They’re not giving you any trouble, right?” His tone promised death if they were.
“No.” It had actually become the highlight of my day. Lidia and Divya gave me hell each time I crossed the bridge, their taunts and teasing a respite from the stifling walls of the rider’s quadrant. They didn’t look at me with pity or think that I was less than them; I was a worthy opponent. Our verbal spars were the only times I could feel normal.
It was messed up that those were my breaks from being an Unbonded.
“Good.” Garrick lifted his hand. Slowly swiped his fingers across my brow, brushing a flyway curl behind my ear. “Come back to training with me.”
I swallowed. Hard. Then took a step back. His hand wavered in the air before he placed it back at his side. “I can’t.”
“It’s okay. I can wait.” For some reason, I don’t think he meant just for training.
I stepped around him, and this time he let me. In the narrow corridor, my chest grazed against his. Still so warm. Still the same sharp scent of eucalyptus.
Still those two swords strapped against his back.
“You can do me a favor though.” I turned back around on my heel, leaving little room between us. “The shortswords that are regulation in the infantry, could you get me one?”
Garrick stilled. “Why would I be able to get it for you?”
“You have two impressive swords of your own. I’m assuming you know how to get other ones.”
He shook off whatever had come over him. “I’ll see what I can do.”
⤧⤧⤧
Lidia and Divya were leaning against the wall when I approached, gossiping about something. Divya was waving her hands wildly in the air, and Lidia was laughing at whatever she was saying. They kicked themselves up to meet me halfway.
“Don’t stop on my behalf,” I said, throwing Lidia the satchel.
She caught it with one hand. “Wish you weren’t in that stuck-up riders quadrant?”
“Wish you had the balls to even try?”
Divya laughed. The sound was musical, the sounds like the keys of the piano I used to play in my father’s parlor, warm and resonant. It was more carefree than anything I had heard as a rider. “Yeah, sure. I’m quite happy not being eaten by a dragon, thank you very much.”
I shrugged. “Can’t blame you. They’re scary as hell.”
Lidia cocked an eyebrow. “Isn’t that, like, sacreligious for riders? To talk bad about the dragons?”
“I’m sure they talk bad about us too.”
“You don’t know for certain?” Divya crossed her arms.
“Aren’t you all supposed to be buddy-buddy with your dragons by now?” Lidia copied the motion.
I became the third in a circle of girls crossing their arms. “You guys are smarter than you look.”
“Don’t get fooled by our looks, Beatrice.” Divya flipped her silky, long hair over her shoulder.
Lidia cocked a smile, but nodded her head at me to continue. She wasn’t going to let me off the hook that easily.
“I didn’t bond this year,” I explained. It was my first time saying it out loud to anyone besides Garrick. It made it feel much more… real.
“Which means no dragon, right?” Divya asked, and I cringed at her wording.
“Yes.”
The two girls looked at each other, then shrugged. “That must suck.”
“Understatement of the year,” I muttered under my breath.
“Doesn’t mean much on this side of the bridge,” Lidia said. “Just puts you on the same playing field as the rest of us.”
“About that.” I reached behind me and gripped the hilt of the short sword Garrick had left on my bed last night. There had been no note, but I knew it was from him. It was light in my hands as I brought it in front of me. “I need help using this.”
“You want us to help you?”
“The person I was learning from wielded much longer blades. I want to learn how to use the shortsword. Since you all are required to use them, you’re my best bet. Plus you are more equipped for ground combat. Whatever is in your rucksack, I want to know”
The others in my year had begun flight training. Leaving me hours of free time the professors couldn’t fill. Leaving me in the sparring gym, thinking how vulnerable I was compared to whatever lurked on land. I never thought I would be grounded, and like a dog with a bone, I wouldn't stop until I felt prepared. It was the one part of myself that I could depend on.
“And what do we get from this arrangement?” Lidia asked, already assessing how I was holding the sword in front of me.
I nodded my head towards where the Parapet loomed in the distance. “I’ll help you get your legs underneath you in the air.”
The two girls shared a glance.
“Our courtyard is empty at night,” Divya began to explain. “Beat us both in a spar. Then we’ll consider it.”
“And don’t get your hopes up. We’re the best in our year.” That wicked grin from Lidia.
“Deal.” I stuck my hand out, and the two girls each shook it. “Bring your swords. I’ll want to start right away.”
They both rolled their eyes.
But that night, they brought their swords, and both walked away with bruised ribs and swollen jaws. Nothing but a scratch on my face marred my skin as they used each other as dummies to teach me how best to approach an opponent with the shortsword.
We met again the next night.
And again.
And again.
--
Masterlist
#fourth wing#iron flame#the empyrean#garrick tavis#garrick fourth wing#xaden riorson#violet sorrengail#fanfiction#fourth wing fanfic
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I am absolutely bursting at the seams to scream about Morimyu Op 3.
Wanna write a very structured, intelligent analysis post but I don’t even know where to begin. Just … all of it.
— incoherent rambling about Moriarty the Musical Op 3 in-coming so quick — scroll if you don’t wanna see!
The way William’s yearning is portrayed. And Sherlock’s frustration. All the little references to Sherlock being a puppet on William’s strings. The way William is so infuriating and yet heartbreaking in the same breath. I totally get what Shogo meant when he once said, ‘it would be nice if William could be honest.’
The songs.
Spinning Around the Rondo? That entire spectacle. The lyrics, but also the way William steers and manoeuvres Sherlock at his whim … and the fact that they’re dancing with one another. I just. The metaphors. It was everything I needed from them.
I also love how we see the theme of the scarlet thread connecting them — this idea that they’re both attached but William is the one literally ‘pulling the strings’ — again in the scene with the Jack the Ripper culprits murdered. William tugging on an invisible string as he leaves and Sherlock immediately turning up to investigate. Chills.
In This Lonely Room I think is my favourite song from all 5 Opuses. When I say my jaw hit the floor … the dialogue from Albert beforehand — “you seem quite taken with him” ????? Umm. Okay. So it’s not just us then 😂 WILLIAM. You have been perceived 👀
And Shogo’s perfect called-out expression. But the pain in his eyes like … he doesn’t want to be made to face reality. He was having fun with his own little delusions and fixation with Sherlock. He was living in happy denial. Why do you have to go and be all voice of reason and ruin it, Albert?? “It will only hurt you.” EXCUSE ME is this advice on dealing with an unhealthy crush from your older brother time? I DIED.
But anyway. The song. Oh god, the song. Shogo sang it so beautifully and emotionally it made my soul ache for William and he’s like … he’s got this little glimmer of hope in Sherlock and when he LIES ON THE SOFA and sings TO HIS HAND LIKE A LOVER and then CLUTCHES IT TO HIS HEART. I cannot. Breathe.
What were they thinking? HOW can anyone be normal about them after witnessing that?
All of the songs in the second half pretty much ended me, to be honest.
I’m not sure how many times two people need to sing about having each other in their hearts to get the message across. I heard it the first time. And the second. And the third. BOYS PLEASE I UNDERSTAND don’t make it hurt more.
And then … the Durham date? THE DURHAM DATE!?
Ryo’s acting here was so good. The range of emotions he goes through during his talks with William — from notice me senpai to omfg challenge accepted to oh god we just sang about changing the world together do we really have to return to the weighty matter of why I came here — the LOC — after that? To oh shit you really do want someone to stop you to actually the RELIEF because that means you are a good person underneath it all if it’s really you — and I hope it is because I want you to be as obsessed with me as I am with you.
WILLIAM’S SHERLOCK AFTER HE LEAVES? The way he smiles so full it’s visible even with the dimming lights.
And then the final song … the repetition and switching of ‘I hope’ and ‘I will.’
I now fully understand why Morimyu twitter cannot stop saying those phrases and I am fully with everyone because ever since watching Op 2 they have been echoing in my mind but NOW — now I feel them in my bones like a bloody mantra.
Yes, I am dramatic about this. What of it?
😂😭🥹🤦🏼♀️
(Not even gonna start on Op 4 because that also broke me in very specific ways but it still comes in hard second to Op 3 my love.)
#this is why it has taken me so long to finish Ever Ours ch.3#but I hope my writing is the better for it 🤞🏻🤞🏻#morimyu#Morimyu op 3#moriarty the patriot#yuumori#Moriarty the patriot the musical#Yuumori the musical#yuukoku no moriarty#william moriarty#sherlock holmes
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one thing about the art of murder is that altho i am very charmed by it, i definitely think the writing is like. just ok. same with the music. the songs themselves arent *bad* or anything, but i definitely think the lyrics are lacking. as a lyricist myself i get turned off when lyrics aren’t that compelling, and when they’re rhyming words with the same words that came before it, im kinda like ah. ok. its one of these. the style of the music in this show actually reminds me a lot of fucking. pulp musicals. deep cut, i know, but we’ve got two starkid actors in this show so maybe its not that deep of a cut. anyways, pulp features a lot of “talk-singy”, not at times the greatest lyricism, with samey music, except in pulp it works bc pulp is essentially an audiobook or a podcast but they sing through the entire thing. the music for the art of murder just feels boring. HOWEVER, altho i am a hater and a critic at heart, i dont hate this show. i really like it and i think the concept is extremely cute and interesting. im just a musician who notices things.
my theory about how this show will go is that at the end itll be revealed that none of the characters “killed” oc, and that pip tore the paper out herself (i know we just saw the dog with the torn paper in its claws, but i think thats a red herring thatll be explained in sousuke’s episode). i definitely think that this entire show will be a sort of metaphor for social anxiety and stress and feeling as though you aren’t good enough. i believe that itll be structured so that each suspect will have a focus episode, where itll begin with giorgio doin his detective thing, sneakin around, and will end with a song from the character and giorgio concluding them to be innocent, and the whole thing essentially turning into a therapy session. i think in the very final episode pip will be revealed to have “murdered” oc herself - the seeds have already been sown for how much all the characters care about pip, and i think we’ll get more insight on pip’s life outside of her bedroom- particularly, my theory that she is probably dealing with a lot of bullying. i dont know what exactly happened, but i believe some course of events must have occurred to make pip so distraught that she would tear her own art out. it also seems that oc is meant to sort of be a representation for herself, as so many first ocs are. perhaps thats why that was the paper pip tore out. i definitely think this show will have the theme of art being a comfort and represent that with how the characters care about pip. idk im just spitballing but yeah i thought this show was neat 👍
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Outside the kitchen window, a young man builds a machine out of stolen government tech. When asked—dressed in ratty basketball shorts and a threadbare shirt, carrying nothing but a knapsack and fury in his eyes—the young man says he is going to save the world. Three minutes later, an old man—dressed in coattails and a necktie, carrying nothing but a worn pocket watch and love in his eyes—stumbles into Blue’s and Rosie’s living room.
DEAR TIME: MARK BUILT A MACHINE, an 8.3K word modern queer adaptation of H.G. Wells' The Time Machine ▲ Rated 13+ for briefly implied sexual content. || also on AO3.
And I have by me, for my comfort, two strange white flowers—shrivelled now, and brown and flat and brittle—to witness that even when mind and strength had gone, gratitude and a mutual tenderness still lived on in the heart of man. – THE TIME MACHINE, H.G. Wells
I opened the kitchen blinds once the sun had set enough to not incinerate Rosie’s orchids on contact. The backyard was still orange, each blade of semi-dead grass desperate for the sprinkler system to finish another round that won’t come. Once the water was done out front, it wouldn’t make a rotation for twelve hours or else risk a flash freeze when moonlight finally graced it.
Eight to nine in the evening was my time, when I could open the window just a smidge while washing the dishes. We were out of dry soap which meant I had to get creative after going through the allotted three gallons of water. Still, I found peace in the monotone simplicity of making suds I would have to wipe away with a towel if we wanted to have cheese and coffee before bed.
Eight to nine was also Mark’s time to do whatever the hell he was doing out in his yard. “He’s at it again,” I called over my shoulder. “Looks like he’s got a bucket of sticks this time.”
“Stop spying on the neighbors,” said Rosie, standing behind me with her chin on my shoulder.
“It’s not spying if he’s directly in my line of sight.” That meant he was in my yard again, which I didn’t mind so long as he didn’t set anything on fire. “Strange little fellow.”
Mark was one of those government lackeys that fancied himself a scientist— inventor, actually —he would say whenever anyone brought it up. He was never in his lot except for when he was, a rarity that lost its shine the more I began seeing him in the living hours.
Mark was working on something.
In what was his allotted slice of neighborhood, a lot much smaller than the rest of ours due to his secondary accommodation at the fancy science compound, was a large structure. I’d reckon about five feet tall, three feet across, and round. It was hidden beneath a tarp at all hours of the day, which I considered a smart choice given the unbearable heat known to melt tires and spark flames.
“We should invite him over for dinner sometime,” said Rosie.
“I feel like that’d get us on some sort of list.”
“You think so? He seems like a swell guy.”
“Defanged bootlicker. I remember when abuelo would brick shit for normalcy and now they’re working for the same people who hunted them for sport.”
Rosie kissed the shell of my ear. “Times change, Blue.”
“Very shittily.”
“Change is what’s important.”
“You should go lay down,” I said, reaching behind to pat her rotund belly. “Prop your feet up for a while. I’ll come in with those snacks once I’m done.” But Rosie had stopped paying attention to me. I followed her gaze right out the window.
The tarp was gone. Mark had pulled it off to reveal what I took to be an abstract art piece made of scrap metal and quartz.
Metal rods were bent into sloping angles as if to create some sort of carriage, one that had no walls and a stripped office chair as a bench. From that distance I could hardly make out the details, but there were levers and dials and a hatch that hung useless between the rods. There were bits and pieces that glimmered the deeper the sun vanished beneath the horizon.
“Is it a car?” said Rosie, now leaning over the countertop to get a better look. “Some sort of rocket?” I could not, for the life of me, say what the contraption was. “That wouldn’t withstand a moderate breeze!”
Mark paced around the machine, wringing his hands. He looked over and saw us at the window, so we offered a wave. He waved back, although stiltedly, as if he hadn’t planned on being seen while out in the open.
We watched him for a while longer, an eye on the clock or else distraction plunged the interior of our house into a deep freeze. It was twenty minutes before curtains when Mark knocked on our door, sweat-drenched and out of breath.
“Can I have a glass of water?” he said as he stood there in his basketball shorts and threadbare tank top. He was carrying a sizeable knapsack, as if ready to take a month-long hike.
Rosie got him a cup despite my arguing. We were borrowing from tomorrow’s stores.
“Why not come inside for the night?” she said, pleading with the man whose eyes were only a touch darker than the circles around them. “We have leftovers. Meatloaf! Blue was able to pull some strings at the center.”
“Thanks, Rosie, but I’m kind of in a hurry.”
“As you should,” I said, gesturing at the approaching night. “It’s about to get real freaking cold and you’re not even wearing a jacket.”
Mark stood at the door, looking between the two of us with a frown that alarmed me. “Have you chosen a name for the little one, yet?”
Rosie shook her head. “Still too early to know if it’ll make it to term.”
Mark nodded. “I hope it does.” He bounced on the balls of his feet before reaching inside his pocket and pulling out a keycard. “There’re fresh vegetables in my pantry that’ll go bad in about two days. Help yourselves.”
“Are you going somewhere?” said Rosie.
“I hope so. For all our sakes.”
Mark was a very peculiar man indeed.
“They giving you guys leave now? Now there’s one outdated practice I’m not against bringing back,” I said.
Mark laughed. “I hope. Soon. Here’s my key. Please don’t hesitate to take what you need.”
“And when you get back?” said Rosie.
“I’ve got a couple of cans in the basement. That’ll hold me over.”
He looked ill. His hair was long and unkempt, as if grooming were a myth he did not believe in. It might have been put up into a bun at some point, but now it spilled out everywhere where it didn’t linger in clumps.
“Are you alright?” I said and took a step toward him. “You in trouble, kid?”
“No. I mean, maybe? Both yes and no would be proper answers, but I’m going to make sure we stick to the no.”
“Is there anything we can do to help?”
Mark chugged the water like a man at death’s door, then handed Rosie the cup. “This is more than enough. Goodbye.”
Rosie stepped out into the rapidly cooling night, her chanclas slapping the concrete steps as if to stop him. She held onto her belly, that mother’s instinct kicking in. “How long will you be gone?”
“Not long.”
“Where are you going? Mark!”
He turned around with a smile, walking backwards into the far end of my plot he had claimed as his. “To save the world.”
I hurried Rosie back inside and shut the door. “Poor fella’s lost his mind,” I muttered as I led my wife to the recliner in the living room. “If he thinks metal scraps are gonna do much of anything, well. Maybe it is best he freezes.”
“Blue!”
“All I mean is that the time for bright-eyed dreamers has long passed. They’re gonna eat him alive, Rosie! Throw him at screens until his brain goes caput.”
“You’re such a bitter old bastard.”
“But I got us a place to live, didn’t I? Got us a marriage license. Got us to try and grow our little family of two.”
Rosie put her feet up while I closed the rest of the insulated curtains. “Maybe if he had someone. If we had invited him over for dinner.”
A knock on the door startled us both. It was frantic, a thunderous pounding that had me lunging for the antique baseball bat propped up against the defunct humidifier. Not again, I thought. They couldn’t raid us again. We’d done nothing wrong. We’d paid our taxes three years in advance. There was nothing they should demand of us.
“Rosie, go up to the room.”
“Put the bat down, Blue.”
“I’m not letting any of those motherfuckers take any more!”
Then, a wheeze. “Tell me you’re still here,” cried a shivering voice from the other side of the door. Rosie and I exchanged a bewildered look. “Please! Help me!”
It was Mark’s voice.
Rosie threw every blanket over herself and kept low as I inched for the door. The knob was freezing to the touch, and so I used a sliver of my bathrobe to properly grasp it. At no point did I abandon the bat, holding it high above my head in case the situation was in no way what we were expecting.
I stepped aside so that the gust of frigid air would not directly hit me the moment I opened that door. It would have to be quick. “You have one second to get in here!” I shouted, then, without further thought, I swung open the door.
The man was quick, alright. He pummeled through the threshold and collapsed into a heap as I slammed the door shut again. I stumbled back, rubbing my arms to warm them.
Rosie leapt into action, agile for someone five months pregnant. She brought the blankets she had buried herself under and dropped them onto the man—onto Mark, who, after a moment of fussing over his near frozen form, I began to doubt was actually him.
The man who violently shivered on the floor had gray hair shorn short. He was plump, red-cheeked, and carried a five-o-clock shadow. Mark was not a man who could grow facial hair. But most glaring of all, Mark had been at our doorstep not five minutes before this person came knocking.
“You heard it, right?” I said to Rosie, who also stared down at him in confusion. “That was Mark.” Despite that, Rosie wrapped his head in a towel and rubbed her hands over it to generate heat.
We tried our best to keep the man from succumbing to the freeze, to animate him into at least a sit, but the piercing, agonized cry that ripped from his mouth sent us both scrambling away. I stood between him and Rosie, bat at the ready, but all the man did was curl up and cry. I called it crying, at the time, for lack of a better word. What that man did was sob with the entirety of himself, with every electrical impulse that piloted his human body.
It was a cry so grief-stricken and dismal that Rosie echoed it in empathy, a hand over her mouth as tears bubbled along the seam of her eyes.
“Blue, help him, for Christ’s sake!”
“I don’t know what to do! I don’t know what’s wrong!”
The man spasmed, curled himself tighter as he rocked with the desperation of a child in the throes of a nightmare. And so, I did what my father had done for me when my restless mind produced night terrors: I sat by him in silence, my hand on his bicep in hopes that the contact would be enough to bring him back.
Time passed at a crawl, the clock ticking as the man cried and cried without solace until, finally, sleep claimed him.
I checked his pulse to make sure it was just sleep, and it was. He fell right asleep on the thin carpet of our foyer slash living room, sad and changed.
I was unsure of how to proceed. Intrigue got the best of me, and I peeled back the layers of blankets and towels to get a better look at him.
Rosie and I exchanged a glance because the man on the floor indeed looked a hell of a lot like Mark. He had a crooked nose that was once broken and never reset. There was a discolored patch of skin behind his left ear that was common for people who worked in the science department. It was the particular mark that drew my attention to what he was wearing.
Further peeling the blankets back revealed an outfit I had only ever seen in old films, the kind that revolved around fruitless family drama and senseless social etiquette gone awry.
The high collar was held in place by a thick necktie, which I loosened. He was wearing a long, black jacket with tails, and a vest with an elaborate flower pattern in muted grays. A silver chain hung from one of the buttons, and I soon learned that it was attached to a silver watch.
In his hand, Rosie discovered a piece of scorched lilac fabric.
There were a few dozen questions hovering between us, but Rosie asked the only one that mattered: “What do we do?”
In the end, I carried this man who might or might not have been Mark to our spare bedroom and laid him on the bed. I took off his shoes and noticed the holes in his socks, so I covered his feet with yet another blanket. The man looked as if he had gone through Hell. And so, we let him sleep.
***
He slept for a day.
I was out in the yard, plucking the dry weeds that would catch once the sun set, when Rosie shouted for me from the kitchen window.
“I apologize for any discomfort I may have caused on my arrival,” said Mark, wringing his wrists as his knee bounced. “I tried getting into my house but I couldn’t find my key.”
“You left it with us,” said Rosie. She looked to me for backup and I nodded.
“Did I? I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised for not remembering.”
“You in trouble, son? You’ve been acting real weird for a while,” I said. I kept my distance, still unsure of what was going on. The man on the couch was Mark, but he looked like he had aged twenty years in the span of a day. “The center putting you through it?”
Mark took a moment to answer. “How long was I gone?”
“You never left.”
“Oh, Mx. Blue, I sure did leave.”
“For a whole five minutes. Ten at the max.”
Mark shook his head. “I most certainly did.”
“Why the hell are you talking like that?”
“Old habits, I suppose.”
Rosie and I exchanged looks. Mark was a scientist whose enclosure included nothing but holographic screens and an ergonomic chair he was not allowed to sit on or else it’d come out of his paycheck. I should know. My old man worked in a similar field, and I knew for a fact working conditions had not improved. Regardless, it was not an environment conducive to the flourishing of this newfound, old-sounding accent.
“I should explain,” said Mark, scratching at his beard. “I’m sure you both have many questions.”
“Like you wouldn’t believe.”
“You said you were going on a trip, then instantly came back.” Bless Rosie’s patience. “You were so…”
We lapsed into silence, recalling those terrifying moments in which we thought our neighbor lay on our floor dying.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare anyone. I spun the dials without thinking where the machine would spew me out. I didn’t care when or where it sent me, I didn’t care how I got there, I just needed to leave. I needed to get away, to leave it behind.” Mark paused to take a breath; his eyes wide but unseeing. “I needed to run.”
“Anyone chasing you?”
“No one but my demons.”
“I really hope you mean that figuratively.”
“I do,” he said with a saddened laugh. “I stole a machine.”
I knew what he meant. Not the whole scope of the situation, but enough to get me locking the doors and tuning into our lot’s security feed. “What the fuck, Mark.”
“I had to!”
“You had to?”
“Well, it’s more like I stole the parts and built one myself.”
“What kind of machine?” He didn’t answer. “What kind of machine, Mark?”
There were a million and one covert programs the government ran under the guise of making the world great again. Not by bringing back its former glory, but by ensuring we were all kept in line as to not fuck things up further. Keep them in line , pops would say, keep them too busy with tomorrow to think about yesterday .
Mark looked up at me as he twirled the piece of fabric between his fingers. “A time machine.”
Rosie barked out a laugh, holding onto her belly. But when neither Mark nor I joined in her mirth, her face fell. “There’s no such thing.”
“We got the numbers down,” said Mark. “Four years ago. Just a small jump. We sent Carly back, one of the lab dogs, and it came back different. Its cells had aged. They also mutated rapidly so we kept delaying human trials until we were sure it was worth the risk.”
“So?”
“We never got beyond that. Once the patent was locked in, it went to the highest bidder. As far as I can tell, no one’s used it in any way that matters, but who’s to know that’s not how we got here in the first place.”
Rosie looked between the two of us. “You’re not lying.”
“Is that how you got a beard? Radiation?” I said.
“No radiation. I would’ve been dead a while ago.”
“Where’d you go then? To see Harry Houdini?”
Mark stared at me. “His performance at St. Paul was nowhere as groundbreaking as the interwebs proclaimed it to be.”
I scoffed.
He threw his pocket watch at me.
I caught it with ease, my thumb rubbing along the dull surface. The silver was tarnished, and it did not tick. On the back were engravings that seemed faded with age, scratched through with everyday wear.
May we outlast time itself. M. Avery & J. Gray, 1898
“Your father’s name was Matthew,” I said.
“My father wasn’t alive in 1898.”
“Let me see that.” Rosie reached for the watch. “Oh, it’s beautiful. Who’s J. Gray?”
Mark looked away, and no matter how hard his jaw clenched, his bottom lip betrayed every emotion that swam in his dark eyes. He swallowed with an audible click. His knee stopped. The burnt fabric in his hands was pulled taut.
I offered him a drink and he declined with a shake of his head. Rosie offered him something to eat, and he once more rejected the offer.
I sat next to him on the couch. “I gotta start dinner anyway,” I said. “You can talk about it, if you want, or you cannot. Nobody’s hearing shit from us but as far as I see you committed a capital crime and there’s a damn good chance someone’s gonna come looking for you real soon.”
“I know.”
“Then why’d you come back here?”
“I didn’t have anywhere else to go.”
“You said you had no control over it.”
“I guess my heart had other plans.” Mark heaved a broken sigh. “My heart always has other plans.”
Rosie scooted over from the recliner with a knitted blanket, handing it to him before sitting closer. “What about you tell us about the adventure it was? Traveling through time?”
“Rosie,” I said, seeing curiosity get the best of her.
“It’s alright,” said Mark, spreading the blanket over himself without hesitation. “I don’t mind. I’ve done an awful lot of talking these past couple of decades.”
I double checked the lock on the door and, if pressed, I would confess that curiosity had gotten to me as well. “Alright, time traveler. Tell us your story.”
***
“After the Combine Disputes of ’42, I hoped that the CFD sector would allow for the patent to be distributed to medical and development for further testing. When Carly came back, sick but alive, I knew that there would be an end in sight. That, maybe, we might not be able to fix everything, but we could revert the damage done to the soil and at the same time slow down the warming. We had something on our desks, a damn miracle. A vehicle that could fix the now in preparation for the future.
“But then they sold it. And I thought, sure, that’s not fantastic, but we’ve been dancing the same waltz for decades. Maybe whatever trillionaire got their hands on it would see what groundbreaking science they had in their hands and actually make something out of it. Something being better than nothing. But, like always, they shelved it. They put a red mark on it and threw it on their coffee table.
“I couldn’t stand idly by. As you well know, I lost half my family in ’42.
“All I felt was rage. This seething, blinding hatred at the idea that history was going to repeat itself, that it would continue to repeat until every one of us immolates ourselves at sunset or sunrise. I had enough, someone had to intervene. Someone had to do something.
“Everyone in my sector kept saying how tragic it was that we would never see another machine. Blake went on and on about how he would have loved to see his grandmother again. Freya kept on about how they would have loved to see what the world would be like a hundred years down the line. All this wishing and pining but nobody wanted to do anything about it, nobody was thinking on a large enough scale.
“And so I stole a machine.
“I started off small. Rivets and bolts, dials and levers. I backed up the programming to an ambulatory drive and built my own dashboard. I stripped the materials from my house: the metal plating from the saferoom, the iron burners off my stove, my old gaming chair. And I got it. I built my own time machine and I said I’m going to fix the world .”
Mark sat forward on the couch and we leaned forward with him, enraptured.
“While I built it, I gathered information on where the P and VP would be in the coming months. Board meetings, family vacations, scheduled lunch breaks. I kept a list. I chose a date. December 31st, at 10pm. Lofty goals, I admit. The machine hadn’t been that fine-tuned. But I was obsessed. I was reckless, flirting with insanity and with nothing to lose. I was ready.
“After you closed that door I ran for the machine before the frost could freeze both it and me. I hopped into the pilot’s seat, didn’t even check the coordinates, and slammed the button. I didn’t care where it took me.
“It’s important to know that, when time traveling, it’s not just time that needs to be set, but coordinates. The genius behind the technology is not so much the how, but the mathematics that goes into pinpointing a specific location not just on a planetary scale, but on the cosmic scale. As Earth zips through space, pulled by the incredible speeds of our sun, we’re never in the same spot for even an infinitesimally small fraction of a second. The slightest miscalculation and I’d be plummeting through the nothingness of space—suffocating for my hubris.
“It’s an awful feeling, being displaced through time and space. Like hitting the brakes after pushing the limits of how fast a car can go. That drop of the stomach when you think you’re about to crash, so you panic and yank the wheel and slam the brakes. Only you’re sitting stock still. You think you’re dreaming but you’re not. You’re asleep and falling, but you’re awake.
“When the dials on the dashboard stopped spinning, I sat there for what felt like a decade. I had brought no weapon with me, only a plan and the desire to see those who’ve abused us suffer. For the first time since my childhood, I spoke a wish into the universe: please, let me win.
“I then opened the hatch, crawled outside, and lost my stomach onto the lawn.”
Rosie gagged and I got her a cup of water with a lemon wedge. While Mark slept, I had ransacked his place for all the perishables he had on hand, which were enough to keep us fed for a good two weeks. My plan for dinner had been upcycled salmon with lemon zest and rosemary, but after Rosie’s bathroom break, we fell right back into it.
“I very quickly realized that not only was I in the wrong place, but in the wrong time.
“What surrounded me was not the minimalist, all-white nightmare of the CFD building, with its characterless angles and lifeless concrete garden. Oh, no. The lawn was not even a lawn, but a park. A real one. With trees and benches and a fountain.”
I snorted and said: “We still have those.”
“Yeah, in New York,” Rosie quipped. “Let him tell it.”
“Trees, benches, and a fountain. Fairly standard fare, but I wasn’t even allowed the grace of thinking I was in Central Park. Because out of the corner of my eye, I saw it. A large carriage pulled by horses the sizes of cars.
“The shock had been great, but it continued to grow the more I looked around me. Women in large dresses and parasols. Men in tasteful suits and hats. It had been drizzling and I scampered back into the machine, but those people were unbothered by the weather. The rain did not burn away their clothes or scar their skin.
“Then, there was the smell. Smog, oil, pollution so heavy I felt my lungs blacken by the minute. It was dreadful enough that not even the green grass could ease my nose.
“Around me, people began to stop and stare. I had no course of action. My plan was to travel several weeks into the future, not two centuries into the past. I was not dressed for said travels, as you well know. Basketball shorts and tank tops weren’t the height of fashion in 19th century London.”
“I was joking about Houdini.”
“That won’t be for another twenty years,” said Mark. “It was 1876, I would soon come to learn. December 10th. An uncharacteristically warm winter, but still cold enough that lack of a jacket would get me hypothermic in about an hour or so.
“I was so confused that I could not think of what to do. I just sat there, in the shade of my machine, battling palpitations and an anxiety so potent I thought I would faint.
“A man approached me at one point, asked if I was alright, if I needed a clinic. His accent was so thick I could barely understand so I just shook my head. He gave me his jacket… Fancy one, too. Said he could at least get me somewhere dry. That I accepted.
“Every passing minute made me feel more and more delirious. There was a weight in my chest, knowing I had done something wrong. There was the fear that I would lose my window of opportunity, that I would have to replot the entire endeavor, but then I remembered, I have a time machine . I could redo it ten, a hundred, a million times over until I got it right.
“Plus, I was still human. I was still a man of science and curiosity gripped my throat so tight I could not fathom a reality in which I got back into that machine and traveled back to modernity. While not one for history, I was intrigued. If not the Industrial Revolution, then its tail end. Who all was walking those streets alongside me?
“The man whose name I never got paid for a meal and the most disgusting beer I’ve ever had the misfortune of drinking. He paid for a room in a boarding house, then stopped on the second day to drop off some clothing. I thanked him, then never saw him again. He never asked who I was or what I was doing. Probably thought I was some aimless opium addict.
“For several days I wandered the streets of Westminster. In a suit. I’d never worn one before then. I subsided on the snacks I had brought with me, obsessively making sure I kept the wrappers in my knapsack or else alter the course of history.”
Here, the time traveler stopped talking as if slapped across the face. He looked around, worrying his bottom lip as his eyes grew watery again.
“It was all for naught, wasn’t it,” he whispered, and for a moment I feared he would devolve into a sobbing mess once more. “Nothing’s changed. Nothing’s changed.”
Rosie placed a hand over his knee. “It’s alright, sweetcakes. If you need another cry, I’ve got plenty of tissues.”
“No. No, it’s fine. I don’t think I have enough liquid in me for that. England’s very humid and I can feel the moisture evaporating from my body just sitting here.”
“What kept you there after the first couple of days?” I asked, hoping to distract him. “Only so much you can do without money and a prepaid room.”
Mark held the piece of fabric up to his nose, touching it to his cheek. “Every day I would go back to the machine. It was on the third that the constable had a group of men come to remove it. I’m no fighter, I couldn’t have taken them on if I’d tried, but someone else had been walking by at the time.
“They were a sight to behold. Only slightly taller than me, all wrath but in that gentlemanly way that you wouldn’t even notice you were being insulted. I was confused, the policemen were enraged, and they swiftly delivered an indecency notice that was just as quickly paid off.
“That was how I met James. He stood there and argued, said he’d have his employer have a strong word if they so much as touched the machine. Swore it was some sort of contraption set to debut at the Great Exhibition later that year. He’s a cunning one, James.
“When the cops had gone, he was quick to have me follow him. I did so without question, intrigued by this person who, by all contemporary definitions of a man, did not fit the bill.
“It was alarming, really. How easy it was to just be. No one asked questions. Everyone minded their own. Well, except the law. We got served several indecency notices through the years, but James was established enough that no one could touch him.
“He, too, was a scientist, and his hunger for knowledge had enthralled me. To hear another person talk with genuine passion and fiery drive for hours on end… Have you ever experienced that? That deep-rooted trust that comes from baring one’s most vulnerable parts.”
Rosie took my hand and squeezed it.
The time traveler continued. “We became acquaintances, and day in and day out he would ask over and over again who I was and what was the function of the machine. And each time I would tell him I’ll tell you tomorrow . He said but tomorrow never arrives, does it? And we laughed.
“And we shared meals. We shared drinks. We shared stories, and dreams, and one night we sat under the stars—actual stars, out in the open, at night. No fear of instant freeze, no fear of a sunrise that could kill us. He asked me: where you come from, does love exist? I’m certain he meant America. I told him yes. He then asked if I believed that love exists. I said yes.
“Before I came to realize it, it had been a year. We were roommates, and I didn’t have to contribute a dime so long as I continued to provide answers to his pressing questions regarding the still-new technology of the era. Beyond the wrappers, I hadn’t given the future much thought. The butterfly had not crossed my mind, as the only thing on it was James.
“James and his piercing blue eyes and his unrepentant thirst for knowledge. James and his bindings that would sometimes hurt him to breathe, and that eventually he came to allow me to tend to. His ribs were bruised, but it was a price I was intimately familiar with.
“One day, three years into our friendship, I told him the truth. I told him that I was from the future, from a time when nature sought to destroy the beings that had destroyed it. I told him that I had arrived there by accident, with violence and ill-intent in my heart. A man with a mission that had been so easily swayed by a pair of beautiful eyes and boundless fascination.
“Do you know what he said? He squinted at me from behind his glasses, nodded his head and said that he had known all along, that I had mentioned craving burgers months after our first meeting, but the term hadn’t been coined until at least a year later. I knew you were from the future, he said, I’m yet to meet another man as fascinating as me from this century .”
“Even back then,” Rosie murmured.
“Even back then,” said the time traveler, the wrinkles around his eyes deepening with great sorrow. He stared off, lost in a memory that was no doubt fresh—from both yesterday and two centuries ago. “We danced, many times, with my hand low on his back and his on my arm. We swayed. Sometimes in his laboratory, and one time in Dr. Ripley’s conservatory in front of his fellow compatriots. They all took it in jest, a celebratory jig at the end of great discoveries.
“And what a discovery it had been, in my thirty-fifth year of life. It was a discovery that changed the world, the only discovery that has ever mattered throughout the history of man. The night I saw stars of a different kind, where shedding layers was a mark of life rather than a rapid approaching death—or I guess there was a death involved. A little death that was not quite so small, however quick it might have been. What is a man to do after a lifetime of believing he was dysfunctional?
“We laid there for our own eternity, fingers entwined as our breaths eased and sweat cooled. It was the first time I had ever listened to another person’s heartbeat. That steady, rhythmic drum pounding against the shell of my ear with a song that sang I am here, I am yours, we are alive.
“He touched my chest that night in wonderment for more than one reason. He marveled at the scars, at the accommodation—as he called it—from my time. I asked him, against my better judgement, if he would go through with it. He assured me that, while fascinated by the opportunity to do so, his trust in surgical medicine was not that certain. James was an inventor, after all, not a medical doctor. So I proposed another miracle from my time.
“It was then that I became reckless. For years I toiled at the machine for I am no genius, and the spares I had traveled with were limited. The task at hand required improvising tools and programming, all schematics we burned upon execution, but it worked. Once certain the machine worked again, we spent another month doing nothing but menial tasks.
“We sat by the hearth and read books with our legs intertwined. We redecorated. We traveled north and stood at the cliffs, then we went for swims and counted the sheep outside of the train. By that point there was no James and I, but a singular we. An evolution of language. Two lives so entwined that splitting an atom with the technology of that time would have been easier.
“We were afraid. Afraid that I would get lost through time and that we would never see each other again, but I guaranteed him that I would come back. I promised him with every ounce of strength in my heart of hearts that I would return, that I would come home—because home was now a flat in London, with my friend, my love, two hundred years before my birth.
“I succeeded, at least, in that one thing. I made it back here some fifteen years ago, and it is in hindsight that I recall misplacing several of my vials over the course of a year during my youth. I was very meticulous, you see, as one should be with one’s medication. I kept a weekly alarm on my phone lest I forgot to take my shot, and I remember the panic of thinking they had been thrown out without my knowing. They hadn’t been. It was just another me, from another time. This was when things got exciting.”
Rosie entered with coffee, cheese cubes, and a sleeve of crackers. No dinner was going to be made as we followed the time traveler across his journey.
He leaned forward as if to key us into secret, as if his story was not already a tale of great interest.
“I missed by a year. Poor James was beside himself which broke my heart, but after he flung himself into my arms and wept and held me close, I knew that this was it. He was my reason. In that long string of firsts, I got to include being missed by someone who loved me. But I had made it back, and with precious cargo.
“Of course, as most medications suspended in oil, the vials only had about six months of shelf-life. So while James marveled at the concept of disposable needles, I took to the board and reconfigured parts of the machine to suit both our needs.”
“Hold on a minute,” I said, holding up a hand like a grade schooler seeking permission. “You’re saying you refurbished a time machine, a piece of technology you could barely finesse into landing at a programmed time, to keep hormones from expiring?”
“As well as looping to generate an infinite amount, yes.”
I stared at him, gobsmacked. “How the fuck? You’re telling me we have the technology to, what, keep everyone fed? To revive the soil, restore the atmosphere? What else can that shit do, Mark?”
“Blue, your blood pressure,” Rosie said while tugging on my hand. “Take a breath.”
“Take a breath? Rosie, are you even listening? This could—this would—”
“Save the world?” said the time traveler with an expression so grave I was overcome with anger at his despondence. “It’s you who isn’t listening to me, Blue.”
“My ears are open and wax free, buddy.”
“I tried saving the world.”
“Did you? Because it sounds like you stumbled onto some limp-wristed fool and forgot what was at stake!”
“Blue!” Rosie swatted my leg. “You knock that off! Can’t you see the man is grieving?”
I stood up from the couch and paced, hands tucked tightly under my armpits as I counted down from ten. I wanted to punch something. I didn’t.
I knew Mark was grieving. The state of him upon his arrival would forever be emblazoned in my brain, aided by the gut-wrenching wails he had made while he writhed on our floor.
“Okay,” I said, my back to both of them. “You hooked him up with 21st century medicine. Then what?”
Mark shrugged. “That’s it.”
“That’s it? You invented the world’s most revolutionary piece of technology in the 19th century and that’s it?”
“A lot of revolutionary tech came from the 19th century.”
“You know what I mean!”
“Look around you, Blue!” Mark yelled back, shooting up to his feet. “Don’t you fucking get it? I tried! I tried and I tried but nothing stuck! We’re still stuck in the same shithole! Literally nothing changed.”
“What did you do, huh? Tell me one worthwhile thing you did while you were gone.”
“Blue, please,” Rosie said.
“No, I want him to answer me. I want him to look me dead in the eye and tell me what the fuck he did to try to save us.”
Mark clutched his pocket watch.
“You want a list? Because I’ve got a list. Germany, ’33. D.C,, ’81. New York, ’01. Belgium, ’27. Brazil, ’19. California, ’32. England, ’23. Fucking Pompeii, 47.” His voice rose and quivered with every name and date. “London, 1914. London, 1914. London, 1914. London, 1914! May 7th, 1914!” He was yelling now. “You can’t change it, man! What’s lost is lost and you cannot bring it back. You can’t change the past. The people you love, the only person you have ever fucking loved, will die and there’s nothing no time machine, no infinite science, no fucking magic can do to change that!
“I tried to save the world and I couldn’t even save one person.
“I couldn’t even save one.”
Rosie stepped in and swept the time traveler into her arms and he wept with the agony of a starved newborn. Every wail, every sob, rattled the hollow space between my ribs. There was rage in his ragged inhales, a hopelessness that made its home in my heart and spread sinewy tendrils to twist around my veins and squeeze.
It was desolation.
As if the apocalypse had been one sudden explosion that engulfed us all rather than this tortuously slow death we were all living. Took out the frog and shot it before the water got too hot.
Rosie sat on the floor with Mark cradled in her arms, rocking him as he cried. I stood in the middle of the room, unsure of what to do or think.
I decided that it did not matter. Nothing had changed, as Mark said. We had just been told a story like the fairy tales of old meant to inspire hope in the weary, only, this one didn’t have a happy ending. Apt, given the times.
“How long did you get?” I asked.
“Give him a moment.”
“I want to know what happened to James.”
The fabric in his hand ripped, his nails lacerating the frail scrap. It was a fitting soundscape to the tragedy.
When Mark gathered his wits once again, he pulled away from Rosie with an apologetic smile. “I’m so sorry,” he said, but my wife’s only response was to reach over and wipe the tear-streaks from his cheek. “An accident, each time.”
“Each time?” The implication stung.
“It was my fault, the first time. I was tired after a long night in the laboratory and forgot to shut off the gas valves. He wanted a candlelit breakfast the coming morning. Romantic that he is.”
“Fuck.”
“I went back. Fixed it. Then we were mugged. The assailant pulled a pistol on me and James got between us. I went back, fixed it again. Food poisoning this time. It was so ridiculous that all I could do was laugh. So I did it again. And again. And again. I watched James die dozens of times, regardless of what I did. The last time, we were in bed. He was tucked against my side, his fingers drawing half circles over my chest as I counted the stars painted on our bedroom ceiling.
“He told me he had developed a cough. I could hear the wheeze in his chest, and I begged to let me bring him to a time in which I could cure him, extend his life another decade. And do you know what he said? I know what you’ve done, my dear, but death, like time, can only be explored, never conquered.
“May 7th, 1914. I woke up and he didn’t.
“He requested I let him rest. The illness had exhausted him beyond the capability to stand, and his bindings did not help his lungs. He asked me, with my future knowledge of how people like us are interred, to see that they got his name right. So I did.
“One last time, just like the first, I made sure he was tucked in bed before opening the gas valves and lighting the candles. And I laid down with him. I laid down with him and yet I’m still here because time does not understand, time does not care, that I misplaced myself within it. Its laws? Even I cannot fathom how they go.
“James Avery was on his death certificate. Brilliant mind and loving friend on his tombstone.
“We had thirty years.”
Rosie cried into her sleeve.
Despite my shortness, I tried to imagine what it would be like to wake up to a bed in which Rosie was absent, and the terror that twisted my stomach stanched the thought. The mere hint of the idea swelled nausea powerful enough to moisten my eyeballs.
“I threw myself into the work I had first set out to do with half the vigor,” said the time traveler after a long pause. “There is only so much a man in his sixties can do, but I did it anyway. I traveled to the end, the beginning, and then the end again, until the sun enveloped the sky and the oceans were blood-red and all that crawled along the wasteland of this earth were things of indistinguishable size and shape dragging along the shoals, with tentacles used to navigate the endless expanse of nothing…
“And then there was truly nothing, not outside and not inside. Every action, every footprint was but a noiseless echo at the end of all things. We built a time machine, I stole a time machine, and still nothing could be done. Now I am here, where I take time thinks I am supposed to be.”
In the kitchen, the old analogue clock ticked away the seconds.
I had questions regarding that last bit of the time traveler’s tale, whether the writhing monsters and blood sea were literal or metaphor, but how to formulate words escaped me. The three of us sat in silence, drowned in both horror and grief.
Mark’s hair had gone salt and pepper. His left eye was filmy white but he seemed to be able to see out of it perfectly well. He was gaunt, as if he hadn’t eaten in weeks. The time traveler hardly looked like Mark, but it was him. He had aged three decades and two hundred years at the same time. He was an old man in 2061, but he had witnessed the true death of our world.
Twenty four hours prior he had stood at our doorstep in basketball shorts and a tank top, hair unkempt, and scrawny. Fiery. Angry. Rebellion etched into his dark eyes.
Time had no meaning.
Time was only but meaning.
“That is my tale,” said the time traveler, his eyelids heavy. “A story of futility, hubris, and suffering.”
Rosie and I led him back to the spare room once he declined a late dinner. He was fine walking on his own, standing taller and stronger than even myself, but it felt like company was not so much wanted but needed.
I was the first to turn in that night, my head filled with wonder and dread, and a suspicious twinge of something akin to hope. That last one made me curious, and I would discuss the hows and the whys whenever Rosie joined me in bed.
It would have to wait until after sunrise if I wanted to look outside and see if the machine was really there, but until then, we all deserved the rest.
Shutting down the hallway lights, I made my way to the living room to fold the blankets we had used and gather the last of the dishes for the morning. When I lifted the crochet quilt off the floor, the sound of something heavy hitting the linoleum gave me a start. The pocket watch almost clocked my toe, and a piece of machinery that heavy would have left a nasty bruise.
I picked it up.
The tarnished silver now told a myriad of stories, all of which I longed to hear and hoped I would get to in due time.
And there it was again. Hope.
“I don’t think it was a fruitless endeavor at all,” Rosie said once she got into bed. She rolled over as best she could with the size of her belly, her head tucked against my shoulder. “What he did, I mean. Making a machine, going back in time.”
“I don’t think so either,” I confessed, which surprised her. “He did save more than one person.”
“You believe him, then.”
“I do.”
The pocket watch, turned out, was not a watch at all, but rather a locket. Inside was a sepia-toned picture, frayed around the edges with the year 1898 written in elegant cursive on the bottom corner. It was in the Victorian style, but not in the way one expects.
In it stood Mark, dressed to the nines with his hair slicked back and thick necktie making him look unnaturally stiff. This was contrasted by the man who posed with him, just as smartly dressed, slicked back hair and clean-shaven face, but his lips comically pursed. James held a handkerchief to Mark’s cheek, as if wiping something off his face, and his other arm draped around his waist.
They were looking at each other, Mark’s grin infectious, and I could almost see how it had played out. Mark blowing a raspberry, James laughing, arms around each other, a private kiss that would set the photographer in a huff. Two men in love.
“I love you,” I told Rosie, my hand on her belly.
She kissed my brow.
Come morning, the locket would be gone, and the only trace of the time traveler would be the circle of burnt grass on our lawn.
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