#what even are may’s and June’s surnames????????

[cloverconsolass]

Hi! First of all, I love your art, is amazing. If you're still accepting requests, can I request May and June doing an everyday activity? Thank you very much.

This was first time drawing may and June. It was fun 😋

[necronatural]

What's Up With Dante's Name Anyway

It's fairly evident from the start Dante's name is not actually Dante. They express superficial "I've kind of heard of it, but idk what that is" reactions to a number of things, but make it clear that "Dante" is completely alien to them. Their own name!

Notable is that the sinners will write/embroider? their own names on their coats.

You can see Rodion uses her nickname, how she would like to be referred. DonQui's as the standard, a little uneven but clear and readable. Yi Sang wrote his in lowercase. Ishmael started writing hers, then before she finished tore the lower half of the coat off, preventing her from finishing her name. Gregor's is distorted; why that is is unclear, but the top 2 options are "he's right-handed and couldn't fix it once the mistake was made" and "he never learned to write to begin with". His profile seems to be the only one that's been typed out, so either way, he physically struggles to write, thus proving these are written by the Sinners personally.

Now look at Dante's.

They've interpreted the name phonetically. It's so alien to them they don't even know it's Italian. This is absolutely not their name.

Now, important to note Dante is a sinner too! They're in the lineup as #10, and they have a subtitle name just like the rest of them, "DURANTE". Durante is the poet Dante Alighieri's full name; "Dante" is a nickname, a term of familiarity.

Coincidentally, while their profile doubles down on "Dante", their jacket in that profile is written with...what's this??

DURANTE. The subtitle name.

Now, the subtitle names (purpose unknown) are also written out on the sinners, also clearly written by the sinner themselves, in their native language. On their weapons! (Mostly; Yi Sang's is on his bag, and as his knife is sheathed and obscured we can't tell if it's on there as well.)

Notable is Outis, of course;

Her subname is just her name. That's because she's based on Odysseus; "Outis" is a pseudonym, the written word's first John Doe.

This makes the reversal a little strange; going by a LC-assigned pseudonym, but your subtitle is your true name? That doesn't sound right. While it's obvious Dante can't go by their real name (their identity is being withheld for a reason, as mysterious as it may be), something is up!

My current theories are

Funniest possible option: They've been provided with a nickname as their alias, which is alien because absolutely no one has ever referred to them by nickname before

Durante is a surname; they would never be referred to as "Dante" because their first name (notably missing from their promo art's coat) is the one that would get a nickname. Notable that Durante is generally a surname nowadays.

Durante is just an alias, just like Outis', but can no longer be used due to the secrecy around Dante's previous identity

Durante is the name of D corporation (D-corp being where Dante was found, and the region that is soon to experience a mass-death-event of around 200,000 people in June of 985), which they are the CEO/Face of

Durante is the name of a specific role within the D Corporation that is self-evidently very high up, possibly tasked with being the interface for their Singularity (their Star?)

[shitpostingkats]

Pinning Down Every Shinjuku Reapers Hanafuda Suit

In The World Ends With You, there are a total of twelve (named) reapers, each corresponding to a member of the chinese zodiac. They continue this design philosophy in NEO, with all of the Shinjuku reapers being based off a different suit of Hanafuda.

Let's start with the ones we know.

(post does contain spoilers)

Tsugumi - January, Crane

Conveniently, most of the reaper's birth months point to their suit, as well as their noise forms, for the ones that have them. Tsugumi is a new years baby, and Grus Cantus is from the hikari card. (Each suit is divided into four cards, with higher point cards being marked with an animal or object, and I'm gonna be honest, this is about all I know. This post is not a comprehensive guide for how to play hanafuda.)

Ayano - May, Iris

Skipping forward a few months, we have Ayano, born May 18th, and using the iris. Every suit, along with having a month associated with it, also has a plant, which is used on every card in the suit. Ayano is pretty much the only reaper who uses her suits flower, rather than an image from a hikari or tane card.

Shiba - June, Butterflies

Born June 21, his noise form is butterflies. Not much to say. I guess I could point out how he's the only of three reapers who wears a symbol of his suit inspiration on his non-noise-form person (necklace). The other two are:

Susukichi - October, Deer

The deer skull is on his tshirt, as well as being able to see a little of his tattoos, which we see later is also a stylized skull and antlers. Birthday matches; October 13th.

Hazuki - December, Phoenix

Ah, the mysterious Haz. The first of our reapers to have a birth month that does not match his hanafuda inspiration. (According to the official guidebook, his birthday is May 5th)While the Phoenix Cantus isn't his noise form, it is mentioned in the secret reports that he is the one responsible for shaping the soul pulvis into that form. Also, like our previous two reapers, he wears his motif on his civilian clothes, in the little phoenix symbols on his jacket. Him being a phoenix is also likely to make him a further foil to Joshua, as they both are the only mythological animals in their respective groups.

Now lets get into the less clear cut ones.

Minamimoto - July, Boar

I know what you're thinking! "Minamimoto isn't a Shinjuku reaper! Also, he isn't a boar, he's a catboy." Undoubtedly true. But he is used caught up in their scheme, purposefully absorbing the soul pulvis and afterwards Leo Cantus manifests with tusks and a snout. What even more interesting is it's very likely his original noise form was a boar as well. But a boar from the chinese zodiac. While he is a lion in the original game, a lion kinda clashes with the Shibuya hierarchy. And between Sho being process-of-elimination the pig, as well as setting up during week two in Pork City. Which could imply that Leo Cantus Armo is a regression to a more berserk and less enlightened state, literally sending Minamimoto back to his roots, before he radicalized and broke away from the Shibuya Reapers.

Kubo - August, Geese

Like Haz, Kubo doesn't have a noise form, but he does have strong narrative ties to the Soul Pulvis, which manifest as a flock of aggressive birds that fly in a V formation. Also, his birthday is August 14.

According to Nomura, Kubo was added late in the writing process. Initially, Nomura wanted to add two characters, but the writer gave him a concerned look, so he settled for just Kubo. Not only is this incredibly funny, we'll be looping back to this.

Hishima - September, Sake Cup

His surname, Sakazuki, is actually the name of the specific sake cup pictured in the September suit. It's the one you see in used in cermonial exchanging of sake, like weddings or yazuka deals. Considering his subplot with Shiba, themes like "brotherhood" and "marriage" are pretty fitting. Once again, the birth month matches: September 7th.

Shoka - November, Swallow

Asterisk. Once again, the cat themed characters of Shibuya have it complicated.

Shoka's birthday is March 30, which is the suit of the cherry blossom. This is further supported by her surname being Sakurane, which was originally made for the protagonist of NEO, to go with Neku's surname being Sakuraba. However the name was given to Shoka as they thought it fit her better. Internally, she is sort of a dual protagonist, being labelled in the data as ch002 and getting billing right after Rindo's actor in the credits.

But her online alias of Swallow points pretty directly to the November suit, and its tane card which features a Swallow. As mentioned earlier, Nomura initially wanted one more Shinjuku reaper character than we end up seeing in the game, so its possible Shoka got some design elements merged together from two different suits so as to not waste any creative material. Or she's just meant to be both and I'm overthinking it.

Kaie - Febuary, Plum Blossom, Warbling White-Eye

We've got ten out of twelve suits catagorized! This, unfortunately, means we are gonna have to start making some guesses.

Kaie's birth month is no help, being November, where Shoka is already using the Swallow symbolism. If we're continuing the tradition of using animal cards, Kaie is either the warbler or the cuckoo. I'm gonna be honest folks, I'm partial to the warbler just because of Kaie's eyebags.

Anyone else see it?

Also, "warbling" could be a a reference to Kaie's preference to not speak, because while he communicates mostly through text, he does have a few voicelines near the end of the game, which shows us his voice is quiet and with a little bit of a stutter. Also, it leaves the last suit open for:

Tsugumi's brother - April, Wisteria, Cuckoo

I bet you thought I forgot about him! Yes, our last suit is the April suit, represented by hanging wisteria and the cuckoo.

Cuckoo's are, for better or for worse, famous for their brood parasitism: a cuckoo will lay its eggs in another birds nest, and when it hatches, the young cuckoo chick will attempt to push all the other eggs out, so it can have the parents sole attention. Tsugumi and her brothers' relationship does not seem anything like that, but it is worth noting that they are only reapers who are related. I think the cuckoo's parasitism is more likely a reference to how her brother was a high-ranking Shinjuku reaper who nonetheless "betrayed" the hierarchy and tried to defy Haz's schemes.

Wisteria is a symbol of love, longevity, and endurance. His final act in death was to protect his sister, ensuring she would survive.

[juniper-divination-and-witchery]

The Evil Eye in Irish Folklore

In pre-modern Ireland, like in many other cultures, the power of the gaze held immense significance. Practices and customs associated with the evil eye were passed down through generations, and many were collected in The School's Collection in the 1930s.

The School's Collection has proven to be an indispensable asset in my exploration of Irish paganism. However, it can be quite a task to read, classify, and integrate all the materials on any given topic. The following are my notes from what I've encountered searching the records, but I hope they'll prove useful to others.

What is the evil eye in the Irish folk tradition?

In Irish folk traditions, the evil eye was believed to possess an otherworldly power, capable of causing illness, misfortune, and even death.

It was believed that those who possessed the evil eye could knowingly or unknowingly project this baneful magic onto others simply through their gaze. The evil eye could affect many aspects of life including people, livestock, and crops.

This ability is often referred to as "overlooking" or "blinking" in the Duchas records and the terms can be used interchangeably.

In this locality, long ago, it was a common belief, that if people met with any reverses, or suffered any loss of property, the misfortune was due to "the evil-eye," meaning that some person supposed to have an evil eye "overlooked" their property, and that was considered the reason for the particular piece of ill-luck. If a person with an "evil-eye" took particular notice of any animal, for example, the animal would either do himself an injury or pine away gradually. Usually, the possessors of the "evil eye" were not aware that they had such a particular kind of eye, or were connected with other people's misfortunes. Duchas.ie

What causes the evil eye?

There are numerous things that could cause someone to be born with the evil eye (people are generally considered to be born with it rather than acquiring it later in life). Some of the reasons recorded are:

Having the surname Marrinan 1, 2, 3 or Kingfisher 4.

Being born on Whit Sunday (the seventh Sunday after Easter) 5, 6 or on June 29th 7

Babies returning to breastfeeding after being weaned 8, 9

Babies seeing their baptismal towel before it was washed 10

Your Godparents omitting a word during your baptism 11

Prevention of the evil eye

To protect themselves from the ill effects of being overlooked, people developed customs and rituals, the most popular of which included:

Waiting to light their fires on May Day so that the evil eye did not take their luck and profit for the coming year 12

Placing St. Brigid's crosses around the home (and outhouses) 13, 14

Nailing a donkey's shoe to the threshold of the home (this also helped to guard against the Good Neighbors) 15

For animals, placing a Gauldoron Garragh knot on their back would provide protection 16

Using red items (usually cloth) to distract the evil eye 17, 18, 19, 20, 21

Asking God to bless the person or thing being talked about after you suspect an overlooker (a common term for those who possess the evil eye) has spoken about them 22, 23, 24, 25

Jumping through the flames at midsummer 5

Cures for the evil eye

If all your preventative measures failed, there were several cures that could be tried.

For a baby born on Whit Sunday or another unlucky day, the cure was to place green sod over them three times 4, 6, 8

A cure commonly used with animals thought to have been overlooked was to write the overlooker's name (if known) or the entire alphabet (if the overlooker's name is unknown) onto a piece of paper or other burnable material and burn it under the animal's nose so that it inhales the smoke 26, 27, 28, 29, 30

A piece of thatch from the overlooker's house, or even a piece of their clothing can also be burned under an animal or person's nose (or burned and then the ashes put into a drink) to cure the evil eye 27, 28, 29

Water from a place where three townslands meet can cure when sprinkled on the overlooked animal or person, but the person who gets the water must not speak to anyone on their way there and back 30

Forge water can also be used in the same way 31

While the belief in the evil eye has faded over time, the echoes of these traditions can still be felt in Irish culture today. These records serve as a reminder of the deep-rooted folklore and superstitions that once shaped the lives of the Irish people and can help inform our Irish pagan practices today.

[chuuyrr]

dazai celebrating his birthday with his scarlet witch! s/o

bungo stray dogs x scarlet witch! reader

masterlist of the series

╰➤ CW(s): possible bsd spoilers, fluff/comfort content

╰➤ PAIRING(s): dazai osamu

╰➤ SYNOPSIS: in which he celebrates his birthday with you, his beloved who just so happens to be the scarlet witch

dazai osamu was not one for birthdays.

he didn't even celebrate it and would simply consider it as another day as a part of the meaningless cycle he called life.

but that was until you came around.

[surname] [name], his beloved whom he had met and grown to love so dearly since joining the armed detective agency.

you had already planned for dazai's birthday when you found out about it, especially after your coworkers informed you how he just treats his own birthday like any other day, because who in the world doesn't celebrate their birthdays? not on your watch!

"things are going to be different!" was what you told them with a determined gleam in your [color] eyes as they glowed with red psionics.

you organized the entire birthday celebration slash surprise, and it was actually rather simple thanks to your all-powerful "wiggly-woos" magic, which even your lover can't negate because it was a reality-defying skill, but given how perceptive dazai is, it was still a bit challenging for you to lie and hide from him.

it was a good thing you had fukuzawa send him on an assignment so he wouldn't be bored while you worked on the preparations with your coworkers, and you may or may not have had to punish a ranpo-kun when you caught him trying to take a slice of the birthday cake you made.

it was finally june 19, and all of your efforts were worth it, and it was a pleasant surprise for dazai to come to work and find everyone in the office popping streamers in his faces and the entire office decorated with birthday decorations as you stood in the middle of everyone, holding a birthday cake that you baked yourself.

"happy birthday, osamu!" you greeted your boyfriend cheerfully, wearing a party hat like everyone else and holding out his cake for him.

you and the rest of the detective agency watched in awe and happiness as dazai's expression slowly faded into a rare look of astonishment, and it made your heart swell given how he's not one to be astonished given his inherent ability to infer and foresee results.

"you.. you guys didn't have to!" dazai exclaimed, blinking profusely and evidently caught off guard.

"of course we had to! you never celebrate your birthdays!" you exclaimed with a narrowed gaze but still held a soft, loving smile nonetheless.

"and besides, [name] planned this whole celebration out just for you, dazai," kunikida explained with a smile gracing on his lips.

"yeah! [name]-san even baked your birthday cake, dazai-san!" atsushi added.

dazai has had his fair share of relationships, but none of them had ever done anything like this for him, and hearing and seeing how much effort you put into this surprise made his heart race and miss a beat.

the celebration was basic but meaningful. there was candle-blowing, gift-giving, pleasant music playing in the background, happy exchanges of talk, and an entire feast for dazai.

kunikida once let pda off the hook in the detective agency since it was dazai's birthday and you handfed dazai boiled crabs and other meals you cooked yourself in addition to the birthday cake. dazai was a little flustered about it and tried to convince you otherwise, but you still babied and spoiled him regardless.

after a while, you had dragged him somewhere more private after work, where it was just the two of you holding each other's hands.

dazai was once again taken aback when his surrounds became consumed in your chaos magic's red psychic energy, his eyes wide with awe as you warped reality. he watched as his surroundings changed into an environment full with flowers and bright lights hanging from trees as fireflies flew around even.

everything was just romantic and peaceful.

dazai then approached you, wrapping his arms around you and pulled you to him as he rested his forehead on yours.

"your chaos magic never ceases to amaze me," dazai spoke softly, turning towards you after glancing at his newfound surroundings which had been altered down to a molecular level given your ability, "beautiful.. just absolutely perfect, my dear. thank you. just thank you."

"no need to thank me, osamu," you whispered softly, staring into his eyes with a genuine loving gaze, "you deserve it.. even if you don't think so."

"there you go again. reading my mind with your 'wiggly-woos'.." dazai chuckled with a sigh.

"well, it's not my fault your thoughts are so loud and that your ability can't nullify mine," you responded back with a soft giggle.

"that is true," dazai shook his head, sighing once more, but a genuine smile was still playing on his lips as he stared into your eyes, "but.. you know something, dear? this has got to be my favorite birthday so far."

dazai continued to smile before leaning in, pressing his lips against yours as you two began to sway and dance to the romantic music playing softly in the background, "thank you for making it special, [name]. i love you."

"i love you more, osamu," you said back to dazai, kissing him this time yourself in return, holding it a bit longer to make it more passionate and sweeter, "you deserve to have a special birthday, and more special birthdays like this in the future even."

"you really think i deserve special birthdays, darling?" dazai stared into your eyes with slight uncertainty.

"it's a celebration of your life, osamu. of you existing and still being here.. it's not just another year, but rather a chance and a milestone, you know?" you replied with a genuine and bright smile.

you then gently took one of his hands to cup your own face in it as you looked up at him, "you deserve to celebrate your birthdays, osamu, and now that i'm here, i'll always be here to do that with you from now on."

dazai's eyes lit up upon hearing your words.

you and dazai continued to sway and dance, and as the two of you did, dazai couldn't help but think of how special this birthday of his was, not just because of the surprise celebration or the boiled crabs you made in addition to the cake, but simply because of you.

dazai has indeed found the one. someone who actually cared about him; loved him, and it brought a genuine grin to his face, with the empty void in his chest being filled with your light and love, giving him a purpose in life, as he looked forward to celebrating his birthdays in the future now that he had someone like you to do so with.

[ author's note ! happy birthday to our babiest girl, dazai osamu. i hope you guys enjoyed reading this too! (๑>ᴗ<๑) ]

[ join my taglist, perhaps ? @atomi-mi @anonymousewrites @magpiemissy @anqelically @96jnie @lovesick-fairy @soleelia @celestair @irethepotato @nianre @sigmasdarling @lenasvoid @bloobewy @sittingalonereads @weedswitch @achlysyo @youdidntseemehere21 @just-here-reading @idunnomynamesince2005 ]

[crimsonlyinglilly]

Day 8 “This is your last chance.”    

| Drowning | Chair | Prisoner Trade |

Not truly doing June of doom, no matter how fun it looks, real life is busy but a few prompt look promising.

So more from The Caged Founder- where the Strix find out they may die with Elijah and had take steps.

Will be posting these in order of happening, as likely won't manage to fulfil all the days of June of doom.

Aya learn the difference between old vampires and an Originals.

----

Elijah had been traveling alone for just around a year since Mikael had descended upon New Orleans, burning the city and splitting his children.

They had no idea how long before the Mikaelson siblings would regroup so had to take their chance, claim their sire now and have word spread he returned to them on his own.

They had planned for it, gathered up their strongest and oldest, some of them were just a few decades younger than him; it should have been an even match.

It wasn’t.

It’s the first time Aya faces what Mikaelson truly means, not just a surname; the moment Elijah realised they meant to catch him he stopped being the kind intelligent man she admired and resented for leaving her.

She sees the moment curiosity turns to coldness, amusement to annoyance, when they went from once friends to object in his way.

He was the son of Mikael the destroyer and he proved it by tearing through her people. 

Elijah grinned, it was sharper than the wide one he shared with them over candle lit debates. 

Mikael had the same grin when centuries ago one of her people broke and begged for his life in return for where the Mikaelsons siblings had fled. 

Mikael had killed him anyway.

His hair’s darker and the eyes aren’t blue but as he snaps her neck he’s a copy of the beast that had destroyed their home centuries earlier.

—-

She revived in time to catch quiet but cold words.

“This is your last chance, Gavriel.“

“We can’t leave you free.” Gavriel replied without a tremour in his voice.

“That’s a shame.” Elijah says and Aya knows he means it, can hear his regret but that won’t stop him from killing.

She managed to sit up again to see the pair dart towards each other, Gavriel armed with his blade, while Elijah was still weaponless.

For a moment in the stillness after they clash she notices the blood on the blade, and naïvely thought he had won

Then she caught the sound of a soft thud and her attention was ripped from the dripping sword tip to the heart now by Elijah’s foot, the slash across his chest healing to leave the torn and red drenched fabric.

Elijah looked around barely paying any mind as Gavriel fell, crashing onto the floor.

She remembered watching them spend hours in debate once, Elijah letting the other man pull him under his arm and yet Elijah had killed him and others without barely blinking.

Tristan had thought sentimentally would win them some reason, some hesitation.

She hadn’t thought they would need it.

She was wrong.

—-

Aya is the one to lead the capture and one of the few to survive, she knows she shouldn’t have, Elijah had his hand around her heart, all he had to do was pull it out and move on to the other few and he would have been free. 

Fifty reduced to eight, her and two other of the vampires she had taken were all that was left while the witches had lost two of their number.

Elijah had killed 39 vampires, most over six centuries old some almost as old as him, and yet he hadn’t been slowing after that, they hadn’t even managed to tire him.

The Originals were monsters to even them.

Tristan was right, it was sentiment that stopped him, he hesitated as he caught her, hand in her chest around her heart and instead of killing her and moving on, he had paused.

And the witches had started chanting.

He had hesitated and in that moment it had cost him.

Still feeling the spell target him, he hadn’t just killed her, he had taken time to let go of her heart and pull his hand free.

He dropped her, allowed himself a moment to attempt to shake the growing heaviness, dizziness the spell was causing before he spotted one of the witches and started to move towards them.

Aya gathered all her strength, ignored her still healing chest and lunged grabbing his arm, pulling off balance he looked back at her in shock and confusion before he saw the spell catch him and his eyes roll backwards, sending him backward onto the floor.

In his forced sleep he almost looked like the man she had once watched seep on peaceful happy mornings, if only his was splatter with the blood of her people.

She smothered her remaining feelings for Elijah as the witches descended upon him, enchanted chains to weaken him and talisman to keep him asleep until they returned to their stronghold, the one prepared to hold Elijah until they found a way to break their link to him.

Instead she cast her eyes around at the broken bodies of her people, her chest aching from where his hand had been curled around her heart.

This was for the best.

[grox-empire]

Sorry for bugging with questions again, but I was curious about two unrelated things about your daybreak grox fellows. I may or may not have gotten a tad inspired, I will say.

What is the typical naming scheme of grox? When looking up the three names I recalled off the top of my head, 2/3 were greek, and I was unsure if that was coincidence or intentional. Is there a limit of length or syllables within a name? Are surnames present? Code names? Are fodder grox addressed by name or by some form of serial code?

Is there a specific style to the the cybernetics that grox have? Are there any design taboos regarding those? Are limbs able to be designed to be plug-n-play, or are all artificial parts permanent?

Thank you for your time, and I do apologize if the paragraph worth of questions was a bit much. I just find the world you’ve created to be facinating, and want to learn more.

The whole greek naming thing was wholly unintentional. I mostly just choose Grox names based on what I feel fits them, And a lot of those names just so happened to be greek because I liked them. In earlier drafts I did attempt to stick to the scheme but ran out of names INCREDIBLY quickly, and also realized it made no sense. But there is in-universe reasoning for their names! A grox typically chooses their name themself (like in Epsilon's case) or it is chosen by their Progenitor(s) (In Altair's case.) Celeste is a special case... She's trans! She had another name (Which I can't say because 1. I would feel bad deadnaming her even though she is a fictional character and 2. It's a spoiler) but chose "Celeste" herself. A name is seen as a form of privilege, That unfortunately, Lower-class grox don't often get. Fodder grox are addressed by serial numbers, Whereas higher ranking grox do have serial numbers, but they are typically "cleaner" and addressed by name instead. Epsilon's full serial number is ZYG-NTL-ZV005-1568945-EX-540169-062T1R1661, Usually shortened to EX-540169 when he is being addressed. Decoded, This would mean: ZYG-NTL = Zygote Natal, The company that owns the nursery he was created in. ZV005 = Facility 005 on Zuvius-9. 1568945 = 1,568,945th Batch produced by Facility 005 EX = Expendable 540169 = His personal serial number and what he's most commonly reffered to as by higher-ups 062T1R1661 = Date of creation. Which can be further decoded as such: 0.62/1 | R1661 A.E (Born 62% of the way into third 1 of rotation 1661, After Erebus. Would put his birthday sometime in late june to mid july.) (This would make him a cancer and that is hilarious to me for reasons that only my friend group knows but that's besides the point) Grox have a fucked up date system i'm probably going to go into on another post.

No, Not really! Most artificial parts are permanent, Attached directly to the nervous system. Grox are a near perfect balance between biological and inorganic, If you were to dissect one you would see a near perfect entanglement of organs and mechanical bits. Even a young, seemingly fully organic grox kitten born with all parts intact would be biomechanical- Nanobots build their internal cybernetics as they're developing. Most fodder soldiers and other low-ranking grox have fairly unspecialized cybernetics, While higher ones will often have ones made for practical (Like Altair's arm, Which (I don't convey this very well) has a hand that is able to be swapped out for a gun) or purely decorative purposes (like the gold-colored claws seen on Gula). The style of a grox's cybernetics depends largely on the manufacturer and planet they live on. Rather predictably, As a result, Grox culture is focused heavily on body modification. There are huge underground markets where even fodder soldiers are able to get some, But these are often seized. The sunrise rebellion has all of these restrictions lifted, They tend to paint or modify their cybernetics as a form of protest. One final tidbit: Both a mostly organic, intact grox with only internal cybernetics and chestplate and a grox that has had their body almost wholly replaced by cybernetics are seen as being of high status.

Not need to be sorry for these questions! I love answering them :)

[queenoffishingandcookies]

Thalassa: Edge of the Abyss - Trying to Figure out the Timeline

The story is presumably set in the later months of 1905.

You play as Cam, an experienced deep sea diver who once served on the ship S.S Thalassa, alongside a crew with excellent capability.

Cam, in-game, has neither voice nor their own character picture profile as the others do when speaking. This can be a bit odd, however, as the other characters will respond as though Cam has said something.

Even in a group photo, Cam is always seen covered head-to-toe in standard diving dress - likely a bid for a person of any gender to be able to identify with them, and better submerge themselves in the story.

A BRIEF BACKGROUND OF STORY:

The S.S Thalassa, commissioned by a woman by the name of Isabel Greenwood, had a mission to recover relics from the Spanish Galleon her family once owned, known and named as the St. Catherine - and perhaps eventually raise her from the seabed, where it had laid for roughly three hundred years.

After the personal and traumatic loss of a close friend and teammate on a dive gone wrong in early May - due to an accident caused by the collapse of a faulty lift crane - Cam takes a leave of absence from the ship, plunging into a deep depression once the shock of the event clears.

This actually serves as the prologue of the game, and is considerably graphic as Alex - Cam’s friend and diving partner - drowns before the player on camera. After the crane fell, carrying in the net several heavy artifacts from the wreck, she was promptly trapped beneath the broken mast of the St.Catherine which punctured her dive suit - which filled with water.

Bailey Tulloch, the diving assistant aboard the S.S Thalassa, also took a leave of absence in order to keep an eye on Cam’s health, while an inquiry was opened as to the cause of the incident which took the late crewmate’s life.

It was this decision that saved both their lives.

A few weeks later after their departure, on what should have been a routine voyage to and from the St. Catherine’s diving site, the S.S Thalassa sends a distress call on July 8th, 1905... before sinking for an unknown reason, not a glimpse of the vessel to be seen by rescue ships upon arrival at the last known location. No lifeboards from the vessel are found, either.

All hands aboard her are deemed lost.

With a lack of investigation coming from the mainland, and the family of the presumed deceased crew needing answers, Bailey and Cam - the only ones left - head for the last known location of the S.S Thalassa after months of searching, with plans to dive, if possible, on where the wreck was believed to be.

To find out what caused the sinking, and what happened to their crew - and even, additionally, the presence of several others.

TRYING TO FIGURE OUT THE IMMEDIATE TIMELINE:

When I was reading reviews of the game out of curiosity, trying to find the characters surnames (because I really only know Bailey, Isabel, and Maria’s), one line in the review stated that several years had passed since the incident - which I didn’t think was possible.

- The game’s summary on steam states, without a doubt, that it is 1905. Meaning, the main game is 1905.

- In the game’s opening, even before Cam has been sent down in the water and has begun the trek to the S.S Thalassa’s wreck, Bailey mentions it has been months of Cam in a deep depression - drinking heavily, and not often cleaning up after themselves.

- In other words, months since Alex’s death, at the very least.

- S.S Thalassa last set sail from port-au-Prince in Haiti, on June 27th, 1905. According to a map on Bailey’s ship, it was roughly a seven day voyage to the St. Catherine site.

- We also see, pinned to a board, that the S.S Thalassa’s last message - an S.O.S call (which had originated first in Germany on April 1st, 1905, though only became international regulation in 1906) - was dated on July 8th, 1905.

- We can assume this is around when the ship went down, because when reaching the wreck of Thalassa, there is an S.O.S message response from another ship still attached to the telegraph machine.

- After Cam has entered the water and begun making their way to the wreck, Bailey specifically states that the news of the sinking came only a few weeks after they left following Alex’s death, or roughly a month when taken as a whole measurement.

- Meaning Alex may have died at some point in either very early June or mid-late May, or even early may, since I think ‘few’ most commonly is attributed to a span of two or three weeks, but it depends on the person and what’s being talked about - and again, it was at least seven days back to the nearest port, a week, if that was where they went.

- I don’t know where Alex lived, and it’s not mentioned in game where she was buried as far as I’m aware (don’t have the game, can’t open character screen though I know it exists, which is also why I know no one else’s surnames) - so it’s entirely possible that Cam and Bailey brought her body home from port-au-prince on another ship, and arranged her funeral while Thalassa eventually continued on - to her sinking.

- But still, without a doubt, that means both Alex’s death and the sinking of the S.S Thalassa still occurred in 1905, relatively closes together, May-June 1905 specifically.

- Later on in the game, when investigating the investigation into the crane incident, you do find purchase records of the crane parts dating back to May - which I think means they were replaced around then, implying the accident - again - occurred possibly mid-late May 1905.

- I think most people assume it happened several years ago, due to a group photo Cam accidentally steps on upon first entering the wreck, which he states was taken two years prior (in 1903).

- Which wouldn’t be feasible, as at the time of Alex’s death there were actually at least two other members of the dive team - Llewellyn and Mathias - who aren’t in the picture, although they should have been, if the wreck occurred that long ago.

- This can be explained away by saying one of them took the picture, but i find it more likely that that maybe they joined the crew some time after the photograph was taken.

- Again, the wreck of the Thalassa is known to occur in 1905, and Alex’s death was also implied to have been in 1905, fairly recently - not 1903.

- As far as I’m aware though, Llewellyn and Mathias are never again mentioned after the prologue, where Mathias was badly injured by the fallen crane and all the debris or falling artifacts in the net it carried.

- When Cam dove, it looked like a broken leg, as you can see the two. Llewellyn made to bring him back to the surface, while Cam went to look for Alex whose’s equipment was damaged.

- Llewellyn was likely the one, also, to bring Alex’s body back as Cam was in shock having seen her drown, and Mathias was very badly injured.

- At the very least, they weren’t on the ship when it sank a few weeks later (as far as I’m aware).

- Mathias couldn’t be with his leg, and perhaps like Bailey, Llewellyn took a leave of absence to help him - or, simply quit due to the loss of life, because trauma can do that to people. Sometimes, even if you love a job, you can’t go back to it after losing a friend to it.

- Seriously, if anyone’s aware of what happened to those two, please tell me. I was wondering It maybe it was the surname of other crew members and they were aboard, but I don’t know. Help.

- News of the Sinking of the Thalassa broke on July 18th, according to the newspaper Cam had been looking at, prior to the dive. As Bailey heard the news over the telephone, we can assume that they heard of it from someone else sometime before.

- Unfortunately, I have no clue when exactly in 1905 that Cam dives on the Thalassa. Again, all we have in reference to that, was that months have passed since Alex’s death and the subsequent sinking of the wreck.

SO.

TIMELINE OF THE IMMEDIATE THALASSA STORY:

Essentially, not including all the other background stuff, like when the Thalassa was made or the St Catherine, etc etc.

May - June 1905: The Crane Incident / Alex’s Death

- On a routine dive to the wreck of St. Catherine, the crane of the S.S Thalassa breaks down under the weight of several recovered artifacts, including the large figurehead of the St. Catherine, which comes directly over the head of the three divers - Mathias, Llewellyn, and Alex - already in the water. Contact with the three is lost on the surface.

- Cam, who had been requested to check on the ship’s cradle to see if it was ready to lift the ship’s bow, which it was not, and so plans were just being made to instead look at other dig sites around the wreckage for other artifacts, was the only diver out of the water. As the crane collapsed, they were in the process of being suited up by Bailey, and immediately went to go down and see what had happened.

- Though Llewellyn seems uninjured, Mathias’ leg was badly broken by the fallen artifacts or debris from the ship. Llewellyn was to bring Mathias back to the ship as he could not do so himself, while Cam went to find Alex, who had been on the other side of the bow when the incident occurred.

- Cam would find Alex pinned beneath the broken mast of the St. Catherine, with a compromised diving suit. She stated she could not feel her leg, and that her suit was filling with water. Alex’s telephone system was damaged, she could neither send messages nor receive them, thereby reliant on signals alone.

- The mast was bound by thick rope, which made it difficult to free Alex’s leg. While Cam attempted to saw through the ropes with the diving knife, the movement aggravated the flooding of Alex’s dive suit while Llewellyn was on his way to their side.

- Cam was unable to cut the ropes before Alex’s suit flooded. Her suit flooded with water, and Cam was only able to watch as her helmet flooded, and she drowned in front of them.

- Cam subsequently went unresponsive to any calls through the telephone system, and would be found by Llewellyn hugging Alex to them, before Llewellyn pulled them away from her body and back to the ship.

- Presumably, Llewellyn would later dive to recover Alex’s body, before the weather turned and the S.S Thalassa was forced to return to port.

- It’s requested by several others that the crew have time to recover and heal from Alex’s death.

JUNE 27TH, 1905:

- The S.S Thalassa departs from port-au-prince in Haiti for a routine voyage to the St. Catherine digsite.

JULY 8TH, 1905:

- The S.S Thalassa sends out a distress signal, with its coordinates. These coordinates are later used to find the presumed wreck site.

- Presumably, the Thalassa sinks. A telegraph message is found in the machine, when Cam reaches the site, which implies messages were still being sent out and received.

July 10th, 1905:

- A rescue ship arrives at the last known location of the S.S Thalassa. No sight of the ship, or any lifeboats in the area.

- Essentially means the Thalassa could have sunk at any time on the 8th, 9th, or 10th (prior to the other ship arriving)

JULY 18TH, 1905:

- News of the sinking of the Thalassa is published in newspapers. By this point, the belief is that every person aboard has died as no bodies, or lifeboats, were found.

- An investigation is launched into the missing, presumed sunken, ship.

UNKNOWN DATE, 1905:

- The investigation into the Thalassa’s sinking is called off, much to the frustration of others (ex: Bailey, who refers to them as the damn bureaucrats).

- Bailey begins looking into the sinking of the Thalassa, and at some point begins correspondence with Ethel Jackson, the fiancé of one of the lost crew members - Kaymar - who entreats for any information, for closure, as they have given up hope for the crew’s return.

- Cam and Bailey reach the S.S Thalassa’s last known location, and dive in hopes of finding the wreck. Bailey (when getting Cam up) and Cam (in the main hub of the Thalassa) both have mentioned that it has been months since Alex’s death and the wreck, by this point.

[opera-ghosts]

D’ALTON, Helen [SHEA, Mary Ellen] (b South Terrace, Cork, c 1850; d 5 Curlew Street, Horsleydown, London 16 March 1893)

'One of the purest contraltos to which the sister isle ever gave birth' (The Standard, 1874).

Irish mezzo-soprano who found success as a ballad singer in the 1870s and 1880s.

Mary Ellen Shea was born in Cork, the daughter of John Shea, Esq., JP (b St John’s, Newfoundland 2 July 1803; d St Anne’s Hill, Blarney, Cork 9 October 1858), a merchant, magistrate and sometime mayor of Cork, and his wife Mary Agnes née Corbett (m 21 April 1836). Shea and his father-in-law, Dan Corbett ‘of South Mall, Cork), were leading lights in the organization of Cork’s National Exhibition of 1852, and Corbett was also known locally as a ‘jovial’ amateur actor and vocalist.

Mrs Shea ‘of Buckingham Place’ gave birth to a son, Henry John Francis on 14 June 1837, another on 24 May 1842, another on 18 July 1843, lost an Edward C (‘fourth son’) 5 October 1844 aged 2 1/2 … but doesn’t seem to have gone to the press with the birth of her ‘?only’ daughter.

Miss Shea studied singing with Mrs Charlotte [Sims] Reeves, and came out, for what seems to have been the first time, under the name of Mlle Hélène D’Alton (an improbable, but Irish high-society, surname), at an Ash Wednesday Concert at Drury Lane, 10 February 1869. She gave ‘Il segreto’, ‘O Rest in the Lord’ and joined the Doria sisters in the Athalie music. 

Later in the season (31 July), she sang at the Crystal Palace, alongside Christine Nilsson, Clarice Sinico, Vernon Rigby and Foli, and was favourably noticed as ‘a young lady with a very pleasing contralto voice who sang touchingly the devotional air ‘O Lord, Thou hast searched me out’ from The Woman of Samaria and ‘Gentle troubadour’. The Morning Post confirmed ‘[she] ‘sang her two airs most beautifully. She has a remarkably touching quality of voice and her style is polished and confident; her voice, a mezzo-soprano of unusual clearness, travelled to the extremity of the transept with brilliant effect’.

Mlle D’Alton was engaged to appear at George Wood’s Saturday Evening Concerts at Exeter Hall in the new year, alongside Reeves, Santley, Foli and Mlles Sinico and Monbelli (‘The Gipsies Home’, Barnett’s ‘Old Familiar Friend’), after which she accompanied Santley, Mlle Sinico and another pupil of Mrs Reeves, Annie Edmonds, to Ireland (‘the Santley concerts’) and on 17 February 1870 made her first professional appearance in her home town (‘The Gipsies' Home’, Levey’s ‘Baby Mine’ and ‘Come Home, My Sailor Boy’, Blumenthal’s ‘When we are parted’, ‘Sainted Mother’ with Miss Edmonds). The reviews paid homage to her late father, and Ireland confirmed: ‘This young lady has a voice of great richness, uncommon compass and fine free tone. She sings with judgement, proves a good education, and excited a genuine admiration. She is likely to be very successful.’ ‘She always sings with truth, has admirable restraint, never exaggerates, and is sure to please’.

Back in London, Miss Helen D’Alton was billed with another young Mrs-Reeves-trained vocalist, the Scottish Jane Allan Stephen, in Sims Reeves’s Benefit concert (18 March), and over the following seasons, the said Miss D’Alton would appear, on frequent occasions, on concert bills in which Reeves was starred, both in London and in the provinces.

In between, she appeared at the Crystal Palace (14 May 1870) with the stars of the Italian opera, at the Glasgow Saturday Evening Concerts (‘Scenes of youth’, ‘Rich are rare were the jewels’, ‘Looking Back’), and made a single Ash Wednesday appearance at the Boosey Ballad Concerts (22 February 1871, ‘The Blind Girl’s Dream’ with ‘genuine feeling and expression’, Hawes’s ‘I’ll speak of thee’ and ‘O’er shepherd’s pipe’ with Santley). She gave her ‘Blind Girl’s Dream’, alongside Reeves and Santley, at Leicester, and, on 29 April 1871, she sang the title-role, alongside Mme Lemmens-Sherrington, Reeves and Patey, in Roeckel’s cantata The Fair Rosamund at the Crystal Palace and, the following year, his The Sea Maidens ('Maiden Muriel'). At Mr Austin’s concert she sang ‘I dreamed I was in heaven’ from Naaman, and she ventured wholly into oratorio with a Messiah with the National Choral Society, the Rossini Stabat Mater at the Covent Garden proms, an Israel in Egypt with Reeves at the Sacred Harmonic Society and in Carter’s Evangeline at the Albert Hall.

The oratorio experience was evidently not wholly convincing. Over the years that followed, Miss D’Alton would appear, on occasion, in oratorio – from The Messiah (‘scarcely seemed equal to the contralto music’, Manchester, 'scarcely powerful enough for so large a hall' Birmingham) to The Light of the World and The Prodigal Son (Manchester, 7 February 1874), Judas Maccabeus at Bristol, Jephtha/Last Judgement at Cardiff  -- in the provinces, but her frequent London engagements were almost entirely in concert, where her evident speciality was modern ballad music. Pieces such as Mme Sainton-Dolby’s ‘He thinks I do not love him’, Sullivan’s ‘Golden Days’, The Distant Shore’, Looking back' and ‘Will He Come?’, Odoardo Barri’s ‘Mizpah’, ‘Love’s Golden Past’ and ‘The Shadow of the Cross’, Virginia Gabriel’s ‘A Shadow’, Gounod’s ‘Oh that we two were maying’, ‘Meeting Again’ by Cotsford Dick or Charles Salaman’s ‘Eva Tual’ and ‘Loved One’ were delivered in her ‘tuneful contralto voice and unobtrusive style’, her ‘excellent contralto voice and unaffected style’, to good effect. Very occasionally an operatic piece – ‘Ah! s’estinto’, 'Araby, dear Araby' or ‘Quando a te lieta’ – would appear alongside the new ballads, and the classic ones ('The Harp  that once through Tara's Halls, 'O, Erin my country', Samuel Lover’s ‘What will you do, love?’, 'John Anderson, my Jo', 'By the sad sea waves'), a little more frequently an item from oratorio (Hiller's 'Lord, whom my immortal soul'), but rarely did Miss D’Alton venture into the world of the dramatic. I spot her, in 1874, singing in a selection from The Bohemian Girl at the Albert Hall, in 1875, during a modest appearance at the Norwich Festival, as a late replacement, she sang in some pieces of a local operetta, The Science of Love, and in 1878 she took part in a concert performance of Il Trovatore at the Royal Aquarium.

Miss D’Alton, in fact, became quite a regular at the Royal Aquarium where, apart from ballads and the ephemeral operatic experience, she also sang several times in the Stabat Mater (alongside the fireworks and freak shows), and she became an equally familiar presence at the promenade concerts staged annually at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden. She took part in these ‘proms’ as late as 1887. On several occasions, too, she appeared in the prestigious Boosey Ballad Concerts (‘My Love has gone a sailing’ by Molloy, Linley's ‘Primroses deck the bank's green side’, ‘The Bailiff’s Daughter of Islington’), but without becoming a regular participant.

For a number of years, the 'clever and popular young vocalist' went on the road with Sims Reeves, in varying concert party combinations, alongside Gertrude Cave-Ashton, Foli, Agnes Larkcom et al – and again with Edith Wynne – but her name appeared, it seemed, most frequently on the ballad sheet-music which flowed from the various publishers’ lists: Cowen’s ‘The Better Land’, 'Love and Duty' and ‘A Song and a Rose’, Molloy’s ‘The Old Street Lamp’, ‘The Harbour Bar’, Ignace Gibsone’s ‘The Missing Ship’, Roeckel’s ‘Poppies in the Corn’ and 'A Midnight Song', Stephen Adams’s ‘In heart we both are young’, ‘The Children of the City’ and ‘True Hearts’, ‘I cannot forget’, Blumenthal’s ‘The Old, Old Story’ and ‘Lucy Gray’, Moulton’s ‘Beware’ and ‘I love my love’, Fanning’s ‘Something sweet to tell you’, Campana’s ‘Her Faithful Heart’, Milton Wellings’s ‘Young love that slumbers’, Owen Hope’s ‘In Happier Days’, Caroline Lowthian’s ‘Gates of the West’, Malcolm Watson's 'A Winter Story', as an adjunct to Antoinette Sterling on ‘The Lost Chord’ and to Mme Sainton-Dolby on a number of songs, and, latterly, on the songs of Isidore de Lara ('The Garden of Sleep', 'Once and For Ever'). As late as 1889, Miss D’Alton appeared on the bills of the Monday pops, with a new song by Maude Valerie White.

By the middle of the 1880s, however, she was appearing much less in public and, apart from the Covent Garden proms, largely in charity concerts and on fashionable society programmes. By the time, in 1889 (14 August), that she became the wife of Mr Fallon Percy Wightwick MD MRCS LRCP MB, a well-known medical man, she was appearing only a handful of times a season.

Helen D’Alton’ died just a few years after her marriage, and her obituary insisted that she was ‘a few years ago a highly popular contralto vocalist’. Which was more or less true. ‘Tuneful contralto voice and unobtrusive style’ had probably described her better.

It also insisted that she was thirty-eight years of age. Which was not true at all.She (vocalist, aged 20) and widowed mamma (52) can be seen lodging in Salisbury Street, Westminster in 1871 …

[nesiacha]

Fernand and Helene Iveton a couple in the Algerian revolution ( part I)

Fernand and Hélène Iveton

Today, I come to pay tribute to one of the most fascinating couples who inspire me with the utmost admiration regarding the revolution (the Algerian Revolution): Fernand Iveton and Hélène Iveton, née Ksiazek. On the surface, everything seems to contrast between this couple: he looks older than he is, while she appears younger than she is; he is a communist pied-noir (from the Algerian Communist Party), whereas she harbors deep distrust towards communism due to her father's persecution in Poland. Yet, they are united by love as well as their fight against the injustice faced by oppressed people and an unparalleled bravery. They could have simply enjoyed their love, but they took all the risks to help the oppressed and participate in the liberation of a colonized people (namely the Algerians).

Fernand Iveton was born on June 12, 1926. He was a child taken in by the public welfare system (he was born to a Spanish mother named Incarnacion Gregori, who died when he was two years old). His father, Pascal Iveton, took him in and gave him his surname. Along with his communist family, he was one of the few pied-noirs who refused to despise Algerians (which was rare, to be honest). Pascal Iveton was dismissed under Vichy in 1940 due to his communist convictions. Fernand, although following in his father's communist footsteps, was rather isolated and focused more on his role within the CGT as a union delegate. He was a close friend of Henri Maillot, also from the PCA, who was equally outraged by the injustices suffered by Algerians. The horrific events of May 8, 1945, only strengthened their convictions for an independent Algeria (here’s a quick summary of what happened: https://www.tumblr.com/nesiacha/749903094886907904/8-may-1945-in-algeria?source=share). One of the great leaders of the Algerian Revolution, Didouche Mourad, said of Fernand Iveton, "If there were more people like him, many things would have changed."

Hélène Ksiazek, wife of Iveton, was born in Dolany, Poland in 1921 to Joseph Ksiazek and Sophie Cicha. When she was 8 months old, her parents moved with her and her older brother to France. She loved her parents but found her father, in her own words, generous but violent. She had to work like them as agricultural laborers. She loved dancing because her father played the violin at popular evening gatherings. However, the physical violence she endured from her father (belt beatings) led her to leave the family home at 16 by marrying a Swiss worker. They had a child together, Jean Claude, but according to Hélène, she and her husband had nothing in common and their separation after three years of marriage was not amicable. During World War II, one of her uncles, Slawomir, who stayed in Poland, was tortured for an entire night by a Nazi officer before being killed with a sword. Hélène's parents in France hid Jews during the occupation, and she also hid a friend's brother who was part of the resistance. However, this was discovered, and the Vichy authorities summoned her. She wisely did not go and took refuge in Switzerland until the end of the war.

Unfortunately, the misfortunes of this family did not end. After the war, her father Joseph Ksiazek returned to Poland to settle an inheritance issue. Due to Poland falling under Soviet domination, he could never return to France and faced significant problems there. He could never see his children again, much to Hélène's despair, who despite everything, had great love for her father. Hélène Ksiazek developed a deep mistrust of communism. The Iveton and Ksiazek families might seem to have nothing in common politically, but upon closer examination, it becomes clear that they have always been at the heart of people's struggles and the defense of the oppressed, knowing very well they could die for it.

It was in 1953, when Fernand Iveton had to leave Algeria for treatment, that he met Hélène Ksiazek at the family boarding house where he was staying, and she was working. They met, hit it off, and she accompanied him for his X-rays, sharing their life stories with each other. She explained that she didn’t remember her native country and what the Soviet government did to her father and many others. She dismantled all the propaganda. Fernand Iveton, who did not hide his beliefs, listened attentively and accepted her explanations. Later, he would ask her about the truths concerning East Germany. He was a communist who would never accept the oppression of others. Since he didn’t know much about what was happening in East Germany and Poland, he believed her rather than the official Soviet rhetoric because honesty was a virtue they shared.

In turn, Hélène Ksiazek listened attentively to Iveton when he told her the truth about what was happening in Algeria. She also knew nothing about the colonial reality but was ready to trust him over the French government. He told her about the racism, the humiliations, the horrific events of May 8, 1945, the fact that most pied-noirs did not want equality, the colonial militias, the inequalities, the racist lynchings, the massacres, and the sense of apartheid that the colonial society exuded. In the end, they both debunked the lies of different states to better justify their imperialism.

They quickly fell in love. Hélène introduced her son to Fernand, who accepted him with joy. Jean Claude developed a great affection for Fernand and vice versa. The only small issue was that Jean Claude kept addressing him formally, while Fernand wished he would use informal speech. Fernand eventually met Hélène’s mother. Wanting to be considerate, he preferred not to announce that he was a communist, but she quickly understood from the way he spoke. Nonetheless, they got along well… But Fernand Iveton had trouble adapting to the climate difference between France and Algeria. He often fell ill and wanted to return. Hélène sensed this, and although she understood, she felt sad until he announced that he wanted to marry her and have Hélène and Jean Claude come live with him in Algeria. She accepted, eventually with her mother’s blessing, and her initial worries about Algeria were dispelled.

The couple married there and settled as a family with Jean Claude. They adopted a cat named Titi, whom Hélène thought had affection like a dog. She was quickly accepted by her in-laws, and there was great mutual love between them. They made it clear that they would not impose their beliefs on Hélène or Jean Claude. Hélène loved her new life in Algeria, as did her son. She loved the pastries her neighbors gave her during Ramadan, the Casbah neighborhoods, hearing the Arabic language, and many other things in Algeria. But like her husband, she didn’t like the racism, the inequalities, the insults against the Algerian people considered as “natives.” However, she didn’t like being judged for smoking in public. Fernand worked as a turner at Electricité Gaz, and she as a cleaner and waitress at the social services canteen.

During the 1954 earthquake in Algeria, the couple once again worked tirelessly to help the unfortunate survivors. Yet, in November 1954, the Algerian Revolution began under the impetus of the FLN (National Liberation Front). I will quickly summarize the negotiations between the PCA and the FLN, but PCA members could join the FLN individually. Thus, Fernand Iveton, as a member of the PCA (Algerian Communist Party) , joined the FLN along with many others like Raymonde Peschard, Abdelkader and Jacqueline Guerroudj, Félix Colozzi, Yahia Briki, Henri Maillot, Maurice Laban, Georges and Reine Raffini,Laid Lamrani   , and many others. Hélène Iveton approved her husband’s choice, saying that just as the French had the right to join the maquis against the Nazis, it was normal for Algerians to do the same. She fully agreed that her husband Fernand should hide FLN members in their home. She applauded the Algerian Revolution. She will be one of the most important supporter of her husband and would be very efficent to help him in the cause as we will see later. Unfortunately, repression, injustice, and tragedy would soon befall this couple and Jean Claude.

To be continued soon (at the latest in a week).

[winwild]

you’re not from around here, are you? i figured because you totally just missed winslow wilder walking by. don’t tell me you don’t know who he is ? they kind of look like andy samberg and i could be wrong but i think that they might be 45 years old right now. they’ve been living in palmview for the last year. and i don’t know if anyone has ever told them this before but they kind of remind me of jesse swanson from pitch perfect.

STATS.

full name.  winslow pincus wilder. he’s stockpiled mountains of jewelry to thank his mother for spurning a hyphenated surname.

nicknames.  answers to mr. wilder first and foremost, but accepts winn or winnie with brutal bruxism.

label.  the filmophile.

date of birth.  22 june. celebrates billy wilder’s conception more consistently, though.

place of birth.  mer rouge, louisiana. his mouth frequently confuses this with moulin rouge.

current residence.  mango bay, palmview grove, florida. a chronic couch crasher nonetheless.

languages.  fluent in english and asl. speaks high school level spanish with a middle schooler’s accent.

education.  got a b.a. in music composition. between his bank account and acclaimed career in cooking burgers, he thinks it should've been a b.s.

occupation.  music teacher at seaglass heights elementary school.

gender. cisgender male. he/him.

orientation.  bisexual in a ‘crushed on both shirley maclaine and jack lemmon in the apartment’ way.

marital status.  single. not quite ready to mingle.

family.  very loving mother and father. less loving older sister and younger brother. a couple of nieces and nephews who call him the cool uncle.

pets.  a prelapsarian rose-ringed parakeet named reginald. maybe a mouse colony or two behind the microwave.

PERSONALITY.

the brief.  winslow thinks of life as a movie. one with labyrinthine twists and turns, highs and lows and hopeless romance, and an audience somewhere just out of sight that ought to enjoy themselves. he’s cast himself as the heroic comic relief (or is it comic stress?) and wants to help people find their happy endings, even though he’s just about abandoned finding one for himself. whether that’s because he thinks it’s the stand-up thing to do or because he believes karma’s watching, you best believe he’s bringing a pumped playlist along.

the good.  winslow is outgoing to the point where his parents have advised him to pack his bags and make someone else pay the rent. his easygoing empathy and ability to laugh at anything (even… no, especially himself) have allowed him to amass quite the number of acquaintances. the natural blitheness that plagues his monologues may suggest otherwise, but he’s loyal and dependable enough to have had his room dubbed the kennel by siblings, cousins, and actual stray animals. only a select few can surpass the confidence he’s been saving since college, and most of them turned out to be presidents in the making. according to the wilder diaries volumes 23 through 47, no job is too small and no joke is too corny for him to not give his all. then there’s usually a doodle of a ginormous smiley face that bleeds over to the next page. look, there’s a reason he didn’t become an english teacher.

the bad.  winslow forgives and forgets before he can remember what he’s forgiving in the first place. idealism is the only idea he has of how to interact with people, and it’s a herculean task to get him to acknowledge something can’t be solved with a sliver of time and an acoustic rendition of a progressive rock song. he’s passionate to a fault, and his dogged pursuit of whatever or whoever piques his interest can end in disappointment on both parties’ end as he overpromises and underdelivers due to the sheer length of his to-do list.

the ugly.  winslow’s sense of worth is, was, and perhaps always will be dependent on what others say and do. without the promise of applause or a sordid afterparty he struggles to find purpose in being himself, his boundaries weak and expectations silent while his vocal cords soar into sardonic condescension. he’s the first to believe he’s got some growing up to do before he becomes one of those floridian retirees floating by in life with peace and a pina colada, but whether he’s ready to work on that is a whole different ball game. and he sucked at ball games. why else would he join an a cappella group at the ripe old age of eighteen?

APPEARANCE.

height.  5’8. he could’ve taught at mango bay high, but the prospect of telling off teenagers taller than him was terrifying, even for a guy who knew the room’s script by heart.

build.  generously described by his crossfit coach as lean. hits the vending machine more than the gym, though.

style.  his contacts list may very well be a tourist’s guide to nearby thrift shop owners. patterned comfort takes precedence above such trivial things as social appropriateness–his closet is a menagerie of flannel, florals, graphic tees, and hoodies; his shoe rack is a museum of besmirched sneakers and bedecked crocs.

notable features. floppy brown hair married to bedhead. a cleft chin bereft of any substantial facial hair. a crooked smile that smells of bubblegum toothpaste.

BIOGRAPHY. content warning for a brief mention of unplanned pregnancy and a longer mention of medical issues. skip the not-so-young adulthood sections if you’re uncomfortable with this.

childhood.  it takes a darn difficult couple of months, but eventually, winslow pincus wilder is born to be weaned on diet coke and family comedies in the most anodyne suburb america has to offer. of course, his parents work at the office and his sister works at dismantling the patriarchy one pierced ear at a time. he has to make his own fun with whomever he finds interesting, and by the time his brother’s born, he’s befriended half the neighbourhood with his taste in music, movies, or lawnmowers. school passes by like a breeze–not because he’s smart, mind you, but because he’s bored to death and c grades are, y’know, passing–and he’s happy with his dinners and chores and everything else about real life that’s a bore, because he’s got movies.

adolescence.  winslow is a social vagabond, drifting from pack to pack lunch to lunch. people come to his bar mitzvah, yeah, and people don’t point out how his action figures are poking his jaws poster in a very strange place, but his sister’s destroying her professors’ egos at some ivy league and his brother’s destroying books or baseball bats or whatever while he’s still drawing stop-motion ninjas in the corner of his notebooks. for the first and last time in his life, he feels awkward, resorting to such desperate projects as a garage band, a lemonade stand, and a detective agency. when he watches the breakfast club at seventeen, he sees himself in the screen more than ever before. he feels himself in the fugues of electric guitar and a god-given falsetto. he knows he has a future in music, even if he did mistake first runner up at the talent show for first and got his garage band booed off the stage.

young adulthood.  winslow is the one being watched, for once. eyes bore into his back when his parents nearly squeeze his spine out of his body, wondering why he had to move more than a mile away to study music. a smug senior with the most insufferably dulcet voice looks at him with a cocky, ever-cocked brow when he signs up for the campus radio internship. but there’s also an an absurdly intense cappella group and a schedule that leaves him way too much time to lounge around and a roommate that leaves him way too little space for any personal effects (not that he’s complaining!) and a girl. it’s something out of a movie. then he graduates, they break up but remain on great terms, and he moves many miles away to try and use his degree for something deserving of the blockbuster billboard top thousand. keyword being try.

not-so-young adulthood.  winslow is happy in his big city bachelor’s pad, working a greasy spoon’s greasier counter and calling in sick every now and then to perform at open mics. he’s not quite as appreciated as he was in his a cappella days, but at least he’s not getting booed off. one night, though, his bemoaning to the big boss about another cold is cut off by a call from his ex. she’s got a kid and she thought her boyfriend was kidding when he said he’d leave by the end of the football season. the morning after, winslow’s at her door and doesn’t intend on leaving. he finds work he loves at the local school training the next generation to play hot cross buns and finds that being a father is just as, if not more fulfilling, than being a friend. but pride cometh before a fall.

not-so-young adulthood: act two.  a literal fall, in fact, as his dad is hospitalised for a heart attack and his mom’s never got half the same mind after. he’s not making enough to cover the bill and his siblings barely ever call back, so he’s left scrambling for money. asking for help from the woman whose baby he’s helping raise? what are you, the court jester? no, help comes in the form of the child’s father, calloused knuckles and jingling pockets approaching. the deal’s simple: let the kid have their real dad and wake up to a fat wad of cash under his pillow, no broken teeth needed. winslow agrees. it’s not like the kid’s even old enough to remember him, and his ex will understand if he moves to be closer to his parents as their conditions worsen. he leaves no trace of him in the house but a really stupid mixtape of rapped lullabies with his address scribbled on and moves to mango bay.

now.  winslow is an infinite amount of people stuffed in a plaid shirt, sutured with a smile. he’s the newcomer to one cantankerous convenience store clerk who needs to deal with his bulk purchase of popsicles, artificially coloured tongue still stumbling over street names. he’s a human map to a young couple who need the perfect picture on the beach to make their shared ex jealous, hands deftly working their camera with a director’s eye for detail. more than anything, he’s a man looking to score movies and share stories. even if they’re super, duper embarrassing for all parties involved.

MISCELLANEOUS.

radio.  john williams. simple minds. charlies williams. kansas. ralph vaughan williams. are you sensing a theme yet?

recommended reading.  wonder boys by michael chabon. a wrinkle in time by madeleine l'engle. out on a limb by shirley maclaine. the fan by bob randall. big fish: a novel of mythic proportions by daniel wallace. 

potential relationships.  a fellow film bro (gender neutral). a fan of his a cappella work. a former coworker at burger flipping inc. a former bandmate because you know this man’s done some weird gigs for a good buck. a fling from high school. a fling who saw his suitcase covered in movie memorabilia as he stood outside his shiny new palmview apartment because he lost the key he was literally just given and went yeah i’d hit that. a friend of his sibling’s, who’s heard or seen more male-led horror stories than present in a stephen king’s bibliography. a friend of his kid’s but god would that require plotting lmao.

assorted headcanons.  has a better dvd collection than any blockbuster; the plastic on all of them’s worn out more than the fabric of his singular suit. way too good at dodgeball and trampoline tricks. always chooses never gonna give you up as his last karaoke song. instinctively harmonises with the radio, which must be turned on 24/7 lest he die of ennui. learned to play the piano at age twelve to impress a crush who never inhaled in his general direction. a prodigious malingerer; fakes a classic dad sneeze to cover up his real sneeze, which should, for all intents and purpose, belong to a coloratura soprano. has invested in at least one pyramid scheme.

[cepheusgalaxy]

The Snow White One - tag: sw wip

Genre: Fantasy adventure

What is it about: Snow White is a princess called Rosanne who has a Perfect Princess persona (called Snow White). Her mother passed away five years ago or so and her father is deeply grieving her. Rose convinces her father to get married again so he'll have someone to help him to rule the kingdom since he is clearly struggling to do it as it is. They throw in a ball a la Cinderella to choose the new queen and they end up catching the attention of a manipulative noble named Katarina von Waldeck who wants to use the Palace's gold to restructure the whole economic system and instaurate capitalism in the kingdom. (She is the Evil Queen.) Rose and her closest friend find this out and try to stop her, but then the Queen finds out that they know her true intentions, and when they get to know that she knows that they know, they run away. Now they try to gather allies to take down the queen before she does something terrible like, idk, killing the king, or worse, capitalism.

Who is in it:

Rose (she/her) - Main traits: Kind, calculist, stoic. She is the heir and only princess of Araxacy, and a perfectionist. She is a very selfless person and always acts with the big picture in mind. She is veeery smart and a very good actress, and also knows how to read people well and get them on their side. She sometimes acts in a purely strategic way without considering someone's feelings and is sometimes she gets afraid of what she is capable to do, so she tries to compensate with her Perfect Princess persona: aka "princess Snow White", her popular title, a princess of the people, a kind and mercyful and perfect and pure soul. What everybody wants.

June (he/him/?) - Main traits: Skeptical, silly in an edgy way, stoic(/unfriendly). June doesn't have a surname. His parents kicked him out of home a few years ago and without many options, he started to work at the manor of the Lady of where he lived. -> Note: Araxacy is a big country with a federal government. That is, there is the Big Central Power (the Palace) and each area of the country has some autonomy and is ruled by a landlord or lady. The territory where June lives are the Von Waldeck lands, whose lady is Katarina von Waldeck (the to-be Evil Queen). He was a servant (I even have all the Von Waldeck's manor internal logistics in a doc lol) at Katarina's manor and when she got married, the Estate and the territorry were passed down to her sister, and June was one of the chosen servants to go to the Palace with her. When he started working there, he and Rose became literal best friends cuz both were very loney and are around the same age, and later, found out Katarina's secret and ran away. It was a little hard to believe his friend when she found out, and at first, he was on Katarina's side, since after all, she was the one who took him under her wing and had been kind of a projected mother figure to him after he lost his home, but lastly, he believed Rose and they both ran away. He may be a little grumpy and bitter but at his core he's a very gentle person.

Katarina (she/her) - Main traits: Manipulative, charismatic, opportunistic, smart. The Evil Queen. She is a very oportunistic and calculist person, always acting on her own interests. She has some allies from outside the country AND if she wasn't That Evil she would be a great ruler: During "the crisis", when the king could barely, like, do his thing, all of the territories were left on their own, and Katarina's was one of the most prosperous of them all. She knows how to get what she wants, how to manipulate, gatekep, gaslight and girlboss people and how to deal with politics, the people and money. But she is very very selfish. Even if their moral alignements are very different, Katarina and Rose kind of share this trait (i did that on purpose lol): Even if Rose's morals completely bring to zero her chances of doing such a thing, they both evaluate people and can be very calculist and manipulative if they want.

Irae (she/her) - Main traits: Playful, careful, ambitious. Some countries away from Araxacy, there is a county named Tibai, whose economy is centred around the sea. All the story is set on this continent, and Tibai is one of the biggest countries on it. Irae is a corsair pirate under the comand of a noble house: She was formerly an outlaw pirate who was pretty famous and at one point, instead of trying to take her down, the Lily House decided to hire her and bring her to her side. Irae accepted, beacuse if not she'd be a little screwed, and now she works partially as some law-enforcement, but she also has the legal pass to do most of what she wants. She meets June and Rose after they ran away, cuz she was sent to catch some thieves, but then she decided to help them out, partially cuz she has a big heart, partially cuz she thought Rose is very very cute, and partially cuz she knows she can get something out of the situation. She is a very lightmooded person and althought she is not very wise she's streetsmart and has a charm that takes most people down. Also, I'm still detailing her backstory but she became a pirate because a territorrial dispute amongst some noble houses caused a civil war and her hometown was destroyed in the process. She lived in the streets for a while.

Cauan (he/him) - Main traits: (...) His backstory is gonna have some changes, but overall he is the prince of the other big big country on the continent, a place rich in both gold and technology advances (simple stuff like aluminium prosthetics and very neat vehicles and experimental eletricity). He is not very fleshed out yet.

Phillipp (he/him) - Main traits: Humble, optimistic, a little naive. Philipp is Rose’s father and the king. He’s a caring parent and wasn’t born in the royalty; he was a marquis who married Rose’s mother, the long gone queen, and outside of that I still don’t have him very fleshed out.

Note A: Cauan's original name in Portuguese is Cauã but I decided to adapt it since Cauan is pronounced (?) similarly in English.

Note B: Also, some of the character's names are inspired by what seems to be the origin of Snow White's story, an old gossip about a noble family from some hundreds of years ago.

[coffee-n-bagels-comic-universe]

Brainwaves Bios: Anselm Teufel (1984)

Mars & Nova's Cousin & Milo's Older Brother Anselm Teufel

The older brother of Milo, and younger cousin to Mars and Nova, Anselm is the brains behind he and his brother's schemes, and usually the brawn, too. Anselm is a custodian, handyman and construction worker for the Sedgewick Hotel. He does his best to protect Milo and Nova from anyone, or anything, that may harm them.

"Milo, I will handle this. What d'you want?"

Name

Full Legal Name: Anselm Saturn Teufel

First Name: Anselm

Meaning: Derived from the Old German elements 'Ansi' 'God' and 'Helm' 'Helmet, Protection'

Pronunciation: An-selm

Origin: German, English, Germanic

Middle Name: Saturn

Meaning: From the Latin 'Saturnus', which is of unknown meaning.

Pronunciation: SAT-ern

Origin: Roman Mythology

Surname: Teufel

Meaning: From a nickname meaning 'Devil' in German.

Pronunciation: TOI-fel

Origin: German

Titles: Mr

Nicknames: Selm

Characteristics

Age: 30

Gender: Male. He/Him Pronouns

Race: Human (Touched by the 'Psychic Realm')

Nationality: American Citizen. Born in America

Ethnicity: White

Birth Date: 20th June 1954

Sexuality: Straight

Religion: Wiccan

Native Language: English

Known Languages: English, German, (Some) French, (Some) Spanish

Relationship Status: Single

Astrological Sign: Gemini

Actor: John Goodman

Geographical Characteristics

Birthplace: Crown Heights, Brooklyn, New York

Current Residence: Crown Heights, Brooklyn, New York

Appearance

Height: 6'2" / 188 cm

Weight: 300 lbs / 136 kg

Eye Colour: Blue

Hair Colour: Brown

Hair Dye: None

Body Hair: Hairy

Facial Hair: Clean Shaven / Stubble

Tattoos: (As of Jan 1984) None

Piercings: None

Scars: None

Health and Fitness

Allergies: None

Alcoholic, Smoker, Drug User: Occasional Drinker, Smoker

Illnesses/Disorders: None Diagnosed

Medications: None

Any Specific Diet: None

Relationships

Affiliated Groups: Sedgewick Hotel (Staff Member)

Friends: Milo Teufel, Mars Teufel, Gilbert Teufel, Norman Teufel, Thomas Teufel, Otmar Teufel, Remus Teufel

Significant Other: None

Previous Partners: None of Note

Parents: Abraham Teufel (65, Father), Martha Teufel (60, Mother, Née Keller)

Parents-In-Law: None

Siblings: Milo Teufel (25, Brother)

Siblings-In-Law: None

Nieces & Nephews: None

Children: None

Extras

Level of Education: Bachelor's Degree in Engineering & Metallurgy

Occupation: Custodian / Handyman / Construction Worker

Employer: Sedgewick Hotel

Expertise:

Engineer

Metallurgist

Athletic

Intimidating

Excellent Mechanic

Protective

Former College Level Quarterback

Wiccan Knowledge

Spiritualist Knowledge

Faults:

Sweet-Tooth

Judgemental

Standoffish

A Mean Drunk

Backstory: Anselm Saturn Teufel was born in Brooklyn in 1954, his brother Milo was born in 1959. Their mother and father kept the safe, even moving their cousin Mars in after the collapse of his uncle Conrad's life. Anselm attended Columbia University, graduating with a degree in Engineering and Metallurgy before being hired by the Sedgewick Hotel. He saw the Sedgewick Ghost (aka 'Slimer') for the first time the evening before the Ghostbusters caught the 'Ugly Little Spud', he knew then that he had to tell Nova and Mars.

[panzershrike-pretz]

✨ 💼 🎹 for the OC asks!! 🥰

HELLOOOO! :D thank you so much for the ask!!

Here aee the answers! I decided to go with one of my characters I haven't made a post about yet, Juni! Because I love her!

✨- How did you come up with the OC’s name?

Her whole name is Juni Sharma!

Originally, her name wase meant to be Juniper, actually, but I ended up calling her Juni way more. Story-wise, she's of indian-secandinavian descent (her dad came from india, while her mom is finnish; they met in the US and she Exists). From what I found on good ol' internet, Juni means lovable, young or born in june.

While Sharma, her surname, came from her dad. It means "bliss", "happiness" or "warmth".

If I may be jonest it's been a while since I named her and I don't fully remember my intention with the name, so theresearch about the meaning was done now again. It certainly still fits her!

💼 - What do they do for a living?

Piracy! Juni joined the crew alongside Natasha, her best friend, so she wouldn't be left behind.

Due to her blindness, Juni prefers not to get involved in physical combat - instead, she works with Darty as another of the ship's musicians! That, and she also cares for the children.

Rarely she works as a spy as well, guve that her power is of enhanced hearing.

Begore that, she was a stundent and part-time worker at a restaurant, as a waiter. When she was able, she'd play as well for an extra money.

🎹 - Do they have any hobbies?

Juni isn't fully blind, she still loves to write poetry. It's one of her favorite past-times, even if she finds it very hard. Her boyfriend, Millard, loves to help when she asks and they both enjoy to read together as well.

She plays the violin; she got classes from a very young age and while her vision was deteriorating due to glaucoma, the violin was her best friend. She had a hard time adapting, especially since she was so young when she started to loose her vision, and it's still hard for her to fully deal with it but she's doing better now. And the violin stuck around.

Finally, Juni is a lover of horses! She always loved to ride them on her uncle's farm and had riding classes up until she disappeared (fucked off; her family thinks she's dead). This love for the animals stuck with her as she grew. Now, she rides whenever she gets a chance to visit Andy and Ted's ranch.

I'm debating on giving her own horse as well. Maybe?

[coffeeheartaddict2]

Everybody hurts sometimes (6/?)

Unbreak my heart

Book: Open Heart (AU)

Characters: Ethan Ramsey, Casey Valentine

Word count: 2259

Category: Angst

Rating: Mature

Warnings: mentions of drug use

****trigger warning- this series deals with issues of addiction and abandonment****

Summary: Try as they both might, the feelings they have for each other are very close below the surface, Casey and Ethan try to find a new normal. Someone from Ethan’s past comes to a realization and reaches out through Alan.

Disclaimer: Characters belong to Pixelberry

Authors note: Again there will be some plot points from canon but there will be some differences. Now that Louise is mentioned, the trigger warning does become more applicable.

✈️✈️✈️✈️✈️✈️✈️✈️✈️✈️✈️

The work had been gratifying, he knew it would be from the get go, the doctor’s who had been recruited were fantastic and he also enjoyed working with them, he even enjoyed their company in the rare downtime they had but come the end of the day, sleep would never come easily. Every time he shut his eyes, he would see Casey, the sheer ecstasy of her succumbing to her climax, the smile that always cheered him up, even the sensation of her in his arms was there. No matter how much he told himself he was doing the right thing, the regret at why they ended sunk in. But there were no take backs. When he returned he would be her boss and a new normal had to be found.

Meanwhile back in Boston, Casey was not faring much better. Despite maintaining her position after the ethics hearing, there were still those who doubted her judgment and with Dr Ramsey leaving so quickly after being reinstated well, those who thought she slept her way to the top had even fuel for their malicious lies. Landry had transferred his residency for which Casey was relieved. Aurora has moved in and taken his room. Aurora had fitted well into their house and group, the gang made a concerted effort not to see the surname Emery but see Aurora for her which she appreciated. Despite all of this though there was an Ethan sized hole. Some days she regretted going the night before he left so she could have one final night with him but she knew the regret would have been worse if she did not.

His return day was fast approaching. They may have been separated by more than 3000 miles but the trepidation both felt was very real. All they knew is that it had to work, otherwise all that they went through would be for nought.

The last day of intern year was upon them and Casey and the gang were celebrating at Donahue’s. Ethan sneaks in and takes his usual spot at the bar. Reggie is happy to see him. Ethan was appreciative of the drink. He hears her before he sees her. A montage of many happy memories runs through his head. He is spotted by her and she greets him as Dr Ramsey. He should not be saddened, it is his title after all but hearing it in a non work setting was a shock but a new normal he had to get used to. He watches her leave with her friends, wishing he had the balls to man up and try and weather the storm that he knew would not come from her friends.

Casey knew it would be difficult seeing him again. Just seeing him briefly bought the emotions she had been trying so hard to bury to the fore. She was looking forward to being on the team but she was apprehensive about working so close with Ethan. She knew they worked well together but this time there was history there and she wondered how that would work over time.

The next day came. Casey attended morning announcements and then went to her first meeting. She meets Baz first, she was shocked as she did not know that Zaid had a twin. Then she met June. She did not know what to think about June. She knew Ethan had concerns about her if he had her reporting to him and she did feel like she was under the microscope from the get go. Ethan then arrived. They had a case, the patient was in transit but they were already going through the possibilities and Casey was lost. She finally asked a question which had June and Baz perplexed, Ethan stated they had discussed that and there was no family history. They came to the conclusion and Casey was asked to run a test for Cutaneous Kuchi disease. June and Baz left, it was just her and Ethan.

“You look a little lost there, Dr Valentine.” Stated Ethan.

“Yes, I thought feeling like a clueless intern was a feeling long past.”

“Did you take note of what Baz and June did?”

“Yes, they asked questions.”

“Exactly, it is about the only time where I do not have full disdain for stupid questions as it can lead to the right questions and the right diagnosis.”

Casey nods. “Do we diagnose without seeing the patient often?”

“Not always but it is always good to keep those skills sharp and also any spare time, read up on your journals, if they were common diseases then they would not need us.”

“And what about us Dr Ramsey?”

Try as he might he could not hide the sadness and longing and he reached for her hand and squeezed it.

“We will find a way.”

Just then they hear the door open and he lets go of her hand. Thankfully it was only Baz who had forgotten his pager. Casey got up and exited the office with Baz, he assured her that he was like that on his first day too and that he was looking forward to working with her.

The patient arrived and he had cutaneous Kuchi disease but he also had a gastrointestinal ulcer which was causing the pain he said he had when he was eating. Ethan and Baz were really happy for Casey and the missed part of the diagnosis. June sat there silently, observing all the interactions. He could sense some type of unrequited tension from Ethan and Casey. She had heard the rumours, followed her trial, she had heard some good things about her sure and was surprised that she picked something that they all missed, but the rumours that she slept with Ethan were also quite strong. She too was also suspicious of the timing of Ethan’s little sabbatical which did give more credence to the rumours. She wanted to find out more but she did not want to be direct. She thinks to herself,then realized that Ethan and Tobias Carrick used to be competitive and she wondered, if she could get Tobias to be competitive with Ethan then maybe she can get the knowledge she so desperately craves. She was going to wait for her opportunity though.

Despite the feelings of love and desire simmering so close to the surface, they managed to find a new normal and work together quite well, little did they realise though, across town in Southy, something was brewing that was going to test all that they had worked on.

In a community clinic in Southy, a woman in her mid 50’s was waiting for some treatment. The pain she was in was all too familiar, it was either a sexually transmitted disease or another urinary tract infection. While waiting she was reading a news article. She did a double take then read the caption to be sure. That young boy she had abandoned was a man who had done good with his life. She briefly felt vindicated for her decision, getting married so young and Ethan coming soon after. She has wanted more kids but for whatever reason, she could not carry any further pregnancies to term. She worked hard at her job to dull the pain of her loss but she started to resent her job which lead to her resenting Alan and Ethan. She loved them dearly but she did not know how to communicate how she was feeling. She then felt both would be better off without her so she up and left with no word. It was for the best but instead of gaining freedom she was trapped in another prison. A prison of addiction. It started off with Alcohol and prescription medicine but eventually those did nothing. Then she found heroin and the addiction, not to mention supporting the habit had ravaged her health, both physical and mental. After reading the article she was proud of Ethan. She then decided perhaps she should reach out.

A week later she reached out to Alan. He was shocked to hear from her after all this time but was not surprised that she wanted to contact Ethan. He knew that despite Louise leaving, it was nothing to do with Ethan. She loved him dearly, that he knew but there was no telling Ethan otherwise. He gave up convincing him and he swears that it was a part of the schism between them since then. He got Louise’s details but stated that he would pass them on to Ethan but it would be Ethan’s decision. Louise understood this but she hoped he would reach out.

Alan finally managed to see Ethan and he was happy to finally meet Casey. He had heard about her and he did wonder if there was something between them as he never spoke fondly about colleagues and especially interns. Casey took him to Derry’s. She explained that they were in the middle of a difficult case at the moment. Ethan is there in his usual spot. Alan walks up to him.

“Hello Ethan, your mum has contacted me. A flash of anger flashes through him, Casey tries to take her leave but Alan is insistent on buying her a coffee. She sits down.

“You look angry Ethan?”

“That woman has not existed to me since she walked out on us 25 years ago.”

Casey squeezes his hand and he returns. “You do not need to tell me anything more Ethan”

“I know Casey, believe me I want to but that is a conversation for another time.”

Casey nods her head, “well, if and when you are ready, I will be here for you.”

“Thanks Casey”

Alan watched the interaction whilst he was waiting for Casey’s coffee. He was not sure what was happening but he saw the hand holding and how much calmer he seemed and wondered if anything romantic was happening. Alan gets Casey’s and his coffee and walks back over. Casey finally takes her leave. When Casey is gone Ethan asks

“What did she want?”

“To contact you Ethan”

“Why, that woman turned our lives upside when she walked out on us. What Would she have to say to me, or you for that matter.”

Alan knew that this would trigger some anger but he thought Ethan would want closure. He left her details with Ethan then left. Ethan looked at the information and notes that she is in Boston. If she is so close then why does she not do a google search and track him that way he did not know. He figured that she must not have been that desparate at all to contact him.

The next few weeks are hectic, but Casey feels like she is settling into the team well. She is wary of June still. Then one day a coma patient who has been in a coma from a Benzodiazepines overdose. The fact that she woke up was a medical miracle within itself but the fact her mental functioning appeared quite good, even at this early stage was remarkable. June saw a chance to get some information. She messaged Tobias. She told him about Stephanie. The trauma doctor in him was intrigued, he knew the stats of coma patients who have overdosed on benzodiazepines, he wondered if studying their patient could prevent the coma in the first place, if that happened that would revolutionize treatments not only for benzo’s but maybe other opioids as well. He thinks and makes an offer to the parents. One that he thought was pretty good. They accepted the offer. Tobias was excited. Over at Edenbrook, however, Casey was not. She was told by Stephanie’s parents and Stephanie herself to not feel bad, in fact they appreciated the honesty from the get go about the intent of the study. They also told her that Kenmore were willing to pay as part of the grant some of the therapies she needed to be done in their home and they also stated that Kenmore wanted to see if the coma can be prevented from the get go which had them really excited. Casey puts on a brave face but deep down she is upset. She is in a daze after speaking to the Hill’s that she does not see Ethan until he runs into him. He asks her if she is ok. She states that is not. Ethan did understand her frustration, to even have her name associated with such a study would have been great but he also reminded her you did what you thought was best for the patient and that must always be at the forefront of our thoughts. Casey tells her about the offer from Kenmore. A small part of Ethan is annoyed that Tobias was involved but at the same time too, he knew that the trauma doctor in him would be intrigued and would want to study this also to even prevent it. He gives Casey a hug, which she reciprocates. It takes all of Ethan’s self control to not kiss the top of her head. The walk off, unbeknownst to them, they were spies by June, who was perplexed, with Tobias involved she was expecting Ethan to be pissed but also he was proud of her for being honest. She could not believe it. She did not know if anything was currently happening but what she did know is that any history clearly was going to advantage Casey Valentine and June was not at all happy about that.

————

Authors note 2: Stephanie seemed a good place to end it. I do not think it is possible for June not to be scheming in any universe. I am looking forward to some of the changes too. Thank you for reading this far.

Tagging: @jerzwriter @jamespotterthefirst @genevievemd @youlookappropriate @cariantha @potionsprefect @liaromancewriter @bex-la-get @crazy-loca-blog @a-crepusculo @ofmischiefandmedicine @socalwriterbee @lucy-268 @schnitzelbutterfingers @binny1985 @trappedinfanfiction

@choicesficwriterscreations @openheartfanfics

[callofthxvoid]

Please welcome SIERRA NEVADA (SHE/HER) to Huntsville, WV. They are a 29-year-old VISITOR who lives in THE COMMUNE. You may see them around working as a SERVER AT THE DAILY GRIND. Poor unfortunate soul. We’ll see if they survive.

quick facts

Title: The Free Spirit

Name: Sierra Nevada Taylor

Nickname: Sie

Date of Birth: June 17, 1994

Age: 29

Place of Birth: Las Vegas, Nevada

Hometown: New York City, New York

Languages: English

Faceclaim: Aisha Dee

Pronouns: She/Her

Sexuality: Polyamorous Bisexual

Relationship Status: In an open relationship with Casey Nestor

personality

Myers-Briggs: ESFP - The Entertainer

Enneagram: Type Seven - The Enthusiast

Moral Alignment: Neutral Good

Occupation: Server at The Daily Grind

Role: Gatherer

[+] confident, easy-going, open-minded, even-tempered [-] superstitious, scatterbrained, restless, impulsive

Character Inspirations: Carmen Lowell (The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants)

background

Sierra Taylor spent her entire childhood on the road. Born during a tour stop in Las Vegas (hence her middle name), her parents were two young, free-spirited, travelling musicians who had no plans of giving up their nomadic lifestyle. They took her with them wherever they went; when they were busy at gigs, everyone in their entourage would take turns looking after her, and when Sierra reached school age, her mother took on the responsibility of homeschooling her. It was an unconventional life, but it worked for them and for many years, they were an exceedingly happy family.

Eventually, her dad wanted to settle down while her mom categorically did not, leading to a nasty divorce and an even nastier and protracted custody battle. In the end, Sierra wound up living with her father in Hartford, Connecticut, where he had not only secured a nice house and a stable job, but also a brand new and very white stepfamily. She hated living in that house. She hated having to attend the same fancy private school as her step-siblings. But most of all, she hated that she only got to see her mom during the summer months, when she would join her on tour and have wild adventures like they used to. It was what she looked forward to all year.

After she graduated from high school, Sierra left her father's house and went back to travelling with her mom full-time, spending a couple of years on the road until they settled down in New York and opened their own business. Now in her mid-twenties, she stayed close to artistic circles and the music scene and eventually met Casey. As the daughter of a travelling musician herself, she understood the challenge of dating someone who had to spend long stretches of time away, but they made it work. He had his life, she had her life, and they had a life together when they were able to.

It was only when she stopped hearing from Casey altogether a few weeks ago that she started to suspect that something was wrong. It wasn't unusual for them to go several days without talking, but it was unusual for them to not talk at all; and when her birthday came and went and she still hadn't heard from him, she decided to pack her mom and their essential belongings into their Volkswagen bus and drive down to the location they had last mentioned, which was his hometown in West Virginia.

Upon arriving in Huntsville, Sierra and her mom were quickly given the lay of the land by Mayor Nat, but ultimately chose to move into the commune when it was given to them as an option. She's only been in town a few days, but she's managed to remain relatively calm over everything; some might argue a little too calm. But going with the flow has always been Sierra's nature. Why should a town of horrors be any different?

misc

Her full legal name is still Sierra Nevada Taylor, but she hasn't used her father's surname in practice in many years. Most people know her as Sierra Nevada.

Her mother and her ran a New Age store together, selling paraphernalia relating to everything from astrology, to tarot reading, to Wiccan rituals. Sierra would also make crystal jewellery and personalised birth charts for people on request.

The tarot deck that she uses was initially sketched by her while on the road. She later had her designs produced and sold in the store, but the deck that she kept for herself contains small differences from the ones they sold, making it unique.

Her preferred practice of ethical non-monogamy is to have one primary partner with both having the freedom to pursue other relationships or casual flings. She is also open to bring other people into the relationship if it feels right for them.