#I’ll stop posting these once people stop telling me about not all russians are guilty
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Yet another portion of “not all russians”
https://twitter.com/banderivkaz/status/1541348608116662272?s=21&t=Pi_cRSxHWbYkyT7p8ONRJQ
#I’ll stop posting these once people stop telling me about not all russians are guilty#here go my 10 hryvnias#ukraine#war
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ghost stories
Suicide Squad (2016) || characters: El Diablo feat. everyone else || post-canon, sort of a fix-it
ao3 link eng || this was first written and published on ao3 in Russian in 2016 but I didn't attempt to translate it into English back then.
Harley is the first to see him.
She catches the smell first. Something appears to be burning, and she checks cautiously if there is something wrong with the coffee machine. She doesn’t find anything suspicious – not that the appliances about to flame up smell like that anyway. Could it be that there’s a fire starting? That would be funny, but seems like there’s hardly a chance. It is the smell of a bonfire at the beach, of the fallen leaves being burned in the yards in fall, of a melting candle in the church; weirdly, all this at the same time. A smell that seems too pure for Belle Reve, for Gotham, for everything that makes up her life these days.
Harley looks around once again – and springs to her feet like she’s been stung.
Chato Santana is standing next to her cage.
“Diablo?” she whispers, unable to believe her eyes. She would’ve thought she’s lost her marbles if there were any left to lose.
“Harley,” says Diablo, and it’s his voice, his shy, sad smile, his eyes and his tattoos, and Harley squeals in delight as she rushes to him. The bars of the cage are live, so she only dares to stick out the tips of her fingers. He touches them with his hand – certainly alive, certainly not a product of her mind being tortured by boredom and monotony – and she laughs.
“You’re alive, alive, alive! How did you survive? And how did they let you in?”
“It’s a long story. And I don’t think I have much time,” Diablo looks guilty. He’s still holding her hand and looking at her so earnestly it’s almost worrying. “Harley… don’t go with him.”
“Huh? What do you mean, honey?”
“He’s coming here. Don’t leave with him, Harley, stay. It sounds strange, but this would really be for the best.”
“Don’t leave with whom?” she can’t follow him. He gives her a melancholic look – and suddenly disappears. Without any smoke or flames or any other special effects. She can’t wrap her head around how it happened – it’s just that he was here a moment ago, and now there’s no one beside her, and she’s reaching out towards nothing.
“Diablo?” she calls, and when she gets no answer, she decides to get things straight by asking the guards. What kind of cruel joke is this? Only one person is allowed to joke here, and that person is her. “Hello there! Mister jailer, yoo-hoo! Where’s my friend?”
No one is in a hurry to respond. Finally, one of the armed-to-the-teeth guards approaches the cage.
“Why are you yelling, lady?”
“Where’s my friend?” Harley asks petulantly. “He was here just now, and we didn’t finish talking. Where did you take him?”
“There was no one here.”
“What do you mean ‘no one’? I just talked to him!”
The guard examines her from head to foot. Looks like he’s chewing gum, which, combined with his empty apathetic stare, makes him look like a cow.
“Definitely crazy,” he sums up, and leaves. Irritated, Harley forgets to take caution, hits the bars and falls down on the floor right away, writhing in pain.
“Well, well, well,” she whispers, playing the recent events over in her head. Chato was very much corporeal – not a ghost, then. Yet the guards didn’t notice him, and then he vanished into thin air. Harley thinks about the being Chato transformed into by the end of the battle – an ancient one, as if straight from the walls of some Aztec temple. Could some petty bomb kill such a being? Could the Enchantress’s brother have survived too?
“I am friends with a god,” she informs the ceiling. “Incredible.”
About an hour later, her Puddin’ comes for her, and she forgets the advice Diablo gave her.
Croc sees him on the night of the same day. He knows for sure that it is night thanks to the TV listings – the only reference point for time and days of the week that he has. Not that it was bothering him too much, truth be told. Monday or Sunday, every day in Belle Reve is a carbon copy of the day before. However, Croc doesn’t complain. He has a roof over his head, water, food – even better food than he used to have in the sewers in days gone by – and a TV, and it is honestly not too hard to do without such extras as companionship and fresh experiences. Still, he is glad to see Diablo. Even though first he lunges at him with his fangs bared, because he doesn’t immediately recognize him and supposes that Waller and company are sick of feeding him and decided to kill him. Or to put someone else in his quarters, which would have been no less audacious.
“Croc, it’s me,” Diablo hastens to say, and lights up a flame over his left palm – so unusual and out of place in the dampness of Croc’s cell. Croc freezes and watches the flame for some seconds. That must really be Diablo; there are hardly many people in the world capable of such tricks.
“Hey, man,” Croc says. “Whatcha doing here?”
“Just checking up on you.”
Well, that must definitely be Diablo. Croc knows that there are hardly many people in the world who’d care to check up on him, but that sounds like something El Diablo would do. Back then, during the mission, he was friendly, asked “You okay?” after each skirmish, and could clap him on the shoulder without shuddering. And there are definitely even less people in the world that would touch him willingly.
“Did they just let you in like that?” wonders Croc. Diablo gives him a slight smile.
“They don’t know I’m here.”
“So you’re, like, a ghost?” Croc asks. It occurred to him from the very beginning, but it sounds particularly joyless when said out loud.
Diablo gestures vaguely. “I’m still figuring it out myself, to be honest.”
“Hmm,” Croc glances over his cell. A bag of food on the cot catches his eye. “You want a burger?”
“Nah, I’m good. Save it for yourself.”
“They’ll bring more today, I’m telling ya.”
“Then I want one.”
“Then you’re not a ghost,” grins Croc, and the fact that Diablo doesn’t flinch or try to look away also proves that this is the real Chato Santana, because most people don’t like seeing Croc smile.
And so he and Diablo, who kind of is a ghost but kind of isn’t, sit there eating burgers and watching some crap on MTV. Life has taught Croc not to be surprised by anything, so everything’s fine.
“So what happened after the bomb went off?” Croc asks. Diablo opens his mouth, and then closes it again, apparently at a loss how to explain.
“I was smoke,” he speaks finally. “Then I was flames. Then I became myself again.”
“I see,” Croc replies, although, of course, he can’t see shit.
“Who are you talking to?” comes the guard’s voice from behind the door. “Hey, scum!”
Croc puts the burger aside.
“Wait a bit,” he tells Chato, gets up, and heads for the door.
When he comes to the bean hole, the guard already looks like he regrets calling him.
“No one,” Crock smiles as widely as only he can, and the guard, who isn’t among the people able to watch him smile without blinking an eye, steps back reflexively. “But come inside, and I’ll talk to you if you wanna. How about that?”
When he turns around, Chato has already disappeared, and Croc could have assumed he has dreamed it all, but there are two half-eaten burgers on the cot, not one.
Digger sees him next, and he isn’t even amazed. The bastards keep drugging him with all sorts of shit to calm him down. Usually after the shot he just lies there, feverish, and can’t even move, let alone stand up, but who knows, perhaps they’re testing some new poison on him. Or they’ve started using something stronger because they noticed that a couple of hours after the usual stuff he’s already able to yell, bang at the door, and do everything he can to get the best of them while cooped up inside. Or it’s simply that there’s already so much of this shit in his blood that it’s impossible not to have any screws loose, try as he might to keep them in place. In any case, he’s not exactly shocked when, as he tosses and turns on the floor after another injection, he turns his head and sees El Diablo, large as life and twice as ugly.
“Fuck me sideways,” Digger says. He doesn’t have any energy to be mad yet. “I must be tripping.”
“You’re not tripping,” Diablo objects.
“You died. So I must be.”
“I didn’t die either.”
Diablo sits down cross-legged on the floor next to him.
“Has it crossed your mind that if you stop getting on their nerves, they might start treating you better?” he asks.
“Go to hell.”
“Message received.”
There’s a footfall outside; a whole bunch of people must be running somewhere.
“They’ve turned the entire joint upside down,” says Digger, because it’s been ages since he has spoken to anyone who’d at least pretend to listen, so a hallucination will do. “Blondie escaped.”
“I know,” Diablo replies gloomily. “I tried to warn her not to go with the Joker, but she didn’t listen to me.”
“Why warn her?” Digger asks. Harley Quinn is no bosom friend of his, but she kind of tore out the heart of the witch who kind of tried to end the world, and anyway, teammates probably should take interest in each other’s lives. Probably. He’s never really made sense of that teamwork stuff. “What’s he gonna do to her?”
“At best, what he always does.”
Two tiny figures of fire appear on Diablo’s open palm – a man and a woman. The man backhands the woman across her face, and she falls down. Digger watches the dancing flames with fascination, and meanwhile in his head, bit by bit, stroke by stroke, a plan starts to take shape. He wouldn’t be Captain motherfucking Boomerang if he fails to use any opportunity that turns up – even a ghost of one.
“Listen, mate,” he begins cajolingly. “If you’re really here and it’s not just me tripping… help an old friend out, won’t you? I’m fed up with being stuck here, you know.”
“I’m not gonna help you escape,” Diablo says calmly. “How do you imagine that would even happen?”
“Can’t you just burn the entire Belle Reve to the bloody ground?”
Diablo smiles.
“I can,” he admits. “But I won’t.”
The next thing he knows, the son of a bitch is gone without a trace. Anger and offence must be giving Digger strength, because he manages to leap to his feet. Like a lunatic, he thrashes around the cell, looking for at least some kind of proof that someone else was here a moment ago.
“Oi!” he shouts, knowing damn well that the guards have long stopped listening to what he has to say. “Grab the devil! A convict escaped! Hey, wankers!”
But he’s feeling lightheaded, and this shit must be really strong, and he collapses, badly hitting his head.
Tatsu sees him next – late at night, in her apartment. She’s a light sleeper, and wakes up as soon as she hears footsteps. The sword is close at hand, and she grabs it instantly, blade swishing through the air.
“Who’s there?” Tatsu asks, and then repeats in English. “Who’s there?”
There is nowhere to hide in her bedroom. The only furniture is the mattress and the pair of chairs she uses to hang her clothes on. Everything is on the floor or on the windowsill – weapons, her laptop, the book she tried to read before going to sleep but could not concentrate on. It is an ascetic, comfortless dwelling that does not look permanent and is not supposed to become so. Fate and Amanda Waller, though, seem to have other plans in this respect.
There is nowhere to hide in her bedroom – but someone’s definitely walking in the antechamber; she flings the door open – and sees El Diablo, standing by the entrance and looking around. In a blink of an eye Tatsu is next to him, and the blade of the Soultaker is pressed to his neck.
“Katana, it’s me,” Diablo says, unfazed. “Chato Santana.”
“Chato Santana is dead,” she says through her teeth. Chato Santana was a gangster who killed, albeit by a tragic accident, his own family – but she fought side by side with him, he sacrificed himself to save the world, he called their squad his family and died for them. That is enough for her not to let anyone use his name as a cover. “Who are you?”
“I’m alive,” Diablo replies. He puts his hands up to show he’s unarmed, and forks of flame appear on his palms. “Or sort of.”
Sort of.
Tatsu lowers the sword and looks warily at the man standing in front of her.
“How did you…”
“You’re gonna have a new mission soon. Demand that Waller tells you everything.”
“About what?”
“I couldn’t overhear that,” he says with regret. “But…”
Something knocks on the window. Tatsu turns around quickly, but that must’ve been just a tree branch hitting the windowpane. When she turns back to Chato, he’s already gone, and her apartment is silent.
It’s just four in the morning, but she can’t make herself fall asleep again. Having poured a cup of tea, Tatsu sits down on the mattress and thinks, think, thinks about what just happened. Tatsu believes in ghosts – her sword is teeming with them, so she wouldn’t say that her worldview is shaken. Still, this is strange, very strange. What did he want to tell her? Why did he disappear so abruptly? Like… a broadcast was interrupted.
Colonel Flag calls her at daybreak and tells her that there’s a shoot-out between two gangs on the outskirts of Gotham, with metahumans on both sides. When Tatsu arrives at Belle Reve, it turns out they must have considered it to be not enough to ruin her Saturday morning, because she is asked – more like ordered, actually – to escort an inmate from his cell, an inmate who attacks anyone who tries to enter and has already injured three guards with his bare hands, and it’s not reasonable to sedate him before the mission, and “he’s likely to obey if it’s you, Katana” – the last is Rick’s argument, and if he told that to her face and not on the phone, she would have had to strain every nerve not to hit him with something.
No one tries to attack her when she enters the cell of Captain Boomerang – Harkness is sitting on the floor quite still, his arms around his knees, and when he notices her, he even smiles with bruised lips.
“Hello, gorgeous,” he says. “Am I hallucinating you too?”
“No,” the question is unexpected and confuses her. “Why?”
“Well, they keep injecting me some crap, and lately I’ve been seeing things,” Harkness explains peacefully, even eagerly. His voice is quiet and hoarse, which, combined with his Australian accent, leads to Tatsu being barely able to make out half of what he’s saying. To hear him better, she crouches down next to him, still gripping the sword hilt – there is no telling if he isn’t just making her come closer to take her down and bolt. “Saw the devil yesterday.”
“The devil?”
“Our devil. Día… de fucking Muertos. Chato Santana.”
Tatsu gives a shiver and, having lost her balance, half sits down, half falls on the dirty floor.
She isn’t the only one to have seen him. She isn’t the only one he wanted to send a message to.
“Hey, luv,” Harkness frowns and reaches out to touch her knee lightly. “You all right?”
“Same as you, more or less,” she wants to reply, which of course would mean she isn’t, not at all.
“What did he tell you?” she asks him instead.
When Floyd sees him, he is hardly surprised, since the others have already warned him. Boomerang, Croc, and Katana tell him everything while they’re waiting for the helo, and had it been just Boomerang, who believes inexplicably that he has a sense of humour although he certainly doesn’t, Floyd most likely wouldn’t have believed his ghost stories, but it is even harder to believe that Croc, let alone Katana would agree to take part in such pranks. Which is why he listens to them closely and takes note: okay, then he doesn’t have to worry about his mental heath if the late Santana suddenly appears out of nowhere to give some advice or share some news or simply ask how he’s doing. So the four of them keep whispering to one another like kids at the back of the class until their transport arrives – just the four of them, which is a pity. If there is anyone on the team that he had missed a little, it’s Harley. Floyd knows some things about the Joker, for it isn’t possible, as they write in the papers, to belong to the criminal world of Gotham and not know anything about the Joker. Floyd knows what Flag had spilled to him when visiting him in his cell or escorting him there after a visit to Zoe. Floyd thinks that in his entire lifetime he hasn’t understood a thing about love – is it even possible to understand it, on the other hand? – but he feels like the mad and brilliant Harley, Harley the whimsical, Harley the loving deserves better.
“What’s with the gossiping?” Flag inquires suspiciously.
“Nothing!” Croc and Digger answer in unison, in unison, and Floyd facepalms because seriously, are they in some cheesy movie or what? They don’t tell Flag anything yet, but Floyd is almost sure that sooner or later Santana will visit him as well, because Flag is one of them too, after all. Not that he’s even trying to deny it; no one’s making him drop by Floyd’s cell every other day to chat about some nonsense through the steel door.
So Floyd is hardly surprised when, as he makes his way behind the dumpsters loading one gun after another, he notices a familiar, head-to-toe-tattooed figure standing nearby.
“There are snipers on the roof over there and around the corner of the shop,” Chato says instead of greeting. Floyd nods.
“I noticed.”
“Eight men in the drugstore on the other side of the street. Each with a machine gun.”
“How do you know?”
“I’ve just been there.”
“Got it,” there’s no time for lengthy conversations. No time to say: glad you’re alive, man. No time to ascertain: are you alive, though? So he thinks over the plan of action, making a mental note to ask all these questions later, when there are no bullets whistling past their ears.
People like them deserve no guardian angels, frankly speaking, but they may have managed to earn one for all of them.
#suicide squad#el diablo#harley quinn#killer croc#captain boomerang#katana#deadshot#rick flag#dc#talk talk talk#my fic#gella talks skwad#this might have been the most challenging to translate so far#i'm so used to bookish slightly outdated speech and most of my fandoms allow that#and then bam modernity. ugh#also i know nothing about the geography of the dceu!united states. sorry about that.
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Hey Valaks! I love your blog and your writing!
Please could you do 1, 10 and 18 for the writing asks?? 🌺
Thank you for the ask! I have added a cut to hopefully not be that person clogging up the feed XD
1. Tell us about your current project(s) – what’s it about, how’s progress, what do you love most about it?
I have a few collabs outstanding like Gemini and a Kabir/Alex sequel to Reunion (It’s rated T at the most so still kid friendly) with Lupin and Devil Went Down to Georgia with Galimau. My utter love for both of my collab partners for pulling me through at a time when I’ve been really struggling. I have a WIPs List but I’ll confess to not having touched most of them in quite sometime (partly from life, partly because I’m not sure how interesting they’d be to anyone else other than me which influences my writing more than I would like to admit):
Good Intentions: Smithers never thought he’d be anyone’s moral compass, he was no angel to sit in anyone’s shoulder but trying to keep Alex Rider from following in the ruthless footsteps of his father or worse his former handler, Alan Blunt is as close to hell as he can imagine. (Wherein Alex becomes head of MI6 we watch his morality slip away form the eyes of an increasingly frustrated and heartbroken Smithers - it all culminates when Alex uses a child “just as an informant, simple information gathering” but hidden behind the charming smile of John Rider and the brutal coldness of Alan Blunt’s words is Alex Rider dying as he says them (Smithers just hopes there’s still a part of the boy he once knew in there to mourn)
Walk the Line: Alex thought he was done with SCORPIA. But they kept creeping back into his life in the most unexpected of ways. He thought he could at least count on it being on the other side until he gets teamed up with Walker, his former classmate and current CIA spy. Unfortunately he still hasn’t been able to figure out whose side Walker is really on - attempted deep cover op like his dad, repatriated rogue spy back on the “good” side, or SCORPIA double agent? He doesn’t know but at least he’s nice....in that obnoxious American way.
Temperamental: (Sequel to Sentimental which isn’t all that popular and you would need to read it for the sequel but basically amnesiac Yassen whose memories stop pre John’s betrayal set during the Stormbreaker mission and features him trying to come to grips with the use of chemical weapons against children and how to handle Alex once he snaps back to reality which is where this starts) Yassen had promised Alex Rider that he would be safe from the world of spying but fate had other ideas. In the days after Sarov’s failed plan, Yassen scrambles to find where MI6 have hidden his wayward charge without drawing Rothman’s attention. A request from one of their existing clients to look into suspicious activity at his son’s former school prompts Yassen to investigate under the guise of offering security. He should have known where there was trouble there would be Alex.
10. How would you describe your writing process?
Lordy do I ever not have a good answer for this. Typically it involves an idea hitting me and then the determination: would this idea work better as a short to post on tumblr (because the set up would take away the tension or would require a multi chapter which is not really my strength), as a prompt to lob out into the ether for someone better and brighter to touch on, or a fic. Once fic is decided I determine whose perspective the fic would be the most interesting from either because it would create the most tension or their internal monologue/background knowledge would add the most to it. Then the summary is written and a title is chosen. If it’s something I’m really passionate about and I already have it in my head I tend to write it all in one go, if there’s more I need to chew on then it’s a series of dates with the Evil Writing App. The final determination is whether it’s good enough for Valaks or if it gets sent to an alt account.
18. Do any of your stories have alternative versions? (plotlines that you abandoned, AUs of your own work, different characterisations?) Tell us about them.
Allegedly. I’ll try to go in order of posting -
Ruthless has a sequel where Alex just goes *quiet* once the initial dust as settled it’s unnerving to everyone because they’re not used to having to wonder just what Alex is thinking, at least not behind closed doors but what happened isn’t exactly something that can be recovered from easily, not when Alex isn’t sure who all’s in on it no matter what they’ve told him. Failure is the AU where I considered what would happen to Alex to make him want to torture.
Alibi was originally going to have Yassen show up in the end but I found it far more fascinating if MI6 was just testing Alex so out went Yassen and in went Ben. The sequel to it was torn apart and turned into Warm Reception because I wanted to trope flip SCORPIA comes to Brooklands and decided that it was more logical to have a small fight in Mrs. Bedfordshire’s lobby than anywhere else and I wanted to explore some side characters instead of Ben.
Providence’s sequel thoughts ended up inspiring Gentleman’s Agreement but I did write a small short for it “Yassen and Alex encounter each other on mission. Surprisingly they are working to mostly the same goal - Yassen needs to kill the millionaire who Alex needs to get information from. “I suppose I could answer some questions for you, Sasha. /In Russian/“ “Is now really the time for a language lesson?” he ground out in frustration but the man pointedly ignored him “/Fine but I don’t know some of the words/“ “/Then there is no better way to learn/“
I mentioned the Sentimental sequel but changing Sarov to come first and probable for almost a month before Yassen figures out he’s missing made the most sense. It was also a bit of fun at the Yassen would absolutely take Alex away from MI6....just to throw him in a school and throw away the key. Almost had him send him to Point Blanc but decided that wouldn’t quite fit all that well and wouldn’t be as interesting as if Alex had already gotten his feet back under him with MI6 and now sees that Yassen was right that MI6 would just use him until he’s dead but that doesn’t mean Alex wants to be anywhere near Yassen. Julia Rothman might have other ideas when she finds out what her newest second in command is hiding.
Gentleman’s Agreement.....there’s a lot of thoughts on Sequels and AUs, a lot of them have been written by better people, but that fic was written in 45 minutes so there wasn’t much time to recharacterize or change scenes. It did get Turncoat aka the Alex saves Yassen fic I wanted so badly.
Blood Brothers is a fic I really worked hard on considering how John would feel about his son being thrown into SCORPIA assuming Alex was of age. A rocky marriage was characterization that didn’t quite fit what I imagined would have happened but did fit the story so it stayed in. It was a fic that was supposed to get expanded on - the competition between Hunter and Yassen and Nile and Alex who is desperate to beat his Dad and his “apprentice”. I think two teenagers thrown against each other with a bit of a bone to pick, especially Yassen and Alex who can both hold a grudge even if one runs hot and the other runs cold, would have been compelling and a little fun but the premise and specifically John’s characterization doesn’t quite work out to me.
Found and Legends both have their plotting done but it’ll never see the light of day
Little Moments and Sweetest Thing were my guilty pleasure writing pieces for a while and I have about 1000 DMs of scenes for both of them that are lost to the sands of time and an embarrassing amount of self indulgence
Mates has a follow up ending for those who needed resolution in the comments of it. I’m not sure I did a good job of showing that Tom was in a semi abusive relationship since a lot of people seemed to blame him for him and Alex’s breakup. Most of my headcanons for how their relationship goes have them splitting much sooner just because of Tom’s own home life and either being unable to relate/talk to Alex and drifting away because his Mom throwing a plate at his head isn’t being hung over crocodiles but that doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt or because Alex is just too dangerous/jumpy to be thrown back into a school environment and lashes out even unintentionally especially not under the pressure of being seen as a failure. School is also a barometer of just how much he’s lost of himself and his childhood, bonus points for Alex being completely upfront with Tom about everything he’s done
In My Sights has an AU where this is all post Christmas at Gunpoint and Yassen is there because he knows Ian is already at Sayle’s factory and will have to be...handled. So two weeks of just getting Alex trained for the protection he might need, connecting him to resources, etc. Ian finding out that Yassen had been there was part of a draft at one point which was included Alex wondering about an all too sincere goodbye from Ian “who never hugged him” but I can’t find the snippet anymore ;__;
A Warm Reception was an alternate version. Originally I wanted it to be Alex watching his last chance at normality slip from his fingers and then the crushing realization that it was something that was his own doing, not even MI6 but Skoda who he had picked a fight with and the accompanying breakdown but then decided that Mrs. Bedfordshire was the right way to go upon writing the summary. Because everyone loves some Outsider POV
Adopted was supposed to be a one chapter throw away trope flip of K Unit adopts Alex. I kept it pretty consistent with Amitai and Lil Lupin’s K Units, tried to add in some more characterization just in how they treated some of the details. It has an alt ending/chapter where they find out Alex is Cub when they pull him from Three’s tender mercies almost by accident. I was persuaded into light humored fluff via guilt trip.
The Truth and Other Deadly Weapons has Ben acting exactly like he think he would in front of everyone but my AU was that this interaction happened in the field and absolutely shattered Ben’s trust in him partly because he had worked for the other side and partly because even if it ‘wasn’t as bad as it looks’ it showed a severe lack of judgment. It also featured several chapters of Alex running into the glass ceiling that is having “Member Malogosto Class of 2004” on your resume. Was going to feature Alex running into Walker as well and into problems within MI6 and the CIA but that was eventually cut and it was kept to one chapter.
Guardian....Guardian holds a very special place in my heart. I was given the prompt of a Monster Fic and I wrote what I knew but the interesting parts were all the ones that come after the story but might come across to a general audience as Hogwarts School of Prayers and Miracles. The plotting done post this was going to feature baby Angel Alex reuniting with his parents but...they were strangers to him and so he stayed with Yassen more and more, followed him, learned from him....it encompassed everything from the dynamics of broken families to reflections on theology and references from the Good Book....which is why it’ll never see the fandom but has a very special place in my heart.
In another, more perfect world Glocking Around the Christmas Tree is the Die hard fic this fandom deserves but as Lupin and I untangled the plot of the movie more and more we just couldn’t make it into anything that would be coherent on paper so it was changed and changed and is now a half finished sad abomination that sits on my works list only because Lupin would kill me if I took it down.
Hot Shot was supposed to feature my current favorite character that is not Nile Abara, John Crawley but I wimped out and changed it at the end because I swore I would write the Crawley fic that we all need. Hear me out: John Crawley knew and worked with John and Ian Rider, was respected by both of them, was recruited by SCORPIA within one year in the field, is the Chief of Staff of MI6, the man who “no one gets a knife in the back without him signing off” and is also the man who walks his dog to check on Alex. There’s a mentorship waiting to happen there, preferably in a nice work study program during college where Alex finally gets to see the repercussions of his missions and Crawley helps try and pull him back from the black mark that SCORPIA would have put on him.
My personal fluffy favorite is the spinoff of Devil Went Down to Georgia where Joe Byrne did pull Alex out post Skeleton Key and brought him home. There’s a pretty extended one about where Tom ends up after Mates. There’s also an actual sequel but ask me no questions and all.
Skipping a few collabs and Febuwhump fics but Burning Questions was just supposed to be Branded - a fic where upon being captured by Razim he is brought in and forcibly branded to differentiate the appearances of Alex and Julius (since Razim has decided to have him killed after shooting the Secretary of State). As a result of the pain levels spiking when Alex actually sees that the SCORPIA logo is branded onto his cheek Razim considers that emotional pain might be something to investigate. There’s a couple thousand words on it, one day I might polish it up.
First Impressions is supposed to be a mirror verse of Alex working for MI6 which includes Three as Blunt, Rothman as Jones and of course Sagitta as K Unit while he’s up against his father as Yassen and Yassen as Crawley. But it was cut down significantly even if the ideas are pretty fun to consider.
Sorry this was probably more than you bargained for but it was fun to get everything out there so thank you for asking
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Demo Link + About the potential ROs of ‘Nevermoore’ (With Art!)
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Game Demo | Forum
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I decided to put all semi-relevant info + commissioned artwork in one post so it’s easy to find for any newcomers. I’ll be pining this too. (Though some info might change slightly over time bc I am guilty of being inconsistent with my characters whoops)
For RO info, I had also included their music themes. It was based on an ask I gotten a long time ago, but instead on separating them from ‘character songs’ and ‘romance path ballads’, they’re just in general now (But you can still interpret them however you want) Also there’s now an extra song for each because I can’t help myself haha. (And one more thing...a lot of songs are english covers of anime music because I am a weeb. Just...putting it out there)
Also, the some of songs themselves could reveal a bit of the ROs backstory/motivations/etc, if you know where to look 👀.
Disclaimer: All art is done (commissioned) by the incredible @apexred! Please check them out when you can! And even though the ROs have their ‘official art’, please don’t be discouraged if you had wanted to imagine them looking a little different when their descriptions eventually show up in the demo! These designs are more for myself than anything 😅 .
Under the cut-
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Micah/Miriam Sterling
They come from the back alleys of early 1900s New York with a soft-spoken and patient personality. Generally civil and polite to most people they meet, and tries to avoid conflict as much as possible. They also have a habit of being constantly alert of their surroundings, picking up sounds and sensations that would normally be missed by others. Nobody considers it unusual, however, because it becomes understandable once you meet them. If the pair of shades and solid wood walking cane doesn’t give it away, then their clouded blue eyes definitely will.
However, it’s best to remain wary of them. Because there is just something...off, in the way they carry themselves. Like a predator, waiting for the perfect opportunity to strike their prey.
Age: 26
Birthday: February 25, 1896 (Pisces)
Height: 5′9″. Becomes 5′10″ in the heels.
Background: They actually don’t know the specific date they were born, but had went with February 25 because that was the day they were found left on the doorstep of a church orphanage. Because of this, they also don’t know where they are from. But they do know how to speak other languages like French, German, Italian, Russian, and many more.
Recorded Date of Disappearance: 1922
Songs: Unravel English Cover Acoustic, Last StarDust English Cover, Towards the Sun
Related Art: 1,
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Elias/Eloise Lain Romero
They grew up in Cuba before moving to Canada to study journalism. They are often sarcastic and have a bit of a sharp tongue, directing it towards anyone that’s within their vicinity for longer than a minute. However, it’s known that they do genuinely care for the other residents, even though they’d probably rather die again than admit it out loud. Oddly enough, they can also come off as rather nosy, always asking others (including you) rather personal questions. They insist that it’s important, but don't specify what they need the information for.
Also, they are always seen carrying a leather-bound notebook with them at all times. With everything they seem to know about the people and the town, who knows what's written in it...
Age: 21
Birthday: May 11, 1969 (Taurus)
Height: 5′7″
Background: Was born and lived in Cuba until they were about age 7. Knows how to speak Spanish.
Recorded Date of Disappearance: 1989
Songs: Hello World English Cover, Shikisai English Cover, Reason Living English Cover
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Pavel/Pris(Priscilla) Falken
The brightly coloured, mismatched clothes they wear match their upbeat, free-spirited personality. An aspiring cook, specifically a baker, who was looking to open their own cafe before they arrived to the town. But even so, they won’t let the curse stop them from doing what they love, despite the potential risks (In fact, they’ve lost count on how many times their oven blew up on them). They also love to chat with people, especially with the newcomers. Expect to see them show up at your doorstep with a fresh batch of freshly baked goods as a way to make you feel welcome.
Their family actually shares their love for cooking, having once owned a small, local restaurant. Once is the keyword here. And it’s their fault.
Age: 23
Birthday: August 7, 1981 (Leo)
Height: 5′4″-5′5″
Background: Mixed Scandinavian ancestry and probably had distant viking blood. Knows mostly English, but may or may not know some curse words in Swedish and Norwegian.
Recorded Date of Disappearance: 2004
Songs: Best Day of My Life, When Can I see You Again, Glad You Came
Related Art: 1,
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Simon/Sarai Zhang
They are a person of science, following the footsteps of their father. Can be mostly be found in the town library, preferring the company of books rather than people. Their stoicism and aloofness makes it hard to get a read on what they are really thinking, and their bluntness sometimes turns others away. But they are hardworking, and take their situation more seriously than others. Which is why they are the only one who is actively trying to find a way out of the town, as well as understand how it works. They’ve tried everything, and are still coming up with new ways and theories (and experiments, sometimes even on themselves) all the time. They are determined to escape.
They have to. For their father.
Age: 25
Birthday: November 12, 1945
Height: Simon is 6′2″, while Sarai is 6′0″
Background: Has a Chinese father and an Israeli mother. So because of this they know how to speak Mandarin and little bit of Hebrew.
Recorded Date of Disappearance: 1970
Songs: C’mon, Tell Me Now English Cover, [To be added]
#astericae speaks#Nevermoore cog#ROs#Nevermoore Sterling#Nevermoore Romero#Nevermoore Falken#Nevermoore Zhang
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Some Crazy 19th Century Literary Characters Live Together And It Goes About As Well As One Would Think
(Hullo! Yes, it has been awhile since anything has been posted here, and I’m breaking that hiatus with this bit of utter nonsense! Drawing Entity and I had a roleplay recently with classic literary characters who are a bit sketchy, so I decided to take that concept and turn it into a story. Is it to be taken seriously? Nope. This is just me poking fun at some characters that I love in a “what if” scenario. It’s all meant to be humorous and ridiculous.)
(Characters include Van Helsing from Dracula, Moreau from The Island of Doctor Moreau, Griffin from The Invisible Man, Frankenstein from Frankenstein, Gray from The Picture of Dorian Gray, Jekyll and Hyde from Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Moriarty from one of the Sherlock Holmes stories, and Raskolnikov from Crime and Punishment.)
(Note: I know all the characters come from different decades, so this is broadly set somewhere in the mid-1800s. They’re all about as old as they are in their stories. Also, when you see “<...>,” that means they’re speaking in Russian, since Raskolnikov is Russian.)
(Warnings: Blood, violence, weapons, mentioned mauling, gore, hangover, mentions of drinking, generally apathetic characters, brief mention of depressive behavior)
Morning light managed to escape the neverending grey of the mist outside. It shone through the dew speckled window and shined a light on Abraham Van Helsing, who’d been awake for the past three hours or so reading science article after science article. Some of them were new, some of them he’d read but needed a refresher on. Van Helsing wasn’t one to sleep in when there was reading to be done or work to complete (work usually meant preparing for his next escapade into the cemetery, or simply going to teach at the local university).
Glancing at the clock on the wall, the old man saw the time to be half past 7.00, which meant breakfast would be served shortly. Folding up his magazine, he slowly slid out of bed, stretching cramped muscles. Becoming increasingly old meant that he was wiser with each day, so he supposed it was only fair his body maintain balance by withering away. It didn’t make the ache in his back any less irritating, though.
Van Helsing got himself washed up and dressed, then proceeded to the door. He noticed the doorknob shone more than usual. With a sigh, he withdrew his handkerchief from his pocket and turned the handle with it wrapped around his hand. We really must confront Moriarty about this.
As he stepped out onto the landing, Van Helsing heard soft footsteps immediately stop. Turning, he caught sight of a squat, hairy man with roguish features paused in front of the door to Jekyll’s quarters. The man looked at him, then at the door, then back again.
Van Helsing gestured impatiently, “Oh, go on then. Don’t make Jekyll late for breakfast.”
The short man grinned, tipped his top hat, then proceeded quietly into Jekyll’s room. Van Helsing cast his gaze up to the ceiling as he moved to the staircase. Hyde had been late to return, which meant he’d probably gotten up to his ears in trouble, which meant an angry mob banging on their door sometime this morning, which meant Van Helsing had to hurry and eat so he could calm the troubled citizens.
Quickening his pace, he reached the ground floor and strode purposefully to the dining hall, hoping their cook had finished preparing the meal. They’d gone through several cooks this month, either because the last one quit or disappeared without a trace in the middle of the night. It was always the same story, and sometimes Van Helsing was glad he didn’t know the exact end.
Griffin was the only one at the table when Van Helsing arrived. He could tell by the floating robes at the far end, as well as the floating newspaper.
“Good morning, Dr Griffin.”
A “harumph” was the only response.
“Did you sleep well?”
“No.”
“I am sorry to hear that.” Van Helsing settled himself at the head of the table, folding his hands in his lap, “Any exciting news today?”
“Just the usual political drivel.” The paper began folding itself in mid-air then went sliding across the table. Van Helsing caught it and examined the newsprint for himself. As always, he scanned the pages for any mentions of unusual happenings, like a missing corpse or reports of a blood-sucking creature. He found none but knew that hardly meant there were no vampires in the area.
The door opened just then to admit a young man with dark hair and a wary expression.
“Good morning, Rodion Romanovich.”
Raskolnikov gave Van Helsing a tight nod then seated himself beside the older man, hunching over in his seat.
“How did you sleep?” Van Helsing asked.
The young man considered how to respond for a few seconds before alighting on the proper words, speaking with a thick Russian accent, “I slept well.”
“Perfect!” Van Helsing beamed. Raskolnikov seemed pleased with himself.
“Good morning, housemates!” The door was thrown open and Dorian Gray sauntered in, flashing everyone a dazzling smile with perfect teeth. Raskolnikov shrank in his seat and Van Helsing was sure he heard Griffin sigh.
Gray collapsed neatly into a chair, throwing his legs up on the seat beside him, “I trust you all had a good night. I can say that I did.”
“I’ll bet,” Griffin huffed, “I saw you drinking in the common room when I went up to bed at midnight.”
“Oh, I was just having a bit of fun. You all can be such downers and sometimes spirits are the only way to lift my spirits.”
“How are you not hungover?”
“I didn’t have that much.”
“Didn’t- You and Hyde nearly finished our entire supply!”
“Mr Hyde was with you?” Van Helsing spoke up.
“He was for about an hour, then he said he had ‘business elsewhere’ and jumped out the window. Strange fellow.”
Van Helsing nodded gloomily. A drunk Hyde running amok in England was not good.
“I think we should be prepared for another mob, then.” he said as someone else came into the room.
“Another mob?” Dr Moreau paused in the entryway, “But I covered my tracks!”
Van Helsing looked up, “Beg pardon?”
Moreau frowned, “Are we talking about me?”
“We were not.”
“Oh, well then, I guess I’m safe.” The vivisectionist quietly took his place beside Griffin. Van Helsing considered questioning him but decided against it; there was an unspoken policy of don’t-ask-about-my-illegal-activities-and-I-won’t-ask-about-yours in this house.
James Moriarty was the next to arrive. His serpentine like gaze raked over his housemates as he stood by the door and fixed on Van Helsing.
Van Helsing waved, “Yes, professor, I am still alive. Try harder next time.”
Moriarty came to sit next to Gray, “I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re speaking of.”
“Poison on the doorknob? Really?” Van Helsing continued, “How childish.”
“I can assure you, my fellow professor, that if I wished you dead, I’d go about it in a more clever way.” Moriarty sniffed, “Poison is far beneath me.”
Van Helsing rolled his eyes, “Well, if it wasn’t you, then who?”
“Perhaps it was one of those vampires you’re always going on about.”
“Nonsense! I’ve vampire-proofed this house. No creature of the night is coming in here.”
“My mistake.” Moriarty sighed. He turned in his seat, “Where is that cook? Breakfast should have been on the table five minutes ago.”
“He’s new here.” Van Helsing said in the cook’s defense, “Give him time. It can’t be easy catering to... people like us.”
“You mean mad people.” Gray translated, “It’s alright, you can say it. We all know you people are crazy.”
“ ‘You people’ not including yourself, I presume.” Griffin grumbled.
Gray grinned at him, “You presume correctly.”
Raskolnikov frowned at all of them and leaned over to Van Helsing, “<What are they talking about?>”
Van Helsing folded up his newspaper, “<We are just wondering where the cook is.>”
“<Has another one disappeared?>”
“<I hope not.>”
The doors were once again pushed open and a timid young man trudged in. His appearance was quite professional, though Van Helsing noted his hair was not properly combed back and his hands fidgeting and nervous. His skin was an unnatural pallor and his expression quite haggard.
“Sorry I’m late.” Dr Jekyll slowly sat beside Raskolnikov, nearly toppling out of his seat. He shaded his eyes against the lamp light “I slept in.”
Everyone exchanged an almost imperceptible glance at that, but no one said anything out loud. Jekyll still hadn’t quite grasped that everyone here was well aware of his “secret.” Van Helsing figured he should let him know sometime, though he couldn’t pretend seeing the doctor flustered as he struggled for alibis wasn’t amusing.
“How are you today, Doctor? You seem… off.” Van Helsing said politely.
Jekyll’s restless gaze snapped up to the older man, “Oh, no, just… slept… wrong.”
“I see...” Hyde must have left him with a serious hangover; his excuses were usually a lot better put together than that.
The table lapsed into silence, broken only by Gray’s humming and the crinkling of paper as Moriarty read the news.
It was Moreau who spoke next, “Where’s Frankenstein?”
Everyone glanced around, having not noticed their housemate wasn’t there.
Moriarty sighed, “He’s probably sulking in his room again.”
“Who wants to go get him this time?” Griffin asked.
When no one was quick to volunteer, Van Helsing took up the initiative, “I’ll fetch him.”
He left the others to their tense silence and marched up the stairs to Victor Frankenstein’s bedroom. The poor man always seemed to get up late and go to bed early, unless he was seized by some fit of scientific passion, though he inevitably dissolved into sobs afterwards. The young scientist always seemed to feel guilty about something.
The old man reached his door and knocked firmly, “Mr Frankenstein? Are you alright?”
There was no response.
He knocked again, “We’re all gathered for breakfast! We would appreciate it if you joined us!”
Still nothing.
Van Helsing huffed in annoyance, “Mr Frankenstein, you have stayed locked up in your room since yesterday morning, and, as far as I know, have not eaten anything since. Now come out of there and have a meal with us.”
There was a long pause, then Van Helsing heard bolts slowly slide back behind the door until it was open enough for a ragged face to peek out.
“Good morning.” Van Helsing said.
Frankenstein gave a long sigh, “I don’t deserve a good morning.”
“Well, I think you do.” the professor slowly pushed the door open wider, “Are you ready to come down?”
“If I have to be.” Frankenstein stepped out into the hallway, blinking against the light from one of the windows. Van Helsing noticed he hadn’t changed since yesterday morning, and probably hadn’t changed since the morning before that.
The two of them walked back downstairs together and into the dining room.
Everyone was gone.
“Hello?” Van Helsing called, a cold feeling of dread creeping upon him, “Dr Moreau? Mr Gray? Rodion Romanovich?”
“In here!” someone called from the side door leading into the kitchen. Van Helsing exchanged a glance with Frankenstein and they rushed to join the others.
All the residents were gathered in a circle around Griffin, who was crouched over a still form on the ground. Van Helsing immediately recognized it as the cook they’d hired not a week ago, despite the blood coating the victim from head to toe and his torn features.
Griffin lifted the cook’s arm by an un-marred section of skin then let it flop to the ground. He cleared his throat, “This man is dead.” he declared.
“Obviously, Sherlock.” Gray said.
“What did I say about using that name?” Moriarty groused.
“How did this happen?” Van Helsing demanded.
Raskolnikov was suddenly very alert, “<It wasn’t me!>”
Moriarty shook his head, “This wasn’t done by a man. This is the work of a wild animal…”
Everyone grew quiet, then slowly turned to Moreau, who was trying to sneak unnoticed out of the room. He paused as he realized they’d caught him.
He sighed, “Alright, in my defense, I was sure that lion was human enough.”
“It’s a lion, idiot!” Griffin exclaimed, “Human doesn’t factor in!”
“I was making progress! He even started speaking!”
“Did he say he was hungry?” Gray asked.
Moreau glared at him, “He wasn’t that intelligent!”
“Yet you let him run amok!” Griffin yelled, sleeves waving in agitation.
“I kept him locked in the closet!”
“Oh, so that’s where you’re supposed to keep a man-eating lion?!”
“He broke out of his cage! Where was I supposed to put him?”
“Um, guys,” Jekyll’s voice was quiet and only Van Helsing seemed to hear him, “Where’d the lion go?”
Bang!
Everyone jumped as the front doors shook from the force of a mass of people throwing themselves against it.
Oh, the mob. Van Helsing had nearly forgotten to expect them.
“Everybody be quiet!” he shouted. The authority in his voice served to silence the bickering scientists, “We’ve got another angry mob outside and a lion on the loose! Now is not the time to argue among ourselves!”
He paused, formulating a plan, “Moreau, you, Frankenstein, and Moriarty find that lion and kill it if necessary. Gray and Jekyll, you come with me to handle the mob. Griffin, Rodion Romanovich, since no one can either see or understand you, keep yourselves locked in one of your bedrooms and stay together.”
“Fine by me!” Griffin had already grabbed Raskolnikov’s sleeve and was racing out of the room with the confused Russian in tow.
“Why must I stay here and handle Moreau’s mess?” Moriarty asked with a sniff.
“Because you’re the smartest of all of us.” Van Helsing said slyly, “You’ll slay that lion easily with that clever head of yours.”
Moriarty nodded, conceding that he was in fact the smartest. Moreau looked distraught.
“Don’t kill it! I’ve been working on him for months!”
“It’s either him or us, pal,” Gray shouted over his shoulder as he sauntered out the door, “And I’m too pretty to die.”
Van Helsing followed the retreating socialite, Jekyll lurching after them.
There were about 30 citizens gathered outside from what Van Helsing could see as he peeked out the window, each armed with all manner of crude weaponry, including brooms and shovels. Bracing himself, Van Helsing pushed open the door, making the crowd fall back.
“What’s all this about?” he asked, trying to appear friendly.
“You know very well what it’s about!” a woman cried, “There’s been a murder in the village, and Mr Hyde is to blame!”
Jekyll gave a quiet “eep” behind Van Helsing. The professor turned to see the doctor’s pale face, deducing that Hyde probably did commit this crime. It wouldn’t be the first time.
But perhaps… “How was the victim killed?” he asked.
“He was beaten by his own cane until his head caved in!”
No, that was Hyde alright. Part of him hoped it might have been the lion or some other crazy person.
“I saw him from my bedroom window!” a man shouted from the back, “He was coming from the murder scene!”
“Lots of people probably came from the general direction in which the crime was committed,” Gray said with an easy smile, “That doesn’t necessarily have to mean they did it.”
The townspeople seemed taken aback, not from Gray’s words, but from his dashing smile. It always seemed to stun anyone subjected to it, at least anyone who didn’t know Gray well enough to see he was an awful person.
Van Helsing seized their advantage, “Exactly! You cannot convict a man with such flimsy evidence. As far as I can tell, no one actually witnessed the murder, so no one can testify. Hyde was simply minding his own business on the city streets, as he is wont to do.”
“B-But…” Gray’s smile intensified and the protester shut up.
Van Helsing slowly stepped back into the house, leaving Gray to further calm the mob. He was good at that. Jekyll had remained partially indoors during the whole interaction and leaped back into the safety of the parlor.
“Now that that’s settled,” Van Helsing began, “I suppose we should help-”
“AAAAAAAUUUUUGGGGGHHHHHH!!!”
Van Helsing and Jekyll jumped in fright at the scream emanating from upstairs.
“Who was that?” Jekyll shouted in alarm, clasping his hands to his ears. From the dining room, Moreau, Frankenstein, and Moriarty came pouring out.
“Egad, the lion must be up there!” Moriarty cried.
“THE LION’S UP HERE!” Griffin’s panicked scream confirmed Moriarty’s suspicion, “HELP US!!!”
“I’ll get a sedative!” Moreau rushed to his room.
“Forget the sedative! We have to put it down!” Frankenstein seemed seized by a fit of determination. He’d grabbed one of the kitchen knives and brandished it as he followed Moreau up the stairs, “You will never kill again, monster!!!”
Gray poked his head inside as he heard all the shouting, “What the heck is going on in here? You’re ruining my progress with this crowd!”
“The lion’s going to eat us!” Jekyll screamed and started running for the backdoor, face-planting into it first before managing to throw it open. Moriarty glanced from him to Van Helsing, then followed the retreating doctor.
“What?!” Gray looked to Van Helsing for guidance.
“Just keep them calm!” Van Helsing instructed and sprinted toward the staircase, “We’ll handle this!”
Taking the stairs two at a time, Van Helsing made his way up to the second level. He’d barely made it halfway before he was gasping for air, his old legs wobbling like jelly. Sprinting had been a bad plan.
“No!” Moreau had a loaded syringe in hand and was chasing after Frankenstein, who was already to Griffin’s bedroom door, “Don’t kill him!”
Frankenstein kicked the door open as Van Helsing made it all the way up, putting on a burst of speed.
The lion was, indeed, very human-like. While it still hunched over, it remained upright, its digitigrade legs trembling with the effort. Its face was feline yet something in the shape of the jaw and the arch of the forehead and nose gave it a human air, an altogether grotesque combination. It had hands with long fingers ending in sharp claws but still no thumb. The torso was thin, crooked slightly to make it stay standing. The tail stuck out so it could keep its balance.
Griffin and Raskolnikov were backed into a corner, the invisible man with a chair leveled at the beast. He turned as the others rushed in.
“Took you long enough!”
Raskolnikov was saying something in Russian too fast for Van Helsing to translate. All he could catch was “ax,” before the young man was darting out of the room, narrowly avoiding a swipe from the lion.
“Get back, monster!” Frankenstein was leaping forward, knife poised to drive into the creature’s chest. The lion growled and sank awkwardly down onto four legs in order to leap at its new prey.
“No!” Frankenstein was tackled by a flying Moreau and they landed in a heap on the floor. The vivisectionist struggled to his feet as he held Frankenstein down.
“It’s alright!” he said to his creation, “We can talk about this! Just stand up and come with me. Four legs bad, remember?”
The lion growled, crouching lower, “Do not… want… two legs. Want… kill… you!”
It pounced on Moreau and Frankenstein who screamed in terror as Griffin and Van Helsing both yelled in alarm.
Then the creature fell dead on the floor.
Raskolnikov had managed to bolt past Van Helsing and driven an ax into its head, killing it in an instant. Blood spattered the young Russian’s clothes and dripped onto Moreau’s pants.
The doctor stared in silent horror for a few seconds then shoved his creation off him and staggered to his feet, syringe falling from slack hands. Frankenstein followed suit, still gripping the knife like he was afraid the lion was only faking death.
Griffin set his chair down and stepped forward, “Good job, kid! Another moment and we’d all have been dead!”
Van Helsing released a breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding, “Yes, fortunate you found that ax in time.”
Raskolnikov didn’t seem to hear them, his gaze fixated on the blood soaking into his pants and socks. He let the ax fall from his grip, where it slowly slid from the gaping wound in the lion’s head and fell to the ground with a thud. Van Helsing frowned as he noticed the Russian had used the back side of the ax instead of the frontal blade. Then he watched as Raskolnikov reeled out of the room and into the hallway, disappearing around the corner.
Griffin shrugged, “Must not like the sight of blood.”
“I didn’t want it dead.” Moreau said quietly, drawing everyone’s attention to him, “If I could only have reached it…”
“Well, you didn’t, though I can’t say I’m not disappointed it didn’t manage to eat you.” Griffin glared, “Now get this carcass out of my room.”
Van Helsing was too tired to get caught up in another argument and trudged back to the stairs. Frankenstein was soon beside him, fingering the kitchen knife.
“You might want to put that back.” Van Helsing pointed out.
The younger man started at his voice, “Oh, yeah, I guess so…”
“It was very brave of you to confront the lion as you did.” Van Helsing added.
Frankenstein’s jaw clenched and his gaze had a far away quality to it, “If only I had before…”
He turned swiftly and disappeared back into his room before Van Helsing could ask what that meant. Sighing, the old man walked slowly back to the ground level.
“It’s safe to come in!” he called.
Gray opened the front door and came inside, the mob apparently having left, “Is it dead?”
“Yes, Rodion Romanovich killed him.”
Gray sighed in relief, “Good! Tell that vivisectionist to cut out those experiments or we’ll all be mauled to death.”
“I’ll encourage him to work on herbivorous specimens instead.”
“Great.” Gray grabbed his coat from the hanger beside the door, “Well, I’ve got a date at the theater. See you!”
The door made a resounding thud as it closed, just as the back door opened and Jekyll and Moriarty peeked inside.
“You said it’s dead?” Jekyll asked.
“Yes.”
The doctor stepped inside, Moriarty right behind him.
“I’m, uh, off to my room then.” Jekyll said. He had a pained look on his face, as if trying to hold something back. Van Helsing gestured for him to head back upstairs, realizing his other half was about to rear his head as a result of all the excitement. The doctor hurried up the stairs as fast as his flimsy legs would allow.
Moriarty nodded to Van Helsing, “I’ll be in the library should you need me.”
“We could have used you when handling the lion.” Van Helsing said a tad testily.
The criminal mastermind quirked an eyebrow, “I am not in the business of slaying brutes, professor. If you need someone to do your dirty work, I suggest you enlist another’s help. Good day.”
He marched off with all the rigid pomp he could muster, which was quite a lot. Van Helsing sighed, knowing, as master of the house, he should probably help Griffin and Moreau with the dead lion. He slowly marched back upstairs.
And I thought battling Dracula would be the most excitement I’d get in my life...
#Dracula#The Island of Doctor Moreau#The Invisible Man#Frankenstein#The Picture of Dorian Gray#Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde#Sherlock Holmes#Crime and Punishment#Abraham Van Helsing#Dr. Moreau#Griffin#Victor Frankenstein#Dorian Gray#James Moriarty#Raskolnikov#Dr. Jekyll#Mr. Hyde#Writing Entity#TW Blood#TW Violence#TW Hangover#TW Drinking Mention#TW Depression
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"No one will ever convince me he made that statement, and if you listen to his ACTUAL words about that, he didn’t say he wouldn’t take any more LGBTQ roles." Darren literally said that the gay community would have his head if he took another gay role but somehow to tinhats like Cassie, that means the next role he takes will be a gay character. I guess Darren meant that he knows the gay community will try to murder him, but he has faith in his ability to avoid their attempts. They're such freaks.
When they make grandiose and sweeping statements like this, I feel the full weight of the disinformation campaign they all embrace. Cassie claims “When you listen to his actual words…he didn’t say he wouldn’t take any more LGBTQ roles” so we have to see if she’s telling the truth or she’s manipulating reality in order to soothe their anxiety and allow them to easily fetishize the gay version of Darren.
What did Darren say? (You can read the entire Bustle piece (X))
“There are certain [queer] roles that I’ll see that are just wonderful,“ Criss explains when we speak at a recent event for Clorox’s What Comes Next in New York, a few days after he returned from an overseas tour with his Glee co-star Lea Michele. ”But I want to make sure I won’t be another straight boy taking a gay man’s role.“Although Criss says it’s “been a real joy” playing queer characters like Blaine, Cunanan, and Hedwig in the Broadway musical Hedwig and the Angry Inch, he now doesn’t feel comfortable taking those roles, which is “unfortunate,” he says. “The reason I say that is because getting to play those characters is inherently a wonderful dramatic experience,” he adds. “It has made for very, very compelling and interesting people.”
One of the reasons they claim they don’t think Darren said the words is because they claim that print interviews are fake:
12/18/18 ajw720 answered:
I would like to see a video as well, nonnie, as I don’t actually think he said any of this shit. Print articles are never, ever to be trusted. They are generally fabricated.
If you recall nonnie, D himself called out an article earlier this year (it may even be the one referred to in this piece of crap) for taking a quote of his out of context about his Filipino Heritage, likely as he was sick of being called white repeatedly. Fact is, while he is able to correct the “white” narrative, he, at this time, is not able to correct the straight narrative so he can’t even defend himself when this utter nonsense is published in his name.
First of all print articles aren’t generally fabricated and most CAN be trusted if you vet them properly. Claiming “ALL print articles are fabricated”- and therefore not to be trusted is a perfect cctrope because it gives them the out they need to label everything they don’t like-every single quote, every single story, and every single description as fake news. It’s the perfect strategy for ignoring everything Darren talks about that proves he isn’t Blarren- all the puns and sexual innuendos, all the crude comments, all the sweet things he says about Mia or his sexuality. All they have to do is remind their followers that it was in a print article and Woosh- it’s invalid. Trump is doing the same thing with his base-he’s grooming them to believe that the media is dangerous and that everyone fabricates stories about him. He calls them “the enemy of the people” so when the. NYT proves he laundered money for years through the Russian mafia or that he actively cheated during the 2016 election and is trying to cheat in 2020, his base will scream “fake news” and threaten to go all 2nd amendment on the rest of us.
Once again Abby uses something to prove her point but misses the fact that it actually proves she’s full of shit- Darren did push back on the interview where he was misquoted regarding his Filipino heritage but he hasn’t pushed back on any other interview he’s ever given. We can see he’s capable of pushing back, he’s interested in making sure he is quoted accurately and yet we’ve seen no other example- the reasonable conclusion is that is because the other interviews weren’t misquoted.
e Bustle piece and understand that he said he will no longer play LGBTQ characters. It’s clear that Darren has a far deeper understanding of the issue than Cassie and Abby. Splitting hairs and claiming he didn’t specifically say he would never play a bisexual or trans character is stupid. What Cassie and Abby are missing in the article is this paragraph:
This conversation about straight actors being cast in gay roles is about more than just LGBTQ actors losing out on Oscars, of course. It’s about Hollywood missing an opportunity to embrace new talent who would better serve these stories. And over the years, actors like Criss have become more sensitive to these types of concerns. The Versase star understands that there is an added honesty to actor getting to play characters who share their identities. “The commitment to that drama is told in such a way that it can really effectively reach people’s lives,” Criss says. “I think that really is important.”
Abby gets her wish- there is an audio recording of him making this statement-albeit it was 4 months prior to the Bustle interview and he seems to have evolved his understanding of the importance of representation in those 4 months. In the Hollywood Reporter interview he said:
“….But I do think about that now, you know, if roles come by that are LGBT leaning - I really think it would be insensitive to the gay community if I were to take another role. I think they’d have my head. You know, I would totally understand that. So I’m certainly cognizant of it. And while it is very tricky, I think the discussion and the questioning is really really important. And I think it’s good that we’re uncertain and I hope that we can find some kind of balance.” -Darren Criss, 8/26/18
I am an idiot and can’t remember how I got the audio portion of the interview on to my blog so I have to refer you to my old post if you want to hear Darren say the words (X).
I think you are correct- Darren is well aware the gay community will kill him but he doesn’t care because he has superpowers.
EDIT** I found this charming comment from Chrisdare who is a “journalist” yet she knows nothing about journalism. I got in an argument with her once and she schooled me that journalists aren’t educated.and will say anything a publicist tells them too. Whatever, Valentina, Google should be your friend.
Anonymous asked: It wouldn’t matter if you saw a video because you wouldn’t believe it anyway. You would say he was being forced to say it. Fact is CCers haven’t believed a thing
ajw720 answered:I believe many things nonnie. I also have a deep and fundamental understanding about hollywood works nonnie and that is something you clearly lack.
Further, if D was straight, i believe he would never allow them to portray him as an asshole. D is an incredibly intelligent human being, he knows exactly how negatively the straight push reflects on him. and frankly, it would not be necessary if he exclusively slept with female persons with vaginas.
Have a nice life living in delusionville.
chrisdarebashfulsmiles JCS shut the f** up.
When we talk about articles and how they are made we talk about facts. I hate when you come here busting balls on professional stuff when you don’t know anything. You can’t even imagine all the shit we do as journalist
It’s not a matter of cc but the fact they are ruining D’s life and career. And if you are a fan you need to start opening your eyes and stop being an enabler. I swear you should feel guilty when he will come out because you helped keeping him in the closet.
Talk about dellusionville!
**********Edit Edit *******(X)
chrisdarebashfulsmiles Because there’s a power of attorney that allows RR and Ab to do so. To say something D has to prove that the article is harmful and he has to do it through a legal action. And this means breach of contract with all it entails like the two years of stop from signing an anything.
That IS NOT how “power of attorney” works. But nice try- 10 points for originality and imagination!
***Edit Edit Edit *********
Anonymous asked: An article you should read to help you understand how journalism works .tinyurl/com/y9s49tms. German Reporter At Der Spiegel Fired for Fabricating Stories “On A Grand Scale”. “I’m so angry, horrified, shocked, stunned,” Der Spiegel deputy foreign editor Mathieu von Rohr tweeted Wednesday. “Claas Relotius faked, he cheated on us all.” Journalists can’t just make up stories or publish falsities no matter how much you want to believe that is happening in Hollywood.
chrisdarebashfulsmiles answered: It’s amazing how is crystal clear that you never worked in a magazine or in a PR firm. I work since 2004 and I don’t need an article… I know how it works. We aren’t talking about WSJ and serious stuff. We are talking about gossip and showbusiness so don’t try to be smug because you are failing.
Have nice day/ night wherever you are. :) it’s evening here and I’m enjoying my free time.
bjpb8 Oh, my gosh who is this person. People thrive on gossip and “Rags”. IT SELLS. First begain with papers like En/quire, The Globe, etc. Then spread to SM with blinds. You think other magazines and papers do not want to make money. Everyone prints what sells depending on audiences. Embellishment is part of the trade. They want to catch your interest, which feeds right into what PR wants to sell! Tts a sybiotic relationship at best! It is just some are more talented at making what sounds like truth out of lies. Its called entertainment. You might want ro “read” about it.
The author of the Bustle interview has a master’s degree in journalism from CUNY New York so it is more like the wall street journal than it is the “website” you work for Valentina. Journalists have a degree in journalism. Anyone can be a blogger - you’ve proved that.
****Edit Edit Edit Edit *******
D/arren did not write that post! (X)
12/19/18
ajw720 I have enough faith in Dar/ren Cri/ss personality and his respect and love for his fans to know that the comments attributed to him were not his. I’ve seem this happen before…I’m sure many of you have, also. Darr/en is stuck between a rock and a hard place right now. When he finally writes a memoir about this time, he will let us know about his anquish, anger and remorse. If one is a TRUE CC and Dar/ren fan, after years of roller-coaster rides via PR, et al…I will continue to take the advice of the person that runse THIS SITE. “Trust the process…”
***********************************************************************
@geminess We have to trust the process and believe that C and D are working hard towards an ending to this absolute tragedy that is legally clean and does not jeopardize either of their careers.
I believe in them, I cannot accept that D would ever willingly choose to represent himself in this manner and to continue this nightmare of a charade surrounded by utterly and completely vile, disgusting human beings.
Please, please, please may we be right. I cannot repeat enough there is no alternative ending that is acceptable but D breaking free by ending this sham of an encage, severing ties with his inhumane team, and eventually coming out.
And yesterday proved once again just how frightening the alternative is. I would fear for his career and his life. And it baffles and amazes me that anyone watching, even if you believe he is the straightest man alive, cannot see how harmful that article was. It was like he used the LGBT+ community to win his awards and is now ready to dismiss them.
(X) 12/19/18
Anonymous asked: On the bright side, this means we’re coming to the end right?
ajw720 answered: Anon, we honestly don’t know, but we can only hope. If D extends his time with these assholes, it will be very ugly for him personally and professionally.
But logic seems to say that this article, the literally offends every fan but the blind and naive, is wholly unnecessary if in fact they are going to continue a professional relationships. And it did not just the fans, think about how many award voters they offended yesterday with that utter piece of crap.
Absolutely and utterly unreal. Hard to believe they are able to get away with working against their client at every turn.
Logic? One thing the cc fandom has proven in the last 10 years is that they do not understand or care about logic.
12/24/18 (X)
ajw720 It’s interesting how there are such varying opinions on the “straight boy” article. And I think it comes down to 2 questions:
1. Do you believe D is a willing participant in his closeting?
2. Do you believe he actually said what the article alleges?
My answer to both is a resounding no (though he will be forced to validate the comments) and I have good reason to think this. But I certainly see why ones perspective is different if you answer one or both as yes.
This being said, no matter your answers to the above, I don’t see how it can be justified that he would dismiss b/laine in such a manner. And the timing, because I still think it makes him look like an ass and /or a coward as awards are voted for playing queer. And to repeat, I don’t think he should play queer again until his team is dismissed, so I’m not disagreeing with the premise, just the manner it was done, which again, I believe was without his consent.
Not posting to start a fight. Everyone is entitled to an opinion. I clearly am not afraid to state mine, which is very reasoned and based on a lot of information I’ve collected.
Just interesting that some very intelligent people, all of whom believe he’s closeted, can vary so much in what they believe.
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Have you read the newest chapter? do you think Sofia knows about what Kiro did or is it about something else?
[I hope it’s okay if I also post here all the discussions about chap 181 which arose from my past post about it]
Yes!!! ^_________^
Scanlations are coming out really fast out of late I admite the dedication of the scanlating group and I wholeheartedly thanks them! (in my country the official publication is still at the 12 volume although there are rumours vol 13 should be released soon… but well, we’re still very far behind the official publication… ;_;)
As I wrote in my ramblings and crazy theory time about chap 181 I’ve not the slightest idea.
It would have been stupid if Kiro had told her the truth, as he knew Sofia had a weak side for Wilk and he already faced a woman in love with him (*chough* Inkarmat *chough*) but of course he might have thought Sofia’s revolutionary feelings would be stronger in her than her feelings for a man whom she didn’t see for more than 10 years, who got married and fathered a daughter with another woman and who fundamentally betrayed their cause.
So yes, it’s possible he did but I prefer to think he would be more cautious.
We know after all he’s completely capable to lie for his own revolutionary purposes and keep the truth for himself as we saw him doing this from… basically when he showed up till now.
It’s also possible that even if he didn’t tell Sofia, she had figured out as maybe he told her enough and she knew Kiro and what he could do… but again while possible I can’t really tell if this is the case.
And, of course, Tsurumi might have tattled out Kiro to her as well. I mean, he tattled him out to the Russian guards. what would have stopped him from tattling him out to Sofia as well as he knew about her existance and could easily predict Kiro was going to meet her?
But, of course, this would come out as weird and suspicious. If he wants to be believed he can’t write to Sofia as Tsurumi. A Japanese officer writing her wouldn’t gain her trust. He could try as Hasegawa, which would tie in well with how we were just told about his story and how Sofia felt guilty for his wife and child’s death.
Still I’ll say it would come as a bit suspicious.
Ultimately though, I don’t want Tsurumi’s involvement or Sofia’s reaction to be that one because she knows the truth because it would be like seeing Inkarmat all over.
Sofia looks a bit different as she first hit then accuses but, if the keypoint is for her to do what Inkarmat would have done, I think this ends up like damaging her character.
Sofia comes from a place that’s different from Inkarmat.
She’s a revolutionary, she has men under her, she has loyalty to her cause, she needs the Ainu gold and Wilk went in Hokkaido to get it for them.
Inkarmat had nothing to lose by blowing up at Kiro except her life but she was so enraged she likely didn’t think much at it (and she probably also has self worth issues). Sofia has her men and her cause to provide at.
Wilk is dead and it’s painful but her men are still alive and need that gold.
Also Sofia wasn’t a child like Inkarmat when she fell for Wilk and therefore her emotional tie to Wilk is different.
So well, I’ve no idea if Sofia knows or will know but I think she can’t allow herself to act like Inkarmat and tattle everything out to Asirpa.
If she knows, I like to think she’ll swallow her accusation down and content herself with the slap she had just given him.
If she doesn’t, then that sentence will end up meaning something different from Inkarmat.
Of course having Sofia too act like Inkarmat and, possibly, having her met the same end, would remark how wrong Kiro’s actions were.
If a random person unaware of circumstances says something it’s just his opinion and you can easily dismiss it… if more people, among which people you trust and who knows your circumstances, say something, then well it’s the moment you should start listening to them.
Kiro’s actions toward Wilk were wrong. Personally I doubt Kiro had the chance to hear Wilk out on why he did what he did and he might have misunderstood his actions or work with wrong informations on them.
In short Kiro might have accused him of betrayal and murder when Wilk didn’t betray them at all.
It’s also true that Sofia is a good boss and, in a way, she was also Wilk and Kiro’s boss and she might feel so enraged her men started killing each other she won’t just shut up. Or maybe she thinks she wants to come out as honest to Asirpa.
She might be a boss with high moral grounds, who will think the gold isn’t worth lying to a little girl. She surely seemed to have a motherly feeling for her… and in the past she clearly had a weakness for children.
But well… it’s really early to guess all this.
We only saw glimpses of Sofia so it’s a bit too early to guess how she’ll move. Still that would be the worst time for a revelation (they’re in the middle of a jailbreak after all) so I’d like to think if a revelation will come it’ll be when they’re in a better place.
So overall everything is just a huge question mark.
However, narratively speaking, the recurring usage of a broken sentence might be a red herring. Fundamentally we expect it to have the meaning of the previous time in which it was used… but this can be exactly why it’s being used now. To lull us in that belief to surprise us when it’ll turn out it’s about something else. After all, it’s meaningful it’s placed just at the end of the chapter, so we can’t know what’s meant to come afterward. If there will be no differences with Inkarmat… the surprise will just go wasted.
So well, I tend to think that Sofia is trying to say something different from Inkarmat.
Overall I’m also more prone to believe Kiro wouldn’t write to Sofia about his involvement in Wilk’s death just to play safe.
I think if he wants to talk with her about it, he would prefer to do it in person.
Sofia’s ability to guess things up depends on how much she knows. If he told her Abashiri in details he come out extremely suspicious, if he just told her Wilk died while they were trying to take him out of the prison… well, it can happen.
People just died during this jailbreak as well.
Sofia might think it was just a matter of bad luck and blame Kiro merely for poorly protecting Wilk.
So… well, I know you were hoping for a more clear answer but at this point everything is possible and all the bets are open.
In reply to this post @daewonhoffsaid: “I have a hunch that Sugimoto will probably reveal to Asirpa that Ogata killed her dad. (when they’ll meet up).”
That’s definitely Sugimoto’s plan, though I honestly hope Asirpa will find out by herself before he’ll manage to tell her.
Not only it was rather easy to guess (Shiraishi is clearly thinking so and, although he likes Kiro and owns him his life, he also told her how suspicious he was and how likely it is he lied to them) so if she doesn’t figure things out she’ll come out as naive as best or stupid at worst and that’s not the Asirpa we know and love, but I don’t really like for her to have to rely on Sugimoto for this sort of things.
Sugimoto rushed after her, feeling very much as a knight in a shining armour trying to save a damsel in distress, but I’d like for Asirpa to prove she’s no damsel in distress and can very well handle things on her own.
It would also help Sugimoto, as he feels he’s utterly to blame as if he was completely responsible for whatever happens to Asirpa and Asirpa were to have no agenda of her own.
I’m not saying he doesn’t have to help Asirpa, I’m sure his help would be a good thing, just that Asirpa doesn’t have to utterly rely on him and be completely helpless otherwise.
Asirpa remarked more than once how she’s in this because she decided so and, when presented with the chance to escape from Kiro and Ogata, SHE decided to stay.
It’s not she claimed Shiraishi was paranoid, this is the way Asirpa has decided. Invalidating it by having her needing to be spoonfed info she could figure out by heself like Shiraishi did and having her need to be saved by Sugimoto would be a disservice to Asirpa.
I like to think Sugimoto will reach her to discover whatever he was so desperate to do (telling her Ogata and Kiro are dangerous, that her father probably didn’t kill the Ainu and bringing her home) has been already taken care of her because she’s his partner and equal, not a burden that depends on him for information and protection.
But well, that’s just me.
In reply to this post @preservedturd said: “I also want to see Sofia and Koito interact. Two nobles of their respective countries with considerably different lifestyles. (I hit the reply button too soon) Bonus points if those two ever talk smack to each other in French.”
Yes, I think it would be wonderful to see them interact and affect each other perspective. Sofia is the sort of great leader Koito’s father hoped Koito would become so I think it would be a great experience for him… and, in a way, I think it would help Sofia as well.
I think she needs to reconnect with the members of the upper class which are not evil per-se but just ignorant of how they’re privileged and that’s why they’re doing nothing.
A good leader should have a collective vision of the situation, not know just one side and just violence will not lead her far. She needs also politic to collect results as she just doesn’t have the means to reach her goals with just the men under her.
LOL, in a way I’d love for Koito to become Sofia’s… ‘heir’ of some sort.
But maybe it’s just me.
#Ask#In reply#Sofia#Asirpa#Sugimoto Saichi#Kiroranke#Inkarmat#Preservedturd#Other people's posts#Daewonhoff
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And here am I again, complaining and being a crybaby on this website again. I can’t post on Twitter, too many people might see it, and I’ve already lost some friends about of that dumb story I keep talking about.
The truth is I don’t know what to do? I don’t know what to say, everything is so shitty, and everything is a mess at the moment. I’m not that depressed during the day, mostly because I keep myself quite busy, I don’t have much time to think, and there’s always some friends from uni around to talk etc so I don’t really think but I’m not really there, I feel like I’m just numb to everything. When evening arrives, and I have to come home, I just want to run away, I don’t want to be in this house anymore, the people here, I just feel paranoid, I just feel like everybody hates me there (except for my Russian flatmate, she’s my Belgium Mum here). And they all make so much noise all the time, I’m so tired.
The more I go to uni, the more I feel like I’ll fail, but it’s the only thing I have to go, so I do it, I go. Moreover I’m engaged in two team work so I can’t give them up. But seriously, this semester is so hardcore, I don’t even know how I’m gonna pass my exam, I’ll probably fail most of them, but well, at least I know it. The worst part is going to uni, feeling bad about not being able to cope with all the courses and the works, and seeing your friends managing to do it all and even more sometimes, and like... you’re there, and you can’t really complain because we’re all in the same shit and I’m tired of being the one who always complains. I complain because I just suck, that’s the truth. I suck at uni and I know it, but I still have a slight hope that I might maybe, with a miracle, manage to pass my exams ? I don’t even know.
I finally live in Brussels, a city I’ve always wanted to live in, and I’m not even happy, I can’t even enjoy the city because I have too much work to do.
I have this one friend, maybe the only one I can call a friend in Brussels, from uni, she’s really cool and protective about me sometimes it feels good to have someone like that, even more in times like this. But I feel guilty for the time she gives me, and the fact that she feels like she has to confort me or whatever.She has other important things to do like work for uni, and take care of her family and close friends, who am I to her but someone who passes in her life?
On the other hand, she’s the only one I feel confortable enough to talk about that dumb Russian asshole. She’s the only one that won’t judge me or else.
I feel lonely even tho I know I have friends, but, most of my close friends I know I can’t talk to them about everything. The only friend I could talk about really everything and anything, well, just left my life.
He truly has a toxic person in my life that I needed to get rid of. And I did, it’s a good thing. What I hate is how it happened. Long story short, we spend the entire month of October arguing about how he treated me poorly, and how he didn’t care about me at all, and I told him I wanted him out of my life, and he couldn’t even say (at least sober) why he wanted to keep me in his life as a close friend. He couldn’t tell me how much he cared about me, he couldn’t tell me that he loved him, he couldn’t do this, and admitted that I was the only one he couldn’t actually say it to, and he didn’t even know why. The more I think about, the more I feel like he did all of this just to make me suffer even more. I’m almost convinced he did that with the purpose to torture me even more. Anyway, he just kept on feeding me hope during the entire month, asking me (begging) me to give me a last chance, again and again (because he kept on fucking up his chances every time) until he finally asked me for a break. A break that I didn’t want, I know him, he’s a dumb asshole, and a break would just please him, he’d have the feeling he’d won the battle, and would forget all about what I told him, and blamed him, I just feel good again, while I’ll just keep on feeling more and more shit because of him. And that’s what happened, he just left me like that, with no guarantee, nothing. God I hate him for doing that to me. And he does that on purpose, he knows how it drives me crazy. I truly think he likes to know that I’m suffering. Or worst, he doesn’t care at all about me. That’s probably the best hypothesis.
I mean, how could he left me like that ? Like he really did care that little about him to let me go like that ? Not even with a last fight. Oh and I didn’t talk about his dumb tweets during his break “I know you’re mad at me but I love you - (I’m sober if that matters)”. He deleted these tweets right after I liked them. Like yeah, I love you but not too much eh, and I just post that here so you just suffer even more. He keeps on feeding me with hopes and let me suffer. Why can’t he just say goodbye and truly let me go ? Why does he have to do that to me ? What have I done to him to deserve that ? I just want him to let me go once and for all. Last week, I was tired of waiting for him, and just sent him a message to say that if he didn’t do something by the end of the week, guess what ? He first replied to me to kind of insult me because I didn’t reply to his phone calls, then tried to make me feel like the bad person who doesn’t hold on her promesses. The irony, when he’s actually the one who’s been lying to me for more than a year now. I eventually told me that he would do what “he planned to do” on the Friday afternoon. And guess what ? He did nothing. He once again gave me hope for nothing, just to gloat over my pain I guess ? To give me again a bit of hope so I’d think about that all weekend long for nothing. I really hoped until midnight. I sent him a message at 00.30am to ask him if it was finally over and complain that he couldn’t even have the guts to say goodbye and to undertake the fact that his only plan was to just gave up on me (maybe because he realised that I was right when I told him that he’d be better off without me) and no answer since then. Oh and also, he putted on some social media a new username like thisisnotover, omg stop him I want to stab him a thousand times (at least if I do that his father would find me back and kill him, all advantages to me since I am too much of a coward to kill myself), he continues to be that dumb ass shit and feeding me hopes just to see me suffering. At what moment, when you want to keep someone in your life (and you keep saying so), you just can time the deadline this person gives you ? Show that you want to get better for that person and do things on time FFS. He stopped his break this week (yeah I checked his Twitter account even tho I know I shouldn’t and I try to do it as less as possible) but didn’t send me anything. Just reply, just say goodbye for fuck’s sake.
I just spend my day numb, not even able to think properly, wandering at the university, I don’t even know how I found the force to work, I just act like a robot when I’m there. And my nights, it’s just me crying to sleep every time, I don’t even know why I cry ? I wanted him out of my life. But I guess it’s just the way it happens that drives me crazy. And the fact that I cared so much about someone that never gave a shit about me. I did so much for him, even when I think about it now I just feel bad for myself for doing so much for him while he’s not able to do just a little for me... anyway.
I’ll just be the typical emo girl that will finish all that with a quote from a BMTH song. Never been much of a fan of this band, but True Friends really stick well to my current mood and his behaviour.
I wouldn't hold my breath if I was you
Cause I'll forget but I'll never forgive you
Don't you know, don't you know
True friends stab you in the front?
It's funny how things work out
Such a bitter irony
Like a kick right to the teeth
It fell apart right from the start
But I couldn't even see the forest for the trees
(I'm afraid you asked for this)
You've got a lot of nerve, but not a lot of spine
You made your bed when you worried about mine
This ends now
I wouldn't hold my breath if I was you
Cause I'll forget but I'll never forgive you
Don't you know, don't you know
True friends stab you in the front?
I wouldn't hold my breath if I was you
You broke my heart & there's nothing you can do
And now you know, now you know
True friends stab you in the front
It's kind of sad cause what we had
Well it could have been something
I guess it wasn't meant to be
(So how dare you) Try and steal my flame
Just cause yours faded
Well hate is gasoline
A fire fuelling all my dreams
(I'm afraid you asked for this)
You've got a lot of nerve, but not a lot of spine
You made your bed when you worried about mine
This ends now
I wouldn't hold my breath if I was you
Cause I'll forget but I'll never forgive you
Don't you know, don't you know
True friends stab you in the front?
I wouldn't hold my breath if I was you
You broke my heart & there's nothing you can do
And now you know, now you know
True friends stab you in the front
You can run, but you can't hide
Time won't help you
Cause karma has no deadline
You can run, but you can't hide
Time won't help you
Cause karma has no deadline
I don’t even know if someone will read this shit, but I’ll probably delete it in few days when I’ll regret writing this.
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I am just going to rant.
Note: I will not edit this until tomorrow. All mistakes are phonetic and easily rectified.
I am Muslim, but I am drunk. My best friend‘s mother just died and he was drunk and it shocked me because he never drinks. He tends to have an addictive personality and so it freaked me out that my friend who hasn’t drank any alcohol at all in five years is slurry and stumbling around his deceased mother‘s trailer in South Carolina trying to keep it together.
I am worried about my friend, but more worried, like the rideshare driver that I am about being a good steward to people and reminding him to set his alarm now so that he doesn’t oversleep for the appointment with the funeral director tomorrow. I have the high holy day Muslim prayer tomorrow at the mosque and it is very difficult and or unlikely for me to get there on time. I’m feeling very guilty because I haven’t drank almost anything in nearly a year and yet I am drinking tonight, in the wee hours of the morning before the holy Muslim prayer of Jumah; now, I sit here with my head moving further than my body does, feeling out of it and disoriented after my second large glass of Arak. 
It’s been such a strange day, I sit here feeling drunk. I woke up and I had a car with a nearly flat tire and a dead battery. The kindness of a stranger helped jumpstart my battery and give me some very good advice. I pushed back my physical therapy appointment for my bad shoulder and drove across the city to the one reputable used tire place to refill my tire. Now, I have a car with a working battery and a tire that is not leaking air and, after doing my laundry I call my friend, expecting it to be more of the same with his mother, circling the drain having more days of sleeplessness only to be thrown out of my universe and be told that no, she’s dead. She died this morning. I didn’t tell you earlier because I knew you would call. Some thing that I almost forgot to do.
Why am I telling you this? I don’t care. Only three people will ever fucking re-blog this. No one will even read this far. Anyway, I was in a completely different headspace for most of his hour and a half call. I wanted to crack jokes and cheer him up but how do you crack jokes about someone having their mother die in his arms? How do you make a funny joke about a woman peeing herself and then having hospice rush her to the funeral home? What witty one-liners do you use for that? How do you feel of use in a situation where you were 600 miles away from someone and you can’t do any goddamn thing to actually help them other than just feel impotent and powerless on the other end of a phone line. What the fuck do you do? Seeing your friend who has always struggled with addictions get drunk off of a concoction of very delicious sounding margaritas in the trailer that had here too for been occupied by his mother, the last surviving parent. Now here I am dealing with the fact that he is living some thing I will have to live through very soon enough when my second biological parent dies and I am left with virtually no family outside of an aunt who I talk to once every two or three years. I feel like he is living my future. His future is filled with drunkenly stumbling around a trailer that is not his, feeling impotent and powerless trying to focus on anything else other than the fact that his mother is never going to have a conversation with him again. I am trying to have a conversation with him try not to remind myself that I will once again have to prepare myself for some thing that no one can prepare themselves for: the death of someone you truly love. In this case, my mom. He starts getting drunk, and so do I. I just want to feel numb.
I don’t want to think about how I needed to get new clothes yesterday because I got too fat for most of my T-shirts. I don’t want to think about the fact that the people at the physical therapy place think I’m weird because I like obscure Russian movies and I don’t have anything in common with normal people. I don’t wanna think about the fact that my friends think that I am irritating every once in a while because I have ADHD and severe depression and anxiety which are comorbidities with ADHD. I don’t wanna think of myself as a burden to my friends. I don’t like thinking about myself as an annoyance to people who I love, but that haunting Spectre in the back of my brain reminds me that that may be exactly what it is. I may be ultimately just a burden who stays a burden, alone, and then dies. That may be all I accomplish, outside of worthless posts on here that few people will ever read, like this one.
I’m laying on my bed at 2:40 in the morning and one of the bits of clothing I got yesterday today. A new T-shirt that ironically says kindness matters but, what can I say? I’ve always been a person who felt like that slogan was about how I should treat other people but I could never figure out how to treat myself that way. With other people I can always give them the benefit of the doubt that they have their own shit to work through and that they are doing their best but I know myself too well. I know I’m not doing my best. Might be kind someone who is ultimately not trying hard enough to do their best? It seems like a waste of time to try to support someone who you know is going to fail. Someone who you know isn’t giving everything they have. Someone who is in hustling enough to actually reach the finish line. You feel like you’re just pumping someone up that you know he’s not gonna actually make it. Someone who you know you’re gonna have to be there telling them that they tried their best. Again. That’s how I feel like it is like to cheer myself up to pep myself up. I know it’s just proceeding telling myself that I’m gonna get them next time. Next time my story will be published. Next time I’ll have enough confidence to actually set up the profile on the dating app. Next time, the date with a nice guy is going to be a reality instead of just some kind of daydream fantasy that I entertain myself with while I shuttle people around who could care less about my existence.
Here I am, at nearly 3 o’clock in the morning with a phone that is nearly dead, my friend is probably getting ready for bed, too drunk to really think much about his mother who is going to need to make funeral plans at the funeral parlor tomorrow. My life will be completely uneventful. It is always uneventful. That is a blessing, I realize, but it is the stagnation that makes me feel like what is the pointing going on living when I am just going to spend it in nothingness? Why bother doing anything when it’s just gonna end up being made siphoning resources away from the poor and taking up space until eventually I just disappear and nothingness, forgotten buried somewhere, wherever.
What is life but just a waystation on the way to death, trying to build up enough supporters and memories and accomplishments so that the sting of death doesn’t hurt as much. It’s like running for class president. You’re trying, in the limited time you have to garner as much accomplishments and support as you can before you run out of time and you’ll be judged as either good enough or not good enough. That’s life. At least that’s how it seems to me at nearly 3 o’clock in the morning right before I’m supposed to do Muslim prayer, and I still have a little bit left on my second glass of Arak.
What am I even doing? I’m a gay Muslim. Why even bother? I feel so pathetic every single time I find another Muslim. Like I found a Muslim lady in my building from the United Arab Emirates. She seems so nice! She like to read! Something in common! I didn’t even bother to tell her where I lived or to introduce myself because I knew, but I didn’t know, but I assumed, that when she found out I was gay she would think of me is disgusting and an idiot for ever thinking I belong at the Muslim table and that I should just stop wasting my time trying to appeal to a God who I would never be good enough for. I like writing this year because I know that most of the people reading this are either non-religious, non-Muslims, or gay and so all of you reading this also think I’m stupid for ever trying to appeal to a God who I believe in but who probably will never be satisfied with me. Some of you reading this will probably feel, rightly so, that it is hubris for me to imply that I know the will of God and therefore I should just try to be the best version of myself that I can. That is probably the helpful advice. Unfortunately, I don’t feel like helpful advice right now.
That’s the problem. I feel like I want to punish myself for the piss poor excuse for life I have created even though, I don’t know what I was expecting? I guess I was expecting to have it all. I wanted to be surrounded by friends and a gorgeous caring boyfriend and a wildly successful riding career. I wanted my ADHD to not be an issue so that I could’ve accomplished all of those things with all of the silent work in the background that those goals actually require. I wanted to be happy. I wanted to be satisfied. I wanted to be able to throw my money around buying useless garbage like expensive meals that I could’ve made at home and not even thought about how much they cost. I wanted to have enough money to be one of those wasteful gay people they can throw their money on garbage on Etsy that they don’t really need, expensive bespoke clothes that they could get cheaper elsewhere, and restaurant quality meals that are going to provide fleeting joy and are ultimately just expensive fuel for the body. I want to be that kind of a person. I want to be someone wasteful. Burns the money that could feed the poor on their on alter to themselves. I want to be that kind of person, but I have always somehow fucked it up. I want to be that type of person, who can create this world about making themselves the best and most beautiful and amazing thing in the world and insisting that everyone else treat them as this beautiful jewel even though they’re really just some random fucking asshole who will live, and then die. I could never do it. I mean there are people Who devote their entire lives to helping the poor. People who Sean the television and the Internet and spend their free time writing because they are actually writers and they love writing, even if they never publish anything and their contribution to the world is thousands of pages of glorious fanfiction on AO3. They are more writers than I will ever be with my stories that no one reads. The pain of being jealous of a couple in what is clearly an unhappy marriage because at least they were in love once, some thing I can never claim.
I take another sip of the alcohol, almost wishing that I could be videotaped and have this monologue in this pathetic scene where a 40 year old fat lonely man records a drunken monologue in his studio apartment at 3 AM. I wish they could show that at the mosque right before I arrive so everyone would be able to see that I am unworthy. Why do I want this? Is it sadism? Masochism? No. It’s a more toxic reason. I want everyone else to know so I can justify my own feelings of self hatred that are ultimately self created. It’s easier for me to imagine that the whole world sees me as terrible and pathetic than to imagine and except the terrible, terrible truth that I am actually a really great guy who is accomplished a lot. The terrible truth that I am totally fine and accomplishing a lot I just have depression that doesn’t let me see it. It’s so much more horrible to know that all of those negative self feelings are just in your head, you know? It’s so much harder to except that they are all in your head then to except that they are true. You almost want all of those negative self feelings to be true so it’s not just you being cruel to yourself for no goddamn reason. That’s the motherfucking horrible thing about being alive sometimes. Being a person with all of the advantages in a prosperous society like America and still having the nerve to not be happy. It’s like an insult to all of the people in the world that are struggling with not enough. 
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How Trump allies stoked the flames ahead of Capitol riot
New Post has been published on https://appradab.com/how-trump-allies-stoked-the-flames-ahead-of-capitol-riot/
How Trump allies stoked the flames ahead of Capitol riot
As 2020 faded into 2021, some of President Donald Trump’s most influential supporters — among them members of his inner circle who were in direct contact with the President — spoke in ominous and violent terms about what was coming on January 6.
Even as anxious eyes turn toward the Inauguration Day on January 20, the words of these firebrands in the leadup to the riots at the Capitol raise crucial questions about the relationship between the rhetoric of far-right figureheads and the violence that unfolded on January 6.
“All hell is going to break loose tomorrow,” Bannon, Trump’s former top White House adviser, promised listeners of his podcast — called “War Room” — on January 5.
“We are going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women,” he added, “and we are probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them because you will never take back our country with weakness.”
Soon after, a mob of Trump supporters stormed the US Capitol, killing a police officer and assaulting others before charging inside — some carrying weapons and zip-tie handcuffs.
“What we have is influential, powerful people influencing the President and pushing out messages that are radicalizing large chunks of the population,” said Heidi Beirich, chief strategy officer for the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, a nonprofit organization that monitors extremism around the world. “It’s very dangerous.”
To be sure, as a rule most speech that doesn’t convey a direct threat or incite “imminent lawless action” is protected under the First Amendment.
But experts told Appradab they believe Trump and his most visible allies bear a great deal of responsibility for stoking the flames that led to the January 6 uprising.
“When you are an adviser to a President, formal or informal, you need to think about the impact of anti-democratic rhetoric,” said John Hudak, an expert on governance studies at the Brookings Institution. “And the President himself, and a lot of the President’s supporters and certainly his children, seem to believe that it is responsible for a President and his advisers and family to be anti-democratic. That’s a real problem. And we haven’t really experienced that in our history.”
Trump has already paid a historic price for his words, with the US House on Wednesday voting to make him the only American president to have been impeached twice — this time for “incitement of insurrection.”
But while much attention has been paid to Trump’s words in the run up to the breach of the US Capitol, less talked about is the fiery rhetoric of his most high-profile champions.
Bannon and Giuliani did not respond to requests for comment. Stone rejected Appradab’s questions as “defamatory attempts to say that my belief in God and my view of the last election in apocalyptic terms is somehow inciting violence.” Alexander argued he had “no involvement in the breach of the US Capitol.”
Flynn attorney Sidney Powell, who herself is facing a defamation lawsuit over her claims about the election (she’s denied the allegations), insisted that Flynn “encourages patriotism and lawful political action,” and to suggest otherwise is “absolutely ludicrous.”
Bannon’s menacing metaphors
In the weeks between the election and that day, Bannon and his guests and co-hosts on his “War Room” podcast relentlessly promoted conspiracy theories of election fraud and cast the fight to overturn the election results in war-like and often apocalyptic terms.
Bannon’s menacing metaphors first landed him in hot water a few days after on Election Day, when he suggested in a video that posted to several of his social media accounts that, if he were in charge, he wouldn’t merely fire FBI Director Christopher Wray and Anthony Fauci — the US government’s top infectious disease expert — but would put their heads on pikes “as a warning to federal bureaucrats.” Twitter permanently suspended his account.
In December, Bannon’s co-host tweeted a video of Bannon speaking on “War Room” overlaid with cinematic music and dramatic images from the famous D-Day battle scene of “Saving Private Ryan.” In it, he spoke of the “moral obligation” Trump supporters have to “the kids that died at Normandy.” He added that if they allow Biden — “that feckless old man” — to win, “I want you to explain that to the 20-year-old kid in the first wave on D-Day.”
On December 28, Bannon insisted that patriotic Trump supporters had to be ready to fight in the spirit of George Washington’s soldiers during the American Revolution and American soldiers on D-Day in World War II. “That’s our DNA, that’s where we come from,” Bannon said.
Bannon began promoting the upcoming DC protests of January 6.
“l’ll tell you this,” Bannon said the day before the riot. “It’s not going to happen like you think it’s going to happen. OK, it’s going to be quite extraordinarily different. And all I can say is, strap in … You have made this happen and tomorrow it’s game day. So strap in. Let’s get ready.”
The podcasts also pointed to close coordination with Trump’s team. “You and me were talking almost every day, many times, you know, 10 times a day,” Trump campaign adviser Boris Epshteyn said to Bannon on December 28.
Meanwhile, a senior Trump adviser confirmed that the President and Bannon have been in communication in recent weeks, discussing Trump’s conspiracy theories about the election.
‘You either fight with us or you get slashed’
Just before Christmas, Alexander — a political activist who has organized pro-Trump rallies, including one of the demonstrations that converged on the Capitol lawn on January 6 — used violent metaphors to hint at what was to come in January when speaking to followers of his livestream channel on the social media platform Periscope. In his freewheeling monologue, Alexander credited Roger Stone, a veteran Republican operative and self-described “dirty trickster” whose 40-month prison sentence for seven felonies was cut short by Trump’s commutation in July. (He was given a full pardon in December).
“This is something Roger and I have been planning for a long time,” Alexander said. “And finally, he’s off the leash. So, you know, it’s a knife fight and your two knife fighters are Ali Alexander and Roger Stone, and you either fight with us or you get slashed. So I’ll let you guys know more about what that means as we evolve.”
Alexander has helped turn the “Stop the Steal” slogan that Stone launched on Trump’s behalf during the 2016 primaries into a rallying cry for conservatives around the country.
At a DC rally on the night of January 5, Stone took the stage clad in one of his trademark pinstripe suits as a dance track titled “Roger Stone did nothing wrong” blared from the speakers.
After repeating the falsehood that the election was stolen from Trump, Stone, 68, rallied the faithful with an us-versus-them battle cry.
“This is nothing less than an epic struggle for the future of this country between dark and light, between the godly and the godless, between good and evil,” he said. “And we will win this fight or America will step off into a thousand years of darkness. We dare not fail. I will be with you tomorrow shoulder to shoulder.”
Stone also has bumped elbows with extremist groups, most notably the Proud Boys. In September he endorsed the congressional candidacy of Nick Ochs, who founded the Hawaii chapter of the far-right organization. Ochs, whose bid for the US House came up short, was arrested for his role in the Capitol siege. Law enforcement was alerted to it by the photo Ochs posted on Twitter of himself enjoying a cigarette in the building, and by the comments he made to a Appradab reporter.
Long a dispenser of supercharged rhetoric, Stone was not muted by his recent run-in with the law, and was talking about election fraud even before November.
In September, he went on conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ show, InfoWars, and the two mused discursively about “fake ballots,” Big Tech and the Clintons.
“If someone will study the president’s authority in the Insurrection Act in his ability to impose, impose martial law,” Stone said, “if there is widespread cheating, he will have the authority to arrest (Mark) Zuckerberg, to arrest Tim Cook, to arrest the Clintons, to arrest anybody else who can be proven to be involved in illegal activity.”
War analogies abound
For his part, Jones has joined “Stop the Steal” efforts since the November election and used inflammatory, dark rhetoric to bolster the movement’s false claims.
Two days after election day, Jones said, “We are in the attempted overthrow of our country.” When a guest on the show mentioned people showing up in person to protest the counting of votes, Jones drew a comparison to World War II.
“It’s like when Hitler was bombing London, most Brits were against a war because they had World War I. But once Hitler bombed them, over 95% said let’s go to war,” he said. “This is a war. This is not regular times.”
Jones did not respond to Appradab’s request for comment.
Also employing war analogies is another beneficiary of Trump’s pardon powers — Michael T. Flynn, Trump’s former national security adviser.
Speaking to a fired-up crowd at the DC rally on January 5, Flynn — who was pardoned by Trump in November after he pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his conversations with a Russian diplomat — managed to pack election-fraud conspiracy theories, violent innuendo and a call to action into a couple of sentences.
“In some of these states, we have more dead voters than are buried on the battlefields of Gettysburg, or the battlefields of Vicksburg, or the battlefields of Normandy,” he said. “Those of you who are feeling weak tonight, those of you that don’t have the moral fiber in your body, get some tonight because tomorrow, we the people are going to be here, and we want you to know that we will not stand for a lie.”
Much of the rhetoric leading up to the riot has been draped in the language of existential threat.
Speaking at a January 6 rally just before the siege, Rudy Giuliani — Trump’s personal attorney — spoke in grandiose terms about the stakes at hand.
“This is bigger than Donald Trump,” he said. “It’s bigger than you and me. It’s about these monuments and what they stand for. This has been a year in which they have invaded our freedom of speech, our freedom of religion, our freedom to move, our freedom to live. I’ll be darned if they’re going to take away our free and fair vote. And we’re going to fight to the very end to make sure that doesn’t happen.”
His mention of “trial by combat” was cited by the New York State Bar Association, which has launched an inquiry into Giuliani to determine whether he should be expelled from the group.
“Mr. Giuliani’s words quite clearly were intended to encourage Trump supporters unhappy with the election’s outcome to take matters into their own hands,” the group said in a statement. “Their subsequent attack on the Capitol was nothing short of an attempted coup, intended to prevent the peaceful transition of power.”
Experts concerned that incitement is far from over
John Scott-Railton, a researcher at University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab who now works with others to identify extremist groups who were part of the Capitol mob, said the rhetoric plays into the fantasies of armed protesters who have been gunning for a civil war.
“They’re ready — it’s what they’ve been prancing around in the woods, playing dress up, preparing for,” he said. “I’m just terribly worried that they weren’t satisfied with what happened on the sixth, and they’re going to come back for more.”
As for Bannon, the tenor of his podcast took a turn once the violence started unfolding.
On the morning of January 6, before the rally and march on the Capitol, Bannon echoed Stone’s words by saying the day would be a battle between “the children of light and the forces of darkness.”
But the podcast’s tone shifted sharply as footage of the violence at the Capitol was broadcast nationwide. Even as Bannon and his co-podcasters continued to describe Vice President Mike Pence as a traitor, they absolved Trump and themselves from any responsibility for fomenting violence.
“What’s going on right now was choices made by individuals who are fed up with what they’ve seen happen,” said right-wing activist Ben Bergquam on a War Room episode later that same day. “When I’m talking to people on the ground, that is what I’m hearing over and over and over again, it has nothing to do with President Trump’s words.”
Oren Segal, vice president of the Center on Extremism at the Anti-Defamation League, said anyone paying attention knew the events on January 6 would be a magnet for angry people. The violence of extremists, he added, has historically been sparked by a fear that something is being taken away — be it a White majority, guns or a way of life.
“Whether it’s illegal or not, people have gotta know better,” he said. “You don’t have to be a genius to know how people are incited by words.”
Appradab’s Nelli Black, Scott Bronstein, Bob Ortega, Benjamin Naughton and Yahya Abou-Ghazala contributed to this report.
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Anton
It’s been a year. Part of me still can’t believe that Anton’s gone. I wanted to take a moment to just write about what I’m thinking and feeling right now as I look back on the past year and consider how much Anton affected my life, because the more I think about it, the more I realize how important he and his role as Chekov was, is, to me. Bear with me.
Eight years ago when ST:2009 came out, I had to go see it. I’d been watching Star Trek since I was 6, how could I not? As soon as Pavel Chekov came up on screen, I knew I was in trouble. I went home that day, it was almost the end of my first year of high school, and I looked up this actor I’d never seen before. Some adorable Russian kid playing another adorable Russian kid. He was perfect. I was in love.
I went to see the movie again. And again. And by the time the film came out on DVD, I had started grade 11 and my mental health took a veritable nose dive. I had nothing to hold onto. I came perilously close to ending my own life more than once. So I took my Star Trek DVD, watched it a hundred times over, and started to write tomes of fanfiction about this perfect Russian kid. It was awful writing, but I learned a lot during that period about the craft of writing. I wrote and I wrote and everything revolved around Pavel Chekov. He gave me hope. I started hanging around with other people, both in fandom and out. I enrolled in a Russian class. I joined Tumblr. Started dating a physicist.
And then... I don’t know what happened. I was in University. I stopped writing fanfic. I stopped watching Star Trek, save seeing Into Darkness once when it came out and getting frustrated at it because of reasons. But Chekov was still great, regardless of the other talking points in that film.
But I didn’t come back for good. I finished Uni, fancied myself too good for the internet. Heard that a third film was coming out. “Cool,” I thought. “I’ll see it. Why not?” But I didn’t come back.
June 19th, 2016, I scrolled through my Facebook feed first thing in the morning. Everything was perfectly normal. I sat down at my piano, played a few pieces, got bored and re-opened my feed.
Anton Yelchin, 27, Found Dead.
My heart stopped for a split second. He was gone. I walked around in a daze all day, feeling sadness both for his loss and for the fact that I hadn’t paid more attention to him while he was still here. I felt guilty that I hadn’t been the fan I could have been while he was still alive.
I went to see ST Beyond with my boyfriend, the physicist, and I ended up sobbing into his jacket as the credits rolled.
I couldn’t even look at the internet after that. I didn’t want anything to do with fandom for the longest time afterwards. I stuck to anything, everything else that I could find.
And then, one day in September, I couldn’t stand it anymore. I had to write. And so I wrote my first piece for this blog. It was about Chekov. And it took everything I had to write that piece because every time I saw him in my mind’s eye my brain would stop. That piece has a lot of tears in it. But I finished it. I posted it, and then I kept writing.
I’ve only written 5 pieces for him. I want to write more. But every time I try to conjure Chekov in my imagination, I can’t put two thoughts together. I’ve seen all of Chekov that there will be to see, and I can’t get past that. We’ve seen all of Anton that there will be to see, and I can’t get past that.
Anton and his work on Star Trek got me writing again. He helped me grow. He inspired me and he continues to inspire me with the amazing work that he was able to do in his 27 years. I owe him so much, and I can never tell him that. I can never thank him for saving me when I needed it the most.
Anyway. I know this whole post is on the melodramatic side, but I needed to write this just because it feels right to share this story today. I’m still heart broken that such an amazing young talent is gone so soon, but I’m trying to use the impact he had on me to keep me going and to push me to be a better artist.
That said, the project I’ve been alluding to for the last week is, in fact, a Chekov series. I’m going to start posting it today, as a sort of tribute, but it’s going to be slow coming because, as I said, my brain stops every time he comes onto the page. It’s going to be a slow slog, but I’ve got to do this. For reasons.
Спасибо, Антон. For everything.
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my strange uncles from abroad
gen || Frank Denouement, Ernest Denouement, Beatrice Baudelaire Jr., Lemony Snicket || post-canon
ao3 link || originally posted in Russian
My strange nephews from abroad
I'll meet them on the cosmos streets
And we will drink to how we never told you
To trust a plastic beat
Bright open eyes, they are still looking
They are still finding
A few unpoisoned hearts
No matter where you are exiled
– Gogol Bordello, My Strange Uncles from Abroad
“Mr. Epilogue! Mr. Epilogue, there’s a letter for you!”
“A letter?” Frank asked absentmindedly, his eyes still on the list of guests. He needed to cross out that family from Zagreb: they had just called and cancelled their reservation.
“For you and your brother, Sir.”
“I’ve picked up the mail from the mailbox literally an hour ago. Did they really deliver anything else?”
“No, Sir,” the maid shook her head. “It was lying on the windowsill in the third-floor hall.”
Frank frowned. His experience showed that the letters appearing from nowhere on the windowsills and cornices and balconies rarely contained good news.
“Give me the letter.”
“I was thinking,” the maid began to gabble, “that maybe you dropped the envelope when you were picking up the mail and some guest picked it up, only it’s strange they’d put it on the wind…”
“Miss Blumenfeld,” Frank interrupted her, “would you kindly give me the letter?”
The girl pursed her lips, handed him the envelope, and walked away, swinging a feather duster fretfully.
The envelope was pretty crumpled. There was no stamp, no return address – nothing but his and Ernest’s current surname and place of employment, something that barely anyone should have known. Perhaps in vain they had hoped that it would be enough just to flee abroad, change their names, and destroy the old passports; they should have taken it a step further and faked their death like Dewey once did. Perhaps if they hadn’t been in such a hurry to disappear, they would have considered that.
Ernest should have been on the third floor, presumably; Frank, of course, was not his brother’s keeper. He ought to find him so that they would open the envelope together: after all, the letter was addressed to both of them. On the other hand, there was no telling what was in that envelope. What if it contained something poisonous? As fantastic as such guess would have seemed to a third party, it was more than realistic. Indeed, he definitely should start by reading the letter by himself to be on the safe side – solely to protect his brother from potential danger.
Frank tore the envelope open.
Dear Sirs,
I am fully aware that by sending you this letter, I am breaking the promise I gave you at our last meeting when I contacted you for the purpose of gathering information for my latest book and my search for the people I was not indifferent to. Back then I promised not to bother you anymore and not to look for you, and I am sorry for not being as good as my word. Still, I would like to ask you not to tear this letter up as soon as you realize who had written it, and to read it till the end. As you are going to learn, I have a reasonable excuse to disturb you. I also hasten to assure you that your current address shall remain secret and is presently known, apart from me, only to one person, which brings us to the reason why I am writing this letter.
Dear Sirs, you have a niece. To be precise, we have a niece, since she is the daughter of my late sister and your late brother. For a long time, I was not completely sure of her existence, and I only met her four months ago. She contacted me to ask me for assistance in her search for the family that raised her and that she was separated from for a variety of reasons. Yet in the process of looking for that family, which we are presently engaged in, she also developed a wish to learn more about her biological family or, rather, whatever is left of it. I am writing to you at her request in the hope that you would satisfy her curiosity and her sincere wish to get to know you, and agree for a meeting.
Her name is Beatrice. Like her namesake back in the day, she takes interest in training bats, which have been used to deliver the present message to you. Another one of her hobbies is photography, and her progress in it would have certainly pleased her fourth uncle if she had the possibility to meet him. She is a very intelligent and well-mannered young lady of ten years and a half. I am almost certain that you shall love her – naturally, if you give her a chance to meet you.
If you agree for a meeting, please make it known by sending a letter or a fax to my legal representative whose contact information is provided below. If you do not agree, please still inform us about your decision so that our niece would not keep waiting for your answer in vain.
I hope this letter finds both of you in good health.
With all due respect,
Lemony Snicket
Only having read the letter till the end Frank realized that he had been clutching it so tightly that the edges of paper got torn here and there.
There was no one in the hall except for a couple of guests chatting enthusiastically on a couch in front of him. Nobody noticed the concierge leaving his workplace and disappearing in the staff room.
“Shit,” Frank muttered after closing the door behind him, and leaned against the wall wearily.
It might have been easier if the envelope actually contained something poisonous.
They had a niece. But what if it was a trap, a bait, an attempt of VFD to bring back valuable assets? What if the letter was not from Lemony Snicket at all – or what if it was from him, but there was still no niece whatsoever? The last time they met, Snicket was an outcast, officially recognized as an enemy of VFD for disclosing so many of its secrets to the general public – but what if the organization took him back for one reason or another, and tasked him with atoning for his guilt by bringing home a couple more wayward sons? However, that would hardly be the case: at the time of their last meeting, Frank fell under the impression that Snicket would rather die than take part in the VFD affairs again. But how would an impostor know that Snicket met him and Ernest as part of his investigation? Frank hadn’t read any of Snicket’s books and wasn’t planning to, but Snicket had promised not to say a word about what happened to them after the fire at the Hotel Denouement, not even to specify whether they both survived.
And then there was another possibility: they really had a niece. In all honesty, that possibility scared Frank the most.
He had to show that letter to Ernest. To discuss what they should do next, and then send a message stating their decision by fax to a number provided in the letter and belonging to some D. H., as it was too risky to use the post and they had no trained bats or crows at their disposal. And all that had to be done as soon as possible.
Frank put the letter back into the envelope, folded it in four, put it into the pocket of his vest, and tried to forget about its existence. He almost threw the letter away, but something stopped him.
***
A week later in the same hall, the maid (another one, not Miss Blumenfeld that time) called Frank to the phone: some gentleman wished to speak to him or his brother.
“Hello,” Frank said warily, pressing the handset to his ear. “Basil Epilogue, how can I help you?”
“Listen, you don’t have to meet me,” Snicket began without preamble. “Ramona could meet you upon arrival, or I could simply give you the address and then you’ll get there by yourself.”
Frank felt anxiety cover him whole like a hunter’s net.
“A polite person starts a conversation with a greeting,” he replied surly. Thoughts went rushing in his head: what should he do? Where shall the thread of this talk lead him? Wouldn’t it be better to hang up, as pathetic as that may look – but then again, what would stop Snicket from calling him again?
“Good afternoon, Frank. Based on your reaction I conclude that you have received my letter and, just as befits grown-up mature people, decided simply to pretend that nothing had happened.”
For a split second, anxiety gave way to annoyance: damned Snicket. Damned snarky Kit’s little brother who always thinks himself the smartest in the room. Soon, both of them shall be on the wrong side of fifty, but that still remained his main impression of the youngest Snicket. Their entire family had always been nothing but trouble; it was only Jacques that… well, that didn’t matter. That had long since ceased to matter.
Frank glanced over the hall, checking if anybody was eavesdropping.
“Yes, we received the letter. Are you happy?” It was easier to speak on behalf of both of them. That way he wasn’t the only guilty party. Frank hoped Ernest won’t find out about it. “Why would we believe at once that everything it said is true? Fine, let us say now I know that it was really you who sent it, but how can I be sure you’re not lying? Because I, personally, have no idea what’s on your mind and what objectives you are pursuing.”
“I could send you her photograph. Perhaps I should have done that from the very beginning. And enclose a letter written by her – maybe that would have persuaded you.”
Frank fell silent, not knowing what to say. Something immediately made him realize that to crumple the letter written by the girl herself and the photo of her, and to put them out of sight would have been much more difficult.
“Please do not think me insolent when I say that I can see how you feel,” Snicket said unexpectedly. “When she tracked me down, I kept hesitating to meet her for a long time. I kept running from the past, and she was linked to it too closely in every respect, from her origin to her name. Besides, I was scared of having to assume responsibility for someone, for I am usually bad at this. I acted like an utmost coward, to be perfectly blunt.”
“What an ornate way to call me a coward.”
“Oh, I never said that. Unless I could have… guessed, accidentally.”
Damned snarky Kit’s little brother.
“Give me one good reason not to hang up on you right now,” Frank said coldly.
There was some sort of rustle on the other end of the line.
“Uncle, may I?” someone asked in a thin voice, quietly but insistently. “Let me try.”
Frank froze.
“Mr. Denouement? Hello,” spoke the same voice, only louder and clearer. “Can you hear me?”
He could hang up, of course. But that would have been even more difficult than to crumple the photo of his own niece and never look at it again.
“Yes, I can,” Frank told her. He had a feeling his voice sounded chokingly, so he repeated, “I can hear you.”
“Hello! My name is Beatrice, Uncle Lemony wrote you about me. I should have written you myself, probably, but back when I was writing to him, he didn’t believe at first that was really me, so we decided that you might be more likely to trust him. Are you all right?”
“Um… yes,” Frank felt out of his depth. He ignored this girl’s attempt to make acquaintance with him, and she wanted to know if he was all right. “Everything’s fine.”
“Great! I’m not distracting you from your work, am I? I would love to talk to you, but I guess you must be busy over there.”
Frank glanced at a short queue that had formed by his desk. The queue was headed by a fat moustachioed man whose facial expression indicated that he must be mentally preparing to raise a stink and complain about service.
“Write down the number,” he said, and quickly dictated the number of the phone installed in the rooms belonging to him and Ernest – a luxury available to few employees of that hotel. “Call me back in ten minutes. By then we’ll be able to talk without haste.”
***
Needless to say, everything went awry. Surprisingly, the fat moustachioed man kept his composure, though his voice was most disapproving, but when it came to the old lady at the rear of the queue, she threw a fit while trying to convince Frank that the porter stole one of her hatboxes. In the end, the missing box was discovered by the hotel entrance; the porter must have saddled himself with too many bags and bundles at the same time and hadn’t noticed dropping one of them. By the time Frank had dealt with all that, ten minutes, and even fifteen minutes, had long passed.
There was no knowing what the hotel guests thought on seeing the concierge, a man of quite considerable age, running headlong down the corridor. Admittedly, Frank didn’t care. A couple of phrases he had exchanged with Beatrice made it impossible to go on burying his head in the sand. He still wasn’t sure that he wanted this meeting to happen, that he was ready for all the emotions it would inevitable cause, but he could see that he would fall in his own esteem beyond measure if he at least doesn’t finish what has been started and doesn’t talk to her.
He darted into the room and stopped dead at the doorstep – Ernest, seated at the edge of the table, was on the phone.
“All right, honey. Yes, we’ll try to manage it as soon as possible. Yes, I see. Be careful. And give my best regards to the Duchess of Winnipeg! See you then.”
Frank rushed to him but didn’t manage to stop him: Ernest had already put the phone down. Then he straightened his back and looked at his brother defiantly, as if flaunting what he had just done. Frank stopped.
“That phone call was meant for me,” he said icily.
“That letter was meant for the both of us,” retorted Ernest in the same spirit. “Now can I finally read it? Better late than never, and so on and so forth?”
“You told…”
“Calm down, she thinks I was put in the picture. And no, I didn’t introduce myself by your name. Now, the letter,” Ernest held out his hand pointedly, waiting for an envelope to be put into it.
Frank went to his bedroom, unlocked the drawer, took out the letter, and locked the drawer again. Having returned to the living room (if such a cramped and unadorned room could be called so, of course; even the best employees of the hotel had very mediocre personal premises), he passed the envelope to his brother. He put the letter in the pocket of his vest.
“I thought you wanted to read it immediately,” Frank observed.
“Oh, I can imagine what it says, more or less. The conversation with our niece opened my eyes to everything,” his brother assured him, with a sort of grim merriment in his voice. “I’m going to read this letter just for the sake of it. Got the message despite my own brother doing his best to hide it from me – all done, moving forward.”
He fell silent at that and turned away. Frank crossed his arms on his chest. Seemed like the moment was approaching for him to apologize; he disliked such moments.
“I shouldn’t have acted like that,” he said finally. Ernest shrugged without turning to him.
“Well, this time it was you who did the dirty work, not me,” he said. “Must be healthy sometimes.”
“The dirty work?”
“Panicked, showed the white feather, messed up. The dirty work,” Ernest repeated. He turned to his brother, his arms also crossed, and Frank put his own arms down on instinct; the body itself seemed to resist being turned into the mirror image of his brother. The three of them used to be brothers from a fairytale – three brothers, three bears, three Norns, three Christmas ghosts. The two of them used to play certain roles for too long – the embodiment of the false dichotomy of good and evil, the noble volunteer and his wicked doppelgänger; the roles they wanted to have nothing in common with anymore yet still assumed from time to time automatically, by force of habit. That complicated their interaction, which has never gone smoothly to begin with. “One of us had to do that, so that the other could be indignant later. Thanks for letting me feel like a good guy for a change, brother.”
“The harpoon gun,” Frank spoke in a low voice.
“What?”
“The harpoon gun. You weren’t the one to give it to that girl,” he clenched his fists so hard that his knuckles went white. “You weren’t the one to enable what happened.”
The vexation in his wicked doppelgänger’s eyes gave way to something else. To sorrow. To pity, dang it.
“I think we’ve talked about this more than once,” Ernest said softly. “Sure, it wasn’t me who gave her that gun, but I also took part in all that, and couldn’t prevent anything. And our niece,” he waved his hand at Frank, gesturing to him to keep silent, before he managed to utter a single word, “knows it, since she has read Snicket’s scribbles. And she still wants to meet us.”
She knew what they had done – or, more exactly, what they hadn’t done. She knew, and she still found them. Still spoke to them politely on the phone, and still wanted to see them.
They had a strange family, without a doubt.
It took quite a long time for Frank, who didn’t know what to say and simultaneously wanted to say too much, to pick the right words.
“What do you suggest?” he simply asked in the end.
“To take a vacation. As soon as we can. To say that our aunt has died, or something.”
“We have no aunt.”
“We don’t, but Henry and Basil Epilogue most certainly do. For now. Guess the poor old lady won’t last long.”
Their eyes met, and Frank smiled slightly against his will; for the first time in a long period, not just because serving the guests required a smile.
“Don’t look at me like that,” Ernest said. “I’m starting to suspect you want to hug me.”
“Don’t even hope. I was just thinking about the vacation,” Frank squared his shoulders. “I have an idea where to travel to.”
“What a coincidence,” Ernest grinned. His face lost all softness and sorrow, as if they were never there in the first place. The three of them used to be brothers from a fairytale – once. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde was no fairytale, but one could work with that too, if anything. “I also have an idea.”
They had a strange family, without a doubt.
He was curious to find out if their new relative had inherited that strangeness.
_____________________________________________________________
Some notes:
The title and the epigraph are from a song of the same name by Gogol Bordello.
I do not know if Frank and Ernest's names are supposed to be just a pun on "frank" and "earnest" or also a reference to The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde that uses the same pun with "earnest", but Frank and Ernest's new names are borrowed from Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray. As to their surname, the epilogue follows after the denouement (I guess).
#asoue#a series of unfortunate events#frank denouement#ernest denouement#beatrice snicket#lemony snicket#snicketverse#gella talks snicketverse#talk talk talk#my fic
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here the FAWK she ( the semi-finished masterlist of all my characters ) is ! took way too long but hopefully as you proceed to click on the linque below you’ll know why smh but yep ! i’ll be adding their pages on my account when i’m done with them soon i hope and maybe come back with a bunch of connections for each character but for now this is all i got & smash this like or im me for plots i’d love to get on those finally xx
reintroducing amanda wheeler; intro & info page.
queen of irony. rich post- faux country gal who’s a loud homosexual and writes hetero fics/has an indie het smut for the absolute shits and giggles. dates a married woman she’s utterly in love with and will pull the life support cord for. said to be possessed by a possessed flapper. cute and knows it even though she looks like a republican. socially open & everywhere. morally grey.
reintroducing imogen yates; intro & info page. ( tw violence )
the grey area between your mom friend and your drunk aunt. happily vegan & owns a vegan restaurant called the fork, alt. the vegan cult’s lair. won’t kill you, but will convince you she really wants to. local brat tamer. minds her business via minding others. clashed head-first into nature’s very own reset button: amnesia. used to be satan and traumatized everyone. disgustingly active and accomplishing.
reintroducing ethan holland; intro & info page. ( tw suicide )
he is a sk8r boi, she said see ya later boy ( and meant it. they’re dating now. hey lourdes ! ) a nice person, so nice he doesn’t realize how fake he sounds/is. a certified headass. previously a bully/bully enabler, current guilty fuck. #torn. does the most for his loved ones. doesn’t remember his own birthday. googled foot fetishes once. trolls stan twitter with his fake selena gomez stan account when tumblr crashes. burned a sue of cide note with his name scribbled on it.
reintroducing sebastian miller; intro & info page ( tw violence )
kazimer sokolov whom. russian ex-cult member well-adjusted into a mundane life via lies, a fake canadian accent he’s ‘trying to get rid of’, being a twilight saga aficionado and a dickwad, a lame record store and a tumblr blog to keep himself sane by maintaining a general aesthetic and shitting on people and every discourse out there. knives/books sniffer. allegedly fucked a moose. probably kinkshames as a way to deal with his own “kinks” aka please keep the dead bodies away. ( im kidding i swear but [redacted] )
reintroducing prudence zima; intro & info page ( tw death )
parents died in a fire when she was two months old and it shows. idolizes avril lavigne & her favorite movie is lords of dogtown for aesthetics references. dude. social leech or effortless networker ? both. remains in her lane regardless. cry-types probably. here for a good time, not a long time. steals your stash and smokes you out with it. avid dick connoisseur. minimum effort lifestyle. either on her way to become a manager of some one hit wonder band that finds it’s demise in a freak accident, a drug dealer or god forbid, a guidance counselor; depends. mild cool girl syndrome.
reintroducing jennifer meade; intro & info page ( tw death, violence and abuse )
bi/pussy muncher and proud misandrist, first and foremost. remembers killing her brother very fondly. the one girl in a room to call when you want to kill a bug and you’re relieved until she kills it with her bare hand. tops. unstable & chaotic evil, respectively. the ginger devil. biased and has her minion whom she invests a great deal of her time in brain washing and obsessing over. supposedly here to make amends but that’s not happening any time soon.
reintroducing margot williams; intro & info page ( tw mental illness )
deserves better. very gay. all her friends are heathens xtra, take it slow. corrects typos in the gc. a nerdy editorial assistant daydreaming about publishing houses instead of the magazine she works for. lowkey shy and she’s angry about it. goes off if she must. jacks off to #knowledge and yuri anime. helps with homework and essays and takes the kids out. deadpan because we’re original but she swears it’s just the face & unresolved trauma. stans her therapist. unofficial older sister.
reintroducing chandler accardi; intro ( re-written ) & info page
needs to do better. dropped out of college for culinary school then dropped out of that too. was engaged to an absolute goddess he ultimately wronged ( with her damn best friend, bitch disgostin* ) and got kicked out to the curb. currently residing in the couch of his sister until things are resolved. thot-by-default & annoying. has like three ( 3 ) redeeming qualities. has never been told to shut up and it shows. works at buzzfeed.
reintroducing abel gautier; intro & info page
french and “confused”. lives a minimalist n’ expensive life. if american psycho & french kiss were the same movie. wine sniffer. the devil bakes croissants. will watch you die. takes grudges to the afterlife. gets attached but either ruins it or ruins it to spare everyone, himself included. falls in love a lot but knows how to calm the fuck down. very giving, fortunately. manipulative but isn’t too wild about bending everything to his will.
reintroducing simini gale; intro & info page ( tw abuse, violence & mental illness )
token white actress & character in rosie’s show. [ britney vc ] its me.... against dissociation. a loud mess with an intense mental state and anger issues dulled out by her prescribed meds and whatever pill she got in the bottom of her manager’s purse. dependent and distraught about it. grocery shopping for garbage food and attending comedy stand up shows half drunk as a hobby. stable ? where. very nice and super flighty. heels are hot. wishes she could fight someone without feeling the urge to actually fight someone.
reintroducing calvin o’shea; intro & info page ( tw mental illness )
it’s not just the depression more than the incredible self hatred. walks into rooms with his bad energy, grumpy mood and cunty attitude. graduated college just to shut his dad up. wants to die harder than edward cullen. just doesn’t give a shit. has a baby named freddie mercury ( also known as the antichrist, with alanis, his mortal literal enemy whom he absolutely despises and will not hesitate to put his dick back in again lbr ) who will probably grow up to talk shit about his parents whom he also mentioned in his tell-all book on ellen. works at his family’s bookstore that sucks the life energy out of college students nearing a mental breakdown.
reintroducing isabel pavia; intro & info page ( tw drug use )
contemporary dances her feelings away. too ambitious for her own good but knows what she’s doing. in a goth ass secret society ( here ) a.k.a her new found purpose. knows everything eventually. oddly trustworthy. doesn’t know what speaking loudly is, let alone yelling. loves the moon & has that moon app. had to take painkillers when she twisted her ankle very badly and would take them for a while for stress and performance reasons, but has stopped. a quiet angel.
reintroducing anastasia zeller; intro & info page
ambitious/multi-talented asshole. horror trash & an emotional/mental maze which translates well into her weird works on no sleep reddit and current horror comedy podcast. ( click here for info ). needs a therapist according to a friend, whom she dropped for saying that. will bite your head off. obsessed with her works to an unhealthy point. would love to establish a company and stuff out of it and is working on that. healthy relationships are a semi-foreign concept.
reintroducing morgan booker; intro & info page ( tw death )
vape-curious and takes photos of ghost towns and abandoned-everythings because #vision. had a roadtrip phase like the fake deep idiot he is. morally grey. genuinely here for a good laugh and spreading joy in the form of hover-friendships and taking lit candids of his friends. knows shit and comes off as a creep sometimes but does he really care. knows your mom’s name. lives in a disused hospital bc he’s marinating on that aesthetic.
reintroducing bowie harmon; intro & info page ( tw drug use & abuse )
part of a duo in a web series as the anxious n’ cackling mess. showcases her depressión & anxieté by her colorful wigs n’ new hair dyes. painful receptionist at a tattoo parlor. recovering addict who advocates for drug use. thinks tattooing a ruler on someone’s dick one day would be the peak of her accomplishments as a tattoo artist. daily bad decisions. “ it’s complicated. ” when asked about literally any relationship she has with anyone in her life. traumas include her failed singing career. an ex viner-by-association.
reintroducing shaheen bin baz; intro & info page ( tw violence & mental illness )
the physical deception of going through hell in a short amount of time with zero mental durability to begin with during midterms. trigger-anxious. will shoot your toes off your foot if caught off guard. aided in criminal operations with the brilliance of his mind in codes. would not mind dying. seasons your food. waters his crops in his balcony garden. the grey area between a super laidback dude and a crackhead with violent tendencies. nearing a mental breakdown probably.
reintroducing minka abbott-santos; intro & info page ( tw abuse )
defeats the evil stepmom stereotype one breath at a time. the human embodiment of a deer. gothic angel. alarmingly gets black swan. type to wake up to her staring at you from an armchair across the room, but lovingly, with a book she was reading in hand and two hot cups of tea; she was waiting to start the day with you. spooky until you get to know her and even more spookier when she’s ( note: calmly ) pissed but that’s extremely rare. gentle voice, soul and everything.
reintroducing reuben faulkner; intro & info page ( tw abuse & violence )
rekt hell prince. lived in an amish community with his family until he got kidnapped away from home when he was seven into an awful living situation. doesn’t remember if the gas leak that happened five years later and killed everyone was his doing or not. knows where his real family is after months of tracking them down but. blood kink under investigation. shady bouncer at a shady club. has issues he has no care or time to diminish. fights for the shits and giggles. leaves texts at read. leaves you alone for your own good and his own sanity.
reintroducing alexandra turunen; info page
wants to do everything and be everything and doesn’t know what to do with herself ( read: post-graduation identity crisis ) currently investing in a motorcycle for no reason. essentially jobless. a “retired” kathryn merteuil who “outgrew” her cunning ways since highschool but really only found new socially destructive interests. appears to be self-possessed but she’s #shaken. doesn’t care about how well she presents herself anymore after getting rejected by four universities and refusing to accept her father’s offer to pull some strings to get her in one. sleeps a lot.
reintroducing giuseppe del vecchio; info page ( tw death & drug use )
goes by pepe because well. son of italian oil peeps & is extra. said to be in a cult when all he’s in is this extra ass dining club that does the most for initiation ceremonies. ready to fall in love with you. goes to the king’s college in london and studies business & changes his minor way too often for everyone’s liking. into everything and will be down to do whatever. faux deep. mischievous shit. incredibly unbiased. had his rawrk n’ roll phase that died along with someone in a club literally. still has it but he knows god now & less drugs.
reintroducing kelian scott; info page ( tw death & drug use )
a father/father figure who tries™. runs a mechanic shop/chop shop because bad decisions and dire needs ( had his son to send to school and his daughter who passed away due to a disease he couldn’t afford to treat even after turning his shop into a chop shop. his wife then left him ). stares into the distance. wants the best for the kids but one of them is a junkie ( he doesn’t know yet ) and the other -- his niece -- is an orphan he’s worried about. thinks ahead 24/7. needs to pull out of this dull n’ depressing daily routine he has fallen into like the basic ass divorced dad he is.
reintroducing sal presley; info page
smexy trace & fingerprint detective. talks. the perfect illusion to bring home to your parents and friends. gets shit done which is both a good thing and a bad thing. looks calm, collected n’ well-rested but isn’t. his actual name is salvatore but no. knows how to mix drinks and more; used to showcase his multi-talented ass to make his ( currently ex ) fiancée look good now just himself. was engaged three times; two of those times with the same person. obsessive; gets into his job a little too intensely for no reason but #justice and maybe something else whom knows. loses sleep at least two nights a week as a habit at this point. has an extended family back home he misses occasionally. wishes he could calm down truly.
#smoke:intros#FINALLY RISING HOLY SH-#ill do some plotting n hopefully get on replies soonish hell yea lets GO!
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@one-piece-of-harry
(Ok. Sorry this took so long, This is basically a book. So, as usual, please excuse passion from the passionate fan.)
First, something I forgot about in last post. You mentioned that Tony only mentioned Charlie because the team was American, but that doesn’t really make sense. Natasha is Russian, Vision is…well Vision, and Wanda is FROM Sokovia. Steve might be American, but from his personality in other movies, it seems mentioning the actual statistic would be better. It seems more that Tony uses Charlie because he’s the only American who Tony really hears about face to face.
=> Steve had TWO YEARS to tell Tony that his parents were killed by hydra. THAT is why he has to apologize.
Okay, so remember how I mentioned that Tony’s mental state wasn’t the greatest? And how he was struggling with daddy issues? Steve telling him “hey you know I saw something a while back that makes me think that HYDRA might have killed your parents” wouldn’t have just been as simple as informing him. We all know that Tony would focus all of his resources on looking into it.
Telling him that very well might have sparked a dangerous and blind hunt for revenge. I can understand why Steve was hesitant.
Now, should Steve have told Tony? Probably.
Would it have been good for Tony to know this particular fact? Probably not.
Was there probably a better time and place down the road a ways, once Tony had worked through some more of his issues and was more stable, that Cap could have told him without it sending him on a manhunt or making him crack? Most definitely.
Steve saw a risk and made a decision based on what he thought would be best for the safety and mental health of his teammate. Was this the right decision? In light of Civil War, probably not, but at the time he made the decision? It very well might have been.
Tony was going through some serious PTSD. He needed time to recover, not have another dead-end hint connected to a traumatic event in his life thrown back in his face with a HYDRA tag on it.
I’ll also bring up that Steve was not the only one who knew that fact and kept it quiet. Nobody who knew this thought it would be a good idea to tell Stark, not till they had more answers. The only thing Steve and Natasha saw in that bunker during Zola’s monologue about how HYDRA was alive and well - how “when history did not cooperate, history was changed” - was a picture of the newspaper clip detailing the car accident.
This blatantly implied that the Starks had been killed by HYDRA for not cooperating, but said nothing about what they weren’t cooperating with. As bad as Tony talks about his father, it’s entirely possible for Steve to have questioned if the Starks had ties - accidental or otherwise - to HYDRA. Now we, as the audience, know it was about the super soldier serum, but Cap was on the ice for all this. He doesn’t know that there was more serum made. It’s not until Bucky tells him about the other super soldiers that he starts to connect the dots on the Stark’s involvement. For all Steve knows at the time, Howard could have gotten caught up in HYDRA after the war and been assassinated when he tried to back out.
Steve understandably doesn’t want to spring something like this on Tony until he has proof, and until he’s sure Tony can handle it. It was with the best intentions that he kept that information to himself, but as we’ve seen with things like Ultron, even the best intentions can lead to disaster.
As far as Steve taking his complaints with the document to the UN, yes, that would have been ideal. Only, he wasn’t presented an ideal situation. He was told “sign or retire, those are your only options.”
Steve tried to say that he thought the Accords were wrong, but he was shot down by his own teammates halfway through the discussion. What would make him think that the UN – the people who wrote the bloody thing - would listen to him if his own teammates thought he was being irrational and unreasonable by questioning them?
He has no reason to think that anyone other than Sam (the only one besides Nat who helped him when HYDRA took over the WSC and SHIELD and a bunch of other government stuff) would listen to him. And like Rhody said: it’s 117 nations. Who are they to question? Why would they listen to Steve at all? He’s nobody to them, and his intentions are already in question.
Perhaps if he’d been given more time to look it over, to talk it through. If he’d been given the option to speak with the UN at all – things might have gone differently. As it was, they had three days. Three days to go through that damn phonebook of a contract and decide if it was worth signing, then show up in Vienna and submit themselves as enhanced to be collared.
While you see Tony being proactive, and trying to do something to stop the problem, I see him jumping at the first suggestion and not stopping to think if it’s really the best idea.
And this three day time frame was interrupted by Peggy Carter’s death.
Now everyone always talks about Tony’s PTSD and trauma and issues, but let’s not forget that everyone on the roster comes with baggage.
Steve is the man out of time. He’s from a different era. He woke up after however many years on the ice to find his whole world was gone. Everything and everyone he knew – gone. Most of the people he grew up not only knowing, but seeing on TV and hearing about on the news, they’re all long dead. The city he grew up in? It no longer exists. Oh, it may be there on the map, but the city he knew will never be the one that’s there now. Everything he knew no longer survives as anything other than pictures in a museum.
There were only two things, two people from his world that were left in any capacity: Peggy Carter, and Bucky Barnes. Peggy, who had long since moved on from him and was in her nineties and on her deathbed, and Bucky, who was a brainwashed HYDRA robot.
After losing one of the only two people he had left from his world, can you really blame him for throwing the Accords to the wind and going after Bucky when he was framed for a crime? (And the fact that said crime took place at the Accords signing only makes the whole mess with that document seem more suspicious tbh.)
I’d like to think that Tony would have done the same for Rhody if his best friend was the only thing he had left, and it took going outside the law to save him.
Steve isn’t going to turn his back on the best friend who saved his life more times than he could count.
Something to keep in mind is that this wasn’t the Avengers as a whole. Steve wasn’t asking the rest of the Avengers to throw aside the Accords and go outside the law like him, he was simply trying to save the only thing he had left of his world and his family. Sam – who’s had Steve’s back since Winter Soldier and has been helping Steve search for Bucky the whole time – willingly followed him. At this point, the focus stopped being the Accords and started being “who framed Bucky and why.”
The rest of Team Cap comes in about here. At this point Wanda still hadn’t made up her mind about whether to sign or not. Clint was retired, and probably didn’t even get a copy of the document. Scott and Bucky certainly didn’t get a copy of it. The only ones on Team Cap who were actually presented with the document were Wanda, Sam and Steve. Wanda is also the only one on the fence still, and Steve never talks with her about whether or not she’s going to sign. He doesn’t try to encourage her one way or another. He lets her pick for herself, and more by default than anything, she picks retirement.
At this point, the only ones up for arrest are Steve and Sam for helping Bucky escape and potentially for some damage caused by the chase scene, and Bucky for a crime he didn’t commit.
(I re-watched the scene from Civil War to find where they “collapsed an overpass” and the closest thing I found was Bucky tacking a little explosive onto an overhead walkway to rain debris down on Sam and T’Challa. The walkway was intact after he drove past, and still intact as Steve came up to it a moment later, with minimal damage done to anything other than the bottom foot or two of concrete, and there was no one in the tunnel behind Steve to even be inconvenienced by the rubble. So I really don’t understand where you’re getting the collapsed overpass and killed people from?)
Bucky is triggered into Winter Soldier mode by Zemo, and escapes the facility, despite just about everyone (including Steve) trying to stop him.
At this point any casualties are honestly on Zemo’s head, but seeing as no one believes Steve about the therapist being fishy, that gets ignored and pinned on Bucky instead.
This is the point where the other super soldiers are revealed, and Cap decides to call in backup.
This is all supposed to be taking place under the radar. This is him collecting a strike team to go deal with the super soldiers and get out again, before going back to life problems like what his team’s decisions on the Accords are and what’s going to become of Bucky and how/when to tell Tony about his parents.
This has nothing whatsoever to do with the Accords or who signed. In fact, it only becomes about the Accords again when Tony shows up and demands that Steve come quietly because he didn’t sign. Because he went outside the Accords and saved Bucky.
At this point, please consider: Steve didn’t sign. Steve is technically retired. If the Accords were truly just an oversight committee for the Avengers, Steve should have been off the hook for anything more than property damage, disturbing the peace, and potentially assisting in Bucky’s escape (which I don’t know how that would play out in a court if Bucky wasn’t guilty).
No one else in Steve’s group is doing anything illegal.
Unless, of course, we’re going by the Accords’ new rules that state that enhanced people can’t cross foreign borders and participate in personal battles.
And if that’s the case then Tony’s in trouble for breaking them too, because last I checked he wasn’t having Peter sign the Accords, which means he brought an unregistered enhanced person across national borders to participate in a fight, all without UN permission to do so.
At the very least this is pure hypocrisy.
As for Peter, yes, he was already doing his own thing. Yes, he would have still been doing his own thing. Yes, Tony giving him gear probably helped to protect him and make him fight more safely. But let me ask you this…if Tony cared so much about Peter potentially getting hurt, why wait until he needed to recruit him to go offer him tech? Why monitor him for months without doing anything, and then show up only when he needed another heavy hitter for an international battle so he could out-number Steve, Sam, and Bucky?
And yes, I’m sure he told Aunt May that he was taking Peter on some museum trip or Stark Company tour or something, but whatever he told her was a complete and utter lie. The closest he could have possibly come was getting her permission to bring Peter to a “convention” in Germany, but the odds of Tony actually thinking to ask her that are so astronomically low that they don’t even beg to be considered. After all, he didn’t have a great relationship with his own parents, and he has no concept of childhood. Why would he think that he was doing anything wrong by not telling her?
And joking as his “I’ll tell Aunt May” might have been, this is still a threat from a much older and very powerful man to a young boy. Even if Tony didn’t mean for it to come across that way, that’s what Peter took away from it. Because it’s only after Tony threatens to tell that Peter agrees to come along.
And yes, it was a fight against teammates that Tony knew wouldn’t be deliberately trying to hit Peter, but as was demonstrated multiple times throughout the movie, accidents happen. Also, Bucky was there. If Tony thought the Winter Soldier was as dangerous and unstable as he did, why risk Peter at all? Why not simply bring Vision in and be done with it? He doesn’t have any particular reason to think that Clint and Wanda went to meet up with Steve after Clint broke her out. He certainly doesn’t know about Scott. He has himself, Natasha, T’Challa, Rhody, and Vision against what he thinks is going to be Steve, Sam, and Bucky. A trio that was already successfully captured by T’Challa and Rhody alone.
And if he was really that worried about it, why not simply bring in the Iron Legion?
He had no reason at all to bring Peter to that fight. It was dangerous and irresponsible and incredibly selfish of him. And again, I bring his mental state into question. Tony obviously thought that this was okay. He honestly thought that bringing a minor to an international superhero fight was something that was fine. Because it gave him one more person “on his side” of the argument.
Tony is very clearly not thinking straight at this point in the movie.
Peter, of course, is very grateful to have been brought along. He’s fighting with his favorite superheros, against his other favorite superheros, and he’s got all this shiny new gear (read: bribery) courtesy of Tony Stark and he’s been told that Tony has a big job for him and that Tony wants Peter to do him proud, and he’s all set and ready to impress Mr. Stark because like literally any teenage boy he wants to do something to prove that he’s all grown up.
But let’s not forget:
Steve: “Kid, there’s a lot going on here you don’t understand.”
Peter: “Mr. Stark said you’d say that.”
Steve: “Did Stark tell you anything else?”
Peter: “That you’re wrong. And you think you’re right. And that makes you dangerous.”
Note that Tony told him nothing. Tony didn’t tell Peter a damn thing about what was going on other than “Steve’s wrong so he needs to be arrested” and “don’t listen when Steve tells you that there’s more than what I told you was going on” and “just stay back and web them all up.”
Tony told him preemptively that everything the opposing side said was wrong, and trying to trick him. He made sure that there wasn’t even a chance that Peter would listen to Steve. Tony didn’t want anyone else picking Steve’s side over his.
Peter is a child who is doing something cause his idol told him to. He has no investment in this conflict and in fact, has no idea what’s really even going on. He was brought in on a very, very bad judgment call from Stark for some reason that I cannot even fathom outside of “look Steve I know super-people too.”
Tony’s mental state has been in question for a while, but at this point in the film, Tony’s already gone off the rails. And it’s all just downhill from here.
And Wanda.
Oh, Wanda…where do I even start…?
Like I mentioned before, everyone on the roster comes with baggage. Wanda is no exception.
In Age of Ultron, Wanda and Pietro’s main target was Tony Stark. They grew up believing that he was responsible for their parent’s death because his name was on the bomb they were trapped staring at for two days as rescue people tried to save them. It was traumatic. It scarred the both of them for life.
Fast forward a few years, and they’re teenagers in Sokovia as their country is being attacked and pillaged by forces that claim they’re American. Forces using Stark weapons.
And in comes Dr. Wolfgang von Strucker.
He takes these two desperate teens - who until then had been fighting back by joining riots and throwing rocks – and tells them that he has an experiment, and he needs volunteers. He has a way to give them enhancements, so they can fight back and defend their homeland against what seems like an unstoppable force. He pitches this wonderful little spiel to these kids and convinces Pietro to sign on, who in turn convinces Wanda to do the same.
Now, we as the audience know that the “American” attacks on the city are HYDRA-orchestrated, and that Strucker is lying through his damn teeth, but for Wanda and Pietro, two orphaned teens with hot blood and adolescent-level reasoning skills, he’s a miracle that’s been sent with the answer to their prayers. So they, as well as a number of adults from their city, all go for experimentation so they can fight back.
And all of them die.
All of them…except for the twins.
At this point, the twins have no idea what HYDRA is. All they know is that Dr. Strucker is trying to protect their city with his experiments, and they’re going to help him to do that. They already see the Avengers as an evil force, so when the base is attacked, it makes sense for them to fight back. They don’t even question if they’re on the bad side, because for all of their lives, and reaffirmed by everybody they’ve ever known and everything they’ve seen and experienced, they’ve been told that America and the Avengers are the attackers, the murderers, the terrorists blowing up their homes and killing them in the streets. Of course they are going to fight back against Tony and the Avengers. They’ve only ever known them as the enemy.
Claiming that Wanda and Pietro willingly joined HYDRA is a gross misinterpretation of all data given in the film. They joined Dr. Strucker as teenagers to protect their city. Nothing more. Their involvement with HYDRA ended as soon as the Avengers cleared out Strucker’s base.
The next bad soul these two fell in with was Ultron, who tracked them down through Tony’s computer system and gave them the same spiel that Strucker had: come with me, and I’ll help you get revenge on the man that orphaned you, and the people that have been attacking your homeland. He promises to help them destroy the Avengers, and tells them exactly how to do it.
Now here’s a major point to look at: Strucker kept the twins out of the fighting. Every time one of the other HYDRA people tried to send the twins up against the Avengers, he said that they weren’t ready yet and tried to keep them back. He wasn’t planning on letting the two of them face the Avengers until they were ready to (even if Pietro kinda jumped the gun.)
Ultron, on the other hand, “knows more about us [the Avengers] than we do about ourselves.” When the twins ask how to get revenge, he tells them exactly what to do. He lays it out, step by step.
Wanda and Pietro have had no contact with the Avengers before. The most they know about them is what they’ve heard in the news (still pictures and stories at best), seen on television (not the most common thing in a third-world country, and certainly not for two poor orphans), and heard about from HYDRA (which is essentially nothing because Strucker was trying to keep them out of the fighting until they were more ready). Pietro and Wanda only had limited contact with any of them when the base was overrun, and that was mainly Pietro catching Clint’s arrows and Wanda tossing Steve down a flight of stairs. (Dude, if I had a dollar for every flight of stairs that guy falls down…)
They had no real exposure to the Avengers, or what their powers were, or what they fought like. The first time this happens is in the salvage yard, off the African coast.
This is why Pietro tries to grab Thor’s hammer. This is why Wanda doesn’t expect Clint to fight back and stun her with an arrow. This is why the two of them have to retreat even though Wanda’s got most of them reeling with nightmares of their worst fear. It’s why they go after “the big one.”
They’ve heard of Hulk before, of course. He’s enormous, he’s indestructible, he’s a heavy hitter, and he gets dragged around by the Avengers to smash things for them. They’ve never encountered him, so they don’t know that he’s essentially uncontrollable. They don’t know that he gets more powerful and more uncontrollable the more angry that he gets.
But before I get too much into that, let’s stop and consider something.
Wanda was ten when she lost her parents.
Now, that may not seem like an overly significant fact, but this shapes a lot of what takes place in future events, namely when it comes to her education.
Because honestly, do you think a pair of ten year olds who have just been orphaned in a war-torn country are going to think to themselves at any point “I should be attending school?” I don’t think so.
With that in mind, I ask, how likely was she to know the location of countries and cities outside of Sokovia on a map? My guess is not very. She probably knows what continent she’s on, what town she grew up in, a few nearby cities or countries, and a few big ones mentioned all the time in the news.
She’s not likely to know much about Africa.
Ultron brings her into some random country she’s never heard of before, and takes her to a salvage yard off the coast. She has no idea where she is. She has no idea what’s nearby. All she knows is that they’re here for vibranium for Ultron, and she’s been given her orders to brainwash whoever she needs to in order to get it for them.
Also, look how FAR that city actually is.
And then the Avengers show up.
As I mentioned, this is her first real encounter with them, so she does what Ultron tells her: “It’s time for some mind games.” She goes down the list and gives every one of them the nightmare treatment, just like Ultron’s been having her do to the people in the places they’ve robbed for resources.
She doesn’t stop to consider what’s going to happen when she does this to Banner. Based off everything she’s seen, doing that leaves her victims near-comatose. Why would she expect him to go on a rampage? She didn’t set Hulk off with the intention of having him attack Johannesburg. Hell, she probably doesn’t even know there’s a city nearby, she’s off the coast and doesn’t truly know where she is. She didn’t even consider that Hulk might have gone on a rampage or gone after the city, especially not when the Avengers were all right there as targets. After all, everyone else kind of sat in one place feeling traumatized when she was done with them, and she has no reason to believe that Banner will react any differently. Not for one second did she intend for him to go attack that city. Wanda would never slaughter civilians like that, not when she grew up as a civilian victim to those kinds of things. It’s not in her nature.
What’s more Bruce states that after Johannesburg, people see the ‘real Hulk’, so there’s really no reason to think that Wanda really understands just what she’s unleashed.
She’s young and impulsive, she can’t pick people to trust worth a damn and she may not think things through all the way, but she’s not cruel.
In fact, the minute she figured out what Ultron’s end game was, she actually teamed up with the people she’d spent her life being raised to hate in order to stop him, so innocent people wouldn’t get hurt.
Wanda has a lot less to apologize for than everyone tries to pin on her, and most of what she is guilty of wasn’t malicious – it was ill-informed or heavily swayed by outside influence.
As for the Lagos incident:
Steve has no idea what her powers can do. Wanda has no idea what her powers can do. Yes, she’s clearly been practicing shields and tossing her teammates around and moving objects, but it may not have occurred to any of them that she could work her shielding abilities in reverse, as a containment bubble. (Which is why, I suspect, she didn’t merely put Team Stark in a bubble at the airport battle and hold them there while the others escaped.)
Hell, it might have been something she can’t replicate. Her powers are weird, and highly linked to her emotions. (We see her eyes glow whenever she gets angry or upset or frightened.) She might be able to do something in anger and desperation that she can’t do at an everyday practice because of the emotional tie-in. She’s been training with them for a year. For all we know, Steve could have gotten a hold of a stick of dynamite (or five) and had her try to contain it, only to have her fail time and time again because her heart wasn’t really in it. But when it came down to a situation where it was “do this now or Steve dies” she was able to summon the strength to hold it, at least for a little while.
I’m hoping they expand a little on her powers in upcoming movies (set clips of her with Dr. Strange – YES PLEASE) because otherwise we’re left just as much in the dark about how her powers operate as she is. It doesn’t make for a very solid basis to argue facts on.
My comment about the prisoners being abused was based off of another person’s theory that I’d read, where they noted the enormous bruise that Sam gets some point between when we last see him at the airport and when we next see him at the Raft, as well as the fact that his immediate response to Tony’s question about Steve is “you would have to go Mark Fuhrman on my ass to get information out of me.”
=> Can you please look up the UN. Can you please look up their stances on torture and detainment and god anything and everything.
(Oh sweetheart. Do I have some research for you.)
Actually, funny you should bring that up. According to the Geneva Conventions for prisoner treatment:
“Prisoners of war are entitled in all circumstances to respect for their persons and their honour. Women shall be treated with all the regard due to their sex and shall in all cases benefit by treatment as favourable as that granted to men. Prisoners of war shall retain the full civil capacity which they enjoyed at the time of their capture.”
So what part of putting Wanda in a straitjacket and locking her in a shock collar was giving her equally favorable conditions as the men she’d been brought in with? Where was the “respect for their persons and their honor” when they collared her like a dog?
Another clause from the Geneva Conventions:
“Taking into consideration the provisions of the present Convention relating to rank and sex, and subject to any privileged treatment which may be accorded to them by reason of their state of health, age or professional qualifications, all prisoners of war shall be treated alike by the Detaining Power, without any adverse distinction based on race, nationality, religious belief or political opinions, or any other distinction founded on similar criteria.”
Essentially the same deal. They can’t treat Wanda worse than the others or imprison her under more strict conditions than the guys she was brought in with.
Some more:
“Prisoners of war may be interned only in premises located on land and affording every guarantee of hygiene and healthfulness. Except in particular cases which are justified by the interest of the prisoners themselves, they shall not be interned in penitentiaries.”
So the Raft would be a violation of both of these, being a penitentiary as well as being located in the middle of the ocean.
“Women prisoners of war undergoing disciplinary punishment shall be confined in separate quarters from male prisoners of war and shall be under the immediate supervision of women.”
This could have simply been oversight, but I don’t recall seeing any female guards at the Raft. Meaning Wanda is the only girl in a facility run by, and meant for detaining, men.
“The use of weapons against prisoners of war, especially against those who are escaping or attempting to escape, shall constitute an extreme measure, which shall always be preceded by warnings appropriate to the circumstances.”
I’m not sure if the shock collar would fall under this regulation or not. It would seem like a sort of taser, which is technically a weapon, and it’s certainly being used to guarantee against her escape.
“Collective punishment for individual acts, corporal punishments, imprisonment in premises without daylight and, in general, any form of torture or cruelty, are forbidden.”
Shock collar definitely doesn’t pass this regulation. Also the cells in the Raft have no exposure to daylight. They are sub-level and underwater full time.
(Additionally, the way the top of the Raft is built doesn’t exactly make it conducive for surface visits, but for argument’s sake let’s say there’s some staircase or something that can let people out on top of it when it surfaces.)
Now, again, they might bring the prisoners up top to get fresh air on occasion, but if they’re going to this extent to restrain Wanda I kind of doubt they’re going to be comfortable letting her out of her cell to wander up top.
“In no case may a woman prisoner of war be awarded or sentenced to a punishment more severe, or treated whilst undergoing punishment more severely, than a male member of the armed forces of the Detaining Power dealt with for a similar offence.”
Once again, they all technically committed the same offense. And yet Wanda is the one with the shock collar and straitjacket.
“The disciplinary punishments applicable to prisoners of war are the following:
1. A fine which shall not exceed 50 per cent of the advances of pay and working pay which the prisoner of war would otherwise receive under the provisions of Articles 60 and 62 during a period of not more than thirty days.
2. Discontinuance of privileges granted over and above the treatment provided for by the present Convention.
3. Fatigue duties not exceeding two hours daily.
4. Confinement.
The punishment referred to under (3) shall not be applied to officers.
In no case shall disciplinary punishments be inhuman, brutal or dangerous to the health of prisoners of war.”
And back to the shock collar. Technically they are all being disciplined via confinement, but the fact that Wanda has the collar to keep her from acting out is a bit overkill, and potentially dangerous to her health. The electrical shock from a taser can cause irregular heart rhythms in perfectly healthy people and can even put the victim at risk for going into cardiac arrest. In fact…
“The United Nations Committee against Torture reports that the use of Tasers can be a form of torture, due to the acute pain they cause, and warns against the possibility of death in some cases. The use of stun belts has been condemned by Amnesty International as torture, not only for the physical pain the devices cause, but also for their heightened abuse potential.”
(And I will point out here that stun belts are essentially shock collars, but are fastened around the waist, leg, or arm. Not the fucking throat.)
“Taser International has stated in a training bulletin that repeated blasts of a taser can "impair breathing and respiration". Also, on Taser's website it is stated that, for a subject in a state described as "excited delirium", repeated or prolonged stuns with the Taser can contribute to "significant and potentially fatal health risks."
“Studies indicated that the threshold of energy needed to induce deadly ventricular fibrillation decreased dramatically with each successive burst of pulses [from the taser]. The threshold for women may be less.”
So yeah. Shock collar blatantly breaks yet another rule off the Geneva Conventions list.
On to a few more highlights from the document:
”The duration of any single punishment shall in no case exceed thirty days.”
So even if their current confinement is simply “punishment” there is supposed to be a very clear time limit on it.
“Prisoners of war shall not in any case be transferred to penitentiary establishments (prisons, penitentiaries, convict prisons, etc.) to undergo disciplinary punishment therein.”
Except according to this one, the group of them should not have been transferred to a penitentiary establishment like the Raft for their punishment.
“A prisoner of war undergoing confinement as a disciplinary punishment, shall continue to enjoy the benefits of the provisions of this Convention except in so far as these are necessarily rendered inapplicable by the mere fact that he is confined. Prisoners of war awarded disciplinary punishment shall be allowed to exercise and to stay in the open air at least two hours daily.”
Which implies that the lot of them would have to be let outside for at least two hours a day. Which, again, isn’t exactly easy to do in a mid-oceanic prison, and I really don’t see the guards there being willing to parade Wanda around out of her cell at all.
“No prisoner of war may be convicted without having had an opportunity to present his defence and the assistance of a qualified advocate or counsel.”
Now as you mentioned, we haven’t seen whether or not the imprisoned Avengers were given right to a trial, however I would point out that the period of time between their capture and when Tony came to visit them wasn’t very long. And in that time they’ve already been processed, changed into prison garb, (fully restrained, in Wanda’s case), and locked in their cells. Legitimate court processions are fairly drawn out procedures, and if one did take place before they were locked away, I have to question the validity of it simply based on how quickly it was conducted and concluded for four individuals.
“The advocate or counsel conducting the defense on behalf of the prisoner of war shall have at his disposal a period of two weeks at least before the opening of the trial, as well as the necessary facilities to prepare the defense of the accused.”
One more reason I think that a trial couldn’t have taken place before their imprisonment. Now, perhaps they are being imprisoned and awaiting their trial? That’s the only logical way I can see this not breaking the conventions or falling onto the Accords’ listed clause about skipping trials entirely when regarding dangerous individuals.
(To be completely honest all these rules and regulations kind of make me want to write a fanfic about Team Cap at the Raft when it’s operating properly under these conventions…)
The document I used here is in reference to prisoners of war, as it’s the general UN go-to for prisoner treatment, and at this point the Avengers are in international waters. However there are also the Nelson Mandela rules, which detail the “United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners” and also have some pretty important points that I’d like to bring up:
“No prisoner shall be subjected to, and all prisoners shall be protected from, torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, for which no circumstances whatsoever may be invoked as a justification.”
I’d think a shock collar would probably fall under “inhuman” or “degrading,” wouldn’t you? Perhaps even a straitjacket as well. Note: “no circumstances whatsoever may be invoked as a justification.” Not even bullshit magic powers.
“The prison regime should seek to minimize any differences between prison life and life at liberty that tend to lessen the responsibility of the prisoners or the respect due to their dignity as human beings.”
Being locked in tiny glass cells in the middle of the ocean isn’t exactly fulfilling this one. Especially as the previous clause talks about providing “education, vocational training and work, as well as other forms of assistance that are appropriate and available, including those of a remedial, moral, spiritual, social and health- and sports-based nature” which is certainly not something that’s going on here at the Raft.
“No person shall be received in a prison without a valid commitment order.”
Again implying that the Avengers were rushed through some kind of trial, or imprisoned there in breach of this document.
“The different categories of prisoners shall be kept in separate institutions or parts of institutions, taking account of their sex, age, criminal record, the legal reason for their detention and the necessities of their treatment; thus:
(a) Men and women shall so far as possible be detained in separate institutions; in an institution which receives both men and women, the whole of the premises allocated to women shall be entirely separate;
(b) Untried prisoners shall be kept separate from convicted prisoners;
(c) Persons imprisoned for debt and other civil prisoners shall be kept separate from persons imprisoned by reason of a criminal offence;
(d) Young prisoners shall be kept separate from adults.”
So depending which one of these Wanda was separated from the others for, really changes what’s going on with the situation. It could be as simple as keeping the only female on a separate floor. Or could be as dark as keeping convicted prisoners (dangerous enhanced can be “detained without trial for indefinite amount of time” remember?) separate from ones awaiting trial.
Especially because a little bit lower down it’s mentioned that: “An unconvicted prisoner shall be allowed to wear his or her own clothing if it is clean and suitable. If he or she wears prison dress, it shall be different from that supplied to convicted prisoners.”
And Wanda’s prison outfit is definitely different than the guys’ outfits…
“In all places where prisoners are required to live or work the windows shall be large enough to enable the prisoners to read or work by natural light and shall be so constructed that they can allow the entrance of fresh air whether or not there is artificial ventilation”
Once again, no windows at the Raft. It’s artificial light and artificial ventilation all the way, with little likelihood of them being allowed outside.
There’s a whole section in here on personal hygiene, and I’m not going to quote it cause it’s very long and not overly specific, but allow me to pose a question: How exactly is Wanda supposed to do anything in that straitjacket?
She has no use of her hands. How is she supposed to eat? To brush her hair? To shower, or use the bathroom? Is there a guard assigned to help her, and if so did they bother getting a female guard? Or is she expected to strip and bathe in the presence of a male guard? I realize that hygine isn’t something that a lot of movies take into consideration in situations like this, but when you have someone restrained beyond the point of normal movement and function, you have to wonder how exactly they’re getting by.
“Every prisoner who is not allowed to wear his or her own clothing shall be provided with an outfit of clothing suitable for the climate and adequate to keep him or her in good health. Such clothing shall in no manner be degrading or humiliating.”
And back to the straitjacket.
If you look closely at it, it rather looks like that’s all she’s got on as a top. If this is the case, and she’s been given a straitjacket as clothing – meaning that the only time she’s free to move is when she’s half nude – I think that would very well fall under “degrading or humiliating.”
“Drinking water shall be available to every prisoner whenever he or she needs it”
Now I’m fairly sure I saw some kind of restroom facilities in the back corner of the boys’ cells, however once again, the issue of the straitjacket comes up. If Wanda’s thirsty, do they have to send in a guard with water to help her drink? Is there any kind of guard nearby for her to call out to? Is she even allowed to speak? We don’t ever hear her talk at the Raft, and while that may have been simply due to how the plot was arranged, we only ever see her sitting still and quiet, curled in a corner of her cell. It’s a little suspicious.
“Every prisoner who is not employed in outdoor work shall have at least one hour of suitable exercise in the open air daily if the weather permits.”
Once again, how likely is it that any of them are getting any kind of surface time at the Raft? Given their “highly dangerous” status, I find it unlikely that they’re going to be spending much time out of their cells at all.
“The relationship between the physician or other health-care professionals and the prisoners shall be governed by the same ethical and professional standards as those applicable to patients in the community, in particular: An absolute prohibition on engaging, actively or passively, in acts that may constitute torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, including medical or scientific experimentation that may be detrimental to a prisoner’s health such as the removal of a prisoner’s cells, body tissues or organs.”
Which means that all of those DNA samples and power analyses that the Accords calls for technically should not be carried out on any prisoner.
“Discipline and order shall be maintained with no more restriction than is necessary to ensure safe custody, the secure operation of the prison and a well ordered community life.”
One word: straitjacket.
And now for the big one…
“General living conditions addressed in these rules, including those related to light, ventilation, temperature, sanitation, nutrition, drinking water, access to open air and physical exercise, personal hygiene, health care and adequate personal space, shall apply to all prisoners without exception.
In no circumstances may restrictions or disciplinary sanctions amount to torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. The following practices, in particular, shall be prohibited:
(a) Indefinite solitary confinement;
(b) Prolonged solitary confinement;
(c) Placement of a prisoner in a dark or constantly lit cell;
(d) Corporal punishment or the reduction of a prisoner’s diet or drinking water;
(e) Collective punishment.
Instruments of restraint shall never be applied as a sanction for disciplinary offences.
Disciplinary sanctions or restrictive measures shall not include the prohibition of family contact. The means of family contact may only be restricted for a limited time period and as strictly required for the maintenance of security and order.”
Once again, glaringly in question, are the facts that Wanda’s on her own in that corner of the prison, and locked up in a straitjacket and shock collar. As mentioned before, the solitary could be due to a number of other reasons, however the fact remains that she’s all alone.
“Solitary confinement shall be used only in exceptional cases as a last resort, for as short a time as possible and subject to independent review, and only pursuant to the authorization by a competent authority. It shall not be imposed by virtue of a prisoner’s sentence.
The imposition of solitary confinement should be prohibited in the case of prisoners with mental or physical disabilities when their conditions would be exacerbated by such measures. The prohibition of the use of solitary confinement and similar measures in cases involving women and children, as referred to in other United Nations standards and norms in crime prevention and criminal justice, continues to apply.”
This specifically forbids Wanda from being subjected to solitary confinement.
Even if she was not specifically sentenced to solitary confinement, the document’s definition of it is “confinement of prisoners for 22 hours or more a day without meaningful human contact” so unless the guards are in there visiting with her (which I don’t see happening) or letting her go visit with the boys (which I really don’t see happening) she’s technically considered to be in solitary.
“The use of chains, irons or other instruments of restraint which are inherently degrading or painful shall be prohibited.
Other instruments of restraint shall only be used when authorized by law and in the following circumstances:
(a) As a precaution against escape during a transfer, provided that they are removed when the prisoner appears before a judicial or administrative authority;
(b) By order of the prison director, if other methods of control fail, in order to prevent a prisoner from injuring himself or herself or others or from damaging property; in such instances, the director shall immediately alert the physician or other qualified health-care professionals and report to the higher administrative authority.
When the imposition of instruments of restraint is authorized in accordance with paragraph 2 of rule 47, the following principles shall apply:
(a) Instruments of restraint are to be imposed only when no lesser form of control would be effective to address the risks posed by unrestricted movement;
(b) The method of restraint shall be the least intrusive method that is necessary and reasonably available to control the prisoner’s movement, based on the level and nature of the risks posed;
(c) Instruments of restraint shall be imposed only for the time period required, and they are to be removed as soon as possible after the risks posed by unrestricted movement are no longer present”
And here’s where the straitjacket and shock collar are a major no-no according to the UN. As far as we’ve seen, Wanda has those both on permanently. Those aren’t something that the guards put her in to prevent escape if they bother to take her topside for fresh air and then remove again once she’s back in her cell. Those are on her constantly. And this is in addition to being behind bars in her cell. Constant restraint of prisoners is very much not allowed, not even in the cases of high-risk. It all has to be temporary, and used only circumstantially as absolutely necessary.
“In a prison for both men and women, the part of the prison set aside for women shall be under the authority of a responsible woman staff member who shall have the custody of the keys of all that part of the prison. No male staff member shall enter the part of the prison set aside for women unless accompanied by a woman staff member. Women prisoners shall be attended and supervised only by women staff members.”
Once again, possibly just film oversight, but I didn’t see any female staff anywhere on the Raft. This one seems like it’s being blatantly ignored.
“The education of illiterate prisoners and of young prisoners shall be compulsory and special attention shall be paid to it by the prison administration.”
LOL technically they have to provide Wanda a high school/college education. XD
While on the topic, according to the UN, a “juvenile” or “young person” is anyone between the age of 15 and 24, and while Wanda’s age has always been rather iffy, we can peg her down pretty solidly within that range. So technically, according to the UN, she should also be protected by the juvenile prisoners documents. However, this post is long enough, so I’ll leave those to your perusal.
http://www.un.org/documents/ga/res/45/a45r113.htm
Now one of the things that I find most interesting is that none of these procedures that I have presented in either document are followed for bringing in Bucky Barnes OR for detaining Zemo at the end of the movie. Specifically Zemo.
Everett Ross: “Raise your voice? Zap. Touch the glass? Zap.”
Zemo’s locked in a little box, shackled in place so he can’t move. He’s under threat of the same electrocution that Wanda is for what amounts to “doing anything the guards don’t like.” He is being denied half of the rights that I mentioned above as well. No daylight. No fresh air. No bed. No access to water. Solitary confinement for extended periods. And even harassment from prison guards, as we see from Everett. However, because he is a “bad guy” and “deserved it” this treatment tends to get overlooked. For the sake of fairness, I will bring up that technically Zemo is suffering prisoner abuse and breach of Geneva Conventions as well.
And where is the UN to step in and say “no don’t do that”…?
Oh, right, they’re busy with their own politics.
And let’s be honest, they’re not overly concerned with the rights of people like the Avengers or any super-villains that may be detained in various supermax holding facilities.
Now, with all of that, I have to ask…if the UN is already ignoring this many breaches in the code for prisoner treatment when it comes to the Raft, can we really believe that they’d do anything other than turn a blind eye if the guards got a bit violent when questioning Team Cap about Steve’s whereabouts?
I honestly don’t think they would intervene.
Oh, they’d give everyone involved a slap on the wrist if it ever hit the news, yes, but they aren’t going to show up at the prison and say “hey, shock collars are technically torture, find some more humane way to contain Maximoff.”
They don’t care.
So yeah. This group here. The UN that decided to waive the Geneva Conventions and the Nelson Mandela Rules for their own prisoners. They are the ones pitching the Accords and wanting to call all the shots on if/how/when the Avengers can help people.
It’s no damn wonder that Steve doesn’t trust them.
I don’t trust them as far as I can throw them. (And let me tell you, it’s not that far.)
#it's fun to be able to argue passionately#I should be working#but arguing about fictional characters comes first#civil war#still team cap#there is so much wrong with what happened#and yeah#I disagree about Peter#but no offense taken
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Ares Mission Journal, Astronaut Philip Lester
Summary: The Phan NASA AU that we’ve all been waiting for. Don’t tell me that you haven’t been waiting your whole life for this, because lets be honest, you’d be lying to yourself.
Word Count: 23,324
Warnings: Lots of pain and fluff and angst, the lovely slow burn angst so strap yourself in for that lads.
A/N: I actually originally wrote this for my astronomy final project (minus the swearing and I changed the names around so my astronomy teacher didn’t look up the people’s names and discover that I’m writing about actual people). Yes, I did write gay fanfiction and turn it into my forty-five year old male astronomy teacher with a wife. But he probably enjoyed it, honestly. Lots of inspiration from @mangothatismelancholy‘s lovely story Misfit on Wattpad (go read it like seriously it’s won a WATTY it’s so fucking amazing please go read it).
This fic is also on wattpad exactly the same, if you wanna check it out!
Ares Mission Journal, Astronaut Philip Lester
March 23rd, 2037
They say that in life you never completely get what you want.
They say that there’s always a point where you just can’t do anything anymore, where there’s that final obstacle you will never make it over, that there is always someone better than you.
Throughout my entire life I’d chosen to ignore this outlook on life where you always assume the worst. Because if you always assume the worst thing will happen then how do you ever get the motivation to try in the first place?
This was my mindset when I applied to be an astronaut on the Ares Missions.
But people all around me, even my closest family and friends told me that it was unreasonable, that I shouldn’t get my hopes up and I should find something else to do for when I inevitably get rejected. So many people told me this, that I actually started to believe it.
But then I got the letter back from NASA.
And I’d gotten accepted to be one of the astronauts on the Ares mission.
To say that I freaked out is an understatement, really. I was so ecstatic and excited and relieved that all of my hard work and all of those long years at college had finally paid off in the best way possible. Out of millions and millions of people that applied, somehow I was one of the five selected. One of the five.
And I’ve been given the job of recording everything that happens on this mission--the training, the launch, the flight, Mars, and the departure from Mars. It’s a really important job, considering what I’m writing could end up published in newspapers and scientific articles for future generations. But no pressure (nose pressure), right?
So far I’ve heard absolutely nothing about any of the other astronauts on my team, as we are not allowed to post online that we’ve gotten accepted. I guess I’ll have to wait until tomorrow (our first day of training) to meet the rest of the crew. Honestly, I’m somewhere between excited and terrified to meet them. I mean, we’ll be spending the next three and a half years together, which would be a very long time if we all ended up not being able to stand each other. But just like everything else I’ve done in my life, I’m looking at this in the best way possible. NASA most likely chose people that would get along exceedingly and have traits that complemented each other so that we would work together stupendously on Mars under high-pressure and tense situations.
Who knows, maybe I’ll be meeting my four new best friends tomorrow, if NASA really did choose people in that fashion. Maybe I’ll even meet the person I’m meant to be with and we’ll fall in--no.
No, that’s absolutely crazy. Forget I ever even mentioned the whole thing. I’ll record how well everything ends up going tomorrow after the first day of training.
March 24th, 2037
I just want to reiterate my thanks to NASA for giving me this experience. Walking into the headquarters of NASA today was the most surreal thing that has ever happened to me. Just taking a step inside, watching everyone turn to me and look at me with respect, seeing the spaceship I’ll end up leaving in soon in the process of construction.
Someone needed to pinch me, because honestly, none of it felt like it could possibly be real.
And the other members of the crew were all absolutely amazing. All of us are so different yet weirdly compatible as a group (which, once again, was probably NASA’s intention). Well . . . almost. I’m sure we’ll get there soon.
The first crew member I met was Daniel Howell. From what I could gather about him, he’s calm and cool and collected, all of the time. I assume that he won’t crack under pressure (at least not noticeably), so if for any reason we get into a bad situation, he’ll help us pull through it. But on the downside, he seems to struggle with caring about people. All of us were sat in a circle, and I turned and asked him a single question.
“So, how are you? Excited for the upcoming training?” I asked cheerfully, plastering a huge smile on my face (which wasn’t hard, considering I was already bursting with happiness and bubbliness). But as a smile formed on my face, a frown appeared on his.
“Look, I know we’re both on this mission together, and you’re really excited, but . . .” he trailed off, and it looked like maybe, just for a second his eyes flickered warmly towards me. But just like a lighter, as soon as his eyes brightened, they fizzled out.
“But . . .?” I questioned, leaning my head forward in curiosity.
“I think it would be best if we only talked when absolutely necessary, Phillip.” By now everyone else in the room had turned to stare at us.
“W-what? Why?” I stuttered. “I’m sorry, did I say something wrong?”
Dan sighed, almost looking guilty--but not quite. “Philip.”
“It’s Phil, actually,” I corrected before I could stop myself.
“Phil, sorry. Look, we’re here to get to Mars, that doesn’t mean we have to be best friends,” he stated flatly.
“W . . .” I trailed off. Without a second glance back towards me, Dan stood up and pulled his over to a corner where he proceeded to get on his phone and ignore us.
One of the other three guys, Tyler, who’d been staring at me in shock for the past five minutes walked over to me and unceremoniously collapsed in a chair beside me.
“What an ass, huh?” he spectated, gesturing over at Dan.
“I’m sure he has his reasons,” I muttered, looking down at the carpeted ground.
“Hey, don’t let him get to you, alright?” Tyler said, playfully punching my shoulder. “Anyways, this is Anthony,” he pointed to a guy with dark brown hair and brown eyes (nothing like Dan’s eyes, though), which were squinting in distaste at the piece of paper he was scribbling on. “He’s clearly the smart one out of all of us. And that’s Connor over there, he’ll be the communicator between us and Earth.” I glanced over at Connor, who looked up from his computer for a moment before returning to typing at the speed of light. “You’ve already met Dan, obviously,” Tyler said, turning to scoff in his direction. Dan was hunched over in his chair over his phone, bent over just enough that his dark chocolate brown fringe fell down to cover his hazel eyes. His whole body was tense, and he seemed to be trying to draw himself in on himself to get as small as he physically could. Most likely he just heard Tyler talking about him and got flustered. But why? If he didn’t want to be friends with any of us, why did he seem to care about Tyler’s opinions of him?
Unless maybe . . . he does care, and he was lying when he said he didn’t want to be friends with us.
And that’s when I made the internal decision that no matter what, regardless of anything Dan says, I’m going to become his best friend, and I’m going to find out why he doesn’t think he can let anyone in his life.
And so I made this promise to myself, in the middle of a NASA conference room, with Tyler talking a mile a minute next to me about his entire life story. Even if it would put me through pain, I was still determined to get to know him.
April 18th, 2037
Today is the last day before we leave. Our last day on Earth before we’re shot into space in a piece of metal that may or may not explode.
For these past few weeks we’ve been training nonstop to be prepared for the strange conditions on Mars (if you’d wish to read a full in-depth long journal about all of training we did and how it affected us, then go read that document. However, this particular journal log will be dedicated to how us as a group gets along and our interactions on Mars, as well as a sort of “personal diary” for me to write down my favorite experiences of the trip). But in these weeks, I still haven’t made any progress with Dan. The rest of the group keep telling me to just let it be, let him be the silent, resilient, emotionless member of our group that can bench press 250 pounds (seriously, I’m not joking). I know that somewhere inside of him, a part of him is screaming, begging and desperately craving to show emotion, to have a friend. And so I refuse to give up, no matter how insane people tell me I’m being.
Speaking of insane, a group of Russian scientists have recently been begging NASA and Americans not to send our mission up to Mars. They say that supposedly the radiation and UV rays from the sun can make us blind, or give us cancer that makes your body slowly deteriorate from the inside. The scientists here at NASA told us that they’re just making stuff up to stop our mission from going to Mars before them. I mean seriously, Russia, previously the Soviet Union really thought that we would take there cockamammy advice about cancelling a space mission? They’ve got to be mental to believe that we’d cancel it, especially when we’ve come this far.
Seriously, we’re leaving tomorrow. Tomorrow!
To say I’m excited is an understatement--I’m ecstatic. Even though the risk of the spaceship exploding persists, I still want to go. After all, dying while trying to accomplish my dream doesn’t sound that bad. At least I’ve chased my dreams and never gave up on them, unlike other people who think their dreams being a reality is impossible. I’d much rather die trying to make a dream a reality than doing something I wouldn’t enjoy doing for the rest of my life, always wondering what if . . .
April 18th, 2037, later
I didn’t think I would be making another journal entry today, but something extraordinary just happened.
Dan and I talked.
It was around 10:45 at night, and I was walking to the kitchen to make some food, as I couldn’t sleep, when I walked past the door to his room. Usually his door is always closed and locked, but for whatever reason, today it was left open slightly. Perhaps it was just a coincidence, but I’m more of a believer in fate and destiny than just writing every peculiar event like off as a coincidence. Curious, I walked towards the door and put my ear against the small open crack, careful not to put any of my weight on the door. From inside the room, I could hear soft sobbing. Intrigued, I pushed open the door, and peered through it.
Sitting on the bed with his head in his hands, whilst shaking with sobs, was Dan.
My mouth fell open at the sight of him so unraveled. Usually he was so put together and collected, like the rock that tied our group down to sanity, so seeing him like this was just odd.
Quietly, I stepped inside and precariously shut the door behind me, careful to make no noise. I crept forward towards Dan, each step harder to take than the last.
I opened my mouth, willing for words to come out--comforting words, letting him know that I was here for him, that I’d hold him until he felt better.
Instead, all that came out was, “D-Dan?”
Immediately he shot up and stared at me, my presence clearly shocking him.
“Phil?” he questioned, his voice cracking. “W-what are you doing here?”
“I-I’m sorry!” I exclaimed. “I was just walking to the kitchen when I noticed that your door was left open, then I heard crying and I got worried so I came in here to make sure you were okay and I’m sorry, really, I should’ve just stayed outside and--”
“Wow,” Dan interjected, rolling his eyes and successfully cutting me off from my embarrassing rant. His mouth quirked up at the corner in amusement and I was stunned. It was the first time I had seen him do something with his mouth that wasn’t frowning. His eyes seemed to brighten, which made my mouth drop open.
He was . . . beautiful, almost in an ironic way. Sad tears adorned his cheeks but his eyes glowed with so much warmth and yet he was still smirking mischievously. Somehow he wore each emotion better than anyone else I had ever seen.
“I just can’t figure out why you care so much,” Dan remarked, almost to himself.
“And I just can’t figure out how you don’t care,” I retorted, not even a moment later. “How does never showing any emotion and always being alone seem so appealing to you?”
Dan looked down at the bed now, shrugging, emotion gone from his face again.
After a minute or two of silence I figured he just wasn’t going to answer, but then he answered so quietly that if I hadn’t been listening closely, I would’ve missed it.
“Because then I won’t get hurt again.”
“W-what? Who hurt you?” I asked.
“That doesn’t matter,” he whispered.
We sat in silence for few more minutes, until I got the courage to speak again.
“Why were you crying?” I mumbled. Next to me, Dan tensed.
“I was just thinking about tomorrow.”
“What about tomorrow?” Dan turned his head down to stare at me, his hazel eyes stormy.
“About all of the risks, what would happen if the spaceship exploded. What if those Russians are right and being on Mars can make people go blind and get cancer? What then?” Dan exclaimed.
I rolled my eyes at him. “You really believe the Russian scientists over ours? And besides, you’re really strong, I’m sure you’ll be okay.”
Dan’s eyes flashed with an emotion I didn’t understand until he turned to stare into my eyes. Being this close to him, I could see that his eyes weren’t just brown, but flecked with gold and green. Nervously, I swallowed. Then he suddenly broke his stare towards me and turned to look at the ground.
“It’s not me I’m worried about,” he finally whispered. My eyes widened in shock. Was he maybe talking about . . . me?
“Then who?” I asked softly.
Dan opened his mouth, like he was going to say something, until he thought better of it and shut his mouth.
“Nothing,” he muttered, before standing up and starting to shoo me out. “As stimulating as this conversation has been, we both need to sleep before tomorrow. So get out of my room,” he snapped, startling me.
“O-okay,” I stuttered, walking out as he was pushing me to go faster. The moment I was outside, he slammed the door shut in my face causing me to flinch.
It seemed like he had opened up to me, even if it was just for a moment.
Now that I knew for sure there was something in there, I most definitely wasn’t going to stop trying now.
“Bye, Dan! See you tomorrow!” I shouted cheerfully, before skipping back to my own room for some much needed sleep.
April 20th, 2037
Well, we did it. Yesterday we launched into space for our physically and mentally exhausting 253 day long journey to Mars. And miraculously, the spacecraft did not blow up--we’ve made it into space and are on track to Mars.
But it might as well have exploded, as Dan has started ignoring me again, despite what I thought was a breakthrough yesterday.
When we boarded the spacecraft, I ran to sit by him, and turned to tell him hello. He didn’t answer, he just stayed on his phone, typing rapidly, like his life depended on this single text message. Either way, he was completely ignoring my presence.
“Hey, Dan,” I said softly. His eyes still remained focused on the screen. Finally, I tapped his shoulder wearily.
“What?!” Dan spat at me in annoyance. He had looked up from his phone finally, but his eyes were filled with anger towards me.
“I-I just wanted to see if you were doing okay because yesterday you seemed kind of worried about the launch and I was worried about you,” I said timidly, folding my hands into my lap and biting my bottom lip.
“Well, you don’t have to worry about me. I’m fine. Worry about yourself,” Dan answered hollowly, turning to stare at the bland grey wall made of solid steel and titanium.
“But--” I protested, before Dan cut me off.
“I’m fine!” he exclaimed, turning to face the wall. Next to me Tyler whistled.
“Someone’s on their man period,” he joked, laughing.
“You don’t know what he’s going through,” I told Tyler, annoyed. Tyler’s eyes widened in surprise.
“Look, Phil, I know you’re really nice and all, but standing up for Dan? Really? He’s the biggest ass I know, and I’ve met the Kardashian family before.” Anthony and him both chuckled at that, causing me to gasp in shock.
“How could you say that? When you have absolutely no idea what he could be going through! I know you’re just trying to make a joke, but next time don’t insult other people while you do it,” I lectured.
“You don’t have to defend me!” Dan snapped angrily.
“See!” Tyler retorted.
“But I want to,” I mumbled. Dan’s eyes went wide as he turned to look at me, the hazel orbs pooled with disbelief and surprise.
“And why? I’ve never done anything for you,” Dan whispered, his voice cracking, only the second time I’d heard him speak with so much raw emotion present in his voice.
“Because I care. And I believe you will too, someday, when I’ve finally convinced you to be friends with me.”
Dan let out a dry, sarcastic chuckle. “Yeah, that’s never going to happen sweetheart. I think I’d rather jump out into space and get crushed by all of the pressure than be your friend and care about you.”
Despite Dan’s biting tone and harsh insults embedded into his words, I still noticed the way his eyes flashed briefly, as if the way he had spoke to me had caused him pain.
“Astronauts, take your seats. Take off in sixty seconds. Fifty-nine . . . fifty-eight . . .” the voice droned robotically as all of us scrambled to fasten all of the buckles and bars in place.
“Well, we’re really doing this,” Anthony marveled.
Yeah,” I answered breathlessly. We were doing this. We were doing this.
And I was terrified.
“If we all die, I just want to thank you guys for at least putting in all of the effort to get here,” Connor announced, swallowing nervously.
“Me too, man,” Anthony agreed.
“Guys . . .” Tyler suddenly piped up. “I’ve never been in love before. What if I die on this mission and never get the chance to fall in love?” his voice trembled. It was odd seeing someone normally so put together and humorous just falling apart before your eyes.
At the mention of love, I found my eyes flickering towards Dan nervously, surprised to see that his eyes were already trained on me, the emotion in his eyes unreadable. I looked away, blushing.
“It’s okay,” Connor suddenly chided in. “Maybe you won’t find love in this life, but I’m sure you will one day. Everybody has that person out there for them.” A tiny smile formed on his lips and he looked up at the wall, a longing look entering his eyes.
“I think you’re lucky, Tyler,” Anthony suddenly interjected. “You’re not in love, Tyler, so it doesn’t hurt when one of you leaves.”
Connor’s head shot up and he stared at Anthony, disbelief and worry starting to cover his face.
“What are you talking about?” Connor asked sharply, his words taught and harsh.
Waving at Tyler, Anthony roared, “HE’S NOT IN LOVE! HE DOESN’T UNDERSTAND WHAT WE HAD TO GO THROUGH TO GET HERE AND HOW HARD IT WAS TO MAKE THE CHOICE TO LEAVE HER FOR YEARS AND I--” his voice cracked suddenly, causing him to falter. “I-I’m sorry, I don’t know where that came from, I think that the take off is just freaking me out.”
“It’s okay, I get it. That must be really hard, Anthony. I hadn’t even thought about it that way.”
For a moment the three of them remained silent, until Tyler unexpectedly blurted, “Is there someone waiting for you on Earth, Connor?”
Again the small but genuine smile appeared on Connor’s face. “Yeah.”
“And she’ll wait for you all seven years?” Anthony asked.
“He’s waited for me before, he’ll do it again.”
The robotic voice interrupted everybody before anyone had a chance to react.
“Ten.”
My heart rate shot up almost instantaneously.
“Nine.”
“Dan,” I whispered.
“Eight.”
“Yeah?” he whispered back.
“Seven.”
“I’m scared. Like, really, really scared,” I muttered frantically, my words all over the place.
“Six.”
Maybe he wouldn’t answer me.
“Five.”
Maybe I was wrong about him.
“Four.”
Maybe he really just didn’t care.
“Three.”
“Me too,” he enunciated softly.
“Two.”
On a dumb impulse, I released my death grip from one of the bars holding me down, and slowly I inched my hand towards his, closer and closer until--
“One.”
Our hands made contact--sweet, blissful contact that made my stomach swoop so badly I forgot about the spacecraft entirely.
“Phil, I--” Dan started to say, before getting interrupted by the spaceship lurching upwards so forcefully that his head shot back. I tightened my grip around his hand, clinging onto him like he was the only thing rooting me to sanity. He didn’t seem to mind, in fact his grip on my hand seemed to increase too.
“Alphis to spacecraft, do you read? Over.”
“This is Connor. I read. Over,” Connor responded in a shaky voice.
“Everything all right so far? Nothing strange? Over.”
All of us turned to look at Connor in confusion. His brow furrowed in confusion. “Um . . . no. Should there be? Over.” Connor’s voice was filled with worry.
There was a long pause of silence. I turned to look at Dan, who was biting his lip while looking at the ground thoughtfully. His hand was still tightly holding onto mine, shaking ever so slightly, so his whole “calm aura” wasn’t fooling me.
“Spacecraft to Alphis, can you hear me? Over.”
The silence that came from the speakers was almost ominous.
“Dan?” I asked softly. “What were you going to say? Before we took off, I mean.”
“Oh!” Dan exclaimed, seeming nervous to be called out. “I-I didn’t think you’d remember that.”
“Of course I did,” I replied, rolling my eyes. “Now stop trying to avoid the question.”
“Um . . . I just wanted to say thank you. For, you know, being there when I needed you to be. Even though you didn’t have to be there.” A blush filled Dan’s pale cheeks as he looked down at the floor, purposefully causing his fringe to fall in his face in a failed attempt to hide his growing blush. My mouth fell open at his confession, shocked that he was showing this much emotion to me in the first place, when just before the flight he was trying to ignore my existence.
“R-really?” I stuttered. “Does that mean that you--”
“Don’t push it, Sunshine,” Dan scoffed, looking back over towards me with a small smile. My heart fluttered involuntarily in my chest.
“Sunshine? Why Sunshine?” I asked, moderately annoyed.
“Because, Sunshine, you’re always happy, smiling, and there for people when they need it,” Dan told me. Now it was my turn to blush.
“Shut up,” I mumbled.
“But also when they don’t need it. I’ve gotten many a sunburn in my day,” Dan sassed, sticking his tongue out at me.
“Excuse me? Are you an adult? Or did NASA start a program to send kids into space?”
“Oh, that must be how you got accepted. I was wondering why they chose you, Sunshine.”
The ship suddenly rattled, starting to shake violently with such force for a moment I really did fear that it would explode.
Dan laced his fingers through mine, before resuming to hold onto my hand so tightly it started to go numb. I noticed that his hand was shaking slightly, his eyes fixated on our hands like he was trying to burn the memory of them entwined in his mind. With our lives possibly about ready to end, he probably was.
“Phil . . .” Dan whispered, his voice so soft that no one else but me was able to hear him.
“What happened to Sunshine?” I asked after a moment’s hesitation, trying to lighten the mood.
“Sorry, Sunshine, but I need to tell you something if we’re going to die here..” My eyes widened and I leaned over to him as much as I could with all of the restraints around me.
“W-what?” I stuttered.
“Look, I . . . I think that--”
Abruptly, the spaceship stopped shaking
“Alphis to spacecraft, Alphis to spacecraft. Can you hear me, Connor? Over.”
“Connor to Alphis. Yes, I can hear you. We’re all okay. Over.”
“Alphis to spacecraft, thank God. Our readings were telling us that the heat shield had adjusted slightly during takeoff. It must’ve been a malfunction in our sensors. Are you sure everyone’s okay? Over.” My eyes widened and I looked over at Dan, who seemed to be breathing easier now.
“I guess your fears were warranted then, Dan,” I whispered to him. He frowned thoughtfully.
“Yes, we’re all okay up here. Can we get up and move around now? Over.”
“I don’t see why not. But if for any reason the spacecraft starts having problems, rush back to these seats to strap yourselves in. Over.”
“Hey, Dan, do you want to--” I started, looking over to Dan, but he cut me off by wrenching his hand out of my grasp and moving to unstrap himself from the seat.
“No,” he concluded tersely, before standing up and waltzing out of the room towards his room, leaving me to stare after him in confusion. Why is it that just when we start to make some progress he has to walk away, leaving me disoriented and at a loss to what had just occurred? Sighing, I began to unfasten all of the straps holding me down to the seat when I felt a hand on my shoulder.
“Yes, Ty--” I stopped abruptly when I looked up to see not Tyler, but Connor. “Oh . . . Connor. Sorry, I just assumed that you were Tyler--”
“It’s fine, Phil,” he reassured me. “Look, I wanted to talk to you. About Dan.”
I unbuckled the last few straps and lifted the bar from my seat and stood up, running a hand through my hair in annoyance. “If you also wanted to tell me that I’m wasting my time trying to befriend Dan and that I shouldn’t pursue him because he’s just some heartless jerk, then I really don’t want to hear it, Connor. Sorry.” Brushing off my shirt, I started to walk away in the direction of my room where I planned on sitting for the next few hours, debating what had possibly gone wrong between Dan and I and how I could fix it.
“No, Phil, I don’t think that. In fact, I think Tyler and Anthony are wrong about him and how you should treat him.”
“Really?” I asked, shocked. Well, I guess it made sense. Whenever Tyler and Anthony would insult Dan (usually in front of him too) he never did join in. He just sat quietly in the corner, often working on something on his computer, or on the phone with someone. Almost like Dan, but he gets along with everybody and actually shows emotions. “Sorry. I guess it’s not really that surprising, actually.”
“Why do you say that?” Connor questioned, his brow furrowing.
“Well, you’re really nice and I’ve never actually seen you make fun of Dan, so I guess I just jumped to conclusions. I’m sorry,” I said sheepishly.
Connor just shook his head and smiled, a look of total amazement covering his face. “You’re sorry? Really?”
“What?” I asked, confused.
He just shook his head again, laughing this time. “I just don’t see why you’re sorry, or calling me nice. Have you ever looked at yourself? You’re literally the living, breathing definition of nice. If you opened a dictionary and looked up the word ‘nice’, you would find a picture of yourself.” I rolled my eyes.
“No, I’m not Connor. If that was true, wouldn’t Dan not hate me?” My voice pitifully cracked on the last phrase and I couldn’t help but lower my head in shame. “Sorry,” I muttered as I felt tears come to my eyes. “I don’t mean to act like a child.”
“Phil, you’re not acting liking a child at all. If you weren’t acting like this, it would mean that you don’t care about Dan.” I opened my mouth to object, but Connor cut me off. “You’re really not, Phil. And believe it or not, Dan doesn’t hate you. At all. It’s just hard to see that he cares because he has so many walls up around his heart it’s near impossible to see any emotion that he feels.”
“Then how can you see it?”
“Because,” Connor started, sighing and closing his eyes as if reliving a memory. “I was once just like him. And I can see how nervous he is to be feeling anything towards you. He must’ve been hurt before, really badly. If he shows any flicker of emotion towards you, Phil, know that he’s screaming at you for help, for some way out of the fortress he’s built around himself. Somehow I think you’re the only one who can help him out now. So don’t abandon him now, even if people tell you that he’s not worth it. Because he is, even if they can’t see that now.” With that, Connor turned around and started walking to his room.
“Wait, Connor!” I exclaimed, rushing after him. “Thank you. For telling me.”
His mouth quirked up at the edges in a smirk. “Of course. Any time.” Connor strolled off to his room, opening the door before turning back to look at me again, a huge smile adorning his face. “Just don’t forget to invite me to the wedding.”
“W-wedding? What? Why would you ever suggest something like that?” I stuttered, going red.
“Talk to you tomorrow, Sunshine,” Connor told me between giggles, closing his room door behind him. Rolling my eyes, I walked away from his door and headed over to my room, my eyes lingering on Dan’s door for longer than they should’ve. I couldn’t help but wonder what he could possibly be doing in his room. Sleeping? Reading? Exercising? With him, I’m never really sure about anything. Dan wasn’t so much about being black or white, he seemed to prefer a different shade of grey every time..
But I’ll worry about him tomorrow. Today I’m going to go to my room, write all of the journal entries and documents I need to write, and then sleep. Tomorrow will be a new day, and I’m determined not to let Dan push me away then.
August 25th, 2037
Well, as it turns out, the so called “tomorrow will be a new day” was a complete lie. Dan has been busying himself with work and refusing to stop to talk to me at all these past four months. Each time I approach him, even just asking him if he wants me to grab him dinner since he’d been exercising for about eight hours straight (you think I’m joking. I’m not), he’ll just shrug me off and walk away.
I suppose Connor was right, in the sense that Dan had multiple walls that were incredibly difficult to tear down. After he let his walls down for just an instant towards me, it seemed like he got scared and was afraid of me not caring for him anymore. Instead of confronting this fear and telling me about it, he did the only thing he knows how to do, that he’s done for his whole life—shut me out.
Which hurt slightly, I suppose. But how could it not?
But what really bugged me, the thing I really wanted to know was what Dan was going to tell me when he thought we were going to die. I distinctly remember him saying my name, almost telling me something, before the radio from Earth cut him off. And then he promptly refused to tell me what he wanted to say once it was safe to get up.
It almost feels like he’s avoiding me on purpose, and nothing I do or say will make him stop. Maybe opening up to me scared him slightly, so now I have to prove to him that he won’t regret opening up to me.
Which is exactly how now, at ten o’clock months later, I was outside his door, pacing, trying to think of the best way to approach him.
Writing about it now, I can see that I was being absolutely ridiculous. If I wanted to talk to him, I should’ve just walked right up to his door and knocked on it until he came out to yell at me to shut up.
Instead, I ended up sitting on the ground next to his door, hugging my knees to my chest, hoping that he would come out eventually and be forced to interact with me. Sometime about fifteen minutes later, he opened his door, most likely to grab a late night snack from our food storage. He didn’t get very far, though, as my presence went unnoticed until he walked straight into me and tripped, slamming into the ground on top of me with a grunt.
For a moment we just laid on the ground, unmoving. It was almost as if all of the words I’d been wanting to say to him for the past months wanted to come out at once, before they all promptly decided to get lodged in my throat, causing me to stare at Dan opened mouth for the greater majority of a minute.
“Um . . . Phil?” Dan finally asked, his voice apprehensive.
“Y-yeah?” I answered after a long moment of silence.
“Why were you sitting outside my room?”
I nervously swallowed, glancing up at his confused and questioning hazel eyes for a moment before quickly diverting my eyes and focusing on the black material of his t-shirt.
“I-” I started, my voice breaking off. It felt like my throat had physically closed and I couldn’t speak or breathe. “I was waiting for you to come out,” I finally answered.
“Why didn’t you just knock?” Dan asked, looking at me like I was insane.
“Would you have answered?” I shot back, raising my eyebrows. Dan sighed in defeat, biting his lip and looking down at the ground with a sigh.
“No,” he admitted, fiddling with the thread coming off of his shirt. “Probably not.”
“Why?” I asked, my voice an octave higher than usual. Dan looked pained as he stared back towards his room, as if longing to dash back inside and not come back out again.
“Because.” Dan proclaimed flatley, emotion void from his voice, “I don’t want to talk to you.”
I rolled my eyes, refusing to accept his answer. “We both that’s not true, Dan. So you can stop lying.”
Dan glared at me, his jawline clenching. “I don’t want to talk about this.”
“But you need to talk about this. Look at you, you’re falling apart! Why can’t you just talk to me?” I questioned, even though I already knew the answer (courtesy of Connor).
“Phil—” Dan started, his voice strained. “I-I’m sorry, Sunshine. But I just can’t. I’m sorry.”
Dan looked down at the ground, and I could almost see the thoughts that must’ve been flying through his head. The way he was acting, anyone else would’ve just stopped, turned away, and let him be.
And I almost did.
But then I remembered Connor’s advice.
“If he shows any flicker of emotion towards you, Phil, know that he’s screaming at you for help, for some way out of the fortress he’s built around himself. Somehow I think you’re the only one who can help him out now. So don’t abandon him now, even if people tell you that he’s not worth it. Because he is, even if they can’t see that now.”
And I knew that I couldn’t listen to Dan—I had to read between the lines, in the way his eyes seemed to look pained when he told me to back off, in the slight tremble of his bottom lip, how his hand was shaking ever so slightly, and the way his whole body was tense, as if anxiously awaiting my answer, despite claiming to not care.
“Dan,” I whispered softly. “I’m not going anywhere, no matter what you tell me. So you can stop trying to push me away, okay?”
No one else but me could’ve noticed, because they didn’t look at Dan the way I did, look at every single detail of his actions and knew exactly how to read them—but after my reassurance, he seemed to visibly breath again, his jaw relaxing, and I could almost detect a small smile trying to form on the corner of his mouth.
“Please,” I whispered, while Dan hung on to my every word. “Stop, it’s not going to push me away.”
“I don’t know how to stop,” Dan whispered back breathlessly. “I don’t know how to let anyone in, how to make people do anything but hate me—”
“I don’t hate you.”
Dan let out a small chuckle at my antics.
“I don’t hate you, too.” A real, genuine smile formed on his lips, and I noticed for the first time he had deep, adorable dimples.
“Don’t move,” I whispered, before taking a step towards him and wrapping my arms around him and pulling him into a tight embrace. My chin rested on his shoulder, and I could feel his warm breath on my ear. His whole body had tensed up, his arms frozen at his sides like he didn’t know how to react. Maybe he didn’t.
“Relax. It’s okay, I’ve got you,” I muttered into his ear, causing a shiver to run down his spine. After a few moments, I felt him place a tentative arm around my shoulders, before pulling me even closer to him.
I felt him start to shake again, but this time it wasn’t with anxiety—it was with sobs.
“It’s okay,” I whispered into his ear again. “It’s okay, Dan, I’ve got you. I’m not going anywhere.
“I promise.”
“You do?” he asked shakily.
“Of course.” I felt Dan pull me in even closer, until I couldn’t tell where I ended and he began—we were just us.
Dan, I thought. That was all I could think, the sole thought of him making my heart race and causing my breathing to quicken.
“Will you be my friend?” I asked after a long period of silence of us just standing together, our arms wrapped around each other tightly, refusing to let go.
Dan sighed, disentangling his arms from around me and taking a step back. “I’d be a terrible friend, Phil. You know that.”
I scoffed and playfully punched his shoulder. “What are you talking about? You’d be a great friend, Dan. Don’t sell yourself short.”
“I’ve never even had a friend before,” Dan admitted, biting his lip. I could see the pain swimming in his eyes—or were those tears? “I’ll just end up hurting you or something. I have no idea how to be a friend or care for people or make them happy.”
“Then I’ll teach you,” I whispered.
“Phil,” Dan whispered, his voice cracking. “I’ve managed to make you stay away from me for so long, why are you bothering me now?”
“I was never away from you,” I answered. “You just weren’t looking, so you didn’t see me.” Dan’s lip started trembling and his eyes seemed to well up with tears.
“I-I was looking, what makes you say I wasn’t looking?” Dan stuttered, his hands starting to shake as well. Tentatively, I reached out and grabbed his hands.
“But were you really seeing?” I asked softly. For a long moment Dan just stared at me in silence, his eyes filled with an unreadable emotion. Dan opened his mouth as if to say something, his eyes shining warmly towards me for once, before he slammed his mouth shut again and started to stare at the ground again.
“Fine,” he muttered in defeat.
“What?” I asked, confused. He let out a small chuckle, his mouth quirking up at the corner as he looked at me, his eyes fond.
“Fine, I’ll be your friend,” he grumbled, clearly trying to sound annoyed but failing miserably.
“Wait, really?” I gasped, my mouth falling open in shock. “Are you serious?”
“Of course I’m serious,” Dan scoffed.
“You won’t regret it, I promise!” I exclaimed, bounding forward and for the second time, wrapping my arms around Dan. He clearly wasn’t expecting it, as he fell backwards and nearly fell onto the ground for the second time in our exchange. Quickly, I grabbed him by the waist and managed to keep him upright. “Oh my gosh, are you okay?!”
“I’m fine,” Dan mumbled, his face bright red. My face started to flush as well when I realized that his shirt had moved up slightly, so I was now pressing my hands against his bare hips. Once I made sure he was able to stand on his own, I wrenched my hands off of him and took a step back.
“S-sorry,” I stuttered, afraid that I had somehow now passed some unsaid boundary he had and that he’d take back the whole being my friend thing that he had begrudgingly agreed to.
“It’s okay,” Dan spluttered, his face still slightly red.
“So, what were you up to before we ran into each other?” I asked brightly, trying to change the subject.
“You mean before I ran into you sitting outside my door, waiting for me to come out?”
“Shut up!” I laughed, playfully punching his arm.
“You know, I have to say, your choice of pastime sounds quite fun. I also enjoy sitting outside my friends’ doors awaiting for them to exit too,” Dan teased, giggling. The noise surprised me at first, as it was the first time I really ever heard him giggle with no self-constraint, like he didn’t care about trying to hide how he truly felt around me anymore.
“So are you implying that you sit outside my door and wait for me to come out, seeing as you just told me that I am your first friend?” I shot back, smirking.
“Excuse me!?” Dan exclaimed. “Are you implying that I stalk you? Because last time I checked, this whole friendship was your idea and you wouldn’t leave me alone until I agreed to be your friend.”
“Oh, you thought I was going to start leaving you alone now? That’s funny, I was planning on sleeping over in your room every night now that we’re friends.” Dan’s eyes widened and his cheeks started to turn a slight hue of red.
“W-what?” he stuttered.
“I was joking, Dan, calm down,” I laughed. “No but seriously, what were you doing before you ran into me?”
“I was just going to go get some dinner before going to bed, I was kind of hungry after skipping breakfast and lunch—”
“Are you serious? You skipped breakfast and lunch after all of that exercise? Are you trying to get sick, Dan?” Dan seemed to shrink under my harsh tone. It was weird how now that he wasn’t guarding his emotions so much around me, I could actually see how much my words could affect him.
“I’ll be fine, I’m always fine.” At this statement, I just rolled my eyes, knowing how incorrect it was.
“Clearly, you’re not fine. Come on, I’m taking you to get food. Right now.” Without waiting for an answer from Dan, I grabbed his arm and started dragging him towards the kitchen in the center of the spacecraft.
“Phil, I’m fine, calm down, it’s not like I’m going to die or anything—”
“Too bad,” I retorted. After walking in silence for a peaceful minute, my arm still linked through his. “What do you want to eat?” I finally asked.
“Well, it’s not like there’s many options, is there? We’re supposed to be eating those freeze-dried packets each day—”
“Actually, Dan, we’re supposed to be eating three of those freeze-dried packets each day to keep up our nutrition intake so our muscles don’t deteriorate from the unusual gravity and pressure. However, since you have proved to be incompetent at counting to three each day, I believe I will be taking over for you in the food department,” I sassed, a small grin appearing on my face when I saw the look of bewilderment (and a tad bit of amusement as well) appear in his eyes.
“Excuse me? Did you just say I can’t count to three? I’ll have you know that I used to watch the Count on Sesame Street every day when I was kid—well, that and Winnie the Pooh—but I was incredibly proficient in maths while in school, you idiot,” Dan said in his rush to defend himself. I let out a small chuckle at his idea of an insult. Clearly, insults were another thing that his skills somewhat lack in, most likely from his limited experience with people.
“Mm, really? Just sounds like a lot of excuses, if you ask me.”
“I was four grades ahead in math at my school, Phil, more than you could say about your mathematical achievements, I’m sure!” Dan exclaimed, trying (but failing) to unlink our arms. For someone so strong he probably could’ve easily just wrenched my arm out of its socket, but something told me that he didn’t really want to break the link between our arms just yet.
“And I was valedictorian, your point?” I shot back, a few stray chuckles escaping as I struggled to hold them in and be somewhat serious. Dan just rolled his eyes.
“And here I was thinking that you had to be a well-rounded student to win valedictorian. I guess I was wrong.”
“Hey!” I exclaimed, smacking his chest playfully. “That’s offensive, I only ever had one A minus and that was in P.E. in the sixth grade!”
“Of course it was P.E. that dealt you in, you never really struck me as the athletic type,” Dan remarked, almost to himself. He wasn’t wrong, though, in school sports really just weren’t my thing. This probably had to do with the people playing the sports rather than the sports themselves, but I digress.
“Yeah whatever, Mr. Athletic and Strong and . . . Jock . . . Guy . . .” I trailed off, causing Dan to launch into a fit of giggles.
“Just call me Mr. Athletic and Strong and Jock Guy from now on, then. Forget Sunshine, that’s by far the best nickname we’ve came up with,” Dan said, a real genuine smile on his lips that I found my gaze focused on. How did one simple motion that I’d seen countless amounts of strangers do in my life seem so special on him? Maybe it was just because of the way his eyes lit up as well, and how his whole demeanor just seemed happier when he did actually smile—but either way, it was so much more entrancing than anyone else’s smile that I’d seen.
“Whatever,” I scoffed, suddenly realizing that I’d spaced out and left him without a response for too long. I unlinked our arms and crossed mine over my chest. Dan remained silent at that, and just as we reached the door to the kitchen he reached out and grabbed my arm, stopping me from walking inside.
“Phil,” he started, before freezing with his hand still gripping my arm. Nervously, I glanced down at his hand that was clamped down on my forearm before flicking my gaze back up to his nervous gaze.
“Yeah?” I asked softly.
“I-I’m sorry if that was rude or something, I just . . .” he trailed off, releasing his grip on my arm and staring at the ground.
“Yeah?” I pried, not letting him off the hook that easily.
“I, uh, actually used to be really unathletic and bad at sports when I was in high school,” Dan blurted, not pausing to breathe before continuing, “and I was, um, bullied for it a lot. You know, being the emo kid that sucked at every sport that we tried to do, even worse than the girls in the class was awful. So, um, I decided that I didn’t want that in my life, so I started working out a lot, until I’d gotten to the point where I am today. I don’t really know what I thought I had to prove to any them, they were all just a bunch of assholes, anyways,” Dan said, chuckling nervously while running a hand through his hair. “So, um, I wasn’t always Mr. Athletic and Strong and Jock Guy.”
For a moment I just stood in silence, staring at Dan in wonder. Connor definitely wasn’t lying when he said it would be worth it when I managed to break down some of Dan’s walls and see who he really was. Seeing this other side of him, the side that he hid away from everybody else except for himself was just . . . well, amazing. The fact that he trusted me, me out of anybody that he could possibly confide in as well, sent a rush of euphoria through me. Or was that just butterflies?
“But you,” Dan quickly interjected into the piercing silence that had fell between us, “you’ve always been “Sunshine”, it seems. And I don’t think that’ll ever change,” he added fondly, making my heart swell. I looked up at him, a lopsided smile on my face.
“No,” I told him, “I don’t think it ever will. Not towards you, anyways.” Without waiting for a response, I reached forward and linked our arms together again, and dragged him into the kitchen.
But I didn’t miss the prominent tomato red blush that appeared on his face.
“Hi Connor, Tyler,” I exclaimed as we walked into the kitchen. I felt Dan tense next to me. “Hey,” I whispered to him. “If you can’t handle talking to Tyler right now, I’ll make you your food and bring it to your room, if you’d like.”
A small smile appeared on Dan’s mouth, but what was most noticeable was the way his eyes lit up. They were filled with total unadulterated fondness and admiration towards me. He just shook his head slightly, all of his features lit up as a complete smile took over his face.
“What did I ever do to deserve you?” he asked rhetorically, almost to himself.
“I’ll be here all night,” I joked, before taking on a more serious tone. “Or forever, if you’d prefer?”
The tiny uplift of Dan’s lip was back, a smile drastically different from his huge smile just a few moments ago, but somehow this one seemed more real, seemed to carry much more emotion than the previous one. “I suppose I could settle for forever.”
I froze, caught in the moment staring up at his glowing hazel (but not just hazel, there was also a mix of gold, and occasional specks of green and blue sprinkled throughout) eyes, the eyes that had previously been so cold towards me. But now they were lit up, brighter and more orphic than any of the stars I could see if I just took a step to the left and looked out the window. They were somehow more complex than anything I’d ever seen, and since I worked in the astronomic field, that’s saying quite a lot. I suppose when you find someone who’s gaze towards you somehow trumps that of any other alluring star or captivating planet, you’ve found the one.
Wait, what?
“Forever sounds all right,” I finally managed to choke out after leaving him without an answer for so long.
“Hey guys, fancy seeing you two here!” Tyler suddenly exclaimed, walking by and watching us curiously. “What brings you two to this part of the ship? Together? At this time?” Tyler finished his dramatic proclamation with a wink towards us.
“It’s literally only eleven o’clock, Tyler, it’s not like we’re having a three in the morning binge eating session,” I quipped, annoyance dripping off of my words from being interrupted.
“Well, it wouldn’t be the first time you ended up here at obscene hours of the night eating obscene amounts of food.” My jaw dropped, and I just gaped at him in disbelief.
“We agreed to keep that between us!” I hissed angrily. I swear if he tells Dan—
“Yeah, well, thanks to that sarcastic comment, I don’t really feel the obligation to keep that secret right now.”
“Shut up!” I whisper yelled, trying not to call that much attention to how much I was panicking. “Please shut—”
“So, Dan, I came in here one night about two weeks ago to grab some food at like three in the morning, as one does—”
“Tyler!” I exclaimed, this time not disguising the look of panic on my face.
“Hey, Tyler, leave him alone. I doubt Dan really even wants to hear your embarrassing story of Phil,” Connor interjected swiftly, from where he stood on the other side of the room sipping a coffee. He looked pretty indifferent towards the whole situation with his casual slouched posture and expressionless face as he took another sip of his coffee. But I didn’t miss his sly smile and coy wink at me after both Tyler and Dan stopped looking at me, which caused me to flush involuntarily.
For the first time in the past few minutes, I chanced a gaze up at Dan (okay, not really up, he’s literally only like a centimeter taller than me. I was just slouching at the time and he was standing up straight) and noticed with a jolt that his eyes were trained on me, curious filling the hazel pools. A small smile appeared on his lips when he noticed my returned gaze, before he looked back over at Tyler, the small smile turning into a mischievous smirk.
“Actually, Connor, I’d love to hear this ‘story’ Tyler knows.” My mouth dropped open, and Tyler chortled in response. Over by the wall, Connor covered the growing smile on his face with his hand, resulting in a glare from me. But right next to me, Dan was practically shaking as he chuckled, seeing my flustered reaction.
“Shut up,” I grumbled, shoving him slightly, just resulting in him not even moving an inch. He started laughing harder, leaning on me for support as he gasped for breath. Connor’s and Tyler’s eyes were fixed on the two of us, most likely scrutinizing us for being so close to each other, especially when Dan’s personality is so reserved.
“Um, so, anyways, I came to the kitchen a couple of weeks ago to grab some food, at three am, as one does, and Phil was just—get this—sitting down, eating basically all of our food. I’m pretty sure that we won’t have have enough food to last these last two months now.” Tyler was shaking with laughter by the end of his story, the rest of us just staring at him, eyebrows raised.
Dan turned to me, his eyes an unreadable emotion as he pulled me aside, placing a tentative hand on my shoulder.
“W-what?” I stuttered, confused, the contact between us causing me to be even more flustered. Sure, he’d agreed to being my friend, which involves some physical contact, but somehow each time it still caught me completely off guard and caused me to lose my breath and act completely irrationally.
“You didn’t tell me you were binge eating,” Dan finally got out, his demeanor swiftly changing to one of concern and worry.
“We weren’t really talking,” I mumbled, biting my lip and looking at the ground, the wall, my shoes—anywhere that wasn’t Dan, really.
“That doesn’t mean that you couldn’t have come and talked to me!” Dan exclaimed, looking offended.
“Well, you didn’t really come across as the person to talk to about my problems at the time, Dan.” I started biting my lip nervously again, almost afraid of how he would act. This was a complete three-sixty from how he was acting just an hour ago, I wasn’t even sure how to act around him anymore. Not that I ever knew how to act around him in the first place.
“But why?” Dan finally got out. “I don’t understand.”
“It was just once!” I defended. “And it won’t happen again!” Dan just glared at me in response.
“Really? How do you know that it’s not going to happen again?” Dan blurted, before he got a lot quieter and whispered, “What if you get hurt? Eating too much at one time can really damage your health, and it’s not like I can just take you to a hospital if something bad happens? What if you start doing it regularly and there’s nothing I’ll be able to do to stop you because—”
“Dan,” I stated calmly, gently placing a finger over his lips to silence him. His eyes widened considerably and a faint blush started to appear faintly on his cheeks. “It won’t happen again. I have you now.” It seemed like for a second, Dan was just going to smile and agree, then we’d hug it out and I’d grab him his food like we’d originally intended and then we’d go back to his room and talk for a few more hours before we went to sleep. Instead, the grin faltered on his face before it could fully appear.
“It wasn’t because of me, was it?” he questioned, his voice piercing cold—but not towards me. Somehow I knew the icy tone was directed at himself.
“No!” I protested without thinking. I mean, he wasn’t wrong, I guess, when I was binge eating that night it was because of him. But now he was different, he seemed less guarded about his emotions, he’d finally decided to trust me. That wasn’t something that I wanted to lose now, after coming so far and waiting for so long to finally make any progress.
“No really Phil, was it because of me?” Dan’s piercing glare bore into me, and instead of just outright denying it again (like I had originally planned), I found that the words just got lodged in my throat. “Phil?” Dan pushed, but in a softer tone now. He almost sounded strained, like he knew the truth would hurt him.
“W-well, yeah, I mean I guess it was because of you. But it was just a one time thing, Dan. And now I have you, so now that won’t even be a problem anymore,” I found my voice getting quieter and quieter as I went on with the sentence, a light blush dusting my cheeks. How many times have I blushed today? It has to be at least 394 times.
“If for whatever reason, Phil, you want to do that again, come and talk to me about it. Okay? I’ll help you through it.” Dan’s voice was soft and gentle, fondness slowly seeping into his phrase even though it was quite obvious he had just originally intended for the phrase to be serious and firm.
“O-okay,” I stuttered. Dan cocked his head at me in confusion.
“Are you alright? Normally you don’t stutter, usually it’s me messing up my words.” After Dan’s bash towards himself I found myself chuckling quietly to myself.
“Dan, you’re the most articulate and intelligent sounding person I know. And of course I was going to stutter, Dan, I’m still not used to this whole you actually caring about me thing.” I watched Dan take all of this in, from the furrow of his brow to the slight downward curve of his mouth as he took it all in.
“I’ve always cared about you,” he finally managed, after several attempts at trying to speak.
“Really? It was kind of hard to tell,” I mumbled, remembering the cold way he’d been treating me these past few months, and the first time we’d met when he first dismissed my offer of friendship.
“Maybe you were looking, but you weren’t really seeing,” Dan remarked inquisitively. A moment later a lightbulb went off in my head as I recognized that phrase as my own from earlier.
“Hey!” I exclaimed, lightly slapping his shoulder “That’s rude. In order to use my words you have to cite your sources, and I don’t see any bibliography so . . .” Dan snickered in response as he walked over to the counter and starting to add hot water to his packet of freeze-dried food.
“Sorry,” Dan apologized (though he didn’t really sound sorry at all). “I guess I’m just one of those people who copies and pastes everything from online because they’re too afraid to use their own words.”
“Sounds pretty accurate,” I mumbled under my breath.
“Excuse me?” Dan yelled, snapping his fingers at me, before holding up a finger and downing his entire freeze-dried food pouch.
“That was definitely me in grade school,” Tyler remarked from the other side of the room. I jumped slightly as I looked back over there and noticed him and Connor both still standing there. Somewhere in my conversation with Dan I seemed to have forgotten all about their existence.
“Nice to see that you have noticed our presence finally,” Tyler said, somewhat dryly.
“Sorry,” Dan and I apologized at the same time, before turning to look at each other and start giggling.
“By all means, carry on, I’m actually quite entertained,” Connor suddenly piped up.
“Shut up,” I grumbled in annoyance.
“Well, as cute as you two are together, I’m going to bed. I have to be up at ten in the morning to run through all of the systems to ensure that they’re all functioning properly with NASA scientists,” Tyler announced as he began waltzing out of the room.
“Wait, what do you mean, ‘as cute as we are together?’” I questioned, just before Tyler could duck out of the room.
“Oh, you guys are in the stage of denial right now. I see.” My eyes widened at Tyler’s words, in both confusion and slight distress, as I’m sure none of what he was accusing Dan and I of was even remotely true. “Denial is the first stage of love, you know!”
And on that note, Tyler just waltzed out of the room, Connor following close behind, shooting me an encouraging smile.
“I have to be up at six to talk to several reporters on Earth. Tyler should stop complaining,” Connor told us, before walking out of the door, leaving the two of us alone.
“I’m kind of tired too!” Dan suddenly exclaimed. “You know, too much exercise, not enough food, that kind of thing.”
“Dan,” I said sharply, causing him to flinch.
“Y-yeah?” he stammered. His hazel eyes widened and I could see the panic in them.
“Don’t shut me out again, okay? Remember I’m here for you, always.” At the end of my proclamation I shot him a small timid smile, unsure of how he was going to react. He still seemed a bit on the fence about feeling and being open about said feelings, so I really had no clue how he was going to react to me expressing my feelings.
“I won’t,” Dan promised me, hesitating a moment before reaching up and clasping my shoulder. “I don’t know if I even can anymore,” he added as an after thought, his voice much smaller. His confession made the side of my mouth quirk up in a lopsided smile as I just looked at him fondly.
“I’m glad,” I whispered. “I really am.” Dan’s eyes seemed to light up at this, like he had been half-expecting me to react badly to his confession (I have no idea why he would’ve thought that, considering every time he showed me genuine emotion I felt like bursting with joy). Nervously, I reached up and brushed his fringe to the side, revealing his forehead. Without hesitation, I leaned forward and pressed a chaste kiss to his forehead, though my lips lingered for a moment longer than they probably should have for the kiss to be considered platonic.
The moment I leaned away from Dan, he seemed to jump twenty feet away as he rushed towards the door.
“Good night!” he yelled, before slamming the door that separated the hallway from the kitchen shut. I let out a small chuckle at his antics, knowing that he’d rushed to leave because he hadn’t wanted me to see his reaction. Unfortunately for him, however, it was pretty hard to miss the way his entire face flushed and turned such a dark shade of red he could’ve blended in with the NASA logo on the wall behind him.
A huge grin broke out on my face as I found myself reliving Dan’s reaction over and over again. I brought my hand up to my face in an attempt to stifle the grin slightly, stop it from completely overtaking my face, but it was already a lost cause. With a slight skip in my step, I too walked out of the kitchen, heading towards my room to get some much needed sleep.
September 2nd, 2037
I woke up to incessant knocking on my door, banging against it in no particular pattern.
“Phil!” they yelled, before continuing to bang against my door.
“What?” I grumbled in annoyance, pulling the blanket up over my head, determined to ignore whoever had decided to wake me up this early after my late night with Dan last night.. We’d stayed up until when normally the rays of the sun would start to peek out from over the horizon. However, since we’re on a spacecraft, we don’t really have a sunrise or sunset like on Earth. I remember confessing to Dan somewhere around four in the morning that I missed seeing the sun on Earth, seeing the sunrises and sunsets every day.
Dan just laughed in response to that, leaning back against the pillows of my bed, putting his hands behind his head.
“Really?” he asked, still chuckling quietly to himself.
“Yeah,” I answered, my brow furrowing as I walked over and sat next to him, my gaze locked on him until he looked over at me. “What, do you not miss it?”
“No,” Dan responded without a moment of hesitation. “How could I when I have you? You’re the literal human embodiment of a star, and more beautiful if you ask me.” My breath caught in my throat at that, and I sat with my mouth gaping at him. Dan hadn’t shied away though, in fact he seemed to grow more confident under my stare. His mouth was lifted up at the corners in a small grin, as his tired eyes stared back at me, full of warmth. On his lap, he’d laced his hands together over his crossed legs, and as always he was wearing all black—except for his socks, which were a bright blue that he’d had to borrow from me when he’d found a hole in his black ones. His hair was messy and curly atop his head, as he hadn’t taken the time to straighten the long brown locks that morning.
“I know that you don’t believe me when I say that, Phil, because for whatever reason you can’t accept the fact that you are an amazing person—but you are, Phil, you really are.”
“O-oh,” I had stuttered in response, at a complete loss for words. That had seemed to happen more and more lately, Dan telling me something, actually expressing his emotions more and more as he grew comfortable with me that ended up rendering me speechless and unable to respond. He didn’t even realize the effect his words had on me when he said them, he didn’t even notice the way my whole face would light up with a huge smile, and how a light blush would coat my cheeks as my heart would skip a beat.
And then there was the way he’d just dismiss my words when I tried to tell him the same, explain to him that he was just as extraordinary as he claimed I was, even more so in fact. I still wasn’t quite sure why he seemed to harbor so much hatred toward himself, but I was determined to find out, just as I was determined to find out everything about him, no matter how trivial it was.
“PHIL!” the person screamed outside my door, startling me out of my flashback. Groaning, I sat up and got out of bed and stumbled over to the door, only tripping and falling over once (which was quite impressive, in my opinion).
“What!?” I spat in annoyance as soon as I flung open the door. Standing in my doorway with a smug grin on his face was not Dan, like I’d originally been hoping for, but instead was Tyler.
“Phil!” he exclaimed. Without waiting for a response he just waltzed into my room, turning to look at me with a confused look. “Did you forget what today was?”
“Um . . .” I mumbled, my mind reeling as I tried to remember what he was talking about. “What?” Tyler rolled his eyes in response, but he didn’t really seem all that upset. In fact, he seemed like he expected it.
“Well, I guess you have been distracted recently by Dan.” At that I opened my mouth to protest, but Tyler raised an eyebrow, causing me to fall silent.
“Yeah, whatever,” I scoffed, but I found the scowl on my face turn into a grin that took over my entire face as my thoughts went back to that of Dan. How could they not, with someone as endlessly fascinating as Dan? Even if I sat and just thought about Dan for days straight, I still wouldn’t be able to fully grasp why everything he did was so captivating to me. Just arguing with Dan about the silliest of things is a past time that I’ve found myself enjoying more than anything I used to do with friends back on Earth. Somehow it seems that Dan had, without even trying, managed to steal the spot of the most important person in my life. It’s not like he even tried to become that person, that he made a conscientious effort to become such a significant person in my life. Maybe he’s had that spot secured since the first moment we really talked to each other, in his bedroom on our last day on Earth.
We’ve made so much progress since then, became so much closer. Not only had he become the most important figure in my life, but I liked to think that I became that person in his life, too.
“Phil?” Tyler demanded, waving an insistent hand in my face, yanking me out of my thoughts for the second time.
“Sorry, what? I was spacing out,” I explained, feeling a slight flush take over my face and neck as I realized I had literally just spaced out in the middle of a conversation thinking about Dan.
“Today’s our board game night, remember? NASA wants footage of us doing normal things to show people that spaceflight has progressed and is now actually quite comfortable with the artificial gravity system we’ve created and such,” Tyler recited, a small grin forming on his face. “Do you think Dan will join us? We told NASA officers that he wouldn’t a month ago, but if you think he would—”
“Yeah, I’ll go ask him!” I interjected excitedly, the prospect of seeing Dan again causing a huge smile to break out on my face.
“Do you think he’ll say yes?” Tyler inquired, a slight frown appearing on his face.
“I’m sure if I ask him he will,” I answered, turning to my closet and starting to pull out clothes to wear.
“Really?” Tyler’s voice wasn’t really filled with surprise at my confident statement, he seemed to have adopted more of a curious tone.
“Yeah, really.” Wordlessly I turned around and started to peel off my shirt and pull on another, this one bright blue with the NASA logo imprinted on the front, along with a pair of black skinny jeans.
“You guys seem to be getting pretty close,” Tyler stated, the same curious tone underlining his words. I turned to face him with a questioning glint in my eyes.
“Very close!” I heard Connor yell from across the hallway.
“Like, really close!” I heard a third voice add, most likely Anthony.
“Shut up,” I grumbled in annoyance, stalking over to my mirror where I tried to style my hair into its usual fringe.
“So what was he doing in your room until three in the morning last night?” a voice asked me, causing me to jump in fright and drop my comb. Huffing, I turned around to see a smirking Connor leaning in doorframe, Anthony right behind him with a matching expression.
“Talking,” I responded laconically, finally deeming my hair acceptable before grabbing a sweater off my bed and shrugging it on. “And it was until four in the morning, not three.”
“Really? Just talking?” Anthony pried. I raised my eyebrows at the three of them, wondering why they were all ganging up at me at the same time.
“. . . yeah, is that a problem?” I questioned, crossing my arms.
“No, of course not,” Tyler stated, taking a seat on my bed. “We’re all just curious as to when you guys are going to fuck.”
“W-what!?” I screeched, turning a dark shade of red I didn’t even know was possible. “W-why would you say that?”
“Oh, he’s still in the stage of denial,” Connor told the rest of the group, me still in a state of shock and mortification. “Which is, as you all know, is the first step in falling in love.”
“E-excuse me?” I practically screamed.
“Phil, honey,” Tyler enunciated, walking up to me and grabbing my shoulders, forcing me to look up at him, “it’s time for you to realize your feelings and swan dive into the gay.” I just stood dumbstruck, looking up at Tyler in complete and utter confusion.
“What feelings?” I managed to get out a moment later. Around me, the three boys all just burst out into laughter. Connor was leaning against the wall, shaking, as Anthony clutched to him, his whole body shaking as he laughed. And in front of me, Tyler had been reduced to the floor, where he laid in hysterics.
“W-what feelings!” Tyler echoed, before launching into another fit of hysterics. From across the room, Connor locked eyes with me, and gestured to the figure that had just appeared in the doorway. My attention immediately was torn from Connor, Anthony and Tyler and was instead redirected towards Dan. He still looked half-asleep, so I quickly came to the conclusion that the three of them must’ve woken him up.
“Phil? What’s going on?” he asked groggily, letting out a huge yawn. I felt my previous frown twitch up and turn into a grin as I took in his adorable bedridden appearance.
“Nothing, they’re just being stupid. I’m sorry, did we wake you up?” I asked, concern dripping from my voice as I walked over to him, wrapping him in a tight embrace, unable to resist when he looked so adorable. Dan initially tensed the moment my arms wrapped around him, but he eventually relaxed into the embrace and lifted his arms up and pulled me closer to him. The corner of my mouth quirked up slightly at that, a small smile that somehow seemed to encompass more emotion than the previous smile that had lit up my entire face. This one seemed smaller, more personal and intimate almost, one meant only for Dan, not one that I just offered up to anybody like my other smile.
“Those feelings,” Connor piped up suddenly, causing me to freeze.
Wait . . . what?
“What?” Dan asked, pulling away from me reluctantly, and shooting Connor a curious stare.
“Nothing,” Connor quickly stated. “I was just explaining something we were talking about with Phil.”
I just stood there, my mouth gaping at Connor in disbelief. Was he implying—were all of them implying that I . . . that I liked Dan? That I had feelings towards him that were even more complex and serious and . . . romantic than I had previously thought?
No, that’s just completely ridiculous. Dan and I are best friends, that’s all. Of course they might interpret it differently, because we were much closer than other friends, but that’s because we just clicked in a way that I never thought I would with someone. Sure, I felt very strongly about Dan and his happiness and felt overjoyed every time we would talk, and let’s not even mention the swooping feeling that I feel whenever we touch, but that doesn’t mean that I love him or anything. Seriously, is the oxygen machine broken or something, because absolutely nothing they’re saying makes any sense at all, whatsoever.
“What do you think, Phil?” Dan suddenly asked me, breaking my train of thought instantly. I looked up at him in confusion, but found myself just getting lost in his eyes rather than giving a coherent response. Seriously, how many colors are his eyes? Surely no one else has eyes this complex, otherwise I wouldn’t find myself staring at them so often—
“Phil?” Dan repeated, sounding worried.
“S-sorry, what?” I stuttered.
“Anthony was just explaining the whole board game thing to me, I was thinking maybe we could go start that now?” Dan told me, looking at me curiously. “Are you sure you’re okay? If you don’t feel well we can postpone it for another day, I’m sure NASA wouldn’t mind.”
“N-no, it’s fine, I’m fine,” I spluttered, feeling incredibly nervous to have Dan’s eyes on me all of a sudden.
“Really? You seem kind of off,” Dan observed, reaching up and placing a hand on my forehead, which almost caused my legs to give out underneath me. “You feel kind of hot.”
“No, really, I’m fine,” I squeaked, feeling the other three’s gazes all locked on me with matching smirks.
“Okay . . .” Dan agreed tentatively.
“Come on guys!” Anthony told all of us, walking out of my room, Connor and Tyler both following him. Tyler caught my eye as he passed and winked at me, causing my eyes to widen in shock. They were serious about this whole me liking Dan thing, weren’t they? I still have absolutely no idea why, they’re being completely foolish and jumping to incorrect conclusions—
“Let’s go then, I haven’t played Monopoly since I was six!” Dan proclaimed with excitement, wrapping an arm around my shoulders and dragging me along. Somehow the embrace was the exact thing to calm me down and return me to feeling somewhat sane as we launched into one of rounds of carefree banter.
“You could play Monopoly when you were six?” I questioned, remembering how I couldn’t play Monopoly with my family until I was at least eight and understood the math and logistics of the game.
“What, you couldn’t?” he teased, smirking at me.
“Right, I forgot you are also Mr. Math Prodigy, of course you learned how to play Monopoly when you were six,” I retorted with an eye roll.
“Actually, I learned to play it with my parents when I was four, but if it makes you feel better, sure, I learned it when I was six.”
“Ass,” I muttered, shoving him gently.
“Sorry, what was that? I couldn’t hear you, I was too busy reciting the first thousand digits of pi in my head,” Dan remarked sassily.
“You’re right, you definitely aren’t an ass, that’s insulting to all of the donkeys out there.”
Dan’s mouth dropped open, and he stopped walking to dramatically throw a hand across his chest. “Excuse me bit—”
“Language!” Anthony hissed, slapping a hand over Dan’s mouth. “We’re supposed to make this family friendly, with no cursing!”
“Oh, I guess you can’t be here at all then, Dan, your all black outfit isn’t exactly ‘family friendly’.”
“Hey, it’s not my fault the NASA shirts they gave me were all black!” Dan said, playfully smacking my arm.
“Didn’t you specifically ask NASA to only give you black clothing?” I asked, trying to stifle the giggles that threatened to escape from my mouth and failing.
“No,” Dan lied, a smile breaking out on his face as he tried to deny the lie. “Okay, maybe I did.”
“And this is Dan and Phil, the two best friends of the mission,” I heard Connor announce, causing both Dan and I to stop talking and look over to him, where he pointed the camera towards the two of us.
“Hi,” I said brightly, waving at the camera happily. Dan’s face reverted back to being emotionless, and he gave a small half wave to the camera. Rolling my eyes, I bumped into his side, offering a small reassuring smile to ease his nerves that had inevitably started once he noticed the camera in the room. He just huffed at my antics before sticking out his tongue at me, a smile reappearing on his face.
“As you can see, when they’re in each other’s presence, they tend to ignore the rest of the world,” Connor explained, causing Dan and I to glance at each other and turn slightly red.
“Guilty as charged,” I chuckled nervously, holding up my hands in the air. Tyler raised an eyebrow at me, before winking at me. I just flushed more in response, deciding to just ignore the three of them and just stay next to Dan and help calm his nerves towards the situation. Wordlessly, Dan grabbed my hand and led me over to the Monopoly board, and dragged two chairs right next to each other, and fell into one, pulling out the other chair and gesturing for me to sit down. I giggled at his stupid antics, sitting down in the chair. He instantly leaned over to me, pressing the side of his body against mine and resting his head on my shoulder. Before I could stop myself, I let out a noise of shock that I quickly stifled afterwards. Biting my lip, I just decided to pretend like there was no cameras and no one watching, so I just moved my head to rest on top of his. Dan let out a small noise of content, leaning into me further.
“Sorry, I’m still kind of tired from our late night last night,” he whispered, clearly intending the words to only be heard by me.
“It’s fine, I am too. I should’ve made us go to bed sooner, I’m sorry—”
“Don’t be sorry for that, Phil, it was one of the best nights of my life.” My eyes widened and I found myself gasping before I could stop myself.
“Oh shut up, I’m sure you’ve had tons of better nights,” I muttered. Next to me, I felt Dan stiffen.
“Not for a long time,” he answered after a minute of silence between us. Concern flooding every inch of my body, I tentatively reached over to his hand and laced our fingers together, watching his tan, strong fingers weave through my thin and pale ones. I smiled lazily at the sight of our clasped hands and gently squeezed his hand to offer some form of comfort.
“I’m sorry,” I breathed, hoping he would hear my almost incoherent apology.
“Why are you sorry?” Dan questioned, a small chuckle running through his body.
“That I didn’t find you sooner,” I answered after a moment’s hesitation. At that, Dan pulled away from me and shot me a curious look, that almost had a small undertone of panic as I watched his bottom lip tremble slightly.
“D-do you k-know?” he stuttered in confusion, his voice accusing and hurt. “Is that you’re being so n-nice to me? H-how—”
“No!” I interrupted, my mouth falling open at his accusatory words. “What are you talking about? What do I not know? Why would that change how I act to you—”
“O-oh,” Dan answered, his voice small. “I’m sorry, I thought you were just another one of those people who pitied me and didn’t actually care about me.” Dan’s voice was small and frail, cracking at some points; the harsh words directed towards himself, I could tell, and nothing hurt more than that. I would go step on the bloody sun if it meant Dan would never speak of himself like that again.
“Dan,” I said softly, wrapping an arm around him and bringing him closer to me. He slowly moved his head back to where it had been resting before on my shoulder, and I pressed a small kiss to the top of his head. “Dan, no matter what you’ve been through or what crazy backstory you have, you’re still you, and I still care about you so, so much. What you’re thinking of doesn’t matter, Dan, you’re my best friend, I still love you, nothing could ever change that.” It wasn’t until I was done speaking that I suddenly realized the weight of my words and froze.
Were Connor and Tyler and Anthony . . . actually right? I mean, yes, I love Dan. There’s no way I can deny that, but . . . how do I love him?
Damn it, this was probably exactly what they wanted, to start this seed of doubt in my mind until I couldn’t ignore it and it started to overrun my thoughts and mind until it couldn’t be ignored anymore. Had these feelings always been there and my oblivious self just didn’t even realize?
And what about Dan? How did he feel? I’m sure he just views me as his best friend, he doesn’t have three annoying friends that put thoughts in your head that you’d rather not think about. Or maybe he does feel that way about me, it’s not like he ever pulled away from any of my advances, and he certainly hadn’t ran away just now when I confessed that I loved him, in at least some capacity.
Seriously, what was their problem? Why did they think it was even remotely a good idea to get these thoughts going in my head?
“I . . .” Dan started, his voice shaking. “I . . . I think I love you too, Phil.”
My heart melted. Nothing seemed coherent anymore, my thoughts were somewhere up in cloud nine. The rest of the room seemed to melt away, the cameras, the other people, all there was was Dan, the boy in my arms who had just professed that he loved me as well, the boy who I had worked so hard to befriend, the boy who was too smart, a bit sassy, and sometimes a bit dark with his jokes and his humor. It was Dan, who has the best smile that you only get to see on the rare occasion he’s completely happy and doesn’t care who sees—this was one of those rare occasions.
Dan looked up at me shyly, his grin splayed across his face, causing every one of his features to simultaneously light up. His eyes sparkled with raw emotion, fondness that was directed at me, and me alone.
Unable to hold it back anymore, I wrapped my other arm around him and pulled him to my chest, resting my chin on his head, which was buried my shoulder. Wordlessly, he lifted up his arms and wrapped them around my torso, holding me to him as close he could. I felt tears start to well up in my eyes, and suddenly his form started to tremble in my arms. A moment later I realized that he was crying, that he was letting me see him cry, something I thought I wasn’t going to be able to see for a long time.
“Shh,” I hushed, pulling him even closer to me, and starting to rock back and forth. “Shh, I’ve got you, I’ve got you. I won’t let you go, either.”
“Okay,” he answered, his voice an octave higher than usual and scratchy with raw emotion.
“Are you guys ready to start the game!?” I heard Tyler suddenly exclaim, interrupting Dan’s and my moment. Dan stiffened in my arms and pulled away slowly, like he was reluctant to leave the embrace.
“Yeah, sure,” Dan replied, wiping the tears off of his face. Worried, I reached between us and linked our hands together again and watched the grin reappear on his face.
“Well, let’s start!” Anthony proclaimed, reaching forward and starting to deal the money.
TWELVE ACTUAL HOURS OF EXTREME PAIN, LAUGHTER AND EMBARRASSMENT LATER . . .
“No!” Connor screeched when he rolled a seven. “Dang it dang it dang it dang it!” Next to me, Dan burst into a fit of giggles.
“Aw, Connor, did you just land on my Boardwalk that currently has a hotel on it? Do you have that two thousand dollars to give me?” Dan taunted, still giggling.
“No,” Connor muttered in annoyance, huffing and crossing his arms.
“Do you have to mortgage your last three properties to pay me back? Oh, and even then you still can’t pay me back? That really sucks, doesn’t it?” I found myself bursting out with laughter at Dan’s attempt to trash talk (though if you’re trash talking during a Monopoly game, there’s already so many things wrong with your trash talking attempt. And your life, to be quite honest).
“Well, it’s not like we were expecting any other outcome,” I announced, shrugging. “Mr. Math Genius,” I added as an undertone, causing Dan to huff in annoyance and shove me gently away from him, before returning to my side not even a moment later.
“Shut up, it’s not like I didn’t go easy on you guys,” Dan scoffed, causing Connor and Tyler to start yelling in protest.
“Yeah right, like you were going easy on me—” Tyler retorted.
“If you were going easy on me I would’ve won, I’ve never lost a game of Monopoly before!” Connor exclaimed.
“There’s a first time for everything, isn’t there?” Dan teased, starting to laugh against me. I felt a small chuckle of my own surface, along with a lopsided smile at Dan.
September 4th, 2037
I didn’t know.
How could I have known?
I’ve spent my whole life around other people, helping them through their problems, holding onto them as they carefully staggered their way through their own falling apart life.
So I should’ve known that someone close to me, the person closest to me in the whole world was struggling to carry on, struggling to carry the crushing weight of their existence and the certain absence of other people’s existence from their life.
It should have been me he clung onto at night and sobbed into, it should have been me that he turned to when just existing became too tedious a task.
He said that this was something he didn’t want to tell me about because he didn’t want pity, he didn’t want to burden me further when I already had problems of my own.
But I would’ve never pitied him.
Yes, I would have held him all of those nights he fell asleep alone crying into his own arms while he yearned to have a pair wrapped around his frame besides his own.
Yes, I would have wiped away his tears and kissed them away.
Yes, I would have whispered sweet nothings in his ear, mumbled promises of everything working out in the end, paint pictures of a fantasy world he had to escape to.
And yes, I would have felt pain for him. Felt angry that he had to go through any of this. Because he deserves none of this; all he deserves is the absolute best.
I would have even taken all of the pain from him in a heartbeat, stepped in and felt the grief wracking my own spine, feel the sorrow and utter agony he had to experience all of those years.
But pity?
No.
Never.
///
“I need to talk to you about something,” Dan blurted out of the blue, causing my energetic rant about narwhal horns to come to a screeching halt. My entire body stood on end as I tensed, unsure and afraid of what was to come next (as was human instinct, of course).
“What?” I asked, trying to keep a calm and steady voice but failing miserably. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing—I just—I’ve been meaning to tell you something for a while now,” Dan admitted reluctantly, starting to nervously pick at his nails from his seat on my bed.
“Oh God,” I mumbled, my whole body filling with panic. What could this possibly be about? Someone was going to die, weren’t they? Was he going to die? Oh God.
“No, it’s nothing bad or anything, just something that I’ve never really told anyone that I just . . . want to get off my chest, and I feel like I can trust you. Or if I can’t trust you, I can’t trust anyone,” Dan enunciated carefully, letting his words fall out not in a disorganized clump of incomprehensible words, but instead thinking each sentence through and carefully structuring it.
“Phil . . . when I was six . . . my . . .” Dan trailed off, his eyes welling up with tears as he stopped and looked away towards my wall, blinking furiously. “Sorry. I thought I could do this without crying now, I guess not.”
“It’s okay, Dan. It’ll be okay,” I reassured, walking across the room and settling nervously in the bed, turning to look at Dan with what I hoped was an encouraging stare. He breathed deeply, clearly trying to calm himself down before he started to freak out.
“Look . . . um, when I was little, about six and three-quarters . . . I killed my parents,” he blurted, stopping and ducking away, shame coating his entire being, seeming to hang over his entire existence like a shroud.
“Oh, Dan,” I breathed, reaching over and grabbing Dan before pulling him into my lap, Silently I ran my hands through his hair, closing my eyes as I tried to process any of the information I had just learned.
There was no pity, no fear.
All I felt was the pain, my own pain and the countless agonizing hours of pain that Dan must’ve gone through.
“There was a candle, in my room. I was up late one night reading,” Dan sniffled, the retelling of the story clearly causing him an immeasurable amount of pain. “Somewhere around the middle of Robinson Crusoe, as the middle can be a bit slow, I fell asleep.”
I let out a small gasp, immediately stifling the noise afterwards. Right now Dan needed strength, someone to lean on and pass a bit of the pain onto. And I desperately wanted to be that person.
“In the middle of the night, while I was sleeping, the flame managed to spread across my desk, to my curtains, burning my entire house down, destroying everything my family and I had ever known while I laid unaffected, at least until the screams started.” Dan bowed his head as emotion took over his body and rendered him unable to speak. Instead I just pulled him into my chest, holding him as he sobbed, gently rubbing his back as I tried to convey to him that it was okay, that everything would be okay, that nothing had changed between us now.
“Dan, I love you,” I whispered, kissing the top of his head softly, causing his sobs to slowly start to ebb out. “No matter what. Don’t ever tell yourself anything different, because it’s not true. I love you, every stupid ridiculous adorable lovable part about you, Dan, I love. And I’m here for you. Always. That’s something that you can count on, even if it seems like the rest of your world is falling apart, okay?”
“Okay,” Dan mumbled in response, my words seeming to shock him into a stupor of confusion and happiness.
Never pity. Only love.
October 2nd, 2037
I woke up to the most incredible feeling in the world, the most incredible person in the world ensnared in my arms, their legs tangled through mine carelessly. Except it wasn’t carelessness that flooded through my body now at the feel of his body pressed up against me. All I could feel was love—just love, the mindblowing exhilarating feeling that accompanies loving someone, the overwhelming protective urge to always be with them, to spit at anyone that comes anywhere near them or hurts them at all in any way..
It was something I thought that I would never get the opportunity to experience. Throughout my whole life it was always me loving unconditionally, always pouring everything into my relationships. But no one really appreciates that when they’ve been loved their whole life.
But Dan. He hadn’t been loved his whole life, he wasn’t used to people showing that they actually cared about him, at least not anymore. So he was able to love me back. Unlike everyone else, who just thought me pouring everything into other people was ridiculous, he found comfort in it, was able to appreciate it.
And I love him.
I really really do.
In fact, I’m more sure about this than I’ve been sure about anything before in my life.
///
“Okay lovebirds, I understand that the two of you are just exploring your new relationship, but you have the rest of our time out in space to do that with each other. Right now, though, I think we need to have a mandatory group bonding session!” a voice told me, yanking me out of my bleary half-awake loving thoughts.
“New relationship?” I heard a voice grunt out next to my ear—Dan, I would presume. Unless Tyler crawled into my bed last night when he had a nightmare, which I somehow found myself doubting.
“You know, how you and Phil are dating now? That relationship? The reason why we’re holding the mandatory crew meeting, so we can discuss a system where you tell us before you have sex so we can put in earplugs and not walk in on you?” Tyler explained. I could almost hear him rolling his eyes.
“Excuse me?” Dan screeched, sounding mortified.
“Honey, calm down. He’s just being an ass, I’m sure there’s an actual reason why we had to call a meeting,” I explained sleepily, not as annoyed with Tyler as I once would have been. Now that I actually knew him better, I could see that he used the humor to hide what he was actually feeling, to hide how nervous he really was about how Dan would react to him.
“Excuse me!?” Tyler yelled in indignation, punching my shoulder. “What did you just call me?!”
“Calm down, Tyler. We’ll be out in a few minutes. Now get out,” I mumbled sleepily, barely even registering it as Tyler slinked out of the room silently.
“Phil?” Dan asked suddenly, his voice high and strained as it always was in the mornings. “Did I . . . did I dream last night?”
Immediately any thoughts I’d had of falling back asleep for a few minutes before waking up were shattered instantaneously. “What do you remember from last night?”
“I . . . I told you about . . . my parents. Then you told me that it didn’t matter to you, that no matter what you still . . . love me,” Dan articulated carefully, sounding like he’d really thought this out since he woke up.
“That was real. You weren’t dreaming,” I confirmed, sitting up and turning to face him. His face was scrunched up in thought as he let my statement sink in.
“So . . . you love me?” Dan inquired softly, his eyes seeming to sparkle in the faint lighting as he spoke “Like . . . you actually love me? Despite everything I am and everything I come with? You can really look past what I’ve before and see who am I now?”
“I couldn’t have put it better myself,” I whispered. “No matter who you’ve been, Dan, or what you will be, I love you. Because I love you. I don’t know why, or why I’m even so drawn to you in the first place. All I know is that I am drawn to you, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
“Phil . . .” Dan trailed off, his expression guarded. “Can I ask . . . how . . . you love me?”
“I just told you that, that it doesn’t matter to me. What do you mean how could I love you? Stop doubting yourself, Dan, for once in your goddamn life realize that you are amazing and I feel honored to even get to know you—”
“No, that’s not what I meant!” Dan interrupted, his face turning a bright red. “I mean . . . in what way do you love me?” His face burned a bright red as he ducked his head away from me, almost in shame.
And I found myself freezing.
Dan also . . . loved me . . . like . . . that.
“I . . . I love you like you are the most important thing in my entire life, like I feel like I want to spend the rest of my life with you, protecting you and holding you in my arms and arguing with you. I love you like you are the best person I will meet in my entire life—no, not like you are, you are the best person I will ever meet, without a single doubt in my mind. Dan, I believe that every person has someone out there that was made just for them, someone whose genes line up perfectly with another and perfectly complement each other. Despite it seeming improbable, I believe in soul mates. Even if you don’t believe in soul mates, I do. And I believe you are mine,” I confessed all at once, somehow managing not to stutter over my words, which was a new for me. In most pressuring situations I become tongue-tied and mess up my words and seem like I can’t even speak English anymore.
I suppose that there are some people that just make you feel like yourself, no matter how hard it may be to be yourself sometimes.
“I do believe in soul mates,” Dan answered few minutes later, confidence surging his voice for the first time since last night. “In fact, I’m one of those people that believe in the red strings of fate that tie us to someone that we’re meant to meet. With all that’s happened to make us meet and keep drawing us together after we met, the red strings between us must be threaded together and weaving together in an incomprehensible knot that will never snap despite all of the pressure that may be inflicted upon it.”
“Kind of like our relationship,” I stated, shrugging lightly. Next to me Dan gave me a confused look, prompting me to elaborate. “What we have together is endlessly complex, something that most others can’t understand. And no matter how much pressure is put on our relationship, how much strain and tension, it could never snap. Never.”
“Are you sure about that?” Dan inquired, sitting up and facing me, resting his chin in the palm of his hand as he sent me a thoughtful look, clearly thinking about something I didn’t know about. His bright brown eyes shone as he looked at me, his face crinkling up as he smiles. And dare I say . . . the way he’s looking at me, it feels like it’s filled with so much emotion, so much raw tender love and compassion and it was so obvious that he really truly and genuinely cared. Before, they were just words he was saying, but now just looking at him, I can see the love that flickers between us as we speak.
It was something I’d never seen in a couple before. Not even my parents would look at each other this way, like the other was their complete and utter world and they’d die for them in a heartbeat.
Actually, Dan is my world, and I would die for him in a heartbeat.
Perhaps he isn’t the only one who looks completely and hopelessly head over heels in love when he stares at the one he cares about. Tyler and Connor and Anthony all saw something in the way I looked at him.
“I’ve never been more sure of anything in my entire life. Besides the way I feel about you,” I confirmed, after sitting and gathering my thoughts into an articulate phrase for about a minute.
“Well in that case . . .” Dan whispered softly, the words barely audible from his lips, as he hardly articulated the words in the first place.
And then Dan was leaning in, shifting from his position on the other side of the bed to lie closer to me as he continued to get closer. Realizing his intentions, I let my eyes flutter close slowly just before we made contact, but after about thirty seconds of thick tension between the two of us, I opened my eyes again, his deep brown eyes already fixated on me. He appeared nervous, his bottom lip trembling slightly, and for a moment I had to wonder if maybe he had never kissed someone before.
“Is this okay?” he questioned desperately. “Like, you don’t think I’m weird or—”
“Dan,” I stressed, rolling my eyes. Deciding that instead of waiting for Dan to make the first move, I was just going to do it myself—God knows I’ve been waiting long enough, there was no reason for us to delay it any further.
And so I leaned forward and pressed our lips together softly before he could reply. The words he was planning on responding with got stuck in his throat and he ended up making a loud noise of shock, his eyes going wide as his whole body tensed up and became rigid for a moment.
Until I pulled him into my arms, and lost myself in the kiss, lost myself in the feeling of just holding Dan, feeling Dan, breathing in Dan, kissing Dan. It felt like all of my senses had been heightened, and I could feel and hear everything—if I always felt like this I’d be a fucking super hero. Dan slowly relaxed in my arms, letting the tension flood out of his body as he went limp in my arms and kissed me back harder, cautiously placing a hand on the small of my back where my shirt had ridden up.
In response I just clutched him harder, kissed him deeper and more passionately, determined to show him how I felt without saying any words, to just hold him and kiss him until neither of us could breathe anymore and have him understand how much I love him.
I think he knows now, though.
“HEY! YOU TWO WERE SUPPOSED TO BE OUT THIRTY MINUTES AGO! STOP MAKING OUT AND COME TO THE DINING ROOM RIGHT NOW!” someone screeched from the door, making me jump apart from Dan in surprise.
Standing in the door looking unimpressed was Tyler, glaring at the two of us. “I’m not leaving until the two of you are up and dressed and then walking towards the dining room.”
“I hate you,” I groaned, but got up anyways. “But I’m not getting dressed, if you want to call a mandatory meeting this early you’ll deal with me in my pajamas.”
“IT’S TWO IN THE AFTERNOON, IT’S NOT THE MORNING ANYMORE!” Tyler screeched, his whole face turning red as he lectured me.
“We’re in space, there’s no such thing as the concept of time like we have on Earth. If we want to sleep until five in the afternoon, there’s nothing stopping us,” Dan defended, becoming defensive the moment Tyler started scolding me.
“Calm down lover boy, I was just teasing him,” Tyler reassured, holding his hands up in the air and backing away slowly, as if he was afraid Dan would jump forward and stab him for insulting me.
“What, you thought I was being serious? I was just joking, Tyler, lighten up,” Dan laughed, his face lighting up as he started giggling. The corner of my mouth quirked up at the sight of him laughing without filtering his reaction around Tyler.
“O-oh,” Tyler stuttered, seeming at a loss for words. He turned to me with an incredulous look on his face, his jaw dropped open as he mouthed ‘he’s laughing’. In response I just chuckled at his reaction, used to seeing Dan laugh by now so I wasn’t nearly as shocked as he was. “I’ll just—um—go to the dining room now.”
Tyler ran out the door after abruptly excusing himself from the conversation. Dan’s laughter slowly died out until he walked up to me, a smile painted across his face.
“Shall we?” he offered, holding out his arm to me for me to link together with his.
“We shall,” I agreed, looping my arm through his and pulling his body close to mine as we both started walking towards the dining room to attend the meeting.
///
“Nice shoes,” Connor commented, not even looking up from his notes he was reading over when we walked into the room.
“Shut up,” Dan grumbled, flushing a bright red as he shuffled his feet slightly, revealing that he was, in fact, wearing bunny slippers.
“Okay, fine. How about we discuss your new relationship instead? How’s that whole thing going? If you ever need any advice or pointers about anything my door’s always open—unless there’s a sock on it, of course—”
“Connor!” I yelped, turning a bright red at his words.
“Which the two of you need to start doing if you guys want a bit of privacy as well. I do NOT want to walk in on anything—”
“Tyler!” Dan yelled this time. “We’re not . . . like, going to . . . you know . . . do that . . . anytime soon,” he stuttered off, his whole face a shade of red I’d never seen on him before.
“Wait, then what were the two of you doing all of last night?” Connor asked, confusion covering his face as he squinted up at the two of us from his seat.
“We were just talking about . . . everything, really,” I answered, not entirely sure how to reply. Dan probably wouldn’t appreciate me telling them what he told me last night, so I just decided to be as vague as possible.
“Everything? What does that mean?” Tyler questioned, looking even more confused. Next to him, Anthony was typing away on his laptop, his eyes wide as he stared at the screen and continued typing frantically. Typical Anthony, though, tuning out completely from the conversation as he worked.
“I . . . I told Phil about something that I hadn’t told anyone before,” Dan spoke quietly, but all of us could still hear him due to how silent the room had grown apart from the constant clacking of Anthony typing on his computer. My mouth fell open as I turned to face Dan, realizing that he was about to tell them too.
Wow, he really wanted to get along with crew now.
I have to wonder if that might have anything to do with me.
Or perhaps I just know that it has everything to do with me.
“What does that mean?” Connor inquired slowly, leaning forward in his seat and growing serious.
“Um . . . I told him that . . . um . . . When I was a kid I did something horrible,” he stammered, looking down at the ground as guilt flooded his expression. I slid next to him, linking our hands together and sending him a small reassuring smile as I whispered,
“It’s okay.”
“One night when I was six, one clear crisp November nights—you know those nights, where you just look out the window and stare at the trees and stars and think about how vast the sky really is and how the universe may be an infinite size, something we’ll never be able to fully explore as the wind comes in through your window, stinging your face slightly with its gentle pinpricks, but a nice sting, one that feels refreshing and energizing—”
“I know those nights,” Anthony suddenly whispered, before turning red and looking back to his computer. “Sorry, continue.”
“Anyways, um, after staring out my window for a while, I decided to start reading a new book, as it was already quite late, and I wanted to get at least halfway through Robinson Crusoe, the new book my parents had bought for me,” Dan paused for a moment, taking a shaking breath before continuing. “About halfway through—”
“Halfway through? In one night? It took me a month to read Robinson Crusoe! And you were six!” Tyler exclaimed, wonderment taking over his face. “Wow, you must’ve been one smart kid.”
“Not smart enough,” Dan whispered, closing his eyes as the rest of the room fell silent again. “Halfway through, during the slow part, I fell asleep by the candlelight. Little me didn’t really think much of this, the words seemed to lull me into sleep, into their grasp and the thought of blowing out the candle never even crossed my mind.
“I woke up a while later to screams echoing throughout the house. By then, the fire had spread. It was too big for me to blow out then.” Dan stopped speaking abruptly as his eyes started to fill up with tears. “And it was too late. My parents were dead while I laid in my room sleeping, blissfully unaware as the rest of my house went up in flames.”
“Dan,” Connor breathed, his eyes welling up with tears as well as he gazed at Dan. “I’m so sorry. It wasn’t your fault, you know that?”
“But it was my fault,” Dan insisted. “Though . . . it was an accident. And there’s nothing I can do to change it now.
“I just wish that . . . I could see them one more time. Tell them how much I appreciated them pushing me to be the best one more time, just tell them how much I love them . . .” Dan trailed off, the tears in his eyes starting to fall and he hastily reached up and wiped them away, hiccuping as he tried to hide the fact that he was crying despite it being painfully obvious. “Sorry if it seems like I’m complaining, it’s just that I really cared about them, you know, and when it feels like you’re the reason the people you care about die . . .”
“It’s possible,” Anthony murmured softly in the room, but loud enough for all of us to hear him and turn to him with wide eyes. “Seeing your parents again.”
“What!?” Dan barked, his eyes going wide and revealing just how bloodshot they really were from crying. “Are you lying!?”
“No . . . that’s what I’ve been working on for the past couple weeks. The spacecraft’s radar picked up a signal a little ways away, and the object the signal is showing me is . . . very peculiar,” Anthony explained, biting his lip slightly as he spoke.
“What did you find?” I asked softly, knowing what Anthony meant. He had found something, something that could help us—but the object, whatever it was could potentially be dangerous
“They’re called cosmic strings,” Anthony continued apprehensively, like he wanted to explain it to us but didn’t want to get our hopes up too much. “Have you heard of them before?”
“Aren’t they the theoretical objects that some scientists predict were made during the big bang when the universe went through a phase transition? From what I’ve read, scientists believe that they are one-dimensional like line objects, as thin as an atom that have a density of over a million tons—like vortex lines in liquid helium, almost?” Dan questioned, seeming unsure of his knowledge as he rattled off what he remembered, taking a seat as he spoke, me sliding into the chair next to him not even a moment later.
“Wow, not bad,” Anthony remarked, looking over at Dan with an impressed expression. Dan just flushed and glanced down at the table. “I definitely didn’t remember that much about them, I had to look them up and study them a bit.”
“Okay, but how exactly do cosmic strings relate to what you’re talking about?” Tyler questioned, before his eyes got wide a moment later and he continued, “Sorry, I didn’t mean for it to sound like that!”
“It’s fine, Tyler, don’t worry about it,” Anthony assured, turning to his computer and typing a little bit before turning back to face him. “However, cosmic strings have everything to do with what I’m talking about.”
“And what may that be?” Connor didn’t look up from the table when he spoke, his gaze remained fixated on a certain point on the table.
“There’s two nearby,” Anthony finally admitted. “Cosmic strings warp space time as they move, but when two cosmic strings get near each other . . . they move towards each other at the speed of light, and when they hit . . . it does some really weird things to spacetime. Like, for example, allow for time travel. Or allow for traveling to a parallel universe. The spacetime around the cosmic strings after they collide turns the virtual particles in the spacetime into almost real particles with large densities and energies.”
“Wait . . . so I could see my parents again?” Dan gasped, his mouth dropping as he looked at Anthony.
“But there are risks, aren’t there? We might come out at the wrong place in time, or go into a parallel universe and not be able to come back,” Connor elaborated, a perplexed look crossing his face.
“That I can’t deny,” Anthony sighed, looking defeated. “I’ve tried to look and see if any scientists have predicted no risk with entering the area where space time has been thrown off due to the cosmic string interaction but . . . there’s nothing.”
“I’ll go with Dan,” I stated firmly, leaving no room in my voice for discussion. “The two of us can go in the extra pod, the one meant for emergencies.”
“Phil,” Anthony said, sounding exhausted. “That’s too dangerous. We couldn’t let the two of you go, I could be sending you two on a suicide mission.”
“But it doesn’t hurt to try, does it? If we die, at least it means that we died together, happy, while trying to make Dan’s dream come true. I’d die for that to happen!” I articulated, sounding confident and put together for once while thinking and speaking on the spot.
“Or I could go alone,” Dan suggested meekly.
“Absolutely not,” I spat. “If you go anywhere, I’m going with you.”
“I suppose we could tell NASA that we noticed something odd in the radar system and sent you two to go check it out . . .” Anthony said slowly, a hopeful glint appearing in his eyes as he thought about it. “It just might work.”
“Phil, I couldn’t ask you to—”
“Dan,” I stressed, turning to glare at him. “You can’t convince me not to go with you. If you want to go, I’m going to go with you. Because I love you.”
“I love you too,” Dan muttered in defeat.
“There’s no other way to time travel? Nothing?” Tyler piped up suddenly, his voice dripping with confusion.
“Well, theoretically, yes. Realistically, besides cosmic strings? No, not really,” Anthony explained. “We’ve yet to find a wormhole, and even if we did, the spaceship we’d send into it would have to travel at the speed of light just to enter it, and our technology isn’t that advanced yet. Traveling into a black hole is too risky, and too far away as well. The other theory is that in a universe where all of the matter is rotating, if you go off in a spaceship you could end up coming back years before you actually set off. However, this solution of general relativity that Kurt Goedel came up with would require the matter in our universe to be rotating, and we don’t know if it does for sure.”
“Also, people wouldn’t live long enough in the ship to actually be alive when it arrived back before it left, with the speed our ships go now,” Dan added.
“So . . . would you guys tell NASA that so Dan and I can go to the cosmic string collision?” I questioned, looking at the three men also sat around the table.
“Actually . . . it does work,” Dan suddenly interjected, his voice soft.
“Excuse me?” Anthony inquired. “How do you know for sure?”
“When I was young . . . maybe like four or five . . . I saw someone talking to my parents, hugging them, someone I’d never seen before,” Dan explained, his eyes going a shade darker as he remembered.
“Who was it?” Connor asked softly. “Phil?”
“No,” Dan said firmly. “It was me. Now.”
October 5th, 2037
“Why do you always write in that notebook? It seems like everytime I turn around you have it out and are writing frantically in it,” Dan commented from his position in the pilot’s seat of the small spacecraft we were sitting in.
“Because it’s my job, it’s why NASA hired me to go on this mission,” I answered, rolling my eyes. “Plus I like writing down everything that happens.”
“Yeah, but I’ve read your journal. You include actual dialogue that’s the exact words people spoke. Most people don’t write like that in their journals, they just kind of summarize their feelings about the day, Phil,” Dan told me, shrugging slightly as he carefully steered the ship the left a tiny bit.
“Well . . . um, that’s because I haveaphotographicmemory,” I mumbled, getting progressively quieter as I continued to talk.
“What? Actually speak English, please,” Dan joked, obviously trying to get me to relax and realize that whatever it was, I could talk to him about it.
“I said I have a photographic memory,” I spoke quietly, looking over out the window, my face turning red. Ever since I was born, I strongly disliked sharing that fact with people. It just makes them look at you differently because you can clearly recall every conversation you’ve had, something you looked at as clear as a picture in your mind. Even telling NASA when I applied that I had a photographic memory and would be excellent at logging a day’s events because of it was difficult for me.
“Really? You’ve never told me that before,” Dan commented, looking pretty nonchalant about my response. “Me too, actually.”
“Wait, what? Are you serious?” I gasped, turning to face him, ignoring the captivating view of the spacetime madness the cosmic strings had caused outside the window.
“Yeah. How do you think I got accepted to NASA? My charming good looks?” he joked, laughing.
“That was definitely it,” I confirmed sarcastically, rolling my eyes.
“Maybe if you were the admissions officer,” Dan laughed.
Then the spaceship entered the region of distorted spacetime. Without control, the spaceship started lurching out of control, alarms going off all over the craft, the alarms lighting up the control panel, painting Dan’s worried face with a slight red glow.
“It’s taking a lot of fuel for the spacecraft to keep flying when there’s this much resistance!” Dan yelled, his lip starting to tremble as he frantically tried to punch codes into the control panel. “We just have to reach that light over there, I see my parents through the distortion, I think if we make it there we should be fine. But I don’t know if we will make it there, this spacecraft doesn’t hold much fuel in the first place.” Helplessly, Dan stared at the control panel, his eyes welling up with tears as he started to panic.
“Maybe if we got rid of some of the weight—”
And then I knew exactly what I had to do. To save Dan, to save him from floating around in this cosmic spacetime hell where they dangle memories in your face forever.
To let him see his parents again, like he wanted to.
I’m sorry Dan.
Goodbye.
I love you.
November 2nd, 2018
It worked, I suppose.
I’m back then, back in 2018, back when I was a child and my parents were still there. Before I fucked everything up beyond fixing, ruining the people I cared about.
In fact, I’m sitting in a motel on the street I grew up on, writing this. Just down the street, Dan lives on, blissfully ignorant to the pain his future self will be subjected to. Lives on without knowing that the person he fell for is dead.
Also because of me—my fault again. It’s always my fault.
I don’t know how to write like he did. He knew how to paint beautiful pictures of scenes, describe his feelings in a moment along with the dialogue. But me . . . I don’t know how to write down my feelings. With Phil I felt like I could finally feel again, after repressing them for so long after my parent’s death.
But now he’s dead too.
And I don’t know how to do this without him, how to approach them without him. I don’t think I can.
Why would he sacrifice himself for me? I’m not worth it—and I never will be. So why would he make such a brash decision? Especially one that leaves me alone without him, the only one I love from my time.
It hurts.
Too much.
\\\
Somehow I found the courage to knock.
I managed to conjure up the willpower to get up, to walk down the street to my childhood home.
And knock.
“How can I help you?” a voice asked, yanking me away from my thoughts. It was my mother. My mom.
My role model, my inspiration, everything I aspired to be.
“You know, you look really familiar. Do we know each other?” she questioned, shooting me a curious look.
“Yes,” I gasped before I could stop myself. “It’s me. Dan. Just . . . a bit grown up, I suppose.” She just stood there, her mouth open in an ‘O’ shape.
“How are you . . . how could you possibly . . . why . . . ?” she breathed, blown away.
“In the future two cosmic strings collided. I was on a mission to Mars at the time, but the crew I was with let me go so I could see you guys again,” I hurriedly explained, tears welling up in my eyes as I looked at her. “I thought I would never see you again,” I sobbed, lurching forward and pulling her into a hug and crying into her shoulder.
“Dan, I would never leave you! You know that, why would you ever say that!” she exclaimed passionately, wrapping her arms back around me without hesitation. “Rylan, get out here now!”
“You guys didn’t leave,” I whispered into her ear in a broken voice. “Of course you guys didn’t leave. It was me. It was all my fault. I made you guys leave.”
My dad ran out of the house, up to the two of us in the driveway, carefully shutting the door behind him. “Emily? What’s wrong? I had to leave Dan in the house alone.”
“Rylan,” she breathed, taking a step away from me and allowing him to look at me for the first time. “Look at him. It’s him.”
“D . . . Dan . . . is that you?” he asked incredulously, staring at me in shock. “Did you somehow . . . time travel here?”
“Y-yes,” I stuttered, tears welling up in my eyes again. “I j-just had to see you guys again. When the opportunity presented itself, I just couldn’t turn away the chance to see you again.”
“Again? Why don’t you just go see us in your time?” he asked, confusion glinting in his eyes.
“B-because,” I whimpered. “You guys are dead then. Because of me. Because I was so, so dumb and couldn’t even blow out a candle before I fell asleep. Because of me you guys are dead and I was left alone and it’s all my fault.”
“Dan!” my dad exclaimed. “Of course that’s not your fault. It’s a simple accident, any of us could’ve done it. I’ve gone to bed leaving candles burning before, how could I blame you for doing the same as a child?”
“What if I just stay until when you guys are supposed to die? I’ll just save you, and you’ll never die!” I exclaimed suddenly, struck with the brilliant idea out of nowhere.
“No, Dan!” my mom hissed. “Are you crazy? That’ll create a paradox—you’ll save us, and we’ll be alive, but then you’ll never come here to save us in the first place, and we’ll be dead again, then the whole process starts over again.”
“Then what am I supposed to do?” I wailed. “I have nobody! The person I fell in love with came with me on the spacecraft to meet you guys, but he ended up flinging himself out of the spacecraft so the weight was lower and the fuel would be able to get me all the way here! Don’t you understand? Not only are you dead, but when I finally opened up to someone again and loved them, they left me too! And it’s all my fault!”
“Oh Dan, no. Baby, no,” my mother hushed, stepping forward and pulling my cowering form into her arms, holding me close and swaying the two of us as I sobbed. “None of this is your fault. Absolutely none of it. You just have to work harder for the things in your life than other people do—but that means that you’ll appreciate what you have more than others in the end because you know how hard it is to find someone like that.”
“He really is amazing,” I sobbed, laughing slightly as I sniffed loudly. “I think he’s my soulmate, actually. The two of us just get along so incredibly and there’s never a dull moment between us, and he just makes me so damn happy.”
“Then save him,” my dad said, rolling his eyes as he joined in on our hug, pulling me closer to him as well. “We’ll be here, taking care of you and raising you right until we die. And then he will take care of you when we’re gone, it sounds like we can trust him with that.”
“How am I supposed to save him? He’s just floating around in a messed up area of spacetime, probably seeing all of these memories surrounding him that he can’t reach! There’s nothing I can do now,” I whimpered into my dad’s shoulder.
“Oh, Dan. Do I really have to spell it out for you?” he chuckled. “I thought you were a genius.”
“Dad,” I groaned, but I couldn’t help the small giggle that escaped my throat at his words.
“Dan, you know how to time travel for God’s sake. Travel back to the time right as he jumped in and swoop in and save him before he runs out of oxygen. Obviously. Clearly this guy hasn’t forced you to watch enough cheesy romance movies yet,” my mom scoffed, sounding offended by her last phrase.
“Mom, we’ve been on a spaceship for the past year. That’s where we met, mom. There’s really been no way or time to watch chick flicks and romance movies,” I answered, rolling my eyes in annoyance. “Geez.”
“Well, now you have all of the time in the world I suppose,” my dad joked, giving me one final squeeze before pulling apart slowly. “Now go. I’m sure you have to fix your spaceship before you leave, and I’m sure you’re going to want to get there as soon as you can. I think. How does time travel work for the one traveling?”
“Oh hush!” I laughed, shoving him.
“Bring him by before we die, Dan honey, if you could?” my mom inquired with a hopeful face.
“Of course!” I answered, smiling at her happily. “I’d love for you guys to meet him.”
“What’s his name?” my dad asked. “Then you should really go.”
“Philip Lester. But he likes to be called Phil,” I responded, a faint smile appearing on my face at just the thought of Phil. “He’s basically the human embodiment of the sun—always happy, cheery, just brightens up the room he’s in. Makes other people and planets look dim compared to him. I call him Sunshine sometimes—not as much as I used to, but I do—because he is my literal sunshine. Without I’m left disoriented, alone, and confused, unable to survive without him. Every moment with him feels timeless, like something I’m always going to remember even if it’s just a split second loving glance he sends me at three in the morning when we’re talking.”
“Augenblick,” my dad muttered under his breath. “A decisive moment that in time is fleeting, yet momentously eventful and incredibly significant.”
“That sounds like a lot with Phil. He just does stuff sometimes, like whisper I love you or kiss me and it means the world to me,” I answered honestly.
“Well, don’t just stand there talking about everything he does and how he makes you feel! I know how soulmates work. Now go save him!” my mom screeched, pushing me down the driveway. “I love you, so now go save the one you love so maybe one day you can be a parent too.”
“Too soon, mom,” I groaned.
But I smiled anyways, despite my annoyed words.
October 5th, 2037
I was finally back to save him.
It took a year of repairing the spacecraft, then another year and a half in space traveling back to the cosmic string collision.
But I was finally back to save him.
As I flew through the area with warped space time (this time with plenty of fuel), I searched for the memory that would show Phil jumping out of the spacecraft. After a few long minutes of searching I finally found it and flew through it without hesitation.
I came out on the other side, watching the other spacecraft containing me fly through a past memory with my parents and disappear.
But I didn’t care about that.
What I did care about was the man that was currently floating aimlessly through space, clearly squeezing his eyes shut and tensing his entire body.
So I took my parents advice and followed my heart. I decided to not care what the rest of the world would think as I rushed over to him, opened the top hatch and let him tumble into the spacecraft, gravity suddenly affecting him again.
With ease I caught him, and closed the top hatch before turning back to just stare at him.
He laid limply in my arms, his head lolled slightly to the side, his raven black hair ruffled up in a quiff above his head messily. His eyes were still scrunched shut, like he thought he was still in freefall through space and he was just trying to block it out.
But it was Phil. Everything about him just screamed Phil, proclaimed that this was, in fact, the man I’m in love with.
So I leaned forwards and rested our foreheads together and whispered, “I love you.”
And then I kissed him softly, kissed him until he kissed me back, recognizing my lips from anyone else’s in the world.
“Hey,” I muttered, pulling him into my arms again. “You’re safe now. You’ll always be safe now.”
“God, I love you,” he murmured in my ear. “I can’t believe you found a way to save me.”
“I’ll always find a way to save you,” I responded softly, basking in the scent and feeling of Phil after being away from it for so long. He’d only been falling for a few seconds until I swooped in and saved him, but I’d been apart from him for two and half years, and I wanted to savour every moment with him, never take a moment of him being with me for granted.
Not ever again.
THE END.
And they lived happily ever after, forever and ever, for infinity and beyond.
You are such a dork.
But you love me (*^_^*)
Somehow. Who knows how I put up with you.
You know, I thought most of your writing wasn’t going to be that great from your comment about not being able to write that well, but it was actually pretty good. I mean, you could do with a few lessons from me and a bit more of an extensive vocabulary.
Oh fuck off.
But Dan, I thought you couldn’t live without me, I thought I was like the literal sun to me, and me just being in your presence makes your life makes it so much better!
That was then, this is now. I’ll gladly throw you out of the moving spacecraft now.
Am I still supposed to give this notebook to NASA?
I wouldn’t suggest it. They might think that we’re both slightly insane.
I mean, time travel is a theoretical concept to them still, they probably wouldn’t believe us if we said you actually went back in time and got advice from your long since deceased parents.
I was thinking more along the lines of them reading our personal thoughts and just thinking that we were insane, but yeah, the time travel stuff doesn’t really help either.
Anyways, so how’s your day going? (^-^)
Phil, I am literally just sitting at the front of this spacecraft headed back to Earth passing a notebook back and forth with you while giggling about it. How do you think my day is going?
Clearly I don’t know, or I wouldn’t have asked. Duh.
You are literally five.
Does that make you a pedophile then?
Please shut up. Just actually talk to me like a normal person.
No! I’m not a normal person, remember? \(^o^)/
Dork.
You say that like you’re not also a complete and utter nerd and dork.
Nerd.
R00d.
Plz stahp with the txt tlk it hurts mah brain m8.
Fine. NASA will know that you’re the one who ruined this amazing conversation and drew my notebook about our space mission to a close.
I THOUGHT WE WEREN’T SHOWING NASA THIS JOURNAL BECAUSE THEY’D HAVE TO PUT US UP FOR A PSYCHIATRIC EXAMINATION.
Hee hee. You’re cute when you’re mad ^_^
That’s it. I’m done with you.
NOOOO Dan no stop walking away get back here Dan NOOOOO. Rude. How rude. Just ignore the literal sun, I’m sure that’ll end well for you.
The end. For real this time. Phil, don’t you dare write another sentence.
Another sentence.
Works Cited
Anderson, David Lewis, Dr. “Cosmic Strings.” Anderson Institute, andersoninsitute.com, www.andersoninstitute.com/cosmic-strings.html. Accessed 15 Mar. 2017.
Asthana, Anushka, and David Smith. “Einstein Was Right: Space and Time Bend.” theguardian, www.theguardian.com, 14 Apr. 2007, www.theguardian.com/science/2007/apr/15/spaceexploration.universe. Accessed 15 Mar. 2017.
Bonsor, Kevin. “How Time Travel Will Work.” Bibliotecapleyades, bibliotecapleyades.net, www.bibliotecapleyades.net/ciencia/time_travel/esp_ciencia_timetravel25.htm. Accessed 15 Mar. 2017.
Bonsor, Kevin, and Robert Lamb. “How Time Travel Works- Cosmic Strings.” How Stuff Works Science, science.howstuffworks.com, science.howstuffworks.com/science-vs-myth/everyday-myths/time-travel5.htm. Accessed 15 Mar. 2017.
“Do Cosmic Strings Exist?” LIGO Scientific Collaboration, www.ligo.org, www.ligo.org/science/Publication-S5S6CosmicStrings/flyer.pdf. Accessed 16 Mar. 2017.
Engel, Joshua. “Relativity (Physics): If Matter Bends Space Time, What Does It Bend In?” Quora, quora.com, 8 May 2012, www.quora.com/Relativity-physics-If-matter-bends-spacetime-what-does-it-bend-in. Accessed 15 Mar. 2017.
Hawking, Stephen. “Space and Time Warps.” Stephen Hawking, hawking.org.uk, www.hawking.org.uk/space-and-time-warps.html. Accessed 15 Mar. 2017.
#phan#phanfiction#nasa#phan nasa au#time travel#dan howell#daniel howell#amazingphil#youtube#fanfiction
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Politics: Kellyanne Conway and Chris Cuomo squeezed a week's worth of news into one wild 30 minute debate on CNN
For around 30 minutes (and without a commercial break), Cuomo and Conway found themselves sniping at each other comments as they discussed another week of media coverage on President Donald Trump's policies and remarks.
CNN host Chris Cuomo and White House counselor Kellyanne Conway traded verbal jabs at each other in a wild 30-minute interview on Thursday night.
Cuomo opened the interview with a primer on this week's avalanche of news, including court cases involving President Donald Trump's former lawyer Michael Cohen.
Conway and Cuomo were soon sparring and, at points, talking over each other in a wild 30-minute interview.
CNN host Chris Cuomo and White House counselor Kellyanne Conway traded verbal jabs at each other in a wild 30-minute interview on Thursday night.
The two were set to discuss this week's avalanche of news, but the interview soon went off the rails.
"There's a little difference between you and me and the shop you're working for," Cuomo told Conway at one heated point during the interview.
"The White House?," Conway replied.
"Integrity," Cuomo said.
"How dare you," Conway shot back.
"How dare me?," Cuomo said.
At points, their discussion devolved into shouting matches, and sarcastic accusations of sexism. It ended with a friendly handshake.
The interview comes after a particularly tough few days for President Donald Trump, whose former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort was convicted by a jury on eight counts of bank and tax fraud, among other charges.
And Trump's former personal lawyer Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to multiple federal crimes and implicated Trump in two of them.
One of those crimes involved a $130,000 payment Cohen said he made "at the direction" of Trump made just before the 2016 election to keep the porn star Stormy Daniels quiet about a sexual relationship she said she had with Trump.
Cohen's account conflicted with Trump's and the White House's previous statements on the hush-money payment, which led The Washington Post to call the statements a "lie" in its fact-checking analyses.
That fact wasn't lost on Cuomo, who flatly referred to Trump's remarks on the payment "a lie."
But Conway deflected the accusation and steered Cuomo's interview towards other subjects — talking points that echoed the White House's criticism against media outlets, including CNN.
Allegations of Russian collusion by the Trump campaign:
CONWAY: "Where is that? You've spent so much sweat equity, invested in so many screaming graphics and time, and experts talking about everything from impeachment to collusion."
CUOMO: "You got to ask Mueller, he's not done with his investigation," Cuomo said, referring to special counsel Robert Mueller.
CONWAY: "No, let's be fair. You weren't waiting for Mueller. CNN is not, respectfully, [waiting] for Bob Mueller to finish his investigation. Because you've been talking about collusion and been promising it to your viewers."
CUOMO: "Never, literally not once."
Cuomo went on to describe Conway's portrayal of CNN as "patently untrue."
CUOMO: "We don't promise the audience an outcome. We tell them that you have to respect the process."
CONWAY: "I don't want your viewers to, and I know your viewers expect to be fed anti-Trump virulence every single night. And they come away quite satisfied."
Criticism of CNN's coverage of Trump:
CONWAY: "You know [CNN's] audience doesn't trust the White House. Because all day long, on your network, all they hear is how terrible we all are. That we lack integrity. That we lie."
CONWAY: "Which word do you think has been mentioned more on CNN? Collusion? Fentanyl? Impeachment? What do you think is mentioned more on CNN? 29,000 people died last year in this country because ... of Fentanyl."
CUOMO: "It all matters. It all matters."
CONWAY: "Zero died because of impeachment. Zero died because of collusion. Zero died because of the word 'lying.'"
CUOMO: "That's not the bar of presidential behavior. So here's what you're saying — so, if the economy's good, then you can lie whenever you want. You can divide the country any way you want. You can play to racist sympathies whenever you want. But it's o.k. because the stock markets up."
That one tweet:
CONWAY: "Secretary of state Mike Pompeo going back to North Korea again because they're trying to denuclearize ... "
CUOMO: "Was he going there before or after he goes to South Africa to help out those white farmers?"
CONWAY: "Christopher, come on. Be serious."
Cuomo referred to Trump's late-night tweet on Wednesday which said he directed Pompeo to "closely study the South Africa land and farm seizures and expropriations and the large scale killing of farmers."
Trump appeared to allude to a conspiracy theory and dog whistle for racist and white nationalists — a conspiracy based on South Africa's post-apartheid land reform which suggests white farmers were being killed. Studies have reportedly shown, however, that the killing of white farmers in South Africa have been at a 20-year low.
On domestic politics:
Conway criticized CNN's coverage of the death of 20-year-old college student Mollie Tibbetts, which coincided with the convictions of Manafort and Cohen on Tuesday. The network did provide coverage on Tibbetts' death and the arrest of her suspected murderer, but dedicated the vast majority of airtime to updates from Cohen's and Manafort's trial.
CNN's coverage on the trials is contrasted by Fox News, which dedicated the majority of their airtime for Tibbetts' death. Fox News has since been accused of downplaying the significance of convicting Trump's former associates, and fueling his warpath against undocumented immigrants.
CONWAY: "There was wall-to-wall coverage about a missing woman in Iowa until she was found, and God rest her soul, and then ..."
CUOMO: "God rest her soul? You're not letting her soul rest. You're waving her like a flag ... 'if you're not with us about immigrants, then you don't care about Mollie Tibbetts.'"
CONWAY: "How dare you. How dare you."
Conway also took a shot at the NFL protests — a non-violent demonstration of players who protest police misconduct and gun violence — which Trump has continued to criticize in numerous campaign speeches.
CONWAY: "Do you do this when they play the national anthem?," Conway asked as she placed her hand over her heart." "Or don't you, yes or no?"
CUOMO: "I do."
CONWAY: "Ok, why?"
CUOMO: "Because it's my damn choice, that's why. Because it's my damn choice. Because I'm an American and I'll exercise my freedom the way I want to if it doesn't hurt anybody else. And that's what they're doing to."
Cuomo later fired back at Conway by referring to a crude comment Trump made in reference to the protestors. At a campaign rally in September, Trump described the protestors as a "son of a bitch," and told them to get off the playing field.
CUOMO: "You know what's also great? Not calling them sons of bitches. That's also great."
CONWAY: "Who?"
CUOMO: "People of color."
CONWAY: "Oh, stop it, Christopher."
Cuomo vs. Conway
CONWAY: "You were a world class journalist who used to go to plane crash sites and cover war."
CUOMO: "I go now. I was in Helsinki and saw one of the most embarrassing things I've ever seen in my life," Cuomo said, referring to the location of Trump's summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin in July.
Following the summit, Trump was criticized for stopping short of condemning Russia's meddling in the 2016 US election and appeared to hold reservations against US intelligence reports that revealed Russia's interference.
CUOMO: "It was really embarrassing."
Amid the back-and-forth, and on at least two occasions, Conway appeared to joke that Cuomo was mansplaining or manterruptting her: "I think it's kind of sexist the way you're conducting this interview ... What is it about powerful, articulate women on TV that bother you as guests?"
CUOMO: "I gave you more time than anyone else would."
CONWAY: "No, you gave yourself a lot of time because you talked pretty much the entire time."
CUOMO: "I don't think that's true, I'll give you a word count at the end."
CONWAY: "Well, the guest should have many more words. You know that."
CUOMO: "No, I don't."
source http://www.newssplashy.com/2018/08/politics-kellyanne-conway-and-chris.html
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