#fortified zone

[easternmind]

Last year in classic games

For motives I cannot expand on with much glee, I found a little more time than usual this year to reduce my seemingly endless backlog of classics. Despite all the fine new releases 2023 has greeted us with, I was able to finally dive into this eclectic handful of games I gathered over time. It is perhaps no coincidence that I reached out for more direct game experiences than story-driven ones. I find myself increasingly drawn to games designs that are mindful of the player's time as a commodity not to be carelessly squandered.

One note, if I may: I would like to inspire my readers to progressively discard the use of the word retro this year. We are all of advancing years and wisdom, I trust. The introduction of the term retro to the videogame vernacular was a gross mistake furthering the abhorrent notion that games were as ephemeral in their nature as fashion. It is a purely commercial designation by which to profitably repackage old software as a category of its own, originating from the same minds that considered games as mere novelty trinkets of limited marketable lifespan.

It is up to the player to individually decide on an older game's appeal, whether they may be discovering it for the first time or revisiting it for the umpteenth one. This is not only an appeal for those of you who write about games in any capacity, rather to anyone who takes videogames as a serious interest and communicates with others about this the object of their predilection. Thank you.

This loose cart came with a Famicom bundle auction I won in 2009, if memory serves. I turned on the Famicom and tested it merely to verify if it was still in working condition and found myself engrossed in that trademark Pajitnov/Pokhilko elegant approach to game design. As per the cassette's label, Hatris was originally a concept developed in collaboration with ParaGraph, a Russian studio that went on to develop specialized professional software, a year before the Bullet-Proof Software licensing deal. They produced a few games in the turn of the decade that were rather unusual and, some would say, even visionary. I recommend that you look up their story, if you're curious.

The only entry from the group that isn't of Japanese provenance - though it is a Japanese edition - I played it for purely nostalgic motives, perhaps a yearning for a certain pixel, palette and parallax that resoundingly evoke a time I was fortunate enough to experience, first-hand. If I may be honest, I purchased the game for the visual value of its unique cover art, which I deem superior to the US edition's. In saying that, I must highlight that the original Amiga game box art was quite accomplished.

In the Summer of 93 while on holiday at the beach, there was a French Nintendo magazine for sale whose purchase I could not resist. It was very common to find Spanish, English and French publications at the time in Portugal. This edition had a striking four page preview of this Jaleco gem, Ikari no Yōsai, or Operation Logic Bomb as it was named in the West. For years I searched the PAL version in vain, then ultimately decided to import it on account of - you'd never guess! - the superior box art. Playing it this year at long last, I was instantly reminded of an old Game Boy favourite, Fortified Zone, which I now know to be its prequel. Most top-down shooters are best played in co-op. Ikari no Yōsai is strictly and single-player affair and not once did I miss the absence of a friendly companion.

Keio Flying Squadron 2 first came to my attention via an infamous Saturn demo disc, which came into my hands through circumstances I have since forgotten about. I use the word infamous because the entire game code was available in the disc and the level select cheat code enabled me to unscrupulously play the entirety of the game for no additional expense - at only the cost of missing out on the colourful Studio Pierrot anime FMV interludes.

Having played the sequel first, I was somewhat disenchanted to learn the original game did not feature any platforming segments, it being a pure scrolling shooter in the same whimsical vein as Parodius or, say, an AirZonk. Still, a jolly good time with the old three buttons.

For reasons that will not be immediately apparent to younger reading audiences, I pride myself in having completed most Shinobi games, The Revenge Of and GG being my preferred ones. Shin Shinobi Den, or Shinobi X in Europe, was a game not readily available from my usual game dealers. I eventually borrowed the PAL version once, though not nearly long enough to master it. I finally saw it through this year, mere days before SEGA announced a new episode. While the live action clips looked a tad maladroit in the 1990s, they came to acquire that nice patina I now look for in classic games.

Omega Force was known to take the sporadic breather from producing some of KOEI's most cherished and profitable series. I distinctly remember enjoying Destrega quite a bit in its day, a game quite unlike any other. What their 1998 Enigma lacks in consistency and originality, it more than amply makes up for with its own bizarre concepts, extravagant characters and unexpected genre fusions. Of all the titles in this post, this was the one whose pace felt the most sluggish, and needlessly so.

Microsoft Game Studio Japan release schedule plans were not at all kind on this, their first production, Magatama. Earlier this year I praised this era for its highly inspired H&S action adventure titles and even spent a few days delighting myself with the likes of Blood Will Tell, Nightshade, Bujingai, or Chaos Legion. This most unusual creation, developed by the aptly-named Team Breakout - a group composed of many talented ex-Square employees - is one among the finest of the era. Sadly, it did not do enough to persuade players at the time that it was a better purchase than Otogi or its sequel. Playing it with my mind and heart set back in time to 2003, I can say that this misguided consideration may not have withstood a second thought.

I've long wanted to write an extensive article on Japanese firefighting games. In fact, I have the structure laid out for a Japanofiles entry gathering moss in my Tumblr drafts for over a decade now. For a brief period this year I convinced myself I could finally fulfil this aspiration and resumed Sakurazaka Shouboutai as research. Developed by Racdym - later Racjin - for Irem, it is every bit as good as Firefighter F.D.18 or Hard Luck, and in many ways more inventive from a conceptual standpoint. While Konami and Spike found a way to have their games released in the west, Sakurazaka's poor regional sales performance clearly accounts for Irem's reluctance to bear the cost of an overseas ticket.

#hatris #paragraph #bullet-proof software #wolfchild #mega cd #Ikari no Yōsai #operation logic bomb #fortified zone #jaleco #super nintendo #keio flying squadron #victor entertainment #shin shinobi den #shinobi x #shinobi legions #sega saturn #enigma #omega force #koei #magatama #xbox #Sakurazaka Shouboutai #irem #racjin #racdym

[princewatercress]

#PrinceWatercress #let's play #Fortified Zone #gaming #retrogaming #Game Boy #longplay #Blog #Blogger #Blogspot

[tuliptheoshawott]

#tournament poll #fandom polls #polls #tumblr polls #game boy #80s #90s #nintendo #pokemon #pokemon gen 1 #pokemon red #megaman #rockman world 5 #mega man world 5 #fortified zone

[wr0ngwarp]

spending every moment in a fever just to go around again o’ the joy! "it's all the same," you say "there's always another day."

self-indulgent brainweird jet set radio yoyo and nt-3000 art with lyrics from Bass Cannon by Vylet Pony..... i see a silly guy i blast him with the fucking mental illness laser

designs are based on my sibling @virtuaquarium3d's headcanon/au designs :3 (...at the time of writing this though, those arent posted so dont bother looking on that blog for them LOL)

Yeah sorry i made the sillyguy and his evil robot doppelganger start dissociating. They keep forgetting which one is the real one and which one is the fake one. Yeah theyre both too emotionally insincere and caught up in layers of lies and self-irony to acknowledge that there's a problem. Yeah thats how they got to this point in the first place. Sorry 👍

#jet set radio #yoyo jet set radio #nt-3000 #jet set radio future #jsr #jsrf #yeah i literally just saw the one secret fortified residential zone dialogue with yoyo #and was like ''oh there is something fucking wrong with your brain forever now huh'' #it's so so normal for yoyo to have a hard time telling the difference between himself and the real yoyo ! thats a normal thing to say ! #i think also nt3000 is brainweird too. both because hes yoyo but also like #have you ever seen a single robot doppelganger who handles being a copy of someone much more beloved HEALTHILY. i sure havent #anyway beware being a sillyguy compulsive liar character with identity issues in front of me. i will send yuor ass to the eyestrain zone #eyestrain #ask to tag #lyric art #so sad also no one here is going to get the reference to the Bad Graffiti in the center here. bc no one else on earth knows what that means #its so normal ok

[hhnguyen]

aren’t you just precious

Everything medical related was a google search, so those in the medical field please don’t come for me - I was a literature major for a reason 😭

♢ Pairing: Parents!Jake & Neytiri x Oldest daughter!Reader

♢ Word count: 2k 

♢ Genre: suspense, action, angst, slight humor - Warnings: explicit description of injuries, blood, cursing, reader is a lil crazy

⌲ Description: Your iknimaya goes a little south. Aka introducing the ‘demon ikran.’

M A S T E R L I S T

Jake Sully, a marine veteran at the age of twenty-two had gone through absolute hell on earth before ever setting his disabled ass on Pandora. 

He thought he had seen the worse - comrades shot down right in front of his eyes, the blood covering their skin, blank dead eyes staring into his soul. Sometimes there were those who were actually blown to bits by bombs and grenades, screaming not even five feet away from him as they clutched their missing limbs, begging a nonexistent God for mercy.

Then there was his own injury. The pain he hardly remembered, because he had gotten to the point of delusion when they finally managed to drag him out of the war zone, half dead, and to the VA hospital.  

The incoherent words he had heard after waking up from his surgery despite his hazy vision and buzzing hearing at that time, yet the truth coming out of the doctor’s mouth had still hit him in the face like the largest ‘fuck you and your life’ to exist. 

“...ave severe spinal injury...fixable...expensive, marine.”

A severe spinal injury that was fixable but too expensive for a marine like him to afford. 

For an active man as he had been in the past, the thought of being paralyzed from the waist had been his worst nightmare to the point of being ready to waste away his life. 

Though even after all that shit, Jake Sully felt like he wanted to throw up as he stared at his oldest baby girl at the fresh age of fourteen laying there in front of him; delirious as he had once been in the same position, bleeding and bruised. 

He could only thank Eywa that your heart was still beating and your body intact. 

Well, mostly. 

The almost nauseous angle of your left wrist certainly did not look natural. And their bones were fortified, stronger than anything else to human knowledge. Yet it had managed to snap as easily as that. 

Neytiri - his beautiful, poor mate. She was distraught, one would say more so than him. Sitting only inches away from your fevering form in one of Hell’s Gate treating rooms for avatars, muttering prayers with dried tears upon her face. 

Your injuries had been so severe that not even the abilities of your grandmother, the Tsahik, could heal you solely through the spiritual power of Eywa. These kinds of injuries needed the advanced surgery of human technology. 

His other children were barred from coming inside, having been firmly ordered to remain in their village as he and Neytiri made sure that you would be okay. None of them wanted to keep them away, but neither did they want them to be traumatized by seeing your bloodied and broken form. 

A stark contrast from the smiling and proud sister that they knew. 

And yet, you had still managed to complete your iknimaya. 

Jake watched with a bated breath from the air upon Bob, his own faithful ikran through the years, as he saw the slight encouraging push Neytiri had given you on the edge of the nesting place. Your, oh so small form, looked firm and stubborn as you steadily stalked forward in a crouched form, the band for the beak held in your grasp with determination. 

He watched as one ikran flew away. Then another. And another. A third one. Fourth. Fifth. Sixth. 

He had lost count after the eleventh. 

You were getting frustrated, he could see that. Neytiri was still there, calling out for you to calm down. To be patient as he moved Bob a little bit closer, but not too much to distract you if you were to see him hovering. 

And there he was. 

Jake had seen it before you did. The vicious screech even reached him high up in the clouds and echoed above all the other ikrans. 

He felt his blood run cold as the midnight blue beast, nearly black in color with its yellow and green detailing jumped down from the highest point of the rocks and landed behind you as you whirled around with snarl of your own. 

But then as fleeting as it had been, you had grinned, taking in the magnificent animal despite its bloodthirsty aggressiveness. 

“Aren’t you just precious?” Neytiri had told him of your words in the aftermath. 

His mate hollered in encouragement, and he could hardly stop the prideful tug of his own lips. 

Rather than you leaping on the beast, Jake straightened up as he saw the ikran run at you as well. Both were only inches away from crashing, as you last minute decided to slide beneath its belly - slight enough to fit as you rolled away on the other side and then slung the catcher around its mouth swiftly before throwing yourself on its back. 

His expectations had been hopeful from that moment. Positive. But wrong, oh so wrong. 

Rather than trying to snap at you by turning, he watched in horror as the ikran seemed to have a human mind as it slammed against a stone wall, you hitting it first. 

Neytiri had screamed, already half leaping forward but stopping herself as she saw you still clinging to the beast. 

Both had thought that had been the worst of it until the ikran tried it again. This time deliberately falling backward to land on its back with a rumble, where you were hung on. 

“LET GO MA ‘ITE! LET GO!” Neytiri was yelling. Or begging. He couldn’t be sure in his own fear. 

But both of them underestimate you, as a growl mixed with what Jake had assumed to be a painful yell from yourself erupted. Legs manage to wrap around the animal’s neck despite being crushed underneath its weight. 

He saw belatedly you were only holding on to the banshee catcher with one hand as you pulled at its head hard enough to make the animal let out another vicious muted screech. 

And then you truly proved you were his daughter. 

“C’MON YOU MOTHERFUCKER. GRANDPA BOB WAS BETTER THAN THIS!”

The ikran had gotten angrier, trashing before suddenly rolling like a fucking bowling pin on the stone-covered ground. 

Towards the edge of the cliff. 

Neytiri ran, and Jake dove, both reaching out and screaming your name as you and the ikran fell off the edge. 

As his mate leaned almost desperately over the edge, Jake forced himself to draw Bob back up, only for a few seconds - not to interfere with the rite. But it was in those few seconds he felt like his heart had stopped beating. 

There was that familiar screech again. 

Then you were soaring. 

Up in a straight line, past Neytiri and him. Tsaheylu clearly made as the ikran listened to your orders. 

There was a blinding grin on your face as you soared, clearly looking for him and letting out a whoop. 

The moment your eyes caught his, Jake felt his grin slip. 

Your eyes, open just moments before suddenly rolled back. Your whole body went slack as you fell over the side, your newly bonded ikran screeching at the sudden weightless feeling as the bond broke and your body went straight down. 

Jake hadn’t heard his desperate yell, this time diving down without stopping. 

He thought you were dead when he managed to catch you and flew back up, only to have Neytiri meet him in the air on her own mount, an expression so clearly in distress. Without a word, they both made haste back to the village, your newly bonded ikran following closely behind. 

“How is she?” His voice sounded like it had gone over fifty years of smoking with no water. It felt like his whole body was weighed down with stones. 

“She’s alive,” that’s all that Max could offer with a grim expression. “She will need surgery. The momentum of her slamming repeatedly against stones with the ikran’s weight on top has managed to collapse a lung.”

Jake had never wanted to sob like a newborn baby until now. But he needed to remain calm, or at least sane. For Neytiri’s sake, and your siblings.

“Usually surgeries like these lead to long-term conditions in life, but we’re certain that with the Na’vi biology she will heal just fine without complications. But it’s the healing that will take time.”

He was nodding along, but it felt like he was far away. Only hearing a slight inconsistent sound in his ears as he watched through the see-through glass into the room where you were all connected up to tubes and an oxygen mask. 

It was so human, the whole situation of you being in a hospital bed for avatars - Jake wanted to laugh. Not in humor, but maybe in slight delusion at the situation. 

“Okay, okay…” he swallowed. “Anything else?”

His human friend was taking pity on him, Jake knew. 

Max has been there since the beginning. Seeing Jake growing his own family and now being placed in this position. “Besides the broken wrist and strained ankle, it’s mostly cuts and bruises. So she will have to wear a brace as well as remain seated for the next week or so. And check-ups every three days.“

“Yeah, we can do that,” Jake croaked. “When’s the surgery?”

“As soon as possible.”

Another nod. “Thanks, man.”

“Of course.”

He had to nearly pry Netytiri away from you as she snarled protectively. But he had to explain that she couldn’t join in on the surgery due to contamination concerns. The whole room had to be fixed to match that of a Na’vi body, the surgeons wearing oxygen masks as the space was filled with Pandora’s toxic air for your sake. 

It was an open lung surgery, Jake had been told. A risky procedure even on earth. It had taken four hours. Four hours full of anxiety and fear. 

But you had pulled through, Max said, Norm closely behind with a relieved teary smile himself. The man was like another uncle to the kids despite his avatar form. He had watched their ceremonies, rites and connections to Eywa. So to Norm, this was just like a family member to him. 

You had slept for a full day and a half after the surgery, still confined to the avatar hospital room before your eyes had fluttered open with difficulty. A cough erupted followed by your painful whine at the action.

Netytiri had hushed you gently, crouching down and stroking your hair back. Fresh tears fell at seeing you conscious again after so long, sobs breaking out as you flashed a sleepy smile at her. 

Neytiri had felt like Eywa had pulled the entirety of Pandora away from underneath her feet during the hours of your examination and surgery. Clutching Jake to her and never wanting to let go as her oldest baby was at the mercy of nature and your own will to live through. 

But she knew. 

You were strong. You always had been. And you had fought. 

Neytiri had never imagined a day when one of her biggest nightmares nearly came to pass. 

To lose one of her children. 

She would rather throw herself off the highest point on Ayram alusìng than lose one of her precious babies before their time. She believed in Eywa with her whole heart and soul and knew their beings were only borrowed and one day had to be returned. 

But Eywa would not take her children away from her until Neytiri herself agreed. 

Until that time, she would do anything to protect them. But to have it happen during one of their most treasured rites in life had prevented her from doing many things. 

Interfering for once. Because you had said so before as if knowing how horribly wrong it could go. 

“Do not stop me, mama. I can do this on my own.”

Of course, you could. And you did. 

Despite having to brush the doors to Eywa’s home yourself to succeed. 

And as your parents carefully helped you back home to the village after five days of observation at Hell’s Gate after your surgery, you couldn’t help but snicker despite the stabs of pain.  

Your mom had admonished you gently to not aggravate your wounds. Whereas your dad held back the roll of his eyes with amusement tickling the sides of his mouth. 

“Why are you laughing, flower?”

Your grin was shit-eating as you looked up at him.

“My iknimaya was so much cooler than Toruk Makto’s.”

“You little skxawng.”

I feel like I lowkey pulled this one out of my ass, but oh well. 

taglist: @nao-cchi @eywas-heir @ssc7514 @spicycloudsalad @calums-betch @httpjiikook @ricecakeslove @fanboyluvr @iwaslikeblah   @the-wandering-pan-ace @avatarloversblog @eternallyvenus @enchantinggoateefox @arianapntn @heydemonsitsme @slyvixen1029​ @promiseofeywa @love13tter @directioner5life @bambisposts-blogs​ @melllinaa​  @sugarmummystuff6​ @lovekeeho​ @hai-kbai​

#avatar #avatar imagine #avatar the way of water #sully family #sully family x reader #jake sully x reader #dad jake sully #jake sully imagine #jake sully x daughter #mom neytiri #neytiri x you #neytiri x daughter!reader #sully reader #sully daughter

[probablyasocialecologist]

Israel has thus fully embraced the “war on terror” and richly profited from it. One of the most successful though bloody counterinsurgency battles of the early twenty-first century was the Sri Lankan government’s destruction of the Tamil Tigers militant group. Israel played a key, though largely unpublicized, part in Colombo’s successful campaign in a civil war that killed and disappeared more than 200,000 people, mostly Tamils, over a quarter-century that ended in 2009. Israel sold Kfir fighter jets and trained the Special Task Force, a brutal unit of the Sri Lankan police. Sri Lanka borrowed the Israeli playbook during the last stages of the civil war and ignored calls by NGOs, human rights organizations, and foreign governments to cease violence. The military stopped when the Tamil Tigers were completely decimated and Velupillai Prabhakaran, its leader, killed. Israel also helped generations of Sinhalese politicians build and maintain Sinhalese enclaves in the north and east of Sri Lanka, areas where most Tamils live. The aim was to create buffer zones around Tamil-majority areas and establish an unofficial occupation of Tamil territory. These plans continued after 2009 and Sinhala colonization has never stopped. These ideas were directly taken from Israel’s presence in the West Bank, where Palestinian sovereignty is denied with numerous fortified Jewish colonies. Israel signed a US$50 million deal with Sri Lanka in 2021 to upgrade the country’s Kfir jets.

Antony Loewenstein, The Palestine Laboratory: How Israel Exports the Technology of Occupation Around the World

#sri lanka #tamil tigers #israel #war on terror #The Palestine Laboratory

[charmwasjess]

I legitimately didn't remember how fucking batshit funny some of the Dooku sections in Claudia Gray's Master and Apprentice were. Qui-Gon's remembering his first mission with Dooku in flashback: okay, seems straightforward enough. They land in an ongoing crisis in a battle zone, Dooku goes to talk to the generals. Then, next scene, we smashcut directly to:

"Don't be afraid." Dooku's voice rang out over even the howling winds of Shurrapak. Qui-Gon clung to the carbon-fibre-rope riggings of the Shurrapakan ship, salt spray stinging his face and hands as they rounded the cape to approach the battle from an angle the enemy wouldn't expect. "They're shielded against skycraft and energy weapons. Not against seafaring vessels!" He made this sound majestic, courageous, brilliant -- nothing like the last-minute, last-ditch attempt it really was. Qui-Gon took a deep breath and stared up at the stars. Big mistake. The stars weren't moving and his stomach was, and the queasiness that swept through him made him feel weak.

Dooku has been on this planet for less than 24 hours. There are already other Jedi there ahead of him with established generals working on the battle plans, which according to the scene just before this, are complete enough that its conceivable Dooku and Qui-Gon will miss the action. So naturally, the plan he then comes up with is "ABANDON ALL OTHER PLANS, WE ATTACK THE FORTIFIED BATTLEFIELD WITH OLD TIMEY ROPE-RIGGED SAILING SHIPS!"

And at his side?? A seasick twelve year old who has never left the Temple or seen battle!!! Who can't swim! And backing them up?? Rael fucking Averross, who Dooku was just nagging for being too eager to get into the fighting. Sure, Dooku. That's Rael's problem.

This is the most disaster lineage shit I've ever read. This could absolutely be an Anakin and Obi-Wan Clone Wars arc.

Bonus Rael and Qui-Gon Content, from earlier in the chapter:

"C'mon, then, let's go talk to the generals." Rael made it sound like the most natural thing for a twelve-year-old to do.

Rael, you crazy motherfucker, never change.

#Dooku just bellowing “seafaring vessels!!” with majestic courage like it's the best plan he's ever come up with is killing me #he's attacking an energy shield with a fucking pirate ship #where did he even get it #a living history exhibit?? #count dooku #rael averross #qui gon jinn #master and apprentice #master dooku #star wars books #disaster lineage

[chelseasdagger]

Alone And Forsaken

Joel Miller x F!Reader

Summary: After a close call with infected, you and Joel return to your safehouse and try to stay warm during a cold night

Warnings: smut (18+!), sex (unprotected), cockwarming, cursing, gun mention (briefly), smut with very little plot, Joel hasn’t cockwarmed in over twenty years

Author’s Note: This is my first Joel fic so I'm a little nervous but I love the idea of him cockwarming/having sex again after so long and he's desperate oops. Much thanks to @chellestrash for supporting me through this fic! Feedback is greatly appreciated! :)

Word Count: 5.2k

Joel mutters in his sleep. Most nights, it was whispers of his late daughter’s name; the sorrowful memory of that night replays in his mind even after twenty years. Other times it was restless grunts and warnings of clickers as he tossed and turned on the small mattress. It doesn’t matter whether you were in a somewhat protected military zone or in the uncertain darkness that lies outside of those sanctioned areas. When the sun sets and the anxiety dies down just enough to finally slip into unconsciousness, you’d hear the distressed mumbling beside you that made your chest grow tight all over again.

The two of you have just returned home—or, whatever you could call the four walls that were miraculously still standing. It was more of an improvised safehouse while you traveled beyond the patrolled Fedra walls to make your drop offs. The house was small but dependable, especially once Joel had gone and fortified the decaying wood that was barricading the doors and windows shut. Perhaps you could consider it safe in comparison to the rubble and debris surrounding it, not to mention the absolute luck that there were no cordyceps in the immediate area.

Smuggling isn’t exactly your favorite job when it comes to ways of earning supplies, but you suppose it’s better than the depressing things that Joel does for a few ration cards. He’s the one who got you into helping him after showing you just how good the payoff was and, if you’re honest with yourself, you enjoy the time alone with him. He isn't easy to read and his rough voice comes across harsh to others but the longer you’re around him, you begin to pick up on his true intentions behind his sometimes cold front.

Your name rings through your ears, pulling you to the present and away from your abandoned train of thought. It sounds nice to hear Joel speak it, despite his deep, rough shout. You quickly stand and make your way over to the wooden bookcase that’s lying diagonally over the back door to the house. Planting your feet on the ground, you push it so that it’s standing upright again and twist the small lock on the doorknob.

You open the door and the sounds of the thunderstorm grow louder, a flash of lightning illuminating Joel’s silhouette. His back is facing you as he checks the surrounding area once more, gun in his hands as he slowly turns before entering the house.

“It’s clear,” he holsters his gun, “no signs of clickers or infected,” he sighs heavily, closing the door gently behind him. He steps past you and into the house, immediately moving furniture in search of cracks in the floorboards. He often forgot exactly where he left his supplies due to the different safe houses you two frequent on the smuggling route. You watch as he knocks the toe of his boot into an area of the wood underneath the dusty rug. The sound is hollow and he immediately kneels to the ground to start removing the slotted wood.

“You’re sure?” you ask uncertainly, your voice a whisper in the otherwise quiet room. It was rare that you questioned him, but your fear got the better of you. The way he freezes with the floorboard piece still in his hand has you worried you overstepped, and you hurry to explain.

“I-I don’t mean to—it’s just that, well, I wanted to be absolutely certain,” your words come out faster once he looks over his shoulder. He stares up at you, glancing over your features while resting his hand on his knee. You pull your lip between your teeth, nervously thinking of his potential reaction to your words.

Your expression gives your anxiety away and he sighs gently, his eyes scanning over your face. His own features soften and you watch his shoulders begin to slouch before he’s standing up and silently walking towards you.

“Tonight was too close and I’m…” he trails off, his eyes focusing on something behind you, his mind going elsewhere. After a moment he looks to your scared face again and continues, “I’m sorry I made the wrong call.”

Joel hangs his head in defeat and you wish you could take away the guilt he feels. The rain patters gently on the roof but you still hear his frustrated exhale over the noise. He brings a hand to the back of his neck, scratching at the grey hair brushing his skin there. After clearing his throat, he continues, his southern accent wound around his words.

“I thought it was clear I… If I hadn’t gotten there—”

“But you did,” you cut him off before his mind has time to spiral. Joel always takes responsibility for every mission no matter the importance. There’s been times in the past where he thinks back on what went wrong and makes a mental note of how to improve next time, but not without holding some resentment for his flawed actions. You know tonight was more serious, what with the clicker’s gnashing teeth nearly grazing your neck, and you wanted to try and spare Joel some of the self loathing.

A shiver suddenly works its way down the back of your neck. The icy touch runs along your spine and spreads throughout your body, causing you to shake slightly. He watches your involuntary movement and looks down at your hands that are balled around the cuff of the wet jacket you’re wearing.

“C’mon, let’s get you out of those clothes,” he speaks up again before turning away. His wet footsteps echo out on the wooden floor as he steps towards his backpack. You wind your arms around yourself as he slings his bag over his shoulder, walking back to you and leading you to one of the unused rooms down the hall.

The both of you typically would stay in the main space of the house, with access to windows and a kitchen within close distance. But in moments where some privacy was needed, you’d have the extra rooms of the house to change or get some time alone. He entered the small bedroom first, quickly scanning it with his flashlight. Once deciding it was clear, he gives you a small nod before dropping his bag, leaving the room, and pulling the door shut behind him.

Crouching down to his bag, you open it and find two thick flannels folded at the bottom beneath the few cans of food and extra boxes of ammo. Discarding your wet jacket and soaked shirt underneath, you pick up a dry one from his bag and hold it in front of you. You think of the last time Joel wore this one and how the blue plaid pattern brought out the tan in his skin.

Slipping your arms through the sleeves, you pull the material closer to your body. It’s a lot softer than most of the shirts around nowadays, most likely the material being worn down by all the years Joel has been wearing it. There’s a small tear under the arm on your right side but other than that it’s in great condition.

You untwist the collar of the shirt as you make the fabric sit smoothly against your neck. Your fingers move down the lapels of the flannel and you pause for a second before raising it to your face. The collar smells so deeply of him and you shut your eyes as you inhale his scent.

His heavy footsteps sound out through the house and you hear them from the other side of the paper thin walls, pulling you from your thoughts. You quickly straighten the edges of the shirt before slipping the black buttons through their holes and making your way back to the living room.

Joel is back in his position on the worn couch. His back is straight as a board, a physical display of his alertness. He’s squinting his eyes as he peers between the slotted wood boarding up the windows, watching the outside area nearby. You’d often find him like this, making mental notes of the surrounding environments or how many exits a building had. It makes you feel safe, but you wish there was a world where he didn’t feel the need to do that instinctively.

You notice he’s wearing only his denim button up now, having ditched the soaked jacket. The heavy bookshelf is back in place as well, blocking the only entrance to the house that isn’t boarded up. Your eyes fall to the ground and notice there’s no makeshift alarm. Checking the other door in the living room, you notice it’s clear of any liter as well.

“No glass?” you ask quietly, stepping deeper into the room. Joel turns at the sound of your voice, watching from his spot on the torn couch cushion.

“Just clickers and infected for the next few miles. If we don't make a fire, we can’t draw people in. So yeah,” he’s cut off by his groan as he places his hands on his knees to stand up, “no glass.” 

“Right…” you trail off, trying to ignore the excitement in your chest as he steps towards you. “So no fire tonight? That’s going to be a little rough,” you let out a bitter chuckle.

The weather had been unkind as of late and it was taking a toll on you. Joel saw the shakes your body gave under the unforgiving wind, despite him lending you extra jackets to wear under a thick winter coat you happened across. The past few nights in particular he had been burning low fires as you two were in the woods; he assured you the tree line helped disguise the smoke. But you know the risk of shedding light near open streets, even if you desperately wanted the heat anyway.

“Well, ‘m sorry,” Joel begins, his hands working their way to their usual spot on his hips. “We can’t—“

“We can’t run the risk, I know,” you sigh heavily, finishing his sentence for him. “I just wish there wasn’t a risk—“

The sudden crash of thunder catches you by surprise, making you jump away from him. Distant sounds of clicker screeching fills the air next and you don’t have enough time to fix your confident facade that slips. Joel notices it, and he sees the fear in your eyes despite the smile you flash at him and the dismissive laugh that follows.

“Jesus, you’d think I’d get used to that by now,” you chuckle, folding your arms across your chest. He sees through the act you’re putting on and sighs quietly. Wordlessly, he takes another step towards you, closing the distance and pulling you into him.

His body is warm and his strong arms feel gentle as he embraces you. This was a first between the two of you, even the smallest moments of intimacy being somewhat of a struggle for him. He’s never said it aloud but you’ve picked up on the signs after months and months of knowing him. The one thing you never do, however, is force him to open up to you. Not even after hearing his broken whispers as he recalled the events he’s had to witness.

You don’t realize how much you need his touch until he’s giving it to you, and now you don’t want to go without it. His arms around you feel like they’re holding you together enough that you can allow yourself to relax completely. It’s the first time in, well forever, that you feel like something else is barring the weight for you. And you can’t help yourself from unwinding in his hold.

You let yourself sink into his chest, your head resting below his collarbone as you inhale shakily. His heartbeat sounds out rhythmically into your ear and its predictable, repetitive pattern soothes you instantly. Slowly but surely, you’re able to bring in deeper breaths of air as your hands grab at his large back tightly. Everything else in the room fades as you squeeze your eyes shut—everything except for him.

A few moments pass and Joel begins to loosen his hold on you. His hands leave your back and begin to pull away, but you don’t let go. It must’ve dawn on him that you needed him more than he realized, because he goes back to holding you after clearing his throat gently.

You don’t want to push his boundaries or make him uncomfortable, so you bring in two big breaths of air before untangling yourself from him. He stares down at you, his eyes scanning both of yours quickly, and you feel as though you could melt under his gaze. Your feelings for him had always been there, but after that display of affection? You know you’re wrapped around his finger now.

Joel looks as though he’s about to say something; his lips part as his eyebrows pull together, but you speak before he can.

“So…” you trail off as you swing your arms awkwardly. You don’t have anything else to add; your fear of what he might say overpowered any ideas you had before you opened your mouth. His eyes fall to your hands, which are still moving, and you become painfully aware of how odd you’re acting.

“So!” you wind your arms around your chest, “What’re we thinking? Living room or one of the beds?” you ask with a joking laugh. The confusion on Joel’s face is plainly there in his rough features, but thankfully he drops it. He clears his throat once again before nodding his head towards the hallway you left just a moment ago.

“Figured we’d use the beds, since they’re there. Those sleeping bags have been killing my back,” he rasps out as he places his palm over his lower spine. He shakes his head gently, almost as if he’s reliving the pain of the sore muscles the next morning. When he glances back up at you he lets out a small chuckle, muttering, “‘M gettin’ too old for that.”

The fact that he chooses to laugh off the awkward moment has your heart tightening in your chest and a genuine smile finds its way back to your face again.

It takes only a few minutes for you and Joel to move your bags and other supplies into the new room. He doesn’t bring up the extra seconds of comfort you relished in, or the slightly embarrassing aftermath of the moment—which you’re immensely thankful for.

The mattress is, unsurprisingly, stiff and you swear you can feel the springs each time you move to get comfortable. It’s silent other than the shuffling of your clothing and Joel’s quiet breathing. Your back is facing him but you can faintly feel the warmth radiating from his body. You want more than anything to pull him closer, to spare you both from the drafty walls of this old house, but you aren’t sure you can muster up the courage.

The minutes slip by as the rain patters gently on the glass of the windows. The storm is finally settling down now and you catch the shadows of the rain through the glass; the image is projected on the wall as the droplets roll down. It’s times like these where the world seems so peaceful, you almost forget about the threats of this new world.

“Are you asleep?” your whisper cuts through the silence like a knife. There’s a pause, and for half a second you think he might’ve drifted off.

“‘M too cold to sleep,” his raspy voice sounds out, and you can’t help the chuckle that falls from your mouth.

“Yeah… yeah me too,” you admit to him. The silence that falls after you speak feels thick, and you’re once again regretting your choice of words. 

You do though find comfort in his presence. Having him close makes you feel safe, but it does nothing to help the chittering of your teeth. You let out a long sigh as you rub your hands over your arms, attempting to use the friction to warm up.

“Do, uh… Do you want me to help?” he speaks up out of the darkness.

“How?” you ask with sincerity. There’s only one thing you could think of that could fix this situation at all, and you doubt he’d do it.

“I don’t…,” he trails off, trying to rack his brain for an answer. “‘M not sure. We can’t have the fire—,” he begins to explain, but you cut him off.

“No, I know, Joel, it’s okay,” you sigh. There’s a long pause after you speak and you just wish he would get the hint already. As the seconds pass the shiver in your bones grows tiring, and you finally cave in.

“C-could you… hold me?” And again you’re met with silence. Joel doesn’t say anything and you clammer to explain. “Just, y’know, it’d be warmer if you… We’d share heat that way.”

He lets out a deep grunt and you can’t help but worry that he’s hating the idea. You feel paralyzed, too scared to check over your shoulder to see his reaction. The pulsing grows in your chest and you fear you’ve overstepped again.

Joel’s arm lightly curls around your waist, and you nearly flinch from the contact. Your entire side lights up and you inhale shakily, his touch feels burning hot as it spreads through your body. The next thing you feel is his chest pressing into your back, his scent filling in the air around you.

You bite down on your lip, determined to not spoil the moment with your clumsy words. You’ve never been this close with him before, despite your crush that’s developed over the months. He’s so much warmer than you could’ve ever pictured all of those nights under the fire, longing to be in this exact situation.

Joel moves his hand down to hold your lower stomach instead but you feel his arm tense up. He begins to speak but cuts himself off, opting to move his hand back to its original place. It’s slightly reassuring to see him acting stiffly as well. It reminds you that you’re not alone in the newness of it all.

“Is that… Does this feel alright?” he mumbles, uncertainty clear in his voice.

“It’s good. It’s uh, it’s warm,” you chuckle lightly, moving your palm to cover the back of his hand, “thank you.” Your fingers wrap around the bruises on his busted knuckles. He doesn’t say anything else, but he nestles his fingers between your ribs and the mattress.

You try your best to focus on his body and not on the cold, but your brain has other ideas. Each rise and fall of his chest has him pushing against you and he’s so close you can feel his breath on your shoulder. Every second that passes makes your awareness of him worse and worse.

A shiver runs its course through your body again, a sign of the chill still deep in your bones. He doesn’t mention it but wraps his arms tighter anyway. The close grip does nothing but make you crave more of him. An idea pops into your head suddenly, and you don’t give yourself a chance to second guess it and back out. You push your ass back into his crotch and his hand immediately leaves your ribs, trying to stop you from doing it again.

“Don’t,” he grunts behind clenched teeth. His fingers dig into your hip tightly and your breath catches in your throat. He’s never sounded this rough with you but the rasp in chest makes you grow hotter between your thighs.

“C’mon, Joel,” you nearly whine, “it’s so cold.” You roll your hips back again, pushing yourself against his bulge once more. His grip on you tightens and you immediately stop.

“That’s a bad idea,” he whispers gravely. The air around the words ghost over your neck and goosebumps start decorating your skin. The gruff tone of his voice does nothing but add fuel to the fire in your lower stomach and you press your thighs together to try and get some relief.

“We don’t have to—not, not all the way, I mean.” You sigh defeatedly, knowing you’ve probably ruined your chance at sparking more than a friendship between the two of you. Each bout of silence feels worse than the last, but this time you feel like if you speak at all you’ll destroy everything. 

A weary sigh comes from behind your shoulder, the breath blowing your hair lightly. You swallow thickly as you feel his hand move and hear his belt buckle sound out a second later.

“Shit,” he mumbles, and the sound of denim shifting grows louder. His jeans are kicked off and tossed onto the floor as he presses his lower half against you again. You can’t believe it’s actually happening, that he’s truly considering this.

“Are you sure about this? We don’t have to do this, any of it, if you don’t want it,” the words leaving his mouth are barely audible. You finally turn your head over your shoulder to look him in the eyes, nodding gently before whispering, “Please.”

He swallows heavily and glances down between the two of you. You follow his gaze and see his cock, still mostly soft, and you reach down to hold him. The groan doesn’t quite leave his chest as you wrap your fingers around him, gently pumping him in your hand twice before lining him up with your entrance.

Joel slowly guides his hips to follow your movements, pushing inside of you. Even when he’s soft you can feel the decent size he is, and as the seconds pass, you feel him grow bigger inside of you. He doesn’t speak during it, but you hear the way he’s breathing through gritted teeth.

“Sorry, I can’t help—,” he cuts himself off as his fingernails dig deeper into your side. You’re not sure how much bigger he’ll get, but you’re beginning to feel the stretch of his thickness. Feeling him slowly fill you from the inside is a sensation you’re not used to, but you let out a pleased hum from how much warmer you are.

His cock continues to get harder and his fingers let go of you just to grab you tight again. It’s almost as if he feels guilty for his body’s natural reaction, but he can’t fight it either. You feel him give a faint twitch and you clench around him instinctively. His forehead presses against your shoulder as he sighs loudly, his now swollen tip pressing into your lower stomach.

“I don’t think either of us will fall asleep like this,” you speak up in the silence. He’s hard and heavy inside of you and you can feel each vein along his cock. He groans again before pushing himself up, changing positions so he’s on top of you. He doesn’t pull out, however, and now that he’s moved he’s somehow slipped even deeper inside of you.  

He’s staring down at where you two are connected as he pants lightly, still trying to get used to the new feeling. You reach out for his cheek, cupping his face in your palm as your thumb drags along his bottom lip. His desperate eyes search for yours in the dark and you notice the shaky breath he lets out. His fingers curl around your wrist gently as he squeezes his eyes shut. He looks as if he’s in pain, but the twitching you feel inside of you tells you otherwise.

“It’s okay, Joel. You can move,” you instruct him, pulling his lip down. Those words snap something inside of him and he plunges forward, kissing you deeply. Your heart races in your chest as he begins to move forward, pressing himself deeper inside of you. His tongue glides along yours and you moan into his mouth before he breaks the kiss.

He glances back down to where he’s buried inside of you and you watch how he takes it all in. You can hear the sounds of your slick each time he pushes in, the noise so loud in the otherwise quiet room. His hips rock forward torturously slow but pull back before he can bottom out; you can’t help the frown on your face as he does it repeatedly.

“Joel, what’s wrong? Why aren’t you…” you’re not sure how to finish the sentence, but thankfully he understands. His groans fall from the back of his throat as he sits back on his calves, stilling inside of you.

“I haven’t—it’s been so long,” they’re the only words he can think of to explain. It clicks for you then that the reason he’s being so hesitant must be because of how it feels for him. You can’t help the fond smile you flash at him before reaching for his neck to pull him back to you. His lips are soft as he kisses you back and you let your hand fall from his neck to cup his jaw again. You brush your thumb along his cheek, feeling the scratchy beard tickling your palm.

He rocks his hips inside of you faster now but still, he doesn’t go as deep as he can. You try telling him it’s okay, coaxing him with little praises, but he still holds himself back. You can feel yourself craving more and an idea pops into your head.

You wrap your legs around his sides, crossing your ankles and dig the heel of your foot into his lower back. You pull him down onto you as close as you can and he lets out a shuddering moan. Rubbing your hands over his broad shoulders, you give him time to adjust to the feeling of his entire length inside of you.

Joel sniffles after a moment and you feel his hips buck into you. The head of his cock nudges that part deep in your stomach where the pleasure nearly hurts because of how full of him you are. You clench around him and he lets out a strangled cry, letting his face fall into your neck.

His lips suck on the sensitive skin below your jaw, grazing his teeth along you before biting gently. He continues to rut inside of you, never pulling back, not wanting to leave your warmth. He licks over your skin as he soothes the mark he just left on you before unbuttoning your shirt, his hand cupping your breast. The wet stripe on your neck grows cold as the air hits it and you let out a moan of his name.

“Oh, Christ,” he curses quietly, squeezing your chest under his palm. The reflection of the rain on glass illuminates his face now as he stares at you. You watch as the droplets roll down his cheeks; they glide over the lines and scars decorating his face that tell a thousand tales. He bites down on his bottom lip and you catch the way his throat tightens, the veins tensing, like he’s trying to stay quiet.

“It’s okay, Joel. I wanna hear you,” you whisper as if it’s meant for just him to hear. He looks into your eyes as his own are filled with uncertainty. Nodding your head, you watch as his composure slowly breaks down and you finally hear the guttural groan that comes from his chest.

His moans fall freely now, as if your words were permission for him to express himself. Every sound that escapes his lips turns you on even more now that you hear just how good he’s feeling. His hand drops from your chest as his fingers glide down your stomach, lighting a fire on your skin as they move. He reaches for the underside of your thigh and he pushes your knee up to your chest. With the new angle his cock pushes impossibly deeper and you gasp, your fingers tugging on the silver strands at the back of his head.

“You feel…” he groans, dragging his hips back until just his head is inside of you. “You feel so fucking good,” he chokes out before thrusting again. His fingers move to your clit, rubbing your slick over where you’re most sensitive and his touch has you clenching around him.

“Oh, fuck, Joel!” you cry out as you buck your hips, squirming under his touch. Hearing his name falling out of a broken moan, his hips stutter forward and the tempo he sets begins to falter. You feel the heat quickly growing deep in your stomach and you know neither of you will last much longer.

“C-C’mon, honey, I need you,” he grunts out louder, his southern accent coming out thicker as he rubs his thumb over your clit faster. His opposite hand squeezes your hip tightly and you feel as though he might bruise the skin from how tight he’s holding you. Your voice shakes through your whimpers as he moves faster, your body bouncing underneath his hard thrusts.

Joel thrusts inside one last time before stilling, his cock twitching as he comes. The warmth filling you while he lets out a growl of your name is the last thing you need to push you over the edge. You clench around him repeatedly, drawing out his own orgasm as you two fall apart in each other’s embrace.

He doesn’t move after that, only hides his face into your neck again as he nuzzles his nose along your collarbone. His lips cover the markings he left just minutes ago, tending to them with gentle kisses. Neither of you say anything as you let your bodies relax into one another and it’s the most relief you’ve felt in months.

Your hands find their way to his broad back, rubbing over his shoulders absentmindedly while you listen to the rain lightly patter on the roof. His weight presses into you still as he lies on top of you, the feeling grounding you as you notice the kisses have stopped for a few minutes.

Looking down at your shoulder, you see his face is completely peaceful. The regular furrow of his eyebrows is smoothed out and the nearly permanent frown has left his face. All those worried lines have disappeared now and there’s not a single mutter disturbing his sleep.

You’ve never seen him this calm and you feel an overwhelming sense of pride that you were able to give him this—the first night where he doesn’t force himself to stay awake despite his heavy eyes, or wake up in a sweat from awful nightmares.

You decide right then and there that you want to give him this one perfect night. Slowly slipping out from underneath Joel, careful not to wake him, you pick your clothes up off of the floor and dress yourself. You grab your bag and weapons before kneeling beside the mattress on the floor. Running your fingers through his hair, you press a kiss to his temple before making your way out of the room.

With one last look over your shoulder at his sleeping face, you pull the door shut silently. You take watch that night, sitting in the living room until the sun rises between the gaps in the boarded up windows, giving him one night of peace.

#joel miller x reader #joel miller x you #joel miller fanfiction #joel miller fic #pedro pascal fanfiction #pedro pascal fic #the last of us fanfiction #tlou fanfiction #every time i write a fic it gets longer than the last help #chelsea writes

[noctivagantpodcast]

I Live On Stolen Land

Consider donating to one of these wonderful charities dedicated to preserving the cultures, livelihoods, rights, and dignity of Indigenous peoples.

First Nations Development Institute. Information taken from their 'Our Programs' page: Grantmaker dedicated to addressing financial inequality and its many, many negative impacts. In additional to financial aid, FNDI provides job training and participates in policy-making and advocacy, often focusing on environmental concerns, food insecurity, and tribal sovereignty. Some examples of current projects include "Fortifying Our Forests" AKA restoring and protecting sacred land in partnership with the Forest Service, Native Language Immersion Initiative AKA ensuring the survival of Native languages, and Native Farm To School AKA connecting Native youth with traditional means of growing and harvesting food.

Native American Rights Fund A registered non-profit that provides legal representation in matters of Native interest, be that a single individual or an entire tribe. Since their inception, they have won cases that made critical contributions to the advancement of Native rights in the United States. Their efforts have helped uphold tribal sovereignty, compelled museums, universities, and other institutions to return the remains of Native ancestors, and protected the voting rights of pretty much everyone.

Redhawk Native American Arts Council This organization's primary focus is on the preservation of Native American arts through educational programs. We can also thank them for granting scholarships to Native students seeking higher education, and for running a youth program which aims to help Urban Indigenous youth connect with their heritage through the arts.

Seventh Generation Fund A "fiscal sponsor" for smaller community groups that are run by and for Native tribes/individuals, with the focus of preserving heritage and defending tribal sovereignty, as well as continued survival post-genocide. One example of their work is the Flicker Fund, a disaster fund dedicated to supporting Indigenous communities during times of crisis, be that a pandemic, extreme weather, or a severe drought. Another is the Traditions Bearers Fellowship, which provides financial support to tribal community members who carry on pre-colonization traditions.

Quiluete Move To Higher Ground Stephanie Meyer committed a serious of egregious acts of cultural appropriation and exploitation, and made a very large fortune off a very real tribe. This very real tribe now finds themselves living in a tsunami zone and unable to afford a move to a safer area. As of 2022, the move of the Tribal School, the most important phase, is complete, but there's much more work to be done.

Indigenous Women Rising Abortion Fund A fund to provide Native individuals and family access to abortion care, menstrual hygiene supplies, and midwifery. Here are two separate articles verifying their status as the ONLY indigenous specific (and Indigenous led) abortion fund. For more information on how the destruction of Roe V Wade has negatively impacted Indigenous women, look here and here.

South Dakota Historical Society Foundation So, this isn't a Native led or Native specific organization, but, they work closely with Indigenous communities in South Dakota to preserve their heritage alongside the state's history. I recently had a lovely conversation with one of their representatives about the Ghost Shirt their society is sheltering until such a time as the tribe it rightfully belongs to can house it safely. Article about the shirt's repatriation with some cool info on the shirt's history is here.

#native american rights #indigenous issues #indigenous activism #native american art

[capybaracorn]

Satellite photos show Egypt building Gaza buffer zone as Rafah push looms

Despite its opposition to displacement of Palestinians, Cairo appears to be preparing for a scenario forced by Israel.

A satellite image shows the construction of a wall along the Egypt-Gaza border near Rafah on February 15, 2024 [Maxar Technologies/Handout via Reuters]

Egypt is building a fortified buffer zone near its border with the Gaza Strip as fears mount of an imminent Israeli ground invasion of the southern city of Rafah, which could displace hundreds of thousands of Palestinians across the frontier, according to satellite images and media reports.

Footage from the site in the Sinai desert and satellite photos show that an area that could offer basic shelter to tens of thousands of Palestinians is being constructed with concrete walls being set up on the Egyptian side of the Rafah crossing, the only non-Israeli-controlled crossing to and from Gaza.

The new compound is part of contingency plans if large numbers of Palestinians manage to cross into Egypt and could accommodate more than 100,000 people, The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday, citing Egyptian officials.

It is surrounded by concrete walls and far from any Egyptian settlements. Large numbers of tents have been delivered to the site, the report said.

Videos taken by the United Kingdom-based Sinai Foundation for Human Rights show trucks and bulldozers clearing debris from a plot of land of about 8sq miles (21sq km), according to The Washington Post, which obtained satellite images that show 2sq miles (5sq km) was cleared between February 6 and Wednesday.

Mohamed Abdelfadil Shousha, the governor of North Sinai, the Egyptian governorate that borders Gaza and Israel, has reportedly denied that Egypt is building a refugee camp along the border in case of an exodus by Palestinians forced by the Israeli military.

The Sinai Foundation, an activist organisation that has a monitoring team in northern Sinai, said in a report this week that the gated area will be surrounded by 7-metre-high (23ft-high) cement walls.

Israel has said it wants to take over the Philadelphi Corridor, the fortified border area between Gaza and Egypt, to secure it. Egypt has threatened that this would jeopardise the peace treaty the two countries signed four decades ago.

Cairo has emphasised that it does not want Palestinians to be displaced from their land by Israel, comparing such a scenario to the 1948 Nakba, the forced displacement of about 750,000 Palestinians from their homes in the war that led to Israel’s creation.

Tel Aviv’s insistence on going ahead with its planned attack on Rafah despite international pressure has been unshaken even though the area is where 1.4 million Palestinians are living, the vast majority of whom have been forcibly displaced – some multiple times – by Israeli bombardments and ground operations.

Palestinians displaced to Rafah are suffering from a lack of sufficient shelter, food, water and medicine, and the United Nations and human rights groups have warned that the humanitarian disaster in the besieged enclave is rapidly worsening.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has ordered the army to work on a plan of evacuation for more than half of the 2.3 million people of the Gaza Strip who are now crammed into Rafah, but has provided no detailed steps.

He has suggested Palestinians could be sent to areas north of Rafah that the Israeli military has already cleared through a ground invasion backed by bombings.

Avi Dichter, Israel’s minister of agriculture and rural development, has suggested areas west of Rafah and the bombed al-Mawasi refugee camp near the Mediterranean coast, where many are already sheltering.

A satellite image shows new construction and earth grading along the Egypt-Gaza border near Rafah on February 10, 2024 [Maxar Technologies/Handout via Reuters]

The United States and a number of other key allies of Israel have said they oppose a ground assault on Rafah, some warning it would be “catastrophic”.

US President Joe Biden “has been clear that we do not support the forced displacement of Palestinians from Gaza”, the Reuters news agency quoted a US Department of State spokesperson as saying on Friday. “The US is not funding camps in Egypt for displaced Palestinians.”

Israel on Wednesday pulled out of US- and Arab-mediated talks with Hamas because it said the Palestinian armed group has had “ludicrous demands” that have included Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza.

Netanyahu and the Israeli war cabinet have continued to push for “total victory” with the prime minister calling Rafah the “last bastion” of Hamas.

For weeks, the fiercest fighting in the Gaza Strip has been taking place in Khan Younis, also located in southern Gaza, with the Israeli military claiming its attacks are aimed at destroying Hamas battalions in the area.

Using shelling, sniper fire and drones, the Israeli army has also for weeks been laying siege to Nasser Hospital, the largest medical facility in the area, which has hundreds of patients and staff and has been a shelter for thousands of displaced Palestinians.

Dr Nahed Abu Taima, the hospital’s director, told Al Jazeera on Friday that Israeli forces were rounding up patients and civilians and had cut off electricity to the medical complex.

“We stand helpless, unable to provide any form of medical assistance to the patients inside the hospital or the victims flooding into the hospital every single minute,” he said.

Israel’s attacks on Gaza have killed at least 28,775 Palestinians and wounded 68,552 since October 7, according to the Ministry of Health in Gaza. Several thousand more are missing, presumably buried under rubble.

#palestine #free palestine #save palestine #gaza #save gaza #free gaza #world news #current events #egypt #israel #israel palestine conflict #israeli apartheid #war on gaza #gaza strip #gaza genocide #gazaunderattack #palestine genocide #palestinian genocide #stop the genocide #genocide #humanitarian crisis #humanitarian aid #human rights

[izvmimi]

cw: fluff. reader and izuku are both high schoolers. reader has a vaguely described quirk. part 2.

The last thing you expected to do in the middle of the night on a Thursday was fall cleanly out of the sky. 

There were a few things that set you up for this event: one, overwhelming excitement about the new boot attachments that your friend Mei had designed for you; two, zoning out when she’d given you her long winded explanation; three, the audacity to sneak out of your dorm room in the middle of the night to use them; and four, an overwhelming fear of failure making you desperate for any advantage. 

The attachments had been secure on your costume and had been working out fine for the first few minutes of flight, and thus, you’d been confident enough to hover higher and higher, until you were far above the tops of the many trees that surrounded UA, and practicing your aim and range with your gauntlets for nearly an hour.

What you had forgotten was that your new upgraded boots siphoned energy from your gauntlets the same way your beams did, and while they were reasonably efficient, they were not infallible.

And thus they short-circuited - there was a split second between the realization that you could no longer shoot nor float before you found yourself hurtling toward the ground.

Harden, harden, harden was all you could think of for the few split seconds, and perhaps enough of your fall would be mitigated that you wouldn’t break all your bones at once. The trees were not kind enough to break your fall, and your hands grabbed frantically but caught purchase on nothing. All that was left was the loud thump, thump, thump of your blood rushing into your ears and somewhere in your panic you forgot to scream till you were just a meter above the ground.

Your eyes closed-

And your body didn’t shatter.

Your body hit something, and your breath held as you waited for pain and possibly death, which never came. Letting out a breath sharply, it occurred to you that there were arms. 

Something, someone, had caught you. 

Stunned, your eyes met with Izuku’s. Rather than say thank you, the word ‘How’ sprang forth. 

“Are you okay?” he asked, instead. 

“Y-yeah.”

There remained something shaky about your voice as he helped you onto your feet. Your head spun a tiny bit in confusion and you could feel it in your legs, or maybe it was dizziness from  having the energy drained out of you, and the last few desperate attempts to fortify your bones.

“What were you doing?” he asked, steadying you with an arm. His voice clearly betrayed concern but there was a more stern quality to it, like he was annoyed at you. Which you understood - another second and you would have been a spot on the ground and that would serve no one to find first thing in the morning. 

You tried to disrupt the miasma of near death experience with a laugh once the vertigo lessened. 

“I, uh… just found out I wasn’t as good at flying as I thought I was.”

Izuku did not laugh. On the contrary, he frowned deeply, rubbing his chin with his hand. He didn’t look at you now, but seemed to be suddenly in his thoughts, and the more stubborn and prideful part of you began to rise, wondering why he was making a big deal out of the awkward but evidently benign circumstance.

“What are you doing out here at this time of night?” you pivoted. 

“Couldn’t sleep,” he replied.

You raised an eyebrow. “So you wandered around in the woods?”

He matched your expression. “It seems popular, doesn’t it?”

Touché.

You weren’t exactly sure what to do now. Izuku had clearly saved your life and almost seemed angry about it. Rightfully so, because it was stupid and you had been lucky.

Perhaps you should thank him. You could start there.

“... Thanks for… catching me.”

Izuku didn’t reply immediately, again frowning, his bottom lip very slightly pulled between his teeth as he decided what to do next.

“If you come out here again, text me.”

You furrowed your eyebrow.

“Why would I do that?”

Izuku looked even more upset now and you quickly reconsidered your words.

“Okay, I realize how that sounds,” you laughed again, nervously. “But I won’t do it again so don’t worry.”

“You won’t fall out of the sky in the middle of the night?” he repeated.

You grimaced. “N-no?”

Again, you were not exactly sure where this conversation was taking you. He blew air from his nose as if he were sighing deeply and giving up on something, you weren’t sure what.

“You won’t because I’m staying out with you.”

Your face warmed, and for whatever reason you felt compelled to raise your gauntlets.

“I’m out of juice, so I’m probably out of commission for tonight.”

He tilted his head to the side ever so slightly. 

“Did you still want to train?” he asked. You considered, then decided to tell the truth.

“Maybe.”

He placed his hand on one of the gauntlets, voice softening. “I’ll charge them if you let me stay out with you.”

You paused for a moment. It’s not as though you could stop him from staying out with you. But why? Perhaps because you were very stupid. Perhaps because he needed something to keep his mind from racing, and keeping an idiot from dying is preoccupying enough. 

There’s a new light dusting of pink on his cheeks that underlie his freckles, you noticed. 

Perhaps it’s something else.

#izuku x reader #izuku midoriya x reader #daydreams: bnha #mimi's notes #not sure if i'll post the second part to this #but discharging stuff from my hs sweetheart to adult lovers au selfship docs LOL

[frozenwolftemplar]

Somehow, the Carmen Sandiego brainrot has taken hold even though I haven't watched an episode in months (no idea how that happened). So, how's about some headcanons? (feel free to play with any or all if they strike your fancy)

-- Carmen's room in headquarters has two wall clocks, one set to San Diego time and one to Ontario because

-- Player has a veritable army of cousins. Carmen never got a straight number because just when she thinks she's got them down, he'll offhandedly mention someone having a baby or something; quite honestly, he can't keep track either.

-- Carmen is nearly hopeless with numbers. Time zones, exchange rates, converting to imperial units when she's in the U.S., she never got the hang of any of it and has learned to just consult Player.

-- "Okay, that guy at the front desk said I'm ten miles from the Grand Canyon. How many-" "Sixteen, Red. Keep an eye out, it's easy to miss." "Very funny."

-- It drove the Faculty absolutely nuts that their 'golden opportunity' is math-stupid; they chalked it up to something she got from her mother's side.

-- It's not. Dexter Wolfe was just *that* good at hiding his dyscalculia.

-- The one math-y thing she can do is card counting, a key component of being an incorrigible cheat at board/card games. Because she will cheat at anything and everything.

-- Seriously, one time Zach and Ivy found an old Candyland game (just lying around the warehouse, don't ask) and Carmen, who had never seen the game in her life, positively trounced them.

-- They just *know* she has to be cheating but can't prove it.

-- Ivy, bewildered, to Carmen's cat-that-got-the-canary face: "How does someone cheat at Candyland?!?" She's just that good.

-- Whenever Shadowsan plays her in cards, it takes all of two minutes for the game to devolve from 'whatever they were supposed to be playing' to 'who's better at sleight of hand.' Not that he condones cheating, mind, but if Carmen's going to, well, he's not just going to let her get away with that.

-- Carmen as a kid was a very picky eater (her adventurous spirit not extending to the culinary world); the Faculty was as helpful as you'd expect.

-- "Dammit, Saira, I told you to quit trying to feed her that rice!" "Well I need someone to taste test-" (absolutely no sense of taste on Saira; lab accident, we don't talk about it) "-and you certainly haven't volunteered. Besides, this newest formula is fortified with three essential vitamins and minerals (at least, I think they're essential), which is more than those sweets you keep plying her with." "At least she eats those!"

-- Ivy and Zach are high school dropouts, figuring they could get ahead better with racing than with academics. As part of joining ACME they get their GED's (since they require *at least* a high school diploma) and the whole team (plus Chase and Julia) help out and are so proud when they pass.

-- The first thing Carmen always does in the morning, something that doesn't change post-series, is call Player. It's also the last thing she does before turning in at night. She can't imagine being any other way, and neither can he. (crud, they're just the bestest friends, I love them so much)

#carmen sandiego 2019 #carmen sandiego #player #fic reference #some of these i do plan on using in fics #shadowsan #ivy #zach #vile faculty #carmen sandiego fanfic #carmen fic

[princewatercress]

Fortified Zone AGAIN Game Boy Longplay

#PrinceWatercress #let's play #Fortified Zone #gaming #retrogaming #Game Boy #longplay #Youtube

[mapsontheweb]

Egypt's Fortified Buffer Zone

#maps #aljazeera #egypt #gaza #walls

[wyn-n-tonic]

That's a Real Fucking Legacy: To Leave

Pairing: Joel Miller x F!reader/former Tommy Miller x F!Reader Word Count: 2.1+ Warnings: Bad words. Relationship problems. Suicide/death/blood mentions. Author's Note: The previous one was supposed to be a one shot with this tacked on to the end. When I was writing the other day, my brain said, 'no, just post it now,' so I did. The response was very overwhelming and kind. I hope this part lives up to expectations. Where the first part focused heavily on Joel's confrontation with Tommy and his relationship with reader, this one focuses on reader's confrontation with Tommy and her relationship with Joel.

Please follow @wyn-writing and turn on updates (if you'd like).

Masterlist | Taglist Sign Up | ← Part I

Two brothers—one giant fucking mess.

Their lives, long before this one, were always bloody too.

Fist fights and war zones and broken noses and bullet holes.

So many bullet holes.

So many bullets.

You stopped being afraid of the actual monsters long ago; when people showed you that they were capable of being so much worse than just ripping one another apart.

But that day, that last little faith you had in anything is dissolved as Tommy’s fist cracked into Joel’s cheek.

He didn’t come in, just knocked Joel back a few paces and looked at you like you’d shredded him far worse than any bullet or bloater that ever looked his way.

Then, again, it was just you and Joel and the baby.

Baby, that’s all Joel called her in the aftermath of it.

Baby, he’d say followed by the suggestion that you should really discuss changing the name.

Everything was silent after that.

No gunshots outside, no knocks at the door.

No bullshit for days.

Joel pressed hasty kisses into you in the early morning light, two fingers pushed deep inside of you and encouraging, praising little words falling from his mouth into yours. 

It’s been days of his quiet observance to your routine. How you behave; how you react; how you nurture his little girl. 

He’d held you that night, long after you cleaned him up, and just let you cry against his thick, broad chest. Not once did he ask to know who your tears were for or what they represented. 

Now, though, he’s pressing himself against you and fortifying all his lost strength and the hastily put together pieces of his heart with the soft cries you give back out to him. 

The knock comes just as you’re about to; hard knuckles hitting the door while Joel’s buried up to his between your legs.

“Ignore it,” he whispers. “They’ll fuck off, you’re so close.”

Nodding your head, you cover his hand with yours and push further as he encourages you more and more.

“Come on, sweetheart, come on”—another knock—“FUCK!” 

Joel pulls himself from you and stands, sucking his thumb and then each thick digit into his mouth afterwards as he walks towards the door.

“Who is it?”

“Tommy.” 

Joel looks back, a question in his eyes but you’re already pulling pants on as you come around to the table. Something tells you that Tommy expected you to follow him out the door, explain yourself and beg him to come back to just talk.

As much as you love him—loved him—your family now needed you in that moment. You owed him nothing.

Still, as the door swung open, he looked at you like you did.

“Am I interrupting something?” He asks, eyes going from Joel’s shirtless figure to your half dressed one.

“And if you were?” Joel asks. 

“Baby.”

“Baby?” Tommy pulls back like he’s been slapped, like he has a right. “So I go to find us a better chance at life and you jump in bed with my fucking brother first thing?” 

“First of all, you’re gonna keep your fucking voice down,” Joel says, pulling his brother into the room. “Our daughter is still asleep and I’d like to keep it that way.”

“Your daughter,” he says, like he still can’t believe it, looking from Joel to you and back. “The daughter that should be mine.”

“Should be,” you agree. “Could’ve been, would’ve been.” Your arms are crossed over your chest. There’s an aching deep in you that you’ve been trying to keep in since the moment you saw him.

“You left,” you remind him. “I waited for you, Tommy, there was no first thing.”

The baby cries and Joel moves instinctively towards her along with Tommy’s gaze. 

Tears roll easily down his cheeks, caught in the gray hairs of his overgrown facial hair. “I fucking radio’d,” he says on a step forward. “Marlene was supposed to tell you, she was supposed to keep you informed.”

“The only thing that bitch and the Fireflies did was take you away from me followed by any sense of fucking safety I held onto—or did you not see the fucking spray paint and the lack of a goddamn floor?” 

Another step forward, closer now and he looks the same but so different. Cold paled golden skin with freckles joined by sunspots blossoming in random, beautiful patterns. 

There is gray streaked through his curls—his thick mustache. 

His face is longer than Joel’s, chest somehow thicker with a rounded out barrel shape and you remember sleeping on it. Pressing your ear to the flat plain beneath his pecs and hearing his heart beat steady. There was comfort in those moments, safety and stability in an unsafe and unstable world. Now you lay your head on Joel and he gives you the same. Sometimes, you even think he gives you more.

Your grief is churning again, painful and ruinous. Because this man in front of you was supposed to be dead. After years with nothing, he comes back now. After years of grieving for him, keening for him in those confines of those walls and these ones. He looks at you like he has all the rights to the hurt that he caused; like he can come in here and take from you the very thing he put into your hands.

Crimson blushes up to the tips of his ears beneath all these things you say to him, held back by Joel’s strong arms.

“Don't you dare stand there and feel sorry for yourself, Tommy; don’t you stand there and blame your brother or me or my fucking daughter for the shit that you did.” 

“Do you love him?” He asks, eyes squinting like he’s studying you—picking you apart like all those nights just so he can see how it all fits back together again. He doesn’t know, he never will again—not the way he did.

You shrug. “What the fuck is love anymore, Tommy?”

Covering his face, he pushes the tears away and runs his hand down the length of his beard. “When you look at that little girl”—he points to Baby in Joel’s arms—“what do you feel?”

He is looking for love but that’s not the answer. When you look at your daughter, there is so much more than that within you. There is love, yes, but there is also fear; pride; strength; weakness. All in beautiful, bruised violet tones that live just beneath your surface.

This feeling does not paint with the same brush as love because there is no brush for this; no clear picture to be made because all it does is grow and bleed and seep far beyond whatever edges you thought existed. It cannot be contained, there is no neat little box for it to fit inside of.

Joel, too.

It is the same for him but more. More than a need to protect and care for and nurture but there is a warmth within it all for this man who puts on such a cold mask. Do you love him? No.

There is so much more than that inside of you for your family.

Obligation. Bloody—blood bound—and waiting to be broken. Ready to do whatever it takes.

“I thought you were dead,” you tell him. “I waited so long for you and I never heard a goddamn thing.” Saltwater cuts into your words and and Joel’s broad body cuts into the frame of your vision. “I loved you, Tommy,” you continue. “I loved you and then I hated you and then I mourned for you and then I loved you again. 

You walked away and took my whole life with you, you took that love and you took your laughter and your guitar and your singing and all the things that made me feel like a person. You know? I had something and somebody to come home to, I had a reason to keep going through the motions of every single fucking day in this shit hole that we call a world now, Tommy. I had you and I loved you and that love—that connection—made me feel like a fucking human being again.” 

“Are you done?” He asks. “Are you done blaming me?”

The hold has on your hip tightens, those fingers curled into your skin at the edge of your jeans. Joel’s looking down his nose at you, this man with all his height and all his strength, with terror half in his eyes. Because he knows by now, he realizes, the last few years have made you stronger than he is—tougher. Diligent and resilient and half feral with anger bottled up close to your chest just waiting to be uncapped.

“I’m not blaming you, Tommy,” you tell him. “I’m thanking you. The love that I had for you was so pure and unbridled and the closest to the before that I have ever known. I would have gone with you, I would have bled for you. But you took the coward’s way out—“ 

“That's not what I did—“ 

“Shut the fuck up, Tommy, that is exactly what you did and you know it. You left with some excuse about wanting better for me.”

The tears in my voice are nothing compared to the ones on his face, sitting there and taking this—so different from the man he once was to you. The man that ached to argue and debate. He never could do that with you, though. He never had a reason to until now. “I did want better for you, I do still.”

Your hands rise in gesture of the walls around you. “This is it, Tommy,” you say. “You leaving me took all the breath out of my lungs, I thought I was fucking dying and my only hope was that your death was a lot quicker than the one I was experiencing.”

“Neither of us are dead, though,” Tommy says.

“No,” you agree. “Neither of us are dead but I wasn’t living for a long time, I didn’t want to. I would’ve bled for you, Tommy. I would’ve followed you anywhere but for them”—you look from Tommy to Joel and your daughter in his arms—“I would die for these two and that’s why I’m still alive so do what you’re good at and get the fuck out of my house.”

Joel’s hands are wrapped around your one, pulled to his lips over and over again. “I talked to Tommy.”

“Cool.”

His jaw clenches and the grip he has on your hand tightens slightly. “I know you’re hurting, sweetheart, but I think he kind of gets it. He’s not mad at you—me. He told me about where he went, where he wants to take you.”

“Oh? So, what? You made some fucking trade for me? Giving over the baby and the life that he could’ve had? Starting everything for your brother only to come in in the middle and leave when it gets too hard for him again?” 

Joel’s head shakes, pain in those big, brown eyes. “He helped set up a city out in Wyoming, they’ve got electricity, water—food, baby. A life, a real one. Clean and safe.”

“What do you want from me?” You ask. “How do you want me to react? How fantastic for him that he has a real life, baby.”

He swipes a thumb across the swell of your cheek and makes those same soothing sounds he gives over so easily to Baby at the first sign of any kind of distress. “He wants us to go back with him, sweetheart.” 

Huffing a laugh, you ask him why the fuck he’d want to do that. “Some unburdening of his fucking soul for what he thinks he left me to the last time? He took my life and gave me two more.”

“He still loves you, sweetheart, and he wants the best for you whatever you may decide that means. He told me he figured you’d moved on when he got nothing back, that’s what he had to hold onto to not think the worst because Marlene just kept saying she couldn’t find you.”

Couldn’t find me, sure.

Hopefully she found what she was looking for when she destroyed your apartment. She’s just as responsible for this new life, these new loves and hurts, of yours as he is—maybe more so.

“So what do you think we should do, huh?” You ask. “It's a long fucking way to Wyoming from Boston, Joel.”

“Yeah.” Your hair is wrapped around his finger again, body so closely leaned in to yours at the kitchen table. “It only takes one step to leave.” 

#tlou #tlou fanfiction #the last of us #the last of us fanfiction #tommy miller #tommy miller x you #tommy miller x reader #tommy miller fanfiction #joel miller #joel miller x you #joel miller x reader #joel miller x fanfiction #o writes

[mybutcheredtongue]

I'll Love You 'til the Grass Around My Gravestone is Deceased

harry potter timeline sirius black x fem!reader

CHAPTER SEVEN (see full series list here)

1992

You stand in front of a gravestone, the cold winter air biting at your skin and making you sniffle. You glance at the small bouquet of flowers you've left at the foot of the stone: lilies.

In front of you, the grave of Lily and James Potter.

Most weekends during the year are spent at Hogwarts, walking the grounds, working, etc. But on Hogsmeade weekends you choose to visit different people. Alice and Frank, your parents, Lily and James.

You kiss the tips of your fingers and press it against the stone, silently wishing them peace and hoping that they didn't see you trip over Dubh yesterday and bang your head against your bedframe, causing you to go pester Madam Pomfrey for some ointment.

You leave, apparating to Hogsmeade and walking back to Hogwarts. You're a little cold as you walk, but delighting in the crunching of snow under your shoes, delicate snowflakes slowly falling to the ground.

Hogwarts in the winter is your absolute favourite. It's so beautiful, with the blanket of soft snow on the ground, snowflakes fluttering in the air, and the Black Lake still and frozen. Your favourite is the joy it brings the students — running outside, laughing, throwing snowballs at each other and making snowmen...it reminds you of your school days.

♡*⁠。♡*⁠。

1974

"Anyone up for a friendly snowball fight?" James asks the group, and you grin excitedly, glancing at Lily and Alice.

"Yes, definitely. I vote boys against girls!" You announce, eyeing the four boys suspiciously.

"What? That's not fair, they've got an extra person!" Alice protests, but you wave her off.

"And we'll still mop the floor with them. Let's go!" you take off at a run Alice and Lily quickly follow after you as they move away to set base.

The boys scamper away to a safe zone, Sirius and James building their lines of defense while Peter and Remus wave their wands to create snowballs, though Remus' are uniform and spherical and Peter's are looking much more ovally and tend to vary in size.

Alice rushes to fortify a wall, while you and Lily make your snowballs. You craft a particularly big one with your own two hands, intending to levitate it with your wand and hit Sirius square in the face.

Both teams duck below your makeshift bases, eyeing the opposition.

"Are you ready to start?" James calls loudly across the gap.

"Yup!" you yell back, two snowballs ready in your hand.

Chaos then ensues. Snowballs fly from every direction, and nearly every player gets pelted in the face by one at some point or another. You're determined to win over Sirius and you both eventually end up advancing out from the safety of your forts to attack the other. You levitate the large snowball you had made and throw it towards him with as much force as you can put behind your wand.

Sirius deftly dodges it, laughing as he does. You groan in frustration before getting hit with another snowball from the boy and you yelp, running towards him. You chase him around the grounds, caught between breathing and giggling as you desperately throw snowballs at him to no avail.

Curse his stupidly agile hips.

Once you're at arm's length from his back, you claw at the air closest to him and manage to trip him over, making him face-plant into the snow. You burst into laughter, looking down at his angry, snow-covered face as he looks back at you, and then, to your horror, he grabs your hand and tugs you down so you fall into the snow too.

"You idiot!"

"Hey, you're the one who ran after me, you mad woman!" Sirius retorts with a grin, snowflakes dancing over his sharp features.

"Listen, listen...don't hate the player, hate the game," you say, holding a finger up as you breathe out.

He scoffs, chuckling, "Yeah, yeah..." you lay on your backs on the soft snow, the winter sky already beginning to darken above you.

You sense Sirius turning his head to look at you, and you turn and smile at him, raising your eyebrows. "Take a picture, Sirius, it'll last longer."

Suddenly there's a loud click above you, and you move to see Bitsy, the house elf, standing over you with a camera. You and Sirius are well acquainted with Bitsy. She's always very chatty and loves it when you sneak into the kitchen.

You immediately sit up, Sirius following suit. "Bitsy?"

Bitsy grins, her big brown eyes scrunching up. "Picture!" she squeaks, eagerly handing you a moving photo, showing your interaction with Sirius mere moments ago.

"Bitsy, what are you — "

"Bitsy has found a camera, young mistress! Bitsy enjoys taking pictures! Look, look, see what Bitsy has taken!"

She pulls a tattered bag out from the bag of her pillowcase dress, shoving it into your hands. There are many, many photos in the bag. Most are of the kitchen, the other house elves, a few of what look like Bitsy's thumb, and of course, Bitsy herself. There are some other areas of the castle photographed, including one with a poor unknowing couple snogging in the background.

As you look closer, you recognise long, messy black hair, defined cheekbones and a chiselled jawline...

"Oh my — Sirius, you're in this!" you exclaim, laughing as you show him the photo. "Getting some action, are we?"

Sirius snatches the photo from you, bringing it closer to inspect and furrowing his eyebrows. "Wait, hold on, that is me..."

You burst into a fit of laughter and Sirius just scoffs, looking away from you haughtily. "Don't act like you're not jealous, love."

You roll your eyes, pushing him away from you. "Oh, fuck off. You wish."

♡*⁠。♡*⁠。

1992

"Happy Christmas!" You greet to those sitting at the table cheerfully on Christmas morning. The Great Hall is decorated beautifully with candles in the air, a large wreath on the door, the twelve Christmas trees up with twinkling lights and colourful baubles...it's wonderful. Thick streamers of holly and mistletoe are also strung alone the corridors. Not long ago, you remember Sirius pulling you under every mistletoe he could find in the castle just as an excuse to kiss you during school.

Even Dubh is in the Christmas spirit, happily following you down to the Great Hall, occasionally playing with strings of tinsel and streamers. Christmas Day is one of the few days were the Great Hall is not as full of students as it usually is, so she tends to be more keen to follow you down. Professor McGonagall quite likes her.

Of course, there aren't many at the table today. There's yourself, Dumbledore, McGonagall, Snape, Sprout, and Filch, along with six students, Harry, Ron, and Hermione among them.

"Crackers!" Dumbledore says enthusiastically, offering the end of a large silver one to Snape, who takes it reluctantly and tugs. With a bang, the cracker flies apart to reveal a large, pointed witch's hat topped with a stuffed vulture.

Dumbledore swaps the witch's hat for his wizard's one at once. "Tuck in!" he advises the table, beaming around.

You help yourself to some turkey, hearing Snape click his tongue beside you disapprovingly at Dubh, who's currently holding herself up against his chair and looking up expectantly. "You could not keep your incessant pet in your chambers?"

You fake pout at the greasy man, tutting. "Aw, Severus, she likes you!"

Snape scoffs, shooing Dubh away with a wave of his hand.

The doors of the Great Hall open again, and Professor Trelawney enters, gliding towards you as though on wheels.

"Sybill, this is a pleasant surprise!" says Dumbledore, standing up. You raise your eyebrows at her appearance, hardly expecting the all-wordly seer to bother herself with such a gathering. Or at least, that's what she tells you every year.

"I have been crystal-gazing, Headmaster," she says in her mystical voice, "and to my astonishment, I saw myself abandoning my solitary luncheon and coming to join you. Who am I to refuse the promptings of fate? I at once hastened from my tower, and I do beg you to forgive my lateness..."

"Certainly, certainly," says Dumbledore, his eyes twinkling. "Let me draw you up a chair — "

He draws a chair from mid-air with his wand, which revolves around for a few seconds before falling with a thud across from you between Sprout and McGonagall. Trelawney however, does not sit down; her enormous eyes moving around the table and she suddenly utters a weirdly soft scream.

"I dare not, Headmaster! If I join the table, we shall be thirteen! Nothing could be more unlucky! Never forget that when thirteen dine together, the first to rise will be the first to die!"

"We'll risk it, Sybill," says McGonagall impatiently. "Do sit down, the turkey's getting stone cold."

Trelawney hesitates, then lowers herself into the empty chair, eyes shut and mouth clenched tight, as though expecting someone to smack her clear across the face. You'd nearly want to for the time she told you your hair would be grey by the time you turn 35 and that you'd lose your hearing within the next year. She told you that the first year you started working here.

McGonagall pokes her spoon into the largest tureen. "Tripe, Sybill?"

Trelawney ignores her, instead looking around once more with wide eyes and saying, "But where is dear Professor Lupin?"

"I'm afraid the poor fellow is ill again," Dumbledore responds. You felt most disappointed when you had seen the full moon scheduled, hoping to at least be able to give Remus his Christmas present today. "Most unfortunate that it should happen on Christmas Day."

"But surely you already knew that, Sybill?" McGonagall says, eyebrows raised. You bite back a laugh, catching McGonagall's eye and giving her a small smile.

Trelawney gives her a cold look. "Certainly I knew, Minerva. But one does not parade the fact that one is All-Knowing. I frequently act as though I am not possessed of the Inner Eye, so as to not make others nervous."

"That explains a great deal," McGonagall says tartly and once again you have to bite your lip to stop from laughing. There was a reason she was your favourite teacher at school, and there's a reason she's your favourite colleague now.

"If you must know, Minerva, I have seen that poor Professor Lupin will not be with us for very long. He seems aware, himself, that his time is short. He positively fled when I off red to crystal-gaze for him — "

"Perhaps it was because you don't foretell many positive things, Sybill. Last time you crystal-gazed for me you told me I was going to trip over my own shoes and land at the bottom of the Astronomy Tower," you chime in and Trelawney just wrinkles her nose at you.

"It has not happened yet! I see a great deal of pain in your future," she replies snippily. "You would do well to air on the side of caution."

You give her an exaggerated smile. "Thanks!"

"I doubt," Dumbledore says in a cheerful but slightly raised voice, which puts an end to the conversation, "that our dear Astronomy Professor nor Professor Lupin are in any immediate danger. Severus, you've made the potion for him again?"

"Yes, Headmaster," Snape replies.

"Good," Dumbledore says. "Then he should be up and about in no time...Derek, have you had any of these chipolatas? They're excellent."

The first-year boy goes furiously red on being addressed directly by Dumbledore, and takes the platter of sausages with trembling hands.

The rest of Christmas dinner passes semi-normally, as you dive into a chat with Professor Sprout about Christmas traditions you had as children. Then, when most are finishing up and full to the brim with good food, Ron and Harry get up first from the table and Trelawney shrieks loudly.

"My dears! Which of you left his seat first? Which?"

"Dunno," says Ron, looking uneasily at Harry.

"I doubt it will make much difference," says McGonagall coldly, "unless a mad axe-man is waiting outside the doors to slaughter the first into the Entrance Hall."

You nearly choke on your drink and can't help the laugh that escapes you. Professor Trelawney looks highly affronted.

⁠✧⁠*⁠。✧⁠*⁠。

Later that evening, you're sitting in your office, Dubh nestled in her bed, as you fill out the crossword at the back of the most recent edition of Astronomy's Articles.

There's a knock at your door and you toss the magazine on the desk, standing up and going to open it. Outside stands Professor McGonagall holding a long brown package.

"Minerva! Is everything alright?" You ask and she glances down at the package.

"May I come in?"

"Of course, of course..." You open the door wider for her to enter, gesturing for her to sit down as you take your seat behind your desk. She lays the package on your desk, looking at you through her horn-rimmed spectacles.

"Ms Granger approached me after dinner today, claiming Mr Potter had received this package this morning," she tells you and you nod.

"There was no card, no note, no message of any kind with it," she continues. "And I believe I may know who it was sent by."

"Who?"

She pulls back the paper, revealing a beautifully crafted broomstick, with an untouched handle and pristine bristles. Ingrained on the side is the word 'Firebolt'. It looks like it cost a fortune.

"I believe it was Sirius Black."

You look back at her incredulously. "Sirius? Why would Sirius send Harry a broomstick?"

"Perhaps it is jinxed? I'm going to bring it to Rolanda and Filius and see what they make of it," McGonagall responds.

You suck your lip, thinking intently as you look at the broomstick. "How would he even have bought this? There's no way he'd have been able to access his vault. Surely the goblins wouldn't be too keen on letting him into Gringotts?"

"You have no way of telling?"

You shake your head, shrugging. "Well, they do allow me to access it...but it has been so long since I last opened it that I wouldn't even notice if anything was gone. There is quite a lot of money in it."

McGonagall hums thoughtfully, sighing. "The goblins do not tend to abide by wizarding rules."

You nod. "I suppose you're right...but yes, get the broom checked. It's better to be safe than sorry."

McGonagall looks at you for a moment, as though reading your expression and you chuckle, waving her off. "I know what you're thinking...but we both know what happens to the minds of those who've spent time in Azkaban. Best to get it checked, just in case."

She nods wordlessly and you smile cheerily at her, moving to grab a teapot and two cups. "Tea, Minerva?"

She smiles. "Yes, that would be lovely. I do believe we have quite a lot to catch up on."

⁠✧⁠*⁠。✧⁠*⁠。

->-> read chapter eight here!

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