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scarlettroubles · 3 years

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HPHM fanfic WIPs

I’ve actually been writing some fanfics for Eileen’s story as well as some Ryder Family lore for a while now but because of school I haven’t been able to get around to finishing any of them so I thought it would be cool to show you all some sneak peaks so enjoy!

In the Face of Fear chapter 2: of Faceless Strangers and Empty Halls

(The continuation to this fic)

She does not remember how long she has stood in this queue. Hell, she doesn't even remember what she's in line for anyway, not really. Logically she knows it's to get some important documents approved of before carting it off to the next sorry sod who was stupid enough to land themselves in this God forsaken place too. But she honestly couldn't bring herself to care. Politics, desk jobs, rules? She never cared for them really. Not even once.

She hated office work. Tulip had always found it dreadfully boring and the people who actually bothered with the crap even more so. So why did she take one?

The red head found herself racking her brain for answers as she waited oh so painstakingly for the queue to move and for her to be done with all this boring crap and lock herself in her boring little cubicle and bury her head under a shit ton of useless paperwork that, if she were lucky enough would hopefully suffocate her before this job did. But one look ahead of the line was enough for her to discern that it wouldn't be budging any time soon.

Why did she take this job? She hated the Ministry. Hated how suffocating rules and laws were. Sure, some were needed but that did not change the fact that Tulip Karasu did not like being restrained. So why the hell was she here? Working a dreadful job that was sucking the life out of her. Working for dreadful people who knew not the meaning of fun and only the meaning of responsibility, paperwork, and order and snuffing out the flame of good ol' fun chaos before it could really take spark. In a dreadful queue that was far too long to be normal with people and coworkers whose faces she always seemed to forget.

So why? Why here? She saw what this job did to people. How strict it made her parents. How high their expectations of her were and how they wouldn't accept anything less than perfect from their daughter. Despite most of the fog that clouded her tired mind she could still remember it so clearly... The promise she had made to herself so long ago. She had promised herself that she would never work here and would never be like her parents. Not if she could help it.

Did she finally resign to their wishes? Bowed like some obedient little servant and catered to their every whim? Had her fear of what she would do once she left Hogwarts finally override her logic?

Why did schools even do that? Why did the world do that? Telling students to make up their minds on what career to choose from such an early age? Tulip has seen what happened to the people that were unlucky enough to land themselves in a job that sucked the life out of them. She remembers how sometimes the most brilliant of students ended up having their spark extinguished as soon as they left school. Left to reminisce on their glory days and what could have been. The very thought of it made her tighten her hold on the documents in her hands.

Because everybody needs to know what they want to be at an early age. Everybody needs to know their place. They just have to have a place...

It was one of Tulip's greatest fears.

Ending up in a job that gave her zero satisfaction. A job that would end up isolating herself from everyone and everything because nobody wants to be friends with a traitor. A no good friend that turns on the other for their own gain. That's why Merula left-

Tulip was snapped out of her thoughts when she suddenly felt the sharp edges of the stack of documents she was carrying dig annoyingly into her side and moved to adjust them. Checking each one carefully to see if they've been ruined in any shape or form.

The last time she had presented a stack of reports that were ever so slightly crumpled and not properly organized to fit the pencil haired bastards ridiculously high standards she had been given such a withering gaze by her superior that she had felt herself visibly shrink just the tiniest bit. But the want to smack the arrogant sod and prank him mercilessly was stronger.

How she wished she could pull out a heap of dungbombs or any other joke shop product and just reign full chaos upon this hellhole.

She looked up and, to her relief the line had actually moved significantly. In fact, She was only three heads away from being in the front of the line. Huh, that was...Weird.

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Regrets of a Useless Man

(Context: A story told from Edward Ryder’s perspective and explores how he grew up mentored by his father, to becoming an Auror and meeting Julianna and to the tragedy that caused the Ryder Family to spiral down a path of grief and neglect).

Useless.

Edward remembers how often that word was hissed at him with such venom in his youth. How hard it would make him physically recoil, and if it wasn't the venom behind the words that stung, it was the pain and shock from the slap that would often follow next.

He remembers so clearly the sound of hand meeting cheek echoing so loudly within the Hunter's room of the Ryder Family Manor that day, and how the shadows in the dark room, the dancing fire in the hearth and the countless portraits of long dead ancestors were the only things to lay witness to it.

The day had started off simple enough. His father had brought him to the library for his afternoon studies on magical combat and magic theory. Edmund had forced the studies onto him when he was just 7, and Edward was now 12. Today though, Edward found it difficult to focus on reading the ink written words on the paper before him, he instead thought of the words his father said to him the day he had first started bringing him into this room every afternoon to ready him for what he claimed to the then 7-year-old, was his destiny.

"Your mother may think I'm being too harsh on you boy, but a child must learn sooner or later if he is to make his way in life. And you, Edward, my son…You will bring this family to glory. You will take back what once was mine... You will make me proud."

His father had made it his goal to have Edward become the next Head Hunter of the Hunters of Artemis. The group of bounty hunters and other unsavory individuals who were tasked in hunting down those The Ministry could not. Members were either recruited by the group's leader or were sentenced into joining it by The Ministry if they deemed the criminal guilty but useful elsewhere other than filling the empty cells up in Azkaban.

The title of headhunter used to be his father's. Back when Ryder was up against Ryder during the Wolves Rebellion. Edward remembers bits and pieces of the bloodshed. Their family's civil war had only recently ended after all. And although Edward was still young when the war was at its peak, he was there to see the ending of it.

His father had lost a duel to the death for the title of headhunter against his own uncle and just when he was about to be killed, he was saved by his younger brother, Octavius Ryder, who would later become the next headhunter and finally put an end to their Family's civil war. While Octavius was hailed a hero by his family, Edmund Ryder was left crippled and was left to depend on a cane for the rest of his life.

"Edmund's leg wasn't the only thing that was left crippled, his pride and soul got crippled too."

His uncle Octavius had once told him that. And he knew it was true. Edward had seen the photos of his father back when he was younger. Before the Wolves Rebellion and before being damned to rely on a cane for the rest of his life. Edmund Ryder was a fierce and strong man. A man whose tall stature and commanding presence left his enemies either fleeing from the sight of him or hesitating to raise their wands. Knowing the moment they did, they would probably end up dead. But now though? Now Edmund Ryder was just a bitter old man who resorted to chasing his glory days and what he thought was rightfully his through his eldest son.

It was rather pathetic of him, to be honest.

"Get your head out of whatever childish fantasy you've ludicrously conjured, boy!" His father's sharp voice cut in. Snapping Edward out from his thoughts. He met his father's heated stare and could only sheepishly duck his head in apology. Silently hoping his father would let it go, just this once. He was a child after all, he could be allowed to be one every now and then couldn't he? But in Edmund's eyes, being a child meant close to nothing. He was just another soldier to train.

Edmund looked hard and long at his eldest son before letting out a huff and stood up from his seat. grabbing for his cane, he motioned for his eldest son to follow him. Edward looked at the door and calculated in his still youthful mind if making a mad dash for the door and hiding ‘til his mother came back from whatever social gathering his father had set up for her would be worth it. He knew it would not though. The first time he tried to escape his studies and sneak off to play with his siblings it hadn't ended well for either of them.

And so, the child silently got up and dutifully followed his father out of the room and into the halls. He could feel the eyes of the animated portraits his family had kept for centuries dig into the back of his skull and Edward so very badly wanted to shrink and hide away.

"You need to be reminded of what is at stake here, Edward." His father said as the steady clank of his cane meeting the floor echoed within the Manor with every step he took forward before taking a sharp left. And with that left, Edward knew exactly where his father was taking him to.

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Expanded Ryder Lore: The Wolves Rebellion

(Sometimes, all it takes is a few words for a family to turn against one another.

When the Ryder family finds themselves being requested an audience with a man named Gellert Grindelwald, Esteban Ryder and his brother, Orion Ryder decide to entertain the man and accept his request, not knowing that by doing so, a fight for the title of head hunter would soon take place. A fight where each family member would find themselves asking if they’d rather be a dragon or they’d rather be a wolf).

The Wolves Rebellion refers to a civil war that happened within the Ryder Family during the 1920s and lasted until the 1940s. It is regarded as one of the most bloody civil wars that happened within the Ryder family and nearly led to the House’s extinction.

The fighting came about because of a speech. Not just any speech but one given by none other than Gellert Grindelwald, regarded to be one of the most feared and most powerful dark lords of his time. Grindelwald was just coming into power and was seeking out allies and followers all over the world in order to rally an army large enough for war. He had already managed to sway a majority of the influential pure-blood families in Europe to join his side, and was now looking for new allies in the British Isles.

He had the Malfoy's, the Black's, and the Parkinson's families in his palm in an instant. As the dark lord was mulling over what family to sway to his side next, one name had managed to pique his interest, The Ryder Family.

The Ryder's were a feared and well-respected family known for their ferocity in battle and for their loyalty. Grindelwald had heard stories of the Ryder's toppling down many dangerous adversaries and mighty beasts, one of them being the very beast they had as their house crest, a dragon. But that wasn't what really got the dark lords attention, no. What got it were the rumors. Rumors of the family having a unique short of magic which came in the form of instinct. Instincts so strong they knew when to block a spell from an enemy before it was even shot, instinct that helped warn them of danger before it even took place, and as a seer, an ability that granted the man the ability to see visions of the future, Grindelwald was all too eager to see if the rumors were true and to see just how useful and alike his ability was with theirs.

And so Grindelwald sent a letter to the Ryder family, requesting to have an audience with them. The Ryder's were definitely ticked off by such arrogance, but the head of the family at that time, Esteban Ryder and Head Hunter, Esteban’s younger brother, Orion Ryder, had been hearing of this man for months now and decided to entertain him and accepted his request if not to just satisfy their own curiosity about this strange wizard from Germany.

The dark lord was welcomed into the Ryder Family's home in a show of good faith however Esteban, surrounded by his hounds and seated with his wife and 4 children by his side, demanded that the man get straight to the point about what he wanted. Grindelwald obliged to the man's demand and told them. And told him they did for not even a minute later did the Ryder's find themselves entranced by the man's honeyed words.

As the man spoke of his vision and dream for a world where wizards and witches could be free and didn’t have to hide in the shadows, Esteban took a look across the room and let his eyes take in the faces of the rest of his family members, he felt a wave of unease wash over him and settle at the bottom of his heart as he saw the hunger that swam in their eyes that only grew larger with every pretty word and lie that left the dark lord’s mouth.

For when the Ryder’s fled to the British Isles following Adrian Ryder and his family’s betrayal back in the 17th century, The family of hunters suddenly found themselves being hunted. The Ministry had been informed by the new fledgling American wizarding government, MACUSA of the Ryder family’s possible involvement with scourers and of their bloody history of hunting down mercenaries and dragons, and so The Ministry did what they did best. They killed those who they feared and nearly had the entire family exterminated like rodents. It was only when the Minister of Magic realized that the Ryder’s would be more useful to him alive than dead did he decide to spare them and cease the bloodshed. The Minister had the Ryder’s and their hunters swear loyalty to The Ministry and the once proud family of dragons found themselves reduced to loyal hunting dogs.

Grindelwald knew damn well about the Ryder’s being reduced to such a sorry state and having their freedom stripped away from them so fucking easily. And cleverly used it to get them on his side. He told them, “why should you all be muzzled and treated like dogs when you are something so much mightier than that? You are dragons, and dragons do not cower in front of anyone.”

Grindelwald thanked Esteban and Orion Ryder for their time and bid them farewell, and as the dark lord left the family to contemplate on his words, he also left with them a seed. A seed of doubt and malice that would soon sprout and dig it’s vile roots within the Ryder family that would cause them to have a power struggle that would leave body after body in its wake.

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Two Lesbians and a Baby

(Context: A short story that takes place in the AU Eileen and Merula end up together during the Second Wizarding War).

“I thought you said not to get attached to the baby.”

Merula jumped in surprise from the voice behind her, causing her to jostle the baby cradled in her arms. She took a quick look down to make sure it was still sleeping and not getting ready to scream itself hoarse for having its nap interrupted and was relieved to find the little thing not making a fuss like it normally had these past few weeks of taking care of the insufferable thing.

The cursebreaker let out a sigh of relief. Glad that she didn’t have to deal with the nasty bugger before turning her attention to her wife and giving her her best withering glare. The kind that made most of her pathetic coworkers back at Gringotts cower beneath the powerful witch’s gaze. But Eileen, who had been married to Merula for 2 years and had known the Slytherin for far longer merely chuckled into her hand, completely unaffected by the threats and death glares her wife sent her at this point which was something Merula wasn't all too happy about.

“Have you gone mad Ryder? Of course I haven’t gotten attached to this pathetic, smelly little hell spawn!” Merula huffed as she straightened her posture and looked up at her dearly detested bastard of a spouse.

Eileen merely gave the shorter woman an amused look as she stared up and down at the way the Slytherin was unconsciously angling her body to better shield the baby from any potential danger. Her eyes softened as they landed onto the still sleeping bundle in her wife’s arms which only caused Merula to feel annoyance start to claw up her throat.

“If there’s anyone who’s getting attached to this thing it’s you! You’ve been acting all soft and dopey eyed these entire two weeks of caring for this brat! Honestly, the way this thing has gotten you wrapped around it’s tiny little finger is pathetic even for you, Ryder.’ Merula spat out venomously.

"Oh, and you haven't? I've seen the way you look at the little fella when you cradle him in your arms, or the way you give him one of your rare gentle smiles the few times you managed to wrangle a giggle out of him. Or how when he wakes up in the middle of the night and it's your turn to take care of him, you grumble about it but sing him back to sleep anyway. You may deny it but you secretly love caring for this little bundle of joy that you lovingly call a 'hell spawn'.

“Face it Merl, you're completely enamoured with this little guy."

#eileen ryder #edward ryder #merula snyde #tulip karasu #hphm #harry potter hogwarts mystery #hogwarts mystery mc #hogwarts mystery #the ryder family #ryder family lore #keep in mind I'm still new to writing ya'll #its only in this fandom that I finally got the nerve to well #write and actually post that writing so yeah #hope u all liked it #I made #an entire timeline for the ryder family #just to keep track of the lore and eileen's story #as well as a family tree just so I could write the wolves rebellion lore #my writing

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estherwritess · 4 years

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Hi, I’d like Soldier AU + Ushijima plsss

Here u go anon!

wc: <1k

Ushijima x reader

The tapping of shoes fills the tent you were stationed in, your hands ruffling through documents as you had finally finished tending to the injured soldiers under your wing; some were peacefully sleeping of their minor wounds while others were very clearly fighting off a nasty infection they’d gotten from sloughing through the trenches filled with god knows what kind of mud. Your white uniform was a crisp contrast in comparison to the bloodied and dirtied men laying on the field beds scattered around.

You’d often fear for your life as you heard screaming and gunfire not too far away, wondering if you’d have to flee from the enemy if they managed to break through the defenses; it was often caused you to lose sleep, keeping you up into the late hours of the morning, checking up on your patients.

You’re tirelessly cleaning out the large wound a soldier had recently been brought in with, his groans lead you to believe he must be in excruciating pain. The days were rarely special to you, always the same routines, the same men coming in, the same ambulances dropping off their injured soldiers into your and your colleagues mercy. You were in and out of the sweaty operating rooms, occasionally assisting the doctor on an although life-saving, very impractical surgery. The man thanks you as you wrap up the wound, handling with the utmost care as to not agitate or cause him any more pain.

There’s more yelling at the front of the tent, desperate shrieks for a nurse, a doctor, anyone. You excuse yourself, feet hauling you to the entrance of the tent with the doctor trailing your feet; a shock of dark-brown hair, a mane of it, above heavy, brown brows, contracted in pain. The man had both arms hung around the necks of his comrades, struggling to keep his head up, eyelids looking as heavy as you’d ever seen them. You rushed over to look for an empty bed, the men carrying their friend behind you, trailing your footsteps with impressive speed; seeing as the man they were holding up seemed to be heavily built, broad shoulders, a wide chest and as far as you could see he had quite the muscular arms too.

Pulling out one of the folded beds proved to be quite the feat in the heat of the moment, your arms tirelessly tugging at the creaky old field bed, the thing barely budging. Once you managed to snap open the bed, the men dropped their friend onto the bed, their curious eyes turned towards you and the doctor at your side now.

“Name?” Your voice is monotone, the questioning was almost like an automatism to you, you no longer raised any eyebrows at the odd answers you’d often get. A white haired min speaks up, his expression is minimally expressive as he looks you in the eye.

“Ushijima Wakatoshi,” he pulls out the recovered dog tag, handing it over to you.

The second man with spiked hair butts in, “he’s taken a bullet wound to the leg and stomach.”

“Alright, dr. Shiro and I will take things over from here on out, you can come visit tomorrow.” You push yourself up, walking towards the back to gather certain supplies, and getting to work while Shiro looks into the soldier’s condition. You stop in your tracks, his face seeming so oddly familiar to you.

It’s late at night as you step into the tent, your shift starting soon, you pass by the newly brought in soldier. You’re surprised to see he’s awake seeing as this morning he was in a critical state, your eyes shift to the nearly empty IV, poorly strung up on a stand.

“Let me get you a new one, alright hun?” with smooth movements you disconnect the line from the bag, replacing it with fresh one to keep his fluids replenished. His eyes silently follow you, hands resting next to his body.

You pick up the paper with instructions from Shiro,

“Have you eaten anything yet or did the evening nurse bring you something?” he merely shakes his head, curiously craning his neck towards the paper you were holding.

“Alright then, i’ll get you something.”

You come back as he’s still sitting in the same spot, unmoving as you place the field hospitals issued meal in front of him, “it’ll help your damaged tissue heal, so eat up alright?”.

“Thank you,” it’s the first time you hear his voice, your head turns faster than you can register, it’s deep and velvety as the words roll off his tongue. The voice takes you back to your days as an innocent and bright-eyed student, untainted by the horrors that had passed in front of your eyes. It takes you back to that innocent school crush, and how much he had changed in the passed time. You’re painfully aware of how you’re stuck to the floor, grounded by unadulterated shock; he must’ve noticed your reaction, his eyes meeting yours as his expression changes into something that’s undecipherable to you.

“You wouldn’t happen to be the Ushijima from 8 years ago, would you?” you decide to take the chance, your voice somehow loses it’s over the years gathered professionalism. You suddenly feel like you’re small again, unknowing and scared.

“You’re Y/N?” his voice seems to be equally as small as yours, he’s sat up; you quickly rush over, ushering him to sit back once again and insisting that it isn’t good for his freshly packed wounds. It feels somehow like a dream, you’re so close to his face here that you can feel his laboured breaths hitting the skin for your cheeks.

You pull away, realizing what was happening, an awkward smile lifting the corners of your lips up.

“I am, maybe you’d like to catch up sometime when you recover, i’ll let you think about it,” you quickly take your queue and rush out, the redness of your cheeks feeling like you’d been set on fire.

@hihiq @mitzwinchester @izzyphantomgamer @clauclaustar @idiot-juice-enthusiast @kara-grayson04 @yams046 (dm to be added! )

#haikyuuwritersnet #ushijma x reader #ushijima imagine #ushijima fluff #haikyuu x reader #ushijima wakatoshi #hq ushijima #ushijima scenarios #haikyuu #haikyuu imagines #haikyuu prompts #haikyuu requests #haikyuu scenarios #hq headcanons

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majorshiraharu · 4 years

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Fluff with Rex, Cody Fives and Echo (before the citadel) where they go for dinner at a live music restaurant and they take the reader with them? The reader's been there before so she has a surprise in store for the clones. The reader has a small mic attached to her chest and she surprises the clones by singing a song at the restaurant when the live musicians come to the clones' and reader's table, and by the end of the night, she ends up performing live for everyone at the restaurant.

---------------------------------- Rex, Fives, Echo, and Cody Listen to Reader Sing ---------------------------------- "So Y/N you've been here before?" Cody askes you as Echo holds open the door to the restaurant, Rex, and Fives both walking behind you. "I have, I'm surprised you guys have never been here," you replied stepping inside. "Well we really only ever hang out in the barracks or at 79's cause most civvies don't like us hanging out at their places," Fives said. "Luckily the civvies here don't care," you replied standing off to the side of the door as all of you waited for Rex to return. --"I got us a table," Rex said pointing over to one of the corners. "Awesome!" You reply walking towards the direction he pointed as the rest followed you. It's a table on one of the far walls of the restaurant, dim lighting, and less noise from the crowded bar. - This restaurant had live music the band would play on a stage that was raised slightly and set up just beyond the bar, people would crowd around there a lot. They'd invite people to sing along to the music, which usually ended up with someone being too drunk to sing properly going up there, but it was entertaining. --"What do we order?" Fives asked Echo who was sitting next to you. "How am I supposed to know, just pick something you like the sound of," he replied. "Yeah, but I don't know any of these sounds," Fives said sarcastically making everyone shake their heads at his dumb joke. "You're an arc trooper now, figure it out," Rex said jabbing him with his elbow. "Arc training didn't prepare me for this." "Well, you boys find something to eat and drink, I'll be right back," you say sliding out of the booth seating and heading off to an area behind their view. "Where's Y/N going?" Fives asked trying to sit up slightly to see where you were going. "Probably to the restrooms, focus on the menu otherwise we'll be here all night," Cody joked making Fives roll his eyes as he sat back down. - In one of the back rooms, you meet up with one of your friends who worked here, since this dinner was a celebration for Fives and Echo finishing their Arc training you wanted to sing some for them. Your friend hooks you up with a mic and gives you the button to turn it on and off with. "Thanks, for doing this!" You tell her. "No problems Y/N I'm glad we can give some of our soldiers a good time here, I'm sure they'll be delighted to hear you sing." "Too bad more places didn't treat them with the same kindness, but I'm happy this place does," you reply walking out the door and back to your booth.

-- "Y/N there you are, they came to get our orders, the droid said they already had yours so we ordered ours, hope that's okay," Rex said to you as you sat down. "Yeah, I let them know when I was back there, they should be bringing around some drinks soon to hold us over till the food comes" All of you wait for a while enjoying your drinks and the music as you awaited the arrival of your food. --The server bot came over sliding everyone's plates down in front of them, the food here tasted amazing, it had been a while since you were last here, but you could never forget how great it was, the others seem to be enjoying it as well, a good change from the Republic grub they were used to eating. --Everyone had finished eating and was just relaxing, contemplating if they should get some of the appetizers or desserts. Two of the band members come over to the booth your all at, you had hoped you wouldn't be this nervous. As they stop right by your table you click on the mic, your hands shaking slightly, but you take a long calming breath before you start singing. Drawing the attention from Cody, Rex, Fives, and Echo who had previously been focused on one of the menus, now looking at you and each other with shocked expressions, you continue to sing the soft melody, luckily they had you pick the songs out beforehand otherwise you'd have been even more nervous. The smiles on their faces helped put you at ease as the song went on and until it ended, they clapped as well as some of the other restaurant guests who had heard you. "That was incredible," Echo said bumping your shoulder. "I didn't know you could sing," Cody says looking over at you. "Secret talent," you joke as the band members walked away. -- Echo and Fives ended up ordering some more food for everyone to enjoy, as it got later into the night and any previous nervousness you had vanished along with the light outside, - you decided to sing one more song for them. Getting up you start to walk away from your table, the boys looking at each other in confusion. "Where are you going this time?" Fives shouted cocking his head. "I'm going to sing," you replied walking over and onto the stage. "On stage?" Echo said to his brothers with a surprised look. "My bravery must be rubbing off on her," Fives said in a tone that was meant to be taken seriously but instead his brothers only laughed at him.

-Taking the stage you walk over grabbing the mic off the stand it was currently on as the music began to play -- the guests looked at you, taking in another deep breath you wait for the queue of the music before singing.

Even though you had said to yourself you'd sing one song for them you instead sang a few more, the stillness of the night brought to life by the sound of your voice. -- As you and the boys left the restaurant after an eventful night they couldn't stop gushing over how pleasant your voice was, Echo joking that it could have lulled him to sleep. - All of you promised to do this again sometime, knowing that each one of you could use a good fun break from the daily life of war.

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arcadianambivalence · 4 years

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World on Fire, Episode 5: Us-Versus-Them

Late May 1940—Early June 1940

Harry’s BEF unit has dwindled down to four exhausted men straggling through the fog. Belgium has fallen to the German invasion. Refugees and soldiers line the roads all the way to the horizon as hundreds, if not thousands, walk to the coast. Stuka screamers swoop down over them in a practice called strafing.

Harry’s unit picks up a lost French girl and her dog and later finds a group of shell-shocked soldiers and two Senegalese soldiers separated from their unit in Ypres. (Yes! Something that includes the colonial forces!) Stan is suspicious that some of the men could be faking their symptoms to hide that they’re German spies or British deserters, but Harry refuses to leave the men behind as the group makes a long and perilous journey to the coast.

Along the way, they stop at a field hospital in hopes that the shell-shocked soldiers could be treated, but the head doctor says the hospital is full to capacity and cannot take everyone. The doctor in question? None other than Webster O’Conner! The interactions between the Parisian characters and the soldiers are brief, but it’s always a delight when characters from different storylines converge.

So, exhausted and still covered in blood from the attack on the road, the soldiers set out again with only a vague order of retreat and a possibly false map on a propaganda flyer to guide them. The German line is pushing in, and anyone left behind will be taken prisoner...from the French soldiers guarding the perimeter to the wounded in the field hospital.

Uwe receives the first letter from the Institute. He yells at his workers for displaying Nazi flags (because they could get “caught in the machines”) and draws the attention of an employee who is a proud member of the Nazi party. He tells Claudia (still at the lake house with Hilde) of the news, and the two resolve to be strong for their daughter, no matter what happens or how they disagree.

Later, the Nazi employee reveals that she knows about Hilde and her hiding place. Enraged, Uwe reacts like I’m sure many parents would want to if their child is threatened. He follows the employee into the factory and strikes her face with an iron. Between the blow of the iron, her fall onto a table, and her final descent to the concrete floor, the employee dies of head trauma.

Now with an even more urgent problem, Uwe turns to Nancy for help, and it turns out Nancy has had some experience with carrying a corpse in the past. Like the backstory of Harry’s father, Nancy’s history is still kept under wraps. Did she report on the Spanish Civil War? Something in America? Maybe the next two episodes will involve an explanation.

Douglas and Robina continue to meet and see Jan. Robina starts to look at Douglas with something more than pleasantness as he bonds with Jan.

(Again, I ask, if their kids are broken up for good, can they get together?)

But this enemies-to-friends-to-they’d-never-admit-to-wanting-to-be-lovers relationship still has its hurdles, particularly how they don’t see eye-to-eye about the war. Then there’s Robina’s lingering prejudices.

ROBINA: I can’t make out if [Jan’s] dourness is a racial characteristic or his personal disposition.

DOUGLAS: I’m not sure the Poles are a race.

ROBINA: Well, they aren’t like us, are they?

(Oh, there’s an us now?)

Across the Channel, Lois is now visibly pregnant and is treated differently for it, something underscored by her conversation with her manager, who suggests that she stand still while performing.

LOIS: Are you saying I wobble, Ted?

A pilot tries to make conversation with her and Connie (suspicion is drawn to his “Canadian” accent) but is rebuffed. Lois makes a wonderful stink face.

Gotta wonder if Stan’s fear of spies is foreshadowing for that guy being a spy.

She later speaks with a pilot, Vernon Hunter, who is immediately drawn to her. He would be part of the RAF’s support of the evacuation, but his “kite” (plane) was damaged and needs repair. The two have tea and meet a few times over the next days.

VERNON: I meet a lot of men who think they’re strong, Lois, but I know strength when I see it. And you have it in abundance.

Polite and observant? A pilot and a gentleman? It’s like Vernon walked out of an old movie—complete with tilted cap and proper accent.

Before he leads his men out and her ENSA troop moves on to their next show, Vernon asks Lois if he can write to her. She gives him her address on an envelope originally from Harry, but she keeps the old letter. She’s starting to let go of Harry, but not entirely. Not yet.

(Let him go, Lois! You’re always so sad when you’re in a scene with him. Be with someone who makes you smile and reminds you that you’re already strong!)

He looks at her like she hung the moon. It’s great. (Possible spy is by the piano).

Tom is one of the sailors delivering soldiers across the English channel.

TOM: How come our ship is called HMS Keith? Keith isn’t the name you give to a fighting ship. All the other ships are called Atlantic, Calcutta, Dreadnought. And we get Keith.

His bitter monologue about the un-inspiring name of the HMS Keith is ironic for a couple of reasons:

1. Because apparently his experiences on the Exeter weren’t enough for him

2. Because the HMS Keith would be sunk on June 1st, so in a bleak sense of luck, Tom could switch ships then.

3. Because once again, Tom is taking part in a historic event and doesn’t treat it as such.

4. Because characters eventually do get on lifeboats for a ship that captures Tom’s imagination, the Calcutta.

After months and months of walking, Grzegorz finally reaches the coast.* But Tom, having no knowledge whatsoever of Grzegorz’s background or the long and horrible journey he has had, refuses him room on the lifeboat because he skipped the queue and German planes are likely to return any minute. The confrontation only escalates from there. Tom points his gun at Grzegorz, who desperately challenges him with “I am not afraid of death.” A soldier pushes Grzegorz into the water with a dismissive, “Go fight for your own country!”

This is one of several scenes that highlight how people can sometimes draw behind national, ethnic, and racial divisions in times of stress, and how others can choose to cross these boundaries. Along with reminding the viewers of the less heroic sides of Dunkirk (there is more than one account of someone trying to get to a boat shot by a person in that boat), it also brings out the differences between Tom, Grzegorz, and Harry.

In a later scene, a soldier starts a fight with Harry’s unit over the Senegalese soldiers because they are part of the French colonial forces (and thus, to him, France’s responsibility to evacuate). Instead of leaving Demba and Ibrahim on the beach, Harry fires his gun into the air and commands that the Senegalese men remain with the group.

But beneath all their dramatic declarations is the fact that all three of them want to live. So when German planes fly over the beach and begin to strafe and bomb the men in the lifeboats and on the beach, everyone runs for cover. Higher up on the beach, Grzegorz is able to duck behind a crate. Tom is without shelter and collapses. It is unclear if he is still living.

Across the English Channel, Douglas senses something is terribly wrong. Already anxious over news of the evacuation (which would have become public knowledge on May 31st, as far as I’ve read), he rushes to Robina’s to see if, as the mother of an officer, she knows more about Harry’s survival, and possibly Tom’s. Concerned with Douglas’s emotional state, Robina refuses him entry in the house.

One thing that caught my attention when I rewatched this episode was how, up until this point, Douglas has generally made certain to call his children “my Tom” and “my Lois” and Robina’s son “your Tom.” In his anxiety, he refers to his son as “our Tom.”

Alone at home, Douglas continues to spiral into a panic attack, trembling, crying, and even having flashbacks of the sounds of distant fire. Lois and Connie eventually find him and try to calm him down, but Douglas refuses to rest without knowing what happened to Tom.

The undercurrent of identity runs throughout the show, from Robina’s referral of Jan as part of a Polish “race” to the sense of class in the Bennett family to Albert’s sense of isolation. You could extend the us-versus-them to the compartmentalization Kasia uses to cope with the murders of soldiers or the way Nancy navigates life as an antifascist reporter representing a neutral America in Nazi Berlin. World on Fire encourages the viewer to examine the contradictions and grey areas.

On one hand, you have Harry.

Harry starts to do more overtly heroic things this episode. He commands the inclusion of the shell shocked soldiers and stranded Senegalese soldiers. He makes sure Stan’s gut wound is checked. More than once, he uses his body as a shield from German planes and attacks.

What if Geoff is a spy? What if staying behind with the shell shocked soldiers seals their doom? But what if he isn’t a spy, and what if the soldiers are all taken to safety? No longer frozen in panic and concern for his men, Harry is spurred to action because of his concern for his men.

And yet, this show does not pass Harry’s choices off as simply heroic and worthy of praise or conversely fall into the ‘goodness-is-stupid’ narrative. It makes certain to show that Harry’s compassion is both an asset and a potential danger to everyone around him.

As Vernon Hunter says, “About the only thing left to believe in. Kindness.”

As Geoff says, “You are kind.”

On the other hand, you have Kasia, who is also driven by compassion, but whose options for resisting and fighting Germans and Nazism are very different. The routine she has with Thomasz of luring soldiers into the ruins in Warsaw and killing them inside.

Kasia tells Thomasz that she cannot remember the faces of the men they’ve killed, and that is how it must be. It’s killing them inside to do this, but they cannot think of another way of avenging the Poles killed in the invasion and in the massacres since then. To make things worse, we as the viewers know the danger ahead. There will be no evacuation or backup for Poland anymore, and certainly no miracles for Kasia and Thomasz.

*For Grzegorz to reach France, he would have had to walk through Germany, the Netherlands, and Belgium. While it is possible that the British forces he met in the previous episode gave him a lift at some point between Konrad’s death and his last appearance in the episode, it still doesn’t answer how Grzegorz was able to cross through Germany. Even if between episodes three and four, Konrad and Grzegorz managed to get on a boat that would take them out of Poland, around Denmark, and finally to the French or Belgian coast, you’d think we’d get some scene of this. It’s even more unlikely when you consider that in the same time, Eddie has made his way from Paris to Dunkirk on foot with likely regular stops for employment. But that’s really the only big stretch of imagination this show has asked of us, so I’ll just have to let it go.

Notes

The newspaper shown in the first scene between Douglas and Robina is dated Tuesday, May 28th. If we’re to use the night scenes, Lois and Connie’s change of clothes, and Tom’s mention of the HMS Keith as a reference, then this episode takes place over four to five days, ending around the date the HMS Keith sank, June 1st.

Eddie playing his trumpet while waiting along the outskirts of Dunkirk is one of my favorite images of this episode:

Resources and Further Reading

https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/what-you-need-to-know-about-the-dunkirk-evacuations

https://www.naval-history.net/xGM-Chrono-10DD-14B-HMS_Keith.htm

http://dunkirk1940.org/index.php?&p=1_187

Photographs

https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205194325

https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205194324

#world on fire #world on fire pbs #world on fire bbc #long post

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mrepstein · 5 years

Photo

Daily Mirror - Monday August 28, 1967 [high res image: x]

The Star Maker

By BRIAN McCONNELL and BERNARD FALK

They called him the Prince of Pop... the Napoleon of Show Business. And Brian Epstein earned his fame and his nicknames the hard way.

He once said of his struggle to the top: “It was tough. You shout and you fight and you claw and if you haven’t got faith and tenacity, you give up. I kept on.”

But Epstein, the Star Maker, was more modest about his greatest show business find - the Beatles. He repeatedly denied that their success was due to him.

Thirty-two-year-old Epstein stumbled across the Beatles when he was selling records in his family’s Liverpool store.

Ruthless

People kept asking for their records, so - in November, 1961 - he went to the Cavern Club to hear them.

A month later, he signed them up - and Epstein, the former public school boy who had been a window-dresser, salesman and soldier, was on the way to making them millionaires and becoming one himself.

Many things drove Epstein on to success. He was a formidable man whose bland smile and affable charm could hide a ruthless streak.

But mainly it was his craving for friends that gave him the talent of finding unknowns and making them famous.

For even in the limelight, surrounded by the big names of show business and the fans, Epstein was a lonely man.

And loneliness was the thing he feared most.

The four Beatles were among the few people he regarded as real friends.

He liked them, he said, because they were natural.

One cause of his shyness and loneliness was his unhappy days at boarding school.

Social

He left at 16 and decided to be “good at things I like, rather than work at things which will give me social company.”

And it was selling records in the North End Musical Stores - which gave his enterprise the name NEMS - that Epstein heard of the Beatles.

As their manager, he believed in them, and had many rejections from recording companies.

The first record was not a success, and they operated at a loss in the first year.

Then, as Epstein put it: “Well over a year’s hard work, a bit of luck, and we were in.

“I didn’t make them. I was not their boss. I was their friend.”

Besides the Beatles, the Epstein “stable” included Cilla Black, Gerry and the Pacemakers, Billy J. Kramer and other big “names.”

In 1964, Epstein moved from Liverpool to London, bought a £31,000 house in Belgravia, and ventured further into business.

He backed several successful London shows and gained a controlling interest in the Saville Theatre.

Last night, the lights went out at the theatre after the first house.

Of the Beatles, by the Beatles and for the Beatles..

By DONALD ZEC

Brian Epstein discovered the Beatles.

The phrase is short, but its significance, whether measured in millions or by the way it jolted an antiquated world right down to its hardening arteries, is a phenomenon of the century.

It must now stand as the untimely epitaph - to one of the most extraordinary, almost unparalleled careers in the history of entertainment.

Brian Epstein did not merely unleash a new, exciting sound. He harnessed its vibrant energies, lived to see it orchestrate the young revolution now pulling the rug out from under the entire world.

Those of us who recoiled with faint derision at John, Paul, George and Ringo’s thundering and unscissored debut were soon to have our old-fashioned smiles knocked sideways.

To Epstein the swinging sound first heard in that dark, dank cave in Liverpool was something raw, fresh, unfathomable. But Epstein was no cigar-smoking business manager in for the fast percentage and out again when the heat cooled off.

He was of the Beatles, by the Beatles, for the Beatles.

He loved their restless music, poured their lagers and lime, lived with them, jazzed around with them, erected the tough yet silken curtain between them and those jealous for a piece of the action.

Embraced

He was part of the “scene.” The moods, the fancies and the fantasies, the transcendental “experiences,” the new cults and cultures that embraced the Beatles, embraced Epstein, too.

He loved them. I know that because he told me so - with the quiet candour that won friends and made enemies.

And they loved him. Not because he helped to make them millionaires (although there were no audible complaints on that score).

They rooted for him because he was ahead of them in the minefields, pointing a way, offering a hand.

John Lennon has said: “He’s the only one we take things from. He’s one above us. We couldn't be run by anybody but him - not anybody.”

The question, too early to be asked but soon to be answered is this: Can the Beatles, the most lucrative quartet in pop entertainment - survive without Epstein?

A dim, but mercenary entrepreneur of the old school might have been glad to squeeze this talented foursome dry, chew them up and spit them out on to the open market. But Epstein, like the Beatles music, was out of a different and more substantial mould.

Tough to deal with, determined, shrewd, coolly suspicious - he was all that to be sure. But anyone who goes out on safari into a jungle must know how to deal with the man eaters and the rest of the devious carnivores.

Handsome

The big Hollywood magnates who welcomed this slim, handsome, deceptively genial gent into their close-carpeted offices were convinced they could con the cuff-links off his Turnbull and Asser shirts.

In about thirty seconds flat he had them reaching for their ulcer pills, meekly accepting his terms, lodged uncomfortably in their gullets.

It was hard enough to take from any business manager. Coming from this polite, diffident 32-year-old made grit in the eye a more acceptable hazard.

My last meeting with him was over lunch at his period house in Belgravia. Cilla Black was there. She, too, was an Epstein discovery. She, too, like the Beatles, was raised from street level to a penthouse suite.

The intuitive skill of Brian Epstein resided in his sure knowledge of what millions of young people wanted in music - what excited him.

Agents told him that Cilla Black, nasal of voice, homely of face, wouldn’t earn a penny at the box office. Epstein advised them to queue for the next performance. She now tops the bill, is starring in a film.

She too, will feel that a mighty comforting arm slipped from her shoulder last night....

Epstein entertained me in a house which, like its owner, was stylish and defiantly extravagant - a luxurious mixture of mosaics and old masters. An 8ft. blow-up of the handsome face of El Cordobes, the bullfighter, adorned the bathroom wall.

The famous Spaniard was his friend. So too, was Nureyev the ballet dancer.

Vanity

But unlike those blazing extroverts Epstein was a mild egocentric masquerading as an enigma. He permitted himself the odd, amusing touch of vanity - like having as his telegraphic address simply “Nemperor” - the “nem” for his vast company NEMS Enterprises. The rest you will grasp for yourselves.

His was no rags-to-riches tale. He came from an Orthodox Jewish middle-class family; went to RADA; ran a record shop, discovered the Beatles, turned the pop world on its slightly-deafened ear, taking it all inscrutably over a cup of China tea.

In the last few months Epstein, like one or two of the Beatles, entered the bizarre world of experiments in “mind perception.” He has declared in interviews his experiments with marijuana and LSD. And like others who have “turned on” he strenuously defended it.

Did he know that LSD could have extremely damaging and sometimes fatal effects, Mike Hennessey of the Melody Maker asked him recently.

Epstein replied: “I did have some apprehension, but I took that risk. I think LSD helped me to know myself better and I think it helped me to become less bad tempered.”

Whatever the effects of the drug, there can be no doubt that Epstein had withdrawn from the more raucous and spectacular elements of show business.

He lived almost like a recluse, more the mystic, less the manager.

The mysticism has acquired a harsh and tragic reality.

To manage this sometimes difficult, sometimes beguiling, often downright cussed group required a kind of gentleness, kindness and goodwill.

Brian Epstein had those qualities and considerable skill besides.

Not only the Beatles mourned and measured their loss last night.

#Brian Epstein #Daily Mirror #Donald Zec #Bernard Falk #Brian McConnell #newspaper #August 28 #1967 #60s

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paullicino · 5 years

Text

Point Roberts

Taken from and generously funded by my Patreon.

“Who else is doing a landing?” asked the customs officer. Someone put their hand up as well as me. Someone else had just had their documents completed. Another person responded affirmatively to every single question asked, including the one about landing, because she was either confused or just wanted to beat the queue.

There wasn’t much of a queue to beat. The waiting room of the border crossing was the size of a living room. On the other side of a broad counter, half a dozen Canadian immigration officers sat around desks, quietly typing away as if they were doing any other job in the world.

* * *

A landing is a formal arrival in Canada. It marks your change of immigration status. Of course, to arrive in Canada, a person must first be outside of Canada. Fortunately, even though Canada is the second-largest country in the world, I was pretty near the edge of it.

I was near a very weird edge of it.

But before I tell you about Point Roberts, I should probably tell you about the corner of British Columbia called the Lower Mainland. Vancouver and its surrounding settlements are all within twenty miles of the United States, making a trip to a different country a very quick, even spontaneous affair. If you’re a Canadian, you can even cross this border without being photographed, fingerprinted or interviewed. Then, suddenly, you’re in the land of Different.

And the land of Different presents all sorts of possibilities, possibilities with substantial economic considerations. Gasoline is much cheaper. Electronics often are, too. International shipping and distribution are no longer relevant, as you become the importer of your own goods. And, in Washington State, firearms are readily available and long guns can be bought by American citizens without need of any permit, or by “non-immigrant aliens” if they spend a hundred and fifty dollars getting a state ID, a hunting license and an Alien Firearms License.

If I stayed in Washington State and got those documents could buy this Barratt rifle that takes bullets half an inch in diameter and which can hit targets almost two miles away. I just called the gun shop to check. They said yes.

The economic pull of the United States pulls Lower Mainlanders south a lot. They order packages to special shipping centers just across the border, then rush back with them. They fill up their cars. They head to shopping malls and department stores. They find everything that’s Different.

This can sometimes create weird problems for distribution. Why even bother to try to sell your product in the Lower Mainland when so many of the customers there are going to come to your country to get it? Why even ship it?

Americans are pulled the other way by the relative strength of their dollar. Right now, those dollars stretch 33% further. They drive up to eat, to camp, to study and to buy medications, including insulin. For someone in Seattle, it’s an easy day trip. For someone closer, it’s barely an afternoon.

As a European, I know that there’s a different version of this strange symbiosis in so many places. Scandinavia has its jokes about who is buying alcohol from which country. British travellers head to France for cheap wine and cigarettes. Italy and France... argue about fashion.

Weird things happen at borders. Weird things. It’s a weird thing to divide the world so arbitrarily and it creates weird behaviours. You walk a short distance and reality is suddenly different. Or you are different. Or both.

* * *

All this contributes to Point Roberts being a weird, weird corner of the world. History is geography, particularly if Britain is involved and, in a classically British move, the Oregon Treaty of 1846 drew a big and broad line across western North America at the 49th Parallel. It divided the continent between the UK and the US. Broad strokes are rarely wise and not only were there some subsequent arguments over who owned which islands (during which a pig was tragically killed), there was also the issue of a piece of land two miles long, jutting south out of Canada.

It’s ours, said the United States. We’re keeping it. They filled it up with soldiers and it became a stopping-off point for travellers headed elsewhere. It would be a little over fifty years before settlers had permission to make their homes there and then the 20th Century would see a gradual influx of immigrants from… Canada.

Point Roberts is full of Canadians. Not completely, but significantly. They own holiday homes. They own boats. They are visiting to collect packages. They are visiting to buy gasoline. They are visiting for the summer. Meanwhile, the Americans there have no hospital, no dentist, no public transport and no high school. They have a lighthouse. They have an airfield. They have a single border crossing through which all traffic must come and go. They assume you’ll have a car.

I walked across it, but not before a man on a bicycle beat me to it, pedalling off into the United States to never be seen again. A sign told pedestrians to follow little painted footprints up to an office door and a man inside asked why I was visiting his country. I had to tell him that I wasn’t and to kick me out.

* * *

Flagpoling is the act of leaving Canada and returning to validate a new visa or, in my case, Permanent Residence documents. I could, in theory, also book an appointment somewhere in Canada to validate my documents but the waiting time for this is long and if you want to be seen within sixty days you must classify as urgent.

People flagpole at the US border all the time. They flagpole at Peace Arch, the fancy monument between British Columbia and Washington. They flagpole at Niagara Falls. They flagpole at Lewiston, Ontario or Sault Ste Marie.

The thing is, all those border crossings are busy. They’re full of tourists and travellers and guards and security. In Point Roberts, one bored man in an office stamped my passport, gave it back to me and told me to walk back around the small building he worked in to the other small building that the Canadians worked in. His colleagues talked about a party that was happening later.

I looked south. A long, bare road ran all the way down to the sea. There were no barriers anywhere. I could just… walk off. The man continued to be bored. Do you need to escort me, I asked him?

“Do you need to be escorted?” he asked. “Are you a danger?”

I walked out. I was in the United States and there was nothing between me and the rest of it. There was, I guess, a chance for the bored man to pursue me if I dashed south. There was also only two miles of land for me to flee too. The range of a high caliber rifle round.

There were hardly any cars. There were hardly any people. There was hardly any anything, just like there never has been.

* * *

I re-entered the United States later that day and I can tell you that Point Roberts has a thousand residents, three places to eat, a couple of gas stations, no sidewalks and a shitty fisherman statue that looks like a budget Gandalf. Most license plates I saw were Canadian. The most developed and impressive structure is a marina. There were hardly any shops. There were hardly any facilities. There was hardly any anything, not even that cyclist, just roads leading into trees and quiet, sleeping houses.

A few more of those are being built. I bet they’ll be sold to Canadians.

While I was there, the sun went down. It plunged into the Pacific and the sky was all dark grey clouds and the distant yellow mottling of tankers, ferries and island towns. I saw a working lighthouse, which I have never before seen in my life, and I discovered it was little more than scaffolding and a lamp. I didn’t care. I’d never seen a lighthouse in person before.

I’d been sick that morning. I hadn’t slept much because I had been expecting to go to Point Roberts, which I’d never done before, to flagpole, which I’d never done before, then hopefully complete my Permanent Residence process, which I’d never done before. When I’d started that process, I was told it might take as little as six to nine months. It had been more than two years and I had received two rejection letters, as well as an email from my lawyer saying this was a big mistake.

My mind had turned everything over and then my stomach had decided to do that, too.

* * *

But as I had crossed straight back into Canada after that flagpoling, nothing at all was happening. Everyone, everywhere was bored. A Canadian border guard asked my why I was entering his country. He scribbled “PR” on a slip of yellow paper that was mostly full of questions about what firearms I might have, maybe which states they were from or what licenses I held.

British Columbia is weird not only because of its ongoing economic symbiosis with Washington State, nor because of the curious exclave of Point Roberts, but also because it cuts off Alaska from the rest of the US. A lot of people like to hunt in Alaska. A lot of people try to bring their guns from other parts of the United States into Alaska through British Columbia. British Columbia doesn’t really like this but it does allow it if those guns and their method of transport fit very, very specific criteria.

It’s the complete opposite to asking for ninety days residence and a twenty dollar hunting license.

Once again, I could apparently have just walked off, back into Canada, but instead I ended up in that living room-sized waiting area. A family sat to my left. Someone who did nothing but read a book the entire time sat to my right. A picture of the Queen of England was mounted dead ahead. That probably wasn’t necessary.

The officer asking who else was landing left the room and she was replaced by a grumpy man who called me up. I showed him what documents I had and he asked me what visa I had with me. I listed the items I’d been posted.

“I can see what you have,” he said. “I don’t need you to tell me what I can already see.” But I didn’t have anything else. Nobody had issued me anything the last time I’d entered Canada and nobody had really cared after hearing that I was waiting for these Permanent Residence documents to arrive, the ones I was laying out now.

The grumpy man made me sign and initial my papers, stating that I hadn’t suddenly committed crimes and forgotten to tell them or got married and forgotten to tell them or had children and forgotten to tell them and yes yes everything was spelled correctly. He took the papers away and joined the other people who were typing quietly at their desks.

A balding man walking in and asked everyone in the room if they’d been seen by an officer. Everyone said yes. “You’re all waiting so patiently?” He asked. “Thank you!”

He walked out.

For some reason, I took a picture of myself. I took it to see if I was suddenly different, but found no signs of this. The Queen stared at me. I sat there in silence. There was no noise and no smell and no movement. I played Peggle nervously on my phone, because at the US border they don’t like you to have your phone out. Nobody here gave a damn. A large TV showed soundless sports recaps.

The grumpy man called my name. He had stapled one of my documents into my passport on what was the shonkiest, most ramshackle way. It was infinitely folded. He had signed and dated it. I will never forget his name.

He gave me a piece of paper with numbers to call to register for health care and social security. My Permanent Resident card would be mailed to me and reach me hopefully two to three weeks after my landing date of September 21st, 2019.

I stood there.

“Do you have any questions?” he asked.

“Is that it?”

He looked up at the room. “Who’s next?”

#America #Canada #Permanent Residence #Point Roberts #weird borders #immigration

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sabraeal · 5 years

Text

Sic Semper Monstrum, Chapter 2

Chapter 1

Obiyuki AU Bingo Post-Apocalypse AU

There is no worse sound than the sirens.

Science agrees: every day, papers pile up in her queue, every last one of them tagged with the word kaiju and trauma. Everything from former Rangers to survivors of those first attacks to the children who still live in the cities along the coast, growing up in the looming shadow of the kaiju threat -- every single one of them has a lasting, ingrained reaction to the noise. Siren Anxiety, some papers call it, sanitized from the PTSD of other papers. Worse are the epigenetic ones; the endless articles speculating about what the alarms have done to the human psyche, calling it the next great epigenetic event in human history, not tired to any one ethic group or restricted region, but instead the entire coast line of four continents, none of them able to bear the whoop and moan of the evacuation siren.

Shirayuki isn’t sure how much of that she believes; she believes in science, not divination, and the plasticity of the human mind is far beyond their understanding. Still, it’s a sound that certainly has a starring role in her nightmares.

Along with, she’s coming to realize, the Marshal wants to see you.

“Doctor.” His voice is clipped, terse, but still polite as he stands, gesturing for her to take a seat. He’s a busy man by any standard, but no one can say his mother didn’t teach him his manners. “I’m glad you could take the time to see me.”

It’s not as if she had much of a choice; she might be one of the few civilians here, but as far as the Pan-Pacific Defense Corp is concerned, he’s her boss. Garack might be the head of K-Science, but in the shatterdome, the Marshal’s word is law.

Someone else might not know the extent of that power, might think that a summons sent to the civ division of the dome was just a polite ask, but Izana --

Well, if there was anything like royalty left on this coast, it would be the Wisterias. Three generations of Marshals since the first kaiju ransacked San Francisco, and it could be said, with little exaggeration, that his grandfather practically built the PPDC from the ground up. If anyone knows the power behind that title, it’s him.

“It’s no problem,” she chokes out, sinking into a chair. Beside it sits a steaming mug -- her mug, she realizes with a jolt -- filled with green tea and muddied up with cream. Just the way she likes it. “I had time.”

He nods, hand hooked over the back of his chair, gaze fixed to the wall. The one that would look out over the Pacific, if they weren’t underground. She’s been here six months, and training up to take Garack’s place hasn’t left her much time, but --

She’s been in this office a few times, in an official capacity. And every time she can’t shake the feeling that he shouldn’t be here. That he belongs in some high-rise, looking out a fortieth floor window, surveying his domain, crunching numbers and worrying about stocks. Not down here, half-buried beneath what’s left of LA, talking to her about monsters.

None of them should be here, really, but that’s just the way things have panned out. For now. There’s no accounting for who they would have been, if not for --

“You’re settling in?”

Shirayuki nearly scalds herself on her tea, only just clamping her lips around her teeth to keep it from spilling out. She take a moment to swallow, liquid burning all the way down. “Ah, yes. It’s been...slow, but I think the rangers are acclimatizing to the shift.”

Finally, she wants to add. And only because of your brother.

It’s a mistake to say any of that. Bringing up Zen, here, right now --

Probably not career ending, but she’ll certainly approach the limits of Izana’s current goodwill. She may be the psychologist in this room, but he is the one who could sit back in his chair with that enigmatic smile of his and flay her alive. There’s no amount of insisting that will get him to believe that Zen is only her patient, and --

And, with the way Zen acts, she can’t say she blames him. She’s a professional, but no matter how much she swears to herself that she would never cross that line, would never make a patient more than that --

Well, she’s read the papers. Everyone living under one roof like this, never a day’s rest when kaiju don’t believe in filing for paid time off, civilian and military alike -- it’s a recipe for disaster. Zen wouldn’t be the first ranger to read something more in his sessions.

And she wouldn’t be the first PPDC psychologist to encourage it, if she did --

Which she doesn’t. She’s told Izana all this before, shoulders straight and stance stoic. But he’d only smiled that infuriating smile of is, and asked, but if he wasn’t your patient...?

She didn’t have a good answer to that. And the Marshal wasn’t one to miss a detail like that.

They’d been...at an impasse since then. Zen still takes his sessions with her, and she keeps her distance.

Well, as much as he allows. Which is quickly trending towards not enough and also too much.

“Good.” His fingers tap idly at the leather of his chair, expression uncomfortably thoughtful. “Garack speaks highly of your skills, you know. Best investment I’ve forced you to make.”

It’s useless to hide her blush. She knows she’s well-regarded -- there’s not many psychologists clamoring to get into the PPDC, and even less rangers wanting to talk to one -- but still. Garack practically invented the idea of trauma therapy for pilots. It’s not only a compliment -- it’s a reinforcement of her whole life’s work to date. There’s no point in hiding that she’s happy about that.

“And my brother, of course,” he mentions mildly. “Not a day goes by where he doesn’t sing your praises.”

Oh, so -- so he is going to bring this up.

“Studies have shown that having a mental health professional available to pilots has decreased the likelihood of risk behaviors as well as nearly all forms of self-harm.” Her cheeks heat, and oh, how she wish they wouldn’t when she talked about this. “A-and it isn’t unusual for pilots under stress to believe they’ve formed and intimate bond with support staff. As long as the professional--”

Izana holds up a hand with a huff of a laugh. “You don’t have to preach to me Doctor. I think we are both tired of that particular conversation.”

Her fingers tighten around the mug, and she grimaces at the pinch. “Then I must admit that I’m at a loss for what we need to discuss.”

She only just manages to bite off, if I’m not here to defend my professional credentials. By his look, he still hears them, loud and clear.

His eyebrows raise, but she’s not one of his rangers; there is no pressing need, in her mind, for her to call him sir. Some of the other civilians here might fall in line -- lord knows Suzu trips over himself to do it -- but she’s not some lab scientist, taught military hierarchy in a day’s orientation. Oh no, she’s written papers about the long term effects of the military complex under martial law, and --

“I have need of your expertise, Shirayuki.”

All her protests dry up in her mouth. She hadn’t expected that.

“Oh,” she replies eloquently. She lifts the mug to her mouth and takes a long, meditative sip, trying to buy herself some time to come to terms with -- with this. “I, uh, well...”

“I’m bringing in a new ranger,” Izana continues, graciously ignoring her sudden inability to form coherent sentences. For once, it’s a mercy she can appreciate. “I think he might present a...unique challenge for you.”

“A ranger?” The room feels off-kilter now, tilted. Izana may make this announcement so casually, but a shatterdome is a complex ecosystem of egos, an exquisitely delicate biome that can collapse into total anarchy with a single breath. And now he wants to upset that balance. “When?”

“Soon.” His mouth quirks, gaze distant. “I’m flying out today, in fact, as soon a we’re done here.”

Pressure pulses threateningly just behind her eyes. “Who would you--?”

Her mouth shuts with a click. Most of the pilots here were experienced teams, working together for years, but there was one -- one -- jaeger that has been lying in wait for half a decade, stuck in shatterdome purgatory until his single pilot managed to find a partner --

And it just so happened to be the single ranger that Izana Wisteria, prince of the Pacific, would burn half the world for, if it meant finding someone drift compatible.

She twists the mug in her hand, anxious. “Does he know?”

A stupid question, when she already knows the answer.

“No.” An easy answer for a complex situation. “And he won’t.”

She bridles in her seat, mouth pulling thin. “You called me in here to ask me to lie? Is this some sort of test of loyalty, because I don’t appreciate mind games, Marshal.”

“No. I asked you in here because I have...concerns.” He grimaces, as if it physically pains him to admit it. “About...reintegration.”

“You should be more concerned about what this will do to the dynamic of your pilots,” she tells him, setting aside her tea. “You should be telling him that --”

“Doctor, you have been here long enough -- and privy to my brother’s thoughts long enough -- to know there is only one copilot he will accept.” Izana looks at her now, and he seems so -- weary. Not even thirty, and here he is, shouldering the hopes of the world. “We don’t have the luxury of waiting for him to be reasonable about this. I would rather he had less time to plan his objections than make a misguided attempt at trying to appeal to his logic.”

Her lips press together, annoyed. She wants to fight on this point, to tell him he needs to prioritize Zen’s comfort --

But unfortunately, she agrees. Were this a mediation between two brothers about a family legacy, she could counsel caution, could recommend respect -- but this is a dispute between soldier and commander, and in this, she’s loath to say Izana has the right of it. It had taken hardly a handful of sessions to see where, precisely, Zen’s hang up lied in regards to the drift.

It’s her job to provide support, to empathize, but oh, sometimes she wishes it included telling someone they were being belligerent, ridiculous. That they were risking lives for pride, for a reward that had never been promised and would never come.

“I still think he should know,” she insists stubbornly.

“Of course you do.” Izana mouth curls in that infuriating grin of his, too knowing. “You are eminently fair, even to a fault. It’s part of why you are so good at your job.”

She frowns at the compliment. Kind words, but she knows the Marshal too well to believe a kiss won’t come with a sting.

“However,” he drawls, “you won’t tell him.”

“No,” she agrees begrudgingly. “I won’t.”

“I won’t lie to you, Doctor,” Izana says, suddenly serious, fixing her with a look so intense that it’s almost a burden to bear. “This is a very...unorthodox situation.”

“I think you’ll find that I’ve seen nearly everything the PPDC has had to show me,” she said, forcing a smile. “There’s very little left that can surprise me.”

His mouth twitches, smile turning to something almost self-deprecating. “So you might think.”

Her office is empty when she returns to it, dark. The offices along the entire hall are empty, probably for dinner.

Good. She’d rather do this without anyone around to see.

It’s not as if this isn’t in her purview; Zen is her patient, and this, inarguably, will have a direct impact on his current mental health. It’s only...

There’s a difference between hearing trauma from a patient, freely given, and finding it out through a dispassionate report that is more date than substance. She’d sworn she would wait -- Zen was neck-deep in trust issues, and if flying blind would make him feel more comfortable, make their relationship seem more natural, it was a small price to pay.

But now with Izana talking about a new ranger, about reintegration --

Shirayuki may not be fluent in the Marshal’s particular dialect of doublespeak, but she’s able to read between the lines: he’s bringing someone back, someone’s from Zen’s past, someone no one will be happy to see. She only knows one ranger that fits the profile.

She flips further in Zen’s file than she’s ever let herself: far past his current benching, far past Kiki’s unexpected and upsetting arrival at the dome, even flipping through Mitsuhide’s all-too brief tenure as his co-pilot --

Right to the hole in Rex Tyrannis’ pilot history, to the year that every ranger talks around: Atri.

She doesn’t have access to his file, so she’s only gets half the story -- an endless string of appeals filed by Zen, insisting that some unexplained petty crimes could not have been perpetrated by his co-pilot. A run of misconduct charges that are strenuously sanitized. A laundry list of official complaints lodged at about Izana’s enthusiastic reprimands, Zen passionately insisting Atri was being singled out by the Marshal because of his background. And then, finally, the removal of Zen from the duty roster.

Absence of Drift Compatible Personnel, it reads. A simple way to name the gaping wound he still carries with him.

She knows the specifics of this part at least; Mitsuhide kept Zen’s past close to his chest, but he’d slipped on this, tongue lubricated by a few after hours beers. Court Martial In Absentia was what it would read on Atri’s file, since he’d been long gone with his stolen goods before Zen had caught wind of his plan. Mitsuhide had recovered the parts before they went to market, but Atri himself had never been found.

And now here he was, about to waltz back into Zen’s life, complicating the peace she’s worked so hard to maintain.

Shirayuki sits back, rubbing at her temples. If only that would be the worst of it. Having a man most of the pilots thought of as a traitor slink back under the shatterdome would be hard enough, but --

But if Izana could find Atri, that meant he knew where he was. And no matter what the Marshal would say about it, Zen would never believe he hadn’t known the whole time, that Izana hadn’t just let Atri get away with some awful proviso where Atri never contacted Zen again.

Her head tips back with a sigh. Knowing the Marshal, he probably had, too.

She reaches out, grasping to catch the handle of her mug, meaning to take a sip of the tea she inevitably had cooling in there, but --

But her hand swipes at air. It isn’t here, it’s back in Izana’s office. Or rather, in the kitchen, where he doubtlessly sent it after she left it there with half a cup of cold tea.

Shirayuki rests her head in her hands and groans. There’s nothing she can do about this now -- the Marshal will do what he thinks is best. That’s his job.

And it’s hers to deal with the fallout.

There’s only one room in the dome with windows: the mess.

Curved glass wraps around the rounded outer wall, gazing fearlessly out over the Pacific, as if daring the kaiju to come, inviting them. It’s PPDC pride at it’s finest; making a grand show of defiance when it was all just an illusion -- the glass was engineered at Shao Industries, able to withstand anything just short of a nuclear blast.

It’s always easy to tell who is new in the mess; no one but experienced personnel ever sit facing the windows. It was a game the rangers played sometimes, making the newest recruit sit on the bench opposite the window, waiting and watching for them to break, for the anxiety to overcome them and send them bolting out of the room, meal wasted.

Shirayuki’s mouth thins. Those had been some of her first patients here -- the recruits who couldn’t stop shaking long enough to eat their food.

“It’s the math.”

She jolts out of her reverie, gaze scrambling up to meet Suzu’s, hoping he hasn’t noticed that her attention drifted. He’s always been a bit sensitive about things like that, about being dismissed. A common problem, when your thesis is about trying to apply algorithms to kaiju attacks.

There’s no need to worry, of course; she tries to look attentive, but he’s too busy attempting to eat the sloppy joe spilling out over his fingers to appreciate it. “It’s worrying me.”

Yuzuri lets out a groan load enough to make a kaiju rethink an approach. “Are you on about this again?”

“When am I not on about this?” he snips around his bun, circling around for another bite. Ground meat drops down to his tray, splattering sauce everywhere. Shirayuki has met a lot of people, but until she met Suzu, she’d never known one with a splash radius. “It’s important, even if you don’t think so--”

“Me, Marshal Wisteria, everyone with a brain--”

“Hey,” Shirayuki murmurs. “Do you hear that?”

The Formica shakes under her hands, gentle at first, and she can feel the collective breath of the mess stop, every body going tense. The rangers two tables over are half out of their seats, heads twist over their shoulders.

Shirayuki follows suit, watching the waters churn at the edge of the flight deck, ripples slapping hard against the metal. Kaiju don’t typically come this far down the coast -- just the once, just that first time when Yamarashi rose up on Long Beach. The most recent, most deadly attacks have been on the other side of the rim, Russian and Japan and China, all fighting off more kaiju every month --

But that doesn’t mean it can’t happen here. That things can’t change. They all learned that lesson well, after the kaiju came.

“Chopper,” Suzu says with a sigh, settling back into his seat.

He’s the only one; already there’s bodies crowded along the windows, faces pressed eagerly to the glass as the helo swings down to the flight deck, skids bouncing once, twice before settling flat.

“I guess His Majesty had returned,” Yuzuri observes dryly, mouth ticking up in a grin. “I wonder who he’s with.”

Izana alights from the chopper first, hair whipping out in a golden banner behind him. It’s no wonder everyone is jostling to see; he cuts a striking figure on the tarmac, Marshal blues neatly pressed, golds stars shining along both shoulders. Angel of the Pacific, they’d called him right out of training. The name had stuck, though it came out with more irony now.

He half turns, gaze swinging back to the helo as a man slides along the seats. Shirayuki holds her breath, jaw clenched tight. His head is ducked, hair a wild black hedgerow, but for a moment he looks up, and --

Ah, that’s -- that’s not Atri at all.

She refuses to run.

Shirayuki is a professional, a doctor. Unless her life is on the line, she walks briskly, with purpose. Her pace this time might leave her breathless, might leave her feet aching in what she would have called sensible flats this morning, but it’s still not a run.

She gets there just in time to see it happen.

Zen’s waiting in the hangar, Kiki and Mitsuhide flanking him to either side. This is an ambush, she knows; Izana couldn’t have has enough time to officially page him, but the rumor mill works fast inside the dome. It wouldn’t have escaped him what purpose his brother’s guest would serve.

The man himself is calm, preternaturally so for a one walking into a room with hostility so thick it’s practically a wall. His mouth is curled up at a corner as he looks around, taking in the view, hands hooked in his pockets, casual. Cocky, even.

She hesitates as she draws closer, as she finally able to see his eyes, and she amends her assessment. He mimics calm, exudes it, but his eyes are half-wild, darting around the deck like he thinks the jaegers might come off the wall and stomp on him. They’re nearly all pupil, she can see it even from twenty paces away, but as they stop, as they catch on her --

She could swear his eyes are gold.

His gaze jumps away, and by then Izana has rallied, that he’s already started to speak. She can’t hear a thing, close as she is. With the whirring of drills and growls of machinery, she’d have to be nearly on top of them, part of the conversation itself. She wants to be, she should be, but --

It’s too late. Zen’s jaw sets with just one look at the man, and she knows -- that’s it. He’s done. There won’t be any drifting with what’s washed up on the deck.

No matter how angry he is, Zen keeps his head, giving Izana a tense nod as he makes introduction, as he clearly tells him this man’s purpose in the dome. She knows the exact moment it happens; Zen clenches his jaw so hard she’s surprised he doesn’t crack a tooth. His gaze shifts to the other man, forbidding, but --

But the pilot slips one broad hand out of his pocket, holding it out to him. A peace offering.

Zen stares at it like he’s been offered trash.

The man’s smile goes sharp as he pulls it back, hooking his thumb on the loop of his jeans. He doesn’t seem surprised, just -- amused.

Zen spins on his heel, stomping away, Kiki and Mitsuhide trailing behind him. The man’s mouth slants into a smirk.

“Well,” he says, easy to hear over the sudden lull, “I think that went well, don’t you, Marshal?”

No one knows who this mystery man is, but it takes no time as all for them to divine why he’s here -- another ranger for Zen Wisteria to fail to drift with, another pilot to be shown the marvel that is Kain Wisteria’s legacy and fall short. There used to be a betting pool about how long it would take to find someone compatible, someone Zen would accept, but it’s long since dried up. No one thinks Rex Tyrannis will be coming out of its box anytime soon.

Shirayuki wants to believe it will, that Zen will find someone to be his copilot, even if no one else does, but --

She doubts it will be this one.

“He’s a jackass,” Zen grumbles, head tilting against the back of her couch. A mug steams in front of him, filled to the brim with a coffee more cream than bean. “He keeps on showing up everywhere, saying ‘don’t forget, master, we have a drift to fail.’ Last time he followed it up with, ‘come on, I want to get home already.’ Just, you know...asshole stuff.”

Shirayuki nods, sympathetic, and sips at her tea. She’s good at that; it’s her job to listen, to withhold judgement. Zen’s comfortable with her like this, with a drink in front of both of them, pretending this is a social call and not an appointment, pretending that she’s the one person in his life that doesn’t need to give her opinion on every thought that passes through his head.

It’s easy to do, mostly. She has practice at non-interference, at knowing the precise time to chime in with an observation that will be heard, instead of dismissed. Trust is the most important bond she can forge with a patient; if she needs to voice a scathing remark, she can always save the impulse for her actual friends, for when she steps out for dinner and listens to Suzu talk about numbers with steadily increasing incredulity.

After all, she doubts Zen would appreciate being told that he is making this man wait, that his whole life has been put on pause until Zen gets over himself enough to decide he’s ready to try.

She presses her lips together, biting down on the impulse to speak. It’s easy to forget that he isn’t a friend, most of the time, that he isn’t some handsome ranger that she just happened to meet at work and hit it off with. But sometimes --

Sometimes it’s not.

His eyes roll up to the clock, and he starts. “Aw, sh--oot,” he mutters, throwing a wary glance at her. “Our time’s up.”

“I don’t have anyone after you today,” she says lightly, busily straightening her notes. He doesn’t have to know that’s how she usually plans it, just so she can make this offer. “You can linger, if you want.”

“Nah, I have to go.” His cheeks flush ruefully, and he gives her a shy glance from the corners of his eyes. “Izana wants to meet with me. You know, about this guy.”

Of course he does.

“Oh, go ahead then,” she tells him with a smile, swirling the last dregs of tea in her mug. “I can finish up alone.”

He hesitates, and this is the problem, this moment here, where he looks like he was to protest, like he wants her to never feel alone, but --

But instead he just nods, giving her a tense smile and a murmured see you before walking out the door.

The tea goes cold.

Shirayuki sticks out her tongue at the sour taste. She’s been working a while, knee deep in catching up on the papers weighing down her queue, but she’d thought -- only for an hour, maybe two.

Her stomach growls. Okay, maybe four.

She gets up, wandering down to the mess with a limp in her walk, foot still half asleep from being tucked under her for so long. She takes a step through the doors -- and blinks.

It’s nighttime. Well, she certainly didn’t mean to read that long.

Dinner sits in chafing dishes, rubbery and unappetizing, but it’s better than the nothing she’ll have if she turns her nose up at it. She takes a plate in hand, picking what seems the most edible and taking it to a table by the window.

It’s quiet this time of night; everyone is on-shift or sleeping. She has nothing to do besides go over her notes and eat, looking out over the Pacific and wondering about Suzu’s numbers.

“Anyone sitting here?”

She blinks, and suddenly there’s a man in front of her, mug of coffee steaming in one hand, and an equally unappetizing plate in the other. It’s the new ranger -- Obi. The asshole.

He’s not wearing the uniform. She’s not sure he ever has.

“Ah, no!” She moves her papers, stacking them on the seat next to her to make room. “Just -- thinking.”

He smiles, the kind that doesn’t bare teeth, and -- well, it’s not a bad look on him. “Thanks. Didn’t think I’d find a place to sit down. This place is packed.”

She turns, taking in the ocean of empty tables, and when she looks back, he’s grinning, trying to hide it behind a sip of his coffee.

“I haven’t seen you around,” he says, and for a moment, she wonders if he remembers her, remembers that moment their eyes met on the deck. He doesn’t seem like the type. “Not part of the jaeger crews, I take it?”

“No.” It’s annoying how her cheeks flush under that stead gaze of his. This close, she knows for certain: his eyes are gold. Even if she can’t seem to manage to meet them. “I’m mostly...below decks.”

“Ah,” he hums, eyes lighting. “Scientist?”

“Psychologist.”

His smile pulls tight, eyes crinkling with strain. “You don’t say.”

Ah, she should have known. Military personnel aren’t usually...fond of her position. Not at first, at least.

“You know,” he says, voice still thin, “I think His Majesty is going to tell me to see--”

“What are you doing here?” Zen demands, just over her shoulder.

“--you more often,” Obi finished, taking a long drag from his mug. “Just having some coffee, taking a break. Making friends, since you’re so happy to keep me here.”

“Oh, I see. If you can’t bug me, you’ll come bug my -- Shirayuki?” Zen’s cheeks flush an angry red, like he’s been slapped on both cheeks. Still, he keeps up is glare. “Can’t you just go away already?”

Obi’s eyebrows twitch, the rest of his body going still as he looks at him. “Love to. Just set the date, master.”

The flush spreads all over his face, eruption immanent. “I--”

“Did you need something, Zen?” she asks, pointed. It’s more than she means it to be, but still less than this sort of behavior deserves.

She takes a breath, calming. She’s not here to take sides.

“Yeah, I--” Zen casts a nervous look around the room, and that when she sees Kiki and Mitsuhide lingering at the door with amused and concern expressions, respectively. “I left my jacket here. After dinner.”

“It is over there?” She points to another table, one with a vest slung around the back of a chair.

“Oh.” He coughs, scooping it up. “Yeah.”

Still, he lingers.

“Is that all?” she asks innocently. “We were just going to finish up dinner.”

“Yeah. Right,” he bites out, glare sweeping in Obi’s direction. “Sure. See you.”

It’s silent as he walks out, as Kiki and Mitsuhide fall in behind with only a lingering look. Shirayuki sighs, heavy, and turns back to her plate.

Obi’s mouth bows with concern. “You didn’t have to do that.”

She sits, staring at her food, barely seeing it. She really, really didn’t. It was a mistake, a trip-up that might have cost her some of her hard-won trust with Zen, but --

“I know,” she says, spearing a noodle. “But I did.”

She doesn’t add, and we’ll both have to live with it. By the steady gaze he sets on her, he hears it anyway.

“Yeah,” he coughs after a moment, eyes skittering to look anywhere else. “You did.”

#obiyukibingo2019 #obiyuki #akagami no shirayukihime #snow white with the red hair #pacific rim AU #my fic #ans #guys i am not even gonna lie I'm not sure when in the Pac Rim timeline i'm placing this #i mean i think i want to keep it 2024 but clearly there's a lot of rangers here #but also I used Shao industries #whatever guys you're just gonna need to trust me here and be foggy on everything following the movie #i mean clearly since i actually put a psychologist in here #though i think there's mention they exist in the domes?#i forgot #whatever you all know you want psychologist shirayuki

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vennilavee · 6 years

Text

golden hour - part VII

golden hour masterlist

Pairing: bucky barnes x reader

Summary: a series of moments when everything sparkles, shines and glitters, just like it’s gold.

Warnings: a car accident. maybe a curse.

Word Count: 2076

A/N: I got into an accident recently and... Here we are.

Bucky and Steve are heading home from their grocery trip, discussing their weekend plans. Bucky tells Steve that he was debating joining you and your friends for a night out tonight, but then his ring tone cuts the air between them.

It’s you- a picture of your smiling face pops up on his phone. Steve shoots Bucky a sly side glance that he pretends to ignore.

He hears silence for a few moments- maybe you called him accidentally? But then he hears quiet, labored breathing. You sound like you are struggling to catch your breath.

“Bucky,” Your voice is strangled, “I...”

“What’s wrong, darling? Are you alright?” Bucky hears you sniffle through the phone. You take a few more moments to answer. He hears the sound of traffic, of tires hitting pavement.

His stomach lurches painfully.

“Umm... I got into a small car accident,” You mumble, voice shaky. His heart drops with a thud and the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. He realizes that it must not have been a major accident, if you’re able to call him.

Bucky’s pulse slows by a fraction.

“Are you hurt? Anyone else hurt?” Bucky asks. He hears your breath hitch minutely and you are silent before answering.

“N-no- I’m fine, everyone is fine. Everything’s okay,” You reply airily, maybe more to reassure yourself than to answer him, “Will you come to me?”

“Of course, darling. I’m in the car right now with Steve, I’ll be there soon.” Bucky reassures you. Tears come out of your eyes even faster at his response, not that he can see them. You tell him your location quickly and murmur him a ‘goodbye’, eager to dissolve the lump in your throat that just won’t seem to go away.

With his enhanced hearing, Steve hears all of the conversation. But he still waits for Bucky to tell him what happened. Bucky lets out a worried exhale, his brows furrowing in distress. His fingers tap against his thigh restlessly.

“She said she got into a small accident,” Bucky says slowly, as if the weight of the situation only just soaks into him, “She got into an accident. She got into an accident but she said everything is fine.”

Everything is fine.

Bucky can hear your heart racing, as if it’s trying to beat right out of your chest. He can’t see you yet as he parks in front of you on the side of the highway where you are pulled over.

But he can hear your racing heart. Your shuddering breaths. Your shaky voice as you apologize once again to the driver of the other car.

You turn your head, watching Bucky speed-walk to you. Steve walks a little slower behind him, giving you both a moment.

The driver of the other car looks on with wide eyes as the former Winter Soldier and Captain America strut towards them. You catch her eyes float behind you and you would have laughed at the awe in her eyes if you weren’t so shaken.

Your legs feel like jelly and your throat closes up again when Bucky locks eyes with you as you turn your head. Steve is right behind him, assessing your car briefly and eyeing the woman standing in front of you.

“Hi, ma’am, Steve Rogers,” Steve introduces himself to the woman, so that you and Bucky can have a moment of privacy, “You alright?”

Bucky tugs your fingers into his and walks you towards your car. He gently places you against the side of your car and you exhale shakily. He cups your face, cradling your soft skin with his rough hands. Bucky catches a few stray tears with his thumbs as he gently sweeping across your cheeks.

You rest your hand over his and lean into his touch on your cheek. You close your eyes briefly, enjoying the way his touch calms you down.

The gold that he has so frequently begin to associate with you has dimmed.

Bucky hears your heart beginning to slow. But you still shudder in front of him, despite the yellow sweater you are wearing. He wraps himself around you, hands tight and warm and reassuring and welcoming. You sniffle a few times again, tears melding together in his shirt, some against his neck. You pull away from his embrace first, looking at him through red, weary eyes.

“You’re alright,” Bucky is the first to speak, “Everyone is alright.” He runs his hand over your cheek again. His soft touches slowly begin to make you light up from within. Make you want to smile at him.

“I’m alright,” You repeat, “She is alright.” Your eyes flicker to the woman behind Bucky.

“She seems more than alright,” Bucky jokes, attempting to lighten your mood. You grin, letting out a watery laugh. Bucky pulls your fingers again, walking over to the front bumper of your car.

“We can fix this,” Bucky says firmly. You shrug, wrapping your arm around his bicep and leaning against him. It’s not a big job at all. There are only a few scratches and one small dent.

He smiles affectionately down at you, knowing that you aren’t upset at the damage. You’re upset because you caused this silly error that could have been avoided, if you had been paying more attention, if you had been more aware of your surroundings.

If you hadn’t been so stupid.

He knows of the not-so-nice thoughts running through your head. Bucky is tempted to kiss your hair and to kiss your forehead. As if his affections for you could pour out of his lips and mold into you, pushing away the not-so-nice thoughts. Leaving room for nothing but pure gold.

But he knows that it doesn’t work that way. That a simple kiss, or even a deep love can’t always get the bad thoughts out.

He wants to kiss your hair, anyway. But he hasn’t reached that step with you yet. Bucky has only just started holding your hand of his own accord.

But he still wants to kiss your hair. He thinks it would smell nice, like coconuts and fruits and mangoes. Sometimes he catches a whiff of coconut or mango around you.

Bucky’s eyes settle on yours, but you’re looking away from him. Your lips are bitten and your bottom lip is currently in the grasp of your teeth. He’s sure you are biting hard enough to tear through skin and draw blood. But you give no indication that it even hurts. Bucky doesn’t even think about it as his thumb gently pries your lip out of the cage you’ve locked it in.

“You’re going to make your lips bleed, darlin’,” Bucky breathes as he watches your lips pink up a little bit.

“I’d let ya kiss ‘em better,” You grin, mischief twinkling in your eyes. He doesn’t answer- his mouth goes dry at the thought of your lips and his lips connecting, bound together by that invisible, golden thread that he’s certain ties him to you.

Bucky is dizzy, lovedrunk, and a little bubbly at the thought. A small drop of champagne, of sunshine, bursts in his belly at the thought of being able to kiss your lips freely, pouring some of this bubbly sunshine he feels within him into you.

He knows you feel it, too, from the way your heart picks up speed again. From the way your eyes shine a little more brightly than before. From the way your eyes glitter like molten gold.

You turn to Steve, giving him a grateful smile. He didn’t have to stay, and you are more than a little touched that he did.

“Thanks for coming, Steve,” You say. You think about maybe giving him a hug, but your relationship with Steve isn’t quite there yet. Steve shrugs.

"S’nothing. Stay safe, kids,” He says knowingly, bidding you and Bucky goodbye.

“Will you drive my car back to my place?” You ask meekly, “I don’t wanna drive.”

“Sure, darlin’,” Bucky says easily. You still shiver a little bit, feeling the aftershocks of the past few hours and Bucky wordlessly hands you his jacket. He even takes the liberty to help you into it.

Bucky takes your hand in his almost immediately once he gets on the road. His thumb rubs circles on your hand. He manages to sneak quick glances of you- sometimes peering out of the window, sometimes peering out in front of you. He even catches you looking over at him a few times, causing you both to giggle. You sink into his jacket, trying to inhale his scent subtly.

He hears it, though. But his scent is so comforting for you by now, that you don’t even care. Your smile fades slowly, a pensive, stony look replacing your face.

Bucky squeezes your hand gently and that grounds you. Brings you a little closer to him, in sync with his soothing heartbeat.

“Do you still want to go out?” You ask softly, lighting your favorite cotton scented candle at the center of your coffee table.

“Do you?” Bucky counters, taking a seat on the couch. You wring your hands together with a laugh.

“You can say no, you know,” You say, sitting next to him on your couch, “You can always say no. Or Yes. Or even I don’t know. Whatever’s going through that pretty head of yours.” Your knee knocks into his. You’ve changed into sweatpants and a tee. Your face is bare but your eyes are still tinted red.

“Okay,” Bucky says simply, “Then no.”

“Oh good,” You reply mildly, “I was hoping you’d say that. Wanna watch movies and order pizza with me?”

Your eyes are wide and hopeful. Bucky catches your fingers twitching. You want to touch him, he realizes. You want to feel his skin against yours, his hair threading through your fingers, the rise and fall of his chest along in harmony with yours.

But still he hesitates. And as if reading his mind-

“You don’t have to stay over, Buck. I’ll drive you home,” You offer with a small smile. Sleeping over with you would be a big step.

Too big. Maybe too much, for right now.

Bucky nods slowly. You jump off the couch eagerly and order a few pizzas and start popping popcorn. Bucky asks if you need any help, but you ignore him. A movie plays from your Netflix queue, but Bucky is too engrossed in the thought of you potentially being in his arms.

By the time you turn the lights off and settle onto the couch, placing the bowl of popcorn in front of you, Bucky is itching to touch you, to warm you up, to catch the scent of your hair, and to hear your heartbeat in time with his.

You sit right next to him, thighs touching, nearly on top of him but not quite. A happy buzz floats into the air, drawing him closer to you. He leans back so that his back is against the armrest and you look at him with a raised eyebrow. Bucky opens his arms to you and you beam at him, fondness in all the soft lines of your face.

But then you hop away again, darting into your bedroom and re-emerging with a thick, long blanket. And you settle against the couch easily, head tucked into Bucky’s chest and legs intertwining. As if you were meant to be there.

Your hands trail across his chest absent-mindedly, eventually linking with his fingers. Bucky wonders if you realize that he isn’t even watching the movie. He’s focused on how every part of you molds into him effortlessly, how your breathing slows in his arms. How much you trust him. How much you trust him to keep you safe.

Bucky’s fingers trail over your arms from under the blanket. You hum lazily, driven with the desire to kiss him- his jaw, his cheeks, his forehead.

But it would be too much. For now.

“Buck,” You say quietly, over the sound of the television, “Thank you. For today.”

“Always, darling,” Bucky is overwhelmed with the need to kiss your forehead.

But it would be too much. For now. So, he settles on tugging your closer to him, drawing faint patterns into your arms. Your fingers have settled along his jawline, rubbing at the stubble there softly.

Bucky thinks he could lie with you like this for hours- fleeting touches, lazy smiles, soft laughs and all.

tags:

@coal000 @hottrashformarvel @hootyhoobuckaroo @buckyforbreakfast @lesqui @dracris33 @sergeantbarnescaptainrogers @cauraphernelia @starfisharchives @ragna-wrecked

#bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes x you #bucky x reader #bucky x you #bucky fluff #bucky barnes

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orangeshipper · 6 years

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Drabble klaxon!

Following yesterday’s anon, I revisited the little drabble AU series I’d written - totally AU - where it’s the war, Matthew isn’t the heir, Mary is nursing at the Front, and they keep on running into each other. So, here’s a new instalment! (This isn’t plotted like a WIP... just written as and when people ask... but I have got an idea for where it could go, if it continues).

As it’s been years since the last one, if you’re not already familiar with them, you’ll want to start at the beginning:

Part One ~ Part Two ~ Part Three ~ Part Four ~ Part Five

And, now you’re all caught up - here’s Part Six!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The coffee was almost unbearably strong, just the way Mary liked it and needed it, now, and she smiled at the bitter scent and lifted the mug to her lips. The mug was a bit stained, the saucer had a crack in it, and the floorboards of the small tea shop were covered by a fine layer of dust and dirt from the boots that tramped across them, day in, day out. None of that mattered to Mary, nor to anyone who came here - they were off-duty, no wounds or antiseptic in sight, and therefore it was heaven. Even if it was only for an afternoon.

Today she was by herself, and glad of it. Spending all day, every day, so surrounded by people and bustle and noise, so constant, proved terribly wearing. She did like spending her half-days off with her friends, as well… but sometimes it was just nice to be alone. She smiled to herself, thinking fondly of their staff back at Downton and understanding, now, how precious their brief time off was.

Coffee drained, she left a few coins on the counter and thanked the waitress with a smile, then wandered out into the bright afternoon sun. Walking through the village, she shaded her eyes and saw the long queues of men fresh from the front, waiting in turn for the tin baths set up for them at the start of their rest. A few noticed her, and whistled, and she waved cheerily back as she carried on her way. Perhaps it was silly - a lot of nurses didn't like the attention of the leery soldiers, and truthfully neither did she - but she was far happier to see them here, full of the joy of having survived, for now, than to see them wounded and broken back at the field hospital.

There was a fountain in the town square, quite pretty, though damaged from fighting in the early months of the war. She sat by its edge, enjoying the warmth of the sun on her cheeks without the cloying, overpowering stench that clung everywhere whilst at work. Though the town was busy, now, being one of the main stop-offs before the Front, it felt peaceful despite the bustle.

“I thought it was you…” a deep voice startled her.

“Matthew? Heavens! How funny to see you here.” She stood quickly, suddenly breathless, and smoothed down the skirt of her uniform. Her blush of surprise deepened as she realised how easily his Christian name had slipped from her lips, rather than the more formal Captain Crawley it should have been.

He laughed. “I know. They’re calling it a ‘world war’, and of all the people in the world I keep bumping into you.”

Mary smiled, rubbing her hands together. It had been such a long time since she'd seen him. It shouldn't really seem strange, as there should be no reason for her to see him again at all. But of all the soldiers she'd treated, fleeting in and out of her care… while there were a few she'd recognised, treating them more than once, none had been quite like this Matthew. More so now, the last time she'd seen him having been when he'd dropped her off at Downton, after Patrick…

“If only one believed in fate,” she said, arching her brow. “How are you?”

“Well, thank you. As well as anyone could expect to be, at least - it's very welcome to be on rest for a while.” He shifted as if nervous. “I wrote to you a while ago, you know. I didn't know if it would reach you - it wasn't my place to ask, I know, or anything to do with me - what news there was of your husband, in the end?”

She stared at him a moment, and sat down, Matthew following more slowly. Her expression carefully impassive, she said,

“He got stuck behind German lines, during some reconnaissance. Perfectly fine, but the field hospital he found himself at forgot to let anyone know. Stupid, really. So thank you, yes he's alive. As far as I know, at least!”

“That's jolly good to hear.”

There was something noble about his smile, sincere as it seemed. Mary studied him for a moment, letting the silence settle between them with an acknowledging nod. She had received his letter, eventually, but somehow didn't feel able to reply. Didn't feel able to tell him now, still… that in the uncertain days that dragged on of Patrick’s disappearance, her father had had Murray do some digging. Just in case. And had found that the nearest male relative, after Patrick… was a lawyer from Manchester, called Matthew Crawley.

What would be the point in telling him? If Patrick survived the war, it wouldn't matter anyway. Matthew himself might not survive the war, she thought, with a greater stab of regret - she told herself that was only because he was there in front of her, so earnest and real and alive.

Her family had been horrified to find out their next heir was middle class. But she looked at him now, her eyes alight with warm appraisal. He wasn't a middle class lawyer to her. She'd known him first a soldier - an officer, a decent and brave one, and terribly good looking, despite the grime in his dirty blond hair and the scars and mud that flecked his skin - truly a gentleman. She'd never class him apart from Patrick, to see them both together.

“Yes, it was something of a relief I must say!” she said brightly.

“I'm sure.” He smiled suddenly, lopsided and almost shy. “I couldn't bear the thought of you being sad.”

Mary's heart quickened at his soft words and the earnest gaze of those captivating blue eyes, fluttering in a way she was certain it shouldn't.

A warm breeze blew the dust up at their feet, voices of Matthew’s company raucously carrying down the wind, and they both turned their heads. His shoulders sank with a sigh. “I should get back to that lot. It's not really on, sneaking off like this - but I hope you don't mind me having said hello.”

How could she possibly mind, Mary thought, clasping her hands in her lap and returning his broad smile.

“I'm pleased you did! And I hope it won't be the last time.”

Matthew's eyebrows shot up, and she laughed, and quickly corrected herself. “I don't mean that I hope you'll be wounded again! Certainly not. I mean, I hope we’ll meet again like this. In peace.”

Perhaps the idea of fate wasn't so silly after all, she wondered, especially knowing now that he was family (if distant). No wonder they seemed connected, felt connected… Familiar, somehow. Right. Suddenly she felt certain that this wasn't the last time she would see him, though she couldn't explain it; she was, and felt a strange comfort in the thought. Somehow she couldn't bear the thought that she wouldn't. Her certainty seemed mirrored in his gaze, that held her fast.

“We’re on rest for a week, at least… Hopefully two,” he said, his voice low, almost cautious.

“Won't you be bored by the end of it?” Her eyes twinkled at how he laughed. “My usual Wednesday afternoon off doesn't feel much, but given two weeks I think I'd be going spare.”

He stood with a smile, taking off his cap and brushing off some flecks of mud. “I'll find something to entertain me, I'm sure.”

She rose to join him, and when he extended his hand, she took it.

“Goodbye then, Captain Crawley. Enjoy your rest!”

“Thank you.”

His hand was warm in hers, and she held on for a moment more, squinting to see him against the afternoon sun. She felt a wild urge to kiss him. Oh, she'd kissed soldiers before - well, not like that - but those seeking comfort, just swiftly on the cheek, just as she had Matthew that evening before he'd been shipped back to England. She fought down the twinge deep in her belly that taunted, that wasn't how she wanted to kiss him now… but that would be absurd, utterly mad. She liked him, yes, because he’d been kind to her in England, because he made her smile in the darkness they all lived through, and she was grateful.

She swayed forward and pressed her lips to his cheek, squeezing his fingers just once before walking past him and away. Her regulation heels tapped softly down the road back towards the hospital, as one hand lifted to shield her eyes against the sun, back towards work and wounds and the war.

How precious her afternoons off were. Next week couldn't come soon enough, she thought to herself with a smile.

#drabbles #Downton Abbey #Matthew x Mary #finally my muse is working again!!!

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nataliesnews · 3 years

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A voice from the past, Anglican nuns, a horrible day at the checkpoint...and this was only part of it, a man who threw coins at the Balfour wall is brought to court 9.12.2020

From: Natanya Sent: Wednesday, December 9, 2020 7:32 AM Subject: A voice from the past, Anglican nuns, a horrible day at the checkpoint...and this was only part of it, a man who threw coins at the Balfour wall is brought to court

This morning: Gideon Sa’ar is leaving the Likud. Forming a new party. I would never vote for him but maybe it will weaken Netanyahu. One thing he said is that the Likud has become a party with an adoration of their leader which is terrible. Reminds me of another leader. I would love to be in Balfour on the wall and to see Netanyahu’s face and that of his bitchy wife and crazy son.

For those of you who are interested this is a link to a talk of two men who lost their children and are now joined together in the bereaved families on both sides. It is in English

Thank you for joining us. If you’d like, you can view the recording to catch what you missed: https://parentscirclefriends.org/roniandgeorge/

I had a very pleasant meeting at Balfour. I always leave early. Not because I am scared of the violence which usually marks the end of the evening and …even before because of the police…but because there is a limit to just sitting there once I know I have been counted. A man stopped me and asked if I was Natanya. I said yes. He said Ginsburg. I said yes. He said his parents had been my neighbours and he remembered me from when he was a little boy and now he was demonstrating at Balfour with his son who is already a big lad. I did not tell him but his parents used to have terrible fights and one night it was really bad. I had had some dealings with the police that day because of my car and they had phoned me to ask about a punctured tyre which I had forgotten next to the car. In the midst of this fight the police phoned me again and asked if I had neighbours who were fighting and at that moment their shouts rose to such a crescendo…they lived on the floor above me….that he heard them through the phone and the next thing I knew two policeman were rushing up the stairs. I don’t know what happened but the next day she actually ran around trying to find out who had complained. She was a nice woman but the truth is that I sometimes thought that there would be a murder there and once annonomously after hearing the little girl crying terribly I actually phoned the social services to say they should maybe check out what was happening there. But it seems that , unlike what is happening today, all’s well that ends well.

To what extent are the Jerusalem police a political police force that haunts the demonstrators and does everything to sabotage the protest? See and not believe *

* The prosecution intends to file an indictment against citizen Lotem Pensky who, as can be seen in the video, threw ten agorot coins towards the wall of the prime minister's residence * in protest of the Netanyahu family's demands to milk more and more money at the expense of the public coffers.

This is an incident that took place about six months ago and now the State Attorney's Office intends to respond to the Jerusalem Police's delusional request to file an indictment against it.

* Gonen Ben Yitzhak, a lawyer from the Prime Minister's movement representing Pensky, responded: * "The Jerusalem District Police's insistence on prosecuting an activist who threw ten cents at the black curtain in Balfour is further evidence of Israeli police biased action against protest activists. Against demonstrators almost nothing ends and the police insist on filing an indictment against a demonstrator for ten agorot. There are no police in Israel. There is a phalanx that works for a corrupt prime minister and serves as its last line of defense. Will stop the madness. "

We need to start them young. Sitting on a bus stop

I have found a new author on audible. Her heroine is a nun who is trying to write a book but is also herself a detective. Jane Willan…The shadow of death. It is about murder but a very gently written book. I have not finished it yet but find it fascinating. First of all I never knew that there were Anglican nuns. It is also very up to date with references to computers and phones which does not really tie up with what one was brought up to think of about the nuns and maybe it is my age and thinking of the nuns I knew and was so fond of but it jolts you into realizing your are not the only one who has changed with the times. And then there are church politics. The latter I have to find about as though I know plenty of stories about rabbis and their communities but not about church politics…..only from Trollope many years ago. Anyhow she is a delight and makes me laugh at loud when I am walking or in the bus so that people look at me thinking I am a nut case brought on by Corona. Like one woman who thought she poisoned her boyfriend. “I only wanted to make him feel sick. I did not want it to make him dead,” she says in a sad voice. (I still think she will find that he was murdered). Also fascinating is how these elderly nuns are functioning which a world which is changing before their eyes and leaving them stranded….which is how I sometimes feel.

Part of our report from Machsomwatch.

The parking lot at the Olive Checkpoint is unusually crowded, and it soon becomes clear that the people who had found the Bethlehem checkpoint closed. Not a short drive through Wadi Nar and Azaria. There is urgency and shouting, the pressure of women, children, men, most of them without masks, and only two open positions. Outside, beyond the gates to the inspection area, a lot of people are crowded. We meet a young couple, with a baby lying on the mother's arms. One look at her yellow face is enough for us. She is three weeks old and has been summoned to Mukassed. The couple is scared that the appointment they received is until 9:00 and they do not dare approach the commotion near the checkpoints.. Meanwhile, another older woman joins us to treat cancer with an attendant, a mentally injured guy led by an attendant and a Bedouin beard who is barely standing on his feet.

We decide to try to bring to the attention of the inspectors and the checkpoint commander that there is an urgent need to transfer humanitarian cases. The IDF is aware but there is no officer to take care of it. Hannah is also trying to reach someone by phone, and he is not helping. What we need is a checkpoint commander's phone.

Wait, we recognize that there are two female soldiers resting comfortably in a room with thick tempered glass in front of the entrance gate to the checkpoint, and in front of them stands a senior officer. Chatting. We try to call them with our hands, point to the sick people, shout, ask them to come outside for a moment. Unbelievable, the policeman turns his back on us and the Palestinians and mutters something to female soldiers to not even look at us. We filmed.

After about half an hour, Officer S., the checkpoint commander, suddenly appears at the empty checkpoint. He says they are not prepared for such a number of embryos during these hours, and gradually passes on all humanitarian cases. And even asks us to call the women and children from the other queues. We suggest sending someone to the crowd who has not yet entered the checkpoint to cover up the humanitarian cases. He sends us to sort things out there. This is already excessive. But we went to ask who must get to Mustafa. And when they opened for one woman, another 10 workers poured in. At this point we realized we had to leave before we could start working at the checkpoint. We hoped that the arrangement of the humanitarian queue would continue.

The image of the arched disregard of the people sitting in the glass pavilion from the suffering people in front of them and the sights of the oppressed masses, who could surely help check them out and relieve the pressure, continued to haunt us. The occupation corrupts the soul. Also of young and delicate-looking female soldiers who have no humanity in them.

Maybe next year at the day of remembrance for the Holocaust they will watch and something will change in the souls which they do not seem to have . This we did not put in our report but I often think of this at the checkpoints

Don't Say We Didn't Know 725

On Wednesday. December 2, 2020, Israeli soldiers confiscated the tractor belonging to a Palestinian of Birin village (South Hebron Hills) while he was tending his land. The area is about a kilometer away from the Jewish settler-colony Pnei Hever.

***

On Wednesday, December 2, 2020, Israeli government agents escorted by police demolished a home in the Bedouin village of Sawawin (near Segev Shalom).

A voice from the past, Anglican nuns, a horrible day at the checkpoint...and this was only part of it, a man who threw coins at the Balfour wall is brought to court 9.12.2020

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docholligay · 6 years

Text

Pop

I totally forgot it was Hotaru’s birthday and didn’t write anything or queue up the paltry fics I HAVE written, BUT I thought to share this Patreon exclusive that’s passed the six month mark. Au of Mystery and Shadow

Something went wrong the day I died. Everything changed. It makes sense, that my life, or lack thereof, would be marked by that. It’s more reasonable than anything else that’s happened to me.

But when I say everything changed, I mean everything.

The sky was strange that day, I think now, though I’m not sure I noticed that morning. I got up late. I don’t think I’d have done that, if I knew it was my last day. If I’d had known it was my last day, I would have eaten the cinnamon roll my dad offered, even though it raisins in it. I thought about that sweet glaze, as I laid there. That’s a little stupid, I think, but not any stupider than the rest of my life has been. Had been.

If I’d have known it was my last day, I would have worn my favorite shirt, and not cared that it had a stain on the sleeve I still needed to try and get out. I would have worn it with my purple skirt, and at least I would have been carted into the morgue looking the way I liked to. I wore a purple sweater I didn’t even love, instead. My dad had bought it for me. He tried. I died in that damn sweater.

If I’d have known it was my last day, I would have called the pink haired girl from the bus who gave me her number, the one I thought was pretty, and who thought I was interesting. I didn’t call though. I didn’t know.

Instead, I sat cross-legged on my bed, sketching and eating a granola bar, knowing that there was homework to do and not wanting to do it. I was graduating from high school soon. I’d sent a graduation picture to Haruka and Michiru, and at least I’m glad I did that. Before that day. Before I died. Setsuna too, but I think she always knew I’d move on, eventually. Not forget, at all, and maybe not even forgive, but move on. Time had made her aware of the way those things happen.

But I didn’t know it was my last day, and that everything was about to change.

Michiru had whispered, to Rei, when she thought no one could hear, about the dreams where she woke up screaming, where the bodies in the bodybags changed but they were always there, someone always had to die, and she could feel it coming on, faster. Couldn’t Rei feel it? Couldn’t she see it?

I think it was just beyond the curtain, just out of her vision.

The day I died, the ring on my hand lit up. It was the last time any of them would ever light up, and if we had known that, maybe we would have all looked at it a little longer. Maybe we would have enjoyed our transformations a little more, the way the power enveloped our bodies and drew around us, the way it sprung inside us and tore us apart to release something that was neither human nor god but something like an angel. Maybe a fallen one, to think about it.

Maybe we would have enjoyed standing in formation, knowing it was the last time.

It was the first time, and I guess ti was the last time, I saw an enemy separate us like that. Peeled us off like the peel of a banana, drawn to all the corners of the square. I could hear the others fighting, I knew they worked and they fought and they scrapped, but all I could see were the enemies around me, each with a different face and with a different voice and all so familiar and so new.

Mina was desperate, and she called to us, trying to get us to fall back into a line that didn’t exist anymore, and never would again, but the din of the battle was too much, and we were all overwhelmed, and I heard her cry die out. I kept fighting, the day everything changed. I swung my glaive around and sliced through them, these creatures made of strange summer smoke, the ones that moved and changed and learned.

That’s when I saw her face. Placid and beautiful, the way she always looked. I’d admired it always, as a child, the second time. I wished I could be live her. Now there was no one I wanted to see less.

“Michiru.” The creature must have been happy it fooled me, happy it showed me an enemy I knew, and enemy that was difficult and complicated. To make it hard for me to react.

The steel was cold when it entered my back. I knew who it was, or who I was supposed to think it was, before I turned around.

So I didn’t. They didn’t deserve the satisfaction.

They left me there, to bleed and die, and as I lay there, the ground ever colder and each breath further away, there was a great crash, and it seemed like the bubble of the world...popped. I’ve been thinking on this, since the day I died, the day everything changed, and I don’t have a better way to describe it. A shudder ran through me, like a thundercloud as a lighting bolt leaves it, and any grasp I had on my breath or my life began to fade rapidly. I felt my sweater surround me, and I realized I had the only thing I’d ever wished for.

I was a normal girl. The power was gone.

It wasn’t much of a comfort as the last bits of life faded from me, as I felts the thread snapped between the scissors of those sisters of fate, but it was something, that those last breaths didn’t come from Sailor Saturn, but came from Hotaru Tomoe.

I was dead, and we were scattered. I was nothing and everything at once, hovering over Mako, in agony, tying off her leg with a tourniquet she’d made by ripping her skirt. Michiru, wild-eyed, calling Haruka’s name hoarsely, gripping her arm as she was taken to a medical tent. Haruka, vibrating with the depth of her shock, staring off into nothing. Rei, a cloth over her eyes, cursing every name she could think of. Usagi, sobbing and safe and alone.

The princess is always safe. We do our jobs well. Did.

Everything changed the day I died, when soldiers became humans again, and left to live with their scars of battle. I don’t know the girls anymore, when I look at them, so changed as their lives have gone on, even if they glow with that same light. I think I like them better this way.

I think they like them better this way.

I don’t know if I exist anymore, in anything other than the stories other people tell about me, and it’s likely this is a story told in someone else’s head, about the day I died, and what it must have felt like. My existence is only in bubbles now, moments in time, and let me tell you, I learned on the day I died, that sometimes bubbles just--

Pop.

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juliakwinto · 3 years

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Patterns of Memory: The Mushrooms

Mum said we shouldn’t go to the country side this year. She told Dad that some people did their own independent tests and that the level of radiation is very high in the Eastern Poland. It’s all because of Chernobyl.

You can’t see radiation but it came to us in the big cloud. I remember that it rained and Mum said we have to stay home. After it stopped raining, she took me to the doctor where there was lots of kids in the big queue. It was for the medicine. When it was our turn, they gave me a small cup with thick dark liquid and the nurse said Drink it.

It was horrible and there was no water to drink with it. It burned my throat and I couldn’t breathe. I started to cough but it was making it even worst. I felt like it went into the wrong hole but it didn’t. It burned all the way to my belly.

Mum didn’t get it as it was only for kids and pregnant ladies. I don’t understand what it does with radiation, maybe it burns it out, but it made me cough for a very long time.

Sometimes it feels like there is no air and I have to use inhaler that Mum got for me from a friend. It makes it better but I still can’t run without losing my breath.

Dad said that it will be good for me to be in fresh air. We should go as we normally do. They had many long conversations about it the kitchen. I couldn’t hear what else Dad said but in the end Mum agreed to go.

I like going to the country side in the summer. That’s what we always do. There is a big lake and forest, and even a real bog. When the weather is nice we swim and go sailing, and after it rains, we go to pick wild blueberries, cranberries or mushrooms.

Dad takes me to the bog and we walk around very carefully. You can feel the bog gently moving under the layer of moss. It’s like walking on a soft duvet. I’m not scared, Dad showed me how to walk and not fall in.

Wild cranberries look like someone spilled them by accident. Red little dots on green moss. No bush, just the fruit on a thin thread. They taste sour but I still like eating them uncooked. Local women who pick cranberries, tie white fabric to the trees. Dad says that when you stay, at the bog, as long as them, you get confused from the big gasses so the white fabric helps them find a way home. Mum doesn’t like that Dad takes me to the bog but we don’t stay long and my Dad knows what he is doing. He can even start a fire in the rain. He showed me which wood will burn wet.

But mushroom picking is the best. Dad wakes me up early and we put on our wellies, take a basket and Dad’s Swiss army knife. We must wear hats and long sleeves because of ticks that fall down from trees. I had a tick in my arm once so we take no chances.

The forest is cool and wet in the morning and that’s when you find the best mushrooms. I know names of some of them and it’s a really fun to look for them. They are like soldiers: you want to look for Generals but you also pick all Privates you can find. Some mushrooms always grow in groups and some appear solo. Generals are always solo but they are often accompanied by tall soldiers standing somewhere near by so you got to watch your step and look very hard to spot their brown hats. Sometimes they are really well hided under fallen leaves or in a deep grass.

I also know how to recognise poisonous mushrooms. There is a red hat one, with white dots but even baby knows it’s not good to eat. But there is also a very poisonous Death Cap that when young looks like a nice Parasol Mushroom. It’s really impossible to tell them apart. You can die from eating a Death Cap so you have to be very careful. Adult Parasol Mushrooms are larger and their caps have light brown pattern, and a bit larger gills. Also the ring around their stem is loose. Dad taught me all of this.

This year is very good for mushroom picking. Every time we go, we bring back full baskets of very large and healthy generals and soldiers. Not as single bug in them or even snail nibble. Perfect specimens everywhere you look.

We find entire armies and sometimes we have to leave behind some. The best was when we found an entire meadow of large Parasol family. There was at least 25 large hats standing on tall legs in the grass and all perfectly healthy. I couldn’t believe my eyes. You can fry Parasols in bread crumbs and Dad says it tastes like a stake. They don’t dry well so whatever you pick, you got to fry and eat same day.

Mum is not happy about all those mushrooms and she is definitely scared of Parasols. They are not Death Caps. I told her but she insisted we don’t eat them. It’s not normal. They are full of radiation. Please, at least, don’t feed Julia with it. In the end, Dad agrees to throw away Parasols but he keeps the rest for drying. I’m not happy about it and I really don’t get how the radiation is supposed to be inside the mushrooms. Looking at Mum, I feel sad and a bit scared.

The mushrooms hang to dry in rows on stings. The smell is strong and they gently move in the wind. The entire length of the wall is covered with this defeated forest army. Mum keeps shaking her head: We are not eating this at Christmas either.

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peaky-yamyam · 7 years

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Twenty-One: Part Seven

Part One | Part Six | Part Seven | Part Eight (the first bit) |

I fiddle with the buttons on my jacket, pulling my arm further round myself as a cool breeze whips around me. I can just about see the large clock behind the bar through the window and I note, with annoyance, that it’s just ticked round to twenty-past eight. I try not to dwell on the fact or look too far into it’s meaning, instead reminding myself that Alfie has a lot on; he’s a busy man and he’s only twenty minutes late. Not his fault I was stood outside at ten to, nervous excitement churning my stomach so much I couldn’t stay sat in my office any longer. Regardless, I decide to give him till half past before I leave.

A few more minutes tick by and as a light spattering of rain begins to fall around me I debate whether it’s worth opening up the club to swipe the bottle of gin I started earlier.

It’s then that a car races round the corner and comes to a halt in front of me. Alfie isn’t driving though and I ready myself for a confrontation as I hear the far passenger door slam to.

“Love I’m so sorry,” Alfie babbles as he rushes round the back of the car.

“S’fine,” I mumble, our hands clashing as we both reach for the door handle. They linger against each other for a moment before I relent and allow him to help me into the car. “You’re lucky it’s only just started to rain.”

“You’re angry,” he states as he climbs in next to me, brushing a few errant drops of rain from his coat.

“It takes more than that to make me angry Alfie… It has been noted though and it’s not the best start to the evening I must say,” I add when he smiles. “Although some strapping bloke did offer me one-hundred pounds to go home with him, so I suppose even if you hadn’t have turned up I’d have had other options.”

I don’t miss the change in Alfie’s expression; the flare of his nostrils and the bob of his throat as he swallows thickly.

“You were propositioned?”

“Well you did leave me stood on the street corner like a prostitute. I mean, a high class prostitute, but a prostitute all the same.”

His fists clench on the seat between us and he glances out the window before replying.

“What did you say to him?”

“I told him to come back at half past and if I was still there I’d consider it… But luckily, you decided to actually show up,” I joke, but Alfie seems less than impressed and as I take stock of my words I realise that maybe the few drinks I had before leaving may have bolstered my confidence too much.

“I am sorry,” Alfie says, more seriously than before and I decide that right now, I’d rather not know the reason for his tardiness.

“Honestly, I understand Alfie,” I reply, placing a delicate hand on top of his and giving a gentle squeeze to reiterate my point. His skin is warm and despite knowing I should, it takes me a second to pull my hand from his. “And I suppose if that’s the best apology I’m going to get I’ll have to accept it…” I mumble with a nervous smile.

Before I realise what’s happening, Alfie has taken both of my hands and forced me to turn in my seat to face him.

“If I could lower myself to my knees I would, but there ain’t room in the car, so just imagine it yeah.” He shifts a little in his seat so he’s hovering as far to the edge as possible and holds my hands in front of him. “Miss Cohen, I am but a man, humbled by your beauty and grace. Please accept my deepest apologies for leaving you stood outside my club for twenty minutes like some sort of common trollop, and know that I am in no way worthy of your presence or time this evening.” He bows his head, resting against my fingers for a second, before looking back up. “Better?”

I can’t help but laugh; it’s a playful side that I’ve never seen to Alfie before and, although it’s strange, I find my stomach flipping excitedly as he smiles back.

“I guess considering the surroundings, that’ll have to do. You’re forgiven Alfie.”

We chat easily for the rest of the journey with Alfie asking the majority of the questions to begin with. It takes a while for my initial nerves to recede and for me to scope out appropriate conversation topics but I soon find myself asking Alfie questions too, and surprisingly, I receive detailed answers. It’s while Alfie’s describing his time at school that I finally find myself at ease enough to take in his appearance as he sits before me. Although still wearing almost exactly the same get-up as usual, he looks more refined: his shirt is clean, crisp and bright white, buttoned up tight around his throat; his three-piece suit matches perfectly and is adorned with shiny buttons and an elaborate pocket watch chain and his coat is free from the dust and debris that usually collect around the cuffs. The look is topped of with a neatened beard and although he’s still wearing his hat, I can see by the blunt line of hair that replaces the waves normally hitting his collar, that he’s also had a hair cut.

I realise in the silence of the car that Alfie’s caught me staring at me, completely oblivious to what he’s been saying.

“You still with me love?”

“Yeah yeah, just… you’ve had a haircut,” I say.

“Mmm I have, yeah,” he replies, eyes narrowed as I see him trying to decipher my strange comment.

“My dad’s a barber, was a barber, before he retired. I spent the war in his shop helping him give free cuts and shaves to soldiers who’d come back from fighting. I still can’t help sometimes thinking about what kind of cut would suit someone best…”

“Interesting… good thing to know that. Were you any good?”

“Yeah I was actually, which was a nice surprise for my dad. I don’t think he ever planned to have me helping out, just wanted a way to keep me out of the house and away from my mother.”

“Why did you stop? Not that I’m not glad you did, else I wouldn’t be sat here with you now, but an attractive girl like you in a barber shop after the war? You must have had queues out the door.”

I smile faintly, any jovialness tainted by my response.

“By the time the war ended we’d lost all four of my brothers and I don’t think my dad could cope with the young men who all wanted their first decent in years constantly reminding him that they were gone. So he sold the shop and retired.”

Alfie goes quiet, his fingers running over his lips as he debates how to respond.

“I’m so sorry Emilia,” he eventually mumbles.

“It’s okay, the war took a lot from everyone.”

“Mmm, some more than others…”

“That’s why I was so grateful that you gave me a job actually. My dad didn’t exactly think about how he was going to feed the three of us after the money from the shop ran out, so we were pretty desperate at that point.”

I’ve never told anyone the real reason I was so desperate for a job. I’ve always passed it off as a need for independence and freedom, even Florrie who knows more than is decent about me, has no idea that without this job I’d have been out on the streets - living and working - to avoid the constant threat of hunger.

It seems that Alfie has no idea how to respond to my confession and it’s implications, his eyes searching mine as he looks for, I’m sure, an appropriate way to quash the sudden awkwardness in the car. Luckily we arrive at the restaurant and he settles for a gentle pat of my hand before he exits the car and helps me out onto the pavement ready to really start our date.

#peaky blinders imagine #peaky blinders fanfic #peaky blinders fanfiction #alfie solomons #alfie solomons fanfiction #alfie solomons imagine #alfie solomons fanfic #twenty one

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trendingnewsb · 6 years

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51 Illegal Photos Of North Korea That Kim Jong Un Doesn’t Want You To See

A Woman Standing In The Middle Of A Crowd Of Soldiers. This Picture Is Not Supposed To Be Taken As Officials Do Not Allow Army Pictures

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When You Visit Families, The Guides Love It If You Take Pics To Show The World That Kids Have Computers. But When They See There Is No Electricity, Then They Ask You To Delete!

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As Cars Have Become More Widespread In Pyongyang, The Peasants Are Still Getting Accustomed To Seeing Them. Kids Play In The Middle Of The Main Avenues Just Like Before When There Were No Cars In Sight

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It Is Forbidden To Take Pictures Of Soldiers Relaxing

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When Visiting The Delphinium In Pyongyang, You Can Photograph The Animals, But Not The Soldiers Who Make Up 99% Of The Crowd

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In A Christian Church, This Official Was Dozing Off On A Bench. You Must Never Show The Officials In A Bad Light

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Pyongyang’s Subway System Is The Deepest In The World As It Doubles As A Bomb Shelter. Someone Saw Me Taking This Picture And Told Me To Delete It Since It Included The Tunnel

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A Visit To A Rural Home. Those Houses And The Families Who Live There Are Carefully Selected By The Government. But Sometimes, A Detail Like A Bathroom Used As A Cistern Shows That Times Are Hard…

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This Kind Of Picture Is Widespread In The West. The Caption Often Explains That North Koreans Eat Grass From The Park. The Guides Get Furious If You Take It

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Queueing Is A National Sport For North Koreans

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In The Art Center Of Pyongyang, We Experienced A Power Outage, A Daily Event The North Koreans Hate To Show. When It Happens, They Tell You It’s Because Of The American Embargo

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This Soldier Was Sleeping In A Field

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Soldiers Often Help On Local Farms

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Public Transportation Connecting The Main Towns Is Nearly Nonexistent. Citizens Need Permits To Go From One Place To Another. On The Highways, You Can Spot Soldiers Hitchhiking

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Paranoia Is Too Strong In North Korean Minds. I Took This Picture At A Fun Fair Of A Tired Mother And Child Resting On A Bench. I Was Asked To Delete The Picture Since The Guides Were Certain I Would Have Said Those People Were Homeless

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On A Little Lake On The Way To Wonsan, This Fisherman Uses A Tire As A Boat

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The Pionners Camp Of Wonsan Is Often Visited By Tourists To Show The Youth From All Over The Country Having Fun. But Some Children Come From The Countryside And Are Afraid To Use The Escalators Which They’ve Never Seen Before

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This Man Was Taking A Rest On The Rocks By The Sea In Chilbo. My Guide Asked Me To Delete This For Fear That Western Media Could Say That This Man Was Dead. He Was Alive

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Something You Can See Often In North Korea, But Still Forbidden To Photograph

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A Rare Example Of An Undisciplined Kid In North Korea. The Bus Was Driving In The Small Roads Of Samijyon In The North, When This Kid Stood In The Middle Of The Road

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Pyongyang Is Supposed To Be The Showcase Of North Korea, So Building Exteriors Are Carefully Maintained. When You Get A Rare Chance To Look Inside, The Bleak Truth Becomes Apparent

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Showing Poverty Is Forbidden, But Displaying Wealth Is Also A Big Taboo In North Korea. In A Park On A Sunday Afternoon, I Found This Car That Belongs To One Of Pyongyang’s Elite. The Owners Were Having A Bbq

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It Is Forbidden To Photograph Malnutrition

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It’s Not A Circus, They Are Workers In A Country With Low Safety Standards

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Brand New Restaurants Have Opened Along The Taedong River In The New Center Of Pyongyang. Only The Elite Can Afford To Eat There For The Equivalent Of Few Euros. The Sturgeon I Had Was Actually Very Tasty

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Every Year, People From The Town Go To The Country To Help Out In Public Projects. On This Day, They Repainted Milestones. Before To Government Regarded Shots Like These As Positive, But Now They Understand That We Can Interpret This As Forced Labor

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Man Bathing In A River Near His Town

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One Night, On The Way Back To The Hotel My Bus Had To Take An Alternate Route Due To Street Closures. As We Passed By Old Buildings, The Guides Asked Me Not To Shoot With Flash. The Official Reason Was “To Avoid Scaring People”

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You Can Find All Kinds Of Food And Drinkin Pyongyang’s Two Supermarkets Where Things Are Sold In Both Euros And Wons. They Even Have Evian Water. Only The Elite Can Shop There

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This Is Never Supposed To Happen: A Broom Standing On The Base Of Kim Il Sung’s Statue In Mansudae, In Pyongyang

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It Is Absolutely Forbidden To Take A Picture Of The Kim Statues From The Back. It Is Considered Very Rude

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Only In North Korea: I Was At A Factory Shooting With My Tv Crew. We Were Followed By A Local Cameraman Who Filmed Throughout The Trip (On The Right). On This Day, The Government Sent Another Cameraman To Film Us All! Very Meta

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When You Sleep In Kaesong, Near The Dmz, You Are Locked In An Hotel Complex Composed Of Old Houses. It Allows The Guides To Say “Why Do You Want To Go Outside? It’s The Same As In The Hotel.” No, It’s Not

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Never Take A Picture Where You Can See People Doing Silly Things In Front Of The Kim Portraits

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Perhaps The Most Ridiculous Prohibition I Faced: This Official Painter Was Working On A New Mural In Chilbo. I Took The Picture, And Everybody Started Yelling At Me. Since The Painting Was Unfinished, I Couldn’t Take The Picture

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It Is Forbidden To Take Pictures Of The Daily Life Of The North Korean People If They Are Not Well Dressed. For My Guide This Man Was Not Well Dressed Enough To Be Photographed

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The North Korean Officials Hate When You Take This Kind Of Picture. Even When I Explain That Poverty Exists All Around The World, In My Own Country As Well, They Forbid Me From Taking Pictures Of The Poor

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When Times Are Hard (As They Usually Are Here), Kids Can Be Found Working For The Farming Collectives

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Taking Pictures In The Dmz Is Easy, But If You Come Too Close To The Soldiers, They Stop You

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Kids In Begaebong Streets, Collecting Grains

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Money Is A Taboo Topic Of Conversation In North Korea. It’s Very Difficult To Understand How Much People Earn, The Cost Of Living, Etc… When I Took This Picture Of The Cashier Of The Brand New Fun Fair Counting A Lot Of Money, It Was Not A Good Idea!

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I Went To Chongjin, A City In The North That Suffered A Lot From Hunger Few Years Ago. My Camera Was Confiscated For The Duration Of The Bus Trip. Once At The Hotel, I Understood Why When I Saw The People In The Street

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Thousands Of North Koreans On The Day Of The Kimjongilia Festival, Queuing Up To Visit Various Monuments

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Perfection Is Key To Any Activity In North Korea. Only The Best Of The Best Are Selected To Perform In Front Of A Live Audience. This Acrobat Did 3 Flips For This Feat

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On This Day In Spring, People Had Put Some Carpets To Dry On The Banks Of The Taedong River. Since There Was A Kim Il Sung Statue In The Back, Taking Picture With Those Carpets Was Forbidden

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The Officials Took Issue With This Photo For Two Reasons: 1) The Teen Has His Cap Worn In A Strange Way (According To My Guide), And 2) There Are Soldiers In The Back

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On The Highways, You Can See Trucks Loaded With Coal, Since North Korea Has Big Problem Getting Oil Like During Ww2

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There Are A Lot Of Tired People Since Many Have To Ride Their Bikes For Hours To Go To Work In The Fields. Taking Pictures Of Them Is Forbidden

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A Very Rare Picture Of A Wheelchair. In Six Trips, I Saw Only Two Of Them

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For A Long Time, Bans Against Black Market Sales Have Been Strictly Enforced. Grey Market Vendors Are More Common. They Earn A Little Money Selling Cigarettes Or Sweets

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The Way You Dress Is Very Important In North Korea. In Town, You’ll Never Find Anybody Dressed Poorly. On This Day, Students Were Dancing In A Park. When I Asked To Take A Picture, The Girl Asked The Man To Straighten His Shirt

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from Viral News HQ http://ift.tt/2CKcmYE via Viral News HQ

#IFTTT #Viral News HQ

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