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basilone · 4 months

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Would you ever... write the Form and Void 'verse for Darlene? Juno xx

Short answer: yes, I would. Longer-than-short answer: your ask sent me to actually write it. Because apparently this was begging to get out at some point, hence this reply being a lil late. 💚 (Can't thank you enough for letting me revisit this 'verse!) Y'all only need to know one thing about this to be able to read it: this is set in my AU in which some soldiers are chosen by specific gods and sometimes take pills to suppress their god's massive influence on the world. And if you're looking for more on Darlene, this very E-rated fic is probably the best intro you're gonna get.

thin ice

“The Black Swan says this is shit for morale.”

“Ain’t never heard Sobel say shit,” corrects McNally, glowering at Mann out of the corner of his eye. “You’re making that up as you go.”

“He was out there, wasn’t he, pontificating,” gestures Mann, hands fluttering over his pint so callously he almost knocks it over. “Telling Speirs here about some sorta club for officers, right, and casting one of his most swan-ish glowers at the rest of us?”

Ron Speirs heaves a sigh as the attention at the table turns to him. “Apparently officers should not mingle with the common soldier too much,” he says, voice almost airquoting the common soldier. “There was indeed a question of morale.”

“Hope you told him where he could shove it, sir.”

“I told him to worry a little more about Easy’s supply of suppressants”– which is a rightful concern, given its many god-chosen –“and a little less about what dogs of war do in their free time.”

“Bet he loved that, sir.”

“The LT dry-swallowed a suppressant for emphasis,” snorts Charlie Hammond. Even from beside him, it’s difficult to ignore his broad grin. “You should’ve seen Sobel’s fucking face, McNally. Like somebody just canceled spaghetti hour.”

“Don’t you fookin’ remind me of the spaghetti,” groans McNally, looking increasingly queasy at the mere thought of it. “Did he ever get written up for costing the Airborne suppressants, what with half of Easy puking their guts out after that?”

Ron shrugs. “Sink wasn’t pleased. They shoved Talbert into quarantine real fast.” He nods at a table in the far end corner of the room, where sergeant Talbert is trying his hardest to live up to his Love-chosen status. “And they had a real bad time getting the Trickster-chosen back under, apparently.”

“They don’t like to be under, do they?”

“Mann,” says Ron, eyeballing the too-quick way the reedy man downs his drink, “you will be under in the next hour if you keep pretending that’s water in your glass.” He shakes his head a little as Mann offers him a quick salute in reply. “I don’t think any of us like to be on the suppressants, no.” He certainly does not, but the alternative in his case might be a little too much for the Airborne to bear. “At least they’re skipping the cost of them on some soldiers with more, ah, tolerable gods than mine.”

“Tolerable like that, sir?” asks McNally, nodding at something taking place behind Ron that’s inviting a fair few shouts over the din.

“Travers is experiencing a new way of becoming airborne,” snorts Charlie beside him, craning his neck and practically leaning on Ron’s shoulder to be able to see better. “Fox Co is looking harrassed as all get-out, sir, it’s brilliant”– and of course Charlie would think so, given how often Fox has messed up orders in recent weeks –“look at him go!”

Fox Company’s Travers, really only memorable because his one eyebrow soaks up almost every scrap of space on his forehead, has indeed become airborne in a rather undignified manner. The rest of his men – whoever thought it was a good idea to give Travers men to lord his sergeantship over needs to be stripped of all company rights, in Ron’s opinion – seem to be arguing rather incessantly among themselves about the best way to drag their sergeant back down. Nobody seems to want to try taking on the very blonde, very unimpressed-looking woman who is currently glaring up at Travers as though he owes her either money or an apology.

Ron turns back to his drink. “Only a fool’s gonna mess with that.”

“I wouldn’t mind messin’ with that, sir,” grins McNally, eyes shining. “Heard that them air-chosen are a ride to bed.”

“Aren’t air-chosen a rarity, huh?” Mann’s shoving McNally’s beer toward Charlie like the lack of it is going to fix McNally’s death wish any. His finger wags in front of McNally’s face in clear warning. “You can’t keep up with that, brother.”

“She’s in a pilot’s jacket,” hums Charlie as he, too, turns back to the table. “Air-chosen ain’t so rare. Seen plenty of them with the bomber crews.”

“Since when have you seen those?”

“Relax, sir, I was on leave when I saw them. They’re big game. Lots of chatter with them, like with Easy too. Hard to tune that sorta thing out.”

Ron chances a glance sideways. There are moments, going as far back as the earliest days of training, when he’s convinced Charlie isn’t god-chosen only because he’s too stubborn to say yes to whichever god is offering. He’s heard Wisdom-chosen like Winters and Nixon refer to chatter, sure enough, and back home there was a Trickster-chosen who referred to their many impressions as such too. He can’t shake the thought that Charlie – dark-eyed, good-humored, secretive Charlie – might know a thing or two about it. Might be chosen by something, except Ron can’t identify which god has its eyes set on the kid.

There are days when it bothers him. He can identify most chosen, even though many of them are on suppressants like him. There’s something in their eyes, something in their countenance, that always trips up the game and reveals the cards. He’s seen it in Charlie, too, though it is usually so tied to tactics that it’s easy to chalk it up to the kid’s intelligence and nothing else.

“Well, would ya look at that,” sniggers McNally, then, and Ron looks up from his drink to see the man’s wide grin broaden even further. “She just rocketed that Travers fuck to the ceiling and back down again without so much as a gesture. I gotta get me one of those.”

“You’re not,” says Ron archly, glancing back at the air-chosen woman just to witness Travers flattened like a pancake, “stealing a pilot.” Not even one with that much sway to her, he almost says, seeing how she’s surrounded by a ragtag protective crowd immediately upon releasing a crumpled heap of Travers. “You’re welcome to pray to Air when we jump next, though, McNally, maybe that’ll…”

He pauses mid-speech. Doesn’t mean to. Doesn’t think he can form the rest of the sentence if he tried.

There’s a new woman at the heart of that pilot-filled crowd. A riot waiting to happen. He sees it spooling at her fingertips – the flicker of flames, dancing between long and slender fingers. Watches it spark at the ends of her red mane of hair until it looks like fire’s dancing between her curly locks. Observes it brightening her face, all grand smile and the flicker of amusement curling in her eyes, until he’s no longer sure why nobody’s answering that infectious grin of hers.

Fox Company bends away from her when the light catches her.

“– seen the like of this before!”

“What?” snaps Ron, louder than he means to.

“I said,” laughs Charlie, “I thought fire-chosen were all pent-up brews like Easy’s Joe Toye. Don’t think I’ve seen the like of this before. Have you, sir?”

Ron can only shake his head as he sees the air-chosen grasp the red-headed woman’s hand without even flinching at the fire. It earns the air-chosen a kiss to the cheek, so close to her mouth that it’s got some of the crowd around them hooting in warning, and one of the most dazzling smiles Ron’s ever seen.

“I heard they burn through their suppressants, yeah? Look at that,” muses Mann, “she’s practically glowing with power.”

“It’s not power,” says Ron, because he knows real power drapes itself around the body like a shroud. “It’s life itself. You can’t mimic that. Not even a Trickster could.” He’s seen them try, sometimes. Seen them fail, always. “That’s unique to them. To her.”

To this woman, fire-chosen in a way that sucks all air out of his lungs and leaves him feeling like he’s adrift in the desert. To her, casting a light of her own that almost dwarfs the lamplight in the whole pub. To this one, kissed by fire, so beloved by it that she could never belong to any other.

“I thought we weren’t stealin’ women, sir.��

Ron tears himself away from looking at her long enough to cast a rather unimpressed glare at McNally. “We’re not,” he repeats, even though there’s a heat unfurling in his belly that he fears might only answer to her now. “We are going to take whatever war gives us”– oh, how War will laugh at him once he’s off these damn suppressants and able to think clearly again –“and you are not going to give the Air Force reason to lodge a formal complaint against our conduct.”

“I won’t if you won’t.” McNally barely acknowledges Ron’s raised eyebrow. “Sir.”

“That one’s not Air Force, though,” comments Charlie.

“Kid”– heaves Mann, looking queasier by the minute –“you ain’t helping the LT get lucid.”

“Fresh air for him, bedtime for you,” decides Ron swiftly, nodding at Mann and Charlie, “and the next one to talk about stealing women is getting a liaison position with Easy.”

“Not with the Black Swan and his fookin’ spaghetti, sir…”

Ron feels rather light-headed as he chances a feral grin at McNally. Feels an answering flame flicker to life inside of him when a rather throaty, spitfire-in-the-belly laugh in the crowd behind him earns a crowd’s cry of “give it a rest, Darlene!” even as he pulls Charlie to his feet.

Darlene. He knows that’s her. Thinks he’d know her blind now that he’s seen her.

“How’s that liaison position lookin’, LT?”

“McNally. Thin ice.”

“Thin fookin’ ice, sir,” agrees his sergeant, clapping Ron’s shoulder and leading the way out of the pub. “Very thin indeed, with the likes of her around.”

Ron can’t very well argue with that.

#ronald speirs #oc: darlene #oc: lottie #oc: charlie #Dog Co remains a hoot and a half to write #not me picking on Fox Co again like I always do in this 'verse 😂#basilonefic #formvoidseries

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dnaamericaapp · 7 months

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After lawsuit, A Town Elects First Black Leaders In Its 200-Year History

Small-town elections where just a few hundred people cast ballots typically don’t get much outside attention. But Tuesday’s vote in Federalsburg, a 200-year-old enclave of about 2,800 people in Caroline County on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, made history as residents elected the town’s first Black council members.

In a community where about 43 percent of the population is Black, the election of Black leaders was long overdue, said residents and civil rights leaders who celebrated the wins. Black people had run for election in the town before, but never won. Over the past year, the NAACP and the American Civil Liberties Union pushed for changes to election laws that they said had diluted Black political strength in Federalsburg and allowed an all-White leadership to remain in place.

Brandy James (above), one of the two newly elected Black council members along with Darlene Hammond, said she was thrilled with the win and is ready to dive into governing when she is sworn in on Monday. At the top of her list were revamping the senior center, making the absentee ballot process less restrictive and addressing affordable housing shortages in the community.

James, 44, a crisis intervention manager and adjunct criminal justice professor at Chesapeake College, said she felt the historic importance of her election and acknowledged the suffering that others endured for her to represent her community.

The fight to upend Federalsburg’s voting system began in 2022 with the ACLU’s routine review of whether census data matched representation in Maryland communities. “When we saw the town is half-Black and there’s no Black representation, we reached out to the community.” said Deborah A. Jeon, legal director for the ACLU of Maryland.

The Eastern Shore, which was once home to the plantations where Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass were enslaved. The civil rights organization said it successfully advocated for new district boundaries that led to Black leadership in two counties and nine municipalities. -(source: the washington post)

DNA America

“It’s what we know, not what you want us to believe.”

#dna #news #politics #dnaamerica

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