#john b. hedges

[mayfieldss]

hey! i absolutely adore your fics, so i was wondering if you could write obx jj x reader where the reader is terrible at eye contact? it can be fluff or angst, it’s up to you! :) hope you have a wonderful day!

Thank you so much! I love how this is the complete opposite of my eye contact with JJ fic! I didn't know if you wanted this done platonically or romantically so I hope it's okay. If not you can always request again <3

Avoidance - JJ Maybank

Warnings; language.

"Guys, I think Y/N hates me." JJ approaches the others on the dock, glancing over his shoulder to check that you aren't sneaking up behind him. He likes you, he really does, but he's starting to think you don't feel anywhere near the same.

"Dude, they don't hate you, trust me." It's Kie who says it, looking down at her ukulele as she tunes its strings with utter concentration. Pope and John B, however, look up with intrigue, the Routledge boy leaning forward with his elbows on his knees.

"Why'd you think they hate you?" He's raised a brow, watching as JJ comes to sit across from him.

"They won't even look at me man, every time I talk to them, they're staring at their shoes, or their phone—just anything but me. I want them to look at me." The last sentence made him sound like a child, complaining about a lack of attention, but your lack of eye contact really was bothering him. No matter how friendly the conversation, JJ always felt as though you held no interest in his presence, and as he was determined to gain your affection, the fact he had hardly seen your eyes in the last week or two was starting to tear away at his feelings.

"You're sure they're doing it on purpose?" Pope asks, taking up the same position as John B as he listens in on JJ's dilemma. JJ just nods, head in his hands.

"They fucking hate me, I know it."

"They don't hate you." It's Kie again, still not looking up from her instrument and it's almost like Deja Vu the way she isn't looking at any of them, just as you refuse to do as such to JJ.

"They avoid eye contact all the time, to like everybody." She plucks at one of the strings, the sound it makes being a light ping.

"I know that," JJ stands, distraught and quite frankly confused. "But it's worse with me, I swear." leaning back against the barriers of the dock JJ gives in, a loud sigh leaving his lips. "Am I really that hard to look at?"

"Let me get this straight," Kie starts, finally putting the instrument down at her feet. "You think the only reason they could be avoiding eye contact with you is that they hate you. You don't think there is any other reason that they might be, I don't know, nervous to look at you?" She's frowning at him, waiting for an answer, and JJ thinks it over. Pope has a wide smile on his face, thinking of all the possibilities behind your lack of gazes, and that in turn sparks something in JJ.

"You think they like me? As in, like like me?"

Kie doesn't say a word, instead picking up her ukulele again and turning her attention back to plucking at the strings. John B, however, gives JJ a hard slap on the back, a grin on his lips. "Go get em, tiger."

JJ stands quickly, a grin on his lips though he still isn't sure about the situation. If his friends were wrong and you really did hate him then JJ would be beyond embarrassed, sulking home with hurt feelings. But nevertheless, he leaves the chateau in search of you, and soon enough he comes across your figure helping the old lady next to your house trim her hedges. When he calls out to you, he sees you flinch, before turning toward the sound. You meet his eyes for a mere second before sending a small wave and returning to clipping away at the leaves in front of you. When he calls out again you stop, putting down the hedge clippers.

"What do you want, JJ?" You don't look at him as you shout back, organising the tools at your feet.

"I want to talk to you about something, is that okay?" He's nervous now but he's not showing it, fists balled at his sides to stop himself from picking at his nails. He doesn't want you to know how deeply your answer to his question will affect him. At last, you straighten and make your way to him, eyes flicking up to see him every now and then, but never sticking to him long enough for JJ to gauge any sense of a reaction from you. The only thing he sees is someone that may or may not despise him.

"What'd you want to talk about?" You're looking over his shoulder now, arms folded across your chest. You want to look at him, you really do, but it's hard for you, it always has been.

JJ runs a hand over the back of his neck, muscles tightening as he works up the guts to get the words out. He takes you in, staring at you with hopeful eyes and praying that his friends were right about this. "Would you be interested in hanging out sometime? Like together?"

Your mouth falls open in an oh shape, and for the first time, you look at JJ directly for more than three seconds. You're staring at him, and though your eyes skip over his, afraid to lock with them for too long, you're looking at him. "Um, sure." You sound hesitant but not in a negative way and JJ can see the hint of a smile pricking at your lips.

He smiles too, clapping his hands before adjusting his cap. "Cool, great, yeah." He's trying his best not to bounce on the balls of his feet, worried too much excitement will scare you off. "How about tonight, seven o'clock, at the wreck?"

You nod, and JJ is beyond pleased, taking a step back. His cheeks hurt with how much he's smiling, but he doesn't care because maybe there is a chance you don't hate him after all. "Well, I'll let you get back to it," JJ gestures toward the half-trimmed hedge and the little old lady waiting patiently for you beside it, "See you then."

You nod repeating his statement, "See you then."

-

AN: I wanted to make this longer but I didn't want to keep you waiting too long for your request so, here it is!

GENERAL TAGLIST: @heliads @candywh0r3 @caplanreads @hiya-itsamberamber @s00buwu

OUTER BANKS TAGLIST: @scenesofobx

#jj maybank fic #jj maybank #jj maybank angst #jj maybank one shot #jj maybank x reader #jj maybank x y/n #jj maybank fanfiction #jj maybank fanfic #outer banks #jj maybank imagine #jj maybank drabble #jj maybank blurb #outer banks fanfiction #jj maybank x pogue!reader #jj maybank x fem!reader #jj maybank imagines #jj maybank oneshot #outer banks imagines #jj maybank fluff #obx #jj maybank outer banks #obx fanfiction #outer banks fic #outer banks fanfic #jj maybank reader insert #jj maybank x you #outer banks season three #outer banks imagine #obx fanfic #obx s3

[brokenfuturerpg]

PBS MASCULINOS POR EDAD

Hola personitas. Venimos con un aporte que nos ha costado un tiempito reunir. Es posible que algunos PB tengan 1 añito más de lo que pone, porque igual cumplieron recién. Esperamos les guste ^^

-14

Tydus Talbott (9)

Diesel Rojas (11)

Diezel Ortiz (11)

Christian Convery (13)

Paxton Booth (13)

Ryan Buggle (13)

14 / 17

Matthew Illesley (14)

Iain Armitage (15)

Gavin Magnus (16)

Hayden Haas (16)

Jacob Tremblay (16)

Walker Bryant (16)

Andrew Ponch (17)

Jentzen Ramirez (17)

Sawyer Sharbino (17)

18 / 22

Noah Jupe (18)

Noah Schnapp (18)

Thiago Vernal (18)

Alex Sampson (19)

Armani Jackson (19)

Blake Talabis (19)

Brandon Rossel (19)

Brandon Spink (19)

Casey Simpson (19)

Dante Albidone (19)

Diego Martir (19)

Dylan Kingwell (19)

Eric Montanez (19)

Flynn Curry (19)

Gavin Lewis (19)

Harry Still (19)

Harvey Petito (19)

Jack Dylan Grazer (19)

Jackson A. Dunn (19)

Jacob Buster (19)

Jaden Michael (19)

Martin Rompeltien (19)

Max Valenzuela (19)

Maximo Rivano (19)

Nicolas Cantu (19)

Raúl Balilla (19)

William Franklyn Miller (19)

Zane Austin (19)

Asher Angel (20)

Finn Wolfhard (20)

Gaten Matarazzo (20)

Jaeden Martell (20)

Joaquín Bondoni (20)

Johnny Orlando (20)

Aidan Gallagher (20)

Levi Miller (20)

MattyB (20)

Wyatt Oleff (20)

Andrés Vázquez (21)

Caleb McLaughlin (21)

Gregory Kasyan (21)

Lewis MacDougall (21)

Hunter Rowland (22)

Lucas Jade Zumann (22)

Ty Simpkins (22)

24 / 27

Chandler Riggs (24)

Charlie Plummer (24)

Mateus Ward (24)

Owen Teague (24)

Devin Druid (25)

Dylan Sprayberry (25)

Hero Fiennes-Tiffin (25)

Jaden Smith (25)

Jungkook (25)

Lucky Blue Smith (25)

Shawn Mendes (25)

Asa Butterfield (26)

Austin Abrams (26)

Colin Ford (26)

Dylan Minnette (26)

Jacob Elordi (26)

KJ Apa (26)

Lucas Hedges (26)

Michael Ronda (26)

Miguel Bernardeau (26)

Tye Sheridan (26)

Álvaro Rico (27)

Austin Crute (27)

Charlie Rowe (27)

David Castro (27)

Jacob Lofland (27)

Joe Keery (27)

Kim Taehyung (27)

Kodi Smit-McPhee (27)

Miguel Herrán (27)

Nathan Westling (27)

Noah Centineo (27)

Park Ji-Min (27)

Ross Lynch (27)

Skyler Gisondo (27)

Timothée Chalamet (27)

Tom Holland (27)

29 / 32

Alex Lawther (29)

Cody Christian (29)

Dacre Montgomery (29)

Ellar Coltrane (29)

Kim Namjoon (29)

Nat Wolff (29)

Nick Robinson (29)

RJ Cyler (29)

Tony Mahfud (29)

Alexander Gould (30)

Ansel Elgort (30)

Charlie Heaton (30)

Connor Jessup (30)

Harry Styles (30)

JHope (30)

Mitchell Hope (30)

Moisés Arias (30)

Adam Hicks (31)

Alberto Rosende (31)

Cameron Monaghan (31)

Ezra Miller (31)

Jin (31)

Josh Hutcherson (31)

Min Yoongi (31)

Nick Jonas (31)

Will Poulter (31)

Zayn Malik (31)

Blas Cantó (31)

Casey Cott (31)

Cole Sprouse (31)

Dylan O’Brien (31)

Dylan Sprouse (31)

Jaime Lorente (31)

Jordan Connor (31)

Louis Tomlinson (31)

Tyler Posey (31)

Ben Hardy (32)

Charles Melton (32)

Cody Kearsley (32)

Callum Worthy (32)

Ed Sheeran (32)

Francisco Lachowski (32)

Jorge López (32)

Stephen James (32)

Vadhir Derbez (32)

33 / 42

Aaron Taylor-Johnson (33)

Alexander Calvert (33)

Bill Skarsgard (33)

Caleb Landry Jones (33)

Chris Colfer (33)

David Castañeda (33)

Dominic Sherwood (33)

Grant Gustin (33)

Jacob Anderson (33)

Justin H. Min (33)

Lee Jong-Suk (33)

Liam Hemsworth (33)

Luke Baines (33)

Nicholas Hoult (33)

Ross Butler (33)

Simon Nessman (33)

Taron Egerton (33)

Thomas Brodie-Sangster (33)

Alfred Enoch (34)

Chai Hansen (34)

Chord Overstreet (34)

Daniel Radcliffe (34)

Harry Melling (34)

Keegan Allen (34)

Joe Jonas (34)

John Bradley-West (34)

Matthew Lewis (34)

Prince Royce (34)

Rupert Grint (34)

Sean O’Pry (34)

Cody Walker (35)

Dougie Poynter (35)

Jake Abel (35)

Matthew Daddario (35)

Robbie Amell (35)

Robert Sheehan (35)

Sonny John Moore (35)

Tom Felton (35)

Tyler Hoechlin (35)

Zac Efron (35)

Alfie Allen (36)

Brendon Urie (36)

Darren Criss (36)

Don Benjamin (36)

Evan Peters (36)

Ian Harding (36)

Jeff Ward (36)

Kit Harington (36)

Lee Min-Ho (36)

Manny Jacinto (36)

Michael B. Jordan (36)

Nick Bateman (36)

Ricardo Baldin (36)

Tyler Blackburn (36)

Will Tudor (36)

Winston Duke (36)

Bruno Mars (37)

Cameron Britton (37)

Colin Morgan (37)

Daniel Sharman (37)

Jamie Bell (37)

Luke Youngblood (37)

Osric Chau (37)

Richard Madden (37)

Robert Pattinson (37)

Sam Claflin (37)

Shia LaBeouf (37)

Yon González (37)

Brant Daugherty (38)

Dave Franco (38)

David Gallagher (38)

Iwan Rheon (38)

Jon Kortajarena (38)

Kellan Lutz (38)

Luke Mitchell (38)

Theo James (38)

Tom Hopper (38)

Adam Devine (39)

Adam Driver (39)

Alfonso Herrera (39)

Bradley James (39)

Calvin Harris (39)

Gaston Dalmau (39)

Jesse Eisenberg (39)

Steven Yeun (39)

Andrew Garfield (40)

Brett Dalton (40)

Chris Hemsworth (40)

Domhnall gleeson (40)

Henry Cavill (40)

Yusuf Gatewood (40)

Adam Lambert (41)

Eddie Redmayne (41)

Harry Shum Jr (41)

Ha Seok-Jin (41)

Jamie Dornan (41)

Jared Padalecki (41)

Ju Ji-Hoon (41)

Sebastian Stan (41)

Ben Barnes (42)

Chris Evans (42)

Elijah Wood (42)

Jake Gyllenhaal (42)

Jesse Williams (42)

Joseph Gordon-Levitt (42)

Joseph Morgan (42)

Justin Chon (42)

Justin Timberlake (42)

Kunal Nayyar (42)

Rami Malek (42)

Ryan Gosling (42)

Simon Helberg (42)

Stephen Amell (42)

Tom Hiddleston (42)

43 / 52

Channing Tatum (43)

Charlie Hunnam (43)

Chris Pine (43)

Daniel Henney (43)

David Gandy (43)

Gilles Souteyrand (43)

Jason Schwartzman (43)

Jason Segel (43)

Matthew Gray Gubler (43)

Sam Heughan (43)

William Jackson Harper (43)

Adam Levine (44)

Anthony Mackie (44)

Chris Pratt (44)

Ian Somerhalder (44)

James McAvoy (44)

Jason Momoa (44)

Jesse Spencer (44)

Kevin Hart (44)

Kristofer Hivju (44)

Tyrese Gibson (44)

Chadwick Boseman (45)

Daniel Brühl (45)

Jake Johnson (45)

James Franco (45)

Jensen Ackles (45)

Josh Hartnett (45)

Ludacris (45)

Matt Bomer (45)

Tom Hardy (45)

Alex O’Loughlin (46)

Chiwetel Ejiofor (46)

Eric Christian Olsen (46)

Joe Manganiello (46)

John Cena (46)

Jon Bernthal (46)

Kal Penn (46)

Michael Fassbender (46)

Milo Ventimiglia (46)

Orlando Bloom (46)

Ryan Reynolds (46)

Scott Caan (46)

Zachary Quinto (46)

Benedict Cumberbatch (47)

Cillian Murphy (47)

Colin Farrell (47)

Kristian Nairn (47)

Michael Peña (47)

Pablo Puyol (47)

Rodrigo de la Serna (47)

Adam Rodriguez (48)

Bradley Cooper (48)

Casey Affleck (48)

David Harbour (48)

Joaquin Phoenix (48)

Johnny Galecki (48)

Leonardo Dicaprio (48)

Masi Oka (48)

Taika Waititi (48)

Tobey Maguire (48)

Andrew Lincoln (49)

Christian Bale (49)

Isaiah Mustafa (49)

Josh Radnor (49)

Misha Collins (49)

Sendhil Ramamurthy (49)

Adam Scott (50)

Adrien Brody (50)

Idris Elba (50)

Jason London (50)

Jim Parsons (50)

Josh Duhamel (50)

Neil Patrick Harris (50)

Omar Epps (50)

Ben Affleck (51)

Dwayne Jhonson (51)

Jared Leto (51)

John Cho (51)

Justin Lin (51)

Karl Urban (51)

Luke Wilson (51)

Martin Freeman (51)

Matt Schulze (51)

Sung Kang (51)

Damian Lewis (52)

Ewan McGregor (52)

Jeremy Renner (52)

Matt Damon (52)

Mark Wahlberg (52)

Michael C. Hall (52)

Paul Bettany (52)

Sean Astin (52)

53 / 62

Chris O’Donnell (53)

Gerard Butler (53)

Henry Simmons (53)

Matthew McConaughey (53)

Michael Trucco (53)

Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (53)

Richard Speight Jr. (53)

Shemar Moore (53)

Simon Pegg (53)

Skeet Ulrich (53)

Vince Vaughn (53)

Warwick Davis (53)

Dave Bautista (54)

Hugh Jackman (54)

Jack Black (54)

Jason Bateman (54)

Javier Bardem (54)

Norman Reedus (54)

Owen Willson (54)

Paul Rudd (54)

Peter Dinklage (54)

Rory McCann (54)

Toby Stephens (54)

Will Smith (54)

Aidan Gillen (55)

Daniel Dae Kim (55)

Jamie Foxx (55)

Josh Brolin (55)

LL Cool J (55)

Mark Rufalo (55)

Tom Goodman-Hill (55)

Jason Statham (56)

Jon Favreau (56)

Kiefer Sutherland (56)

Vin Diesel (56)

Vincent Cassel (56)

Will Ferrell (56)

Ben Stiller (57)

Jeffrey Dean Morgan (57)

William Zabka (57)

Conleth Hill (58)

Don Cheadle (58)

Keanu Reeves (58)

Mark Pellegrino (58)

Martin Lawrence (58)

Robert Downey Jr. (58)

Brad Pitt (59)

Lenny Kravitz (59)

Mark Sheppard (59)

Nicholas Cage (59)

Russel Crowe (59)

Jerome Flynn (60)

Jet li (60)

Jhonny Depp (60)

Mike Myers (60)

Ralph Fiennes (60)

Clark Gregg (61)

Ralph Macchio (61)

Thomas Gibson (61)

Tom Cruise (61)

Wesley Snipes (61)

Eddie Murphy (62)

Forest Whitaker (62)

George Clonney (62)

Hugh Grant (62)

Iain Glen (62)

Jean-Claude Van Damme (62)

Laurence Fishburne (62)

Woody Harrelson (62)

63 / 72

Antonio Banderas (63)

Hugo Weaving (63)

Ken Watanabe (63)

Sean Penn (63)

Hugh Laurie (64)

Sean Bean (64)

Viggo Mortensen (64)

Alec Baldwin (65)

Dolph Lundgren (65)

Andy García (67)

Mel Gibson (67)

Tom Hanks (67)

Bruce willis (68)

Denzel Washington (68)

Kevin Costner (68)

Michael Rooker (68)

Jackie Chan (69)

Jeff Goldblum (70)

Pierce Brosnan (70)

Joe Pantoliano (71)

Liam Neeson (71)

Marc Hamill (71)

Mark Harmon (71)

Bill Murray (72)

Kurt Russell (72)

+73

Richard Gere (74)

Samuel L. Jackson (74)

Ted Danson (75)

Arnold Swarzenneger (76)

Tommy Lee Jones (76)

Sylvester Stalone (77)

Tom Selleck (78)

Ben Kingsley (79)

Robert de Niro (80)

Harrison Ford (81)

Al Pacino (83)

Patrick Stewart (83)

Ian McKellen (84)

Anthony Hopkins (85)

Jack Nicholson (86)

Morgan Freeman (86)

Donald Sutherland (88)

Michael Caine (90)

#foroactivo #foro de rol #rol #foro rpg #rpg #foro #roleplay #resources #pb reales #pb

[pacifymebby]

t r o u b l e / Chapter Ten

a peaky blinders Modern AU balletcore story?

Chapter List

Previous Chapter (in case u missed it bc tumblr is being weird)

John

"Don't like this John," hummed Esme where she sat in the bedroom window, her hair wild and long, trailing down her back her curls knotting down to her lower back, brushing over her bare thighs when she turned to look at me over her shoulder. She'd been up half the night with the baby and now that the littlen had finally settled down she was sitting alone watching the dark garden, wearing one of my tshirts, one which had been worn to death and had grown with her baby belly throughout her last pregnancy. She still wore it now, when it was late and she couldn't sleep. She'd taken to sitting in that window all through the night, starring out at the garden like a caged bird, smoking her cigarettes one by one.

"I know love," I sighed stepping up behind her, letting my hands hold her shoudlers, thumbs rubbing over the bones. "Won't be for long, we'll go back to the farm soon..."

"Thats what you say," she said turning back to the garden with the dark shadowy eyes of a girl. A girl pining. Which is what I knew she was. She was restless and she had been for a long time, long before this shit with the Italians. I'd been trying my best on the farm, trying to help her feel free, connected to the earth. I humoured her when she walked out in the garden barefoot, curling her toes into the muddy vegetable patches when it rained. I'd promised her we'd travel, that we'd pack up and take the kids with us, and I'd meant to keep that promise. But now there were other shadows looming over us, and not just over me and her but the whole family. And keeping my promise to Esme would mean betraying my brothers and sisters.

I couldn't even toy with the idea. Of course sometimes the way Tommy was made me want to say fuck it and leave, but the rest of them, no. I couldn't leave Ada and the twins. Couldnt abandon Arthur who needed the family to stay together more than any of us.

And even Tommy, at the end of the day, no matter how cruel he could be, how unfeeling, he was still my big brother. And he wasn't as selfish as he seemed, it just takes a lot to lead a family, especially one like ours. He was just doing his best to be the person steering our battered ship.

"We're never leaving here," Esme said, her voice low and dark and gloomy like the empty garden at night. That expanse of lawn, so tame. That wall of trees just that, a wall that hedged us all in. Marked out our bit of land and kept it ours. A perimeter that  Esme understood, kept her caged.

That was why she spent her evenings starring out at it with dark eyes and a heavy heart. Smoking her cigarettes. Making me feel all kinds of guilt and inadequacy.

"We will flower, just as soon as this is all over, gonna take you and the littlens far away," I said leaning over her, tilting her head right back so that i could kiss her from above. I meant it, in my heart when I said it I meant it but we were neither of us naive and so we both found ourselves looking out at the garden then, whistful and doomed.

This wasn't going to be over quickly. Might never be over at all.

The house was quiet but only just and only for now, the twins had gone to bed, too shaken up for my liking - and I felt guilty for that because I'd aided in the shaking - but Arthur hadn't returned with Ada and I knew that she had all the fight of little Sylvie and all the zeal of having grown up in a shithole like small heath. That is to say I knew she wouldn't be affraid to tell Tommy exactly what she thought of him. How much of a cunt she thought he was.

When our mother had died Tommy had stepped up for the girls because they were only small and suddenly left without a mother or a father to care for them. He'd tried to be that father figure to the best of his ability, which was limited because he'd never really had a sturdy father figure himself. As a result the girls had wound up with this fear of him, that fear only a father can instill. In healthy relationships its known as respect but theirs was a distant and troubled relationship and so fear was the only way of describing it. Ada hadn't had that, didn't fear him and probably wouldn't ever. So I knew that when she got here she'd do the shouting and the fighting for all three of them. Wouldn't give a fuck that it was 4 in the morning and the littluns were in bed, that I was in bed, only just managing to drift off. Would blame me for that, would tell me it straight.

"Ada will stay," said Esme then, "she's not stupid she knows whats at risk..."

"Yeah," I sighed, "its the girls ain't it," I said, "gonna be trouble..." I said and she smirked as if to say 'you don't know the half of it' but I did because every step of the way we'd done everything wrong. We'd sent them away, let them grow up wild in some far away city, in a boarding school that taught them how to lie and cheat their way to the top, taught them they could have everything they wanted if they were cut throat and selfish, if they thought only about where they were trying to go and took wild risks, pushed themselves too far.

And it was obvious looking at Sylvie, that the both of them had taken on board everything that theyd been taught. That they weren't affraid to push themselves too far, test their limits. That they didn't mind their own safety when it came to taking risks to get what they wanted.

And they'd take these risks because we'd always tried to keep them sheltered, always tried to keep them seperate. The twins had never seen their brothers with bullets in their chests, they'd never seen the men we'd snatched from wives and children. They didn't really know what we did with the bodies. They didn't know about the arms severed, the threats sent. They didn't know the things we'd done to our enemies, they thought our wars were all money and talk but they were usually always retaliation to meetings gone sour, deals fucked up, families we'd made the mistake of only half slaughtering.

And because they didn't know any of those things, then they could never really understand what they were risking, what our enemies would do to them, how they would be used, how they'd be tortured.

It wasn't even a year passed since our Aunt Pol had narrowly escaped death at the hands of the Changretta's. They'd had her neck in a noose, left her balanced on her tip toes for days, a sinister act of torture we were all certain had tipped her over the morbid edge she'd been teetering on for years. They'd told her they had all of us, tricked her into believing that whilst she stood their desperately trying to keep her balance, feeling the strain of the noose against her neck every time she faltered, that each of us was fighting for our lives in an equally painful way.

No one knew, not even her, how she'd actually managed to escape. But it hadn't been any of us who had cut her down. Tommy said she must have done it, must have worked out a way to cut the bonds on her hands, to sever the rope around her neck. Polly insisted that it hadn't been. That it had been the ghost of her mother, that now she'd spent several days with death hovering around her, waiting for her muscles to spazm and falter, she could see death all the time. That she could hear the voices of those past, that she could see their shadows lingering around the living.

And though it all seemed a little mellodramatic to me, seemded like rot to Arthur, I could tell Tommy empathised with the darkness. And we couldn't laugh her off because of what she'd gone through. The days of pain, her muscles sore to burning, her adrenaline savaging her body so that when she finally returned home she was a shell of her former self. Something changed behind her eyes.

That was the darkness our fens were risking every time they fought back against Tommy. If they disobeyed him, if we couldn't keep them here, safe with us, well, thered be no ghosts that came to save them.

"Sylvies got her brothers temper," said Esme, her strange impersonal judgements reminding me that they'd never really met. That the wedding had been the first and last time they'd seen one another. So it was all the more strange, all the more uncomfortable.

"Aye but which brother..." I smirked making her laugh, making her dark brooding eyes light up for a moment as she shook her head.

"Well," she let her smirk linger, her dimple etched into her expression so that she appeared impish in the pale nights light, "ain't arthurs is it..."

"Shes nothin like Tommy," I said shaking my head, refusing to believe that that could be true, refusing to believe that there was anything about my brother that could possibly have been passed onto little Sylvia who had always been so wild and sweet.

"They're like our mum," I said trying to reiterate my point. Trying to prove Esme's observation wrong, "I guess you wouldn't see that yknow," I shrugged turning away from the window, pulling my shirt over my head, knowing there was no point trying to get to sleep. Lying down anyway and asked her to lie down with me. For want of nothing else to do.

"Come on love, can't sit in that window all night you'll get cold..."

"What and I spose you're gonna keep me warm?" she asked turning with that clever little smirk, outsmarting me again.

"Aye," I said with a cheeky caught out grin of my own, "Somet like that aye..." I chuckled opening my arms out for her, letting her crawl across the bed to me, that too bed tshirt hanging from her soft curves as she moved feline and feminine over covers to come curl up in my arms.

I kissed her hair and let my hand trail over her thigh, fingers teasing a line up to the hem of her underwear. I knew how to ease her troubled mood, even now when her eyes were dark and I could see that she was worrying.

So we didn't get any sleep, and when Arthur returned with Ada and Karl, their voices ricochetting down the corridors, their disturbance caught me and Esme off guard. Her beanth me, her thighs trembling on each side of my neck as I ground my hips against her hips a little harder than before, burying myself deep inside her.

We'd been close when that front door had slammed and Karl had woken, started crying but the moment Ada's sharp words began tumbling vitriolic and shattering the silent house, we knew it was over.

"Fuck sake," whined Esme burying her face into my neck, clutching at me still, her body clinging tight to mine. She didn't want to let go and I didn't want to pull out and away from her but I knew that any second now Ada would be hammering her fist on that bedroom door demanding to drag me into the battle.

I laughed, let my grin linger because there was nothing else I could do. Just had to keep smirking through it and appreciate the humour of it all, forty fuckin one years old and still being cockblocked by my big sister.

So I accepted my fate, kissing Esme on the nose as I pulled out and she whimpered again. Smirking at her sweetness because it wasn't a side to her that came out very often. Had never been a side she liked to show. One it had taken me a long time to find hidden and secret beneath all those rough and wild layers of defense.

"To be continued," I said pecking her cheek, trailing teasing kisses down her body, leaving one between her legs that made her whine and then push me away, kicking at me playfully as she let out a dissatisfied sigh.

"Fuck sake John," she groaned as she pushed herself up and wrapped the covers around her. "I'm going to sleep, better not wake me up when you get back..." she threatened, her smouldering eyes teasing me, her sullen lips leaving me longing to kiss her again, push her buttons just a little more.

"Oh you'll be awake lass," I grinned, "Ada'll make sure of that..."

And Ada did make sure of that. She'd no patience because despite what he said, Arthur had done nothing to calm her on the journey home and even then, when I came stumbling into the corridor tugging my tshirt over my head, laughing at the drama of it all, Arthur was watching her despairing and nervous.

"Fuckin hell Ada some of us are tryna sleep here, its 4 in the fuckin mornin..." I said still chuckling, knowimg that I was risking her temper and carrying on anyway. I was her little brother afterall, I could get away with it if I tried.

"Perhaps you'd be having an easier night if you didn't always bend over backwards to accommodate our canniving pig of a brother," she said sharply, standing in the hallway lit up by the the little light coming in through the front door and the windows in the cieling.

She looked pale as a ghost and just as cold and I didn't know what to say to her because she wasn't wrong. Wasn't right either. I wouldn't have had an easier night because Tommy would have killed me and then he'd have sent someone else, someone like Isaiah, and then my ghost would have been haunting the halls all eternity with the guilt of having left my little sisters in the hands of someone else.

It wasn't that I wouldn't have trusted Isaiah with my sisters, it was that really when it came down to it, I didn't trust anyone with them. Not even my brothers. Not to do things right anyway.

If Arthur had gone for them he'd have lost his temper because he'd have been scared, because he'd have been paranoid that they didn't respect him, because he'd have been angry at himself for not being able to do as Tommy had asked. For not being the kind of brother his little baby sisters would trust.

If Tommy had gone, then the speech which had brought Sonya to petrified tears in the office that night, would have been given much sooner, with no care for the audience, no care for who was watching, recording or making notes. He'd have lost his temper because he'd have realised they only feared him, didn't respect him. And they were more delicate than either of them liked to let on. Sonya and Sylvia had always been a little less Shelby like our father. Much more like their mother than anyone wanted to admit.

I had noticed it in Sylvia straight away. The thin quality, that washed out pale tone, the greyish brown which shadowed her eyes, which lingered and left her looking tired. Sonya had hidden it better but I'd still seen it there. They were both just so much smaller than they should have been but I knew that if I mentioned it to my brothers they'd tell me I worried too much, that they were tougher than I gave them credit for.

"Ada love come on now eh its late, you'll wake the twins..." said Arthur, all sheepish and tired, one hand on the back of his neck, his features flushed, embarassed to be approaching 50 and still unable to quell his sisters temper. If there was one thing you could say about Ada it was that she'd always been the one to put us in our place. Humble us when we let our position and our reputation get to our heads.

"You care for their wellbeing so much then why in gods name would you drag em back to this fuckin place?" and then she sighed and shook her head, "fuckin go to bed arthur it aint you I need to speak to..."

"Tommys in his..." I trailed off when my eyes met my brothers down the hall, he was walking slowly, a shadow approaching, a cigarette unlit hanging between his lips.

"Ada love," he said making her jump but doing nothing to hush her or shake her determination. "Good to see you made it up safe an sound..." and when I saw his patronising little smile I resigned myself to a sleepless night and a long morning of achey heads and sore throats. Tension bristling.

It was exactly what we got, but not what we didn't deserve.

🔪🦢

"She won't forgive you you know..." said Polly the next morning when it was only myself and her left in the dining room.

Sylvie had left with an angry static buzzing all about her, Tommy had sent her to fetch Sonya and, in his usual tactless charm, had said something so patronising that I was surprised our Fen hadn't torn his head from his neck right in front of us.

"No," I said with a sad smirk, "Fens right, gonna fuck Sonyas whole career up ain't it, poor lass must fuckin hate us..." but when I said it Pol just chuckled and shook her head.

"I wasn't talking about Sonya," she said lighting up her cigarette and drawing in a long leisurely inhale, "Sonya knows she can't go back, I don't even think she's going to put up a fight..."

"Its Sonya who's losing her job not Sylvia," I shrugged a little confused, not understanding when Polly laughed.

"Ha," she said, "stupid lads the lot of you..." she turned her head from me, looking across the dining room and out the window at the gardens where the mist was just beginning to thin.

"What?" I couldn't keep the confusion off my face despite wanting to hide it, I hated it when she made me feel stupid like that, perhaps I deserved it, perhaps I was as daft as she said. Even so I didn't like the fact being highlighted so bluntly.

"Since their mother died those two girls have had only eachother... Their big brothers weren't there were they? In London? Learnt to look after one another didn't they..."

It was painful to hear it from her, our Aunt Pol who has always been the matriarch, the one who looked after us all, the one we all looked up to. She it was painful to hear her tell it so straight, how we'd let them down. How we'd abandoned them. Left two little girls down south on their own, fending for themselves among strangers.

"I should never have let him do that," said Polly then, her voice as dark and gravelly as her eyes, that harsh kind of doom lingering around her like a shadow. One of those auras she claimed to be able to see around people these days.

"When our Tom puts his mind to somet..." I started only to trail off, only to remember that none of us had really fought against it, "we all believed it was for the best..."

"Fools," murmured Pol sucking in another drag on her cigarette, watching the cloud of smoke linger and then disperse just in front of her, "the lot of us."

#peaky blinders imagines #Trouble #tommy shelby modern au #peaky blinders modern au #peaky blinders x sister!reader #peaky blinders x oc #Alfie solomons x oc #peaky blinders fanfiction #peaky blinders imagine

[sarkos]

The third stage of the cycle – euphoria – is the one we’re now in. Caution has been thrown to the winds and ostensibly rational companies are gambling colossal amounts of money on AI. Sam Altman, the boss of OpenAI, started talking about raising $7tn from Middle Eastern petrostates for a big push that would create AGI (artificial general intelligence). He’s also hedging his bets by teaming up with Microsoft to spend $100bn on building the Stargate supercomputer. All this seems to be based on an article of faith; namely, that all that is needed to create superintelligent machines is (a) infinitely more data and (b) infinitely more computing power. And the strange thing is that at the moment the world seems to be taking these fantasies at face value. Which brings us to stage four of the cycle: profit-taking. This is where canny operators spot that the process is becoming unhinged and start to get out before the bubble bursts. Since nobody is making real money yet from AI except those that build the hardware, there are precious few profits to take, save perhaps for those who own shares in Nvidia or Apple, Amazon, Meta, Microsoft and Alphabet (nee Google). This generative AI turns out to be great at spending money, but not at producing returns on investment. Stage five – panic – lies ahead. At some stage a bubble gets punctured and a rapid downward curve begins as people frantically try to get out while they can. It’s not clear what will trigger this process in the AI case. It could be that governments eventually tire of having uncontrollable corporate behemoths running loose with investors’ money. Or that shareholders come to the same conclusion. Or that it finally dawns on us that AI technology is an environmental disaster in the making; the planet cannot be paved with datacentres.

From boom to burst, the AI bubble is only heading in one direction | John Naughton | The Guardian

[mercyisms]

Niche Nona liveblogging: John 20:8 - Day Three

For fun and my own future reference, and to contain as many spoilers as possible, I am liveblogging NTN but consolidating my thoughts and some lines that especially jump out at me. Yes, there will be utterly too much attention to old Lyctor lore. I am what I am. I’m consolidating these roughly into thirds + scheduling them in intervals. I am not sure how interesting this will be but!! If you want to see me scream at every passing mention of Mercymorn, this is the place. Also apologies in advance for not editing. Spoilers up until page 129 in the hardcover, or the Day Three divider. 

“It was me and A—and M—at the start.” I know we’ve already got these first two chapters in the previews, but from this initial moment, I, and my Augustine&Mercymorn (and Augustine/Mercymorn) was sated and thanked Tamsyn Muir infinitely for sustenance. I was extremely vindicated to learn Mercy was medical and extremely thrown but delighted to hear Augustine was also a scientist, but of course “handled the shareholders.” God. “You know the worst part? She cried. She and A—both cried. In each other’s arms, like babies. They were so fucking scared.” At which point I was overwhelmed because of course, of course, they repeat and repeat and the potential that Augustine and Mercymorn lived and died as A—and M—died? I must sit down. Things that I obviously think and will state here, once, but assume it is happening over and over again: Nona, I love you, I love you, I love you. Pyrrha Dve, I love you, I am free on Monday, I am free on Tuesday, I am free on whatever days I am not promising to Camilla Hect, whom I love and am free on Monday, on Tuesday, on—and Palamedes, you are nice too. Also let’s quickly discuss these 10ish chapters in whole. I have always been team Nona is Alecto in whomever’s body. And we stake out, here, that I’ll be assuming it is Harrow’s body and Alecto’s soul. This assumption driven a) contextually, we know this was supposed to a blip in Alecto initially and frankly it being Alecto’s soul makes the most sense, sorry to meta-game, but b) that John is talking to ‘Harrow’ but clearly reciting Alecto’s history, or his history with Alecto and c) the end of John 5:20/start of Chapter 7 demonstrates that we only get John-to-‘Harrow’ when Nona is asleep, suggesting a tie (ingenious btw) and d) Nona being mistaken for a fourteen year old reads much more strongly of Harrow’s body (angry gothic shrimp) than Gideon’s (which, at last update, was perfectly preserved, with we assume muscle intact). I further subscribe to the Resurrection Beasts are the souls of the planets and Alecto is the RB of earth. We’ll pivot from these assumptions as necessary, but here’s where I’ve hedged my bets! Okay. “It was no fun, my child.” Take a shot every time Pyrrha is parental and then flashback to when Pyrrha just wanted to know why Wake had brought the baby and think very deeply about, I believe, Pyrrha’s longing to be parental. Pyrrha Dve, adopt me. “Nine million, Pyrrha. That’s the equivalent to the whole of the Seventh and Eighth put together.” This figure genuinely shocked me & I did not realize the scale of the empire and also that Silas was truly in charge of over a million people?? Props to that anemic teen. That is a big cult. (I am once again begging someone to show me the Eighth.) “You should… Gideon used to think about running away there. I know how to farm.” Previously stated, but I cannot believe Em and I called Gideon farming vibes (close enough!), Cassy lawyer vibes, and Mercy pre-med vibes. That’s almost a full bingo row! Anyway, eating up every detail about Gideon and signs of agency with a fork. “One of the reasons that they called her Nona was that the first thing she ahd said, when they saved her and brought her was ‘No, no.’” Having also participated in Nabokov brainrot rummer (shoutout @gothicenjoyer​) I am deeply intrigued by this thread of a character’s professed lack of consent becoming the basis for her name. There is something very tasty here. To be unpacked later? When Nona tells you all of Pyrrha’s code words and you’re like “this will almost certainly be deeply relevant to the plot later, but it’s also, like, chapter one so I’m not going to remember it.” Flagged p38 (page numbers in hardcover), and Nona’s burgeoning lessons on, for simplicity, “being human” to later compare with Mercy’s assertion that Alecto could never fake being human, was fundamentally inhuman – if Nona = Alecto. We’ll come back to this. We’ll also see if “Nona [felt] a little bit offended on the planet’s part” has any secondary payoff.   “Nona longed to lie, but didn’t know how to stop her body from telling the truth.” (47) I think I’ll want this quote later. Understanding all languages + body language + honesty. “… the pride of having Pyrrha, the familiarity of seeing someone and knowing they belonged to you.” (54) Kevin is a visionary. The Angel being referred to as sir. The Gender is beginning. Also really important having a crush on your teacher representation, huh? I see you Hot Sauce. Speaking of Gender, obligatory joke about using a sword or magicking bones being The Two Genders, but of course, ave has already written the essay on it. “Nice to nibble at, boring otherwise.” “She’s used to people loving her anyway,” I will also eat all of the Coronabeth content with a spoon. We are assuming based on the names and that The Captain is, obviously, Judith. “She was made to be immune to blue light.” I hope this book will help me resolve whether Mercy actually inadvertently looked at RB7 or what?? Or what???? Said the only person in the world who is still caught on that blip from HTN. “Making the same shape as his mouth had done like she did when speaking languages.” I’mmmm well, frankly, I cannot believe the way to fully invest me in Palamedes was to put him in Camilla’s body. This situation remains delicious and tragic. I will sit down in the bath now. “C—was panicking because… she was getting recalled to England” God I cannot believe Cassiopeia is British #representation, but I am very listening. Pyrrha being a cop. Checks out! “Oh my God, you’re drinking, aren’t you. You’re on anphetamines, Youa re on coke. You are on amphetamines and coke. I was all like Yeah. . . Coke Zero.” I cannot believe this. I cannot believe this, and I love you Mercymorn Nolastname. “G—always thought anything I did or said was fine. Not necessarily right, but fine.” Once again eating the G1deon content. “…all the ones I touched, all the ones I loved…” (76)

“Because I remind her that her God was just a human being who could get tired and fuck up.” We are nibbling on the Pyrrha/Wake content, but also relevant, relevant. “I’ve got a broken heart and I’ll never love again.” Again, nibbling. Big bite of them. Thank you, TM. “Of course they were apart, separated forever by a matter of minutes” I am experiencing an emotion over the tragedy but also “but Nona knew they talked to each other in pages of letters and letters and letters” cf. their relationship to Dulcinea? The inherent epistolary form of the Sixth house? “When Gideon and I designed that trial, I used to crack his skull and sieve it myself, just as a control variable… The only other people I put through that damn trial were Mercy and Cris, because only Cris didn’t mind being trepanned on the regular.” Cristabel Oct I love you, I am obsessed with you, I want to put you in a jar and carry you forever. I am also deeply interested in how hands on this suggests the ‘cavaliers’ were + collaborative with the research (vs. ‘contemporary’ necro/cav relations) and also… Pyrrha and Mercy… collaborators… h*t. “On the first day, A—believed… A—said I looked cool. He was the only one.” At which point I began frothing at the mouth because man, Augustine (and Mercymorn, and everyone, but especially) really was fully in your corner, and you killed that guy. You really killed that guy. You killed your two+ best friends.  “A—and M—moved in with me.” We are also HIGHLY attuned to how often A/M are referred to and operate as a unit. I’m obsessed. I’m fed. “A—was trying so hard to bring me back down to earth… He’d swapped with M--.” At what point are they truly divorcees? You know? “…squabbled with A--. At least that made me feel normal. That was their usual double act. It was only when they felt the same thing that I knew it was serious.” Lmao, fuck me up. “make time go away” is of note re: theories that John can stop time. OBSESSED that Ulysses and Titania were ‘shells’?? WHERE are their souls and how does that square with, iirc, Augustine or John calling Ulysses “that madman.” SOMEONE tell me more. (Also “They weren’t around to say yes or no. I was starting to really care about that.” Casually tracking when/where John cares about autonomy and consent.) “still as a statue in the park, only her head was still on of course” “swim in salt water for hours” to me, this is further Alecto/Earth evidence, but I am too livid that Tamsyn worked in a JANDALS. Although, truly, Nona deserves them. But “salt water made her feel… she would suddenly know the words to tell them everything.” Cf. a reverse-engineered Ninth House tradition of saltwater and honesty? Are these related?? “or hearing the door open when you were really lonely” Noting Nona’s atonement to loneliness. Also it is very beautiful and all the more so for its framing as a human essential. (107)

Merv Wing. Someone called the Angel. Are we getting a hint of Neon Genesis Evangelion? Merv. Nerv. Merv. Nerv. Hm……. Feasting on Pyrrha’s caution and condemnation of the Eightfold. (115) Oh, I forgot but Pyrrha saying she’d have an easier time pimping out Augustine and Alfred… Augustine Quinque, seen murdered in the streets. But also. God, tell me more. “That’s a feeling,” said Pyrrha brutally. “Kill it.” A line to power many a Pyrrha Dve fic, to be sure. Noting that Nona can “hear [Varun/RB7] sing.” “I don’t let go,” said Camilla. “It’s my one thing.” “M—dry-retching in the corner.” I love youuu. I cannot believe all of these fuckers were varying degrees of Christian and am simply begging for Nigella, should she be (re)named after Nigella Lawson, to have some Jewish energy. Alas. I know. We are in the Christian book zone. “M—had been a hard atheist since she was twelve. But she got over it. She was a walking contradiction anyway. Her best friend in the whole world was a nun. Also at some point A—gave her a benzo and a shot of whiskey, so that helped.” A/M strikes again, but, like, come on. Come on. We’re not introducing a nun and not having that be Cristabel… I said, vibrating into the next dimension. Come onnn. Show me this nun and also tell me more. What kind of nun? Is this a Prime of Miss Jean Brodie situation or what? A Sister Act vibe? Is ther any Maggie Smith energy is what I’m asking. These are the totality of my nun references. “So of course, what do M—and A—do, they go raid a fucking graveyard.” FRANKLY the number of times these two go off and plot and execute things together on their own… Anyway, I will write this fic and I hope everyone else writes this fic too. I want 100 comedies of grave digging errors with M + A. Also, I feel gratified for spoofing that Hamlet grave digging scene (lightly) in my one Augustine/Mercymorn fic. I really, really do. “See, I did make a utopia.” He is joking, of course, but fascinating potential implications if John really does consider his project utopian and cf. Augustine’s analysis that the entirety of his empire is all for “symbolic retribution.” In the way that this series has constantly fisheyed outwards, from a competition between the elites of the empire (representatives of the internal politics of the empire) to the emperor’s inner circle (the external politics of the empire and its equally external threats), I think it is incredibly smart to take us outside the empire and into a contested place under occupation. I also think it is, thus far, really well rendered. And what an efficient way of fully re-orientating every assumption we may have abt John’s empire and how it operates. Good stuff. I’m sure there will be much more to say here in time. Future installments will be in this tag xoxo. Treat yourself to a Coke Zero is you did read this all the way through. God bless.

#nona the ninth #ntnspoilers #nona spoilers #the locked tomb #m: nona liveblogging

[rocksandrobots]

PotP Ch 50 - Therapy, Tempers, and Triangles: Part 4

 Varian sat in the parking lot of the apartment struggling to breathe through his sobs.

 Everything had fallen apart so quickly and he didn't know how to fix it.

 He hated not knowing something.

 The setting sun dappled the hedges and trees of the manicured lawn beside the apartments, all bare in the winter, yet somehow the grass remained despite the chill. Golds, browns, greens, and the dreary gray of the concrete swirled together as his tears blurred his vision.

 He blinked and wiped his nose with his sleeve.

 He no doubt looked a mess, but at this point, he didn't really care.

 That's when he heard shouting coming from across the parking lot.

 "I got it Angi- Dang it!"

 Varian then heard the sound of paper ripping and metal cans falling on the concrete.

 Curious and wanting to know that everything was alright, he hopped out of his car and walked over to the commotion.

 "Well, now you've done it." An elderly lady said as she looked disapprovingly at the man before her.

 It was Mr. Lockheart, standing there with a now empty bag in one hand, groceries on the ground, and a sheepish expression as he leaned on his cane with his other arm.

 "You always, do this John... ooohh... It's okay to ask for help." His wife chided him, before bending down to pick up some of the fallen cans and adding them to her own bag. "It's a good thing there wasn't anything glass in there."

 "It's not my fault the bag ripped," he muttered.

 "Maybe not, but you should have taken the lighter bag as I asked. You know what the doctor said..." She turned to leave but caught her husband rolling his eyes.

 She gave an exasperated sigh of her own. "There's nothing wrong with getting old dear... In fact, I think it makes you look ruggishly handsome."

 She leaned in and gave him a kiss on the cheek.

 Mr. Lockheart finally smiled at that.

 "And you're as pretty as the day I married you."

 "I know." His wife cheekily smiled as she turned to leave once again. "I'm going to carry this in and then I'll be back for the rest. Do not strain yourself trying to pick that up! I don't want to turn back around and drive back to the doctor's because you fell."

 This time she didn't notice the mocking expression her husband made as she walked away.

 As soon as she was gone he hit the side of the truck door with his hand as he yelled out a curse, and then tried, unsuccessfully, to pick up a can at his foot.

 That's when Varian finally stepped in to help.

 "Oh... Varian!" Mr. Lockheart seemed surprised to meet the boy as he handed back what few cans were left. "Wh-what are you doing here?"

 "I came here to see Salma.... She... She lives up on the top floor......."

 He was going to say more but faltered.

 "Ah.. romance troubles, eh?" Mr. Lockheart nodded as he readjusted the cans of vegetables.

 "No... no, it's more than that. I'm worried about her.... but she doesn't want to talk about it?"

 "About what?"

 Varian sighed. "She... she lost her brother. She's been held up in her apartment for days and hasn't seen or talked to anyone... I don't know what to do."

 "Well, have you tried-"

 "Meeting her? Yeah, but she just slammed the door in my face and said that she didn't want to see me anymore!"

 Mr. Lockheart gave a thoughtful frown. "Does she have any family with her?"

 Varian shook his head. "Her closest relative is in New York; her aunt. She promised to call her... b-but I don't know."

 He slumped to the ground, sitting on the footrest of the truck, and placed his head in his hands.

 "I know what she's going through. I know I could help her if she would just let me..."

 "Well...." Mr. Lockheart sighed. "It's hard to help someone who doesn't want it... Sometimes you can only make things worse by pushing too hard."

 "I know." Varian agreed, no longer really looking at the other man as he gave a forlorn glance at Salma's window. "I know... b-but I'm not just anyone. We... I thought... ugh... it doesn't matter."

 Mr. Lockheart also sighed and very slowly took a seat next to Varian, continuing to hold onto his cane as he did so.

 "I know Angie is always complaining that... that I'm trying to do too much on my own. I guess, I just don't want to worry her... or maybe, I just don't like to feel useless... I guess, in some ways that's harder to admit to someone you care about than a stranger."

 "Yeah...." Vraian agreed and then screwed up his face as he thought about it more. "Why is that? Like, why is that so hard? Family should be the people you trust the most, shouldn't it?"  

 Mr. Lockhart could only shrug and softly laugh. "I don't know. That's probably a question for someone like Dr. Brown. Have you called him yet?"

 "No... I can't call for Salma. She has to do it, and... I don't think the doctor can help me. I don't know if anyone can help me."

 He muttered this last sentence, but Mr. Lockheart heard it anyway.

 "Well... how are you supposed to convince her to try if you won't try yourself?"

 Varian looked at him wide-eyed, but had no answer himself.

 Mr. Lockheart realized he'd hit upon a sore point and sighed. "Listen... Angie and I were going to fix a casserole tonight for supper... Maybe we can be good neighbors and offer some to Salma later on. Check up on her, like."

 "Could you?"

 "Now I can't promise that she'll answer the door or that she'll even like green beans, but of course we'll extend a helping hand. It's the least we can do."

 "Thank you."

 "No need for thanks... but what are you going to do?"

 "I don't know.... it's not like I can magically... fix... things....." He trailed off, as he stared into the middle distance, as if just realizing something. Then he suddenly stood up, with all the energy of someone given a new purpose.

 "Actually, I think there might be something that I can do. I don't know if it'll work, but I can try it, at least."

 "Try what?" Mr. Lockhart asked as Varian helped him back up.

 "Let's… just say, th-that I'm going to take a short trip. I'm going to see if I can't get in contact with someone who knows Salma better.... Don't tell her where I went though. Please."

 "How could I?" Lockhart laughed."I still don't know where you're going."

 "Well neither do I... yet." Varian turned and ran back to his car. "Thanks for everything Mr. Lockhart. I'll see ya later." He called back over his shoulder.

                                                 --------------------

  Salma didn't notice the soft blue glow behind her as she cried fitfully, nor did she notice the tall masked figure that stepped through the glowing portal. She didn't see him pause and stare at her with eyes of regret through his heavy-rimmed goggles, and she paid no mind when he grabbed her brother's medal off the table and stepped back through the shrinking portal.

 She did however notice when a knock came at her door.

 "Hello... Salma? Are you home?"

 "Mr... Mr. Lockhart?" She sobbed in confusion.

 "And Ms. Lockhart..." came a woman's voice.

 "Turns out we're neighbors and," The elderly gentleman answered, "We wanted to welcome you to the apartment."

 "We have a huge casserole here that we can't finish by ourselves. Would you want some love?" His wife added

 Salma sniffled. She didn't feel like having visitors, but her grumbling stomach protested otherwise.

 "J-just give me a minute to change." She answered.

                                                --------------------

 Hiro slowed as he noticed the blue glow coming from underneath the door to Varian's lab.

 He had thought Varian had already left for the day; unless... He stood there debating with himself.

 Hiro had said that he didn't care if Varian ran away back to Corona, but that wasn't the full truth. Of course he still cared, but he was tired of the arguments, the secrets, the lies, and all of the fighting. It was like they were constantly dancing around each other, skirting the truth, until one of them, usually Varian, blew up.

 Hiro just didn't see any other way out, and yet, he found himself opening the door to the lab anyways.

 Varian either didn't hear him and Baymax enter, or he chose to ignore them as he ran about the room checking his equipment. The portal was glowing, primed to go, but it hadn't fixed on a destination yet.

 "What are you doing?"

 Varian finally stilled but kept his back towards Hiro, refusing to look at him.

 "Don't you have a party to get to?" He finally answered before flipping a few more switches on the console.

 "It's not till later.... What are you doing?"

 "What does it look like I'm doing?" He snapped as he ran to enter coordinates into the computer.

 "It looks like you are about to activate the portal again." Baymax helpfully stated, pointing out the obvious.

 Varian rolled his eyes, but Hiro remained focused on the other teen.

 "Did you finally figure it out?"

 "I'm not going to Corona. If that's what you are asking."

 "Then where are you going?"

 "Don't know yet.... and before you ask, no, I'm not running away."

 He finally turned to look at Hiro when stating this final point. His tone of voice was sarcastic and condescending, but Hiro could sense the truth behind those words.

 He considered leaving things there and just going before another fight broke out, but curiosity got the better of him.

 "Soooo.... this is just... what.. a test?

 "You could say that." He was back to fiddling with the controls.

 "You could say that.... only it wouldn't be the truth, would it?" Hiro finally shoved himself between Varian the control panel, forcing the other boy to acknowledge him. "What are you really up to Varian?"

 Varian pressed his lips together in a way that denoted that he was keeping a secret, but to Hiro's surprise, he actually answered.

 "I'm looking for Salma's brother, Amir.... He went missing..."

 Hiro did a double take. "M-missing? Why didn't you tell us? Or the polic-"

 "He's not in America. I'm using his army medal to find him... hopefully. Now go on. You don't wanna be late for Sam's birthday."

 He gently, but firmly pushed Hiro to the side, but the younger teen wouldn't leave.

 "Is that why you're decked out in your gear?"

 Varian didn't reply.

 Hiro pulled out his phone.

 "Fine. Let me call mine and Baymax's suit--"

 "You're not going."

 "You honestly think I'm just going to stand by and do nothing when someone's in trouble!?"

 Varian sighed.

 "This isn't your normal superhero gig."

 "Oh, so says the local hero, the Portal Pirate!" Hiro mocked in a tv news announcer's voice.

 He shoved a fake microphone into Varian's face, who gave an annoyed look and pushed it out of his way.

 "We both know I'm not a hero."

 Hiro frowned.

 "I don't think that."

 Varian turned back and for a moment both boys just stood there staring at each other, trying to gauge what the other really meant.

 "Don't," Varian warned, simply, breaking the standoff.

 "Why do you hate the idea of being a hero?"

 "I don't hate it... I'm just not one, okay?" He went back to monitoring the control readings on the computer. "And I hate pretending."

 "Yet you want everyone around you to pretend like nothing is wrong when it is."

 Varian raised an eyebrow at that but didn't answer, so Hiro pushed on.

 "You're so full of it!... I don't get you, man. I really don't. You're the first to volunteer whenever anyone is in trouble. You're always there when someone needs you. You'll bend over backwards to help even perfect strangers. But the moment anyone genuinely tries to help you, you shove them away!"

 "That's not it."

 "Isn't?"

 Hiro sighed. "I know what happened between you and Tadashi, and that wasn't the first time you pushed someone down like that."

 Varian paused in what he was doing and rubbed his hand across his eyes. "I already apologized to Gogo…"

 "But not to Tadashi… and not to me."

 "I know." Varian whispered as he hung his head.

 "So… what's stopping you?"

 …..

 "I…. I haven't an excuse…. Not this time."

 "What's that supposed to mean?"

 "I wasn't under the influence. I wasn't having a panic attack. I knew what I was doing, and I still did it…. I don't know how to explain it, Hiro. I don't want to do the dumb things that I wind up doing. I don't want to hurt anyone…. Yet I still do it. It's like I can't stop myself. It's like I'm running on autopilot. I don't know      how     to stop doing it. I don't know how to stop being me!"

 Hiro stood there in utter confusion, trying to relate to this latest spiel but it didn't resonate with him.

 "That's… that's bullshit! What do you mean you don't want to hurt people but do it anyway? Either you really wanted to hurt Tadashi or you wouldn't have hurt him!'

 "No… no… that's not it! I just… I just wanted him to shut up about the amber. I needed him to shut up about the amber!"

 "So that makes it okay to hurl him at the wall!?"

 "No! No, of course it wasn't okay! I never said it was okay! I just said I was wrong and I didn't want to-"

 "But you did it anyway."

 "But I did it anyway."

 …..

 "I don't know what to tell you Hiro, alright? I get so angry and so scared… and I can't think. I can't think of anything else to do. I know it's wrong. I know I have a problem. I know I'm broken somehow, and I don't know how to fix it... I don't know how to fix anything! I don't know if I can fix the portal. I don't know if I can rescue Salma's brother. I don't know if I can save my Dad. I don't know if I can ever be anything other than… than a monster."

 Hiro rolled his eyes. "There you go again."

 "Wh-what?"

 "You always do this. Every time. Every time you mess up, or talk about your past, you start berating yourself instead of actually telling people what the problem is. You're not a monster. No one here thinks that if you… but that doesn't change the fact that you can't control your temper, and that's on you. You made that choice. It's not something that you      are…     You're not born inherently evil or anything. No one is."

 "No… but monsters can be made."

 His voice was barely a whisper, but its ominous nature sent a shiver down Hiro's spine anyways. It wouldn't let Varian see his nervousness though and stood up straight, stretching to his full height, even if the other teen still towered over him.

 "Th-then they can be unmade too."

 Varian blinked. It was as if this philosophy had never occurred to him before.

 "How?"

 "How… B-baymax? How?"

 "People who suffer from anger management issues may use any number of treatments to help combat their aggression. Therapy, medicine, relaxation techniques,cognitive restructuring, recognizing and avoiding triggers, avoiding alcohol,and other mood altering substances, practicing problem solving, and improving communication."

 Varian found this unwieldy list unhelpful and was going to ask the robotic nurse for clarification, but that's when a beeping signal went off on the portal's control panel.

 "What's that?" Hiro asked.

 "I've installed a detection device to the portal, based on Demantius's theory about resonating energies. I was hoping it might help get me back to Corona, but right now I'm hoping to find Amir." He raced to the console. "It looks like it found something… so here's hoping."

 "I'll get my suit."

 "I already told you. You're not going."

 "And you're not going alone."

 "Fine. I'll take Baymax with me. Amir may need medical help. I don't know."

 "Then what am I supposed to do?"

 "Man the portal. Make sure we don't get stuck…wherever it is we're going."

 Hiro still didn't know where they were going even as the portal opened up. It was a craggy, rocky landscape with scattered bushes and some low hills. It could have been California still for all he knew, but Varian insisted that it wasn't. Even though he also didn't know the exact location either.

 "I detect bio-readings coming from over there, behind that hill." Baymax said as he pointed towards the left.

 He and Varian made their way towards that direction and Hiro waited for what felt like hours. Though really it was only forty five minutes at most.

 Then he heard Varian's familiar voice speaking something in Russian. Then he and Baymax appeared over the hill supporting another young man between them.

 He looked to be Tadashi's age, but sported a short beard and was wearing a cameo jumpsuit. He was walking but he looked like he might collapse at any moment.

 "D-do I need to call an ambulance?" He asked as they came through the portal.

 Varian shook his head."What would you even tell them?"

 Hiro could only shrug. "Does it matter? He needs help, clearly."

 "He is suffering from severe dehydration." Baymax said.

 Varian pulled out an antique leather water bottle and offered it to the man.

 "How long was he out there?" Hiro asked with concern.

 "About five days." Varian answered. "He said his convoy was attacked. He escaped, but he had no way to get back with his troop. He ran out of emergency supplies two days ago."

 The other man said nothing, he just eyed them wearily as he slowly slipped the water.

 "You are lucky we found you when we did. Humans can not last more than three days without water." Baymax said as he scanned the gentleman. "Yajib 'an tastarih watashrab alkathir min alsawayila."

 "What did he say?" Hiro asked.

 Varian shrugged. "I don't know. I've been communicating with him in Russian, but that's not either of our native languages."

 "Sooo… w-who attacked him?"

 Varian shrugged again. "Whoever his people has been fighting, I guess…. I never asked Salma for details."

 "Why not? Don't you want to know?"

 "Why would I want to? War is the same no matter who's fighting."

 Hiro frowned. There was the usual defensiveness behind Varian's words, but also a sad resignation. The other boy understood something of what the soldier beside them went through, but it was something utterly foreign to Hiro himself.

 "Well… I just… maybe if we knew more about what was going on we might could help…"

 Varian almost laughed. It was a sorrowful laugh. A remorseful laugh. A laugh that still marveled at his younger brother's innocence.

 "You can't stop a war Hiro. No one can."

 "Well I… I know that.. I just-"

 "You can't rescue everyone either. They may not even want you to. If two people wanna fight they're going to fight."

 Hiro recognized the truth behind those words but he didn't like it.

 "But it's… it's so pointless."

 "To you maybe, but it's not for you to decide."

 "It's a waste then. It shouldn't happen!"

 "Yeah, I'll agree with you there."

 "Then…. Then why does it happen?" He muttered to no one in particular.

 Varian shrugged once more, and then gave him a pitiful look. "I get it. You think that if you could find out all the answers. Know about everything that's going on. Then you could just solve any problem that presents itself…. But sometimes there just isn't a solution… doesn't matter how smart you are."

 Hiro gave up. "Sooo… what now?"

 "I'm going to take him to Salma's and drop him off. You… wanna tag along?"

 "Yeah…I'll come with."

 "Ty mozhesh' khodit' seychas?" Varian asked Amir. He nodded in reply and Varian helped him back to his feet.

                                                --------------------

 They walked Amir to Varian's car and then stopped at a pharmacy on the way over to Salma's apartment.

 Baymax said that he needed to replace electrolytes and other minerals lost from the dehydration.

 They bought a gallon of Pedialyte and some chicken soup in a disposable cup that you could drink out of.

 Amir slowly savored this meal as they made their way to the complex, not talking much.

 He still didn't fully believe what was happening to him.

 He thought he was going to die. He was saying his final prayers, and then suddenly a young man speaking Russian finds him, with a giant marshmallow man by his side. The young man claims to be his little sister's ex-boyfriend, and carries him through a hole in the sky and now suddenly he is in America.

 He couldn't comprehend what had transpired, and he wasn't fully sure if he was hallucinating or not. But, the soup was good.

 If he was really dying, and none of this was real, at least it was a tasty illusion.

 He took another swig of the broth as they turned into the parking lot of the apartment building.

                                                --------------------

 Salma was just saying goodbye to Mr. and Mrs. Lockheart, when she spotted the small boy waiting in the hallway. He stood quietly to the side and waited patiently for her guests to leave.

 She turned to him, confused and he gave her an awkward wave.

 "Hi... S-salma, isn't it?"

 "Yes..."

 "Hi, I'm Hiro.... Varian's little brother."

 Salma frowned.

 "I already told Varian... I don't want to see him again."

 The boy blinked, clearly confused. "Well... okay... but that's not why I came here."

 Salma tilted her head as she looked at him. Why had the younger teen come over then if not to advocate for his big brother?

 Hiro acknowledged her confusion. "Baymax and Varian should be up here soon... but I wanted to speak with you first... to kind of prepare you."

 Slama tried to stifle an eye roll. "What are you talking about?"

 "Well, I don't know what Varian has told you, but he and I have been working on building a portal for transportation... and just today, while running a test, we found something... or rather someone..."

 Salma still didn't understand, but before she could ask for clarification she heard more people coming down the hallway.

 Varian around the corner, along with a giant marshmallow robot, but it was the young man that walked between them that caught her attention.

 No it.. it could be..

 "Amir!"

 She rushed to him and flung her arms around his neck. A million questions tumbled out of her mouth in between her kisses and her tears. What had happened to him? How did he get here? Was he unharmed? And just what the hell had he been thinking, worrying everyone like that!?

 Her brother didn't answer, knowing how useless his explanations would be. Instead he just held onto her, reminding himself that this was real and that he was home. Well, sort of home.

 "Amir should be fine after a few days of rest and recovery. In the meantime he should drink plenty of fluids and eat soft foods." The marshmallow said.

 Salma looked back up at the robot in surprise.

 'Uh, this is Baymax." Hiro introduced. "He's a robotic nurse that our older brother Tadashi built."

 Salma didn't know what to do with this information and found herself giving a questioning look towards Varian, who backed away quickly as if burnt.

 He bowed his head and stared at his toes as he answered her. "Wh-what Hiro is trying to say is that.. both my brothers attend SFIT... It's kind of a nerd school." He chuckled nervously. "He and Baymax helped me to find your brother. We thought it best to bring him to you before doing anything else... Oh! And th-this is yours."

 He dug a medal out of his coat pocket and handed it to Amir.

 "I kind of borrowed it... we had to use it to find you."

 Amir took the medal and nodded gratefully, but Salma was still too much in a stupified state to say anything.

 Varian seemed to realize that his explanations were only confusing everyone further.

 "Well... we better get going. Hiro has a birthday party to get to and.. I... I um... I have some work to do in the lab. S-sorry for bothering you... I mean... I heard what you said earlier and I didn't mean to disrespect your wishes again... I just... thought this was important... uh.. anyways... Bye."

 He turned away and almost practically ran to the stairway. He didn't even want to stop and wait on the elevator.

 He had only just paused long enough to open the door when he felt a hand upon his arm. He turned to see Salma standing beside him.

 "Th-thank you." She whispered.

 Varian wasn't sure how to respond. He finally decided on a simple "You're welcome," before heading out the door.

 Hiro and Baymax met Varian as soon as they stepped out of the elevator.

 "Do you want me to drive you home first so you can get ready for the party, or are you just going to take the bus from here?" Varian asked as strolled past them and fished his car keys out of his pocket.

 "What are your plans?" Hiro asked as he followed along out into the parking lot.

 Varian only shrugged.

 He then opened the driver's door and hopped into his convertible, but Hiro hesitated.

 "Are you going back to the lab?"

 Varian only shrugged again as he placed the keys into the ignition.

 "Do... Do you want to come to the party with me?"

 Varian finally looked at him then, a pensive frown on his face.

 "I'm not sure anybody else wants me there." He finally replied.

 Hiro sighed. "You can't keep avoiding everyone forever. Especially considering that you live with two of us. Why not just apologize?"

 Varian didn't answer.

 "You know Tadashi isn't even mad at you, right?" Hiro pressed.

 "I'm mad at myself though. I shouldn't have lost my temper like that."

 "Then why not tell him that?"

 Varian slumped in his seat and covered his eyes with one hand.

 "Because, I'm afraid of starting yet another fight!" He finally snapped, still not looking at Hiro. "I'm afraid I'll hurt someone again...."

 This last sentence came out as half sob. Hiro still didn't understand though.

 "If you don't want to hurt anyone then, just don't."

 "It's not that simple."

 Hiro rolled his eyes. "Yeah, it is... tell him Baymax."

 The robot nurse had finally caught up to them as he slowly waddled across the parking lot.

 "People who suffer from PTSD can sometimes find anger management difficult to deal with, but with time and treatment they can learn coping mechanisms that help."

 "Like what?" Varian snapped.

 "Well what have you discuss with your therapist?"

 "No much..." Varian admitted. "I actually haven't told him everything, you know? He just said... you be aware of my triggers... whatever those are?"

 "Triggers are are things that remind you of pa-"

 "Yeah, I know what they      are    , Baymax... I just don't know what they are... for      me    ."

 "The rocks?" Hiro suggested softly.

 Varian gave a pained look but he didn't argue. "Yeah... and Rapunzel... and Corona.... That's why I wish you would just drop it."

 "But it's not going away, and worse, you're running right back to it!"

 "I don't have a choice... you know that." He gave Hiro a meaningful look. "But      you     do... You don't have to get involved. No one does. Just stay out of it. You'll all be safer that way."

 "You didn't have to help Salma and her brother just now. You could have stayed out if. It would have been safer too."

 Varian gave Hiro the most exasperated look ever, but he didn't have a retort.

 "Why do you get to be the only one who risks himself? How come nobody else gets to look out for you for a change?"

 "Because... it's      my     mess."

 Varian blinked back tears.

 "I don't want to lose anyone else because of my mistakes."

 "I know that's not true."

 Varian was taken aback by this, but Hiro wouldn't let him argue.

 "Maybe... maybe you did make some mistakes, somewhere along the line... I don't know... but I do know that those people that abandoned you... They're at fault too..."

 "Maybe... '' Varian echoed. "Maybe they are... it doesn't matter though. It still doesn't concern you or the others."

 "Like hell it doesn't! You're my brother! Of course it concerns me! It concerns all of us because we care about you.. you idiot!"

 "Okay.. I'm an idiot! You don't think I don't know that already!? I'm still not letting the people that care about most just waltz into danger!"

 "And what if the danger comes to us!? What if the rocks show up in San Fransokyo? What if, whatever is controlling them comes here? You know… th-that thing that Rapunzel heard when she touched those spikes."

 Varian visibly recoiled at the mention of that night.

 "I.... I don't know what that was.." he whispered. "That never happened before."

 "So there's even more going on that you don't know. There could be more dangers on the way, and you don't know about them. And we won't know anything when they come because you won't tell us anything."

 "Well if I don't know what it is, how can I tell you?"

 Hiro fixed Varian with a reproachful glare. "You know what I mean."

 He rested his hands on top of the car door. "We could figure it out together. Just like we did with the portal and time travel. We can save your dad the same as we saved Tadashi and Amir just now. And I promise you, we won't let those people hurt you again."

 Varian hung his head, and gave a soft mirthless laugh under his breath. "And what makes you think I'm the one who needs protection?"

 His voice was cold and Hiro could feel the argument slipping away from him.

 "They might be... They're going to come back for you. They need you to translate that scroll."

 "Let 'em come then!" Varian snarled. He jumped up, placing one foot on the seat, as he turned towards Hiro with a scowl. "They know what they'll get if they come after me! If they're dumb enough to pick a fight still, then that's on them! But I won't go back to some stinking rotting jail cell again! I promise you, I'll destroy them if they try."

 Hiro backed away from the car, wide eyed, as Varian ranted. His step-brother's face was distorted with rage and pure hatred.

     'Is that how I looked when attacking Callahan?    ' he vaguely thought.

 Varian seemed to come out of his blind fury just as quickly as it had set upon him. His face softened into a pout and he stared back at Hiro equally lost.

 Both boys just looked at each other awkwardly for several moments.

 "S-sorry." Varian whispered meekly, finally ending the silence, "I know I'm scary... when I lash out like that."

 "Scary?" Hiro echoed, and shook his head. "'Scary' doesn't even cover it... try terrifying."

 Varian shrank back at that admission and Hiro could only sigh.

 "Sometimes... It's like you're two different people. Normally, you're just Varian... dorky, smart, incredibly dumb Varian. You go out of your way to make friends with everyone, you're fun to hang out with, and I can always count on you to have my back. I could never imagine anyone being afraid of  you. But... there's moments.... moments when you get so angry that... that I barely even recognize who you are anymore. And like... I get it! I understand why you hate Momasake. I don't blame you for getting mad at that princess. They're awful... but... but then... you started to storm at me, yelling, like you were going to punch me or something... I don't what.... and later you threw Tadashi like he was a ragdoll! I now know why those Coronians were afraid of you, that night. I'm afraid of you... and I don't want to be.... but... even more than being afraid of you... I'm scared I'm losing my brother."

 Varian didn't know what to say to that as he huddled in the car hugging himself.

 Hiro waited, not sure how else to reach him, but also worried that if he walked away now he'd miss his chance forever.

 Yet as the minutes slipped silently by he could think of nothing else to do but walk away.

 He turned to leave, motioning Baymax to follow him. But he hadn't walked more than a few feet when heard Varian yell out.

 "I'm sorry!"

 Hiro paused and turned around.

 "I'm sorry. Okay." Varian sobbed. "I really am…. The truth is… I'm scared of myself too."

 Hiro tilted his head, confused by this admission so Varian continued on.

 "I've…. You've no idea the terrible things I've done. The stuff I had to do… B-but it was always to protect those that I love. I never… I didn't… I don't know what came over me that day in the lab. When I got angry at you. Or that night when Tadashi and I fought… I know what I'm capable of… but I just never thought in a million years I could hurt someone I care about."

 "Then why did you?"

 "Cause… I was afraid that you had found out about Corona… that you found out about all those terrible things I did."

 Hiro made a face, as he considered these words. What could be worse than what he has already admitted too?

 "I know you fought in a war… I don't need to know anything more than that. I can't even begin to imagine how horrible that was, and I don't want to. The only things I know were what you and Rapunzel talked about that night in the hallway… The rocks and how she abandoned you."

 "You sure you don't need to know more?"

 "We just need to know about the rocks and the portal. You don't have to talk about the battles you fought in or anything. We know that's painful for you."

 "But you don't understand… the war, and the rocks… they're all connected. If you keep pushing, it's going to keep coming up."

 "Then…. Then maybe, there's a way we can… I don't know… give each other space when the subject gets too stressful for you…"

 Hiro said this slowly as tried to figure such an arrangement out. Though in all honesty he has no idea how such an agreement would work in practice.

 "Perhaps, boundaries need to be set in place." Baymax offered up. "Try "I" sentences to explain how you are feeling and what you are needing at the moment."

 "Eye sentences?" Varian asked.

 "Yes. Sentences that start with "I" to help avoid confrontation. For example,      "I     am feeling anxious right now and need some space. Can we pick up the conversation later?"

 "Can we pick up this conversation later…" Varian echoed thoughtfully.

 "Yeah but the only problem with that is, there never is a later. You constantly avoid it, and we can't keep doing that."

 "What about… "      I     am not comfortable discussing this topic?" Varian suggested.

 "Which is the entire subject."

 "Well, what if I promise not to say that, unless I feel myself getting angry or when I want to run away?"

 Hiro sighed. "Well… we've tried everything else. At least it's something. Okay."

 Varian looked thoughtfully at Hiro for a moment.

 "I      am     sorry."

 "I know you are."

 "I don't want to be like that."

 "Then don't be."

 Varian flinched, but Hiro softened at his remorseful expression.

 "Listen… we'll try this new communication thing Baymax suggested. See how that goes. But what happened back there with Tadashi… that can't happen again."

 "I know."

 "And you have to apologize to him too."

 This Varian seemed more hesitant on, but he slowly nodded his head in agreement.

 "Tonight." Hiro firmly added.

 "Tonight." Varian agreed.

#big hero 6 #tangled #varian #Hiro Hamada #baymax #of rocks and robots

[dr-jem-nutcase]

MvA: The M Files take-a-peek, pt. 4

Two chapters today. First one's rather small so it's not exactly a double feature

Chapter 4

Is it "shh" or "sshh"? You tell me. Artbook says "ssh"

And like that, slight panic starts not in the streets but in the White House

Maaaaan, someone sure let the White House front lawn go

Mr. President of the 1960s/70s, even though you definitely don't look one bit like John Kennedy or Lyndon Johnson, you've described a handful of times in America between your time & now (2023, in case some reads this in 2024 and beyond)

That is one heck of a color scheme for Monger's hair. Just about as mysterious as the president's hair: like how does that combover work? Or what is that supposed to be?

So there's a basic map of the facility we all came to know and love...or loathe...whatever. The artbook has a much bigger description of it, a LOT more detail. But you can kinda figure out where everything is in this picture in comparison with the movie, kinda maybe sort of. Hm

So, I guess Link is no longer on dry ice or whatever. Yay, I think

Chapter 5

Welp, so much for that mushroom cloud footage. Explosions were almost a comedy staple in 2000s cartoons, like the cooler & wagon crash landing on top of the SUV in Over the Hedge or the chain reaction explosions of the hunters' trucks courtesy of a propane tank in Open Season. Why Insecto's origin story was changed to exclude that...idk

First off, you wouldn't want any amount of radiation exposure in that close amount of space, especially with little aeration holes...in front of kids, no less

What does the kid second from the left have in his mouth? Definitely does NOT look like gum

I'm getting major bridal Thumbelina vibes from the girl in pink, that hair

Hey, is this a parody of Spiderman's origin story? Imma say yes! Japan's own superhero, Grubman!

No, I think we ended up with Spiderman meets Bruce Wayne. Or just a rich guy who had to undergo a good amount of medical treatment for a very abnormal bug bite. Boo hoo. But moving on!

How quickly did Insecto grow? And that would probably determine how she got from a museum to a marketplace. (Yes, Insecto is female. Confirmed by the artbook)

Whitewashing some of the locals or just tourists? You tell me

That's some lazy Kanji right there

So Japan already had experiences with giant monsters AND robots? I mean, there was Godzilla (who got blown up in the B&W OG movie), but still. My curiosity is P-I-Q-U-E-D. If Japan had this sort of problem before 1950, good luck convincing the Japanese public that monsters are just stuff of myth & legend. Japan must've been the chillest place in the world when the monsters made their debut

Indestructible. But not for an alien robot

RIP, pilot. We thank you for your service. You are forever in our hearts

Ooh, W. R. Monger-- "CAPTAIN! Captain W. R. Monger." If you don't know what this reference is, I'm very sorry for you

I know English is becoming more & more of an international language, but I'm not sure that it was THAT international in the 1960s/70s. So a Japanese general that was fluent in English back then was a miracle

So, was Insecto just there for that one night or was she just sitting there in downtown Tokyo for more than a day?

I just realized Monger's hair turned gray really quickly in between BOB's story and this one...and now it's brown again

For the record, his eyes aren't blue

Bright lights...like stadium lights, movie premiere searchlights, interrogation spotlights, tell me more

Oh! Christmas lights. I'm disappointed in you, Tokyo. Wait, there's stage lights...and a disco ball!! Lol! I stand corrected

I guess Monger names his monsters on the fly. As is shown in the movie, "Escar...gantua"

"We saved the city!"

"At what cost?"

"Ummmm...the city"

Goodbye, downtown Tokyo

Those lights must've bleached the fur on Insecto's back

And so...there they go, about to tow a 350-foot colossus across the world's biggest ocean and a few hundred miles inland through Cali and into Nevada

I just realized...how does Insectosaurus almost always stand upright if most, if not all insect species are invertebrates? A lot of invertebrates have exoskeletons, so hers is probably underneath all that fur. Pardon this quack/wannabe entomologist

I think there's two more posts after this, which both should be coming this week. Whoopee!!!

FYI: yes, I have been the proud owner of a hardcover copy of The Art of MvA since the early 2010s. You will have to hunt me down for it if you want it for yourself

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to mourn the end of Phantom of the Opera 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

#mva #monsters vs aliens #dreamworks #general monger #general w r monger #insectosaurus #insecto #kidsbooks #childrensbooks

[brenna-ofmd]

Fully Ramblomatic Essays "Arnold Rimmer"

Fully Ramblomatic.com - Essays

If you've never seen Red Dwarf, then you might as well click the 'back' button now and forget it, you have no hope of understanding this article. Actually, if you've never seen Red Dwarf, what the hell are you doing surfing the Net?

If you have seen Red Dwarf, you're probably wondering something along the lines of "WHAT? Arnold J. Rimmer? The same emotionally crippled, underappreciated, above all DEAD Arnold J. Rimmer? It would kick arse to be HIM? Are we talking about the same guy?" Well yes, we are talking about the same guy (unless there's some other Arnold J. Rimmer I don't know about, which seems unlikely, as he'll have changed his name long ago to end the jokes), and yes, it would kick arse to be him. Here's why.

1. Being a hologram

OK, arguably he wasn't a hologram in series 8. Let's discount that for now. He did get a hard-light drive in series 6 which made him solid and indestructible, which kicks arse on its own, but what I want to talk about is why it would kick arse to be the pre-series 6, non-solid hologram. I mean, think about it. I don't know why it never occurred to our Arnie, but surely everyone has dreamed of having an X-files-like ability to walk through walls. You could hide in solid objects, wait for your crewmates to come by, and then leap out going BLEEERRRGH!!!! And with a little adjustment to your projection disc, you could make your face melt as you did so. Ho, ho, ho! You could also climb up into a wall and stick your head out to look like one of those stuffed and mounted animal heads to scare the shite out of anyone who brought home classy friends.

2. Being a hologram, part two (actually I have so much cool stuff on being a hologram I'm bleeding it into two reasons)

Hey, if you could rig up a device to alternate your form between hard and soft light at the touch of a button, you could become a superhero! There's a man lost in a hedge maze? A bank robber has locked himself in the time-locked vault with fifteen hostages? You've been buried alive? No problem! Bullets bounce off/go through him! He can tear down walls with a single badly-thrown blow! He's very good at Risk! (Cue seventies B-movie music) BAM BA BA! Bam bam bam bam BAM BA BA! By day, mild mannered Arnold Rimmer, space corpse! Whukka chakka whukka chakka chakka chakka whukka chakka BAM BA BA! BAM BA! But when duty calls, Arnie can leap behind a dressing screen and emerge, several minutes later, as WALK THROUGH WALLS MAN! Whukka chakka BAM BA whukka chakka BA! Whukka chakka BAM BA whukka chakka BA! Starring John Rugged as Arnold Rimmer! Whukka chakka - etc. That's a working title, obviously.

3. Getting all the girls

I have every episode of Red Dwarf on tape (I'm that sad) and, through thorough dissection, I can honestly say that he gets more sex than any of the others. I think the writers felt sorry for the actor, to be honest. "OK Chris, remember during this scene that you're totally intangible, so try not to touch anything in a way that those anally-retentive fans will spot and post up on the Internet, k? Do this for us and we'll make sure you get loads of sex". Makes sense. I mean, quite apart from that one episode of series 8 where he gets to have his way with every girl at a dinner party, there's that Crane woman from series 5, his female equivalent from the parallel universe and... er ... actually that's about it, but it's still more than everyone else. Well, Lister got it on with a few aliens, but I don't think we should count those for the sake of decency.

4. Being dead

Hey, Rimmer's dead. He's quite open about this fact. Now, there's a certain breed of male that other men envy and women swoon over who like to discuss exactly how much pain they've gone through in their lives. Nothing opens legs like braving through intolerable suffering. So if Rimmer ever found himself in that sort of grouping, this might happen:

TOUGH GUY: Well, I once woke up during a serious prostate operation. It felt like my 'nads were going through a bacon slicer.

GIRLS: Ooooh!

BURLY GUY: Well, I once actually did put my 'nads through a bacon slicer, while chewing on a mouthful of razor blades and penetrating my skull with a diamond-tipped industrial drill. AND I woke up during the subsequent lobotomy.

GIRLS: Oooooooooh! And how about you?

RIMMER: Well, I was hit in the face with a nuclear explosion. Then, in my death throes, I got broken glass in my arm. Then I died, and was reduced to white powder.

GIRLS: Oooooooooooooooooooooh! We love Rimmer best!

Of course, there's always the risk that the burly men will gang up on Rimmer later on in the gents, but on the other hand, he is WALK THROUGH WALLS MAN! He'd just go into a complicated Bruce Lee fight sequence and kick arses from here to Tanganiyka! So that's an advantage of being dead. It's a terribly impressive chat-up line.

5. Being the character mature, deep people like best

It's a little known fact that you can gauge a person's personality by which character they like best in Red Dwarf. Cat, who could well be a cartoon character, is liked only by the shallow. Kryten is popular mainly due to his silly voice. Lister is popular amongst people who relate with him. But people who like Rimmer tend to be emotional, thoughtful and extremely worthy of beautiful members of the opposite sex offering their bodies to them. Here's a handy chart.

WHO PREFERS WHO?

Cat - Shallow, immature people Kryten - Shallow, mature people Lister - Deep, immature people Rimmer - Deep, mature people who deserve lots of sex, even if they don't get it. Sigh.

Where do YOU fit?

WHY IT WOULDN'T KICK ARSE TO BE ARNOLD J. RIMMER

... nope, can't think of anything. So stop whining, Arnie mate, you've got it made. Just stop boring everyone to death with your Risk stories and your telegraph poles, and start planning for April Fool's Day.

#red dwarf #arnold rimmer #fully ramblomatic

[garadinervi]

they are. Das Internationale Kompositionsseminar, EMCD-021/22, Ensemble Modern Medien, 2013. Composition: Stefan Beyer, Anthony Cheung, Dai Fujikura, Saed Haddad, Chikage Imai, Seyko Itoh, Stefan Keller, Johannes Kreidler, Anna Meredith, Marko Nikodijević, Steingrimur Rohloff, Tomi Räisänen, Simon Steen-Andersen. Ensemble Modern, conductors: Pablo Rus Broseta (Beyer), John B. Hedges (Räisänen), Johannes Kalitzke (Imai, Cheung, Keller, Rohloff, Kreidler), Manuel Nawri (Steen-Andersen, Itoh), Franck Ollu (Haddad, Fujikura), Alejo Peréz (Nikodijević), Ryan Wigglesworth (Meredith)

#graphic design #art #music #music album #cd #visual writing #cover #ensemble modern #ensemble modern medien #stefan beyer #anthony cheung #dai fujikura #saed haddad #chikage imai #seyko itoh #stefan keller #johannes kreidler #anna meredith #marko nikodijević #steingrimur rohloff #tomi räisänen #simon steen andersen #pablo rus broseta #john b. hedges #johannes kalitzke #manuel nawri #franck ollu #alejo peréz #ryan wigglesworth #2010s

[jishinsjourney]

A Chapter of Things to See This Fall

(Excerpted from The Fall of the Year by Dallas Lore Sharp. Really, this is an excuse for me to introduce you to him. His works are on Project Gutenberg, and if you have a love of the woods and the wild, please read his writings.)

I.

You ought to see the sky — every day. You ought to see, as often as possible, the breaking of dawn, the sunset, the moonrise, and the stars. Go up to your roof, if you live in the city, or out in the middle of the Park, or take a street-car ride into the edge of the country — just to see the moon come up over the woods or over a rounded hill against the sky. II.

You ought to see the light of the October moon, as it falls through a roof of leafless limbs in some silent piece of woods. You have seen the woods by daylight; you have seen the moon from many places; but to be in the middle of the moonlit woods after the silence of the October frost has fallen is to have one of the most beautiful experiences possible out of doors.

III.

You ought to see a wooded hillside in the glorious colors of the fall — the glowing hickories, the deep flaming oaks, the cool, dark pines, the blazing gums and sumacs! Take some single, particular woodland scene and look at it until you can see it in memory forever.

IV.

You ought to see the spiders in their airships, sailing over the autumn meadows. Take an Indian Summer day, lazy, hazy, sunny, and lie down on your back in some small meadow where woods or old rail fences hedge it around. Lie so you do not face the sun. The sleepy air is heavy with balm and barely moves. Soon shimmering, billowing, through the light, a silky skein of cobweb will come floating over. Look sharply, and you will see the little äeronaut swinging in his basket at the bottom of the balloon, sailing, sailing —

Away in the air air Far are the shors of Anywhere, Over the woods and the heather.

V.

You ought to see (only see, mind you,) on one of these autumn nights, when you have not on your party clothes — you ought to see a “wood pussy”. A wood pussy is not a house pussy; a wood pussy is a wood pussy; that is to say, a skunk! Yes, you ought to see a skunk walking calmly along a moonlit path and not caring a fig for you. You will perhaps never meet a wild buffalo or a grizzly bear or a jaguar in the woods nearest your house, but you may meet a wild skunk there, and have the biggest adventure of your life. Yes, you ought to see a skunk some night, just for the thrill of meeting a wild creature that won’t get out of your way.

VI.

You ought to see the witch-hazel bush in blossom late in November. It is the only bush or tree in the woods that is in full bloom after the first snow may have fallen. Many persons who live within a few minutes’ walk of the woods where it grows have never seen it. But then, many persons who live with the sky right over their heads, with the dawn breaking into their bedroom windows, have never seen the sky or the dawn to think about them, and wonder at them! There are many persons who have never seen anything at all that is worth seeing. The witch-hazel bush, all yellow with its strange blossoms in November, is worth seeing, worth taking a great deal of trouble to see.

There is a little flower in southern New Jersey called pyxie, or flowering moss, a very rare and hidden little thing; and I know an old botanist who traveled five hundred miles just to have the joy of seeing that little flower growing in the sandy swamp along Silver Run. If you have never seen the witch-hazel in bloom, it will pay you to travel five hundred and five miles to see it. But you won’t need to go so far, — unless you live beyond the prairies, — for the witch-hazel grows from Nova Scotia to Florida and west to Minnesota and Alabama.

There is one flower that, according to John Muir (and he surely knows!) it will pay one to travel away up into the highest Sierra to see. It is the fragrant Washington lily, “the finest of all the Sierra lilies,” he says. “Its bulbs are buried in shaggy chaparral tangles, I suppose for safety from pawing bears; and its magnificent panicles sway and rock over the top of the rough snow-pressed bushes, while big, bold, blunt-nosed bees drone and mumble in its polleny bells. A lovely flower worth going hungry and footsore endless miles to see. The whole world seems richer now that I have found this plant in so noble a landscape.”

And so it seemed to the old botanist who came five hundred miles to find the tiny pyxie in the sandy swamps of southern New Jersey. So it will seem to you—the whole world will not only seem richer, but will be richer for you—when you have found the witch-hazel bush all covered with summer’s gold in the bleak woods of November.

VII.

You ought to see a big pile of golden pumpkins in some farmhouse shed or beside the great barn door. You ought to see a field of corn in the shock; hay in a barn mow; the jars of fruit, the potatoes, apples, and great chunks of wood in the farmhouse cellar. You ought to see how a farmer gets ready for the winter—the comfort, the plenty, the sufficiency of it all!

VIII

You ought to see how the muskrats, too, get ready for the winter, and the bees and the flowers and the trees and the frogs—everything. Winter is coming. The cold will kill—if it has a chance. But see how it has no chance. How is it that bees will buzz, the flowers open, the birds sing, the frogs croak again next spring, as if there had been no freezing, killing weather? Go out and see why for yourselves.

IX

You ought to see the tiny seed “birds” from the gray birches, scattering on the autumn winds; the thistledown, too; and a dozen other of the winged, and plumed, and ballooned, seeds that sail on the wings of the winds. You should see the burdock burs in the cows’ tails when they come home from the pasture, and the stick-tights and beggar-needles in your own coat-tails when you come home from the pastures. And seeing that, you should think—for that is what real seeing means. Think what? Why that you are just as good as a cow’s tail to scatter Nature’s seeds for her, and not a bit better, as she sees you.

X

You ought to see the migrating birds as they begin to flock on the telegraph wires, in the chimneys, and among the reeds of the river. You ought to see the swallows, blackbirds, robins, and bluebirds, as they flock together for the long southern flight. There are days in late September and in early October where the very air seems to be half of birds, especially towards nightfall, if the sun sets full and clear: birds going over, birds diving and darting about you; birds along the rails and ridgepoles; birds in the grass under your feet—birds everywhere. You should be out among them where you can see them. And especially you should see— without fail, this autumn and every autumn—the wedge of wild geese cleaving the dull gray sky in their thrilling journey down from the far-off frozen North.

#autumn #fall #naturalist writing #things to see this fall #dallas lore sharp #cottagecore #naturecore #nature aesthetic #forestcore #meadowcore #flowercore

[the-murder-shack]

master-list | internet horror

(key...)   gender neutral--1 | they/them--2 | he/him--3 | romantic--4 | platonic--5 | familial--6 | enemies--7 | fluff--8 | angst--9 | smut--10 | horror--11 | gore--12 | yandere--13 | imagine--14 | headcanons--15

DEAD BY  DAYLIGHT:

trapper...|

coming soon...

wraith...|

coming soon...

hillbilly...|

coming soon...

doctor...|

coming soon...

spirit...|

coming soon...

legion...|

coming soon...

plague...|

coming soon...

ghost face...|

coming soon...

oni...|

coming soon...

blight...|

coming soon...

twins...|

coming soon...

knight...|

coming soon...

skull merchant...|

coming soon...

meg thomas...|

coming soon...

claudette morel...|

coming soon...

ace visconti...|

coming soon...

feng min...|

coming soon...

david king...|

coming soon...

kate denson...|

coming soon...

adam francis...|

coming soon...

jane romero...|

coming soon...

yui kimura...|

coming soon...

felix richter...|

coming soon...

élodie rakoto...|

coming soon...

yun-jin lee...|

coming soon...

mikaela reid...|

coming soon...

jonah vasquez...|

coming soon...

vittorio toscano...|

coming soon...

the entity...|

coming soon...

CRYPT TV:

look-see...| 

coming soon...

eva...|

coming soon...

catherine...|

coming soon...

colossus...|

coming soon...

jacquelyn torne...|

coming soon...

mira...|

coming soon...

shelly carter...|

coming soon...

soot...|

coming soon...

WELCOME HOME:

wally darling...|

coming soon...

julie joyful...|

coming soon...

sally starlet...|

coming soon...

poppy partridge...|

coming soon...

eddie dear...|

coming soon...

howdy pillar...|

coming soon...

barnaby b. beagle...|

coming soon...

home...|

coming soon...

KILLER FREQUENCY:

forest nash...|

coming soon...

peggy weaver...|

coming soon...

john hedges...|

coming soon...

leslie...|

coming soon...

sandra...|

coming soon...

maurice...|

coming soon...

plunker...|

coming soon...

murphy...|

coming soon...

carrie...|

coming soon...

jimmy...|

coming soon...

roller ricky...|

coming soon...

marie campbell...|

coming soon...

henry barrow...|

coming soon...

[whatdoesshedotothem]

Thursday 19.. February 1835

7 5

11 ¾

no kiss A-‘s cousin came very gently last night on getting into bed  very fine morning but rain at 7 and afterwards, and F44° now at 8 ¾ - breakfast at 9 ¼ to 10 - then a few minutes with my father then had Mr Washington - gave me his and Mr William Armitage’s, of Mirfield,  valuation at £5.5.0 per acre of the manure laid on the Shibden low meadows by Mr Carr - and a list of the Staups rents and told me that Stocks was going to buy land of Joseph Wilkinson to build a public house on the corner of land between the new Northowram and Lower brea roads - told SW to be on the look after this matter and invent some of getting over Stocks - talked to SW about Gill and the yew-trees wood baring business - and told him SW- to measure and mark off the 3500 yards of stone sold to SF- that I might know what part of the wood was in my own hands and what part contained the stone sold to F-  SW- says it will be difficult nobody knowing where the stone will run - own  that for one D.W. sold another will be spoiled -I said the £700 paid by SF- would not repay me for the damage done - I will make no allowance for ruttle in future but sell a certain plot of ground contain what stone it may – SW- much approved this plan - saying he had nothing but trouble about allowance for ruttle and nobody was ever satisfied - Left him with A- at 11 - wrote the above of today - sealed my letter sent by George at 11 ½ to ‘Monsieur L. Gaudin, Topographe,  à Genève en Swisse post paid’  and off to Halifax at 11 50 A-being with Miss Dyson of Willowhall who had just called on her - went down the old bank to Mr Parker’s office - both he and Mr A- there the latter gave me his opinion of the Low house and knowle top coal leas (joint property) and the former said he was just writing the letters about trespass committed by the hunters - advised my putting a board up at the toll bar - told him to consider how to word the notice given - he and Mr A- both for my confining my action to one or 2 of the hunters - Justly fixed on Messrs. Jeremiah Dyson and John Carr - I forget who had applied for Northgate but Mr. P- said it was let - then to District Bank in George street - Mr. Mackean the manager very civil and a well-behaved nice person to deal with - pleased with him so took his notes for both A-‘s bills Hinscliffe’s at 2 months due on the 26th instant for £30 (indorsed only by himself) and Patterson at 2 months due on the 20th instant for £100.13.0 indorsed by himself and Messrs. Briggs and sons and one more others - I ought to have taken more notice - McK- said their banker was to have been the 1st of the new banks opened but they had some difficulty in getting the premises - take the small house and shop behind and pay £80 per annum to Sutcliffe the spirit merchant now occupying Northgate house - said I was going to build and should by this time 12 months have a capital situation to let for which should have many applications - thought I, the end house of my 5 new houses will surely be as well worth £80 per annum as Sutcliffe’s house and shop in George Street - then at Whitley’s - Gell’s Itinerary of Ithaca published at £2.18.0 in 1807 Booth would let me have for 20/. said I would think about it as well, as about Fergusons Roman Republic 5 volumes 8vo. for 35/. (published at 3 guineas?) - then  at Greenwoods - to come at 1pm on Monday - home up the new bank at 1 35 - wrote the last 18 lines till 2 10 then went down to Mr Bradley - he had been upon the house top and ordered the glazier about a new lead gutter - the glazier and thatchier I had seen just before going to Halifax the former said the new gutter would cost a shilling per stone more than the old lead would see for, and the new gutter would consequentially cost £3 or £4 - Mr B- to be here at 9 am on Monday, as I shall have Mallinson at 10 and Thomas Greenwood at 11

Throp and his man filled up Nedley park top far corner hedge etc and left off this afternoon till sent for again -

to give me a rough idea about Northgate and my future building plan that I may know what to say to Thomas G- just hinted to Mr B- that the end of the house of the 5 new ones might be a good situation for a bank - yes! said Mr B- and for a new room - Mr B- has no doubt of my getting a good tenant for Northgate house if it was an Inn and thinks I should get it licensed - Joseph and John Mann had been in the house sometime when I went to them at 3 leaving Mr Bradley taking a rough sketch from the plan for the Northgate property - had 2 Manns 1st in the hall and afterwards in the north dining room till 5 - had the small plan of the estate down and they made me understand their plan about the coals§ - (dinner at 6 ¼) - coffee - ½ hour with my father till 8 ¾ - then sat talking - about ½ hour with my aunt till 10 10 - fine morning - from about 2 pm very wintery stormy afternoon - snow, large flakes, and rain and windy towards night - F42 ½° now at 10 ¾ pm - found cousin coming very gently in the course of the morning and put on linen for dinner

 § their plan is, supposing the water wheel to be put down at Tilly holm stile, to sink a pit in Charles Howarth’s paddock (no.139) no! said I say John Oates’s Croft (no.133a) which they agreed would do as well particularly if the pit mouth raised a little so as to get easily up the hill of the road ----- and driven up 2 heads from Tilly holm stile to this Pump-pit which they could do very well if they had a vent-hole in the corner of the Dolt (no.141) just behind my walk which vent-hole or chimney might be filled up again as soon as the Pump-pit was bottomed - they would then make Pump-pit not only a working pit as soon as bottomed (and the coal would sell the pits mouth at 7 ½ per corve or load) but a vent pit for Walker pit - and they would drive straight 2 heads from P. pit to Walker pit and all the coal above the Wakefield road and between the 2 pits would be pulled at Walker pit, and all the coal below the Wakefield road would be pulled at Pump-pit - and tho’ the coal at the latter would be a 1/2d. a corve cheaper (that it sell for a 1/2d. a corve less) than at the former, the difference would be gained in the pulling (say 110 yards to putt at W. Pit and 60 yards at

 SH:7/ML/E/17/0167

 P. pit) so that I should sell my coal to the takers of the colliery for as much at one pit as the other - I should by all means let the same people have both pits - to divide the concern would spoil both parts of it - would by all means have me sink a new pit 50 or 60 yards farther this way (eastwards) along the plantation top; for Holt’s plant of chambering the present Walker pit would be a serious detriment to the colliery - there would be all that level to spend i.e. it would be a serious pull up hill for the hurriers just at the last - besides it would be much better to leave a good barrier of coal all along on that side than I could at anytime stop Spiggs colliery and do as I liked - let all that face of coal stand covered with water, and throw on to Mr. Rawson what he would not like to have - Holt might depend upon it if I stopt Spiggs that the present Walker pit would stand a good depth in water  - (yes! and it has since occurred to me that others besides myself (John Oates and Hinscliffe’s son vid. p.    ) can stop Spiggs colliery in right of the deed from Wilkinson .:. those others might incommode me if they liked and obliged me to chamber the present Walker pit whether I wished it or not - therefore let nothing persuade me not to sink a new Walker pit as soon as this present one has served to get the remnant of coal at present loose and to find out the trespasses committed in my land - R- may have done a little Messrs. Walsh and Hinscliffe much more) the Manns convinced me that to drive 2 straight heads from Tilly holm stile to the present or a new Walker pit would not do - I should loose very little coal by it - it would be a long pull up hill from the bottom to the top - that is, as I understood it, I should only loose what coal would lie to the north west, i.e. Shibden hall side, of the drift driven from Tilly holm-stile to Walker pit - if so, the low land would be loosed but very little of the upper land and a vent hole would be wanting for driving up drifts - but by having a pit at Pump I should loose the whole sweep of coal lying on the Shibden hall side of Pump and upwards in the line parallel to the present old water head hold marked by a dotted red line going under the Conery houses - 2 pits better than one - could not pull over more than 5 colliers at Walker pit i.e. could not get the coal pulled up fast enough to employ more than 5 colliers (pickmen getting coal) and .:. 5 colliers would not get more than from 1 ½ to 2 acres per annum - could pull perhaps twice as much (if I liked and could find sale for it) at Pump pit - so that 1 pit could only sell from 1 ½ to 2 acres and 2 pits might double the quantity or more - could not get Joseph Mann to make even a rough guess at what might be bid for the coal at the letting - I said rails and everything would be found - the takers would only have to find rails for their buts of byroads - then said John Mann just at the last ‘well! there might be £150 per acre bid’ - said I rather quickly that wont do - the setting up the colliery will cost me from £1500 to £2000 - I ought to have 10 p.c. on this money and on £2000, 10 p.c. = £200 and if only 2 acres per annum are got I should only have £100 for the coal - and if 3 acres were got I should only have £250 for the coal, and to get even 3 acres I must have 2 pits - I must hear what Holt says - my chief questions to him must be How much can be sold per annum? at one pit and at 2 pits -  and will the coal fetch or will it be worth £150 per acre? on talking with Charles H- this morning, and saying I must have my dam at the top end of my brookage, in Godley Ing (no.14) or Wellroyde holme (no.16) he reminded me that the Spiggs water comes out so much below where my dam till be that that water can do me no good for the coal water -wheel - but that if I stop Spiggs colliery and raise the water to the top of the old Engine pit in Godley Ing then I shall get the benefit of the water to my dam and if I drive my wheel-goit as near as may be - dead level it will always stand full of water and be like a 2nd dam or reservoir to hold water when scarce in summer   that I had evidently best stop the Spiggs water and thus get it for my own double use - as it will then serve me for my coal wheel as well as for Mytholm mill - Surely I shall understand this matter tolerably by and by - this Tilly holme Loose will loose my Lower brea? and Wellroyde = 9a.1r.6o. and Wilkinson coal = 9a.3r.9p. and about ½ Tilly holm, ditto Dolt, and say all the land on this side Pump lane and George N-‘s 2 upper place fields numero 120 and 121 (and the plot of Dove house land on this side Pump Lane) - .:. the Land of mine loosed on this side the brook = about 122a.2r.2p.

 ½ Tille holm  10a.0.8 1/2p.

½ Dolt  3.14 ½

Low pump land suppose 1.0.0

Upper Pump land nos. 122,126 6.2.12

Ireland except ½ the Dolt 14.3.13

Denmkar 2 fields nos. 128, 129.    7.0.35

Upper Place 2 fields nos. 120, 121   6.2.7

Shibden upper land nos. 143, 127, 125, 123, 124, 144, 145, 146, 149, 150, 148, 151, 147 Conery woo dnad 158 connery Ing deficiencies of these two last nos. more than compensated by bits and corners of nos. 152, 154, and 159   38.1.33

 Shibden law land, nos. 1,2,3,4,5,6

= 8.0.34

26.1.37 = no. 12 Called Park

2.1.8 = no. 30 Hall wood adn my walk ditto no. 29° not noticed in the Reference

35.3.39

 12.2.2

Wellroyde land = 9.1.6

Coal purcahsed of J.W. = 9.3.9

.:. to say nothing of Lower brea the Tilley holme Loose will loose more 131.2.17

 Suppose the 2 Dovehouse fields = 6a.3r.12p.

i.e. the 2 Pump fields nos. 126, 122.

 to add to this above 131.2.17 are about 6 acres of coal supposed to be left in the Staups land 131.2.17+6 = 137.2.17 acres of coal loosed by Tilly holme Losse

 Suppose me to get only the coal on this side of the brook i.e. in Southowram there 112a.2r.2p. at 4 acres per annum = 122.2.2./4 = 28 yards + so that, if I live to be old, I may go on getting coal at 4 acre per annum long enough - nous verrons

 +6 acres in Staups land

Suppose I loose 130 acres of coal for £2000 and leave 15 acres of barrier = + 6 acres of Staups for barrier on that side 115 acres loosed for £2,000 worth £150 per acre to be paid for as got

115x150 = £17250

[with-a-martyr-complex]

With A Martyr Complex: Reading List 2022

Adapted from the annual list from @balioc​, a list of books (primarily audiobooks) consumed this year. This list excludes several podcasts, but includes dramatizations and college lecture series from The Great Courses, which I consume like a disgusting fiend.

Introduction to the Qur'an by Martyn Oliver with Tahera Ahmad (for Quranic recitation)

Conquistadors by Michael Wood

ROAR: How to Match Your Food and Fitness to Your Unique Female Physiology for Optimum Performance, Great Health, and a Strong, Lean Body for Life by Stacy Sims and Selene Yeager

The Guns of August by Barbara W. Tuchman

War, Peace, and Power: Diplomatic History of Europe 1500-2000 by Vegas Gabriel Liulevicius

This Is How You Lose The Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone

Coup de Grâce: A Novel by Marguerite Yourcenar (Translated by Grace Fick)

Sun and Steel by Yukio Mishima (Stanford Press Translation)

Classical Mythology by Elizabeth Vandiver

Metamorphoses by Ovid (Translated by Frank Justus Miller)

Existential Kink: Unmask Your Shadow and Embrace Your Power (A method for getting what you want by getting off on what you don't) by Carolyn Elliott

Fascism: A Warning by Madeline Albright

The Enlightenment Invention of the Modern Self by Leo Damrosch

Greek Tragedy by Elizabeth Vandiver

Leviathan or The Matter, Forme and Power of a Commonwealth Ecclesiaticall and Civil by Thomas Hobbes

War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning by Chris Hedges

Natural Law and Human Nature by Father Joseph Koterski

Odysseus in America: Combat Trauma and the Trials of Homecoming by Jonathan Shay (Foreward by John McCain and Max Cleland)

We by Yevgeny Zamyatin (Translated by Clarence Brown)

Treason by Orson Scott Card (Originally published as A Planet Called Treason)

The Modern Political Tradition: Hobbes to Habermas by Lawrence Cahoon

Gideon The Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

Discipline and Punish by Michel Foucault (Translated by Alan Sheridan)

Harrow The Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

History of Sexuality: Volume I by Michel Foucault (Unidentified Translator)

Madness and Civilization by Michel Foucault (Translated by Richard Howard)

Lent: A Novel of Many Returns by Jo Walton

Living the French Revolution and the Age of Napoleon by Suzanne M. Desan

The Stranger by Albert Camus (Translated by Matthew Ward)

10 Women Who Ruled The Renaissance by Joyce Salisbury

A Brief History of the Samurai by Jonathan Clements

Because Internet: Understanding The New Rules of Language by Gretchen McCulloch

The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With The Sea by Yukio Mishima

The Republic by Plato (Translated by Benjamin Jowett)

Nona The Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

Davos Man: How The Billionaires Devoured The World by Peter S. Goodman

The Birth of The Modern Mind: The Intellectual History of the 17th and 18th Centuries by Alan Charles Kors

(Spooky) Litigation: The Practice of Supernatural Law (Volume 1) by Jeffrey A. Rapkin

Emperors of Rome by Garrett G. Fagan

The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty

Francis of Assisi by Ronald B. Herzman and William R. Cook

Impact Winter by Travis Beacham

Popes and The Papacy: A History by Thomas X. Noble

Misery by Stephen King

The Benedict Option by Rod Dreher

The Aeneid by Virgil (Translated by John Dryden)

The Aeneid of Virgil by Elizabeth Vandiver

The Industrial Revolution by Patrick N. Allitt

[Redacted] by [Redacted]

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas (Translated by Duke Classics)

America and the World: A Diplomatic History by Mark A. Stoler

The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester

Hagakure by Yamamoto Tsunetomo (Translated by William Scott Wilson)

A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine

Voltaire and The Triumph of The Enlightenment by Alan Charles Kors

Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky (Translated by Constance Garnett)

Incomplete books: Jacques the Fatalist, The Just City, On Killing

---

Great Courses consumed: 17

Non-Great Courses Nonfiction consumed: 16

---

Works consumed by women: 17

Works consumed by men: 37

Works consumed by men and women: 2

Works that can plausibly be considered of real relevance to foreign policy (including appropriate histories): 10

---

With A Martyr Complex’s Choice Award, fiction division: It’s a tie between Lent and Coup de Grace, I just couldn’t decide between the two. Feel free to mock me for my indecision.

>>>> Honorable mention: The Stars My Destination, Misery

With A Martyr Complex’s Choice Award, nonfiction division: The Guns of August

>>>> Honorable mention: Living the French Revolution and The Age of Napoleon, Greek Tragedy, Conquistadors, The Aeneid of Virgil

>>>> Great Courses Division: The Birth of the Modern Mind: The Intellectual History of the 17th and 18th Centuries

The Annual “An Essential Work of Surpassing Beauty that Isn’t Fair to Compare To Everything Else” Award: We

>>>> Honorable mention: Crime and Punishment (This may have suffered from me reading while quarantining, I could easily have swapped it with We under other circumstances)

>>>> Nonfiction Division: Leviathan

>>>>>>>>Honorable Mention: Discipline and Punish

The “Reading This Book Will Give You Great Insight Into The Way I See The World” Award: War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning

>>>> Honorable mention: The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With The Sea, Leviathan

The “This is Kooky Made Up Nonsense But Still Worth Checking Out” Award: Existential Kink

The “Reading This has Allowed Me To Stop Caring About Its Author Too Much” Award: The Benedict Option

---

This marks the first year where I’ve reached my goal of at least 1 book per week for the year, and I’m reasonably proud of that. I’m especially proud that I didn’t overload the list with short works to reach that goal and was able to tackle some difficult or long works while maintaining a solid pace. I did find myself reading fewer literary works than I tend to prefer, and my nonfiction that wasn’t lectures was lower than I’d generally like (however much I do love lectures). 

Goals for next year: more foreign policy reading, more literary fiction, write something of my own.

#oc #yearly reading list

[eatstraighttylenol]

I have not lived a spectacular life. But within my four-dozen-plus years, I’ve had many more hours to pursue that which I chose, instead of moiling over that which I detested.

I have coaxed many infirm clocks back to mellifluous life. Studied projective geometry, and built astrolabes, sundials, taught myself 19th-century electro plating, bronzing, patination, micro-machining, horology, learned piano. Read Poe, De Montpasa, Boccaccio, O’Connor, Welty, Hugo, Balzac, Kafka, Bataille, Gibran, as well as modern works by Mortimer, Hawking, Kuntsler, Klein, Jacoby, Heinberg, Hedges, Hitchings, and Rhodes.

But the best times of my life I realize were the times I spent in the forest and field. I have walked in solitude beside my own babbling creek, and wondered at the undulations, meanderings, and tiny atolls that were occasionally swept into its midst. I have spent time in idle palaver with violets, lyre leaf sage, heliopsis, and monkshood. And marveled at the mystery of monotropa uniflora. I have audited the discourse of the hickories, oaks, and pines, even when no wind was present. I have peregrinated the woods in winter, under the watchful guard of vigilant dogs, and spent hours entranced by the exquisiteness and delicacy of tiny mosses and molds: entire forests within a few square inches.

I have also run thrashing and flailing from yellow jackets. Before I could commence this discourse, I spent a few hours out under the night sky reacquainting myself with the constellations, like old friends. Sometimes I just spent hours playing my records. Sometimes I took my record players and CD players apart just to peek inside and admire the engineering of their incongruous entrails. Sometimes I watched Laverne and Shirley, or old movies, or Star Trek. Sometimes I sat in the dark and listened to the creaking of the old house.

I have lived on this blue orb now for about 17,600 days. And when I look around me and see the leaden dispiritedness that envelops so many persons both young and old, I know that if I die tonight, my life has been inestimably better than that of most of my compatriots. Additionally, my absence makes room, and leaves some resources for others, who deserve no less than I have enjoyed.

I would hope that all persons reading this can enjoy some of the aspects of life that I have enjoyed, as well as those aspects that I never will, and will take cognizance of the number of waking days he has remaining, and use them prudently.

To all that have given so much, much love and respect,

John B. McLemore

(except from suicide note)

#S-Town #s-town podcast #serial #brian reed #suicide #poetry #life #meaning

[eclipsecrowned]

Opening Day Squad + Pride HCs. All of my muses are part of the community as a rule, but I figured I’d lay out specifics as part of today’s festivities. With apologies to the wider character tags this is going to trip, please just scroll past.

ANIMANGA:

Charlotte: Baby bi, coming to some realizations

Enrico Maxwell: Gay

Pip Bernadotte: Pansexual transman

COMICS:

Dream: Bisexual

Lucien: Aspec

Bane: Bisexual

Jonathan Crane: Transman, gay

Mina Wakefield: Pansexual

LITERATURE:

Aleary ibn-Jiang: Pansexual (also grew up w two dads! pride is in his blood!)

Cirila Montoya: Aromantic pansexual

Claude di Montoya: Genderfluid, Aspec, polyamorous

Daniel Molloy: Gay, polyamorous

Evi Kholin: Pansexual, polyamorous

Gabrielle de Lioncourt: Transmasc lesbian, polyamorous

Joanna Lannister: Bisexual

John de Winter: Bisexual

Karin Lindholm: Bisexual, polyamorous

Mercedes de Morcerf: Bisexual

Moash: Gay

Odessa Harkonnen: Lesbian

Syl: Asexual

Wit: God I keep toying w transman HC here but I’m hedging my bets B. Sando will knock this one totally out of the water someday.

MYTHOLOGY:

Ariadne: Bisexual, polyamorous

Artemis: Lesbian

Fenrir: Pansexual

Freyja: Pansexual, polyamorous

Hnoss: Bisexual, but has not yet realized it.

Laufey: Bisexual, polyamorous

Melinoe: Lesbian demigirl

Odin: Bisexual

Orpheus: Bisexual

Sigyn: Pansexual, polyamorous

PODCAST:

Eric Delano: Pansexual

Catherine Rice: Bisexual

Peter Lukas: Gay

Melanie King: Lesbian

SQUARE:

Astraea Lucis Caelum: Pansexual

Cyra Cross: Bisexual, nonbinary

Eraqus Kurosawa: Gay, gender non-conforming

Isa Cervantes: Gay

Kokoro: Kyriakou: Bisexual, nonbinary

Roxas: Baby bi

Steria Kyriakou: Bisexual

VIDEO GAMES:

Albel Nox: Bisexual (closeted), nonbinary

Aria Mahariel: Aspec, nonbinary, gender non conforming (by human standard)

Eva Portinari: Bisexual

Gwynevere: Pansexual, polyamorous

Azumaya Hana: Closeted bisexual

Nishitani Homare: Pansexual Disaster, Polyamorous

Inessa Briar: Bisexual

Lothric: Bisexual, polyamorous, nonbinary

Shalendra: Pansexual, polyamorous

Gensai Shizuka: Pansexal, genderfluid, polyamorous

Tanith: Pansexual, demiwoman

Zelda: Bisexual

Zevran Arainai: Pansexual, genderfluid

#i'm not tagging all of these muses lmao suffer.

[roman-catholic-mass-readings]

1st March >> Mass Readings (USA)

Friday, Second Week of Lent 

(Liturgical Colour: Violet: B (2))

First Reading Genesis 37:3-4, 12-13a, 17b-28a Here comes the man of dreams; let us kill him.

Israel loved Joseph best of all his sons, for he was the child of his old age; and he had made him a long tunic. When his brothers saw that their father loved him best of all his sons, they hated him so much that they would not even greet him.

One day, when his brothers had gone to pasture their father’s flocks at Shechem, Israel said to Joseph, “Your brothers, you know, are tending our flocks at Shechem. Get ready; I will send you to them.” So Joseph went after his brothers and caught up with them in Dothan. They noticed him from a distance, and before he came up to them, they plotted to kill him. They said to one another: “Here comes that master dreamer! Come on, let us kill him and throw him into one of the cisterns here; we could say that a wild beast devoured him. We shall then see what comes of his dreams.”

When Reuben heard this, he tried to save him from their hands, saying, “We must not take his life. Instead of shedding blood,” he continued, “just throw him into that cistern there in the desert; but do not kill him outright.” His purpose was to rescue him from their hands and return him to his father. So when Joseph came up to them, they stripped him of the long tunic he had on; then they took him and threw him into the cistern, which was empty and dry. They then sat down to their meal. Looking up, they saw a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead, their camels laden with gum, balm and resin to be taken down to Egypt. Judah said to his brothers: “What is to be gained by killing our brother and concealing his blood? Rather, let us sell him to these Ishmaelites, instead of doing away with him ourselves. After all, he is our brother, our own flesh.” His brothers agreed. They sold Joseph to the Ishmaelites for twenty pieces of silver.

The Word of the Lord

R/ Thanks be to God.

Responsorial Psalm Psalm 105:16-17, 18-19, 20-21

R/ Remember the marvels the Lord has done.

When the LORD called down a famine on the land and ruined the crop that sustained them, He sent a man before them, Joseph, sold as a slave.

R/ Remember the marvels the Lord has done.

They had weighed him down with fetters, and he was bound with chains, Till his prediction came to pass and the word of the LORD proved him true.

R/ Remember the marvels the Lord has done.

The king sent and released him, the ruler of the peoples set him free. He made him lord of his house and ruler of all his possessions.

R/ Remember the marvels the Lord has done.

Gospel Acclamation John 3:16

God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son; so that everyone who believes in him might have eternal life.

Gospel Matthew 21:33-43, 45-46 This is the heir; let us kill him.

Jesus said to the chief priests and the elders of the people: “Hear another parable. There was a landowner who planted a vineyard, put a hedge around it, dug a wine press in it, and built a tower. Then he leased it to tenants and went on a journey. When vintage time drew near, he sent his servants to the tenants to obtain his produce. But the tenants seized the servants and one they beat, another they killed, and a third they stoned. Again he sent other servants, more numerous than the first ones, but they treated them in the same way. Finally, he sent his son to them, thinking, ‘They will respect my son.’ But when the tenants saw the son, they said to one another, ‘This is the heir. Come, let us kill him and acquire his inheritance.’ They seized him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him. What will the owner of the vineyard do to those tenants when he comes?” They answered him, “He will put those wretched men to a wretched death and lease his vineyard to other tenants who will give him the produce at the proper times.” Jesus said to them, “Did you never read in the Scriptures:

”The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; by the Lord has this been done, and it is wonderful in our eyes?

“Therefore, I say to you, the Kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that will produce its fruit.” When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they knew that he was speaking about them. And although they were attempting to arrest him, they feared the crowds, for they regarded him as a prophet.

The Gospel of the Lord

R/ Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.