#like yeah obviously dense cities are going to have a higher number of people in various demographics. im thinking mostly about nyc and | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

garbagevanfleet · 3 years

Text

Brightest Blue (series)

PART ONE

Pairing: Josh & female!Reader Warnings: None yet. Summary: Things are changing. New state. New school. New roommate. You just pray things are going to click into place. Notes: Here we are everyone. This fic has been a long time in the making, but I’m pretty dang happy with it so far! I made Josh extra lovable and squishy for you all. I hope you enjoy! This fic is edited by the amazing and gorgeous, @lantern-inthenight. And big thanks as always to @myownparadise96. I literally could not have found the motivation to do this fic without you.

MASTERPOST

taglist: @myownparadise96 @n1-party-anthem @valleyd0ll @bigblack-catattack @guitarfingers @thebohemianpenguin @oblvions @hansonobsessed @satingrass-maidensfair

The scenery in Michigan was vastly different than back home. You were used to and comfortable with the nearly unforgiving heat of the American South West, but the farther away you got from home, the more foreign everything seemed. The scrubland slowly started being replaced by emerald green grass and dense forests of towering pines. Once you hit Illinois, little farmsteads were scattered along every road you took, boasting fields thick with corn and beans.

It was a bit over a full day’s worth of driving. You had originally thought you could just drive right through - after all, you were young and you had plenty of caffeine at the ready. In reality, you wound up digesting the trip over two days.

You were a fortunate enough person that you had a reliable car, which made up for the fact that it wasn’t very pretty to look at. It didn’t exactly sip gas, but that had never even been a concern before this - it wasn’t very often that you left home, let alone make a trip across the country. But you were able to breathe a sigh of relief when you started seeing the exit signs for Ann Arbor.

Your parents had been a bit judgemental about you picking a school so far away - they were even worse homebodies than you, and they knew that you being across the country meant they wouldn’t be seeing you until the school year was over - but there was no way you could turn down an opportunity like this one. You had worked your ass off to qualify for a scholarship, knowing full well that there was no way you could afford higher education otherwise. MU hadn’t been your very first choice but with one of the better programs in the country for your desired field, you just couldn’t turn it down.

You had to pull over into a McDonald’s parking lot to pull up the address you were looking for and program it into your phone’s GPS before continuing further into the city. Your mother had been particularly wary about your living situation. See, she was a woman that adamantly liked to have a plan and then stick to it - she didn’t see any value in just letting things happen. “Go with the flow” wasn’t in her vocabulary, but you’d always romanticised the idea. Which was why, when you pulled up to the apartment that you were going to be living in for the next year, it was the first time you’d ever seen it.

You had found the listing on the Facebook marketplace for the area, looked at a couple of pictures, and signed the lease agreement online - all without knowing what you were really in for. You’d been informed that you’d have a roommate when you’d contacted the landlord, but she hadn’t mentioned a thing about the person other than that. All she really said was “no pets, no smoking, and one month’s rent for the security deposit. You had told yourself that it didn’t really matter what the situation was as long as the other person wasn’t outwardly malicious and the place wasn’t infested with pests or anything, even though you knew it mattered a little.

An audible sigh of relief left your lips when you pulled into the apartment parking lot and found that your new home looked well kept. The building had old, slide-up windows, but the brick siding was clean, and the shrubs that lined the property were trimmed and neat. You and your back seat stuffed to max capacity with house plants had made it - and with only a bit of sleep deprivation and caffeine jitters for damages.

After you got out of the car, you grabbed your very favorite potted cactus and found your way into the building, meandering down the dim hall until you came upon the door marked 6. You hadn’t been given a key yet, so you knocked with your free hand and waited until you heard someone shuffling around inside.

You would be lying if you said you weren’t nervous - obviously, you were - but more than anything you were excited. Anxious, maybe? That seemed like the right word.

The door opened to reveal a boy, around your age, hair a mess of curls on the top and shorn tighter to the sides of his head. You were immediately taken aback by the depth in his eyes, chocolatey and warm.

“What’s up?” he asked casually, leaning against the door frame, a pair of old-school headphones dangling from his hand.

You frowned at him slightly, suddenly terrified you’d gotten the wrong apartment number. You weren’t sure how you’d live with that embarrassment, especially if you had to live next door to him - you’d just be that stupid girl that didn’t even know where she lived. “Oh, I think I’m your new roommate? This is number six, right?” You peered around the other side of the open door, just to confirm.

A beaming grin spread over his soft face, showing you his blindingly white teeth and the deepest pair of dimples you’d ever seen. “Oh, cool, yeah. Come on in.”

He stepped aside, giving a dramatically flourished bow as a gesture for you to enter. You obliged, and even though this was your new house too, you paused and waited as he shut the door behind you.

“Sorry, I was expecting you yesterday, so.” He trailed off with a sheepish smile and then extended his free hand to you. “Anyway, I’m Josh.”

You shifted your cactus to one arm so you could shake his hand. “Y/N. Yeah, sorry, it took me longer than I expected to get here. Which is why my stuff apparently showed up before I did.”

You eyed around the apartment, spotting boxes of your things in piles. The original plan your parents had come up with was to have you rent a U-Haul, but since you’d never driven anything bigger than your Camry, you had quickly shot that idea down. After some expert negotiating, they had agreed to hire a moving company. You hadn’t had the balls to ask what a service like that had set them back - decided instead that it was better if you didn’t know.

“Oh yeah,” he replied, rubbing at the back of his neck. “It all showed up yesterday at like noon. One of the boxes was open a little, and I saw records so I looked through them to make sure you weren’t some kind of freak.”

It was more of a statement than a warning, and the smile he gave you showed not even a shred of an apology so you just smiled back. “Find anything you like?”

He turned on his heel and headed into the kitchen - connected to the living room by a huge square archway. “Your music taste is,” He paused, opening a cupboard and pulling down two mismatched glasses. “Eclectic.”

You laughed at him, bending to gently set your plant down on a side table. “That’s true.”

“But I found plenty I could listen to, so I guess you’re okay. You want some juice?” he asked as he held up a paper carton of store brand orange juice

“That would be lovely,” you agreed, standing stick straight the way you did when in the presence of new company. “My dad used to take me to a lot of thrift stores and we’d go home with a minimum of two records per trip.”

“I love thrifting,” he said simply, giving you an alarmingly serious look. “There are three here, I think. Every once in a while you can find something really worth keeping. I have kind of a ‘catch and release’ policy where if I don’t instantly know what I’m going to do with an item, I leave it there, but I think - like - a third of my wardrobe is from thrift stores.”

You listened, feeling oddly entranced by the way he was handing you thoughts as they came to him. There was something truly honest about it - a quality people back home didn’t seem to have. It was charming.

He brought your glass of juice to you and then motioned to the rest of the apartment. “You want the grand tour of Casa De Joshua-” He gave you a pointed look and a cheesy grin. “And Y/N?”

You breathed a laugh at him, nodding as you sipped. “Please.”

“Okay, try not to get lost - this is obviously the living room. I do most of my living here as the name would suggest. I found this couch on the side of the road - actually almost all of my furniture is adopted.” As he explained, he was gesturing to items like Vanna White.

The couch looked. Well-loved. You could tell just at a glance that it was probably past it’s prime when Josh had stumbled upon it, but it did look comfortable, and it wasn’t like you had a couch to offer, so you were happy with it.

“I have this TV but it’s really only for movies and stuff because I’m twenty-two and I’d rather die than pay for cable. But there are literally hundreds of DVDs in the TV stand that you are welcome to peruse at your leisure,” he informed, his hands gesturing almost arbitrarily as he talked.

You followed as he moved on through the archway. “This is the kitchen. All of the food lives here. There’s lots of stuff, but I try to just make two bigger meals per day. I don’t have a real ice tray so I’ve been using a chocolate mold- Well anyway, our ice will be in the shape of wiener dogs.”

You were shocked at the laugh that escaped you, genuine and uncontrolled. He grinned over at you, clearly also surprised - but pleased with himself for getting the reaction he was aiming for.

“I think I can live with that.”

“Good,” he agreed simply, giving you a new kind of smile - something sweeter. After a beat, he motioned down the hall with his eyes, letting you lead. “The bathroom is this way. The water takes like three or four minutes to get hot. I realized that I have a lot of products for some reason, but I condensed them all into this one area in the corner just in case my new roommate was a girl, and you are so that’s great. I’ll probably get a shelf.”

There was a proud quality to his voice like he felt gentlemanly for letting you have all the space you needed. For some reason, that made you feel warm and fuzzy.

“And what if your new roommate had been a boy?” you inquired with a smirk.

He put a finger on his chin, taking on a contemplative look for you. “Hmm. Then I guess I slowly would have moved my stuff back to the cabinet - probably just one thing per day so he wouldn’t notice. Unless he had a lot of makeup or something, then I’d just let him have it.”

He grinned as you teasingly shook your head.

“This way is the sleeping quarters. My room is there on the right and yours to the left.”

You stepped into your new room and let a sigh of relief. Two huge windows took up a lot of the far wall, framed underneath by large sills. The space was bright and roomier than you’d pictured. Your bed was set up in the very middle of the room, but you already knew exactly where you wanted it to go. For some reason, you had been concerned that you wouldn’t like the space, but it was kind of perfect.

“This is great,” you breathed, turning to him and giving him a sly grin. “Wanna give me a hand moving my furniture around?”

He pretended to consider for a moment until you spoke again.

“My mom sent money for pizza while I get stuff unpacked,” you said coyly. “If you needed any convincing.”

He laughed, showing you his teeth. “You drive a hard bargain. Okay, I’ll help as long as I get to look through your stuff while we move it.”

You gave him a questioning look, earning a one-shouldered shrug in return. He looked benign enough standing there, propped against the door frame with a goofy upturn to his lips, so you relented.

“Deal,” you agreed.

You were positive you would not have been able to move stuff without his help. For being a slender boy, he seemed to easily be able to get things where they needed to be. He dutifully helped you shove your furniture into place - your bed against the window wall, your desk and vanity on the wall with your closet door. Then, bless his little heart, he helped you move it all again when you decided you didn’t like the arrangement (but not without some light griping).

One by one, you brought in your boxes from the living room and you allowed him to poke through them, perched on your bed. He flipped through your books, thumbing pages of ones that piqued his interest - you could only imagine that he was already planning on borrowing some of them. He reacted similarly to your framed photos, as he unwrapped them from their packing paper.

When you got your record player set up, he put on a vinyl and started to hang your art prints on the wall where you instructed him to. The look of concentration on his face was rather endearing as he held a few nails between his teeth and hammered them into the wall, one by one. There was a time or two you were convinced that he was going to mutilate his thumb, but he didn’t, and when the last picture was hung, you breathed a sigh of relief.

You called in a pizza, adorned with his requested toppings as you hung your clothes into your closet, your phone tucked against your ear and shoulder for maximum efficiency.

Plants collected on your bed until there was no more room for them - after that, he started setting them on the floor as he brought them in from your car. He didn’t seem to be judging the sheer amount of them, even though he had every right to.

“It’s going to look like a jungle in here,” he stated finally as he took a bite out of a slice of pizza that he was holding like a taco, his eyes raking over all of the foliage scattered around your room. Rather than sounding like he was teasing, his tone seemed excited.

You grinned at him, starting to arrange them on the window sill and your bookshelf that had only ever served you as a plant shelf since you’d bought it. “Plants are my passion. Botany major,” you explained as you fluffed up your Monstera’s huge leaves.

“Ooh.” He raised his eyebrows at you, pulling one of his legs up underneath him on your bed - now fitted with sheets. “I think that’s going to be nice. Give it some life in here.”

You grabbed another slice from the pizza box on your nightstand and tried to think of the right tone of voice to use to ask the next question. “How long have you lived here by yourself?”

He hummed, eyes flicking around distantly as he thought. “Well, I’ve lived here just over a year, and my first roommate dropped out and moved back home about...six months ago?”

“Have you been lonely? You seem like a social guy.” You gave him an empathetic look but he just shrugged at you. You hadn’t known him long enough to know for sure, but you suspected he was more affected than he was letting on.

“I mean, a little lonely. But I got used to it for the most part.” He paused for a good couple of seconds before a smile spread across his lips. “And Penny’s kept me company.”

“Oh, does your girlfriend stay here too?” you prompted, trying to remember if you’d seen any feminine looking items lying around that weren’t yours.

“What? No,” he said under a chuckle and stood, gesturing for you to follow him across the hall.

The second you walked through the doorway, you were met with the smell of incense sticks and linen. His room was dimmer than yours and kind of cramped with all of his mismatching furniture, but he had a huge bed - you thought it could easily fit three people in it. There were some clothes strewn about around a laundry hamper by the door and you tried to not be jealous that his closet seemed to be about twice the size of yours.

He crossed the room to crouch in front of a coffee table that he seemed to be using as a catch-all. The varnish was worn off the top of it in rings because sitting on the coffee table was a globe of water and a calico colored goldfish swimming around aimlessly inside of it.

“Ah, so this is Penny,” you giggled as you bent over next to him. When the fish spotted him, it rose to the surface of the water, opening its mouth in demand for food.

He grinned down at it. “Light of my life. We’re not allowed to have pets but I figured that a fish didn’t count.”

You hummed, admittedly a bit charmed by the whole situation. “But don’t goldfish require a lot of space?”

The smile fell from his face, adopting a level of concern you hadn’t yet seen from him as he peered over at you. “Do they?”

Immediately, you felt guilty for putting that look on his features. Your brain kick-started - trying to think of a way to make it right again. “I think so? Maybe we can find her a small tank? Put a few little plants in there for her?”

Josh nodded at you, stroking his fingers over the glass with a frown. “I’m a bad dad.”

“No, no!” you assured, putting your hand on his head but then removing it instantly when you realized that you didn’t really know him, he’d just already made you feel like you did. Either way, you figured it would be inappropriate to touch him. “You’re great. She looks really happy.”

“She’s great at begging for food, so don’t get tricked,” Josh instructed after a moment, seemingly able to put his concerns aside to jest you.

You nodded in agreement. “I’ll be ever vigilant,” you promised, making him smile again.

He stood back up, so you did as well.

“Well, I’ll give you some time to get comfortable in your room,” Josh said, sitting back on his bed. “Let me know if you need anything, okay?”

“I promise I will,” you assured, tapping your hand on the doorframe on your way out.

By the time the sun was set, your room was shockingly well put together. The emotional rollercoaster that was the album Rumors helped you keep on task, losing yourself in the music so it didn’t feel like work at all. You hadn’t been expecting it to come along so quickly, but you guessed that was because you hadn’t anticipated such a friendly roommate. The nesting had always been your favorite part, so you took your time to enjoy placing out all your knick-knacks and photos.

You took a break to shower when you decided you were done for the day, reveling in the feeling of the water after such a long time in your car - He was absolutely right about how long it took to warm up from ice cold. When you got out and changed into your pajamas, Josh was sitting in the living room with a laptop across his legs.

“You wanna chill?” he asked when he heard you padding down the hall, shutting the lid of it and setting it on a side table. “Or if you’re too tired, that’s okay too.”

“No, no. I’d love to talk.” You sat next to him, leaving a comfortable amount of room between you as you pulled your knees up to your chin. “Tell me more about yourself,” you requested, tugging a blanket from a beat-up wicker basket on the floor and wrapping it around your body.

“Hmm, okay,” he started. You wondered how long it had been since he had to introduce himself to someone new. “I’m from a tiny little town here in Michigan. I’m the oldest of four - two brothers and a sister. My brother, Jake, also attends MU and lives just off campus.”

You frowned at him. “Wait, why wouldn’t he live with you?” you asked through a disbelieving laugh.

“He lived with me long enough,” Josh explained in a humored tone. “There are only so many people where I’m from and well - we wanted to meet new people, you know?”

“I guess I should be grateful for that.”

“Yeah, probably,” he teased and then paused to think. “I’m in performing arts - I’m actually putting on a production around Christmas with some elementary school kids.”

You suppressed the aww that was threatening to pass your lips. “You like kids?”

He beamed you a smile, shaking his head. “Love them. I want to have like ten of them someday.”

The thought of him surrounded by kids made you soften. You were genuinely shocked about how easy he was to talk to - how easy he was to like. You had never thought in a million years you’d get along with your roommate so well, let alone the first day meeting them.

“I hope you get to,” you said as genuinely as you could muster, prompting him to give you a grateful smile.

A yawn escaped you before you could hide it, and you quickly breathed an apology, but he just waved you off.

“You must be exhausted from that drive,” he said, his voice soft. “You should get some sleep.”

You nodded in agreement and gave him a thankful smile. “Is it okay if I sleep out here?”

The look on his face was quizzical, forcing a laugh from you. “Why would you do that?”

“I have this tradition where whenever I’m in a new place, I always sleep in the living room on the first night. It’s good luck.”

“Whatever you say.” His lips pulled back into an unconvinced smirk. “Well, yeah, you live here now too, so you can sleep wherever you’d like.”

He disappeared into his room for only a moment before popping his head back out, fingers wrapped around the door frame.

“Do you mind if I join you?”

You tried not to look too taken aback by the question, but you could feel your cheeks flushing warm. You raked your eyes along the couch, entirely positive that there wasn’t enough space for the two of you to lay out on it together fully - at least, not without being pressed flush against one another. However, his face looked innocent and soft - not a single tint of mischief colored across his features.

“Yeah, that-. I guess that’s okay,” you agreed sheepishly with a shrug. “But I’m not sure we’ll both fit if I’m being honest.”

He frowned questioningly at you, his brows lacing together until he realized what you thought he meant. His face instantly turned a light shade of pink to match yours. “No, no,” he quickly assured in between a breathy laugh. “I’m not going to sleep with you - I’ll take the recliner.”

“Oh, right.” You gave a nervous laugh of your own, cursing yourself out in your head for being so dull.

You were still well embarrassed as you made a nest of blankets on the couch and he brought out a pillow for you when you realized yours were still tucked deep in your bag of bedding. When each of you was situated on your respective pieces of furniture, he flicked the light off with a comfortable sigh.

It was silent for a moment before he spoke again, his voice taking on a tone that was far too smug for your liking. “You were awfully quick to agree to sleep next to me. You don’t have a crush on me, do you?”

You knew he was teasing, but your heart rate still managed to pick up under the pressure. You had never been particularly good with awkward social situations; you rolled your eyes in the dark, thankful he couldn’t see how red you were. “No, Josh. I do not have a crush on you.”

“Okay,” he said through a melodic laugh, and you got the feeling that he’d gotten the reaction he was aiming for from you. “Should we be best friends though?”

You snorted a laugh of your own, wanting to be annoyed at how likable he was, but falling short. “You are the most peculiar person I’ve ever met, I think.” You curled up, clutching your blanket tight to your body. “But yes. We can be friends.”

“Okay, cool - I’ll order matching t-shirts for us.” You could hear the pleased grin he was wearing, making you feel warm and cozy. You pulled the worn blanket up to your chin.

“See to it that you do.”

Author’s Note: okay, I hope you guys like it! please let me know if you want to be added to the tag list or removed from it. I’m using the same taglist from my Jake!fic, so no hard feelings if you don’t want to be tagged!

#josh fic #josh kiszka fic #josh x reader #joshxreader #greta van fleet fic #gvf fic #brightest blue fic

397 notes · View notes

wuxian-vs-wangji · 4 years

Note

idk how i feel about xiao zhan being in a propaganda film..

IDC how you feel about it, tbh.

As my father once said “Everyone is drinking someone’s kool-aid.” Everyone sees things from the perspective they are told to see them from.

And I mean, China has something to be proud of here. I can see why they’d make a movie this quickly. They got off to a rough/slow start dealing with COVID (but be fair- if you told anybody that this brand new disease would come out of nowhere and do THIS in such a short period of time, would you believe it? Even now half of the US is claiming it doesn’t exist), but look at where China is now.

I have friends over there and we compare notes. The governor of my state said he didn’t think a mask mandate was necessary because “some cities only have like 17 cases” whereas in China a city with a population of 3.2 million found 17 cases and shut the fuck down.

I think at this point we all agree that China is under-reporting the number of dead, but even so, by now I’m willing to bet the US total is higher. And we don’t have this anywhere near under control.

China got hit first, and after they got past the “wait what the fuck is happening here” phase they wrestled it under control better than anyone else has managed so far (though Italy has done a phenomenal job, China just wins because that is a massive and dense population to get a handle over).

So yeah, it’s a propaganda film. Every single “based on a true story” film is propaganda for some group or people or organization. But also like... doctors worldwide looked to China to figure out how to even start getting a grip on COVID in the early stages of the pandemic and China had to just sort of figure it out for themselves.

I say in this case they have something to be proud of. And from another angle, on their end people might need the movie. They might need to see a bit of heroism right now.

I could honestly go into a massive explanation of how propaganda movies actually benefit the people of the culture they are aimed at and how they are both positive for that group while others might see them as pushing one narrative or another. I don’t feel like it.

I’m not saying China is like a paragon of virtue, obviously there are serious issues, but in terms of what we know about their COVID response, they’ve done a good job. Props where props are due.

Americans certainly have no ground to critique it. Our response to COVID can be summed up in one word: Failure. Though- side note- I could see NYC making a movie. They managed to impress.

I’m for any movie celebrating the real people on the ground who lost their lives or had to make tremendous sacrifices to help others survive. Remember that feeling from like March/April, when the whole world seemed to have one another’s backs. When people stood on balconies to cheer on doctors at their nearest hospitals. Those people deserve to be celebrated in any way possible, and it looks like this movie is aimed more towards them.

#ask #Anonymous #i feel like everyone's response to covid was that gif of the lady looking terrified #while also kind of forcing a smile and saying 'what the fuck'#that is the global response to the existence of this disease #and just a side note #fuck anyone who says china is responsible for it spreading globally #it is a disease #by the time anyone realized it existed it was already international #that is just the nature of life in our connected modern world.#if anyone genuinely believed a disease could exist in a vacuum like that they deserve to be removed from the gene pool #diseases spread that's what they do #you can't blame anyone for not realizing from like Day 1- whenever that was- that something was happening #and again #we in the us have no legs to stand on here because our national response has been a fucking joke

31 notes · View notes

pastel-uruha · 6 years

Text

Dulce - Prologue

YES. I AM FINALLY DONE.

Now, this is just the intro! The rest will be posted to my ao3! :D This is a really long intro but I think it gets the job done lmao

@smokiiing-area @cancerianwastelandcat @deme-lu @rock-n-alice

I hope this makes sense! Who knows when I will update again lmao :D hopefully soon

+++++++++++++++

Years of painstaking work, both in classrooms and out in a searing hot sun and freezing cold rain. Finally, it all led up to this moment. Kouyou Takashima, certified Archaeologist, and researcher of volcanic activity. It has been a whole seven years after high school but that was okay with him. Seven years was plenty of time.

The diploma from The University of Tokyo hanging in his apartment was more than enough pressure to do a good job considering he still worked there in the labs. Funny how much more freedom he had now that he was no longer considered a normal student but now an employee. He would make sure to not abuse this power and bring pride to his department.

The large and imposing yet dormant volcano ahead of him was indeed a sight to see, especially past all the normal “NO ENTRY” signs off the beaten path for normal civilians. Past the cement walkways and carefully placed guardrails was a new place that he was more than eager to explore. And Takashima Kouyou was no normal citizen, far from it. It took a long time, but he could finally count himself as belonging to an elite group of researchers and archeologists here in Japan and was finally high up enough in the ranks to do solo excavations.

The first place he wanted to go, naturally, was a place that had called out to him for so many years now since he was a child barely learning how the world around him worked. The Illustrious and sacred place known as MT. Fuji, a huge volcano that was famous all around the world for its breathtaking scenery and lovely atmosphere. It took him almost four months to get clearance to come here, but he knew it would all be worth it.

He had no idea why this place was so important to him, but for as long as he could remember he had been coming here, restricted only by the damn law and a fabricated guardrail. Now, however, all of that was just a memory. A memory that would soon be behind him.

There were reports from local people that the surrounding areas were rife with small tremors here and there, therefore disrupting the peace and scaring off tourists. So they needed a solid piece of assurance as to why it was happening. The volcano has long been dormant so there had to be a scientific explanation for all this right?

That was where Kouyou came into the fray. He traveled 2 hours to get here, and though it was nothing compared to other places he has been, he also had so much expensive equipment as well. There were two officials waiting for him at the top of the volcano to let him past the guard rails and to the top of the mountain. His body was by now used to such altitudes after many trips here with higher-ups and colleagues, albeit only within the normal civilian limits. It would be kind of weird going alone, but it was a good kind of weird.

So with the sun at his back and a large metal case full of important tools and sensors he finally makes his way to the top. It was still early April, meaning it was not quite warm enough to wear thin clothing, so all he had right now was a thick padded jacket, black turtleneck, and his favorite jeans. It was somewhat chilly and windy, the wind turning his cheeks a soft pink color from the stinging sensations.

He wanted to wear his favorite boots too, but he was aware that, as a scientist, sometimes mobility in a forest was more important than looking good. So the sort of ugly sneakers he wore was a necessary evil in case he needed to run, for whatever reason. He even had a fancy ID lanyard hanging from his neck with all his important ID cards. There was also a backpack strapped to his back with water and necessary things to keep him hydrated while he was here. Good thing there was a small tourist shop at the bottom of the hill.

Finding the agents at the top wasn’t too difficult, they were wearing expensive and stifling looking suits that made him feel hot despite the low temperature. They wore sunglasses and stood in an obviously far off part of the pathway. There was a big metal gate that wasn’t visibly apparent to normal people unless you strayed from the path, but it was there and he knew where it was.

“Good evening gentlemen,” he greets them, earning himself only nods and curt grunts in reply. “I hope I haven’t you waiting for me too long.”

“Of course not,” one of them says in a plain and disinterested tone. “We have only been here an hour. Not too long at all. We were given instructions to allow you past the fence, but from there on you are on your own. You have a means of contacting the facility yes?”

Kouyou nods, holding up his cell phone. He had to triple check to make sure it was fully charged and even then, there was a spare power bank in his back pocket. Could never be too careful, right?

“Yes, no need to worry about me. I will be in and out before it gets dark, I just have to take some soil samples and set up a perimeter of-”

“Yeah yeah yeah,” the other one says to cut him off. “We get it, you just gotta do your thing and we will head on out. The emergency number is on a sidewalk sign near here, just call if you need anything. We'll leave these with you to return to the park manager.”

The large gate has a padlock that needed two keys apparently, from the way that they expertly unlock it one after the other before leaving him with said keys and disappearing into the trees. He was all alone, and honestly, it was much better this way.

He stared into the dense trees beyond the gate and felt his heart start to beat wildly with excitement. His first solo excavation and in his long sought after location. Today was going to be good, he could feel it.

“Well, I may as well get started.”

The walk into the trees was very nerve wracking, as he had taken out a sensor device from his case and switched it on. It scanned deep into the earth, bouncing off anomalous objects that would prove useful to look at. It also acted as a soil deposit scanner, sifting through the chemical trails in the ground beneath his feet for signs of anything abnormal. His walk to the summit proves unfruitful though, as things seemed to be normal.

He would be nearing the top soon, and it was a good thing this thing has been dormant for a long time. Otherwise, this place would be seriously off limits.

After nearly an hour of walking with nothing to show on his scanners, he finally makes it to the place he wanted to be. Right at the top. There was even a small white flag placed with his name on it from the park officials. It was clear that they had a set perimeter for him to sift through. Similar looking flags were placed in a wide circle around a specific area of the volcano rim, about five hundred feet or so if he was being meticulous.

The crater was too large for just him to thoroughly explore, and it made sense, so a quick glance at the outer rim would be best for now until he could assemble his own team. But it really was beautiful up here. The sky seemed to stretch out forever, he couldn't even see the city or any form of human inhabitants past the trees and dark ashy earth of a long-dead volcano.

This crater was huge, easily a thousand or more feet across, but barren of anything besides soil and hundreds of years old ash. There was a pleasantly acrid smell of burned earth and new foliage up here, and it was probably harmless as normal air. But he brought a small face mask just in case he breathed in any contaminants.

“Now is a good time to set up,” he muttered and drops the case to open it up. There were an array of neat things the main scientists allowed him to bring. A small table for his equipment, two LCD monitors, a set of small marker flags, some soil sampling tubes and a small but powerful scanner that could see through the ground in a hundred foot circumference. Even if he didn't find anything, it was exciting for him to finally be able to use. Not without gloves of course. Can't have this expensive stuff so marked up with fingerprints.

He works diligently, setting up a perimeter with his orange flags and using the monitors hooked up to the scanner to look carefully for anything out of the ordinary. He even sits on the case and watches the clouds go by as nothing seems to happen. A single soil tube is used, holding up to three millimeters of dark patchy soil with many pebbles and pieces of grass. All the while, the temperature stayed at around fifty to fifty five degrees Fahrenheit. A bit chilly but manageable, at least to him. It never went higher than fifty seven so that was a good sign.

An hour goes by. Still nothing. It seemed like an easy job but he still had more than six hours to go before he had to leave for the day. Hopefully, he could come back soon, maybe tomorrow. The time was two pm.

A yawn slips from his mouth as a third hour rolls by and he still sees nothing, even after the third time setting up the scanner in a different spot entirely. Maybe the tremors the locals talked about were just small meaningless ones? It happened sometimes.

Kouyou looked at his phone for the time and sighed. Five pm. Two more hours to go… Maybe it wouldn't hurt to just have one quick session on the edges of his perimeter? It would be quicker to dismiss anything coming from the volcano and put more work behind him. Five hundred feet was not a whole lot with such a powerful tool. Plus… He hadn't even gone into the actual crater yet. Perhaps that would be worth something.

Kouyou looked around himself one last time in case he was being watched before packing up his equipment and going to the nearest edge which was coincidentally just a few feet from where he started. Funny how such a small rule can mean so much. He looks down into the wide crater, swallowing a sudden lump in his throat. Why was he so nervous? It wasn't like anything could happen. All he would find was more rocks and dirt. To put into simpler terms anyway. There was probably a higher concentration of acrid earth and ash but he digressed.

The slope was easy to slide down, at the expense of getting pebbles in his shoes but that was not an issue. It would probably be a little bit hard to crawl back up though. He huffed and turned his attention to His scanner. The monitor was small so he would have to go back and watch the recorded footage in case he missed anything...

Immediately he began to notice a difference in temperature down here. It was a bit… hotter? Strange. He shrugged it off though and continued to scan the crater. Since it sloped inwards there was only a small area to go, maybe a hundred feet. No problem. It was just like a big bowl just dug into the side of the volcano, a dirty and dusty one at that. He hurriedly puts on the mask before padding silently to the center of the crater. With each step, however, he felt the temperature start to slightly bother him. Was it getting hotter? That wasn’t right…

“Damn,” he huffed and wiped a sudden bead of sweat from his forehead. “Is this even normal?”

Once he reached the very center of the pit, he had to take off the jacket and suck in a lungful of hot air. Air that was not supposed to be hot. Something was definitely up. Hurriedly he set down the machine and didn’t bother to properly check the temperature, he just needed something.

Almost right away, the sensors began to show a strange reading. Instead of a normal base of fifty degrees, the readings were showing spikes up to seventy and seventy five degrees. This place should have been cold as everywhere else. Kouyou wiped away more sweat and pressed the scanner button. Then he saw it. An abnormal reading only a few feet beneath his shoes. Something was beneath him, but what, he had no idea. He squints, trying to look closer, when all of a sudden a tremor began to rumble through the crater, knocking rocks and pebbles around to send them tumbling everywhere. A tremor rocked the equipment back and forth until the small machine falls from its tripod into the ashy dirt with a pathetic thud. He has to drop to his knees to prevent from falling on his face. His heart was beating even louder now, but now with an unknown fear of something bad happening.

The tremors were awful and deafening, a loud noise that made his head throb from the intensity.

“Shit!” he cursed, his ears popping from the awful noise. The equipment up top would be helpless to anything this traumatic. If anything broke the university would have his head! But he had to keep going, this was important! He could be on to something here! Hurriedly he crawled towards his scanner to manually look for the aberration in the ground. It was somewhat large, maybe the size of a full grown person. But… it couldn’t really be a person right? It had to just be a suspicious looking heat signal or a pocket or warm air, or something. It had to be.

But he has to wait. He can’t do anything right now except mark the spot and wait for the tremors to subside. More sweat drips down his foreheads and he has to remind himself that he had no water down here and dehydration was a serious problem considering how fast he was losing moisture.

Finally, after what seemed like forever, the tremors subsided enough for him to manage to get to his feet and stare at the areas around himself and make sure he had everything before scrambling out of the crater.

The sight that meets him is one that makes him furrow his eyebrows. There was… A huge tremor just now, but… All his equipment was fine? Nothing was knocked over, everything was exactly where he left it. That wasn’t right, was it?

A sudden creature began to skitter across the ground, making him jump slightly.

“What the…”

It stopped long enough for him to get a good look at it, and he had to laugh at himself a little bit. It was a snake and a pretty small one at that. It looked like a garter snake meaning it was harmless. But the color threw him off. All black, right down to the tongue that flicked out to sense the air. The only way he could tell that it was a garter snake was the lack of hissing or aggressive teeth baring. It just kind of… sat there. And it watched him with its beady little black eyes.

“Go away,” he hissed after a moment, making shooing gestures. “Shoo, go find a mouse or something.”

Nothing. It didn’t seem to be listening to him, but instead, it craned it’s neck closer. As if to study him closer. And it was freaking him out. Were animals usually this smart? Animals were not his strong suit, that was more Yutaka’s thing. He should have been here damn it.

Well anyway, he would have to pack up his things for the night. It was getting dark and he was sure it was nearing his time limit here.

Kouyou turned around only to find himself face to face with a person. His heart jumps to his throat and he made a squawk of surprise and leapt backward.

“You scared me!” he cried out, clutching his chest and trying to slow his heart. “Where did you come from? This place is supposed to be off limits!”

He tries to come off as authoritative. However, the other guy wasn’t having it.

“You really shouldn’t be here.”

The guy was only a little shorter than him and dressed simply. Plain jeans and an all black sweater. His hair was all the way to his neck and completely black. A pair of dark sunglasses hung on his nose, obscuring his eyes. But… Why was he barefooted? And growling like Kouyou just offended all his ancestors?

“I should ask the same,” Kouyou answered back just as dismissively. “This place is off limits while I am doing my work. And you are interrupting me.”

Yet his tone does not budge the man, instead, it makes him scoff and his lips curl into a sneer.

“You need to leave. I can’t be responsible for what happens to you if you stay here.”

Kouyou feels his heart give another uneasy thump and he narrowed his eyes to hide it.

“Are you threatening me?” he says with a deep tone, hoping to whatever god was listening that it sounded intimidating. The stranger snorts, a sound that made his legs shake and goosebumps raise on his arms. It was cold and unassuming.

“No,” comes the unexpected answer. “Merely I am stating the truth. You’re in danger here and if you don’t go soon, bad things will happen.”

Kouyou noticed the stranger seemed to be on edge for some reason. Surely not just because of him?

“And why am I in danger? Is there a monster up here? Something that will come out of the trees and eat me?”

He wanted that to sound like a mocking joke, but he could not deny the slight tremor in his words as he spoke.

“Clearly you don’t value your life as much as you should,” the man huffed, his tone much softer but no less as dangerous. “What a pity.”

Then to Kouyou’s utter surprise, he began to walk away, away into the now grey colored woods as the sun traveled even lower down the horizon.

“H-hey! Wait! Where are you going!”

He wanted to run after him, but the stranger spoke again, this time in a voice so soft he almost didn't hear it. But he heard it. Loud and clear.

“The Fire.”

And then he was gone. Like he had never been there in the first place. And along with him, the snake too had disappeared.

Uruha shivered, but not from the cold. There was no empty warning in that man’s words. Not a chance. No. He had to know what was going on. No longer just as a scientist looking for answers. But for himself.

The minutes spent packing up his equipment were tense and filled only by the howling of wind through the trees. The walk down the mountain was even more so the same way. His lips were almost blue by the time he reached his car after licking the gate. And it took longer than he would have liked to get the heater going to stop his shakes. But he couldn't stop his thoughts from racing a million miles a minute.

Who was that man? And why was he so intent on scaring him away? Kouyou didn't know. But one thing was for sure. He was definitely coming back.

There was something here, and he was going to find it.

TBC

#the gazette #my writing #aoiha

19 notes · View notes

salty-dracon · 7 years

Text

T Minus Xero (All Universe Crossover) - Welcome to Stronghold Mars

“I hope the initiation wasn’t too tough. Please, take your bubbles back.”

The woman standing in front of Brooke wore a soldier’s uniform and carried a gun on her back. Obviously a real military commander, killed in battle. She handed each of the kids their pendant bubbles, which they all immediately snapped on.

“In... itiation?” Arthur asked. “What initiation? Did you mean last night?”

“Correct.” The woman walked up to Arthur and touched Lucia’s purple pendant. “I trust she spoke to you?”

“All night.” Arthur allowed the woman to examine the pendant. “She said she missed me, and asked where I was, and if I wanted to come home, and if I loved her... ”

“No different here.” Brooke allowed the woman to examine her pendant. She could still remember Gray’s voice. It replayed in her head.

“Where are you, Brooke? Please tell me where you are... I’m so scared, Brooke... please come home, Brooke... don’t go... I miss you, Brooke... I’m sorry, please forgive me... I love you... please don’t hate me... please tell me where you are... ”

“Still thinking about him?” the woman asked. “He’ll try to get into your head. He’ll prey on your sense of guilt. Don’t ever let him do that. That’s why you’ve got to wear the bubble at all times.”

“Shouted right back at that bitch!” Julien announced proudly.

“And what did you tell her?” the woman asked, a hint of worry in her voice.

“Told her I never wanted to come home. I had friends who loved me more than she did. Nothing about where we were or... where are we going, anyway?”

“I see Sam’s done his job as well as ever.”

Sam saluted the woman. “Thank you, Sarge.”

“We’re headed to the empty city in the distance. I assume they told you it was empty, anyway.” The woman pointed to the model city in the distance. Brooke recalled Gray’s description- a city built just for show. “The truth is, it’s not empty. It’s inhabited by kids just like you who passed the initiation.”

“So... did we?” Arthur asked.

“Not quite.” The woman turned to the kids. “If you want to join Xero, you need to have something to offer for it. We don’t have weapons to spare, you know.”

“Weapons that can be used against the angels... ” Julien pulled his entire backpack out. “I should have a lighter in here somewhere... sorry, Ame never let me have weapons... ”

“Weapons created by angels wouldn’t work against them anyway,” the Sarge explained. “It has to be something you died with.”

“I have my Swiss Army Knife, and it was in my pocket when I died.” Arthur pulled it out and showed it to the woman, who nodded.

“Lighter.” Julien pulled his lighter out. “Though I have pencils too.”

“I died with everything in this pack.” Brooke showed off her survival backpack.

“Very well. Sam, a genius as always.”

“Thanks, Sarge.” Sam smiled. “You all pass. Come on. We’ll spend the next few hours traveling to Stronghold Mars.”

----------

The crew set off a few minutes later. They walked through dense forest, with light peeking between the treetops. The city grew larger in front of them.

“So, what exactly is Xero?” Julien asked. “Heard it was someplace to escape from the angels, but what is it?”

“A coalition formed to fight against them.” Sam explained. “The angels keep humans like pets. They aren’t allowed to wander anywhere without supervision, and only exist for an angel’s enjoyment. Those collars you wear are proof. Your angels don’t love you. They’re obsessed with you. They want you all to themselves.”

To Brooke’s surprise, she didn’t hear Arthur say something to the contrary.

Sam continued. “Of course we have adversaries. Angels want to get their kids back, and the ones who actually have their kids don’t care. For every kid we get, it’s one more enemy, unless the kids kill their angels with the weapons they have. Then, it’s one less enemy. And if an angel does manage to nab their kid somehow, they’ll still come out to support their comrades. It’s war, that’s what it is.”

“War... ” Arthur shuddered.

“You’ll be up against a million of your own, Arthur.” Sam said. “You need to take out as many as you can. And the knife makes you especially valuable.”

“How much longer?” Brooke asked.

“Hold out for a few more hours. We’ll be there soon.”

The woman Sam referred to as “Sarge” said nothing during this time.

-----------

“Holy shit, it’s like the middle of New York!”

The teenagers’ eyes lit up as they reached the center of the city. Around them, hundreds of people, mostly teenagers and young adults, wandered around, chatting with each other on benches or basking in the sun’s light. Many of them were wearing similar uniforms- white T-shirts with the Xero logo and black shorts, pants, or skirts. A few of them saluted “Sarge” as they walked past. They were then approached by a black girl with a ponytail.

“We’ll show you to your rooms, and then give you a tour.” Sam said.

“I’m heading to Central. Commander Giselle will want to see me.” “Sarge” pointed to a tall building a few blocks away.

“No problem, Sarge.” Sam beckoned to the kids. “Guys, come with me. Girls, August will show you to your room.”

The black girl. Brooke followed her to one end of the expansive city, while she watched her new friends walk another way.

A short walk later, they arrived at a large brick building with a number- “43″- engraved on the door. “Barrack 43. Your room is number 105. Just drop your stuff off and you’re off for the rest of the day. I’m kind of in a rush to be at central, so hurry up.” August walked away after saying these words and handing Brooke a lanyard with a key.

Brooke walked in, found room 105 on the second floor, swiped her key, and entered. The room had two beds, but one of them was already inhabited by a girl who seemed to enjoy the beach. Her weapon of choice was nowhere to be found. The room also included a desk, a pad of sticky notes and a pencil, and a chalkboard. Brooke wrote “Hello, I’m Brooke, your new roommate! I just moved in, so please don’t touch my stuff!” before leaving her survival backpack (taking one pencil just in case) and leaving the dorm.

------

Lucia, Gray, and Amelia faced each other- one sitting on a stone table, one leaning back in a lawn chair, and one curled up in a loveseat.

“No one has any idea where they went?” Amelia sighed and leaned against her loveseat. “No ideas at all?”

“They went out to stargaze... ” Lucia muttered. “That’s what Arthur said... ”

“Stargaze... stargaze... but there’s no open field in the marketplace, which is where Julien said they were going. Wait. He... ” Amelia suddenly stood up. “Firewood. Julien asked me if I had any firewood.”

“That’s right.” Gray’s eyes widened. “Brooke said she needed something to light a fire with.”

“So we’re looking for the remains of a fire... ” Lucia stood up. “Come on, we need to head to the marketplace right now.”

------

“Curfew’s eleven, kids... ”

Brooke turned around. She and her two friends stared at the illuminated form of Sam. They were seated around a campfire, which Brooke was tending to.

“Sorry.” Brooke poked the fire with a stick. “We’re just trying to settle in.”

“Fire’s great.” Julien sighed as he took in the sight. “The way it just burns away the past... like a new dawn... ”

“Campfires are so important to the human experience.” Brooke warmed her hands on the fire. “Fires were the key to evolution. And they’re a perfect place to heat up food and just... talk, y’know?”

“Flames of revolution, huh?” Sam sat down next to Arthur. “Guess it is pretty nice.”

Brooke did not feel the need to correct him.

“I feel safe like this.” Arthur warmed his hands as well. “It’s so warm... ”

“Chatting around a campfire... sure is nice.” Sam sighed. “I remember when I could chat around a campfire with my friends.”

“How did you die?” Brooke asked.

“Accident with a generator. Had my guitar with me, though.” Sam warmed his hands.

“Wow.” Julien sighed. “And now you’re rolling as a... ”

“Sergeant. Miss T’s higher, though. She’s, like, Master Sergeant.”

“Miss T’s that woman we met at the recruitment camp, right?”

“Yup. She’s been around for a while.”

“What was your angel like?”

“Like all of ‘em.” Sam poked the fire with another stick. “Nice. She said she just wanted me to be happy. But man, there was something about her face... something that just told me that she... just wasn’t the right person to be around. I eventually got out the same way you did. I tricked my pendant.”

“Sweet.” Brooke smiled.

“Come on, it’s ten to eleven. Let’s put out this fire and get to sleep.” Sam dumped a nearby bucket of water onto the flames. “’Night, y’all.”

“Good night, Sarge.” Brooke saluted Sam before she ran off to her bunker.

-------

(AN: Yeah, this is getting out of hand. Basically everyone’s dead and in heaven, except heaven sucks. More characters will be in this series, including Michy, Bridget, Palea, and Narin if I decide to continue. And yes, Narin is Brooke’s roommate!)

#life as an aj #tmx

1 note · View note

keelanrosa · 7 years

Text

I tried So Hard to do literally anything else today but kept getting distracted.

(Also look at me wildly underestimating the count, spoiler alert for this entirely non-fiction rant: i remembered a million was the commonly accepted number but for some reason thought someone had made a low estimate of only 800k and didn’t want that, of all things, to be something I got in a twitter war over? But nah the lowest possible number is 985k and does anybody seriously think that was all? so at that point just. fucking round up and say a million)

Anyway i got Pepsi (not my standard “keelan is yelling about irish history again” sleep deprivation but as it’s basically a sedative for my adhd ass it’ll do) and a willingness to yell about potatoes (lol do i ever not), so here we go.

(none of this is new to anyone who has followed me for more than a few months to the rest of y’all surprise this is Just What Happens sometimes all manner of shit will get me yelling about the Irish potato famine of the 1840s until i pass out)

LET’S START WITH SOME WELL-KNOWN CONTEXT: the Irish potato famine was, well, caused by a lack of potatoes. Said lack of potatoes was the result of a blight which caused the majority of potatoes in Ireland to go bad. Tragic natural disaster, right?

LESSER KNOWN CONTEXT: The blight affected potatoes throughout America and Europe. The specific strand of blight (the HERB-1 strand of Phytophthora infestans, for the agriculture geeks) is believed to have originated in Mexico and spread as far as Poland. Along the way it caused massive potato-crop failure in several other countries and, not counting Ireland, killed about a hundred thousand people.

“Whoa, that’s interesting. Why do we only hear about it affecting the Irish, then?” asks the hypothetical person who did not pay attention to the earlier parenthetical spoiler alert.

Because in Ireland alone it killed closer to one million people. (Census data suggests 985 thousand. For a variety of reasons relevant to the limits of mid-nineteenth-century census data, especially as regards to poverty-stricken rural people ie the people the Famine was most likely to affect, the census data is generally considered inaccurately low. The highest estimate I’ve seen was historian Joel Mokyr suggesting it could have been up to 1.9 million. Tldr we don’t know and never will, but most history nerds consider “about a million” Accurate Enough.)

One million people was about one-eighth of the Irish population, even before taking into account the number of people who left because “hey, you know what other countries have? Food.” Generally speaking, a famine is a Huge Fucking Deal if it kills 5% of the population, so over 10%? Yeah. Massive fucking famine… which only affected Ireland to such an extent.

Belgium got the second hardest hit (40,000-50,000 deaths attributed to the blight), and their overall population still went up during the Famine. Not as much as it might otherwise, but they didn’t lose an eighth of the population either.

(y’know what else went up during the Famine? Exports of food from Ireland. But that’s for later.)

“Why did it kill so disproportionately many Ir-”

RELIGIOUS DISCRIMINATION.

“…that sounds fake.”

Nope.

For the Religious Discrimination bit of context: Ireland was still under British rule at the time. The British government was not known for religious tolerance. Among other things, they weren’t keen on Irish Catholics. (They weren’t on the best terms with Irish Protestants, either, because Irish, but they were on better terms with them, because Protestant.)

Things the British penal laws prohibited for Irish Catholics include: entering a profession, leasing or purchasing land, accepting land as a gift from a Protestant, renting land worth more than thirty shillings, or reaping any profit exceeding one-third their rent. (That’s just the stuff most obviously related to the ability to buy and/or grow food; they also couldn’t vote, worship as a Catholic, get an education, own a horse of greater value than five pounds… it’s a long list.) Some of these laws were revoked by the 1840s, but banning people from getting an education or owning Anything of Value for centuries means they’re not exactly gonna have fields of corn and free-range cattle within a generation. Many of them remained poor tenants living on very small patches of land owned by Protestant landowners (most of whom were British, a fair number of whom didn’t even live in Ireland), made to earn their rent working on their landlord’s farms and hoping the already-tiny corner of land they lived on wouldn’t be further subdivided for Even More Corn.

Here’s where potatoes come in: cheap, nutritionally dense, and easy as fuck to grow - both because they don’t take much effort and because they will grow Basically Anywhere, regardless of soil quality or space. So if your Protestant landlord took the last bit of good soil of land permitted you for a new fucking cowshed? That’s fine, you can still grow potatoes in the garbage-can-sized pile of sawdust he left.

This is how Ireland ended up with one-third of its population (and, specifically, a predominately if not exclusively Catholic third) living on potatoes by 1845.

Needless to say if many people are living off a single crop, and a blight happens to said crop, there’s a high chance of MUCH STARVATION resulting.

There are plenty of ways to prevent said starvation. Potatoes aren’t even an Irish crop; the Irish were doing fine without them for centuries before they came to Europe from South America. And other food in Ireland was still doing fine in the 1840s. Super fine. “Exports of beef and corn to England went up” fine.

(This is about the point where historians start debating over whether to treat the Famine as a natural disaster or a genocide, “no we are not using the term lightly, yes we literally mean genocide, as in an intentional attempt to murder or otherwise destroy a specific group of people based on national/racial/religious ties, that kind of genocide.”)

The British “relief efforts” were something Paul Ryan would have approved of. Giving food to the poor would keep them from having any initiative to work. Also, it was the Irish people’s fault they were poor to begin with, because poverty is a result of laziness and not, like, a couple centuries of oppression designed to limit economic opportunity. (ENGLAND had poor people, but most of the country was doing all right. Poor Irish PROTESTANTS existed, but not in as large numbers. Therefore this problem the Irish Catholics had was because there was something wrong with Catholics and not a problem caused by the British and/or Protestants.) Trevelyan straight-up gave copies of The Wealth of Nations to his subordinates when he was heading the relief effort. (The Wealth of Nations, for those unfamiliar with it, is one of the first books on capitalism and the monetary efficiency of the free market. It is not a book on feeding the poor during a famine.) Workhouses were initially required for anyone who wanted food from the government and simultaneously designed to be complete fucking I-would-rather-eat-grass hellholes to discourage anyone from actually using them. (Workhouses also didn’t exist in some areas where the Famine hit the hardest, but were still a requirement for the Irish desperate enough to seek government assistance.) Soup kitchens eventually became a thing because a) Quakers are, as a general rule, not complete dicks and b) the British realized soup kitchens would be cheaper for them than workhouses, but the government ones were inefficient and requests for food which could be cooked at home were a sign of not being poor enough because you’re asking for government food while still having the bare resources necessary to cook? Um, food stamp soup kitchen fraud much??? Look guys, this is clearly lazy people looking for a handout… Meanwhile disease was going up everywhere as immune systems were weakened by malnutrition and people crammed into crowded workhouses or queued up in crowded soup kitchens or moved to crowded cities in a desperate attempt to find work. Mass graves were a thing, as were people dropping dead on the side of the road while they sought work or food and being left there by friends or family who had no way to bury them.

But worry not, the Irish British economy was fine, guys. Because as already mentioned, beef and corn exports went up, for reasons which would be entirely expected when the guy running the relief effort is using The Wealth of Nations as a how-to guide on feeding the poor.

The people in Ireland who were most affected by the Famine were also people who couldn’t have afforded anything beyond potatoes in the past; limiting the price of corn or beef to something the poor Irish could afford would have been interfering with the free market and would have resulted in lower profits for the predominately British landowners. Attempts by Peel to buy cheaper maize from America to distribute at lower prices in Ireland were likewise struck down as interfering with “the regular operation of merchants”. Meanwhile, in the rest of Northern Europe, there weren’t as many people who had been living exclusively on potatoes, but there was still enough potato failure for a higher demand in other types of food and Ireland had plenty of corn and cattle just lying around not being eaten by starving Irish. Why import food from a country not struck by famine when Ireland was closer and just as cheap?

(This is where some historians argue the Famine wasn’t genocide; genocide requires an intentional attempt to destroy a group of people. Sure, the British designed their penal laws to ruin Catholics and their way of life, even if it killed them; and Cromwell thought slaughtering the Irish was God’s work; and Trevelyan, the man put in charge of food distribution, considered the actual Famine less an issue than “the moral evil of the selfish, perverse and turbulent character of the people”; but the actions which killed and displaced millions were at worst a negligent prioritization of economics over lives.)

Anyway, it’s lovely to live in a country where discrimination against religious minorities and the poor isn’t active government policy and keeping people alive is more important than money. I’m so fucking glad we learned from history like this and we now respect the Choctaw who donated to Irish famine relief efforts more than we respect Andrew Jackson who gave the Choctaw reason to know what government-sanctioned death was like.

#sleep dep irish history #not actually sleep dep but lbr this is otherwise consistent with that tag #irish history #irish potato famine

4 notes · View notes