#maybe I will just move north and have someone teach me how to fix boats and live in a tiny town in the boundary waters forever

[remakethestars]

CABIN 7 — APOLLO

Headcanons.

❝There ought to be more drama, I think. A musical crescendo. Confetti.❞

— Jess Cooper, I Am Still Alive

Headcanon masterlist.

Oh, boy — this is my cabin, y'all; buckle up! 😁

Not all Apollo kids are good at everything their dad's good at, okay? I sure as heck can’t paint or play an instrument. 

TRIGGER WARNING: mentions of violence?

They run an underground tattoo parlor.

That's where Will & Butch got their respective sun & rainbow tats.

Apollo kids with lyrics tattooed into their skin.

Rick says there isn't much by way of décor inside, which is f*in' B.S. Apollo's the god of art; those walls have been graffitied Tangled style.

🎶 i'll paint the walls some more — i'm sure there's room somewhere! 🎶

The east wall is covered in a landscape of a sunrise, & the west has a sunset (because the sun rises in the east & sets in the — yeah, I'll see myself out).

The north & south walls & the ceiling are white, though, because it really brightens/opens up the space (C7 has the 2ⁿᵈ most campers under C11 because Apollo's a slut; things can get a little crowded in the summer).

When there’re celebrations, the artistically inclined kids bust out the face paint. Especially for the younger campers.

The artistically inclined are the ones that paint the camp beads for the end of the summer. Despite the numbers, it doesn’t take them as long as one might think.

Rick said the ceiling had cedar beams, but we're not gonna do Cyparissius dirty like that. Cypress wood is good for building; the beams are cypress. You know what? F*ck you — the whole dang cabin's cypress!

There’s a massive, potted aloe vera plant by the steps that gets moved into the C4 greenhouse in the winter. It’s one of those old ones — because everyone knows the old aloe plants work better for burns & blisters than these sh¡tty new ones. (It’s constantly getting broken off to heal burns & stuff.) 

Rick said there are potted red & purple hyacinths in the window & yellow flowers from Delos. That's true.

I'd say the flowerbeds around the cabin are full of healing plants, but I feel like they'd be better off around the infirmary for obvious reasons.

I do feel like there's a laurel tree planted outside C7, though, because Apollo's a pining b¡tch.

And there's an actual infirmary building, okay? Rick's kinda inconsistent about that. Sometimes he says "infirmary," sometimes he says the Big House is running over with injured, & apparently there's a cot dead center for injured in C7? B.S.

Or maybe I've just read too much fanfic, and the authors don't get it right?

Either way, there's an infirmary building with surgery & delivery rooms. One floor. Locker room for C7 kids to store their scrubs & sh¡t.

They go for yellow scrubs, though, because orange C.H.B. scrubs make them look like escaped convicts.

Fun Band-Aids™

They give out little orange stickers with laurels around the edges that are like I voted! stickers, but they're injury-specific.

I got my leg(s) reattached! & Percy Jackson shot me in the butt! & I ticked off Clarisse! & I made out with an Aphrodite kid in the poison ivy! & I fell off the lava wall! & I got pranked by the Stolls!

After a war or just when there’re a lot of campers in the infirmary, there seems to be a constant flow of Apollo kids singing one hymn to their father in unison to heal someone.

Sometimes, an unconscious camper wakes in a cot & thinks they’ve died & gone to the wrong afterlife for a moment because their singing sounds like angels. 

The medically inclined wash their hands like surgeons. 

Kind of germophobic?

They also go around tying surgeons knots in everything.

In the summer, they’re walking Banana Boat sunscreen & after-sun aloe lotion dispensers.

The medically inclined also have the world’s sh¡ttiest handwriting.

They have to work hard to fix it if it bothers them. 

Can check your vitals & run a blood test just by touching you.

A lot of them casually touch their loved ones (at least, the ones that aren’t in C7) every morning to check their vitals & see how their health’s doing.

They do it subconsciously every time they touch someone & don’t notice it until they pick up something’s wrong.

They can do this for themselves as well. Though it may not be as accurate? And they take daily vitamins depending on what they need.

Organize their lives via pill box (never lose an earring).

Fight surgically. Every blade in their hands becomes a scalpel, & every time they’re going in for a kill against an armed anthropomorphic monster, they slice the tendons in its arm required to grip its weapon to disable it before going in for the kill.

Back to C7, it’s got a little porch with a porch swing. The kids sit on it sometimes & teach people how to play instruments.

They leave the porch light on at night when they’re waiting for one of their siblings to come home from a quest.

Jumping into the depressing sh¡t, they never found Michael’s body, so they only presumed him dead. They leave the porch light on every night now, hoping he’ll come home.

Apollo kids are afraid of the dark. They use the buddy system after the sun goes down. 

The cabin’s central light fixture is a papier-mâché sun that’s been charmed to glow when someone sings 🎶 clap on 🎶 & stop glowing when someone sings 🎶 clap off. 🎶

The curtains are a gold fabric. They’re only closed at night. Because, again, C7 kids are afraid of the dark.

The Wikipedia says Apollo kids are cursed to be afraid of snakes (I assume by the Python Apollo killed). I feel like they’d burn a lot of aster leaves then. I read somewhere it was said by the Greeks to ward off evil spirits & snakes.

They play Go Fish with their tarot cards. They’re really good at tarot games.

Hand-drawn tarot decks featuring figures form Greek myth.

There’s a target on the back wall they practice throwing cards at. They can throw them in combat for a distraction with terrifying accuracy. 

There’s a Magic 8 ball that’s passed around on the Winter Solstice (the longest night of the year), when — as a headcanon I’m sure I’ve read somewhere has indicated — they’re up all night.

Crystal balls are allowed. However, they must be covered with a cloth or placed in a box when not in use because they’re double-convex lenses, & we don’t want another incident like the fire of 1993.

Sometimes, they make little predictions throughout the day other campers may find disturbing. Such as whipping around and catching a stray arrow without warning (spidey sense?). Or cutting you off when you’re talking about someone moments before they walk into the room.

There’s a tea cart in the corner. Because tea is good for healing & they’ve accumulated an addiction.

The cart has a radio on it that’s always on at night because a lot of C7 kids can’t sleep without noise. (Inspired by @sugarandspiceandkindanice.)

Most of the time, it’s on a nearby country station that actually plays good country at night. But sometimes they switch channels — especially when there’s a new kid settling in & they could use the comfort.

There’s a portable record player there too. The shelves under the cart are full of C.D.s & records.

I’m sure I’ve read a headcanon somewhere that they sing every morning while getting ready for the day. That’s true.

The number of times it’s been “When Will My Life Begin” from Tangled is disturbing, though. 

🎶 seven a.m., the usual morning lineup! 🎶

Luke said in The Lightning Thief C11 is up at 07:00 & breakfast is at 08:00, I think, but we all know Apollo’s waking his kids up when the sun rises. 

A lot of the time, someone will just start out with whatever song they have stuck in their head & everyone else will pick it up.

Sometimes, this leads to members having the aforementioned song stuck in their head for the rest of the day.

Even the people who aren’t musically inclined will sing along, as they’re usually drowned out by the music kids that get really into it.

So sometimes those not-music kids will find themselves singing by themselves during the day years later & are surprised to find — they actually sound good?? Or at least not bad??? And it’s because singing is a learned skill & they picked it up.

I’m sure I’ve also read a headcanon somewhere that they sing “Look Down” from Les Mis when they have to do menial chores, but I'm adding “It’s a Hard-Knock Life” from Annie, “Whistle While You Work” from Snow White, “Happy Working Song” from Enchanted, & the Smurf song.

They break into song all the time.

Lee was glaring at Tantalus once & made the mistake of saying, “Sometimes, I wish —” and the entire cabin broke out with “Bohemian Rhapsody.”

🎶 — i'd never been born at all! carry on, carry on… 🎶

As mentioned in at least The Lightning Thief & The Lost Hero, they spend a lot of time playing basketball. You can bet your butt they do a rendition of “Getcha Head in the Game” from High School Musical every time there’s a new camper passing by.

They have a sister named Jubilee, and every time someone greets her — "Hey, Jube!" — the entire cabin breaks into “Hey, Jude” by The Beetles.

🎶 hey, Jube! don't make it bad. take a sad song & make it better… 🎶

Sometimes, if there are two campers that really need to get together, C10′ll commission C7 to sing “Kiss the Girl” from The Little Mermaid (or the same song with different pronouns, obviously). 

It’s usually a capella unless someone happens to have an instrument on them.

Rickrolling. 

The “Macarena.” 

Apollo takes clandestine recordings of their jam sessions & distributes them professionally. Whatever money’s made goes directly into their college funds or they periodically find it under their pillow tooth-fairy-style.

There’s a lot of denim because the artistic members like to paint on the backs of jackets & the pockets of jeans.

A lot of them have excellent aim with most projectiles, so they toss stuff to each other a lot. This results in them being oddly in sync, so they can catch something from another sibling without warning & without looking like Sam & Dean Winchester do in Supernatural. 

Their life looks like a Dude Perfect trick shot video. 

It also results in some funny looks when they hurl things halfway across camp to each other. Namely, the whistling Nerf football. 

C7 is two stories. The second story has paint on every wall. 

The east wall upstairs has arrows mounted that got Robin Hooded along with a little tag with the name of the C7 kid & the date it happened.

They also have arrows mounted from the first bullseye if there’s a member being taught. 

Lots of musical instruments & art supplies up there.

There’s an old T.V. up there. They have all of Bob Ross’s show on V.H.S.

C7′s south wall (ground floor) holds the door to the bathroom on one side & a door leading to the stairs. 

It also hosts framed photos of Charlotte, Lee, & Michael.

Instead of saying “shoot,” they say “loose.” For everything. Instead of saying “Shoot!” when they drop something, they say “Loose!” 

It's kinda one of those things — like your friend starts saying something & you just integrate it into your vocabulary subconsciously.

They like to play a game where you shoot an arrow straight up & try to catch it as it comes back down.

That sounds really stupid on their part, but it actually comes in handy when someone tries to shoot them in combat & they catch the arrow, dumbfounding whoever's attempted to skewer them.

The cresting on their arrows is in Morse code of their nickname (·—— ·· ·—·· ·—··). They can take one look at an arrow & tell what’s whose.

And the paint color of the cresting tells them what kind of arrow it is — bullet tip, broadhead, explosive, etc. 

Every bunk in C7 is made with hospital corners. No exceptions. The kids who aren’t medically inclined learn because all the beds being made the same way makes it look cleaner for inspection.

I can’t decide if Apollo kids have really good eyesight so they fit the Hawkeye bill or if they’ve all just read — Apollo’s the god of knowledge — & painted so much they’ve messed up their eyes.

The number of times one of them has used bowstring wax on an art project in a rush instead of glue is hilariously large.

I use String Snot, and it comes in a container that looks like a glue stick.

A lot of them wear bracers all the time.

When the time it takes to sling one’s quiver onto one’s back, grab one’s bow, knock an arrow, & draw is so long, one really doesn’t have time to also strap on their bracers before rushing out of the cabin to threaten a giant bronze dragon.

Not to mention if they use a recurve, they’ll also have to string their bow.

And a number of them do use recurves due to the abilities to both knock multiple arrows at once & to restring in the field.

Bows with risers coated in golden, reflective paint & limbs painted with artistic strokes.

Trick arrows are their jam. C9 is constantly being asked for new arrows.

Explosive arrows, sonic arrows, grappling hook arrows…

That’s another saying they’ve all taken to: “___ is my jam!”

There’s a bookshelf or reference material on Apollo for new C7 kids (as Rick’s indicated), but the rest of the case is full of medical journals & textbooks & books on art & poetry & divining the future.

A lot — if not all — of them have either gold flecks in their eyes or central heterochromia.

Freckles across their noses & shoulders & on the tips of their ears. Tans. Sun-bleached hair. 

Long, nimble fingers perfect for playing musical instruments.

Either they hate the winter because the sun's out for less time (so you’ll find them walking around with blanched skin & faded freckles & with both a hoody & a parka on), or they’re perfectly fine with winter & are used by everyone around them as walking space heaters. 

They spend a lot of time with Castor & Pollux. 

Rachel sits at T7. She’s practically an Apollo kid at this point. 

While her cave was being renovated, she stayed in C7.

Their dad’s the god of truth; none of these M.F.s can lie worth a sh¡t. 

But, by the gods, they can tell when you’re lying.

And they take it as a personal insult. That you (A) would dare do something as immoral as lying in the first place & that you (B) would dare to insult their intelligence in such a way because you thought they couldn’t tell.

C6 & C7 are both known for reacting outrageously when their intelligence is insulted (see: chapter 10 of The Battle of the Labyrinth). 

The more civil of the reactions of a C7 kid being lied to is cursing the liar to tell the truth, which I believe they can. 

They can curse you to speak in rhyming couplets; they should be able to curse you to tell the truth.

You mean to tell me none of these kids have created a functioning Lasso of Truth yet?

This one's really long. 😅

A lot of people fancast Sam Claflin as Apollo, but I'm going with Ross Lynch. 'Cause I do what I want. 😎

Visit my Apollo cabin Pinterest board or my headcanon masterlist.

DISCLAIMER ━━━ These headcanons are what I consider to be canon in my fanfictions. They may be others’s headcanons I’ve subconsciously filed away in my noggin. If one’s yours and you want it removed or credited, please send me your post and let me know.

#Apollo #Apollo kids #children of Apollo #Apollo cabin #headcanons #headcannons #Percy Jackson #PJO #HOO #TOA #remakethestars #art #archery #painting #healing #doctors #sun #hcs #TW: mentions of violence

[route22ny]

What My Korean Father Taught Me About Defending Myself in America

Born in 1939 during what would be the last years of the Japanese colonial occupation of Korea, my father, Choung Tai Chee, also called Charles or Chuck or Charlie, came to the United States in 1960. He was flashy, cocky, unafraid, it seemed, of anything. Wherever we were in the world, he seemed at home, right up until near the end of his life, when he was hospitalized after a car accident that left him in a coma. Only in that hospital bed, his head shaved for surgery, did he look out of place to me.

A tae kwon do champion by the age of 18 in Korea, he had begun studying martial arts at age 8, eventually teaching them as a way to put himself through graduate school, first in engineering and then oceanography, in Texas, California, and Rhode Island. He loved the teaching. The rising popularity of martial arts in the 1960s in Hollywood meant he made celebrity friends like Frank Sinatra Jr., Paul Lynde, Sal Mineo, and Peter Fonda, who my father said had fixed him up on a date with his sister, Jane, in the days before Barbarella. A favorite photo from his time in Texas shows him flying through the air, a human horseshoe, each of his bare feet breaking a board held shoulder high on each side by his students.

When I complained about my wet boots during the winters growing up in Maine, he told me stories about running barefoot in the snow in Korea to harden his feet for tae kwon do. His answer to many of my childhood complaints was usually that I had to be tougher, stronger, prepared for any attack or disaster. The lesson his generation took from those they lost to the Korean War was that death was always close, and I know now that he was doing all he could to teach me to protect myself. When I cried at the beach at the water’s edge, afraid of the waves, he threw me in. “No son of mine is going to be afraid of the ocean,” he said. When I first started swimming lessons, he told me I had to be a strong swimmer, in case the boat I was on went down, so I could swim to shore. When he taught me to body-surf, he taught me about how to know the approach of an undertow, and how to survive a riptide. When I lacked a competitive streak, he took to racing me at something I loved—swimming underwater while holding my breath. I was an asthmatic child, but soon, intent on beating him, I could swim 50 yards this way at a time.

For all of that, he was an exceedingly gentle father. He took me snorkeling on his back, when I was five, telling me we were playing at being dolphins. There he taught me the names of the fish along the reef where we lived in Guam. He would praise the highlights in my hair, and laugh, calling me “Apollo.” And as for any pressure regarding my future career, he offered something very rare for a Korean man of his generation. “Be whatever you want to be,” he told me. “Just be the best at it that you can possibly be.”

Only when I was older did I understand the warning about being strong enough to swim to shore in another context, when I learned the boat he and his family had fled in from what was about to become North Korea nearly sank in a storm. In Seoul as a child, he scavenged food for his family with his older brother, coming home with bags of rice found on overturned military supply trucks, while his father went to the farms, collecting gleanings. His attempts to teach me to strip a chicken clean of its meat make a different sense now. I had thought of him as an immigrant without thinking about how the Korean War made him one of the dispossessed, almost a refugee, all before he left Korea.

When I began getting into fights as a child in the U.S., he put me into classes in karate and tae kwon do for these same reasons. He loved me and he wanted me to be strong. I just wasn’t sure how I was supposed to take on a whole country.

We moved to Maine in 1973, when I was six years old. My father had taken us back to Korea after I was born, to work for his father, and then moved us around the Pacific—from Seoul to the islands of Truk, Kawaii, and Guam, in his and my mother’s attempts to set up a fisheries company. Maine was his next experiment, and not coincidentally, my mother’s home state. On my first day of the first grade, in the cafeteria, after a morning spent in what seemed like reasonably friendly classes, my troubles began when I went up to take an empty seat at a table and the blond haired, blue-eyed white boy seated there looked up with some alarm and asked me, “Are you a chink?”

“What’s a chink?” I asked, though I knew it wasn’t a compliment. I had never heard this word before.

“A Chinese person. You look like a chink. Is that why your face is so flat?”

This was also the first day I can remember being insulted about my appearance.

“I am not Chinese,” I said that day, naively. In a few years I would learn I was in fact part Chinese, 41 generations back, but at that moment, I tried to explain to him about how I was half Korean, a nationality and situation he had never heard of before. Half of what? And so this was also the first day I had to explain myself to someone who didn’t care, who had already decided against me.

He was a white boy from America, and he was repeating insults that seem to me to have come from a secret book passed out to white children everywhere in this country, telling them to call someone Asian “Chink,” to walk up to them, muttering “Ching-chong, ching-chong.” To sing a song, “My mother’s Chinese, my father’s Japanese, I’m all mixed up,” pulling their eyes first down and then up and then alternating up and down.

I was struck, watching Minari a few months ago, when the film’s Korean immigrant protagonist, David, is asked by a white boy in Arkansas in the 1980s why his face is so flat. “It’s not,” David says, forcefully—so many of us have this memory of someone saying this to us and responding that way. Why did a boy in Arkansas and a boy in Maine, in their small towns thousands of miles apart, before the internet, each know to make this insult?

When I got home from that first day at school, I asked my mother what the word “Chink” meant, and she flinched and covered her mouth in concern.

“Who said that to you?” she asked, and I told her. I don’t remember the conversation that followed, just the swift look of concern on her face. The sense that something had found us.

I was the only Asian-American student at my school in 1973, and the first many of my classmates had ever met. When my brother joined me at school three years later, he was the second. When my sister arrived, four years after him, she was the third. My mother is white, a blonde-haired, blue-eyed American, born in Maine to a settler family. I have six ancestors who fought in the Revolutionary War, but none of them had to fight this. I don’t know how to separate the teasing, harassment, and bullying that marked my 12 years of life there from that first racist welcome. It makes me question whether I really had a “temper” as a child, as I was told, or whether I was merely isolated by racism among racists, afraid and angry?

My father dealt with racism throughout most of his life by acting as if it had never happened—as if admitting it made it more powerful. He knew bullies loved to see their victims react and would tell me to not let what they said upset me. “Why do you care what they think of you?” he would say, and laugh as he clapped me on the shoulder. “They’re all going to work for you someday.”

“Don’t get even, get ahead,” was another of his slogans for me at these times. As if America was a race we were going to win.

Two decades after his death, writing in my diary while on a subway in New York City, I began counting off all of my activities as a child—choir, concert band, swimming, karate and tae kwon do, clarinet, indoor track, downhill and cross country skiing—and I asked myself if my parents were trying to raise Batman. Then I looked down to the insignia on my Batman t-shirt, and I laughed.

These lessons my father gave me—to be the best you can be, to fight off your enemies and defeat them, to swim to safety if the boat sinks, and in general toughen yourself against everything that would harm you—these I had absorbed alongside certain unspoken lessons, taken from observing his life as a Korean immigrant. To have two names, one American, known to the public, and one Korean, known only to a few intimates; to get rid of your accent; and to dress well as a way to keep yourself above suspicion. Did I need to train like a superhero just to be a person in America? Maybe.

But if I thought of superheroes, it was because my father was like one to me, training me to be like him.

One legend I heard about my father when I was growing up is the story of a night he was being held up at gunpoint, while he was unpacking his car. Whoever it was asked him to shut the trunk and turn around and raise his hands in the air. He agreed to, slamming the car trunk down so forcefully, he sank his fingertips into the metal.

By the time he turned around, the would-be stick-up artist was gone.

He would often ask me and my brother to punch him, as hard as we could, in his stomach. He was proud of his abdominal strength—it was like punching a wall. We would shake our hands, howling, and he would laugh and rub our heads. One time he even used it as a gag to stop a bully.

A boy on my street had developed the habit of changing the rules during our games if his team started losing. We had fights over it that could be heard up and down the street, and one day I chased him with a Wiffle bat, him laughing as I ran. My father stepped in the next time he tried to change the rules during a game and prevented it, telling him all games in his yard had to have the same rules at the beginning as the end—you couldn’t change them when you were losing. When the boy got mad, he said, “I bet you want to hit me, you should hit me. You’ll feel better. Hit me right here, in the stomach, as hard as you can.”

The boy hauled off and punched my dad in the stomach. I knew what was coming. The boy went home crying, shaking his hand at the pain. His mom came over and they had a talk. The rule-changing stopped.

I tried teasing my classmates back after being told to by my father. Stand-up as self-defense requires practice, though: During a “Where are you from?” exercise in the second grade, I told my classmates and teacher I had “Made in Korea” stamped on my ass, which elicited shocked laughter and a punishment from my teacher. I remember the glee when I called a classmate an ignoramus, and he didn’t know what it meant—and got angrier and angrier when I wouldn’t tell him, demanding that I explain the insult. When told to go back to where I came from, I said, “You first.”

Increasingly, I just hid, in the library, in books. When given detention, I exulted in the chance to be alone and read. I was an advanced student compared to my classmates, due in part to my mother being a schoolteacher, and I learned to make my intelligence a weapon.

The day several boys held me down on my street and ran their bicycles over my legs, to see if I could take it, as if maybe I wasn’t human, that felt like some new horrible level. I don’t remember how that ended or if I ever told anyone, just the feeling of the bicycle tires rolling over the skin of my legs. The day I bragged about my father being a martial artist to my classmates, they locked me in the bathroom and told me to fight my way out with kung fu, calling me “Hong Kong Phooey,” after the cartoon character, as they held the door shut. This was the fourth grade. After I got out of that bathroom and went home, I told my father about it, and he told me it was time to take tae kwon do. I had to learn to defend myself.

I would never be like him, never break boards like him, but for a while, I tried. I still cherish the day he gave me my first gi and showed me how to tie it. I learned I had a natural flexibility, which meant I could easily kick high, and I took pride in my roundhouse and reverse roundhouse kicks. But after a few years, my father took issue with a story he’d heard about my teacher’s arrogance toward his opponents, and he pulled me out of the classes. “It is very dangerous to teach in that spirit,” he told me. And he said something I would never forget. “The best fighter in tae kwon do never fights,” he said. “He always finds another way.”

I have thought about this for a long time. For the ordinary practitioner, tae kwon do and karate prepare you to go about your life, aware of what to do in case of assault. They offer no guarantee, just chances for preparedness in the face of the violence of others as well as the violence within yourself. At the time I felt my father was describing the responsibility that comes with knowing how to hurt someone, but I came to understand it as a principled if conditional non-violence, which, in this year of quarantine and rising racist violence, is one of the clearest legacies he left to me.

Like many of us, I have been trying to write about these most recent attacks on Asian-Americans, some of them in my old neighborhood in New York, and I keep starting and stopping. How do we protect ourselves and those we love? Can writing do that? I know I learned to use my intelligence as a weapon to keep myself safe from racists, starting as a child, and suddenly it doesn’t feel like enough. The violence is like a puzzle with many moving parts, but the stakes are life and death. “You’re really going to homework your way through this one?” I keep asking myself. The people attacking Asians and Asian Americans now are like the boy I met on my first day in the first grade. They don’t care whether or not we are actually Chinese—the primary experience Asian Americans have in common is mis-identification. The person who gets a patriotic ego boost off of calling me a “chink” isn’t going to check if they’re right about me, and I don’t imagine they’ll stop their fist or their gun if I say, “You’re just doing this because of America’s history of war in Asia,” even though we both know this is true. And so I have been thinking of my father and what he taught me.

The most overt way my father fought racism in front of me involved no fighting at all. He founded a group called the Korean American Friendship Association of Maine, which helped new Korean immigrants move to Maine and find work, community, and housing, along with offering lessons on how to open bank accounts, pay taxes, file immigration paperwork, and get drivers’ licenses. For both of my parents, community organizing, activism, and mutual aid like this were commitments they shared and enjoyed and passed along to us, their children, and this led to much of my own work as an activist, teacher, and writer. I am not my father, but I am much as he made me.

There’s a difference between fighting racists and fighting racism. Where my father stayed silent, I have learned I have to speak out, which has felt, even while writing this, a little like betraying him. And as a biracial gay Korean American man, I don’t experience the same identifications or misidentifications he did. I am mistaken for white, or at least “not Asian,” as often as I’m mistaken for Chinese, and have felt like a secret agent as people speak in front of me about Asians in ways they would not otherwise. I learned most of my adult coping strategies for street violence from queer activist organizations after college.

Even as I write, “I wonder if he ever felt fear living in America,” it feels like a betrayal, especially as he isn’t around for me to ask him. I think again about how my father always made a point of dressing well, for example, but it always felt like more than that. Men wearing suits as a kind of armor, that isn’t so strange. He had his suits made at J. Press, wore handmade English leather shoes—shoes that fit me. I sometimes wear them for special occasions. Among my favorite objects of his is a monogrammed J. Press canvas briefcase, the name “CHEE” in embossed leather between the straps. After his father gave him an Omega Constellation watch when I was born, he eventually acquired others. For a time I thought he did this aspirationally, but most of his family in Korea is like this: Well-dressed, with a preference for tailoring and handmade clothes. All of my memories of my uncles coming from the airport to visit us involve them arriving in their blazers.

The first time I followed my father’s advice to wear a sports jacket when flying, I received a spontaneous upgrade. I didn’t have frequent flyer miles and the person checking me in was not flirting with me either. There was nothing but the moment of grace, and the feeling that my father, from beyond the grave, was making a point as I sat down in my new, larger, more spacious seat. Because I had never tried out this advice while he was alive.

Like much of my father’s advice, it came from his keen awareness of social contexts, and it worked. His wardrobe came from the pleasure of a dare more than a disguise. You don’t acquire a black and gold silk brocade smoking jacket in suburban Maine because you want to fit in with your white neighbors. Sometimes his clothes were a charm offensive, sometimes just a sass. The jacket advice may well have been an anticipation of racist treatment, of a piece with perfecting his English so he had no accent, and raising us to speak only English. My mother spoke more Korean to us as children than he did—a remnant of her time living in Seoul.

Now that I am old enough to choose to learn Korean, I still feel like a child disobeying him, just as I do when I dress too casually, or acknowledge that I’ve experienced racism. I know I am just making different choices, as you do when you are grown, but also, I am stepping out from behind his program to protect myself. I feel the fears he never spoke about, and instead simply addressed with what now look like tactics. At these moments I miss him as much as I ever do, but especially for how I would tell him, this may have protected you. It won’t protect me.

In my kitchen the other day, as I was making coffee, I fell into the ready stance, with my right foot back, left foot forward, and snapped my right leg up and out in a front snap kick. This is the basic first kick you learn in tae kwon do. And you do it again, and again, and again, until it is muscle memory. You move across the room this way and then turn to begin again.

I wasn’t sure if my form was exactly right, but it felt good. Memories came back of the sweaty smell of the practice room, the other students, the mirrors on the walls, the fluorescent lights. All those years ago, I had thought my father had put me in those classes in order to become him, but as I sent my practice kicks through the air, I remembered how even learning them made me feel safer, protected at least by the knowledge that he loved me. I could not have said this at the time, but after those attacks, I had feared I wasn’t strong enough to be his son.

I still fear that. I suppose it drives me, even now. It is dehumanizing to insist on your humanity, even and perhaps especially now, and so I am not doing that here. Each time I’ve tried to write even this, a rage takes over, and then the only thing I want to do with my hands doesn’t involve writing, and I stop. But I know from learning to fight that hitting someone else means using yourself to do it. My father’s advice, about fighting being the last resort, has given me another lesson: You turn yourself into the weapon when you strike someone else—in the end, another way to erase yourself—and so you do that last. In the meantime, you fight that first fight with yourself, for yourself.

You may never be able to protect what you love, but at least you can try. At least you will be ready.

Alexander Chee is most recently the author of the essay collection How to Write an Autobiographical Novel. A novelist and essayist, he teaches at Dartmouth College and lives in Vermont.

#asian-american #anti-asian hate #racism in america #alexander chee #long reads

[vulpinmusings]

Letters from Buxcord #7 - A Patch Job

Three sessions in the making, Ash and company go to fix something I broke the last time around.

Samantha,

It’s rather annoying to suffer wounds that I can’t just sleep off, but that fey spider’s acid spit did such a number on me that I’ve had to spend a week in the hospital and deal with skin grafts.  At least it’s not anywhere as bad as the last time I was obliged to go the hospital.  I don’t have to avoid using magic, for one thing.

While I was convalescing, Sheriff Greyson showed up to get an official statement for the spiders-man incident.  I gave him all the key details, naturally, even admitting to accidentally causing a small forest fire.  The Sheriff found the tale a bit beyond belief, but dutifully recorded what I said and then went off to ask Lea about the case.  Presumably after that he tracked down Penn, because the news report that eventually came out referenced three eyewitnesses, and declared all of us so traumatized by the events that our memories were addled.  Also, the police decided that spiders-man was the work of the same guy behind the so-called Razorback copycat killing (aka that time we fought a pig-masked ghost in the slaughterhouse).

 I’ve wondered why Sheriff Ragland wasn’t the one to collect our statements, since he’d been the officer in charge at Bizier’s house and has demonstrated a more open mind about the reality of the world.  Considering the official report, however, I suspect that Ragland’s own sanity has come into question.

I have half a mind to put on a bit of a show in front of the police station if the authorities are going to continue to be pig-headed about magic and mythics.  Skvetch, seems like half the people in this town who are in the know are devoted to keeping up a masquerade of non-magic.  More trouble than its worth, if you ask me.

Lea was discharged several days ahead of me, on account of not needing to replace any skin.  On her way out, she paid me a visit to have a chat about her recent realization that she’s (probably) a Faerie and has magic.  She said that she suspected herself of indirectly causing Bizier to be targeted and converted by the spider.  Back during the Razorback incident, Bizier had been the deputy Lea had tried to heal but accidentally drained.  Later on, she’d visited him in the hospital and managed to reverse what she’d done.  Lea feared that that had marked Bizier somehow, luring the fey spider to him.

I know all about carrying guilt for actions performed in… less than enlightened states of being, and I know the sorts of things to say to someone carrying that weight (search me if I can remember who learned it from, though).  Point is, even if Lea had marked Bizier somehow, she’d done it unconsciously, as she only recently became consciously aware of her mythical nature.  I told her so, and she seemed to accept it.  She then asked if I could help her get a grasp on her magic.  I said I would try, but admitted that I’m not an expert in how Faerie magic works, and I’m unsure if teaching her Weaves would be helpful.

Once I was freed from the hospital, I set to exploring Buxcord to find a Fey Way other than the one out in the bayou.  I’d rather not have to hassle with Bayou Boating every time I have business with the Faerie King or need to drop off some wayward pixie.  I managed to find a mushroom ring in the park, so mission success.  Still haven’t made any progress on restoring my lost memories or finding Nollthep.

Scratch that last bit! Nollthop’s still at large, but Madam Weaver finally came through and found someone who was able to restore my memory of the M’Dales and Carmilla!  I can picture them, recall their names.  Skvetch, I mentioned them in passing in a previous letter and only now remember doing so.

Before I explain the details of this restoration, though, there’s something else big that happened before, a few days after I got out of the hospital.

As I was walking to the local diner for breakfast, I noticed that Buxcord seemed strangely quiet.    Upon arrival, I saw everyone in the diner – customer and employee alike, slumped in a state of extreme lethargy.  The only exception was Mr. Penn, who was glad to see someone else in a normal state.  While Penn investigated someone’s food for unusual elements, I tried to coax words from some of the waiters.  I couldn’t get much from them, but from a glance at the ambient magic around them I got the sense that the lethargy was stemming from a loss of energy down to the very soul.

I called Lea to check on her.  She reported that she was feeling fine, but that she’d witnessed a bartender nearly pass out late last night after she felt a strange pulling sensation at her core.  I hadn’t felt anything of the sort, so it’s likely the draining wasn’t able to penetrate the magical defenses on my apartment.

We agreed to split up and search Buxcord for anyone else who wasn’t lethargic or a possible source of the problem.  Lea took the north side since she was already up that way and found Madam Weaver’s house.  The odd old lady was unaffected, and she and Lea had a productive little introduction.  Mr. Penn’s search took him along the outskirts of Buxcord and at some point came across Piper, who was not affected by the lethargy but rather unhelpful.

As for myself, I was searching through the south side when I came across a young woman in a hoodie.  She was acting nervous, and my bold approach probably didn’t help matters.  I quickly established that I was looking into what was going on, and after coaxing I got her to open up and offer her story.  Her name is Simone and she comes from a magical family with close ties to Buxcord’s history, although she wasn’t entirely convinced about the validity of magic at the time. Still, she’d been spared from the soul-draining and had just finished following a vague hunch that had taken her into the marshlands around the bayou.  There she had discovered an old cottonwood tree that would normally have been fully hidden from view, except there was a big hole in the barrier.

Yes, that same tree with the demonic aura I’d discovered while hunting the fey spider.  In my haste to catch up to the spider, I’d forgotten to close up the hole I’d made and had later assumed that a barrier of that age and strength would have some kind of self-renewal function Woven in.  Either that’s just not how things work in this universe, or the original casters of the barrier didn’t think to include such a function.

In any event, whoops.

Since Simone had prior knowledge of the sealed tree and a magical heritage, and thus was a potential source of very crucial help in fixing the problem I’d caused, I brought her with me when I went to meet up with Penn and Lea at the diner to compare notes. The only thing I learned from the other two is that Madam Weaver already knew the source of the problem and whose fault it was, because of course she did.

Our next order of business was to hike out to the bayou so I could get a good look at the breach and determine if I could just Weave up a patch.  We arrived to find a shadowy figure hovering above the water near the tree.  It looked familiar, although it took me a minute to realize why.  I’d seen this thing only once, shortly after my first little adventure, after that massive ripple of magic rolled through town. The figure didn’t move, although it did engage Lea in a conversation that I could only hear her half of. According to Lea, when Penn asked her about it a bit later, the gist of the conversation was that the figure admitted to stepping out of the barrier for a “snack” but that it was still mostly bound to the tree.  It didn’t offer a name or outright admit to being a demon, but it tried to cut a temptation deal to locate Lea’s human family if she helped it get out.  The barrier I’d ignorantly punched a hole in is the middle of three seals on the creature, with the cottonwood tree as the core and another barrier around the whole town.

As to the hole, it didn’t take me long to determine that the barrier was every bit as thick and complex as you’d expect a seal for an ancient evil to be; not the sort of thing you can just throw a quick patch over and expect it to keep holding.  That’s a lesson I don’t need to learn twice. So, I turned to Simone and asked if she has any old family records that might be of help.  She said maybe and, after I put a simple barrier to prevent the demon from taking another “walk” in the meantime, she led us back into town to her house.

Once we were settled in Simone’s house, she undertook a little search and came back with an old leather-bound book embossed with a mystical brand.  The book had some kind of spell on it to prevent strangers from reading its secrets, but my mental discipline proved enough to resist the effects enough to render the words legible, if slightly wavy.  After skimming about halfway through the book, I found an account of a time when the middle barrier had needed repair, and a description of the ritual involved.  It’s not particularly complex or demanding of material components; all we needed were enough mages to perform the steps, a warding amulet for the ritual’s leader, and “blood of the ancients.”

The first two things were easy to find.  Penn has dabbled in magic enough to be confident in taking part, I’m me, and I was willing to take a chance on Lea’ fey abilities counting once we’d secured the assistance of a couple more mages as back-up.  Simone was untrained but possesses the gift, and Lea was able to talk Rocky into helping as well.  Simone also supplied us with the warding amulet: a sun-shaped necklace given to her by her grandmother and likely the reason the demon hadn’t been able to drain her.

The blood of the ancient was going to be the tricky part, as we had no idea what that term could be referring to.  We decided to split up again and try two avenues of inquiry: Penn and I would check at Professor Thomas’s lab while Lea and Simone consulted with Madam Weaver.  To put it simply, the girls wound up choosing the right path.  The Madam said she could supply us with genuine ancient blood, whereas the lab would only be able to provide a synthetic substitute that wouldn’t last.  The real stuff would produce a proper fix, but getting it would set in motion some other calamity that Madam Weaver wouldn’t elaborate on.  The woman operates under some set of rules I haven’t sussed out yet.

Lea called me to discuss our options, and we decided that being sure of fixing the barrier for good was worth the price of some other trouble down the line.

So, with the materials in hand and personnel recruited, we went back to the cottonwood and got to work.  As the most accomplished mage in the group, I took the warding amulet and led the ritual.  It went smoothly, although the demon tried to distract us with temptations.  It offered to find me a way home, but also called my motives into question.  Although my memory of the core of the Order-naries hadn’t been restored yet, I still recalled enough to be rightly offended at the demon’s intimations that I had no reason to be helping Buxcord’s people.

Nobody bent to the demon’s words and we sealed it away without a hitch, and then went our separate ways.  I escorted Simone home, mostly as an excuse to ask to borrow her book again at some point and study up on Buxcord’s magical past.  Things are going to keep happening, and I’d prefer to be forewarned of anything old that may wake up.

Once I’d gotten Simone home, a letter materialized on the ground in front of me.  It was from Madam Weaver, informing me that the friend she’d asked to help with my memory had finally arrived.  I went straight to her house and met one of the tallest women I have ever seen.  Her name, or at least the name she said I could call her, was Minosity (Pretty sure I spelled that wrong; sounded Hellenic.) Mnemosyne, after a mythical titan of memory.  Fitting.

She was all business, but gentle.  I am normally quite reluctant to let somebody I’d just met mess around in my mind, but I was desperate to get my memories back, so I let all my barriers down as she searched for whatever the block was.  She did it with such ease, I’m almost envious, although she looked concerned about what she’d found. Apparently, Nollthep’s power comes from some sort of “Elder being.” As a bonus, she also put a protection spell on my mind, which I accepted with grace because my own natural defenses against mental influence are demonstrably insufficient in this world.  Or, maybe, my resistance is just wearing out after multiple assaults from exotic sources? That’s not a pleasant thought...

So, it’s starting to feel like I’ve dropped right into the middle of a multi-sided conflict over a relatively small patch of territory.  Between Faeries, sealed demons, at least one and possibly two old orders of protection, and whatever is behind Nollthep, there is a lot I’m going to need to learn about just to survive here.

Not too unlike the old days.

-Ash

#MOTW #Vulpin plays

[knifeshoeoreofight]

Part 1  Part 2  Part 3  Part 4

“Okay so,” Fleury says, around a mouthful of grilled tuna steak. “The more we know, the more we don’t?”

It’s been yellowfin tuna steaks all week, but it’s stretching their stipends out so no one’s complaining.

“Like,” Flower continues. “We know he breathes air. When he’s above water he inhales and exhales. I’ve seen him surface to breathe and then go back down. His people’s entire concept of love is built around the metaphor of breathing, for fuck’s sake. So. Dolphins can only hold their breath for, like, what?”

“Eight to ten minutes,” Zhenya supplies.

Flower waves a fork at him in acknowledgment. “Right. And I know I’ve been him stay submerged for longer. So. What the fuck is up with his respiratory and circulatory systems, man?”

Zhenya shrugs. As a marine mammal specialist he’s been asking himself the same questions. All his scientific inquiry has been a little buried, though, under the feverish desire to communicate with Sid. He knows Sid isn’t just science to Letang and Fleury, not anymore, but while they care about him, they aren’t as…consumed. Zhenya doesn’t want to use the word obsessed. He just can’t stop thinking about how much he wants to tell Sid and how much he wants to ask him, held up against the woefully inadequate shared language they’ve managed to accrue.

“I want to know more about their social structure too,” Fleury is continuing.

“We maybe learn family words tomorrow,” Zhenya says thoughtfully. “Can show pictures of your family, too.”

Predictably, Fleury and Letang both light up. They each have lovely wives and beautiful children, and are both equally incapable of shutting up about either. It makes Zhenya feel fond and amused, if a bit… lonely.

“You should dive with him again,” Letang adds. “Do some underwater observation, get some footage we can analyze later.”

Zhenya nods, and smiles into his water glass at the idea of swimming with Sid again. And if Magda is close by, maybe her and her rapidly growing calf as well.

At the thought of Magda’s calf, Zhenya feels a by-now familiar ache in his chest. How much time do they really have? He takes a sip of water and half wishes it were something stronger.

***

After Zhenya uses the flash cards he made to teach Sid the words for family relationships, he moves aside and lets Fleury and Letang show their photos. Sid is delighted with them.

This is my wife, Letang signs proudly. My breath-person.

Very beautiful, Sid says. She’s beautiful, your face is very bad. He makes a confused, sad face and shakes his head.

“Hey!” Letang protests, until he notices the way Sid’s trying to hide his smirk. Zhenya laughs. Letang is a good guy but he’s definitely proud of his looks, and Sid has obviously noticed that.

Ugly is bad, for your eyes he tells Sid. K is very ugly.

Sid laughs his strange, clicking laugh while Letang sputters.

Sid doesn’t tease him about his children though. He gently touches the images of Alex and tiny Victoria and smiles.

His eyes go even softer when he learns about Fleury’s family and Fleury taps his wife’s belly in the photo.

Baby, he tells Sid. She’s pregnant. Third.

Where are they? Sid asks. I see?

Far, Fleury replies, and Zhenya has to look down for a moment at the homesick yearning in Fleury’s eyes.

Why? Sid asks, and even the moment of his hands is gentler, his eyes big with concern.

Fleury looks around helplessly at the rest of them. “How do I explain science, you guys?” he asks.

We look at things in the ocean, Zhenya tries. We look at things to know more. We look at bad things and fix them. Or, try too.

What is ‘fix?’ Sid asks

Make something bad, not bad Zhenya answers.

Sid nods slowly, and then turns to Fleury and pats him gently in the shoulder.

“Well. Let’s get your gear sorted out,” Fleury says to Zhenya, smile a little wobbly.

***

It’s amazing, being underwater with Sid again. This time he’s not as put off by Zhenya’s scuba gear. Sid swims wide, excited loops around Zhenya, finally taking him by the arm when Zhenya is slower than Sid would like.

It takes Zhenya a while to figure out that when Sid makes a jabbing motion at himself that it’s a beckoning gesture. A jabbing motion at oneself means “come here [to me],” and the same motion applies to say, an interesting coral formation is “go there,” not just “look.” Slightly different than a sweep of the arm or a crooking of the fingers, like a lot of humans do.

They end up in an open sandy area patrolled by a school of lemon sharks. Zhenya kneels on the sand and watches them circle. It’s a pretty docile species, so he just enjoys watching them glide through the water. He’s always been fond of them; the mothers migrate to the same lagoons they were born in to have their pups. Reminds him of his beloved cetaceans.

Sid goes off on his own for a moment, then returns with a fish in hand. He lets a massive pregnant female bite it in two, then heaves the rest of it toward a school of juveniles, letting them scrabble over the scraps. He settles on the sand next to Zhenya, who is helplessly smiling at him around his regulator.

Sid smiles back. He points at the enormous female shark.

Mother he says.

Beautiful Zhenya answers. Big.

Sid becomes a little more alert when a tiger shark decides to join the party. He doesn’t move aggressively or reach for his weapon, just orients his body to keep it in sight.

Zhenya marvels at it as it passes them, massive barred side gliding two feet in front of his face, and tries not to feel nervous. He knows that they aren’t interested in humans unless provoked, but. Still. It’s a tiger shark. It’s enormous.

Sid, even though he once expressed anger towards them in regards to Magda’s calf, calmly keeps pace with it, swimming right above it, even trailing a hand down to brush against its back.

Great tail moving like a scythe, the creature decides there’s nothing of interest and moves off. Sid watches it go, and as he does, taps two fingers against his throat.

Zhenya wonders if it’s a superstitious or religious gesture. It reminded him somehow of military salutes, or of someone crossing themselves in church.

One apex predator acknowledging another, he supposes.

What is [gesture]? he asks.

Sid tilts his head, considering. Many fish he signs, and has to think again. Many baby. Good— he moves his hand around, gesturing at everything around them. Life, maybe, Zhenya thinks. He makes the gesture himself, and Sid smiles, fond.

They’re about halfway back to the boat, Zhenya’s air supply running low, when a shadow falls over them and Sid whips around, pushing Zhenya behind him and drawing his weapon.

Zhenya stares, awestruck. 

It’s…a mermaid, beautiful face like a storm, teeth bared. She doesn’t look anything like Sid. She has delicate spines and fins, red and white like a lionfish’s. Her eyes and skin are dark, and she has long, long black hair that streams behind her like a banner.

When she speaks, she doesn’t open her mouth, just like Sid. But even Zhenya can tell, after listening to Sid for so long, that the sound of her words isn’t quite the same. She gestures angrily to Sid, indicating himself and then pointing at Zhenya. Sid answers her, but she interrupts whatever he says with a storm of furious-sounding speech. She’s beautiful, and she’s terrible, and Zhenya, for the thousandth time in the last few weeks, wonders if he’s dreaming.

Exchange over, she makes a final, dismissive gesture, and flares all of her fins. Sid takes Zhenya by the arm and pulls him, as fast as they can swim together, back towards the waiting boat.

Once there, Zhenya throws off his gear as fast as he can.

The mermaid, he asks Sid. Same words?

Sid looks…troubled, and there’s something like pain in his eyes as he slowly raises his hands to speak.

Close, many different words. She’s here, I’m north, far. He pauses again. He’s not looking at Zhenya now and something is tightening Zhenya’s throat and filling his stomach with dread.

She say…say is bad. You see me. It’s bad. Sid’s head is bowed.

Zhenya can’t stand it, he just can’t. He kneels on the dive platform.

“Sid,” he says aloud, and finally, Sid looks up at him. His expression makes Zhenya feel sick.

No, Zhenya tells him. It’s not bad. I—

How does he explain, “promise.”

Not bad. I won’t say, other people. It’s not—

His eyes are wet. The idea of Sid slipping away into the blue and Zhenya never seeing him again is just. It’s—

Sid makes a soft noise.

E he signs, and accompanies it with a sound that has the cadence of Zhenya’s name.

He looks frustrated, and Zhenya recognizes that frustration. It’s having so many important things to say, but no words to say them with.

Sid reaches up, tugs at him to lean closer, moving one hand to the back of Zhenya’s neck. Sid closes his eyes, takes a shuddering breath, opens them, and with a kind of fierceness lays four fingers at the base of Zhenya’s throat. His eyes bore into Zhenya’s, willing him to understand.

Zhenya’s breath catches. Everything around them seems to fall away, as the universe shifts, tilts, and clicks into place, unfamiliar and new.

He reaches out, and lays his own shaking fingers at the base of Sid’s throat, right above the gold chain he gave to him. He can feel the flutter of Sid’s pulse, feel the rise and fall of his chest.

Sid leans his forehead against Zhenya’s, making quiet, murmuring noises. The few gentle clicks among them make Zhenya’s fingers jump with the movement of his throat.

“Okay,” Zhenya says, just as softly. “Okay.”

Sid lifts his hands and leans back,  and Zhenya feels the absence of his touch like an ache.

One sun Sid tells him. One sun. You come. Boat.

I haven’t taught him how to say “tomorrow” is all Zhenya can think as Sid gives him one last look, and slips under the surface.

#more things in heaven and earth #sidgeno #sidney crosby/evgeni malkin #hockey rpf #dana writes a thing

[eldritchsurveys]

151.

What would you do, if you encountered a Dalek? >> I have no idea. I haven’t watched nearly enough Doctor Who to know the proper thing to do in case of Dalek.

Do you enjoy good food or do you prefer to constantly watch what you eat? >> I definitely choose my food based on taste and enjoyment as well as nutritional value; it’s basically a good thing that I gravitate towards more nutritionally robust food naturally, because otherwise I’d probably be in the same boat as a lot of people (letting nutrition fall by the wayside in pursuit of That Good-Food Feel). It’s an understandable boat to be in and I don’t begrudge people their junkfood/fast-food habits at all.

Is there any snow where you live? And where do you live, exactly? >> Not right now, thank god.

Are you excited that spring is on its way? >> It isn’t.

Is there a website you frequent the most? >> I guess this one.

What would you most likely do, if your computer suddenly froze? >> If it BSODs, then I just let it do its thing (it restarts itself in that case). If it just freezes in place, then I wait a minute and if nothing happens (and I can’t get a response from Ctrl-Alt-Del or anything else), force a restart with the power button.

Which OS (operating system) are you using? >> Windows 10.

Have you ever seen the inside of a computer? If yes, can you name any of the components? >> Yeah, because I open it up to clean the fan out every so often. I can point out a few of the components, but not all of them.

What is your favourite gaming console/system? >> I prefer PC gaming.

If you only had one week to live, what would you do? >> I don’t know. I can’t imagine that situation.

Do you know what IRC is? >> Vaguely.

If you were stranded on an island, what one object would you want with you? >> I mean... I’m just gonna say a ship. I know that also comes with complications (no crew, etc), but I’m not really in the mood to be serious about it.

How often do you listen to music? >> Pretty often.

If you could get a new phone right now, would you/which kind? >> I’d really rather not.

Have you ever cut your own hair? >> I cut my own hair regularly.

Could you live without a TV? >> Sure.

Back to the very first question, do you even know what a Dalek is? >> More or less.

Is there someone special in your life? >> There are several.

Do you want to get married one day? >> It’s in the plan, either way.

Is anyone close to you pregnant right now? >> No.

Do you want children? If yes, how many and why? If not, why not? >> One would be fine, I suppose.

If you could spend the rest of your life with someone, who would it be? >> Sparrow.

What is the most important thing in your life? >> I don’t know, I haven’t really thought about it like that.

What would be your dream job? >> None.

When you were a child, what did you want to be when you grow up? Do you still want to be that? >> I had some vague ideas, but nothing serious.

What is your biggest dream? >> I don’t have one.

What are some of the things on your Bucket List? >> I don’t keep a bucket list.

Do you have any pets? If yes, what? If not, why not? >> No. Sparrow has a cat and that’s quite enough, tbh.

If you could go anywhere in the whole world, where would you like to go? >> Anywhere, I suppose. I’m not picky.

What has been the worst thing that's happened to you? >> I don’t know.

If you had the chance, would you start your life entirely over? >> No. That concept gives me the hives.

What is your view on abortion? >> I support legalised abortion.

What about birth control? >> I support free/affordable birth control.

Over-population? >> I am not knowledgeable enough about ecology and biodiversity and related disciplines to know exactly how dire human overpopulation is.

Racism? >> I think it’s absurd and I am quite tired of dealing with it.

Homophobia? >> Ditto.

Bullying? Have you ever been bullied yourself or have you bullied someone? >> I was bullied as a child. I think it will continue to be a problem until adults start taking it seriously (and focus more on teaching compassion and consequences for anti-social behaviour rather than teaching bullied children that “bullying just happens and you should just ignore it”).

What do you think of people, who choose NOT to have children? >> I think that’s great, and they should have their choice respected.

Do you think euthanasia (assisted suicide) is acceptable? If not, why not? >> I do think it’s acceptable.

What about suicide? If not, why not? >> I think that’s ultimately acceptable too, as a fact of existence -- obviously that’s a loaded answer, and I’m not at all suggesting people just kill themselves, but I don’t think it helps anyone (including suicidal people) to stigmatise it. If someone’s pain is so great that they can’t imagine living with it, then that’s something that deserves attention -- if their pain is unable to be mitigated, then what do you suggest they do, keep living with it for the sake of other people? It’s just... such a complicated issue.

Do you know anyone with a severe mental illness? >> Yes.

What is your view on teenage pregnancy? >> I don’t have an opinion. It happens, and the teens in question should be supported in their time of need instead of kicked out of their homes and burdened with guilt and shame.

What about sex before marriage? >> Fine with me.

In your opinion, what is the ideal age to start having sex? >> I don’t have an opinion on this.

What about the ideal age to start drinking? >> Or this.

What do you think of smoking? >> I don’t really think about it. It’s just another thing we humans do.

What about people, who listen to their mp3-players in public? >> Most people use headphones, so it’s fine.

Are you afraid of global warming? If yes, why? If not, why not? >> I’m not afraid of climate change, because it’s difficult for me to conceptualise in the long-term. But I understand the anxiety.

Do you believe the world will end in 2012? Why/why not? >> Hah!

Aren't surveys, that ask favourites, this'n'that etc. questions, annoying? >> No.

Aren't you just as tired as me writing all your basic info in surveys? >> No.

What's the most important factor for you when choosing a survey to take? >> Whether I’ve taken it in recent memory.

Have you ever made a fool of yourself in front of someone you like? If yes, what did you do? >> I mean, maybe at some point, but I sure don’t remember it now. As it goes.

Don't you think that sunglasses they sell today look ridiculous? >> No.

What is something that annoys you very, very much? >> The super-bass some people have in their vehicles. I can feel it in my bones and that’s an experience I’d rather choose to have (like at a concert), not have forced upon me.

Do you like long car rides? If yes, what makes them fun? If not, why not? >> I used to like them a lot more, but now I get really antsy and stifled-feeling after a while (especially if the windows are closed). I’m just not as used to the long car ride experience anymore.

Have you ever been on a plane? If yes, where did you go? If not, why not? >> Yes, quite a few times.

Have you ever been on a cruise ship? If yes, how many times? If not, why haven't you? >> No. Because it’s not affordable and I don’t regard it as a priority anyway.

Do you know any of your neighbours? >> No.

Do you ever shop online? If yes, which stores? >> Sure, Etsy and Amazon and the like. Sometimes other places.

Are there any animals or insects that absolutely scare you? >> Probably, but I can’t think of any right now.

If you could have absolutely anything right now, what would you want? >> I’m fine.

What is the most stupid thing you have ever heard anybody say? >> I don’t know.

Are you allergic to anything? >> Nope.

Have you ever done anything that would be considered illegal? >> Yep.

Did you ever go to kindergarten? >> I did, for half a year. (I started out in pre-K at the typical age, and then halfway through the year they were like “this kid is too advanced for pre-K so we’ll just bump them up to the kindergarten class now” and that’s how I ended up being consistently younger than my peers for the rest of my school career.)

Did you/do you like school? When did you/will you graduate? >> I did not enjoy school. I graduated in 2004.

How do you handle a situation you desperately want to get out of? >> It really depends on the situation. For most of them I just find my way out (I’ve definitely straight-up walked out of places before, in the middle of things, because I couldn’t deal with it.)

Who is the weirdest person you have ever met? >> I don’t know.

Would you say your family is ordinary or somehow crazy? >> I don’t know how ordinary they are. I will say, if they’re ordinary, then that’s pretty depressing.

If a stranger asked for money, would you give them any? >> Sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t. 

What do you think of 90s girl- and boybands? >> I like some of them.

What about today's pop music? >> I like some of it.

Do you enjoy any form of art? >> Of course.

What would be absolutely the worst job ever? >> I don’t know.

Do you need a daily caffeine fix? >> No.

Are you a Pepsi or a Coca-Cola person? >> Neither.

Are you a cake or a bisquit (cookie) person? >> Neither.

Do you see the positive or the negative side of things mostly? >> I’m more inclined to optimism than pessimism, unless I’m depressed.

Do you ever boycott anything popular? >> No.

Do you still live with your parents or have you flown out of the nest? If you've flown out of the nest, when did you move out from home? >> I left home the first time at 17, and officially left at 18.

Do you live on your own or with someone else/do you share a room? >> I live with Sparrow.

How old is the eldest member of your family? >> I don’t know, probably in their mid-eighties or early nineties.

Who in your entire family do you get along with the best? >> ---

Do you enjoy reading books? >> Yes.

Or do you prefer magazines? >> I also like those, I just read them much less frequently.

What do you think is the biggest waste of time? >> I don’t know, I don’t really think of things like that.

What is the most disgusting thing you've eaten? >> I’m not sure. Hospital food? Ha. (The two hospitals I stayed in in North Carolina had pretty good food for being hospitals, though, I must say.)

Do you still have any of the stuffed animals you had as a child? >> Nope. I can’t even imagine what it’s like to still have stuff from childhood.

#surveys #survey #random survey

[hanzi83]

More Targeted Harassment

How many of these have I done that even start out with how many of these blogs I have done to get stress related shit off my chest and trying to convey it a calm manner no matter how much the employed social media trolls try to fuck with my mental illness more with the litmus of rumors of me having a weapon, which I don’t, stalking women, which I don’t, beating up gay couples in public places, which I don’t. I normally just shrug it off like I have the last few days but then the same fucked up shit goes down with them making their presence known, first by moving my cursor as I type in my personal journal, which isn’t personal because the people in charge are watching everything I do and no one believes it because I am the mentally ill conspiracy theorist from the Howard Stern Show and after perpetuating that image constantly and then getting rid of me when they needed to, they still continue to harass me and because I am outspoken about political issues they try to censor me as much as possible. Even when I was a part of other shows on You Tube like I have written about the last several months, and the anger that exists that I am not coming back and them needing me and even endlessly reporting my Face Book videos, so I have less platforms to talk about stuff, and then sending people to my periscope to fuck with me so I complain while they seemingly do nothing.

I believe these people invite others into their discord or private groups so they are recorded and then blackmailed into loyalty for something. These are just theories, but I have contacted several media outlets to investigate the targeted harassment they do to me and countless of others, either way whoever is doing it is doing it at the behest of people with power who want to fuck with me and the more I type it out I can get comfortable with that but I know to most people who know nothing about this will just think some delusional fat man is in his mother’s basement just having another melt down that you will find amusing because people love train wrecks and then when something happens to that person, they will pat themselves on the back and tell themselves they are good people because they wrote something on twitter about suicide prevention and it is insulting from these people in the industry who will never disclose what helps cause this mental illness get more deeper and disturbing but because any conspiracy gets lumped in with Alex Jones and the right wing which is done by tactful purpose to get the message misconstrued. That is why I keep pointing out that nothing will be done until something actually physically happens to me even though I have put out countless tweets, blogs, videos etc and still no one will take it seriously. I just know these people will profit off it when this becomes official and then act like they gave a shit and then put out a bunch of numbers on social media and pretend they care but then are complicit with moguls who have helped cause this shit. I will always blame Stern. I believe because my name was mentioned and threw him off, he even got my credit card hacked because I found it hilarious that he gets nervous when my name is mentioned and he doesn’t acknowledge other shows that try to imitate his shows and this line right here got at their mind frame because when I typed it out they moved the cursor again. So much for staying off the internet because even when I do, they find ways to torture me more and make me become even more paranoid.

I guess it teaches me not to be vocal about Israel and how people are flipping out about North Korea and were silent about what happened in Gaza and basically these supposed liberals play the Trump game when he said “Both sides were horrible people” shit with neo Nazis and the protestors, but this time the democrats do that with Palestine and Israel. And I guess because these people, especially certain industry types have cliques of employed fan bases and a bunch of other burner accounts they use it to harass certain people and because I have angered a lot of people, they keep upping their game into fucking with me. I have to constantly claim that the rumors about me are not true, but then these same people on social platforms making threads about profiting off my likeness for T-shirts being made, which exist on Amazon through some group called Public Tees or some shit and they know I don’t have resources to track this stuff down.

I can’t go to my friends or family because sometimes I think they have been scared into saying anything. People I know would rather do business with Zionist like and shit on anything really progressive because they think being ignorantly contrarian is the way to go because we don’t have enough of that, which has been normalized in society for the longest fucking time. These same people will talk shit about me in their private group chats and then pretend like they are peaceful with me and have love for me but then dismiss anything about Israel or any other theory like there is something I hit on. I don’t ever trust anyone and I wish I was dead so I never have to see how horribly these people sell their souls. I could be wrong, maybe people have my back but it is seems like it is just me. These people rather have their organized orgies rather than stand up for right, all the people who used to be outspoken politically have sold out and limit their narratives about certain things because they don’t want to rock the boat but they still need to use me and after I take the brunt of the mental abuse from these people in the higher positions, they have all profited off it for their fucking gain and then get uncomfortable whenever I bring up a topic that really takes guts to address. They think acting a fool and being ignorant is the way to go and then call other contrarians who are standing up for good in this world. They don’t ever vocalize their problems with me, they will do that on private podcasts or some shit.

This will anger them and make them fuck with me even more. They have fucked with everything of mine and you pretentious twats who show compassion about mental illness constantly stay silent while people are being bullied into an oblivion, don’t use me for click bait and profit off my fucking name when this eventually exposes itself because if you stood back and said nothing while knowing what has transpired so you can get a pretentious industry cosign, never fucking talk to me again. I mean that shit. None of these people are edgy, because they have designed the PC left to seem like they are the enemies because the democrats are corporately tied to corruption, the corrupted right wing think tanks have their internet trolls act counter culture so the cycle of ignorance continues over and over. People always want to appeal to the cynical and because the right wing has taken over the counter culture aspect online, you automatically think this is the edgy take and it isn’t. That is why they hate me because I expose that these people who take joy in the ignorance love that their side is seen as the edgier side and the side that people want to cater towards.

So just take this as another wasteful blog that will make the Stern Show trolls to put this on their platforms and still continue to attack me and make it seem like it is me under a fake account doing it so I can get my name there in a lame sub reddit that barely breaks 10 quality posts a month and then when I am brought up it catches a little more traction and while it seems harmless but because people are employed to do this, in my opinion, I feel like I need to address it because these people are trying to get me to kill myself from the stress and when people from these other shows have said their goal was to make me kill myself and destroy me but then plays it off like he doesn’t want to do that, it is scary, especially when I have seen this person show and him putting out people’s numbers or acting like he is concerned with someone being held hostage who is doing another show, encourages his people to call the landlord of that place, or calls grieving mothers and does it under the guise of entertainment because everyone wants to do 90’s Stern Show shit. This is where we are at. Even a college kid who has connection to the show and is followed on twitter by Stern Show people like Benjy, Baba Booey or Jason Kaplan, is a part of that clique and pretends to be peaceful and doesn’t partake in this meanness and evil shit but still associates with them. He probably got a good connection into a fancy university or something because he is helping with that dirty work. He is another closeted miserable dude who instead of addressing his issues, decides to get the frustration off his chest by trolling others.

So these people hacked my phone when I was doing my periscope and made the camera blurry for some odd reason and it can’t be fixed but as soon as I blocked that corrupted account, suddenly my phone was malfunctioning and it will continue to because these people are sociopaths who hate me for not wanting to go back to their fucking show. I hope the worst shit happens to these people and anyone who was complicit in not exposing this and waiting for the most opportune time to make money off the story or on your podcast, you are fucking trash. 

#Hanzi Howard Stern Show Trolls Youtube shows harassment hacking targeted harassment trust distrust disloyal #family friends politics Zionists paranoia media outlets podcasts no proof irrational thoughts

[siriusly-random]

Land Next to Me: Chapter 6

A/N: Yes this is still an ongoing fic somehow, I apologize for such a long wait. I’m terrible, I know. 

On another note, this is not edited in the slightest. Like man, it’s probably shit and I will be reuploading it, and I’m going to wait to post it to fanfic. net until I fix it, but I figure it’s been long enough.

Lowkey not putting translations in this chap because it’s more fun this way. If anyone is super curious though, this is what I use to help form sentences. 

Fandom: Fairy Tail/the 100

Rated: T

Words: 3427

Summary: Three hundred years since the human race has set foot on Earth, one hundred teen prisoners are sent down with nothing but their wits and each other. Even though she’s just as scared as everyone else, Lucy Heartfilia will do anything she can to make sure they survive.

<<prev                   next>>

Chapter 6:  Gray, Hainofa Kom Azgeda

Natsu wasn’t really sure what was so special about what Lucy and Jellal said, but he could tell it meant a lot to Jellal. In the few short days he had known them, he never saw Jellal smile so wide--only when Wendy was around. He wanted to ask, but he didn’t think he would really understand anyway. He didn’t understand them, just as he was sure they didn’t understand him or his people.

“How long should it take us to get there?” Lucy asked from beside him, her eyes bright in the darkness. They had only been walking for about half an hour and he could tell she was struggling to keep up with his pace.

“Three days or so, would quicker on horseback,” he replied, keeping his voice low and steps light. He couldn’t say the same for Lucy, her feet were heavy, breaking every branch and twig in her path.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” she groaned, causing Natsu’s eye to twitch in irritation.

“That’s just to the border, and luckily for us, their Capital isn’t any further than that. It could be much worse,” for their limited supplies and his sanity.

“Well, I’m sorry but I’m not used to walking long distances. The Ark was very limited in space,” Lucy let out a laugh, though he didn’t quite understand why. “In any case, why is the Capital so close to the border? That’s a bit weird, isn’t it?”

“If they lived any further north they wouldn’t be able to survive. Too cold.” He glanced at her, taking in her thoughtful expression. He never thought much about it, so he wasn’t sure if that actually was the answer, but it made enough sense to him. She most likely thought the same way when she was explaining their technology to him. The things that they used every day to live seemed so obvious, but the more he thought about it the more he knew that was wrong.

“Do you think we could actually ride a horse at some point?” she asked sounding like a small child. He held back a smile, instead focusing on their immediate surroundings.

“You’re being too loud,” he stated, stopping in his tracks, “we’ll be noticed.” She stopped, crossing her arms and glaring at him.

“Well, what do you expect me to do about it? I’m being as quiet as I can.” He narrowed his eyes, thinking. He understood that this was hard for her. She didn’t grow up hunting and stalking prey like he did.

His eyes widened as an idea popped into his head, and while it wasn’t a permanent solution--and would slow them down--it would work for now. He turned his back to her and bent down, craning his neck to look at her with a gesture to get on.

“You want to give me a piggyback ride.” It was an accusation more than a question, and he only rolled his eyes in response.

“If scouts hear us they’ll shoot to kill, so it’s this or risk getting hit.” They didn’t have time to argue either and she knew it. With a sigh, she moved forward and wrapped her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist.

“If you drop me I’ll be the one doing the killing,” she threatened, but he could hear the smile in her voice. With a smirk, he stood up, pretending to topple over as he did.

“Ahh, Lucy! You’re so heavy!” he whined, grinning as she smacked his shoulder.

“Oh shut up and walk.” He grinned, for some reason feeling lighter than he should.

----

“We’ll know when we’re close to a large body of water. I’ve only seen it a handful of times after coming with my father to alliance meetings when I was young. I haven’t been back in years,” he spoke softly and Lucy could imagine what he was feeling. She missed her mom. It was like a deep hole was left in her chest, something she didn’t think would ever be filled.

“It’s quite beautiful, actually,” he continued, and Lucy stayed silent as she walked beside him, doing her best to keep her steps light. As much as she appreciated being carried every now and then, she didn’t want to burden him. He was obviously tired and in need of a good nap.

“I can’t wait to see it. I never imagined I’d get to Earth, you know. I could write a million stories about Earth and what I thought it would be like, but it was always just a dream.” None of the stories she made up could even begin to compare to reality. She wasn’t sure if reality was better, though. This Earth was scary and uncertain and she was wandering around trying to stop a war with someone who doesn’t know what basic technology is.

“So what changed? You never really told me why your people came down here.” He glanced over at her, eyes curious and unsure, bright green eyes, flecked with bits of gold, shining almost like a gem. There weren’t many people on the Ark with light coloured eyes. She found it fascinating.

“We were all prisoners on the Ark,” she began, noting the quick flicker of shock on his face. “Up there, every crime is punishable by death when you’re over eighteen. Luckily, my birthday isn’t for a few weeks.” She sighed, tugging on her sleeves as she tried to think of how to explain to him what had happened. “My mother discovered a flaw in the system of the Ark, one that should never have been there. One that we should have had the time to fix. We were running out of oxygen,” she took a deep breath, clutching the bracelet around her wrist as if it was the only thing keeping her alive. “My mother thought the people deserved to know. I found out about her plan--and I agreed. So they-” Deep breath. In, out. She ran her hands through her hair, trying to clear her mind. She hated talking about this. “They floated, err, executed her,” she clarified at the confused look on Natsu’s face, “and they locked me up so I wouldn’t tell anyone. And that’s why they sent us. We were good for nothing kids who were expendable. They didn’t actually believe that the ground was survivable, but they needed to make time for everyone else. We might have bought them another few months, at best.”

He stayed silent for a few minutes and the pair continued to walk, the sounds of nature never being so clear to Lucy. She always tried to fill the silence, her time in solitary were unpleasant memories she didn’t care to relive.

But the birds singing in the early hours of the morning made her mind relax, and the unease she had been feeling start to dissipate.

“You think our ways are violent,” Natsu started suddenly, causing her to jump a little, “but your people killed one of your own for trying to save everyone. Maybe we're not that different.”

He didn’t say anything else and neither did she. It was true, after all. Killing was killing, and who were they to say the end justifies the means?

“I am sorry, Lucy,” he stated, his voice unnaturally soft as he turned to stare at her, a sadness visible in his features. “I know what it’s like to lose a parent. Especially when it was an unfair death.”

“We’re here.” He stopped in his tracks, staring straight ahead. She followed his gaze, eyes widening at the site in front of her.

“Wow,” she breathed, at a loss for words--something that didn’t happen to her very often.

“In the winter this is frozen over, making it easier to get across. Unfortunately for us, we have to take a boat.” Natsu left her standing in awe for a few moments, and if she were honest she barely noticed he was gone. Before she knew it he was back, dragging along the most dangerous looking ‘boat’ she had ever seen. Granted, it was the only boat she ever saw, but she rests her case.

“You’re joking right?”

“If I’m joking you’re not loud and annoying.” He countered, canine teeth visible as he grinned at her. “Well come on then, we don’t have all day. Get in. I’ll push and jump in.”

With great resistance, she climbed in the front of what she assumed was a canoe, gripping the paddle he handed to her so hard her knuckles were white with strain.

“Relax, sky girl. I’ve travelled by boat many times. I know what I’m doing.” He was laughing at her--which she highly resented. As he pushed the canoe into the water she felt her heartbeat quicken and her fears mounted. She didn’t know how to swim or paddle or even hold her breath for very long. She was not okay with this.

“Well, I don't. I don’t at all. I don’t know how to swim Natsu. I can’t do this.” She was panicking, her throat felt like it was closing up and suddenly she was rocking forward as the canoe fully submerged, then back as Natsu jumped in and grabbed her shoulders, holding her steady.

“Trust me. I won’t let you drown. When this is all over, I’ll even teach you to swim.” He gave her shoulders a squeeze, then suddenly the pressure was gone. She still felt anxious, but she wasn’t scared for her life anymore.

Natsu would protect her. She would be fine.

“Let’s just get this over with,” she sighed, thrusting her paddle into the water.

----

“It’s not funny!” Lucy exclaimed, ringing her hair out as she shivered from the cold and wetness as Natsu laughed at her.

“You’re wrong--it’s hilarious. You should see yourself!” Lucy wished she could strangle him, but instead she settled for glaring.

“Need I remind you we’re on a serious mission?” She sneezed, groaning in defeat. She would have to take off her shirt, and probably her pants, to let them dry. Wearing them soaked would just make matters worse.

“You’re right, I’m sorry, here,” he laid his weapons on the ground so he could pull his long coat off, offering it to her.

“Thank you,” she grabbed the coat, reading herself to take off her damp clothes before she noticed he was staring. “Excuse me.” She said, staring right back at him. He didn’t seem to get the hint, however.

“Could you please turn around?” she asked politely, not wanting him to take his coat back. It was freezing out.

He just raised an eyebrow before turning his back, picking up his weapons from the ground. “I suppose I could have warned you that the boat would be unbalanced when you got out. I’m sorry for that.”

Surprised, Lucy didn’t say anything back and just wrapped the coat around, using his belt to tighten it so it worked more like a dress.

“No real harm done, I guess,” she offered, picking up her wet clothes and sighing as she rolled them into a ball to carry. “Where to now?”

The question seemed pointless, seeing as there was a huge structure smack in front of them; it was visible from the other end of the lake. But maybe they were heading to somewhere more conspicuous, so had no idea. Natsu didn’t offer up much information about anything.

“The Azgeda citadel. Straight ahead.” He didn’t even wait for her to respond before he started toward the towering structure. It was tall, insanely so. Straight, narrow, with a sphere near the top. It also looked like the top was broken, and she would have been surprised if it wasn’t. It almost looked familiar to her, probably from a picture in one of her history books.

“How are we supposed to get in?” she asked, hoping he had a plan that wouldn’t get them killed.

“Easy. We let them come to us. Azgeda soldiers are always patrolling this area. We just have to request an audience with the Prince.” He sounded so confident Lucy almost believed it would work.

“How do you know they won’t just kill us?” It was a reasonable question she thought. There was a lot that could kill a person on Earth, the most dangerous thing was simply not knowing. And she certainly didn’t know a lot of things.

“I don’t.”

“Hod op!” someone shouted from behind, and an arrow whisked past her head and shot into a tree. She held her breath, limbs frozen from fear.

“Chon yu bilaik?” A group of grounders appeared in front of them, arrows nocked and ready to shoot, others carrying swords and daggers.

“Ai laik Natsu Kom Trigeda. En ai gaf chich op Hainofa Gray kom Azgeda.”

They waited, holding their breath to see what the Ice Nation soldiers would do. While Lucy wasn’t positive on what Natsu said, she figured he asked to speak to Gray. And she hoped and prayed they let them.

“Chon dison bilaik?”

“Lucy kom Skaikru.”

The grounders looked uneasy at Natsu’s words, a few of them talking to each other and Lucy wished she understood what they were saying. She looked at Natsu and noticed how his shoulders tensed and his face stayed completely blank. She wondered how he did it and felt strangely sad that he did it so well.

“Mafta osir op!” The grounders shouted, gesturing for them to follow. She stayed still, waiting for Natsu to tell her what to do.

The grounders grabbed her by her arms, jerking her roughly forward. She saw Natsu move, almost in a blink of the eye, as he punched the grounder who grabbed her and replaced their hands with his own.

“Ai na goch em op,”  he growled, throwing his bow to the ground, “oso ou na kok au.”

Some of the grounders seemed to resist whatever Natsu said, but the one who seemed to be in charge stopped them from advancing on them, snapping a short, “en’s ku.Taim na bants.” And then they were off and Lucy could barely feel her legs, the only reason she was still standing was Natsu’s arm wrapped around her waist. He was practically dragging her around.

“You need to get a grip,” he whispered in her ear, his hand pressing in on her waist. “You can’t look weak. He won’t take you seriously.”

Nodding, she took a few breaths and steadied herself, the shock of their situation wearing off and the feeling in her legs coming back. His grip didn’t loosen on her, something she appreciated. She could make herself look brave as hell, but she was still terrified. And he knew it.

“I hope you’re not afraid of heights,” he joked, distracting her from the grounders who kept staring at them and whispering things she didn’t understand.

“I guess we’ll find out,” she let a smile slip out, thinking about how she really shouldn’t be afraid of heights. But up on the Ark, there was no way to fall, no way to jump or be pushed off. She never had to be scared of falling.

“We’re here.” In front of them were a set of simple doors and strangely she was surprised. She expected something more overwhelming and grandiose. “Now to get to the throne room.”

Lucy did not like how he said that.

“And how do we do that?” She questioned, knowing she wouldn’t like the answer.

“We climb.”

The inside was ice. Completely ice. As she looked up she saw that it was almost like an ice shaft, the dents clearly visible where people climb. She had a lot of doubts about this, mainly how this was all still here and functioning, and she couldn’t help but wonder how much longer it would last.

“Of course, that’s if we didn’t know about the actual way up.” Natsu went and talked to the leader grounder who nodded, and then they were following him outside of the building again and toward another door. It was hidden slightly behind a wall of ice and blended in so well she never would have guessed it was there. “The other entrance is toward those off who attempt to attack Ice Nation, but it wouldn’t hold if that was the only way in and out.”

There was what she thought was an old elevator with the door missing in the room, wire rope attached to it and extending so high into the building she couldn’t see the end. The rope was looped around multiple pulleys, with multiple grounders stationed in the room who she assumed operated the system.

She almost wanted to take her chances with the ice shaft.

“Are you sure this is safe?” She asked, cautiously following him into the elevator.

“Am I dead?” he retorted.

“I guess that’s a good point.” He was still breathing, and he said he came here a lot as a child.

“Besides, the ice shaft is actually used for executions. Wouldn’t want to risk someone falling on us on our way up.”

Before she could respond the elevator started to move and she wasn’t used to it so she started to fall forward before Natsu reached out and grabbed her.

“Careful, ai skaifaya. Can’t have you dying just yet.”

The elevator came to a rough stop after a few minutes of silence. She didn’t know what he called her, and she didn’t want to ask.

They strode forward, past a number of soldiers who were standing guard along the circular room, and Lucy forced herself to not look out the windows surrounding them. They finally approached what appeared to be the Ice Nation throne, with a man with dark black hair and a scar decorating the left side of his face. Needless to say, he gave her the chills.

“Natsu kom Trikru. This is a surprise.” He drawled with a gravelly with a hint of an accent. “And of course Lucy kom Skaikru. An honor.”

She felt it was anything but.

“Haihefa Silver, I apologize for the unannounced visit. However, we wish to speak to Hainofa Gray.” Lucy wanted to laugh at how polite Natsu was being, but she supposed he didn’t want his head cut off.

A glint caught her eye and she glanced down, and to her horror, the throne the king was sitting was situated over what appeared to be ice, frosting up the legs of the throne. She could clearly see the ground below them, and she realized in that moment that she was afraid of heights.

An ice floor, she thought, no believing that’s what it really was. It had to be glass. But still, how was it so durable?

“I thought as much. He’ll be right up. In the meantime, sky girl, why don’t you tell me why you’re here and why I shouldn’t have you killed?” She felt a lump in her throat, surprised by his bluntness. And then she got angry. This wasn’t her, their, fault that they were on Earth. The 100 while guilty in many ways, were victims in this scenario. And she was over people accusing them of something they had no control over.

“If you want to kill me, you would have already, so can we all just drop the pointless threats at this point,” she saw Natsu smirk out of the corner of her eyes, giving her more confidence to continue, even with Silver showing no change in his features. “Our home was dying. So, our leaders thought it was necessary to send me and my fellow ‘sky people’,” she mocked, hating the name, “down here, even though they didn’t think we would survive. They sent us to our death, we had no idea anyone was living on earth. So I’m sorry we’re an inconvenience to you. But I’m not dead yet, and I don’t plan on dying soon.” She let out a long breath and felt a strange kind of relief after her little outburst, followed by embarrassment. She didn’t realize she was holding so much in.

“Well, that certainly is quite the women you’ve got there, Natsu.”

A deep voice sounded from behind them, amusement clearly evident.

Lucy felt her face heat up, slowly turning around to face the newcomer.

Her eyes met dark blue, feeling a chill run down her spine.

His lip quirked, hand resting on the handle of a sword attached at his waist. She gulped, for some reason much more terrified of the man in front of her than of the King.

There was no doubt. This was Gray.

#fairy tail #fairy tail fanfiction #natsu dragneel #lucy heartfilia #gray fullbuster #land next to me #nalu #okay but i mean im horrible and am still doing a toss up of turning this into gratsulu but i cant do that can i cause ive been advertising #as nalu and fuck me #bonus point to who figures out what the building is hehehe #and wow the nalu in this chap damn son

[truempathy]

“ There's something so foreign about family. Like an ill-fitting suit. I never connected to the concept. ”

Will’s mother left when he was young. He doesn’t really remember her that much, he was only four. There’s the blurry image of curly brown hair, the faint smell of sweet perfume, and then she was gone. Like a ghost. Like the memory was just a dream he’d made up in his mind. He never had any memories of her being particularly loving or caring, but he knows it wasn’t from resentment or hate. She wasn’t mean, she wasn’t abusive, she was just ... Reserved. A little sad. Even at his young age, Will felt that a lot around her. In both her, and in himself.

He felt that around his father a lot too, after she left. Packed up one day and was gone without a word. She’d left him for something else : a better life. His father had never been rich, neither had she, but Will guesses living in some rural town, surrounded by nothing but the outskirts of community, was never part of her plan.

They moved around a lot after that, never staying in one place for long. Will’s pretty sure it’s because that, even in his tired life, his father was still subconsciously hoping he’d find her again someday, somewhere. That he’d get some answers. They never did. Dad was distant, and always had a glass of whiskey with his dinner. He wasn’t an alcoholic, but Will knows he found comfort in that nightly glass that he didn’t in motor oil or fishing lures. He didn’t spend a lot of time with Will, but he cared for him. Loved him, in his own broken way. There was the occasional hand on his head, the even rarer hug, but he always made sure they had something to eat, that Will had clothes on his back even if they were hand me downs. It used to confuse Will at first, seeing the nuclear families, pretty like presents wrapped with a bow. Two parents, a kid or two, a dog to tie it all together. Smiles and walks in the park and family photos. He didn’t have that.

Then he realized not every family was the same, and -- that was okay. He didn’t have a mother to tuck him into bed or a father who would play catch with him, but he learned how to fish. How to fix boats. He had something. That was enough for Will. Maybe there was a bit of jealousy along the way -- envy, and some poorly thought out moments where he put himself in the shoes of the other kids and parents to see how they felt, what was missing in his own life that he didn’t have that -- but it was, like many things in Will’s life, short lived and tucked away.

As five turned to twelve turned to fourteen, Will grew up but he didn’t change. Oh, he grew taller, and his voice started to crack, and he entered that all - too awkward phase of puberty where nothing ever seemed to fit right and his limbs never seemed to move the way he wanted them to, but he was still Will. No temper tantrums, no rebellious phase, no sudden flurry of cursing or running away or pulling illegal stunts with his friends late at night. He’d kind of need friends in the first place, to do that. He moved around too much for that : Louisiana one day, Texas the next. There was a lot of deep south in Will’s early life, before they finally settled in North Carolina when he was sixteen. They stayed there for three years -- the longest they’d ever stayed anywhere. But while the scenery changed, his father didn’t. He’d always work funny hours, under - the - table jobs, fixing boats and helping make them, recommending engines and oil and masts and other equipment. He’d catch fish, sell it to the local sometimes, but he’d cook them more often than not.

Fishing was, in Will’s life, one of the few constants he had, and one of the few times he’d spend hours in his father’s company. His father taught him everything he knows about fishing and boats, helped him make his first lure, gave him direction and lessons on how to sail a boat after teaching him the parts of a boat, and how to prepare it for sailing. Fishing was more quiet, more personal :  sitting on a lone dock in the wilderness, nothing but nature to talk to them, sometimes standing in the constant bubble of a stream or small river and waiting for the inevitable bite and pull on their lure.

It was as close as Will ever got to his father, strange and gruff in his own way, and maybe Will never had a real idea on what family was like, but it influenced him, anyway. An absent mother and a distant father, and growing up with that in mind -- literally, in his mind, affecting the way he thought and looked at things, Will guesses there was never really much of a chance that he’d be able to fall far from the tree.

He doesn’t resent his father for it, or even his mother for not being there :  But it does leave a bitter taste in the back of his mouth that he tries to swallow down, sometimes. It was hard to separate himself from his father, or even his mother -- someone he’d never known but thought of often, knew enough about in her absence and disappearance that he could imagine what she was like, her emotions leading up to her decision -- growing up, and even now, Will’s not entirely sure how much of him is ... him. He’s usually left wobbly on his feet and blurry in his mind when consulting on cases, the lovely effect of connecting with the crime on an emotional level often too much to bear, but the Lost Boys case dredged up old emotions, memories he’d stored far away.

Will’s averse to the idea of family and disconnected from the knowledge of what a healthy family is like. But with Abigail Hobbs - with her father - that changed. Will isn’t her father. He’s not Garrett Jacob Hobbs :  He’s never wanted to be, and he never wants to be. But he’s stepped into his shoes, Garrett’s shoes. Garrett, who haunts him in his dreams and at day in equal turns, and Will isn’t Garrett Jacob Hobbs but that part of Garrett that was a father to Abigail has stuck. It stuck and manifested itself, in all its twisted glory until Will grounded himself and found himself again. He doesn’t love Abigail like a daughter in the way Garrett loved her: but he still loves her like a daughter nonetheless, connected to her by the trauma and horror they shared and his responsibility for what happened to her family, as well as who they are when facing the world and when hidden away from it.

His idea on family changed with Margot too, in that brief, beautiful, terrifying moment where he almost had a son, before it was ripped away. It changed with Molly, who already had a son, and loved him more than anything. Molly, who would give up the world for Wally, who wouldn’t even have to talk about Wally for Will to see how much she valued her family. Will felt that deeply with Molly, and felt it in himself too, as a result. Her own emotions stitching themselves into him until they were, inevitably, a part of him, too.

Everything blurs into itself in his mind, after all, and with each new case and each new person he finds himself inhibiting and becoming. But Will knows that the idea of a family -- wanting to have one and take care of them -- didn’t start with Molly, and it didn’t start with Abigail or Hannibal. It started with his father, who tried his best, who tried to make a family, who wanted one, and failed. Will knew he wished for it more than anything, and while Will would never know from first-hand experience what that would be like, that part of his father stuck with him. Will never connected to the concept on a personal level, as far as experience and understanding of it goes, but emotionally, Will has always, subconsciously, wanted it. 

It’s a different use for his empathy : where he can connect with others in a way that doesn’t involve murders or death or questions of morality and sanity. It’s connecting with others in a way that means stability, protection, and love. People he could care for, in ways the world never cared for him, in the ways the world never allowed him to care for others, and people who could understand him. It’s a distant desire he doesn’t know how to connect with fully, but that want persists regardless.

#( META / HC. ) ˢᵗᵃʳˢ ʰᶦᵈᵉ ʸᵒᵘʳ ᶠᶦʳᵉˢ ﹕ ᶫᵉᵗ ᶰᵒᵗ ᶫᶦᵍʰᵗ ˢᵉᵉ ᵐʸ ᵇᶫᵃᶜᵏ ᵃᶰᵈ ᵈᵉᵉᵖ ᵈᵉˢᶦʳᵉˢ⋅ #i've had this sitting in my drafts for the past like #WEEK #i'm not completely satisfied with the end of this because there's a lot more to say #but my brain is mush rn so i'll expand on it later ! #long post tw