#not to mention the fateful fucking day i learned about tsunamis

[psqqa]

this might just be because i am deeply, deeply terrified of The Vast Depths Of The Ocean, but i just cannot get myself up in arms about the whole "grave desecration" part of titanic tourism.

it is in fact significantly more comforting for me to imagine my hypothetical watery grave as somewhere people are constantly dropping in at all times than one where i am left to rest in cold, black, unfathomably desolate peace for all of eternity. cold, black, unfathomable desolation is precisely where the "nightmare" part of this nightmare scenario comes in for me, after all.

so yes, if you happen across my sunken bones, you all have my full permission to haul them back up to land. i don't care how much damage the oxygen and change in pressure is going to do to them and their archaeological value, just get me out of there.

#i acknowledge the anthropocentrism of this #but i feel like we can give my amygdala a pass on the self-centredness of its primal fears #this all being said #i fully respect it if grieving family members don't want people treating a location of great pain to them #as a fun tourist outing #the edmund fitzgerald is very much in living memory #for example #but like #the titanic is not #we're at a point where no one who personally knew anyone who died on the titanic is alive anymore #also we are constantly digging up wwi corpses and then sending them back to their country for proper military burial #when they've been identified #so like #this might be a significant moral failing on my part but i just cannot see the problem #anyway these oceangate folks really saw me fall back into one of my periodic Titanic Phases a few weeks ago #and said 'hey wouldn't it be fun if we kicked that morbid fascination up a notch or ten' #if it sounds like i am making light of this situation it is because this is very literally the nightmare scenario #the kursk sank when i was 10 and left its psychological fucking mark on me #not to mention the fateful fucking day i learned about tsunamis #horrifying #all of it #there is not enough money in the world to get me to go up into space or down into the depths of the ocean

[kitchenscene]

austin’s 911 / buddie fic rec

[ long post, so all fics are under the cut ]

tags: @michaelgrantnash , @bisexualbuck , @terryjeffordss

﹂cause love is whatever we want it to be by wafflesofdoom

summary: "he and buck, there was a sort of an inevitability to their relationship that scared eddie to his core, sometimes – but more and more now, he was realising that his fear was holding him back from something amazing.he –well, eddie was going to sweep buck off his feet."

personal opinion: there’s this line – ‘falling for you just felt inevitable’ –that just stuck with me. this is one of those fics that i’ll probably still be thinking about years from now.

﹂the ivory keys by tkreyesevandiaz

summary: buck didn’t think he’d come back to this one thing again. as a kid, he’d crashed into the habit like a beautiful accident. he’d stumbled upon the old instrument in the guest house where his parents usually held brunches and parties for other aristocrats in their circles, at age eight. after hearing the reverberating sound from the keys, it became an obsession to learn.

personal opinion: very very very sweet. i literally had dreams about this fic after i read it.

﹂encore by pline

summary: “I’m going insane.”

“Did something happen?”

A dark, bitter laugh bubbles out of Buck – a mockery of joy.

“Everything keeps happening, and it’s still the same fucking day. It’s always the same and every time it’s different and I can’t do anything.”

Or

Buck keeps reliving the same day, over and over again.

personal opinion: oh my GOD oh my god i love time loops. the angst !!! (make sure you read the tags though for tw)

﹂knocking on heaven’s door by MomentsOfWeakness

summary: buck isn’t sure where he is. the last thing he remembers was being out on a call. now he’s here, in a place he has never seen before surrounded by people he doesn't know. it's bright. that's all he can really tell.

based on a tumblr prompt where someone asked for buck and chris both ending up in purgatory at the same time before they ever met in life. buck has a ticket back to the living world but he gives it to chris who is supposed to die. an old man, seeing what buck did for chris, decides to give his own ticket for the living world to buck, because the world needs more people like him.

personal opinion: i included this on an old fic rec post and i’m linking it again because i love it. this is so poetic and lovely.

﹂eddie begins by malmal88

summary: these are words he’s never spoken out loud before. each experience that counts as proof has been folded up and carefully tucked away inside of himself. he spent all the time in between each one of the cornerstone moments trying to prove to himself, to his father, to anyone who was paying attention that it wasn’t true. he was almost successful at it. but there is only so long you can deny who you are.

personal opinion: this is part of a three fic series, and it’s one of my fav eddie centric fics. all three together are a masterpiece.

﹂i’ll see you in my dreams by talk_too_much

summary: in which buck finds himself inexplicably married to his best friend, but it’s fine, he’s figuring it out.

personal opinion: this is part one of a two fic series, definitely read both of them. not much i can say plot wise without spoiling it, but this is a fic that i come back too a lot.

﹂it wasn’t fate that led me to you by theskyisblue

summary: evan buckley was seven years old when his vision for the red string of fate came to life. his mother had talked with him for hours that day, explaining to him what he saw, why he saw what he saw, and how he should never breathe a word to a single soul about what he saw. he was still too young to understand that the red string of fate was more complicated than his seven-year-old mind made it out to be, that love was far more complex than a simple fated partner and a happily ever after.

personal opinion: oh it’s got a Moral at the end, which i like. happy ending, but not in the way you’d think.

﹂carnations by red_to_black

summary: evan buckley has never once been given flowers in his life. that is, until he mentions it in a fit of self-pity at the firehouse. then they're everywhere. what he can't work out is where they're coming from.

(or: buck mentions never getting flowers before, and a certain someone decides to remedy that.)

personal opinion: one of those fics where it’s so cute that i have to set my phone down for a sec and take a few breaths or else i’ll get overwhelmed. love love love.

﹂kiss me like you mean it by HaleyDingle

summary: 5 times eddie kisses buck + 1 time he really kisses him.

personal opinion: i think i’ve reread this like five times at least. very sweet.

﹂stick with you by soft_satan

summary: eddie licked his dry lips as he reached for his radio, trying to keep his movements slow and delicate to prevent any more damage to himself or buck.

“Diaz to Captain Nash.”

“Go for Nash,” came Bobby’s quick reply.

“You two okay? Where are you?”

“We’re in a bit of a sticky situation here…”

“We’re a shish kabob, Cap!” Buck chimed in. Eddie rolled his eyes.

personal opinion: oooh babey the angst. the self sacrificing bullshit. i love it.

﹂to glimpse red by tkreyesevandiaz

summary: red was the color of passion, of seduction, of happiness and prosperity. it was the color of danger, of fire, of violence, of blood. but in this moment, red was the color of pure terror.

personal opinion: oh im a slut for navy seals!buck and this delivers.

﹂the urgency of now by wayfarer

summary: buck is pretty sure the universe is actively trying to murder him at this point. there’s just no other explanation. in the last two years he has been blown up and subsequently crushed by a fire truck, suffered from a pulmonary embolism, nearly drowned in a tsunami and now this. how many times can he almost die before it stops being an accident and starts being some kind of cosmic hit put out on his life?

or, a building collapses on Buck and Eddie. confessions ensue.

personal opinion: i don’t usually cry when i read fics but this made me cry like a little baby.

﹂if i didn’t have you by rebeccaofsbfarm

summary: Eddie groans, but he gets down on his knee, setting their beers on the pavement. He works to unknot the laces, then ties them again. He goes to stand, but Buck stops him with a hand on his shoulder.

“Eddie…” he looks up to see that Buck’s eyes are the size of dinner plates. He leans on his knee, trying to understand why Buck is so flustered, and then he hears the shutter of a camera. In his peripheral, he sees that a crowd has gathered around them, and half of the people have their phones out, recording.

Eddie’s eyes connect with Buck’s, and while he is panicked, Buck is trying so hard not to laugh that there are tears gathering in the corners of his eyes. The crowd must see it and misread it as Buck being overcome with emotion, because they coo in response.

“Fuck,” Eddie curses under his breath, quiet enough that only Buck can hear him. “What do I do here?”

Buck snorts, “Sorry man, I think you’ve got to commit now.”

personal opinion: fuck dating we’re skipping straight to proposals.

﹂waves (it comes and goes) by SunSpell80

summary: evan buckley left his past behind when he left home for good at age 19. but an unexpected phone call on a quiet shift disrupts the life he's built for himself: forcing him to confront his past in order to build a new future.

personal opinion: make sure you read the tws but oooOOh the slowburn ? the family drama ? i live for it

﹂you’re gonna have a great time by waytotheend

summary: chris leaves a list of 20 things buck can do to cheer eddie up while he's at camp; somehow it turns into a 20 steps plan to woo eddie.

personal opinion: ‘i don’t know buck, i’m nine’ sends me every time.

#fic recs #911 fics #911 fox #fic rec #allie talks #evan buckley #eddie diaz #buddie #this is much longer than i intended #and im sure im forgetting some #fics

[sazandorable]

AU centered around Sheba landing elsewhere as a baby? (Landing in Prox or near Champa or Shaman Village for example, whichever you take to be most interesting)

She falls in Prox. She breaks through the dark sky at the dead of winter and lands right in front of the Lighthouse. There have been talks, already, of doing something about the chasm. The miracle is seen as an omen, a message from the Mars Star, and even reluctant Puelle has to concede that this means approval of the plan that had been hotly debated. A delegation is sent to Mount Aleph. Even a full decade earlier, Saturos and Menardi are already amongst the best of Prox, and though they do not lead, they are part of that party.But they are younger, and not as desperate (the threat and the edge of the world still more distant), and they are bolder and brasher, bolstered by the knowledge that their mission has the blessing of Mars. There are no survivors this time.

When no one comes back, Puelle, who has been entrusted with the caretaking of the fallen child, realizes that perhaps she was not the message, but the messenger. She will be their hero, she will be the one who releases Alchemy and saves Prox.So she is raised as a hero and trained as a warrior, even though she is a fragile human without scales or claws. She becomes very much not fragile by OUR standards, but she has to work a lot more than the average Prox kids to even match them in power. She fucking does, because if there’s one thing that’s even stronger in her than her rebellious spirit, it’s her spite.She grows up along with Karst, who is only a few years older and is one of the few children in Prox who has no sibling to pester into sparring with her. They beat each other up multiple times a week and become friends. Karst is a much different, more likeable person this way around; she has grown up with her parents’ mourning (further complicated by the fact that they just never heard back of the mission at all, never had the news, never saw a body), and she doesn’t remember her sister for herself. Where Sheba is actively encouraged to be adventurous and destined to leave Prox to travel the world and is given daily outlets to channel any frustration and aggressivity into beating up training dummies, Karst is very sheltered by her parents and a much calmer, melancholy kid. But she also wants to be a warrior, and trains hard to be able to accompany and protect her funny little white-skinned and scale-less friend when the time comes.

The time comes when Sheba is eighteen and the void is only the size of a few houses away from the Lighthouse — perhaps a couple years left until it falls in. The trip has been discussed for ages, and the conclusion was: since twenty of Prox’s best warriors were not enough, no force this time; diplomacy or stealth, only a couple warriors — Karst and Agatio — as escort to the Messenger From The Sky, and two more to stay outside of Vale and come back to report to Prox. When they reach Vale, Garet is twenty-one and has been an orphan since the age of three. Felix, who was only four years old when the boulder fell this time, never was on the pier, and his and Isaac’s family made it out perfectly safely, but Garet’s parents, the mayor’s son and his wife, were young and lively and good Adepts. They were first in line to deal with the catastrophe, and they both perished. The mayor is technically elected, but the position is often inherited, as a mayor’s children grow up seeing and learning how to take care of the town. So Kay and Garet are in the room when Sheba and Karst stampede into their grandfather’s house (and Agatio follows sighing and preparing for disaster).Sheba is in charge, so the talks do not really go very smoothly, but it has been almost twenty years — the wounds are not as fresh. There’s more talk. Sheba actually mentions Prox’s fate. Kraden has been living in Vale for longer and is allowed to sit in and contribute to discussion. In the end, Kay and Garet, along with their husbands Felix and Isaac (BECAUSE I DO WHAT I WANT), take Sheba, Karst and Kraden into the Sanctum. (Agatio is made to stay behind as collateral and also being the most dangerous. He’s fine with that, he gets a pot of tea and chats with the old mayor while Aaron and Jenna glare at him.)TL;DR they almost kill everyone again because Karst, but no one gets kidnapped and in the end they get the stars, Vale grudgingly allows them to try and do the thing, Kraden insists to come along To Witness This, and so do Isaac and Felix to give some Venus support and Vale rep (and babysit him) while their mayor’s-family spouses stay back to look after the town. A week into the trip Felix and Karst have a rivalry over who is Sheba’s better bodyguard (this despite the fact that Sheba can fry monsters perfectly well on her own).

Alex never met the Proxians and never left Imil. He is the one that takes them up Mercury Lighthouse, and between him and the three Proxians, it is a joyride. Then he tags along because he’s interested in releasing Alchemy, and Mia ambushes them outside the Lighthouse and joins the group as well because the Lighthouse is now lit (and possibly more of her Clan has survived with Alex’s additional help) and because she can’t possibly let her lunatic cousin out of her sight on a trip to release Alchemy.The sass. The banter. The snark. Constantly. Sheba is probably head over heels in love with Mia by the time they reach Kolima.

… Four years earlier, they may well have met Ivan as a tree in Kolima. But this time, Hammet just happened to not be in that part of the world at the time of the eruption, and instead, they first meet Hama at her temple, who teaches Reveal to Sheba and tells him to look for a young man in Kalay, after the desert, who is fated to help them, and to take him with them across the ocean. They do the logical thing and go ask the town leaders if he knows anything about a Fated young man in town, and Hammet and Layana have The Talk with Ivan. They cross the sea to Tolbi in one of Hammet’s merchant ships.

Babi is already dead, but since they’ve single-handedly saved the Colosso and Tolbi’s economy by wiping the Karagol of its monsters, Iodem shrugs and agrees to let a young woman compete in the Colosso. SHEBA CHEERFULLY CHEATS AND KICKS MAJOR ASS. Iodem considers opening it to teenage girls starting next year, Felix judges as the snarky entire rest of the team deadpan that yeah there’s probably an audience for that.The construction of Babi’s lighthouse was dropped as soon as he kicked the bucket, possibly earlier, because Iodem isn’t a monster. Venus Lighthouse goes without a hitch, except for the slight tsunami problem that comes after. Alex has to be yelled at to help Mia into protecting Lalivero from the worst of it. They get Babi’s Lemurian ship because… uuhhhh… idk Iodem gifted it to the town as excuses for the lighthouse thing? I don’t remember if it can be sailed at all by non-Adepts, if they have the thingy that makes it go Black Orb. (Piers didn’t get stranded by the tsunami bc he just happened to not be out fishing that day. They meet him in Lemuria at some point and he’s a bit wistful, but his mom is still alive.)

Jupiter is the easiest. Nothing much to say here. Ivan reunites with his sister, Sheba muses about how it feels kinda weird for her to be going home now, she wasn’t really expecting to find anything about her true origins but… still…

This has all been WAY too easy and the Wise One is feeling extra pissy, so the Doom Dragon has five heads (gotta make up for no Fusion Dragon!): Puelle and Karst’s and Agatio’s parents.

I guess they save the world.

Alex mumbles something about hey couldn’t we like use this nifty jewel to warp back to Vale and climb Mount Aleph real fast and get some of this cool infinite power and eternal life and —everyone whacks him.

#droory #golden sun #the lost age #UA #this is the most fun I've had with one of these universe alterations in a while omg #hence the long time it took me to answer thanks so much for that ask omgggg #sheba #long post #au meme #sheba probably smooches mia under the light of the rising sun right in front of her newly-resurrected adoptive dad #mia feels right at home in prox (got used to dragon people) and sheba has done enough leading world-saving quests so that works out fine #oh my gods you know who's left alone to ship away within the group aside from obvs. karst/agatio? #alex/ivan. alex/agatio. ivan/karst. all of these options are delightful #btw sheebs probably grew up with a crush on karst and things may or may not have happened #but i'm mia/sheba trash so that's not endgame

[megacircuit9universe]

Just Saying

SAT MAR 07 2020

So... after monitoring TikTok for a couple days, I’ve seen a definite uptick in pro Bernie, and anti Bernie rhetoric... which I need to break down a bit.

On the pro Bernie side, there has been more acknowledgement that so far, the young vote has not turned out in any meaningful way so far... with appeals to young voters to step up... being mostly low key.

On Twitter, Bernie tweeted something like, hey, young people, this is your campaign. You need to vote here. Just saying.

On TikTok, it’s been like, Hey, um... you guys might want to vote right now in the rest of the primaries... cuz... just saying.

...With a couple of punctuated, Fuck You Vote!, peppered into the feed.

And beside this, also an uptick of TikToks that just review why Bernie is a good candidate, and what he’s about, that are positive, but non judgemental.

So... a low key, no pressure, shoulder nudge to all the young voters... ya might wannna do this though, right?.. in the primaries like we talked about?

This is probably the best approach, and one much wiser than I could’ve conceived, because it’s quite true that today’s young generation is a lot more shy and introverted than any we’ve seen since the Silent Generation... and also a bit more intelligent... as every successive generation tends to be.

Thus, the subtle approach is what’s called for.  Nobody’s freaking out.  Nobody’s trying to tell you what to do. But... this is kind of important. So... Just saying.

On the flip side, however, I’ve seen a huge increase in TikTok posts by youthful conservatives... some idiots, and some half convincing pseudo-intellectuals... with the former posting quick anti Bernie cheep shots, and the latter... disingenuous take downs of socialism.  

And it’s these conservative TikTokers this week... not just in their videos, but in their hashtagging and what they’re leaving in the comments of the Progressive TikToks... that betrays they already see Bernie as Trump’s opponent for reelection.

And that’s very interesting, because it suggests that from their vantage point... Bernie is already the Democratic Nominee.

They don’t care about the inside baseball of the Democratic primary season, or who won what state, or how many delegates we’re at right now.  They simply see Bernie.

Now, maybe on Facebook it’s a different world.  I don’t know, because I keep away from Facebook. But it’s probably old farts attacking Biden for Burisma... and other old farts cheering Biden, and hating on socialist Bernie, who will surely lose.

But... we don’t care about Facebook, because all of their votes are guaranteed and reflected accurately in the polls.  We care about TikTok, because that tells us something about an army of potential first time voters, from 18 to 38, who really hold the fate of the world in their hands.

There is a showdown happening right now, inside that generation... between their left and the right wings... kinda feeling each other out.  Do we really want this fight?  What are the stakes here?  What is the world right now?

It should be noted here that, after being an active user of the app for a year, the algorithm’s learned not to feed me more than the occasional conservative viewpoint, in a sea of funny memes and... lesbians?   The algorithm has identified me as a lesbian?... and I’m oddly quite okay with that.

Point being... over the past two days I’ve been seeing pointed conservative TikToks almost every other scroll, on the For You page... which can only mean there’s a huge tsunami of them rolling out right now... so many that my poor algorithm can barely keep them down to 50% of what I see.

Not a single one is anti-Biden.  There is no mention of Biden whatsoever... on either side.  Just... the occasional clip of him being dementia on stage, like... really?

You might be thinking, That’s because these young conservatives know there are no arguments to be made against Biden, so they attack the candidate they know is the loser... Bernie!  They know he’s the loser, so they’re just attacking the loser for being a loser!

But, you know that’s not how it works, right?

Attack the threat, is politics 101.

Last Summer, when everybody assumed Joe Biden would for sure be the Democratic Nominee... Trump set into motion a plot to discredit him, that got him impeached.

Talk about an over-reaction to some favorable polling about Joe Biden, seven months before Iowa.

Yes, in the mainstream media, Trumpists are, half heartedly, going after Biden a little bit, but... not with anything near the kind of bitch ass bravado they’d like to bring down on him... if he were the actual threat.

But he’s not... because he’s in stage three of an early onset dementia, and nobody wants to do this to him.  Not even his worst enemies want to do this to him.  Nobody is stooping so low as to take pot shots against a guy in stage three of early onset dementia.  

They know we’ll never nominate him, because if we did... well what kind of monsters would we be?

Reelection guaranteed.  What were you even thinking?  Are you even a party anymore, after a move like that?  

Bernie is the threat.

And while he is not the threat they wanted to face... they’re sharpening their anti-socialist talking points on TikTok in preparation for the big fight in the fall.

...Or so would be my best interpretation of the goings on I’ve witnessed online over the past 48 hours.

That’s my best gaze into the crystal ball tonight.

Gotta get to bed.

Daylight Saving Time is kicking in today.

[withoutjoy]

hmf

i.

gasoline runs in pale blue veins; bright city lights, scratching of needle against vinyl disc, shouts of victory accompanying the kisses lovers shared with their loved ones upon returning from war. ivory skin made of cemented road and daunting skyscrapers. monochromatic is the photo that serve as the only reminder of homeland, where gunpowder is suffocatingly thick in the air and earth dyed red from the spilled blood of brothers in arms. mingfei has never fit in anywhere, not even in the comforts of his blood and flesh. his skin is too dark to blend in with the crowd when he walks in the main road. soil-colored eyes dull--boring, even, compared to the cerulean blue or forest green of his friends'. his black hair seem to be a stark contrast against the lighter colored hair everywhere he goes. but he understands.

he understands that he is different. he understands that it is okay to be different. he learns that it is better to retreat than to be deemed ill-fated. he learns that to get by he’d have to cast that identity aside by blending in. he understands and learns to accept that compared to the prismatic hues of this foreign land, he’s just an analogous scheme of beige, black and white.

( vibrant red with dark crimson, sunny yellow with elm, spring green with dull cherry-wood, and sky blue with thick grey )

he also understands that it is human’s nature to never be able to have their thirst quenched; no matter how many lives are taken, how many youth and old spirit ripped away from the warm embrace of their families, how much mothers starve just so their children can survive, humans will always be there to destroy anything in their path. to get rid of everything that shares a different view from them over a baseless paranoia.

and him being here--in a land far away from home--is the living proof. heck, he might as well call himself the very product and victim of war.

ii.

ironically it started when a life ended.

papa thinks he’s sick in the head. gege thinks he’s a morbid freak. mama is too busy rotting in her coffin to care, dawn-colored discoloration adorning her pale skin beneath broken ribs and damaged internal organs--a complete contrast to the white dress and lilies held by nimble fingers.

mingfei thinks he should be sad--or scared at least, but why would he be when his dreams have shown him worse things?

( his fingers bleed grotesque; vermilion jarring upon the dull white of paper. black outlines the shape of a woman sprawled upon gray concrete. a small car as if complimenting the lifeless body next to it )

so papa sends him to a place far, far away. no, not the place where you get your happily ever after, where the princess marries the prince. or the monster that threatened the town vanquished by the knights in shining armor. or the place where all the rainbows point to. no.

to the place where normal people fix people like him. where any methods are used in order to straighten crooked lines.

then mingfei thinks again; maybe, he can finally fit in somewhere after this.

iii.

the sensations hit him abruptly like a tsunami.

first, head up in cloud nine. vision swimming. mingfei lets the current carry him anywhere they want to. ignoring the buzzing sound near his ears or the poking on his eye. he sees the distorted blue of the sky with cotton white clouds. he sees his parents’ smiling faces when they arrived at their new house. he sees the colorful billboards scattered around in downtown new york. his mother smiling at him, mouthing “it’s going to be okay”.

second, the pain is sharp enough to cut through everything, even the daze inflicted upon him. brown iris dilates, light coming in too much at once. gauze obstructs his left eye. black locks are shaved clean. two pair of holes pierce both sides of his head, on top of his ears. his sight are blurry, no matter how much he tries to focus. how long has he been out?

third, confusion settles in. why is it still here? the man in the white suit promised he’s going to be okay. but if anything his ears catches the voices a lot easier now. the dreams gotten worse, to the point where he would wake up in someplace else that his awake state doesn’t even recall. faces seem like a disarray of oil color on wet canvas in his mind.

well, perhaps that’s what happens when one attempts to cure something that has been there from the very beginning.

fortunately, the madam that came to pick him up one day understands that clearly. her features lost in soil-colored hues, yet the red lipstick burns in the back of his mind as clear as the daylight. she picked him up like how a grandmother would to their grandson at school, warm hand enveloping tiny one as they walk towards the outside world. golden strands gleaming when the sunlight filters through them. he thinks her voice is croaky, but it’s not exactly unpleasant.

“you’re coming with me, young man. i’ll show you how unique you are.” she said, pearly white teeth bared while looking upon him. mingfei smiles back, ignoring the amount of bodies scattered behind them, their blood splashed on dirty green of the asylum’s interior. could this really be it?

iv.

miss heron is very nice to him. she lets mingfei eat delicious food until he’s full for two-times a day. never to raise her voice and always patient while explaining the things he doesn’t understand. she let everyone embrace their ‘peculiarities’ by encouraging them to utilize it, like listening to the dreams he has each night and putting him back to bed when he sleepwalks. its almost his first year of staying with her yet never once mingfei has been hit with a belt or a wooden stick whenever he missed a target with his knives during training sessions. and he is more than happy for that.

but what’s better is the amount of books in her library. it’s almost like a room of endless shelves, each one containing books mingfei doesn’t even know exist. from the illustrated storybook that miss heron would read to the younger kids in her orphanage to the books with difficult words in it. yixing decided that he’s fond of the psychology and medicine sections and would spend hours there even if it’s just to look at the diagrams.

he learns that the name of his peculiarity is extrasensory perception; esp for short. people around the nation has been conducting research on people with peculiarities like him, but some is skeptical and try to cure them by driving stakes into the patient’s head instead--just like what they did to him.

either way mingfei is pleased, because he knows he’s not the only one now.

v.

it always ends as soon as it begins for him.

he was never one to lose his temper over things so easily, but the very composure he thought he possessed flew away upon finding out that the invisible creature that took miss heron’s eyes were the same runt that couldn’t keep his mouth shut during his reading sessions in the library.

he thought about abandoning the remaining children--he really did. but the responsibility of leading them automatically falls onto his hands as the oldest of the group. and who is he to say no if their caretaker herself decreed so in her last breaths?

so in the end mingfei gave in. the role as the guardian taken with a heavy heart and watery eyes. the task of finding loops for the other children to live in wasn’t easy, and there are sacrifices he had to make. but what’s that compared to a gratitude of a lifetime?

he’s all but sunken cheeks and hollow eyes when he stepped out of the last loop, leaving the last child for the ymbryne to take care of after five years of living in the streets. saccharine voice convinced him to stay, but mingfei rejects the prospect of living in momentarily peace if the same incident will only repeat itself again.

( he eventually stopped his travels and settled down in a loop somewhere in russia, though. twenty five and he becomes the headmistress’ most trusted keeper )

vi.

six decades of waiting for a chance to strike back, six decades of gritted teeth and clenched fist. his disease decided to make an appearance on the moment that counts.

it was just one, minuscule cut to his finger, courtesy of the throwing knife he hadn’t touched for so long. the cut wasn’t even deep yet the red that flows from it managed to put him into a state of  unconsciousness for almost a day.

the headmistress’ voice is clear as the day even in his dazed state when she told him he’s not cut out to be a hunter, that he’s going to teach the ones that has the potential instead. empty eyes glanced at the spot on the wall across his bed, words lost to deaf ears save for the occasional mentions of ‘new loop’ ‘mara-do’, and ‘transfer’.

the world is so fucking unfair. but what’s new, really?

#profile #mine #peculiarity au #zyx fc

[ruffsficstuffplace]

The Keeper of the Grove (Part 83)

Note: Incoming Drama, and mentions of Raven being a TERRIBLE mother and Fae in general.

Everything was bottled, put off the burners, and stored away in boxes or long-term fermentation. Cheese was given a protective wax paper coating so it wouldn't get contaminated as it bounced of after Weiss and Winter.

“So I guess this is our new life now...” Winter muttered as she and Weiss perched or sat on the counters.

“Maybe not permanently!” Weiss replied. “The realm will have moved onto something else by next year, and we won't be as high priority targets for the AFA, or that easily recognized by people.”

Winter huffed. “Doubt that! The way I see it, the only way we can avoid getting caught and executed for treason, kidnapping the current Holy Shepherd, and all the other crimes we're guilty for is if we stay here in the Valley, get shuffled off to the other Fae-controlled territories wherever they may be, or live in some backwater village out in the Country where our only company will be other fugitives and terrorists on the run.”

She held her hand up in the air. “These new powers of ours will also be a problem—even if we could get help from the scientists at Candela, no one’s had to treat or train human magicians for centuries...”

Weiss looked down at her gloved hand; she was starting to be able to ignore the muzzled, muffled feeling, but she doubted it'd ever truly go away, until she could permanently turn off the safety switch.

“At the very least, I can guarantee you this arrangement is a lot better than some of the forward bases I've lived in...” Winter said. “I’ve got serious concerns with the new organization I’m working for, though...”

“Mind if I butt in?” Taiyang asked as he walked by the lab, sweaty and dirty from all the work.

Winter nodded.

“The Council’s not that bad, you know,” Taiyang said. “They’re a lot like the governments in the city states: pay your taxes and stay within the law, and they’ll keep the walls up and the wild animals and Country warlords out, keep the peacekeepers equipped and trained, and the trains and social services running.”

“I’ve noticed, but the absolute power, the denial of information to citizens, and these ‘governors’ give me pause.”

Taiyang chuckled. “As someone who’s lived on both sides of the coins for decades, I can tell you the Council just skips the campaigning, the voting, and the convincing people they’re fit to lead; most Fae just don’t give a crap about most of the stuff their governments do, too; and the governors are only if you really fuck up, or get on the Watcher’s bad side one too many times.”

“Well what in the world did you do to deserve a device that essentially turns you into a slave?”

Taiyang frowned. “It’s a long, awful story, and if you two don’t mind me eating the rest of that cheese, I’ll tell you it.”

“If it’s ‘The Shit’ I’ve been hearing so much about, you’ve got a deal,” Weiss said.

Taiyang nodded as he came over to cheese. “Might want to get out your plushies, and have Penny get plenty of chocolate and tissues from the house. It’s one of those stories.”

Weiss nodded. “We will.”

They sat in Winter’s temporary bed/nest, Winter holding her Eluna plushie in her lap, Weiss with a jumbo-sized box of tissues, and Penny on standby with her “therapy mender” protocols already loaded, along with equipment and ingredients for making homemade chocolate ice cream.

“We’re going to need them,” Taiyang said, before he sat down in front of them retold his account of how he met Summer and the others for Winter’s benefit.

“… I told her, ‘Summer, this could be the last time we’ll ever see each other. I’ve got nothing waiting for me back at Valentino, what’s left of my family’s content for me to holochat every once in a while, and I know that you know we’ve got a connection here—something that could be the start of something beautiful.

“’So please: will you take me back with you guys to the Country? I won’t freeload or anything—I’ll do anything you need me to! I lived in Valentino, doing whatever it took to survive is second nature to me!’

“So, after a long emergency meeting with Raven and Qrow, and buying him as much beer as I could with the money that was supposed to be my airfare back to Valentino, they agreed, and I couldn’t have been happier.”

“Did they take you back to the secret teleporter at the Plushie Palace?” Weiss asked.

Taiyang shook his head. “Nah, Summer just told me, ‘Close your eyes, and don’t move; just trust me, alright?’”

“And you did it just like that…?” Winter asked.

Taiyang nodded. “Didn’t know what she was going to do, but I owed her for bailing me out from getting stranded in Candela, and one of the best Eves of the Ether I’d ever had. So you could just imagine my surprise when I was teleported away for the first time and found myself at the emergency evac totem at the Roost.”

“What did you do?” Winter asked.

“Well, first I screamed, ran around, then threw up. Then, I spent a long while in a corner crying and begging them to just bust me already, tell me that this was all one elaborate prank for a really, really, really high-budget holovision show with an actress I’d really like to get the number of later. Finally, after the watchers cleared me, I got my care package, and I was laying on my back on the couch staring at the ceiling, I realized:

“This was all real.”

“Did the Council tell you they could send you back home any time they wanted?” Weiss asked. “Because they only planned to tell me because me and Ruby were… together then.”

Taiyang shook his head. “Nah. Summer told me outright, and the Council confirmed that as she already outed the secret—I guess it helped that I was just a nobody from Valentino, no one could recognize my face on the street even if they wanted to, and I hadn’t faked my death on live holovision.”

Weiss looked down.

“So when do the Keepers or the Council tell potential mates they could help them leave?” Winter asked.

“Depends,” Taiyang said. “The humans that end up staying here were already on the run from the law like Abner, were already looking for someplace different to live in like myself and Weiss, had something that made it in their best interest to stay like you and Reynault, or had already fallen head over heels for the Keeper like Samaria.

“The Council usually has a maximum six month time limit, both to make all the arrangements so they can prove that they really did mean what they say, and give the potential mates enough time to get over the initial shock, see if they can adjust to Valley life.”

“Isn’t it incredibly manipulative that they don’t just tell them outright?” Weiss asked.

“Exactly, and they won’t say it’s anything else! But then again, if the fate of all of Avalon rested on one specific Fae making babies with humans and mostly human hybrids, I’d do everything I could to help make that happen, too.

“I’m not saying it’s okay, because it’s definitely not, just that I understand it.”

“I’m assuming this put a lot of strain with you and Summer’s budding relationship...” Winter said.

Taiyang chuckled. “Without a doubt! It torpedoed everything, all prospects sunken down to the bottom of the Endless Sea. The only reason I stayed afterward was that being broke and penniless in the Valley isn’t as bad as it is back at Valentino—the food, the congestion, and the air’s way better for one, and it’s pretty easy to grow yourself a kickass full-course meal for cheap, if you don’t mind going vegan.

“But then, bit by bit, things got better.

“I bulked up now that I was eating properly, had plenty of exercise from the farming, and piggybacked on the equipment in the training grounds when the others weren’t using them. When I was strong enough, I joined them on their hunts to absorb the excess echoes from the prey they were killing, and eventually, I was tangoing one-to-one with all kinds of nasties!

“Have you ever punched a shark so hard it flies out of the water? I have! It was fucking awesome.

“Summer was all too eager to help me out however she could, to make up for all the trauma she’s caused me, and also because she was still interested in me. I was, too, but I had been in way too many relationships that weren’t entirely what they seemed, so I was wary of getting together with her.”

“So why did you choose to do it anyway?” Weiss asked.

Taiyang smiled. “Because things were going great! I was well on my way to mastering the Tsunami-Fist, could hold off a Soul Eater for a good long while and not end up in the hospital for weeks after, and had saved up enough money from working for the watchers that I could afford a place of my own elsewhere in the Bastion.

“And I found I really didn’t want to, even if I could. Since this also around the time my brain finally processed the idea that someone could like me without wanting me for an ulterior motive or trying to use me to get something, I decided, why the hell not?

“What’s the worst that could happen?”

Taiyang looked down. “… Well, I could learn that my kids were going to be destined to save the realm by throwing themselves into potentially mortal danger on a daily basis, all because people and folks long, long dead fucked up, Big Time, and the Fae have given up on closing Pandora’s box and settled for standing on the edge of the lid and throwing back whatever comes crawling out.

He looked up at Winter and Weiss. “I loved Summer, alright? I just couldn’t be in a relationship with her. I couldn’t stomach the idea of my kids—our kids—having the fate of the realm thrust on their shoulders, just because of who their parents were.”

“So what did you do...?” Weiss asked.

Taiyang closed his eyes. He saw Summer’s face that day two decades ago, the hurt and the tears in her eyes, the way he could just tell that she wasn’t at all surprised that that was what he would say, what we he would do.

“Okay...” Summer whispered, her voice trembling. “I… I understand.”

Taiyang opened his eyes, wiped his tears with the back of his hand. “She… well she, wasn’t okay with it. Not by a long shot. But she loved me still, and because of that, she tried her damndest to be okay with it.

“That probably would have been the end of any prospects of a relationship, if Raven hadn’t swooped in.” Taiyang paused. “Heh. ‘Swooped in.’”

Winter and Weiss groaned.

Taiyang ignored them. “For context, her and Qrow’s family, the Branwen Clan, are obsessed with power, determined to be the strongest in all the land, then have children who go on to become even more badass than they were. I guess it was kind of inevitable, since they were living in the dusty hellhole that we call Sekhmet.

“The generally aim for the position of, or power equal to that of the Council’s Huntsmaster—Port, at the moment—but Raven set her goal even higher, the one Fae who could kill something even they have trouble with:

“The Keeper of the Grove.

“It was why they moved here in the first place, signed up to be her personal watchers/chroniclers—she wanted to be as close to Summer as possible, learn everything there was about her, and piggyback on all the excess echoes she and the scythe can’t absorb from Soul Eaters, so eventually she could get strong and smart enough to beat her.”

“Did she ever suspect anything?” Weiss asked.

Taiyang shook her head. “Nah, but only because Raven told her outright she was planning to defeat her one of these days.”

“Why did she agree…?” Winter asked. “I’m not a Keeper, but having a subordinate whose primary goal is to attempt to overthrow you is not a very smart hiring decision!”

“Two reasons: Summer is just nice like that, and no one is exactly dying to sign up for Keeper support staff positions, knowing you’ll probably be in the thick of a fight with a Soul Eater, and have to deal with all the chaos the Keepers attract like industrial sized magnets.

“I don’t know how Blake ended up signing up to be one of Ruby’s watchers, but you just know she didn’t have much of a choice in the matter. And Penny only got the position because Abner can rebuild her if she happens to get destroyed, which saves the Council the trouble of having to find a replacement watcher-mender if we were using an actual Fae.”

Weiss and Winter paused, letting that information sink in.

“How did her plan work out, exactly?” Winter asked.

“She challenged Summer to one-on -ne duels at the training grounds, same time every week, only ever interrupted by Soul Eater attacks.” Taiyang smirked. “She always lost, never even came remotely close to winning, and I guess it really rubbed her the wrong way that she could still lose that badly even if it was clear that Summer was holding back every time.

“So she decided that if she couldn’t become the strongest Fae in the land, she could just try to raise a child that would be. And to do that, she needed a second parent, someone who she was sure had power out the wazoo, and had some pretty damn good genetics to pass on, too...”

Weiss and Winter eyes widened in horror. “She used you like that?!” Weiss cried.

Taiyang nodded. “In her defense, she really did love me—in her own fucked up, unhealthy, crazy way. And I was young, even more of a bonehead that I am even now, and had… uh… needs.”

Winter and Weiss shuddered. “Let’s… please not get into that.” Winter muttered.

Taiyang chuckled. “That was all I was going to say about it! Back on track, it looked like things were—well, not great, but getting better: Summer had moved on and was looking for a different mate, me and Raven were starting a family, and even from birth Yang was proving herself to be a real powerhouse.

“Gotta say, it was a real eye opener when you have to replace the wooden bars of your baby’s crib with ironbark so she can’t break them off and escape. Even then, I always had to remember to bend them back into place or else she’d eventually make a gap big enough to go through.”

“How in the world was Yang that strong at barely a year old?!” Winter asked. “I was old enough to remember Weiss in her crib, and she didn’t nearly have that kind of strength!”

“Probably because most of your power comes from your magic, and you were eating Candela food—it’s not just the plants that grow and develop fast here in the Valley. It might have helped that Raven was a full-blooded Fae, than the hybrids I’m assuming one or both of your parents were.”

“Fair enough...” Winter said.

“Anyway, Yang was strong!” Taiyang frowned. “But not strong enough for Raven.

“Don’t get me wrong, I’d read all about Fae parenting, how they train their kids to be able to handle themselves for anything as early as possible, but Branwen style child-raising is something else. To give you an idea: where most people would consider bleeding hands a good time to stop, for the Branwen Clan, it’s time to bandage them up, then do the other half of your set.”

Winter and Weiss looked horrified. “How was that legal?!” Winter cried.

Taiyang’s turned serious. “Just barely. Raven knew how to toe the line, and she was a master at hiding things, lying, and dodging suspicion like a veteran seeker.

“She could also be pretty manipulative if she wanted to, convince others nothing’s wrong, trick someone who doesn’t know any better that this is just ‘how the way the world works.’ And sometimes, the people that suspect something is up give her the benefit of the doubt at the worst time possible.”

The two sisters fell silent.

Taiyang closed his eyes. “I’ll spare you the really ugly details. Just know the only reason Raven was allowed to stay was because the Keeper requires at least one watcher-chronicler at all times, and if folks weren’t lining up for the job in the first place, it’s an even harder sell to tell them that they need to get a gadget installed that utterly erases all semblance of privacy for the rest of their lives.”

He sighed. “The irony wasn’t lost on me, you know? Here I was, avoiding a relationship with Summer, because I didn’t want to bring someone into the world knowing that they were going to grow up and train for their whole lives to fight monsters, possibly even get killed by them.

“And there I was, looking back and realizing that I’d done just that.

“I didn’t get together with Summer immediately after things fell apart with Raven, just to be clear here. The divorce, going through therapy for Yang and myself, being forced to live and work with Raven still—it all fucked me up, and we all knew I was in no condition to be doing anything other than try and heal from all the scars Raven left in me—physical, mental, and emotional.

“But like they say, time heals all wounds, and though we certainly weren’t fine a year later we were… better.

“I guess it helps that because the Fae can’t just pick up and move whenever they want to as their lives and sanity depend on being near city-sized wellsprings 24/7, they just decide to make the best they can with what they have.

“And what I had was a permanently traumatized daughter with trust and anger issues who could potentially bring down the house if she punched enough holes in the walls and we didn’t fix them in time, a constantly drunk friendly asshole for a brother-in-law, an ex-wife who in the span of less than a year had turned from passion firier than the Heart of the Forge, to frostier than the very bottom of the Coldburrow Caverns, and a slayer of giant monsters and best friend to all that was just barely holding us all together.

“My life wasn’t just in the toilet—I was way in the bottom of the city state-sized sewage tank.

“And so I figured, since I had already proven to myself and everyone around me that despite my best efforts I couldn’t protect my future or present children from the monsters of the world—whatever or whoever they were—there really wasn’t any reason for me not to get together with Summer.

“She was more of a mother to Yang than Raven ever was, leaps and bounds more competent at child raising than me and Qrow could ever be, and if I thought Raven was the best relationship I’d ever had in my life, she just proved to me how low I had been setting the bar in so many ways, so it wasn’t like anyone was going to lose out on this!

“Well, except for Raven.

“Because when Ruby was born, she was everything Raven wanted Yang to be, except better: she was stronger, she learned faster, she could use the Keeper’s scythe, and even Raven’s own sword would accept her as its wielder, whereas Yang managed to almost decapitate herself and lopped off a good chunk of Raven’s head-feathers when she tried to force her to use it.

“She never attacked Ruby—she knew better than to piss off who was going to be one of the most powerful Fae in all the realm. But seeing her plan fail, and see the living proof right before her eyes that it was her genes that were lacking, and not mine…?

“Well, you can just imagine how she felt about that.”

“What’d she do…?” Winter asked.

“She left the Hollow in the middle of breakfast one morning, and left us to send pack her bags and send it to her by mail—didn’t even pay for postage! Summer pleaded with her, the Council reminded her of her contract and her duties, but she had just had enough.

“The Keeper always needs a Chronicler, and should that member of her support team be sick or dead, or the position was unfilled, the rest of her team can make do with what’s essentially a chest holo-recorder. It’s not ideal as chronicles capture a lot more than just footage, but it was the only thing the Council could do until they found a replacement for Raven.

“They were essentially blind to whatever was going on in Keeper’s Hollow for those few weeks, and what we did tell them, they were trusting us to just tell them the truth, and the whole truth. And as you might expect, Raven didn’t walk out of our lives quietly, and left us with some choice parting words.

“We were all shook. We were scared. And I’ll admit, I got way too overprotective of Ruby after what had happened with Yang.”

“So what did you all do…?” Weiss asked.

Taiyang sucked in a deep breath, and sighed. “We left, too.

“Qrow doctored footage and reports, made a whole lot of shady deals, and we all called up some favours from friends both human and Fae, and we fled the Bastion and moved to a town in a peaceful, isolated island out in the Country—little place called New Hope.

“We left the scythe, the mask, and the cloak behind, thinking that the Fate would just do as it always did, find a replacement Keeper while a the current was dead or retired, and the new one was still growing up or hadn’t been born yet, as it had worked with Moira and all the other part-time Keepers over the centuries.

“And unfortunately, Fate chose Raven.”

#white rose #rwby #the keeper of the grove #fanfic