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lunarcovehq · 10 months

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ALL'S FAIRE IN LUNAR COVE - LUNAR COVE EVENT #7

Home you'll go and it's there you'll stay, and you've work to do in the morning, give up your dream of going away, forget your sailors in Galway

Once upon a time, in a small Rhode Island town known as Lunar Cove, a Council of Leaders gathered to discuss the upcoming holiday. The Fourth of July had hardly been a time for celebration, with the last Independence Day marking the first time the Catalyst had reached out to them via the warning 'be afraid'. But, to cancel the festivities entirely didn't seem to sit right with them either. If there was one thing the Lunar Covians needed now more than ever, it was unity and what better way to have everyone come together than to put on a summer faire of all faires? So, after much deliberation, Lunar Cove decided to host their first Ye Olde Renaissance Faire.

The faire will span across every corner of the town. From the far east to the far west, town goers will travel back in time to an age of adventure! Joining her majesty the 'Queen' on a grand visit to a 16th century English village. From cheering on your favorite knight at the Joust Tournament to meeting 'Robin Hood' and their merry band to feasting on savory sweets, tempting treats and so much more, Lunar Cove's Ye Olde Ren Faire has something for everyone and, if the Council is lucky, they may just be able to drawn the Catalyst out along with it.

REMINDERS

This is a plot-driven event that will start on 7/7 out of character while taking place over Fourth of July weekend in character.

Please keep your eyes out for multiple plot drops that will be happening throughout the week which your characters can continually react to.

The tag for the event is lunarcoveevent7. Everything from pictures, outfits & threads etc. should be under this tag. Starters should have both the starter and event tag.

This event is mandatory and, as always, big plots should be discussed with the admins before playing them out on the dash, so if you have any big plots you want to do, please let us know.

For anyone looking to bring in new characters, we will continue to have regular acceptances until our first plot drop on 7/17. After the plot drop, we will be temporarily pausing acceptance so as to not have new players come in at the height of what will bound to be some chaos on the dash.

As for the Activities below: the below is written out in order of which activities are happening on which day of the week, but feel free to react to or post starters for any of the below in whichever order you would like. We just ask if you can hold off making any posts set after intermission during the performance of Midsummer's Night Dream until after the future plot drops are dropped.

We also made sure to include everyone's characters in one of the below activities, but feel free to have your characters take part in more than one/react to everything. We just wanted to make sure every character had at least one activity they could be part of.

Last, but not least, we hope you have fun!

ACTIVITIES

THY ROYAL COURT (OFFERED ALL WEEKEND):

To be or not to be of Royal Decree? Your votes are in! When entering the faire grounds you will be greeted by the Royal Court, starting with the one, the only, William Shakespeare (played by our resident @icexpackxjc) who will be dishing out his fair share of sonnets with the help of the Royal Prince, Prince Charming the Most Charming of the Charmings in all the Realm and Land (played by @readbentweenthelines ). After greeting our Royal poet and playwright, take your turn attempting to bow or cutesy in front of Queen Lizzie, our reigning Queen Elizabeth (played by Dilan Selvi @moonglowmagic, who will be decked out in a red wig and everything). She will be joined by her Lady in Waiting and Royal Cup Bearer, Lady Erica Owner of many Whosits and Whatsits Galore although be careful when she Pours (played by @illputabexonyou) and the Lord Chamberlain of The Reeds (played by @linden-reed). After bowing before your Queen and Shakespeare, you can join Princess Peanut Butter Cup (played by Reese Hawthorne, @crescentcrowd ), the Duke of Howling (Played by @xbigxbadxmatsuix), Countess Chocula (played by @akiss-from-a-rose ), & Baroness Priya the Gracious (played by @selcnophile) over on the main stage as Squiggles the Jester of Knock Knock and other Yoks (played by @masonxmahir ) attempts to gain a laugh.

The Knight's Joust:

But, your chance to cross paths with a Royal doesn't stop there! Located on the Town Green, in the center of the Ren Faire, is our Jousting Grounds. Jousts will be held there every day at 2p with Sunday's Joust being the Joust to end all Joust's. In one corner we have decked out in gold and blue, Sir Lancelot the Galavanting Lover and Arguable Traitor, but all around Decent Fellow (Played by Caleb Wright, @cantfightmoonlight ). While in the other corner wearing the colors of Black and Red is Sir Mateo of Thou Tubeth (played by @moonsongchorus ). Friends turned foe, the pair will battle it out before the winner takes on the final competitor in green and silver, Sir Vival of the Fittest (played by @firefighterxefe ). Only one will be champion! So, get ready to join Squire Kit Havoc (played by @pitymisskitty ) to cheer on your knight as our heroes battle it out the 'death' or at least until one embarrassingly falls into the dirt.

THE FAIRE GROUNDS (OFFERED ALL WEEKEND):

The Feast of Thieves:

Come one, come all to satiate one's tastebuds with a number of different Medieval themed booths. Sucré will be transformed into 'Biscuits and Crumbs' as 'the baker', Bea Ramos ( @crescentcrowd ), will be serving donuts, funnel cakes and a number of other pastries. Happy Scoops is renamed to 'Churn It Up!', offering fried ice cream, fried oreos and fried cheese cake. The Moonlight Grill is renamed 'Drumsticks', where you can get yourself the iconic turkey leg, as well other classics such as BBQ Ribs, brisket platter, chicken nuggets and other savory treats. Peggy's Diner is transformed into 'King Arthur's Round Table' serving pretzels, blooming onions, corn on the cob, chicken pot pies and so much more.

Ze Bar Crawl:

Huzzah for the tippers! Join Jasmine St. Claire ( @cantfightmoonlight ) on the Seen it Route Pub Crawl as she takes you around the faire grounds from Pub to Pub. The Starlight Bar has been transformed into 'The Snuggly Duckling', Eclipse has been transformed into 'The Knight's Tavern', Bad Moon Brewery has been been renamed as 'Wolves Ale House' and High Tide has been renamed as 'The Flying Dutchman'. Make sure to tip your bar wenches. The larger the tip, the louder the ring of the bell.

The Jolly Roger Pirate Ship:

Ever want to walk a plank or join a swashbuckling crew? If so, you can board the Jolly Roger at the end of the pier where you learn knot tying from Jonah Rivas ( @jonahxrivas ) and see if life on a pirate ship is for you with Kari Channarong ( @conjvred ). You can even challenge the current captain of the ship, the Dread Pirate Roberts, Chai Rune ( @cantfightmoonlight ), to a fencing duel. If life of the ship is not your fancy, you can leave the way you came from the pier or take a dive into the hot springs after walking the plank.

Test Ye Luck:

Across town, located in the surrounding woods of Echo Acres is your chance to test ye luck at a bunch of different games both of skill and of chance. Join Sir Vival of the Fittest to test your strength and attempt to pull the sword out of the stone. Ralph Middlemas ( @rxmiddlemasx ) will be hosting a plate smashing stand where you can pluck up a sling shot. If you manage to smash a plate, a stuffed animal could be in your future. Don't miss your chance to win a prize at the ladder game, hosted by Azra Yildiz ( @moonsongchorus)- rumor has it the game is rigged, but maybe you can be the one to beat the nearly impossible climbing challenge.

The Rusty Knife:

Looking Sharp has been renamed the Rusty Knife for the weekend and join Meena Raja ( @cantfightmoonlight ) for your chance to throw knives, axes, darts and even arrows. Meena will walk you through the basics and then it is up to you to try your best to hit the target, but be careful. Rumor has it many of the knife throwers often have a pint in hand.

The Enchanted Forest:

While the real forest is filled with games and weapons to toss, the Hideaway down at Sunny Harbor has been turned into that of the 'Enchanted Forest' where the fae and witches thrive. Swing by the face painting booth where fae can deck you out in fantastical face paint and 'pixie dust'. If you'd rather have your hair done, you can join Frankie Esposito ( @lunadefresa ) at the hair braiding station where ribbons and flowers can be woven into your hair to complete your look. And if you're looking for a potion or elixer, swing by 'the witch's caldron', a booth where witches like Nesrim Erkal ( @conjvred ) and Briar Reed ( @briarreed ) will be concocting real potions for you to peruse and enjoy. But, be careful. There are flower sellers and peddlers like Kyle Kane ( @kylexkanex ) in the forest whom have been known to scam a person or two, handing the passerby a flower and not letting them walk away until they'd paid up.

The Kissing Bridge:

For lovers who want to test if they have what one may call 'true love's kiss' make your way down to the Kissing Bridge. If your love is true, then rumor has it, when you kiss upon the bridge, the flowers overhead will bloom.

The Wishing Well:

If you have a wish you'd like to make come true, toss a coin in the wishing well. Only be careful. We've already had one wolf, Safiye Yildiz ( @moonglowmagic ), fall into the well and we'd rather not have any more lassies fall in after her.

The Artisans of the Shire:

If you've come to the faire to shop, then you're in luck. Swing by Blush Boutique's booth that has been renamed 'The Mad Hatter' where you can rent the perfect garb for your day at the faire, styled for you by Kui James ( @thelatekuijames ). From costume rentals to selling crowns to a local haberdashery, the Artisans Booths sell everything you could possibly need and a number of different faire themed souvenirs.

How to Train Your Dragon:

The faire grounds wouldn't be complete without a number of rides for you to go on. With a dragon swing, a Roundabout (a carousel where 'riders' can adorn foam sticks and pretend they are jousting), a Dragon themed rollercoaster and the Dizzy Dragons teacup rides, there really is a ride for everyone of all different ages, so come swing by and give your tickets to Shay Thompson ( @selcnophile ).

The Black Swans:

The fun rides don't stop with dragons! If you'd like to take to the water, the Boathouse renamed 'the Black Swan' is offering paddle boat rides in swan themed boats for you and a partner.

Rotten Revenge & the Dungeon Maze:

With Medieval Times comes a Dungeon Maze and Blockades. Anyone may take a turn entering the hedge maze that will take you down into the basement of Town Hall where one can get a tour of the 'Dungeons'. In the Dungeon Maze, you will also find a cell where Sheriff Cavanaugh playing the role as the 'executioner' will be holding anyone who gets too drunk at the faire grounds. In the Drunk Tank, those who need a break will be offered water and refreshing fruit that the Sheriff will cut using a miniature guillotine to help sober you up. Outside of the Dungeon Tour will also be Rotten Revenge, a game where people can toss tomatoes at Sir Mateo of Thou Tubeth ( @moonsongchorus) and, Pizza Joe, our resident 'criminals' in the blockades, and the mud slide, a place where town goers can get down and dirty, literally.

Ye Olde Portrait Booth:

Make a memory that will last the test of time when you swing by this vintage photo booth. Hosted by Ronnie Bishop ( @itsronniebish ), you can have a costume change and use one of the many props the booth has on hand to take a photo that you can carry with you after the faire has gone and went on its way. At the photo booth, you can also take a photo with our resident 'mermaid', Billie Fitz (@swimmingwiththefitzes ).

Tis Fact or Fiction?:

Swing by the information booth to pick up a map from Ken Matsui ( @kenxmatsui) and have any fact checked. They can tell you whether what you're wearing is Medieval or in line with the Renaissance and what is and isn't historically accurate. Though we do warn you, there may be some attitude given.

Trinkets & Trade:

Do you fancy someone's crown and are willing to exchange your gauntlets for them? Or maybe you're a pin collector who would like to swap your unicorn pin out for another? Well, this Medieval version of a Pawn Shop is the place for you. No coins will be exchanged here. Instead meet Devrim Yener ( @lunadefresa ) to trade. Only goods are traded back and forth like one would with Middle School lunches.

The Collectors:

Anna Donnelly ( @moonsongchorus ) & Rangi Hira ( @faerietothe-otherside ), will be wandering around the faire grounds throughout the weekend, pulling along a rickety old cart with a broken wheel, dressed in peasantry garb, as they ring a bell calling for people to 'bring out the dead'. That will mark your cue to drop your trash off in one of their many bins, because as the local Black Smith, Kadir Aksoy, will tell you, littering is bad, even in ye old medieval times.

Ye Local Apothecary:

Were you drunkenly stabbed over at the Archery booth? Are you a sword swallower whose sword accidentally went down the wrong pipe? Well, have no fear. Our paramedic, Nico Castillo ( @nicocastillo ) is on hand to help out with any Faire related injuries.

THE SHOWS (CHANGE DAILY)

THURSDAY

The Fool's Stage:

Kicking off the Faire right, the Fool's Stage will be packed with a number of epic performances you won't want to miss. Hosted by Squiggles the Jester of Knock Knock and other Yoks, the performances will range from telling jokes, sword swallowing, spinning plate acts, a whip act and more. Some notable mentions including Brielle Rivas ( @cantfightmoonlight ) aerial performance, before Poppy Reed takes it away with a fire breathing routine that catches the eye of Princess Peanut Butter Cup who joined the peasants on stage to get in on the action.

Artisan Classes:

If the Fool's stage isn't your thing, you can swing by the Artisan's stage periodically throughout the day to learn a new skill. There is a class on glass blowing. Kadir Aksoy, our resident blacksmith, will be teaching you how to mold your own weapons. Or join Julian Chandler ( @julianrchandlerx ) the cobbler, to make your own leather works.

Fireworks:

Given that it is the Fourth of July and the first day of the faire, what better way to celebrate than with an epic Fireworks display overlooking the water? Grab a blanket and lay out on the pier as the town of Lunar Cove celebrates the start of Summer together.

FRIDAY

The Equine Shows/Pony Rides:

Head over to the Town Green where the Jousting Arena will be temporarily used for an Equestrian Show. Carmen Delgado ( @moonglowmagic) will be performing jumps on horseback. After which you will be invited down to the Arena for your own horseback riding lesson.

Game of Wits:

On Friday, the Artisan Stage will be replaced with that of a Game of Wits. Hosted by Theodore Moore ( @theodorexmoore ) before you lies three chalices and it will be up to you to decide which holds the potion and which doesn't. After the first Game of Wits show, the stage will be transformed into a Living Chess Board, hosted by Rohan Persaud ( @rohanxpersaudx) , where you will be assigned a team and move along the board as the pieces.

Robin Hood's Band of Merrymen:

Esen Demirtas ( @esendemirtas ) will have been running around the faire grounds all weekend dressed up as Robin Hood with Leyla Selvi ( @cantfightmoonlight ) and Paloma Villareal ( @lunadefresa ) dressed up as her band of Merrymen 'stealing' from the 'rich' and 'giving to the poor'. But, on Friday, you can join the group on stage as they put on their own show, teaching show goers how basic pickpocketing is done before they pluck up bows and arrows and try their luck at shooting an apple off the top of one's head.

SATURDAY

Ze Quests:

Are you fit to be an adventurer? If you think you're up for the challenge you can swing by the Gazebo where you will meet the Quest Master, Julian Chandler ( @julianrchandlerx ) who will give you a quest to fulfill at the faire. From finding a missing dragon egg, retrieving a unicorn's horn, plucking a mermaid's scale, stealing a handful of pixie dust and so much more, your true test to see if you are worthy of the title Champion begins now.

Best in Show:

Do you think your look is fit for Royalty? If so, sign up for the Costume Contest where you can strut your best stuff and the crowd goers can vote on which look is truly worthy of the title of the Diamond of the Season. (We will have an OOC survey for this, so if you'd like your character's look to be included, please post a picture out the outfit using the tag #lunarcoveevent7 before Friday 7/14).

Midsummer Night Dream: (PLOT DROP TO COME)

As the Faire draws to a close, Rohan Persaud ( @rohanxpersaudx ) and Brielle Rivas (@cantfightmoonlight ) invite you to watch the famed lover's tale with a twist. Briar Reed ( @briarreed ) will be playing the role of Hermia, Rangi Hira ( @faerietothe-otherside) the role of Helena, Jonah Rivas ( @jonahxrivas ) the role of Lysander, Julian Chandler ( @julianrchandlerx ) the role of Demetrius, Dilan Selvi as Titania, Rohan Persaud as Oberon, Linden Reed (@linden-reed) as Puck, and Mateo Rivera ( @moonsongchorus) as Bottom. Only as guests begin to return to their seats after intermission, they began to notice that something is far from right... (Stay tuned for future plot drops pertaining to this part of the event).

#lunarcovevent7 #lunarcoveevent

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whereareroo · 1 year

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NEW HISTORY?

WF THOUGHTS (5/10/23).

Yesterday, I pledged to search for positivity in the Stone Mountain area. In particular, I was interested in finding proof that Georgia is moving beyond its links with the KKK and its adoration for The Confederacy. Let me tell you where I stand after the “research” that I did today.

On the grounds of the Stone Mountain park, I received two bits of positive news from a friendly clerk at a gift shop:

1. For two weekends this past January, for the first time, Stone Mountain Park hosted a Lunar New Year Festival. It was widely welcomed by the local Asian communities that celebrate the Lunar New Year. The crowds were enormous. They’re planning a bigger Lunar New Year event for 2024, and they’ve decided that it will become an annual event.

2. For the first three weekends in May, also for the first time, they’re hosting a Latino Family Festival. We arrived late on Sunday, and we were wondering why we heard fireworks at 9:00 p.m. Now we know. The first weekend attracted a giant crowd. They hope that this will also become an annual event.

What’s my point? It seems like these folks are moving away from their KKK history. There’s no way that the KKK would celebrate the Asian community or the Latino community. These events are very good news. There must be some unhappy KKK ghosts at the top of Stone Mountain!

We visited Stone Mountain Village, which is a very old town that sits just outside of the park. The Village is still very focused on The Confederacy. There’s a big cemetery that contains the graves of many Confederate soldiers, including about 150 anonymous Confederate soldiers. These anonymous men died at a local hospital that cared for the wounded. I was disturbed by the tone of the historical marker at the cemetery. It implies that the Civil War was an unprovoked attack upon The Confederacy, and that the Union Forces were responsible for unnecessary violence, death, and damage. If an uneducated person read the marker, they would conclude that the Union Forces were evil invaders from a foreign land. There is no mention of the fact that the conflict- -which was horrible and brutal- -saved the United States from total destruction. Will the Civil War ever end? Even in 2023, we’re still fighting battles that can be traced to the Civil War. Visiting the cemetery in Stone Mountain Village was not a positive part of my day.

The good news that I received at the gift shop outweighs the darkness presented by the cemetery marker. I’m calling today a “win.” What will tomorrow bring? Stay tuned.

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california-slow-take · 1 year

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Midwinter is the perfect time for a voyage of discovery on San Francisco Bay. The bay and its tributaries affect everything from the weather to traffic jams. The bay gives the region its name and purpose. You could argue that without the bay there would be no San Francisco.

“The bay is full of history and great stories, from the native people to the Gold Rush, Spanish, Mexicans, Yankees and beyond to the present day,” said James Lessenger, a physician and regional historian. “And it’s a story that keeps going.”

Winter is a good time to see the bay because winter is the season of change: sunny clear days sometimes, storms and wind other days, and extreme high and low tides that both flood the shore and expose mysterious pieces of the past on the same day. The bay is always moving.

Like a lot of people who grew up in the Bay Area, I’ve always enjoyed the salt water, and sailed on the bay one way or another since I was a smaller kid than I am now. I’m not impartial.

So here are two bay stories — one a mini-cruise of discovery, the other a mystery from the bottom of the harbor.

The mini-cruise was aboard the ferryboat Argo from San Francisco to Oakland and back on a sunny winter afternoon. The Argo is sleek, clean and modern. Also near empty on a midday winter crossing. San Francisco looks at its best from the water, the city towers framed by the Bay Bridge with a foaming white wake. The Argo zips across the bay, then slows to enter the placid Oakland Estuary.

Here is global commerce up close. Six cargo ships were tied up on the Oakland side that afternoon, one sailing the next day for Hawaii, another for Japan, another loading scrap metal, others discharging cargo. Big cranes looming over the piers. On the Alameda side is a working shipyard and two seagoing tugs shepherding a barge, a reminder that 90% of everything we use comes by sea.

The ferry lands at the western edge of Jack London Square. I thought I’d stay for an hour or two, like a passenger on a cruise ship in a foreign port.

Jack London’s waterfront was clean, warm and very quiet. I stopped off at Plank’s just up the street, a combination bowling alley, restaurant and outdoor beer garden, with tables under the trees and a view of passing ships. It comes with a soundtrack — the whistles of passing passenger trains in the background. Nothing like it in San Francisco.

That’s just one of the ferry trips around. The shortest is a 10-minute “short hop” between Oakland and the island city of Alameda, the longest an hour-long ride north up the bay into San Pablo Bay to Vallejo. Some trips go to Mare Island, an old Navy base full of history. And a brewpub.

But Marin has always been my favorite destination: Sausalito, Larkspur, Tiburon, Angel Island.

I rode the ferry Del Norte to Sausalito last weekend, the time of the new moon, the Lunar New Year and the days of extreme tides. The water level can rise and fall nearly 9 feet. I took a stroll on the Sausalito waterfront at twilight, just before the last ferry back to the city.

It was a time of extreme low tide, and in the fading light, I could see the remains of a very old ship, bones and ribs and part of the bow, barely awash, sunk in the mud. It was about 60 feet long, a bit broad in the beam. It looked like a sailing vessel.

Mysterious pieces of the past surface at low tide, especially in backwater ports — old anchors, parts of deck gear and machinery, even the rusted fuel tank of the old lumber schooner Lassen, run aground at the foot of Johnson Street 90 years ago.

But this old wreck was different. It is usually invisible, underwater. But it had appeared in the twilight on the day of the new moon, like the mythical Scottish village of Brigadoon, a place unaffected by time that appears once every hundred years.

Historians say that part of the Sausalito shore was once the site of the Crichton and Arques Shipyard, which closed more than a century ago. Was this old skeleton of a ship part of that yard? Or something else? Members of the Sausalito Historical Society were consulted. No one knew for sure. “You’ve uncovered quite a Sausalito mystery,” said Jerry Taylor, the historical society’s president.

Meanwhile, farther up the bay, the very low tide on the weekend exposed what’s left of the shipways of the Matthew Turner Shipyard in Benicia. Turner, a master shipbuilder, built more than 200 wooden vessels at Benicia. Lessenger said a piece of the whale ship Stamboul, built in Massachusetts 179 years ago, also shows up at very low tide when the bay gives up its secrets.

One of Turner’s most famous ships, the brigantine Galilee, was run aground at the foot of Napa Street in Sausalito and abandoned years ago. The bones of the Galilee also reappear in low water.

“The bay is a fascinating story that keeps going,” Lessenger said.

#california #san francisco bay #northern california #naval history #king tides #san francisco chronicle

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artcalledtattoo · 2 years

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Oh it’s Different, Wider, Bigger than Our Scope When you grow within history and past behind you was not Pearl Harbor Now days, a warning given Voted in Leadership Let all those Nurses Soldiers Civilians die Were they massed graved? Like in now Ukrainia days Probably warnings everywhere back before 24 February 2022, answers flooded after Covid arrival before the shut down, September 2019, fools 6 months later You’re not NSA, Secret Service, CiA FBi, DEA What’s your Security Clearance? Bottom feeder to conglomerates tax payer You have no Clearance (have no, did i offend the English educated education, grammar laws hold no value to the dead SunflowersAmericans Redux the Pearl Harbor films with new information) What ya know? You need a movie explaining I’m writing! In the meantime! Give honor to Lunar Landing You believed That! Played for so so long Perhaps i am the Simpleton Skinny Skeleton and not big enough! Watching Midway CGI for reality! Maybe Pearl Harbored extended! Still missing parts for wider bigger scope! It’s all punk ass Putin shit It’s all punk ass Trump shite It’s all punk bull stitt shit A closer to home drowning in mud Middle Under Developed Baby boomer suckers A mass America Pharmaca Leeched through DNA I’m running out of fuel over Where am I, Hiroshima Nagasaki Does it matter for impact Destroy for effect Bomb Boom, I own that documentary Thee effects of the latter The offspring Will it sprout Putinist ideals Trump invaded thee Capitol! Splendid Society supports Trumpers and Putineers The evil always making trails for followers PRUNTS SIMPLE MESSAGE: LOVE 1 Another L1A To easy to remember Love 1, First Number (that’s you) Another (all else) Become present in our reality Need a Morse code? I could learn it quick, dot dash all verbal communication but i Hope you can read English language or an app for translation either either way is fine What’s real? I should be paid for expressing You should pay me for tutoring Let me money gain to control thangs Two weeks of learning after third weekend I would do it better than you I know I have no guarantee on the box Trump-y Putin-ey Boys Same Hitler ideals a resurfacing Decades later Prunts My word for the Uppers in charge Small percentager’s riding on OUR backs But we let them and rule over USA & US We should vote different?! Back in 2012 now, who killed JFK? Pearl saliva is choking me Patsy’s It’s not like They said it was? My Leaders pictures on walls somewhere paused for Patriotic Glory, a snapshot! Smile, say big cheese & burgers

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ggukkieland · 3 years

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📕CURRENT READS (2020 November)

🌹 Almost done with the list except for a few and I am excited to curate fics that are fitting for merry December 🎅❄🎄🤶 woot woot!

I enjoyed this month’s reads - a mix of cyberpunk au, android au, werewolf aus, slice of life, exes and those on the verge of breaking up, and lots of beautifully-written drabbles which ended up in my list of favorites.

Please send these authors some love by reblogging their content =)

✅ - done reading | S (smut) F (fluff) A (angst)

🥕[Ongoing Series - to check weekly]

Still reading the ongoing series from October’s reading list, whenever there is an update 😊.

Onyx @springbean - JJK | ABO universe, omega!reader, rouge!Alpha!Jungkook, roommates, cyberpunk au | A, F (this is so fascinating)

[2/?] years after the war, Soketh has become a bustling electric city of life and death. a world now filled with mystery, danger, and rules, y/n finds herself rooming with her old friend while trying to find herself in the city of dangerous dreams. however, her world is turned upside down when a rouge alpha enters their life seeking refuge and help…

Vulgar and Divine @yeoldontknow - JHS | elf!hoseok au, enemies to lovers, arranged marriage, fantasy au, horror, suspense | A, S

[1/?] The Elf King buys your hand in marriage as an act of political strategy - you, the Banshee Priestess and your ability to forewarn death in exchange for your people’s return to your original home in the River Lands. You hate him for the way his kind make a mockery of death. Even before you meet him, you decide you will not grieve his death - not even a little. But then, on the day of your wedding you begin to weep - and it is not out of love or rapture.

Kitchen Confidential @glitter-kookiedough - KSJ | chef au, slow burn, enemies to lovers | A, F, S

[3/?] After years of annoying the life out of you, your rival, Kim Seokjin, pushes you a step too far and he knows it. As angry and resentful as you are, you don’t realize that something has been brewing under the surface for years. This weekend, that will change. 🌟 new chapter🌟

enemiestolovers drabble series @sincerelyourfangirl - JJK | enemies to lovers, fwb, co-workers | S, A, F

[3/?] Maybe the line between love and hate is thin. Especially when you’re in bed with Jungkook.

Challenge Accepted | What Happens When You’re not Careful | Risky Business

The Lost Luna @hobisbeautifulass - KTH | werewolf au, soulmate au, rival clans | F, A

[2/?] One Luna is born per a hundred-year cycle or so and only appears after the previous one has passed away. This Luna was forced into hiding for seventeen years, but now she’s back, bloodthirsty, and ready to reclaim her throne.

Mutual Help @personasintro - JJK | bestfriend au, fwb au, fake dating | A, S, F

[24/?] in order for you to pretend to be his girlfriend, he helps you with your sexual desires ⏤ he calls it a mutual help

Bite Me @cheeky-kookie - PJM | vampire au | A, F, S

[1/?] Growing up, you always learned to look over your shoulder at night, hoping to never run into the catlike gleam of a vampires eyes. Yet, one night on your way home you find yourself staring into the very things you feared most. Dangerously beautiful and undeniably confident, Park Jimin was everything you knew you needed to stay away from, but he had other plans.

Nut Jobs @ironicarmy - OT7 | slice of life, crack, humor, friends au | S

[5/?] Eight friends. One terrible idea. A whole lot of trouble. Welcome to No Nut November.

Cherry Pickers @kimnjss - JJK | social media au, smau, gamer, fuckboi, vixen!reader, virgin!reader | F, S, A

[4/?] [updates daily] known for your body and surrounded by rumors about your sex life… rumors that he doesn’t think to doubt. until he’s meeting you… forced to realize there’s much more to you then the thonged shorts and lacy costumes.

(or, you’re a video vixen with an assumed identity and jungkook manages to see past it.)

Across the Board @out-of-jams - KTH | 20s, gambling, mafia au, enemies to lovers | S, A

[1/?] And now you’re indebted to the city’s most dangerous mob boss, forced to pay your dues in blood one way or another. With a gun pushed into your hands and your life at stake; once you’re in, you’re in. You’ll never get out.

🥕[Completed AUs/Series/Drabbles - to read]

Through Time and Space @taephilia - 10.6k | KSJ | F, A, sci-fi, time travel au, adventure, doctor who au

re: Untitled @to-star-lake - 18.8k | JJK | A, S, F, ceo au, arranged marriage, childhood acquaintance turned enemies (one of my favorites this month 🥰)

01 02 03 04 ✅

Moral of the Story @suhdays - 7.7k | JHS | A, F, S, strangers to loves, soulmate au, OC can tell if people are telling the truth (really interesting) ✅

In the Margins @bonvoyagenoona - 31k | MYG | F, S, A, writer au, humor, enemies to friends to lovers, slow burn, editor!reader, writer!yoongi [also on AO3]

01: Winter (5k words) ✅ 02: Spring (6k words) 03: Summer (7k words) 04: Fall (13k words)

Into my Bones @inkofyoongi - 15k | MYG | S, F, A, fwb to lovers, slice of life-ish, non-chronological (this is awesome 🌟) ✅

A Human Touch @snackhobi - 39.1k | KTH | F, S, robot au, android!taehyung

01 ✅ 1.5 02 (will finish the rest of the chapters; this is so good)

Supply and Demand @scribblemetae - 5.7k | MYG | S, A, supernatural au, telepathic!myg, strangers to lovers, enemies to lovers ✅

More than Us @jeongi - 11.3k | KTH | F, S, college au, roommate au, best friend to lovers

Moirai @jimlingss - 46.9k | KTH | F, A, isekai au, fantasy au, reborn as a villain in a video game

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Taking Flight @rmnamjoons - 15.2k | KNJ | S, sci-fi, post-apocalypse, rivals to friends to lovers au

Lining’s Silver @sketchguk - 14.1k | MYG | S, F, College au, idiots to lovers, enemies to lovers

Even a Forest Fire Dies Out @9uk - 6.6k | JJK | A, F, exes au (a re-read) ✅

Southpaw @starshapedkookie - 30k | JJK | A, S, F, childhood friends, college au, boxer au, kinda e2l-ish (a re-read, that fight scene was just exhilarating) 🔥🥊 ✅

All That We Had @starlightauroras-writes - 13k | JJK | Heavy A, S, F, exes au, reunion, ex-husband!JK ✅ (author said there’ll be Pt2)

After the Honeymoon Fades @onherwings - 13k | MYG | A, S, F, established relationship (on the rocks), producer!yoongi, professor!OC ✅

Cozy Thief @bratkook - 5.1k | JJK | F, S, roommates au, mutual pining ✅

Quiet Baby by bratkook - 3.2k | JJK | S, established au, pwp, exhibitionism✅

Come Over by bratkook - 7.2k | JJK | S, pwp, neighbors au, voyeurism ✅

Tear You Apart by bratkook - 17.4k | KTH | S, pwp, slight horror, paranormal

01 ✅ 02 (to read)

Breathe @ephemeralkookie - 6.9k | JJK | A, S, F, exes au, multiple break-ups ✅

Shield @namgukgalore - 18.6k | JJK | F, S, slow burn, security guard!JJK, co-workers au ✅

Imitation of Art by namgukgalore - 9.6k | KTH | F, S, romance, friends to lovers

High School Reunion @btsarmy9593 - 6k | MYG | F, reunion, second chances ✅

One Night Ride by btsarmy9593 - 3.8k | JJK | F, hints of S, college!JK, noona, one night stand au ✅

Off the Table @fakeleaves - 11k | KNJ | A, F, exes to lovers ✅

By its Cover @crystaljins - 38.9k | JHS | F, A, enemies to lovers, demon au, magic/supernatural, witch!reader

01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 ✅

Your Eyes Tell @njkbangtan - 40k | JJK | A, F, mild S, soulmate au, roommates au, enemies to lovers, slow burn, a bit sugar baby au, lawyer!reader, artist!jungkook

01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 ✅

Popular-ish (drabble series) @hansolmates - 16.1k | JJK | F, S, A, popular!JJK, normie!reader, college au, fwb-ish

01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 ✅ 🥰

One More Time (Finale) - 7.3k | reunion ✅

No One @dfdph - 21k | JJK | A, extreme sports, slice of life, epistolary (in form of letters), heavy angst (not kidding! with trigger warnings; written so beautifully but angst may not be for all) ✅

Repercussions: Suspenders, Satin and Stockings @pars-ley - 3.1k | MYG | S, pwp, established relationship ✅

Have Faith in Me @aroseforyoongi - 6.4k | KTH | S, F, werewolf au, soulmates au, bestfriends to lovers ✅

The Art of Boxing @seokiie - 3.1k | JJK | S, pwp, boxing au ✅

Beautiful Confession @btsracket - 6.3k | JJK | S, F, fake dating, friends to lovers ✅

Tongue Tied @btssavedmylifeblr - 12k | PJM | S, F, minor A, crack, demon au, idol verse, established relationship, pwp ✅

Infamous @sugaxjpg - 12.5k | KTH | S, A, secret relationship au, fuckboy au ✅

Familiar Stranger @army-author - 7.3k | KTH | F, friends to lovers, high school au, mixed-up identity ✅

Strangers Again @minniefilms - 11.4k | JJK | A, F, enemies to lovers, best friend’s boyfriend

01 02 03 04 drabble ✅

Ruin Him @kingsuckjin - 3.5k | JJK | S, pwp, virgin!JK, coworker au ✅

Sex Education @extravaguk - 12k | JJK | S, F, A, brother’s best friend, virgin!OC (actually came out fluffier than expected 🥰) ✅

In your Eyes @sweetaesuga - 10.6k | JJK | S, F, A, college au, fratboy au, ex-fuckboy jk, friends to lovers ✅

Drabble Series: In Your Heart [4/11] ✅

Lunar Violence @taetaesbaebaepsae - 7.4k | JJK | S, rock band au, werewolf au, ABO dynamics, strangers to lovers ✅

A Fallen Bookmark on a Thursday Afternoon @cutaepatootie - 19k | JJK | A, F, S, strangers to lovers, takes the same train every Thursday 😭 ✅

There You Are @joonkookiemonster - 13.4k | JJK | F, S, ABO dynamics, werewolf au ✅

Here I Come @jiminssthetic - 3k | JJK | S, pwp, college au, friends to lovers ✅

Morning Rush @atdawnsuga - 3.2k | JJK | S, college au, exhibitionism, strangers ✅

(in)Satiable @thatlongspringnight - 11.3k | JJK | S, F, incubus au, lucid dreams ✅

The Red Pool @ksmuttherapy - 3.1k | JJK | S, horror, vampire au, dusk til dawn vibes

inTOXICated @sugarjaee - JJK | A, S, toxic relationship, college au, fboi au

01 02 03 04 05 06 ✅

Inebriated [Jungkook’s POV] - 7.4k, read after chapter 4 ✅

You’re so Creepy (drabble series) @whatifyoulivelikethat - 2k per member | OT7 | F, crack, university au, creepy girl au, (actually cute)

There’s always at least one campus creepy girl. Or seven. Part 1 (1st kiss) Part 2 (2nd meeting)

kim namjoon - part i | part ii (fave) ✅

kim seokjin - part i | part ii (fave) ✅

min yoongi - part i | part ii ✅

jung hoseok - part i | part ii (fave) ✅

park jimin - part i | part ii (fave) ✅

kim taehyung - part i | part ii ✅

jeon jungkook - part i | part ii ✅

🥕[Drabbles]

Feeling @sometimeinjoon - 2.3k | JJK | demon JJK, established relationship, a bit slice-of-life | love this so much ✅🥰

Warmth @artaefact - 306 words | JJK | fluff, fantasy au, incandesce couple ✅

Too Close @taestybae - 1.4k words | JJK | expecting parents au, boxer au, angst ✅

“i’m yours, in every way you’ll have me” by taestybae - 0.8k | KTH | S, A, fwb au ✅

“Are you Sure?” by taestybae - 2k | KTH | S, F, brother’s best friend | love this! ✅ 🥰

“The strings are attached already” @taetaespeaches - 1.8k | KNJ | angst, fwb ✅

Deep End @latetaektalk - 2.2k | MYG | angst, fuckboy au, a bit of fluff ✅

Game Boy @suqakoo - 2.7k | JJK | S, gamer au, enemies to lovers, a bit of fluff ✅🔥

Reese’s It’s All for You @joonkookiemonster - 3.1k | JJK | F, demon au, roommate au, Driving me Wild Halloween Drabble ✅

Transparent @kingsuckin - 793 words | JJK | S, pwp, established relationship, see-through JJK shirt 😉 ✅🔥

Savage Love @whatifyoulivelikethat - | JJK | S, pwp, OC is yoongi’s ex 😬 ✅

🌹 Drabbles by @zephyoongist - I love the way these are written. Just beautiful. Truly fluffy (like butterflies in my stomach) and also gives off a deep/for keeps type of dynamics between the characters:

you and yoongi had an unusual friendship... - 665 words | MYG | fluff, mutual pining, friends to lovers ✅🥰

kim taehyung had only met you a few times… - 1.2k | KTH | fluff, accidental pregnancy au ✅🥰 (a fave)

there wasn’t any particular reason as to why min yoongi chose you to be his mate - his luna… - 840 words | MYG | fluff, werewolf au, slice of life ✅🥰

jung hoseok found you when you were about to make the biggest mistake of your life… - 1.5k | JHS | fluff, runaway bride, slice of life | really cute ✅🥰

540 notes · View notes

yutahoes · 3 years

Text

Play Pretend

pairing : co-worker! Yuta Nakamoto x Reader

summary : You need to go to your family on a holiday and Yuta has no where to go. Will your little pretend turn into something more?

genre : fluff

warning : mention of cigarette (please, it's bad for your health)

word count : 2.1k words

taglist : @ailoveyuta @aiforyuu @yutazen01 @cosmiclatte28 @2-3-t-i (If you want to be tagged, please let me know. 😁)

Lunar New Year. A holiday. But this isn't just a regular holiday. Since it is the start of the year in Asian culture, you have to go home to Jeollanam for a family gathering. You're too old for this. You only go to these gatherings when you are young because of the money. But now that you're a grown-up, this doesn't entice you at all.

Additional to your dilemma were your relatives who kept asking when you're getting married. You don't even have time to date because of your 8-5 office work. How do they expect that you to get married?

You listened to your mom's rambling on the phone, about the importance of family and why you should make it to the family gathering when the door opened, and out came one of your co-workers. Yuta lit a cigarette, even offering you one that made you shake your head. The distraction made you stir away from your mother's voice. "And I found you a date for Valentine's." Your eyes widened in surprise. Oh, it is Valentine's Day on Sunday. But what? She found what? “He’s a doctor in the clinic. Such a charmer, you’ll like him.”

You love your mom, you do. But her tastes in men are really out of this world. Besides, how many times had she been setting you up for a date? And none of it worked up well. “Mom, I have a boyfriend.” You lied through your teeth and you saw how the guy beside you scoffed. “I can’t go to Jeollanam and be back in Seoul on Sunday so I’ll skip this year, hmm?” You whined when she said no. “Eomma…” You called. “But I bought sexy lingerie for him.” Yuta chuckled.

“Yah!” Your mom shouted that startled you, almost dropping your phone. “Bring your boyfriend here in Jeollanam before you get naked for him.” And you swore even the person next room could hear her voice. She dropped the call before you could say anything.

Annoyed, you leaned on the railing of your office rooftop. You just dug a bigger hole for yourself. You need to go home and bring a boyfriend. Yuta laughed offering you the cigarette again before you took one and just placed it between your lips. You’re really not the smoking kind but it seemed tempting, like wanting to transfer your annoyance somewhere.

"How sexy exactly is that lingerie?" You glared at him that made him chuckle. Yuta had been in your department for months now and you grew a little close to him since you're the same age. But this guy is trouble. A complete rebel who has the reputation of dating different girls weekly. "You should just go home since it's a long weekend."

You realized that unlike you who can only travel for 4 hours to see her family, he's pretty much lonely in Korea. "What are you going to do this holiday?" He answered that he'll probably just stay at home and watch movies all day since some establishments will be closed. "Netflix and chill?"

Yuta chuckled. "Just Netflix." You feigned a shock as he put the cigarette on the ashtray. "I do wish I can go to Osaka just this weekend." He might have missed his family. Working in a foreign land is honestly hard so you kind of understand why Yuta is like this.

You smiled, leaning your back on the railing as you put the unlighted cigarette on the ashtray. "I wish you could." You muttered under your breath. "Maybe I can come with you and escape my family." You said unconsciously that made him look at you.

A lightbulb pinged in your head. You cannot escape them yet you can still save face. "Yuta, do you want to come with me to Jeollanam?" You asked that made him raise an eyebrow at you. "It's harmless. You don't have anything to do tomorrow anyway." You explained. "Just pretend to be my boyfriend then we'll go back on Saturday and you'll have your date on Sunday." He laughed at that. "Help me, Yuta."

"You want to introduce me to your family as your boyfriend?"

"A pretend boyfriend." You corrected.

He stared at you for a while and you're suddenly scared that he might say no. "What if your family looks for me after this pretend date?"

You shook your head. "They wouldn't care."

"Okay. Sure." You were surprised. Did he say yes? "But you'll have to let me see that sexy lingerie." He teased you and made you punch his arm, laughing.

It's still early in the morning yet you're waiting for Yuta in front of the station to start the four-hour ride to Jeollanam. To your surprise, he looked different. Well, it's the first time you saw him outside of the office and just in his casual clothes. He does look handsome. No wonder girls fall for his charm. Evident was how a group of teenagers giggled at the sight of him. Such a player.

You walked to the train first but he took your lavender-colored backpack, slinging it on his shoulder. "What should I call you? Baby? Babe? Darling?" You rolled your eyes at that. You just wanted to sleep, not to be pissed off by Yuta. "Are you sleepy?" You nodded as you sat down on the assigned seat on the train. He guided your head to lay on his shoulder. "Just sleep, darling."

It was a long ride before, something you really hated. But now, you felt as if you were energized because of sleep. When you woke up, you were hugging Yuta's arm and he just chuckled when you sat up straight, avoiding his eyes. The moment the train stopped at your destination, he held your hand so as to not lose you in the crowd. There was a tingly feeling yet you just convinced yourself that Yuta is somewhat different from the office one.

When you reach your home, you give a heavy sigh. "Y/N!" Your mom called then stopped when she saw a certain man beside you. "Yah, Y/N brought a man home." She shouted that made Yuta snicker.

Your family loved Yuta. They had endless questions about him being Japanese and his hobbies. When your dad found out that he likes to hike, he invited him to hike the Jirisan mountain that startled you. He never invited you to hike with him. What's with this sudden bonding?

Other relatives were welcoming to him and he even helped your cousins make dumplings. "Hyung, what do you like about noona?" One of your cousins asked which made you look at him in surprise. What the hell is that question? Why are they embarrassing you like this?

Before you can scold the younger one, Yuta smiled. "Your noona works well and she's pretty." He then looked at you, winking. God, Yuta is so handsome. "Can you pass me the pepper, love?" You only stared at him. What did he just call you? "Love, hey." He called waving a hand in front of you. "Are you alright?"

"Noona, your face is red."

"Do you want to go inside?" One of your aunts asked but you just shook your head. You took the pepper then handed it to Yuta who just gave you a smile. That really enchanting smile. No, it can't be. You shouldn't think too much of that smile.

Even at dinner, the topic on the table is you and Yuta that made you annoyed. They're enjoying this so much. "Yuta, you can sleep in Y/N's room." Your mom claimed that made you choke on the water you were drinking. What? "Why? Didn't you wear that sexy lingerie for him?"

Yuta had to smirk then turned to you. "Did you, love?" And oh my god, he's also enjoying this.

It's not the first time that you're sharing a room with a guy, especially a bed. But you were so nervous when Yuta slipped on the bed next to you. He was chuckling at your embarrassed face that you hit him with your pillow. "We'll go back to Seoul first thing in the morning."

"We can't." He revolted. "I promised abeoji that we're hiking tomorrow morning." Abeoji? He called your dad abeoji? "You know, your family isn't bad. I feel bad that we had to pretend like this." You nodded then pursed your lips. You just lay down on the bed, turning to the side to not face him then covered your body with a blanket. Why is it so cold?

You felt warm when he suddenly hugged you from behind that surprised the hell out of you. "I feel like your mom is just going to peek on the door. Just let me hug you to sleep." He whispered against your ear that sent shivers down your spine. You could hear your heart drumming hard against your chest and you hold your breath, scared that he may hear it. "Love, just go to sleep."

It was the first time that you cannot sleep properly in this place. The room which you had since young and that is all because of Yuta's warmth. You were even awake when his alarm rang so early. "Did I wake you up?" He asked in a sleepy voice then grinned at you. "I'll just prepare for hiking. Go back to sleep." You didn't know if it was a dream but you felt him kiss your forehead.

It was almost 9 in the morning when you went down to eat. Your aunts were giving you side glances even teasing about you and Yuta hugging while sleeping. He is right, they came in to check on you. "He's such a dream, Y/N." One even noted.

He is, isn't he? He's so gentle, so warm. You smiled to yourself. It isn't bad that you brought Yuta here. You just found out a new side of him that is truly endearing.

When they returned from their hike, it was almost afternoon. You can now go back to Seoul but Yuta was the one who begged you to stay for one more night since his body is sore from hiking. To your surprise, your dad told him that they should hike another mountain next time and Yuta agreed. There is a next time? You raised an eyebrow at him when he started carrying your younger cousin on his back. You should have been back to Seoul.

You were quiet the whole time that you said goodbye to your family and Yuta understood that you might have missed them already. But it's not. It's just that Yuta is shaking you that you don't know what to tell him. You don't know what to say. Your family loved him. They'll hate you if you come back next Lunar New Year without Yuta, worse with another guy. And you're annoyed at Yuta who promised your family that he'll come to visit some other time.

Going back to Seoul is an eye-opener. You are not Yuta's girlfriend. This is just a pretense. And your lives are coming back in order once you reach the Seoul Station. You were walking so slow that he had to hold your hand again just to get you out of the train in time. You wanted time to stop. You wanted to stay in Jeollanam for another day and be Yuta's pretend girlfriend.

"Thank you for inviting me to come with you." He said that made you stare at him, nodding. "Your family is really great, Y/N."

You smiled. That's such a compliment. "Yeah, they really like you." You whispered and he smiled. The silence stretched between the two of you, hoping that time could rewind. You hope it's Lunar New Year again. How could you like the holiday that you despised earlier this week?

"Oh." You remembered, seeing the bright red balloons scattered outside the station. It's Valentine's Day. You took something from your bag and handed it to Yuta. "We made that yesterday so I don't know how it would taste." You claimed eyeing the small box of hand-made chocolate.

Yuta chuckled. "You know, in Japan, giving chocolates to a guy is a sign of confession." You glared at him, taking back the chocolate but he just chuckled while shaking his head. "I'll do better on White Day."

"Don't be bothered, it's not…"

"I do hope it is." He stepped forward that you had to step back but he held your waist to pull you closer. "Shall we make this real, Y/N?" You gulp at the question, scared that this might be Yuta teasing you again.

But he smiled which made you weak on your knees. You nodded and his smile grew wider. You felt your breath hitch against your throat. He's handsome. "Dating on Valentine's Day is so cliché." He claimed taking your hand. "Let's just Netflix and Chill." You laughed. Suddenly excited for this real, budding relationship.

Happy Lunar New Year! 🎉🎉

#yuta nakamoto #yuta #yuta fluff #yuta nakamoto fluff #yuta scenarios #yuta imagine #nct 127 fluff #nct drabbles #nct fluff

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dayseternal-blog · 3 years

Note

what is the best thing about living in hawaii? I've always wanted to visit but covid. 😭 Maybe soon...

omg, Happy_Ocelot! hi :D

👀 how do you know that I live in hawaii?.... lol I guess I don't keep it a secret.

The best thing is the culture. even from an objective standpoint, like I've been told to my face that Hawaii's beaches are not even that good or that the hiking's not even that good (whatever, because i think they're great). so yah the stupid people who come for surface-level engagement leave unimpressed. and that's fine by the rest of us, they think we want or need their tourism 😂

I don't even know where to start... food is good. all the food, there is so much good food, and everyone here appreciates all the food. Hawaiian food, Japanese food, Chinese food, Korean food, Vietnamese food, Thai food, Filipino food (I guess it's all mostly Asian and Pacific variety, but I have no complaints about that haha). All the supermarkets have rice and bean sprouts and local snacks and kamaboko and mirin and shoyu and chow mein and everything I need in one place do you have any idea how awful it was to have to travel to different special supermarkets by bus in minnesota winters, do you. do you though. i will never forgive the annoyingness of it all.

the Respect. Respect for Native culture, respect for ʻaina - land, respect for others, respect for the ocean, respect for kupuna - elders...of course there could always, always be way, way more respect. But it's definitely more than on the Mainland in comparison. I experienced racism and microaggressions in two of the most liberal of colleges & training programs on the Mainland and honestly the bs there just would never ever happen to me here.

The music. Hawaiian, reggae, slack-key guitar, and their use as a rallying point for pride, native voice, awareness, and community. Also just the talent??? Have you heard these Hawaiians singing in falsetto???? Raiatea Helm, Kehau Tamure, Kamakakehau Fernandez, Darren Benitez & Moke Boy Kamealoha 🙌🙌

The celebrations. when it's not a pandemic haha. so many festivals! Merrie Monarch Festival for hula, Okinawan Festival, a whole summer of several bon dances every weekend for obon season, Lunar New Year, Lei contests, Ukulele Festival, First Fridays in Chinatown, Hawaii International Film Festival...there's a lot.

The clothes. Local designers are just 💯💯 my current fave is Ari South, but I also love Reyns, a.line, Manuhealiʻi, Manaola (not that I can afford it lol), Cinnamon Girl, Tanoa, among so many others. For real, the aloha shirt is so key, and the men look so fine when they're wearing top notch brands, not the ugly stuff. oh yah, in addition, Hawaii men (of any ethnicity) are hot. The women, too. Coming back home from college was amazing every time because I'd just be looking at everyone, like omg. beautiful. i missed color. on skin.

tldr; you cannot replicate this culture anywhere else, Hawaiian and local culture is so precious. And the locals are good-looking.

I hope you get to visit one day! sorry for the essay haha.

#happyocelot #you ask me anything related to culture and then i can't stop 🙃#💖 so much love for my home

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winx-reimagined · 3 years

Text

Solaria, Where the Sun Meets the Land

& Lunare, Where the Moon Meets the Sun

ToC

p.s sorry for the weird color-coding (if you can even see it) I just wanted to make it easier to find stuff about Lunates or Solarians. I might separate these into separate posts later on, but for right now it feels fitting.

Solaria, the Great Sunstone Planet is a rock the same distance to it's sun as Venus. But because it's a tidally locked planet, meaning it does not rotate, and it's sun being a relatively quiet sun it's backside is completely dark.

Brief History.

The Lunate were the original settlers of the planet, originally known as Valeria. The planet was dark enough for them to settle but warm enough for them to survive. Lunates nowadays can go into bright light and warm places but their great ancestors could not.

Surprisingly, the Lunates were not nocturnal creatures. So they could not see in the dark but were able to softly glow. And the more Lunates in the area the more light as they reflected it off of eachother. They then developed technology (basically just giant mirrors), called Gradients, to reflect more lights into their land and onto them.

This is what caught the Solarian's attention in the first place. Solarians, being conquers saw this planet as a perfect place to spread their light. At first, they only detected the planet as being a dead, burning rock that swirls around a blazing sun. But they began to spot the shimmers of the Gradients and thought it might've been rare materials that had surfaced. And technically, they weren't completely wrong.

So they traveled the cosmic oceans till they arrived on Valeria. The Lunate welcomed them to their lands and only grew unsettled when the Solarians tried to colonize their land and indoctrinate their ways. In short, a war broke out between the two species. The Solarians realized the proxiity of the planet to the sun was perfect for their Light, Lumentia, which will later become Solaria's second sun. Being resolved by the young Lunate, Liliss. In the end, they came to an agreement to share the planet as the Lumentia needed space (time) away from the quiet sun or it'll garner too much energy and could explode.

So Valeria became Solaria, although, Lunates do still call the planet Valeria. The capital of the Solar Empire, which would soon crumble due to the physical distances between settlements which were taken back mostly by the Irakians (Eraklyon) and partially by those they conquered. Solarians would once again try to grow their empire, which will also inevitably be crushed.

From there they focused on their quiet sun, soon named the Sun of Solaria, and discovered a vault, of sorts, of magic in it's core. They disapproved of keeping it there unprotected, so they figure out a way to transport the core onto the planet. They developed the Steeple of the Sun, a vault on-planet that they could constant keep watch over. They soon transported most of the power of the Lumentia into a vault. Due to this transportation they moved the Steeple of the Sun holding the Sun of Solaria onto the dark side in Valeria, now called Lunare, to keep their energies separated.

It had gone unnoticed, but the planet and it's suns and moons were slowly being dragged in by a bigger, blue-white star. This would become the planet third and final star. It's currently their brightest star and they use it's energy to help light the rest of the universe, balancing and controlling said energy through the Lumentia. They named this star Sirius.

Society(ies), Culture(s), & Ideology.

The Solarians are very proud of their culture and history, despite not becoming the "Universal Empire." They're proud of their relationships between other realms, almost too proud. In general Solarians have a lot of pride for their kingdoms and their people, this can make them somewhat egotistical. The Lunates are also very proud, almost as much as Solarians; they think they're superior in a very non-superior way. As in, they claim to just be more evolved than other societies but other societies could always catch up. Solarians tend to think they're living the ideal life.

Both realms are scholarly and take acedemics incredibly seriously, but Lunares take it up a notch with their kids. Similarly to current Asian cultures, it's common for kids to go to school on weekends, whether it's mandatory or not. And out of all realms, Lunare has the most private, boarding schools.

Solarians tend to wear clothes that show a lot of skin since they need to absorb a ton of sunlight to use their powers. In turn, they can grow out their hair which basically acts as a solar panel. This appeal also bleeds into their architecture, large windows and tall, cathedral buildings. The structure of the various pillars are supposed to allow more light into the building.

Lunates still like to avoid extreme light, usually for skin reasons. So they tend to cover up more. Like Solarians they can grow out their hair, but to instead cover their skin. Aesthetic wise, they dress like witches, hippies, and hipsters. Although their architecture is similar to Solarian architecture and for the same reasons, the soft moonlight slipping through the buildings is a very beautiful sight.

In Lunate churches, called Sanctums, there a ton of water. Long pools lining the walkways, aquariums, ground opening up to the ocean(s). But there's a single bowl full of, essentially, "holy water". This bowl is directly lined with a hole which will fill with light everytime the Lumentia passes.

Lunates have historical grime against Androes because Andros was where Lunates originally lived before it was stolen by Androes rulers. Nowadays they both get along because of their intelligence and calm natures. And if teamed up, could be a very powerful duo.

Solarian churches are called Basilicas, it's hard to tell them apart from other buildings so the best rule of thumb is; if it's isolated at a high elevation it's most likely a Basilica.

Solarians just worship their suns :/

Magic. Laws & Regulations.

The Lumentia, the main source of power for the Solarian royals. Each royal holds a bit of its power with them, like Stella's Power Sword (which might turn into her sun wheel permanently or for transformations).

All Solarians use the sunlight for their powers, like a plant, but they can also combine with the power of the Dragon Fire.

Lunares use darkness, generally, but they're even stronger when in reflected light/moonlight. E.g, using their powers underwater.

Generally, their powers aren't allowed to be used in common criminal acts, violent or civil, especially in Solaria since their powers are considered precious and to use it for such trivial things is essentially a sin. In Lunare, using powers for said things is more so distasteful than a cardinal sin.

Origin. Of the people.

Solarians were born from The Dragon's fire's light. They didn't have a form originally, they were strange shapes of lights. But as these lights continued to roam the universe, they came in contact with nebula where they combined to create their physical forms.

Lunares were born directly from Nebula, which they call The Nursery. When a small comet runs through a Nursery, it picks up dust. Which normally would do nothing, but combined with the millions of water stars that used to fill the cosmic syrup, it'd bring to life the combined gases and minerals.

• Since most of the light of the universe during the creation period was sparks of The Dragon's fire, Lunares needed to avoid it. (I should also specify that the Lunares that founded Valeria were NOT ancient, so they didn't have too much issue with sunlight.)

Trivia. Fast Facts.

Lunates and Solarians both have emblems (birthmarks, technically) Moons for Lunates and Suns/Stars for the Solarians. These marks can look different and are usually on the hand. The second most common placement is on the head; the forehead for the moon as it represents intelligence and intuition, and the heart/chest for the sun as it represents emotions and loyalty.

The Solarian Empire still exists across various planets, like their old capital Dolona. It's just not as vast; and they're more like kingdoms under the Solarian Empire and not extensions of it.

They're based on the Aztec Empire, mostly for the clothing and architecture. Religiously and socially they're based on them heavier in the past, than their current day. Like the Aztecs, they were conquerors and had gruesome religious traditions, not to mention their ferocious warriors. They will soon switch out their roots, only keeping their powerful warriors.

Solarian Lords tried to take over the realm of Pyro and regrettably weren't able to. This is why the dragons on Pyro are violent towards anything other than their own, outside of feeding.

Gallery. (will add later 👀💦)

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noragami-ru-manga · 4 years

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Chronology of Noragami

To match the events in Noragami with real-life data, we’ve used everything: festivities mentioned, important events that have occurred in Japan, natural disasters, seasonal flower blossoming, study trimesters, exams and school holidays, moon phases that have appeared in the manga, solar and lunar eclipses, Hiyori and Yukine’s birthdays, Hiyori’s diary, and even Yato’s clothes.

Several members of Noragami_ru Manga discussed the series and its time frames, armed with both inspiration and critical thinking. There was a lot of information to process; some of the manga events were very easy to match with the calendar, while others really fell out of the timeline. A prime example is chapter 73. It was impossible to reconcile with any given date and broke the straight string of the events that did line up. Sometimes Hiyori’s diary would cavort and list its dates at random. However, we do know that the events of Noragami happen within the time frame of a little over a year. This one’s easy to check and prove. The manga started when Hiyori met Yato, several days later they found Yukine and a year later, right after his first birthday, Yukine was accosted by Mizuchi and ended up stinging Yato. Yato then decided to end his father’s attacks once and for all and went to confront him.

Adachitoka started working on Noragami in 2010, and the first chapter was published by Kodansha in January 2011. These dates were the first ones to come to mind. Naturally, other years were carefully examined; members of the fandom stocked up with “magnifying glasses” and “microscopes” and meticulously checked and double-checked several other calendars and tried to reconcile them with the events of the manga. But years 2010-2011 were the ones that fit the best, and very soon you’ll see why. Get ready, dear members, readers and (un)expected guests. We can’t promise you over-the-top fun times. But we hope that you will be pleasantly surprised and look at Noragami and its amazing universe in a different light. Let’s go!

This is our first main clue:

Hiyori says that it’s been two weeks since she first met Yato and became a half-ayakashi. The same day in the evening, they’ll find Yukine. “We had an early snow that day… I wonder if that’s why Yato named him Yukine?”, Hiyori will recollect a year later. It was 29 November, the end of 2010. The sky is overcast, it’s snowing, the moon can’t be seen so it’s impossible to match its phase with the calendar. But we will reconcile memorable dates with moon phases later.

Here we can see young moon behind the trees. It’s an early winter evening; Hiyori comes home and brings Yukine along. Judging by the moon phase, it’s sometime between 10-12 December 2010. Hiyori’s parents come home and say that they’ve been at the class reunion. Those are usually held on Saturdays. If so, the date is 11 December.

The encounter and the first fight with Bishamon happen during fool moon:

First signs of indelible blight start showing on Yato’s skin; Nora appears and tries to persuade him to give up on Yukine and use her instead. The fool moon at the picture looks like it’s been marred by dirt. Date-wise these coincide with 20-21 December 2010. A full lunar eclipse happened that night in real life. In Japan it could be seen in the evening, after the moon rising. Here is a quote from the Russian Wikipedia: “Since this lunar eclipse coincided with winter solstice, 21 December became “the darkest day” in the last 372 years. The next lunar eclipse on 21 December will happen only in 2094”.

The next is “Christmas” chapter (22-26 December). Yato is wearing a Santa cap, there’s a festive shop sign on the wall:

In chapter 9 Hiyori goes on a temple visit to Tenjin’s shrine and New Year’s celebration with her friends. She miraculously avoids death on 1 January:

7 January to 25 March is the last school trimester in Japan. Hiyori is wondering where Yato is. It’s the 3-4th lunar day, when there’s no moon yet, but there are signs of a very slim crescent.

Yato’s epiphany in girl’s bathroom

Soon enough, Yato and Yukine will have to go through misogi – the ablution ritual.

By the way, these two important events changed places in the anime. There, Yato was dying from blight sometime near the end of December, perhaps on that same “darkest day” of the lunar eclipse. Several days later, on New Year’s, Nora set her ayakashi on Hiyori.

Yato meets up with Nora during another full moon. Why can’t they just sleep on these moonlit nights?

Is it 20 January 2011? Or is it already 18 February?

Yukine meets Suzuha when the first spring flowers start blooming:

Hiyori is graduating from middle school and preparing to enter high school. Plumes are blooming (which means it’s either February or March), and Hiyori has her promotion exams coming when she is kidnapped by Kugaha. Yato and Yukine rash to Bishamon’s residence to rescue the girl:

Yato engages Bishamon in battle on the night of the crescent moon:

If we try to match first flowers blooming on the ground with plum blossoming, then it can’t be February, which means it’s the beginning of March. A crescent like this generally appears on 7-9th lunar day. Date-wise it lines up with 10-12 March 2011. The date that interests us is 11 March, since it was a memorable one for Japan. A huge earthquake occurred that day on the eastern cost of Honshu, resulting in a giant tsunami. Nearly 16 thousand people died and 2.5 thousand went missing.

In Noragami this event leads to the gods’ council in Takamagahara:

Bishamon manages to prove that her fall was the sorcerer’s doing, so the Heavens start their hunt on Ebisu. As a result, the actual perpetrator who’s used Aiha and Kugaha to set two warrior gods against each other goes unpunished, whereas Ebisu becomes a scapegoat.

Sakura starts blooming when Hiyori enters high school:

First trimester begins on 1 April. Hiyori is ignoring Yato. According to the calendar, it’s the new moon. Fujisaki enters the scene.

However, as soon as Suzuha’s sakura starts blooming, Hiyory gathers Yato and Yukine, Tenjin, Kofuku and Bishamon and their shinki for flower gazing. There’s even a date this time – 13 April.

The events of chapter 26 happen in early May. End of April – beginning of May are holidays in Japan, which Hiyori spends at home with her parents. Her diary, which we will examine later, is absolutely blank during this time. Hiyori’s mom says that it’s only May, but the water reservoir is empty. There’s also a newscast on TV about possible water shortage in summer, possibly due to abnormal weather conditions

This time Nora appears on a moonless night and kidnaps Yato. Two weeks later Hiyori is seen looking for Yato, asking Daikoku and Tenjin about him. She is doing it with a purpose, since she has plans for 8 May.

Hiyori’s diary here deserves special attention:

It’s easy to match the dates with the calendar. For example, 10th is a Monday, January, therefore, 11th is a Tuesday. The next page of the diary has another Monday on it – 17th. The dates on the second frame are hard to match with anything, but there’s a mention of the picnic on the third one – 12-13 April, the days are Tuesday and Wednesday. On the fifth frame the pages with dates from 25 April to 7 May are empty. But there’s a trip to Capyper Land scheduled on Sunday.

Yato says he’s been living at his father’s for a month when he is sent to rescue Ebisu from Yomi:

Hiyori’s friends make her go to Capyper Land with them on one of the May weekends. Yukine has been in Takamagahara for a while, where the time flow is different from Earth’s, which is why he’s lost track of time for a bit and only realizes that summer is coming when he meets Hiyori:

There’s unrest in the Heavens. A storm is also brewing on Earth, as noted by Mayu:

2011 was an unlucky year for Japan. Typhoon Songda approached the country at the end of May. Here’s an extract from a real-life news article: “Disasters come treading on each other’s heels. Typhoon Songda, which has been raging near Japan, is approaching Fukushima-1 nuclear station. Bad weather might cause floods and landslides, which the experts fear might result in another radiation leak”.

During old moon Yato is still in Yomi with Ebisu. Storms are raging in Japan and in Takamagahara. A partial solar eclipse is approaching, which you’d think would bother the goddess of sun herself. In Japan it’s supposed to happen early in the morning on 1 June. But?.. Apparently off-screen, Amaterasu lifts her divine ass and goes searching for… the god of the moon, who went missing from the world of the living?

Amaterasu helps rescue the gods from Yomi. When Yato flies out of the vent straight into Hiyori’s arms, it’s already 15 June – there’s a full moon in the sky. According to the calendar, there was a full lunar eclipse that night. Yato is covered in dirt and blight:

After meeting with the reincarnated Ebisu, Yato releases Hiiro:

Judging by these frames, it was Hiiro who used to cut Yato’s hair. Sometime later it starts growing out, so Yato has to pull it into a ponytail since he doesn’t have his free hairdresser now. Though he will get one in Takemikazuchi several months later.

Yato misses Hiyori’s birthday on 28 June. However, he takes her to Capyper Land on one of the weekends. School holidays start on 20 July. Hiyori is seen wearing either dresses or sundresses. It’s also summer when Hiyori sees Yato’s memories and learns about the god’s greatest secret.

Hiyori starts going to school in chapter 48, so it’s September. The month does not begin well: Fujisaki asks the girl to leave Yato alone, and she challenges him. Right after that he uses the second brush from Yomi to summon ayakashi. Those cause chaos at the hospital that Hiyori blames herself for and starts turning into an ayakashi, going further away from the Near shore. It was also in the beginning of September 2011 that tropical storm Talas approached Japan, resulting in 59 casualties. The damage it caused is considered to be one of the biggest ones in the last 20 years. It’s no wonder Hiyori is blaming herself for the disasters; after all, as early as March, right after Yato’s battle with Bishamon and the unrest in Takamagahara and on Earth, Tenjin said to the girl that Yato did that because of her and nearly turned into an aramitama (raging spirit).

In chapter 53 Yukine is secretly reading Hiyori’s letters and says that they haven’t seen each other in two months:

Which means it’s the beginning of November. Fate brings Yato to another Iki and returns him to Hiyori once more. Their ties are written straight with crooked lines.

Yato starts preparing for Kamuhakari and makes clothes for Yukine and himself. Kiun appears and demands that he attends the divine council itself as well. It means that apart from feasting on free food, which was Yato’s intention, he will also have to participate in boring god meetings.

Tama the cat, who also appears at Kamuhakari, ruins this whole line of calendar match-ups. She died in June 2015, not long before chapter 58 was released, and Adachitoka honored her this way.

Bishamon misses Kamuhakari because she goes looking for the burial hafuri. Kazuma comes to Iwami. Full moon is shining through the window, which means it’s 11 November:

Hiyori goes back home from the festivities while Yato has to stay at the boring part of Kamuhakari. The girl notes that it’s been three days since she came back, and recalls that it’s been a year since she met Yato. It happens around 14-16 November. She also thinks that they should throw a party for Yukine, cause it’s almost a year since they found him (two weeks after she met Yato). Yukine’s birthday will be on 29 November. But a lot of events will happen in Takamagahara before that.

By the way, the time flow in Takamagahara is just as messed up as in Yomi. One day for Yato is the same as three days for Hiyori. The moon is old again. And the time in Takamagahara flows three times faster:

There’s also a peculiarity to Yato’s clothes.

“Yato comes to Kamuhakari in white clothes. But then the battle with the Heavens begins. Yato loses his divine white sleeve in his fight with Takemikazuchi. Then only the white cape remains. Finally, he appears in front of Amaterasu dressed in black.

We don’t know how long the battle lasted, but the time in Takamagahara flows differently than on Earth. It’s possible that it’s been two weeks on Earth between the beginning of Kamuhakari and Amaterasu’s trial. Also, during the new moon (when the side of the Moon facing the Earth isn’t lit by the Sun) the sun and the moon go side by side; sometimes the moon overshadows the sun a little, partially or completely. Yes, I’m still hoping an eclipse happened during the trial. Compare this: when Bishamon was at the brink of falling into the state of aramitama, her blight was dark. But Yato’s is black, and the stains it left on Amaterasu’s clothes are black”. (Ivan)

And the calendar? A partial solar eclipse happened on 25 November 2011. Japan was not supposed to see it. However, a black spot landed on Amaterasu and scared her.

“I think that’s the whole point, that the solar eclipse wasn’t seen in Japan. It could only be seen in Antarctica and partially in South Africa and New Zealand. So the picture in chapter 71 is correct. Amaterasu is showering every god and shinki present with her sunlight, then the eclipse starts. Yato, who is tired of the battle and tormented by his shinki’s sufferings, catches his “wave” and tries to make the eclipse happen in Japan as well (albeit figuratively – by striking down the sun goddess), but Take interrupts the moon god’s show of power. Amaterasu looks somewhat tired throughout the trial; maybe she isn’t feeling well, among other things?” (Yana)

The full moon in chapter 73 messes up all the calculations once again.

See, there has already been a full moon not that long ago. Hiyori had spent a day at the Kamuhakari, then waited for Yato’s return for three days, and there’s only one week left till Yukine’s birthday. There can’t be a full moon twice in two weeks’ time. Perhaps Adachitoka started the chapter with Ebisu’s kidnapping as an extra first and then turned it into a full chapter; they added the mention of Yukine’s birthday but either left the moon the way it was drawn for the extra or simply forgot about it.

The next chapter messes up the dates again.

27 November is on Monday in Hiyori’s diary and there’s a note “Fujisaki-senpai was absent again today”. The thing is, 27 November 2011 is Sunday. It was Monday in 2017, when the chapter was released. It was a hard year: one of the mangakas had to take a long sick leave, and the manga soon went on a 14 month long hiatus.

Sometime before the birthday the Heavens summon Yato and he’s questioned by the sacred treasures and then Amaterasu herself.

Yato wakes up covered in blight after Yukine’s birthday. Take’s shinki conduct another misogi, and Yukine admits that Nora kissed him the day before.

Yato goes looking for a shinki that can help him take down Fujisaki. Amaterasu has set a deadline for him on Ooharai, the Great Purification ritual (30-31 December). There has to be a crescent moon in the beginning of December – a very slim one, shaped as a bow. Kazuma comes to Yato and becomes his shinki.

In chapter 79 the dates in Hiyori’s diary are correct: 28 November is Monday, 29 November – Tuesday.

And it’s almost full moon in Chapter 81 when Yukine starts wondering about his past, with the crack on his name growing.

Please focus your attention on the top frames with the moon. Keep your hands on the table and lift your eyes off the bottom frames.

The next full moon is on 10 December 2011, and it’s supposed to be a lunar eclipse, too. Unfortunately, since chapter 81 there hasn’t been any other chapter that had a full moon in it. However, we do have Hiyori’s words in chapter 85 about missing the chance to spend Christmas with her friends. It means that the events of the latest chapters take place between Christmas and New Year’s.

Ooharai is near.

***

Author of chronology: Yana Tarasova

Inspired, came up with ideas and then checked and double-checked them: Darina Episheva, Yana Tarasova, Amoeba Proteus, Ivan Ivanov

Comprised into an article by: Ivan Ivanov

English translation by: Anastasia Bazheeva

#noragami #noragami manga #noragami chronology #noragami meta

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barnesandco · 4 years

Text

Nikah: July

Story Masterlist

Nikah: noun, Arabic, meaning the contract of marriage.

Bucky marries Peter’s former tutor because her student visa’s about to expire and the government isn’t granting her a green card. Can she find a way to permanent residence by marriage, and if so, will it be at the cost of their hearts?

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Reader

Warnings: Very mild angst.

A/N: Written under the Arranged/Accidental Marriage trope for @mermaidxatxheart ‘s writing challenge. I don’t know how much you’ll like this one, but bear with me, people. I promise tomorrow’s is going to be worth it.

The aftermath of tragedy is difficult to navigate. Lost in treacherous seas and the thunderstorm of her trauma, Bucky finds himself drifting away. Distance comes in many shapes and forms, and his manifests itself in the millimeters between his thigh and hers, occasionally brushing together as the subway car moves. The tunnels of the New York Underground zoom past in a blur of black and the reflections of the carriage’s pasty interior, and Bucky wonders how much longer this journey will last.

She hasn’t told him where they’re going, and now sits next to him with one earbud in, humming to a song he doesn’t understand but at this point is very familiar with. The melody to Mere Rashke Qamar rumbles lowly from her throat, only enough for his enhanced ears to enjoy. As if she hasn’t vehemently but secretively insisted that they go out. After the kidnapping, he has been careful. Protective, he would say if he didn’t feel that cowardly was more appropriate. She has been everything but.

Shy smiles replaced by bluntness, those tears he witnessed the night they found her the only ones he has seen since, his wife is now red-hot, flaming, furious. Contradictions and pre-emptive strikes wrapped in silk and fed to her surroundings like cotton candy, sweet and dangerous. The burning anger juxtaposed by cool unforgiveness for the world, she has responded to his efforts at distance by moving closer. Any silence between them is now tender and cautious, a lover’s spring, in spite of the mountains he is trying to put between them.

Such silences are now plentiful, part and parcel of his attempts to salvage their hearts. Let what is left of them after this bushfire regrow, and hopefully, one day, someone else can reside in the forests of their souls, because they evidently cannot reside in each other’s. Yet she is trying.

He dares a brief glance at her to see that she has, again, fallen silent, again. Eyes closed, dark lashes resting on her cheeks. She is trying. The further away he moves, the closer she magnetically gets. It’s a dangerous game, the one they are playing. Her reflection in the window opens its eyes as they arrive at another stop and the next moment is a flurry of motions as Bucky gets yanked out of his seat and onto the platform. A meek apology as she starts walking, still holding his hand. Her unabashed hold on him contrasts strongly with her demeanor on their wedding night.

She stumbles briefly on the front step of the apartment building, action aided by ruthless black ice, and Bucky instinctively reaches forward to grab her arm. Receives a nod in thanks before she once again evades his gaze, but Bucky has seen enough.

The fleeting lightning flash of a moment was enough to unveil the collection of tears pooling in her eyes. Tears that she now fights to bury, exposed from all angles by the mirrors in the elevator. His keys are the only sound in the carpeted hallway, his home deadly silent.

She brushes past him to grab the bag containing priority items - toiletries and a change of clothes - from amongst the other luggage in his - their - apartment, and Bucky shows her around in the numbing silence of the snow storm outside. Goes to sit on his bed in wait, as the shower starts, the silence weighing heavier on his heart than the wedding ring.

The July sunlight is brutal, but she takes it in her stride like she is the moon, somehow glowing brighter even in the golden summer day. Her hand squeezes his tighter while they weave through the weekend crowds, New York City pulsating with life and smell and sound around them.

“Where are we going?” “Patience is a virtue,” She answers smugly, and Bucky wants to tell her he knows. By God, he knows. Sometimes, he thinks he knows patience a little to well to appreciate its value. A man who has spent his whole life waiting takes it for granted.

“How much further?” He tries.

“What are you, two?”

“Try a hundred-and-two, sweetheart.” The endearment - his first in weeks - slips off his tongue unbidden, tastes new and familiar at the same time. The tension is heavier than the humidity, but lightens when she recovers from his change of pace.

“Try acting like it,” She quips back, continuing on her way. Mere minutes of gruelling patience pass before they arrive at their apparent destination.

The New York Hall of Science greets them with a gleaming facade and cheery posters announcing the featured exhibits. Bucky is at a loss, confused, bewildered.

“A science museum?” He says, mostly to himself, but she - closely observing his reaction - responds nonetheless.

“Sam told me that Steve told him about your love for science before… well. Everything, I guess,” She explains. “About the Stark exhibit and the fair you went to the last night before shipping out. I thought this would be fun. I’m sorry if I’m overstepping, or you aren’t into this anymore, you aren’t the same person. I just thought-”

“Doll, doll, this is perfect,” He reassures, quelling her sudden nerves. Part of him hates that he can’t read her as well as he thought he could. The other part is still pushing to get away from her. He knows this isn’t sustainable, and yet he insists, when she asks: “You sure?”

“Yeah. I bet it’ll be fun. Come on.”

The first place she takes him to is the planetarium. Constellations have been projected onto the spherical night sky around them, and Bucky’s neck aches after only minutes, trying to count them all. Her hand is the anchor holding him to earth, but for the time that they are inside, he knows nothing else of the world. Her thumb rubbing warmly against the back of his hand is all the worldly feeling he has, his other senses fully consumed by the glimmering stars displayed around them. He’s barely aware of her gaze on him, is sure he must look a fool, but does not care.

“That’s Sirius, right?” He says eventually, pointing at Canis Major.

“Yeah. Do you have a favorite constellation?” She asks, and Bucky weighs the question.

“I’ve never thought about it,” He answers, looking around again. The planetarium is half-empty, quiet and distant, a spaceship on earth, everyone relishing in the universe around them.

“I like Carina,” She says, directing him towards the constellation she’s referring to. “The ship.” He hums in answer, starting to wander, and after several more minutes of observation, they leave for the next exhibit.

The next one is a continuation of the space theme, this one about the moon landing, a model of the lunar module in the centre of it all. They read the plaques, the screens detailing the journey, the race to the moon, blue glow of the room a calming draught. Until they get to the image of Kennedy delivering his speech on the landing, his comments on the space race, his contributions to pushing space exploration, and Bucky’s breath shortens. She seems to remember, pulling him aside and holding his free hand in hers so they’re nose to nose.

“Hey, hey.” She murmurs softly. “You going to be okay?” Her breath smells like the summer strawberries they had with their pancakes that morning, draws him back in and he sits on a nearby bench, hands slipping out of hers. Clenches them around his knees instead, pushing to breath like he’s trying to resurface, like he’s lifting his head from the snow he’s buried in. She watches anxiously, even when he gets up again, grabs her hand and moves forward. Moves on. The past is in the past.

The end up in an exhibit called the Sultans of Science, showcasing the fundamental contributions of Muslim scientists that created the foundation for modern science. Muslim scientists, their portraits, their acheivements, written proudly all around them.

“Abū Rayḥān Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad Al-Bīrūnī, the Persian man considered to have founded geology,” Bucky reads, marvelling at all the information now accessible that never was before. Wonders if he could have done something like this, without the war in the picture. Without Hydra.

“Ibn Sīnā, father of modern medicine,” She reads from next to him. The man in question stares straight ahead, his portrait not doing justice to the man he must have been. “We read about him in 9th grade bio class in Pakistan,” She tells him, laughing at the school memory, the fleeting glimpse of knowledge made useful like this. Bucky knows she’s a woman of literature, of writing and reading, and this isn’t her element, but to see someone embrace difference in this manner is so gratifying. But then, it’s impossible not to when difference is all you know. Where others see uniqueness as paths diverging, she will see commonality. The one thing we all have in common is that we are different.

“He was a philosopher too, you know,” She snaps him out of his reverie, still looking at the portrait. “We owe him a lot of scientific development, but he was one of the great thinkers of the Islamic Golden Age. Pioneered neuropsychiatry, considered thought experiments, theology, everything. A true multi-tasker.” Her ring glints in the soft lighting of the museum as she lifts her hand to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear, and Bucky thinks: the only thought experiment he needs is the one where they succeed.

Taglist: @suz-123 @mermaidxatxheart @buckyreaderrecs @shield-agent78 @corneliabarnes @readerandcinephileingeneral @stevieboyharrington @notsomellowmushroom @veganfangirl5 @mood-pancakes @lbuck121 @starnight-charmer @redhairedfeistynerd @geeksareunique @samingtonwilson @alyxkbrl @marvelrose

#ayesha writes #bucky barnes x reader #bucky x reader #bucky barnes fanfiction #bucky barnes fluff #bucky x reader fluff #bucky barnes angst #bucky x reader angst #bucky barnes x desi!reader #bucky x desi!reader

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redshift-13 · 3 years

Photo

Date: 1959. Location: Isolated cabin in a Canadian forest.

A while back I wrote a short pulp sci-fi film script, about long enough for an original Twilight Zone episode I suppose, about a guy who heads out of town for a cabin in a remote location, away from light pollution. He plans on spending a long weekend there, staying up late to use his telescope and contemplate magisterial wonders and his life in relation to the enormity of cosmic distances.

The moon is his subject this time. Around 2am he observes something on the lunar surface that should’t be there. He can just make out what looks like a rectangle, uncannily geometric - or, maybe, that’s just some aberration in his equipment or an upper atmosphere disturbance. The object isn’t in a photo from his Moon Atlas.

He goes through a process of elimination trying to find an explanation for the anomaly. No dust on his lens is causing it - a certainty deducible alone from the fact that the object doesn’t move when he shifts his field of view. That squarish shape won’t work as a new meteor impact. What is it?

The second night, the object isn’t there. He slowly pans the surface and finds it a few hundred yards away. His puzzlement gives way to being staggered by what he realizes next.

The object has apparently lifted off the surface and is approaching earth. It appears twice as large now and it looks like a sarcophagus with a humanoid figure in relief. He stays up all night studying this strange specter, his astonishment now limbed with a growing sense of dread.

He calls an astronomer friend the next day but can’t bring himself to describe what he’s seen. It’s his designated moon weekend at the little observatory, he says, and he was just calling to catch up.

He’s obsessed. Throughout the day he stares at the sky repeatedly. He cuts up a wood pile. He reads. On this third night the object is much, much closer and he can make out details as minute as if he were studying a seashell the size of a fingernail. It can’t be that far away at all. And although he originally dismissed the idea as the product of optical illusion, he’s now internally struggling against the idea that this object, astonishing that it exists at all, indeed appears to be heading in a direction something a bit more specific than his general part of the country.

Late that night it’s a monstrous image that fills his viewfinder, a fiery wraith come down from the heavens, and it lands in the forest not far from him. Several hundred yards away he hears indescribable electrical and mechanical sounds. And then branches being broken, and all of it getting closer.

He sees it, runs to his car and takes off. It comes after him...

#scifi #short script treatment #the moon #cosmic gothic

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curious-wildflower · 3 years

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Mothman The Seconded Most American Cryptid Of All

Straight up first is bigfoot.

Anyhow, not here for him so let’s talk Mothman: calamity and capitalism. Everyone who knows anything about cryptids knows Mothman, people are very thirsty for him, he has that statue with the fine steel ass, have a festival for him the 3rd weekend of September, all over Point Pleasant you can find capitalism at it’s finest marketing everything for shirts to pizzas about Mothman.

Below I will be listing the Mothman sightings I know of before sharing my own thought upon it all, also to note I will not be including those that are about large birds which supposedly had wide wings (of which there are many) because I feel like that’s creeping into Thunderbird territory and I’m not looking at. You can also see where it went from your average small-town UFO/Creature sightings into well what it is today.

1960- Shirley Hensley and her family lived on the outskirts of Huntington, West Virginia. Their house was located on Crotty street also known as 31st Street Hill. Shirley said that she and her family would often hear odd noises and see "two big, red eyes….. You could hear the grunting noise as it bumped up against the house and the leaves crackling - [as it walked.] We could also hear a gargling type of sound, and then a very loud scream would come out...and it was a blood-curdling scream like nothing I had ever heard before or since."

Growing up as a poor child of nine "[they] all took turns getting the water [from the well], and [they] had a rule that [they] had to get the water in before dark - that is when this thing always came around. [They] never saw it in the daylight, so everyone knew that they had to bring in the water before dark. It would come around one or two nights for about three weeks, and then it would go away. This went on for about three years."

Her father once attempted shooting it once when it was digging around in the neighbour’s coal pile out front, “he shot at it and it let out a loud scream and started running towards the hill.” Her "dad was a little angry, because he had told [her] sister Mary to stay in the house, but she had witnessed the whole thing while standing behind him. She said it was a big, tall black shiny thing with big red eyes. [The] dad described it as at least 7ft [(2.1m)] tall, and that it had very long arms that went down past its knees and that when it ran up the hillside the arms stayed down at its side…it ran in an awkward manner.” And that it’s eyes “looked like red bicycle reflectors”

1961- A woman and her elderly father was driving on Route 2 along the Ohio River on the West Virginia side. As they passed through Chief Cornstalk Hunting Grounds, in the middle of the road suddenly she slowed as “A big grey figure. It stood in the middle of the road. Then a pair of wings unfolded from its back and they practically filled the whole road. It almost looked like a small airplane. Then it took off straight up...disappearing out of sight in seconds.” Terrifeid she stepped on the gas, and got out of there, and decided once having spoken with her father about it not to share the encounter out of fear of reticule.

1965 - A woman living on the Ohio River, was amused when her seven-year-old son ran into the house one day and excitedly told her that he had seen "An angel . . . A man with wings". She assumed it was just his imagination and thought no more about it, until the next year.

1966- Early summer the wife of a doctor in the Ohio valley, was in her backyard when a 6ft (1.8m) long thing soared past her very rapidly. She thought it resembled a "giant butterfly" and she dared to mention the incident to only a few people.

August Sometime, Jefferson Avenue Point Pleasant WV, Lawrence Gray was coming home from church when he got the strange sense that something was in his house as he approached the steps at around 9:30PM. He lived in a small white house on Jefferson Avenue across from Wesleyan Church. As he entered his house, the feeling of dread grew stronger but he didn’t find anything when he searched around other than the hook-style lock on his basement door being unlatched. Lawrence and his wife went to sleep around 10:30 or 11:00PM. At around 3AM, he found himself awake and looking out the window by his bedside as a car pulled into the nearby church and the bright streetlight illuminated the street below.

Lawrence turned his head to see a 6ft (1.8m) tall glowing figure with deep eyes and large wings standing with its shoulders arched and its head tilted. The figure was described as “lunar” in coloration meaning dirty grey and white like the surface of the moon. When Lawrence saw the being, he was paralysed. He was convinced that it was “the devil”. The encounter went on for about 45 seconds. Lawrence said that when he focused on Bible verses, the creature vanished.

September 1st, Mrs. James Ikart of Scott Mississippi was astonished to see a man flying around above the Pine Land Plantation. She telephoned the Delta Democrat Times, Greenville, Mississippi and a reporter armed with cameras was rushed to the scene, once arrived he found several people staring at the sky, all claiming that they had seen an object shaped like man manoeuvring overhead. "It got down pretty low and then would go up," Mrs. Ikart told him. "I have never seen anything like this before."

November 1st, Armory near Camp Conley Road, Point Pleasant WV, a national guardsman at the armoury near Camp Conley road in Pt Pleasant WV claimed to have seen a large brown humanoid figure perched on the limb of a tree.

November 12th, Reamer Hill Cemetery near Clendenin WV, Kenneth Duncan Robert “Bob” Lovejoy, William “Bill” Poole, Andrew Godby and Emil Gibson were digging a grave for Kenneth’s father-in-law, Homer Smith, in a cemetery near Clendenin, West Virginia. Claimed to see a man-like figure that flew out from some nearby trees and glided low over their heads, the creature was brown and in sight for about a minute and that it didn’t look like any kind of bird but seemed to be humanoid, like a man with wings.

November 15th, Abandoned North Power Plant building, TNT Area, Mason County WV & Route 62, Point Pleasant WV. Two young married couples Linda Scarberry, Roger Scarberry, Steve Mallette and Mary Mallette were joyriding around in a black ’57 Chevy to a hangout spot north of Point Pleasant known as The TNT Area. When they suddenly saw two circular fiery red eyes next to the abandoned North Power Plant. They said the grey man-like figure was 6 to 7ft (1.8 -2.1m) tall with folded wings behind it’s back. They quickly drove off on Route 62. The couples then saw the creature on a hill by a large billboard. It spread it’s 10ft (3m) wings, went straight up into the air and began gliding over the car.

When they got to a straight stretch of road, they were going about 100mph but the thing was still able to follow them. They were only able to get away from the creature when they reached the edge of Point Pleasant. The monster disappeared, veering off into a field as they entered town.

After stopping at the local Dairyland to discuss what to do next, the teens decided to head back onto Route 62 to see if it was still there before they drove back into town, stopped at the local Tiny’s Diner and contacted the police.

Deputy Millard Halstead accompanied them back The TNT Area but found no clear sign of the creature. The witnesses however claimed to see red eyes, shadows and dust being kicked up nearby. They also reportedly heard a strange noise that sounded like a squeak or a record being sped up. The Mallettes accompanied Linda and Roger back to the Scarberry home where they stayed awake all night from fear.

The next day, Sheriff George Johnson held a press conference and newspaper reports began being written. By that night, the TNT area was filled with cars of people looking for the monster. While the locals simply called it “The Bird”, the newspapers named the creature “Mothman”.

November 16th, Point Pleasant WV – Housing within the TNT Area. 21-year-old Marcella Bennett, her 2-year-old daughter Tina, her 19-year-old brother Raymond Wamsley and his 18-year-old wife Cathy Wamsley went to visit their relatives. Raymond and Marcella’s sister Virginia Thomas lived within the TNT Area with her husband Ralph Thomas.

When the group arrived at the residence, they found that the only ones home at the time were the Thomas children, 15-year-old Rickie and his two sisters Vickie and Connie. After exchanging a few words, the Bennetts and Wamsleys headed back to their car. It was about 9pm now and that’s when they spotted some strange lights in the sky hovering above the trees. Raymond stopped at the bottom of the steps and tried to get Marcella’s attention. She ignored him and began walking to the car, carrying her daughter.

She said she saw creature out of the corner of her eye as she was unlocking the car door and that it stood up from behind her parked vehicle. She first saw men’s legs which looked to be covered with grey feathers. It had wings drawn in toward the body and its head was tilted sideways and sunken into the shoulder area. Marcella described the creature as over 6ft tall, like a giant bird yet also a man. Raymond and his wife Cathy were both very frightened and kept yelling for Marcella to run, but she was paralysed by fear. When Marcella finally managed to turn she took only a few steps towards the house before falling to the ground in a state of shock on top of her daughter. She was unable to get up as if in a trance.

Marcella heard the flapping of wings as she was trying to run. After pulling herself together, she picked up her child and ran into the house. The family locked themselves inside. Marcella’s hands and knees were badly scrapped and bruised. She had been burned from her lit cigarette and the side of her face was bleeding from where she had fallen. The children inside were all screaming and crying in panic. Raymond Wamsley frantically phoned the sheriff’s department. By this time Marcella was lying on the sofa and could hear him telling them to get to The TNT Area because they’d seen the monster. He said they were locked in the house but that it was still outside.

The bird creature is said to have shuffled onto the porch, pushed on the door and peered into the windows. It took the police about 15 to 20 minutes to arrive but the creature was gone by the time they got there. They came with guns drawn and searched all around the property. The front yard was soon full of police cars and curious people. Raymond talked to the police and filled out a report.

November 17th Route 7 near Cheshire Ohio, a teenage boy driving on Route 7 reportedly saw a grey man-shaped bird creature with red eyes and 10ft (3m) wingspan. The creature pursued the witness’s automobile for about a mile.

November 18th TNT Area – Point Pleasant WV, Point Pleasant volunteer firemen Benjamin Enochs and Captain Paul Yoder supposedly sighted a huge bird-like creature with large red eyes while in the TNT area unlike anything they’d seen before.

November 20th Dixie, Nicholas County WV, Howard Miller reportedly saw a 4ft (1.4m) tall bird with red half-moons under the eyes which landed on a school bus shelter in Dixie, Nicholas County WV.

Same day near Campbell’s Creek WV six teenagers claimed to see a grey red-eyed man-sized creature. On that night, Brenda Jones and four other teenagers driving along Campbell’s Creek saw a man-sized bird-creature standing beside a rock quarry by view of their car’s headlights. It turned and ran into the woods.

November 21st, Charleston WV, Richard West phoned Charleston police and talked with Patrolman D.L Tucker. He reported that a 6ft (1.8m) tall man with red eyes and a 6 to 8ft wingspan was sitting on a roof near his home. West said that it flew like a helicopter straight up into the air.

November 24th, Point Pleasant WV two adults and their two children reported a giant red-eyed flying creature.

November 27th Route 33, near New Haven WV, 18-year-old Connie Carpenter was driving home at 10:30 AM passed the old Mason County Golf Course outside of New Haven WV when she saw a large grey 7ft tall man-like figure with glowing red hypnotic eyes which caused her to almost run her car off the road. The 10ft(3m) wings unfolded from the creatures back and it rose straight up into the air then headed toward Connie’s windshield. When she accelerated forward, the creature flew over the top of the car and Connie raced home. She developed conjunctivitis for over two weeks afterwards supposedly caused by staring into creature’s glowing red eyes.

On the same evening at Route 60 near St. Albans WV, 13-year-old Sheila Cain and her younger sister were walking home from the store in St. Albans WV when they saw a large 7ft (2.1m) grey and white creature with big red eyes standing next to the local junk yard. Shelia screamed and they ran away stating that the creature flew up into the air and pursued them. They ran into a neighbour’s house who confirmed their sighting.

November Sometime in the TNT Area, North Power Plant, Mason County WV, Bob Bosworth and his friend Alan Coates were riding around Alan’s motorcycle towards the TNT Area along Camp Conley Road. When they arrived at the abandoned North Power Plant they saw what appeared to be two red eyes looking at them from the roof of the old building. They thought perhaps someone had nailed some reflectors to a board. The two men tried to turn and the lift the front of the motorcycle to shine it’s headlight at the roof but it was too heavy. They decided to go up into the building to check it out. As they began entering, the red lights seemed to turn to watch them.

Moonlight illuminated much of the power plant’s interior through the large industrial size windows. Within the shadowed section of the building, towards the back, a large 6’6″ to 7ft (1.8-2.1m) tall figure walked forward; stepping across the broken glass covered flooring. The figure in the dark had broad shoulders and its head appeared to be sitting on its shoulders with no visible neck like an upside down letter “U” which tapered to its body like a robin. It came within about 6 feet of Bob and Alan and just stood there. Bosworth, to see if it was a person, said aloud that he was going to shoot the creature. He put his hand in his coat as if to reach for something but the figure remained motionless and silent.

Eventually, the creature slowly turns it’s body towards the decaying metal grate catwalks within the power plant and began walking along them. Bosworth shouted out to the figure, still unsure if it was a person, saying not to go onto the catwalks because they were dangerous and led outside to a multiple story drop they then heard something that sounded like wings, frightened the two men took off and left on Alan’s motorcycle.

On a late fall evening in November, TNT Area, North Power Plant, Mason County at about 11PM, after seeing a movie in Ohio, Faye Dewitt’s 16-year-old brother Carlisle who went by Topper drove Faye (14) and her younger siblings Betty, Ray and Jack in his car to the TNT Area. He reportedly took them there to prove that the creature they’d heard about from the kids at school didn’t exist. As they drove at about 50mph, Faye turned to see something running beside the truck. It had a human-like head and was covered in feathers with large ruby red eyes that took up most of it’s face. The creature was described as over 5ft tall and white-ish and tan in coloration.

Her older brother Topper drove around a sharp turn in an attempt to try to lose the creature but it kept up with them and continued to follow. In a panic, Faye’s younger siblings were hiding by ducking down in the floor of the truck with Betty huddled over Ray and Jack. Topper went around another sharp turn and stopped his car sideways in the road by the abandoned North Power Plant. Faye said the creature got on the roof of the car and looked at them through the windshield. It then stood up, jumped down off the vehicle and ran towards the power plant, the creature then jumped up to the top of the old three-story-high power plant and crouched like a gargoyle. Faye’s brother got out and began throwing rocks and pieces of coal at the creature.

When he threw a larger chunk of coal that landed by it’s foot, the creature stood up, turned sideways to looked at him and jumped down from the roof. Topper rushed back to the vehicle and closed the door. The creature spread out a pair of 5 to 6ft (1.5-1.8m) wings and flew off into the darkness, they then drove to the Mason County courthouse and told the deputy what happened.

December 6th in the TNT Area, Mason County WV a couple spotted a huge man-like grey figure with glowing red eyes.

December 7th Route 33, Ohip, four women describe a man-shaped flying creature with glowing red eyes, brownish and silver in coloration. Same night in the TNT Area, Mason County WV author John Keel arrived in Point Pleasant WV. After talking to Deputy Millard Halstead at the Mason County courthouse, he met with Mabel McDaniel who was the mother of Mothman witness Linda Scarberry. Mabel made several phone calls and assembled the witnesses for Keel to talk to. This included Linda and Roger Scarberry, Steve and Mary Mallette as well as Connie Carpenter and her aunt Mary Hyre who was the local reporter. After recording statements from the witnesses with a tape-recorder, at about 9PM Keel and the group that consisted of John Keel, Mary Hyre, the Scarberry and Mallettes, Mabel McDaniel, Connie Carpenter and her boyfriend Keith Aeiker decided to go the sighting location at the TNT Area with a flashlight.

They went through the old gate at the abandoned North Power Plant where Keel, Connie and Keith went into the building. Keel climbed the steel ladders and walked along the catwalks. After not finding anything, the trio went for the exit. As they were leaving Connie suddenly saw two large red glowing eyes by the back wall and screamed. Connie and Keith left the building in a panic but Keel went back in, shining his flashlight around and searching for something that could’ve made the red lights she saw.

Finding nothing he walked out of the North Power Plant and saw Deputy Alva Sullivan had joined the group. Mary Hyre told Keel that they’d seen a tall running figure and asked if it was him but he told her that he’d been in the building the whole time. Mabel McDaniel added that while Keel was in there, they had heard a loud hollow metallic sound like something metal had fallen. The whole group, except for Keel, said they had heard this. Mary Mallette’s ear also began bleeding seemingly without reason. The group drove back to the McDaniel residence and Mary Mallete’s ear eventually stopped bleeding. Keel returned to The TNT Area alone at about midnight. There he found what he described as a “zone of fear”. It was a spot in the road that was mysteriously fear-inducing each time he passed it yet he couldn’t figure out why.

December 8th, Route 35, WV, two women sight a shadowy figure seen on hilltop with two glowing red eyes.

December 11th, TNT Area a man and his son spot a man-shaped grey figure which quickly flew overhead. Same day Kathryn Beaver on Route 35, WV, sees a very large grey creature with glowing red eyes, flew past her car.

December of 1966 13th Street in Point Pleasant WV, A month after the Linda Scaberry’s initial Mothman sighting, she had moved in with her parents, Linda reportedly looked out the window and saw the creature sitting on the roof of the house which slanted down from the upstairs bedroom window, the creature’s wings were folded around itself as if to keep warm in the cold weather. Its head was tilted, looking curiously through the window. Linda said she views the creature as lonely and thought it didn’t want to hurt her but to communicate.

1967- January 11th, Tiny’s Diner, Route 62 , Point Pleasant WV, Mabel McDaniel (mother os Lina Scarberry) was walking near Tiny’s Diner when she saw a large brown creature with a 10ft (3m) wingspan flying over Route 62. At first she thought it was an airplane but it was flying very low. The creature had “men’s legs” hanging down from it, she didn’t see a head or a neck. It glided silently without flapping it’s wings. It circled the restaurant and then flew away.

March 12th, Letart Falls, Ohio, a woman reports a large flying being with long white hair and a 10ft wingspan which passed directly in front of her car.

May 19th, Route 62 TNT Area Pt Pleasant WV at about 10:30PM, while driving past the area, Brenda Stone and another woman witnessed what looked like a winged creature fly up to meet a UFO. The women claimed that they had seen a shadowy form with bright red lights like glowing eyes in the top of a tree near the road. A large hovering red light which looked to be a luminous object then appeared and approached the tree. The shadowy figure flew towards the red glowing object and vanished the UFO then flew out of sight to the north.

November 2nd, TNT Area Igloos, Point Pleasant WV, Virginia Thomas (sister to Marcella Bennett) was in the kitchen of her house when she heard a loud squeaking sound, she said was similar to a bad fan belt. Virginia stepped out on her front porch to investigate the noise and saw a large shadow across the grass field and a tall grey man-shaped figure moving quickly among the TNT Area igloos. The figure walked upright like a man but was much larger and moved amazingly fast in a gliding motion. It then disappeared into some nearby trees. After that sighting, Mrs. Thomas had several nightmares. One of which featured strange people along the river and an invasion of some sort coming over The Silver Bridge in trucks and going into the TNT Area. In the dream, the Thomas’ grab the kids and run. She wasn’t sure what the dream meant.

November Sometime, Chief Cornstalk Park WV, four male Hunters encountered a large grey figure with red eyes they were so frightened that they didn’t think to use their rifles until after it was gone.

December 15- The Silver Bridge was built in 1928 and named for the colour of its aluminium paint. The bridge was meant to be built with suspension cables but wanting to cut costs was made with the cheaper ear-bar chain suspensions instead, it carried U.S. Route 35 over the Ohio River, connecting Point Pleasant, West Virginia, and Gallipolis, Ohio.

December 15, 1967, the Silver Bridge collapsed under the weight of rush-hour traffic, resulting in the deaths of 46 people. Analysis showed that the bridge was carrying much heavier loads than it had originally been designed for and had been poorly maintained.

Paranormal author Gray Baler made a Mothman theory especially popular in 1970 with his book ‘The Silver Bridge’ where he made links between the bridge collapse and the Mothman sights turning the Mothman into a harbour of death or an omen of bad things to come.

Mothman’s origin story are said to be with Chief Hokoleskwa (spelled Colesqua in some accounts) also known as Keigh-tugh-qua and Wynepuechsika, "Cornstalk" by Anglo-Americans. Who lived 1720 – 1777 and was a prominent leader of the Shawnee nation just prior to the American Revolution from 1775 to 1783. When he along with other leaders of the seven nations of Indians in the area (the Shawnee, Delaware, Wyandot, Mingo, Miami, Ottawa and Illinois) formed a powerful confederacy to keep the white men from infringing on their territory opposed European settlement west of the Ohio river- where they wanted to take over 100,000 acres/156.25 square miles/4.05 square meters of Indian land, they attacked. Over the years of death in 1764, to assure that American Indians would sign a peace treaty ending the rebellion, they seized several hostages, including Hokolesqua. The Shawnee agreed not to take up arms against the English again.

During the next decade, fighting did occur between the British and the American Indians of the Ohio Country. Hokolesqua tried to peacefully ease the tensions, but the arrival of more white settlers placed him in the minority as to how to deal with the whites.

In August 1774, Pennsylvania militia entered the Ohio Country and quickly destroyed seven Ohio Seneca-Cayuga villages, which had been abandoned as the soldiers approached. At the same time, Lord Dunmore sent one thousand men to the Kanawha River in modern-day West Virginia to build a fort and attack the Shawnees. Cornstalk as the soldiers invaded the Ohio Country, dispatched nearly one thousand Shawnee warriors to drive Dunmore's force from the region. The forces met on October 10, 1774, at what became known as the Battle of Point Pleasant. After several hours of intense fighting, the English drove Hokolesqua's followers north of the Ohio River. Dunmore, with a separate force, followed the Shawnee across the river into the Ohio Country. Upon nearing the Shawnee villages on the Pickaway Plains, Dunmore stopped and asked that the Shawnee discuss a peace treaty with him. The Shawnee agreed, but while negotiations were under way, Colonel Andrew Lewis, and a detachment of Virginia militia that Dunmore had left behind at Point Pleasant, crossed the Ohio River and destroyed several Shawnee villages. Fearing that Dunmore intended to destroy them, the Shawnee immediately agreed to terms before more pointless blood was shed. They were forced to give up ownership to all lands east and south of the Ohio River. This was the first time that an American Indian group that lived in the Ohio Country were forced to relinquish their land. In addition, the Shawnees promised to return all white captives and to no longer attack English colonists traveling down the Ohio River.

Hokolesqua abided by this treaty of course angry most Shawnee did not. By 1777, the Shawnee Indians again planned to drive the white settlers from their region. This time they did so at the urging of British soldiers who sought assistance in defeating the colonists in the American Revolution. Hokolesqua and his son, Elinipsico seeking to maintain his faction's neutrality, went to Point Pleasant the site of an American fort, on a diplomatic visit to warn the whites of the impending attack and were taken hostage by them instead. Shortly thereafter, American militiaman stationed at the fort was killed by unknown Indians in the vicinity. Angry soldiers brutally murdered Cornstalk, his son Elinipsico, and two other Shawnees (Red Hawk and an unknown man) in American custody, even though the men had nothing to do with the crime, the Americans decided to execute the prisoners as revenge. Red Hawk and Elinipsico was shot where he had been sitting and the other unknown Indian was strangled to death. Hokolesqua was shot eight times upon his dying breath he was said to have pronounced his now legendary curse.

“I was the border man’s friend. Many times I have saved him and his people from harm. I never warred with you, but only to protect our wigwams and lands. I refused to join your paleface enemies with the red coats. I came to the fort as your friend and you murdered me. You have murdered by my side, my young son.... For this, may the curse of the Great Spirit rest upon this land. May it be blighted by nature. May it even be blighted in its hopes. May the strength of its peoples be paralysed by the stain of our blood.” And then he died.

The bodies of the other Indians and his son were then taken and dumped into the Kanawha River but Hokolesqua ‘s corpse was buried near the fort on Point Pleasant, overlooking the junction of the Kanawha and Ohio Rivers. The murderers were acquitted.

Local legends arose about his dying "curse" being the cause of misfortunes in the area. Any disaster that stuck the area was blamed upon this curse such as:

1880s: Fire destroyed an entire downtown city block.

1907: The worst coal mine disaster in American history took place in Monongah, West Virginia on December 6, when 310 miners were killed.

1913- 1937: Point Pleasant was almost obliterated in floods.

1944: In June of this year, 150 people were killed when a tornado ripped through the tri-state triangular area.

1953: Barge explosion killed six men from Point Pleasant just before Christmas.

1967: The devastating Silver Bridge disaster that sent 46 people hurtling to their death in the Ohio River on December 15. Many have also connected this tragedy to the eerie sightings of the Mothman, strange lights in the sky and odd paranormal happenings.

1968: August, A Piedmont Airlines plane crashed near the Kanawha Airport, killing 35 people on board.

1970: On November 14, a Southern Airways DC-10 crashed into a mountain near Huntington, West Virginia, killing 75 people on board.

1970 – 1984: The Minden-based Shaffer Equipment Company built electrical equipment for the coal industry from 1970 to 1984 and used the oil in transformers and other hardware, which was common at the time. The United States banned the manufacture of products containing oil with polychlorinated biphenyls, PCBs in 1979, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency classifies the group of chemicals as a “probable human carcinogen.”

1972: February 26, a sludge dam on the Middle Fork of Buffalo Creek in Logan County gave way, loosening a torrent of thick, murky water that promptly wiped out the small community of Saunders, and sixteen more Buffalo Creek Valley communities--Pardee, Lorado, Craneco, Lundale, Stowe, Crites, Latrobe, Robinette, Amherstdale, Becco, Fanco, Riley, Braeholm, Accoville, Crown, and Kistler--were either partially or totally destroyed claimed at least 118 death with an additional 1000 injured, 507 houses were lost or demolished; 44 mobile homes were destroyed; another 273 houses were severely damaged; while nearly 663 more houses suffered damage to varying degrees and a total of 4000 people were thus left homeless by this flood.

1976: March 2, housed in the Mason County Jail was a woman named Harriet Sisk, who had been arrested for the murder of her infant daughter, her husband came to the jail with a suitcase full of explosives to kill himself and his wife and to destroy the building. Both of the Sisk’s were killed, along with three law enforcement officers.

1978: In January, a freight train derailed at Point Pleasant and dumped thousands of gallons of toxic chemicals. The chemicals contaminated the town’s water supply and the wells had to be abandoned.

1978: In April of that same year, the town of St. Mary’s (north of Point Pleasant) 51 men who were working on the Willow Island power plant were killed when their construction scaffolding collapsed.

1979 – 1989: Released in July by the West Virginia Bureau for Public Health, due to past PCB dumping suggest that the rate of cancer deaths in Minden could have been twice as high as for the rest of Fayette County.

1990 – 1999: Due to PCB dumping the Minden cancer death-rate spiked to four times higher than that of the rest of the county before dipping in 2000 to a rate that was nearly equal to the rest of the county.

2010: Upper Big Branch Mine disaster occurred on April 5 in Raleigh County, West Virginia at Massey Energy's Upper Big Branch coal mine blew up, twenty-nine out of thirty-one miners at the site were killed.

2016: A flood hit areas of the U.S. state of West Virginia and nearby parts of Virginia, resulting in 23 deaths.

Any and everything that could go wrong can get pointed back to this curse and Mothman who since the bridge collapse has been tied to it all as well. Amazing how Mothman’s popularity is based on American racism blaming a murdered man’s curse, capitalism being happier for people to blame that then any of their lax government regulations, economic pressure and cut corners, because in America who cares what’s risked for a small profit? And my now they can market and sell it all for more profit. The Mothman is a symbol of calamity and capitalism as American as can be.

For like newspaper clippings go look out at: https://themothman.fandom.com/wiki/The_Mothman_Timeline

Sources:

The Mothman Prophecies by John Keel 1975

Mothman and Other Curious Encounters by Loren L. Coleman (2002)

Strange Creatures From Time And Space by John Keel (1970)

Mothman- Behind the Red Eyes : the Complete Investigative Library by Jeff Wamsley (2005)

https://www.aaanativearts.com/shawnee-chief-cornstalk

http://www.wvculture.org/history/disasters/buffcreekgovreport.html

#Mothman #Cryptids #Long rant #mothman says fuck racism #cornstalk

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currentlyreadingmanga · 4 years

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Toilet-bound Hanako-kun Chapter 13: The 4pm Bookstacks (Part 3)

Previously: we met the fifth mystery of the school, Tsuchigomori, and poor Yashiro and Kou had quite the embarrassing time sharing some of their secrets. We also learned about the possible threat of a traitor among the mysteries and about Hanako’s drastic plan that consists of destroying the yorishiros before any of them have the chance of go on a rampage like it happened with Yako. After some funny moments and some adorable bonding time with our main trio, Tsugochimori agreed to guide them to his yorishiro. Oh! And Tsuchigomori seems like a huge grumpy tease and I already kinda love him. So yeah......

Now onto the next chapter!

Ahhh it’s nice to be back. Not only I was too busy studying but I’m also dealing with a cold at the moment, so I’m really glad that I get to take this weekend off to rest. So what better way to do it than this? I’m so excited!

There’s a lot going on here. I’m not sure who the figure kneeling on the ground could be. (EDIT: Hello, this is future me after reading this chapter and also chapter 14, and: Would this be Tsuchigomori? since everything else here hints at the conversation he had with Hanako in the memory we saw. Also and I could be reaching with this the fact that he’s in this position, kneeling before Hanako who is holding the lunar rock and what I assume to be his own book seems significant. Because I often associate a kneeling position with two main emotions: devotion and defeat. And here I think it could be trying to convey the latter. Like, Tsuchigomori knew that Hanako was clearly going through a lot but didn’t do anything about it because his book said that he would turn up fine, that this child would have a secure and happy future despite it all. But then he died, way too soon, when he still was just a child. And now here he remains at the school, as the seventh mystery, Hanako-san. And idk despite this grumpy attitude Tsuchigomori tries to maintain, he seemed to be obviously distraught by what happened; like, it wouldn’t be weird to me if he felt some degree of guilt because he didn’t try to help more)

Besides that, there seem to be newspaper clippings? also bandages and possibly rubbing alcohol? also tweezers? Quite a few items that one can find in a first aid kit, if that’s the case.

And then there’s the main focus of the image: Hanako holding a rock of some sort and,... his own book? maybe? that’s my best since it seems to be black. ...........wait, could we possibly find out more about him this chapter??? ohhhhhhh now I’m even more excited. But yeah, there’s also a rope (?) tied to his pinky finger. Could that be a reference to the red string of fate? That’s the only thing that comes to mind. God, I have so many questions and this is barely the first page, I need to move on or we’ll be here forever.

But yeah, we’re right where we left off last time and Tsuchigomori is leading them to his yorishiro.

Update: Still hot

Kou and Hanako are pumped to get this done but oh! it seems like Tsuchigomori is only gonna let Yashiro go with him since she’s the one that will destroy the yorishiro. Also, he calls her “kannagi girl” and: “a medium or shaman, usually female, who acts as a medium between humans and the spirits or gods, helping to communicate between the two and to calm any supernatural or spiritual upset”. That’s interesting. Is that just a general term that is used to refer to humans who have this ability? Yashiro has it because she’s Hanako’s assistant and because of the bond they share, right? Or would there be another reason for it? Like, could she have had this ability even if she didn’t have this connection with Hanako? Because she was still able to see him the first time she went to the bathroom...but I guess she still wasn’t able to touch him there, so maybe she wouldn’t have been able to touch a yorishiro either if they hadn’t been linked together.

Well, Hanako says it just means that she’s his assistant, so I guess we can leave it at that.

Kou is not happy at all with the idea of letting Yashiro go alone with Tsuchigomori (can’t say I really blame him, I mean, even if I don’t think he’s a bad guy, they just learned he’s a supernatural being just a few minutes (?) ago). The man in question just asks Hanako if he can’t trust him to not do anything to Yashiro and Hanako ends up agreeing to let her go but

That’s a warning if I’ve ever seen one. Like, “you better take good care of her or else”, you know? That’s the feeling it gives me.

But yeah, Yashiro ends up going alone with Tsuchigomori. Am I worried about her? I mean, yeah, a bit. Again, he doesn’t give me bad vibes and I don’t think he will try anything, but Yashiro tends to find herself in risky situations way too often so the possibility is always there.

The place looks like a cave of some sort and it seems to be filled with gemstones and ohhh now I understand their presence in that one colour page a couple of chapters ago.

Her sense of self-preservation really is almost non-existent, huh? Yashiro, sweetie, please be careful, please, I beg of y o u

Oh! They keep walking and he asks her about how Hanako and her are getting along and

First: I love my babies so much, their friendship warms my heart. There’s no denying that Hanako is a little shit sometimes (a lot of the time) but he really has been mostly kind to Yashiro since they’ve met.

Second: not only this man is a big tease, but he’s also a softie on the inside, isn’t he? Like, I kinda got that feeling last chapter when he looked so shocked about Hanako’s expression and when he gave Yashiro and Kou head pats, and this just seems like more evidence. From the way he slowly asked the question and how he didn’t look at her while asking, to his surprise stare and his awkward head scratch when she answered, everything screams “I care about these children but I refuse to show it because I have an image to upkeep gdi”. Please tell me he’s gonna be the reluctant father figure, it would be amazing

It sure looks that way, Yashiro, and I’m so here for it.

She asks him if what’s written in the books can be changed because she doesn’t want to have her heart broken by some douche in the future awwww baby. But that’s a very good question, I hadn’t really thought about it. Tsuchigomori says it is “fundamentally impossible to alter the future”. Huh. Okay, that’s interesting. So, even if you were to read your own book, you still wouldn’t be able to change what’s written there? Like, even if you tried to change things, the outcome would still be the same no matter what?

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh that’s a cool mechanic. By raising the stakes so high, it gives us a better understanding of how some of the rules of this world work. But it also brings up more questions: like, how does he know that he will be erased if he changes the future? is there a higher entity that oversees these kinds of matters? Hanako had mentioned that he had made a deal with “God” so that his sins would be forgiven, after all.

.................you can’t say that and don’t tell us how this person changed their future! Especially when you’ve emphasized how rare it is! C’mon, now I wanna now!! also what he said to Yashiro is really sweet awww i can see behind your grumpy facade, you can’t fool me

Anyway, they’ve arrived at their destination and wow there are so many big gemstones on top of books! Now I really want to see this room animated. It looks really pretty~

Like Yashiro, I thought that one of those was his yorishiro but nope, we were wrong and thinking about it I guess it makes sense since it would be kinda weird to have it so obviously displayed; like, this room is hidden already but it’s understandable that he would hide it even within the room itself.

omfg Yashiro please that’s rude!

But also! “are ones with the strongest feelings connected to them” + that soft look and that slight smile!! There’s obviously a very important story behind it (again, like we saw with Yako and her scissors) and we’ll learn about it, right? We saw Yako’s memories of Misaki when Yashiro destroyed the yorishiro, so something similar should happen when she destroys this rock-.....wait.......

Okay so I went back to look at the first page of this chapter and

Is that the same rock?? What does that mean?? Is it just for artistic reasons or is it connected? Did Hanako give Tsuchigomori that rock? Is that why he was acting worried about our little ghost boy before? But if that’s the case, when would have this happen? And why would he have such strong feelings connected to it? Are we gonna find out? omg adjshfda

Ohhhhhhhh he says that the one who gifted him that rock was the guy that changed his future! And he mentions that he still doesn’t know why the future changed. And that’s very curious, like, if it is as hard as he mentioned, then it would be nearly impossible, right? But also if that rock is related to Hanako does that mean that he’s the one that changed his future?? how??? please?? I need answ e r s

...................excuse me, what??? um, I have questions, the main one being: how??

He says that he got the rock the day after the moon landing and honestly? the timing of that is impressive, considering he says that this guy wasn’t an astronaut

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Is that my ghost child I see??? Oh my god did they meet when Hanako was still alive???? Are we getting his back story so soon??? Okay, I need to. calm tf down and keep reading so I’ll find out ahhhh

Don’t you dare keep me in the dark after dropping a bomb like that, Tsuchigomori! You may be hot and charming but I’ll hunt you down for the answers I need, mister

Ahhhhhhhhhh okay, so she took the seal off, so that should destroy the yorishiro and the boundary, right?

!!!!!!!!!

So we are getting to see the memories connected to the object like with Yako! And there it says the date: 1969-7-22

Oh boy, oh man, here we go

There’s the school!

!!!!!!!!!

∑(;°Д°) !!!!!!!!!! THERE HE IS!!! WHY IS HE SO HURT OH MY GOD WHAT

jfc he’s covered with bruises and cuts. Who would do something like this??? God, that’s horrible and Tsuchigomori says it’s a daily thing? Is it a bad case of bullying? Where are his parents? Because those are not injures he would be able to hide, there are too many and in very obvious places. Hell, all the possibilities running through my head just get worse and worse. Like, it could be that his parents are dead, or that his parents know and don’t care, or even that his parents are the ones behind it and just. god, that would honestly be heartbreaking

He looks so sad and small here. Just an innocent child ffs who would do this to him??

This has been going on for more than a year???? Does no one care about the state this child is in except for Tsuchigomori??? I- okay, deep breaths, I need to calm down and keep reading

(So. Amane Yugi. So we’ve finally got his real name, huh? Is the translation here last name+first name or did the change the order to first name+last name?)

Sorry, it’s just that. I’m so used to seeing Hanako being goofy and silly that seeing him look so defeated and broken here just makes my heart hurt.

Tsuchigomori says that he wants Hanako, or, well, Amane, to talk to him about who is doing this to him because he’s worried who wouldn’t be and Amane says that it isn’t a problem but no, no, baby, it is, no one should even think about hurting you in such a way! And Tsuchigomori says just that: “just what kind of reason could justify hurting someone this bad?”

........................... I honestly feel like crying right now. It really is looking like someone close to him is the one behind this and it’s just fucking horrible someone please stop this train of feels I want to get out (ಥ﹏ಥ)

You know, I have heard that this series gets angstier as the chapters go on but I really. really didn’t expect to get this emotional oh boy

(EDIT: I’ve already read and taken notes for chapter 14 but I’m really tired, so I’ll edit it and upload it tomorrow since I also have to crop the images)

#toilet bound hanako kun #jibaku shounen hanako kun #jshk spoilers #jshk #tbhk #live blogging

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cocomoraine · 5 years

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Gone, gone, gone.

There will come a day where I will use my downtime from acads for wholesome things, not for writing things that will make me sadder.

That day is not today.

Here is a sad, sad drabble made by me by an idea I have while listening to sad songs. Warning: Unbeta’ed because I don’t want to be a bother, and ultimately sad, you have been warned. Also, trigger warnings for implied/referenced suicide, and thoughts of self-harm.

Just short this time hahaha, only 1k+ words. I am still finding it a challenge to write them in a more happier setting sksksks sorrrrryyy. You have been warned.

Still here eh? You’re really that determined huh.

Here y’all go!

Gone, gone, gone.

Boris remembers the first time he saw Valery Legasov smile.

The lunar rover worked!

Small steps, small victories.

It was also the first time they were close. Close as friends can be.

They are both willing to take whatever the other one could give.

Chernobyl has become a wasteland, and yet, from it, a beautiful relationship was born.

A relationship soon submerged into ashes.

***

I could’ve said goodbye

Ulana and Boris knew that the wordless goodbye they all exchanged with Valery was never going to be enough.

KGB made sure of it. This is just the first of their many series of punishments.

Now, it left a gaping hole in Boris’ psyche.

A hole only Valery Legasov can fill.

***

Trying to save a part of you

It rained the day of Valery’s funeral. Boris fought tooth and nail to have Valery buried here. His words continue to spread, like wildfire, it didn’t stop the moment he was laid down on the earth.

Hell came to Kremlin. Hell came for Gorbachev, for Charkov, to the KGB, to the insolent fools at Kurchatov who ridiculed and alienated Valery until they pushed him off the edge. Hell came for both Ulana and Boris. But, it came like a gentle caress of the wind.

Yet, it still hurts.

Boris finds anger for the people who did this to Valery. And for himself, for not fighting harder for him.

Ulana closed her hand around his tightened fists.

It was only then he realized that it was not only rainwater that is falling into his shoes.

***

It took Boris two months after Valery’s funeral to finally figure out himself.

Two more years.

***

He remembers Valery quoting poetry one night, as they were out for another walk.

That time, it was Valery who asked him.

Boris, at first, was surprised, that a man of science such as Valery, is well-versed in the world of literature.

He will not forget the way Valery blushed and looked down at the ground, when he praised him for that extensive lyrical knowledge.

Every word that fell from his lips feels like a melody.

He should’ve known by that time.

***

No other name falling off my lips

Ulana’s career kept skyrocketing. KGB can’t even tame her down. When Charkov stepped down from the position, the new deputy chairman thought it wouldn’t be prudent to push her more, especially since she has the public at her favor.

He last saw her receiving an honorary award from the Byelorussian Institute of Nuclear Energy, present as a guest of honor.

When the two of them are alone, other people talking and drinking wine, the two of them outside, the cool air doing nothing to calm Boris’ nerves he was never calm, he was always finding ways to do things, things to make Valery’s requests or demands met, Valery made him restless, even now, even if he is already dead, dead! Boris can’t force his mind out from such thoughts.

He and Ulana don’t talk much. They never talked unless needed, even back then at Chernobyl. It was always Valery who filled in the silence between them.

But now, it was he who broke it.

“I am glad things are working well for you.”

Ulana looked ahead, eyes glassy, thoughts whirring. She’s just like Valery. Beautiful, smart, powerful. Yet.

He felt a hand atop his.

“Can you tell me more about him?”

Boris smiled, felt the tears, swallowed it down.

“Did you know, Valery quoted poetry often? He did it to me one time. Apparently, he also writes his own version of poems from time to time--”

***

Because the world keeps turning and turning

Whenever they are at Chernobyl, it seems like time is always on the run. There are too many things happening at once.

Some of them worked.

Others don’t.

They still carry on. They don’t have much choice.

And Valery will not stop until the job is done. He is too kind for this world. Too good for this wasteland.

Too determined and powerful enough for Boris.

One time, Boris almost used force to make Valery rest. That man has no idea of time, whenever work is concerned. Well, to be fair, he is also like that sometimes, but Valery needs to rest.

“That is enough, Valera.”

“No. nothing is going to be enough, Borja. I have to keep working.”

Boris put a hand in Valery’s. The hand stopped its furious scribbling.

“You are going to fall over that chair, Valera.”

Valery looked up at him, tired, worn, radiation slowly inching through their throats.

‘We’ll be dead in five years!’

For once, Boris just wants the time to just stop.

***

It was a sunny day, for a change, in Moscow.

Boris’ doctors all tell him the same thing. If only he could just say that he does not need regular check-ups because Valery Legasov already delivered and signed his death sentence back at Chernobyl, but Gorbachev insists.

He also thinks of putting a bullet through his head.

He said that to Ulana. He was expecting her to smack him in the face, knock some sense into him, but instead, she gently talked him through it.

Of course, there is still a lot of work to do.

Protests are happening, left and right, and Boris has to do his part inside the Kremlin. Ulana doing hers at the scientific community. It won’t be long, Valera. Soon enough, not only the whole Soviet Union will know about you and Chernobyl.

Someday, the whole world will know you.

Boris smiled. He is at the countryside today, after his doctor recommended a weekend break from Moscow. He took it. Being in Krelin reminds him of Valery. Walking in those same halls they used to, back then, he can’t.

Beside a quiet, flowing river, he is still reminded of him.

I’m not moving on.

I will never be free of you, Valera.

The thing about dead people, their ghosts haunting you are not the scary details told to you when you were a child. They are not scary, it’s all just sad.

***

One year since Valery’s death.

Reforms were made. The truth about Chernobyl became common knowledge. His legacy is now an outcry.

Valery Legasov, Ulana Khomyuk, Boris Shcherbina, and thousands of others involved in the cleanup from the start until now, might be heroes in someone’s eyes, but for the Party, especially Legasov and Shcherbina, they are just two men, slowly fading away. One already did.

And the Soviet Union is starting to fall into pieces.

***

One more year left.

Boris Shcherbina wonders what Valery Legasov thought of him. Whenever that question pops in him, Valery’s words play inside his head, like repeating a tape.

Boris never listened to those tapes.

He doesn’t think he can hear Valery’s voice, but at the same time, he wants to.

“They mistakenly sent the one good man. For god’s sake, Boris. You were the one who mattered the most.”

He should’ve known.

***

“Let him finish!”

It was his way of telling him that he loves him. Boris realizes, and now, faced with the reality that Valery is gone, he thinks, he prays to whatever deity, that Valery got it. That he understood what he was trying to say.

He doesn’t know.

He will probably never get the answer.

***

Time’s up.

Boris closes his eyes, wishes all the best for Ulana, and told a breathless “I love you, Valera,” to the wind.

I don’t want to give somebody else the better part of me.

I would rather wait for you.

***

In his darkness, in his death, he can always imagine Valery telling him that he loves him too.

I’ll never love again.

***

You're a carnival on a summer night Gone too soon every time Yeah, it's beautiful how you burn so bright In the waste land you leave behind

#valoris #shchergasov #ficlet #fanfic #drabble #inspired by the song #i'll never love again #by lady gaga #hi cocomoraine here how may i help you #cocomoraine writes #im lss with the song hurt so im resuing it again sksk

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